06: Putting out fires as founders and all things grit with Carrie Sporer

If we weren’t putting out fires in our businesses what would even be the fun in being a founder, right? Today I have the very talented Carrie Sporer from Swair who has created the Lulu Lemon of hair products on the market right now, but it hasn’t always been rosy and her team has seen their struggles. Today, we're going to talk about something that happened to her that honestly made my jaw drop.

Her first major fire was during her launch phase, where three weeks before launch they had to recall a majority of her products causing a full-blown panic, but that isn’t where she threw in the towel and quit. Carrie and her partner Meredith Krill bounced back and were even featured on Good Morning America, Allure, Vogue and more.

So this episode is for you if something has ever happened to you that's just absolutely devastating when you are on the precipice of something amazing, you are going to relate absolutely to Carrie’s story. So that's why we're going to be focusing today on grit and what to do when things don't go your way.

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Transcript

Carrie Sporer: [00:00:00] As co-founders and founders in general, we've since learned that every day is some sort of a fire drill. 

Lucy Bedewi: Hi there. You're listening to The Bold Founder, where we inspire you to go bigger in your messaging, marketing mindset, and moves while finding a joyful middle ground between intense hustle and easy flow. Today we have the coolest guest. I'm going to be talking to Carrie Sporer, the woman behind Swear. So swear you're gonna hear what the product does. I'm not gonna spoil it for you, but let's just say it's the coolest thing to ever enter haircare. She met her co-founder Meredith Krill, while training for the NYC marathon in 2007, and they met because they shared the complaint that they needed to wash their hair in the shower after every sweaty run.

Lucy Bedewi: I think anyone who's ever worked out and then had to figure out what the heck they do with their hair is gonna relate to this one. After more than a decade of searching the market for a solution and coming up empty, they finally started calling labs to help them [00:01:00] create the product that was missing from their get ready routine, and Swair was born.

Lucy Bedewi: When Carrie is not helping people go from sweaty to ready, she loves playing board games with her husband and two sons running before the sun comes up in Central Park and stresses them out. baking. She's based on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her family, and today we're going to talk about something that happened to her that honestly made my jaw drop.

Lucy Bedewi: If something has ever happened to you that's just absolutely devastating when you are on the precipice of something amazing, you are going to relate absolutely. So much to her story. And that's why we're going to be focusing today on grit and what to do when things don't go your way. I can't think of a better person to talk about this topic.

Lucy Bedewi: So come on in, settle in, and let's talk about what to do when things go a little wild. I'm so excited to kick off this episode because we're going to get to this a little bit later in the episode, but you have an incredible story with Swear of. Not just triumphs, but [00:02:00] ups and downs. But before we get into that, I want to talk about what Swair  is. I want to hear all of your passion, all of your mission, because I'm sure literally every person with hair who likes to also work out and not wash their hair every day Is going to immediately flock and buy your product, even though that's how I was here, it needs to be said.

Lucy Bedewi: So I'll just pass over the mic to you. And if you want to give us that quick little elevator of what swear is, so people can get up to date there. 

Carrie Sporer: Yeah, absolutely. so swears hero product is a first in kind quick way to clean very sweaty hair. I met my co-founder training for the marathon back in 2007, and we hated the fact that we needed to wash our hair in the shower after every sweaty run.

Carrie Sporer: I'm sure most listeners are familiar with dry shampoo, which is great if you have a little bit of sweat or a little bit of oil. But if you put dry shampoo on very sweaty hair, it doesn't work. Basically, the consistency of Elmer's glue [00:03:00] is so beautiful. We wanted to right what everybody's going for to look like Cameron Diaz and something about Mary

Carrie Sporer: so we started calling Labs after more than a decade and a half of this complaint. Like we tried everything on the market, nothing was working, and we were like, there has to be. something that can work in between a dry shampoo and a shower hair wash. So we, the end product was showerless shampoo, and it's a quick way to clean very sweaty hair.

Carrie Sporer: You spray it on your hair and when you towel dry it out, it physically removes the dirt and the sweat in a way that no other product on the market works. So we want girls to stop doing the hair bath. So they can work out as often as they want without having to worry about their hair wash schedule. 

Lucy Bedewi: I think that's so cool.

