Anne-Louise Nieto and Hanna Chiou, HABBI HABBI

2020-12-22  ·  30:04  ·  Anne-Louise Nieto and Hanna Chiou  ·  Podcast Audio

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[1:02]Zibiowens.com slash gift shop. I have so many amazing things organized by all the things Moms Don't Have Time to Do.
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[1:21]What do you think?
[1:22]I hide your flask and you loved all the sugary treats, right?
[1:25]Oh yeah, anything with candy.
[1:27]Like sugar with and meaty treats.
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[1:52]I really enjoyed chatting with Ann Louise Nieto and Hannah Chu, who are the co-founders of
[1:58]Habi Habi. These are books that teach your kids like how to be bilingual or at least pick up a few
[2:04]words and phrases using this really cool reading wand.
[2:07]And because these are books and they're very interesting books at that, especially for young
[2:11]readers, they wanted to talk to them about how they started their business and what they learned
[2:16]about language development and all of that. So this was part entrepreneurial, part writing,
[2:22]part language and all around. Pretty interesting. I hope you enjoy it.
[2:26]Welcome to mom's don't have time to read books. I'm so excited. We're going to be talking about
[2:30]happy, happy today. The most amazing wand plus book bilingual combination of board books.
[2:37]There are so welcome. Why don't the two of you introduce yourselves? So listeners can
[2:42]figure out who's who as we're talking. Sure, I'm Hannah. We always say happy,
[2:47]happy is made with love by H&AL. So I'm H and I am a mom of two. I grew up as your stereotypical
[2:55]ABC. My parents are from Taiwan and so they speak Chinese and I really wanted my kids to be
[3:02]able to speak Chinese better than I can. And that was one of the motivations behind, you know,
[3:08]starting happy, happy. Well, and I'm Ann Louise, the A.L. of H&AL and Hannah and I always joke
[3:15]that we're twins from opposite coasts. So we have all these different funny things that are
[3:20]similar about us from like the sports we played growing up to like our parents' birthdays to
[3:25]our brother-in-law's have the same name like we have all these things in common. And anyway,
[3:28]so while Hannah was growing up on the west coast, I was growing up on the east coast, but I've been
[3:33]transplant and now out here in terms to go with my two kids and husband. So we both have, you
[3:39]know, all these little kids running around and similar to Hannah, like, we're teaching my kiddos
[3:44]Spanish, although unlike Hannah, I don't speak Spanish at home, so I'm learning with them. My husband
[3:50]speaks in Spanish, but yeah, so it's been a really fun journey as a parent, as a learner,
[3:56]entrepreneur or so. Well, wait, now I want to know what sports you played growing up and your brother
[4:01]on law's name and all the rest. What sports did you both play growing up?
[4:06]We both played tennis.
[4:08]Yeah, exactly.
[4:10]Okay, so there are lots of definitely in tennis. Maybe I had the same things both of you. Okay,
[4:14]what is your brother-in-law's name that you have the same?
[4:17]James. Okay, I used to have a brother-in-law. My ex-brother-in-law's nickname was Jay. Okay,
[4:22]what was the middle one? You have the same birthday or something? Our parents have the same birthday
[4:27]in January. Oh, yeah. Jan 4. Okay. Well, that's my husband's birthday. So there you go.
[4:33]Are you serious? Pretty good. Yeah. Are you serious? Yes, really.
[4:38]Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, it's really my husband's birthday. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, one part.
[4:44]Yeah. Okay. Well, see, we all have a lot of going. And he also plays tennis tennis.
[4:49]So tell me about starting this company because it's books, but it's also, I mean, not that books
[4:55]aren't a business, but it's like a whole dual language, sort of language teaching
[5:00]not ensemble. What's the better word? You know, system essentially. So tell me about,
[5:05]I know both of you explained how it is in your homes and your inner mood motivations, but
[5:10]how did YouTube pair up and what was it like getting this off the ground?
[5:14]So in the ways that I were, obviously, we've been friends for really long times. You can tell
[5:19]since we first met in 2005. So it was 15 years ago when we first graduated from college and we were
[5:24]in the same company. So we've always been in touch. We were bridesmaids at each other's weddings.
