Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How to create a 7 figure startup in less than 12 months with Baby Brew's Founder Alaina Moulton

Transcript

How to create a 7 figure startup in less than 12 months with Baby Brew's Founder Alaina Moulton · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Elena Moulton for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Oshin, and joining me on the show today is Elena Moulton, founder of Baby's Brew, the world's first portable bottle warmer. Welcome.
• 0:25
  While Elena only launched a short year ago in July 2019, the brand has been growing exponentially ever since. This year, they've surpassed $1.3 million in revenue already and are quickly on track to reaching $3 million in sales very soon. Totally insane. Tune into this episode to hear just how she's done it from the ideation to the courses and everything else in between.
• 0:48
  And while I've got you here, please do subscribe, rate and review the podcast to help other ears find us. This is Elena for Female Startup Club. Amazing. Elena, thank you so much for joining me on Female Startup Club today. Thank you for having me in our little makeshift car room.
• 1:07
  Yes, this is a first for me to record an interview with someone sitting in a car. I'm so excited about it. Before we get started, can you introduce yourself and what your business is? Yeah, my name is Elena and I created a portable bottle warmer for babies. I really just, when I was looking, when I had my daughter, you know, I couldn't find a travel solution because we're a military family. And when I saw that there wasn't one out there, I was like, I'm not.
• 1:37
  I'm going to make this. I mean, it's so cool. It's so nifty. And I'm so surprised, again, like that it was something that didn't already exist. It's like, but how? How come it didn't exist? Because it's a pain in the butt to make is what it is. Batteries.
• 1:54
  Oh, gosh. Okay, well, let's get into that in a second. I want to go back to your life before the baby's brew to find out what you were up to, what you were doing, and what kind of gave you the inspiration to get started. Yeah. So my background actually had a lot to do with how we got started. I went to college for the programming and ended up going into marketing because I don't know why. It's the job I got handed at the time.
• 2:20
  And then I actually started, I've only worked for startup companies. So when I was in college, I worked for a startup. I got out of college, I worked for a startup. And I just started seeing, like, I was too scared to do it on myself.
• 2:33
  And then working for these startups really kind of gave me that courage. I never thought I would become a business owner. I had no desire to become a business owner. Like I said, just watching these people, they're just normal day-to-day people creating something and then growing it to what it is. I'm like, okay, I can definitely do this. And especially with my last job, I just started off as a marketing intern and then worked my way up to the marketing director very quickly.
• 2:58
  the marketing just kind of clicked for me. I knew how to do SEO. I just really got, drove into it, learning how to do stuff. And when I saw the results I could do for these companies, I was like, okay, I'm going to try to do my own thing. And after very many failed attempts at small businesses, I found this. And then that's when I really pushed for it.
• 3:22
  What kind of startups had you tried before that hadn't gone to plan? Oh, it was, I got my first Cricut machine and I wanted to start, you know, doing t-shirts. And so I'd cut my designs out and do that. And that's what I kind of learned, like with Etsy, SEO with Etsy. And it was really when my mom, I was talking to my mom one time and she was like, you know,
• 3:44
  you're never going to make a real business unless you create an item because making like t-shirts, it's so time consuming for me and the person. You have to have something that's already kind of made to become a business. And so that's when I really started digging down into it. Like what can I make? And of course that's the scary part because there's so much money involved in that. And you're like, well, I could just buy these t-shirts and some vinyl and have a business, but to create a product costs so much money.
• 4:15
  But yeah. Yeah. And you, you need to build something that has the moat around it that isn't easily replicable and copied. Yeah. Cause all Etsy is a bunch of copied t-shirts. So how did you land on the idea? How did you come up with the idea for baby's brew? What led you down the route of baby products? So I was right after I had got pregnant the first time, um,
• 4:40
  I ended up miscarrying, but when I was pregnant, I got put on bed arrest immediately and I couldn't do anything. And I kind of started, you know, starting my baby registry, getting all this stuff ready because my first kid and we're a military family. So we always travel. No one lived near us. We knew we were going to be traveling as soon as the baby turned two months old. And I always knew I wanted to bottle feed and breastfeed at the same time because my husband could be involved.
• 5:06
  But I was trying to find some solution how to warm a bottle on an airplane because it's a four or five hour flight to my closest family members. And I was personally was not comfortable breastfeeding on a plane. So I knew I wanted the bottle situation and I couldn't find anything. I was like, how is there not a battery powered battery?
• 5:26
  bottle warmer or at least some type of way to warm it like when you're traveling and that's when I really started diving into it and you know I started buying manufacturers and talking to them and that's when I found out you know battery is a huge thing and you know we just kind of work together with my I have a great manufacturer and they helped me a lot through the process and then
• 5:50
  I also took a bunch of courses too that really helped me figure out this whole situation on how to create a product. Probably like 30 different courses. Oh my gosh, really? Wow. Okay. I want to dig into that, but I want to go back to the manufacturing. And why is it so difficult to produce products with batteries? I didn't know that. Yeah, I had no idea either. Well, the big thing is, so batteries, when you're shipping them, you have to have
• 6:14
  specific labels you put on the box because ever since that phone exploded on the airplane a few years ago the lithium ion batteries they actually section off any batteries that are being shipped in their own section and say if you don't put that sticker on there and something happens and i'm gonna get fined and there's a lot of shipping restrictions and then creating heat it takes so much energy
• 6:38
  that you have to have a certain type of battery that's not going to overheat. It's going to stay on longer. I mean, our first prototype, it stayed on for maybe 45 minutes. And I was like, that's not, this isn't going to help anybody. And it was just a lot trying to figure out the battery to heat ratio. And so how did you build like the prototype? And how did you find the manufacturers in the first place? I actually took a course on Founder.
• 7:06
  And it was the Greta, then I always get her name wrong to go through. She's the start and scale one though.
• 7:13
  And she literally, she's a friend of mine. She yeah, she's the one who actually I took that one and really kind of like pushed me off. And she shows you like, how to go find manufacturers and how to go do this. And actually, she said to go on Alibaba, well, I went on there and found someone who was making batteries and kind of started talking to them. And that's how I got started. And they're like, okay, well, this is how the batteries work. And they kind of explained that whole situation to me.
• 7:41
  And then we just slowly started integrating like heating elements. And I have my own engineer over there now. And now we have a whole team of engineers because we have a whole line of products being made now. And it's just, they're so helpful. Honestly, I think I looked out really well with my manufacturer because literally I throw an idea at them and they're like, all right, we'll get on a meeting and they'll have a whiteboard up and like, this is what we're going to do. And this is how we're going to do it. And then we just go back and forth. And it's something that's really quick and some things are not. Yeah.
• 8:12
  Wow, that's so exciting. And so I always like to know in the beginning when you were placing the first order, like how many units did you have to buy and what kind of capital did you need to get started? That was probably the scariest moment of my life was that first order. All right. Yeah. I told my husband, I was like, we're just going to do 500 units. If it doesn't work out, we're going to shove it. I'm not going to sit here and be one of those people that are going
• 8:41
  and I used a lot of my own money, but we took our first loan out. It was like $5,000. It was, but that was like, I'm going to be paying this off for years. This sucks if this doesn't work out, but we got the unit then and we launched on Kickstarter and then we sold out in two weeks. Oh my gosh. Of all the 500 units. Oh, wow.
• 9:04
  The Kickstarter did not do well. We only, I think we did like 5,000, which was our goal, but nothing like some of my friends who did Kickstarters and did like a million. And I'm like, well, that wasn't me. Sorry. Wow. Why do you think it didn't work as well as you had of kind of, well, you know, better than you had anticipated before?
• 9:23
  A lot of people had said that baby products don't do as well on Kickstarters, especially like unheard of things. Like my friend, she was on there, but she had a hip carrier. I mean, there's nothing much you can say about that hip carrier doesn't work. My bottle warmer, I mean, there could be as tech. Like that could possibly not work or that could hurt my breast milk or there's no proof that there's no social proof that this works.
• 9:48
  And it was such a high price that I think it scared people off. But as soon as we launched on our website is when it took off, which was kind of crazy in a sense. But I did, like I said, my background is marketing. So I did crazy amounts of SEO work before we even launched. And so we were... Like what? So for Google mainly. So my main goal was to get the top pages of my top keywords
• 10:19
  different amount of search results. So for example, my top keywords are portable bottle warmer, you know, general bottle warmer, which is the hardest. There's a few other ones that I just went through and I put my schema markups in. I, you know, made sure there's all alt text,
• 10:35
  on all the images, all the meta descriptions. Those are kind of the big three ones. And then I started the blog. Blogs are huge in Google right now. So I actually have a blog writer who's been with me for years. She actually was with me on all my previous adventures. I love that. And now she works for me full time. But she's like the best. She's a mom too. She just pushes out blog posts a few of a week. And then we go in there and do the schema markup. And
• 11:04
  go to Google search console. And I think that's what really pushed us because now when, you know, someone Googles a portable bottle warmer, we're the first ones that show up. And that's how I kind of search for my baby products. Like what's the best bottle warmer? And we're like the number one one. So you're like, oh, that must be the best one.
