How to Scale a Business Without Building a Huge Team
Most founders assume scaling to eight figures means building a big team fast.
In this episode of The Free to Grow CFO Podcast, Jon Blair sits down with Jacob Willis, CEO of We Heart Nutrition and a Free to Grow CFO client, to talk about scaling a supplement brand fast through eight figures with a lean team. Jacob went from 15 years as a wedding photographer to launching a faith-driven supplement brand that gives 10% of every purchase back to pregnancy care centers. He explains his rule for hiring only when a pain point becomes major, and how moving his 3PL from Missouri to California cut customer service needs by 30% without adding headcount. Jacob also shares why he still personally answers 30 to 40 customer emails a day and how that drives LTV, why the cost of marketing was the biggest shock of going into ecommerce, and how his ad agency and fractional CFO work together to pressure test growth. Jon and Jacob get into what moving from cash to accrual accounting revealed about cash trapped in inventory, and close with how faith and family shape the way Jacob runs the business.
This one is for founders who want to scale fast without letting headcount and overhead run away.
Episode Links
Jon Blair - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathon-albert-blair/
Jacob Willis - https://www.linkedin.com/in/weheart/
Free to Grow CFO - https://freetogrowcfo.com/
We Heart Nutrition - www.weheartnutrition.com
Key Takeaways
Hire only when a pain point becomes major, not when you expect one.
Marketing costs rise as you scale, so factor them in before margins look good on paper.
Bucket your support inquiries and fix the root cause before adding headcount.
Transcript
~~~~~~~~
00:40 Introduction to We Heart Nutrition
01:57 The Journey from Photography to Supplements
03:13 Quality Over Quantity in Supplements
06:32 Building a Lean Team
10:05 Customer Engagement and Personal Touch
12:54 Navigating E-commerce Challenges
14:58 The Role of Financial Guidance
17:48 Transitioning to Accrual Accounting
21:03 Balancing Family and Business
24:53 Integrating Faith into Business
26:39 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Jon Blair (00:41)
Alright, what's happening everyone? We are back and I've got one of my good buddies, Jacob Willis, one of our beloved clients and CEO of WeHeart Nutrition. Jacob, what's up man?
Jacob Willis (00:52)
Hey John, thanks for having me on, I'm stoked to be here.
Jon Blair (00:55)
Yeah man, it was only like a week or two ago that I saw you in person. That was a fun dinner. I appreciate you making it out for that.
Jacob Willis (00:59)
Yeah.
Yeah, dude, mean that, I had a filet mignon, it was delicious. So I'll come and eat.
Jon Blair (01:08)
Well, man, I appreciate you coming on. I want to talk about a lot of things today. I want to talk about your story. I want to talk about scaling your brand. I want to talk about faith. I want to talk about family. But I do want to spend some time kind of digging into scaling fast through eight figures with a pretty lean team. I think you have a pretty interesting story that will really resonate with our audience. Before we dive into all those things,
tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what We Heart Nutrition does.
Jacob Willis (01:39)
Yeah, my wife and I run We Art Nutrition. We were professional wedding photographers for 15 years. We live in Southern California and it kind of got to the point where we had reached our max capacity and growth on the photography side of things and really didn't feel like we could create a life in Southern California because it's crazy expensive. And so we played around with moving to Texas as many Californians do and basically came upon an opportunity that allowed us to stay here but at the same time
I went to work handling some of the finance stuff for my dad's company. Nothing to the degree you do, but just kind of like general bookkeeping and keeping stuff in line. And so he's in the supplement industry. He sells ingredients to brands like ours. And so kind of got my feet wet with that industry, but he said, basically you can work here as long as you want, but what you and Kristen should do is go start your own supplement company because you can take your background with marketing, photography and all that type of stuff and apply it to a supplement brand.
And so he had a formulator that he knew of that he recommended to us and some other resources. And so basically helped us to start the thought of starting a nutritional supplement. And so that was March of 22. We went live in August of 23, which it always takes longer than you think it will to get it up and going. And so, yeah, we're coming up on three years here in August and it's been wild growth just
Jon Blair (02:54)
Hahaha
Jacob Willis (03:06)
I mean, healthy growth, I think, but at times it felt like unsustainable from an inventory standpoint. But we basically create high quality supplements for any stage of life, women, men, and we give 10 % back of every purchase to pregnancy care centers. And so we've crossed the million dollars raised mark here in the past few months, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger each month. So it's awesome to have a business that...
can really help people feel like themselves again. I mean, there's a big difference between like your big box vitamins and then like what you can actually get when you use high quality ingredients. So people are actually seeing meaningful improvements in their life. And then we're donating money to pregnancy care centers who are really helping women and men and families in their times of need. so that's a short of it and kind of how we got to where we are now.
Jon Blair (03:51)
Nice. Man, I love it. One of my favorite kind of like strategic plays in e-comm is providing some product that already exists in the mass market, but just doing it way better, right? And a lot of times, most of the time it's around product quality because when you get into the mass market, just the way those channels work, you end up...
lot of times the brands just have to, they have to cut cost and to cut cost, what do they cut? They cut quality. And actually that strategy in e-comm is near and dear to my heart because that in many ways was the guardian bike strategy. You you can buy a bike. Most kids' bikes are sold at Walmart, mass market, but those bikes are garbage. And the reason is,
Walmart gives them no margin and they're just competing with some other brand that has no margin. They're literally, we've heard stories about people losing hundreds of thousands of units on the shelves over five cents a unit. And so it's a race to the bottom. And we said, hey, we're gonna develop a safer, the safest kids bike. And the only way we can tell that story is to sell it direct to consumer because I'm sure it's the same supplements. I wanna ask you about this. Like when you look at supplements on the shelf, like how do you tell the difference between them all?
Direct-to-consumer is a great place to tell the story. Does that have anything to do with you guys deciding to go D to C or how does that play into your strategy?
Jacob Willis (05:20)
Yeah, I think on the like the big box, I always say that we don't have the budget for terrible reviews. Whereas like your big brand, they're like, whatever you hate our product, like we got our money out of you and then we can be done with it. And then Walmart, all they care about is making it past the 30 day return window or whatever when you can bring that bike back to them and because it fell apart. So if it can last, if it can last 90 days, like they've won and they stuck you with a bike or whatever. And so I think going into Ecom, there's so much you don't know when you start it, but
Jon Blair (05:28)
Yeah
Jacob Willis (05:51)
you live and die by good reviews. And so we really focus on that from the beginning and the products really started to speak for themselves. And we started using the reviews we got as content for ads and all that type of stuff. And so building it out from there and just, mean, really taking a commitment to sourcing quality ingredients, which can really make a difference. For example, there's folic acid and then there's folate. Folate is 144 times more expensive. It's $18,000 a kilogram.
Folic acid is closer to $100 a kilogram. And so it's basically making a choice and saying, okay, we're going to choose to do something that is widely recognized as the better option out there. mean, it's obviously with the internet, there's always debate left and right, but it's like there's, there's definitive when it comes to the quality of ingredients and what are the best ones. And so we made the choice to choose those even though it costs, but then that, means we just have to run lean. We have to not get like huge on the, on the payroll or things like that. And really like,
do a lot of the grunt work to keep our prices down so that we don't have to like, we can still source those ingredients and we don't have the overhead that causes a lot of those bigger corporations to just have to cut margins.
Jon Blair (07:03)
Interesting, man, there's so many things I wanna dive into. I was taking some notes. I think I'll stay on the thread of a lean team because that's really the point of this conversation. What has been the most challenging part for you personally of keeping the team lean?
Jacob Willis (07:23)
I'd say probably just being lean basically means you don't make a hire until it is a major pain point, I guess. And a major pain point means you're either dropping the ball on it or you're just overwhelmed and can't do it as well as you'd like to. And so there's been times when we've thought, okay, we need to bring on another customer service person to help with this influx. But taking a step back and saying, well, what are the bulk of our
Jon Blair (07:32)
Mm.
