From Devastating Hacks to a Successful Exit: Skivys Femme's Kelly Degnan

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I think entrepreneurs and business owners should just give everyone all of their failures and all of their hurdles so we can all look out for this. If anyone doesn't have their domain triple protected and you're listening to this right now, get into whatever platform you have hosting your domain right now and just triple protect it. Because it was very hard to figure out and it was really hard to build back up the reputation of the domain.

Speaker A: Foreign. You're listening to Deal Closers brought to you by website closers.com a show about how to make your business profitable, scalable, and one day even sellable. I'm Jason Gilliken and on the show today we're going to hear about how she built her company Skivvies Femme and then eventually sold it using website closers.com welcome Kelly.

Speaker B: Hi. Thanks so much.

Speaker A: I'm really excited to hear more about your story and I read the press release about the acquisition and that's pretty much all I know. So I'm naively curious about how it all began. So let's go back Kelly, to the beginning. When did you have inclination that you were an entrepreneur?

Speaker B: Probably my whole life. I've been starting small businesses since I was a kid and in my teen years I definitely dabbled in all kinds of stuff. Anything that I could make that people would buy from me, I've always loved doing. But skivvies came about.

Speaker A: Whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, we can't, we can't skip over that. Uh, what were some of the businesses when you were a kid and a teenager? Are you like making bracelets? Like what are you doing?

Speaker B: Oh, way better than that. When I was a little kid, I grew up in Ohio and my next door neighbors had a huge buckeye tree. State. Tree. State nut of Ohio. Yeah, state. So I would gather the buckeyes, paint them and sell them back to the neighbor who's, who owned the tree. So that was my first little entrepreneurial journey. I was like, I can make money off of people who already own the stuff. It was great. And then I've, I'm super creative. I've been an artist for years. So I uh, was dabbling in all kinds of different craft projects through my teens. Started painting and doing other things then. So I've, I've done just about any creative entrepreneurial endeavor you could come up with. And then this business, Skivvies came about in a little year called 2020, which you might remember. So at the time I was doing, I was making a living as a full time artist. I um, was Doing large scale commission abstract painting projects. And I had a great studio which I then had to shut down when both of my kids came home from school during COVID And I quickly realized that if I had to be an online school teacher, uh, slash principal slash mom, somebody in my house was going to die. So I thought I gotta get back into doing something for myself during that time. So it was really interesting. I started thinking about what would I come up with, what problem did I have in my own personal world that I wanted to solve. I feel like that's how a lot of businesses get started. And during COVID my both of my kids had their small little pod. If you remember those times, my son had a small little pod of friends that could come over to our house and he could go over to their houses. And so we were doing a ton of sleepovers with his little pod of friends. And he was young at the time. And I was realizing it was one night in particular we had I think two sick kids and one kid who was missing his mom in the night. So I was up and down all night with these kids and I am built in such a way that I would have to throw on bra and full outfit and then go back and deal with kid and then throw outfit goes deal with a kid. And I thought this is a little ridiculous. There must be some kind of sleepwear on the market that I would personally like and enjoy that had a built in bra layer. That's how the concept started. Did went to the bottom of Google searches and couldn't find anything on the market that existed. And I thought that's interesting. Why don't I just go ahead and make it? This is again, I think such the saga of entrepreneurs, right? Like have this idea and are completely naive. How hard could that possibly be? I'll just start a little clothing line. Never having that in clothing before. And oddly the process was so much easier and faster than I could have expected. I started out just googling manufacturers. I tried to have it manufactured in the states and it turns out that the suppliers that I found overseas, the communication was better, the quality was better and it was just so much easier than I could have expected. So I went about the process of uh, solving this problem of having super cozy comfortable and functional sleepwear slash loungewear that I could sleep in and pop out of bed, roll into helping kids or roll into my day, take my dog for a walk, go on errands and not have to change a thing. So I went about getting everything that I could find on the market. From athletic wear, swimsuits, prom dresses, current sleepwear situations, lingerie, anything that I could find. And I piece parted this skeletal thing together on, uh, my grandma's old sewing machine, and I sent it off to manufacture overseas. And that's how I got my very first prototype.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And it only took about two rounds of working with them, um, till I had the perfect finished dress that I loved. I made it for myself. And I thought if I have this issue, certainly there must be at least one other woman on the planet who would like to see the same thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think every. Every woman with kids in that same problem. Right, right.

