Katerina Schneider, Founder & CEO Of Ritual, On How She’s Transforming The Supplement Industry With Her 9-Figure Brand

There's just so many times where the business is out of balance. We talked about before where maybe you didn't hire the right people or you're having supply chain issues. And I think all of those instances, just like your body being a little bit out of balance, teaches you to work on those things and then you're kind of even in a better place than you were before that.

Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited you're here. And if you haven't heard, I'm doing an event. I'm doing an event with an amazing partner as well. Her name is Katrina Scott. She is the co founder of Tone It Up. She is a branding expert. She's a community building genius. Definitely built one of the largest communities out there. You guys, she knows so much about products and podcasting and brand, brand deals, you name it. She has so much wisdom. Every time she talks, every time we get together, I'm like, oh, my God, I learned so much from you. And so if you want to be a part of this, it is June 3rd. It's one day, you guys. We want you to get in there, we want you to learn what your next steps are. We want you to be blown away by the new possibilities, new ideas and new opportunities. So we really wanted to do a one day workshop because, you know, there's masterminds and there's big events, but you can kind of get lost in the big events. And the masterminds are a lot more expensive, which I love. But maybe you're not in that position yet or maybe you just need a recharge or reset. Maybe this is something that you just want to drop into and network with all of the incredible women that are going to be there. Let me tell you. I already see this text list of who's on here and I'm like, are you kidding me? I can't wait to be in this room with who is coming. So you guys, if you, you want to be in this room, if you want to learn about expanding your brand and your network, that's what it's called girlfriends in business. Expand your brand and your network and we're going to have breakouts. You're going to learn from experts. We're going to have really intentional networking. There will be expert panels so that you can ask all of your questions. If you want to be a part of this, you have to be on our VIP text list before. This is going to be where we launch and it's going to be where you get your early bird tickets from, which will be the best price. You have to just text the Word Workshop to the number 310-496-8363 or, or you can DM me the word Workshop as well on Instagram if that is easier and I will send you the link to get on that list. All right, let's get to it. My guest today is a mind blowing woman. Her name is Katerina Schneider. She is founder and CEO of Ritual, a personal health brand that's bringing new level of transparency to health and wellness industry. While pregnant and in search of a prenatal she could trust, Katarina took matters into her own hands and she pioneered a new standard of high quality multivitamins and supplements that are backed by science and made traceable. And this is what really set her apart. And what we talk about on the podcast is that she was openly sharing the science and sourcing of of everything that she was doing. Now it has become one of the most trusted brands and we talk a lot about what made her make that decision. You guys, so Ritual has made more than a million customers. Are you kidding me? I don't care what you think you're gonna learn this podcast. Please tune in so that you can learn from somebody who has created a million customers and has the top selling online prenatal vitamin. This woman has more accomplishments than I can possibly tell you. Forbes 30 under 30 EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Inc. 100 female founders. You guys, she has been in everything. And I think the coolest part about this is on the podcast, I just had the best time with her. She is so down to earth. She's such a genius. And I just really, really enjoyed her company and energy. When we were done, I was like, man, I want to be this girl's friend. And she was traveling in Austin and so she was recording the podcast in Austin, but she doesn't live there. She lives in la. And I am at my Scottsdale house when I recorded this. And the next week I had gone to Los Angeles for a birthday party and I walked through the doors and there she is. And I look at her and I'm waving and it's not quite connecting. And all of a sudden we're like, oh my God, this is so cool that we get to hang out. Right after we did the podcast and we both had a great time. So we ended up sitting together at dinner. And you guys, she's just truly like, sometimes you meet those people and you don't know how they're going to be. This woman is incredible. So I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did. There's so much wisdom here. So let's get started. Kat, I am so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be on.

I have been kind of following your journey through your product in the beginning for a while, and there is nothing that excites me more than a woman who solved a problem, threw a product, or wanted to solve a problem, created it herself, put it out there, and now is experiencing just massive success, which I can only imagine what that comes with and what you've been through. And that is what I'm really excited to share with the audience today. So thank you for coming on. And I think that that would be such a fun place to start because I know you kind of have a fun startup story around ritual.

Yeah, definitely have a fun startup story. And I. In whatever form that means. I think my startup story actually starts even probably earlier than most people even know. I was born in Ukraine, and my family and I moved here as refugees. That means something very different these days. But we were living in a welfare hotel in Brooklyn, and my dad eventually became an entrepreneur. My mom ended up working on Wall Street. And so seeing my dad succeed and follow his dreams was something that I was so lucky to have witnessed growing up and know that you can kind of risk it all and. But you're at least finding, you know, your. Your purpose in life. And that was my aspiration. I just know what it was going to be.

