Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / A go-to market launch strategy that will get you thousands of email subscribers & customers, with Cure Hydration’s Founder Lauren Picasso

Transcript

A go-to market launch strategy that will get you thousands of email subscribers & customers, with Cure Hydration’s Founder Lauren Picasso · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Lauren Picasso for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doon Roshin, and joining me on today's episode is Lauren Picasso, founder of Cure Hydration.
• 0:25
  Cure Hydration is an organic electrolyte powder that has four times the electrolytes of sports drinks, but with no added or artificial sweeteners. And it's sold in more than 5,000 stores. In this episode, Lauren shares her journey to starting the business and how she validated her idea, a crazy go-to-market launch strategy that landed her thousands and thousands of emails and lessons she's learned along the way.
• 0:50
  And while I've got you here, please do subscribe, rate and review the podcast to help other ears find us. This is Lauren for Female Startup Club. Lauren, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm so excited to have you here today chatting with me. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I always love to start by getting you to introduce yourself and what your business is.
• 1:17
  Absolutely. My name is Lauren Picasso and I'm the founder of Cure Hydration. Cure is an organic electrolyte mix that's made with plant-based ingredients and based on the science behind oral rehydration solution, which is a product that was originally developed by the World Health Organization and is proven to hydrate as effectively as an IV drip.
• 1:38
  Wow. Sounds amazing. Actually, when I was looking at the website, I was like, I just want to drink this now for no reason. Sounds really freaking good. Let's go back to life before you started Cure to talk about what got you interested in starting this brand in the first place and why you wanted to go down the pathway of entrepreneurship and starting your own business. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I'd say
• 2:05
  I'd say my inspiration for starting my own business really started a long time ago. My father is an entrepreneur and has always really inspired me to start my own business, especially a business that does good. And so that's been something that I've been interested in for a long time. I have spent most of my career in e-commerce and retail, but really more on the startup side. So I was an early employee at Rent the Runway, which was my first taste of the startup world and a really exciting place to be.
• 2:35
  I fell in love with the fast-paced nature of startup life and really at the end of the day, just really enjoy solving problems. So after Run the Runway, I went to business school and then was an early employee at Jet.com. Started there about a year before the company launched, came in as the director of marketing and stayed there for four years. So all the way through the Walmart acquisition in 2016. So a really amazing experience, hyper growth,
• 3:04
  sort of one of a kind sort of experience, I would say. It's incredible. And so knowing that you wanted to start your own business and going through these, you know, startup companies where you were early on, where I'm sure things were very, I don't know, scrappy or lots of different hats that you were wearing. What's that saying? Wearing many hats. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. What then got you inspired to start Cure? Was there a light bulb moment that you were like, oh, I've got it. I've got the genius idea. Yeah.
• 3:34
  Yeah, it really started as a passion project. Actually, I was training for a triathlon a few years ago and would come back from my long workouts and feel really sick. I would feel nauseous and get headaches. And I really couldn't find any products that really worked for me. I was drinking a lot of water, but it just wasn't enough to replace all of the electrolytes I was losing.
• 3:57
  And all of the other electrolyte products in the market, like the sports drinks you see, were just full of added sugar. So the average sports drink actually has 36 grams of added sugar. And so sort of defeats the whole purpose of what you're trying to do, which is, you know, exercise and be healthy.
• 4:16
  And so the idea behind Cure is really a reformulated version of a formula that was originally developed by the World Health Organization called Oral Rehydration Solution. It's what medical grade products like Pedialyte are based on. So super effective, proven to hydrate as effectively as an IV drip. But even products like Pedialyte or other products that use the same science, they all are universally using a base of cane sugar and synthetic minerals.