Jacob Willis (07:53)
our inquiries about. They're about people needing to manage their subscription. They're about shipping transit or delays or maybe an order got packed wrong. So kind of bucketing those and saying, well, what could we do to resolve those first? And for us, that meant our 3PL in Missouri. Unfortunately, the transit times were terrible out of there because it's such a hub for packages that USPS, the package would get to them on a Monday and they wouldn't scan it into their system till Thursday or Friday.
And so when our customers looking at that, they're seeing label created on Saturday and it's Thursday and they're like, what are you guys doing? You're not giving my package. And we're like, we gave it to them on Monday, but they just are so backed up. And so we moved our three PL to California because I looked at the tracking data and I said, these things get scanned the same day we give it to them. And it's getting to Florida in three days because they're putting it on a plane to get there. They're they're not putting it on trucks and taking it around the Midwest to get to Florida. And so our transit times have improved.
Jon Blair (08:26)
Yeah.
Jacob Willis (08:50)
and people are seeing scan data immediately on their packages that evening. so little things like that. That solution alone cut our customer service needs down by 30%. And I didn't have to bring on an extra customer service person because now it's fully manageable. I'm still in the customer service a little bit more than I'd like to be, but I think I'll always have a thumb in it because we do get inquiries that are more tailored to me to respond. so ultimately it's just like...
you're gonna have to bear the brunt of the burden of managing that until it becomes too much. And then you'll know like, okay, I know who I'm looking for, what the qualifications are, what I'm willing to pay for it, rather than just kind of a throwing an arrow at the beginning and just being like, this seems like a problem that's gonna come my way. Let's take care of it before it is actually a problem.
Jon Blair (09:28)
Yeah.
Jon Blair (09:36)
Man, great points. So two things. One, building a lean team, you making the decision to stay lean, it's forcing constraints around available options, right? And so it's forcing you, one thing I love about constraints is constraining your thinking, it forces creativity, right? And we work, Free to Grow uniquely works primarily with bootstrapped or owner-founded brands. And so this is like at the core of our ethos.
The reason why we focus on working with brands that are bootstrapped is because of the constraints on thinking and capital allocation. When you are spending other people's institutional investors' money, you just don't have those same constraints. And so you may have just gone and hired another customer service person when in fact you could have solved the problem with some creative thinking. So that's the first thing, which I love. The second thing is the customer interaction.
You and I were having a steak in Austin at an event a couple of months ago and one of our friends and another client of Free to Grow, there was kind of this sort of tongue in cheek joke like, Jacob's still answering emails, right? And I tell that story for an important reason, because I know it actually matters to your customers at the same time. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Jacob Willis (10:55)
Yeah, obviously there's, were, I mean, we didn't hire a customer service girl until I think it was March of 25. So we're about a year into having someone helping us. And it's been amazing to have someone monitoring the inbox and basically anything she can take care of. It's just an easy subscription fix she takes care of, but she'll flag emails for me that's maybe a customer that hasn't had the best experience, has kind of a health related question, which obviously we can't give medical advice, but we can definitely help kind of.
give them some general thoughts and guide them. And so I'm still involved in those type of things. And ultimately we want to be quick to respond. And so she can take care of a lot of the needs quickly, same day, within hours often. But I am always in their turn to take care of people's needs. If it is a customer that's had a bad experience, just thinking of it. mean, when you have an experience like at Costco, when you go to return something or like an REI or whatever, where they're just like,
they don't make you feel bad about not liking the product or whatever it is. And so we wanna be that type of experience for people. And if there's a chance for me to retain that customer, if they're not loving one product and I can get them a different one or whatever it is, I wanna be deeply involved in that. And so yeah, I'll probably respond to 30 or 40 emails a day. And thankfully with a few superhuman, I just started using Whisper AI, which...
Jon Blair (12:23)
No whispers, good.
