In this episode, Kosmo Khosravi, Founder and CEO of Kosmo’s Q, shares how he built a thriving barbecue spices brand by focusing on customer retention and personal values. Kosmo discusses the importance of meeting customers where they are, creating products that keep them coming back, and the pivotal moment that led him to pursue his passion full-time. Tune in to learn how Kosmo turned Kosmo’s Q into a leading name in the American barbecue scene.
Full episode: S7:E13 | From $500 to $50M+: The Story of Kosmos Q
https://2xecommerce.com/podcast/ep355/
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Kunle Campbell
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Kunle Campbell: Do you offer subscription services, or do people just come and buy? Is it seasonal? When the weather is good? I know in America, like Texas, the weather’s good all year long in most Southern states. So, how do you get people to be habitual purchasers besides just making the products fantastic?
Kosmo Khosravi: No, that’s a great question. We try to meet them where they’re at. One thing we do know about our customers is that for everyone who comes in the door, 36 percent are repeat buyers in four months or less. Of those 36 percent, roughly 55 percent buy again within the next two months. And of those 55 percent, 83 percent return again before the one-year mark. I was telling someone those numbers the other day, and they were like, “Those are phenomenal.” But I said, “Not really. I want 100 percent of everybody who bought once to buy again. I’ll settle for 80 percent, so we need to work on that.”
We don’t want to be the brand that bombards you with emails like a used car salesman—“Hey, do you want to buy? Do you want to buy?”—over and over again until you finally say, “No, if I wanted to buy, I would have bought.” We try not to be that brand. But we also want to be the brand that maybe you bought a rub, but you had no idea we have sauces, wing dust, wing sauces, or barbecue glazes. So, we try to gently inform you, like, “Hey, have you thought about this?” or “Did you know we offer this?” or provide a video—something that ensures we’re doing everything we can to support your barbecue journey.
Kunle Campbell: Mhm.
Kosmo Khosravi: So, prior to Kosmo’s Q, I was in the hazardous waste industry. I would drive around our little state and pick up hazardous waste, then dispose of it for companies and corporations. It was definitely a career that helped support my family, but it wasn’t my calling.
I think a lot of people like me—the entrepreneurial type—have this calling that you can’t explain. You don’t know what it is, and I was always trying new things. People would say, “That’s Kosmo, he doesn’t finish things; he doesn’t follow through.” But I was just searching for something that was in front of me the whole time.
I remember driving home one day, and as I crossed a hill, I could hear a voice in my truck say, “What do you even value? You ask so many questions, but you don’t even have any values. What do you value?” I’ll never forget—I got home about 10 minutes later, got on my computer, and created a list of things someone could value. There were about 200 of them. I said, “I’m going to circle 50.” Then, when I got done with 50, I thought, “I’ll sleep on it.” But instead, I kept narrowing it down: from 50 to 25, then to 10, then to 5, and finally to the 3 things I valued most.
The things I came up with were family, finances, and freedom. I think people hear “finances” and assume you’re money-hungry, but that couldn’t be further from the truth for me. I needed financial stability to achieve freedom with my family because that, to me, is a life of happiness—a life I want to live. I woke up the next day an entirely different person. I remember going to my wife—I was making six figures at the time, good money—and I told her, “I’m going to quit my job.”
Kunle Campbell: Mhm.
Kunle Campbell: So, thank you for tuning into this episode of the 2X eCommerce podcast. I hope you found it insightful and inspiring.
If you want to dive deeper into the topics we discussed today, you can find the show notes at subscribe.2xecommerce.com. Before we wrap up, I have an exciting announcement for you.
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