Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Welcome to The Jazmin Starr Show, a place that we talk about life, business, mindset and today your best self. I have to tell you that in preparation of this conversation, I have done a deep dive in what it takes to build an e-comm business stuff that's very interesting to me. When people are like, Jasmine, what's your hobby? And I'm like, I just look at businesses, I just look at business models. That is what I do in my free time. My husband and I are co-founders. We go to restaurants, we count tables, we see how many chairs are. We see the average turnaround. We're looking at price, profitability, what we change, the pricing structure. We are sick. And you want to know what? I knew that the minute I met Kat. She too understood the language that I speak. She has built a business. She has sold a business, she has bought a business. And somehow all of those things are interconnected in her story is going to empower you to think about business in a different way, but also to think about how you pursue your best self.

Jasmine Star 00:00:53  On that note, Kat, welcome to the Jazz and Star Show. Thanks for.

Cathryn Lavery 00:00:56  Having me. I'm really excited to be here. I am so.

Jasmine Star 00:00:58  Happy you are here now. I normally stay away from podcasting where I'm like, tell us your origin story because somebody who's listening, I think that they deserve our absolute best. And when I hear your story, what I hear is a pure story of grit, stamina, strategy, resilience, coming back next time, best time. It's like I hear all of these things and I'm like, we could pick up the story anywhere in the story. I think that there's so many juicy parts to it. And I look at your story and I look at it kind of like in four sections. Now, I know that there's so many iterations of it, but I think about the fundraising part of it. I'm not going to spill any details. I want you to like, run at this, because it's so fascinating to me. If we have the fundraising, we have the build, we have the sell, we have a new chapter.

Jasmine Star 00:01:46  And so in my mind, I'm like, okay, do we start at the beginning, which is not anywhere where I start. But I think it's freaking fascinating. Do we start where we are now and then frickin work backwards? You tell me the greatest value. Someone's like, I'm not sure this podcast is going to be for me. I don't do e-com. The show is not about ecom y'all. The show is about a thousand different things and I'm so fascinated. Where do we go and say, you want to listen? You want to watch this show? Where are we at in your story?

Cathryn Lavery 00:02:09  So let's go back to the beginning, because I think anyone watching this who's starting a business has started a business. And a lot of times we like, see people on podcasts like this and you're like, oh, they're so far ahead of me. Like, how do I get there? Good. And before I started my first business, I didn't literally never read a business book. And so I never took a business class.

Cathryn Lavery 00:02:29  I was an architect and I knew how to, like, make stuff, but I didn't know how to sell stuff. In fact, it was like almost successful, in spite of not being able to sell. Like, I hated selling. And so I wouldn't even email my list unless I had something new to show them. And then I had to pay someone just to send emails because I'm like, look, I can't do it. And then I started Best Self when we launched with crowdfunding. So it's like, here's a product. I think people will love it. I also didn't have the money to buy a bunch and try to see if it's sold. So crowdfunding is a great way to fundraise for making something exist and seeing people actually want it, because people can say that they want it, but if they open their wallet and actually give you.

Jasmine Star 00:03:04  Money, okay, this is the part that I found fascinating. So if we take I'm also a storyteller. So it's like you and I are actually meeting in person for the first time, but it's like in the story of my mind, what I see is somebody who has a skill set and has an idea, and the world in which I come, it's like just brute force.

Jasmine Star 00:03:21  I'm just going to break down every wall and every door. And you and I think that I sometimes picture, well, she's an architect. She thinks about everything from all sides. She thinks about foundation teaching us to build. And so what you did is you said, I have this idea and we'll talk about that idea and where you got that idea, but I'm going to take it to crowdsource. And if people buy it before I've spent a penny, then I know it's proof of concept. Then the risk is really the risk of an idea. So what is the idea that you come up with? And then when you crowdfund, what are the results?

Cathryn Lavery 00:03:51  Yeah. So I had my previous business, I had I learned how to do crowd funding. A friend taught me. He was just like, why didn't you crowdfunding sites to just make a product and then sell it on my site? And he was like, you should crowdfund it. So I set up my first crowdfunding two weeks later, and then I ran a couple for a previous business, and then I figured out, like, okay, here's the kind of system of how to do it, but let me.

Jasmine Star 00:04:11  Okay, okay, okay okay okay. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. You are not gonna come on this podcast and I'll talk to you about the system. Somebody is listening and they're like, wow, I'm listening to Cat. I'm feeling inspired. I want to test an idea. What are three things that somebody who's setting up their crowdfunding like, what are the three things now that, you know, like, you know, girl, you kind of killed the game. What are those things that you would recommend somebody?

Cathryn Lavery 00:04:30  So a lot of people think like, oh, I'll just set up a crowdfunding and people will come and buy. It's like you have to set up an email list just like you would for any other product launch. Kickstarter is not going to send traffic to you unless they know you're successful. Also, if you get new people that have never been on their platform before, they're basically like the more people back a project, the more they're likely to back future projects. So they're basically customers of like Kickstarter Indiegogo.

Cathryn Lavery 00:04:53  So if you bring new people to their platform, they will reward you by giving you traffic. And so generally what I've seen.

Jasmine Star 00:05:00  With okay, hold on, I'm going to break this down. If I'm crowdfunding a project and you're crowdfunding a project, I bring in like I tell my people, hey, come in and crowdfunding this thing, buy this thing. And then since they come on to the platform, Indiegogo or any other crowdsourcing site can be like, hey, can you check out cats?

Cathryn Lavery 00:05:19  No, you're sending them to your sites. You're like, come to my party. And then there's other people at the party that they're like, oh, can you also back this project? Because once people are on the platform, they're more likely to buy. And another thing, so one of the first things is like building an email list of people that are going to be interested in your product. So for my product, that's what became Best Self. That list was growing like really like organically. It was like a giveaway for only products that people who would be interested in our product would buy.

Cathryn Lavery 00:05:46  So you're not trying to grow the biggest list ever, like, oh, here's an iPod or a MacBook Pro. It's like, yeah, everyone wants that. But when you come to launch your thing, like nobody's going to care. So only like the weirdos that are going to like your product, give other products that they would like.

Jasmine Star 00:06:01  Okay, let's break this down. What did you do? So you're selling. You're selling.

Cathryn Lavery 00:06:04  We created the self Journal and it was a goal based journal. Like we'll show you how to set a goal and break it down in three months. So it's a journal and we're like bulletproof coffee. Like productivity books, software that people who are only interested, good software that only like Type-A people are going to be interested in. And so whenever we like, send out the email, oh, we launch this. So it's like other problems being solved by other products that are around the circle of what it is that we're trying to do.

Jasmine Star 00:06:30  Very cool. So number one was to build a newsletter list on the back of your crowdsourcing project.

Jasmine Star 00:06:36  Yeah, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding project.

Cathryn Lavery 00:06:40  And then also to just have simple rewards because here's what people do is like they set up a crowdfunding thing and they're like, okay, we have the main thing that's in the video. And then we have a t shirt with our company name and a hot weather company name, and like all this other that nobody actually wants. So what you're actually doing is people just want the thing and multiples of the thing. And so you have to have a like a really simple structure of like this, like the most discounted it's ever going to be. And so it's like one journal, two journals, four journals, ten journals. That's all people want. And so what you do when you try to complicate it is like you're going to finish and you're like, God, I have to find a t shirt manufacturer. And I that like, nobody even wants, but they want to support you. And then also doing like a dollar reward because again, the crowdfunding people, like some people are not going to be into your journal.

