From Layoff to 7 Figures: How Elina Panteleyeva Built a Niche E-Commerce Brand

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, I sit down with Elina Panteleyeva, founder of Dood Woof, a rapidly growing Austin-based e-commerce brand serving a highly specific niche inside the pet industry: doodle dog owners. After being laid off in 2023, Elina built a 7-figure brand in under two years with only two products—proving what can happen when you stop trying to serve everyone and start serving the right someone.

Elina shares exactly how niching down unlocked her growth, how she validated her first product by interviewing doodle owners inside Facebook groups, and how she used organic content and storytelling to build a community before she ever launched. She breaks down the process of triggering Amazon’s algorithm without paid ads, why you must build your brand off Amazon before selling on it, and the systems she created that now help every new product hit #1 New Release.

Inside this conversation, we cover:
 • How choosing one specific customer can explode your growth
• Why most entrepreneurs fail because they refuse to niche
• How Elina built a 7-figure brand with no ad budget
• The exact steps she used to validate her first product idea
• Why customer conversations matter more than product ideas
• How to build hype so your Amazon launch succeeds on day one
• Why you must know your numbers to take calculated risks
• How Elina uses AI to operate with a tiny team
• How she handles product development and manufacturing
• Why systems, email storytelling, and transparency build trust
• What new founders misunderstand about e-commerce
• How to grow without burning yourself out

If you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur, a product-based business owner, or someone with an idea who hasn’t yet taken the leap, this episode gives you a blueprint for launching, growing, and scaling a niche brand—even in crowded markets.

Ranked globally in the top 10% by ListenNotes, Small Business Pivots brings you real, honest conversations with entrepreneurs who’ve built something from nothing. My goal is simple: help you grow your business faster and avoid the mistakes that keep small business owners stuck.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
01:07 Elina’s background + immigration story
03:04 How being laid off sparked the business
05:12 Niching down into doodle owners
07:40 Product idea discovery using Facebook groups
10:11 Launching without paid ads
12:25 Building community + storytelling emails
15:48 Triggering Amazon’s algorithm
18:05 Knowing your numbers in e-commerce
20:42 Product development + manufacturing
23:15 Scaling with systems
25:58 Using AI to run lean
28:17 Advice for new entrepreneurs

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Alina And Doodwolf
• 0:44 Why Niching Down Wins
• 1:49 Origin Story And Layoff Pivot
• 3:45 Choosing A Person Over A Product
• 5:22 Validating Through Communities And AI
• 7:00 Launching With Story And Hype
• 9:05 Content That Serves Doodle Owners
• 11:05 Learning From People Not Gurus
• 12:28 Know Your Numbers And Use Debt Wisely
• 14:00 Systems For Repeatable Product Launches
• 15:12 US Manufacturing And Iteration
• 17:00 Email As Story Not Discounts
• 18:40 Practical Email Cadence
• 19:20 AI As A Force Multiplier
• 21:10 Human Touch In E‑Commerce
• 22:05 Reality Of Selling On Amazon
• 23:50 Build Off Amazon Then Send Traffic
• 25:36 Coaching E‑Com The Proven Way
• 26:44 Amazon Limits And Pros Cons
• 28:00 Start Small And Beat Overwhelm
• 29:10 Time Investment Then And Now
• 30:10 How To Connect With Alina
• 31:30 Closing And Sponsor

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

All right. Welcome to another Small Business Pivots. And as you know, if you listen to the podcast, you know that no one can introduce their name and their business like the business owner. So I'm going to let you have the floor to do that where you're coming to us from today.

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Hi. Well, thanks for having me, Michael.

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

Yeah, my name's Alina. I am the founder of an e-commerce dog brand called Doodwolf. And we specifically uh focus on the doodle market. And I'm from Austin, Texas.

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

Austin, Texas. Well, how do you think we're going to help our listeners today? They're mostly small business owners, and most of them are stuck, maybe not had as much success as you have. How do you think we're going to help them best today?

