Bootstrapping until the business finds a home with Beatrice Dixon from The Honey Pot

Key Takeaways

hello and welcome to found Tech crunches podcast that brings you the stories behind the startups from the folks that are building them it's me your host Becca scoutek and I'm thankfully joined Again by the lovely Dominic madori Davis Dom how's it going you know I'm hanging in there what about you yeah I feel like I'm hanging in there too I'm excited about today's episode though me too today we have a super fun guest on we have B Dixon the co-founder and CEO of the Honeypot which is a company that makes plant-based vaginal wellness products and I've been following this company for a while so super stoked to talk to her and learn more about the business and before we begin as always we have our two troths in a lie so listen carefully to see which one of these statements is the lie all right is it that Beatrice's grandmother came to her in a dream and gave her a list of ingredients that would become the normal wash or that beia kept her full-time job until the Honeypot was picked up by Whole Foods or is is the lie that Honeypot was launched at a hair show ooh all of those sound interesting so dear listeners continue on to the rest of the episode to find out which one is true here's our conversation with [Music] be hey B how's it going good how are y'all doing well you know middle of winter try not to complain thanks for coming on the show no for sure where are you guys based at we are both in New York different parts of New York City but both in the city oh dope okay and you guys are down in Atlanta right yes the the business is based out of Atlanta yes well since you mentioned the business which is the exact reason we have you on today why don't we jump off from there why don't you start by telling us a little bit about Honeypot so Honeypot is the first plant-based personal care system on the market that's founded and based in herbs we are a company that loves and has the most beautiful Rel relationships with our customers do you want me to give you a little background on Honeypot and how we got started that was going to be my next question so that would be perfect great great great so the way that we got started is back in 2012 I had an almost year-long bout with bacterial vaginosis where it would go away and come back every single month when I got my period it was terrible but yeah every single month after I got my cycle I would get BV right and I'd go to the doctor and they'd give me fragile or they'd give me clend deyin they would basically just give me antibiotics right nothing ever worked and eventually while I was doing that I was also kind of trying to find my own remedy so I would go on Google I'd go on Google forums I would talk to people about what they were doing to solve their problem because a lot of those people were going through reoccurring yeast or reoccurring BV reoccurring UTI you know but nothing worked cuz Google is not where you want to go when something's going on with your vagina right we all know that you shouldn't go to Google anyway for anything but in this particular instance I was desperate I just needed to find Comfort because the type of BV that I had had a really strong odor had a lot of discharge I'm giving you details because I think that it's important because there's so many humans that go through this every single day right until one day my grandmother came to me and met me in a dream and it to call it a dream isn't giving it the right ECT but the best words for it would be to call it a dream and she told me that she was walking with me and that she was seeing me struggle and that she knew how to solve my problem and you know my grandmother passed away when my mother was seven so I never physically met her in this life right outside of this moment and she handed me a piece of paper and it had a list of ingredients on it and she told me that this would solve my problem and so you know in the dream I just started repeating the ingredients over and over again in until she finally told me to wake up you know and I woke up and I woke up literally saying coconut oil apple cider vinegar lavender rose like I woke up saying these ingredients I wrote it down I worked at Whole Foods I went to work I bought all the stuff I came back I made myself a formula I started using it right away I didn't know what even what it what it would end up being but it ended up being foamy it had a saponification to it and so I used it as a wash in the shower um and that is what is now our normal wash but you know within four or five days it went away because I had BB at the time and so I figured the moment that I realized that it worked for me that was the moment that I said that this is what I would do now you know and that's how Honey Pop was born well that's so interesting what about the ingredients worked like what's the science behind those three ingredients the funny thing it's more it was more than three it was like seven or eight at that time you know things have changed a little bit by now you know but the funny thing is a lot of those ingredients that I was using I was using them individually right like and when you're dealing with this and you're like me I was doing silly things like I remember one time and it it's not that it doesn't work actually but you just have to be conscientes I wrapped a piece of garlic in cheesecloth and put that inside of my body right it helped it gave me a little bit of relief right because the garlic has antibacterial qualities to it only you know you got to be careful what you're putting inside your body right there was another time that I used I would make myself a douche and you