How to Go From Layoff to $600k

Kathryn Finney: Welcome back to Build a Damn Thing, the podcast where we teach you how to use entrepreneurship to build a life you love. I'm your host, Catherine Finney. Today we're turning, we're. Today we're talking turning passion into profit with Alina, founder of DudeWoof. From layoff to 600K in her first year, she built a brand for dog lovers and a life on her own terms. Welcome back to Build a Damn Thing, the podcast where we teach you how to use entrepreneurship to build a life you love. I'm your host, Catherine Finney. Today we're talking turning passion into profit with Elena, founder of DudeWoof. From layoff to 600K in her first year, she built the brand for dog lovers and a life on her own terms. Welcome, Elena. Elina - Dood Woof (00:55.32) Hi, Catherine. Good to meet you. Kathryn Finney: So tell me a little bit about your story. You were working in tech and you found yourself laid off. Elina - Dood Woof Yes. Kathryn Finney: So what part of tech were you working in? Elina - Dood Woof Yeah. So I was working, so I had a couple of jobs. after I graduated college, I did like healthcare tech and then financial tech, and then eventually went into AI and I did project management, within those fields, which is actually probably the most, useful skill to have as an entrepreneur, just cause you have a million things happening at once. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Elina - Dood Woof But yeah, so then in 2023, I was working at the AI company and I got laid off and I was like, what the heck am I going to do now? And that's kind of when the whole journey started. Kathryn Finney: Now, did you always want to be an entrepreneur? mean, was this something that you always did and you just found yourself sort of in a corporate environment or did you sort of become a reluctant entrepreneur? Elina - Dood Woof (02:01.55) I always had an entrepreneur bug in me, but I never really knew that this was even a possibility. So my parents and myself as well, we immigrated from Ukraine when I was three. kind of growing up, everything was about survival, you could say. So I've never seen anyone build a business, but I remember even in college, I had a random corporate internship. And then while I was there, I realized that I could buy things off Craigslist and flip them on eBay. And so I started doing that and I realized that I enjoyed that. A, it was way more fun and then B, I was making way more money. So I've always had a little bug in me, but it wasn't until I got laid off that I was like, okay, maybe I could do this. I have no idea. Kathryn Finney: What were you buying? Just out of curiosity. so you were buying robot vacuums off of Craigslist so that people were selling and then you were like flipping them on eBay. Elina - Dood Woof A robot vacuums. Elina - Dood Woof Yeah. And then somehow I found this lady that just had a ton of robot vacuums, just brand new, like at all times. I have no idea how she got them and didn't ask questions. Kathryn Finney: Which is often what you do on Craigslist, right? You don't really ask a lot of questions on Craigslist. But I think your story highlights something that a lot of people kind of go through, particularly those who are children of immigrants. know, really entrepreneurship is so risky and your parents and everyone sacrificed so much for you to be here, right? And you see your parents struggling and working. So. Elina - Dood Woof Yeah. Kathryn Finney: there is a tendency to want to go to the more, what we used to think was the safer route. I don't know if we think that's the safer route anymore. And so where were you located when all of this was happening, when you were sort of transitioning into corporate America and working? Were you in Silicon Valley? Were you in other parts of the country? Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Elina - Dood Woof Nope. So I grew up in Ohio and I went to Ohio state and then lived in Wisconsin for a little bit for my first job. And then during COVID decided to move to Austin. And so was working in Austin and it was in Austin that I got laid off. Kathryn Finney: Okay. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, and Austin is of course sort of a hot, hot place for tech, or at least it was. And so I was really excited to talk with you for many reasons. One being that I have a 10 year old who wants a doodle. And he's been, I mean you appreciate this as a founder, he's kind of put together his own pitch deck of like what he deserves to sort of sell it to me. Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Elina - Dood Woof (04:29.11) I'm Elina - Dood Woof Nice. Love that. Kathryn Finney: to his dad, my mother lives with us too. he's already, it was easy to sell grandma, to pitch grandma, but to mom and dad, that's been a little bit more of a challenge. And so where did the idea come to create this? Elina - Dood Woof So when I got laid off, took that as a sign from the universe that if I was ever going to start my own thing, this would be the time I had a little savings. I was single. At that time, I was 27. And so I didn't have kids. But I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't have a product idea. I didn't have any sort of idea in general. And so I picked up this book. And the concept of the book was, to choose the person that you're going to serve first before you choose the product or the service. And so it's called 12 Months to 1 Million. I