• 4:45
  And so I wanted to create a product that was just as effective, but use premium and organic ingredients so that I could feel good about drinking something like this every single day, not just when I was working out or for some sort of emergency situation. Totally. How did you know to look at the World Health Organization for that piece of information? Or how did you stumble across that? Just a lot of research. I, um,
• 5:13
  you know, first discovered Pedialyte, it was this time when Pedialyte was really taking off for adults. So there was this trend where all of a sudden Pedialyte, which is really made for children, started becoming very popular with adults, specifically adults who were hungover. So it became sort of this underground hangover cure. I've never heard of this, by the way.
• 5:34
  Yeah, hilarious. About 50% of their sales actually are from adults, mostly who are hungover adults. And so I started researching effective hydration solutions, stumbled across medical grade products like Pedialyte, and then started learning about this product.
• 5:51
  this term oral rehydration solution. And that's how I discovered the World Health Organization formula, which fortunately, because it's been around for over 50 years, has a ton of literature online about the science and all of the key components of the formula that make it effective. Gosh, that's so interesting. And so you come across this, you decide that you're going to start dabbling as a side hustle or a passion project. What happens next?
• 6:21
  Yeah, so it was really just about getting that MVP, the minimum viable product. For me, I knew I wanted to take this science, but replace it with premium and organic ingredients. So the main components of this WHO formula are sodium, potassium, and glucose, which is a little, you know, basically sugar. So I wanted to find ingredients that had naturally occurring sugar and naturally occurring minerals. Yeah.
• 6:48
  So I, my original concept was coconut water and pink Himalayan salt. So I actually at home, I started mixing these ingredients, I would take out by coconut water from the store and just add my own salt and start testing it out. I started to start testing, I'd go on long runs and drink the product to, to see how I felt. And that's
• 7:08
  I found that the product really worked. So it was just as effective as other products out there because it was still following these, this had contained the same amount of electrolytes as the WHO formula, but it tasted terrible. So you can imagine like adding a bunch of salt to coconut water, like on its own, doesn't taste very good.
• 7:26
  So the next step was really to find a formulator. So somebody who had experience in food science and could help me take this concept, but make it taste better. So we spent a lot of time tweaking the formula, experimenting with different fruit juice powders and organic flavors.
• 7:45
  to make the product really pop and, you know, make it taste good. Because at the end of the day, if something doesn't taste good, we're just not going to get consumers to buy it. Totally. How long did that process take until you actually got something that you were like, okay, I can drink this and it's going to be great every day?
• 8:02
  About a year. So it took a really long time to get the formula right. And even actually after we launched last March, we did further iteration from there and recently launched a new formula this past April that had an improved taste just based on initial feedback from customers. Wow, that's so exciting. And is this all the time, all the while rather that you're working at Jet.com and doing this kind of in your spare time or had you already quit your job and you were pursuing this now?
• 8:30
  Yeah. So I, when I was at jet.com, I, that's when I had the idea I was training for this race and I started really just the research phase. And once I established that, you know, this was an idea that I was really passionate about, I felt that there was a lot of white space in the market and I did a lot of customer validation. So talking to customers, potential target audiences to understand if this is a product that people would actually buy and,
• 8:56
  Once I validated all of that, then I decided to pursue it full time. I'm the type of person that really likes to focus on things 100%. If I am trying to do two things at once, I'm just not doing both of those things well. So I decided to leave in 2018 and really pursue the idea full time. Is there any specific learnings that you had at your time at Rent the One Way and also at Jet.com that kind of obviously filtered in across to your business and what you were building?
• 9:28
  Absolutely. At Rent the Runway, it was really about being scrappy. So we always said at Rent the Runway that scrappiness is a virtue and we really live by that every day. So I always like to tell the story. When I first started at Rent the Runway, we didn't have a tracking system in place to actually track.
• 9:48
  our dresses when they were being sent out and returned to us. And so we ordered these labels that could be heat pressed onto the dresses, but we couldn't actually afford to buy a machine, like a industrial machine that would actually heat press the labels in. So we had everyone in the office, all the girls in the office, bring in their hair straighteners. And we sat around.
