Under The Hood: Kate from Rmdy

Welcome Kate! How did you get the first 100 sales, the next 1,000 and the next 10,000? 

So the first 100 sales were all friends and family. We launched Rmdy while we were in business school, and business school is an environment that is incredibly supportive of entrepreneurs and startups. So we had a peer group that was loud and proud in supporting us, not only through purchases, but getting the word out there. That was a pretty instrumental factor in getting to our next thousand sales. The word started to spread organically to more distant friends who experienced GI issues (“gastrointestinal / gut health issues”) - that’s how we got to 1,000. 

But the real challenge was getting it from 1,000 to 10,000. We went about this in two different ways:

The first way was to identify micro influencers who have a history of talking about GI issues, digestive issues, connecting with their audiences by being incredibly transparent about their wellness journey. That path was incredibly beneficial for us, and would be for anyone else in health and wellness. We identified them through hashtags. We would reach out to them, tell them about our founding story and ask them without any obligations: “Would you be interested in trying a product for free?”. We were shocked to see how many of them were excited to try it and thrilled to share it with their audiences. I think they were so excited to find something that actually worked and moved the needle.

The second component was thinking about what it about Rmdy that got our classmates interested in  buying it in the first place. We realized that it was my story. It was my personal pain point and my wellness journey that followed. So I took my phone in my living room and recorded my story. Nothing fancy. I created this makeshift janky setup with books and binders, and I recorded this short video explaining my journey, my struggles, and how I came to develop Rmdy. We put it up on Facebook with a test budget of $50 behind it. And sales started to pour in as we continued to increase budgets. What was really exciting and interesting was the response that we were getting from these strangers on the internet. 

At that time, the category was very unsexy, but we were adamant to speaking about digestion, bloating and bowel movements in a refreshing way - forcing people to pay attention to a cause that affects 2 out of 3 people in America on a regular basis. The amount of comments and messages that we received saying “oh my gosh, I can't believe someone's talking about this. Thank you for sharing your story”. We realized that we really hit the nail on the head. We weren’t just providing a solution, but also a platform where people felt safe talking about their own personal struggles. 

Can you talk a bit more about this community:  How did you create this safe space for customers to share information with you?

Absolutely. So we have an Instagram page where people can get a real sense of what our brand's about. I think it’s refreshing to see that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We mostly put up health hacks, wellness tips, and memes. But beyond Instagram, we fully leverage email. We’ve established a really tight feedback loop with our customers. They get an email one week into their experience from my personal email asking if they have any feedback to share. 

We kept those going for as long as I could answer all the emails within a reasonable amount of time. We're past that point now, but we still try to maintain that feedback loop tight via tools like Google Forms and Typeform. And if anyone wants to get on a 15 minute feedback call with me, they just leave their phone number via email and they'll get a call from me. 

I wanna talk about the more difficult parts of the business. What are you still trying to crack? 

We launched the business a few weeks before COVID hit. At that time I was wrapping up my final semester at Wharton, and we had just signed a lease in an office space in Philadelphia. And Philadelphia had just issued a city mandate where, unless you were an essential worker, you could not go into your place of work. You could not congregate. 

So as a leader, I was faced with a really unique problem that no amount of education or prior experience could really prepare you for:  How do you build a true culture and team morale when you're fully distributed?

And it’s not until recently that I feel we’ve cracked the code and that we're building a team culture that we're really proud of.

It’s still a work in progress, but recently we've been experimenting with different ways to fight burnout, something more than just “zoom happy hours”. And at the top of the new year, we implemented a pretty radical experiment: A four and a half day work week.

We're about 3 weeks in andI've seen increased productivity with great momentum building throughout our week, especially the first four days of the week. It's contagious. And that’s something that I want for my team. I want them to be super energized and focused when we're working, but at 1:00 PM local time on Friday, I want them to honor that half day and rest. I want them to get a head start on their weekend, to take a weekend trip, to fully leverage remote work without any judgment. These are the ways that we can try to build in more boundaries and have a healthier work life balance, because at the end of the day, I want my team to work to live -  not the other way around.

Having worked closely with you in the past - I’m familiar with your team structure, and it is LEAN! How have you managed to maintain such a strong supply chain with limited resources? 

We have a 3PL partner that we have a wonderful working relationship with. We brought them on board probably a year and change ago. So we’ve worked with them through the ups and downs of the unique challenges that COVID presented in terms of staffing, facilities getting shut down, unpredictable freight delays and whatnot - they’ve been a real rock for us and I attribute a lot of operational successes to them. 

But Anastasia (growth team member) and I have also contributed. We’ve created our own incredibly detailed, smart and intelligent modeling system which forecasts, based on historical performance, sales per channel per SKU. So on Shopify, we can predict new orders vs. subscription refills vs. Amazon vs. retail pilot orders. That model’s been a massive game-changer for us. 

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I’m curious: What quality trait should one look for in a 3PL? 

I believe very strongly in referral marketing. Firsthand experience from a colleague or someone that you trust is bar none. This 3PL we work with was referred to us by classmates of ours who run a nursing shoe company called Clove who we really admire. 

Beyond referrals, I would ask your 3PL about their historical performance to date, how quickly they can get packages out, how quickly they can troubleshoot. I’d also speak to the specific account manager that will be handling the day to day of your business. 
Our account manager has a ton of experience with Shopify and consumer, but also with Amazon which has its unique fulfilling challenges. And at the end of the day: Are these people that you wanna do business with? Our 3PL for instance is based in Pennsylvania, and they came to pick us up from the train station when we first visited. They’re just decent people, and that goes a very long way!

Last question. What would you attribute most of your success to on Rmdy?

It’s team. If you don't like the team, especially when you're fully distributed, you don't want to work. It’s as simple as that. You’ll find all different kinds of ways to avoid work. So I think team is incredibly important, and I'm very proud to have the team that we have right now. We’ve got a very good culture that we've consciously built. 

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Awesome. Thanks Kate!