Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 Quick Questions with Reshma Chatteram Chamberlin, Founder of Summersalt. (part 2)

Transcript

6 Quick Questions with Reshma Chatteram Chamberlin, Founder of Summersalt. (part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. Question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing every day?
• 0:18
  Well, the why is because we can create a future of our dreams, right? When you think about things that you want and you want to create and you want to give your family and you want to contribute to the world, we're really, truly changing women's lives, one swimsuit and one garment at a time. The amazing emails we get is incredibly rewarding. And when you can do that while building an incredibly large business, that's just the fun stuff. So we do it for our customer and then, of course, for our family. Love it.
• 0:48
  Question number two is what has been your favorite marketing moment so far?
• 0:54
  Oh, we launched our Everybody's a Summer Soft Body campaign, and we launched that every summer. And that is definitely the amount of emails we get from customers and their kids and people who have never seen themselves in marketing or seeing themselves reflected. Again, there's so much more inclusion that we can do, but we do an amazing job. And every time we launch that campaign, it just makes us so happy.
• 1:20
  fills your cup. Yes. Sounds so cool. Must be fun to work on it as well. It is. Question number three is what's your go-to business resource if you had to kind of go for a podcast, a book, or a newsletter? I'm going to be very honest. I've literally not had time to spend time in books, podcasts, or anything. I do find a lot of great inspiration on Instagram and TikTok that might
• 1:50
  But it's really important for me to keep up with my industry, what's happening in the social space. And so I do spend quite a bit of time on social media. And then, of course, I think we have amazing people around us who, you know, when I need a dose of inspiration, my co-founder is an amazing source of inspiration for me. And I bother her all the time. So she's my book and podcast all in one. Shout out to Lori. I love that.
• 2:16
  Question number four is how do you win the day when it comes to your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
• 2:27
  Of course, you know, working from home has changed the dynamic for everyone. And so I actually quite enjoy it and go to the office. Our teams go one day a week. Gloria and I go two days a week and try to overlap one day in the office. And it's working really loud. It's a really fun schedule because we get to see everyone, but everyone gets downtime and continues to have kind of some of the flexibility we've all gained from working at home.
• 2:50
  But my AM and PM rituals, AM is making sure I spend time with my dogs and my husband, eat a nice breakfast. They're just definitely the light of our lives. These crazy dogs that we have and you haven't heard them bark once. So thank you to them for that.
• 3:06
  Shout out to the dogs. I know, definitely. Mara and Cody are their names. And then PM, it's all about kind of unwinding. I do like to kind of step away from my computer, have dinner with my family. But then I do like to spend time in my inbox late at night. And some people, you know, don't like to use their phones before they go to bed. I'm not one of those. I use my phone. It's fine. And I sleep just fine. Yeah.
• 3:31
  You know, so I like to spend some time making sure I'm prepared for the next day. And that means tapping emails and other things. The schedule tool in Gmail is your best friend. So again, I'm not bombarding everyone's inbox at 11pm. And I'm able to kind of have that peace and quiet to get through things that are critical to me.
• 3:51
  Gosh, I'm on this journey of like trying to not use my phone at nighttime and in the mornings, but also using my phone at nighttime in the morning. And I have this constant battle of anxiety because I'm like, I want to be on it, but then I don't want to be on it. It's a tough one. I've heard both sides of the coin. And I think society makes you think that you have to be one way to like achieve like work life balance and all of this. I honestly, I'm not, there's no such thing as work life balance if you're an entrepreneur.
• 4:19
  And maybe that's, you know, not a popular thing to say, but it is about finding an equilibrium that makes sense for you, as opposed to balance. There's no such thing as balance. Our lives are incredibly overflowing in every aspect, but that's the most joyous part of it all. Like, there's just so much.
• 4:39
  And it's just a matter of prioritizing things. Someone once told me that you have to figure out when you're juggling which balls are plastic and which balls are glass and they interchange. So in a particular given week, you know, there might be a family thing that is the glass ball and you have to prioritize that.
• 4:57
  And that's okay. And other times, family is the plastic ball and it can drop and you can pick it right up, right? And it might not be just general buckets. It might be specific things. But I think it's a myth to believe that we can have this clear divide. I think the joy comes in being able to integrate it in a way that works for you. And it works differently for everyone. So if you want to use your phone before you go to bed, use your phone before you go to bed.
• 5:26
  You are full of good analogies today. I really like that one. That's another good one. Question number five is what's the worst money you've ever spent in the business and how much was it?
• 5:37
  Oh my gosh, I don't think there's ever a worst money because everything comes with good learnings and experience. And we believe in thoughtful and tactical tests. So I would never lump anything into worst, but could have tests not worked the way we wanted to? Absolutely. But the goal was to test and learn. So you want to do it in a calculated, thoughtful, effective way where you understand what kind of that return on investment potential could be,
• 6:07
  And so I think when you think about kind of outlaying cash in any aspect of your business or spending, think about kind of how you can give it the tools to succeed. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And you won't know till you try. So understanding what your parameters are to make those informed trials and thoughtful executions is important.
• 6:31
  Yeah, I love that. That's a great way to think about that. Good one. A-B testing, testing in general before you dive right in. Exactly. And question number six, last question. What's just a crazy story that you can share from your journey in building this business, good, bad or otherwise?
• 6:50
  I just think bumping into Lori, you know, I mentioned our founding story, and it's just absolutely kind of chaotic to think that we would both be in New York at the same night when we live in St. Louis. If anyone knows me, the idea of going to an event is absolute total torture. Like,
• 7:10
  I was at an event that I wasn't invited to and someone was late. So I think the craziest, you know, kind of turn of events is city we don't live in, event I was not invited to, person was late. If that person had been there, Lori and I wouldn't have had the time we needed alone to talk through it. Lori could have been late too. There's so many things that happen to make that moment happen.
• 7:35
  real. So I would say that's one of the craziest, craziest kind of weird, serendipitous things. And here we are five years later. That is just amazing. Life is so weird sometimes. So weird. That's cool. That absolutely is. It just, you know, sometimes you have to get yourself out of your pajamas and go to that event you don't want to. There's maybe some potential there. Say yes when you really want to say no.
• 8:04
  Yeah. Reshma, this was so cool. Thank you so much for coming on the Female Startup Club podcast and sharing your journey so far with Somersault. I'm so excited to see what's next. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me and hope everyone has a wonderful, joyful summer.
• 8:24
  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.
• 8:48
  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.
• 9:11
  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.
• 9:28
  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.
• 9:53
  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.
• 10:15
  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.