Lucy Bedewi: beyond talking about all the topics that we talked about on this podcast, the number one thing I love talking about is differentiation and daring to do what no one's ever done before. And I think Swear is such, A [00:04:00] great embodiment of that. what you said to me when we were talking before this episode is you want it to be the lululemon of the hair industry.

Lucy Bedewi: Tell us about what that stretchy goal means to you? 

Carrie Sporer: Yeah, 

Lucy Bedewi: absolutely. 

Carrie Sporer: So when we launched, we. Set out to set our own problem to solve our own problem with showerless shampoo But really we feel like there's no hair care brand out there that is addressing an active customer as their main niche So that's really where we see the future of swear beyond showerless shampoo where We have a leave in conditioner that helps to protect your hair against sweat, humidity and environmental stressors.

Carrie Sporer: But we have a whole list of other products, some in development, some more wishlists a little bit further away that really are going to add convenience and multitasking for an active person. So we don't want people to have to choose between working out and their hair. That's really frustrating. it really is a problem that affects mostly [00:05:00] women that have to plan their workouts around their hair and it's just really frustrating You should be able to work out when you want to work out and not have to worry about your hair So Our goal is to really have a whole suite of products that when you're thinking about, Oh, I'm starting a workout routine or, an active person.

Carrie Sporer: I have my Lululemon. I have my aloe. That's what's in my drawers and what's in my bathroom and in my gym bag is my swear. 

Lucy Bedewi: Oh, it's so good. The amount of times I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I would love to go to that class with you, but I straightened my hair yesterday. Wild. such good things. We're obviously going to have all of those links to swear, in the podcast notes.

Lucy Bedewi: So if you're honestly here, not for the grit and the storytelling, but for better hair, then you're good episodes overhead to the link in the notes. But no, for all of our founders that are here with us today, we are going to be talking about grit. And when things Look like they're on the up and then they all come crashing down because that is Terrifying and horrifying and you actually experienced it firsthand So I would love for [00:06:00] you to dig into what happened when swear launched.

Lucy Bedewi: I believe you said you were on Good Morning America you had some Such an amazing reception. You'll get into the numbers there, but then something happened. So Mike is all yours. I'm honestly sitting here with popcorn too. Just ready to hear the story. 

Carrie Sporer: Yeah, absolutely. Developing our formula took about 11 months from the time we started, we identified our lab to the time that we actually got the version that we were like this.

Carrie Sporer: Is what where you want to go to market.so then, of course, you have to place a purchase order with your lab, which is not something cheap. I would say in general to launch a product with a lab and get that first production run done. And this is normal. Size lab. it's not making it in your kitchen, which I thought was something you have to do sidebar to develop a product.

Carrie Sporer: We worked with the lab to develop the product with us and to launch a product, I would say probably takes between 20 and 30, 000 [00:07:00] conservatively for all of your packaging and your formula labels. Things like that. so we spent that money. We placed our first purchase order for 6, 000 bottles.

Carrie Sporer: We had, 1, 000 of our large size, the eight ounce, and then we had 5, 000 of our travel size, the two ounce.and we were so excited. We got labels printed up. We ordered bottles and to even get the bottles was a whole labor of love because it was during COVID. So most packaging companies weren't servicing little brands.

Carrie Sporer: They were sending all of their bottles and sprayers to large brands that were making sanitizers and surface sprays. we basically had to get in line. We found a supplier and they were like, okay, we can get these to you, but not right away. we have these multimillion dollar customers to service first, but then like, when we can get them to you, we will.

Carrie Sporer: So we had to be very patient. with that. but finally, all of the materials ended up at the lab. We worked with the lab in New Jersey, [00:08:00] because again, we actually turned our website on in September of 2020. So most of this was taking place around COVID. So our lab was only working at 50 percent capacity so that they could have, it was like six feet apart.

Carrie Sporer: So they were working at 50 percent capacity so that they could have all of their teams work safely and spread out. So placing the PO, getting everything to the lab, having time working at like half mast, to work with us was a whole situation. And we hired a PR team with some of our startup capital to help us secure launch day press.