Cathryn Lavery 00:07:24  Right? Which is fine, but they might want to support you. But if you put a reward with no actual like physical reward, people can back you and then.

Jasmine Star 00:07:32  Like a donation.

Cathryn Lavery 00:07:33  Yeah, well, not a donation. It's like $1. I support this project, but I don't want this journal. Okay. And so what Kickstarter is actually rewarding is the more people you get to your project, the better than the actual like money.

Jasmine Star 00:07:45  Because it's acquisition For? Yeah. and so if.

Cathryn Lavery 00:07:48  You understand, like, how do you make it a win for them, then you can also make it a win, and then you're getting the popular one. You're appearing on the website, they're showing you the other projects. And so if people back one they're more likely to back another. Okay.

Jasmine Star 00:08:00  So what you did was you put out your project to test it. And then in order for you to test it, you were also building a newsletter list. And then you had aligned incentives. Because if people want to journal, they're not really there for a hat.

Jasmine Star 00:08:13  And so you started driving incentives buy you bundle and save. That seems like a very clear value add and gets your product more out to people. And then also finding a way for people to be a part of the project, even if they don't actually want the product itself. It's just like a hey, I see you and this is something that I'm about. Okay, so crowdfunding tips from Kat. There you go. We're already starting with the value add. So somebody's looking and they're watching and they're hearing this and they're like, I can start doing this. But what happens in that gestation process, like what happens in that iteration that kind of blows your mind and says like, oh, this is different than anything I've done before.

Cathryn Lavery 00:08:46  Because we our goal is 15,000. We hit. We hit that in a day and a half. Wow. And then we raised like 322,000 in a month. And so what?

Jasmine Star 00:08:58  Oh my god.

Cathryn Lavery 00:08:59  We basically sold over 10,000 units in the month. And so when we priced our rewards we priced them based on like the mock, which I believe was like 1000 units.

Cathryn Lavery 00:09:08  Okay. And so that was enough money to like we basically made 30,000 units, we pre-sold ten. And that was enough money to strategically like set up the company. So we never had to raise money again. And that is how I like tell people to think about crowdfunding. You like don't always have to go back there, but if you use it as like a launch pad of like, okay, I presold this much, how do I make enough? Because, you know, the scale of economy is like especially a printing. It goes down the more you print. Yeah. And so it might have been like 50% less per unit because of the amount we did. And that's like strategically how you build a company that you don't have to keep going back there for. Okay, so.

Jasmine Star 00:09:43  One last clarifying question. If I put out and I want to test my idea, do I want to set a big goal, like you said, 15,000. There's people who like, oh, my goal is 100,000.

Cathryn Lavery 00:09:52  I mean, my internal goal, actually my goal that I had written in the journal is 200,000. So my my goal was 15. But you want to hit that quickly and you also want to have that make sense to your goal. So like we're coming out with a journal 15 K makes sense. A guy I ran into at a party once, he's like, yeah, I tried to like launch Kickstarter and it didn't work right. And I was like, okay, what was it for? And he's like a book. And I'm like, what was the goal? And he was like 100,000. I'm like, yeah, no. If I had to set my goal at 100,000, like I wouldn't have gotten probably funded because people go on there and they're like, oh, she's only like 20% to her goal. Even though they get their money back. There's like a oh, I don't want to like back it until you want to back a winning horse. And so you become a winning horse and then you start adding like bonuses on to the point where it's like, oh, a no brainer because you start adding anything things.

Jasmine Star 00:10:42  That is such a big key. Take away the psychology of the way that people are looking at funding. And so you funded not even your business. You funded the idea which launched into the business. And so okay, so you raise over $300,000 and then what?

Cathryn Lavery 00:10:58  And then we well then we're like, okay, now we have to figure out how to deliver these to customers. So it was just like manufacturing. And then every stage of business is like figuring out the problem. When you actually have sales, that's a good problem. It's like, okay, now how do I get us three PL or, you know, a ship like someone to actually ship it to customers? That isn't me.

Jasmine Star 00:11:17  And were you doing that at all?

Cathryn Lavery 00:11:19  I did it with a previous business, but I, like, gave up. I was like, I cannot do this anymore.

Jasmine Star 00:11:22  Okay, so you set up this new venture entirely different. You knew you were going to do three PL and so like, what kind of problems are you solving? Like, so people are saying, oh, Crimea River cat, you raised $300,000.

Jasmine Star 00:11:32  You're like, but let's go back to like where you were. It's like, I have the money. Yeah, I know it's the idea what logistical things are coming up for you.

Cathryn Lavery 00:11:38  I mean, one of the things was like promising that stuff was going to be delivered by Christmas time. So if it's not, the campaign doesn't until mid September. Like manufacturing, getting it on a ship, getting it to the US and then shipping it to customers, we did get it for the US customers, but for like UK and Australia it took like a few more weeks. So stuff like that where it's like, look, how do we get this container so that it arrives earlier. So it's like disappointing people because you didn't know what to expect before you started. So that's always one thing I tell people is like, take the time that you think it's going to take and then add like.

Jasmine Star 00:12:12  How did you deal with that? For the people in the UK and Australia, they were disappointed that they didn't get it by Christmas.

Jasmine Star 00:12:17  What did you.

Cathryn Lavery 00:12:18  I mean, I think we were just like, look, we were on an unreasonable with our expectations. I think it came maybe early January, if not like the first week in January. So it's like they could still start it pretty early, but it just didn't come before the 25th because like everyone in the world is trying to ship their stuff at the same time, but getting it to the US people we did manage. And so that was like a big good good.

Jasmine Star 00:12:40  Okay. So when we go back to that like origin story and you're building, what are some of like the pitfalls. Like if we go back to that, what was the look on your face. You're like all the things.

Cathryn Lavery 00:12:51  I mean, I launched the crowdfunding campaign in 2015. Then we launched the Shopify store on January 1st, 2016. And I was like a workaholic, just hustling, like constantly. I think it took us about six months to hire. So it's just like dealing with customer service, doing everything, which in some ways is good because you learn how to do everything.

Cathryn Lavery 00:13:10  So like anyone that comes in, I'm like, I've done this like I know what it takes to sort of thing, but then it's just like, you don't have enough hours in the day. Yeah, and we were growing fast. But again, because I didn't. How many people.

Jasmine Star 00:13:20  Are you at when you say we at the time were you what did? Well at the.

Cathryn Lavery 00:13:23  Time, myself and my co-founder. Okay. It was the two of us. And then I think we hired a customer support person in like, June of 2016. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it.

Jasmine Star 00:13:30  Was okay.

Cathryn Lavery 00:13:31  Yeah. And just learning the stuff that One of us wasn't good at, or both of us weren't good at. It's like, oh my God. I think operationally we could have used someone much earlier than we find someone because entrepreneurs, it's like we know a lot of entrepreneurs and we often try to hire our friends. Yes, we're not operations people. And so it doesn't work out that well.

