First Day - How First Day Built a $100M Brand Without the VC Treadmill

Rose (00:01.474)
Welcome to the Story of a Brand Show. I am Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures, where we help brands and investors scale value much faster. And I'm your excited host today. I've spent most of my career inside consumer brands, and one thing I've learned is that growth has a way of hiding weak businesses. I see it week over week. When everything is working, it's easy to believe your strategy is right.

The real test comes when customers have choices. That's when they decide whether they trust you enough to come back. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to have this very special conversation with Alice Lee, because she hasn't just built a fast-growing brand, she's built one in a category where consumers have every reason to be skeptical. And her brand is First Day. But the more interesting story isn't how she built First Day.

It's actually how she earned belief from customers, from retailers, and from the team building alongside her. And that's something I think every listener who's involved in building and growing something has to accomplish.

Alice (01:19.598)
sorry, I'm not sure why, but I can't hear any sound anymore. Can you still hear me?

Rose (01:37.327)
Strange. How about ne

Alice (01:38.785)
It's back. Yeah, yeah, it's back now.

Rose (01:41.871)
Okay, so let's we'll pause and what I'm gonna do is go back and where did I cut out? Do you remember the last thing I said?

Alice (01:55.549)
it I don't know, Ramon, if you remember exactly. I think it was where it was right after your introduction of me and then it it went silent.

Rose (02:06.577)
So we'll go back when we count down here, we'll go back to me saying Alice, welcome to the story of a brand, and then we'll roll it from there. Okay, three, two, one. Alice, welcome to the story of a brand. I'm really looking forward to this.

Alice (02:22.347)
Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here and it's such an honor.

Rose (02:26.407)
Aw. Well, one thing is I've gotten to know you over time and that I've appreciated, especially during during our deep prep conversation, is that almost every you answer you gave me started with consumer and not the company. And I actually think that's a clue to your business and to your success. So today I'd love to spend less time walking through milestones that anyone can hear, and more time understanding how you actually think, because I have a feeling that's where the real story is.

So I want to start somewhere that might seem unrelated to vitamins. And that's because I don't actually think first day started with a product. I think it actually started generations before you were born. When we talked before today, I realized your family's history isn't simply background, it's actually an operating philosophy, which made me so curious. And so I would love for you to share and take us there. Talk about that family history a little bit. Help us under story, understand the story that really shaped the decisions that you make today.

Alice (03:26.561)
You're completely right. I think for me, the inspiration behind the brand does go back to probably before I was born. So my I'm I'm Chinese American. I was born in China, but I grew up in California. And my grandparents actually lived through the great Chinese famine of the nineteen fifties. It was the largest famine in human history. And even my parents' generation lived through a lot. So my mom

Could only eat meat once a year because that's what was available at the time. It was during Chinese New Year's when you know you could actually have that available. And in contrast, you know, I grew up with so much available and frankly, like a lot of privilege. you know, I grew up in California with farmers' markets and organic produce, and I had pretty much everything that I needed. I was never hungry. And I think

Growing up with that context and with that broader just knowledge of how things could be, and frankly, how lucky I was really made me determined to make a difference somehow, you know, really change and and help maybe people who weren't as lucky as I was to be born into a time and place and family and generation where.

I had so much available to me and where it was more similar to like my grandparents or my parents. And I think that was really the the foundation of how I started thinking about my life and and what really inspired me.

Rose (05:06.426)
That's amazing. And you know, something that really struck me while you were talking is that most founders that I meet start by talking about the opportunity, the problem they saw in the marketplace, but you almost never did that. You talked also about responsibility. That and I think that's a completely different answer and a way to build a business. Did it always feel that way, or is that something you've only recognized looking back now and reflecting?

Alice (05:32.287)
I think the funny thing about life is there's all these subconscious drivers of what makes you do what you do. And it's easier to see the thread throughout it all when you have the benefit of hindsight, which is always 2020. I knew when I, you know, started even doing research in college at Yale about the impact of nutrition on people's lives, to some of the things I worked at at Bain, that

Rose (05:47.014)
Yes.

Alice (06:01.609)
Impact and mission was really important to me. Like I always had this, honestly, this pipe dream in a lot of ways of trying to find this intersection of something where I could be really ambitious and fulfill everything I want to accomplish and achieve, along with doing something that was really meaningful. doing something where I felt like, okay, we're we're able to feel really good about what we were creating and putting into the world. And I feel really lucky that.

First day was an opportunity to do that. you know, I think we didn't start out with our mission of helping one billion families become healthier. But over time, the business gave me the flexibility and frankly put me in a place where I could have that vision of wow, there's so much opportunity here, and in particular, so much potential impact we can have as a business, especially when you think about.

profitability and scale and the impact you have on customers' lives in the right way.

