Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 quick questions with Kat Schneider, founder of Ritual (Part 2)

Transcript

6 quick questions with Kat Schneider, founder of Ritual (Part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your why? Why are you waking up every day and building ritual? That's a good question.
• 0:24
  Say I'm building ritual to set a new standard in the supplement industry because people are putting something in their body every single day. And all of us deserve to know what we're putting in our bodies and why. And I want to change that.
• 0:45
  not just for myself, but also for future generations, for my daughters. I love that. Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment over the last seven years? My favorite marketing moment? Oh, I have so many
• 1:06
  I would say what I love about marketing and virtual is that we don't just launch products or campaigns, but we try to change culture. And one of my favorite ways that we've done that is our pregnancy campaign. So half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned.
• 1:24
  And more than half of people are not taking a prenatal vitamin. So they'll show up to their OB and they'll be pregnant and they'll say, hey, take a prenatal vitamin. But the first 28 days are actually when the neural tube forms. And so we did a campaign for thinking, trying when it's time to really...
• 1:43
  educate people on the importance of taking a prenatal when you're trying or not, not trying. And more than half of our customers are actually in that pre-pregnancy phase now, which is so cool because we've obviously made such a change. The other marketing moment that I'm,
• 2:02
  That's there's so many, but, um, oh yeah. And we also did a billboard for the pregnancy thing for your consideration when considering during the award season, which was so fall, you know, ballsy and amazing. Uh, the other marketing moment that I'm,
• 2:17
  super proud of is we did a whole campaign over new year's and we took over a bunch of subway stations in new york and we put these billboards that said this is not a miracle with our multivitamin and i think so much of culture in lana's culture in the u.s especially around vitamins is that this is going to change your life overnight and yeah
• 2:40
  In other places, we've said this is just good-looking science. It's essential for women, and it's just a multivitamin. You need to put in the hard work. This is going to fill your nutrient gaps. I love that. It was so cool because my grandparents were 98, and I came from Brooklyn. My grandparents came to the subway, and they saw the campaign. They were crying with my parents.
• 3:05
  Yeah. And I have this amazing photo of them like pointing to it in the subway station. Oh my gosh. That is so cool. I love grandparents. That is so special. Yeah, me too. My grandparents saw our products in Target and it was such a special moment. I bet. Wow. Question number three is what's your go-to business resource? Where are you learning, consuming book, podcast, newsletter type things at the moment? Yeah.
• 3:34
  That's a good question. I love the book Radical Candor. That hasn't been recommended on the show before. That's a first. Yeah, it's a great one. It's something that I aspire to. I would say that I'm maybe not perfectly there yet, but I think it's the best way to lead and also be in relationships where you're
• 3:57
  care and you're empathetic, but then you challenge directly. And that intersection is where I hope to be as a CEO and leader, because you want to be honest and you want to give people feedback, but then you also want to care. And the closer you get to that alignment, that's where all the change happens.
• 4:17
  That sounds amazing. We're going to link it in the show notes for anyone who wants to check that out. Question number four is, and we touched on this a little bit already, but how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
• 4:34
  There's so many. I think because life is so unpredictable with the business and the kids, I have non-negotiables. So non-negotiables for me are working out, cooking breakfast for my kids, taking them to school, and having a really busy full day at work. And then also having dinner with them and putting them down to bed. And those are
• 4:58
  Those are really, really important to me. I would say then taking care of myself is also non-negotiable. So working out every single day, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep. And I would say the last ritual that I've been practicing for the last couple of years that's been pretty impactful for me is just feeling grateful.
• 5:21
  And I just feel so grateful for an incredible team that I have and a beautiful family. And I think, as everyone knows, things kind of go up and down in businesses and things are great right now. But having, you know, just kind of approaching each day like, wow, I'm so lucky and I'm so grateful for all of this has really changed my mood.
• 5:48
  and my perspective on things. Love that. Love some gratitude. Question number five, what is the worst money mistake you've made in the business and how much did it cost you? The worst mistake I made was wasting almost all of our initial funding on design and,
• 6:09
  and branding. So the initial design for Ritual was not what we ended up with. And I worked with a fancy person, an agency, and created something that was very much more like ASAP than what Ritual is today. And it was the biggest learning mistake of money that I had early on. I'm glad I had it early on.
• 6:32
  where the branding and the marketing, like just didn't feel anything. And I learned to like, that I have to feel something from the design. And that was kind of my, became my guiding principle with all design and why I think we're so vibrant and different. And we weren't, when we did it the second time, we weren't looking at any other brand. We were just trying to be ourselves and the yellow was so vibrant and it brought such warmth to an industry that was so opaque.
• 7:02
  And I just really leaned on hard on design and aesthetic because of that mistake. How much did it cost you? Ballpark. I don't remember. I don't know. A lot. A lot. A lot of time too, right? Because then you have to go back to the drawing board.
• 7:24
  And I would say the other interesting thing that I learned there was like, I couldn't make emails from the branding or I couldn't make collateral. And it was kind of like a non, it just didn't go anywhere. And I, and I,
• 7:37
  One interesting thing that I did with Ritual was the woman that designed our branding early on, I had her stay on for like a year or two and keep that brand DNA through all the different touch points. Because I think a lot of times people will hire an agency to do their branding and then you're kind of left to figure things out and it's disconnected. And I would say that we become known for our branding. And I would say because it was like
• 8:06
  hyper consistent. And we had this amazing person who stayed on in-house. Yeah. I love that. It's like, you start branding by getting like a logo and a color palette and like here are your different sets of type. And then it's like, well, hang on. How do I want this to look on social media? Because that's actually what people are going to be looking at. How do I want this to look on my like email pop-up thing on the website? Like how does it look everywhere else over time? Totally. Oh gosh. Love that. Love it. Love a design that makes me
• 8:36
  hopefully something good definitely something good you want the good feels last question question number six what is just a crazy story good or bad from building ritual
• 8:50
  I think a crazy moment for me was launching our skincare supplement. It was a category that I never thought we would go into. I thought it was incredibly shady and lacking in science. And my team surprised me because they were like, we have to change this. And they were so passionate about it and...
• 9:11
  our scientists were like, there's no way any ingredients in this category have real science. And then they spent a really long time researching like every single ingredient and found two ingredients with the most amount of clinical studies and the two of the best clinically studied ingredients.
• 9:29
  Hyvest and Serateek and created this phenomenal product that impacts skin hydration, fine lines and wrinkles. And now all of our scientists are taking it. And it was just like a slam dunk launch. So I feel like it's a crazy, it's not that crazy of a story, but it was crazy to me because sometimes as a CEO, you feel like you have to have all the right answers for all the products and everything. And
• 9:53
  I have often recently been just surprised and blown away by the team and, you know, key leadership and things like that, having like the team just having brilliant ideas and then just blowing it out of the water.
• 10:10
  Love a slam dunk. Always love a slam dunk. That is so cool. How amazing. Kat, I have loved talking with you about Ritual and what you're up to. And I'm so excited for you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. This was fun.
• 10:32
  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.
• 10:56
  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.
• 11:19
  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.
• 11:34
  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.
• 11:59
  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.
• 12:21
  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.