Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 Quick Questions with Galyn Bernard, Founder of Primary (part 2)

Transcript

6 Quick Questions with Galyn Bernard, Founder of Primary (part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. The question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? To give kids confidence.
• 0:21
  Oh, I love that. That's a feel good thing. Question number two is what's your like top favorite marketing moment so far? This is a repeat, but it is the marketing like headline. Not all baby suits need to stay a little slugger. That was a big one. Question number three, what's your go-to business resource when you think about like a newsletter, a podcast or a book?
• 0:50
  I really love the After Hours podcast. It's actually where we first heard about the four-day workweek concept, but it's three Harvard Business School professors who are just sort of talking casually about topics of the day or random things that each of them has brought in. And it's really interesting. It's like smart perspective. I feel like caught up on the news, but also like I understand it without having to read like 600 newspaper articles and like have my eyes glaze over. So I really like that one.
• 1:18
  I haven't listened to that one. I'm going to check it out. I'm going to link it in the show notes for anyone who wants to check it out as well. It sounds great. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? I am such an early to bed girl. Like if the lights are off at 930, I'm so thrilled. Um, if I have like,
• 1:42
  had some sweat during the day, exercise, anything, even for 15 minutes, I feel so much better. And so I try to get that out of the way before calls start in the morning. And, and then in between, I think I feel the happiest when I have made like at least one real connection with another human during the day, like whether it's family or friends or something where I don't know, I really need that sort of one-on-one like connection time. So, so that's a huge one for me too.
• 2:10
  I love that. Question number five, what has been your worst money mistake in the business? I think that we raised our second round too late. I wish that looking back,
• 2:29
  We had thought about, because we ended up raising a little more money early on than we needed. And I wish that we kept the original plan, which was like, get to launch and raise money then. Because once we got through launch and we talked about like, you know, inventory sold down and like the sales trajectory is not great because we don't have any inventory.
• 2:49
  it was harder to raise capital then, then it would have been if we just stuck to like, okay, this initial capital was to get us to launch. We're there, we did it, it's awesome. And like, now let's go raise our next round. I think we were like, oh, but we have more money in the bank. We'll just wait and we shouldn't have done that. Hmm, that's interesting. That's a really interesting perspective. And one of those ones that's like, you only know in hindsight. Completely, completely, yes. So that's when I would have changed.
• 3:17
  And last question, question number six, what is just a crazy story that you can share from the journey of building a business? Good, bad, anything, whatever you want.
• 3:31
  Well, this is maybe too long a question for a speed round, but when we started- We can make it longer. We can make it longer. Oh my gosh, okay. When we started the business, we didn't get an office initially. We looked at, like, you know, sort of we work desk spaces in the city. Christina lives in New Jersey. I live in Connecticut. And so we were both coming in. And we ended up both joining the Reebok Sports Club on the Upper West Side because-
• 3:56
  They had a huge open space with Wi-Fi and amazing food. And like, as we were starting the business, we were like, and we'll just like exercise all the time and we'll get so healthy. It'll be great. And the membership was like much cheaper than renting a desk somewhere. And so we did that, which was awesome.
• 4:12
  Highly recommend. For like, we were working there for like the first like six to seven months or so. And so all of our calls were in this like tiny phone booth. There were only two of them for like everyone who was working in this like communal space where the food was. And so there was always like a line for these phone booths and it was like always stressful. Like, oh, we have like a 1.30 call and like the phone booths are occupied.
• 4:34
  And so we did a lot of calls from the phone booths. And one of them was a pitch to an investor. And I think it was our seed round, actually. And we were talking about the business and the vision for the clothes. And he just had such a strong view on our clothing, which wasn't his background at all, where he was like, you know what would be really awesome? Is if you could have like something like really just like visual, like,
• 5:03
  that like everyone would see it and recognize like, oh, that's a primary thing. And his suggestion for real was like, like what if you guys just had like everything from primary just had a
• 5:15
  huge fucking zipper on it. Like verbatim said, huge fucking zipper. Like everything was just a huge fucking zipper. And so when kids were at the playground, all the parents would be like, Oh, look at that zipper. That's a primary hoodie. Like, and so he's like, just think about, just think about that. If that's something like that maybe could be helpful. And it's such an interesting example because it was so crazy. And so obviously at odds with like everything else we were trying to do about the aesthetic of the brand.
• 5:41
  But also such a good representation of all these conversations where everyone has an opinion. Everyone has the like, here's what's going to solve your life.
• 5:52
  my idea is going to solve it. And so it was one of the early learnings for us were like, we didn't know that that was going to be true, that everyone was going to have an opinion about like what else we should be doing and how we should be doing things differently. And so early on, I think when we had calls like that, maybe not that one, but other calls like that, it was like, Oh, well maybe we should think about doing that. And like, huh, that could be interesting. Maybe we should think about that. And all of a sudden our heads were spinning because like everyone had something to say. And, and it took us a little bit to get back to like, you know what? Like, like,
• 6:22
  That's okay. That could go in the notebook too. But we're like, we have a lot of conviction in our idea that is ours and specific. And it's what we're here for. And like, we're just going to keep coming back to that. It's very easy to spin on like other people's suggestions. And sometimes there's like a nugget there that's great and worth considering. But in general, I think having a conviction and like sticking your guns on your original idea is so important. Otherwise, it's a huge like mental energy suck. Otherwise, you end up with huge fucking zippers all over the world.
• 6:53
  Which maybe it will just be the next company if we do that. But for now, we're going to stick with the primary.
• 7:00
  Oh my gosh. I love that though, because it goes back to what I was saying earlier of like, you really need to flex that muscle of just finding the focus and sticking with like your, your kind of like blinders are off. You're like just in a straight line. You're just kind of keeping focused on what you're doing, like one step after the other kind of vibes. But it's hard because someone will give you an idea and you'll go off for a couple of days and explore that idea. And then you're like, I need to just come back and like focus on what is my vision. Yeah.
• 7:27
  Totally. Yeah, it's so hard. And it's tempting, too, because along the way, especially raising money, I think like, there are plenty of people who are like, Oh, that's interesting. It's just not for me. Like, I don't want to invest. And then like, you're in this place, like, Oh, no, is this like a terrible idea? It's like, No, it's just not for everyone. Totally. And that's just how that goes.
• 7:46
  Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today and sharing all of your learnings and your lessons in building primary so far. It's been such a joy. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was so fun chatting. I appreciate it.
• 8:02
  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.
• 8:26
  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.
• 8:49
  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.
• 9:05
  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.
• 9:30
  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.
• 9:52
  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.