Rose (07:02.79)
So true. Well, and because a founder listening might not hear your story and think that's incredibly meaningful as you describe it, but what does it actually change? Let's make it practical. Can you give me one decision you've made as a CEO that was directly influenced by that family history and not just a belief, like an actual decision that you've had to make?

Alice (07:28.513)
Yeah. I think you touch on it a little bit, but this is an incredibly crowded category, right? We're a wellness brand that makes vitamins. There's so many players in this space and it's a twenty billion dollar industry in the US. And there's a l I know it's incredible. Yes, just an insane market. And because of that, there's so much that you can sell.

Rose (07:45.478)
Twenty billion. I want everyone to pause. That's huge.

Alice (07:58.293)
Right, there's a ton of fads in this space. There's weight loss claims, there's ingredients that pop off and then disappear. And in the very early days of the business, one of the ingredients we actually considered, because it was such a large and growing market, you know, at the time even Oprah was talking about it was apple cider vinegar. yes. and it was. And you saw all the metrics.

Rose (08:19.834)
I remember such a bad

Alice (08:28.171)
driving so much demand, right? There were brands in that category that were growing 100, 200% year over year that were huge. And it was all the rage with consumers and everyone wanted to buy it. in particular because you know our products started out as gummies and there were really popular products out there putting apple cider vinegar into gummies. It naturally came up. like is this something that we should be doing and and we actually made

A decision that you could argue was in a lot of ways against growth and against profitability, which is we decided actually that we didn't want to participate in that particular trend. And it really went down to the core values of the brand and what I wanted to do with what we provided to families, which was we really wanted it to have this grounding in deep clinical science. so I didn't talk about this yet, but

When I started the business inspired by my family and, you know, a lot of what we had faced, I really wanted to understand what were the things that our bodies were fighting against from the inside, from the outside, and how do you really create products based on what actually works in medicine, in clinical studies, in the chemical mechanisms that happen in the body, and how do you actually solve for that root cause? And it created a really

different approach that didn't put margin first, you know, that didn't put fads first, and meant that we were actually really thoughtful and deliberate about, okay, there might be a hundred ingredients, but we're actually going to say no to 99 of them because it doesn't have the right science, because there's an overdose danger, because consumers actually don't need it. And how do you build products that in an ideal world generally help people feel better? And so it's really

become a a type of discipline that we've built into the business, even though in a lot of cases it feels like you have to turn down opportunity in order to do that.

Rose (10:35.491)
I love that distinction. Because culture, if you think about it, doesn't really show up in mission statements. It shows up in the decisions that you make and the choices you make when customers will never know how you made them. And that's usually where trust is built. One of my favorite topics.

Alice (10:43.211)
Yes.

Alice (10:52.277)
Yes.

Rose (10:53.295)
So let's stay with decisions. There are a lot of consumer categories you could have built a company, lots of them. You chose one where consumers already had reasons to be skeptical. And we've already talked about how crowded the space is. That's not an easy path. There are a lot of commodities. So walk me through that decision. Where did you see, what did you see that convinced you that this wasn't simply another vitamin company waiting to happen, but a category that genuinely deserved to be a rebuild.

Alice (11:06.432)
Yes.

Rose (11:22.757)
Was there a specific moment, a conversation, something you discovered, where you stopped thinking, this is frustrating and started thinking, this is actually broken, and I want to solve that?

Alice (11:35.745)
I think I always knew I wanted to do something with health. And when I was talking to parents in particular about how they made those daily decisions in their life, a lot of them were already taking a supplement or a multivitamin or giving it to their families, right? Usage rates of this category are 90% plus in the US, which is incredible. Yeah, really unusual. and when I talked to them,

Rose (11:54.981)
Sky high.

Alice (12:03.005)
It was frankly shocking to me because when I actually asked them, okay, you know, you're taking this product, you're bringing it home to your kids, to yourself. How did you pick it? Right. And and how do you know that it works? And nearly all of them were telling me that actually they didn't know if it worked. And in fact, they weren't sure. and

Rose (12:24.775)
Mm-hmm.

Alice (12:27.903)
that they were just going into the grocery store, they were going to the vitamin aisle. Everything looked exactly the same. They knew that it was supposed to be healthy for them and they were really interested in what it could do. And they figured it it might not be harming them, which actually isn't necessarily true if you look at the science. but they were just picking something off the shelf and hoping that something good happens. And what I found was there wasn't any real understanding of what

you know, the category was doing, if it actually worked. And when you go back into the history of how supplements started, it's literally where the term snake oil came from. And so there's such a huge gap in consumer trust and something that initially became this huge obstacle, right? How do you build a brand in a space where the gut reaction of every consumer is, actually, I don't know if it works. And I've been told a lot of lies by a lot of companies in this space.

Rose (13:23.654)
Right.

