Oren Schauble Reveals Little-Known Secrets On How To Create An Unrivaled Brand (#195)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth.

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.

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At the end of this episode, take a moment and hear from business owners like you, who went through the Deep Wealth Experience.

Oren Schauble is a serial entrepreneur and builder. He served four years as president of Unrivaled Brands a public west coast cannabis MSO.

Oren is a founding partner of Guinn Partners a successful high-tech product development agency in Austin, Texas. He served in leadership and advisory roles in marketing and strategy, such as Tracking Point, Lift Foils, 3DR, Hangar Technology, and more.

Oren co-hosts a top 100 entrepreneurship podcast about building businesses, products, and interesting lives called The Builders Build.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast, and as usual, we have an absolutely terrific episode lined up for you. I have a fellow podcaster, entrepreneur, startup guy, successful guy.

The list goes on and on. I'm gonna stop right there because you're gonna hear directly from the fellow himself. So, Oren, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast, and absolute pleasure to have you with us. And you know what Oren there is always the story behind the story. We'd love to hear what's your story, what got you to where you are today.

[00:02:42] Oren Schauble: All right. Well, I'll try to keep the brief version of it and appreciate you have me on, let me speak through it. I actually started off on more creative side. So when I was done with college, I was actually in a touring then we moved to New York. I had a degree in design, so I was supporting myself through freelance graphic design while we tried to live out the music dream as it often does, that didn't go where everyone wanted it to.

And so I ended up working as a graphic designer and then I started doing that agency side in New York, right when social media marketing began to emerge. It was the early time of Facebook ads. And so I learned that we were learning it while we were on tour with the group, and I took that into the agency world.

I actually ended up becoming creative director of that agency and we had a lot of clients like Grey Goose and Red Bull and relatively prolific lifestyle brands at that point. And then from there, you know, as kinda learning that skillset I took over, you know, the same thing into technology. So moved from creative direction to marketing direction for technology brands and worked really in aerospace, both kind of consumer and B2B for a number of years.

The number of startups in a marketing direction, sales direction. And then kind of struck out on my own more to become an entrepreneur. So after we had an acquisition in that space so friends and I worked through a contract engineering and product development firm in Austin, which still is alive to this day, called WIN Partners.

We really focus on bringing kind of complex technology products related to mobility to life. And that was when I started to really realize. I don't want to be part of a team of other people working on in startups. I'd rather be doing kind of some of my own endeavors. And so another friend of mine and I worked on a roll-up inside the cannabis space.

We brought together a bunch of businesses, we took it onto the public markets, and then passed that off to a professional executive team with public markets experience. And then now, have my hands on a lot of different interesting projects and I'm starting to focus more on enabling other entrepreneurs.

So I started a website called Product World, where I actually teach people to launch their own physical products and how to develop complex products and market them and brand them. And yeah, just excited to see now working on many projects, more entrepreneurially educating people where life goes from there.

[00:04:40] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, so musician to graphic artist to then getting into media, social media comes out. You learn all of that into the cannabis world, going public, I mean, Oren what haven't you done? That's absolutely incredible.

[00:04:53] Oren Schauble: It's been a complicated ride, but it's an interesting one. That's what I like about, you know, the world we're in today is you don't have to be stuck in your single-track career or on any of these particular things. You can really explore what the world has to offer. You can learn on the internet, and you can put all that to work.

[00:05:06] Jeffrey Feldberg: And I'm wondering, Oren as you went from one situation to another situation and you went from the creative side to the business side, were there any themes that you found within yourself that had you on the success path when you look back at it now?

[00:05:20] Oren Schauble: Yeah, I think a lot of it was, it wasn't like everything happened or I always had this one personality type. I think a lot of it is just recognizing when you personally are going through transitions in your life, and I think at one point things that were really helpful for me was realizing that I prefer to be learning and working and I shouldn't have to feel bad about that.

I think a lot of people were trying to find a really proper work-life balance or make sure that they have certain, things going on in their life or they have certain relaxation time and I found that that time for me is when I'm learning and engaging in new things. And once I embraced that and I think that was really good for me.

And then also, optimizing for a healthy lifestyle. I stopped drinking all alcohol maybe five years ago and really focusing on all the little things, whether that's stretching or mindfulness, or all the kind of wellness culture items. And for me, that was just a huge multiplier, and like my clarity and my state of mind and how I feel every day, which translates to getting things done which I feel has been just really helpful.

And something I, when I meet a lot of other entrepreneurs, really encourage people to think more about their personal wellness as well.

[00:06:14] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, Oren you know, you're taking the page out of our book and at Deep Wealth, as we say, pun intended. The podcast is really geared at helping you extract both your business and your personal deep wealth. And when you think about it on the personal side, your health is your Wealth. And so for our listeners out there, what would you share with them if you had to pick one or two different things that you changed up on the health side that really made the difference for you?

What will this be?

