Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / From VC Investor to Raising More Than $60 Million for Her Company, Ritual Founder Katerina Schneider Shares her Powerful Insights (Part 1)

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From VC Investor to Raising More Than $60 Million for Her Company, Ritual Founder Katerina Schneider Shares her Powerful Insights (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Katerina Schneider for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. If you've just found us, welcome, welcome, welcome. Every week, we're learning from some of the world's most brilliant minds in business, like the founder of Ritual, a leading personal health company in the US founded by Kat Schneider.
• 0:32
  Since launching her supplements business, Kat has gone from working in the VC world to building a business that brings a new level of transparency to the health and wellness industry. While pregnant and in search of a prenatal she could trust, Kat took matters into her own hands and pioneered a new standard of high-quality multivitamins and supplements that are backed by science and made traceable. Now it's one of the most trusted brands in the category and has more than a million customers.
• 0:58
  Love this episode. So many insights. But before we jump in, just a quick reminder on the Girl Code. You know we love it. I love it. I'm grateful. Thank you so much. But also a side note, I'm doing a call out for our loyal listeners to be involved in a new content series where you DM us a voice note or a question about anything across business, life, relationships to feature on the show.
• 1:24
  You can send it to me personally on Instagram or through Female Startup Club's Instagram. I'm so excited about this one. If you have any questions, just ask them before you send your voice note. And I can't wait to hear you on the show. Let's get into today's episode. This is Kat for Female Startup Club.
• 1:43
  Kat, hi. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thanks for having me. Excited to chat. Me too. Your office looks so fun. I feel like we're very kind of on brand for our businesses right now. Yeah, yellow and pink is a weirdly nice combination that I didn't expect. Yeah, I love it. It reminds me of like tropical holiday vibes. Nice. I could use some of those right now. How was your day? Have you got any highlights that you can share? Yeah.
• 2:11
  Yeah, I took my kids swimming, which was always fun. I just kind of like plopped them in a pool and then just sat back and watched the chaos. Tied them out. Yeah, they were so, so exhausted. And then we went to the park and I just love days when I can just spend time with them and just focus on them completely.
• 2:35
  How does it work now? You know, you're many years into building your business. You have a family. Like, what's your kind of schedule like now that you do have, you know, kids that you want to spend a lot of time with? Yeah, so I have three kids, the ages of three, five and seven. And then I started Ritual when I was pregnant with the older one. So I've kind of just integrated...
• 2:58
  life and business together. And they're at the ages now where they're in school most of the day. And so I'm just completely present with them when they're out of school, which is in the mornings and in the evenings we have dinner together. I love to cook and put them down and then I'm back online. But it's, I love it. I love just being completely present.
• 3:22
  present and almost using time with them as a moment to recharge. Whereas I think before I had kids, I'd go out for a drink or kind of do odds and ends. And I wasn't even as like focused business-wise. Now I'm like, okay, 30 minute meeting, let's go. Like give me the details. And I think it just makes you a lot more focused. And also for me, just, it gives me like a sense of purpose and I'm so grateful for that.
• 3:51
  Yeah, I love that. And I've had people kind of talk about that on the show before. Like once you have kids, you're really forced to focus and prioritize. And a lot of the time you become a better business owner and a better business leader because you're able to really kind of get into that deep zone, like zone of genius versus just procrastinating and being like, well, I have unlimited time. Like it's all good. I'll do it. I'll do it later.
• 4:18
  I think other people appreciate it too because it's like the meetings are shorter, they're more intense, there's action items, you know, for instance, kind of lingering. And obviously I think the other, the other thing that's, you know, I've gone through pregnancy three times and postpartum throughout having a business and just learning about that period of,
• 4:39
  time and health for people has changed our parental leave policies at Ritual. We now have five months of paid leave for everyone and then eight weeks of transitionary time for the birthing person. And it's just, I don't know, it's opened my eyes to everything that companies should be doing to support their parents and working parents, especially. Wow. What's the standard parental leave in the U.S.?
• 5:07
  It's a touchy subject because we had a whole campaign at Ritual where we were working on paid leave and increasing that for the U.S. But it's like completely abysmal. And it's really up to companies to come up with their own standards for people coming back. And, you know, the first I can barely walk after like four weeks of delivering. And yet we have people in the U.S. that are coming back to work after a couple of weeks.
