Caleb Marshall: Like get the fuck out of the health food industry if you want to create bullshit, what are you doing? The biggest danger in business is you don't know what you don't know. We're playing a long term brand game here and no hack is going to out hack that.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week Nathan Bush from E Suite and e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course keep your customers adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: When I say the words health food shop, what do you think of? Do you think of quinoa, kombucha? Old people, hippies? Those lollies that aren't really lollies? A weird smell that just hangs around. Well, today's guest looked at the health food shop of today and thought he's going to change it. Caleb Marshall is the co founder and the CEO of Tropeaka, a health food and nutrition company making and selling premium ingredient products such as protein powders, superfoods and wait for it, beauty custard. After being diagnosed with chronic fatigue in 2016, Caleb spent a lot of time in specialist shops building his health from within and experienced which led him to create an online health food brand that would appeal to a younger demographic. Today, Tropeaka ships to over 70 countries around the world with products garnering thousands, and I mean thousands, of five star reviews. In this chat, Caleb shares what makes his blood boil within the health food industry. We really hit a nerve here. It's a fun chat. We also discuss how an important distinction about team made all the difference for him and and he has the ultimate hangover cure. Could be the best 45 minutes you've spent of your life. And if like me, all that talk of beauty custard has got you salivating, head on over to Tripaka and use the generous gift code that Caliber's offered to add to CART listeners. 15% off for your first order@tropeaka.com with ATC15. That's ATC15. All right, so thanks to our partners Shopify plus and and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Caleb Marshall, CEO and founder of Tropeaka.
Nathan Bush: Caleb, thank you for joining us on Add to Cart.
Caleb Marshall: Good to be here mate. Thanks for inviting me on.
Nathan Bush: It's Easter Monday, public holiday.
Nathan Bush: Everyone else is at the beach doing
Nathan Bush: things with their family. We're sitting here talking about a podcast. Is this indicative of Your life as a founder.
Caleb Marshall: Oh, absolutely. I don't know the difference between Monday or Sunday. Most of my team says something most of the time. So battle spent. Spent the morning with my girlfriend at the beach and at a cafe. So we're doing something right. But hey, I'm on a podcast and doing work. And so I've got my two greatest loves happening today. I'm pretty happy now.
Nathan Bush: I've done my research before this episode and I've had a good look through the site and I have one very important question for you. What the hell is the world's first beauty custard?
Caleb Marshall: Well, it's a product I'm really proud of. A very innovative product that our team's put together. They've done an amazing job. Comes off the back of a product that's trending really well in say the supplement and health food industry the last 18 months, which is a protein custard. Now there's, there's a lot of copying that goes on within our industry, probably like most industries. So we wanted to bring out something very innovative that we know our customer base really wants. So we didn't want to just do another protein custard like a lot of people are doing. We know that the beauty angles are really important element for our customer base. We know that they want collagen based products. We thought why not make this delicious dessert that people can have? Well, they can have it any time of day, but it's great for dessert. You make it in under one minute. You just have the powder, you mix it in cold water or cold milk and you can even heat it up in the microwave to have it warm. And yet this delicious beauty enhancing dessert comes in smooth and creamy banana and salted caramel flavor. And with everything like our mission, we're committed to premium quality products and ingredients. So we've got the world's best sustainable pure marine collagen in it from the North Atlantic Ocean. We've got a certified organic pea protein in it to help people stay fuller for longer. So the collagen brings the beauty benefits, hydrates the skin, supports elasticity and integrity of the skin and it's just so quick, convenient and it's like for a health product. It is insanely delicious. Like it's definitely my favorite product yet there's no one else in the world have done it has done it. So yeah, we call it the world's first beauty custom. Really excited for its selling really well already and we just launched it about a week and a half ago of filming this podcast.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. What's the reaction been like so far?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, really good. Again, like there's a bit of like education when you bring out a brand new product and especially one that's technically very good. Like the best products out there are products you can really communicate across with simplicity. So when you have a really complicated technical product with amazing collagen and amazing like pea protein, organic protein, you can kind of get lost in the weeds with technical knowledge. But like simplifying that, telling people like the ease of like people want to know, like, hey, is it delicious? Can I make it in like a quick time? Which you can under under a minute. And then does it help with my beauty goals? And you can kind of keep that key messaging as simple as possible while doing the product justice, then you've got a bit of a winner. So yeah, there is that education piece for people to kind of realize what it is. The good news is there are custards out there, like the protein custard, so people have a good understanding. But this is obviously from a brand new innovative angle.
