Confessions of A Wannabe It Girl
The Number One Tool in Business is YOU with Co-Founder and Cousin (of Troop) Stephanie Moyal and Jake Mellman
Uncover your entrepreneurial spirit with Troop Co-Founders and Cousins Stephanie Moyal and Jake Mellman. We dive into filled with spiritual exploration, working together while being cousins and friends, and unwavering determination into their mushroom gummy empire's success story. From initial kitchen experiments to securing spots in upscale stores such as Erewhon. With resilience and humor, they navigate the business landscape, emphasizing the importance of self-care and personal growth
Use Code: ITGIRL20 for 20% off Trytroop.com
Troops' IG:
@trytroop
Steph's IG:
@stephroyale
Jake's IG:
@jakemellman
You can watch the full episodes on our Youtube
Youtube - Confessionsofawannabeitgirl
Confessions of A Wannabe It Girl’s TikTok:
@wannabeitgirlpodcast
Confessions of A Wannabe It Girl’s IG:
@confessionsofawannabeitgirl
Uncover your entrepreneurial spirit with Troop Co-Founders and Cousins Stephanie Moyal and Jake Mellman. We dive into filled with spiritual exploration, working together while being cousins and friends, and unwavering determination into their mushroom gummy empire's success story. From initial kitchen experiments to securing spots in upscale stores such as Erewhon. With resilience and humor, they navigate the business landscape, emphasizing the importance of self-care and personal growth
Use Code: ITGIRL20 for 20% off Trytroop.com
Troops' IG:
@trytroop
Steph's IG:
@stephroyale
Jake's IG:
@jakemellman
You can watch the full episodes on our Youtube
Youtube - Confessionsofawannabeitgirl
Confessions of A Wannabe It Girl’s TikTok:
@wannabeitgirlpodcast
Confessions of A Wannabe It Girl’s IG:
@confessionsofawannabeitgirl
Hey guys and welcome back to Confessions of a Want to Be it Girl. Today's episode is very much for the entrepreneurial spirit, but I will also say that this episode has a lot of key takeaways about how to work with somebody you are close with. We are joined by Jake and Steph, the co-founders and cousins of Troop. Troop is an amazing mushroom supplement that comes in a very cute yummy gummy, and in this episode we're talking all about how spirituality has guided them in their business, how they got in touch with their spirituality, how they work together as friends, cousins and co-founders, and we learn a lot about what it really looks like to be in a business. They give amazing advice and tell amazing stories. I'm really excited for you guys to hear from the amazing co-founders of Troop.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Confessions of a Want to Be it Girl. I'm your host, marley Fraging, and I'm here to help you filter out all the bullshit and become the next thick girl. This podcast explores the reality of what it really takes to make it out there. As it turns out, it is way less Instagrammable than I thought it was going to be. I'm still very much a work in progress, but there's simply nothing else I'd rather be doing than chasing my dreams. So let's learn from my mistakes and work together to achieve our dreams with more confidence, clarity and direction. Let's get after it.
Speaker 1:Okay, hi guys. Welcome Steph and Jake. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thanks for having us. I'm very excited to talk to you guys because you're not only co-founders but cousins of the gummy mushroom supplement, troop, and Troop can be found in your favorite LA grocery store Aeroon, available on Push by Courtney Kardashian, amazon, just to name a few. So I'm very excited to have you guys on the podcast today. So I want to talk a little bit about your guys' spirituality and how does spirituality play a role in your business.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a great question to just jump into. We're diving in. Yeah, I love it. I think that as the business has started and grown, it has been parallel with both of our spiritual journeys, for sure. And recently, about a year ago, I started learning about Kabbalah and it's been really cool to see how that kind of weaves in with my already existing spiritual practices.
Speaker 2:What's Kabbalah? So Kabbalah is technically defined as the ancient spiritual wisdom. It's not supposed to be tied with any religion, although there are a lot of similarities with Judaism. But they say it's not religiously affiliated. And I take everything with a grain of salt. I like to just kind of pick and choose from different modalities and wisdoms and everything.
Speaker 2:But one of my favorite things about Kabbalah is having 100% certainty beyond logic, and that has really played into our business. So 100% certainty, so knowing that this is going to work out, knowing that I'm on my path, even when the doubt set in, I can tell myself no, 100% certainty. There is the philosophy that the universe wants you to have everything you desire. If you desire something, then the universe wants you to have it, and so having 100% certainty with that and things are really challenging when you have a business. It really tests pretty much every single part of you and it's really taxing. One minute it's so exciting and amazing and the next minute everything feels like it's falling apart. So you really having certainty and just knowing in those moments that it's all going to be okay, it's all going to work out, has really helped me with my journey.
Speaker 1:Jake, what about for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel very similarly. I call it manifestation, where I truly believe that this is what I'm meant to do and I approach the business and life like that and it just gives you this base level of confidence to keep going and know that if you just keep giving out positivity and you just keep giving out this true belief that you're doing the right thing and you actually believe in what you're doing and selling, that the universe will eventually bring back that energy to you and will bring it back tenfold. So that's kind of been what's been really helping to keep it going and it has truly led me to become a lot more deeply spiritual going through this business, especially because it's mushrooms, like I feel guided by the mushrooms and I feel like the universe guided me to mushrooms and I was not a spiritual person before this whole thing. So, yeah, I have drastically changed over the course of this, which has been really cool.
Speaker 1:I want to get into that a little bit about how Tube got founded. So something happened to you. Jake and Steph came to come help out. Tell us the story of the founding of Tube.
Speaker 3:Sure yeah, so it was actually on day one of the COVID lockdown, march 14th 2020.
Speaker 1:I always remember the day he knows, the day he locked in the brain there.
Speaker 3:It was a really special day for me, a little even extra special than everyone else, because I was skiing. I decided to break some of the rules and continue skiing after the mountain had closed and then got into a really horrible ski accident and broke my leg very badly. So that was a really challenging situation. I was running another business and that business simultaneously was collapsing because of the COVID lockdown. So I was running out of money. I couldn't take care of myself because my broken leg. So I decided to move back home with my parents and it was at that time that Stephanie decided to move in with my parents as well to help take care of me like the generous cousin she is.
Speaker 1:Shit really hit the fan there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, major yeah. And it was challenging. It was extremely challenging. I was on so much pain medication, I was in just mental, physical, spiritual pain. And then one day Stephanie just asked hey, do you want to grow some mushrooms with me? And I was like sure.
Speaker 1:Just like a COVID. Activity. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:It was, after all, the Netflix binging and, yeah, just a COVID activity. And then we started growing mushrooms and from there we started like studying and researching and learning and reading and just falling in love with mushrooms and this whole new like. It's almost like a culture, like within mushrooms, and these are plant medicines I don't say plant, but there's our medicines that have been used for thousands of years in cultures all around the world. So we kind of felt like we had tapped into this like ancient secret that people were not talking about in our modern society, which was shocking once we learned how beneficial they are for people and how important they are for preventing illnesses versus, like, curing them. So if you want to add anything to that, that pretty much covers it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think it was just honestly a happy accident that we discovered mushrooms. We never started troop, I mean, we never really set out to go create a company or anything like that. It was just, you know, finding something that you love, sharing it with your community, and then deciding like maybe more people are going to want this and creating a product. But it was never. Let's, let's start growing mushrooms and let's create a company and let's go try to make millions of dollars or anything like that. It was just, you know, a passion, and then it became a side project and then it became our lives.
Speaker 1:Very well and it's very much your lives, because your cousins you kind of have like a sibling relationship from what like I kind of know of you two. How do you two not get at each other's throats while always working together? You guys also kind of run in the same friend groups. How do you who?
Speaker 2:said that.
Speaker 1:Fair enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. That also has been a parallel to the business too. Like, I think, any co-founder relationship is going to ebb and flow for sure, and we definitely have had continue to have challenges. You know, like any business partner, business partnership. I remember there was one time we got in this huge fight. We were on slack. We were on slack, jake was at his brother's bachelor party, I was visiting my friend in DC and I just remember violently typing like my fingers have never moved so fast. We're in this heated argument. Is this a public channel or is it just YouTube?
Speaker 3:It's just us two.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I remember just being like we need to go to therapy. And then he said, okay, and it was like it was never even you know, a fight or no one had to convince anyone. We just started going to therapy, yeah, and it was a real like. There was that one year that it was really challenging and we went to therapy every week, even like we would get off, like we would get off a fight on slack or something and then be so angry together and then show up to therapy and just like an hour later.
