Flaus Founder Leaving Law For Entrepreneurship
Discover how Sam's painful and expensive trip to the dentist sparked the idea for Flaus and propelled her to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Learn about the challenges she faced as a first-time founder, from raising capital to balancing her law career with her startup dreams.
(upbeat music)
- My name is Jess Servion,
and I'm super excited to bring you my new podcast,
The Juice With Jess.
This podcast is gonna be about everything
in your customer's journey.
We're talking acquisition, awareness,
making that purchase, retaining that customer,
bringing them back around, and everything in between.
This is gonna be all about delivering dope brand experiences
and talking to some really amazing people
who are in the customer experience space,
marketing space, and everything in between.
(upbeat music)
Welcome back to another episode of The Juice With Me, Jess.
This week, I am in New York City with my friend Sam Cox,
who is the founder of Flouse,
the first electric gloss.
Cool, company?
Sam, just tell the people who you are,
'cause I'm gonna ruin this.
- Yes, yes, well, I'm so happy to get to be here
and get to chat with you.
So yes, I am the founder of Flouse.
We are the world's first electric flosser.
Think of an electric toothbrush, but for flossing.
Inspired after a painful and expensive trip for the dentist.
- Oh, we're gonna get into that then.
- A lot of dental bills, a lot of shame of lying
to my dentist, but it got me here,
so I'm like, I'm thankful for it.
- Yeah, okay, well, let's dive right in.
- Yes. - My friend.
- So the other thing is, you left law to start this.
- Yes. - To tell me,
well, I know about a painful visit,
but tell me that's the whole story, like, just die.
- Yes, so I definitely, I will say that my path
to entrepreneurship has been anything but linear.
So my background was, I went, I'm from Southern California.
I went to USC for undergrad, went straight through
to NYU Law, got my JD, came back to LA,
and I practiced mergers and acquisitions
at a massive law firm called Skadden.
When the top law firms in the world sleep under my desk,
just like brutal, brutal.
- Slaving it. - Oh my God,
I was a full corporate slave.
And you know, you put in so much time and effort
to get to this point, you know,
studying for the LSAT, go into law school,
studying for the bar, like, you're kind of just on this path
and then you get there and you're like,
this can't be it for me.
And I remember one day I had a dentist appointment,
came up with my calendar and I was like a week out from it.
And at the time I was an amazing twice a day toothbrusher,
but a horrible, horrible flosser.
So about a week before I start vigorously flossing,
so I got in the dentist chair and she asked,
you know, have you been flossing?
My answer was, yes.
And she's like, knew I was a liar right away,
blood everywhere.
I ended up leaving with 12 cavities,
a multi-thousand dollar dental bill,
and I came home and I thought, I hate flossing.
I love using my electric toothbrush.
Why don't I just go buy an electric flosser
that could go do it for me?
And I literally went on Amazon and Google to go buy one
and I was shocked to discover nothing like it existed.
So that was really my aha moment where I was like, no way.
There's electric toothbrushes,
but there's not like an electric vibrating floss pick.
And so at that point, I just thought I kind of stumbled
upon something and I went back into my law firm office
the next day, like shutting all the doors,
going into my friends and colleagues and being like,
what do you guys think about flossing?
Of course, I've never asked anyone that.
Like, I guess it's a shameful thing where like,
I thought that I was the only one not flossing.
But it turns out everyone hates flossing.
Hardly anyone is doing it.
And when I started talking to my colleagues,
that's when I realized, oh my gosh,
we all hate flossing for the same reasons.
You know, it's painful, time consuming, gross,
everything like that.
So that kind of led me into starting the business.
And I worked on floss while I was an M&A attorney
for a year and a half doing both,
put in my notice, launched our Indiegogo campaign
and put my bar license on hold.
And I've been off to the races ever since.
- Wow, I think that's amazing, man.
- Hey, you know, I think what's really interesting
about entrepreneurial ship,
wait, entrepreneurship.
- I know, why did I say entrepreneurial ship?
- It was close though, it was close.
- I just do this, and you would have kept going.
I was not even gonna say, I was like, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Okay, entrepreneur.
- I was about to do it again, whatever.
Okay, I don't know why I'm making up this word today.
All right, whatever.
What's interesting about being an entrepreneur,
how about that?
- A lot.
- Okay, is that, we all just have this aha moment.
- Mm-hmm.
- You know?
- But it's fucking hard, man.
- Oh, it's--
- Do you ever feel like you're just playing house?
- Oh my gosh, all the time.
And you know what's interesting,
I don't necessarily think a lot of entrepreneurs,
I feel very lucky that I had this aha moment.
I think that there are a lot of people
that are in search of a problem,
'cause they wanna be a founder.
Versus having the problem come find you.
You know, I almost feel like truly,
my own journey that blouse in this product
is meant to exist in the world,
and I am merely like the vessel it came to,
and if I wasn't the one doing it, it would be someone else.
But aside from that feeling like so purposeful,
it is so hard.
It is so hard, it is so glamorized.
And it's so interesting,
because you can be winning these awards
and getting these acknowledgments,
and externally it looks like,
oh my gosh, you're crushing it, you're killing it.
But internally it just feels like,
part of my friends, a total sh*t show.
You know, like you're just like,
it's almost like, I like to use the analogy,
it's like putting on a fitted sheet over a bed,
like the mattress where like,
you put on one corner and then the other corner comes up,
and you're like, wait, I just put,
and then you go over there to put that one,
and the next one comes up.
And so you're just constantly trying to figure it out,
but man, it is so rewarding.
- I know, it's so rewarding.
- So off camera we were like talking about this,
and like, and it's mine's like completely different.
I actually do wanna start a brand one day,
just because like, I wanna apply like all the like,
experience knowledge, the marketing knowledge,
like all the things, right?
But I've never been able to pull the trigger
because I agree with you, I'm finding,
I'm looking for a problem to solve.
But at the same time, it's like, who cares?
- Right, oh my gosh, I mean,
and there's so many different ways
that you can become a founder.
I think that there is some benefit
to having the problem find you
and being the person that experienced the problem,
because you understand the pain point,
you understand like, what would make a good solution.
