How She Built a 20,000-Person Community Around Beard Oil

[00:05] **Matt**: So welcome to the eCommerce Podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson, and it is of course, of course great to be with you today. Hopefully you've had a good day today. I certainly have. It's 4 p.m. here in the UK at the time of recording, and I have killed it today. So I am very, very happy. And to end the day, we've got a great guest on the show, which I'm very excited to have. A founder who's going to share their story. Uh, but before we get into that, let me tell you all the cool things you need to know about the show. If this is your first time with us, uh, we obviously talk about ecommerce. Like you, I'm an ecommerce founder. I, uh, run my own ecommerce businesses. The studio I am recording from is in the left side of one of our warehouses here in Liverpool. So we get to pick and pack parcels, and I get to talk to people on this show about how to do my business better, what they've learned, what I can learn, and all that sort of stuff. Just have conversations about how to grow our ecommerce businesses. So you're welcome. With us. Hopefully you get some value out of it. If you do, of course, like, subscribe, and do all of that good stuff. And if you want to know, like, everything there is to know about the show, all the past episodes, even the show notes, the transcripts, the links from today's episode, everything is going to be on the website ecommercepodcast.net. It is ecommercepodcast.net because I couldn't get the .com. It was already registered. I don't know who owns it. No one does anything with it. If you own it, let me know. You should give it to me anyway. That's another story. But ecommercepodcast.net. And of course, if you're a returning visitor to the show, very warm welcome back. Great to have you with us. And thanks for sticking around. Thanks for all the comments. Thanks for everyone that reaches out and messages me. If you have messaged me on LinkedIn, I have been a little bit slack the last few weeks on LinkedIn. I have plenty of good excuses, mainly moving house. Um, but it, I, I have been a little bit slack, so please do not feel like I have been ignoring you. Um, but anyway, all of that said, ecommercepodcast.net, that's where you want to go. That's where you want to check everything out. Now let's jump straight into the show. I'm very excited. Megan, welcome to the show. Great to have you.

[02:10] **Megan**: Thank you. Well, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

[02:13] **Matt**: Absolutely. I, it's, uh, this is one of the shows that I've been looking forward to. I Let's start. Whereabouts in the world are you and why are you on the show? Let's start there.

[02:27] **Megan**: Yeah. So I will say, while my government name is Megan, everyone calls me the Princess. So that is my, that's my official name. But I am located right outside Nashville, Tennessee, in the great US of A. And yeah, I run 2 ecommerce stores. So that is, that's That's why we're here.

[02:47] **Matt**: Fantastic. Why the princess?

[02:49] **Megan**: Because 2 reasons. Number one, if you are a fan of Disney in any capacity, probably more recent Disney, but, you know, the princess always kind of has to come in and like help save the day. That's kind of the recent, the recent. So I feel like the princess is very fitting of that, but also because I do want to be treated like royalty. So I tell my husband all the time that, that, that is his role that I have to, that he's got to, and he does a fabulous job with that.

[03:18] **Matt**: But I have no doubt. I don't know you that well, Megan, but I have no doubt he does a good job of treating you as a princess.

[03:26] **Megan**: He is, he is, he's wonderful. But that was basically my demand. So there you have it.

[03:31] **Matt**: Fair play to you. I think it should be as well.

[03:33] **Megan**: Yes, yes. And he does go by the Wizard. So we each have our skill sets in that. And he has some magical powers to treat me like a princess. So there you have it.

[03:42] **Matt**: I love it. So he's the Wizard, you're the princess.

[03:47] **Megan**: Yeah. And we're, we are just right out Fantastic.

[03:51] **Matt**: Fantastic. The home of music, apparently.

[03:53] **Megan**: Yes, yes. Very, very country. And it's kind of changing a lot too. A lot more different types of music. Country is what it's known for, you know, Dolly Parton. And that's kind of what's put it on the map. But now it's kind of— there's a lot more like rock that's coming here. I've even heard some people say R&B is coming here. We do, you know, when you run a business, You really don't do a whole lot. So even though it's right there, primarily we play the game of business. And so we don't, we don't do a lot of activities down there. But I've never actually been— there's a big bar scene and you can just— I've never actually been to any, a single one.

[04:33] **Matt**: So. Oh, wow.

[04:34] **Megan**: Yeah.

[04:35] **Matt**: But maybe one day.

[04:36] **Megan**: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have a lot. We— there's a lot of— in our, in our particular area, there's a lot of restaurants. That's more, more of what we would do. There's a lot of tourism. And, and so we just typically stay away from

[04:49] **Matt**: Wow. Okay, fair enough. I think it's the same in Liverpool, to be fair. There's a lot of places I stay away from, uh, all the tourist areas that I've still never really been to and probably don't care to get to, if I'm honest.

[05:00] **Megan**: Yeah, well, that's kind of— I think it's— there's just some things that let's let other people enjoy them. That's, you know, they think they are— they're the type for it. So

[05:11] **Matt**: yeah, yeah. Um, so The business, are you and your husband involved in it? Yeah.

