The Good Enough Mompreneur Podcast with Leslie Danford
[00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast, Leslie. It's so wonderful to have you on the podcast and I'm excited to dive in to your product and your all the details behind your launch and what you're doing with vitamin ease. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being on. It's such a privilege to talk to moms who are doing.
[00:00:21] Great things and grand things and who can inspire us and give us some insight and some actionable tips. So I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of that from today's episode. Hopefully. Yeah, no, you're doing amazing stuff and you did it under A lot of restrictions. So which we're going to dive into, which is really inspiring.
[00:00:43] So why don't you give us some of your background and help us learn about what inspired you to launch Vitaminis? Yeah. So I have always been interested in nutrition just personally. And I think it goes all the way back. So [00:01:00] my dad was the one who used to prepare meals at our house. My mom traveled for work and my dad is not a cook.
[00:01:06] So he would basically be like, we need a meat, we need a veggie. He was a scientist. It was like, we need to meet, we need a veggie, we need a carb. And it was like a math equation. And I still think about food that way. I'm not, I love good food, but I'm not like a foodie in the sense that I'm like, Oh, the taste and the flavors, it's more like the components of nutrition.
[00:01:24] And so that's always been part of just my thought process. And then coupled with that I hadn't been into supplements way back when, but when I started to have kids, you'd take. prenatal supplements and you start to get into that and pills will make me nauseous. And so I started researching about that and finding out that in fact vitamin pills have a lot of additives and they can be hard to digest.
[00:01:47] So that's apparently a common theme. And then as I've just gotten More, have more kids and thinking about other people's nutrition. I've learned a lot more about how hard it is to get your nutritional needs met through food [00:02:00] alone for a number of reasons. Produce doesn't have the nutrients it used to because of industrial farming and things like that.
[00:02:06] And then if you eat processed foods, which we all do, it's just part of life that prevents your body from absorbing things. And so that coupled with the pill problem. And then, I looked at gummy vitamins and it's like the kids love those, but. Gummy vitamins actually don't hold the vitamins very well, which is why a lot of them suggest taking four or six at a time and I now have four kids.
[00:02:28] So it's like you're jumping out candy like everybody grab a handful of candy. Just something felt wrong about that. It all came together when I got laid off during the pandemic. And I was it was like a combination of being home with the kids daycares closed. I was home wasn't working in charge of meals combined with knowing there was pandemic going on.
[00:02:50] We need to make sure our needs are met. Our immune systems are healthy. Combined with the problems I'd had with supplements and I skipped over that I worked in the beverage [00:03:00] industry for a while and it all just clicked at some point. I was looking for a new job. No one was hiring and I was like, you know what?
[00:03:06] I have this idea. I'm just going to start playing around with it. So that's really how it came about. I love that. And I love that, as moms who my listeners often are, we're trying to take care of our families and take care of ourself. But we're also, we have an entrepreneurial mindset and we often think that we can't start our business or pursue our idea.
[00:03:29] So you had the pandemic. that you started this in, but then you were also eight months pregnant when this launched. So tell us about that and how you just. A couple things. So during the pandemic, I had my three boys, they're 18 months apart. And I had been bugging my husband about. A fourth kid.
[00:03:52] He was like, no way. We got enough stuff. Would it be funny? He's no. But when the pandemic hit, we moved to the suburbs. [00:04:00] We were in the city. We moved to the suburbs and things got a little easier and it started to come more open minded about that. Meanwhile, I started thinking of this idea and I had just started working on the idea when I found out I was pregnant.
[00:04:14] So it was like one of those timing things where maybe if I had gotten pregnant sooner, I might have told myself, Oh, I can't do this right now. It's not a good time or whatever, but I'd already started. So what I did was I set myself a, I set the clock ticking for myself. It's Hey, this baby's coming in nine months.
[00:04:29] Like you got to get this thing off the ground at least. In some sense so that it can see if it works while you go into that newborn phase and as a fourth kid to it's a lot easier by the time you get to the fourth kid dealing with the newborn. So I knew, what it was going to entail by any means but I'm not sure I would have tried to pull that off with my first.
