Felix: Today on Drama, Anthony Rosemond from Pastreez. Pastreez sells authentic French pastries online and delivers throughout the United States and was started in 2017 and based out of Southern California. Welcome, Anthony.


Anthony: Hi, Felix. Thanks for having me.


Felix: Yeah. So where did the idea behind French pastries online come from?


Anthony: So today, the whole story, my wife and I were encouraged... We kind of left everything in France to be pastries here in the US. What we wanted to do is mash up both our skills. My wife is a French chef from Le Cordon Bleu Paris, and I've kind of an expert for online marketing and websites. So, we decided to jump from Paris to California to pitch the idea. And what we found out is that they were missing authentic pastries online in the US. So yeah, we wanted to bring our experience to the game.


Felix: Yeah. So, what were some of the first products that you launched with?


Anthony: The first product we launched with was French macarons. But maybe we can dig a little bit later on that point, as far as we found out that macarons were the main products. Because when we first arrived, we didn't know what the American markets would feed into. So we tasted lots of different French pastries. But yeah, we decided to go with macarons first, and now we are launching French crepes as well.


Felix: Yeah. So, you mentioned some market research in the early days. Tell us more about that. You knew that you wanted to sell French pastries online. What kind of market research did you do, and what did you do about what products to launch with initially?


Anthony: Yes. So first, from Paris we checked online from abroad, and we saw that there might be an opportunity. But you know how it works when you are far away. It doesn't really count as a market study, I would say. You really need to be on the field. So what we did was, we came over for a few months in Southern California, and our strategy was to really meet people in reality. What we started up, we started with Meetups, the app. And we find some groups and we say, "Okay, hey we don't have anything to do with your group, but we can bring free pastries for you to test and give us some feedback in exchange." So we started with that strategy.


And then we started farmers markets as well, at the lower scale, which was in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, and Malibu. Yeah, and we arrived with a few pastries. We had macarons, we had a few French cakes, and with the feedback from customers we did really see in the first few days and weeks that macarons were really, really popular in the US. So what we decided to do is focus on these products first. But yeah, it's really, I would say, the market study on the field that really, at first, moved forward at a bigger scale after that.


Felix: Yeah, did it surprise you what was famous, or what was popular rather, in the US compared to what you might have expected?


Anthony: Yes. We knew that macarons are a very special product. It's very famous worldwide, and it's recognized as French, and it's a very difficult pastry to make. So we know there was a demand here. But for example, in France and Europe in general, gluten free is not such a big deal. And what we found out is that macarons are naturally gluten free. And we didn't even think about that part when we were in France. So we discovered the market trends here, and what people are really looking for this kind of stuff. So yeah, for example the gluten free aspects really surprised us. The real popularity of macarons really surprised us. We really didn't know there was such a high demand for a small product like that. So yeah, we really decided to focus first on this particular product to enter the niche.


Felix: Yeah. And one thing you said earlier that I really liked was about how you were already doing some research online, but you found that it was important to try to meet people in person. Why did you feel like it wasn't enough just to do your market research online, and you felt like it was important for you to meet people in person?


Anthony: Yeah, because online is the first thing online, you don't always find all the information you need, especially when you try to research a specific niche, which was the case for us. At the time, there was three to four bakeries online, I would say. And it wasn't really a French bakery. So we can see that there is a good niche, because there are not that many competitors. And when you check the different SEO tools, like SEMRush, you can check the different keywords, and you can see that there is a high demand and very low competition. But that's just things online. Maybe people try to find it online, but they didn't really purchase it after that. So we really needed to see and meet people to, I would say, feel what the market, and what really people like.


For example, we didn't know what flavors American people would like, what macarons flavor. So we know what French people like, but we didn't know what was the famous recognized, I would say, macaron flavors here. So the farmers market and the Meetups and all the feedback that we got from early customers was really important for that, to, I would say, narrow our vision to start the business.


Felix: Yeah. So I think that one important aspect that you did first, though, was that when you did research online, what you were looking at was the demand and the competitive landscape. You found that there was a lot of demand online by looking at some of these SEO tools to see that there's a lot of search traffic for maybe French pastries or keywords around that. But then you did not find a lot of suppliers, a lot of stores, a lot of websites, that were there to meet that demand. But then from there, you said, "There's something there to this. Let's go a little bit further and try to meet people in person."


