Keira Rumble of Krumbled Foods
Keira Rumble is a travel and wellness influencer and CEO of Krumbled Foods. She is the creator of Beauty Bites, Australia’s first and only collagen bars that combine five age-defying and beautifying ingredients to help women feel and look their best. Keira’s wellness products can be found in Kohl’s Australia and are coming soon to Urban Outfitters in the United States.
Keira joins Her Life, By Design to tell her inspiring story of how she was able to not only build a community and a personal brand as an influencer, but to also launch and scale a highly successful eCommerce business in the health space.
We discuss how Keira grew her audience as a blogger, when and how she began pivoting into launching an eCommerce business and how she knew it was the right time to do it. She also walks us through the entire process of building Krumbled Foods: from developing the recipe and building her team, to getting the product to customers and scaling that business to reach even more people!
What were you doing before building your eCommerce business empire?
“I have a background in digital advertising and nutrition. I’ve always been really passionate about food and living a healthy and happy lifestyle.” Keira starts, “But I went through my early twenties not knowing exactly what I want to do.”
Keira went into real estate, went to university and started as an executive assistant at a digital advertising firm. “I loved it, but I always knew there was more to my life than working for somebody and being dictated by going to and from an office.” (We hear you, Keira!)
“I started a little food blog and didn’t really think anything of it. My friend had a look and said I had really good organic traffic. She said, “What are you doing? You need to start turning this into something that could make you more money!”
What lessons did you learn from creating and releasing your first product?
“I think I didn’t trust myself enough. I had this mentality of, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, I need help from the best of the best.”
Keira, while building the foundations of Krumbled Foods, was approached by a big company who promised a lot. “They were going through their own situation which I was not privy to, and … it nearly ruined [my] business! I had to have a rethink about everything. No one knows your business as well as you do, but I didn’t have the confidence at the time. Now I’m the one who talks about my business to other people. No one else.”
In the episode, Keira shares more lessons and struggles she’s had as an entrepreneur.
How do you build a team for an eCommerce business?
“Something I’m really conscious about is having recommendations and referrals, or at least seeing case studies.”
“My food scientist came through a recommendation, but the food tech came through Googling. We ended up having a dispute because I’d given them all of these ideas and then they created this product and were like “Oh you know what? We’re actually going to keep all these ingredients. We’ll black box it and you can buy it from us, but we’re not actually going to tell you what’s in it.”
Keira reveals, “ I was like, ‘Well hang on, I’ve paid for this. I’ve paid you for research and development. I own this recipe!’ They ended up giving it to us because they knew they were in the wrong.”
“With my branding team I had seen a lot of their work, had a few meetings with them, and they just got it straight away. Being able to work with one company, and one design team, the whole way through the brand is important, so it doesn’t look disjointed.” recommends Keira.
What steps and tips would you recommend for creating a B2B eCommerce business?
In the episode, Keira tells her story of how she started her journey selling her product on a b2b basis. She shares how she scaled her biz right through to having Krumbled in Priceline, Kohl’s Australia, and soon, to Urban Outfitters in the US.
Keira was in the fortunate position to already have PR contacts from being in the influencer space. “I said ‘I have this really amazing product. Can you put me in touch with the right people?’. That’s a really unique situation. I wish I still had that, but now I’m dealing with bigger beasts.”
“LinkedIn is my number 1 tip for anyone out there,” Keira recommends. “LinkedIn is where I make a lot of my contacts. I spend a lot of time on there and following up.”
Keira also says it’s important to know your product, know your numbers and to ask questions. If she doesn’t know the answer to a company’s question on the spot, Keira says she will respond with, “I’m not too sure at the moment. I’ll get back to you when I’ve got all of those numbers in front of me.’
For more of Keira’s inspiring story and her incredibly insightful advice on how to launch and scale a successful eCom business, tune in to this episode of Her Life By Design.
In the episode, Keira shares more about how she pivoted from influencer into eCommerce business owner, the entire process of getting it off the ground, and how she scaled Krumbled Foods. Keira also shares her experience with using Facebook ads to reach new customers.
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relevant links:
Keira’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/krumble
Krumbled Foods: www.krumbledfoods.com
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