Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / From a secret side hustle to a certified B Corp buzzing business, with Beekeeper’s Naturals Founder Carly Stein

Transcript

From a secret side hustle to a certified B Corp buzzing business, with Beekeeper’s Naturals Founder Carly Stein · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Carly Stein for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doona Oshin, and joining me today is Carly Stein, the founder behind Beekeepers Naturals.
• 0:24
  Founded by Carly in 2017, Beekeepers Naturals is an innovative company on a mission to reinvent the medicine cabinet. Using unique remedies from the beehive, like royal jelly and propolis, the beekeeper-led team is committed to providing the cleanest, most powerful solutions to modern health issues, like brain fog, chronic stress, poor sleep, and scratchy throats.
• 0:49
  Unlike competitors, they apply scientific rigor to their product development and commit to third party pesticide testing to ensure they're creating natural remedies that actually deliver. This has been one of my favorite episodes to date. Carly has such a special story and shares so much of the actual how of building her company, and you're going to get plenty of valuable pieces of gold throughout. So I suggest making sure you have a notepad and pen handy.
• 1:15
  And if you know someone who would benefit from hearing her story, please do share it with them and subscribe to the show. This is Carly for Female Startup Club. Carly, thank you so much for joining the Female Startup Club podcast today. I've been so looking forward to this episode and learning about your business. Thank you so much for having me. I always love to get started by having you introduce yourself and what it is that your business does.
• 1:44
  Yeah, so I'm Carly Stein. I'm the founder and CEO of Beekeepers Naturals. And Beekeepers Naturals is a natural medicine company.
• 1:52
  So our mission is to reinvent the medicine cabinet using cleaner ingredients, sustainable ingredients, things that truly work and not making any compromises when it comes to what you're putting in your body. If you look at the medicine cabinet today, we have, you know, two very different ends of the spectrum. We have like nasty cherry flavored cough syrup full of refined sugars and chemicals that are not actually healing, but just mask the symptom. And on the other side, there's this wonderful world of natural wellness and that's
• 2:22
  And there's a lot of great stuff there. And there's also a lot of stuff that's heavily marketed and doesn't really get the job done. And so we are really trying to marry the world of nature and science and reinvent the medicine cabinet. And one of the key features of our company is that we draw on a lot of different medicinal ingredients from the beehive going beyond honey. And we also are dedicated to saving the bees and supporting sustainability.
• 2:48
  Oh, love that. I was actually just having a look in my medicine cabinet in my bathroom and I was like, yeah, I don't have anything natural in here. It's like all, all stuff that you buy over the counter. And it's interesting when you look in your cabinet when, you know, I'd been obviously reading about your brand and like all these amazing reviews and things that you've said about the products. And I was like, wow, this is really weird. I don't have anything natural in there. That's, and it's a weird thing because you have so many natural things in your fridge. Now
• 3:18
  But not yet in that category, like for me personally. Yeah, no, it's a really interesting thing. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts on this subject matter, obviously. But the first thing is, you know, when you're sick, your body's in a vulnerable state. The last thing you want to do is be introducing chemicals, refined sugars, flavors, preservatives, food dyes.
• 3:36
  And so medicine was not really made to heal in a lot of cases. You know, there's some wonderful advents of modern medicine, of course. But in a lot of cases, the medicine that we buy at the drugstore, it's meant to kind of mask the symptoms and get us on through our day. But it doesn't it's not really helping us in the way that it should. And then just kind of to your point about what's in your fridge or, you know, your makeup cabinet or something like that.
• 4:01
  We've seen this Better For You mission permeate like every sector. There's clean food, clean beauty, sustainable fashion. And the one area that's truly lagged is medicine. And I think it's because with medicine, you know, at least I'm like this with beauty products. I'm like, OK, sure, I'll try it. I don't know if it's working, but like.
• 4:21
  Give me more. But with medicine, it has to work. Like if you have a sore throat and you use the Beekeeper's Naturals Propolis Spray and it does not help your sore throat, you are never using one of our products again. And nor should you. So you're held to a very different standard when it comes to medicine. And there is a lot of kind of upfront investing we have to do on the efficacy side, on the science side, and that's all stuff we're committed to doing. But it means that before we bring a product to market, we're spending a hell of a lot of money.
• 4:49
  compared to kind of our cosmetic or food counterparts. So that's why I think there hasn't been a lot of innovation in this area. And for me, this is like my obsession because of my own health issues. And so for me, there was like no other road I was going to go down. But certainly it hasn't really kept pace with what the customer of today wants and deserves and demands for themselves.
• 5:13
  Yeah, totally. Absolutely. I'd love to go back into, you know, your past when your health issues were starting and, you know, get to learn a little bit about your story before you had the light bulb moment to start this business and what the problems were that you were facing and how that led into starting the business. Yeah. So, oh my gosh, I had a,
• 5:37
  all kinds of health issues growing up. So I had chronic tonsillitis. I don't know. Have you ever had tonsillitis? I haven't. Have you had strep throat? Anything like that? Okay, well, I'm very happy to hear that. But for any listeners, tonsillitis, strep throat, these sort of things are quite common. And they're very painful. And typically when you have something like tonsillitis or strep throat, you take a course of antibiotics and you'll recover in like a week or so. And if you have a chronic condition, you get your tonsils out.
• 6:06
  So that would have been the normal path for me. But I have an autoimmune condition where I cannot take antibiotics. So I cannot take antibiotics at all. And what that meant was that when I got toxylitis or strep throat or anything viral, there was nothing I could really do. My body wouldn't recover quickly. I had a really weak immune system. And so I would be sick for...
