Venture Everywhere Podcast: Samantha Coxe with Allison Stoloff
Samantha Coxe, founder and CEO of Flaus, chats with Allison Stoloff, LP of Everywhere Ventures and a General Partner in The Fund XX.
In episode 70 of Venture Everywhere, Allison Stoloff, General Partner at The Fund XX (a part of Everywhere Ventures), talks with Samantha Coxe, founder and CEO of Flaus—an electric flosser revolutionizing oral care with real dental floss and sonic vibrations. Samantha shares how she leveraged her legal background and passion for improving oral care to build Flaus, successfully turning customer insights into a thriving 8-figure business. Samantha also discusses her data-driven approach to achieving product-market fit, and empowering users of all ages to take control of their oral health with confidence and independence.
In this episode, you will hear:
Building product-market fit through continuous customer feedback.
Prioritizing first-order profitability to build a sustainable, venture-scalable business.
Using a legal background to manage contracts and mitigate startup risks.
The importance of building a network of mentors for strategic growth.
If you liked this episode, please give us a rating wherever you found us. To learn more about our work, visit Everywhere.vc and subscribe to our Founders Everywhere Substack. You can also follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter for regular updates and news.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 VO: Everywhere Podcast Network.
00:00:14 Jenny Fielding: Hi, and welcome to the Everywhere podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. Hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:36 Allison: Welcome to the Venture Everywhere podcast. I'm Allison Stoloff, a Partner in Everywhere Ventures, The Fund XX. And I'm here today with Samantha Coxe, the founder and CEO of Flaus, which is an electric flosser that uses sonic vibrations and real dental floss to make flossing as quick and easy as brushing. Sam, welcome to the podcast. Would love for you to introduce yourself.
00:01:04 Samantha: Thank you so much for having me, Allison. I'm so thrilled to get to be here. As you mentioned, I'm Sam. I'm the founder and CEO of Flaus. We are the electric flosser. Just like your electric toothbrush, but for flossing.
00:01:07 Samantha: Prior to starting Flaus, I was a mergers and acquisitions attorney at Skadden Arps, where I advised a lot of clients all the way from startups to large conglomerates on mergers and acquisitions in general corporate matters.
00:01:31 Samantha: In 2019, I came up with the idea for Flaus. Eventually, I ended up leaving my law firm, launching a super successful Indiegogo campaign, was featured on Shark Tank, and now, am running a 8-figure business. I'm so thrilled to get to be here and hopefully provide some insight and inspiration to your listeners.
00:01:51 Allison: Well, wonderful. What an incredible story. And I do have to say that I was a legal assistant at Skadden Arps. So we have that connection. So I understand that world. What inspired you to leave a successful legal career and start Flaus. And did you always wanna be an entrepreneur?
00:02:09 Samantha: Great question. I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Ever since I was very young, I was always coming up with ideas. And I was always such a creative. So when I was at USC, I started making flower crowns out of my sorority bedroom. And this was before flower crowns were really popular.
00:02:26 Samantha: I ended up selling about 30,000 of them and just sitting at my little desk doing them. And then when I went to NYU Law, I created their accessories swag line. I didn't like the swag that NYU Law had so I actually went and created my own and sold it to the students. And so I've always had a little bit of an entrepreneurial bug.
00:02:45 Samantha: And then while I was at Skadden, I just had the classic dentist appointment. And I ended up flossing about a week before the dentist because I was so nervous for when you get in the chair and she asks, "Have you been flossing?" I wanted to be able to say yes.
00:03:00 Samantha: And unfortunately, I ended up coming home with a massive dental bill, beyond a number I'm willing to share of cavities. And that's when I thought, "I hate flossing. I know how incredibly important it is to do. But I love using my electric toothbrush. Why don't I just go buy an electric flosser that could do it for me?"
00:03:20 Samantha: And so I actually went online at the time to go find one, and I was shocked to discover nothing like this existed. At the time this was 2019, when you looked up an electric flosser the only thing that came up was a water flosser or an air flosser. Not like a vibrating floss pick. And so that was really my "a-ha" moment.
