Q: Ryan, after you participated in the FedEx forecasting workshop, you decided to take the plunge and raise prices on your products. What were you afraid of before that?

Dawn, you were telling me to raise my prices. Initially, I just couldn’t do it. I was terrified. It was a gripping fear. I couldn’t help thinking, “What if we upset customers who we have had for years? What if our loyal customers just left and bought from our competition? What if we couldn’t stay in business because we lost our customer base?” We write handwritten thank-you notes to every single one of our customer orders. I personally have written over 1 million notes. In a noisy, impersonal world, that’s a big deal. Our 

Q: What advice would you give to other small business owners?

Of course, create a great product. Then create a great story and a great relationship.

Realize the world we live in has become noisy, and we’re all bombarded. Focus on building authentic relationships with your customers. Keep your web presence simple. You don’t need all the latest tech. Instead make as many human-to-human touch points as possible.

I was a musician first. I have an expensive guitar and a cheap guitar. The guitar doesn’t matter; the tune I play on it