Nathan Bush: So Tropeaka founded in 2016 and got to the level of the products that you just talked about there, which are, you know, leading the market, reinventing what health and beauty products can be. Obviously a lot's happened between 2016 and now. 70 countries, 8 figures sales. What inspired you to go all in on the health food industry in 2016?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, well, it's a three hour conversation that, but I'll try to do it in three minutes. Between 2011 and 2014, I was chronically sick every single day. It was the most horrible period of my life. I was flat broke, sick all day, every day, no money, riding around on a push bike and had no hope at all. I had sickness throughout my whole body, pain throughout my whole body, inflammation, just chronic tiredness and exhaustion all day, every day. I was 20 and I was a young guy. Doctors had no idea what was wrong with me. They were diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a doctor's polite way of saying I've got no idea what's wrong with you. It's exclusionary. So they look at everything and then say, well you get that label chronic fatigue. And they didn't know when I'd be healthy again. And like that destroys your hope with the physical pain. Like I felt like being hit by a bus every single day with the physical pain that leads into mental pain, depression, suicidal thoughts. My life was rock bottom, to say the least, absolute rock bottom. And end of 2013, I went on a discovery mission coming up with my housemate at the time, who later became my co founder. We both had our own health issues and we came across an area of medicine called functional medicine. And they were saying radical things at the time, which is, well, if you first and foremost do the most important thing, which is cut out the crap from your diet, anything that could be causing inflammation. In my case, that was modern day wheat, modern day dairy. When I say modern day, it's like the wheat we eat today, the dairy we consume today is not the same dairy and wheat that our grandparents consumed. And that's very. That has an inflammatory load on sick people and specifically people with gut issues, which I had. I later found out through functional medicine that I got really sick because I took long term oral antibiotics on my skin as a teenager for five years that my doctor prescribed me. And back then, antibiotics, doctors handed it out like it was candy. And it completely destroyed my digestive tract, caused dysbiosis, leaky gut, and with that it destroyed my immune system. When your immune system's destroyed, then you got exactly what I had, flu like symptoms every single day, major fatigue. And so I cut out. I did what functional medicine said and these doctors at the time and cut out all the crap from my diet and I ate healthy foods or replaced it with healthy whole foods. And I did lifestyle changes like got really good sleep, learned how to reduce stress. And conventional medicine didn't have those answers for me. They gave me pills, they actually gave me more antibiotics because I was having these flu like symptoms and it made me even worse. And so I went from never knowing when I'd be healthy again to my life completely changing around in just a matter of weeks. And it took the inflammatory load off my body and I felt much better. And it allowed my body to heal itself over time. And naturally that eating healthy led us down to the local health food store. And as we walked in in 2014, my housemate, who as I said became my co founder, he realized the only people going into a health food store at the time were old people and hippies. And it was brown paper bags everywhere. And we're like, someone's got to make this cool. To the younger generation, this is not a cool industry. And so we're like, let's get into health foods. And we got that idea in 2014. It took 18 months to two years to find the best suppliers in the world, work with the best people who we could find at the time to help develop the right products, and obviously get up a website and all that. We launched in 2016 put all our money into it. We saved up $60,000 each, put all of it in and had no money for marketing, but sent our products to influencers at the time who promoted it for free because at the time that seems so normal now. But no one was doing it in Australia at the time. People could go out to a club or a bar and tag their favorite alcoholic drink or tag the club and that was an expression of themselves and their values. Hey, I love having a great time, but they couldn't express their values when it came to being healthy. They could, but they couldn't tag a brand because all the brands were boring and gross and that they could, they could express themselves on social media through our brand that they were, hey, proud to be into health and wellness. That's something I'm very proud of that our team, our amazing team were able to kind of craft and do from the get go. And I've got an amazing business partner, co founder. Everything that looks pretty in the business is because of him. I look after the boring parts of the business operations. Probably the more exciting part I look after is like marketing strategy. But everything that looks cool, branding wise and even product he looks after these days and he's done an incredible job. So yeah, very, very blessed. So horrible times led to something special.
Nathan Bush: Awesome.
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Nathan Bush: Do you remember what that first product was that you launched?
