Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / From $30,000 to the largest female founded CBD company in America with Sagely Naturals Founder Kerrigan Behrens

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From $30,000 to the largest female founded CBD company in America with Sagely Naturals Founder Kerrigan Behrens · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Kerrigan Behrens for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doona Roisin, and joining me on the show today is Kerrigan Behrens, co-founder of a company called Sagely Naturals.
• 0:26
  Sagely Naturals was created with a simple yet powerful goal in mind, to harness the life-changing benefits of broad-spectrum CBD and natural botanicals to help you do more of what you love. Since 2015, Sagely Naturals has worked hand-in-hand with chemists and naturopaths to create products with an unwavering dedication to whole self-wellness and is on a mission to naturally modernize the medicine cabinet with high-quality, accessible offerings that help women feel their best.
• 0:55
  In this episode, we cover how she and her co-founder Kaylee got started with just $30,000 of their savings that's gone on to build the largest female-founded CBD company in America in just five years. Some really interesting guerrilla-style marketing strategies they used to launch and have evolved over the years still to this day. And how they got on the radar of Cameron Diaz, now one of the many celebrities who are invested in their business.
• 1:21
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show to help others find these incredible founder stories. This is Kerrigan for Female Startup Club. Kerrigan, hi and welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, Doom. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited for you to be here and talk me through your business. I always love to start by getting you firstly to introduce yourself and what your business actually is.
• 1:49
  Hi, I'm Kerrigan Behrens and my business is called Sagely Naturals. We are a CBD wellness brand that's based in Santa Monica and we are the makers of the number one selling CBD topical in the country. So it's called the Relief and Recovery Cream and it's basically a natural version of icy hot
• 2:15
  you get this nice cooling sensation on the skin. We started in 2015. And so we've been around since many people, you know, had not even heard of CBD. And so yeah, it's been quite a journey. I'm excited to hear all about it. Does that mean in 2015, it wasn't like legal to have those products yet?
• 2:39
  Hemp always had this quasi legal quality to it. So, you know, you could go buy a hemp t-shirt or like a hemp necklace, you know, from a hippie shop, but the derivative of hemp CBD was,
• 2:54
  And any other things that are called cannabinoids, they were in sort of more shaky legal ground because people just didn't really understand what's the difference between hemp and marijuana. Should we be nervous about hemp? We know we're nervous about marijuana, but we don't really understand. So, yeah, at that point, it was legal-ish.
• 3:16
  Ish. It was gray. That's so cool. You're really at the forefront of creating CBD products that are obviously so commonplace now and really well known. I'd love to go back to that time before you started Sagely Naturals to figure out what you were up to and what was happening that got you thinking about starting a business in the first place.
• 3:39
  Yeah. So I have something called endometriosis. It's a disease that only affects women. Apparently it affects one in 10 women, but not a lot known about it. What we do know is that it can cause chronic pain. And for most women, it shows up as just like really bad cramps. But for me, it was this, and still is, this chronic lower back pain. And so I actually thought
• 4:09
  I had a herniated disc or like a pulled muscle. And I ended up going to 14 doctors. I had steroid injections. I was told that I had arthritis. I was told that I had potentially an autoimmune disease. All of these things that ended up actually not being true at all. It's just really hard to identify this disease.
• 4:35
  But, you know, along the way, I tried everything. I had a prescription for Vicodin, which I hated using because it had all these side effects. And I knew about, you know, the opioid crisis and I didn't really want to touch that. I was taking Advil so regularly that it started to make my stomach hurt.
• 4:54
  And so when a friend in 2015 told me about CBD, I just got super excited. You know, I knew that cannabis had all of these medicinal properties, but I grew up in LA, so it's not that I wasn't familiar with weed, but...
• 5:16
  It wasn't really a big part of my life as an adult. And so at first, you know, I was just curious. And then by the time I had tried all these different things, I was very excited when I finally actually saw it on a friend's kitchen counter in the form of a honey.