Speaker B: And it's not just the having of kids, but really, could. Could I make a, uh, functional and fabulous dress that you was going to be comfortable enough to sleep in, but that was going to be stylish enough that you would want to wear all day?

Speaker A: Yeah. This is amazing. So let's go back to the manufacturing part of it, because, like, how long does this take you? And then how much does that cost to get, uh, a prototype or two prototypes like you were talking about?

Speaker B: Yeah, great question. I was really lucky through only Googling to find this manufacturer. I tried about 10 different manufacturers, both in the states and abroad. And I found this manufacturer who specialized in the kind of material that I wanted in this modal spandex blend, which happens to be amazing. It's super soft and it's thermal regulating. So that's perfect for sleepers, hot sleepers, night, uh, cold sleepers, and they specialize in sleepwear as well. So they were in the exact niche that I wanted and they were fantastic at it. So like I said, I sent off this skeleton of a sample to them, um, that I had piece parted together, and within the first two rounds, it was almost perfect. The sampling process, I actually don't think cost me anything. I think that the sampling with them was free.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Also went with them because the moq was very small. So I could start. I bootstrapped the entire thing from the beginning. And I think I could start with a minimum order of about a hundred pieces across a couple of skus. Mhm. So, okay. It was fantastic.

Speaker A: So, all right, what's going through your head at this time? You've been an artist and you've had that life. Covid rocks, everybody. Um, and you're thinking, okay, I don't want to be the teacher slash principal, but I want to do something. Were you ready to go into a completely different world?

Speaker B: So I love learning and I love an adventure. And this I just Thought would be a fun little side hustle for a little bit. Just. Plus, uh, how long could this thing called Covid last? How long were my kids really going to be online? Maybe a month, maybe two months. No big deal at all. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I really just went in for the adventure of it and to learn. I thought it would be great to learn how to start an online company. And then I thought that would be something that I could teach my kids and maybe do with them. And I, I thought this would be a path that would perhaps take a couple of months and I would have some fun learnings that I could pass along to my kids.

Speaker A: That's amazing.

Speaker B: Uh, then this little thing called Covid. Who knew that the idea of having sleepwear slash loungewear would be the perfect thing for that moment with everyone on Zoom all of a sudden that you could roll out of bed or you could stay in your nightgown all day and it's good looking enough that you could be on Zoom. It was the perfect thing for the moment. And that was never my intent. It just happened to work out beautifully.

Speaker A: Well, you can say it wasn't your intent, your intent. I'll call you a genius. It's okay. We can maybe it's somewhere in the middle, but yeah, I always thought, like, there should be a line of clothing specifically called Zoom Wear.

Speaker B: You know, it's just, you know, it's called Skivvies, but. Yes, yes.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, so you get, uh, the prototype back and at some point you're like, boom, nailed it. Yeah. And then you're like, well, let's make a hundred of these. Is that how it went?

Speaker B: Yep, that's how it started. I launched basically to friends and family of, uh, October 2020. And it was so fun. All of a sudden, all over, I'm in Boulder, Colorado, and all over Boulder, I'm seeing my friends and friends of friends running around town in these fabulous dresses. And it was interesting. I was asking my friends at the time, are you wearing them as nightgowns? Are you wearing them as dresses? And it was 50, 50 and has continued to be across the board with our customers. It's both sleep and loungewear, so you can wear it either way. It was just so great seeing all my friends, you know, adopting to these skivvies dresses so quickly. And then I thought, well, I really have something here and might as well put a little money behind it. Still bootstrapped. So I took the money that I was making from the friends and family round and I put A little bit of money into everything.

Speaker A: Hang on, hang on. You said friends and family round. Is this something where that round m meant you sold it to them or like, you raised some money?

Speaker B: No, just through sales.

Speaker A: Got it. Okay. Gotcha.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I found my first ad agency. I didn't think I knew nearly enough about running Facebook ads, which I stand by. So I found a first advertising agency and put a little bit of money behind some Facebook ads, and that started really moving the needle pretty fast. And then I guess, moving along quickly. Three agencies later, I realized I actually have an agency background. I was in marketing agencies for a handful of years, and I realized I just need to know what I'm doing here. I would rather take this away from agencies who were performing. Okay. And it was growing the business slowly. So I went from probably about $10,000 in sales during fourth quarter, just with friends and family that first year, 2020, to getting it just over six figures, just over the, um, 100k mark the following year, 2021. And then when I decided to take the ad sales away from agency world and find a single player who could both teach me how to do ads and have somebody that I could really trust to grow this, I found a gentleman who really knew what he was doing, and he was very patient with me and was teaching me the back end of it as well. So I felt comfortable with the metrics. And then it skyrocketed. Then it went over seven figures the following year.

Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Okay. Um, so you mentioned Facebook ads. Do you have a website at this point, or is it just on Facebook? Like, when did. When did that develop?

Speaker B: I built the Shopify website immediately. So I built that in 2020 myself. Pretty basic. But Shopify, I think, as we all know, I think it's a game changer. So any. Any mom who's an artist trying a side hustle can now build her business overnight on Shopify. It's really that easy. And again, I love learning. So I dove in pretty, pretty headfirst into wanting to learn all the technology that was available for building your own e Comm store.

Speaker A: Yeah. While the kids are at home.

Speaker B: But I'm not teaching them right.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Let the laptop take care of that.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right.

Speaker A: Um, that's amazing. So you go from, you know, some sales in 2020. You see people around Boulder that are wearing your products. Six figures in 2021, and then seven figures already in 2022. So was it super early on in 2020 where you're like, oh, this is going to be my life for a while. We've got something here.

Speaker B: You know, I don't think I ever thought that it was just honestly so much fun. I was having so much fun. I got to do. It was so creative still. So I wasn't painting anymore. I found this way more creative than my life as an artist. I got to develop different products, different skus, I got to make different prints for these dresses. And then the E commerce learning, the learning of these platforms I found just as uh, creative and interesting as anything I've ever done in our world. I loved it. So I guess the whole time I never really was planning or wondering what was coming next. I was just rolling with it and having so much fun.

Speaker A: Wow. But at some point you're like, oh my gosh, this is serious money here.

Speaker B: Mhm. Right when seven figures started hitting at ah, that's right. I started realizing I should probably think this through a little bit more, start having a little bit more structure. Also, there were definitely roles at that point. I couldn't handle everything. So at uh, around that point I brought on two of my very close friends to do both customer service slash social media, be my right hand person and another very close friend to do my email campaigns. So again, speaking of having fun, I was working with two of my closest friends who happened to be wildly talented. And then all of us were having a good time together. So that was the whole team at, uh, seven figures. I was outsourcing the ads, which was great, and he was running with that. And then I outsourced a couple of other roles, but that was it. It was me and a couple of girlfriends, this gentleman who was running our ads.

Speaker A: Okay. So friends and family. Hiring them is risky because it's tough to have those conversations of you're not doing the thing well or if, you know, worse comes to worse, like it's tough to let people go. Like, how did you think through? Yeah, I'm going to hire these friends.

Speaker B: For me it was a no brainer. My first friend who I brought on, she is both of them, they are so overqualified for wanting to do this. Uh, wildly overqualified, both of them. So they had extra time themselves. They both had young kids at the time. They had extra time and wanted some extra side hustle money. They were both very busy, but they said they would love to learn these things as well. So it was very similar to me and how I dove into this. They had extra time night and weekends. They um, wanted to learn the skill sets that were going to be required by the jobs they were going to be doing. And I had this opportunity. I trust both of them implicitly. And my, if you could even say, management style, I never felt like I was managing either one of them, but my style is very upbeat and super supportive. I was just as grateful that they wanted to do these roles and take them off of my plate as they were. I think to be able to have the opportunity to learn this and to have some extra money coming in, that's amazing.

Speaker A: Kelly. So you've talked about, uh, this rocket ship, right? In growth. I mean, amazing. There had to be some bumps along the way. You know, can you talk about some of the challenges that, that you face and any oh, crap moments?

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So it sounds all fun and games so far. Right, right. It was. It was. It. It absolutely skyrocketed and things were going unbelievably well until fourth quarter of 2023, so. So the business had been built. It was huge and growing. Fourth quarter, 2023, I took a big gamble, uh, and I placed a huge holiday order based on the trajectory of sales at that point. So I placed a huge holiday order for what I presumed was going to sell out during fourth quarter of all of our top sellers. And then something happened. Everything stopped right before fourth quarter, in fact. So. So you have to place inventory order months and months in advance because it's coming from overseas. And it was a huge order, the biggest order I'd ever placed at that point. So I gave them lots of lead time. I gave my phone.

Speaker A: Do you remember what kind of volume we're talking about here?

Speaker B: Over six figures or right around six figures of an inventory order. So big. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, right around end of August, beginning September, everything stopped working. Emails weren't getting reached, ads just stopped working entirely everything. But across platforms, everything stopped working. I, of course, go into panic mode and, uh, love problem solving because that is, I think the role of owning a business, being an entrepreneur and owning a business is just problem solving all the time. So here's a huge fire all of a sudden put in front of us. And I was on the phone with every platform. I was talking with Google and Klaviyo and, uh, Facebook every single day. Nobody could give me any information. So I'm talking with all these reps across these platforms saying I'm spending ungodly amounts of money with you. Tell me why this isn't working. What has happened? Something happened on this day and I don't know what it is. You have to help me. I was on for weeks and nobody could tell me what was happening again. Ad sales went from skyrocketing and performing like clockwork to almost nothing overnight. And our emails weren't getting seen by anybody. So our campaigns weren't working. We had a huge audience at that point. Nothing was working. Sales basically plateaued. Oh, yeah, I was absolutely freaking out.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It took, uh, weeks to figure out that our domain had been hacked from within the inside, uh, workings of GoDaddy, the platform where I had purchased the domain. It had been hacked and you couldn't tell. So even GoDaddy, who I was on the phone with also, they had no idea and they couldn't help either. It took me trying to switch my email platform from Klaviyo, uh, over to something else to try to figure out what this issue was. That I got this notification that our domain had been flagged as a bad actor. I was like, what does that mean? How do I figure this out? I had to figure it all out on my own that it had been hacked. And then to solve the hack and then to safeguard so that never happened again. And then to build back up our reputation so that Facebook would once again show our ads. And so our email provider was able to push our emails out. So we lost fourth quarter that year. So we went from seven figures. All of a sudden, everything just stopped and I had to rebuild the whole thing.

Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.

Speaker B: So that was fun. That was a little hurdle. That was fourth quarter 2023.

Speaker A: And so, uh, how do you recover from that? You know, slowly.

Speaker B: Yeah, slowly and with a lot of nights of drinking wine with my girlfriend, that's. That's what got us through in our skivvies, just barely through supporting each other.

Speaker A: Are you thinking like, we're done?

Speaker B: So at this point, you know, no, it was still. I mean, I guess that's just my personality. I'm wildly optimistic. So I thought this is a challenge. Once again. I love learning. So it's. It was a huge learning. And I have not told this story enough because I think entrepreneurs and business owners should just give everyone all of their failures and all of their hurdles so we can all look out for this. If anyone doesn't have their domain triple protected and you're listening to this right now, get into whatever platform you have hosting your domain right now and just triple protect it. Because it was very hard to figure out and it was really hard to build back up the reputation of the domain really slowly. Plus, our ads had stopped working and so you have to rebuild all of those campaigns and the performance and that takes time. So it was a challenge. I never thought that I was going to be closing the doors or anything like that at the time. Interestingly though, because the business had been going so well and the trajectory was so positive that I had started talking with a different group, um, in terms of selling the company at that point. And it was going to be great. Right. It was going to be a whole different valuation from when I was looking middle of that year to after this fourth quarter issue happened. So at that point I realized, okay, it's unsellable right now. I have to build this back up. No problem.

Speaker A: Real quick, let me ask, so you mentioned Facebook ads not working and uh, the email campaigns not working. Is the business based on ads and just outbound reach or is there a lot of word of mouth marketing as well in repeat customers?

Speaker B: Plenty of repeat customers. Our repeat customer rate was very good at that time. However, with this hack, our emails weren't reaching them. So that was an issue as well.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: But our business really, it skyrocketed because of Facebook ads. Our customer was on Facebook. It worked really well. Ads worked unbelievably well. Even at a time when people were saying Facebook ads were dead. Facebook was working great for us until this. Yeah.

Speaker A: Gosh. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, let me bring, uh, Eric into the conversation here. Eric, when did you become familiar with Kelly and Skibby's femme?

Speaker C: Well, Kelly, why don't you share with them how we met?

Speaker B: Yeah, sounds good. Actually, I will fast forward the story quickly. I rebuilt sales over the course of 2024 and things were once again going swimmingly again until we had another hurdle at another fourth quarter in 2024.

Speaker A: No, um, yeah, that's supposed to be the time to make all your money.

Speaker B: I know. And I had just rebuilt the business so it was back up to a seven figure Runway. Things were looking great again. And then we had another huge hurdle with Facebook for fourth quarter, 2024. It doesn't even matter too long of a story. But about this point was when I finally, my optimistic personality was like, this is too much even for me. I can't, I need help with this. And I believe I could find, uh, a player, an operator who could be better suited to running skivvies and stopping some of these hurdles that, uh, have come my way. Another friend of mine, a close friend in the e commerce world, had just sold her company with Eric and she gave me glowing raving reviews about Eric and website closers. And so I started a conversation with him basically saying, this is where I'm at. I'd had these detrimental fourth quarters. The books don't look like what I know the books could look like if I stayed on. I'm exhausted. And at the same time I was starting a new venture, serial entrepreneur. I was starting a new venture with my right hand, um, friend who was working with me at skivvies. So started the conversation with Eric about is this sellable? His of course first comment was, can you hold on and just rebuild? Because we're going to be looking at very different numbers if you can get the trajectory back on. And I basically said, no, I cannot. I am ready for help. And he was so kind and patient with me. He was exactly the personality and the only personality I think that could have gotten me through this time of thinking of selling my baby and being able to do it early at this, you know, at this point where I wasn't able to hold on and rebuild it. He was just so patient and really handheld me through the whole process.

Speaker C: I tell you, you know, a referral is the greatest form of flattery. And I'm so thankful and I'm humbled by that every time it happens. And uh, at the same time, the way I approach the work that we do and taking people through this process is first I want to know that it's the right decision for them to make and this goes for buyers and sellers. I don't want anybody to go through this process and then have regrets six months down the road. I want them to be thankful that I was involved in the process. And in Kelly's case, when we looked at it, we talked about the trajection that she was on and how she was forecasting month over month growth. And my comments and my feedback to her was, okay, we can go to market at this valuation currently and here's what we can expect in that scenario. Or if you can hang on and we can get to the end of the year and your forecast holds true, here's what your valuation is going to look like and I feel like you're going to be much better off. So I'm not in any hurry to take you. I want to do this when the timing is right for you. And so, uh, we actually, Kelly, if I recall correctly, there was a period of time, maybe 30 days, three weeks or so in between that conversation and when you came back and re engaged and said, you know what, I'm ready to do this. And so at that point we went to market. It was, it was Pretty exciting. You know, you were fantastic to work with. You were. You know, one of the things that I think makes the process a success is how the. How the founder and the seller approaches the deal and how they prepare information and how thorough they can be and how quickly they can respond. So you certainly made it easy for us.

