Lessons - Creating A Cult-like Following For A Product | Yosef Martin - Founder of BoxyCharm

Looking back, how would you reverse engineer somebody to try and do that and build that group purposefully? That's what I that's what I think that the magic is. So you almost you had this like cult like following But how do you get that cult like following so that I don't I don't want as a company I don't want to be forced to create my own community I want my product to be so cult like and I want people to be so passionate about my product that they create their own communities I think you said it's first to start with your product No one's going to get excited over what they say everyone else they they have to get excited over you Then you kind of like it's a recipe. It's not one ingredient But it's like you it was like you were actually selling you were selling other people's products Yeah, like so it's like it like the product was actually But it's a combination of understanding what was what resonated. Yeah, that was the product. Yeah, so exactly I mean I was the chief product officer until I had Christie that was working for us and she was Taking over and she was amazing But it took me years to find that and then I was the marketing guy behind this so but but look When you build the community I guess a lot of a lot of the elements is that when you trend Right when you trend you get to be seen everywhere, right? And how do you trend yourself using the community as a utility? Alvinize that community you're talking exactly You're going and so the way I was doing Every month there was a spike when people received their boxes on the I want to say around to say the 15th of the month people get the box and there was a spike And I needed to kind of like and my problem was that if you look at the chart It was unlike beginning of the month a little spike when I would give them a sneak peak Then it would go down after two three days and the discussion around boxy charm because they saw the sneak peak if they came to our to our platforms And then eventually you start receiving the box It does another hype spike blah blah blah blah It goes down towards the end of the month all the way to the next month And I needed to lift it in those two go into those two Yes, I needed to kind of be the market um Yeah, my market maker. Yeah, I want to be the market maker So I said you know what let's do it this way I'm going to go and introduce to a small group of people but very very loud What's going to be next month in the box during the dips And I can go and do just those those two times. I'll take the two strongest items that will be next month marks and On the first dip and on the second dip that's what I'm going to show that And I'm gonna do it in different ways But my point was I would go in the forms and then say is there any interest in the sneak peak I would always use the same phrase is there any interest Eventually, I just said is there any interest and that said they would already know what I mean And all of them would said yes, and you would see Hundreds of comments. Yes, of course. Why are you asking this one and and then oh well It's just being funny always that that just telling me so we can show it to us and it was just really really fun And then I would go in and say well go tomorrow Tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern time you're going to find somewhere I'm going to post something about the sneak peak. Where do you have you have a couple hundred thousand members At the same time searching box each arm What what happened with 300,000 people are searching at that time don't don't If you if you were to spread it across 30 days There would be no it wouldn't trigger the algorithm for it wouldn't trend But if it's over an hour like couple Everyone everyone's trend at the same time now You would go on Google trend and you would see in Google trend a spike About box each arm whenever there's a spike in the trend Anyone that mentioned anything about box each arm Is going is getting tons of views Anyone that mentioned their box anyone that mentioned what to anything So what happened is they said that they trend when you dimension box each arm down they want to mention us more Now they just created more virality concept for free You just are profoundly again everybody here's boxy boxy boxy boxy boxy boxy But you just manipulated the algorithm You just use your community to come in at the same precise time and you do it two three times a month And you keep the discussion going you get you get the discussion going and that's how you chase the cool factor Just in the cool factor make everybody wants to like you Emotionally they look at you different emotionally I would say that also having a non faceless company does does the trick right but They put yourself out there. Yeah, you put yourself out there right but being The face for the company coming all the way from the founder makes a big deal the fact that you don't take things too seriously You're being funny and you have those consistent words that you keep all the time creates lingual around the community Is there any interest and do it repeatedly use the same words? It was it was ingenious It's very easy nothing is a rocket science technically. It's just it's just easy to know what all you're doing is just paying attention Yes, which is like it sounds it sounds like so basic But I mean how many companies don't pay attention like how many people don't look at the feedback from their product and their users And they're just like no that's what it is. I'm going to keep putting it out there I'm going to figure out and optimize performance marketing And I'm going to find a way to like convert people and that have never heard the product before and they're not focused on People that are their biggest fans and their biggest evangelist and how do you serve them? It's just like find new customers bring them in is a big issue with like SaaS companies too You always focus on bringing new customers and you don't focus on churn you have churn you have churn in subscription boxes as well You don't focus on churn you have like a leaky like a whatever like the the leaky Yeah, like I'm trying to think of that analogy someone told me really good analogy It's like if you take the plug out of a bathtub and you let the water run It's always going to it's going to drain but try and fill but imagine like if you like plug that hole and you put water And it's going to overflow with money and customers all that so You have to focus on the churn yet focus on the customers that have already purchased your product as opposed to just always bringing that new and And how do you focus on them? We just listen to the feedback from the people that have already purchased good and bad That's all you that's what you're doing Yeah, well when you when you make decisions When you run a business you have a decision to make hurry and I spend your day You can spend your day reading cohort data and and put yourself in endless meetings that you have created for yourself to follow up and reporting And ask everyone to go and think for you and and create strategies for you or you can decide to still be the The technician in a way you're gonna say well I'm not letting that piece go until I find someone that does it like me or better And then I can always over seal what they're doing, but at least I know that it's in good hands and This way in a for us there was one camp one meeting a week for our Just to follow up we to collect a stand-up meeting we have to talk only about what's absolutely important origin that's it Nothing else not everyone needs to hear everything about everything So when you have enough time on your hand you can be plugged into the consumers Discussion you understand what they're thinking about your product you can maneuver you you're in touch with influencers They become your friends they'll tell you hey listen You should go and jump on this feature right now. You're gonna blow up don't at that time it was every every new feature is gonna give you my views Okay, so Guess what boxy charm would be the first to start using say It's a gtv at the time when you would get all the views to a gtv because it was a supply and demand issue Right, they wanted to make sure that the adoption is gonna be there. So you did and it's also so though But then if you go in a month and a half sooner than your competition You get a month and a half free time this is but by the time your competition came in he came into a traffic gym You already created a gap then after that you're going to Reels and so on or other features and reals now So you you you're plugged into the trend and you have enough time in a day to look at those Those little things that can make you Getting another little unfair advantage because you have the time to actually do it instead of bearing yourself with meetings And in many cases that's what people know they just look at the at the business as a process Process oriented business and all they have to do is step aside and let the people work make it smaller meetings less meetings I think the big mistake that people are doing is big meetings you see When you have a large meeting with with a hundred people, but you have so many things to discuss 14 15 topics to discuss It's it's um from you'll find those meetings where Most people don't even participate and They're in from different departments and not everyone from every department needs to hear everything about every department They need to work and they need to know only what they need to know at the time when it you know if they want to ask questions Come in we'll tell you but but you do not need to contribute so to so much data for them for no reason because one year out the other It's not gonna stay or Adversely if they do lots on a certain piece of data though contacts It provides incorrect information or they could get stressed about things or whatever exactly look It's like my my analogy was biblical analogy the when when When Moses came with a ten commandments to air to the Hebrews Don't really ten he didn't go with the whole Bible decks of Explanations of the Bibles because it's useless you have a lot of people give them a little bit of information Only what's important you have smaller group of people now you can go a little bit more specific it can retain more Depends on the group So you start if you have a big meeting kind of like a town hall meeting everybody's there two three things everybody needs to hear don't overkill it You can have your ten commandments This is your ten commandments don't go and discuss everything about everyone to everyone it doesn't it's it's it's waste of Resources in the companies you can find large companies being Deploy poorly and then they're gonna go and and and lose for a smaller more nimble competitor that just focus on what's important and urgent all the time And then they they have enough time to always be tuned to the trend