One, I have always known I was meant to be an entrepreneur,
ever since I was younger,
and I've always had like an entrepreneurial spirit
of doing things here and there, even in law school.
And what I would always challenge myself to do,
it was this exercise, is that I think through life,
we go through life and there's constant annoyances
in every single day of life, like your tank tops
keep falling off, falling off the hangers in your closet.
I think we've been trained to just kind of be like,
that's annoying, I'm gonna shrug my shoulders and move on,
versus being able to recognize a pain point,
take a pause and be like,
is there a solution to this problem?
And you'd be surprised how many solutions you can come up with.
- Yeah, totally.
So tell me, like when you started coming out with Flouse,
like you started developing it, doing all the stuff, right?
Like what was that starting process like?
Like I'm always so curious, like, okay, I have the idea,
but now where I go.
- Right, where I go.
- Make that idea come to life.
- Exactly, and so, you know, especially wanting,
I'm now a M&A attorney with no engineering background,
no dental background, going into oral care,
consumer electronic hardware.
- Yeah.
- And so immediately what I did is I went and I found
dentist, obviously, to get on board,
and then I went and found an engineer.
So I went and I looked at like, okay,
what are the two main skill sets I need
to actually build this thing, went and found them,
and then I just did so much diligence and research online.
So I wanted to make sure before I'm putting a single dollar
and leaving my super prestigious job
that I just took on all this debt to get here,
I actually wanted to make sure that this was a viable business.
And so something that I did that I think founders
are just starting off who are really scrappy,
should consider doing is I went and I launched a survey monkey.
I went and I surveyed about 600 people across the US,
it only cost about $1,000.
And I won, asked them about their current oral care habits,
what are they using, how often are they even flossing,
are they brushing, what are their feelings,
what are the pain points?
And then I just gave two sentences about floss,
and it was like, would you purchase this?
And then I did some price testing as well.
And I just thought when I launched the survey,
I just said, I'm just gonna see what the results are.
If they're not positive, that's enough.
- Yeah.
- That's enough, I don't need to keep doing this.
It came back so overwhelmingly positive,
that that's when I was like, okay,
I'm gonna start investing my own money into this now.
And it was actually in that survey
that one of my four hypotheses was turned on its head
of thinking that I was building this product
for non-flossers, 'cause I was a non-flosser.
And that's when I discovered my most avid customer
was the daily flosser.
- Yeah.
- And I was like, what a easier.
- They just want it easier.
And I was like, and what a benefit,
'cause I then don't have to invest in education.
- Right.
- And behavior change, which is extremely expensive.
And I can rely on Oral-B and Colgate to do that work.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. - Totally, right?
- Exactly.
- Totally, well, I mean, we'll dive into this
a little bit more, but I would love,
I wanna talk about like your marketing,
like an acquisition plans, but at first I wanna,
it's okay, you did the survey portions,
you've hired the engineers, you've brought in like dentists.
Like I think that's, I think that's an important thing
to call out is that like as founders, as an entrepreneur,
you're not, it's not only on you.
- No.
- You're not gonna be able to delegate.
- Yes, absolutely.
And you'd be so amazed how generous people are
with their time of wanting to help you.
And so, I have found a lot of power
in just cold messaging on LinkedIn.
- Yeah.
- I do a cold message on LinkedIn.
That got me, my first five investors were cold messages.
A lot of my advisors are cold messages,
but just going out to people and saying,
"Hey, I'm Sam, this is what I'm working on.
"This is your background perfectly aligns with this."
You know, if you ever have free time,
would you mind helping me?
And I think especially as a first time founder
with no experienced technical skillset in the space,
you're in, again, I'm not an engineer or dentist,
it was critical to be able to be like,
you know, put the ego down and be like,
I need help.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Totally, exactly.
Put the ego down and I need help.
Like I totally believe in that.
And like, even for my own stuff,
like it's completely different.
I'm not offering products.
Like I have services.
- Exactly.
- And like-
- But that's something, someone.
- Yeah, and no, it is similar in the sense
and like at some point, like I got to that same point of like,
I can't do this all.
Like let me just like bring in people.
And that's how my agency was like, Bill, right?
Like I went from like fractional work
to then like that's why I said to you off that camera
and off mic that I accidentally like founded an agency
because essentially like three of us got together
and we're like, and I'm super proud of this moment though.
Like I have two badass girlfriends.
- I love that.
- That I worked with at Feastables
and they were like, no Jess, like we believe in like
what you're doing.
Like we wanna like come and like work with you
and we created this like agency that's like-
- It's amazing.
- Just like beautiful missions and values.
- Yes. - Like supporting each other.
And like we don't know where it's gonna go, right?
But like the whole landing that's playing
and like why I was bringing this up is that like,
I got it to some point where it's like,
I can't do this on my own.
So like let me bring in my home girl Danny.
Then I was like, oh, I really wanna do like
a strategy and insights, right?
Like because like I think that's such a important part
of the journey.
But then Laura like joined me, right?
And now we're like just three baddies out here.
Like so, so, you know, you open late?
- Yeah, exactly.
- I love that though.
And like yeah, just getting that support
and having a team and you know,
also I feel like as women too,
at least on my journey like it,
I definitely had to build up my confidence
to understand that this is something
that I could lead on my own as the founder.
Like I didn't have to constantly like feel like
I needed to go like double check everything I was thinking.
And I think it was just, you know, repetition and overtime
and seeing the success and following my gut and intuition.
But I would never have gotten to that place
if I didn't have these amazing advisors and mentors
who had walked this path before me
because you and I were talking about this also offline
was that, you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
There are so many other companies and founders
that have already done the hard work,
have already spent the thousands of dollars to figure it out,
to optimize the page, to optimize this.
And it's like, learn from them,
not only their successes, but their failures too.
- Yeah, totally, totally, totally.
So it's like, that's, I mean,
that's one of the things we were talking about is like,
you know, like what I'm doing and helping other brands,
it's like basically taking the playbook that I wrote,
like for like retention and CX.
- Exactly.
