Career & Money

What No One Tells You About Launching a Brand, According to Kenzie Elizabeth

September 16, 2025

Image: Mart Production/Pexels

You know that friend always posting about her “side hustle” with mysterious income claims and lifestyle photos that don’t add up? The one who makes entrepreneurship look like ordering a latte and watching money roll in? Reality check: Building a real brand is messier, more expensive, and way harder than the Instagram highlight reel suggests.

On House Guest, host Kenzie Elizabeth gets brutally honest about the two-year journey of building her home brand, Friend of Mine. She’s not here to sell you a course or convince you that entrepreneurship is easy—she’s sharing the actual numbers and the expensive mistakes most people won’t tell you. So whether you’re dreaming of starting your own brand or wondering why your current business isn’t taking off, start here.

Start cheap and small

The biggest mistake wannabe entrepreneurs make is going all-in on their first product idea. Kenzie learned this lesson by accident when she chose to start with paper goods instead of clothing. “Starting in paper goods, it’s easier,” she explains. “Cost wise, it’s cheaper than obviously doing cut and sew stuff…it was a less chance for them to mess it up and for it to be catastrophic.”

This isn’t just about saving money upfront—it’s learning the ropes without betting the farm. Paper goods taught Kenzie about manufacturing, fulfillment, and customer preferences before she moved to more complex products. When you’re figuring out everything from packaging to customer service, simpler products give you room to make mistakes without going bankrupt.

The lesson? Pick the easiest version of your idea first. Want to start a clothing brand? Test the waters with a tote bag or a beanie. Thinking about a tech company? Try a template or a simple service before sinking months into an app. The sooner you see how real people respond, the sooner you’ll know if your big idea actually has legs.

Your friends won’t buy your stuff (and that’s totally normal)

One of the first shocks of getting your brand off the ground is realizing your inner circle isn’t the one keeping the lights on. “When you launch a business, something that will surprise you is that the people that you think are guaranteed sales, or the people that are closest to you, will never buy a product,” Kenzie says. “It is so rare. It’s maybe three percent of them.”

This hits hard because we assume the people hyping us up will also swipe their card, but experts say close relationships usually run on “social norms” instead of “market norms.” Basically, buying from a friend feels weird—like mixing vibes with invoices. Research also shows it’s often weak ties (friends of friends, coworkers, mutuals online) who drive sales, not your ride-or-dies.

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Instead of taking this personally, plan for it. Build your business model around strangers who genuinely need your product, versus counting on friends who might buy it just to be nice. Your friends can support you by sharing your posts, leaving reviews, and spreading the word, but don’t expect them to cover your revenue goals.

Never make hiring decisions when you’re stressed

Kenzie’s most expensive mistake came from hiring when she felt overwhelmed. “We also hired a wholesale team, which was a big waste,” she admits. “Not because I think a wholesale team would be a waste…It just wasn’t the right fit.”

When you’re drowning in work, your first instinct is to throw money at the problem by hiring help. But stress clouds judgment, and desperate hiring leads to expensive mistakes. The wholesale team she hired didn’t understand her brand, brought in irrelevant opportunities, and ultimately wasted thousands of dollars.

Before signing anything, slow down. Step away from the panic, gut-check the decision, and remember that waiting a little longer is cheaper than paying for the wrong person. If your instincts say the fit is off, trust that. Hiring under pressure almost always backfires.

Document everything from day one

Think about how often you scroll past someone’s “day one” video and suddenly feel invested in their journey. That’s the power most new founders forget to tap into. “I would have documented my founder journey like my life depended on it,” Kenzie says. “And I still say that, and I’m still not doing it now, and I need to be.”

Building in public isn’t just some TikTok trend. It’s one of the cheapest ways to market your brand and create an audience that actually cares. People love watching the messy middle—packaging trials, sample fails, first wins—and your future customers want to feel like they’ve been in the group chat from the get-go.

Start recording quick clips during meetings, snap photos of prototypes, share both the highlight moments and the flop ones. Even if being on camera feels awkward, the content you capture while you’re building becomes the marketing fuel that sells later.

For more insights on building a brand from the ground up, check out House Guest with Kenzie Elizabeth, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.