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How Melanie Cristol is Revolutionizing Women’s Intimacy with Lorals

August 30, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

How Melanie Cristol is Revolutionizing Women's Intimacy with Lorals

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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor interviews Melanie Cristol, founder of Lorals, a company creating latex lingerie to enhance women’s intimacy. Melanie shares her transition from corporate litigator to entrepreneur, driven by a passion for sexual wellness. She discusses the challenges of product development, the importance of market research, and leveraging social media for brand growth. Melanie also emphasizes the value of community and certifications for women-owned businesses. The episode highlights themes of empowerment, innovation, and the entrepreneurial journey, showcasing Melanie’s dedication to improving women’s intimate experiences.

Melanie Cristol is an entrepreneur and lawyer based in Los Angeles, California.

Melanie is the founder and CEO of Lorals, an award-winning manufacturer of STI-protective intimate wear. With customers in over 80 countries and educational videos amassing over 100 Million views, Lorals strives to reinvent intimacy and to help everyone feel comfortable, confident, and protected.

Named among Entrepreneur Magazine’s “100 Women” honorees, Melanie has been interviewed by The New York Times, Fast Company, Cosmopolitan, and The American Lawyer. She has spoken about tech, manufacturing, and sexual health at SXSW, Lesbians Who Tech, and at various colleges and universities nationwide. Melanie also holds five US and international patents for Lorals’ unique function, design, and manufacturing process.

Melanie founded Lorals after working as an attorney at an international law firm. There, she conducted internal investigations of multi-billion-dollar corporations, represented corporate executives in civil and criminal proceedings, and litigated mass actions on behalf of companies in the healthcare, consumer products, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. Melanie also played a role in securing gay marriage rights in the Western United States.

Melanie has also worked at MTV Networks, Lambda Legal, and the National LGBTQ Task Force. She attended school in New York City and graduated with honors from Columbia College and Columbia Law School.

Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn and follow Lorals on Instagram.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Melanie Cristol with Lorals. Welcome.

Melanie Cristol: Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Lorals. How are you serving folks?

Melanie Cristol: Yeah. So, Lorals are a sexual wellness product that I had been basically dreaming up for several years. What I was realizing is that so many women were able to experience a variety of forms of intimacy, but often a lot of that intimacy was tailored to what felt great for their partner and what led their partner to be able to climax.

Melanie Cristol: And what I realized through being a sex educator during college and through being involved with sex education for, basically, about 15 years after that point, I realized that what we generally think of as foreplay is the activity that will often lead women to be able to experience all of the joy of intimacy and to be able to have as many climaxes as possible. And yet there were so many products that were designed for intercourse rather than foreplay, and so I realized that I really wanted to dedicate a company to the activities during intimacy that helped women experience so much joy and excitement and led them to climax.

Melanie Cristol: And so, my company is called Lorals, it is short for our tagline Love Oral Always. And we essentially make latex lingerie that is ultra thin, incredibly stretchy, and it allows women to be able to experience the full sensations of oral, but then it blocks anything that might be holding them back from fully enjoying the experience.

Melanie Cristol: So, for example, our products are FDA cleared to protect against STIs. People will also use Lorals as a way to experience intimacy if they or their partner are overstimulated by scents, taste, or textures. They will be able to use our products to experience joy and satisfaction during menstruation. They’ll be able to use our products to experiment and have fun maybe in a way that’s sort of informed by 50 Shades of Gray. And basically be able to pull these on as sexy latex lingerie and say, yes, every single time.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about going from the idea to actually a product, what were kind of some of the challenges or some of the things you ran into when you were trying to get it out of your head and actually onto a person?

Melanie Cristol: Yeah. So, this was a very involved product to bring to market, probably much more so than I anticipated when I came up with the idea for the company. So, there is a product called dental dams or oral dams that has been on the market for about 30 years. As you might guess from the name dental dam, it actually is a product that was originally derived from dentistry. Basically a 10 inch by 6 inch sheet that was designed to isolate a tooth during a dental procedure. But then over time, it became the go-to product for STI protection during oral sex on a woman.

Melanie Cristol: And when I was a sex educator and teaching about dental dams, I really felt like they had a lot left to be desired. You had to hold them in place. You had to ensure that they didn’t flip over to the other side and potentially pass STIs onto the person that you’re deliberately trying to prevent them from being transmitted to. You also have this product that didn’t really have any marketing behind it and certainly didn’t have a lot of design work done towards it.

Melanie Cristol: So, I really wanted to reinvent that product and create something that was hands-free, that was beautifully designed, that really felt like fun lingerie. And so, I spent some time initially figuring out what type of manufacturer would make this product. Would it be a clothing manufacturer or would it be somebody who has a lot of experience making latex products like condoms and gloves? And it quickly became clear that the condom and glove experience and knowledge and expertise of being able to create multiple of these products using sophisticated machinery and ensure that they are ultra thin, that they’re incredibly stretchy, that they don’t have holes, that they can be stretched without breaking, those kinds of things, that that experience really existed in the condom and glove manufacturers.

Melanie Cristol: And so, after I realized that, I learned that the brain center for condom and glove manufacturing is located in Malaysia. Basically, the world’s largest number of condoms and gloves is produced in Malaysia. So, although Malaysia was very far to me – I had never been to that country before. I hadn’t even been to Asia at that point before – it also was convenient to know that, really, if I wanted to get more involved in this industry, there was one country that I could explore that would lead me to a lot of knowledge regarding this particular kind of product manufacturing.

Melanie Cristol: And so, I started networking from afar and I connected with several factories, probably about a dozen factories in Malaysia, started speaking with them generally about the type of product I was making. And then, I arranged several appointments with factories out in Malaysia. And so, several years ago, I had my first trip out to Malaysia, and I met with, probably at that point, eight or nine different factories to figure out who was the best partner to work on with this.

Melanie Cristol: And, you know, so many trials and tribulations through meeting with different factories, figuring out which one was the right one, then doing a ton of prototyping, a lot of product development. You know, there were plenty of ups and downs that entire time, but we eventually got this incredible product and we were able to bring it to market.

Lee Kantor: So, how long did it take from kind of idea to a product?

Melanie Cristol: Yeah. It was about three years, from the time that I started working on this to the time that we were in the market and selling the product. And I initially was maybe a little bit disappointed in myself. Like, you know, why didn’t it happen faster? And then, I learned that one of the most recent condom innovations, which was basically to take the existing structure of a condom and turn it into a whole bunch of small little hexagons, that innovation was created by an entire team at a large company, and it took them seven years to get to market. So, I was pretty proud after I learned of that transition time. And now we’re just so proud and excited to be able to provide our products to people worldwide.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you had the idea, was this something that you got investors and you went all in on or was this something you were doing while doing something else?

Melanie Cristol: So, before I started Lorals, I was a corporate litigator at a large international law firm, and I had done that for several years and had saved quite a bit of money. As I watched all of my friends buying houses and investing in real estate, which was probably a very smart thing to do as well, but that wasn’t really my dream. And I was trying to figure out what am I going to do with this money that I’ve saved up and how am I going to use it to make the impact on the world that I want to be able to do? And so, having that money saved definitely helped tremendously in being able to bring Lorals to market. We also did bring in several different investors and raised some money in addition to the money that I invested in the company.

Lee Kantor: So, you didn’t do this as kind of a side hustle. You kind of stopped lawyering and then went all in to being an entrepreneur?

Melanie Cristol: Yeah. It just felt at the time like this was a really big idea. And I felt as though if I were lawyering, that I wasn’t going to be able to give it the time and attention that it deserved. And that I just really felt like I needed to go all in completely or perhaps it would just kind of get left on the wayside and, you know, turn into another hobby that I had started.

Melanie Cristol: And so, looking back, I’m really glad that I made that decision because, I mean, honestly, it was so much harder than I anticipated it being, and I think that there would have been so many opportunities to just let it go and quit along the way, quit Lorals, that is. And I’m so glad that that was not an easy decision to make, to quit it and to have to try to find a new career again or to go back to law, but kind of, you know, start from scratch. So, not having a very strong and secured backup plan, I think, kept me from giving up at the various times that things got really tough. And I’m really glad that I didn’t because I’m so happy about where we are today.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you maybe share some advice for other people that are maybe in corporate jobs that appear secure and that are financially rewarding, but they have this itch that they’d like to scratch of a dream or an entrepreneurial path, but they haven’t kind of taken the leap yet. Any advice for going through that decision-making process?

Melanie Cristol: Yes, absolutely. So, I would spend a lot of time thinking about what are your values in life. What is important to you overall? How do you want to spend your day-to-day? And also what kinds of resources you need to have at your disposal in order to feel secure and comfortable and happy? I think that varies tremendously from person to person. And I think that a lot of things that entrepreneurs during the early years go without are comforts that many folks in corporate jobs just would not be interested in giving up, and rightfully so. It really just depends on who the person is.

Melanie Cristol: So, I love putting together charts when making hard decisions like this. So, personally, what I would probably do is kind of list all of the things that are important to me in my daily life and goals and values, and then probably assign weight to each of those things, and then go through and look at my plan for what would it mean to continue in my corporate job, what would it mean to continue or to go off and do this venture.

Melanie Cristol: And then, I don’t know, maybe a third option of something, you know, in between that’s still within the corporate realm, but maybe utilizes different skills or passions that the person has. And then, I would kind of do this like weighted analysis of each of those options and figure out numerically how awesome for you each of these particular routes could be. And then, use that to gauge your decision moving forward. You know, like if you find that you score 80 points out of 85 with moving forward with some kind of awesome venture like this, then that’s telling you a lot of good information, especially if you’re comparing it to, you know, 40 points from continuing in your career.

