Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / From her mum’s living room to global success story, SoL Cups Founder Rebecca Veksler shares her journey from chronic disease to entrepreneurship (Part 1)

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From her mum’s living room to global success story, SoL Cups Founder Rebecca Veksler shares her journey from chronic disease to entrepreneurship (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Rebecca Vexler for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today, we're chatting to Rebecca Vexler, the founder of Soul Cups. After going through a chronic health issue, Rebecca started this reusable cups business alongside her mom while she was back living with her during rehab. And since then, it's become one of the top four reusable cup companies globally.
• 0:39
  In this episode, we talk through her journey of building this business from the ground up, but losing everything when the pandemic hit, the lessons she wished she knew when she was starting out, and how she approached global expansion.
• 0:54
  And while I've got you here, remember to join our waitlist at femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist ahead of our upcoming announcement. I'm so excited to tell you more about it in the coming weeks. But for now, let's get into this episode. This is Rebecca for Female Startup Club. Rebecca, hi, welcome to the show.
• 1:16
  Hello, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to dig into your story today. Where are you? Currently at home in Sydney. In Sydney? Nice. How's the weather? I feel like it's been a bit weird, no? Yeah.
• 1:32
  It's not fun. It's been raining. It's been raining a lot. So I'm, I'm a little more pale than usual, but we'll, we'll recover. We'll recover indeed. Me too. I want to start by getting you to introduce the brand for people who might not know yet what it's all about and a little bit about who you are.
• 1:52
  Yeah, beautiful. Soul Cups, basically the short version is we produce incredibly beautifully designed reusable products being water bottles, coffee cups, and they're all made from 100% hand-blown glass. So the sort of...
• 2:11
  extra special detail is that we wanted to create something not just sustainable but incredibly aesthetic and enjoyable to drink from but also doesn't harm your health. So it was very important that it was a glass product and had as little to no plastic as possible. So yeah we really pride ourselves on that innovation.
• 2:33
  I read that before you were launching this business, you were suffering from health issues surrounding an autoimmune disease. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that and how that kind of led you to this product specifically. Yeah.
• 2:48
  Yeah, it's a pretty special story. I had never considered myself to start a product-based business. I never had that thought in my mind. I was actually in the fitness industry. I was a personal trainer and I was incredibly passionate about fitness
• 3:05
  Basically being at service to people and empowering others to be their best self, their most positive lifestyle. And I was managing gyms. I was 18 at this point, by the way. I was managing gyms and starting my first company, which was workshops in mental health in corporate spaces.
• 3:25
  And I was doing all this crazy stuff whilst being deeply passionate about health, investigating sustainability in my own right. So I was also already at that time, you know, quite passionate about it. But I didn't, you know, I didn't anticipate to get burnt out, essentially. And I was creating this company. I was managing gyms. I was...
• 3:50
  PTing, like training clients, and for some strange reason decided to go back to university at the same time. And Lord knows why. No, it was because I felt at 17, 18 years old, I didn't have the credibility to start my first business. And I thought, okay, I better go get a degree.
• 4:11
  waste of my time, ended up leaving after the first semester because I had gathered so much quality information from the company I'd started, which was essentially almost human resources and people and culture, that I ended up guest lecturing my HR semester. And I
• 4:31
  I'm like standing at the podium sharing all this incredible insights on mental health in the workplace to this human resources course that I'm taking. And I'm like, I'm not meant to be here. Like this is a load of shit. Like I should not be wasting my time lecturing at the age of 18
• 4:50
  to a group of people that don't care anyway when I could be fast-tracking my career. And all of this is happening. I decide to drop back out. I go back into competing in fitness. I'm trying to build this company. And essentially, one day I wake up and I can't walk.
• 5:06
  I'm in chronic pain, head to toe, like 10 out of 10, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. What? Yeah. That's crazy. Exactly. And I mean, I fast track a little bit. I'm probably about 20 years old at this point, turning 21. Yeah.
• 5:27
  I mean, I remember, you know, having to call an ambulance and having to go to the hospital because it was just excruciating. I couldn't move. I couldn't even like, you know, sit myself up from bed essentially. And doctors running all these tests and, you know, talking at me and basically saying, well, we don't actually know what's wrong with you. So we're going to label it autoimmune, but we're really confused and you're probably going to get worse.