definitely recommend everyone to read it. Yeah, it's a good book. And so it flipped the script for me because since I didn't have a product, I was able to just focus on, OK, who is this avatar that I want to serve? Kathryn Finney: What was the name of that book? Kathryn Finney: 12 months to 1 million. Elina - Dood Woof And I knew that because I was broke and the only way you can really grow a business and get traffic is either through paid ads or somehow organically. And I didn't have money for paid ads. And so I looked at my dog and I was like, okay, well, maybe we can make content together. Maybe I don't know. I've never posted a real. And so he's a doodle. And so that's how I chose doodle owners as my target audience. And what I did after that is I went on Facebook and I went into these Facebook groups for doodle owners. And I just wanted to a bunch of them and I posted like, Hey, would anyone be willing to talk to me about the challenges of having a doodle? And so had a couple of people that were down to like meet for 15 minutes. And so I chatted with them and the number one kind of challenge with a doodle is that they get mad at and tangled easily. took that problem and I created a product that was different than what's in the market to solve that specific problem. And I like want to emphasize that because. It's so much easier to sell something when other people, you're like target demographic is already telling you they have a problem and then you create a solution for it versus if I was just selling a dog bowl and I was trying to convince people to buy it. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, I mean, I think that's something you highlight is really super important in the process of entrepreneurship, particularly when you're just starting out, is one, starting with what you know and what's available to you. You're a doodle owner. You know doodles, right? And then actually talking to the customer and asking the customer what is their pain point. How do you... Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: Some people have challenges talking with people, right? It's kind of scary putting yourself out there and asking people questions, going to a Facebook group and asking what are your pain points? What are some tips for entrepreneurs who maybe have a little bit of a challenge with that, like to get over that and start to really talk with their potential customers? Elina - Dood Woof some tips. You just have to, I don't know if I have tips for me. It's just kind of like, all right, so you can either spend a lot of money on paid ads. There's a million ways to grow a business. There really is the, can go through paid ads, paid ads route and figure out the ad system, Facebook ads, Google ads, and just spend a lot of money. And eventually you'll figure it out. Or you can do it. Like I call it branding on a budget and you can actually talk to your customers, build relationships with them online. And then you can go to those same customers and for your next pro you can launch products to those same customers. And you've already, since it's, since you have a relationship with them, you can continue asking them what they want and they're way more likely to buy your products in general. So my only tip is like, you just have to do it. Like you just have to put yourself out there. you kind of it's online, so it's not even really, it doesn't have to be in person, but just one. post one little thing to get to know that person. I think people forget that on the other side of the screen, there's actually a human that's clicking the button. And the more you can connect with that human, especially in the beginning when you have low volume and the more connection you can have with them, the more likely they are to like your brand, follow your brand and actually buy your products. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, you have to put yourself out there and take that risk. And it's actually, I mean, if you are forced into entrepreneurship or you find yourself in an entrepreneurial path, you really don't have a choice but to do that. And so how did you go from idea to your first job? Elina - Dood Woof Yeah. Elina - Dood Woof (09:39.96) So, figured out their pain point. And then I had no, I had no idea about e-commerce. had no idea about, like, I never branded myself as a doodle expert. I just branded myself as like, I'm a doodle owner just like you. And so once they told me that the biggest pain point is that their dog gets tangled easily. I took that and I put it into chat GPT. And so this was like the original chat GPT. So definitely wasn't as good as it was now, but I was like, Hey, This is the pain point. Like what are some ideas for products I can create? And one of them was a detangler spray to help like detangle the hair. And I looked at what's on the market. went on Amazon. I read a bunch of the reviews, like the one star reviews. And I just noticed that the ingredients of everything that was on the market, they were filled with harsh chemicals, ingredients I couldn't pronounce. So I was like, okay, I'm going to create an all natural human grade detangler spray that works really well for doodle hair. market it towards specifically doodles. And that's going to be my first product. so, then I spent about six. So from May is when I started posting on Instagram, I launched the product in December, just cause manufacturing takes a while. And I had to figure everything out