• 10:11
  heat pressing 20,000 labels on dresses. Oh my God. I love that. You know, we had to validate that this would even work. Like would these labels withstand dry cleaning? Like, are people going to try to peel them off? And it wasn't until we established that process years later that it actually made sense to invest in the equipment.
• 10:32
  And so that's just a mindset that I've taken into to cure. And especially in the early days when we had bootstrapped early on for about the first nine months or so. I love that. That's so funny. When I was just starting out in social media marketing and that kind of thing, I was also working for a startup in Australia.
• 10:52
  that's really quite big now. And it was an internet company selling fashion online. And we were in the very beginning using internet dongles. Like all of us had internet dongles. The building that we worked in didn't have internet at that time. And it was just such a funny like contradiction that we were running this huge internet business through these dongles and didn't have internet. It was, it was hilarious. It was also very scrappy picnic tables, the works.
• 11:17
  hilarious. I love it. I love it too. I think it's a great, um, it's a great base to get experience on, especially if you are going to go on and build your own business after, after experiencing those kind of early days startups. It really builds character. It definitely builds character. When you were saying, um, you were doing your validation and speaking to different customers, what do you mean by that? And how were you specifically finding people who were your
• 11:49
  So my initial hypothesis was really for this use case of working out. So I tried to find customers that were active and wanted to see what they were drinking before and after their workouts. And so I did a mix of surveys. Surveys are great to just get, you know, quick information from a large group of people. But then I also did a lot of focus groups and one-on-one interviews. So I talked to, you know, round up my
• 12:15
  my fit friends and talk to them about their lifestyle and just try to gain a sense for who this customer really was and what we were replacing in their lives. And what I found is that most people were actually drinking water, just water on its own, or coconut water. So people had no experience in this category. They were avoiding products like Gatorade because of the added sugar. And so that was really the pain point that I saw was that
• 12:44
  options in the market were just full of sugar and artificial ingredients. Water, you know, wasn't enough on its own. A lot of people had similar experiences to me that where they'd say, you know, yeah, I'll just, you know, I'll do a long run and basically be on the couch for the rest of the day because I feel so terrible. And, you know, even just really extreme stories. I had
• 13:07
  and end up in the hospital for three days because she had such a severe electrolyte imbalance. And so it was this clear problem that wasn't being solved, but there wasn't a solution on the market that people felt like they could really use. And so that was part of the validation process for me. Do you think that your idea of who your target customer was going to be versus who it actually is now was different?
• 13:32
  So I'd say yes and no. I think my original hypothesis was that our customer would be really active. And that certainly is a bucket of our customers. We have a large group of people who I call amateur athletes. So people sort of like me who are not extreme athletes, but working out a couple of days a week, whether that's just getting on their peloton or going for a run. But the really surprising group that emerged that I would have never expected
• 14:02
  product for medical conditions. And that can be really anything. People who have diabetes or Crohn's disease, we have people who are using the product for medical treatments like IVF, because those types of treatments can lead to dehydration, pregnancy, breastfeeding, you name it. There's been all of these
• 14:24
  use cases and diseases, honestly, that I had never even heard of. And those happen to be our most loyal customers because they really need the product to feel better every day. Gosh, that's so interesting. Really fascinating insight. I'm wanting to talk about the startup capital that got you started sort of pre before your recent fundraise and how you were funding the business before then. And then we'll lead into chatting about the fundraise as well.
• 14:52
  Cool. Yeah. So the first nine months or so I bootstrapped the business.
• 14:57
  So I really wanted to spend time validating the idea, developing the product and the branding. And I basically just took some of my savings and then also consulted on the side. So I would spend a little bit, a few hours a week, just working with different companies to try to, you know, make sure that I was still getting some capital in so I could really just make myself feel better about all the money I was investing into my business idea. Then when it came around to, you know, actually...
