May 4, 2020 • 47 mins
FYI!!! Carla Marie is no longer the host of a morning show in Seattle but she is still supporting small businesses in every way possible. She’s even started her own small business with her radio cohost and best friend, Anthony. All of the links below will help you stay up to date!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Side Hustler's podcast. I'm your host from
my heart radio, Carla Marie. I host the Carla Maurie
and Anthony Show on one on six point one Kiss
FM in Seattle, and this podcast is essentially my own
side hustle. Each episode we highlight someone knew who was
following a passion outside of their day job. And Leslie
is this week's guest, and she's got quite the story.
(00:23):
You may know her. She was on an episode of
Shark Tank with her invention good hang Ups, and I'll
let Leslie explain with good hang ups are in a
better way, but my way of explaining it is through
these tiny little magnetic things that help you hang posters
and wal art without damaging your wall. She's also the
creator of the board game Taco Verse Burrito, which you
(00:44):
created with her son, and she's got a new project
in the works, a game called Bold Maid. This is
Leslie's story for a lot of people. You know, why
are you? What? Do you know? What you want to do?
And this is something you want to do. I'm a hustle,
hut do it. I'm a hustles do it. I'm a hustle.
(01:07):
H Come on, ask about me. Yo yo. It's the
side hustless podcast we call The Little Route. I never
started with a quote, but I'm gonna start with a quote,
and it's trust your crazy idea and hustle to make
it happen. And Leslie, that is your quote. So I
watched the part of your episode from Shark Tank, which
(01:28):
we'll get into, and that's what you ended with, and
I loved it because that's kind of been the theme
of this entire podcast, you know, trust your crazy idea
and hustle to make it happen. And when you said it,
I was like, oh, that is gold and I love it. So,
first of all, thank you for being here today. Yeah,
thank you for having me and Funny. We just found
out that we're actually blocks away from each other, but
because of social distancing, we are now face timing to
(01:50):
record this podcast, which is wild. I think you're my
first guest who has been on Shark Tank, and obviously
you've done so much more. But that is so cool
to me. And you created good hang ups, which I love,
so let's talk about that. Where did the idea for
good hang ups come from? Well, that came from my
son because he was bringing home tons of art. So
(02:14):
he was about four when I came up with it,
and he was in preschool. So you know, they get
to preschool, they make a bunch of art, they bring
it home every day. Your fridge is fully covered and
it's not great art. You're not going to frame it.
You know, some are great, you keep them, but most
of them it's just you want to show your support,
you love them. I just wanted a better way to
(02:36):
hang it up and be able to change it out.
So like you couldn't really tape it up because it's
all often that artwork at that age is on that cardstock.
So I was like, oh, I wish I could hang
it and then change it. The fridge works, but there's
no no space on the fridge. There's very little space
to put stuff up. So I was like, there's gotta
be a better way to do this. And so you know,
(02:58):
I went and I tried all the things that were
out there for temporary but they were all individual used.
You couldn't reuse them. And so I was like, well,
I had a business going at the time. We were
making decals and things for tops at the time, and
so I knew a bit about adhesive and I knew
how tricky it was to make adhesive work to where
(03:19):
you could reuse it. And then I had been kind
of into magnets when I was younger. I just like magnets.
They're so crazy how they worked. So yeah, so that
was kind of how it started. And then it was
this idea that just kept coming up and coming up
over and over and over again, and then I just
finally decided, Okay, I better do something with that. So
(03:39):
the idea of good hang ups is that it's a
decal on your wall that you can take off without
damaging your wall, but that part is also magnetic, so
you can put little magnets on whatever you're hanging. And
it seemed like I wish I could go back to
college and use this so I didn't have to use
that blue sticky putty. And for me, I moved into
my house a few months ago, and I love National Parks,
(04:02):
and those National parks beautiful that lantern press makes I
wanted to put on my wall. But as I visit
National Parks, I'm like, well, how am I going to
keep rearranging them? And I'm like, oh, good, hang ups
will be perfect for my wall. So it is pretty
genius that you invented this and this all while at
the time you did have a full time job while
(04:22):
you were doing this. Yeah, but I was independently working
for myself, so it was I had a I had
a business that was doing that. But you know, when
you own your own business, you can be kind of
flexible on where you put your time and energy. So
so yeah, it was definitely a side thing, not not
the regular thing we were doing, so for sure. Yeah, okay,
so how did you get good hang ups to shark tank?
(04:43):
How does that happen? Because it can't be easy. Yeah,
it was an interesting one. So because I had had
a product line before. The product line that I'd had
before that was for laptop skins and decous for cell
phones and things like that. That product had launched in
two thousand and five. And when I know, early internet
(05:04):
and back then you could make something and there wasn't
much to buy on the internet, so people bought it right,
and it grew real organically for like five years. It
was great, and then at five years in a lot
of people started doing the same thing. They did it
better than me, had cooler design, I know, and right
at that time, I just had my son, and so
(05:26):
I was like a little distracted and so a little
bit and so I kind of took my foot off
the gas and then the business just kind of slowly
went down, like as you know, it went up pretty quickly,
and then it kind of came down at the slow pace.
It was kind of dying a slow depth because I
just didn't have the passion for it anymore. I'm a
I'm a very like do something. I have about five
(05:48):
years I can ever give to any one thing. And
then I got to move on to something else because
it's just not since about my dating life also so
well dead I like it. Yeah, I've always been kind
of thinking in terms of that. So then as it
kind of kept going down and down and down, and
I was about to close down that business, I still
had this idea for good hang ups and I was like, okay,
(06:10):
I'm just gonna do it. Okay, But the decal company
that you had wasn't just that was a side hustle originally. Correct,
absolutely absolutely. So I was a consultant before I used
to be an I T and tech stuff, and I
was just burnout. I wasn't the best because I worked
well in a company, but I would overwork. I would
work like two people's worth of work, and then I
(06:32):
would get bored when I should coast, and then I'd
move on to another job. So I thought I should
do something on my own, but I didn't want to
do text stuff. And then I was a consultant for
a while, and so I had a lot of flexibility
with my schedule. So I was not in house, so
I was always external, and so I could have a
project for a period of time and then I have
a little downtime that have project for a little time.
(06:54):
So I started Stickers during that time when I was like, well,
I should figure out something else to do. And I
feel like I was always the most fortunate person because
as Sticker started to do well, I never had to
make the decision to leave because right at the time
it started to do well enough to pay me a
full time job work, the consulting firm I worked for
(07:16):
started to implode on itself, like it just didn't do well,
like like there was some internal bickering or something, and
they decided to close up shop. I was like, I'm
gonna feel for people making that leap decision, and people
will ask me like, how did you decide to make
the leap. I was like life has decided for me
like well, and I also love that timing. If anyone
(07:38):
is listening to this as it posts during quarantine and
social distancing you mentioned, you know, during your downtime working
from home, you were able to come up with these
ideas and it's you know what, you've everyone got that
right now? Why not? Totally and aside husse, it was
the perfect way to do that you start. It also
doesn't has lower impact. You can see if you really
(07:58):
love it. You can have hundred side hustles, but only
go forward with one or always keep it as a
side hustle. I mean, I'm pretty sure my son's business
will always be my side hustle, and that's totally great.
So part of the reason I kind of went so
strong and heavy for those first couple of years with
good hang ups was that I just didn't want to
(08:20):
do what I did before and watch it go up
and then go down because I don't have my foot
on the gas and I thought I could get a
patent for the product, so I didn't want anyone to
rip me off. Where's my other product? I couldn't get
a patentfore so I launched the product. I'm not very
good at marketing. Usually I can only do weird television.
That's the only thing I can do. But I had
somebody had suggested I do a kickstarter, and so that
(08:43):
was very nerve wracking for me because I was like,
that's very public, so everybody's going to know I failed
if this doesn't go well, like you know, oh my gosh.
And it was right around that time, like about a
few months before that, I had had this great conversation
with a girlfriend who's kids are gone to school, had
had gone to elementary school, and she was saying she
(09:03):
needed to get back to doing her artwork. And I
was like, oh, what's stopping you. She's like, you know,
fear failure. And I was like, oh my god, totally.
He's like there's something like you know, I was in
my mid forties at that time, and something happened to
be like where it was like I just got afraid.
I don't know, the fear failure became very strong because
everything was serious. I had a kid. It was like,
(09:25):
you know, you don't mess around now, I don't they
need to eat this? Yeah exactly. You know, we were
just having this whole conversation about fear failure and how
we get older and we get fearful, and she said like, well,
but then for our kids sake, we should show them
how to fail. Like we only show our kids like
the best version of ourselves, right, We're trying to act
(09:47):
like we're different humans than we are. So then when
they go out in the world and fail at something,
they're crushed like they don't know that, like like so
they don't see our failure. So I was like, well,
you know what, I'll do the kicks starter and if
I fail at it, Alex will see me fail and
it'll be fun, you know. So like I kind of
got this weird relationship with my fear of failure and
(10:10):
then trying to show my son how to fail, like
it was like, okay, well you're not doing that good.
I know, well this was funny because we because I
had that in my mind. I was like at every
little leap where I was like, oh, that's that's a
little bit too big to jump. I think what happens
in my mind is that the more you do and
if you put everything into it, it's I think that's
(10:31):
why I said, trust your crazy idea and hustle. Hustle,
hustle to make it happen, because it's a lot of hustle.
It's you know, it's not an idea, it's hustle. The
ideas are easy on some level. We all have them.
It's the determination to get them done. Yeah, it's easy
to think of things, but to make them real and
make them happen. It's there are special kind of people
(10:52):
who can do that. They're not It's not something every
everyone can do. And you know it's people won't just
take your idea and do it and give you scent
of the business like that. It doesn't work that way.
Or I would just sit back and make ideas. That's
what I would do. So the Kickstarter was kind of
the first thing. And then that went well, and I
learned so much about product and the product and who
(11:12):
was buying it and you know, oh yeah, of course
photographers will buy it. Yeah that makes sense, you know,
like different things that I learned a ton. But then
after we shipped the kickstarter out, I was like, well,
I don't know what to do now. That was great,
you know, we did like about twenty I think on
our Kickstarter, which was amazing to me, and we shipped
it out, we got kind of up and running with production,
(11:35):
and then I had to figure out how to promote it.
