Joy Williams & Jane Molina: From Family HVAC Business to Successful Baby Products Business

This episode is with special guests Joy Williams & Jane Molina, Co-Founders/ Owners of NinniCo.

In 2011, sisters Joy Williams and Jane Molina incorporated the only 100% women-owned and operated residential heating and air conditioning business in the state of Missouri.  They developed a unique and proven business model before selling it in 2019.  After both starting families during this time, Joy and Jane decided to switch gears and hone in on their real passion: helping moms and babies. In 2014, Jane had an idea that ultimately became the Ninni Co. Pacifier.  This unique pacifier mimics the shape, feel and oral mechanics a baby experiences while breastfeeding.  By identifying a hole in the baby products industry and working to fill it, their pacifier took the market by storm, and has secured international distribution deals and placements in multiple retail outlets. 

You can contact Joy & Jane at:

• Ninni Co
• info@ninnico.com
• 314-833-9285
• NinniCo.com

About Steven Denny: Steven Denny co-founded Innovative Business Advisors in 2018 and serves as a Managing Member of the firm. Steve has been actively engaged in M/A activities in a wide variety of industries for the last 14 years and has developed specific products to assist clients in growing their profitability and enterprise value. His specialty is working with established private companies in the lower middle market with annual revenues from $1 – 50 million.

Transcript

Welcome to the You Don't Know What You Don't Know podcast by Innovative Business Advisors, successful business owners who have started, grown and led businesses share their journey and direction for the benefit of those traveling the same path.

0:18  
So today, we're talking with Jane Molina and Joy Williams. These ladies built the only 100% women owned and operated heating and cooling business in the State of Missouri. They developed a unique and proven business model, which was very successful. But while they were building this company, both of these ladies started families, and this helped them discover their true purpose and passion, which is helping moms and babies. In 2014 Jane had an idea that ultimately became the Ninni pacifier. This unique pacifier mimics the shape, feel and oral mechanics a baby experiences while breastfeeding and by identifying a hole in the baby products industry and working to fill it, their pacifier took the market by storm and has secured international distribution deals and placements in multiple retail outlets. Subsequently, they sold the heating and air conditioning business and are now riding a tidal wave of support and enthusiasm for their company, the NinniCo pacifier, which you can find at NinniCo.com. So welcome, ladies. Really been looking forward to this conversation. Yay. Thank you. Hi Steve. Glad to be here. Great to see you both. You too. So what a journey. Yeah, you guys came in, started with Dad. Dad had a small heating and air conditioning company on his own. You ladies come back from college and take a piece of his company and turned it into something pretty significant. So that was kind of a fun ride, huh?

1:43  
It was a ride. I wouldn't call it fun. I would say, learned a lot and taking the ride and grew, and we know that it was paramount for where we're at today. For sure. But I would say those were nine of the hardest years of our lives. Yeah, it was, it was a lot of work. It was, it was. It was a lot of growth that happened, as well as when you have big shoes to fill, because our father had a great name in the industry and Joy and I did not come from a heating and cooling background, believe it or not, you know? Yeah. And so when you're in an industry where you're not have the authority, or you feel like you're learning every day, which we're still doing now, but in heating and cooling we met, we met a lot of challenges. Yeah, and heating and cooling was what our dad, he did and provided for us our entire childhood, right? He had started his heating and cooling business before I was even born. I'm Joy. I'm the oldest of the two. And so while we grew up in the business, we didn't grow up doing the physical work. So whereas Jane and I had very high hopes when we came in and were running the heating and cooling company, we said, well, great, like, you know, we'll come from a woman's approach, you know, we'll have a very different kind of business model. We hoped that it would be received well. And I do believe that we were received well. I think we had a very good niche in the St Louis market that people really did receive us well, but it's also a very saturated industry. There's a lot of heating and cooling companies in St Louis, and so it was just hard. It was hard work, but like Jane said, that's where we really cut our teeth in entrepreneurship. And we learned how to make very key distinct business decisions on a day to day basis. And Jane learned how to balance a set of books better than I think anybody did. I don't think they teach that stuff in business school, not the type of work she had to do. Yeah, but I think it just goes back to you have to be trusted with a little to be trusted with a lot. And so that's where Joy and I had to prove ourselves. And the funny thing about it is we always have a saying about being, you know, blood, sweat and tears. And we always say that Joy was the tears and I was the blood and the sweat. Yeah, well, Jane would be like I'm the blood and the sweat. You're the tears. If there was anytime something would happen, I'd be like, Oh my gosh. And then I'd be like, we balance each other very well I'd say.

4:16  
Was it fair to say that Joy you were the outside part of Williams Heating and Air Conditioning, and Jane, you were the inside part of Williams Heating and Air Conditioning. You got it. You got it. So I was the one that would go into people's homes and give the bids. Yep. And, you know, do a lot of the interaction in that regard. I handled mostly marketing and business development, same way to this day in our baby products company, which we'll get into. But Jane has always been the CEO, visionary, kind of leader from financial, legal, all that type of thing. She kind of handles all the big hierarchical-- The fun stuff. All the fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Keep the wheels turning. Right, that's why I always say-- that's why I say that's why she gets paid the big bucks. Yeah, right. It was pretty cool, though. I mean, you guys, you're right. I mean, extremely competitive marketplace. Yes. You guys distinguished yourselves and really continued to grow that business. Thank you. Thank you. And took it much, took it out to where it was bigger than your family, right?

