Environmentally-friendly entrepreneurship and the future of direct-to-consumer with Sarah Paiji Yoo

10/09/19 • 38 min

Abadesi is joined on this episode by Sarah Paiji Yoo. She is the founder of Blueland, a direct-to-consumer company that sells environmentally-friendly cleaning supplies. She formerly founded and sold Snapette, a mobile platform for local platform shopping.

In this episode they talk about...

Her extensive entrepreneurial journey

“We ended up launching one business per year for the next four years, which was crazy.”

Sarah was a successful founder before she started Blueland. When she first switched from a Blackberry to an iPhone, she realized the power of the platform and launched a company called Snapette, which she later sold. Later, she started a startup studio and churned out a number of different direct-to-consumer businesses in a variety of spaces: luxury footwear, beauty, fashion, and even coffee.

How she convinced investors of the promise of Blueland

“At first our deck opened with the environmental story. It led with our mission to eliminate single-use plastic packaging. We realized for a subset of investors that didn’t really resonate. We changed our deck to emphasize the business case but I realized that I wasn’t finding investors whose values aligned with ours, so I ended up switching the format back.”

Sarah recounts her fundraising journey for Blueland and why she went with a deck that didn’t necessarily resonate with all investors. Since “you can divorce your husband, but you can’t divorce your investors,” she wanted to make sure that her investors and board members were aligned with the values-driven approach to business that Sarah was taking. She also points out that their environmentally-friendly business model also has real financial benefits, with tablets that are about thirty times lighter than traditional cleaners and thus are much less costly to ship.

The future of sustainable direct-to-consumer products and companies

Sarah talks about the importance of transparency in direct-to-consumer, and particularly in companies that are working in sustainability. She points out that Millennials and Gen Z are eager to support companies that have similar values to them. According to her research, there are many more people than you might think who derive great satisfaction from buying environmentally-friendly products, even if it means more time and effort investment by the end consumer.

Managing a fast-growing team at a scaling company

She says that hiring always has to be the top priority as a founder and that she reminds herself of that every single day. She explains who she hired first when she was starting the company and what qualities she looked for in them. Sarah says that it’s always a risk hiring someone at a startup who has come from a big company because of the risk of a culture clash.

She also talks about the importance of making sure that your employees unplug to prevent burnout, because the high-performing Type A personalities that are naturally drawn to a startup have a propensity to work themselves exceptionally hard, even if there is no pressure for them to do so.

What’s in her “resiliency toolkit”

“Becoming a mom has become an incredible forcing mechanism for work-life balance. It’s really helped me carve out really dedicated pieces of time where I can be 100% present with my family.”

Sarah gives a rundown of what a typical day looks like at her company and explains how the birth of her son was an important turning point in her thinking about work-life balance. She says that it’s important to be disconnected from work for family time and how she makes sure that all her team members are on the same page about when she will or won’t be online.

Of course, she also tells us what some of her favorite products are and why she loves them.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸

Companies and Products Mentioned In This Episode

Instapaper — Save articles to read later.

Pinterest — Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

Slack — Be less busy. Real-time messaging, archiving and search.

In this episode they talk about...

Her extensive entrepreneurial journey

“We ended up launching one business per year for the next four years, which was crazy.”

How she convinced investors of the promise of Blueland

The future of sustainable direct-to-consumer products and companies

Managing a fast-growing team at a scaling company

What’s in her “resiliency toolkit”

“Becoming a mom has become an incredible forcing mechanism for work-life balance. It’s really helped me carve out really dedicated pieces of time where I can be 100% present with my family.”

Of course, she also tells us what some of her favorite products are and why she loves them.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸

Companies and Products Mentioned In This Episode

Instapaper — Save articles to read later.

Pinterest — Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

Slack — Be less busy. Real-time messaging, archiving and search.

Previous Episode

The future of beauty with Sharmadean Reid

On this episode Abadesi talks to Sharmadean Reid, founder of Beautystack. She’s one of Aba’s favorite people of all time, and is an inspiration to women and people of color everywhere. She recently raised a whopping seed round to grow and scale Beautystack.

In this episode they talk about...

How she’s helping women start businesses

“People always say that the information is out there, but sometimes you don’t know what to Google.”

Sharma talks about the importance of networks of women who can help and support each other in their founder journeys. She explains what it was like for her when she was just getting started, and how she was helped by others who were further along than she was. She has been giving back through a couple of different initiatives and talks about the self-sustaining community they have created.

“The proudest thing for me is the tens of thousands of connections between women that we’ve created.”

What fashion means to her

“My personal style to me is the reason I like fashion. Fashion and beauty is essentially how we as homo sapiens show our tribes, it’s the way we say this is what I am, this is what I stand for and what I believe in. For me, being a bit ‘extra’ with my look is a testament to how my mind works.”

She explains how fashion can make a powerful statement and her philosophy behind how she chooses her looks, saying that it’s part of “living in the future.” She explains how she got into the fashion industry in the first place, takes us behind-the-scenes of fashion shoots, and talks about why they are excellent vehicles for virality.

Her fundraising journey

“We often sit there and have a business idea and do a pitch deck and do market research. But market research is not the same as writing your own thesis of how the future is going to look.”

Sharma explains how she approached the fundraising for Beautystack, and talks about why, once you’ve done the important work in advance and have conviction in your ideas, it can be quite effortless to put everything together. She talks about fleshing out all of her thoughts around the company in a personal password-protected blog, and how she researched her investors ahead of time to know what kinds of objections they might bring up in order to anticipate them. She also points out that it’s important to find the right investors for your company, so you should be just as discerning as your investors are.

The founder mindset and personal development

“I think that good investors want missionary founders and cultivating my personal mission keeps me on the straight and narrow and gives me that north star that regardless of how the business pans out, I own that personal mission.”

She is one of the hardest-working people that Aba knows, and invests in herself as much as in everything else that she does. She explains the importance of cultivating a personal mission and how to define success for yourself. She also talks about some of the mental models she uses, why she reads from a broad variety of sources, and explains what she means when she says “everything is cyclical.”

The future of work and scaling a team

“I learned this from the guys at Basecamp. Think of the company as your product. Your users are your employees — are you giving them the best user experience possible?”

Sharma explains how she’s cultivated Beautystack’s unique culture. She takes us through some of the initiatives they’ve started, including increasing the level of gratitude in the workplace and why each person at the company creates and presents their own “guide to working with me.” She also talks about how she plans for the future growth of her company and why she loves the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Of course, she also lets us know what some of her favorite products on her home screen are.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸

Companies and Products Mentioned In This Episode

Co - Star Astrology — Hyper-personalized astrology.

Ferly — Your audio guide to mindful sex.

Moody Month — Track your moods, hormone cycle, and l...

Next Episode

Overcoming adversity and setting your sights high with Delane Parnell

On this episode Abadesi talks to Delane Parnell, founder and CEO of PlayVS. PlayVS is the community for amateur high school esports. He was previously the youngest black venture capitalist in the US and built and sold his own esports team prior to founding PlayVS. He also has an incredible story of overcoming adversity to get to where he is today.

In this episode they discuss...

His incredible “origin story”

“It wasn’t support in the sense that they were able to help me financially, but even encouraging words like ‘I believe in you. You can do this.’ You can’t put a monetary value on the impact that that can have on a kid.”

Delane grew up in a tough neighborhood in Detroit. He says that he had to avoid a lot of gang activity growing up and got his first job at a very young age as a sign twirler at a cell phone store. It was at the cell phone store where he got his first taste for entrepreneurship. There, Delane realized that he needed to be an owner in a business to earn significant money from it. At age sixteen, he set out to be a partner in other cell phone stores around town.

How he learned to set his sights high

“I was never interested in small-time business. I think that's because I had the exposure super early on from working with Sam to how much a person who owns a dozen cell phone shops made. I wasn't really interested in that. I was dreaming about vacations in the south of France.”

Delane had an aunt who was an executive at an auto company and she helped Delane by giving him business magazines, which helped form his life aspirations . He says that the individuals in his neighborhood typically didn’t have aspirations to make it big in business and that he was lucky to have family members who encouraged him to aim higher. He says that Jay-Z was his number one inspiration and explains why he is a “role model and icon” for Delane.

How he became comfortable with risk-taking and his advice about giving advice

“I try not to give people quote-unquote expert advice. People look at me as an expert because of the amount of money we raised or what we’ve accomplished. But I’m not an expert. People don’t realize the effect that expert advice has on entrepreneurs on young people finding their way.”

Having been exposed to business at a young age, he became comfortable with the mindset needed to take risks and be an entrepreneur. He built a few companies that didn’t end up working out and explains how certain pieces of advice that he heard from certain people who he considered to be mentors left him very deflated. Delane explains why he remembers that experience so vividly and why it means he avoids giving advice to young people.

What he learned from failure and why founder life is less glamorous than you think

“People think it’s very glamorous, but it’s not as glamorous as people think. There’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of responsibility. You’ve got to be prepared for it, otherwise you’ll really struggle.”

Delane explains what he learned from failure, including why he was so inspired by Groupon, the story of the subscription-based competitor he came up with, and why it didn’t end up working out. He says that there is always the possibility for redemption and recalls that even Steve Jobs was written off as a failure at one time. He also talks about the day-to-day of his work at PlayVS, why it’s not quite living up to the high hopes that magazines and television held for his imagined future, and why it’s nevertheless rewarding in other non-material ways

Of course, he also talks about some of his favorite products.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.