Alice (13:27.313)
Is okay, but there's a really deep need here for health. And actually, there's a lot of really incredible science that hasn't been commercialized properly and hasn't been really you know, communicated properly to families. And how do you make that bridge and truly start helping people invest in preventative health, invest in seeing their symptoms get better? I think that was incredibly powerful.

Rose (13:54.181)
Well, and now what I love, I just want to double click on the importance of that science-backed, really moving the needle, having the numbers as the basis. We'll get into how you think about profitability later because that's also a super fascinating topic. but I wanna pause on something you said because I think it's easy to miss. I think founders spend a lot of time asking, how do I grow faster? Faster, faster, quicker, quicker. But

Alice (14:19.008)
Yes.

Rose (14:20.859)
What I'm hearing from you is actually a little bit of a different question. It's what kind of a company deserves to grow. And it feels like you spent more time on what kind of a company and who do we want to be and how do we want to show up? Not what's the next fad macro trend that's happening. And those sound similar, but they're really quite completely different businesses. One optimizes for speed.

I see a lot of those every day that who are looking to exit quick and talk to a lot of investors that are in that boat too. But the other optimizes for staying power. And I have a funny feeling that that's going on now and it's going to become a theme in this conversation. And I think it's a battle that a lot of people out there are forced with, which is do we invest in the clinical trials now? It's gonna take time.

Alice (14:50.719)
Nice.

Rose (15:13.23)
Do we keep spending the money? Do we pause? Like how do we factor that in? We're, you know, we're trying to scale. Is it short-term money? Is it long-term staying power? And once you decide to build a company around trust, which is really what you've done, the next question becomes: how do I actually earn it? Because saying you're different is not easy in a crowded, commodity-driven category, proving it is much harder. And I think that's where your your thinking starts to challenge.

a lot of conventional wisdom in this category. So let's talk about that. Remembering $20 billion category and you're at the top of it. So I just I think it's like really special to hear your point of view on this.

Alice (15:58.081)
Thank you. I I completely agree with your framing in just the industry broadly. One thing that has really stood out to me is so many companies in this space are willing to say anything to just make a sale. Right. And the reality is consumers and people are so smart now. You know, they really want something that works. And ultimately, a lot of people are willing to try something once if you're willing to promise them something.

Rose (16:14.565)
Yep.

Alice (16:28.201)
extravagant and maybe in some cases even unbelievable. But if you can't deliver, they're not going to purchase you again. And now you've actually ruined your relationship with this consumer. And so from my perspective, we've really taken the opposite view. We want to be really thoughtful around what we say, how we say it, and we want to actually tell consumers what the product can't do as much as what it can. And I think that in itself is this incredible

trust building exercise with parents in particular who are so picky about what they give their children, right? Like you're willing to try things on yourself that you would probably never give to your kids. And it's so important to be able to speak to them from this place of, I think, true authenticity, like science, transparency, and actually communicate with them about, hey, here are the things going on in your life that maybe

You may not even know about, whether it's microplastics, whether it's the fact that our food system has lost up to 87% of its nutrient density because of factory farming, whether it's all these things that you can't control in your life or your family's life. And here are the things that you can actually do about it. That's that's reasonable and easy because the other thing is parents are so overwhelmed these days. If you give them something that their kids are going to fight or that

Frankly, is just too hard to actually do in their daily life. You won't help them live a better life. like they'll just it it's like all of those habits that, you know, we've all been there, they just fall by the wayside.

Rose (18:08.71)
Yeah.

So something you said a few minutes ago has been sitting with me as you described that. You didn't decide to build a classic traditional supplements company. There's lots of them. You decided to solve a trust problem. Those sound similar. They're actually very different businesses. So because if trust is actually the product, everything else becomes a consequence of that specific decision. So I'd love to unpack how you thought about that.

maybe let's start here. When you look at a supplement aisle, what did everyone else seem to be optimizing for that you deliberately chose not to? You've given us some hints already, but

It's, I think, important on that commercial bridge that you made choices what not to do. And oftentimes people say the definition of strategy is what you choose not to do versus what you choose to do. And in my experience, that's the hardest thing because there's always an abundance of ideas. Like that's never a challenge. But choosing which ones become the focus and like letting the others drop by the wayside.

is important. So I'm like super curious on what you chose deliberately not to do so that you optimized for what you believed in that was unique and different.

Alice (19:27.937)
Completely. I think the first thing was we actually chose the most expensive things to put into our products versus the cheapest, even though consumers may not know the difference. Right. Like one thing that you often see in this space is consumers aren't really that educated about what should be in the product, the differences and the chemical forms. But at the end of the day, you can feel a difference if you take it long enough.

Rose (19:43.716)
Interesting.

Rose (19:53.604)
So true.

