Shownotes
The StartUp Story Of Little Rebels
In this episode, you'll hear ...- How MJ came up with the idea for Little Rebels dolls
- The initial vision and how it developed over time
- First steps in the creation process
- One crucial element of your product that you must optimize
- How it's possible to create a business even when you don't know how to do everything
- MJ's best tips for new business owners
- and so much more you can learn from!
Tune in to this fascinating conversation to discover how to go from clever idea to successful business!
Resources Mentioned
Marjorie's Contact Links
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You're listening to Gift Biz Unwrapped guest episode number 398.
Speaker:I just did this for my daughter.
Speaker:Look at her face.
Speaker:How cool.
Speaker:Like just sharing with my friends and in one viral Attention,
Speaker:gifters beggars,
Speaker:crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Speaker:Whether you have an established business or looking to start one
Speaker:now you are in the right place.
Speaker:This is Gift Biz Unwrapped,
Speaker:helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Speaker:Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,
Speaker:resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.
Speaker:Here is your host Gift Biz gal Sue Moon Height.
Speaker:Hi there,
Speaker:it's Sue and thanks for joining me here today.
Speaker:It's pretty serendipitous that our podcast scheduling rolled out as it
Speaker:did because right here as you're listening to this live Little
Speaker:Rebels dolls are being rolled out in some of the biggest
Speaker:retailers in the country.
Speaker:What began as an idea a few short years ago will
Speaker:now be available on the stores of Macy's and Walmart for
Speaker:this season's holiday shopping.
Speaker:Speaking of the holidays,
Speaker:if you haven't given thought yet to gifts for your support
Speaker:team or bestie,
Speaker:do check out our MERT shop.
Speaker:There you'll find business associated items that bring beauty and inspiration
Speaker:to a workday and peace and tranquility to personal time.
Speaker:Whether it's coffee in a colorful mug,
Speaker:capturing thoughts in a special journal,
Speaker:or sipping wine in one of our reflective themed insulated mugs.
Speaker:You'll find the perfect gift over@giftbizunwrapped.com
Speaker:slash shop.
Speaker:While there,
Speaker:pick up something for yourself too.
Speaker:You deserve it.
Speaker:Now back to Little Rebels.
Speaker:Today you're gonna hear the details behind the story of these
Speaker:dolls. You'll find out about the initial vision.
Speaker:Mjs first steps into the creation process and all that happened
Speaker:to get to where she is today,
Speaker:particularly impressive is the strategic thought MJ put into the look
Speaker:of the dolls and how she committed big time to a
Speaker:large retailer,
Speaker:literally inventing a program on the fly while keeping her fingers
Speaker:crossed to that it could actually be done.
Speaker:Settle in as MJ shares everything behind this fascinating story.
Speaker:Today we're gonna be talking to Marjorie Spit Nick,
Speaker:also known as MJ of Little Rebels.
Speaker:Marjorie is a Latin American entrepreneur and founder of Little Rebels.
Speaker:With more than 15 years of experience in advertising and communications,
Speaker:inspired by her daughter,
Speaker:MD decided to go after her dreams of empowering women and
Speaker:kids about great women that shaped the world.
Speaker:Little Rebels is an educational platform created to empower and inspire
Speaker:girls, playfully and interactively.
Speaker:It teaches stories mixing plushies,
Speaker:media and technology.
Speaker:Mj, welcome to the Gift Biz Unrepped podcast.
Speaker:Thank you Sue.
Speaker:I'm honored to be here and so excited for this conversation.
Speaker:I am too because I think your cause is so special
Speaker:and so needed and I'm excited to hear how it all
Speaker:developed. But first,
Speaker:I have one thing that we do on every single show
Speaker:to get to know you a little bit better in a
Speaker:creative way.
Speaker:Tell me about a motivational candle that would be all you
Speaker:by color and a quote.
Speaker:Give us a little more insight into you by way of
Speaker:this candle.
Speaker:I would say the quote,
Speaker:it's probably inspired by the fear of being average.
Speaker:That'll be the quote,
Speaker:not quite sure who said it.
Speaker:I have to be honest.
Speaker:And the color,
Speaker:it's gonna be like similar to unicorn,
Speaker:all mixed up colors with shiny thingies all around like it's
Speaker:gonna be like very bright candle,
Speaker:like without the sprinkles and Oh,
Speaker:shiny. Well it has to be because the unicorn look goes
Speaker:with your quote,
Speaker:right, not being average.
Speaker:That's the idea to have something completely different for what you
Speaker:usually see.
Speaker:Yeah, we often talk about the fact that people really want
Speaker:to be seen and I think that goes along with your
Speaker:quote, you know,
Speaker:not being average.
Speaker:Everyone's special and you wanna be seen as being unique.
Speaker:And so the fear of being average should inspire all of
Speaker:us. We're all creators.
Speaker:We all have this skill which not everybody does.
Speaker:And so I like the quote particularly because it pushes us
Speaker:into doing what we naturally do,
Speaker:but we're always so scared and we kind of put a
Speaker:shield on should I,
Speaker:should I not?
Speaker:Am I gonna be accepted,
Speaker:am I not?
Speaker:And so let's all have that fear of being average.
Speaker:We don't want it.
Speaker:Exactly. And I think it's super powerful quote also because,
Speaker:and there's nothing wrong about being average.
Speaker:Like there are people that are comfortable on their zone and
Speaker:that's okay for them.
Speaker:I just feel like I cannot live this word the same
Speaker:way it was when I came.
Speaker:I have the obligation to actually improve it and make it
Speaker:better somehow.
Speaker:So that's why I keep pushing myself whenever I'm coming down
Speaker:my comfort zone.
Speaker:I just remember the quote and it's like you're being average,
Speaker:like step outside the comfort zone and keep walking.
Speaker:Okay. No average here.
Speaker:My guess is the majority of the people who are listening
Speaker:to the show are going to fall in the same boat.
Speaker:They don't wanna be average either.
Speaker:Exactly. Wonderful.
Speaker:Alright, well give me a little bit of the backstory about
Speaker:how little Rebels started.
Speaker:Were you doing something else before this?
Speaker:I think you were from your intro,
Speaker:so share a little bit about all that.
Speaker:Yeah, So my background is actually on PR and communications.
Speaker:I spent like over 20 years working as an advertiser.
Speaker:I had my advertising agency.
Speaker:I work a lot with several local brands and still nowadays
Speaker:sometimes I do like some consultancy for local brands.
Speaker:And Was this your own business?
Speaker:It sounds like this was also your own business.
Speaker:Yeah, Like I've worked for others but then finally I always
Speaker:end up working by myself.
Speaker:Like I guess I have a different pace than the rest
Speaker:of them.
Speaker:And back in 2014 I have a daughter,
Speaker:I'm a single mom,
Speaker:she was around six by that time and she came to
Speaker:me with a drawing and she asked me to transform it
Speaker:into something real.
Speaker:So I ended up doing a plush that looked just like
Speaker:her drawing and I posted on Facebook like,
Speaker:Hey, I just did this for my daughter.
