Gaining Traction in the Retail Market | Leeanna Gantt, tooktake Inventor

(Speech to text)

Mike Koelzer, Host: [00:00:00] Leanna, for those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're talking about today.

Leeanna Gantt: My name's Leanna Gantt and I'm the inventor of tooktake Dosage Reminder Labels, which is my invention, and we're gonna talk about how I invented it and,just the ups and downs of getting it out there into the world.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna. I like the word invention. We don't hear that too often. I've got a lot of them. pharmacists and people related to pharmacy on the show, and we have a lot of entrepreneurs and people that talk about their new business and that kind of stuff, but it's not too often that we get an inventor on the show, so that's great.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, it's really exciting and I think most people have really great ideas, especially pharmacists, because they have so many patients with different problems and they have these great ideas, how to help them. taking all the steps to actually, work it through and make the products been a really exciting adventure,

Mike Koelzer, Host: Ideas are a dime a dozen, but it's that, , Moving through an idea, and then actually making money off an idea.

It is very uncommon in today's day and age for an idea to turn into a product, to turn into a profit. That doesn't happen a lot these days. It takes a combination of creativity and the tenacity to work through the market to actually sell something.

So that's a big deal

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, I mean, I think sort of my disadvantage was, my advantage is that when I started, I didn't really know what I was in for. Cause I think if I knew how hard it would be, I wouldn't have started. But once I started and you're kind of, like waist deep in it,

Mike Koelzer, Host: 

Leeanna Gantt: It's hard to just stop cuz you're like, I've gotten this far, let's just see how far this will go.

and I'm glad I've stuck it out. But yeah, it's, if I knew before, I probably wouldn't have, would've been like, oh no, that seems kinda scary.

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. So Leanna, in its simplest terms, gives our listeners a crack at what this is. I've seen it, it's cool, what are we talking about here?

Leeanna Gantt: took a take. It's super simple and, it's a sticker

Know if you took it or still need to take it was sort of how we came up with that. and it's basically a sticker. We have four different varieties of it right now, so each different variety has different tabs on it that let you. Follow different dosing requirements. So we have a daily one that has tabs for the days of the week.

And basically when you take your dose, the sticker's right on the bottle, it lets everything stay in its original packaging with its directions and warnings, expiration dates, refill numbers, and it just goes right on the package. And when the patient takes their dose for the day, they just pull the little tab off and then they know if they took it or still need to take it.

We have hourly, we have monthly, we have, ones for up to 10 days like antibiotics. so, but yeah, they're really simple and anyone can use 'em. And we found that because everything stays in the package and there's nothing to program, it's not complicated. We are appealing to a younger audience than most of them, like pill organizers and things that appeal to people who just need to take a cholesterol medicine once a day, they don't want a whole system.

They don't wanna feel like it's taking over their life. All they wanna know is if they took it. That's their whole question. And so we answered that question for them.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I take some medicine and I have it in the old fashioned, circular pill case, and I've got it on my phone as a reminder to take it. And then I've got that thing to let me know if I took it. And I swear if I did not look at it and see that days were empty, I would have no clue if I took it or not.

It's kind of like driving to work and not realizing you went through the green lights kind of thing. Hopefully maybe red lights

Leeanna Gantt: Exactly. I think especially when something's routine, you do it every day. It's such a routine thing. You don't even really think about it. Can be dangerous if you're taking a prescription medication or if it's controlling your blood pressure. In my case, I take Tamoxifen to help prevent my breast cancer from coming back.

And it was really stressful if I wasn't sure if I took it. Cuz if I take it too twice, I don't feel well. But if I don't take it, then I'm like, will this be the day? Like, and I know it doesn't work like that logically, but you know that it, you're like, well, how many times have I forgotten it? And now I just know that I haven't forgotten to take it.

Take that completely out of the picture and I can go on with my day and not have to wonder if I did it. Or if I do stop and go, wait, I don't remember doing that this morning. I can just look really quickly at the bottle and be like, oh yeah, I did. Okay, cool.

Mike Koelzer, Host: You almost want it as something that you just do naturally and just don't even think about. Like brushing your teeth. It's like, I don't 

I must remember when I brushed my teeth this morning.

I know I did, but then it stops because there's some things like, brushing your teeth, if you do it three times in the [00:05:00] morning cuz you're forgetful, well big deal. But medicine is so important to take, you almost wanna forget about it, but once you take it, it's worse to take it twice then.

Leeanna Gantt: exactly. And then, and we've had people say, because there's this little tab that you pull off, it's not like a button on your phone that you're used to hitting a hundred times a

There's just enough sort of, of a process built in to pulling the tab off that it just makes it register in your head that you did it.

It's just because you have this little tactile, little tiny bit of resistance. What you're doing to make it memorable to you.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Pharmacists I think, who take medicine are probably the worst. I mean, I sometimes will bring Motrin home, and if it's for my wife and kids, I'll bring a bottle home. But if it's for me, I'll dig around the bottles and pull out a little bottle of heart medicine, and I'll go over and I'll put some Motrin in it and I'll cap it and I'll write Ibuprofen on it.

You know, it's ibuprofen in this heart medicine bottle, it makes no sense. I dunno about my other cohorts, but, My medicine cabinets, it's like an antique pharmacy show in there. I always feel bad for wives of people that are repair people, because they do it all day and they don't want to come home and fix their drywall or this and that.

I think pharmacists are the worst. L Leanna going back then. You're a Tamoxifen and so you're a breast cancer survivor and that's where this sort of came together with all your medicines you take along with this daily one that you have to take still forever.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. And I started making little labels when I was in treatment for breast cancer and during chemo I had literally 12 different things for side effects. And most of them weren't pills. I had like a mouthwash and there were lotions and there were ointments and there were all kinds of things and pills.

And so like a pill box didn't work for, two thirds of the things cuz they weren't pills, but they still had to be on a schedule. The doctors were still like, don't use this too much. It's a steroid, don't do this. And you.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I couldn't keep track of it. So I started to make little labels out of sticky notes.

Leeanna Gantt: And that really helped for my family and myself to be able to know when I took things or used them. And it just alleviated a lot of stress for our whole family. And then when I was done with treatment, I was like, okay, great, I don't need any of this stuff anymore. And they're like, I would just have this one pill.

