Drinking on corona lockdown grew Brumate’s sales

Andrew Warner: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew

Dylan Jacob: Warner. I’m the founder

Andrew Warner: of Mixergy where I’m still recording from my home and I hate it. Everybody loves working from home,

Dylan Jacob: except for me. I miss

Andrew Warner: working from an office. I missed the structure. I missed the whole getting away from the house thing, but I do love

Dylan Jacob: talking to entrepreneurs about how they built their

Andrew Warner: businesses because.

I’m always freaking surprised by what’s possible. Just when I think of it. I’m the ultimate optimist. It turns out no, I underestimated. What’s possible. Joining me today is Dylan. Jacob. When I first heard about his company brew mate, which creates insulated drink

Dylan Jacob: for alcohol,

Andrew Warner: I said that’s interesting was passed.

And the reason I said, let’s pass, as I said, this is going to be too small of a company, but it’s a cute little side business. Boy, did I underestimate the revenue? Look at, look at his face. As I’m saying it he’s like disgusted by my approach to it by my, uh, by my underestimation of what’s possible. I didn’t think the world needs more, more ways of holding alcohol.

I didn’t think that it was possible to get people to come to your freaking website and buy another cup that will hold onto your alcohol. Now, frankly, I’m someone who doesn’t care about how cold my whiskey is. I don’t even care about how cold my beer is. Yeah. Make it cold for a minute. And then if it gets warmer, as I hold onto it, fine, I just didn’t see the use of it.

I do have to admit when I did I look at Brewmates designs, I said, that looks fricking beautiful. If you drink out of that, it makes you look elegant. It makes you look thoughtful. It makes you look. Is it wrong to say a little Buddhist, like, like your country contemplative and cool. Anyway,

Dylan Jacob: it’s beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Andrew Warner: But I didn’t think the business was this big. It is big. And the guy behind it is amazing considering how far he’s come in life and where he started out. I invited him here to talk about how he did it. And D M I think is a little questioning his decision to do this. I’m looking at

Dylan Jacob: your face and,

Andrew Warner: uh, Dylan, it looks like you’re wondering why is Andrew introducing me here?

Like that? I want to be open about my thoughts. I was hesitant and then I was shocked. And now I’m curious, we invited him here to do this and thanks to two sponsors, we can, the first is a company that will help you turn strangers into customers, create great landing pages. And more than that, create landing pages that convert into sales.

It’s called ClickFunnels. And the second, if you’re hosting a website, one experiment with something you’ve got to go and host it with HostGator. And I’ll talk about both those later, but first Dylan. Welcome.

Dylan Jacob: Thank you for having me on the show, Andrew. I appreciate it.

Andrew Warner: How much revenue are you doing annually last year,

Dylan Jacob: 2019.

Uh, last year we did a little over $35 million in revenue. This year we should do over $50 million.

Andrew Warner: You’re not shocked.

Dylan Jacob: I apologize. My cat is

Andrew Warner: I hear that cat. What the cat what’s the cat doing?

Dylan Jacob: He is a, he’s a bangle. So he’s like a 25 pound GAT and he hates being locked up. And so he’s currently protesting.

So I’ve fallen out with the cat out

Andrew Warner: before you do one thing. Revenue for March when the world fell apart was what? Down up how much.

Dylan Jacob: Um, so March ended up being about 40% up from February, which, which really is, is how every year it goes. So like our sales growth throughout the year as a linear curve. So from January to December ourselves just continuously increase because the month is bigger than the previous.

Yeah. Because like January is the slowest month. And then from there it’s starting to heat up our, our products work great for summer. And then you’re going to gifting season, which is our biggest quarter. So. Um, you know, the increase in sales that we’ve seen as in been, um, anything that was unexpected, but with the whole coronavirus situation, obviously coming into play, it was unexpected.

Um, and then for April, we’re actually up 40% above projections. So,

Andrew Warner: um, wait, where we’re recording this on April 15th.

Dylan Jacob: Yep. Compared to last

Andrew Warner: year is

Dylan Jacob: April. How are you? So we surpassed so far in the last 15 days, all of our sales from last April,

Andrew Warner: dude, what the hell is going on? I would have thought for sure, your business would be toast.

Who wants to go and buy another thing to hold onto their alcohol? When they’re worried about dying, this is impressive.

Dylan Jacob: Yeah, I, so, you know, when I first, um, started getting worried about Kronobars I was in Canada and, um, I was up there with a buddy of mine and we were doing a helicopter skiing trip. And, uh, you know, the stock market was crashing.

People were losing their minds. They were talking about like, not petitioning, not being able to reenter the U S from Canada. And, uh, we saw a pretty decent tank across all channels, like 25 to 30% for a few days

Andrew Warner: across all channels. You mean

Dylan Jacob: all the marketing channels,

Andrew Warner: Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram.

Dylan Jacob: Those are mainly our sales channels.

So, uh, specifically direct to consumer. So Amazon and our direct to consumer website, both at about the same decrease in sales, which wasn’t like anything extremely worrisome. Um, I, I mean, I kind of expected that with the panic, um, But, you know, for me, I think as an eCommerce company, we’re in a very solid position, just, you know, we don’t have a ton of overhead.

Um, you know, we have a very solid balance sheet, but we’re also in the middle of like a growth equity raise and things like that. Where if we do see a decline in sales that can really throw a wrench into everything we’re doing. So, um, you know, once I got back into the U S um, I immediately started working with all of our vendors and everyone else.

I’m just trying to get understanding of. Of how they were doing with the whole situation, you know, did they need extended payment terms? Should we expect people to start laying off employees? Things like that. And, and for the most part, I mean, wholesale was really the only channel that has been impacted.

Um, And on the flip side of that, like go, you have right now because just me I’m as baffled as you are. I mean, I, I expected a decrease in sales, not 25 to 30%, but a small decrease in sales during this time period. Um, but what we’ve seen is actually been the complete opposite. And so not only is it cheaper to advertise right now, but our, uh, our conversion rate has increased by like 60% and yeah.

So it’s, so it’s not just cheap traffic. It’s like our, our conversion rate is up significantly.

Andrew Warner: So wait, that means that you’re obviously getting a lower price from

Dylan Jacob: places where you’re advertising,

Andrew Warner: but the people who are coming over are more qualified. Right.

Dylan Jacob: I can mean a combination of things. I mean, generally like the easiest way to say is just the intent is much higher.

And I think what you have right now is people are just bored. Like everyone is at home. They’re bored. People are drinking out. Uh, liquor stores are considered essential services now and no one likes warm alcohol. And that’s what we’re built on is like just providing a better drinking experience and providing tools to ultimately like keep your adult beverages at perfect temperature.

And so

Andrew Warner: that’s your theory. Your theory is people are at home more. They’re buying to feel better and they’re drinking more, which I’ve actually seen from past guests. And the news that I’ve seen Pennsylvania, for example, only has state run liquor stores. They said, this is not essential. We’re going to let our state employees go home.

People in Pennsylvania started going out to out. Other States. Other States started asking for IDs to make sure that people from Philly weren’t coming in with their Corona virus. Pennsylvania finally said, you know, what we’re going to do is we’re going to just open up these stores at a certain time and make sure that it’s safer because that is how people are in, are demanding alcohol right now.

Dylan Jacob: Yeah. Denver said that, uh, liquor stores were not essential and two hours later they reversed their decision. Got it.

Andrew Warner: And so you’re seeing that there is, and I’m noticing it also anecdotally from some friends that they’re drinking more, uh, which doesn’t, it doesn’t happen to me. I drink more socially and a lot less when it’s just me.

But I, I totally get it. There’ve been nights when I

Dylan Jacob: just say, Olivia, we’re going to watch TV. I’m going to

Andrew Warner: just drink straight

Dylan Jacob: vodka on the body. I think we can agree that everyone right now, like, could use a drink. So, um, I think that explains the conversion rate side of things. I think from the cost of advertising, I mean, the results we’re seeing right now, Um, so like CPMs, the CPAs that we’re seeing are like 2017.

I mean, over the last few years, we’ve seen a drastic increase in cost to our customers. And we’re back at like 2017 levels.

Andrew Warner: And what, and what platforms are you seeing prices go down?