00:03:38 Samantha: While I was at Skadden, doing well and excelling, I had always known that the strongest part of me is my creativity. And that wasn't being utilized at all while I was there, especially on the corporate side.
00:03:51 Samantha: As Flaus started to progress while I was still at the firm, it became clearer and clearer over time that this was my true calling. That being a lawyer was actually a step to get me ready to being a founder and being able to take this next jump with confidence and know that I am resourceful and I can figure things out on my own.
00:04:10 Samantha: It wasn't actually until I had a Galentine's event at the firm where we were creating a flower bouquet, and I was in the middle of a diligence memo. I took a twenty minute break to make this flower bouquet. I went back to doing my diligence memo. And it was in that moment of task switching that I realized I just got more intrinsic value out of making a flower bouquet than I've had at one second at this job.
00:04:36 Samantha: So that's really that moment for me where I was, "If not now, when?" And I can always go back to being a lawyer. My legal degree, my experience at Skadden isn't going anywhere. But I knew I was never gonna regret an investment and a risk in myself. And so that was really my moment that I was like, "It's now or never. Let's do it."
00:04:57 Allison: Wow. It's so great that you listened to yourself and really understood what brought you energy. And I think that example of the flower bouquet and going back to writing the memo is so interesting and really pointed you right in the right direction. And it's great you took the leap.
00:05:10 Allison: How were you able to navigate starting to build Flaus and still having this full time job? I know a lot of people do that when they initially set out to found a company. They can't just leave their nine to five. Or I know it wasn't a nine to five for you.
00:05:23 Samantha: More like a nine to nine.
00:05:25 Allison: More like a nine to nine, but how did that even work?
00:05:29 Samantha: So I came up with the idea in 2019, and I started doing just diligence into the space in general. I had just spent so much time, so much money to become a lawyer. Go to law school, take the bar, now work at Skadden. I was definitely wanting to make sure that before I started investing any of my own time or money into this that this was actually a legitimate business idea.
00:05:51 Samantha: So when I first came up with the idea, I then decided to launch a SurveyMonkey. And on SurveyMonkey, you could pay $1,200. You get 600 responses from across the US, random people. I just sent out a 15 question survey just asking, "What are their current feelings about flossing? What are they currently used to floss? How often are they flossing? How often are they brushing?" And then gave a two sentence intro about Flaus.
00:06:15 Samantha: It was just like, "Would you buy this product or not? And then for how much?" And I remember submitting that survey and thinking, "Let's just see what it comes back with. If it is not overwhelmingly positive, that's fine. I'm just gonna keep going." I was already asked to be added to the partnership track by the time I was even a second year associate at Skadden. So I knew I had this great opportunity sitting at Skadden, and unless this was very convincing, I wasn't gonna leave.
00:06:40 Samantha: That SurveyMonkey ended up coming back so overwhelmingly positive. And that's when I was like, "This might actually have legs." Then from there, I was like, "I'm gonna start working on this in my free time." So mainly the weekends and then late at night.
00:06:56 Samantha: And it's incredible that when you are energized and passionate and excited about working on something, it doesn't feel like work. It's exciting. For me, it showed me that light at the end of the tunnel. I was like, "I have an exit plan here." My foot felt like it was one foot out the door of Skadden.
00:07:14 Samantha: I just felt so energized because everything with Flaus has been nothing but green lights the whole way. It truly has. And so to know that I always felt like I was meant to be an entrepreneur and to be creative and never did I think oral care. But to have this idea just plop right into my lap and then it started to just get momentum behind it.
00:07:34 Samantha: Again, I was just making it work, late nights, weekends, And then when I decided to launch an Indiegogo campaign, that really was the pull in the sand to be like, "I have to leave the law firm. This cannot go public while I'm still at the law firm." So it forced me. I had no other choice but to break up with the law firm.