[5:29]And so we were starting to talk about things in our new phase of life being moms. And there was
[5:35]at one point we were starting a pop-up shop and we were looking at all these different brands.
[5:39]And during that whole brand search process, we were trying to choose intentional, thoughtful
[5:44]toys for our own homes in a really nice play room. That was the same time where our kids were
[5:49]very young. And we were going through our own journeys. And for my daughter, I was, you know,
[5:55]I was wanting her to learn Chinese. And there was this amazing technology that we had seen in
[6:01]Asia where you could tap different things in a book. And it would read it to you. And I said,
[6:08]this is so, this makes language learning accessible because even though I grew up with Chinese,
[6:14]I can't read it because it's character-based. And so whether it's being non-native, whether you
[6:20]can't read it, it just basically makes language learning accessible. And we thought it would be so
[6:24]much better if the books were intentional. And, you know, it had other languages that the size
[6:29]is just Chinese and things were more accurate. And so we just got really excited about the technology.
[6:35]And so I just kept talking to Anne Louise about that. That time we weren't making product. We were
[6:38]just picking some toys. And I said, this is amazing. And then from there, we sort of said, we should,
[6:43]we should make it. And we should make it multilingual. And we should make it beautiful. And we
[6:47]should make it diverse. And we should make it inclusive. And we should include all these topics that
[6:51]we would love to talk about. And we should make language learning, which is so hard for people in the
[6:56]US or in Western countries, especially in the US, we should make it more accessible. And so that was,
[7:02]that was the origination ballot. And Louise talked more about where it went from there.
[7:08]Yeah, no, I mean, you hit it, right? I mean, we had this experience as well from doing this pop-up
[7:15]store where we saw these from Francois of the world. And then we were able to see what, you know,
[7:20]parents and kids were interested in. And we did see like really intense interest in language
[7:24]learning. But we also like kind of said, had that need at home and wanted things that were
[7:30]like engaging. I mean, you know, I see it now, like my, my older one is for my England one. But
[7:36]my four-year-old starts playing with these books, whether, you know, the one in the books. And it's
[7:40]just so deeply interested in it. And just like once to happen, once you're a kid. And like, I think
[7:46]it's creating those kind of things that are engaging for them that don't have screen. So I don't
[7:50]feel guilty that he's like, you know, playing with this over and over again. But then it can,
[7:55]like, it's fun, but it also gives them the language learning that we're after, right? Like,
[8:00]we're trying to, you know, build that while they're so young and they're looking to pronounce things
[8:05]and as friends are like, you know, so flexible. And the other thing I'd add is that when we were
[8:10]exploring the technology, everybody knows conceptually that kids, if they learn when they're young
[8:15]and they get exposed when they're young, it's so much easier. Like I see these videos,
[8:19]Emily sends me if we're, you know, her son using our wand and the way he repeats back the tones,
[8:25]they're perfect. And he learns it for the Chinese. And so some point along as we grow older
[8:33]and we become adults, it's very hard for us to sometimes hear those tones. But for kids,
[8:37]it's so easy. So one of the big things for us when we made it was we said, we want
[8:42]how can we get families to have exposure early when kids are not necessarily, they haven't even
[8:47]started reading. But in English language, we just get exposure from people talking around us.
[8:52]So how can we get exposure through play? Because no one's actually intentionally reading. And
[8:57]so that's why we made every inch of the book, tapable and those types of things. We just really
[9:01]wanted it to be fun. And if they were having fun and they were just tapping all around and they
[9:07]got exposure, then naturally the learning would just happen. It's so neat. And also how you did
[9:13]the books themselves, it's not, is interesting. And even if you couldn't tap it, right? It's like
[9:19]the next generation of, you know, what does your mom do for work? And it's like, my mom's an entrepreneur,
[9:25]my mom does this or that or she's at home. Like it was so like, I'm like, oh, well, good.