• 15:27
  producing the product, the manufacturer that I worked with had a pretty large minimum. And they were going to let us do a pilot. So it was a reduced minimum to what they typically do, but it was still really big for me. And so that's when I decided to raise money. So I raised a pre-seed round ahead of my recent round. And that is the funding we use to actually launch the business. Are you able to share what kind of minimum order they required versus the pilot order?
• 15:56
  Yeah, so they normally have a minimum of 100,000 stick packs. We were able to... Wow. Now in hindsight, it's like not that much. But back then I was like, oh my gosh. They let us divide it up between three flavors. So instead of 100,000 per...
• 16:14
  per flavor, we were able to do 33,000 per flavor, um, which made, uh, made the commitment a little bit more manageable. Yeah. Wow. Gosh. And I imagine like, you know, before you're seeing the success of your marketing efforts and everything paying off, you're like, Oh God, this is a lot. I hope we're going to get through these a hundred thousand or else you're going to be running many triathlons yourself.
• 16:38
  Exactly. Something I love to dig in is to talk about the marketing in the very beginning, what you were doing specifically to acquire new customers and get the word out there and get that early momentum started.
• 16:53
  Sure. So we did a campaign before we launched. It was a pre-launch referral campaign where a user would come to our site. It wasn't our fully built out site since we had it launched. And they'd essentially just drop their email. And then they were encouraged to refer friends. And as they refer friends, they would unlock prizes. So depending on how many people they
• 17:18
  lifetime subscriptions all the way up to our grand prize, which was a Peloton bike. Oh my gosh. This was like another really like large investment, right? I was like, okay.
• 17:29
  If this doesn't work, this is a very expensive marketing campaign. But the goal was really to get this group of super referrers really excited and have something to work towards. So we found that 90% of people don't really refer. Of the 10% of people who do refer, you have 9% that are like, Okay, let me send this to my mom and a few friends.
• 17:52
  And then you have that 1% that like gets super excited by this grand prize. It ends up being, you know, the, the few group of people that is actually referring your entire list. So the program was incredibly successful. We actually acquired thousands of initial customers that way. And so that cost of the Peloton bike, which is a big bite to do, ended up being a great, great ROI for us. Wow. How many people did the winner refer?
• 18:20
  Like over a thousand. What? Oh my gosh. How do they even know a thousand people? Yeah, it's pretty crazy, you know, and that, that customer is still one of our best customers too. So it was like, we created this relationship with her and she was so excited to win this Peloton bike. You know, it was such an amazing prize that she became a really loyal, uh, Cure customer in the end. Oh my gosh. And so what software do you use to run something like that?
• 18:52
  Yeah. So there's a lot of programs out there now that do this, but we use a program called Viral Loops. So pretty straightforward set up, really easy. And so even if you don't have your Shopify website built out or your product or anything, you could still run a pre-launch campaign pretty easily. That's incredible. Did you have to get permission to use Peloton as the prize or you're able to just go out and buy it and then be like, this is the prize kind of using it for marketing?
• 19:16
  Yeah, we just bought it. I love that. And we're now using it. Yeah. What a great prize. Okay. So you get a really successful launch, I imagine, from your huge email database and all these people who are really actively excited about your product. How does that then evolve and you kind of keep spreading the word?
• 19:37
  Yeah, so being a CPG product, we found that sampling was really the best way to convert our customers. So when customers tried the product, they, you know, often customers for this category, especially for like a powder drink mix, they have really low expectations of how the product's going to taste. And we think our product tastes really good. So getting the product in people's hands so they can try it.
• 20:01
  see that it tastes good and then also see how it makes them feel is really important. So in the early days, and this was last year, pre-pandemic, we did a lot of sampling events. So I would go into fitness studios every single week, sample the product for several hours. We would...
