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Hey, everyone, it's Guy here.
So this week on the How I Built This Advice line, we're bringing you an episode from the archives.
And in this episode, I take calls with Jane Whirlwind.
She's the co-founder of the global skincare brand Dermalogica.
And Jane gives amazing advice to three early stage entrepreneurs and talks about the importance of customer education for building a trusted brand.
This episode first aired in December of 2024.
It's a great one.
I hope you enjoy it.
Hello, and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz.
This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me.
Try to help you.
And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.
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And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.
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You can sign up for free at Guy Raz dot com.
And we'll put all this info in the podcast description.
All right.
Let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Jane Warwind.
She's the co-founder of the pioneering skincare brand Dermalogica.
Jane, welcome back to How I Built This.
Thank you so much, Guy.
It's such a pleasure to be back here.
I was one of your first, and I'm thrilled to be on this.
Way back in 2016.
And for those of you who haven't heard that story, we will include a link in the episode description.
It's an amazing story.
And essentially, Jane grew up in Scotland.
You tragically lost your father at a very young age.
And after that happened, I think about this all the time, Jane, which your mom told you.
I give this advice to people.
She said to all of her daughters I want you to develop a skill so you never have to depend on a man.
You can always be independent, basically, is what she said.
And for you, you became a beautician, which eventually brought you to California in the early 80s.
I love that you say beautician.
That's such an old word.
I'm a skin therapist.
But I get it.
I get it.
I think that's what you trained as, right, initially?
Yes, my original diploma.
You've got a great memory, Guy.
You've probably been swatting up.
And I'm still working.
I'm just, you know, as I get older, it's good.
It's going.
So you you eventually get come to California.
This is the early 80s.
And you opened you and your husband, Raymond.
You leased a space, small space, open to skin care, a place to teach skin care classes and to do skin care.
And yeah.
And at the time, if I remember you like people skin care regimens basically soap and water, like people really know.
Everyone was.
Yeah.
80s.
It was big hair, big makeup, no skin care.
And your business was an education business.
It wasn't even a skincare brand business.
But of course, over time, people started to ask you what kind of products they should use.
And you realized that really there wasn't anything available.
So you started to make them.
You convinced a manufacturer to help you produce products. your products of scale.
You called it Dermalogica.
And the rest is history.
I mean, fast forward 2015, you and Raymond sold a majority stake of the business Unilever.
And Dermalogica is a massive skincare brand.
Everybody listening knows Dermalogica.
It's an incredible story.
Thank you.
Jane, before we bring on our callers, I want to ask you a couple questions.
And the first one was about the approach you took, right?
Because you and Raymond were You're really scrappy.
You had to be, right, when you were getting your first products to market.
You didn't have any money.
No.
You convinced a manufacturer to give you a chance with almost no money up front.
And then you launched with like 27 products.
Yeah, I know.
All at once, right?
I know.
If someone asked me if they could do that, I would say no.
Yes, 27.
That's my question.
Would you take that same approach today?
What are your thoughts about focusing on one product, doing that, crushing that really well for a while, versus just going all out with 20 products from the get-go?
Well, we really felt strongly we had to introduce that many products because skincare, as we saw it, was a regimen.
And so we had to have more than one or two products.
So that was deliberate.
And it also set us apart because you couldn't just grab one product and it would do everything.
There was no miracle product.
We were basing it on education.
We had $14,000 of self-funding.
And we never took outside funding all the way through to the acquisition.
We had no debt.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
And so to do that, we needed a selection of product.
But focus is the number one word I would use.
Focus, focus, focus.
We didn't introduce makeup.
We didn't introduce hair products.
We didn't introduce nail products.
Everyone told us diversify, spread your look.
No, no, no.
Skincare, skincare, skincare.
And I think niching is really important when you're a startup, directing your energy and time and attention at one target market.
You can expand once you secure that, but start off in something that you feel strongly.
You've got a unique position in
Jane, when you started Dermalogica, totally different landscape.
Now, you know, there are giant stores that are dedicated to, obviously, beauty.
And there were some, but not quite like today, the Sephoras and the companies like that.
Yeah.
I mean, on the one hand, it's a lot easier.
The barrier to entry is lower.
There are lots of co-manufacturers.
You don't need as much money to start.
But on the other hand, it is just a massive market.
To break into it is so challenging.
If you were to start Dermalogica today, right?
What do you think you would have to do differently to gain traction?
Yeah.
You know, it's really interesting.
I would do exactly the same as we did when we started.
I would niche it with education.
It's a different environment, but people still want to hear expert advice.
And you know even the most entertaining 10-year-old on TikTok talking about aging skincare products.
It's not, that's entertainment.
It's not that they might not have some good points, but the different thing is about and it is very different because the barrier to entry is easier now.
You can set up your own channel in your kitchen if you wanted to, and plenty of people do.
