Advice Line with Ariel Kaye of Parachute Home
1Digest
This episode of "How I Built This Lab" features Guy Raz and Arielle Kaye, founder of Parachute Home, offering advice to callers facing various business challenges. Dan Brown, founder of King Brown Pomade, seeks guidance on whether to pursue investment after 10 years of self-funding. Guy and Arielle discuss the importance of strategic investors and market opportunities. Deanna, founder of Mindset Tapestry, seeks advice on gaining press and holiday gift guide placements without a PR budget. Guy and Arielle suggest leveraging affiliate programs, influencer outreach, and strategic partnerships. Megan, founder of Palm Folly, a craft hard seltzer brewery, seeks advice on navigating bias as a female founder in a male-dominated industry. Guy and Arielle emphasize the importance of leveraging her unique perspective and the strength of her product. The episode explores themes of navigating business decisions, managing risk, seeking investment, leveraging marketing strategies, and overcoming gender bias in entrepreneurship.
Outlines
Advice Line on How I Built This Lab
Guy Raz hosts the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab, where he and a guest founder help callers with their business challenges. This episode features Arielle Kaye, founder of Parachute Home, and focuses on navigating business decisions, managing risk, and seeking investment.
Navigating Investment Decisions
Dan Brown, founder of King Brown Pomade, a men's grooming brand, seeks advice on whether to pursue investment after 10 years of self-funding. Guy and Arielle discuss the importance of strategic investors and market opportunities.
Gaining Press and Holiday Gift Guide Placements
Deanna, founder of Mindset Tapestry, a children's emotional health tool, seeks advice on gaining press and holiday gift guide placements without a PR budget. Guy and Arielle suggest leveraging affiliate programs, influencer outreach, and strategic partnerships.
Overcoming Bias as a Female Founder
Megan, founder of Palm Folly, a craft hard seltzer brewery, seeks advice on navigating bias as a female founder in a male-dominated industry. Guy and Arielle emphasize the importance of leveraging her unique perspective and the strength of her product.
Keywords
Direct-to-Consumer (D2C)
A business model where companies sell products directly to consumers, bypassing traditional retail channels. This allows for greater control over branding, pricing, and customer relationships.
Hair Thickening Products
Products designed to address hair thinning and loss, often containing ingredients like biotin, keratin, and caffeine to promote hair growth and volume.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
The process of developing self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. SEL is crucial for children's well-being and success.
Craft Hard Seltzer
A premium hard seltzer made with real fruit purees and brewed using a process similar to beer, offering a more flavorful and artisanal alternative to traditional hard seltzers.
Female Founder Bias
The systemic disadvantage faced by women entrepreneurs in accessing funding, mentorship, and opportunities compared to their male counterparts. This bias is often rooted in unconscious stereotypes and a lack of representation in leadership positions.
Q&A
How do you decide when to introduce a new product or line and when to move on from one that isn't working?
Arielle explains that the timeframe for evaluating a new product depends on its nature. For core products, they might introduce new colors or categories, but for a category like furniture, which was significantly different from their core assortment, they gave it a year before deciding it wasn't a good fit.
How do you maintain your willingness to take risks even when some risks fail?
Arielle emphasizes the importance of being comfortable with discomfort and understanding that not all risks will succeed. She believes that focusing on core products and customer experience is crucial, but also acknowledges the need to experiment and learn from failures.
How can I get press and holiday gift guide placements for my children's emotional health product without a PR budget?
Guy and Arielle suggest leveraging affiliate programs, reaching out to mommy bloggers and influencers, and partnering with other brands for co-marketing giveaways. They also recommend targeting specific publications and editors who write about children's products.
How can I navigate bias as a female founder in a male-dominated industry, especially when seeking investment?
Guy and Arielle encourage Megan to embrace her unique perspective as a woman in the hard seltzer market. They suggest using her understanding of the female consumer to communicate the value of her product to investors. They also emphasize the importance of having a strong product and a compelling story to tell.
Show Notes
Parachute Home founder Ariel Kaye joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they answer questions from three founders on being mindful and strategic in their next expansion steps.
Today, we meet Daen, an entrepreneur in Australia considering investment for his line of men’s grooming products after ten years of self-funding. Then Deanna, a former educator in New Jersey seeking new press for the emotional health tool she designed for children. And Meaghan, a Florida-based hard seltzer maker trying to gut-check biases in her male-dominated industry.
If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.
And be sure to listen to Parachute Home’s founding story as told by Ariel on the show in 2023.
This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.
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