[00:06:39] Oren Schauble: Really paying attention to what I put in my body was a huge one. And then has gone around with my family as well of just like, we all need things with our as much as we can that doesn't have complex ingredients. And then applies to alcohol and things like that as well. It's really focusing on, meat and vegetables, things of that nature that that are as, organic and close to what we can touches as we can get. I think that's been huge. I've just noticed it in how I feel in general. And then the other one is tracking. So I use a whoop band which I found is really useful because it has a journaling function. So basically every morning you wake up, you can set your own journal entries and have default ones for things that you're trying out in your life.

So for instance, if I'm taking you know, supplements to help me sleep, or I'm trying a new workout. I can log how I feel or I can, and they will actually give you some data in these monthly reports to see if it made a difference in your rest or your recovery overnight or different things you're tracking in your life.

And just having a little framework like that. It's not super complex for me to actually check on, Hey, if I'm trying this thing, or I've been traveling on the road, or how do I measure these things in my life? Being able to make simple decisions with a framework like that has been really valuable to me, and I think definitely worth the $30 a month or whatever it is.

 If you wanna put the time in to actually track what you're doing in your life.

[00:07:46] Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, Oren as you're talking through that, it's amazing as you think back to maybe what our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents would've said. It's all so true, starting with if you can't read what's in the food label, you probably shouldn't be eating it. And so sticking to Whole Foods and organic where you can, and even having a good night's sleep and watching what you put into your body, it sounds so simple.

[00:08:08] Oren Schauble: It does.

[00:08:08] Jeffrey Feldberg: Easier said than done. But when you do it, when I call it a ritual, one ritual leads to another, and before you know it, you've really created a whole health ritual for yourself where the little small things day over day, all add up and make such a huge difference.

[00:08:23] Oren Schauble: Yeah, and I think, I like to think, when I look at people that I enjoy working on who I aspire to be when I'm older, things of that nature. Almost all of them who are really feel like they're being truly effective or happy there, or have a deep concern for their health.

And so that's something that as I noticed and I want to model myself more after, what I aspire to be, that was a consistent thread.

[00:08:41] Jeffrey Feldberg: And before we switch back onto the business side of things, on the health side of things, any tips for our listeners on sleep? I know when I'm speaking with our community, I hear so often ah, Jeffrey, you know what? I had the worst sleep last night and I can't get a good night's sleep. Any insights on that?

[00:08:54] Oren Schauble: Yeah, so two things. One, if you are in a cannabis legal state, I do kind of recommend that it's been very impactful for me to have a small amount of that before bed. Just usually an edible form or something of that nature. But the other thing that's been really effective for me is glycine, which is an amino acid, which I take as a supplement.

You just drop it in water. I try to get kinda like the purest form I can. There's a lot of companies import from Japan. I tend to recommend it, but I don't know what it is about that. But just that particular amino acid for me has just led to like extremely deeper sleep. And I've quantified that and measured it through what I do with my whoop and when I take it or not.

Especially if you're working out. I highly recommend that as a supplement. That has just really done it for me. And then the other thing, something I notice in my close friend group and two of the guys who I have a podcast with one of them has a lot of trouble sleeping. He also consumes a massive amount of caffeine every day, including later in the day.

And it's, I think, a pretty much a no-brainer that if you if you stop consuming that or consume less, then your sleep is gonna get better.

[00:09:46] Jeffrey Feldberg: Hey, I'm gonna geek out here with you on the biohackers side for just a moment. I take glycine as well. I've added theanine to that, so l-glycine, l-theanine, and it's a nice little stack.

I'll stop geeking out there. Let's switch gears here.

Well, I think Oren, we can both agree that you know what, if you're not getting a good night's sleep, it's gonna affect you both on the personal side, on the business side, your clarity, your thinking, your energy all comes into play.

And sleep is just so important. And for our listeners, Oren with his tracking that he's doing, whether it's a whoop band or an or ring or whatever device you choose, the best device is the one that you use. Track yourself and see what's going on and experiment and see what works, see what doesn't work and you'll find your own groove of what's really making a difference for you on the personal health side. So, Oren switching gears here for a moment. You've got a lot to say on getting a product up and out there, and we're gonna do that, but I'd be remiss, this is a Deep Wealth Podcast after all, and we're all liquidity events.

And I put an IPO squarely in a liquidity event bucket there. Talk to us a little about the IPO going public, what that was like, more so on leading up to the IPO itself. And then, in the IPO when you're going through that we'll talk about that as well. But, preparation-wise, what was that like?

You know, you're gonna be going public. How did that treat you?

[00:11:03] Oren Schauble: So we didn't do an IPO, we did almost a reverse merger where we took over an existing public shell. And I can definitely talk through some of what that looks like. Since this was in the cannabis space, we were doing this on OTCQX, which is one of the smaller kinds of exchanges because they don't allow a federally regulated plant-touching business to be on something at the Nasdaq.

So you basically have the choice of Canada or the OTC markets and so preparation for that, for a lot of us was a learning curve in that, you know, only our CEO had been through the public experience before. I was the president at that point. I had not been through it. And so it was just learning a lot about, okay, what are those frameworks?