myself, but throughout that time, I wasn't just like sitting around. I was building, like I was posting on Instagram. I was building an email list. I was telling people about the challenges I was having, the wins, et cetera. So I was. I call it documenting the journey. And so what that does is that kind of stacks the deck that when you launch your product, even though you have zero reviews and like, there's no reason anyone should buy the product. These people that are kind of following along your journey a bit, they trust you, or they at least want to give you a chance. Cause you have like this underdog story. And so, and throughout this time you're like sending them samples, et cetera. And so when you actually launch the product, you have people. who are willing to buy and willing to at least take a chance on you. Kathryn Finney: You mentioned manufacturing and one of the questions I think early entrepreneurs have, particularly those who are looking at creating a product is how do you figure out the manufacturing process at the beginning? did you start it in your kitchen yourself or did you actually go to an outside manufacturer, what they call it, co-packing? Or did you actually do that? And if so, how did you find the co-packer or the manufacturing partner to work with. Elina - Dood Woof Google. So, there's, there's one website called Thomas net that a lot of people use. there's, then I, I just use Google. So you type in like dog shampoo manufacturers and start contacting people. Now it's so much easier with chat. can ask chat chat, GBT, like what manufacturers you can contact. You can also ask them like to create a script and just what important questions to ask, but you just reach out to a bunch of them and try to figure out, okay, like Some important things are what is your minimum order quantity? So if someone wants you to order 10,000 units as their minimum, that's probably, that might be out of your budget. so you want to get on the phone with them and figure out like, what's their minimum order quantity, tell them about your idea. And most of the manufacturers have formulators on site. So you'll there's three types, there's three ways you can launch a product. first was you can just slap your label on their existing product, which is called white label. The second is private label where you can kind of change like the scent and like the colors, like little things. And the third is like a completely custom product, which people usually have to pay an R and D fee for, but it's like completely custom to you. Kathryn Finney: And what are the costs of that? Because I imagine each of those things have different costs associated with them. Elina - Dood Woof It's so it's super depends on the actual product. but like the white label. So if you just slap your label on something, the benefit of that is they already have product and stock and they, it's so much cheaper because they just make a bunch and then different companies come in and just like, like if you have a shampoo brand, like stick their label on it. but you have to know that everyone else, there's a ton of people selling the same product. So essentially at that point, you become a marketing company. Since you have like a very generic product, you need to like nail it with marketing. and then private label is a tiny bit more expensive because you might be tweaking some of the ingredients. And then the custom manufacturing is the one where you're putting in, usually you're putting an upfront R and D fee of a couple grand, probably like between two and 10,000. And then they're like helping you develop the product actually. and it's completely custom to you. Kathryn Finney: And so it could go from anywhere from 100 low hundreds to thousands depending on which route you choose. Elina - Dood Woof Yeah, it depends on the product. Like if you're making a stroller, baby stroller, you know, that might be, I'm just totally making this up $20 for you and you could resell it for, don't know, 120. Uh, versus if you're making a candle, it could be a dollar and you could re I'm just ballparking, making up numbers. Kathryn Finney: And it's also, mean, I think it depends on it's the difference between if your focus is going to be on marketing. Let's say you already have a very large social media following. And so you you they're going to buy it because you you are behind that you were marketing as such. So you might not need custom, right? Because you already have the market that's going to buy from you versus maybe you're new. Maybe you have a very specific idea in your case, very specific. Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: ingredients that you wanted in your product and you wanted your product to be a certain way. And so for that way, you would go to the more custom. think the idea is choosing where your lane is, where your people would say your zone of genius is and then focus on that and developing from that. And so. You you start you, you did custom, I'm assuming you did custom, you started. How did you get your product into customers' hands, particularly around the sampling? Elina - Dood Woof (15:56.37) So because I started like even legitimately scroll down on my Instagram and there's just a bunch of really poorly done videos of me being like, Hey, would anyone just got these samples? Anyone down to like try them out for me? I tried them on my dog. works really well. And so I just post that in my, on Instagram. And then I would also post, I had an email list that I was collecting. And so I'd post in there. I document my journey. I'd be like, just got these samples would love for people to try them out. And so that is both giving me like real customer feedback, but it's also getting people excited for the launch because they know something's coming. And so it's like little breadcrumbs here and there. So it's not like I randomly December, I just posted, Hey, products available. Like it wasn't like that. There was like a launch strategy over a couple of weeks, a couple of months as we got closer, it was more, more frequent and more strategized. Kathryn Finney: And so you built the audience, you built the market. And you brought them along your journey, which I think is also very important. And it seems like a lot of the tools you use, particularly for marketing, were tools that already exist. They're free in many ways, like Instagram, like Chat, GPT, which there is a free version, but the paid version isn't super pricey. think it's affordable for most people. So when you were building this, did you Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: start this on your own or did you have partners, like how did you proceed that where you were a solo entrepreneur or did you look at developing partnerships and bringing other people on to do it with you? Elina - Dood Woof Nope. I'm the beginning. Well, and now it's just, so I bootstrapped it. So was just me and I was just kind of figuring it out as I go. lot of YouTube, I joined an e-commerce community. I'd go to some networking events here and there just to meet people that were further ahead in the space. But like the more you put yourself out there, the more people want to actually help you. Like, if you can, especially right now with social media, learned this as I'm building my personal brand. It's like. The more you can get out of your comfort zone and actually share things online, the more the visibility is so important because people just come into your circle of field and it is what it is, but the more you can do on social media and just out there, like the more people trust you. And so the more I started talking about Dude Wolf and my econ brand, cetera. the more random people would come in and be like, Hey, like I actually have this person that you should talk to. I know this person in e-comm like completely not even related to, well, it is related to Dude Wolf, but I was posting about Dude Wolf and they just wanted to help me grow. So I just met people that helped me along the journey. Kathryn Finney: And so how did you turn those people into loyal customers? And I think that's one of the, that's a question that I've get asked a lot, particularly from people who are, who have built very strong influencer based communities on Instagram or TikTok of like, how do I transition people from being a fan to being a loyal customer? Elina - Dood Woof So a lot of my emails, for example, they're not, Hey, 20 % off. are more like storytelling emails. I'm talking about the challenges. put screenshots. like, just talk to the manufacturer. Like this is what they said. They said they can't do this. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do now. but I know I like, I know that it's not fair that us doodle owners that the only options we have out there is products filled with chemicals. And I know that like, I want to create something that we can use that will actually help us detangle our dogs. And like, stay tuned. So just story, like actually bringing them, as like talking to them as humans and bringing them along the journey. And you might not think that that works, but I'll tell you when I launched my product, my coupon code that first day wasn't working. And I got a bunch of emails that people were like, Hey, your coupon code's not working, but honestly, like I just already bought your product. I just want to support you. And like congrats on congrats on like everything, like people love an underdog story. They really do. They like, I branded myself. I had no idea what I was doing and I was just sharing that with people, but I'm like, I want to get this to work so I can bring this to market for us. Cause it's just this, it should exist. That just, that just builds like the authenticity and like the raving fan base that then trusts you and wants to actually support you. Kathryn Finney: It was the awesome. Kathryn Finney: And that's I think the key, right? Authenticity, particularly when you have a brand. Your customers knew that you understood their pain because you also had that pain too. So early on as you're developing this business, what was some of the mistakes that you made that kind of changed the game for you? Elina - Dood Woof mistake, one mistake was that I assumed that it would go a lot quicker than it did. And so I had some savings and I did not. budget properly. actually, what people always ask me, like, should I quit my job to start this business? And I always say, no. I think you start operating from a scarcity mindset. And so you, there's some just like interesting decisions that you make that you might have not, if you are operating from an abundance mindset. Kathryn Finney: You Elina - Dood Woof but yeah, so I thought it would be quicker. I started doing my launch stuff a lot earlier and then it just kind of got, there were points where it got kind of weird with my customers because they thought it was going to launch earlier, but it launched later. So