• 5:36
  And, you know, imagine just like not being able to get out of bed and you're in a job where you're standing nine to five. It's abysmal and we need to do something about it. And it's something that I'm really passionate about for rituals. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, that's amazing that you're able to do that with your company and spread that kind of message and hopefully influence other companies. Yeah. What is it for you guys? Do you know?
• 6:03
  You know what? I don't know in Australia. I haven't lived here for eight years, so I actually don't know. But I think it's pretty good. A friend of mine, her and her husband work at the same law firm and they both got six months paid leave at the same time. So they were able to really enjoy. But that's only one example. I really don't know what the standard is, but I think it's pretty good in Australia. But, yeah, I'll have to look into that. I'm not sure.
• 6:29
  I want to go back to kind of the beginning of Ritual, even before you launch, to understand where your story starts, why you are getting interested in this business and your entrepreneurial journey. So I like to say that my entrepreneurial journey started when I was very little. My dad was an entrepreneur. We were refugees and we came to the U.S. with a suitcase and $50 and lived in a welfare hotel in Brooklyn.
• 6:58
  My dad eventually became an entrepreneur. My mom worked on Wall Street, and I was just so inspired by his entrepreneurial journey. And I saw it at our dinner table, and I always knew that I wanted to start something, but I never knew what it would be. I had a lot of ideas throughout the years, you know, as a kid when you're like,
• 7:16
  making up businesses or business ideas like what um and then i'll i don't even remember what they're like everything like i even took i remember i even took fashion classes and i started knitting these bamboo i was way ahead of my time where i was knitting kind of sustainable clothing dresses my mom still wears one of them oh my god i love that
• 7:36
  Yeah. So I've got my career has taken a lot of different turns, I would say. And I ended up in finance, worked at Lehman Brothers, was part of the largest bank failure in history, and eventually worked my way into startups.
• 7:53
  kind of just experienced so many different types of jobs. And I was running a venture capital fund here in LA for Troy Carter, who was Lady Gaga's manager at the time. And he'd invested in over 70 companies, everything from Uber, Dropbox, Barley Parker, Spotify,
• 8:09
  And I've been so inspired by him. I was also inspired by my husband, who is also a serial entrepreneur, was pregnant. And I was kind of the stable breadwinner at the time and couldn't stop thinking about vitamins and prenatal vitamins and
• 8:26
  As someone who hadn't really taken vitamins regularly before, and I grew up in this kind of alternative household where we were very focused on wellness growing up, everything from Ayurveda to pressed juice to just cleansing and all these different things. Yeah.
• 8:46
  Never did we take vitamins. And then all of a sudden I was four months pregnant with my first daughter and I couldn't find a prenatal vitamin that I trusted from heavy metals to artificial colorants to products without key nutrients that we needed, like choline. I knew that we deserved better and that's how Ritual was born. And
• 9:09
  It was born out of a personal need that I couldn't stop thinking about. And I knew that I was the right person to solve it. Oh, my gosh, how exciting. I love when you have that kind of light bulb moment where you're like, yes, this is it. This is what I'm going to dedicate my time and my energy and my brain power to. Were you thinking kind of like...
• 9:31
  all in, all at once, quit your job with Troy and build this business? Or were you thinking side hustle, get started, kind of easy steps? What was the, can you paint the picture of what your life was looking like at that time?
• 9:45
  That's a great question because I talk to a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs and I mentor a lot of women. And I feel like everyone thinks it should be a side hustle. And I knew that I wanted to do something big and this was not going to be a side hustle. I needed to raise venture capital funding. And I would say at the time I started working on a deck. I started talking to people in the industry. And then I had a conversation with Troy and he was like, I'm going to invest.
• 10:14
  I left Adam Factory at the time, but I had already more or less, when I quit my job, I'd already secured some funding through that time. But it was also because Troy was really supportive of me. But I would say it was not a side hustle. I knew that because I wanted to change this industry that was so rooted in science, because I wanted to invest in things like clinical studies, third-party certifications, and...
• 10:44
  higher quality ingredients and things that required so much capital, this wasn't going to be something I was just, you know, doing on the side, especially when it impacted women that were pregnant. Got it. Right. I want to kind of stick on this VC kind of area just for a moment before we get into kind of launching ritual and talking about the marketing, because I think that
• 11:04
  It's something that we know the stats aren't really changing and there are lots of systemic issues in the VC world, especially when it comes to women and raising. And obviously you're in a position where you really knew both sides of the coin and you're able to play that to your advantage and you also had network and connections and things like that. But at that time, kind of seven years ago, right, when you were, or maybe even a little bit longer when you were getting ready...