Now I think that's a great approach to going to these Meetups. You weren't trying to build a Meetup yourself. You were just attending existing Meetups, or existing audiences, existing people to meet. Can you talk to us about your approach there? How did you decide which kind of Meetups, which kind of events you would go to?


Anthony: Yeah, that was really a fun part because we just arrived literally a few days. We found an Airbnb in Los Angeles and we said, "Okay, how can we test fast and meet people?" So I knew that app, Meetup, in France it's pretty popular as well. So I said, "Hell, let's see what our audience would think about that." So at first, what we wanted to introduce was the macarons and the other pastries. But choosing the Meetup was kind of fun, because we didn't really know what kind of audience would purchase this kind of products. Is it as a gift? Is it for parties? Is it for baby showers, for weddings?


So what we did is... The first ever Meetups we did was a pregnant woman's from twins Meetups. That was kind of fun. Yeah, because that was literally the only one that responded to us. So we just say, "Hey, we have free pastries. We're French chefs. We just come over, and let you guys try and give us the feedback. That's the deal. That's it." So they were very happy to welcome us. So we arrived at this Meetup where there were lots of pregnant women with twins. So we just arrived with our pastries and let them try everything, yeah and we sit for two hours listening to twins pregnancy stuff. So that was fun.


Felix: That does sound fun, and I'm sure you entered a lot of different worlds throughout this process.


Anthony: Yeah, yeah. That was funny, because they were husband and wife, so we were hearing the feedback, and then hearing all the details about pregnancy and everything.


Felix: Definitely a big learning experience. Now, when you first decided to take this approach of meeting people in person, what exactly were you looking to find out? What would you consider a successful experiment, or successful time at one of these meetups?


Anthony: Yeah. So, the really first thing, we are a two-person team, husband and wife. We do everything in house, and we control 100% of the business. So we are free of what we choose to do. So, the only first thing we wanted to do is narrow the niche, narrow the products. Which is the first one? What is the first product we want to go out with? Because I knew it cannot go out with five, six different products. It's not a good strategy in my opinion. It's really better to focus on one main product that you know will work, because there's a demand and people are waiting for it. So the first objective was really to narrow that, to find that, what I call, MVP, most valuable product. That would be macarons for us.


So the first objective was this. Then once we have the MVP, so it's the macarons in our case, we start the farmers markets with only macarons and see, "Okay, what other flavors are popular? Do you like salty flavors? Sweet flavor? Fruity flavor? Creamy flavor?" All that. And narrow down further the niche. And once we got all these aspects, I will say, then we started online.


Felix: Got it. Now you mentioned that you found it was really important to narrow the niche, to narrow it down to just one product, and most people when they are launching a business or launching a brand, they're thinking, "Okay, what are all the different things I can sell?" And really try to launch with a lot of different SKUs, different product lines. Why did you find that it was important just to focus on just one main product? And what do you think this did for you, because you were so hyper-focused on just one product?


Anthony: Yeah, because in my opinion it's really important to be an expert, and really nail one product to enter the market. It's really much more easier when you have one specific product that you really control, that you are the best with, people recognize the quality of it. And then once you enter the pastry market online with one product, you can launch others because like I said, we are just a two-person team. So it's better to focus all your effort in one specific product that you can develop and perfect over time. And then once you are recognized in this one, you can start expanding with other products. Which we will do soon with the French crepes that we are launching soon.


Felix: Got it. Definitely want to talk about the expansion of the product lines to crepes in a little bit. So as you were doing this, as you were talking at these Meetups and you are meeting these people and they're trying out your products, what were some of the things that... Was there anything that surprised you about the feedback, or anything you heard that surprised you that you might not have come to on your own?


Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. The first objective, the main goal to further grow, was to create a subscription box of French pastry. So that was one pastry a month to your door. That was the original idea. Once we arrived here and we tested a few different French pastries, we realized that not all of them were well known enough here in the US to be worth pursuing and creating the product. So, we really switch upon these Meetups and meeting the clients in the farmers markets. We really switched towards the macarons at first because we really felt that it was lacking quality macarons here. And definitely the feedback was that, because every single clients always say, "Hey, there's no real French macarons here. We cannot find it. We need to send that as a gift." Or, "I have a wedding for my sister." Or, "I have a baby shower." And things like that always come back to macarons. So it was really obvious after that that we had to really switch our business model to focusing on macarons first.


Anthony: And then we actually created the subscription box as well. But yeah, every feedbacks that we got, either in the Meetups or in the farmers markets, was really telling us to go in that direction. So that's why we listened.


Felix: Yeah. Now when you went on to do farmers markets next, did you learn anything new there? Or was it more of the same, just reinforced what you guys were already hearing from those Meetups?


Anthony: Yeah, so like you said, the Meetups focused us with the macarons, and then we launched the farmers markets to go a little bit deeper into these markets. So the farmers market was more a test to see: Is there enough demand to focus only on the macarons? And the second objective was: What flavors? What are the flavors? Now, okay. We know it's macarons. What is important? Do you really care about the flavors? Do you have specific taste? We didn't know, really, what people might like here. So for example, one big things that we learned here was from a customer. I remember his name was Kevin. He said, "Hey, I saw your..." Because we were starting the website at the meantime to test. But yeah, he said, "Hey, it would really be great if we can pick what is the flavor we want in the box." Because at the time, what we had was a variety assortment. We had 10 or 12 different flavors. And yeah, this customer just came up and said, "Hey, I just want these two. Is it possible?" And we said, "Hey, maybe this is a feature that would be really valuable."


Anthony: And starting from that, we knew that it was very interesting to add this feature to be really specific on each flavor. Because sometimes people like fruity flavors, like passion fruit or raspberry, stuff like that. And sometimes people like creamy flavor, such as caramel, chocolate, tiramisu. And maybe the fruity people don't like the flavors, like salted caramel and everything. So this is the kind of feedback that was really useful for us at the farmers market.


Felix: Yeah. And one of the really cool things, interactive things, that I saw on your website, which is at Pastreez, P A S T R E E Z .com, is that you can customize these boxes, and as you're picking the items it actually populates on the image. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's really cool to see. What difficulties does this add into your supply chain when you're allowing people to customize your order to this degree?


Anthony: Yes, it was a challenge. At first, not that much because we were very small at the time. So it's just pick and choose from the batch from the day. But yeah, with our business model, every order it customized. So you can't really have pre-packaged, or pre-prepared all your orders ahead. No, each order is different. And I think now looking back to it, I think that's part of what made us different, is we really care about what you care about. So if you like specific flavor, yeah you can order 24 macarons of passion fruit if you are a passion fruit flavor. So yeah, it's kind of difficult for the supply chain thing. But I guess it's part of how we differentiate as well.


Felix: Yeah. I'd imagine, too, that having this level of customization probably gives you a ton of data to help with inventory planning and just knowing what kind of tastes you're marketing, in this case people in the United States, have, and it probably helps a lot with the planning of the inventory. So let's talk a little more about the supply chain, especially at the beginning. So once you had recognized that there was demand for your products, what kind of flavors people liked, what was the first step towards going online?


Anthony: We were attending three farmers markets at the time. It was Malibu, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa here in Southern California, and there were the two of us only. So we split, rented a car and go here, go there, and we said, "Okay." I mean, now it's been six months. We are doing the farmers market. And my objective as an online marketer and creating the website and everything, it was always to go online at the end. So this was really part of the phase of market study. Even if we started getting sales with farmers market, which helped as well, my main objective was always to go online after that.


Anthony: So we also used the farmers market to build an email list. So every customer had one extra free macaron at the market if they share with us the emails. So we started to get a little bit of community here of macarons fans. And as the website started to go, because after six months we had all the feedbacks we needed. Every feedbacks we had at the time was always the same repeating. So we felt like, "Okay, I mean that's it. We already know what's important to them. Now let's get back to work online." So what we did was a transition from the markets to online. But I really wanted to stay at the markets while we were building the websites, because we can use this kind of feedback for the online as well.


Anthony: So we switched from, "Okay, I want you feedback for macaron flavor," to, "Okay, what is the feature you would like to see on the website? Does a subscription box mean anything to you? Would you care? Do you need a gift box? Would you use a macaron tower?" To have feedback for the online application as well.


Felix: Yeah. And I think one thing you touched on that was awesome was that you built an email list even as you started just offline. A lot of people think, "Okay, an email list is something you build online only." But you actually started offline. And even better than that, you actually gave them an incentive to sign up. I think this is ingenious, where you aren't just putting out a clipboard where people can sign up if they want to. They don't get anything on the spot. You incentivized them this time to sign up. How effective was this just to give away one free item for them to put their email address down?


Anthony: It was pretty effective. Maybe two out of three customers signed up. And we just had a piece of paper, and everybody writes their email address over there. And what we started to do is emailing our customers about, "Hey, next week at the farmers market it will be these flavors." And we got repeat customers that comes every week. And we started relationship, actually, with them, over time. After three or four years now, we still talk to them. So, yeah it was pretty effective, and it was a way for me to start the transition from the markets to online.


Felix: Yeah. When did you start seeing things flip where most of your sales were now coming online rather than offline at these farmers markets?


Anthony: Yes. So, we saw that at Christmas time. We started the website, I believe it was September 2017. And we started the business in April 2017. So we started the markets about May, something like that. And the website was fully operative, I would say in September. And now switching back to the online things that I know a little bit more, with SEO, with online marketing and all that stuff, because I knew this niche was an accessible niche for us, because there wasn't that much competitors, and there wasn't that much quality, similar products online. So starting September, sales were only the farmers market people. And then October we started ranking for macarons near me, which is a main keyword. So it's something I was advised when people asked me about that, is put your name on the product, and near me. So activate those words is really, really strong because people have an intent to purchase.


Anthony: But yeah, so the switch I would say it's Christmas time, because we were getting... At the time there were so many orders for us, and we didn't have time to fulfill our duty, I would say, to the farmers market. So, the first rush really with pastries was Christmas time. Then, once we passed Christmas time, arriving in January 2018 was a little bit slow. We said, "Hey, let's give the farmers market in parallel and see how it goes." And then Valentine's Day arrived. And this was another rush. So at this time, after February, we slowly walked out of the farmers market, because we already also see in the revenue shares, onlines were doing much better by that time to the farmers market. And farmers market, you have to bring your canopy, you have to build everything, you stay there for nine hours. So at the time, it started to be too much to be on both for the two of us.


Anthony: So that's how we slowly exited the markets by mid-2018, something like that.


Felix: Yeah, you had mentioned that, first of all, it popped off during the holiday season around Christmas, and you also mentioned around Valentines Day. So it sounds like gifting is a big part of your business. What changes did you make to your business to take advantage of the fact that a lot of your customers were coming to buy gifts for others?


Anthony: Yeah. So for Christmas, the first Christmas, we had a macaron gift box. This was our first, I would say, custom packagings. It was a custom gift box, kind of iPhone box, very smooth, very cool design. It was really designed to be gifted. So that worked well. And then for Valentines, what we did is we focused on heart macarons. This actually was the first ever online. It was a heart shaped macarons with flavor raspberry. So it's really deep red. So it's perfect for the occasion. And yeah, we did a specific flavor for Valentine. So it worked pretty well at the time. It's really the beginning. So we are not effective in the shaping. We are not effective in the supply chain. And to give you a fun fact here, the first gift box that we ordered, we ordered about 1000 gift box. It was too small for the macarons. So it was very hard to put all the macarons in the correct way to ship correctly. So yeah, it was really the beginning of that.


Felix: Yeah. And you mentioned... I would definitely want to talk about the packaging, what you learned from there, but one thing you talked about was how you're still learning about the logistics with shipping and everything. And one interesting thing that you have now, which I don't see from other vendors, other than maybe flowers or something, is that you're able to schedule out a delivery where you can add an event day. I guess if it's going to deliver for Mother's Day, or Valentine's Day, or Christmas. You want to be able to purchase it now, but then schedule it out in the future. Talk to us about how this works in the back end? How do you handle things like scheduling when people make a purchase where they don't want the item delivered for weeks from now.