Do you remember that? Do you remember seeing him, like, what. What did that mean to you, watching him go for his dream? Did you watch him go through struggles or were you more like focused on, you know, what was being done? Did he ever share struggles with you? What did you see growing up?

There were. There were a lot of struggles. There were a lot of ups and downs. And I knew that it was. I was already prepared that when I did start something, it wasn't going to be easy. I think for me, I always felt like we were well off or we were poor. Well off or we were poor. And there was kind of like, no, no in between. But. And so that was kind of like humbling. And my parents are really humble people, and they still live, you know, they. Every dollar and cent matters. And that was really instilled on in me as we. We lived in a Welfare Hotel and $50 in a suitcase in Brooklyn. So that was always kind of the heart of something that I was around and exposed to. And at the Dinner table. I would hear my dad, you know, talking to my mom around advice and business advice and interpersonal dynamics. And so it was something I was just exposed to early on. And I knew it was something that was just very interesting to me, but I didn't have that idea that just kept me up at night all night and something that I knew that I was the right person to go and crack.

So when did the. Which I could totally dig in there, but I think I'm going to circle back to that. When did the idea of ritual come to you?

So I started ritual when I was four months pregnant. What's really interesting is that I never really believed in or took vitamins and supplements regularly before.

It was never a thing for you, like never on your radar. So when you got pregnant, was it because people were telling you you needed them or was your body, oh my God, I need something? Or what started that?

Exactly. So I'd always thought it was snake oil. I grew up in a really health conscious household. My mom is now a macrobiotic chef. We grew up Ayurveda and kind of alternative medicine. And there was this philosophy that you can get everything you need from the foods you eat. And if you're having some kind of problem, you solve it with example, you know, daikon radish and some fermented type of thing.

Yep.

So if you have a problem, that's how you solve it. And so this idea of vitamins and supplements was kind of like foreign in a way. In a way to me, because it was something that, that we didn't really. My family didn't really expose me to growing up and we were like really skeptical of it. And so like you said, when I got pregnant, a prenatal was something I had to take. And you go to usually the doctor if you are thinking of trying or you're trying or you're pregnant, you need a prenatal vitamin not just for your health, but the health of future generations. And I knew that I needed to take a prenatal. But then when I looked at the options out there, there wasn't a brand that I trusted. And you know, everything from going to the doctor's office and then saying, here's some prescription prenatals, or you could take the ones in the store, but here are some prescription prenatals that we have and this cabinet and they have everything from, you know, tuna oil. Which I was like, huh, this is really confusing. You're telling me I shouldn't tuna. But this is.

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You know what?

I was interesting.

So that wasn't okay for me to like blue coloring and other things that I just didn't want in my body. And then when I dove into the science, something wasn't really sitting right with me. And I knew that we deserved better. And I couldn't stop thinking about why I was the one that was going to solve this problem. I think the most interesting thing is I launched the company without even launching a prenatal vitamin.

What do you mean? What did that look like?

So through the process of starting this business, you know, I heard a lot of voices. I mean the first, the first part was actually raising money. That was really important to me was, was fundraising because I knew if we wanted to do things the right way and we wanted to change the industry, I wanted to invest in human clinical studies, I wanted to invest in third party testing, I wanted to invest in certifications and things that were not even required by the industry. And to do those things, we needed money. And so I was four months pregnant, kind of waddling around Silicon Valley and Silicon beach at the time. And they give me money, I want to start a business. Not the most ideal time to do that. And well, I guess I wasn't, you know, my belly wasn't very large at that point, so I wasn't waddling exactly. But I went into a well known investor's office and I said, I want to start a company, this is what I want to do. And he said, you can either start a business or you can have a family. You can't do both.

How did you feel in that moment?

I was both kind of horrified, but then also fueled. I was fueled by like, let me prove him wrong. Like how if someone's telling me this, like this really important person, that means it hasn't really been done many times before. And it got me really excited to show other people, female founders, that if that's what they want to do, they can do both. And they can do both really well. And there wasn't really anyone to, to kind of role model or look at, at this at the time. And I think because this was a long time ago, right, like there weren't very many female investors, people were telling me that women's health was a niche and like pregnancy was a niche. And then also I was being told that you couldn't earn the Trust of the prenatal audience online. But that piece I was like, that's really interesting. And that piece is actually what I think resulted in us not launching a prenatal as our first product.

Because you heard that and just waited. Especially when we're hearing from industry experts or the people that we can put in that expert chair, I definitely completely understand how we can kind of put people on a pedestal and what feels like this guttural ide idea that we want to be doing, you can really get shaken when you go out there to go share your idea. And it's that differentiation. Like I would love to kind of hear, you know, after a bunch of your meetings with either people that you were trying to fundraise with. But then also when you pitch the idea, how did you keep it like you have to put it out there, but how do you also kind of keep it close to your heart and follow your intuition at the same time of what you know it's supposed to be?

I think the thing that I've learned to do the most is to trust your intuition as a founder and, and figure out ways to tap into that. It's so hard sometimes because you do hear so many voices and so many opinions. Especially as a first time founder, especially as a woman, especially as a pregnant woman. There's so many voices in your head and tapping into that intuition almost becomes an art. And like the greatest thing you can do if you can figure it out as a founder is it's your superpower. I'd say it's really important in the beginning and then it becomes even more important as your business skills because your role ultimately becomes just making decisions every single day. You're no longer, I mean, you still roll up your sleeves and do things, but you have built a team, hopefully and they're, you know, they're great at the things that you're not great at. And you're literally job is to make a decision on dozens of things every day and to make a good decision. And the only way you can do that is if you really tap into, into your intuition. So I think starting the company like that was a really good test because was almost like training ground for tapping into my intuition. And I left behind a lot of things that people told me. But the thought of earning the trust of that consumer really stuck with me. And I was like, you know, part of that is not all of it is right, but I want to earn the trust of this consumer. I want to earn the trust of someone who's in the most vulnerable stages of their life and deeply cares about their foundational health. And I want to do it in the right way and I want to do the right thing at every step of that way. And so that's what we did. And we actually launched our multivitamin for women 18 + as our first product. And that I'm so obsessed with that product because it's such a good case study of what I was trying to change in the industry and the standard that I was trying to set. It now has a peer reviewed and published human clinical study with a major university. It now has a patent on the delivery technology, which was very exciting for my parents that I got a patent. They understood.

I love that.

Yeah, they're like, no. Vitamin industry bad, patent good. And it has USP verification, which less than 1% of supplement companies have. And it was just this epitome of doing the right thing at every step and getting the credit for it. And that was a huge success. And then we had the prenatal customer being like, when are you going to put out a prenatal vitamin? And I'm so proud because we now have the number one selling prenatal vitamin in the US online, which is wild.

I love hearing this and I love your approach because I'm actually from, oh my God, probably 17 years now, been in the. Had started in the health and fitness industry. And it's always like, how do we know? How do we actually really know this is good? And so I love that your whole approach is transparency and making it easy for people to know. Like it's not hidden. I don't have to do some crazy research to try to figure it out, you know, because number one, I have taken more supplements than I can possibly tell you. And I'm like, I just want to know this is working and that it's good for me because I'm doing it every single day. I think a supplement works even better when you actually know that info, you know, because we know placebo effect can work as well. And I feel like it adds to like, when I truly know this is a good product, I think that amplifies an already amazing product, which is really cool. So I love having that info that you put out there. I want to back up just for one second to the raising money part because there's a lot of people, a lot of women listening right now who have big ideas and big dreams and that portion intimidates the crap out of them. They don't know where to start. They don't think they're worthy of being invested in. And I think that the more that we can chat about it and demystify it and let people know that it's. I raised money for the first time a couple years ago and it was like one of the scariest, most overwhelming things in the beginning because you just don't know. And then once you get started, I feel like, oh, it's not as crazy as I thought. So can you tell me about how you felt about raising money beforehand, how you decided what route to go and then kind of the initial starting to ask.

Raising money is almost like a contract in a way in yourself and you know, your investors. And I think one thing that I feel like founders do wrong, especially female founders, is they're just like allowing the investors to just interview them and ask them all the questions. It's so much a two way street. And we've seen this in the last couple years where things get like really gnarly out there. We just had almost, you know, failure with SVB and Covid, you know where and the pandemic literally shut down businesses and operations and supply chain challenges. The last few years have been some of the hardest years to run any business or any operation. And I think a lot of companies that have succeeded in some ways are, A because they have great founders and operating teams, but B, because they kind of made the right picks on investors early on. And your job as a, as a founder, especially in the early stages, is to make the right picks and, and don't follow the hype. I would say like really pick investors that are going to be, going to be in it with you. And I think that that's something that I feel really proud of. Having kind of navigated this industry is, is I picked investors that are in it through the good times and the bad and there's going to be both. And even though, you know, Virtual now has had over a million customers and we're a nine figure plus business two years ago and have been growing since then, it's still more important than ever to have have these partners that are just so supportive during these wild times that we're, we're living in.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

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I you know, especially just talking about thinking about you and your company through the pandemic, what were some of the things that when you started to see what was going on in the landscape of the world, what were some of the things that you were like, oh, if I don't do this, this is not going to be sustainable. Were there some major things that you had to, to change right away or pull back on? Did you have to let people go? What did.