[9:31]It's not, you're not just a doctor or a lawyer. I feel like so many books have like, here are the two
[9:35]careers for a job. Right. And this was so multifaceted. Now, of course, we're getting the like
[9:40]10 different careers you profiled. But what we had like entrepreneur and we have a product manager,
[9:47]we have a cheap home officer who is, you know, she stays at home, but we wanted to kind of
[9:52]recognize that that job is really multifaceted. Right. And challenging. Yeah, we have an entrepreneur,
[9:57]we have an art history professor.
[10:00]that's some binker, we have a surgeon.
[10:02]Yeah, no, for sure, we wanted to bring up topics
[10:05]that are kind of provocative and interesting.
[10:07]And we do find, right, that like,
[10:09]as the kids are using it, then they ask questions, right?
[10:12]So we just might, my son was reading
[10:14]the global celebrations book this morning.
[10:16]Can't read yet, but you know, he was tapping it.
[10:18]And he was on a page, we picked celebrations
[10:20]from all over the world,
[10:21]like not just your typical ones you only see,
[10:23]but like we picked a kind of all in Brazil,
[10:25]and we picked Coli, and we picked he,
[10:27]and Chinese New Year, or the New Year,
[10:30]and he was on the holy page,
[10:31]and a holy, you know, they grab powder
[10:33]and they're like thrown in the air
[10:34]and celebration of colors and springtime to love.
[10:37]And he just started asking all of these questions about it.
[10:40]And like that's the kind of thing that we want, right,
[10:43]is that the kids are curious,
[10:44]they're getting a language learner,
[10:45]but not also learning about different cultures,
[10:48]different, you know, people,
[10:49]what they celebrate around the world.
[10:51]And yeah, they start asking questions
[10:53]and it tees up the conversation for us as parents, too.
[10:57]So what is the plan for the series going forward?
[11:00]Like how many, and I saw how they all arrived
[11:03]and you have like a whole bookshelf full already.
[11:05]So not like you have to keep producing,
[11:07]but just like, what's the vision?
[11:08]What's like the five year plan?
[11:09]You must have, it sounds like you guys are into that kind of thing.
[11:13]I'm like, how do we get to tomorrow?
[11:15]There's so many directions where we could go.
[11:21]I mean, we sort of like,
[11:23]and we said we sort of take it a day at a time
[11:25]with sort of a rough idea of where we would love to get to,
[11:29]whether we, you know, we'll see how and how we get there.
[11:33]But the original vision was a global library
[11:36]where like, if you can imagine you step into a room
[11:39]that looks like a combination of a playroom,
[11:42]meets kids room, meets just space that you
[11:45]and your kid want to be in.
[11:47]And it's just filled.
[11:48]Kind of like the room you're in right now.
[11:50]Yes, it's filled with books.
[11:52]It's filled with books and it just feels like,
[11:55]and maybe there's some accessory like gloves
[11:57]and some really nice like comfortable cush, whatever it is.
[12:00]But like, you just go in and literally this one wand,
[12:04]you can tap anything.
[12:05]It's just so easy as you've used it before.
[12:08]We intentionally streamlined the design
[12:10]so that you don't have to toggle between languages.
[12:12]You don't have to set certain settings.
[12:14]You don't have to like decide which tell the wand,
[12:17]which book it's on.
[12:18]Literally all you do is turn it on
[12:19]and you touch anywhere.
[12:21]There's no wrong place to touch.
[12:22]And so if you can imagine a kid just enters this room
[12:25]looks up, pulls up any book, turns it on
[12:27]and just taps anything.
[12:29]We would love to have a global library
[12:32]that's just so accessible, makes language learning
[12:34]and the idea of global citizenship come home to families.
[12:38]That would be amazing.
[12:39]It's just a little video of that, right?
[12:42]Have you done that yet?
[12:43]And I just don't know.
[12:44]I didn't like, you need to put a kid
[12:46]and you need to like recreate that in real life now.
[12:49]Yes, yes, we need to do that.
[12:50]We have to do that in your book and just, you know,
[12:52]sounds like a good ad.
[12:54]It's like a, anyway.