Anthony: Yes, that's a great question because we actually took advantage of a Shopify feature. I don't think it's made for that in the beginning, but we kind of tricked it this way. For the shipping options at checkout, you can add different shipping options. And what we did is simply add a shipping option there and say, "Hey, this is Mothers Day reservation." So pick this shipping option if you want it to arrive around Mothers Day. And that's what we do every single rush time, for Christmas, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, these kind of big rush dates. We always have the shipping option there to say, "Hey, pick this one if you really want this as a gift for Mothers Day."


Anthony: And this is kind of a game changer, because it allows us to get presales, even a month ago. For example, Valentines Day is February 14. Since mid-January we can start getting orders, because sometimes people really order ahead of time. And with this option, it's really easy for us for the back end, because we can put the list and say, "Hey, these people don't want the order to ship right now." So we put that on the side, and then we will ship closer to February 14.


Felix: Yeah. And during these special holidays, you mention you've done things like special flavors for certain special holiday. Are there certain other features or product add-ons that you feel like do well, especially if it's for gifting customer?


Anthony: Yeah. What we had is two specific customized items on the website. So, on the product page, for example of the macaron gift box, there is two specific custom items that we added, is add event date, and add gift note. So add event date, for example if your wife's birthday is in a month, you can still order right now. You just have to click "add event date" and you select your date on the calendar, and we will ship closer to that date. Same thing for the gift note. You just click add gift note from the product page. You add your gift note. And this will be printed on the gift receipt along with your order. So those really work well because, again, it goes in the customization way, like picking your flavor, adding your gift notes, adding your gift date. You feel really cared when you order like that.


Anthony: So I guess it goes in the same direction with the customized thing that we really focused on.


Felix: Yeah. And when you were launching these different gifting options, were there different price points that you play? What have you learned about how to either price, or display, a product that is specifically meant for someone to buy as a gift, versus just a product that they would buy for themselves?


Anthony: For themselves, for example, if you buy macarons for yourself or for at home for just dessert or stuff like that, you would pick a simple packaging. You don't really care about the packaging, as long as it ships well and stays fresh and everything. This is okay. But really for the gift part, we have some specific items that are purposed for gifts, like the macaron gift box, or even we have a gift subscription box, where you can pre-pay for three months, six months, or 12 months. And the recipient will receive a box of new macarons for three months, six months, or 12 months. Yeah. The macaron gift box, for example, we're really focused on the smooth packaging to feel special, because when you gift something, especially when you ship, you really want this "Wow" effect when the customers receive the box. So our main example here was the Apple packaging for iPhones. I really fell in love with this packaging. It's really smooth, lots of details. So our macaron gift box feel exactly like that. And yeah, it's really a way to make your recipient feel really cared.


Felix: Yeah, that makes sense. Now, so you mentioned earlier these 1000 gift boxes that you ordered that were too small. Talk to us about what happened. How did you react or adapt to the situation?


Anthony: Yeah. So at the time it was a pretty big mistake we made. But we keep learning, so that was part of the process I guess. So, the gift box were here. It was beginning December, no time to reorder or to back order or to do anything. What we had to do is make them fit. So what we had to do is actually trick the gift box inside, push it a little bit the border, adapt our products to the packaging actually. We really had to change the macaron, because they were too big. So we found a way in the recipe to make them a little bit more flat so they can fit correctly in the box. But yeah, this period was really a nightmare because for each order, we spent too much time. It was really, really day and night. So when the 1000 gift box were out of stock and sold out, we really celebrated because we knew that now we were going to get the better packaging that fits perfectly with our product.


Felix: Yeah. And I guess what was the lesson learned moving forward when it came to figuring out what kind of packaging to order, to create, when you have special items, or even for your more reoccurring items?


Anthony: At the time, our recipe, we controlled the recipe, but from Paris to Los Angeles, it was really different weather, different humidity, different temperature. And all these factors affect the macaron recipe. So it got too fast out of hand because we had too many demand. So the size of the macaron, we didn't really know that much. So that's why we ordered an average sized packaging, and we said, "Hey, let's see how it goes." So, what we did after that, when it got sold out, we said, "Before we order new packaging, let's control 100% the product. Once we have really specific average size..." Because macarons are hand made, so each macaron will be a little bit different in size. That was the trick here. But once you get, I would say, precise enough, accurate enough, in your product, we were comfortable enough to reorder.