Dylan Jacob: Every single platform that we’re using? Um, so, but Facebook and Instagram mainly, um, okay. And for those platforms specifically, at my theory behind it is two fold.

So the first side of things is, again, right now you have people spending much more time on their phones. So they’ve done studies and I’m seeing that people on average are spending about 70% more time on their phone every single day, compared to normal. Um, And now the flip side of that, you have a drastic increase in availability for ad space, because most people in like hospitality and travel sectors are pulling out and a lot of people are really back their ad spend.

And so not only do you have more real estate on the front end because people are spending more times on their phones, they’re scrolling more, but then on the back end, you also have less people advertising. So like that combination of things is what I believe is attributed to the great results that we’re seeing on the front end, but on the back end and the conversion rate side of things, that’s where.

We were confused because, you know, obviously we were expecting the cost for advertising to go down right now, but we’re also expecting our conversion rate to go down and that they would equalize and they didn’t. So, um, that’s fine. That is people just are they’re bored. They see the value in the product they’re sitting at home.

No one wants to drink a warm beer or seltzer and, and we’re there to solve that. So. You’re

Andrew Warner: a guy who’s now I noticed taking helicopters to go and ski. You started out in a whole other place in the world. Can, can we talk a little bit openly about what happened when your parents got a divorce, when you were growing up, what happened to

Dylan Jacob: you?

Uh, yeah, so I was homeschooled until fourth grade. Um, I grew up in a very, very religious household and, uh, also it was like very sheltered from the world. What type of religion and

Andrew Warner: what are we talking about?

Dylan Jacob: A nondenominational Christian was what my dad. Classify themselves.

Andrew Warner: What did it mean that you were religiously raised?

Dylan Jacob: Just very strict. Like, I was not allowed to watch TV that had profanity and I wasn’t allowed to play violent video games. I wasn’t allowed to, um, you know, really interact with anyone outside of the church body. We had like homeschool groups. So I was raised hanging out with people in the homeschool groups and really didn’t have friends outside of that.

And so ultimately like, it just, I was just pretty sheltered. Um, I, I didn’t have a good grasp on like what the real world real world was really like. And so when my parents got a divorce in fourth grade, my mom got full custody of me and my two siblings. And, uh, you know, we effectively were couch surfing on, uh, like families couches, and, uh, you know, the church was kind of helping us out and, um, yeah, no, my mom had government assistance and we.

We really were struggling, but my mom just made due, like she was so strong. I mean, she was working like 50, 60 hour weeks, like doing whatever she could

Andrew Warner: shelter with you for awhile.

Dylan Jacob: Yeah. So we were in a woman’s shelter for, I honestly don’t remember. I mean, I was pretty young, but at least like three or four weeks, and that was kind of a transitional period.

Um, I won’t go into too much detail on that portion of things, but like the woman’s shelter itself. I mean, I don’t remember a whole lot about it. I remember we were in kind of like a small room together and, um, I don’t remember a lot, you block it

Andrew Warner: out because fourth grade is enough, right? Fourth grade is enough.

First of all, to see where you were and be afraid of where you’re going and to look around fourth grade is old enough to remember this stuff.

Dylan Jacob: Yeah, there was, there was a few months, like in that time period that I really don’t remember. I. You know, I remember when they split up, I remember like being scared.

I remember, you know, going, we were in the women’s shelter. I remember leaving there and going and saying, I have an older brother who was my half brother, so same mom different. And he was 20. Like low twenties. I mean, he was probably my age now and we lived with him for five months up in, um, Northern Indiana.

Um, so I mean, you know, he had an actual room, so all of us stayed there. My mom had her own little space and, um, and then from there we, we, it was like summertime. So I, it wasn’t the school year yet. Um, and so I ended up starting public school, um, in wylin Indiana. So we ended up going and living with my.

And who, um, you know, again, I, she had a younger daughter, my cousin, and then her husband. So I was like only child moving in a family of four. So then we had like seven in this little house and while in Indiana and, um, you know, my, my first venture into school was like terrifying. I mean, I, I dressed pretty weird.

Like, I didn’t really know how to talk to people. Um, I mean, I have great social skills. And, and so like my first venture into school was terrifying. Like I was riding a school bus for the first time I was in a public classroom for the first time. And, um, I think, you know, I, I blended in pretty quickly. I mean, it didn’t take me long to kind of figure out.

I mean, I’ve always been pretty good at adapting. Um, and so, you know, in a few months I had a pretty solid set of friends and, um, and things like that, but. But overall, like what I noticed, you know, even, yeah, through like fourth, fifth, sixth grade as I was growing up was just that like, I didn’t quite understand.

I mean, looking back now, I see how much my mom truly sacrifice and like how much we were struggling, but at the time I didn’t really get it. Um, but what I did get was, you know, I wanted to dress like my friends. I wanted to have the things they did, gaming systems and things like that. And every time I asked the answer was kind of like, no, we can’t really afford it right now.

And, and so I understood what my mom was going through. And again, not to. Not to the point of what I do now, but enough to where I kind of stopped asking for those things and really just figured out ways to go and make plenty myself. And I’m like, what? Leave the burden. And like, I just felt bad asking for anything.

What did you do

Andrew Warner: to earn money? I

Dylan Jacob: I’ve heard that you are a real hustler as a kid. Yeah. So, uh, we, we lived in like an elderly neighborhood, so, um, I, I. Had a little landscaping business. So in the summer I would know everyone’s grass and the winter I would burn the fall. I would rake their leaves in the winter.

I would do their driveways and sidewalks. And, um, that was mainly what I did. I mean, through, through like fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade. Um, so I probably have like 20 people in the neighborhood that I would do their weekly or biweekly electronics. You bought used electronics, fixed them,

Andrew Warner: sold them where like on eBay or something.

Dylan Jacob: Um, yeah, so that was moving more into like freshman year of high school. Um, So my grandpa, he was an immigrant. He moved to the U S in 1955 from the middle East Ramallah specific quickly. And he, uh, he had a little electronic repair shop in Indiana. Um, they specialized in fixing old TVs and the RS and DVD players and things like that.

And so I grew up working with them and not shop. So I kind of had. A a, a bit of a background in like electronic repair. And I thought it was really fun and challenging. Um, and so, you know, he kind of chained the, whenever I was going into freshman year and was like, Hey, you know, people keep coming in with flat screen TVs, iPhones, iPads, and.

And I don’t know how to fix them. Like I’ve never seen these before and he didn’t really want to get into it. But, um, that was what kind of sparked the original idea was like, Oh no, one’s fixing it. So I started looking into it and there was a company that guy at the time called . Um, and so it was a mailing service where you would literally mail in your iPhone or whatever else.

That was the only way to get your, your devices face. And, um, I was like, there’s no way people are doing that. Who wants the weight to be smell in their phone. Like, I just can’t imagine that people are actually doing that. Um, and so what I found was people were just selling their devices for like scrap money.

I mean, if you broke your phone, they were just selling it for 20, $30. And, um, so I started sourcing parts from overseas. Um, well, even before that I was sourcing parts from eBay and Amazon actually first. And that’s important because of the play in new this later, um, And then I ended up buying, you know, the parts on that platform were just not very high quality.

Like they had dusts onto the screen that dead pixels, things like that. They were what we call like B or C parts. And so I ended up finding a supplier overseas that had angry parts to their OEM screen for just reformer’s class. Um, And I started doing my own repairs, but not for people. I’ve just buy up the broken devices, fix them and then resolve them.

And between freshmen and sophomore year, I made over $20,000 doing that and profit. I used that money to like buy my first car. Um, you know, that was like, It was a fantastic way for me to make money. And sophomore year kind of rolled around. I again, was, was doing this pretty heavily. Um, but what I noticed was like the amount of phones and devices that were on there were kind of dwindling.

And I didn’t really know why. And what I found out was that there were a lot of repair shops popping up all around Indiana that were now actually doing repairs and kind of like crushed my business overnight. I was like, Oh, like, this is drying up. So I, uh, I actually went into all the repair shops and.

Like scoped out the business. I wanted to understand like how much they’re recharging and, um, you know, how many people they had working for them and just kind of get a feel for the, the business. Um, when I found out was they were all getting their parts on Amazon and eBay, and I was like, all these suckers don’t even know, like they’re giving their customers like super crappy parts that, that like are gonna end up failing on that.