don't need to be douching but again douching is not something that we should do with our bodies if you have a vagina because your vagina knows how to clean itself which is the vaginas inside the body right so a lot of the ingredients that my grandmother gave me some of these things I was already doing singularly but I think the power in them came when you mix everything everything together because then it became like a potion and all of the plant derived ingredients it was kind of like they were it was like medicine because plants can really be healing herbs can really be healing when they came together they just worked beautifully and I'm curious if you could talk about kind of like what it was like going from that realization that yes this works this is something like you said this is what you want to do next what was it like then starting a company around it like did you ever think you would start a company like this I honestly for a little while because when I first started working at Whole Foods like the first year I had already had a business of my own I had a cleaning business before Honeypot so I had a little bit of an entrepreneurial not a little bit I have an entrepreneurial spirit and when I started working at Whole Foods because this was back in like the Heyday of Whole Foods you know they had reps that would come in and sell their products so Brands would come in and talk to you about their stuff and what they do and why they do it and and after meeting a lot of those people I was like damn I wish I could do something like that you know but I didn't know that it would turn out to be this you know what I mean right but I will say once I made the decision that I wanted to do this and this would basically map out to be my life's work the little seed that it planted when I was thinking about things I would want to do with my life it was really able to bloom but I never was like I wanted be in the vagina business like I want to make vaginal care like it wasn't ever as specific as this but I think when I made the decision to do it it was just a very easy thing to do if that makes sense yeah like an easy decision when you know how yeah important it is and you have this Mission behind it and have the spirit of course to start a business to begin with and when there's such a white space and by the way like I didn't know anything about wh space analysis or I didn't know anything about anything about any of that but I just knew that while I had been going through what I had been going through and from the people that I was meeting because I was meeting people who were suffering from BV for eight nine years you understand what I'm saying there's people that suffer that way you know and I knew that there just wasn't anything that was solving any of our problems and so it was like well if this could work for me then maybe it could work for other people but we didn't just go right to let's start a business and let's start selling product that wasn't what we did we actually would make product and give it away because we're we very much are a test and learn type of a business and so we would do that and we did that for almost a year or a year and a half and then once we saw that people were having the same results because our thing was don't pay us anything just tell us how it works right and then eventually our customers were like girl I can't just keep taking this for free like I need to give you something and so that was kind of when we knew that it was time when people wanted to pay for it it wasn't like we were asking them to right and then we got the opportunity to go to the Bronner Brothers Hair Show and that's where we launched our products and it's funny because within three days we sold 600 bottles of wash which is insane when you think about it but that's how we knew we had something because people would by first of all they couldn't believe that there was a vaginal hygiene brand at a hair show because that's not something that you see every day and then they would go home they used it and then people would come back the next day with their friends and their family you know husbands were coming and buying it for their wives like it was crazy and and it it just was a beautiful Journey that just kind of it continues to be a beautiful Journey that just flows you know and I know we have a lot of Founders on sometimes to talk about the concept of like product Market fit and how we see Time and Time and Again companies get funded who don't have that but what you're saying is like you guys hadn't fully even launched it you go somewhere and it's like you're selling out people are bringing their friends people are coming back like what a there's no clear way to find that out right and where did it go from there of having this super successful launch at this event and then taking it into the company that you guys have grown it to today honestly we would just do the same thing because when you're at one hair show they're selling you for the next one and the next one might be like that was Bronner Brothers Hair Show the next one might be like the tah wahi natural hair show or the ubiquitous show in DC or whatever that became a way that we would we would use that as a really strong marketing vehicle for us because it gave us the opportunity to meet with hundreds or thousands of people in just a matter of a few days and then we launched a website you know and then we got into Whole Foods we weren't in a lot of Whole Foods we were only in like one Whole Foods but that didn't matter because we could say we were in Whole Foods you know and then I left Whole Foods and became a broker which meant that I was like the middleman between the