Speaker:Look at her face.
Speaker:How cool.
Speaker:Like just sharing with my friends and it went viral and
Speaker:before I knew it I had people actually asking me to
Speaker:do the pluses for their kids as well.
Speaker:So before I knew it I had a business.
Speaker:So I'm from Latin America,
Speaker:I'm from Uruguay,
Speaker:so my business name was
When you translated it means I'll draw you.
Speaker:So people send me their kids drawings and I will return
Speaker:pluses that look just like their drawings.
Speaker:So I had that endeavor for six years,
Speaker:got selected by President Obama to be a year and a
Speaker:half in the us being trained by higher executives,
Speaker:Richard Branson among them,
Speaker:which was a life changing experience.
Speaker:And then came back,
Speaker:kept working on until,
Speaker:well I always say that my business grow with my daughter.
Speaker:So my daughter is now 15,
Speaker:of course she doesn't need like to draw and have a
Speaker:flash made out of her.
Speaker:So when the pandemic hit,
Speaker:she was diagnosed with borderline disorders.
Speaker:So she was struggling a lot to go to classes physically.
Speaker:So we started homeschooling and that's when I noticed,
Speaker:like I started going through her textbooks with her and everybody
Speaker:was talking to her about great men in history from Albert
Speaker:Einstein to Stiff Jobs to all these amazing mens that we
Speaker:already know out there and nobody was talking to her about
Speaker:women. So I started asking sweetie,
Speaker:do you know who Mary Kiri was,
Speaker:who Mala is?
Speaker:And so on.
Speaker:And she kept saying no.
Speaker:So I got worried and I said,
Speaker:wait, like how does she not know about this women?
Speaker:Like they were literally trailblazers changing the word that we're living
Speaker:in today.
Speaker:Some of them actually are like Mary is the responsible that
Speaker:we can actually detect and cure cancer.
Speaker:So it's important for her to know who she was.
Speaker:So I enter on Google and I start looking for different
Speaker:resources for me to teach her as a mom.
Speaker:And there were a bunch of books coming out by the
Speaker:time this was 2019,
Speaker:I bought all the books available out there,
Speaker:but there was nothing playful,
Speaker:nothing huggable.
Speaker:And we learn better through play plus that hard.
Speaker:So I love playing around and I said,
Speaker:hey, maybe what I need to do is get all the
Speaker:expertise that I've developed over the years with my previous endeavor
Speaker:and do this pluses from this amazing women in history.
Speaker:And I can teach kids through the pluses.
Speaker:It's a scalable business,
Speaker:it's easier to do.
Speaker:There's several women out there like I'm never gonna run out
Speaker:of new models as there's as much models as amazing women
Speaker:around the world.
Speaker:And that's pretty much how everything got started.
Speaker:That was 2019.
Speaker:I went to the Dallas Toy Fair,
Speaker:which is a toy show like very important in the US
Speaker:with the first four models that I had,
Speaker:the four samples,
Speaker:this one is one of them,
Speaker:Mary Jackson,
Speaker:she was with me then.
Speaker:And then I got to pitch to all these amazing giants
Speaker:in the industry,
Speaker:the Hasbros,
Speaker:the Mattel,
Speaker:the Walmarts,
Speaker:like all these big names.
Speaker:And they all love the concept and they give me amazing
Speaker:feedback among them.
Speaker:Is there a book that comes with it?
Speaker:Like how do kids know when they see it in the
Speaker:shelves that this was Mary Jackson,
Speaker:the first African American engineer at nasa.
Speaker:And that's when I realize,
Speaker:oh yeah I need to add something into it.
Speaker:And I didn't wanna add books cuz there's a bunch of
Speaker:them out there already.
Speaker:So I wanted to do something different that will like separate
Speaker:us from others doing the same thing.
Speaker:And that's when it hits me like kids are all day
Speaker:long on their cell phones,
Speaker:so why don't we use their time on the cell phones
Speaker:to teach them something in a fun way.
Speaker:And that's when I,
Speaker:the app.
Speaker:So our app,
Speaker:when you scan the Blu faces,
Speaker:they take you to like you get access to a premium
Speaker:feature per se.
Speaker:So you have videos,
Speaker:eBooks, trivia,
Speaker:augmented reality,
Speaker:like all these educational resources telling their stories of these women
Speaker:so kids can actually learn while playing in their cell phone.
Speaker:That is so amazing because you're taking all of these different
Speaker:elements and merging them together for the similar cause.
Speaker:Right. But now I'm gonna take you all the way back
Speaker:again. So now we've heard the whole story of where you're
Speaker:at to this point today,
Speaker:but I wanna dive deeper into how actually this all happened.
Speaker:So you started with,
Speaker:you identified the fact that famous and significant women weren't being
Speaker:talked about and certainly their stories weren't being chaired to our
Speaker:youth of the day.
Speaker:And you saw that with your daughter right away.
Speaker:And I'm repeating a little bit of your story,
Speaker:but so you went online,
Speaker:you saw that it wasn't there,
Speaker:you got the materials that you could and saw that there
Speaker:was a better way you felt in terms of the information
Speaker:being received by young girls.
Speaker:So let's go back.
Speaker:How did you decide and where did you start in a
Speaker:little bit more detail then of who was the first character
Speaker:that you focused on?
Speaker:Let's go with that first.
Speaker:That's funny.
Speaker:Everybody asked me that question and they actually all came out
Speaker:together. Like the first four originals.
Speaker:They were born at the same time.
Speaker:It's not like I had one first character.
Speaker:What I do have is I used to have Frida Kalo,
Speaker:she used to be like the leader of the rebel band
Speaker:if you like.
Speaker:Somehow whenever we draw them,
Speaker:like the original drawings,
Speaker:Frida was always in front of them with like her arms
Speaker:crossed and like I'm leading the game into this revolution somehow.
Speaker:But then a funny thing happened,
Speaker:I was negotiating with Frida Foundation about the rights and then
Speaker:we were going back and forth with it and then they
Speaker:had a dispute with Frida's family.
Speaker:And when that all paused,
Speaker:the negotiations for a couple of months and that's when it
Speaker:hit me like Frida is not a little rebel because that's
Speaker:when I got really picky about what being a little rebels
Speaker:mean. So Frida Kalo is an amazing artist for some people
Speaker:who love her and they will love her art and all
Speaker:the story behind her about her being sick and being able
Speaker:to actually overcome the sickness and become a famous painter and
Speaker:so on.
Speaker:But she's not a rebel.
Speaker:Like her husband used to beat her every single time.
Speaker:He was like super violent.
Speaker:She was a domestic violence victim.
Speaker:And that's exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to teach
Speaker:our girls.
Speaker:Like I'm trying to empower them.
Speaker:I teach them don't stay in a situation where you're getting
Speaker:beaten up or somebody's not respecting you or noting well,
Speaker:so for me it was something positive that we paused the
Speaker:negotiations about the licensing cuz I had the opportunity to actually
Speaker:go deeper in her story and notice like Frida is not
Speaker:a little rebel.
