How Blume Created a Raving Community with Gen Z Customers

Kristen LaFrance: (00:41)

Blume's new loyalty program, Blumetopia might just be the best I've ever seen, which is saying a lot. The thing is Blume is one of the most thoughtful, genuine companies in the market with a mission to change the ways that we talk about an experience changes in our own bodies. Head of Growth, Kristin Eberth had a ton to say about using content to build out that mission and drive community. Not to mention hot takes on connecting to Gen Z customers, the strategy behind Blumetopia and redefining Instagram as a retention platform. Let's get into it. Hey Kristin, welcome to the podcast. It's almost weird saying, "Hey, Kristin. Welcome to the podcast", because I'm also Kristen. But I'm so happy to have you here today. How are you doing?

Kristin Eberth: (01:24)

I'm good. Thanks. Also Kristen. Thanks for having me.

Kristen LaFrance: (01:29)

I'm super excited. If you guys follow me on Twitter at all, you know that I'm pretty much obsessed with a Blume as a brand. So I have a lot of questions today. I'm really excited to get into it. But Kristin, can you just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and your role with Blume.

Kristin Eberth: (01:45)

Yeah. So I lead growth at Blume. We're still a pretty small team so that means a lot of things. It's a multifaceted role, but I'm working a lot on marketing. I spend a lot of time in the data and just working really with everybody on the team to try and scale the brand. So it's an exciting time. I've been with Blume since August so actually just five months. And I come from an app background and like corporate marketing way back in the days. So it's really fun to be working on such a dynamic consumer brand that has so much traction.

Kristen LaFrance: (02:19)

Yeah. And just for the listeners who don't know, could you give a quick overview kind of the brand and the mission you guys have at Blume?

Kristin Eberth: (02:26)

Yeah. Blume is, we're really like a Gen Z wellness brand we like to say. Most of our customers or Gen Z or millennial and we focus on personal care products. So that's everything from skincare to period products. We have a natural deodorant. And we're really all about just changing the way that those kinds of products exist in our customers lives. So we want to be the brand that young people grow up with. Go through puberty with. We're all natural. Clean. And very mission focused. So we're all about real talk. About what your body is going through. What a period is like. What acne is like. And how you can kind of handle those things and feel good and go through your life not worrying about weird ingredients being in your products.

Kristen LaFrance: (03:11)

Yeah. And as a woman who had the classic awkward growing up in puberty situation, I understand this mission a lot and I can understand really why the industry needed this kind of disruption. But from your guys' perspective, really what sets Blume a part and why did you guys look at this and say, "Puberty is the area that really needs a disruption and we can provide something new"?

Kristin Eberth: (03:34)

Well our founders, Taran and Bunny are amazing. I think they really live the mission and believe in it. And it started from a survey that found that 60% of women found that their self-esteem completely plummeted during puberty. And I can relate to that too. I think a lot of women that I know went through that. Your body changes. You go through weird stuff. And the brands that are out there, maybe you get products that your mom recommended to you. But they're not really talking to you in a way that's super helpful or warm. And we want to be like a big sister that walks you through what's going on, and gives you good products that are going to work that aren't full of toxic ingredients. And just kind of reset the way that we interact with young people at that phase of their life. And hopefully they grow up with us and they keep using the products.

Kristen LaFrance: (04:20)

Yeah. And that's something else really interesting that I read about you guys is that you really are kind of this Gen Z focused wellness brand, but at the same time you have a lot of customers that actually aren't in Gen Z [inaudible 00:04:31] kind of in their like 20s, 30s, which is really interesting. And I'm curious if there's kind of ... if that's been a learning for you guys or if it's kind of a way you approach it where you say, "Yes. We're going to market to Gen Zs mostly, but at the same time we're here to stay with you" kind of length. Like long-term. Is that something you guys kind of think about or did it just kind of happen?

Kristin Eberth: (04:49)

Yeah. I mean both. We talk about it a lot. Because we have a lot of customers who are millennials. And I think millennials maybe have a little more discretionary income that they can spend. So that's natural. I'm a millennial. I use all our products and love them. So we are Gen Z focused because I think that's the opportunity that we really see in the market. We definitely are striking a chord with that audience but we're focused on millennials too. And I think now we've been talking this week about how Gen Z ... they're really kind of more grown up than maybe teenagers were in the past. So being a brand that's friendly for teenagers and people in their early 20s doesn't necessarily mean excluding people who are older as well. I mean, even my grandma used our new moisturizer. So we want to be inclusive too.