So I would sit around and I'm like, I would
drink a little wine and then fill out forms on
the Internet, thinking, oh, if I like send in a
form to like Target or Walmart or whoever. They often
have these forms where you can just fill them out,
and I was like, that's low impact, I can do that.
(11:56):
And then there was one for QBC, so I was
I filled that one out and I sent it in
or just hit enter or whatever, and then I got
this email back that had like Al Roker on it
and it was like, thank you for entering Today's next
big thing. I guess I had been drinking more than
I thought, because I didn't realize this was a thing
for QBC and the Today Show with this contest about
(12:19):
the next big product in the world, you know whatever.
And I was like, well, I guess I applied for
that and I didn't realize. And then I went on
to the next thing that I was, you know, drinking
and filling out forms. Like about a three weeks later,
I get this call and this one's like, so you've
been selected to be a finalist in the Today's Next
(12:39):
So we will let you know for sure if that's
the case. You know, we just have a couple other
things to think if we think you're gonna be a finalist.
If so, you need to come to New York and
present your product on national TV and then America will vote.
And you're like, oh, Like I'm like, oh no, Like,
I can't do that. I'm not a TV person. I'm not.
(13:02):
I didn't know how it worked. I thought I would
look very unprofessional because I'm kind of quirky. So I
I didn't know when I was nervous and I was
having anxiety attacks about the whole thing. But I did it,
and I was like, okay, well here's another example. I'm
gonna go do this. I'm gonna tell my son if
I bite it on television, like if I have an
anxiety attack, he will see that and I'll be fine,
(13:23):
you know, I'll go on to something else and just
not talk about this place about And it was such
a cool experience and it wasn't It wasn't pressure like
shark tank is where they're really hard bawling you like
you have to make feels and like ya, this is different. Yeah, yeah,
but so what a great preface to do this. So
I did the Today's Show thing where I made my pitch,
(13:44):
but I knew what questions they were going to ask me,
because they tell us what questions are going to ask you.
And so I was getting comfortable with the TV part
of it. You were with the contest was like you
go and you compete against three other products, and then
on the winner was back on Friday, and then then
the judges decide who wins, and whoever wins has to
(14:05):
go to QBC and sell on national teams and you
have to how terrible, right, Oh? I know? So I'm
like okay, And so I won my day, which was
insane to me. I was so on a high I was.
I was walking around like right near thirty Rock High
five and New Yorkers they're like, your hand up, they
will hand up. They might be freaked out by you,
(14:28):
but I'm like, they're like, who is this crazy lady?
So um. Then I came back on the Friday and
I just didn't expect to win because it didn't seem
like a very QBC product, And then I won, and
as part of that, I had to go the next
day over to QBC, and then when I did QBC,
we still like three hundred thousand dollars with the product
(14:50):
in six minutes. Okay, So at this point in time,
which is insane. First of all, it is totally a
QBC product because it's one of those things where you're like,
whoa cool it is? Well, I just didn't think the
audience was my target audience because I didn't know my
customer yet. I thought the customer was probably younger people
who rented and we're thinking, oh, I don't want to
(15:12):
damage my walls. I didn't picture their demographic tends to
be over fifty women, and I thought they're going to
put up proper like frames and they're not gonna want this,
and not apparently they were. They were in So at
that point, were you how is shipping working for you?
Were you shipping from home? Did you have a warehouse?
How was that? So? I had an office because I
(15:32):
had had the business before, so I was shipping from there.
But this QBC is different. You ship it to them
and they ship it out and so right after that,
so this was unusual. Usually with QBC, you order it,
they ship it out the next day. But because of
this contest. It was pre order. I had to go
then make the product after this, and I had no
(15:52):
idea how I was going to do that because it
was a lot more than I've ever done before. At
this point when when you went on the Today Show
or Kickstarter had finished, But were you selling the product
regularly or yeah, I mean we had a website, but
like if you're not marketing, it just sits there. You know,
occasionally somebody finds it, but rarely. When you said you
(16:13):
sell sold three dollars, I'm trying to look at the website.
How much did like a pack cost? Because it was
we did a sixteen pack on air and it was
that's nuts. Yeah. So yeah, So then I was like, well,
we can't make it all, like like I know how
to make them, I know how to, but this is
(16:33):
a lot more than we make and we were making everything.
So there's a group here they're not they're not doing
it anymore, which is unfortunate. But there was called Northwest Center.
You might see their trucks around. They often take people's
clothes and they have a whole number of arms to
their nonprofit. But they also had an assembly company that
employed people of all abilities. And they funneled all their
(16:54):
profits back into our area for families with kids with disability.
They were amazing and I went to them and they, yeah,
we'll do it. So they made them for Wow. I
was like, oh my god, this is great and it's
amazing people. They employed people of volubility, so it's great.
It's just like it's cool to get to work with
a company like that for sure. Yea. And they were
really patient with a new person. They weren't expecting me
(17:16):
to be professional and know what I was talking about.
I just pay. They were fine, you know whatever, we
don't care what you're saying. So then did Shark take
find you from QBC? Oh gosh no. So I had
started doing QBC pretty regularly and I was the big
us you became up at that point. So I would go, like,
(17:37):
they call me on a Monday and I have to
be on air on a Wednesday. The film they're in
near Philadelphia. So I was like flying out in the
middle of like last minute, just go do it. Come
back like I would just do it as many times
as they let me, because I would so way more
on a QBC. I mean, I never sold that the
level I sold that first time. That was insane, but
(17:59):
like still, it was way more money than I could
sell when I just told out my website, so I
had to just go for it all the time. And
I always wanted to do Shark Tank. So then when
I was hustling that whole year, I thought, well, if
I ever get a chance to do that show, I
need to show some serious sales because that's how you
do well on the show. If you have sales. Yeah,
(18:20):
if you don't have sales, you better price it really
well because otherwise they're gonna eat you alive. So um,
I actually went out to New York because they were
doing the same contest I did. They were doing it
again and that week, the weekend before I did QBC.
Then I went to New York and I did. They
(18:40):
were doing like here's our winner from last time, where
is she now? Kind of thing? So I got to
go on whatever. It was really fun, but they happened
to be doing open casting in New York City that
same week, so I was like, well, I'll just stay
an extra day and I'll go to the open casting.
I've got my stuff because I had to do g C,
so I'm ready. You know, they really just want to
(19:02):
know that you're not going to freeze up on TV.
The casting people, I feel like the casting people are
just thinking, is she going to freeze up? And like
be nervous, Well, she does TV already, we can look
at that if she's doing it. And then I got
called right away. Actually my casting agent and I have
become friends. She's no, not no longer there, but she's like, less,
(19:22):
I can't tell I'm not supposed to tell you this,
but I'll call you next week. I was like, yes,
this is good, that's amazing. So then you go through
the process, and it's a long process, like you've got
a prep You've got to do a lot of legal stuff.
You've got to do all your finances so that they
can vet you and make sure you're not lying about
what you've got. And then you have to be ready
to do it right. So you have to be able
(19:44):
to know the answers to the questions that they might ask.
You got to be ready for what you want, how
you're going to counter But you're watching a deal on
the spot for real? Or do they But you know
I've watched every episode. When I go into something, I
go hard. So right when I found out that there
was a potential that was like April, I filmed in
June flash cards of every question that was ever asked
(20:07):
on the show. I was like ready to go with those.
And then I just started practicing the negotiation. I found
this guy who did uh podcast at the time. He
doesn't do it anymore, but it was like a shark
Tink podcast, and I asked him if he would help
me practice because my friends are gonna be too friendly
and they're gonna be too nice. He won't. He doesn't
know money, like you know, So I was like, I
(20:28):
gotta be ready for all the negotiation side of it,
and he was so helpful. I mean, I was like
I was by the time I got in the room.
I was totally comfortable because I knew what they were
going to do, and I knew what they were going
to do, and I had something in my back pocket,
which was my counter offer that I did end up
using to Laurie that I knew that if if nobody
(20:51):
was that interested, I could get someone somehow because I
had so. You know, it's hard for them to say
no if you have sales, So you just have to
make him an offer, won't They can't refuse, So what
was it like? Then after Shark tanks like working with
the work her, like, what was that? But a few
films it doesn't air for a while, so you're like
in this gray area and then you have to do
(21:13):
due diligence with your shark so they don't have to
go through and you don't have to go through with
the deal. So it's it's like part of the like
because they haven't seen your finances. They don't know if
you know there's something because they don't know enough about
you to know if this is a good deal. Right,
they know from what they've heard what they want, but
they don't know a hundred and then Lori was just
(21:34):
a joy, Like she just my favorite jumped in. Yeah,
she's so good and she knows and you know, I've
been doing QBC. So then when she started doing QBC
with the product, I didn't have to go anymore because
she's amazing. She could so way more than I could
ever sell, and she was so good at it, Like
I mean her people who watch her are just loyal.
(21:56):
They want to buy what she brings them, so yeah,
she's awesome. And then there's this whole family of people
that she's also done deals with so we know each other.
It's like what happens when people are on this podcast,
they all become from way way lesser level because it's
not shark dank level. I mean, now we're up in
the game. Now you're up in the game. Connection yeaheah
(22:19):
for sure. So okay, good hang ups. Amazing, such a
cool product, genius for thinking of it. But now you
have another side hustle, and I want to talk about
all the other things you've done. So let's go with
what you and your son created. Because the crazy thing
to me that you've now put this gene into him
of I need to create and try to fail, but
(22:41):
not teaching him. So funny, I thought I was teaching
him how to fail, and then like I was going
to show him, and then it didn't work out that way.
And then I guess I maybe taught him that you
can do weird things, didn't matter how old you are.
I don't know why I didn't mean to teach him that.