• 6:28
  I don't know, three weeks at a time. And so think about this started when I was like a little kid. So my whole experience growing up was, you know, missing
• 6:39
  huge amounts of school and sitting on the sidelines and being sick and in like pretty severe pain with no medicine that could help me. And when it came to taking my tonsils out because of my allergies to antibiotics, it wasn't, you know, the safest path to go down. So I have my tonsils. I still have them today. But I grew up constantly ill. And because of my allergies, a lot of one, antibiotics are just,
• 7:07
  not in the conversation for me, but a lot of what sold at the drugstore, I would actually have an adverse reaction to. So everything from like the Neo Citrin and NyQuil and these traditional things that we take, they would make me sicker. And so I grew up seeing like every specialist flying around the country, like just trying to solve my problems. I saw every doctor, every naturopath, every like constantly just searching. And then from a pretty early age,
• 7:37
  We figured out that, you know, not much was happening and we had spent a lot of money and time that we couldn't really keep up with trying to solve these problems. And so I started really exploring the world of natural wellness and I was really excited and I did a ton of research. I'm a person who has to do a ton of research based on where my health was at.
• 7:56
  My health has changed a lot now. We'll get to that. But anyways, I started doing a lot of research on the world of natural wellness and I was really excited. There was all of these cool, natural plant-based alternatives that promised these unbelievable results and there wasn't necessarily the most science that I was finding, but there was a ton of anecdotal evidence and a lot of these things have been used for years and years.
• 8:22
  got a job, started saving up money. And these wellness alternatives tend to be quite expensive. So I started buying these things and using them. And I very quickly became very disillusioned with the world of natural wellness because I would end up spending time researching and buying these fancy things
• 8:40
  celebrity endorsed Fuji products and they would, you know, in many cases do nothing. And sometimes I would have a negative reaction. And so I was just really frustrated. I was like, where do I fit in the system? And, you know,
• 8:56
  It's, you know, a lot of people struggle with this. I, you know, I had a chronic tonsillitis. It wasn't debilitating and it wasn't life threatening. You know, I'm very fortunate for that, but it certainly altered my life. It caused a lot of stress, pain, pain.
• 9:12
  missing out, it really affected my well-being. And there's a huge population that struggles with autoimmune, and these things are just not as accessible to this community. Anyways, so that was my experience, and that continued up until college. I was constantly searching for the latest and greatest, only to be disappointed. And I kept, when I could, seeing different doctors, getting different opinions, and everyone was kind of like, you're out a lot, kid.
• 9:41
  And in college, I did a semester abroad and went to Europe. I was studying in Sweden and I was traveling around.
• 9:50
  And I busted my butt waitressing to get out there. It was like my first big trip. So excited. And when I went to, I was doing like two weeks in Italy to meet up with another friend. And when I got to Italy, pretty soon after that, I got really severe tonsillitis to the point where I was having a very hard time breathing. My tonsils were so swollen. It was hard to get air in. And I was going to have to come home. And I was like,
• 10:16
  oh my gosh, I'm not missing out again. Like I worked so hard to get out here. And every time I get this like opportunity in life, it gets shut down because I'm sick. And I'm so tired of that. And so I was like, I'm just gonna figure this out. Like there has to be a solution. And I went to a pharmacy in Florence. It wasn't like a natural fancy store. It was just a traditional pharmacy. I just looked up online where I could really talk to a pharmacist.
• 10:44
  And I went in, spoke to this pharmacist. I riddled off my list of allergies, my symptoms, all the things. And she was just like, oh, you need propolis. And I was like, okay, what's that? And she's like, you know, propolis from the bees. And I was like, okay, so honey, honey.
• 11:02
  And she's like, no, no, no, not honey. Totally different. It's propolis. So I had never heard of this stuff before. Like many of us, I thought that the only thing the bees did was make honey. Guilty. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I completely thought that. And I thought it was like, okay, this must be like a language barrier. I don't know. But yeah.
• 11:23
  she's adamant that I try this. She feels really confident. She was like really relaxed given all of my symptoms and like the state I was in and I was physically sick. I was like, okay, I'm just going to try this. And I was also 21. And so I was like, YOLO, I'll try it. And so I bought this propolis from her and I started using it following her instructions. And in about five days, I made a full recovery. And that had never happened to me before. I had tried at 20, like 30,
• 11:51
  years, 20 years, like game changer. Yeah. Not exactly 20 years because I started getting sick around like nine years old ish, I think. Um, anyways, but long, long time of searching. And for the first time I had this experience of recovery and I didn't know that that was possible for me. And I started doing a ton of research on propolis and the more medicinal compounds that come from the beehive.
• 12:19
  And I learned that propolis is certainly not new. The first recorded human use dates back to 300 BC. And propolis has been written up for having some incredibly beneficial properties. It's antiviral. It's antifungal. It's antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory. It's full of antioxidants. So these are all things that are amazing for combating germs and reducing inflammation and swelling, which is what you need when you're sick.
• 12:46
  It's really interesting. Actually, in the 17th century, propolis was listed in the London Pharmacopedia as an official drug. So a lot of people talk about propolis as like the OG antibiotic. Like it's really what people were using long before we turn to, you know, a lot of the sort of...
• 13:03
  medicines we use today. So it's really interesting. We have this really longstanding healing history. If you look at propolis as a compound, there's over 300 beneficial compounds inside propolis. It has a really wonderful effect on the body and it's wonderful for autoimmune and sensitive people generally because it's really sensitive on your system and it's something that your body can really kind of integrate.
• 13:23
  So I had found my propolis right here. So I had found my thing. I was feeling better. And as I was traveling around Europe, I started to notice things like propolis, royal jelly, bee pollen were more commonplace. I remember finding brain supplements in France made with royal jelly. And I saw these like anti-aging compounds as well.
• 13:47
  that had royal jelly in them when I was in France. And then in Copenhagen, I bought this like energy supplement that had bee pollen. So I started finding these bee products everywhere. And it's not like they're so widely accessible, but I was looking for them. And I just started noticing that there was a greater awareness. And so I started incorporating them into my routine and I felt a huge difference.
• 14:09
  You know, I was somebody who was getting sick monthly and I really wasn't getting sick. And when I did have something coming on, I was able to kind of stop it before it got bad. So my health radically changed during that semester abroad. And I certainly wasn't thinking about starting a company. I was just like, oh, my God, I found my thing. I love B products. They work for my body. This is great. And so I finished up my time abroad, came back home to finish up college in Canada, where I'm from.