00:07:54 Samantha: I felt like I had a little bit of Stockholm syndrome where I was indebted to my captors. Skadden was a great place, and my first fifteen investors were all the Skadden partners and my colleagues, and they're some of my best friends. It was a very intense work environment but that's what forced me. I was like, "Okay. I have to leave."
00:08:11 Samantha: Getting to take that leap was so scary. It's frightening. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a dentist. And to know that I'm leaving a very stable prestigious job to jump into something where I had already invested $60,000 or $80,000 of my own personal money and all I had left was my savings to pay myself.
00:08:33 Samantha: Because I wasn't gonna take a salary from the business for the first year and a half I went full time. So I ended up having to deplete all my savings and pose all of these decisions. But I would recommend for anyone thinking about taking that leap, I'm so happy that I stayed at Skadden for as long as I possibly could to build up that safety fund.
00:08:53 Samantha: So I knew I had enough to live off of for at least a year and a half, two years before I would have to start taking a salary. And I didn't feel the stress of feeling I'm gonna be desolate or not be able to afford my own rent.
00:09:07 Samantha: It was definitely really difficult to balance the two. But, again, when you're working on something that you're so excited and passionate about, it was exciting to get to do. I couldn't wait to come home and keep working.
00:09:18 Allison: Wow. The passion really comes through in your voice. And it is interesting that this idea for Flaus isn't something that you lived and breathed it your whole life. This has been more of a recent pain point.
00:09:29 Allison: And it's really great to hear your story of how this was a newer thing, a newer problem that came into your life, and you have so much passion around it. In such a short period of time, you gathered so much momentum and were able to push this idea forward.
00:09:46 Samantha: As I've been building my company, I'm now so ingrained in a larger founder community and also the investor community as well. But something I've noticed particularly between my founder friends who've had a lot of success and the ones who have struggled a bit more is when you're on your journey there are highs but there are a lot of lows. And it's an absolute slog. And that's just whether you have a successful business or not.
00:10:09 Samantha: But what I've noticed is that when you're working on something that you have product market fit for, that is really meant to exist in the world, there is this element of frictionless movement in the direction you're going. And I've noticed some founders, they're almost like these fish trying to swim upstream.
00:10:28 Samantha: And instead of realizing that and being like, "Maybe this means I have to pivot. There's something a little off. Maybe it's the business strategy. Maybe it's the pricing. Maybe it's just the core customer audience we're going after." But I really believe that there should be some element of frictionless movement because that really tells you have product market fit and you're going in the right direction.
00:10:51 Samantha: And I don't want to say mine has just been luck because I think it's just been the result of being so data centric. Everything I've been doing is just based on data and customer feedback and just constantly getting on customer calls and doing customer research and surveys.
00:11:07 Samantha: And being that data centric, it allows you to pack your way into product market fit and getting now to build something where I'm actually helping people take care of themselves. It might surprise listeners to hear this. But when you look at the Flaus brand, it's very young, it's very bold, it's very fun. About 35% of our customers are over the age of 55 years old. So we have a very large, more senior audience.
00:11:34 Samantha: The reason for that is, one, they're dealing with the consequences of not taking care of their teeth for the decades. But also, two, they lack fine motor dexterity. So if you're someone that has arthritis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's, MS, blind, traditional flossing is actually physically impossible to do.
00:11:51 Samantha: So now understanding that audience and this huge customer cohort we have, it just has added so much fuel and fire behind my passion. Because I get to help people take care of themselves and prolong their smiles, prolong their life, give them more independence and confidence. When I remember being at Skadden, I was just like, "I'm not helping people. I'm not having an impact on the world."
00:12:17 Samantha: And then my sister's an orthopedic surgeon. And I'd look at her and she's immediately making people's lives better. And I would just sit there and be like, "I just feel like there's more for me in this life than this." Even though I've been working so hard for this and I'm at such a prestigious place. And for some people this would be the pinnacle of their career.
00:12:35 Samantha: And then Flaus just, it almost hit me like a truck where I had no choice but to pursue this and to give this 110% effort. And I've been able to maintain that over the last six years. But that also doesn't come without periods of being like, "Am I crazy? Is this gonna work out?"