And within the first few weeks I had, probably half the time I couldn't remember if I took it. And that's how I found out I can't take it twice cuz then I don't feel well. So . Cause I took it twice so I was like, Hey, I think I need to make my little labels again. And I was like, I'm gonna ask some of my friends, like people don't really talk about their medication that much.

At least not my friend group. And I'm like, does anybody take anything? Every day? And every single one of my friends had something. I had someone who took something for thyroid condition, someone who had a migraine medicine, someone who took something for cholesterol and. . I was like, well, how do you remember?

And they had these weird little things One person would feel in her sink in the morning, cuz if her sink was wet, she knew she already took her

Mike Koelzer, Host: There you go. Perfect. 

I'm like, that's such a random way to do it. it's like feeling your wet toothbrush. 

Leeanna Gantt: yeah, exactly. It's the same thing. So I'm like, okay, I'm making these little labels and I just made some at home.

I'm like, do you wanna just try this and see if you like it? And they were all like, oh my gosh, this is so easy. This is what I need. I just need to know. I took it. And that's when I was sort of like, aha. Okay. Yes, it's great. In extreme situations like chemo, we're a big medical treatment when somebody really, they're drugged up.

They shouldn't be trying to track their own medication, but there's an even bigger group of people who have things they take every day. And they're doing a really crummy job of it, and they want to do better. They know they should do better. They know there's gonna be implications down the line if they don't take them every day, but they just didn't have a way to do it.

And so it's been really great having people get so excited over something so simple.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna, what kind of impact has this made.

I know the product's out. Is this in Hobby Stage Money? Is it? A little part-time money. Is it a lot of money? How is this going for you?

Leeanna Gantt: I would say we are still very much in the startup phase. it's going really well in that we're in some big pharmacy chains. We're distributed by Cardinal Health, so like we're getting into independence, which is amazing. Those are my people. and I think it's now that we're getting the people who sell things to know that we exist. Now our goal is to try and get the consumer to know we exist.

Cuz right now we're still very word of mouth. my friend tries it, they tell another friend, , it's a long process cuz we're not, making the millions of dollars where we could run TV commercials

or get celebrity endorsements or things like that.

So it's, we rely on people who like the product, telling other people [00:10:00] they like the product.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Do you watch Shark Tank at all?

Leeanna Gantt: I love Shark Tank.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't like Shark Tank because it doesn't, like let's say you went on Shark 

Tank, Leanna, and they would say, great idea, Leanna. And you'd say, well, I'm in the biggest wholesaler. I'm here, I'm there.

 I would say, wow. the sharks are always like, how many sales do you have? And you'd have to say, like, a hundred million dollars. And they'd say, eh, maybe we'll take it. It's almost like the people that go on there, it's not like an entrepreneurial show. It truly is like venture capital. It's not like That's a great idea because when I hear you're in these places, that's remarkable to me.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, I find it to be very exciting. I, it's really exciting for me when people who have worked in the pharmacy business and our pharmacists are, in different and ancillary things to pharmacy, see the product. I show them how it works and they get it and they love it. Like, cuz I'm not a pharmacist, I have a degree from art school.

I was an advertising creative director. So to come up with something and design something that's so appreciated by the community that works with the people I need to talk to, that's been huge for me. And I think in regards to Shark Tank, I think it is an investment show. They're looking at the bottom line more than the idea.

Mike Koelzer, Host: So I think it is like, if they see a way they can make money from

Leeanna Gantt: 

but I still get excited by it. Because every so often they still have the small business like mine on there and they just, they take a flier on it and they're like, I just like you, I'm gonna help you out. And

 maybe I'll be that person cuz I'm not the person who would give them 1% of my company for a million dollars.

Like

that I'm not there yet.

Mike Koelzer, Host: So you're in Cardinal. People can go on there and actually look it up 

and buy. How did that come about? I mean, I've got friends that have done stuff, even inventions on Amazon.

I understand that part, but it seems like Cardinal, there's a bigger middleman, like it's just hard to get stuff into a wholesaler. How did that come about?

Leeanna Gantt: It was a long journey. It was, when I first launched the product, I just, again, not really knowing how it worked. I just went online and was like, I wanna sell to retailers, so I must need a distributor. And I just looked up who distributes medical supplies and Cardinal Health came up. So I went on to LinkedIn and started following people who worked at Cardinal Health.

And then just the ones who connected with me, I just wrote and was like, Hey, I have this invention. I'm, I dunno how I get into this. Would you mind helping me? And somebody forwarded it to somebody else in Cardinal Health and they wrote to me and said, like, I looked at your website. You need to be in Cardinal Health and like they just, so, and then it was right before Covid we were gonna do a test with Cardinal Health and then Covid hit and everything shut down.

The whole team we were working with got put on Covid related things and tests and all sent home. So then we didn't hear from them for about a year and a half.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Wow.

Leeanna Gantt: And the person who I'd been working with got moved to a complete other area of the

company and I was struggling. I didn't know what to do, I couldn't get a hold of anybody.

And then, I wrote the original person and just said, Hey, I lost everybody. Can you point me in the right direction? Cuz you were so enthusiastic. And he was amazing. He actually pulled together a whole meeting for me and they. , the new team looked at the product and we're just like, yes, this is like the best change we've seen in adherence products ever.

So let's get you onboarded, which I don't know if that's a typical story, but , that was my story.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I've talked to companies that have tried to get into. The wholesalers, and at least one of them talked about the actual physical packaging. 

It was a big product and this and that. You have a cool product all the way around because it's the stickers, if that's not derogatory, if I call 'em stickers.

So it's the stickers. And I see that you're able to offer, for example, on your 

site, you offer free first class shipping. 

Well,it's probably 60 cents to a buck or something like that to send these out. I imagine a wholesaler, it's not space commitment for them

 It's simple all the way around. And I don't mean that in a derogatory term. I mean, it's so simple. It's cool.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, no, I think that is an advantage for us. I think it's why we've had good luck because it isn't, we're not expensive for them to try out. We're not big, we're not hard to mail. We're very durable. We don't have an expiration [00:15:00] date. So there's a lot of things in our favor for the retailers cuz we're just not really a high maintenance product.

We don't take up a lot of shelf space. I think we also have an advantage because of the compliance issues and like the, I think they technically our category is like aids to daily living. it's just not a huge area. There's not a lot of things in that area, so I think that's an advantage we have over, like, I have friends who sell food products and their areas are so competitive and so hard to get in, and the shelf space is like a premium thing.