Anthony: So the lesson we learned, I would say is that we really needed to know 110% our products and our process before ordering custom packaging, because custom packaging, it makes it custom if it really fits right for your product, If you order, I would say, an average packaging that fits product A, B, and C, it's okay. But it's not a custom packaging for this product. And it feel less care about when you receive it. So, we really wanted the product to fit the packaging, and the packaging to fit the product. So we controlled the product a bit more before to reorder this custom packaging. Then, yeah, the next batch was perfect.


Felix: Yeah. And you talk a little bit about this unboxing experience that you really wanted to have this "Wow," this delight factor that you would find with opening up an Apple product. Talk to us about that. How do you design it? What are some of the things that you changed or have added to your packaging that gives that fun, that delightful unboxing experience for customers?


Anthony: Yeah. The whole idea behind the pastries gift box was to get... It was like a jewelry box. You order some jewels, or ring at Tiffany and Co., and you open that with a ribbon and stuff like that. All that is part of it. So I wanted a soft touch box, kind of like the iPhone packaging. This was really important to us because before even opening the box, you touch it. And you have to feel special when you receive something like that. So the first experience is the look and the feel. So the soft touch was the first thing.


Anthony: The second thing was we wanted to have an embossed logo that fits outside of the box, so when you put your hands over it you can feel the logo. This makes it feel special as well. And then the opening. Inside, it's what's really important for us, that the macarons really doesn't move during transit, stay very perfectly so when you open the box you can see the bright colors of different macaron flavors. And then the only thing you need to do is try and taste them.


Felix: Makes sense. Now, I want to talk a little bit about the growing business that was happening online. So it sounded like a lot of your customers at one point were coming from just offline customers that were maybe buying from you online. And then you mentioned that one of the efforts that you put into driving traffic that was purely coming from online was around SEO, and you mentioned one key thing is to put your product plus near me as a phrase that you want to rank for. Tell me more about that. What are some of the SEO things that you've done to rank highly in your category?


Anthony: Yeah. So, the really first focus I had was macarons near me. The near me is really important because, like I said, it focuses on the buying intent. So people who type anything near me, they are very interesting and they have the purchase intent. So I really focused on this. I use the plug in SEO for Shopify to help me with that. So you can, I would say adapt your page to rank for those. What I used is really SEMRush. It's really, really helpful because you can see for macarons near me, who are the other competitors that are ranking for it. And then you can analyze them and see why they are ranking for it, and then beat them at that.


Anthony: So, since it was a pretty small niche, I was able to get... Yeah, within a few months we were top one ranking for this keyword. And that really, really helped us. For the traffic, visitors, I always advise and focus on organic first. We are not really fond of paid ads. Maybe we can enter into details about that. But I really prefer the organic stuff, because organic stays there. You can see come up and down. You can fix it up. And it's really about your energy and your capacity to adapt. And also, what also helped us at the time, growing up into this top one ranking in Google, was the reviews and blogs.


Anthony: We started to get requests. "Hey, can I try your macarons? I can make a review." And stuff like that. So we were very happy about that because at the time, we really wanted to get some more feedback about the macarons. So, yeah. Really focused on organic search, keyword at first. And then once we were ranking for macarons near me, I started for all the keywords as well.


Felix: And was this mostly off-site SEO? Because I would imagine when people talk about SEO a lot of them are talking about running blogs, or creating a lot of content. What was your strategy for being able to rank for something like the near me keyword phrase?


Anthony: Yeah, it was both actually. It was in-site and off-site. It really goes hand in hand. So the first thing is I really adapted the website with the keywords. So the main page, of course, but specific product page as well, because you really want your customer, especially when it's someone typing "macarons near me," you want the first page they see is a product page, because you have less clicks to arrive to the purchase. If you send them to your main page, which is Pastreez.com, you still have to click buy, then you select your product and everything. It's more clicks. So what I did really, is adapting a specific product page to the keyword.


