Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How a company that’s changing the world made $200,000 in their first month with serial entrepreneur Sarah Paiji Yoo, Founder of Blueland

Transcript

How a company that’s changing the world made $200,000 in their first month with serial entrepreneur Sarah Paiji Yoo, Founder of Blueland · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is episode 19 with Sarah Peiji Yu. Hi guys. I just finished recording a really incredible episode with the co-founder of an innovative company that's changing the world called Blueland. You might have seen it on Shark Tank last year or come across it on Kim Kardashian's Twitter account.
• 0:28
  It's a company that's reimagined cleaning products and it's on a mission to eliminate single-use plastics.
• 0:34
  I really love this episode so much. Sarah is sharing her journey and what it was like in the early days trying to create something that literally didn't exist in the world, what happened after she went on Shark Tank and secured a deal with Kevin O'Leary, and how she made $200,000 worth of sales in her first month alone. I know I say this all the time, but this episode was just so cool and so inspiring, and I hope you love it just as much as I do. This is Sarah for Female Startup Club.
• 1:04
  I have been following you and your journey for quite some time now, and I just love what you've been creating for the greater good in the world. So can you just tell us a little bit about Blueland and why you decided to start a disruptive, sustainable brand?
• 1:20
  Yeah, so Blueland is an eco-friendly cleaning products brand, and we are on a broader mission to eliminate single-use plastic packaging. And so effectively what we've done with our first set of products is we've taken traditional cleaning sprays like a multi-surface cleaner or a glass and mirror cleaner or a liquid hand soap, which is typically over 90% water and typically also bought in a new plastic bottle each time.
• 1:49
  And we shrunk those down into these tablets that are about the size of like a quarter and can package in paper instead of plastic. And the thought is, you know, our system is sold as a reusable refillable system. And so you purchase just one set of bottles. After that, you never have to buy or throw away another plastic bottle again. And when you need more products, you can simply fill them up with water that you already have at home.
• 2:14
  And drop in one of our tablets and make a full bottle of cleaning solution or a full bottle of hand soap. So, yeah, that's the premise of Blue Land. And our hope is to really do that across a range of other cleaning products and bigger vision, certainly across other categories as well.
• 2:33
  And the idea for Blueland, you know, honestly came about completely organically. You know, I have been a serial entrepreneur, but at the point that we came up with the idea for Blueland, we weren't necessarily looking for a startup idea. You know, the journey really started when I became a new mom. And so it's not coincidental that we've been working on Blueland about the same number of years that my son is.
• 2:57
  But I became a first time new mom and I just became a lot more conscious about what was in his food and his water and what I was using to make his baby formula. And in making his baby formula, I was doing a lot of research around tap water quality as well as if bottled water was potentially better and safer than tap water. And I was pretty horrified in that research just to learn that regardless of bottled or tap, that our drinking water just contains all this microplastic life.
• 3:26
  like hundreds of pieces of microplastics. And I started to finally connect the dots between all of our plastic consumption and how it was now showing up in our food chain, as well as in our water supply. And yeah, that's when it really hit me. And I kind of just made a personal commitment to cut back on my plastic consumption as an individual and.
• 3:49
  And it was just an interesting journey because in that journey, I found that it was so hard, you know, as well intentioned as I was that as just a regular consumer, I just had no choice. You know, you work and walk into a grocery store or pharmacy, like everything comes packaged in effectively single use plastic. And yeah, that's when I decided that I could have impact, you know, far greater than my own personal consumption if I could find a way to give consumers more choice.
• 4:17
  and provide products that came in reusable packaging or packaging alternatives to single-use plastic. So that's how the idea for Blueland was initially born. And when you kind of had that, you know, realization that you wanted to create something that was doing good for the world and you wanted to reduce the plastic, what was the light bulb moment that you thought, okay, I'm going to start with cleaning products?
• 4:40
  And, and also then what happened? Yeah, absolutely. What came next? Totally. So it definitely wasn't a straight line journey at all. Um, you know, my co-founder John and I, we'd been talking a lot about my journey as a new mom. He's also a serial entrepreneur. You know, we were.
• 4:59
  both very interested in having an impact on the world sort of beyond just, you know, building a new company. And, you know, when I brought up this issue, you know, we were, we went to a lot of different kinds of solutions and we actually, cleaning products was the last category that we arrived at. You know, initially we threw ideas around everything from like bulk refills, you know, like think like,
• 5:23
  shampoo and body wash and conditioner. And we were like, can we convince retailers to have these big vats of, you know, big barrels of liquid and, you know, convince consumers to, you know, have, you know, buy these bottles, you know, glass bottles and bring them back each time.
• 5:40
  But, you know, as we had ideas like that, we either, you know, wrote them off because we're like, that's just not realistic. Or we would go out to friends and survey them on on the ideas. And so we had, you know, we explored everything from that to, you know, at one point, we were deep down a path around toothpaste tablets.
• 5:58
  before that became more of a thing. So, you know, as you can imagine, like, you know, three years ago, that was a very unknown product. And toothpaste tubes certainly bothered me a ton given they're just not even recyclable. And yeah, learned to make toothpaste tablets in our own kitchen and distributed toothpaste tablets, like 50 friends to use for seven days. And, you know, just try to be really honest with ourselves, try not to fall in love with ideas, try to
• 6:25
  be open to the honest feedback that people were giving us. So that is one where, you know, 70% of our friends came back saying they would not switch to this product, that it just was hard to explain, but it was just too weird and too different of a behavior. So we crossed that one off the list. Yeah. And then we ended up, you know, really falling in love with the idea of starting with, you
• 6:46
  with cleaning sprays, we wanted to start in a category that was easier for people to switch into. Like we had seen a lot of efforts go into like shampoo bars, you know, refillable deodorants, toothpaste. But we found that those categories for people are harder ones to switch into. Like, you
• 7:04
  Especially for females with shampoo, oftentimes we have very specific hair goals or needs that we're trying to meet. And deodorant obviously has a very high performance threshold and it's really hard to get a natural deodorant, right?
• 7:19
  Um, and so we, we liked the idea where, you know, cleaning products again, just the barrier to switch wasn't as high. And we just love that it was so intuitive that, you know, you look at like a Windex or your multi-surface cleaner and that's like clearly mostly all water. And the idea of adding tablets to water was very intuitive for people.
• 7:41
  Yeah, it's so interesting because I often hear people have the light bulb moment and they know what they want to do straight away. But you guys really went down that exploration of like pivot this way, pivot this way until you found something that you were like, yeah, this is like viable. We can build a business starting in this category. And yeah.
• 8:00
  and, you know, interviewing your friends and that kind of thing. Just so fascinating. I want to talk about how you met John Mascari and how you navigate finding a co-founder and, you know, working out what that relationship looks like. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, John and I were quite lucky together.
• 8:21
  to the extent that we'd known each other for about 10 years. And we had also had a working relationship together. And so John and I initially met in business school 10 years ago. So we were both at Harvard Business School. We were in the same what we call sections. So a section is like a group of 90 people. And you pretty much take all of your classes with that same group of 90 people for during your first year of business school. So you get quite close to that group.
• 8:48
  And so we were in the same section and we were actually in the same friend group as well. We went on spring break together as well. And during our first year of business school, I ended up actively working on my first startup, which was a mobile shopping app.
• 9:04
  and ended up not returning after my first year because I ended up raising some venture capital that summer after my first year. And yeah, decided not to continue and not to graduate. And so John obviously continued with business school and graduated. And, you know, post-graduation, he actually...
• 9:22
  Also sort of, you know, jumped into the startup world with his own company called Bundle Organics. And so at that point, we were both running different startups, myself a mobile app, and he was running a consumer products company. So a juice and tea brand for nursing and pregnant women. And so we were doing that. And about one year into his journey, he asked me to join his board of directors.
• 9:48
  which was great. And I was really excited. I had been really excited about what he'd been working on, had been staying close to his process. And so was excited to join in a more formal sort of advisor capacity on his company. And so was on the board of his company, Bundle Organics,
• 10:05
  for a couple of years. And sort of through those years, I, you know, sold my first company, you know, started a few others. And yeah, the stars just aligned right around when I became a new mom, I decided that I did want to step back from the startup work that I was doing. Because I think at that point, I'd been about eight years in and
• 10:27
  as much as I still really loved early stage company building, I think that rush and challenge purely of bringing a new brand and product to market wasn't quite enough for me. And I think I was looking for some more like deeper personal meaning in my work as well. And so I ended up taking that pause. And during that time, I ended up working more closely with John on his business and helped him sell his company, which was an exciting process.
• 10:57
  And yeah, so then just turned out that, you know, his company sold. We were both at that point kind of like open and exploring. And so also just spending a lot of time talking about some of the experiences I was having real time as a new mom. And some of the areas where I thought, you know, women could certainly need the help or areas that I thought had newly become interesting to me as a new mom. And yeah, that's kind of how we organically ended up.
• 11:24
  working together just because we were talking a lot and we had very complementary sets of interests and experiences as well. You know, my focus and area of interest historically had been definitely more on the consumer facing side. So like marketing, digital product, brand, and John's interests lay more in on operations, you know, supply chain, you know, fulfillment, marketing.
• 11:49
  Um, so yeah, it just, again, it happened a bit organically, but it was nice that we knew each other quite well. And we had also had that professional working relationship prior. Yeah. And a lot of trust. I imagine. Yes, yes, yes.
• 12:04
  So you guys, you have the idea, you land on what you're going to create. Do you then go out and raise capital? Do you look for someone to help you develop the products? What was the next phase of bringing this brand to life and actually figuring out what to do?
• 12:19
  Yeah, yeah. So the next step was, you know, trying to figure out how we were going to make the product and just figuring out if that was even feasible. Because at that point, there was no other tablet on the market, like a cleaning tablet had never been done before. So it was...
• 12:36
  a more obvious question for us, was that even doable to create a tablet that would dissolve in water and be an effective cleaning solution or make a hand soap? And so, yeah, at that point, we were just and there's no roadmap for these things. And so I think one advice to folks out there that want to start something and don't know where to start, that's a completely normal feeling.
• 13:04
  And, you know, we just turned to like the normal, like the obvious places. We were Googling a lot. We were Googling for names of cleaning manufacturers. We were trying to get in touch with chemists.
• 13:16
  Yeah, and we were just pretty much just trying to be on the phone as much as we can, trying to get an understanding, getting feedback from experts in this space to see if this was at all possible. And we pretty quickly learned that there wasn't an existing manufacturer that was just going to be like, oh, yeah, we know how to make that stuff or we've made that stuff before and we can make that for you. Everyone was saying that we'd have to come up with our own formulation. And so it became pretty apparent that we would have to find a chemist of our own.
• 13:46
  And so I mean, every step of this seemed like an impossible task. Like at every point, it felt like we should have said, okay, like this is not doable. You know, like when we had like 20 manufacturers tell us like, this is not possible. Right? Like when you have these manufacturers saying that, you know, these cleaning products are liquid, all of our ingredients are liquid. Like, how do you expect us to make that dry? Like we don't even own tapas.
• 14:10
  tablet machinery, right? Or, you know, at that point, you know, I feel like we could have taken that as a signal of like, okay, we tried, we asked, like, this isn't doable. But, you know, at that point, you know, we realized that these manufacturers can't help us. We need to find a chemist. And, you know, that also seemed like another impossible task because we, like John and I had no chemists in our network. Yeah.
• 14:33
  And there's no place you can just go to to find these chemists. And so we just then just turned to LinkedIn and was just searching for chemists that seemed to have relevant experience. And then just cold reaching out to them on LinkedIn by direct messaging them. And we had it was like a list of hundreds of chemists, but we had them like tranched out by like people.
• 14:55
  first priority, second priority, third priority. And then we also didn't want to like message too many chemists at the same company at the same time because they might like talk to each other. And so we had to like, you know, kind of like parse it out. But, you know, there definitely is no secret sauce or roadmap. It is just, you know, you know, going out there and, you know, doing whatever you can to try to figure it out.
• 15:19
  Wow, that's crazy. And so you found a chemist to help you develop the products. Then I imagine that's also really expensive to develop a product that you're essentially inventing or that you have invented. Yep. Yep. Yep. So you then raise money. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that journey a little bit and what happens in that process of you guys starting to work with the manufacturer and bringing this to life and funding the process? Yeah.
• 15:47
  Yeah, yeah. So, you know, honestly, if we had the option to do all of this, you know, for a long time without raising money, I think that would have been, you know, really fantastic. I think with our business and our idea, there was going to be quite a bit of upfront R&D as well as, you know, quite a bit of money we'd have to put down to get some of this manufacturing started. And so it was clear pretty early on that we would have to raise outside capital. And that's that was really hard. Yeah.
• 16:15
  given that we didn't have a final product yet. And so I think luckily, you know,
• 16:23
  you know, John and I were in a more unique position where we had been sort of serial entrepreneurs and had each sold companies and had a set of investors that, that knew us, um, and trusted us. And so I think, you know, the process was still certainly not easy. Um, but it was probably easier than it should have been, um, otherwise. But, you know, I also say that, look, that, you know, even though that process took us six months, like we'd been building those, the relationships in that direction.
• 16:51
  at trust over the course of like, you know, five plus years. But yeah, ended up, you know, I think with fundraising, I'm just a big believer in momentum, I think is really important. I think especially when you're in a situation like...
• 17:05
  Ours, where there isn't a product to be shown and there certainly isn't traction that you can show. A lot of investors, understandably, are going to look for social proof and are going to want to know, well, who else is investing? Right. And are they reputable, incredible investors?
• 17:22
  And you're going to get that question. And so if you're going to fundraise, I'm just a big believer. You have to like, like go fast and cover a lot of ground versus stretching it out. Because I think what you don't want to do is go very slow and then have people, you know, ask like, well, who else is in and, you know, have no new names to show for it or, you know, and when they check in again, two weeks later, still have no new names, you know, to show for it. And so it kind of was, you know, a speed.
• 17:50
  game for us. And, you know, we made it pretty efficient. You know, I just had one trip out to San Francisco to like one sort of two day trip was able to meet with probably about 20 different firms and individuals while out there. So it was pretty efficient. And otherwise we're based in New York. So we're able to connect with, you know, a lot of folks easily there. And,
• 18:10
  But I also think, you know, I would just, you know, really reassure people that it's also normal for like nothing to happen for a while. It's because it usually takes like the first person, right, the first major person to say yes. And then being able to circle back to a lot of other people and say that this person's in or once that person's in, it's it's a lot more interesting to other people because at least they know that, well, someone else reputable is interested. Yeah.
• 18:39
  So that piece is normal, too, because I did feel like for a couple of months, there was no movement outside of everyone saying, like, this is great. It's a great idea. It's really exciting. You know, keep us updated. And it wasn't a no, but it wasn't a yes.
• 18:54
  And you have some really high profile investors. I read Justin Timberlake's part of your board or an investor in the business. Yep. And Kevin O'Leary with the Shark Tank deal, which is obviously just so amazing. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the Shark Tank episode and what it's been like since that aired and working with Kevin O'Leary specifically since then?
• 19:23
  Yeah, yeah. Geez, I know. I mean, going on Shark Tank, like seriously was a dream come true. I feel like, you know, Shark Tank's been on the air for about 11 years now. So it really had coincided with my own jump, my initial jump into entrepreneurship and sort of my life in startups. And it always been sort of a dream of mine to to if I were working on the right type of business to go on Shark Tank.