• 5:31
  And I asked if I could try the honey. I put it into a cup of hot water. And it just was one of those like light bulb moments. Like I felt so good. You know, my back felt a little bit better. I was a little bit less stressed. And I just wanted more. And so that next week I went and I got my cannabis prescription. At the time in California, you had to have a prescription from a doctor to be able to buy any kind of cannabis product.
• 6:00
  And I very quickly saw that in the dispensaries, there really weren't a lot of CBD products. And then the ones that were there were, you know, really like Dr. Dre, like super psychedelic, tons of THC, you know, edibles, like things that I just didn't want. I was like, where's just plain CBD? Yeah.
• 6:25
  And then I, you know, they were like, well, try a natural food store. So we went to a natural food store. There were a couple of brands that were just selling CBD from hemp, you know, not psychoactive. I said, okay, this is the product for me. But then I started looking at the brands and they were definitely not for women. They weren't necessarily specifically for pain or for anything in particular. It was just this like tincture, this bottle of oil. And so I didn't really know how to,
• 6:52
  use it. So it just dawned on me very quickly that there was this opportunity to create a brand that could use CBD and other compounds from the hemp plant that would just be more approachable. And in the meantime, my co-founder, who I had met through a mutual friend, we had been talking about potentially starting a business together
• 7:16
  something in food, actually, because our most recent career backgrounds had both been in food. And when I tried CBD, I went to her and I was like, forget food, it has to be CBD. And so she tried it herself. She thought, wow, like, I would love to have a natural version of Advil. You know, right now, I'm going through what we now call the medicine cabinet makeover, which is...
• 7:41
  that, you know, I care about what foods that I'm eating, I eat organic. And yet, for, you know, what I'm putting on my body and in my body, it's, it's not there yet, like it hasn't evolved. So, you know, Advil is still what's in my medicine cabinet. So for her, she got really passionate about the natural angle. For me, I got really passionate because I knew it worked. And, and yeah, that was sort of the the start of Sagely Naturals.
• 8:10
  So incredible. It's funny when you talk about, you know, what the space, the landscape looked like back then when you would go into those stores and the products that you would find. Where I grew up in Queensland, there was this chain, I think it still exists today, and it's called Ophia Tree. And it's like really bright green and bright yellow. And I think it's got like a marijuana leaf on it. And it's that kind of thing that, you know,
• 8:33
  It's so evolved, but that is really the memory of what it used to be. So I know exactly what you're talking about. It seems obvious now, but when you look back on your idea, how were you knowing that other people would want this product as well? And how did you go about validating it with friends and family and strangers?
• 8:55
  Yeah, we've always cared a lot about consumer insights. I went to business school. And while I was in business school, I had a couple of jobs in brand management. And for both of the organizations that I worked at, particularly Taco Bell, actually, which is the second one that I worked at,
• 9:16
  It was very much, you know, using consumer insights to drive innovation, to drive positioning. And so I called my brand management professor from business school and I said, you know, I feel like you gave us a pretty good sense of how to manage a brand that already exists, but I have no idea how to create a brand from scratch. And she said, you start with the fundamentals to start with consumer insights as you learned.
• 9:45
  And we got very lucky and she offered to actually give us some grant money from UCLA, which is where I went to school, and to sort of hold our hands through this initial consumer insights process. So we first started with like, what are the questions that we're trying to answer? And the question in really the forefront of my mind was...
• 10:09
  What is going to be the barrier to entry for someone to actually try this kind of a product? Because I know that it works, but someone else might not know that. And they also might be nervous because we're talking about the cannabis plant and, you know, it might have a big stigma. And so if I can at least know, like, what are people's assumptions about either CBD or about the cannabis plant in general, then maybe I can figure out like a positioning to get them more comfortable. Yeah.
• 10:37
  And so we figured out with this Consumer Insights work that the vast majority of people already believe that there are medicinal benefits to cannabis. So I wasn't going to have to tell them, by the way, you know, cannabis can help with pain or cannabis can help with stress. Like people already just know that from, you know, stereotypes about the weed plant.
• 11:00
  what we figured out was that they were nervous about this feeling of getting high. So even though, you know, most of these people said, yeah, I'm not against marijuana. I just don't like the feeling of getting high. And so the beautiful thing about CBD is that that's actually one of the key benefits is that you can get these medicinal benefits without having to get high. And so that felt like the, you know, center message that we were going to really need to focus on.
• 11:28
  And then, you know, with that in mind, also, how do we make this brand as approachable as possible? If people associate, you know, cannabis with, you know, psychedelic marijuana leaves, then how do we make it feel more like a normal everyday product that you would have in your medicine cabinet? And not just normal, but something beautiful so that you want to actually put it on your kitchen counter or in your purse, right?
• 11:55
  And so having, you know, a slightly feminine, really approachable packaging became a priority. So yeah, just asking questions through survey work was really where we started. And then as we went along...
• 12:10
  You know, I would print out a box that was a prototype and I would do a really informal focus group. And I would ask people, you know, when you see this box, what does this convey to you? What other information are you looking for that you maybe didn't get when you looked at it for the first time? What's the first thing you notice? Yeah.
• 12:30
  And then the step beyond that was we had a prototype and actually giving it to friends and family and having them try it and sending them a survey. And, you know, it's anonymous, so they don't have to feel guilty about saying like, this product was terrible. I hated it. The good news is we got like really glowing feedback on that first product and...
• 12:51
  people said, yes, this is something that I would use if I didn't feel well. And this is something that I would pay for. And so that was the initial validation that made us actually take the leap from this is an idea to let's actually invest our savings to make this product and create our first website.
• 13:13
  Wow. So after you'd gone through the process of validation and you knew you were onto something, how were you actually, or rather while you were going through that process, how were you actually developing the samples and the formula, I guess you could say? Yeah, it's funny because I remember my mom, like very early on when we were starting the company, it was like, how do you even know how to make samples?
• 13:39
  Yeah, like I studied history in college, you know, and I worked in finance like so she's like, you're not a scientist. Like, how are you doing this? And it's not even a joke like Google, like Google is the answer to everything today. My co-founder and I just started.
• 13:59
  Googling contract manufacturers in the LA area because we wanted them to be nearby, because we wanted to be able to actually go and sit with the scientists while they formulated the products.
• 14:15
  And that is a much faster way, by the way, for anyone who is looking at contract manufacturers. If you can find someone that's local, it is a lot faster because then you can go into the lab and they can create five versions while you're sitting there as opposed to...
• 14:30
  you know, having them send it and then you're waiting a week to give them feedback. But yeah, we found a contract manufacturer here in LA. We toured their facility, felt like they had, you know, really good quality procedures. And the biggest thing actually was that they were willing to work with us on a really small run. So I think what people don't realize, or what I didn't realize anyway, is that
• 14:59
  when you're starting with a contract manufacturer, they typically require you to do runs of, could be 10,000 units, could be more depending on what the kind of product is. We couldn't afford that. We could afford 500 units. And so,
• 15:18
  The real trick was pitching the owner of the contract manufacturer to say, you know, this is almost like he was going to be an investor. Like, this is why we believe we're going to tap into a market potential that's not being met. And we, by the way, can afford to pay you. And, you know, we're going to commit to the next time making an even bigger run. So this is the only time we're going to ask you to make 500 units.
• 15:45
  And that was the case. We started with 500 units. We sold them. Next run was 5,000 units. That was a really big deal for us. We sold those. And, you know, now we're making runs of, you know, easily more than 10,000 units at a time, depending on the product. So, yeah, pitching the co-manufacturer is a really important part of the process when you're just starting out, unless you have, you know, a good amount of funding and can actually afford to, you know,
• 16:13
  to create a big batch of products. But actually, even then, I wouldn't recommend it because you just don't know what products are going to speak to the customer. You might end up finding out something after you make it that you want to change. So, yeah, the smaller run, the better for sure at the beginning.
• 16:32
  Yeah, totally. I'm wondering when you said you were looking for a local manufacturer, did that mean you had to kind of balance out if you were staying local, was the price higher versus working like offshore?
• 16:47
  Yeah, great question. For our category, we didn't really have the option to look to China or, you know, somewhere that would have certainly been less expensive because CBD was not being, there was a legality issue, right? Like we couldn't ship the CBD overseas. We didn't even want to. Got it.
• 17:14
  That was the most important consideration was, would the contract manufacturer even work with CBD? Because we called 100 before we found one that said yes. Most companies wouldn't deal with that kind of an issue. But also unique situation in that there are a lot of contract manufacturers that are based in LA, like just outside of LA. So it was very easy for us to find. To your question, though, we do source some things from international companies.
• 17:43
  Like our packaging, a lot of our packaging comes from China. There's no reason why we need to have packaging that comes from the U.S. But as it relates to formulation, we wanted to be really, really close to it, not just for R&D purposes, but also for quality control. We wanted to actually be in the lab when they created the batch.
• 18:06
  You mentioned at this point you were funding the business through your savings. Are you able to share like ballpark figures on how much savings you needed to invest in those early, you know, the 500 run and then the 5,000 kind of giving you that runway before you needed to look to, to go further? Yeah. I think we started the business as cheaply as we could. Like looking back
• 18:30
  There's actually not a lot that I think, oh, we probably didn't need to spend on that. So we, my co-founder Kaylee and I each invested $15,000 into the business. So we started with $30,000 and...
• 18:47
  I want to say like at least half to two thirds of that was just for the product. And we started with one and we wanted to start with three. And, you know, we talked to an advisor and the advisor was like, you guys are kidding yourselves. If you think you have the money to a produce this much product and then be like,
• 19:09
  you know, get the message out about these, all these different kinds of products, like focus, focus, focus. And so we started with the one product and we did pay someone to help us set up the website. It was kind of a disaster. Like the page was just terrible. And the people that created it wouldn't give the site back to us unless we left them a good review, even though
• 19:39
  It was ridiculous. But I think we actually did everything as cheaply as we possibly could. One thing I'll say is that I... So I'm the marketing person and my co-founder is the finance and operations person. And I always thought what's going to make this brand special is the brand. Like our products need to be amazing, but that can't stand alone. Like the brand has to be really special. So I said, let's hire a branding agency.
• 20:09
  my co-founder was like, we won't be able to afford anything other than the agency and the product. We won't be able to afford the website, any of this. And I was like, I don't care. Let's just find a way to make it happen. I'll find a few extra thousand dollars in my savings if I need to. And then she went behind my pack and she went on to 99designs.
• 20:33
  And so while I was talking to this really expensive agency and starting to get like, you know, initial thoughts from them, like mood boards and, you know, pie in the sky, like what this brand could can actually stand for. My co-founder got like a logo and the package all for like $500 and she showed it to me and I was like, oh, like this actually isn't horrible. Yeah.
• 20:59
  We were planning to spend so much money with this agency. And so I was like initially annoyed with her that she did this, but then she ended up being totally right. Like we didn't really have the money to pay this fancy agency. And the point is when you're getting started, like nothing needs to be perfect. Like it's all just an iteration. Like you should be thinking about things almost as like a draft.
• 21:25
  So that ended up being the right call, like going with this cheaper logo and packaging designer. You know, it wasn't as special as I think our branding is now, but it gave us something to at least start with. And yeah, so $30,000 was what it took to make a product, to put up a website. And that's about it. That's all we had money to do. We couldn't afford to pay ourselves. We couldn't afford to hire anyone.
• 21:52
  Our big task in those days was just like finding revenue. So, you know, finding our first retailers to carry the product and then trying to drum up as much, you know, word of mouth as we could for the website.