Anthony: So, for example, the 48 macaron page is really, I would say, detailed and focused for the macaron near me keyword. And then off-site... Sorry I cannot... But yeah. So this is in-site. So what I would advise is really each product has focused on one specific keyword. So this way you can rank the same website for different keywords very efficiently. So 48 macarons go to macarons near me, 24 macarons go to buy macaron keyword, and everything. Something like that.


Anthony: And then off-site, when you start, you are nothing online. So it was important for me to find out who are the people that give reviews online for these kind of products, and just reach out to them and say, "Hey, I have this product. We are pretty new. We'd love to send you a box for free and just tell us what you think about it." And yeah, it started like that for off-site SEO. And all together, it helped us ranking really fast for these keywords.


Felix: Oh, so it wasn't just inbound requests from people that wanted to review your products. You actively tried to reach out to try and get blogs and reviewers to review the products?


Anthony: As well, yes. Yeah. Because when we started, you are nothing online. There is plenty of websites. So we didn't have that much of a reach out. But we first reached out and say, "Hey, we can send you free products. Just let me know what you think." That was pretty much it. And if they were happy enough, they would make a blog post. And then the snowball effect was that other bloggers were subscribed to their blogs. So once they see they reviewed us, we started receiving requests to review elsewhere.


Felix: Okay. So once you get one outlet, one blog to review, there's going to be a snowball effect of others that want to review as well. And what's your involvement here other than just sending them the product to review? Are there ways to, not incentivize them, but get them linked back to you, which is a big factor in SEO? Is there any way to encourage that, or does that typically just happen when they are reviewing your products?


Anthony: To be fully honest, I'm not a fan of paid advertising too much, especially when it comes to small blogs. We send you free product, and if you like it enough, just tell us what you think. We just want your feedback. And if you really like it too much, you can write about it. And at this point, we will also share with our social media, Instagram, share the blog post as well. So it's kind of a, they give us visibility, we give them visibility. It's a win-win situation. It was more like that. And to this day, I work really like that, because we are confident with our product. We know we have a good product.


Anthony: So yeah, I really feel like it's better to share visibility together, rather than paying for visibility, because it's kind of biased a little bit when you pay someone to review your product, because of course if you paid them, they would most likely give you a positive comment. So yeah, we really want to stay flat on that. And that's what we did since the beginning. We got reviews from Le Cordon Bleu Paris, Travel + Leisure, even Buzzfeed, and we never paid a single dollar for these kind of referrals.


Felix: Yeah that's amazing. And one thing that you mentioned too was about how, when you're choosing what products to sell, is to focus first on a single product, like you had mentioned, with high profit margins. Talk to us about that. When you are identifying products have highest profit margins, are there ways that you have control over the profit margins, either increasing the prices or decreasing the expenses? What are some ways that you've been able to maximize profit margin?


Anthony: Yes, that's a great question actually, because the the profit margin was part of the decision making for macarons. macarons for French pastries is almost the biggest profit margin product ever, because when you look at it, ingredients to make macarons is: Almond flour, sugar, and egg whites. The almond flour is kind of expensive, but it's not that big of a deal, especially in California where we have the best almonds in the world. But the ingredients itself is not expensive. To give you an example, for 24 macarons, it costs 2.4 dollars to make. And we sell them for $49. So it's a 95-plus profit margin. But the price is actually fair when you compare to the competitors, and the secret in macarons is not about the ingredients itself. IT's really into the process. It's very, very hard to get quality macarons. You need to practice. You need to know the techniques. So it's a high profit margin product because of the process, not because of the ingredients.


Anthony: And that's made the whole difference because, like I said earlier, we control 100% of the process. We do the macarons. We package them. We ship them. We don't do any outsourcing. So when you control the supply line from A to Z, you can really make good profit margin.


Felix: Right. So the more you can get the process dialed in, the more you increase and sustain your profit margin as you grow. That makes sense. Now you mentioned earlier too about how you're now, for the first time, expanding your product line into French crepes. So tell us about that. How did you decide that was going to be the next addition to your product lines?


