Speaker 1: Welcome to Made by Women by the Seneca Women Podcast
Speaker 1: Network and I Heart Radio. At a moment when businesses
Speaker 1: face some of the biggest challenges in recent history, we
Speaker 1: bring you inspiring stories, practical insights, and shared learnings to
Speaker 1: help you successfully navigate in today's environment. Every Thursday, Made
Speaker 1: by Women will showcase the experiences of legendary women, entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: fierce up and comers, and everyday women who found success
Speaker 1: their own way. Consider this your real world MBA designed
Speaker 1: for the new now. I'm Kim Azzarelli and thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us today. In something new and intriguing
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene, a hair salon that did only
Speaker 1: one thing, no color, no cuts, just blowouts. It was
Speaker 1: called dry Bar and locations were soon popping up across
Speaker 1: the country. Dry Bar has been acclaimed as a beauty
Speaker 1: industry disruptor. It was one of the top one billion
Speaker 1: ideas of Entrepreneur magazine, and founder Ali Webb has been
Speaker 1: named to Fortune's forty Under forty list. And it all
Speaker 1: started when I stay at home mother decided to launch
Speaker 1: a mobile hair salon. Please enjoy my conversation with dry
Speaker 1: Bar founder Ali Webb. Thanks so much for joining us
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. So I dare say that most
Speaker 1: people know what dry bar is, but tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about it and why you started it. Well,
Speaker 1: the idea really came from the fact that I was
Speaker 1: born with naturally curly hair, and my whole life, you know,
Speaker 1: especially as a kid, I just I didn't really like it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to deal with my you know,
Speaker 1: crazy frizzy hair. I grew up in South Florida where
Speaker 1: it was like so much humidity in the air that
Speaker 1: my hair vis is always unruly, and I didn't really
Speaker 1: like it, and I didn't know how to tame it.
Speaker 1: And you know, fast forward to many different jobs and
Speaker 1: careers and other paths that I took. I eventually went
Speaker 1: to beauty school, completely fell in love with it, and
Speaker 1: became a hair stylist. And I spent most of my twenties,
Speaker 1: uh doing hair and perfecting my own blowout. And while
Speaker 1: I was cutting hair professionally in a salon, you know,
Speaker 1: I loved getting through the haircut to do the blow out,
Speaker 1: and that was just the part that was like the
Speaker 1: most exciting for me about the process. But you know,
Speaker 1: I never you know, the idea of dry bar and
Speaker 1: a bloody bar like never like entered my mind. However,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, you know, the idea is something that like
Speaker 1: I as a kid would have loved because I used
Speaker 1: to beg my mom to blow out my own my
Speaker 1: hair and she wasn't very good at it. She was
Speaker 1: an hair style was um. But anyways, I UM. I
Speaker 1: met my well now ex husband when I was living
Speaker 1: in New York City and we got married, moved to
Speaker 1: southern California. I had my two boys who are now
Speaker 1: Goal four team in sixteen, and you know, and I
Speaker 1: was a stay at home mom for five and I
Speaker 1: really thought i'd like hit the jackpot on that, and
Speaker 1: I loved the idea that I was able to stay
Speaker 1: home with my boys. And and while I loved it,
Speaker 1: and I obviously loved my kids tremendously, after five years
Speaker 1: of being home, you know, stay at home mom, I
Speaker 1: just got like the bug and the urge, like the
Speaker 1: itch to get back out there and do something for myself,
Speaker 1: but at my own pace. So I decided to start
Speaker 1: a mobile blow up business, which was again taking the
Speaker 1: thing that I loved about when I did hair and
Speaker 1: and turn it into this little business. And it was
Speaker 1: you know, it just meant to be a smell business.
Speaker 1: And it was called straight at Home. And Cam, who's
Speaker 1: my ex husband, and you know, we're on very good terms,
Speaker 1: but he is a creative genius and he's the you know,
Speaker 1: he's really the brains behind the brand for dry bar.