Alice (19:57.661)
And I think a lot of companies can be really short-sighted in thinking, well, a consumer doesn't care about this, right? They they don't know the difference, which is often true for the vast majority of consumers. And so I'm just going to optimize for costs and I'm going to put in the cheapest ingredient at the highest level because I know that consumers are just thinking the more I'm getting, the more value. And it doesn't matter if I'm, excuse my language.

you know, peeing it out or unable to absorb it or it's an ingredient that's not going to work. If there's any demand at all, I'm just going to make it in the cheapest way possible and sell it. And so we actually took, I would say, the the opposite approach in a lot of ways, which is we wanted to really start from the science, the efficacy, get into the root cause, build an incredible product from there using ingredients that we have really high confidence in.

And then figure out how do we help communicate this to consumers, even if it's not something that they're thinking about today. How do we really reframe the conversation with them and help them understand what it can do in their lives and what it can't?

Rose (21:06.823)
I think that's really fascinating. And I've got a case study of my own that's kind of interesting that will remain anonymous. But the concept I want to share, which is I find it fascinating, a science-backed company like many years in the lab before they ever brought a product to market.

Alice (21:16.246)
Yes.

Rose (21:28.164)
with the same idea as you of like, let's invest in the science and make sure we're really doing something breakthrough. Well, through their course of trials, they've now figured out there's a law of diminishing returns. And so n now that we had that scientific opportunity, rather than keeping going and just you know, cranking up the price.

They're actually giving it back to the consumer so that there's an easier entry point to get in, knowing that clinically we can give you a lot more of this product and we can charge you more for it, but that you're not there's a law of diminishing returns. And I think that that's an interesting concept that plays along really well to what you're describing, which is like you can just you chose to do the most premium and you chose to do the science behind it and to educate the consumer.

Alice (22:08.747)
Yes.

Rose (22:23.013)
And to me, that's fascinating because f I I really, really think founders often assume different differentiation is gonna come from features and the more. But what I'm hearing is that your differentiation started with discipline, and that's I think a lot harder to copy, discipline around education and how important that is. So let me pressure test something here.

Every founder says they're building trust. As I said at the beginning of the show, I think this is something everyone can relate to. But customers cannot buy trust. They buy products at the end of the day. So operationally, what decisions did customers never see that you believed ultimately made that product more trustworthy? And I imagine some of that had to do with the messaging. Can you give me

Alice (22:50.262)
Yes.

Alice (23:00.065)
They do.

Rose (23:14.039)
something in there that would help us understand a little bit more about what ultimately you believe made the product more trustworthy.

Alice (23:24.021)
I think a lot of it actually started with to your point, and I think your case study was really fascinating, is you have to take the science and also meet consumers where they are, right? You have to also be commercially viable and commercially practical. And one thing that customers today probably can't see, even though, and honestly, especially because we've now sold more than half a billion gummies.

Rose (23:41.456)
Yes.

Alice (23:53.941)
with just growth and scale, which has been incredible. but

Rose (23:57.057)
In and how many years?

Alice (23:59.893)
Since twenty nineteen, so just not too long in the market. I I actually wish we had grown faster, but I think it was the right pace for us. Yeah. Yes. Yes. but in the early days, you know, the person that our customers would get on the phone or through email was me. And so, you know, it was my phone number that showed up on their credit card listings.

Rose (24:08.815)
You were prudent. I think you built for the long term, is what I'm hearing.

Alice (24:27.571)
It was everything that they sent was redirected to my email. And I think that gave me this really unique connection to understanding what they actually cared about, which was to your point, impact in their lives, right? The trust is just that bridge to get them to try the product, believe in the product, and actually take it long enough to see an effect because the reality is it's not prescription medication. it takes time to work.

it's often slow. Sometimes consumers can't even tell that there's a difference because all of the change is on the inside of your body. And so how do you build that relationship with the consumer by helping communicate to them about, you know, what's happening in the world, what's happening in their own bodies and and how that makes a difference. And I think there's been these incredible connections that I've had with consumers that have made all the difference. You know, in one of the early days,

I had this one customer who would actually call me every month to put in her order. she was a grandmother who lived in Georgia and just cared so much about her grandson and she would save the last thirty dollars in her social security check just to buy that for him because she noticed such a huge difference in his life. and it was amazing. And she actually told me like

so much about this personal intimate connection because she was sharing with me that she really felt like her daughter wasn't really there for her grandson and that she really wanted to step up as a grandmother. And one month I was late in returning her phone call. And by the time I got her on the phone, she had actually told me and she was so upset. And I could hear, you know, I think almost like the the tears in her voice that she had spent the last of her

budget for the month. Like she she couldn't afford it anymore. And she was like, just give me a moment. I'll call my brother. I'll get his credit card. I I just know that it's making such a big difference in my grandson's life. And I ended up sending her product for free because it was this incredible moment where I realized that it wasn't about the price. It wasn't about a lot of these things that I think businesses are constructed around that are really important.

