NEWFFW x Aya Paper - Raw Footage
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Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the female founder world podcast. I'm Jasmine. I am the host of the show. I'm the person behind all things female founder world. And today I'm chatting with Siobhan Anderson, the founder of Aya Paper Co. Siobhan, welcome.
You are now entering female founder world with your host, Jasmine Garnsworthy.
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. For people that don't know what you're building, tell us about your brand.
Yes. So I am the founder of Aya Paper Co. We are a greeting card and gift company that helps everyone celebrate more authentically with products that actually look and sound like you. I love it. And I found you guys on Instagram and then was scrolling through and I was like, Oh, this is a really cool business.
And then I kept scrolling and I was like, okay, you're in, you've like won awards, you've been in all these really cool programs. And so. I was like, okay, I need to, I need to find out who the founder is and speak to her. , you launched in 2019, so you've been around for what, like five years now? Yes. We just celebrated five years.
Congrat last month. Congrat. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. That is longer than most businesses [00:01:00] last. Exactly. 50%. Mm-Hmm. failing the first five years. Yeah. I've been, that statistic has been in the back of my head through this whole journey. . I bet. So, yeah. It feels great to have surpassed that, uh, that big milestone.
Okay. So what were you doing? Like, where were you at in your life when you thought. I'm going to start a gift card stationery company. Yes. So it's a very interesting story. I feel like my journey to entrepreneurship was like the perfect storm. So before I started the company, I was working as a graphic designer at an art museum and this was my first and only job actually.
So I was working there and I was feeling, uh, like I maxed out of my capacity. At the age I was, you know, I wasn't going to be able to get to a director role at that age, of course, or, you know, so soon out of school, and I wanted something else to challenge me and help me feel more fulfilled in my career.
So I was thinking about taking a journey into entrepreneurship. And the reason that I landed on, um, IAPaperCo as the business that I would [00:02:00] start was because it was a place. problem that I was really experiencing in my everyday life. So have you, do you go and buy greeting cards from stores for different occasions?
I mean, usually I am the worst with cards, like very last minute. They're always shit. Exactly. It's most people's last minute thing, including mine. So I would go to the store looking for a greeting card to celebrate a loved one. Maybe it was a birthday or Father's Day. And the thing that would be so disappointing is every time I went looking for something, I couldn't find anything that really resonated with me.
Whether it was a message that I felt really said what I wanted to say or even an image or an illustration that looked like me or the person that I wanted to give a card to. And as a designer, I felt like I was in the perfect position to solve that problem. And I knew that I wasn't the only one that was feeling frustrated by that.
And when it comes to celebrations, I think that that's a terrible place to settle in. You know, you're celebrating the people that you care about, acknowledging important milestones. So that felt like a really big [00:03:00] gap in the market that I wanted to try to address. Amazing. How did you get started? The first thing that I wanted to do was test out this theory that I had that there was a problem and that people were looking for a solution. So before I even started IAPaperCo, I just tested designing greeting cards as a designer. You know, I just put them on my personal website as an option for people to buy.
I did like one Instagram post to see if people were into it. And the product sold out and people were then asking me, are you going to do something for the holiday? Because this was maybe in October that I did that test, October 2018. Just as like trying to see if this was something people would be interested in.
So, the way that they sold out and people were asking me for more, I realized, okay, I'm onto something, I should pursue this more. So once I, you know, was able to validate my idea, I then took the next step of brainstorming like an actual formal launch. And that's looked like the next six months. I was doing research and development, finding different vendors.
I would want to work with a [00:04:00] big part of building a paper co for me was making sure that we were doing things sustainably. So I took a lot of time to research different paper manufacturers, looking at where we could print at, what types of ink we would use, everything to make sure that it was going to be as sustainable as possible.
And then it got to the design process. I worked with, uh, designers that were in my network. So I, like I said, I'm a graphic designer, but I didn't want to do everything on my own. I wanted to really be able to focus on the business and not just the artistic side. So I worked with a small team to create our first seven designs that we would launch with.
Um, I recruited all of my friends to do a photo shoot, I booked a studio, got photographers to create like this lifestyle imagery that we actually still use today, five years later. Honestly, you've got to rope the friends and family in for the launch. Like that's what they're for. Exactly. So I did all of that and then I decided to launch at a pop up event.