But so one day, in like September of my son
was seven at the time. One day he just said,
(23:04):
you know, mom, I want to do a card game
called Taco Versus burrito and I want to do a
kickstarter And I'm like, okay, honey, how do you play
this game? And he's like, I don't know yet. And
I was like, well, you can just make a game
on paper. Where were your friends? Like? You don't need
to do a kickstarter. It's a lot of work. Do
(23:25):
you remember how much work mom did? And he's like, well,
what do I have to do? And I was like,
I thought it was just going to be an exercise
of like, let's go through all the things you have
to do to make a game, then all the things
you have to do to do a kickstarter. And he
was really engaged and I thought, oh, well, this is
so nice. We're talking about what it takes to make
something happen. It was a great conversation and I really
(23:49):
thought that's the end of it. He's going to go,
but it didn't seem to go. And we had a
we had a dog that we would walk to this
coffee shop. I would always go get coffee. Alex would
go with me every coffee. Oh, Bambino on right, and
we talk along the way and then we would have
coffee and usually sit there. And we were big card
(24:11):
game fans, like we play a lot of games. So
when we would take trips, we would bring a game
for each day, and we'd learn a new game and
then we would like, you know, we were always playing games,
so it wasn't unusual for us to think about, oh,
I like this part of this game. I don't like
this part of this game. We're like, you know that
kind of thing. He started thinking about how the game
(24:32):
could work. We just would mark mark it up on paper,
and then we would walk our dog to the coffee
shop get coffee, and then we would go and sit
and we would play one game of a game we
already had, and then we would play the latest version
of Talko Versus Burrito, and then, you know, often it
would go terribly because we didn't know how the game
(24:53):
was going to work, or like oh, obviously you'll always
win if you have that card, like and so so
then we would walk back it was like a few
blocks away, and then he would be thinking about how
we could tweak it, like, oh, you know what we
could do, we can do this, And then we get
home and we would just mark it up on a
paper and then we would go about our day. And
then the next day we would walk so every Saturday
(25:15):
and Sunday we did this kind of routine and for
four or five months, the gave got really good. I
mean it was really fun. And this is your how
old was your son at that point? He said he's seven.
He was seven inventing a game like most kids do,
but not putting it on Kickstarter. I think because I
had done one and he'd been part of filming it
(25:36):
and stuff. I don't know that. Oh, we were backing
games on kickstarters so we would find games, so he
knew the concept. I was like, we'll go through this
as an exercise. I think the game was really fun,
but you know who's going to buy a game from
a seven year old? Well a lot of people. No.
(25:57):
I don't want to spoil it or anything, but I'm
on Walmart dot com and they're only five left right now.
It was crazy. So and and the Kickstarter was such
a fun process for him to put himself out there.
And we had this whole discussion of like, okay, so
what if it doesn't do well? You know, how are
you going to feel? Because that was I started to
worry about that, like, am I is he going to
have this before? Well? Is he going to fail and
(26:18):
then feel awful because I haven't been able to show
much of like yeah, so I just was worried about
different things. But it went really well right away, Like
I think the name was engaging enough, and then we
put him in a little taco costume and he's adorable,
so I mean, that's hilarious to watch him do it.
But it was so much fun. And then it went
(26:39):
really we wasn't he's like twenty four thou dollars, which
is insane, he being as he is, he was seven
at the time. We were like, oh my god, this
is so crazy. We ordered the inventory and then we
shipped out the kickstarter and then we thought, okay, well
we'll send the leftovers into Amazon. So we over ordered
and sent some into Amazon because I already sold the
(27:00):
Amazon's okay, like how it would work. I had no
idea Amazon and games were so big, Like it's enormous
because when you go to amazon website, like I don't
really order games from Amazon, like that's not a regular
thing I do, but that kind always pops up for me.
It's always there. It's like games, and I'm like, okay,
I had no idea that market was so big. On
(27:21):
Amazon because yeah, so he instantly sold out of what
he had there. So it's a hard game. It's a
card game. Have you guys been seeing it sell a
lot more now because everyone's a quarantine. That's the craziest part.
Like all the businesses that struggle. I know so many
people through Shark Tank who have you know a number
(27:43):
of employees they're struggling with how to make payroll all
these things. Alex doesn't need any of this, and it's
it's selling like it's Christmas time because people are stuck
at home. Right. It's a strange thing, but it's you know,
it's the thing that passes your time. You enjoy it,
like you really get that opportunity to sit and play
(28:04):
with your family, have great ground stations, and yeah, we're
such a game. We play games every weekend. I love it.
It's so the title on Walmart it says Taco Verse
Bruto the wildly popular, popular, surprisingly strategic card game created
by a seven year old. It's it's so cool. I
mean that right there, I'd be like, all right, I'm
gonna buy it. I mean the seven year old that
(28:25):
my husband wrote that because I was like, okay, I
don't know how to. Yeah, I apparently can't read, so
we're good. So if I thought the seven year old
part would ensure that only kids bought it, right, Like
I thought, No, no teenager or adults gonna buy it,
But apparently not. You sold one million dollars worth of
(28:45):
Taco Verse Bruto. It's just you don't know either. It's crazy.
I don't know, and we didn't do anything special. It's
just the beauty of the game is that you don't
play it alone. So anybody who bought it played it
with other people, and then those people would play it
with other people. Yeah. And so you don't have to
(29:07):
do the marketing problem that I have, which is I
get nervous and I don't know how to promote something.
You don't have to do anything because the people who
buy it wor about it for you because they talk
about it or they play it with other people, and
so it organically grows. It's kind of crazy. Okay, so
you have good hang ups, then you create this while
running that. Now your side hustle is technically working for
(29:30):
your son's company. Yes, I do, I work for my
Does your husband feel like I need to contribute and
create something? He did too. He works for my senis.
But I mean, is he like I got to come
up with an idea because I'm slacking in this house?
Oh no, Oh my god. He's probably more creative and
a couverer of different things. He's just not odd like we. Okay,
(29:51):
you do it in public. I love I love it.
I love it. He has no desire to like put
all this stuff out there. He'll just be the creative
one in the back. It's great, have that. Yeah, Oh god,
it's great. And he knows so much more about many,
many many things than we do, so it's great. It's
a good combo. Okay, So now there's another layer to
all of your ideas and everything happening. You have a
(30:13):
kickstarter that just completed four Bold Maid, which I love
because it's a play in the game Old Maid. But
it's got badass women that we know and love in
this game. So the kickstarted completed obviously was successful. Correct, Yeah, Okay,
how does this game work? And what are the next steps?
Because we've obviously seen your last two things through completion,
(30:35):
but now this one is kind of like, alright, what happened?
So tell me all about Bold Maid, Old Maid. I
cannot stand that game. Like, the fact that we still
play this game is ridiculous. The whole goal of Old
Maid is not to end up with the older woman
deemed too old to marry. Like, that's ridiculous. Like in
this day and age, we should know child nobody should
be playing it nor I didn't know. I didn't think
(30:57):
it was a thing that gets still played. It's played
still all the time, and it's I really feel like
it's like one of those archaic things that people don't
think about, and so they just keep playing it. And
then once you say it out loud, people are like,
oh my god, you're right, that's terrible. I forgot that's
how the game went, so you're right. In this day
(31:17):
and age, I was like that, it's ridiculous. So every
time it would get brought up or somebody would get
it out or whatever, I would go off. And my
son got tired of hearing me go on and on
about how awful Old Maid was and how he would
never be able to play it. I did let him
play it once and he was like, it's really born.
I was like, yeah, well, it was really boring. I
hate the idea of young kids, girls and boys like
(31:40):
ever having that be one of them, because it's often
was the first game people played, like as a kid,
that was your first game, Like even if you don't
think about it, it's like negative. So I he was like, well,
why don't we just flip it and make it something else?
And I was like, oh my god, Yes, we could
celebrate these amazing women. This would be great. And then
I was like, but we have to make it more
(32:01):
fun because Old Maid can. We made Bold Maid so
that it can be played like Old Maid but also
played like for for little our kids, but then also
come with a bunch of action cards and things to
make it really fun. And Alex is a master at
taking something tweaking it to where you just can't get enough.
(32:22):
Like it's like he somehow has this engine in his
head of like how to improve and and look what
you created. I'm not talking about the kid. Yeah, I
grew him. I agree myself. No, I mean it's great.
It's amazing to watch him watch him work. Because I
was worried that the gameplay would be boring. I was like,
I don't know how to make this exciting, and then like, oh,
(32:43):
got four times in and he's like, oh, you do this, this,
and this, and I was like, oh, oh this is good.
So yeah, so it's been really fun. And then launching
the kickstarter before the whole pandemic happened was meant to
be done during Women's History months, so we would sell
a rate all the first throughout the month and it
was so much fun. Nerve wracking too because the pandemic
(33:07):
stuff was starting, and then it felt weird to be
running something at the same time because it felt it
just felt strange to me. I was very happy when
it was finished, but it ended up going really great
and I met so many good people. Yeah, you have
about four thousand backers and a hundred seventy thousand dollars
pledged for this game. Oh, I know, the way bigger
(33:28):
them we've ever done before. So just a quick how
does this game work? For people who are like, wait,
I want to know more about this game, it can
be played just like Old Maid, where you're trying to
match things up. You can also play a version we
call Go Bold, which is like Go Fish but for
the adults, for people who are like over seven and
(33:48):
want something more strategic. It comes with action cards and
the goal is to kind of create three sets of women,
so three sets of artists, three sets of scientists, three
sets of world leaders, and as you're trying to do that,
their action cards that will stop you from being able
to do it or allow you to kind of change
(34:09):
cards with someone. And the goal is the first person
to get to three sets wins. Yeah, and it's one
of those action cards like your male boss is being
a dick. Yeah, we should really do these things. We've
been thinking. Somebody suggested we do a cooperative game, and
we have been thinking about doing something that's a little
more politically. One of the things we tried to do
(34:31):
is kind of stay this line of things. We wanted
the exposure to be as big as we can because
really the whole goal of doing it was just to
stop people playing Old Maid. So yes, we'd love to
have the most engaging game, but really if everyone just
stops playing Old Maid will be through absolutely. So then
(34:51):
now that you're a pro with the whole Kickstarter thing,
what happens now with this game and you have all
this money. What happens so we finish up? You know,
like some things, we had a lot of suggestions of
amazing women to include, so we're switching up some of
the people and it we that was part of our
kickstarter was to ask our backers who they think we
should include. And oh, my god, so many amazing women.
(35:12):
I've learned so much about real badass woman I've never
heard of, and I'm like, this is so fun and
it was fun to have him learning about it too.