SPEAKER_01: 0:44

Uh, talking about niching down, I think that is a very big key to success as a small business. I think that if you are too broad, then you're competing with all these big giants that have million-dollar ad budgets and they will crush you uh before you even start.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07

Well, I love how you just get to the core. They will crush you. So let's introduce the show real quick and we'll be right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast produced for small business owners. I'm your host, Michael Morrison, founder and CEO of Boss, where we make business ownership simplified for success. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at BusinessOwnership Simplified.com. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. Let's talk, uh, go back into some background a little bit. Because I know our listeners like to kind of know who we're listening to and so how we can be relatable. Anything fun happened growing up or full of trials and tribulations? Because I know for smith small business owners, a lot of times we get stuck in the head. That's what's blocking us from being successful. What was kind of your upbringing like so we can get caught up to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

So I immigrated here from Ukraine when I was three. So grew up with uh immigrant family, and they're all uh like self-made. No one in my family has ever had a business, and a lot of my life was about uh like stability. And so I'm very grateful that you know my family was able to help me during my life and really just they just put everything into me. Um, I'm an only child as I was growing up, and then pretty normal, like went to college, uh got an engineering degree, and just knew right away I wasn't gonna do that. Uh, I did go into the corporate world for a bit. I worked uh at like a just different tech companies, so healthcare tech, and then my last job was AI tech, and I was did project management there, and then I got laid off in March 2023, and that is the beginning of dude wolf.

SPEAKER_00: 3:20

Wow. So you're just into this for a couple of years, this entrepreneurship, right?

SPEAKER_01: 3:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 3:27

Wow. And so for those that uh don't know this yet, uh you already have a seven-figure business in this short amount of time, and most people don't even hit that ever. Uh, very, very fewer than 10% ever hit the million dollar mark when it comes to small business startups. So, well, let's talk about you were unemployed and we're talking about niching down. So, how did you come up with this?

SPEAKER_01: 3:56

So it's interesting. I've always kind of had an entrepreneurial bugs uh in college. I would have these internships, but then during the internships, I'd be on like Craigslist and trying to figure out like flipping things on eBay, uh, just random little side things I was doing. And that was a way more fun for me and honestly made me more money than these internships. So I was like, huh.

SPEAKER_00: 4:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:21

But but I never really uh thought of myself as an entrepreneur. And then when I got laid off, I was like, okay, if I'm gonna start something, now would be the time. Uh, but I didn't really know like what I didn't have a product in mind. I didn't know what I was gonna bring to the world. And then I picked up this book called 12 months to one million, uh, really recommend it. The guy's now my mentor, he's amazing, uh, Ryan Moran. So picked up that book and kind of the concept of the whole book was don't focus on the product, focus on the person that you're gonna serve and figure out like who they are and what challenges they have. And so I kind of looked around and trying to think, okay, who can I serve? Who am I? And I, since I was broke, I also knew that I didn't have money for paid ads. So whatever I did, whoever I was serving, I had to do some organic social media to get exposure. So I looked at my dog who is a doodle, and I was like, oh, okay, I think I can make content with my dog. So let's go ahead and let's niche down and serve the doodle market, which is any dog that's mixed with a poodle. And then from there, I thought, okay, well, I still don't know what product I'm actually going to be creating or doing or service. I had no idea. So I went into these Facebook groups that have hundreds of thousands of doodle owners, and I just posted in there and said, Hey, would anyone be willing to talk to me about the challenges of having a doodle? And then people, you know, wanted to chat. And I took their challenges, put it into Chat GPT, and ChatGPT spit out some product ideas to help solve the challenges, which is that they get tangled and matted easily, the doodles. And one of them was a doodle detangler spray. And I looked at what existed in the market and saw that it was all of the uh detangler sprays were filled with harsh chemicals, ingredients I couldn't pronounce. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna create a detangler spray marketed towards doodles with all natural human-grade ingredients, and it's gonna be like work the best for doodle hair on the market.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

Wow. Yeah, I'm looking at your website. That's that's incredible. You it looks like you have two products.

SPEAKER_01: 6:42

I do. Now we have two products, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

Shampoo and a detangler. Listeners, I want you to hear this. Seven-figure business with two products. That is very niche down. So can you tell us a little more about the ins and outs of how you got started? I know there's a lot of business, or I'll call them entrepreneur wannabes. So they haven't quite started their business yet. Kind of might have the little bug in them, kind of like what you did, but they haven't, you know, pulled the trigger on that yet. So what kind of what were some of the lessons you learned up front? Because e-commerce is different than having a brick and mortar store.

