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NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
[00:00:00] Bethany Taylor: Same campaign that we went to, Snoop Dogg's birthday party client actually wanted to go to the coldest and hottest places in America because it was a spicy taco. We went to Alaska. We did a pop-up sampling event on a glacier, two hours from the closest city set up flags and entire sampling station.
It's just such a unique thing to see people come over the crest of a glacier and surprise 'em. With this experience and the excitement that you get out of it, how can you not be grateful to get to do this for a living?
[00:00:34] Cameron Clark: Good morning, Bethany. Thank you for coming on.
[00:00:36] Bethany Taylor: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:38] Cameron Clark: Um, absolutely. So before we dive in 32nd overview, what is Gratsy? Um, just so people kind of know, not your typical marketing agency
[00:00:48] Bethany Taylor: mm-hmm.
[00:00:49] Cameron Clark: Different, different flair. Y'all are doing something pretty incredible.
[00:00:53] Bethany Taylor: Sure. So we're a marketing agency and the way we describe what we do is we connect brands to consumers through curated product experiences that are [00:01:00] memorable and measurable.
And we do that in three main places, one, direct to home through our curated sample boxes and sampling experiences that we create. Two is in the community through custom events, and three is on social through talent partnerships.
[00:01:12] Cameron Clark: Okay. And, and talk about, you know, this is, I feel like it's the most interesting thing you've said since we've like gotten to know each other a little bit.
Snoop Dogg's birthday, Gratsy bringing you there. Give us a little insight. What was it like? Yeah, just, you know, for the, the outsiders that sure wish they were there.
[00:01:31] Bethany Taylor: So I think that's been one of the most interesting parts of this journey is the places it's taken us that we've never expected to be. And Snoop Dogg's birthday party is one of those that was not on my bucket list when I started this company.
So to back into that story, we had partnered with one of our clients who had launched a spicy taco show. And so we were doing a series of activations and we made a food truck and we were taking it to different retail locations and different pop-up PR locations to kind of raise awareness of this. And Snoop was getting ready to [00:02:00] drop a new album and he was doing a lot of, um, press and appearances and things like that.
And we wanted to kind of drive some hype around this. Spicy fiery experience. And so we partnered with him to shoot some social content to use for the campaign and as we were working with his team, they said, Hey, we know you have this food truck. We're throwing Snoop a 50th birthday party for him and his wife.
Would you like to bring the truck? They were doing a whole assortment of food trucks to serve 500 of his friends, family, Hollywood celebrities, and that was the party experience. And we have a saying, we'll do anything once, maybe not a second time. We're like, you know what? Sure, why not? Let's go. So we took the food truck to his party.
He's lovely. His family's lovely. And we serve these tacos to all the guests at Snoop's 50th birthday party.
[00:02:41] Cameron Clark: Wow. Um, lot of fun charisma in there. Um, well talk, talk about, like, let's go, let's do the beginning. Sure. And start, start at the beginning. Um, you did not grow up in America.
[00:02:52] Bethany Taylor: I did not. No. No. So my parents were missionaries and they actually met overseas.
So my siblings and I were all born and [00:03:00] raised in Manila, Philippines. Both of my parents were teachers at Faith Academy, which is a boarding school for the children of missionaries. And so every mission organization that sends kids to the school provides a certain amount of staff members. And so both of my parents were on staff, um, but that was their mission calling.
And so we still raised support and did all of those things. And it was a great environment to grow up in. Grew up with kids from all over the world, all different cultures in this like very interesting ecosystem. And so while I didn't live in the dorm because my parents were on staff, it was a boarding school.
And so a lot of the kids I grew up with kindergarten all the way through, all living this very same experience being missionary kids in another country. And so I frequently get made fun of because I missed all the nineties and the two thousands. I don't understand any kind of pop culture for the us. Um, but working on getting caught up now, yeah, my husband's trying to teach me the ways.
Um, but it was a great way to grow up. The Philippines is a great country. They're very welcoming to foreigners. It's a great culture to grow up in. And I think just growing up in an entire community that was [00:04:00] focused on service and spreading the gospel and mission work and all of those kinds of things really shaped a lot of who I am today and how I've approached business.
[00:04:09] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[00:04:09] Bethany Taylor: And so I moved to the US when I was 18 to go to college, and I ended up at John Brown University in Siloam because they recruit a lot of students from Faith Academy. They do a lot of connections with international boarding schools, knowing that it's also a private Christian college. And so my oldest sister had gone to John Brown and so I ended up at John Brown.
Because she had kind of gone there and, and it made a lot of sense 'cause I had some family here. Um, 'cause none of my family is from Arkansas, so my oldest sister was living here, my siblings are twins. And so her twin had moved here to live with her as well. And then I came and so ended up at John Brown.
And interestingly, my plan was to go into hospitality. So I was studying business, I was planning to go into hospitality. I'd done all my internships in hospitality and between my junior and senior year, needed a formal internship. And JBU had a [00:05:00] connection with, it was SIFE at the time, it's now an enactus, it's students in business.
And I was part of that organization and they had kind of talked about internships with Sam's Club at Walmart and said it was a great opportunity and I had applied and I got a phone call from Sam's Club. And got the opportunity to do an internship. And looking back, I never even been in a Sam's Club. I didn't grow up in America.
They should probably ask people that during the interview process. And I was like, yes, I definitely know what this is. Um, but it ended up being an amazing experience and I just fell in love with retail and so spent the summer there and then was fortunate enough that they asked me to come back when I graduated.
And so ended up kind of totally changing my career trajectory from going into hospitality, into kind of going into retail and staying in northwest Arkansas.
[00:05:43] Cameron Clark: Sure.
[00:05:44] Bethany Taylor: And so I spent five years at Sam's Club, two years at Walmart doing everything from consumer experience, whether that was sampling in the club or kind of how consumers engage with items in the club, um, to mm-hmm.
Strategy, planning, [00:06:00] merchandising. I bought for a little bit, uh, different marketing tactics in store experience. Hmm. So serving both members and customers and just had a really amazing set of opportunities to kind of learn different parts of the business. Spent a lot of time traveling, learning clubs from the ground up, learning stores from the ground up, um, and kind of seeing all these different parts of marketing and had a lot of great mentors who were willing to teach me, um, you know, as a young adult kind of growing up in that business.
And there's so many great things to both of those companies. Mm-hmm. And I had a really great career. What ultimately led me to then leave and start Gratsy is I had, you know, been in the sampling kind of marketing retail attainment experiences space for a while, and I built a lot of relationships with big brands and there's some really great tactics available at both retailers when you wanna get pro product in the hands of a member or a customer.
Hmm. But I had noticed that there was kind of an opportunity for this hyper-targeted segment. Let's say you wanna target an expecting mom who's due to deliver in the next three months. It's just really hard to kind of identify [00:07:00] who that person is based on traditional marketing tactics. And so I saw this white space and.
There's a really crazy story we can get into about how it all came to be, but I ultimately left to start Gratsy because I believed in this white space of hyper-targeted, really curated sampling experiences. And here we are six years later and it's just grown into something even bigger than I can imagine.
Stayed in northwest Arkansas. It's a great place to live. And ironically now my entire family lives here. Yeah. So, um, my parents have moved here, my whole family's here, so it's a great space to be.
[00:07:31] Cameron Clark: Yeah. It's hard not to wanna be here, but, so talk about, so why, why you said this white space. Mm-hmm. What, yeah, where did that come from?
[00:07:39] Bethany Taylor: I think it just came from years of being in the business. And again, there's a lot of great tactics that exist in the marketing ecosystem for items that have really broad appeal, that appeal to the massive population that are, whether that's food items or things that are really commonly used. Everything from food to laundry detergent.
Everybody needs laundry detergent. But there's a lot of items who have very nuanced stories, whether that's a. [00:08:00] Specific type of vitamin or you know, some sort of beauty product that needs to be color matched. Mm-hmm. And those things are harder to get to the right consumer. And so I had this vision for how we could kind of turn sampling on its head to do it a little bit differently and do it in a way that was extremely creative.
And try to kind of fill that void in the market outside of retail.
[00:08:20] Cameron Clark: And why don't these brands do that themselves? Or do they do that themselves too, but they're just not enough?
[00:08:24] Bethany Taylor: Well, I don't think everyone gets as excited about shipping and logistics as I do. Right? Yeah. Like there has to be someone who gets really excited about knowing those things.
There are some brands who do it themselves and they do it really well, but I also think it's a little bit of a complex business and that's where we can come in and provide a really easy way to do that. And I think the other thing is brands don't always have their own audience set. And so we provide that as well, is having an audience that we know a lot of data about that we can then match a consumer to, to say, Hey, you wanna target this specific type of person.
We know who that is. We can get a sample into their home, we can get feedback from them. And it creates a really [00:09:00] meaningful experience.
[00:09:01] Nick Beyer: Hmm. And you said there was a longer story, so was there a specific example where you're like, I really want to target this consumer and this was the product or I mean, no, just why, why lead?
Yeah.
[00:09:11] Bethany Taylor: So it was really interesting how it all came together. So I have, uh, a couple of business partners who are advisors who have been really supportive as we've kind of grown as a company. I'd been on this journey and it's just kind of a wild story of looking back, really a God thing of how we came together.
We should have never crossed paths. And we had some mutual connections that as these mutual connections were talking to all of us that, Hey, you all have great experience, you should meet. And we, I think met twice to brainstorm this idea. And we all got excited about kind of filling a white space and everyone was like, great, let's do it.
And I quit my job. And I think for me, looking back on that timeframe. I really just felt this nudge of, Hey, go and try this, and if it doesn't work out, you can go back. [00:10:00] You can always go and find, you know, another job or something else. But I didn't wanna look back the rest of my life and say, man, I really wish I had tried that.
Something I felt really passionate about and I believed in. And I didn't wanna look back and say, I missed an opportunity to kind of bet on myself and go and try something. And so my partners are serial entrepreneurs and this is what they do. And so they were very encouraging of that. Um, but it's just an interesting, looking back, I can see all these different places where.
I've crossed paths with people, whether they're people who now work at the company or clients or my partners where there's no logical region that we should have ever connected or met. And I just think those are God things that have been kind of ordained over this journey of meant to be
[00:10:39] Cameron Clark: Sure. And so your partners, they have never worked day to day in the business?
[00:10:43] Bethany Taylor: No. So they're great advisors, great supporters of the business, and they very early on were saying, Hey, they've got other businesses that they're involved in. We support you doing this. Um, let us know what you need, but go and run. And so we're really great to kind of let me establish a vision for the [00:11:00] company and then run the business over the last six years.
And so what, we just hit our sixth birthday. So we launched in the summer of 2019, so we just turned six.
[00:11:07] Nick Beyer: That's amazing. So what did you need early on? You quit. You quit your job. Mm-hmm. How much of the skeleton had you built for the company before you're like. Full-time in it. Like did you, did you raise capital?
Yeah. Did you need capital? Like what? Walk us through those times.
[00:11:23] Bethany Taylor: Yeah. As I've read a lot of entrepreneurial stories over the last couple years, we probably should have had more of a plan before I quit my job. I think there was definitely a degree of naive excitement and we're like, yeah, we're gonna make this work.
Um. The first year was not anything I expected it to be. Um, but that's okay. That's part of the journey. So we kind of had a shell of the idea and a lot of that shell still exists today in what the business looks like. Um, we did not raise capital, so we started the business with $0. Um, and we've built it entirely based on reinvesting our profits and that's something I'm really proud of.
So we still don't have investors to this day. Um, we considered it kind of [00:12:00] early on, probably year two. Um, and we kind of went to market and had some conversations with investors and it just never was a right fit. There were too many strings attached. There was a lot of doubt still about the business. And so I just said, Hey, we're just gonna bet on ourselves and double down and build this.
