Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Einstein's Disease. Through real world insights and powerful conversations with industry leaders, we help you break past limitations and rethink success. Are you ready to push the boundaries of what's possible?
Good evening. This is Greg Ellers, host of Einstein's Disease, where we spend the hour with you sharing experiences between small and medium sized business owners or leadership to discuss the challenges that they either are facing internally or externally to try and gain market share or success within their business. This evening we are pleasure to have as our guest Kristen Adams, CEO and founder of Dukashi Corporation, a organic pet waste company, which to some may sound like a small, narrow market, but from my understanding and Kristen, it's great to have you. This is a booming market, especially with the advent and the demand post Covid of the backyard chickens. Welcome to the show, Kristen.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: That's great. So, Kristen, prior to the show, we were spending a little bit of time discussing the organic history of Dakashi, how it began, and the challenges that you faced as a business owner, both internally from a partnership standpoint, but most importantly externally getting your product out there. And the way we want to kind of work this for our audience tonight is we really want to discuss initially the challenges that you face and have faced and then in the second block, discuss some of the solutions that you've come up with. And.
But initially, why don't you spend a little bit of time telling us the history of Dukashi number one, Kristen, and then also the challenges that you have faced as a company to try and get a larger market share. Because my understanding is this organic pet waste industry has just absolutely exploded.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Correct. Well, thank you. First of all, it was an idea hatched from about 13 years ago now when I had a pet. I was getting a pet and realized very quickly that there was really not a lot of products in the market. I happened to get a dog and there just wasn't really any products in the market to deal with pet waste and specifically the disposal of pet waste and so forth. So. So we came up with a solution based on all natural ingredients. First of all, we combed the store shelves and there was nothing on the shelves that didn't have chemicals and all sorts of things in it. And so that sort of hatched the idea that this might be a place to start. And the other thing we realized is I'm located in Seattle and there are actually more dogs in Seattle than children. So clearly it was a huge market.
Fast forward. After a lot of testing and development of the product, we learned that it was equally effective to get rid of all of the waste or the odor that pet waste creates in litter boxes, small animal cages, chicken coops, and so forth, because what you're dealing with is you're trying to get rid of the pathogens that are created as a result of the pet waste itself. So it worked in every habitat. And it's a organic, natural product that just has four ingredients. It has no masking agents, no perfumes, no chemicals.
It is powered by a probiotic, and that is what gives it the power to work. So as we went along, we started out very small, going literally door to door to small independent pet stores. And while that was a good way to cut our teeth and get our foot in the door, it certainly wasn't a sustainable model. We also learned fairly early on. Our initial focus was dogs and cats. And what we learned is, number one, people really don't pick up their dog waste the way they say they do and deal with it. And number two, we were battling with the whole plastic bag and the garbage issue and how and so on and so forth.
So we moved along into other animals and some one of the pet stores we were in said, you know, can I take this home and try this on my chickens? And we said, sure, give it a try. And that really launched our company to gain more distribution in the market because it was very, very effective in backyard chickens, any kind of chickens, but backyard poultry enthusiasts are quite popular. And so it became very effective in that environment as well. So that really got our moving for the most part.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Kristen, and thanks for the background on that. When I think of anything with animals, I think of Purina or some of the other big brands or whatever it might be, your product being organic.
How have you been able to reach your clients? What's been that challenge? Because initially you said, people don't pick up their dog waste, and I can walk in a park and attest to that. But as you move more towards where the pets themselves are, maybe in the house, like a cat or maybe smaller, other rodent animals or in the backyard, you have more of that need to reduce the waste, the smell. Talk to us about the challenges that you faced and continue to face with respect to adoption of your product or knowledge of your product. I, I, I don't see you on Super Bowl Sunday.
So I know that you haven't gotten there yet.
Talk to us a little bit about that challenge and, and how you're working to overcome the fact that, you know, Dukashi, a small Company in, in Washington state actually has something that many people need, but you need to make them aware of it.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Our biggest challenge, we've actually had far better luck transitioning from a brick and mortar store. For obvious reasons, they're not growing into the online and it's easier to tell our story online.