• 22:06
  And that's definitely what I want to start talking about now. I'm super excited to dig into the marketing side of things, obviously, given that you're, you know, the marketing person in the business, also that you have a zero dollar marketing budget. And of course, you also have, I'm assuming, lots of red tape around, you know, advertising on platforms like Facebook in general. So what did you start doing to get the word out there? And how did you get on the, you know, on the radar of the retailers you wanted to be stocked at?
• 22:35
  Yeah. Again, being in LA is helpful for, for a wellness company, just because we have a natural food store on every corner, you know, in addition to the Whole Foods of the world. People just really care about wellness here. So we literally started knocking on doors of local retailers. So there was a natural food store down the block from my house and, um,
• 23:03
  I had gotten to know the guy that worked on the floor of the health and wellness department pretty well while we were creating the company. They were already selling CBD. And so I had been going into the store and I was pretty upfront with him. Like, hi, I'm Kerrigan. I'm thinking about starting a CBD company. Am I going to bother you if I come in and I ask you questions from time to time? And I think he was like, interesting.
• 23:33
  She lives down the street. You know, otherwise I'm going to be talking to some customer that needs, you know, to find a recommendation for whatever turmeric capsules. So sure, I may as well talk to her.
• 23:45
  And so he gave me a lot of really interesting insights about like, what would it take for him to carry the product? And we took his advice. And so once we actually had a product, he was the first person that I went to. And I said, you know, look how we took your advice. Yeah.
• 24:04
  Um, here's the product we came up with. Are you willing to buy, you know, a case of it? And he was like, sure. And so he was our first customer. And that was like one of our most important retail partners for a really long time. Actually, you know, even still is, even though it's just a single store, because a, like I, I still have a good relationship with him. Um.
• 24:29
  he still has his finger on the pulse of what's going on with wellness trends. And, you know, now that the space is so much more crowded, like he's there to give me really brutal advice. Like, you know, this product isn't selling as well anymore. This one's now taking off or... So having that relationship with him is something that I couldn't stress enough, like is incredibly important. And you can't do that with every single buyer.
• 24:58
  it's meaningful. And so once we got in there, you know, we went to another natural food store. Hi, we're now sold at Rainbow Acres and Marina Del Rey. You should carry us too. And the conversation was of varying degrees of difficulty. So if a store was not selling CBD, you know,
• 25:19
  we automatically knew that the conversation was going to be a lot harder because it wasn't just going to be, here's why our product is special within CBD. It was also going to be, this is what CBD is. This is why you shouldn't be nervous to sell it. This is why your customers are going to end up caring. But so we tried at the beginning to target stores that were already selling CBD products.
• 25:42
  it just sort of paved the way for us. At that time, we actually also sold in dispensaries. So even though our products were made from hemp, even though there was no THC in our products, even though they didn't make you high,
• 25:56
  dispensaries were selling CBD and, um, and we knew that they understood the benefit of it. So the cool thing about dispensaries, um, is that they pay you in cash, um, and they pay you when you deliver the product. There's no payment. Amazing. Yeah. It comes with complications. Um, you know, you literally could get a call at midnight saying, Hey, we're sold out. Can you come by? Yeah.
• 26:24
  Yep. There's not a lot of organization in these businesses. I think it's changed quite a bit in five years. But yeah, so we got cash flow from these dispensaries because they paid us right when we arrived. And even if the money smelled like weed, it was money and it was accepted by our ATM. And then the natural food stores started to give us credibility. So we actually got
• 26:54
  we were able to convince a distributor, a regional distributor to take us on and to help us start to sell into stores. So once you start working with a distributor, they're never going to be as good of a salesperson as you are. But they have, you know, the relationships already with the buyers. And also they can be in locations that you physically can't. So yeah, that was how we went
• 27:24
  Wow. Goodness gracious. That's a lot. Were you also doing efforts to get people to buy directly through your own website or in the beginning, were you like, we're just focused on retail? This is how we're going to get in front of new customers.