And then determining what our goals were. And really for us, that was a lot about adding how we were gonna communicate with shareholders and what those communications plan were preparing for that. And then I think the key challenge for us, since we were basically merging with another business was what does that cultural integration look like?

And that was definitely the hardest thing. And the thing that, we struggle with the most, both currently and after, is we were taking a more traditional business that had been on the public markets for a while, and that was kind of lack of a better term, kind like an MBA, you know, feeling to it.

And then we had more of a young kind of upstart startup you know, approach. And it's just how do you combine those culturally and succeed. And then the other thing that was interesting was just trying to really work through market conditions. I joke a lot as people as I talk about this because we ended up, we went public last July not this July, and then everyone was basically locked up until this July.

And obviously, the market has taken quite the tumble over those months and so you can't really predict anything that's gonna happen at a macro level and how that impacts how people look at now, their potential liquidity or the value of their company or what they're gonna be able to do with that public vehicle.

And so for a lot of it, us, it was just spending a lot of time in planning things that were not what we had focused on in the original business, which was you know, EBITDA and how do we continue to pull off our growth?

[00:12:41] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so I'm wondering, it sounds like quite the journey that you went through, and by the way, you're in a really interesting space. We saw that space explode and that's probably a whole other episode of what's gone in there, the growth, the retraction, where things are today. But I'm wondering from a cultural perspective, from a business side, so after you're now on a public market and you have your team going through all of that, did things change in the company in terms of how people viewed the company, you know, their mindset, anything else like that?

[00:13:07] Oren Schauble: Yeah, completely. I think well just, especially as we were doing a kind of deal where we did initial merger and then we were doing a roll-up, so we were incorporating lots of other companies. So really it was just the culture was changing so fast cuz culture is defined not by what you wanted to be, but by what it actually is by the actual people and the engagement in there.

And so bringing all those together, especially fast and especially disparate in parts of like we were in different parts of California and different states in the US, it's a huge challenge when you're going really fast. I think that was the biggest change for everyone is no matter what company culture you came from, it was different than what you were there before.

[00:13:38] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so looking back now, so for a business owner who's thinking of going down the same path that you went down, what really worked well for you, Oren as you were preparing and you're going through all these rollups and adding different companies and then doing a reverse IPO, all those kinds of things.

So what worked well that you could share with us?

[00:13:55] Oren Schauble: So shareholder communication, I think was the biggest one we took to, we did a lot of that in more modern methods. We were doing like Twitter spaces regularly and like after investment announcements. We were putting kind of videos out on YouTube. We were really engaging with the community there, emailing out a lot of kind of announcements.

We had different personalities engaging at different levels there. And I think that we got a lot of appreciation for that level of shareholder communication, whether things were good or bad. And I would highly recommend taking that seriously and using all of those modern tools. And then on the other side, as I look back at it, one of the things that I think would be, I would take or do differently is really being maniacal about maintaining that culture.

Even at the expense of you're doing more, when you do integration, you're doing more cuts, or you have good personalities or people that are effective, but they just don't fit in with that new company culture. I think I'd be much more obsessive about that rather than trying to make everybody happy.

[00:14:42] Jeffrey Feldberg: Interesting. And you know what, as you're going through that, you're really leveraging building a brand, building a product. You know, you're having different kinds of communication. You're using the different mediums that are there just to reach as many people as possible. And we'll get to that.

But one other question, I mean, nothing's ever perfect. Hindsight's always 2020. So as you look back at that experience, you shared what worked well and you said, hey, communication really made a difference. And we went on different social media and we just kept everyone up to speed with what was going on and all the details that went with that.

What would you have changed? What didn't perhaps work as well that you thought would've been, and you do differently or even not at all?

[00:15:16] Oren Schauble: And so I think that a lot of it comes down, again, what I just mentioned, where it's okay, like the people and personalities that are bringing in. I really think you have to find a framework to quickly decide what fits and then not spend a lot of time, especially if you're trying to grow rapidly or really achieve certain numbers for the street.

 I think you have to make those hard decisions really fast of like, hey, you know what these people aren't right, or this thing isn't a cultural fit. And cut that out and really focus on people that are aligned on the vision, which gets harder and harder as you grow.

But I think that if like making those hard decisions faster is by far the biggest thing I would change, looking back.

[00:15:47] Jeffrey Feldberg: Interesting. And so for our listeners, here you are, you're getting some strategies from the trenches and something for you to take back with you. So let's talk about this in terms of branding now and building a brand and getting a company out there, that's certainly one of your wheelhouses. So, Oren let's go on the flip side because you know what is.

Founders, entrepreneurs, business owners, the glass is always half full for us, and nothing's ever wrong. Everything's always terrific. But let's look at the other side, as hard as that is for us to do. When you're working with different companies, from your own experience, from clients, from what you're seeing out there in the marketplace, where do most businesses get it wrong when it comes to their brand and building the right kind of brand?