Caleb Marshall: Well, it's an even funnier story because we actually wanted to get into Kombucha before Kombucha was called. So you see Kombucha all through supermarkets and I was drinking Kombucha at the end of 2013 into 2014 where like even my family were like what the hell is this weird dude drinking Were
Nathan Bush: you making it yourself?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I made my own homemade kombucha at one point. Even my mum made it for me, which was cool. She got into it. But yeah, I've done that many strange things in my life. It was just another strange thing that I was having. But we couldn't start a kombucha company. We didn't have the money. We were like, okay, well, we can't do kombucha, so. But, you know, we take these superfoods, so let's, let's start a superfood company. And then funny enough, we're like, oh, we should also bring out a protein, like as an afterthought because we're more on the superfood side of things. And funnily enough, our company blew up off the back of proteins because we were the first plant protein really in the world to that look cool and didn't taste like crap. Yeah. And so, like, plant proteins are notorious for being grainy and tasting like rubbish compared to like a whey protein. But we made them taste great. And yeah, tropical lean protein now has thousands and thousands of five star reviews. So at the start, we launched superfoods and, and proteins. Lean protein actually came a little bit later. It was a, it was another variety that came before that. And yeah, a bunch of our products are still the same products that we launched in 2016. So that's kind of cool to see the longevity of them.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome.
Nathan Bush: I think one of the biggest leaps
Nathan Bush: for people when they are in this health food space is to go from what you said before around eating natural, organic, wholesome kind of foods, your fruits, your vegetables, your meats, your proteins, all that sort of stuff. And then you've got Tropeaka at the other end who are saying, yep, cool, do that. Plus we can help with all this. We've turned into powders, into bars, into pills and all sorts of different things. I can imagine that there was a huge learning curve for you in how you take the goodness over here and keep the goodness into forms that are more convenient and easy to use. Is that, would that be correct?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, absolutely. Look, a lot of people, entrepreneurs are kind of like conned out of things at the start when they're coming up with ideas that you need to go to university, you need to do this or that. Like, if you go deep, like we went deeper than anyone really. Well, the vast majority of people, dare I say almost everyone that goes into university and do a degree like, this wasn't something that, like, this was my Life like, I was at the depth of sickness, like, absolute rock bottom. So I was doing it not only for myself to learn absolutely everything about how to get healthy again through high quality food, but also, like, it was my business. I was broke. $30 to my name. And then as I said, like, I put $60,000 into my, my business, but that was like 2011. I had 13, 30 bucks in my bank account. I then got healthier and was able to work. I actually had a tennis coaching business. And then as I made money, especially 2013, 14, especially 14 and 15, and then the start of 16, like, I made really good money. Like, I made very good money for a tennis coach, but not for like the grand scheme of things. But I put all of my money into that company. The reason I bring that up is because, like, I had all my eggs in one basket. So I was learning everything about how to make the highest quality products not only for myself, but also, like, even just like, this has to work right. And so I say all of that because, yeah, like, there's a massive learning curve that, like, don't be scared of that if you're an entrepreneur. And I say this in this environment because there's a lot of entrepreneurs probably listening. Like those people that were like, in my life, I'll go to university and learn this or that, Go and study, go and do this. Oh, you're not ready. Like, you're never ready as an entrepreneur. You know, like a business I'd love to get into in the future is like something around web 3. You think I'm ever going to be ready for that? I'm going to like, dive head first. I'm not going to go and like, try and do a university degree on something. Like, we wanted to be the first. Like, how do you do a university degree on bringing out a beauty cassette? One doesn't exist. You're innovating. And the key is to stay very humble, to ask a lot of dumb questions to those that know, to always be looking for experts and to find out information off experts, like, who are the experts? The biggest danger in business is you don't know what you don't know. And so if you can find the people to teach you what you don't know, you don't know, which was a shitload of information for me. It was so much I didn't know that I didn't know. And luckily I had incredible business partner who could bridge my gaps as well. Like, he's the opposite of me. And so we found, like, we had a really rock solid understanding of what we needed to do. And we filled our gaps. But then we found suppliers, dietitians, nutritionists, like regulatory people, like we all our products have to be compliant under food standards Australia, New Zealand and the FDA in the US and then for our vitamins under the tga. So like, who do we need to ask to figure out what we don't know, what we don't know? And the secret in all of it is to find one really good person who knows an area really good. So we found like an incredible supplier. And then you ask them questions that you don't know. And if you build a relationship with that supplier, then they will know. They're the ones who've been in the industry for 20, 30 years. So like they will know everyone and they all know the things that you don't know that you don't know. And I think if there's one thing you just find one really smart team of people and then you branch off that and you leverage their experience and you're going to get a better education than some degree or something that like, I can mind you, I went to university like I did, and people like, oh, what'd you study? I always say, like I did a bachelor of a piece of paper majoring in a headset. And they're like, no, no. They laugh and they're like, what did you actually do? I did, I said I did business. And like, oh, that's how you like to be a business person. I'm like, no, no business teaches you how to be a great employee, not even great employer. And so like I'm a big believer in self education and obviously there's some really important degrees like to go and do a university degree. And even in these areas, like being a dietitian, like very important you go to university if you want to be a doctor and if you want to be a lawyer and those kind of things. But I think the main point is like, don't be scared by your lack of knowledge. Understand, like took me two years just to get to the point of actually launching a business. And that was like working 16, 18 hour days across my current job and Tropega to launch it. Like wild stuff. It was like the most unhealthy time of my life almost trying to start two businesses.