5:16  
You know, and we do. We, you know, it was a godsend. It was a blessing. But we will still always have to bring it back to our father being the MVP, because he had such a great reputation. He taught us what integrity was, and so a lot of customers were faithful to us based off of our father's reputation, even when it came to when it was time to get vendor accounts. And Joy and I at the time, we were younger, we were starting out. We didn't have a lot of equity. We didn't have a lot to put on the line. There were no assets to back this thing up. And like I said, I was like, I didn't have enough blood and plasma, so, you know, I had enough tears. So a lot of it, they did off of our father's reputation. There was a lot of our accounts who said, Listen, we are going to give you girls a chance, because we know if your dad is still there, even on a consulting basis, he's a man of his word, and we know that you guys will make good. And we are very grateful to be able to say that every single vendor got paid. Yeah, they sure did. Yep, that happened. So what you guys did is really pretty special. You took, you took your dad's business, right? And you guys kind of kind of refreshed it, if you will-- Yeah. And took it to a higher level. What was it like to work with your dad in those areas, and how long did it take him to kind of hand over the baton to you? What do you mean, hand it over? Yeah. Because I saw you guys close to the end of that heating and air conditioning company and and, you know, there was an outstanding relationship with-- Always has been an outstanding relationship. But I, I think first off, it was never the dream that Joy and I were going to take over the heating and cooling company. We have a very traditional father who the plan was for us to leave, he was going to make sure we got our education. Which he did. Which he did. Yeah. And then it's like, either get married and go do that, or find your career somewhere else. It was always for our brother to take over, and our brother did, but he had very different business dreams, and that's where the split happened. So at that time, unfortunately, it was 2009 where a lot of people were finding themselves, you know, in a bad business situation. It was terrible economic times. Horrible economic times. Terrible. Coming out of maybe the biggest economic crisis, maybe of your lives, right? It was. 

7:39  
And so before my dad turned it over to my brother, he had really taken it to a very successful, he was actually the most successful minority, you know, heating and cooling dealer and vendor for Lenox in in the country. In the country, yeah. And so when you take a man like that, and you're looking at your daughters that you raised, and they're your little girls, now all of a sudden, when you see what has happened with the second generation that already kind of has, wouldn't you say, kind of, when people think about a second generation coming in, I feel there's always this connotation of my, a lot of "they're not going to do the same good job." Right. And like, again, everything, all eyes are on you. Are they equipped? Because nobody can, what our father went through, nobody could emulate that or take that away from him. And so yeah, you have a strong, very successful man that stands in front of you who has now seen a successful company in a very unfragmented, fragile, fragile state, yeah. And so then to say, Okay, now give us a shot. So let's just say we had our work cut out for us.

8:41  
Oh my gosh, did we have our work cut out for us. We did. The field employees did. I mean, everybody was under scrutiny. And it's almost like, you know, they had to go through the James Williams boot camp, you know? And not everybody made it out. I'd say, you know, it was kind of like, I guess, equivalent of like a Navy Seal, because he would put them through mental tests, physical tests, try to ask them questions to see if they, and he'd come in and, you know, everybody was under evaluation. Yeah. But honestly, our father, and we always like to say, he grew up in rural Mississippi. Our dad is 85 years old tomorrow. God bless him. Yes, and he is not very educated, but he's probably the smartest person we know, right? And he's very skilled, and he's so smart. Incredible common sense. Incredible. And he likes to say 
common sense isn't common. Right. He's right about that. And in that he was, the man was at the top of his ability in his trade, and so no one could take that from him. Yeah. And he taught Jane and I more than I mean, I would say more than anything else that we could attribute in terms of education and knowledge. And even when I talk to some of my friends now and we're in our 40s. I talk to other people that've had life experiences, and I'll say something then to them, and they'll say, gosh, like, that makes so much sense. I'll be like, my dad taught me that. My dad taught me that. You know, he gave, and we have James Williams isms and sayings he's taught us-- Yeah. That we really need to go ahead and put it in a book. Maybe you should do that. It will happen. Yeah. You should do that. Yeah. So what do you think as you embarked on taking over and building that company, was there one piece of advice that he gave you that you look back on and say, Wow, that was really, that was really critical. I think we had-- Or maybe a couple? Yeah. You tell yours, and I'll say mine. Gosh, that, you know that one is tough, because my dad was in the fight with me a lot in the office, because he understood what it was like to take that home with you. You know, when you're in a company and you have employees that are depending on you, customers, vendors that you need to pay, you're not getting paid hat Friday. He knew what that was and didn't want to see us experience so he sat with us a lot, and I always just remember him telling us, be encouraged. That was the thing that always lasted with me. He would leave on a Friday and always say, Let's shut this money maker down. Sometimes he'd say, Let's shut this money taker down. Yeah, depending on what week we're having. And he'd always say, he'd say, don't take it home with you, Jane, be encouraged. You know that he always would quote that he was once young, but now he's old. He has yet to see the righteous forsaken, or his seed to have to beg for bread. And so there was that renewed promise. And he'd say, joy comes in the morning. And it always did. And that-- me, technically all the time, because-- not that Joy, no, like-- the one in the Bible. But no so, and he would always say, you know, joy comes in the morning, and so it was nice to be able to not let it ruin your whole day. Know how to compartmentalize, separate it when you get home, to be the mom, to be the wife, enjoy that and know that you just come in and fight another day. Yeah. 

11:56  
And I would say, along those lines, one of the things dad always taught us in that and in even now when we talk to him, because he's still a NinniCo advisor, right? He's still very much part of our resulting team. Love it. But what he will always say, because Jane and I even now, you know, as we're finding ourselves in greater success in terms of the popularity and the revenue we're generating, but he will always say, if we're in the midst of something, we can't figure it out, maybe we're bumping our heads up against the wall. And he'll be like Joy, just like my mom used to always say, his mom, he said, when you've done all you can do, be satisfied with yourself. And I think that's always good too because I think we always, especially as entrepreneurs, you're like, what more can I be doing? What did I miss? What did I not do? And I think sometimes it's okay just to shut it down for the day, and just to shut that thought down for a while, because usually when we will do that, we'll have some sort of a revelation or an epiphany, like when we do turn our minds away and we focus on something else, oh, that's what we need to do. So when he tells us to be satisfied with ourselves, I think it also brings our humanity back involved to say when we've come to the end of ourselves, we also have to let God do what only He can do. And I think one of our favorite memories, too, Jane, dad, was always like our ram in the bush, how he'd come in and what, he'd pull things out of his wallet, or what would he come folding out? Yeah, so he for whatever reason, when we'd tell him, like, Dad, we don't have any jobs coming up. We don't know what we we're gonna do. He'd always leave and come back. And he wouldn't say anything. No, we wouldn't know, we always knew we could count on, we knew that's where you went. And we're like, okay, he's leaving. We don't know where he's going.

