The Startup CPG Podcast

Jesrina Arshad
We knew from every single iteration of trying out a new business model what the customers wanted. We learned every step of the way. And ultimately they were like, we want your product. Other people's products we can get elsewhere. Like, we want your product. Like, when are you going to launch? We want. But I didn't just want to launch any product because there's so many in the market. For me, it's like we have to fulfill a gap. That's why I created Purely Be. There was a gap in the market. Nobody is doing this. We created this. We're going to create a product. It has to be something nobody else is doing and something people need.

00:46
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, editor at Startup cpg. We are back with another founder feature. Have you ever wondered what happens when ancient Malaysian rainforest remedies meet modern wellness? Well, today we're talking with Jasarina Arshad, founder and CEO of Purely Be. Jasarina is a founder who's using mushrooms in her products that you probably never heard of, let alone experienced before. After her own health struggles led her to ancestral healing herbs, Jasrina turned centuries old formulations into grown up Pixy Stix that have reached millions of users globally. Now she's looking to tap into the US Market on a deeper level. We'll dive into how she's preserving lost wisdom, supporting marginalized farmers across Asia and what it takes to bring ancient remedies today's wellness market. This conversation will change how you think about mushrooms and wellness, I hope. Enjoy. Hey everybody.

01:44
Caitlin Bricker
Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Kaitlyn and today I'm here with Jasreena Arshad, founder of Purely Be. Jessrena, welcome to the show.

01:54
Jesrina Arshad
Hi Caitlin, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

01:58
Caitlin Bricker
It has been a long time coming, listeners. We have had to reschedule. We're laughing now, but it was like pressure lens.

02:07
Jesrina Arshad
I don't know.

02:09
Caitlin Bricker
First I had a concussion and then my family was sick and Jasrina thankfully was so gracious and understanding and here we are, full. Finally had a.

02:19
Jesrina Arshad
It all worked out. Yeah. This is actually the better timing. So, yeah, everything happens for a reason.

02:25
Caitlin Bricker
Well, I'm very excited for everybody to learn about Purely Be. I am fascinated with your products. I feel like maybe I can't be the only one that feels this way. But sometimes I think mushrooms and products can be a little tiring because we see it everywhere. But your product to me or was very refreshing because it had ingredients I had never heard of before. So tell listeners what is Purely Be.

02:51
Jesrina Arshad
Yes, sure. So at purely be what we do, I'm from Malaysia, that's my home country. And Malaysia, it's the home of very rich wellness heritage. And these ancient medicinal herbs from the Malaysian rainforest that dates centuries. And what we've done is that we revive and preserve ancient natural medicine of our ancestors. So these medicinal herbs have been used for centuries for healing, prevention for many generations, but they have gotten lost amongst today's modern generation. So what we've done is that we work with traditional healers and herbalists from the villages in Malaysia who have that wisdom and that knowledge of these ancient remedies and with modern medical scientists from around the world who had done research on tropical Malaysian herbs and how they're one of the most powerful in the world for healing.

03:49
Jesrina Arshad
And we've teamed up together to create a range of products that will help optimize the health of today's modern generation. But the natural way and what we've done is, as you know, we've made them into Pixi stick format. So the beauty of it is that, okay, we all know natural medicine from generations ago, very powerful, very bitter, doesn't taste good, very difficult to consume. There's a whole process of how to consume it, but what we've done is make it for today's generation. So it's like sour candy. Pixy sticks reminds you of your childhood. It's just in sachets. You pour it on your tongue, it melts in your mouth and it doesn't even feel like you're taking a supplement, even though it's just pure herbs and fruits, nothing else. And it's literally our Tagung mushroom product. Three ingredients and nothing else.

04:40
Jesrina Arshad
And our Pagaga product, which is another medicinal herb 2000 years old, is six ingredients, herbs and fruits. So yeah, that's in a nutshell of what we do. And we really focus on rare botanicals from the rainforest that really have abundance of sun science, proving how it helps with gut health, skin, lung health, allergies, but just haven't been accessible today's modern generation or the global community. So it's really, it feels like a mission to revive and preserve ancient wisdom.

05:15
Caitlin Bricker
That Pixie stick format is so fun. I was able to sample at a party, a startup CPG party, of course, back at Expo west. And when you gave it to me, I was like, really? I just shoot it back just like that. And our whole team, when we tried it, were just amazed. First of all, it tastes really good. It definitely brought me back to that nostalgic child pixie stick experience without all the sugar. And you're sweetening with dates, which was in grape, I believe in the elderberry.

