A country gal actor meets a city boy cartoonist on a warm November night in Los Angeles. This episode features Stacey Feeley, Co-Founder of sustainable products company GoSili and cartoon animator Jim Feeley.
A country gal actor meets a city boy cartoonist on a warm November night in Los Angeles. This episode features Stacey Feeley, Co-Founder of sustainable products company GoSili and cartoon animator Jim Feeley.
Have you ever come up with a great idea that you thought could make you really rich...
Maybe you wrote it down on a Post-It…
Or in the notes app on your iPhone.
but you didn’t do anything with it...
And then at some point you found out that someone else had pretty much the same idea but they DID do something about it.
Jim [00:53:22] I invented the Peloton twenty five years ago.
LAUGH
That’s what happened to Jim Feeley.
Jim [00:53:32] But it was gonna be animated like you're riding a bike through like these animated worlds.
Stacey [00:53:38] it’s true, he did!
Jim [00:53:39] And I even went to like some exercise stores and said, does this even exist? And they were like no one wants to do that.
Jim may not have cashed in on his million dollar idea … but his wife Stacey is one of those people who did. She’s an entrepreneur with a big mission.
Stacey: How do we create a cultural change to really get people moving away from using single use plastics?
And by her side on that mission is her husband Jim. Not the inventor of the Peloton but with a dream job none-the-less.
Jim [00:01:48] I'm a character designer in film and television animation. I currently work on Big Mouth on Netflix and then American Dad on TBS.
In this podcast we meet the entrepreneurs who are making northern Michigan their home and discover the journeys that led them here.
Today… Silicon meets celluloid.
I’m Tommy Andres and this is Creative Coast.
(THEME POST FADE)
Jim Feeley grew up in Chicago. The son of an ad executive.
Jim [00:07:48]
when I would go visit my dad at work, he would have meetings and pawn me off on some of the other departments until we left for the Cubs game or whatever it was. But what I think was exposed to was an industry I was attracted to.
As a kid Jim loved art.
I was involved in drawing, painting. Airbrushing was kind of the new cool thing back then.
And he continued on that path when he went to Boston College.
Jim [00:09:27] I took every art class I could fit into my schedule.
But he never imagined he’d become an artist.
I was an English major … art, to me was not a career path. It was something that you do to keep your soul breathing healthily.
During his senior year at BC Jim took a filmmaking class.
Running around with your pals and a Super eight camera making movies. I really loved it.
And that led him to an internship at a film studio in Boston called Olive Jar Animation during his final year.
MTV INSERT
they were doing some really cool stuff for MTV
MTV INSERT
some of those early interstitials where the Claymation M and then the TV, it's like a little monster. And then they did a whole series of those. And I thought, this is pretty cool.
MTV INSERT OUT
I got accepted to their internship and graduated three months later and they offered me a job as a P.A. and I had nothing else to do. And I still had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I figured I would ride out the summer and I ended up staying for five years.
Jim was enjoying working in the industry but he had yet to discover his gift for animation.
being kind of satiated, being in a creative industry, being part of the machine, but not being a creative myself.
But that industry was firmly rooted on the other side of the country. So after 5 years working in Boston there was only one place for Jim to go: Los Angeles.
(START MUSIC)
Stacey Feeley… Then Stacey Wehrman... grew up almost a thousand miles away from Jim in Paris, Texas.
Stacey [00:12:55] Bible Belt section of the world. This tiny little dot in the northeast corner of Texas.
And Stacey wanted out.
Stacey [00:13:18]
I was a small country girl that wanted to go explore the world. By the time college rolled around, I was ready to fly.
So after graduating from high school Stacey flew to the University of Colorado.
Stacey [00:13:47] I thought my father was gonna have a heart attack when I told him I wanted to be a theater major. But it was something I always loved growing up.
When Stacey finished college she decided to head west to pursue acting.
and made the move to Los Angeles after I graduated.
(MUSIC POST/FADE)
MISSION HILL THEME
In LA, Jim got a job at Film Roman Studios, which produced The Simpsons. He was working on another show called Mission Hill as a production coordinator. And there was a great perk to his job.
Jim [00:16:53] what the studio did once a week, is they had an open life drawing workshop. They would bring in a life model for an hour. And all employees were welcome. Just pull up a chair and their sketchpad. And I loved to do this, you know, and this is what I did all through high school and college and. And so I pull up and I realize immediately I'm well outmatched with the professionals surrounding me.