[05:19] **Megan**: So, we founded it together. We typically have very different roles within. The story goes we have a men's grooming side and a female cosmetics side. And my husband was growing a beard and I always had really loved facial hair. He was growing a beard, he was buying products, and I thought that they were terrible and I thought they smelled terrible and I just didn't like them. And in true serving me well as the princess I am, he thought if I didn't like the scent, he couldn't possibly wear it. That would be just not acceptable. And so he decided that we could manufacture, or he could manufacture them, and that I would inherently get to control all the scent profiles that we came out with. Yeah. So from that portion of it, we run very different. He came up with the original formulations and he is very creative in nature. So, he kind of focuses more on the creative side of it. And I focus more on the business side of it. And obviously, we intertwine a lot along the way, but that's kind of the divisional of roles that we have.

[06:22] **Matt**: So, well, let me dig into that a little bit if I may, because I've not met many people that have worked together as husband and wife successfully. So, how have you guys managed to pull that off?

[06:39] **Megan**: Well, I will say we are extraordinarily opposite. And I think we also— one thing I have loved about— there are many creative differences, or I would say use the word fight, but it's not necessarily an anger of just more like we think there's 2 different directions we should go with a particular problem. He has typically said, and he would attest to, that I am normally right. And so when he does decide to let that be true, it normally works out in his favour. But the way I've always loved to describe him is he is the best action. If you ever want an executor to get things started, not necessarily over the finish line, but if you ever want someone to get things started, if an idea comes to the table, it's not even 5 minutes later and he's already working on it. And I love that about him because we get a lot more done in that capacity. So I always say the way it's worked for us is we are serving on the same team. Again, there might be different strategies to get there, but at the end of the day, we have the same goals in mind and we have the same results that we're focused on. So while we don't always agree, we also recognise that that's also how we get better. By— I mean, if everyone agreed with you all the time, that'd be really boring. So we have to have a little bit of diversity in that, and we get to pick away the best parts of each of our ideas. And oftentimes we will, when something doesn't go well, we just say, okay, great, we're going to move on to the next and see, see how we can pivot. I do think one thing that is an advantage for us is that we are just We're just accustomed to being around each other a lot. So a lot of people might think that they need to be separate. In our case, we're pretty good about it. And I think in our situation, when you're running a business, it's extraordinarily hard. And as you continue to scale it, or if you have the desire to scale it, your pool of peers shrinks and you just kind of continuously get a little bit, I don't want to say lonelier, but it's just harder to find people who understand what you're And we get this great advantage of being able to do that with each other. So there's never a lack of friendship in that capacity. And we can run ideas from each other and we're also not afraid to tell each other like, that's dumb, let's not do that. That's a terrible idea. Or just poke holes in it so that way we can patch the holes before we need to. And I think that really is a great advantage for us. He's also my techie support, which I'm really grateful for because he's actually the one that put me on the phone and downloaded the app and did the whole thing.

[09:11] **Matt**: Very good.

[09:12] **Megan**: Yeah,

[09:12] **Matt**: very good. That's very good. It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I think being able to work with your spouse, and to be clear, Sharon, my wife, who's the world's most amazing person, um, she and I don't work together in the business, um, but I was mentored by a guy who worked really well with his wife, Simon and Patty. They're beautiful people. They managed to work together, um, and I was always intrigued how they How they manage to do that. Do you have like, um, clear boundaries? So like when we're at home, we, we do home things. When we're at work, we do work things. Or is it all very blurred and you just talk about whatever, whenever?

[09:55] **Megan**: It's very blurred. Um, I think I could be a— my personality would follow a little bit more in line with that. Uh, my, my husband is He just eats, breathes, sleeps. It's on his mind and mine as well. But we both typically will, I mean, it could be 9:30 at night and we're like, oh, we're going to record this tomorrow or do this tomorrow. Or our kids are very involved. We have 3 boys. We have a 12-year-old, a 9-year-old, and a 4-year-old, and they're all pretty involved in it as well. So it's not a surprise when we're constantly discussing it. get a lot of ideas from our kids. You wouldn't— you'd be surprised how many brilliant things come from their weird little minds at that age, as they're just so creative still. And they watch a lot of YouTube, you know, and so they have the firsthand knowledge of what's going on in the world. So we get ideas from them. So it doesn't often feel like we're working in that capacity. It just often feels like we're just collaborating. Mm-hmm. Because this is so ingrained in our, in our behaviour, we can multitask where there's a football game on or we're, you know, we're watching a, a show and, and we might be, he might be coding on Claude at that moment in time or, you know, using some sort of tool or we might be, um, responding to emails later at night when it's actually kind of calm and quiet. Those are normal behaviours for us, but those don't feel overwhelming in any capacity.

[11:27] **Matt**: That's really cool. Do you have any sort of hard and fast rules that you don't break when it comes to business and family that, like, that keeps obviously the family unit healthy and happy? And—

[11:38] **Megan**: Yeah.

[11:40] **Matt**: Um,

[11:40] **Megan**: well, my husband is very go with the flow. Um, I am not nearly as go with the flow. So he's very go with the flow. So he, the way we function in just our world, and this has been true before we started a business, but basically you just tell him what's going on. I'm like, this is what we're doing. This is how it's going. And he just is like, great. Sounds perfect. Whatever. Um, and so for me, I'm the one that will normally set any boundaries of like, this is what we're doing. This is, you know, important to the, the kids or whatever it might be. Um, for me personally, the time with my children is, it's fleeting every day. I don't take it for granted. I think that it's something that we need to spend, you know, they're only these ages for a minute. Mm-hmm. And then they, they change and they grow. And so I wanna always prioritise that. That does not mean not getting the work done. So I think a lot of people assume that prioritising that means you just get to do less, and quite the opposite. We probably do more, but we just focus on the moments. We never miss my son's football game, or, you know, if they want to participate in an activity, we'll find a way to make that work and things of that nature. Um, but in addition to that, we still just fit in the work where we can. So that often means sometimes working from your phone when you're when you're at that event or doing things of that nature. But he's wonderful because he just kind of lets me decide what's important in that capacity, and he's very go with the flow and whatever. I could be like, let's go to dinner tonight, and he's like, okay. And I'm like, let's stay home, and he's like, okay. It just doesn't matter.

[13:06] **Matt**: That's cool.

[13:07] **Megan**: cool. Yeah.

[13:08] **Matt**: It sounds like you balance each other out quite well.

[13:12] **Megan**: Yes. And I am a firm believer. I know there's many different personality tests that you can do and Um, I, I don't hold too hard with the results, but I think it's really, really helpful if you are gonna try to work together as a couple to know, like I said, for example, he's an action taker. And so if I have an idea but I'm not really ready to execute on it, it's probably best I don't say anything. Um, because he will go to work, he will get it done. And so I'm, you know, I'm really, I didn't know that when we first got together and started working together, and I had to learn that of You know, that's the way his brain functions. He's also really, when he decides he's focused on something, it's really hard for him to break. He can't jump around from task to— I can do 10 things and, and an hour and be totally fine. He has to stay focused on that. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's hard for him to break that focus. And so little things like that we learned. He's really sensitive to like noise. So, um, typically I moved them outta the room because they can be a little loud, but typically my dogs are right around me all the time and. They might bark and that would distract him. And I could, the kids could be climbing on top of me and I would have no cares. I'd just keep going. And so we learned little, little things like that throughout the, you know, working together. We learned like these are behaviours we have to kind of solve for. They're not right, they're not wrong, they're just the way we function independently. And I think knowing those things is the most freeing thing you can do because it just helps you be like, this makes a whole lot of sense. This is why you are the way. Yeah. that you are. Um, and, and like I said, I have many, many of my own flaws in that way, or work— working habits, I should say. Um, and we just, we just know how to work around each other in that way. And, and it's been really— for us, it's been a good thing. There have been hard times with it, but it's been, you know, works out really well.

[14:58] **Matt**: Yeah, that sounds great. So tell us a bit about your businesses, about the ecommerce side, Platforms, what's going on with you? So you've got a beard oil company and a beauty company, but what's going on there?

[15:13] **Megan**: So our brand, again, our brand was started by the need of my husband growing this beard and wanting these great products. Um, and we knew that we really wanted a storytelling capacity to the brand and that we wanted hand-drawn art was a big focus of. So we went on the hunt to find an artist, found an amazing artist who'd been with us, and because I can't draw my name. If you want to read my writing, good luck. I would say go for it because I don't even know what I wrote sometimes. And so we knew that if that was going to happen, neither of us were going to be the people that were going to be able to do that. But my husband is very creative in nature. And so we had to find someone who could kind of get his ideas actually on the products. And so we have Witchy Poo and she's super thematic and It's a fall seasonal one as we come into this season. We had a summer one that was Kona, which was a coffee-themed for coffee beans being grown in Hawaii and different things like that. And so we just always wanted to be able to tell stories through the products. And finding that artist was, like I said, a big part of that. But when we launched initially, we knew that this brand, the beard side launched in 2018 and then Fable Beauty launched in 2023. We knew that this was more than just an individual product. So a big part of our brand is we have a lot of scent diversity. We obviously have amazing products if you're growing facial hair, and really even if it's a very small amount of facial hair, beard oil can serve any market because it's for your skin health. So there's a, you know, a wide range. You don't have to have a big massive beard to use beard oil. Any facial hair will help with beard oil. The beard oil serves. And then we have like natural deodorants and colognes. So we knew that this this type of product was also going to be a little bit more identity-bringing for a lot of men, a little bit more of a hobby, so collectible and very community-focused. So one thing about our brand is that we are very geared towards wanting to connect with our customers. We want them to connect with each other. So we run a Facebook group with some of a small amount of our customers. Actually, we have about 20,000 people in the group, and they daily will share what they're wearing, what they bought, what they're collecting, where they're storing their products, what shelf they have. Um, because the art is a big fandom for them to, to continue to collect. And then for my creative husband on his side, he just has this ability to continue these never-ending stories that, uh, whatever comes out of his mind gets perfectly put down in art form. And then he kind of tells stories on these characters.

[17:46] **Matt**: That's really cool. Well, there's a lot there, right? Yeah. So let's deal with some of the basics. What platforms do you guys use?

[17:54] **Megan**: So for sales, we're Shopify. We, um, we also are currently on the TikTok Shop, and then we just launched on Amazon in, uh, I think May of this year, April of this year. It's been pretty recent. Um, we did that really just for the ability to customer acquisition. And primarily, uh, if you ever do have hopes of getting into retail, it's kind of a necessary step to be on Amazon.

[18:22] **Matt**: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what's your email marketing? What do you use there?

[18:28] **Megan**: Yeah, we, uh, we use Klaviyo for our email, uh, CRM side. We have used— we've been through the, you know, the array of— we started with Mailchimp when we first, um, that's when Mailchimp was more popular, I suppose. And I think moved to Klaviyo somewhere, um, before Shopify acquired them, but at this point they're so integrated so well and they do a great job. We, um, we use for that, for the CRM side. We obviously have a lot of apps within there that we use as well. Um, we are also a big proponent of direct mail. I think direct mail is a really amazing tool because you have to physically do something with it. So whereas email you can just discard, if something comes in the mail, you have to make a decision. Your brain has to, to say, I'm gonna throw this away, I'm gonna keep it. There's gotta be a choice there. So I'm a big, big fan of that. Um, we also are big SMS through Klaviyo as well. We've used other platforms for that, but that's our current one that we use.

[19:27] **Matt**: That's interesting. You do direct mail?

[19:29] **Megan**: Yeah. And, and truly, um, while I know there's better, or, or I guess like Discord's very popular for community, community. Um, we grew, we started with Facebook. When we launched the brand in 2018. I don't think Discord was a thing, or it wasn't popular at that time if it was. And that's where we have grown that communication channel. But I would advocate for anyone growing a brand to have some form that, uh, form of communication that people can discuss with each other. And Facebook's a great medium for that. It does not cost any money. But you, you know, it's really just wonderful to watch your customers just share their love of the products, but also help answer questions. There have been so many, you know, maybe a discount code didn't work for someone because they didn't have the right products in the cart, and someone will go answer their question. Maybe they want to know how the rewards program works, and someone will go answer their question. And, and so engaging, um, and it just really just, it boldens the brand to just be better. Without— we got a lot of good ideas from our customers, right? We listen to them and we We start to see when someone has an idea and then other people kind of follow behind it, we can say, okay, well, it's probably a good idea if other people like it. So there's a big advantage to that.

[20:42] **Matt**: Yeah, it sounds like community is a really important thing for you.

[20:47] **Megan**: Yes, yes, very much so. Very, very intentional.

[20:54] **Matt**: And almost from the beginning, it seems.

[20:55] **Megan**: Very much so. Very much so.

[20:58] **Matt**: Yeah, I'm curious to know your reason for doing that from the start.

[21:03] **Megan**: Well, I think we are, we're self-proclaimed nerds in this household. And so we love, uh, all the nerdy things. My husband specifically, he was big into like, uh, like the Lord of the Rings, reading the books. He, you know, grew up on Harry Potter, all those types of, uh, really thematic books. He loves video games. Although I will say since launching our business, we look at this as like our biggest video game that we could play. Um, and we don't typically play, I actually probably play more than him, but, uh, Yeah. He normally does not play as much as he used to, but it was a big founding part of it. But there's so many— there's such an underserved market, especially in men's grooming, with gearing towards community. And we need that as people. And I also think, for my personal belief, I think the world, everyone just— it's so heavy and you don't watch the news without bad news. It doesn't matter what leaders are in charge. It's just negativity constantly. And I'm like, it doesn't have to be this hard. We should enjoy the little things. And so a big proponent of that is like, you should make the ordinary really fun. We should make putting on your deodorant really fun. It shouldn't feel— yeah, it should feel like an exciting part of your day and go celebrate that and celebrate that with other people. Um, and so that was a big— for me, that was just a big, you know, part of the brand.

[22:26] **Matt**: So this making the ordinary wonderful kind of idea. Is that where the storytelling aspect of this also comes in? Because that's a big part of your brand as well.

[22:38] **Megan**: Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to think about it. If you are picking a— if you're used to using your deodorant every day because that's what you use, then that's great. But if you are— you have maybe an assortment, maybe you have a few, 3, 4, and you kind of look at them each day and you decide who do you want to be that day? Do you want to be the hero? Because there's the hero and you can kind of go and embody that personality and feel like that person. And then for the confidence side, specifically for men— women are just naturally more accustomed to buying products for themselves, so that's a very normal behaviour. Yeah. Men, they need a little bit of a boost with thinking it's, you know, thinking they should, or even spending the money. A lot of times we've noticed that men will be less inclined to spend money on themselves personally like that. But it just allows them more confidence so they can just go out and feel more confident in their daily tasks. And you're just doing it, starting it off on such a great foot because typically speaking, you do this first thing when you wake up. Again, beard oil can be used at any time of day. There is no timeline. But if you're getting ready in the morning and you're putting on your deodorant and you're putting on your beard oil and it's just setting your tone for the rest of the day. And so I think it's just a great way to start.

[23:48] **Matt**: Well, it's a really intriguing idea how you're Doing this. But if I can turn, turn it around slightly, let me ask you, uh, Megan, um, what's then the biggest single challenge you guys have faced in your online business?

[24:07] **Megan**: Yeah, so, well, initially we are, we are self-funded. We've never had any investor backers. And, um, and so I would say cash flow is 100% always the biggest and most difficult struggle that you that you deal with. What we have found is that some of the easier times were actually when we were, you know, we started, we started very, very small. We did a few hundred orders in the first year while we were kind of building up the foundation, making sure customers liked the products. And as we got our footing and we started to do more marketing, we started to see the, the brand growth that occurred from there. Well, with growth requires additional operations. It requires additional warehouses. It requires staff. And we started just the two of us where we were really good at getting stuff done at odd hours. We would, at the time we had a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old when we started. And I mean, we put the 1-year-old in a high chair and we would just like go fulfil orders. And then as they grew up a little bit, they would help make boxes. And so it was always kind of part of our routine. But as you start to scale up, you have to bring on— Staff. additional people. And I think the learning curve of, A, it's expensive. People think, oh, you're growing, look at all your, look at all your revenue that you're bringing in. And typically speaking, more and plus some went into growing operations aside with it. Um, and so that, I would say, navigating growth with wanting and the desire to build your, build your brand is the most challenging thing we've personally done.

[25:44] **Matt**: That's a really interesting point, isn't it? That growth is a thing that we all want, we all desire, but navigating that is in itself a different problem. It's a different challenge. So what things, I suppose looking back, what's one of the things that you wish you'd knew at the start, right, when navigating this growth that now you're looking back and if we'd have known that, that would have been a lot easier for us?

[26:07] **Megan**: Well, I will also say The way we did things is probably not the most ideal. If you put down some of our behaviours on paper, you might be like, how in the world did they end up where they are? Um, and sometimes I do scratch my head and say like, we should probably, like, that's, those are things. We didn't even have someone in the books until I was trying to do it for, you know, several years. Mm-hmm. And I think that's a super important thing is getting clean books and understanding your numbers from the early, early part. But the biggest thing that we learned. Later on, um, or really focused on later on is really what the customer acquisition cost is and what our LTV is. So we used to base our decisions, which was kind of a vital necessity, we used to base our decisions on if we put an ad out there, we had to get a certain amount of return, which is how we were able to fund any growth at all. Hmm. Now we focus a little bit more on what What will a customer typically spend within a certain period of time? And then that allows us to scale a little bit more aggressively and maybe even, you know, maybe we lose a lot of money in this acquisition phase, but we know that within a short period of time they will come back plus some. So we have to kind of balance those numbers. I think knowing your numbers is so, so, so important because that is the make it or break it. That is the health and the wealth of your entire brand. And if they do not get balanced, it's only a matter of time before it's going to get bad. And we've been through bad and we go through bad all the time because we didn't focus on those things initially. We kind of focused on them more as we were continuing to grow. And that's where we say that from. We've probably done every mistake you could make and like I said, and then some, and hopefully you can learn something from it.

[27:59] **Matt**: Yeah, I'd probably say the same. Megan, that I've had more failures than successes. It's just the successes outweighed the failure, right?

[28:08] **Megan**: Yeah. Or you just didn't stop. You're stubborn enough to keep going. That's true. That's what I'm like. I think it's that my husband likes to say that entrepreneurship, while there's many, many blessings from it, he says it's like eating glass every day and learning to love it. And that's the way that you have to look at it a lot of times is like, it's just not as easy. Nothing is ever, no matter what it is, nothing is ever as easy as people think it is. But being an entrepreneur has been challenging on so many different levels and good challenging. It's been a puzzle that we have to figure out. It's been growth. There's no better education than trying to do something for yourself. You'll learn so many things that no college degree will ever teach you. And I think that there's some value in that, but you do have to be really ready that there could be some glass that you're going to enjoy to eat for a while to do it.

[28:55] **Matt**: Yeah, that's so true. That is so very, very true. What's then in your You know, your question, trying to get better at understanding growth and, and doing growth. What's been one or two of the levers that have really worked well for you guys in your business in terms of giving you unreasonable growth in one or two areas? Like, what, what are some of those levers that have worked for you guys?

[29:21] **Megan**: Well, obviously, you— unless you are blessed by the algorithms and they decide to make you go viral, and we are still trying to figure that one out, um, for ourselves, I think Consistency in posting is also super important. And what you don't recognise is all the little areas that someone may look at before making a purchasing decision. So we assume if you are, if you're, you know, running paid ads, we run a lot of paid ads. A lot of times we will look at an ad and say that this ad is doing well, but it's really the buildup of all the different areas that you're building brand wealth together. So while you might not think it matters or you might not get very many views, there are many times where someone will go and make sure that you have social medias. They want to see social proof you're real people there, you know. And those are all things that they might not really even engage in your content, but they may feel that that's necessary to know that you are a real person. For us, um, you know, we manufacture our products, and so we showcase a lot of that process and that the fact that they are made local and that we're not importing them and different things of that nature. I think all of those things go and serve paid ads better. So if you're running paid ads by themselves and you're not inherently getting the results, and it can be very difficult, again, one thing will go really well and you're like, why did that do so well? That was the worst ad we did. And you might pay a lot of money for some really high quality ones and they just don't like it. You know, sometimes it can be really frustrating. But I think building those, that wealth of connection beyond just the ad is going to make your ads perform better.

[31:02] **Matt**: So do you, um, do you do your own paid media in-house? Do you outsource to an agency? How do you do it?

[31:10] **Megan**: Yeah, so we have done it both ways. Uh, we— what I would like to say about agencies is not all agencies are created equal. I would be overly, overly cautious with giving someone that job unless you know. One of my big rules is before we will ever hand it off to someone, we have to have a basic knowledge of it. So we, we will know how to do— my husband ran our Facebook ads for the better part of, uh, 3 years before we started to outsource them ourselves or to another party. And we've been very critical of the people that have come in and done the job because we do know what it's required and we do know, you know, what to look at. We also, again, this is one of those things of What metrics do we pay attention to? I have my set that I think are more important. He has his set that he thinks are more important. And often we'll look at things from like, who's going to win this war of like which ones we're going to pay attention to. But I think when you get the right team, and it can come from multiple failed teams that you built, I think you'll just know that they have the skillset to be able to produce the result you're looking for. And for us, we, um, we are very focused on the acquisition.

[32:23] **Matt**: I'm reminded of the time that we, um, we did the similar sort of thing. You know, you outsourced a whole bunch of stuff to agency, and like you say, Megan, the ability to know it yourself gives you the language to understand what they're saying. So you're not blinded by science or baffled by what they're saying. You can't be— they can't say things and you're left going, oh, we've just got to trust them, I don't really know what they're talking about. Because you do, you understand it, and you can say That's nonsense, or actually, that's a really good idea. And there's something quite wonderful about having that knowledge, right?

[32:58] **Megan**: Yeah. Yeah. Well, just like I said, it also allows you to hold them a little bit more accountable if, well, number one, if you ever ask someone a question and they don't know the answer, and then you're like, okay, you're not, you're not gonna be the right fit for, uh, for us in this world. And things are changing so rapidly on the, I mean, what was, even little buttons you press. Um, if you're familiar with paid ads right now, there's— Meta has a— specifically with Meta, uh, they have an auto-translate where they start translating your ads into multiple languages. Um, you might think, oh, that's really cool, but they're feeding it up to people that don't speak that language, number one. And number two, they're doing that in a market that doesn't typically speak that, you know, multiple languages. So, uh, if you're, you know, if you're isolating the country that you reside in as your primary market, they might show ads in other languages within that primary market. And you're like, why would they do that? Who knows? Um, but you have to be really intentional about like checking the box to say, don't show this. You know, there's so many different little buttons that are required and in 6 months it probably is not gonna be the same as it was today. And so really getting the right team, and that's why we eventually did move to that, is that it's, it does change so rapidly. We knew we wanted people who were experienced enough to be able to stay informed and stay up on those changes. Yeah. Um, and be able to implement them effectively. But if you don't even know what to look for, you are definitely gonna be, you know, blindsided by a lot of that portion of it. And nobody— everyone likes to spend your money.

[34:33] **Matt**: How often do you check in with the, with the team, with the agencies?

[34:36] **Megan**: Yeah, so we typically will, we'll typically have weekly communication or with calls daily a lot of times. Um, and we check the ad account personally. We will be in there looking at it. So it's not a It's not just like wait for them to do their reporting. We are looking at the results daily. And the way I look at it, I am more the financial side of planning, looking at scale, looking at the numbers inside of— I use inside of platform data the most. If you run on Shopify, Lifetimely is a really inexpensive tool that you can implement into Shopify that kind of helps you track data even better. Mm-hmm. For more of the number side, you can import your expenses daily and you can import ad spend and it really helps you see your customer acquisition costs and all sorts of good things. But I'm kind of looking more in platform and then my husband typically, or in Shopify, excuse me, and then he typically looks more in platform at the results. We know when ads aren't going well, we can see it in sales. It's not a mystery. We can kind of tell.

[35:38] **Matt**: Yeah, you know pretty

[35:40] **Megan**: Yeah, you know pretty quick. And so you have to kind of go in and be like, okay, What's firing wrong? What do we need to change? How do we need to improve it? And we'll learn that pretty quickly.

[35:49] **Matt**: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, great. So thinking about the few, what's in front of you, you know, where the business is going and the opportunities that you see, I have 2 questions. We'll start with one and we'll come to the other one. Megan, what's the biggest opportunities you see in front of you right now that you're really excited about being an ecommerce entrepreneur?

[36:13] **Megan**: Yeah. So I think as a whole, like I said, the community side to us is— so we hosted 2 years in a row, we hosted an event at our facility and we just, we called it Fable Fest and we just said, hey, we just love for a few customers to come out and see the facility, come hang out with us for a day. And we kind of, we started really small initially in the first year. We kept it both actually small both years, but we just kind of advanced a little bit about it and making it a little bit more engaging. And people came in from all over the country to come hang out with us for a day and they dressed up in costume and we just had a good party. I think that that community side for us is so vital. So for me, growing the brand is growing the community and that's really super important. So I see a potential, especially in this space. I think in the men's grooming space is very underserved and I think we have just the ability to quite literally come in and hopefully change a lot of people's lives for the better and just give them something to look forward to on a small scale. Make it a little more fun.

[37:18] **Matt**: No doubt you will. No doubt. It's, I mean, it's interesting that you talk about community being your biggest opportunity because everybody at the moment is saying, oh, it's AI or it's this or it's that or the other. The thing that I love about what you said there, Megan, is it's nothing to do with technology. Sure, you're using technology to help build the community with Facebook groups and stuff, but actually this is just old school Let's get people together. Let's have a good time. Let's be memorable. And that's what's going to make us stand out. That's what's going to make us be authentic, right?