• 20:20
  sample the product in offices and a variety of other places like races and things like that. And it was a great way to, you know, obviously get the product in people's hands, but also see
• 20:32
  who are, you know, try to find out who our customer is. And it was, you know, you would even see differences, you know, if you sampled at Flywheel versus SoulCycle, we're like, oh, I think we're more of a Flywheel customer. These customers seem to be more engaged and excited about the product. So it was really interesting and it gave us a lot of insights to inform our future marketing. And then how did that change, you know, for this year, where you obviously had to drop in-person sampling? What did you do to kind of like balance that out?
• 20:59
  Yeah, I mean, we've had to get really creative. We're now in a number of retailers and have been working really closely with retailers to be part of their sampling programs. So one example of that is we're in, we recently launched in just over a thousand Walmart stores. Walmart is interesting because, you know, they've seen a massive acceleration to e-commerce, but also online grocery pickup. So customers who are ordering ahead of time and then picking up their orders at the store.
• 21:29
  Which is great. You know, I love to see that acceleration in e-commerce, but as a new brand, that also makes it more difficult to get into somebody's hand because they're not browsing the store, you know, let alone sampling the product. So we've recently committed to a sampling program with them where we can actually target customers who've purchased similar products in the past and include our sample in their orders.
• 21:53
  So trying to get really creative with how we can work with different retailers. And the good thing is, you know, our product is just this little stick pack. So it's sort of this perfect sampling item. And we found that, you know, it's just really effective in terms of getting people to eventually try the product. Yeah, I love that.
• 22:12
  In the last two years since you launched, what do you think or where do you feel the tipping point was where you were really kind of like, yeah, okay, things have really started to escalate. All the channels are working. It's all on.
• 22:26
  Totally. So it was really this year in February, we had done a pilot with CVS last summer that went really well in eight stores. And they came to us in February and decided to roll out the brand into 2,900 stores. And so that was really the tipping point. We, you know, immediately after that actually saw a big surge in our sales because of the pandemic as people were stocking up on health products and just grocery products generally.
• 22:55
  We saw people stocking up on our brand as well. And a lot of retailers were selling out of electrolyte products. So after CVS, that was really just sort of the initial retailer that got us in front of other retailers. But we started seeing a lot of interest in this category due to the pandemic. That's so interesting how it really shifted the.
• 23:21
  getting people, even though people were in lockdown, getting people more healthy and more inspired to take more care of what they were consuming in those moments of, you know, physical exertion and things like that. How interesting. I want to go back and rewind back to the fundraise conversation. Cause I remembered that we didn't continue with that. I wanted to know what your learnings were from your recent fundraise. And if you had any tips and advice for other people who want to go through that process.
• 23:52
  Yeah, so I think it's really important to build momentum ahead of your fundraise. And, you know, for me, that really started back in February when we got the go forward from CVS to launch in 2900 stores. What was challenging for us, actually, was that this is the beginning of the pandemic. So it's also right around the time when every, you know, the economy was all of a sudden crashing and a lot of investors were crashing.
• 24:19
  unsure of what was going to happen. They were very, became very focused on their portfolio companies and they really weren't making new investments. And so I actually had to, ahead of the fundraise, buy an alternative capital because we were launching in all of these stores. We needed to buy a lot of inventory and we didn't have the cash to do that. But I thought, okay, here we have guaranteed sales. We're going to be buying inventory and it's just like
• 24:44
  a matter of time and then we're going to get paid by retailers. And so I was able to find a debt financing solution, which was a great intermediate. So we essentially found a fund that would purchase our invoices from us, so basically giving us liquidity.
• 25:01
  So we could pay our manufacturers and then that enabled us to launch in retail and actually do it profitably. So by the time I went out and started fundraising in the summer, we were live in over 4000 stores and we had found this sustainable solution to be able to fund our inventory. And so we were profitable.
• 25:22
  And a lot of investors, especially in this climate, were looking for companies that were self-sufficient and profitable. And that ended up being something that was really differentiating for us. Wow, that's so cool. When you say the fund, do you mean something like a ClearBank or a Wayflyer, like those kind of companies that are able to pay for inventory and pay for marketing as well?
