Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 quick questions with Sandy Ronalds, Founder of NAT'V Basics (Part 2)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your why? Why do you wake up every day and work on NatV?
- 0:20Well, the reason for starting NatV was to really create a brand that cared for my daughter's future. So that was really at the heart and soul of everything of NatV and also for everyone else's kids. Like we should really care about the brands that we are starting these days and we really want them to be better for people on the planet if we can. I love that. That's your TikTok right there. That should be your TikTok theme. It should be coming from you. That's so cool. I love that. Yeah.
- 0:47Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far? There's been a couple, to be honest. We've fed over 11,000 humans with OzHarvest. So that was really cool. That was a year or two ago. We did a bit of a campaign where every order we donated a dollar. So $1, it used to feed two humans with OzHarvest. So we're pretty proud of that.
- 1:12We've also planted over 2,000 trees with one tree planted. So that was really cool as well. That was when we were going through the raging bushfires in Australia, which was pretty full on. So that was nice to give back in that area.
- 1:28The third one, I recently got back from LA. We did a really cool photo shoot with the Darling Shine Girls. I'm not sure if you know of them, but Elodie Pullen and Chloe Fisher, they have their own podcast, but we're –
- 1:45We're doing a really cool collab, which is launching in a couple of weeks. So I think that'll be one of my favorite marketing times once that launches. So pretty excited about that. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited for you. I'm going to keep that in my vision. I want to see when it comes out. Yeah, we started the pre-hype campaign on Instagram. So if you head there, you'll see some really cool videos and things of the girls in the products.
- 2:10My gosh, love that. Question number three, what is your go-to business resource? What's something that you've been kind of consuming lately, whether it's a book or a newsletter or a podcast?
- 2:21Well, to be honest, you. I recently have been, you know, listening to podcasts. And as I said, when I first jumped on with you, that I didn't really feel worthy because I'd been listening to all the amazing, inspiring female founders that you had on. I'm like, I don't stack up to that. What am I doing on here? Oh, my God. That is crazy. I felt so insecure knowing that I was coming on and then you had some woman, you know, selling a cosmetic brand for $600 million. I'm like, Jesus.
- 2:49So obviously, I've been learning a bit from your podcast, which has been amazing. And just a different way that people do things is really nice to hear. I learn a lot from my network, to be honest. So I employ a lot of external people to help. Not a lot. So we've just got a marketing agency that does our meta stuff. So they are experts in what they do. Yeah.
- 3:12you know, they're usually giving me advice on what to do next, you know, through that platform. And then we've got our web IT guy. He's on the ball. Also, all the apps that sort of plug into Shopify. There's so many free resources that they all give on their websites with analytics, statistics, best practices. So it's always good to jump on to the platforms that you are using and read up on what the latest is.
- 3:40Love that. There are so many good resources online. It's also hard to sift through them all sometimes, but they are all there for sure. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? I don't have one to be, I mean, every morning I'm guaranteed to have
- 4:04coffee. So that's definitely a ritual, but it does change. I've got a small family, so a young family. So I've got to get up, get my daughter ready. Sometimes I'll take her to school. Sometimes I'll let my husband do it. Every day, sometimes not every day is a win and that's okay. Sometimes you have a...
- 4:24a shemuzzle of a day and we sort of come home feeling sort of, oh my gosh, everything's wrong. Everything's going down. The house is on fire. And that's fine. But I mean, a good day for me is having a nice sort of consistent day at work. I love making to-do lists. I put them in Monday and I really get through them. I'm trying to be as productive as I can. Making sure my family's happy at the end of the day and I've got like a nice warm bed to sleep in is pretty much a win. I love that.
- 4:53Beautiful. Question number five is what's been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you in the business?
- 5:02I probably couldn't put a dollar figure on it off the top of my head. But one of the biggest mistakes we made during COVID was overordering. We had a real problem at the start of COVID where we couldn't actually keep stock available. And obviously, if I don't have any stock, I don't have a business to pay overheads. So I have to have the right amount of infantry levels to keep the business afloat. And so when I couldn't get it, it spooked me. And so then I went overboard and ordered way too much.