05:46
Jesrina Arshad
And red grape for the tiger mushroom. Yes. Yeah. So you have that sour kick when you first put it in your mouth. Right.

05:54
Caitlin Bricker
So delicious. And the padaga are you using?

05:57
Jesrina Arshad
Yes. So we have two padagas. So this one here has green apples and dates. So that one, you actually mix it in just water. You can take it as a pixie stick. But it's going to taste more herbal because it's like matcha kind of tasting. But a lot of people love that. They say it's like a good cup of pagaga in the morning. Feels like that warmth and that comfort. But it's also a pick me up. So that is for people who love the more herbal. But that's a light sweetness of the green apples and dates and that's for gut health and skin. But you just need water and that's it. So the beauty of it, you know, with a lot of green superfoods, you need to put it into a smoothie.

06:36
Jesrina Arshad
It still has that strong spirulina taste or wheatgrass or whatever it might be. But with this you don't need to just water is fine and it's super refreshing. But this one, which we're actually launching in the US in a few months, but it's been in Asia already for the past year, is lychee and passion fruit Pixie stick with the pagan, the turmeric. So again like you just pour in your mouth so it has a slightly different taste. Notes to the tiger mushroom that you tried, which is like sour candy. But pagaga chaga is like lychee. Have you tried lychee like the.

07:12
Caitlin Bricker
I have. To me it almost has like a fruity, nutty taste, personally.

07:17
Jesrina Arshad
Yeah, kind of. Yes. Yes. Yeah. There's a slight sourness from the passion fruit, but the lychee taste is more dominant. So it's less sour than the tagu mushroom, but both like melt in your mouth. These two. And the pagan chaga can help with gut health, is more focused on brain health, mental clarity, focus, stress, anxiety and detoxification.

07:39
Caitlin Bricker
All sounds like things everybody could use.

07:42
Jesrina Arshad
I know. Yeah. So I think for us is we're all taking a ton of supplements today and we all know how. You know, after Covid, I think it just ramped everyone's sort of awareness out of how to ensure that you prevent diseases and prevent falling sick. But it's getting a bit much now. Like all the Pills and all the powders and everything. And for us, how can we minimize it so it doesn't feel like one of so many that you have to consume and make it more fun and easy. You don't need water, you can just pop it in your bag.

08:21
Caitlin Bricker
I really love and appreciate that approach because no shade to anybody that loves their supplement stacks. But when I see those images online and people are sharing their supplement stacks, I'm like, yeah, is your diet like, why do you need all of these supplements? Can't you get most of this from food? I am very proud to say that I take a vitamin D supplement. I took your Tiger Milk Mushroom product when I was recovering from the second cancellation and after fancy food too. And prior to fancy food, because it was just, you're exposed, made a boost.

08:56
Jesrina Arshad
Yeah. So I think what's important as well is I think for us, we didn't want to be just a supplement in terms of, yes, you feel good and that's it. We wanted it to be transforming your health in a life changing way for people who have issues, who have health issues. So with Tiger Milk mushroom, it's a 400 year old mushroom only found in Malaysia, which is why you haven't heard it and you don't see it in the US who actually were the only ones in the US bringing this tag up mushroom extract were actually exclusive. Bring it to the US So with Tagumult mushroom, it has really been proven. So the indigenous communities in Malaysia from over hundreds of years ago, they basically would consume this for lung health issues.

09:44
Jesrina Arshad
So respiratory conditions and abnormal growth like cancer and whatnot, and energy, but particularly bronchitis, cough flow, asthma, sinus, those sort of conditions. So the scientists that we work with in Malaysia had conducted 20 years of research on this and it's amazing, fascinating the stories that you see of people who have chronic asthma in and out of hospitals, using their inhalers all their lives. And then when they started consuming Tiger Milk mushroom, just over a short period of time, like within a month, they don't need to use the inhalers anymore. They're not reliant on steroids, they're not in and out of hospitals, they can lead a normal life. And this is huge because it's food as medicine, it's completely natural and it is from our heritage.

