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This isn’t anyone’s Plan A.
We are living through a live case study of an unprecedented global pandemic, and many of your colleagues who had their dream jobs lined up after graduation have found the rug pulled out from under them.
COVID-19 has forced hundreds of thousands of new grads to change their plans entirely — and not to their Plan B ‘fall back option’ but to something entirely different. Something they weren’t considering in the first place.
They have been forced to pursue Option C.
Graduations have gone virtual, and offers are delayed or rescinded but Option C can be a blessing if you allow it to be.
In a special edition of the Ivey Entrepreneur Podcast, Eric Janssen talks to four Ivey students who have pursued non-traditional paths and made boulders their blessings. This episode features Jacqueline Scott, Allora Athletics (www.alloraathletics.com), Natalie Diezyn, Marlow (wearemarlow.com), Chloe Beaudoin, Apricotton, and Jack Jelinek, Crank Lite (www.cranklite.com).
The Ivey Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Connie Clerici, QS ’08, and Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, Inc.
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Jack Jelinek, Eric Janssen, Jacqueline Scott, Natalie Diezyn, and, Chloe Beaudoin
Introduction/Outro
You're listening to the Ivey entrepreneur podcast from the Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for entrepreneurship at the Ivey Business School. In this series Ivey entrepreneur and Ivey faculty member Eric Janssen will anchor the session.
Eric Janssen
All right, everybody, welcome to the Ivey entrepreneur podcast. Thank you so much for making time. I know you're all running businesses and super busy, but I appreciate you making time for me. Great to reunite. For the benefit of the audience, some are going to be watching the video, but a lot are going to be just listening to the audio. So for the benefit of the audience, why don't we take 30 seconds or a minute, and we'll allow each of you to introduce yourselves to the group. So maybe we'll start with Natalie, just a little bit about you, your background and your company.
Natalie Diezyn
Yeah, okay. So my name is Natalie. I'm doing a dual degree with Ivey and MIT. So I'm actually going back to Ivey in the fall well, virtually. I started my company Marlow with a couple of co-founders from Ivey, it started out from the MVP project and it's just grown into something bigger and a lot more complicated and so that's what I'm doing full time now and I'll be doing that part time during the school year as well.
Eric Janssen
And what is Marlowe in a few sentences?
Natalie Diezyn
Marlow is a menstrual products startup. We have our hand and a lot of different areas. But first of all, we're starting with creating the world's first lubricated tampons. That's been our main project right now. But overall, we're trying to create a community for women to like, express their issues with the products that they currently experience and talk about problems that they have, just in feminism in general. So it encompasses a lot of different things, but we're starting with a product first of all.
Eric Janssen
Perfect. Let's go next to Chloe.
Chloe Beaudoin
So I'm Chloe. I just recently graduated from Ivey in the HBO program. During MVP, my co founder, Jessica and I really fell in love the idea of Apricotton,. So Apricotton, is an online bra company and we're aiming to help tween girls with the bra shopping experience because we found that back when we were young girls, we had trouble finding bras that fit us and our age appropriate. Even now, girls are still going through the same issue and so we want to help them find bras and also feel comfortable and confident in their bodies when they're going through this experience.
Eric Janssen
Awesome. It's been cool to see this one evolve slowly so we'll get into it in a little bit. Next, let's go to jack.
Jack Jelinek
All right, I'm Jack Jelinek. I just graduated Ivey as well, the HPA program. So I graduated in the virtual forum, which was weird, but it's all over which also feels weird. So I started a company with a fellow Ivey section mate of mine that I met HBA1. He had the idea in september of HBA2 and said, you know what, I have this idea, I'll do it if you do with me. I said give me a few days to think about it, did some research and then came back to him and half an hour and said I'm in. We started Crank Lite, which is a value beer company targeted towards young adults.
Eric Janssen
Awesome. Lastly, let's go to Jacqueline.
Jacqueline Scott
Okay, just finished or was in my HBA. But unlike everyone else on this call actually had no intention of starting a business, but that's what happened, because I was on exchange, came back from exchange, obviously. My job which was to start in the fall got pushed back to 2021. So basically, I had eight months on my hands and thought I don't really want to work an office job before an office job. So I started Allora Athletics, which is a basically summer camps. I'm offering athletic activities for kids and then workouts for teens and adults and it really just came out of all the circumstances that are happening with COVID. And the fact that people aren't getting outside or having nearly as much fun as they would be in any other summer.
Eric Janssen
Cool, so big mix here. We've got jack, you're going out of full time. Natalie, you're going back to school in the fall. Jackie, this is full time until your full time job starts. And Chloe, what's your plan? Is this on the side?