Um, and so I brought in some of my parts to some of these stores and I was like, Hey, listen, like. I have a supplier, uh, for eight grade arts and I can supply you locally with them. Like I can deliver them to you, whatever. So for about a year I was working with maybe like 10 repair shops around Indiana and I would do local delivery service.

I literally like package up their order, deliver it to them. And then junior year, I was like, okay, like this is going really well. Um, I wanted to figure out a way to, um, you know, bring this to the entire United States. So that was like, when I opened our first Shopify store, um, I created our first Instagram.

I was like scouring Instagram for hashtags, looking for people that had cell phone repair and mailing them in. So I’ll take DMM and then Melbourne, uh, like. Samples of our parts, just to do a comparison of what they were currently getting to, what we could offer. And so by senior year, we were working with over a hundred repair shops around the U S um, you know, I was making over a hundred thousand dollars net profit as a senior in high school.

And, and I was like, wow, this is fantastic, but I didn’t consider myself an entrepreneur. I was thinking, this is a funny story to tell because I still consider that a hustle. So I had went my entire life of just like trying to figure out ways to generate money. And I had never really expected this business specifically to turn into what it did, but I also didn’t expect it to last for a long time.

I just, that landscape was changing so fast. Apple was starting to roll out their own repair programs, their own parts, things like that. And I was like, I was, I didn’t consider myself an entrepreneur. And so I was actually planning on going to Purdue for engineering. Um, so through all of high school late, that was my life playing was I wanted to do product development, design identity.

I like to tinker with things. I, I wanted to be an inventor. Um, so I kept journals and wrote down product ideas and would make prototypes for products that I thought people would buy and whatever, but that was my passion and I wanted to do it for someone else. Um, I didn’t even have entrepreneur mindset at this point.

I was just like, I consider myself a hustler, but at the same time, I had grown up poor and had a lot of uncertainty in my life. So like the idea of working for someone who’s really appealing, um, just in terms of like having a 401k and safety and like having that safety net. Right.

Andrew Warner: And that was a dream.

Most people have that dream about being an being entrepreneurs. Let me take over, not most but many. Let me take a moment here and ask you a couple of questions about what you just said versus you had a hundred thousand dollar net profit. What did you do with that money as a kid?

Dylan Jacob: Uh, so, so I did a lot of things.

Again, I had other side hustles, so I bought and sold cars, um, a lot, I mean, I’ve had over 25 different cars. Um, and so my senior year of high school actually bought a Lamborghini. Um, so I got this on auction, um, from a dentist that lived up in Michigan. Um, I made $20,000 on that car. I bought it, drove it for like two months and then drove it to spring, break in Daytona and then actually sold it to Lamborghini of Daytona and made like 20,000 on that.

Um, but for the most part, I saved my money. I mean, I I’ve never really spent frivolously. Um, the cars I did buy were only because I knew I could flip them. Like, I, I never bought like a brand new car or anything like that. Like, it was just, it was fixer uppers. I like tinkering with things again. So I buy like broken cars and fix them and then resell them and installing too much.

At this period. Yeah. Um, so I’ve, I’ve always been like pretty monogamous. I mean, I’ve had a serious girlfriend. So when I was in freshman high school, I dated a girl for two years and then I dated, uh, my second girlfriend from. Junior year, uh, until like three years ago. So we were together four or five years

Andrew Warner: using this money to attract women to show that no, none of that, I see you

Dylan Jacob: even drive the Lamborghini to high school.

Like I drove a 2001 Pontiac grand Prix to high school because

Andrew Warner: I even bought the Lamborghini. What was it about it that appealed to you?

Dylan Jacob: Wouldn’t know the price like I, so I was just

Andrew Warner: saying it was a good deal.

Dylan Jacob: Yeah. That was the only reason I bought it. So, uh, so again, like I bought and sold cars, so I was always on auto trader and other platforms, Craigslist, wherever, like looking for cars that I thought were good deals.

And I came across this Lamborghini was in Troy, Michigan. So it was like, um, I don’t even remember how far to drive like five, six hours from Indiana, maybe. And the guy, like when he told me what he was looking for it, I thought he was lying and it ended up turning out that he basically just owed $65,000 off.

It was a 2004 Lamborghini and he, he owed $65,000 and he was like, I want 65,000 for it. I can’t get another loan. This other car I want until I pay this off. And I was like, I will be there in five hours. I literally bought a plane ticket. Flew there. So it gets a Lamborghini of Troy had it inspected, met him at chase bank, paid for it in cash, drove it back to Indiana, sorted out my girl ex-girlfriend’s house at the time.

Cause she had like a security system and everything else. I didn’t like I had nowhere to store this thing and uh, and obviously doing a park it outside. And then for two months, I mean, I drove it occasionally, but I didn’t really drive it much. Like I was just looking for a buyer. Um, and then I ended up finding a buyer.

You know, in Daytona beach, which just happened to be where we were going to spring break. So I ended up driving it there and then drove it for the whole week basically, and then sold it to them, um,

Andrew Warner: an exciting way to live life. And it’s such a, it opens me up creatively. It’s like Andrew. If you hate working from home, get out of the bullshit of working from home or find a way to enjoy it, but you don’t have to be put up with it.

You know, this has made me my set. This is definitely my second day

Dylan Jacob: recording interviews from the house

Andrew Warner: and I freaking hate it, but I do love being around people who come up with ideas who constantly implement stuff. It just gets me freaking wound up and excited and reminds me life is whatever I make of it.

I know this sounds so trite. And if you said that to me, I’d give you one of these like eye rolls and I’m. But it’s how I’m feeling right now. Let me take a moment to talk about my first sponsor. Then I’m gonna come back and ask you, okay. At a very uncomfortable time in your life. That really seems unexpected considering what you just

Dylan Jacob: said.

All right.

Andrew Warner: My first sponsor is a company called ClickFunnels. It is the landing page and funnel and sales creation process for hustlers. Like you like me, like a guy named Russell Brunson. Russell is a guy who admired people growing up. Who sold stuff on infomercials used to watch infomercials. I can’t, I couldn’t stop watching them.

Olivia, what is it?

Dylan Jacob: Billy Mays.

Andrew Warner: Billy Mays here. Right? Is he alive? He

Dylan Jacob: died a long time. The best there was though. I don’t think anyone even come close.

Andrew Warner: There’s a sham. Wow guy. There’s the, uh, I forget the, there bunch of them. I used to love watching them because they’re such good salespeople. They would just make, you want to buy a fricking Shami what’d you could go to the grocery store and buy, but they’d make you want to buy their Shami anyway.

But there’s something about a good sales process that if you, if you watch it, you feel proud. You feel happy. Anyway, I used to be into that. Russell’s a guy who was into that. And he said, you know, I want a way to make, to make selling fun like that, to make it as fun and as effective as those infomercial people that we admired as fun and effective as it could be.

And so he created this landing page, which allows you to create, to collect email addresses in a way it’s more, um,

Dylan Jacob: More effective than the

Andrew Warner: average landing page, but he also added tools into it that will it would’ve made Billy Mays proud. If he was smart enough to understand how this stuff worked online.

Because once you collect an email address with the drag and drop, you can start collecting credit card information and selling stuff, and then upselling and bump an order bump and all this and all that, all this fun stuff. When you sit down and you say, am I into it? Cool. Yeah. Can I do it? Yeah. I didn’t know.

This was possible. You just start. Yeah. Adding your creative, creative

Dylan Jacob: juices going when you start messing with ClickFunnels, really,

Andrew Warner: it is an amazing piece of software that will get your entrepreneurial sales, creative juices flowing. Don’t take my word for it. Go try it for free right now. If you go to.

Clickfunnels.com/mixergy. They will let you try it for free. If you want to hear

Dylan Jacob: another hustler story, I interviewed Russell

Andrew Warner: Brunson. The

Dylan Jacob: founder of ClickFunnels,

Andrew Warner: that interview is on that web page. Click funnels.com/mixergy. Listen to all the different business ideas that he

Dylan Jacob: admired when he was growing up

Andrew Warner: and the ones that he created as he was

Dylan Jacob: figuring out

Andrew Warner: what to do with his life.

