Part Ecommerce Brand Accelerator + Part Data-Driven Performance Marketing w/ Colin Mcguire of Boomn

Hey guys, we're here for episode 18 of the e-commerce opportunity where I'm joined by Colin. Colin, how are you, my friend? I'm good, man. How about you? Doing well. Thanks, dude. I'm really pumped to finally have you here. There's a lot I know about you, but there's even more I want to know about you, hence why we're here. So do you mind starting by sharing kind of what you're working on? Yeah, dude. So essentially what me and my team are working on right now is I co-founded a company called Boomin with two other guys. And essentially we have pivoted the traditional agency model, and really it was a planned evolution more so than a pivot, but both pivoted and evolved the traditional agency into being essentially a CPG, direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand portfolio. So we currently operate 11 brands, everything from hunting backpacks and beauty all the way to food and beverage. So essentially what we work on every day is we build, grow, and scale direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands. I love that. And I really want to dive into the business model in a second because I know what you're doing there is really interesting. But what were you working on prior and what was it that gave you the interest or the confidence to kind of go out on your own and start this agency and this business? Yeah, it's a great question. Truly the story actually starts all the way back in college. I started to sell t-shirts on the internet, followed by iPhone charging cables, followed by early iPhone accessories. And we had like the big square plug, not like the lightning cord that we know today. And really, truthfully, I actually started screen printing t-shirts at a local print shop on campus at Illinois State University. That was the first place I ever screen printed. And then I'd actually started to find people that now it's called print-on-demand, but there was no Printful, there was no Guten, there was no print-on-demand. And so I actually got started really early sourcing products in China, shipping them to the United States, creating a brand or a store and running digital advertising to sell those products, everything from t-shirts and hats all the way to imported products from China. And so I started really getting into that quite heavier into 2012, 2013, and eventually ended up founding a company called Virocard. It was a holdings company that I used to own the e-commerce brands that I was starting. And basically I would build these business in a box. I would get an e-commerce brand with a stable product to about $75,000 to $100,000 in revenue. My goal was always to get it to $40,000 in profit and then try and flip that brand as essentially like a business in a box. I was doing a lot of micro-acquisitions or having people micro-acquire the brands that I was starting. And did that a couple of times and realized that being a one-man band and being in that hustle mode was something that I didn't really want to do. And I didn't have the necessary capital to go to the next level. And so the idea was to use other people's money, OPM for the people that are familiar with it, to build a highly specialized team that could incubate, grow, scale brand, e-commerce brand profitably. And so that's what we did. We started an agency and essentially used other people's money and hired highly specialized people in addition to myself and business partners to build and scale a team. And then from there, essentially decided to pivot the business into doing really unique deal structure. So we operate the business on three different revenue models. Number one is through royalty. So we will operate company A on a royalty basis. So we enter an agreement where we're taking a percentage of revenue of net revenue, not net profit, not profit, but we operate the business on a revenue basis. So we do everything from customer service, marketing. And when I'm talking about marketing, I'm talking about email marketing. We have a content production team here in LA. We have, of course, all the media buyers, email and SMS, influencer marketing, social media management, a five-person design team, website designers and developers. We've got a team of 30 plus doing everything from fulfillment vendor management, meaning managing the fulfillment vendor, managing inventory, managing all returns, all customer operations and customer service, as well as all the marketing side of things. And so we essentially will plug in our team, enter into a strategic partnership where we plug in our team in exchange for a royalty fee. So we will operate the business on a royalty fee. The number one easiest thing way that this clicks for people oftentimes is when I refer to Shark Tank, where someone pitches their business and they're saying, I want $100,000 for 10% of my business, which is a $1 million valuation. And then Mr. Wonderful Kevin goes, I'm willing to give you the $100,000, but instead of 10% of your company, I want a 1.5% royalty for 20 years or until, or $3 million or something like that. And it's a good way to keep all of 100% of your company, control the finances, the voting and all that, but then partner with someone who can give you either financial capital or the human, a highly specialized human capital to grow your business. And so that's revenue model number one is through strategic partnerships on a royalty basis. The second way that we operate is through basically incubating our own brand. So we will build a brand from the