Nathan Bush: You got healthy to go into the unhealthy part of your life.
Caleb Marshall: Yeah. Which was like trying to start a health business. Luckily I was eating very healthy, but I wasn't getting enough sleep. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: And I could imagine that the margin for Error.
Nathan Bush: In those early days when you've saved your 60 grand each to go all in on Tropeaka, margin for error would have been pretty minimal in terms of making it work to make it sustainable long term. What was the biggest lesson that you learned along the way that you're looking back on now? Are grateful for having learned, but at the time might have been a bit painful.
Caleb Marshall: Probably hiring friends in the early days or hiring people. Look, you only have access to the people that you have access to when you're on a shoestring budget. Is that what they call, like, bootstrapping? Right? Shoestring budget. I think the word is. Yeah, I just had shit or money. Like, so used to having money. Like, I had a previous tennis coaching business, as I said, but still I had no idea, like, how to hire properly in. In the corporate world that I was going to sort of not hiring friends because you started this business and it's like, oh, this is a fun little project. And they don't realize your crazy dreams, even if you talk about it. Like, we had huge dreams. Like, where we are now were our dreams, like, eight figure a year company. Like, just insane, stupid dreams like, like two broke guys, like, starting a company out of their apartment. And that's like, oh, that your friends think, oh, that's cute. That's a cute dream. Yeah, come and pay me an hourly wage and I'll come help you. And. And I'm helping you out with your business, even though you're paying me. So, like, you know, it's like that attitude. Whereas, you know, like, there's that phrase or whatever, like you never truly respect it in your hometown. Right? Like, so one thing I learned, I didn't learn it recently. I think it was Toby Pierce from Sweat who said this. Such great wisdom where it was like, he said himself, like, you know, business isn't a family. Like, business is a team. And in family, like, there's unconditional love, whereas a team, there's expectation. And I made that mistake. Like, I treated people too much like family. Like, I held too much value. And. And then like, when I'd leave because, like, Tropeakus wasn't the right place for them anymore. And it's like, like that hit hard. Whereas, like, I didn't like, realized sleep. This is business. What happens? Like, it doesn't mean, like, you're breaking up with someone. Like, you're not a family. There's not unconditional love if you don't perform routine as an employer. I come to the table, provide a Good work environment and pay you. You expect me to pay you every two weeks? It's a two way deal. I expect you to work and perform. Yeah. And have KPIs and meet expectations just as I should meet your expectation of providing a good work environment and not micromanaging and paying you every two weeks on time. And I made that mistake. And in a team, you have that expectation. Like in a, in a football team, a rugby league team, if you, if you don't meet expectation, you're in reserve grade the next week.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Caleb Marshall: Why should it be any different in business? And so I made like, I started that business like 2016. I was, what was I like, 24, turning 25, since I was young and I had a lot of lessons to learn back then. And I think, yeah, things are in a much better place now in terms of team environment by looking at it as a team and not a family.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I really like the sports team analogy. One, because I just love sports, but also because I think it's much more applicable to business than it is to family. Because it goes two ways too. Is like, you may have some A grade players on your team and go, well, actually this business isn't right for me anymore. I need to move to another team to win the Premiership that I want to move or I need to move to a different code or you know what I mean. There's freedom on both sides in that scenario. Whereas exactly what you said before, family has a different connotation altogether. One question I wanted to ask before we move into, into the E Commerce side. Where'd the name come from?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, Tropeaka is. Oh, look, it's like, it's amazing but also like, what do they say? The bane of my existence. At the same time, like the amount of misspellings and people can't pronounce Tropeaka. And goodness me, like, it's like how much lost traffic I've had over the years. But the cool thing is I got the.com, i got the.com and I got the.co.uk so we didn't like have some weird URL branding happening where I had to be like mytropeako.com or something like that. It's a combination of tropical. So trotropical peak performance. Our motto is conquer the day the healthy way and an A on the end just for some fun. So tropical, bringing in those beach vibes. We're from Sydney, so we like to play on that kind of Bondi beach theme. And people obviously associate, like we sell Acai powder and protein powder and things people put in smoothie bowls. And we got all the superfoods, Dragon freeze dried, dragon fruit powder and really cool stuff that you get. Tropical vibes. We sell coconut water powder, so greens powder. So it's a great little tie into, you know, the beach theme and everything along those lines.
