Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Pair Eyewear's Sophia Edelstein on building the Warby Parker for kids

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Pair Eyewear's Sophia Edelstein on building the Warby Parker for kids · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Sophia Edelstein for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Rasheen, and joining me in today's episode is the founder of a company that's been dubbed the Warby Parker for kids, Pear Eyewear. Sophia and her co-founder Nathan started Pear in 2017 after meeting at Stanford and decided to take on the challenge of designing beautiful eyewear that's customizable for kids while also giving back to children around the world who are in need of vision care.
• 0:39
  We're covering her experience as a young 20-something woman jumping headfirst into entrepreneurship, validating her concept only after interviewing over 400 families, getting onto Shark Tank and the impact it's had on her business, and how they innovated during the pandemic in a major way.
• 0:57
  And while I've got you here, you know how much I love to talk about reviews. If you've been loving what's happening in this corner of the internet with Female Startup Club, please do subscribe to the show and rate and review the podcast. This is what helps other ears find us. Let's jump into this episode. This is Sophia for Female Startup Club. Sophia, let's get started. I'm so excited to have you on the show today. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 1:26
  excited to dig in. Do we want to get started by first telling the audience what Pair Eyewear is and who it's for? Absolutely. So my name is Sophia Edelstein and I'm one of the co-CEOs and co-founders of Pair Eyewear. And Pair is a direct-to-consumer, a
• 1:44
  up. We provide families with an affordable, direct-to-consumer and customizable solution to glasses because we believe glasses should be a fun accessory that kids can change and customize on a daily basis.
• 1:58
  Amazing. I love it. And they're so fun. I was looking at your website, obviously, and browsing through it. And I'm so excited to dig into all the ins and outs of your business. But let's go back to what you were doing before you started, Pear, how you met Nathan, your co-founder, and what life was like before.
• 2:16
  Absolutely. So I actually started PEAR straight out of undergrad. So PEAR has been my first full-time job since I graduated from college. Wow. But going back a little bit before that, I'm originally from New York City. I grew up there my entire life. I was so excited to go out to Stanford, go to the West Coast for the first time. And I originally went to Stanford with the hopes of becoming a doctor. But I'm
• 2:43
  I did the pre-med track for two years, but during that entire time, I was also studying design and healthcare economics and medical devices. And slowly but surely ended up spending a lot more of my time doing that at Stanford. And Nathan, who you mentioned is my co-founder, we've actually been best friends since our freshman year at college. Oh, that's so nice.
• 3:07
  Yeah, it was amazing. We actually met because we were in rival freshman dorms. So Stanford has an amazing community. So we were put in opposite ones. And it wasn't actually until our senior year where Nathan was one day telling me about his experience of wearing glasses as a child. That led us to think about how we can make the glasses buying experience better for families, which eventually led into the creation of Pear.
• 3:36
  Wow, that's so crazy to think that it went from that moment of having a conversation about, you know, an experience from when he was young to what it is today. What happened next? What happened in that moment? Were you like, okay, let's do it. Was there conversations? Was there brainstorming? Was there vision boards? What is that early phase like for you? There was so much. So it definitely didn't go from, you know, we have this idea to, you know, the next day founding pair, there was a lot in between.
• 4:06
  So first off, Nathan started bringing this up because his little brother at the time, who was 10, was getting glasses for the first time. And hearing about his little brother's experience reminded him of the same exact experience that he had as a child, which was going to an optical store, hating the options available. His mom was about to spend, I believe it was $350 for a pair of glasses that his little brother, Nicky, was just not excited to wear.
• 4:34
  But after realizing the correlation between his experience 10 years prior and his brothers, we started thinking, I wonder if there are more families that are experiencing the same issue. So we set out to prove that there was actually a problem that existed before we started trying to solve it. So during our senior year,
• 4:53
  We were actually almost doing pair full-time school part-time, but we actually went out and interviewed over 400 families. Oh, wow. It was a lot. In the process, we got kicked out of multiple stores for interviewing their customers. It was quite an adventure.
• 5:10
  But through that, we started hearing stories about families from all different socioeconomic backgrounds complaining about the limited options available for kids' glasses, how important it was. Currently, one in every four children wear glasses, but it's soon going to be one in every two. So we started learning about the market size and how expansive it was. And soon we began prototyping. And we realized that the main piece of feedback that we kept hearing from families, and especially children...
• 5:39
  was that children would love a pair of glasses that was able to be self-expressive. Unlike your clothes or your shoes, you're forced to just wear one pair of glasses, you know, every day until your parents can afford to get you another one or you grow out of it. So we wanted to reinvent the wheel and actually design a pair of glasses from the ground up that kids wanted to wear while making it affordable for their parents.
• 6:03
  That's such an interesting insight and certainly something that, you know, you would only really come across after interviewing 400 people or 400 families. Now, when you say you were starting to build that prototype,
• 6:16
  how much does it cost to build a prototype? And like, what do you do to build a prototype? Yeah. So the way I think about prototyping is whenever I talk to people who have an idea, I encourage them as quickly as possible to get that idea out of your head and into a physical product.
• 6:33
  So in our case, we use the resources that were available to us. We were really lucky that Stanford had an amazing lab where you could actually go in and build physical products. And Nathan happened to be a mechanical engineer. And so he he led that process. But we actually created the first prototype of Paris continually customizable glasses at Stanford in the PRL.
• 6:57
  with materials that we ordered online. And we knew we had something when one day we were presenting that prototype to a family and they asked us if they could purchase it. We laughed because this was not even close to looking like a real pair of glasses. But just the fact that they wanted this so badly that they wanted to purchase a prototype proved to us early on that we were on to something. Yeah.
• 7:21
  But of course, as we started devoting more time to it and realized this was something that we really wanted to solve and felt passionately towards, we started reaching out to find experts in the field. And early on, we got connected with this incredible man, Lee Zara, who used to be the former head of product at Warby Parker. So very early on, we told him about this problem we had found. He even said himself that he had never seen a good solution for children's glasses, and
• 7:49
  So the three of us started prototyping. And together, we came up with the mechanism that we use today, which uses magnets to allow you to snap on what we call top frames to a base frame of glasses. So a child can wear polka dot glasses one day, their favorite NBA team the next, a Halloween pair for the upcoming holiday, and switch it up. And now Lee's actually our full-time head of product.
• 8:16
  It's genius. I mean, I can't believe I haven't seen it before. It just makes so much sense, especially for kids, but even for adults too. I have limited knowledge about the sunglass industry, so bear with me here. But my understanding of it is that it's difficult to manufacture sunglasses and that there's lots of moving parts and
• 8:38
  it's expensive. You need to produce large orders. How did you go about producing like the first batch? Yeah, that's a great question. And kind of being like, we're going to commit to doing this. We're going to like sell these things. Yeah. So it's really one step at a time. At Stanford, we were able to meet some angel investors. And at that time,
• 8:59
  Nathan and I had full-time job opportunities, but in the back of our heads, we were thinking, this is what we're devoting all of our time to. We want to make this our full-time role. We want to devote ourselves to this. So we were able to find a small angel capital to get that first round of prototypes made.
• 9:18
  But of course, the glasses process is really complicated. It's a medical device. So you have the manufacturing of the actual frame, you have the prescription component, you have to get that prescription from the customer, there's information that's very private. So figuring out all these components...
• 9:35
  was what the early stages of pair was devoted to. How can we make this process, which has such a high barrier to entry? You have these huge companies in the field like Wixotica, the main 3 eyewear companies own over 85% of the market. So how can we iterate on what they've already been able to do to make it more affordable, easier for the customer, and a better experience overall?
• 10:02
  And so does that mean like producing and manufacturing like yourselves rather than kind of outsourcing and finding someone who can do it for you? Or what does it actually mean to try and innovate in that space? Yeah. So it means going directly to the manufacturers. So we work directly with our own manufacturers so we can own that whole supply chain to make the end price to the consumer much more affordable. So our prescription glasses cost $60, including prescription lenses.
• 10:32
  which is included in that bundle. If you go to a lens crafters or a retail store, for the same glasses with the lens add-ons we include, you can expect to pay upwards of $300. So our goal was to really chop that so that the end price was less than a third, to really make glasses something that families all over the US don't have to worry about when purchasing. We don't want it to be a stressful process, but rather a bonding experience within
• 11:02
  Yeah, for sure. Gosh, that's crazy. And so once you have the prototypes done, you've raised some money through angel investors at Stanford. What happened next? How did you go and sort of build your first customer base and go to market with your launch strategy?
• 11:19
  Yeah. So the first year of Pair was really devoted to beta testing. So we were beta testing the product. We were beta testing the first MVP of the website online, figuring out what kind of branding, what kind of brand voice worked to our customer base.
• 11:35
  And really putting together a very strong groundwork in which the company could later run with. So we had limited capital at the time, but we're trying to find incredible talent. So we were lucky enough to be able to convince Lee to join us full time, even though we were these two crazy Stanford students who had never had a full time job before.
• 11:56
  And one thing led to another. And before we knew it, we had put together, I think from the get-go, our branding was really strong. And I think we really understood our market because we had interviewed over 400 families. So we knew what they were looking for. We had this vision of what we wanted to create.
• 12:15
  So after a year or so, we were able to raise our next round of funding, which was VC-led. And that led us to be able to start growing the company much more rapidly and kind of get out of that beta stage of testing product. Wow. And are you able to share how much you have raised in that early VC round and what you've raised overall? Yeah. So to date, we've raised a little over $4.5 million.
• 12:43
  Wow, so exciting. It's been so exciting. And we're so happy that we have just incredible investors that really believe in the mission, in the market, and are very consumer-focused. So they've just been so helpful along the way when trying to create the new go-to consumer brand for children and families. Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:07
  I want to dig into more of the specifics around your marketing and how you actually found the customers. Because I guess whilst you're having to appeal to children, you're also having to appeal to the person who's buying the product, which is the parents. So finding the right kind of language and the happy balance between marketing for kids and marketing to parents, what was that like? And how did you find your first customers? That's a great question. So we're one of those companies
• 13:36
  So we consider our customer, the parent, as you mentioned, they're the ones with the credit card. They're the ones who's going to make that financial decision in the home. And then our user is the child. So all of our marketing, the website, the online experience is really tailored towards answering questions that parents have.
• 13:55
  And then once that physical product gets to the home, the opening the box experience, the product experience is tailored to be really fun for kids. But of course, really fun for adults. Now, you know, a lot of adults have purchased Pear just because it's such a unique and fun product. So I think adults can also appeal to that kind of really fun, youthful branding.
• 14:14
  But the first way we began acquiring customers, you know, from the get go, we were doing everything. We were testing online, testing all different kinds of ads. We were going to schools. We were working with local doctor's offices to get the word out. Very grassroots.
• 14:31
  And then, you know, after we were able to raise venture capital, it became a lot more focused on growth acquisition, on scaling via Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat. And then, of course, you know, really fostering the organic side of the business as well.
• 14:51
  We were incredibly lucky that we were able to be on Shark Tank. So we actually aired in season 11 of Shark Tank. That was an incredible opportunity to present pair to millions of families at home on their TV screens. We've been really fortunate to be able to get onto the Today Show.
• 15:10
  We were written about in Oprah Magazine, a lot of which also was through grassroots efforts. We got into Oprah Magazine early on because Nathan and I actually wrote to Gail King a handwritten note, asking her to be a role model for kids that wear glasses, because of course she's so iconic with the frames that she wears. So there's a lot of things you can do early on to help build that organic side, which I think is something that people think.
• 15:38
  a much later stage. That is so cool. I have a million questions about Shark Tank, but I'm going to come back to that because that deserves a little section on itself. But when you were in the beginning doing the grassroots efforts and you were going to the doctor's offices and you were going to schools, what was the kind of feedback you were getting? And was it really like everyone was on board, everyone loved it, or was it hard to get people on board in those institutions, I guess, that are...
• 16:08
  doing things the same way that they've done it for a long time? Yeah. So I think schools have been a huge supporter from the get go, because I think we have very similar motivations to, you know, get kids to feel confident in their glasses, to wear their glasses in the classroom, to, you know, express themselves. So because of that, schools have always been an
• 16:31
  incredible supporter of pair. They, from the early on, we would go to school affairs. We would talk in assemblies, you know, just to get in front of the eyes of like our end customer.
• 16:41
  So we found them to be incredible. Oftentimes, doctors were a little more difficult because they were so busy. To them, a doctor's office is ultimately a business. So what was their incentive in supporting the product? That was a big question we were trying to solve early on. And over time, what we realized is as we started to acquire the customer base...
• 17:05
  Our best source of new organic customers would come from our customer base themselves. When people wear a pair, they talk about it.
• 17:21
  to get their kid a pair of glasses only four days after they broke them. There's a lot of stories that emerge, even just like the smile of a kid wearing this pair with like, you know, Christmas trees on it. It's really unique. So we've been able to foster that in a number of ways. One aspect of our community that I'm most proud of, I think is our online community called The Pair Family. It's a invite only exclusive Facebook group
• 17:50
  parents and customers of Pear. So that I think has become a huge driver for families to share and talk about Pear. And one of the main ways in which we get new customers that aren't acquired through paid acquisition.
• 18:06
  Hmm. That's so cool. Is it a lot of the moms talking in the group or is it a lot of like kids as well chiming in? Yeah. So it's mostly the parents. Um, and they are constantly posting photos of their children in their favorite top frames, introducing them, posting ways in which they display their pair of top frames at home. Um, the average customer owns five pair of top frames, but the
• 18:31
  I think the customer who owns the Macs that I've heard of is around 70. So their entire fridge is covered with them. So parents... That is so cool. Oh, my gosh. It's awesome. Yeah. In that household, I believe the mom and the daughter both wear a pair. So they're able to share the collection between the two of them.
• 18:51
  Oh, that's so clever. Yeah, but the conversations are incredible. We've had even families from the pair family meet up in person because they realize that their daughters are part of the same cheer league. And it's a really supportive community. If you post a photo of your self-wearing pair or your child, you can expect, you know, at minimum 10 comments from random strangers saying things like, so adorable, so cute. Like, I wish I could rock that top frame. It's just the most supportive community I've seen online.
• 19:19
  Oh, wow. That sounds so wholesome and just so fulfilling. I also imagine you guys lend yourself really well to doing, you know, limited edition drops and lots of, you know, fun, quirky things that are relevant to what's happening in the market at the moment and relevant to what kids are watching and looking at and all that kind of thing.
• 19:38
  That's actually one of our main focuses right now from a marketing standpoint. So for the past six months, we've been launching two limited edition collections every month. So these drop on a Wednesday. They go live at noon to the public, but they go live to the pair family a little bit earlier at 11.
• 19:59
  giving them an opportunity to show up exclusively. And it's been incredible. We've launched collections like tie dye. We just launched Halloween. We've launched a sparkle. We recently launched an incredible collection actually with partnered with NBA labs. So we were the first company ever to launch a collection where you can actually represent your favorite basketball teams on your glasses. Oh, that's so cool.
• 20:26
  In October, we're launching a collection with Marvel so kids can actually feel like their favorite superheroes. And we have a lot. Oh, I love that. And we have a lot of other plans to launch more of these licensed collections in addition to the in-house produced limited edition lines.
• 20:45
  Yeah, for sure. I can so imagine like Disney and I don't know, it's frozen part of Disney, like all that kind of stuff, Star Wars, like all the fun stuff that kids just absolutely love. It reminds me of a brand called Black Milk. They used to do leggings where they would do big partnerships with like Harry Potter and Disney and all that kind of thing, which obviously just goes crazy. Yeah.
• 21:09
  So cool. That is so, so exciting. Lots to look forward to all the time as well. Do the limited edition drops sell out? They do. So they sell out all the time. So typically a collection won't be on site for longer than two weeks because it'll be
• 21:27
  actually is a very interesting in-house production process that allows us to do these limited edition launches at any quantity we want. This was actually a big pivot for us during the coronavirus pandemic. When the pandemic hit, we realized that, of course, due to everything that was happening internationally, planning out limited edition launches every two weeks when our was going to be
• 21:57
  We had to pivot internally and actually came up with a new manufacturing process where we now print all of our tops in-house here in the US on demand. So we can actually go from an idea of a design to having that design on-site available to customers in as little as 2 weeks and we have no minimum order quantities.