[00:04:49] Yeah, the first is definitely. Probably one of the biggest mind shifts that you can have. It's just really what? [00:05:00] Yeah, and you try to do everything perfectly. I remember I tried to do everything perfectly with my first and my second, third, fourth. You're like, okay, I know what's important.
[00:05:06] What's not important. Exactly. And you have assistants too. Right? Oh my gosh, so in the midst of all of this, you had to build partnerships and you had to get a sense of what the market wanted. So can you walk us through on how you put all that together to bring this to launch at such a quick time?
[00:05:33] Yeah. And I, and on that note, I should clarify, like your prior question, you were saying that how did you get to actually doing this launching a business? Because you're right. A lot of times in your mind, it's I can't launch a business. I will say when I started, I did not say that to myself.
[00:05:49] I said, Oh, I'm just gonna yeah. Do a little research and now I'm just going to test some stuff out. And it was always so incremental that I felt comfortable if [00:06:00] it doesn't work. If this doesn't yield anything, it's fine. So it's like little increments that ended up adding up. I think if I had said to myself, okay, you're going to start a business, you're going to be working on it for years, you're going to sink all this money, if I like really.
[00:06:13] Looked at the whole scope of it. It would have probably have been too overwhelming. So I'll just clarify that. Because I really think that is a secret. Sometimes it's just a tiny thing. Just that little thing. But to your question, that's how it started. So in the research phase. And started with interviewing friends and family.
[00:06:31] So I just wrote up an interview guide. So these are people I talk to all the time, but it was like, no, we're not going to have a chit chat. I actually have an interview guide. It was like a document. And I asked them things like, what are some challenges you face with your nutrition? What do you like about the products that are out there today?
[00:06:45] What do you not like? What do you look for when you buy something? Do you read the label? This interview guide and I probably interviewed 40 or 50 friends and family and wrote notes in my documents and saved them on my computer. So it was a lot [00:07:00] of work, but it cost me 0. I was unemployed.
[00:07:02] I've been laid off. And even if I had been working, I probably could have done that in the evenings, I put the kids to bed and call someone. That's how it started. And all those conversations ended up crystallizing with my own thoughts into an idea. And then what I did was I just started researching beverage.
[00:07:23] Like, how are beverages made and I found some other entrepreneur groups and poked around and ask questions and ended up finding a beverage formulator basically a food scientist to help me and I did end up paying him to help me develop the formula. But it was a small enough amount of money again that I could justify.
[00:07:41] Do I want to just throw this money away? Of course not. But if nothing comes of it, I'll survive, like that's a thought. And then that was just one thing led to another. I love that. And I think that is so important to not get so overwhelmed by. [00:08:00] How big it is to actually launch something and to think about it incrementally.
[00:08:04] I think that's a really great strategy to just allow yourself to begin. And take the right next step. So you're not thinking about too much at once to get overwhelmed because that's so easy to do. Yeah. That's that is really so were those things that you had done in your job? Little bit. The interviewing.
[00:08:30] Yes, I worked as a consultant. So I was familiar with that, but the actual formulation. No, that was new. Which is why I knew I needed a food scientist. I knew I needed somebody who understood how the mixing would work, what I could make shelf stable, like how, what kind of packaging I should look at.
[00:08:47] But I had worked in the beverage industry, I actually worked in the alcohol industry. So it's funny when I was there, we saw all sorts of research come across around functional food and beverage, clean label, better for [00:09:00] you, nutrition, wellness. And I knew in that business, we were never going to act on that stuff, but I just started filing it away.
[00:09:07] I'm taking notes. And so I had some of that background, but the actual technical doing it, I've never done. And I think that's an amazing point, too, is just knowing when you need to bring in that expert, because sometimes we can think that we can do it all ourselves, or we should be able to do it all ourselves, it's really critical to be able to go, okay, now's the time to bring in the expert.
[00:09:35] So I think that's a great point too. So during this time, what were some of the challenges and how did you navigate it with the manufacturing? So you found, you got the formula and then yeah, how did you proceed? So it was a lot of just leg work, honestly. I, so once I knew it was going to be a beverage, I [00:10:00] knew it was going to be a shot.
[00:10:01] I actually evolved to the shot so that we could use it for shipping. I knew I wanted it to be shelf stable so that we could do e commerce. So I had, once I had all these parameters. Then I had to go out and find who could actually make this stuff. A lot of co packers, as we call them, can do shelf stable full size beverages.
[00:10:21] And then there are many out there that can do like fresh pressed juice shots. You might see those like ginger shots and that kind of thing. But there aren't that many that can do shelf stable and shot size bottles on the machines. And that was just a lot of legwork, finding lists of co packers calling, narrowing down, sending a lot of web form inquiries.
[00:10:40] Hey, Leslie, whatever. And then once I'd done all that filtering, I think I ended up with maybe five co packers that could do it. And then it came down to convincing them to do it because a lot of these companies, they are producing thousands and thousands, maybe even millions of bottles for big brands.
[00:10:59] And [00:11:00] you're basically trying to convince them to stop that, put your tiny little unknown brand on and make some of it. And they, a lot of them have minimum quantities, like it's not worth our time unless you're going to make a ton of it. So you have to negotiate that. And that was a little bit surprising and challenging in the sense that.
[00:11:17] Naively, I thought, Oh, this is a really cool new product. They're going to be all fighting for it. No, it was me selling. Like I had to really convince them. And a lot of it was about me. Like I had to convince them that I had a good idea that I was going to grow this business and it was worth their time.
[00:11:32] That was a challenge. And it's funny when you said, what were some of the challenges in the early days, the first thing that came to my mind. Was my own comfort level with putting myself out there. That was a big challenge for me. When I had the idea on paper, it was like, Oh, I don't know if this is a good idea.
[00:11:53] Is there anyone going to want to buy this? Is this even a good idea? There's that self down stuff. It was very uncomfortable to put it out into the [00:12:00] world. And just some people are going to like it. Some people aren't going to like it. And like looking back, it's silly, but I remember that being like quite.
[00:12:08] Painful. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a very difficult hurdle for anyone to get over. I don't know if I've ever talked to anybody who's Oh, that was nothing. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it is, but you look at other people, you think they don't have that, right? You're like, Oh, that is, yeah, that's a really interesting point.
[00:12:27] I think that's really what the hurdle is actually is not so much. Putting yourself out there, but is the comparison that you think other people don't struggle with it. Yes, for sure. Yeah, it's hard and you're like if it's such a struggle, maybe it's not a good idea or maybe I'm not cut out for it.
[00:12:46] It's no, maybe No, I love that because, you wouldn't look at your website or your social media and say, Oh, she struggles with putting herself out there. [00:13:00] It's so I love that you brought that up because it is definitely something that everybody struggles with. I think that, or everybody I've talked to myself included, it's so tough.
[00:13:11] So what was there something that helped you get over that? I just knew there was no other option. It was like, I had this idea. I personally thought it could be interesting. Either I just scrap it and give up on it or I put it out there. And it was like, I couldn't quite justify, Oh, I'm just going to give up because I'm uncomfortable with that.
[00:13:34] I know enough to know that's not a good excuse. And once I'm a little bit further on in life, like I was a little bit later starting a company than some people, but I'd been around enough in jobs and different. School settings to know that if you're pushing yourself, it is uncomfortable and but it's okay, so I knew.
[00:13:52] So I just, I really didn't feel like I had a choice. It was like, I just get over it. So I I remember when I posted, first posted on LinkedIn, like my actual [00:14:00] idea, I like clicked, like post, and then I like ran away. And I was like, I gotta go for a walk or something, but I'm not out there.
[00:14:09] Yeah, no. And I think too, one of the suggestions I've heard is to make a big investment, or at some point you've invested enough time and effort and, spoke to manufacturers and whatnot. It's There's no going back now. That is so true. You're right. And I've had a couple of people ask me at times, like, how do you like, just keep going?
[00:14:32] And it's what choice do I have? And I've actually heard from I have a, I know someone who teaches entrepreneurship and they. said at any given time you either have money or hope if you have money and hope you're great if you have money and no hope you can keep going if you have no money but you have hope you can go scramble up the money and if you don't have hope or money then it's over but it's if you got one or the other you have to keep going you can't walk away No, I love that.
[00:14:59] [00:15:00] And it's so true. Once you have the hope and the money you're golden. And it's every new level you're going to run into new hurdles. There's always something else that you have to overcome. And that requires usually great leadership and so I would love to hear some of the leadership challenges and maybe some of the strategies that you've had to put together in progressing with vitamin E's.
[00:15:31] Yeah, so it's funny because I'm the only employee at vitamin ease, but leadership takes a lot of different forms. And when you ask that question, the first thing I thought of is having this vision for a clean product with no preservatives, nothing artificial, no added sugar. I knew that's what I wanted, but it really, I really had to push that a lot.
[00:15:55] And I realized that. The industry is set up in a certain way [00:16:00] where that's just accepted and normal. And it took a lot of no, this is what I want. This is what I want. To give you an example, the formulator, I've now worked with two formulators. This happened in both cases for both products, where I said, here's what I want, clean, no, this, no, that, blah, blah, blah.
[00:16:15] And what they sent me back had stuff in it. So I opened it, the samples and I'm like, Oh, this is so delicious. Wow, this is really sweet. And I'm like, looking at the ingredients. It's wait, there's erythritrol or. Artificial flavor. Did we talk about this? And then in the calls with them, they would say you have to add sugar.
[00:16:33] If you don't add sugar, no one's going to drink it. And it takes a lot to really stick to it because. I didn't work in this particular space before I did work in the alcohol industry, but no, there's always that part of you. It's they're the experts. Maybe they're right. Maybe it has to have that.
[00:16:48] And I'll even admit there were times I'm like, okay, maybe. And then the next day you wake up and you're like no, it's not the vision. So that's the first thing that comes to me is in terms of leadership challenge is. If you're going [00:17:00] to do something different than what's out there, it will require a lot of friction.
[00:17:04] It will involve a lot of people telling you they don't get it. It will involve a lot of people telling you that's not going to work. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. It just comes with the territory of doing something different. I think that's such a great story and honestly, as a mom who's constantly looking for things for myself and my children without a bunch of preservatives and sugar, it seems like everything has so much sugar in it.
[00:17:30] It's crazy. I appreciate you standing up and saying, look, I want to make this product because it's definitely. Something that my family is always looking for. Yeah. So that's great. But not with all that stuff in it. Yeah. Yeah. It is such a challenge and, it makes you wonder who's sitting, setting the benchmark for the products, is it really the people or is it the manufacturers [00:18:00] or, and two, it sounds like you at some point consciously or subconsciously you took time to establish what you wanted to create what was important to you and what your non negotiables were. And I think. No matter what you're creating, whether it's a physical product or, something that's not tangible, you have to do that as an entrepreneur at some point.
[00:18:25] Because then you're just going to bend to whatever it is that somebody else is going to want. And then to, it seems like every marketplace is so crowded and to distinguish yourself, you have to establish, how you're different. I think that's a great story and so important.
[00:18:45] There's so many opinions out there. You're always going to get the opinion. So you have to make sure like within yourself that you really get it because the amount of friction and effort, if there's, if you don't really believe in it, it's just not going to work. It was [00:19:00] funny for me, I anticipated like.
[00:19:03] The opinions of maybe a customer or potential client, but when you have a business to business relationship, I really didn't anticipate that so much as a business owner and you question your, like you said, sometimes you go, Oh, maybe they know better, but if you really do have that strong foundation, that's going to help you so much in those moments.
[00:19:28] I think that's a great remember what other people's incentives are, right? The status quo might be just fine for them, but they're not the ones that are going to be championing this brand and putting their face on it. And yeah, it's, it is, you have to take a step back sometimes.
[00:19:40] And I, like I said, there've been times in conversations, I'll get pushed in a different direction, but then I have to come back and center myself and realize, wait no, no, I think that's a wonderful, such a helpful point for any entrepreneur. And so I'm so glad you made that point.
[00:19:57] So yeah, like [00:20:00] anybody listening to this podcast, what is like a takeaway? What is like a message that you would like to give to moms who are wanting to start their own business? Yeah. Oh man, I would say we talked about it, but I would say don't underestimate the little things, as a mom, you're always, there's so many demands on your time, you're so busy.
[00:20:23] But even carving out 5, 10, 15 minutes a day to think about what you want, envision what you want, do a little bit of research that can really add up. So don't, it's I think of it like almost like any big goal you have, if you can break it down into tiny steps. It all adds up.
[00:20:41] Everything is always a sum of tiny things. So that's the one thing I think that the conversation that we had about being uncomfortable is good to remember. It's okay to be doubtful. If you have doubts, it doesn't mean it's not good. It's just part of it. But along with that, I would say, have your support [00:21:00] system.
[00:21:00] And I feel like self care is such a buzzword these days. And honestly, I don't think I really knew for a while what that actually meant. But now I do get it. Yeah. It's what are those things that are going to refresh you, relieve your stress, whether it's working out, spending time in nature, whatever it is for you, you really do have to make time for that because.
[00:21:19] Especially in entrepreneurship, there's so much pressure, so much chaos. If you don't do that, you could reach a breaking point, like you could lose it. You could like, just exhaust yourself or burn out or whatever. And that would be my other tip. And it's hard to, as a mom, you're like I have my kids to worry about.
[00:21:37] And I'm investing in this business. I can't possibly justify anything else for myself. But the reality is when you take care of yourself, you will be better for your kids and your business and everything else. Yes, absolutely. I don't think if you have owned a business long enough, you, if you don't think about that at the outset, at some point your body will make [00:22:00] you.
[00:22:00] Yeah. And so one other thing I would love to hear about too is, we're not going to be able to do that. As moms, we're not creating our businesses in a vacuum. We're also, trying to take care of our families and ourselves, as you mentioned. So I love to hear how creating your business has affected you as a mom.
[00:22:20] How do you, have you had to find a way to balance it all differently than, working a corporate job? Yes. Yeah it's different and there's pros and cons to everything, in a corporate job, it's very easy to carve out like nine to five or whatever I have to do these things. When it's your own business, it's a little bit more fuzzy where it's I would like to get this done, but I don't necessarily need to get it done today.
[00:22:45] I could do this other thing and that's good and bad, right? Like on the good side. There have been times where I, if I want to be the mystery reader at the first grade, I can, carve out that time and do it. I don't have to get anyone's permission. But on the other hand, you got to draw a line [00:23:00] somewhere.
[00:23:00] You never make the progress you want to. Pros and cons, but I will say there's nothing that makes me happier than when my kids like taking my kids to the grocery store and pointing out vitamin E's on the shelf and they just think it's so cool that their mom did that. It makes me realize how cool it is like through their eyes.
[00:23:18] And that's been just. Tremendously rewarding. And I, maybe some people have that in working for other people, depending on what they're working on. But for me, that was a new experience that I was really proud of. No, that is so awesome. When you hear your children reflect back to you how they perceive what you're working on.
[00:23:35] Yeah. No matter what it is. But especially when it's part of your business, it's so rewarding. So you mentioned going to the grocery store and seeing Vitamini's. Where can we find it? Where can listeners connect with you to learn more about it? Yes. So in terms of physical retail, we're mostly in the Midwest, so we're at Fresh Time and also the Fruitful Yield.
[00:23:56] I am working hard at getting some more Brick and mortar [00:24:00] retailers, hopefully nationally, someday. That's the dream. . And then we're online, so vitamin e brand.com is our website, and then we are also on Amazon. If you search for vitamin E, you might have to put in vitamin e juice so you don't end up with vitamin brands, but we are there.
[00:24:14] I love it. I love it. I can't wait to try it. And I will definitely let the listeners know I, because we. Are always looking for these products. So I love that a mom is behind it. I love supporting moms in their businesses and their entrepreneurial dreams. So thank you so much for being on the podcast has been wonderful connecting with you.
[00:24:36] Thank you for making this platform to inspire people and having me on. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much, Leslie.