- And strategy and insights and like helping the butt,
but I will say you're right,
like learning from other people's failures
and mistakes, but also like what was really successful,
but not like a failure and a mistake
could be completely different for an audience.
- 100%, right?
- 100%.
- Like the feastable's audience is like
slaying chocolate bars where it's like,
you're slaying in like electric toothbrushes, right?
So like my spectacle marketing plan could be completely different.
- Right, exactly.
Exactly, but it's still, I think a lot of the frameworks
like still work, but you're right.
You can't just like copy and paste
from one brand into another.
- Yeah.
- It all has to be very unique and personalized.
And I think that just goes to where we are at right now
with the customer journey and experience.
They want a personalized customer experience.
- I know.
- And it's tough because then we have all these privacy laws,
lack of first party data.
So it's like they want this personalized experience,
but we don't have enough data to even make it personal.
Yeah.
And so it's this really interesting kind of like,
I guess paradox we're in or paradigm we're in right now
of trying to figure out how can you apply some of these things
that other brands have been able to do,
but make it personalized to your customers and their journey.
- Yeah.
I know.
Well, I think that's like a whole subject
that I actually really want to get into
and like from a marketing play and like what you guys are doing.
But before we get there though, right?
I also really, I want to talk about like,
okay, so let's tell me more about Flouse,
but like, all right, so you developed products,
you've done the insights, you've done all these things.
And then what was your marketing play?
Like is it due to C, is it Omni Channel or like,
or like tell me?
- Yeah.
So at the time, so I came up with the idea for Flouse in 2019,
I ended up leaving my law firm in 2021.
And at that point in time, it was like,
I was still in the like the black box prototype stage,
3D printed prototypes,
and I needed to raise money to get to manufacturing and production.
I came to learn that consumer electronic hardware
is extremely capital intensive.
I invested $120,000 of my own savings.
I just completely drained my savings.
And so I'm fully locked into this,
but to get to a manufactured product, it can be a million dollars.
And so I knew I had to raise.
And so at this point, I'm like, I don't have a product.
And I'm like, what do I do?
It was, it made so much sense to then do a crowdfunding campaign.
And so I considered Kickstarter and Indiegogo,
and I could go into the rationale about why I decided on Indiegogo.
But we decided to launch an Indiegogo campaign,
and that was wildly successful as well.
So we did $360,000 in pre-orders in eight weeks.
We finished in the top 1% of Indiegogo campaigns ever
to be on the platform.
And that really set us off.
So now we have our first 5,000 customers
who are like our biggest advocates.
They're on the ground floor.
We now have proof of concept that people are willing to buy this product
and not just buy it, but wait for it.
Because we have to go manufacture it.
And it allowed me to go turn around and raise the money I needed to raise
to be able to go build this company.
So I turned around, I raised some money off of that.
And then we went straight into the manufacturing and production.
And we were in beta up until September of last year, 2023.
And officially, hard launched into market in 2023.
And it's been just wildly successful.
However, there were so many lows and mistakes made and heartbreaks
and tears, so much drama.
But it's all part of the journey, right?
So part of the journey.
What would your advice be to any entrepreneur or founder looking to get into it
When you're in that lull moment, what would you say to the Sam?
Absolutely.
So without any lows, you can never appreciate the highs.
And so the lows are a part of the journey.
And I always like to use this.
I remember seeing this chart one time.
And it was basically like it was showing someone's journey of like, you know,
going like this and then hitting a low.
And it was like so many people quit in that low.
But if you were just to keep going, you would go back into an up.
And when you zoom out, you actually see that that little, that lull that felt
so huge
was actually just a tiny little dip on your upward trajectory.
You know, so trying to keep that into perspective.
And also it really helps me to talk to my advisors and mentors.
Like one of my closest ones is Dr. Jason of Theragon or Therabody now.
And being able to reach out to him and being like, I am feeling bad.
I'm feeling lost.
I'm feeling like I'm not good enough.
I'm not doing a good enough job.
And for him to tell me it's totally normal.
I still feel that way.
Yeah.
That just, it just helps me understand that this is just part of the journey.
And it's so important to detach yourself from the highs and the lows.
Yeah.
Nothing's ever as good as it seems and nothing's ever as bad as it seems.
And it's all happening exactly as it should.
Yeah.
Man, it's so crazy that like we're having this portion of this discussion
because I literally, literally this morning woke up and was like, I'm not doing
enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not doing enough.
I feel all this podcast with my content with my full time job.
You're doing so much.
You can't give 100% to anything you're doing.
And you're like, I'm just like doing everything like shit.
You're like, I can do so much better.
Yeah.
But it's like there's not enough time in the day.
No.
No, there's not enough time.
I mean, I definitely compartmentalize my time.
And like I've gotten very good at it.
Good.
I'm blocking.
But it's really funny that we're having this comment because like I literally
texted
Lisa from Sienna.
Yeah.
Sorry, Lisa.
I don't know how to pronounce the last name correctly.
It's a pop of it.
But she's my home girl.
OK.
I love her.
And she's the co-founder of Sienna AI.
And I like was texting her this morning.
I was like, I feel like you're not doing enough.
And I needed her.
She I need her to be my Tharragon guy.
She was just like all the time.
All the time.
All the fucking time.
All the--
And just-- and also like for me, I'm such a perfectionist.
And I want to always be the best that it just helps me feel like, OK, just
because I feel
this way doesn't mean something's wrong.
Because sometimes I'm like, if I feel this way, is there something wrong?
Am I like, does this mean like I'm-- who knows what?
And I'm not going to lie.
Like I have moments I have probably gone through on this journey.
So I started five years ago, at least the idea.
I've probably gone through four different periods of burnout.
I've worked my way through four different ones.
And it's just-- and I had them at Skadden.
And I think Skadden really taught me because you would work so hard at Skadden
and not
sleep.
And then you would have these lulves after your deal where you would just kind
of crumble.
And you're like, I don't know if I could do that again.
But being able to know that like you can work your way back through it and
taking time off.
Yeah.
I don't even do that.
Oh, it is so important.