I'm like, the likelihood of him becoming like, you know,
a jerk later on the women is low, if then something,
So it's been fun to kind of celebrate all the
(35:32):
women in the game. So we have some more artwork
to finish up and just some final things to go
onto the box, and then we kind of have it
laid out to where the month of April is just
kind of finishing a few things up. Then we get
samples in May and start into production and then product
It takes about a month to two months. We use
our same manufacture, so it's not a lot of learning curve,
(35:54):
and then come August and September we ship out. So
what are you going to make next? Uh? He working
on some other game. I was kidding, No, I mean
while he's making an update to Taco versus Burrito called
Tokyo Versus Burrito, which is inspired by our trip to Tokyo,
where he decided we'll use all the weird food that
(36:14):
we found in Tokyo and come up with like kind
of an expansion because people always want to play the
next version something, of course, and then he's got a
couple other games. I'm not sure which one he's going
to land on, but he prototypes them and takes them
to school and then plays with them with other people.
And unfortunately our dog passed away a while which he
(36:35):
was very old, so it wasn't too upsetting about that part.
It except for our routine of walking to the coffee
shop and playing it's gone, we don't do the same
thing and so because of that, it's kind of the
motivation to stay on these projects, isn't a strong sounds
like a dog. I know, we've were talking about getting
(36:57):
a good dog, but but yeah, at the same time,
I like to check in with him and see if
you know, maybe it's too much. He has nine now, yeah, yeah,
I mean, and I do you know, I mean could
be his forever job, which is crazy, you know, it's incredible.
I mean, I am very excited to see what he does.
(37:18):
I mean, he said almost ten. Now you said right,
So to see what he achieves, it's going to be
wild to watch. But do you have anyone else working
for you guys at this point? I mean you have
a lot going on. No, we just do it because
we only sell on Amazon really and things get resold
onto like Walmart and other places. But we just have
one place we sell. We don't try and make it
(37:39):
more complicated than it needs to be because we don't
have a time. So you do your own social media
and everything. Yeah, we we we do our own social media.
We do it sometimes bad about all the things that
I traditionally would do for like good hang ups, I
we do not do most of that for talking so
(38:00):
versus burrito, And it doesn't need it as much, you know,
because there's a community already growing and bries it and
plays it and talks about it and shares pictures. So
it's like, it is incredible what you guys have done.
And there is one thing I want to talk about
that really has nothing to do with so in hustling
or working. But I saw in your bio that you
lived in a teaky hut. At some point I bought
(38:24):
a hut. I bought a hut in Mexico. Is that
what you're talking about. Oh? Yeah, that was. That was
my forty birthday. Happened to be going over a weekend
that was there was a yoga retreat in Mexico. I
don't even really do yoga, but I was so desperate
to do something for myself that I was like, I'll
sign up for this. So I went and while I
(38:47):
was there, it's it's in this little sleepy village that's
like a little surfing village that's North Picabo. And the
people who were running the retreat, we're also in real
estate here in Seattle, and they would just go down
and do these retreats occasionally. And they had bought one
of these huts in this little development and I was like, well,
(39:10):
tell me more about this. So they're thirty they were
thirty five thousand dollars at the time, and I was like,
we'll just not buy a new car, like I will
go to twenty years with a car because that's a car, right,
But I can't live in my car, or at least
it's inappropriate to live in my car. When you don't
need to live in your car, it's awkward. Like so
I was like, well, I'm gonna do this. So I
(39:33):
bought it, and it felt like just such a crazy
thing to do. I thought it was going to go
terribly wrong. Like, I don't live there. I got to
design things about it because they were finishing it up.
And it's been a blast. So we rented out on
Airbnb when we're not there and uh yeah, and we
go down there, you know, a few times a year
and just spend time. And it's lovely. I know where
(39:55):
I'm saying. When I go to Mexico, now, my Palapa
is your When I saw that, I'm like, who, I'd
never like seen that written. Now before I bought a
tiki hot I'm like, what, that's really cool? Okay, So
you've been talking a lot about having not failing ever,
but I know that can't be possible. So in all
of these business ventures, were there any mistakes or failures
(40:16):
or things that are coming to your mind right now? Oh? Yeah, yeah?
From so, so, I talked about talking with my friend
about the fear of failure thing. At that moment when
I was having that conversation with her, I was stuck.
I couldn't launch anything new, you know, I had mentioned that,
you know, for the first five years of my business.
It kind of went organically up. It's great. It seemed
(40:38):
to go really well. And then when I took my
foot off the gas, all these competitors came in and
it just started to go down and down and down.
Then I had new ideas for products. I would create
the complete products and never launch it. Oh my god.
I had a whole line of language learning law graphics
for kids that I was teaching Alex unished with. So
(41:00):
they were these stickers that went on the wall and
they were interactive so you could talk, you know, have
your kids start to learn Spanish at a young age.
I had all of it done and I just couldn't
launch it. I was worried I would look like a fraud,
like I didn't speak fluent Spanish, so how could I
be the one like I had all of these things
(41:20):
that would cause me not to do it. But I
love playing with ideas. I was just hard. It was
hard for me to launch them. At least four different
products that I developed completely through that I never really launched.
If I launched them, it was in such a small way.
And then the second it didn't take off, I was like, see,
I told you, I told you so it's like I
(41:42):
wasn't gonna work. Now I'm never gonna work, and uh
so there was just a period of time for that,
those years that I was just checking myself too much
and worried about things. But yeah, no, it was that
was a crazy time. But and I mean I've had
tons of failure. I mean I've had jobs that did
go well where I was almost in the fetal position
(42:03):
and thinking I was going to get fired. Luckily never
did get fired. I feel like there were very slight
times where I might have been there. But but in general,
you know, I've gotten into the wrong thing and stayed
way too long, like with things and the Yeah, that's
the trickiest part about about things. It's like not to
let the failures stop you from doing something new or
(42:27):
letting you try a new thing or do a new thing.
And that was why I was thinking, oh my gosh,
if Alex Cann picture this failure stuff, he'll know, you know,
he'll be able to And I will say also, I
attempted to sell good hang Ups in the fall, and
they got very close with some really large companies and
it didn't work out, and I was just really bummed
(42:50):
out because I had this vision that it would go
to a much bigger brand and it would be folded
in and and it may still do someday, but at
the time I was like just really bummed out. And
so those kinds of things I share with Alex all
the time. I'm like, you know, like I you know,
everybody gets down, they have those times, and business is
(43:10):
full of tons of failure all the time. Right, you
do one thing, it doesn't go well. You just have
to keep moving on and doing another thing or another thing.
So a few weeks ago I had Cata from Successfully
on Side Hustlers, and as she was leaving, she was like, oh,
you have to talk to Leslie. She's amazing. She's created
this thing. And she was on Shark Tank. Because she
(43:31):
started telling me, I was like, okay, I mean connectus.
So here we are. So you know Kata from Successfully
how Yeah, So we were both part of f bomb,
which is a female founders group that is amazing. They
get together on the first fucking Friday every month. I
don't know if I get yea. So it's it's Seattle based,
(43:54):
it's you know. I went because they had something called
Pitches to Bitches. I was like Okay, this sounds awesome, right,
I need to come to this. How have I not
been there? It is the best thing. Now it's online
so you can you can watch it. And then because
it's the we can't get together but literally, at seven
o'clock in the morning on the first fucking Friday of
every month, about a hundred two hundred women get together
(44:17):
and share and it's not you know, it's the Megan
McNally who started it, is just one of the most
genuinely authentic people and she really kind of keeps everybody
grounded and not talking like platitudes of business and being
successful and blah blah blah, but really, what's it like?
You know, that kind of stuff. So Kita was there.
(44:39):
I had met her before, and then she had done
a podcast. I'd been on her podcast, and then it
was actually last year, about halfway through the year, we
were both at n F Bomb and I was just
not executing on all my ideas. I was like stuck.
I was feeling like I wasn't I needed someone to
kick my butt because I was just not able to exactly.
(45:04):
It's hard when you don't have a boss, because you
don't have what you want to impress. You don't. No
one knows if you didn't get your things done on time, right, Like,
I just looked over at her and I was like,
it was like it was like the day after the
fourth of July, so very few people had gone, not
very few, it was just a lot less people. And
I was like, thank goodness you're here. And I was like,
I need you. And we signed up and she's been
(45:26):
my coach every soon, meet up once a week, and
she keeps me on task and it helps me not
get too ambitious with what I say I'm going to
accomplish and then burn out, but like kind of keep
something going. So it's great. I love this. I mean,
I can listen to you talk and tell your stories
all day no, because you're you're so excitable and you're
(45:48):
so inspirational, and you really you're you've like motivated. I'm like,
what am I going to go make? What am I
going to go create? Right now? I'm gonna go do
a card game? A card game, That's what it is,
gued Hustler's Card. Oh God, don't get me listen. I
got all the I need to really work with you.
I got all the ideas that I can execute. I
love listening to you, so we need to definitely get drinks.
(46:08):
But thank you, thank you so much for being here.
Everyone needs to go check out all the things you're
doing good hang ups. I'll put all the links on
the podcast. You've got good hang ups, Bolt Made, taco Verse, Brudo, everything,
so check it all out. Support Leslie and Alex and
his career that we get to watch. Thank you very much, Leslie. Oh,
thank you for having me. It's been so much fun.
(46:29):
Thank you so much for listening to side Hustlers. I
appreciate you being here every single week. And if you
want to support anyone who has been on this podcast,
if you actually go to the description below where you're listening,
no matter where you listen to podcasts, that should be there.
There's always a link or links to the information that
everyone gives on the podcast. Anything we mentioned, whether it's
(46:49):
their website or a book that they love, a podcast
that they love, whatever, maybe all the information is always
below in the description so you can click it right there.
And if you can't support right now or at any
time with buying a product from anyone on this podcast,
that is totally fine. Feel free to follow them on Instagram,
support them on social media. I know a lot of
these business owners would appreciate that so so much, and
(47:12):
especially in the last few weeks. So if you're listening
in real time, you know we're dealing with all of
the quarantine chaos, and I've been having people who are
previous guests on the episodes of How to Help a
Small Business right Now, and they're all telling us how
they're pivoting their business. It's really inspirational. There are four
episodes you can listen to like that, so if you're
(47:33):
just finding this one, just check those again. I'm at
the Carla Marie on Instagram. Feel free to follow me,
DM me with any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions for our
future guests. I appreciate you being your every single week.
