Turning Early 100 Buyers into Loyal Advocates | Elina Panteleyeva | Dood Woof

Elina Panteleyeva is the founder of Dood Woof, a 7-figure brand built specifically for Doodle dog breeds. After getting laid off, she bootstrapped her business from $0 to 7 figures in 15 months with no prior Ecommerce experience, no team and no outside investors. outside funding. 

Elina scaled fast by focusing on niche product-market fit, building a raving fan base, and using scrappy organic marketing to drive Amazon and TikTok Shop growth. Now, she helps other founders grow and scale their eCommerce brands profitably by building a brand that serves a specific group of people. 

In This Conversation We Discuss:

• [00:00] Intro
• [00:34] Sponsor: Taboola
• [01:44] Building products around customer pain points
• [02:53] Identifying problems through community research
• [05:19] Sponsor: Next Insurance
• [06:32] Balancing product creation with marketing
• [06:48] Building trust through storytelling
• [09:15] Collecting feedback to shape products
• [10:50] Creating scarcity to drive excitement
• [12:38] Identifying niches with specific pain points
• [13:47] Sponsor: Electric Eye
• [14:56] Sponsor: Freight Right
• [16:56] Collecting reviews to build credibility
• [18:37] Training mindset to handle uncertainty
• [21:59] Discovering entrepreneurial instincts early
• [22:29] Focusing on one channel before diversifying  
• [25:34] Leveraging micro-influencers for growth

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Creating Healthy Happy Lives for Doodles doodwoof.com/ 
• Follow Elina Panteleyeva instagram.com/doodwoofco/?hl=en 
• Reach your best audience at the lowest cost! discover.taboola.com/honest/ 
• Easy, affordable coverage that grows with your business nextinsurance.com/honest/ 
• Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect
• Turn your domestic business into an international business freightright.com/honest 

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Transcript

Chase Clymer

A great idea isn't enough. It's like how do you get that great idea in front of an audience?

Elina Panteleyeva

I know so many people that have  businesses with such good products, but they can't crack the marketing thing and they're broke and vice versa. It's really hard to have good marketing and a rating fan base if your products suck. So you need  both sides of the coin to actually have a successful business.

Chase Clymer

Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow and scale an online business today. 

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Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today, I'm welcoming to the show the founder of Doodwoof, an Ecommerce brand specifically focused on the doodle market, Elina. Welcome to the show. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Thanks for having me, Chase. Absolutely. 

Chase Clymer

I'm excited to chat. I'm a big dog guy. I actually have an Australian Kelpie, not a doodle, but very much a dog guy.

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. The hair of that specific breed, is it tingly or is it short-haired? 

Chase Clymer

I went in and I said I didn't want a dog that shed and I didn't want a big dog. And now I have a giant dog that sheds. But she looks like a mix between a Husky and a German Shepherd and just has the most quirky personality in the world. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Nice. Yeah. I think that's why a lot of people end up going for Doodles actually, because they don't shed. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. Hypoallergenic. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Exactly. Yeah.

Chase Clymer

Perfect. Well, tell me what are the types of products that you guys are bringing to market over there? 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. So we have two products right now. The first is a doodle detangler spray. And then the  second is a doodle shampoo. So just everything related to the challenges that doodle owners have with their dogs. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. I think I know where the answer to this next question is going to go. But I'm going to ask anyway. Where did the idea for this come from? 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. So in 2023 I got laid off for my job. And I picked up this book and it talked a lot about building an audience before deciding what product to actually create. So choosing basically the person that you're going to serve. So I got laid off. I didn't have any money. So I knew that no matter what business I started, I either had to get exposure by paid ads, which I couldn't because I was broke, or organic social media.

And so I looked at my dog and I never have ever posted any reel on Instagram or anything like that. But I was like, “Okay, well, since I can't do paid ads, I can. I have to do organic social media. And I think I can feel more comfortable creating content with my dog. And so that's how I came about with serving the person who is a doodle owner, because I was a doodle owner myself.  

And so then I went into Facebook groups that have. There's a ton of Facebook groups that just have hundreds of thousands of doodle owners. So I went in there and I typed in, I made a post on a couple of them. And I said, “Hey, like, what are your challenges of having a doodle? Would you be down to talk to me for a little bit about this?” And so [I] had a bunch of people respond,  hopping on a 15 minute zoom call with them. And then really the main challenge that people have is that their dog gets mad at and tangled easily.  