Nathan Bush: Love it. Makes total sense and great for SEO now that people know you, I guess.
Caleb Marshall: Yeah. Well, I have the misspellings as well, which is good. They're on a 301 redirect. Perfect, perfect.
Nathan Bush: Now, we were discussing in the lead up to this conversation that you've unknowingly been one of the case studies that we've used with our Shopify plus as our partner. We share some of the case studies of great Shopify plus users, and Tropeaka is one that we use from the early stages. And you didn't know this, so apologies for that, but you've been running add to cart for quite, quite a while now. So if you're listening and you're like, oh, nice, I haven't bought from them,
Caleb Marshall: but I know the name. Where's my kickback? What have you been doing?
Nathan Bush: Yeah, exactly. But the case study that Shopify plus put forward was the example that you did around where you gave a free gift with purchase to increase the AOB from $89 to $94 using scripts, which is a great, great example for our listeners. If you think back from an E commerce perspective, do you have a hack that you're really proud of or something little that you've done that you've like, oh, we played a little experiment here or hacked this that has given you exceptional returns?
Caleb Marshall: I think people get lost a lot in terms of, like, they're looking for, like, someone golden. Like a golden nugget. Right. Whereas, like, our success is built off 1%. It's like, on our mission statement, we have, like, we do the little 1% as well. And I feel like our storefront is literally a storefront, like a shop front. It's made of bricks. Like, it's about putting one brick on top of another brick on top of another brick on top of another brick. And if you don't have all of those bricks in the right order, even if you bring in a nugget and you try to put in this, like, capstone and there's no bricks under it, it's like that capstone won't perform. That, like Golden Nugget won't perform because you haven't built the right foundation. So, like, there's so many things that are so important like from like golden nuggets. Like do you know how to craft a really good offer? Like a great place to start is 100 million dollar offers by Alex or Mosey. Like do you know how to build scarcity and urgency into like your marketing and your offer? Do you know how to convey that? Do you know how to present like the right information like above the fold? Do you know how to do really great copy? I mean obviously like Chachi BT has like leveled the game with like things like copy as well. Like the fact that you can do such better copy now if you suck at it just through AI. Yeah, just simple like simplicity is so important. People try to get too fancy but like actually having a really simple offer, especially around like key sales periods is like important hacks that can make massive differences. Like people don't want to be overwhelmed with information as well. Knowing how to like shopify strips like in cart, knowing like where the right place is to like incentivize someone to purchase more so that like they get a benefit out of it and you also get a better pad out of it is really critical. So yeah, I think like there's, I'm trying to think through but I don't think like there's literally one golden nugget that we've had over the years. But a lot of 1% is stacked on top of each other obviously branding. Like you know what my, my co founder has done in terms of like how the website looks and design and we're both very good at like conversion rate optimization. So how to present information and do it well and make it easy to shop on your website and then the other one which is like, which is huge is like social proof. But unless you've got a great product, you're not going to get social proof. It's going to be the opposite. So again like that social proof works so, so well for us because we have an incredible product. We have over 20,000 five star reviews on our website. I could say go and double down on social proof that like if your product shit like good luck, right? Like you're going to have to bullshit. Like it's so nice going to bed at night not knowing how to bullshit. Like we've got a product, it's got shitty margin because it's certified organic. We go the extra step. We could have like crappy monocultured monocrop, sorry like conventional peas which would save us like 30% overnight, maybe more. But we don't, we like go the extra mile to produce a product because we have a purpose. We have, we have reason why we do things which is we're on a mission to positively impact millions of people in our health. Now we could play the short term brand play and like save a shitload of money and produce a crappy product. But again we wouldn't have 20,000 five star reviews and our social proof wouldn't be so amazing and our conversion rate wouldn't be so amazing unless we did that. We could buy cheap flavors but we buy expensive flavors and our products is expensive. Right. So there's like give and take. But we're playing, we're playing a long term brand game here. We're in it for 10 years of like seeing returns on decisions that we make and no, no hack is going to out hack that.