Jacob Willis (12:24)
Yeah, it's just basically transcribing what I say to it. And it's improved my efficiency even more. so I think to a lot of people, like replying to customers' emails sounds like, well, you're probably spending five or six hours a day doing that. And mean, it's typically probably an hour a day that I'm doing it. But I think it definitely drives LTV. It definitely helps customers feel like they really are getting to interact with the owner.
If it's just general subscription fixes or my order, whatever, they're happy to just have someone take care of it, but I definitely want to be involved when it's something more pertinent than that.
Jon Blair (12:58)
Well, one of my wife's friends, Maddie, Maddie, if you're listening, I'm giving you a shout out here. She is a raving fan of your brand. And she mentioned to my wife a few weeks ago, I told you about this. She's like, my gosh, she didn't realize that Free to Grow CFO works with We Heart Nutrition. And she's like, are you kidding me? John's company works with We Heart Nutrition. And she's like, she's like Jacob from We Heart Nutrition, like replied to my email on a Saturday. And I can tell you right now, I heard
months ago about Matty telling people about We Heart Nutrition and they're crazy for not taking the supplements. so just know that it matters to people. And I'll say just from my perspective, that's another big edge that e-comm brands can have on the big mass market players is you can build a business that actually has a true soul to it, right? And even as you scale, there's ways at scale to still
show the soul of your business. And I think that's really, really important because I think at the end of the day, people do like purchasing products from people. If they have to order from a massive company, they'll do it. But I think more and more, I don't know, this may be just a personal take, maybe I'm wrong, but I think more and more in the face of AI changing human interaction, I think people wanna buy from a brand that has people.
behind them and it's visible that there's specific people behind that brand. And I love how that's intertwined into your brand. I wanna ask you, you mentioned you don't have an e-comm background. What's the biggest kind of e-comm specific challenge that you, or the biggest learning curve for you personally with figuring out how to be an e-comm operator specifically?
Jacob Willis (14:49)
would say the most shocking thing in starting an e-comm business is the cost of marketing. just like, I mean, you have this field of dreams idea when you started, it's like, if I build this, they're gonna come buy it. And you quickly learn like, nope, you're gonna pay to get them as a customer. so, and obviously it's, everyone's banging down your door saying like, hey, advertise with us, like we'll do this or I'll create this or whatever. And it's gonna generate this or whatever. And so.
Jon Blair (14:53)
Hahaha
Jacob Willis (15:14)
you have to be so careful with where you place your money. risk-adjusted bets, that's a term I learned from you. I will wear the risk-adjusted bet hat. Yeah, so basically just, you don't factor it in. You don't factor in the cost of marketing and you're like, your margins look amazing on paper and then you're like, wait, it's gonna end. The more you grow, the less efficient you become. mean, you try.
Jon Blair (15:17)
Totally.
Yeah, yeah, I need to get a hat. That needs to be my next hat. Risk adjusted bets.
Jon Blair (15:40)
Yeah, the more you spend for every customer, right?
Jacob Willis (15:42)
Yeah, yeah, you hope that that's not true, but basically it is a factor and you just have to be ready for it.
Jon Blair (15:48)
Okay, so I wanna segue into talking about some of the partners that have helped you with that. You you brought us on on the fractional CFO side. We started on the bookkeeping, but then you added the fractional CFO side at the same time as really starting to push on the advertising. On the advertising side of the house, where has your fractional CFO
been the most helpful in just like navigating, you know, that big, you're the biggest expenditure in the business.
Jacob Willis (16:24)
Yeah, so we use Aplo Group for our advertising, which they've been amazing. And they really do a great job integrating the financials. And there was part of me that felt like, that's going to be enough for seeing what they project or whatever. But the CFO has brought so much value in basically taking what they consider to be a healthy trajectory or good growth or whatever, and just looking over and having a CFO's lens on it. OK, well, when's our payback?