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

Yeah. Uh lessons. So I mean, I just think that picking your person is the number one thing you can do. And what you what you then you don't have to be an expert in that person. Like I'm not an expert in doodle in doodles, I'm not a grooming expert. I don't brand myself as that. I brand myself as a doodle owner just like you. And so what I did from there is I started posting on Instagram and creating an like an email, getting people onto my getting people onto an email list. So I would do that either finding other doodle owners on Facebook or, you know, I'll get a random follower here and I'll DM them and be like, I would love to have you like on my email list. And I really just started documenting my journey of building this brand as someone I had no idea what I was doing. I had no manufacturing experience, no e-commerce experience. Um, and people were just, and I said I got laid off and now I'm building this brand for doodles because everything I don't agree with what's on the market, and it's not fair that those are our only options. And so people just it wasn't even a crazy amount of people, but random people would just buy into the journey or they would like they liked the story I was telling. People love a good story, and they just followed the journey of me creating like the first product. And once we launched it, it took about six months. So in December 2023 is when I launched the Doodle Detangler spray, we had enough of like a hype built up, we as in me and my dog, uh, that we triggered the Amazon algorithm and got number one to release.

SPEAKER_00: 9:00

Oh, wow. So a lot of people hear about content, and something you said was you didn't have a budget because you were unemployed, didn't have all the campaign dollars. And I know for a lot of people, they try the organic route and it just doesn't work. And the thing that I hear still with business owners is everybody says it's about content, you got to get people engaged. But I understand what they're saying because no everybody's so inundated with email list, campaigns, targeted ads, and and they just don't want to sign up for anything else. So, how did you cut through that?

SPEAKER_01: 9:39

By niching down. So if I had a pet brand, this would never work. Uh, but when I say when I create videos that say DIY enrichment game for your doodle or doodle breath mint, or are you a doodle owner? That like cuts through a lot of that noise. And really, I just my if you go to my Instagram, we've been posting a lot less because we work a lot more with influencers now, but who do a lot of the posting. But um like my content is what I try to do is I yes, I sometimes make videos about the product, but really it's just about providing value to doodle owners. And that's that's like the content that I want to make. And yes, the products is how the business makes money, but I just want to keep providing value and value and value. And honestly, part of I mean, 100% part of that value is creating products that they actually want. So pro they have a challenge and I create a product to solve that challenge, that's what they pay for, but I also provide them value by giving them ideas for new games to do with their dog for their doodle, etc. So that kind of I think that mindset does break through the noise a bit.

SPEAKER_00: 10:54

So you mentioned the book 12 months. What are some other books or mentors that you follow? Because again, e-commerce is the most crowded space out there. And so are there any other mentors or books that you follow for our e-commerce entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

Yeah, there's I I've a lot of what I do is I'll go to different conferences and I'll meet people there. And so some of them have their own um like YouTube channels too. And but a lot of what I learn about e-commerce is just by meeting people at events and community events. Um, so I'll hear something here, I'll hear something there, and I'm like, oh, okay. Uh maybe I maybe I should try wholesale now, like just random conversation with people. So I wouldn't say there's like a specific mentor or specific, another specific person that I follow. Uh, it's just more like conversations with different individuals and building a network of e-commerce entrepreneurs that I also learn from and like we teach each other things.

SPEAKER_00: 12:05

One of the quotes, I can't remember it specifically, but to be a millionaire, you have to learn how to be a millionaire. So what are some things that you learned along the way as you were scaling up? It could be inventory management, quality control, uh, how to manage money. What would you say are some of the essentials that you had to learn to be able to fiscally, financially uh be responsible for that kind of money?

SPEAKER_01: 12:35

A big thing is knowing and understanding your numbers. And the reason for that is if you actually know what's going on in your business, you can take calculated risks. So I have, especially in e-com where cash is you put you a lot of your cash is held up in inventory that if you know your numbers and you can like if you do it right, you can take inventory financing, for example, and take some debt that covers uh that covers your products that are already selling and use the cash that the new cash for marketing or for developing new products. So knowing your numbers and taking those calculated risks is a big reason why we scaled because I felt comfortable uh taking on debt to then grow the business.

SPEAKER_00: 13:29

What would you say as far as the strategy from day one? Was it just survival and it's still kind of survival? Or did you come up with some type of strat? Did you, in other words, did you see yourself scaling this quickly?