And it's hard to brush it, brush their dog out. So I went to ChatGPT. This is about when it first came out and said, hey, this is the challenge people are facing. What are some product ideas that I could create? One of them was a doodle detangler or one of them was a detangler spray.  So I looked at what already existed on the market. [I] saw that it was filled with a lot of harsh chemicals and just ingredients I couldn't pronounce. 

So I decided to create my own detangler spray made with natural human-grade ingredients, like everything on the label you can understand. And then also make sure it works for doodle hair and market it towards the doodle market. So that's how that first product came about. And then from there, just building an audience, building a custom raving fan base, I'm able to ask them about the next products. And that's how the second product, the shampoo, came about.

Chase Clymer

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I’m gonna have such a great time interviewing you.This is great. You said you read a book. What is the name of that book?

Elina Panteleyeva

I do because he’s now a really good mentor of mine. It's called 12 Months to 1 Million by Ryan Moran. 

Chase Clymer

Nice. That's a great book. I'm gonna have to check that out. But I do agree with what you said earlier. Unless you have the funding through a previous exit, being lucky as heck, or having access to capital, the only other way to do it is paid ads or having an audience there. And I think that is definitely the hardest thing for a lot of entrepreneurs to crack. Just because you have  a great idea isn't enough. It's like how do you get that great idea in front of an audience?  

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. I always say that building really... Well, I can only speak to Econ but I really assume any business. There are two parts to it. There's  getting the product part right, and then getting the marketing and the audience building part right. So you can be... I know so many people that have  businesses with such good products, but they can't crack the marketing thing and they're broke, and vice versa. 

It's really hard to have good marketing and a rating fan base if your products suck. So you need  both sides of the coin to actually have a successful business. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. It sounds like you had it all figured out. But hindsight is 20-20. How long was it from you reading this book and this idea of maybe there's something in this doodle community?  

Elina Panteleyeva

So, well, I had to move quickly because I was laid off. 

Chase Clymer

A lot of time on your hands, I think. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. But the company I was at. I was in the 4th round of layoffs, so I knew it was coming. But yeah, so I got laid off March 2023. I guess, for my LLC, May 2023. Throughout that following year, I just started documenting my journey. And I branded myself as not an expert at doodles or an expert at grooming, but just someone that had a doodle. And like a doodle owner just like you is what I always say. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. 

Elina Panteleyeva

And so then I started documenting my journey of figuring out how to manufacture the product. I didn't know anything. I would get people on my email list and just once a week give updates and just talk about  storytelling emails about what's happening. They seem to be pretty interesting. And then December 2023 is when we launched the product and had enough actually of a fan base built up.

By we, I mean me and my dog. But had enough of a fan base built up where we triggered the Amazon algorithm to get the number one new release, which is cool. 

Chase Clymer

That's fantastic. And so you are pursuing this Doodle community route. And so you are posting content, you're getting in these groups, and you're doing this research. How long did it take you to go from, here's the problem these doodles are getting matte, they need this detangler thing to you getting your first iteration of the product. 

Elina Panteleyeva

First iteration? Probably like 4-5 months. And so the key thing here is, get the first sample and because you're also me and what I really recommend everyone does, building an audience, you can then ask your audience like, “Hey, got the sample, try it on my dog. I would love for you all to try it.”

And so, you know, like a handful of people will respond because they'll just be like invested in your journey a little bit. Even though you don't believe it now, somehow they come out of the woodworks. It's kind of insane. But they test it, they give you feedback, and then you just keep doing these iterations until it's like, you're confident that when you launch it, you're at least 80 % confident that this product will be successful. 

So I think like stacking the deck, a lot of people... The reason I think people fail, especially on Amazon, is they launch a product and then it's like, “Okay, now what?” Versus if you stack the deck beforehand, you can trigger the algorithm and send a bunch of outside traffic either to Amazon or to your website or wherever you want to sell. To know that 80% sure that you'll have a successful launch and that you can at least sell through your inventory one time. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Let's talk about your launch. So obviously, you said that you leaned into Amazon  for that initial launch. So no Kickstarter, nothing like that. Just one day, you weren't live, the next day you were?  

Elina Panteleyeva

Well, basically, yes. But there was a lot of prep. So there was a huge launch, a big launch strategy. I had different email sequences, different prep on my social media. So it wasn't like, “Alright, everyone, now go on Amazon.” People were prepared. People had...  Some people messaged me because they were in the wrong time zone. They're like, “I didn't get an email from you with the link.” 