Yeah, it's interesting, I think about March 8th and exactly where I was in the office. I was eight months pregnant. I was my third girl, so I'd had three girls since starting the business. And it was early days where there wasn't that much information around what was going to happen. But we have, you know, we have about 20 scientists on staff and I was talking to our chief scientific officer, president and they were pretty nervous and with information and data that they saw and they're like, and I had to ultimately make the call. But nobody I knew at the time had been shutting their office down. And you think about it, we're a health company. And that was the first thing that came to my mind was like, we're a health company. I need to protect the health of my employees. Even if we're overreacting. Like, look back at this moment and everyone will come back into the office. But we are going to do the right thing by shutting our office down. And so I shut the office down March 8, which was probably a week ahead of some of the other startups in our neighborhood shutting their spaces down. And looking back, I earned the trust of our employees because I was putting their health first. Our team was putting our, the health of our employees first. And I never regretted it for a moment. That was the hardest thing, I think I've, you know, one of the hardest things I've done at the moment. I needed, there's so many things I needed to get done in the office. There's so many complicated things that needed, needed us there. But I didn't want to risk the health or the lives of people just in case. And that was like a really interesting theme that's continued throughout the business. Now, being a mom of three and having gone through postpartum and all the things like that was something that was really important for me personally. Also, parental leave. We now have five months of parental leave at the company and then we have eight weeks of kind of an ease in period for those birthing parents as well. We have a child care stipend and we have about 30% of our employees are parents. So that became kind of a mandate for me. Like, hey, you know, I started this company and forged this path where there was, you know, when people were telling me I can't have a career and a family, like, I need to make it possible for others to do the same.

You had mentioned you became a nine figure company two years ago. From the start, was this like these big goals that you have hit now? Was that in your head? Were you like, this is what I want to be, a nine figure company. I want to be, you know, whatever you want to be in the beginning. Can you share what some of those, maybe that first year goals were and if you can remember. But then also, were you thinking this big from the beginning?

I was always thinking big since the beginning, but I would say not from the very, very beginning. So before I pitched ritual, I was pitching a company called Natalz, which was just focused around pregnancy. Okay, talked about before I, havenatals.com and, and ended up becoming a different company because I started some of those voices that we're talking about in my head started to kind of permeate through and I realized I wanted to do something bigger. I wanted to do something, something that, yes, I wanted to be the number one selling prenatal or leading prenatal in the US And I wanted to earn the trust of that customer, but I wanted to do something bigger that, that was going to be with this customer for the rest of her life. This really changed the way that she interacted with all of her products. And I was thinking about it, and I remember just being up all night, didn't sleep. Maybe it was the hormones, but I was like, what is the name of this company going to be? And the name Ritual came to me. And I was like, because if we're going to change the way that someone interacts with their vitamins or the products they use every single day, a ritual is the ultimate. And it's like, how do you elevate a routine to a habit to a ritual? Ritual is something you look forward to every single day, and that's the ultimate transformation. I don't remember ever hearing of anyone talking about how much they love taking their vitamins. And for us, as the first time, you know, they're kind of like, the first time, you'd be like, I love it. They're so minty. I love the experience. I love how it looks. And that's where Rachel kind of was born and I ended up. The vision that, that we formed was how do we be the most trusted destination for everyday health? That's our vision. Our mission is around traceability, traceable signs and traceable sourcing, that we're actually selling transparent information, not just transparent products. And that really shaped what we've done and why we've done things. And like you said, when you go. When you go to our site, you can actually see the final destination of manufacturing. For every ingredient. We now list our heavy metal results for our protein. You can see the testing results as well. And we kind of lay it all out there. And I think there's such a big difference between take our word for it and let me show you.

When you were getting started, did you know that you always wanted to stay the CEO? And then also, if you can kind of tell me what you thought a CEO was in the beginning and what it is now, like, what that actually looks like.

CEO means so many different things to so many different people. I remember being, like, super little and going to the office with my dad and being with him there all day, and then at the end of the day, he took out the trash. And I was like, oh, that's what being a CEO is.

I love that. I love that that was your. That it's probably served you so well. Like, seeing that.

