Our small business is officially on pause, and it's time to take a minute to reflect on everything we created in the past (almost) 4 years.
🫶 created a community of over 20K folks who care about natural and sustainable products, with 4200 orders and 28K products sold
🚛 diverted over 1.2 million plastic bottles from the landfill
🫧 launched over 70 products using the most recyclable, renewable materials (stainless steel, aluminum, GOTS organic cotton and FSC certified bamboo) and used the most natural ingredients to make some nourishing yet powerful personal care and cleaning products
✨ worked with incredibly talented, smart, hardworking and creative souls who truly care about each other and the work they put into the world. Many of our team were moms and juggled home life raising their kiddos while working on our business.
🏆 Achieved rewards/accolades including BCBusiness 40 Under 40, Techstars 2023, finalists in Canadian Health Food Association Launchpad, Spring, Movement 51, Total Mom Pitch and Coralus investor challenges
Learnings we had along the way that have caused us to pause:
💡 We focused too much of our conversations and energy on the mission, and not enough on communicating the value and functionality of our high quality products
⚖️ We tried to do too much with too little. We had too many products, and too many channels to try to be successful.
🥾 Startups need boots on the ground to grow. It's when we were on social every day showing the ins & outs of the business, and out in the community popping into retailers, hosting pop ups, dinners, going to tradeshows and gifting products that our business truly thrived. This takes a lot of personal time, energy and effort that is hard to do when you're home with kiddos.
💕 Health and family must always come first, sometimes at the expense of the business. This was always part of our business values, but sometimes you can't plan for times when your family or your health demands you.
So what's next? We're excited to take these learnings into a new future for BB. We're not sure when we'll be ready to relaunch but we'll make sure our email and social followers are the first to know!