• 11:29
  eight years ago, what was the landscape like in the US for women raising venture capital, specifically in CPG? Because I guess from my point of view in Australia, and Australia, it's a lot further behind the US in terms of maturity. I think our first VC and the main VC firm that is in Australia started in 2012. So it's only 10 years, right? And
• 11:49
  There's such a big disconnect between what VCs are actually investing in versus what women are actually building. So for us in Australia, it's the same everywhere, right? But it's B2B SaaS, it's deep tech, it's that kind of space for the most part. And then there's just such a disconnect. And I'm wondering what you were seeing at that time when you were working in VC and what you were experiencing circa eight years ago.
• 12:17
  It sounds very familiar to how it was when I quit my job and I started fundraising for Ritual. You would think because I was an investor that I would have a really easy time. And if anything, it was incredibly eye-opening. I didn't have anybody to look to as a female entrepreneur who was pregnant, who was trying to have a family and a career.
• 12:48
  you know, $50 million and built a successful nine figure business and had kids. And I want to learn from them. And there were very few people that I, that I found. And it's because the infrastructure was just wasn't there for, for myself or for us in general, there weren't very many women investing in women. Yeah.
• 13:10
  At the time on the venture capital side, now I'm seeing a lot more. I'm seeing less of that on the growth equity side. So when you want to actually scale and get even bigger, but I think the venture capital side has increased. I think that for me, the infrastructure for things like breastfeeding and pumping and doing all those things, when you even go to conferences didn't exist. So we were finalists at one of the largest tech conferences in the US, TechCrunch Disrupt. I was on stage like,
• 13:40
  basically like leaking and too much information. And I knew it was a pump and, and they were like, we, we don't know where to put you. So we have, you can sit on the top of an escalator that's broken or later on I complained, you know, and they put me in a closet with a bunch of wheelchairs, which is very interesting.
• 14:01
  So it was just, it was kind of a rough time. And I actually went to investors that I knew. I went to one of, um, a very well-known investor in LA and, and I said, Hey, I want to, I want to start a company and I'm four months pregnant. And I was super fired up. And he said, you know, you can either start a business or a family, but you can't do both. And it was really representative. I think of,
• 14:24
  of the culture at the time, which to me has changed a lot. I think in the U.S., especially where we have women like the CEO of Stitch Fix, who IPO'd her company, you know, has been on the cover previously.
• 14:42
  of leading magazines pregnant. And I think that now we have all these examples of women that are building not just small, you know, small businesses, but really significant businesses that the world is paying attention to that we can all learn from. And that's become part of my kind of driving force is also to show other, other women that they can do both if that's what they want. Yeah, absolutely. What I find interesting is like,
• 15:10
  It feels like the times are changing. It feels like, you know, we see a headline every other day about a woman in CPG specifically raising capital, a pregnant mom, you know, doing these things. But then when you look at the stats, it feels like it isn't changing. And I'm like, what, like, I don't know what the answer is, but like, what do you think needs, when do you think it will change? Like, what do you think that means?
• 15:36
  I saw a stat that said about a year ago that close to 50% of businesses, small businesses, were started by women. But then you see the stats of less than 1% of venture capital funding goes to women. So it's not like we don't have great ideas or we're not starting businesses, but the funding, the funding to scale a business to a larger scale is not happening. And I think that's a huge problem because...
• 16:03
  The businesses we want to start happen many times from a personal need, whether it's women's health or other areas that there's a massive need for change there. And so we're underfunding these incredibly important businesses in the world.
• 16:22
  And so it's not that we're not just funding women. We're not funding opportunities to change lives, to change our culture, to change and change the world. So that makes me really, you know, I think it is changing, though, I would say. It makes me really disappointed. But I would say that from where I was eight years ago and to where I am today and even being in rooms with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
• 16:47
  I've seen the change happen and I've experienced it too. And three quarters of our three out of four people on our board are women. So our boardroom is mostly women. And that's a good sign, right? And they're powerful women. They're women that also are investing in other women. Yeah.
• 17:06
  And they're making a mark in their investing businesses that we need. And I would say it's not just even women, it's minorities as well. Totally. And I guess like when we think about, you know, the cycle of a fund, it is kind of a long time. It's, you know, probably 10 years for that fund to come around. And so it works cyclically. It's taking a long time. And then...
• 17:27
  kind of the women that are getting into investing now from the ground up, whether they're associates or analysts, and in 10 years' time, they'll be a partner. It's not really overnight change. It's long, meaningful change. So I guess...
• 17:41
  you know, it's part of it, that it is changing and you've already seen it change and it will continue to trend in the right direction, even though it feels kind of slow and sort of micro change. What do you think is important advice for anyone listening who is wanting to kind of go down the pathway and raise venture capital for a big idea that they have in an area that needs and requires a large amount of funding to scale or to even get started? Yeah.
• 18:09
  That's a great question. I think the first thing that people should ask themselves when they're trying to raise money or thinking about raising money is, do I need it?
• 18:21
  Because when you take in money, it is a commitment that you make with your investor that you're going to, like you said, return their fund, right? Not your individual business, but part of your business. And so there are higher stakes because...
• 18:39
  And maybe they want to see 10x on their investment or whatever it is. And I think you have to also believe that your business is going to get there. If you're just trying to create a lifestyle business, then an investment is probably not the right thing for you. But if you're trying to create a unicorn or something that is going to be tremendous in size and scale and value, then it probably makes sense. And I think one other thing is,
• 19:10
  Like for us, I knew right away that I needed to raise money because I wanted to invest in the right things that the industry was not investing in. So a lot of things are not required by the supplement industry, whether it's clinical studies or third-party certifications or testing or even patents and innovation around the delivery technologies. And I wanted to start from the ground up.
• 19:34
  And to do that required a lot of investment up front. And if we hadn't raised money, I could have gone to a manufacturer and say spit out this product, which is what a lot of companies do in the category. The category has exploded from 4,000 to 90,000 supplements in 30 years. And so it's pretty fairly easy to create products in the category, but to do it the right way and to create
• 20:02
  create something from the ground up, it requires a lot of investment. And I knew that that investment would pay off. I also knew that I wanted to create a household name, an iconic brand, and go beyond just prenatal vitamins. And even though we have one of the leading prenatal vitamins in the US, it's just a part of our business. And what we're doing is really setting a new standard in the supplement industry. And so I think going back to your question,
• 20:32
  scale when you're taking that money on because it is a lot of pressure. And one thing that's really interesting for me is, you know, we've raised over $50 million in funding and every time we've announced our funding and anyone announces your, any funding, it feels like a very celebratory moment.
• 20:51
  which is really weird because glorified it. Yeah, it's glorified, but it's actually just, again, another commitment with an investor that you're saying, Hey, I want to take this business to the scale. Do you agree or not? And you haven't earned it yet. And I think that, you know, the first thing that I get is like, do you want to buy a jet or a plane or all these things in my inbox from, from the fundraising? I'm like, no, no, no. I,
• 21:18
  I don't, I haven't taken any of this money. I'm putting it into the business so that we can scale it. I think it's wrongfully glorified. And I kind of deny the congratulations because it's not a congratulations. And I think a lot of people kind of don't realize that who aren't deeply invested in this world. I think the other, sorry, one other thing that I think is really important, you know, I've been on kind of both sides of the investment and the
• 21:45
  investor side of things. And what's another thing that people don't realize is that you should, you know, it's kind of like a date when you're meeting an investor, you should also be seeing if you like them. I think a lot of people take money from funds that are glorified as well.
• 22:04
  but they're not really focused on the partner that's going to be with them for possibly the duration, you know, forever, for the whole duration as long as they're in the company. And it's really important that you feel that chemistry with the partner that's going to be on your board, that's going to be with you through the ups and downs, more so than the name of the fund that you take money from. Have you turned down investment before because of that?
• 22:34
  Yeah, I have.
• 22:37
  We, you know, I think we've had some competitive rounds at Ritzvall. And for me, it's people first. We're a people first culture. And it's always been that way also on the investment side. And I am so close with our investors, which is a weird thing to say. We have Lisa Wu from Norwest who's on our board, who I talk to regularly and religiously almost. She's become such a big part of my life. And I can't imagine...
• 23:07
  you know, this company being where it is today without her and that fund, because not everything has been so linear in especially the last couple of years where we've all experienced, you know, global pandemic to another bank failure with SBB to all these things, you know, the world shutting down to capital shutting down and so on and so forth. And I think,
• 23:33
  You know, knowing that somebody has strong conviction in the brand is just, can't ask for anything more. Yeah, that true support and cheerleader that also has a lot of knowledge and insights that can help you get to where you want to go. So important.
• 23:53
  I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about the launch, getting ready to kind of bring this to market. You know, how do you create a supplement? Where does this start in terms of finding your raw ingredients, understanding how to formulate a supplement and then bringing it into the world?
• 24:14
  Yeah, so I knew nothing about the supplement industry when I started. And I would say my greatest strength is just kind of being an investigative journalist almost or highly skeptical journalist, I would say, and just digging through information, whether it's PubMed or even just people. And so I spent I spent.
• 24:36
  like hours, like hundreds of hours on LinkedIn and finding people in the category, reaching out to them, meeting up with them. I met up with a guy that I messaged on LinkedIn in a strip mall in New Jersey. I flew across the country because he was an expert in the industry. And I assembled a team of people that were experts.
• 24:57
  And, you know, as a mom and a healthy skeptic, I was, I would say more of an expert in terms of marketing or connecting with our consumer. But I assembled a team of scientists that were experts. And that was stage one for me because I knew we wanted to lead with science.
• 25:16
  And that's where the investment came in because they're very expensive. So hiring scientists was my first priority. And as someone who didn't come from the industry, again, it was just meeting people that knew so much and had been in the industry for decades. And our first scientist had been in the industry for several decades as leading scientist and had formulated some of the leading products in the U.S. And I asked him, I'm like, where are the skeletons buried? Where, you know...
• 25:45
  I want to learn everything that has been done wrong before. Or what is it that you've always wanted to do that hasn't been done after 30 years of working in this field? And ingredients were the first thing that he brought up. There were so many ingredients that he wanted to use that other companies, very large companies, had not used because they were expensive.
• 26:08
  even though they might have been higher quality or more bioavailable or, you know, had political studies behind them, it was too expensive. And it always comes down to that. And so that was our first order of business when formulating a multivitamin for women 18 plus. We scoured the world for the best ingredients. So omega-3s from microalgae from Nova Scotia, D3 from wild harvested lichen in the UK, methylated folate from Italy and Cine.
• 26:36
  K2 from Norway. And so I go on and go, you know, and we became close with all of the suppliers behind that. And that was groundbreaking. Like no one had ever seen a traceable multivitamin before. And we put all those ingredients on our site so people can see where they came from and why.
• 26:54
  And then we were ready to choose the manufacturer. And I wanted to work with the leading manufacturer who had pharmaceutical experience because it wasn't just about ingredients, but how they were delivered in the body. And they said, no, they didn't want to work with us because they'd never heard of us. They'd never heard of us. And what's interesting is, you know, as I said, the supplement industry has exploded. It's gone crazy.
• 27:19
  bananas from 4,000 to 90,000 supplements in 30 years. And so everyone wants to create a supplement, but you have some of the best manufacturers who just want to work with people at scale. And so we hadn't had any scale yet. And so convincing them to work with us was something that I was really focused on. And so...
• 27:36
  emailed message everyone from the CEO down and that's definitely my strategy usually is how do you get the right people yeah and then convince them I think they still joke about it because I was like almost ready to give birth what do you think got them over the line
• 27:54
  meeting with them in person, they actually had a relationship with our previous scientists. So it came down to relationships and trust. And those are the two things that always gets people over the line. And I think the other funny story for Ritual, for me, for getting, besides just the products and by the way we invested in human clinical, we did so many things, but the other story was gettingritual.com. Oh my God. Tell us the story.
• 28:20
  I knew that I wanted the brand to be called ritual. So it started as natals evolved to ritual because ritual is how you turn a routine to a habit, to a ritual with a ritual being the ultimate. And I wanted to change the way that people interacted with the products they use every single day and actually like look forward to taking their vitamins because everyone forgets. And it's, it was just not fun before us. So yeah,
• 28:46
  I want a ritual.com and I want something. I need to get it. I'm going to get it. Do everything to get it. I think that's another sign of entrepreneurship. Yeah, the perseverance. Was it domain parked or did someone actively have it and use it? Someone had it and they had an entertainment company around it.
• 29:05
  And it was tough. And I actually got to know the person. And I ended up spending a lot of time with them and actually understood that they wanted a different domain at jolt.com. And so I got them started.
• 29:21
  a shorter domain eventually because I got to know the person that owned that domain and then conducted a transfer. And so it was just so wild because it felt like it could never be accomplished. And, and why it was so important was trust. Trust.