Especially like it sounds like you're the same.
Like you're so in the weeds of everything.
That like being able to take time off and take a step back, you then can have
that 30,000
foot view of the like vision and the strategy.
Yeah.
Because it's like if you're in the weeds, who's leading the ship?
I know.
Right?
I know. Absolutely.
Girl, I know.
I literally just-- I don't even want to tell you this.
I went to India.
OK.
It's still like--
Amazing. --we're in April, right?
For anybody viewing this.
We're in April.
We're beginning of April right now.
Or listening to this viewing or listening to this.
We're beginning of April.
I went to India for 96 hours.
Oh my god.
Because I had to come back to me.
Like I live in Chicago, but I had to get to New York.
I needed to like use the speaking engagement.
I had things.
I have podcasts.
I have like I just need to be on the ground for like other stuff, right?
I was in India for 96 hours, but granted, I actually did take the time.
I did take time, right?
And people do think I'm like so crazy, but like it's those little time--
--sprens of time that I can have right now.
And so it's like--
And it's interesting, because even in those 96 hours, I did like take a Zoom
out.
Yes.
And I had a moment.
And I was like, OK, cool.
Now I know what I need to do.
This is the system.
Exactly.
You know what I mean?
And then also I feel like whenever I zoom out, I'm like, wow, things are going
a lot better
than I thought.
Because we are so in it, and you're constantly dealing with fires,
like little tiny fires all the time, it can seem like your whole forest is
burning down.
But then you zoom out and you're like, oh, it's like a teeny, tiny, contained
brush
fire right here.
It's not the entire forest.
Yeah.
And so I oftentimes zoom out and I'm like, wait, this is actually going really,
really well.
And yeah, I just have a lot of moments of gratitude that I'm like, I truly,
truly feel
like I am doing what I am--
This is my purpose.
At least in this stage of my life is this.
Yeah.
You know, and I'm not saying this is it for 10 years, 20 years, but like, just
to get
to have that experience, especially being at that law firm where I was like, it
felt
so soulless.
And I was just like, and I was excelling there too.
And I was like, I hate working.
Yeah.
Like, what am I doing?
Like, this can't be it.
And now I get to help people and improve their lives.
And I'm creating something.
And it's just, yeah, it's amazing, but it's tough.
It's so tough.
Like the founder of Journey is so tough.
And like--
So she has females.
Oh.
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As a woman in the space, did you find it really hard to get funding?
So on the one hand, yes, I'd say yes in general.
So today I've raised about $4.1 million.
My first two million were all from my friends and family, so that was easy.
It was all people from my law firm.
It was people that had known me.
That believed in me.
That was easy.
The second two million, that was coming from high net worth angels and VCs.
That was a totally different experience.
I found that I had to jump through so many more hoops than my male counterparts
What I was hearing that they were raising and the questions they were being
asked, I had
to provide so much more, not only documentation, but answers to complete
hypothetical scenarios.
At this time, we were pre-launched when I was raising a spending.
I was like, "It's not even in the near future.
I can make up whatever answer I want."
It was for my main investor.
It was six to eight months of diligence before they came in.
It got to a point where it was like, "Shit, or get off the pot."
It's like, "Are we investing or not?"
It was hard.
I felt like as a woman, because when I would try to assert myself and explain
why I didn't
agree with things, I would be like, "Cut off," or told to not say those things.
That was really hard.
Definitely, I would have ego moments where I felt disrespected.
Where I was like, "If they're treating me this way, why would I want them as an
investor?
Why are they going to treat me as an investor?"
I also have so many incredible investors that immediately believed in me and
were like,
"Where I had such an easier experience."
What I will say, honestly, is I have had an easier time raising money from men
than I
have from women.
Really?
Yeah.
Really?
What is your time raising money from men?
Yeah.
It's a really unfortunate thing that's happening.
A lot of, I think, female founders, we all talk about it behind the scenes
about these
people who are saying they're all for supporting female founders.
That's their mission.
It's a painful experience trying to raise money with them.
It's just, yeah, it's really, really, really hard.
The questions are way tougher.
They're asking way more of you.
They're also predatory in their terms as well.
I honestly think it's still related to the discrepancy between men and women
where a lot
of these female funds, they're having a hard time raising money themselves.
They have male LPs.
They're set up to have these really outrageous returns, which as we know,
female leaders and
fund managers and entrepreneurs outperform their male counterparts, but because
they
feel that pressure and then trickles down to where they're being hyper-selected
It's like, how can you say you're supporting female founders, but then you make
it so
difficult to get capital.
I've been really focused trying to get more females on my cap table, but it's a
struggle
that myself and I know numerous other female founders have experienced.
We all talk about behind the scenes.
It's interesting.
I think it's a little stat that I just want to throw out there is that we know
that funding
for female founders has decreased even more.
It was 2% last year now.
It's 1.7%.
When you're already at the bottom, how could you go lower?
Something that I find curious is that to me, it seems like there's more and
more female
funds popping up.
There's more and more female investors.
Why isn't there more money going to female founders?
I know.
I don't have the answer either.
I don't have the answer either.
I think that exists and it's a little bit of a hot take and I'm a little
nervous to say
these things.
It's just coming from a place of being like, I think that we could do better.
We could do better for all of you for us.
100%.
I actually at USC, my honors thesis was the assertive female leader, boss or
bitch.
It was all about the queen bee syndrome.
The queen bee syndrome is that women, particularly male dominated environments
because they had
to struggle and claw their way to the top.
They then feel the ones that have this feel that other women should also have
to struggle.
Whereas men and the boys club is much more like when a guy reaches the top,
they're happy
to pull up another guy, but women aren't like that.
It's like these women who have reached the pinnacle of their career, not then
turning
down, turning around and looking down and being like, what other women can I be
lifting
up?
Dude, yeah.
Because there's enough room for all of us at the top.
I sense all time.
I sense mindset.
I abundance mindset.
Exactly.
I say an abundance mindset, but also I say there's enough.
Everybody can eat.
Everyone can eat.
Everybody can eat.
100%.
It's interesting.
I've been able to raise.