Speaker B: It was a fun process, which I did not anticipate. And again, I give you so much credit, just your personality, and again, being so patient and so kind with me through the process. Uh, and then when we decided that we're gonna go for this now, see if you can find a buyer, see if you can find somebody appropriate, it was so much faster than I could ever have anticipated. That was something I didn't expect. And you found, Honestly, I think the perfect buyer for. For the company. And part of the process of this was the offer came in lower than what I think we had anticipated. However, looking at the full scope of. Was made up for by the fact that it was so fast that the buyer, um, was, I think, the perfect buyer for the brand and wanted to grow it had other brands in their world that they already owned that were going to be perfect, a perfect mix for Skibvis and that they had offered for me to also stay on in a role that was perfect for me. So it was just a perfect mix of everything. And again, so fast. It actually closed faster than we initially even anticipated. So it could not have been better.

Speaker C: Well, one of the. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is the buyer pool. We have over 1.3 million, I think, buyers in our buyer pool. And so when we take a company to market, make a pretty big splash, and we do it quickly. In this case, I have to get a shout out to a fellow broker, Leo Decker, who had cultivated the relationship with this buyer who's building a portfolio through acquisition. Um, anytime you have a strategic buyer who has, uh, a portfolio of similar brands and it's an accretive acquisition for them, it's an ideal fit. But more so than that, I'm really excited about your excitement in the relationship and being a part of that team going forward. So maybe if you. If you don't mind, Kelly, could you maybe expand on that a little bit? And for you, what it's like, uh, having your brand be a part of another team and being a part of this team while at the same time you're continuing to run and build this other brand on your own with your. With your friend, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's just. It's the best of every world. Honestly. So one of the things that you had said to me during the acquisition process, you said, I think knowing that I was already building another brand, you said, I think with this team you're going to learn so much because they do, like you said, have multiple brands in their portfolio. And they, they offered for me to stay on basically in whatever role I wanted to stay on. So they had just acquired another apparel company earlier this year. And I asked, before the, um, acquisition, I asked to get on the phone with her. The, the previous owner of that company, she had also stayed on. So I wanted to hear from her what the team was like, what it was like having her brand within this bigger portfolio now, how she found herself, uh, within the mix. And it was fascinating. We had a lot of parallels, her and I. She loved staying on, she loved the role that she was doing. And she kind of sang the praises of the whole team, of the buyer and of the team that she was working with. And then she said something interesting to me on the phone because she was running ops across their portfolio brands at that point. She was now the director of ops across the brands. She said, I tell you what, what do you like doing in the business right now? You can do that and what do you not like doing? We'll do that now. And I thought, this is maybe the best job interview I've ever had in my life. Who says that and who gets that opportunity? So I have stayed on as product development across the portfolio, which I would have been doing on the side in my sleep and for fun anyway. That's what I do. I own multiple URLs. That's, I, that's my hobby now is just dreaming up new product lines and new brands. And now I get to do that for this team of really a players. They're amazing to work with. And Eric was right. I've already learned so much and I've never had a full team. It was me and some friends and really piece. Parting this together and watching how this team works is only giving me more information and more resources for the brand that I'm developing on the side as well right now. So, again, best of every world.

Speaker C: So Kelly, as a, uh, as an artist turned entrepreneur turned successful, you know, business owner, and then, then you had a successful exit. There are others out there that are in your position who haven't taken that step. And what would be your recommendation to them if they're thinking about selling their business one day or if they're just operating and they haven't even considered that yet? What would be your advice to others that were in your position a year ago.