Carrie Sporer: So when we turned on swearhair. com, we would get thousands of visitors, tons of people buying a product that weren't just like our moms. so we had a lot of expenses going into this and luckily our PR team had a bunch of launch day press set up. so we were ready to go excitedly. twiddling our thumbs, just waiting for the product to get off the production line.[00:09:00] 

Carrie Sporer: And about three weeks prior to launch day, we got a phone call. And we mostly communicate with our lab via email. It's like when you get the like, we need to talk, it's not good. Exactly. Like I have two kids, that are, elementary school age. And when you see this at the school, Phone number, right?they're like at the nurse's office. Yeah, like something is going on. It's that team your heart drops. they're not gonna call and be like, hey, everything looks great Just wanted to let you know They were so smart today right we got that phone call from the lab and they told us that there was a contamination And they were going to need to dump the 1000 bottles of the larger size had already You Being completed before this time, but they were going to need to dump the 5, 000 bottles of our smaller sized product.

Carrie Sporer: So I have a co-founder who I have not talked about yet, but she [00:10:00] is truly my better half in this swear hair journey. and our hearts just sank. it truly. Full body panic. Yeah. overcame us and we really didn't know what to do. And as co-founders and founders in general, we've since learned that every day is some sort of a fire drill.

Carrie Sporer: but this was the first one and it was a huge one and yeah, we At first just freaked out and it was one of those things where you don't even listen to the second half of the phone because you're like your mind goes blank and i'm on the phone But trying to put in my earbuds to like text my co founder because we weren't in the same place to let her know What happened?

Carrie Sporer: yeah, so we had a total initial freak out and this was the first time of now You Countless that I was so glad to have a co founder on this [00:11:00] journey because I think I if it was just me, I would have been like packing it very much and Just close my laptop and gone for a run But luckily, we had each other and a situation like that, having somebody else, even if they're have the same lack of experience in this case that you do.

Carrie Sporer: it really is probably why swear exists today. Just being able to be like, okay, this happened and now let's start making some phone calls. so the first thing that we did was we obviously talked to our lab about how we can fix this? And we don't know exactly what the contamination was.

Carrie Sporer: I was going to ask, what does 

Lucy Bedewi: Does the contamination mean? It sounds almost ominous. 

Carrie Sporer: Yeah. So we don't know what it means because it was COVID time and things were so new. I'm wondering if for some reason, Somebody working on a product may have then been diagnosed with covid and they didn't feel comfortable sending the product out because Again, this was [00:12:00] still like not so long.

Carrie Sporer: I mean we were like Wiping 

Lucy Bedewi: down our tomatoes. So there was definitely that phase. Yeah 

Carrie Sporer:The other thing and now having been in the hair care industry for longer is Sometimes microbes just develop in the bottles and that could be from a number of reasons that could be maybe there were already the bottles that weren't clean when Your manufacturer sent them to you.

Carrie Sporer: And obviously, like the lab has, they don't just take the bottles and then fill them immediately. They have a process that they put them through to sterilize them, but maybe something went wrong there. And there were some sort of microbes in the bottle because they do,similar to a strep test or something at the doctor.

Carrie Sporer: They do a microbial test on the product before it does ship out the door. and at our lab that we work with, which is very high quality, it's still Super, super rare for something not to pass the microbial test, but Things happen. Even if everyone's in hairnets and gloves and washing hands, things happen. So yes, we don't know exactly [00:13:00] what the contamination was, but it was our problem to deal with.

Carrie Sporer: So the first thing we did was we called them because our number one concern was financial liability.as I had mentioned, it cost us between, probably like all said and done, I forget about, a graphic designer to help us make the label, and our. The PR team that we had to pay for the actual product itself cost us around 30, 000.

Carrie Sporer: So we didn't have 30, 000 to redo this. So our first question was who is financially responsible? And luckily they said that they were happy to take on that burden and they would be the ones paying for our bottles and labels. For the replacement, as well as provide the formula again, free of charge. So luckily, there were some small ancillary fees that we had to pay, but in general, they covered all of the costs to redo the order.

Carrie Sporer: One thing that was a bummer from a [00:14:00] financial perspective is we had to keep our PR team working on the launch longer. They had to call all of their contacts to make sure that nobody was running that. We were launching in July. Now we are going to launch it in September. so they had to backtrack.