• 22:17
  Um, so, you know, like, you know, we turn that, that situation into, you know, a moment where we were forced to innovate and actually came up with something that was a thousand times better than the solution we had prior. Yeah, that is incredible. Is that through like a local manufacturer that could, you know, develop a specific machine or something for you guys specifically?
• 22:41
  A little bit. So we did a lot of research on how companies are able to print on demand. And we were actually able to talk with some of the people over at PopSockets and how they're able to so rapidly produce, you know, customized PopSockets. And, you know, they have collaborations with everything around the sun. So through them, we learned of the digital printing process and how there are these technologies,
• 23:07
  They're literally huge, like huge printers that are able to produce large quantities of product where each product in the printer can have a completely different design on it. So we were able to take an existing technology, but then change it with the manufacturer to actually work for the first time with a pair of glasses or with our top frames. So we innovated that process kind of throughout the pandemic and now actually do it all in-house.
• 23:37
  at our own facility, which is pretty awesome. That is so interesting and such a cool like realization to be able to have and innovate. And obviously you can just do so much with that. That's awesome. Wow. Congrats. Yeah, it's cool. Because I think a big thing at Pear is we're always trying to improve on the product. So for us, it was, you know, even though we had a product that people loved, I think there's always
• 24:05
  especially from a consumer standpoint, you always want to be striving to make your product lighter, thinner, more affordable to the consumer. Absolutely. For sure. Cool. Let's talk about Shark Tank. How did Shark Tank come about? What happened? Tell us about the deal. Let's hear it all. Yeah, it was wild. It was probably, I think, up there as one of the craziest things I've done.
• 24:29
  It was a long process. We were reached out to by their team, I think, almost a year before we ended up filming the episode. They have an amazing team over at Shark Tank. I have no idea how we got on their radar, but they had heard about Pear. I think even potentially one of their producers had a child that had told him about Pear. And we entered the process with Shark Tank and did
• 24:54
  It's a wild process. They go through hundreds of thousands of applicants and narrow it down to, I think, only 1% or 2% that actually make it to airing. Wow. And then once you film, there's no guarantee that you'll actually air. So the entire time as we were going through this, we knew in the back of our minds that there was a very large chance that our episode would never actually hit the screen.
• 25:20
  Oh, I didn't know that. That's crazy. Yeah, it was wild. But it was incredible. So we, you know, we flew out to LA. It's filmed at Sony Studios. And we basically, we walked on. We had our stage prepared. We had our pitch prepared. And we were like,
• 25:37
  And we presented to the panel of judges. We got very lucky that on the day we were presenting was the day that one of their guest judges was there on set, Katrina Lake. So we found out only hours before, like walking onto the stage, that Katrina Lake was going to be one of the judges. Oh, my God. That's so exciting. It was so exciting. I personally have looked up to Katrina, you know, for quite some time. She's also a Stanford grad herself. So she was always this, you know, incredible, you know, role model personality for me.
• 26:08
  to her was a dream. And we walked away with a deal with Lori Greiner and Katrina. They went in together on a deal on the show. So it was super exciting. What was really interesting too was the question and answering session while on TV, it looks very short. In reality, you're standing up there for over an hour. Oh, whoa.
• 26:30
  So you're trying not to, you know, make any weird body movements. You're trying to smile the entire time. So even just that aspect of it was, you know, an awesome challenge. Yeah. Holy moly. I didn't realize it was so long. What was the impact of like the Shark Tank episode airing? What happened, you know, the next day on your website? Yeah.