So building up that hype and bread crumbing beforehand, talking about scarcity, which is all true. I didn't have enough money to have a ton of inventory. So there was scarcity involved. But that's what gets people excited too. 

Chase Clymer

I'm assuming some people are like, yeah, this girl is so lucky. She gained the algorithm. had million followers. How many people were following you and on your list at this time? 

Elina Panteleyeva

No, no, no. Maybe I had, maybe 600 on my email list and then, maybe 800 on my Instagram. Nothing crazy. Realistically, you only need, think about it. You only need maybe 100 raving fans, like 100 people that are willing to buy your product, leave reviews. And if you have 100 people that buy your product and leave a review and some of them leave a video review, your Amazon listing or whatever listing you have is with 100 reviews, it's pretty credible.

Chase Clymer

It's already better than half of the stuff on there. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Exactly. You don't need a humongous audience. Right now, 7 FigureBusiness, I only have 9,000 people on Instagram that follow me. It's not crazy. 

Chase Clymer 

Absolutely. Yeah. And I love how honest you are about that because all of this is  achievable and realistic. And I think we also glossed over something here that is  one of the reasons this worked is your audience and your product are so niche and that is definitely to your benefit. 

Elina Panteleyeva

It's niche and it solves a specific pain point, a specific person that I'm serving. So I have people reach out to me, for example, like they're like, I want to start a different brand for a specific breed of dog. And let's say Frenchie. And then they'll be like, “Can you help me? Can you consult me?” And I'm like, sure. And they'll come to me with a product. It'll be like a Frenchie, for example. And their product will be a dog bowl. 

Like, okay, that doesn't solve a specific pain point for Frenchies. Like, what is it about that product? What is it about this dog bowl that's specifically related to Frenchies? I think that's also a very key point here. It's niching down. But talking to your audience, talking to those Frenchie owners or whatever, like moms over 40, and figuring out like, what is that specific pain point that they're having and creating something that's different than what's in the market to solve it?

Chase Clymer 

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Chase Clymer 

Let's talk a bit. Obviously, it's a successful launch. oh What happens from there?  

Elina Panteleyeva

What happened from there?  

Chase Clymer

Yeah.

Elina Panteleyeva

So I launched and then took a breather for like a week because I was so stressed because I was so broke. But I had one month left to pay rent actually, which is kind of fun to look back on. It is so stressful. But by stacking the deck, I was at least confident that some people would buy and I could pay rent for one more month. And then after that, it's all about like how can you get reviews? So the thing with Amazon specifically is you don't get your customer data.

So building a brand off of Amazon is something nobody does, but it's so important. So I have people on my email list and I'm trying to figure out who bought the product and figuring out if they liked it. Asking people to write honest reviews. People, because you're building a connection with them off of Amazon, and there's just a bunch of strategies with that.

But they want to help you. So getting those reviews up... I had one review, then five reviews, then 20. And then about 30 reviews, I was like, okay, now I can start running ads. So because if you run ads, when you have no reviews, you're just sinking money. It's not going to convert. 

Chase Clymer

And these ads are on Amazon? 

Elina Panteleyeva

At that point, yeah. 

Chase Clymer

Okay. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Now I run a bunch of Facebook ads. But yes, at that point, Amazon ads. And so and then from there, just scaling, started working with influencers. Got on TikTok shop and just figuring out what my next product was. And just doubling down on creating systems that, where I could just keep launching more products to the same group of people that are Doodle owners. 

Chase Clymer 

So you said that you launched these ads strictly on Amazon first, just  to set real expectations. Once you got to that stage, what were you budgeting for that? 

Elina Panteleyeva

I never budgeted anything. I said, if I'm making, if it makes sense, I try to keep my ad costs like 20 to 30 % of my total revenue. And so I was just like, if I'm making money, then I'm just going to put more money into it. If my ROAS is 3 to 5 or 2 or whatever, it so depends on your niche. It so depends on what you're doing. If it made sense to me, then I just kept putting money towards it. Figured out how to get money, got some inventory financing, and started trying to scale. 

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. You bring up something there. It's like constantly having to refresh inventory and scaling up. Because like you said, you only had so much money in the beginning and then you sold out. The momentum keeps getting stopped by how much capital you get access to. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Exactly. 

Chase Clymer

And it's hard to get that flywheel really running. 

