Lisa & Alexa

SPEAKERS

Lisa Karandat, Alexa Monahan, Bo-Peter, Jason Miller, Nicole & Fran Rinaldo

---

Lisa Karandat  00:00

Sustainability has, I don’t want to use the word elitist, but it’s not accessible to everybody. Yeah, it has. It has not been accessible to everybody. And I think that one of the other really important sad facts about sustainability is that not only is it not accessible, but the effects of climate change disproportionately affect people of lower incomes. So whether that be margins of lower incomes, where, you know, garbage is washing up on their beaches, and they don’t have the, they don’t have the resources to remove that garbage, and they’re living in built that, you know, originated somewhere else in the world, or something as simple as well, not simple. Simple is not the word, but something like, you know, how we started this conversation, which was that we just don’t have the recycling facilities in North America. So a lot of garbage gets incinerated. Those incineration facilities, for the most part, are in lower income neighborhoods, so those people are then directly inhaling all of those fumes. They’re getting sicker than anybody else. There’s so many layers to it. So in order to kind of like, keep your head above it, and to keep fighting and to keep hope alive, I think you really just have to be like, What can I do? What can I do today to affect this? 

 

Jason Miller  01:07

Hi, I’m Jason, 

 

Fran  01:08

I’m Fran

 

Bo Peter  01:09

This is Bo Peter

 

Nicole  01:10

and I’m Nicole. And this is marketing for what matters, where we explore how marketing paired with a regenerative mindset can uplift humanity, heal the planet, and still achieve profitable business growth.

 

Fran  01:19

 Hello, hello and welcome to marketing for what matters, season two. I cannot believe it is season two already. Thank you to all of our guests and hosts and listeners who have come along on this journey with us.  I’m one of your hosts, Fran, and today I’m very excited to introduce our guests, Alexa Monahan and Lisa Karandat.of good Juju. Good Juju is a Canadian based company that creates eco friendly, sustainable bath and beauty products that are good for you and good for the environment, while also being high performing products. I felt really lucky to be able to sit down with Lisa and Alexa because both of them have an extensive background in the natural health and sustainability industry. They had both worked previously in the natural health industry before deciding to found good Juju. And I think you can really see that that history in the ethos and branding of good juju, where they’ve taken all of their knowledge, all of their expertise, all of their observations that they’ve had, and use that to say what gaps are missing in this product, and how do we create a really, really excellent, high performing product that also meets our sustainability requirements? And I think that was a really impactful perspective to hear is that, you know, their journey has focused on, first, we want to create an excellent product, and we want to create a product that’s the best out there that we can possibly do. And then once we’ve drawn people in with that understanding, then we can show them how the product is sustainably sourced, is eco friendly, does not cause harm to the environment, does not create excess waste. And I appreciated that understanding, or that perspective of how to communicate sustainability as a business owner, is to first focus on what you’re doing, make sure it’s excellent. Make sure that you’re putting all of your energy and resources and knowledge and that you really believe in the product that you’re making. And then once you’ve invited people in based on that, then you can share your sustainability message and your sustainability journey and show people how this amazing product does not compromise on anything that any of the myths that maybe surround sustainable goods. And so I really thank Alexa and Lisa for their passion, for their honesty, for their authenticity. I think as a consumer, when you see somebody who is so passionate about their product, who who really has put thought and effort, really put their heart and soul into the creation of it, it can’t help but invite you in. And you know, you’re curious, you’re well, why do they love it so much? What’s so great? I want to, I want to find that out. So I’m very excited for you to get to listen to this episode with two amazing women who have decades of knowledge between them, decades of experience, and who I think really have a deep understanding of not only how to create a successful product, but also how to embed mission and purpose and meaning behind every action that you take and trust and know that that will pay itself forward in the end, and that your consumer will see that authenticity and will choose that over some other business that’s maybe writing a trend. So I am done yapping. Let’s go ahead. And get into the episode. Bye.  Welcome everyone to Episode 17 of marketing for what matters. I’m very excited to introduce my guests today. They are the owners and founders of good juju, Alexa Monahan and Lisa Karandat. Good Juju is a Canadian based company that is focused on producing eco friendly all natural bath and beauty products that not only create a luxurious user experience, but are also good for you and good for the planet, and they’re focused on sustainability at every aspect of their business process, from sourcing the ingredients to what actually happens to the packaging of your product at the end of its life cycle. So I’m very excited to chat with you guys today, because you actually have something that a lot of our guests haven’t had, which is a physical product that you’ve had to create and test and source. And a lot of the people that we’ve interviewed so far have been more working in the digital landscape with intangible products. So I’m really excited to just explore you guys’ journey and hear about all the intricacies of what it means to really take, you, know, create something sort of out of nothing, out of raw materials. So with, with that being said, let’s jump right in. I’d love to just hear about what brought you to this business, a little bit about your background and why you were inspired to ultimately start good Juju?

 

Lisa Karandat  06:23

Well, thanks so much for having us first.

 

Alexa Monahan  06:26

Thanks so much for our audience. Yeah, we’re very excited to be here. Lisa and I both have really long careers in the natural health industry. I grew up in the natural health industry. I spent 26 years working in the natural health industry from the time that I was 11 for my family business and we owned, kind of like natural grocery stores throughout British Columbia and Canada. So growing up in that industry, I just developed, like a really strong love for organic products and for sustainability. And along the way, I also met Lisa, and Lisa was also working in the industry. My background, this is the thing,

 

Lisa Karandat  07:02

when you have a partner and we do this like, you go, you go, yeah.  So I was also working in the natural health industry for about 10 years. I was working for a big supplement company in Canada, and I was running the marketing department and helping with the sales team, and Alexa’s family’s business was one of our biggest customers. Yeah. So we known each other like kind of through industry events and through trade shows and through parties, lots of parties and dinners. So we were we were like acquaintances. We weren’t like great friends. We also live on opposite sides of the country. So I live in Toronto. I live in the Toronto area, and Alexa lives in Vancouver. She, at that time, she was actually not even in Vancouver. She was in Vernon, which is like the interior of BC. So we didn’t like, I think that if we were living in the same area, we would have been great friends all along. But we Yeah, so we were living opposite sides of the country, working for different businesses acquaintances, but again, both developed a really strong love for natural health products, for clean ingredients. And one of the things that happened along the way, the company that I worked for was a very science based supplement company, so I had the opportunity to learn about the research that it takes to formulate a product with care and with intention, but also with efficacy. And I think that that’s the difference. I think a lot of products out there have great intentions, like you may want to be an eco friendly product, you may want to be a clean product, but if you’re not, are taking the time and the care and the formulation process, that’s where products can oftentimes fall down. So that was one of the things that I learned along the way in my journey. And, yeah, so we, I basically it was 2019 I was kind of done and saying, you know, I said I was with that company for almost 10 years. I was ready to leave it Alexa on her side, yes,

 