Melanie Cristol: But if you’re analysis ends up making you realize that you’re getting a lot of what you need out of life from staying in this corporate job, then that’s fantastic for you. And maybe you can find a way to do something like this as more of a hobby, you know, create an Etsy page and sell things here and there, or talk about your interest on social media or something like that.

Melanie Cristol: There’s plenty of outlets to do creative pursuits that do not involve quitting your corporate job and throwing everything at this one particular passion and interest of yours. So, yeah, I would say figure out what is important to you and what is going to get you to that point.

Melanie Cristol: And there’s a couple of books that I recommend for that. One of them is What Color Is Your Parachute?, which is a really awesome career change book that helps you really evaluate what you’re looking for in a workplace and in a career. I also read and enjoyed 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I learned through that book that I don’t necessarily need or desire a four-hour workweek. But what I thought was really valuable about that book was it really helps you think about what you would like about life on a day-to-day basis and how much money it’s going to cost to support that lifestyle.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that it took three years from idea to actually having a product in your hands. Were you getting clues that the market was receptive to this along the way or was this kind of, you know, build it and they will come until the very end when you actually had a product and you’re like, “Okay. Now, we’ll see if anyone’s actually going to buy this”?

Melanie Cristol: Oh. That’s such a great question. And absolutely, I think that, you know, to modify my advice from the last question, I do think that if you have a product that you are personally excited about, you really do want to test the market and figure out whether there is interest. That’s actually a component of the 4-Hour Workweek book. It goes into some detail about how to test the market and figure out whether there is interest out there. And, yeah, I engaged in a variety of surveys and tests to ensure that this wasn’t just something that I wanted, but that it was something that a wide variety of people wanted.

Melanie Cristol: And one of the things that I learned through that is I think that oral dams have, like I mentioned, existed for, like, about three decades and it’s a relatively large market. I don’t know, millions of units are sold per year. It’s not tens of millions, so it’s not a huge market. And it felt like I knew and our surveys reiterated the fact that we were going to be making a really notable improvement to dental dams and oral dams when they’re used in an intimate context. But is improving on a product that sells several million units a year, is that a large enough market?

Melanie Cristol: But what I learned through all of these customer interviews and surveys and all of those kinds of ways of assessing the market was that the oral dam was not serving the full range of interests people potentially had in a product that facilitated intimacy in this way. If you are feeling shy about intimacy, like for example, a lot of folks would tell me I really love the sensations of oral, but then when it comes to the reality of it, I don’t want somebody up close and personal like that. Those folks are not going to utilize an oral dam in their activities. They’re already feeling shy and uncomfortable. They’re certainly not going to want to hold up this bright colored sheet of latex in front of them. But the idea of incorporating lingerie into that activity is suddenly really exciting and erotic.

Melanie Cristol: And then, there’s a variety of other use cases that wouldn’t have worked for an oral dam, but then when you are talking about ultra thin, sexy lingerie, then the market suddenly becomes so much larger than millions of units per year. And so, that was an important thing that I learned during this surveying research process, that the interest of the market in a product that does what Lorals do was not being adequately served by oral dams, and thus our market for Lorals could be basically seven to eight times larger than the existing oral dam market. Plus, if we turn oral dams into something that is easy to use and fun to use, that massively increases the potential size of the oral dam market as well.

Lee Kantor: Right. That becomes the floor, not the ceiling.

Melanie Cristol: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Melanie Cristol: Yeah. So, that was one of the recommendations by a mentor that I have at JP Morgan. She was talking about all of the awesome small and medium-sized businesses that she works with that are in a growth stage, and was saying that so many of them are able to benefit from basically having their diversity related credentials certified by these independent agencies like WBENC. And that was leading them to be able to work with large buyers who have so many choices of potential vendors and will often provide additional support for folks that fit within the diversity spectrum. And then, often sometimes we’ll have quota programs that require them to purchase a certain number or a certain volume of product from companies that fit this diversity criteria.

Melanie Cristol: So, recently we got our certification as a woman-owned business, also as a woman-owned small business, also as an LGBT business enterprise, and also as a disability-owned business enterprise. And as somebody who has been impacted by being a woman, by being LGBT, by having a disability throughout the time of creating these products, it feels really special to be part of these different organizations that acknowledge the fact that because of those things, it can often be a lot harder to start a business and to grow it.

Melanie Cristol: And so, it’s really exciting that utilizing these certifications, we will be able to partner with more vendors over the coming months and grow our business and be able to take advantage of these awesome programs that are out there that are created by buyers.

Lee Kantor: So, what does Lorals need more of? How can we help you?

Melanie Cristol: We always love new forms of being able to get out to the market and let people know about our products. Social media has been a really huge gift for us, particularly TikTok. We are now at about 160,000 followers and I think we’re at about 7 million likes on that platform. And then, also, really big followings on Instagram and YouTube as well. But, you know, those are only portions of the potential market out there. Not everybody is on social media. And not everybody who is on social media is able to come across our content. So, it’s really exciting to be able to reach new audiences through things like podcasts and through things like WBEC-West.

Melanie Cristol: And also to meet folks who either are potential partners or are connected to potential partners. Over the course of the next few months, we’re definitely looking to expand in terms of our retail relationships. At this point, we just got a couple of new big accounts, so I think we’re in over 300 doors and e-commerce stores throughout the U.S. and the world, and we certainly want to be growing that substantially. And so, we’re making a lot of efforts to connect with retail partners. We also are sprucing up our packaging so that it flies off the shelf and is able to explain really clearly and in a fun and exciting way what these products are.

Melanie Cristol: Yet, you know, we recognize that we are making intimacy products and it’s something that a lot of folks are shy about. And so, we have figured out how to talk about our products in a way that is inviting and helps people feel comfortable bringing this product up to the register and purchasing it and going home and having a wonderful, exciting time.

Melanie Cristol: So, yeah, looking for new ways to reach new markets, new retail partnerships, and we just welcome any kind of exchange and connections that are out there.

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to learn more, is there a website or you mentioned several social channels, like what’s the best way to connect? Where can they look?

Melanie Cristol: Sure. So, our website is mylorals.com, and that’s spelled M-Y-L-ORAL-S, so M-Y-L-O-R-A-L-S-.com. And then, our handle on all of the socials is @mylorals. Also, you are welcome to reach out to us at hello@mylorals.com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Melanie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Melanie Cristol: Thanks so much. I really appreciate that. And thanks for providing this podcast for founders and CEOs and for having me on it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.

BRX Pro Tip: Add Storytelling to Your Next B2B Sales Pitch

August 30, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Add Storytelling to Your Next B2B Sales Pitch

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BRX Pro Tip: Add Storytelling to Your Next B2B Sales Pitch

Stone Payton : And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I’ve said it a lot. I genuinely believe it, that B2B sales are just different. There are a lot of commonalities between all kinds of sales activity, but there are some very distinct aspects of being successful in a B2B sales environment. What have you learned over the years in terms of selling B2B?

Lee Kantor: I think that when you’re selling B2B, you really should add storytelling to the mix of how you’re doing your sales pitches. Because I think that a lot of times B2B, we think, oh, that’s boring. They just want facts, they just want numbers, they just want the dollars. And that’s not what people want. That’s not what people remember. That’s not what’s going to persuade someone to take any type of action.

Lee Kantor: So the next time you’re meeting with a prospect, highlight a customer challenge and solution that resembles a challenge that your prospect’s going through, and describe that challenge your client was having, and share how your service solved their problem and helped them get to a new level.

Lee Kantor: Focus on the emotions of the problem, not just the nuts and bolts, not just the facts. Paint a picture with your words. Don’t just throw a bunch of numbers and PowerPoint slides at somebody. Make sure your enthusiasm shines through when you’re telling those stories. Your passion and your belief should be contagious. But leverage stories to help you sell more, faster.

How Lizette Espinosa Transformed from Attorney to Entrepreneur with infanttech

August 29, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

How Lizette Espinosa Transformed from Attorney to Entrepreneur with infanttech

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In today’s episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Lizette Espinosa, co-founder of infanttech. Lizette shares her transition from attorney to entrepreneur, driven by her experiences as a first-time mother. She discusses the development of their innovative product, the zooby® baby monitor for cars, which addresses safety concerns for parents while driving. Lizette highlights the challenges of launching a new product and the importance of community support for women entrepreneurs. She also shares future plans for infanttech, emphasizing continuous innovation and scaling efforts.

CEO Lizette Espinosa is the visionary behind infanttech, leading with strategy, creativity, & innovation.

A mother herself, she understands the customer base and is dedicated to building trust and ease for families.

Lizette’s passion for creating joyful, practical products & her clear understanding of customer needs drive infanttech’s success.

Connect with Lizette on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lizette Espinosa: Thank you so much for having me. I actually always like talking about business and women and entrepreneurship, so I’m excited.

Lee Kantor: I am too. Before we get too far into things, tell us about Infanttech. How are you serving folks?

Lizette Espinosa: Well, Infanttech was a company that was founded between me and my husband. We always joke around that it is our third baby because we created a baby monitor for cars called the Zooby. And we wanted to help first time moms, first time parents, and this specifically came into being because of my own experience with parenting and motherhood. And, you know, if someone would have told me we would be here today, I would not have believed it. I transitioned from being an attorney to running this company, but I love how we help first time parents, especially first time moms.

Lizette Espinosa: My personal journey being a first time mom, the first month, it’s like the world closed in on me, where I couldn’t believe how any woman could do anything else besides take care of a baby, because it was such a transitional point in life. And so, to know that we created a product that can help moms make this moment be a little bit easier for them, that actually brings me joy and I’m excited about that.

Lizette Espinosa: And then, also, Infanttech, there’s different pillars that we have in the company when it comes to employees, when it comes to financial contributions, when it comes to vision, so this is how we’re here.

Lee Kantor: So, tell me about kind of the beginning. So, you have a kid and then you have this idea and then you’re like, “Okay. My law practice, I’m going to put it on hold, and I’m going to just kind of be a product innovator in this space.” Like what occurred?

Lizette Espinosa: How did that happen, right? It definitely wasn’t that quickly. It was definitely a transitional journey. But I did have my law practice, I was litigating. And interestingly enough, that is actually a hard thing with the baby of like the start to stop of having my own litigation practice. And what happened when we came up with this idea, you know, my husband is the techie side, and so he created a prototype, and we started getting a lot of good feedback from people. They’re like, “Wow. That’s a great idea. How come that’s not out there yet?” Because we actually did break the market with this. A baby monitor for cars, it didn’t exist.

Lizette Espinosa: And so, we started off at the, you know, typical story of every Mondays at the kitchen table brainstorming and taking actions to get closer to this happening. I think the hardest part was the manufacturing. How do you actually create a product? And neither my husband and I had any experience here. But, eventually, I think when the idea happened to by the time that I transitioned fully into it, maybe it was about three years in and I actually love it now.

Lizette Espinosa: I love the combination of business and law. For me, my career was probably one of my most challenging parts of my life, where I have done different things in my life, and I’ve been trying to answer the question since I was about eight, what am I going to do with myself? And if somebody told me that I would be doing this, I would have said like, “Well, that’s actually interesting.” I wouldn’t have believed it, but I love it now.

Lizette Espinosa: Again, I actually love the combination of business and law. I get to be creative outside of just the legal field when it comes to product development, helping people. I love working with my team. And from the legal side, I actually love that I have this business with the legal background, because of my litigation experience, it’s easy for me to look at contracts. It’s one of those things where I might not be doing the day-to-day things, but I guarantee you that it comes up every single day. So, that’s how I ended up fully transitioning into this role.

Lee Kantor: And so, let’s get into the product, Zooby. You mentioned that it is a monitor of some kind, so how does it work? I’m on the website now, and it looks like it’s a stuffed animal of some kind and it has a video camera somewhere in its nose or its face some way.

Lizette Espinosa: So, actually, it’s a Zooby baby monitor for cars. And I actually have one right there. So, the camera, it’s inside the plush and it sits on the headrest facing a rear facing baby. Because I’m not sure if you’re aware of when you have a newborn, they’ve got to be rear facing for at least two years in the car. So, this makes it hard for the moms to be able to see them and they’re having these things where they need to turn around to look at them, which makes driving dangerous.

Lizette Espinosa: So, with the Zooby, you’ve got the camera facing the baby, and then you have a monitor screen, kind of like a GPS monitor or even like having your cell phone with your navigation system, and you put it on your dashboard, and now the parents can see their baby day or night when they’re driving. So, it took away the mirrors. Especially the night vision, so you can see your baby at night. You have a close up view. And if you’re taking quick glances, it’s just another tool for you to drive safely.

Lizette Espinosa: So, I’m so excited about what it does bring to moms and peace of mind. Because what happens to moms, and particularly the biological changes for moms, it’s like all of a sudden they were downloaded a program of got to keep this baby safe. So, their instincts to do things to keep their baby alive, sometimes you’re going to have those dangerous moments of that turnaround. Even though you know you’re not supposed to do it, you can’t help yourself. So, the Zooby here allows them to be able to focus on the road and still have their peace of mind that they’re safe and their baby is safe.

Lee Kantor: So, why was it important to put the monitor inside a plush animal?

Lizette Espinosa: You know, actually when we were creating it, it was out of how easily can we get it in the car. So, it became a function of ease of use, taking it in and taking it out. It allowed us to have the portability. And the good news about it is that it actually helps the baby. So, we get a lot of comments from moms that it soothes them. The baby smile at it. It’s one of those where it becomes a little buddy. And we just came up with different plush designs to help them. But it really was functionality at first.

Lee Kantor: And then, can it transform like into a nanny cam of some kind like if you brought it in the house?

Lizette Espinosa: So, you actually can still monitor in the house. It’s not a WiFi version, because it’s radio frequency, and that’s another conversation for another day. But it really does serve as a monitor where you can use it at home. So, if you have it in the nursery, then you can take the monitor screen inside. Even if you’re visiting grandma’s house, you’d still be able to use your Zooby. Or even if you’re traveling, you go to a hotel and sometimes baby has to sleep in a different room, you can still have your monitor. So, it is multifunctional.

Lee Kantor: So, when you had the idea and you brought it to market, how did kind of the initial launch of it go? Were you getting good traction right from go?

Lizette Espinosa: Actually, we did not. It was one of those where we needed to do some education because we did break the market into a baby monitor for cars. This didn’t exist before. At the beginning, I’d say all of the baby monitors, 99 percent are hardwired. Just have a wire and they stay in the nursery and that’s it. There really wasn’t anything for the car. So, at the beginning that was the head turner, it’s like, “What? For cars?”

Lizette Espinosa: And so, once we got the education part, like, yes, it’s for cars. Here’s what you get to do. I think some of our biggest challenges at the beginning was we broke out, we went to a trade show and we sold it to other vendors, and then they all put it on the Amazon market.

Lizette Espinosa: And we realized, “Oh. They’re like saturating the market.” So, we had to learn from that experience to bring it back, so that actually right now we control our Amazon market and we’re the brand ambassadors to our product. And, you know, after a few years, though, it definitely has taken off. And there’s been other products that had come out since, so I’m excited that now people do recognize that you can have a baby monitor for cars.

Lee Kantor: So then, what was it like kind of building that initial partner network? Had you ever done anything like that before?

Lizette Espinosa: Which part?

Lee Kantor: Well, when you said that there were several people that you were partnering with that were reselling the monitors.

Lizette Espinosa: Oh, those were the vendors. So, it’s interesting, we changed our business model. At the beginning, we started out selling to other vendors, so it was probably sold wholesale. And then, we realized it’s actually easier to sell directly to consumers. So, right now we’re an e-commerce brand. You’ll find us on our Shopify site and we sell on Amazon, Walmart, about to get into Macy’s.

Lizette Espinosa: And I actually appreciate this model better from a business perspective because I have direct contact with the consumers and the customers, so I get to know what they need and the feedback out there. So, I prefer the direct to consumer. So, we had to switch. Originally, I think when we dealt with vendors, it was harder also to control, like you would have price points all over the place.

Lee Kantor: Right. Well, that’s part of the learning curve of being an entrepreneur, right? You try things and then you adjust.

Lizette Espinosa: Yes. [Inaudible] you’ve got to do all along.

Lee Kantor: What is it like when you’re in the entrepreneur, you know, where you’re wearing the entrepreneur hat as opposed to the the lawyer hat in terms of kind of managing? How do you kind of grow this business? Because in this world, like you said, you were breaking a market, so you had to educate the market where being a lawyer, you know, that has its own set of challenges, but there was a path for being a lawyer.

Lizette Espinosa: You know, that question resonates with me when it comes to my experience in business. So, even though I had formal training in the law, I didn’t have a formal business background, even though I think a lot of things were transferable. So, I started taking just entrepreneurial courses, leadership courses, business development in a sense that it allowed me to learn more, like especially marketing efforts for new market, how do you reach this out to other consumers.

Lizette Espinosa: And it was a learning curve, but I love it. I love the part of now understanding, you know, everybody asks, What’s your value proposition? What is it that you’re offering to your consumers? What are their pain points? So, if that’s something from the business side of learning the business languages to have your business grow.

Lee Kantor: And then, especially when you’re talking directly to the consumer, you have to have a clear message that it resonates with them at emotional level. And I think your product really checks those boxes in terms of this is a point where when you’re a new parent, you literally can’t see your child for a period of time. And that’s a big source of anxiety. So, if you solve that problem, that’s a big emotional problem to solve for parents.

Lizette Espinosa: Yeah. It is. And like I said, this is something that I do resonate with. I don’t think enough people talk about how this moment in life, when you become a parent, it’s like your life will never be the same again. And it comes with some amazing joys and amazing rewards. But at the same time, it’s like you’re going through a growth stage personally for yourself of this new way of living. So, now when you get out of the house, it takes a little bit longer. You’re always trying to figure out something new.

Lizette Espinosa: I was sharing with other moms the other day that you’re kind of always flying off the seat of your pants, because there’s always these first time moments for you as a parent. And, again, with this particular pain point, it was the anxiety. It was the fact that mom is nervous. You would even have moms that might not drive during the day and they’re waiting for their partner to get home so that they can go somewhere because they’re afraid of the fact that they’re not going to be able to see their babies when they’re driving or this nervousness. So, now this Zooby actually allows them to be able to have that freedom, to be able to see, and, again, to calm their nerves a little bit to relax.

Lizette Espinosa: I think when it comes to even product development at Infanttech, we’re actually in the process of creating something new. And my point for that is it has to be easy to use, and it has to make parenting easier. If it doesn’t do those things, then it’s not something that we’re going to create.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Lizette Espinosa: You know, actually in part of my journey for learning more about entrepreneurship and business, I obviously built a network. I did a lot of programs that were women-led women organizations, so I have a lot of women entrepreneur friends. And so, WBENC came in and it made sense, too, because I was proud of the fact that we’re a women-owned business. And the more I was in it, I realized there were some amazing resources in there that there’s something about business. You cannot do it alone and there are so many resources out there to try to help you to build.

Lizette Espinosa: So, for WBENC, there are all these different seminars. There’s networking events. You meet amazing women. Last week, actually, I just joined the Pitch Academy session, and it was amazing. It was a session to get realigned with my why, with my product proposition, and the tool was so invaluable that I even afterwards was sharing with my other network friends. I’m like, “Hey, are you part of WBEC yet? If you’re not, I think you should join. There’s amazing resources.” And so, there’s so much value.

Lizette Espinosa: And it’s also an opportunity to give back. I also appreciate supporting other women business owners. It’s one of my passions. I know what it is to be at the beginning of starting the business, and there’s always a challenge that you have to solve. So, if there is something that I can do to help another woman take another step forward in reaching her vision, then I’m really happy to do that. So, this organization allows me to do that as well.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s next for Infanttech? Are you looking to grow? Are you continuing your growth? Are you looking to raise money? Are you building a team? What’s on the horizon?

Lizette Espinosa: All of those things. We’re definitely in a scaling phase right now. I think that is one of my biggest pieces right now is building a bigger team in the sense of from the strategic side. For example, right now it’s like I’m expanding my marketing efforts, my marketing team, and even product development. I’m very excited of some new products that are coming in line. We’re going to be launching something very soon in the breathing space.

Lizette Espinosa: And I’m just excited about that because I think the vision of what Infanttech can be of really using tech in a way where it’s intuitive, it’s simple to use, but we can make a difference for parents and moms. Then, you know, the ideas are there. We also, even for the Zooby, there’s a possibility to get into automotive partnerships. So, that’s something that we’re looking into as well. And everything is really like, how do we get to the next level?

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to learn more about Zooby and the other products, what’s the website?

Lizette Espinosa: infanttech.com, so that’s with two T’s.

Lee Kantor: So, just spelled out I-N-F-A-N-T-T-E-C-H.com?

Lizette Espinosa: Yes.

Lee Kantor: Well, Lizette, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Lizette Espinosa: Thank you so much, Lee. I really appreciate you having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.

BRX Pro Tip: Get Good at Explaining Things

August 29, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Get Good at Explaining Things

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BRX Pro Tip: Get Good at Explaining Things

Stone Payton : Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I know one of the things that I probably think about every day because I don’t know from time to time, I just feel like I could get so much better at it, but it’s communicating. Communicating to the people I’m trying to lead, communicating to the people I’m trying to serve, figuring out another way to frame something. You experience the same thing. What’s your take on that?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, absolutely. I think that one of the leader’s most important things they have to really be great at is explaining things, especially explaining how to do the most important parts of the work that you’re doing. And I don’t think people spend enough time on this, and especially on the basics of what you’re doing in your business world when you’re trying to train somebody, especially.

Lee Kantor: So, you have to explain things to people who know much less than you in very simple and clear ways. And don’t think of it, it’s because these people are dumb, because they’re not dumb, but they just haven’t spent as much time in this area of expertise as you have, and they haven’t gotten all the scar tissue you have by going down all these rabbit holes and wrong paths that lead nowhere. You’ve simply forgotten or repressed all of those things, and you’ve kind of just understand how to do certain things because you’ve been doing it for so long.

Lee Kantor: So it’s super important to kind of always look through the beginner’s mind of how to explain what you’re doing so that you can explain your product and your services and make them understandable and compelling to those people who aren’t you.

Lee Kantor: And you really got to get into the weeds of this and just keep explaining it. Ask people if they’re understanding it, you know, all the way through. Find the right anecdotes to share. Find the right examples that illustrate why what you do is effective and really kind of work on this over and over again. This is not something you do one time and then you’re done. This is something that you should always be tweaking and getting better and better and clearer and clearer when it comes to explaining kind of the basics of your business.

From Red Carpet to Diaper Kits: Baby a GoGo’s Bold Leap into Parenting Innovation

August 28, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

From Red Carpet to Diaper Kits: Baby a GoGo's Bold Leap into Parenting Innovation

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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor interviews Lindsey Shores, founder of Baby a GoGo, a company dedicated to simplifying parenting through innovative baby products. Lindsey shares her transition from a personal fashion stylist to an entrepreneur, highlighting the challenges of product development and manufacturing. She discusses the importance of community support, feedback, and the benefits of being a certified woman-owned business. Lindsey emphasizes the need for practical and efficient baby products and her commitment to inspiring other women entrepreneurs.

Lindsey Shores is the founder of Baby a GoGo, the first baby travel brand creating innovative products for parents on the go. Lindsey was a very frustrated mama who traveled to a luxurious resort with her family only to notice that there is a MAJOR gap and oversight on baby’s needs when traveling. Like any passionate, frustrated entrepreneur does, she immediately wanted to fix it.

The day after returning from her trip, Lindsey had a company name in mind and bought the domain. Lindsey is a post fashion stylist and designer and while this industry is very different than what she’s worked in before, she’s learned so much from teaching herself how to sketch, to having a pop up at the Urban Outfitters Brooklyn store for women’s line, to styling large influencers for their big events.

Lindsey LOVES working with people and solving issues and that’s what’s led her here today.

Follow Baby a GoGo on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women in Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we have Lindsey Shores with Baby a GoGo. Welcome.

Lindsey Shores: Thank you. So happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn about Baby a GoGo. How are you serving folks?

Lindsey Shores: So, I’m a mother of three. I have ages eight, six, and a three-year-old, almost four. And I am here to create better, more innovative, essential baby products to make – like I like – depending on the situation, I like to say it makes parent life less sweaty because it can be really stressful, but here to make it a little bit smoother and modernize products that have not been updated for years and years and years that are feeling really behind the times to make parent life a lot easier.

Lee Kantor: So, were you always making products before you had kids?

Lindsey Shores: No. Good question. I’ve actually been a personal fashion stylist for about 15 years. I still do projects here and there. Sounds fun. I started actually as a red carpet stylist in my early 20s, an assistant there, and I grew into my own personal styling company I had for multiple years, and I’ve worked in television, a lot of editorial and personal shopping and consultation or, excuse me, consulting as well.

Lindsey Shores: So, they’ve been quite the random pivot, but I have also created my own women’s fashion line pre-COVID. And I got my hands really dirty and understood how factories and product development and everything worked hands-on. And so from there, I – yeah, I found a new love and passion and problem that I wanted years later.

Lee Kantor: So, what was the first Baby a GoGo problem that you solved?

Lindsey Shores: So, we have created – I have created a diaper kit called the Dipe N’ Wipe, and it’s an on-the-go diaper kit that fits into your pocket. And it includes one diaper and five wipes. The little pile of five wipes was – it’s an uncommon thing. So we’re working on separate – selling those separately as well. But it’s a diaper kit that’s compact and vacuum-sealed. So it’s as big as, you know, George Costanza’s wallet, actually smaller, I should say if anyone is familiar with that episode. But I kind of joke that it’s like the man’s new diaper bag but it’s also the woman’s because, I mean, I have three kids. The more you have kids, the less you want to carry. And it feels ridiculous to run into obstacles and situations where you have to go buy 15 more diapers when you actually just need one.

Lee Kantor: And so you have this idea, then how did you kind of build it out and then get it manufactured?

Lindsey Shores: Yeah. So, like I mentioned, I did a women’s line. So just a little backstory, I didn’t know how to sketch. I am still not a great sketcher or drawer or anything, but I worked in fashion for so long. I had a great idea of doing women’s long shorts that were appropriate for the office, at home, that you could play around with your kids, and so I taught myself how to sketch, and I hit the market six months later with 15 pieces, and I was ready for retail, ready for the pop-ups, everything. And this product – the difference with Dipe N’ Wipe compared to the woman’s entire clothing line I did, and astronomically different and more challenging because it’s a new idea.

Lindsey Shores: And to hone in on the correct packaging and make sure that it’s as sustainable as it can be because the product itself is, you know, creating a lot of problems in the landfill so trying to juggle that idea along with making it appealing and understandable. I actually worked with a factory in China for my fashion line, and I got really close to the lady there that was, basically, I mean, she’s young, she’s very young at the time. But she was on top of things and made the factory run and was my communicator there. And I actually flew to China and worked with the factory hands-on for about a week. And so I got to know her really well, and we ran around to all the markets together, spent a lot of time together, and I actually reached out to her again to help me with this product.

Lindsey Shores: And so, it’s – she’s been an awesome partner overseas, I guess you should say. I just hired her out to help with the random things that I need on sourcing different products. I describe exactly what I need and she is really great and we have a great connection of understanding each other really well.

Lee Kantor: Now, for folks who aren’t familiar with how to work with somebody overseas like that, do you have any advice that you can share about doing something like that? Because it seems for some people a pretty daunting challenge to just, you know, trust, I guess, you’re working over Zoom or you have an idea. I mean, there’s some fear. Like, are they going to steal my idea? Like, there’s all kinds of emotions that go into this. Can you share maybe your experience and what you’ve learned? Maybe some advice?

Lindsey Shores: Yes, definitely. So, I had no idea what to do or how to start myself. And I started literally googling China factories when I first came across them. And when I was doing my fashion line, most factories wanted to do a quantity of at least a thousand pieces of each product. And I talked them down, this one factory that was willing to do 500, and I talked him down to doing 100, per piece, because obviously it’s just a lot of upfront cost.

Lindsey Shores: But I literally googled and reached out to probably 75, maybe 50 to 75 factories. Most of them just a quick response of like, “Yeah, we can’t do low minimums,” “not interested,” you know. And I felt very lucky to come across them. And we started communicating through WhatsApp and I started – you know, it was very delicate at the beginning because I didn’t know where the trust was.

Lindsey Shores: And we just became very thorough. She would send images and there were pieces that I would be developing. I would send her videos of kind of like my sketches of the line, and that’s kind of the same route that we’ve been going- the exact same route we’ve been doing for the Dipe N’ Wipe and communicating that way. So obviously, their time is almost like a world – like, you know, their nighttime is our daytime.

Lindsey Shores: So, I remember during the fashion line, like, I would wake up in the middle of the night and hop on my computer for an hour or two to get things done. And for this product, this go round, we basically – she will, you know, go source, go to the market, and then she’ll send me that night what she found. And that night is my morning. And so it kind of just really worked itself out. And we just continued to build trust there.

Lindsey Shores: As far as feeling worried about the idea getting stolen, I actually have an IP attorney. We did have a patent pending for a long time and still may go that route again. But, you know, just can’t completely patent a product is what it kind of comes down to completely make it to not be copied ever. There’s not, like, a full way to do that. And if someone were to copy it completely, the amount that it takes to go take them down is pretty extravagant. And so at this time, we’re just, you know, crossing our fingers that there will be knockoffs but, you know, if you’re kind of the OG, then that’s kind of the hope that the brand could sustain on its own.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you had the idea, did you – before you got into manufacturing it, did you do any type of focus group or testing of any kind, or did you just kind of take the leap? And then once you had those initial 100 that you were going to then see if the market would buy it.

Lindsey Shores: So, the 100 was actually the fashion line. Are you talking about the diaper?

Lee Kantor: Oh, the diaper. Yeah, the Dipe N’ Wipe.

Lindsey Shores: Right. So, the Dipe N’ Wipe, we had to do a much larger order because diapers have a much higher minimum, minimum of requirement, minimum quantity, I should say. But no, I did do a lot of testing, a lot of testing, a lot of surveying, a lot of sharing the product idea and physically sending them out to a lot of my high-profile influencer friends, having them test the product, giving me feedback constantly, constantly on the design, the wrap itself, the size, the amount of wipes.

Lindsey Shores: Yeah, I did a lot of surveying and testing, and that’s how we kind of landed on everything as far as, like the packaging, the aesthetic. I have an awesome shot from different product designers. And we’ve tested that route as well. And we’ve tested out what type of diaper, what sizing to start with, the amount of wipes to start with, and any and all feedback. So it’s definitely, like, down to the product we have now. But we went through a lot of renditions. It actually started with having three diapers in a kit or possibly five diapers with 20 wipes. And then it came down to be one and how we just really feel like we need a one-stop shop plan and backup product for when people are in a pinch.

Lee Kantor: And then are you selling this direct-to-consumer, like through your website or through Amazon, or is this in stores?

Lindsey Shores: Yeah, we’re not on Amazon right now, probably considering, but we are in a handful of stores. We’re onboarding one of the largest travel agencies through some of their big Atlanta stores here in the next couple of months, as well as a bunch of their major turnpikes. And then we’re also rolling out to a large grocery store on the East Coast. And then we have them in a handful of pharmacies, groceries, convenience stores as well. And then we do duty as well from our website.

Lee Kantor: And then what – did you have a background in kind of rolling out into retail like that, or is this something you’re also kind of learning on the fly?

Lindsey Shores: I think I have some experience. I mean, my fashion line was sold directly to consumers as well. But I have – I don’t know, I’m very familiar with retail. I’ve been around it a lot. I think my experience in China really suited and helped me understand how things worked as far as the manufacturing side, and then coming over to the retail side. And I’m just a very, like, ground running. Like, I will just go knock on doors, like walk into Maverik headquarters with my fashion line. I stopped in Seattle and snuck my way up to Nordstrom’s headquarters. And I have no problem just, like, going to people face to face and talking to them about what I have because I have such a big passion for it.

Lindsey Shores: And it works a lot of the time that people are, they understand the product and, you know, half of the product, 50% of it, product status or, excuse me, like success is the product and 50% is the person, right? And kind of just like how hard they’re working and pushing and that people want to work with them. And so that’s how I found a lot of it.

Lee Kantor: So, what was the reason you got involved with WBEC-West? Why was it important to be a certified woman-owned business?

Lindsey Shores: Yeah, it was really important to me because I have been working on this company now for two and a half years, and it’s just me. I hire out different things when it comes to design, when it comes to, I mean, maybe some social ideas, but mostly it’s just me. And knowing the grueling amount it takes of time and the amount it takes of emotion with the family, and the females, you know, are often not highlighted in different routes, but they are in different ways.

Lindsey Shores: I came across WBENC and was so excited to know that they were, you know, integrated with WBEC and they had a lot of these events to promote and bring this community together females and women owners and women creators and women designers and people in tech and everything. And I just, I love I got home and a space for, excuse me, people that can understand me as far as the hardship of entrepreneurship. And then on top of that, for your family within that and promoting exciting everyone, especially young females that they too can create a product and still be a stay-at-home mom and be a female.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Lindsey Shores: Yeah. I’ve really enjoyed the events I’ve hopped on. You know, it’s been very special and exciting and always so interesting to hear everyone’s path and journey. I think – I don’t know, that’s a good question. I feel like I’m very much aware of all the awesome offerings you guys do, and I think it’s been very positive. But I think just, you know, I guess promotion or sharing more ideas, I think more groups of coming together and kind of exploring and bouncing ideas off of each other. And brainstorming is always like, those are fun luncheons and breakfasts and do with people because otherwise a lot of us are working on our own day-to-day.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there anything that Baby a GoGo needs? Do you need more customers? Do you need more retail partners? Do you need funding? What do you need to continue your growth?

Lindsey Shores: Yeah, I think down the road, maybe more in the future, we possibly might be open to funding. But at this time, yeah, we would love everyone to just visit our site, see the importance of the product, and test it out, see how it works for them. I’m still open to feedback always. I love getting critical feedback and knowing how to develop things better.

Lindsey Shores: I also just – yeah, I love having people spread the word and excitement on products that are trying to make life easier for us parents because it can be so tricky. And so, I think just understanding the story, as well as just seeing the product and being excited and sharing that through socials or just by word of mouth is always, you know, the most important way of sharing anything.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Lindsey Shores: Yeah, it’s thebabyagogo.com. And you can hop on there and see that we have our Dipe N’ Wipe kit. We also have – we’re rolling out soon on the site, but we haven’t really technically promoted anything of it yet, but it’s called the Magic Wipe, and that’s a tiny little exciting product that you put on of your hand. You press down the center and it expands into a wipe. And it’s a very, like, wow factor product that’s been really fun.

Lindsey Shores: But yeah, I would love people to hop on there and test out the product and see if they have any thoughts or ideas on it. I love collaborations as well. It’s always exciting when people want to work together if they also own a baby company or a woman’s postpartum company or anything like that.

Lee Kantor: Well, Lindsey, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Lindsey Shores: Thank you, Lee. It’s been awesome to be here.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.

BRX Pro Tip: Make it Look Easy

August 28, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Make it Look Easy

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BRX Pro Tip: Make it Look Easy

Stone Payton : And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s chat a little bit about that all-important part of the conversation, where you’re trying to get a prospective client to take some action in your direction. What insight do you have on that?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think it’s really important when you want to move somebody you’re talking to to become a sales prospect and that they enter a pipeline and they are sincerely interested in learning about your solution. If you can get them a – if you can identify whatever their biggest challenge is and then give them a solution that’s easy for them to get a quick win with, I think you’re well on your way to having a really good system that will help move people through the pipeline and get them to become clients.

Lee Kantor: At Business RadioX, we have a really great system that helps our clients fill up their sales funnel with prospects who are excited to meet them. It’s an easy system. They get success really fast. They see almost immediately that the activities that we recommend are bubbling up the exact right people for them, and it’s putting them in a really advantageous place when it comes to this relationship building.

Lee Kantor: For most professional service providers, meeting new people and building relationships is difficult, but not for the Business RadioX folks. We figured this part out and we have an easy way to make it happen for our clients.

Lee Kantor: Professional service providers know if they need an easy way to fill their sales funnel that Business RadioX can help them. And if you don’t have an easy way to be filling up your sales funnel, you should be figuring out a way to do that. And it should be built around solving your client’s biggest problem. You know, we’ve been working on this for a long time at Business RadioX, and we have that solution. Maybe you should too.

Michael Scott with Sunder Energy

August 27, 2024 by angishields

Houston Business Radio

Michael Scott with Sunder Energy

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Michael Scott, Regional Sales Manager with Sunder Energy, is a passionate traveler, food enthusiast, and educator originally from Lafayette, Louisiana. With an engineering degree in hand, he began his career in project management, where he spent five years building homes from the ground up. After Hurricane Harvey, Michael moved to Houston, Texas, to contribute to disaster recovery efforts.

In 2019, Michael transitioned into the solar industry, driven by attractive tax incentives and historically low interest rates. Since then, he has focused on helping Texas homeowners take advantage of new programs that enable solar panel and battery installations with no out-of-pocket costs.

Michael is a firm believer in the potential of energy deregulation over the next 5-10 years, as rising electricity rates drive demand. His mission is to educate and guide homeowners in determining whether solar energy is the right fit for their needs.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It’s my pleasure today to introduce you to Michael Scott, regional manager at Sunder Energy. Michael is passionate about renewable energy and its benefits for the environment and the economy. Michael, I’m so glad to have you on today. Welcome to the show.

Michael Scott: How’s it going, Miss Trisha? Um, nice to meet you, everybody.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Fantastic. So, Michael, tell us a little bit about you, and then we’ll jump into what it is that you’re out there doing.

Michael Scott: Okay, so, um, my name is Michael Scott. I moved to the Houston area about six years ago whenever Hurricane Harvey hit. Uh, just working disaster recovery. And, like, port Aransas and, like, Corpus Christi areas where the storm was super bad. So that’s kind of what got me out to Houston about six years ago. The biggest problem with that is that is disaster recovery. So as soon as we fix the problem, then, you know the funding is out and you’re out of a job. So essentially that kind of left me in Houston with no job. And that’s whenever I reached out to a friend and he was doing solar and he was like, come do this solar stuff. There’s no money out of pocket. There’s they don’t have to. They can turn their electric bill into a bill. They have to pay anyways into an asset back into their house. And, you know, the interest rates were 1 or 2%. So that’s kind of like what got me into doing solar. About five years ago, I graduated with from UL Lafayette with an engineering degree, uh, project management building houses from the ground up my whole life. So that was kind of what I did from 21 to 27. And the past five years, I’ve kind of, you know, been in the renewable solar solar sector.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, one of the reasons I asked you on the show is because of your energy. I love your energy and I also love your transparency. We talked a lot about, you know, solar is not necessarily for everyone or every house because everyone has a different situation. Before we started the show today, you were telling me about, you know, these neighborhoods where they have lots of trees and that may not be the right place to install solar. So let’s talk a little bit more about your passion around this renewable energy, and why it’s so important to you to get the message out to people about solar?

Michael Scott: Uh, I guess the biggest thing is kind of like a quote that I had read, like from Warren Buffett. It’s like energy deregulation will be the largest transfer of wealth. So it’s just like essentially two, 200 years ago, whenever everybody wanted electricity, nobody cared how we got it. They just wanted it. So like, if you think about it now, we’re getting all of our power from power lines and wooden poles and all this old infrastructure. So essentially the reason why electricity rates are going up at such a high rate is because for me personally, I think that electricity is the most important thing outside of air. You know, it’s air and then electricity is pretty much where I would rate it. So that means that it’s always going to be in an abundant like people are going to need a lot of electricity for a long time with more and more electricity, electric cars coming out and everything. There’s just more, uh, stress on the infrastructure. So they have to go to alternative. It’s not like it’s not like solar is competing with oil. I don’t think I grew up in an oil field family. My dad’s a mud engineer, so I don’t think their income like they’re competing. They’re just so much need that they can both kind of like work together. So I just see the amount of electricity rates just going up because they were so low long ago, because there wasn’t as much need for it. But now with the need increasing, the price is rising up, matching it. So that’s kind of why I got into solar.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So I’m going to take us down this path of you talked about the infrastructure And we’re just coming out of a pretty nasty hurricane here in the Houston area. Talk about the difference between having because I know you have solar on the place that you live in. Let’s talk about the difference between having solar going through a storm and being on the on the backside of that. Right. And people who are relying on power through this old infrastructure. So tell me about that experience.

Michael Scott: So for me, the main thing that I kind of took away from it after the fact is that I was just a little bit more self-sufficient. You know, I didn’t have my lights running like the whole time. It’s not like you have, you know, batteries and you have solar in your house is always just going to be powered up. It’s not that’s not how it actually is. But I did have more than most of my neighbors. Like most of my neighbors, their refrigerators weren’t powered up, so they lost a lot of food. So it’s like those little things are what I had that other people didn’t have. But I also did get my Powerwall and my battery like 3 or 4 years ago. So I got the first Powerwall, which was double the price and half the capability, just like getting a Tesla. 5 or 6 years ago. Now they just came out with the Powerwall three. So it’s kind of like why I wanted to get on you was like on this call with you at this time. It just so happened to be like the perfect timing because the Powerwall three is out and the power in Houston is really bad. So this Powerwall three is half the price and double the capability. So it’s essentially it covers a lot of people for not having to go get generators, not having to go, you know, stay with the same electric company. This is a good like alternative for people that they can power up most of their house.

Michael Scott: And it’s also like half the price. So and there’s no money out of pocket as the main thing that I’ve always like liked about solar. Right now, interest rates are high, cash is low. People don’t want to be spending money. So my goal is that, like with this product, it’s a government funded program that essentially it’s called the IRA. So essentially what happens is I get you approved, they put the panels on your roof, and now you just start paying for your panels production instead of paying the grid to deliver electricity to you. So it’s not like a loan anymore. You don’t have to get a debt. You can always do those options with tax benefits, but there’s like a lot more options now that are like tailoring to, you know, everybody. It’s not just like the rich people go get a loan and, you know, have to spend a bunch of money and get out your solar. It’s not like that anymore. You’re just basically buying your power from the panels at a wholesale rate instead of getting it from the grid. So that’s what’s super nice. We can always attach the batteries too. That’s just like a bonus. It just makes your house self-sufficient. It’s not going to make your house always have power. It’s just for the most part, you can kind of use your energy from your panels and your battery instead of going to the grid. That’s kind of how you don’t get an electric bill.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And that that totally makes sense. So I appreciate that you’re bringing light to it doesn’t it doesn’t have to cost as much as it used to right before we started recording the show I shared with you. You know, when solar first came out and I’m. I’m not that old, but, you know, I’m old enough to remember when it first became available to residential homeowners. That was very, very expensive and most people couldn’t afford to get into solar. Plus, I think it was a lot bigger and bulkier. And it wasn’t necessarily, you know, as cost efficient or even as, um, size efficient as it is now. And I think that that’s really important. So, Michael, uh, give people some contact information. How about right now and then we’ll do that again at the end. But in case people are really curious and want to contact you about solar, how can they find you?

Michael Scott: So essentially it’s super easy. All you do is you send me over an email or a text with your most recent electric bill. My phone number is (281) 432-7296. And my email is Michael Scott at Sunder Energy Com. S u n d e r energy dot com. Essentially all they do is they text me over their electric bill. With that I can see the bar graph to see how much energy they use a year. And then with that information, I go look at their house to see how good their roof is. You need to have a south facing roof that’s open to the sun. You have to be the homeowner, and you have to be current on your mortgage and your allege and your car payments and stuff like that. So that’s all they need. Essentially all they want to do is they want to utilize your roof space to generate power for their grid. So all my job is to do is make sure that your roof can produce that energy at an efficient rate. The more efficient your roof is, the more sun your roof gets, the lower your electric rate is, essentially. So that’s all I do is I just find out a lower fixed, predictable rate for you with money you have to spend anyways. So we can all agree that we all have to spend 200 to $300 on our electric bill every single month, right?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Scott: Okay, so if you can use that money and put it back into your house, it would make sense if the numbers would work right?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. For sure.

Michael Scott: And of course, the biggest thing is that most people just need the proper expectations. Like a lot of reps are going to come out here and tell you that you’ll never have an electric bill. You’ve heard a lot. You know, you never have an electric bill. You just can’t. I can’t guarantee that because if it’s rains for a whole month, you would still have an electric bill. So that’s what I like to do. I like to just like, explain it to you fully and in totality. The biggest thing is that like center point, they just had all their grids get damaged, all the power lines go out, but yet they’re coming. Ask you for an increase on your rate, right. For all their stuff is broken. So if you’re going to pay, I’d rather pay less for something that’s not broken now than pay more for something that we already know is broken. Because like, there’s a lot of questions like, what does solar really work? You know, all this stuff. But it’s like, right now your electric grid doesn’t work and you’re paying more for it. So like, I don’t really see that question making sense, you know?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah absolutely. Another thing that you brought up before we started recording is that there are some areas in Houston where you just can’t power up a generator. Like that’s not an option in some neighborhoods, uh, or in housing areas, you know, fill in the blank. Right. Um, so having solar energy or something sustainable like solar energy is such a better option for people who may be in a position. Hey, listen, I don’t know how to start up the generator either, so how cool would it be, right, if I didn’t have to start up the generator, find somebody to start up the generator for me. And it’s also dangerous. Or can be dangerous if you don’t treat that generator the right way. So, you know, back to your point on having this sustainable, sustainable solar power is just cleaner and better for the environment, right?

Michael Scott: Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s also a true statement. That’s what I did notice that a lot of like in Houston, they’re starting to build a lot more townhouses. So the houses are very close. So essentially with the city you just need certain amount of area to have a generator. So if your house is right next to somebody else’s house, you can’t have a generator just because of the emissions and things. So I love about the powerwalls. They go straight into your garage. It’s like a three by six and it sticks out maybe like 1 or 2in from your wall. So it’s like you don’t even notice it’s there. It’s right there. It’s double the capability and half the price now. So essentially they just want your house to use its own energy because it’s got to the point where the grid is just can’t withstand everybody pulling from it. So if you think about it, they always send out those emails between 4 to 7. Don’t use your AC. It’s like, that’s the only time I want to use my AC and everybody listens to this. But it’s like if you think about it, it’s like everybody’s pulling from that grid at that prime time and then the power goes out. You know, it’s just it’s not like it’s rocket science why the power can’t handle what we’re doing. It’s just because it’s 110 degrees outside. So all we’re doing, the biggest thing is we’re just using the sun. The sun’s never going to change its price. They’re not never going to be like, hey, we need more repairs for the sun.

Michael Scott: The grid is always just damaged. So we’re just it’s the IRA. It’s called the Inflation Reduction Act. The government has it. They put $300 billion into it. So essentially they’re just saying, hey, the more homeowners that put solar on their house, it’s going to reduce inflation just because you’re not going to have to go fix all the old infrastructure as fast, it’s going to be able to slow it down. So that’s all one is. They’re dumping that money into it. So the biggest thing that I love about my job is just showing people like a lot of stuff that they don’t know about, you know, like everybody has their job that they go to to work all day. And I do this all day, you know? So if you just basically the biggest thing is me just seeing if your house is a good fit, that’s that’s all I do. It’s not about I’m going to try to keep it off the front of your house. I’m going to try to make it look pretty. I’m going to have you save money. Day one I’m going to have you never give me a dollar. And usually most homeowners, I give them rebates of 500 to 500,000. So it’s like my goal is to never have you give me anything, use that money you’re spending every single month. Anyways, put it back into your house while getting some rebates and you know, and just proper expectations of what to expect with the system is my main goal. So yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, Michael. So we don’t have to shell out any money so long as our roof fits the expectations right, or the specifications that you said it needs to be south facing. You can’t live in a really heavily, heavily wooded area. It needs to have a clear view of the sky and make sure it has the right amount of space, right for the solar panels to to go on the roof. And we don’t have to pay you. Did I hear you right? You said we don’t have to pay you nothing.

Michael Scott: Basically, how we make our money is 30 to 60 days after your panels get installed, you start paying for that. Those solar panels that are producing your energy. And the goal is that if it’s done properly, that it’s going to reduce your electric bill and you pay this, you know, so your ledger bill starts here. You reduce it and then your solar payments here. So you’re saving money. It’s just like, basically I’m knocking on people’s doors that are renting an apartment. I’m saying, hey, I have this great offer. I can pull you out of that apartment today. Your rent’s 1500. I’m going to move you into a house that’s 1400. You never give me a dollar. And now you own this house. Yes. They might say, well, what happens if the washing machine breaks now? It’s like, well, you’re going to have to fix that now. But, you know, that’s, you know, other things that we ask, you know, that’s always the three biggest questions. What happens if I move. You know, what happens if you know something happens to the solar panels and then am I going to still get an electric bill? So that’s basically all I’m there to do is I bring over a report to you, I answer those three questions, and then from there we make a decision. You know, all I am is basically the guy that can submit everything for you. But that’s the main questions.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, you’re taking the hard out of it, which is very nice, right? As the homeowner, I get to engage with you and you get to do all the work.

Michael Scott: And We at the end of the day, me or you don’t have to do the work. I just submit everything over and they take the steps, they take the permits, they take care of everything, HOA approval, all those things we we’ve done, you know, 500 plus of these over the last five years. That’s just me personally. And I have teams doing, you know, thousands of them and in every couple different markets. So it’s not like it’s just Texas. Like I can work in California. It’s essentially all you do is you just see what kind of rebates the the states are giving. You see what kind of, you know, credits the electric companies are giving, and then you see what kind of sun hours are in those markets. And then that’s when I determine, like if it’s going to work for them or not, like somebody in South Carolina, their systems, 25,000 in just this weekend, they’re paying for 65% of it between the federal tax credit and the South Carolina tax credit. It’s literally the net systems like $12,000. Wow. And that’s like after like credits and stuff. So it’s really good for a lot of people if they’re trying to save money and it’s good for people. They don’t want to pay money in taxes. That’s the main reason why I got it, because essentially the government’s just saying, hey, you’re already paying this money into taxes. If you put solar on your house, we’ll give you back the money that you paid into taxes. So it’s not like they’re giving you any money. They’re just giving you back your money that you’re giving them just by offering you.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. That’s fantastic. So Michael, again, would you give your contact information. So anybody who wants those three questions answered wants to know more about solar. Or maybe they’re just interested in having you come out and visit with them. How do they find you?

Michael Scott: So my number is (281) 432-7296. And my email is Michael Michael Scott at Sunder Energy .Com. So you can email me or text me. Just introduce yourself. And then from there I’ll give you a call or an email. I get your electric bill and then we see if we can make it work and if we can, then I set up a time. It takes about 15 or 20 minutes. Essentially, I’m there to show you the information and answer your questions. That’s all I’m here for.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s fantastic. Michael, I know you’re so passionate about this space. I’m so glad that you and I were connected. And I’m so glad that you came on the show with me today. Is there anything else that you’d like for folks to know about this sustainable or renewable energy of solar power?

Michael Scott: Uh, the main thing is just it’s it’s a bill that you have to pay every single month. Anyways. You might as well check out your options every one or 2 or 3 years. You have to sign up with the new electric company anyways, so all I do is I give you a lower rate for a longer time. Uh, and worst case scenario, if it doesn’t make sense, we’re still shake hands, be friends. It’s not a big deal, but at least you know your options. So that’s the main thing.

Trisha Stetzel: Awesome. And you’re very well connected. So even if it’s not you, you could probably connect them with somebody that they want to meet anyway, right? Yes.

Michael Scott: Yes, I know a lot of people and a lot of states, so we can always work together in some sort of some sort of fashion.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, fantastic. Michael again, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. Everyone. Michael Scott, Regional Manager, Thunder Energy. Again, so passionate about renewable energy and the benefits to the environment as well as the economy. He’s here to serve you and educate you even if you don’t think you’re ready to buy right now. He can definitely educate you on or in this space. You’ve been so nice to come on with me today. Thank you so much, Michael.

Michael Scott: All right. Thank you, Miss Trisha. Have a great day.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in a Houston business economy.

Building a Sustainable Future: Michelle Roberts’ Innovative Approach to Agriculture

August 27, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Building a Sustainable Future: Michelle Roberts' Innovative Approach to Agriculture

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On this episode of Women in Motion, Michelle Roberts, owner of Roberts Ranch and Garden, shares her inspiring journey of establishing a community-supported agriculture (CSA) business during the 2008 financial crisis. She discusses the construction and benefits of hoophouses, which allow for year-round growing and sustainable farming practices. Michelle explains the differences between hoophouses and greenhouses, and how her business evolved to include building hoop houses for others. The episode highlights her commitment to food sustainability, community empowerment, and the importance of education in promoting healthy, locally grown food.

Michelle Roberts, Owner of Roberts Ranch and Gardens, is a Master Gardener and has grown in hoophouses for more than 10 years. She’s the designer of their hoophouses, and they have one 24′ and two 90′ houses. Michelle ran a CSA Farm and supported three Farmer’s Markets a week in the growing season.

She started the company “Backyard Hoophouses” offering small hoophouses to the backyard gardener. Over the years the business has grown. They changed the name and have become the only NRCS approved hoophouse kit provider in their state and many of the surrounding states.

Michelle’s goal is for the people of the world to become more “Food Sustainable” by growing food in their own backyards, patios, roof tops or garden community groups. Their structures will allow them to do that.

Follow Roberts Ranch Hoophouses on Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Michelle Roberts: Thank you. I’m going to enjoy this.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Roberts Ranch and Garden. How are you serving folks?

Michelle Roberts: Well, about 15 years ago – well, when was 2008 when everything crashed? – we were in the midst of hard times. And I have seven acres here and I thought, “Well, okay. I am a master gardener. We can do this.” Because I had a lot of children and they were teenagers and they needed a job, but we’re rural and I wasn’t going to be a chauffeur, so I said we are going to create a CSA farm, and that is Community Supported Agriculture, and it was just barely beginning at that time.

Michelle Roberts: And so, in order to do that, I needed to start my own starts. So, I designed and built a little hoop house, which is just steel and plastic structure that is a Quonset style. You see them all over the nurseries and the garden centers. And so, I built this little 20 by 24 hoop house, and we started thousands of starts in that hoop house, and we planted them out in our garden and I cultivated as much as I could. We sold shares in the produce and it got us through those hard times.

Michelle Roberts: We supported three different farmers markets every week with all the extra produce that we had. And we were also working with the NRCS in sustainable ranching because we had some cattle. And they were over visiting one day and looking at our grasses and stuff, and they saw my little hoop house and said, “Oh. The NRCS is giving grants for those next year.” And I said, “Oh, great. Next year. I just built it.” And so, we worked with them now and then throughout that year.

Michelle Roberts: And I happened to say to them, “Hey, if anyone wants us to build their hoop house, we can do that,” and I sort of sent some literature out that way to them. And lo and behold, they gave us a call and some of the people who they were granting all of this money to, to build hoop houses in their backyards, or if they were commercial, whatever they were, they had to apply, they reached out to us and we began building hoop houses for the grantees of this program and others.

Michelle Roberts: And so, that kind of started taking off. And I actually went and got grants myself. I have 280 footers. And so, it really helped with my CSA farm and everything that we were doing to have those, because it extends the season, the growing season and does a lot of other things too. So, that is how we kind of got started.

Michelle Roberts: And in 2015, I had a son graduate as a mechanical engineer, and I just felt like it’s time for me to step out, maybe he would like to do this. And so, he did want to and we did a DBA and we named it Roberts Ranch Hoophouses. And that has just taken off. And I still work with him in that business, and it’s just been amazing. And now I have created a little 8 by 10 because I feel like food sustainability is just so important. And I want people to be able to grow in their backyards, on their porch, on the rooftop, wherever they can so that we can be in charge of what goes into the food we eat.

Lee Kantor: Now, I am not a gardener. I don’t know anything about gardening. And can you explain a couple of things to me so I kind of can better understand everything? You’re talking about a hoop house, how is that different than, like, a greenhouse?

Michelle Roberts: That is a very good question. Greenhouses are typically in concrete and partially walled, especially the lower parts, and it’s more like a house. It’s a framed-like building. And most of them have glass panes or polycarbonate sheeting. And ours is just a steel galvanized steel hoop, and some of them are just half circles, and then they’re covered with plastic, and the end walls can be plastic or they can be solid, but most of them are plastic. And if you’ve ever been to a big nursery, you’ll probably see lots of hoop houses.

Michelle Roberts: The other thing that we built and designed just a few years ago was a Gothic style, which out here where we are in Utah, allows for the shedding of snow so it doesn’t build on the top and cave the hoop house in. So, we recommend the Gothic style and it is very excellent for this area and it’s a very pleasing, appealing shape. It really is attractive.

Lee Kantor: And then, you mentioned starts, what is that? Like kind of when you just plant seeds or the beginning, you know?

Michelle Roberts: Yes. Yes, yes. We plant thousands. We use just thousands. We have soil blocks that we make ourselves just a way of doing things so that it was more natural and just massive scale. You know, we could just plant up a lot and take care of it. And then, we transplant them into our big hoop houses from that little one.

Lee Kantor: So, each hoop house has kind of a specialty?

Michelle Roberts: Not really. I do practice crop rotation within the hoop houses, because monoculture isn’t the best thing for your soils, and we really depend on our soils to feed our plants. So, I’m always rotating whatever’s going on in there and everything is going on in there all the time. But we grow year round, so it’s always in production. I have two. The south high tunnel, I do shut down in the winter time. But the north one goes all year round, and we eat from that year round.

Lee Kantor: So, now, who is the typical buyer of one of these hoop houses? Are they individuals that just say I want to eat healthy for my family? Or is it more organizations that have more kind of commercial farms?

Michelle Roberts: It used to be when we very first started, it was just all these people who had applied to the NRCS for a grant, and that is how we got started. We didn’t advertise for years. In fact, last year was the first year we ever advertised at all. And it exploded our business. It was three times the income that we had had in any previous year. And so, word of mouth is how this has happened.

Michelle Roberts: But there are all kinds of communities out there now who are looking for sustainability, and they almost all require their people to have one of these, either in a community setting or everyone has to have one in their backyards. So, yeah, we have gone to supplying communities with these, private individuals.

Michelle Roberts: We have a man who we just interviewed just last week and he started on just this little square plot. It was his grandpa’s land or his parents land, I don’t remember, but we built a little one for him. And we just went out there and it’s been, like, four or five years, he supplies all the fresh veggies to the chefs in the Park City area, Park City, Heber area, to the fine restaurants. It was beautiful. It was so amazing. He has done such a good job. He has three of our structures now.

Michelle Roberts: So, you know, it’s all kinds. And, now, I’m getting people who want just a little structure in their backyard. And so, it’s across the board, all kinds of people who want to have the ability to protect what they’re growing and to grow on their own and to learn how to grow. So, yeah, it’s changed.

Lee Kantor: And then, do you ship them all the stuff with kind of the manual of how to build it or do you have to go there and set it up for them?

Michelle Roberts: We do both. I didn’t want to continue to do both. At first, we were only the builders. We just built and built and built. But then I decided, “You know what? We can make kits. We can make kits out of these. We’ll write some instructions and we’ll ship them off or they can come pick them up,” and so then we did that for years. And we are still building for people. So, what is good about us building is we are always staying abreast of our own structures, and the changes we make, and how it’s working out for others we give these kits to, because we have actually made some modifications. We are always trying to upgrade and use the best products we can find.

Lee Kantor: Now, I think you mentioned there were some metal at one point or is it wood. What is it constructed from?

Michelle Roberts: So, you can have a hoop house kit, either Gothic or Quonset style, that is completely steel and plastic. Or you can build out of wood. Wood is less expensive and it doesn’t last as long. We encourage people to paint their wood first so that it does last longer. Inside of the hoop house, it’s its own environment and it can be very moist in there. Anyway, that’s what they’re made out of. And there are specific materials that you use for these hoop houses and we provide the same kind of material that’s on the commercially built hoop houses that you see. It’s very sturdy, very strong.

Michelle Roberts: That’s what makes us a little bit different than just a greenhouse. The greenhouse out of polycarbonate, that plastic that you see in different stores and you can buy and put together, the problem with them is that polycarbonate, it shrinks and expands according to the season. And we get really cold here, and so you have all your walls contracting and you have all this air coming in that’s very, very cold, so you really can’t effectively grow year round in one of those because it’s not sealed completely.

Michelle Roberts: Our hoop house is sealed completely with a channel and wiggle wire locking system and just roll ups that are locked down in the wintertime and vents that close. And we do actually teach people how to grow year round, when to plant, what the planting dates are, how to double cover, and you can do it without any heat or lights. But, of course, if you want heat and lights, you can always put those in there and get some tomatoes go year round too.

Lee Kantor: Now, how is it anchored into the ground? Do you have to build kind of foundation or does it go right into the dirt?

Michelle Roberts: We drive four foot posts 30 inches into the ground with a post driver. And then, we put the arcs into those posts and they’re all screwed in with a good sturdy self-drilling, self-tapping screws. And we built a kind of a skeleton that way. And I live in a windy area, and so after all of that is done and you’ve got your plastic on and everything is done, we will take earth anchors and we will wrap them around the post and the base frame, which can be made out of wood or steel, and we drive those earth anchors into the ground.

Michelle Roberts: And on my 80 footer, I drive every single post. I put an earth anchor on it because we almost lost it one year. You know, it just almost went airborne. But we had trees fall, 60 foot trees fall, and shingles off the roofs, and my neighbor lost his barn, you know, it was bad.

Lee Kantor: And then, what about ventilation? You mentioned it’s kind of airtight, so there’s a way to let air in though?

Michelle Roberts: Right. Our hoop houses are designed with roll up bars, and we have a ventilation, a manual ventilation. We just roll it up and it’s geared. So, a whole 90 foot curtain – we call it – that goes down the side will roll right up to, like, three feet high, and so you get both sides rolled up and then it is critical that you have vents on the top ends, as high as you can to the top. And it’s amazing how the airflow happens in there, it comes in the sides, it rises up, and goes out the ends. And that airflow is what is so great in the hot summer months. We don’t shade our high tunnels, but I do double water. I water at 10:00 and 3:00. And with that airflow going on and with the double watering, we grow one-and-a-half times faster in the hoop house than we do the same thing outside.

Lee Kantor: And then, you mentioned this protects from the elements, but also from pests?

Michelle Roberts: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The grasshoppers, you can screen where that roll up bar is. And it all rolls up, you can put screening. I’ve seen chicken wire. I’ve seen the stuff they put on the highways. You can do that so that it keeps, like, things out that shouldn’t be in there. Like, I don’t like it when certain kinds of moths come in there or grasshoppers, and so we can keep all of those things out by screening it down low.

Michelle Roberts: And the deer, I’m in the Rockies and a lot of the residents here, even in the valleys, have deer munching on everything in their yards. So, if they put their stuff under cover, their vegetables under cover is what I call it, they will be able to enjoy it year round with the deer because the deer don’t really like the plastic.

Lee Kantor: Right. So, now, is this kind of the main part of your business? Have you pivoted to this as being kind of the main driver of revenue nowadays?

Michelle Roberts: Yes. Yes. It really is the main driver. We still raise and sell cattle. We have milk cows. We sell eggs. We still have a farm going on and we have a vegetable co-op and demonstration gardens for this hoop house business. Yeah, it really did take off last year, and it’s been exciting, and we’re trying very hard to kind of scale it now.

Lee Kantor: So, now it’s not nationwide yet, but it hits quite a few states, right?

Michelle Roberts: Yeah. We’re available to all the states. But in the West, we are the only hoop house manufacturing building company for hundreds of miles around us. We are the only ones that are NRCS approved. You have to be an approved company in order for that grant to go through. You have to use an approved hoop house kit company. And the only other ones that people around us can access are ones clear back east or in China, and the shipping is horrendous. So, it’s really advantageous to those around us to come and visit us and see what we have here because the product is really great.

Lee Kantor: It sounds like you’re kind of accidental hoop house servicers, right? Like, you didn’t set out to do this, but you jumped on the opportunity, so congratulations.

Michelle Roberts: Oh, yeah. Yeah, you’re exactly right. I did not set out to do this, but my passion is gardening and growing, and growing healthy, nutrient dense foods. And so, I also want to add that value to these newer kits with a little manual on how to best grow in one of these things.

Lee Kantor: Right. Because you’re a teacher at heart, right? You want more people to get into gardening and really eat healthier food that they are controlling the sources.

Michelle Roberts: Right. Yeah, we have a lot of conferences here. I’ve taught the high schoolers who come with their little field trips and lots of different organizations have come through here.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to join WBEC-West and become part of that community?

Michelle Roberts: Well, that’s quite an interesting story. I wanted to get this little kit that I had created on the shelves in, you know, Tractor Supply, Lowe’s, Home Depot, so the people can see it and buy it and it’s not too expensive and have that little guide. And I tried to market to them and I got an email back, quite quickly actually, that said you need to use our supplier diversity channel. And I just thought that I wouldn’t do that. I was going to be fine just doing it this other way.

Michelle Roberts: Well, no. I realized after about three months that I had to do that. So, I went back to Home Depot, actually, and said, “What do you mean?” And so then, they clued me in to a third party certification of women-owned business. I happen to be a minority as well. I’m a Pacific Islander. And so, I thought, “Well, okay, I’m going to do this.” It took me six months to put all the paperwork in and I did that. In December of last year is when I finally got everything done and was certified. And then, I thought, “Okay. Now, what do I do? I guess I I’m going to go to this national conference and figure out what I’m supposed to do now,” and so I did.

Michelle Roberts: I loved it. I loved it. I thought, “Oh, my gosh. The training and the education here is MBA plus.” You know, these are the people who really know how to do business and they know the steps. I’m a master gardener and I could teach anybody how to be successful. But I’m not a master of business, and so they were going to help me and I was so thrilled with that. And on the third day, I was part of a whole room full of people where I was actually at the tables with the buyers from Lowe’s, from Home Depot. I was like, “I didn’t know they were going to be there,” so it was the greatest thing.

Michelle Roberts: And now I’m talking and we’re getting our kit in a box and it’s just great. I still have a ways to go. You know, I have to make my pitch and I have to have the product exactly right. And I’m working on that so it’s easy to build and it’s user friendly and all that stuff.

Lee Kantor: Well, congratulations on all the momentum. It must be so exciting to have this pivot happen. It’s almost like it’s re-energized you a bit after that tough economic time.

Michelle Roberts: Yeah. Yeah, it has. It’s just thrilling. It’s thrilling to do. And when people come to pick up their kits and I walk them through the gardens and the hoop houses, they love it, I love it. We talk gardening and it’s my passion.

Lee Kantor: And I saw that on the website that these hoop houses aren’t just for gardening. You have them for pickleball?

Michelle Roberts: Oh. My son is a pickleball player and he and his friends got together and decided to build one of those things in the backyard of one of his friends and it went well. And so, yeah, we’re doing those too. It’s a going thing.

Lee Kantor: Look, once you open your mind to things, who knows what’s going to happen, right?

Michelle Roberts: Right.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to get ahold of you and see some of this stuff?

Michelle Roberts: Yeah. Our website is rrhoophouses.com. That is our website and our phone number is on there. All the information about NCS grants is on there. And lots of pictures and stories.

Lee Kantor: Well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Michelle Roberts: Well, thank you. And thank you for this opportunity.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.