Kristen LaFrance: (05:34)

Yeah. Definitely. And so you guys do a lot to educate your customers on the content side. I've talked about it a lot. Your newsletters are amazing. You guys put out a lot of really educational and entertaining content that's not always about the products or the brand itself. So did you guys know kind of from the beginning that this was going to be ... there's going to be a heavy focus on education?

Kristin Eberth: (05:55)

Yeah. I think so. I mean, I can't speak right to the beginning beginning. But Taran and Bunny, this has always been really core for them. And it's very core to our mission. It's literally in our mission statement is that education is a big part of what we're doing. Because we think that's just missing so much for young people and what we learn maybe in school or from families inconsistent or not always accurate or up to date or it's not the full picture. So we want to provide that. And also I mean just from a business perspective, it's really important in terms of personal care products, skincare, et cetera, that people do have education so that they get value out of them and it's not just like a pair of shoes that you buy and put on and that's it.

Kristen LaFrance: (06:34)

Yeah. And one area of kind of a branch of your guys' business is The State of Sex Ed. And it's something that I thought was really cool. Could you kind of share with the listeners what that arm of the content is and why it's so important to you guys as a brand and a company?

Kristin Eberth: (06:48)

Yeah. We're so proud of that. We launched that in September and it's a separate website. If you go to thestatesofsexed.com that we created. In part because our customers are amazing. They DM us on Instagram. They send us e-mails. And they tell us their personal stories, and a lot of times they had a horrible experience with their first period or they didn't feel supported or they didn't have access to a lot of information and we really began to understand that this was something that was very very common for young people. And sex ed is incredibly inconsistent. A lot of people don't have access to it. So few states even mandate it at all, or mandate that it's medical accurate. So we worked with a sexual health educator named Dee who worked with our team for the whole summer putting together this amazing content.

Kristin Eberth: (07:33)

Like a full sex ed curriculum. And we put it out there in the world for free for anyone who wants it. And I mean, I went through it and I learned so much. I sent it to all my friends. We couldn't believe how much we didn't know. So it's just part of our mission again, being about education and wanting to provide access to real talk information that is useful for people who are maybe going through changes in their bodies or have been through them and didn't know the way certain things work. So it's just about talking to our customers, where they're at, and providing something valuable.

Kristen LaFrance: (08:05)

Yeah. It's interesting because I grew up in Texas so I'm sure you can imagine how not thorough my sexual education was.

Kristin Eberth: (08:11)

Yeah.

Kristen LaFrance: (08:14)

When I was growing up. So this like really hits a chord for me. Just that lack of knowledge is so huge for these young people at this age. And not even that, you guys even created a curriculum for teachers to go out and use. And then also I think there's another angle of it where just being able to help parents talk to their teenagers in a way that's actually really helpful and supportive. I know my parents had no idea what to do with me. I was the baby of two older brothers, so it was like, eh, you know. My dad was just like, "Oh my god. I don't know what's happening." And so it's really cool that this content is, yes, it's really great for your customers, but it's also really helping a lot of people in this bigger sense of the mission which you said like you guys are really mission focused and I think this launch really puts that into perspective, how focused and how dedicated you guys are to the bigger picture that you're living.

Kristin Eberth: (09:06)

Yeah. And I think it just resonates with our audience. I mean, I have a 10 year old niece, and we have these conversation cards that our sexual health educator wrote. And they're designed to spur conversation between parents or teachers or an adult in someone's life around the time that they're learning about sex ed. And it's just about tackling it from a more positive angle. So each card has a conversation prompt. Something like tell me something that you like about your body, or what does consent look like. Discussions that are important that maybe aren't being had. But that are also not scary. They're done in a way that is warm and inviting and informative, and it doesn't need to be about creating fear in young people, but just helping them understand the way the world works. The way their bodies work and get the information that they really need to feel good about themselves.

Kristen LaFrance: (09:56)

Yeah. And something else that I kind of saw in your guys' website is you have the Build a Box program where you can set up a subscription of tampons, pads, anything like that. And something really cute that I saw that I hadn't seen before I was kind of doing my prep this morning, was that you guys also have where you can add to that box like it's a $2 candy bar or something like that. Or adding the Meltdown. It's a really interesting way to not only do upsales but you're also really getting in your customers lives and you're saying like, "Look. Periods are not fun. We get you. Just add a candy bar. Have something really happy come with it." Which I think it drives all the way back to this mission.

Kristen LaFrance: (10:34)

But I'm curious how you guys kind of came up with it, that idea. Because I really, really love it.