10:33
Jesrina Arshad
So in Malaysia it's known as our lost national treasure because a lot of people were not aware of it. And it took 20 years of scientific research for people to be like, okay, let me try this. And from me particularly, I have Allergies to gluten, dairy, egg, wheat, shellfish. And if I accidentally eat it, I get all flu y I get like rashes and whatnot. And so I take zyrtec every now and then. And I hate that I take it because I know it's not good to take it continuously or whatnot. And tiger mushroom was a game changer for me. And that's when I knew we needed to bring it to market. So basically when I started consuming it every day.

11:11
Jesrina Arshad
And when I ate like a sandwich because my cousin launched a restaurant and I was supporting him and he had everything I couldn't eat. There was egg, dairy, everything had red meat. I don't even eat red meat. Like super rare. And I ate it and I was all prepared to get all the symptoms, but I didn't have zyrtec on me. But I didn't get any of the symptoms, no rashes. And I was like, dumbfound. I was like, wait a minute. And then I remembered I was taking tylenol mushroom every day for at least a week at that time. So that was the turning point for me on. And I haven't taken zyrtec since. I just take this every day and I can eat these things. I actually don't react to shellfish anymore. Again, I don't have chronic allergies. I don't get hospitalized.

11:48
Jesrina Arshad
If I do eat these things, it's just rashes and flu y I start sneezing, it's like mild allergy symptoms. But it has done wonders for me. And then we saw that with our community as well. They don't take zyrtec anymore. This is their go to. So it's things like that, like how do we move people away from pharmaceutical drugs and steroids and all of that been so reliant their whole life. And food as medicine, something that is native to Malaysia, it's so rare, but it can be life transforming. So that is really important in our mission.

12:23
Caitlin Bricker
Totally. And I feel like a lot of people who do take pharmaceuticals, which no issue if you take pharmaceuticals, but I think that some people might not understand or recognize that a lot of pharmaceuticals are actually based in food or herbal medicines. And you're just basically going back to the basics by giving that whole mushroom.

12:44
Jesrina Arshad
As pure as it gets, right? Yeah, exactly. And people tend to get a lot of side effects. They react to the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs. So we try and minimize that by trying to go as natural as possible, as pure as possible without all these unnecessary additives.

13:02
Caitlin Bricker
I love that. And that's actually a good segue into one of my next questions for you, which is, do your products have any contraindications with pharmaceuticals that people might be taking?

13:15
Jesrina Arshad
No, not at all. Because it's completely natural. It's food. It's like consuming it. It's a part of your daily life. It's just as you're consuming your lunch, your dinner, your breakfast, and then you have any pharmaceutical drugs or whatnot. But what we do always say, especially if someone is on prescription after, let's say, surgery or certain condition or they're going through chemo, we always say consult your physician, consult your doctor. We say it is safe, but always consult just to take extra caution because we don't know what their doctors might say.

13:51
Caitlin Bricker
Highlight, underline, bold. Always consult with your physician.

13:54
Jesrina Arshad
Yes, yes. Always, always. But we know some people like, some people always be like, yeah, my physician only wants me to just take whatever they're giving me, but I'm just going to consume it anyway. Well, that's up to you because it is safe. But we want you to consult your physician. And yeah, great advice.

14:12
Caitlin Bricker
I am also curious, too. You did mention that they are rare medicines. So I think a lot of the conversation, at least here in the US is on plant conservation and preserving these rare botanicals. So how do you approach sustainability with herbs and medicinal plants?

14:31
Jesrina Arshad
I love that you asked that. So with tagged mushroom, this is extremely rare, you will find one, if you're lucky, growing every 10 kilometers. So unlike other mushrooms, it doesn't grow in a school cluster. And that's if you're lucky, you'll find one. So it is so rare. We would not never touch that in the wild. And it's not easy to harvest in natural farmland either. But we actually grow it in a lab through jasmine rice, and we work with the scientists. So it's actually the scientists. So in Malaysia, there's an educational institute and a research institute called University Malaya, which is one of the most renowned research institutes in Southeast Asia when it comes to tropical herbs.

15:14
Jesrina Arshad
They've conducted 20 years of research on this, and the scientists were the ones who started growing it in the lab to properly see how can we bring this medicinal mushroom in a scalable way to the community. But they would not be able to commercialize. They're just the scientists doing the research, doing the testing, and trying to see how can we preserve it and make it accessible. And so that's when they came to us. And I was very lucky. My investor is on the board of directors of that research Institute and told me that they had been conducting this research, which is a game changer for a lot of people's health. And he thinks that we would be the best partner to bring this to market. And so we got connected. Was it five years ago or so, and it completely transformed my health.