person that buys at the store and the brand right I represented Brands and I would sell them in so then what I would do is I would I would essentially go into the stores I'd sell them what I came to sell them for my job and then I would walk out of the door I'd go get my Honeypot stuff and I'd go right back in and I'd sell them my honey poot stuff or I would give it away to them for free I would just say look I'll give you three or four of these or six of these if it doesn't work then we can forget about it I won't talk to you again but if it does then you can place an order with me next week you know and that was the way that we started just getting kind of into the southeast and then you just iterate and it just grows and grows from there and the more you do it the more you learn the more you learn how to do it you learn what not to do you learn the mistakes you make like it's an iterative process and when did you know it was the right time to it sounds like you're obviously doing this at the same time as another job when did you know it was the right time to kind of go full-time with Honeypot I know that's like a decision that Founders kind of always struggle with especially when they get started with something else going on I didn't stop I and we because I have other co-founders I didn't stop working fulltime until we were six months into Target which is insane yes yes it is it was crazy but you know so from 2012 to 2017 so five years but Honeypot needed to be able to pay me what my salary was paying me probably plus a little bit more without any problem because what I didn't want to do is quit and then something happens and then things go bad one month or something and then I've quit my job we needed to be without a shout of a doubt and I needed to be in a place where you know not not everybody believes in this but like my brother could condition me this way when you absolutely are at like when you are just tapped out like when all of your resources have been pulled and you can't do anything else that's the time to go to the next level right like when it came to raising money when it came to quitting working a full-time job and doing Honeypot I was in the place where it was like there was no way possible to keep doing that because I didn't want to take food out of honey pot's mouth when you were going around and giving your product to people were you surprised to see how little people knew about I guess vaginal care and even the the existing chemicals that are in a lot of vaginal care products now because I remember me and my friend we were talking about how Sanitary products here in the US are kind of different than in Europe and how the ingredients are different did you find that when you were talking to people that people might not know what's in our vaginal products right now yeah a lot a lot of people don't know but we weren't conditioned to know you know like when you think of vaginal care it's very much an oral tradition right we typically do what our mommies told us to do our auny or whoever was the person that gave us the wisdom right you get your period you know hopefully you had your mother or you had your or you had your dad or you had some sort of family member or friend and some people don't have that at all but in the instances for example when it was somebody that you knew you typically used whatever they told you to use or whatever they used you know what I'm saying people really thinking about and I'm not saying everybody I'm just being General right now but people really thinking about ingredients and what's in them and what they do to you and all that stuff that has really happened in the past call it like 10 12 years where people have I mean and I mean like the masses of people not the people who shop in health food stores and stuff like that but I feel like where we are today is different than where we are like when I was a kid like when I was a kid you know I'm 41 when I was a kid and I remember when I got my period my mom gave me maxi pads they weren't even like always or like they were like this stick didn't have any Wings you know what I'm saying you know I used like bar soap she taught me how to douche because the era that she came from that's what you did you know what I'm saying and then she was like every six months you can put in a nor form which is like a suppository that kind of does something similar to what a douche does like a lot of these things aren't even on the market anymore you understand what I'm saying so that's why when my coochie was acting up that's why I didn't know what the hell to do like I was turning to all kinds of things I was using Broner soap at one point not even knowing that I was throwing my pH so far off that it didn't even have a chance you understand what I'm saying so like no it's not it's not surprising to me because nobody was talking about that we just were not conditioned to have this conversation right you know and and that's a part of our mission our mission is to formulate a more transparent world right but like the reason why that's our mission is so that we can be having these conversations because when you think about what's in conventional menstrual care or even what's in conventional vulva washes or vulva care you know the ingredient decks can be astounding I never speak against our competitors because I have a lot of respect for them because they really created the industry for Honeypot to be able to exist in to provide a more better for you cleaner efficacious clinically tested line of products right but yeah I mean it it doesn't surprise me when people don't know just because we haven't been conditioned to know now this is a more commonplace conversation we can have we can talk about this all day but like back in 2014 2015 you couldn't just talk about this you know what I mean you I wouldn't be on a podcast talking about my vaginas not that I wouldn't be willing to do it but nobody was hitting us up to do that and so I you know I I think it's a reflection of the times I think it's a reflection of this generation I think it's a a reflection of the work that Honeypot and Kora and Lola and all of us have really created when we created this better for market right because it took all of us to do it it isn't just a Honeypot thing all of the clean better for you vaginal care brands that are on the market we did this [ __ ] together we really created something really beautiful for us to be having this conversation right now but long answer for no it doesn't surprise me and I and I don't judge anybody because first of all the goal is for these conversations to be easier but that doesn't mean that it's going to be easy for every human that you're having it with because every human has a certain type of experience with their Journey with their vagina with their trauma with their body and the beauty is and helping them to get a little more more more and more comfortable with that every day and did you bootstrap this company all the way through or did you take investor money we bootstrapped until we were getting into Target because Simon one of my co-founders his thing was let's again like I explained to you earlier we I would always say to side bro we need to raise some money we need raise some money and he'd always be like B it's not time to raise no money right like we're struggling we're trying we're robbing Peter to pay Paul to get all this stuff done because we started to pop a little bit you know we went from like making like 30,000 to making like 240,000 and you have to understand I had never seen that amount of money in my life right he had because he had been in accounting and he had his own accounting business and all the stuff it wasn't that he was saying that what we do we doing wasn't working and and that it didn't require funding but his thing was is we need to have a real thing that we're solving for to get funding and so when we got into Target that was when he was like okay it's hammer time let's go and so we did a family and friends round and then we did a seed round with new voices fun and then we did a round with vmg and then now we just did this last round with Cody Andor better called Compass diversify yeah cuz I was going to ask since you were so early to this Market how investors would have responded to you pitching this idea to them way back then but I guess like family and friends round and in series a after Target what was conversations with Target like early conversations oh it was amazing conversations with Target was amazing and we were very lucky because they reached out to us you know um and it's funny the way that our buyer then found out about us is she went to get her hair done and where did her hairdresser meet us at a hair show you know and so she they were talking about her new job and she told her about Honeypot and so literally Mo'Nique just reached out through our support email it wasn't like when they reach out they're not saying we're going to put you in our store but they're like we want to learn more about what you're doing but they were really great and it and it was dope because Mo'Nique got to be such a part of the process because we were lit we literally if you saw what the brand looked like before we got into Target it wasn't that it wasn't cute it was cute but it just wasn't like Target you know what I'm saying and so we were able to iterate with her and show her the branding and show her the packaging and they became very much a part of who Honeypot is at the scale that you kind of see us at at this point you know it was it was incredible target has been a beautiful amazing incredible partner Innovation partner they helped us to grow they've invested a lot in us it's it it's been beautiful working with Target more from this conversation right after a quick break and I know you guys have recently announced an acquisition for the companies so definitely want to chat about that yeah what was the leadup to that was that always on your mind that you guys would potentially be an acquisition Target or how did that all like come together see I would I wouldn't call it an acquisition we just recently went into a partnership with and even the words acquisition Target you know words mean things um but look at some point because we have brought in private Equity money because Compass Diversified is a private Equity partner we will at some point have a fullon acquisition wherein we partner with somebody and we find a home for Honeypot right that could be the Kimberly Clarks of the world or the essi of the world or the who whomever of the world right when you think about the big conglomerates because of the nature of the type of money that we've taken in yeah even before Compass we would have had to have found a partner at some point and actually very grateful to say that that is compass but yeah I mean that's the goal you know when when you when you raise money those investors need to make their money back right and that's how they do it you know what I'm saying you have to find a partner that can get them back the return that they were looking for or they set out for when you brought in the investment right because with venture capital and private Equity they may say to you we need a 4X return within four years and those are in The Rules of Engagement when you go into that partnership right there's really not any way around that you have to make that jump at some point it's either you get acquired fully or you IPO but either way something has to happen because anytime somebody invests in your company they have a minimum return on investment that they're looking for it's so funny to hear you say that too because you'd think that's such an obvious concept because that's how investing works like they put money in expecting to get they don't just want the same money to come out but looking across the Venture and startup ecosystem now it's like that clearly wasn't front of mine top of mine for a lot of companies out there so it's always fun to talk to Founders who say something where you're like in theory this should be obvious but it's not and it's very clearly not well you know what it is Becca it's really hard to do you could have the most impressive economics you could be growing at an astounding rate you can be extremely profitable but it is really really really really really hard to go through a process of finding a partner that either is like a private private Equity partner wherein you know you can partner with them and they can kind of buy out all of the previous investors or you can find a partner that says I'm gonna buy the whole entire business right and that's kind of that conglomerate type of a partnership or you can say let's just put this thing up on the stock market and let's make it let's make it into a public company but like out of those three this is almost impossible to do so part of the reason why people don't go around talking about it is because it just doesn't happen every day right but anybody that's raising Venture Capital money or private Equity money they are going to have to have some type of an event because how else will those investors or their LPS get a return on their investment there's really not any way around it I think it's more that people just don't talk about it but the cool thing is that we are having these conversations now and it is more common practice for people to have these conversations in to understand what these types of situations mean you know but like yeah it's honestly just business nothing about what Honeypot just did or what any company in our position would do in this type of an arena nothing about it is abnormal everything about it makes sense and all that we're doing is what businesses do and that's what we are when it came to I guess eventually partnering with compass what was the most important things that you looked for when looking for a partner the most important things when looking for a partner is finding a partner who would respect our business who would respect our team who would respect our leadership team finding a partner that wanted to invest in our vision was really important to us and not only our vision but into serving our customers because our customers are very special humans they're very tapped in they know what they want they know how they want to be served they pay attention to their body they look at ingredient decks like they like they were tapped in we Chang a [ __ ] letter on the bottle and they're like why did that letter change right like this is this changed and that's a really beautiful thing and that type of a community has to really be loved and cared for and respected and honored and so whomever we partnered with it was really important that they understood all of these Dynamics it was very important to me obviously we do all the things that everybody does when you're going through a process like this but like my gut was in overtime because my gut needed to connect to it cuz my business Honeypot has a soul man like it it was gifted from the ancestors and I know that [ __ ] sounds really esoteric whether you believe in that or not I'm telling you I was there it was gifted and so when you're selling a majority stake in your business you have to be really conscientious of who you're doing that with because I mean look call the Spade what what it is I have haven't been a majority owner in Honeypot for a long time but I am a major minority owner in this business right and I've been lucky to be able to make sure that paperwork is written up properly and to make sure that we have say so and to make sure that we're on the board and to make sure that we own the big decisions and all that kind of stuff so these are all things that are extremely important too but I think the biggest thing was just making sure that they were a partner that could hold the responsibility of what honey pot is we're not just a brand that makes cool products and sells them and mass Market retailers we're all of that and we really really love the people that we serve and we really respect them and we really honor them and we we serve them a lot of education and you know we're learning from them at the same time and we're very devoted to our team and those are the humans that make all this stuff happen every day so them making sure that this team is taken care of of and respected and honored and loved and can share in the equity and all the things these are all things that are really important that you're not going to just find in your average private Equity Firm you know what I'm saying and so the fact that Cody they call it Cody for sure the fact that Cody has all of these things in their DNA you know when you go in their office like they've got like like a massage room they have a fitness gym they have somebody that comes and Cooks because they care about their people you understand what I'm saying transparency their commitment to diversity their commitment to sustainability like there's so many dope things about this company and this group of humans that's just so beautiful and it was very much an alignment with who we are because we believe in a lot of those things too and so trust me it was way 90% of it was that because we we walked away from some much bigger numbers because it wasn't just about the numbers it was about what happens after the transaction happens that's where the M that's the [ __ ] you got to be worried about is what's going to happen when this is done when the papers are signed when the wires are sent what happens when we're doing business with each other and that was the thing that we were the most thoughtful and worried about because it's it's such a big deal it's a really big deal and you brought up something that I actually always kind of wanted to ask you this cuz I remember a few years ago Honeypot did or was alleged to have changed an ingredient and I remember being on Twitter and it seemed like everyone was having a meltdown over something or like you know did she change it did like what happened what happened and I think that you closed the Instagram account or you went private for a little bit or something like that and I remember just people were talking about it I've always wanted to ask what was that experience like seeing consumer reaction like that and what was the behind the scenes of you know navigating that experience it was hard it was hard because we are so devoted to our customers and we're so devoted to our ingredients and the way that we formulate and the way you know just the way that we test clinically test everything and part of that was we didn't communicate properly that we were going to make a change and there was a bunch of stuff going on but that is what it is we fell on our sword for that right the other part of it was companies make mistakes things happen but the reaction and the reaction of the people you're not in control of that you know so and who am I to tell somebody how to feel or how to react but just the way that it that it came it was hard it was very hard in a lot of instances it there was a lot of unkind words and a lot of unkind posts and and videos and things like that but these things happen but it it it was difficult but made us better and it made us stronger and it also the beauty in it even though it was a hard time the interesting thing was that we learned that our customers are paying attention the people that use our brand the people that are like loyal to Honeypot they are paying attention and we do have a very deep connected relationship I think the biggest thing that we learned from it was that transparency is key as it relates to everything that we do and I think that even though it was hard it made us better it made us stronger it made our relationship to our customer better and stronger some people some of our customers or some humans may have decided that they were going to go away some people were like said they were going to go away and then learned that a lot of the things that were being said weren't true and then they came back some people sent notes I sometimes I see people on the street and they you know they tell me their sentiment it was hard and it was beautiful and it was challenging and it was it was a lot of things you know what I mean I don't remember us I I think at one point we might have turned comments off just because some of the comments that we were getting were really really really really tough I mean like my team told me somebody sent like a death threat like it it was it was wild you know yeah it was crazy but again like what are you gonna do we made the decision because it's easy to type something like that but they don't I don't think that people always realize that there's a human on the other side that's reading that right and that's consuming that and so our thing was is you know what let's take care of let's take care of this let's just shut down comments for now we kept them open for a while and then it just helped us to kind of ground ourselves and get it back together but personally it was hard I'm not going to lie it it took me a little while to get over that and honestly it took the team a while to get over it because the trauma behind that was really real but I I would I wouldn't change it for the world it's important to go through things like that as a business because it's real life it teaches you things and you learn from it and you grow from it and and honestly it makes you stronger because you know I think coming out of that we learn so much about what our protocol needs to be in a crisis type of a moment where where it seems like the world's going to cave in but but it all really ends up being fine at the end of the day you know everything's always going to be all right and you're you're going to be able to please some people and others you won't and and you know what and if if you can't you can't what can you do it's people's choice however they want to say however they want to react whatever they want to do we're not in control of that the only thing that we're in control of is what we do and how we respond to it but yeah that was an interesting time I hope that answered your question I thought that was great and great advice for the founders to listen to the show too but I think we unfortunately just have one one time for one last question and I definitely wanted to ask you you started this company you had this stream you talked to your grandmother you decided to try this remedy on yourself it worked and now you're at the point where you're you know partnering with these big private Equity Funds you're in Target it's come so far from something that came to you in a dream and how has it felt for you personally to kind of see this all play out and grow into what it is today it feels good but sister we've worked for it this is what all the work is for this is this is what the Blood Sweat and Tears Are for this is what you know the question that Dom just asked this is what this is for you know you you're not going to get to any level of growth without your own set of problems and you know but people always ask me did you ever think that you would be here my answer is always yes like yeah we manifested the [ __ ] out of this you know what I'm saying like not only did we manifest fested but we earned it we worked for it and we will continue to work for it like for me there is no you know people always talk about levels and I don't really see things as levels I I I think that I don't really see there being a destination because this is my life's work even when I'm like a kajillionaire and Honeypot has found a final home like I still want to be doing this like I don't want to walk away you know what I'm saying like I don't want to be retired at my house just in my and I want to do that too but like I really like what I do I really enjoy this work I love innovating I love the people that we serve I love the team that we work with like I love this [ __ ] you know what I'm saying and and I truly believe that Excellence is just homeostasis for us like if we're not all striving to be excellent in business what are we doing if we're not trying to be the best if we're not trying to be the most profitable if we're not trying to make the best most most amazing products and help people understand why these products are even here or why they need to use them or whatever the situation is whatever the example is in my this is just in my opinion nothing about our success is a surprise to me I knock on wood you know because just as quick as things can come is as quick as they can go so you know I really pray that we can just continue to grow and become more and more grow bigger and grow into more markets globally and do all that but like this is what we're here to do we're we're we're here to be the best as possible as we can be all the levels of success are going to require the same amount of excellence and I think we're deeply committed to that and for us there's nothing special about that we're just doing what we're supposed to do if you're going to make products for people to consume they should be the most beautiful the most efficacious the clean as possible we make products that people use in their vagina on their vulva close to their vagina right like we we make we're going into skin care this year people are using that on their body when your pores open that gets into your bloodstream like there is a lot of responsibility that comes with the kind of work that we do and you cannot do that I don't think that that's something to take lightly and so yeah I but we we've worked for it and we we've earned it and we'll continue to earn it well perfect thank you unfortunately we have to wrap there so thank you so much for coming on the show though this has been super fun so glad you came on thank you so much I appreciate you [Music] guys and that was our conversation with B Dom what did you think oh actually well first let's start with what was the LIE yes okay if you were listening carefully you would know that the lie was that beatric kept her full job until the honey poot was picked up by Whole Foods that was a lie because she actually kept her full-time job until the Honeypot was picked up by Target we were just being a little tricky on our end with that one but otherwise do what did you think I loved her vibe and her energy and I feel like I could talk to her all day or just like listen to her speak all day about the Honeypot about the wellness Market it was really interesting also to talk to the founder of a brand that is at least like on black Twitter the Honeypot is a really really really big brand and so it was really cool to kind of I guess talk to her and just learn more about the face behind this big and I know for me and I mean you probably come across this too there's all these kind of like stereotypes about what entrepreneurs are like or like how they talk and how they approach things and she just like you said just had like such a better Vibe than a lot of the people not to say a lot of the people we talk to here but like you do come across there's jokes about it people make jokes about on Twitter like how certain startup Founders are just like aggressive and cold and will do anything and be wasn't like she wasn't trying to do anything she kept working full-time she mentioned giving the products for free when she would do her buyer meetings just as a way to like Grassroots get it out there but she just came without the same coldness that that usually comes with it's always good to just have like another real life example of just being like it just doesn't always have to be the same way which is good yeah I mean when she was talking about how her grandmother came to her in a dream I definitely felt like the spiritualness when she was talking I was like oh my gosh there's something there's just something here and the Honeypot it was funny because I kept thinking about if she didn't bootstrap the company in the very beginning can you imagine her pitching this to investors what they would have said oh my God I don't even want to know investors anything in this category they like just like don't seem to understand for some reason despite like even if you don't use it yourself just like Google how much like play Tex or something makes a year and then you'll like very clearly see the business opportunity but it is good that I think they did wait and work able to bootstrap I mean companies who are able to bootstrap that says everything about the company and the product to begin with it's such like a big market like me and my friends remember a conversation we were having about how we met this European and they were like oh we don't like using your you know pads and everything over in the US because you guys have poison in them and I was like we probably do I don't know but then I started thinking about oh my gosh like I really don't know what's in a lot of these products that we use for wellness for you know during our mental cycles and maybe we are are just absorbing a bunch of toxins but at the same time I mean I still use you know like stuff from I don't know it was good that the honey poot exists because I definitely think that people are becoming a lot more conscious of what is being absorbed in their bodies even with Clean Skin Care like all of this stuff all of these toxic stuff is our body our skins is just absorbing it and what impact is that going to have on us in the future and so this was definitely such a market to hit and I'm I'm glad someone hit it no and it's so interesting too because it's good to see this brand like have this approach obviously from the beginning and then the brand got popular whereas like I mean I know you've probably seen all the stuff about like those Stanley water tumblers just blew up and then everyone was like o there's Le they lead in them and it's just like uh sucks that that's now as popular as it is like middle schoolers are using them and Stu it's just like it's always refreshing to see Brands be like nope we're making it right before we scale so we don't have those issues later and we never have them to begin with and it's even more intense just even thinking about it cuz even as like a black woman all the relaxers that we've been using since we were kids I mean all the studies are now coming out that all those things give us cancer and they those things also mess with our reproductive health and so especially for black women which is probably why this brand is also really big among black women on black Twitter as you see I'm kind of in a bubble um it's just this that's probably another reason because I don't know who's in charge of the ingredients that goes into our products but it definitely seems like they do not care as much as the EU does no for sure and for sure and even Trends in the US I mean not just relevant to Beauty care and stuff like that but what you just mentioned with the hair relaxers there's definitely a perception that like the clean movement is like the goop gwenth P like white woman movement but like it's not like everyone wants cleaner products so it's like nice to see like some diversification in the kind of Brands and like the target areas people are going after too yeah and I was also really happy to talk to her about that massive Scandal that hit Twitter well I mean it felt massive at the time yeah I had totally forgotten about that until you brought that up and then I was like oh yeah I remember seeing about something about that on Instagram I've been wanting to ask that question for two years because everyone was so mad at her and so mad at the company because I I think there's also this fear like when we have a lot of black companies that get bought out or start working with you know non-black corporations there's always that fear that the ingredients are going to change and it's no longer going to work for us and I do think that when I guess some of the ingredients did shift or maybe she just changed the labeling or something that backlash was so Swift and intense but it also showed that consumers were paying attention right and it has this massive loyal fan base people who just really really care I like how she answered it too where it was kind of like this is just what happens like you have to learn from it you have to grow from it and like you were just saying with the people are paying attention I think she said that was like one of her biggest takeaways from it and obviously messing up and becoming the main character on like a Twitter channel is not fun but that really does show that you have loyalty of the brand which for Consumer is huge because sometimes I mean like I swear like every time I buy shampoo for the last year I think I've bought a different brand every time I bought it oh my goodness but it's like if people are like I'm trying to find one that I like I don't want to do this forever but like if people are like that mad if you're changing like the labeling on your package they're paying attention that closely like that's like a gold mine for a consumer company like you want people to be scrutinizing you in that way because it shows how much they care and how much they're paying attention yeah we are tired of being poisoned um so I mean that is my stance I've been trying to think of like a corporation to blame so I can put like Big Industry behind this there I feel like I do that every episode big poison industry we're tired of you yeah I don't know I don't know which one this would be wait we might have it the big vagina Wellness industry oh my god there it is Imagine pitching that to investors oh yeah the total addressable Market I could see that on a slide the big vagina Wellness industry they would be like um I think I double booked this meeting I got to go found is hosted by myself TechCrunch senior reporter Becca scac alongside senior reporter Dominic madori Davis found is produced by Maggie stuts with editing by Kell our illustrator is Bryce Durban founds audience development in social media is managed by Morgan little Alyssa Stringer and Natalie chman Tech crunch's audio products are managed by Henry pikovit thanks for listening and we'll be back next [Music] week