This week on the Scale Academy Podcast, Ned Arick and Hilmon Sorey are joined by Alice Li, CEO and Founder of First Day, to talk about strategy and how to scale to eight figures.

What is First Day?

Alice begins by explaining that First Day is a direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand that is focused on health and wellness. They launched their first product, a multi-vitamin, roughly three years ago and have since grown to an eight figure company. Continue listening at 00:45 to learn more.

Ideation to Fruition

While the health and wellness industry may not be Alice’s domain of expertise, she had the idea for the company and she wanted to make it happen. Alice feels that it is a huge advantage to “...come from outside the industry and to come to it with fresh eyes.” She had her ideas and validated them with the appropriate professionals. Continue listening at 04:36 to learn more.

Demographics & Strategy

At 09:41, Alice admits that they were completely wrong about who they were targeting when they were first developing their product. They also found that what they thought people cared about in regards to their product was completely wrong. So, they looked at all of the data and took a different approach. Continue listening to find out what changed and how they did it.

Marketplace Segmentation & Advertising

First Day started out on Facebook, and it has continued to be a very scalable platform for them. In fact, the large majority of their marketing spend continues to be Facebook. In order to get the consumer’s attention, Alice says that you have to define the problem for the consumer to help them see the solution. You also need to have a “...really data and hypothesis driven process.” Continue listening at 17:34 to learn more.

What’s Next?

Alice feels that First Days is still in its early stages. They are expecting exponential growth in the coming year, and are also planning to launch in China later this year. Learn more about how they plan to do this at 23:27.

The Best Advice

At 27:46, Alice gives her biggest piece of advice- you have to think about lifetime value of the customer. Currently, customer acquisition costs are very expensive; however, 80% of First Day’s business is subscription based, which allows them to really manage costs. You have to think about how to create an economical way to acquire customers. Continue listening to learn more.

Key Snippets

00:45 What is First Day?

04:36 Ideation to Fruition

09:41 Demographics & Strategy

17:34 Marketplace Segmentation & Advertising

23:27 What’s Next?

27:46 The Best Advice