16:00
Jesrina Arshad
So we started working together in R and D and creating this part. But they had already conducted 20 years of scientific research and growing this in the lab. So, yeah, we have them to thank for it too. Yeah.

16:12
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. I'd love to know about any reactions that the scientists had when they finally got to taste your product.

16:18
Jesrina Arshad
Yeah, they were mind blown because obviously they've tried as raw as it gets. And I think important for me to mention is that they worked five years on patented technology to make this into a special extract called xlr, which just has the highest bioavailability. And this extract, obviously it's going to be light tasting because it's an extract form. You're not going to taste much of the mushroom, but it's actually five times more powerful than when it's in its raw form. So that patented extract is what we use and with them, and we're the first ones in the world to actually use it, which is probably why it's so effective for people with allergies and asthma and whatnot, because it's like amplified. The potency and efficacy is on another level, but the taste also is lessened.

17:08
Jesrina Arshad
So that's why the elderberry and the red grapes, the taste notes are very prominent because the mushroom in this special extract form. So I think all of that combined, I mean, they didn't expect it to taste like this, but they knew that the mushroom taste wouldn't be that prominent in this extract. But still they were mind blown when they consumed it. And they didn't know that we could do a Pixie Stick format until we came in and we said this is what we want to explore. And we started working on it together and they're like, wow, okay.

17:38
Caitlin Bricker
I had the same reaction. Not a scientist, haven't worked in Mushroom Lab, but I was mind blown. The elderberry and grape in that stick, it makes my mouth water in a very good way when I take it. I love sour. And it really just like satisfies a craving and you get the benefit of it actually doing something good for you.

17:57
Jesrina Arshad
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's easy for kids because kids hate taking supplements, but for them, they get like addicted to this. You have parents that saying they're stealing my whole stash because so In Malaysia, we've launched like a kids version that's cheaper and because they don't need this amount of this dose. So we can do a lesser version for the kids, even though it's safe for them, but they don't need to spend that much on kids. So now parents are like, good, My stash is my stash. My kids can have that kid's version. But yeah, it's quite funny. The kids keep stealing the. They want more. They get quite addictive to that sour candy taste.

18:35
Caitlin Bricker
Sure, my daughter would be in my stash if I ever enter it, but I'm keeping it away from. But only keep her away if you.

18:42
Jesrina Arshad
Need to retain yours.

18:44
Caitlin Bricker
So I'm really curious. You started down the path with Tiger Milk Mushroom. From my understanding, from your own personal health journey, how did you get from, hey, I'm having these personal issues to let's create a product. And I'm also curious about the hurdles that you may or may not have faced when going from the Malaysian market to the US market.

19:07
Jesrina Arshad
Yeah, so we're actually 10 years old. We started Purity B back in 2015 in Malaysia. And it was very accidental. So when I started the company, I was in digital marketing. I was in corporate. I was headed digital marketing in this, the largest broadcast network in Southeast Asia at the time. It was called Astro. And I loved my job. I was not thinking, oh, I'm gonna start business, let alone a wellness business. That was not in my mind. But I wasn't unhealthy. But I wasn't the healthiest person either. I was sort of like, in between. I was very normal, but I had a lot of health issues. Nothing chronic. It's not like I'm in and out of hospitals. But I had become immune to the symptoms that I was getting. So I would get migraines every two days. So without fail, every week.

19:58
Jesrina Arshad
I was constantly having a headache. I would have eczema and rashes, breakouts every week. Because I had very poor gut health. I had really bad digestion issues. I was very badly constipated. I know it might be tmi, but I would go once a month. It was that.

20:13
Caitlin Bricker
There's no TMI on the show.

20:15
Jesrina Arshad
Okay.

20:15
Caitlin Bricker
You love a good number four on the Bristol stool chart.

20:18
Jesrina Arshad
And my housewife love that. So, yes, I would go once a month. It was that bad. But I got used to it. It was for years, and I got used to, this is how I feel every week, every few days, and this is normal. But it just meant I felt tired all the time. Headaches, nausea, because when you have headaches and you're blocked out everything. So I thought it's because I was overworked and stressed and not getting enough sleep. I didn't realize that I had developed intolerances and allergies to gluten, dairy, egg, wheat and shellfish over the years that was leading to these symptoms as my reaction to all these foods. And it was only when I went to a natural health doctor in Singapore that my sister recommended me to because helped her son overcome his eczema and identify it was allergic to.