But Jim is being modest.
Jim [00:18:04] life drawing is a huge part of animation. So some of the best life drawers are animators, I've got to watch them in their real time craft. But then surprisingly to me, some would come over and kind of critique my work and give me some ideas. But all positive. From there, I was invited by a couple of these artists who encouraged me to take a design test for the job of a character designer, which is where I still am today.
Tommy [00:19:24] That's awesome. So to me, that story sounds like if you are a bat boy for a baseball team and a pro baseball player was like hey, you look like you know how to swing a bat pretty well. And suddenly you were brought in to start doing the actual animation. I mean, this was not what you were doing. So it's pretty amazing to sit in a room with these guys who are some of the best life drawers in the world and have them be like hey you're pretty good, why don’t you try this.
Jim [00:20:01] I don't know if anyone ever said you're pretty good, but what they did is they they said here's what you can do better. And that inspired me that maybe there was something there. Yes.
And there WAS something there. Jim landed a job on the animated science fiction show Futurama.
FURURAMA CLIP
Futurama was an amazing show to really earn my chops on because they visited alien civilizations and and robots. And under the sewer there were these mutant characters. And occasionally you'd get a human to draw.
FURURAMA CLIP
While Jim was sinking his teeth into his newfound passion in another part of LA Stacey was realising hers was not all she dreamed it would be.
Stacey [00:14:37] one it's really hard and tough.
Stacey [00:14:48] And you get a lot of knocks and dings for sure. But, you know, I got to a point where, you know, eating peanut butter and jelly every day was not for me.
And this is the point when the stars align and Jim and Stacey meet.
(MUSIC START)
It was a warm October evening in the year 2000.
And it began with an invite to a party from Stacey’s new roommate.
Stacey [00:21:36] and she said, oh, you know, I've got a I've got a friend. He lives right down the street. And, you know, let's go let's go over to his house.
That friend was Jim Feeley.
Jim [00:02:44] she came in And she went right to the banjo that I didn't play, but I owned with the intention of learning.
Stacey And I was I was like like into into my banjo phase at that point.
Jim And she picked it up right away and started picking. And I thought right away, I'm like, that's pretty cool. And it kind of introduced me to her creative spirit right away.
The couple had an immediate bond.
And it wasn’t the only significant person Stacey would meet that night.
There was also a woman at the party named Juliana Schwabb.
Stacey [00:24:07] she's got this big bubbly personality. And it was an immediate friendship.
And by the end of that night Stacey was all in with Jim.
Stacey [00:22:53] I will never forget. When we came home that night, it was like, oh, you know, I, like, see you again. He's like, I'd like to see you again. And out of the cab window, he yells, Well, you know, what's your number? He's like nine BEEP taco.
Stacey [00:23:07] And I was like what taco? nine BEEP taco. it's still his number. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, this is this is the guy for me.
Tommy [00:24:55] Jim it kind of sounds like Stacey knew that you were the real deal ... Did you have that same thought?
Stacey [00:25:04] You had no idea.
Jim [00:25:06] Yes.
Stacey [00:25:08] Oh, come on. No you didn't!
Jim [00:25:14] Well, I knew to call you the next weekend for dinner. And the next week after that.
(MUSIC POST)
Stacey [00:25:59] So when I first met Jim, he he had this full beard And our first date he comes to pick me up and I'm downstairs in my apartment lobby and I'm kind of like looking around and he's there. But he had shaved his beard and I had no clue it was him.
Stacey [00:26:23] And I remember thinking, oh, my God, this is not what I signed up for. What do you mean you shaved your beard?
Jim [00:26:29]
the night I met her. Maybe I didn't even expect our friend was gonna bring a gal by, I was just kind of a single guy living. And so I cleaned up my best for this date, which I hadn't had maybe in a while. And we have a picture of that night and I mean, the outfits on us both but I'm wearing, this turtleneck that I wear as a joke now. why I'm wearing a turtleneck and in October in Los Angeles is beyond me.
Jim [00:27:08] yeah, it was an awkward. Half an hour in her living room until we went out. Then we had a good time.
(MUSIC START)
Jim’s career continued to advance. On Futurama he had joined during the third season, when the show’s characters had already been created.
But now he was helping to design a whole new world with the hugely accomplished Seth McFarlane on what would become a hugely popular show -- American Dad.
AMERICAN DAD CLIP
He had some sketches that he had done on post its and little looseleaf pages. He and I would sit down and I would work with him on bringing those characters into kind of a uniform world. A form in a volume that can be animated and repeated by a number of artists.