However, that is not as solid a relationship as we had to build, which was literally word of mouth.
You had to meet that person.
You had to touch that person.
You had to introduce your product to them.
There was no internet.
There was no cell phone.
A better, simpler time, Jane.
Yeah, simpler time.
And when you built it, that relationship was real.
That comes first before the sale.
I always say, tell, don't sell.
You're not ready to sell until I am ready to buy.
And the way I would be ready to buy as a consumer is I want to want your product.
I want to understand what it does.
And then you've got to be able to build an emotion in me that says, oh my gosh I'm, I'm going to buy that, especially if you were in the prestige market, because it's not going to be an inexpensive purchase.
And it has to deliver on what you just promised.
And we did that through education.
I mean essentially what you're saying, which is something I say often, so people hearing this will be tired of it is.
The fundamentals remain the same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The plumbing's different, but it's exactly the same stuff coming through it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
We're going to have lots to talk about, of course, Jane.
Let's bring on our first caller and find out what is going on.
Hello, caller.
Welcome to the advice line here on How I Built This.
You're on with me and Jane Worland.
Please introduce yourself.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a tiny bit about your business.
Hi, Guy and Jane.
I'm Camille Hardy, originally from Pasadena, California.
I'm now based in Leesburg, Virginia, where I founded Chunky Vegan.
And at Chunky Vegan, we're on a mission to redefine baby food with farm-to-table nutrient-rich meals crafted for early-stage eaters.
Awesome.
Camille, thank you for calling in.
I'm excited to talk to you.
So tell me a little bit more about Chunky Vegan.
It's baby food that you sell how and where?
Currently, we're selling at farmers markets, pop-up shops, daycares, and places like that.
And it's direct to consumer currently.
And it's in a glass jar?
Yes.
And it's refrigerated?
Yes.
So all of our food is farm fresh.
So it's all plant-based.
We don't have any preservatives.
So it should be refrigerated and eaten within four days.
And if not, you can freeze it for up to six months.
Okay Camille, I'm assuming and maybe I'm wrong, but I'm going to assume that this business started because you became a parent.
It absolutely did start because I became a parent.
And it also started because, when I moved from Pasadena to Virginia, the options in terms of healthy or clean eating weren't as available as they were then.
In California, yeah.
Yeah.
And so I had to be really creative and very selective.
And I just really wasn't satisfied with what was available to feed my son.
So I started to make the food for him myself, initially sourcing it from the grocery stores.
But then as I...
Kind of learned like, well, where are they sourcing this from and how is the food being treated?
I kind of went down a little bit of a rabbit hole and I gradually kind of refined how I was sourcing certain foods for my son.
And that's how it initially started.
Awesome.
And what's your question for us today?
So the business has been.
We established the business last year, actually July of 2023, but we launched last month.
And what I am finding, I'm just in a bit of a kind of a weird space.
A lot of the other baby food brands.
They say they're organic and they're clean packaged, but then they throw it in a pouch or plastic.
So, from end to end what we offer.
We're just very intentional about the whole process of how we deliver our product, from the packaging, the glass, to the ingredients we source, to the way that we combine those ingredients to make the nutrient density.
And so how can we Chunky Vegan effectively scale up while maintaining the quality and the sustainability standards that set us apart?
Because a lot of advice we have been given was to cut back on either our packaging or scale back on these ingredients, but that degrades the quality of our product.
All right, lots to answer and lots to talk about.
Jane, I want to bring you in.
First of all, do you have any questions for Camille before we get to her question?
I just pulled up your website.
First of all, I have to just tell you, where were you when I had a baby 30 years ago?
I love everything about this.
I think you're in exactly the sweet spot.
I also have to tell you, your website looks great.
Thank you.
Really good.
I like the brand identity.
But you've got low numbers on Instagram.
I see 267 on your Instagram profile.
Now you've just started, so I understand that.
Do you feel comfortable on the social platforms?
And if you do, which ones are you on right now?
I mean, I feel comfortable.
I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Okay.
But we're just, the traction is, it's not really picking up the way that I thought that it would.
I would put a pin in that because it should work for you and it may have to just be very targeted with your message.
It's got to be tight and targeted.
That's another conversation.
But don't lighten up on that.
Go heavy on that.
You've got a great message.
I love your brand identity.
I don't know if you're familiar with your... the company Farmer's Dog?
Yes.
Okay.
So I know it's for babies, but this just reminded me of the branding for Farmer's Dog.
And anyone who's listening who doesn't know Farmer's Dog.
It's like a gourmet dog food customized for your dog.
I have a rescue chihuahua terrier mix. who honestly would eat anything.
He'd chew a chair if that was all that was on for him, but he gets farmer's dog.
And the reason we did it was it's so much better.
He is so much happier.
He's like a young puppy and he's 13 years old.