Like, how's this gonna map out over six months or the cashflow or that perspective? And so I think in some ways, and I've mentioned it to both, APLO and my CFO, basically sometimes APLO will have an idea and I say, okay, let's get a call together with you and the CFO. And I literally just sit back and I let them talk it out and just kind of like, if they can arrive at an agreeable spot, I can get behind that because I know.
I have two great minds working together to kind of figure out what the right trajectory is. And so I think without either one, it would be hard to totally like feel confident because I mean, Aplo often brings in a projection for the month of how the ads will track or like, we saw a down day here, but I'm anticipating it going up over the next few days. And they're right most of the time and it's amazing. But then on the CFO side, you have someone who's
who's experienced growth before and healthy growth and they know what that looks like and so they can say, yeah, that might be possible on the ad side. We could do that, but would it be the best choice or should we have kind of a slower growth or whatever? And so I would rather, I would rather slower healthy growth than really getting aggressive. At least at this point, there might come a time when like we all get on board and say, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna, our CACs gonna go down or our CACs gonna go up.
but we're gonna really push over these next two or three months knowing that it'll pan out to be this in the long.
Jon Blair (18:20)
sure. That's part of the reason why we have such a close partnership with Aplo. Like we have a, you know, as you know, we have the shared podcast with them with, with Dylan, he and I are just duking out talking, you know, marketing times, finance. The reason we do that is because in the e-comm world where growth is largely driven by paid ads, you've got to have the growth marketing minds, but you got to understand the financial impact. You can't have one without the other. Right. And
We have worked with other agencies where we have the economics of the marketing dialed, but when you hand that off to someone who doesn't fully internalize it on the growth marketing side, they could follow your, they could just follow what you tell them to do, but they don't really understand why. And they don't understand how that impacts the future, either compounding or lack thereof of growth. And so it's really important to have both.
What were the, I'm just curious, like, when you first reached out to us, what was the biggest pain that you were feeling at that time related to accounting and finance within the business?
Jacob Willis (19:32)
So I think it was at one of those moments when it was, don't feel like I'm doing this well, and I don't feel like I have the, I think our business is justifying someone with more experience than what I can bring. Like I mentioned, I did bookkeeping for my dad. I can get in QuickBooks, I can categorize things, I can pull a P&L, that type of stuff. But it really, from the bookkeeping side, was like, okay, I'm categorizing all this stuff, but my numbers aren't right because it's all on a cash basis, and I'm not like,
or not, that was outside like managing the inventory. We bring in, part of keeping our costs low is I handle all the sourcing for everything. I handle all the ingredients, all the packaging, that type of stuff. And I bring them into our manufacturer and then my manufacturer like packages everything. And so that's able to keep our costs down. But my inventory side is very, very high and it sits for a little bit and then whatever. And so it's basically getting the expertise. And so there was some back work to do.
with your team when they came in, I think it was around April, we basically made the decision to go back to January and get us on the accrual basis and get it all corrected. And then when it came to the CFO, was just, yeah, at that point when it was, okay, we're triple quadrupling down on ad spend and I really wanna make sure this is done well and have someone on the outside that's really like able to speak into the best method to do this.
Jon Blair (20:56)
I will say the growth that you've had in the last like six, seven months has been impressive. it, I mean, we definitely saw the, we saw the, we saw the potential in the numbers, but all the potential in the world only turns into actual results when you put the right people on that potential, right? And so that's been really, really cool to see. I'm just curious from your perspective, not a technical finance guy,
Going from, like in hindsight, now that you're on accrual basis P&L versus cash basis, how has that impacted you positively as the owner of the business having that available to you?
Jacob Willis (21:38)
Yeah, I think it helps me understand the cash flow a lot more. And so it's seeing like, I have this much money sitting in inventory and now I can work to basically say, okay, we need to bring down that number, whether it's the raw material or we need to have faster turns on inventory. And so we are getting to that point where it is gonna make a difference how quickly we can turn that stuff up. So I went from a mindset of like, I'm just gonna stock up on everything just because I don't wanna.
run out and I have acquired a new manufacturer recently that helps me not have inventory issues and so I've basically had a mind shift now of like, I don't wanna get too risky on the inventory side of things but I definitely wanna have healthy turns and so your team and Aplo team's really helping me. Aplo brings in like, hey here's where we think we're going over the next nine months and we can project out your inventory needs based on that so they're really helping me on placing POs but then the Free2Grow is really helping me on making sure it's healthy or.
Like, hey, here's some goals we could trim down here or there.
Jon Blair (22:39)
Yeah man, it's not, when you're on cash basis, you can't see most of your balance sheet. And so, I remember when we were first talking before we started working together, I was like, hey, my guess is all of your cash is sitting on the balance sheet in the form of inventory. I think I remember asking you like, hey, do you have an estimate of how much you think you have? And you're like, I can pull an estimate. And you sent it over to me and I was like, yeah, yeah, all the cash is sitting on the balance sheet. And when you have stuff done on accrual basis, not only can you see
how much cash is sitting in idle inventory, but you can also see your liabilities, like what's due in the next six to 12 months to really understand how much cash on the balance sheet isn't actually yours. It's already spoken for. It's already going to someone in the form of sales tax or accounts payable or something of that nature. Anyways, I wanna actually turn the conversation and talk a little bit about family, faith. So, you and I have a couple other things in common. One,
both followers of Jesus, also both parents of a lot of kids. I've got three little ones, you guys have four. Let's talk first about the family side of things. wait, do you have five? No, you have five, you have five. Yeah, you have five. So talk to me a little bit about, in fact I remember, I'm just remembering this now. When we first met, I was reading this book called A Sacred Pace, a book about listening to God before you make decisions, not afterwards.
Jacob Willis (23:48)
High five,
Jon Blair (24:06)
and I think you ended up reading it. That's near and to my heart as a dad of thinking about being an entrepreneur but also hearing where else does God want my attention. What are some of the challenges of trying to be a dad to a bunch of kids and be present but also be a great entrepreneur?
Jacob Willis (24:27)
Yeah, think the struggle was harder in the first 18 months of the business, it really did felt like everything was urgent. Every customer email was like, I need to get back to them, because you're really fighting for every customer. And not that we've lost that fight, but over time you can start to realize, people don't expect me to get back to them in five minutes. You can give yourself a little more grace on that, and then you build in routines.
I actually think while it can be challenging at times if you make the mistake of checking the email on a family night or something like that and you see something that kind of like makes you anxious or you want to reply to, it can be challenging and you have to make the choices to remove those type of moments. But I think running an e-comm brand for us really allows us to be a part of our kid's life and have the freedom to our schedule. When we were in the photography world, whether it was on the portrait photography or the wedding photography, I mean you're...
you're dead set on like, have to be here at this moment. There's no like debating that or whatever. And e-comm definitely gives you more freedom. There's more on the table and more risk, but the freedom to be with your family and create moments. then aside from that, mean, our kids see us in the thick of it, working on it, packaging orders, not that we're shipping all of the orders, but if I need to ship out an order or processing a return or whatever, like we involve them in the business. so.
Jon Blair (25:31)
Yeah.
Jacob Willis (25:52)
they're very like, I love that they're having the experience of growing up with entrepreneurial parents that are growing something and they can feel like they're part of it. And so it really is more of a blessing than a curse, but it definitely can be a curse if you really, I think for me it's trusting God for the growth. Like we're gonna drop the balls on things. There's gonna be things we can't get to because of our limited capacity. And when that happens enough, then we need to fill in that spot. But if we can't update a PDP like that we think will do a higher conversion like,
for a week, it's like, okay, well, I mean, there's always something to be done and you just have to give yourself grace in doing those when the time allows and being faithful at the time that you have.