Exactly. And I'm like, no one else gets to see that. But it's. It's so true. It's. Being a CEO is like, it's kind of the intangible things it's, it's everything and nothing. It's. It's being. Setting the vision, being the brand internally, externally, but then it's also like picking up the balls that are being in the holes that are being dropped. That's like the unsexy part. And, you know, everyone tells you that you need to delegate and you can't micromanage and all the things. But I do feel like even running a large company, you're still catching those balls or you're figuring out how to, how to empower other people to catch those balls. And while you're setting a vision and being kind of this big picture thinker.

That'S a really good. It's kind of the what's not getting moved, that needs to move, and that's my job or figuring out where that goes. Yeah, it's kind of the everything. I love that. Okay. There are a lot of people who, founders who've started companies, and maybe from the beginning they choose to hire a CEO. Or I'm actually in a position where I'm like, do I want to remain the CEO or do I want to hire the CEO? So for you, what made you know that you wanted to be it? Or maybe you're dabbling. I don't know if you're thinking of ever hiring another one, but how did you know that you wanted to stay in that position?

I know a lot of founders that have hired CEOs and they're happier than they've ever been. I have created the best job for me. I have the perfect job for who I am and what I want to do. It's actually kind of insane. Wow.

I love that.

It's like I can't imagine doing something or going somewhere else and having a better job. And yes, it's hard. Everything is hard. I never had something like that's not hard, but it's so cool. Like, I, I get to work with our team and, and create products and bring them to life and bring the vision of the brand to life and connect the, you know, visuals to, to the products and set the vision and inspire and hire some of the best talent in the world. And all those things are like, things that I actually genuinely love doing and I couldn't do in any other role. And I get to touch so many different parts, parts of the business. I'm the type of person that if I was just focused on, you know, one particular thing, I would get pretty bored.

Yeah.

And I think being the CEO really allows you to. For the people that love kind of being exposed to lots of different things and problem solving and setting strategy. Like, it's literally the best. It's the best job. I would say I'm really lucky because I've hired an incredible executive team that allows me to do that. And I have a president who's been with us for over five years who we're kind of like yin and yang. And she's so inspiring and she knows operation, finance, tech and strategy better than anyone. I get to work on product development and brand and R D and people and culture and some of those things. And so we kind of like split the business that way. And it's a perfect combination. I also brought in the chief people officer from Sweetgreen. She was at Apple for 10 years and like every day I'm learning from her about how to build culture and especially in this hybrid work environment. Also hired a chief scientist who's also been with us for so many years. He's ex faculty at Harvard Medical School and. But he also has an mba. Smartest people you'll ever meet. And who else? And we have an incredible cmo, incredible CEO. And so. And we just hired a chief impact officer recently, so working on advocacy and legislation and set sustainability and impact goals and are really like a leader in the industry when it comes to climate change, which is super exciting. And so I have these people around me that I feel like it's exciting for me to keep going because it's kind of a new level of talent for the stage that we're at. And I'm just learning.

Well, I love hearing that because you've arranged yourself to get in and stay in your zone of genius. And I think that that's when you thrive as a leader or as a CEO. And I think that there, even as I'm thinking about it and the more people that I talk to like the fact that you, all of this support around you and a president to kind of like, what are the parts of the typical CEO that maybe aren't your zone of genius or aren't for you or are going to make you too tired to do all the things that actually move the needle, like your most important tasks. So I love hearing that you've actually created it so that it is, like you said, your perfect job. So thank you for sharing that. So we can kind of know how we can arrange that and set up our companies and as well, I would.

Just say one thing on that. The number one job you have as a CEO at any stage is hiring. And like, if you're not happy with you know what you're doing. It's probably because you didn't hire well.

Did you have somebody help you with.

Hiring in the beginning? Did you know who you were supposed to hire? Did you bring someone on to kind of help you and figure it out? And then I would love to hear your theory on letting people go. Like the. When you realize it.

Oof. That's a hard one. I'm still learning that one, but just kidding.

Same. No, I think so.

That's probably the hardest one for you. But I would say we do have in house recruiters in house. I would say that the team would, like, joke sometimes that I'm like, our number one recruiter. It's something that is really exciting for me. I just, I just figured out how to be like, a master of LinkedIn and asking for introductions. I literally, I think the early days, I probably. I hired 100% of our team, and then as the company scaled, it became like 50% or something like that. I. I just love reaching out to people on LinkedIn cold. It's something that scares most people, but it, like, it gets me really excited. And I would say that my tip there is never to reach out and tell them that you're hiring for a role. That's the mistake most people make.

So what do you. What do you say? Like, what's that typical first message.

Oh, gosh, I hope that, like, no one's listening. And then they hear from me and they're like, oh, this is how she does it. This is like, secrets revealed. I feel like this is all, like, ritual success is just how amazing the people are working for us. And, like, almost has nothing to do with me. But I would say the first message is, is kind of just being able to ask someone to connect around a topic that you want to learn from and that they're an expert in. And I think that's also, like, kind of the best way to interview someone too. The best people are not looking for work. They're pretty happy where they are. And I think there's so many experts in their various fields, and I'm always curious to learn more about different subjects. I reached out to our chief people officer because she was an expert in the hybrid work environment, and she was advising some of the world's top CEOs around. Around that. And so I just, my gosh, like, help me, help me figure this out. I just love to chat with you. And I chatted with her and I was like. And she turned out to be a virtual customer.

Oh, my God. That's Amazing. Yeah, yeah.

And we just totally hit it off. I mean, and you know, in the early days, I didn't know anything about nutritional science. I didn't have a PhD in nutrition or I wasn't a registered dietitian. So I had to fill those gaps. And so I reached out to probably like 100 plus people in that field. I ended up meeting people in strip malls in New Jersey and like, really hustling hard to hire. Hire the right people and it's kind of the most fun thing that you can do. But I think a lot of people are like, I don't know where to start and I don't want to like message someone cold. And the best thing you can also do is just get, if you see there's a connection to you and someone else is message that person who is a, you know, a mutual connection and ask them for an intro. That's like my number one. But usually, you know, that doesn't really happen. So you just add them and send them a cold message.

I love that. It's all networking, it's all relationships. So when you would, when you would connect with these people, are you looking for. Because obviously you're learning from them, of course. And this is amazing. And you're, you have it in your head that this is a possible person you might want to work with or bring on. What are you looking for? Are you looking more for a cultural fit? How you feel energy wise with this person? Is it really, you know, sometimes in certain positions, are you like, man, I'm just looking for skill set. Even if there's like maybe not, you know, maybe you don't hit it off right away. Like, what does that look like for you? What's the most important?

It's absolutely essential that the culture fit is there. Like I never hired anyone that I wouldn't want to spend more time with. Love that like, that's like the, I mean like, why are we doing this if we're not surrounding like as entrepreneurs we're so lucky because we can surround ourselves with people we want to spend our free time, you know, our time outside of our families with.

Yeah.

It'S most of your time.

And I think having kids also helps you realize even more. You're like, I'm not with my kids because I'm doing this and this must be really important and I must enjoy this as well. And I think for me it was culture and feeling first. And what's interesting at ritual, we now have a set of values and kind of a system for, for Hiring or deciphering that, because at a certain point in your company skills, we have way over 100 employees. Like, I'm not at a certain point meeting everyone, or at least not until the final stages. And I. And you need to figure out, like, codify these things so that the team understands how, how to interview people for that culture fit. And I think that was like, one of the most challenging things. So we have a system of values, but we also have our mission around traceability and transparent, you know, information. And so that transparency, that level of transparency is really something that we, we look for and then also the values. But culture fit first and then skills. And I often, I'm often the one screen, you know, screening especially. I'll let someone else assess some of the, some of the hard skills. There's always people that can assess that even better than I can.

And.

But you're also selling them. So especially if you're trying to kind of network your way to getting a candidate, you gotta think that you're, like, trying to sell them on the vision as well. So it's a little bit of a tricky balance, and you're not going to start testing them on their financial skills or something like that.

What is something that you're struggling with right now? What is something that you're working through in the company as a leader or, you know, something that you're working on or working towards to get better at?

It kind of goes back to the hiring of an executive team. So we've recently hired. We've hired a really seasoned executive team in the last couple years, and they're incredible. And our team really gels well. It's like work with everyone. And I've actually, I usually. I had 11 direct reports until, I don't know, six months ago, which is terrible. I don't advise anyone to do that. I had such a hard time letting go of certain functions, and yet I had these incredible executives who were better than I was in these areas. But I couldn't give it up. For the last six months, I've. I've given those functions away to people that are way smarter than I am and better in those areas. And it's been a game changer, I think, organizationally, how decisions are made and what I'm struggling with, it's a struggle and an opportunity is, again, kind of refining my purpose as a CEO because I'm doing less of the hard work. And it's like, well, now that I have more time, what am I focused on? Is it content? Is. Is it going on podcasts, you know, like, wow. And now resurfaced from the cave. And now I can, like, you know, because I. I think that that's something that I'm. And I'm enjoying as well and like enjoying being on here with you. But it's not something I did a lot of before because I was so focused operationally. And it is important, especially our products are something that people put in their bodies every single day. We don't take that lightly. It is important for people to hear about that. For me, the effort that we put into things versus just an ad.

