Rorra co-founder Brian Keller targets 20,000 water systems sold in year one and gears up for a major January health wave

Yeah. Very interesting.

Another way to advertise is of course with adquick.com. Out ofome advertising made easy and measurable. Plan buy and measure out of home with precision. Our next guest is Brian from Aurora, your co-founder. No way.

Brian, how you doing?

Welcome to the show.

I'm doing great. How are you guys?

We're doing fantastically.

So great to have you. So great uh to see you. Did you uh get any sleep last night?

Yeah, got a little bit.

This is this is a big time for ROAR, right? Uh introduce the product, introduce the the progress, and then take us through uh what some of the expectations are for Black Friday.

Yeah. So, Rora is a premium water filtration brand. Uh primarily trying to build products that, you know, will extend people's lives and help people uh get access to cleaner cleaner water. So we're effectively trying to build like the Dyson of water water filtration. So an entire ecosystem of products that uh helps you know people get access to clean water wherever they are.

And uh first Black Friday but not not uh not your first Black Friday went through a ton of them. Uh maybe it'd be kind of interesting to hear like how how how Black Friday has changed even while you've been an e-commerce operator. you had a company, Love Your Melon, that that did many many millions of dollars of revenue uh and and scaled profitably over uh close to a decade, I believe. Um so, yeah, I'd love to get a sense of like how how this day and and these kind of four days have changed and then we can talk about Aurora.

Yeah, definitely. I think uh it's definitely changed quite a bit. I think this is like my 12th Black Friday. Um, but it used to be that Cyber Monday was really the day and you kind of build everything up to that and you know you could set budgets at 10x and things like that on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and you could just, you know, rip a ton of sales, right?

Um,

yeah, but in today's day and age, you really have to build up the learning on those ads and you have to build a lot of that forward momentum uh really to maximize the potential of it. So uh I think it now in today's day and age uh it's really about obviously capturing the m momentum and so you know we did a couple of key things like you know having a product release uh about two weeks ago and really using that as an opportunity to build a lot of lead genen and a lot of interest um around that leading up to up to this. Um so yeah we did a lot of things focused on the top of the funnel leading into this. It was our first, you know, first Black Friday. Um, but it's a lot cheaper obviously to get eyeballs on your product when uh, you know, it's a month before. So, we did a lot to to fill the funnel. And then,

you know, this product for us it's it's less of like an impulse buy. I feel like uh, is that correct? Like if you're if you're buying a product to that you're going to rely on for clean water for your family, like you might just see an ad and immediately click through and buy, but you also might want to learn about it over time. And I think top of funnel is like really important because of that.

Yeah. So, you know, we allow people to find out what's in their water. They can go to our website. They can find out what's in their water. then they go through a whole series of, you know, emails andformational aspects um them to learn more about the aspects about our product. And so we pushed a lot of that leading up to this. Um but we also know that a lot of people have been looking at our product for quite a long time. And so we felt that it was important to do, you know, a discount for Black Friday, um just to allow more people to have access to cleaner water. And so that was, you know, ultimately the biggest decision behind it. And uh we've seen a lot of you know great response from from our customers and uh driven quite a bit of sales from it.

What uh tactically on uh on meta what are what are kind of the risks? We were talking earlier about how like brands are setting budgets and then blowing through them either way faster than they intended or not as fast as they wanted to. What's been your approach there and how how are you kind of where are you finding success? Yeah, I think for us being, you know, as young of a brand as we are, uh, you know, we've only, we launched about a year ago, um, it was really focusing on just top of the funnel. Uh, and so really keeping a lot of that budget on prospecting and, you know, continuing to funnel in your best best ads into uh, the prospecting side of it, but um, also making sure that we can come out of this and keep consistent, you know, consistent sales for the brand. Um, and so really building up the learning earlier uh than we typically would instead of saving all of our best assets and pushing it out, you know, waiting for Black Friday or right when we start the sale. So, uh, I think we've done that, you know, fairly effectively so far. Uh, what uh what are you seeing other brands do in terms of just approaching this four days from Black Friday through Cyber Monday? Is it all just one continuous sale now or does it make sense to be launching like different sales at different points? Like what's best practices that you're seeing?

Yeah, I think consistency uh definitely is best practice. Um I've done it so many different ways over the over the past whether it's free gifts with purchase, whether you've got different products releasing, whether you've got a better deal on Cyber Monday. Um, and I think a lot of those things worked well in the past, but I think, um, in today's day and age, it's better to stay consistent with one sale. Um, I think starting that a little bit before, you know, a couple days before Black Friday so that you can build up the momentum, uh, with those ads tactically and then you don't have to decrease that spend because you don't have a big dip in overall volume. Um, so you can kind of just consistently then scale that up uh throughout, you know, Black Friday into Cyber Monday. Um, and then also you get the lower CPMs starting at, you know, a couple days before Black Friday, then trying to start it on Black Friday and experiencing those high CPMs out of the gate.

Yeah. And then what about uh from a like this is this is the first like real holiday season for Aurora and then the first kind of like new year cycle that a lot of health brands go through where the business is like starting to you know be at a pretty uh meaningful scale. How do you like do you think this is kind of like uh a lot of brands get the benefit of like they're either a gifting brand and and or like it feels like

you health brand feels like it's like

everyone's been split as we've talked to all the

entrepreneurs if you're doing supplements it's like people might buy this week the biggest thing for you

but January will be a lot bigger whereas I feel like

I expect January to be be significantly bigger for Aurora but really just because the business is scaling so quickly but it should be a big gifting product.

Yeah, I think you know we saw on yesterday [clears throat] like a large amount of organic sales it being Thanksgiving and I think people go you know wherever they go for Thanksgiving and a lot of people tried out you know Aurora system at somebody else's house. Um, I think we'll see something similar around uh, you know, Christmas um, and the holidays, but I think going into um, going into January, there's going to be an entirely new demographic that kind of comes into the funnel that's focusing on their health again. And, uh, I think it'll be a big opportunity for us to capture that demand. Um, we've also got some big partnerships that we're going to be launching right at the beginning of the year around that as well. So, uh, I think it'll all it'll all tie together, but I think, you know, there's an opportunity for both from a gifting perspective and, you know, the health and wellness for us leading into January.

Well, close us out with a big number. What you got with a big number? What What can you share?

Uh, this Black Friday, this Monday, we should go over 20,000 systems sold for the year.

There we go. We'll let people at home.

That's a lot of systems. Well, let

Thank you so much for taking the time to come hang out on a busy day.

But yeah, watching you put on you and Charlie put on just an absolute uh execution master class this year has been uh been an honor.

Uh and uh yeah, excited excited to see how the rest of today nets out.

Well, we've got a great team, a lot of people around us. Thanks so much for having me on.

Great. Have a good one.

aidsleep.com. Exceptional sleep without exception. fall asleep faster, sleep deeper, wake up energized. I got an 81. Quality was not quite right. How did I do

Thanksgiving?

I feel like I did okay, but uh

83.

Oh, are you back in the house?

I'm back.

You're back. Okay. I wasn't sure how long the renovation was going to happen.