• 5:55
  And yeah, that was the best part. And you can imagine at 21 years old, you're questioning everything. Like you fall straight into victim mode of why is this happening to me? And, you know, what am I going to do with my life? I can't continue this career. And
• 6:15
  You know, I was always a very resilient person and I always really believed in the positive outlook in any experience. But I sort of said to myself, okay, you've got three months to feel like shit.
• 6:28
  You're allowed to be, yeah, you're allowed to be depressed. You can cry every day. You can, you know, go through the motions. But after three months, you need to get your shit together. You're going to do everything you can and have to to recover and heal and get through this. And whatever the doctors tell you, that can fuck right off and you'll be fine.
• 6:48
  And that's the beginning of where Soul Cups accidentally was founded. In the living room of my mum's apartment while I was in rehabilitation trying to get my life together, we accidentally decided to start a business together. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Okay. So you're in the living room with your mum today.
• 7:13
  Why soul cups? Why glass bottles, glass cups? Like why? What's the light bulb moment that lands you on that? Or what's the bit of research that lands you on that?
• 7:26
  So the context is, and it's a very important context, my family's business, as in mother and father, had a promotional products agency. And I pretty much grew up in the world of product development, manufacturing, importing, exporting. It's what we lived and breathed. I was never...
• 7:47
  essentially involved in the business, but I definitely had a very clear understanding of how it operated because I was around it all the time. So the concept of product development was never an issue for me. But in saying that, I never in my life thought I was going to produce anything.
• 8:08
  And I never thought I would consider using those skill sets for anything other than supporting friends who maybe were starting businesses. So what mom and I were passionate about was homewares and design.
• 8:24
  And my most fondest memories of my mother are in cute boutiques and homeware stores or jewellery stores or fashion stores where she was just always curating this exceptionally beautiful, you know, things around her home. And it was always just like this quirkiness. And she loved glassware always. We collected like, you know, all these eccentric pieces. Yeah.
• 8:47
  And I remember traveling to some trade shows in China with my father and we discovered hand-blown glass as an up-and-coming quality piece in the more premium ranges of some of the clients we had been working with.
• 9:06
  And instantly, mum and I fell in love with this. And we actually started considering to design homewares. And that's where it all sort of started. We were sitting in the living room and we were looking at this beautiful coloured vase that she had on her shelf. And she's like, you know, we could do such a better job and we've got such better taste. Like we could create something really gorgeous and beautiful. And I guess my natural passion for sustainability intertwined and it sort of became this
• 9:34
  very drip and drab concept that we developed probably over about eight months during my rehabilitation phase.
• 9:43
  Wow, gosh. And so in that eight months of developing the concept, kind of piecing it together, what are the kind of early steps you're taking to get started? Obviously, you had this background or this, not background, but this total exposure to supply chain and how you could kind of develop a product, product development. What were those early steps for you in getting this kind of to life? Yeah.
• 10:10
  Yeah, so look, the fundamental foundations of product-based business are two things. Having clarity of product development in the sense of are you going to design from scratch or are you going to take something off the shelf?
• 10:26
  Not either is right or wrong, but you really need to have that understanding from the beginning. So those early stages were figuring that piece out. And for us always, it was always going to be independently designed and crafted by me or a team of graphic designers that we felt connected with. Because intrinsically, my goals with the company was always going to be we're unique, we're different, we're independent, we're individual. And...
• 10:53
  unlike anything else. So that's the first early stage is once you make that decision, the steps that go in place are sourcing that manufacturer and ensuring that you can sort of meet those expectations of what you're after. So that's more like the advice for anyone listening who hasn't done it before. But for us, obviously, that was a no-brainer when you want to do. So the
• 11:17
  was how do we, like, I'm not a graphic designer. I'm not, you know, an industrial designer. I'm not someone that can piece it together. So how do I take what's in my brain and provide it to someone I really trust? So the hardest thing was actually finding that graphic designer. And seven years later, we still work with him on a daily basis. So that is a fundamental aspect is finding people to work with that really understand your vision and your goals.