that was just a mismatch of information. the other is not getting plugged into community quicker. So the quicker I, I, I joined like an e-commerce group and the quicker I did that, the less I had to reverse engineer things myself. Like I had people that were ahead of me and I just, just rec, definitely recommend everyone surround themselves with people that are ahead of them on their journey, even if it's paid. Like in the beginning, a lot of your, a lot of it's okay for relationships to be paid relationships. but just having that sort of mentorship. And then after that, turns into friendship from people that have done it before. You'll avoid a lot of mistakes along the Kathryn Finney: You bring up the scarcity versus abundance mindset, which is not something until recently you really heard a lot about when you talk about entrepreneurship or building businesses, like the importance of abundance. What were some of the mistakes that you made that came out of scarcity? Elina - Dood Woof One thing that comes to mind is not ordering enough inventory in the beginning. So, if I ordered more, I would have, it would have been cheaper per unit and I like, would avoid me going out of stock, et cetera. But I was just, I was operating from a bit of a scarcity mindset. even though I thought I'd have more people buy, I wasn't sure. And so when you run out of stock, especially on Amazon, it's like a whole thing because you're listing ranking drops. it's a, it's a whole thing like that. Kathryn Finney: interesting. Elina - Dood Woof but in, general, like operating from an abundance mindset, you just, even the way you show up and the way you feel as you're running your business, you will, you'll be able to be more creative. You'll be able to spend time. Like you, won't be trying to pull every dollar out of everyone. You'll be able to like, just spend time nurturing your audience and nurturing people versus. feeling so salesy because you just need that extra dollar from them. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, it's almost like a desperation that comes with scarcity that people don't necessarily respond very well to. You talk about Amazon as a platform and a lot of sellers are gonna first start with Amazon because it's probably the biggest platform and the easiest way to get customers. What has been your experience selling on Amazon? And why did you decide Amazon? Elina - Dood Woof (24:19.79) pros and cons to Amazon and selling on your website. sell, I sell 80 % Amazon, 15 % TikTok shop, and then probably 5 % of my website. That's kind of a breakdown. I chose Amazon because the conversion rate on Amazon is higher than on your website. And like average conversion rate is set to be 10 % on Amazon versus on your website is 3%. Additionally, people trust Amazon. Like they already have their credit cards on there. they trust the reviews in general. And also like the more you can build up and go up in the rankings, the more organically people find you. Cause people are just searching for things on Amazon versus on your website. You, you have to bring everyone there. No one's going to find you unless you brought them there, but there's a lot of drawbacks to it. Like everyone that I know they had their listing deactivated at least once. and it's like a couple of thousand dollars to hire consultants to bring it back up. So there's. There's definitely drawbacks are very particular about things. They have specific rules for stuff, but for me, it just made sense in my head to put it on Amazon, get the traction on there and, have all have them do all the shipping for me and such. Kathryn Finney: And there's been a lot of discussion about TikTok or what they call it founder talk now, the TikTok shops and what has been your experience with that? Like how has that helped you in your brand? Elina - Dood Woof I love Tik Tok shop. have like hundreds of influencers. worked there, which is really nice because one thing in the beginning, you should be posting yourself and like I'm still posting, but when you have many influencers talking about you, that's so many more, so much more likelihood that more people see you versus just your one account. so Tik Tok shop, always say it's kind of like a rocket ship where it's hard to get off the ground, but once you're in orbit, people like those influencers, they can see on their ends that, this product it's getting sales. So they'll reach out to you and they'll try to still be like, Hey, I'd love to try sample of your product and make videos for it. And so once you're already getting sales, it's so much easier to get other influencers that are actually reaching out to you. And the cool thing about tick-tock is there's, reduces a lot of friction, in the buying process. So someone makes a video and they can just click in that video and buy the product, which is. like versus having to go on your website, going to check out, et cetera, et cetera. So I think TikTok is a great platform and also people see videos and half of them don't trust TikTok. So they'll Google you or they'll try to find you on Amazon. And so there's like a, it's called a halo effect where the more you, the better, more sales you have on TikTok and directly correlates to all your other channels. Kathryn Finney: That's interesting. And the conversion, I mean, what is the conversion like on TikTok versus say Amazon? Elina - Dood Woof I don't know because there's just so many, uh, floating videos all around of