050 | Zoe Scharf, Greetabl on chasing wholesale, identifying core customers and how angel investing fueled their business growth

TSBC alum Zoe Scarf is the co-founder and Chief Brand Officer at Greetabl–a personal and easy way to make your friends feel super loved. If you're not familiar with Greetabl, you should be. It's an impressive gifting service where you choose your packaging, gift and personalize your message and they take care of the rest — getting it in the hands of your recipient. Greetabl has delivered 200,000 happy moments and is continuing to quickly grow.

On today's episode Zoe shares how they unsuccessfully chased wholesale, struggled with figuring out who their audience was and how impactful their fulfillment relationships have been. We also spent a good amount of time talking about how Greetabl sought funding from angel investors. They achieved three rounds for $50k, $750k and most recently $1.5M — we talked about how the process worked, what they did with the money and she shared some resources for those interested in learning more.

ON TODAY'S EPISODE:

• How Zoe and her business partner, Joe, came up with the idea for Greetabl
• Her background as a graphic designer
• Their experience in the wholesale industry and why they decided to pivot to retail
• Narrowing down their audience & identifying their core customer
• How customers order their gifts through Greetabl
• The process of finding a fulfillment partner & how they landed their current partnership
• How Zoe & Joe decide what gift items to purchase & what their requirements are
• How featuring products on Greetabl has helped other small business grow
• The number one requested product
• What the Greetabl team look like & when they started bringing people on
• The fundraising process & how they decided to work with angel investors
• What they had to provide to the angel investors to get them interested
• What it looks like if an angel investors decide they want to move forward with you
• The importance of women investing in and pouring into other women
• Resources out there to help entrepreneurs connect with angel investors
• The benefits of a mastermind group
• What's coming up for Greetabl

KEY TAKE-AWAYS:

"Buyers need simplicity, and they need to really clearly understand the product." - Katie Hunt

"We really wanted to help those women fill what we call the gifting gap. That $15-30 price point where you want something that's really personal, really beautiful, and not gonna break your bank." - Zoe Scharf

"Greetabl is like a greeting card that you customize with your photos and a message and then it folds up to become this gift box." - Zoe Scharf

"We love these makers and empowering them, and helping them as much as we can, because we were and are in the same boat." - Zoe Scharf

"The more connections we can make, and the more we can be involved with companies, the happier I personally feel." - Zoe Scharf

"The most effective way to do things was to work with Angel groups, because that's when you talk to anywhere from 10-50 Angel investors at once." - Zoe Scharf

"Because our product is very unique, if it sees as much success as we want it to, there are gonna be other people out there who try to do the same exact thing, and it's just up to us to do the best job fastest." - Zoe Scharf

"We need more women investing in other women's businesses." - Katie Hunt

"I feel very strongly that designers and women just need some more examples to know that it's possible for them to do this stuff." - Zoe Scharf

LINKS:

Website: http://www.greetabl.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greetabl

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greetabl

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/greetabl/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/greetabl

Sequoia Capital resources for business planning, writing a pitch deck and pricing your products: https://www.sequoiacap.com/build/

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ABOUT PROOF TO PRODUCT:

Proof to Product is brought to you by Tradeshow Bootcamp and hosted by Katie Hunt. Since 2011, TSBC has worked with hundreds of product based businesses to help them up level, scale, and build profitable sustainable companies. You can find our show notes and additional resources at ProofToProduct.com. If you like what you heard today, please head over to Apple Podcast to leave a five star review and subscribe. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a new episode!