• 25:47
  Yeah, there's a number of options on the market. The fund that we work with is called Prestige Capital, but there's a number of other funds like Circle Up and Assembled Brands and Clear Bank. So I definitely encourage...
• 25:59
  founders to explore that as an option, especially if you are a product, a consumer product where you have inventory and you have a wholesale business because that, you know, those, those purchase orders do have value. And rather than raising equity, it sometimes makes more sense to get the momentum you need, um, to, to eventually get equity funding. Wow. Amazing.
• 26:24
  Every entrepreneur obviously goes through a lot of challenges and ups and downs. It's not always a smooth sailing road. Are you able to share any challenges that you've been through throughout the journey over the last few years of being an entrepreneur in this business?
• 26:41
  Yeah, absolutely. So I'd say, you know, just getting that initial product market fit was definitely a challenge. So when we first launched in March, I may have mentioned that we ended up reformulating the product. So we launch and a lot of customers really loved the product. But then a lot of customers just didn't like the taste of the product. And I
• 27:05
  I knew just watching customers interact with the product that unless we had, you know, nine to 10 out of 10 people say they love the taste of the product, the product just wasn't going to be successful. And the, you know, the formula, the nature of the formula is pretty challenging. So we spent a lot of time just focused on the product and making it better. And that was challenging because that meant that we weren't growing during that time. So
• 27:30
  You know, we were sort of just steady state for a while while we're getting the product into a better place. But it was the right decision. I encourage people not to waste money on marketing, trying to drive sales if they're not seeing the results or the metrics that they're looking for. That's a really good piece of advice. Where is the business today and what does the future look like for you?
• 27:59
  Yeah, so this year has been a big growth year for us. We're now live in over 4,000 stores. We launched in CVS, Walmart, Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, and a number of other retailers. So that's been really exciting for us. And we have confirmed new retailers for next year.
• 28:19
  well. So we'll continue that trajectory. We've also spent time building out the team. So we now have full-time employees across sales, marketing, and operations, and we'll continue to scale the team as the business grows. And then we're also starting to think about innovation. So we are really starting to think beyond hydration. So that's really the base of our business is these hydration mixes. But the long-term goal is to have
• 28:48
  a portfolio of organic products across a range of different functional categories. And we've begun development of those, those different products that we're planning on launching next year. Oh, very exciting. Very exciting. Excited for you. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business?
• 29:11
  My advice would be to try to validate your idea. So I really recommend trying to figure out what a minimum viable product would look like. So what do you need to have in place? You know, whether that's, you know, initial formula of a product or if it's a tech product, you know, getting some sort of cheap and quick product.
• 29:33
  MVP live as quickly as possible to test your idea and see whether it needs to be iterated at all is going to be really helpful before you go down a path of investing a lot of money into an idea.
• 29:48
  Amazing. You know, I was just also thinking back to the beginning when you said your dad was an entrepreneur. Was there any key advice that he gave you or any key takeaways from, you know, seeing him when you were growing up being a businessman that you took into your own journey? Yeah, it was really about doing good. So my father is from Peru and
• 30:11
  And his business is based in Peru. It's a microfinance business. And he really spent his career focused on building this company that was going to give back to his native country. And I could see how much purpose he had and how that really drove him forward.
• 30:28
  obviously throughout his journey, it's been over 10 years now with this company. He's had a lot of ups and downs. And I think at the end of the day, having a purpose and a mission has been really valuable for him to keep him going forward. Totally. I love that. Okay. We are up to the six quick questions. Part of the episode. Question number one is what's your why?
• 30:54
  My why is really about creating products that make people feel better. I created Cure, you know, really for my own personal problem of not having an effective, healthy hydration solution before and after a workout. But what really keeps me going is when I have customers write in who have chronic illnesses or...