ground up. Most recent example of this is our gourmet condiments and sauce company called Zesty. Basically what we did was we worked with manufacturers, we developed the product and we will personally fund the manufacturing and build the business from the ground up. And then the third way is through acquisition. We mostly operate in the micro acquisition space. So we're looking to acquire brands that do in between about a hundred to $500,000 a year profitably. And, or if it's not profitable at an annual basis, there was at least periods in there where there was profitable traction. And so then we will acquire those companies and plug them into what we're doing. Wow. There's a lot here. So to kind of recap, so it sounds like you have 11 brands in all three of those buckets. Is that total? So where do most of the brands live? Is it mainly right now on like the royalty rev share side and kind of moving towards like the internal and kind of own brands and acquisitions? Like where are you now and where are you going? Yeah, it's a great question. So we've actually began to blend the models actually a little bit, which makes it another degree of confusing. So essentially I'll answer that, but to give a little bit more context so people understand what I'm answering, it's our long-term vision of booming is to own and operate an e-commerce portfolio that does $200 million in e-commerce revenue. Okay. That was when we started booming, we said by the end of year five, we want to have produced $200 million. Now by any means necessary. Okay. So what we did was we started on a royalty basis, but now we're actually taking the brands that really, that we really have had a lot of success with. And we evolved those relationships. We invest capital and we actually take that. So it's about 50, 50, it's about 50% royalty basis, 50% equity and royalty. I'm always about transparency. The way that we did this was we planned halfway through 2019 to pivot the business to basically actually fire or part ways with lots of our royalty and agency clients and take the money that we had made in 2020 to build our brands. So after 2019, what actually ended up happening was 2020 hits. I'm in Bali for the month of January. I come back and it's COVID and e-commerce is absolutely skyrockets and manufacturing, product sourcing, all of the things that we needed to do in order to get our own brands off the ground were no longer available to us. So we made lemonade out of lemons and just really began to scale the royalty brands that we had in front of us and take things to the next level there. So we're only two or three brands technically into incubating and acquisitions of the 11. We should have one close in the next like 60 days, that would technically be 12. And so it's about 50, 50 to answer your question. That's awesome, dude. This stuff is fascinating. So I want to focus on Zesty, right? So condiments, sauces, spices. Why that sector? Why that industry? How long did it take to develop products? When did you launch? How's it going? Can you break down this business? Like what was the thought process? Where are you at? Yeah, absolutely. I've been doing this. I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years, longer than 10 years, you know what I mean? Like, I started painting houses and selling things online, you know, promoting, like, you know, throwing events, ticketed events, you know, for a long time. And one of the things that I learned across the landscape is number one, you can either do things for passion, or you can do things for the opportunity to make profit, right? Passion or opportunity, those are the two things. And really, I have no passion for sauce, although I do love to dunk a good nugget and, and, and or some pizza and some ranch. I have, I'm not at all passionate about sauce. Truly, the main goal is to create a liquidity event in the business, meaning that we operate this business for a profit. But then I can actually sell one of the assets that my company operates for a big for for a large chunk of money. And I'm not doing this for the sale. I'm not building the company for the sale. But that's actually how I started, I would love to run zesty until, you know, the day I, you know, kick, kick the can, you know what I mean? Like until the day I, you know, retire, or, you know what I mean? Like, I have no plan of selling it right now. I'm not building the business to sell it. I think that's important. But really, what I work backwards from is, I wanted to create a liquidity event. And I wanted to create a disruptor brand. There's not very many categories available right now that's open for disruption, like what Casper did to mattresses, right? What dollar Shave Club did to razors, right? They're like, if you actually look at it, there's almost a major category player in the in the in the DTC space in the direct consumer space for every product. Almost, there's not very many left. You know, you could argue that trough, you know, is is a category disruptor in DTC for hot sauce, but you know, I think they have like a mayo and marinara sauce like that, maybe totally have 10. There's no major, major, major direct consumer household brand name that would have an opportunity to get acquired by a Procter and Gamble to get acquired by a Johnson, to get acquired by a major CPP brand. And so I actually started the idea of what categories are open for for disruption. That was that was the number one reason I learned that number two was what categories are open for disruption that don't include software or hardware, that limited it down quite