YouSaid · the spoken record

Alberto Perlman

lines on the record: 76
first: 2025-03-06
most recent: 2025-03-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Ross, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on substack. And of course, if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hidt at ide.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-4331298. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtin Arab Louie. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Elaine College.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Spent the whole $14,000. We had zero in the bank. We created this beautiful email And we're praying, please, please. And suddenly 450 instructors And so that's when we said this is going to be our life, and let's make it work.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And by the way, if you haven't heard Alberto's original How I Built This Episode, You got to go back and give it a listen. You can find a link to it in the podcast description. You can just search Zumba on how I built this on Google. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's awesome. That's great advice. It's Alberto Proman, co-founder and CEO of Zumba, Alberto. Thanks so much for coming back on the show.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think this too shall pass. For an entrepreneur is very important because every time you're dealing with an issue. And I think it's what makes a great entrepreneur is that when you have an issue, you stress about it so much that Find a way to fix it, but it also takes a toll, right? And many times I thought to myself, this is going to be the end. It's over. It's not going to continue from here. And then it did continue because we had a great product that people really loved. So have faith in your product. And whenever you encounter challenges, just understand that this too shall pass and that there's always something on the other side.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Alberto, before I let you go, I want to ask you a question that I ask every guest who comes on, which is when you look back on your early days, you know, the first couple years of starting this thing, your business, which is now Global Brand Zumba, what do you wish you knew or what do you think you would say or offer in terms of advice?”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And why not? I mean, if it does the job just as well, I mean, if your skis are waxed, your skis are waxed, like why not use something that's going to have a minimal impact?”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sort of like the 1% thing if we can make the world better 1% every day imagine the cumulative effects and even though this is not a huge I mean it's it's just for ski and for bicycles but if you can get rid of petroleum Those two items makes a dent, you know, and one thing at a time, and we make the world a better place.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is a point in time where You switch from begging and trying to push your product to market to people asking for it. And when you do that, that changes everything. And then you can have this is our standard order. And this is what you get when you order from us. This is the standard margin and only very, very big players can get different deals, but everyone else gets the same deal.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To keep your snow clean? What is the benefit? We keep your snow clean. But people don't even think about that. I had never even thought about petroleum. Like, most people don't even know that their skis are waxed. Like, it's crazy.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Especially the rental shops, right? I just went to, we just went to Tahoe, and I mean, those rental shops are just doing incredible business. Obviously, this time of year, but yeah, you can imagine on the outside that says, you know, we use Mountain Flow, you know.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there needs to be more attention drawn to that You could even think of some publicity stunts that you could do on the different mountains, like have people walking around saying, I don't want petroleum on my snow or something, whatever. Like you could do certain types of stunts that would call attention to the problem. I think I don't know if you already do this, but you could create some beautiful stickers for these ski shops that talk about this problem saying we're using mountain flow instead of petroleum-based products to keep your snow clean, keeping your snow clean movement.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alberto, do you have any thoughts about the value proposition here, right? Because a lot of people, I think, would be attracted to this, are, right? A lot of people say, you know, when I ski, I don't want to be polluting the environment”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's something that we're really trying to focus on is to get in with those larger conglomerates, go through their onboarding process, become an approved vendor, and then all of the resorts or all of the ski shops under that umbrella are then able to buy. And sometimes there's actually one centralized buyer which places a huge PO for everybody. And obviously that is probably the easiest route for us to go.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wonder whether there's a way to lean into sort of a bigger partnership that doesn't require you to be doing whack-a-mole every day.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I think that's when you really have something special. That happened to us at the beginning is people started going into gyms saying, do you have Zumba? And if the gym would say no, they said, well, I'm not joining them. And so the gyms were kind of forced to bring in Zumba because people wanted it. And once you get there, I think it's very powerful. And once you get there, then you can start saying, hey, this is my standard deal. Like this is what we sell wholesale for. And you could create an online Shopify B2B site where these shops can just go in and place their orders and you don't have to be working custom deals for each one.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pretty good. It's pretty good. And you mentioned this briefly, but you're not just doing ski wax. Wax for skis, you're also doing oil for bikes, right?”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Peter, I'm imagining that you are a ski or you live in Carbondale, which I'm looking on the map. It's not too far from Aspen. I mean, you're in Colorado, so you're near a bunch of cool, great ski resorts. I'm imagining that this came about because you're a skier, you worked in the industry?”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, because it's just going to go right, it's going to get melted down, and eventually that's water we're going to drink.