• 11:45
  I mean, we'll talk about it later, but the packaging was such an important design aspect. And I mean, I can tell you how many times we fucked up with that aspect because ours is so unique. And in fact...
• 12:01
  It's what set us apart and allowed us to grow so quickly in so many different industries. Because if you look at any other reusable product company out there, I won't name competitors, but they were designed for cafes, essentially, if we talk about reusable cups. No one was sitting in the space of gifts and homewares.
• 12:21
  So because our initial passions lay in that category, we thought, how can we take this product that's supposed to be really in the hands of a cafe, but then expose us to industries that never thought to stock us? Let's create gift style packaging that is so undeniably attractive that you can't walk past in the shop. Yeah.
• 12:43
  So there's so much thought that went into the design aspect. Like I really would definitely say take your time and that stuff really matters because when it's in the hands of the final consumer or your customer, whether it's through your website or through a store, that experience is everything. That unboxing, that, you know, physical touch of the box or opening the box, it's a lasting experience
• 13:08
  that subconscious experience that, you know, is that tipping point of why they're going to buy again or they're going to buy it for their friends or they're going to tell everyone about it. Absolutely. It's a mini billboard, needs to catch the eye of someone walking by and make them want to pick it up. So true. On the capital side of things, I love to kind of understand the money piece kind of in the beginning and how you were funding it to get started. But
• 13:34
  For this particular product, you know, getting your first inventory order, getting your website up and running, kind of just getting started, what kind of capital did you need to invest in the beginning? Yeah.
• 13:47
  So this is a great part of the story. Great. I do things a little bit differently to most people. We bootstrapped just for context. We never had investors. Everything was done with whatever means we can based on my ability to negotiate and sell. And...
• 14:07
  Again, because of the context of having so much experience with product development and importing, I knew how much time I had. I had six weeks for this product to be produced and then I had four weeks for it to be shipped. So it's not a lot of time. And if you're smart, you can negotiate with your manufacturers to essentially pay a very small deposit and then pay the remainder upon receipt of goods or once it's shipped. Okay.
• 14:32
  So what I did was utilize that relationship, negotiated a smaller investment for the original sort of retainer and pretty much pre-sold the entire container's worth of stock before it arrived in the country.
• 14:49
  Oh, my God. And that, yeah. So it was about 8,000 units. So we launched with one size, our 12-ounce cup, three colors, which are still my top-selling colors today, and 12,000 cups. And I sold it in two and a half weeks. Oh, my God. Okay. So first of all, before we get into how you sold the cups, what was your kind of, even if it's ballpark capital investment to kind of that you negotiated to put in?
• 15:21
  I feel, because it was so long ago, I don't have a clear recollection, but it probably was, I'd say the initial 20% deposit was under, I'd say under $50,000 US dollars. Okay. Got it, got it, got it. Yeah. It wouldn't have been that much back then, all in all, because also the price of goods was so much cheaper. But regardless, I guess, of the investment capital, it's like,
• 15:47
  Even if I didn't have it, the journey should be bootstrap. Look at the means of who can support you, friends, family, take a loan if you can. Avoid, you know, giving away equity. I mean, at that stage of any business, your business is valued at nothing anyway. So really you want to...
• 16:05
  Use what you can. And if you couldn't commit to that much stock, buy less, negotiate less. There's always sort of options to play with. But with our product being hand-blown glass, the minimums were very high. So already negotiating that was quite challenging. But that's where I went, okay, I've got a great challenge.
• 16:26
  I know what I can do. I know what I'm capable of. And I know where I want to sell to. And the fundamental difference between my process and maybe somebody else was I was never selling to my customers. I was building authentic relationships. And what I did was I set a goal for myself that by the end of this four-week period, every single coffee shop owner...
• 16:53
  in Australia, if I could pull it off because I travelled a lot, needed to know me by first and last name.
• 17:01
  Oof, that's a big goal. And the rest, yeah, and the rest was irrelevant. And the consequence of building that relationship was a sale based on the incredible connection that I had made. And that's pretty much what I did. I walked around for hours, coffee shop to coffee shop, coffee roaster, anyone that would spend five minutes with me.
