Zero to launch: How I built "Kiss My Acid Goodbye"

Link to the full video here: 

‍

Full transcript below: 

‍

Tim: Okay, so I'm here with Jason Goldberg, and Jason, you founded a business called Kiss My Acid Goodbye.

Jacob: Yeah.

Tim: I'd love to learn more about this business 'cause we've done some great work together via Storetasker. But, I think you're onto something really cool here. Please tell us the backstory on how this business came about.

Jacob: Yeah. So I previously was over 300 pounds. I was 332 pounds at my highest. And, yeah, I ended up having, bariatric weight loss surgery. Now it's been, gosh, it's been 14 years. Last month was 14 years since I had the surgery. Lost well over a hundred pounds, kept it off. All that stuff was great.

But coming out of the surgery I developed. Terrible acid reflux. I had never had it before. I, heartburn once in a while, but like I had never had it like that before. And so it was every single day just debilitating heartburn and acid reflux and, and it was terrible. Didn't matter what I was eating.

And so I, like everybody else, I was, popping tums like crazy and taking, all the over the counter stuff, the PPIs and H twos, we know them as like Zantac and Prilosec and all those kinds of things. And I've been taking them, I've been taking them [00:01:00] for years and it really wasn't until about.

Two and a half years ago or so, I was, I had moved to LA I was very connected in the wellness community there and started learning about the short-term and the long-term consequences of being on these things, being on these antacids and these over the counter and prescription meds for reflux. And so I'm the type that I.

Geek out anytime. Like I find something new and interesting and curious, I just do a deep dive and I'm reading all these medical journals and all this stuff, and I realize like it's, there's really a truly a very, big risk of a lot of different things, whether it's osteoporosis or potential cancer or malabsorption, malnutrition, all these different things.

So I found a pharmacist. He had been a pharmacist for two decades in typical traditional pharmacology, and he, decided he wanted to just do natural stuff from now on. No more, none of that stuff, no more prescription stuff. And he's working all in botanicals. So between him, I. And one of my best friends, who's a functional medicine doctor, the three of us created this novel formula that's an all natural acid reflux, supplement that actually goes to the root of what's going [00:02:00] on in our gut instead of just masking symptoms like all this other stuff does that's on the market.

Tim: That's incredible. I love the journey. I didn't know about the weight loss journey as well and how that led you on this path. Yeah, man, that, that's just, that's so inspiring. And then there's a lot of research that goes behind this product, right? It wasn't just, let's find somebody who does something like Tums, but less bad and just slap a new brand over it.

Like you guys, it's pretty innovative what you guys have done here, right?

Jacob: Yeah, it is. Yeah. We didn't wanna be the healthier antacid because the problem is all those things do the same thing. They either neutralize or suppress your stomach acid and we need our stomach acid.

People think reflux comes from having too much acid in the stomach. It's actually not the case. It can actually be from too little acid in the stomach, but it can be for a lot of other things that are related to overall gut health. The gut microbiome, pressure in the stomach, motility of the gut, like all these different things.

And so I started researching, along with my team there, we started researching all these individual things that contribute to reflux instead of, putting a bandaid on something [00:03:00] where I always say, imagine putting a bandaid on a cut, and the longer you leave the bandaid there, the worse the cut gets.

That's what was there before. And so we're like, let's actually look at some healing power here. And so we started going into finding individual ingredients that had clinical studies that showed that they actually have a positive impact on these different disparate areas of what actually causes reflux.

And part of that was even me going to a farm in Sicily, in Italy, to go to the actual farm directly where some of these, ingredients are cultivated. So I could see firsthand where stuff is coming from. Make sure there's no pesticides and really meet the family that actually owns the farm and go deep into that.

So it's not just like a white label drop ship trying to make money off supplements kind of thing that a lot of people tend to do in this area.

Tim: Yeah. Especially 'cause it's such a big market and this is like a supplement that you can take frequently. So I think it is attractive for a lot of brands to go into that space.

So definitely keen to try your product out. And I want to know is your background in e-commerce or has this been pretty new, this venture into the world of Shopify and actually [00:04:00] now that you have the formulation selling it on the internet.

Jacob: It's, yeah, it's all brand new. So my background was, I spent 15 years in tech consulting, and then I left that and became an entrepreneur.

I guess it was 2011, so it's been like 14 years now. I had a few different startups. I worked on, one was an executive transportation company. Then I started a company with nasa, in partnership with NASA and the space shuttle program. It was a tech commercialization company that I started while I was in grad school.

And then, yeah. And then about 12 years ago, 11, 12 years ago, I got into coaching. So doing life and business coaching, keynote speaking, things like that. Wrote a book, did all those kinds of things. So I learned a lot about building community, about, about online marketing in general, digital marketing as it relates to service-based businesses.

So I've been doing that for all these years. But the product game is an entirely different animal. And so it felt like, although I was bringing over. Some, some ideas and knowledge and concepts and understandings around marketing. And as far as the psychology, the execution of that in the product realm is completely different.

