Who is Gabi?

Meet Gabi, Co-Founder and Creative Director of CMY Cubes!

About CMY Cubes

CMY Cubes is a fun sensory tool for inquisitive minds of all ages. Named after cyan, magenta, and yellow, the primary printing colors, the cube shows a kaleidoscopic spectrum of colors that changes as reflections of light hit them. The product offers never-ending fun that anyone can enjoy!

Gabi’s Journey

After discovering a passion for marketing, Gabi immersed herself in the field and learned all that she could. She soon became a senior strategist for an agency where she worked for big, multinational brands. Although she enjoyed marketing, she wanted to create her own business rather than work for another.

During COVID, Gabi spent most of her free time learning new things. At a fateful moment, she came across the concept of subtractive color mixing, which refers to the reflection of light as it interacts with primary colors. Her fiancé, an engineer, showed her how it worked, and they started creating prototypes. 

Gabi searched for an affordable product on the market, but only found high-end art that was available in museums and cost thousands of dollars. Then, the business-savvy part of her brain clicked, and she came up with the idea to start a business that sold affordable cubes that demonstrated color mixing in real time.

“Immediately, [my brain went] ‘Okay, I want to start a business,’” she says.

That night, the couple created a GoDaddy website and worked on creating a prototype, a process that took three months to complete. Afterwards, Gabi posted a video of the cube on TikTok and it went viral, amassing three million views. In just 30 days, the brand made 30 sales, and it grew to 1,000 within the first month.

Surprised by their prototype’s quick success, they tried to see if it was something they could truly manufacture. After some trial and error, they found a warehouse that could create 1,000 copies of the cube in time for the holidays. As the brand grew, the couple created a brand and a logo, moved to Shopify, and began working on the company full-time.

Gabi attributes the brand’s unprecedented growth to her marketing skills. When combining innovative marketing with the growing business, the brand exploded unexpectedly. 

“It was kind of the perfect storm,” she says.

Keeping the Growth Consistent and Sustainable

Since the brand’s inception three years ago, it has continued to grow quickly and consistently. The company made seven digits within the first year of business and doubled its production in the second year.

Gabi wants to maintain her brand’s success. To do this, she mentions, the team has to stay agile and try new things. They’ve done partnerships and opened up wholesale doors to increase their reach with potential customers.

Additionally, brand recognition across multiple platforms  is crucial to the company’s growth. While maintaining a large following on Tik Tok, CMY Cubes has expanded to other social media platforms like YouTube to garner more product interest.

The team also rolls out new products consistently so customers can keep returning to the brand.

The goal, Gabi mentions, is to keep creating a community of advocates and affiliates within the brand’s network. She and her partner can’t do everything themselves! They outsource and hire talented employees that can bring the company to a new level. The team works remotely from all over the world in places like Romania and the Philippines. Although the CMY Cubes team is small, with only ten employees, they are mighty.

Business is a fast-paced environment, so the team has to innovate and stay ahead of the game. The company also has over 4,000 affiliates that produce content for the brand to bring in more interested customers. The program is the largest driver for the business — it’s as simple as signing up and creating a profile. Affiliates can receive incentives for bringing in more customers, and the brand encourages them to reach new milestones. Big name content creators love this set-up because they can bring in traction for the business and gain traction on their own platforms.

Gabi wants other businesses to get on board with this program because it can be very successful.

“People want to become not just customers,” she says, “They want to become advocates and feel like they’re part of your team.”

Tech Stack

Shopify

ShareASale

ChatGPT

Goaffpro — By far the best in terms of usability and functionality.

Prioritizing Customer Retention

To drive customer retention, the team makes sure that customers feel special. At CMY Cubes, the customers are a part of early releases for product drops. The brand also has a new VIP feature, through which customers can access pre-orders before anyone else.

Gabi mentions that a brand has to nurture its customers to keep them coming back. The team encourages customers to leave reviews, and they receive free products in return. 

The customer service team works closely with customers to maintain their satisfaction, to ensure customers never walk away unhappy. The goal is to ensure customers always leave satisfied and wanting to come back, to keep customer lifetime value high. Returning customers can buy the same product for their loved ones if they have a good experience with the company, and because of this, the brand has a high return rate.

“We want to make sure we are keeping them satisfied with their product experience [and] help them out with any questions that they have, and then always make sure that they want to come back,” she says.

Customer Service as Revenue

The brand uses live chat and makes sure to stay on top of their email inbox to answer customer inquiries in a timely manner. After assisting customers with their concerns, the team encourages them to purchase products from the website. They also recommend customers to go to their partnering retailers where they can touch and purchase the product. This is a win-win-win situation, considering that the customer, retailer, and brand all end up happy after an in-person purchase.

Because they have to be available on all channels at all times, the brand’s customer service representatives work night and day to assist customers in the U.S. and Europe when they need support.

Gabi mentions that the team has to be proactive and go above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction. They use A.I., and direct customers to quizzes on the website, which helps them discover which products will work best for what they’re looking for. Ultimately, customers have to be engaged throughout the whole process.

“We try to keep them through the funnel and as highly engaged as possible until the moment they purchase,” she says.

Elevating to the Next Level

Right now, TikTok is the brand’s #1 focus because it’s the best platform to be on if you want to make sales. Gabi wants to continue posting strategically to increase brand recognition and promote customer education. Although most people think toys are for kids, CMY Cubes wants to create content that suggests anyone can have toys. As for the educational angle, the brand  shows that even as an adult, there is still more to learn. The brand’s content focuses on teaching both teens and adults alike about color theory.

“We’re posting regularly every day and trying to be that… educator in the space of color theory, science, and physics,” she says. 

Moreover, A.I. has been a great resource for the brand through and through. Gabi uses ChatGPT to create new and innovative ideas for content and products.

“If we can grow that brand presence across YouTube shorts and TikTok [to] get to one million followers, it’ll do the work itself from there,” she says. “The sales will just continue rolling in.”

‍