One, have a product that people understand immediately.
Also, the traction behind it is there.
We have great metrics as well.
We have a very healthy business.
Hopefully some of it has to do with me as well as the jockey of the horse.
On the other hand, I've also experienced what I feel like sometimes to be
sexism for sure.
Not just for males, but also for women too.
It's tough.
I completely agree with you.
I can't speak on the funding piece because it's like we have two different
types of
businesses.
Also, you're an investor.
I know.
I know it is like talking about the disclosure.
Well, disclosure, but funny enough, this is the first time I've ever met.
Yes, yes.
By the way, I invested.
I was like, oh my God.
Yeah.
Thanks, Drew.
Yeah, yeah.
Thanks, Drew.
But yeah, no, I definitely invested because I actually, okay, personal opinion,
right?
Drew brought it to the table to me and I also want to just do more angel
investing.
So it was one of the first angel investing that I did last year.
And Drew brought it to the table, but that was like, oh, Sam Carr's like, this
bad bitch.
Let's go.
Yes.
I was like, oh, you're selling me.
I'm buying.
Yes.
Oh my God.
You have to bet on the jockey.
Sometimes it's not just the horse you have to bet on the jockey as well.
I've been on the jockey more than I, but maybe this is just my mentality.
I'm going to be honest with you.
But I bet on the jockey more than I do the actual horse.
Totally.
And like, and I, and maybe that's because it's like, I want to see, and I also
am only doing
angel investing.
So I'm like writing small, I'm not writing millions of millions of dollars, but
I can
like spread out and invest in like the individual because like, I'll be real
with you.
I've, I'm, I'm granted, I've never had to raise, right?
Like I don't have a product, but I have so many fucking people in my life.
Tell me no, so many times, right?
Oh, just so many times.
And I've talked, I talk about this bear a lot.
I talk about this very openly, but like, I've had people in my career,
literally, you just
be like, you're too rough around the edges or you need to do this or, Oh, your
art school
degrees are not going to get you anywhere.
I've even had family members telling me this stuff.
And then, and I look back and we talk about that queen bee syndrome thing,
right?
But like, I'm not trying to be the queen bee, but I get to the, I'm, I don't
think I'm
like at the fucking top of everything.
But I'm like, I'm, I'm chilling.
Yes.
I'm like, I'm, I'm living life.
You know what I mean?
Like, like I worked at festivals.
I have like a very cool, like pedigree, right?
But I fucking worked hard for that.
Yes.
You know, and so my point is the reason I'm saying this stuff is that, but a
lot of people
in my life tell me no, a lot of people in my life tell me I'm never going to do
this
or not believe in what I'm going to do that, like now that I've like kind of
have something,
I always want to bring people to the top.
I always want to bring people like I'm a loyal bitch.
Okay.
Like straight up, like, um, you know, my, you know, here's a, here's a good
example of
this, like, uh, granted she's in the room right now, but for anybody listening,
but
like my home girl, Emmy, right?
Like she was like, I'm, I'm leaving my job and I don't really know what we do.
And I was like, we get on a call and I was like, okay, girl, let's just make a
position
for you at the agency.
Well, you're going to go do this, this, this, this, and the content marketing.
And now, now like we have the podcast and we're bringing that along the right,
but like in
like she's doing content marketing for that, right?
And like, and creating roles, but my point of bringing this up is like it's not
, I'm not
trying to be a statistical of like, right.
Of course, my success.
I don't mean that.
I mean, like everybody can fucking eat everyone.
If you have an opportunity, you give somebody that opportunity a hundred
percent and you
just never know, like, so, um, I have some amazing women that I work with all
the time.
One is Maggie sellers.
I don't, I never met Maggie, but she is incredible.
I love her so much.
She is such a girls girl and she is a powerful, successful woman who is never
competitive.
She's never like, she's such an abundance mindset sort of person that it is
like she
has been nothing but supportive.
I have like Jenny Fielding from everywhere ventures who's like so supportive,
so smart.
And then, um, I don't know if you know, Courtney of Nori irons.
Oh my gosh.
She's just so amazing.
And so when I got my anchor check in, she does consumer electronic hardware as
well.
And like us girls got to stick together in this journey of ours that we decided
to go
on.
And as soon as my anchor investor came in and just knowing what a badass female
she is
and what an amazing business she has in a great product, I immediately brought
her company
to my investor.
And I was like, if you're doing consumer electronic investing, like this is
another awesome company.
And I know that her like business model is great because they are very my
anchor investor,
like it was much more private equity base than VC base.
So they were very, very, every stone was unturned, which was frustrating over
eight months.
I was like, let's wrap it up.
Yeah.
Let's go.
But anyways, but getting to do that and help her and she now has helped me in
so many ways.
She's someone I can call and be like, what are you seeing with CACs right now?
Like is your meta out of control?
Like what are you seeing or we have we share a lot of service providers now
because we've
been burned so many times by these agencies, these experts.
We've been burned.
So it's great to be able to share notes.
And again, like there's enough room for all of us.
Yeah, I know.
I'm not looking at it as like any sort of competition.
It's like, I see that cooperation.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's cooperation.
I think it's just like it's the abundance mindset.
Yes.
Sue, everybody can eat.
It's karma.
It's karma.
Oh, karma.
It's karma.
Girl.
Yes.
Do not get me started on that because I can tell you there have been some
ladies out there
that have done me wrong.
Done you dirty.
And I'm like, that's okay.
Yeah.
Oh, come back.
That's okay.
Noted.
Noted and mentored.
Like it's not just legal.
Oh, yeah.
Noted.
And I'm like, that's okay.
I see you.
100%.
I ain't doing nothing.
No, no.
And I'm going to get you.
100%.
That's the one who kind of attempted to cyberbullying me on LinkedIn the other
day, which was now
funny, but it was like not kind of funny in the moment.
I definitely was sad about it.
And I texted Maggie because she is like all over TikTok and she deals with
crazy trolls.
And I was like, I can't even imagine how you must feel.
Like I got this comment.
And she said two things.
She's like, one, the haters are my motivators.
Yes.