Speaker 1: And he made me this one little page website called
Speaker 1: straight at Home dot com and I started posting it
Speaker 1: all over the place on all the mommy blogs because
Speaker 1: I had, you know, we so immersed in the mommy
Speaker 1: community because when we first moved to l A, I
Speaker 1: was having my first son, so I the only people
Speaker 1: I really knew in LA were mom So that's why
Speaker 1: I was catering to I started this business. I was
Speaker 1: only charging forty dollars, which you know, to get somebody
Speaker 1: to come to your house for four years is like
Speaker 1: unheard of. But for me, it was just more like,
Speaker 1: how can I make this like attainable and something that
Speaker 1: people will actually want to do a lot. And so
Speaker 1: I started this business and I got so busy so
Speaker 1: fast just operating the mobile business that I was like
Speaker 1: and I feel like, why isn't there a place that
Speaker 1: just does blow up, you know, in a beautiful space,
Speaker 1: in a cool environment, you know, there was like fantastic
Speaker 1: SAMs of the World, and if you're in New York,
Speaker 1: it was like John Louis Devide and you know, those
Speaker 1: kind of businesses that are great businesses, but you know,
Speaker 1: and women like me who have naturally curly hair, I
Speaker 1: think we're figuring it out and they were finding their
Speaker 1: person at those places, but there was nothing cohesive and
Speaker 1: a great experience for just to blow up. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: have to remember very clearly when you came on the scene,
Speaker 1: because you're right, there was just nothing like that. It
Speaker 1: was just such a novel thought. Yeah. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: have the idea, um and you think, why there's something
Speaker 1: like that, and so how do you do you get
Speaker 1: started on that? Well, because my my brother Michael Landa,
Speaker 1: who is my business partner, we'd always been really close
Speaker 1: and in a former life we had opened up a
Speaker 1: couple of Nicole Miller boutiques, and we were you know,
Speaker 1: our parents were entrepreneurs, so I kind of had always
Speaker 1: have had that kind of entrepreneurial like spirit or d
Speaker 1: n A. And when Michael saw how much success I
Speaker 1: was having with my mobile business, you know, and I
Speaker 1: went to him and said, I feel like we should open,
Speaker 1: or I should open like a brick and mortar. Instead
Speaker 1: of me going to them, they come to me. And
Speaker 1: you know, Michael, it was like a little bit loop
Speaker 1: warm on the idea at first, because his wife has
Speaker 1: like stick straight hair, like the hair of my dreams,
Speaker 1: you know that like just grows out of her hair,
Speaker 1: that head, but that way. And I was always like,
Speaker 1: you know, those kind of girls like always mystified me
Speaker 1: because mine did not. And so anyways, I went to
Speaker 1: him and I said, I want to do this, you know,
Speaker 1: but I don't want you to learn I can't do
Speaker 1: it alone. Would you be willing to, you know, help me?
Speaker 1: Obviously from a financial place because I didn't have the
Speaker 1: money to do it, and from a you know, business perspective,
Speaker 1: because he's just a really naturally smart business man, you know.
Speaker 1: And he like he very quickly talked him into it,
Speaker 1: and he knew the kind of hair I had and
Speaker 1: whatever and um, but he he more thought it was
Speaker 1: like you know, he used to say, like the women
Speaker 1: of l A have too much time and too much
Speaker 1: money on their hands, so this will work here. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't think so, dude, Like I
Speaker 1: think that like anywhere there's women. You know, most women,
Speaker 1: the majority of women, like struggle with doing their own hair.
Speaker 1: You know, some are better than others, but and there's
Speaker 1: nothing like that like salon feeling blowout. So, you know,
Speaker 1: he very quickly became interested in and I think more
Speaker 1: if you were to ask him, he would tell you
Speaker 1: it's more from the perspective of like, hey, I want
Speaker 1: to help my little sister, um, you know, get this
Speaker 1: business off the ground. He had worked for Yahoo in
Speaker 1: the early days that he made some money and was
Speaker 1: willing to, like, you know, do this with me. And
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, he was like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll give you sweat equity and I'll put up all
Speaker 1: the money. And I didn't know what that meant, and
Speaker 1: obviously I do now. And just a side note, full
Speaker 1: circle moment, is this is this new jewelry business that
Speaker 1: I started it um called back At and Quill, the
Speaker 1: girl that I basically invested in, I've put up all
Speaker 1: the money and she's getting sweat equity. So it's just
Speaker 1: funny eleven years later to be that on the other
Speaker 1: side of that. Um, yeah, it's really cool. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so Michael, you know, Michael took the chance, and he
Speaker 1: um he was he thought that it was a great idea.
Speaker 1: And then you know and Cam my ex husband, who's,
Speaker 1: like I said, just such a brilliant creative. He was
Speaker 1: also like, you know, you get your nails done once
Speaker 1: a week and I really don't notice, but when you
Speaker 1: get your hair blown out, it's the first thing I noticed.