So I think we, I unknowingly lucked into some things

just,

I really appreciate that now that I sort of understand why certain things are easier for me than other companies.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Shame on me for not asking about Shark Tank. Did you make that effort, Leanna? See, if I'm in somebody's shoes, I'd go on Shark Tank for attention. But you alluded to this, I don't want to share my company, especially something like yours, grassroots, that can grow pretty quickly without a ton of overhead.

is it just not the right spot for you, have you at least considered it?

Leeanna Gantt: I've considered it. I have applied every year since I started,

and I have

I have not gotten in, I know they get like tens of thousands of applications, so I think part of it's luck. I don't know what they're looking for exactly. So, Yeah, I think I'll keep trying because my daughter doesn't want me to go on Shark Tank.

She thinks they're mean

She's like, she was like, I don't, she's like, you can't go on Shark Tank ever, mom, because they're mean and I, it would make me so sad. And I'm like, oh,

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Well, Leanna, obviously one of the sharks is Mark Cuban 

and he's got his new cost plus pharmacy now. And on the show we've had the CEO of that and also the head of pharmacy. Have you made that individual attempt at one Shark versus all the sharks?

Leeanna Gantt: I have been trying, just like with everything else, like I tend to, just sort of send cold emails and messages through LinkedIn. I haven't gotten a response from anyone I've tried over there. I think we'd be a great companion cuz I think. While he understands the need to get medications to people in an affordable way, I think the next step, and I don't know that they're there yet, cuz they're still building up their list of medications and getting their company set up.

But I think the next step is then helping with compliance aids because then getting people the medications is the first step, making sure they take it and taking it as they're supposed to is the next step. And I know all pharmacies have that trouble. They have someone who has a monthly prescription, but they only fill it nine times a year.

So that means they're missing it a lot. And there's the cost implications to the pharmacy of that, of not getting the refills. And then there's the consequences to the patient for not really following the directions.

Mike Koelzer, Host: although somebody maybe could see through it and think a pharmacy was doing it for just their own business reasons, it's almost like proof that a pharmacy is trying to do something beyond selling. it's almost, like, we're gonna hold your hand. We can't do it physically, so we'll do it through the next best thing.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. Like, we'll be that, sort of, I would say take sort of like that, good friend that just gives you a little tap on the shoulder. Like, Hey, remember to take care of yourself. Like remember to do this. We're not gonna nag you, but we're there to just sort of remind you, 

 I've had a conversation with some pharmacists that work in community pharmacies who say like, look, my patients struggle to come up with the $3 copay for their medication. They're not gonna buy a $5 pack of labels. And I understand that and I hope to someday be in a position where, because I am selling them to people who do buy 'em.

Cuz most of our customers don't flinch at the $5 for a package of four labels. but I understand that I know people who really do struggle to pay for their medication and I hope to be able to give them to those people, give, donate them to the pharmacies cuz I'd love everybody to have access to tick take.

But the reality is starting a business and, especially after going through cancer treatment, like I, I need to make a living. and that's just sort of the reality of where we are now. But,

Mike Koelzer, Host: I see you give 3% to the, studies, 

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. And we do, donate to a lot of other groups that put together gift bags or care packages for different types of illnesses. Breast cancer included any cancer really. there's a handful of people who've written to me with very specific conditions. There's a family that has a child that takes a lot of medication and has a lot of caregivers and they find them helpful.

So I send them to them. [00:20:00] There's some people who have a permanent code for half off, just because they said they could, that was an affordable thing for them. So I try to do what I can right now. It's mostly very individual. cuz I, I don't want somebody who writes and says, this really does help me, but I can't keep buying it to just not have it.

That's it. I couldn't sleep if I did that

Mike Koelzer, Host: You have to price it so you can be there, two years or five years from now doing it. Whatever that price is, you have to price it so you can be there, or else it's not gonna help anybody.

But, let's say for a buck or two, a prescription or 

something like that, if somebody looks at it and says, well, this medicine's only 32 cents, why am I paying this? It's like, you're not multiplying that medicine. You are paying a couple bucks to not have a heart attack or so you don't go out of remission or something like that.

 It 

depends. what side you're focusing it on.

Leeanna Gantt: right. Like our daily label, you get four in a pack. If you take something once a day, that pack of four labels will last you for two months.

So that's, if you break it down by the week, you know that it's not very much. But then think about your copay for one visit to the urgent care. Er, even your regular doctor, it's gonna be more than $5.

and a lot of those visits from, talking to, different physicians and nurses. it is people either, over or underdosing on their medication.

but you know, I understand the reality for people, especially right now, but I think there are enough people right now that can pay the $5.

and I think it's fair. I think it allows me to stay in business. It helps pharmacies. Cause you know, pharmacies fill hundreds of prescriptions every day. If they. add a couple bucks onto every sale, that helps a pharmacy as well. And we've lost in my area a few independent pharmacies that I adored because they knew me.

They knew my daughter. They like it, and they're gone. And I so, like, I really

miss those pharmacies and I know people all around the country really,

love their pharmacists. So I wanna help them stay in business too.

Mike Koelzer, Host: We covered Cardinal. What other establishments are you in?

Leeanna Gantt: we're also in CVS and in Walmart,

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna. That's big. I've never tried to put my podcast on the shelf there, or whatever. Plus I always talk bad about those places, so that's not gonna go, that's not gonna work. That's really big. same method as you did with Cardinal.

Leeanna Gantt: It was a little different. Walmart has a thing called Open Call usa, which for us made manufactured products, which we are, we're made here in the us. and I applied through there. And that helps because they pair you up with the buyer for your product

because finding the right category manager is really hard in the big retailers.

so I did that for Walmart c v s I did, a virtual trade show when I was like during Covid, when I was just trying to kind of get things going. And someone from c v s happened to be on that

Mike Koelzer, Host: You are a virtual trade show, just like a pharmacy trade show might be in there, happened to be the buyer or somebody from C v s kind of going by your virtual booth.

Leeanna Gantt: Right. They just, we like the people got to like do a little video spiel and I did my little spiel and I talked about, how great it is for all those liquid medicines for kids, because especially parents who have more than one kid and they get on different schedules to keep track of the, all those liquid cold medicines and the buyer happen to have a child who had a cold right then.

So she related to the product so quickly and was like, we need this in C V S.

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's interesting.

