Empowering Women to Find their Grace with Kate Nowlan

Startups get the party Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos Tacos in tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash Boulder green guacamole keep accountants counting beans Contador Quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo the tacos stand in puesto lucha libre and sombrero gotta shout out to coast angels by the ocean watch the sunset La Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside to Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SDTechOS with your host Neil Bloom. Startups get the party Startups get the.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge San Diego technologies and the builders making it happen. I'm your host Neil Blum, San Diego's Tech ambassador and together you're going to put a face to the name of today's tech leaders with our own blend of local lifestyle. I want to take a moment to thank our friends at Cox Business who have enabled us to tell these amazing stories of local leaders, technologists, founders and funders. Cox is actually a 121-year-old family run business that thinks in terms of decades in building community a lot like we do in starting a business. For years the local Cox business team has helped us grow through partnering at San Diego Startup Week, South Dakota. Quick pitch and in celebrating our local technical leaders at the Top Tech Awards through bringing a great enterprise customer and partner. Thanks again to Cox Business and welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host Neal Bloom and I'm really excited to be joined here virtually in studio by entrepreneur and founder of Grace by Grit, Kate Nolan. Kate, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks for having me, Neil. Happy to be here.

Yeah, I'm really excited to sit down have this conversation with you. We've gotten to know each other just recently, a few months ago started chatting but I've known your brand Grace by Grit for years and it's such an inspiring brand. So I'm really excited to hear the genesis of it and kind of where it took you on your path as an entrepreneur. But why don't you take us, dive us way back? Like where did you grow up? Where are you from?

I am from upstate New York. I'm from Rochester, which I usually when I say I'm a New Yorker, people assume I'm from the city, but I'm an upstate girl, which is very different. Five and a half months of gray winter and my parents actually moved there from Chicago. Didn't anticipate that being the forever home, but it was and so was raised there. I actually really loved living there. It's a super progressive city with wonderful people, very diverse. And I went to UMass Amherst from there. I went to college in western Massachusetts, which I also love and is very different from San Diego and in lots of great ways. And also lots of cold ways. It's freezing. And then 11 years ago, moved out here to San Diego.

Okay, so Rochester, was that the home of Kodak? Is that like.

Got it, yeah. Kodak and Champion.

Okay.

Yeah. Two big companies out of there.

Yeah. That's pretty cool to have those innovative brands at some point, you know, being the city being known for that. That's for sure.

Absolutely. And I think it really then speaks to the progressive nature of people there too because it really drew in a lot of intellectual people as well as the University of Rochester, which is a highly regarded institution.

Definitely. Yeah. So what, what brought you to San Diego besides weather? I'm sure that's an easy one.

Yeah. Actually a startup. Ironically. I, my ex husband, but husband at was asked to join a team as an engineer for a startup here in San Diego. And we took the opportunity to move our family across the country. And to sunny weather, certainly. But really ultimately we wanted to take the risk of getting ahead with an idea that we thought was a really good one.

Oh, cool. What kind of industry was it in?

In tech.

Okay, got it.

Yeah. Switches. Switches, which not the light switches. Switches like, you know.

Got it. Like semiconductor and. Okay.

Yep.

So what was, what was life like? Was it life changing for you to move to San Diego at that point?