• 17:24
  And I shared my story of my vision, my goals, my mission. And I actually got them involved in the product development. I spoke to the baristas. I said, can you have a look at this? Can you use it? Can you tell me if you hate it, if you love it? Does it fit under the machine? You know, which color do you prefer? Everything, every piece of feedback that I could potentially get, I was looking for. And through that dynamic conversation, they fell in love with the product.
• 17:54
  Wow. And it was just, it was a beautiful experience. Yeah. So in two and a half weeks, you pound the pavement. You are just out there talking to as many people as possible. You essentially sell 12,000 units. 12,000, was it? Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:09
  8,000. 8,000 units and you are like off to the races. So at this point, it's not even a D2C brand. It's very much like a retail play. Had you even been thinking of D2C at this point or it was just like this is the strategy, just hit coffee shops, hit baristas and go from there?
• 18:28
  So we were thinking, of course, we were building a website. It was a shit website, like shocking, whatever we could do because I wasn't a tech person. Like I wasn't even focusing on it. We had our social media, started with zero, slowly was building up the followers, creating content wherever I could. But also I had no samples.
• 18:53
  I only had pictures. Actually, I had one sample that wasn't correct because I was so fixated on the shape of the lip of the glass. Like that's what was the innovation that I didn't even have a sample that was accurate. So I was selling all this stock based on just my...
• 19:11
  storytelling and a shitty like half done sample but I knew we were going to sell direct to consumer at some point I just started with what I knew like I was already a social butterfly I already you know grew up in a community where the baristas at my local coffee shop you know knew me and it was a beautiful relationship so that's where I started I just went to everyone I knew and I
• 19:38
  you know, shared the journey. And, you know, to this day, those cafe owners and restaurant owners in like Bondi, where I'm from, you know, they watched me work on my laptop for hours in their cafe and tell stories and work on it. And, you know, I still catch up with them now and we laugh about it. So gosh, that's amazing. Yeah. Wow. Start with who you know. Start with who you know. I love that. I love that so much. And tapping into your network.
• 20:06
  Just starting small, expanding from there. What happens next? How do you go from that to like your first 1,000 customers? Is it the same process? Are you trying to like scale faster? How does it kind of move into the next phase?
• 20:24
  Pretty much it happened. Look, it happened very fast. We went from, I'd say, our first 100 stockists to our first 1,000 stockists in under six months.
• 20:38
  What? That's crazy. It was. It was surreal, surreal. Two fundamental reasons. Absolute sheer luck of timing of War on Waste happening. That was 2016. ABC Network in Australia, and I believe in the UK as well, launched the War on Waste series, which was astronomical for our growth because the entire show revolved around single-use coffee cups.
• 21:05
  So suddenly out of nowhere, everyone's watching this series going, oh my God, I can never drink from a takeaway coffee cup again. Like amazing, buy ours. And in complete respect to that, that meant there was a huge demand for cafes or gift stores being asked, like, do you sell reasonable coffee cups? And the first thing they do is call us and ask for stock. So...
• 21:30
  The luck that occurred was at that exact moment, all my competitors were sold out of stock. And we were the only brand that had stock available in Sydney, in Australia, to supply to an Australian market. So it was absolute sheer luck on that side. And then the other thing is we discovered trade shows.
• 21:52
  So within, you know, a couple months of operating, we dive into the world of trade shows. And just at this one single show, we literally accumulated almost 400 new stockists across Australia, which is wild. So I basically was buying 40-foot containers worth of cups today.
• 22:14
  every 12 weeks to sustain the demand at this point. And within that exact moment, we also decided to launch in New Zealand and mimic the entire process there because there was such a demand across the sea. So it was just this, like, exponential, accidental growth of...
• 22:34
  I'm like, what did I do? I didn't do anything, but I also did everything, you know, because I think the energy that comes with it, you have to really keep up with that demand and create that, you know, customer service and experience. Even if it wasn't direct to consumer, it still was. So, you know, through the stockists.
• 22:54
  And you're not working with a distributor at this point. So are you managing hundreds of relationships with these coffee shop owners and managers? And that's crazy.