21:08
Jesrina Arshad
And through those tests, it was a test called naets, which is like where you hold a glass jar, it's non invasive allergy test. And found out that egg was the number one thing that I was intolerant and allergic to and then gluten and whatnot. And I was shocked because all my life I never had those allergies. And suddenly I'm told that I am. And he said your body has developed these sensitivities because your diet and your lifestyle is pretty toxic. But I'm not eating McDonald's every day. I'm, I'm pretty normal, but because my body is more sensitive and a lot of the foods I'm eating are processed foods and I don't realize it that it has resulted in that. So I had to completely clean up my diet and my lifestyle.

21:51
Jesrina Arshad
So it led me down a path of where I was doing so much research and trying to learn on how to cut out all these foods because I didn't even know what gluten was 10 years ago in Asia, nobody was talking about it. And I actually followed Ella Woodard, which is deliciously Ella, she's pretty big in the US actually in the uk and how she was able to overcome a chronic condition going natural, plant based, cutting out gluten, dairy and eating foods that I love, chocolate cake, burgers, pizza. And I was like, how is she doing this? So I learned from her, I learned from others and I adapted it to my lifestyle in Asia, in Malaysia, because we don't have a lot of the ingredients that they were talking about. So I had to look at alternatives. So it took me a while.

22:39
Jesrina Arshad
After about a month, I was able to incorporate all these learnings to clean up my diet, my lifestyle, go completely natural and incorporate, go back to my roots, incorporate Malaysian healing herbs into my lifestyle. Making these drinks in Malaysia, you call it ulam, a Malaysian salad, which are basically these herbs. That's what our ancestors would consume and as part of their daily meals and routine and that's how they were able to keep healthy. So I incorporated all of this and within one week all my symptoms cleared up. It was crazy because I had done colon sculpey, I had done it all, Nothing worked. And just natural cutting out, going plant based, cutting out gluten, going back to my roots and consuming these herbal remedies.

23:24
Jesrina Arshad
My headaches went away, my digestion was regular, my eczema cleared up, I had no rash breakouts that week and my energy was at all time high. So when that happened, I was shocked. That one, it was so fast and that was all I needed to do. But two, that not a single brand or platform in Asia was advocating this. Nobody was talking about it, nobody was guiding people on lifestyle change, you don't need treatment, surgery, all of that. And I needed to be the one to educate and lead the way. And nobody was doing it. And like it changed my life. I needed to if it can help one other person, to me that's worthwhile. That's all I wanted to do.

24:07
Jesrina Arshad
So when I was thinking about creating purely be, it was like an educational platform to guide people in a lifestyle way to leading their best health and overcoming health issues. But I'm not a health expert. So I teamed up with natural health doctors, nutritionists, fitness coaches, medical scientists who are all women. So six women co founders creating this company. And because at that time 10 years ago were considered a tech startup because it was digital education. We were creating a digital marketplace to promote other brands that had really great natural products. And so were able to get like venture funding from Silicon Valley based 500 Startups because were a tech startup and were a very rare six women founded tech startup in Asia.

24:53
Jesrina Arshad
So we got a lot of press coverage because of it and also because were the first in Asia to do what were doing and nobody were like what are they doing? They're promoting plant based approaching gluten. So that was how it started. Caitlin. But products was not on my radar. I did not think to do products because I'm like so many people have great products out there. I want to promote their products, I want to educate more on lifestyle, great recipes, all of that. But it actually the community were the ones who asked us to create the product. So over four years the challenges we faced was monetization. We didn't know how to make money. We built a strong brand, we built a community.

25:38
Jesrina Arshad
And because were a first mover, so a lot of people knew who were, but we didn't know how to monetize, because weren't thinking of creating our own product. And marketplace was so hard. It was draining money from us. Nobody talks about how you need to have unlimited funding if you're going to do a marketplace, otherwise you might die as a startup. And it was a very hard lesson. Whatever funds that we had raised, it just. We burned through it because of the marketplace. And it's very hard. You have small margins that you can earn from it. And so we knew from every single iteration of trying out a new business model what the customers wanted. We learned every step of the way. And ultimately they were like, we want your product. Other people's products we can get elsewhere. Like, we want your product.