Speaker B: Great question and super easy. Just start the conversation because you had so much great information to share with me about whether this was the right time or whether we wait for a year, however long that was going to be. And that's when I keep talking about you being very patient and very kind with the process. You're also obviously incredibly knowledgeable. You've been through this so many times, but there was no rush. I'm, um, also going to tell one little scenario. I think I mentioned that when the business was originally skyrocketing, I was working with a, a different company. I have been given a lead for a broker at a different company to just have an early conversation with. It was so awkward and uncomfortable and honestly downright horrible. Obviously I won't mention the name of the other company, but I, I asked him at the time, I said, you know, this is my baby, this is this apparel brand. What are your recommendations for me to start getting ready for an eventual sale? And literally his response was just sell it now and be done with it and go to something that's not apparel. Basically he was like, there's no future in apparel. There's no great acquisitions or sales in for an apparel brand. Just dump it now and be done with it. Fast forward to initial conversation with Eric. I was asking him, how do you feel about, uh, an apparel brand and the potential of being able to find a buyer for an apparel brand? And your response was very much like, this is rate. Absolutely. We have buyers for that. Let's talk about the right time to sell it. Let's talk about what you want to see. Like what are your expectations? How can I help get you there? So my recommendation for any business owner is have the conversations early so you can set expectations with the right broker at the right company and you can start structuring your business for the exit you want very early on.

Speaker C: So what, one last self serving question. So if somebody's on the fence about whether or not they want to choose me to be their broker and represent them through this process, what would you say to them?

Speaker B: Oh, I think I've been very clear. I've already recommended you to a very close friend of mine. Uh, I think maybe two weeks after the sale of this, I had you talking to another friend of mine. Could you could not have made the process easier, better, and it's, you know, it's a really emotional process. When you and I were talking, I think you've said you typically feel like a Therapist for your clients. I'm sure that's what it's like almost every time that you made this process so easy, so comfortable. And again, I feel like perhaps I was lucky that you found this buyer so quickly. And this buyer happens to be perfect for this brand. But it was so much faster than I could ever have anticipated.

Speaker C: Well, uh, thank you so much for all the kind words. So, Kelly, would you like to share a little bit about this other business that you're building with your friend?

Speaker B: Yes. So much fun. So this was part of also not wanting to wait much longer for the acquisition of skivvies on the side. Serial entrepreneur had already started thinking about what the next business would be. And my right hand friend in the brand of skivvies, we had been talking for some time about are there, uh, other problems in our world that we would like to solve? And I think our both of us being busy working moms, our goal always with any brand we ever launched. I want to make women's lives easier. So we started wondering what other problems do we have? Being in our 40s, both of us also she had a whole cabinet full of supplements that she was taking sometimes and was taking up all of her cabinet space. I, on the other hand, wanted to be taking a bunch of things that, ah, I was told that I should and wanted to take. And I was actually taking nothing because of that was so overwhelming. I wasn't even taking a multivitamin and I was kind of feeling like crap all of the time. But I think I was just used to feeling like crap all the time. I was just too busy. I was stressed. That does a piece of work on your whole system. So I was just kind of used to feeling like crap all the time. We started wondering, is there a way to put everything you want and need in terms of vitamins, supplements, hair, skin, nail support, Everything you need and everything you want in one powder scoop. So no pills. You don't have to take 10 pills. And could it taste delicious? So that you look forward to doing this every day? It took us two years to do this. It was really, really hard. So again, going in very naive. This does not exist on the market because it's hard. You can white label something, you can put a turmeric pill out there tomorrow morning. But doing something like this that didn't exist was very complicated. And we can talk on another podcast when we're ready for the acquisition of that eight figure sale later. Uh, about all the hurdles that we've already had with that business. It's been Very hard. And we finally have our signature product which came out. We just finished up our friends and family round of sales on that and it's amazing and fabulous and it's everything that we wanted and more. And that was one of the other reasons of, of not wanting to wait to grow skivvies more is I am so excited about this new brand. It's called Vital Youth Blends. We call it Vibe V Y B Vital Youth Blends. And our first signature product is our Sunrise Morning Super Powder. It's an all in one everything has your vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, superfoods, functional mushrooms. It has a magic ingredient called D I M. I can't pronounce the full long name of it, but it's basically a, ah, hormone balancing ingredient that comes from cruciferous vegetables. It is everything that we have ever wanted and needed in one chocolate scoop that comes with organic cacao and coconut milk powder. It is delicious and I think it's the best thing I've ever made. So.