So yeah, this has been learning Shopify, learning all the [00:05:00] different things. It's been a massive learning curve, and I feel like it's just been speed bump after speed bump, but it's worth it in the end because, it's actually gonna help people.

Tim: Based on your background as well and the energy that you give out on the call, like I think you're gonna find a lot of friends in the world of e-commerce. It's a community that's very open and there's a lot of smart people who are willing to help. So I think for anyone who's building somebody like you, and if you share your journey online, people will be there to, to support you.

And and I'm super glad that we got to meet by Storetasker 'cause it's cool to play a small role in your journey. Yeah. Appreciate that. Tell me about like how you found out about Storetasker and how you decided to get in touch with us and what type of help you were looking for.

Jacob: Yeah, I'll correct you on that. It's not a small part of the journey at all. Storetasker is a massive part of the journey. 'cause it's literally the first impression that everybody has when they come see the company for the first time. So it's one of the biggest pieces of real estate I probably will ever invest in, physical or digital.

And so yeah, so I was looking for help on this [00:06:00] and I had never really, paid to do a website before because of my background in tech. I could usually do whatever I needed to do on my own. But I didn't need any kind of advanced functionality with, coaching and service-based business kinda stuff.

And so when it came to Shopify and actually building the front end, I actually did try myself. I bought a template and, a theme and I tried to modify it and manipulate it and just never came out right. And it always was a little bit off and it wasn't exactly what I wanted.

And I'm not a graphic designer, so I'm just using whatever's there and trying to piece things together with Canva. This was one of the things where I said, listen, the long the long term of this thing requires a really well built infrastructure to be successful, and so I need to find somebody that I can trust to do this kind of thing.

And so initially I was, I was looking at like Upwork and Fiverr and those kinds of things, and there were, there was plenty of good people that I saw there, but there was something missing in that experience. And I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember looking through people and just saying I just don't feel.

Connected to this, like this is, these are the exact people I need. And so when I found Storetasker, which I think was just like a Google search, I just randomly stumbled upon it, it felt [00:07:00] much more tailored to what it is that I was trying to build. So instead of being like a marketplace for all, it's, the same thing of taking your Ferrari to a Ferrari mechanic versus just a normal, everyday mechanic, right?

And so there was something there that just. Yeah, it just felt like there was, I could trust that process more because you were vetting people based on an outcome of not just like building a website, but building the engine for your business. And so it seemed like the understanding you guys had was a lot different than just trying to find a freelancer from a website marketplace..

Tim: No, thanks for sharing. And, I love the Ferrari analogy. It's so good. I might have to use that one.

Jacob: Yeah. Take it. Yeah.

Tim: And then it was like a site design project and then you, it got matched up with Co Tran, who'sbased in Taiwan. I've chatted with him a bunch of times, but, maybe, yeah, he's phenomenal.

Very great designer. And it seems like you guys hit it off So tell me more about the relationship with Co Tran and then tell me about what the status is now of the site. Are we live? What? Wanna check in on that?

Jacob: Yeah, so co the thing that was really cool about Co is that I started diving into his, [00:08:00] all of his body of work, just in general, but just, also outside the main stuff. And he had this kind of, I found out from him later, he has this other thing where he does strange or unique projects that are not just like mainstream ones. And I started looking at that and I was like, oh, this is, these are my people.

This is this is exactly what I don't want cookie cutter. I want people who think outside the box. And we're trying to build a company where you have a, a lifestyle business around a physical ailment. I. And typically lifestyle businesses are not based on physical ments.

They're based on aspirational things. And because there's such a dichotomy of what we are trying to build and what the market typically sees in this space, seeing him do all these kind of weird, unhinged kind of projects, I'm like, he's gonna get it. He's not gonna try to force us into a box. And so that was all I needed.

And of course, the quality of the work was great too. It wasn't just his idea of kind of un unhinged work. And so yeah, so we connected. He is. He's just, he's such a pro man. He's just a pro at knowing what he does. He's a pro communication. He's such, he's so patient. I'm sure I can be difficult sometimes.

He was very patient along the process because I have this vision in my mind of what everything should look like. Any [00:09:00] change that I needed made. He just, he was just great about everything and initially even his first pass was like. His first pass of just mocking it up was probably 90% of the way there, of what I wanted in the vision in my head.

And so I, I will say for my, I'll say my part, but really my wife's part, my wife and I sat down and really put together as much of a brief as we could on exactly what we're looking for and inspiration and all that stuff. And he just took it and ran with it. It was amazing. We also had a timeline because we had taken pre-orders last year and then we had a bunch of production delays and I really wanted to get the product out and the product was ready. So now Co had to play catch up to get the site going. So he agreed, listen, let's just get, the two main pages out that we need and then we'll get the rest done.