Oh, it was big. Life changing for lots of reasons, personal and professional. I prior to that we had children very young and so I was really our primary caregiver as well as somewhat of a serial entrepreneur without really knowing that that was my label. But moving to San Diego was just, I mean it was mind boggling, I think for both of us, having grown up on the east coast and coming from small quaint towns to San Diego where it was wait A minute. You know, this is such an active community and the lifestyle of San Diego spoke to us. And we weren't just, you know, two people that were really interested in that lifestyle. It was like we were amongst, you know, thousands of people that like this lifestyle. And so I think that was, that was life changing, the amount of people here. I. The first time I came to California to look at a house, I was like, the highways are so wide and there's so many people. And I don't know that I necessarily even defined it as beautiful until I lived here a few years and started to recognize the beauty for what it was. I was so used to quaint New England that I didn't define it that way. And then on top of that, I was divorced actually shortly after we moved out here and really had to launch my own career. And so very life changing in that capacity in terms of trying to figure that out, navigate that as a single parent and as a woman in San Diego. And I was fortunate because I, early on into moving here, was actually looking for a swim program for one of my daughters and realized that this swim program needed me more than they even needed my daughter to swim, just from an organizational standpoint. And so started working for this nonprofit, which really actually led me to where I am today, just through meeting a tremendous amount of people in the north county community that turned into clients and customers. Is in a business partner.

Oh, wow, Fascinating. Tell us, tell us more then about that path. Like, what was what? The entrepreneurial path, I think is interesting, you know, like, did you always think you would start your own? Was that always a plan? Or like, what was that spark where you felt like you had to do it?

I, you know, I never thought of myself in that capacity. As a little girl. I actually always thought I would be a businesswoman. That was, you know, I always wanted to wear fancy clothes and go to important meetings. That was really attractive to me. It wasn't becoming a mother or a teacher nurse. It was like, this is what I want to have a power suit and I want to be powerful. But my life took a different course with having kids young and not that that ever slipped away, but certainly that entrepreneurial side of me. I didn't recognize that as like being a starter of things. I never thought, oh, I'm going to. I want to start a business someday. I'm just waiting to find out what that is, or I already knew what it was. That wasn't the case at all. But when I look back, how I conducted my life, it was as that scrappy entrepreneur. For example, when I was on the east coast prior to moving here, I recognized that a local swim club had the opportunity to start a master swim program. And I started it and then built that program up. I also recognized that I was really good at organizing people and homes and businesses and so started a business with another woman doing just that. And so moving out here, while I was looking for a club for my daughter, I was at the pool deck and going, well, do you have this and do you have that? And they go, no, why are you asking all these questions? And I said, I just thought. And they said, are you looking for a job? Because we're actually looking for someone. And it was, you know, timing was serendipitous in that capacity, but I really actually grew that position to be a full time role for myself. Recognizing the needs to fundraise and to create some really good events for the actual community and for the Boys and Girls Club, which was the club that I was working for at the time. And I also developed a couple different programs within that club. So there was a lot of athletes that were looking for more of a cross training swim class. And I developed that. And then we also wanted to build some more events. And so we came up with some really cool ideas as well as building another water polo program. So there was some. I didn't necessarily look at myself and say, oh, I'm an entrepreneur, but I was doing very entrepreneurial things. And then I realized a nonprofit work doesn't pay very well, so I had to make ends meet. And so I started to coach women for running and for triathlon. So I was working full time running the aquatic center as well as then making ends meet by coaching women, which really evoked a lot of interesting conversations on, you know, the superficial things of what we were wearing and why we were wearing them. That really then became the bigger conversation with a woman I met on the pool deck that was looking for instruction for her to, to complete a triathlon. In that we both saw things similarly in terms of how we saw the world as well as aesthetic of fashion, but that we've recognized there was a real need for women like us to develop apparel that was fitting for women like us. That wasn't the soccer mom that just went to get coffee and showed up in leggings. It was the woman that legitimately was running 10 miles and then had to show up for a business meeting. And so we talked about starting a brand together. But even at that time, and this was back in 2011, I was like, well, I don't know anything about that. And I don't even know how to so a button on a shirt. So it was like, that's not even in my wheelhouse. But what a great idea. Fast forward two years. I had left that job. I'd taken a really fancy job in downtown San Diego, making a lot of money, and I was fired from it because, frankly, I was not the right fit for the job. It was really rote work. It was a lot of the mundane, monotonous stuff that I'm a people person, I always want to be creating new ideas, creating new things, engaging with new people, you know, networking. And so they recognize that in me too. And they said, this is not the right fit. And when you, you know, we all have these moments, you think back, and in that moment, I was like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do with my life? I'm a single mom. I've just been fired from a job. And it was that light bulb of, I'm going to call my former client, who she and I had talked about starting an apparel brand together and see if we could actually explore that as an option. And that was the first time that I had ever thought, I can start something, yet I had no experience in that realm to do it. But having a good partner meant that we could figure that out together. And we did. So we spent about eight months really exploring that as an opportunity, creating a business plan, looking at the market, talking to people in the industry, and ultimately deciding that there was room for us to enter the market. And we went for it.

Wow, what a. What a journey. That's awesome. Was there a significant amount of, like, people locally that you leaned on, or was the apparel industry not so. Not so strong yet here? I mean, I know we've got Prana, we've got some other, you know, industry leaders now, but what was it like then for other similar businesses to lean on?

This is actually a great hotspot for apparel specifically. I mean, Orange County, Louisiana, of course, being sort of part of that for Southern California, but specifically here in San Diego. And we did have a sort of a leg up in the context that my business partner's husband was the chairman for PRANA at the time. So we were able to capitalize on their resources and connections and be introduced to people, to set our business up appropriately and really get real numbers on how we could grow a business, products that would make sense for us to launch with the kind of margins we needed, et cetera. So, yeah, there was a lot of Industry experience here in San Diego that we heavily relied upon and I think was one of the best advantages we had early on.

Well, it's great to have that to be able to lean on. But I know there's also some organizations that you now support, but also have been around for a bit, like San Diego Sports Innovators. Was that something that you knew about and were helping you when you started or you found it later?

No, we knew about them. Yeah. So it was different at the time. And I'm gonna. I don't want to missay what. What they were calling themselves, but it was an incubator program back then through Connect, I think. And so we applied and we pitched our business. And at that point we only had a few samples, but we did have a good idea of what we wanted to do and how we wanted to scale the business and what that model looked like. So we presented. We were accepted to present. And you present to a room of, I think, like 33 angel investors. You have a 15 minute presentation based on a format that they've provided for you. And then they do five minutes of Q&A, and then they do five minutes of feedback where you're not allowed to say anything, which is really hard for me. And they were pretty negative on the entire thing. And this was 2004, 2014. No, excuse me, this was spring of 2013. So we already had products that were being manufactured and we had a name, we had branded it, and we were ultimately told the name would not resonate with our customer. We were trying to be too many things to too many people. Oh, and if I stood in front of the podium versus behind it, it would be better for the presentation because I had nice legs. There was some, you know, and this is a story that has been shared with San Diego Sport Innovators since then, because it was really actually a compelling moment for my business partner and I because we realized that they were wrong and we wanted to prove them right, or we wanted to prove that they were wrong and that we were right, I should say. And so we did just that. And what was interesting that happened years later is we had three of the gentlemen that came that were part of that pitch, and they came to our store opening and. And apologized for the fact that they were wrong in not understanding the market that we were going after. And so their advice was inaccurate. And they each said their wives. The name that we had created, Grace by Grant, resonated with their wives. And that's what really ultimately changed their minds on realizing that they needed to look at things differently as they went forward with their investments, specifically with female products and consumer products.

Wow. Is there a little bit of a story behind the name that. Like how you came to it?

Yeah, there is. There is. You know, we were pretty strategic in that we understood that was, you know, branding and a marketing game. Ultimately, of course, we had to have great product to go along with that, but we knew that that was going to be the focus. And so we invested our initial funding into actually our branding. And we wanted to make sure it emulated who we were, but also the women that we were representing within our community or who the community that we were hoping to grow within the brand. And what that was and what we defined for ourselves was that we had each gone through a particularly tough moment or moments in our life that were very definitive in terms of figuring out that we had this strength we didn't know we had prior. And for me, that was having a baby, a junior in college, you know, obviously not. Not really the ultimate time to do that, but. And for my business partner, she had lost a husband to cancer in her mid-20s. And so for both of us, it launched us into figuring out that we had this grace, too. And so the name itself, graced by grit, is that women have these gritty moments in their lives that if you figure out how to push through them, that they ultimately become your grace. That really actually resonated very well for women that understood that and had felt it personally.

Yeah. Oh, I got kind of chills here in the story, which is pretty cool to have had that vision, especially since you built the brand first, like you said.

Yeah, yeah, it was cool. And it's funny because about a year into the business, I was driving the coast here and heading into our office one morning early, and I saw these women on the beach doing a photo shoot that were wearing our clothes. And it was like at the time where it's like you didn't see a whole lot of people wearing our clothes around. And so I was so excited that, like, oh, my gosh, there's people wearing our clothes and they're doing a photo shoot. I need to stop and see what they're doing. And so I stopped. They didn't know who I was. And I said, oh, what brand is, you know, what are you wearing? What are you doing this for? And they said, this is this company graced by Grid. And this is a feature on. This was a woman speaking that she was saying they were doing this San Diego. It was a stand up Paddleboard magazine was doing a feature on her because she was at the time, she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and she found solace in stand up paddleboarding. But what she wanted to share with me was that the clothes themselves graced by grit were like her armor. And that when she had her chemo herself, her visualization was the words graced by grit over and over because it defined who she was. And she said to me, you don't understand what the words grace by grit mean. And she didn't know again, who I was, but she was right. Like I did not know what that meant to her. And we heard stories like that over and over again from women where the name itself took on a life of its own because it defined people and it made them feel powerful in a way that they hadn't before.

Ooh, wow, that's incredible. A great, great story on, on branding and the right naming, which is so authentic, you know, to a product which doesn't always happen. That's for sure.

That is very true.

So where did that take you? I mean, how you got started, you had brand, you had a store, like, where did it ultimately head and go?

So we, yeah, so we built that company for five years and we, we were direct to consumer, which we knew we wanted to be early on. And, and part of that was that we were hosting these events that we called fit shops. They were like trunk shows, but we hosted them in women's homes or in yoga or pilates bar studios. And ultimately it was an experience that we were creating for people where we would share the story of the brand, the name, why it was so relevant, obviously share all the products. But it created this community where then we can obviously then market to them online, which was fantastic because that's how we were drawing customers. Certainly those types of events are not scalable unless you hire a team. So we did, we hired a lot of salespeople throughout the country. We ended up opening up 10 pop up stores throughout the country. We had a flagship store in Solana Beach, California. We opened a second store actually in north, in Carlsbad, which was. It was more of a pop up, but we actually hosted all of our fulfillment out of it because the space was so big. And so we built a pretty extensive team and brand. And where we struggled was in fundraising. And for us, we didn't do some things right for that. And you know, looking back on that time, if I could, if I could do things differently, that would probably be the number one is who we were trying to attract as investors were not the Right people. We assumed that women that had high net worth would be interested in investing in a women run company. And the reality was that not that they weren't interested, but that they were not making the decisions for their families from an investment standpoint. They were making decisions for their families just to run the household. And so we were not going after true investors, which were ultimately mostly men that also understood the space that could be strategic in helping us grow. And so that was one of our biggest struggle. It was our biggest struggle was, was being capitalized so that we could expand and scale the business to the extent that we wanted to. However, what we did stick to, which was we said in five years, we wanted to sell the business. Kimberly, my former business partner, was not looking for a 20 year career with Grace by grit. She was, you know, had already. She's significantly older than I am. She had had an extensive career and was really ready to move on and have more of a board seat for the company at that point. And whereas I was definitely. This was a launch pad for me, for my career in a lot of ways. But we struggled so much with raising capital that we had to really figure out what was our next step and what did that look like. And like a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, the hot word being pivot. And I think certainly a lot of people have experienced that during COVID but. But for us, it was okay. What is our pivot? And is it that we're trying to do an M and A? Is it that we just want to, you know, be fully acquired? Is it that we need to actually trim down and try to sort of scale back and see if we can grow this differently? And where we ended up landing was we do need to be acquired for this to be able to have legs and continue forward. And so we were targeting the right people and were able to. To secure a deal in June of 2018 and sell the company.

Wow, congrats. To another local brand. Correct?

Exactly. Yeah. To another brand that was actually just right in our backyard, also based in Solana Beach. Direct to consumer. They were only online, so different. Different philosophy in terms of that. But also they were really focused on men's apparel. And so that was where we complimented them because we had a strong female brand and products as well as the wherewithal to know how to do it. So we had the team that was able to make that happen. And so part of that acquisition was that myself and three other team members went over to join the Hyle team and help build out the women's product line and the narrative behind that. They had, you know, no females in leadership there. I was the first female to join that executive team and sit at that table. And, you know, they were a lot of men trying to write for women's product and create women's product, which, you know, I. I don't know the first thing about how to create a pair of shorts for you. So I think it's hard to have do the opposite. Right. For me for leggings. So it was, it was really serendipitous, actually merging of two different companies in a lot of ways that I'm super grateful for. And part of that was how do we carry on the legacy of Grace by Grit? Because they did not want to run Grace by Grit as its own brand within their line. They wanted it to merge and be part of highly. So we decided that the legacy of Grace by Grit and what we could do in terms of the work going forward for female empowerment was to create a foundation. And so 1% of the highly women's product line funds the Graced by Grit foundation, which was born in that acquisition.

Okay. Yeah. I was going to ask how the nonprofit came to be. That's really cool.

Yeah. And so that nonprofit focuses on creating the female leaders for tomorrow. And we do that through scholarship events and mentorship specifically for athletes.

Okay. So that that foundation lives on. It's actually pretty new, correct?

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So it took a while to get our official 501C3 status. And so we have just given out our first scholarship this past year to a young woman here in San Diego. And the reason we focused on athletics was obviously we're making athletic apparel. There's a great tie in there in terms of, you know, fitness being such an important part of all of our lives. But the other part of that is that statistically, young women that stick with sport and continue in at the collegiate level have a 90. Well, excuse me, have a greater chance of professional acceptance, success. So 94% of women that are in the C suite today were collegiate athletes. And so what that says is the skills that you learn and the character traits that you learn by participating in athletics lead to incredible leaders. So that's really where we wanted to invest our resources so that we could further that. And certainly, you know, girls that are in seventh and eighth grade, oftentimes that's when they're falling out of athletics. We wanted to help encourage girls to stay in, knowing that the self confidence, it would bring them later in life.

Wow, that's powerful. You know, it's not a given that entrepreneurs go and create nonprofits. You know, it's just like a whole other thing that you have to go and learn how to do and run. Why, why have you felt, you know, that throughout that this whole brand, I mean, it's obvious that it's had a great impact. But why do you, why did you feel like you also had to do the nonprofit side too?

Well, I think part of the ethos of graced by grit was the grit, the grace and the give. So with every event that we hosted, and that included online events too, we always wanted to give back to charities that were important to the hostesses. So we were, I mean, over the course of our business, we gave a tremendous amount of our revenue to, to charities because it was part of the experience for people that attended these events was, okay, not only are you buying, buy an incredible product for yourself and you're investing in yourself, which is very important, but you're also giving back to things that matter to you or matter to the hostess. And so that give part, I think is really critical as we look at brands and companies as their, you know, being, being built from the ground up is, you know, is that, is that woven into the culture and what does that ultimately mean? And for me personally, I always want to stand behind businesses and support businesses that recognize that they have an opportunity to give and that they build that into what they do. And so then, although, you know, and I'd worked at the Boys and Girls Club, so I had participated in the nonprofit work before and understood how important that was. And certainly starting a nonprofit, by the way, it's not as easy as it seems. I mean, you think, oh, okay, well, I'm just going to apply and the IRS is going to approve it. It's actually, it's somewhat complicated and tedious. And over the last eight months, we've actually built that nonprofit out further in terms of adding structure and bringing in some pretty high level board members that are helping to do even more with it. And so it's been a really cool process, but very different from building a business in a lot of ways and really similar too. It's just with a different mission and focus.