Anthony: Same deal. We did the same research, and same focuses that works for us for the macarons. So what I did is first started with SEMRush, SEO, checking the keywords, just analyzing and see, "Is this product a good fit for here? Do American people like crepes? Is it in high demand? What are the competitors? What people are doing and not doing?" So the results were... To give you an example, there are macarons near me in SEMRush, it's about 60,000 volumes of results per month. Okay? And the crepes are about 75,000 volumes of results a month. So the market seems a little bit more market than macarons. And when you check, I would say, the competitors for the crepes, there is simply none online so far. There is simply none.


Anthony: So yeah, there is none. Except of course for Walmart and Target and things like that. But there is no online bakery that focuses on crepes that ship fresh to your door. Of course, there are creperies near you in your city. But if you are not in a big city that has crepes, that's it for you. You can't have access to quality crepes. So we did exactly the same process.


Felix: And do you find that's the case, that a lot of your customer orders are disproportionately coming from smaller cities that maybe don't have any kind of French pastries local to them?


Anthony: Yes, we do. A lot, actually. Because if you don't live in Los Angeles, or let's say Boston, New York, Miami, these kinds of big cities, that's it. You don't have access because this is a very specific pastry. So let's say you have a baby shower and you really want to have a special day, where you're enjoying these specific pastries, you have to find it online, because if you don't, if you live in a rural area, or not in a big city, you won't have access to it. So yeah. With Shopify you can get the reports of which states actually orders, and it's very fun to check that, to see what is the state that ordered the most. Of course for us it's the most populated state. It's New York, New Jersey, California. But it's not necessarily in the big cities. So we make it possible for anyone in the US to get quality French macarons, quality French crepes to your door.


Felix: That makes sense. Now you had mentioned that you are shipping throughout the United States. Are there special considerations for packing and shipping food products that you had to distribute to the entire country?


Anthony: Yes. It was the second challenge, right after, you remember the issue we had in the beginning. Yeah, so packaging is a really, really important step, especially for shipping food products. So at first, we didn't know. We ordered from competitors. We see how they package, because you don't want to reinvent the wheel. Somebody must have done something smart before you. So just find out about them, order their products. That's what we did, and we say, "Hey, this..." We ordered from a cupcake company, and we said, "Hey, this is very clever." There was a clam shell container that protects the cookies. And then there was an insulated part, and then there was an ice pack, and then there was bubble wrap, and there was all these little details that they came forward with their products. We found out it would fit for us as well.


Anthony: So that's what we did. And shipping for food products is one of the main issue. That's why for crepes, that we are launching soon, we really wanted to get rid of that issue straight away. So what we chose to do for the crepes is ship them into a vacuum sealed bags. When you ship into vacuum sealed bags, the product is perfect, still fresh. You still have to put ice packs and insulated pouch, but it won't break. It won't have any problem. So really, really, really important step in the shipping process.


Felix: Makes sense. So Pastreez.com. P A S T R E E Z .com. I'll leave this last question. You mentioned you're now moving to French crepes for your next product. What do you think are going to be some of the biggest challenges coming your way in the near future?


Anthony: Scaling, because for now, like I said earlier, we want to keep it for us maximum 
amount of time. So what we did is we did husband and wife team. My wife keeps the recipes, and I am for the online stuff. So, recently what we had is we opened the first pick up location here in Southern California. So you can order online and select the free pick up at checkout. Shopify allowed that. So this was three, four months ago. So this was a big step for us this year. And then is scaling, because like I said, the recipes itself is really technical.


Anthony: So we would have to hire someone and train them very, very much so they became very strong at this recipe thing. But also, we would probably, not outsource, but hire someone to help for the shipping, especially during the rush hours for Christmas and all these dates. So yeah, and after that's the production. As long as you can keep the production line, you can ship. So at this point, we were able to do it just the two of us, even sometimes day and night so you get complicated. But soon we'll have to jump higher and get more machines for the recipes, and help for the shipping and the production process as well. So that's the next, I would say, challenge for us.


Felix: Awesome. Yeah, it sounds like a big challenge, but at least clearly defined what you need to focus on. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience and advice, Anthony.


Anthony: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was nice to talk to you.