Yeah, I love that. And I want to know, how do you perceive challenges and how do you approach them? So how do you perceive them? Because they're every day. And then what is the approach and the team's approach, especially if it's something really big or unexpected.

Embrace the no's. That's a value of our business. Value. It stemmed from the early days of when people were telling me no and got refrained to. If someone tells you no, it just means it hasn't been done before. And so how do we as a company and no's as fuel to really take things to the next level. And so there's so many no's that I received from Women's Health as a smaller industry like niche to know there is no pumping room at this. At this tech conference because there's almost no women here to know you can't earn the trust of the prenatal consumer online. And no, you shouldn't spend lots and lots of money on the right thing, like clinical studies, certifications and all these things that haven't been, you know, common in the industry before. And I just use that all as fuel to. To do the right thing and build the business. I have an interesting story, actually. So the. The company's called Ritual. And. And when I was building Ritual in the beginning, I really wanted ritual.com. all of my investors were saying, don't waste your time. Like, why are you spending all this time on that? And it was just so important for me to. To have ritual.com and to own Ritual cleanly. It's like, this is the most important thing. People are putting this in their body every single day. This can't be, hey, ritual or get your ritual. Like, this is just ritual. And so I was like maniacally focused on that. The person that owned was an obscene amount of money that he wanted for the domain. It was all the money I basically raised. And I was just determined to get it. And I got to know him. And eventually I got to know what he really wanted was another domain which I ended up buying and selling to him, which was worth more and trading. And it was just like a stage, this incredible story of like, you know, if someone tells you no, just push through it. And I think the prenatal is the same, the same kind of thing where like you can earn the trust of the prenatal consumer online. And now we have the number one selling prenatal in the US online and leading prenatal, you know, nationwide. And it's very short amount of time. And how we did this was just really like doing the right thing. And earning her trust along the way was like half of pregnancies were unplanned and half of people weren't taking a prenatal before they were even pregnant. They were going to the doctor's office and finding out they were pregnant and then taking a prenatal. But the first 28 days are when the neural tube forms. And so we reframe the conversation around thinking, trying when it's time. And now as a tech company, we can actually see that more than half our customers are in that pre pregnancy phase. Wow, it's so cool to be able to like actually shift culture.

That's amazing. How do you support yourself around stress, around keeping up your relationships, all of those things. How do you kind of support yourself? Who do you surround yourself with?

I'm still learning how to support myself. I would say I've had three kids in the last seven years now, three girls. I'm so lucky to have them and still run the company and kind of, I'm just so grateful. But I would say I've learned a lot from my husband. I feel like he is someone who's always prioritizing himself. And at first I viewed that as a negative thing and then I was like, well, how can I learn from you? How can I, you know, in certain situations really like carve out the time to every day to prioritize myself? Just given everything that we have going on and how I prioritize myself. The, the first thing is I don't check my phone from until 7am Like a. It's bad for your health to wake up with the blue light and spike or cortisol and all the stress that comes with all the evening.

Yes.

So that's like boundary for me. Like I'm not. If you want, I'm not responding unless it's like a crazy emergency. And I know I have to be on call for, you know, most days I'm not checking. And I'm with my kids. Like, I am so present with them in the morning, making breakfast, playing, like, cuddling, all the things early. So that helps. And then the other thing for me is I work out every single day. And it's so crazy because I was never somebody who worked out at all. And, like, I walked here and there, but I, like, barely was. You know, I saw my husband, and he would have the worst day ever if he there was. He missed one day of working out, and I was like, that's so crazy. I'm like, what is wrong with you? Now I'm that person. Literally, wherever I am, I'm traveling all the time. I need to work out every single day. And for me, how I became a person that worked out every day was I reframed the workout as something that was more mental than physical. Like, and ritual. Like, I studied habits early days. Like, I read the power of habit. I read, how do you form a habit? You know, and you need that reward. Cue and reward, right? And with working out, your instant reward isn't how you look. It's actually how you feel. So, like, being like, oh, this is what I'm doing for stress and anxiety and, like, depression and all the things that you get as a founder, like, this has helped me and helped me feel my best, and I need to carve that time out, whether it's in the morning or in the middle of the day. Like, I have no shame around it. And I don't care if my employees like, you know, berries or whatever it is they like. Like, in the middle of the day. It doesn't matter to me as long as that's what's keeping them happy and healthy. The other thing is, like, I've kind of reframed health and wellness in my head. It's weird being someone who's running a large health company. And now I'm starting to do a lot more of these, like, media things and interviews. And everyone asks, asks me, like, what do you do to be a healthy person? And I'm like, well, I wasn't that healthy before, even though it's why I.