[00:16:27] Oren Schauble: Yeah. And so I think a handful of things I've really looked at now is that the playbook is changing so quickly in terms of how things work today. And I think some of the things that I'm always trying to reiterate is establishing personalities for a brand, I think is extremely crucial right now.

Making sure that the founders are out there or representatives are out there I think is huge, is something that people will rather hide behind their faceless corporate brand. Whereas now, especially with social media, you have to establish some of those personalities. And then the other is, is basically getting upset about issues like people copying your product or, things in the market, like not going as you expected, as opposed to like really continually pushing to be ahead of the curve.

I have a lot of conversations with people that are like, Well, someone's just gonna copy this, or someone just did copy them and they're coming in the market, or a major brand. Amazon took their product and made a version of it. And if you're not, if your attitude towards that is, well, what do I do now?

How do we survive that? versus how do we innovate something better or continue to put out things that are gonna, be ahead of the curve and just know that those challenges are gonna come, and that's almost a mindset issue, but I think that's how you have to look at things now, because how easy things are to be replicated and duplicated.

[00:17:28] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so for the business owners out there that are saying, you know what? The social media thing wasn't around when I started. Don't really know what to do. Not really much of a media kind of personality seems awkward or just outright weird for me to do that. How can they change their mindset from that kind of thinking to the right kind of thinking?

[00:17:44] Oren Schauble: Well, I think one thing that I encourage a lot is that if you aren't the kind of personality that's gonna become a content creator or wants to put your face out there, now, I'd recommend hiring one people, one person, or maybe two that are. So I see a lot of brands that actually hire full-time creators now, especially for TikTok, where they'll say, Okay, this person now is the, they're the face of the brand to this new social media, and it takes a long time to potentially find the right person for that. But if you have someone that you feel can articulate the vision, that can share those things on social is, is okay, Just bring a person in to do that and recognize the value of that as a job and then incorporate that across everything.

So for a good example, say you have a CPG beverage brand on TikTok and you hire a creator to, you know, they're, making videos every day, telling the story of the brand, going through features, going on live and engaging with consumers, and answering questions. Once you have that, you know that story being told on that medium, think about how you can then bring that through the rest of your brand.

So can you have that person's content live on the website as blogs? Can you have emails come from that person or highlight that person's content in those same emails? How can you establish these personalities to help represent the brand? And I think some business owners are always worried that those people may become powerful in a certain way or what if they leave?

And that's where I encourage, there can be multiple creators or multiple people in the business that are telling that story. And to treat your brand less, like this thing that's cemented and more like a narrative that happens over time. More like a story that's being told where there's charact. Where there's plot lines, where there's, there's good guys and bad guys, or there's kinda these major attraction events.

If you look at your brand like a story and these people are playing a part in it and that you don't have to necessarily be a part of it. You can hire people that do. That's a framework that I think is gonna be successful for modern brands.

[00:19:17] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Oren, you're taking a page right out of our book and you're spot on with everything that you're saying. In our nine-step roadmap, one of the questions that we ask is, does your business run without you? And for most business owners, the answers no. But with what you're saying here is, hey, get a I'll call that an ambassador for the brand, maybe multiple ambassadors who are sharing your story, getting things out there is no longer revolving around you, whether you're there or not there to the rest of the world, it's invisible and life goes on. So where would one start to find someone to represent the brand or find multiple people to represent the brand?

[00:19:47] Oren Schauble: There's a service here in, in LA called Creator X. It's run by kind of a TikTok personality named JT Barnett. And I think that's his entire proposition. I think he did it for Whoop, which I think I mentioned the company mentioned before. A ton of beverage brands where he literally will source his team sources creators to match with brands.

Like that's all they do. So I think that's a good one. If you wanna actually pay a professional to do it. They're one that I've heard really good things about. And then the other thing I consider is that those people are probably already within your framework. If you have an existing business that's running, look at your advocates, your super fans.

People that are already your customers, ask and engage with the community that you have to see what comes out of it. Because I think that, that's something I've seen a lot. When I was working more in aerospace, I worked at consumer drones and our advocates, there were people that were in our customer forums.

They became people that we ended up establishing fiscal relationships with, helping them become ambassadors for the brand, supporting their projects. And we knew them from them being big advocates inside the forums of how you used our product.

[00:20:43] Jeffrey Feldberg: Got it. I'm gonna ask a question and you're probably gonna say, well, Jeffrey, it depends on the business and what's going on and how detailed and how many interactions. But, ballpark back at the envelope for someone to have an ambassador, financial wise to bring someone on board, what would that look like in a given year, dollar-wise?

[00:20:58] Oren Schauble: So I think if you're looking at this, I like to look at this a lot from a TikTok perspective. Cause I think that's where the brands need the most help. And it's such a big channels. I think if you look at, hey, we're gonna get a halftime creator, you're probably looking somewhere between $2500 and $4,000 a month.