[12:56]What is your distribution right now?
[12:58]Like where can you buy these?
[12:59]Where are they in actual stores just online?
[13:02]How do people buy them?
[13:04]Yeah, so right now we're online.
[13:07]We sell through our website, predominantly,
[13:09]happyhappy.com.
[13:10]And we've also partnered with a couple of commerce
[13:14]retailers like the TOT and anthropology and motherly as well.
[13:19]So we're really choiceful though about like who we work with.
[13:22]And of course, like most of our engagement
[13:23]comes through a site which we, you know,
[13:25]we have set it up to engage with our community.
[13:29]Like what we love is, you know, hearing from our customers,
[13:33]sharing that back with them.
[13:34]So like, it's all, you know, it's,
[13:37]it says it's not just like the transaction, right?
[13:38]We want to surprise and delight with every interaction
[13:41]we have with the customer.
[13:42]Like every, we do all our fulfillment ourselves.
[13:45]We have a small team, but we do like our own warehouse.
[13:48]It's all very personal.
[13:49]Like we pack all the boxes.
[13:50]We always include our personalized note.
[13:53]So yeah, it's just, I think the way our operations
[13:56]are set up are just reflective of the importance
[13:59]of our community to us and the kind of reaching out
[14:02]and interacting with that group and building that community.
[14:05]I said partner with a place like literati
[14:08]because they do these book subscriptions.
[14:09]I feel like it was recently buying a gift for somebody,
[14:12]a friend who's close to me who just had a baby
[14:14]and I gave them a book subscription from there.
[14:17]But like this would have been another great gift.
[14:19]Just in case people aren't remembering to go directly
[14:21]to your site, you can like have a,
[14:24]or advertiser or something.
[14:26]Yeah, places where people are already going, right?
[14:29]Yeah, for like gift, yeah, I'll check them out.
[14:32]I think I get Instagram ads for that.
[14:35]Oh, yeah, they're great.
[14:36]They do a really nice job.
[14:37]I mean, there are lots of book subscriptions
[14:39]for grownups and for kids.
[14:41]But yeah, I know this is like kind of a toy,
[14:43]kind of educational.
[14:45]It's like a hybrid.
[14:46]It's not just a book, but still, you know, it's really neat.
[14:49]So do you see how long can a kid play with these books?
[14:53]Do you think like what's the target age?
[14:55]I know you had said your kids are wonderful,
[14:57]but like how, what's the perfect age for people to buy?
[15:01]Yeah.
[15:02]It's so interesting because we have heard
[15:04]such different things from different customers.
[15:06]And I think fundamentally it's because it's a second language.
[15:10]And so whether you're a more bilingual household
[15:13]or whether you're introducing a more as like a minority
[15:16]language, second language, it changes per family.
[15:19]So for the ones where they're like,
[15:21]I want my kids to be bilingual and I want to start early.
[15:25]We find that zero to threes when they start.
[15:27]Sometimes people buy even before their kids are born.
[15:29]They put it on baby registry list, things like that.
[15:33]Because they think about it as either I'll read it with my child
[15:35]or they'll play with it.
[15:36]But regardless, I just want more exposure
[15:39]and I want exposure early.
[15:41]So they think about it as the same as English exposure.
[15:43]And then some would say, well, my kids can't tap it.
[15:47]I'm still focusing on English first
[15:49]and they think of the three to six as a very compelling period.
[15:52]I think no matter what for most families,
[15:54]three to six is very compelling.
[15:55]And then we find that there are probably still a smaller number
[15:59]but still a good chunk of people who buy it from six to nine,
[16:03]which is a, at that point kids know how to use it.
[16:07]They're not just playing their tapping to breed
[16:09]and it's a supplement as more for education.
[16:13]Like they take a class and so then they think
[16:15]that this is a great thing to have at home
[16:17]to supplement what they're running at school.
[16:20]And we often see too that,
[16:21]because families have right multiple kids
[16:23]that are across those ages and we'll see that like,
[16:26]you know, they might buy a set
[16:28]and like they're two year old users in a certain way
[16:30]and there are five year old users in a certain way
[16:32]but it's like it sort of applies across.