Speaker 2:It just be silent in our therapist. David would just be like okay, and we would just be sitting like you could feel the tension even on zoom, just the yeah and yeah. So we did therapy for about a year and then we also did therapy individually as well, because it really is, you know, business partnerships are also your own relationship to yourself too, yeah. So yeah, we did therapy together, therapy individually Was this a work?
Speaker 1:there Like did this therapist have work? Therapy is like a part of it, kind of yeah, that's cool, he wasn't.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't necessarily say he's a business coach or anything like that, but he has had experience doing you know business partnerships.
Speaker 3:Business partnerships.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, um, yeah, I mean we still continue to have our differences and stuff, but I think, yeah, we just kind of try. We just try to be better communicators, I guess. And yeah, it definitely has been challenging, but it's also rewarding too and you learn a lot about yourself along the way.
Speaker 1:So, that being said, you know what are your each weaknesses and strengths, and how do you two balance each other out? Because I think a lot of businesses start, you know, from place of. We both like this thing and you know people want to work with people they trust, like cousins, husband, wife, duos, siblings. So how do you guys handle that?
Speaker 2:I mean I have a yeah. So I think when we first started we were both kind of like let's both do everything kind of thing, yeah, or we both had our hands and everything. And I think we've now realized what each other's strengths are. More so, jake is more finance tech oriented, like if we need any sort of software. He built our website, so it's those those kinds of things, more like tech savvy and all of that and very literate with all of that stuff. And then I'm more like Operations and I love dealing with, like the brand image and I love bringing the product to life.
Speaker 2:I did a lot of that initial research. So I think that those are kind of our zones of genius. And then there are some things that neither of us love, honestly, and that it's neither of our zone of genius. Like we're really working on communicating our story better and being better advertisers and we haven't made that our zone of genius yet. So we're both contributing to that pretty equally, I would say. And I think that's kind of where our weakness lies, because Jake and I did Not come from an econ background. We didn't even know what, honestly looking back.
Speaker 3:We didn't know what you come was we didn't know we were starting E-commerce like just selling. Yeah we didn't know.
Speaker 2:That's where you're going to be, yeah so we just thought we're like we're gonna go create a product, sell it to the customer. It's good, it's gonna be great. Cheerio, it's so much harder than that. There's so many more nuances, and so like we were so royally humbled.
Speaker 3:Deeply humbled. Yeah, and continue to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys do kind of run in the same social circle as well. Yeah, how do you guys manage the Balance if that's a word you're into of like turning off work time, friend time, cousin time? How do you guys handle that? I?
Speaker 3:Think it was. It was harder during, definitely during, the years of like fighting.
Speaker 1:Yeah and. After that cobit ish time yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:and then after that it actually, I think, helps a lot, because the friends will be like, will be like so mad at each other friends. They're like relax, like chill, and we're like all right, fine, you know, it's not that big a deal.
Speaker 2:And also, yeah, like I don't remember that, our friends ever saying that, but maybe they did. They never did that to me.
Speaker 3:Oh, they did remember so steps Dating one of my friends and so and my girlfriend both of them, they're like our support team. Yeah, they're like. They really cheer us on like the hardest, both of them and they like communicate with each other on how to best manage our relationship. Fighting, yeah so funny.
Speaker 1:It's so real because it takes a village to run a company like it does, yeah, not just the Physical thing, the act of the business, but the mental, emotional Relationships involved in a business take like a lot more. How do you guys think you handle work life balance? I know you guys, you guys are very all in on troop and you know, really work every day To better yourself as well. So how do you, how do you find balance? What's your recommendations to people who want to be in a situation like this on finding balance?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think that answer changes all the time. Honestly, I I would Previously I would work until maybe 10 pm Every night and then go to bed and be able to wake up and do the same thing all over again. And it's not that I got burned out, because I honestly didn't but I just realized that I'm also super important. Yes, fuck yeah, and I deserve to have some time for myself, and there will always be more work.
Speaker 2:So I mean, aside from this week, because we do have a lot going on, we're actually looking to raise some money. So we've been getting our decks ready. I've been we've just had a ton of really important deliverables but, aside from this week, I really try to stop working at around 7 or something, have dinner and then take the time to myself and do things that I love to do, and we have a lot. We have a very robust friend group too. So, like, maybe once a week I'll hang out with my friends and then on the weekends, like, and I love to travel, so I hope I try to, you know, schedule some stuff. Like, I just went to a wedding last weekend in Mexico and Didn't work Saturday and Sunday, so you know.