Chloe Beaudoin
It's a little complicated at the moment. It's like on the side, but also kind of full time because we recently got into the western accelerator. For me it's full time but after the accelerated might be part time so it's kind of changing plans at the moment.
Eric Janssen
We'll see. Sometimes these things take off and they pull you into them, so hopefully as often they make becomes a full time opportunity for you. So I wanted to get a feel for you've all started these for different reasons. Jacqueline yours was sort of out of a maybe not necessity, because you could have done other things, but yours was just straight up being opportunistic. This is not like you had plans to be an entrepreneurial to school, but you ended up becoming an entrepreneur. So why not do something else that you were more comfortable with? Why start a business instead?
Jacqueline Scott
Yeah, for me, it felt a little bit safer, because I do know, I'm falling back on a job that starting next year. I felt like I have this pocket of time, why not do something with it. Other than, you know, I could have gone back to the summer job I had last year. But why would I do that? If I've already done it before? So that was my reasoning.
Eric Janssen
To do something entirely different. Jack, what about you? Did you know that you wanted to do something entrepreneurial and it was just a matter of finding the right idea or opportunity? How did you think about this?
Jack Jelinek
Yeah, so my family are all entrepreneurs, so it's kind of in my DNA. But I was interviewing for, I was kind of sucked into the Ivey jobs, which I was interviewing for private equity, consulting. I had a good private equity internship last summer and was going back there and actually had a full time offer to private equity firm. But then I decided, once I innovate the idea of my classmate, I thought, why not dive all the way in, because I feel like I've got to, I really want to explore it, I'll regret things if I don't.
Eric Janssen
Wow. So did you you turn down some full time job offers in order to do this? Wow, that's a big gutsy call and I know you had had some other ideas in the past Jack and written some business plans and done some projects for a bunch of different things so what made you choose this one, ultimately, to sprint that?
Jack Jelinek
I think because I knew that we could rely on our network the most with this, I knew that if I was going to do something right now out of school, I'm actually in my target market, targeting this beer company with so why not rely on that, and rely on the knowledge that I've had and your networks not going to be as strong for a young adults beer as it is in fourth university. So I thought, if I'm going to do this and do it right, I got to do it right now.
Eric Janssen
Cool. And Natalie, I know you're going back, but did you know, were you evaluating other opportunities, or this was always the plan, at least between the end of school last year in the beginning of school next year?
Natalie Diezyn
I was actually recruiting and I was supposed to work somewhere in Toronto this summer as well, but that was kind of blew up so because the company is just one of those companies that doesn't benefit from COVID. I feel like there's two sides, it's a double edged sword. But I also had a couple of other job offers that I've turned down as the summer went on, because it's just getting bigger and bigger and realizing okay, this could actually be something and I've always really loved entrepreneurship and more of a non traditional path. So it just seemed like it's the right time for me to do it right now.
Eric Janssen
You're all sort of like, making it seem like it wasn't a hard decision for you. But you must have had to wrestle with it a little bit more or maybe you wrestled with it previously. I want to go to Chloe for a second because Chloe, you were in one of my classes and correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think you had picked that you wanted to be an entrepreneur when you graduated from HPA. But you ended up becoming one, so what happened? What changed?
Chloe Beaudoin
Yeah, so I mean, last year, when I was in your new venture creation class, entrepreneurship was not on my mind at all. I love idea creation ad that's one of the reasons why I took your course but the actual executing on it was not like in my mind, at all. Over the course of MVP, I realized how impactful the issue we're trying to solve is, and mixing that with my co founder, Jessica, who she absolutely loves entrepreneurship. She knew whatever the idea was, she wanted to go with it right away and so combining those two things, and then just kind of realizing how much I like starting things from scratch, like I probably have the longest list of hobbies out of everyone in the world, because I love trying new things and just focusing on what I want and what what I'm interested in, kind of helped me realize that this is something that I really want to do, especially with COVID, where things are changing so fast, like everyone else, my plans have changed since and just taking the time to realize what do I want to do and what do I want my career to look like? That kind of helped me realize, okay, maybe entrepreneurship is on the table. Maybe it's something I do want to delve into. Once when I did start working on it more full time, during the summer, it made me realize how much I enjoy doing it and already seen the we haven't even started selling yet. We're starting in the fall but just the impact we've had just from talking to girls about the issues, has made me realize the impact that we can have once we do start selling and so that's really what got me into wanting to pursue this.