Alice (26:48.885)
Right. Like we've only gotten to where we are with discipline and we haven't touched on it yet. But the way I've built the business has been with less than a million dollars of funding, and we reach over a hundred million dollars this year. And so there's been this incredible growth trajectory that's been really profitable and capital efficient for us. but ultimately consumers buy you because you're you're helping make their lives easier and better. And so how do you continue to bring that to

their everyday and to prove that to them is really how you stay relevant and build a brand for the long term.

Rose (27:23.996)
There's two things I'm hearing in there. Number one is that you have never gotten far from the consumer and the customer. And oftentimes, where things break is when the founder backs off from that intimacy of hearing things in a different way and being in a position to make a commercial decision that might not match the natural focus on building scaling profitably.

And one thing I admire a lot about your answer is that you never framed it as protecting the brand. You framed it as protecting the customer. And that's a it's a subtle difference. But the first protects revenue. Like if you had just ignored that and said, sorry, too bad. The second eventually creates it. So I also think you talk about customers very differently. You don't describe them as uninformed, you describe them as being overwhelmed. I mean, you're

Alice (28:05.183)
Yes. Yeah.

Rose (28:19.239)
Personal example there, that's an overwhelmed person. And I think that's one of the most important observations you've made. And, you know, ultimately, how did that change how you built the business?

Alice (28:22.561)
Yes.

Alice (28:32.415)
I think it was actually the the key to our success when you think about what the engine of the business for a consumer brand is, which is ultimately how do you get consumers to to try your product? And for us, it's it's a parent, right? It's often a mom. They're often really overwhelmed to your point and also very busy. And how do you capture their attention? and then also how do you get them to

really believe that you are better and that you are saying something different than what every other brand has said. And I think that honesty with the consumer has been incredibly powerful. And it's really been I think this thread amongst every approach we've had in every channel. Like we've started out as a digitally native brand where you have this incredible opportunity and frankly luxury of being able to spend potentially even three to five minutes with

Rose (29:05.349)
Yes.

Alice (29:29.109)
The person who's considering the purchase, right? Where she's watching a video, she's reading your emails, she's getting text messages from you, she's interacting with your website. And we've also now gone into Amazon and into retail with our first launch with Target as well earlier this year. And it's been this adaptation of how do we continue to speak to her in a way that meets her where she is, whether it's through testing of the copy that's literally on our packaging.

Because when you go into retail, you're against for us at least, you know, effectively every other product on shelf is cheaper than us. And so how do you convince her to pay three times more for your product? And how do you build that connection in a split second with her? to actually, you know, how do you adapt and maintain that consistency now that you have consumers who are shopping cross-channel?

everywhere for you. And that's been a big part of our mission too. That's also driven business decisions is we want to be everywhere where consumers want to purchase. And so, you know, I I think there's that theme to your point that's really been the basis and foundation of a lot of business decisions for us. That's driven discipline, that's driven profitability, and that's also helped us make the right trade-offs when you can't do everything at the same time.

Rose (30:51.077)
Well, and science gets used in marketing all the time. But real science often creates more questions than it does answers. So, how have you balanced that scientific integrity while still making products people actually understand? I think that might be one of the biggest lessons so far. and connecting for me a little bit about trust and bigger claims and how do you think about the trade-off?

Alice (30:55.03)
Yes.

Alice (31:12.63)
Yeah.

Alice (31:18.667)
Yes.

Our goal is to really talk about the science and ways that are relevant for the consumer's daily life, for the parent's daily life, because what we found after testing it really extensively is when you try to speak to her using chemical forms, using really complex you know, biological language, speaking directly about clinical studies, those are the things that actually are too much for her.

You know, she's already so busy in her day-to-day. She's incredibly stressed. everyone everywhere is telling her what to do about her kids, and being the voice that's telling her, hey, everything will be okay. you know, this is what it means for your kid on a day-to-day basis. This is how this vitamin may act in their brain to help with focus or help with mood regulation.

And it's not their fault and it's not your fault. I think that's a really powerful place to be, rather than coming in and saying, Hey, you know, in two weeks you're gonna lose 40 pounds. And fundamentally, this there's only so much that this category can do. and it's actually a really fast way to frankly like ruin I think how consumers approach the category and really think about.

how they build healthy habits in general. Because the other thing too is all of us know what it takes to be healthy, but you know, it's basically move around more, it's exercise and it's eat more vegetables. And it's just really, really hard to do those two things. And so how do you help create more support for families so that you're there even when they're reaching for the chips or even when they haven't had the time to make sure that their kid has a full night of sleep, like

Alice (33:18.913)
How do you build that for the reality of their life?