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ski wax and bike low hill. Let's talk about so ski wax, like the wax that you put on the back of your skis. And you say non petroleum based. So, is the ski wax that goes on the back of my ski a petroleum based product?”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with Zumba, co-founder and CEO Alberto Proman. So Alberto, are you ready for our next call? Hello, welcome to the advice line. You're on with Alberto Proman. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Transparency with consumers right now is huge. I think people have realized. They can't trust all companies before when we were growing up, if we assume that the FDA was protecting us and that there were someone, some government authority protecting us and that we were anything we had from companies was good for us. And then we realized it wasn't. And now I think transparency is very big. So I agree with you.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you can take small risks here, a few thousand dollars on some of these things, where if it doesn't work, it'll sting, but it's not going to tank your business. Jack, I think that great product. Congrats on taking it to 2 million. It's called Drink Wholesome Jack Schrub. Thanks so much for calling in. Thank you so much for having me for the advice and the opportunity to share. Have a great day. Good luck, man. Yeah, when I first saw this, I was like, wow, that looks really like the front of an RX bar, which is really, and that rebranding on RX bar transformed that company because it initially didn't look like that. It didn't say four egg whites, three dates, two cashews. But once they did that, and Peter Rahal talked about this on our show years ago, it just transformed that product. And now it's ubiquitous.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's great advice. You're going to need to set aside, if you can, you know, 50 grand at least, maybe 100 if you can, in marketing and sponsorships, in things like the trade shows, it's going to pay you back in spades.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People and make them feel or give them the impression that this brand is not for them because drink wholesome risks becoming off as a medical brand, risk coming off a little sterile. And I want it to be inclusive. I want anyone to resonate with the ingredients and understand intuitively that it's good for them, even if they don't have a sensitive stomach. So it's a tricky balance. Have you guys done any trade shows? Not as of yet. Maybe one day. I do think the trade show route for what you're doing is really important. It's going to cost a lot of money. It's going to cost at least 10 grand to get a booth and do what you need to do. But it's going to be an investment worth making. I mean, it's just what we've heard on this show over 700 episodes and probably a third of them have been food brands.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think about Organ. Organ was founded to serve people in hospital recovering from cancer and other surgeries. It was essentially designed to be like insure but organic. But eventually bodybuilders and people worked out found this product and that became its use case. Now that's primarily uses it. To me, I think that there's an argument to be made that you really should lean into this niche. I mean, maybe even on the front of the label, I'm looking at it somehow to indicate for people whose sense of stomachs. I mean, maybe on the back of the bag it says it, but I think it could be worth really leaning. What do you think about that, Jack? Well, that suggestion is very in line with my question because I don't think Drink Wholson would have made it this far had it not leaned into the specificity of its value proposition. However, I don't want to exclude...”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess a question for you, Jack, and also I'd love to hear your take, Alberto is you know, he's looking to appeal to a broader audience, right? But I would argue that you could probably lean more into the sensitive stomach crowd before you do that, because that is a potentially huge audience.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's resonating a lot right now with all the talk going on around microplastics. Cancer causing ingredients. And so it's the right moment to talk about very simple ingredients. I take a protein shake with only one ingredient. But I can handle that taste. Most people can't.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I just love that response. I think it's a great response and it makes a lot of sense. Alberto, you know, one of the things I keep thinking about is there are a lot of protein powders on the market. You know, you go to Whole Foods, you go to GNC, I mean, it's just endless. And this has really happened in the last 10 years. You know, just an explosion of different brands. And so it's hard for some people to figure out what to do. We've told the story of Organ on the show, but it's hard, right? Especially when you're competing against big brands like Organ. What I don't see a lot on the shelves are this. You don't see a lot of brands with very few ingredients. So that to me is interesting because I feel like that puts Jack's product in a slightly different category.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's not certified gluten free, primarily because our facility isn't. I am certification averse. Having worked in this space for several years now, I think that all the certifications, the labels that we slap on products give a misleading impression of what they are, which is food. I want drink wholesome to just be food. I don't think that a banana needs a certification. because of the shortlist of simple ingredients I don't want to distract from what makes drink wholesome different, which is again that simplicity and that transparency. Organic is great. I would love to become organic certified.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do a tiny bit of traditional retail with some local natural grocers, but retail is really expensive and we would need help. We'd probably have to build a team in order to manage all those accounts because every new account is like a child. It needs nurturing and we just don't have the bandwidth right now. But if a good opportunity came our way, we wouldn't necessarily say no. We would just have to take a very measured approach because I talk to a lot of founders who got into retail a little too early and That either sent the business in the wrong direction or just burned them out, which is a real risk.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. What about, I mean, you're in New Hampshire, right? And New England has an influential consumer audience, right? A lot of products are launched in New England, particularly in Whole Foods, for example. Is that a world that you have thought about exploring or have you tried?”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is a lot of cold outreach. Boots on the ground. That network is all about relationship building. I started it a few years ago. My sister heads that effort. And we have probably about a thousand folks with whom we work regularly and we hope to grow that tenfold if we can.