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

So I sh strategy has always been we only had one product for over a year because a the second one took a while to develop. It's a very good product. Uh, but also I wanted to create systems and have things in place that I can continue launching new products and but I and have a framework for them. So, second, we launched the shampoo number one new release, quickly got to a hundred reviews. Like we have systems in place where I'm confident that every single launch that we have now, it's gonna, we're gonna get number one new release for that product. And so that's part of the strategy of the business is just having systems in place and having our just developing things that our customers want and being transparent with them, like asking them what they want. Um, I'm not gonna make any assumptions. I'm gonna go to them and they're gonna tell me what they're looking for, what what challenges they have? I'm gonna create it and then I'm gonna ask them for feedback, uh, send them samples to try. They're gonna be the ones developing it really. And then after that, they're gonna love the product because I know they're gonna love the product since they helped with the process, and then I'm gonna ask for reviews. And that's just like the framework of building an e-com brand.

SPEAKER_00: 15:04

How did you do the product development? Do you actually have space? Did you use other people? Are there resources out there that can help with that?

SPEAKER_01: 15:15

So went the uh manufacturing route. So I don't create the product at my house or anything. Um, and so it's made in the US. And a lot of it in the beginning, I didn't know what I was doing at all. So I was talking to Chat GPT and YouTube, et cetera, and just trying to meet some people, uh, but found some manufacturers on just by Googling, like dog shampoo manufacturer or something like that. Uh, there's also some other sites that you can use that manufacturers post on them. And then most people told me they couldn't create what I wanted to create, which is why it didn't exist, because I wanted an all-natural detangler spray or an all-natural shampoo, but it was very hard for that to actually be created. And then nine ninth page of Google, finally, I found someone after wanting to give up like multiple times. I was gonna say nine pages. I know. But they they said they would they would work with me, and so they helped. I looked at different blogs of how people were creating detangler sprays at home, and I saw there were some common ingredients. So would talk to them and it was just back and forth, and then we would send me samples and I would send it out to my audience, and then so it's kind of it was like a little system like that.

SPEAKER_00: 16:31

So systems and processes are important. Uh, we preach those all the time as a business coach. Knowing your numbers is important. How do you see the future for your business now that you've got two standalone products that's supporting you and the business? Where do you see going from here?

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

So, two products. It took a while to develop both of them. So now we have now we're gonna be launching products a lot more quickly. So I have three that are in development right now. So we won't launch it uh right away, all three of them, but really just doubling down on what's working, which is e-com, which is Amazon, TikTok shop, continuing to grow our influencer base, and then we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_00: 17:18

How do you specifically reach out to these people? Did you said you send them a DM? Are people openly saying, sure, send me another email? Because I know that's one of the biggest challenges with entrepreneurs. They say, I know I'm supposed to have an email list, but no one wants to join another email newsletter, even if it pertains to what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 17:43

Yeah. A lot of people don't want to join.

SPEAKER_00: 17:45

It is easier once you have You're listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is produced by my company, Boss. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at business ownership simplified.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. Now let's get back to our special guest.

SPEAKER_01: 18:18

Yeah. A lot of people don't want to join. It is easier once you have a product, because then you can offer a discount for joining the email. But like my emails, they're not, they're not get 25% off. All my emails are very storytelling emails. I write them all myself. It takes me hours. Like this is this takes me a long time to write. But they're all about like storytelling. So uh, for example, I got a uh when I launched the shampoo, we got leaky bottles. Like someone gave me a one-star review about a leaky bottle. So I decided, okay, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna put it, send it to my email list, and I'm gonna try to make the most of this. So I put a screenshot. I was like, hey, like basically like this happened today. We got this one-star review. Like, yeah, it sucks because I know that I should have put this protective plastic wrap on it. And that was a huge miss on me. I know this isn't the only person that got a leaky bottle. So if you're um, if you did get a leaky bottle, let me know so I can make this right for you immediately. And then PS, it takes about 28 five-star reviews to counter a one-star review. So if you've tried the shampoo and you love it, can you please leave me a review here? And we got so many, like not so like 25-star reviews from that. Uh that, and then we had some people reach out that they got, they did get a leaky bottle. And so it just built trust. And so, you know, like my emails aren't like get 25% off here. They're just like they're a little bit more engaging to read than or a lot more than just like here's a promotion.

SPEAKER_00: 19:51

What would you say is working for you on frequency of emails? I'm asked that a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 19:57

Once a week is what I usually once a week or once every two weeks.

SPEAKER_00: 20:01

Stay top of mind.

SPEAKER_01: 20:02

But people people people say to do it a lot more frequently than that. I just legitimately, like sometimes I just don't have the time.

