How to Scale Your Business With Entirely New Products - Big Bee, Little Bee | EP. #71

On this 71st episode of The E-Comm Show, our host, and BlueTuskr CEO Andrew Maff is with Amy Leinback of Big Bee, Little Bee, a self-taught inventor, entrepreneur, and retail and e-commerce seller. Amy and her daughter, Marlo, have invented and marketed a series of household and family products that have been featured on Shark Tank, Good Morning America, The View, and many more.

During this week’s episode, Amy shares her experiences as a self-taught marketer and seller by sharing how she has successfully scaled her business to what it is today using word of mouth, Amazon, and retail with entirely new products.

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Have an e-commerce marketing question you'd like Andrew to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: hello@theecommshow.com

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How to Scale Your Business With Entirely New Products - Big Bee, Little Bee

SPEAKER

Andrew Maff and Amy Leinbach

CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: AndrewMaff.com  |  Twitter: @AndrewMaff | LinkedIn: @AndrewMaff 

Amy Leinbach

Amy Leinbach is the Co-Owner of Big Bee, Little Bee, along with her eight-year-old daughter, Marlo. Together they invent and develop all of their products themselves. Marlo invented the Marker Parker Coloring Organizer, and Amy invented the ScrubBEE Silicone Scrubber, Build-A-Straw Reusable Easy-Clean Straw, SoftShell Silicone Food Storage Container, as well as several others. All of their innovations are designed to make a life for families easier at home and on the go and do so in a way that’s kind to the planet.

Big Bee, Little Bee’s award-winning products have been featured on Good Morning America and The View, and the two pitched their business on Season 14 of Shark Tank. Their products can be found in hundreds of retail stores across North America, in addition to their e-commerce channels. While Marlo is at school, Amy runs all parts of the business from managing a supply chain to marketing.

Transcript: 

00:03

I just don't personally have an interest in selling things like selling things isn't where the interest is in inventing and so the selling follows because it has to you can't just invent things and just do nothing with them.

00:15

Hey everyone, This is Nezar Akeel for Max Pro. Hi I'm Linda and I'm Paul and we're Love and Pebble Hi this is Lopa Van Der Mersch from RASA and you're listening to and you're listening and you

00:27

are listening to The E-Comm Show

00:36

Welcome to The E-Comm Show, presented by BlueTuskr, the number one place to hear the inside scoop from other ecommerce experts, where they share their secrets on how they scaled their businesses and are now living the dream. Now, here's your host, Andrew Maff. 

00:55

Hello, everyone, and well to another episode of The E-Comm Show. I'm your host  Andrew Maff. And today I am joined by Amy Leinbach, who is the co-owner of Big B, little b unfortunately, the other co-owner is sick right now. And that's okay, Marlo, we will send our regards. But, Amy, thank you so much for being on the show. I love starting us off. Let's do this stereotypical thing. Pretend no one's ever heard of you, blah, blah, blah. Tell us about your background, about the business how you guys get started, and then go from there.

01:25

Um, yeah, I don't have a background and anything to do with what I do now. I used to be a voice after all with that, right? self-taught all the way I used to be a voice actor, and special educator. And I've been doing this full-time for a while now, I guess since 2016. started the business based on a product I created for Marlo when she was a baby. We don't sell anymore because we're not focused on baby goods. But then yeah, it grew from there. And I'm an inventor, my daughter is an inventor. So the products that we sell are our own patented innovations. And I spent about every year or so we come out with a new one. And for better or worse, depending on if you watch Shark Tank. Yeah, and so, yeah, my daughter who just turned eight is the co-owner of this business. I'm the big b She's a little baby. And yeah, we she's the inspiration. And as of last year, she's one of the inventors as well, because one of our products and market Parker was truly invented by her. And we developed it together. And yeah, and now we're about to launch new products very, very soon. So.

02:54

Yeah, yeah, what is currently the top seller?

02:59

So it is still I'd say scrubbing, scrubbing as the silicone scrubber that I developed for her when she was two and a half to help her learn to wash. It's you know, it took off immediately. That was the product that helped us grow 100% year over year until the supply chain completely broke down. And we were without that product for quite a while. Which in a way helped some of our other products catch up and things like that. But it's back in stock now. Came back in stock just a short while ago, just the beginning of quarter four of this past year. Thank goodness. But marker Parker's really starting to take off. That's a relatively new product. And so, yeah, scrubbie is still the one that's in, you know, hundreds of stores and all that.

03:53

So as you have already mentioned, you're on Shark Tank. Yeah. I try not to harp on it for too long. Yeah, it's always like the same questions over and over again. But what uh, so obviously, you're on the show, what made you decide to be on the show? What was it like being on the show? What's life been like after the show?