• 14:37
  And, um, exams rolled around and I had one too many all-nighters cramming and I got sick and I wasn't so worried this time because, you know, I was like, I just need propolis. Being sick is no longer a monthly affair. So I thought I just needed to get my hands on some propolis and I went to like every health food store and there was...
• 14:58
  shelves and shelves of organic honey and Manuka honey, but nobody really knew what I was talking about when I asked for propolis. Like people thought I was insane asking for this. I finally found some propolis at this farmer's market in British Columbia and it was $40 for like the tiniest tincture and it was organic and artisanal and all the things. And I went back and used it and I had a really spirit allergic reaction.
• 15:24
  And so I was like, what the hell? How is this happening? I just came off, you know, seven months in Europe where I used propolis literally daily. Why is this happening? And at that time, I was a TA for my chemistry class. And so I actually ran a toxicity panel on the product I'd purchased. And I found out that there was pesticide exposure.
• 15:44
  And so that led me down a different path where I was like, it's organic. How is there pesticides in this? Like, isn't that the whole point of organic? And what I learned was with bee products and, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of inefficiencies in the organic world, but specifically with bee products, organic is not a great benchmark because the bees fly. You can't put a leash on them. So just because their hive sits on organic land, if the neighbors are doing something dirty, which they, you know...
• 16:09
  pesticides are widely used, and in many cases they are, the bees will get exposure. Oh gosh. I know, it's brutal. So for somebody who's autoimmune and really sensitive to pesticides, organic doesn't paint the full picture. And even if you're not, if you're paying the extra money for something organic, like it should be pesticide-free. You're trying to get your body clean and away from these toxic ingredients. But anyways, that experience...
• 16:36
  It was illuminating and it made me realize, you know, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. So I know the bee products work. I'm not allergic to bee products all of a sudden. I am still allergic to pesticides. So I need to start beekeeping and run quality control. And I was like, how the hell do I do that? So I literally went on Google.
• 16:58
  was started reading blogs about beginner beekeeping um youtube videos i literally bought the book beekeeping for dummies i actually met the guy who wrote it a few years ago and i was like i like almost started crying it was really embarrassing it was i just it was extra it was not it was not well um but anyways oh my god i love that
• 17:17
  like your fangirl moment is the guy who wrote beekeeping it's so funny and he's like not used to being approached by that so he was like are you having a panic attack and I was like no you're just really cool um it was really embarrassing oh that's a joke I have a picture with him and I'm like standing so awkwardly and so stressed out in the photo I actually didn't even post it like I look insane
• 17:41
  Um, even though he's so frigging cool and it made a big difference to my life, clearly. Uh, so anyways, I started learning all about beekeeping and then I was like, okay, where do I get bees? How do I do this? I'm a pro college student. And so I Googled, um, beekeeping meetups.
• 17:56
  And I found the local, my local chapter for the beekeeping association. And if anyone's interested, most parts of the world have a local chapter for a beekeeping association that meets monthly. Even right now, most places are doing it virtually. So I started attending these meetings and I was not, you know, the typical person.
• 18:18
  I was not a member of like the typical demographic that attends these meetings. And I ended up meeting this guy named John. He is a third generation beekeeper who moved to Canada from Romania. He's a retired biochemist and he basically moved to Canada to like live in the woods and keep bees and be a recluse.
• 18:37
  And lo and behold, this annoying cheerleader shows up just like begging him to teach her about bees. And so basically I convinced him to let me be his apprentice. I started working for him for free. He was in the middle of Victoria, B.C. in the forest. So like as pesticide free as you can get in the middle of the forest on an island in Canada. I went to college in Victoria, British Columbia. So I was fortunate to go to college in that beautiful place.
• 19:06
  But anyways, I started working with him. I started as his apprentice and it was just this incredible learning experience because I'm learning from somebody who's generationally been exposed to bees and then also has a science background. And then at the same time, I was taking science courses. I was still a TA for my chem class. So I would go to the hives and...
• 19:26
  work with the bees and create all these products and learn about them and then bring them back to the lab where I kind of like had a free run and, you know, perfect my extraction type. And I, I didn't know it at the time, but looking back, I was creating this product line and just perfecting it for myself. And, you know, it was, it was actually a really beautiful accidental way to start a company because I think, yeah,
• 19:48
  A lot of time, I mean, when people start companies, they're thinking about the longer term. They're thinking about profitability and how you scale this. And inevitably, you cut some people. You don't necessarily have to. I really believe you don't have to do this. But we've all seen a lot of people cut corners on the pursuit of profit. And so I never thought I could start a company.
• 20:14
  I was just making what works for me and doing it as best I could. And so I have this beautiful experience where I was just able to really learn about something and really perfect something and become an expert in something with no pressure. And that's what happened. I completely fell in love with the bees. I am obsessed with like playing mad scientist and creating products. And I really changed my health. And at the start...
• 20:41
  You know, I never thought it could be a company. I never thought I studied sciences. I never took a business course in my life. I never thought I could start a company. But I started sharing these products with my roommates. And next thing you know, people on campus were Facebook messaging me. They're like, these products work. Can I buy some from you? And I was like, okay, I don't even know what to charge you. But what was happening there was I realized that
• 21:05
  these one, these products work for a meaningful population beyond myself. And two, there's a real appetite for something natural that's effective in the medicine space. And there's, you know, clearly a lack of options, even if you're not autoimmune, even if you don't have these allergies, there's an understanding that when you're sick, you want to put something clean in your body, but you also need something that works and is going to address the symptoms. And you want something that also helps you recover more quickly. So I was, you know, hitting all of these things.
• 21:33
  Sorry, this is a long story. I love a long story. Please continue. Okay, good. So I was making these products and I was just madly in love with what I was doing. I completely fell in love with the bees. I've always been pretty interested in environmental affairs and just like a nature lover. Yeah.
• 21:52
  And I started to really learn about the importance of pollinators and how bees really sustain life on this planet and how intricate these creatures are and how it's a matriarchical society. Like there was all of these things about bees that were just like, oh, this is the coolest. So I fell completely in love with bees. I was already in love with building products and I like solving problems. And so I had this dream of starting a bee product company.
• 22:20
  But I was graduating with negative funds and starting a big product company when I went to basically any adult was like, that sounds strange.