And if you want a full-time creator, you're probably looking more 60k a year to 90k a year. And you have to kind understand those people probably have another project or they're building their own personal brands. There's some sort of relationship, but it's basically looking at like either a marketing employee roughly.

And it's about having that understanding of the fluidity of a position like that. And then if you want someone who already has a, like a large existing audience, you're leveraging that deal probably looks different. This is actually something I've talked to a lot with brands that are more in lifestyle spaces.

Like I'm talking to a fitness brand right now where they're actually bringing on a creator to be the face of the brand and giving them equity in the brand, like they're coming on as a co-founder essentially because they're bringing with them a half a million on YouTube, a million on Instagram.

They're bringing this audience with them and they're gonna represent the brand like Holy. So sometimes it can actually end up being a much bigger deal if that person also is bringing their own audience to the table.

[00:21:52] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so what we're hearing you say is if you're not comfortable doing it or even if you're comfortable, but maybe it's not your thing, you don't have the time you can bring on someone that's all that they do. That's their focus. They're gonna help take you to the next level. They'll be your ambassador, or maybe you have several ambassadors so you're not pigeonholed into one person if they leave or something happens or they move on to a different chapter in their life.

You still have some other ambassadors out there. Powerful strategy Oren what else would you add to that in terms of what to do right now? So getting an ambassador perhaps is the right thing to do from what else you've seen with your strategies. Where are we on that?

[00:22:26] Oren Schauble: Well, just in terms of yeah, yeah. I guess in what particular vain?

[00:22:29] Jeffrey Feldberg: I have a business. It's successful. It could be more successful. I really want to take it to the next level. Want to really leverage what's out there today with perhaps social media or other channels, and looking for the most effective way of getting this done.

[00:22:44] Oren Schauble: Yeah. And so I think a couple things. These are maybe a little smaller strategies than, hey let's get a full-time creator on board. But live is another big one right now where, especially if you have a big social media platform, regularly engaging with your customers and live interaction was the that's via Twitter spaces or YouTube Live or TikTok Live or Instagram Live, but getting on there and answering consumer questions regularly and then repurposing that content. So say we were recording alive right now, I'd take my video camera feed and then turn it into more content. I've seen those become very effective for establishing kind of a rhythm with consumers and helping people convert to sale.

That's one I think is really interesting. Another is, is text message communication. So there's a service called Live Recover that I usually highly recommend to people that basically it's abandoned cart recovery through live people texting. And so I've incorporated this in a number of e-commerce shops that I work with, and the conversion rates are really high cuz you'll just find that consumers online, especially with the DTC brands, they have a bunch of questions you might answer on your website, but they just haven't taken the time to look at, but can get handled in a one to one communication way better than an email blast. And I think that's a trend to look at is how do you bring this more high touch, potentially unscalable method of conversion you into what you have to help to bring consumers across the finish line.

That's another one I think is really interesting. But I think the biggest thing that branch we're looking at right now is how easy R and D is and how easy the global supply chain is to access, especially for physical products, just because of what Alibaba's opened up to the world. And there's other services like Pietra that people that have been able to say, hey, there's all these factories around the globe that are the best at producing the thing they produce.

Now, it's become easier than ever to find and work with those people. And so if you can basically create a really affordable pipeline for R and D to be testing, expanding your product lineups, adding accessories, looking at new avenues. I haven't met nearly any companies that feel are really on a monthly basis, just like continuing to, spend even just a minimal amount of money on ensuring that they're ahead of the market in R and D in the way that they could with all of this kind of, you know, global supply chain at their fingertips.

And I think that's a really interesting opportunity.

[00:24:41] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, it's just a game changer how everything is just, the world has shrunk in terms of our access really anywhere worldwide to tap into the best of the best. And on a lot of what you're sharing, it sounds like direct-to-consumer, which you referenced earlier. Does it change much when you're going business to business?

[00:24:58] Oren Schauble: Well, so I think, there's so two types of business to business. So if you're selling into retail, I think a lot of these same things are still key concepts. I think it's just working in a different way. And I think that DTC is still like people buy online still so much less than they physically buy in person.

So I do encourage like almost any brands that's consider themselves DTC to really also have a retail strategy and an Amazon strategy. But those are all relatively similar. It's how I increase content? How do I add my story into what we're presenting out into retail and into person?

How do we get staff at those retail locations behind it? And then how do we innovate and continue to release kind of products and things within that nature? So if you're selling B2B through wholesale, it's how do you tell that story? And a good answer I'd like to have is so I worked with a water brand that ended up becoming really popular on TikTok.

They had 200 million hashtags of their type of water on TikTok, but they then leveraged that in b2b. They didn't sell a ton B2C from that. People don't buy water a ton off of websites, they buy it from Amazon, they buy it from stores. But when they went to go pitch into all Whole Foods and Mother's Market and Kroger's and all those folks, their deck was basically just describing the community that they built on social media.

And how into the trend that people are, and they had something like a 95% close rate because those retailers see the same thing. They know we need to capture what people are loving and interested in online. And so if you can be a conduit of that in how you approach your B2B relationships, that can help things go a long way, but it's how do you create that actual attention in the real world?

And then how do you present that narrative to your B2B partners in a way they understand?

[00:26:24] Jeffrey Feldberg: So, Oren what I'm hearing you say, it's actually a fascinating strategy. So they built up a very large following on the consumer side. Didn't necessarily translate into a lot of revenue going on, but when they went to the actual buyers, this is more on the trade side now, and they say, hey, look at our community.

Look at the gazillion fans that we have on this platform, on that platform. This is our tribe, this is our community. Imagine now when we say our product is in your store or this store, what that's gonna do and so it sounds like the retailers just jumped all over that and 95% close rate speaks for itself.

[00:26:58] Oren Schauble: Agreed. And I think that's the kind of thing we can think about now is how do we have this online narrative? How do you position that if you're going B2B in a way that folks can understand and I think alot of it is presenting those content and concepts carefully and explaining to people what it means along the way.

[00:27:13] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so this is a terrific segue or into what you've been doing recently with Product World, and we'll have this in the show notes, product world, all one word dot xyz. That's the domain. Love that. So what have you been up to with product world? What's this all about?

[00:27:26] Oren Schauble: So, I basically have a website called Product World and Newsletter called Product People where I'm really. I guess there's a macro level opportunity to take a step back where all these brands that we grew up with, all these major brand houses, it used to take so much requirement to start your own brand.

And also even the things we mentioned before, the accessibility of the global supply chain, how the world has shrunk now, it's not only can any entrepreneur access the same manufacturers at Nabisco or Sears or anyone used, decades ago, but also like the pricing has come down as well, and order quantities are lower and you can be more competitive and there's differentiation you can have by having a brand that appeals to local or appears to a certain niche or view, you know, the cosmetics brand to a specific skin tone.

There's all of these kind of really niche opportunities that consumers are looking for as they look to products that are like they feel are made for them. And so I think that there's the opportunity, just this giant market share of all these companies we grew up with for like entrepreneurs to chip away and make really viable, million dollars a year, $5 million a year businesses by just focusing on a niche and activating on that supply chain and taking that market share from these big conglomerates that we grew up with.

And so as I saw that opportunity and see so many people with these smaller brands succeeding, I just wanted to put out as many enablement tools as possible. So a lot of what I put out there in the newsletter and on the website is factory links to people that I've worked with or have found that I think entrepreneurs could do a good job with.

And then frameworks for things like, how do you ideate about a differentiated product? How do you find the lo a niche? How do you make a business that's localized? How do you combine services and products? Really just exploring those concepts and trying to provide playbooks and toolkits for entrepreneurs to succeed.

 And it's been exciting for me because it helps me with my creative process and the projects I work on. It's brought in a lot of interesting clients, but it's also, it's all free and it's just enabling a lot of entrepreneurs to start interesting businesses and take a hold of their own destiny.

[00:29:10] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so it's interesting, Oren I think one of the themes that I'm hearing from you as we're talking today and we get to know each other, you really have a sense of timing, whether you plant it that way or not, it doesn't really matter because you've been at the right place at the right time. Just as things start coming on board, you've been there and you've leverage that.

So when you launch product world, and you now have product people, the newsletter, what are you seeing that's coming down the road that we're not seeing just yet? So if we were to fast forward a year, two years, three years from now what's changing right now?

[00:29:39] Oren Schauble: So I do think the things I'm seeing that are most interesting are just how people have content placed into their brands, I think is huge. I went to a store near where I live in Orange County called Jack Henry the other day, where they basically, they're a men's skincare brand, but they also operate a barbershop and they've created this in real life times DTC experience.

But they're creating content in there every day throughout this kind of experience that they've had. And they're telling their narrative in on social media in a really interesting way. I think that's something that kind of all companies are gonna have to consider. But the other thing that, I don't know if it's as different a year from now as it is today, but just the niche down of everything where it's like any product that you buy, if there is an opportunity to make something that's more hyper-specific to me and say, hey, I'm making this exact thing that's perfect for, 35 to 40 year old males that live in Orange County to do the specific thing is that there are these trends of how, just how specific you can get with a consumer and consumers begin to understand that and want those things that are representative to them, I think is a really interesting opportunity.

It's only gonna continue and things are only gonna get more and more specific.

[00:30:38] Jeffrey Feldberg: So it sounds like we're at a market inflection point. Things are changing. The more specific, the more focused you are. Maybe you're small today, but it'll be big tomorrow. And so the takeaway, as I'm hearing you talk through this, for the traditional businesses that are trying to be everything to everybody, or they've just done it the same way, year in, year out, and it works, and why do we need to change and let's just keep on doing what we're doing.

It sounds like those days are numbered. What do you think?

[00:31:01] Oren Schauble: Yeah, I think that's gonna get eaten away by these more niche specific, more nimbler businesses. But there's another kind of, actually, there's another macro level trend I think is really interesting that I think probably the listeners will find interesting. And that's this idea that businesses are really easy to acquire online now in a way that didn't exist before.

There's tons of websites out there where you can buy and sell small businesses, and that could be something as small as a website and a blog all the way up to tens of millions of dollars in services business, a lot of those transactions are happening online or listed online. And I think that combined with this idea that the baby boomer generation who are, rapidly retiring, et cetera, are all the businesses that they own are either going to get sold or passed on to their families who are in a different generation. And so I think we're gonna see this massive shift in how people can acquire businesses, how businesses are gonna change hands. And I think there's an interesting opportunity for a lot of entrepreneurs to do, almost what we did with our public company where kind of roll up.

A handful of different businesses and brands into a new concept. So I think that these brands you mentioned that may be stuck in their ways, they're gonna have the opportunity to say, All right, we're gonna purchase a couple content websites. We're gonna purchase a few e-commerce brands who are nimble or and better at R and D.

We're gonna vertically integrate with a manufacturer that's for sale or with a couple services businesses that are gonna be showcases for our product that's gonna be easier and cheaper than ever, and happening really rapidly. I think that's a really interesting opportunity for entrepreneurs. At different points in the chain to either execute those roll-ups, build businesses to get acquired in that, or build tools to help people buy and integrate those businesses.

[00:32:29] Jeffrey Feldberg: As you're talking through this, what I'm really hearing is content. And then some more content, and then some more content. Content is king in terms of building that relationship with your customers, growing your tribe, growing your community, keeping people up to date with what you're doing, and you've just shared that, hey, if you're not so great at it, you don't have to spend a fortune.

You don't have to break the bank.There's all kinds of opportunities where you can buy a terrific content creator in a particular area, add that to your mix, and then over time, a little here, a little there. You keep on adding and before you know it, you're really communicating in the right way to your customers.

And it sounds like a lot has changed, whether it's business of business or going directly to consumers. And I'm wondering, Oren from your point in the world your take on this, how much do the pandemic either change completely or accelerate some of the trends that we're seeing?

[00:33:19] Oren Schauble: Well, I think it accelerated, obviously more people are spending more time online, so, and they're consuming more content. They're, you're looking to build businesses that are more online. They're understanding that they can work remotely. But I do think that it was almost like a fake out. Like people assumed, hey, we're only gonna lead to more online sales. DTC is gonna grow. And in reality, as soon as people could go back into the world, they did. And so I do think that it hasn't, some of, I think a lot of people believe that it was gonna become a more dispersed, remote, online-focused world. I don't think that's necessarily the case.

Maybe slightly so as it comes back around, I think we're gonna end up closer to where we were before the pandemic than where we were after. But what I did think has happened is I think it just helped a lot of people got to spend time for a year or two. Engaging with the internet in a different way and more.

And there's a lot of kind of businesses that were born outta that, that are taking advantage of some interesting opportunities.

[00:34:07] Jeffrey Feldberg: And speaking of opportunities, you're a fellow podcast host and you have the Builders Build Podcast. And so why don't you share with our audience or what's going on with Builders Build, what's the focus there of what you're doing and why should our listeners subscribe to you and hear what you've gotta say?

[00:34:21] Oren Schauble: Yeah, so for sure. So I think there's three of us on this podcast and we really focus on entrepreneurs that are building kind of new online businesses. And so, there's, myself and I talk a lot about how you can build physical products online. And then James, one of the other hosts, his specialty is in growing, buying, and selling websites like we talked about, like niche content websites and e-commerce sites. And so he talks a lot about that and how you can take an existing business, create an online component to it, how you buy and sell a small business, and or how you buy one and grow it.

And then Colin, who's kind a more technically savvy of the three of us who talks a lot about programmatic SEO and some of the more like, how do you build engineering and SAS business? We really just like to focus on, how do we put out as much enabling things or talk through the interesting concepts around creating businesses, you know, in this day and age.

Yeah, and just do that in a fun and informal way. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs listen to it, gain value in all those different concepts coming together and how they interact and how those different opinions reflect around, different business items.

And so if anyone does or is interested in that podcast, a lot of what we did a whole season of how to guides. So it's like how to buy a business online, how to grow your eCommerce store, how to source a physical product. And we've had a lot of evergreen success with those is like little guide for entrepreneurs to be able to take advantage of.

[00:35:27] Jeffrey Feldberg: Love that. And so for our listeners, really, we've been covering a whole lot of different things here. And you may be saying, what's the method to the madness, but as Oren is so eloquently sharing with us, it's all about communication, all about content, all about getting your brand out there and whether it's Oren through your podcast Builders Build or through the newsletter, or when you're working directly with different companies or agencies, really turning the dial, making things go to the next level.

It's all going back to what's your narrative, what's your story? How are you different than everyone else? And why should I be doing business with you? And it just seems like it's changing, not by the day, but almost by minute to minute things keep on changing and just expanding.