• 27:38
  not having money, um, it does make it harder, uh, to get people to the website. Um, with that said, we were doing local, um, sort of guerrilla marketing tactics. Um, there's a really popular running spot in Santa Monica that's called the stairs. And, um, you can imagine, you know, it's just a seat.
• 28:01
  steep set of stairs. People go there on Saturdays and Sundays to get like that extra sweat going. And so we, we paid a massage therapist that ended up actually becoming something we did quite frequently at marketing events. You know, up until COVID actually was, was still something we were doing. We'd bring a table,
• 28:23
  We'd bring a massage therapist, a woman that we ended up developing a really great relationship with. And yeah, we put up a tent right at the top of the stairs. And we had the massage therapist there to give people little rub downs when they were done with their workout. And so, you know, you can imagine people were curious. Like we had bottles of water and we had...
• 28:47
  I forgot to mention, we also created these little sample packets of the cream. So when we did our first production run, we had the option to add, you know, a couple thousand sample packets. And that was like one of the most
• 29:02
  important things that we did because we were able to actually just hand out the sample packets. So even if someone didn't want to stop for the massage, they would get a little sample packet on their way. And that was driving people to the website. So when we had those kinds of events, we were telling people to check out, you know, sagelainaturals.com.
• 29:22
  That is so cool. I love that. And it's also just so, I mean, it makes so much sense, but of course it's just genius. The evolution of that idea, as we've been able to start spending more money, is that this year we actually were the first sponsor of a major marathon in cannabis. So the first ever cannabis sponsor of the LA Marathon is,
• 29:46
  And, um, in the halfway point of the marathon, we were spraying people's calves with our relief and recovery spray. And, um, and some of the runners were actually like taking the bottles from us, um, and, and ended up sending us emails afterwards saying, you know, I wouldn't have been able to finish had you not been there. So that idea ended up evolving. You know, obviously we couldn't afford a major sponsorship at that time, but the idea really,
• 30:15
  really worked. And so we've found ways along the way to actually scale that idea. That is so cool. I love that. What a cool experience. I've never seen something like that. Really cool. What else do you do now? Like that's driving growth for you, you know, five years down the track. Um, again, like performance marketing is something I assume is a hurdle for you guys. Um, but what's currently driving growth?
• 30:43
  Yeah, we do still deal with issues. You know, Google and Facebook still don't allow CBD companies to just go on and take out an ad.
• 30:57
  So we still have to think about alternative ways. And, you know, that marathon idea, like now, obviously, with COVID, we can't go and meet people where they are. But that's sort of the mental exercise, which is like, well, where are people now if they're not running marathons, if they're not...
• 31:20
  you know, at the store, spending a lot of time in the store, how can we reach them? And so, you know, there are things like podcasts. There are still media options that people are really engaged with, even through COVID. And then online, it's, there are still some traditional things like, you know, programmatic advertising, search engine marketing, like, even though we
• 31:50
  Um, they're still important parts of our overall growth strategy. Yeah, totally. I wanted to ask you about your, uh, I read that you had some investment throughout the process and you had a lead investor in Cameron Diaz, or I don't know if she was a lead investor, rather she was an investor, Cameron Diaz. And I wanted to know how that came about and how you attract someone like that to being involved with your business.
• 32:17
  So now I feel like I'm being so annoying about LA. I do love LA, but I also love many other parts of the world. So I am not like overly biased towards LA, but that's another thing that it is a little bit easier just because so many celebrities live here.
• 32:40
  It just so happens that Cameron experienced our products for the first time through a fund that does due diligence specifically for celebrities. So...
• 32:55
  The fund is just really like on top of the pulse of new startups, particularly, you know, in the local scene. And actually, like there's a particular natural food store.