Speaker C: So is there a version of this for men? Because I think I need that today.

Speaker B: Actually, uh, there's nothing specific for women in it except for our branding, which is very fun. It has a very like 70s California vibe. So we want it so that we want the whole experience of Vibe of this super powder to be so much fun. And again, like I said, everything we do, we want to make women's lives easier. So you're super busy, you're running out the door, you have a couple kids, all of their needs comes first. You just need one scoop and you have everything and you're done. Nothing specific in this for women other than it's really cute and fun.

Speaker C: So where can people find Vibe online?

Speaker B: M so our URL is vital youth blends. So vitalyouthlens.com and we thought if anybody is listening to this and we, we would love to just share the word more. We're just in the very early stages of this, but we're going to give a, uh, 30 discount. We already keep our price point very low because we want this to be accessible. But if anybody wants to try and you guys are comfortable with us, we would love to pass along a uh, 30 discount. If you use the code VIBE30. So V Y B30. Anybody can go on there and check it out and get your first month's worth. It's just absolutely fabulous. My husband has been on this for months with me as well. I have both of my kids on this. My daughter's in college. She does not get Sick. It is like your all in one. It's. It's a magic powder. I call it the fountain of youth, also because it has a metabolism blend, digestive enzyme blend, and hair, skin, nails. So my hair has been growing like crazy since I've been on it. It's. It's a magic powder, and I could not be more excited. Thank you for asking.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And the skivvies brand, you want to share that URL as well?

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that. Skivvies.com sk I v y s.com unique spelling of it and a little, like, cheeky nod to, you know, the word skivvies is typically men's undergarments. So this was a little cheeky nod to, you know, women can have fun with, uh, how we dress as well.

Speaker C: That's fantastic. Well, just one final comment for me, Jason. Kelly, you're terrific to work with. Your excitement is certainly contagious. Just thank you for allowing me and trusting me to take you through your first exit. And I. I really appreciate you. You've been fantastic.

Speaker B: It was just so great, and I'm looking forward to the next exit.

Speaker C: Eric, let's do it.

Speaker A: Kelly, I love hearing the story about problem solving. Um, you know, you. You solved a problem with skibvies. You're solving a problem now with your new brand. It's not just creating a new thing like you're. You're actually solving the. The problem. So, yeah, I figure that you'll have another exit down the line, but for skibvis, that exit. I want to know, how did you celebrate?

Speaker B: Oh, funny. I haven't had time yet, so. Looking forward to celebrating.

Speaker A: Come on. No, no bottle of wine? No. Nothing special.

Speaker B: Well, the most fun part was I, um, had actually had a trip planned with my teenage son, and this deal closed so fast. It closed. It was going to be fast anyway, but it closed almost a week and a half early. So I was actually on a trip when it closed with my son going to Acadia National Park. So I guess I can say I celebrated with my son, who kind of was the inspiration from those initial sleepover days. We were on a mountaintop in Acadia national park together when the deal was closing, so.

Speaker C: Amazing.

Speaker B: We'll call that the first round of celebration.

Speaker A: That's very special. That's awesome. Well, Kelly and Eric, thanks so much for joining us on the Deal Closers podcast here. The story has been phenomenal.

Speaker B: So much fun. Thanks, you guys.

Speaker A: And thank you for watching or listening to the Deal Closers podcast brought to you by website closers.com if you're interested in selling your business or just want to start the conversation like Kelly said, visit websiteclosers.com if you're interested in podcast production, check out Walk West. I'm Jason Gilliken, and we'll see you next time on M. The Deal Closers Podcast. Sam.