• 11:24
  Got it. Right. And I guess once you identified that your product was really like something that, you know, it was important for people who were searching to pop up, you were able to really knuckle down and focus on that. What else were you doing when you were launching, um, at the time that you launched in 2019, what else were you doing? I did a lot of influencers. Thanks to Greta. I loved her method. I love,
• 11:48
  I think going through and drilling down how she explained, you know, look at the engagement rate, look at the comments, because you can get scammed left and right all day long on Instagram. And really finding the right influencer was huge for us. And then I became friends with these influencers. And so some of them started off small.
• 12:08
  when I launch, but I've been friends with them for so long. They're just friends for me now. And I'm like, Hey, like we're, we're doing a restock or we're doing a sale. Do you mind posting? And they'll just do it for free at this point. They're like, yeah, we support you. They're all moms. They're all entrepreneurs.
• 12:23
  So influencers are definitely a big one for us too. And just really building those friendships with these people and not even just influencers, brands. Like I have a whole group of 40 moms that we all just sit there and help each other. And a lot of them have bigger followings or smaller followings. We're starting, we're in like, we're in all different places, which helps a ton. Wow, that's so amazing. And I'm sure it's just such a nice community to be in and all kind of going through these learnings together.
• 12:53
  When you talk about your influencer marketing, like how many people did you try and push the word out through when you got started?
• 13:01
  So we started off with as many influencers as we could. We did anyone that would do it for free or a product trade or that we could afford. So definitely micro influencers, you know, ones that were below 100. We definitely they'd send us these crazy pricings like, hey, you know, I'm just starting out. I don't have that marketing budget and I would give them my whole spiel. And usually they were really receptive. They're like, no, no worries. You know, we'll do it for this price for your first one. Everyone was, for the most part, extremely nice and really helpful.
• 13:32
  Wow. I love that. Yeah. I find when I talk to women about influencer marketing, it's definitely hit and miss. Some people really see the results and some people are able to be like, yeah, you know, we had content, we had sales, like it was a real clear ROI. But then there are women who are like, you know, I invested thousands of dollars and I had a tumbleweed kind of thing. So it's such a tough one. And it's cool to hear that your product obviously really resonates with
• 14:00
  the audiences that they have. And I imagine like the community of mommy bloggers is, you know, really like where moms go to find recommendations because how else do you find recommendations if you don't have like friends who are pregnant at the time and that kind of thing.
• 14:18
  I want to talk about what marketing is working for you now. I read that you had done, you know, over a million dollars in sales already this year. You're projected to do more than $3 million, which is just absolutely insane. And I want to understand better what's like really driving that growth, that significant growth that you're having. Yeah. So our number one revenue right now is Google Organic. So that's basically free sales.
• 14:44
  And that had a lot to do with the SEO. Honestly, I cannot talk more about SEO. That's free sales. That's going to get you all the money in your pocket without paying a single dime. It takes time. So if I implement something today, you're not going to see a result from it. Maybe three months, four months, six months. But imagine when we started and now we are, we're number one almost on every keyword. We're above Amazon, Target, everyone on some of these keywords.
• 15:13
  Because, you know, our blogs, the blog is what is really driving that traffic. So some of our best ones is top 10 bottle warmers for heating breast milk. And that's what's really pushed it up. And that's where number one, like I said, above Target or Amazon. And when I got above Amazon, I about cried. I was like, oh, my gosh, I didn't think that was even possible. Wow. Yeah, that's crazy. Mm hmm.
• 15:38
  So amazing. Wow. Good for you. Yeah. And I want to talk about you mentioned the courses you've done like 30 courses. What other kinds of courses do you did you do and what do you recommend? I mean, I live strong by the start and scale. The founder ones are really good. The Instagram one, but start and scale with Greta. I love how she works.
• 16:00
  started her business and it was really helpful for me. And then they just came up with that new master e-course, which I'm in the middle of, which my sister works for me now too. And I made her go through it. She's taken over email marketing. So I was like, go take these courses and then come back to me. She took over the influencers too. And I make all the people that work for me that are doing those things take Greta's course, honestly. So I'm like, I own it. Just go to the login, take it real quick.