• 29:40
  this category, there's still so much mistrust, especially just given the lack of tight regulations. There are regulations. It is a regulated industry, but there could be more oversight. And I think it's led to a lot of consumer mistrust. And to earn that trust, it was really important for me and for us to do things the right way. And I didn't want my ritual
• 30:08
  get your virtual.com I wanted virtual.com and I and I want this to be a brand that expands to so many different things and stands for so much and I needed to get it and I got it and I got virtual on Instagram and Twitter and all the things I mean it's such a great UL and it was a battle but I believe that that's the right thing to do to build a long-lasting brand how much did the domain cost you in the end
• 30:33
  Almost nothing. Almost nothing. Yeah. Cause of the transfer. Oh my God. Did you have to buy the other one or just because you had gotten what they wanted? Did they pay for the other one? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, it was probably like, can't disclose exactly, but it was, yes, almost nothing.
• 30:52
  Wow, that is so, that is such a cool story. And I love, again, that it goes back to trust, connection, relationships, because everything in business is just relationships. It's relationships with your suppliers, with your investors, with your customers, with your influencers, everyone that's involved. It's just a relationship. I love that. That's such a great reminder to everyone listening how important that is.
• 31:18
  I want to talk about the launch and kind of that first go-to-market strategy. How are you getting the word out there? What did you do to get your first, you know, thousand customers if we have to kind of break it down?
• 31:32
  How did we get our first thousand customers? My gosh, that was so long ago. I don't remember exactly. I think a lot of it was word of mouth. There was a lot of hype for us launching, especially we got a lot of PR from TechCrunch and that was an unusual place to launch a supplement. I would say, because it's the technology, we became a technology company, by the way. We invested in our own software, but it was kind of contrarian in a way.
• 31:59
  because we did things a little differently and we got a lot of PR. So that definitely helped. There was a wait list and people signed up. Initially, we definitely built our brand on Instagram and that was just so key for our success because, because,
• 32:15
  it was kind of untapped at the time in some ways for, especially for D to C. And so many of us built our brands off of that opportunity, which it no longer is, I would say as much where you have to diversify your, your media mix. But we like went hard on Instagram in the beginning and,
• 32:36
  You know, it was, we got headlines like the world's most Instagrammable vitamin, which I, you know, I hate it because I'm like, we actually stand for science and we're not a, you know, pretty thing. But it helped us a lot because it created trend and buzz.
• 32:53
  And since then, like, what do you think have been kind of the giant leaps forward? Like, we love to understand, like, what are those pivotal moments in a company that, yes, you've got your Instagram strategy, you're getting lots of press. I'm sure you're doing, you know, influences and all that kind of stuff. But what are the actual moments that, like, propelled the business forward kind of over the last seven years? Yeah.
• 33:17
  The moments that have propelled the business forward are really unsexy. I would say it's actually just launching great products that people trust and believe in. And being really thoughtful about which products to launch when. And I remember...
• 33:36
  meeting with an advisor who drew a picture of a house and said, the way that you build the house is actually how you launch the product, the foundation. And he advised us to really launch with one single product and just go hard on that and what we stand for through that product, which was our multivitamin for women 18 plus. And,
• 33:59
  And even though I was pregnant and, you know, the business came out of a need for prenatal, I was dying to launch a prenatal, but I waited because I wanted to earn trust with that consumer. And so after we launched the multivitamin, we waited, I believe, two years. And then we launched the prenatal. Our customers were asked, like, why don't you have a prenatal? I'm having a baby, please. Please.
• 34:18
  put out a prenatal, we need your prenatal because they believed in us. And we were, we, we stood by traceability, traceable science and traceable sourcing. People knew where their ingredients were coming from for the first time and why. And it was almost the sequencing of the products told a really, really,
• 34:36
  eloquent story of what we stand for and where we're going. And I, I think that is just so important for, for companies because every product launch tells this connective story to, to the customer and to the world, even if you're, if you're not buying that product from somebody.
• 34:54
  Yeah, and it feels like in your, or it sounds like in your journey specifically, you really built that demand. You built the trust first. Then there's that core demand where you're like, yes, okay, now my original vision is happening, but I already have all these thousands of people ready and waiting and super excited to buy versus maybe not necessarily that crazy demand from the get-go.
• 35:19
  Yeah, we've been so lucky to build a subscription business first. So we had hundreds of thousands of people that were subscribing to our products. And I feel so fortunate because they want other products from us. And so every launch, we are in Target and Whole Foods now, but we're not just selling them.