And so we've reinvested the profits. My partners and I don't take distributions from the company. We reinvest all of our profit into growing the business. Um, and I'm really proud of the way we've done that. It's not the easy way to do it. It's, it's a lot of boots, bootstrapping, blood, sweat, and tears literally on all three of those.
Um, but it's also been really rewarding to kind of have that control of our business and really get to choose our own destiny. And so going back to your question of kind of when we planned it, we had this kind of core idea and we spent probably. Nine to 12 months, kind of flushing that out. Having some conversations with connections we knew in the industry, getting feedback on what made sense.
And then, like I said, launched about six years ago. Um, and when we launched we were just going to be a direct to home sampling company.
[00:12:58] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:58] Bethany Taylor: And so we launched in the summer [00:13:00] of 2019 and we launched the community. So to describe a little bit of our sampling side of our business, so we have an app ci Gratsy app.
It's totally free to join you. Tell us about yourself, your interest, the where you like to shop, all of those things. And then we match you to samples and offers totally for free based on what you tell us you like. So we then send notifications to our community and say, Hey, we have something you think you're gonna be interested in.
Do you wanna try this? We mail it to their home, totally free to the consumer. They don't pay for shipping or anything. The only catch is we ask them for their feedback. Mm-hmm. And so afterwards they get a feedback survey and they tell us, did you like it? Would you buy it? If you wouldn't buy it, why not?
That's also really helpful to know and just kind of give us some insights about their sampling experience. As a thank you for that feedback. We as a company, actually donate to charity and so we call it feedback to give back, and it's our way of doing a little bit of social good. So from a consumer standpoint, you're getting to try cool new items, you're giving your feedback to the brand, you're doing some social good, and then you might go viral because we see a lot of our community post user-generated content and a lot of times that will take off and go viral, um, [00:14:00] and get shared all over the internet.
And so we have this consumer community. Um, and so when we launched, that was our goal was to just do really curated hyper targeted sampling experiences based on the zero and first party database that we have. And then COVID hit.
[00:14:15] Cameron Clark: Yeah. And so, and before we get there, just wanna make sure we kind of dive into each season.
I just wanna make sure, because I think what you're saying right now is real valuable for someone who is coming in and starting something with a, what would you tell someone on with, to come in with two advisors mm-hmm. Or come in by yourself or, yeah. Or maybe coming with, with a partner. You know, I like.
Why I think you're the only business that's, that we've interviewed that has done this spec, this specific route. So
[00:14:41] Bethany Taylor: yeah, and I think going back to, there's a lot of articles that say, what's the tipping point when you leave your full-time job, you should have so much revenue. I obviously went all in, but I do think that gave me a degree of hunger to say, I've gotta make this work.
I am all in. And I don't know that it would've turned out the same if I had tried to do it on the [00:15:00] side and those kinds of things of, you know, just dipping a toe in. I'm kind of an all in person and I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go all the way in and see if we can't make this work. And I kind of given myself a timeframe to say, this is the timeframe and if I can't make it work in here, then I'll go back to kind of a more, um, corporate career.
Kind of thing. And so that first year was tough. You know, I'd never started a business before. The only career I'd ever known was corporate America. I don't necessarily suggest going ditch to ditch from the largest company in the world to starting your own company. Hmm. Um, and so there was a lot of figuring it out, even just how to set up a company and, and the banking and those kinds of things.
And it's been a really interesting learning process and there's really no playbook for that. And at the time I wasn't connected to a lot of resources who could walk me through those things. And so just kind of trying to figure that out and that first year of is this gonna work? What are we selling, how are we pricing it?
All of those kinds of things.
[00:15:57] Cameron Clark: Sure.
[00:15:57] Bethany Taylor: Um, was just honestly a lot of [00:16:00] trial and error in trying to figure that part out. And I think for me, there were a lot of people from the outside looking at this saying, was this a good decision? Like you just quit a very stable job to do this. Yeah. Um, probably even, you know, some people really close to me.
And so for me that first year was really a figure it out. Um, and it was tough. And I think what I would tell someone is you've gotta give yourself that grace of, there's gonna be phases of this journey where you, you know, you are trying to figure it out and it's not instant success. And, and my story was not instant success and don't give up on that.
But surround yourself with people who can teach you and train you and be willing to ask the questions and then have enough belief in what you're doing to say we're gonna, you know, keep working through the times where we don't necessarily know what the obvious answer is. But no, that first year when I naively quit and started a company, I tell my partners all the time.
If I'd known how much paperwork was involved in running a company, I probably wouldn't have done it, but [00:17:00] obviously loving what I'm doing now. Yes, it's a lot of paperwork. Um, but I think there's a lot of great resources in northwest Arkansas now for people who do start companies, which is great. Be willing to ask those questions.
There are plenty of people who are willing to walk you through and, and I'm one of those that if I can tell you a lesson, I learned the hard way to save you that experience. Great. I am all for that process. But again, I think I was fortunate to find partners along the way that have helped us be successful.
So Generations Bank is the bank we use as a business and um, I picked up the, I needed a bank. I picked up the phone. I'd seen someone post on LinkedIn that Generations Bank was a great bank. Picked up the phone, cold called. Got connected to Max who didn't know me. Mm-hmm.
And I
[00:17:43] Bethany Taylor: walked in and said, Hey, I need to set up a business banking account.
I know you don't know me, but if you're willing to bet on me, I promise I'm gonna make this work. And we've had just a fantastic relationship with them over the years. But I think for me, finding local companies that I could sit across the table with and explain the vision and explain the story of what I was [00:18:00] doing and have those relationships has also been a key part of our success.
And so that's why we're based in northwest Arkansas. We try to work with as many vendors and partners as we can in the area, because a big national bank would've looked at me and said, no, like you, this doesn't make sense for us. Mm-hmm. And Generations was willing to bet on us and have been great partners to this day.
[00:18:21] Nick Beyer: That's amazing. Max and the team are great there. Mm-hmm.
[00:18:23] Bethany Taylor: Yes.
[00:18:24] Nick Beyer: So 2019, you start the business. Mm-hmm. It sounds like that first year you're flushing out the idea.
[00:18:29] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Nick Beyer: Are you building the app at that point? Where does the capital, I mean from, from, from what I know about building software and apps, like Yeah.
It, it requires capital. So how did that kind of, and then even acquiring the users mm-hmm. To, to be on that, on the app. How, how did you go about doing that?
[00:18:47] Bethany Taylor: It's a great question. So we actually didn't start with an app.
[00:18:49] Nick Beyer: Okay.
[00:18:49] Bethany Taylor: We started the business through Facebook Messenger, which was an interesting way.
So we had, um, worked with a technology that allowed us to kind of build these chat algorithms and kind of [00:19:00] have those responses. And we were doing it all through Facebook and a year in, they changed some of the settings and it became much harder for us to control that. And at that point I kind of had the idea of, hey, I don't.
Wanna continue to build a business that's dependent on other mm-hmm. Companies, licenses, properties, all of those things. And so at that point, we had just a handful of employees and, um, the individual who leads our tech team still to this day, uh, single-handedly built that app for us internally. Wow. And so there's been a lot of points along the way where, looking back again, I think are true God moments where he kind of gave me this nudge to say, Hey, you need to make a pivot here.
And at the time I didn't think it was really significant. And looking back, if we had not made that decision, then we would be in such a different place today of not having control of our destiny. And I think we run our business very similarly today. We do as much as we can in-house. We don't like to be dependent on factors we can't control.
Mm-hmm. [00:20:00] And so we, that's why we've built kind of the integrated infrastructure that we have so that we can control as many pieces of those that also allows us to move really quickly. It allows us to guarantee the quality that we like to have. Um, but that was an early learning experience to say, Hey, controlling as much of this process as we can is probably gonna set us up for better success.
And you can't necessarily control what some of the social platforms percent change about their ways of doing things. So when we launched the community, um, we had some influencer promotion tied into a couple of our initial campaigns, but I'm really proud to say that we have spent. Very, very little money growing our community over the years.
It's all grown organically, word of mouth. When we drop experiences, they tend to go viral. We see big spikes in growth, and I think that goes back to the quality of what we're offering our community is they see value in that and they want to tell other people to join. And so that's something that's just kind of grown organically and taken off on its own over the years, [00:21:00] which has been a really cool.
Um, opportunity to see that community evolve
[00:21:04] Nick Beyer: and how many people are in the community?
[00:21:06] Bethany Taylor: Gosh, that's a great question. And I know we've had some viral growth spurts, so I'd honestly Okay. Have to check with the team on what that is, but it's just continued to evolve and develop over the years and, and it's consumers all over the US from all different walks of life, primarily head of household purchasers who are making purchasing decisions for their whole family.
All different ages, all different types of people, but all people who are interested in, in finding and discovering products. Yeah. And who doesn't like free stuff, right? There are, I tell the team all the time, there are worse things we could be doing with our lives than giving away free stuff for a living.
Right. I think everyone can think of a worse job they probably had than giving away free stuff for a living. So going back to COVID, we had just kind of launched the company. We were probably nine months in and the pandemic hit and it was kind of this moment of, at the time I still didn't have any employees.
It was primarily me, um, working in the business and it was kind of a, Hey, what, [00:22:00] how are we gonna respond to this? And thankfully we were one of the few businesses that everyone being at home actually was a benefit to us. And so I felt really bad for a lot of the small businesses who didn't have that experience.
But what it did was give us an opportunity as a lot of traditional ma marketing tactics went away and pivoted to in-home to really kind of solidify what we were going to do. And so we had some clients come to us and say, okay, we're, we wanna try direct to home, we wanna do things in this space. And so it honestly gave us about 18 months to really prove out our business model and build a client base.
[00:22:30] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:22:31] Bethany Taylor: And so we were really fortunate during that time, and then the business evolved from there. So as the pandemic. Kind of wrapped up and people were starting to really seek experiences. And I think that's one reason we did well during the pandemic, is we made these really interesting sampling experiences.
Mm-hmm. And as families were at home, they weren't going out, they were looking for ways to create entertainment. We made these boxes that felt like an experience and something they could make a memory around, and something that was exciting to get in the mail and those kinds of things. Mm-hmm. And so there were these surprise and [00:23:00] delight moments.
And so we had some clients say, Hey, we really love that approach that you take to your dark home sampling. Can we now do it in person? And I had done some events in my past life and at that point we had a couple of employees on the team who also had some experience. And again, in the way we operate, we'll do anything once.
Mm-hmm. We kind of looked at each other and said, do we wanna get into events? Sure. And so we started dabbling in events and that was 2021. And now that's a really sizable part of our business. Wow. And so that's a lot of how we've grown is responding to clients saying. Hey, can you also do this? And some of it's been us intentionally saying We're now going to offer this.
But a lot of it has been response to market and client requests. Sure. And that's been a nice evolution that's allowed us to grow without necessarily having to put a lot of risk into launching something new because it's coming from a market request that we can kind of ease into or test and learn without having, to your point, build something, launch it, and hope someone wants it.
[00:23:58] Cameron Clark: Sure. Mm-hmm. And
[00:23:59] Bethany Taylor: so that's [00:24:00] been an interesting approach. And so sampling business has continued to grow and expand over the years. But for us, my vision was hyper-targeted. So getting to a very specific consumer, but then it also being a really unique and interesting experience. Hmm. And so have an example to kind of explain Yeah,
[00:24:19] Cameron Clark: yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:20] Bethany Taylor: What that is. So a couple of years ago, glad launched cherry blossom trash bags. So they're scented and trash bags. A little bit challenging to sample, right? Everybody needs a trash bag, but how do you get someone to trade up? And so the campaign was designed to kind of be a fragrance for your home. And so we worked with 'em to design these boxes that looked a little bit like a perfume experience.
