EP 243 - Michelle Razavi

Ellen Yin49min

Ellen Yin

00:00

You're listening to Cubicle to CEO episode 243. Are you misallocating your company's resources on a product thats stunting your growth? Today's case study investigates this dilemma. Michelle Razavi, CEO and co founder of the gut friendly food company, Elavirecently faced this roadblock head on. After successfully launching the company in 2020. With collagen protein bars, she made the tough decision to cut this entire product line, giving up $100,000 in guaranteed revenue in the process, in favor of going all in on their new and more promising products line of dessert cashew butter spreads.

Ellen Yin

00:37

Mere months later, Elavi desert butters were picked up by retailing giant Costco, and now they're on track to generate $1 million this year. It's not easy to let go of something you poured your heart into. But what if doing so could open the door to a new million dollar opportunity. Michelle walks us through how she came to this decision. The pitching strategy that got Costcos attention and y this pivot 10x their revenue.

Ellen Yin

01:07

Welcome to Cubicle to CEO the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. Every Monday go behind the business and a case study style interview with the leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business exactly how they implemented it, and what the results and revenue work. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.

Ellen Yin

01:49

Hey friends, welcome back to the show. Today I have with me Michelle Razavi, who I actually got to meet in person recently at South by Southwest. She came to the Cherub pop up shop and was so supportive and kind and we did a live podcast there as you know, with Shannon Davenport and Bridgitte Mallinson. So if you haven't listened to that episode, we'll make sure to link in the show notes.

Ellen Yin

02:10

But Michelle actually gave me a sample of her amazing product line, which we're going to talk about today and the case study around why she chose to let go of a $100,000 product line in favor of something that wasn't for certain, but now has the data to show that it's going to track about a million dollars. So I'm really excited to dig into the details. But before we do that, Michelle, can you share with us your Cubicle to CEO story? What was that catalyst that led you into entrepreneurship?

Michelle Razavi

02:40

Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for having me. First of all, I am a huge fan of you and your podcast. So it is such a delight to be here. But yeah, kind of just taking a step back into how we got here. I was working at Sephora corporate prior to starting Elavi. And I was working on the innovation team overseeing a couple different things from glean beauty to AR VR consumer journey, and also overseeing the entrepreneur incubator program that they have internally. And while I was there, it was so fun and interactive and a great experience for me to really put my previous background experience in E-commerce and digital marketing into consumer. But my passion is not in beauty. If you meet me, I barely wear an ounce of makeup I'm usually in wearing.

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