04:13

Um, yeah, it's, it was just, it was kind of just for us. I mean, I don't mean to diminish it, but it was one of you know, a great milestone. I'm very lucky to be connected to an incredible group of inventors, and entrepreneurs. And so many of my friends had been on the show. And it was kind of like, I don't mean to say it was like a rite of passage, but in a way so yeah, my friends just really encouraged me to go on the show. And, and I knew, of course, that you can't buy that kind of advertising. You know, we're a self-funded business, you know, no investment whatsoever and you get in front of millions of people and you know, we're very lucky we were on Good Morning America two and a couple of times in the view and, and every time that happens, you know, you had a big boost. And you know, in a way it opens some new doors, you get some new contacts and things like that. And so it was, you know, she was seven and a half we just it was this season. So it was this past summer, she was seven and a half. And we went on and, you know, when she came out with her invention, there was no way I wasn't going to do it. You know, what kind of like an insanely proud parent doesn't talk about it all the time and want to show it? Like, yeah, I'm gonna want to show it to million people. And so we did. And that's an experience that, you know, we'll have forever a crazy, unique, amazing experience. And we focused on making it fun and bringing us a game and just letting it be that unique experience. That was

05:47

nice. And how has it been posed Shark Tank? I know that you were just on this past season. So I'd imagine you probably haven't re-aired yet. So it's probably just the one episode so far.

05:56

Funny timing, funny timing. So we aired on October 21. That was, you know, just, what, three months ago or something. And we just found out yesterday, we're re-airing this week. So yeah, so Okay, get ready for that. Because, you know, you asked just before like what it's like, you know, you get Fortunately, you get a big rush of traffic. And that's fantastic. So, you know, the next couple of days are just kind of preparing for that. And just making sure everything's all cleaned up. And so that's cool. So sounds,

06:29

it's gotta be nice to get a warning that you're about to get a big rush of traffic. I know sometimes when we talk to sellers that like randomly go viral that they weren't expecting, and they just weren't ready for it, and the site just basically.

06:42

And it definitely happens, you know, because a lot of times, I won't even know what happened, right? All of a sudden, you're just like, traffic and you're like, okay, somebody shared something somewhere, and I don't even know where it is, or you know, what happened, but okay, let's, let's do this. So yeah, it is nice to have a couple of days of warning.

07:03

Yeah, that's good. So you also mentioned you on the view, you're on Good Morning, America, obviously, you know, before the show and everything, I kind of do some digging and go to your site. And the amount of press that you have gotten is astonishing. There are not a lot of brands that are your size that have been on those shows, and then I should have written them down. But you have like, right on the homepage, there's got to be a good 1520 different publications and shows and stuff that you have been on. So do you have a background in PR? Do you have a PR company? Like I know, I'm guessing being on Shark Tank, you then get reached out by people? But were some of those pre-Shark tanks?

07:45

They were all pre-Shark Tank? Those were Oh, yeah, they were all three Shark Tank. And you know, it's so funny. Like sometimes I get people to reach out to you and you think they're fake. Like I was listening to the I hope I'm pronouncing it playful guys who are on your show Funny enough, we actually taped the same day, we were in the tram together. And we're chatting. Great guys. And they were saying that like when they heard from Shark Tank, they thought it was fake because they hadn't even really started yet. And so some of those things just kind of calm and I'm like, I never know what's real, not real, whatever. But um, you know, I try to be a respectful person. And I always reply, and funny because some of them are expensive opportunities. And I'm like, yeah, it's not for me, I don't I can't pay you to know, we can't pay for for for press, but you know, they come in and they saw somewhere and you know, some of them had been customers really funny, like, the scout for some show was like, Yeah, you advertise to me or something. And I barely advertised as you advertise to me, I have a two-year-old and we love your product. So I thought I'd reach out and so that's how some of it has happened. But you know, as far as some of the things I'm always very open about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at and it's funny you asked if I have a PR background. It's honestly like marketing and that side of things is one of my greatest weaknesses. I feel like it's great to have thought in the press but I can't take credit for it. And it's definitely one of the things I really struggle with do fine but I do not like feeling like I've confidence and it's not the strength Yeah.

09:24

So how are you getting business right now you mentioned you're doing a little bit of advertising but what is your marketing strategy?