That that is probably one of the biggest challenges we faced when we went and put our product on the shelf initially was, was the fact that we had to have a really highly trained store staff to explain how the product worked and why it worked. We were very different in the category. And you know, you had your, you have your long standing products that are in a spray bottle, but you really didn't have. We're a very, we're a dry product, much like a, a grain, if you will. We're a wheat based product and so it's almost like sprinkling oats. We're an additive to any animal habitat. And then once the moisture from the urine or the feces comes in contact, that probiotic wakes up and goes to work on eliminating those pathogens. And once you get rid of the pathogens, you get rid of the odor. So that's how the product works itself. But that's a long explanation and a detailed explanation to really give to the store staff. So once we transitioned and had a better presence online, we were able to engage a lot more customers.
No, we're nowhere near getting to the point where we would be on Super Bowl.
The other thing is it's a difficult product to. It's easy to demonstrate, but it's a difficult product to really express the effectiveness of it in a quick commercial or something like that. And so that's why transitioning into social media and places like that, where we were able to do some videos, made a big difference in growing our customer base. But we definitely faced some challenges in getting our product explained. And even within the distributor network, which we did break into the distributor network, getting the distributor sales reps trained well enough and spending time in those stores to explain things. One of the things that in every industry with a distributor network, they're becoming order takers. They're not becoming, they're not educators or selling products anymore. They're relying on the suppliers to go in and really educate the store people because the distributors have consolidated, they've cut back and they're the account executives have a lot more accounts to call on. And so they literally have become more order takers. So that really plays against a product like ours. So the transitioning of taking our product and Focusing more on the online business as opposed to the brick and mortar was a key and still remains to be a challenge because social media is very crowded and very busy.
But it has helped us immensely. And probably we formed some coalitions with some bloggers who featured us and did a great explanation. People that were in the chicken background and had a lot of chickens themselves and had a deep history and knowledge in the chicken world. And so they gave us some great testimonials. Testimonials are really our best tool. But they did videos in their coops and did some testimonials for us and did some blogs. We were featured on a number of websites and so that helped immensely. But our biggest challenge is customer acquisition and cutting through the traffic.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: No, I hear you. So when we think about the challenges or the problems that we've discussed here in the first block is it really comes down to the, the ability to educate or the ability to actually get to the customer where they are to make sure that they're aware of what your product is, number one. And there is, there's obviously been that, that, that trend for a long time towards organic or green or things like that. And it sounds like your product fits right into those, those areas. But yet at the same time, the normal channels for which a product, as you mentioned, being the distributor channel or in a store, people don't really, that, that fulfill those roles now. They don't really actually fulfill them enough to be able to explain a product like this. Even though I can't imagine it's rocket science. Right.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: It certainly isn't. I mean, you know, you've got your 9 second or 10 second elevator pitch and it's very simple. But again, you know, it's assuming that that store chains are going to train their people. We are in one big chain in the Northwest and they, they have six. They've grown to 65 stores. When I first got Dakashi in the door, they were at 26 stores and they have grown to 65 stores. They're very, very successful.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: They train their people immensely.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah, let's, let's talk about that in the next block because that sounds like a great solution that you found, Kristen. With that, we're going to take a break for our sponsors and we'll be back in a minute. Thank you very much for tuning in to Einstein's disease tonight. This is Greg Ellers and we'll be back shortly. Thank you.
Foreign this is Greg Ellers. Welcome back to the second segment of Einstein's disease. Tonight my guest is Kristen Adams, CEO and founder of Ducashi and Organic Pet Waste Odor Eliminator, which sounds very novel. But at the end, as we learned in the first segment, it really began out of a customer need, customer being Kristen, and has morphed into a business now that's been around for over a decade. Kristen, welcome back to the show.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: So as we were talking in the last segment before we cut to our sponsors, you mentioned that you were able to get into a local area. Well, I guess regional with 65 stores, as you mentioned. But you were looking for a solution to be able to start getting your product out to the consumer because there was a need, you saw it, but there was an inability through some of the traditional channels to be able to get that product where it wanted to go. And then you found a local pet store that's grown significantly and they were able to help you. So let talk a little bit about Kristen, that solution and how it worked. What did you do with these people? Because you're a small business owner, you, whether you've got to meet payroll or you've got to buy new supplies, you need to be able to see some elements of success. And it sounds like this was one of them. Why don't you share a little bit about how that worked and how as a business owner, you were able to engage with their leadership to be able to make this product work. Because I know there's a lot of people out there that are our viewers that run into the same issues when they're trying to either start their business or grow it. And I think this is a great story for you to be able to tell.
Sure.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: So the first thing that I did was a whole lot of market research. Where are people buying their pet products? Are they going to the great big chain stores or are they going to the small neighborhood pet stores or, you know, just how are they acquiring, you know, their products? Now, keep in mind, this was before online companies like Chewy existed. So the more research I did, I figured out that this particular chain, Mud Bay, was very, very dedicated to, to training their employees. You walk in the store, you're greeted immediately. They're small neighborhood stores. They're in all kinds of neighborhoods. They, they just are what every pet owner where you'd want to shop, they educate their employees very, very in depth. They have gatherings twice a year where their suppliers come. And it's almost like a trade show, but it's just the suppliers for products that are in the stores. And so you have. And they Close their entire chain down for an entire day so that they can have this training opportunity for their employees. So they're very, very dedicated. And I thought if there was any chain that I could trust could tell the story of Ducashi, how it works, how it's made, why it's effective, why it's good for your pets. Because keep in mind, with chickens, people are eating what their birds are producing. So they're very particular about what. What they want to put in the coop. You know, they don't want chemicals because they're eating those eggs.
So I knew that Mud Bay could do it. So I thought, I've got to find the best way to get into Mud Bay. So I went to a distributor, I went into some stores, asked who they used for a distributor. I found out who they used as a distributor. I presented our product to those stores and said, do you think that this would be something you'd be interested in? Do you think this would be successful with, you know, your customer base? And these people were just really overwhelmingly, we did this. We did the little test where we. We take in some cat litter or some pine shavings, and we spray straight ammonia on it because that's really the strongest smell in a lot of the urine. And then we sprinkle Dakashi on it, and the odor is gone almost instantly. And it's a great demo. So they were very impressed with it. And so they gave us the name of the distributors that they use. We went to the distributor, we told them that we had done the legwork already for them, which was key, and that we had these five or six Mud Bay stores that wanted to bring our product in. So the distributor picked us up. Well, then when they saw the orders growing, growing, growing, Mud Bay actually came to me and said, we would just like to buy direct from you, chain wide. And so that is the arrangement we have now. So I don't go through a distributor with them. They have. They don't use distributors as much as they used to because they're so large, they can warehouse all their products themselves and distribute to the stores. So now I go directly to Mud Bay.
Like I said, we're in 65 stores. We've been in Med Bay for seven years, all three SKUs. And they are just a great, great customer. And like I said, it's because they train their staff. And then, like I said, I get to get in front all their staff once a year at the Mud Bay trade show. So any new staff can come, they can watch the demo, get samples they can see how the product works and that has just been incredibly effective in keeping our, our turns moving so that we stay on the shelf.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: That's a great story. So maybe for, for other small business owners like yourself, I mean, that takes, that takes time and tenacity and a lot of follow up.
We're part of this society now, especially a lot of people. You know, due to this social media and in the advent of the perception of instant success, this has really been something that's been, you've nurtured this relationship, you've had to work with this relationship. And this is what we would call from Einstein's disease. This was a solution to help your business, but at the Same time it's 65 stores. What are your solutions that you're looking at that are more nationwide? Talk to us a little bit about the challenges and then the solutions that you've come up with. I believe you mentioned you're on Chewy and Amazon, right? So you do have a little bit of national presence as well. But talk to us a little bit about that if you can. We'll kind of bleed that into the end of this block and then also the next. But it's so important for our listeners and viewers, Kristen, to understand as a small business owner, there's challenges here. You, you think about this day and night or however often you do, and there's a lot of follow up to a lot of this. And, and that's where I think it would be great if you could share a little bit of this with our, our viewers and other small business owners.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Sure. Well, it's, you know, I've been in the sales industry for a very long time and one of the things I learned is you've got to have widespread distribution in all different kinds of places. You can't, you can't just put everything in one sector because if you lose that sector, you're done. So the key was figuring out, okay, we have a couple of good chains like Mud Bay and we have little, little stores that are, you know, very small, but we have to branch out and, and have like a three pronged approach. So we needed, as, as the years went by and online retail started growing and becoming so prevalent, it was critical to, to get on Amazon. Now that, that presents some challenges because your, your brick and mortar people don't love the fact that you're on Amazon because you're competing with their, their storefront. But they also understand that, you know, they're not in every state and Amazon clearly is and other countries as well, so as long as we were able to enforce our map pricing, minimum advertised price, they were okay with it. And we have to, we had to disclose the fact that we were on Amazon and chewy and so forth.