And,
[00:24:45] Cameron Clark: but it's a trash bag. It's
[00:24:46] Bethany Taylor: a trash bag, yeah. Yeah. And so there was a full, uh, box of trash bags in it. Scented and then to round out the experience, we actually worked with their r and d department to create candles that Wow [00:25:00] are, they use the same oil that sends the trash bag and they're color matched and scent matched.
And so this idea of the fragrance for your home really became this full fledged sampling experience. And so while you got a trash bag, you also got something that felt like a lot of value and felt very unique. And so this was a campaign that we dropped this limited number of. Sample boxes to our community and just went viral on the internet because people were like, how do I get this?
This is really cool. And so this idea of limited availability, high value, really unique. Yeah. Has kind of been the foundation of how we approach sampling.
[00:25:34] Cameron Clark: And what platform, I mean primarily. When you say go viral, like are, is it across the board or what, is there a specific Yeah, so
[00:25:40] Bethany Taylor: it's Instagram and Facebook.
And then what's interesting is there are quite a few bloggers and kind of groups in that place that will almost, they're almost watch groups at this point, that they're like, Hey, there's something new in the GRS app. Go check and see if you have it. And so that helps us from a kind of building up that fear of [00:26:00] missing out, that amplifies the number of samples we do send out to a much larger audience.
Wow. Because it was like, well, you may not have gotten the candle, but you can still have a similar experience because you can go buy this item for yourself.
[00:26:10] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:26:10] Bethany Taylor: And so we produce a lot of custom swag, um, and the creative to really round out a sampling experience and try to make it about more than just getting a sample.
Yeah. And so because of that, you know, we know that we're not the cheapest option when it comes to sampling. And we're very upfront with our clients to say, Hey, if you're looking for a really cost effective way to do this, there's in-store tactics, there's other tactics, and, and I've worked in a lot of those and we're happy to make those introductions, but if you want something that's extremely curated, that's gonna drive a lot of user generated content, you know, that's where we feel like our sweet spot is.
And we try to be really upfront about that, that this is where we play really well. And if you're looking for something else, we're happy to connect you to the right. People to do that.
[00:26:52] Cameron Clark: I mean, that's crazy that y'all built a fan base now that's like just, hey, what's, what's Razzi coming out with next?
Mm-hmm. Like, this is, yes, we have to Yes. We, we gotta get [00:27:00] it. Um, 'cause they
[00:27:00] Bethany Taylor: know that we, what we send out is a really unique experience. Mm-hmm. And so there's very much this level of fomo and how do we get it? And we wanna be part of it. Yeah. And so it's a really fun, um, kind of hype to have built around these products that, again, you're only sending out so many samples, but you're amplifying that to a much larger audience because so many other people are talking about it.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so that's where there's a lot of benefit to our clients as well.
[00:27:25] Cameron Clark: And if anyone was just listening, go back and watch the video where you can see the, the actual product side there too. Yes. Um,
[00:27:33] Nick Beyer: well, let's talk a little bit more about that tactically. Mm-hmm. So you, you started, you're, you're just building kind of users mm-hmm.
Through Facebook. Do you remember your first client? Do you remember what. Your first sample box was? Yeah. How did it look compared to the one you just showed us? Like walk us through some of those first memories you have of the business.
[00:27:54] Bethany Taylor: Yeah. It's interesting. In our office we have our very first sample box, which I was very proud of at the time, and it is [00:28:00] still very cute, but we've come a long way in some of the sophistication of things that we do.
But we, since the beginning said, we're going to take a very creative approach. You're making a box. Why not make it interesting? Make it something that people wanna show off, not just the mailing container that you're gonna throw away. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so we've always taken that approach of how do we make the packaging part of the experience and something you do wanna show off on social.
Um, and so super grateful for those clients that bet on us very early on to really say, Hey, we're willing to try this out with you. Some of those were people we'd known from our past lives we had relationships with. Mm-hmm. Who were willing to do those things. And, and a lot of those clients are still with us today, which we're really grateful for that they've stayed with us over the years and have done a lot of different things.
I think one of the most interesting evolutions of the sample box business for us is we originally were working with third party production companies. As we got started, we partnered with different companies to actually do the kitting and shipping for us. And that got really challenging during the pandemic.
So you're trying to ship samples across the country and you're on a Zoom call trying to see how something fits because we're also very [00:29:00] particular about the sizing and yep, is it curated to the content? Does everything fit well? Is it gonna get there safely? And you know, for us it's about the curated experience and how it unbox and which side is facing up and how it's folded and how it arrives.
And. Um, I like to say I, I don't care that it's efficient, I want it to be cute, uh, which goes over really well in an operational world. And so, you know, we worked with production partners and that worked for a while and, and our business is so quick that it also became a challenge to kind of fit into schedules and hey, that's not efficient and you want something folded.
And so again, another God nudge for me that towards the end of 2022, I felt like we needed to take this part of the business in-house. Mm-hmm. And again, probably a little naively, I was like, I'm getting a warehouse. It's really difficult as a three-year-old business as a female of a marketing startup to go and get someone to take you seriously.
[00:29:53] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:29:53] Bethany Taylor: Um, and that was a challenge is people were just like, I don't think your business is gonna make it. You don't have enough years of [00:30:00] history. You don't feel like a stable tenant. And that was a challenging experience. And you know, I actually had. Uh, production company we had worked with flat out tell me, you have unrealistic expectations.
You can't ever make this work the way you wanna do it. And I just said, I don't agree with you. I think there's a way to do this and I'm gonna figure it out. And so we opened the Gratsy Fulfillment Center in the spring of 2023 and a lot of learnings. I thought starting a business was a lot of learnings.
Opening fulfillment center is also a lot of learnings. It's
[00:30:30] Cameron Clark: a different, different business. Totally different business.
[00:30:32] Bethany Taylor: Yeah. And again, I get really excited about shipping and things so. Really interesting for me, but we, you know, thought, okay, well, we'll just do, you know, our sample boxes and, and we'll kind of get into it and it's just exploded.
Mm-hmm. And I'm really proud to say that the Gazi Fulfillment Center is the only female owned and operated fulfillment center in northwest Arkansas. And our kidding team is entirely women who are paid above market wages because I'm a big believer in paying people fairly and [00:31:00] treating and compensating people.
Um, and so we don't do cheap labor. We pay our team really well because we value them and we treat them as part of our team and, and they're a really critical part of our success at Gratsy. And so I think that's another differentiator for us, is we're not the cheapest option, but we're gonna take care of people and we care about people and we're gonna invest in local jobs and how we do that.
And so the volume that has gone through that fulfillment center has just exceeded any of my expectations that we could have imagined. And some of that has just been. People find out we have a fulfillment center will come to us and say, Hey, you're local. Can you help us with this? And so we help a lot of local charity organizations with their swag bags and things like that because they're trying to do them in their conference room.
And I'm like, please let us do this for you. We have an entire warehouse. We're very good at this. Just let us do this for you. And so we call it precision packing. And so that comes to how it's folded, which side is facing up, where the shipping label goes. None of that is left to chance in our world where a shipping label goes is precisely planned out in our business.
And so we [00:32:00] guarantee that quality, we guarantee that execution. And that's how we're a little bit different than a traditional three PL model is we offer those services. And so we do everything from. Direct mail to high-end influencer boxes that go to celebrities and kind of everything in between. And so that volume from a production standpoint is, again, sometimes we're making one of something for a celebrity, and sometimes we're making hundreds of thousands of something.
But the other interesting thing about our business is we don't hold inventory. Everything we do is custom produced to the program, so we don't keep packaging on hand and mm-hmm. And just force something into an existing size. Everything is custom printed, custom sized, custom created for that campaign.
And so it's a constant ebb and flow out of that business. And so it's been a really interesting learning experience. Um, been something that's worked really well for our business and has, again, exceeded our expectations, but has also given us a lot of control over our timing, our quality, our execution, because we own that process in house.
So everything from the creative to the sourcing of [00:33:00] swag, to the kidding, to the shipping, and that going out the door. And so we have a really great team that keeps that business running all the time.
[00:33:06] Nick Beyer: So let's talk about a specific example. We could even use the glad one.
[00:33:10] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:11] Nick Beyer: A brand comes to Gratsy mm-hmm.
And they say they give you a, a budget, Hey, we've got $50,000 we wanna spend on hyper-targeted marketing.
Mm-hmm.
[00:33:20] Nick Beyer: What is your recommendation? Or do they say, Hey, we want to do hyper targeted marketing, we wanna send kits to the home, we want to get feedback from customers. Mm-hmm. We're thinking about launching this as an LTO item, or we're thinking about mm-hmm.
Launching it as an everyday item. We need feedback, we need feedback on pricing. Just walk us through like a specific example, what it looks like, kind of from start to finish.
[00:33:40] Bethany Taylor: Sure. So it varies, which is not a helpful answer. But in the GLAD example specifically, people buy trash bags, right? Mm-hmm. There's a lot of household penetration there.
So for us it was going into our community and finding people who potentially buy a competitive brand or maybe their loyalist to GLAD and they could trade up to this product. And so that's [00:34:00] where we were able to work with them to drive a lot of social conversation about this new item launch, but also drive tactical purchase from households.
And so a lot of our clients come to us when they're launching new items and they wanna drive that very quick. Trial and sales, whether they're going back to a retailer to say, Hey, we're proving out that there's demand for this, or they're driving that kind of social buzz to really get people purchasing very quickly.
We do a lot of new item launches, and then we do a lot of just very specific products. So again, things like a beauty item that requires color matching. Hmm. Or maybe it's diapers going to an expectant mom. A lot of things in the pet space, pet's very nuanced. If you have a small dog under 15 pounds, that's very different than an adult dog over a hundred pounds.
And so those nuances of us being able to go into our community and say, Hey, we have someone with an indoor dog under 15 pounds, that's over the age of 10. This is a product specifically for that consumer. And so really getting either to a very specific consumer to drive a lot of buzz around a new item launch.[00:35:00]
Or there's just a lot of seasonality, so things like back to school or holiday and how do we just drive a lot of trial and conversation around key purchasing occasions where behaviors change. So there's a lot of nuances to kind of the different use cases I would say. We've worked really hard as a company to build a reputation around creativity and quality.
And so I think one of the parts that's really fun is a lot of clients will come to us with a, a concept or kind of a key visual or a campaign idea and then say, we want your ideas around how that comes to life. And so they give us a lot of freedom to say, here's swag ideas, or here's what the creative looks like, or Here's what the experience is.
And I think at this point we've built a reputation for being a little bit extra. Uh, we have another saying internally, we call them our company mantras. If it can shoot confetti, why not? And so our philosophy is if it can be over the top, why would we not make it over the top? Hmm. And so I always want a client to walk away thinking, wow, that was [00:36:00] way more than I expected, versus, Hmm, that wasn't really interesting.
And so we've built that reputation to where people now come to us for the wild and crazy because. They know that we're those people.
[00:36:10] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:11] Bethany Taylor: And so the same campaign that we went to Snoop Dogg's birthday party, our client actually wanted to go to the coldest and hottest places in America because it was a spicy taco.
And so we went to Alaska and we did a pop-up sampling event on a glacier, two hours from the closest city to other tourists who were hiking This glacier set up flags an entire sampling station. And it's just such a unique thing to see people come over the crest of a glacier and surprise them with this experience and the excitement that you get out of it Yeah.