26:28
Jesrina Arshad
Like, when are you going to launch? But I didn't just want to launch any product because there's so many in the market. For me, it's like we have to fulfill a gap. That's why I created Purely Be. There was a gap in the market. Nobody is doing this. We created this. We're going to create a product. It has to be something nobody else is doing and something people need. And that's when I met Professor Boudicker. He's Columbia Yale professor who did the research. He's Australian, he's not even Asian. He wrote the books on the healing properties of Malaysian rainforest herbs and how they're most powerful in the world. And I was so lucky. A friend of mine was his student at Oxford, where he was also a professor, and introduced us.

27:08
Jesrina Arshad
He basically schooled me on Malaysian healing herbs and the fascinating research and science behind them, and talked about how there's a huge generational gap. And it was true. My grandparents, I spoke to them, they swore by it. My peers never heard about it. And so when I saw that huge generational gap, I was like, I need to get my hands on this herb. But how am I going to find a proven ancient recipe with it? Because even if I find this herb, I don't want to R and D something from scratch. I want to revive ancient remedy that's been proven, because that's not being done right now. And so, again, I believe in fate. I believe in destiny. In your path.

27:50
Jesrina Arshad
A week after meeting Dr. Boudicker and him blowing my mind with all these fascinating facts about these herbs, I met this traditional healer and herbalist. She's like a village midwife in Malaysia, very renowned. Her name is Hamida, Hamid Kaeda. She came to my house because my sister gets these healing herbal massages and drinks from this healer as general health maintenance and she said, why don't you speak to her? This healer, she knows all of this. You can ask her about Pagaga. So I said to this healer, I said, do you know Pagaga? She said, of course. It's so good for the skin, the brain, the gut. And then I said, do you know where I can find a proven ready made recipe formula supplement with Pagan in it? And she just looked at me and she said, I make it.

28:41
Jesrina Arshad
That's what I've been giving to your sisters. That's what I inherited from my grandmother. And I have been treating all of my clients. And I was just like, we need to talk. So I said to her, can I try it? And I said, if this works really well for me, can I meet some of your customers from over the years that you've been healing for decades? I want to hear their stories. And if this works out, would you be open to making this accessible to people around the world? Because right now, the only people who benefit are the ones you go over and you massage them and you blend this drink for them. And she was excited. She was open to it because she's like, if this can help more people, yes, but I need to pray on it.

29:27
Jesrina Arshad
Because she comes from a sacred lineage of healers and herbalists. So the way it works, it stays in their family. You can't pass the recipe to somebody else. But she felt in her gut, in her core, that this was the right thing to do. But she needed approval from God. So she prayed on it. It took a while, it took a few months. And she came to me and she said, I've gotten permission, I've gotten the science, and it is clear to me that you need to get the recipe. So she passed the recipe to me. And I, when I tried this recipe, honestly, because I do have gut health issues. So even when I clean up my diet, my lifestyle, whilst that works, if I'm not good with my diet, then I still have some constipation issues.

30:08
Jesrina Arshad
But when I started consuming this, it didn't matter. I was regular even though I didn't take care of my diet. So that was really interesting to me and my business partner. She had really bad eczema on her hands and it cleared up within three days. So we knew how effective hers was. It was another level of effectiveness compared to just regular Pagaga. And so when we wanted to take it to market, we had no money. That was the biggest challenge. When I discovered this, Dr. Boudicker, Ka Ida both became my business partners. They said, we want to do this together. I had the science covered, the ancient traditions covered. I had the brand and the community that people knew. We had all the elements and were getting this out to market, but we had no money.

30:54
Jesrina Arshad
We were like, how do we bring this to market? I have no money for marketing, I don't have money for production. But we're sitting on a potential gold mine. What do we do? So what I decided to do, I was like, you know what? We had the community. I can't remember how many people we had in our community then. Maybe it was 5,000 people in our database, but we had quite a big social media following. So I decided to do a pre order. So I first said, okay, we're going to do education first. Create all these articles telling the younger modern generation about Pegaga because they completely lost touch with it. Tell them that this is ancient recipe your grandparents, your great grandparents swore by. Why you need to try this as well for your brain, your skin, your gut health.