Cathryn Lavery 00:13:52  So that's one thing is like we look around and be like, who else can we hire that we know? Like, oh, we'll try to fit this square peg into a round hole of operations when that's like, not what they want to do at all and, and not what they're good at, which should be fine. So we tried that for a while, and then I realized, like, it took me a few years of, like, doing things wrong to be like, oh yeah, this is how you hire better. But I also went through an embezzlement thing in 2020. I went through business partner breakup and like he kind of stepped out in 2018, but I didn't know anything about vesting. And so it was like 50% of the company, like, walked out the door. So then I spent two years dealing with that.

Jasmine Star 00:14:27  It's June 2016 and you hire your first customer service person person. But if I'm doing the math correctly. That was six months of you and your co-founder doing everything in the business.

Jasmine Star 00:14:38  Yeah. Then in June of 2016, halfway through the year, you bring in your customer service person, and then a year and a half later, your co-founder says, peace out.

Cathryn Lavery 00:14:47  Yeah. So we won the Shopify Build a Business competition in August of 2016.

Jasmine Star 00:14:52  So talk to me about that. What you do apply for? I don't know anything.

Cathryn Lavery 00:14:55  So Shopify did this really cool thing where they were like, how do we motivate people to find success with our platforms? They did the smart thing where they created a contest where it was like six different categories, and it was based on sales over to, like, I think over two months, some maximum thing. I forget the exact rules. So essentially the winners of that contest got to ring the New York Stock Exchange bell. They got to go to the Gatsby mansion with Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss. So they were like, how do we create a prize that you can't buy with money that would entice people?

Jasmine Star 00:15:24  So good. And actually.

Cathryn Lavery 00:15:26  The competition launched like they announced it the day after our Kickstarter ended.

Cathryn Lavery 00:15:30  And I was like, well, this is just fate. Like, we're definitely going to enter this. And what's funny is with the previous business I had, I, I didn't even get close to it, but it was one of those things where I was just like, oh my God, this is so cool.

Jasmine Star 00:15:40  So we. Okay, one thing I've never heard about this before and I'm like, I want to do this competition. This sounds like freaking amazing. But hold on. So everybody on the Shopify platform is eligible in the competition.

Cathryn Lavery 00:15:51  Enter it. But basically if you're a I think it had you had to be a new store within, you know, a year of that. And with that under like $1 million in revenue when you started I forget. Exactly.

Jasmine Star 00:16:01  So good.

Cathryn Lavery 00:16:03  So we started January 1st and we hit like 2.3 million. And so we end up winning in one of our categories. And then we were invited by Tony to this like business mastery the next year.

Jasmine Star 00:16:15  You just say Tony like Tony Robbins.

Jasmine Star 00:16:16  Yeah. Like we were just invited by Tony. Oh my God.

Cathryn Lavery 00:16:19  So then they announced to build a bigger business, which is like a scaling one. They were like, okay, if you are over a million, how do you much do scale in a year? And we end up winning that one as well in 2017, which we did not expect, and at the time you.

Jasmine Star 00:16:32  Did 2.6in year one.

Cathryn Lavery 00:16:34  2.3in year one.

Jasmine Star 00:16:34  2.3 in year one. And then you do this scaling competition.

Cathryn Lavery 00:16:38  Like 6.8 or something like that.

Jasmine Star 00:16:40  Good lord.

Cathryn Lavery 00:16:42  And it was just like mayhem. And we did hire people obviously, but it was just like, I didn't we didn't have a clue what we were doing.

Jasmine Star 00:16:50  So you you have this like massive jump and yes, you're hiring and I want to talk about, well, let's talk about the prize of the second competition, because I know I'm going to get DMs and be like, well, we know that she got to be first.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:01  You got to go to Fiji to stay at Tony Robbins, like resort and like Tim Ferriss and Marie Forleo and Joe from Airbnb.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:09  So they had all these like mentors. And the great thing about so the Gatsby mansion was so close to New York that like, the mentors would be there for a few hours. Damon John I did play monopoly with him for like six hours.

Jasmine Star 00:17:19  Okay, so like.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:20  Two I am telling.

Jasmine Star 00:17:21  You, beat him, please tell me.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:22  But it was down to the two of us, okay? And it was like two in the morning. He literally had a car waiting outside for like three hours.

Jasmine Star 00:17:28  And then oh my God, I love this story. I love this story.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:31  He like travels with his own monopoly board like it's legit on his. Like I don't know if his bodyguard who he was like the banker and I saw the pictures of this guy. It was so funny anyway, but I ended up getting an affiliate deal with Daymond after that monopoly game. His manager was like, okay, he likes you. You should reach.

Jasmine Star 00:17:46  Out. That's the best freaking monopoly game I know. Oh my God.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:49  It's good that he.

Jasmine Star 00:17:50  Won. I know I won, but he won. Yeah. Who really won? You know? Oh my God.

Cathryn Lavery 00:17:55  And then the great thing about Fiji was that we're all like trapped on this island. So like, they.

Jasmine Star 00:18:00  Couldn't come in and out. Yeah.

Cathryn Lavery 00:18:01  So they're all just there like Tim is just like hanging out and like Tony was still the one that was like this giant. But everyone else, like the mentors really were like around you and talking more than just like the hour session you had at the Gatsby mansion. That was pretty cool.

Jasmine Star 00:18:14  Oh my God, I'm so fascinated by the story. Okay, okay, okay. See, see, this is I didn't even know I've done creeping on you and I didn't even know all this stuff. So let's go back to the actual, like, storyline and logistics. And so by the end of 2016, how many team members do you have the year that you do? 2.3.

Cathryn Lavery 00:18:31  Oh, God. 4 or 5, I don't remember.

Jasmine Star 00:18:35  Okay. And then the following year, as you guys scale, how big does a team become?

Cathryn Lavery 00:18:39  I mean, I think at the max the team was was like 14 maybe.

Jasmine Star 00:18:44  Okay. And as you guys are growing and I want to go back, okay, I want to go two ways and I want to say it out loud so I don't forget one. I want to know what in the world were you doing for marketing to be growing in this degree? Because for all intents and purposes, I'm sure it's a phenomenal journal. It's a journal, right? And so what the heck? And then the second part is the timeline of the departure of your co-founder, because I find it like just odd. That was so much success. Like, so what was happening along there? So let's talk about marketing of the business.

Cathryn Lavery 00:19:16  Yeah, I mean, one of the things our product is a three month based product.

Jasmine Star 00:19:20  And so. Oh yes. Yes.

Cathryn Lavery 00:19:22  And that really was around the framework of how we look at goals.

Cathryn Lavery 00:19:26  But it also made sense business wise because four times a year.

Jasmine Star 00:19:29  Okay, hold on. Pause, pause, pause. Because I heard this before. This is so freaking fascinating. Most journals planners goal setting are in the context of 12 months, and you, like all of your competition, are looking at 90 day, three month goals, except for the fact that your offer comes in a three month goal setting journal where your competition is 12 months, right? So you get to sell four products to one. Yeah, it's all good.

Cathryn Lavery 00:19:59  I'm so good.

Jasmine Star 00:20:00  Was that intentional? Were you guys like that strategic about it or. It was. We're making a three month journal because we want you to hit your goals in three months. Yeah.

Cathryn Lavery 00:20:06  I mean, I came up with the idea of like three month journal because that's how I worked better, because a year long, it's like, I mean, imagine setting a year long goal in January of 2020, right? It's like I'm like, oh yeah, we have a pandemic.

Cathryn Lavery 00:20:18  What if you set it three month goal March? You're like, oh.