[37:51] **Megan**: Yeah. I mean, that is, for us, that is so important. And I know everyone has different goals and aspirations. I'm a huge proponent of goal setting. I think every entrepreneur, every person really should be setting goals, every entrepreneur. A lot of people think goals are a revenue number or a scale number, and they can be. I'm a big fan of that as well. But a lot of time, And for me, it's more of like, who do we want to be? You go out into the world and you're engaging with people. What do you want to be remembered by? What's important to you? What are the things? Who are the people that matter that you need to serve first and then maybe second? So for us, our families, obviously we're going to focus on that being a priority. But then we have this community. We need to focus on doing our best to be kind and nurturing. And it's all about people at the end of the day. All these tools are great, like you said. Yeah. They're wonderful, but the robots are not going to take over for people being people. They're, you know, we're going to need community now more than ever, in my opinion. And so I think that is the bit for me, that's the biggest, biggest focus.

[38:54] **Matt**: Yeah, I'd agree. I think community now more than ever is an obvious thing. For the first time ever in England, we have a minister for loneliness. So, you know, this is a big deal going forward. And actually technology will make it worse. That much we also know. And so, Human connection is really important.

[39:13] **Megan**: Well, and I just think, you know, I think it's so wonderful that we have the ability to get news and things so frequently, but I also think we weren't designed to handle the world's problems every 5 minutes. And that's what, that's what it is. You pick up any device, you will find 10 problems, and you are not the person to solve those problems, right? That's not your job. And I think that with that, we got to boil down to more Most times I've ever engaged with people on a personal level, it's been lovely. And so it's really what we need to get back to, in my opinion, is just there just needs to be more, more time spent, more time spent with people you disagree with. I think that's super fun. You know, you just learn a lot about someone. You connect with them on so many different things, and we just need to do more of that.

[39:59] **Matt**: Yeah. Amen, sister, I think is the appropriate expression. Twisting the question then slightly, Megan, what's the biggest, if I can use a posh term, existential threat? What's the biggest threat to your business, do you think, in the future? What are some of the things that you are a bit more wary of?

[40:18] **Megan**: Yeah, I mean, I think for us, we are primarily on the internet and as things continue to change, it does not take Zuckerberg one second to change the way his this platform functions and eliminate our group or change, you know, change those dynamics. And each individual online platform has those risks. So I think just the changing of, um, the ability to not be able to fully control your customer base in that way, um, you know, Shopify goes down for 5 minutes, people can't buy. There's just this domino effect of what the internet— which is obviously the sole reason that we exist today is because of these tools, But that would be the, I think the biggest concern for me is that you don't actually own your traffic in the same way. Even if you have your CRM and you have all these different things, you have to just really be cautious of how you're not violating their terms of service accidentally or things like that because they can shut you down in 1 minute. And, and that's, that would be what I've— any, any ecommerce brand can potentially be subject to that.

[41:27] **Matt**: Yeah, I mean, that's the danger of, like you say, online. And, you know, we don't use Shopify, we have our own website, so Shopify can't shut me down, but AI can destroy the internet, right? And so, you, I, I'm curious, how do you mitigate, or are you mitigating? Are you just aware of the risks? Are you doing things to mitigate for those risks? How are you planning for that?

[41:44] **Megan**: So I think, so for example, um, now again, do I think this is likely going to happen? No, I don't think this is, this is something that I'm preparing actively for. I'm not like storing up meat in the freezer for like, you know, the world to shut down. Yeah. Um, but I think there have been many times where something, no matter what, even if you're, you know, you're using your own independent website, but you, um, it's backed by like AWS, it has gone down before. Or, you know, whatever your hosting provider, they go down occasionally. Uh, Klaviyo, it's gone down occasionally. So we manually export our customer list periodically every couple months and just keep hard copies. Keep hard copies. Um, because then you can take that and you can apply that Again, direct mail, I think, is a huge, huge way to combat the internet if you do need to get around it for any way. Those are all things that we try to do to kind of save in case any— in case of fire, in case of emergency, right? Like, we have these other opportunities to go to. At the end of the day, if something like that were to occur, we would probably just go find a storefront and Old school market that way. And so we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't let it control our destiny. I'll say that. But that is always the risk you take when you're, when you're dealing. And like I said, some of it can be in, in the United States of America, CBD was very popular several years ago, and we actually had a CBD side of our brand, but we didn't know, again, every rookie mistake, that our payment processor didn't allow the word to be used. That was not an allowable word. Right. Um, so it was actually its completely own website. It was not related. We had a different payment processor, but we had used that word at the very top banner with just a, this is how you get to this website. And Shopify said, hey, nope, we're holding all your funds until you prove that you're not selling this product, right? So we had to go through hoops to showcase that that was not part of that particular storefront. Um, but you don't know that, and it can just happen very quickly. And so just being aware of potentials in that way is just, I think, always like you're just proactively saying— and I do say this, I'm very not a neg— I'm not a negative person, but I proactively just say like, problems are gonna happen today. That's just part of my day. So when they do happen, you're like, this is great. I already was expecting it. You know? So you're not shocked by it. Yes.