And then he found,

Dylan Jacob: finally found ClickFunnels. I interviewed him about that whole

Andrew Warner: process fan freaking tastic interview. One of my best ever.

Dylan Jacob: And so I urge you to go to clickfunnels.com/mixergy,

Andrew Warner: try his software for free. Listen

Dylan Jacob: to my interview with him, get your creative juices going

Andrew Warner: and create something good right now is the time to do it.

Dylan Jacob: Click funnels.com/mixergy.

Andrew Warner: Why can’t, you know what I used to say, dude, this is no kidding. I used to say in my past interviews, people are going to be listening to my interviews and then coming back here and doing interviews

Dylan Jacob: in the future about how they built businesses while listening

Andrew Warner: it’s happened over and over again, there are going to be people who are listening right now.

I think the hell let’s go try click funnels. They go create a click funnels landing page. They start selling stuff. It starts to take off. They’re going to be here

Dylan Jacob: doing interviews with me in the future, and I’m

Andrew Warner: putting it on record right now. And I’m looking forward to talking to them. All right. I got to stop talking about myself.

Let’s talk about the uncomfortable situation you got arrested

Dylan Jacob: for. Uh, so I got arrested well, technically twice. Um, so, so let’s go back to the hustler’s mentality of always looking for a way to make a dollar. Um, when I was going into eighth grade, I had two things going for me. Um, the first was I had a major chip on my shoulder.

Um, so again, when I was going to school for the first time, um, I remember my first week, fourth grade, I was out on the playground on recess. We were playing Dodge ball. And this kid called me a racial slur, um, effectively. And what was it? He called me a beaner.

Andrew Warner: K I L I guess that’s like a Mexican reference.

Okay. Yeah.

Dylan Jacob: Yeah. Uh, and, and so that became like a thing. Um, that was what I was it’s called for, for a few weeks. And I remember really going home and I didn’t even know what that meant. Like I would tell my parents, I was like, why are they calling me this? And they were like, it’s just kids being kids.

Ignore it. And so I did, like for a few weeks, I ignored it. And, and again, the same group of kids, like they kept calling me this, they kept calling me. They kept calling me a weirdo. Yeah. I like holes in my shirts. Tell me I dress like a poor kid. Like just things like that. And I remember, like we were playing Dodge ball again, and I remember taking a ball and I smoked this kid in the face so hard.

Like he was crying and I felt so good. And I was like, wow, like the answer to this is if anyone bullies me, like I just combat that with violence. And so I went through fifth and sixth and seventh grade. I probably got in 10, 15 fights in school. I was consistently getting suspended. Um, and most of these were like, again, I was never a bully.

I was not someone that was going out and looking for these. But at the same time, I definitely jumped the gun. So it was like, if anyone said anything to me that I felt like was offensive, I answered that with violence. And so it wasn’t a huge deal when I was in elementary school in terms of like, I never heard anyone.

I was a little scrawny kid. Um, but then in eighth grade I was wrestling. I was starting to get bigger. I was going through puberty and this was maybe two or three months into the school year. I ended up getting into a fight where I actually really, really hurt someone. And I didn’t mean to, um, it wasn’t intentional.

Um, but I ended up getting expelled from school for it. So, um, this was something that disrupted the school day. Um, you know, it effectively was a very. A traumatizing experience. He had braces and when I hit him, knocked out four of his bottom teeth. And so there were like, there was blood like all over the school and all over the carpet and.

And like, I was traumatized, you know, I had, I had to get like 15 stitches in my hand and like, my bone was sticking out. It was like, it was something I’d never been to. Like, usually this is like someone says something to me. I punched them. I get suspended for two days. They have a black guy I’m happy. They never talked to me again, whatever.

And it went to like, I was in handcuffs in the principal’s office. My parents are coming in. Um, you know, I was like traumatized and, um, you know, I. To this day, I saw I just an FYI, like with that family, I mean, I made amends very quickly with them. Um, this was something that like to this day, me and the kid that has happened with we’re actually friends and we look back on it and kind of laugh.

Um, cause it was just so stupid, but that was what kind of like started my demise. Um, I was doing other things that, that. Well, ultimately I ended up getting called for, so I was selling marijuana. Um, I ended up getting, so I was, I was expelled for first semester. Um, I was forced to go into anger management.

I was put on probation for a year. Um, I did not end up having to spend the night in juvenile detention. I was just taking there for processing. Um, and then second semester they let me come back under the expectation that if I were to get in any trouble, they would expel me again. Um, and so second semester I got caught selling weed in the bathroom.

Um, to another one of my friends and, uh, so not only was I expelled, but then when I got arrested, I failed a drug test. Um, you know, so getting expelled was a violation of probation, failing a drug test was a violation. And, um, and basically like I thought my life was over. Like I remember I was sitting in the front seat of the police cruiser in handcuffs all the way to juvenile detention and like, All that could go through my mind is like, what is wrong with you?

You know, I was thinking about like what my parents are going to think and, you know, specifically like, well, my mom was going to think, like she was working so hard just to keep food on the table. And here I am, like getting myself arrested and having the gel and just adding additional stress. And so, um, I was actually incarcerated for almost two months.

Um, when I got out, I was on house arrest, formal house arrest with the bracelet on for sex. And, uh, it was like, The most brutal eight months of my life in the two months specifically. I mean, if you’re now detention is, is jail, right? Like you’re in a cell by yourself, sleeping on a slightly padded mattress, uh, with, you know, bars, uh, and brick walls around.

Like, it is not, it’s not just like a daycare facility. And so, um, I effectively like two months to really. Meditate. Like I said, it’s really cool. It’s like a two month meditation. I got to reflect on all the poor decisions that I had made and, and really kind of did a reset. And I, like, I was sad when I got out of there that I was going to turn my life around.

And so I got out, um, I. Again, I was on six months of house arrest, so I had another six months to reflect. Cause I wasn’t allowed to see friends. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. Um, the only time I was allowed to leave was to go to church every other Sunday with my dad when he had me for the weekend.

Yeah. And that was all I did. So every other Sunday I would go into use group and I had a yes. Bracelet on my ankle and a little monitor around my waist and, and it was embarrassing. It was humiliating. Um, my dad forced me to go though to teach me a lesson and like. I look back on that. And you know, I think that a lot of people go through your life and they do similar things.

Like people getting bites, people sold drugs, people do drugs. Um, but a lot of people don’t get caught. And so a lot of times, like there’s no reset button. And so they get so deep in this where like, by the time they do get caught or whatever, it’s too late to turn back. And I think me getting caught was like the best thing that ever happened.

Um, From an, like an anger management standpoint, like being able to really address the reason why I was always looking for fights. Um, and on the flip side of like being arrested and really reflecting on the way, the path that I was headed and like where I wanted to go in the future.

Andrew Warner: And while you were in under house arrest, I heard you use that time.

Well, what did you do from home?

Dylan Jacob: Yeah. So my older brother, I don’t, do you remember a service called cha-cha? So it was like two 42, two 42. You could ask them a question. Yes.

Andrew Warner: It was like the whole idea was people have their phones. They should be able to text the question in and they will get an answer. And it was human beings on the back end who are going to get that answer.

I don’t remember where, what their business model was going to be or what, but it was like the future.

Dylan Jacob: They were going to beat Google. I still look back on it. I’m curious to know what their model is for making money. Cause it was free and, and they were paying the people to research and answer these questions and you had to do it under a minute.

So, so my brother did this. Um, so he, he actually, it was something that he did on the side for fun and he would let me use his account. And so I had to do like. A whole day of training. I mean, there was a time there was like seminars, videos that I watched through that basically told you how to use Google efficiently.

Um, because again, like this tax would come through, there was a little backend dashboard. They ended the question would come through. It would tag it with what it was about environment, whatever. And then it would, it would basically run you through scenarios of like, okay, here’s how you find the answer to this question with cited sources and under a minute, And so I did that.

Like every single day it was something that I, I thought it was extremely fun. And to this day, like, It was one of the best tools that I have ever had. Um, like Google for me, people always ask her like, Oh, did you go to school? Whatever. And you know, we’ll go back into college. Like I did end up dropping out.

Um, but the most valuable thing that I’ve ever learned was how to efficiently use Google, um, because you effectively have the whole world at your fingertips and almost any answer that you’re looking for. We live in a world with 7 billion people. There’s always going to be someone else that’s been through something similar.