AMERICAN DAD CLIP OUT
To me, that is some of the most fun work I do, because you're setting the style, you're visualizing the character world.
Tommy [00:33:25] So you and Seth McFarlane sitting Side by side creating the entire look for American Dad!
Jim [00:33:30] I think the first Side-By-Side were drawings that came through by fax of Seths. And if you remember fax machines you would never have that exact one to one ratio. So everything got stretched or pulled. And so his designs, as I was introduced to them, were these elongated versions. Like that's problematic. You know, if we're talking about trying to nail down a design and then he what he would receive from me, I'd made sure to hand deliver it. So he didn't have to deal with that on my end. those those are definitely some fun days for sure.
(MUSIC POST)
In 2004 Stacey and Jim got married -- it was a big Texan affair. The theme: city boy meets country girl. Stacey’s parents invited everyone from the local community and their guests from LA got to race tractors and shoot skeet.
Not long after the couple started a family.
Stacey once we had kids that’s what kind of set me on my journey of entrepreneurship.
Stacey gave birth to Adelaide, the first of their 3 daughters, and it was then that she realised something.
Stacey [00:46:40]
I was the first time parent doing all this crazy research, you know, because I was horrified. I was going to do something to mess up my poor baby, you know?
So I'm doing all this research trying to figure out what's, you know, what are the things that we should have, what should we not be doing? What should we be doing? And discovered really quickly that there were all these toxic chemicals found in plastics and they were leaching into these plastic baby bottles that I was using.
Now -- remember that woman that Stacey met on the same night she met Jim? Juliana Schwabb. By this stage Stacey and Juliana had become good friends … they’d also had their children right around the same time.
Stacey: we were talking about this and said, you know, like how how do we how do we make a plastic bottles safe? And we said, well, guess you can either just not use them and use something like glass. That was the only other alternative at the time. So the problem with glass is that it breaks. So we said, oh, you know, let's let's play around with some different materials to see if we can protect a glass baby bottle. And so we realized very quickly that silicone had all these like really great material properties it doesn't fade it doesn't scratch it doesn't have toxic chemicals? You can boil it to sterilize it, so it had all these great properties. So we knew that we had found a really great material and we started cutting things up in my kitchen that were made out of silicone and wrapping it around these glass bottles that we had. And I have this really fun memory of going to a parking lot in Los Angeles. The Glendale parking lot with my dad and dropping baby bottles off the roof, you know, and he was down the bottom and he was like, OK. Clear. You know, and I would drop it. We were trying to find the, you know, the brake threshold.
Jim remembers those early days as well.
Jim: I would come home from work everyday and they like she said, she cut up all our oven mitts and they would just start making it. And she's still doing that today where she's making it out of hand hand, making it out of materials that aren't meant to be the product, but they give you the idea of the product. And that inspires you to experiment with other materials and then show it to somebody. She doesn't ask, how do I do it? She and Juliana have always just done it. I was always impressed with that.
And so Stacey and Juliana start a company called Gosili.
Stacey [00:50:19] I wasn't a business major. I went to school for theater. So I think initially the naivete of what it takes to actually run a business and to get up off the ground we were so naive about that. And I think if we'd known how hard it was going to be, maybe we wouldn't have done that, you know? But, you know, being naive in that position, I think also lends itself to allowing you to do a lot of the things that somebody else might not.
(MUSIC START)
Once they’d designed the products and had thrown them off that parking lot roof it was time to start selling.
and it was literally go into the store. Hey, you know, I'm Stacey and I've got this really cool idea. And at the time, I think they were just even prototypes, you know, like we just had a few that we were showing. And it was just about knocking on the doors and, you know, seeing who bit.
Stacey and Juliana were pretty successful early on getting independent stores on board. But those orders were small.
Then in 2008 Canada made a decision that would have a huge impact on their company: they banned BPA in baby bottles.
BPA is a chemical compound which had been widely used in plastic products for decades … before being banned by many countries because of health concerns.
they literally had to dump, like, millions of plastic baby bottles and didn't have anything to replace them except for, you know, some of the old school glass bottles.
It was Stacey and Juliana’s moment. They got a call from a huge retail store.
Babies R US called us and I mean, I could I didn't know how they got our number, didn't know they knew we existed. But they called us. And, you know, at the time, I mean, I had, you know, just like a couple pallets of stuff sitting in our backyard and you know we said, oh, my God. Like, this is really this is it. You know, this is our opportunity to really scale.