Speaker 1:Step when you're off. Are you off like computers, like slack channels, quiet like phones, off away.
Speaker 2:No, like if something comes through on slack that I need to answer, I'll just answer it Mm-hmm, but I do. I go on, do not disturb. At like 10 pm and I won't answer anything past 10. How about for you, jay?
Speaker 3:Yeah, work, life balance. I I think that that term has shifted for me, largely Because, like work is life and life is work. Like we are the business, you know, like there's not a separation between us and the business. We, directly, are the business. So and that's was a big realization for me, similar to what stuff was saying, like when I found out that Turning off work and going to the gym because I would be like I gotta finish this, I gotta do this yeah, by doing that, I'm sharpening the.
Speaker 3:The number one tool that our business has is us, you know. So you're, when you're sharpening that tool and you're making that more refined and better, and I I'll turn off Like work to go read. Now, and when I read, I Step away from work. And I learned something that I then bring to work that's so much more meaningful if I was just like crunching away the hours. So I've really learned that like, yeah, you are your business, you know, and so you need to. You need to sharpen both and you need to sharpen yourself in order to grow the business Effectively and be your most effective version of yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys literally started this company I heard it like making gummy concoctions in your kitchen to being in Erewhon. Like the range. The journey is so large and vast. What do you attribute this success and growth to? Like what do you think you guys were able to bring and merge together to? You know, get this running. Start with your company, like it's still pretty young.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is pretty young, I think we just we had a brilliant concept and idea. We, I think, were lucky on the timing. We were the first mushroom gummy out there and especially the first with a really refined, excellent brand that people could trust. Our vision from the start is still our vision now, because along the years we'll lose our vision, but we always come back to the original vision that we started with. We're like wow, we were right all along, which was to make mushrooms approachable to more people. We wanted more people to feel comfortable taking mushrooms, trying mushrooms. We wanted, because there's a lot of stigmas and fears around mushrooms and a lot of ignorance around it. We wanted to educate people and be the educators of what these powerful mushrooms can do for you. We wanted to do that in a way that was fun and friendly and not intimidating. We felt like a lot of the products out there were intimidating. They're very hippy.
Speaker 3:You got to eat a pound of dirt every day and then you'll be one with the universe. We're like whoa, whoa. I just want something that's going to lessen my anxiety. I don't need to jump straight to the end result of being enlightened guru. That's not where we came from. Like I said, I was not spiritual at all before this. I just was like I want something that's going to help me focus, lessen my anxiety, and a way that is easy and fun. That's why we developed the gummy. We wanted it to just be so simple.
Speaker 1:Do you use Troupe while working on Troupe? Of course? What do you use when and why?
Speaker 2:I have all the products on my desk. Yeah, I take them every day.
Speaker 1:If you're going into a bunch of work meanings and you're really stressed out, which product are you grabbing, rashi?
Speaker 2:Great why it helps calm and de-stress. I like taking Rashi in the morning because it just helps mitigate and regulate the stress levels in the body. Jake likes taking it at night because it helps him sleep.
Speaker 1:Tell me the other products and when you would probably take those. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Lines. Main. I take first thing in the morning because it helps clear the brain fog. I have traditionally had bad brain fog in the mornings. I'm just like I don't know what the fuck's going on. Honestly, I take that and after 30, 45 minutes I feel like a noticeable improvement in the brain fog and then I can continue. Now, when I'm pairing that, we never say this is a one solution, fix-all, yeah. But when I'm pairing that with a morning meditation and doing some intentional morning things to help clear that brain fog, it's really powerful.
Speaker 1:What else is there in the catalog? Did we touch on both of them?
Speaker 2:Then we have the Super Troop, which is our six mushroom blend, Do you tell? Yeah, it has Lines, main Rashi Chaga, Mitaki Quartersups and Turkey Tail. This is more All in one, All in one, all in one. You don't have to go get a million supplements to get all this yeah exactly this one.
Speaker 2:it has Quartersups and Lines main, so it gives you that brain boost energy. I like taking that after lunch as the mid-date pick me up or something like that. I'll sometimes take it in the morning too. Yeah, lines main and Super Troop I don't really take past a certain hour because it will keep me up at night.
Speaker 1:Good to know. Yeah, there's been some stressful nights, some stressful things in the business that you guys have mentioned. Tell me about a time in your guys' journey in this business that things are really hard. Paint the stage, paint the picture for us. How did you guys work through it as a team?