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Nathan Bush: I love that. I love it. It's the long term game is fantastic way of putting it. Especially when you're in an industry. Please don't take this the wrong way. You're 20,000 five star reviews says otherwise. Where people often side eye the health products, you know because they can be fly by night. So I could imagine establishing trust in this category is even harder than most.
Caleb Marshall: Absolutely. I mean I'm not taking offense. I side eye most of the industry. I think most of the industry is filled with bullshit products. Like it is a race to the bottom. People are in a genuine race to the bottom and most consumers don't know they're conned into the fancy marketing and the words. There's one thing that pisses me off more than anything else is a lack of authenticity. Like get the fuck out of the health food industry if you want to create bullshit. What are you doing? Like what are you doing? Like is that your mission to like have a health food company that doesn't actually help people like go and sell Fucking junk food. Like really? Like, what are you doing? There's some good operators in the health food industry and I don't see them as competition. My competition is Cadbury, Coca Cola. Like those people, what do they say? Like a rising tide lifts all boats? Like, yeah, my competitors that actually give a shit about their customers and are producing high quality products, they're not my competitors, they're bringing more people into the industry. The thing that pisses me off is like companies that sell substandard shitty products where people come and try it because it's cheap and it tastes like crap and it doesn't do anything. And then people like, oh, I'm not going back to the health food industry again because that's a scam. Whereas someone comes in, spends extra money. I know like if someone takes the Beauty custard, it's $79, 79 to $81, $81 depending on where you purchase it. Like it's an expensive product, right? But I also know that people will go and buy fashion and Beauty and spend $200 at checkout and not think twice about it, right? So everything's relative. So the fact is like it's an expensive product but I know that like people are going to have a genuinely good experience with it. And so everything starts with what I was saying before. It's either you're building a reputation to last and with that then you get health experts that like we have that actually genuinely love our product and recommend it or you have shitty products that get one sale, there's no lifetime customer value, they disappear, they don't repurchase, they leave everyone with a horrible experience of the health food industry and they over promise. And it's even trickier in E commerce because Australia is actually one of the strictest places on the planet for what you can actually say, like food standards. Australia, New Zealand, the Food Authority and the TGA like have strict recommendations of what you can and can't say about health foods and health products. And you're competing against like whether it's like American, Singapore, European companies that I think Europe's a little bit stricter, which from memory but like they can say a range of things and get away with it, whereas we can't. So like in E commerce land they're only if it's traditional retail, they're not having exposure to like a company from the U.S. yeah, but in E commerce like someone can buy a product from the us, say all of these incredible things about the product that it doesn't do or like hyperbole and then they come to our website and read something completely different. Same product. Our product could actually be better but we just can't say those things and fair enough. And then we've got to somehow convert that customer so it's very hard. So we rely on not over promising but just delivering on what the actual product says that it will do and building long term brand and social proof of that.
Nathan Bush: Has ChatGPT learned what it can and what it can't say in different countries?
Caleb Marshall: I don't know. I definitely use ChatGPT. I think it's fantastic in terms of like I'd actually like to ask that. Hey ChatGPT, pretend you're from Australia and you're working under. We call it Fazan's Food Standards. Australia, New Zealand. Tell me what I can write about. Insert product under these regulations that actually be a really cool thing to do to see what's possible. So I've got some homework.
Nathan Bush: Really funny. Actually a little bit of a side story. I was just at Blues and Roots festival in Byron Bay and Beck is one of my all time favorite artists and he was on stage doing his gig and he was telling this story around. One of his mates messaged him and said I just asked Chat JP to write me a song in the style of Beck. And Beck was like oh that's interesting. Can you send me the lyrics? And he actually played the song that ChatGPT wrote in the set and he was like this is the shittest song I've ever heard. I'm gonna play the whole thing for you right now.