• 22:31
  really weird. You should probably just get a job. And I imagine people are also like, it's a bit hippie dippy. Like, Oh, you know, what do you mean? Yeah, totally. Oh yes. People thought I was like a crazy hippie. And so I went in the complete opposite direction of a hippie. I had a job. I was very fortunate to have a job offer out of school at a hedge fund.
• 22:54
  And the specific job that I was offered was to be focused on pharmaceutical research. So I was doing pharmaceutical research for these hedge fund people to then place monetary bets on. So it was great. It was research, which is my thing. It was science driven, but it was also like a hedge fund, which was a little fancy and gave me some good income out of school.
• 23:16
  And so I joined this hedge fund. I was there for about 10 months. And then 10 months into that, I got recruited by Goldman Sachs, which is a big investment bank to join their team. And I became a trader at Goldman Sachs and I was there for just over two years. It was a wonderful learning experience. It was amazing.
• 23:37
  the most I've ever could hate a job. And I've had some pretty like intense jobs through high school and college. And like Goldman was rough, but it was rough because it was so out of line with my values and what I care about and what I want. It was, you know, in many ways, a really wonderful experience. And I feel very lucky to have worked there, but yeah,
• 23:59
  Basically, I've never cared about finance. And there I am at, you know, a very large finance firm working crazy hours with a huge amount of responsibility doing something that is really meaningless and inauthentic to me.
• 24:15
  I, you know, stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn't really connect with my co-workers and I felt incredibly isolated. And again, the hours were quite intense. I mean, I work longer hours now, but I work on something that I love and I'm passionate about when you're working wild hours at a place where you don't feel like you're really being treated kindly and you're working on something that you don't care for. It's,
• 24:39
  tough it's really tough and you also you don't see that like the outcome you don't see the goal that you're like trying to reach because you're just you know in the process what am I doing this for so that my parents can like tell their friends that I have a good job and I'm independent or like I can have a slightly bigger shoebox of an apartment in New York I don't know
• 24:59
  I was pulling a lot of all-nighters. I started to, I'm an anxious person by nature. I started to really struggle with anxiety. I was having panic attacks. I remember I went to the doctor at Goldman and I was like, I think I'm having a heart attack. He's like, no, no, no, this is just a panic attack. So I started having pretty bad panic attacks, pretty severe. Wow. And I got to a point where I was just like, fuck, I'm really unhappy.
• 25:25
  really, really unhappy. And I know I have a good income and I'm on a good trajectory, but I don't think I can do this. And so I sat down and I made a spreadsheet about happiness because that's what I was good at at that time, spreadsheets. And I was trying to identify the points in time where
• 25:43
  I felt the happiest. And the things that I kept coming back to were working with the bees, which is a little hard to do when you're splitting time between New York and Toronto, which I was doing at that time, and building products. Also a little bit hard to do, but I was like...
• 26:00
  I can kind of do this. It can be my hobby. And so I started sourcing products. I would just buy products from my mentor out in British Columbia. He would just send me bulk raw bee products. I actually have some raw propolis I can show you in a second. Oh, please do. On the other side of my counter. Maybe I'll grab it right now. Yeah, grab it, please.
• 26:21
  Okay, so a lot of, this is just like a good visual because people think Propolis is honey and it's a totally different thing. But I started ordering raw product. This is raw Propolis. So John would literally just like send me raw product.
• 26:36
  And I bought all of this lab equipment and I turned my like teeny tiny studio apartment in New York into like a lot. Like my friends would come over and they would be like, Carly, what's happening? This is like breaking bad. Do you need to tell us something?
• 26:52
  And I was always like trying to make sure that we don't go back to my place. It was so weird. But I started making, so I started, you know, ordering raw product from my mentor and making it into accessible, viable products. And I would go on weekends and sell them at farmer's markets and pop-up shops. And it was like my secret thing.
• 27:16
  moonlight after work job. Your secret side hustle. Yeah, it really was. I was always so paranoid that
• 27:24
  if I was like at a farmer's market that someone I work with would show up or like their wife or something, it was always like on edge of it. But it was, it was where I started to derive. Yeah, honestly. But I started to really drive a lot of joy from being able to share these products I was making and the interactions I was having with customers. And it was again, a beautiful experience because I didn't think that I could start a company. I really thought this was going to be like, I have my job that I hate.
• 27:53
  And then on weekends, I got to like do this as a fun hobby. And I was thinking like, you know, my mom loves to bake and my mom's a teacher and baking is not her job, but she bakes a lot. And I was like, okay, why can't my hobby be making bee products into medicine and selling out of farmer's markets? Rolls off the tongue.
• 28:13
  And so that's how I was thinking about it. And then what happened was people started, I started to just build up this customer base. People started to, I made an email list. People started to follow me around to different farmers markets and they would share these incredible stories, incredible healing stories of their own. Some of them similar to mine, some of them very different stories.
• 28:34
  You know, I remember one gentleman shared a really impactful story about his experience with Lyme disease and how propolis
• 28:44
  somehow helped to really stabilize his immune system. And, you know, he was very passionate about it. And then I had this other customer. She had a six-year-old with all kinds of autoimmune, and he would get canker sores in his throat, and it was very, very painful for him. And she would, like, email me and send me videos of him, like, spraying it and, like, in the morning before school, opening his mouth to spray it, and the canker sores went away. And so people were sharing all kinds of healing stories with me,
• 29:13
  And I was like, well, it makes sense as a substance because it's anti-inflammatory. So any inflammatory condition like a canker sore, it's going to have a soothing effect. And it's antiviral. So germs, bacteria, any sort of viral, propolis will be supportive. It's immune support. Like that's what propolis is. It's an immune supporter. In the hive, it actually functions as the immune system for the entire hive. So it makes a lot of sense that if there's anything immune related, propolis will be supportive.