So um, Bust Magazine was doing an event in July, it was July 13th, [00:05:00] 2019 and I said, okay, that'll give me, that'll be my launch date. I'll do it at an event and launch the website so that way, you know, even if I can't get people to get to my website, I'm going to make some sales on my first day. And I did. We sold out of three out of our seven designs on that first day.
Amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. And then I'm going to fast forward a little bit. , I know that like social media and Instagram has been a, significant channel for you. , and one of the turning points was. kind of what some of your content going viral, like what was that moment?
What did that mean for sales? And why do you think the content worked? Yes. So hiring for social media was the first thing that I did when I was expanding my team. Um, I knew that that wasn't, my strong suit when it comes to execution. I'm a visionary. I have great ideas, but I wanted to have someone to help me actually execute it.
And I had a really great team member who joined. Her name was Nala. We're still very close friends. And Nala really helped us to grow our social media platform and [00:06:00] really identify what types of content we want to post. And we realized that our community really resonated with lifestyle content. They really liked the idea of having a sustainable brand.
They liked the idea of investing in relationships. and figuring out ways to celebrate yourself and the others around you in a really authentic way. So creating really authentic content, um, sharing different lifestyle things, showing behind the scenes of growing the brand, what our day to day looked like, the process behind products, that was a lot of what we focused on and really creating things that Our customers could see themselves in on social media, so that was what the strategy always was.
And it wasn't that we started doing something really different when we went viral. I think it was just the perfect again, a perfect storm of preparation meeting opportunity. We were already creating really organic content. And then, of course, when COVID. happened in, uh, March 2020, when that happened, people were more at home, pouring more into relationships, really looking for ways to stay [00:07:00] connected with others, um, when we couldn't be there physically.
So that was the perfect timing for us, where we had this great product that helped people to nurture their relationships, and that's exactly what they were looking for. at this time. So that's when we started to go viral as a product that people could use to send greeting cards if you're missing birthdays or celebrations, having a journaling practice to help you figure out how you're feeling at this time.
And that's, it just spread like wildfire. We actually, I think it was February, we set a goal that, Oh, we wanted to hit 5k followers by June. And we blew that out of the water in like two months. And then by June we had hit 15k. So, It went really fast, and it was all completely organic. Wow. Have you done any paid ads?
Um, yes and no. We've tried paid ads. Yeah. But it was not really effective. Doesn't sound like you need it. Yeah, exactly. Because our brand is so organic and authentic that that's what works the best with our audience. So we worked with a couple of agencies early on in [00:08:00] the company, um, something that I'm sure many Founders experience is you start getting all these emails, pitches from agencies who want you to have their services.
And very early on in my business, I wasn't able to differentiate, differentiate between the things that were worth my time and the ones that weren't. So that's why I said yes and no, because we did have a brief contract with agency, um, to do paid ads and it just was not. Working, they made all these big promises about things that would happen.
And now looking back, I can see that it was because it just wasn't right for our audience or for our product. So we did try it, but it has not been responsible for our success at all.
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Have you worked with [00:10:00] agencies? Since I find this to be like such a, um, I don't know, like such an interesting conversation I have in the group chat and female founder mode all the time and like in my personal messages with founders as well as like that decision to bring an agency on for anything PR, like any influence, like whatever, their fees are so much.
And often you can find a really great freelancer who is ex agency, wants to work for themselves and like help you at a fraction of the price. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have worked with other agencies, so I have worked with the PR agency before. Like I said, I did digital marketing ad agency, and I also worked with an agency for distribution.
At one point, I don't have relationships with any of those agencies now, and I think that that's something that I learned the hard way. Like you said, that you can get The same or sometimes even better results with one person. Agencies are, they definitely have, you know, a good fit for some businesses, but I don't [00:11:00] think that they're the best fit for a small growing business.
Agencies, I think, are really great at taking, when you already have something that's working and you just need extra manpower or capacity. level, but if you haven't done the work of figuring out a strategy that works for your own business, because you know your business better than an agency ever will, so you have to figure that out first before you pass that work on to an agency.