Speaker:And then that's when I notice,
Speaker:okay, so I need to have like standards of what do
Speaker:you need to have to become a little rebel apart from
Speaker:being a famous woman.
Speaker:It's not just that you're famous,
Speaker:you have to be groundbreaker at some point.
Speaker:Either discover something or overcome some challenges,
Speaker:obstacles or being pioneer at something like being the first woman
Speaker:that, and not taking no,
Speaker:like not letting the nose that everybody's gonna put out there
Speaker:for us,
Speaker:especially when we're women,
Speaker:we hear a lot of no not letting those nos bring
Speaker:you down.
Speaker:So taking it up to a whole different level because obviously
Speaker:day is very well known for her art As a character
Speaker:as well.
Speaker:Frida, when you look at her she's like,
Speaker:Oh yeah,
Speaker:yeah. And you see her and she's very well recognized also.
Speaker:Yes. But this is interesting because along the way as you
Speaker:were developing who your characters were gonna be and what your
Speaker:brand stood for,
Speaker:you didn't necessarily know right from the beginning,
Speaker:it came to you as you kept researching and looking kind
Speaker:of evolved Yes to what you wanted it to be,
Speaker:which is I think an important thing for people to know
Speaker:that you don't always know exactly how this is going to
Speaker:wind up when you're getting started.
Speaker:It has to be a road that you're on.
Speaker:Did you at any point when you were looking at Frida
Speaker:say like,
Speaker:oh my gosh,
Speaker:I'm so far in already.
Speaker:Like do I justify her being part of it or what
Speaker:was your thinking when you made that decision?
Speaker:I guess to be clear,
Speaker:like I had no idea what I was doing when I
Speaker:got into this business.
Speaker:That's like the ugly truth.
Speaker:Good because most of us don't.
Speaker:So if you're listening here and you are not sure you
Speaker:know what you're doing,
Speaker:it's okay,
Speaker:keep going,
Speaker:it's all right.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:So I really had no clue what I was doing.
Speaker:I never been to a design school or toy school or
Speaker:anything. So I was just actually followed by my passion and
Speaker:I'm 40 now and I didn't discover my real passion up
Speaker:until I was 37 or 38,
Speaker:something like that.
Speaker:So if you're struggling to find your passion,
Speaker:that's okay.
Speaker:Like you still have time.
Speaker:But once I did that was empowering yours and women to
Speaker:become whatever they wanna become.
Speaker:That's when it hit me now.
Speaker:And I guess that's where all this freedom thing came into
Speaker:light. I never doubted for a second like I need to
Speaker:justify having free because I'm too far away on it.
Speaker:It was just like if anybody ask,
Speaker:I would tell the truth.
Speaker:This answer is gonna be we're pausing because of licensing rights,
Speaker:IP rights,
Speaker:so we cannot keep going.
Speaker:So we don't have to give all these long explanations to
Speaker:our customers.
Speaker:But those that actually wanna know the reason why they'll hear
Speaker:me in in I'm always saying the same thing.
Speaker:Like for me it's a blessing that we didn't want through
Speaker:with the IP for Frida cuz it make me realize what
Speaker:I want for my brand not only because of Frida but
Speaker:like for the entire little res brand,
Speaker:what I want them to represent each and single one of
Speaker:them. And as an example,
Speaker:we're launching two new dolls when it's Dr.
Speaker:Gladys B West,
Speaker:the inventor of the gps and the one I see her
Speaker:face, nobody knew GPS was invented by woman.
Speaker:That usually happens then.
Speaker:She's a 16 year old scientist to be,
Speaker:she invented this thing that detects lead in water.
Speaker:She's amazing At 16.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:I know,
Speaker:right? It's Insane.
Speaker:So let's close the book on Frida,
Speaker:but she played a really significant role in your business even
Speaker:though she's not gonna be a character as part of the
Speaker:brand. Of course.
Speaker:Yeah. I wanna go back still and stay as you were
Speaker:getting everything started.
Speaker:So you decided you were gonna start with four dos,
Speaker:right? Yeah.
Speaker:And how did you go about getting these dolls into production?
Speaker:Because it's no longer a one off doll like you were
Speaker:doing for the earlier business,
Speaker:right? So talk me through a little bit of that process.
Speaker:How did you do that?
Speaker:That was insane actually.
Speaker:So I came up with the idea and I called,
Speaker:I cannot sew and I cannot draw.
Speaker:Those are two things that I cannot do.
Speaker:You can't sew,
Speaker:you can't draw,
Speaker:but you have created plush dolls that are really detailed.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:tell me,
Speaker:spell it.
Speaker:First Thing that you need to learn as an entrepreneur is
Speaker:you don't need to know everything.
Speaker:You just need to make sure you surrender yourself with people
Speaker:that actually do know more than you on those topics and
Speaker:work with them.
Speaker:Like that's rule number one.
Speaker:Excellent advice.
Speaker:So I call a friend of mine that he's an amazing
Speaker:designer and illustrator and I pitched the idea and I was
Speaker:like, can you like help me figure out how this dolls
Speaker:will look like?
Speaker:So he sent me around 10 different styles on the dolls
Speaker:and I was like I need them to look kids like
Speaker:their faces needs to be what they used to look like
Speaker:when they were kids.
Speaker:Cuz I want kids to not only look out to them
Speaker:but also relate to them and see that they were kids
Speaker:at some point apart from amazing women.
Speaker:Very smart.
Speaker:And I need them to look like Disney princesses because once
Speaker:they're in the shelf next to Elsa and Anna from Frozen,
Speaker:nobody's gonna know Mary's Mary Curie at first glance,
Speaker:but they will like them the doll itself because it looks
Speaker:Disney Princess.
Speaker:Yeah. So I'm stopping you right here because this is really
Speaker:significant I think in that you were thinking past the product,
Speaker:but how it would be positioned in the market,
Speaker:who the customer is and who else a purchase of your
Speaker:dials would be up against.
Speaker:How do you come to that?
Speaker:Is that just by nature of your advertising and promotion experience
Speaker:that you started thinking this way?
Speaker:I guess at some point it's a mix of both.
Speaker:Like advertising and marketing is my dna.
Speaker:So I guess I see it everywhere I go and I
Speaker:cannot stop thinking about that even if I'm not no longer
Speaker:in the industry.
Speaker:It's like in the back of my head.
Speaker:So I'm always,
Speaker:whenever I go grocery shopping,
Speaker:I'm always looking how are they displaying the products for example,
Speaker:and which my daughter gets really,
Speaker:That's Something that I can not overcome.
Speaker:But I think that some point it's also the fact that
Speaker:I'm a mom so I do know what I'm expect.
Speaker:I'm a buyer.
Speaker:I'm the one that's gonna buy those dolls for my daughter.
Speaker:So I was trying to think as a mom,
Speaker:like when I have them I will probably want her to
Speaker:have a Mary instead of a Nelson.