a bit. What categories are open for disruption that is going to take me $100,000 or less startup capital to get to day one, right? Products in warehouse ready to ship, content shot, you know, everything that limited it down quite a bit. And no, I was actually left with an idea that I've actually been sitting on for two years. And that was gourmet condiments that have wild and extraordinary flavors that you can't buy, right? Stuff that's, you know, you can buy, you know, cranes, ketchup ranch and buffalo ranch, avocado ranch in the store. But what about roasted crushed garlic and hot peppers, right? And what about, you know, barbecue sauce made with real hand smoked chipotle peppers, like actually putting chipotle peppers on the smoker, instead of, you know, artificial smoke, you know, smoke flavoring, how can I deliver a product that you can't buy in store so that I can be successful with B2C. And so that that's actually what Zesty so over the last, you know, year and a half or so, basically, what I did was, you know, we developed these flavors, I, you know, developed a relationship with manufacturers decided to build Zesty, which is a ultra premium condiments sauce, we call it a flavor company, we actually sell seasoning, sell barbecue sauces, branches, hot sauces, none of our stuff, none of our hot sauces are extremely hot. They're just packed with tons of unique flavor. And then we use real food ingredients. One of the things that, you know, as a part of the, you know, the maker story was that we realized that almost everything you buy in store, none of it actually has real anything. It's, you know, concentrates and powders and artificial flavoring, dyes and all these things that, you know, I just personally think shouldn't be in food. And so then that kind of made it in into the story as well. So now we have wild, extraordinary flavors that you can't buy in store, that are just totally inventive and unique and euphoric, right, bringing food to a whole new level by adding flavor to it. That's also made with real food and not, you know, artificial flavorings and the stuff, you know, and we do use some binding agents, but no thick, like why, why does your sauce look so perfectly thick? It's because there's stuff in there that makes it look like that, right? We use binding agents, so the stuff doesn't separate and look too nasty. But you know, we don't add tons of those things that I think that stuff shouldn't be in there at all, I wish it would, it could, it wouldn't be in there altogether. But, you know, that's how we develop the product. Then essentially, once we develop the product line, and we had the products, I actually handed it off to my team to actually name it, name all the flavors that I developed with the manufacturers and bring the brand. So that's, that's really the story. And why we did that. I love that. And how long ago did you launch? And what's kind of in the initial traction or reaction? Yeah, I think we launched like 15 days ago. I think it was like two weeks ago on Thursday. So maybe 13 days in, I believe. It was I think it was April 29. Actually, now that I think about it. But I think we launched in April 29 soft launch friends and family. And we've done about 500 orders overall. feedback is incredible. Part of the stuff that we're doing is giving you a wild experience that, you know, you just won't get anywhere else. So this is how you're, you know, this is how it shows up, right? Like your party flavors have arrived. It's a wild box. We have, you know, each and every single one of our products has individual artwork for all. And so this is this is bad. You know, we include a sticker pack, you know, and all of them. And so the whole goal was to launch soft to friends and family to get the product in people's hands. Because we knew that as soon as people saw our box and saw our product, and, you know, read the flavors and tasted tasted it, that it was going to be unlike anything they've ever done before. And so what we did was, we did a soft launch to friends and family, and we outreach to a bunch of influencers. And right now we have more content pouring in from and great reviews, positive experiences, word of mouth that like we're running no ad, no email, no SMS right now, kind of just in the in the building phase, putting content together, shooting stuff at our at our studio here in LA and, and, you know, putting things together for the brand. So really, really, really early days of the brand. But, you know, the goal is to get this to about $100,000 a month run rate pretty, pretty quickly. Yeah, dude, that's, that's brilliant. I actually ordered some product, I think at some point a week or two ago. I think it's going to be here any second. So I cannot wait to create some content and try them. I'll definitely let you know how it is. So thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, of course, man. I appreciate the support. Of course. No, always, always trying to support you and anyone else I can. So that's great. So question you mentioned before, right, you wanted to start something sub 100k to go from idea to launch. What are some other things that are important to you? Like what traction metrics? You know, how do you know if you're working on the right thing is essentially what I'm asking, with a bunch of other businesses and opportunities? How do you know if zesty is the right one? How much time do you give it? How much money do you spend? What are some of the metrics that you look at to be like, man, this is a winner, let's double down? Or unfortunately, this wasn't a winner. Let's