• 29:41
  Anyways, so people started sharing these stories and then people started asking me to send product to their sister-in-law in Chicago and all over. And next thing you knew, I was spending my entire salary shipping to different places and all of this. And it got to a point where I was like,
• 30:00
  I think that I have a real customer base. People like this. I know the science is there, and this is what I want to do. And if it's, this needs to exist in the world, because it helps people, and if it's not me, someone else is gonna do it, and I think it should be me. So I left Goldman end of 2016. Everyone thought I was having a full-blown mental breakdown. Like, literally everyone in my life was like,
• 30:25
  very concerned about me. Everyone was like, this is not what you should do. What are you doing? Oh, yeah. And like, not only that, people were like, aggressively concerned. Like people would be like, this is the worst decision of your life. You have this incredible job. People would kill to work at this firm. You're going to end up living in your parents. My, my, one of my bosses at Coleman, actually, he told me that he did this. Like, I remember he, when I told him, he brought me into a boardroom.
• 30:55
  And he started, he has no idea what our margin structure looks like or how my company has evolved. But he starts putting like arbitrary numbers of like, here's where you'll end up with your little B product company. And here's where you would end up if you made partner at Goldman Sachs. And like, it basically showed a very bad situation on one end and a fantastic one on the other. And that was like upset. I remember like kind of trying not to cry in that moment, but also being like, yeah, I'm going to fucking do this.
• 31:22
  Yeah, you're like, if anything really gives me the fuel and like further conviction that I'm going to prove you wrong. Yeah. So anyways, I people thought I was like having a full mental breakdown and I really wanted to get away from all of that.
• 31:39
  And I had this dream of going back to Europe and putting my head down in a cafe and just writing my business plan. And I didn't know how to write a business plan, by the way. I Googled how to write a business plan. For everyone listening, I didn't know. I knew a lot about finance, which was not at all useful in the first few years of my business. And now is a little bit useful because I can have good conversations with our CFO. But I don't.
• 32:03
  I would not say that was a huge leg up. I knew nothing about business and how to start a business. I knew a hell of a lot about business.
• 32:13
  products and the science behind them. And I, you know, my biggest asset, I think, was that I knew a lot about how to research effectively. I knew what constitutes good science, what kind of trials to look at, what's kind of science that's been manipulated for a certain result versus what to understand. But on the business side, I had no idea. And you don't need to have an idea. You just need to be
• 32:39
  aggressive in your pursuit of information and understanding. So anyways, I had this dream of like going to Europe and where no one knows me and just writing my business plan and setting it up and then coming back and really starting the company in America where there's, you know, a lot of interest in health and wellness and a big market. And I couldn't afford to go to Europe because I had put all of my savings into the company and had just enough to survive for that year on a very
• 33:07
  budgeted lifestyle. So anyways, I couldn't afford to go to Europe, but I could afford to go to Southeast Asia because I had enough for a flight. And then the cost of living there was actually significantly better than my rent in New York, which I couldn't afford. Of course. So moved out of my apartment in New York, went to Southeast Asia. I spent three months there. This is, I think, end of 2016, start of 2017.
• 33:36
  I spent three months there just literally by myself because really everyone in my life thought I was insane. And I, I like kind of broke down everything. Like I exited my good on paper relationship with a lovely person that just, you know, wasn't my person. And I exited this great on paper job and in pursuit of this.
• 33:58
  concept that makes no sense to anyone. And so anyways, I, I Google how to write a business plan. I started writing one out. I started to understand what,
• 34:08
  how fundraising would look and put together kind of a action plan for that. And I came back to the U S start of 2017, um, had completely run out of money. At that point, I was living on my best friend, Adam's couch, and I stayed there for over six months. So God bless Adam. Shout out to Adam. Deserves a mention. I mentioned him on everything I ever do. Pretty much. He's my best, best friend. He's like my brother. But anyways, I, uh,
• 34:37
  I had fully run out of money at that point, but I had done a lot of research on fundraising and just reading the same way I learned about bees, reading these like for dummies books and listening to podcasts and just learning what venture capital was. That's a word I didn't know. Even working in finance, I wasn't really aware of that space. It's quite different than public markets. And I started to put together a small seed round and I basically started
• 35:06
  dialed up all the rich people I know. A lot of them were people I met in the finance world who I worked for. And I was like, here's my idea. Would you be interested in investing? And pretty consistently they were like, I don't understand your idea.
• 35:22
  at all, but I know that you're a workaholic. I've seen the way your work ethic is, and I trust that you'll figure it out. You're not going to, you'll find something. So I was able to put together a small seed round, not a huge amount, but just enough. And I went to my other best friend, Daniel Miller, who's now our COO.
• 35:46
  He was a corporate lawyer at the time. And I was like, how do I set up a company? I don't know how to do any of this. And so he started helping me out. And then something that was really important to me early on was, so this is just an interesting thing in the US, there's the FDA. And then when it comes to natural, it's the Wild West. There's no regulatory structure policing it. There's a little bit more structure in Europe and in Canada, where I'm from.
• 36:11
  There is a body health candidate. They do regulate natural products. And what you can do is apply to get an NPN number, which is a natural product number. So we have NPN numbers on all of our products.
• 36:25
  And basically what they do is we've, what it means that we've legally validated the health claims we make. So sometimes you see products in the U.S. that are like, here's everything and we'll make you glow. And there's no scientific or legal validation. So for us, when we say throat spray, when we say on our Belixer brain shots, when we say cognitive memory, say those words, we've legally validated those health claims.
• 36:48
  And a lot of people don't know about this. I knew about this because I had to with all of my health issues. I was I had to look out for things with NPNs because I wasn't able to take things that don't because I didn't know what I would get. And so I went to Daniel and I was like, OK, you've helped me set up the company. You're amazing. You're amazing.
• 37:08
  do you know anything about how to get NPNs? And he's like, I'm an M&A lawyer. No. And then I was like, maybe you're the smartest person I know. So like, I feel like you can figure it out. Like if I can figure this other stuff out, like you can figure this out. So we started the process together of trying to get NPNs. And Daniel, this whole time, was just like helping out a friend.