Maybe not the exact same thing, but as long as you know how to formulate the question, like you can pretty much find a very, very close answer to what you’re looking for in second Google

Andrew Warner: trick that you’ve got, I’ll give you one of mine. Whenever somebody tells me they did something at a certain year. I just will search for them in that company.

And I restrict the search to the year year that they did it right to get what were they, or if I’m interviewing someone who was rude, who said that they were successful years and years ago, I might search for that period of their lives. I look for their name and see what they were really up to. And it’s kind of fascinating to get a sense of what they were like or to see that they really weren’t doing much, that they started to.

Changes their, uh, their history a little bit. And they were trying to use me to help them change their

Dylan Jacob: history.

Andrew Warner: What’s what’s one tool that you use,

Dylan Jacob: uh, for Google specific guys

Andrew Warner: there, is there a search tool you’re especially proud of? No, it’s just standard Googling. You learn how to do it all in under a minute.

Okay. And so you were making money working from home and at some point you decided I’m keeping a journal of all my different ideas. Right. And

Dylan Jacob: go ahead. Sorry. Oh, no, I just, so the journal, I mean, I always had what I considered, uh, it was really just a notebook that I would like draw up different ideas and whatever.

Um, It wasn’t until junior year of high school that I actually kept an idea journal. So this was something that I documented like every, so in any scenario that I was in, like, I would just jot down product ideas, business ideas, ways to make money, whatever. Um, and that really evolved over time into like what I, you know, I don’t currently do this.

To be honest, I’m so focused on brumate, but, um, before brumate, it evolved into really a full book idea books. So I would, I would write down, uh, an idea for a product or service. I would do research on existing products or services in that space. I would write down what would be different, what, you know, what would be similar.

I would write down like through, I think the target audience was, I would write down like, How big do I think the market was? So I would look up revenue numbers for existing companies in the space to see what type of revenue like the big players were doing. Um, just things like that to like really just validate the idea.

Was this a good idea? Uh, and you know, if it wasn’t existing market, like the room for someone else to come in and, and really make a splash and things like that. So, um, it, it was something that I started early on and it evolved into something like much more in depth. Um, but it was something that. That for me was really, really helpful because my brain is just in a million different places all the time.

And like, I might have a really cool thought. And then five minutes later, I can’t remember what it was and I can never recover it. So I, to this day, like I keep very detailed notes. Um, I have the calendar that’s, it’s very in depth of like what I have to do and it’s prioritizing things like that. Does it, is it buggy that we’re running late here?

Because you’re so organized

Andrew Warner: then what was the idea for brumate like in your journal, how did you come up with it? This idea?

Dylan Jacob: So the idea for brumate. Um, so I had just turned 21. I started getting into craft beer out. There was a brewery in Indiana called sun King brewery. They, they only did craft beer. And my favorite beat, well, actually older beer, but my favorite beer specifically came in 16 ounce games and I was at Indy 500.

Uh, I had 16 ounce  and, uh, I remember like every single beer, my, these beers are like four or $5 a piece. So like it’s not cheap. And I remember every single beer that I would crack open. Like the last quarter or half of the beer would be warm by the time I finished it, I know we were like beating he 90 degrees humid.

And I like, I will for a cold beer, I can not stand warm beer. Like if it even changes a few degrees, I can’t drink it. And so I would just pour the beer out and grab another one. Okay. And like, as I got a little bit. Older, like really throughout that year, um, you know, I was going to like more parties, public events where you could drink.

So like tailgating at concerts and things like that. And I noticed that like, everyone was doing the same thing. Like I would go tailgating and I would walk around and there was beers, littered everywhere that were half full. Like people would just leave them and go grab another one that was cold. And I remember jotting down, like in my notebook and it was just.

Way to keep 16 on scan scope. Like that was what this entire thing started with. And, and so I went home, I did a little bit of research. I found that no one was making anything for 16 ounce cans, not even a neoprene Pusey, like the cheap one foam ones you get from like a wedding. I was like, wow, like, no one’s created anything for this, but then I do like the second part of the exercise of, okay, one, how would I even create this?

And what would it be made out of things like that? And then two is this a product that people would actually buy? Um, and you know, I did more and more research. I kind of continued to validate the idea. And so roommate was my third company. I was running another company at the time. And so this was just a side project.

And mind you, like, I had a lot of side projects that I did. I still work on even when I was working on my other full time businesses. So I’m like the year before I had a business called naughty Holbox we did in the holidays where you could ship a person coal, uh, and a note from Santa Claus, anywhere in the world.

And it went viral. It was all over. Like, we were on national geographic and like Washington post and Huffington post and the daily dot, like. All kinds of places went viral. Um, so I was always looking for like side projects. I just, it was fun for me to continuously like start new things, even if it wasn’t going to be something big.

And so Brewmates started off that way. Like this is just society project, but it was the first project where like, I was really able to like get my creative juices flowing with my other businesses. Um, you know, I, I had. Starting a business for me was fun, but I was always, yeah. Looking for a business where I could take a concept from like idea on pen and paper to like prototyping and creating a product that had never existed before and was solving a problem.

And then the end game was like to be able to walk around and see people using this product eventually. Like that to me was the coolest idea ever was like walking around and I do this now, like. You can ask my girlfriend. I was, we were at city park two days ago, three days ago, and I was walking around and I literally saw someone using one of my products.

They walked by me and I was like, Hey, do you like that? And they were like, yeah. And we started talking and like, I, you know, at the very end of the conversation, I was like, that’s my car. We’re actually headquartered here in Denver and rhino. Um, you know, like I give people coupon codes, whatever, but like, it’s really fun for me to like, be able to walk around and see people using this and then like get their feedback without them having any idea of who I am.

Um, and I want like good or bad feedback. I mean, it’s a way for me to get really unbiased feedback if they hate it. I want to know. I want to know why.

Andrew Warner: So you said I’m going to create it, but you also said, I want to make sure people buy it before I’d really launch it. Let me take a moment to talk about my, my second sponsor and then come back and see what you did to test this, and then why that didn’t end up being the first product you liked.

My second sponsor is a company called HostGator. I’ve talked about this a lot, Dylan, that before mixer G I created a bunch of just random things too. The project was Olivia and I, when we got married, we bought a domain, Andrew and olivia.com. One day. We said, yeah, let’s just use it. We’re walking through San Francisco through, excuse me, Washington DC at the time.

And we said, you know, it’d be fun if we talked to all these strangers who come to too, I keep saying San Francisco, if we talk to all these strangers who come to Washington DC and see, what do they care about? What are they excited about? What are they love? Because the two of us were in love. We still are.

And so we went to the craft store, we bought this. Big sheets of paper. We bought a bunch of markers and we talked to a stranger and we said, we’re doing a love project. We’d like to just see what do you love? And would you mind writing it on this piece of paper? And we’ll take a picture of you in front of the Capitol building, whatever.

And we did it. We took a bunch of photos of a bunch of people had them write down what they loved and that afternoon, I think, yeah. I launched a website where we talked, where we showed pictures of the people who we met and what they loved. I think I only posted three out of the 30 people or so that I met.

But what I got out of, it was a website that really sucks that there’s no reason for anyone to go to that. There’s like, there’s no future in it.

Dylan Jacob: But

Andrew Warner: I learned how to put up a website. That’s it, it, wasn’t a big deal that you can just create it and see where it goes and be okay with it failing, which means that the next idea, it doesn’t have to be such a great idea.

You can just try it out. If you’re listening to me and you haven’t launched a website yet, or it’s been a while since you launched a website or you just want to do something to get your creative juices flowing, I really urge you to go over to hostgator.com/mixergy. If you select that middle option that they have on that page, you can launch unlimited domains.

Do what I did. Have a hosting package, come up with an idea, launch it, see if you like it, learn something, close it up. And then the next time you have an idea, it won’t be such a big deal to be able to launch a website for that and then see what happens. It goes, let it become a thing. That you play with like a sketchbook for an artist, hostgator.com/mixergy.

When you use that site, they’ll give you a hundred dollars ad credit

Dylan Jacob: from Google. They’ll give you unmetered

Andrew Warner: disc. You know, why am I going to go through the features? And every time I do these ads, Dylan, I feel like I should tell people all the features. And then I start who gives a rat’s ass, just go, and you’ll get all the features you need for really low price.