Is just one of those experiences where you look around and you're, you know, how can you not be grateful to get to do this for a living? And so we went to Alaska, we also went to Death Valley and kind of did the other extreme of the spectrum. Yeah. And I think that tells you a lot about who we are as people.
If we're willing to do pop-up sampling on an Alaskan glacier, two hours from a [00:37:00] city, we're willing to do just about anything.
[00:37:03] Cameron Clark: And I mean, you talk about like your, your childhood kind of playing into like how you run the business and Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, have you always been hyper detailed, hyper experience focused?
I mean like just kind type of person?
[00:37:14] Bethany Taylor: Yeah, I would say I've always been ambitious. Um, my siblings will tell you I started being bossy about age three and I'm the youngest in the family, so that probably says a lot. Um, I wanted to be president at age five mostly because I thought it would be cool to roller skate in the White House.
Yeah. Um, but in high school I really started to kind of develop ambitions around business and took some classes in high school around that was part of some clubs and things around that. And then obviously going into college and I'd always kind of had this idea in the back of my mind of wanting to start a business and run a business and do those things.
And I wasn't really sure what that would look like. And so I think I've also been a creative person, so been in art and have hobbies around those spaces. And so that's been a really fun part for me is to get to. Kind of marry both the creative side with the [00:38:00] tactical detail in running the business. And I like to be in the weeds.
And sometimes I'll go to the warehouse and pack boxes and, and I like to work events. And so we tell our team, we're a no ego business. If I'm willing to work the taco truck, you need to be willing to work with the taco truck. Mm-hmm. Because that's how you learn and that's how you know what execution really looks like and how you get to engage with consumers.
And some days you're on a celebrity photo shoot set and some days you're working a Taco Trek and it's everything in between in our world and that's what makes it fun. Um, but I think that kind of wanting to be on the cutting edge of experiences and what's happening in marketing has always been.
Something for me is I am, uh, don't settle for the status quo. I always wanna kind of continue to be doing and evolving and Yeah. And seeing where those things go. And so that's very much our kind of culture as a company. And, and that's not for everyone. Mm-hmm. And so we've had to get really specific about our hiring strategy over the last couple years of being very upfront with people about, hey, every day is different.
It's a degree of organized chaos. [00:39:00] Some days you're doing different things and is that something that you think you'll like? And so we're very transparent in that process and we say, Hey, come to the office and see what we do and understand what we do because we don't want someone to sign up and be like, this is not what I wanna do.
But we have a really great team of people who's passionate about creating these experiences. And I think one of the. Rewarding parts of it is whether it's getting tagged in UGC or seeing someone physically at an event, you get to see the reward of your hard work. Mm-hmm. And there's a lot of jobs where you do a lot of work.
Mm-hmm. And put it out into the ecosystem and you don't ever really get to see that. And for us there's a very tangible,
[00:39:36] Cameron Clark: you see it fast. Yes. Yeah. Getting
[00:39:38] Bethany Taylor: to see that, which kind of makes it all worth it. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think we have a great team that when we're presented with a challenge, gets excited about it, of great, let's figure out how to do Alaska versus being like.
What do we do? Yeah. And so we've really worked hard to create a company environment where we know we're always gonna stop, challenge the status quo and try to be better and different than who we were yesterday. [00:40:00]
[00:40:00] Cameron Clark: So you have almost 50 people now, and you know, you, you, like you were saying before we started here, you're, you're hiring more.
Mm-hmm. You gotta hire more about to get a new office space. Yep. The who's not the right fit for Gz and who is the right fit for Gtz and maybe why.
[00:40:15] Bethany Taylor: Yeah. I think the number one thing we tell people is if you need to know what every day looks like, this is not that place. Yeah. Our business ebbs and flows and you never know every day what kind of phone call you're gonna get.
Or someone says, Hey, can you do X, Y, and Z for me? And so you really need to thrive on that. Um, you've gotta love that surprise and delight factor in doing things for con consumers and, and just being passionate about finding solutions. I think the other thing we live by as a company, and this has been my number one from day one, is customer service is free.
It's free to be nice to people, it's free to be easy to work with. And we've always said that's what we're gonna do. And so how we serve our clients and how we show up at events is, it doesn't matter to me if it's more work for us or sometimes we have to pay extra for something. We are going to make it easy for our clients.
We're going to do the [00:41:00] right thing. We're never going to cut corners. We're not gonna play in the gray area, and we're gonna exceed expectations. And so that's always been our mo as a company. Uh, and so that's the other thing we tell people is this is a service-based business.
[00:41:11] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:41:11] Bethany Taylor: You're not in it for the glory.
We do a lot of white label work that no one would ever know We do. We're in the background. We're the ones bringing something to life. It's not a glory business and you need to do it because you love it, not because you're in it to be recognized for it. Mm-hmm. And so you've gotta be willing to. Sometimes that's scraping gum off the floor.
Yeah. And sometimes that's, you know, some of the more exciting, glamorous things. Yeah. And it's everything in between. And so if those are not things that resonate with you, we're very upfront to say, this is probably not something you're gonna like. Yeah. And that's okay. I'm okay with the fact that it's not for everybody, but I'm really clear of this is who we are as a company and it's, it's worked well for us and we're not going to stop offering that level of service.
Mm-hmm. And so the analogy we use in the event space, because events are interesting, they never entirely go as you plan, [00:42:00] especially when they're outside and things like that. Um. Is, it's like a duck on the water. And it doesn't matter how furiously you're paddling underneath on top of the water, the duck looks calm.
And so that is our philosophy as a company, is the paddle stays inside the company and we do what it takes to make it happen. And our clients should show up and have that very smooth experience where they just get to kind of see that surprise and delight and consumers engaging in something. And so that's kind of when you ask what is kind of the identity of who we are and how we hire.
That's it is if you thrive on those things and the solution finding and the challenges and figuring something out, no two events are the same. Even if we've an or boxes, um, even if we've anniversaried something, it's going to look a little bit different and feel fresh. And so there's really no two things that are the same in
[00:42:49] Cameron Clark: our world.
And you use the word identity. It seems like, you know, you, the company as a whole is very mm-hmm. Knows exactly who you are. And when did that identity work begin? Was it the, the [00:43:00] very beginning of the company or was this, hey, this kind of phased over time? Um,
[00:43:04] Bethany Taylor: it's a really good question and I would say we probably had a core of it and I think probably towards the start of 2020 and as COVID was happening was where we kind of had to take a look to say, okay, this is what we thought was gonna happen.
The world is a very different place now. Is this what we're gonna stick to? And as some of those challenges from a production standpoint started of, is this too hard? This is complicated for me, it was really a point of. Well, am I gonna take the route that's a little bit easier or am I gonna stick to the hard path?
And we've always chosen the hard path. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you it was easy. There have been times where it's been extremely difficult and we're blazing a trail that's never been done before. And we're doing things that are hard and difficult. But to be able to look back and say, we were some of the ones from a marketing standpoint across the industry, not just in northwest Arkansas who have done some things that were firsts, is so [00:44:00] rewarding.
And so those hard things,
[00:44:02] Cameron Clark: yeah.
[00:44:03] Bethany Taylor: Are worth it. And so I would say that's kind of always been a core of our identity.
[00:44:07] Cameron Clark: And let's talk about, talk about a low, what, what was not maybe low? What was the, something really challenging that, I mean, this sucked. Hey, but we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're in it. We're in it.
Yeah. We're doing it. We're choosing this. 'cause we know the other side is, is the vision that we want to go.
[00:44:22] Bethany Taylor: Yeah. I think for me as a leader, some of those things. You know, sitting at the warehouse for example, and just the amount of people who are like, you can't do this. You can't make this work. We don't take you seriously.
Those are the moments where you're like, am I overestimating this? And you have to really kind of say, no, I do believe in this. I believe it can work. And you know, I can pay people fairly, I can still have quality production and I can still be profitable.
[00:44:44] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:44:44] Bethany Taylor: And some of those moments have been probably the challenges for me.
I think we've definitely had projects where it rains, you know, or there's a tornado that comes through and you're like, no one could have planned for that. Um, and those are just kind of the way the, the business goes [00:45:00] and, and some of those kinds of things. But I think it's kind of those major growth spurts where you have to really buckle down and say, people are gonna doubt you and people are gonna tell you you can't do this.
Mm-hmm. And do you believe in it? And are you willing to be okay with the doubt and just keep hustling? Mm-hmm. And we were very intentional as a business. That we're about six years old. And I would say probably only in the last 18 months have people really started to hear about us and know who we are and see some of our work.
And we said we're gonna be head down and we're gonna prove the quality of what we do before we start marketing who we are. Because when we do that, we want there to be clients and examples where people have said, yep, they do great work. Mm-hmm. They're great to work with and those kinds of things. And so we were very intentional about saying we're gonna just gonna hustle hard.
And then we'll kind of start telling a little bit more of our story. And we're super fortunate that we have great clients who honestly make a lot of word of mouth introductions. That's where a lot of it comes from.
[00:45:57] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:45:57] Bethany Taylor: Because we've worked really hard to do what we say we're [00:46:00] gonna do and just be great partners to work with.
People talk about
[00:46:02] Cameron Clark: that.
[00:46:03] Bethany Taylor: Yeah. And so I think that kind of humble mentality of. You know, we could have taken the approach of saying, well we have, you know, all this experience in the industry. And it was more of like, no, we're doing something new and different and we need to prove that we deserve the opportunity to, to have our clients dollars and to do things for them.
And that's where, again, going back to if it takes us paying for something to make sure we meet the expectation, then that's always been our mo. We're not gonna cut the corners. Yeah. And if we said we're gonna do this, then we're gonna do that, and we're gonna try to exceed that expectation. It's not hard, you know, do what you say you're gonna do.
And I think that's been the interesting part for me on this journey is seeing or hearing stories from clients where they said, well, I worked with another company and I didn't get what I was told. And I'm like, that just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. And I think that has a lot to do with how I was raised and the way my parents taught me things [00:47:00] of you put a hundred percent of effort towards what you're gonna do and you do the best that you can do.
And, and that's kind of the same approach I've taken to the business. And I think. Going back to the people side, I see a lot of that growing up as a missionary kid and, and being to totally around an environment of service and caring for other people and those kinds of things. Mm-hmm. That I knew that that was not my calling in life.
Um, I felt compelled that I could support other people who had that calling, whether that was financially or that my opportunity was to just do things differently and I wanted to kind of be that. Light by how I acted and how I ran a business and done those things. And so there are a lot of companies that are overtly religious, which is great.
Um, we are not one of those companies, but my philosophy has been to say, I want to treat people well. I wanna care about people. And hope that someone then sees that and says, why is this different? And that's kind of my opportunity to, um, kind of have my own mission field in just how I approach things.
And so, even [00:48:00] going back to people, I didn't pay myself a salary for the first three years. I had a choice. I could have employees or I could pay myself, and I said, I'm gonna bet on other people. I can't do this without other people around me. And so. I signed up for this, I bet on this. And so if that means sacrificing something for myself so that my employees are taken care of and they get what they were told, that's always been my philosophy is to put my team before me because they bet on me and they bet on this business.
And I take that really seriously. And so we try to be very fair and, and how we do things and how we care about people and how we make jobs and across our business. I think, you know, we're not perfect. We're obviously still figuring some things out. We've grown really fast as a company, but what we tell our team is we care.
It's well intentioned and we'll take the feedback. Yeah. And I want what's best for them, whether that's here or at another place in life. And I hope that they look back at the years that they spent at G Gratsy and say, that's a place where I felt like I was valued and I got to make an impact. Um, whether that was a short phase or [00:49:00] a long phase that they look back and say, Hey, that's a place where I was a happy, healthy human and, and felt fulfilled.