Speaker:But I'm also know that when we are in the store
Speaker:she will go for the El,
Speaker:not the Mary because it's the one that she knows.
Speaker:But if Mary Curi looks just as cute as Elsa,
Speaker:I can convince her to take the Mary Curi and then
Speaker:learn who she was.
Speaker:Right? So everyone who's listening to this,
Speaker:I want you to rewind this,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:just press the 32nd back a few times and listen to
Speaker:this again.
Speaker:And then think about it in relation to your product.
Speaker:If you're out at craft shows,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:what can you be doing?
Speaker:I call this your unique special power,
Speaker:but what can you be doing with your product?
Speaker:It's positioning,
Speaker:it's look to be number one different from others,
Speaker:but equally acceptable if we wanna go with mjs strategy or
Speaker:something else unique that would convince them to buy yours versus
Speaker:somebody else's.
Speaker:Just a really,
Speaker:really good tip MJ and I want you guys all to
Speaker:think about that in relation to your product.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:so you're talking to this gentleman,
Speaker:he comes back with mockups for you what happens next?
Speaker:We're back to the story.
Speaker:Well we will be back to the story right after a
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Speaker:So we finally got into a style that I really like
Speaker:and again the most important part for me is always the
Speaker:face of the doll.
Speaker:If we don't like have the face,
Speaker:well we are not gonna release that though.
Speaker:So there's a lot of back and forth there.
Speaker:And then once I had the designs,
Speaker:I literally just went online,
Speaker:Alibaba Express looking for factories,
Speaker:got lucky enough I guess I found a factory that works
Speaker:with Disney,
Speaker:Unilever, like all this big brands.
Speaker:So for me it was kind of a reassurance without knowing
Speaker:anything I was like well if they work with this big
Speaker:brands, they might be good.
Speaker:And that's how I chose the factory.
Speaker:Actually I never flew to China or anything.
Speaker:I did everything online by the way,
Speaker:we were pre pandemic when we started designing this.
Speaker:But when we launched this,
Speaker:well we'll get there.
Speaker:Did the factories actually make the prototypes for you then?
Speaker:Yeah, so what I did is I requested a sample for
Speaker:them. So I send the designs,
Speaker:the face front back?
Speaker:Front side?
Speaker:Yeah, the side of the doll.
Speaker:So they have like three different layouts for how the doll
Speaker:will look like Off of an illustration,
Speaker:not off of a made prototype.
Speaker:Exactly. Okay.
Speaker:No An illustration.
Speaker:And I send it to the factory and then they started
Speaker:sending pictures,
Speaker:they started trying out like this might be an option,
Speaker:this might be another option.
Speaker:And with the pictures what I did was I started writing
Speaker:over the picture like I want the eye like this big
Speaker:and then this distance between the eye and the other eye
Speaker:should be shorter.
Speaker:So like details to get it where I wanted to get.
Speaker:And then we,
Speaker:we spent like six months back and forth easily like trying
Speaker:to get the right features to look like the way I
Speaker:wanted to.
Speaker:And you were doing all four at one time?
Speaker:No, I started with the,
Speaker:okay, okay.
Speaker:And then they sent me the final picture for Frida and
Speaker:once they did that I said oh okay,
Speaker:this is cool.
Speaker:So yeah let's go ahead and do it.
Speaker:The funny thing here and I'm gonna add a parenthesis into
Speaker:the development of the product itself,
Speaker:it's how we launch it actually Little rebels was just an
Speaker:idea that I was mumbling in my head and I was
Speaker:doing a master degrees at Columbia University by that time and
Speaker:a local newspaper called me to like write an article on
Speaker:entrepreneurs that have failed as if I had failed at the
Speaker:time. Well that's motivating.
Speaker:I Know,
Speaker:right? That I was awful and I was like,
Speaker:you know what?
Speaker:I did not fail.
Speaker:I'm actually doing a master degrees at Columbia thanks to my
Speaker:endeavor and FYI off the record,
Speaker:I'm working on this idea.
Speaker:So I sent a picture of that Frida call that the
Speaker:factory sent me.
Speaker:Like I didn't even have the sample with me,
Speaker:I just literally had one photo of the Fria and I
Speaker:sent it to the journalist and I was like,
Speaker:I'm working on this idea,
Speaker:it's not ready yet but just fii,
Speaker:I'm still like I'm still an entrepreneur,
Speaker:thank you very much.
Speaker:And I remember I was entering school and then my phone
Speaker:rang and when I saw it was like the state department
Speaker:cuz I'm an aluma from the state department after the Obama
Speaker:program asking if they could tweet about my new endeavor if
Speaker:I have enough inventory.
Speaker:And I was like,
Speaker:what they talking about?
Speaker:Like I do one draw in one plus I don't have
Speaker:inventory. And then I saw and the original article became like
Speaker:entrepreneur launches,
Speaker:new line of dolls inspired by iconic women and that was
Speaker:something that didn't existed and people was trying to buy it
Speaker:out. So I had to begin and that's how that really
Speaker:helped me getting this,
Speaker:You know most people are afraid to share their ideas because
Speaker:they're afraid they're gonna get copied.
Speaker:Here's another issue,
Speaker:if you share the idea you're gonna be pushed forward faster
Speaker:than you might have thought you would do.
Speaker:Which isn't so bad actually The idea and being copied,
Speaker:like I always say the same thing,
Speaker:do you really think you're the only person in the entire
Speaker:world that had that idea?
Speaker:Like the difference is the execution,
Speaker:not the idea.
Speaker:Exactly. We both can have the same idea and it's The
Speaker:people who do the work,
Speaker:right? Exactly.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:so you get the dials to look the way you want
Speaker:them to go and look at mjs website,
Speaker:we are little rebels.com
Speaker:so that you can see what they look like.
Speaker:I'm walking with you in your story.
Speaker:You still don't have a doll in your hands from the
Speaker:factory, right?
Speaker:No, The doll came like the first sample came around a
Speaker:year after I started working with the idea.
Speaker:And then once I have the sample,
Speaker:the four of them came together like once I approved rda,
Speaker:then they started working on Mary Curie,
Speaker:Mala and Mary Jackson.
Speaker:And by the time I got them in my hands I
Speaker:got the four samples together.
Speaker:Tell me about the day that the box arrived and you
Speaker:were gonna open it up It I was actually like they
Speaker:were, of course they were retained by customs so I had
Speaker:to go to customs and do the declaration and everything of
Speaker:course and it was just the four dolls.
Speaker:But I remember I was crying my eye out And Like
Speaker:the guy at customs were like,
Speaker:what's happening to you?
Speaker:And I was like,
Speaker:you have no idea how long it took me to have
Speaker:this dolls in my head.
Speaker:Like it was a huge achievement.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:And did they all meet with your expectations?
Speaker:Yes, they were actually even better than I expected.
Speaker:Like I got really surprised.
Speaker:Okay. And how did you decide on the materials for their
Speaker:clothing and such?
Speaker:Because you couldn't feel anything if you're interacting with a factory.