Speaker 1: So as an advertising guy who's pretty cynical, he thought
Speaker 1: it was a great idea. So that really helps give
Speaker 1: me the momentum and confidence that I needed. And so
Speaker 1: we all kind of started working on the things that
Speaker 1: we all knew how to do. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: like figuring out how to like get a salon, you know,
Speaker 1: quote and quote salon up and running and with all
Speaker 1: the things, the millions of things that that requires. And
Speaker 1: I was I felt like I spent most of my
Speaker 1: life on the phone with like the collegethology board, and
Speaker 1: you know, Michael was getting all are like you know, utilities,
Speaker 1: and I mean he still tells the story to this
Speaker 1: day how he like lost so many hours of his
Speaker 1: life to a T and T trying to get our
Speaker 1: phones connected. I mean it was just like the minutia
Speaker 1: that you're in when you're trying to start a business,
Speaker 1: um and and then start finding the location, the lease,
Speaker 1: and we had to personally guarantee that first lease. And
Speaker 1: I mean it was like a beautiful, like disaster trying
Speaker 1: to get it off the ground, but you know, we did.
Speaker 1: And like many startups, we ran out of money towards
Speaker 1: the end because everything became more expensive. And Michael had
Speaker 1: brought in Josh Hitler, who's our architect still to this day,
Speaker 1: and he's amazing these this Harvard Award winning architect, and he,
Speaker 1: you know, gave us a deal. We gave him some equity,
Speaker 1: and you know, we just we ran out of money
Speaker 1: and had to get investors at the you know, the
Speaker 1: eleventh hour. But but in a nutshell, that's how it
Speaker 1: all started. And then it was just like Gangbusters. Once
Speaker 1: we opened, it was so bananas and busy and crazy
Speaker 1: and we and and it was in the middle of
Speaker 1: a recession. And yeah, well you've hit on so many
Speaker 1: points that I think everybody faces when you when you
Speaker 1: start a business, and it's just so great. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's exciting to hear about really is ten eleven years later,
Speaker 1: it looks like a perfect business. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: you're really showing what it means in the beginning when
Speaker 1: you want to get started and what that's all about.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's something that people don't recognize
Speaker 1: enough after they've had a lot of success, as you have.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with Senecas made by women after this
Speaker 1: short break. So you know, you're you're going through those
Speaker 1: really really hard times. I mean, of course you're in
Speaker 1: business with your brother and your husband, so maybe that's
Speaker 1: a little bit helpful, but still, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: those there are those dark nights where you're like, Wow,
Speaker 1: why did I do this? How did you deal with that? Oh? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it was like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: funny that you say it looks like a perfect business,
Speaker 1: because it, gosh, it's like so far from that. And
Speaker 1: you know, there there definitely were times that it was
Speaker 1: like I don't remember ever feeling like I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do it or so unmanageable, but I you know,
Speaker 1: but I definitely did feel like it was just so
Speaker 1: unbelievably all encompassing, you know. And I had little kids
Speaker 1: at the time, and it was just the first like
Speaker 1: six months I was at the store every single day
Speaker 1: which we opened seven days a week, so I have
Speaker 1: such a hard time, you know. So I was so
Speaker 1: thrust into this and not complaining, I'm so grateful for it,
Speaker 1: but I was so thrust into it, like talking about
Speaker 1: being thrown in the deep end and not knowing how
Speaker 1: to swim, and I just didn't know how to like
Speaker 1: do all this. It was like learning on the job,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was the pace was so much
Speaker 1: faster than any of us had anticipated. So it was
Speaker 1: like I'm playing catchup and trying to figure everything out,
Speaker 1: which was a great problem to have. Um. So it
Speaker 1: was you know, it was overwhelming, but it was also
Speaker 1: overwhelming and exciting and intoxicating and amazing and so stressful
Speaker 1: and just you know, it was like all the emotions, um,
Speaker 1: you know, wrapped into one. But but but mostly, I
Speaker 1: mean I look back on that time so far only
Speaker 1: and it was just such a rush that you know,
Speaker 1: people were loving this business and we're having this amazing
Speaker 1: impact on all these women, and now we're starting to
Speaker 1: provide all these jobs. And it was like in the
Speaker 1: you know, we're in the middle of a recession. It
Speaker 1: was just it was so it was so cool and
Speaker 1: you know, and while building, it was hard, and and
Speaker 1: you know, it's there's so many challenges with this business
Speaker 1: and you know we as you might imagine the managing
Speaker 1: our stylists and labor, and there's and and clients, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's a very like mixed bag of problems.
Speaker 1: You can't believe. I mean, someone as a joke, brought
Speaker 1: brought us a wacka mall machine one because it's like
Speaker 1: that's really what it's like, you know, I mean, it
Speaker 1: is really what it was like. I mean every day
Speaker 1: you could expect a phone call like I mean, you
Speaker 1: name it. You know, like we had there was a
Speaker 1: there was a stinkhole and in our flat Iron store
Speaker 1: when we opened, there was like that. Let's mentioned how
Speaker 1: many times like stories didn't open because whoever was opening
Speaker 1: it slept, don't over slap. Yeah, I mean I have
Speaker 1: to say a sinkhole in the flat Iron district. That
Speaker 1: is that's a big one. That is a surprise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like the water wouldn't come on, the hot water
Speaker 1: wouldn't come on. It was just like you name it.
Speaker 1: There was something literally every day. So it was. But
Speaker 1: but it's also like this amazing fun challenge too. So
Speaker 1: I look back on it very fondly. So actually, that's
Speaker 1: that's such an interesting point because you know, at the
Speaker 1: beginning or probably in any business, in most businesses, there's
Speaker 1: always things that go wrong, and they go wrong a
Speaker 1: lot um, So how do you kind of shift your
Speaker 1: mindset to rather than feeling like everything's an emergency and
Speaker 1: you're freaking out over every sinkhole that comes up, Rather,
Speaker 1: how do you shift it to kind of embrace it
Speaker 1: and kind of live in that uncertainty. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you have to have a pretty thick skin, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I would love to say that I always did,
Speaker 1: but I think it was like it's a it's an
Speaker 1: overtime learned kind of behavior that like, you know, and
Speaker 1: and I think it's also on par with like, you know,
Speaker 1: like customer complaints and customers not being happy or like
Speaker 1: getting something wrong or being too busy or not someone
Speaker 1: that liking to blowout. You know, it's like you kind
Speaker 1: of learn, it's like you brace yourself for that stuff.
Speaker 1: And um, I remember early on having to you know,
Speaker 1: when people weren't unhappy, when something went wrong, whatever happened,
Speaker 1: and having to like deal with that, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's like the best way I can I can equate
Speaker 1: it to you is like I don't know if you
Speaker 1: ever take cold showers, but I do for a lot
Speaker 1: of different reasons. And it's like when you first get in,
Speaker 1: it just hurts and it's uncomfortable and it's terrible, but
Speaker 1: then you like your body like it's like okay with
Speaker 1: it after a few seconds. And I think it's like
Speaker 1: that when you're dealing with all the things that are coming.
Speaker 1: It's like it hurts and stings for a second, and
Speaker 1: then you just like go into Okay, how are we
Speaker 1: going to deal with this? How are we going to
Speaker 1: fix it? You know, it's really easy, I think, as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur or a boss or really anybody to get
Speaker 1: bob down and they're like whoa is me? And your
Speaker 1: this really stucks and blah blah blah and feel bad
Speaker 1: for yourself. But you kind of have to snap yourself
Speaker 1: out of that just go into like fix it mode
Speaker 1: and how do we make this better? And how do
Speaker 1: we make sure it doesn't happen again? You know, And
Speaker 1: then that mindset of like it hurts for a second,
Speaker 1: but we have to just keep powering through, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that over time, I got a thicker skin.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were certainly times that I didn't, But
Speaker 1: for the most part, you learn how to like roll
Speaker 1: with the punges and deal with all the stuff that
Speaker 1: comes up. And if you really are good, you can
Speaker 1: remember and those moments, which is almost impossible. But like
Speaker 1: there is a reason and a lesson here. You know,
Speaker 1: it's much easier to see that in retrospect, but there
Speaker 1: always is, you know, there's always some sort of learning
Speaker 1: that comes out of, you know, anything that goes wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's kind of to me, seems like
Speaker 1: the key to life generally. Yeah, two points that you
Speaker 1: just made. One is certainly understanding how to deal with
Speaker 1: pain or how you you yourself can deal with discomfort.
Speaker 1: And I heard a great piece of advice about trying
Speaker 1: to learn to reinterpret pain, and I think that's what
Speaker 1: kind of those lance are instrums of the world, do, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You know, this is kind of like a marathon or
Speaker 1: a race. You know, you've got to just sort of
Speaker 1: know how to reinterpret those difficult times. But then what
Speaker 1: you just said to me, it is sort of the key,
Speaker 1: which is how do you draw something out of all
Speaker 1: this that you can then learn from, and that to
Speaker 1: me seems like really a life lesson that you've learned there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm thirty six years old of you know,
Speaker 1: to like teenage kids. I've gone through divorce, Like, I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot of life lessons, you know, and and
Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot better at dealing with them. Um.