Leeanna Gantt: So yeah, a lot of it is just people can relate to the situation that took help and it's just a simple thing.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I know you're in California, 

you have these printed in Colorado, and they're just sending then, a box or boxes just to the distribution 

center when they need them or need more and so on.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. I mean, we have a whole fulfillment system set up on our end, with a company that's nearby where I live.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I see. They're the fulfillment center, so they're getting the order and all that kind of

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, I mean, I fill orders, smaller orders from our website. and, we are with a few other, like, websites that sell for us. But, yeah, like mostly the big orders all go through this fulfillment company because it's at a scale and the system's really complicated 

Mike Koelzer, Host: On both ends. 

 I imagine the computers have to sort of talk to each other basically.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, there's a system that we have to subscribe to, and there's a whole bunch of parts. and they each have their own way of doing things.

it's, no company works the same,

Mike Koelzer, Host: And your distribution company does this for people like you, right. 

They're good at it. They don't do it just for you.

Leeanna Gantt: No, they have a giant warehouse. They do it for a [00:25:00] lot of mine, and work mostly with small businesses in the area. So, but they've worked with all different, like, grocery stores and things like Macy's and then you know, all the drugstore chains. so yeah, that was really helpful cuz I didn't know how to do any of 

that on my own. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: We covered the bigger wholesaler. We covered the bigger stores. Amazon. You're on Amazon. 

Leeanna Gantt: on Amazon. 

as 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I saw those earlier. I looked. Now how about independent pharmacies? are they going through Cardinal and you just have to let them know about it?

Or how is that going with, independence

Leeanna Gantt: That's what we're trying to do. we just joined Cardinal Health right before their big, what is it? R B C

Show,

this year. So we went to the trade show and we had literally just signed up with them and I'd never done a trade show in person before, so that was a crazy experience.

 It was the first one I've ever done. And, my husband and I did our booth and I think because of Covid we could go to a few pharmacies near us and talk to the owners and try to tell them about tooktake. But to really get to talk to that many pharmacists and see their reaction and answer their questions was really great.

but after that, like, we didn't really know how to take orders at the show, because we found out about it so late, we just didn't really know how it all worked. So yeah, I mean, now getting in touch with independent pharmacies, I've taken a lot of the approach of like the ones who I know are ordering, just saying, it's like, Hey, can you tell your friends about us?

Because that's what we need is for them to. , be doing well with the product and then tell their friends so they'll order as well. it's really hard to reach all the independent

pharmacies where the big chains, like a CVS or a Walmart, it's in one sense, it's a one stop shop cuz we have a buyer and that's who, and they take care of the locations.

But those stores are actually a lot harder for us. We're down an aisle that people don't necessarily go down unless they're going to the pharmacy. Unless somebody's looking for a pill box, they're probably not gonna stumble across us because that's where we're hanging. There's a lot of times the pharmacists don't even know we're in the store because they don't walk around seeing what new products are over there.

So the bigger stores are actually much harder for us. cuz the pharmacists usually are ordering for their own store so they know what's in their store, they know how to, it helps people. They, if they have a mom picking up a liquid antibiotic, they could say, Hey, you know what? You might wanna give this a try.

It'll help you keep track of this. so we, it's kind of a necessary evil though, because until we got in the big stores, we didn't really have a lot of credibility with the independence.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Ah, that's interesting. 

Leeanna Gantt: We kind of, we've gotta do everything, but I feel like eventually it'll settle in and I feel like the independent pharmacies are really where we belong.

it's just a matter of, we can't call every independent pharmacy in 

the country. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Do you get any pushback from a pharmacy? Like, I know it's hard to maybe get into them all, but do you get pushback at all?

Leeanna Gantt: the only place I heard things was at, actually, at the trade show we were at, some of our sample bottles were, I had just been collecting my own prescription bottles, so they actually had Walgreens caps, which we don't sell in Walgreens, but the independent pharmacist were like, oh, they're evil. How? , dare to show that bottle here.

And I'm like, it's the only bottle I had. So we went over to a guy that was selling like the blank bottles to the pharmacies, like all the vials and things. And I'm like, do you have any samples? I could have because I'm getting torn apart over here from my Walgreens cap . And so they gave us some new lids to put on our bottles.

Mike Koelzer, Host: We would've had salespeople come to the store and my dad got rest, his soul. But the salespeople would come in and my dad liked to tease him and he wasn't always, he got pretty tough on 'em sometime, And they would say,Jim, we're only focusing on independence with this, And my dad would always turn to me and say, well, that's because the chains don't want 'em. because if anybody could, you'd wanna be in every chain. You wanna be everywhere. 

So in my opinion, you could go to an independent and let's say for some reason the chains, you weren't in the chains, you could go and say that to 'em. But I'm not big on that because, I think it. Shout that a little bit. Like, we're kind of small. We couldn't make it there, so we're doing it here.

So I think preaching it loud and proud that you're everywhere.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, and I think as a business, like my goal is to be everywhere that people buy wellness products and it's like, I don't. Judge if someone wants to use Chinese herbs

versus prescription medications. I don't have a favorite health plan or wellness plan. I'm not pushing any particular brand or type of medication or a way to take care of yourself.

I just know that if you [00:30:00] do things regularly and build up a healthy routine, whatever that may be, it'll work better. And if you've invested $300 in Chinese herbs, you're still not gonna know if they're helping you, if you don't use 'em the way you're supposed to.

Mike Koelzer, Host: For. 

Leeanna Gantt: And to do that, we need to be everywhere people are.

So, if somebody's at a grocery store, great. If someone's at c v s, great. If they're at their local pharmacy, like, we wanna be available for people to help, take better care of themselves. I'm not picking a side, I just, 

 wanna be everywhere,

Mike Koelzer, Host: What has your biggest headache been so far? Let me ask it another way. What's your biggest lesson? So far?

Leeanna Gantt: I think it was actually at the very beginning of the take-take, like I waited and redid my website and was like, this has to be perfect and I have to have an envelope. I have to be already because I'm gonna hit go on this

website and I'm gonna just run outta product. I, and we had a lot of products, let me tell you.

And cuz I'm like, we're, it's just gonna, we're gonna sell millions in a day.

Okay? It's not a field of dreams. If you build it, they don't come. Nobody. We got zero visitors. I think, like the visitor we got, my mom bought anything by the way. She's just. Oh, that's cute honey. Like she didn't even buy something

Mike Koelzer, Host: oh my gosh.