Speaker 2:The first thing that comes to my mind is about this time last year. So we had a hellish journey finding our manufacturing partner. It was so horrible. We went through maybe six different companies until we found the company who were with now. And this time last year we didn't have a manufacturer. We were out of product for a month, Over a month. We lost an entire month of revenue and we had no idea how we were going to be getting this product. This manufacturing company had actually courted us to go work with them, and then they kept on pushing back the date of when they would have our product, and there were a month passed with where they said and not just pushing back.
Speaker 3:They were like flat out lying to us. It'll be ready tomorrow and then tomorrow. Hey, sorry, there was a problem at the factory. They did that maybe like seven times. They're working on it right now and I'm like, well, where is it Right? It was horrible.
Speaker 2:And so we didn't know what we were going to do, and so it felt like the company was going to crumble. And I think, deep down through all of the huge challenges, I still know, like in my gut, that it's all going to work out. But this really tested it and it really covered up that part of me. And I just actually remember I was writing down a journal every morning and I was writing down in my journal every cliche you can imagine. I used to take a picture of this one and I was like this too shall pass. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. This wouldn't happen if you couldn't handle it, like I was telling myself, every single cliche. It was so dumb, but yeah, it was so immensely challenging and I mean, luckily we ended up finding our partner and they turned it out for us really quickly.
Speaker 3:But not before we found out that manufacturer was that whole time, that they were delaying us, installing us. They were manufacturing another mushroom gummy for our biggest competitor. So they were like we still think they were intentionally stalling us, just to like let the other people get on the market and get on the shelves. And so it was like some, it was like out of a movie, it kind of believe it.
Speaker 1:It was like, sounds like a plot. It literally was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like corporate espionage.
Speaker 2:Yes, we actually. So these guys were in San Diego so we just kind of sprung the visits on them, smart yeah. And I remember one time I went and the and the sky texted Jake and was like can you tell Stephanie to stop yelling at my employees? And there was no one in the room Like yeah, I had.
Speaker 3:he was freaking out.
Speaker 2:He was like she's, she's attacking us and I was written down there and I scared and yeah, and then I talked to his boss and his boss had no idea what was going on. He had no idea that he had promised us all of these things and that we were so behind and XYZ. And so the boss ended up letting us use his one of his gummy makers and the guy came in on the weekend and made us a really small batch just to tie us over until we got to our new manufacturer. Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:So what were you mentally, physically doing just to like keep the business together?
Speaker 2:Because I think everyone thinks like oh you just crying so much anxiety, I mean, let the emotions out.
Speaker 1:We love yes.
Speaker 2:So much. Actually, one of our friends, jake, was going with one of our friends to this YouTube thing, I don't know, and they ended up making a wrap about this situation.
Speaker 3:It was dark comedy.
Speaker 1:So use comedy as relief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, crying, so much crying.
Speaker 1:And is it just like kind of part of the business journey?
Speaker 2:You feel like, yeah, I mean, from what I've heard, this is not anything new for small companies. It's a small, I mean it's not small. It's an unfortunate fact that when you're small, no one really cares about you when you're in the manufacturing business, especially because these companies are dealing with other companies that have so much larger order volumes and all of that kind of stuff, and so we're still small and you really have to find someone who believes in you and believes in your vision, and I think that's the same struggle that any single company. You know. The founder of Spank I'm blanking on her name right now Blake, Sarah Blakely, Sarah Blakely.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sarah Blakely. She had the same thing. She went from manufacturer to manufacturer and no one wanted to make her product and in the hindsight, obviously everyone's kicking themselves. Yeah, and in that moment you really have to find someone who believes in you and believes in what you're doing.
Speaker 3:And is just a good business partner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of not serious people in business across all business who are just in it for a quick buck, and you need to find the people who they make it a passion, their business and that's the people you want to work with. And yeah, I think this is just a thing for, also for new entrepreneurs. We were just starting this business. We came in with zero industry knowledge at all and now that we're in the industry, we know like 50 different manufacturers we can go to out of moments notice. We know all the different vendors and the people, but when you're totally new, you know nothing, so it's all just trial and error.