Hostgator.com/mixergy, the lowest price that they have available on that URL. And yes, of course you will be

Dylan Jacob: supporting me. And I appreciate

Andrew Warner: that. Thank you. Um, Dylan, what did you do to test, to see if anyone gave a rat’s ass about having cold beer?

Dylan Jacob: Well, I knew I gave a rat’s ass about cold beer, and I knew that I couldn’t be the only person.

So I started my friend group first, like, just seeing if this was something like, if I was a weirdo for only drinking cold beer, or if this was, was something that, you know, a lot of people kind of resonated with my friend groups, same thing. Like everyone’s like, ah, like seems like a great idea. And so from there, um, you know, I had already had a slight background in digital marketing.

Um, you know, I had already created our own Shopify stores. I had already ran Google drive, like Google ads and basically guides and stuff like that. Um, and so I was like, you know what, like most people would start at Kickstarter. Like that’s a pretty good validation tool. But I didn’t want to give up platform fees and I didn’t really want, like when you create a Kickstarter, you really have to put a lot of money and time into that.

I was like, I don’t want to spend a lot of money and time on this. I have another business around, like, I’m just trying to figure out if people actually buy this. So, um, I. Had worked with a local engineer in Indiana that I had known through Purdue, um, worked with him to kind of take their initial sketch that I had created, um, and model that and create the initial concept.

And then I took that to a graph designer and said, Hey, Photoshop is in the people’s hands for me. And then, uh, I created a small landing page, you know, where basically it describes what the product was, what it did. And then people could sign up to be notified when it was available. And so, um, that was what I did on one side of things.

The other thing I did was on Kingbird in Indiana. So this brewery that really started this whole thing, um, I went into there and I was like, Hey, can I talk to the founders just for a minute? And they’re like, yeah, sure. So I sat down with them at a table. Um, we had a beer and I was like, Hey, listen, like. I had this problem.

I created the idea for this product. Would you be guys like, be willing to brand this and put it in your store? Cause they had like a little store with a bunch of sun King Hertz. They’re like, yeah, like it seems like a really cool idea. We would love to do it. So I got them to commit for like 240 units. Um, this is like, I don’t even remember, I think a wholesale, maybe like $2,500 and.

Alright. So, so that was like one side of validation. The other one was I collected a few thousand emails on Facebook, you know, for people to ask that they were interested in this. And I was like, you know what? At this point I feel like it’s not a huge risk. I knew that there were different levels to this product in terms of the functionality and features that I wanted it to have.

Um, but I knew I could create a really like crappy version of it for pretty cheap. And so that’s what I did. Um, I, I went out to China and this was not my first time going out to China. So my first time was when I was 19. Um, but I again had a background in sourcing, so I knew how to find a manufacturer kind of navigate that space.

So I went out, found them or took them the initial concept. Uh, I think I paid by a thousand dollars for the first mold. Um, we had 1000 units created. Um, and when those came in, sun King took 240 of them, the other 760 sold out in like two weeks. And I was like, wow. Like people really like this, like this idea truly resonates with people, but then, uh, you know, all the emails started flooding in of like, Hey, this is a great concept.

And people knew what they were getting like. I told them this is just the first version, you know, like I kind of told the story. Um, but I got a lot of really cool feedback from people that I knew there were early adopters and, um, emailing me about the things they liked and didn’t like about the product.

And some of it was stuff that I already had on the horizon for the final product. And some of it was stuff that I hadn’t even thought about. Like what I just, the gasket design that we had at the time kind of got in the way when you drink. Um, so whenever you take a sip, it would kind of hit your mouth.

Um, so we.

Andrew Warner: The gasket is out rubber thing that holds onto the lid. Right.

Dylan Jacob: Um, so on the hops later specifically, um, I have, when I knew grab it, if you want to see it, but. There’s a rubber gasket that screws on as our push lock technology. So, um, it basically uses a combination of friction and suction you push the can inside and then it’ll hold it in place.

So when you to turn it upside down and won’t fall out, but the initial concept was different. It was actually, you would put the Canon side and then screw a gasket down on top of it, that would secure it. And so, uh, when you would take a sip of it, like the cruiser, you would actually hit your face. Um, the beer can like it was getting in the way.

And it wasn’t something I noticed, like I’m not that person are, I wasn’t at the time. And, uh, and so I was like, Oh, okay. So we ended up coming up with our current design, which has like interior threads and stuff like that, scum below what we call the lip line. So it’s on the can when it starts curving. Um, that’s where your lip kind of rests on.

So yeah. In our second version, it’s below the lip line, so it doesn’t interfere. Um, but that was one side of things. Another one was like, the bottom was stainless steel. So when you set it down on a table or whatever else, it would either scratch up the table or it would make like a clinking sound. So we introduced like the rubber, uh, based on that.

So it’s a non-slip base. Um, some people said like the hand grip, you know, as a sole cylinder. So when you’d hold it, I didn’t have a great grip to it. So we introduced like hand grip. So just things like that, but it was a lot of really good feedback. Um, we’re on version three right now. So some of that was introduced in version two.

So when someone’s introduced the version three, um, But, but really like this allowed me to validate the idea and ultimately like, it just, I mean, this was like much bigger than I actually thought it was. And so I really started thinking about this in terms of, I wanted to create a real business around. Um, and so I started really, like, my goal was to become a professional at insight, a drink where like I wanted to know every single manufacturer.

I want him to know every single brand that was out there. I want him to know what they were creating. I wanted to know what the professionals were saying in terms of like what the growth of this category is going to be like for the next 10 years. Um,

Andrew Warner: wait they’re professionals who tell you what the growth is

Dylan Jacob: in this case.

There’s so you can get there’s like market watches where you can look at individual sectors of. So for instance, in housewares drink, whereas like one of the fastest growing sectors of that and insulated drinker as a sub sector. And so there are a ton of reports online. You can go and find that talk about what, like insulated drink, where it has been for the last five to 10 years and what they’re projecting it to be and things like that.

Um, and so I used that to kind of like,

Andrew Warner: so why is insulated drink were growing as a category?

Dylan Jacob: Uh, two things. So, um, insulated drinkware as a whole has been around for awhile. It was mainly used for a coffee. So for garments and things like that, but the technology people didn’t realize the applications that it could be used for outside of just warm drinks.

So ultimately introducing it for cold drinks. But within that category specifically, like the fastest growing area, Um, when I started this business and still to this day is actually the hydration category. And so, um, you have the eco-conscious individual who effectively wants to stop using plastic, single use plastic bottles.

They’re looking for a viable alternative where they can bring water on their go. Um, and so that’s kind of where the rise of this came into. Um, when I came into the market, I saw that and I was like, This is a fast growing sector. Everyone wants an eco conscious way to drink water. Um, and, and people are starting to see the benefits of this technology.

But what I noticed was everyone was applying it for hydration. It was for water and coffee. And so he came in and I said, I’m going to create the hydration category. So I’m going to create dehydration drinkware. And so our slogan as a company became. The dehydration company. Um, and all we focus on is ultimately like creating a better drinking experience through drink wear that is designed just for adult beverages.

So we just focused on that. We’re not trying to compete with other people in the space. We’re not making water bottles or coffee mugs. Um, And, and that was something that really resonated with our customers. Like we become synonymous with the best of the best when it comes to like keeping your alcohol chill.

Andrew Warner: There’s something that I want to ask you about. Every other person who I’ve interviewed,

Dylan Jacob: who creates

Andrew Warner: a physical product, seems to have had a hell of a time having it created in some Chinese factory. That was the wrong one that had mistakes. You’re smiling. You didn’t have that because you found an interesting way to figure out who was the right manufacturer to work with and who wasn’t.

Talk about that, this kind of feeds into how you became resourceful

Dylan Jacob: and a good, a good at search. Yep. So this was something I discovered my second business actually, um, it’s called port examiner. And so you can go in and you can search your competitors. It’s basically, you just have to figure out what business name they are.

Some people are under a DBA. Um, so you have to figure out like what the corporation they would be importing under is. And then you can look up their import records for customs and figure out, uh, you can actually see the bill of lading so you can see who their manufacturers. And, um, so I use that tool, both roommate and my previous business to figure out who all the big players in my space we’re using for many factors, which told me two things.