Jon Blair (26:33)
Yeah, it goes back, I think of Dave Ramsey says, work as if it all depends on you, but pray as if it all depends on God. if you follow the story of the Bible, there's just example after example of like, people do stuff, people take action in the Bible, people do work and make things happen, but God ultimately has to allow the success, right? And that is the essence of the wrestle.
the struggle, the tension of the life of faith, right? And being a fallen, sinful individual who thinks that they are creating their own empire when in reality it's someone else's empire that we're just stewards of, right? What does, what's the most important thing to you about how faith is intertwined into your business?
Jacob Willis (27:25)
We're very, I know some businesses either have to or choose to be a little bit more cautious about sharing their faith or sharing their principles. And we've obviously built a business that allows us to do that. And we're from the beginning knowing like, this is the platform we want. We wanna encourage people. So our messaging is always encouraging. We never like wanna instill fear in people. If you don't take our products, you might have XYZ happen to you or anything like that. So we're always very positive and encouraging.
My wife is very much the voice behind the business and in the emails that she writes really trying to encourage people. so, and it's all done from a Christian perspective and not to say that you have to be a Christian to purchase this or if you weren't a Christian, you would be uncomfortable from purchasing from us, but we're going to be very faithful in that. And I think it's really helped us. You find your people and people that don't like you, they don't like you. And that's just, and you're okay with that because you know that by
by presenting your values or what you're supporting, you'll attract people who are, and they'll be raving fans of yours because they know they can trust the content you're putting out, the products you're putting out, that they'll align with their values.
Jon Blair (28:39)
Okay, last question. I always like to try to finish with a final thought. And I am remembering when I met you, actually same background as this, you know, when we had our intro call. And what I heard in your voice was, you know, concerned, stressed, but like that you felt like you were on the verge of like a tipping point of growth, right? And prosperity ahead and trying to figure out the right path.
So you're talking to someone who's listening right now, who's about the same size as your brand was when we first met, knowing that something needs to change, but expecting the opportunity that's ahead of you. What's the piece of advice that you would give that founder right now? What should they go take action on?
Jacob Willis (29:30)
I'd say finding the lowest hanging fruit and figuring out because it's building an e-comm business is I think like building a house where it's like there's a million things you could do every day but you kind of just have to logically pace out like what's my next step for growth? And some of it will be spending money that you're not sure if it's gonna work out but being responsible with that and making sure you're doing your part. Because as you grow,
you'll get out of the weeds of it and you're gonna become more of overseeing everyone who else is now in the weeds, whether that's the agency or you have people actually working under you. And so you really need to be familiar with everything and understand how one lever affects another lever. And nothing really works in a silo in e-comm. It's like you can update a PDP which is gonna help your conversion rate on your website. And if you update it in a way that'll increase your subscription and that increases your LTV. And so it's like you learn all the ways that they all
One lever will pull everything else. But don't try and replicate what other people are doing. Be yourself. There's no, our fast track to growth is not gonna be the next person's fast track to growth. It's really being genuine to what your brand is, who you're serving, and just really trying to be responsible with the dollars you're putting out there. But don't be so responsible that you're limiting your growth and not taking that risk adjusted bet.
whether it's in an agency or whether it's in marketing or whatnot, or a new product launch, take those bets when you see the need for it or when you really feel like it might pan out and be your next ladder for growing.
Jon Blair (31:12)
Man, hearing you say the words, the word risk adjusted bet is, warms my heart, man. It makes me feel like I'm doing my job here in the finance world. Man. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. All right, before we close out, man, where can people find more information about We Heart Nutrition?
Jacob Willis (31:22)
I need to say like trademark after it or something like that.
Jacob Willis (31:31)
Yeah, weheartnutrition.com. That's our website. right now, someday we'll maybe be on Amazon, but right now come to our website. We give 10 % back to Pro Life Pregnancy Care Centers, and we create amazing products. And I'll make the code free to grow. Get 20 % off your first order with the code free to grow.
Jon Blair (31:50)
Bam, I love it, I love it, man. Well, dude, Jacob, I appreciate you as a client, as a friend, and I appreciate you coming on and chatting, telling your story, man. Look forward to chatting again soon.
Jacob Willis (32:02)
Awesome, thanks Jon.