But my point being is we needed to make sure that we spread out our distribution in multiple sectors of the market. So you had your online, you have chain stores and then you have independent pet retailers. Because if you lose a couple of independent pet retailers that have one or two stores, that's okay, you can go out and find new ones. But if you lose a great big chain and you don't have anything else, you can go out of business. So we had to have the online. And yet you can't put your all your eggs with Amazon either because Amazon is so big and so difficult to deal with.
They can make all kinds of decisions about your product and it's a challenge to get it, get, get issues resolved because you never get to talk to a human being there. So everything is very much online. So, so you can't have just rely on that either.
So it's critically important to have basically three different types of your go to market locations online, large chain and small retailers. And then that way if something happens to one or the other, you, you, you, you're covered somewhat until you can get the issue resolved.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: No, that's a, that, that's a great point. And that is a way. As the evolution of consumer purchasing has changed over the, since your company was founded, you've, you've had to adopt more to that online. Even though it existed, it was, it was nascent initially and, and now it's so prevalent. Amazon is a verb, a noun and just about everything in between. So I, I understand what you're saying there. So in the closing minutes here, how much fun do you have with this? Give our, you know, give our viewers a little bit of insight into being a, an owner and entrepreneur.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: What, you know, some parts of it are, are really, really fun. Every time you get that new account or you get an order out the door or, you know, I remember at one point we were in an extremely large national retailer and we shipped pallets and pallets and pallets of product. And what looking at those shrink wrapped pallets getting on a truck to be shipped to a great big warehouse across the country was incredibly exciting.
You know, and it, it's, it's fun to see what you've built and it's fun to see that it survived.
There's always more you can do. Probably the frustration is you just don't have enough time to do everything that you want to do. And, you know, you can build a great big team, but that costs a lot of money, too, because you have to pay people, you know, what they're worth. And so there's always challenges that come with that. But having said that, it is a lot of fun, especially to look back and see how far you've come from, you know, just starting in your garage to, you know, then being in a big warehouse. And, you know, we've changed a few things regarding, you know, how we produce our product and so forth, but everything in between is fun. You have to look at your milestones along the way or you can sort of get mired in frustration when things aren't going just right. So it's really important to look at those milestones.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: That's, that's a great way to end this segment. And we'll cut away to our sponsors and look forward to coming back in the next block. Kristen, it's great to have you with us today. This is Greg Ellers from Einstein's Disease. We'll be back after a commercial break. Thank you.
Hello. This is Greg Ellers, host of Einstein's Disease. Tonight, we are fortunate to have Kristen Adams, CEO and founder of Dukashi, as our guest. And we've been learning about the area in the pet industry of pet waste odor elimination, which quite frankly, isn't something that a lot of people think about but probably appreciate when they actually use a product that eliminates the, the odor. So it's, it's a little bit bigger than we think when the pet industry is probably pushing on $10 billion in annual sales. And as Kristen mentioned in the first segment, there's more dogs in Seattle than there are children. So that that in and of itself gives you a little bit of sense of the market. Kristen, in the last segment, we were going over a solution that you had come up with, the three pronged approach. The, the local stores, the small mom and pops, the, the chain, and then obviously the national. And you mentioned Amazon and briefly touched on Chewy, where you, where your product can be purchased. In this segment, because of the importance of the entrepreneurial spirit that you demonstrate, we're, I think it's a good opportunity for us to be able to share with our viewers some of the challenges in starting a small business. You mentioned you've been at this for 13 years. I know that you started with a partner and visions change and things change, commitment, there's all sorts of things that happen in the continuum of life. It'd be great for you to share with our viewers a little bit about starting a business.
