What happens when you build a company specifically to sell it—and then execute that plan? 

Liz Saunders went from running registration at Seller Summit to delivering the closing keynote, all while building Fluencer Fruit, the Chrome extension that helps Amazon Influencer creators optimize their content strategy. In this powerful episode, Liz reveals her entire exit playbook, from reading "Exit Preneur" before she even started building to keeping GAAP-compliant books from day one. But this isn't just an acquisition story—it's a masterclass in understanding the Amazon Influencer ecosystem, where creators earn 1-4% commissions and brands are discovering that video converts better than text, and UGC converts better than brand videos.

Key Topics & Lessons:

• The Strategic Exit Playbook - How Liz built Fluencer Fruit knowing she'd sell within 3-5 years, why she hired a bookkeeper from day one to keep GAAP-compliant records, and how a single LinkedIn comment led to her acquisition by Wayward through a consulting relationship
• Amazon Influencer Program Deep Dive - The difference between driving traffic (TikTok/social) vs. converting traffic (on-site Amazon videos), why commission rates vary from 1-4% based on product categories, and how brands can unlock video carousel placements to boost conversions
• Commission Stacking Strategy - How creators are maximizing revenue from single pieces of content across platforms, why brand attribution links can offset creator commissions with 10% referral bonuses, and the emerging licensing opportunities for creator content in Amazon ads
• Brand Strategy for Amazon Influencer - Why you need brand registry and at least one product video per listing, how to work directly with creators for authentic problem-solving content, and the difference between educational on-site content vs. benefit-driven social content
• The Infrastructure Stabilization Phase - Why the "blue ocean" of easy influencer money is shifting to more strategic "commission stacking" approaches, how platforms are building long-term sustainability, and why brands should focus on creators who post across multiple platforms
• Cross-Platform Creator Strategy - How to identify TikTok creators who also do Amazon Influencer content, why the skill sets are different but complementary, and Liz's advice to double down on what's working rather than trying to be everywhere at once

Chapters: 

(00:00) Re-Introducing Liz Saunders 

(03:30) The Journey of Fluencer Fruit

(07:20) Amazon Influencer Program Insights

(10:09) Shifts in Influencer Marketing

(13:35) Brand Strategies for Influencer Engagement

(19:05) Multi-Channel Selling

(21:31) Building and Selling Fluencer Fruit

(28:03) Insights from the Sales Process

(32:05) Future Endeavors

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Liz Saunders:

Everybody is making more money than they've ever thought they could make off of one piece of content in their life, right? They're like, I posted a five second video and retired, and everybody's like, congratulations.

Brett Curry:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we have a returning guest. It's going to be an amazing episode. I have Miss Liz Saunders back again with a new title and a lot of new developments that I can't wait to unpack, but she is now the president of the creative division at Wayward. Talk about what that means and why she's doing that. But with that, Liz, welcome to the show and how's it going?

Liz Saunders:

Thanks, Brett. It's going so good. I mean, it's been, I guess a little, almost two years since we chatted, so this is a really fun opportunity to reconnect.

Brett Curry:

It's so crazy when I first thought, man, I should have Liz back on. I thought, well, it's been just a few months. And then I looked and yeah, it's been almost two years, which that's just the way life and e-comm goes, man. It just goes by so stinking fast.

Liz Saunders:

It feels like yesterday and seven years ago simultaneously,

Brett Curry:

Right? 100%. That is 100% true. Yeah. Yeah. So you've had a really big year, Liz. We were both at Solar Summit in Fort Lauderdale. You were the closing keynote of that event, which is a major honor, so kudos to you for that. You sold your company Fluencer Fruit, you sold to Wayward, which is where you are now, so I can't wait to unpack that. And now you get to be on this show twice in a couple of years, so it is a big, big year for you, so congratulations.

Liz Saunders:

Thank you. Thank you.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Yeah. Which by the way, what was that, given the closing keynote, was that kind of a bucket list thing? Was it something you wanted to do or something you're really nervous about? Kind of walk us through that

Liz Saunders:

Kind of all of those things, honestly. Well, not Bucket List, that's the one that I'll say, and this was part of my keynote, was when I started with Seller Summit. I mean, it's was my entryway into e-comm, and when I started, I was running registration and was just a new Amazon seller, and my whole life was kind of in flux. And so never did I ever think, oh, I would like to be closing keynote, right?

Brett Curry:

Go from run of the admission table years and years ago to now doing the closing Genome,

Liz Saunders:

Checking Bunch badge. And now it's like, and here you're as the, so I will say it definitely wasn't something that I initially was like, that's what I want to do. And also when we got closer, it was like, that would be really cool. And in talking to Tony, because they had a scheduling change with the original closing keynote, and she was like, you've been traveling. Who do you see? And I kind of was like, I'm going to pitch myself. I was like, I'm a rags Riches seller Summit full circle moment. Heck. And she was like, I like it. So they took it and

Brett Curry:

Amazing.

Liz Saunders:

It was nerve wracking, but it was really fun. If you're ever going to do something that big, being in your, I would call it our home audience, those are my people, is like,

Brett Curry:

Yeah, everybody's rooting for you. Everybody was cheering for you. It was a perfect

Liz Saunders:

Environment, so nerve wracking, but also if you fall on your face, they're still going to love you. So it's a little ambivalence.

Brett Curry:

Takes some pressure off for sure. So yeah, it was great. And your background is Jungle Scout. You're a successful seller. You've been doing Seller Summit now, doing some really cool things. And then a few years ago you had this idea, let's build a platform. You called it Fluencer Fruit, that's the company you just exited, which I want to hear all about the exit because I just know so many people we're kind of in the m and a game we're looking to acquire. I know a lot of people that are looking for exits, and so can't wait to unpack that a little bit. But for those who don't know, what is flu fruit and then how does that fit into the wayward ecosystem?

Liz Saunders:

Absolutely. So Fluencer Fruit is an extension that helps content creators on or in the Amazon Influencer program helps them do product research, and it helps them manage their video library. So that's the fastest way to explain it. It's a Chrome extension that just helps visualize all of the things that you care about for onsite content in an easy to digest fashion.

Brett Curry:

Nice. And so what are you seeing right now, and we'll talk about how this fits in with Wayward, but what are you seeing right now with Amazon Influencer? I know this has been an initiative with Amazon for a while. Amazon's always trying to solve the problem of discovery. How do we get customers to discover new products? They still mostly rely on search. They're looking for things to go beyond that. But what have you been seeing with Amazon Influencer as of late?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, so it's interesting because I think there's two pieces to that coin, which is where it's like they're trying to solve for discoverability, and they're also trying to solve for authentic feedback. So we have seen a lot of change for written reviews, and I use it in quotes because are they really reviews from customers? Amazon's been fighting that

Brett Curry:

Battle. Is it a real person? Is it someone overseas?

Liz Saunders:

Is

Brett Curry:

It just fake? It's a bot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Liz Saunders:

It's like a competitor being paid to leave one star reviews. So they've been trying to simultaneously solve both of these things. And so where I see the onsite content being the biggest win for them is its authentic user feedback for a product. And so in a way, it does battle some of those paid for bad good, whatever reviews with really authentic conversations in video. The other thing is from

Brett Curry:

A, so it's not just a discovery thing, it's also like a conversion piece as well, right? Yes. And lending real feedback for a specific product that should help with conversions or

Liz Saunders:

Purchases. So the onsite piece up to this point has been almost 100% on the conversion side. It's like you're paying all these other places to drive traffic to the listing. This is the one thing that they let you do that helps with your conversion rate. But something interesting that they're playing with in way of discoverability is surfacing these videos in search results. So every once in a while, and they're still, I think, testing, we don't see this consistently, but every once in a while you'll be searching and instead of a main Amazon image product picture, you'll see a video that's obviously not a brand videoing. So I do think that they're trying to pull that in.

Brett Curry:

So there's no way at the moment for a brand to influence that. But if you have those videos, perhaps Amazon's going to grab that and display that on a search results page?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, correct. I call those miscellaneous placements because we don't have any insight into them. Amazon never tells us when they're doing them, but we see them and they'll just plug our content into all of these placements, just I think to test conversion and see how much they help or don't.

Brett Curry:

Got it. We do a lot on the Amazon advertising side, huge fan of the ads ecosystem, love sponsor brand video. You be called video and search. What are you seeing, if anything, from your perspective on brands using some of this influencer content, these influencer videos, and running those ads, sponsor brand ads?

Liz Saunders:

So this is really interesting that you asked about this. I do office hours with my subscribers every Thursday, and we were talking about this morning. So out of curiosity, are you seeing the ability to put money on influencer content through the ads console?

Brett Curry:

Well, I don't run the campaigns myself, so I'd have to ask my team. I've not heard anyone mention that yet. But is that maybe in a beta right now?

Liz Saunders:

So 18 months ago, they sent us a bunch of questions, would you rather this for three months to license your content to a brand or this for six months? And they did this whole whatever. And now in the backend, on the creator side of Creator Connections, we have a licensing tab, but it's blank.

Liz Saunders:

So

Liz Saunders:

Where I think they're going is to allow brands to kind of let run traffic to creator content through the actual Amazon ads platform. So I was wondering if you guys were seeing it in beta yet,

Brett Curry:

And then pay a licensing fee potentially to the creator is the way that might work?

Liz Saunders:

That's what we're guessing,

Brett Curry:

Yeah. So either they would pay a licensing fee or the way it works now is if I'm a creator, an influencer, I post content about, let's call it a coffee product on Amazon. If someone views my video and then purchases, I get some kind of a commission for that. Is that correct?

Liz Saunders:

Correct. Yep.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. And what does that commission look like? Are there ranges? Does it depend on me as an influencer? How does that look?

Liz Saunders:

There are influencers who have their own rate cards, but those are the super producers. So your average creator, it gets between one and 4% for those onsite commissions, and it's tagged by category. So however you as the seller have decision trade. If your nursery bookshelf goes in furniture or in kids, those are two different commissions. For the onsite creator, it's either 4% of furniture or two and a quarter percent for baby stuff.

Brett Curry:

Interesting. I wonder why, any insight into why those commissions are different for different categories for influencers?

Liz Saunders:

I have no idea. I mean, I'm assuming that Amazon has discovered

Brett Curry:

Margin profile for those categories, maybe something like that.

Liz Saunders:

I kind assume that they tag it based on the difficulty to sell and drive traffic. So baby stuff sells all day every day. They don't need to incentivize people

Brett Curry:

To that's

Liz Saunders:

Sell that stuff. Whereas furniture, how many people are selling bookshelves?

Brett Curry:

Right?

Liz Saunders:

That's my guess.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, makes sense. So what have you seen change then? So you started Influencer Fruit, what is it, a little over two years ago? Is that right? And so what have you seen shift, what have you seen improve? What have you seen change in terms of the Amazon influencer program?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, I think it's in the influencer program as well as just in product focused content in general. Right now we're kind of seeing this moment of what I call infrastructure stabilization. So we've been in Blue Ocean, everybody is making more money than they've ever thought they could make off of one piece of content in their life, right? They're like, I posted a five second video and retired. And everybody's like, congratulations. So now we're in between TikTok shop affiliate and Amazon Influencer. We're seeing a little bit of, it's not a slowdown, but they're pulling back to create the infrastructure that will build the long term of the programs.