Rose (33:22.962)
Well, and speaking of sleeping, you mentioned and shared a story with me about a night when a purchase order kept you from sleeping. So that I think may be very near and dear to many listeners' hearts here. So what were you actually afraid would happen? I think that's important.

Alice (33:25.771)
Yes.

Alice (33:44.565)
This was, I think the story that you're referring to was in the early days of the business. I think it was just a couple months after launch actually. And at that point I had put, you know, I was 25. I had put my life savings into trying to make this work. I had quit a very comfortable and very cushy corporate job. And I

was really afraid that I had made the wrong decision. And actually what we were seeing was that the brand was growing so much that it was time for us to either make a decision about buying our next lot of inventory or we would go to run out of stock. But the next purchase would be $300,000. And so was I personally

I think confident enough and committed enough to what I was doing to take another $300,000 out of my personal savings and to put into something where it felt like I was gambling. You know, I had no idea if it would work. and that night I didn't sleep at all. I I was so anxious about what I was about to do. And ultimately I ended up making that decision and making that bet. But

Being a founder and especially in the early stages, you really never know. Like I would say most days in the early days, I thought about quitting because it was so stressful and I had no idea if would work. And it's just a part of this both incredible and insane journey that you sign yourself up for.

Rose (35:13.905)
Yeah.

Rose (35:30.128)
Yeah, and I think founders listening need to really hear this, that the hardest part usually isn't the uncertainty. I mean, it might have kept you up, but

What grounded you and got you through it was responsibility, employees, inventory, customers, cash, all of that, that's a very different pressure than people might imagine. And so even someone who's on the younger side going back to you were 25 years old. Let's put that in perspective. So it's a again, a very different pressure than people might understand. And giving up is the natural response and reaction with all.

Alice (35:48.769)
Yes.

Rose (36:10.597)
that stress, but you didn't do that. So when did optimism become evidence for you and not revenue? Like something had to pull you through and say, we're not fundraising. We see behavior here. What customer behavior made you think we're actually building something real and I'm I'm not giving up.

Alice (36:10.709)
It is.

Alice (36:35.061)
I think it comes back to two things that you had touched upon. One was responsibility, and the other was building something with longevity. I always knew when I started the company that I wanted to build something that would still be around, ideally even after me. that would create impact. Yeah, that's right. and in order to do that, I knew that the business.

Rose (36:55.033)
A legacy.

Alice (37:02.763)
had to have the fundamentals right. It had to be something that people genuinely needed and made their lives better. It had to be something where we created a sustainable sort of financial engine where the business could support itself and you could reinvest profit into growth and where you didn't have to rely on going out and fundraising to keep the business alive because then you're putting the fate of your business in someone else's hands.

Rose (37:29.529)
one hundred percent.

Alice (37:31.403)
Which can be really hard. and for me, it also came down to responsibility because the the analogy that I sometimes make is I sometimes feel like it's almost like deciding to have a baby. Like you have this vision where you think about all of these incredibly joyful times you'll have with your child, right? They'll laugh and you'll play with them and they're gonna bring so much meaning to your life. And then once you have a baby.

Rose (37:53.67)
Yep.

Alice (38:00.801)
You're like, wow, I can't sleep. The baby is not eating and is losing weight and has jaundice and the baby's just crying all the time and now it's too late to return the baby. Like I I I Yes, that's right. Now I'm just here with the baby. I gotta make it work. And that's in you know, in some ways, I feel like ignorance is bliss. Like you need to have a little bit of that almost like delusional optimism when you start the business to think that you can do something.

Rose (38:12.419)
It's too late. The baby's been born.

Alice (38:30.837)
That's frankly like, you know, extraordinary and beating the odds in order to succeed. Like all of us know the stats on new businesses, right? The vast majority of them fail. and then once you once I started the business, the way I really felt about it was, okay, now it's about more than just me. Like even when I'm having a bad day, it became about I owe the business something, like I owe it.

Rose (38:40.183)
Alice (39:00.457)
my best effort, I owe it this best shot at surviving. And I'm also here to take care of the team, to take care of the brand. And to some extent it became something that was outside of me. And I really wanted to see it thrive because I ultimately felt like it was up to me. Like if I if I couldn't make it work and if I didn't have that commitment to it, then no one else would.

Rose (39:25.96)
That's right. what what a beautiful story. And you know, there's another topic embedded in here that I know we will run short on time, but I am dying to get to it because to me, and I'll give my my preference or preface as to why this is near and dear, is that I cannot tell you how many businesses get to me and they're burning and they're burning and they're saying,

We need investors, like we gotta get there. We can't afford the next piece because we're burning cash and you know, we believed in it, we were optimistic and now we're kind of stuck and who's gonna want to invest because we're not profitable. And when those get to me, they're tough because if you haven't had a lens towards profitability and how much money you let enter into your system in the early days.

Alice (40:05.675)
Yes.