Speaker:No, but I did you I wanted them to be a
Speaker:hundred percent made of flush cuz I want them soft and
Speaker:then the feeling it's gonna be like whatever they put inside
Speaker:of them needed to be like fluffy as well and smoothie
Speaker:and they needed to be light.
Speaker:Like I wanted them to be around 11 and inches tall
Speaker:and then as light as possible,
Speaker:thinking about younger kids to be comfortable to walk around with
Speaker:them and hug them.
Speaker:So for me the things that were important was they have
Speaker:to be extra soft,
Speaker:extra light and extra huggable.
Speaker:Those were like the features that I needed to have them.
Speaker:And so I scout it for fabric here in UA actually.
Speaker:And I sent like hey I want all the doll made
Speaker:with this material,
Speaker:this is how they look like.
Speaker:But actually they're plus it's way better than the one that
Speaker:we have here.
Speaker:So by the time the dolls came,
Speaker:I was amazed with the quality of the plush.
Speaker:They're like extremely soft.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:I love that what you got was even better than your
Speaker:expectations. So that's perfect.
Speaker:And a really good point about you went back and forth
Speaker:with some materials cuz I'm trying to figure out how physically
Speaker:if you have a material,
Speaker:how were you describing it to them and you were actually
Speaker:sending it to them So they have picture and then you
Speaker:were sending the material to them?
Speaker:No, I didn't send the material to them.
Speaker:I just said I want this kind of blush.
Speaker:I said the name and I sent pictures.
Speaker:I never sent the physical material to China.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:got it.
Speaker:That'll be clever.
Speaker:But I never did it.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:so you've got your dolls,
Speaker:you have a big smile on your face,
Speaker:you're wiping away the tears of happiness.
Speaker:Now it happens.
Speaker:So now,
Speaker:now I need to produce them and I need money,
Speaker:right? And I'm a solopreneur,
Speaker:no co-founders,
Speaker:no investors,
Speaker:how and I'm gonna do this like how I'm gonna take
Speaker:this market.
Speaker:You had a really huge bank account,
Speaker:right? Exactly.
Speaker:Have I mentioned I'm a single mom,
Speaker:like no,
Speaker:trust me,
Speaker:I don't have a huge bank account.
Speaker:But you didn't let this stop you.
Speaker:What'd you do?
Speaker:I created a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to produce
Speaker:the first $2,000,
Speaker:which were the ones that I was gonna use to test
Speaker:the market and make sure that like apart from my brilliant
Speaker:idea, there was somebody out there that really enjoyed the dolls.
Speaker:Funny thing,
Speaker:I launched the campaign March 8th,
Speaker:2020. Of course the pandemic was declared March 13th,
Speaker:2020. So I ran the entire campaign during the first month
Speaker:of pandemic when everybody was concerned about toilet paper and pizza
Speaker:and nobody was actually thinking about buying thousand kickstarted.
Speaker:So that was a challenge.
Speaker:It was my very first crowdfunding campaign.
Speaker:I had of course no idea what I was doing but
Speaker:still in the last,
Speaker:I think it was 48 hours of the campaign,
Speaker:I was able to raise $4,000
Speaker:which were what I was missing to be able to achieve
Speaker:like the goal of the campaign and get the money to
Speaker:produce those dolls.
Speaker:So that's how I started.
Speaker:That was March,
Speaker:2020, I got the money,
Speaker:send it to the factory and then September,
Speaker:2020 the dollars arrived finally here like the first ship and
Speaker:got here and I started shipping my backers.
Speaker:And the Dows were all of the same quality of the
Speaker:initial prototype that you had?
Speaker:Yes. Okay.
Speaker:So there were no quality issues?
Speaker:No, I was actually very lucky and I think it is
Speaker:because I chose the right factory to work with and they
Speaker:are really professional.
Speaker:But that was pure luck.
Speaker:Like I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker:I have to be honest because once they got here,
Speaker:like I never did a quality control check in China or
Speaker:anything at that time.
Speaker:But when they got here I had not one single that
Speaker:was wrong.
Speaker:Each one of them was in a perfect quality just as
Speaker:the sample was initially.
Speaker:So I was very happy and election.
Speaker:Yeah. You know a lot of people talk about nightmares with
Speaker:factories in China.
Speaker:I also produce a product through a factory and I have
Speaker:found them to be so responsive if their quality issues,
Speaker:they make good on the issue.
Speaker:Not every factory in China is going to give you low
Speaker:quality product or that you're gonna encounter problem.
Speaker:Not at all.
Speaker:You're another person who's saying the same things.
Speaker:You know there's kind of that general idea out there that
Speaker:that's the case and it isn't necessarily the case.
Speaker:You have to be careful and choose.
Speaker:Right. But it isn't necessarily the case.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So you've got your dials,
Speaker:you're sending them then to the people who invested in the
Speaker:Kickstarter, cuz that was part of the agreement,
Speaker:the Kickstarter program,
Speaker:right? Yeah,
Speaker:it was around 2 37 backers,
Speaker:something like that,
Speaker:that helped raise the money.
Speaker:So those were the first shipments and then I had to
Speaker:find local toy stores that wanna buy actually the dolls and
Speaker:then start selling.
Speaker:I was lucky because the doll came in September,
Speaker:then holidays came in.
Speaker:So that Christmas I sold a lot of doll and by
Speaker:September, 2020 first we sold out all of our dolls.
Speaker:At what point did you make the decision that you were
Speaker:going to wholesale the product instead of direct to consumer?
Speaker:I think it was a strategy right from the beginning.
Speaker:Like I never thought about only direct to consumer versus wholesale.
Speaker:I always knew I was gonna go for both.
Speaker:Okay. Cause the idea is to make sure that I was
Speaker:getting the henna of as many kids as possible.
Speaker:And I know I cannot do that alone by myself.
Speaker:Like I'm literally the one doing everything.
Speaker:I'm the founder,
Speaker:I'm the pr,
Speaker:I'm the salesperson,
Speaker:I'm the design team,
Speaker:I'm like I'm wearing all the hats.
Speaker:And that's amazing because I learn a lot and I get
Speaker:to build the foundations of my business the way I would
Speaker:like to.
Speaker:But please don't do that.
Speaker:Like get a team as soon as possible.
Speaker:I'm driving myself crazy here.
Speaker:Yeah. But if you have to do it that way,
Speaker:at least you know all the different tasks and then you
Speaker:can fill in people as you're able to,
Speaker:right? Yeah that's the idea actually to have.
Speaker:I think that's one of the hugest advantages of doing this
Speaker:by myself.
Speaker:I get to learn from every position.
Speaker:So by the time I'm recruiting and creating a team,
Speaker:I know exactly what to look for in the person that
Speaker:I'm gonna hire and and help them understand the culture of
Speaker:little rebels that I'm trying to establish.
Speaker:But yeah,
Speaker:like wholesale was always an option cuz again I want to
Speaker:reach as many kids as possible and only B to C.
Speaker:It's hard to do,
Speaker:especially if you don't have any money to invest in marketing
Speaker:and advertising.