Until next week, keep hustling.
Welcome to the Side Hustler's podcast. I'm your host from
my heart radio, Carla Marie. I host the Carla Maurie
and Anthony Show on one on six point one Kiss
FM in Seattle, and this podcast is essentially my own
side hustle. Each episode we highlight someone knew who was
following a passion outside of their day job. And Leslie
is this week's guest, and she's got quite the story.
(00:23):
You may know her. She was on an episode of
Shark Tank with her invention good hang Ups, and I'll
let Leslie explain with good hang ups are in a
better way, but my way of explaining it is through
these tiny little magnetic things that help you hang posters
and wal art without damaging your wall. She's also the
creator of the board game Taco Verse Burrito, which you
(00:44):
created with her son, and she's got a new project
in the works, a game called Bold Maid. This is
Leslie's story for a lot of people. You know, why
are you? What? Do you know? What you want to do?
And this is something you want to do. I'm a hustle,
hut do it. I'm a hustles do it. I'm a hustle.
(01:07):
H Come on, ask about me. Yo yo. It's the
side hustless podcast we call The Little Route. I never
started with a quote, but I'm gonna start with a quote,
and it's trust your crazy idea and hustle to make
it happen. And Leslie, that is your quote. So I
watched the part of your episode from Shark Tank, which
(01:28):
we'll get into, and that's what you ended with, and
I loved it because that's kind of been the theme
of this entire podcast, you know, trust your crazy idea
and hustle to make it happen. And when you said it,
I was like, oh, that is gold and I love it. So,
first of all, thank you for being here today. Yeah,
thank you for having me and Funny. We just found
out that we're actually blocks away from each other, but
because of social distancing, we are now face timing to
(01:50):
record this podcast, which is wild. I think you're my
first guest who has been on Shark Tank, and obviously
you've done so much more. But that is so cool
to me. And you created good hang ups, which I love,
so let's talk about that. Where did the idea for
good hang ups come from? Well, that came from my
son because he was bringing home tons of art. So
(02:14):
he was about four when I came up with it,
and he was in preschool. So you know, they get
to preschool, they make a bunch of art, they bring
it home every day. Your fridge is fully covered and
it's not great art. You're not going to frame it.
You know, some are great, you keep them, but most
of them it's just you want to show your support,
you love them. I just wanted a better way to
(02:36):
hang it up and be able to change it out.
So like you couldn't really tape it up because it's
all often that artwork at that age is on that cardstock.
So I was like, oh, I wish I could hang
it and then change it. The fridge works, but there's
no no space on the fridge. There's very little space
to put stuff up. So I was like, there's gotta
be a better way to do this. And so you know,
(02:58):
I went and I tried all the things that were
out there for temporary but they were all individual used.
You couldn't reuse them. And so I was like, well,
I had a business going at the time. We were
making decals and things for tops at the time, and
so I knew a bit about adhesive and I knew
how tricky it was to make adhesive work to where
(03:19):
you could reuse it. And then I had been kind
of into magnets when I was younger. I just like magnets.
They're so crazy how they worked. So yeah, so that
was kind of how it started. And then it was
this idea that just kept coming up and coming up
over and over and over again, and then I just
finally decided, Okay, I better do something with that. So
(03:39):
the idea of good hang ups is that it's a
decal on your wall that you can take off without
damaging your wall, but that part is also magnetic, so
you can put little magnets on whatever you're hanging. And
it seemed like I wish I could go back to
college and use this so I didn't have to use
that blue sticky putty. And for me, I moved into
my house a few months ago, and I love National Parks,
(04:02):
and those National parks beautiful that lantern press makes I
wanted to put on my wall. But as I visit
National Parks, I'm like, well, how am I going to
keep rearranging them? And I'm like, oh, good, hang ups
will be perfect for my wall. So it is pretty
genius that you invented this and this all while at
the time you did have a full time job while
(04:22):
you were doing this. Yeah, but I was independently working
for myself, so it was I had a I had
a business that was doing that. But you know, when
you own your own business, you can be kind of
flexible on where you put your time and energy. So
so yeah, it was definitely a side thing, not not
the regular thing we were doing, so for sure. Yeah, okay,
so how did you get good hang ups to shark tank?
(04:43):
How does that happen? Because it can't be easy. Yeah,
it was an interesting one. So because I had had
a product line before. The product line that I'd had
before that was for laptop skins and decous for cell
phones and things like that. That product had launched in
two thousand and five. And when I know, early internet
(05:04):
and back then you could make something and there wasn't
much to buy on the internet, so people bought it right,
and it grew real organically for like five years. It
was great, and then at five years in a lot
of people started doing the same thing. They did it
better than me, had cooler design, I know, and right
at that time, I just had my son, and so
(05:26):
I was like a little distracted and so a little
bit and so I kind of took my foot off
the gas and then the business just kind of slowly
went down, like as you know, it went up pretty quickly,
and then it kind of came down at the slow pace.
It was kind of dying a slow depth because I
just didn't have the passion for it anymore. I'm a
I'm a very like do something. I have about five
(05:48):
years I can ever give to any one thing. And
then I got to move on to something else because
it's just not since about my dating life also so
well dead I like it. Yeah, I've always been kind
of thinking in terms of that. So then as it
kind of kept going down and down and down, and
I was about to close down that business, I still
had this idea for good hang ups and I was like, okay,
(06:10):
I'm just gonna do it. Okay, But the decal company
that you had wasn't just that was a side hustle originally. Correct,
absolutely absolutely. So I was a consultant before I used
to be an I T and tech stuff, and I
was just burnout. I wasn't the best because I worked
well in a company, but I would overwork. I would
work like two people's worth of work, and then I
(06:32):
would get bored when I should coast, and then I'd
move on to another job. So I thought I should
do something on my own, but I didn't want to
do text stuff. And then I was a consultant for
a while, and so I had a lot of flexibility
with my schedule. So I was not in house, so
I was always external, and so I could have a
project for a period of time and then I have
a little downtime that have project for a little time.
(06:54):
So I started Stickers during that time when I was like, well,
I should figure out something else to do. And I
feel like I was always the most fortunate person because
as Sticker started to do well, I never had to
make the decision to leave because right at the time
it started to do well enough to pay me a
full time job work, the consulting firm I worked for
(07:16):
started to implode on itself, like it just didn't do well,
like like there was some internal bickering or something, and
they decided to close up shop. I was like, I'm
gonna feel for people making that leap decision, and people
will ask me like, how did you decide to make
the leap. I was like life has decided for me
like well, and I also love that timing. If anyone
(07:38):
is listening to this as it posts during quarantine and
social distancing you mentioned, you know, during your downtime working
from home, you were able to come up with these
ideas and it's you know what, you've everyone got that
right now? Why not? Totally and aside husse, it was
the perfect way to do that you start. It also
doesn't has lower impact. You can see if you really
(07:58):
love it. You can have hundred side hustles, but only
go forward with one or always keep it as a
side hustle. I mean, I'm pretty sure my son's business
will always be my side hustle, and that's totally great.
So part of the reason I kind of went so
strong and heavy for those first couple of years with
good hang ups was that I just didn't want to
(08:20):
do what I did before and watch it go up
and then go down because I don't have my foot
on the gas and I thought I could get a
patent for the product, so I didn't want anyone to
rip me off. Where's my other product? I couldn't get
a patentfore so I launched the product. I'm not very
good at marketing. Usually I can only do weird television.
That's the only thing I can do. But I had
somebody had suggested I do a kickstarter, and so that
(08:43):
was very nerve wracking for me because I was like,
that's very public, so everybody's going to know I failed
if this doesn't go well, like you know, oh my gosh.
And it was right around that time, like about a
few months before that, I had had this great conversation
with a girlfriend who's kids are gone to school, had
had gone to elementary school, and she was saying she
(09:03):
needed to get back to doing her artwork. And I
was like, oh, what's stopping you. She's like, you know,
fear failure. And I was like, oh my god, totally.
He's like there's something like you know, I was in
my mid forties at that time, and something happened to
be like where it was like I just got afraid.
I don't know, the fear failure became very strong because
everything was serious. I had a kid. It was like,
(09:25):
you know, you don't mess around now, I don't they
need to eat this? Yeah exactly. You know, we were
just having this whole conversation about fear failure and how
we get older and we get fearful, and she said like, well,
but then for our kids sake, we should show them
how to fail. Like we only show our kids like
the best version of ourselves, right, We're trying to act
(09:47):
like we're different humans than we are. So then when
they go out in the world and fail at something,
they're crushed like they don't know that, like like so
they don't see our failure. So I was like, well,
you know what, I'll do the kicks starter and if
I fail at it, Alex will see me fail and
it'll be fun, you know. So like I kind of
got this weird relationship with my fear of failure and
(10:10):
then trying to show my son how to fail, like
it was like, okay, well you're not doing that good.
I know, well this was funny because we because I
had that in my mind. I was like at every
little leap where I was like, oh, that's that's a
little bit too big to jump. I think what happens
in my mind is that the more you do and
if you put everything into it, it's I think that's
(10:31):
why I said, trust your crazy idea and hustle. Hustle,
hustle to make it happen, because it's a lot of hustle.
It's you know, it's not an idea, it's hustle. The
ideas are easy on some level. We all have them.
It's the determination to get them done. Yeah, it's easy
to think of things, but to make them real and
make them happen. It's there are special kind of people
(10:52):
who can do that. They're not It's not something every
everyone can do. And you know it's people won't just
take your idea and do it and give you scent
of the business like that. It doesn't work that way.
Or I would just sit back and make ideas. That's
what I would do. So the Kickstarter was kind of
the first thing. And then that went well, and I
learned so much about product and the product and who
(11:12):
was buying it and you know, oh yeah, of course
photographers will buy it. Yeah that makes sense, you know,
like different things that I learned a ton. But then
after we shipped the kickstarter out, I was like, well,
I don't know what to do now. That was great,
you know, we did like about twenty I think on
our Kickstarter, which was amazing to me, and we shipped
it out, we got kind of up and running with production,
(11:35):
and then I had to figure out how to promote it.