SPEAKER_00: 20:10

And I don't have the time to read all those more than once a week, anyway. So yeah, as a consumer, I I'm the yeah, once a week is good for me. Uh let's talk about AI. So you mentioned you had some experience in the corporate world using that, you kind of brought that into your entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurs, this is Q3 of 2025. What are some of the I guess the best tips or insights you can give on how entrepreneurs can be using AI right now? Because there's still a lot of people out there that I talk to that I've heard about it. I asked it a question, and that's about the extent of it. I mean, how can it really help a business that sounds like it's been instrumental in yours?

SPEAKER_01: 20:57

Yeah, it's basically like your assistant, and it's my assistant's assistant. So I I legitimately think that this can be an eight-figure brand with only having one other full-time person because of AI. Wow. Um, we there's a lot of stuff we do manually, like the customer experience. Uh, like we do all the emails manually. Uh, we basically any touch point really with the customer, especially post-sale, pre-sale too, is all manual. That's just like the vibe of the business. It's very small business, like one-on-one interaction. But there's a lot of back-end things like researching new um new retail shops. Like, give me a list of all the retail shops and the contact information. Like, we'll we'll use AI for that. We'll help with blog writing, we'll set the framework for an uh for some sort of message or outreach message to influencers, and we'll have AI edit it. And then there's also just different tools out there now. Like there's a TikTok shop bot that is with AI that you can reach out to many different influencers at once. Um, so that we do use AI a lot and have a lot of subscriptions for different things, but we use it like there's I call it human AI. There's always a human component to it uh to make sure it doesn't feel it just makes things faster, but we're not like sending emails with long dashes where everyone knows that ChatGPT wrote it.

SPEAKER_00: 22:29

Yeah. Um, so on the customer experience, this is interesting you bring this up because a lot of people say e-commerce is not face-to-face, and I kind of disagree because there's still some there's still a person buying, making that purchase, right? In the e-comm space. So I love how you're sharing, like you still have to have the human touch. AI is not an emotional being, it's just gathered information from others, and so I I love that you share that. On the uh on the AI side, you were talking about the Instagram bot. Is there one for Amazon? I mean, can you get all these things to talk to each other in that space?

SPEAKER_01: 23:15

No, no, there's no, there's Amazon's super tricky that it it doesn't even they don't even like you reaching out to anyone on like just so yeah little secret, everybody.

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

Well, and the reason I'm asking that is because when new technology or a new fad comes out, of course, everybody's got a course, and of course, you see the promises and you see this and that, and so I'm asking questions that other entrepreneurs have asked me on the Amazon. How difficult is it? And what are some tips you can give someone that if they want to go on Amazon and start selling a product or service, how difficult is it?

SPEAKER_01: 23:59

The only way to do this, unless you have a huge ad budget, is to build a brand off of Amazon. Because what happens is this would what happens, what most people do is they create a product, they put it on Amazon, and then they they have zero reviews, they spend a lot of money on ads, and they get crushed because there's a bunch of other way bigger brands out there that have a way higher ad budget that are taking over their space. And like there's no moat. There's no like these brands that just post on Amazon, they just get into price wars with other people selling the same product. Now, if you build a brand off of Amazon, you can you can you're not in a price war with other people. Like my price is it is a way better product, but it's also double the price of the competitors, or sometimes even triple. And so people are searching for dude woof doodle detangler spray. You're also creating a customer base. So even though you have zero reviews, people trust you. Like there people there'll never be a situation where you post on Amazon and that first day you have hundreds of people buying your product when you have zero reviews. But if you can hype it up, have a launch sequence, and uh build trust with people off of Amazon, they'll take that chance to buy your product. And then you can go and ask those people for reviews. And you really don't need that many people. Like if you have a hundred people that buy your product, leave you a review, five-star review, that's enough to really that that's plenty to actually then get organic people on Amazon to go and find you and trust your product. So the only way, in my opinion, to do this is building an audience and a community off of Amazon and then sending them there to buy.

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

So, do you coach others on e-commerce, building e-commerce brands?

SPEAKER_01: 25:49

I do, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 25:50

Do you want to talk about that for a minute and kind of share how you help others?

SPEAKER_01: 25:55

Yeah. Uh so I it's really simple, just it's super customizable for each brand. I have different brands that are just starting out or that are way far along in their journey, but we just we just do what worked for my brand. Uh and it's it's now like a proven method. Uh, it is a lot of work. It's not as easy as just slapping a product. But what the benefit of this is you're actually building a brand with a customer base. And that is then in a couple of years, you can also sell it. So not only are you building cash flow, but because you're building a brand that people trust and want to keep buying from the brand, you can keep releasing new products. And once a seller comes in and they're looking for a brand to buy, they want to buy your brand because they know they can just release more products to it. So it's because you already have a customer base, so they trust it and want to buy it.

SPEAKER_00: 26:48

I'm reached out, and I know other entrepreneurs are also with Amazon emails about starting Amazon. I don't know what they call them page or something, uh store maybe. But what are the limitations on Amazon? Because is it can you sell anything and everything? Courses and books. I mean, I know books, obviously, but like things about your business. Let's say someone doesn't have a detangler spray or shampoo. What are some other business things that people sell on there that we may not be aware of?

SPEAKER_01: 27:24

I'm not sure if you can sell courses. I've never really seen that on there. Uh, it's usually physical products, and you are kind of limited. Uh there is, for example, firearms. I'm pretty sure you can't just sell that on there, and there's different limitations like that. Uh, there's also pros and cons of selling on Amazon. Um, cons are they can take down your listing for like really little stuff. Um, so you want to be comp you need to make sure you're like staying compliant. Uh so there's definitely benefit. You also don't get you also don't they don't tell you who bought your product. So that's why building an audience off of Amazon and sending them to buy is crucial because if someone, everyone that finds you just on Amazon, you don't get their customer information. You can never contact them, you can never really email them uh because you don't know who they are. So there are limitations, but there's a lot of benefits. They do definitely have a way higher conversion rate than from your website. I think it's like averages 10% on Amazon versus I think it's like 3% on just websites. Um, and also people just trust it more.

SPEAKER_00: 28:32

That is interesting that you say that for any listeners that's thinking about this. I know of three brands of the founders themselves, 100 million plus dollars that they got up one morning and their website was gone or their store was gone, whatever you call it on Amazon. So that right there, just having your own community, your own email list, that is, I think, probably tip number one if you're gonna do Amazon, so that you just don't lose sales. Um, anything else that you can think of that would help entrepreneurs, whether they're a new one or wannabe?

SPEAKER_01: 29:13

Just start. And it's when you start, you're gonna be likely very overwhelmed because there's so much to do and you have no idea what you're doing, and this is the first time you're doing it. Uh, but if you can just do one thing each day that, like even if it's go on Google and type in manufacture or go on Google and type in what other competitors exist, like one step each day, you'll make progress and you'll start to see traction, which then helps you believe in yourself because mindset in the beginning is the hardest thing.

SPEAKER_00: 29:51

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned it's hard and it takes a lot of time. Can you give us on average, kind of how much time you Spent either a day or per week when you first started versus today two years later?

SPEAKER_01: 30:07

So when I started, it was all consuming. Like I was constantly working on it and trying because I was trying to figure things out. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have really like a playbook for it. Um now we have systems in place and I have someone else on my team. So now I'm able to now coach and give other people like the playbook and help save them time. And so now I kind of like split my, it just depends on the week. If we're launching a new product, some more involved. But the day-to-day stuff, I'm lucky to have someone on my team that takes care of most of it.

SPEAKER_00: 30:42

I just don't want listeners to think, oh, I have a product, I put it on Amazon, and I sit back and wait. Because I know a lot of people think that in any business. So what's the best way to get a hold of you, follow you, because you have a lot of good nuggets to learn more?

SPEAKER_01: 31:00

Yeah, if you want to build an e-comm brand, uh, feel free to reach out to me at alina talksbrand.com, E-L-I-N-A-talksbrand.com. And then if you have a doodle, you can just follow us on Instagram, dudewoof co do f C O.

SPEAKER_00: 31:20

Yeah, I encourage everybody to go check this out because it is a pretty impressive story in just two years doing seven figures. So anything that we didn't talk about that you wish we would have?

SPEAKER_01: 31:33

I feel like we covered it all.

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

All right. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time. You've been a wealth of information, and we wish you continued success.

SPEAKER_01: 31:43

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 31:44

My pleasure. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is created and produced by my company, Boss. Our business is growing yours. Boss offers flexible business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at business ownership simplified.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. If you need help growing your business, email me at Michael at michaeldemorson.com. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.