00:12:57 Samantha: You see your friends buying homes and they're taking these next steps with their lives. And you're like, "I have sacrificed everything for this and there's a real chance I might not see an outcome on this." And that definitely has been a bit of a struggle. Again, as you mentioned, Allison, that intrinsic passion for what you're doing is what propels you forward through those moments.
00:13:18 Allison: It really does. And I'm also interested to understand, especially given your legal background, how did that really help you build and scale Flaus? It's not like it was wasted. I would love to hear a little bit about how it helped you really be able to build this successfully so far.
00:13:35 Samantha: That's a great question. Having my legal background has been invaluable, I will say. There's just so many legal components when you're starting a business, deciding where you want to incorporate, what kind of entity do you want to incorporate as. And then you get into like the founder agreements, the stock restriction agreements. Then you start getting into investments. How do you want the safe to look like? How do you want it to convert?
00:13:55 Samantha: For me to have an inherent understanding of that because all of my years of working with some of the most brilliant minds in the world at Skadden, it was such an advantage. One, I was able to do these things myself without having to rely on really expensive legal counsel.
00:14:10 Samantha: It's funny now being on the other side of it. I'm like, "Wow. These lawyers really do complicate everything.” I don't remember it being like that at Skadden. I remember at Skadden, you give them the direct answer and it better be right. Versus now, next thing you know, you have a $20,000 legal bill and nothing has happened.
00:14:25 Samantha: But I think that being able to do my own formation documents, legal work. And then also even now, I never just sign an agreement. I'm constantly reviewing every contract that comes across my desk. I'm always marking up agreements. Always, because you'd be surprised, there's little things in there. Let's say you have a year long contract, I always say I need a 30-day, 60-day opt-out period. Always. I'm never agreeing to the annual contracts.
00:14:51 Samantha: But then in this recent one I dealt with, it said that if we opted out, we would still have to pay out the full term of the contract. And I was like, "There is no world in which I'm agreeing to that." It was interesting because he was like, "Wow. I didn't even know that was in there. No one else has pointed that out." That has been such a benefit too, because it just makes me feel more confident like the decisions we're making.
00:15:13 Samantha: And then I would also say having my legal background has been incredible for giving me credibility when I'm in these discussions. I really do see the shift when someone finds out that I am a lawyer. The shift in the dynamic that I actually understand what these contracts say. I understand how to speak that language and talk about it.
00:15:34 Samantha: That's when you oftentimes realize that the counterparty doesn't know those things. And there's definitely a shift in the dynamic. And so being a lawyer is one of the most incredible skill sets you can have for being a founder.
00:15:47 Samantha: You're trained to be risk averse. As a founder, you have to be risk forward, but being a lawyer, you're constantly spotting the potential grenades. That's what you're trained to look for. What are all the ways this can go wrong? And I've really utilized that when I'm building Flaus, of trying to think about all the different things I can prepare for.
00:16:07 Samantha: And that has already helped me in different ways. Even this tariff situation right now. I'm now thinking three steps ahead. That I'm like, "Let's say when this gets resolved, there's gonna be a massive influx of imports coming into our ports. And our ports are not set up to deal with such a huge influx. Then there's another supply chain crisis that happens."
00:16:27 Samantha: So I'm already starting to think, "How do I get this at least into Mexico or Canada? So that when these things are lifted, I can easily get into the States.” And trying to think a few steps ahead of the current crisis.
00:16:37 Samantha: And lastly, I would just say that, again, my first fifteen investors were my colleagues at the law firm. I wouldn't have been able to start Flaus and get going without them. I had partners invest. I had my colleagues because they saw how much I excelled there and they knew what I was capable of.
00:16:53 Samantha: They were like, "I don't even care what you're working on. I just wanna invest in you because I believe in you." And so that's one of the biggest things is that I wouldn't have been able to start Flaus without the support of my colleagues.