• 16:27
  Um, what are some of the, oh, Neil Patel. Neil Patel has a really good one. That's how you do the SEO. I don't, he's being very limited now on who gets in it, but I know you can get on a wait list for it. If you want to know how to do SEO from nothing to expert, that is where it goes. He shows you step-by-step, like if you're in Shopify, click here and put the schema code here. And it's very helpful, especially if you have no idea how to do it.
• 16:55
  Mm. Wow. I didn't know. I mean, I know that he had a course, but I didn't know, you know, the ins and outs of it. Is it expensive? It's just, it's a little bit more than the Greta's. I think it was 1200, but it's every year is 1200. So it is more expensive because for the founder, it's a one-time fee for him. It's every year, but you really don't need it every year.
• 17:17
  Not that much changes. Once you have that basis of everything you need, you can go to like search engine journal. There's all these SEO forums that will just keep you up to date on it. Or what I use is called simrush.com. And that's how I track everything Google organic wise. Got it. Right. I'm going to note that down. And so where are you today with the business and what's coming? What is new on the horizon?
• 17:46
  Yeah, so we've actually done way better this year than we've ever expected. We're already over 2 million, about to 3 million right now. So we're way above our expected projections. Wow, that's so cool. With one product, which is blowing my mind. But I guess there's a lot of people out there. Yes. So we are coming out with.
• 18:09
  a snack cup situation. I wanted something easy and small for growing. Cause I love the feeding aspect of our company. So we'll have, it's a snack cup that it converts to a sippy cup as well. And it folds all the way down. It's compact. We have a bowl, a heating bowl. So when they're on baby food,
• 18:28
  And you have to keep the baby food chilled. You actually put it into this little bowl and it heats it up on the go. It's all battery powered as well. And then we have a portable sterilizer, which we've been working on for two years now. So I actually started the sterilizer the same time I started the warmer. But that kind of went crazy whenever COVID happened because we couldn't get parts anymore because everyone was making sterilizers.
• 18:48
  But that's also going to be completely battery powered. It's really cool how they did it, though. It probably looks like two or three inches tall and it's seven inches long, but it's got silicone in it. So it folds all the way up and you put the bottles and pacifiers in and then you sterilize and you can fold it all the way back flat again and it just fits into your diaper bag. Oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Very nifty. Yeah.
• 19:13
  It sounds like you've got a lot of moving parts. You're developing new products. You obviously just shifted warehouse into this huge space. With all of this stuff going on, what are the biggest challenges that you face at the moment, trying to grow this brand even bigger and scale it even larger? I mean, number one issue is always money and inventory.
• 19:35
  The more, for example, you know, we're growing so fast. I keep doubling our orders of inventory, but to double it, obviously, you have more money. And we have growing pains, for example, moving into the new warehouse. We not only had to move in there, we had to buy thousands of dollars worth of shelving and computers and desks. And there was lots of money going in lots of places. But I still needed to increase my inventory purchase as well. And also developing new products cost money.
• 20:04
  So it all boils down to money in the end. I was just doing personal loans for myself through Lightstream, but they will only let you go up so much. But it was a really low interest rate. It was nice because if you're not in business for a year, it's really hard to get capital unless you do venture capital. And I just really, I've looked into investors, almost had an investor and I backed out last minute. It's just, it must have scared me on a personal note.
• 20:32
  But I ended up finding, I really, really love this company. It's called Wayflyer. And they're actually. Oh my God, I was just going to say it. Yeah. But go on, go on. They're in Ireland. I love them. I love my Irish boys.
• 20:47
  And, you know, the first the first loan, you know, takes a little bit. They connect your store, your Facebook ads, your Google ads. And I really liked how they did that because they can straight see, OK, you know, she's bringing in this. Her ads are converting like this. They don't need to run my credit every single time to do this. That's not hurting me on a personal level anymore. It's not even hurting my company. They say, OK, you know, you're doing this. You're allowed this.
• 21:12
  And they negotiate with you too. So we started off with this higher interest rate and I was like, ah, I really wanted this, but you can take a higher percentage of my sales each day. And we worked on a really good deal and I love how they don't, you don't have to make a payment on it. They just automatically take it out of your store. So they're like, what are you comfortable with taking out? And so I think right now they're taking 24% and my loans almost paid off and it's been a month and a half.
• 21:41
  I mean, it's so good, isn't it? I really love how they do it. I mean, Shopify Capital does it, but their interest rates are insane and they're not going to work with you. I did one small when we first started with them and I was like, man, it's like 11% interest. That's insane. Yeah, I've heard that from someone else before as well that Shopify versus Wayfly was just not comparable to...