Kristin Eberth: (10:39)

Yep. Blume actually started with period products exclusively, so it used to be called Ellebox Co. and that's where Taran and Bunny started delivering organic pads and tampons. And so they're free of harmful chemicals. And yeah. Just thinking about what that experience is like and that's always our starting point from a product perspective is like what would be really valuable? So when you have horrible cramps, we have an essential oil called Cloud 9. It's amazing. It just kind of helps soothe cramps and relax you. We added a heating pack. We just think about the things that would make a difference that maybe you aren't getting elsewhere. And again, having real talk about what you're going through and just saying like maybe you want this thing as well. Here it is. Let's make it easy so that your period every month isn't a negative experience. It's actually an opportunity to take good care of yourself and feel better about yourself.

Kristen LaFrance: (11:29)

Yeah. I love that. And you guys also do, on top of all this content that you do that's not product focused, you actually do a lot of really, really good product education which is hard for DTC brands sometimes. And I think a lot of people, a lot of brands kind of fall short on when to be informative but not quite salesy. And you guys really do that well. You have these open conversations with your community. Not only on the products themselves, but really the process of creating the products. I kind of watched you guys through the launch of Whirl and seeing how you actually engaged with the community through the entire process was really cool.

Kristen LaFrance: (12:03)

So why is product education so key for you guys?

Kristin Eberth: (12:07)

I think partially because it's about helping our customers find success with products. So like I mentioned, skin care, when you're buying it, if you've never tried the product before, you're really going off of things like social proof and reviews and maybe what you know about the ingredients. But you don't necessarily know how it's going to work for you personally until you try it. And sometimes people, like a lot of our customers come to us with acne. And so they really want to see an improvement. Sometimes your skin might purge, or it might react in a different way. So it's really important that we can help our customers to understand how to use the products properly. Make sure they're using the right amount and they have it at the right phase in their routine. So that they get value out of it. And that way, hopefully, it'll work for them and we can help them come to a solution. But we're working on building this out even more because it's, I think, so important for us that not just when you're purchasing the product but after you've bought it that we really help you get that success.

Kristin Eberth: (12:59)

Our customer success team is great with that. And so yeah. It's jus about helping people understand their own skin and how they might react and finding the right routine for that.

Kristen LaFrance: (13:11)

Yeah. This is such an important part of the equation and retention that I talk a lot about, is I'm always talking about there's multiple kinds of content and arguments you need to make with customers. One is educating on the why. Why did you choose us? Why do you want this? Why can we help you? And then even further than educating on the how. Like how do you actually get the most out of the product that you just bought? And I think it happens a lot where you buy something, then you don't really hear from a company other than another sale or another new product.

Kristen LaFrance: (13:40)

And so when it comes with retention, especially with kind of replenishable products that you guys have, it's also feeding back into that loop of if you can get your customers to use your products and use them successfully for their individual needs, then they're going to actually use them and then come back and buy it again, right?

Kristin Eberth: (13:58)

Totally. Yeah. Exactly. And also because we have natural products. Sometimes people are switching from something that's completely different that's maybe benzoyl peroxide-based or like a non-natural deodorant. So they might have questions about making that transition. So we really want to be there to help them through it if it doesn't work immediately. And sometimes one of the interesting things that we experience is Meltdown, our acne oil, it gets these crazy reviews where some people are like, "It's a miracle. It's completely saved my skin overnight." So it really raises the expectations.

Kristen LaFrance: (14:29)

Yeah.

Kristin Eberth: (14:29)

Which is great. We love those reviews, and we love when it works that way for people. But it doesn't always work overnight immediately for everybody. So, it might take a week or two and that's why product education from a retention perspective for us is so key.

Kristen LaFrance: (14:42)

Yeah. Yeah. I really love that. Now, something else that we have to talk about is Blumetopia. It launched not too long ago. If you guys follow me on Twitter, I was all over this. The second it launched I was tweeting about it. I absolutely love it. We'll link it up in the show notes. But Kristin, why did you guys really decide to go all in on a loyalty program this year?

Kristin Eberth: (15:03)

It just felt like a natural extension for us of our community that we already have with our Blume customers and that's one of the coolest things about Blume is just how engaged our customers are. And they really follow what we're doing. They offer feedback. They have thoughts on what products we should do next. They have thoughts when we change our packaging. So we just want to continue grow that and actually deepen that connection a little bit more. And also like our brand is fun. We have a lot of Gen Z customers, so it's just an opportunity for us to add another layer to that. And we wanted to add a loyalty program to help surprise and delight people at different phases of being a Blume customer.