Liz Saunders:

And so we're seeing people having to adapt to how they're making money. So what we're seeing working is, I call it commission stacking, where from the same piece of content, I want to optimize how many ways I can make money off of it. Will the brand pay me for it? Will they send me a product? Do they have additional commissions available through Creator connections or Wayward? What are their sales? Just trying to think through as opposed to just picking a product and creating content for it, thinking through the big picture. Are they on TikTok and Amazon? Can I create cross-platform content for them?

Brett Curry:

Yeah. So what about from the brand side? So if I'm a seller on Amazon, how should I be thinking about Amazon influencers? Should I be going out pursuing recruiting influencers? What should I be doing?

Liz Saunders:

So if you're on the brand side, the first thing you want to do is make sure your brand registered and that you have uploaded at least one product video or brand video to every listing, because that unlocks that upper video carousel placement, which is the number one converting thing, thinking about the fact that video converts better than text, and UGC converts better than brand videos.

Brett Curry:

Totally.

Liz Saunders:

So getting that above the fold close to the buying decision is always positive. The next piece that just opens the real estate, the next piece is actively working with Amazon influencers is really a cool opportunity where TOS compliant and we're FTC compliant and we're not a black box. So it's not like the Vine Review program, which I understand holds a necessary place, but you can't talk to Vine reviewers. You can talk to us. So if you have something, people keep returning this coffee product because they don't understand that you have to clean the filter this many times a week or the coffee tastes bad. It's like, well, as a content creator, I can go in and be like, you guys, number one mistake that I've made with this is I didn't clean the filter and it hits different when I say it than when the brand does

Brett Curry:

It. It does, it does. But then you can also say, Hey, it was

Liz Saunders:

Really

Brett Curry:

Easy to clean, and man, now I get the perfect cup of coffee every

Liz Saunders:

Time, user error type of thing, error. That's on me. You know what I mean?

Brett Curry:

Much more acceptable coming from a user where you're like, oh, it's normal to do this rather than the brand is making me do extra work. Exactly. Totally makes sense. Yeah, and we've leaned into this for some of our brands. It's something that we can help with where we go out and find influencers. And so I know for a particular betting client, it's been really effective for 'em. Good. But yeah. Any other things you've seen change or shift from a brand's perspective, or actually, I may have cut you off. You said open up videos, open up the carousel, brand registered, get brand, open up that carousel. Then what else should brands do?

Liz Saunders:

Well, I think the brands finding a way all watching everybody trying. Everybody's always trying to be more efficient with their spend and how they fixing their margins, whether it's tariffs, whether it's changes in terms of service, whatever the current challenge is around margins. So some of the things that we're seeing brands do in way of new opportunities, creative problem solving around this is working with creators directly. So you have more control over those conversations. And sometimes that means pulling the actual transactions so that they're outside of Amazon, meaning I'm paying you a flat fee for this as opposed to whatever, but then I can use your content or

Liz Saunders:

Working

Liz Saunders:

With a company like Wayward where you can use brand attribution links to get the referral bonus to offset the commissions you're paying to the creators. It's like a win-win win.

Brett Curry:

So explain that a little bit. I know hardcore Amazon sellers know exactly what you're talking about, but for those that are less familiar

Liz Saunders:

For sure,

Brett Curry:

What is that referral bonus?

Liz Saunders:

Absolutely. So the brand attribution link is basically a brand's version of an affiliate link. Amazon wants you to drive traffic when you drive traffic. They've done something where they'll give you a brand referral bonus. They're not cutting you a check, but they're cutting back on the amount you're paying them for the referral fee, and it's usually around 10%. That's not standard or that's not global, but that's approximate. And so what happened in this conversation was brands were like, if we drive traffic, we don't want to pay for you to drive traffic. And Amazon was like, you're right. Here's how we'll solve that. But then it was like this other piece entered the chat and was like, brands would be happy to pay creators almost a hundred percent of their margin for that first sale to get a new customer. And so this allows people wayward will take your brand attribution link, then what the creator is using, you are getting the brand referral bonus, and then you can pay the creator a higher percentage than if they're just going through Amazon affiliates

Brett Curry:

Because why not? That's free money you're getting from Amazon. Why not pay that to a creator? Give them more incentives, fuel your growth there through influencers. So yeah, it makes a ton of sense.

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, I mean, it's such a cool opportunity. It incentivizes. It's a literal, everyone wins, right?

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. Good. Have you seen more and more brands adopting Amazon influencer? Is it still kind of slow to pick up? How has that been going?

Liz Saunders:

It's a lot of education conversations. It's interesting because I think this is not uncommon, but Amazon will launch a program and then it kind of takes on its own side life from what they initially intended it to be, which is great, right? Because it is its own living organism, right?

Brett Curry:

Sure.

Liz Saunders:

Because of that, though, I think, and I don't have anybody at Amazon that's told me this, but I think the way they initially designed this program was to be a much tighter sister to the affiliate program. So affiliate being the people driving the traffic, influencer being the people who are helping convert the traffic. And I think they initially thought that this was going to be like a one for one people. Were going to be doing both, but it's become a very, there are people that do both, but it's become a very separate skillset. The difference between if you're on a product listing and me helping you make that buying decision is much different than me on my Instagram being like, these are my favorite wrist wraps when I lift, you should go check out their stuff. It's almost like a different selling motion.

Brett Curry:

Totally, totally. Yeah. You're more demonstrating the product on that product detail page and showing how it works. It's a little more education type of thing. Someone's already in the store, they're already talking to you, where if someone's on TikTok or elsewhere, you got to convince them to go to the store to check it out. Exactly. So yeah, different feel. And so what you're finding when Amazon is finding is that's often a different person. So the person running TikTok influencer content is maybe different than the person who's doing Amazon Influencer or it's maybe the same person, they're just creating different content for different places.

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, it's a combination of those two things. But yeah, it is. It's like if I'm on TikTok, I'm trying to get you moving and to click on a link. If I'm on an Amazon influencer or if I'm on an Amazon product listing, I'm like, check out how I can push up this shade tent. It just clicks right into place on my TikTok. People don't care about that. But on the product listing, if you're five four and you don't know how you're going to set up this tent by yourself, you want to see how I can do it. And so it has more educational, more faq, more like feature based, then

Brett Curry:

It's more feature rich where the content to get someone to go to the store that's got to be more benefit oriented, more action oriented. You're moving someone, and then on the page there's kind of overcoming objections, answering questions, talking about features, helping them decide between this product, your product, versus a competitive product. So yeah, makes a ton of sense. How then are you seeing this pair? And we've sort of just talked about it, but TikTok shops obviously it's huge. We have some clients that have exploded with TikTok shops. It's also not for everybody. Amazon's got their own affiliate program. I'm really excited about YouTube's affiliate program. It's basically their answer to TikTok shops. We're doing some early testing here.

Liz Saunders:

It's

Brett Curry:

Been very favorable, but it's early days. So how do you see these things working together and how would you advise brands to consider how they work together?

Liz Saunders:

It's a good question. So I think one of the current struggles that everybody in this product focused content seller space is struggling with is the interpreted need to be everything to all people and to be on every single platform. And while I think there is a space for yes, be on TikTok, be on Amazon, sell 'em, Walmart, all those things, I do think there's a little bit of, depending on how big your team is, how early you are in your company phase, you can't personally probably simultaneously run all of those sales channels. So I think making peace with, if you took off on TikTok, double down, right?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah. If

Liz Saunders:

You took off on Amazon, double down

Liz Saunders:

In

Liz Saunders:

Time, you can add all of those from a content piece though, if you're a brand who is selling on all of those, when you're vetting creators, check and see where they're posting specifically if you're on TikTok and Amazon and you find a creator on TikTok, because that's the more likely direction this goes.

Liz Saunders:

Ask

Liz Saunders:

Them if they're Amazon influencer and if they would post an influencer video in addition to what they're doing on TikTok, because it's much harder. You can reach out to influencers from Amazon through their storefront to their socials and to their, but if you're interacting with them on TikTok, you've already got a little bit of conversation going, that's where I would the best direction.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, totally makes sense. So start that conversation with someone on TikTok and do an influencers working with you there. See if they'll create some content on Amazon as well. And that kind of goes back to the earlier discussion where same person, different flavors of content

Liz Saunders:

Based

Brett Curry:

On where someone is in the buying journey. And it makes just a ton of sense.

Liz Saunders:

Yeah,

Brett Curry:

So very, very cool. Well, awesome. Well, let's kind of go back to what we alluded to at the beginning of the show. So you built Fluencer Fruit, amazing site, amazing product. Kudos to you. It really, really great.

Liz Saunders:

Thank you.

Brett Curry:

Why did you decide to sell, and actually when did you decide to sell? So did you build it in order to sell it or did you build it just for fun and you're like, wait a minute, there's something here. This is valuable. I'm going to sell it.

Liz Saunders:

So I built it to sell it. I went into it knowing that I wouldn't run it forever. I know that my skillset falls between zero and two, right of the stage of the company. I do really well with ambiguity, chaos, and pulling it all into one place with enough of a structure to start handing things off to specialists. So over time, I've realized that that is my skillset. So I knew that I was probably not going to be the person that took it past stage two or whatever that turns out to be. And I read Exit Preneur by our mutual friend, Joe Val, as I was

Brett Curry:

Joe Val, shout out to Joe. Great book. Great book.

Liz Saunders:

I mean, if you are even thinking about Ever in the Future, I just devoured that book and I had legitimately been waiting to read it until I knew I was getting ready. I wanted it to be so fresh. I should have read it twice, but

Brett Curry:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing I've noticed there is, so we started going through this journey and like I said, we're looking at acquiring, we're trying, we're an agency right now trying to get it across the finish line and looking at another deal as well. But one thing I noticed is once we started thinking about m and a, and we'd even explored do we want to sell to an investor? What do we want to do? If you go through the process, if you read Joe's book and there are some other great books, buy, then Build, buy Walker, and there's several others just going through the process, you'll run your business better. Because if you start to look at your business like an investor or a buyer looks at your business, you are just going to run it better. And then you may decide, wow, I'm more profitable running it this way. I'm just going to keep the business. So anyway, I think even if you think you're not going to sell for a while, read those books and run your business, you're going sell it, it be a better business.

Liz Saunders:

I think the best thing that I took out of the book was my books. I'm not a bookkeeper anyways. And so as I set up the LLCs hired a bookkeeper because I just wanted, because when I was at Jungle Scout Chief of Staff, I did a lot of coordinating around m and a conversations and when we acquired Downstream and those sorts of things. And so I've seen the process of when people's books aren't clean and what that looks like. And I was like, so my number one thing was to make sure that my books were always whatever. Anybody could come in if they didn't like the books, that was one thing. Yeah,

Brett Curry:

Compliance super clean. Correct. Someone looks at it, they trust it. Yeah. End of story.

Liz Saunders:

Exactly. So that was my favorite thing, but I knew all along, so I read the book and then I was building, I did think that I was going to run the company for three to five years.

Liz Saunders:

I

Liz Saunders:

Figured it would take me about that long to be interesting. The risks that I took that I knew were risks was my brand was and is still very attached to me as a person. And so when people talk about flu fruit, they talk about you should buy flu fruit so that you get with it Liz's office hours or

Liz Saunders:

Those sorts of things.

Liz Saunders:

So I did know that that was a little bit, but I also assumed because I very specifically picked a pretty niche community that I was going to be a strategic acquisition for somebody filling a gap that nobody else has that fits a bigger picture, whether it was an ads play or those,

Brett Curry:

You likely weren't going to be a platform you were going to be more bolted on or tucked into a platform most likely.