• 22:06
  Not at all. And the fact that they work with you, the first loan that's like going to be a little bit higher interest rate because it's your first time with them. And they'll even say, you know, your next loan, they're going to be smaller. The next one's going to be this, especially if you're referring other people. And they're just easy to work with. You know, I just shot over kind of our bank account statements and that was it. They're like, all right, you're approved for this. And they give you a whole list of options and which one you want. I don't know. It was the best experience I've had with a loan situation yet.
• 22:37
  Yeah, we, my husband works with them as well for some of his clients. And so I've been on the phone, I've had some calls with this lovely guy named Patrick. And I just feel like they're so lovely. He always sends me women who are part of like the Wayflyer community to interview and that kind of thing. So yeah, shout out to them. They're so amazing. They are. I love them.
• 23:02
  What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business? I would definitely, the validation part is necessary as much as it seems tedious.
• 23:15
  You know, people come to me all the time now that I have my business. I'm like, oh, what do you think about this idea and this idea? I was like, well, I'm one opinion. I'm not the whole world. I may think something's dumb, but someone else might think it's cool. So I remember I went to all my friends with this idea and they're like, I would never buy that. That's dumb. I was like, okay. So I actually, yeah, and now they all own one, which is really funny.
• 23:42
  But what I did, I actually had my prototype. I know this is like a little late in my validation process, but I had a prototype and I went and walked around the San Diego mall when I lived over there. And I would make sure to like pull it out when I was next to a baby or something. And I had my baby and I'd be like, you know, doing it a little bit. Oh, what's that?
• 24:03
  And I would tell them, that's so cool. I'm going to buy that. And I just went around with my prototype. And, you know, every mom pretty much asked me, especially at restaurants, you know, to have it out. And I'd set up like the table where everyone could see it. And, you know, everyone would be like, what's that? And then you kind of get the reaction. Some people are like, oh, OK, well, that's that's OK. But not everyone. And that's when I really was like, OK, I'm going to buy this now. I'm going to spend the money on inventory.
• 24:33
  push for it. Jump in the deep end. So scary. Yes, I bet it was so scary. That that heart sinking moment where you're like, oh, please work. We are up to the six quick questions at the end of the interview. I'm super excited. Question number one is what's your why?
• 24:57
  My wife was really, I was working, you know, 50, 60 hours a week, and I was never home with my daughter, and which really sucked. I mean, before her, I could work that and care less. My husband's military, so he's gone, whatever. But really, when I had my daughter, I was just like, I'm missing all this stuff. My nanny is sending me pictures of her doing all her firsts, and I was just like, I can't do this anymore. I've got to find a way to work for myself.
• 25:26
  and have that time with her. She comes to work with me all the time now, which is great. But it was definitely my daughter. It was my why and pushed me. And I would have never taken those risks if I didn't have that motivation. Oh, how special. That's so nice. Question number two is what's been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? My marketing moment. It's a funny one.
• 25:55
  So I always talk about SEO, but my real marketing pop was when Shawn Johnson posted just randomly. I don't know if you know her. She's one of the Olympic people who she's married to the quarterback of a football team. I don't watch football that much. Okay. But she's got multiple millions of followers. And just randomly, someone asked her her favorite bottle warmer and she posted about us.
• 26:18
  And it really just, we got like hundreds of messages one morning and they're like, Sean Johnson just posted about you. And we woke up and we had like $15,000 in sales, which was nuts. That wasn't a, that's not a long lasting marketing thing though. That was like an immediate, oh my gosh. But it got the word out really quickly too. So Influencer was definitely our short term and then SEO was our long term.
• 26:43
  Wow, that is incredible waking up to that kind of, those kind of numbers in the bank account from a few hours. Did you work to build a relationship with her after that? I did, um...
• 26:57
  She didn't, she actually bought the unit herself and she didn't want money. She did it all just organically and she was more, so didn't want to promote baby products for money. She only wanted to promote what she liked. So she's posted a few times about it, but it's all just like up to her. The only thing she promotes is, you know, like she promotes home chefs or a little things that don't revolve around baby.
• 27:23
  Well, I guess that makes it even better, though, because it's truly organic and it's truly something that, like you said, that she likes. So it makes it even better, makes it a true endorsement. Yeah, we've gotten a few like that. One of the other cool ones was J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez, her dance choreographer.
• 27:42
  She randomly just reached out to us and she was like, oh, I would love to try this. We had another one. She was on The Price is Right with Drew Carey. She's like one of the girls on there. And so she actually got around all the famous people. So all this kind of stuff was just organic, which is kind of weird, but it worked out.
• 28:02
  I mean, you know, you're doing something right. If people are organically picking up your product and shouting about it to their communities, that is so awesome. That's my favorite. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you listening to reading? I love the entrepreneurial podcast. Honestly, I really like Rachel Hollis right now because she kind of brings me down to earth because I can be kind of high strung sometimes.
• 28:31
  And her saying, you know, calm down. This is how the business works, how to deal with stress, how to deal with pressure. This is all new to me, too. I'm learning how to do all this myself. And now I'm managing a whole team, which I've never really kind of done in all these different departments. And I really like the... I read everything, too. Renee Brown, Rachel Hollis is really my big one right now. I really like her.
• 28:59
  I'm going to check her out and start listening ASAP. 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 successful and motivated and productive.
• 29:13
  I really like to get up early. Not that I always do. I try. I try to get up early, you know, spend some time with myself in the morning. So with that being reading and listening to my podcast, sometimes I run.
• 29:30
  But before my daughter and my husband get up is really important to me. And I can get myself started. And if I can't do that in the morning, I do it in the afternoons. So my husband and I work together as parents. So, you know, I'll drop her off in the morning. He picks her up. So if I don't get that done in the morning, I make sure to go do it at home before he picks her up. And, you know, we communicate like, hey, I need an extra hour. Can you go play with her in the park? He will. He's like, yeah, no problem. I'll go grab her.
• 29:58
  So I think having my me time to calm down from everything that goes on in the chaotic life in the morning or in the afternoon is really essential to being productive too. Yeah.
• 30:10
  Yeah, to being able to like get back in the ring the next day and keep going. Yeah, because some days are hard. I mean, this past week we had that hurricane. We had inventory, which was three weeks late. And then we got the inventory. Finally, it was the wrong inventory. Oh, gosh. They were supposed to bring it in on a truck with a lift gate because we don't have a forklift. And they didn't. So we had to like run. I mean, there was just like everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Yeah.
• 30:37
  Yeah, gosh. But I think just dealing with the situation at time is what, you know, this is this problem. Let's fix it. Don't stress about the next one. Just keep moving. I call. I tell everyone my whole job every day is to put out one fire at a time all day long.
• 30:55
  That's the true job of an entrepreneur. That's for sure. Yep. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? Inventory.
• 31:11
  I guess if you know you'll sell it, that's the way you've got to put it. I was like, that's all right. That's the only way you're going to make money is you have something to sell. Yeah, that's so true. So true. And last question is, how do you deal with failure? And that can be around a personal experience that you've had or just your general mindset and approach. When I see a failure, I try to embrace it as a learning experience.
• 31:35
  So like I said, this is our first time we got pallets in. That was a whole learning experience and it was an absolute failure coming in. So I go to my manufacturer and my shipping company. I'm like, how are we going to make this better? We need to make this more organized. You know, see that there's going to be a failure. There's going to be mistakes every single day of your life in with employees and just sitting down with the situation and figuring out how to fix the failure and instead of ignoring it.
• 32:04
  is how I really deal with it. I don't just like let it blow off and say, oh, it won't happen again. You know, we need to address it. We need to figure out how to fix it and, you know, implement new things that we need to to make it better. Love that. I forgot to ask you, how big is your team now? We have six people that work in the warehouse, not including me. And we have five customer service girls. They're all over. They're all remote. We're all military spouses or...
• 32:32
  military daughters. We're all affiliated with the military somehow. And then we have, you know, our PR girl. We have our marketing company. We have quite a few. And it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. We actually just hired three more people in for the warehouse because it's just...
• 32:50
  Every day it gets more and more and more. And so we're just, everyone's just playing catch up. But it's really nice because we're all military. So we all understand everything together. Like if someone needs to be out because of some reason with their husband, no one gets mad at each other, which is really nice for us. Wow, that sounds really nice. Great team culture. It really is. And I force everyone on a team meeting on Mondays. So I'm like, if y'all have some issues with one another, argue it out here and fix it.
• 33:20
  Let's get it on the table. I love that. Elena, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be on the Female Startup Club podcast today. I have loved meeting you and learning about your brand. Thank you for having me. It's been fun.
• 33:39
  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.
• 34:03
  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.
• 34:26
  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.
• 34:43
  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.
• 35:07
  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.
• 35:30
  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.