Leeanna Gantt: So I think that would be the thing. It's like, no, it's a lot of work. Like I still am, trying to shout from the rooftops. Like, Hey, look at tooktake, look at what we do.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I think that's the fallacy. You hear it all the time of people saying, look, there's 300 million people in the US and take 10% of those who do this and that, and then take only 1% that do that. and then take only 1% that do . So that means you're gonna get, you know, 3000 orders the first day.

It's like, it just doesn't work that way. The percentage is, it's the physics of a bouncing ball, like it only bounces halfway, then halfway, then halfway, then halfway. And you're saying, see it never actually touches the ground in the end because it's always just halfway closer.

It's like, no, 

Leeanna Gantt: no, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: it and it's just not working. In theory that's right. But it's just not working.

Leeanna Gantt: Exactly like, cuz I mean, I can spout out all kinds of statistics that you probably already know, but, it's like 70% of Americans take at least one prescription medication a year. 50% of those aren't taken correctly.

What does that mean for me, that means there's still a lot of people who don't know I exist.

That's what it means. It doesn't mean that we're selling millions a day. 

It just means I have a lot of people to try and find out how to talk to

Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. Right. I imagine on your label you have some space, I know you've got the days and the times. I'm not saying you should have, have you thought of putting, you know,Chinese fortunes on them or advertising or something? I know at the pharmacy we get these companies once in a while that wanna advertise.

They want us to use prescription bags that like the local people have paid for the advertising and 

I don't do it. I don't want someone's muffler company on my prescription bag. I think it's gaudy, But I imagine you have some space on yours. Have you thought about mixing that somehow?

Leeanna Gantt: not really in that way. We're in talks with a large group. research hospital and if we work with them, they wanted us to, instead of having the tooktake logo, have their logo. So we're gonna do like a private label

version for them. It's more for a clinical trial scenario. so we're in the process of talking with them.

I think we'd prefer to do that and find a cost effective way for pharmacies to put like their name and phone number, their name and website on it. So when people are done and they're reminded, what their pharmacy, that their pharmacy

provided these or that they purchased them there. right now our costs, cuz we're still small, our costs to do private label, like they have to be like a hospital size

order to work.

But yeah, I think I had ideas like, If we get really big, we could do superhero ones for kids' medicines, and we could do fun sayings or different colors. right now 

Mike Koelzer, Host: now we're 

Leeanna Gantt: sticking with what 

Mike Koelzer, Host: 

Leeanna Gantt: We just the basics.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I always question that at the pharmacy. It's like, I mean, our bottles already have our labels on 'em, 

and so you always question whether people are trying to sell you a bottle. Caps and the bags, and this imprinted here and there. It's like if you can't look at your bottle that you're touching every day and seeing where you went, how valuable is the bag you're gonna throw away or the receipt you're gonna throw away? That kind of stuff. So I question the value of having your name plastered on everything.

Leeanna Gantt: I agree. Cause I also think. People kind of know where they got their prescription from. , like most people have a pharmacy they go to, even if it's a big chain one or a local pharmacy, [00:35:00] they go to the same one. they're not wondering where the heck they got their medicine from. So, so yeah, I think we're just trying to keep everything really simple.

I think that's the beauty of tooktake. I have people ask like, are you gonna make an app that's a companion to it? no. The whole point is I, if you wanna set an alarm on your phone, great. But like, we're a great companion to an alarm, cuz the alarm might remind you, but you still won't know if you did it or not.

Two

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's what I did. My alarm went off for my day when I went over there, and I couldn't believe they were gone. So obviously I took 'em,

Leeanna Gantt: But I had no memory.

My husband does that all the time and he was actually the last person in our house to, to use, to take, cuz he was, youI remember my medica, I have a system and he had his whole little routine every morning. And then one morning he didn't like it j and it threw him off for days because he was so flustered, not knowing if he had forgotten it.

But like, my daughter uses him. We used him for our dog's medicine. We, like, he was the last one and now he is, he's, all about to take

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna. If somebody came to you and said, you are going to win whatever prize, if you grow really quickly, like overnight, do this and that. if money wasn't really an object, which of course it is, if it wasn't an object, you'd have Super Bowl ads, you know, and it'd be a waste of money, but it would hit people if money wasn't an object, what would you do to have this like blow up overnight?

Leeanna Gantt: yeah, I mean, I guess probably more, I think more advertising, but I think also more samples. I think if we could get every pharmacy to give out a sample that was, if it's an hourly medication, like the appropriate label for the sample to everyone, I think people would try it.

They would like it. And not everyone, we're not for everybody, but the people who it helps would know it immediately and then I think they'd be fans forever. trying it is the way that people are like, oh yeah, that work that helped me. I'm good that we're not a hard sell thing.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Some of these companies, the pharmacist will buy them and then the pharmacist will do it and either lose money or up the price a little. But I'm thinking of things like flavoring, I'm 

thinking of,

stoppers and bottles and just things that pharmacists do.

Do you, I'm not saying you should, and I don't think I would even wanna do it, but have that. Cross your mind of saying, let's have the pharmacist apply these for Mrs. Smith because she likes them, and then she'll go to your pharmacy because you do that on her bottles, or will it always be the consumer or the caregiver who's applying those in your head?

Leeanna Gantt: I think it'll always be the consumer. One, I think pharmacists have enough to do already. I think for them it gets into issues that I don't even understand, but with, covering things or, I think there's all kinds of liability for them to do 

1. So I think it'll always be the customer. in a way it's double directions. Like the pharmacist does that and then they're putting, a different label on it and what if one says, twice a day and the other one's morning and mid-afternoon, whatever, yeah, or just somebody they have to educate them on how to use yet another

thing. Cause like I said, they're not, take, take isn't for everyone. I think it really does skew younger. We have a lot of families who have kids who take things for ADHD or anxiety, and they're using 'em to help their kids become responsible before they go off to college.

But , the parents have a way to kind of check in on the prescription by checking if the tabs have been pulled off or not. But they don't have to nag and hover and keep asking. They could just kind of look and see if their child is becoming more responsible or kids who are off in college. It gives them away when their schedules are changing a lot.

 But I think it's just, it's a very different audience than I think, at least from what I've been told, that pharmacists are used to talking about compliance in this way because they're used to thinking of their older patients that maybe their non-compliance has more to do with memory 

Mike Koelzer, Host: issue.