• 37:28
  And I think he kind of felt bad for me. And he was also working crazy hours at a law firm and he would get sick all the time and go to the local drugstore and just spend like 50 bucks on cough syrup and stuff to mask the symptoms only to get sick again. And he thought I was like a crazy hippie chick just doing something weird, but helping out a friend. And so as we're going through this process where he's having to legally validate the science of these products to the Canadian government, he's like, huh, Carly,
• 37:58
  this stuff, like this is real, this works. And I was like, yeah, that's what I'm doing. And then he had one night where he had a really bad sore throat and he used the propolis and it literally like, he was fine the next morning. And he came back to me and he's like, I want to get involved. You need a business partner.
• 38:16
  And I was like, I don't need a business partner and we're a sustainably driven company. So I don't care about your JD MBA. You don't have beekeeping experience. So I love you and you're the best friend ever. But like this seems like a poor fit if you, you know, you can't bring that perspective into this.
• 38:34
  Because it is really important to me. And, you know, now we have amazing conversations with all our team members, but people need to really understand the intricacies of the bees and the impact we have environmentally. So anyways, I turned him away. He went out and did a master's apprenticeship in beekeeping and came back to me several months later, a certified beekeeper. And I was like,
• 38:55
  Okay. Overachiever you're in. That is awesome. Oh my God. He's the best. Um, and Daniel, so he left the world of corporate law January, 2018, and he's now full-time RCO and it's awesome. I'm very lucky to get to run my company with my best friend. And that kind of brings us today. So now, um,
• 39:20
  We have quite a few products. We're all about reinventing the medicine cabinet. I have the most amazing team. We're sold nationally. We're sold at all Whole Foods locations across the U.S. and Canada. And where our propolis spray is consistently in the top five of top selling immune products on Amazon. And we have
• 39:43
  Yeah, it's great. We have a growing team. Holy moly. That is just the coolest story. And like, I feel like I had to do the least amount of work I've ever had to do. You just like breeze through the story without me having to ask you any questions, which I am just so grateful that I got to sit here and listen to that amazing story. Wow. Wow.
• 40:02
  Um, I'm wondering when you look back at your like marketing over the last two years, say since Daniel joined, what do you think has been the reason for the success and, you know, crazy customer growth and, um, customer acquisition?
• 40:15
  Yeah. So I think for one, we're obsessive about product. Our products work at the end of the day, and we will not bring something to market that doesn't not only work, but is accessible to the most sensitive systems. I'm a great guinea pig for all of our products. I won't bring something to market that I don't use. So we're really obsessive about product quality and efficacy. And I think
• 40:36
  That's, you know, you can only get so far with a company built on promise. It's really important to be obsessed with your products and be obsessed with the landscape and understanding your customer base and what they need and solving problems for them. So that's number one. If our products didn't work, we would not have grown like this. And then on the marketing front, it's really challenging because we have such a nuanced product line. We're dealing with ingredients that the average person hasn't heard of.
• 41:05
  There's generally a lack of trust in the wellness space and specifically when it comes to medicine. When people are sick, they just want to get fucking better. Like the last thing they want to do is try something that like maybe will work. So it's really important that we, again, make products that truly work, but also have strategic, decisive messaging that people understand, trying to kind of.
• 41:33
  bring this down to, you know, everyone's level because the average person, again, doesn't know what propolis is. So how can we how can we make this just understandable in a quick snap second? And so really speaking and we've figured that out through a lot of customer testing, a lot of trial and error. We've done like the long winded campaigns where I try and teach every single person about every single B product and people tend to get bored and check out.
• 41:58
  We've done the thing where we speak to the specific symptom. And ultimately what I've learned is that you need to speak, you need to meet your customer where they are. So speaking to their needs. You know, I have, I so, I mean, as you can probably tell by this podcast, I tend to like go down a rabbit hole. Yeah.
• 42:14
  verbally and when I'm researching and when I'm doing anything. And so I want to like share all the amazing products. And people sometimes joke that I'm like the Windex dad from Big Fat Creek Wedding. So I'm like, papapos on everything. But really, and even if something is the best miracle product ever, and it is a cure-all, it's really important to understand,
• 42:35
  be specific and meet your customer where they are and speak to the problem that they're going through. So, you know, when I talk to other entrepreneurs, I really emphasize, especially with, I mean, with anything, I really emphasize the importance of getting to know who your customer is, where they live, how old they are, what other things do they consume? What are they dealing with? Like, what is the problem that is still plaguing them? I think it's wonderful when you are your customer.
• 43:02
  I think that's a really wonderful thing. And, you know, it's not always the case. And I think companies can evolve in a beautiful way without that because we're all, you know, capable of empathy and understanding. But it really, you know, if you're not your customer, get to know your customers, spend time with them. I it was unintentional. But the work that I did in the early days at farmer's markets, standing in a booth.
• 43:26
  All weekend, every weekend. And just talking to people who are using my product, coming back the next weekend, saying like, I like this, but not this so much. And I would say, why? And I really got to know that. And, you know, you don't have to do that. You can replicate that with customer surveying. When you put out a product, get a good focus group going and survey them digitally and get to know what they like and what they don't like and be ready to move. Because, you know, also don't don't fall too in love with like your master formula.
• 43:55
  because it's not just about you. It's about meeting your customer where they are. So, you know, be open, be open-minded, be flexible, and continue growing alongside your customer base. Absolutely. I think that's such an important one that sometimes, even though it's the most obvious thing, sometimes people can actually forget that and
• 44:15
  Of course, and as you're seeing with your brand, word of mouth is so important and it has to be inherently built into what you do so that, you know, one person tells five of their other people and you didn't have to pay to acquire those customers at all. Yeah. And I mean, that's kind of what social media is. That's what influencers are. It's people who, you know, amassed a following and their word of mouth carries.
• 44:38
  And so, you know, you also need to be really clear on your messaging. This is something that I've messed up with all of, you know, sharing too many products or too many benefits. Like you need to really make it digestible for people and allow them to have their own experience. And then trust that if it works for them and you can trust that when you've worked your ass off making a great product.
