Fredi Update: How We Reached $250K In Sales In The Last 12 Months
This is a follow up story for Fredi. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 4 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Fredi is a wellness brand whose motto is “success at work starts with wellness”. We started Fredi after our Founder, Mitch’s experience on Wall Street, where he overworked himself to the point where he thought he needed to call an ambulance for himself after pulling a ridiculous amount of all-nighters (16 in 6 weeks). This experience made him realize he needed to start taking his health seriously, which sent him down a path of experimenting with a handful of wellness practices from meditation, to diet, to fitness. One of the products Mitch discovered during this journey was nootropics - supplements designed to boost cognitive function, especially things like focus, memory, and mood.
Mitch found these products to be so effective and yet, no one around him had heard of them. After reaping the professional benefits of his new wellness practice, he decided he wanted to start a company around the concept and thought that an all-natural nootropic supplement would be the perfect product to enter the market with. This is when Fredi was born.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
We began selling our first product, Focused by Fredi, in April of 2020. It was a very scary period being the beginning of COVID, and we were delayed a few times by Amazon (our fulfillment partner) in simply getting our product to their warehouses in order for them to prioritize essential goods.
Since then, we’ve had some major success with influencer marketing on TikTok and Instagram. Our product, which enhances cognitive function (namely focus, mood and memory), is something that’s of major interest to people who either have ADHD or experience the symptoms of it (which I believe we all do). Several of our customers have taken to TikTok and Instagram organically to speak about their experience with our product and how much it’s helped them.
One of these TikTok testimonials back in December actually resulted in us selling over 2500 units in about 2 weeks, resulting in about $125k in revenue and sending us out of stock. The video only received about 450k views, which shows how engaged the TikTok community is.
When we went out of stock, we, unfortunately, faced some manufacturer capacity issues and were forced to scramble to find a new manufacturer. This resulted in a 3-month out of the stock period that killed the momentum we had built. The only thing that helped us retain some of those customers was a 20% pre-order discount on our website - which was helpful in allowing us to hit the ground running one back in stock (we sent out about 500 pre-orders the second we were back in stock). The unfortunate thing about Amazon, however, is that when you’re out of stock, your product is simply delisted from the platform - which means we were unable to direct any Amazon customers toward our website or even just let them know we were out of stock… we simply just disappeared.
Now that we’ve been back in stock, we’ve had a few more mini-viral hits that have helped us slowly build our momentum back. When we finally were back in stock at the end of March, we only had about 35 monthly subscribers to our product (we offer a 15% discount and free shipping for subscriptions) and now, by mid July, we have over 130.
We’re now back up to doing about $25k a month in revenue and have done well over $250k in sales in the last 12 months.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
Going viral is full of pros and cons. Don’t get me wrong - it’s a problem you want. Free awareness is the name of the game, especially after the new IOS update where paid ads are significantly less effective. When we went viral and then went out of stock, we lost all of that momentum we had been blessed with. I estimate we would have an additional 100-200 subscribers had we still had product to sell. An extra $5k-$10k in recurring revenue is truly game changing for a young business and something we’d obviously wish we didn’t have to forfeit.
Additionally, something I’ve found very interesting is the difference in ACTUAL INFLUENCE among influencers. Some influencers have many followers and even good engagement… but their ability to drive traffic and conversions may be next to nothing. Other influencers may have way fewer followers, but usually, still good engagement and their ability to drive traffic and conversions is incredible. It’s a crazy game that takes a lot of experimenting and frankly, a lot of wasted marketing dollars. It’s not easy to drive real ROI in this category - despite what you may have read about.
Find people through your network who can help you.
Lastly, another lesson learned is that the heyday of digital marketing is over. People are tired of ads, and now the IOS update has restricted the data Facebook and other platforms have access to, you can’t even find the people who aren’t tired of those ads. The only way to solve this is by having incredibly creative and eye-catching ads - and even then it’s going to be tough to drive ROI.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
We plan on onboarding some very strategic team members that can help drive awareness and build brand partnerships. We hope that this will get us to $1m in revenue and $5m in revenue the following year. We want to get very aggressive with building our team out with strategic people, who resonate with our brand message - even if it means giving up some equity.
Have you read any good books in the last year?
WiNNING by Tim Grover was a great read. It’s a great reminder that we should only expect to receive outsized gains through outsized effort and hustle.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Get scrappy. Network. Find people through your network who can help you.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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