Jasmine Star 00:20:20  Actually, right. We gotta we gotta change some gears. Okay. Yeah. And so that's.

Cathryn Lavery 00:20:24  Just what worked for me also because I have like ADHD, you know, I have a year I'll, I will wait until the last minute to do anything. And so for me that's what worked. And now a lot of people have three month journals, but we were the first ones to do it. And so it was like one of the things was like having something people had to buy more frequently. Another thing was so good having people find success with the product because like, if you can sell it once, how do you get people to come back? And so that was creating content, creating resources, creating frameworks, because a lot of people they don't like learn how to set goals or even what they should be doing. So we put a lot of time and effort into how do we create so that they know exactly what they have to do when they get this to be successful? Because if they are successful, they'll come back and they're you buy.

Jasmine Star 00:21:07  So your content was largely this is how you set, this is how you create and this is how you achieve your goals.

Cathryn Lavery 00:21:14  Yeah. And it's like, oh, you have a health goal. This is like five people that had the health goals and exactly what they put in their journal every day. And so it's like, how do we minimize the amount of like thinking that people have to do so good. So it's like.

Jasmine Star 00:21:25  Cat so good. Yeah. I keep on jumping in. No, it's just because I was raised in a church and you just talk back. So I'm cutting you off. You think I'm cutting you off? But I'm like, no. So good. I'll just repeat. You're like three journals. Three journals. Three months. Yes, three. I'll just repeat back, but, like, go. This is so good.

Cathryn Lavery 00:21:38  But I think at the end of 27. So we had the journal and then we had some side products with the journal was like 75% of our revenue in 2017, which I was just like, oh my God, this is stressful because it's one single point of failure, right? And so one mistake we made is like, I went through a lot of like, I actually got divorced in 2017.

Cathryn Lavery 00:21:58  And at the same time we're like winning the build a bigger business competition. So I'm in Fiji and all this, like I bumped into this guy and he's like, oh, everything's going amazing for you. Because like, social media will say that. I'm like, yeah, I'm actually going through a divorce, not a contentious one. Like we were still on good terms, but it was like a chapter of my life was ending, and it got me to this point where I was like, best self. At that point, I've been like your Type-A, most productive self. I'm like winning all these competitions and like, it's not really that fun whenever you're, like, working all the time, but then you haven't paid attention to your like, personal life. And so that kind of started me on a path of like, oh, I never want to like, get divorced again or go through this relationship stuff. Let me figure out how do I have a good relationship. And so I kind of went on that path.

Cathryn Lavery 00:22:41  And my old team used to joke like, whatever best self would come up with is just like, whatever Kat's dealing with. So originally I was like, I read all these personal development books. I'm like, I need to create a framework that I just know if I follow this, I'll get to my goal, which is what the journal came with. And so then based off, I'm like, I need to figure out, like, what should I be doing in a relationship to make sure, like we're connected. And that became what led to like the intimacy which was became the top seller beyond the journal. So it was like, how do we best self is not just like your most productive, Type-A self. It's like, what does it mean for you? It's like a great relationship with your partner, with your kids, with your family. Also, you want to hit your goals. And so I think that's like where Best self really started is like when I went through this like period of, oh, actually this is what this brand actually means.

Cathryn Lavery 00:23:29  And I was only looking at it from this like tiny skewed view of like only in business. But I'm like, I hit all these business goals and then I'm like, oh, this doesn't feel good. Why not?

Jasmine Star 00:23:39  So beautiful? Can we pause and talk about the intimacy deck? And I'm going to go back. Girl, this noggin is large and in charge. I'm going to hit all those data points. But now we talk about the intimacy deck that is outsold the journal. And so I'm like, okay, what was that.

Cathryn Lavery 00:23:51  So it hasn't. I told the Journal, but it's our new top selling products okay. Thank you. And it's 150 deck prompt card. And I call it like a Trojan horse for therapy within couples. That doesn't feel like therapy. It feels like a game. It's so good. And so it's like six different categories. We worked with relationship experts to come up with questions that would both strengthen your bond and then increase vulnerability. So you could actually talk about real things without having one person ask the question because here's the thing.

Cathryn Lavery 00:24:17  I was like. It's like, I'm not asking that. Like like the cards are asking. I should have brought some. I'm so mad.

Jasmine Star 00:24:22  I'm, I'm because I actually be like, oh my God, I want to do one. Like, my husband is here today. And it would have been so awkward and I would have frickin loved it. Like asking us, so mad am I? Oh my gosh, no, it's happening for a reason. Because he's he's cringing off camera. I know he's like, you want us to do a car therapy on our podcast? I live for that stuff. I love being uncomfortable and I don't necessarily step into uncomfortable situations, but I also don't back down from a challenge. If you had brought them, girl, JD is like, thank God that his cars aren't here. I'm so fascinated with this. That's so beautiful. That's amazing.

Cathryn Lavery 00:24:53  So we also came out with the intimacy deck. So it was basically like intimacy icebreakers and then little talk for you and your kids.

Jasmine Star 00:25:01  I saw that. So little talk is fascinating because I'm picking up a deck for Luna.

Cathryn Lavery 00:25:05  I'm going to send some to your hotel. Oh thank you. And I'm so.

Jasmine Star 00:25:08  Mad. Tell Ben dang, baby. See, and that's the thing. That's the difference. That is the difference of you. Can. You said I'm. I bring him to the hotel. And I was like, I'll make sure that they're mailed. No, you get it.

Cathryn Lavery 00:25:17  I already found out where.

Jasmine Star 00:25:18  Shopify competition. I would have lost. Thanks. Thanks. Wow.

Cathryn Lavery 00:25:23  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:25:23  So. Okay. Talk to us. Talk to us about the little ones. Deck the little talk. Little talk.

Cathryn Lavery 00:25:27  Yes. So it's big conversations for your kids because a lot of times you're like, oh, how is your day? And it's like you get caught in I mean, I have a toddler, so we're not at that point. I still ask her, but yes, there's not much conversation. And one thing that we were hearing from customers is like, okay, how do I have conversations with my kid in a way where they'll actually open up to me? And Sam was like, it's vulnerable to be like, ask your kid a question, because in their mind they're like, why are they asking me this? What does it mean? Yes.

Cathryn Lavery 00:25:54  And when there's a card, yeah, it's like the cards asking me and so I can be much more open. And so it's just like removes a lot of walls that would otherwise be there. And so we've gotten like a ton of that's beautiful. And the deck started from I was trying to sell this other product. And so I'm just like always working through like, oh, what's the objections? When someone's journaling, I'm like, I see the you're.

Jasmine Star 00:26:15  Creating ancillary what I would call in the traditional digital marketing world, it'd be bonus content for an objection refusal. And so if somebody is journaling and they get stuck, or they say, I won't buy a journal because I don't, and then that becomes a next offer, or in my world would be a bonus. But for you, it'd be like an extension of the product suite.

Cathryn Lavery 00:26:33  Yeah, basically. Well, I was trying to sell this other product because I'm trying to teach people how to journal. Okay. And so this is the way my mind works is like, okay, how do you get people to journaling? Because they'll just write the same thing every day and they won't really get it.

Cathryn Lavery 00:26:44  So it's like, okay, how do we give them a question to journal on? And then when you sell journals, everything's a journal, which I didn't want. I didn't want to be the journal company, which is what people were calling us. And so I was like, if you have a prompt in a journal and I'm like, I don't feel like that prompt today. I don't want to write about that. Okay. And then I have to skip a page. And that's annoying me because I don't want to leave like a blank page, like I never want answers. So I like, literally go deep. Okay? And I was like, oh, you know, what would be better is good at product.