pivot to something else. Yeah. So great question. I'm personally of the belief system that bad products with good marketing makes it you know, can can be successful and can be a successful company and good products with bad marketing can be successful or you know, I will not be successful. It really all comes down to like sales cures all and at the end of the day, if you're running a company, and you know, you you do a million dollars in revenue and you make a profit on that. You know, it's working. And so my belief system is that I believe in these products. I know that this is a good concept. Am I 100% sure that my price point is correct? And I 100% that, you know, being a 100% direct consumer brand is the right move? Will Amazon be a major player in it? I'm willing to explore that. Will brick and mortar end up being, you know, a good revenue generator for us? Should we be doing is our pricing? Do you know, do we need to, you know, change or alter the box? Well, I have some bad products and need to drop them or reinvent them or move them all together? Yes, I'm sure I will. But the answer is, there's no way this won't work. And there's no way that any idea that you have shouldn't work. So as long as that it's a good concept, and that you have good marketing, and that it fills a gap, I know for sure, with 100% certainty, that there's a major market out there for hot sauces, unique, expensive hot sauces. I know that there's a major market out there for ransom. I know that there's a major market. I know that there's a major market for for season, right? Like it gets bought in store every day. Can Can I crack the code of having good enough marketing to be successful? And at the end of the day, I don't care if I can, you know, our goal, you know, transparently is to reach $100,000 at a 3m, meaning that, you know, we're doing probably about 20 to $30,000 a month in profit. Okay. Now, if I can do that for 12 months, you know, I'm going to be in a really good spot, you know, $30,000 a month for 12 months is, you know, not a little bit, it's not a lot of money, but it's not a little bit of money. Now, where can I take it in year two? Where can I take it three? And what if the brand has a, you know, 24 month EBITDA of, you know, a few million dollars? Well, you know, if I'm not in love with the brand, and I don't want to write it anymore, then that's a great grounds for, you know, a good acquisition. So that's, you know, it's, it's just like, I'm not married to the product. I'm married to the idea of getting this to, like, I'm married to the idea of making the most out of the opportunity, which, in my opinion, is possible no matter what. And I love that. And I'm the type of guy that every single time I go to the grocery store, my wife says, do not buy more hot sauces, do not buy more seasoning. So every single time I go, I want to buy something new. And we have all these seasonings, these sauces that like, I never use, but they look cool. And whenever people come around, it's like, oh, Chase, you're the sauce guy or the seasoning guy. So I am your customer. And, you know, heading the products good, which I know it's going to be great. I'm going to be buying from you probably on a monthly, if not quarterly basis. There we go. I'd love that. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, I think the, the, the biggest thing is like, how much money will you put into this? I will put as much money into it as, as is needed. You know, if I fail and need to restart five times, then, you know what I mean? You get knocked down five times, you're going to get up six. You know, it sounds corny, but that's just the truth. And the reality is like, you know, if there's a wall, you have to climb, but the wall keeps getting taller. You better be better at climbing. You know what I mean? So yeah. I love that. I got a couple more questions. The first one I want to talk about is like, when you think about, you know, booming and kind of what you've built, right. You started as an agency, you're kind of moving towards this hybrid model of having some skin in the game with some clients and also building, buying your own businesses. How do you think about like your guys's revenue forecast over the years? Do you think a lot of the revenue is going to come from kind of what you're already doing on the, let's say the services side, or do you think a lot more of the revenue as a percent is going to come from these internal brands? Like how do you foresee those two kind of contributing to your bottom line? Yeah, it's a great question. So truthfully, the way that I see booming is we started an agency and we diversified the revenue, right. And now we use that same team to operate our own brands. Now what will happen is the original entity will probably move up to being a parent company or a holdings company to boom in brains and boom in services, boom in brands will own zesty LLC. Okay. And so the, the royalty revenue, to be completely honest with you, it's all of the money with very little of the headache of running the business. Like you'd have to be, I'd have to be out of my mind and have so much good stuff cooking up on the brand side and need my team so much for the brand side that, you know, I would be making a very silly financial decision to stop doing any of the royalty work that we are doing. At the end of the day, royalty revenue, you know, is, is going to be classified as a services business. You know, selling your agency or creating a event in your agency is, you know, it's atypical. Number one, it doesn't happen often. Number two, it