13:33  
He'd be like, I'll be back. And we'd be like, what does that mean, right? Right. Usually, I mean, we'd go to lunch-- Right. And wait in expectation. Yeah. But there was always a church or a customer that he had kind of-- You knew there was somebody out there that needed something. Because they would-- And he would tell them, Steve, honestly, his thing with them is he'd just be like, I can't get to you right now. And the people would say, Well, Mr. Williams, when can you? He'd be like, I don't know. You're gonna have to wait. We didn't know anybody else who could tell somebody, I don't know when I'm gonna get to you, but hold on, and when I do, I will let you know. You didn't have that experience. No, it's like who could just tell somebody, just wait until I'm ready. But then what? And then he would, and he'd come back, and it was always great, because we'd just be sitting there, quiet like waiting, and then he'd come and he'd open up his wallet, and he'd always go to this back part, pull out a check that would have been folded over eight times, you know, and you're just waiting just like-- He's like unfolding the check. How big is the check? What job are we doing? What is going to come after it, you know? But-- you know, he'd just set it and slide it across the desk. And we like, Oh, praise God. Yeah.

14:34  
Then you'd also have to then start figuring out, but what do we have to do now? Now what is about to happen? Right. But that's where he did start to see Joy and my skills because, of course, then a lot of times with his method was kind of all in his mind to where, when you start incorporating, okay, you have profit, you have loss, you have, how much materials are going into the job, how much labor. And I know you came back with this nice sized check, but is it going to cost this entire amount, and is it going to cause problems four months from now? So that's where I would say him and I started butting heads in the beginning, but then when he'd see things kind of unfold, then it would be coming back to say, okay, Jane, let's run the numbers through this next job. And then I'd come back. And it was funny because I'd say things like, Dad, how many screws are you going to use on the job? He's like, don't ask me, How many screws, you know, because to him, it's like, such a small amount. But on the right job, a box of screws on one job, on the next job you could get, you might need 100. So, you know, it was a fun time that I am fond to look back on now that we're on this side of it. Now that it's over. We did have to butt heads a couple times, but with Joy and my name being on the line and not his at that point, it's a hard point when you have to tell your dad no and just say, look, you're going to have to trust me on this, because this is what we're going to do.

15:54  
Yeah, and part of that, though, is you were very detailed about keeping everything together and keeping really good books. And part of the secret for small businesses having good books and good, all of your numbers together, really knowing where you were and you were, you were excellent at that. Thanks, Steve. And you can speak to that because you were involved in that process. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Really, really special. So you guys built something special. What are you most proud of in the heating and air conditioning business? I am most proud of the fact that Joy and I did come in there as underdogs, where there were a lot of people counting us out, because it's hard to even make it past five years in any industry, but especially in heating and cooling, and as women who don't go out and do the work. So I am proud at the fact that, in my dad's words, we were able to go out the front door and not the back door. Correct. And so we were able to go with a profit. We were able to turn it over to an amazing family that is still carrying it on, that we still have a good relationship to this day. And we made good with all of our accounts. We held all of our promises to the guys. All your people. All our people. And so that's what I'm proud of, is that we left with our dignity intact as well as with our integrity. Yeah, you guys did really well. Thank you. Yeah, you did really well. So during that period, you both start families, right? Yes. And about midway in this, this need creeps in. Tell us, give me a little bit of the backstory of that and where, where that begins to lead us up to today, if you will. 

17:28  
Sure. At the time, I did have a three year old son as well as a two year old son. And it was funny because at the time, Joy was wanting to have another baby. I wasn't, and I was just telling her, Timing isn't good in heating and cooling right now. It's never good. I mean, like, What do you mean? I'm just gonna wait forever. Yeah, wait or don't do it at all. And I'm just like, this is causing personal contention but that's the whole other-- plan. Yeah. No, but. And then it was funny, because I came into the office, was like, I know you're looking to get pregnant, but I'm actually pregnant, so now you really can't get pregnant, right now. And I was like, don't tell me what to do, now you're just ticking me off. Older sister never wants to be told what to do. Yeah, right, and I'm the older sister and I'm trying to have a baby. You're like, well, now I'm pregnant, and I'm like, this is a mess. No, but it worked out great, because she did end up nine weeks after me, but so it was my third son. I was now home, still running heating and cooling, now having a sister going out on maternity leave, three year old, two year old, husband, laundry, and it was the first time I was able to breastfeed. I had no clue how much time it takes and and energy, and I loved it, and I wanted to do it, but then my son wouldn't take your traditional pacifier or a bottle. And so I felt like kind of helpless, right? You're like, where is the support? My husband would like to support me, but there's absolutely nothing he can do. So I would go and look online, like, maybe in Europe, anywhere. They have had to have had the idea, and who has made a pacifier that's more like a woman's anatomy and so. And when Jane would drop him off at the babysitter all day, he would absolutely protest and would not eat, wouldn't do anything all day long. And then he'd come home, Jane would bring him home in the evenings, and he would cluster feed. She couldn't leave the couch, I mean, and that's when it truly became like an actual problem, right?

19:17  
And so I kind of could see the way it was supposed to look in my mind. Didn't want to reinvent the wheel, because there's a lot of great things about all silicone pacifiers that are still used and that we support, as well as feeding specialists support. We just wanted to improve on it. And so, like mentioned before, when you're in the middle of an already hard, you know, business, and then you have all this to have an idea, you're like, what do I do with that? Sat through, sat on it long enough. But then I felt like a lot of times, almost like a call to action. I felt a spiritual side behind it, and really felt like we're supposed to do this. So through a lot of prayer and patience I was like, Okay-- I don't know about patience. Well, I mean, I don't know how you couldn't be patient when, I mean-- You came to me and I was just like, What are you talking about? Yeah, but, I mean, it still was a seven year journey. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? But we're talking about in this early stage, she felt such a spiritual call to action. It was almost like, she was like, it was, she was like, we have to do this. And I said, first of all, I don't know what you're talking about. Secondly, we have these kids, we have this company. I mean, and we can be very candid and honest. At that time, money was so tight. Jane, I mean, you know, we'd be bringing in, you know, cold cut sandwiches. Jane had holes in her shoes. Couldn't afford to get the, I mean, we were going through legitimate financial crisis, like trying to pay for our kids to go to daycare that, it was just, it was a struggle. So then she's like, I have this idea. We should invent this product. And I'm like, invent a product. Who invents things. I'm like, not us. And, you know, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she's, you know, she's the one who talked me into going out on this heating and cooling thing. And I'm like, here we go again, right? That's what I'm thinking. And I took that to the throne. 

21:07  
I did. Yeah, I did. I did take that to the Lord because I felt called, and felt the same kind of call to action and heating and cooling. So then when the Lord laid it on my heart for the pacifier, I'm like, I'm not doing this because you called us to do heating and cooling, and we are in the wilderness, and it's hard. But then I just kept feeling Him saying, Look, I need you to do this. Moms and babies need it. I am preparing you. I'm going to lead you, and I do need you to do it with your sister, 50 50. Him and I wrestled on that because I was like, But wait Lord, if it's my idea, why do I gotta split it 50 50 and he's like--  I'll never forget you standing at the doorway of my office like with your hands out, explaining it to me. And I just remember, even in my own spirit, being like, I do not understand this journey, but I just do feel Yes. I'm just supposed to say yes, and Jane and I joke about it to this day, but we went on a seven year journey to launch. I don't think I fully grasped what we were doing up until maybe even the month before we actually launched. I was like, Okay, I think I'm getting it now-- I'm like thank you for not sharing with me that the product that we are having our entire life built around, and we're all in on, that you still didn't get. Right? I didn't fully understand it as as deeply as she did. It took me a long time-- This is really before you had a physical product. Correct. This was still the idea stage. And we were prototyping,  
and there weren't any babies who had used it. I mean, when it, when we talk about a significant faith journey, Jane and I along that seven year journey, we are very grateful, and we didn't realize it. But St Louis, we're fortunate enough to be in a community that's very entrepreneur and startup friendly. I mean, there's tons of programs. You guys dove into that start up-- We did. And so we just thought this existed everywhere. Thank you Joy. That's why you need her. She's very good at finding if there's somewhere to be, a room to be in, a person to meet. Yeah. Joy is great for that. And she did, she, she got us into, we started out with Square One. Yeah, 
the, yeah, down at the CEC at CET-- CIC? Yeah. Thank you. No, but and with that we did meet great people, and we did have a prototype. I do remember when I was, you know, taking it, you know, still praying about it. I said, Lord, if you don't put a prototype in my hand, I'm gonna think I'm crazy and that it's something that, like winning the lottery. It's something that I'm almost like, willing. And, but if you put a prototype in my hand, we're gonna go at this unabandoned. I'm gonna give it every faith, every last step that is needed to see it through. And Joy did help us find that. But like she mentioned, going through the patent process, we were rejected four times. Yeah. That was very expensive, and that took several years. We sat on a prototype for years. We did get it tested through consumer product testing. Had tried it on a handful of our friends' babies enough to know it was functional. It was gonna work. Yeah, but it, but it was still very iffy, right? I mean, we're just like, is this gonna work for a mass population? But at this point--

24:12  
Is that when you guys had decided on the mold, because one of the things I remember from that time is you guys were kind of, on the various designs you were really agonizing over making a decision on what is the design, because the mold was so expensive to get it originally produced. You're, so you're right. So while we'd settled on the design, we knew from a prototyping standpoint-- Yeah. But one of the things that you find in a manufacturing capacity when you're going into, say, you have a patented or utility design product, you're, we were doing something never done. Our pacifier is twice as soft as any other pacifier on the market. So even the manufacturer, who was in the baby products industry manufacturing like millions of other brands and types of pacifiers, they were like, we've never done anything like this before. So when we were going into the mass manufacturing process, we had hit a lot of hurdles in terms of, you know, the curing process and the rejection rate, and how many, you know, products we were able to get off the line at any given time. So to go into-- That helped that it was during COVID season as well, right? Right, right. So, you know, you kind of throw all those things on there, but when we sold the heating and cooling company, Jane and I at this point, we were all in financially to make this NinniCo company, make NinniCo our, this was our plan. This is all we had. And when we stopped and we thought about it, we said, Okay, we're using money from the sale of our company, that was our runway for life, right? Yep. And at this point, I had actually even had a third child in 2020. Yeah. So I'm at home with a newborn right now. I'm, I'm actually, you know, at home breastfeeding, you know, have two older children, and we're doing this whole thing. And Jane was working with the engineers at the manufacturer in upstate New York, working on tweaking the design. Now we had taken money from the sale of the heating and cooling company to invest in the tooling for this product. The tooling had made it to the manufacturer, and it wasn't pulling the pacifier off of the manufacturing line that we could use in baby's mouths. Wow. Because it wasn't turning out right. Jane, you went through a lot. Yeah, it was, like, one of those roller coaster times because you finally raised the money. You have the design, you know, your prototype. So you're like, it's going to come out beautiful, and everything's going to be great. Then we got our first one, and it just wasn't, it wasn't pulling the way it was-- No. So you couldn't manipulate it. And I'm like, something is off. And at the time, it was our product engineer and the manufacturing engineer. So once we got down to the nitty gritty, we found out that they had actually thickened the wall slightly when it went over from our CAD drawings, from prototyping into a product, engineering. And I was like, I understand that it makes sense to do that, because that's what the other pacifiers are but everything that we're trying to achieve needs it to be as soft as it was. So now here it is. You spend 100,000, over $100,000 to have a cavity mold that someone's telling you it needs to go back, and there needs to be modifications. So we're running out of time, and I was like, but we don't have that kind of money, right? We're not backed by some of these larger corporations that, you know, put millions of dollars into this. 