And she's like, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Yeah.
And I was like, yeah, that is the mindset.
Yeah.
Shifting the mindset.
This comes with the gig.
And it's so important to have that community around you that you can just like
level set
with to be like, I'm feeling like a piece of shit today.
And this person you look up to and that you admire is like, I feel like that
every other
day.
And so you're like, okay, great.
Yeah.
Was the pieces of shit together?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know, right?
I know.
I mean, you're always going to get somebody out there not going to agree with
this.
And like, I've actually said this stuff to like my homeboy Nick, yeah, Sharma.
Oh, love.
He's an ambassador.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm interviewing him.
Yes.
Oh, we love Nick.
I love Nick.
Yeah.
We love Nick.
We love Nick.
He's a great guy.
Nick is a great guy.
And like on it, okay, actually you want to talk about like even men supporting
women?
Nick and I know each other.
How Nick and I met and shout out to Ari Murray too because I met them both at
the same time
because festivals we worked with Sharma brands.
Ah, yes.
Okay.
And I actually was pretty much like internally like manage that Sharma brands
like relationship,
right?
Right.
So like I got really close with like Nick and Ari, but here's what I was
specific to Nick
and Ari, you get your moment to like that's my I'm looking at the camera if you
're viewing
this like you're my fucking home girl.
But I just want to point this out though.
So Nick, you know, I think he like saw like something like I can have a voice.
I was like, you know, like whatever wanted to like support and stuff and he
would put
me up for a lot of things.
Yes.
You would bring me to the table and go and like make do content speaking
engagements.
All these things have helped me like honestly helped me build my like personal
brand.
Even like the agency stuff when like I was unsure, he's like helped me like get
like work
with stuff on him.
I work with like multiple projects with them.
But my point is though is he's always brought me to the table.
Always.
He's brought me to the table and he will always bring other people to the table
and help other
people.
And it's not just men, it's women.
And like I can tell you that like he has supported all of us women, right?
He's been so supportive of me on my journey and flouse and he's always I was
like send
him quick slacks and DMs and he's always responding to me.
He's always inviting me to things.
Trying to like lift me up and include me and yeah, it's just so appreciated.
And I have a lot of different partners that are like that Doris Dev, my
engineering firm,
they're always including me and things always connecting me with like really
cool founders.
And yeah, but no, Nick has been Nick is just like not only is he brilliant
obviously and
he's just an absolute just like savage at what he does.
He's also a really, really good person.
He's such a good person.
Yeah, and such a nice guy too.
Dude, I love that man.
I couldn't believe it when I found out he was like 26.
Can we discuss?
I was like you must be in your 30s.
He's like I'm 26.
I like spit out my wine.
I was like I'm 32 and I was like older than all.
I was like, oh my God.
He's like, how old are you 28?
I was like, no, no, I had a couple more years.
I know I'm older than all of you, but he's one of my best homies and he's a
very supportive
and but the reason why we got on to Nick was actually because I Nick like when
you make
it to the fucking top.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
People want to bring you down.
And I'm not going to bring up like all the things that I don't want to get
involved in
like the controversial stuff.
And I don't know all the details either.
So I don't know.
Exactly.
I wasn't there.
No, but I will say that one thing I've always said to Nick when things happen
or the internet
is trying to fucking cancel his ass is one.
Stop being a little boy.
No, but two, but two, but two, we two.
Haters are always going to fucking hate man.
Oh my God.
And like when you got haters, you know you made it though.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, that's the thing.
Like when they say like no press is bad press and it's just like clearly he's
doing something
of consequence for the fact that people want to like talk about him and put
just it's but
it's hard and I it's it still affects you.
And I think too that's probably through a cancer.
So he's very emotional too.
There you go.
Whereas like I'm much more of I'm much more of like I'm an Aquarius.
So I'm I already feel like such a weirdo that no one understands me.
So I'm kind of like whatever I'm off in my own little world.
It's tough and kind of going back.
I think this relates a lot to what you were saying about hearing a lot of nose
and in
the fundraising process.
It is so normal to hear nose and I think it's so important.
The first couple of nose I got, I definitely it hurt and it's it's very common
to feel
self-conscious like it.
Am I dumb?
Is this product dumb?
Am I what it does?
Does it not make sense?
Blah, blah, blah.
It is so important to reframe that mindset that every no gets you closer to
your yes.
I know.
Every note, every note, thank you next.
Yeah, yeah.
And I like to get to my nose as fast as possible.
Yeah.
So I am not someone that just when I'm speaking to investors, I take one call
with an investor
and then they wire me money.
I do not do multiple calls.
I do not do the back and forth.
I'll send them the information and then it's like are you in or are you not?
And if your hesitant, oh, like keep me on your list.
I don't soft nose is a no.
Yeah.
I'm like, thank you next.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, because I want to get to my yeses.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so important to be able to reframe that because if you get down on every
single no
you get, oh, it's going to be just a slog because you're going to get as you
hundreds
of no's all the time and you just have to just constantly be like, is there a
grain
of truth in that?
Is there something I can learn from the no, which there often is?
And another than that, it's like, like a off of the back of a wet dog.
It's like, okay.
Yeah.
Bye.
Yeah.
Behind me.
Is this going to matter in five years?
No, doesn't deserve five more seconds of my thought.
Yeah.
I know.
I've had plenty of no rejection from jobs that I thought I really did, right?
And then you don't get in.
You're like, thank God.
Yeah.
And it's thank God, but girl, I know I have had those moments laying on the
fork.
Oh, okay.
Actually, I'll tell you the one job that I thought I was going to get.
This is a few years ago, right?
And I, because I was like very desperate.
Actually, this is a really great story because I was very desperate to get out
of the job
that I was made because like I could see the writing on the wall.
Like I'm blessed.
I'm blessed in my life to have an aunt who is also a psychic media.
I'm okay.
I just saw a psychic couple weeks ago.
Game changing.
I'm like, whoa.
Yeah.
But I'm blessed to also have an aunt who is a psychic media.
Okay.
Anyway, I've seen the writing on this wall.
So I was so desperate to get out because I also live in it.