Speaker 1:Speaking of a little bit of finding the right people to work with and whatnot, I can't ignore the fact that you're a male female co-founders and so, steph, I wanted to ask you how has there been any conversations where you know people will kind of default to Jake and you feel like it's just because it's male. How do you, jake, like, redirect it? You know, how do you both show up as equal partners? How do you, how do you handle that? I?
Speaker 2:for sure, have felt that people default to Jake and I've, and I've also felt that there can be this kind of like bro-y fraternity thing that goes on in business and when I, when we hop on calls with investors and stuff, it's predominantly men and I've and I've noticed that and it doesn't bother me, but I have noticed it. And actually you know, I will say at the beginning I was a little bit intimidated by just being on a call with like six men that were all business people and I was. I had imposter syndrome, I was like maybe I don't belong here, you know, or something like that. But I really had to work through that and I'm like no, I do belong here and like this is, you know, equally my company and I don't really think that anyone kind of puts me below Jake or anything like that. But yeah, it just has been really interesting being a female in a male dominated world. Yeah, no, it's definitely.
Speaker 1:Just you can't. We can only hope that things get better and better, but like we can't ignore that sometimes default settings, known or unknown, are still there. And, Jake, have you noticed it or how do you feel like you redirect it? Has there been conversations about it behind closed doors or anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think in the beginning I didn't notice it because it just wasn't something that I paid attention to, you know, like it was not in my universe, I just kind of like moved along, you know, and it wasn't something I ever focused on. But Stephanie did bring it up to me in those early days and then after that, when I would notice it, I definitely would always try to be more, always more inclusive. Like us, we're co founders, we're co found. You know, it's not like just me, it's us. You know, when we make the decision, whatever we decide, it'll be so yeah.
Speaker 1:So I want to go back to those. You know initial days and you guys are getting into mushrooms like why? Why did you have to choose mushrooms and which mushroom did you guys start with? Like there's so much hype around mushrooms. I just want people to understand why this was important to you guys to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but really initially struck my interest about mushrooms, so I was introduced through functional mushrooms, or two functional mushrooms, through psilocybin mushrooms, which are magic mushrooms, yes well.
Speaker 1:The. I'm learning day by day. I'm the basic bitch who doesn't understand the difference. I'm like we're all on drugs, right, and they're like no, and I'm like okay, cool, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So we're here to like clear the slate, clear the slate, clear the slate. So, yeah, I was introduced to the world of mushrooms through magic mushrooms and I had done them previously and you know no intentionality behind it. And then fast forward to COVID.
Speaker 2:I was reading this book how to Change your Mind and I didn't know that mushrooms were actually neuroplastic or have neuroplasticity effects on your brain and they can help you rewire thought patterns and stories in your brain. And my initial thought was, wow, I have so many thought patterns about myself that I don't want to have anymore and I can rewrite that story for myself. So that's what really drew my interest in mushrooms. And then I started researching and realizing, wow, there's this whole group of mushrooms that have been used for thousands of years and cultures all around the world that have amazing benefits for your mind and also for your body, and so that's what really sparked the interest, and I was like Jake we got to start growing these and without hesitation, he said yes, and so we started with lion's mane, and that was just grown in the backyard or like in the closet.
Speaker 1:Very good yes.
Speaker 2:So we started with lion's mane and when we started it's like the world opened up for us. We started meeting all kinds of people that were in this space we met. I was at a friend's barbecue and I met this guy who was a mycologist, which is a mushroom farmer, basically.
Speaker 2:Very cool, yeah, and so he was working with us and growing things and he had all the latest research and he was just such a cool person to liaise with. And then just we started meeting people. It's like I don't know. It's like the mycelial effect, it's this underground structure of mushrooms that connects the ecosystems. It's kind of like that's how life is for us, like we're all interconnected in some way or the other. And, yeah, the world just really opened up for us and it was really exciting and almost validating that we were on the right path.
Speaker 1:Jake, when did you start to realize like mushrooms really were for you and for the company?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we started growing them for a while and that was really exciting. And then during the research phase we watched the movie Fantastic Fungi, which is on net flicks. It has a hundred percent rating on Ron tomatoes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's amazing, one of the few, it's incredible incredible movie and that just like blew my world open. Like I am a very like science backed science oriented type of guy, I was very anti-fruity, anti like the whole spirituality, woo-woo, like, very against all of that. The movie went so into the science and all these things and it felt like it felt to me like we were on. Like I always imagine, if we find an alien planet that has life on it, like all this plants and species, we would go over there and we'd be testing like crazy all of the new species and discovering and discovering. And then we I found out that there are millions of species of mushroom on this earth that are still undiscovered.