[16:34]So yeah, we also, our books,
[16:36]we have simpler books, like word books that are just you know,
[16:39]you just tap the animal name
[16:41]or just, you know, it's numbers or colors,
[16:43]something reasonable all the way up
[16:45]through more complex sentence and story books
[16:47]that obviously have longer sentences
[16:50]and like, you know, again, more complex for, you know,
[16:53]maybe some slightly more advanced kids,
[16:54]not necessarily age based,
[16:55]but like more level of, you know, advanced.
[16:57]And then the thing I do,
[16:59]not that you were asking my opinion,
[17:00]but there's this company called Fatcher Wine
[17:03]and they do book sets where they like design a logo
[17:07]on top of your book.
[17:08]And then they have their own catalog.
[17:10]So it would be neat to have that be one of their offerings too
[17:12]because you already have the spines looking so cool.
[17:15]You know, they do more like spine art in a way,
[17:18]you know, like or sets, like I'm trying to think
[17:21]if I have the catalog here to show you,
[17:22]this is like completely off topic of your book,
[17:24]but you know, it's neat to see how they have like,
[17:27]well, I'm showing you it's a podcast,
[17:28]but they're books that they string together
[17:30]and then they make them look like something.
[17:33]I've seen those before actually,
[17:35]like little house in the prairie,
[17:36]they'll have over like eight books or something,
[17:38]but you can customize, however,
[17:40]and I just, I'm like so loving
[17:42]where I keep coming back to this is I loved
[17:43]how your books look visually, like all lined up.
[17:46]So to have something, you know, like on the shelf
[17:50]in a publication people are already getting,
[17:52]I don't know, I feel like that would be your audience too.
[17:54]So anyway, Juniper, I'm sorry, Juniper books,
[17:56]his name is Fatcher Wine, so so cool.
[17:58]Anyway, just another fact.
[18:01]No, stop.
[18:02]How are you finding like running a business
[18:05]and dealing with your families?
[18:07]Like how are you balancing,
[18:09]especially in pandemic time
[18:10]when we're not necessarily out in offices?
[18:12]Like I hate to use the word balance,
[18:14]but like how are you dealing with it, essentially?
[18:19]Oh, it's like always a challenge.
[18:21]I always say like my, what do I think about like my goals
[18:24]for next year?
[18:25]And like one of my goals for next year
[18:26]is like stable childcare.
[18:28]I mean, one of the real tough things about this year, right?
[18:31]Has been, okay, so there's a shutdown
[18:33]and then you're like, don't have childcare
[18:35]and then you're like, you know, if it's a two-parent household
[18:38]and you're both trying to work from home,
[18:39]how do you like, so I think there's been a ton
[18:42]of disruption this year, of course.
[18:45]I think part of it is just like, you know,
[18:48]having really great partners, like we're very lucky
[18:49]that our husbands are great dads.
[18:51]They're, you know, they pull their weight
[18:53]and they're awesome.
[18:54]And we also have to do a lot of,
[18:57]you know, a lot of moving and shaking around like last,
[19:00]I would tell you all like a really funny story.
[19:02]I forgot to like, so we have a warehouse, right?
[19:04]Like, and we have a cardboard dumpster.
[19:07]And on Wednesday nights,
[19:08]we have to leave the cardboard dumpster out
[19:10]and the cardboard dumpster gets full
[19:11]and I forgot last night and I was like, well,
[19:14]my son was home for Veterans Day yesterday.
[19:15]So he'd been doing like the entire afternoon
[19:17]while I was like down there and I was like,
[19:19]well, it's gonna put the kids in the car
[19:21]and they're gonna come in and we're awesome.
[19:23]They're gonna like hang out for a second.
[19:25]Put the dumpster out and we'll go back home.
[19:26]You know, you kind of, you just have to be
[19:27]a little bit more flexible.
[19:28]It's not like the same as like a nine to five job
[19:30]where it's like, you go to the office
[19:32]and like, you know, you have somebody take care of your kids
[19:34]and you come home within your dad.