09:32

Yeah, yeah, when I say minimal ad spend, I mean pretty minimal. Just starting to do tick tock little bit of tick tock and that's really nice. I was really scared of it for a while and didn't understand it was not it as a user. But I've started to do some tic TOCs in a way that kind of works for me and like I like to do behind-the-scenes stuff that's all talk about product all day long. Right behind the scenes, I love to help people will create their products just for fun not like have a side hustle or anything. And so kind of finding a bit of my stride there, let's say and I'm noticing a lot of traffic come in a lot of word of mouth very very grateful for that we have customers who come back who say like anything you create all buy, you know and they buy as gifts and things like that you really can't beat word of mouth. Right? I'll say that my efforts really depend on the product itself. Fortunately, when scrubby is available, it kind of does its thing you know what I mean? It just rolls it's got a good Amazon ranking, you know, all of that. And I just let it be that that product and major retail as well. Marker Parker, this year, we've learned quite a bit that it's, it's the big draw for it is preschools, preschools using in the classroom. And we saw that pretty quickly. So that's more of a say, like a groundswell very, like grassroots reaching out, preschool teachers reach out to us, they got it as a parent, they want it for the classroom. And so that's like a very different way of selling that we're learning. And build a straw. That's a very point-of-purchase product because it's a silicone reusable straw, you know, you need it when you need it. And then the new product that's coming out, the fun part is, is in the first couple of months, we'll learn, you know, we'll learn where it's going to be successful. Fortunately, I have a lot of retailers who are just ready for it, which is great. You know, they like our products, and they're ready, and we have the relationships with buyers, and, and they're ready for it too. And how it succeeds? Will it be brick and mortar? Will it be? Amazon? Will it be? We've never done affiliate marketing, but we're going to try, will that be where it really shines, we get to see, and that's part of the really fun part about launching a new product, at least for me.

12:01

So you're, you know, you're not as common as an E-commerce seller that we've worked with on the show, because a lot of sellers, you know, they're either they've sourced some product that they found, you know, somewhere and they were like, alright, this, I'll sell this, or you get the ones that no product that currently exists. And they're like, I can probably make this better, right? You're one of very few where you're inventing something completely new, it does not exist. There's not other type of version of Market park or anything like that. Like it's just that's it? How do you come up with these ideas for things that just don't exist at all. And actually, not only go from the idea but all the way to getting it created and then selling it?

12:46

So I would say I can't turn it off. Okay. And it's really funny, you have a kid and you start to see the same habits, whether it's nature or nurture, I don't know. But it's funny with our tail, it's the constant need to just problem solve, like, Okay, this isn't working, and my husband jokes that it's just I'm always building efficiencies into things. And so I think that that's how inventions come to me. But as far as inventing, I'm just, I think I'm fearless. Like, like, Okay, if it doesn't work, like I'll start prototyping, put a little money into it, I do very rough homemade prototypes. You know, like, that's how I start, I don't think in 2d, I think in 3d. So I'll throw it together. And I was like, doesn't work, it doesn't work, you know, that's fine. And if it's starting to work, I'll take it a little further and take it a little further. And like it said, I'm, I'm self-taught. And so there was a steep learning curve in the beginning, like with my first product, I made a ton of mistakes and wasted a bunch of money, not a lot in the big picture, not a lot of money. But, you know, the money I would not waste now. I'm very quick to market now where I wasn't before. I'm better at assessing whether this is going to sell earlier on. But for me, I just don't personally have an interest in, selling things like selling things isn't where the interest isn't inventing. And so the selling follows because it has to you can't just invent things and just do nothing with them. But yeah, like now like one of the things I think of so early on in the inventing process is is it going to catch somebody's attention in a three-second scroll? Like if they're scrolling past an Amazon listing or they're scrolling past a Facebook ad, you have a few seconds to catch their attention. And the first product I mentioned that it was a very unique cushion baby bath towel that people really fell in love with. But they did not understand it from a picture. They barely could understand it from like a 32nd video like you needed to understand the value prop. Otherwise, it's just literally the funny-looking towel. And so would I have made that again like now? No, because I knew I wasn't going to catch them. So I'd rather take something that I've thought of that I know solves a problem. Um, that, that I'm going to catch their eye, and they're going to get it. And so like with the new product, it's a, it's a massive improvement on a traditional silicone bag, I've been working on this problem, this is probably the problem I've been working on the longest This is yours, I'm like, there's a better solution to food storage, you know, no lost lids, enough of that. No difficult to clean, all that stuff we've been working on. But when I went for when I was thinking of it, it was like, it's got to communicate so fast. And that's when I went for it. You know, so that's in that way, I'm thinking of selling now, before even bringing something to market, whereas I never did before. You know, that's the school of hard knocks, teaching.

15:47

What is Marla think of the business?

15:50

Um, she loves it. She loves being an inventor. She's, you know, it's so funny to see the spark in her. And I And I'd say, she knows so much about business and product development, and her eye is so developed, it cracks me up, she will call out. Oh, I think this was a mistake in manufacturing. Not sure they should have done that. Like, she'll tell you so much about the materials, she can tell you, she can tell you the Durmitor of the silicone we're using in a given product because she's genuinely fascinated by it. And so is she excited about the business itself? I don't know. I mean, fine. You know, what I've heard, like, whatever. She's just lived with it. But as far as liking the products and developing the products now she loves it. She invents every day. Are we taking them all to the market now? The same way? We don't take all mine. But do you love the process?