27:30  
Joy and I did it on a hope and a prayer-- On a shoestring budget. And tell them what happened, what they said that if we send it off and we make these alterations. Yeah, so essentially they said, Look, we can make modifications, but you can't put the steel back in, so we can scoop it out. But once it's gone, it's gone, and you might end up basically with a very expensive paperweight when we get done with it. So after we had figured out the two issues that we were experiencing, I called Joy, I said, Look, we got two options. We can keep trying to test a mold that doesn't work, or we can go ahead and make strategic, very expensive, very risky changes to our cavity mold, but if and when it works, and I believe that it's going to, we're going to have magic. So she was like, do it. I was like, do it. Was that the hardest decision you guys had at the early stage-- Easiest. --kind of before the product? That was the easiest one? To me that was easiest, because at that point, Steve, we had gone so far, we had had-- You were all in. --we'd made so many decisions at that point we were like, We're all in. 

28:28  
I mean, we were almost delirious. --we didn't know where else to go. I, you, on the entrepreneur journey there's a part of you that has to be, in my words, a little bit crazy. Yeah. No, you do. You know, there's this, these, these highs, but then also the lows are low. But when you get in it, you have to be willing to make those decisions, and I think that's what kind of separates us, and the growing in a grassrooting, compared to, like, corporate, right? Like, you don't run a whole bunch of numbers. You're not in a comfortable zone. A lot of things that you do, you're like, trial by fire-- physical sense. Yeah, and hope that you get a, dodge a bullet and walk away, you know? Yeah. But it built us up a little different, and we are grateful because, of course, I mean, when you're holding your breath, waiting on the cavity mold to come back, and then they send you the update. At that point, I felt like that artist that's never happy with their work. They probably could have sent me anything, and I would have said it wasn't done. Now, Joy on the other hand.

29:18  
I opened up the box, and when they sent the one after they'd made the point of no return alterations to the cavity mold, and they sent us overnight, because we're like, we need to see these immediately. And when they sent those that came off the line, I instantly pulled in and was like, that's it. And Jane was like, I don't know. I was like, Jane, it's it. That's it. Then they came back, and when I say they, that, we had a lot of people-- this is your manufacturing partner. Yes. And then we also had a lot of other consultants and advisors that were helping us along the way. They were like, well, now the next step in the journey is, you guys need to put together a research study group of moms and babies who can test this pacifier out so you can see how it works before you take it to the market. We were like-- How do you want to market it. Yeah, we were like-- Could probably do it for like $20,000. Yeah, and they said $20,000 and we said, No, we're just gonna go ahead and release it. Just gonna put it on the market-- and we're just gonna sink or swim. And Jane and I, we had this same-- This is, this is typical entrepreneurs, right? Oh, it is. At this point. So this is, if you read the SBA book on how to start a business, all the things, you know, we do the studies, and we find out, validate the market and all that stuff, entrepreneurs go to market-- That's right. and customers vote immediately, right? Thank you. They either take the product or they don't, right?  
It's the best marketing research you can get for free. Exactly. Now it's not always-- Checks from customers. There it is, or bad reviews, right, one way or another, but you have to be willing. But at this point, Jane and I, we had cashed out all 401ks, any life insurance policies we had. You were all in. All in. I mean, parents had lent us money. We had put money on credit cards-- Pretty much ran through the money that we have made, you know, off the heating and cooling so it, but it's one of those things when you have something that you feel so passionate about, that you know you're on the cusp of either helping moms and babies in a really great way, or finding out that it was a great idea, but wasn't what you thought. You're ready. You just hit a point to where you're like, let's find out, because if it's not going to be a big success, I am ready to move on. This is something I have woke up, prayed about and thought about now for-- Several years, right? Yeah, 7 8 9 years. Well, and we both agreed that deep at the heart of ourselves, we both said we would rather risk it all than to be on our deathbeds one day and be like, Oh, we had this great idea, but we never did anything about it. We said we'd rather take the risk and it fail than just to not take the risk at all. So at this point, we were all in. 

31:42  
How did you know when it became, how did you know when it was successful, when it was going to work? What was the turning point? I can't wait to tell you this one, Steve. So first off, our manufacturer was like we're still in testing phase, please don't open your Shopify, you know, account or page that Joy and I built on our, on our own in our mom's living room. We had put together our own little website. And he's like, please give us more time. They sent us, I think 500 of one color, 30 of another. And Joy and I are like, No, we're flipping the switch. We're selling these. We're gonna see what everybody says. Yeah. And he's like, awesome. Real world market research. Yeah. We're turning on the website. Sink or swim. Here we go. And so of course, in the beginning, you have your friends and your family that are buying on the first day, and then we were doing porch pickups. I was like, who wants to come pick up from my porch? You can come get one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we were, you know, trying everything. We were doing our own videos and marketing on Facebook, which was great. We had a couple videos that got attraction and had a couple sales. But it was, I'll never forget it. It was my anniversary weekend, and we might have had 35 now left, you know, on hand waiting on the manufacturer, because there's-- That was it, we only had 35 on hand? 35 on hand because I will never forget we were waiting on them. They're still trying to work out the kinks to make it mass producible. But we could sit on 35 for a week, we didn't know. But I'll never forget, because my son was in the back seat, and all of a sudden our little Shopify ding started dinging. And it was like-- Oh, you had notifications turned on. Yeah, the notification when you make a sale, cha-ching, ding, cha-ching. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, what's going on? And Joy was like, Oh, well, I did put a video on TikTok. Oh, let me go on Tiktok. Oh, Jane, it's going viral. And my, I'm like, well, Joy we said we weren't gonna put it on Tiktok. No, we did not agree on that. No, we did. I was like, we need more on hand. But Joy was in the middle, typical Joy, middle of the night, I'm gonna do it anyways. So I'll just never forget my son laughing in the back seat like, so you guys are going viral, and you have 35 pacifiers on hand. I'm like, be quiet, Noah.

33:44  
You know what I mean? But let me tell you, Steve, this is where my marketing gets to turn into genius, right? So I'm like, okay, great. We're sold out. But everybody on Tiktok, these moms are going nuts. You mean to tell me there's a pacifier out there that is shaped or mimics a breastfeeding movement that my breastfed baby can take. I need a break. So, I mean, our DMs are blowing up. It's going insane. They're like, when is it coming back? So Jane has to get on the hotline with the manufacturer, like, Mike, that's his name. We need-- it's actually Mike, and we got Mike and Mike-- Mike and Mike? --over there. Yeah, it's actually two guys. They're the A team over there in Albany, New York. Big shout out to Mike and Mike. Jane had to call them. And was like, Listen, I don't care what colors they are. I don't care how many you have, send them now. And so what I would do is I'd get on Tiktok. I was getting on social media and saying, listen, set your calendars. We're gonna have more in stock, say, three days from now, 8am I'm gonna open up the store. People would be like, yes. They were setting their timers, their calendars. And that's what happened. Remember, Mike said, Okay, here's how many I can have to you in the next week. So then you said, Okay, let's go ahead and load those into the store, because by the time that they get here, we'll be able to fulfill them in our three to five days. So we actually, like I said, I'll never get at 35 in our hands-- And we would sell out. Say he'd send 350, 500, we'd sell out in a matter of minutes. Wow. And they'd be like, when is the next one coming in? So we kind of rode that supply and demand wave until we basically, kind of conditioned Mike and Mike to say, Okay, we better have, like, a steady stream. Now, what we can tell you is, spoiler alert, like to this day, how many pacifiers do we order a year? Half a million?

35:19  
I mean, like yeah, it, and it keeps increasing. And we actually stressed our first cavity mold out so much we had to invest in a cold deck tool within, you know, that first year, because the poor thing-- Basically, the Cadillac Escalade. You wore it out. Yeah, we wore it out. We wore it out as well as Mike out. And so, you know, we absolutely appreciate them, because they did. They jumped on board with us, and now, you know, it's going off great. And so I would say it's so hard to say, I don't know, like, how many, I mean hundreds of 1000s at this point. So virality really took you to a new level of problems, too, right? Yes, it did. Going viral. Social media has been our number one catalyst for revenue and sales. And how much, how much have you spent on social media from an advertising standpoint? I will tell you, we have a very low advertising spend. Yeah? So, this is truly viral. It is. A lot of it is word of mouth. What Jane and I didn't expect, and this is another component of our business. Most times feeding therapists, infant feeding specialists that work with babies who have, say, oral restrictions, issues with breastfeeding or just feeding in general. As an infant, they love to get their hands on anything that's going in a baby's mouth, because it's either going to like hurt or help their ability to feed successfully. So they got their hands on this pacifier. And Jane and I did not expect this, but the feeding world fell in love with our pacifier. Most of them. Yeah, I will say, from an overarching perspective, whether it be lactation consultants, pediatric dentists, chiropractors, pediatricians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, name it. Right. Were saying, Wow, not only does this not hinder babies in their oral development, but now we're able to actually see a baby do the proper oral motor work that they need to be doing to have a successful latch and to be able to breastfeed successfully. This is the closest thing we've actually seen to mimicking the breast. A lot of pacifiers have claimed it, but we're the first ones to actually accomplish it. Jane actually came up with this, but she likes to say, and it's true, we actually put the work back into pacification.

37:33  
That's-- Oh cool. Yeah, a lot of the other pacifiers, you know, it's kind of a lazy thing. Yeah. They can walk around with it in their mouth. They can sleep with it there. But with ours, if they're not actually creating that negative pressure to hold it in and manipulate it in a worm like movement, similar to breastfeeding, it's going to fall out. And it actually does take work. So that's been one of our nemesis that a lot of times you think, Oh, I'm just going to put it in and it's going to work. It's like, Hey, you got to put the work into it. And so the feeding specialists loved it, and they were actually looking and needing a tool to help babies in physical therapy, just like strengthening any muscle when you, and we didn't know this, but the amount of ligaments and muscles and regulation that takes place just for a baby to create that movement, it doesn't come natural to all babies, and some of them need a little therapy and a little help. And so we are very grateful that God had a bigger vision for it, because we were just thinking, hey, moms need a break, and they do, but to know that it can actually help kids with sleep patterns, with preventing you know, issues down the line with speech therapy, oral development has just been extraordinary to Joy and I. I mean, we're just humbled daily at some of the stories that we hear, and how it doesn't cause tooth misalignment, right? Yeah. That's one of the biggest problems that parents have. They need to take the pacifier away because it's causing misshapen palettes and teeth misalignment. But ours absolutely doesn't do that. So that's been one of the really coolest things. Yeah, that's, that's amazing. And you guys have learned a lot of this stuff during the process, right? Oh, yeah. Right? It's been a continuing learning experience, hasn't it, in that regard?

39:11  
Very much so. Yeah, I mean, we were talking about compressors and circuit boards, and now we're talking about myofacial physical therapy. We're like, what is this? Yeah, so very much. That's why we love our therapist, though. Joy and I are very quick to say, Look, we are two moms that saw an improvement, but we are backed by extraordinary professionals that we allowed them to be the authority in that area. And it was nice to get their approval, because this is not an easy group to get an approval by. And so we're very blessed to have them on our, on our side and on our team. Yeah. So you grew rapidly, and you kind of got to now a steady state of orders and so forth, right? What was kind of the, the next challenge that you had to overcome after you got the manufacturing squared away, and then, is it timing the inventory? What, what was the next worry that you had to work through? I would say, because you did touch on, I'd say one of our biggest obstacles, like you said, was the waste rate that we had with our first mold. And then once they got the manufacturing process down and we invested in this better piece of equipment, it did eliminate, because that was a bottleneck on, in our company for a period of time. But I would say, for Jane and I now, because our company is growing, like you said, it's a steady state of orders, but we are seeing consistent, organic growth, month over month. We are never stagnant. We continue to grow. You don't have to wait until your dad walks in and slides the check over the desk-- No. Oh my gosh, best thing ever. Thank God. You know what else the best part about it is? People pay you when they place the order, right? Right. So, you know, all the stuff that we had to do about waiting on receivables and all that-- Right, right. Receivables don't exist, not-- Completely different business model, right? Completely different. Yeah, we love manufacturing, let's just put it that way. It's great, right? I feel like the Lord saved us just up for this, because we're very grateful. But I would say, as Jane and I are growing, you have to understand not, you can have a good idea, but it doesn't necessarily make you a good business owner person, and you have to be able to maintain growth and know how to put processes into place. And I think that's been the thing for us, like bringing the right people in, because she and I, you know, we don't have necessarily all this extensive background in running big companies, but there are people that we can bring on board strategically to help us see growth and make sure that we're growing our company properly. So I'd say that's probably one of the biggest things, but I think we've done a good job with it.