Caleb Marshall: That's cool.
Nathan Bush: Speaking of music, I noticed that you have your own Spotify channel. The Tropeaka Spotify channel. I think you're the first brand that I've researched that does. With over 2000 followers on your playlist, who gets to control the music?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, it's pretty cool. Just another touch point to build brand and provide value to customers. But I was actually funny enough a former employee. So she was great. She left to start a new life just recently in the uk. But yeah, we have to get back on that because even I like I got some great songs in my itunes. I'm like how do I find this song? And then I remember it's on my spot, it's on Tropeaka's Spotify. So yeah, that, that employee, she was a shout out to Lauren. She was great. So she used to control it. And anyway I've got to find a new employee to, to get back on that and start promoting it. But no, it's like it's things like thinking outside the box to e commerce
Nathan Bush: specialist, DJ going to market.
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, exactly. If she doesn't have that on her resume now in the uk, I'm going to be disappointed because someone needs to hire off that.
Nathan Bush: Fantastic. Now, a big part of what you've established at Tropeaka is giving back, and I know that's core to a lot of what you do. And you've established the Tropeaka Foundation. Can you tell us about that and how that aligns to the mission that you've mentioned a couple of times in our chat now? How does it all work together?
Caleb Marshall: Yeah. So something I'm very, very grateful for, the Tropeaka Foundation. As I said, our mission is to positively impact millions of people in their health. And health is more than just nutrition. So the mission of Tropeaka foundation is healthy on nutrition. And I love social entrepreneurship. That's actually like the thing I like the most, like, how can I win? How can my customers win? How can Tropeaka as a company win off the back of and also help people who don't even have a touch point with our company win as well, like those who are less fortunate. And that's a cool concept, social entrepreneurship, and I love it a lot and I want to do more and more of it. So in 2020, we decided to start the foundation and we've raised well on our website at the moment it's 113,000, but I'm just a bit slow in getting up the latest info. So it's over $120,000 now, which is cool. So hopefully that's up while the podcast goes live. But we've partnered with a whole bunch of different charities. I had a really cool ex employee, she was just working in the warehouse and funnily enough, she's now gone to do some really cool things in a social entrepreneurship company herself. And obviously we couldn't provide that full time in our company. And I asked her just like, find the best charities in Australia, because the Australian government provides this information where it shows you the breakdown of administration, how much they spend on administration compared to actually how much they spend on the actual fundraising activity itself. So she found like the 40 best charities in Australia or thereabouts. And we've just been working with a bunch of them. Once a quarter we do a charity event and that's what raises money for it. And worked with some really cool charities. We also have a vitamin range where $2 from the sale of every vitamin. So we have hair complex for supporting Your hair, increased hair growth and volume, as well as we have a body and liver cleanse. And $2 from each of those goes to our partnership with Wide Vision. They're on a mission to end extreme poverty by 2030. And that's one charity we're partnered with, along with a whole bunch of others.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: Well done. I love it. I love that you set up for that and giving back is a core part of your mission. I'm really keen to hear from you. One question that I want to know is, what does an unhealthy guilty pleasure look like for you? What does that moment where, Caleb, you go, oh, fuck it. It's been a big week, big month, big day. I've just got to let go. What do you do?
Caleb Marshall: Well, it's funny, one thing about me is I'm a remote CEO, so I don't live in Sydney where my facility is. So when I go down for work, also catch up with my mates. And so we'll go to a bar or a club on the weekend. And my unhealthy guilty pleasure is a 1am Kebab. A mixed kebab, no cheese, garlic sauce and hummus. So, yeah, I love a good kebab.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. Amazing.
Caleb Marshall: I love a second kebab as well, but, gee, that gets horrible. Yeah, you always regret the second kebab, so.
Nathan Bush: Especially when you wake up with it.
Caleb Marshall: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But there is a hack. If you want to feel great the next morning, take a thing called. Which I do, take a thing called activated charcoal after a big night out, whether it's the kebab or the spirits and the alcohol, it makes you feel a whole lot better the next day. So there's a little health hack for people. You can get activated charcoal from your health food store.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful.
Nathan Bush: Is that part of your range?