So I would sit around and I'm like, I would
drink a little wine and then fill out forms on
the Internet, thinking, oh, if I like send in a
form to like Target or Walmart or whoever. They often
have these forms where you can just fill them out,
and I was like, that's low impact, I can do that.
(11:56):
And then there was one for QBC, so I was
I filled that one out and I sent it in
or just hit enter or whatever, and then I got
this email back that had like Al Roker on it
and it was like, thank you for entering Today's next
big thing. I guess I had been drinking more than
I thought, because I didn't realize this was a thing
for QBC and the Today Show with this contest about
(12:19):
the next big product in the world, you know whatever.
And I was like, well, I guess I applied for
that and I didn't realize. And then I went on
to the next thing that I was, you know, drinking
and filling out forms. Like about a three weeks later,
I get this call and this one's like, so you've
been selected to be a finalist in the Today's Next
(12:39):
So we will let you know for sure if that's
the case. You know, we just have a couple other
things to think if we think you're gonna be a finalist.
If so, you need to come to New York and
present your product on national TV and then America will vote.
And you're like, oh, Like I'm like, oh no, Like,
I can't do that. I'm not a TV person. I'm not.
(13:02):
I didn't know how it worked. I thought I would
look very unprofessional because I'm kind of quirky. So I
I didn't know when I was nervous and I was
having anxiety attacks about the whole thing. But I did it,
and I was like, okay, well here's another example. I'm
gonna go do this. I'm gonna tell my son if
I bite it on television, like if I have an
anxiety attack, he will see that and I'll be fine,
(13:23):
you know, I'll go on to something else and just
not talk about this place about And it was such
a cool experience and it wasn't It wasn't pressure like
shark tank is where they're really hard bawling you like
you have to make feels and like ya, this is different. Yeah, yeah,
but so what a great preface to do this. So
I did the Today's Show thing where I made my pitch,
(13:44):
but I knew what questions they were going to ask me,
because they tell us what questions are going to ask you.
And so I was getting comfortable with the TV part
of it. You were with the contest was like you
go and you compete against three other products, and then
on the winner was back on Friday, and then then
the judges decide who wins, and whoever wins has to
(14:05):
go to QBC and sell on national teams and you
have to how terrible, right, Oh? I know? So I'm
like okay, And so I won my day, which was
insane to me. I was so on a high I was.
I was walking around like right near thirty Rock High
five and New Yorkers they're like, your hand up, they
will hand up. They might be freaked out by you,
(14:28):
but I'm like, they're like, who is this crazy lady?
So um. Then I came back on the Friday and
I just didn't expect to win because it didn't seem
like a very QBC product, And then I won, and
as part of that, I had to go the next
day over to QBC, and then when I did QBC,
we still like three hundred thousand dollars with the product
(14:50):
in six minutes. Okay, So at this point in time,
which is insane. First of all, it is totally a
QBC product because it's one of those things where you're like,
whoa cool it is? Well, I just didn't think the
audience was my target audience because I didn't know my
customer yet. I thought the customer was probably younger people
who rented and we're thinking, oh, I don't want to
(15:12):
damage my walls. I didn't picture their demographic tends to
be over fifty women, and I thought they're going to
put up proper like frames and they're not gonna want this,
and not apparently they were. They were in So at
that point, were you how is shipping working for you?
Were you shipping from home? Did you have a warehouse?
How was that? So? I had an office because I
(15:32):
had had the business before, so I was shipping from there.
But this QBC is different. You ship it to them
and they ship it out and so right after that,
so this was unusual. Usually with QBC, you order it,
they ship it out the next day. But because of
this contest. It was pre order. I had to go
then make the product after this, and I had no
(15:52):
idea how I was going to do that because it
was a lot more than I've ever done before. At
this point when when you went on the Today Show
or Kickstarter had finished, But were you selling the product
regularly or yeah, I mean we had a website, but
like if you're not marketing, it just sits there. You know,
occasionally somebody finds it, but rarely. When you said you
(16:13):
sell sold three dollars, I'm trying to look at the website.
How much did like a pack cost? Because it was
we did a sixteen pack on air and it was
that's nuts. Yeah. So yeah, So then I was like, well,
we can't make it all, like like I know how
to make them, I know how to, but this is
(16:33):
a lot more than we make and we were making everything.
So there's a group here they're not they're not doing
it anymore, which is unfortunate. But there was called Northwest Center.
You might see their trucks around. They often take people's
clothes and they have a whole number of arms to
their nonprofit. But they also had an assembly company that
employed people of all abilities. And they funneled all their
(16:54):
profits back into our area for families with kids with disability.
They were amazing and I went to them and they, yeah,
we'll do it. So they made them for Wow. I
was like, oh my god, this is great and it's
amazing people. They employed people of volubility, so it's great.
It's just like it's cool to get to work with
a company like that for sure. Yea. And they were
really patient with a new person. They weren't expecting me
(17:16):
to be professional and know what I was talking about.
I just pay. They were fine, you know whatever, we
don't care what you're saying. So then did Shark take
find you from QBC? Oh gosh no. So I had
started doing QBC pretty regularly and I was the big
us you became up at that point. So I would go, like,
(17:37):
they call me on a Monday and I have to
be on air on a Wednesday. The film they're in
near Philadelphia. So I was like flying out in the
middle of like last minute, just go do it. Come
back like I would just do it as many times
as they let me, because I would so way more
on a QBC. I mean, I never sold that the
level I sold that first time. That was insane, but
(17:59):
like still, it was way more money than I could
sell when I just told out my website, so I
had to just go for it all the time. And
I always wanted to do Shark Tank. So then when
I was hustling that whole year, I thought, well, if
I ever get a chance to do that show, I
need to show some serious sales because that's how you
do well on the show. If you have sales. Yeah,
(18:20):
if you don't have sales, you better price it really
well because otherwise they're gonna eat you alive. So um,
I actually went out to New York because they were
doing the same contest I did. They were doing it
again and that week, the weekend before I did QBC.
Then I went to New York and I did. They
(18:40):
were doing like here's our winner from last time, where
is she now? Kind of thing? So I got to
go on whatever. It was really fun, but they happened
to be doing open casting in New York City that
same week, so I was like, well, I'll just stay
an extra day and I'll go to the open casting.
I've got my stuff because I had to do g C,
so I'm ready. You know, they really just want to
(19:02):
know that you're not going to freeze up on TV.
The casting people, I feel like the casting people are
just thinking, is she going to freeze up? And like
be nervous, Well, she does TV already, we can look
at that if she's doing it. And then I got
called right away. Actually my casting agent and I have
become friends. She's no, not no longer there, but she's like, less,
(19:22):
I can't tell I'm not supposed to tell you this,
but I'll call you next week. I was like, yes,
this is good, that's amazing. So then you go through
the process, and it's a long process, like you've got
a prep You've got to do a lot of legal stuff.
You've got to do all your finances so that they
can vet you and make sure you're not lying about
what you've got. And then you have to be ready
to do it right. So you have to be able
(19:44):
to know the answers to the questions that they might ask.
You got to be ready for what you want, how
you're going to counter But you're watching a deal on
the spot for real? Or do they But you know
I've watched every episode. When I go into something, I
go hard. So right when I found out that there
was a potential that was like April, I filmed in
June flash cards of every question that was ever asked
(20:07):
on the show. I was like ready to go with those.
And then I just started practicing the negotiation. I found
this guy who did uh podcast at the time. He
doesn't do it anymore, but it was like a shark
Tink podcast, and I asked him if he would help
me practice because my friends are gonna be too friendly
and they're gonna be too nice. He won't. He doesn't
know money, like you know, So I was like, I
(20:28):
gotta be ready for all the negotiation side of it,
and he was so helpful. I mean, I was like
I was by the time I got in the room.
I was totally comfortable because I knew what they were
going to do, and I knew what they were going
to do, and I had something in my back pocket,
which was my counter offer that I did end up
using to Laurie that I knew that if if nobody
(20:51):
was that interested, I could get someone somehow because I
had so. You know, it's hard for them to say
no if you have sales, So you just have to
make him an offer, won't They can't refuse, So what
was it like? Then after Shark tanks like working with
the work her, like, what was that? But a few
films it doesn't air for a while, so you're like
in this gray area and then you have to do
(21:13):
due diligence with your shark so they don't have to
go through and you don't have to go through with
the deal. So it's it's like part of the like
because they haven't seen your finances. They don't know if
you know there's something because they don't know enough about
you to know if this is a good deal. Right,
they know from what they've heard what they want, but
they don't know a hundred and then Lori was just
(21:34):
a joy, Like she just my favorite jumped in. Yeah,
she's so good and she knows and you know, I've
been doing QBC. So then when she started doing QBC
with the product, I didn't have to go anymore because
she's amazing. She could so way more than I could
ever sell, and she was so good at it, Like
I mean her people who watch her are just loyal.
(21:56):
They want to buy what she brings them, so yeah,
she's awesome. And then there's this whole family of people
that she's also done deals with so we know each other.
It's like what happens when people are on this podcast,
they all become from way way lesser level because it's
not shark dank level. I mean, now we're up in
the game. Now you're up in the game. Connection yeaheah
(22:19):
for sure. So okay, good hang ups. Amazing, such a
cool product, genius for thinking of it. But now you
have another side hustle, and I want to talk about
all the other things you've done. So let's go with
what you and your son created. Because the crazy thing
to me that you've now put this gene into him
of I need to create and try to fail, but
(22:41):
not teaching him. So funny, I thought I was teaching
him how to fail, and then like I was going
to show him, and then it didn't work out that way.
And then I guess I maybe taught him that you
can do weird things, didn't matter how old you are.
I don't know why I didn't mean to teach him that.