Carrie Sporer: Talk to all their contacts. And we obviously had to compensate them for this additional work. That was probably our biggest expense that we had to pay again. but we were really lucky that the lab did right by us and said, this happened in our facility and we will be responsible for it. And, That's just a good message to anybody listening.

Carrie Sporer: Make sure you have good partners. There are so many, in this Shopify internet era where it is. The barriers to starting a business are not as high as they used to be. And there are so many labs, so many packaging companies, so many graphic designers. anything that you need to help you start the business, there are dozens and hundreds and thousands of resources.

Carrie Sporer: So if somebody is not a kind [00:15:00] partner, they're somebody else. to work with. And when I talk to people who want to start businesses, that's something I always say, just make sure that you have good partners that you're working with that will have your back when.

Carrie Sporer: Things happen because they always do, so that's just a side message, 

Lucy Bedewi: The great thing about a quote-unquote saturated industry is finding people who are going to take you to your goals and people who will be equally as there for you for the wins as the lows.

Lucy Bedewi: I'm curious, what was going through your mind during that call? how were you feeling before you were able to snap into, okay, I gotta call these people mode? 

Carrie Sporer: it was almost like a blackout moment, everything went blank because it was just pure panic, I don't think I was sad, I don't think I was mad, I just think it was like, all of the work we've been doing gone, it's, you know what it feels like?

Carrie Sporer: It's like when you, Write a paper for a college final and you've written like 20 pages and your computer crashes where you feel [00:16:00] like all of that work that you put in is suddenly gone. It's no fault of your own and now you're left behind. To pick up the pieces and time is not on your side. I think that's probably the closest analogy that I can find.

Lucy Bedewi: Right. Especially because you had this launch and I'd love to talk about like, what was the timeline with when you were launching the Good Morning America showing and this whole contamination? 

Carrie Sporer: So Good Morning America was actually, a few months after we did properly launch. But we did have some launch day press that was planned for more digital publication.some insider, or like some trade press, Beauty Independent was covering us. And then, like Allure put, was putting us in their like best of the month. And we had to be like, yeah, not that month.

Carrie Sporer: Like a few months. We have no shampoo right now. Thanks Allure. And then one, thing that, really put us at ease after that initial panic was, I [00:17:00] would say that the first call was calling the lab back and being like, okay, now that I've digested this,what do we do now? and then the second call was to the PR team.

Carrie Sporer: And as a first time founder and a beauty industry outsider, I was in such a panic and they said to us that launches get pushed back all the time for all different kinds of reasons. And this is not going to be the first time an editor was told, please don't publish it. on this date, please wait.

Carrie Sporer: We ended up launching about six weeks after we initially planned. So they are really normal. It's impressive that you pulled everything together in six weeks after that. When we did the launch six weeks later, luckily, we were able to get our labels made because we work with a local label manufacturer that kind of makes everything from scratch. They had the capability to get that done for us quickly. The lab obviously put us to the front of the line. In making the formulation again, they didn't make us wait, the normal amount of time.

Carrie Sporer: The biggest issue was our bottles and sprayers, which I had mentioned, we had to wait so long [00:18:00] for because it was during COVID and multi million billion dollar companies were using some of the same suppliers that we were working with. So we actually ended up using, Some second choice packaging things that we were able to get more easily off the shelf that the customer would, because they hadn't seen the product before, they would never know the difference, but we knew the difference.

Carrie Sporer: but for us, it was more important to get it done. In a more timely manner with stuff that wasn't our A but maybe it was like our B choice of packaging, in terms of like the actual bottles and sprayers that we were using. 

Lucy Bedewi: That's really great that you brought that up because I think a lot of founders struggle with perfectionism, especially since you've created this product.

Lucy Bedewi: You want the best of the best. you're obviously solving a problem that's never been solved before, but being able to pick that 88 percent product and be like, no, it's more important to get this out in the hands of our people than it is to have. everything in this amazing, perfect way. 

Carrie Sporer: Yeah. I think that [00:19:00] a lot of founders do have some sort of perfection paralysis where it takes them.

Carrie Sporer: They think that everything needs to be perfect to put it out in the market. And I think You know, even if I think about some of my favorite indie brands thinking about how their packaging has changed or maybe you get an email that there's our new formulation for this lip gloss, that's even better than before.

Carrie Sporer: Like people are iterating all of the time. And as customers, we don't always notice it because we're almost used to it. But when you put something out for yourself, you feel like it needs to be the best. And, for better or for worse, I feel like on the opposite side, I'm really okay with putting pretty good out there.

Carrie Sporer: Oh, same. I'm glad I've met a pretty good fellow. Yeah. whether it's a social media post, it's, a meta ad it's, even like our Packaging like every time we do a run of our labels, we're always changing something little maybe we're like Oh, I don't think that [00:20:00] wording was clear on the directions or you want to know what I think we should make the made in the usa a little bit more prominent there's so many things that we do that we're not even calling out to the customer because it's a minor change from their perspective, but for us, we're like, Oh, we didn't put out the best label last.

Lucy Bedewi: I think what's so beautiful is you are stuck with it. You did relaunch six weeks later, product in hands of customers. And I would love for you to talk about how this story ends.

Lucy Bedewi: So talk about that launch, how it went, and also how Swear is doing today. 

Carrie Sporer: so as I mentioned, we had a launch press planned, so that was fantastic. And I know that some founders are a little less bullish on traditional PR, but I feel like there's still such a great place for it in consumer packaged goods for a couple of reasons.

Carrie Sporer: The first is it is a wonderful way to announce your brand. You know, if you're going to turn on your website, Getting those customers to your site, [00:21:00] unless you're an influencer with 20 million followers, it's really hard. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. And getting traffic to our website and brand awareness is still the goal of every indie brand.

Carrie Sporer: So to launch with some press, I think was fantastic from an emotional perspective where it's like, my name is in a. An article, and also from a practical perspective of okay, apparently customers need seven touch points before they want to buy your product. Oh, I think it's even 

Lucy Bedewi: more in this 2024 era.

Lucy Bedewi: It's something crazy because we're exposed to so many ads. So a hundred percent. 

Carrie Sporer: Exactly. So here's a great example. Touchpoint. And then also with press, even if it was on day one when we were in allure, and I don't think it was day one. I think it was like day 20 or something like that.

Carrie Sporer: I can say that as seen in allure for the life of my brand. the fact that Customers are being served so many ads today, the fact that we can come to them with some names that they trust, like we've been in Allure, we've been in Forbes, we've been [00:22:00] in Vogue, we've been in Glamour, being able to use those titles as a way just to tell the customer, like, don't just take it from me, Carrie Sporer, founder of Swear, take it from all of these trusted names.

Carrie Sporer: I still think that has weight with a lot of customers. So launching with the press was incredibly exciting. and then also getting orders from people that we didn't know. It's incredibly exciting because the first dozen orders all had like the same last name as me or my co-founder.

Carrie Sporer: But then when you start seeing people that you don't know, it's incredibly, yeah, it's incredibly exciting. Yeah. And now the goal really is to Swair  to become a household name. So we've been trying to build that in so many different ways, gym partnerships. We work with affiliates. Many of them are fitness instructors so that they can share it with their community, which for us feels like a really natural fit.

Carrie Sporer: continuing traditional press, obviously social media, every brand. [00:23:00] Yeah, we've had a couple of amazing highlights. We've been talking about Good Morning America. They featured our brand, in a shopping segment and you could actually go on Good Morning America to buy it. So it was an affiliate purchase for them when customers went on Good Morning America.

Carrie Sporer: com, they actually got a percent of the sale, which was fine with us because we sold over 10, 000 bottles in 24 hours, which was crazy. They told us they needed 10, 000 bottles. We did a special production run just for them. Cause as I mentioned, we only started with 6, 000. So we didn't have that in stock. but we figured whatever we don't sell, it's okay.

Carrie Sporer: We'll put it in stock. We put more money into the business just to support that production run. and we're like, there's no way, there's no way they're selling 10, 000 bottles. And they actually sold out. It was crazy. 

Lucy Bedewi: I love the redemption story. And I think that's so important because there's probably so many founders right now the world goes black.