• 35:37
  retail, we're actually selling to this really engaged base of subscribers that trust us with their foundational health. And it actually, we just more recently launched our gut health product. And it was our biggest launch to date because it was our number one requested product from that base of hundreds of thousands of people. And
• 35:55
  So the sequencing, the subscription, the engagement, the community, all those things, I think, have been kind of slow and steady moments for the brand without being like some, we haven't been an overnight success story, I would say. And I do think that that actually is more beneficial than not.
• 36:14
  what's the saying? Takes 10 years to reach overnight success. Yeah, exactly. Or eight in our case. Yeah, and the last year has been monumental for us. We were an online-only business and we launched in Target and Whole Foods. We're now, you know, we have top-selling products there. I can't say the exact stuff even though we're number one.
• 36:40
  I'm sorry. Like, I can't say it, but we are. We're leading prenatal now in so many channels. And having launched in...
• 36:51
  in retail and taking our time to launch in retail has, has been huge because we also had built this trust and now we're meeting our consumers where they are outside of.com. If you were launching a business tomorrow, whether it be supplement or something else, what do you think you would do differently?
• 37:12
  given today's world, today's landscape, and what you know after nearly a decade building this business? Oh, yeah. I think today is so interesting. It's so different from when we launched. We launched, obviously, Instagram was so key. And now we have incredibly diverse different marketing channels, whether podcasts are a really big channel for us, whether Influence or TikTok.
• 37:34
  Instagram, it's such a mesh of different things. And I think in previous worlds, it was, you kind of just go hard on one thing and then you diversify. And today's world is really interesting. I think TikTok has kind of taken over. And if I were starting something today...
• 37:52
  I think, you know, especially a digital brand, you can't build a digital brand without TikTok. And I think AI is fascinating. I don't think it's going to replace humans, but I do think it's going to make our work a lot more interesting and creative. We actually get to be creative and creative.
• 38:12
  For me personally, some of the harder work, even just like getting started on a thought or anything, I think AI is going to replace. I think the combination of AI and being really focused on TikTok, especially for more like direct and digital brands is the way to go. I also think in today's world,
• 38:33
  it's more important than ever to have best in class products. So when I started, they were, you know, they were the Caspers of the world and the Dollar Shaves of the world.
• 38:46
  but there weren't that many brands that were like visually disruptive. And all of a sudden you have all these creative agencies and designers just, just like kind of factory popping out amazing looking brands and so many different categories. And it's almost like a commodity to have a really well designed, beautiful brand. What you actually need is to connect with people and create a,
• 39:15
  products that are infinitely better than something that exists. I think before you could have gotten away with just creating a beautiful design and plopping it onto a product. So I think it's gotten harder. I also think it's probably really tricky these days to go, you know, digital direct first. I think you have to be omnichannel as well. Yeah, I agree. It feels like
• 39:40
  the level of what people put out in today's world. And with new technology and software and things that can help you build businesses, it's very impressive what you can do, but it also means that you need to be a step above the rest when launching a brand. Yeah, I'm so curious to see what comes out in the next couple of years, because I think the stakes are kind of higher, the channels are trickier, like you can't target...
• 40:08
  with all the iOS changes, like you can't target the way that you could. And so it's just everything, everything's so new for people. Totally. And AI is going to change a lot of, of how we work. I mean, obviously we're in kind of the beginnings of what it's doing now, but it's going to advance quite quickly, I would say.
• 40:28
  Something you talk about a lot online is just your kind of experiences being a mom and an entrepreneur, your mental health, topics like burnout. How have you dealt with burnout in the past and what are your kind of steps to keeping a happy mind?
• 40:47
  So I wasn't always good at dealing with burnout, especially coming from investment banking, where I was working 100 plus hour weeks, and I was just grinding and I thought 100 hour weeks. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's not so different now. But it's for your own business. That's for someone else's business. Holy shit. Yeah, and I'm sure that investment banking analysts are still doing that. But it's so intense. And it was a great learning ground for me in a lot of ways. But you know, it's
• 41:16
  I thought that the more you work, the more successful you were. And it's only been the last couple of years for me where it's actually like how present you are, how focused you are, how good you are at making decisions. And that is the good work. Your work is to make the best possible decisions. So if you're burnt out, you're not making good decisions. If you are not working out or taking care of yourself, you're not making good decisions. So how do you...