00:17:03 Allison: Well, that's incredible that you built such a rapport with them. That they were willing to back you whatever you were building.
00:17:08 Samantha: Yeah. It was shocking.
00:17:10 Allison: Not shocking, Sam. It's not shocking at all. And so it sounds like there are tons of benefits of having that legal background. What are some of the challenges you face transitioning from a corporate world to entrepreneurship?
00:17:23 Samantha: There were definitely quite a few. Just for some background. So I'm from Southern California. I went to USC for undergrad. I went straight through to NYU Law. And I went straight to Skadden. So aside from my jobs I had throughout college, I would say Skadden was my first real job.
00:17:39 Samantha: Something I'm trying to work through now is the only reference point I have for managing people in a culture was a place that was toxic, I would say. I had a work culture of just hustle, hustle. No one cared about personal things. And that's not the sort of culture I would want in Flaus at all.
00:17:57 Samantha: I feel like one of the struggles I've had is that I had never experienced a good manager. And so having to learn this new role that I personally have never experienced was definitely a struggle. So I listen to a lot of podcasts and books on it. I have a coach that helps me because I want to be the best boss I can, but I wasn't trained in an environment where we really cared about the human element.
00:18:19 Samantha: It was just "Get your stuff done and don't complain." And that's not the type of culture I wanna build at Flaus. Because that's what led to such high churn at these big law firms. You're just like a number. You don't feel like you're part of a mission.
00:18:33 Samantha: And that's what you need at Flaus, at startups this small. Everyone believes in it. They're willing to sacrifice. And you're all working towards this better good. And you can't do that if you're not caring that these people are human beings that have real life things going on. So I'd say that was definitely a struggle that I still deal with now.
00:18:52 Samantha: I would say the other one is being a bit more risk averse. So I can sometimes get too deep into all the scenarios and it can lead to like analysis paralysis. And one of the things that, especially this year, that I'm really working towards is just having a bias towards action. Just making a decision. And if it's wrong, we'll pivot and we'll fix it.
00:19:13 Samantha: When you're dealing with something that's changing all the time, it's so rapidly moving, it's hard to feel confident in any decision you're making, but you just need to make a decision and then deal with it as it starts to unfold.
00:19:27 Allison: What do you do in those moments when you have this decision paralysis? Have you built a community or advisers around you? How have you mitigated some of these issues?
00:19:39 Samantha: Great question. The biggest hacks for me for building Flaus is building a community of mentors and like-minded founders. When you're in the startup journey, I think what you come to realize is that it can be a lot of smoke and mirrors. It really can be.
00:19:55 Samantha: There's a lot of people who put themselves out there as being these thought leaders, but then it turns out they've never actually done any of the things they're talking about. Even from when I first started Flaus, I thought, "I'm not an engineer and I'm not a dentist. So I really need to go look at other consumer electronic hardware founders and start to learn from them." What were their successes? What were their failures?
00:20:16 Samantha: And so that's how I eventually got to Dr. Jason of Therabody, formerly known as Theragun. Was 20 to 30 cold outreaches on LinkedIn and email to get to this man. And he's now one of my closest mentors and advisors.
00:20:30 Samantha: And then as I've been starting my journey more, I'd mentioned Courtney from Nori. It's like a modern iron. That's a consumer electronic hardware. I just became friends with Danny, the founder of Windmill, the AC company. I'm friends with Andrew of SolaWave, another consumer electronic beauty product.
00:20:46 Samantha: And I intentionally tried to find people within my founder network who are a few steps ahead of me. We just crossed the 8-figure threshold and now these people are like on that next level. And it's talking to them and I'll go to them with some of these scenarios, like the tariff one again.
00:21:03 Samantha: "This is what I'm thinking. What are you guys thinking? How are you strategizing this?" Or we wanna get into retail next year. So I'm definitely going to Nori and Andrew and being like, "How should I be approaching this with the brokers? How much can I negotiate? How do I make these margins work?" Things like that.
