333: Thinking Outside the Box For A Better Future: One Brands Mission to Combat Climate Change

Launching a first-of-its-kind product comes with challenges, but Pela has always been a creative first-mover. They’ve had massive success and fun educating consumers and keeping their mission to combat climate change positive. 

This episode’s guest is Pela CEO Matthew Bertulli. Pela makes compostable phone cases and they just launched a new product called Lomi that went viral on Kickstarter. 

Matt and his team at Pela are forward thinkers and Matt share’s how that’s led them to success, what it was like to go from bootstrapped to venture-backed, as well as what he’s excited about for the future of eCommerce and environmental products.  

This is an excellent episode with somebody who is in the arena building things and very passionate about his work. 

Episode Highlights:

• 3:56 How the Lomi Kickstarter went viral 
• 5:15 What exactly Lomi is 
• 10:17 Educating consumers about environmental products & the problems with Facebook 
• 14:52 Using storytelling to build word of mouth momentum 
• 15:28 What Lomi stands for as a product and way of life 
• 19:36 Is pollution a personal or corporation problem & the mission to combat climate change
• 22:01 Consumer demand for better companies 
• 25:59 Better packaging options for brands 
• 28:45 The power of education: from $5k to $85k in 3 months
• 29:40 Raising money and becoming venture-backed 
• 31:16 Early success and first-mover advantage
• 35:39 The difference between running a bootstrapped brand and a venture-backed brand
• 38:12 Challenges of running an agency in comparison to a D2C
• 40:46 The benefits of launching a new product on top of an established company (even if they’re not directly related) 
• 41:57 Competition when you’re a first of its kind product 
• 43:45 Building a product for the future & being a visionary brand with the mission to combat climate change
• 46:29 Resources that have been helpful to Matt on his journey 
• 48:06 Best in class marketing & messaging tactics 
• 50:30 Identifying what’s wrong with current stories in your niche and changing the narrative for your product 
• 54:30 The intersection of blockchain and climate 
• 58:55 The powerful culture of being a mission-driven company

Resources:

• Pela
• Lomi
• @mbertulli on Twitter
• The Brand Growth Membership
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes