Columbus Entrepreneurs' Podcast

Claire Coder was a competitor in 2015 GSEA Competition, and also the founder of Aunt Flow. In today’s episode, she shares the stories of her business ventures, and she started her business and grew it to where it is today. On a mission to change the world one cycle at a time, Claire talks about the importance of investing in your business and nurturing your entrepreneurial inclinations from a young age.

[:45] Claire started her first company — There’s A Badge for That — when she was only 16 years old. In a matter of two years, she grew the company, and this company got her excited and engaged in entrepreneurship.

[2:50] When she was school at the Ohio State University, she got the idea for her second business: insert name. The company is growing rapidly, and the products have been well-received across 47 states.

[5:45] What has been most surprising so far is the difference in reception that they’ve received from men and women when they’re selling business-to-business. They get the most criticism from females, whereas men are more likely to see the logic behind providing menstrual products in their bathrooms.

[7:19] Claire was on a TLC TV Show called Girl Starter — a show design to show entrepreneurial grit and stamina. She placed second in the competition with her partner and the show. Though she had just recently launched her company, this was a great experience for her.

[9:24] Their warehouse and distribution center is located about 20 minutes outside of Columbus, with a small office in downtown Columbus. About 70% of their revenue comes from selling to other businesses, while the other 30% comes from individual consumers. They also have an educational component to their company, which they feel is very important in changing lives around the world.

[10:25] What’s next for Claire and Aunt Flow? As the business is growing significantly and quickly, Claire’s personal mission is to make sure everyone has access to menstrual products so she is always working to complete that mission.

[11:30] Their team is in a period of transition, so by October, they are hoping to be fully staffed with two employees, as well as a few contract employees. They have received investment from an angel investor in Columbus, and Claire was also successful on a podcast called The Pitch.

[14:00] People listening to the podcast can help Claire and Aunt Flow by stocking their businesses with tampons, that has all information about why it’s important to stock these in your business. If you are interested in trying the product, visit the website below!

[15:15] The hard part about working with some of the public institutions is that it’s a long sales cycle, and there’s a lot that goes into selling to the public institutions. They focus primarily on the public sector but will serve the private sector as companies reach out to them.

[16:38] Claire attended Ohio State University for one semester. Since she already had her business in high school, she really already knew what she wanted to do and how to do it. She made the decision to use the money she would’ve used for school to put towards her business. Though it was a little rough at first, her parents now are huge supporters of her business.

[20:05] At the beginning of the business she really felt like “the lonely entrepreneur.” She worked several waitressing jobs when her company started to help pay the bills, and she wants to encourage listeners that it’s okay if you have to work a part-time job until you reach the revenue metric you need to sustain yourself.

[2:28] To avoid burnout, Claire is going to take one of her first vacations in the two years since the business started. Focusing on this balance between work and life will hopefully allow her to come back to the business refreshed and ready to go harder.

[23:27] For Claire personally, she had an entrepreneurial drive that her parents encouraged from a young age. She tells the story of her “first business” as a child selling beer to construction workers. This helped her learn the importance of identifying the target audience, understand the customer, and making the sale. As a parent, it is important to observe situations like these with your kids, and decide how you can respond in a nurturing way.

[25:49] If there are any businesses who want to join the menstrual movement, please visit the Try Aunt Flow website below to learn more details.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Columbus Chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization

There’s A Badge For That

Aunt Flow

Try Aunt Flow

Jim has a unique entrepreneurial experience moving from one family business to another. After growing up in one family business, he left and started on a new venture that would eventually turn into a first generation family business. In this episode, Jim talks about his work with Advance Sign Group, working with his immediate family, and how EO helped to shape some of his business decisions as he was getting his new company on track.

[1:15] Jim shares his lifeline: Growing up, Jim had a good understanding of work ethic, and seeing how transformative the food service industry business was. After college, he went into the manufacturing side of the family business and was involved in several departments.

[5:07] He had worked in the business for about 20 years when he realized that he really had an entrepreneurial spirit that he needed to explore (outside of the food service industry). While dabbling in other ventures, he secured Advanced Sign Group in April of 2001, which was a little more in his wheelhouse as a full manufacturing business.

[9:29] Advanced Sign Group became a family business when Jim’s wife joined to help with the business operations while Jim focused on sales and building new relationships. When their son graduated from college, he came on in sales and wrote a business plan and they’ve set him up to eventually take over the business. Since their son got involved, they have quadrupled their size.

[13:17] It was a process to make Advanced Signs a family business. When Jim’s wife joined the business, her talent was in project management. While Jim was more focused on gathering customers, pitching sales, and company maintenance, his wife served as the relationship manager for the account once the sale was made. It was very good teaming at the beginning.

[16:33] When their son first came to him with the business plan, he wasn’t sure if it was out of desperation or genuine desire for being in the family business. As they grew their family business, it developed a little differently than when he was joining his family business. It’s truly a first-generation family business.

[22:10] When Jim joined EO, his forum gave him an outlet that served as an advisory board as he worked on the business. EO was a tremendous help, especially when he first gotted started.

[25:57] What do the next stages look like for Jim and his wife? They are in the middle of a ten-year plan, and they’ve been looking internally as individuals to see what drives and inspires them. Jim and his wife plan to travel, and they’ve also been deciding what kind of parents they want to be for their married children, and their future grandchildren. Jim has been talking with his own mom about how they want to shape this.

[32:05] In regards to the business, they will be able to be present for the future due to successor and management team they have. They have also been implementing the EOS system. Over the last three years, they’ve been building up their personnel and management team to get the right people in place.

[36:00] Sharing stories can serve as a release valve. When people are on the other side, it’s nice to see that they made it work. And if you’re in the middle of something, it can be helpful to share your story so you can garner some discussions around it. By sharing some of his story, Jim was able to solidify his stance on investing in risk for a reward.

[47:34] This podcast is a great opportunity for people to share their stories, especially being able to put a story to the people you may meet at social events.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Columbus Chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization

Advance Sign Group

Lisa M. Cini has spent many years developing her business and curating important technology for senior living. Her background in interior design led to the development of Mosaic Design Studio and Best Living Tech. In this episode, she talks about her lifeline and the impact EO has on not only her own life, but her family’s as well. She shares some stories about some rough patches in her life, and how she overcame them and continued to grow her business.

Key Takeaways:

[1:24] Looking back on her lifeline, Lisa’s greatest realization is how much her perspective has changed. She talks about some different big moments in her life that led to where is now — starting with a leadership camp in middle school. She attended a variety of school programs in college, finding the one that was going to give her the degree that would allow her to do what she wanted with interior design. The birth of her children and their early childhood was also a defining moment.

[3:30] In 1998 she started her company and made $1 million in business in her first year. She won an award and joined the Women’s Presidents Organization, which was defining for her development as a business owner.

[5:00] Lisa talks about her relationship with her parents, and how they helped with Lisa’s daughter when she was sick. Having her mom around allowed Lisa to take care of her daughter and keep/grow her business at the same time. In 2004 she joined EO, and also joined Strategic Coach — the family conferences they attended through Strategic Coach had a profound impact on her family, especially her kids. Her son is now an entrepreneur.

[6:45] While she was working on her business, Lisa got sick as well. For a couple years they didn’t know what was going on, but she was eventually diagnosed with lupus. She started to receive treatment and now things are much better. While it is still part of her everyday, she has found ways to make it work so she can continue with her business, and is also looking to more homeopathic remedies.

[10:18] Another organization she joined was Genius Network. She is a big fan of joining organizations, and her forum benefits from the knowledge she gains. She was able to apply some of the stuff she learned in EO and with Genius Network to goal-setting for her children’s sports team. This had a profound impact on her and her kids, as well as the other students on the team.

[13:05] In 2014, a very personal tragedy shook their family. Her nephew was killed in a car accident and in addition to the emotional grief, there was also family matters that needed to be taken care of. She says the blessing of it all was that the family was able to be together to celebrate his life and love. This was a big point in her lifeline, personally and emotionally, but also in her business. Her business doubled in revenue and she also published her first book, Senior Living Reimagined.

[18:10] She wrote her second book in the aftermath of this tragedy as well, about the daily life of having four generations living in her household. She also began trying some of the technology she had seen at Abundance 360 on her family members; she created an online company called bestlivingtech.com, that includes things used in the home to help people age in place and be independent. She shares an amusing story about testing some of the products on her family members.

[23:50] Lisa talks about some of the other technologies they use in her family for her parents and grandmother, including a robotic cat. At Best Living Tech it’s like Sharper Image meets AARP. They have health tools as well as other technologies that might be appealing to the Baby Boomers as they age.

[24:55] Lisa talks about her decision to make Best Living Tech a separate business. Her goal is to keep this an evergreen company that will keep growing without a huge staff. She is also starting a personal brand as well.

[26:35] Lisa talks about how the dynamic of interior design has changed with the development of technology and applications — some of these apps provided things that interior designers couldn’t. Why thinking about how to best service her range of clients, they transitioned the company to be an 80-20 split, where they project manage their designers, but they do the work. She talks about how they used their books as a marketing strategy.

[29:55] Most of her work focuses on senior living, but she also has the flexibility to work on other projects, and they’ve even expanded to some different countries around the world. This helps her to feel invigorated as well as to be able to focus on some of the projects outside her business, before bringing them to the business.

[31:50] The first book positioned them as a company consistently, and created them as an expert, and attracted a staff that was aligned. The next step was to get their work out in the world.

[33:53] Some of the ways she manages all her projects is by creating some partnerships. Someone else runs Best Living Tech, but she still curates the products and manages projects. She has been exploring where she is needed and where she can let go, which has been instrumental for her.

[36:20] EO was very important not only for Lisa’s development in business but also for her kids’. Being involved strengthened her relationship with her son and daughter, and a mutual respect was able to develop for how the kids learned and for the kids to see how hard their mom worked.

[40:50] Some of the next things she is working on are finalizing their training and testing platform, and being able to leverage that to sell to her competition to create software as a service. She’s also been building another software that is a 3D visualization program that will allow you to build your budget as you add things in real time. Hopefully this can help cut development time in half. Her next book is called Boom, and explores the latest technology that Baby Boomers can use.

[42:41] Lisa talks about the process of getting her first two books published, and how they helped to propel her business. Her books have given her an authority she didn’t know she had.

[48:05] If you know of someone who has great tech that could be applied to senior living, let Lisa know!

Mentioned in This Episode:

Columbus Chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization

Mosaic Design Studio

The Future is Here… Senior Living Reimagined, by Lisa Cini

Hive: The Guide to Multi-Generational Living, by Lisa Cini

Best Living Tech