I will be honest with you, as much as I have an abundance mindset, I've lived
in a long
time and it's scarcity mindset because like I have like, I've gone from having
nothing.
Right.
Of course.
Like my mom worked 50 different jobs just to get me into private school in New
Orleans.
So I had a good education, right?
And to have like Doc Martens on my feet.
Right.
And then I know that sounds very spoiled, but I want to, it's not to point out
like I
spoiled like my mother had nothing and would do everything to give you a better
life to
give me that, right?
Yeah.
But the point is, so it's like I did kind of grow up in like a very scarcity
mindset
of like, like, Oh, if I don't have this, like I'm not going to be able to like
eat over
here.
Right.
So anyway, I gave it my absolute all for this job that I thought I was actually
a shoe
in for because it was this when I was in sass because I was a stand for this
company, right?
To him, but like super stand for this company and they, I went through like all
these processes,
like whatever interviews and I got no.
And I just remember breaking down because I was just like, I pulled my eggs in
this basket.
Yeah.
It's hard.
And like, and I just, and I had been through so many other interviews with
other companies.
Right.
Like I got this.
Okay.
But get this.
Had I done that job, I so like a couple weeks later, these two roles approached
me on LinkedIn.
Right.
And had I gotten that job, you would never, right, I would have never ended up
in the place that
I am today.
Exactly.
Because like, these two roles, like it's not just about festivals.
It's about working in e-commerce, right?
Like I have learned, I think I'm on like learned so much about my entrepreneur
journey, right?
That like, I've learned from working in these jobs that like, wait, I can be my
own boss
at some point.
Exactly.
And I, that's my, so my point is, is like, how do you never gotten that?
No, I've never wanted to work at festivals and I would not be here where I am
today.
100% everything's happening exactly as it should.
And I, again, it goes back to that same lesson of just trying to detach
yourself from the
highs and the lows of life, the yeses and the noes and just even things that
seem great
at the time can end up being something that turns sour and bad.
You know, like, I mean, we've all been there.
I've had plenty of those even on this own, my own journey with flowers.
I've had plenty of those.
And it's just trying to, which is easier said than done, but I think that's the
true like
sign of maturity to it.
And just finding peace and like, trying to stay like leveled of like the nose
or nose,
the yeses or yeses.
And it's like, we'll see how it all shakes out and just having faith in the
universe.
Yeah.
That everything I'm on the path that I'm destined to be on.
And like, I, I like to feel that way of like, I just give it up to something
else where I'm
just like, it's all working out how it should.
It brings me peace to feel like I don't need to be in control of every single
aspect of
every single thing in my life.
Yeah.
Well, let me ask you this though.
So like bringing it back into like the logical brain mind.
So you built started building flowers while you were working.
Yes.
At what point were you like, okay, I'm okay to leave?
Yes.
So I worked on flowers for about a year and a half while I was still an
attorney at Skadden,
which was really difficult.
But luckily this was all happening during COVID, which was a huge blessing in
disguise
because I was at home.
No one could see what I was doing.
So I was just doing it on the side.
And obviously a lot of legal work slowed down at that, at that point in time.
But what made me realize I had to leave it was actually two different things.
The first thing was I was out raising money.
And it's really important when you're going out to raise money that you listen
to the
feedback of investors.
So I would have investors be like, you know, I first got my first 25k just from
literally
a printed photo I had.
And then the next money I raised, people wanted to see that a survey result.
I went and did my survey, raised some more money.
When people wanted to see if they would sign up for an email wait list, went
and did that.
And then pretty soon people wanted to see that people were willing to put down
their
credit card for it.
I'm like, who's going to put down a credit card for a product that doesn't
exist?
That's what led me to do the Indiegogo campaign.
And I knew that could not go public while I was at the law firm.
So that really forced me to like put a stake in the ground to be like, I'm
leaving.
But even before giving that notice and leaving, I had this moment at the law
firm where I
was on the super intense Caesar's deal and I was doing diligence.
I was writing this memo.
It was like 11pm at night.
We were getting ready to celebrate Galentines in the office and we were making
each other
flower bouquets.
And I remember I stopped doing the diligence and I went to go make this flower
bouquet
and took me maybe 20 minutes.
I came back to doing my diligence memo and I thought I just got more intrinsic
value out
of making a flower bouquet that I've had at one second at this job.
And that's when I was like, I have to leave.
I have to leave.
At this point, I started to see traction with the business already.
I had the survey.
I had the email wait list and again, all these things were green light after
green light.
So once I knew I then had to do the Indiegogo campaign, it was like, okay, I'm
going to
put in my notice, left, launched the Indiegogo campaign about a month, a month
and a half
after I left the law firm.
And my first 15 investors were all my partners and colleagues at the firm.
They were so supportive, but it was so scary.
Leaving.
I was so scared.
I had to get a personal coach, a gone executive coach to help me because it
felt like a breakup,
you know, where I was like, yeah, I felt like almost like I owed something to
this law
firm that literally had taken everything from me.
Like I was, it's not even a law firm.
Any job.
Right.
And I was like, it was my only real job I've had to.
I was straight through from undergrad to law school.
Now this firm.
And so leaving was really scary and it was funny.
I talked, it was interesting.
I talked to them and some of my partners be like, I want to invest in whatever
you're
doing.
I mean, I was invited during the partnership track while I was at the firm and
I was like,
you guys can't tell how miserable I am here.
And we are so disconnected.
But I had a couple say I want to invest.
And then I had a couple of others be like, go, so what are you going to go off
and go
do?
Because most people leave to either go in house or go to another law firm.
And I was like, I'm going to start an electric flosser.
And they were like, well, you can always come back here.
I had something here.
I was absolutely going to fail.
And then I had some others, even from the highest corporate positions at Sk
adden, Skadden
corporate massive huge law firm, reach out to me and say.
I wish I would have left and done this.
I had an idea.
I didn't take that gamble on myself.
And I've now been here for 30, 40 years.
And I wish I would have done what you're doing.
Yeah.
And yeah, and I think that was really, yeah, it was like really touching and
also kind
of like sad.