You're in the state of Washington known for a bit of regulation. From time to time, maybe you can just share a little bit about the beginnings and then we can kind of get into a little bit of dialogue on how your company has evolved.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Sure. So in the beginning, when you're starting, your ideas are flowing and you're throwing out ideas all over the place. And every win is, even if it's a small win, it's a big win and feels that way. And some people are just really, really good builders of something. And then once it gets built, you nurture it. And those are two very, very different things. And so when we started, we both, you know, my partner and I at the time had very similar visions and very similar, you know, she was very much marketing and I was very much operations and sales. And so probably one of the key realizations was when after the business gets established, the excitement and the, the ideation of everything sort of fades and it becomes maintaining and continuing to grow your business. And, and probably the biggest challenge was the fact that there just wasn't as much of a connection with wanting to jump in and continue to nurture the business as opposed to continuing to just, you know, build it initially as, as people do. And so it was, it was key to figure out, you know, how far that was going to go.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: No, I hear you. And in, in the element of, of having businesses and partners and things like that, the, there's, there's self realization, there's business realization that is profit and loss and then there's the, the conversations that go with that. And a lot of our, our viewers out there, Kristen, are, are small and medium sized business owners across the country.
Maybe they've started the business with a family member or they've started the business with a neighbor, which kind of sounds like that's what you did.
And they face some of those similar challenges. When you think about the evolution and the growth and the sustainability, as you said, because you nurture, there's the products built, but then the product's not really going to change always in the odor elimination. And unless something really changes, that's what you do.
Talk to us a little bit about how you, you dealt with the different changes in your business because our viewers are experiencing some of those same challenges and it'd be great for you to be able to share a little bit about that, that continuation and change that you had to go through.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So the key was making sure that as the business was getting built that we took, we set a good foundation. So we had, you know, good, good marketing materials, good branding, consistent branding, all of that sort of thing. So that once it got into the, once we got past the building stage of the foundation and we had to, to instead of build those items, we had to build sales. And that's where the rubber meets the road. You either are still passionate about the business or not. And people are in. People have companies for two reasons. They're either really passionate about the product or they're really passionate about growing a business. Now, you know, I don't know too many people that are super passionate about dealing with pet waste, but, but you can be passionate about the really good solutions and how much you're helping people deal with it. So you have to stay excited by that and you kind of have to keep your eye on the prize, so to speak. Meaning that is the end solution is you're providing a solution for other people. So that kind of keeps the excitement going from that perspective.
But the business changes from, from doing the fun stuff, so to speak, and creating to driving it. And that's. Those are two very different interests and very different skill sets.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: No, for sure. So if you were at this stage and, and we'll talk about your, the, the continuum of your career and what you're doing in the next block. But if you're a small business owner like you are and you had to provide some advice to a business owner that was maybe looking to expand or find a new business partner, either because they lost their business partner or they're trying to grow and they need, they need mind share. They need somebody that has that passion, that believes in their product.
Give our, give our viewers a little bit of what you would look for. What's Kristen's what are the check the box needs? If you were to be taking on a new partner or you were looking for somebody to be, to come into your company with a lot of passion to be able to help take it to the next level if that's what you were interested in doing.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Sure. Well, number one, how interested are they in owning a business?
That's first and foremost. Do they really understand owning what owning a business is, the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between.
Are they enthralled with owning a business or do they feel passionate about the product?
How much experience do you have, how committed to the product are you, how committed to the process are you? And do your styles mesh with, with my previous partner, we, we actually did quite well Together. She loved the marketing side of things, which is not my strong suit or, or not where I love to spend, but I love the operations, hands on and the sales part. So we were, we complemented each other very well in that perspective through life changes and so on and so forth. You know, it was pretty obvious that, that, you know, she needed to go do something else. And I made the decision to stay with this. So it all, it all worked out. But if I'm looking for somebody new and, and something different, it's what is your life situation? How committed can you be? What is your end game? What do you want to get out of this?
And making sure that your skills and your skills basically complement each other so that you both aren't really, really strong in one area, but neither of you have experience in a different area. So those would be my key bits.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Of advice that makes perfect sense. So when you.
And thanks for that because I think the element that you reach there, you broached on at the end that was really important is that is the complementary aspect.
When you were in the industry, whether you're at a trade show or you're with one of your clients where, like you mentioned with Mud Bay, where it's not a trade show, but it's just the other industry suppliers to them.
Tell us a little bit about what is in the DNA of people that are in the pet industry that are providing something from a. Is it, is there a lot of, lot of passion? You know, what are some of the observations that you see of people going, wow, that person. I. That's. That's something I could, that could really help grow my business. What, what is it that you pick up on, Kristen, that that helps your business, whether it's every day or every quarter or, or whatever it might be that you pick up from other people within the industry that, that helps you face the challenges that you do?
[00:35:27] Speaker B: That's a really good question. The thing that you will find in the pet industry, unlike other industries, because I've been in other industries, the passion the people have for their pets is beyond belief. And what we learned early on is that even in a recessionary time period, people would forego other bills in order to buy food for their pets. And that's how incredibly passionate these people are. The people in the industry are the same. They care deeply about their product. They care deeply about knowing the product. When you talk to people who are, as an example, selling pet food, they can tell you every ingredient. They can tell you the processes. They can tell people are just very passionate about it because they care so much about animals. Most people have animals that are in this space. You rarely find people that don't have their own animals. I stood next to somebody at the trade show at the Mud Bay trade show last year and he was actually had a variety of feeding dishes and you know, sure enough he, we both had the same kind of dogs and you know, all of that. And you never go anywhere where you're not talking to people that also have pets and they're very passionate about it. So that that's one thing about this industry, that and in talking with other people in the industry is the level of passion they have for their products. And the quality of their products is extremely important to them. Most of the products that Mud Bay carries, if I would say, if not most, probably 90% in their store, are all made in the USA. They're very, very particular about the purity and where their products come from. And we have to do a survey every single year with any updates about our product. So like I said, it's the commitment to the animal, the animal's life, the animal's health and so forth that I notice most about the people I interact with in this industry.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Well, that is a fantastic way to end this block, Kristen. And with that, we're going to let our sponsors take over and we'll be back to end this show here shortly. Kristen, thank you very much. It's Kristen Adams, the CEO and founder of Dakashi. And we'll be back shortly. Thank you.
Good evening. This is Greg Ellers. In our last segment tonight of Einstein's disease.
Happy that you've been with us throughout the show. We've had a wonderful guest in Kristen Adams, a founder and entrepreneur of the company Ducashi, a pet industry product for odor elimination. But I think more importantly than, than the product itself, Kristen, we've really enjoyed getting some insight into the challenges that you face to start a business like this.
Brand recognition, adoption, and then being able to get to that three prong approach that you talked about in our solutions segment, which was the second block in this last segment. I'd really like to kind of give our viewers the ability to get a different lens into Kristen Adams, the entrepreneur you talk about. You alluded to the fact you've been in sales for a long time. You've done some interesting things when you are able to sit down and you had 10 or 15 young business professionals around saying, give us some advice, Kristen.
When you look at the continuum of your career and, and where you are now and, and where you, you see yourself professionally going.
Share with, share with our, our viewers some of the tenants of success and advice that you've been provided that have, that have helped you along the way. And then also maybe some things, you know, where everybody says, if I could go back and tell myself something 10 years ago, what would that advice be?
Just to give our, to give our viewers a lens into challenges and successes that you've had.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: Big question.
Yeah, probably one of my key pieces of advice is when you figure out or when you decide that you want to go do something, make sure that you're excited to get up every day and do it.
If you get up every day and you are dreading it, it's probably not the right thing for you to do. For me it is. It was building a business. It was taking the skills. I worked for a very large spirits company and I saw how we, how brand building occurred and worked. And of course they had extraordinarily deep pockets. But I was able to take all of my experience that I gained there and apply most of it to my little, tiny, small, singular product at the time. And that, that process excited me. Was I super excited about dealing with animal waste? Like I said earlier, not really, but I was really excited about building something and I was really, it got me excited every day to be able to do that. And the advice I would give to somebody that's young is find that thing that makes you excited at all stages of whatever you're doing.
You might not, maybe you're super passionate about the product and the product itself just keeps you excited regardless. For me personally, it was a process that keeps me excited to this day.
I love the selling process. I love the thrill of the kill. I love to find success. When you go out and present something and you've created, you've presented a solution to somebody's problem.
The other that and that key right there, I should have mentioned earlier, is when building the business and create, coming up with an item that you want to take to market, make sure that you are solving a problem. If you're not solving a problem with your product, the market probably doesn't need it. And it's much easier to tell the story if you can, if you can explain that the product will solve a problem. So if I were giving advice to a young person, if you wanted to become an entrepreneur, make sure that you love what you're doing and define, figure out what you like to do and then define it. Is it the product I'm passionate about? Is it the process? Because those are Very different things. And it takes a different skill set to move forward with. With either one of them.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: No, that makes. And the fact that you define that differently as the product versus the process, that's part of the challenge that some of the other guests that I've had with respect to success and failure.
You can have the best widget, but if you can't make it or you can't get it to market, which is a process, as you mentioned, the thrill of the kill, I think you, you said in terms of getting the sale, it doesn't really matter if your product can do everything. If you can't get it there and you can't make people aware of it, it doesn't work. When you, when you think about where, where, where's Kristen, where's the business? What, what, what do you see for yourself over the next, you know, one to three years? What, what is it that's. That's driving your.
Beyond your passion of the sale aspect? Where do you see things going? What's. What, what's. What's in Kristen's future?
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I definitely taking a much deeper dive into the whole social media landscape. It's. I'll be honest, it's not my favorite place. It's not my comfort zone by any stretch of the imagination, but it is absolutely, like it or not, how people are learning about products, it's a very short snippet. People's attention spans are shorter than ever before. And it just is critically important. I have another female entrepreneur that I meet with and she is really, really good at videoing and social media and all of that. And she has committed to me to. We're challenging each other. I've helped her in her other areas and she's going to help me in this area. And she's built a very successful business, like I said, in a completely different industry.
But we're great mentors, really, to each other. And so that is one of the things that I have to do in the next one to three years, as you say. And continuing to build that business in that platform and in that environment will be a great thing. If someone would come along and say, we love your product, we have great.
We think we can build the distribution even more. We'd like to buy you. I would say, thank you very much.
That would be fabulous.
But we'll see. In the meantime, I'm still very committed to it because I know it's such a good product and it is so effective. And yeah. So I, but again, it's challenging myself to Dig deeper and get better at the social media aspect.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Now you mentioned that you found another industry professionals in a different channel, but you're able to collaborate and work together.
When you look at yourself as a small business owner, Kristen, what advice do you have out there with respect to other small business owners being able to have those relationships? Do you have a lot of success with other small business owners? And, and what would your advice be in terms of. Because it takes away from what you do every day. Right.
You can't go out and be trying to sell yourself. Hey, this is Kristen. I'm the founder and CEO of this company. I'd really like to meet you. How do you, what's been your success or what's been. And how would you recommend to other small business owners to do that?
I guess the old term is networking or mentoring A little bit on that.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: I, I look at it more like, you know, meet as many people as you can. Talk to everybody, ask questions. Entrepreneurs and small business people love to tell their story because everybody's story is a little bit different on how they got to there or how, why they developed a product or, you know, how they got to where they are. People love to tell their story. I ask a lot of people what made you do that, you know, or how do you do that? Or, you know, so on and so forth. I ask a lot of questions. I probably ask more questions than anything because I just love to know what makes people tick. And to me that's the art, or not the art, but that help. That's a better way of networking for me. I get more out of it that way.
Form relationships and don't be afraid to ask for help. People want to help too. They want to share their knowledge and, you know, the more you talk to people, the more comfortable you feel asking those questions, the more help you're going to get. It's sort of like, you know, deciding am I going to go at this alone or am I going to use the network of people that I know in the industry? And again, it all takes time and there's only so much time in a day. So you kind of have to prioritize how you go about this. But, you know, you do sort of form some pretty natural relationships with people that you have in common and that you feel comfortable sharing. Oh my God, this is terrible or this turned out bad or this is great.
And it's important to have those people that you can do that with. That. That's probably my biggest piece.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: That's, that's a, that's a great bit of advice.
We're getting to the end of the of the show tonight and I really want to thank you for, for joining us today. Kristen. It's, I think it's really important that our viewers get an understanding of reality of a small business and you've shared successes, failures, difficult conversations, transition of your business.
And if there was one last thing that you wanted to share with our entrepreneurs out there in these closing minutes, what would that be?
[00:48:21] Speaker B: Don't give up.
You know, the saying really is true. As dark as before dawn. And when distributors have decided they didn't want to carry our product anymore, something else opened up. Just keep if you're really committed to being an entrepreneur and you really understand what's involved, keep going. Just keep going. You will find success.
Just don't, don't give up.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: That's fantastic. I really appreciate it. And thank you for being our guest tonight. Kristen, this is Greg Ellers with Einstein's disease once again discussing a problem providing you with some solutions. We hope you enjoyed our show tonight and we look forward to seeing you next week. With that, we'll call it an evening and good night. Kristen, thank you for being here.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: You're welcome. Thank you.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: All right. Good night.
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