• 31:15
  health issues that they're struggling with. And they've found that cure really helps them feel better every day. When I get those types of emails and reviews, that's really what keeps me going. Yeah, gosh, I bet. That's, that's incredible. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that made your business pop?
• 31:38
  Number one marketing moment would actually be recently. We just recently announced our seed round funding. We waited a few months. We wanted to wait until after the election just to make sure the news cycle wasn't as crazy as it has been in 2020 now.
• 31:56
  And we coincided that week with Cyber Monday and Black Friday. So we made the announcement on the Monday before Thanksgiving. And that coincided with a lot of marketing offers and initiatives that we had lined up for that week. And so we had this big surge of traffic when the press came out. But we also had a lot of really compelling offers.
• 32:20
  So we ended up having the biggest month we've ever had at our website since launch. Oh my gosh, that's so exciting. Congratulations. Wow. What a clever idea. I love that for you. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading? What do you subscribe to? What are you listening to?
• 32:40
  It's a great question. You know, I had interpreted that literally originally and thought, you know, where do I hang out right now? Well, it's at home. But I will say, you know, it's been interesting. I've worked, you know, alongside my partner now for 10 months since we're both working from home. And I actually think that's made me a lot smarter. I've basically gotten to shadow somebody in an entirely different industry. He works in finance and feel like I have a much better understanding of
• 33:07
  of his industry and what he does more than ever. That's so funny. I, I, I've read like those, um, like Twitter threads on women, like listening into their husbands, like phone calls and stuff from home and being like, ah, so that's what he does. Gotcha. So funny. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and motivated and successful.
• 33:34
  Yeah, so I'm very routine oriented, how I start my day and my day is really important to me. So every day I wake up, I take my dog for a nice long walk. I come back and I drink a green smoothie every morning and also have a cure, obviously, to stay hydrated for the day. And then I try to spend some time actually just checking emails and emails.
• 33:57
  reviewing my calendar for the day, but then actually take a pause. And I usually do a mid-morning workout, which has been a great new part of my routine in the pandemic since I'm able to do that. And that really sets me up for the day. So I feel like often I have a lot of calls and meetings and the day can easily get away from you. So getting that workout in the morning is really important to me.
• 34:21
  And then at the end of the day, I've just found that we're spending so much time on our screens these days. So I really try to unwind with something off screen. I usually will cook dinner or read a book, even go take a walk around. We live right above Madison Square Park. So really anything to do just to get my mind off of work and off screen. Oh, yeah, I totally know that feeling. I know it so well. I feel like everyone does these days. Everyone's like, oh, my God, I'm just so sick of screens. Yeah.
• 34:51
  Yeah. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it?
• 35:00
  Great question. So I would apply for a business loan and I would use that $1,000 for the due diligence fee. So often, you know, banks will have some sort of fee associated with giving you a loan for any sort of diligence they have to do. And I think that would be a great way to turn that $1,000 into potentially a much bigger number. Haven't heard that before. Very, very good insight. Love that. Thank you very much.
• 35:28
  Question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? And that can be around a personal experience or just your general mindset and approach.
• 35:38
  Yeah, I think it's all about how you think about failure. I really don't think of a failure as a failure until you've given up. Otherwise, it's really just a setback because it's just a part of your journey and your story. And as far as any setback that I've ever encountered, I really just try to focus on what I learned from the experience and how I'm going to be more prepared in the future or avoid that kind of mistake going forward.
• 36:08
  And I think, you know, it's important to keep perspective. So I try not to get too disappointed in myself or worked up about something because that's really not going to be productive and helping you move forward. Absolutely. Lauren, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast today. I have loved listening to your story and what you're building with Cure. It sounds absolutely incredible. Thank you so much. It was great to be here.
• 36:37
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 37:02
  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.
• 37:24
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 37:41
  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.
• 38:05
  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.
• 38:28
  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. Thank you.