So that's what I think is the best bet. And of course, like you said before, there are some things that you can, instead of going to an agency, you can get a freelancer who can do it for you. And I really like that because you get more of a. A personal relationship, you get to build rapport with them, as opposed to an agency, you know, there's a big team, you may not know all the people who are even working on your team.
So, uh, it definitely, I think is more well suited for a larger company, but when you're first starting out, I would definitely resist the urge to take those agencies up on their offers because there's going to be so many, there's, I still get emailed like, there's 20 emails a day from agencies pitching me.
So yeah, it's [00:12:00] very hard because if you don't know any better, you think that you're missing out on an opportunity. Yeah. Um, but you just have to listen to your gut and your intuition about if, uh, that decision is going to be right for you. I think it's also like, Early on, actually not early on, the whole time, I feel like you can be very overwhelmed with, um, there are so many things that you want to do and you feel, I, I feel like this, and a lot of people I speak to feel like this, that you aren't an expert in everything, right?
And so you feel like when there's this new thing you want to do, the best thing to do is like, go and find the expert and they'll know how to do it. Yeah. And I'm shocked, constantly shocked by how little people actually know and how much you can figure out yourself. And actually the knowledge about your business and your customers is the thing that makes the strategy work.
Like knowing how to do PR, knowing how to do influencer marketing, like you're three YouTube videos away from understanding the nuts and bolts. It's like actually understanding your customer and your, business. [00:13:00] That is the thing that's going to make the strategy work. And I don't know if agencies can do that.
I completely agree. I completely agree. And I think that when I think about my journey as a founder, when I realized how much I really can do and stopped short changing myself and looking at others for expertise. That's when I felt a major shift in me feeling in control of my business trajectory. Like you said, there are certain things that, you know, when it's your weak point, that's where you feel most inclined to outsource it.
So, like I said, social media was my first one. I also really wanted to outsource finance and bookkeeping. I also had a time when I outsourced sales, and now those are the things that I spend the most time on, thinking about what's our marketing strategy. Even if I'm not executing it, I can't outsource that.
I have to know What is going to be, what are going to be the channels that work best for us? What types of content, even if I'm not creating it, I have to have that vision and strategy to decide what it is that we're going to be doing,
that is such good advice. [00:14:00] Okay. Let's talk about, , wholesale , and retail a little bit. So we're around December 2020, you've been in business for like a year and a year and a bit. Yes. Yeah. And your first retail partner came along. What did that look like? How did that happen? So all of our , major retail partners.
came to me. I did not pitch any of our major resale partners, which is definitely not typical for most companies. How did they find you? Instagram and press. So like I said, in around June 2020, we started getting a lot of followers on Instagram. We were getting lots of features. We had all these different things.
press features. So when these buyers were looking for businesses to stock for their seasonal partnerships, when they were looking for black owned companies to amplify, when they were doing these minority and women owned business, uh, campaigns, we were, we kept popping up. So it was great for us that we were so searchable.
We were so present. We were so active that we were just that discoverable. And it was as simple as [00:15:00] them filling out the contact sheet on our website. That's what happened for every single partnership. So when Nordstrom reached out to us, it was through the contact form and I remember seeing it and it just felt so surreal seeing that email address that they wanted to reach out to talk about a partnership. So that was the first step of them reaching out to us and I really kind of worked backwards.
So now that I know what I know, most times when you want to work with a retailer. You're creating your line sheet. You're creating a pitch deck to go to them. I didn't have a retail pitch deck. I had a general pitch deck that I use, but nothing that was specific for retail. I had a line sheet, but it wasn't super sophisticated, but it got the job done.
So we had an initial meeting with them. We gave them our line sheet. And then they told us what products they wanted, and it was really just lots of emails back and forth, figuring out the logistics, going through, you know, these very long vendor guidelines to figure out how are we going to execute this.
It was three very intense months of work. I was more uncomfortable than I had ever been, and [00:16:00] feeling, , very unprepared, honestly. I felt like it happened too soon. You know, I didn't anticipate being in a major retailer a year and a half into my business, but I am not one to back down from a challenge.
So I knew I was going to figure it out. How did you figure out the like operation behind the scenes manufacturing stuff because they're like very specific about how the staff needs to arrive at their warehouse and all of that. So luckily, like I said, they gave us some vendor guidelines.
So the first thing that I did is I printed out that 30 page document and just read through it. Highlighted anything that, was of extra importance, made notes for things that I was confused about. So, doing my due diligence first before I go to them with extra questions, and then doing some of my own research.
So, like you said, a lot of things are a YouTube video way. So, when they talk about EDI, I'm like, okay, I'm not EDI compliant because I don't know what EDI is. What is EDI? Yes, so EDI is a way that [00:17:00] retailers communicate with other vendors, and it's basically an electronic delivery of information.
information. So that's how they send the PO to you. That's how you send the advanced shipping notice to let them know that the products were shipped. That's how you can submit invoices. So all of that doesn't happen on email. In order to keep everything streamlined, you have to get, um, onboarded onto a different EDI provider.
So the one that we used was SPS Commerce. So we had to get onboarded with them, have an account, have like our EDI identification, and then we would test to see if the documents were going back and forth. Another, , big thing that we had to do was get a GS1 license. So that's what you do to get barcodes. So everyone, you know, you see barcodes on the back of products and everything. I didn't know that, you know, the first nine digits, I think it is, is unique to a company.
So we had to get our license for those first digits and pay for the right to develop, I think it was a hundred barcodes initially. And you literally do that on a website called GS1. [00:18:00] Yes. GS1. US, I believe it is. Yeah. So I went on there, did that. And it was 750. I'm like, okay, I'm already spending money before it even gets to the products between these licenses and software.
So that was a big shock to me, not realizing how much, like you said, the operations and logistics behind the scenes that happen before you even get to actually fulfilling the order. Yeah. So GS1 and EDI were two of the major things that are going to be important if you're looking to get into big retail.
Amazing. What does your retail strategy look like now? Are you focused on these kind of like larger chain retailers? Are you focusing on boutiques? Do you use FAIR? What does it look like? Our sales strategy right now is omni channel. We're doing a little bit of everything. Yeah. So we do use FAIR.
FAIR is the platform that we started On, I wanna say in 2021 we got onto fair. They were one of the places that sent us an email like, we think you'd be great on here. Amazing. So yeah, it was great. Now it's like there's a wait list to get onto. Fair. I know, I know. So that's a great time. So it was great that we were able to sign up for [00:19:00] there and start building out our profile on Fair.
And that still continues to be a great source of sales for us. So we do use Fair. It's . Basically a searchable platform, so it's similar to how on your website you need to enhance the SEO to be discoverable, so it's the same thing on FAIR. So I really enjoy FAIR because it is data forward, and it allows me to feel like I have some control over how discoverable we are on that platform, and also bringing in new retailers.
So, the one frustrating thing about FAIR for me, Is that we can't see what retailers or stores are already on the platform. It's a one way street. So we have to do our best to present ourselves to be discoverable, but we cannot pitch ourselves to brands on fair. So because of that, I realized that we needed to have other strategies in place to continue to build.
So. I am based in New Jersey, but close enough to New York, I'm always here for work, so I do a lot of in store visits. I Google and I find different, um, stores that I think would be a good fit for the brand. I put some samples in my car and [00:20:00] I go drive around to stores. So I'm still doing, you know, door knocking basically to go in stores to pitch the product because we do have a product that, uh, is really good.
is an impulse buy for customers. It's also important for buyers to see it because it could be impulsive. Yeah. Especially when we're thinking about going beyond just, you know, gift shops and boutiques. So that is part of our strategy is going in places where people are already buying gift greeting cards.
But we also have been going into other types of stores like floral shops and bakeries where they may not think about greeting cards, but we offer that as a way to increase their own revenue. So Yes, you're a bakery. People are coming to get cupcakes or birthday cakes. It's very easy for them to also get a card on top of that purchase.
And that's been a really exciting way of figuring out new places that we can go into. We're also A lot of creative sales strategy like that. Thank you. Thinking outside the box. Really smart. Yeah, it's really important to think outside the box though because, um, we can't limit ourselves to [00:21:00] just where.
People are already expecting the product. My approach to business is very different than most stationary companies where they are exclusively focusing on the gift shops or on the drugstores where people are already going into getting cards because I know my customers concerns and their pain points which is they want to be intentional.
They want to come off as being authentic. They want their gifts to feel one of a kind and special. That means that if they're in a place where they're getting something that goes the extra mile, like a cupcake for a friend, then they would appreciate also being able to get a card. Yeah. If they're in an art museum, for example, because they have really high aesthetic standards, they really appreciate art and they're in the gift shop.
And they see a greeting card that feels really high quality, they will buy it there because it's in an environment where they're already comfortable, a place that they trust their curation of items, and it feels like it resonates with who they are. So that's kind of what drives my sales strategy and thinking of where we want to be is where is my [00:22:00] ideal customer at?
And not thinking about the product first, I think about my customer first. How are you split between, um, between wholesale accounts and your DTC business now? It really varies. So being a greeting card and gift company, we're very seasonal. Yeah. So, um, we have a lot of variation around winter holidays. So thinking about like November, December, and then from April to June, where we have Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation season.
Those are two of our peak seasons. So around those times, our DTC is much higher because people are, have the forethought to go and order products ahead of time. Yeah. As opposed to during the summers or when there's not really big holidays, people are, like you were saying before, doing it more at last minute or like an impulse buy because they see it.
So that's when we see more of our retail, um, that's where we see more of our retail sales and that's where we're being more aggressive with going after those accounts. Like I said, thinking about what are the buyers [00:23:00] concerned about? Like what categories are they trying to fill? Like right now, a lot of them are thinking about back to school, for example.
So that's when we want to pitch our journals and pens and thinking about January, February. That's when people are buying, you know, calendars, planners, and things like that. Thinking about the fresh start to the year. So. Always being strategic about how to balance it based on what we already know the patterns are going to be.
So if we know that D2C is already going to be booming for a certain season, then we'll lean into that and then start preparing for our sales strategy for the following season. Okay, amazing. Are you guys doing trade shows? Not right now. We've done trade shows. I've done Do they work? Like, I get such mixed.
Like, have you actually done the show or walked the show? Both. Yeah. So before I did a show, I watched, um, I walked New York now in 2020. That's coming up really soon. Yes. It's like, yeah, it's like this weekend. Yeah. So I walked New York now and that was like COVID year and it was very odd. It was very empty.
[00:24:00] People kept making remarks about, you know, it's not the same as it was before. Right. And I don't fully know if it's ever going to get back to what it was from then. But the first show that I actually exhibited at was Shop object. Yeah in New York. Also coming up soon. Yes, they have been the same weekend, right?
It's gonna be very busy . So the first show that we exhibited at was Shop Object in 2022. And that was a great opportunity we got because they were looking to offer this a chance to exhibit to small businesses.
So we were chosen for that. So we got to participate for free. Oh, amazing. So that's really the only reason that I did it. Because I wasn't fully sold and it being profitable, like you said, there's a lot of mixed reviews out there about. If you should do it or not, because it is a very big expense to make sure that you're furnishing your booth properly if you're coming from out of town, the commute.
So because it was New York, I could drive. I didn't have to ship any things. It was a very easy thing to say yes to. So we did the trade show and it was an interesting experience. One, because [00:25:00] it's so close to where we are. We did see a lot of our buyers already. We met some people in person that we had only been emailing with.
So it was a great opportunity to have that face time and connect on a different level with some of our buyers that we already had relationships with. It was also a great opportunity to see what our peers were doing and meet other brands. Because stationery is a very kind of like online, uh, industry, you know, we can see all of our competitors on Instagram and things like that, but to see their products in person was very different, so it was great, uh, kind of research and development for me as well, but in terms of sales, it was not the best, honestly, I really, it confirmed for me that trade shows are about the long game.
It's not about immediate sales. It's not something that you should really expect to break even or make profit on, but it's about solidifying yourself as being an industry player. It's about being in the room with your peers. It's about doing that research about what's trending right [00:26:00] now with other. Uh, brands are doing and building relationships with either existing buyers or future ones.
So we did make some relationships with buyers that we were able to nurture over time. We did get some sales later on, but there were also a lot of contacts that we got at the show that never replied to a follow up that never sent anything. , Yeah, it was interesting. And I did do one more trade show after so the trade show for Greeting Card Association, it's called Noted. It happened in conjunction with SF now. So we were thinking about, should we do this specific? category trade show, as opposed to shop object, which is more general lifestyle. Like they go across a lot of different categories noted would be exclusively for stationery and greeting card brands.
So I wanted to give that a try to see if there was any difference. And I kind of felt the same thing again, you know, it was great to be there and meet all of the peers, you know, exclusively greeting card brands. Some of them I knew some I didn't. And so again, insert ourself. As an industry leader, um, [00:27:00] but there were not a lot of sales that we got from it.
A lot of people were very interested. We did place orders though, I will say. We placed six orders on the floor there, which I thought was really great. Yeah. But they were from small retailers, not any of the bigger ones. And I think that, That's usually what you think you're going to get when you go into trade shows that, um, target buyer or, you know, American Greetings or Hallmark, they're going to come up to you You're looking for someone that you can't just email or DM on Instagram.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. But those people also, they know that they're very sought after, so they try to be very discreet and under the radar, so you may not even know who's who. Right. So that was the interesting thing about trade shows, just, you know, seeing the dynamic meeting some people if you can, but also just like having managed expectations and because I've done both of those now, I don't know if I'll do a trade show again, just because I don't know if it's aligned with our strategy.
We've been able to reach, you know, those. small gift shop buyers and the big buyers in other [00:28:00] ways. Okay. That's interesting. , I know that you've tried working with like distributors before and it didn't go very well. This is 2023. So now you're a couple of years into the business. fuse into the business.
What was that like? What happened? Why didn't it work? What was the big learning? So there was an agency. that had been reaching out to me. Like I said, I get all these agency emails. I had gotten lots of emails from them over the course of running the business. And I was kind of interested because they were offering sales and it was about helping us get into more retailers. So it was interesting to me, but I didn't really feel prepared.
And also I didn't feel necessary before, because like I said, those buyers were reaching out to us. But in 2023, I felt really ready to go to the next level in terms of we had had these seasonal partnerships with those major retailers, but not something ongoing year round. And that's the next level that I've been working toward is being in a national retailer all times, not just for a [00:29:00] season.
So based on that, I was willing to reach out to them and have an initial meeting. And they really sold me on their ability. To, deliver and help us land these deals. And I was very direct with them. I told them I want to be in Target. That's like, you know, my dream retailer. I think that, well, I know that that's where our customers want us to be.
So the distributors knew that and we went maybe four months into the deal and you know They tell you you have to wait three to six months to see results really so three months in we didn't have any sales From them.
Are you paying them a monthly retainer? Yes Monthly retainer, which at this time I didn't know was not the norm that most times distributors work solely on commission. So my, in my ignorance, not knowing that, so three months in, not getting any deals, but they're telling me, you know, they're showing me the pitching that they're doing, the places they're reaching out to.
But at the same time, I'm still doing our internal sales. This was supposed to help us grow into more places. But really, we're just still doing the same level of sales that we're doing [00:30:00] previously. So suddenly in May. About, you know, four, three to four months into our partnership, they say Target reached out, they, well, they responded to us, they want you, uh, in stores nationwide on shelf.
Dream. Okay. It sounds too good to be true, but you know, it's legit. We're going through paperwork. We're doing onboarding. Once I got a vendor number through Target, I knew like, okay, this is solidified. It's happening. And then things started to get weird. And long story short, Come to find out that the buyers were really onboarding us for, um, drop shipping, essentially on target.
com, which is very different from being on shelf. So for anyone who doesn't, you know, know how that works with target, you can be on target. com. You can search there and see different brands and shop that way. But there are so many products online. They will onboard a lot of brands there, but not on shelf shelf space is very Difficult to secure for a few reasons.
Retailers, you know, that's money. So if they're giving you [00:31:00] shelf space, your product needs to be selling and turning over so that they can then keep making more money. If your product is sitting on shelves and not selling, then they will take it off or they will send it back to you and you have to pay them back for that product.
That's something a lot of people don't know about retail. So I did have enough research and enough conversations with people to know that going online was not going to be beneficial for us. Because, like we mentioned at the very beginning, people buy cards in person. And if someone is going to go online, I want them to come to my website.
So from, uh, a strategic standpoint, it didn't make sense for me to be sending my customers to Target. com instead of IAPaper. co. So I unfortunately had to turn it down and , I told the buyer, you know, thank you so much for the opportunity, but this isn't in alignment with our strategy.
So I ended the relationship with the distributor. Of course, I kind of had to set aside this dream of being in Target. And kind of start over because I was putting so much energy and effort into this because I thought that it was going to be, you know, [00:32:00] the thing that took us to the next level. It was the major milestone.
And yeah, so that was that, uh, all happened September of last year. Wow. Okay. Like you're still very early in the business target. If there's anyone listening, this is the perfect brand to be on shelf. I want to talk a little bit about team, like who is helping you build this? Yes. . My team shifts around a lot.
One of the things that I've learned from my business advisor very early on is try to stay lean as much as possible. Do you have freelancers and contractors? Yes. Yeah. Freelancers and contractors. All of us have freelancers and contractors. Yes. Very few of us actually have like many full time employees.
Yes. So I've had a full time employee at one point but it didn't work out. It just wasn't I think it was too soon, you know, it felt like a great decision at the time. And this was because, you know, this was someone who was a contractor with me for a long time. It was growing with the brand, doing a lot of great work, and I wanted to show them that I valued them.
And that was, you know, a full time offer to give them that kind of [00:33:00] security, but it ended up not being, you know, a great fit. So I went back to a freelancing contractor and it was, I'm, I have no regrets about it because it showed me, you know, how much work it takes to actually have a full time team.
Management. is a full time job. So the largest team I've ever had at any given time that I was working with, you know, on a weekly basis was four. I had three part time and then the one full time employee. And it was probably the least I enjoyed working on my business at that time, because I was being a manager.
I was, I wasn't able to work in the business. Very much, I wasn't able to do the things that I wanted to because I was just delegating, overseeing, and that wasn't fun. So, right now, what the team dynamic looks like, I have an executive assistant, and I have a marketing assistant, and I have my freelance designers.
And then, as needed, I outsource our photography and videography. , I use a platform called Suno, which is great. So, um, yeah, I've learned to be a lot more lean and outsource things [00:34:00] and also learning about technology that can replace a lot of these things. So the team, like I said, is my, my team. Executive assistant who is so helpful.
She actually helps me with processing orders, doing all of our fulfillment, which we still do in house. I do not want to outsource that as well. Um, and the marketing assistant who does all of our emails and blogs and SEO and. I manage a lot of our work, so the finances, looking at forecasting, um, all of our bookkeeping.
Do you use like Xero, QuickBooks? QuickBooks. I use QuickBooks. You use QuickBooks too. Yes. Um, I also do our website. So if you go on our website, that's all me. Doing Shopify, of course, yes. Shopify everything. So, um, what are the other parts of the work that we have a team? Oh, the design team. So I have, um, a great team of designers who are mostly artists.
It's a good mix of people who are considerate of themselves.
So I like to have people on [00:35:00] the design team who are multidisciplinary so that, you know, if we need something that's text based, they can do it. If we need someone to do layout for like a calendar or a journal, they can do it. So that also helps with having people who have lots of different disciplines.
How do you manage all of these different people? Like what's your? This is something I'm trying to figure out and also something that I speak to other folks about, um, a lot, where I feel like a lot of businesses at this stage are working with contractors, freelancers, part timers, and it's a, it's a totally different way.
of being a founder than someone who maybe raised heaps of VC money and just like hired a bunch of people and like has this like full time team that goes into an office every day. I really like it personally. It's like a lifestyle. But, um, how do you like collaborate with all these people? Are there tools that you use or a process?
Do you have weekly meetings? Like what does that look like? So. It's It really, it varies again from season to season. So when we're getting ready for our busiest season with like holidays, we [00:36:00] have big team meeting planning out for, you know, the months ahead. So we probably have three big team meetings a year where we're thinking about Big picture strategy, what things we need to work on together.
And you bring in like everyone who's in your ecosystem. Yes, anyone who's a stakeholder and helping it be executed, getting at the finish line, they're in that big picture meeting. And I'm very big on documentation, so I always prepare agendas before any meeting. I always have someone taking notes, whether it's me or someone else.
I always use some sort of documentation system so that we have things in writing. If someone forgets, um, I also love auto autopilot. Yep. I use autopilot now to record meetings for me that helps to you know, so I can be fully engaged but still have the notes after. Yep. So that's one of the ways that I keep everyone on task.
Also loom is a great way for me to help, you know, having an asynchronous team. You need as many people Digital tools as possible. Yeah. So loom helps me if I need to give feedback to my marketing assistant for an email instead of me trying to write it [00:37:00] out or scheduling a meeting. I record a loom of me going through it and telling her what I want to change.
So yeah, so that's super helpful. Um, Google me and my Calendly link. Calendly saves so much time. I literally share that link with all of my teams so they know if they need to have a conversation with me about something or they need to give my feedback quickly, the best thing to do is to book time on the calendar for 30 minutes so we can just get it done.
Awesome. Very cool. And we're going to go through some more recommendations in part two of the show, but the last thing I wanted to ask you about, you have won like quite a few competitions. You were selected as a Tory Burch foundation fellow. Recently, right? Yes. Like a few weeks ago. Yes. Congratulations.
Thank you. What do you think, like, from, from going through these competitions, what have you learned about how to sell yourself and sell your vision and win these things? Cause like a lot of us are applying for this stuff and we're not going through. Yes. And so I'll go back a little bit. [00:38:00] So We were just talking about September when I had that, you know, disappointing situation.
Last year, right? Yes, last year. So after September 2023, I was trying to figure out what do I do to reignite my passion because I was feeling really disappointed and not really knowing what was going to come next and I needed something exciting. Yeah. So pitch competitions were something that I knew about, but I never really felt like it was for me because introvert, not really being comfortable with speaking out, not really wanting to be the face of the brand.
So I always denied those types of opportunities. But at this moment, it just felt like maybe this is what I need to, even if I don't necessarily feel really great about the business right now. talking about it and having to pitch it to someone else is going to make me feel that confidence. So it was kind of like fake it till you make it.
That's why I started the first pitch competition that I did. So I did that first one and I was super nervous because I'd never done it before, but I'm very comfortable with public speaking in general. So I did it and I won first [00:39:00] place and that was so exciting. And I think that that gave me the push like, okay, I should try this more.
That felt really good. It felt really good to get up on a stage and talk about. The journey of my business to talk about both the highs and the lows and talk about my plans for how I'm going to continue to grow the business, being able to, to explain in a really concise and compelling way, the journey of I a paper co in my vision for where it's going to go and the impact that we're going to have that felt really powerful.
And I could see how building that skillset and continuing to do more pitches would help me with talking to investors, help me with talking to customers, help me with talking to our buyers. Like, it's just, like you said, knowing how to talk about your business and how to really sell it to people and get them invested and excited about it is a skill set that I hadn't exercised before.
I also think it's one of the most important jobs as a business owner and founder. Absolutely. Like, you are the only person that can do this. the only person that can do it. And once I realized like, wow, I've been kind [00:40:00] of missing out on this for a long time. And then when I was able to win the first time, I was like, Oh, I'm pretty good at it naturally.
So I should do more great at this. Yes. So I was, I continue to do it. I did three more in the past year and I've won an award for each and every one of them. So yeah, it's been great. And I, you talk about Tory Burch fellowship, I feel like that pitch competition experience helped me to land that fellowship as well, because I had to write a great application about what I'm going to get out of this fellowship, why I should be chosen, what I can contribute to it.
I had to do interviews to explain why, you know, I would be a great person for it. So I think that it all kind of built up on each other. And when I think more about the future of IA PaperCo, I know that. Being able to talk about this journey and getting people excited in that storytelling. It's really all about storytelling and telling a story that people want to be a part of.
That's the, I think that's the secret behind Aya Paper Co's success, that I figured out a way to create this [00:41:00] narrative around the brand that is not just about the product, but it's about what we believe in and the impact that we want to make and get other people really excited about it and that they want to join it.
They want to be a part of the Aya family. They want to know how they can support and they want to tell everyone they know about it. Siphon, it's been so amazing hearing your story. We're going to have a part two where we talk through some more of your resource recommendations. That's going to drop later this week, but thank you so much for coming on and congratulations about everything that you have built.
Thank you.
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