Ever wondered what it takes to turn a slow simmer into explosive growth? Find out from Eddie of Buoy, as he shares the key strategies that shifted their brand from traditional retail to a booming DTC powerhouse.

Welcome to the 43rd edition of The Perspective 👀! In this issue, we sit down with Eddie in a quick Q&A. We'll discuss their eco-friendly initiatives, the strategic impact of celebrity endorsements, and the real scoop on their content strategy. Dive in for sharp insights and smart strategies that could spark your brand’s growth!

(less than 4-minute read)

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Founders 5 - Buoy’s Eddie Zelenak 💡

About Buoy: Buoy is redefining hydration with its sugar-free, mineral-rich supplements and commitment to sustainability, using recycled packaging and carbon-neutral delivery methods. Initially focused on retail with placements in stores like Walgreens and CVS, Buoy has shifted focus to their growing DTC channel.

Question 1: Buoy has been around for over five years with a focus initially on retail before moving back to DTC. However, it's in the last year that you've seen explosive growth. What were the key factors that contributed to this recent success?

Eddie’s Response: Hear me out—the largest factor has actually been patience. What feels like an overnight success actually took 7 years of slow growth, grind-it-out work. CVS was technically our first retailer. It was an immediate stamp of credibility to boost, at the time, what was just an Amazon presence. Yet, rolling out with them so early depleted inventory, bandwidth and capital. And yet, we leaned further into retail, expanding into Walgreens and had a third nationwide retailer rollout scheduled before we even ran our first meta ad. Yet, having our hands tied in retail and being unable to support scaling on paid media while others in DTC were flying high and fast on the tailwinds of the pandemic, was actually good luck. 

We never had the chance to build our business on the pre iOS 14 loose privacy policies that made for lower CACs. When we eventually raised our Seed Round to fund paid media growth, we didn’t have a baseline CAC that would double overnight with privacy update and completely undermined a path to profitability. We started when the going was already hard and had the benefits of a small organic community of raving fans and the knowledge of how to find and vet the right partners for the right work.

Question 2: Content creation has been a game changer for many brands, and you've excelled in this area for Buoy. How significant has your involvement in content creation been for Buoy's success, and did you naturally possess these skills, or was it a learning curve to excel in this field?

Eddie’s Response: My best advice is to get on Reels and TikTok and really study what works on you. I wasn’t a creator. I didn’t know how to edit. I spent over three hours editing one of our first paid Buoy videos on CapCut before getting fed up and submitting it to our paid partner. Luckily, it landed well. And while the content creation was new to me; the content consumption, obviously, wasn’t. I studied a lot of the ads that worked on me and picked up small things from hooks, compositions and styles that feed the direction for my edits. I keep a list of notes in my phone and update them everyday. And works across industries and price points. I also make content for one of my favourite brands, Prose, who makes custom beauty products. I’m one of their top performing creators and I shoot on my iPhone and edit on CapCut, just like for Buoy. 

Question 3: How have you managed your evolving product line to balance a simple customer journey with the increasing complexity of purchase options like subscriptions and bundles? What challenges have you faced in maintaining an effective conversion rate during these changes?

Eddie’s Response: Website UX and online merchandising: two things you rarely hear when discussing what products to make. When glossed over, it can end up cannibalising sales and lowering conversion despite having new shiny toys with compelling content to offer. Here’s what a consumer is processing on your site: different pack sizes, purchasing frequencies, choosing from specific products or curated bundles of grouped products, navigating discounts based on cart size, subscribe and save and/or bundle rewards outside of what your products do and how they apply to their life. It’s a lot. We see conversion drop when we don’t guide users to a place to start, or offer too many places to start. We also see conversion drop if we’re not explicitly clear how our products work together and what their key differentiators are from each other.

For us, the biggest question we’re using product line expansion to solve is AOV. We’re coming out with new SKUs that will be a complete departure from our core products this summer. And, sidenote, one of the reasons we have our upcoming Oddit call scheduled is to talk about the above :)

Question 4: How did Buoy’s partnership with NBA Hall of Famer Chris Paul come about and what has this meant for your brand?

Eddie’s Response: Pure luck. Chris swapped his typical pregame espresso for our Energy Drops and, thankfully, hit a career high three pointers in a single game later that night. He invested in our Seed Round and we’ve leveraged our fun origin story with him for a limited edition collab product with him on May 8th.

Question 5: On a lighter note, who do you think rocks a better moustache, yourself or Cam from Oddit?

Eddie’s Response: Hands down, Cam’s. I’m lucky to have a full mustache, but mine is the smallest fish in the biggest pond. Up close, it’s thinner than it looks and leaves a gap in the middle under my nose that needs a few months of growth to cover up. It needs the support of a 5 o’clock shadow to really balance my face’s shape. Cam’s is the whole damn meal. It fills the entire gap from upper lip to the bottom of the nose and keeps a healthy width all the way through the cheekbones. It does the cooking and the cleaning.

There are only a few things certain in life: death, taxes and CAC drops $3 if I had Cam’s moustache in my videos.

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Oddit Brags 🥳 
A real recent customer, and their words of love for Oddit.

If you wanna shop Oddit products, you can explore right here. Or if you want to discus how we can help your brand, chat with one of the co-founders, Shaun or Taylor.