16:51

Yeah, what is the end goal of the business?

16:54

Such a good question. You're asking me if it's such a good time. Um, it's hard to say right now at this juncture when I'm launching a brand-new product. But if you backtrack to show when we stood on the stage in Shark Tank, and I don't I genuinely don't remember what left was in the Edit not but um, but I was going for licensing, I really wanted to do licensing. And the thing is, is like you could tell I have a passion for the products and I want them to be as widely available as possible. I don't have much of an ego about very little ego about myself and my brand and it needs to be like mine, it's like I want to you know, the soft shell of the new product in every home in America, I want the market Parker in every elementary school and preschool in America. And there are companies that are you know, these are established selling channels, you know, to schools. And if they can do a better job at distribution, then, then that's the path I want to take. You know, do I want to sell the company? No, no, definitely not. But you know what I mean, I don't see those as like, Oh, I'll sell No, I want to license the product to the right partner for the product, right? And so that's what I'm looking at now. And I've never, I know anything of licensing nothing. So. So now I know, once I get past launching this product and establishing it in the next, like, let's say a couple of months, then hitting the ground running, teaching myself licensing and all of that, and we'll see. And if you ask me in six months, when I'm dealing with the business, my answer will probably change, because I really that's like what happens, especially through COVID, you know, COVID, and supply chain nightmares and all that stuff? It's like, I don't know, I don't know, necessarily, but that's the goal. I'll tell you now, that's the goal.

18:54

So is your thought to teach yourself licensing and go through the process? Or are you thinking maybe just hiring, like some kind of consultancy around licensing or something? Oh,

19:06

me, me with guidance. It's just if it's not learning, it's not fun. Do you know what I mean? Like, there are certain things I have no interest in learning, and that's usually to do with data. But no, thank you. No numbers, give me hives, but, um, but the things that I think I am capable of learning, I want to learn it and if I run up against a roadblock, then I'll find the right person, you know, to you know, I've already found people to help guide me and all that. But let's say I run into a major roadblock and I can't do it. Well, then I'd go and I'd find somebody you know, I really respect experts. But it would be no fun for me to hand that job over right now. So and are you handling all aspects of the business right now? Are there any employees or contractors? I work with contractors. Yeah, to handle numbers like I have Amazing people. But yeah, I mean as far as like supply chain and all development and you know managing fulfillment, marketing all of it the content all of it is still me. You know without but you know, still me.

20:18

Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned you know, you kind of it took a little while but you took the dive into Tik Tok. What a first What was yours? What was your initial strategy going into it after you did start posting? And then also how is it going for you now?

20:36

Okay, so when I started posting, like, I feel like I dabbled in it this time last year, and then just stopped. Because I was like, I don't I don't get it. I'm not seeing this. I don't know, you know, whatever. And I just stopped and then a few months ago, I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna watch it a little more, see what's going on. And then, you know, you hear people talking about you should do this. And you should do this. And you should do this. And I'm like, well, then I can't think of the content. Do you know what I mean? If I'm always thinking of content that people are going to want to ingest, I'm gonna get nowhere. So let me start talking about the things I want to talk about. Because there's gotta be somebody out there who wants to hear this who's interested in product development, like I am, and I do some fun ones now, like, I'm, I'm learning when trending things are and whatnot. But you know, when I figure like, yeah, you might say, Oh, well, you're not demoing the product all day. And you're not doing the same thing featuring the market featuring the market, or you know, all of that. But if I'm talking about how it's made, or I'm talking about, you know, like, let's, I don't know, try out this and you know, somebody asked me if one marker fits, and I'm like, I have no idea. I'll buy it, and we'll try it and there it is, and, and I love when the questions drive the content. But yeah, basically, it's like, what do I want to talk about we had a mini flood in the house the other day, and I had my BB lb, maybe a little bit historical box, we had some of the early prototypes, things that we went for didn't go for, and I'm like, that's a lot of content in there. That'll be fun. isn't moving forward necessarily these products trying to sell in some cases? Yeah, in some cases, no. So I don't know. I mean, it's I wouldn't say it's much of a strategy except for not getting myself bogged down with trying to always think of content to make the content

22:21

it all comes down to testing for the most part, right? Try something new, see if it works, if it works, and start doing more of that. It's usually pretty simple. But Amy, thank you so much for being on the show. I don't want to take up too much more of your time obviously give my condolences. Tell Marlo to feel better. Well, I wow. Yeah, thank you for being on the show everyone who tuned in, obviously, thank you as well please make sure you rate review, subscribe, and all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you want or heavily com show.com and watch the rest of our episodes. But thank you so much for joining us, Amy. Thank you as well. We'll see y'all next time. Have a good day.

23:04

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