Okay, so I really look at that website because there's a brand identity there that comes through and people like me respond to it.
And that's what you need for your consumer.
You're charging 12.
On the website it says 12 for six ounces of baby food.
Yes okay, so you're a high-end product and you should be a premium brand.
Yeah, and you're a premium brand, you should be.
So you've got to niche it that way.
A couple, a couple of things education education, education.
Make sure there's a plenty of it on your, on your site and in your materials.
Why are in season veggies important?
What do people say about, can babies be vegan?
You know, I mean, people will say, I don't know, can my baby be, yes.
One thing I would say I love what you said earlier.
You've niched your initial distribution to farmer's markets, Preschools perhaps you said.
I would look at your niche local grocery stores.
Yes.
Especially anything, health food stores, anything which has the small high end.
You're familiar from California with Erewhon.
Yes, I am.
I love that store.
I love that store too.
Erawan.
For anyone listening who doesn't know it is a California-based grocery market, but it's very high end.
But they talk about ethically sourced foods.
This is about your body and the planet.
And they have a slogan as you walk in the store and it says, if we sell it, it's good for you.
I feel like that is an outlet that you could target.
Maybe not yet, but that should be in your sights.
I would not go to a big supermarket.
Don't go anywhere near a Kroger or even a Whole Foods yet.
Not yet, not now, because they could eat you alive with the terms they would want, the amount of product you'd have to supply, and you would be carrying the cost of that until they paid.
And those payments could be four months later.
These are fantastic food retailers, but it's not where you need to be right now.
So niche it small, niche it tight and make sure that Chunky Vegan is found where you can target high-end customers.
Because your average buyer is not going to be the person that wants necessarily just the quick, easy fix.
They could have found that already on the shelves.
I think...
Well, first of all, I think, Jane, your advice about focusing locally is critical right now.
Camille, you've just launched.
And so you are in the test and learn phase.
And this is a hard phase because you're not going to see velocity and traction as quickly as you like.
It's very rare for a new business to do that, especially in your category, right?
Because Baby food is challenging, right?
People, they've gotta trust that your food is safe and healthy for their child, right?
What I think you should consider is thinking of this time as the test and learn time, which is to keep a diary, write everything down, review and measure right.
Because over time, you're going to start to see what works and what doesn't work.
I mean, the challenge that you face is you have a premium product.
It is not shelf stable.
You've got to refrigerate it and its shelf life is limited.
So it's got to be sold really quickly.
So over time, could you serve it in the frozen section?
I think you could preserve most of the nutrients if you freeze it.
I like that better.
It looks better.
I think that's a great advantage, actually.
Is there a world where you would consider maybe high-pressure processing to preserve the nutrients and putting it also in the refrigerated section, but maybe it would extend the shelf life longer?
Maybe you use uh, other packaging that's not so heavy.
I love glass, i'm a big fan of glass and i be glasses heavy, so grocers don't always like it, but nobody recycles plastic.
Those pouches are challenging, but i think that you're going to learn over time what works.
And now is the time to really lean into the newspaper in Leesburg, the alternative weeklies, the farmers markets, parent groups and start to develop a following there, because you're just outside of one of the most important media and cultural centers in the United States, the Washington DC metropolitan area.
There's an opportunity to kind of get a foothold in that market.
But I think that right now, as you're starting, You really want to just measure what people say.
You want to write things down.
You want to ask people for their feedback.
And you want to start to see how you might make it even more accessible to people over time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And build your community.
Yeah.
We've done that.
We literally started surveys, conducting surveys and case studies last April.
So that's been ongoing and we've been getting a lot of feedback.
And that's what allowed us to refine the meal offerings to these six staple things that we launched with.
Now that we've launched and we're opening up to a wider audience, we're still getting more feedback, more input, so that we can further refine and just see how we can go from there.
What I like about what you're doing is that you're focusing on nutrient density, something that people are really interested in.
And Jane, I think this goes right back to what we talked about earlier, which is the fundamentals.
In this case, a lot of your energy has to be aimed towards really doubling down on educating parents.
Are they going to get...
Everything they want from you.
Know the big brands that are available on the shelves.
It might be fine enough for them.
But what you're saying is, look, this is different.
I think it's critical because you don't want to be confused with another baby food.
This is not actually a baby food.
This is a healthy start to your child's life.
So be prepared that not everyone is going to want to go with you.
That's fine.
You don't need them.
You need a very small percentage to go with you.
So target them hard.
Speak to their mind, to their heart, and they'll be there.
Because this is the right thing.
It is the right thing to be available.
And I feel like you have a great opportunity.
But you're in the first sample, sample, sample.
Sample, sample, sample.
And that's been the closer.
That's been what gets people in and they buy is offering the tasting.
So everywhere we go, we have samples.