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, my I was like, nobody else is doing anything in this space. I can fill that hole for whoever thinks that it's the most valuable to them at the time.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And really building a brand that is a little bit dependent on your personality. I mean, that's what done here at OMGA, public facing, I'm speaking, I'm doing all kinds of things. And so certainly my brand and OMG, they're intertwined, which is fine. I think part of that though is you got to lean into your strengths, right? Absolutely. You're good at building community. People know you, they trust you, they like you, so don't shy away from that just so that a future exit is

Liz Saunders:

Agree

Brett Curry:

Easier, whatever, lean into it a strength, you're going to build a business faster, it's going to be more profitable, and that's going to make the business more valuable. Absolutely. And they kept you on as well, which I'm sure was part of that was related to your personal brand being attacked.

Liz Saunders:

So I was planning on being around a lot longer solo, and then we've talked a lot about building your network and being open to conversations is really critical in whatever realm you operate in. And the wayward thing came out of a LinkedIn conversation.

Brett Curry:

No way.

Liz Saunders:

So

Brett Curry:

Like a post you made on LinkedIn, someone commented on it, or just a connection?

Liz Saunders:

I made a comment on another post, and the head of growth from Wayward reached out to me and was like, I'd love to get on a call and just kind of chat. And so I take a lot of those just because interesting in our space

Brett Curry:

And learn something.

Liz Saunders:

And then he was like, Hey, you should meet our CEO. So I met Allie and then she and I had lunch, and then I did some consulting for them. And as we worked together, it was like, oh, this is actually a really good fit. We have a whole offering together.

Brett Curry:

By the way, what a brilliant strategy from wayward part, I'm assuming this was part of the strategy. Hey, here's Liz. Cool product, cool tech, let's hire her as a consultant and let's see what it's like to work with her. That's actually something we've done several times as we looked at acquisitions is, Hey, let's run some projects together. So we're looking, we're talking m and a, we're talking about joining forces, whatever. Let's run projects together. Let's just see how this goes. I mean, that's the best due diligence you could ever do, or the best addition to due diligence you could ever do. So cool. So what was it like going through the sales process? Any tips, suggestions for someone who's considering it, about to get into the sales process, the selling of their business, that process? What was it like? What tips do you have?

Liz Saunders:

So I think probably the two best decisions I made were I had a broker. So even though I had kind of sourced or whatever, I was working with Wayward, I worked with a broker to help me put together my valuation, my kit, just some of those things. So even though technically the sale happened outside of the broker situation, there were so many things that putting together specifically around the valuation that was really valuable to have his input around what's currently going, what the multiples are. And then the next best thing I did was an attorney. Because initially I was like

Brett Curry:

Got to

Liz Saunders:

Got, I was like, I can do this with chat GPT, and then I was like, will I regret that if I do it wrong? I was like, yes, I will. So you

Brett Curry:

Will. I mean, I love chat GPT or Claude or other tools for legal

Liz Saunders:

Help

Brett Curry:

Structuring advice in the early days. It can help guide you, and those tools can really show you some things, but man, if you're doing a big deal, this may be one of the biggest transactions of your life. If you're looking to acquire or sell or whatever, hire a good m and a attorney. It's so worth

Liz Saunders:

It. Yep, exactly. So those are the things I wouldn't do differently, you know what I mean? Those are the decisions that I'm really glad I made those two decisions

Brett Curry:

For sure, for sure. Anything you would've done differently?

Liz Saunders:

It's a good question. I've been trying to think about that. And honestly, at the moment, I don't have anything. I think probably because I'm a big believer in if you feel like you're trying to kick the door down that maybe that's not the direction. And it just felt like every door in this situation just kind of opened, and so I just kind of walked down the path, right? The CEO, Allie and I have a very open relationship, and so if I had a concern, I would just go to her and there was nothing major. But anytime you have these types of big detailed conversations,

Liz Saunders:

Making

Liz Saunders:

Sure that you're clear on things is super important, obviously. And so I don't currently have anything where I'm like, I wish I had done that part differently.