[19:35]Like, we're like always just adjusting
[19:38]and making it work and it's not always easy,
[19:40]but you know, you just kind of have to,
[19:43]sometimes you just put the kids in the car
[19:44]and go put the dumpster out.
[19:45]You know?
[19:46]I feel like that was something that like,
[19:49]like my mom was always like throwing us in the car
[19:52]to do anything.
[19:52]Like, oh, we're gonna have a window store.
[19:54]Like, I have all these memories growing up
[19:57]of like sitting in random stores
[19:58]while she did other stuff.
[20:00]But then like I feel like we got to a point where we were also intentional with our kids time, like maximizing everything and they should go here and they should go there.
[20:09]So in a way, it's almost just like a throwback right like oh yeah, put your kids in 57 classes and they're going to go with you to the dry cleaner like.
[20:17]Yeah, exactly.
[20:21]It's like they're not going to go to music class anymore and go to whatever they're just going to be with you and that's yeah.
[20:26]Yeah, I don't know about you. My kids are like super happy to do that to not be running around. I mean, I don't know if they could say home forever but.
[20:34]Yeah, they're like, I mean, I feel like we the one I'd say the one up shot and Hanayers are talking about this all the time like I feel like we do use the outdoor.
[20:42]Benefits of living in San Francisco a lot more like there's so many like parks there's like outdoor activities and they've shut down all these streets right in the city so.
[20:51]Like versus we used to maybe on the weekend we do a little more like okay we're in the house for like doing stuff and we're like we are out so you're like outdoors you're doing stuff so that's been a nice small benefit.
[21:02]Yeah, and how about you Hannah, how are you finding.
[21:05]Oh, oh, I feel like I always I feel every parent who's working at home has their own challenges, but I.
[21:12]I'm in such admiration of and Louise she's like the best juggler of all things like the example she talked about last night about like at one point she was in LA and I was fulfilling out of my garage.
[21:26]Oh, my gosh.
[21:27]We were because I live like.
[21:29]I mean, there's just so many stories we could go into about this year it was it was crazy, but I reinforce.
[21:37]I sort of reiterate what she had said about it's not like there's home life and there's start of life and work life is just kind of all melds together.
[21:48]And when you can do certain things then you try to make the most out of the time that you have to do that thing and so.
[21:56]You know, for example, today, and Louise dropped her kids off she came down, this is one of the first times that we're sort of together besides the warehouse because we're doing a video shoot.
[22:06]And then she's going to change to go back to the warehouse and yeah at one point because I live further away I was going to the warehouse and bringing stuff back to my garage so I wouldn't have to run to the warehouse every day to fulfill.
[22:20]We made a very intentional choice to to do this to take it on ourselves versus raise a bunch of money to to like sort of hire tons and tons of people, but as a result, it is hard to say that there is there is balance in a very strange way it's more just you make it work that's like yeah you make it work.
[22:41]And you do what you need to do and the good thing about being our own bosses is that we dictate the timeline for ourselves and the goals of course we we have certain expectations for ourselves like sometimes we think back and we said wow we launched this 15 months ago so 15 months ago and Louise had her second baby.
[22:59]We had one sample product like one hardcover book and we had a bunch of paper proofs and that's about it we had no website anything else and now today we have a warehouse we have a meaningful product library of 42 titles.
[23:15]And so it's it's what we see progress and we obviously find fulfillment and the types of products we're building it helps the hard times where you're like wow.
[23:27]Talking to her, for example, I like I haven't pulled an all night or no long time, but I pretty much pulled an all night or this one night one.
[23:33]Usually in any normal year we would go fly to our supplier check out all the product before it gets approved and shipped and this year we can't do that we just can't get on a plane.
[23:48]And so I was on the phone and on video and just at all hours of the day just trying to make sure that everything was ready.
[24:00]And ports are I mean anyway there's so many things this year ports are congested are container costs one at three times because of a combination of the trade war and fewer ships and demand and stuff like that so.
[24:13]If we wanted to lay out COVID challenges there's so many so many.