• 26:55
  or at the time at the website. It was really amazing. So we ended up airing last March. So it was actually like the last weekend before New York City went into a complete shutdown. So we were, we got very lucky that we were able to have, you know, a small viewing session with like our friends, family and coworkers. That was really fun. But immediately as the show was on, we would just see traffic on the website, just going up and for the next time,
• 27:25
  days and weeks, it had quite an impact on business. But I think the most amazing thing about Shark Tank is the long-term value that it just brings to your brand. Immediately, it's a stamp of, this is a company that has been on Shark Tank. And I think families all around the US recognize that. So it's been really incredible just to have that association
• 27:55
  I mean, for sure, for sure. It's so exciting. And what kind of mentorship did you get from the Sharks after the show aired? Yeah, so, you know, of course, they gave us some amazing advice while we were there pitching.
• 28:10
  some incredible feedback. A lot of it wasn't even, you know, shown on the actual episode. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to speak to anything after the show, you know, as reality TV is. But they're all amazing people. And, you know, I'm excited that, you know, we've been able to keep in contact with some of them. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. So cool.
• 28:34
  You guys have been dubbed, obviously, the Warby Parker for kids. You also have Lee, who was, you know, from Warby Parker. And I want to talk about the Give Back program that you developed and what you're doing for other kids around the world. So while Nathan and I were thinking of the idea for Parallel, we were at Stanford. Of course, you know, our research into eyewear and children led us to
• 29:00
  learning a lot about the global issue of children all around the world just not having access to vision care. And we were able to find an incredible nonprofit called the I Alliance, which is dedicated to making sure that every school age child around the world has access to vision care.
• 29:19
  And what I loved about them from the get go was that they work individually in countries working not just with glasses providers like ourselves, but also with the education system, with the law system to make sure that it's actually law that every school needs to provide vision tests. And then they work with partners like ourselves to provide children with access to glasses.
• 29:42
  So we, you know, we approach them and together we are able to come up with this amazing nonprofit component of pair where for every pair we sell, we donate a percentage of our proceeds to provide a child to the Alliance works with with access to vision care. It's amazing. So amazing. What kind of countries are part of the program? Like what what children are you affecting? Yeah. So right now the focus is in Liberia.
• 30:12
  So that's the one country that they kind of started out with and focusing on. So it was incredible. Even last year, they had the president go and actually visit a few of the schools on the days in which they were giving out glasses to the children. So I think it's going to be a very sustainable project within the country and hopefully something that continues for many years. And of course, they're hoping to expand now to other countries.
• 30:37
  That is so amazing. Something I didn't ask you before that I wanted to ask you is what are the kinds of things that kids say? Like what's the, you know, the feedback that you've heard directly about wearing pear? It's incredible. It's that children.
• 30:56
  Even early on, you know, we haven't even launched Marvel yet. Children would say that the blue pair makes them feel like, you know, underwater superhero. And they create this, you know, kind of association with that top frame. Girls are absolutely obsessed with our sparkle collection. They love matching, you know, their outfits to the top frame.
• 31:16
  But one thing that's really cool about Pear is, you know, everything is completely gender neutral. So a child can completely design their collection based on their own personality. So you see everything. You see children, you know, matching certain things, not matching, contrasting, you know, stacking multiple top frames. So there's this very, you know, customizable personal element of Pear that makes people, I think, feel, you know, a strong association with the brand as if it's, you know, kind of built for them.
• 31:46
  It must be so beautiful to see them being able to express themselves through their glasses. Very special. Our photo shoot days are one of my favorite where we get to go to a studio and shoot with a bunch of really fun kids. We play music and it's just so fun to see the kids interacting with the new collections and dancing with them. It's one of the most fun days of Pear headquarters. Oh, yeah.
• 32:12
  That does sound really fun. I bet it's lots of energy. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea? It's a great question. I think if you have a big idea, I tell everyone first step is to identify the problem that you're solving. So I'm a really strong believer in the best ideas are ones that actually solve a real problem for people.
• 32:37
  So whether it's something that you've experienced yourself or it's a problem that you think other people are experiencing is to go out there and talk to people. Get as much qualitative and quantitative data as you can. And once you realize that this is something that affects not just a handful of people, but a sizable market size,
• 32:57
  then go straight to prototyping. Try to get a physical product or if it's a website or something in place that you can show to them and see what their reaction is and hear from them. Because I think the most powerful thing and I think what will be so encouraging in the early stages is to realize that you're solving a problem for real people.