00:21:18 Samantha: And when I'm getting really stuck in my decision making, I absolutely rely on these mentors and these fellow founders. And what I've found is that everyone's willing to give you advice. It's about finding the people who give really quality advice.
00:21:34 Samantha: So going to these people one time. And then actually seeing if their advice was valid and accurate for like how things actually transpire, that will give you really good insight of, "Okay, this is someone I should go back to again." And so that's essentially what I have done.
00:21:51 Samantha: Of course, it can't always be about asking and taking. You also need to be willing to give to others too. And so I always try to make myself available to be a sounding board for my friends and fellow founders and mentors. So they get into their own situations, and it's great to be able to be that sounding board as well.
00:22:10 Allison: Well, sounds like you've built an incredible network around you. And I'm impressed that you went after these people. It sounds like you sought them out. How did you even know to seek these people out? How did you identify them, pinpoint them, and then go after them?
00:22:25 Samantha: Great question. So, yes. I went after all of them. Again, the thought process is, “I have never done this before. I don't need to reinvent the wheel. Let me go talk to people who've had success doing it before me.” And that's how I identified them. I met Courtney actually through one of my really good friends and also advisor investor, Maggie Sellers. She was considering investing in Nori.
00:22:46 Samantha: She had told me about her. And she was like, "She's this amazing female founder who's doing a consumer electronic hardware. She's crushing it." And then she was at first, "I don't want to make an intro yet until I decide what I'm going to do." But then once that was done, I was like, "Can you make that intro?"
00:22:59 Samantha: This was years ago. Now Courtney and I are so close. But it was just taking that initiative. This is someone who's where I want to be in a year or two ahead of me. I'm just gonna go and talk to them and just ask for feedback, ask for help, tell them about my problems and my challenges.
00:23:16 Samantha: It's really just about putting yourself out there. And I found a lot of success with cold DMing on LinkedIn. That's a really underrated tactic. Obviously a lot of us get a lot of inbound but just being willing to put yourself out there and take that risk. And what's the worst thing that can happen?
00:23:32 Samantha: The person either one, ignores you or two, says no. That's fine. There's tons of successful founders out there. You just keep hustling to find the right ones. And then generally what you'll find is that, for example, Courtney, she has her own network of great founders. So then she taps you into her network. And then I'm tapping her into my network.
00:23:50 Samantha: You want to find a community of founders where they all realize that this is not a zero sum game. There's enough success at the top for all of us to succeed. And if we can exchange notes and help each other, it's just gonna make that journey so much better. Because you're getting to build this and have success amongst friends and people you respect.
00:24:11 Allison: Well, you have such a growth mindset. I love it. I'm very impressed. So one thing that you spoke a little bit about earlier in the conversation was around these frictionless moments and how you had a lot of green lights come. And I'm interested to hear what are some examples of those and how did you know when you had product market fit with Flaus?
00:24:33 Samantha: So I would say SurveyMonkey was one of the first green lights. Then the Indiegogo campaign. So we ended up raising a little over $360,000 on our Indiegogo campaign, which is like a Kickstarter. And we ended up finishing the top 1% of Indiegogo campaigns ever.
00:24:50 Samantha: I had to go to Indiegogo and be like, “How many campaigns have you had?” And so I was doing the math myself. That's when I realized this was very successful on a platform that is hyper-saturated, hypercompetitive. That was one of the first moments I was like, "Alright, this has a lot of potential."
00:25:07 Samantha: Based on our Indiegogo campaign, we were collecting so much data through surveys of our customers and just really understanding why did they wanna buy Flaus, what attracted them to it, what were the key features, the key benefits that got them excited about Flaus. And all of that feedback was just so validating of what we were setting out to build. It was like check, check.
00:25:31 Samantha: After that, we then used all of those findings to then get ready for our hard market launch in September 2023. Then we launched into market and we finished our first year doing over a million dollars in sales. And then last year, we grew 630%, and we turned fully profitable.