Yeah, the other side of giving back is the kind of altruism separate from a nonprofit. But just back to organizations, especially to your story where you had kind of a negative event with a startup resource that ended up coming around and getting to it, but you now give back significantly back to that organization. Like, you know, that says a lot, right? You you don't owe them anything. But you are here mentoring and giving your time to other entrepreneurs. Like what's the whole feeling of give back around that to as a. From an entrepreneur? Because you really could stay focused on the things you're working on, the things that make you money, the things that you're passionate like your non profit, but you're continuously giving back to other entrepreneurs too.

Yeah, you sound like my fiance, actually. Wait a minute. There's a lot of giving here on your end. That all being said, I think part of my reason for wanting to continue to give back with San Diego sport innovators, despite the initial relationship or lack thereof that was built with them, was because I saw the need for them to include more women in that conversation, very obviously based on my experience. But then as I became more involved with them and we always stayed in touch, I mean, don't get me wrong, that was an unfortunate sort of feedback from them. But I also think it really lit a fire in us and motivated us to, to do more and to be better and to prove them wrong. But what I always saw was they were just not attracting women to be part of it because it had always consistently been men. And so rather than going, well, I'm not going to try to make a change, I just thought, I mean, I'm a person that wants to be a change maker and I want to, I want to see the world, you know, with men, women, everyone being treated equally and having a fair shot. And rather than walking away from that and deciding to focus on maybe organizations or initiatives that were already doing that, I felt like I could lend my voice to help them to get there. And that's ultimately where I still sit today and how I feel today. I'm one of three board members for sdsi, female board members, excuse me, for sdsi. And you know, there's a lot of work to be done, but it's about having sometimes the tough conversations to get there. And also there's incredible people that are part of that organization and incredible entrepreneurs, as you know, here in San Diego that are doing all sorts of different things that I want to be able to support.

That's great. Well, thank you for continuing to give back. It's big. It's great just to show that entrepreneurs do right, like especially after having success, theoretically we easily could just check out, but you know, we're not done yet. We got a lot more impact to do on our community. So I applaud you for continuing to do that. The other interesting piece about how like you're influenced by your community, you're influenced by your surroundings. It sounds like a lot, including, you know, the sports aspect of San Diego, you know, our outdoor nature. It built, obviously built into your brand as well, too. We can't disregard our food scene and our taco scene here in San Diego that influences us. So we got to know, do you have a favorite taco spot or favorite taco?

So I do. I do. I. Well, so we have a house just over the border in Baja Malibu, which is like 20 minutes north of Rosarito, and we frequent there a lot. And so we actually go to Tijuana for my favorite tacos because they're the street tacos and there's nothing better. Homemade salsa, homemade guacamole right there. Like they make the tortillas right in front of you. It's just to die for. But here in San Diego, I would say my new favorite is actually city tacos, which tends to be a bit more gourmet, but it's. They're so good and, like, they have one that has mashed potatoes in it, which you would think wouldn't be that good, but it's so good.

Yeah, no, there's a time and place for every taco. You know, there's. Exactly, totally. And we're all one region here. We consider San Diego a mega region, which includes TJ and Baja, so.

Very true.

All fair game. Well, Kate, appreciate you telling your story with us and we're really excited to continue to have you as an asset to the community. So thank you for that.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of Rap for our rad intro music. And thanks as well to Nest Podcast network where we are recording live inside their studio at Nest Coworking in Bankers Hill. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eelbloom as well as fresh brewed tech and tacos and tech Pod on Twitter too.

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