And I think that was one of my like north stars that got me through leaving a
job as you said,
it's so scary to do and take this risk is that you will never regret an
investment in
yourself.
Ever.
Yeah, I know.
And for better or worse, better for worse.
You try at least I tried and that is like, that's why I kept thinking I was
like, God
forbid someone's out there and they do this.
I will forever live with regret that I didn't try.
Yeah.
And now it's like, and let's say this all goes to shit.
Everything just goes sideways and south and it just plummets.
I can always go back to being a lawyer.
Yeah.
That job isn't going anywhere.
Yeah.
And also, I'm even more valuable now because now I have the business acumen.
Yeah.
And so it's just trying to be like, life is short.
None of this really matters.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just take the risk, take the gamble.
And if you fail, fail quickly and go back to another job.
I know.
I think it's like, it's all worth the risk.
It's all worth the risk.
You know, and like, we never got to marketing.
I know.
I know.
I know.
I know.
We need to hear from your listeners if they want us to do like another like
session.
Yeah.
Yeah, because because I think like the founder story is like so, it's so
interesting, right?
It's very unique.
But I want to like leave like on like this one thought, right?
And my own story too is like, I think back so often that like, I told you guys
like about
like, okay, my mom and like how she would like work so many different jobs.
Of course.
And like, she always wanted to do something else, right?
And she really loved what she did.
She was a nurse.
Like she loved it.
She taught nursing.
She did all these things, right?
But she always wanted to do something else.
And she had this like, I have that same drive that she has because like she
like,
moved around the country and like, yeah, it took me with you or her, you know,
I've lived
in multiple different places.
And and then, but she never got to do like there's certain things in life that
she never
got to do.
Like she wanted to like buy an RV and like do this.
Yeah.
I love that.
You know, these little things, right?
And so I think about that often because it's like, she wanted to travel or she
wanted
to do these pieces, but she always got so caught up working for some of the man
, like
somebody like working for somebody else, right?
And she always wanted to like start something new.
And so like, I feel like my life now is like, I don't, the jobs will always be
there.
Always.
The skill, you're never losing the skill, right?
So why not try on the founder hat for a minute?
Exactly.
Just try it on especially if that's your, what you want.
Exactly.
That's something you're in.
Now I feel like it's easier than ever to start a company too.
Like there's so many incredible resources out there to start something and yeah
, you'll
never regret an investment in yourself and you know, there's so many founders
that like
it took them two, three, four failed startups before they got to their
successful one.
And so you just can't be afraid of failure.
It's just like there's, you're never fail.
You're failing up, right?
It's like everything's a learning lesson and yeah, and I love that story about
your
mom and like how supportive and in what gave you that drive to do and achieve
everything
you're doing, but also balancing it with the abundance mindset and I think
having that
inherent scrappiness and desire to achieve and create a better life for
yourself and
your family and your future.
Like, I mean, they'll get you so far.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
But I do also have this dream of like owning multiple companies brands, all the
stuff,
but also a boring business.
Yeah.
The boring business will fund everything else.
Exactly.
Oh my gosh.
My dream is to like, I just, you know, hopefully I get to a really successful
place with
files.
I'm able to, you know, eventually get to an acquisition.
That's my hope and my M and A background.
And then it's kind of now full circle to this queen bee thing.
I really think that my next calling will be investing female founders and
supporting
other women.
I know.
I want to do some sort of like community supporting women.
I actually recently did like a conference called She Innovates.
Oh, wait.
I feel like, wait, was this with She Mark?
Did you do a She Mark?
No.
Okay.
So she innovates like half by.
Love.
I did it a couple of weeks ago.
Oh, really?
Now you're on my list.
Okay, good.
I would love to come.
I would be warm.
I love, I would love to come.
But I did it with like my home girls.
I'm gonna call Harvey.
I shout out to her.
She, it was actually her idea and then like Dylan D'Shay and like myself.
Oh, Dylan.
Oh, wait.
I saw this.
I love Dylan.
Yeah.
And we like put it all together.
Yeah.
Okay.
But again, women supporting women.
Oh, it's just, it's so, it's so important.
And yeah, I mean, like I'm happy that I obviously have you and you've been
supportive and like,
if we just found out before this.
I'm not.
I'm an investor.
Yeah.
Wait, I was like, I know.
But yeah, I mean, I would love to absolutely be included in that.
I think we just need more of that.
And there is a lot happening.
There are a lot of people who are in this space who are really all about
building up
this female network and collaborating and like hats off.
I feel like we've named some of them here today.
And I think it's just our duty of like seeing like the need for us to be like
also pushing
that forward and supporting other women.
Like we were talking about the four AM skin girls.
Yeah.
We love them.
And I'm like, you know, it's so important.
Like it's to be supporting and they're they help me.
I help them.
And it's like, let's just share notes because we can all learn and succeed
together.
Yeah, absolutely.
Man, I wish I we could continue talking, but our time has ended.
Oh, the Boyzeman song, we have reached the end of the road.
Sam, it has been an absolute pleasure.
And I hope that we can do this again.
I would love that.
I would actually talk about customer journey.
It's a customer journey marketing branding retention.
You're retention.
I think we could go in on retention.
Oh, yeah.
So important.
I know.
But we will.
We will.
We will.
Maybe do some long form content.
Yeah, I love that.
Okay.
Sam, tell everybody where they can find you.
Yes.
So you can find, I guess me personally on LinkedIn, if you want, under Samantha
Cox, but also
Flouse, where on Instagram and social ads go Flouse, so G-O-F-L-A-U-S, and our
website
is www.goflouse.com.
And yeah, and hopefully you'll be seeing us in lots of other places to come.
We have a very, very exciting 12 months ahead of us.
Amazing.
Amazing.
We'll put all of the places in the show notes.
And I appreciate everybody tuning in for another week of the juice.
And hear you.
You hear me next week.
Hey, wow.
You made it to the end of the episode.
That means that you like me and I like you, which also means you should
subscribe to this
show.
Bye.
Bye.
You
You
You
(buzzing)
(BIRDworming)