Kristen LaFrance: (15:40)

Yeah. And just to back up a little bit. Something that you said. You guys do really have this super engaged community where a lot of customers are giving you guys feedback and they're in on the conversation. How did you guys actually encourage that kind of engagement and how do you keep encouraging it so customers are really doing that dialogue with you?

Kristin Eberth: (15:58)

I think we rely on it as a business. Like it's just very core to who we are, and how we think about things. So even from a product perspective, like what product should we launch next. We're really just asking people and what do you want to see. Like when we did Whirl, our new moisturizer, it was what do you want in a moisturizer? Tell us what you want, what you don't want. So we put a ton of thought into the ingredients and the formulation and the price point and the packaging and all that kind of stuff. And part of that too is I think Gen Z, they are really aware of things like sustainability and packaging and ingredients and they're quick to offer their feedback. So we welcome it because it makes us a better business. It helps us do a better job of creating products that they love which is ultimately our goal.

Kristen LaFrance: (16:39)

Yeah. I mean, even just the note that Gen Z is very quick to offer feedback is a really good piece of advice for any brands out there that are kind of building in this market, especially Gen Z. They're really excited and almost expecting brands now to be able to have this conversation with them. So don't shy away from it. It's actually really helpful. Going back to Blumetopia, you guys put a ton of work into the design and the layout and the UX of the Blumetopia page. It's amazing and there are sound effects. There's things that pop up. It's super fun. Was there a reason for doing this when you probably could have gone a much simpler route and just kind of plugged something in? Why did you guys focus so hard on the aesthetic of it?

Kristin Eberth: (17:21)

Well, we have amazing designers. They're just so good. Whenever they send something back, we're so excited to see what it looks like.

Kristen LaFrance: (17:29)

I bet.

Kristin Eberth: (17:29)

So, I think that's just the standard that they hold themselves to. But also for us, the brand is really key and we want Blume to be fun. It has to keep evolving. The D2C space is definitely competitive and it's easy, I think, for brands to sort of start to look alike. So, we just really want to maintain our point of view and our sense of what Blume is and keep evolving that. So Blumetopia, we wanted it to be like an extension and a fun thing for customers and not just like a transactional system where you stack up points and get 5% off your next purchase. But more of a Blume experience.

Kristen LaFrance: (18:01)

Yeah. And digging into that, there's a lot of ways that you can actually get the Blumetopia awards. There's a lot of different behaviors that you guys are kind of rewarding. Customers can decide how they really want to engage with the loyalty program which is really cool. They're not just funneled into one route, like you do this and you get this percentage off. There's all these different areas they can kind of get rewarded in. So first off, you guys have the Blume Bucks. How did you decide kind of what customer actions were rewarded with those Blume Bucks?

Kristin Eberth: (18:30)

Well, it actually ... when you sit down to pull it apart, it becomes a really crazy complicated problem quickly. I was sitting down with Bunny, one of our founders, to just try and plan out the way we measure the program and how we should calculate different points thresholds and stuff like that and as soon as you pick it apart it just turns into this crazy complicated thing.

Kristin Eberth: (18:50)

And also from a growth perspective, there's so much you can test and optimize. There's just a million variables. So we kind of had to start with like a here's our first hypothesis of what will work and then we'll just [inaudible 00:19:00] right from there. But for us again, part of the goal of Blumetopia is just to encourage people to build more of a relationship with us. Be part of the community. So it wasn't just about making purchases, and we want to reward things like following us across our social media channels or sharing with a friend.

Kristin Eberth: (19:15)

And the other part of it is of course around purchase behavior. So we put a ton of thought into that. Like what are the specific behaviors that we want to incentivize? And how can we weight the rewards around those things? So what is our average order value? How many orders do we want somebody to make? What are the groups of customers that we really want to move? And so we design the program around those as our kind of first version of Blumetopia.

Kristen LaFrance: (19:41)

Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you guys really just put a lot of thought into the customers needs and how the loyalty program could actually be beneficial for the customer versus just for Blume as a brand.

Kristin Eberth: (19:52)

Totally. Yeah. And I think for a different brand, we would have done it differently. Blume is unique because our customers are so engaged and that's why I think the community involvement, like we have our Instagram close friends list that you can be added to when you hit a certain tier. We're going to create closed Facebook groups. That kind of thing, I believe, will work well for our community. And we're already seeing people who are stoked to be part of the close friends list. But for every brand, that may not be the case. So it's just about understanding your brand and what your customers want from you and what will be valuable to them and designing around that.