31:36
Jesrina Arshad
We created a handful of articles that Dr. Boudicca wrote with Kaida and we put that out on our platform for like a month. And a lot of people reading it and asked us, where can I get this? And then we would tell them, get on the wait list, we're launching something soon. And then the following month I launched a pre order. But not a one month, not a two month, three months pre order. So I said, pay upfront now. You get a 40% discount and you'll get your product in three months. You have no idea, Caitlin, how many people and advisors and mentors said this will never work. They said nobody is going to wait three months for a product they've never heard of an ingredient they don't even know and you've never even done products before.

32:23
Jesrina Arshad
And I was like, I believe in this so much. It has changed my gut health and I need to do it this way, otherwise I will never know. And so as I'm going to do it anyway. And when we did it, within two weeks we sold out. We could only produce a certain amount. We could only produce 250 units of one month supply because were working in marginalized farmers in Thailand who are part of her village. So it was all social impact element of our business, like helping this women farmers. But we sold out 250 units and made 25,000 within two weeks. Zero marketing. And then I have to say, sorry.

33:00
Caitlin Bricker
To cut you off, I love the pre order model. I love that three months is crazy, but it worked for you. But pre order, like I think that any brands listening to this right now who are thinking about launching a product. I firmly believe pre ordering is such a smart way to just understand how much inventory you need as soon as your product is going to be live so that you're not overwhelmed with orders.

33:27
Jesrina Arshad
Yeah, it's a great validation. If you need validation, do it that way. That keeps the motivation going. Correct? Correct. It's the only way. Don't let your financial situation stop you because it could have stopped me if I listened to my advisors, honestly, but I didn't. I'm like, no, I'm going to do it anyway. And yeah. So for you. Thank you. But after the two weeks, I didn't want it to be a fluke because you never know, right? It could be a one off. It could just be a trend. Will it happen again? So I said, okay, you know what, let's sell another 250 units, another three month pre order the following month. But this time let's put US$250 into online ads. So there's not much, but I'm like, a little bit, let's put a little bit in there.

34:16
Jesrina Arshad
It was about a thousand ringgit Malaysian Ringgit to target everyone who read the articles about Pagaga and tell them we have this product. And then we did that and we sold out another 250 units. So total we sold 500 units within one month and it was again within two weeks. So that was another 25,000 ringgit. I think it's about, is that US$8,000 within two weeks and this time with $250. So we spent $250 to make about 6, US$15,000 in revenue in sales. And that was a great validation. But again, it came with other challenges after that with fulfillment and everything. But we overcame that hurdle. Long story short, it took five months for them to get their product. It wasn't three months. Logistics challenges Farm got flooded, everything. And then the fascinating thing, Caitlin, was nobody refunded. We told customers, these are the issues.

35:18
Jesrina Arshad
If you want a refund, give your details. But otherwise give us another two months and you'll get it by I think it was like March 2019. Some people complained and vented, but nobody asked for a refund. They all said they'll wait. And I think that proved to me that were really doing something different and unique in the market, which is what we wanted to do. We didn't want to just do what everyone else is doing. They're doing a great job. We don't need touch that Right. And after that, you know, the Response is great. 30% of people repeat ordered after a week and that's when we scaled everything up. Yeah. So a lot of challenges, but that's pretty much the journey of how we got here.

35:56
Caitlin Bricker
Unreal. It really, truly does sound like the stars aligned for you. You just had this aha moment and everything was like, okay, here's your path, move forward. So cool. So going from having no money to $250 spent on Meta advertising, where does the business stand today?

36:20
Jesrina Arshad
So that was. Yeah, so now it's been about six years of doing the products and we have international customer base. So we do spend more than $250 now on marketing. Actually, 90% of our revenue is from D2C so we spend quite a bit on digital marketing. But we make sure we have a ROAS return on advertising spend of at least five times for whatever we do. Because for us that's the only way we can be sustainable and we're profitable today, thankfully. Currently we generate about US$2.5 million in annual revenue from mostly these two products. And then this is the third product. So we only have two product SKUs.

37:09
Caitlin Bricker
So impressive.