Leeanna Gantt: 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Remembering to even do it. And your 

the thing is you have to at least remember to go to the bottle where the elderly might not even do that unless you light a fire underneath them. But with the younger generation, they're remembering to do it in their flow, but they actually forgot if they did it or not.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. Or there's, even busy parents taking, their blood pressure medication. Like, your day is, you think your day is exactly the same every day, but it's probably not. Things are different. The phone rings. you picked up your bottle, the phone ring, you put it down, somebody said something, you dropped something.

I think for younger people they also, a lot of people I know keep, throw their medicine in their purse cuz they take [00:40:00] it when they get to work or they, I think there's so many different things. They don't have a set system. and like some people I know who still use pill boxes who are older. also, like they actually need them. The pills separated

out 

and that helps them keep from taking it too often where otherwise they'll go to the bottle three times and then they're not gonna remember to take the tab off. So I think that's been a thing for us, is just also educating pharmacists, and caregivers, that this isn't ideal for the elderly unless it's being used by a caregiver.

It's for everyone else who doesn't have anything, 

who doesn't want a pill box

and or who doesn't have a pill for medication, who has gummies or has liquids, lotions, drops, insulin. We've had people use 'em on inhalers. and a lot of those things like inhalers are, people carry them around with 'em. So it needs to, we try to make 'em sticky enough that they won't come off or get pulled off accidentally, but, not so sticky that you can't get the it off of the thing.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, You mentioned different things that people have, 

Honey Bunches of Votes. That's my drug of choice. And I can see my wife putting one of these on there, and she'll take one off.

She said, Mike, you've already had your bowl tonight. And it's like, I know, but I'm nervous. I want four bowls tonight. Lay off me. 

Leeanna Gantt: There's people I know who use it on their, like protein powder or their collagen powder, and it's not so much that they think they'll forget to put it in, but it's to, they wanna keep track and say, I spent 30 bucks on this protein powder.

 I wanna see if it's, if I feel any different at the end of the bottle, 

but they need to do it every day, so it lets them make sure they're doing it every day.

Mike Koelzer, Host: There's checklists on phones and so 

1. And sometimes they'll give you the option. They'll say,don't do this task. I did disappear. Just cross it out because I want the satisfaction of seeing it, to know that I did it. And you could look at your stuff psychologically almost and say, well, what does an empty bottle give you?

But if somebody who's proud of the fact that they're compliant, maybe it's muscle stuff or protein, that they can kind of look at it and say, they're all gone. Look what I did. But there's my gold star there still, with the remainder of the tooktake things. But the medicine's gone.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, I think it, it does let you know, like there's all kinds of psychology about, people with simplest streaks, like they talk about it a lot

Mike Koelzer, Host: Exactly with the, 

Leeanna Gantt: Like

things that are gamified because it's like you, you want to check the box, you wanna keep the streak going.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What's the other one? Snapchat. 

Leeanna Gantt: They have the streaks

Mike Koelzer, Host: My kids won't even do streets with me. send them one, they're like, stop it, I said, I just sent you one.

Leeanna Gantt: exactly. It's like there's something in us that, like, like I'm a list person, but my favorite part of making a list is crossing the things off the list and having the things like, I did it. And this gives me that same feeling. And I think that's why I say like, even like, for like lotions, if you've ever had your kids like to go to a dermatologist, you know how much those, use this lotion for your acne, it's $90.

And then like my daughter would be like, yeah, this isn't working. I'm like, okay, are you using it twice a day? Like she said, she's like, well, sort of. I'm like, no, not sort of. That was $90. 

let's keep, let's see if it works. Because if it doesn't work, Before we go to the next hundred dollars thing, let's see if you use this like you're supposed to.

And lo and behold, when she used it, like she was supposed to, the world was a happy place. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You're exactly right. I don't go to many of the appointments with my kids, but when I did in the past, the doctor would be like, how's this working? It's like, I don't know. I mean, in theory it's not working because in theory he or she takes it, but I don't think they do. So I don't really have an answer for you.

Leeanna Gantt: Exactly. It's like the same thing with allergy medication.

It's like a lot of them, they take a while to build. It's not like, take this, it's not like Benadryl, but you take it and it works right away and be like, this doesn't work, this doesn't work. And like, well are, you can't be taking it cuz there's half a bottle and we've had it for a month.

It's like, well just because it doesn't work. I'm like, no , 

you need, you can't take it every third day. You have to take it every day.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna, don't gimme the figures. But if someone came to you and offered you a certain amount of money for your company, they would do it.

Leeanna Gantt: I 

probably would, I think as long as I knew they were going to continue with some of 

the reasons we're doing it, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you wouldn't want someone to buy it because they're afraid that it's cutting into their app business or something like

Leeanna Gantt: Right. 

Or that they're gonna, they say like, Hey, you know what? I think you could double the price on this cuz there's a reason we're the price. We are, there's we, and like I said, like we do want, I want to be able to help the people who can't spend the $5 at some point. So I think. [00:45:00] I think as long as they seem like they had this, the right goals in mind.

 yeah, definitely . I think I would,

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna, in three years from now, you've done sort of what you want to do. You've licensed the product and you have all the different NFL teams on it, and all that kind of stuff. and you're making these in different shapes, for different audiences and stuff, but it's going so well in three years.

You're bored with it, but you're not gonna tarnish the brand by doing an app or online something and that stuff. Let's say it's just as successful as in your wildest dreams. What would you do in three years?

Leeanna Gantt: I mean, I think at that point, hopefully, One of the larger companies would be interested in maybe and buy the patent and buy the product from me. I mean, I didn't set out to invent a product, let alone like really

like,

dive into medication adherence and medication management and like to learn all of this.

It wasn't like I had this burning passion to solve adherence issues. It just came from my own need.

And,

So yeah, I mean, I think I love my company, I love my product. I wanna stick with it for a long 

time, but I also really just want the product to exist out there to help people.

So, I mean, it's not something that I feel I have to cling to.

I mean, I think the other thing that led me to start this too is, Having cancer is expensive. It wiped us out pretty good. So like, it's, trying to get, my first goal is to like, get my family back on its feet , I couldn't work for over a year. My husband was taking care of me.

We had a design business we did together, so he couldn't do as much. So like, it was a whole thing. And, it's been great and I, I definitely love it and am still excited by

it, but yeah, I'm open to doing something else someday.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Most people, when they think of someone getting financially hit with a serious disease, the first thing that comes to me is, well, their insurance covered this. That's part. But like you said, there's jobs that go by the wayside and there's, maybe home things that go by the wayside or have to be built up, a certain ramp.