Speaker 3:So it was like this new frontier of science that we had not yet broken into like as a culture, as a civilization, and so I was like there could be, there could be a mushroom out there that has insane impact, that helps cure cancer. There could be a mushroom that it helps, you know, with skin and nails. There could be a mushroom that helps with eyesight. There could be all these different types of mushrooms that we don't know of yet and the already the ones we did know of, were so powerful and impactful that had been used for thousands of years. It was like why is this not front page news? I like was so confused how this wasn't everywhere and since then it has started to become everywhere you know, and now it's like everyone's talking mushrooms and also with psilocybin. Psilocybin, I truly believe, is like the cure to mental health on earth, on our planet. I think it's going to drastically change the mental health landscape of our whole planet and like eradicating things like depression, anxiety not eradicating, but In healing systems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Giving an extremely powerful tool to help with those things and not just to wipe them out like an SSRI does, which I consider like a band-aid on an open wound. This is like going to the core and actually healing down to your core what's really causing that anxiety and depression and all these different things that's blocking you from living your happiest life. So, together with the functional mushrooms healing the body and the psychedelic healing the mind, I'm like this is the ultimate. It's the ultimate kingdom the fungi kingdom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the recipe to get you where you want to be mentally, physically, emotionally and, hopefully, spiritually as well.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So you know, when you pick up troop they don't necessarily look like a mushroom there at beautiful gummy. Tell us a little bit, just to get like nerdy with it. Like how was this made? How did you like put a mushroom into a gummy?
Speaker 2:It is so much harder than it looks, yeah it seems like so easy, it seems so easy, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so cute.
Speaker 2:If we hadn't known, I honestly don't know if we would have done it Really. I mean, maybe, but it's so complicated. It's basically a chemistry project making a gummy. So we initially there's also not that much information online so we initially went in the kitchen my friends call me chef and they got me one of my friends got me chef hats for my birthday and we put on these chef hats the first time we made the gummy. So we have a photo of our first, our first, test batch, yeah, anyways. So yeah, we made gummies and we just followed this at home vitamin gummy recipe and it was a huge failure. It was so disgusting. It was like too much gelatin. At the time we just our first iteration had gelatin. You could literally like flick this gummy and it would just like go back.
Speaker 3:It was like rubber it was rubbery.
Speaker 2:It was not it and we tried it and it was just not at all what we wanted. We kept on iterating and iterating and we never really nailed it, honestly, and then we ended up going on LinkedIn and finding a gummy scientist what it's a real profession it's a real profession and we ended up getting it in the secret gate with like the 31 flavors tester guy, like they hang out Exactly. And this guy, he had been doing it for decades and it's crazy, actually Our manufacturing company ended up hiring him randomly. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:It was so kismet.
Speaker 2:Without them knowing that we had worked with him. It was so kismet Anyway. So we we got on the phone with him and we said all of our criteria. We said no high fructose corn syrup or dyes, no artificial ingredients, all natural, real fruit flavors. We don't want to use aloe lois, which is linked to stomach issues. What is it?
Speaker 3:Like sugar alcohols, yeah.
Speaker 2:It allows you to be sugar free on your label. However, a lot of people report digestive issues.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and it's not. It's not allowed in the EU, so we're like this doesn't seem super safe. Just so we could say no sugar yeah.
Speaker 2:And we wanted it to be vegan, okay. So all of these criteria and that's a tough list going in. It's a tough list.
Speaker 3:So and delicious.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it has to be delicious.
Speaker 3:We, from the start, we said, why be a gummy? If you're not delicious, no, it's so true.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and you can't be a health food gummy if you put all that crap in it. No. So we said no junk and delicious. So he started making us products and it was actually really fun. I still have the bags at home, all the plastic bags with the labels and stuff and the dates of all the samples he would send us and we would come back to him. You know, 10% too much flavor. We started really noticing all of the different components of the gummy and how to tweak them.
Speaker 2:So, we would say you know too much of this.
Speaker 3:A little less of that. Try 10% less citric acid. I was like really specific, and now I could taste in a gummy.