• 45:00
  that it will carry. But we live in a world where information is easily disseminated. So that's a wonderful blessing for an entrepreneur. Absolutely. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business? Okay, so for me, my biggest challenge was and continues to be myself. I have, you know, I really have to
• 45:28
  rub up against the narratives that I carry and challenge them and question them. And I see this with all genders of young entrepreneurs that I speak to, but for whatever reason, maybe it's just my network, but I've seen it a little bit more with women where we need something to be perfect before we bring it to market. Or we need to go to our MBA before we do this, or we need some sort of external, external
• 45:57
  validation before we make these moves because we're not, you know, we're not so sure of ourselves or we just don't know how. And, um,
• 46:05
  That's all bullshit. Like nobody knows how I still I have, you know, a pretty big team and like I still don't know how. And I tell them that all the time. And the only thing that I know how to do and the only thing that kind of matters as an entrepreneur is resilience and being able to figure out the things you don't know how. Because especially as a CEO, your job changes.
• 46:27
  At least every six months with every phase the company takes on your whole job changes. And so the only thing that you consistently need to do is be good at being bad at something and dedicated to that thing until you get better at it. So my advice is all of these kind of limiting beliefs, start to question them.
• 46:48
  start to just look at like, what's the opposite of that? What if that's not true? Just start asking yourself, make a habit of it. This is what I had to do. I had to make a habit when I had these really limiting beliefs of saying, okay, what if the opposite happens? What if that's actually not true at all? What would that look like? And I journal about it and I have a major journaling practice. And that's really important for me because I am full of self doubt that I have to fight against constantly. And so yeah, for female entrepreneurs, I would say,
• 47:19
  And I hope that this actually doesn't resonate with a lot of people because I hope that people are not riddled with self-doubt and are full of confidence. But what kind of barriers are you placing on yourself? And what sort of external benchmarks are you telling yourself that you need to achieve prior to starting when the truth is you have this idea? If you care about this and are passionate about it, then there's no one better to do it than you.
• 47:41
  And what if you just did it and then figured it out as you went, like all of the other great entrepreneurs do? Totally. That's so strange that you say that you just sparked something that I remembered from a few years ago. I'd been doing like a self-development course. And one of the exercises that they gave us at the time was just when you automatically go to say yes or no to something, just automatically be like, what if I said yes? Or what if I said no? And just
• 48:07
  no matter what it was, if it's like, oh, you get invited to a wedding and you automatically say yes. But then what does it look like if you say no and prioritize, you know, yourself instead in that moment to not travel overseas to do something or, you know, whatever it is. And those little, you know, self kind of.
• 48:23
  exercises that you can do to question things that are happening like in your mind. It's just so critical. And I'm so glad you just reminded me of that. I'm going to start, um, I'm going to start doing that too. I think a lot of people do suffer with the, with the inner critic, um, certainly myself included. So that's really cool. Thanks for sharing. Um, okay. I'm conscious of time, but we have the six quick questions part of the episode. Are you still good for another five or six minutes?
• 48:49
  Yes, I am. Perfect. Okay. Question number one is what's your why? My why, when I started it was my customer base. Now it's my customer base and my team. Amazing. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? Yeah.
• 49:10
  I wish that I could point to one silver bullet. We've had a ton of celebrity endorsements, but I don't think it was one thing. I think it was slowly us grinding away, creating our Instagram following and interacting with our customers. And we like our customer love team, which is our customer service team, we're very dedicated. We're always talking about surprise and delight. So we've created a lot of micro moments by focusing on connection. Sorry, I know these are quick ones.
• 49:36
  They can be a bit longer if you've got time. I'd love to hear what you mean. Like, what's an example of those micro moments? So we always, as a company, are talking about surprise and delight. How can we surprise and delight customers? How can we connect with them more fully? How can we do a better job of understanding what they need from us, not just on a product level, but in their interactions or as a platform? So we spend a lot of time surveying.
• 50:01
  directly interacting with them over Instagram and email and then you know trying to reward people who support us by just like sending them you know an extra thing with their order sometimes or little things like that and it's really interesting because we've had we're very fortunate we've had you know the Kardashians endorse us publicly and that was amazing yeah we've had a lot of like
• 50:26
  I think sometimes people, entrepreneurs say, and these things are amazing, we're very lucky, but it's not like a celebrity endorses you and then you're a success. At least my experience has not been that the company radically changed overnight. It's a lot of different people speaking about their experience with the products. And so again, just focusing on,
• 50:48
  building connection. And you also build connection by solving people's problems. So it comes back to focusing on product that works, but really just focusing on, especially in today's isolated world. And I was saying we were isolated before COVID and lockdown. Yeah.
• 51:05
  because everything's digital, but creating opportunity to really hear what people are struggling with. And again, meet them there and speak to that directly and create a safe space for it. So sometimes it's like a physical surprise and delight extra, like, like a sticker pack with our products. Sometimes it's just an email thinking, dedicated customers. Sometimes it's a post about mental health, uh, where we really encourage a conversation. Sometimes it's,
• 51:33
  conversations like these that we share with our customer base where they can really get to know, you know, different pieces of us, but it's creating a lot of micro moments in different areas from an email campaign to an Instagram post to you name it where you can connect. Yeah, I really love that.
• 51:53
  Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? And that's around things that you're listening to, podcasts, books that you're reading, places on the Internet in these times. I'm a big podcaster. Let me just actually tell you the name of this new one that I'm obsessed with. I just got really into it. His name is Josh Weinstein. It's called The Portal.
• 52:14
  The portal. Okay. Yeah. Or sorry, with Eric Weinstein. So really love that. I really love a podcast. It's actually, I think they're based in London. It's called Not Overthinking. Okay. I haven't heard of it. Oh my God. I'm obsessed with it. I'm obsessed with it. It's these two brothers and it's like,
• 52:30
  I like the name too, because it's not overthinking, but also not overthinking. So anyways, I think it's very witty. But specifically for business, ETL, Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders, that's a podcast that's out through Stanford. That is like my number one rec for entrepreneurs. When I started my company, oh my gosh, I went back and like at the beginning, listened to every episode. And, you know, there's a lot of like interesting business podcasts where you get to know people. But I found there were so many opportunities.