But we're trying to create, it's not just a baby food brand.
We want a community.
We want awareness.
We want education.
So we want to teach parents the right repercussions of the convenience of grabbing that pouch and having something that they can sit in a bag for hours unrefrigerated, and what that costs your child.
We want to teach the real meaning of how true food should be treated.
True food is not shelf-stable.
We don't use typical ingredients.
We don't use oatmeal or any rice-based anything in our foods.
And that's all very important and people don't know those things.
So package everything you said into a little program, a little workshop, and pitch it to pediatricians in your area, pitch it to mommy and baby groups, pitch it to neonatal classes, all of those kind of things that we all did.
Because it's important that you're not in there to sell your brand.
You're in there to tell about the education behind your brand.
And then they won't have to be sold your brand.
They'll want to buy it because they'll understand why it's so important.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Camille Hardy, the brand is called Chunky Vegan in Leesburg, Virginia.
Thank you so much.
Good luck.
Yeah, good luck.
Guy, Jane, thank you so much.
It's been an absolute pleasure to have this opportunity to speak with both of you.
Thank you.
Do you know what you could do is you could have like a bar, right?
But instead of like tequila shots for babies, you just bring them up to the bar and you give them like shots of Chunky Vegan.
I love it.
A little pop-up in one of the stores or at the farmer's market.
You know, bring your baby over and feed them.
And then you could have tequila shots for the parents.
Absolutely, because that's what you need.
And then the baby's eating the chunky vegan.
The mom's got a little tequila and soda water.
Yeah, it's working for me.
Be our next business.
We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question and another round of advice.
I'm Guy Raz.
Stick around.
You're listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
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Welcome back to The Device Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Dermalogica founder Jane Worland.
And Jane, what do you say?
Let's take another call.
Yeah, let's take it.
Hello.
Welcome to The Device Line.
You are on with Jane Worland.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hey, Jane.
Hey, Guy.
My name is Molly Brubaker.
I'm the founder of Baby Booty, and we are based in Portland, Maine.
Baby Booty is boutique fitness for parents where you bring your baby or toddler along, but the focus is on you.
So we offer energetic fitness classes based on the everyday movements of new parenthood, so you can focus on getting stronger physically, emotionally and mentally.
Our studios are located in Portland Maine, and Boston Massachusetts, with a hope to franchise at some point.
Awesome.
Well, thank you for calling in, Molly.
So baby booty, like boot, like boot, T is like boot camp kind of thing?
Yeah, like work your booty.
Work your booty.
I got you.
It gets stronger.
Yeah, I got you.
Yeah.
And you can in the classes like what, you bring your baby to the class and the baby's just kind of like wander around and do their thing.
Or are they like deposited in another room where they're cared for?
OK, so we kind of seek to eliminate the need for child care.
So your baby's there.
We have baby proofed studios.
The babies are socializing.
They're playing.
They're eating snacks.
They're playing with the toys or they're strapped to your body.
You've got like goldfish crumbs on the ground and apple juice spilled and you got like the workout class going on all around it.
You know it.
It's a bit chaotic, but it really works.
It's amazing, actually, to see the chaos, but the focus is there for the parents.
So we welcome baby wearing.
So if you have an infant, you can strap them on so you don't have to think about them.
We have parents with toddlers four and under who are cruising around on bikes, weaving in and out of our feet.
But really, it's a win-win because you don't need child care.
You can Focus on yourself for that hour.
And then your baby also gets to socialize.
Yeah.
I'm on your website now and I see you literally like half of these moms have their baby Bjorns on.
Yeah.
And the baby like, like from from the hangover, and you've got them exercising with the baby in the baby Bjorn.
Is each of them with their own baby or can you kind of swap your babies?
I'm teasing.
I mean, our instructors are known to carry other people's babies around if they need help.
But literally like I look around, I look around my classes and I'm like why are more people not seeing how badass all these parents are?
They're here.
They're getting physically stronger after having a baby or becoming a new parent.
And one thing that's really special about about baby booty is that every single class is half workout, half social circle yeah, so i'm trying to find that sweet spot between you can socialize, you can connect with other parents and your babies are there um, but they're not the focus i think there's in our, in our culture.
There's really like kind of a lack of support for new parents right, and that's symbolic and i've Yes, especially moms.
And I'm a dad and I can say that as having been there 15 years ago.
What's your question that you brought for us today?
Yeah.
So how can I shift the mindset and behavior of my current and potential customers to also prioritize self-care by coming to Baby Booty and not feel guilt in a culture where we feel like our kids always come first?
Got it.
Okay.
We'll get to that question in a sec.
Jane, let's bring you in.
Questions, questions, questions for Molly.
I love what you're doing.
Let me backtrack because I'm quite excited about all of this.
When we started Dermalogica, we quickly realized, we started with education and classes.