00:25:48 Samantha: One of the key factors for me to really identify that product market fit was realizing that we have always maintained first order profitability. Meaning that we are never paying for a customer to get in front of them more than what they're paying us for the product.
00:26:06 Samantha: And I think that is so critically important when you're trying to build a sustainable business model that isn't reliant on outside funding or you can control your own destiny.
00:26:17 Samantha: But that's a great signal for product market fit that what you're selling at the price you're selling, the message, the way you're positioning the product is clearly resonating with consumers. That it's just allowed us to just scale the business and we're not having to go up into different areas or do anything crazy.
00:26:38 Samantha: I think that there were just so many different moments. But again the product market fit all comes down to having this based on customer data and knowing your customer. That's it.
00:26:49 Allison: Well, I love that your North Star was this first order profitability. And it's interesting because that is so different from the typical venture problem where it's just, "Alright, we're focused on the top line. That's all we care about."
00:26:59 Allison: And my last question before we do a quick speed round is your focus on first order profitability from the get go. Why was that your focus? Did someone tell you that should be your focus, or where did it derive from?
00:27:12 Samantha: Great question. It honestly just came probably from me being a little risk averse, with being a lawyer, of being like, "Why would I build a business that I'm not gonna be making money right away? I want this to be successful and the metrics have to work out."
00:27:24 Samantha: So on Indiegogo, we actually ended up doing price elasticity testing, pricing the product all the way from $69. Because people doubted we could charge $99 for this product. And then we saw we could go all the way up to $109 on Indiegogo. And that's what told me, I actually do have price elasticity.
00:27:42 Samantha: It's easier to go down in price than it is to go up in price. So knowing I could have that higher premium price point, that then gave me the confidence of, "This is actually a sound business model."
00:27:52 Samantha: Now we're in a different world that's like it makes basic fundamental business sense that you should have a profitable business where you're making money. You're not losing money to get customers. I don't want to fail and I can control my own destiny if I'm making money off of this. We didn't even have a second thought. It wasn't even an option that wouldn't be the case.
00:28:10 Samantha: Recognizing though that consumer hardware is very capital intensive. So obviously, we're gonna have losses at first because your R&D and the manufacturing inventory cost is gonna outweigh your spend, your income or revenue.
00:28:24 Samantha: And recognizing that, but then being able to model it out to be like, "We can get through this first year of business like that. But then we are expecting to turn profitable in the second year." And then seeing how that just takes off from there.
00:28:36 Allison: Wow. Well, you really were ahead of the curve in your intense focus on profitability. So kudos to you for building such a sustainable business. Alright. So we're now moving on to the speed round. What's a book, newsletter, or podcast that you enjoy?
00:28:53 Samantha: How I Built This. From the beginning and still to this day. Just so helpful.
00:28:58 Allison: That's a great one. If you can live anywhere in the world for one year, where would it be?
00:29:03 Samantha: Lisbon, Portugal.
00:29:05 Allison: Favorite productivity hack?
00:29:07 Samantha: Prioritizing the top three tasks to get done for the day and focusing on those.
00:29:12 Allison: How do you unwind when you are stressed?
00:29:15 Samantha: Exercise. Exercise is critical for releasing all that stress and clearing the mind.
00:29:22 Allison: Last one, where can listeners find you?
00:29:25 Samantha: Listeners can find us on our website. It's www.goflaus.com, F-L-A-U-S. You can also find us on social @goflaus. And then you can find me. I'm @samicoxe, so S-A-M-I C-O-X-E. I'm always available on LinkedIn as well. So I always love people coming and asking for advice. And anything I can do to help listeners just gives me so much joy.
00:29:47 Allison: Great. Well, thank you so much, Sam. I really enjoyed the conversation and wishing you and Flaus the best of luck.
00:29:54 Samantha: Thank you so much, Allison. It was such a pleasure to be here.
00:29:58 Scott Hartley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere. We’re a first check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invest everywhere. We’re a community of 500 founders and operators, and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, everywhere.vc, on LinkedIn, and through our regular founder spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe, and we'll catch you on the next episode.