• 33:11
  that's really high end that is always ahead of trends and i know like this fund as well as a lot of other funds in the wellness area like spend you know hours and hours every month in the store just looking at like what are the new products that are being carried and and that's kind of how they found us is that we were starting to sell our products there um and
• 33:36
  they knew that Cameron was interested in CBD. And so, you know, they gave her a bottle of our cream. She really, really loved it. And she asked them to do due diligence on us. They sort of, you know, kicked the tires and they looked at our financials and everything that a normal investor would do. We got to meet her. She is incredible. Like,
• 34:02
  I'm sure she has many qualities that don't exist like in her, you know, on screen self, but like she is as sweet as she seems on screen and incredibly supportive of women entrepreneurs. And so there just was really a great connection there. And she was our first celebrity investor. You know, at the time, she was not in the public eye. She had taken a step back from acting. Yeah.
• 34:30
  And so there wasn't, unfortunately, like an opportunity to, you know, have her go do a commercial for us. I mean, we couldn't have afforded that anyway. We actually still can't afford that. But, you know, all of the traditional ways that you would think of to use a celebrity to help your brand grow.
• 34:48
  she wasn't able to do. That said, she really, really loved our products. And so, you know, we would send her a box and she'd give some to friends and, you know, her family members ended up becoming huge fans. And so she really helped us like from an organic standpoint. And then
• 35:09
  further down the road when we raised more money, uh, the same fund, um, ended up helping us with additional relationships with celebrities. So, um, like Zoe Saldana is an investor. Um, some of them I'm, I can't name, but, um, you know, they've all been helpful in some form or another. So yeah, it was part organic part, just the fact that like, yeah, there are a lot of
• 35:38
  what's the new emerging trend in wellness and how can I get involved? That's so interesting. Are you able to share the name of the fund for anyone listening who's, you know, in that space and potentially interested? Yeah, it's called Plus Capital. I'm going to link it in the show notes, fab. Thank you. Where is the business today and what does the future look like for Sagely Naturals?
• 36:04
  So we will soon be in 15,000 stores across the U.S. What? Oh, my gosh. That's incredible. Yeah, it is. So we're in everywhere from, you know, CVS to Rite Aid to Sprouts. So local natural food stores, as well as big drugstore chains, as well as soon to be, you know, some grocery stores.
• 36:34
  Um, so yeah, it's been really exciting. It's been, as I said at the beginning, a wild ride, um, you know, particularly on the retail side, um, just understanding how to navigate, you know, a relationship with a single dispensary or a single natural food store is, is very different than working with a store that has, you know, 10,000 doors.
• 37:04
  We have a lot of people on our team that are specialists now, like people that have already worked with a CPG brand that understand operations for brick and mortar or someone very specifically that's worked with these retailers before.
• 37:21
  So yeah, we're one of the most distributed CBD brands in the country, which is cool because there are many, many brands that exist only online. And we're the one that you can find on pretty much every street corner site.
• 37:38
  And not just in LA and New York, but also in the middle of the country as well, which is something that really mattered to us. Like, again, the brand is meant to be approachable. It really was never meant to be this cool LA brand, even though I've now mentioned LA like 100 times. The point was to actually make sure we were serving people throughout the country because CBD can help with...
• 38:03
  so many quality of life issues from, you know, pain to stress to trouble sleeping. And so, you know, that that shouldn't be relegated to the coastal cities. The point is really to help people like everywhere. And we hope to expand even more than we are now. But from a strategy standpoint, um,
• 38:26
  Our mission is to allow people to do more of what they love. And we want to do that by providing natural but effective alternatives to products in your medicine cabinet. And so that's something that we're continuing to do. We have more products coming out this year, new formats that we're really excited about, new stores that are launching today.
• 38:50
  COVID has certainly, you know, thrown a lot of challenges our way, but we're hopeful that 2021 is going to be a good year. Yes. We're all hoping for 2021 to be a bit better. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business?
• 39:13
  Well, I think that my big thing is trying not to be perfect. So like that example that I gave of, you know, hiring a fancy branding agency versus using someone cheap on 99designs, like...