And that's kind of what's been really meaningful to me. And obviously we have to run a profitable business, but I think that people side of it and knowing that we do things ethically and well, and that we care about people matters just as much or more to me. Yeah. That at the end of the day, I know that I'm doing right by people and it was never ever worth it to me to take a different approach.
And I never even considered it to say, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right. And we're gonna do it well. Um, because that's what mattered to me.
[00:49:35] Nick Beyer: Yeah. But how do you, I don't even want to use the word maintain, but like, how do you have a culture that thrives, a people culture that thrives when your, you know, TBP article from 2023 says you've had three years of consecutive triple digit growth.
You told us earlier your revenue might triple this year. Like, when you're going that fast, how do you, how do you still have the focus?
[00:49:59] Cameron Clark: [00:50:00] Yep.
[00:50:00] Nick Beyer: What, what do y'all have set up at ZI that allows your culture to not only just. Stay the same but thrive.
[00:50:06] Bethany Taylor: Sure. And it's a really fair question and it's not an easy one, right?
You a lot of entrepreneurs talk about culture and deciding what that is going to look like. And I think for us, there's a couple of factors. So one is our hiring strategy, being clear upfront on what we're getting into. I think two is the transparency we try to have with the team when we're in really busy sprint seasons, we tell the team that we say, Hey, look, the next 60 days are gonna be a little bit wild.
Hmm. And we try to really, um, I'm really proud to say we've never had to lay people off. We've never done any of those things. And part of that is us being really honest with the team to say, we could probably use a couple more headcount right now, but it's a 60 day sprint. And what I don't wanna do is over hire and then have to make tough decisions.
And so we have those conversations and say, is everyone willing to lean in for the next 60 days? And we're gonna kind of make do with the team we have. And the team's always been really great about that. But then that's never put us in a spot where we've had to make layoffs or do things like that. And so that transparency of.[00:51:00]
This is a finite amount of time. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. Let's get through this busy season and then we'll kind of regroup. Um, again, not having investors, we also have a lot of flexibility when it does come to hiring and when the team's like, Hey, this has now been going on for six months.
We need some more permanent resources. I have the flexibility to say, yep, great. Let's do it. Let's add to the team. And that's what we're doing right now is we've grown a lot this year to say. Okay, let's bring on some more permanent resources. And then I think, you know, the reminder at the end of the day that we give out free stuff for a living.
And that's not to say that it's not hard and there's complications to it, but it's truly not a life or death situation. Yeah. Like it's really about an experience and, and making it fun and, and those kinds of things. And I think sometimes you have to just gut check and, and it's hard 'cause you get really into it and really focused on the details and, well, I wanted it to be purple and it's blue and it's like, is this still a great experience for the consumer?
Yes. And that's what matters at the end of the day. And so I think it's a combination of getting the right people who thrive on that, being really transparent and honest about where we're, as a company, [00:52:00] what we're doing. I tell people my door's always open. I'm happy to answer a question if I don't know the answer or I, I don't feel like we have a, you know, I can't tell you yet.
I'll do those things. But I'm a open book when it comes to where are we going as a company. And then again, I think just taking a step back sometimes to celebrate. The really cool things we have done and remind ourselves of why we do it. And I think that's again, where you might've put in a lot of really long days building an event, but then getting to see that person gets so excited about it just kind of fills that cut back up to be like, this is why we do it.
This is why we work so hard. You know, a great example is a couple of years ago we had done a campaign that was a start of the school year campaign. And the theme was all around kind of like you can do it start of the school year. And um, we had someone write in a message to us that said, Hey, I opened this package this morning and saw this motivational message and I was recently diagnosed with cancer and I start chemo today.
And it gave me that little bit of motivation to go to my chemo treatment. Wow. And [00:53:00] those are the moments where it says, that's why we work as hard as we do.
[00:53:04] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:04] Bethany Taylor: And it is free samples, but you don't know the impact that you made on someone's day. Or that maybe that was a mom who got to surprise her kids with something, or, you know, maybe that was a family who made a memory that they're gonna look back on.
And so while it is not life or death, we also can have a meaningful impact. Hmm. And I think those are the things that keep us hustling hard, um, to see those kinds of rewarding experiences for people.
[00:53:29] Nick Beyer: That's good. Well, kind of going on all of the experiences and the joy. I mean, you look at this place and you're just like, wow, this is, this is crazy.
How do you, and you talked a lot about you're not cheap. Your, your service is not cheap, your products are not cheap. How do you prove to these brands mm-hmm. To people who are bringing their budgets to you, that there's an ROI, what are you tracking? What are you looking at? Like what is measurable that you give back to these [00:54:00] brands and to these partners to say, Hey, like this was a successful event, this was a successful mailing campaign.
[00:54:06] Bethany Taylor: Sure. So we obviously hire a lot of people. We do a lot of onboarding and part of our onboarding process is we go through this kind of history of the company and there's a slide in this deck, which is from our very first capabilities deck, which A, the design is terrible because I was the one who did it.
So we've really come a long way from a creative perspective. But what's interesting about it is there four buckets that we said we wanted to stand for. And it was creative execution. It was kind of turnkey. So creativity in how we approach things and it was turnkey execution, making it easy for our clients.
Um, it was making sure things were memorable and measurable. Um, and then it was the fact that we get to a very specific consumer. And so those things are all part of what we do today. So to answer your question about memorable and measurable. It's always been part of our, kind of how we operate. So from a sampling perspective, because we have this database, we're able to give our clients a lot of aggregate [00:55:00] insights around kind of who these people are, what they thought, and we make sure that every sampling experience is shoppable.
Hmm. Whether that's to a brand page, whether that's to a retailer, whatever that is, that that's shoppable and we can provide those metrics. But then also the earned media, how viral it goes, the social sharing, all of those kinds of things. Um, but I think a big one is just purchase intent. And because we are so hyper targeted, so we're going to consumers who we know are interested in this category, they go through an opt-in process where they say, yep, I wanna try this.
There's very little sampling, waste. And so we see an extremely high purchase intent because we've gotten to a really curated group.
[00:55:36] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[00:55:37] Bethany Taylor: From an event side, obviously a little bit different. Still getting to a specific customer from, whether that's where we pick the location or how we draw people to the event.
Still trying to get that. And then even our events are shoppable, so we make sure there's some sort of conversion tactic, but you're also looking at the experience there. So attendees, earned media, user-generated content, a lot of those kinds of things as well. Um, and how big can we [00:56:00] amplify a story across social media or pr, um, past just kind of the sample and home or that event experience to really drive some additional buzz.
And I think that goes back to the level of creativity and to get kind of that additional conversation, you have to take a really creative approach. And so that's kind of our niche is we do these really curated, really interesting, um, kind of specific events or sampling experiences that do drive those specific results.
[00:56:27] Nick Beyer: So let's talk about one of those specific events that you feel like. Represents those results really well. The client was over the moon, like talk. Talk about one of those events. Sure.
[00:56:38] Bethany Taylor: We've done a lot of really interesting events over the years. I think one of the ones if you live in northwest Arkansas that you might remember is a couple of years ago we did a big event in partnership with some other agencies at the Pleasant Grove Store and Walmart store.
Yeah, and it was a large event in the parking lot and the product was a [00:57:00] twisted chip. And so the whole theme of the event was around twisted activities. And so we brought in, uh, trampoline artists and we built these giant trampolines, and they were doing all cards of like aerial tricks and flips and those kinds of things.
And then we also built a snowboarding halfpipe in the parking lot and shaved an entire semi-truck of ice into fake snow and brought in pro snowboarders to do all kinds of like tricks and flips. Um, and then we had a celeb appearance as well, and we also had a food truck and we were handing out samples.
And so from a family perspective, you are going to a store to shop for your groceries, and you come across this parking lot experience that's totally free, that you get to go see these cool things. You try a new product, you maybe get to meet a celeb. Mm-hmm. Um, and then you're headed right in store to do your grocery shopping and you're highly likely to go purchase that item because you just had this very memorable experience that's now associated with it.
And so that's kind of a great example of how we can make those things [00:58:00] happen is whether we're doing an event. Onsite at a retailer where you're then going right inside, or if it isn't an offsite location, making sure there's something where there's a CTA to make it shoppable or something along the lines around a purchase piece.
I think those are the ways that happened, but going back to where the people who will sign up for anything. Yeah, I don't think anyone else has ever built a snowboarding half type in a retail parking lot. Um, but that was a really fun one to get to bring to life and then see people get excited about coming across.
So going back to, you know, driving sales, but also kind of that earned media and the social buzz. Um, I think that's a great example of how all those things came together to define success.
[00:58:35] Nick Beyer: That's awesome. And is, I guess, is a project like that, how much of Gracie's Creative side came into play versus the client?
Is that a, a emerging of both? Is the partnership with Sean White, was that a Gratsy connection or was that a, like how, how does all that work?
[00:58:57] Bethany Taylor: Sure. I [00:59:00] would say the majority of it was a group effort, but we're probably the ones who talked them into throwing people in the air. Uh, that's very on brand for us to do those kinds of things.
So we handled those aspects of it. And then the talent appearance. And so I would say a lot of our events, the vast majority of our events are client coming to us to say, we have a product, here's kind of the audience we wanna engage, and here's kind of the general, what we want people to take away. That's not necessarily a tactical experience, it's maybe a sentiment, it's a tagline to a campaign.
And they say, how would you bring that to life? And I think that's one of the things we feel really privileged to have is it clients come to us looking for ideas versus, and we're happy to execute a specific plan if they have one. But I think that makes it a really fun challenge for our team is to constantly get to kind of dream up these experiences and what does that look like?
And so it's obviously a joint effort. But we try to come to the table. And again, a lot of times they have to reign us in and be like, all right, that's too far. Let's bring it back. Um, but we're known for that. We're known for being the people who will kind of [01:00:00] do those things. And then the other thing we're really known for is that we'll do them quickly.
And that goes back to having our own integrated infrastructure. I would say the majority of our products or projects come to life in 60 to 90 days. Wow. Which is extremely fast in the event space.
[01:00:17] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[01:00:17] Bethany Taylor: And that goes back to you have to own your own assets. You've gotta, yeah. Have these relationships. You've gotta be able to activate really quickly, um, and be able to deploy.
And so we move really quick. Um, you know, there's the saying you can have fast, cheaper, good. Well, good's not optional in our world. And so if you need it, you know, to be a little more cost effective, you've gotta have some longer lead time. And we do sometimes do those things, but if you need it to be fast, you know, we say with enough money, anything is possible.
Yeah. So, um. I think that's where our speed to market and the fact that we can come up with the creative ideas. And that's because we both have a really great creative team. And then we also have a really great team who's lived in this space for a long time. And that's everything from the tactical event execution to the sales side [01:01:00] of it.
And we just really understand the business. And so I think that's where clients come to us, knowing we're gonna put forth a unique idea that we also know we can execute. 'cause there is a difference there between having a great idea and not knowing how to execute it. Um, and being able to do both sides of that equation.
[01:01:15] Nick Beyer: And for someone who's not in the retail world and they, they're hearing you say, okay, we put on this crazy event, like they're probably thinking, okay, how, how, where is the ROI on that? Could you answer that question? And I assume the ROI on an event is not as linear as the ROI on a. In-home sampling kits.
So kind of talk about how you marry those two things together, what that looks like in conversation with your clients, et cetera.
[01:01:41] Bethany Taylor: Sure. So I would say a lot of those cases, you're looking at earned media. You're looking at how much people talk about it. Does it get picked up by the news? Does it get all of those kinds of things?