Kristen LaFrance: (20:24)

Yeah. That's a really powerful statement. And then on top of the Blume Bucks, you guys have three tiers of Blumetopia which as you scale up, you get access to more and more exclusive things. How did you guys decide to do that kind of tiered program?

Kristin Eberth: (20:37)

I mean, it's a great option to just help encourage people. Like one of the segments that we were looking at is how do we unlock our top tier of customers. So maybe you've already made a few purchases. But we really want you to become a Blume customer for life. So how do we really deepen that relationship? And again, it's mutually beneficial. We're going to give them access to early product betas and welcome their feedback in a smaller community and have just a deeper relationship with that core group of Blume customers which is great for us as a learning experience to really help deliver what the Blume community wants. But also it's great for them to feel like part of it and to, yeah, take part in deciding the direction of Blume. Yeah. And hopefully we'll be able to surprise and delight them with cool merch and stuff like that here and there.

Kristen LaFrance: (21:20)

Yeah. I love how you really started with looking at the top customers and said, "You guys are loyal, but how can we really unlock this relationship to make it lifetime loyal?" And so how we can learn from them. I think it's a cool way to approach it kind of from the best customers first instead of trying to get into your kind of shallow customers and bring them into the loyalty program. It's a really ... I mean, I think some people might hear it and say, "That seems backwards", but it's actually really smart to start learning from your best customers first and really awarding them. So I really like that.

Kristen LaFrance: (21:50)

What has kind of been the response from your customers as Blumetopia has rolled out?

Kristin Eberth: (21:54)

It's been great. They were so stoked when we were teasing it. A lot of them, I think, thought we were releasing a sunscreen. But we followed up with a moisturizer pretty closely there after so they were happy about that. But yeah. They love Blumetopia. We've had a lot of sign ups. So I'm excited now for people to really start hitting those higher tiers and for us to be able to do fun, new things and do cool merch or maybe even little events. There's just so much potential and it really feels like just the beginning right now.

Kristen LaFrance: (22:22)

Yeah. It's cool how a loyalty program like that can also inspire the brand's kind of next steps because you're that close to customers and it almost challenges you to keep coming up with things that are really surprising and delightful which is a good system to have in place. To have something that's pushing the brand to constantly do it. So, something that I think a lot of brands struggle with is you set up a loyalty program, but what is it actually doing for the business? So how are you guys approaching measurement of Blumetopia? What are the signals you're looking for, for a sign of success?

Kristin Eberth: (22:53)

Right now, I mean, it's just initial engagement is the big thing. So getting a huge percent of customers to opt-in. Existing customers. We have it in the flows for new customers when they make their first purchase. We really want them to sign up and start accumulating points. And then we're really focused on referrals right now because it's core to our business. So that's one of the actions that parts of Blumetopia. And that's a huge thing that we're measuring right now.

Kristin Eberth: (23:16)

I mean, everyone is still so early in the program, so I think there's a lot more for us to track as we go. But I really want to see that hopefully people are starting to make second and third purchases at a greater rate. Hopefully incentivized by Blumetopia points and rewards. And same thing with that top tier of customers. Like what can we do with LTV and hopefully boost them a little bit more.

Kristin Eberth: (23:38)

So, it's just going to be about comparing cohorts and measuring the impact that the program seems to have.

Kristen LaFrance: (23:43)

Yeah. I love that. Going back to referrals, this is some ... an area that even my mind kind of gets sticky on. It seems like there's so many referral programs out there. You know, like give $10, get $10. Get 50% off, get 50% off. All these things. And it's for some brands works really well, for other brands seems to just kind of be a dud at the bottom of their website [inaudible 00:24:05]. And so you said it's a major part of your business. Are you finding that it's because of Gen Z as a market that it's working really well? Or what is it about your referral program that you think is really that you can kind of point to as the reason that it's so successful for you guys?

Kristin Eberth: (24:19)

It's hard to say exactly what it is. It might be partially Gen Z. It might be the products. Again, a lot of people come to us with a very problem solution. I have acne. I try Meltdown. My acne is better. I'm going to tell a friend.

Kristin Eberth: (24:30)

So I think it's reflective of how engaged our community is. They naturally tell their friends and that's kind of ... that's really cool. So we really want to build up that channel. Word of mouth in general is really hard to measure, but it's important to us. And some brands like Glossier just kill it on that channel. So that's our goal is for it to be a huge part of our business and that means that every new customer that we maybe pay to acquire, hopefully generates one or two more in an ideal world.