Caleb Marshall: No, I don't have activated charcoal, funnily enough, but it's too niche. But it's a very good hack.
Nathan Bush: I love that hack. Brilliant. So, Caleb, wrapping up today, what's next for yourself and the Tropeaka team? What are you most excited about for the next 12 months?
Caleb Marshall: We're, funnily enough, pushing outside of E Commerce, really focusing and doubling down on retail. So an export retail. So we had a real competitive advantage before COVID in the E Commerce space. People weren't doing what we were doing. And then Covid changed everything and made it very, very competitive in our environment and obviously raising CPMs and customer acquisition costs. So with everyone zigging into E Commerce and we're zagging into retail so pushing heavily into that, having a real good omnichannel experience. We do have national distribution across Australia and independence, we've got it in the uk, New Zealand, as well as a distributor in Canada, smaller one, and in Singapore as well. So, yeah, just really focusing on retail and focusing in. On again, just producing great products.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. That's an exciting 12 months coming up. Love it. Now you've given our listeners a very special discount code which we will share at the end of our chat. Obviously they can go to tropeaka t r o-p e a k a.com au to shop and to redeem. What is the best way for people to learn more and get in touch with you?
Caleb Marshall: Well, to get in touch with me specifically, you can do so on LinkedIn. I also have a TikTok, which I and Instagram, which I should probably push more in terms of content, but I'll get around to that. Hopefully more this year. It's Callashal. C A L A S H A L L and obviously my LinkedIn. If you're a sales guy, please don't hit me up. I get hit up like all day, every day. I want to have a. I want to have. I want to know research out of the. Out of like CEOs or decision makers in company. How many of them actually make decisions based off, like, cold emails? Like, you just don't purchase off cold emails. It's just like. And then they all do the same tricks, but because you get like. It's like the one with like your website on a laptop in a screen or something like this and like, hey, I did this just for your company. It's like, dude, like, I've seen that from like 30 other people. And that was like six months ago. Like, can you, like, stop? Like, be authentic? Like, come on. So anyway, yeah, don't hit me up if you're a salesperson, please.
Nathan Bush: Love it. Caleb, thank you so much for joining us on Add to Car on this Easter Monday day off. And here we are talking all things E commerce and entrepreneurship and health. So thank you very much. Really appreciate it.
Caleb Marshall: No, thank you. I'm grateful to be on this.
Nathan Bush: All right, I will level with you. I didn't buy the custard, but I did buy the vanilla protein powder and it is extremely tasty. I'm just waiting for my overnight transformation now. That's how it works, right? But if this conversation has inspired you, head on over to the Tropeaka website to order, but also to witness how to run a great promotion, get 15% off your first order@tropeaka.com with the code ATC15. That's ATC15. Alright, here are my three biggest takeaways from this episode. Number one, don't hire friends. It's a controversial one, but it's a lesson that Caleb definitely learned and it sounds like there's a bit of hurt behind that story. I think the underlying message is that if you do hire friends or family, treat your employees as a sports team, not a family. We're in business after all. Make sure that everyone has a role, they have responsibilities and can be held accountable. There are no free family rides, especially especially in a startup retail business. Your competitors Competitors aren't the ones that are doing it well, they're the ones that are doing it badly. Especially if you are in an emerging or low trust category. If you have competitors that are genuinely good at what they do, they're credible, they do what they say they're going to do, and they challenge you to lift your game. This will lead to better outcomes for you long term. However, if you have sleaze bag competitors, you are going to spend a lot of time and money convincing customers that you are one of the good guys. Don't be threatened by good competition. Embrace it. Team up with it and get rid of the bad ones. Number three, you'll never be ready. These are really uplifting lessons, aren't they? When I first reviewed the Tropeaka product, it struck me as an incredibly complex and competitive space. However, in understanding Caleb's best background and motivation, I can see that there was no template, no university course to create what Tropeaka has done today. It is purely trial and error and sheer persistence. Now whether you take Caleb's advice to ditch university or not, there is a hell of a lot to be said for just getting in and learning by trial. You will never be fully ready to get the highlights of today's episode. Head on over to add to cart.com and sign up for our free newsletter. Each Tuesday we will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next E Commerce opportunity, come and visit us at E Suite. We're a dedicated e Commerce talent agency connecting the best E commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free E Commerce Salary guide and sign up to our weekly E Commerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to cart.