37:10
Jesrina Arshad
And we still have a long way to go obviously, but I think for us we really didn't have much funding at all even throughout that journey. We got a little bit of funds along the way, but it was very minimal, like a hundred thousand US dollars sort of thing. So it was really trying to grow it as organically as possible to where we are today. And then now we're ready to like ramp up, get proper investment funding to scale this up. Because we have customers in the us, we have customers in the uk, Australia, but we don't have the funds to properly expand and market in those countries. So till today Malaysia has been the only country that we've been doing marketing and advertising. But Malaysia only makes up 50% of our revenue.

37:56
Jesrina Arshad
30% is Singapore, 20% is all over the world and which includes the US which is the biggest market of all the other countries. But all our marketing is still only in Malaysia because that's when we know we can generate 5x ROAS. So until I get more funding, I'm not going to burn any of my cash into advertising the other markets where I know there's going to be a lot of brand building and all of that. So you're not going to see as big a return. But I don't want to affect our profitability. So right now it's sort of okay. We really want to scale and grow in those other markets. But let me raise a bit more funds before that.

38:33
Jesrina Arshad
We can allocate for market expansion so we can make sure that we can remain profitable and double up our revenue every year and continue to do that as we grow into other markets.

38:44
Caitlin Bricker
So it sounds like your market right now is not very focused on the US So I hope there are some US based retailers that are listening to this conversation right now. It sounds like if they were to introduce your products onto their shelf, they would really be introducing something very new that their neighboring retailers don't have right now. And especially not these ingredients too.

39:07
Jesrina Arshad
Yes, absolutely. So I think the customers that we have met here in the US because this year we're really trying to build out our D2C and it's been really great. I wouldn't be spending time here if the response wasn't good in the past year. And it's because it's something unique. I get the same reactions that you guys did, Caitlin, you and the team and they're like, I need to get this, I need to buy this. So when I do little pop ups, it sells really well. They get immediately get on subscription. And even though I'm not in the country, last year I was only in the country for like three weeks. But this year I'm going to be here for long periods of time to probably expand spend.

39:45
Jesrina Arshad
But even though it's only there for three weeks, last year every month were generating sales just on its own because of people who discovered it and they just wanted it every month. And it's something so unique. So I do feel that there is definitely an untapped opportunity in the US it stands. It's something that other people are not offering. It covers a unique space but we need to obviously work with the right partners to make sure that it can get the visibility and the accessibility to the people that need it.

40:16
Caitlin Bricker
You heard it here first. I have loved talking to you about purely be. I am very excited for your brand. I am going to be even more excited when I see it on shelves in the US because I will be able to say there it is.

40:33
Jesrina Arshad
You were there right from the start, Caitlin.

40:36
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. I love it. There is just something so special about your product and I really do think that you're onto something great. I mean the numbers are proving that for you. But I am hanging onto your words here. When you're saying that you're doing something different, you're not reinventing the wheel, you're not doing something that other people have done. You're doing something different. And because you're doing that, you're paving your path to success in the industry. So I'm super excited for you. Before we go, I would love for you to tell our audience where they can find you online, how they can get in touch with you. Let's make this easy for them.

41:12
Jesrina Arshad
Yes. Okay, so you can find me online at J E S S A R S H A D jessarshad I like to share a lot about, you know, my personal journey in building Purely Be. And you can actually find Purely Be online at purelybee. P U R E L Y B on Instagram. On TikTok, we have a US account as well, which is purely be us, but that's still growing. We just started that because all our US customers have been following us on our global Asia account and we're starting to, like, try and funnel them to the US One that can be more focused on this market. And you can go to purelyb.com to buy our products. You can find us on Amazon as well.

41:55
Jesrina Arshad
And obviously, if you're in Asia, you can see us in retail, but hopefully you'll see us in retail in the States soon too. I'm actually talking to a few partners already.

42:03
Caitlin Bricker
Ooh, very exciting. All right, well, everybody get to the Purely Bee website. Check them out. I think you're going to be very impressed by what you see. These ingredients are amazing and the product tastes great. Jess, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I will see you soon.

42:22
Jesrina Arshad
Thanks, Caitlin. Yeah, look forward to see you soon, Utopia now. See ya. Bye.

42:29
Caitlin Bricker
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, do us a solid and leave us a five star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I'm Caitlin Bricker, the host of the Founder feature series and editor at Startup CPG. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack and get on my radar. I'm always keeping my eyes peeled for new and emerging brands to spotlight. If you're a potential spot sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our free CPG community on Slack. You can sign up via our website@startupcpg.com see you around.