One they’re capable of producing our products, too. I knew that these companies had high quality products, which meant that the manufacturer that I was going to visit. Had strict quality control measures in place already. And three, these companies were big. So I knew that they could scale with me, um, and that they probably had the engineering capabilities.

And so, um, I think that, like that tools pretty valuable. I think the thing is, is, um, I always tell people if you’re looking to develop a product, a lot of people will start with an industrial designer in the U S to create the product first. And then they’ll take that to manufacturer. Um, and it just adds in a whole other layer of complexity because oftentimes like the industrial designer working with state side, doesn’t understand the manufacturing capabilities of the product that they’re creating.

And so, uh, and I found this out the hard way actually. So, um, when I took my initial design and then they’re like, we can’t make this whatever, but what I found over time was, uh, as long as you can find a manufacturer, that one is fitting, you know, you’re working with someone that’s already worked with similar companies in your space.

Um, That’s a first great indicator. And second is, do they have an in house engineering team? Because if they do most of the time they’ll model and create these things for free. So you’re not paying money to do that because they want to get you as a customer. They want you to pay for molding these things like that.

Um, And to the first version of the product is going to be able to be manufactured cause they know what the limitations are. And so it, it condense the way that, like I thought about chronic sourcing and manufacturing into a much easier way of doing things. Um, And, and I I’ve had a lot of friends that I’ve helped guide through this.

And like they’ve had really great results with kind of following those two things, which is binding manufacturer. It’s already working with someone somewhere in space and that you believe in and all that, the flip side of things, make sure they have an analysis engineering team and work with them directly to get the product created.

Um, cause it’s gonna speed things up way, way quicker, and you’re going to save a lot of money.

Andrew Warner: And it all starts with a site called port examiner, right. It examines what’s coming into our ports. And so if I was interested in competing with Yeti, for example, by the way, the reason I’m coming up with the idea is apparently people

Dylan Jacob: search for Yeti.

They end up on your website. I’ve been looking to see what traffic looks like for you. I could

Andrew Warner: see who they use and then call up that company, that factory. Talk to them. See if they have somebody who could take my idea from paper and design it for me. And then if they can, and I like it they’ll manufacture it.

Am I picking up on

Dylan Jacob: pretty much?

Andrew Warner: Okay. So you had it, you did it so launch with,

Dylan Jacob: um,

Andrew Warner: uh, sorry with the, what was it called? Toe. Hold on to.

Dylan Jacob: Sorry, oscillator oscillator.

Andrew Warner: You decided start to pursue wine first with the wine Slater later. Why’d you come up with the wine sale later?

Dylan Jacob: Yep. Well, so the hops leader actually came first idea for it.

Did our first soft launch came before the lines later did too. But our first big launch was the wine Slater. And so basically, yeah, I had confirmed, you know, that people wanted this product. I went back to the manufacturer and said, Hey, these are all the features that I wanted to have. So that was what, so like eight or nine months for us to go from that to the final product, which launched in 2017.

And. So I had a lot of downtime and again, I was running another company, but, um, at the time I didn’t want to just sit on my hands for nine, 10 months until this, the final version was ready to relaunch. And so I was looking for other product ideas and I was on spring break. I got a drinking ticket for a having glass on the beach and I was like, there’s gotta be, I had a wine bottle specifically.

Um, and I was like, there’s gotta be a way to. Enable people to bring wines to the beach. Like you can’t rewind to the beach. So what does everyone drink when they’re at the beach? They just drink like vodka and like in, in, in beer. Um, and so the idea for the wines later started as a cruisey for wine. So it was actually something that went around it.

And then what I found through a bunch of research was that like, even if you cover the glass that you could still get a ticket for having it there. Um, so like just having glass cooler, for instance, could, could still get you a drinking ticket and, um, So the idea for the wine cider was actually a canteen pour your wine inside of, and it would navigate around glass free zones and allow you to bring wine to places where wine traditionally couldn’t go.

And then also would keep it perfectly chilled for over 24 hours. So you didn’t need ice. You could literally fill up this bottle of wine or the wine Slater. Uh, you know, and then throw it in a backpack or bag or whatever. And for 24 hours it was chill. So it made it transportation much easier to, um, and so the idea for the product, you know, it was, I thought it was fantastic idea and I validated the idea same way that I validated the oscillator.

So I created a landing page. I had the model created, I had it Photoshop into people’s hands. I directed people to the landing page to sign up for their email, for email, to be notified when it was available. And we collected 7,000 emails. And I was like, wow, okay. We collected over twice as many emails as what we did for the hops later.

Um, you know, people clearly like this idea. And so I ordered 7,000 units and I didn’t think I was going to sell all of them, but like right upfront, um, to the 7,000 people. Cause like, if you collect like 7,000 emails, you know, you’re lucky if five, 5% of those people actually convert to customers, um, unless like very, very high quality leads, which on Facebook and Instagram is hard to get.

Um, and so. Yeah, I mean, I ordered 7,000 units that you came in the day after black, Friday 2016, we sold out and two weeks, the $300,000 in sales. And at that point, that was when I was like, okay, I’m selling everything. Like I’m getting rid of my other business. Like roommate is like what I want to focus on.

Um, and it had all of the things that I wanted. Like, it didn’t just have the excitement of creating a new business. For me. It had the excitement of being able to develop new products, which was something I had been like yearning for all my life. I always wanted to be an inventor. That was what I was literally going to school for.

And this is the first time where I was able to utilize that passion in a way that I hadn’t been able to do before. And, um, so then, you know, I really dove in head first, uh, February of 2017, we launched our inside of wineglass series. So the idea behind that was okay, you have a way to transport wine to the beach, but are you drinking out of a plastic cup because you’re not bringing a wine glass to the beach.

And, uh, so our answer to that was creating a insulated travel tumbler for wine that was glass free zone for him. Um, and that was a huge success. Um, we went from, you know, I think the first batch we were doing preorders at the time. So, you know, I would have people pay for this upfront. Um, so I would pay the manufacturer.

Uh, just the deposit. And then I would run the preorder for like a week just to get rough estimates on what we were going to do. And then I continue running the preorder order, the product and ship. I would express it, but in, by air. So rather than it going by CEO, I would air ship it in on a plane. So it would come into like three or four days.

And then I was shipping it out to people. Um, and it was very expensive, but it allowed us to not take any funding. It allowed us to grow very quickly without really having to put its on the money into the company. And um, Yeah. I mean, that was when, like I sold everything. I sold my house. I sold cars

Andrew Warner: to inventory

Dylan Jacob: and the inventory cause we doing, we had just been doing preorders and it was like limiting our growth.

We were constantly relying on other people. Um, so effectively like preorder the product. And it just, wasn’t a great experience, like from a customer service standpoint, you know, some people didn’t understand what a preorder was, even though it was like very clear what we were doing. Like it was like preorder ships and 90 days, whatever.

People just baffles me, but like they don’t read that stuff. And so we, you know, 10% of the customers were like mad and everything else. And I was like, I don’t want to do preorders anymore. And I think I’ve proven the concept enough to where I’m ready to just go in head first. So I sold my house, um, and this was the house that I bought with, uh, you know, for the money from the first business that I sold.

Um, I spent like a year remodeling, whatever, and so sentimental value to me. Um, but I also very, very invested in brumate. And so I moved in with a roommate. We got like an 800 square foot apartment in Indiana. We were splitting the rent. So it was like $400 a piece among the house. And like every single penny that I had was going back into the company and, um, I mean that right there was what allowed us to really, really scale.

As soon as I injected gosh, the business, uh, we were able to start stocking inventory and really ramping things up. So.

Andrew Warner: And to get customers from what I understand you, by the way, if I keep looking down here, it’s because I don’t have my iPad positioned in a good position, so you could see it. But at times I just get fricking lost in the design.

Like it’s not just the design of the products, but it’s, it’s also the photos that you’ve got on the site. It’s like, there’s just, there’s an aesthetic there. That’s just beautiful. Like the frickin ice maker. I got tons of things that make ice. I like how you make this ball of ice in a nice little. Design thing.