Alexa Monahan  09:01

go in. 2019 my family sold our business, and I was all of a sudden without a job. And Lisa came out from Toronto all the way across the country, so five and a half hour flight to take us out for dinner to say, like, congratulations on selling, and we’ve had a great working experience together. And she said, you know, can I come over to your house and and meet with you, like, before we go for this big dinner. And she said, You know, I think I want to start a business. When she got to my house, she was like, I want to start a business, but I don’t want to do it by myself. And I was like, whoa, okay. Like, I have so much respect for the side of business, yeah, but I had so much respect for Lisa, like she was really respected in our industry, and I knew that she was really smart and I really liked her, and I just said, I just don’t I love this idea. I just don’t know if I can do it at this moment, but over the next six months, we kept in touch and kept talking and. I realized, you know, I really wanted a job. I also really wanted to work with Lisa. And so in late 2019 we decided to start a business together. We did not know what it was going to do. We did not know what it was going to be called. We did not know what we were going to make, but what we did know was that we really wanted to make something that was sustainable, something that was really good for the planet. Because, you know, we’re both living in this climate, in this environment, we see the, you know, devastating effects of like, in my area, forest fires. For example, every summer we have these crazy forest fires. Everybody’s losing their houses. But on a more global scale, you know, there’s flooding, there’s freezing, there’s it’s impossible to ignore the effects of climate change anymore. Like it’s here, it’s happening. It’s impacting us. And so we were like, when we start whatever our business is going to be, it has to be something that is, are going to be a net benefit to the world, not kind of take away from, from Exactly, yeah, yeah,

 

Fran  11:08

yeah. I love how you guys were sort of slow burn, you know, like kind of seeing each other over the years. It was able to culminate into into something it feels sort of, you know, I don’t know if I totally believe in destiny, but I love hearing stories like this, of of just how you know you were finally able to come together. And obviously it was a fruitful a fruitful encounter. Just

 

Lisa Karandat  11:31

to be clear. Now we’re like very co dependent. When we went from we went from acquaintances to Yeah, we now work in silence together on our computers with teams call each other a million times a day. Yeah. Should I eat lunch now? What should I do? Yeah,

 

Fran  11:54

you know, obviously you guys have a huge, long background in sustainability. Why particularly, did you choose bath and beauty as your niche in the sustainability industry? Because, you know, I imagine there was a couple different ways, like you said, You came from supplements. I know people focus on cleaning products. Why were you thinking this is the the niche of of sustainability that we sort of want to reside in? Yeah, I

 

Lisa Karandat  12:20

think so. What Alexa was saying, you know, we kind of, we had agreed we were going to start a company. Didn’t know what we wanted to do. We threw around a couple of different ideas. And I was actually, I was using shampoo bars, and I was in the shower, and I was using my ship, and I was like, shampoo bars, like I was using it because I wanted to make an impact a shampoo bar, actually taking all of the liquid that is in a shampoo bottle and condensing it into a solid, concentrated form, you basically can remove three plastic bottles, up to three plastic bottles with one shampoo bar, which is why I was using them. Yeah, I wanted to have an impact. Did I love them? No, I they were not performing, but I was still using them because I wanted to have an impact. So we’re winding back to what I was telling you about my background and what I learned about formulation. I was like, We can do this better. So I called Alexa up, and I was like, Are you using shampoo bars? And she’s like, Yeah. And she was like, Yeah, but you know, they’re just okay. I’m like, exactly. They’re just okay. And so that was kind of how, what, how it was born. We were like, This is great. This is the idea it can have a really big impact on plastic, which is something that really, really appealed to us. I think that we’re gonna talk about sustainability. There’s so many facets of it that can be addressed and to be able we really loved the idea of having a really tangible impact with each and every purchase, because sometimes I think that’s what that’s what consumers and what people kind of feel. They feel a little bit disconnected from what the impact can be and how it can impact their daily lives. But when you actually see like you’re not throwing out as much plastic, it can actually have an impact. It can have a greater impact on you,

 

Fran  14:09

yeah, yeah. And I feel like that’s such a good point, because these are products that we as individuals have to have a touch point with in our life in order to be healthy, to maintain our homes and and I see what you mean where, you know, it’s like, I mean, what we’re going to do, but, you know, donate money to to plant trees. It feels great to do that, but that’s not going to for people who are maybe on the fence, are coming into it. I think you’re right. That’s seeing like a real impact. I mean, I even feel that way. I switched to bar shampoo, I don’t know, like, eight years ago. I actually just got some of you guys’ bar shampoos on the nail, so I’m really excited to try them. Um, and, you know, the same thing, just of saying, like, wow, not only is this saving me money, but I don’t even, I don’t have all this waste, I have to throw. Away, and it feels both like a really powerful, tangible imagery, and also it’s like a convenience thing too. It’s like, oh, how annoying is it to have to rinse out your shampoo bottles and make sure there’s no residue left, and then, fingers crossed, they’re going to get recycled. You know, that’s it.

 

Lisa Karandat  15:14

The more you learn about the lack of facilities to recycle in North America, it’s we’re really, really far behind in terms of the facilities. Like what people like to think that what you’re putting in the recycling bin actually gets recycled, but the truth is, it’s a very low percentage, somewhere from nine to 13% depending on

 

Fran  15:34

where you live, yeah, which I feel like, if you think about, you know, if you think about it, it does make sense, because everything we do has to be profitable. And In what world is it profitable for people to be searching through tons and tons of people’s trash to try and salvage something that they can make more cheaply new? But you know, you pointed that out. I know you said North America. I’m curious, though, if you guys are Canadian based, and I think just as a US citizen, there’s maybe this is a bit of a myth, but that Canada has it figured out a little bit more when it comes to sustainability, or that there’s just more awareness, more policy, energy behind sustainability. And I’m curious if you guys could speak to that, if you have experienced that yourself, or if you’ve noticed any differences, I know you obviously sell products in North America too, but how being a Canadian based company specifically affects your ability to engage in sustainability?

 

Alexa Monahan  16:32

So I can speak to this just without a lot of you know, data, just anecdotally, having them traveled throughout the US, and then seeing kind of what we do in Canada, I think that it depends on the area that you’re in in either country. Like there are regions of the US where I think sustainability is a big focus. Like, we’ve got quite a few customers in California, and those customers seem to be very concerned about things that are plastic free, things that are biodegradable. All those kinds of things are similarly in Canada. I mean, I live in Vancouver, where we have every house has to compost. You don’t have a choice. It’s the city pays for it. We’ve got industrial composting everywhere. But there are other regions of Canada where you go and they are throwing away their plastic and glass bottles and not recycling anything, which is, like my biggest pet peeve. So I think I don’t actually think it’s a US Canada thing. I think it’s just a region, a region thing at this point. But yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  17:34

yeah. I mean the West Coast. I think there’s still America in general is far more ahead in terms of their awareness, adaptability, willingness to really embrace climate change, and what being a little bit more sustainable looks like for them versus the East Coast.