Jasmine Star 00:27:08  Dang it.

Cathryn Lavery 00:27:08  Girl. And I'm like, oh, but we better be cards. And so the cards actually came from trying to sell another product. And those cards were like the Edison deck, which is like coming up with ideas wordsmith, which was journaling prompts. And so what happened was those sold really well.

Cathryn Lavery 00:27:23  And then on a product call, we were like, you know, people do more than they journal is. They have conversations. And so then so everything like spirals from somewhere. But the goal is like how you like so good becoming a problem. So I talked about this like problem first company instead of a product first. So it's like not everything should be a product that we sell. And so sometimes it's like oh we could create this to sell. I'm like, yeah, we could also just send them an email and like we don't need to waste our resources like building a product that we can give away for free.

Jasmine Star 00:27:49  You win, you win. I think more than anything, I think what's happened with the podcast is I become very fortunate to have conversations, but really what it is, is I'm going to business school and I think that main thing, we're not even we're like a third way through this conversation. My main thing is like, I want to be a problem based company, and I'm really great coming up with products.

Jasmine Star 00:28:07  And I'm like, no, no, no. The better the problem I solve for, the more it's clear. Or the highest results, or the fastest, or the cheapest, or the most expensive, depending on if I'm building what type of brand I'm building, then it's a sure fit. And I just think that that was like the reminder that I needed. Okay, so we're here. We're talking about the decks or talk about the conversations. We're talking about being a problem led company. We're talking about the iterations. We're talking about the growth. But if we go back to 2017 and you're on the island and you're going through a divorce, you're also winning competitions. You're talking about the structure of what needs to change about the journal because it's a holistic, best self. What happened in 2018, and were you did you kind of sense that there was going to be a departure from your business partner? Where were you at in 2018? Did it hit you out of the blue? What does this look like?

Cathryn Lavery 00:28:47  Well, he had a kid in 2018, and I think we had hired any role that he was doing.

Cathryn Lavery 00:28:53  So he was just like not really doing anything helpful. I don't know if I should say that, but we're not on good terms. But I don't want to talk badly about him at all. And I think at the time, honestly, we could have had a harder conversations. And that's something I learned about myself is like a lot of the pain that I put myself through. And later business here is started because of my inability to, like, have a hard conversation earlier and like delaying it, which really only makes it harder later. And so that's kind of where we we're at. And it took until 2020 for me to be like, okay, this this is done. And I wrote a huge article like what I learned that I would do differently. Like a lot of times you start these business partnerships, and I did 5050 because I thought it's like, oh, that seems fair, but fair doesn't mean equal. And so whenever you like 5050 a partnership in the beginning, it's like sometimes it's unfair to one person at the beginning and it evens out.

Cathryn Lavery 00:29:47  Or sometimes it's unfair and it continues to be more unfair as you go on. And I think when you can't have a hard conversation and actually like, make a decision, you're actually settling in the beginning of like a partnership because you don't want to have a hard conversation. Oh, and so I think if you really sat down and and this doesn't mean that there aren't 50, 50 partnerships that work, but I see more that don't work because of insecurity. Like I was super insecure. And so at the time I was like, oh, I don't want to, I don't think I'm worth what I am. And when I look back, I'm like, I totally was. I just didn't I just, like, underestimated what I could do. And I also was partnered with someone that was like really charming, like really good talker, very good looking. And so I'm like, oh, this is awesome. And he actually was great at the beginning of the company because he was a very good like, I would kind of show my work and he would talk the work and together we would make stuff happen.

Cathryn Lavery 00:30:42  And so even my wife and I was like, actually, that was a good thing that you had that because you're not very self-promotional and you needed someone like that in the beginning.

Jasmine Star 00:30:50  That's beautiful. Okay, okay. Lessons learned, gratitude for the lesson, stuff that you won't repeat again, finding self-worth in that journey. And so the business partner departs along with him 50% of so he.

Cathryn Lavery 00:31:03  Kind of that just laughed the day to day. But then you're like hamstrung with decisions because. And so then it basically was like 2019. We like discussed selling. But then it's like I nobody wanted the business unless I was staying in the business. And so it was like, well, nobody's offering you like the only offers you're getting is based on me staying and working. And so I was like, better the devil you know than the you don't. So I didn't want to go in. And also good for you. The people that were coming, I was like, I don't like they're giving us this valuation.

Cathryn Lavery 00:31:38  But the it's completely unrealistic. And it's also unrealistic because I can see the type of attitude that they have with the team and they won't be here any longer because it'll be such a terrible work environment. So like this valuation you're seeing does not exist, basically, because, you know, I remember at one point there was some trademark issue and this guy was like, who needs to get fired? like that was his first response to this, like, small thing. And I'm like, there was just like red flags where I'm like, this doesn't make sense. And there was a huge hall of other reasons why it didn't make sense. So then it became, okay, maybe we sell the whole thing, but nobody wanted unless I was going to say. And then at that point, like I hired a CEO to sort of like work with me. He actually was started as a marketing manager and eventually became the CEO. And he's the reason why he's able to sell when I did later. But I end up buying out the business partner, like took on some like personal debt in order to get him out.

Cathryn Lavery 00:32:34  And that was in 2020. And that negotiation took like nine months. He was also going through a really contentious divorce. So what wasn't seeing was my 2021 resolution was like less legal bills because you had a personal lawyer, a business lawyer. He had divorce lawyers on both side. Got it. And I actually had to hire a divorce attorney in his state to be able to, like, manage their divorce. And like I got. Like I said, I got divorced in 2017. We literally did everything without a lawyer. I'm like, stayed on good terms, didn't cost the business a cent, and I paid more in legal fees for his divorce and my own. Yeah, like I had to hire a divorce attorney in new Jersey to deal with their divorce.

Jasmine Star 00:33:18  Oh my gosh. Okay, so this is in 2020. Yeah. You buy him out, you take on personal debt to buy him out, but you're free. Yeah. And this is yours. And so what are you feeling? Are you like I'm building.

Jasmine Star 00:33:29  What are you. Where where's your head at?

Cathryn Lavery 00:33:31  Are you. I mean, I'm excited that it's done. I'm like, oh my God, now I can okay. Because it's really difficult. So here's what's happening is 2020 was insane. And we have Covid, we have supply chain issues. I also because there was like issues with the business partner. Luckily I had a really good team that like kept things going even when I'm because it's really difficult. Right. You have a team that you have to support, but you're also negotiating a buyout of a company that you don't want to grow too much because then you have to pay more. That's right. But. But you don't have to lay anyone off either. So you're walking this tightrope of like, I want. I don't want to grow too much or like, come up with any better ideas because I'm gonna have to pay him more. So it's like these incentives are weird. And I dealt with a inventory manager who embezzled from the company, and I find out about it as I was going through all the stuff with my business partner because he was basically only 2020.