(MUSIC POST)
But GoSilli’s initial boom was short-lived.
We did that for about six months and then the market crashed.
The financial crisis meant that Babies ‘R Us stopped ordering and the independent stores they were in started to really struggle too.
Stacey [00:59:38] That was a big eye opener for us in the sense that, oh, my gosh, in order to really survive, we need to have mass distribution.
They decided they needed to focus on volume...
but in order to get into stores they needed a whole line of products.
That was expensive so they started to look for investors.
On the west coast at that time, however…
It was tough to get money if your start-up wasn’t in tech or bio-med.
For Stacey and Jim… that realization just added to a feeling that had been growing for a while … that California really wasn’t working for them anymore.
Stacey [01:02:19] Los Angeles was amazing when we were really young, you know, and we got to a point where I think the third kid at that, we were like, oh, my gosh. Everything was really expensive. Everything was busy. And and, you know, there's no way we could let our kids ride their bikes on the street and be like, hey, come back in couple hours or go down to the neighbors like you just didn't do that. Didn't matter if you lived in Beverly Hills or if you lived where we lived. cuz, you grew up with a lot of that. I grew up with that as well. And we just we really wanted that for our kids.
Jim [01:04:20] we knew that wasn't home. And so you only get one lease on this planet and might as well make use of use of it where you feel at home. And so we started formulating our exit strategy.
The couple created a short list of where they wanted to live.
Stacey It was between Colorado and northern Michigan.
Stacey had been to college in Colorado … and Jim’s family had a holiday home in northern Michigan. But which one to choose?
PURE MICHIGAN AD
Well, we're sitting on the couch in Los Angeles one night, and on the TV comes this Pure Michigan commercial.
PURE MICHIGAN AD
Stacey [01:03:50] it was like a sign from God.
PURE MICHIGAN AD
And we just looked at each other like uh I guess that’s it!
Tommy [01:03:53] So, Tim Allen got you.
Jim [01:03:54] Yeah. So Tim Allen invited us and we accepted!
PURE MICHIGAN AD
Stacey could work from anywhere but Jim not so much.
Jim [01:05:16] I still went to a studio every day where I had a desk and coworkers and a producer.
Jim [01:05:40] Most importantly, I had a producer who who I knew if I were ever going to work out of house, it would have to be with the blessing of my producer.
But luckily for Jim much of his work had become digital. The old days of the fax machine were over and now there was email. And that new way of working meant he could technically work remotely.
Jim [01:06:52] ultimately, when I finally did walk into my producers offices and say we're thinking about moving back to the Midwest, would that work? Not one of them hesitated to not give us the blessing.
(THEME START)
So in 2012 Stacey and Jim moved to Traverse City. Jim has continued his work as an animator. For Stacey, the move has been a huge boost for her company.
So it wasn't until we moved to Michigan where, you know, you have a state that completely understands the core of manufacturing. It's in their blood. And that was that was a real turning point for us because that allowed us to start talking to some different investment firms and angel investors, specifically here in Traverse City and then also in Grand Rapids that understood we were trying to do understood the process and knew that in order for us to be successful, we really had to support the whole mission of the company and come out with more products. So we raised money here in Michigan in 2012 to be able to basically build a larger line.
Since then Gosili sales have doubled each year.
The brand is now sold in 30 countries around the world.
And the New York Times said recently that Gosili’s reusable straws are some of the best on the market.
But the move to northern Michigan has not just been a success for GoSili.
In the era of streaming…
Jim’s career has continued to soar as well.
He is now working on the Netflix animated series Big Mouth.
As for the Feeley family … well now the kids get to play outside on their bikes.
And who needs a Peloton when you have northern Michigan on your doorstep.
(THEME POST)
To find out more about Stacey’s company go to gosili.com
And watch Big Mouth or American Dad to see Jim’s latest animations.
Creative Coast is a podcast series brought to you by Traverse Connect…
the Grand Traverse Region’s Economic Development Organization…
and is produced by me, Tommy Andres and Maria Byrne for our company Airloom Media.
That’s spelled A-I-R.
The music is composed by Josh Hoisington.
This podcast series is made possible thanks to generous support and funding from the Michigan Film and Digital Media Office at Michigan’s Economic Development Corporation.
You can visit Traverse Connect’s website at traverseconnect.com.
(THEME FADE)