[24:18]Well, do you have any parting advice to aspiring authors and entrepreneurs, I think I would say just you gotta just do it I know that's I think there's a lot of a lot of people have ideas or things that they want to do and I want to try it and like just just go ahead and try and know that it's not.
[24:40]It's not easy and you'll probably do some things wrong and you'll make mistakes but like we kind of have this philosophy about just putting one foot in front of the other like we were trying before about like you know what's what's going to happen tomorrow is just like.
[24:52]Just keep going of course we do take time to step back and think about our longer term goals but like.
[24:58]it's like just having that stick to aniveness and so like you know if you're trying to write a book like start you know start writing a page and then write another page and like.
[25:07]Or if you're trying to start a company like just start figuring it out the other thing I would say is that everyone already has a lot of resources around that right like we have built this amazing network of friends and like acquaintances and like.
[25:20]rediscovered friendships from like ages and ages ago where like people want to help you so ask them like when we started I think Hannah we must have just had like dozens of conversations with like anyone who would talk to us if you pair that with the stick to aniveness and it's like just keep going and keep asking and you can go and you can't.
[25:38]Yeah yeah yeah I think I think that's a I can't agree with him more everybody thinks entrepreneurship is super glamorous and it's all about the ideas like you have a brilliant idea.
[25:50]And it's super fun and while it is super fun because anyways and I worked together and that was one of our primary goals to say we need you know this needs to be fun.
[25:58]If there are more times that people don't see that they're on glamorous for example and always describing like going and you know like pushing out the dumb stuff because they need to pick up the crowd.
[26:09]Because if they don't pick up the cardboard we all have space to.
[26:14]But so so it's so just remembers i'm going to but I think people either don't start or they don't they don't continue because there are hard times and even though we came from we were consultants by training because that's what we started in after school we loved the job and learned so much from it and there was a lot of strategy in it because we're strategy consultants but.
[26:36]I think entrepreneurship has given us such a deep appreciation for how much execution matters and how execution is just when you build an actual business the ideas are easy like that takes us 2% of the time and the 98% of the time is we know we have to unload the container like that's not hard to figure out like when a container comes you have to unload it.
[27:00]troubleshooting and problem solving and saying how do you realistically do it like finding a supplier there are millions suppliers out there so we have to find the right one in the detail and thought and.
[27:11]And actually visiting them and asking the right questions and sing their line those are the things that actually make a difference not writing on a checklist like find a quality supplier and.
[27:22]And as am we said we don't know people say what's your background is it writing children's books is it like teaching language it's like well we have we're where moms and we hope that we can figure things out from our prior sort of.
[27:34]learning and jobs but we've asked people and we just basically said okay if we didn't find a supplier who can we ask we start with Google we start with our friends and then we just go from there and every and say we can solve any challenge and sort of that's that's how we approached it.
[27:50]It's a great attitude I think that's that's the key to the whole thing is believing that you can do it great it sounds.
[27:57]I want to each other, but we're very lucky that we have each other because I feel like it just keep I don't know it like who is you about it keeps you going I'm like I can't figure this out but i'm sure Hannah can figure it out.
[28:09]Together we can figure you know like it just makes a better that's all yeah yeah and every big challenge or even any chore it's funny we'll go like visit warehouses the will go pack boxes and we used to call it packing parties even though it'd be like oh my god we have to you know it's post block writing we need to like.
[28:28]I call these boxes but having each other makes any high seam higher and any low not that low because it's like there's emotional support and I feel like that's so helpful otherwise it can be you know lonely or frustrating or something like that.
[28:45]I get it.
[28:46]Well thank you guys thank you so much for telling everybody more about happy happy and for chatting with me about your trials and tribulations of being you know bridesmaid turned co business owners and mom and all the rest so thank you and I can't wait to see what happens with your business so cool.
[29:07]Thank you.
[29:08]Thank you for chatting with us and sharing your beautiful library.
[29:16]All right thanks a lot.
[29:18]All right take care.
[29:19]Bye bye.
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[29:36]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books.
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