Lucy Bedewi: you're on the phone. You realize You had a huge setback [00:24:00] and to hear you come out of something like that I think gives so much hope. So what would you say to someone who is right now in the crumbling, scorched earth, the do I even want to start from zero again? What would you say to them as they're going through this?

Carrie Sporer: something that Meredith and I, my co founder, often say is everything is figureoutable. And it's really true. we say that and we say it to each other we also remind each other and this is so cheesy to even say out loud.

Carrie Sporer: She's gonna murder me We say to each other we're like we are awesome we have to remind ourselves sometimes it's when we still run together many days a week how we met training for the marathon we still run together three days a week and sometimes it's just like getting up the hill When we're running truly like i'll say to her like remember we're awesome We can do this we can get to the top of the hill and then sometimes it's much more figurative when we're You know, working on something and it feels impossible in that moment.

Carrie Sporer: And like one of us will look at the other one and be like, we're [00:25:00] awesome. We can do this. we pump each other up. And so if you don't have a co-founder, have a friend that will send you awesome texts or emails.and tell yourself you're awesome. I have a gratitude journal that I fill out every morning.

Carrie Sporer: And this is a true story. I think. Swear, pun intended, so for the new year, I ordered this gratitude journal and it's like a five minute thing that you fill out, it's like a workbook, it's the same page every day, but you just fill it out for like your goals of the day. And then at the end of the day,do a little few minutes about how it went and.

Carrie Sporer: I told Merith, I got this gratitude journal, and it's really cool, and I'm really enjoying it, and she looked at me, and she's like, I bought the same one. We had both gotten these gratitude journals simultaneously, and we're filling them out, and I had no idea that the other person had also bought it.

Carrie Sporer: I, A lot of stuff happens in our co-founder's brains that, we're, like, we'll show up in the same outfit, stuff like that. Okay, I've gotten completely off topic, but, it's really, pumping yourself up, having [00:26:00] somebody to pump you up just to keep going. And, Really not being afraid to ask questions, no matter how simple they are.

Carrie Sporer: I'm in a couple of networking groups and also, the people that we work with, whether it's our lab or marketing freelancers that we've worked with. Like I ask ridiculous things sometimes, like what is that ingredient? Or, what does ROAS mean? different basic things.

Carrie Sporer: as a first time founder, you can't be expected to know everything. And I truly think just having passion for your product is enough, but just. Don't have any pretensions about asking ridiculous questions and make sure that you have people around you that are kind enough to answer them. And I think that goes back to the good partner thing.

Carrie Sporer: if a good partner is not going to answer your silly questions, they're not the best partner for you. It and then there's so many different communities, networking groups for female founders, CPG founders,and different types of minority founders. There's all of these groups, where you can just ask [00:27:00] questions and, in some of the groups I'm in, there's some people who just have ideas and they're thinking about starting a brand.

Carrie Sporer: And then there's other people with multimillion dollar businesses. And I love to see everybody helping. Each other. in a way that kind of like slack channels and, LinkedIn groups, now allow us to do in a way that hasn't before. So I think to sum it up,the way to keep your grid is really just to pump yourself up in a ridiculous way.

Carrie Sporer: Telling yourself that you're awesome and that everything is figured out. And then also just finding communities like close communities, the people that are helping you on a daily basis. And then communities further out that may just be internet friends, that will help answer all of your questions because founders get stuck.

Carrie Sporer: And to think that you're not going to have a problem is very unrealistic. 

Lucy Bedewi: I love that you said go big with it and tell yourself that you're awesome and bring community and the secret to grit actually, Quite positive because I think the word grit itself feels [00:28:00] very like the only way out is through hustle like however you want to frame it and I love that you provided this reframe that no grit is surrounding yourself with the right people asking the questions and telling yourself who you are and making sure that you're not questioning your ability even when you are in this low spot because I think so many people think people who have grit are those intense hustlers and you know We're both founders, like we both work, we're no secret to putting in the hours, but there is that connotation that you're flipping and I think that's so great for people to hear that sometimes it just takes you reminding yourself who you are and making sure that you have the right people you can lean on.

Lucy Bedewi: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, it's such a good ending. Honestly, like the mic's already on the table, but I could drop it. I think where I want to take this episode to just, close it out is if there's anything else that's on your mind, if you want to tell anyone, but also just those parting words for someone who is.