• 41:45
  How do you get yourself in a mindset and take care of yourself to make the best possible decisions throughout the day? And for me, it's kind of taken all different twists and turns, but working out and taking care of my body and my physical health has been a non-negotiable. I work out every single day. You know, my kids will often say, hey, mommy, don't go to yoga. Don't go to yoga, you know, because they want to spend time with me. It's the hardest thing. It crushes my soul where I'm like, ah, you know.
• 42:13
  But I tell them, I'm like, to be a good mommy and to be a good CEO, I need to go to yoga or I need to go to Pilates or strength training or whatever it is that day. Movement, body movement. Yeah, and hopefully I'm setting a good example for them. And I think eating well is really important. Obviously, we're a nutrition-focused company, so I know way too much about all that stuff. But if I'm not eating well, I'm not thinking well, and I need to eat really cleanly.
• 42:41
  I would say I've just gotten become kind of a perfectionist at the basics, even though I'm in a wellness company and I've lived in wellness for so many decades. I've kind of gone back to the basics and like, how do I be,
• 42:58
  How do I crush the basics? You know, how do I sleep really well? How do I hydrate well? How do I have the best nutrition and best relationships? And those to me are like the non-negotiables that's taken a while to figure out and form rituals around. I stopped drinking six months ago.
• 43:16
  And like all these things combined. What's that been like? That's been interesting. I think not drinking has been... I'm such an experimenter. I love experimenting. I became, again, a plant-based eater 15 years ago as an experiment in a way. And this is an interesting one where I would go out. My husband would go out Saturday nights and we'd have a drink. Or, you know, I'd be working at my house and then I...
• 43:43
  see my kids after work and I wanted to transition from work to children and the drink was that. And I'm like, you know, let me figure out a different transition and different way to unwind than that and see how I feel. And I feel so much better. I feel like my mind is clear. I don't have room for error. I think in my days I can't, I can't feel like,
• 44:11
  I can't feel bad the next day. And so when I noticed, you know, I was drinking wine or drinking non-natural wine and I wasn't feeling well the next day and even with natural wine and cutting it out has been such a huge game changer for my life. I also wasn't happy drinking. I wasn't a happy drinker. I think about mental health a lot. I was feeling a little bit more depressed. So it just wasn't something that was great in my life.
• 44:39
  Do you think that also played into your, you said a moment ago, you know, sleep health is really important to you. Do you think that also was a big part of your sleep routine and getting that proper sleep? Or is there something else that you do to kind of make sure that your sleep is like 10 out of 10?
• 44:55
  Yeah, it obviously impacts your sleep. And I know there's rules of when you drink alcohol, how many hours before you go to sleep. And, you know, none of that was working for me. Sleep is so important to me. I do have a sleep kind of like routine and hygiene is really important for me, especially getting sunlight in the morning and, you know, as a sun setting as well and setting up my
• 45:24
  Obviously not drinking is helping a lot as well. But all those things are so connected. And I just feel like infinitely more present with my kids and in my business. So I always like to experiment and eliminate things and see what happens. And that's just one of the many things I've eliminated. But I'm not like a...
• 45:52
  you know, maybe sometime in the future, maybe I'll have a drink. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Not a finite kind of mentality. Totally. Yeah. What is your kind of favorite piece of advice that you like to give aspiring entrepreneurs or small business owners? I would say that I hope that everybody can embrace the no's. It's become one of our company values that we're,
• 46:21
  You're going to hear no all the time, day in and day out. It's going to become your favorite word. And if you can embrace people saying no to you as a challenge, as, ooh, they said no, but I'm going to figure this out.
• 46:40
  Something I like to say is that just because someone says no, it just means it hasn't been done before. And that's exciting. As an entrepreneur, you want to do something that hasn't been done before and to just really embrace it. And I would say for me, it was everything from, no, you can't start a business and a family. No, you can't work with this manufacturer. You can't invest in human clinical studies. That's too expensive. You can't use this ingredient. You can't hire the best person.
• 47:09
  And you can't grow this business to nine figures. You know, all these no's have added up to our success as a company and something that I'm really proud of. And I hope that my girls also embrace the no's when people tell them no, because it's the ultimate challenge. Totally. A no today isn't a no forever. No, especially when you can turn it around. No.
• 47:37
  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.
• 48:01
  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.
• 48:24
  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.
• 48:40
  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.
• 49:04
  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.
• 49:27
  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.