Elina Panteleyeva

It's hard. It's hard, especially because with Ecom, there's like a term cash conversion cycle. So like, you know, it could take you six months to recoup like to sell like you put that money down to get the inventory by the time they make it by the time it ships by time it gets to Amazon by the time you sell through it.  It's six months later that you're actually seeing that cash again.  

And by that point, like you need to order a ton more because you've grown so much you have a bunch of people on subscribe and save. So it's like constantly, it's constantly about how I need more cash in order to keep growing and scaling. 

Chase Clymer

It's almost like you'd think that more sales make it easier. But it's like the more sales that you have, the more stuff you have to buy. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Mm-hmm. It's true. And the more... I mean, if you're...  Now I have someone on my team, so it's  got to pay this person. That's because there's no way I could do this all by myself anymore.  So just there's more expenses that come in. It is a lot to manage. It's really fun, though.  

Chase Clymer

Yeah, absolutely. It's also, it's not for the faint of heart. It's obvious... There is a bit of  confirmation bias with this podcast that isn't lost on me. Where it's like, obviously, the guests that I'm interviewing are successful, but it is not necessarily difficult to be successful if you just kind of... Like you said, you found a great audience. You found an actual problem that your product solves. Those two things are half the struggle.

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah, agreed. And also, I think in the beginning, I mean, the hardest part is mindset.  It's actually believing in yourself. In the beginning, I did not believe in myself and I legitimately had to train my brain because I had no proof that I could actually do this or be successful in this. So I just had to train myself every day I'd wake up and just tell myself I believe in myself. 

And then as this  follower came in, as this person randomly messaged me and said, “Oh, I'm excited for this.” Having that external validation really does actually help with you then being like, okay, something's actually working here. I don't know where these people are coming from. But  somehow this flywheel is starting. 

Chase Clymer 

Now before you got laid off, was your career in any way entrepreneurial or even in Ecommerce? 

Elina Panteleyeva

No, I was working  as a project manager in tech. I did have an entrepreneurial bug my whole life. So I remember in  high school I would buy things off Craigslist and flip them on eBay. That was my... 

Chase Clymer

That's always fun. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah, that was my intro to this. And I was like, wait a second, I am taking home a lot more money.  And this is fun. But before this, this is my first entrepreneurial, true business. 

Chase Clymer 

Absolutely. And  these days, the business is still 100 % on Amazon. Obviously, you said you launched a TikTok shop. Have you diversified away? You have your own... Shopify is a very popular one. 

Elina Panteleyeva

What's it look like now? We've always had Shopify. I just don't drive any traffic there. So we have blogs and stuff that will just organically drive traffic. I would say 80 % of my business is  Amazon, maybe 15%, 20 % TikTok shops and whatever is the potential remaining is Shopify. But now, we're just starting to diversify into more wholesale. And  it's starting to just, legitimately today, just starting to run some ads to the website to see how those perform. Now we have a little bit more bandwidth and inventory. 

Chase Clymer

I've mentioned this a few times. But if I was going to test a product, I would 1,000% launch it on Amazon just because they've got the customers and they've got the velocity. So you will quickly learn whether or not your product is good, basically. But it is like launching on your own platform, like your own .com, your own Shopify is almost infinitely harder than Amazon. 

Just because you have to... The marketing aspect of it is making sure that the targeting is accurate, that the messaging is accurate, and educating those people from cold net... They don't know you from anybody and actually purchasing you is like  an uphill battle. Whereas when you're in that Amazon ecosystem, the intent of people typing that problem into the Amazon search bar is just insane. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah, I definitely think there's pros and cons to both. Yeah. And in the beginning, my big piece of advice is focus on one thing and really nail it. So  if you're going to focus on Amazon, figure out, drive all your traffic there to make sure the algorithm knows you, figure out like, I need to update this. me A, B test this, et cetera. And then diversify to your website, TikTok shop, or start on your website and figure out... It is harder, but figure out how to do Facebook ads. And if logging works, maybe listicles, et cetera. 

Just whatever you're doing, I think in the beginning, the more you can focus, the less stressed you'll be and the better. You'll have an understanding of what actually works, what messaging works for your brand. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah, I think that's a common mistake that we see is that folks want to launch on Shopify and on TikTok and on Amazon all at once. And I was like, “Do you guys have funding and a team?” And “No, it's just me.” Like, you know, it's yeah, focus, focus, focus. You can get to the first million, maybe even your first 10 million through one channel easily. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. Especially in  bigger niche markets and even niche markets, the customers are there.  