Speaker 1: I was just listening to some and a master class.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you follow that account, but it's
Speaker 1: like there was a mindful master and he was talking
Speaker 1: about how you have to you know, be just as
Speaker 1: like keenly like focus on the bad quote unquote bad things.
Speaker 1: It's a good things, you know, and then you don't
Speaker 1: aren't is overwhelmed with the suffering of it. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, which is so much harder, so much easier
Speaker 1: said than done, you know, but it is it is
Speaker 1: something to think about ponder, you know. I Mean. The
Speaker 1: other thing that's funny about that, which is about life,
Speaker 1: I guess, is that you know, you never really know
Speaker 1: what's bad or good right Like the time you think
Speaker 1: this is definitely gonna be the best thing, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, oh that was the worst and the thing
Speaker 1: that you thought was the worst thing. Later on you're like,
Speaker 1: thank god, that happened. So it's really hard to know.
Speaker 1: And I guess if we can separate ourselves a little
Speaker 1: bit from that, that helps a lot. But speaking of which,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of COVID or hopefully towards the
Speaker 1: end of the COVID pandemic here. But we're in a
Speaker 1: pandemic and obviously you're in a business that's very physical.
Speaker 1: So how have you had to pivot during this period? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean the first like, I mean, we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're just over a year and it's like you know
Speaker 1: that we closed down very early and had some fits
Speaker 1: and starts with opening back up, but you know, ultimately
Speaker 1: have only recently opened almost all of our stores back up,
Speaker 1: and it's on a slower capacity and we're not able.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not like the driver you know and love
Speaker 1: right now, which is okay, and we're building back up
Speaker 1: to that, you know, because the separation and all of
Speaker 1: that um and and there was a lot of pivoting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just they got our business like it was.
Speaker 1: It was so hard, and you know, we we were
Speaker 1: able to survive a little bit it more than we
Speaker 1: might have been able to otherwise if we hadn't we
Speaker 1: had sold our product division, Like I mean, what like
Speaker 1: days before things really went cret It was the time.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable. So that was able to help like
Speaker 1: bridge the gap for us to be able to like
Speaker 1: stay afloat um, you know, but it was it was
Speaker 1: really challenging to get you know, for our employees and
Speaker 1: our managers and like these people that had worked so
Speaker 1: hard for so long, it was just like nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: there's like nothing we could do um. And that was
Speaker 1: like just such a devastating blow. And we did our
Speaker 1: very best to like stay in touch with our with
Speaker 1: our teams at a regular basis and try to keep
Speaker 1: morale up. But and we did a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: with like promoting products and how to do lots at
Speaker 1: home and all of that stuff. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: there's no way to spin it. It's just it's and yeah,
Speaker 1: and and we are we are, you know, luckily you know,
Speaker 1: gaining momentum again. And I think again the silver lighting
Speaker 1: here is that like people are really excited to get
Speaker 1: back out, are getting brought out again. We're seeing like
Speaker 1: the books are filling up very quickly again. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, and we didn't think it would be any
Speaker 1: other way, but it is. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: investors and all of that, so it is like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty daunting situation to be in, but we
Speaker 1: I think we are just about on the other side
Speaker 1: of it, or getting close to it. So you've started
Speaker 1: this business, You've just started another business, So you have
Speaker 1: a wealth of advice for listeners out there who right
Speaker 1: now are thinking about starting something on their own but
Speaker 1: feel that, you know, this might not be the right time,
Speaker 1: or you know, they wish they were more prepared. Is
Speaker 1: there advice you would give them, Well, I would say,
Speaker 1: don't worry about being prepared. I was not prepared, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that what happens is I think people get
Speaker 1: in this like, you know, they have to have everything
Speaker 1: figured out before they start a business. And the truth
Speaker 1: of it, at least in my experience, is that you know,
Speaker 1: you there's just so much more that you don't know
Speaker 1: then you know when you're starting a business, and so
Speaker 1: you know, of course like prepared much as you can
Speaker 1: and do as much as you can, but but but
Speaker 1: also like just just do it. And I think people
Speaker 1: get stuck in like analysis paralysis and like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't really know how to do sometimes do that. It's
Speaker 1: like you know, you just kind of go and start
Speaker 1: and you you know, you figure it out day by day.
Speaker 1: And I think it's this like it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be perfect, you know, to start, and that that's always
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's like, you know, this this
Speaker 1: other business I started back in a quill, which is
Speaker 1: a Juliy business, which is a direct to consumer, which
Speaker 1: is like so out of my wheelhouse. I've never run
Speaker 1: a director consumer business. I know nothing about it, but
Speaker 1: I started this business anyways. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we have good days and we have bad days, and
Speaker 1: like some things is that we're doing are working, and
Speaker 1: some things that aren't doing aren't working. But I certainly
Speaker 1: like they're making tons of mistakes. We're doing tons of
Speaker 1: things wrong and then we're like, yeah, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: do that again, and and you know, and it's just
Speaker 1: this like there's so much more I didn't know about
Speaker 1: this business than I knew. All I knew was that
Speaker 1: like I thought this was a good idea. I could
Speaker 1: wrap some great branding around it. Meredith like she's so
Speaker 1: good at what she does and like, let's just get
Speaker 1: the business off the ground. And you know, we we
Speaker 1: we in terms of being prepared, we you know, we
Speaker 1: made a new website, we we cam did, we did
Speaker 1: the branding for me. We you know, we hired a
Speaker 1: web guy. We've we hired a handful of people to
Speaker 1: help us, like get this off the ground, very hard time,
Speaker 1: and and we said it and we're learning so much
Speaker 1: as we go, you know, so it's not perfect. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wish we could have come out of the gates,
Speaker 1: like with much stronger numbers, much people, more people coming
Speaker 1: to our website. But it's you know, it's just it's
Speaker 1: you know, I do practice that my own advice with
Speaker 1: like let's just go and let's see what happens, you know,
Speaker 1: And and that's you know, kind of how we're operating.
Speaker 1: And I think it's like I don't I'm sure that
Speaker 1: mentality is not for everybody, but you know, for for me,
Speaker 1: that's always kind of been how I how I operate.
Speaker 1: And you know, we squeeze our massage business. You know,
Speaker 1: Brittany Driscoll who used to run marketing at draw Bar,
Speaker 1: she's the CEO of that and our co founder and
Speaker 1: you know, she's much more like data driven and organized,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's such a good thing to Mayang
Speaker 1: because she does have all of that. But there is
Speaker 1: a fair amount of like we're learning a lot of
Speaker 1: things as we go here too, and we are adjusting
Speaker 1: and pivoting and changing all sorts of things even right now.
Speaker 1: And the business has been you know, well technically open
Speaker 1: for two years, but one of those was covid. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, so there's just like a million different ways.
Speaker 1: I hate the expression is gonna cat, but that's the
Speaker 1: one that comes to mind. You know. It's just like
Speaker 1: there's a million different ways to to do it. And um,
Speaker 1: the one thing that you should that I believe you
Speaker 1: shouldn't do is like wait for the quote unquote perfect time,
Speaker 1: because there truly never is. I totally agree. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have the experience to to show for it, so
Speaker 1: we appreciate it. And clearly your approach is working for you.
Speaker 1: So UM, we appreciate you sharing that with Thank you
Speaker 1: so thanks for joining us on the show. And you know,
Speaker 1: we look forward to getting our hair done soon and often, um,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to what you're doing next. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: There are so many valuable lessons we can learn from
Speaker 1: Ali Webb. Here are three things I took from the conversation. First,
Speaker 1: if you want to build a successful business, start with
Speaker 1: what you love and what you know. Ali loved doing blowouts,
Speaker 1: and after five years as a stay at home mother,
Speaker 1: she was itching to do something different. The only people
Speaker 1: she knew in l A were moms, so she launched
Speaker 1: a mobile blow up business catering to mothers and advertise
Speaker 1: it on all the mommy blogs. Second, as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: be prepared to deal with discomfort. There are a million
Speaker 1: opportunities for things to go wrong, and they will, but
Speaker 1: as Ali says, you have to snap out of it
Speaker 1: and go into fix it mode. When you do, you'll
Speaker 1: also find that each misstep has a lesson in it.
Speaker 1: With practice, you can teach yourself to see that the
Speaker 1: so called bad things maybe good things and things you
Speaker 1: can learn from. Finally, you don't have to know everything
Speaker 1: in order to run a successful business. In fact, you can't,
Speaker 1: so don't succumb to analysis paralysis. Says all be prepared
Speaker 1: and learn all that you can, of course, but then
Speaker 1: take the leap dive in and figure things out along
Speaker 1: the Way. Made by Women is brought to you by
Speaker 1: the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
Speaker 1: support from founding partner PNG