• 23:08
  I mean, it was comical because I was still living at home because I was quite sick still. So I'm still managing my health. I'm still managing my mental health through all of this. And I was so lucky that I had, you know, mum to lean on and I could still live with her. But we're working from the living room. Like the entire garage was...
• 23:26
  was filled with cups. And at this point, we were also offering co-branding, which is where we pop the company's logo on. So we had this inundation of corporate clients outside of our wholesale stockers. So my favorite was I would do the Bondi Beach farmers markets, like a store, like a physical market store. I did it every Saturday and Sunday for two years, the first two years we operated.
• 23:51
  And I remember, you know, like I would dress casual. It's, you know, the weekend, it's the beach. And this woman in her like bathers and flip-flops walks up and she's like, oh, these cups are so cute. Can I get, you know, them for my company where we need some gifts for the employees? I'm like, yeah, of course. Like, give me your card. And she's like head of sales and marketing for JP Morgan, Asia Pacific. And awesome.
• 24:16
  ordered like 3,000 custom cups branded with their logo on it, which was, you know, had to be done in production. It wasn't even stock that we had. And I'm scratching my head going, fuck, like, what have I created? Like, what is this going to be?
• 24:32
  And we pretty much overnight went from me sitting at a laptop, de-sleeving cups myself, like taking the sleeve off to get them branded, like my fingernails are bleeding, to a team of, you know, 12 in an office in Sydney and then a company set up in New Zealand and a team there and then an office set up in the UK and employees there. And I was travelling like every three weeks to different countries to meet with distributors and partners. And, yeah, it was just...
• 25:02
  insane. Insane. During this time, like how are you managing your health and your mental health? Because obviously you've come out of being burnt out. It's caused you to get sick. And now it sounds like you're, I'm sure you're like loving the fact that it's going so well. It's so successful, but it sounds like you would have been super busy, potentially very stressed. What are you doing to take care of yourself during that time? Yeah.
• 25:31
  Honestly, nothing. To not slip back into the state you're in. Yeah, no, I never sugarcoat this part because I was not looking after myself. I did not have a second to breathe. It was insane. And I have to say the only thing that kept me alive was I was really fortunate at that exact time I had the most amazing supportive partner. Yeah.
• 25:53
  I had mum doing as much as she could. So for context, her part of the business is the financial side of things. So she's like the accountant, bookkeeper, CFO sort of role. So she was heavily supportive on that side of administration,
• 26:10
  But I actually do not know how I survived that time because our team, I felt like I was hiring someone new every five minutes. I had no experience of what it meant to be a leader, let alone a business owner that was profitable and growing. Yeah.
• 26:27
  But at the same time, innately within me, it's what I was born to do. Like I was in my element. I was my happiest. I was not my healthiest, but I was functional. And I don't think I sat still until COVID happened. Yeah, you were full steam ahead. You were just powering through.
• 26:51
  For you, what has global expansion been like and what have you learned that you can pass on to other people who are wanting to expand into new markets, kind of explore new countries? You know, there's so much to navigate when you're launching into new countries. So what's it been like for you and what's your advice? It is such a phenomenal experience, but I would adamantly bring it down to the fact that you have to be there.
• 27:21
  Launching in another country is no different to launching in the country you're born in, that you're from. The reason it works is because you're present.
• 27:31
  because you're available, because it's timely. So I owe the success to the fact that I had the luxury to fly and be there. And I'll tell you now, the first trade show I did in London at the London Coffee Festival, where 3,000 new people are let into that venue every three hours, and it runs over four days. Oh, wow. Yeah, a lot of humans.
• 27:57
  I can tell you now the fact that I was there that first one, you know, it's 2022. People from that show are still asking about me when they met me in 2017. That,
• 28:11
  absolute first interaction, that showing a face, that, you know, first impression is everything. And if you're trying to launch in another country that you don't know anything about, go and learn everything about it.
• 28:27
  dive in, get to know the culture, understand the dynamic of the business relationship and interactions. How do suppliers work? How do they expect to be spoken to? You need to actually have the respect and the time to go and join it. And if you physically can't do it, then ensure that the people you hire, the people you work with, your partners, whether it's your logistic partners or distributors or whatever,
• 28:52
  are not only aligned to your values and your mission, but they're there to support you and they're there to communicate all of those things to your customers correctly. So it's a big education piece. It's a big training piece. And it is a big task. It's not a simple process.
• 29:09
  And like off the back of that question, the other part that's, you know, comes inherently with global expansion is working capitals obviously needed to fund that growth, to fund the marketing behind it, to fund the travel, all of that side of things. And I remember earlier you said you had bootstrapped, you hadn't raised. At that point, you know, when you're kind of growing aggressively, how were you approaching the working capital piece and kind of accessing more capital to grow? And have you raised since? Yeah.
• 29:41
  Basically, I always give this advice is don't expand globally if you're not profitable and highly successful in the country you started. You know, people like to rush and spread, you know, everything too thin. If you're not number one in Australia, for example, you know, where I'm from, if you're not number one here, why would you go?
• 30:03
  half-assed, go then and launch in another country where you have to basically, you're a startup again. You're nothing. You're no one. Nobody knows you exist. So to answer that lightly, the way we managed that was we knew that Australia was operating highly successfully. It was autonomous in the sense that I had an amazing team that I could step away from and I could go start again somewhere else. And I would spend three to six months at a time
• 30:31
  in the London office with the team building them up and building the business from scratch. And it would run independently. So each country that we function in is actually a separate entity and runs in autonomy to its sister companies. So we never had to lean on any other country for capital. We essentially started the process again where capital,
• 30:56
  Yes, we had enough US dollars in cash to purchase stock for, say, the UK or New Zealand. But in essence, we could negotiate the same deal where we could put a small deposit on and then use that time to pre-sell. The system worked, the model worked, and it was highly successful in Australia. Why wouldn't it work anywhere else if we do it right?
• 31:19
  And that's pretty much how we managed to, again, bootstrap in another country successfully because of the calculated risk, I guess. And then to answer your other question, no, we have never raised money through external investment. Wow, that is so cool. When you look at your kind of business overall today, what are the things that shift the needle when it comes to marketing and sales and growth?
• 31:50
  It's a tough question because it's such an ever-changing world. And it's changed a lot recently. Yeah, and I will open-heartedly express that I have no fucking clue when it comes to marketing, right? It's such a complicated, confusing time if we're being quite present in this right now. But in sales...
• 32:17
  I mean, it's agility, right? It's such a cliche concept. But as long as you can be open and aware of the world around you and what's happening and what people need, like what problem are you solving? If you can successfully communicate that, whether it is marketing, whether it is sales, then.
• 32:38
  you'll succeed. Your message will cut through. And if it's not working, change. If it's not getting through and it's not being communicated clearly, try something else. And I think that's what has always kept us, you know, stable and successful because I'm not stuck in my ways. I'm not sitting here going, it's black and white. This is the only way we're going to succeed. No,
• 33:07
  under any circumstance and I'm going to ensure that we are there to support them and solve their problems through sustainability and beautiful products. I love that. Having been on this journey for a while now, when you look back at the lessons you've learned along the way, is there anything that you wish you knew when you were just starting out that you can pass on to anyone listening here?
• 33:34
  So many things. Where do I start? I think in my personal experience, specifically to this business, I really do wish we had a different business model from the beginning and focused a lot more on e-commerce.
• 33:52
  more than, you know, even we do now because we would have been a lot more profitable and we would have survived COVID successfully. We wouldn't have been impacted like we were. So that is a fundamental lesson there is don't neglect things
• 34:11
  an avenue just because you don't understand it. Take the opportunity to learn or bring somebody onto the team that can support that aspect that you're maybe not so qualified in. And then the other side is
• 34:26
  really fundamentally understand your numbers. And in saying that, I'm very fortunate that my business partner is my mother who really understands numbers, but I wish that I had a better grasp on it and I, again, took...
• 34:43
  the time to consider and learn as much as she knew so that I could do a better job as a sales person, as a sales manager, as a team leader, to basically make smarter decisions quicker, meaning hiring the right people, leading them in the right direction, understanding the industries that are more beneficial for us, and learning how to utilize time and optimal sort of
• 35:09
  processes. So advice wise, I'd say, don't be scared of what you don't know. Dive headfirst into it. Educate yourself as much as possible. And if you can't figure it out, really ask for support because as a founder, as a business owner, you have to wear all the hats and you can't sweep anything under the rug just because you don't like doing it. So true. What is the future looking like for you? What do you want to shout about?