• 53:00
  applicable takeaways from that podcast. So that's one that I love. And then I really like Invest Like the Best. Again, he interviews some really great people and I find that there's kind of tangible takeaways. So those are some of my faves. And then right now I'm rereading Ray Dalio's book, which is a really good one. It's just
• 53:21
  thinking about like corporate structure. But I read a lot of just kind of like, I think I read like a list I found on Google of business books when I started. And I think it is really important to continue thinking about these things. And then the other thing that I'm really lucky to learn from is I have a lot of entrepreneur friends and I spend a lot of time trading stories with them, learning about what's working for them, sharing what's working for us.
• 53:45
  I have a really incredible network of female entrepreneurs. I think it's really important to build that network for whatever reason. Well, there's not a lot of female entrepreneurs. We need to see more. But creating that supportive structure and sharing what's working for you and building real connections there is amazing.
• 54:05
  so important. I cannot tell you how many times my brilliant girlfriends who run brilliant companies have, you know, given me advice that's fundamentally shifted my path. So trying to find people who care about the things you care about and can provide different perspectives is really important.
• 54:23
  Yeah, I totally agree. That's totally how Female Startup Club came about because I was asking girlfriends in my network how to grow my e-commerce business at the time. And yeah, leads you in a funny way, but I totally agree. It's so important to have those connections. Question number four, and this is one I'm super excited to hear your answer to, is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful, but motivated and productive. So...
• 54:51
  Pretty much every day, I will first of all, I have to like fight to not check my email in the morning or slack. So that's like a constant struggle for me. Like this morning, I did a really shit job of it. I was like, I'm going to get up and go journal. And then right away, I'm like on slack and then I'm on slack for an hour in my bed, which is insane. Anyways, don't do that. I slip in and out of doing that. Yeah, it's tough. But I try really hard to just have a practice that kind of centers me before I start my
• 55:20
  you know, it doesn't have to be a lot of time. I certainly don't spend a lot of time doing it, but I do a few things. One, I do kind of a gratitude list. So I just write down three things I'm grateful for. And then have you heard of the Hoffman process? No, it's a little bit. Okay. So I went to do, I went to this place called,
• 55:41
  Hoffman and it's basically like a week long sort of retreat, but it's not like massages and yoga. It's like basically therapy. It's wonderful. It's unbelievable. And it's all about it's it's all about looking at your patterns that don't serve you. The patterns we take on early in our life that, you know, they're not necessarily who we are. They're just patterns. They're things that we engage in that are either. Yeah.
• 56:07
  limiting or self-sabotaging or we just want to get rid of and it's like this deep exploration of that so love that and I think they have actually an Instagram page where they do these like guided meditations they do something called a quad check where you just check in with different parts of yourself but I use their apps I like to write and every morning it's like little journal prompts and so it's the I think it's just called the Hoffman process app and
• 56:32
  It's not like the cleanest app. I don't think they've updated in a while, but they have the option to do the quad check and it's where you check in with different parts of yourself. So it's like my emotional self feels and then what does my emotional self need today? My intellectual self feels, what does my intellectual self need today? My body feels, what does my body need today? And it's just a really great way before you get sort of swept away with the entire day to check in with what's your emotional state,
• 56:58
  what are you worried about and how can you support yourself? So like for me, very frequently, my intellectual state feels anxious. And then, you know, the second problem, which is like, what do I need today? Is like, okay, I'm feeling anxious as fuck. I probably need to like meditate for 10 minutes at some point today and just be kind to myself because like, there's no way I'm going to get everything done. And I find that starting your day with those little check-ins is really important.
• 57:25
  Yeah, I love that. End of day. I've been trying recently. It's tough because I live on the East Coast. I have West Coast team members. So I tend to work like East Coast and West Coast hours sometimes. And so what I'm trying to do and thank God for my assistant, because she's actually the one who's trying to do this and like enforcing it with me, is trying to have just like an hour at the end of the day where I just stop and I just like,
• 57:55
  Don't look at anything. Nothing important is happening. Everyone on the team knows like Carly's not going to look until tomorrow morning in most cases, even though I cheat a lot. And then I try to just read a book or do something that's kind of indulgent. So sometimes that's like.
• 58:13
  order a pizza and watch like Emily in Paris. Oh my God. I love Emily in Paris. I know. I know. It's like such a guilty pleasure. Yeah. So good. So good. Or it's, you know, listen to binge about Harry Potter, which is my
• 58:30
  my guilty pleasure lately, or just like read a fantasy book. Like I have so many business and personal development books. I'm, I'm always reading. And I just recently started reading, um, Aragon. It's like this book about dragons and it's, I think the target demo is like teenage boys, but you know, but trying to do something that's indulgent for me. That's like, just for me, that's pure joy at the end of the day.
• 58:53
  I love that. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, how would you spend it? Jeez, that would be scary. I think I would a thousand dollars. I think I would probably find an entrepreneur who has a really great idea and give it to them because there's not so much you can do with a thousand dollars, but maybe it would be like a base for somebody to go on and create something incredible.
• 59:23
  I love that. Haven't had that as an answer before. Love that. Very cool. And last question, question number six is how do you deal with failure? And it can be around a personal experience or just your general mindset and approach to it. Failure is so important.
• 59:39
  it comes back to that resilience and I fail at things all the time. Like I more often than not, I feel at little things. And I, I now I've, I'm teaching myself and constantly reteaching myself to see failure as an opportunity to build that resilience muscle. We really need to build our resilience muscle. Like that is the most, I mean, I'm sure you experienced this. It's the most single, most important thing you can do as an entrepreneur. And I always come back to this quote. I,
• 1:00:08
  I think it was, I don't know who said it, but it was like, if you live so cautiously as to never fail at all, then you fail by default. And I really believe that like failing means you're doing something. And the most important thing is, you know, to be in action and be in pursuit of your mission and purpose. And so failing is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just an opportunity to strengthen and a redirection. Yep.
• 1:00:38
  Absolutely. Totally. I've loved this episode so much. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing all these amazing stories and learnings and lessons that you've had along the way. I really appreciate it. Thank you. This was so much fun.
• 1:01:00
  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.
• 1:01:24
  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.
• 1:01:47
  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.
• 1:02:04
  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.
• 1:02:28
  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.
• 1:02:51
  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.