Kristen LaFrance: (24:57)

Yeah. I just want to pull out a quote that you just said which is, "It's really the success of the program is reflective of how engaged the community is." I want to highlight this because this is something that I am harping on again and again and you're going to see me keep posting about it, is this idea that the customer comes first and then the metrics follow. And that we can really just look at a strict metric and say, "Okay. That's not good enough. Let's improve it." Or what we can really do is say, "Okay. If we give customers an incredible experience, if we get them engaged as a community, then the metrics like referrals and retention and LTV are going to naturally kind of follow us." So I really like that you brought that out, that basically you're saying it's successful because everything else we do is successful because our customers love us because we're engaged with them because there's a community aspect here.

Kristen LaFrance: (25:43)

And a lot of trust with the brand. So I mean you're just backing up a big point of mine. So I wanted to highlight it for the listeners because I love it.

Kristin Eberth: (25:51)

Yeah. And I think there's so much more we can do. Again, these programs are never done. It's just there's so many test variables and there's a lot more that we can do, and that I want to do with the referral program, but I think the fact that it's getting good traction for us, again, is just symptomatic of the way that our customers are engaging. So we just want to create more customers who have that experience with Blume and want to tell friends about it. And then of course, if you tell a friend you should get something for doing that. So we give you a credit for your next purchase.

Kristen LaFrance: (26:18)

Yeah. That's amazing. Okay. So just wrapping up. I've got a few questions that I'm asking everybody on the show. First, can you tell us one of your favorite customer stories as you've been with Blume?

Kristin Eberth: (26:28)

We have so many. And again, this is one of the things that's so cool about Blume is people send us these super personal really heartfelt stories sometimes. But there was one that happened this week that I just love. One of our team members was on vacation in Hawaii. And we actually had given a prize away to a customer who lives in Hawaii. So while she was on vacation, she was checking in to make sure that this prize got there and that the customer received their gift. And this customer was so stoked about it, she invited our team member to go for a paddleboard session.

Kristen LaFrance: (27:00)

Oh my god. I love that.

Kristin Eberth: (27:02)

Yeah. Which is just so neat. That's kind of the level of engagement that we get a lot of times. And she shared it with the team because she thought it was so cool. And I just love that. Because it really feels like we have an awesome community that is super receptive to us. And we feel like they're cheering us on as much as we're cheering them on. So yeah. It was fun.

Kristen LaFrance: (27:22)

Yeah. It's really cool to hear that the engagement goes beyond just kind of brand and customers. It's the people behind the brand connecting with the people who are using the products. That's such ... I mean, that's such a powerful story.

Kristin Eberth: (27:33)

Yeah.

Kristen LaFrance: (27:34)

I love that. So where do you guys kind of see Blume going in say, three to five years?

Kristin Eberth: (27:38)

We have big ambitions for Blume.

Kristen LaFrance: (27:42)

[inaudible 00:27:42].

Kristin Eberth: (27:42)

We have one e-mail that just has this line in it that I love. It says, "We're all up in your bathroom", and that's really what we want. We just want to own all the products in your bathroom. And just be putting really good thoughtful, hopefully game-changing stuff out there. In terms of products and education, help to smash some taboos and talk in a different way than people have in this space in the past or brands have in this space. Yeah. And just hopefully really, really be core to a lot of young people's wellness routine.

Kristen LaFrance: (28:13)

Yeah. I love it. And last question, what's something that's really surprised you as you've been with Blume?

Kristin Eberth: (28:18)

Definitely the engagement of the customers. I mean, I've been in marketing for a long time now and you can be at a company that's doing really well but you don't hear from your customers. But the level of engagement, the level of feedback. When we launched our new packaging in November, we couldn't get over the reaction. Which is great. And a lot of positive reactions, a lot of questions, and it's just so cool to see and it really gives me so much hope for the future of Blume.

Kristen LaFrance: (28:42)

Yeah. Me too. It gives me so much hope for the future of e-commerce in general to see brands like this. This is the new wave of DTC as I'm seeing it, and I'm super excited. I have just loved watching you guys grow, and I'm going to continually support you guys and keep yelling about how amazing you are. So thank you-

Kristin Eberth: (28:59)

Thank you.

Kristen LaFrance: (28:59)

... so much for coming on the show. This was so much fun. I am so glad that we finally got to sit down and actually talk through this stuff.

Kristin Eberth: (29:05)

Yeah. Me too. Thank you so much, Kristen. It was really fun.