Cathryn Lavery 00:34:22  Yeah. 2020 was like, you know, I don't know if you remember March 2020, everyone's like, oh, you have to like batten up the hatches. Business is going to be hard. Like hold your cash. And I'm literally like going through this negotiation. Our factory in China has shut down because of this coronavirus we're hearing about. I and then I had just found out about this embezzlement with this guy that I'd worked with. And I'm just like, I there's no reserves here. And so then I spent the next six months dealing with that. And then it's also like, even though I had a remote team, this guy, I guy, actually, he'd, like, met my family because he lived in New York, too. And I would, like, bring him to comedy shows. So it wasn't like it was this, like, random guy I hadn't met. And so I'm like, oh, you were stealing from us the whole time. I actually have a YouTube video where I broke down exactly how he did it, because he wasn't like stealing money from my bank account or anything.

Cathryn Lavery 00:35:12  And it's funny. So my so I'm actually from Northern Ireland and my brother, I don't come from a business background like my family are all like doctors and like have normal jobs. And so I put this video of like this guy, like embezzling 230 grand from me and, oh, my God, I, you know, I put it up and my brother calls me. He's like, I saw your video. This guy stole all that money from you. God, that's awful. How much money do you make anyway? And I'm like, he didn't steal the money from my bank account. He was essentially like, at the time, we would run all of our inventory off spreadsheets, and he would sell to bulk order customers, and they thought they were paying us, but they're actually paying his, like, personal stripe account. And so because we didn't have like good audit systems okay. Yeah. And so how I find out about it is I, someone was selling against us on Amazon if this like not even our top product and I was I ordered it and I was like look there's three things that are going on here.

Cathryn Lavery 00:36:12  This is either a counterfeit product, someone's taking inventory, or our supplier is like screwing us. Yes. But I'm like, if we work with the same supplier for like six years and it's also not our main product. So I don't know why they would go for this one. Okay. So let's just assume it's either a counterfeit or like someone stealing inventory. And when I ordered it, it looked exactly like ours. So I'm like, let's just assume like someone's taking inventory from the warehouse. And so I had this guy start to do audits and essentially auditing himself. And then what happened? Oh my. Nothing was adding up. God. And I actually always assume positive intent of like, oh, I just thought he was like, negligent. And I fired him for being negligent. And then I got into his email and I realized that he he deleted all of his emails for one, like it was bare. Luckily, I was able to recover it. And so my team was like, oh, he's like stripe invoices and stuff like PayPal invoices that he was selling stuff.

Cathryn Lavery 00:37:09  And then he was going into our he was so smart and dumb and I'll share it with you. Why? So he was going into our three PL and then going into existing orders, editing all the information of the existing order and then re shipping it so it didn't look like a new shipment. And so when I was going into the three PL and I was like clicking through the order and all the information was different than what is in Shopify, I know. And then I contacted the three people. I'm like, who edited these orders? And they told me it was him. And that's when I realized what was going on. And he actually did get arrested for it. I worked with, like he was in Denver and I worked with like, the Denver police because I'm like, he he's going to do it to someone else. He's clearly a crook. And so I watch enough Dateline. I'm like, I will give you all the evidence. I like Dateline. Yeah, I like you, like me.

Cathryn Lavery 00:37:59  It's like Shark Tank. I'm like here. Yeah. And so this guy, he was like, you should have become like a detective because I'm giving him all the information. So he really didn't have to do much detective work. Okay. And so the guy got arrested, and it came out of the blue because he didn't know. I knew about all the stuff. I just never said anything. He just thought he just got fired for negligence. And then six months later, a detective calls him and was like, basically trying to get a comment from him. And then he was like, oh, someone stole my identity. And I'm like, I would love someone to steal my identity and put money into my coin, right? Like, right. Hundreds of thousands. And so they ended up arresting him. He spent one night in jail and then he, like, pleaded to a felony. And now every few months, I get what I consider my unofficial for A1K, which is like small restitution payments will never add up to like, what he stole, but now at least he has it on his like record and he won't be able to do it someone else.

Jasmine Star 00:38:57  Okay, so what year is this?

Cathryn Lavery 00:39:00  That wasn't so. 2020 is when I discovered 2021 is when he like, you know, we did the whole like Covid court thing okay.

Jasmine Star 00:39:09  And so then what year do you sell 2022.

Cathryn Lavery 00:39:13  October of 2022.

Jasmine Star 00:39:15  So that's okay. So 2021 that's buttoned up and you're getting micropayments restitution, which is hey, it is about it's about people knowing and it's about him not doing it to somebody else. Okay. And so then what mindset are you in when you're like, I'm open to selling or were you approached or what what happened in 2022.

Cathryn Lavery 00:39:33  So basically 2021 and 2022, I was just focused on, okay, how do I get this business? I mean, it was it always had to be profitable, but I had lost some money in the last year or two because of the, I mean, embezzlement and the business partner thing. So I'm like, how do I set it up so I could sell it if I wanted? And then I had a baby March of 2022, and I didn't really take any time off after that like I was.

Cathryn Lavery 00:39:58  I thought I could be one of these people that were like, oh yeah, the baby sleeps and I'll work. doesn't really work out like that. So I didn't really take much of a risk. And then at luckily I had a really good CEO and he was running things. But, you know, when I sort of came back, I was approached by a couple of people. One gave me an offer that I wasn't that excited about. So I'm like, I'm not doing it for this. But what I did was like, rather than continue down this path, let me just open up other conversations and like, let it be known that I might sell. And so I'm in I was in like the slack group. It was actually like a crypto ecom group that I'm in with like 40 guys. And I was just like, yeah, I'm thinking of selling. And actually one of those guys put me in touch with the people that ended up buying. And I just at that point was like, I'll say yes to any conversation.

Cathryn Lavery 00:40:43  So I got on a call with these guys and I wasn't really taking it that serious. So I was just, you know, sharing what was going on. And then they end up giving me. I turned on the other offer at this point, and they ended up giving me offer. And it's funny, whenever you're like, selling your business, there's so many times when it could, like, fall through at any moment. Right? So like my wife, like the day before is supposed to close, like, is it going to close? I'm like, honestly, I have no idea. It's because there's just so much like I've heard of literally people signing the documents, waiting for the wire, and the wire never comes. And the buyer, like, literally goes after months of due diligence. So I'm like not celebrating early or anything. And then I ended up like selling then with the goal of like, okay, now I can take some time off without the pressure of like at the time, you know, we have a recession hitting, rates are up.

Cathryn Lavery 00:41:31  I'm hearing about this looming thing in the future, and I'm like, I just had a baby. Like, I've put so much into this company for years buying out the business partner. Like, if I just like, sell, I can breathe, breathe. Not have like things like above my head in case it goes wrong. And then I can figure out what I want to do next. So like, even though I love the brand, the company and the team, I was like, I need a break and I can see kind of in the future what could happen if I don't take some money off the table. And so that's why I sold.

Jasmine Star 00:42:01  Amazing how much of a break did you take?

Cathryn Lavery 00:42:03  I took 14, I mean, when I say break, I like tinkering with stuff. So I was like, build it. I know we'd moved into a new house, so I'm like, I literally built an in-ground cold plunge in my yard. Like I designed it. Yeah. So I'm like designing it.