[44:14] **Matt**: Yeah, I think that's so true. I think part of the success, I suppose, of any good business is their ability to deal with problems when they arise and deal with them not necessarily in a fake positive way, but in a, oh well, that's— so this is an obstacle we've just got to overcome. Let's figure out how to do it rather than worries me, right?

[44:33] **Megan**: Yeah, exactly. Well, and it's a proven true thing. It will occur if you were doing anything worth doing. You will have problems. You will find them. They will happen. Things will, you know, you might get a shipment that goes rogue and doesn't show up. You might, they might break before they arrive. I mean, there's just things happen all the time and you just have to be ready because it will happen.

[44:54] **Matt**: Yeah, absolutely. We had a situation the other day, a couple months ago actually, where our most popular product went out of, was gonna go outta stock and we could see it because of the forecasting. We knew it was gonna go outta stock. The new stock was not gonna be coming in time. And so what we did was we, we went, well, it is what it is. I can't do anything about that necessarily. So let's plan around that. And the resulting plan was brilliant because we never had as many sales.

[45:20] **Megan**: So yeah, yeah, it was great. You pivoted. You didn't just, again, you didn't just sit there and say, oh my gosh, what am I supposed to do? Like you figured out a way. You're like, this is what we're gonna do. This is how we're gonna fix it. And that's the, that's the, the good energy that you need. Um, what do they say? Like problems are just solutions waiting to be found. That's the way, that's the energy

[45:36] **Matt**: that

[45:36] **Megan**: I'm gonna

[45:39] **Matt**: Yeah, like you say, it's, I think it's how you frame it, isn't it? And you reframe things in your head, not in a denial kind of way, but in a Jim Collins, well, these are the brutal facts. Now let's confront them and deal with them. You know, let's go take the hill kind of a way.

[45:52] **Megan**: Yeah, exactly.

[45:53] **Matt**: Brilliant. Well, Megan, listen, I'm aware of time. It has disappeared just like, just like that, as it always does when we record these podcasts. So before we, before I forget, let me do this thing where I love to ask my guests for a question for me. Um, I then go and answer this question on social media. So Megan, before we, before I forget, what is your question for me?

[46:16] **Megan**: Okay. I've been thinking about this one. So, all right. Um, have you ever—

[46:22] **Matt**: Challenge accepted.

[46:23] **Megan**: Yeah. I mean, I was like, I gotta figure out a way to be somewhat different. But, um, well, I actually, I have 2 questions. Uh, you can pick both or one, but number one is, have you ever had a dream about your business that then came true?

[46:36] **Matt**: Oh, that is a very difficult question.

[46:39] **Megan**: And then number 2, this is just a very fable question, but what character would you be?

[46:42] **Matt**: Okay. Okay. As in what fable character would I be?

[46:46] **Megan**: Yeah.

[46:48] **Matt**: Okay. Okay. I will, I will. Well, again, straight away, you've been different. One in the 2 questions you've asked, no one's asked them before. And the fact you've asked 2 questions also makes you different, which is—

[46:57] **Megan**: You know, I just have to put my stamp of different on it.

[47:00] **Matt**: I can see why you're called the Princess now.

[47:02] **Megan**: Yes.

[47:03] **Matt**: Which is just wonderful. Megan, listen, uh, if people want to reach you, if they want to connect with you, find out more, maybe even order your beard oil or your beauty products, where do people go? What are the websites that people can go find you at? All of that sort of good stuff. Give us your links.

[47:20] **Megan**: Yes, you can go to fablebeauty.com and fablebeardco.com, and you can find me, The Princess FBC, on all TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, I think LinkedIn, I think it's all the same. So you can go get me there.

[47:35] **Matt**: Fantastic. We will of course link to all of those in the show notes, which you will be getting for free if you subscribe to the newsletter. If you're on the website, they'll be in the blog post. If you're on a podcast app listening to this, they'll be in the show notes. Just scroll down. And if you're watching on YouTube, those links will also be in the description. Wherever you go, those links will be there. So make sure You go check out Megan and what they're doing at Fable. Try out their products. I'm sure without a doubt you're gonna love them. So do go check those out. But Megan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Genuinely lovely to meet you. Lovely to hear what you're doing. I'm super inspired by how you're approaching community. I think that's absolutely wonderful and a good challenge to all of us to think that through a little bit more for our own businesses. How do we help people be people more? Yeah, I think it's a great question.

[48:25] **Megan**: Well, thank you. I'm so happy to have been here, and this was so much fun.

[48:29] **Matt**: Wow, thank you. Yeah, so there you go, ladies and gentlemen. That's another wrap on another episode of the eCommerce Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Like I said at the start, make sure you like, subscribe, and do all of that good stuff if you're not connected, because we've got more great interviews either with people like Megan who run their own business or experts who come in and tell How to do certain things better. We just love to chat about e-commerce. How do we make our businesses grow? That's what we're all about. So like I say, make sure you like and subscribe. It's been wonderful to be with you this week. So, uh, but that's it from me. That's it from Megan. Thank you so much for joining us, uh, wherever you are in the world. Have a fantastic week. But that's it from me. Bye for now.