And what we quickly realized was students who were already qualified and working in salons were coming back to the same class more than once, which seemed odd because they'd already learned, you know, about acne or whatever it was.
What we realized was they weren't just coming for the education, they were coming for the community.
And I think that's exactly what you've got.
I think you've got a workout studio.
But what is I'm willing to bet?
One of the strongest pulls for people to come there is because yes, they can bring their baby.
So that solves the child care issue.
Secondly, they're with a like minded group.
It's connection.
It's community.
It's sisterhood.
It is knowing that you're not on your own, knowing that you're not the only one that doesn't get it right first time.
That is critically important because what everyone is craving right now is community and connection.
So I would just really emphasize to you, don't underestimate this community aspect.
Make every excuse you can to have them come in to the studio.
Whether it's a workshop, whether it's a baby class, whether it's somebody giving a presentation on something.
Get it on social media.
I looked at your Instagram just quickly, and you've only got a little over 3,000 people.
You can get more than that.
It's pretty good, actually.
It's not bad.
But your moms can keep kind of flesh that out themselves.
You know, have them post, do little competitions when they post anything you can think about any idea that builds community.
Build it in your business?
Yeah for sure.
So do you have a membership?
There's a membership aspect to this, and what does that look like?
Yeah, so you can join as a unlimited member.
You get access to on-demand classes, live stream classes, unlimited classes in the studio and sort of what's ballpark pricing.
On your membership, It's roughly like 89 a month.
It's very affordable.
Okay, great.
And I can take out a month to month or can I take out six months or a year?
How does it work?
Yep, you can do month to month or if you do six months up front, you get a little bit of a discount.
Yeah, Molly, a couple questions for you.
First of all, you mentioned that you like to be one day – you've got two locations now.
You like to franchise.
Give me a sense of how the business is doing now.
Are you guys profitable yet?
I mean, it's tough.
It's a new business.
But where are you right now?
The business yeah, um.
No, we are not profitable.
Um, i have no outside funding, so i've bootstrapped this um entirely.
I've taken some, taken some really big risks, some scary risks um, in terms of opening my second studio in boston.
Obviously, it's a lot more expensive than maine and you know, i've had to make some really tough decisions.
Um, i haven't paid myself ever.
I had to just let go of a manager who, a beloved manager, just because I couldn't pay her.
So I, you know, I have a big vision and I am not going to give up.
But yeah, it's definitely hard.
And just scraping by each month.
You know, I'm just like treading water, like keeping my head up, keeping a positive attitude.
Yeah.
I love that.
And thank you for saying that.
First of all, here's the thing.
I mean, what Jane tapped into, I mean, social media, we tend to overemphasize the importance.
I think we overemphasize the importance of it.
And I'm not a huge fan of it myself, but I do recognize that there are big parts of it that are critical.
And in this case…
What you're trying to do is to remind new parents, and I think probably most of your clients are women, but I do see some men in the classes as well.
So new parents that they got to give themselves like they have to take care of themselves too, because it's part of being a good parent.
And taking care of your child, especially when they're little, is taking care of yourself.
And what's your value proposition here is we're going to make it easy for you.
Just come.
Just show up.
And I think that if there's a way to kind of send that message through videos, I mean, you probably are already doing some of that
But I would really lean into that, that idea of like, bring you and your baby and just come and we will take care of everything else.
Yeah, we're here.
Your community is here and we're waiting for you.
Yeah.
I have a quick question.
Why did you open the second?
What prompted you to open a second location in Boston when you said you've never drawn a salary?
I totally understand all of that.
That's very normal.
But why did you then expand to a second location?
So when I started the business in 2021 here in Portland Maine, I also started doing pop-up classes in Boston in that area, because that's actually where I'm from.
And I was just so excited.
I just felt there was a need as I was a brand new mom myself.
And I just thought there's so many parents who could utilize this.
And it was successful in the pop-ups that I then said well, we should just have our own studio space, because the idea is to really have that home base for new parents to have a place to go and a sense of purpose.
So for all the right reasons, but did you sign a lease on the premises?
He did, yeah.
How long is your lease?
It's five years.
Okay.
So that's a stretch, because you were – how many?
– at that time when you opened in Boston how many – was it just you teaching, or did you have other people teaching with you, or –?
So in total, my total team between the two studios, I have 17 instructors.
And when I opened, I had a team, I think, of six and a manager.
So I do go down there as often as I can.
And I've learned.
Actually I have to run that studio a little bit differently than I do in Maine, just because the clientele is different.
And it's so nuanced because...
A market like Boston is a big city.
We have a lot of more working moms, you know, career moms.
They're going back to work.
So I'm trying to navigate all of those like nuances of within that demographic and figure out the right messaging.
And do you have a manager in Boston?
I do.
Yep.
You do.
Okay.
So they have to be your proxy.