Cathryn Lavery 00:42:17  I didn't dig the hole. I hired a guy to dig it. But I'm literally, like, learning plumbing and stuff. And what's funny is when you've, I don't know, worked been a workaholic. My wife would come home and I'm like, lesbian stereotype Home Depot, like everything. And she's coming home and she's like, oh, how was your day? And I'm like, and I'm learning like electrical and plumbing to like build this thing. So I'm like learning a lot and it's fun. But but I'm like, well, nothing I did today made money. so I'm actually useless. And it's even though I had money, more money than I ever had. There's like a scarcity mindset of like, oh my God, it's going to be gone. And I don't have any. And God forbid, I would just do something for fun that wasn't making money. And so it took me a while to, like, detach the being productive and making money and like being in a scarcity mindset. Wow.

Cathryn Lavery 00:43:05  During that time off where my wife was like, you can take time and like do the projects you wanted. And like, I was learning to code and, and even though I was doing stuff that I liked, it was like I wasn't happy because I was like, oh my God, I don't know what I'm going to do next. And like, I have to figure out what my next project is because God.

Jasmine Star 00:43:21  And value become intertwined. And all of a sudden when someone's like, you could just be and you're like, wait, but what value am I bringing? If I don't bring value, then what? What worth am I creating? And I think that that is a beautiful lesson for us to like, stay grounded in you taking a step back to understand, like to undo those two pieces for you to kind of come back to you. And then you cut to a point where you look back at the business. How are you involved? I mean, was it a complete were you involved any bit at all?

Cathryn Lavery 00:43:49  I was like an ambassador, okay? And I was supposed to be on some meetings that they would schedule, but they never scheduled anything.

Cathryn Lavery 00:43:55  And so I would like, send them ideas. I would send emails into the void. Okay. And I mean, I totally get it. A lot of times they want the founder to like, craft their own vision or whatever. Yeah, which is fine. There was an earnout component tied to the sale, which is pretty common, but and I still could see like the numbers I'm just concerned about like this. Earnout. Yes, because it was I thought it was a pretty easy goal to hit, and it was. But this company was like a new private equity company, so they were just kind of starting out. But then they were buying brands and then they kind of like took some autonomy away from the internal people. So like they couldn't approve purchase orders. So then we don't have inventory for Q1 because they hadn't hired a CFO yet to, you know.

Jasmine Star 00:44:39  They're making it really difficult for you to hit your earner out.

Cathryn Lavery 00:44:42  Yeah, yeah. And I don't think they did it on purpose.

Cathryn Lavery 00:44:44  I just think they like we're trying to build the plane as they're flying it and things didn't happen. So I was just like, oh, so that's also a scarcity thing where I'm like, oh, I'm not going to get this earnout. So I have like a shorter runway than I thought I had. And so I'm just very much like did not match reality when I had like way less money, I was like way more optimistic. It doesn't make any sense. Okay. And so then a year in. So I thought they weren't going to hit their earnout until I'd mentally like said goodbye to that money. Basically, I took time off. I'm like, okay, let me figure it out. And actually when I one thing when I sold is I still loved the company and the brand and the products, but I didn't like how I built it, because I kind of built my own prison because we're always because we grew so fast and had success. It's like you always have to beat that year after year.

Cathryn Lavery 00:45:31  Yes, because God forbid, like you would just.

Jasmine Star 00:45:33  Flatline or like shrink. I get that.

Cathryn Lavery 00:45:35  And so and then we had a bigger team. So I'm like, oh, people's lives and like kids are dependent on me. And so it's really difficult to like move or shift things whenever you have that risk involved. And so that's another reason I sold, because the new company, we're going to at least keep people on for six months. And so I was like, okay, they have a bunch of resources that I don't have. Like everyone got a bonus and a raise, and I got to leave and it felt like, okay, now they can like figure out how we go to your next. But so at six months, the PE firm told me they were going to let everyone go and move to like, more of an agency model. And so my old team members had already told me that. And so I ended up like a few friends who run companies, hired some of them.

Cathryn Lavery 00:46:20  I think one guy who's in Hampton, actually, I think he has like four of my old people. Okay.

Jasmine Star 00:46:27  So I'm going to do a little bit of a of a sideline right here.

Cathryn Lavery 00:46:29  We can like not mention Hampton. No, no.

Jasmine Star 00:46:31  I think it's good. I think it's good. It's good because it'll give you a chance to rest your voice. You can could totally hydrate. So Kat had just mentioned a friend of mine and then she had mentioned this word, Hampton. Now, the reason why Cat and I got connected was because of a gentleman by the name of Sam. PA. Sam is co-founder of Hampden and it is a CEO executive group, kind of like coaching mastermind type thing. And Sam was in Austin, became very good friends with Cat. And I said, Sam, I'm coming to Austin. I want to connect with amazing people. And he said, you have to connect with Cat. And I started digging into her story. We got connected. I'm watching her iteration in her growth.

Jasmine Star 00:47:07  And now Sam and Cat are really good friends. Like legit good friends. Like he goes in your cold plunge. Like he makes it inappropriate with like 18 people in your cold plunge. And he's like, all about it, right? And so he's just. I didn't mean inappropriate. It's just like.

Cathryn Lavery 00:47:20  Babysat my daughter a few times. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:47:22  Like they're like like homie homies. So he launches Hampton and he's like, Cat, why don't you get in? And I one thing that I really liked about Cat was like she had said, well, at the time, I'm not building anything. And so when I go all in, I go all in. If I'm not building, I'm not going to be in. And so then she tells me off camera that when she, oh, I want to I'm going to get to the part of the story anyway. Here's, here's like the little ellipse. This is what's a foreshadowing. She joined Hampton and I see Kat and Hampton, and I was like, hey girl, hey, let's broadcast.

Jasmine Star 00:47:51  Okay. Now when she said her friend was in Hampton, that's the organization we're talking about. And this friend hired four of your former team members. And this is y'all just taking care of each other. That's amazing.

Cathryn Lavery 00:48:02  Yeah. I mean, not taking care of, like, he needed someone. And I actually only sent him over one person, and so. And then what happened is, like that one person hired the other three people that they knew from my team. Good, good. Because one was the only one that stayed during the transition. Okay. With the P firm, like after that six months. And so whenever they were like the P firm I guess. Spoiler. They called me at 12 months in like actually 14 months Post-acquisition. We're like, hey, we're shutting down. We're like returning what's money left to investors? And we're like, just going to work on other projects. And at that point, I think they bought three brands. So ours was the first and then two others, and they were like selling them back either to the owner or to like someone else.

Cathryn Lavery 00:48:47  And so they're like, do you want to buy it back again? Best self. And to be honest, when he first brought it up, I was like, oh no, because I'm thinking back to where I was when I sold it, where it was like, I had this, I had like all this responsibility. But when I like, journaled on it and really thought about it, I'm like, oh, how could I do it differently this time? Because I don't have the same like burden that I had before where I'm like, oh, I have to make this payroll every month. I have to like, we had sales, we had a brand, we had product. There was no team anymore. But I'm like, I'll figure it out. So I ended up like negotiating a really good deal with a private equity firm to get it back. And that was the end of January of 2024.

Jasmine Star 00:49:26  That is so good. Okay. You know, like I would have loved to podcast period.

Jasmine Star 00:49:31  The end. But the fact that you bought it back, like just like the strategic move of it all. And sure, there's an element of destiny luck in all of it, but in January 2024, you buy it back. You negotiate a deal that you feel. What are you doing different now? Having looked back at your journey and say when you were journaling using your own journal, when you said, how could I do this differently, what did you come up with?