Chase Clymer 

Absolutely. Now, a little question for you, maybe a little challenge. If you had to start over again today, right? And I know there are people that are listening to this that are about to start or they're just starting. And if you had to get to 100k a month as quickly as possible, what would you do?

Elina Panteleyeva

There's a lot of things I would do similarly. Honestly, so first, I would pick up first out before even  figuring out what product I'm launching, I would figure out what audience I want to serve. And I would talk to those people to figure out what their pain points are. And then create a product specifically related to those pain points. 

Then after that, I would start documenting my journey and on social media. You don't need to be an expert, but figure out how you can communicate with those people. And then try to get them on an email list as well. Because of an email... So your call to action in your social media, my opinion is that before you have your product launched, it should be like, join my email list or  somehow get them on there. 

Because that's where you can really dive deeper with people. And once a week, email them progress, tell them like, “Oh, this is a challenge [I’m] going through, my manufacturer's said this. They said this can't be possible, blah, blah, blah.” Just get them involved in the journey and get them to have some trust with you because nobody's got to buy a product with zero reviews. 

The only people that  are going to buy it are the ones that are invested in your journey and trust you just from your communication with them. So that's the benefit of having that. And then from there, once you launch the product, you need to do everything in your power to get to 100 reviews, I would say. So get into people's DMs. Literally just the most grindy stuff, you need to get to 100 reviews.

And hopefully, those are all 5-star reviews because you'll  inevitably get 1-star reviews. So you need to counteract as many of those 1-star reviews with getting 5-star reviews. And most people are more likely to leave you 1-star reviews than 5-star reviews, unless you specifically ask. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. People that are disappointed are always louder than the people that are happy. It's unfortunate. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Oh, yeah. You really do need to ask people to leave reviews. Think about your own life. So many times you like something and you just don't. You're like, okay, cool. Move on with my life. But specifically, I'll reach out and ask people. Usually, they're so happy to leave a review.  They just don't even think about it. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. And then I really like what you've said, I think it's a challenge some people face. It's like, I'm not an expert. Why would people want to listen to me or follow me or be on my email list? And it's like, you don't need to be an expert. You just need to be authentic and share what the heck's going on. And I think that maybe it also has to do with that mental thing. It's just like, people don't want to hear from me. It's like, yeah, they do. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Mindset. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It definitely helps if whatever. I'm not going to be starting a brand for divorced dads. But it definitely helps if you are your person or it's something that you've already gone through some sort of transformation and you're like the hero or you're they're the hero of the journey, but you're like someone they look up to. So that's, that's what I would think about when choosing a niche. 

And then just quickly to your point before the other thing I would do to then scale to a 100k is work with influencers, work with affiliates. Because you're essentially renting their audience. You're building your own because that's good for you and the brand. But that part takes the longest. So in order to speed that up, if you work with affiliates and influencers, you're basically renting an audience from them. 

Chase Clymer

I'm going to ask directly. I'm assuming there are a bunch of super famous doodles on Instagram.  There are. 

Elina Panteleyeva

What I've actually noticed though is a lot of those super famous doodles, what I call them is that they're entertainers. So they don't actually have trust with the people that follow them. Instead, I'm more likely to reach out to someone that has like 3,000 followers, but maybe they're a dog groomer. Or maybe they're like... something... They have some sort of authority or something where people trust them versus a doodle.

And this is for any market, not just doodles, versus an 80,000 follower account where they just make funny videos or they just don't have that trust. And so I think that's actually a really interesting point.

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. That  macro or micro influencer just has a little bit more trust because it's more authentic and it's more like, “Oh, this person is just like me”, as opposed to this person is now, like you said, an entertainer. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah. Especially if it's a vet or just someone in your industry that has authority, that it's way better to go with them is what I've noticed. A, it's cheaper.  B, people just trust them more and more likely [to say], “Okay, he said this, this must be true.” 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Is there anything I didn't ask you about today that you think would resonate with our audience? 

Elina Panteleyeva

We did cover a lot. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah, this is a fun one. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Nothing comes to mind right now. 

Chase Clymer

Well,  obviously, if anyone listening to this has a doodle, where should they go? What should they do? 

Elina Panteleyeva

Yeah, feel free to follow me, Doodwoofco on Instagram. D-O-O-D-W-O-O-F-C-O. 

Chase Clymer

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Alina. 

Elina Panteleyeva

Thank you for having me.