Speaker:Everything we've done so far is a hundred percent organic.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So fabulous holiday season in terms of sales.
Speaker:I wanna get to a bunch of other things in the
Speaker:story so I'm gonna jump a little bit,
Speaker:but at what point did you go to the conference,
Speaker:the toy conference In 2019?
Speaker:That was before I launched the dollars.
Speaker:I had the samples only It was there that they suggested
Speaker:or questioned about having an accompanied book.
Speaker:Right. And so was that happening at the same time or
Speaker:talk to us a little bit about the book component.
Speaker:So the app actually came a month after I came back
Speaker:from the fair.
Speaker:So the fair was October,
Speaker:2019. I launched the Kickstarter on March,
Speaker:2020. By then the app already existed,
Speaker:like I came back from the fair and we developed the
Speaker:app right away to make sure that once we launch it
Speaker:on Kickstarter we'll have everything working.
Speaker:Okay, stop screeching halt.
Speaker:You said this so easily.
Speaker:Oh well we just developed the app.
Speaker:Ok. How do you develop an app without giving away any
Speaker:secrets? No,
Speaker:no there's not that much secret behind there.
Speaker:So funny thing is I ran into a friend at Dallas
Speaker:Soy Fair,
Speaker:he's a great developer.
Speaker:He'd done a bunch of things for Disney and all these
Speaker:big companies and I was like hey you know what?
Speaker:I need to add contact into the dolls and I don't
Speaker:wanna bring a book would help me build an app.
Speaker:And he was like,
Speaker:you know what?
Speaker:We can actually do this pretty fast if we work on
Speaker:like simple features and if you work really,
Speaker:really hard like we are gonna need you to sit down
Speaker:in your computer,
Speaker:came up all the story behind it Cause we have the
Speaker:videos as well.
Speaker:So that's something that we develop in between like we have
Speaker:animated videos free on YouTube for everybody to learn their stories
Speaker:which are on the app as well.
Speaker:Where do you get get the content for all this?
Speaker:I created You created the the stories.
Speaker:But what about the video?
Speaker:I hired animators to actually do the animated video.
Speaker:So if you go,
Speaker:you'll see it's two to three minutes video animated for each
Speaker:one of the dolls because You already had the dials images
Speaker:from the illustrator and so you gave those to the animator
Speaker:And they started working in different storytelling as per my scripts.
Speaker:And they came up with the videos,
Speaker:which is pretty cool.
Speaker:Wow. I know it's insane.
Speaker:Look back.
Speaker:But at the time it was like yeah well what of
Speaker:videos? Yeah what of videos And like we in a month
Speaker:we had the four videos which was insane as well cuz
Speaker:animation. Well it's who you know right?
Speaker:It's who you know.
Speaker:Again you need to surround yourself with experts.
Speaker:Yeah. And this is to the point of you're not hiring
Speaker:people to do some of the things you know how to
Speaker:do. You did hire people to do the things that you
Speaker:weren't sure how to do or didn't even know maybe were
Speaker:even possible.
Speaker:So you spend your money wisely is the way to say
Speaker:that. And when you say that,
Speaker:you just make me remember,
Speaker:there's a funny story that just happens with us when you
Speaker:said like hire people that you know don't know if they
Speaker:are able to do it.
Speaker:So not that long ago,
Speaker:around a month ago I had a conversation with the CEO
Speaker:of a very important company that I really wanted them to
Speaker:acquire little rebels like for licensing.
Speaker:And he was asking me,
Speaker:so what other products do you have?
Speaker:Like do you have a board game?
Speaker:And by that time I only had the dolls and I
Speaker:was saying yes to every single thing that he was asking,
Speaker:do you have books?
Speaker:And I was,
Speaker:yeah of course I have books and I hang up and
Speaker:the first thing I did was I developed a book which
Speaker:did not existed of course.
Speaker:And then he was like,
Speaker:do you have a board game?
Speaker:And I was like,
Speaker:yes of course we have the MVP of a board game.
Speaker:And he was like oh walk me through the game And
Speaker:on the spot on the call I invented the game and
Speaker:then when I hang up the phone I called my friend
Speaker:from the app development cuz of course the game has augmented
Speaker:reality into it.
Speaker:So it interacts just like as our dolls do,
Speaker:the board game does as well.
Speaker:So it's kind of with augmented reality,
Speaker:something like that.
Speaker:And I call him and I was like okay so I
Speaker:just have this call and I just pitched this idea for
Speaker:the ceo,
Speaker:please tell me this is doable cuz I just said that
Speaker:we have it done already and that he's gonna see the
Speaker:game in a week at Dallas.
Speaker:Cause we went back to Dallas like three weeks ago and
Speaker:I met with the CEO with the board game which is
Speaker:right there.
Speaker:Like we literally created a board game in a week.
Speaker:So it's who you know and you need to trust him.
Speaker:I'm speechless,
Speaker:I'm speechless.
Speaker:That was insane.
Speaker:That was risky.
Speaker:That was really risky.
Speaker:I don't think like the CX knows this Mj I think
Speaker:maybe you are a rebel.
Speaker:Oh no I am a rebel.
Speaker:I know that.
Speaker:Oh gosh.
Speaker:Okay. My Designer's design,
Speaker:my designer did was my personal cards and it's me as
Speaker:a rebel but I don't feel comfortable becoming a rebel.
Speaker:Like I will keep fighting.
Speaker:You're the head rebel behind the business.
Speaker:Exactly right.
Speaker:So gosh.
Speaker:So we are right in the middle of the business in
Speaker:progress of a huge growth cuz I just feel it coming
Speaker:for you.
Speaker:What are you doing to prepare right now for that to
Speaker:happen? You're talking to big companies so your production's gonna have
Speaker:to get totally ramped up,
Speaker:promotion, all of that.
Speaker:Like what does this look like in your business right now
Speaker:as we're speaking?
Speaker:So we're launching on Macy's next month,
Speaker:which is crazy.
Speaker:Do you have a date?
Speaker:I don't have the date yet.
Speaker:I will let you know as soon as I have it.
Speaker:But no,
Speaker:I'm actually waiting on them to let me know.
Speaker:I will be on 19 stores.
Speaker:So being the lookout on our social media will let you
Speaker:know as soon as we launch.
Speaker:Okay. And let me just say to everybody listening based on
Speaker:my earring schedule,
Speaker:that might be right now when you're listening.
Speaker:Oh yeah,
Speaker:it's gonna be on stores for Christmas that's for sure.
Speaker:Unless they sold out before.
Speaker:So middle to end of November is what you're saying?
Speaker:Exactly. Mid to end November.
Speaker:Exactly. All Right.
Speaker:So how are you getting ready for this?
Speaker:Well I'm buying a lot of wine.
Speaker:I'll come over,
Speaker:I'll help you with that.