Speaker 1:So now your palates for gummies. Very work on the stores for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that was actually really, really fun and I've realized I that's. Something I love is product development, like I cannot wait till we launch new products, doing all the research and finding the best ingredients and finding the best sourcing. It's I live off that. I love that so much and it was the most fun process bringing it to life. And, yeah, we have so many samples. I got to show you a video of all of these samples that we have. It's like a full bin, a storage bin, just filled with samples from different companies.
Speaker 1:So, it wasn't just like one and done, and you were probably oh no, it was a year, it was like a year of testing and iterating, because the mushrooms are.
Speaker 3:They're powerful. We put a lot of mushrooms Like we wanted to have the highest concentration of mushrooms of any other product, so that our goal was a one for one replacement from the pills or the tinctures, so like, if you are, if you're currently taking like mushroom capsules, we wanted it to be a direct replacement with no loss. Like you're not getting oh, I'm getting less mushrooms, but it's in the gummy. We wanted it to be exactly equal so that you can just say why would I take a capsule when I take a gummy and it's the same amount of mushrooms? Smart, yeah. So it was not easy to mask that, that flavor, and it took a long time, with a lot of iterations, and we finally came up with three products that are just like, so honestly, so good that sometimes I feel like we almost made them too good, because people are like I can't buy this cause I'm going to eat it all at once. And I'm like can?
Speaker 2:you eat it all at once. I mean, it's not recommended but, don't safe and non-toxic. You know, nothing bad is going to happen.
Speaker 1:but it's not recommended, so let's not down a bottle of troop just for fun. But like you won't die if you do Right.
Speaker 2:But I definitely have more than the serving size. Every day I'm looking at life.
Speaker 1:They are delicious. You know, I'll say like there's definitely been ups and downs in this journey of getting troop to where it is. If you guys were to do it all over again, what would you say to yourselves going into this journey?
Speaker 3:Good luck.
Speaker 2:I would have spent the money so differently and I would have done so much more research on e-commerce. Yeah, the first year we basically did no online advertising, which is now, to us, absolutely insane. We invested a lot in real life events and grocery store demos and things like that, which, of course, have benefits. But if you look at all these really big companies, they're doing that later down the line when they already have an established base, and we initially thought I don't know where we got this in our heads but we initially thought that people needed to try the product. But the fact of the matter is that the way people are purchasing has changed so much. I mean, I bet you didn't go to the furniture store and buy at your bed Not that I did but not the rug.
Speaker 3:The rug.
Speaker 2:You know people are buying things without trying them perfumes and furniture and couches, all these things so people actually don't need to try the product and we have a money back guarantee. So if for some reason they don't like it, it's risk-free We'll give them back their money. So we learned about the hard way. We did so many different sampling campaigns, shows. We partnered with this one company to do an exhibition in their store. I mean, just like all this dumb shit.
Speaker 1:But you got to learn by doing some yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what about?
Speaker 1:for you, Jay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely research would be great. Reading books there are books on doing exactly what you want to do. Whatever it is you want to do, there are books written on exactly how to do it and find those books and read those books Because, like now that we're reading them, like, oh my God, it's so obvious.
Speaker 3:So obvious, you know, and it just, but it's not obvious when you're not in that world. And all the information is out there. Literally all the information of how to be successful in whatever you want to do is out there. You just got to go find it. So I would also say talk to more industry experts, like, find people in the industry, ask them these exact questions that you're asking us right now. What would you do different when you started? And really listen to that and take it. And even if it sounds completely wrong to you, you can't listen to yourself because you don't know, you have no idea, you got no experience in the game. So really listen to those people with more experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was actually just listening to a podcast on the way over here with Alli Webb, who founded Drybar, and someone asked her what the difference is between intuition and delusion and I feel like you know it was almost delusional to be doing it differently than all the other successful companies. So, yeah, I think, really taking note, you know, if it's not broken, don't fix it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jake and staff. You guys are so wonderful. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to be on the podcast. Can you tell everybody where they can find you personally find True, all the good things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are. We have a website, wwwtritroopcom, that's T R Y T R O O P dot com. They can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at trytroop for some fun and mushroom related content, and we're also on Amazon and for all of your listeners. If they want to try the product, we created a code so they get 20% off.
Speaker 3:I love it. I think it, girl 20.
Speaker 2:We could be it, girl 20. Beautiful, yeah, yay. Thank you guys, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us, this was fun.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to confessions of a want to be a girl. Don't forget to rate and subscribe to the show. As always, we'll see you next Tuesday.