dude wolf. I don't, don't not, I'm honestly not sure. Cause some of them, there might be one out of like a hundred that goes really viral and has really high conversion versus there's hundreds of them that, um, don't, but I will say like, one thing I do want to mention for anyone that's even thinking about this is when you go on tick tock, uh, tick tock shop, You should really only go on there. If you have a product that is, has a really cheap, like it's cheap for you to make. So if you have a $50 product, you might not be the best platform because on tick-tock, you have to send your product samples to like hundreds and thousands of influencers because some of the videos will hit some of them won't. So it's really good for people that have like, like cheaper products versus a 50 or a hundred dollar product that they're making. Kathryn Finney: that's a really important tip. because I think one of the challenges with a product is sampling, right? And getting your samples in the hands of people. And so TikTok can definitely influence that. But like you said, if you have a high cost product, you might not want to send, know, if you're making sneakers, you don't want to maybe send out, you know, two hundred dollar pair of sneakers to everyone. What has been sort of the best strategy for building that sort of online engagement on TikTok? Elina - Dood Woof Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: in TikTok particular. Elina - Dood Woof I think what really helps and just in general, building a brand is niching down. I know it's hard. I know it's scary because you like don't really, you're like, I don't want to alienate some of the people, but look, if I had a dog brand, I would have been crushed. There's so many companies out there that have dog brands and they have way bigger budgets than me and they just would have outrun me and outbid me on ads. But because I'm so niched to doodles, first of all, When I reach out to TikTok influencers, like they see this as a company for doodles. I'm only reaching out to doodle owners. Like they're like, that's cool. You know, cause it's so neat. It's so to them that speaks to them that it actually stands out. And same with just outside of TikTok. When I run ads, I'm like, are you a doodle owner? And if you're a doodle owner, that that hits you way more than like, Hey, do have a dog? Cause that's so general. So niching down in my opinion is like key to sticking out. when you don't have a huge amount of capital behind you. Kathryn Finney: So as you continue to grow the brand, where are you thinking of taking it next? Elina - Dood Woof (29:51.66) So I definitely it stays with doodle owners. I've already acquired those customers. And so now it's just products that my audience wants. So like, I have two products in development for next year. So we have two products right now, two products in development for next year. And they're all related to things that doodle owners challenges that they have. so it's not necessarily all grooming products, but it's things for that specific customer because I, If I was to now switch over to Frenchies, for example, I'd have to acquire all new customers. And that doesn't make any sense when I've already spent all that time and money nurturing and acquiring my Doodle owner customers. So we'll forever be a Doodle brand. Kathryn Finney: And you know, what are like, how do you find the other sort of pain points of that target customer? So you have doodle owners and you know that shedding is an issue, right? That's taking care of hair shedding is an issue. How do you find out the other challenges that they're experiencing too? Elina - Dood Woof I asked them, I have like, I posted in one of my Facebook group and the Facebook group I have for them. There's like thousands of doodle owners in there. And I'm like, Hey, like what challenges are you having or like what, what's your biggest health challenge? Right. What just asking them. And then they just comment. And then I look at it I'm like, okay, this seems to be a problem. let's see what's on the market that already solves this. these ingredients. I would not give this, I'm a huge health nut. So I'm like, I would not give this product, these products to my dog. So clearly I need to create something better and this is how I'm going to differentiate. And I'm to market it towards doodles because I know that, they actually need the product. Kathryn Finney: And so you built a successful business by solving a problem. Elina - Dood Woof (31:41.58) There we go. Yeah. I don't guess. I don't guess everything is like, asked them what they want because like, I'm like I said, in the beginning, it's so much harder. You can do it like, but it's so much harder to sell a product that you have to convince someone to buy. And it's so much more fun when like, I know that I'm delivering value to people and all money money is it's just an exchange of value for value. So I'm giving them value and they're giving, they're paying for it because they actually legitimately want the product. And that is such more of a fun game than trying to squeeze things from people. Kathryn Finney: that's a perfect spot to end on. Thank you, Alina, for showing us how grit, community, and purpose can build something amazing from scratch. If you love this convo, and I love this convo, subscribe, share, and drop a review. And remember to keep betting on yourself and keep building the damn thing. And if we meet again, thank you.