Speaker:So what happened was I had to get some loans in
Speaker:the bank to be able to produce the new inventory cuz
Speaker:we sold out and we cover like some of the costs
Speaker:from the first year of business but we are still pre-revenue
Speaker:by the time and I needed to like Macy's order came
Speaker:along with the Michigan Science Museum and a few other museums
Speaker:also. But they needed the dolls and I didn't have the
Speaker:money to produce them so I had to take on a
Speaker:few bank loans,
Speaker:which I'm not happy about it but we,
Speaker:we need to do,
Speaker:what do we need to do?
Speaker:I produced 3000 more dolls which are just getting to the
Speaker:states as we speak.
Speaker:Like they just landed LA last week so I have to
Speaker:hire a warehouse in the US Like nowadays everything's changing.
Speaker:Like I used to have the dolls here with me in
Speaker:Uruguay at my home,
Speaker:like my office is in my house.
Speaker:So I had all my office filled with boxes and just
Speaker:like as every entrepreneur starts and now we actually have a
Speaker:warehouse and people in charge of the warehouse and then people
Speaker:in charge of shipping distribution and making sure that every single
Speaker:customer, either B2C customers or wholesale customers get their dolls in
Speaker:their hands.
Speaker:We're launching on jane.com
Speaker:as well on October 27.
Speaker:We're launching on walmart.com
Speaker:as well.
Speaker:So and we are wrapping up our Amazon accounts so there's
Speaker:gonna be several point of sales for the dolls that didn't
Speaker:existed before.
Speaker:That's exciting and scary at the same time cuz like part
Speaker:of me is completely sure that once people get to know
Speaker:the Rebels,
Speaker:cuz again they don't know what we are doing because I
Speaker:was never able to actually get the money to communicate it.
Speaker:So being here with you and getting the word spread out
Speaker:is really helpful cuz no money.
Speaker:So we need to get the word there but I know
Speaker:that once they find out we exist they're gonna sell out
Speaker:and my biggest fear is to sell out and don't have
Speaker:money and time to like redo the inventory as fast as
Speaker:possible to make sure that we never run out of rebels.
Speaker:So yeah,
Speaker:I'm at a point in which I'm looking for investors or
Speaker:partnerships or that can actually help me grow the business.
Speaker:I love being myself,
Speaker:I really need a team.
Speaker:Like I cannot keep going like this at some point I'm
Speaker:gonna get really sick.
Speaker:Like it's amazing when you're starting as you grow you need
Speaker:to have your team growing with you.
Speaker:And so right now part of that strategy is we are
Speaker:partnering with another amazing plush brand that is called Sure Bodies,
Speaker:they're from San Diego.
Speaker:They do pluses with recycled bottles from the ocean.
Speaker:So by next year the little rebels will be a hundred
Speaker:percent done with recycled plastic bottles as well.
Speaker:So we are trying to help the environment on that end
Speaker:and not only like gender equality but we're also aiming to
Speaker:have the lowest impact possible on the environment.
Speaker:So will those go also through the China factory or will
Speaker:they be made in the states?
Speaker:Yes, we're gonna change factories though cuz like we're gonna start
Speaker:working with short bodies and they have their own factories and
Speaker:they know like they have eight years of experience doing this
Speaker:and their plush quality is amazing even though it's made out
Speaker:of recycled plastic.
Speaker:Like you never figured that's gonna be like that.
Speaker:But yeah there will come from China.
Speaker:Okay so you're already thinking forward thinking the growth and how
Speaker:you're gonna manage that and Yes,
Speaker:it's scary and I condone the wine drinking by the way
Speaker:you I think sometimes it just has to happen.
Speaker:It's all good.
Speaker:Exactly. What are you doing in terms of social media or
Speaker:promoting of the business?
Speaker:So social media,
Speaker:it's me behind our Instagram account and what I'm seeing is
Speaker:that like I'm really bad at TikTok.
Speaker:I would love to use TikTok.
Speaker:I think it's an amazing tool and it could bring me
Speaker:a lot of visibility but I'm so bad at it.
Speaker:So TikTok is not there yet.
Speaker:I do have our Instagram and Facebook pages and what's happening
Speaker:is that the Latin,
Speaker:I have two accounts,
Speaker:like one from Latin American,
Speaker:one for the US and the rest of the world.
Speaker:The Latin American one does really well.
Speaker:The other one not that well because I think I struggle
Speaker:when I try to communicate reaching like higher audiences whenever I
Speaker:post something in the Latin American one,
Speaker:I have several views and comments and shares and everything and
Speaker:when I do that for the North America it doesn't happen
Speaker:the same.
Speaker:I dunno why.
Speaker:So trying to get followers and engagement and sharing on our
Speaker:social media,
Speaker:which is basically Instagram for now.
Speaker:And then just as I'm here with you,
Speaker:like sharing the story behind Little Rebels and why we started
Speaker:this and hoping some days somebody like some really big famous
Speaker:will hear the story will fall in love with it and
Speaker:we'll share it.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Well you gotta be up there for that to happen,
Speaker:right? I Know,
Speaker:right? I love actually we have Sarah Blakely as a mentor
Speaker:and as a little rebel.
Speaker:I've been trying to get into her for the past three
Speaker:years with no luck but she'll come to me eventually For
Speaker:everyone who's listening.
Speaker:The handle is we are little rebels.
Speaker:Cause the idea behind this is to have everyone join us
Speaker:as a community.
Speaker:That's why it's we are little rebels cuz we are all
Speaker:rebels And empowering little girls to follow their dreams and if
Speaker:they have to be a rebel also.
Speaker:Exactly. Okay,
Speaker:well you've shared with us what's happening in the future as
Speaker:we start circling to the end,
Speaker:are there any things or advice that you've learned up to
Speaker:this point that you could share with us for people who
Speaker:are starting out with their own products and and on their
Speaker:journey, what do you wish you would've known earlier?
Speaker:Well I have several.
Speaker:I'll take several.
Speaker:Whatever you wanna share,
Speaker:we'll take,
Speaker:I'll do it as quick as possible.
Speaker:So first thing is,
Speaker:being an entrepreneur,
Speaker:it's not like everybody thinks that you're just gonna be lying
Speaker:down on the beach with your computer on your laptop and
Speaker:life is good and everything's gonna be great.
Speaker:Not reality.
Speaker:You're gonna work more hours,
Speaker:you're gonna probably be more stressed.
Speaker:You're gonna struggle with money even more than if you had
Speaker:like an nine to five job.
Speaker:But the rewards of it are gonna be so great that
Speaker:like you are not gonna care about it,
Speaker:but it's not gonna be easy.
Speaker:It's gonna be a rollercoaster of emotions.
Speaker:You're gonna wake up happy with an email and then another
Speaker:email will hit you and you're gonna get depressed.
Speaker:So your day,
Speaker:it's gonna be a rollercoaster of emotion every single day to
Speaker:surround yourself with people that knows more than you as soon
Speaker:as possible.
Speaker:Like if you cannot pay them,
Speaker:which was my case,
Speaker:if you cannot have a team like every day next to
Speaker:you, engage them with what you're doing and ask them for
Speaker:help with the promise that maybe in the future you can
Speaker:actually hire them eventually.