- 5:31And I mean, luckily we're not fast fashion, so we can always sell it. Like it's not like we have to, oh, it's not in fashion anymore. Yeah, it's not a trend. It's not a trend. So it's fine once we sell it, but, you know,
- 5:45Having it just sitting on the shelves is also really, really bad for cash flow because I have to pay for everything up front before I even sell it to our lovely customers. So that is a real problem because all your cash is literally tied up on the shelves waiting to be sold. So, yeah, I wouldn't be able to put a price on that. Yeah.
- 6:07That's probably the biggest blunder when it comes to money that I've made. I've heard that a couple of times, especially because of COVID and issues with forecasting around that time and with everything that was going on in the world, supply chain issues. Well, there was. So you couldn't, like the manufacturing was overwhelmed. So usually our lead times were about 90 days. They were blowing out to way beyond that. So we couldn't even get the product made in time. And then once it got to port, yeah.
- 6:36There was no containers and like the price of containers like doubled. So everything was just incredibly difficult to do and to get infantry in. Oh, my God. Crazy. Do you think that it's kind of sorting itself out now? Like are you close to getting kind of like rid of all of that initial stock that you had kind of had? No, we've still got – depends. Like for our bestseller, our cheeky G, we're back to normal with that. But –
- 7:05For some of the other styles that we don't sell as quickly, we've still got quite a bit of those. So we'll see how that goes. I mean, again, I'm very lucky that we're not a fast fashion brand, so I don't have any need to keep up with trends. It's literally basic comfy undies that no one sees that you're happy to wear
- 7:22is what we're about. So, yeah. Question number six. Last question. What is just a crazy story, good or bad, you can share from the journey of building NatV? Well, yeah.
- 7:38I don't know. We don't have too many crazy stories. I suppose the craziest thing is, you know, starting off in my mum and dad's spare bedroom a year later, moving into our first commercial space. And then the year later, which is our full second financial year doing just under five million revenue. So that sort of exponential growth in that two year period is crazy to me. And I wasn't expecting it, but I'm pretty happy that it happened. Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
- 8:06Yeah, obviously with that growth, there comes lots of teething problems. So I can't even think of them off the top of my head. But having, you know, not enough growth is painful, but having a lot of growth all at once is also very painful. Totally. Totally. Oh my gosh. But in a good way, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah.
- 8:23Good problem to have. I love that for you. Where does NatV come from, by the way, the name? When we first started, to be honest, we did call it Native Basics, and that was because we were using native flora and fauna from planet Earth to create sustainable basics. Yeah.
- 8:39But a year into it, I was approached by an Aboriginal lady who said that it was something that the community didn't really like. So once I heard that, it literally took me 24 hours because I didn't start NatV to upset any community anywhere. And so I quickly made the change to NatV. And so our logo has always been NatV anyway.
- 9:05Um, so it was an easy change one, because I didn't want to offend anyone ever. That was never, you know, part of my, part of my goal when starting. Um, and then, and then second of all, we, we, when we changed it, we, we made it, we
- 9:21So this is going to sound funny, but NatV now stands for natural fibers for vaginas. So NatV, natural for vaginas, essentially is what we've now changed it to. And hopefully, yeah, everyone's okay with that. Did you have to go through trademarking a second time or you hadn't trademarked? I did. Yeah, so it was quite an expensive product.
- 9:45process, but happy, absolutely didn't have any issues doing that. Again, we never, I, when I chose that name, it was purely for the flora and fauna. But when I found out that, you know, for a community of people that had a different meaning, I was first of all shocked that I wasn't aware, had to educate myself at the time and still to do continue to educate myself as much as possible. And, you know, again, it took me literally 24 hours to be like, absolutely, we were changing it.
- 10:14So we did and that's what we did. Yeah. How did you navigate that with your customers and was it like seamless? It wasn't. We did do some Instagram stories to explain that we wanted to align and then make sure we weren't, you know, offending anyone. And that was our reasons. But we still had a few influencers saying native and I was like, please don't say that anymore. We are NatV. Please, you know, change that. But yeah.
- 10:36Over the years, it's just happened now and people will say NatV. Here and there, you might hear someone say NatV, but we always correct them and move on. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your journey and all of your amazing insights and gems to building NatV. I've loved this. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
- 11:02Hey, 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.
- 11:27And 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.
- 11:49As 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.
- 12:05Hey, 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.
- 12:29And 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.
- 12:52As 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.