Rose (40:19.623)
If you're owned already by other people who put the money in, it's a very rough road. And so one thing I appreciated that you shared with me is that you talked about contribution margin. Before you talked about growth. Usually I hear growth and then contribution margin. But what I do know about investors is you you have to have.

Alice (40:22.721)
Yes.

Alice (40:32.545)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Rose (40:41.807)
The path that's like pretty well laid out to profitability and very clear and proof points along the way. And or you needed to be profitable since day one. And I love the story, and it immediately caught my attention about how you thought about it. So where did the operating discipline come from?

Alice (41:01.121)
So at the beginning, you know, after we launched in twenty nineteen, my goal and I set myself a timeline and a deadline on this was, Okay, I need to prove to myself that the unit economics of this business works. And I gave myself some Yeah. Yes.

Rose (41:17.436)
Favorite word in my book is unit economics. And sometimes businesses look at me and say, What do you mean? And then the education begins. Yeah, you just, it's it's not just a big old revenue number, like let's just double the revenue and see how we can get there. And it's just sort it out. You were intentional about knowing your unit economics in the early days. And I want to remind everybody, you built first day with less than one million dollars.

Alice (41:24.948)
What is that? Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Alice (41:33.386)
That's right.

Rose (41:47.143)
Of outside capital while remaining profitable. And now, not many late years later, with that mentality, you're number one in target. And so was capital efficiency always the plan, or did the business teach you to operate that way? I'm really so curious.

Alice (42:09.653)
I think I was lucky enough where it was both. Where from the beginning I didn't want to be on this fundraising treadmill where I didn't want the brand's fate, my fate to be in the hands of other people. That we could have that I know, we could have that freedom. Yes. it's just incredible to be able to make decisions that are good for the brand. And sometimes when

Rose (42:21.883)
Yeah, yes. Everyone hear that please, yes.

Alice (42:34.773)
You're in a corner as a business and you don't have the right fundamentals, or you have to have outside capital, you can't make what's what's actually the best decision for the company or for your team. and so along the way, that was always the goal. And I feel lucky enough that we made some of the right decisions and got lucky with some others where the profitability of the business was there, where unit economics and contribution margin was always top of mind.

Rose (42:45.947)
No, you cannot. Mm mm.

Alice (43:04.521)
And so it was like, you know, when we thought about customer acquisition, it was very much we have to be able to do it within contribution margin. And if we can't, then maybe the business is not structured in the right way. And from the beginning, we saw that incredible, I think, product market fit between the UitNet economics of the business, between the positioning of where the brand was and the resonance we were seeing with families to come back and repurchase. And all of that meant that.

Rose (43:21.829)
Yes.

Alice (43:33.311)
You could build this ecosystem that was self sustaining.

Rose (43:37.298)
So I think this is one of the misconceptions about entrepreneurship. Seriously, people love to celebrate growth. Who doesn't love to ring the bell? But operators celebrate durable economics, in my opinion. Like real operators, it's the economics that really matter. And those are very different conversations. So I I commend you. And again, I was so excited to put you on the show because I think this is a

very important story that founders, entrepreneurs, someone thinking about building a business, someone in a business who's frustrated and trying to figure out the why, but why are we still doing this? It that unit economics is something go back to the basics and sort it out. And even if it means growth's gotta slow, because for every dime that's not profitable, you're just wasting cash and you're never going to get that cash back again.

Alice (44:33.451)
Yes.

Rose (44:34.363)
I think it's a super important thing. Now I'm gonna just shift gears real quick because I wanna get one more very important, precious story in. Your grandmother. So there was another very precious personal story that you told me that I haven't really stopped thinking about. You talked about a grandmother, your grandmother, who probably shouldn't have been able.

Alice (44:40.379)
Mm. Sounds great.

Alice (44:44.993)
Yes.

Rose (44:57.061)
to navigate your website, but figured it out because she refused to stop buying. So what did that what did that moment teach you? And how did you embrace that?

Alice (45:09.557)
I think in the early days there's two things. One is you have to do what's not scalable. what everyone cares about is okay, how do you get to a hundred million, five hundred million? But in the early days, if what it takes to get another family trying our product is me personally putting their credit card into the website, that's what I'm going to do and I'm going to be there for them. And I think the second thing is it really taught me that what you think

Maybe the brand that you're building isn't necessarily what families want it to be. And being really receptive around what is it that your consumers and your buyers are telling you they need. Because when I built the brand, it was very expensive. It was more than 50% more expensive than the next premium option. It was very based in science and very based in education. And so naturally I thought, okay, this is.

For a Whole Foods type of customer, right? Even though we were digitally native, but I was imagining when you think about what does that ideal buyer look like, it's probably someone who's highly educated, maybe higher income, maybe they're they live in an urban environment. And what I was seeing was the opposite was that health is so universal that if it means okay, you're paying an extra $10, or if you have to go through

Something that may be unfamiliar to you, but you care so much about your family that it's all worth it. And I think that interaction actually changed my own perspective on what I was building and on how I thought about just the criticality of access about being there for every parent. And also it helped me reimagine, frankly, how large the cup the company and and the brand could be because we were seeing that.

so many families across the spectrum, whether whether it was, you know, a grandmother who lived in a mobile home who really wanted to help her grandson or a professor at a liberal arts college who was purchasing us, like there was this incredible resonance across all of them.

Rose (47:26.768)
Yep, yep. I think it's really interesting. You know, earlier we talked about trust. Now we're talking about proof. And what strikes me is that your proof was not only a dashboard, it was human behavior, your connection to again, you use word customer, the consumer.

Alice (47:41.995)
Yes.

Rose (47:43.821)
Above all else, like you made choices about focusing there when others may not have. You know, people change their habits. That's when business becomes brands. And eventually customers aren't the only ones paying attention because then the retail start, retailers start really calling. So for a lot of founders, that's the dream. And for you, it sounds like it became another decision to slow down. So the last little section we're gonna talk about before we wrap is.

Alice (48:08.404)
It was

Rose (48:14.103)
Spend the next, you know, couple of minutes talking about and unpacking how you thought about retail because I think your approach to retail challenges a lot of conventional thinking, which is get to DTC immediately into retail. But you you you made a different decision on that front.

Alice (48:32.769)
For me, every decision I've made about the brand and the business has been grounded in what is best for us to be here twenty, thirty years from now. And pretty early in the company's journey, we were getting knocks on our virtual door from the biggest retailers in the space, across, you know, mass market, pharmacy, who are really excited about carrying the product. and

I think I did something very unusual, which was I said no, and I said no for almost three years because I didn't feel like the brand was ready, I didn't feel like our supply chain was ready, and I didn't feel like our team was ready. And from my perspective, you know, entering into this really important partnership with new vendors that could easily be

You know, another 50% of revenue, it could double the company. when you look at where consumers actually spend money on vitamins today, it's actually only 10% direct-to-consumer, and it's 40% Amazon and 50% retail. And so 90% of it was at the time in channels that we weren't even participating in. But it was so important to me to say, okay, you only get one shot to do it right. And if you don't do it right.

You can ruin the relationship forever. And you can also make a really bad impression on the people that you're trying to help and you're trying to convince to be your consumers in this channel. and so it was very important to me to actually be at the right scale, at the right stage, with the right resilience and the right team, where we really had confidence that this would be the time when we could just execute with excellence and to do it.

as perfectly as possible, which isn't usually possible. And I know there's things we could have done better, but I'm really excited about where we are today.

Rose (50:36.615)
You have produced amazing results at a pace that allowed you to stay true to the responsibility, I love that word, to building this. And so when people look at first day, it's easy to focus on the products or the growth because you have been very successful. But I really think the story here is discipline. You consistently made decisions that you shared with us that looked slower in the moment, but

created for you more options. And I think many people miss that.

And that's a lesson every founder can take away. And Alice, honestly, thank you for sharing not just what you've built, but how you thought through building it. And I think when I had my very first conversation with you, it was the how you did it, not the what. Anybody can have be in Target, you know, staying in Target's another conversation. Being number one is another conversation, keeping your customers happy is another conversation.

Alice (51:34.453)
It is.

Rose (51:39.721)
And frankly, I could have a whole nother chapter about leadership and many other things. And I just I I love the journey you're on. And I'm we're excited at the story of a brand to stay in touch with you because I think you're building something true. So thank you for joining me on the story of a brand. And how can people get in how how would you like people to follow your journey? Because now we've raised the awareness, and of course we want people to experience the product, but

But how do they follow this journey for you and keep watching it unfold and supporting you?

Alice (52:17.813)
I'm always there for other founders and if anyone wants to reach out to me, my email's super easy. It's Alice at Firstday dot com and feel free to contact me there.

Rose (52:28.817)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the Story of a Brand show. And listeners, if you enjoyed getting underneath the business behind this brand today, I'd love to keep the conversation going.

Every week on LinkedIn, I write the CPG Curator, where I go beyond the headlines, just like we're doing here, to unpack what's actually changing across consumer brands and why it matters, and what founders and operators should really do with it. So if you'd love to hear more and participate in the conversation, find me on LinkedIn at Rose Hamilton, follow along, and subscribe to the CPG Curator. Until next time, thank you so much for joining me on the story of a brand.

Alice (53:12.353)
Thank you so much, Rose. It's been such a pleasure.

Rose (53:15.227)
Thank you. More. Chapter two. We'll have one.

Alice (53:18.869)
Sounds great. I'm looking forward to it.

Rose (53:20.849)
Thank you.