Cathryn Lavery 00:49:57  I mean, there's like ChatGPT it wasn't I when I sold the business, and I use that all the time. Like there's so much minutia in your day that would I'd be caught off, but I'd be like, hand it off to my CEO or someone else to just handle that. Now I have like a 24 over seven assistant. Give me an.

Jasmine Star 00:50:13  Example. Like, how would you hint to your CEO that you're you're getting an answer from chat.

Cathryn Lavery 00:50:17  Literally like, can you write a letter to deal with this sales tax issue in California? Because I don't want to deal with it.

Cathryn Lavery 00:50:23  And I literally like I will use it for everything. I'm like, here's a letter I got. Can you write a response like this is what's going on, and I'll just talk it into my phone or whatever, and it will just write it out. I will take me ten minutes to fax it and send it. What would happen before is either I would hand it off or I would actually really happen is I would not do it for months, okay. And then I would pay more tax later.

Jasmine Star 00:50:44  Okay.

Cathryn Lavery 00:50:45  And so that timeline of like forecasting for product, that just so much minutia that you deal with that you don't even realize you deal with until you don't have to deal with it anymore. And actually, my time off, I learned like coding. And I also learned how to use AI for like, different things because I'm like, I'll use it whatever I do next. And now I'm like, okay, I could I can use it for a lot of things that I used to have to hire people for.

Cathryn Lavery 00:51:10  And now I do have to hire people, but I've just been instead of going back to, oh, let me rehire all the same people I had before, the same team was like, what's the minimum amount I need to get the job done? In a way that's like profitable and fun, and I'm not like building my own prison where I have to keep making revenue.

Jasmine Star 00:51:29  So I'm just. My mind is freaking blown right now. What was the percentage of decrease like when you went back?

Cathryn Lavery 00:51:34  It went so it drops maybe 25% in revenue. One thing. Oh no no not really.

Jasmine Star 00:51:39  Excuse me. Team size. So it's like you come back and you buy the business back. How many team members are there? Zero. So zero.

Cathryn Lavery 00:51:45  Like they were like oh the firm's like, oh, do you have a team to help you with the transition? And I'm like, nope, just me.

Jasmine Star 00:51:51  Okay. So it's just you and you've hired. But when you look at the size of your team now versus what it would had to have been to sustain the rate of growth now, how much smaller percentage wise is it 50%, or did you have a 10% team and now you have a 5% team?

Cathryn Lavery 00:52:04  I mean, I'm thinking like payroll and like contractor.

Cathryn Lavery 00:52:08  So we used to.

Jasmine Star 00:52:08  Hire okay.

Cathryn Lavery 00:52:09  Let's say it was $1 million a year. So it's like good a quarter Lord. Wow. So it's like how do I you know, we used to have like a this bookkeeping CFO team. The like made a bunch of mistakes, but there wasn't really another option. Now you have this thing called Finn, a loop which, like, pulls all your data so you can get like live pals anytime. So I'm like so connected with my profit margin any day of the week. And then just using tools in a smart way like that alone saves me like $6,000 a month. And you know how many journals you have to sell to pay this? When I first started myself, I usually like would equate prices to how many journals I have to sell to make this. So I'm like, on the airplane. Yeah, oh, I have to sell like a quarter of a journal to pay for this Wi-Fi. Is it worth it? Can I, like, sell like at least one journal to make it worthwhile? And now that I have a toddler, I'm like, oh, this is like a month of daycare.

Cathryn Lavery 00:53:03  So. Right. That's how I'm equating. So I'm instead of scaling back what I suspend, I'm like, I set it up as a whole other company so everything is fresh. So instead of it's like subtracting, it's adding. And one one rule I had is like, I'm going to buy this company back, but I'm not putting any more money into it. So everything has to be capitalized through sales, which I still haven't had to put any money into it. I just bought it back and then use the revenue from sales to like, do everything else.

Jasmine Star 00:53:31  So what's next?

Cathryn Lavery 00:53:31  I mean, I'm still like stabilizing and like figuring out who it is that I need from my team. But I think what's next is I mean, I called it that self because I'm really into personal development and I like now I have a kid, I'm like, okay, well where's that going to take me that I could like build.

Jasmine Star 00:53:47  It on the next product line baby.

Cathryn Lavery 00:53:49  But I mean, I very much like okay, what other problems could we solve? But yeah, I love the idea of like, okay, I have the products and the brands back.

Cathryn Lavery 00:53:57  I don't have this, like where I have to do anything, which gives me freedom to like, do whatever I want, which I didn't have before. So could I have done it before? Yes. But I also had like a six month old when I sold it before, and I did not have the energy that I needed to, like turn the ship. And now I feel like I got a clean slate and at this point, like everything's gravy.

Jasmine Star 00:54:20  I, you know, I knew so many parts of this story, and then I just got to learn a lot of other parts of the story. And I think that wherever people are in their journey, you've been an expander, an expander of how to fund start their business, an expander of how to come back after someone's embezzled an expander, after buying a business partner out and taking on personal debt and expander of what it looks like to untangle worth and value, and what productivity is when there's just time and rest to grow, and then an expander of what it means to come back, do it on your own terms and do it entirely differently.

Jasmine Star 00:54:55  And I find that, like, so beautiful and so inspiring. I can't thank you enough for coming in and sharing the story, because people are hearing it and they're listening and they're saying, there is a piece of her that I now get to carry to change what it is that I'm doing in the approach that I'm taking. So your time on the show has been so valuable, but it has nothing to do with your worth. Haha. Ladies and gentlemen, Kat, where can people find you? What? Where do you like to connect? Where are we pointing to?

Cathryn Lavery 00:55:20  Instagram or whatever we're calling it? just my name on on X. So that's where I, like, really talk to people. Okay. Good. Or Instagram or I also talk about anything I'm doing business wise on Little Mite. Com and that's like personal blog. So if you've been following it you saw the embezzlement stuff, the business partner stuff as I was going through it. I'm like, well, one thing is like journaling when you're going through stuff.

Cathryn Lavery 00:55:46  So with the business partner things, I would be like up all night and like, I have to I just have to write something down. And this became like a 50 page Google doc of half of it was useful, and half of it was just like, here's why I will never put myself in this situation again. And not actually. I'm like, okay, what can I take from this for like an actual article that could help people? And there's been so many people who reached out were like, oh my God, your business partner article. I've gone back to it so many times. So yeah, like take my lemons and I make lemonade. I'm like, here's how not to get embezzled from here's how to go into a business partnership. So if you're curious why the behind the scenes of business, it's that little my.com and then products best self.co. And I'll make a coupon code Jasmine so that anyone that wants to buy any of the products that I talk about will get like a 20% discount.

Cathryn Lavery 00:56:33  Oh my gosh.

Jasmine Star 00:56:34  Okay, well you guys use the code. I didn't know the code existed. It it.

Cathryn Lavery 00:56:37  Doesn't. But this is.

Jasmine Star 00:56:38  Definitely it will definitely exist by the time the show goes live. I don't get anything from it. If you have liked the lemonade that cat has served you, give yourself a gift, invest in yourself and see what you can do in three months. And in case you're not quite sure how to begin the journaling journey, cat her team, her business is more than their to support you. So little mite.com Bischoff co Jasmine is the promo code. Connect with her on twitter or whatever the heck that we're talking about it. Thank you for watching and listening to the Jasmine Star Show. And Cat, thank you.

Cathryn Lavery 00:57:13  For being here, for having me.