Made vitamins, because I needed it.

Exactly. No, but it is interesting because you become kind of the focal point for the epitome of health when you look at doctors who I admire so much because they're helping people every single day. A lot of them are unhealthy because they're working so hard and pouring their lives into helping others. So it is kind of a weird thing, especially Being a female founder and having to be this like health person. But I would say, like, for me, the, the reframing and around health has been. Do the basics really well. I think the wellness industry, I know the wellness industry has exploded. There are 90,000, 95,000 supplements on the market today. It's insane. 30 years ago there were like 4,000. There haven't been any major updates to regulation in 30 years. And it's exploded for sure. And I think what we're, we're kind of doing as a culture is, is we're, we're checking in with ourselves, which is great. And we're like, I feel this or I feel that and I'm going to do this and I'm going to take that. And then you look at the basics of what people are doing, like how much they're moving, how much water they're drinking, how they're sleeping, what their relationships are like, and they're not great or deficient in vitamin D or whatever. And how do we like. And that's something I've done really like recently especially is just how do you excel at the basics? I do believe that, you know, taking a multivitamin, like walking 10,000 plus steps, drinking your weight and body, you know, your body's 60% water drink. There's like science on that. But do those things really well and you can feel your best. I think we need to stop reaching for all these really expensive things that are just not super necessary.

I love that when you share now there's 90,000 different products. There's no wonder that we feel so much overwhelmed. And whenever I get to that place, I'm always like, okay, okay, let's just strip it all away. What are the three things I can do for myself today? And sometimes I'm like, what's the one thing? You know, it's like, okay, how about today I just move? Or how about, okay, now I can focus on taking my vitamins because it can be, it can be so overwhelming. You should see my pantry. I'm just, I need to just start over. So anyway, but I want to give you some space to number one share where we can get ritual. But then also, what is a thought or something on your heart that maybe is coming up that you just want to leave with all the listeners?

Okay, so one thing that I would love to, to kind of leave the listeners with is something that I heard and I speaking about balance, I heard in my yoga class a couple weeks ago that really connected with me. My teacher, who's incredible, said that things have to be out of balance before they're in balance. And we had just like, you know, hopped on one leg or did the stretches on one leg, and you could feel that your body was, was kind of out of balance because you hadn't done the same work on the other side of the body. And I was like, this is so appropriate for entrepreneurship. And there's just so many times where, where the business is out of balance. We talked about before where maybe you didn't hire the right people or you're having supply chain issues or you do have an investor that says you can't have a family or something wild like that. And I think all of those instances, just like your body being a little bit out of balance teaches you to work on those things and then you're kind of even in a better place than you were before that happened.

That is so good that. Yeah, I needed to hear that right now. And that's normal. Normalize being out of balance. It's a good thing. It helps us pay attention. Yeah, exactly. All right, so where can we go and get all of this great stuff?

We can buy our Symbiotic plus, which is a pre pro postbiotic in one single capsule product. You can buy a plant based protein where we share the heavy metals on our results on our site, which is insane. Or our multivitamins and prenatal, postnatal and kids vitamins as well as men's on ritual.com and we're also available nationwide and Whole Foods, which has been amazing.

I just saw your stories, which is so exciting. That is awesome. Congratulations on that. And I love that it's so easy and accessible now because we're all, let's face it, we're all at Whole Foods wandering the aisles looking for new products that we can, you know, spend more money on. So I love Whole Foods. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for just blazing the trail. Thank you for normalizing. No. And this was so inspiring. Where should we follow you? Shall we follow? Well, definitely go follow Ritual on Instagram. Yep. And then do you want to share your personal as well?

Sure. I'm such a shot. Like, that's such a, you know, part of me. I never share that, but it's Cat and Kale. That name I started when Instagram started, so I just haven't updated it.

I love that it's like when I share, like if I have an old Hotmail, I'm like, oh, let's. We're never sharing that name again. Okay. Or your AOL messenger name was all it was Bambi 2020. What the. Don't ask me, all right?

Sometimes people apply roles, and I do judge them a little bit when they come in with the Hotmail or AOL account.

Oh, yeah, we don't. We don't share that anymore. Okay, so you guys definitely go tag ritual. Let her know what your biggest takeaway was, because that's always just so nice to see who listened, who learned from this. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone. It.