Braxton Manley First appearance He announced it on a podcast in 2021. While in college, he launched Braxley Bands, a company that makes Apple Watch bands. Last year, he Update available I worked on that business, overcoming operational and sales challenges.
He’s back with his latest company, Mystic, which sells health-conscious chewing gum direct to consumers, and in a recent conversation, we discussed Mystic’s origins, marketing plans, early success, and more.
The full audio is embedded below. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Eric Bandholz: How is the economy?
Braxton Manley: Black Three Bandsthe Apple Watch band company, is surviving in a tough environment. We operate with a profit-first mentality. We grow as much as we can and scale back when necessary based on the previous month’s P&L. We scale and scale back many times. My brother Zach and I run the company remotely. We haven’t taken a salary in a while and are focused on the long-term stability of the company.
I currently have three direct-to-consumer e-commerce businesses. My fiancée, Maddie, Peace-Love Hormone We founded it about three years ago. It’s a direct-to-consumer supplement brand for women’s hormonal health. I’m the CEO there as an executive so Maddie can get her PhD in herbal medicine and focus on the product. I focus on marketing and operations.
The third business is Mysterioushas been launched, a chewing gum for women made from the sap of the mastic tree, which grows on a Greek island and has many health benefits.
We are creating a family-owned holding company that will operate multiple DTC businesses, all relatively small at this point in time with 6-7 figure annual revenues.
Bandholz: Tell us about Mystic.
Manly: Organic gum in square chunks. $38 a can. A beauty product for women, and TikTok categorizes it as such. It’s not your average gum. It’s not sweet at all. It’s a mouth freshener. It helps ease indigestion and promotes oral health. You’ll love the taste.
The business is 6 months old. We started processing orders just a week ago. In the beginning, we were just trying to figure out what our logo should be. We did some beta testing last year. We invested about $3,000 and ended up doing $20,000 worth of sales. We knew we had a viable product.
They then raised $90,000 from friends and family, developed custom packaging, and manufactured 5,000 sticks of gum, enough to reach their first revenue of $200,000.
Bandholz: How do you market your products?
Manly: Well, it’s been a week since we started processing orders. So it’s still new. We’ve spent a lot of time TikTok ShopWe think TikTok is the perfect fit.
Affiliates are also important to us. My fiancée, Maddie, is an Instagram creator in the health and wellness space. Great communitywhich generated our first Mystic order and brought in about $5,000 in revenue. By Q4, we’re on track to be doing six figures in monthly revenue. This is something we can scale quickly.
We sell recurring orders, but we don’t use the words “subscriber” or “subscription.” Instead, we sell membership to a gum-chewing club. We have cool hats, club logos, and badges. Our goal is to build culture. We charge a high initial subscription fee and a low renewal fee. A one-time order is $38, and joining the recurring delivery club is $30.
Bandholz: Where can people buy gum and follow you?
Manly: Go to Mystic GumYou can follow me on X. @Braxtonmanley, or LinkedIn.