Lucy Bedewi: Maybe coming out of a [00:29:00] time when they had to have a lot of grit. What would you do as they're on this precipice of amazing things happening for them? So we can also speak to that person. 

Carrie Sporer: just the first point to that is, the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial journey really is a roller coaster.

Carrie Sporer: so I think just anticipating that there is going to be highs and lows and Rolling with them is helpful just to know that Every founder goes through those really tough spots and it's

Carrie Sporer: that first one that happened felt so devastating. And I think if I had known, and something that my PR team helped me realize was Things happen. Launches don't go according to plan. I think just knowing that there are going to be lows. So when you hit them, it's not as crushing as knowing that, even the founder of Bombas or some really cool brand that's started in the last, 10, 15 years, like everybody, every founder at every level goes through them.

Carrie Sporer: I think That's good. and then when you reach the high, something that we are not great at [00:30:00] doing, but we're working on is celebrating them and taking a beat. I think when you're in the founder hustle, and I've had days that have gone from zero to 100 or 100 from zero or like back and forth time, like never taking a moment to like, whatever celebrating means to you, whether it's like, you want to know what I'm going to go for a 20 minute walk and just think about how wonderful that went and how proud I am of myself or like maybe celebrating is like meeting a friend and having three tequila shots, like for celebrating means to you.

Carrie Sporer: I think that one thing that we're at fault of it Swair is like something great will happen. And then we're like, okay, what's the next meeting that we have lined up? We don't really take a minute to celebrate ourselves. And. Sometimes I think that almost makes the lows. Have more power when like, we all are guilty or I shouldn't say we all hopefully there's people out there that have mastered this.

Carrie Sporer: I have not mastered sitting in the lows longer than sitting in the highs. And I think one of my goals, and hopefully by talking about it, it'll, maybe be advice for other people is really to give them equal weight [00:31:00] or like even better give the highs more weight. I think we spend too much time thinking about what went wrong than what went right.

Carrie Sporer: And I think, giving more weight to those and spending the same amount of time sitting with them or dealing with them, I think is great. 

Lucy Bedewi: Oh, that's so good. Yes. It's keeping that equal brain or ideally more highs in the brain than lows, because it's so easy to just brush off, hitting a huge milestone and be like, okay, cool.

Lucy Bedewi: Did that next. thing. And then something goes wrong and next thing you know you're spiraling in that for two weeks. So thank you so much for coming on the Bold Founder. we might put the video up for some promotion. You'll literally see my face just being like the whole time. Like it just jaw dropped because yes, it's so cool.

Lucy Bedewi: It's such an incredible story and I'm so proud of what you've been able to do. I'm going to, as I've said, put your links, all in the podcast notes so people can continue to check out everything that you're creating. And we hope to see Swear as the Lululemon of the hair industry in just a few short years and we are all rooting for you over here.

Lucy Bedewi: So thank you so much again for coming on today. 

Carrie Sporer: Thank you. This [00:32:00] has been so much fun. And I know that you told me that the podcast is just getting started, but I'm very surprised because you seem like a very seasoned interviewer. Oh, thank you. So much fun. and glad to have done it and just wish you so much success with this podcast.

Carrie Sporer: And we're definitely going to share it. We say share our swear. So we will definitely be sharing this at Swear. Oh, that's such a cute, 

Lucy Bedewi: That's such a cute sentence. 

Lucy Bedewi: There you have it. That is our interview with Carrie. Let me know what your biggest takeaways were and please if you enjoyed this episode leave us a review or send me a message at lucy. bedewy on Instagram, L U C Y dot B E D E W I. I love hearing what you guys get out of these episodes, what you want to hear more of and especially after an episode like Grit, I encourage you to To think about where you are right now.

Lucy Bedewi: Think about what is crumbling around you or what just doesn't feel right. And know that people have been there. You are going to get out of this. And sometimes when the most devastating thing [00:33:00] happens, you're able to build back back. So much stronger, and I know that that's true for you, too. So take a big deep breath if you relate a little bit too much to Carrie's coming backstory, and know that yours is just around the corner.

Lucy Bedewi: Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time.