• 19:53
  Um, and so we still can't believe that, that, you know, we were able to have it happen and it just aligned so much with our mission of really trying to be in every household in America. Um, and, you know, aligned well with the product positioning for us. Like we worked so hard to get our price points very low, like the $2 a tablet refill was something that we just didn't.
• 20:17
  didn't want to launch or compromise on. We want to make sure that this product could truly be an accessible product and a mass market product. But yeah, I mean, that whole process, though, was, it was definitely frightening to some extent. It was very nerve wracking. But it was incredible. I mean, it's definitely incredible.
• 20:41
  led to an absolute step change in our brand awareness. Um, and it's afforded us like so many opportunities. Um, you know, it's, it's already reran once on ABC. We have another rerun coming shortly. Um, in our first rerun of that episode, Kim Kardashian actually caught the episode. Yeah. And she tweeted about it. I saw it.
• 21:04
  I saw it. It was crazy because we were already excited that it was rerunning nationally and we were all standing on, you know, standing by and we saw a huge spike in sales. And then during the episode on top of that, Kim Kardashian tweets, not just once, but three times in a row, like she just kept going to our incredible, incredible like surprise.
• 21:26
  And so it's it's been a great journey. And again, really grateful that we've had have had that opportunity and they've been so supportive. And Kevin as well has been fantastic. Like we we truly didn't know what to expect. And honestly, I didn't expect very much.
• 21:43
  like going into Shark Tank, thinking like if we did get an investment from one of those investors, I just figured like surely them having done this for 11 seasons, having invested so prolifically across so many businesses, I always wonder like how can they really be able to carve out any time or focus for these companies. But he's been incredibly accessible. We text or talk probably
• 22:13
  When he's out talking to the press, he's really down to do anything. I mean, we we even ended up shooting a TV commercial with him that's been running for the past few months. And he did it, you know, all all for free because he was just, you know, he's he's just so excited to be supportive in any way that he can be.
• 22:32
  Wow, that's so cool. Yeah. Has he made back his money on the royalties yet? He actually, he's very, very, very close to it at the moment. So I would call it a good deal then because he'll have made his money back and now he still owns a nice bit of equity in the company. That's so cool. Yeah.
• 22:55
  What's the timeline, I'm wondering, of when you went on Shark Tank? How long had you been selling the products before you went on that show? Because I read that you did like $200,000 worth of sales just in your first month. So you were obviously, you know, doing a lot of amazing marketing to get to that point before you were on the show.
• 23:17
  What was that timeline difference? Yeah, so we actually went on Shark Tank. We filmed for Shark Tank just one month post-launch, which also made me incredibly nervous because the show and certainly a lot of the sharks are known to be very metrics focused. And while our first month had been fantastic, we were asking for a high valuation based on the absolute dollar value of revenue we generated to date.
• 23:47
  Um, but you know, we couldn't control the timing of, of the filming. And so, yeah, ended up just being in that, in that situation. Thankfully we, we had at least had a really strong first month. Um, but yeah, we only had one month to show when we, when we went on. And so in the beginning and in the lead up to launch and in that first month, what were you doing to find your audience and generate that many sales? Um,
• 24:13
  Yeah. So I think, you know, in the month leading up to we certainly tried to leverage the prelaunch period to start. And I think that's a thing that, you know, a lot of startups now do these days, which I think makes absolute sense, because, you know, undoubtedly we're all going to have, you know, a network of friends and family that we can use initially to work.
• 24:34
  to leverage and get the word out and just providing a incentive, you know, a quote unquote viral incentive, um, for people to continue to pass it on. And so we had, you know, good initial success there. You know, we pretty much like for every, you know, person you pass it on to, um, we were offering a free tablet, which is like the equivalent of a, you know, a free
• 24:57
  refill of the solution. And so we started with that and we kicked that off, you know, a couple of weeks prior to launch and that got us going. And again, that just like kind of gives you a sense of like how these things can grow exponentially. You know, at that point, we were a small team of four people, but we were able to reach, you know, tens of thousands of people in that space.
• 25:17
  referral period, which just goes to show, you know, you send it out to 200 people, you know, and if they each send it out to, you know, five more people each, you know, those numbers can compound nicely pretty quickly. And so, you know, we definitely had a pre-launch period. Outside of that, you know, we definitely leaned into press and everything we could. We did believe that this was a very innovative product that had never been launched before. And, you know,
• 25:43
  you know, sustainability would continue to be a very hot topic in the press and social media. And so that piece was very helpful. We, you know, just organic Instagram and community as well. Like that's just been an area we've invested a ton of time into from just the very beginning. I, you know, I continue to,
• 26:05
  be very, very, very hands on with every post and every story that goes up, you know, actually selecting the image and writing the copy or, you know, providing, you know, heavy direction there. And it's interesting how my views on, you know, social have certainly evolved. It is quite time consuming. And I think when we first started,
• 26:24
  started the company, you know, I thought that was one area that made sense to sort of offload as quickly as possible. But then, you know, I just realized it was so valuable in so many respects. I think, um, as a marketing channel now, I continue to believe it's the most important channel for us. I mean, it's the only channel where our audience is coming on multiple times a day and wants to be there. Um, it's not like email, like no one is bored and like browsing their email. Um,
• 26:53
  for fun or doing discovery on email. But they're certainly doing that on Instagram. And I think that's really powerful. And just having the opportunity to show up as a brand every day and speak to your audience in a very organic way is very powerful. And so I think from a marketing perspective, it's important there, but also just from a feedback perspective so that we're
• 27:18
  And also just knowing our customer perspective, I think Instagram is invaluable. Like I, you know, we have over 140,000 followers at this point. We get like thousands of DMs and comments a day. But I keep all my notifications on for the BlueLand account. So my phone is constantly working.
• 27:38
  buzzing. And probably at some point, I'm like, okay, I need to turn this off at some point. But it's just it's so helpful, even though I'm not necessarily reading at this point, every single comment, and DM just be able to eyeball like what's coming through. And I just feel like every day, I have a really good pulse of our community, and what their feedback is what they're loving, things like that, that I just wouldn't have if I weren't an Instagram every day.
• 28:05
  And I think what you guys do a really good job of is the fact that you're not just talking about cleaning products alone. You're talking about the planet and the bigger picture. And you're giving tips and advice of other things that people can be doing around the home or, you know, in their lives to make a difference. And I definitely find I get useful tips.
• 28:25
  from your personal account and the blue land account. That's so great. That's so great to hear. And yeah, I think that that's right. I think, you know, it's also just making sure we think about the channel about like how do we deliver value to our audience and, and not how do we extract value from our audience, which I think is, you know, a way a lot of people think about their email and Instagram channels. Like how do we drive more sales for our product? Um,
• 28:49
  But I think ultimately, you know, we're playing a longer, longer game there. And the good news is it aligns with our broader mission of, you know, for us, it really is how do we make it easy for people to be environmentally friendly? And I think, you know, that, you know, our products is certainly a big piece of that. But I think just education and empowering people with small changes that they can make every day is also a big piece of what we can do.
• 29:14
  Um, and I think that's certainly, you know, ultimately in the long game that helps our business as well. Cause I think to the extent that people really, you know, the more they care about the environment, right. Um, you know, the more likely they're going to also, you know, stick with our products as well, which is a win-win for the planet as well as for us as a business. What are the kind of challenges that you're facing in the business at the moment now that you've grown to this scale? Um,
• 29:39
  Yeah, so definitely a newer, certainly a newer set of challenges than we had in early days. I think, you know, now it really is, you know, figuring out, you know, how do we continue to scale beyond, you know, all the areas that have brought us here. I think it's important to just recognize that organic is so important, right? Like the organic growth and organic momentum, right?
• 30:07
  Word of mouth is so important. I think those are the most valuable and obviously authentic forms of marketing. There's nothing more powerful than hearing from a direct friend that she has this product and she loves it. But I think ultimately that can drive a ton of growth.
• 30:23
  But at some point, that can't be the only driver of your growth. Right. And so, you know, now we are having to focus more on these traditional paid channels, whereas in the beginning we had the luxury of not having to focus there because there was enough opportunity in organic
• 30:39
  alone. But now, you know, it is navigating things like Facebook ads, you know, leaning more into Google search, you know, testing new channels like, like Pinterest, or TV or mail. Yeah, and then just trying to figure out from there, you know, how do we continue to grow, but remain financially disciplined and, you know, make sure that, you know, we're focused on building a
• 31:09
  Yeah, cool. And I wanted to ask you what advice you would have for any entrepreneurs that are getting started or going through the journey at the moment. Probably my biggest advice for people is just...
• 31:27
  My dad used to say this thing of like, you know, how do you eat an elephant? And it's just one bite at a time. And I think it's just a really good way to view this journey because I think, you know, anyone that's starting something new, it's going to feel like it should feel like an overwhelming task. You're building this, you're going to have this huge vision, right? That's clearly what's excited you to jump into it. And...
• 31:55
  It's like there's like so many different ways you can tackle it or it's like not clear how you even begin to tackle it. And I think that is completely, completely normal. Of course, it is. I mean, you're bringing something into the world that's like never existed before, which is amazing that we live in a time and place, have a set of experiences that give us that kind of opportunity to truly create something from nothing. Yeah.
• 32:20
  But, you know, I would just say don't get discouraged by sort of the vastness of that task. And instead, just feel really empowered that it's all about like, you know, every day chipping away at it that, you know, no one's asking you to run a marathon. Right. All, you know, or do everything all at once really well, really fast. Yeah.
• 32:42
  But just as long as you're, you know, every day you're, you're moving forward. You know, I think that's a win. And again, I think, you know, I point to our own journey and it literally for for over a year just felt like an impossible task. But instead of kind of viewing it as this this crazy big thing that we're going to tackle that like no other big CPG company had ever done.
• 33:05
  is just like, look at like, okay, what's the next step? What's the next sort of, um, task or obstacle at hand that you have to overcome and, you know, just focus on overcoming that one. And then you can deal with the next one after that. And, you know, you'll get very far, um, by just, you know, just focusing on, on what you can control and what you can do. One step at a time. Yes. I love that. Absolutely.
• 33:30
  I usually wrap up with six quick questions. It's a quick fire round. Okay, great. Number one is what's your why? To be honest, I mean, my why why is my son, right? I think that's been the very...
• 33:46
  personal driving reason behind all of this. I think becoming a mom made the crisis that we're in so much more real. The fact that with climate change, like if we don't act fast, right, and solve this problem, you know, in the next, like truly solve the problem, not start to solve the problem, but solve the problem in the next 12 years, right? Like the world my son's gonna live in is gonna be vastly different from the world that we've enjoyed and I think,
• 34:16
  That's made a very concrete and real for me. Yeah. I spoke to a woman that has a fashion subscription rental service, and that was also her driving factor was for her children to come into a world and know that their parents made a difference. Number two is what's the number one marketing thing you've done that made your business pop?
• 34:43
  It's hard not to say Shark Tank, right? Because that definitely was like, that was like overnight. We saw a difference in the business and a step change in the business. And so absolutely, although even though it was like a moonshot, like one in a million chance and a lot of work to try to get into that process, it absolutely was worth it because it certainly has changed the trajectory of the business. Nice. Number three is where do you hang out to get smarter?
• 35:15
  It feels lame, but I learn a lot on Instagram. It's incredible how much I learn on Instagram. And I'm so grateful for that platform. And I think that's what inspired has inspired me to the opportunity for Blue Land to also be a platform where people are learning so much about the importance of living a more sustainable life and all the different ways that they can. Yeah, I learned from you. Thank you.
• 35:45
  Number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals that set you up for success. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a great one. You know, a big one for me in the mornings is making sure that I do have the quiet time. And typically for me, it's, you know, a period of time before my son wakes up and the day gets crazy, as well as my walk to work. And during those two times, I really do try to, one, reflect on, you know,
• 36:15
  the few things that I'm very thankful for. I think it's just a good way to ground myself each day and give me perspective. And I think the other one is, you know, making my list of, you know, one to three things that are true priorities for the day that I have to accomplish, because especially in, you know, startup life, like, you know, once the day starts, like you can get derailed so many times over time.
• 36:37
  over and you get into, you can get into a very execution or reactionary mode. So to the extent that like I'm continuing to push the really important things forward and not losing sight of that versus just fighting the fires at hand. I think that's, I think that's really important. And, you know, now that, you know, I don't have my walk to work at home, I'm still trying to really like carve out each day now, like the half an hour for work.
• 37:00
  for me to just spend to like reflect on that as well as like, you know, higher level things before just kind of like rushing into my, my inbox and Slack and, and again, getting into responsive mode. Yeah. Number five is if you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? And that's to highlight what your most important revenue drivers are. That is, that is a good one. Um,
• 37:29
  I think we'd spend it on organic then on our organic Instagram. Cause I think that just, you know, that definitely drives, it absolutely drives customers for us. Like that link in our bio, which has a very large percentage of our new customers each day. But I think just from a brand perspective, you know, it's just so much more powerful to show up there in an authentic way versus, you know, show up in a, a Facebook ad sort of as the first touch point with a new consumer. Yeah.
• 38:00
  And number six is how do you deal with failure?
• 38:05
  Yes. I mean, failure, I mean, I've always had just a very positive view on failure that, you know, with every failure is an opportunity to get better the next time around. I think it's, and so to that end, I think it's really important to take the time and to recognize the failure and then really try to extract the learnings from the failure. And so, you know, it's something that we, you know, we incorporate, you know,
• 38:32
  into our practice as a team very regularly. So we do a lot of hindsight. So even in our weekly team meetings, we open up every weekly team meeting with wins and learnings from the week. Wins is just as important. I think, you know, when you're a startup and you're moving so fast, it's also easy to just like,
• 38:49
  you know, gloss over the wins and move on to the next win. So I think it's important to celebrate all the small wins, but also, you know, every week just highlight, like, you know, what are mistakes that we've made and what are the learnings from that so we can buy better the next time. But we also just do a lot of hindsight in our organization, both like we've done one at 100 days, six months, our one year work,
• 39:10
  We do one after every major launch. We do one after, we did one after Shark Tank. We did one after Holiday. And it really is just a way for us to come together cross-functionally and just be honest with ourselves of like, one, like what are the amazing things that, that we did do and want to memorialize and celebrate? But, you know, what are, again, all of the missteps or, you know, the things that went less than ideal and, you know, what could we have done differently differently?
• 39:38
  And it's nice now that, you know, when we before heading into holiday this year, you know, we can now reread our hindsights from last year to make sure that, you know, those failures don't. Yeah, weren't sort of in vain and that that we truly can be be better the next time around.
• 39:56
  That's a really great idea. I'm definitely going to take that into my learnings as well. Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I only have one more question and it's more of a out of personal need. When are you going to be shipping to the world? When can the rest of us buy your products? So we are actually actively working on it at the moment. I actually have a meeting today to chat about it. So I think we're going to take our first step.
• 40:23
  into that, you know, relatively, relatively soon. But, you know, I think we are really excited to take it outside of the U.S. I always joke, but maybe it's not a joke. The rest of the world is certainly more, even more eco than we are here in the U.S. So, you know, and that's actually the number one
• 40:43
  is when are we going international? We get that question a lot. So hopefully soon, hopefully very soon. We're all waiting. Amazing. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really loved our conversation. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Dune. This was really fun.
• 41:04
  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.
• 41:29
  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.
• 41:51
  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. Thank you.
• 42:07
  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.
• 42:32
  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.
• 42:54
  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.