Eric Janssen
Awesome, that's great. So this is for anybody, but I know that some of you had worked on this as a project some of you had worked on other ideas in other courses. So what ultimately made you decide that this was the idea worth pursuing full time, if only for full time for a period. It's just the summer or not. So what made you choose that this was the idea worth running at,
Jack Jelinek
I can go. I guess for me, it was just the fact that like before I could rely on my network, and I knew that I want to be an entrepreneur and if I had a classmate or a buddy doing it with me, it'd be a good time. So I was like, you know what, this is the best time to get a real world MBA and this idea is something that, I feel like I could get going while I'm at school. So I wanted to do something aside, keep it on a back burner and then once I graduated, then it was, I think we actually have something here and it starting to take off a little bit. Let's go full tail for at least a few months, and then reset and see, you know, what was those three months? Were those three months really productive? Did we see growth keep going and if we do, let's keep going. So we have those sort of check ins every so often with each other saying, is this something you want to keep doing and I remember throughout the school year, we looked at each other saying, like, are we gonna do this? Like, are you still interviewing for other jobs and it would be like, yeah, I sort of am but I kind of don't want to get them and then we're like, you know, what, if we're saying that, and why don't we just try?
Eric Janssen
So jack, but you had there were other ideas that frankly, were viable that I know you were working on. This one more than others, was it your partner that drew you in to this one particularly or was it just we want to find the one that can let us use our network the most, we know the customers the best, like, what pulled you in and made you push all the other ideas that you had actually worked on the side?
Jack Jelinek
Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both. I saw the product and I could actually tangibly put my wrap my head around the idea of I could see the next few steps down the road. Whereas with the other ones, that's a little harder to see if you don't exactly know, your target market, as well as you know, your target market when you are your target market. I feel like I'm saying that a lot but that's how it felt. Then we actually had a real pitch deck made and then for your class, I did a project for this, the sales playbook. And then I took that and I went to a possible customer and made a sale. Then I was like, okay, wow, this is this is kind of going and I'm still in class, why would I say no?
Eric Janssen
Awesome. So you had you had traction on it before you graduated?
Jack Jelinek
Our initial launch would have been march of HDA2 and we actually had the beer and everything made the day before our first sale. The company was incorporated in january. So it was going towards the second semester HPA2.
Eric Janssen
Awesome, awesome. So Jacqueline you're selling. Jacqueline, you've got customers. So obviously you had to put things out there. What was the first thing you did? How did you get your fitness business going?
Jacqueline Scott
Yeah. So for me, I actually just wanted to learn how to make a website. Like I probably did not need a website. But I really had this idea that if I'm going to do this, I'm gonna learn how to do it anyways, so I did that. I'd say maybe like, a quarter of my customers have come from that website but most of them have actually come from posting in Facebook groups. So managing to get accepted into all these different parent groups on Facebook. So I guess like the learning experience for me there was that you can spend hours doing something that maybe at the back of your head, you know, is not necessary but I'd say I gained way more out of learning how to build that website than I did just like posting a few things. So it's about the customers, but I also think it's about learning a couple skills along the way.
Eric Janssen
Cool. So you're like the first thing you did was build a website or did you have customers before that?
Jacqueline Scott
So when you're talking about not knowing what idea to do like, it was not until, I had a whole sign me and it said Allora at the top. I didn't know if I was going to make it athletics or at one point I was like, maybe I'll make masks like I really had no idea. Then one day, I was like, okay, enough and then I like wrote it in with sharpie, athletics at the bottom and so that was the first thing I did. I made this sign and I went and sat outside and like just talk to people. Then the second thing I did was make the website.
Eric Janssen
Cool. Cool. What a forcing function like I think yours because there's such a limited time right before you start full time. It's like I just need to go at something.
Jacqueline Scott
Yeah. It felt like the day I made a decision about something, some new information would come out. The day I decided to do this more summer camp thing, came on the news that summer camps in Toronto are allowed to open again. It was like, oh, okay, I should maybe reevaluate.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. So how are things going with? Go with you, Jacqueline, how are things going with the business?
Jacqueline Scott
They're good. I mean, I'm basically busy every day of the week, but I go, I've sort of put a lock on it but I go away on the weekends. For me, I've had parents ask like if they can continue this into the fall. So right now I'm actually looking into actually hiring people to help with this because I don't have enough hours on my own and then seeing how I can keep doing this once we get to the quarter at a time. So that's sort of the next step for me.
Eric Janssen
Cool. Jack, I know your product is live, it's selling. I haven't sampled it yet, but how are things going on your end?
Jack Jelinek
Well, our whole business model was to sell wholesale to bars and events at universities. And that first sale I talked about half hour before we were paid, the event was canceled and COVID hit near and we sort of stund still. So it was like a big shock, because our whole business plan was just flipped on its head the day once we saw it succeed, and the next day, it was just taken away. So we're selling, but we had to change the entire way that magical word of pivot, we had to pivot and change the entire way, and sort of organization of our company and how we're going to sell. So we've sold 20,000 beers, we just picked up another 20,000 and we have another 80,000 lined up in production for September. But again, like news comes out where things are opening and you sort of start planning to look ahead, and then all of a sudden, that's taken away, or you have to push a different direction. So we found that our long term business plan was only like two months long. At the beginning, because we were like, we have no idea how it's gonna happen. We had to plan, for plan ABCD all the way down to like plan H.
Eric Janssen
Yeah, so COVID has caused a bunch of disruption. It sounds like Jacqueline, you literally wouldn't have a business without COVID-19. Jack, this was not plan A for you guys, given that your first order got pulled as soon as things started to close down. For Natalie and Chloe, you actually have product based businesses. So how has COVID changed your plans, if at all?
Chloe Beaudoin
We were really lucky for ours, because one of the biggest feedback for us is that because we're an online bra store. So a lot of feedback was oh, how are they going to try it on? You know, why would someone want to buy something online, if it's something that you usually have to get measured for. So with COVID, a lot of people are shopping online now, of course, and even now that we're starting to open up stores, at least in Ontario, you still can't try things on and so I've noticed a lot more online bra sales, which the way that people used to shop is always in store and because more people are willing to buy online now, that's going to help us a lot and so in that sense, we've had kind of a positive, we've had the positive side of COVID. Of course, we've also had negatives, like manufacturing has been a huge issue since a lot of companies have either closed at the moment or they've transitioned to making masks. And so trying to find a manufacturer is difficult, there's been a lot of shipping issues. I think, as a company, we've been pretty lucky where COVID has positively impacted us, which I think, you know, we're one of the very few lucky ones who have benefited from it.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. So that's cool. More and more people will be or have been purchasing online, so they're getting more and more comfortable with it. For right now. Do you have the product already?
Chloe Beaudoin
Yeah, so we right now we're doing sampling. So we've been doing a lot of testing at the moment. I'd say that that was also the other big impact we've had is trying to have girls try on the bras. We were trying to do it in a way that limits the exposure to different people and everything, but trying to get feedback and trying to have these girls try on bras to get fit measurements and other types of feedback has been really difficult for us. Because we tried to do that while not having to limit the exposure to different people but it's been very difficult for us.
Eric Janssen
What about you Natalie?
Natalie Diezyn
So we've benefited in some ways, but it's also been hard for us in some other ways. So the way that we've benefited we're, so our team is really big. We have six founders because we were all in our MVP product and we all just really loved the idea so we continue with it. Each of us have had a lot of free time to get the ball rolling and to take on the parts of the businesses that we want and try out different roles and we have some people working 40 hours a week, which is amazing and then we also have some volunteers who just have free time friends or even strangers from the internet who really liked what we were doing. We have about six volunteers working on things like creating content and product engineering, and lots of things like that. So we've definitely benefited from lots of people having downtime. Then also trying to produce a medical device during this pandemic is very difficult, because Health Canada is prioritizing, getting those treatments to market and any licensing applications for COVID-19. So we've had a really hard time just being in communication with Health Canada, because pretty much every other like medical device on the market is just getting a little bit ignored right now, that's been difficult. Then same with manufacturing, it's exactly what everyone else is saying. Like what Chloe was saying with manufacturers are changing into hand sanitizer factories or mask factories. So it's been a little bit hard for us to find manufacturers as well, but they're still gone.
Eric Janssen
So how do you deal with that? I think that was one of the questions that we got some questions in advance from students and one of the big questions was specifically for your two businesses. How are you dealing with the supply chain issues or the manufacturing issues?
Chloe Beaudoin
So we struggled. I think anyone trying to find a manufacturer, whether it's COVID or not, it's very difficult. We really struggled with find, we first started our search in Canada and we found in Canada, especially a was everyone was transitioning over to masks. So that was really difficult for us. Then, we started to kind of expand our horizons, and we started looking into other countries. To be honest, I think one of the big ways that we found a manufacturer was just through timing. Once when we started looking into China, for example, that's when the COVID restrictions were starting to lift and so it helped us a lot with finding a manufacturer and I think, if we had tried a little bit earlier, to expand our horizons, we still would have been unlucky. So I do think it's just a timing issue, as well as patients. It took us months to find a manufacturer and I think, again, whether it's due to COVID or not, I think it'll just take a long time and you just have to keep looking for people and looking for new manufacturers.
Eric Janssen
Yeah, inevitably, I don't want to stay distracted, but people would have been prioritizing masks at the beginning of it right. Now it seems like the shipping times on masks are really coming down. I'm able to get them faster than you originally, so they probably streamline that. That seems like definitely not back to business as usual but people are now starting to take on different types of customers again. So maybe that's what's opening up for Chloe, and Natalie, your team's. How far away are you from actually getting live with a product for Marlow, Natalie?
Natalie Diezyn
It's really hard to stay. We're still waiting on some emails from Health Canada, but it depends on some licensing issues that we've been having and some manufacturers getting back to us. So it's hard to say right now, but I'll let you know as soon as I know.
Eric Janssen
Is the focus now like education and building anticipation? What what are you doing now before you can actually sell?
Natalie Diezyn
So that's what a lot of investors have been asking for. Whenever we've had pitches or just general meetings with investors, a lot of them seem really interested in the idea and in our business model but then they say, we need more like market validation, we need more research, and we need more proof that people actually want this. So what we've been doing is the education aspect, we've also made tic toks, it's been pretty successful recently. We're just trying to like get the word out about our brand, and not even just in Canada, we're trying to do it internationally, because we want this to be like a worldwide brand. So yeah, exactly, we're trying to educate. We're trying to get as many people on our mailing list as possible to prove that there's demand for the product.
Eric Janssen
And Chloe, again, you're not you're not selling but you're sort of in testing in pilot mode. Are you collecting email addresses and building that launch list? What's your focus?
Chloe Beaudoin
Right now we're just trying to get the product, right. So right now we're doing a lot of stuff on like, the more product development side of just getting our samples made, we just received our first batch of samples. So we've been doing a lot of testing there and not only is that helping us with gain feedback on the actual product, but it's also getting interest within the community. So right now we're starting smaller in Toronto. And through all the sampling, we've realized there's, you know, a huge demand for it. It's also helping us with more of our marketing strategy as well. We haven't done the same thing as Natalie. We haven't really started on social media or a website side yet. Even just asking one girl to try a sample, she goes and talks to her friends, they get all excited and then it kind of starts this chain of people. Now we've had parents asking us if their girls can try it on and things like that. Right now we're building interest, but more from a local standpoint, just so we can get the feedback and get the product right first, before we actually start.
Eric Janssen
Cool. So this is scary, right? Scary times like not knowing what's going to happen, even scarier, if you add on starting a business. I think for most of you for the first time. So what were your biggest fears and getting started? We'll come back to a Jacqueline because this was not plan A maybe not even plan B, so what were your biggest fears and for getting this going?
Jacqueline Scott
So I've always known that I wanted to start my own company, but I wasn't really planning on doing it until, maybe two years out, which is what a lot of Ivey grads end up doing. They work for a couple years, and then they go do something. So for me, I seem to have this idea at the beginning that whatever you do now will somehow impact any other business you want to ever make. So I think what some young people feel is that one job to the next, your reputation really carries over. So I was just nervous, like if something goes wrong, or maybe the website's really bad, or like the Instagram accounts, lame or something like that, but it would sort of set up a reputation for you for the next thing you want to do, which I realize now is probably really irrational, and was maybe a way of me trying to not start something. I think that's something a lot of people feel. Regardless of if it's like a smaller company, more summer thing, like what I'm doing or if it's an actual big company with 1000s of customers.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. What about you, Jack? What was freaking you out about getting this thing going?
Jack Jelinek
Oh, we didn't really know anything about beer. Really, we didn't know how to make it, we didn't know what goes into beer, the cost, where to source anything and then also, how are we going to pay for that, like we're in school right now to pay for groceries, that 10% discount on tuesdays, that was our life and then all of a sudden, we're thinking, I've got to put in all this money to start a beer company and I don't even know beer. So those are two big hurdles. Then we worked with Equals, which is a contract brewing manufactory in London. So we're actually going there in between classes, and they helped us build the recipe, so they were great in supporting us and letting us pull their hand to the process. Then, with funding, we sort of had it forget the little things that we realized that at the beginning, you're going to have to obviously go into your bank account, go to the bank of mom and dad, go to family, friends, schools, whatever, and try to get what you can and that's what we did. Then we realize, if this fails, our family is not going to let us go homeless, hopefully. We had to get over that, that that fear of failure, that you know what, we're not going to end up on the streets, or we're not going to end up bankrupt, even though we could, we had to forget about that. We have to think about how to make a beer right now.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. So you thought what is the absolute worst case scenario here and it's probably not that you're going to be on the street, mom and dad will probably let you crash on the couch until you figure out how to land on your feet after.
Jack Jelinek
That's definitely not the best scenario. But they have a comfy couch, so that was good.
Eric Janssen
That's awesome. What's the end goal for this? I'm going to start with Jacqueline, because Jacqueline, you're only doing this for as long as you can, I guess. So what's the end goal?
Jacqueline Scott
To be honest, this might sound a bit shallow, but like this was just about making some money for me. I was supposed to be having an income come September, and it's like, okay, well, we got bills to pay, so I'm gonna do something. When you asked earlier you sent us like, what does success look like for me. I wanted to make more than I did in my banking job last summer. So basically, I just wanted to sort of prove to myself that you don't need to take the more certain path, like I'm sure Jack can attest to this if you don't need to do the banking job and that's not necessarily the most lucrative path, and sort of just proved to myself for the coming years, next time I want to take a shot at this that it's okay, if it doesn't seem like it's going to be very successful from the beginning.
Eric Janssen
Did you can you accomplish that? Are you on track?
Jacqueline Scott
I did three weeks ago, because there's still a month left to summer so I was actually very surprised at that.
Eric Janssen
That's there's some comfort in knowing when my wife was between HIV one and HIV two, she started a college pro franchise. She worked her butt off and did ended up doing really well that summer. I think that confidence of knowing that like in a worst case scenario, I can fend for myself. In a worst case scenario if things don't work out for me in all other ways, I could start my own painting company go door to door and sell and do just fine. So hopefully you've got your confidence built up that like in a worst case scenario Allora Fitness as a fallback plan you'll probably have a pretty okay life doing just that.
Jacqueline Scott
Yeah, I think that's something good to know for like anyone watching this that as much as the consulting banking path, and I know a bit of a hypocrite right now because that's what I'm doing next year but you know, you don't have to do that, even though it looks like this awesome path.
Eric Janssen
Or you could do both. Do one on the side, do one for the summer and then and then start the other. We'll go to Chloe. Chloe, what do you ultimately want out of this?
Chloe Beaudoin
Because this is an idea that I've had, since I was like 12, for me, it's a huge deal to make an actual impact on these girls and see how their their confidence changes. One of the big things that I want just from a business perspective, is, I really want to become a household name I want to be, I want Apricotton to be considered like the tween broadbridge, or just the twin apparel brand. Almost like how everyone at the moment when they think of bras they think of Victoria's Secret, I want to be that but for tweens. And I know it's a big goal but I think since last year, when we first started working on this concept, I think I remember we said our financials and it was like quite small. Then I remember you telling us to think bigger think what can it be. It could be 10 times what you just said, and like realizing how important this idea is to me and the impact I want to make. I need to think bigger, to be able to actually reach that goal of being able to impact you know, girls across Canada, girls across North America, and even across the world.
Eric Janssen
Awesome. That's great that I remember that meeting. I love the vision. Natalie, what's the goal with Marlow?
Natalie Diezyn
I think our company goal would be for people to use this that don't think they need it. We've sent out a couple of MBPs, we send out actually over 100 minimum viable products now. A lot of the feedback we've been getting is like, I didn't even know I need this but now, 10 times out of 10, I would use this if it was on the shelf. I think we just want to get people to realize that this is actually an awesome product. We all believe in it and we all need it and we think there are many people out there who need it too. So just getting people who don't necessarily have a medical condition that think they have a problem that needs us this summer, just making it again, like I was told names something that people are comfortable talking about and something that isn't unusual to us. Then personally, what I want out of Marlow is just to try on every hat. So I never thought I would be like doing the regulatory stuff and now I'm just reading like, tons of Health Canada documents, legal terms that I didn't understand a month ago. We have pitches with investors, which is also a huge, exciting part of the business and the social media aspect, like you're able to take part in every single part of the business and learning from each of those experiences is my goal.
Eric Janssen
How big do you want this to be? Is this a international business? You know, hundreds of employees? Is this focus on Canada lifestyle type business? What do you want it to be?
Natalie Diezyn
I don't think I want it to just be focused on Canada or thinking global and international sales. It just gets a little bit hard with regulations, but it's nothing we can't figure out. We're hoping for it to be International but we also really like the really close team that we have and if we can keep it a smaller team with international sales, that would probably be ideal for us.
Eric Janssen
Cool. Finally, Jack, what's the goal, I know Crank Lite is one but is there a goals for a bigger portfolio or is it you just want to own it with the one product?
Jack Jelinek
So we definitely want to get Crank Lite up and running and have a strong community of Crankers, what we call our followers, community of Crankers follow us and support our brand and then hopefully the Crank umbrella can have some like vodka sodas or other simple drinks, we want to focus on simplicity. Keep it clean, we're a little anti craft as a craft beer. We hate when people say oh, it's got hints of honey, like no, it's a beer and we want to make sure that continues across the line of beverage products that we'd offer. For us, we want to focus on Canada and focus on Ontario first, and really pick out where we think we can succeed before we go there because it is hyperfocus. We want to make sure that we don't get distracted with looking into the states because it's such a big market, especially for beer drinkers. However, we know that that's not somewhere where we could jump into right away and do well. There's so much competition even as a good beer industry as a whole, it's huge. We just want to make sure that we build up some followers and actually create a community around our product before we add others and then stay hyper focused on that young adults in Canada because we're a beer made by young Canadians for young Canadians.
Eric Janssen
Is there for you folks a size goal ultimately? Is this 20 brands is it two, just really own them. How big do you want this thing to be?
Jack Jelinek
Yeah, I think it'd be honestly the to two or three and then stay hyper focused on that because we find that beer is very loyal product, your customers are completely loyal to their beer. As soon as they start seeing that, oh, Cranks now offering a canned mimosa or like something different, they might go, okay, I'm not sure if I'm fully jumping in on the beer side of things, if we do that a few years down the line, then maybe we can actually start building up a secondary market for us.
Eric Janssen
Got it. So a few more, and then we'll wrap up. If knowing what you know, now, about COVID-19, is there anything that you would have done differently, say three or four months ago when we were just entering into this period? We could start with you, Chloe, where were you call it three or four months ago and is there anything now that you would have done differently?
Chloe Beaudoin
Yeah, it's a hard question because for me three months ago, I was not in the best situation, because a lot of my plans had changed. I think a lot of that stuff was out of my control and, you know, it took a toll mentally on me. I think that affected how much work I put into the company early on. So of course, I'd love to say from the get go, I wish I'd been a bit more motivated, I wish I'd started earlier, but realistically, I don't think I would have changed anything. I think I needed some time for myself to just think to myself, what am I actually interested in, and what do I really want? I think what I did back then was actually right, even though you know, it caused some issues now. Now we have some shipping delays and some things are a little bit different. I think I did the right thing for myself and I think over time, that'll be what's best for the company as well.
Eric Janssen
Okay, Jacqueline, you're how many months in now?
Jacqueline Scott
I started at the end of June. I don't even remember to be honest, what days it is, it's a bit of a blur, two or three months in.
Eric Janssen
Anything you've learned in your two and a half months in that you would you do differently, either, if you could start again, or your next time around?
Jacqueline Scott
I wouldn't say anything during I'd say beforehand. Like for me, I definitely spent a good two weeks being kind of upset about coming home from exchange. I wasn't even planning on being Canada this year at all. If I could, I would go back and sort of just tell yourself roll with the punches a little bit more, and not get so hung up on like COVID sucks for everyone in some way or another but it was also an opportunity to do something really cool and really different. So just focusing a bit more on the positives. Not even for business just like in life right now, I think that's sort of key to staying afloat these days.
Eric Janssen
Cool. Natalie, anything that you would have done differently, knowing what you know, now about COVID?
Natalie Diezyn
I think that we would have spent less time strategizing and like writing down 100 ideas and planning, and just spent more time doing the work and actually like putting action into our ideas because especially during COVID, it's so easy to sit at home all day and have meetings with your founders and say like, okay, then we're going to do this, and then we're going to do this, and then once this happens this will be your next plan, but it's easy to just ignore the hard decisions and putting money down or like putting money where your mouth is. I think we would have just moved a little bit faster and one of our ERs from MVP, he always tells us like, take your timeline and squish it down, and then half it again, and then half it again, and doing that I think would have saved us a lot of time.
Eric Janssen
Less talk more action. Jack about you and your team?
Jack Jelinek
I don't think so, I honestly don't think we would change anything. Our startup has probably hit in terms of timing and business model harder than any other startup I would know and that still wouldn't change starting this business or how we started it because you can't really plan for a pandemic. But how we handled it, I was super impressed with us. We had 10,000 beers that we were selling and that sale was going to pay for 10,000 beers, we lost at half an hour before we got it, so we had like 24 hours to find 12 grand and that story in itself has an origin story of housing tend to get enough storage, we were taking it right there and now we had a store in our basements of our university homes like that's not a safe place if you're living with certain guys in London. So I think that story and knowing that we could have the one of the biggest curveballs thrown at you and then being able to bounce back and keep moving, I think taught us so much and just gave us some resilience. So I think as a couple co founders, we felt pretty good. Now looking back at the time we're like, this is terrible, why are we doing this? Let's just like hide in our beds and like not get out. Now it's like, you know what, we can do this and people have rallied around so we feel good.
Eric Janssen
Awesome. Last one before we let you go. What advice to your self, call it whatever six months ago, you know, you're certainly before you made the decision to go at your businesses full time, or for some of you full time for a period of time, any advice that you'd give your six month ago self or the fourth year university students that are just heading into their final year and maybe making trying to make the decision of whether or not it's worth starting a business full time, part time, anything related to entrepreneurship, but we can start with whomever would like to step up.
Chloe Beaudoin
I think for me, I would just say listen to yourself, I find that just my personality, I really like to ask for advice and feedback, which I mean, it's completely normal, and I think is good. I think sometimes I know the answer to my own questions and I still go out for that advice. I think if I was talking to myself, prior to actually fully launching into this venture, I would just say, listen to yourself, listen to what you actually want and you know, anything that happens during that you'll figure it out, because that's exactly what happened and I figured everything out. I would just need that advice, six months earlier.
Jacqueline Scott
Yeah, I'd say you don't need to reinvent the wheel to start a business. It might be different for those who are doing this, like full time out of university. But for me, at least, like I just saw a hole in a market, I saw hundreds of people just in my neighborhood alone, whose kids were seriously sad about the summer and not getting any exercise whatsoever. I did not reinvent the wheel, I basically made a summer camp customized to a pandemic. You don't really need to have some crazy idea to start a company.
Jack Jelinek
I'd say don't ever think or wait for what you think is the right time b,ecause that time will rarely if ever come. Then you think about starting a business or doing any decision in life later, rare that ever becomes a reality. So I think we just jumped in and thought, why not try something. If you start stressing about when you're going to make that decision, all of a sudden it becomes a negative in your life and in the end, I did this because it was a positive and I thought it was better than all the other alternatives. I might not have been absolutely perfect, but you can make perfect any way you want it to be. So I think just jumping in when you think you can do it, but there's not going to be a right time so don't wait for it.
Natalie Diezyn
I think I would say once you decide what you want to do, or once you have a good idea of what you want to do for your business, or even just for your goals in general, don't be afraid to push really hard. There are lots of people out there who want to help, there are lots of people who just want to give back because they've been helped by other people in their life. Once we started looking hard and talking to people, it seemed like there's this whole universe out there of people who just want you to succeed. Don't be afraid to like push for what you want and use those resources around you to help you get where you want to be.
Eric Janssen
Good advice. So last one, before we sign off, Natalie, where can people find you or if you could have any ask of the audience, how can the audience help Marlow?
Natalie Diezyn
That'd be great. You can follow our Instagram it's at WeAreMarlowe, our website is WeAreMarlow.com. If you can sign up for our email list if you want to hear our product updates, and when we're actually going to be coming to market, that'd be great too. And then our tic tok if you're interested in some funny videos is, Marlow10thTamp Entrepreneurs. So that's a good one too.
Eric Janssen
Great Jack, how can the audience help you? Where do we find Crank?
Jack Jelinek
So right now we're selling through various distribution methods through bars and restaurants delivery in the GTA, but also we're going in the beer store August 10, which is huge for us, so look out for that and head to the beer store and if you don't want to go to the beer store or online you can maybe see me at your door with the case of beer that's not so bad. But yeah, www.cranklite.com. That's us.
Eric Janssen
I will be taking you up on that offer. Jackie, how can the audience help you right away? Where do they find the Allora Athletics?
Jacqueline Scott
To be honest, I am completely booked until mid September depending how things go with me I might continue it into the fall on my website is www.alloraathletics.com, with two L's.
Eric Janssen
A l l o r a athletics.com and Chloe, how can we help you?
Chloe Beaudoin
Yeah, so you can go follow us on Instagram, Facebook or tik tok. It's at ApricottonGirls. We haven't posted anything yet but if you go follow us, you'll know when we actually launch which will be in the fall, which is really exciting.
Eric Janssen
Great. Well, hey, like I said, I know that all of us are in not even plan B maybe not even plan C at this point. I was not planning to be teaching fully online this fall I motive much rather done this interview in person with all of you. I think we're trying to make the boulders our blessings here. I really appreciate the effort that you folks are putting in so cool to hear your stories about starting businesses in a pandemic and just really appreciate the time and kudos to you all for sticking your neck out and actually doing the hard thing.
Introduction/Outro
Thank you. You've been listening to the Ivey entrepreneur podcast. To ensure that you never miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player or visit Ivey.ca forward slash entrepreneurship. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.