I mean, there's a million things outside of just the insurance, I imagine.

Leeanna Gantt: definitely. I think a lot of people don't consider the fact, like, some people, everyone's cancer treatment's different, everyone's experience is different. I didn't have the kind where I was, really inspiring to others and outrunning a marathon or doing anything like that. I was out, I was in bed for six months, I was ill.

I, there was, even if I wanted to work, I couldn't, there, it wasn't even going close to happening. and so it was a lot of work for my husband and my daughter who were still in high school at the time. And so it was just, yeah, there's all the other things cuz life goes on and you don't get to just say, . Hey, by the way, we were basically freelancing.

We worked for ourselves, we had our design business.

You don't get to just tell people, it's like, Hey, can you just pay us even though we're not working for you?

It's 

like, ,if we don't work, we don't get paid.

Andour insurance was fine. It was, it worked out better than I thought it 

would, but we had to pay for a way to live for over a year.

So most people aren't prepared for 

that. At least

not that I know. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You were too sick to be encouraging. I always thought, I dunno why the hell I thought this, but I thought when I was younger, like, if I get cancer, I'm gonna be the most encouraging, happiest guy to the nurses and all that kind of stuff.

I've never even been in the hospital. I mean, my wife's been in for babies. I've never spent a night in the hospital for my own stuff. I know after. Eight hours in there, I would be the ort, old fart in the place. I'd be cussing and getting that bell and dinging it and things. I'd be a terrible patient.

 It would just drive me batty. And so, congratulations Leanna, for coming as you have, because that's gotta just be a terrible thing, a terrible burden.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah, I mean, I had never been in the hospital except to have my daughter, I had never had a surgery. I think they found me very amusing cuz I. Asked really absurd questions. Apparently, , they have this thing when you go in that they ask you why you're there, like when they're checking you in 

before they do surgery. And I found that question horrifying. I'm like, well, why don't you know why I 

Am I here? You're the surgeon. Like,

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's not a good sign. 

Leeanna Gantt: they would laugh and I'm like, no, seriously, don't you know why I'm 

here? Because I

If you 

don't know why I'm here, I'm leaving

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, for sure.

Leeanna Gantt: It was quite an unexpected experience.

But, I won't go so far as to say like, it was meant to be because now I have a business because I think that's strange. But [00:50:00] I think I was able to take something that was unpleasant. and I found something good out of it. I'm not gonna say it was meant to be because

I, I think a lot of things are meant to be, but I don't think that, I was meant to get cancer so I could 

invent a sticker.

Mike Koelzer, Host: If you think back over that time, your biggest emotion? if you put yourself right in the middle of that.

Leeanna Gantt: anxiety,upset, when you think back to those days,

mostly frustration because I did wanna do things. I wanted to get up and work. I wanted to spend time with my family. I wanted, like, there were a lot of things I wanted to do and I physically just couldn't do it. It wasn't like I was just tired, like I physically couldn't stand up. And,it, I love my oncologist because he saved me, but, he knocked me on my butt and he told me like,

That's what I'm gonna do.

And you're not gonna be out doing all these things you keep telling me you're doing. Cause I'm like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to Disneyland and I'm going to take my daughter shopping for a prom dress. And they're like, no, you are not

Mike Koelzer, Host: not. No, you're not. Yeah.

Leeanna Gantt: But, it all turned out well, so

Mike Koelzer, Host: good. 

 I always tell my wife, I say, if something happens to me, Ever use that line as you were alluding to Leanna? Like, don't ever use the line like, well, if we can save one person, if only one person doesn't do this, because of what happened to Mike. I'm like, not one person. I said, you can trade my lesson for like 10 people.

Like if 10 people don't die because of the stupid thing that Mike did, great. But this one for one.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Why would you do one for one with a stranger?

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. I think so. I'm glad that I got something good out of the experience, but you know, like I said, it's

Mike Koelzer, Host: 

Leeanna Gantt: I don't think it was meant to be this way.

Mike Koelzer, Host: you made the lemonade outta the lemons, but you didn't go searching for 

Leeanna Gantt: Exactly. Yeah. I wasn't like, let's find some tragedy that could inspire myself to invent something . But it, I think it, it happens that it was something I used

during my treatment. I 

I think it could adjust as easily been, a toy if I had thought of a toy. Like, it was just this really helped me and I thought, like I said, like when I was done, I was like, Hey, this can help me and my friends and their kids and so many people I know.

And now that I've realized I can help people, that's a really exciting

feeling, uh, 

being able to help this many people

just. ,just stay healthy. I'm not curing a serious disease, I'm just trying to help 

people take care of themselves

and if they can do it with this, that's great.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Tell me about your patent. Was that something that was hard to get? Was that something that you needed and is it something that you think will work if some other country slash. punk online just decides to make up stuff,

Leeanna Gantt: I talked to a friend of mine about the product when I was starting who happened to be a lawyer, and I was like, just said like, Hey, I looked into patents. I bought a book, like do it yourself patents. Do you think this is worth doing? And he explained the pros and cons of it and connected me with a friend of his. It was a patent attorney, and I talked to her and at first she said, She basically said, let me do a little looking around. They are very expensive to do properly. You shouldn't do it yourself. I know people who have, and they've done it successfully. she said, if I can do some searches and give you some advice and tell you if it's worth doing,

and if we can write a patent that's protectable.

And 

she's like, I think I'm gonna find a bunch of things like this, so I'm probably gonna tell you no. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Because there's already things that are closing, 

so you don't stand out enough to make a patent for it.

Leeanna Gantt: yeah, or my patent would be so narrow that it would be really easy to work around.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Sure.

Leeanna Gantt: So, Yeah, she called a few weeks later, emailed me and she was just like,I stand corrected.

I can't find anything. 

So she's like, we can have some fun here. We can write a really strong patent for you. So we have a really strong patent. It actually also for being such a simple product, is surprisingly hard to

make.

and that's where my husband and I, being designers, came in handy because, well, we didn't know it was gonna be so hard to make.

We understood what the problems the printers were having where and 

were able to address some of 'em and modified the design a little bit to make it work. so, it wouldn't be impossible for someone to copy it. It would be more work than I think people think when they first see it. 