has to be really special. Number three, oftentimes it's more so a lifestyle business. It's a way to create cashflow and funds to do other things that, you know, that you have, you know, that you can have more control of and you can create liquidity events in your life. So, you know, ultimately the idea is for, you know, booming services to always do what it is doing and, and continue and going to continue to scale and grow the royalty and equity deals that we have in place, right? Because why would I invest, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars into brands that I run on a royalty basis to buy equity if I'm going to walk away from that deal? It's an absolutely stupid move, right? I want to control my own success there. You know, I don't want to trust someone else to do that. And so we're going to continue to grow that, but our main priority right now for growth, like, like for growth on the team side is with our own brands, but really our number one priority as a company right now is continue to scale and grow the royalty, you know, companies that we operate to continue to be the absolute best partner that we can be to, you know, our strategic partnership plans. You know, the money's good. The money's really good. You know, you do, you know, on track to do probably about 80 million this year. It's not a little bit of money, you know? Yeah, that's, that's huge. And congrats. That's super awesome. On the team side, you mentioned before, I think, give or take about 30 people, how do you find people and how do you recruit people? I know a couple of people that have to work pretty recently, really smart, really good people. How do you find these people? Right? Like, are you recruiting them? Are they coming to you? What platforms are using, you know, how much does your guys' agency reputation going to play a personal brand going to play? Like what, what is the secret? Yeah, that's actually a great question. And I'm super transparent about everything. And, and more and more and more so recently, you know, I've shared this tip with a lot of people, including, you know, including Shackelford and, and, and, you know, you're in your crew and a lot of others. So, you know, and I'm not afraid to do it, but more so I'm getting more and more and more skeptical to give people this secret. Because I'm starting to see a lot of other people do this on the platforms that I like to play in. And it's becoming harder and harder and harder. So the number one thing is we're a remote team. So I need someone who number one can effectively work remote. Number two, I need them to be a self-starter. I need them to be hungry and like, actually want to wake up and solve problems and get out there and put things on their plate and finish them. And I need them to be a self-starter. I need them to be proactive. One of the hardest parts about building an effective team is, you know, you could hire someone with an MBA and, you know, 10 years agency experience, which I have. And, you know, they're just not the person that puts things in play and, and wins every day and every week and every month and every quarter. And really what I think those people are there, that's the entrepreneur in you. That's the, can I do whatever it takes to get the job done? Right. And the best way that I've found these people is actually through hiring on, on freelance and contract work platforms like Upwork, freelancer.com, and actually posting a job and saying like, this is, you know, a full full-time role like Monday through Friday 95 with highly competitive pay. And interviewing for people that are email marketers, media buyers, designers, content creators, you know, web developers, all, you know, all of the things that you would need. I like to hire on, on a platform where people don't get a salary job and it's actually kind of a sale. So I don't talk about hiring, I'm recruiting. Like when you switch the mentality from I'm hiring to I'm recruiting, that puts the onus from they're coming to me to I'm finding them and I'm putting them on my team, right. That like, it's like recruiting an all-star team, you know, a college, you know, college athletics, right. It's like, you got to put the best team in place. You have to go to them sometimes, right. And you got to find the atypical ones, right. And so, you know, some of my best employees, you know, I'm 99% sure, but, you know, I won't put his name out there, but a lot of people know who he is. Like you would know his name if I said it from like the Facebook ad buyers group and just, you know, being a legend to the space, he didn't even graduate from high school. That didn't matter to me. You know what I mean? Like **** a college degree. He didn't even graduate from high school. You know, one of the hardest marketers in the game, you know what I mean? Graduated from what we were doing and, you know, left to go do his own thing. And, you know, you found that that person, the self-starter, the people that can get it done, hiring on an Upwork or an Elance or a freelancer.com, you know, those types of platforms where people are actively trying to seek out more work. Like I have three clients. I have a full-time job and I'm looking for more. You know what I mean? Like I actively want to solve your problems. Like I want clients to hire me to solve problems for them, right? Those are the people that I'm looking for. Killer, man. I'm so fired up with the energy and even just the concept. So I love that. The final question today, I'm super appreciative of you being here and all the knowledge. In terms of like the agency side, the services side, like the royalty, the rev share side, how have you found those clients, right? Like most people when they're getting clients, they think about, you know, a flat retainer. And a lot of times that's what we charge and what we do, right? And those clients typically come to us and there's a lot of those types of clients. But to find like the right client that actually wants to do the model that you have and understands it and is on board, like how does that start? Like how do you find those people? Are you friends with them? Do they come to you through referrals? Like what does that look like? Yeah. You know, I really wish I had a better answer to this question. I get asked it a lot. And it sounds almost arrogant. And, you know, I almost apologize for that. But the answer is like, you know, if you've been, you know, I started doing this in 2010. You know, like I started, that was 11 years ago. So when you do something for 11 years, and when you do something for three, four or five years, right? And it's something super new. You know, I was the Facebook ads guy, I was the e-commerce guy. You know what I mean? Like I went to networking events and talked to people that owned a lot of different businesses. I was the only one there that did e-commerce. And over time, you know, I started doing phone consulting and advising. I started, you know, investing in certain things. And over time, I created, you know, my relationships with Nick, which is how I know you with, you know, most big players in the e-commerce space. Like I know a lot of them. And if I don't know them on a personal basis, I'm at least like social media friends with them. Like, you know, I know who they are, they, you know, know of me, you know, I know of them, they know of me, you know, we've gone back and forth on social media. I've spoken at a ton of events, speaking at events, you know, for the last five, six years is a game changer. You know, I met my business partner Ryan speaking at Collision Conference in Vegas, you know, in 2015, 2016, whenever that was, you know, it's, it's like, the answer to that question is, unfortunately, everyone really comes to me. It's, it's like, hey, I have a friend, they tell their friend about like, my friend, Colin, has been doing e-commerce for years. And then, you know, we started the agency, we did the traditional model, we had tons of success under our belt. And when we decided it was time to pivot, the conversation was, hey, we're killing it for you. We're either going to walk away from you, like we don't want your 15 grand a month. Now we're going for 100 grand a month. We want to operate your business with you. You know what I mean? Like, not for you, with you. And so we turned a lot of our traditional agency clients into, you know, royalty clients. We also, you know, have been blessed to be introduced to lots of different people. And really, I would probably say like, we probably get in between like, on average, probably five leads a week. And, you know, 52 weeks in the year, you know, we get hundreds and hundreds of like, you know, 99.9% of people we talk to, we refer elsewhere. And there's the point one where it's like, this is a good opportunity, I'm interested in it. You know, we've never done any outbound sales ever before. It's like our reputation precedes us, fortunately, for the work that we've been able to do. You know, taking brands from, you know, 10, 15 grand a month, you know, millions of dollars a month, multiple, not just doing it once, we're doing multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple times. And me telling you about it, and me telling other people about it, and them knowing that it's real, and me doing stuff like this, opens up the conversations to other people, you know? Man, Colin, massive way to end it. This was incredible. Thank you so much for being here. I know how busy you are. What's the best way for people to work with you, work for you, learn from you, connect with you, whatever it might be? What are some of the best ways? Yeah, um, great question. We're always hiring talented people. So if you're a social media manager, content creator, editor, designer, you know, web developer, anyone that, you know, thinks that they can play a major role, customer service operations, like, you know, fulfillment vendor management, manufacturing, at this point in time, we're hiring great people all the time. So if you think that you can play a major role in what we're doing, you know, reach out to me, probably the best place to find me, the place where I'm most active, quite inactive on all social media, it would be Instagram. It's at Colin McGoo, MCGOO, although my name is Colin McGuire, you can search that too, I think you'd be able to find me. Yeah, reach out to me on Instagram. I'm also happy to give feedback or give feedback to people all the time. You know, people message me, hey, what do you think about this product? Hey, what do you think about this landing page? Hey, I'm trying to sell my company or, you know, thinking about selling my e commerce company, like, you know, what, what, you know, should I think about? I'm also open to acquisition conversations all the time. You know, you have a brand that's doing, you know, 100 to $750,000 a year. You know, I'm open to that conversation. And yeah, I mean, you know, reach out to me. I'd love to talk to anyone that's, that's watching. Amazing call. I'll drop your IG. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you and have a good rest of your day. Absolutely, man. You too. Be easy. All right. Cheers.