'cause then again, you're amplifying your audience. So we track all those things. Mm-hmm. So we can come back with a, a number. You might have had this many attendees, but we can come back and say, this many people were exposed to this event. So that's one big [01:02:00] metric is it's return on experience is kind of a buzzword in the industry right now.
The second part of that is that brand loyalty piece of the odds of this person then making a purchase repeatedly over a period of time. And so that's where we have different levers. We pull from a CTA perspective on site at an event to say, you know, are you adding something to your cart right there?
Are we giving you some sort of incentive, whether that's an offer or something to buy it in the future, that's then trackable. Um, and really kind of measuring that propensity for lifetime value, um, because they had this really memorable experience and that's where the value of the experience has a very significant impact on lifetime value versus something that was a little bit less experiential.
Yeah. And so that's where, for us, whether it's direct to home sampling or at an event. We're gonna do everything we can to make that as memorable as possible. Because when you're standing in an aisle trying to decide between five items, you're gonna remember that one that delivered something really unique for you.
And so, whether it's the swag items that are branded that live on in home, whether [01:03:00] it's some sort of offer, um, all of those kinds of things are kind of how we take the different pieces to tell one cohesive story about the impact of that event.
[01:03:08] Cameron Clark: And people don't forget an experience. I mean, they
[01:03:09] Bethany Taylor: don't,
[01:03:10] Cameron Clark: I remember missing the Sean White experience.
People tell, tell me about it. And being like, okay, well that would've been awesome. Yeah. To, to, to see. But like, that's, that's my memory of when that going on is like, FOMO is real. I, I wasn't there. Um,
[01:03:23] Bethany Taylor: yeah. FOMO is a powerful tool in our business. Yeah. But I think just one more example of. The, the crazy things people call us for is I got a phone call once on a Friday afternoon from someone I hadn't talked to in a long time and they said, Hey, I have a crazy ask and you were the only person I can think of.
And I'm like, first off, I love this. I love that. This is our reputation. I truly do. And they said, Hey, I've been asked to get a live elephant for an event in Dallas. I was like, well, I've never been asked for a live elephant before, but gimme a couple hours, lemme make some phone calls. And within 24 hours I had an elephant available for this person.[01:04:00]
Wow. And it's like, that's the world we live in is we are those people that you call when you need something wild and crazy. And again, I think that's such a privilege to live in that space of getting to do things that are unique and different every day and, and just having a team of people who get excited by the elephant call versus being like, I don't even know where to start.
And so it's, it's a really fun kind of business to get to live in every single day.
[01:04:22] Nick Beyer: That's crazy. So we've talked, I think we've talked a pretty decent amount about the home sampling. Mm-hmm. I'd like to talk more just with the warehouse and kind of Yeah. Where y'all live. I think we've really talked about events.
Mm-hmm. You have a third segment of your business deemed talent. Mm-hmm. And how would you describe where that fits into your business? Really where you guys specialize mm-hmm. Relative to other people who are doing that. Sure. What's the bread and butter there? So
[01:04:48] Bethany Taylor: that was another expansion based on client asks.
And so because we do a lot of new item launches, often our clients are pulling multiple levers from us to do these kind of cohesive campaigns. So they might be doing some [01:05:00] sampling, they might be doing kind of a pop-up PR event to drive some buzz and then oftentimes also want some sort of talent ambassador to then spread that story on social or maybe make an appearance at the event.
And so that's how we kind of ended up building our own talent infrastructure is it's really around a lot of appearances at events. So whether that's a celebrity, whether that's an NIL athlete, whether that's a musical performance, a lot of variety in that space. Um, we will also do custom content campaigns for clients.
And so you ask where we specialize. And so where we specialize is celebrity partnerships. Or custom content creation. And what that means is they maybe want a specific set of assets for a retail specific campaign that maybe the brand level had certain assets and they need something specific to the retailer.
And so we're doing a full blown video photo production shoot, generating those assets. They're using them in a media buy, they're using them on pack, they're using them for something else. Or maybe it is on social for that talent to post. Uh, but it's usually a handful of talent and [01:06:00] it's a really deeply involved kind of production shoot.
Mm-hmm. And those kinds of things, I think we're also clear to say. If you want 50, you know, Instagram moms who are in the beauty space, that's not our sweet spot. And we're happy to introduce you to one of the influencer companies who do those things extremely well. But where we really specialize is in that celebrity space or that content production space and tying that into an event appearance or some kind of other part of the tactic within the campaign.
And so if it's an event experience, we're handling everything from the contracting, working with the talents team, the riders, the onsite, the security, the transport accommodations, all of those kinds of things. Uh, the back of house, the AV production. A couple of weeks ago, we did an event on the Santa Monica Pier for one of our clients, and we brought in a celebrity DJ to do a pop-up experience.
And so we handled everything from the dj, travel writer, all of those things, the staging, the av, [01:07:00] all of the production, the lighting, all of those kinds of things down to security. And again, that goes back to our approach of we're the detail people. Yeah. And our clients should get to show up and just have a great time.
Um, and we handle all of those things behind the scenes to make not only that event a really great experience, but the talent integration into that seamless as well. Mm-hmm. And so that's really how we got into the talent space. Um, and have had gotten to do some really fun and unique partnerships over the years.
[01:07:25] Nick Beyer: It's crazy. So going back to the, the direct home sampling, you have the warehouse, I assume that's the biggest part of your business. That's where you started. And I mean, just looking at all the boxes, what is. What is a, um, you, you, like, y'all will do a one box or you'll do a hundred thousand boxes mm-hmm.
And, and then kind of talk through the complex. I don't, I just don't think people understand how complex that is. So a manufacturer that you're working with is having to send you the samples mm-hmm. I assume
[01:07:58] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[01:07:58] Nick Beyer: You're having to get the, the boxes [01:08:00] you're having to get them all the artwork done and put on the boxes.
Like can you just talk through how complex it is to actually, we're, we're staring at all these boxes here, like how complex it is to actually get that done and get it in a consumer's hands.
[01:08:16] Bethany Taylor: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And do it in a quality way.
[01:08:18] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[01:08:18] Bethany Taylor: So we do all the creative concepting, we'll do all of the production art and then we work with local printers to do that production.
And that's something that else that's been really important to me is over the years we've migrated as much of our business to northwest Arkansas as we can. And that's, that gives us speed. Um, because they're local, we can drive across the street, we can pick something up. We're not shipping it across the country.
And also we're investing in the area. Yeah. And then we like to work with local and small businesses. You know, I had people who bet on me early on and I wanna return that favor, um, with local businesses. And so we have really great partners that understand the speed which we operate. And so that allows us to move really fast.
So we do all that production art, [01:09:00] we get it printed. We have extremely high quality specs. Um, and that is something I will not apologize for. I will not apologize about being meticulous to detail. I'll not apologize for the quality levels that we have. And again, if that means we have to make extras so that we can throw away the ones that don't meet our spec, we will do that.
Mm-hmm. And if you ask anyone on the team, they will tell you, um, I am meticulous about the details. And that's part of what makes us good at what we do, is we don't settle. And if, you know, there's been a couple times. Where we got something printed and we got it back to us and we were like, there's something wrong with it.
[01:09:34] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[01:09:34] Bethany Taylor: And we've paid to reprint it. Mm-hmm. Because our clients came to us with an expectation and it was our fault and we're gonna make it right. And so they honestly never even knew we paid to reprint it. It was the right thing to do. And we make sure that that quality experience goes out the door. And so we work with local partners to get things printed.
We source and produce all kinds of custom swag. Oftentimes our clients will send us samples. We then package all of that up with our precision packing team. Um, and kind of ship that out the door [01:10:00] and then follow that up with that feedback survey and those kinds of elements to then round out that experience.
And so all of that happens in a really quick timeframe. Again, um, from a sampling perspective, a lot of times it's 60 days events are a little bit longer of a lead time. Uh, but the fun thing about the box business is that it is always different and, you know, we'll take the one Celebrity box project because we love a good challenge and we like to do something fun and interesting.
Again, no one would ever know that we were the ones who produced that, but you know, we get to see it in their content. Mm-hmm. And, and see that satisfaction of delivering something really cool. And so we produce things all over kind of CPG categories. We do things for entertainment properties. We do, um, we've done refrigerated sampling, we do sample list sampling, which is also very interesting.
So we have clients who have like refrigerated or frozen products. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't make sense to send them out. And so what we'll do is develop an entire experience around that item. So let's say it's a [01:11:00] frozen appetizer and it's perfect for game night. And so we might send them a oven MIT so that they can get it out of the oven that's branded, that will live on at home.
We might send them some other accessories and things, and then we send them an offer to go and get that product for free from the store. And so it's also an interesting skill to be able to create an entire sampling experience without a product sample. Wow. And that's where I think the creative approach makes that work.
There are definitely companies who do. Really cost efficient single sampling. And that's all about economics of cost efficiency. And for us it's really about that experience. And so that's kind of how we've always approached it and why we needed our own fulfillment center and our ability to control all of those pieces of the process.
And that's where, when someone comes to us and says, oh my gosh, we need this out the door in, you know, 60 days, can you squeeze it in? We have full control of that to say, yep, we can make it happen, versus being dependent on those other parties. Mm-hmm. And that's where looking back, if, if I hadn't made that decision in 2022, in [01:12:00] 2025, we'd be in a very different situation.
Mm-hmm. Because we wouldn't have control over those things. Mm-hmm. And so I think that's just going back to all of those kind of God nudges, whether it's people, whether it's how the business has grown, whether it's when we've moved or expanded or done those things that looking back. I see how those things have played out, and I, I really believe that my role in this is just to be a vessel for God's plan.
And I can't tell you how many times over the years I've just prayed, like I, I don't know what the future holds. I don't know what the plan is. I'm, I'm just here to, to see out what your plan is, God for this business. And it's in your hands. It's bigger than me. This is not something I've done on my own.
And you guide it and it's taken off like crazy. Um, it'd be great if he maybe paced that growth like a little bit slower, but I'm just a really big believer that my role in this is to just be a vessel for his plan and kinda showing up every day and be like, all right, what are we doing today? God? Like, what do you have in store [01:13:00] for us?
And really trying to be in tune to those nudges of, Hey, you've not steered me wrong yet. Like, you've got a, a, you know where we're going as a business and. Come along for the ride, whatever that means. Yeah.
[01:13:13] Nick Beyer: That's awesome. Well maybe talk us through where the business is at currently. Mm-hmm. So I feel like we've covered COVID, we've covered inception, we've covered kind of the different segments of your business, but like 2025, whether it's revenue, employees mm-hmm.
Kind of growth rates, whatever it is, just to, for people to wrap their heads around what Grot he's doing. You know, your impact on clients, stuff like that. Just kind of walk us through where the business is at right now.
[01:13:38] Bethany Taylor: Sure. For context, at the end of 2023, we had 12 employees. And so two and a half years later, we're close to 50 people.
Um, and so from a small business standpoint, you know, I still say we're a startup. And someone the other day was like, I don't think we're a startup
anymore.
[01:13:52] Bethany Taylor: Well, we need stop being a startup. Um, but we really have just been so fortunate, and again, that is not my [01:14:00] doing that is a God thing and the opportunities that have come our way.
Um, and so the team's grown significantly and really. If you look at the ways our team's divided, uh, we obviously have kind of a, a partnerships team that works with our clients to develop those strategies and things. And we have a, a client services team that brings us to life, a really big creative team that is coming up with those crazy and wild ideas.
Um, and then we have a really significant execution team. Mm-hmm. So whether that is the warehouse, whether that's events making that happen, um, and then there's obviously kind of an administrative team behind the scenes that keeps us running smoothly as a business and then the technology piece of our business.
And so. As that's continued to grow, obviously, um, our revenue has continued to grow. You mentioned we're on track to at least two x our revenue from 2024, which is just wild in, in an inflationary environment. Yeah. Where there's a lot of talk about layoffs and companies having to cut back and I'm just so grateful that that's not been our experience, that we've just continued to kind of have [01:15:00] opportunities come our way.
And we do try to be very smart about it. We try to be really smart about hiring and not getting ahead of ourselves and being really intentional. And again, that is not the easy way to do it. A lot of times that is me filling in some of those gaps, um, for the team in some of those places. But again, that's, I signed up for this, you know?
Yeah. And, and I love it and I get to do those things. But again, it's not been easy. And I think that's one of the things I'm really adamant about is. Being honest about the journey, and I think there's some people who've had some great success stories that were maybe strife free. Mine hasn't necessarily been strife free.
Um, I am not complaining about it. I'm so grateful for what we've, we've been able to do and I genuinely love it. But I do work six days a week. I've worked six days a week for the last four years. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I, um, am all in on this business because I'm also a very involved. Kind of leader. And that's probably not also the norm in companies that are 50 people in size.
And so I think we're just [01:16:00] very intentional about growing the team, kind of in proportion to how our business has grown and really investing in subject matter experts and people who have a lot of expertise. And, and I only know what I know and I try to surround myself with people who are smarter than me, who have different perspectives than me, who have different skill sets than me because that's what makes it work.
Um, and so we've got people from all different backgrounds and walks of life and experiences, and I think that's what makes it work. Um, and we've even relocated some people to Northwest Arkansas because we do believe in the power of being together, especially when you're in such a tactical business, is being able to physically see a box sample or mm-hmm.
Go look at a food truck before it hits the road, is like, we've gotta be here. Yeah. And so relocating people to northwest Arkansas to kind of build that team out. So being very intentional about our people growth and where the business is going. I think people know us as an event business. They obviously know us as a sampling business.
I think what a lot of people don't realize is how much technology exists as the underlying layer of our business. And so we've built all of that [01:17:00] technology in-house. So from our app all the way through to our warehouse inventory systems and deployment systems, the integrations we have with our shipping partners mm-hmm.
And logistic partners. Um, we have built all of those tools in-house and so that gives us a lot of flexibility as well when we need to make adjustments or tweaks to things. And also our ability to provide reporting and tools and those kinds of things. And so I think as you ask potentially about what comes next for us, we'll obviously continue to, to create unique events and unique sampling experiences.
But there's some really fun technology developments in the work for us that will be coming next year that I think a lot of people probably don't associate with g Gratsy, which is again, fun to continue to surprise people with the things that we're working on.
[01:17:40] Cameron Clark: Is this AI related?
[01:17:41] Bethany Taylor: Actually, no. Yeah. Um, I think it's, uh, it's a lot of tools that leverage our existing infrastructure to help other brands take what we do really well and potentially apply to other situations.
Some integrations into Shopify businesses to allow them to do [01:18:00] sampling. Um, we're also getting ready to launch a self-service portal for small and emerging brands to be able to leverage our sampling ecosystem Oh, wow. Without potentially some of the really white glove curated custom pieces. So taking our infrastructure but in a little bit more streamlined approach that still allow them to get to a, a hyper-targeted consumer, but in a little bit more efficient way for an emerging business.
Hmm. And so those are the tools, is we take what we already have established and what we're really good at and say, what are other market segments where we could apply this, that people would see value from these pieces of our business that we've built?
[01:18:33] Cameron Clark: Sure. And then you're about to go to the new office space.
That's big. Yes.
[01:18:36] Bethany Taylor: Yep. I think the other one, just to add to that, is insights. So we have this whole consumer community and so people coming to us saying like, Hey, can we query them about X, Y, and Z? We wanna know what shoppers think about this and that. And so I think that's another piece that's growing too.
But yes, to your point about office space, we're about to move into our third office in three and a half years. Another part of growing really quickly. Yeah. Um, that no one tells you about. And I think that was hard as well, is when we got our [01:19:00] first office, we wanted a short-term lease. And a lot of landlords were like, well, it's hard to get.
Are you unstable? Do you not think you're gonna be in business? And I was like, no, I'm just growing really fast and I don't know how much space I'm gonna need. And so, um, that was really challenging, you know, that was challenging as a, a female founder of a young business is people not taking me seriously and, and those kinds of things.
And so third, third office in three and a half years, hopefully we can stay for a while in this one. We're excited about that. Um, but again, just feel so fortunate that we're in a place where I, I feel like every week there's a news article about someone doing layoffs to be in a space where we're continuing to add jobs to our team and grow our.
Um, that, that's been our experience and not the other side.
[01:19:38] Nick Beyer: And why do you think that is? Because I, I'm, I mean, my, my mind goes to, like, events are the first thing that brands could cut. So is it, are you just, it's
[01:19:46] Bethany Taylor: not what's happening in 2025. Yeah. So
[01:19:47] Nick Beyer: are, are these brands doubling down in, in that, or are you just having more brands reach out, or is it a little bit of both?
It's both. Okay. Yeah.
[01:19:55] Bethany Taylor: So I think it's, and
[01:19:55] Nick Beyer: why do you think that is?
[01:19:59] Bethany Taylor: I think current [01:20:00] clients see the value of it, right? They see kind of the, the earned media and the things that come out of it. And so they're continuing to do more or bigger and better. And then I do think we are having clients continue to come, or we're having new clients come to us because they've heard about things we do.
And I do think there's some things that we do that are a little bit unique to the market that we've kind of built a niche for, that they're seeing value for. Mm-hmm. And this kind of idea of fomo, of, well, we saw someone else do something really cool, well now we wanna do it. Yeah. And so, um, also the diversification of that.
We're not just doing things at retail. Uh, we work with, uh, brands who have sponsorships tied to college campuses tied to athletics. We do events on site at college campuses, whether that's in tailgates or outside stadiums. We do brand level work, we do shopper level work, we do white label work. Mm-hmm. We work with Shopify businesses, we work with emerging D two C brands.
So really it's been very intentional on my part to diversify those things So that. If there are restrictions or challenges in the [01:21:00] marketing ecosystem in certain areas that we've got that kind of flex space to say, well, this part is maybe condensing, but we're seeing a lot of growth over here. And I think that's important too, is having that
[01:21:11] Cameron Clark: Sure.
[01:21:12] Bethany Taylor: Diversification so that you can respond to some of those, how those trends change. But I think consumers are looking for experiences.
[01:21:19] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:21:19] Bethany Taylor: You know, in a world where we talk a lot about digital and we talk a lot about media, there's obviously value there. There's results that come out of those things.
But I think there's the other end of the spectrum where people still like to touch and feel something. Yeah. People wanna get in a photo booth and take a photo. Like it's, it's amazing some of those really simple experiences, how excited people get about something very tactical and physical. And so I don't think that will ever go away.
I think it's just being smart about it. And again, for us. Doing things that are really unique and over the top. If you're gonna do it, do it well. Mm-hmm. Don't do it halfway. Yeah. Nobody wants a mediocre experience. And so I think that's where you're going to see that split of [01:22:00] digital all the way to the very curated experiential.
And some of the middle space may go away, but for us living in that really curated bucket, we're not seeing that constriction that's being talked about in the market.
[01:22:12] Nick Beyer: And Bethany, what? How much of your business is very tailored to Walmart and Sam's Club?
[01:22:19] Bethany Taylor: Yeah, it's a great question. It's like, have you
[01:22:21] Nick Beyer: done an event like that for Kroger or for other retailers?
[01:22:26] Bethany Taylor: Yeah, we do work across a variety of retailers and then again, brand level clients, um, clients in totally different ecosystems, like I mentioned, college campuses and things like that. Mm-hmm. And so, um, it is very spread out and diverse and again, mixed across shopper versus brand dollars and all of those kinds of things.
And for us, it's just been really clear of we're not exclusive to one retailer. We're not exclusive to one path to purchase. Um. What we're known for is this curated and unique. And then we build o CTAs. So from a sampling perspective, we'll sometimes have clients say, Hey, we're launching a new item and it's at these [01:23:00] three retailers.
Mm-hmm. Can we split the cta? Mm-hmm. Based on where that particular person likes to shop. It's like, great, we can definitely do that because of the data that we have. And so being really flexible about kind of where you're driving a purchase and those kinds of things, um, has given us some leeway as well across the industry.
That's
[01:23:18] Nick Beyer: good. That's good. Um, what I what do you feel like your role looks like this year? Like, I know it's probably changing every day, but as you look forward to the rest of 2025, what, what does your role look like?
[01:23:33] Bethany Taylor: Sure. I think that's been a very interesting growth journey for me. When you start a business, you're it, right?
You're wearing all the hats, you're doing all the things. Um, and as your team grows, that changes and shifts, right? To where they need me to really be more of the visionary and the leader at this point and, and doing some of the opportunities around telling our story just like this and those kinds of things.
And a little bit less of hands-on. Um, and so sometimes I'm like, Hey, can I, can I come to that? I'd still like to be part of an event. I'm like, can [01:24:00] I work that one? Can I make a box? Um, but I think again, how grateful to be in a spot where I have a team who says, Hey, we've got this. You go do these things.
The hard part for me has been. I don't know that I've always felt like this is a super unique story. I was just a person who had an idea and was willing to do the work and just kinda put my head down and hustled. And over the years as I've started meeting other entrepreneurs and hearing things, just the fact that we a, don't have investors, we didn't start the company with funding that, you know, those kinds of pieces have started to realize that are a little bit more unique and not as commonplace.
[01:24:36] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:24:37] Bethany Taylor: Um, and so, you know, while I don't necessarily feel like I did anything super revolutionary, if my story inspires someone else who's wondering, should I leave something stable and go try it, do it.
[01:24:49] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:24:50] Bethany Taylor: Bet on yourself. And you know, again, I had such a separate support group around me that if it doesn't work out, you can always go back and do something else, but don't live the rest of your life wondering, [01:25:00] I wish I had done it.
And so. To answer what my role is today. I think it's a lot of the vision. Where are we going as a company? I think what we do and what we stand for has been pretty well established mm-hmm. At this point. And the, and the team's really clear on that. But it's more of where are we going? What do the next 12 to 18 months look like?
Where are new market opportunities that we wanna go pursue? And um, how do we go get in some of those spaces? And then just really telling the story of this awesome team that just produces extremely epic work. Um, and again, a lot of what we do, we're in the background, and so you wouldn't necessarily know that we're the ones that do it.
We've had. A lot of campaigns that have won awards and done different things in the industry that you would never know that we were behind. Sure. And I think, again, our, our satisfaction comes from knowing we created something that was just really unique for consumers and mm-hmm. Was engaging at the end of the day.
Hmm.
[01:25:51] Nick Beyer: And who are some of your mentors? Whether they're people who are local or, or maybe it's people outside of the market. Like who is who, who is your support [01:26:00] system? Sure. Are there other founders, entrepreneurs? Is it family? What does that look like for you?
[01:26:04] Bethany Taylor: Uh, well I didn't tell my mother I was quitting my job till the night before 'cause I didn't wanna get talked out of it.
So that may not have been the best strategy. Um, you know, my husband has been my biggest cheerleader this whole time when I said, Hey, I wanna quit my job and, and go do something. And again, probably naively as to what that thought that would be, um, you know, he's always been supportive of that. Mm-hmm. And, uh, he actually works for the company now, so he's been with the company almost three years at this point.