And it's a lot of expense to get set up.

So I don't know that someone would bother trying to. to do it, and if they did, we do. I've been told by several people who've actually looked at the patent that we [00:55:00] have a really strong patent, which also makes it desirable later on 

if someone 

wants to acquire it because did the heavy lifting up front.

Mike Koelzer, Host: My friend owns a tool and die business. It wasn't automotive. And now he's done some cool things with both hummingbird feeders out of plastic and then also, he does these hangers for some of the, machines like when you do yard work, I mean, I don't, but I've seen people do it out my window, like my wife, Hey, you missed a spot over there.

but they've got all the attachments, it's one unit, but they've got an edger and a clippers and a brush and all that kind of stuff. And these attachments are like four feet long. Those don't have a real good weight to hang because they're just like 

a pole.

And so he makes these plastic things that go down and kind of catch it by twisting and he hangs them up.

 And he's on Amazon and things like that. He and I have talked about patents and his goal. Now he knows that if somebody broke the patent and like I say, some other country or some punk that's just making these things up.

but the reason he gets the patent is so he can then mail this to Amazon and say, look, I wish you wouldn't sell that because I've got a patent on 

that. And then he's had Amazon not sell things, so he's 

not going

to the person,the country or the punk that's doing this and trying to stop them or get something from them because they're just gonna 

skirt around. 

And you 

could do that as well with Amazon and Walmart and C that say, look, you don't want to go there.

Leeanna Gantt: right? Yeah. I think that's the other thing on Amazon, I think they call it brand registry, 

where

it gives you, and we have that where it gives you the tools basically to report if someone's selling, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Gotcha. 

a fake version of your product. And it probably helps then with the background and the stuff you have, the more you have, 

the better to stamp your approval on it.

Leeanna Gantt: Yeah. Like trademarks, patents, it. I worked with people to get those things. That's not my area of expertise, but I've found really smart people. I think, growing up in LA I know a lot of lawyers , those side benefits of being in Los Angeles, But yeah, I think I've let people who are better at that take care of those things for me, and I think they've done a very good job.

That's why I think that when someone has an idea, like you said back at the beginning, a lot of people have ideas. The path to getting it out 

Mike Koelzer, Host: there 

Leeanna Gantt: then getting it to be something that everybody knows and everybody uses is a very long journey. And there's so many different parts of it.

And I think for me, since We weren't like millionaires before who could just start this company and hire all these different people. You have to become an expert in so many different areas. It's a huge learning curve,

but I like learning new things, so it's been really fun for me. I'm excited about the journey. And another friend of mine who has a product, she was reading some books about different companies and she said, most of the companies that we think of are overnight successes. That like, you're like, wow, this product, all of a sudden it's everywhere I look. 

They took, 7, 8, 10, 12 years to become an overnight success

Mike Koelzer, Host: So that's sort of my plan. It's like, I'm, I know

Leeanna Gantt: that it'll happen and, but it's not, goes back to the story about the website. It's not, if you build it, they will come. It's gonna be a 10 year journey before people are like, oh yeah, take.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Nowadays with the, I say nowadays with the internet, you like it just came out like an old fart. Like it came out, two years ago. I mean, for you guys, it's like, it's been there since, waters existed.but it used to be when you had an idea for something or for a business, you either built the business by brick, or you built the product and hoped that it would sell,wrote the book, had it printed, hoping it would, fly off the shelves. Nowadays, and this is something that I first.

Read about, or he jogged it in my mind, Tim Ferris from the four Hour 

Work Week. But now there's so many things you can do online to test stuff, like if I had an idea like this now I could buy some Google ads. maybe pay 20 bucks for a Google A and B ad, and on 

one of em I would say, here's this product, click on it.

The other one, I would say the same thing, but one would go to, talking about a product for senior citizens, and one would go to mothers of children who needed medicine, and it would cost you like, 20 to $50 and like a week later you'd say, oh, this one got 80% of the hits and this one got 20%. And that's your market, it's just amazing.

And even for free, throwing it on LinkedIn or Facebook or something and getting feedback, it's like, it doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna turn into sales, but it's a lot of [01:00:00] feedback you can have in a really cool, quick, cheap way these days for ideas.

Leeanna Gantt: It is, I think. There's also, there's so many different groups that, like for entrepreneurs or inventors or parents, and so many of them are so receptive as long as like I'm transparent about it, like if it's a mom's group on Facebook or something, if I say, Hey, here's what I, here's who I am, here's what I did.

Would it be possible to put this up there and see if anybody wants to try samples of my product and gimme some feedback? And some will say, no, we don't do stuff like that. And some say yes. And I think the biggest thing I've learned through this whole project or process of starting a business is just don't be afraid to ask.

Like if I have a question, I go into different groups. I go on LinkedIn, I go on Instagram, and I just put it out there. Sometimes I get answers, sometimes I don't. 

More times than not, I do.

and it's always so helpful and it's like these resources are there. You don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for focus groups like you used to have to.

You could

really just say, Hey, I'm looking for 30 people to try a new product, and tell me what you think only requirements are. You need to take a daily, prenatal vitamin 

and I'll send you a free product. And people write in and say, yeah, I'd like to do that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna, let's say, took take, is no longer a part of you. Either you sold it or it's just studied off and it doesn't need a lot more work. Whatever the reason. Is it in your blood now, entrepreneurship, would you go back to your design company or is a product in your blood a national thing that you think you would start something else?

Leeanna Gantt: I think I would start something else. I don't think it would be a product. My family and I talk about this a lot. Like what would we do if. if I wasn't taking it. And So we have some ideas, but they're more, going back to sort of art and design and, but I think I've learned so much doing this business and I think I'll continue to learn a lot more over the next, five or 10 years with it that I think we'll apply to any business.

I think they're not just specific to a product. Cause I think if I had a service, it would still be a very similar process. It's about finding how to talk to the people who need what I have and the best ways to get it to them.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Leanna, boy, it's cool stuff. I think pharmacists have the ideas and say, ah, I should invent that, or something like that. So I think it's just fascinating to see how you took it from the beginning and got there. So, way to go. We'll be watching, continue what you're doing and wish you a ton of success with that

Leeanna Gantt: Thank you so much and thank you for letting me tell more people about it. It takes a village to get a product out there,

Mike Koelzer, Host: It sure does. All right, Leanna, we'll keep in touch.

Leeanna Gantt: Thank you. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you.