But so one day, in like September of my son
was seven at the time. One day he just said,
(23:04):
you know, mom, I want to do a card game
called Taco Versus burrito and I want to do a
kickstarter And I'm like, okay, honey, how do you play
this game? And he's like, I don't know yet. And
I was like, well, you can just make a game
on paper. Where were your friends? Like? You don't need
to do a kickstarter. It's a lot of work. Do
(23:25):
you remember how much work mom did? And he's like, well,
what do I have to do? And I was like,
I thought it was just going to be an exercise
of like, let's go through all the things you have
to do to make a game, then all the things
you have to do to do a kickstarter. And he
was really engaged and I thought, oh, well, this is
so nice. We're talking about what it takes to make
something happen. It was a great conversation and I really
(23:49):
thought that's the end of it. He's going to go,
but it didn't seem to go. And we had a
we had a dog that we would walk to this
coffee shop. I would always go get coffee. Alex would
go with me every coffee. Oh, Bambino on right, and
we talk along the way and then we would have
coffee and usually sit there. And we were big card
(24:11):
game fans, like we play a lot of games. So
when we would take trips, we would bring a game
for each day, and we'd learn a new game and
then we would like, you know, we were always playing games,
so it wasn't unusual for us to think about, oh,
I like this part of this game. I don't like
this part of this game. We're like, you know that
kind of thing. He started thinking about how the game
(24:32):
could work. We just would mark mark it up on paper,
and then we would walk our dog to the coffee
shop get coffee, and then we would go and sit
and we would play one game of a game we
already had, and then we would play the latest version
of Talko Versus Burrito, and then, you know, often it
would go terribly because we didn't know how the game
(24:53):
was going to work, or like oh, obviously you'll always
win if you have that card, like and so so
then we would walk back it was like a few
blocks away, and then he would be thinking about how
we could tweak it, like, oh, you know what we
could do, we can do this, And then we get
home and we would just mark it up on a
paper and then we would go about our day. And
then the next day we would walk so every Saturday
(25:15):
and Sunday we did this kind of routine and for
four or five months, the gave got really good. I
mean it was really fun. And this is your how
old was your son at that point? He said he's seven.
He was seven inventing a game like most kids do,
but not putting it on Kickstarter. I think because I
had done one and he'd been part of filming it
(25:36):
and stuff. I don't know that. Oh, we were backing
games on kickstarters so we would find games, so he
knew the concept. I was like, we'll go through this
as an exercise. I think the game was really fun,
but you know who's going to buy a game from
a seven year old? Well a lot of people. No.
(25:57):
I don't want to spoil it or anything, but I'm
on Walmart dot com and they're only five left right now.
It was crazy. So and and the Kickstarter was such
a fun process for him to put himself out there.
And we had this whole discussion of like, okay, so
what if it doesn't do well? You know, how are
you going to feel? Because that was I started to
worry about that, like, am I is he going to
have this before? Well? Is he going to fail and
(26:18):
then feel awful because I haven't been able to show
much of like yeah, so I just was worried about
different things. But it went really well right away, Like
I think the name was engaging enough, and then we
put him in a little taco costume and he's adorable,
so I mean, that's hilarious to watch him do it.
But it was so much fun. And then it went
(26:39):
really we wasn't he's like twenty four thou dollars, which
is insane, he being as he is, he was seven
at the time. We were like, oh my god, this
is so crazy. We ordered the inventory and then we
shipped out the kickstarter and then we thought, okay, well
we'll send the leftovers into Amazon. So we over ordered
and sent some into Amazon because I already sold the
(27:00):
Amazon's okay, like how it would work. I had no
idea Amazon and games were so big, Like it's enormous
because when you go to amazon website, like I don't
really order games from Amazon, like that's not a regular
thing I do, but that kind always pops up for me.
It's always there. It's like games, and I'm like, okay,
I had no idea that market was so big. On
(27:21):
Amazon because yeah, so he instantly sold out of what
he had there. So it's a hard game. It's a
card game. Have you guys been seeing it sell a
lot more now because everyone's a quarantine. That's the craziest part.
Like all the businesses that struggle. I know so many
people through Shark Tank who have you know a number
(27:43):
of employees they're struggling with how to make payroll all
these things. Alex doesn't need any of this, and it's
it's selling like it's Christmas time because people are stuck
at home. Right. It's a strange thing, but it's you know,
it's the thing that passes your time. You enjoy it,
like you really get that opportunity to sit and play
(28:04):
with your family, have great ground stations, and yeah, we're
such a game. We play games every weekend. I love it.
It's so the title on Walmart it says Taco Verse
Bruto the wildly popular, popular, surprisingly strategic card game created
by a seven year old. It's it's so cool. I
mean that right there, I'd be like, all right, I'm
gonna buy it. I mean the seven year old that
(28:25):
my husband wrote that because I was like, okay, I
don't know how to. Yeah, I apparently can't read, so
we're good. So if I thought the seven year old
part would ensure that only kids bought it, right, Like
I thought, No, no teenager or adults gonna buy it,
But apparently not. You sold one million dollars worth of
(28:45):
Taco Verse Bruto. It's just you don't know either. It's crazy.
I don't know, and we didn't do anything special. It's
just the beauty of the game is that you don't
play it alone. So anybody who bought it played it
with other people, and then those people would play it
with other people. Yeah. And so you don't have to
(29:07):
do the marketing problem that I have, which is I
get nervous and I don't know how to promote something.
You don't have to do anything because the people who
buy it wor about it for you because they talk
about it or they play it with other people, and
so it organically grows. It's kind of crazy. Okay, so
you have good hang ups, then you create this while
running that. Now your side hustle is technically working for
(29:30):
your son's company. Yes, I do, I work for my
Does your husband feel like I need to contribute and
create something? He did too. He works for my senis.
But I mean, is he like I got to come
up with an idea because I'm slacking in this house?
Oh no, Oh my god. He's probably more creative and
a couverer of different things. He's just not odd like we. Okay,
(29:51):
you do it in public. I love I love it.
I love it. He has no desire to like put
all this stuff out there. He'll just be the creative
one in the back. It's great, have that. Yeah, Oh god,
it's great. And he knows so much more about many,
many many things than we do, so it's great. It's
a good combo. Okay, So now there's another layer to
all of your ideas and everything happening. You have a
(30:13):
kickstarter that just completed four Bold Maid, which I love
because it's a play in the game Old Maid. But
it's got badass women that we know and love in
this game. So the kickstarted completed obviously was successful. Correct, Yeah, Okay,
how does this game work? And what are the next steps?
Because we've obviously seen your last two things through completion,
(30:35):
but now this one is kind of like, alright, what happened?
So tell me all about Bold Maid, Old Maid. I
cannot stand that game. Like, the fact that we still
play this game is ridiculous. The whole goal of Old
Maid is not to end up with the older woman
deemed too old to marry. Like, that's ridiculous. Like in
this day and age, we should know child nobody should
be playing it nor I didn't know. I didn't think
(30:57):
it was a thing that gets still played. It's played
still all the time, and it's I really feel like
it's like one of those archaic things that people don't
think about, and so they just keep playing it. And
then once you say it out loud, people are like,
oh my god, you're right, that's terrible. I forgot that's
how the game went, so you're right. In this day
(31:17):
and age, I was like that, it's ridiculous. So every
time it would get brought up or somebody would get
it out or whatever, I would go off. And my
son got tired of hearing me go on and on
about how awful Old Maid was and how he would
never be able to play it. I did let him
play it once and he was like, it's really born.
I was like, yeah, well, it was really boring. I
hate the idea of young kids, girls and boys like
(31:40):
ever having that be one of them, because it's often
was the first game people played, like as a kid,
that was your first game, Like even if you don't
think about it, it's like negative. So I he was like, well,
why don't we just flip it and make it something else?
And I was like, oh my god, Yes, we could
celebrate these amazing women. This would be great. And then
I was like, but we have to make it more
(32:01):
fun because Old Maid can. We made Bold Maid so
that it can be played like Old Maid but also
played like for for little our kids, but then also
come with a bunch of action cards and things to
make it really fun. And Alex is a master at
taking something tweaking it to where you just can't get enough.
(32:22):
Like it's like he somehow has this engine in his
head of like how to improve and and look what
you created. I'm not talking about the kid. Yeah, I
grew him. I agree myself. No, I mean it's great.
It's amazing to watch him watch him work. Because I
was worried that the gameplay would be boring. I was like,
I don't know how to make this exciting, and then like, oh,
(32:43):
got four times in and he's like, oh, you do this, this,
and this, and I was like, oh, oh this is good.
So yeah, so it's been really fun. And then launching
the kickstarter before the whole pandemic happened was meant to
be done during Women's History months, so we would sell
a rate all the first throughout the month and it
was so much fun. Nerve wracking too because the pandemic
(33:07):
stuff was starting, and then it felt weird to be
running something at the same time because it felt it
just felt strange to me. I was very happy when
it was finished, but it ended up going really great
and I met so many good people. Yeah, you have
about four thousand backers and a hundred seventy thousand dollars
pledged for this game. Oh, I know, the way bigger
(33:28):
them we've ever done before. So just a quick how
does this game work? For people who are like, wait,
I want to know more about this game, it can
be played just like Old Maid, where you're trying to
match things up. You can also play a version we
call Go Bold, which is like Go Fish but for
the adults, for people who are like over seven and
(33:48):
want something more strategic. It comes with action cards and
the goal is to kind of create three sets of women,
so three sets of artists, three sets of scientists, three
sets of world leaders, and as you're trying to do that,
their action cards that will stop you from being able
to do it or allow you to kind of change
(34:09):
cards with someone. And the goal is the first person
to get to three sets wins. Yeah, and it's one
of those action cards like your male boss is being
a dick. Yeah, we should really do these things. We've
been thinking. Somebody suggested we do a cooperative game, and
we have been thinking about doing something that's a little
more politically. One of the things we tried to do
(34:31):
is kind of stay this line of things. We wanted
the exposure to be as big as we can because
really the whole goal of doing it was just to
stop people playing Old Maid. So yes, we'd love to
have the most engaging game, but really if everyone just
stops playing Old Maid will be through absolutely. So then
(34:51):
now that you're a pro with the whole Kickstarter thing,
what happens now with this game and you have all
this money. What happens so we finish up? You know,
like some things, we had a lot of suggestions of
amazing women to include, so we're switching up some of
the people and it we that was part of our
kickstarter was to ask our backers who they think we
should include. And oh, my god, so many amazing women.
(35:12):
I've learned so much about real badass woman I've never
heard of, and I'm like, this is so fun and
it was fun to have him learning about it too.