I can’t stop looking at it. Um, look, even, I’ll just show you, you, even if I look at

Dylan Jacob: your old site,

Andrew Warner: doesn’t that look nice? Like aren’t you

Dylan Jacob: proud of that?

Andrew Warner: Uh, it just changed the image on me, but I had it right. It looks good. Who’s designing all these cups.

Dylan Jacob: I mean, so I’m in charge of product development design, and then ultimately I oversee our entire marketing team.

So those are the two things that I’m really good at. And those are the two things that I really enjoy doing and everything else. We have a really fantastic people on our team that handle the rest. Um,

Andrew Warner: but promotion, sorry. I, I know we’ve spent so much time here, but I don’t want to miss out on promotion.

You’ve tried from what I understand everything. Influencers on Instagram buying ads on Instagram, Snapchat, what was this? Surprisingly. Inexpensive thing that worked for you.

Dylan Jacob: Well, so early on Facebook and Instagram were always like the winning channels and they’re really, to this day they still are. But I think it’s important as you continue to grow that you make sure that you’re reaching customers across all channels.

Um, and that you’re also not relying on one platform. So for us, that was the diversification of. Of digital ads and just making sure that we weren’t just putting all our money into Facebook and Instagram, because what happens if something happens to Facebook and Instagram then guess what? We’re out of business.

So, um, I spent really the last year and a half, uh, working with a ton of different channels. So we worked with podcasts. We work with influencers, we had TV campaigns created and launched on both actual TV and OTT and like Hulu and things like that. Um, we, you know, we’ve done YouTube ads. We’ve done. Uh, we’re starting to get into take doc.

We did Snapchat. Um, we’ve done Pinterest, Google.

Andrew Warner: Well, you pay people on tic talk to.

Dylan Jacob: They have a paid advertising platform, similar to Snapchat. And then they also have a, we’re starting to work with tick-tock influencers in the same way

Andrew Warner: they’re paid out there. The ads that I see on tech talk are the ones that come up when I load up the app, right.

Comes up

Dylan Jacob: on the loads up. But you also have once they’re very conspicuous, but they’ll pop up as you’re scrolling through

Andrew Warner: and you guys make those.

Dylan Jacob: Uh, not currently. So that’s something that we’re just getting into actually, um, to talk is a fairly new platform, but what we found really, really working Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Google, um, and influencer marketing, like.

Andrew Warner: As I was looking to see where your traffic was coming from on similar web, I saw that you were getting traffic from Etsy. That means people are buying it on Etsy.

Dylan Jacob: So we sell to retailers and then the retailers, uh, will resell it on Etsy with customization. So they’ll do like monogramming and engraving on it for like weddings or events or things like that.

So,

Andrew Warner: and then I saw eBay strangely on, on your

Dylan Jacob: search. Yeah, we get asked to sell on eBay. If you go on eBay, what it actually is is people that, uh, they’re not retailers for us. They just released our products, um, for like a 10% upcharge on eBay. And then if the person buys on eBay, it shifts from us. It’s really confusing and there’s no way for us to stop it.

Um, and then Amazon is a very big channel for us too,

Andrew Warner: but you’re not doing any advertising on Amazon. It’s just, people happen to know about you and they go to Amazon and

Dylan Jacob: search. We do not drink outside traffic to Amazon, but we advertise within the platform for both branded terms and unbranded. Um, and then.

So our paid advertising makes up about 30% of our revenue on it. And then the other 70% is organic from people that are searching for either our products or our brand, or on the flip side to searching for. Um, you know, you were talking about earlier how, uh, you know, we outrank Yeti. So the majority of our products to be outranked, everyone.

And so when you go to Amazon and just type in beer koozie, like we’re the first product that pops off.

Andrew Warner: Wait, I can’t believe you can still use the word. Cousy. Cousy is a registered trademark of the Cousy something corporation. And from what I understand, they’re pretty aggressive, right?

Dylan Jacob: Yeah. So we don’t actually use it in any of our marketing or brand names to, in our conversation here you’ve been using in conversation.

Um, so I’m just saying, if you search for beer koozie, yes. You come up. But if you look at the product listing or anything there’s notes, or like we don’t use the word Cousy and yes, they do enforce that and very happily, um, we used to use it only in our ads. So we would say like the best beer cruising on the planet, things like that.

And they send us like a season to says saying, Hey,

big it’s big, big corporation owns that

Andrew Warner: trademark. Pretty aggressive about it. My friend, uh, for her, yeah, our wedding, the, I guess for the, the rehearsal dinner gave

Dylan Jacob: everyone a koozie,

Andrew Warner: but it wasn’t officially a cruisey. So she wrote, she just wrote the name and then she blocked it out Cousy as a joke because they’ll even go after, I guess, wedding organizers.

Anyway, one last thing. I noticed that you also use affiliate programs and you told our producer about your ambassador program. How does that work? That seems to be delivering some customers too.

Dylan Jacob: Yep. So, um, affiliate. So we do, uh, are you familiar with like CJ, the platform?

Andrew Warner: That’s what you use commission junction.

Yes.

Dylan Jacob: Yes. We use CJ. Um, so we have a, um, a freelancer that we work with here in Denver and she’s phenomenal, but all she does is our affiliate PR. So she works both on CJ and outside of that, I’m sending out samples to people all around the U S uh, editors, things like that. And we do a lot of affiliate. Um, I think last year we had almost 70 affiliate links, still alive, just from July to December, um, across a variety of platforms.

Um, and those have done really well. And we’re continuing that trend,

Andrew Warner: just doing that makes your affiliate program do well. Obviously you’re paying people every time they send you customers, but what are you doing to recruit people and to have them send real customers?

Dylan Jacob: Yeah, I mean, so, so up until we started working with commission junction, um, all of the traffic was going to Amazon.

So, um, anytime we got featured there, we’re listing our Amazon listings. Um, and so, you know, I don’t know what Amazon shares in terms of revenue with them, that’s on their backend. Um, but it was something where, you know, basically we were just telling them like, Their goal is to find products that are selling.

So, I mean, our ops leaders live for instance is in the top 50 for all of them in kitchen. So if we come to them with those numbers and say, Hey, listen, like our products on Amazon or our website or whatever are selling like crazy and send them the numbers behind that, then they’re going to post it because they know they’re going to get paid.

Um, so with commission junction, it’s a little bit different and I don’t actually handle that or oversee that directly. And we just launched on there about a month ago. Um, so I can’t really speak too much to that, but I do know that our goal with fish and junction specifically is to start driving a lot of those back links to our website instead of Amazon.

Andrew Warner: All right. The website is brumate.com. Your designs are fricking gorgeous. You’re like everything. I could see that you’re somebody who cares about design. Um, because even when I went back and looked at your old Squarespace site, like most people’s verse version, it looks pretty bad. You’re just look good.

All right. I keep getting lost in it. Everyone out there should go and check it out. It’s are you M a T e.com? brumate.com. I want to thank the two sponsors who made this interview happen. If you are building a business, you need to turn

Dylan Jacob: strangers into customers.

Andrew Warner: Go check out, click funnels, play with it, make it the thing that you spend.

You’re let’s say three hours playing with it. If you spend three minutes, you know what? Three hours is a big commitment, Dylan, right? I’m to say spend 30 minutes, honestly, spend 30 minutes decide you’re going to watch something on YouTube, something on Netflix, even something on Quimby, three episodes on Quimby, get lost in it and then play with ClickFunnels.

I promise by the end of it, you’re going to have a new superpower skill for marketing. It is that good. If you go to clickfunnels.com/mixergy, they’ll even let you try it for free. And number two, if you need a website hosted inexpensively, don’t spend too much money because this is the type of thing that you’re going to be paying month after month, year after year, we all do right, make it low and make it something, allow you to keep growing and experimenting.

Go to hostgator.com/mixergy right now to get a super low rate. And finally.

Dylan Jacob: If you like this interview and you want to listen to

Andrew Warner: another podcast, one that has more marketing tactics in this, go check out marketing secrets. It’s a great podcast hosted by Russell Brunson. Thank you so much, Dylan. Congrats.

Dylan Jacob: Thank you. I appreciate you having me on the show. You bet and congrats

Andrew Warner: on, especially. Congratulations on doing great in March and in April after what happened to the world. Alright, bye. Bye everyone. Go build.