• 39:32
  I wanted when we introduced the brand to the world for it to be perfect. But the fact was, we didn't even really have the money to do that. And we didn't need it to be perfect day one. I'm sure there are some situations, you know, if you're starting with a really big budget and...
• 39:50
  you're going to be exposing the product immediately to millions of people. That's a different story. But for us, we knew we were just going to be knocking on natural food store doors. And so the saying is progress over perfection. You will never start the business if everything is...
• 40:07
  going to need to be perfect. So that's something that I still to this day struggle with. But, but yeah, I think a lot of women try to be perfect in everything they do. And it's actually at the expense of getting something done.
• 40:24
  I couldn't agree more. I'm definitely someone that's very similar to that. And I think I always go back to that saying, I'm pretty sure Gary B says it, but, you know, everyone says that done is better than perfect and just get it done and keep moving forward rather than being crippled by that idea of perfection. Yeah.
• 40:43
  We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. A few of them we might have covered already, but we can just whiz through it regardless. Question number one is, what's your why? It's empathy.
• 40:57
  Um, I think had I not gone through the experience that I did just dealing with pain every day, um, I might not have understood how much it stands in the way of a good quality of life. And now everything we do as a company is, um, driven by empathy. So how can we better understand what?
• 41:20
  our customer and what they're experiencing, because unless you really understand what they're experiencing, you're not going to be able to provide them with support. Totally. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? In the early days, it was really just getting our product into the hands of people. So I mentioned that we made these sample packets
• 41:49
  I really think that that's what, you know, given we had no marketing budget, that was what allowed us to grow in those early days that people, once they tried the product, loved it. And so being able to get it into the hands of people, either through things like that pop-up event we did, or just even through like a plain demo, allowed people to try the product and then, you know, tell their friends about it.
• 42:17
  Incredible. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading? What do you subscribe to? What do you listen to?
• 42:26
  I love how I built this. The Guy Raz podcast, I find really valuable lessons in every single episode. And then I'm also lucky in that I have friends from from school who have also started businesses and
• 42:47
  And my preferred way of learning something is through consulting with people that have already done it. So I often call people when I run into a problem I don't know how to solve. Totally. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated.
• 43:12
  Um, so I, in some ways it's changed a lot since I had a baby. Um, and in other ways it stayed exactly the same, um,
• 43:21
  in the morning used to, um, start work like the second that I woke up, like, you know, and I still do look at my phone when I wake up and I make sure that there's nothing like that is urgent that I need to respond to. But, um, I have recently been bringing my daughter into bed with me. She's eight months old and, um, having, um,
• 43:44
  You know, even if it's just like 10 minutes in the morning to play with her before she goes to daycare, like that really sustains me, makes me be able to focus on work. And then the evening is the part that hasn't changed, which I'm very lucky having a baby that I'm able to say this, but getting a lot of sleep.
• 44:06
  That's always been my number one self-care method. I am one of those people that needs eight or more hours. And so I find every possible way to prioritize getting those hours. Me too. I need eight plus to be able to function. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it?
• 44:33
  on a referral program or on something that would allow a referral. So if it's the sample packets, if it's an online referral program, people can be your marketers for you. You just need to give them the tools to do that. Totally. And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure?
• 45:01
  Honestly, not that well. I, as I was saying earlier, I'm definitely a perfectionist. And so I still, you know, five years after starting this business, run into situations where I feel paralyzed because I don't want to make a mistake or I'm disappointed in myself because something didn't go the way that I wanted it to. But I do try to remind myself that
• 45:28
  you will stifle your own creativity. And if you avoid taking risks, um, then what's, what's the point, you know, why did you start a business in the first place? Absolutely. Kerrigan, thank you so much for taking the time to be on female startup club today. I have loved learning from you and specifically really loved your approach to marketing with those running events. So cool. Thanks dude. So nice to meet you.
• 46:01
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 46:26
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 46:48
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 47:05
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 47:30
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 47:52
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.