[00:36:08] Oren Schauble: Yeah, once you have that aha moment about creating content whether it's personally or for your brand. Like I started this pod people newsletter maybe four or five months ago. We've got about 5,000 subscribers now, and I was looking to the list of who's on there and I started to realize like it's venture capitalists, it's agency owners, it's brand owners, and it's a lot of interested entrepreneurs.

But I started to realize, like the aha moment for me was okay, I never have to think about where I'm gonna find my next client or my next project or an interesting connection. Or if I need, if one of the projects I am working on needs a specific, they need venture capital or they need this manufacturer, or they need this software connection, that's all now living within this community that I'm building through content.

And I'm sure you experienced the same thing in kind of building a podcast like this and the community that you've built and just knowing that is I think a superpower for a certain type of entrepreneur.

[00:36:51] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. Well said. Oren before we go into the wrap up of this, I'd be remiss I didn't ask you. We've covered a lot of different areas, but I may not have asked all the right questions. So, you know, knowing what, you know, what should our listeners coming outta this episode what should they be hearing from you that perhaps we haven't covered?

What's really near and dear to your heart?

[00:37:10] Oren Schauble: Well, I think we've touched on a lot of the concepts, but I think as we've mentioned, like one is it's easier than ever to create a physical product and I think there's a lot of opportunities to do that in a niche and have a successful business. Two, buying and selling, businesses online is easier than ever.

And it's not just a tool to actually own a business, but also to grow your existing one by adding on a website or an eCommerce partner or whatever it is. And then the third is that yeah. Telling, like you mentioned, telling that narrative and creating content, and especially leaning into TikTok, I think a lot of people say, Oh, it's for the younger generation, or I can't sell B2B software on there, or whatever it is. You definitely can. This huge chunk of the world is on there. Content travels faster than ever. It's super effective. I would highly encourage people to learn about the platform and whether it's themselves or an employee to actually start creating on it. But yeah, we've really covered a lot of the key topics I think are important for entrepreneurs here.

[00:37:54] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well from the master itself. I'll take that. Done, sold, and delivered. Love that. So, Oren as we begin to wrap up, truthfully, you and I could just go on the health side and the biohacking to the business side and the content hacking, all those other things that we can just go on and on. But at last, we're at the point here where we need to start wrapping up.

And so let's do a really fun thought experiment. And I have the privilege of asking every single guest on the podcast this one particular question, but let me set it up for you. So think of the movie Back to the Future, and in the movie, you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.

So, Oren here's where the fun begins. It's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. And boom, there it is. The DeLorean car is not only sitting there, but the door is open and is waiting for you to hop on in and you can go to any point in your life. So maybe it is, or as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be.

What are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom or hey, or in do this but don't do that. What would that sound like?

[00:38:56] Oren Schauble: You know, actually, so I would definitely go back to probably when I was in middle school or high school, and really be talking to myself about a lot of it's, I think message of most people need to hear, but just like in believing in yourself and where you're going and taking the time to think you know about you and what's best for you versus what's best for others, and, and really just believing in, I feel like maybe it's just me, but I've always felt like I know what the right thing is.

I know what the next thing is gonna be coming in business or in my life. I've always had some of those premonitions, or at least ideas I think are right and they've come true a lot of the time. I think if I've leaned into them harder then things would've gone, even faster or more interesting than they already have.

And I don't look back and have any regrets around any of that. But I do think if I'd known that and leaned into it further, that would've been good. I think anytime, if you're someone who, if you think you're, that you're a smart person, you feel like you've had a significant amount of good ideas in your life, every time you have another one, lean into it as hard as you can.

And so I'd definitely be telling myself that, but I think that's a lesson a lot of people could take from.

[00:39:47] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. You know, as you're talking about that, what's really going through my mind, and particularly through this episode, and again, getting to know you, you know, Oren I feel that your superpower is really seeing things that aren't here yet. Just like you said in terms of the trends and what's there.

And for our listeners, here's one actionable takeaway you can do right now coming outta this episode and that. Oren said, hey, my superpower is seeing things before they happen. I can sense these trends and I wanna jump on that. I wanna lean into them a little bit more. And so for our listeners, what's your superpower?

Stop. Think about that. And then take that to the world. Leverage that, know what that is. Play to your strengths, not to your weaknesses. And together, you know, is entrepreneurs, founders, startup people will make the world a better place. I know it sounds a little corny, I really do believe that or we can take our superpower to the world, and Oren I'm gonna put this in the show notes for our listeners if they'd like to get in touch with you.

Where's the best place online that they can do this?

[00:40:40] Oren Schauble: Yeah, so Twitter or TikTok @orenmeetsworld I'm super active on both of those platforms. I answer all my kinds of messages and dms and so feel free to reach out there and yeah, it's the easiest way.

[00:40:48] Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. Well, Oren it's been an absolute delight. We're talking all things, health, business, trends, communication, everything else in between. It's been a blast, and as we wrap up this episode, as always, please stay healthy and safe.

[00:41:01] Oren Schauble: All right. Same. Appreciate having me on and it was really a fun time.

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[00:43:34] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

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