 

Fran  17:54

Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. I it’s funny because I actually just got back from LA. I was there visiting family, and I’m based in Florida, and it’s, it’s really impactful seeing the way that sustainability has become just integrated into society, in a way where consumers don’t have to make the choice to be sustainable or not, like, you know, you just don’t get a plastic bag at the store. They don’t give you tuck open, you get takeout, all these little things that you think of as you know, like, Oh, that’s such a simple fix. Why aren’t we doing that everywhere and sort of leading? I don’t know, leading by doing or taking away the choice in a way. Go ahead. Do they

 

Lisa Karandat  18:34

recycle in California, though, are think they do. I

 

Fran  18:38

don’t know. I mean, I don’t know at this point I don’t know where they really are. Cycle in America. I mean, it’s, it’s a municipality thing, like, based on the, okay, the county. So every county that I’ve lived in, personally, I’ve lived in New York, Virginia and Florida, and they, like, their recycling programs had, like, gone bankrupt because they were privatized. You know, as everything is in America is privatized, and so, I mean, again, I guess don’t quote me on this, but it was, it was really interesting to actually see, you know, I lived in this one municipality in Virginia, and while I was living there, the recycling company went bankrupt and stopped recycling. And, like, the recycling center closed down, and, you know, it all went to single stream, but they were all taking it to this place to burn. So yeah, I don’t, I don’t know about I just, I

 

Alexa Monahan  19:31

just want to jump in and say, like, I think that this is why it’s so important for businesses to provide better options for consumers, because, like, okay, like, it’s, it’s, it’s up to, I think, businesses and consumers, of course, making the choices. Okay, why choose products that when they do hit the waste stream? For example, we don’t need to worry so much about what’s happening with like, there’s too much plastic or originating like, at the point of purchase. When you’re buying things, and then when you get home, if you don’t have an option for how to deal with it, it just does go into the garbage, which ends up in the landfill, which, as we’re learning, then ends up in, you know, our soil and our water, even they’re finding about nano plastics are ending, ending up in the rain. So then nano plastics are raining down. They’re getting grown into the food, and then we eat them. And yeah, one of the stats that Lisa and I just find so mind boggling is that we, all of us, are ingesting or inhaling a credit card size worth of plastic every single week into our body. So that plastic is like accumulating into our bodies. And so it’s really up to us as, like, the individual and the business to, okay, start creating better products or creating better packaging, and start thinking of like End of Life Solutions for products.

 

Fran  20:49

Yeah, yeah. And that’s, you know, actually a great segue, which I want to talk to you guys just about the actual sourcing and creation of of the products that you that you sell at good Juju. So, you know, like, I hear what you’re saying, which I think is so incredible. And what makes these conversations hopeful is that you as a business owner, are saying, we’re going to take this responsibility ourselves. We are experts in a way that the general consumer isn’t, and we’re going to use this knowledge to, you know, create an amazing product that’s okay, different, that’s better. That’s something that maybe we haven’t imagined before. So could you tell me, I mean, you know, I know, I’m sure it’s very complicated, and lots of chemical formulas I don’t understand, but what was, what was your your process sort of in like beginning to develop these products and figuring out who are my suppliers. How do I find suppliers that align with our mission? And because I imagine it’s difficult to maintain control over all of those aspects as a business owner when you’re not okay, like growing the okay lavender that’s going in your product, right? Because you just can’t do that. Yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  22:04

I think some of the some of it’s definitely difficult, and some of it’s easier than you would you would have thought. So the process starts with, first and foremost, finding a manufacturer to make the product for you, or you either set up your own manufacturing yourself, which we debated both. And to be honest, the hardest part about manufacturing solids right now is finding somebody else to do it for you. Because, okay, world is set up for bottling lines, for for putting everything in plastic, putting everything on the bottle and into a plastic bottle, and for a manufacturer to take on making a solid it’s extremely labor intensive. It’s not something that when we had started, you know, this is going back four years, five years ago. Now, there were not, there was no automated way of making, okay, that was the really big, difficult thing for us, was to be able to find a manufacturer who would work with us to formulate and create a product, but also do it at a reasonable cost, because the second it starts getting off the automation line, the price skyrockets. And then, of course, we, not only is our product sustainable, but it’s clean, so in the ingredients that we use to purchase are exponentially more expensive already. So the product is already at its base, already more expensive, and then you add on the labor to make it. So those are kind of like the really big challenges when it comes to making solids, sourcing ingredients, to be honest, has gotten a lot better. You would think that it was, it was a really hard thing to do, but we, coming from our backgrounds in natural health industry, we’ve seen kind of like the progression over the years, I would say, probably like, you know, when we were, you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, Alexa, when your dad started nature’s fair, you know, the the selection of ingredients back then, even in like supplements or single ingredients or beauty, It was very, very small, but thankfully, that industry has grown so much over the past 2530, years, people, the general public, are adopting supplements. They’re adopting, like better skin care, better laundry products into their routine, better hair care. So yeah, sourcing ingredients is actually quite it. I think it’s easier than it was. I wouldn’t say it’s super easy, because, okay, right to the point where you have to make it’s like a really hard business decision, because you’ll have an ingredient in front of you that’s a clean ingredient, or an organic version of ingredient, okay, like the non organic version of it and the cost, that’s the hard part. That’s the hard part is having the two of them in front of you and being you know is, does this make sense to buy the organic version of this ingredient? Is it going to give me the exponential benefit, whether to the environment or to the end user or to the experience? Yeah, that makes it worth it. Okay, honestly, it’s a debate. It’s an ongoing debate, like, all the time, yeah,

 

Fran  25:05

yeah, I can imagine it. I mean it, it’s well, it just kind of reminds me of, like, you know, like we were saying, Who is making these hard choices? And it’s so great that you guys are deciding to make those hard choices. But then I wonder, if you sometimes, you know, look around. I know we were talking a little bit about this earlier, before the episode started, but how, oh, how, I feel like we’re in this, in this sort of stalemate, or point in time where there’s more understanding and more knowledge of of the impacts of climate change, there’s more recognition about how our habits are just destroying our sucking the earth dry and destroying us too. And yet, at the same time, I think because of that, you know, like because of the doom and gloom, because people feel so disempowered and disenfranchised, they’re like, Well, let me just buy my little set off of temu for $10 because that’s all I can afford. And and it’s almost like people are being encouraged to buy more and more, because at like, a cheaper price, and we’re producing more, while also at the same time, people are kind of like crying out and saying, This is wrong. And so how do you sort of okay in your your marketing, and of course, it’s probably easier to okay what people who are already in on board, on the bandwagon, to to seek sustainable products. But how do you, I guess, address that, that tension point of sometimes people, their bottom line is price, or sometimes their bottom line is accessibility. They want to be able to go to Walmart and grab something off the shelf immediately when they need it. But yet, like teaching them that you know, like getting them to buy in and recognize, why these okay? Why okay? Why having these things in mind when we’re choosing products, is, is kind of like a non negotiable. It’s like, it’s at this point, affecting the fabric of our life, right? Yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  27:06

I think it’s a it’s a big question, and I think it’s a layered and complicated question, because I don’t think it’s as simple as, as much as I would love it to be, like, this is the better choice you need to make it. There are so many socio economic factors that are affecting people, um and I think that for us, one of the things that we’ve tried to maintain right from the beginning is to develop is to provide a really high quality product at a very competitive price. So our bars replace, like, one bar can replace up to three plastic bottles. So yes, and but you’re getting, like, a salon quality product in there. From a marketing perspective, though, I think that the really important thing is progress over perfection. So, okay, well, it can feel like we look around us and, you know, the world is on fire or flooding, or earthquakes or volcanos are erupting non stop. You know, it can be really there’s almost like an urgency, feeling that that comes along with that we need to change. We need to change and do everything right away. For us, we’ve all always maintained that it’s progress over perfection, over perfection, and making small changes will have a bigger impact. Because one of the things that we learned along the way in our past careers is that people feel that when it comes to sustainability, one of the things that really overwhelms them and causes people to shut down is that they feel like, if I’m going to go zero waste, then I have to change so many things in my life. I have to make sure that my kitchen is zero waste. I have to make sure that I’m not using paper towels anymore. I have to make sure I’m not using plastic wrap. I have to make sure that let’s go to the bathroom. Can I, can I continue to use this in a plastic bottle? And it becomes completely overwhelming for them. So for us, we really just want to say, start with small changes. Okay, why? And what you’ll see is that we’ll have a snowball effect if you try a really great product that is in, that is in a, you know, not in a plastic bottle. It’s in a solid format, and it works for you. That’s going to give you the confidence to try something else. And that’s really, it’s about, it’s about really supporting that snowball effect. And we see it every single day, in real in real time, on our comments, on feedback that we get online, the feedback that we get in our in our emails, people are always like, Oh my gosh, my hair looks amazing, and it’s sustainable, and I feel so good about what I’m doing, and then and now, I tell everybody about it. So it really isn’t just about, like, one step at a time. I think, yeah, otherwise, it’s overwhelming.

