During the past 12 months, Happi has featured different indie brands on the back page of every issue under the title “Indie Inc.”
 
Our goal with Indie Inc. has been to provide a more candid conversation, through a Q&A format, in which we ask each founder about their journey, their inspiration, the hard work they’ve put in so far, and much more.  
 
But it hasn’t been just the team at Happi asking questions; we also enlisted each Indie Inc interviewee to provide a question for the next Indie founder that would be featured in the following issue—and so on and so and so on. 
 
The questions they asked each other and answers provided ranged from practical to personal.
 
Here’s that “conversation” in one place, beginning with our January 2020 spotlight on Melinda Olson, founder of Earth Mama Organics.

 
Melinda: How Do you take the welfare of people and planet into account when you are formulating products? 
 
Ali Florsheim and Melina Marcus of Rebel Green: At Rebel Green, we strive to be stewards of the environment. We think of ourselves as a triple bottom line company and we’re actively broadening the definition of success in order to have a more positive social impact. It’s not just enough to make high quality natural household cleaners that are just as effective as conventional products. As consumers, we want to buy from companies who really care. All our plant-based formulations are sulfate-free, free from synthetic fragrances, dyes, parabens and other harmful ingredients found in conventional products. Customers like that our ingredient list is short, simple with a cleaner slate of recognizable ingredients. When it comes to our industry this means using sustainable manufacturing methods like our tree-free, bamboo line of bathroom tissue and paper towels which creates zero net carbon emissions...We considered this approach, for example, when we were sourcing for our formulations our USDA Certified Organic Laundry Detergent. As we hail from the state with two Great Lakes, Wisconsin, we felt it was extremely important to us to consider our waterways with our formulations.” 
 
Ali & Melina: What innovative ways do you find to tell your story to consumers in a crowded marketplace?

Calvin Quallis of Scotch Porter: We have some work to do in this area, but we’re focused on building out communications where we give customers behind the scenes access to the brand, myself and the team. We’re also focused on delivering more and more valuable stories leveraging video.
 
Calvin: What digital and offline channels are you finding success with?
 
Suzanne Roberta of Adesse New York: We are having great success with online channels such as QVC.com, Macys.com and Amazon.com in both the US and Europe. We haven’t launched in offline yet, but will be doing so in Sanborn’s Departments Stores in Mexico City, so I’m very excited to see how Adesse performs in that channel.” 
 
Suzanne: What is your brand currently doing or planning to do to reduce waste and improve sustainability?
 
Shuting Hu of Acaderma: Science informs our perspective, but passion for people and the planet is at the heart of our business. We use post-consumer recycled materials wherever possible, and our new product packaging is refillable—a difference that could dramatically reduce our plastic usage by more than 40% in 2020.
 
Shuting: How do you decide on products in your pipeline—do you try and satisfy current consumer demands and preferences or something else?
 
Andrea Lisbona Vives of Touchland: We consider the Touchland community (our customers) as part of our innovation team, so we often ask for their opinions directly through social media! Although we have a very strong vision for Touchland internally, we also wany to understand what our community needs. They are the best source of inspiration, and ultimately we exist and grow because of them. 
 
Andrea: What has been your most challenging time as an entrepreneur and why? How did you get through it?

Alice Kim of Hanalei:The current situation with COVID-19 has been incredibly tough as an entrepreneur. Certain sales channels have gone to zero, including our local wholesale and airline business, which means we’ve been forced to adapt and focus on our e-commerce and digital strategies more than ever before. This has been such an unprecedented time due to people losing their jobs in the US economy and certain industries shutting down completely. As an entrepreneur, there isn’t a manual for this and how to react when these situations arise. Luckily, we have already been diversifying our sales channels and utilizing digital platforms to promote the brand before the pandemic happened. There were some challenges with implementing changes quickly and driving ambiguity, but with incredible support and hard work from my team, we were able to adapt to the “new normal.”
 
Alice:What has been your proudest moment as an entrepreneur?

Selam Kelati of I+I Botanicals: My absolute proudest moment was getting three nominations from Indie Beauty Best in the show-2019. I+I got nominated for Best Body Moisturizer, the Best Bath Product and for the Best Brand. The nomination came only six months after launching I+I. This made us not only feel so proud, it gave us so much encouragement to keep on going.
 
Selam: What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your brand and getting new customers?

Melanie Mitchell of Gourmet Body Pasties: The most effective ways of raising awareness for Gourmet Body Pastries Skincare has been to do the following: Vending at various crafts and food shows (prior to COVID-19); building relationships with local full-service beauty salons; word of mouth; and being consistent on social media.
 
Melanie:What has been or is your strategic plan for sustaining business during COVID-19? Do you have any tips to share?


Isaac Kusi of Krismark: As COVID-19 closed a lot of retail doors, we saw the delivery companies increase their activities and hire more people. That is the new trend. So, indie brands should increase their social media spend to increase sales. Shelf space is limited and controlled by the major brands spending hundreds of millions on advertising to move their products. Advertising on social media, if done properly, is effective and will not break the bank. As the ban is gradually lifted, tighten your bootstraps and hit the ground running from door to door. Most of the major beauty brands have done it. From Aveda, John Paul Mitchell, Soft Sheen and all. The beauty salon is the least expensive form of advertising. If you are able to sell to the salon owners, they will sell it to their clients.”  
 
Isaac: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect your packaging and production?

Marion Witz of Elizabeth Grant Skincare: With the nature of our business we were still very busy with COVID-19, something we are very grateful for, but we had to become more strategic in our production and packaging purchases. For production, because we are considered an essential business, we were allowed to stay open but we did so on a skeleton staff. This made production that much more challenging because we still had the same volume of orders but much less production staff on the floor (under 40). For packaging and our PO’s, we wanted to ensure we streamlined our orders so we had what we needed in house or a plan B in case something was delayed or unavailable due to our vendors facing their own challenges with COVID-19. Truly it was about planning, support and, most importantly, gratitude to our employees who helped us continue to achieve our success while following COVID-19 safety protocols.
 
Marion: If you could go back to when you were first starting out, what do you wish you knew then and would you change anything?

Sara and Ben Jensen of Hugh & Grace:  As we’re still navigating our launch phase, we’d like to share our personal experience and learnings about hormone disruptors… We learned about hormone disruptors through our 14-year struggle with unexplained infertility, which led us down a path toward understanding the importance of avoiding hormone disruptors, especially while trying to conceive and during pregnancy. Incredibly, two of our family members volunteered to be our surrogates so we could have our family, and we felt it was our responsibility to share what we learned and help others. When we realized hormone disruptors are found in most personal care products, including clean products, we set out to create a line of high-performing, natural products formulated to help reduce chemical exposure. Hormone disruptors are linked to infertility, as well as cancers, obesity, autism, Parkinson’s and many other diseases.

There are many benefits of reducing chemical exposure by avoiding hormone disruptors in general for all ages, which is ultimately what we hope to share with the world. One of the ways in which we perpetuate this platform of knowledge is with our peer-to-peer sales model of Advocates, some of whom have been personally impacted from hormone disruptors with issues that range from breast cancer to thyroid issues to autism. We also have advocates who are going through menopause or pregnancy who are cautious about limiting their chemical exposure, and wanting to help educate others on the matter. There’s so much to learn when it comes to this topic, and we love that we can be a source of knowledge for many.” 
 
Sara & Ben have helped us continue that conversation into 2021. What did they ask? Check out our January 2021 issue to see their question, and the Indie founder who answers it….