I'm like, the likelihood of him becoming like, you know,
a jerk later on the women is low, if then something,
So it's been fun to kind of celebrate all the
(35:32):
women in the game. So we have some more artwork
to finish up and just some final things to go
onto the box, and then we kind of have it
laid out to where the month of April is just
kind of finishing a few things up. Then we get
samples in May and start into production and then product
It takes about a month to two months. We use
our same manufacture, so it's not a lot of learning curve,
(35:54):
and then come August and September we ship out. So
what are you going to make next? Uh? He working
on some other game. I was kidding, No, I mean
while he's making an update to Taco versus Burrito called
Tokyo Versus Burrito, which is inspired by our trip to Tokyo,
where he decided we'll use all the weird food that
(36:14):
we found in Tokyo and come up with like kind
of an expansion because people always want to play the
next version something, of course, and then he's got a
couple other games. I'm not sure which one he's going
to land on, but he prototypes them and takes them
to school and then plays with them with other people.
And unfortunately our dog passed away a while which he
(36:35):
was very old, so it wasn't too upsetting about that part.
It except for our routine of walking to the coffee
shop and playing it's gone, we don't do the same
thing and so because of that, it's kind of the
motivation to stay on these projects, isn't a strong sounds
like a dog. I know, we've were talking about getting
(36:57):
a good dog, but but yeah, at the same time,
I like to check in with him and see if
you know, maybe it's too much. He has nine now, yeah, yeah,
I mean, and I do you know, I mean could
be his forever job, which is crazy, you know, it's incredible.
I mean, I am very excited to see what he does.
(37:18):
I mean, he said almost ten. Now you said right,
So to see what he achieves, it's going to be
wild to watch. But do you have anyone else working
for you guys at this point? I mean you have
a lot going on. No, we just do it because
we only sell on Amazon really and things get resold
onto like Walmart and other places. But we just have
one place we sell. We don't try and make it
(37:39):
more complicated than it needs to be because we don't
have a time. So you do your own social media
and everything. Yeah, we we we do our own social media.
We do it sometimes bad about all the things that
I traditionally would do for like good hang ups, I
we do not do most of that for talking so
(38:00):
versus burrito, And it doesn't need it as much, you know,
because there's a community already growing and bries it and
plays it and talks about it and shares pictures. So
it's like, it is incredible what you guys have done.
And there is one thing I want to talk about
that really has nothing to do with so in hustling
or working. But I saw in your bio that you
lived in a teaky hut. At some point I bought
(38:24):
a hut. I bought a hut in Mexico. Is that
what you're talking about. Oh? Yeah, that was. That was
my forty birthday. Happened to be going over a weekend
that was there was a yoga retreat in Mexico. I
don't even really do yoga, but I was so desperate
to do something for myself that I was like, I'll
sign up for this. So I went and while I
(38:47):
was there, it's it's in this little sleepy village that's
like a little surfing village that's North Picabo. And the
people who were running the retreat, we're also in real
estate here in Seattle, and they would just go down
and do these retreats occasionally. And they had bought one
of these huts in this little development and I was like, well,
(39:10):
tell me more about this. So they're thirty they were
thirty five thousand dollars at the time, and I was like,
we'll just not buy a new car, like I will
go to twenty years with a car because that's a car, right,
But I can't live in my car, or at least
it's inappropriate to live in my car. When you don't
need to live in your car, it's awkward. Like so
I was like, well, I'm gonna do this. So I
(39:33):
bought it, and it felt like just such a crazy
thing to do. I thought it was going to go
terribly wrong. Like, I don't live there. I got to
design things about it because they were finishing it up.
And it's been a blast. So we rented out on
Airbnb when we're not there and uh yeah, and we
go down there, you know, a few times a year
and just spend time. And it's lovely. I know where
(39:55):
I'm saying. When I go to Mexico, now, my Palapa
is your When I saw that, I'm like, who, I'd
never like seen that written. Now before I bought a
tiki hot I'm like, what, that's really cool? Okay, So
you've been talking a lot about having not failing ever,
but I know that can't be possible. So in all
of these business ventures, were there any mistakes or failures
(40:16):
or things that are coming to your mind right now? Oh? Yeah, yeah?
From so, so, I talked about talking with my friend
about the fear of failure thing. At that moment when
I was having that conversation with her, I was stuck.
I couldn't launch anything new, you know, I had mentioned that,
you know, for the first five years of my business.
It kind of went organically up. It's great. It seemed
(40:38):
to go really well. And then when I took my
foot off the gas, all these competitors came in and
it just started to go down and down and down.
Then I had new ideas for products. I would create
the complete products and never launch it. Oh my god.
I had a whole line of language learning law graphics
for kids that I was teaching Alex unished with. So
(41:00):
they were these stickers that went on the wall and
they were interactive so you could talk, you know, have
your kids start to learn Spanish at a young age.
I had all of it done and I just couldn't
launch it. I was worried I would look like a fraud,
like I didn't speak fluent Spanish, so how could I
be the one like I had all of these things
(41:20):
that would cause me not to do it. But I
love playing with ideas. I was just hard. It was
hard for me to launch them. At least four different
products that I developed completely through that I never really launched.
If I launched them, it was in such a small way.
And then the second it didn't take off, I was like, see,
I told you, I told you so it's like I
(41:42):
wasn't gonna work. Now I'm never gonna work, and uh
so there was just a period of time for that,
those years that I was just checking myself too much
and worried about things. But yeah, no, it was that
was a crazy time. But and I mean I've had
tons of failure. I mean I've had jobs that did
go well where I was almost in the fetal position
(42:03):
and thinking I was going to get fired. Luckily never
did get fired. I feel like there were very slight
times where I might have been there. But but in general,
you know, I've gotten into the wrong thing and stayed
way too long, like with things and the Yeah, that's
the trickiest part about about things. It's like not to
let the failures stop you from doing something new or
(42:27):
letting you try a new thing or do a new thing.
And that was why I was thinking, oh my gosh,
if Alex Cann picture this failure stuff, he'll know, you know,
he'll be able to And I will say also, I
attempted to sell good hang Ups in the fall, and
they got very close with some really large companies and
it didn't work out, and I was just really bummed
(42:50):
out because I had this vision that it would go
to a much bigger brand and it would be folded
in and and it may still do someday, but at
the time I was like just really bummed out. And
so those kinds of things I share with Alex all
the time. I'm like, you know, like I you know,
everybody gets down, they have those times, and business is
(43:10):
full of tons of failure all the time. Right, you
do one thing, it doesn't go well. You just have
to keep moving on and doing another thing or another thing.
So a few weeks ago I had Cata from Successfully
on Side Hustlers, and as she was leaving, she was like, oh,
you have to talk to Leslie. She's amazing. She's created
this thing. And she was on Shark Tank. Because she
(43:31):
started telling me, I was like, okay, I mean connectus.
So here we are. So you know Kata from Successfully
how Yeah, So we were both part of f bomb,
which is a female founders group that is amazing. They
get together on the first fucking Friday every month. I
don't know if I get yea. So it's it's Seattle based,
(43:54):
it's you know. I went because they had something called
Pitches to Bitches. I was like Okay, this sounds awesome, right,
I need to come to this. How have I not
been there? It is the best thing. Now it's online
so you can you can watch it. And then because
it's the we can't get together but literally, at seven
o'clock in the morning on the first fucking Friday of
every month, about a hundred two hundred women get together
(44:17):
and share and it's not you know, it's the Megan
McNally who started it, is just one of the most
genuinely authentic people and she really kind of keeps everybody
grounded and not talking like platitudes of business and being
successful and blah blah blah, but really, what's it like?
You know, that kind of stuff. So Kita was there.
(44:39):
I had met her before, and then she had done
a podcast. I'd been on her podcast, and then it
was actually last year, about halfway through the year, we
were both at n F Bomb and I was just
not executing on all my ideas. I was like stuck.
I was feeling like I wasn't I needed someone to
kick my butt because I was just not able to exactly.
(45:04):
It's hard when you don't have a boss, because you
don't have what you want to impress. You don't. No
one knows if you didn't get your things done on time, right, Like,
I just looked over at her and I was like,
it was like it was like the day after the
fourth of July, so very few people had gone, not
very few, it was just a lot less people. And
I was like, thank goodness you're here. And I was like,
I need you. And we signed up and she's been
(45:26):
my coach every soon, meet up once a week, and
she keeps me on task and it helps me not
get too ambitious with what I say I'm going to
accomplish and then burn out, but like kind of keep
something going. So it's great. I love this. I mean,
I can listen to you talk and tell your stories
all day no, because you're you're so excitable and you're
(45:48):
so inspirational, and you really you're you've like motivated. I'm like,
what am I going to go make? What am I
going to go create? Right now? I'm gonna go do
a card game? A card game, That's what it is,
gued Hustler's Card. Oh God, don't get me listen. I
got all the I need to really work with you.
I got all the ideas that I can execute. I
love listening to you, so we need to definitely get drinks.
(46:08):
But thank you, thank you so much for being here.
Everyone needs to go check out all the things you're
doing good hang ups. I'll put all the links on
the podcast. You've got good hang ups, Bolt Made, taco Verse, Brudo, everything,
so check it all out. Support Leslie and Alex and
his career that we get to watch. Thank you very much, Leslie. Oh,
thank you for having me. It's been so much fun.
(46:29):
Thank you so much for listening to side Hustlers. I
appreciate you being here every single week. And if you
want to support anyone who has been on this podcast,
if you actually go to the description below where you're listening,
no matter where you listen to podcasts, that should be there.
There's always a link or links to the information that
everyone gives on the podcast. Anything we mentioned, whether it's
(46:49):
their website or a book that they love, a podcast
that they love, whatever, maybe all the information is always
below in the description so you can click it right there.
And if you can't support right now or at any
time with buying a product from anyone on this podcast,
that is totally fine. Feel free to follow them on Instagram,
support them on social media. I know a lot of
these business owners would appreciate that so so much, and
(47:12):
especially in the last few weeks. So if you're listening
in real time, you know we're dealing with all of
the quarantine chaos, and I've been having people who are
previous guests on the episodes of How to Help a
Small Business right Now, and they're all telling us how
they're pivoting their business. It's really inspirational. There are four
episodes you can listen to like that, so if you're
(47:33):
just finding this one, just check those again. I'm at
the Carla Marie on Instagram. Feel free to follow me,
DM me with any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions for our
future guests. I appreciate you being your every single week.
Until next week, keep hustling.
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