You've signed a five-year lease, so you're in.
However, I would say that that's a big chunk to bite off and try and carry the cost of that, the overhead of that and just the attention and energy of having to do that.
Portland is a great location.
Boston is a great location.
I would think one would be enough to manage until you feel really strongly, you've got it worked out and then expand to the second.
But that's, you know, that's looking in the rearview mirror because you're already in there.
But that's the balancing act and you're picking up a lot of overhead there, I would imagine.
I'm just laughing because a lot of people told me I was crazy.
I opened the second location when I had a six-month-old baby and a toddler.
Yeah, you were crazy, but that's okay.
We've had much crazier stories on the show.
I think one of the—look, I think you have an opportunity here, and clearly you're aware of it.
I mean, you've got an opportunity here to really build and deepen a community, and I think—
One of the – in addition to this idea of making it easy, one of the things I think you can do – it's hard.
You're a mom.
You're a parent.
You've got to raise kids too.
But if Baby Booty, at least in the Boston location, can be even more of a 360 location, could you have a cooler that sells premium baby food?
Could you have –
Maybe apparel.
Maybe you are selling apparel already.
Are you selling baby products?
Are you inviting pediatricians?
I mean, there's tons.
I mean, Boston is one of the medical centers of the United States.
And so I would imagine there are tons and tons of neonatal specialists and maternity care specialists who would be delighted to come and talk.
Do a talk for free.
Obviously, moms are busy.
They don't have tons and tons of time.
But all of those things generate buzz and interest.
And so to me, it's hard.
It's not going to be easy, Molly.
You've heard the show.
You know how much of a sacrifice it is.
But given that you've got the space and you've got the critical mass there, I think you can really think of it as much more than only a fitness space.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah, I love that.
And think of it as your community clubhouse.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's cute.
Yeah.
I love all that.
I love when you said have it be more of a 360.
And, you know, we're definitely trying.
We've brought in CPR workshops.
Good.
You name it.
Different mom's night out and things like that.
And in Boston, I am facing, you know –
The clientele just feeling like that competition of.
They have so many other choices of things to do with their kids, are so busy.
They're working the kids in daycare.
They're going to swim class and gymnastics.
And so, you know, how do I shift them to get into my, you know, my pump station, my my mom's club?
You know, it's that mentality that has been really challenging.
Yeah.
And that may teach you something also interesting.
You may find that your business model works better in a smaller community and not a city.
And there's plenty of businesses that know.
You know, they know that target and that's what they focus on.
And conversely, if you feel like you can compete against the noise of the city and all the other options that there are together, then you know, go for it.
And partnerships, partnerships, partnerships, right?
Am I saying it three times?
I don't know.
People just say things three times in a row.
But if you can start to even reach out on all LinkedIn emails.
Reach out to baby brands.
You know stroller companies, other brands that may want to come and talk to your clients about what they offer.
Those brands will often promote you.
They'll often say, we're going to be at Baby Booty, you know.
And so little things like that actually can have a cumulative effect over time.
I think people are surprised at how often they'll receive a response when you just reach out.
100%.
Yeah, for sure.
All right.
The company's called Baby Booty.
Molly Brubaker, congrats.
Thanks so much for calling in.
Good luck.
We'll be keeping tabs on you.
Hey, thank you, Jane.
Thank you, Guy.
What an honor to talk to you.
I love it.
Thank you guys so much.
And it's not just for mom.
So, you know, Jane, Guy, if you guys want to come and work out with us and dance, we'd love that.
I'll put my 15-year-old in the baby Bjorn.
He's a little heavy.
Oh, I love it.
You can just strap him on your back.
My 25-year-old can carry me in.
All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
Welcome back to The Advice Line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Jane Whirlwind.
Let's bring in our next and final caller.
Welcome to The Advice Line.
You're on with Jane Whirlwind.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, Jane.
Hi, Guy.
I'm Sarah Wyman, and I'm calling in from Lakeville, Connecticut.
I'm the founder of Paradisport.
It's spelled like paradise with no E at the end.
We make performance underwear for athletes, designed by women, for women, with our guaranteed stay-in-place promise.
All of our products are certified BPA and PFAS free, made as sustainably as possible and built to last.
Awesome.
Well, thank you for calling in.
Paradis Sport.
I love it.
And so underwear.
Yes.
How did you start this brand?
Tell me about it.
This is really something that I found I needed.
I had worn the same brand of active underwear for about 10 years.
I played sports in college.
I played Division I sports, and I'm now still a very active person.
Wow.
What did you play, by the way?
I played field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse.
Wow.
Wow.
So you're no joke.
Division I athlete.
Well, I'm now in my late 40s.
I am still active skiing and running and hiking with my family.
And the brand of active underwear I'd worn for years changed their cut and fabric and didn't work for me anymore.
I ordered all these other brands.