 

Fran  29:38

Yeah. I mean, it’s good. I almost feel like you’re giving me a pep talk, because I just, I just like my toilet brush broke, and I was like, this is plastic, and I need a new brush that isn’t plastic. And I was then I was thinking about all the plastic things in my life. And you’re right, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed. It honestly kind of reminds me of of a. And that because, you know, I do social media too, and and then I hope will continue, is that we’ve had so much saturation, like people have become expert at marketers. They know how to tell a story. So what’s left after that? Right? It’s just, it’s yourself, it’s your authentic self and your authentic message. And I think people are, really, are desperately seeking that authenticity in, you know, the people that they do business with and, and that that’s such a like, an intangible value that you just can’t replicate. And I really feel that coming through, like talking to you guys and, and I don’t know, it does feel very profound to think about that we forget that sometimes the best you can do is just to just do your best, yeah? And that do your best exactly that over time really will influence people. And, okay, why? Yeah. And, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, people are so Okay, hard to it’s hard to change, like we always have to do, leading by example, right? Yeah. And

 

Lisa Karandat  30:59

honestly, you know, we lose hope all the time. Let’s be honest, we lose hope all the time. It’s really it’s really hard, okay? Why? It’s really hard to be a small business owner right now, in in these economic times, it’s really hard to be a woman owned small business owner. Yeah, it’s really hard to be a person of color on top of that, and then you add sustainability on top of that. So there’s a lot of things that we are okay to use the term fighting against, but dealing with, you know, as it is, because it’s a lot of them are common with a lot of businesses. But then when you add the sustainability aspect on onto it, it definitely complicates things, and it makes it makes decisions harder. It might make our growth slower, which is fine for us, like impact is what matters. And the thing is, is that you have to have a what we’ve learned really quickly is that you have to take the long view, right? This too shall pass. Everything will pass. Everything will and taking the long view, like, you know, we can now look back four years later. I mean, we’ve been through so many ups and downs over the years, but we can now look back four years later and be like, Wow. Like we have removed, you know, 750,000 plastic bottles from the waste stream. Like we’ve, yeah, like this, this, you know, bigger picture views that you can then take, I think, are what will save us all from losing hope?

 

Fran  32:24

Yeah, definitely. It kind of reminds me there’s this funny Chinese proverb that my father loves to share with me, and it’s the, you know, I’m going to butcher it, but the quote is just a man, and he’s like, kids don’t respect their elders. The economy is terrible. My work is no longer is obsolete in society. You know, the world is is going downhill, and it’s happening fast, and it’s like, okay, white 50, BC, you know, or something. And, and just looking at that, though, you know, it does remind me, like we know more than ever, and it makes us forget how little we still don’t know, and that, you know, yeah, we we don’t know what’s going to happen, and we don’t know, okay, like, you know, we’re I also

 

Lisa Karandat  33:09

think, I also think that Alexa mentioned this before that it’s really hard to ignore the the impacts of climate change. But I do think that that’s for people like us. I do think that the majority of people, it actually is really easy for them to ignore the impact of climate change right now and then until it directly affects their life. And I think that’s human nature. I don’t think that’s ignorance. I don’t think that’s I think it’s very much human nature that directly affects you. It’s really hard to have empathy, understanding, feeling for it. And you know, Alexa lives on the west coast of of Canada, and, like she said, like, Okay, what inspires effectively? Like, direct her effect.

 

Alexa Monahan  33:54

They directly affect me. Do every summer? Yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  33:58

every summer they she has, like, what did they call it? Atmospheric rivers that are, like, torrentially pouring rain on them. They have, like, it’s, it’s a part of their everyday life. And then until, I really hope it doesn’t take that. I really hope it doesn’t take people, you know, having to have some sort of hystrophy in their life in order to, in order for them to see it, yeah, but

 

Alexa Monahan  34:25

okay, why? Sometimes the problem that does have? Yeah, it takes, you know, interesting

 

Fran  34:30

point. I don’t know if we’ll include this in the podcast, because I don’t want to hate on my native state too much, but yeah, but I would push back on that statement, because we had to, okay, white dating hurricanes this year and okay when I’m like, okay, white, okay, white.

 

Lisa Karandat  34:49

Every climate change.

 

Fran  34:50

This is literally, this is, this is ground zero. This is in here. It’s now. It’s not in 50 years. It’s right now. And people are like, we just need to lift our houses up 12 feet. Get a generator. I know,

 

Lisa Karandat  35:02

I know, I know, but I think it’s because hurricanes have always existed in that region. Yeah, so the fact that that it’s a little bit more intense, Mac, whatever, everything’s intense, right? And

 

Fran  35:12

you’re right, it’s only affecting, unfortunately, people who don’t have resources right now. I think it will affect everybody eventually. But right now, the people who have a $4 million house that’s swallowed off the ground with a sub pump and a generator, yeah, they’re fine. They were fine in this last hurricane, and not not hating on those people or anything. But yeah, but yeah, it was a little bit, I guess, sobering that people, I was like, are we going to start a climate initiative now I’m gonna go gather in the streets and say, Look things everyone’s like, you know, I don’t know, but

 

Lisa Karandat  35:49

you know what you do bring up a really good a really and it’s not about hating on on anybody, but it’s a really good point that, okay, why sustainability has okay? Why? I don’t want to use the word elitist, but it’s not accessible to everybody. Yeah, it has, it has not been accessible to everybody. And I think that one of the other really important sad facts about sustainability is that not only is it not accessible, but the effects of climate change disproportionately affect people of lower incomes. So whether that be okay, of lower incomes where, you know, garbage is washing up on their beaches and they don’t have the they don’t have the resources to remove that garbage, and they’re living in built that you know originated somewhere else in the world, or something as simple as well. Not Simple. Simple is not the word, but something like, you know, how we started this conversation, which was that we just don’t have the recycling facilities in North America, so a lot of garbage gets incinerated. Those incineration facilities, for the most part, are in lower income neighborhoods, so those people are then directly inhaling all of those fumes. They’re getting sicker than anybody else. So as you know, we’re with this conversation, starting to get really

 

Fran  37:06

depressing. But

 

Lisa Karandat  37:07

like I said before, there’s so many layers to it. So in order to kind of like, keep your head above it, and to keep and to keep fighting and to keep hope alive, I think you really just have to be like, What can I do? What can I do today to affect this? And, yeah, what small changes can I do? And that’s where we come in with saying it doesn’t have to be gigantic. Like, whatever you do does not have to be gigantic. Yeah, there’s a quote that I like, and I know I’m going to butcher it. Alexa, you need to do it, because I say it wrong every single time. So

 

Alexa Monahan  37:36

there’s a quote that we love, and it is we don’t need, okay, white millions of people doing zero waste perfectly. Okay? We need, no, no. We

 

Lisa Karandat  37:48

don’t need a handful of people.

 

Alexa Monahan  37:50

Yes, here’s the quote, We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing zero waste imperfectly. Okay, well, that quote is attributed to the zero waste chef. I forget her name moment, but, but we really, we include that in, like, a lot of our marketing messages, because it’s truly, it’s truly the ethos of what we believe in. Yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  38:12

yeah, yeah. Do it imperfect. Just do it yeah. And,

 

Fran  38:17

and even though it sounds trite, I really do. I mean, I love talking to people, so maybe that’s why I say this. But I really do think that that conversation okay and just curiosity go so far. And I mean, I didn’t know any of this stuff until somebody Okay, until my friend said, look, here’s a shampoo bar. It’s from lunch, and we can do this and that, and, you know, or, yeah, until someone told me to take this environmental science seminar, you know, and, and I think it’s easy, like you were saying to to get, I don’t know, elitist in a sort of, like, righteous way, where you’re like, why don’t you guys understand? Yeah, you know. But we all, I mean, yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  38:58

I forget. Education is a privilege too, that a lot of people don’t have access to

 

Fran  39:01

exactly. And I and I really wish that, okay, well, kind of like to what we were saying earlier. I really do wish that sustainability was just integrated in a way where people didn’t have to know so much in order to practice it, you know. Or where, okay, where, yeah, the government was saying, Hey, you have to compost, and this is how you do it, and this is where you do it, and we’re going to pick it up.

 

Lisa Karandat  39:23

But that’s exactly like kind of full circle. Full circle to where we started. Good juju, is that okay? Why to make it super accessible, and we need to make it almost like, okay, like you’re going to have great hair, because that’s what you want. At the end of the day. You want an amazing product that’s going to work. And yeah, by the way, it’s sustainable. Yeah, yeah. And then people who are getting exposed to our products who maybe never even had a thought about sustainability, maybe they never, it’s not something, and now all of a sudden they’re exposed to us because their friend told them, and that’s that’s kind of like the snowball effect that we’re. Seeing now, four years later, and it’s so, like, It’s so heartwarming, because you see like these emails that that I get, I get who we manage, two different parts of our like, our customer supports coming back to us in boxes, and I get the inbox, where I get all of like, the praise, and Alexa gets the inbox, or it’s all like, where’s my order? Yeah, yeah. So I get to see, I get to read, like, these amazing emails, like every single day, where people are like, I never would have thought this, and I never would have thought of even buying a solid shampoo, but I tried your product, and I’m so excited. And now I tell this person, and now I tell that person, and it’s so amazing that we’re getting rid of these plastic bottles. And yeah, so, yeah, I think it’s just, it’s time, you know? I think that okay, why it’s gonna take as much as we would love it to just, like, switch overnight. It’s not gonna switch overnight, you know, like, it’s gonna take time to educate people and to get them there. But I feel like we’re really, I feel like we’re moving in the right direction.

 

Fran  40:57

Yeah, okay, yeah. I do. I do have hope? The young people give me hope too. Yeah, recently retired young person, the young people are giving me hope. I want to. I want to circle back really quickly, just, you know, as we’re kind of talking about this, like, what, where you got your sustainability ethos from? And I know it’s not something that’s like, super regulated or standardized, or like, this is the the you know, what you follow to be a sustainable business. So where do you, like, how do you set your standards? Or, how do you set your your okay, like, your efficacy levels for your product is saying, This is what. These are the ingredients we don’t want to see. This is what. Okay, we want our product to work. This is, you know, the type of packaging we want to do, like, Who’s Who’s guiding that, or what is guiding that, those standards that you’re sort of modeling your business by. Why? Okay, I

 

Alexa Monahan  41:58

can take this one we so I think it’s interesting. When we started, Lisa and I were like, we are going to be a 100% plastic free company. So we are not going to have plastic in our packaging, or I can have plastic in our shipping materials. We are not going to use a single drop of plastic anywhere. And so we went through, you know, the first year of business, and I think what we realized is to do anything like that perfectly is really too challenging to also have a sustainable business. So it’s again, the same thing, progress over perfection, do what you can. So in terms of like our packaging and the amount of plastic and our environmental sustainability commitment, what we do is Lisa and I set our own standard, so there is no like, external standard. We meet, we discuss every decision, and we we choose what is the best thing that we can do, okay, like, given our resources and given what’s available to us and for us right now, that means we don’t have any plastic in our packaging or our products. Obviously, I would say 99% of our shipping. Materials are plastic free as well. And we Okay, of course, choose for our products as many clean ingredients and organic ingredients as we can. Okay, well. And then, in terms of efficacy, there’s also, there isn’t, like, a an external factor. But we have done lots of tests with consumers and with our friends, and we have some really great stats on consumers using our products. I think what is it? 98% say that they would never go back to liquid after using our products. 95% say that they wish that they had found us sooner. So I think that first of all, we want the consumer to have a great experience, but also, all of the ingredients that we do choose are backed by science, as Lisa alluded to earlier. She now she’s a great formulator. She’s got great resources. So we’ve used, yeah, a naturopathic doctor and researcher out of Harvard to help us formulate all of our products. So we’re not just choosing we hope will work. We’re choosing products that we actually know are going to work. Yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  44:08

yeah. I think to your point, you know, you mentioned earlier that there’s no there’s no standards, but what you said before that, in this day and age, it’s about being authentic and people wanting to know who they buy from, because those standards don’t exist. So if people know who Alexa and I are, and that’s really our goal in you know, our content marketing is to get people to is to get people to know who we are, because we’re the ones setting those standards, and we’re the ones that are, are saying, you know, it took us nine months to formulate our bars, because, did we have, did we have a shampoo bar that we could launch within? Okay, once we did, did we want to launch that bar? No, we didn’t, because we knew we wanted to do better. So we actually had, we actually kept going back, kept going back. And now, you know, our bars get compared to salon quality products, because we really were like, No, this needs to change. No, this needs to change. No. Just needs to change, to really kind of tweak it, to get it to where we want it to be,

 

Fran  45:03

okay. That really, I mean, that really feels like, to me, a really revolutionary aspect of your brand, is that okay? I feel like sustainability, at least the products that it had been marketing to me with the past, it’s kind of like, you know, like a caveat, like, it’s like, oh, you’re it’s sustainable, but, you know, it’s going to be a massive or, yeah, you need to buy something so that it actually works. Or, you know, in order to to compost the packaging, you have to soak it in vinegar. Or, I don’t know, you know, like, all of these things that that make the user experience not as as enjoyable. And I really love that you guys are, are speaking to that and saying and showing that sustainability is not a compromise. It’s actually a benefit, you know, and it’s something that you can, you can really have it all. And I feel like it’s funny that I don’t know, you know, it’s like, sometimes I feel like sustainability gets kind of pocketed in, like, okay, weird foot, and you’re in your crunchy and you don’t care about shower or, like, no, not that I think

 

Alexa Monahan  46:09

you’ve hit the nail on the head. Like, when I, I come from a from a retail background, where I dealt with consumers all day long in a natural health store. And the biggest misconception that people have is that if something is natural, it’s not going to work as well. And I mean, there are lots of natural products that don’t work very well, but there’s also lots of conventional products that don’t work very well, and but that, that insight into what consumers think really like, led us to make sure that the products that we formulated are better than conventional products, like better than products and the plastic bottle, because we don’t want people to have to give up anything when they’re adding sustainability into their lives. And as Lisa said, like our goal is to have the biggest impact possible, and we can’t have a big impact if people try our products and then never want to try them again. You know, we chose specific categories of products that people use daily because we wanted to have the biggest impact possible. And the products have to be really good if you’re going to want to use them every single day.

 

Fran  47:14

Yeah, what was it like in I mean, I know you guys have a background in this, and you know, particularly you Lisa, you’re saying with formulation. So maybe it’s just something that you knowledge, you learned over years and years. But what was it like? Okay, answering those questions that just seems like such a nebulous, difficult thing, of like, oh, how do I, you know, as a scientist, formulate a product that’s going to be okay? Why ethical? Ethical, efficacious and affordable. I mean, it’s just so many variables coming into one in a way that, like, I feel like you’re doing what any product developer is doing times 20, because you’re doing it within these really strict parameters. And, yeah, I mean, did that ever feel overwhelming, or like, what? What do you feel like? Made it possible? Because to me, it just like, you know, I literally feel like you guys were, like, toiling and adding, like

 

Lisa Karandat  48:12

it’s we personally were not, we’re not chemists, yeah, we’re not chemists and we’re not formulators. But I think we worked. It’s really about finding the right partners. So I think what I had was a really good understanding of the process on how to formulate a really good product, and really needed to bring in to get us there. Yeah, so, you know, we worked with a hairdresser to and as well as the naturopathic doctor. And then there’s the manufacturer. And you know, I think that the real setting really clear expectations, like what made us, you know, if we look at somebody who’s starting, you know, a company, let’s say somebody else started a shampoo bar company at the exact same time of us, lots of people did, what makes our end product different than their end product during the formulation process? I think it’s, you know, going back to we had what we wanted coming out of it. We had super clear expectations on things that we were not going to compromise on. And luckily, okay, why the science and the ingredients sourcing themselves have come a long way, like maybe some of those things that we didn’t want to compromise on, like we didn’t want to put SLS in the product, for example. So SLS is a petroleum based surfactant. That’s what causes the suds and the cleaning. Yeah. Okay, what? 90% of shampoos on the market have SLS in them, like, probably even more than that. That’s what, that’s what everybody uses in order to create suds, like liquid, some some solids as well. Use SLS in it as well, because it’s, it’s a very common ingredient for us, we were like, absolutely no SLS is allowed in this product. But in order to get the suds, we were lucky that science has come a long way that we were actually able to get ingredients that are coconut based derivatives that perform just as well. Yeah. So had we? Would we have? Able to do that 10 years ago? Probably not. So I do think that there is some kind of, like, divine timing and all of this as well. Yeah, and, and, you know, luck, whatever you want to call it progress. But I do think, like going back to Hopefully I answered your question. No, yeah, but it is really about okay, right people to work with. And it’s definitely some things were hard because, like, like, it did take us, like, nine months to get, like, the whole process of even just getting the bar to, like, stay together. Like, the manufacturer would send us the bar, I’d be like, Oh, my God, this is great. And then I would drop it, and it would like, yeah, yeah. You’re like, ah. Like, no, people, it’s gonna, you’re in a shower, yeah, it’s gonna slip. And people are gonna drop the bar. It

 

Fran  50:45

can’t, yeah. I mean, it really, I mean, I know this has kind of been the undercurrent of this whole conversation, but it reminds me just what you’re saying, which is, like, don’t, you can’t take on everything at once, no, and you can’t do everything alone, and you really need to, you know, rely on all of the people who are experts in their industry, who actually study and know these things to come together and help you make the best product possible. But it’s just, you know, to me, as in the digital space, I’m like, that’s just incredible. You need a product out of nothing, how do you and it works?

 

Lisa Karandat  51:25

Like no, a lot of work, no.

 

Fran  51:30

But so, you know, I’m, I’m curious. I want to talk a little bit, just zooming out. I know, you know, you’re a relatively new company. Ish, your small company, your woman owned business, how, how is it competing with, you know, some of these larger brands that have more resources or or that are less sustainable, and can, can make it sucks. You said, I said it sucks. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t want to belabor the point, but I’m just curious about, like, what, okay, what do you hold fast to, or what I know you said, like, your authenticity and your message, but is there anything else that you know, just you as a new company in the sustainability space, how you’re navigating these challenges, and any like advice that you could say, or saying, we don’t want to do that again, or, you know, mistakes that have been made.

 

Lisa Karandat  52:30

So many, so many. Do you want to? Want to take it? Alexa, I mean, I think

 

Alexa Monahan  52:34

you we’ve, we’ve discussed the authenticity piece, but when we’re competing with, like these gigantic companies, I think that’s kind of what we have. Is Lisa and I, we have, you know, we know we have a great product, but we’re hoping to, you know, engage with the people who who want to support, like a smaller business, who, yeah, who, who have the same values as us, like we are. We have very specific values that we adhere to as a team and as a business. I don’t think that the other you know that the larger companies can offer those same value, that same value alignment. And okay, like, we also have the ability to, like, Okay, why? Okay, our products a little bit more easily. We have the ability to do kind of unique things and pivot faster than like a larger company can,

 

Fran  53:37

okay. Why? Okay. What it

 

Alexa Monahan  53:39

is challenging. I mean, it’s challenging. It’s really hard when I see a bigger company come out with a shampoo bar that is a third of the price of ours, but I look at the ingredients and I’m like, That product is not going to work. It’s actually soap. It’s not really shampoo. You’re not going to get a good result. But they have, of course, the ability to get on shelves at bigger stores than we do, they have the ability to put way more marketing dollars behind their products. So why? Yeah, it’s challenging. It’s

 

Lisa Karandat  54:07

challenging. I would say the biggest challenge is marketing funds. You know, not only like, I feel like, Okay, put it in who we are, and we know that we have a great story to tell, but to be able to tell that story, okay, would be amazing, and we’ll get there. You know, we’re growing, and we’ll get there. I do think that there has been, there has been some really, really great supportive retailers who have some really great programs around sustainability, and who have some great programs around women owned businesses. And so they, they are looking for that. They’re looking for businesses that are sustainable and are women owned, and they’re they, they helped raise us up and get us to where we are right now. So we’ve definitely had more along the way. Okay, why are we still like anywhere near the Giants? Absolutely, you know, well, you don’t, but you wouldn’t, wouldn’t want to be anyway, you know, we wouldn’t want. Okay, but you know, one of the things that we’ve always said, and I still think that this is true, you know, we wanted to have impact. You know, people say to us, what, what does success look like for you? Like, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, you look back like, what does success look like for you? We I think success would look like that. There are more of those big players with laundry sheets on their shelves as part of their offering and shampoo bars as part of their offering, because we’ve had such a cultural impact that they are changing their ways. Yeah, that’s something that would be successful to us. Yeah, which

 

Fran  55:35

it sounds like, it, it. It might already be happening like you’re saying, like people are, are doing a little bit of copycat, not as successfully, but, yeah, I’m curious about what, you know, what, if you feel like if, or if you’ve noticed a change in consumer behavior towards sustainable products since the pandemic? Or, you know, I know we were kind of speaking on that, a little bit about how, in my opinion, we’re in this tension point. But yeah, have you noticed you feel like people are more aware, or like there’s more salience, there’s more of a desire to be engaging with sustainable brands, or to be okay, what showing like, you know, like you’re saying, like businesses showing that they are seeking out small okay, what is our sustainable businesses? We definitely

 

Alexa Monahan  56:29

get a lot of customers who are concerned about sustainability, who write us and ask us about whether it’s an ingredient or the packaging. How do we ship products? One interesting thing that we did notice is, when we launched, our whole message was sustainability, and it was and when we launched in in 2020, 20. So we launched. We launched in the pandemic. We launched again, the pandemic and which,

 

Lisa Karandat  56:55

yeah, which, yeah.

 

Alexa Monahan  56:58

And we launched with a really strong message of just sustainability. And I think what we noticed over time is that a message of just sustainability does not resonate with people. It needs to be a message of sustainability and performance, yeah. Performance led, performance, yeah. Performance LED, like, like, our I have amazing hair, and the product comes in a bar format, yeah, I’m using this bar, and it’s saving three plastic bottles from entering our waste stream. It doesn’t, it doesn’t. People don’t gravitate toward that message, yeah, and yeah, okay, so given that we did launch in the pandemic in 2020, um, okay. Why? Okay, we’ve seen, okay, shift in method and consumer. Okay? Why? Okay, wider or but Lisa might have a different perspective. Yeah,

 

Lisa Karandat  57:50

no, I agree. I don’t think that there’s been any kind of I would say it’s been pretty static since we’ve increased, since we’ve launched. We definitely see, like, the studies that come out from like PWC or even Nielsen studies that say that you know, consumers are willing to spend more like they’re the ones that are doing these bigger studies and asking consumers, you know you’re seeing the effects of climate change, are you willing to spend more on a sustainable product? And overwhelmingly, the answer is yes. But okay, what marketing world? It’s really known that what you say in a survey and what you your actual behavior are two different things. Yeah, you know, so, okay, why? Okay, yeah. I mean, we’ve definitely seen a really big we are growing year over year. We are we are seeing more people coming into the brand all the time. Yeah, you know, we grew our shampoo and conditioner conditioner bars grew over 60% this year, which was, like, amazing. So I would say it’s like, it’s hard to say though, is is that more people looking for sustainable products, or is that just new people finding us as a brand? Which is, either way, we’ll take it because we’re having

 

Fran  58:56

an impact. And, yeah, right. Yeah. You know that kind of teases out a question that we’ve explored a lot in interviewing guests, which is, like, is it the carrot or the stick that motivates people? And not that telling people about, okay, well, you know, their sustainable impact is necessarily a stick, but I do think sometimes, okay, well, it makes them think, like, you know, we talked about, like, it makes them think about, oh, I’m diverting three bottles now, I just used 12 this year. Does that mean I was using 36 bottles? You know, like, people, I think sometimes can get overwhelmed with the negativity, and it just sort of shuts them down. And so, like, how, you know, the way that you now have to navigate that while saying, like, we need to speak the truth and we need to acknowledge what’s going on, but also like, okay, recognize, you know, like meeting people where they’re at and recognizing that maybe they’re more excited about their hair looking good than about, you know, thinking about, which is, you know, we’re all human. We’re all that way, right. Like, when I. Up in the morning, I’m thinking more about my hair and how it’s gonna look. Probably then, okay, but actions like the 50 year consequences of every action I’m taking, you know, today, um, but maybe,

 

Lisa Karandat  1:00:12

maybe the way to, like, I think the way we’re approaching it, and the way to look at it is, like, just the way you don’t think about the plastic bottle, you just buy it, like it’s the same way, like we want people to not even think, Oh, this is I’m not using, it’s the plastic bottle, yeah? Just using really great hair care. Yeah,

 

Fran  1:00:29

yeah. And, and, really interestingly, even though I’d say I’m someone who’s, like, sustainably minded, one of the biggest draws to me, first from a shampoo bar was how, okay, you’re getting a lot more product. How you weren’t, you know, the water like, logically, yeah, why would I want to pay for us to be shipping water around? Why would we want to be drawing water from that? Doesn’t make sense at all. And then, you know, and then you get to feel good stuff about knowing that you’re actually making a,

 

Lisa Karandat  1:01:00

yeah, this decision with every, with every shipment from our online store, we send a little card that says how many plastic bottles they’ve they’ve diverted with their order. So we’re, we’re subtly reminding people like all the time and what they do, you know. And we also, you know, on our website, you when, if you place an order directly from us, we do have boxes, but we ship without boxes as well. So we ship them in the past, in craft paper bags to reduce the amount of waste. So there’s definitely like, you know, there’s no mistaking we’re a sustainable company, yeah? But at the same time, I really think that it’s about the product. The product has to back it up,

 

Fran  1:01:37

yeah, yeah. Which I feel like, you know, like you said, goes along along with the authenticity piece we’ve been talking about, which is that you’re not just trying to be sustainable. You’re actually trying to have an amazing product too. I know we’ve been talking I can’t believe an hour’s already gone by, so I won’t take too much more of you guys’ time, but I did want to ask just a few more questions. One, I’m curious if there’s any you know, I know you’ve mentioned a lot in this conversation that a lot of innovations were happening, sort of as you guys were starting good juju, like with, you know, chemistry, or with packaging that made made it you able to, you know, perform at this level of sustainability, or to, okay, like these reductions. And I’m curious if there’s anything, anything else, any new emerging, emerging technologies, or, you know, something okay, like citing that you feel like is happening in the sustainability, sustainable product landscape that you’re seeing, okay, maybe you want to integrate, or are integrating, or that just gives you hope.

 

Alexa Monahan  1:02:40

So I do think that there is a lot of, okay, well, really unique packaging options that are coming out. We have seen some packaging that is actually grown out of mushrooms. It’s made from mushrooms. Okay? We’ve seen packaging that dissolves in your sink, and we actually have used that. So in terms of packaging, I think that that there is a lot that’s being done to innovate and to try and come up with better solutions. Unfortunately, a lot of them are still not quite accessible for brands to bring on, like in a big way. I know that we really thought the mushroom packaging was super cool and wanted to use it, but the cost was, like, 1000 times more or something than what we were doing. So it’s not quite there yet, but I do think that when I think about what’s happening, it’s it’s packaging innovations, and it’s also product format innovation. So when we look at like, you know, a solid format of a product that used to be in the plastic bottle, or, like, our laundry sheets, just removing water from them. Okay, well, in the CPG space, those are the kind of things that I’m excited about.

 

Fran  1:03:46

Anyways, yeah, yeah, yeah, laundry. I love. I actually got, I got two of you guys’ laundry sheets for my mom and my sister for Christmas because I’ve been trying to get you to switch over, um, and that, I mean, that’s something that, to me again, was like, Okay, why? Why are you doing? I know. So this makes so much more sense. And, okay, yeah, it’s just, I mean, it’s like, prettier too, you know what matters. But like, you don’t have this. It doesn’t matter.

 

Lisa Karandat  1:04:18

It does matter. We definitely, we made ours for that reason, right? Really differentiate with what’s on the market. And, yeah, and actually, that’s actually a really good point, is that, so there is an ingredient that is used in in orange white sheets, called PBA. And it is, there is some debate about the sustainability of PBA, and does it actually fully biotech? Great. And we, you know, there’s, there’s a research to show that it does, but there’s that doesn’t stop the debate. I think that, you know, the thing with science is that it’s ever evolving. And I think, you know, going back to our progress over perfection, we really wanted to make sure that we were providing the most sustainable product. Out there. So we took a look at our PBA, and we were, we, you know, we were happy with with it and the science behind it, but we thought, if there is a better version out there, then we should try to find it. So we researched. And there is, you know, is there a plant based version of it, for example? And there, there is, but the science is not quite there yet on it like this, the stability is not there on it yet. So we actually found a certified biodegradable version of PBA, and we recently launched that in our laundry sheets. And we’re, as far as we know, we’re the only ones that do that, but actually went out there and bought a certified biodegradable so it’s BPI certified. It’s going to biodegrade in the waste stream. It’s not going to turn into microplastics. It’s, you know, the science is there behind it, but that’s a really good example of, like, was that there a couple years ago? I don’t know, you know, yeah, you know, it’s and, and then I, you know, to the point about that it’s continuously evolving. I think it’s really important for all sustainable companies, or just companies in general, to have that progress over perfection mentality and continuing to look out there. I think that that’s a really important testament to to Alexa and I, are our people, like we formulated those, um, those laundry strips were formulated, you know, four years ago when we launched and, yeah, they were fine, like, Could we have just kept, kept it exactly the same way and not changed it. We could have done that for sure. But going back to who we are as people and the standards that we set for ourselves, there’s a better version out there. We should be using the better version, yeah, and

 

Alexa Monahan  1:06:29

we’ve, we’ve changed our longer strip formula now twice, at least, yeah, two, two to three times. So two to three, we’re always, yeah. We’re just always trying to make it better and and sustainable when we can.

 

Fran  1:06:40

And that’s what I mean. Why it’s feels really good to talk to people like you guys, because I can tell that you’re in a good way, like you’re obsessed with what you do. You know you are like every part of it you have thought about and put effort and energy and emotion and you know your heart into as a white I feel like it really does speak through and and the things that you’re saying, Thank you. And also just, yeah, your your message as as business owners. Like, I’m like, Oh my gosh, if everyone was asking these questions as business owners, okay, well, imagine the world we’d be living in. It’s it seems too good to be true. Well, I

 

Lisa Karandat  1:07:21

hope more and more people start asking themselves different questions, yeah,

 

Fran  1:07:25

yeah. Um, okay. Well, I don’t want to take too much more of you guys’ time, but I have just one, one more question, which is just, is there anyone who you come back to again and again for inspiration? Or, you know, a thought leader and sustainability that or a business owner, or just somebody who, who really inspires you guys, and, you know, gets you to to be thinking about things in in a different way. I’m sure you probably have okay, but if there’s anyone that comes to mind, I mean, I think that we

 

Alexa Monahan  1:08:01

are always looked at Patagonia as an example of some a company that we like because they changed their entire mission statement and purpose to protecting the future of our home planet, and are have like, one of the highest B Corp scores all the time. And so looking at a company that is completely existing around a purpose, and the purpose is kind of shared with ours, is is something that I think is really cool, and I think you don’t see that so often that they, you know, in other businesses, so as a business, we, I really have always looked up to them. I like and like how they approach sustainability as just who they are.

 

Lisa Karandat  1:08:54

Yeah, progress over perfection is also a key tenant of who Patagonia is. Like, they’re never like, we’re perfect, we’re doing it right. They’re always like, we’re looking for ways to improve, and we’ll continue to improve. Yeah, yeah. I would agree with that. I would say also, on a that’s definitely on a big scale, on a smaller scale, the people who provide us inspiration are other women founders. It’s yeah, we, we’re, I think one of the best parts of starting our business have been all of the other women founders that we have connected with, who are running small businesses in Canada, and particularly, we’ve all kind of gravitated to one another and supporting one another, I would say, like love women. Women are the best, and we support each other, and we cheerlead each other. And, you know, we’re always doing our best. Like, when you when you find a group of women who are out there and just want to support you, I think that that’s that’s really special. And, yeah, I love seeing more and more of

 

Fran  1:09:58

that, yeah, and it reminds me of a. Of just what I always think about in the sustainability conversation, and kind of like what we alluded to, which is, you know, thinking about who’s been left out historically, or who’s been the decision makers in our society up to this point, and how that has been, yeah, and how like different things can be just by letting other people come to the table, or, you know, having other people who are not wealthy white men for our society all the time, you know, not to say that they can never make decisions, but, um, but yeah. I mean, we just need some like diverse women are different leaders than men, and that’s amazing, at least to me. I think hopefully everyone recognizes that you need both. You need we both we don’t need. Yeah, we, yeah, we can’t, we can’t become a monolith. Oh no, yeah, well, oh my gosh, there’s so much more I want to talk about, but I, I won’t take any more of your time, but I would love to plant some trees together. So I don’t know if you guys were able to take a look at at one tree planted. So they’re a great organization. We partner with, and every episode, we’re donating on behalf of you guys to plant some trees as part of their initiative. So you can choose all different regions and locales. I imagine you guys might be choosing where you’re from, but did you did you have a place in mind that you wanted to plant some trees? Are we

 

Alexa Monahan  1:11:36

the impact? Not we chose the impact. We wanted to the women’s Not surprisingly, the impact that helps women, and I forget the formal women empowerment, women empowerment initiative, we would love to donate there. Okay, amazing,

 

Fran  1:11:54

very fitting, very fitting. Well, it has really been an absolute pleasure talking with both of you. I thank you guys so much for just sharing your time and your perspective and all of the you know you have this just vast historical knowledge that I think is really important in these conversations, because you can speak to where we’ve been and where we are now in a way that I think is very impactful. So

 

Lisa Karandat  1:12:22

thanks for having us. Thank you so much for having us. I don’t forget to visit

 

Fran  1:12:25

good Juju website for some beautiful, all natural, eco friendly, sustainable products that actually work, but actually Yeah, hello, good juju.com Yes, hello, good juju.com and that’s all I have for you guys today. Thank you so much. Thank you you want to say before we go?

 

Lisa Karandat  1:12:47

Nope, just keep hope alive. Yeah,

 

Fran  1:12:52

yeah. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you for tuning in to our podcast. Marketing, for what matters. You can find us on Apple, Spotify Google or Pandora. Love the show, leave us a review and follow us on social media, at peaceful media, to stay up to date about new episodes and as always, thank you to this earth for giving us all we’ve ever needed. See you next time!

---

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Sustainability, climate change, eco-friendly products, Good Juju, natural health, plastic reduction, shampoo bars, packaging innovation, women-owned business, progress over perfection, consumer behavior, marketing challenges, biodegradable ingredients, Patagonia, women founders.