• 33:17
  Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. Question number one is what's your why? So I hope my why continues to change, of course, as you know, I evolve. But right now, it's definitely to provide families with a better and more affordable eyewear experience.
• 33:41
  Question number two, and I'm sure I know the answer, is what's been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? 100% Shark Tank. It was an amazing moment for the company. Yes. Oh, my gosh. So cool. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? Yeah.
• 34:01
  I'd have to say with my friends and other co-founders. I love... I always make time in my schedule to hang out with friends. And I have a number of very close female co-founders that I try to have monthly meetings with to catch up, learn what they're doing, hear about their products, their companies. So yeah, I love just taking time out of my day to have really meaningful conversations with people.
• 34:27
  I love that. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and your PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated and productive.
• 34:39
  Totally. So I think I may be a little bit of an exception for a lot of founders, but I don't have any very strict things that I do. So I think I have more general things that I try to do on a daily basis. I have a few things like I try to get sleep. I never work in my bedroom. I always take time to sit down for dinner without my computer or phone. I try to work out whenever I can, but I try not to be too hard on myself if any of those things don't happen.
• 35:07
  and try to make sure that I can always adapt to new situations. Because I think we've all learned recently during the pandemic that you have no idea where you're going to be making your office the next day. You have no idea what can happen next week. So trying to be productive, live by my calendar, but also be flexible.
• 35:28
  Amen to that. I feel like the pandemic has shown us all we need to be able to adapt to the changing circumstances. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? That's an awesome question. I think for us right now, our best channel has always been email.
• 35:54
  So email is just this incredible channel for us. We capture a huge amount of customers that go to our site via email. And I promised everyone listening, this is not like a paid promotion, but Klaviyo has been the absolute most amazing resource for us. And I think we pay a few hundred dollars a month. So I could maybe get that $1,000 to last us a few months by putting it into email.
• 36:18
  I love that you say that so much because obviously I'm such a big champion for Klaviyo and they're big supporters of female startup clubs. So big shout out to them. I know how good they are and their resources online and their.
• 36:30
  you know, automated sequences that they have prepared for new people coming to sign up to their software is just incredible. And also, I think what's important about Klaviyo is the team behind the software. So the software is obviously so good, but they're a business that wants to champion women in business. They want to champion women in e-commerce. And I just love that. So I'm also such a big fan. I love that you say that.
• 36:53
  I'll be sure to share this with them. Question number six is how do you deal with failure? And it can be around like a personal experience that you've had or just your general mindset and approach. Totally. So I think my approach to dealing with failure has evolved a lot over the startup journey. I remember when I was raising my first round of funding, we I think we probably pitched over 40 investors before we got the first yes. Yes.
• 37:19
  So that was, of course, really hard. But I think over time, as we've raised more rounds, you deal and you start learning that you can't take every failure so seriously. You have to be able to figure out what motivates you to bounce back. So now I try to approach it where I don't try to ignore any emotional response I'm feeling. I let myself feel that emotional response.
• 37:43
  but try to cap it. So, you know, give yourself 24 hours, do what you need to do, like cry about it, call your parent, you know, talk to your significant other, your best friend, go for a run, do whatever you need to do. But, you know, 24 hours after that, try to think about a little bit more logically, like, what could I have done better? What did I do? Well, always make sure to focus on what you did well, because that's really important. So important. And people always forget that.
• 38:08
  And then, you know, bounce back. You know, it's one thing that happened. There's going to be so many more opportunities. Feel fortunate that you had that opportunity in the first place. And for me, that's helped a lot over the startup journey.
• 38:26
  I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today. I have loved learning about PEAR and what you guys are doing for children all around the world. And I just am such a big fan of you, especially being such, you know, an ambitious young woman, just innovating and doing badass stuff. Thank you. And thanks so much for having me on. This was so much fun.
• 38:53
  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.
• 39:17
  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.
• 39:40
  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.
• 39:57
  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.
• 40:21
  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.
• 40:44
  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.