Speaker:And the most important thing of all is know your why.
Speaker:Like if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing,
Speaker:and if your why is I wanna make more money,
Speaker:don't do it.
Speaker:Like you're not gonna make more money right away by becoming
Speaker:an entrepreneur and to make more money.
Speaker:It's not what's gonna take you off the bed in the
Speaker:middle of the night if somebody calls you with an issue
Speaker:with your company.
Speaker:Like you need to feel the passion behind why you're doing
Speaker:it and go for it.
Speaker:That's the only thing that is gonna keep you going when
Speaker:times gets hard.
Speaker:And trust me,
Speaker:they will like more than you will like to.
Speaker:And last but not least,
Speaker:take good care of your mental health.
Speaker:Like I feel like there's something that we usually don't talk
Speaker:about it.
Speaker:I got really depressed when I got back from Dallas Toy
Speaker:Fair for a bunch of situations that I lived there and
Speaker:I spent three months on a couch without being able to
Speaker:actually waking up or walking around except for cooking for my
Speaker:daughter. That was the only thing that actually took me off
Speaker:the sofa.
Speaker:And it took me forever to go back to real life.
Speaker:Like I had panic attacks and stuff like that.
Speaker:And that's burned out right there.
Speaker:So please,
Speaker:let's take the stigma of mental health and depression off the
Speaker:table and take care of your health.
Speaker:Like right from the beginning.
Speaker:Do pauses.
Speaker:There's kind of like an admiration for people that work without
Speaker:stopping. And the the green then the,
Speaker:just keep going,
Speaker:keep going,
Speaker:keep going.
Speaker:That's not true.
Speaker:Like people need the rest.
Speaker:Go for a walk,
Speaker:go for a hike.
Speaker:I don't know,
Speaker:like go surfing,
Speaker:go just something that will help your mind be at ease.
Speaker:Read a book or meditate,
Speaker:but like take care of your mental health.
Speaker:It is so important.
Speaker:I agree with you and you got to this point because
Speaker:you just kept pushing yourself and pushing yourself and doing more
Speaker:and finally got you to the breaking point it sounds like.
Speaker:I hope so.
Speaker:But you came through,
Speaker:It's here,
Speaker:But now you know better,
Speaker:right? Mj,
Speaker:you're not gonna do that again,
Speaker:right? No,
Speaker:it's good actually.
Speaker:Like I'm glad I passed that cuz now I can see
Speaker:the red flags before falling into it.
Speaker:Yeah, again.
Speaker:Yeah, but if you're not paying attention,
Speaker:it's just gonna rip you off right away.
Speaker:And we need you to take care of yourself because your
Speaker:mission with Little Rebels is so special,
Speaker:you know?
Speaker:And it's gonna help so many little girls.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:there's so much good in it.
Speaker:I love product businesses with such a purpose.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:they just make me,
Speaker:I'm getting chills here thinking about it.
Speaker:It's so wonderful and you're set up for such a great
Speaker:future, albeit how are you gonna handle however popular it becomes,
Speaker:you know?
Speaker:How is that all going to work?
Speaker:Right? Okay.
Speaker:Have a glass of wine right now.
Speaker:You're freaking me out.
Speaker:No kidding.
Speaker:Yeah, I'll probably drink a little bit more wine than I
Speaker:used to,
Speaker:but no,
Speaker:I'm happy.
Speaker:Like I'm just really looking forward to the moment.
Speaker:I can say,
Speaker:okay, you know what?
Speaker:My mission is accomplished.
Speaker:Like little rebels is all over the world.
Speaker:Kids are learning,
Speaker:kids are feeling empowered.
Speaker:And if I'm able to actually get one little girl to
Speaker:grow up and become something that somebody told her she wasn't
Speaker:gonna be able to do it because she was a girl,
Speaker:then my goal is done.
Speaker:Like that's the entire reason why Little Rebels says exist,
Speaker:Right? Well,
Speaker:I think there's gonna be more than just one girl,
Speaker:mj. There are going to be,
Speaker:I hope so.
Speaker:Thousands and if not millions.
Speaker:I really hope so.
Speaker:It's an honor to help get your story out there,
Speaker:to let people know about Little Rebels and to hear the
Speaker:backstory and catch you right at this time.
Speaker:I feel like you're right on the cusp of something new
Speaker:like the door's right in front of you.
Speaker:It's about to be opened and I am so excited for
Speaker:you and your future and also for all the little girls
Speaker:who are out there about to hear the messages.
Speaker:So Thank you so much.
Speaker:So I got the chills.
Speaker:We're sharing chills back and forth again.
Speaker:Such a pleasure to talk with you today.
Speaker:Thank you again for being on the So thank you for
Speaker:having me.
Speaker:It's been a pleasure being here.
Speaker:There are so many significant messages in mjs little rebel story.
Speaker:She had many of the challenges you are probably now facing.
Speaker:Remember when she said she had no sewing or drawing skills?
Speaker:No experience working with factories overseas and no way of financing
Speaker:large production runs yet she did indeed accomplish each and every
Speaker:one of these hurdles.
Speaker:Your goal may not be to get on the shelves of
Speaker:Macy's, but take the determination you've seen demonstrated through mjs story
Speaker:to make your dream happen.
Speaker:Let no obstacle stop you.
Speaker:It is possible if you're enjoying the podcast and would like
Speaker:to show support.
Speaker:A rating and review is always fabulous because it helps get
Speaker:the show seen by more makers.
Speaker:It's a great way to pay it forward.
Speaker:And there's another way where you can get something tangible in
Speaker:return for your support too.
Speaker:Visit my merch shop for a wide variety of inspirational items
Speaker:like mugs,
Speaker:journals, water bottles,
Speaker:and more featuring logos,
Speaker:images, and quotes to inspire you throughout your day.
Speaker:Makes a great gift too.
Speaker:And we've just added some new products for the season to
Speaker:the shop.
Speaker:Turn around is quick and the quality is top notch.
Speaker:Nothing but the best for you.
Speaker:Take a look at all the options@giftbizunwrapped.com
Speaker:slash shop.
Speaker:All proceeds from these purchases helps go to offset the cost
Speaker:of producing the show.
Speaker:And now be safe and well and I'll see you again
Speaker:next time on the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.
Speaker:I wanna make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook group
Speaker:called Gift Bre.
Speaker:It's a place where we all gather and are a community
Speaker:to support each other.
Speaker:I've got a really fun post in there that's my favorite
Speaker:of the week,
Speaker:I have to say,
Speaker:where I invite all of you to share what you're doing
Speaker:to show pictures of your product,
Speaker:to show what you're working on for the week,
Speaker:to get reaction from other people.
Speaker:And just for fun,
Speaker:because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody
Speaker:in the community is making My favorite post F every single
Speaker:week. Without doubt.
Speaker:Wait, what?
Speaker:Aren't you part of the group already?
Speaker:If not,
Speaker:make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the
Speaker:group gift.
Speaker:Bre, don't delay.