None of them were Some of them were really pretty bad.
I'm trained as an architect and landscape architect and I've been running my own design business for 18 years now.
And I sort of have that design mentality.
And I thought, this is crazy that there aren't better options for active women.
I just want something that I can go on a hike in and not have to worry about adjusting my underwear the whole time.
And then I started talking to friends and I started realizing that there are a lot of other women out there who are looking for better products in this category.
Having that design mentality, I started calling around to factories and ended up finding, after a lot of calling in factories in Asia and in the US, found an awesome designer in Vermont who had experience designing for other underwear brands and for NASA and for the US military.
Actually,
And she came up with our first prototype, which we then tested with division one athletes.
And we prototyped for a good year and a half.
We had eight rounds of prototypes.
So we've been very laser focused on just underwear and doing it really well.
So you started this because you wanted to solve a problem that you had.
You found a designer.
And now you've got, from what I gather, two different like sort of designs, right?
Well, so we have two different lines for which we have a bikini and a thong.
One is seamless.
They're knit on circular machines.
And they don't have any side seams.
Okay.
We have a natural fiber line that's made with fabric that comes from sustainably harvested beech tree pulp.
And we're adding a couple of new styles.
We're right now in development with a boy short and a hipster.
And Sarah, tell me a little bit about your, you're entirely self-funded.
Yes.
This bootstrap.
Okay.
And mostly direct to consumer.
So what are you guys roughly doing in sales right now?
Have you cracked like $50,000, $100,000 a year?
We're close.
We're really close.
Nice.
Nice.
Congrats.
That's great.
All right.
How can we help you today?
So the question that I had is that we've been laser focused on just underwear and doing it really well and trying to own that space.
We do have customers asking us to work on a sports bra or sports shorts.
What do you think about adding one or two layers other verticals like sports bras or sports shorts at this point in our process?
Or should we just own underwear?
Jane, who launched with 20 plus different SKUs.
Jane, what do you think?
First of all, I love this.
I think it's great.
I think you have a real shot of building a brand with this.
I'm on your website.
I love these three women running through the field with buffalo bison in the background in their underwear.
It's just fantastic.
It's very high quality.
We need underwear that works like this.
And I think I would not expand...
You've got to own this underwear niche.
You've got to be, when I think underwear, I got to think parody.
I think that there's all kinds of opportunities to expand within the underwear.
I don't know.
I do.
I love Pilates.
Pilates underwear.
We need something when we're doing standing leg series.
Trust me.
You've got a pregnant woman in one of your shots, but pregnancy underwear.
There's specific sports, I imagine like I don't know hurdles pickleball, which is huge.
Men's, I think, could be the next big step.
I wouldn't charge into swimwear and shorts and all the rest of it until you've got a great product going here and you've got great attention from press.
I wouldn't spread yourself too thin.
I'm going to jump in and make a counter argument to you, Jane.
Okay, you go, Guy.
I actually think.
First of all, I think that being a women's brand is the way to go, at least for now.
The thing about sports bras to me.
I would say you should go for it, because you've already solved the underwear problem.
And I would imagine, and again, I'm I'm a guy here, so I don't know this intimately as the two of you, but I would imagine that that's the other problem that a lot of women athletes have, right?
Which is dealing with a bra or a top that isn't holding things together.
And if you know that you've solved the problem with underwear, I'm pretty sure you will know how to solve the problem with tops and sports bras as well.
And I would think...
Those two together would be a really powerful... Sorry, go ahead.
It's two totally different parts of your body.
I mean, a bra is very specific.
I mean whether it's your size, it's your cup size.
Most people haven't got a clue what size bra they should be wearing.
And I love that whole idea, but I think it's too soon.
You're going to distract yourself with the underwire versus the front forcing folding bras, the expandable straps, the crossover straps.
The sports bras don't have wire in there at all, do they?
But maybe.
Well, that's probably one of the reasons why people, if you're larger breasted, you don't normally fly in one that really works for you.
If you put on one without an underwire, it is more comfortable, but then you look as if you've got a dashing strap around your chest.
Everything sort of folds into the middle.
So I think it's not that I don't think you should ever do underwear like bras and slips and petticoats, whatever the heck's going on at that time.
But I think there's such a market in lower half underwear before you concentrate on top half.
I mean, she does have an opening here Jane, because it's called Paradis Sport, not Paradis Underwear.
So that's true.
I mean, there's a bigger vision here, Sarah.
Right?
Okay.
All right.
Maybe.
But I do think that bras open up, they require so many sizes and that with minimum orders per size.
That's a huge hesitancy that I have there.
But I also, I love the idea of doing one thing really well.
But if you want to scale something, right, and you've got a lot going for you.
You've got a great logo.
You've got a good name.
I mean, underwear by women for women.
You've got underwear for women athletes.