So I sucked him into my ecosystem too. And I give him a lot of credit for, you know. Being willing to work for his wife is not necessarily an easy dynamic. We are in separate buildings, um, which does help. But he's always been that champion to say, this is her thing. This is her vision. I'm here to help you bring it to life, and I've got your back for whatever you need.
And I think that is just super meaningful. And people ask me, they're like, well, do you guys just talk about work all the time? And I'm like, well, I was gonna talk about work regardless. So at least now he knows what I'm talking about. He can relate. He's also invested. Yeah. Yeah. He's also invested in my success.
So, [01:27:00] um, there's that piece of it. And I think, you know, my family, you know, my parents are both teachers, my siblings are in other industries, but have always been, you know, Hey, we're cheering for you. And then I think, um, what's interesting is when I, you know, was first getting started and didn't really know where to work, startup Junkie was a great resource in terms of you're like, I need an accountant.
Yeah. Where do I find an accountant? And some of those kinds of things. And so there's some great resources in this area. I tell people who were thinking about starting a business. Two things. You need an accountant and you need a lawyer. You're gonna become really close to both of these people. So find somebody you like.
Yeah. Because you're gonna spend a lot of quality time with them. Um, and then I think as I went through the journey, one of the things I've been so impressed with about northwest Arkansas is the willingness of people to help. And I don't know that you would have that in a Silicon Valley or a New York City in this Invi ecosystem.
People say, Hey, can I introduce you to someone or can I help you with that? Or even how I met you all is, you know, Steve Blair introduced me. And so just the amount of people who [01:28:00] are like, can I help? Can I introduce you? Can I be your champion? Mm-hmm. Is such a unique thing to Northwest Arkansas and the entrepreneurial ecosystem that exists here.
And there's different organizations that do that has just been something that's been really a pleasure to be part of.
[01:28:14] Cameron Clark: It's real. Mm-hmm. It's very real.
[01:28:16] Bethany Taylor: And I think any way that I can now pay that forward, being a little bit further into that journey to maybe somebody who's earlier in the journey. Would love, that's one of my passions now.
And you asked me about how my role's evolved. I think that's one of those things that now being a little bit further away from the day to day of it is how can I help the next generation of people? Um, you know, the other little girls who were told they were bossy, it's okay to be bossy. That can work out for you.
And so how do we kind of inspire that next stage of people? But there's a lot of great organizations in northwest Arkansas who are really kind of cultivating that, um, ecosystem of entrepreneurship. And I've had the opportunity to be involved in the tech summit for the last couple of years and, um, you know, telling the story of what we do, and again, we're not what you would consider a traditional [01:29:00] tech company, but the fact that we have built all of that in-house again is I think something that's surprising.
Yeah. About what we do.
[01:29:06] Cameron Clark: That's awesome. Well, you know, last couple questions here as we're wrapping up. Um, we talked about what's next, um, but two questions we ask every guest. Number one, how do you define success?
[01:29:22] Bethany Taylor: For a campaign or for the business.
[01:29:25] Cameron Clark: How do you define success? Just business in life.
[01:29:29] Bethany Taylor: Sure. Wow.
That's a tough question. Obviously, from a day to day of our business, we know what expectations are and going back to, we always make sure we understand what our clients are expecting from A KPI standpoint, all the marketing buzzwords, right? What are, what are they expecting and how do we make sure we're developing an experience that's going to deliver those things?
I think looking at Gazi as a whole, for me, it's. You know, are we continuing to evolve as a company? Mm-hmm. Are we making sure we're, um, not stagnant? Are we making sure [01:30:00] our team has what they need? Are we making sure we're continuing to evolve and adapt? And we talk a lot about continuous improvement and who we are as a company is not who we were six months ago, and it's not who will be six months from now.
Mm. And that's an interesting environment to live in, but I also think that's why we've had people stay with us is because it's not the same job.
[01:30:18] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:30:19] Bethany Taylor: It's not like, you know, being part of a company where you're gonna work on the exact same thing for two years in our world, it, it changes. It's, you know, a project lasts 90 days and you're onto the next thing.
And so you get to kind of have all these different careers and opportunities. And so is our team continuing to feel fulfilled and challenged and, and developed and those things. Couple of years ago, we implemented what we call GRS University. And so twice a year we bring our whole team in and we spend three days doing training and talking about where we're going as a business and, and updates and tools we've worked on and development.
And I think just having our whole team be aligned to where we're going is a big point of success for me is do you believe in what we're doing at the end of the day? Mm. And those kinds of pieces and, and [01:31:00] I tell people everything is up for debate at this company other than the logo. It took us 14 iterations on the hands to end up with the hands.
And we're not changing it. There it is. 'cause we just got the trademark. Other than that, everything is up for debate. An interesting story, Gratsy is a combination of gra Gratsy and grateful. So thankful, grateful, free. As you think about our sampling community, the idea that we give free samples and it's got the social good element, um, that's how we kind of came up with the name when we started there.
In retrospect, we should have picked a letter that was easier to iterate with than G. There's not a lot that goes with G. Um, and then another interesting, funny story is sometimes people will ask me like, how did you decide how to spell it? 'cause we were debating between an S and a Z.
[01:31:40] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[01:31:41] Bethany Taylor: And the honest answer is the URL for an S was way cheaper than the one with a Z.
And that's how I went with it. That's
[01:31:47] Cameron Clark: amazing. Hey, it works.
[01:31:48] Bethany Taylor: So sometimes you think that there was a lot of thought and intentionality that went into decisions and sometimes it was just the cheaper URL. So sometimes it's really as simple as that. Yeah. Amazing.
[01:31:57] Cameron Clark: Yeah. That's awesome. So
[01:31:58] Bethany Taylor: yes.
[01:31:58] Cameron Clark: Um, so [01:32:00] last question.
So why, you kind of alluded to it earlier, but why build a business in northwest Arkansas?
[01:32:07] Bethany Taylor: You know, I had such a great opportunity to be part of retail and again, learn so many things and I had a great career. And I think there's so many things. And if you live in northwest Arkansas, you probably know a lot of these things about Walmart and the community investment and the things that they do.
Um, and just, you know, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't had those experiences and learn those things. And as I look back on my plan to go into hospitality, you know, my life looks very different than what I had planned for it to be. But I also see a lot of those principles of hospitality and customer service and, and all of those things live in what we're doing today and Northwest Arkansas, you know.
Has been a great place from the resources that are here. Mm-hmm. And you know, the brands that are here, because there's so many brands that have offices here, obviously because of Walmart, it makes it easy to do business. And then the fact that you have a lot of the resources that you would have in a bigger city, but still that small town feel where you know people and you can have a personal relationship [01:33:00] with your banker, with your accountant, with your lawyer.
Yep. Um, and I think that personal aspect of northwest Arkansas, when you are a entrepreneur and this is already your baby and you care so much about it being in a community that feels very personal. Help support that versus being in a big city that has a very cutthroat atmosphere. And I don't know that we'd be in the same place if we hadn't had that of just kind of, I think again, going back to the community here of people rooting for you and for people rooting for you to be successful.
And, um, it's a great place to live, um, from the amenities we have to the cost of living and all of those kinds of things. And it is easier, you know, when you wanna get a warehouse or do those things versus being in a Dallas or somewhere where that's a lot more competitive. And so I think there's just a lot of reasons of, of why we've put down so many roots here over the years and have pulled all of our business into Northwest Arkansas and.
Logistically, even shipping from the middle of the country is an [01:34:00] advantage over being on one of the coasts. And so there's just so many little pieces of it. But I think the biggest one is just the community here and that people are rooting for your success. Yeah. And there's not a better environment you could ask for starting a business than to be surrounded by people who want to see you succeed.
[01:34:16] Nick Beyer: A hundred percent. That's so powerful. Well, one of the things we do at the end of every episode is just kind of share with our guests the, the biggest things we learn and we think that our listeners will take away. So I think the first, uh, piece that I feel like you captured pretty, um, consistently from the beginning was speed.
And you know, I've heard it say like, good entrepreneurs, they don't walk slow. They don't talk slow, they don't make decisions slow. And it seems like y'all don't do that at Gratsy. And people could say, well, you know, you gotta be careful, you gotta be precise. But I think if you're, if you start with speed.
You just get more and more accurate as, as that muscle develops. And it, and it seems like that's what y'all have done here. So your ability to bring something to [01:35:00] market in 60 to 90 days for a big client who, who in these big companies, they don't, they're not known for moving fast. Mm-hmm. So to be able to work with someone who can move fast, but also really focus on quality, I think is really unique to your business.
I think we can all learn something from that. Um, yeah. One thing I would add to that is
[01:35:18] Bethany Taylor: one of my partners gave me a piece of advice really early on, and he said, mountains look like mole hills in the review mirror. Wow. And that stuck with me because it may feel like this huge thing right now, and in six months you're gonna have moved on to something else.
And so I think as you talk about speed, our philosophy has been try it and fail fast and pivot and move on. Mm-hmm. You know, don't think about it for 12 months and then do it. Yeah. Again, try something once. If it didn't work out, move on to the next thing and you'll look back and it'll be a molehill.
Mm-hmm. And so I think just a piece of advice for people who get started is don't let what's right in front of you. Deter how you're gonna approach it, whether that's going quickly or trying something
[01:35:53] Nick Beyer: so good.
[01:35:54] Bethany Taylor: And then when you run that fast for so long, you just get used to that pace and now you don't know how to do anything else.
Yeah, [01:36:00] exactly. That's amazing.
[01:36:01] Nick Beyer: Uh, I think the second piece is creativity. We saw it as soon as we walked into the office, walking all around the office, seeing all that y'all have accomplished as a team, and then also being a place where clients can come and truly like, Hey, maybe it's a, maybe it's a, a tiny little sketch they give you and you guys turn it into something crazy.
Like being able to take a small idea and make it really big. And overjoy consumers, overjoy people who are buying these products. Like that's a really big deal in the retail world. So really cool to see that. Mm-hmm. Creativity come to life. And then I think the last piece, uh, and I think this might be the first time we've used this word, but the word control, I think it can sometimes have.
Negative connotations. Mm-hmm. But you use that word a lot and I think in all the ways you used it, it is what part of the DNA that makes Gratsy special. Mm-hmm. Right. So being able to control the quality
[01:36:54] Cameron Clark: mm-hmm.
[01:36:54] Nick Beyer: From your warehouse. Mm-hmm. Being able to control the results and the speed, like part of that [01:37:00] is the technology that you've built.
Um, building things in northwest Arkansas so that you can accomplish that speed. Like all of those pieces have to do with your desire to control. And the desire to control isn't just the desire to control, it's the desire to control something so that the quality mm-hmm. Is being delivered for your clients.
And so I think that's really, really interesting. Something that we can all learn from.
[01:37:22] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:37:23] Nick Beyer: Um, but Bethany Taylor, thank you so much for your time this morning. How can people reach out to you? How can they learn more about Gratsy?
[01:37:30] Bethany Taylor: Sure. Well, thank you for having me and listening to our story. They can obviously follow us on social, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
You can download the Gratsy app and be part of our community if you're interested in getting some free samples, and then I'm always happy to chat and meet people. They're happy. Welcome to Reach out to me. It's just bethany@Gratsy.com. What are the benefits of starting a company is you get to choose a very simple email address, so always happy to meet people and again, appreciate the opportunity to tell our story.
[01:37:55] Cameron Clark: Yeah, thanks Bethany, for your time.
[01:37:56] Bethany Taylor: Thank you.
[01:37:58] Cameron Clark: Thank you for listening to this episode of [01:38:00] NWA Founders, where we sit down with founders, owners and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas. For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at nwa founders@gmail.com. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, then please consider leaving a rating, a review, and sending it to someone who you think would benefit from it.
We'll see you in the next episode.