Brett Curry:

It's so great. Well, and one thing, and because of the way this unfolded, got to know them by meeting in person and then working as a consultant with them, you really got a feel for their character and the way they operate. And because even though this isn't a forever thing, it's kind of getting married, especially if you merge companies, that's like a marriage. So you got to really make sure, is this someone I want to be married to for the next X number of years?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, exactly.

Brett Curry:

Yeah. And that's where I love being tenacious and if I get a no, I'm going to figure out a way to get a yes and things like that, but you don't want to have to, Hey, this is going to be a partnership. I don't want to have to fight for everything. It should feel somewhat seamless or effortless, at least in parts of it, like the communication and the openness and the, Hey, are we collaborative? And stuff like that. Yeah, it sounds like you definitely took the right path there and it paid off. It paid off.

Liz Saunders:

I'm really pleased with the outcome. I love being on the team, and that was part of the reason that when we started having those conversations, I had been solo for two years, which pretty extroverted. So being able to join a team that's moving in the right direction has been like, oh, good. I have people again,

Brett Curry:

Dude, I thrive in a team environment. I can do okay on my own. I don't mind to sit and write or crunch numbers for a little bit. But doing that for a long period of time, no, that's not where I want to be. That's amazing. So now kind of foreseeable future, you're going to be helping build this out, or is this a short-term thing? Are you allowed to say what does the future hold for Liz and for flu fruit?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah. Well, I have this really cool opportunity with Wayward to build their creator division. That's awesome. So I get to visualize, strategize, scope and help execute on this in a way, to your earlier point, know your strengths. I get to build a community that's rooted in education and tools and straight knowledge sharing around a lot of this. So I'm really excited about that. So I don't know how long that takes or where that takes me, but for right now, we're natural builders that appeals to me is I get to go build something cool with additional resources and helping the community that I'm bringing along

Brett Curry:

With a team with capital, with a structure. But you get a little bit of the best of both worlds. You can still be entrepreneurial and build, but with some resources at your disposal. So that is awesome. Well, Liz, kudos to you, man. Great job. This was your goal at the outset. Let me build something that is valuable enough that someone wants to buy it. You did it yet a successful exit.

Liz Saunders:

Thank

Brett Curry:

Now you guys are building together, which is super great. So if people are listening to this and they're like, man, I want to know more about wayward or about flu fruit. I want to tap into Amazon, the Amazon influencer ecosystem, either as an influencer, I probably just got brands listening, but I could have some people who want to do an influencer, but how can people find more?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, absolutely. So wayward.com is like if you just want a general whatever, I also do calls with brands. So if you're like, you know what? I just have questions, I'm Liz at, at wayward.com, just shoot me an email. We'll set up a time. I'll walk you through. I'll do an audit of your listings and tell you organically what you can be doing to attract those influencers and or how we can help you push more traffic, kind of figuring, solving for the problem you're having.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. And then it's Fluencer fruit.com as well, is that's the

Liz Saunders:

Yep. If you're looking for the extension, it's Fluencer fruit.com.

Brett Curry:

Amazing. And then Liz, what about on the socials? Are you active? Are you active on LinkedIn, or was just the onetime comment that changed your life?

Liz Saunders:

Yeah, yeah. I know, right? It's like random comment. I'm, I'm active on LinkedIn, so I think my profile is like Liz Saunders, but if you look up Liz Saunders, you should find me.

Brett Curry:

Awesome. I'll link to everything in the show notes as well. So check out what Liz is up to. Liz, thank you so much. It's been a ton of fun, super valuable. And man, I'm excited to watch you guys build and make the Amazon influencer space even better.

Liz Saunders:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Brett Curry:

Awesome. And as always, thank you for tuning in. We'd love to hear from you. What would you like to hear more of on the show? And if you've not done so, we'd love that review on iTunes, helps other people discover the show. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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