We ended up actually getting them all done in time anyways, and we were able to launch. Probably, I'd say at least a couple weeks ahead of schedule of what I, what he thought it was gonna be, even. And, so we went live now, I guess it's just a little over two weeks ago. And it's working beautifully, man.

And everybody who sees the site just says it's absolutely amazing. It looks beautiful. They love it. And I'm super, super happy with it, [00:10:00] man.

Tim: Yeah, it, the site looks really stunning. And it works really well with the bold, nature of the name, the brand and the power that it has in the product.

Yeah man, congratulations on that. And we'll pass on those kind words to Toko. Yeah, please do Tell me what are you keen to work on next on the business?

Jacob: Yeah. The big thing here is I think just because of my experience with coaching is that I know the power of community and I have some really great friends who have built some incredible, CPG businesses in food and beverage and in wellness, and I just see that community is such a massive element in there.

And my thing now is I'm taking a lot of what I did in the beginning of coaching and bringing it over to here. So what that means is, when I first got into coaching, when somebody would sign up for my email list, instead of just having an automated flow that would go out, I would send them a personal email with a picture of me holding up a piece of paper saying, Hey Tim, welcome to the family, or whatever it was.

And that's, 12 years ago, there are people that still work with me and still buy courses and stuff for me because of that, they've told me. And so now it's this thing where anytime somebody, you know follows the Instagram account, I [00:11:00] send them a voice message to connect with them. When people are ordering, I'm sending them videos saying thank you so much for trusting us and we're so excited to see what you think of the product. Like really going and doing things that don't scale necessarily in the beginning in an effort to build community. So the community element's, one of it, one of the things, and the other thing is just getting the initial feedback on the product because we have our first maybe 70 orders or so that have gone out and now it's waiting to hear back from people and seeing like how is it working for them?

What are they like, what do we need to change? What can we make even better? And so that's, obviously product, continuing to make the product better is a big thing. So community, building more of an audience, building more awareness and doing it in a fun way. And then of course, always feedback and product refinement.

Tim: Excellent. One last question for you is the, any words of advice for people starting out? So I think you're in a unique position because you didn't have a background in e-comm and here you are shipping orders, with a beautiful site. And

it seems like somehow you've kept this all relatively lean. So I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but Yeah. Is there any [00:12:00] words of advice you might give to, to younger entrepreneurs looking to start their first venture?

Jacob: Yeah, I think it is, I think it is important to keep it lean in the beginning and not just as a cost savings thing, but just so you really understand the inner workings of the business. I don't need to be an expert in all the things, but I want to at least understand conceptually and from a framework perspective how they work and how they impact other parts of the business.

And so I think getting intimately involved in that is really important. And I think not with the, everybody talks about, outsourcing and delegation and all those things which are fantastic and especially when you're in scale mode. But in the beginning, I think. Anything that goes overly into the automation side is killing your ability to connect with your audience.

And so my advice always is find the best intersection between intimacy and automation, right? How can I create intimacy with people while also automating certain things that don't require as much intimacy? And so that, that's my advice there is number one, build a world class product. Don't just slap a label on a white label, a private label thing.

And then, try to be the best marketer. Like actually. Give a crap about the product you're building and the people you're building it for. Yeah. And the last thing I would say is just really get [00:13:00] clear, and it's such probably cliche advice, but really get clear on your who, right?

Like who are your people? Because for us, it's not just acid reflux sufferers. We can help all acid reflux sufferer sufferers, because the supplement doesn't know. What your job is or what your ethnicity is or anything else. But for us, we know that the brand and the kind of people that we want to attract are people that we basically say are more than one thing, right?

We say our product is an acid reflux supplement and a gut, gut health supplement in one. And it's for people who want to, we call them healthy hedonists, that they want to, eat healthy and. Do good things for their body and meditate and all those things 80% of the time and the other 20% of the time, they wanna watch trash TV and indulge in food and flip people, the bird in traffic and be petty and judgmental and that's okay, right?

You can do that. And so our people that we're calling in are not the crazy biohackers that are like I. Carnivore diet and CrossFit are nothing, and it's also not the people who are just like stuffing terrible food in their face constantly and don't care about any of the future consequences. We're trying to get that middle ground.

So I say all that to say that [00:14:00] when you do that, it makes it so much easier to understand what your messaging needs to look like, the angle for your, positioning for your ads, for your content, for your website. It just makes everything so much easier to connect. So I'd say spend just as much time on the who as you do on the what.

Tim: Love that. Jason. Yeah, thank you so much for all the kind words of, for Storetasker, but also just like the wisdom and, I'm so excited for the journey 'cause it feels like still day one. But you got an amazing product, like amazing market to tap into and you're doing all the right things.

So excited to see you grow and, yeah, excited to stay in touch.

Jacob: Thank you Tim. I appreciate it man. Yeah, it's been great and I look forward to using you guys for something else in the future 'cause I'm sure I'll need to build more stuff. So I'll definitely be coming back to, to see how else I can tap into you guys.

Tim: Excellent, man. Appreciate it. Thanks Jason.