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the question is how do you appeal to a broader audience, even though your niche is with people who have sensitive stomachs, which is a good niche to have, but to grow, you want to reach more people. Alberto, before we get to Jack's question, I'm sure you've got some more for him.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, I invest as much as I can back into the business. We don't spend a ton on marketing like other direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands because our main marketing tool is practitioner referrals because our target customer, some with a sense of stomach, we work with dietitians and nutritionists in some cases MDs to spread the word.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's awesome. So $2 million in revenue, which means that obviously you've got your costs, and then probably the rest of the money is going right back into the business in marketing and things. And you're probably not paying yourself a whole lot yet.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is a great accomplishment, but it's been a grind. It's been about five years now. And so the growth has been incremental. Today, I work with my younger sister. We're a two man team. We outsource things like warehousing, fulfillment, production. But at the end of the day, it's Tessa and Jack behind the brand.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Saved up all the money I had from summer jobs and from teaching, which wasn't very much, and it amounted to around $20,000. And that allowed me to buy all, I built my own supply chain. So it effectively allowed me to buy the ingredients in the package I needed to make the first batch.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So after graduating college, I worked as a boarding school teacher. I taught French. I lived in a dormitory with a whole bunch of kids. I coached sports. And the great thing about being a boarding school teacher is you get the summers off. So that first summer, I took to developing my product, finding someone who could make it, establishing a business. It took a while. And then I ran it as a side hustle for almost four years.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The idea for drink wholesome came from personal needs, so I was a two sport college athlete training year round. I used protein supplements as a convenient way to fill in gaps in my diet. But despite my best efforts, I couldn't find one that didn't upset my stomach. So I made my own. I bought a spice grinder. I went to the local health food store and I created a recipe that, although it wasn't the most soluble, nor the best tasting. It didn't upset my stomach. That was a first. This was something that I used or made for myself and used myself for a long time before considering the idea that other people might benefit from it as well.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so now I'm looking at your site here Drinkhole somewhat. I mean, it's very simple ingredients you're using, which is great. I see there's egg whites, coconut. I mean, you use monk fruit, so there's no sugar in these products. By the way. The branding is great, it's clear. It reminds me a lot of RX bars were you inspired by RX bars.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Awesome. Well, thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. I'm a protein powder drink consumer myself. Me too. Yeah. We are. Right. And so first of all, Jack, tell me a little bit about what makes a protein powder upset”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ros, and my guest today is Alberto Perlman. He's the co founder and CEO of the Latin Dance Craze and Fitness Program Zumba. And we're taking your calls, and let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the advice line. You're on with Alberta Perlman. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Holy email, LinkedIn, Instagram messaging. There's so many ways to message someone. And if you catch their attention at the right, I've responded to cold LinkedIn. And suddenly it becomes a huge deal for us. Like somebody. Me once in 2010 about doing a video game for Zumba, and it was, I think, through LinkedIn. And if I wouldn't have responded, we wouldn't have had our video game, which then became one of the top sellers. We sold 14 million Zumba video games.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, it's actually amazing how many, and I'm sure you get this, Alberto, like how many people just don't realize that you can really, you can just cold email people. And look, they're not always going to reply. I get a lot of cold emails that I just, I do not have the capacity or time to reply to. But now and again, if I can, I will reply. But sometimes, oftentimes that is the... Best way”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Alberto's point about partnerships here is really crucial. I mean, Sadie Lincoln is all over LinkedIn. She is a huge supporter of women-owned businesses as, you know, as a business owner herself. I mean, she's somebody you could literally cold reach out to.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the early days of Zumba is what allowed us to sustain the business. There's also, if you need to hire people and you can't afford big salaries, you could do nearshoring. And like we work with an agency called Latim Partners, and Latim Partners, L-A-T-E-A-M partners, they find people for us in Latin America that are English speaking that are great at marketing, that are great at software, that are great at different things that we need, and we're able to augment our team. So there's different ways to think about financing a business. I do like the idea of crowdfunding, though, because of the... Getting the word out more of the marketing side than actually the financing side. So I'm trying to balance those things. Getting just an investor to put up 250, I think you might have to give up. A big piece of your business for that”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very early. It's very early. I remember I offered investment in Zumba to four or five different friends of mine at the early days. And they could have bought a third of Zumba for $300,000. And I'm glad I didn't do it. I'm so glad I didn't do it because that equity down the road was worth so much more like. So I think that you should be careful in like there's this whole allure of raising money, but there's other ways to finance. There is, like I said, doing a deal with a studio is a way to finance. And like instead of us raising money, we ended up financing through Kellogg's. Our deal with Kellogg's”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And now you're going to have to give up a significant chunk, which is, of course, always a negotiation. And you have to figure out what you're comfortable with.”
2025-03-06 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT