Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / The $10,000 in legal fees you can avoid with Goldune’s Founder Azora Zoe Paknad

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The $10,000 in legal fees you can avoid with Goldune’s Founder Azora Zoe Paknad · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Azora Zoe Packnard for Female Startup Club. Hello, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, I'm chatting with Azora Zoe Packnard, the founder of Gold Dune. And yes, I love this name. We talk about it a lot.
• 0:27
  Today, we're talking in depth about her launch and the brands she's on the lookout for at the moment, which could be you, by the way. Goldoon is a new e-commerce retailer making sustainability less beige. Get everything you need for home and life, always sustainable, but never granola.
• 0:46
  If you love the app and want to connect with founders like Azora Zoe, come check out Hype Club, the all-in-one resource for founders who happen to be women building the world's coolest CPG brands. Happy listening. This is Azora Zoe for Female Startup Club. Azora, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited as a listener of the pod.
• 1:13
  Yeah, I mean, you've just totally brightened my day for everyone listening. Azora just told me she already knew about Female Startup Club and she's been listening in for a while. So she just blew my mind and I'm so thrilled and just so happy. I've got a huge smile on my face. Your name is really beautiful, by the way, Azora. I haven't heard that before. Thank you so much. That's very kind of you. You've got lots of nice words going around. Azora, Gold Dune. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love the whole mix.
• 1:44
  For those of us who, well, not for us because I know, but for those who are listening who don't know who you are yet and don't know about your brand, can you give us the elevator pitch for yourself and for Goldoon? Totally. So Goldoon is a e-commerce retailer for home and life.
• 2:04
  And we're focused on making sustainability less stage, more inclusive, more design led and a little bit more warm and human and forgiving rather than sort of, you know, all or nothing or doom and gloom or your shame or fear based, which was sort of my experience navigating kind of the sustainable retail or sustainable living movements. And, you know, the different kind of channels that were there, whether.
• 2:32
  on social media, I felt like there was kind of one or two dominant narratives, like one on the end of the spectrum. There was kind of like a, you know, like a very waist-like rich influencer where like everything in her home was super curated, super beautiful, aspirational. Maybe there was like a focus on slow living and, you know, on the one hand that that didn't feel accessible or inclusive necessarily as a narrative, while of course,
• 2:58
  beautiful in so many ways. And on the other hand, I felt like there was a really strong community that was zero waste and power to folks who pulled that off. That's so, so impressive. But I also felt like some of the energy in that community was like a little bit zero sum game focus, right? Like if you messed up or you couldn't do something, like there was stigma or shame. And also, I didn't feel like there was that much dialogue in that space either about what
• 3:27
  That is too, right? Like for some reason, living zero waste is stylized as a sacrifice, but we don't talk about is what a huge emotional socioeconomic privilege it is to even be able to have the bandwidth to think about not generating a scrap of trash. So there was like a friction there for me. And my background before starting Goldoon, I worked for a long time at a company called Food52, which is another...
• 3:52
  home sort of kitchen retailer and media company. And, you know, I sort of got into sustainability in my time there and that kind of like friction point for me feeling like I was sort of not in either bucket or either end of each extreme side of the spectrum. I was noodling on that for a while. And I think the pandemic for me really exacerbated and accelerated that thought process or that conversation about sustainability, but to be honest,
• 4:22
  I think we all started sort of thinking about evaluating and talking about privilege in different ways in 2020. And it felt like the time to do something about it. Also a crazy time, I will say. But I found myself with the time to really focus on something I'm super passionate about. And I really wanted to create space for climate optimism, for inclusivity, a place that sort of welcomed folks to the conversation around sustainable living and sustainable shopping, whatever that means.
• 4:52
  regardless of where they were at, right? So like, you don't have to be a pro or an expert. You don't have to, you know, have everything in your life or your home or your purse look like you're coming back from a hike. Like, not everything has to be outdoorsy. Like, it's okay. And I think there should be sort of shades of, I don't want to say sustainable living, but I think we should all have access to options that are hopefully as kind to our ecosystem and as sustainable as possible, no matter...
• 5:19
  where you're at, whether you're a pro, whether the climate crisis overwhelms you, you can't even think about it, you're just getting started, and every sort of space in between, right? Because there's a million shades of gray in between, which I think is actually where most of us are, rather than at either end of that spectrum, too.
• 5:39
  For sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And being able to find like, meet people where they are on the journey. So being like, hey, you want to make one small change? Here's a good idea. And here's how you can do that. And here's how you can do it that's within your budget. And here's how you can do it that's within your style or whatever it might be. Do you want to just share a little bit about the kinds of brands you have on the platform and the kinds of price points and like what's a typical kind of...
• 6:07
  curation assortment look like for you? 100%. So Goldoon itself is a marketplace and we're just, we're about, we've been live for let's say like eight months, probably maybe nine months. And so we're just sort of dabbling in kind of making one or two of our own products. But for the most part, we really do go through like a pretty intense evaluation process, both on the sustainability side, like making sure that we feel really, really confident and,
• 6:36
  you know, putting something in front of you and telling you that we think it's the best version that's out there, whether, you know, at that price point, whether, you know, like in that sort of context with sustainability. But yeah, we work with at this point, I believe it's upwards of a hundred different brands and our focus is really still on trying to provide diversity of price points. So there's accessible options for all different kinds of folks, which I would say is a challenge on either end of that spectrum, right? Especially in sustainability.
• 7:04
  Also, really trying to make sure that you have what you need in the same sense that like when you, you know, you go to like sort of a quote unquote general store and you throw a bunch of things in your cart, there's that ease, right? And you don't want to think too hard about evaluating every single thing. We hope to do a lot of that evaluation from a sustainability standpoint, from an aesthetic or a design standpoint, from an ethic standpoint for you, and then to present you with
• 7:28
  hopefully a lot of good options for your taste, your home, your budget, the size of your place, right? All of those different factors. And it's up to you to sort of, you know, pick what works for you based on your own unique circumstance and life. And none of our business or our business has to tell you what's best for you. It's another sort of thing that's kind of important to me, at least, or a piece of our ethos is like, none of us know anything about what anyone else is going through. So who am I to tell you how you should live your life or like how you should
• 7:58
  I think we kind of easily get into that, especially in sustainability space, like prescriptive place where it's like, well, you should be doing this. You should only be doing what you can do easily. So we'll give you as many options as we can and sort of up to you to pick what hits you based on where you're at. And hopefully we can grow with you and like be your partner on that journey. What's funny to me is like.
• 8:24
  how did this not exist already in terms of something so cool? And like the product assortment is amazing. I love that you stock a lot of women owned brands. I love that you stock a lot of women of color owned brands or founded brands rather. And like the platform speaks to me in terms of branding. Like I just, I get joy from being on there, like because it doesn't feel like the classic brand.
• 8:49
  sustainable, everything's just green and, you know, whatever, like, you know, the 10 years ago sustainable vibe that still kind of exists a lot today. Totally. That it's fun. And I love that you said you're making your own products. It's something I wanted to ask you about, but we'll circle back to that because I want to go back to, you know, pre getting started. Where does your entrepreneurial story start? And were you always interested in, you know, building your own business?
• 9:17
  Good question. Definitely, yes. My parents are both serial entrepreneurs. So that was the environment I grew up in. I was a kid napping under the table in the conference room during board meetings, like living under my mom's desk playing with my Barbies. Very much sort of the piece of me as a little person before I knew it. And so for me, it was never a question of if, just a question of when.
• 9:43
  So to be honest, I really, really didn't think it would be now. And I kind of fought the impulse when it came along. You know, when you're younger, like all of those things feel very accessible and interesting and open to you. So I definitely felt as a kid, like I'm going to do something amazing when I grow up. I don't know what it is, but I swear I will. And then like I got older, did a few different things. And I think I started to feel like there was a certain level of,
• 10:10
  required access or like barrier to entry or prescribed milestones I had to hit in order to do something like this on my own. And I pictured myself like further along in my career, I pictured myself older. I had imagined that I would have like more established investor connections or relationships or a better network. And I'm not sure what exactly pushed me off the edge. I think probably. It sounds like also when you're getting ready for having a baby.
• 10:39
  Literally, yeah. It's kind of like, you know, any big life milestone, right? Like you have this picture of what you envision you'll be like. And I know that's never, ever like how it goes. And so for me, I have to actually sort of like push or negotiate with myself and talk myself into doing this big thing. I think the pandemic kind of helped in that it sort of stripped away like a lot of the ego. I think so many of us were sort of like for the first time, perhaps more open about the
• 11:09
  vulnerability or anxiety or circumstance or just the dialogue opened up there. But I don't know. It took a push. It took a push. Finally, quote, quote, finally, it was like 45 days. I made it sound like it was years. It was like a month. But in pandemic times, that's 100 years. But after a lot of noodling, I decided to go for it, even if, you know, I wasn't what I thought I would be when I started business or whatever.
• 11:35
  my career wasn't or I wasn't at the stage of life. I mean, I was literally like living with my parents the whole time I launched this biz. So I think I am like a sophisticated version of myself. That version is yet to materialize. I'm still not sophisticated, but we're waiting. We took this launch anyway.
• 11:53
  you're working towards it. You're working towards it. I'm sure you're very sophisticated. She may never arrive. Don't put yourself down. I don't think so. But it's a lot of things. I don't think I'm sophisticated. I think that's okay. There's ways to make that work for you. But no, it's a good, being an opportunity for an amazing exercise and like ego crushing and just completely every day you have to like fall on your face and then get back up and do it again the next day. I think it's
• 12:21
  Totally deal with that rejection, those constant no's. Yeah, I feel you. I want to know, like, I always love to ask about how much capital it took to get started and what was the kind of blueprint to getting started? What are those early, you know, lead up to launch early months like when you're like, you know what, I'm going to start this thing. And where were you at in your career, by the way? I think I read that you'd quit your job already and you had other plans pre-pandemic. Yeah.
• 12:51
  But if you want to just kind of like summarize those, you know, those early moments. I'll set the scene. I love setting the scene. Please do. Yeah, might as well. I had started or sorry, I quit my job at Su52. We'd just been through an acquisition a few months after the acquisition. And I felt like I had a little bit of startup burnout happening and I wanted to do
• 13:17
  something big and something really different. And like, frankly, not work at all for a while. So I had given lots of notice, I'd been saving up. I was like, are you going to travel the world? I know. I was like, oh, I think I don't want to work. And then I was like, let me work a million times harder than ever. But no, first I thought I was going to travel. I had this sort of an untraditional college experience. I worked through college, I went to community college, and I went to night school in New York. And I had never sort of had that like kind of young, adventurous
• 13:47
  wanderlust chapter that some folks get to have. And I was like, you know what, let's try to recreate that later and make it happen now. And so I gave probably four months notice. I stumbled up my apartment. I started packing up all my stuff to put into storage. And I was like, I'm going to Italy.
• 14:08
  I went through all the motions. I literally threw myself a goodbye party. I'm going to do my eight pray love thing. Yeah, I was like, actually, I watched eight pray love for the first time that month. And I was like, I guess I'm going to do this. I fully bought it. Right. And then, of course, like March rolls around. There's no going to Italy. And I'd already gotten rid of my apartment. And I now had no job or was winding down. I think I have like another four or five weeks left. But, you know, that was that was really the end of that.
• 14:37
  I guess I'm moving in with my parents. The opposite of going to Italy or traveling the world alone for six months is moving back in with your parents. So I did that. That's what I meant when I was talking about sophistication. You're like, I was taking all these steps forward for my personal self, but I'm actually taking a couple of steps back and I'm going back in time. It was, it was wild. I haven't lived with my parents since I was like 16. So it was,
• 15:05
  So like such a trip, right? In so many ways, such a shock to the system. Not in a bad way, actually. I'm like very, very happy that happened. But it was just very much like the absolute opposite of what I had planned for myself, which is fine. And that's how life goes. And it's funny. And it makes for a hilarious story now because starting a business is like truly the opposite of going and traveling with no job. But, you know, probably like after I worked remotely from there for a while and, you know, like...
• 15:34
  explored a bunch of different ops and I found myself kind of, I felt like I should take them, right? It was also a hard time to get a job. And so anytime I had a great opportunity in front of me that, you know, theoretically it's a bill for what I said I wanted to do next, which was like, I did want to work in sustainability. I did want to work in e-commerce. There's only so many of those that have involved your businesses. And anytime the opportunity was in front of me, I found myself making so many,
• 16:03
  pieces or like trying to kind of like wiggle out or not just self-mossaging or like not, not letting it happen. And at a certain point I realized it's because I had this idea or I had this inclination or this passion that I had been, I hadn't told anyone about because I was embarrassed or felt like uncomfy with the level of vulnerability that is literally going around, some people leave with business idea and then having to explain like your half-baked business idea. I don't think there's anything more,
• 16:31
  embarrassing going through that. But I was like being very, you know, very tight-lipped about it. And at a certain point, I think one day I just woke up and was like, oh my God, I'm already spending so much time fixated or focused on this idea. I have zero financial obligation to anybody for the first time, like in a long time. And probably that's kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity as well, right? A lot of people don't.
• 16:59
  get that lucky that their, their biz idea times out pretty well. No overhead. And I, I just was like, okay, it's not, it's not now than when. And I kind of got over all of that weird ego stuff about them. Like I needed to have more savings or, you know, like a partner or better connections and just sort of like made peace with it is what it is. And there were so many founders out there with wackier stories or, you know,
• 17:26
  you know, maybe like left experience or different experience who've been wildly successful or who work really hard. And why not me? But I think I just started asking a lot of why not me? I still do, to be honest. It's like actually my screensaver says, why not me? And I have to like pummel it into my little egg brain every day and go up the green cake rips. But no, that was what caught me there. Totally. I'm with you. I do the same. Yeah. It's the question, isn't it? But...
• 17:54
  To answer your question, sorry, I lost myself there on a long journey. Not a journey to Italy, but a journey. That's what I, I raised a little bit of friends and family money, but very, very little, I think, relative to most e-commerce startups or most folks. And the goal is just like, let me get a minimum viable product up and running.
• 18:20
  And it's actually the same one that's out there now. So if you see it, nothing has really changed in that regard. But no, I shared my idea with people who I felt comfortable with and who I felt wouldn't judge me and who would support me even if, I mean, not that they would support me blindly, obviously, but people who I thought would be honest and kind. And that's sort of what got me started.
• 18:49
  October 20th was the day we launched just behind the scenes. And yeah, it was actually a pretty tight turnaround in hindsight, but that was it. That was like the journey from build to launch.
• 19:01
  And what were the kinds of things you were doing behind the scenes in the lead up to launch in terms of, you know, getting brands interested? Like how are you getting brands to commit to being on board? And was it more of a drop ship model where you were kind of like placing the orders and they were shipping them out? Or were you like gathering stock and using that money to buy into inventory? What was the kind of pre-lead up non-marketing wise? Because we're going to get to the marketing stuff too. Yeah.
• 19:30
  All of the money I raised went right into building the website and then some small amount of legal setup fees, which are actually not small at all and totally will feed into your budget in a super dramatic and annoying way, I will say. But everything went straight towards building the site. I came from a dropship business. Food52 was a dropship business when I was there. Yeah.
• 19:55
  Dropship, I think, is kind of the only way to get started without capital. And to me also, since I was taking a huge risk, Dropship allows you a certain amount of freedom to learn about your customer or learn about your audience on the go. And I think that's absolutely essential when you don't have customers from an audience. So the good news is that besides the building of the digital product itself, there's very little risk.
• 20:23
  involved from an inventory standpoint or an assortment standpoint. And there still isn't, right? So we're still just working as hard as we can to like learn as much as we can about what folks like and obviously evolve that and hopefully pull some inventory in-house in the future. But for now, I think it's still, we're, we're still able to learn and provide better experiences for our customers by dropshipping. But as far as the sort of journey behind the themes from June to October,
• 20:52
  A lot of focus on creative and brand. You mentioned like there's no rain. And like a big piece of the mission from the get-go is always like sustainability is super crunchy right now. Everything is like brown, craft paper, cardboard. So that's like for some inclusive aesthetics. It's just not, it's not an acceptable one. And it's also like, if you want a lot of people to get excited about sustainability and we need a lot of people to get excited about sustainability.
• 21:20
  is this the best we can do? Could we do a little better on the aesthetic standpoint or the design standpoint? The inclusivity standpoint, like could we build an assortment that valued women and people of color and their contributions and like weighted that heavily in the assortment? We build an assortment that felt, you know, chic and interesting and accessible and colorful. And those are a lot of different things at once. So I will say there was a lot of
• 21:51
  bouncing back and forth. And there still is. I think we're still trying to figure it out as sort of like a pendulum for a delicate balance. And yeah, a lot of like visual design work, working with designers, trying to build out our brand. And then also on the flip side, I started my career in sales and it doesn't seem relevant to e-commerce at all. I worked in ad sales, but yeah.
• 22:13
  It's actually probably, of all the things I've done, the most useful and transferable skill, right? Like everything is sales, especially as a founder. So even though I wasn't selling the brands I was approaching in the early days, I was kind of selling them the idea. I have nothing to show them. Like there was no website. There was nothing. So, you know, just a cold email. Like, hey, here's who I am. Here's what I'm doing. You want in? Here are my terms, right? I had zero negotiating power or leverage. But...
• 22:42
  In some ways that was reverse sales and the same as your fundraising, even for the journey I'm on now, as we grow the business and try to build a team, right? It's kind of the same thing. I'm still selling an idea that we have something up, right? It's a little easier. There's some frame of reference. Some people have heard of us, but still it's in many ways, I'm selling things that the eye can't see or that haven't materialized yet, which is,
• 23:08
  frankly, still sometimes easier than selling digital advertising, which is so many ways to make oil. So yeah, it was a lot of pitching and then switching gears to be creative and then switching gears to be sort of maybe more legal or administrative focused, like getting a sales license, all those things, which to be honest, is still pretty much a perfect metaphor for what I do now.
• 23:32
  I read something that kind of in the lead up to when you were getting started, you know, in the lead up to the launch, your dad gave you a bit of a nudge in the right direction of like, hey, what's your marketing plan? And it forced you to switch into the gear of marketing hat. What was your marketing launch plan and how did it go? That's a deep cut. You really, you did, you Googled me good. Very, I'm like impressed.
• 24:01
  I've told one person that. I mean, in some ways, a nice and humbling reminder of this whole time. I was still a person who lived with their parents. The feedback I was getting was from my parents, but also in some ways super valuable. I think a lot of folks are like, oh, was it so helpful having your parents around or like having two entrepreneurs around to weigh in?
• 24:25
  But my parents are in software. And so there's not a very direct parallel to like selling goods and software. It's not as strong of a tie as one might think. They weren't as actively involved. And this is like kind of the only involvement my dad had was just like this morning. We were like in the kitchen at the same time. And I'm like pretty private about my work. I can't say that I share that many details with friends or family about what I'm working on or how the business is going, which is probably a fault.
• 24:55
  but he was like so do you have a marketing plan yet and I was kind of like yeah like I think I'm marketing good dude like you engineer you I think I can figure out DTC style marketing in 2020. Like thank you very much. Yeah I was like thanks but last I checked I'm the one good at creative. Thank you dad.
• 25:21
  Yeah, I was like, thanks, dude. Like, okay. But he actually was super right. He was like, no, you need an actual plan. He was like, I'm an engineer and I've built many amazing products. And some of them were even better than others. And I'll tell you what, none of that mattered. All that mattered was like, who was the co-founder or the exec or my foil, the partner, who was able to bring the marketing chops to the table? Because I've had amazing ideas and amazing businesses that
• 25:50
  you know, like didn't fly as high as they could have or should have because we didn't have that talent or that person or that point of view or that plan or strategic mind in place. And it's like devastating to watch one of your best ideas not exceed the way you hoped because that you overlooked that piece. Right. And then to have ideas that are maybe you're like less, they're not your baby in the same sense, like fly. Not that that's true of like him in particular, but yeah.
• 26:18
  He pointed it out and I was like, for some reason, I had like an oh shit moment. I was like, oh my God, I don't have a plan. Damn it, my dad's right. Yeah, I don't know what it was that clicked. I mean, I had an abstract plan, but I realized that day like, oh no, I needed to have had a plan months ago and I don't have a plan. And I just kind of assumed that, you know, there's that expression like build it and they will come. That is not true of startups.
• 26:47
  They don't come. You have to like every, you have to really like hustle. You have to start knocking down the doors. Yeah. Not to like, I don't want to over glorify the hustle or hustle porn. I also think we are all sort of aware of the faults of that kind of language. But I will say like part of the trickiness about entrepreneurship is like you, there is no other way. Like that's the way it's like, you're kind of between a rock and a hard place because you want to have great work-life balance and like.
• 27:16
  off the mental health and on the flip side, of course, like you're, you're asking the extreme of yourself, right. And of your team, if you have a team, but anyway, that clicked it for me. And I was sort of like, okay, but I admit to this day, it's still sort of a challenge figuring out how, what's the marketing strategy is. Right. And also to what extent, like what a strategy is and what just sort of happens to you and what's organic momentum and,
• 27:44
  what your group looks like I would say that I have sort of a love-hate relationship with that process even to this day but yeah I'm very glad that I happened to run into my dad in the kitchen that day because that was the day that I like frantically started pitching so pitching like journalists and editors and things like that or what was your kind of what became your marketing plan from there
• 28:07
  It was a chaotic Google sheet. I would say it came from my last role at 352. I was in kind of like sort of on one level partnership. So like working with other brands and thinking a lot about, okay, like how can we grow 352 by doing XYZ or opening a store here or doing this in partnership with this person.
• 28:28
  So I put that hat back on, but of course it's really different when you're trying to grow a non-existent business versus like a business that already has some clout and like, you know, Madewell doesn't want to partner with Goldoon. They've never heard of Goldoon, right? And the same, we've had a Madewell partnership behind us many, many moons ago. So in some senses, I feel like my partnership chops were transferable and in others they weren't. And so I think adapting that, thinking a lot about,
• 28:56
  who our customers would be or who I wanted them to be and where they were and how we could show up there. And in the same way that I sort of reached out to brands and kind of like asked them to take a leap of faith and did sort of a similar thing with editors, with a lot of influencers, with pacemakers, with people, even other founders who I just admired. Sort of just made a huge dump of people I admired, people I thought were thought leaders, pacemakers, trendsetters, no matter their domain or what sort of medium or channel of
• 29:26
  worked with and then tried to be really thoughtful, personal and strategic in our notes to them. So I think that's kind of actually to be on a still strategy. We don't, I still have never hired a PR firm. We'll try to be super earnest and personal and kind of like every interaction we have with folks who create content just because that seems to, that to me feels like the only authentic way to do that.
• 29:52
  But no, lots of people do it differently. That was my approach. I'm not saying I'm not open to other approaches. That's what's in my toolkit. And that's what I have access to and where I feel most comfortable. And yeah, that's how I did it. And that's truthfully how I still do it.
• 30:08
  And how's it going? Like, what have you seen? You know, you've launched, you said, eight months ago now. So are you consistently growing? Are you seeing like specific momentum coming from specific pieces of PR or influences or whatever the moment is? And what's working really well? Yeah, good question. I think at a certain point, we started seeing people, I mean, people started reaching out to me, right? Or like people's
• 30:36
  We hit a kind of a snowball point, right? Where like now I'm not puppeteering every time someone finds out about Full Dune, which is amazing. But at the same time, I'm still puppeteering a lot of it or trying to make it happen. But it is definitely nice to no longer be super reliant on that. It's kind of the only way to, I don't even want to say acquire customers, right? Because to me, the mission is so much more about how can we get millions of people excited about
• 31:02
  sustainability in ways that feel inclusive and authentic and accessible to them. So to me, our mission is a lot more than selling soap, but selling, we want you to, of course, remember us if you need soap. So it's like multiple levels to that mission, but things that are going well, I think first month was unexpectedly huge for us. And I saw so many folks, I mean, this is kind of an example, but.
• 31:30
  So many brands pushing Earth Month sales, like offloading product at crazy rates, being like buy these sustainable products, they're 50% off for Earth Month. And that just like got under its skin and I couldn't stop thinking that at all April. It really bothered me. It felt so antithetical to Earth Month itself as a movement, which like originally started as a movement to erase environmental racism, right? And like, we're not addressing environmental racism.
• 31:59
  and we're like, here's more stuff. Buy the stuff for the earth, right? It's like really confusing messaging and really hypocritical messaging, especially for a lot of brands that sort of, I think lean heavy on the conscious consumerism. I'm using air quotes for the listener. But that like label, right? And it just didn't sit well with me. We put out sort of a super kind of like earnest letter explaining why we're not doing sale and why we generally don't do sales.
• 32:29
  We didn't think that this was an appropriate month or window or time to push product. And like instead that we donate all profit to We Act, which is an amazing organization. And like shockingly, that caught wings and sort of like flew off. And it ended up, of course, ironically being like the biggest month we've ever had. But in so many ways, that I think is a good kind of example of maybe where we shine best or what we do best.
• 32:59
  I think transparent is sometimes maybe not the right word, though it is transparent, but like earnest and honest in our marketing and our messaging. And I just think that we, Goldoon as a brand, sounds like there's a person behind the screen because there is. And I don't think we're trying to strip the business of our personhood or the fact that we're maybe a 10-slot or still learning or on the journey together. And in many ways, that's the piece of our value prop is a bit. I do think that's also what they're allowing us
• 33:29
  to grow. I think people kind of resonate with that. And I think we're all maybe sort of tired of an era where everything must be and everyone must be polished and perfect. And where brands are like these sort of millennial pink or baby blue veneers of like perfection, BTC perfection. Like even at this point, adult retainers are like glossy and blue and beautiful. And it's like, wait, this is a retainer. Like we all have this terrible orthodontia memory. And I get why we're
• 33:58
  you know, like sugarcoating it or repainting it or reframing it for now is like something aspirational. But I think for us, we're sort of moving away from that. And that is sort of what has enabled us to grow a bit. Obviously, there are pain points too. So I don't want to gloss over them or make it sound like we're like magically tripling your side three months. We're totally not. Lots of ups and downs. And I think growth is not necessarily linear, kind of a winding path.
• 34:28
  I think the goal is like having you enjoy the path or dig into the path. A hundred percent. Because there's no destination. Got to enjoy the journey. Yeah, right. And I imagine you're already doing this, but for you guys, I imagine content in general would work really well in terms of, you know, building out your, like if people responded to that letter, so, you know, your blog content and things that, you know,
• 34:54
  like help show people different ways of doing things. And also in the same way that your visual language and like your tone of the visual stuff would also really suit coming through in that written word as well. Is that part of the strategy? Yeah, definitely. We create a lot of content. We've goals to create a lot more. I think today we went from being, it was just me and two interns through the,
• 35:22
  to July and then we've added more folks. But, somehow there's just been straight up limitations on how much we can create. But I think the goal is definitely to create more. One thing that we try to be thoughtful about is not to make content for content's sake, which I don't know if you feel this way, but I encounter it constantly, especially in the e-commerce world. So like there's no need for us to write things, just to write things or for our health or so that like you click blog on our website and it's not empty.
• 35:52
  But we try to think really thoughtfully about what we both want. And I think the nice thing about our channel or that approachability I was talking about is people will just tell us, which I love. And we'll ask really regularly. I don't really know why customer surveys are a one-time or like a once-a-quarter deal. Like, we'll ask us every two weeks. Like, what do you want to see more of or any products that you're feeling or what are you looking for you can't find? And that's what I'm
• 36:17
  constant feedback loop makes it so much easier to create content, right? Because it's so hard to like sit alone in your vacuum and be like, what will thousands of people like like crank it out without any feedback? Well, it feels very difficult and also very unfulfilling from a creation standpoint. So usually we create based off of requests and feedback and like, what are people, what are the frequent questions that people are writing in with? And the same is kind of true from a product standpoint. I mentioned trying to sort of start,
• 36:45
  filling in the gaps in our assortment. If there's something we can find, a sustainable version of something that we think is cleverly, beautifully, and functionally designed, starting to make it ourselves. And the same is sort of, we get that feedback mostly via Instagram DMs or polls from our community who write in, or honestly also our Facebook group, which you talk and say,
• 37:07
  we really want to have this thing or like, Hey, I've never been able to find plastic free shower curtain liner. So specific. Right. But like now we have this amazing list and wealth of knowledge of these hyper-specific needs that many people have and haven't been able, like they can't scratch that itch. They can't be able to find it anywhere. And right now sort of in the, it's wild. I don't know how to make a,
• 37:32
  free shower curtain, right? Like I have no idea. So that's sort of where I'm sitting now. It's like, okay. What's interesting for you is like, it's also kind of genius that you've built the business in this way where you've built, you know, you're curating products, but you're really using this as a place to gather data and to gather insights from the community that you're building before you go and launch your own products versus just launching something and, you know,
• 38:01
  you know, hoping for the best. It's like, you've actually got some really cool insights based on what people are telling you now that you've got a community. And I think, I'm sure you like, didn't have that necessarily like full intention there as in like, that wasn't the kind of goal. You had this mission and you were following the mission, but actually when you think about it, it's just genius. Thank you so much. I, we definitely plan to launch
• 38:27
  products with sort of community feedback down the line. It's happening a little faster than I expected. I think I'm very impatient. I might try and push things along. Maybe it's better if you do. But also, like, I don't know, I think it's kind of the most sustainable approach, right? Because what's the point in creating something that people don't want? And how can you earnestly call something sustainable or, like, eco-friendly, if you will, if you don't actually, there's not actual demand for it. That's just creating stuff and then trying to generate demand
• 38:57
  in the afterlife. I mean, that's the marketing strategy, right? Like that's, people are pouring money into and like that's why paid media flourishes. But I, I sort of like the opposite version of events where, you know, our growth is organic because we're creating something that there's genuine demand for before and we're filling the need in the after. I know that's not a forever strategy and that's very much like a unique positioning for a super small business, but that's where we're at now. And that's sort of my approach is rather than
• 39:25
  making stuff or, you know, adding a bunch of stuff to the site and then retroactively try and force it down our whole throat. Like, how about we wait first and find out what people want or like as we go and kind of, like, continue to plug in those guests. Are there any teasers that you want to kind of drop on these to-be-released products? Or is it all hush-hush? I can definitely openly talk about one we designed
• 39:53
  compost vendor, best sellers, like far and far away. And so we designed one in a new color, very golden, friendly color Instagram stories, it's like mustardy color, which I'm really excited about, kind of seventies. So that one is coming out hopefully in the next, let's say 90 days. COVID has held us up a little bit there. And then we're working on a few more for holiday, which is a crazy tight turnaround, but.
• 40:21
  trying to come up with more thoughtful gift wrap solutions under zero waste and can be used for a variety of sizes of gifts, situations, personality types, and a few sort of giftable kitchen products too that hopefully make quality getting a little easier. So I'm thinking a lot about the holidays consumption and like what's the best way to actually approach them sustainably is. And that's sort of the big thesis ahead. It's like, okay, what does that look like?
• 40:50
  accessible iteration, both for customers, for us, for like just on every level, like how can we make the least amount of things, make them as reusable or light sort of impact as possible and still sort of fulfill that desire to, you know, celebrate with family, like explore tradition, do sort of all these things that maybe felt,
• 41:13
  out of reach last year and particularly, hopefully are in reach this year. I don't know. Those are the wide questions asking yourselves now, along with how do we make a plastic free shower liner?
• 41:25
  things that you need to have a list of like things I never thought I'd be talking about or like doing and like the random stuff that comes from building a business that you're like, yeah, all right, this is pretty weird. But just quickly to circle back to this gift wrapping thing and the bin liners, this is so cool. I'm like so excited for you and like the future and all the things that you're doing. And I, I just know that everything's going to look so bloody cool. And I can't wait for myself. That makes my entire day.
• 41:54
  Yay. Love that for you. Love that for us. What are the things that people don't tell you about business? What are the things that have gone wrong? And what are the shitty pitfalls that you've encountered that might help others by talking about? Oh my God. Okay. So many things. I've just sort of started the fundraising journey. I haven't raised very much, but I have raised enough to sort of grow our team a little bit. And I think one of the things that folks
• 42:22
  don't tell you about raising money. Not that I've even experienced this in the macro sense, but I'm learning as I go, it's just how expensive it is to raise money. I think there's some sort of perception that when you raise, you really like put all of that amount in the bank and you can apply it immediately towards growth, buying inventory, investing in manufacturing or R&D, hiring. And the reality is that that's not the case at all, right?
• 42:51
  expensive to raise money. There's a lot of legal fees. There are, you know, like there's, there's costs to growth that I think is sort of invisible until you get there. And that's one thing that. What kind of fee? Like how much, how much do the legal fees cost? For example. It depends. It really depends on how you structure your fundraise. So like, are you, you know, raising on a safe? Like, are you doing a price round? It super depends. And even just
• 43:20
  to be honest, like the experience of finding a lawyer you like, like if you don't have a network where you're getting a referral for someone that you like, I think that's kind of a tough journey, right? You're going to spend a long time with this person. They can give you a lot of advice about how to structure your business, how to structure like fundraising and your financing, how to put your team. And I feel really lucky that I did find someone who I absolutely love. But I think that like how I got there was a total roll of the dice.
• 43:49
  someone else's lawyer. And I was like, I love this brand. I think that this must be good. Like, I just, I think that's really tricky if you don't have network. I think a lot of this is really tricky if you don't have network. And I think that having network is a huge, huge privilege. But yeah, I would say that I think a lot of these things come cheaper with privilege, which doesn't get talked about either, right? Like,
• 44:13
  being able to get better rates because you know someone or being able to get referrals or even being able to get a gut check. Right. In my case, I was able to like check in, I texted my mom. I was like, Hey, does this sound about right to you for this service? Right. Or like, you know, raising this amount, does this sound right to you? And she was able to say it sounds a little expensive or like, no, that seems about right. I think that's what, you know, market is right now. I wouldn't have known and Google tells you a lot of things, but I think,
• 44:43
  like Quora is full of these sorts of questions, right? People asking each other different questions, but I think sort of the important piece is like getting that feedback from someone you trust and who understands what your business is in a way the internet like doesn't quite facilitate. So I mean, I have no regrets, but I wish even in the early days, like dealing with some of the setup paperwork, I had no sense of how much it was gonna cost. And I went in totally blind
• 45:11
  And I was like shocked after like maybe invoice, right? And just little things like that. And we all have those moments when we're getting started. Can you share what it was? I mean, yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to remember what the exact service was. I just know that I got a legal bill for like over 10K and I was expecting it to be way less. And I was like at a stage where we did not have 10K in like backup funds for emergency legal bills. And it was something I remember feeling like
• 45:41
  I could have or maybe should have done myself. And I had outsourced thinking, you know, if you hear that in entrepreneurial circles, like, if there are things you're not good at, or things that you don't think you'll do a good job at, like, outsource them. You can't do it alone. So I took that advice. And then I was like, man, I kind of wish I had tried to do that on my own. It would have saved me a lot of stress and a lot of
• 46:06
  money. And in the end, of course, it's fine. Like, okay, the invoice made it work over a long period of time. It took me a while to pay the invoice. And that was like a very, very early stage, like just me. I don't even think I had interns yet. But that's a good one. And that doesn't happen to me anymore because I know to ask and I know to get a better sense of like, so what will work? And how many hours do you think this will take? And do you expect X, Y, Z might go wrong? But those are just
• 46:35
  I think you learn those by doing. And I don't know about you, and I'm sure there are listeners who are like this too. I'm not super kind to myself when I make mistakes. So I'm still upset with my mom. I'm not so much so negligible now. But the stakes feel really, really high when it's your business and it's your baby. And I just, I think that people are sort of mum about
• 46:56
  how much privilege helps and how much I think almost all entrepreneurs have to some degree, right? These days, I think it's sort of like the elephant in the room that no one is talking about and we should maybe talk about more. None of the businesses that we interact with or we see, I'm speaking hyperbolically, maybe there are some, but most of them wouldn't exist at the scale or the grandeur or the level of success that they're at where they're not some level of privilege that the founders or the exec team has behind the scenes.
• 47:26
  whether that's institutional wealth, institutional knowledge, and I'm, I'm at like as privileged and I was guilty of it too. I just sort of, it doesn't, nobody talks about it. So it feels like secret. Usually I'm looking around and you're like, how did people do this? Or how, how am I going to pull this off with this much money? Or just, just trying to like figure it out. And the
• 47:49
  nobody's super open about shortcuts or, you know, access. And not that we all have to fill our key because nobody owes anybody anything. But I do think that on some level, you realize kind of once you walk through the door and you start like, you know, spending money and trying to make money and feeling, you know, very, very tied to your business's success and wanting to be successful. I think then you sort of start to see all of the different layers and you're looking around like, hmm.
• 48:17
  How does anyone feasibly navigate this? Right. And the answer is, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to figure it out. Hence the show. Right. We all are. We all are. What is your key piece of advice for entrepreneurs who have a big idea? Oh, wow. At what stage? Yeah.
• 48:45
  Like, is there a pre-launch, just idea stage, like dreaming your dream? I reckon like, you know, it started. You've started. Yep. You've taken the leap. I would say, this is hard because I still feel very much there myself, but based on my own experience, if you're a solo founder, and I am, and I think that's actually been much harder than I anticipated, finding like a safe space.
• 49:14
  place to have conversations or events or even like receive feedback or encouragement, whether that's like an executive coach or I guess even like a therapist, a confidence coach, like a family member who really roots for you. I think there's some people who have that kind of relationship with someone in their life or in their immediate family where they feel like really supported and they can tell them everything. And yeah.
• 49:41
  It's just like it's a very unique set of challenges. It's a very long road and it's also a marathon and not a sprint. So it feels like a sprint that is the length of a marathon. And I think that particularly in the isolation of the pandemic, like I was in California, I was living with my parents in the mountains the whole time. And I just moved back to New York partially because I love New York and partially because I have the best sort of network and community of friends here, right?
• 50:11
  like solo, obviously not saying solo in grand sense, I'm lucky enough to work with some amazing people on my team, but the founding piece is solo. I wanted to have a really solid foundation of people who, you know, I could call at the end of the day and be like, Hey, let's get a martini wake up in the morning, be like, Hey, you want to walk a few miles before we start the workday. And
• 50:35
  It's only been a few weeks, that's already making a huge difference, but I still am, you know, on the lookout for like, okay, what is a great executive coaching relationship look like for me? Right. In order to be successful, like I have to be well and be more secure and confident and engaged and invested and present. And I think that's actually pretty hard to like both be your own sort of mental health, wellness, gatekeeper, person, like coach, and also.
• 51:02
  everyone else's and also, you know, know what you know and like hold all of the responsibility and the keys, especially when you're responsible for other people's livelihoods. It's one thing when it's you, when it's other people, it really does hit different. So I think having a coach or a safe place is huge. I don't know. That's my take. It could be less huge for certain people. I think having a co-founder, like when y'all can lean on each other and,
• 51:28
  you know, if someone's having a rough day, the other person can be like, Hey, I got it. Like, I'm going to, I'll take a lead. And if you can take turns doing that, but I'm sure there's also folks out there who are working with co-founders and they're maybe realizing like, maybe it's not a perfect fit. I know that it's not all, I'm like doing a little bit of the grass is greener. Grass is greener. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I know there are people who have come through co-founder divorces and that's also rough. So maybe even in that case, you have a place that's not your co-founder where you can like offload some of,
• 51:55
  The tension would be really honest about what's on your mind or what you're facing without fear of judgment or, you know, like the nervousness of what that might do to the other person or their perception of you. But I think that we all might need, I think everyone needs therapists, but I think we might also all need business therapists.
• 52:12
  I mean, that's so funny that you say the business therapist thing, because so we have the Hype Club, which, by the way, is pretty much the safe space that you speak of. So everyone that's in the same gym needs to be part of Hype Club. The women in the group are so amazing. Everyone's really open and vulnerable. And like, it's really cool. But we've been talking about this. I want to have this hotline for business therapy where like if you just need like a bit of a
• 52:37
  a nudge in the right direction. Like, and you can just text and be like, get some support that's private from someone who's like credible. And like, I don't know who's going to be on the other end of that line because like, it's not going to be me. I need to be a texter, but like, it wants to be part, I want it to be part of the female startup club offering because I think it's so needed. And it's funny. We were literally just saying like, it should be called 1-800-BIS-THERAPY. So watch this space. Like that's going to be coming for sure.