I mean, you've got a lot going.
And I wonder whether you can build a whole business and scale a whole business on just one thing, right on just underwear.
Especially as the other – the big 800-pound gorillas in this space, the aloes and the lululemons and others.
They may start – they could start to make underwear.
I don't know if they do.
So I wonder whether there is an argument to be made that, despite the complexity, it is worth the risk.
I think there are companies that are known for their underwear, their lingerie, you know, and they may do panties and bras, but in any event, I love the idea of going narrow and deep.
I think there's enough crazy people like me that really think about underwear in a different way.
That would be your customers.
We might be divided here, Guy.
I say go narrow and deep.
Or divided.
But I love that.
And by the way, this is the longest conversation I've had about women's underwear in my whole life.
By the way, what is the name, Paradis?
Where does that come from?
So it's paying homage to Marie Paradis, who is the first woman to climb Mont Blanc in the hot palace peak in the Alps.
Oh, I love it.
Okay, you had me at Marie.
What?
It's an amazing story, too.
She went up in 1808 with a party of men and she was wearing a wool skirt and leather shoes, leather town shoes, and she persisted.
Oh, you've got it on your website.
Wait, I've just found her.
And imagine how much more comfortable that climb would have been with your underwear.
That's what we were thinking.
We hope she would support our efforts to outfit women for comfort and performance.
Yes.
This is a great piece on the website.
Thank you.
Marie's story.
Plus I think that who are the Marie's of today?
I have a niece who's an ultra athlete in the UK.
She's a GB athlete and she is an.
She competes in Ironman and she just rode across the Atlantic, literally with two other women.
Yeah.
And they are out there, the Marie's of the world.
Marie Paradis is out there and waiting for your underwear.
And look, you're coming to the table with so much standing as a former D1 athlete, Sarah.
So, I mean, I can imagine that.
Do you have any inns at some of the universities?
And I mean, are you able to get these to college students, women who are playing on the Stanford soccer team or the field hockey team, at wherever?
Yes, I played at Dartmouth College and the field hockey and lacrosse players have been my interns and fit testers and they're incredible.
Yeah, I love it.
I'd love to reach other college athletes as well.
I think we're going to be hearing a lot more about this brand the next couple of years.
Sarah, I say go into bras and sports bras.
Jane says don't.
One of us, we might both be right.
I say listen to Sarah Blakely's interview with Guy.
That was one of your early ones.
Spanx.
Yep.
She did one thing right.
You're right.
Focus on that, and then you can expand.
That's my model for you, Spanx.
I think that's good advice.
Sarah Wyman, Parody Sports, congrats.
Thanks for calling in.
Good luck.
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
And Jane, thank you so much for everything you've done for women who own businesses.
It's really incredible.
Thank you.
To be continued.
But thanks so much and good luck.
You've got something here.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Jane, before I let you go, I want to ask you a question about if you could go back in time and you could say Jane, do this, do that, you know or know this?
What's something that you wish you knew that might have been just to help a little bit more helpful?
Probably so much.
But I think the one thing that does come to mind is that I wish I'd known sooner that there are no real experts out there.
I mean, there are people that have more experience.
And they may have had more success and they may have made more money, but it doesn't mean that they're experts about your business.
You know your business the best.
You know what's driving it for you emotionally.
You know your customers when you're an entrepreneur emotionally.
And for a long time, I felt like I didn't know very much.
I was kind of winging it.
I was having some lucky hits.
And there must be experts out there that could be doing a lot better job.
And then it wasn't too many years before I realized, actually, no, not always.
You can hire in people to assist you, but there's no one that's going to run your brand or love your brand the way you do.
For sure.
Jane Whirlwind, thank you so, so much for coming on the show.
Thank you, Guy.
Thanks so much for having me back.
I loved it.
That's Termological co-founder Jane Worland.
And, by the way, if you haven't heard Jane's original How I Built This episode, you've got to go back and check it out.
You can find a link to it in the podcast description.
And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.
We went to a contract manufacturer in Los Angeles and literally sort of fell on our swords and told him our dream, gave him the pitch and said we need you to do like a test run for us.
He said look, I have absolutely no reason to do this, because 99 of everyone that sits opposite me telling me this story does not succeed.
But for some crazy reason, I think you've got something interesting and I want to be in for the ride.
I'll see you next time.
And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them.
And make sure to tell us how to reach you.
You can send us a voice memo at hibtid.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-WONDER.
1298 and leave a message there.
And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well.
This episode was produced by Catherine Seifer with music composed by Ramtin Arablui.
It was edited by John Isabella.
Our audio engineer was Neil Rausch.
Our production staff also includes Neva Grant, Andrea Bruce, Alex Chung, Casey Herman, JC Howard, Carrie Thompson, Rommel Wood, Chris Messini and Sam Paulson.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.
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