41:35  
And it's been interesting because we do believe we're pioneers in what we're doing. There are a lot of brands who have come out, and it's like, you want to get into Target, you want to get into WalMart, you want to get on Amazon, and Joy and I were like, No, we don't. And it's kind of like, wait, what do you mean? The, what we see now is, when you have the opportunity through strategic marketing online, you have access to the end users. Everyone has a phone. Our moms are not going into Target and Walmart. They are up in the middle of the night looking for a solution, and we want them to find our website. So we had to constantly, for one write that into our core. But then when you have, you know people who help you scale or have this big vision, when you're selling them on a new vision, and you're like, but we believe that it's one that multiple companies are going to do, but we feel we're kind of on the front end of it, that we want to grow it, not only organically, strategically, and we want to get in front of as many moms as we can. And Joy and I want to be able to do it. We don't feel like you have to partner up with a big corporation in order to find that success. And so we've really had to sell that vision, and now we are doing well at it and I'm proud of us for holding on to that. We did try to venture on to Amazon, and I would say for us, that was our biggest disappointment. And why do you say that was the biggest disappointment?

42:56  
Okay, so just kind of touching on what Jane said, the reason why, you know, when you go into retailers, from the specialty retailers, right? So baby, maybe big box stores to, like she said, the Targets, Walmarts, whatever of the world. It's a wonderful thing when, I guess, when people consider visibility, but with us being an American manufactured product, right? All of our materials are sourced in America, so silicone is either coming from Europe or sourced here in the East Coast of America. We spend more money on ingenuity and on the craftsmanship, but we have a more expensive product to be made, right? So therefore it's also at the higher end of retail. We retail our pacifier currently today at $13.99 for a one pack. And what would a competing general market pacifier sell at? $2.99-- Holy cow. $3.50. Wow. So you're talking significantly more expensive. Yeah. But it is a premium product, right? And when you have something that's, A, has a utility patent, so we were the only ones out here like it. And nobody's knocked you off yet? And no one's knocked us off yet. Praise God. But again, we have the patent, if, so, we, we have plenty of legal support. So just, just beware, people, if you're trying to do not, just kidding, but not really. But yeah. So with us having, like, all of that, and knowing where we stand, for you to go into the retail space, there's a lot of profit margin that's taken away. So we said we would rather retain that, because we're in a company where this is a lifestyle brand. This runs her household, my household, as well as we support other moms that work for us in the fulfillment center that send all these pacifiers out to moms all over the world. You know, we're a company run by moms for moms, and we're very big on our mission, and we love to give back and help moms and kids all over the world. So when we got to the place that Amazon was an opportunity, we said, well, we can control a little more of that. Initially, we were thinking, this is great, because it'll still put all of our moms in the fulfillment center to work. They'll send it to the Amazon fulfillment centers. We control the buy box and how it's selling. The great thing about it is, yes, we were able to do all of that. The problem is you can never anticipate all of the Amazon fees that are associated, nor did we anticipate the what they would call the money they held in reserve at every payout. Yeah. So when, we operate as a cash-- On top of the amount of customers that left our website. Yes. Because Amazon's turned into, like a Google. Right. If you can get it on Amazon. Right. I mean, and I'm guilty of that, right? They can show up on my doorstep in a day or two. Yeah. Sometimes today. Yeah. Like, I'm not going to go and then find out it could be three to five days for the company to fulfill it. You know, you just kind of trust that Amazon's going to get it there quickly. So we lost our direct to consumer revenue.

45:45  
Which was our most profitable revenue. So when it then drew so many of our customers away, although we were making more sales, like we did launch on Amazon as the number one product in that category, and we had immense sales, but we were just watching all of our profits dwindle down next to nothing. We ended up hiring on a another financial firm to basically assess it and to look at this kind of forecast. And we come to find out, you know, if we keep going like this, our net profit margins were down now into 2% whereas before, we were way more successful. And as you know, Steve, cash is king, right? And especially in a startup, if you don't have good cash flow and you don't have money to use, you're dead in the water. So we were watching our runway dwindle, and so we were grateful that we had enough to be able to be on for four months, get off and still be cash positive-- Yeah. And still find success going directly back to our website, where customers did follow, and we're so grateful for that. And what we realize is now, it's not that, and I think people can definitely make Amazon work to their benefit. There are companies that find success there. I think we just went on to Amazon with the wrong retail strategy and-- And time. I just think that--  Yeah, and I think that just due to the advice we received and the way we went about it, so it's not that it was necessarily, it was just a bad business decision for us, but it was, but it was by for now. One, yeah.

47:14  
Well, the other thing about Amazon is you lose the connection to the customer, because you never really get to know who your customer is. When you're direct to consumer, right off your site, you have a direct connection to your customer, right? Yes. Immediate feedback from them and that kind of stuff. Yes. And we love that. Back from them and that kind of stuff. Yes. So now we have shopping profiles, and I know who my customer is, and I can market to them, and we get the feedback directly. So like you, and one of the things NinniCo has grown and we pride ourselves on is that we're a community of moms, right? And so we want to be in touch with them. And moms trust other moms. Absolutely. They, even when we have tried to polish up-- Over everybody else, right? Yeah. Yeah, you know and when we've even tried to polish our marketing or make it look more corporate, we realized they didn't like that. They like to see the mom with the messy bun in the kitchen, no makeup on coming to you real. Because unfortunately, today you kind of got to go through the smoke and mirrors and say, who is for you or against you when they're selling you. So when they, it's somebody they relate to and they're like, hey, this mom cares. And we do listen. We've made improvements based off of what they've suggested. We are big on education, because we don't want you just to use our product because you got tricked into it or clever marketing. We want you to use it because it was an educated decision, and it, we want to help you in your journey. And if you find another product that you like, we support you as well in that. And even, it's a time where, when you become a mom and you're, you know, in the stage where you're like, What is my new identity? Mom guilt is real. We know that it's hard to have, you know, all eyes on you, critiquing you, and we're our biggest critics. So it's nice to have a community you can build to say, look, you're accepted here. We would like to help educate you. So whenever you go through your birthing plan, when you make your decisions early on, you feel supported, you feel educated and you belong, and we love that. We wanted to grow that that was super important in our mission.

49:07  
That's really cool. And you guys have been incredibly successful. So it's really an amazing story to watch. So we've talked about your challenges early on. We talked about some of the challenges mid journey so far. Talk to me a little bit about the future. Where are you guys going? And what do you see as the next chapter for you guys? Yeah, this is where Joy and I, we've heard people in the past say how business can be fun-- Yeah. And we see them laugh and throw their heads back. We'd always be sitting at the table like, we don't know what that's like. I want to throw my head back. Are you beginning to experience that? We are now, it's like make them laugh a little-- Our heads go back a little further, you know. And so now to be able to see that our dad has watched what we've built, and be proud of that-- Yeah. And it's something that that we did off of not his legacy, but we did on our own. And to be able to take him on vacations, or to be able to celebrate with your family, and you know that's exciting to be cash positive and make money. Joy and I didn't do that for years. But so we just, we look forward to getting it into other countries and distribution deals as well as we would love to see medical, you know, deals down the line, to be able to see it in hospitals. And really-- New products. Oh yeah, we got a lot of new products on the pipeline we want to improve on or do. We just look forward to building what Joy and I now, we like to say these things out loud, we want to be one of the top five baby brands-- In the globe, like we want to be one of the top five baby companies in the world. That's our long term goal. And we were-- Love it. --just talking about it last week, but that, what we do is we're not trying to invent any wheels. What we're trying to do is to not burden a mom down with all these unnecessary accoutrement that she just has to have, rather to find essential things that help make a mom and a baby's journey easier. And to say, Wow, I'm so glad I bought that particular thing from NinniCo, because it helped save my life. I mean, and at this point, and it's we get, yeah, yeah, saved, used with good materials, because that's a thing. Yeah. You know, and we just want to be that trusted brand when they're like, if NinniCo is selling it, I know I that they're out for my best interest. And what Jane and I, and I never grow tired of it, and I never want to stop talking about it, but we get handwritten letters from moms about how we saved their breastfeeding journey, or how they were going to give up, but they found our product and their baby was able to find better strength and motor movement and success. And it's because of that, it's that we're really a part of not just offering a product, but we're part of their journey and their stories. And that will never get old. It'll always touch our hearts.

51:46  
This is really cool. And I think about, you know, your dad had his son, and then he got his daughters in the business, and really took the business to another level, right? And he, he, he then gets to go on and watch you guys be even more successful in your own rights with your own company. As you guys kind of think down the road, do you, do you envision a space where your kids will one day be at part of NinniCo and-- We talk about it. We do talk about it, and it's actually funny. I would say my oldest and Joy's daughter kind of already argue over who's going to be the head of the company. Oh, okay. You know, they are very strong entrepreneurial spirits. They do in different ways. I mean, we would support it. Of course, they would have to go the full journey and go work for someone else. Get the education. Oh, we're going to James Williams them. --take the right person. Yeah, you got to go do it. James Williams boot camp. Right? Probably try to talk them out of it. Yeah. Send them off and if they keep knocking at the door and they work their way up, I would absolutely love it. I would absolutely love that.

52:47  
Well, God bless you both. You've done, you're making a difference in the world and that's so cool-- Thank you. Thanks Steve. I'm so excited for you guys. Appreciate that. Where can people find your products again? At www.ninico.com. That's n i n n i c o.com. Outstanding, outstanding. I think one of the key things that I heard from you guys throughout and I've seen this in having the pleasure of working with you in the past. You guys are very unique in terms of entrepreneurs in that you always raise your hand and ask for help, and you look to bring in experts that can take you guys to the next level. And I so often see entrepreneurs that you know are clustered, and they feel like they got to do it themselves, they've got to figure it all out. But you ladies have, have really done an amazing-- Thank you. Thank you. --progress and amazing journey. At this point, at like, yeah, we are big believers in that. And we try to find someone almost for everything, right? Like, now you realize the goal is to have as many people that are better at doing your job than you so you don't have to, but then you can still enjoy it. And because it's like they said, you can't work on your company and in your company at the same time. And once you start realizing as leaders that in order to advance the vision and continue to grow it, we can't be in the weeds of the daily tasks and so Joy and I have actually gotten pretty comfortable with that. Oh, we love that. You could just call us delegate as our middle names. Love it. We love it. Yeah, it's been good. Yeah, you really have become chief executive officers, right? Thank you.

54:21  
It's been a blessing. Yeah, we're very grateful. We're grateful to, and then we could actually take vacations. We never knew that in heating and cooling, but now we can actually take a vacation and come back, together, right, together and come back-- And your business, the business is still running without you? Right, yes. By using people that actually want to show you that you can leave, trust that they'll take care of it while you're gone and save the problems for when you get back. So we couldn't have a better team. Oh, we just love it. That's as good as it gets. So that's really, really exciting. I'm really excited to hear you guys say that. Listen, we're very honored that you guys have come on the podcast, shared-- This has been fun. Yes. --some of your learnings and wisdom that you've gathered together here on this and we're very appreciative so. Thank you. Thank you both very, very much. Our pleasure Steve. We appreciate it. Thank you. 

55:06  
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