• 35:40
  It's an exciting time. We really struggled with COVID. It really did impact us so much as a business. So what I've been working on quietly and surely is product development side of things. We'll be opening up new categories into hopefully homewares and kids, which is very exciting. And potentially walking down the route of investment.
• 36:05
  Ooh. So it's, yeah, it's a pretty special time. That sounds exciting. What happened during COVID for you? Like my feeling is that obviously coffee shops everywhere closed, revenue drops a huge amount and you have to pivot to focus on e-commerce.
• 36:25
  Am I on the right track? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I will scare you by saying we lost 95% of our business overnight. Oh, no. God. Yeah. Every, not just coffee shop, but every corporate client that we had, every gift store, homeware store, pharmacy, cafe, every industry that we touched decided to, of course, secure their cash and either close or stop purchasing. And-
• 36:54
  It's so funny because I remember that feeling. It was like blind faith. Like I was such a sheer optimist. I'm like, it's fine. It's fine. I'll figure it out. It's all good. We'll go on Instagram live and we'll connect to our audience and we'll have so much fun and it's going to be amazing. And meanwhile, my mom's hair is like falling out. But, you know, it was a very challenging time.
• 37:24
  absolute core of who we were as a brand was we have an incredible product we have an incredible story and our mission and values align with the environment and changing the world so this isn't going to die overnight we have an amazing community and an audience and we will come back and work this out and that's exactly what happened
• 37:48
  What were the things that you were kind of leaning into to keep it alive and keep kind of switching into that new direction? I realized this was the most beautiful opportunity to come back to the thing that I'm most passionate about, and that is inspiring, educating and empowering people to be the best version of themselves back from my personal training days.
• 38:15
  And I never really got over it. I never really got over the fact that I couldn't do that anymore. And I believe that one of my greatest skill sets is how I communicate and how I use language to inspire people. So I...
• 38:31
  deeply honed in on that and we became a platform for education. And I flipped the script of who we were as a brand. It was no longer just cups and bottles. It was we are the spokespeople. We are your soulmate. You are a soulmate fundamentally by owning one of our products. And through this incredible platform, I'm going to use everything I'm passionate about to bring it home and share and educate and inspire you to not just
• 39:00
  be a conscious consumer, but to be part of a community that is safe and exciting and full of love and joy and reminds you why every day is beautiful and why we should care about the environment whilst drinking out of a beautiful glass cup. And that's what we did. We just focused on our community and giving them a lot of love.
• 39:21
  I love that. And I feel like in today's world, you know, it's different times to 2016 where you could turn on an ad and have some crazy rowers and, you know, skyrocket. In today's world, it really is about community and it really is about storytelling and all these things that for you, you started your brand inherently with that from the very beginning. It was just pulling it all back together and putting it back at the front and center of what you were doing.
• 39:48
  It's so funny because we actually don't spend any money on Facebook advertising. Probably not in the last, I'd say, three years. I haven't spent a dollar on Facebook ads or Instagram ads because it doesn't do anything.
• 40:04
  At the end of the day, we realized that no matter how much money we spent on advertising, we were still making the same amount if we didn't spend anything. So there was no point. And it all just aligned back to exactly what you said. It's like the fundamental reason brands are succeeding now, like right now in 2022,
• 40:24
  is because they have an incredible story, they have an incredible product, and they do a really damn good job at connecting to their audience. So if I could do that in person, why can't we do that through tech? It can't be impossible. And I think that's such a big, valid piece of advice for anyone who's in the middle of their journey or at the start of their journey. Like, forget about all the flashy stuff.
• 40:49
  Just speak your truth. Why did you even start this product? Why did you start this company, this brand, this service? What are you so passionate and in love with? Why do you get up every single morning and work on this brand? Talk about that. That's what people care about. And the rest will work itself out. And I think that's where we're heading anyway, based on exactly what you said, with ads just not performing anymore. Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 41:21
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 41:46
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 42:08
  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.
• 42:24
  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.
• 42:48
  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.
• 43:11
  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.