Episode #36: Building A Circular Business In The Time Of Corona
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Can a circular business model find success in a pandemic? Yes, it can! And today’s guest, Lauren Gregor is going to share with us exactly how she made that happen. All new businesses require sacrifice and involve uncertainty. But “pivot” is an understatement for what this mompreneur did when her big launch season ended clashing with the start of COVID-19.
With tradeshows moved online or canceled, Lauren had to learn a new way to connect with her prospective buyers. And by taking action by action every single day, she managed to grow her sustainable company in a really unsure market. If you’re ready to learn how this mompreneur did it, then pop your earbuds in and take a listen!
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Shop Rent A Romper by clicking here.
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Azhelle
You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, Episode Number 36.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, a podcast for inventors and entrepreneurs like you. And now your host Azhelle Wade.
Azhelle
Before jumping into today's episode, I want to tell you all about something super special that I've got in the works. Now this is for you if you're in love with learning with me on this podcast, and you have an amazing toy or game idea that you want to create and monetize. In September, I will be opening the doors for you to register for my online digital course toy creators Academy. Now if you've already joined the email list, then go you you are ahead of the game and I can't wait to serve you when the doors open up. Toy Creators Academy is going to teach you how to develop your toy ideas and turn them into a toy business. So if you'd love a little more toy inspiration from me and a whole lot of guidance, then head over to toycreatorsacademy.com and join the early access list. If you're on that list, you are going to be among the first to know when the doors open. And to top it all off, you are going to get the opportunity to join the course at an incredible rate that no one else will get not even my regular toy coach insiders. So if you've got a few great toy ideas inside of you, and you want to turn those ideas into a toy business, head over to toycreatorsacademy.com to learn even more. Okay, let's jump into the episode. Hey there toy people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It in The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. For today's episode, my guest is a mompreneur with a circular business model. If you aren't sure what a circular business model is, then you probably haven't listened to my last episode. Yep, I caught you and I want you to go back and listen to that episode right now. After you listen in, then you'll learn a little bit more about sustainability and sustainable thinking. And you'll get even more out of today's episode. Our guest today is Lauren Gregor. The mompreneur behind Rent a Romper. Lauren is going to share her journey, conceptualizing launching and growing her sustainable business Rent a Romper. Rent a Romper is a children's clothing brand, not a toy company. But I found the business model, the website and Lauren just too valuable to pass up as a guest on this show. Okay, let's dive into the interview. Hey, Lauren, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Lauren
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Azhelle
To start us off. Would you mind just introducing yourself to my listeners? Who are you where you came from and why you decided to be an entrepreneur?
Lauren
Sure. Hi, I'm Lauren Gregor. I'm the founder and CEO of Rent a Romper. I am based in California today. And I come from a career background in strategy and operations. 15 years in various organizations, and never thought that I was going to be an entrepreneur, I always had a desire or direction from my parents probably to have a job that paid a salary and had benefits. But last year just really started to get this itch and this idea about forming my own business and solving a problem that I saw for parents. And it just wouldn't go away. It kept me up at night and in the morning and all day and decided to just go for it.
Azhelle
Why don't we talk about what Rent a Romper is?
Lauren
Yes, Rent a Romper is a rental clothing subscription for babies and toddlers. So we're relatively new, started in 2019. But I'm a mom and getting frustrated with the amount of clothes that I constantly was having to buy for my growing children and thought that there had to be a better way. So we provide clothing capsules for families that they can just trade out and exchange as their children grow.
Azhelle
So we actually met through this platform I the name of it's escaping me right now. It's a platform that connects podcast hosts and guests. And when I saw what you were doing, it resonated so much because I just recently had someone else on the show talking about sustainability. I just I love the sustainable aspect of Rent a Romper. And I'm actually curious where you actually thinking sustainability when you came up with the idea or was it something else driving you
Lauren
was thinking about sustainability. But I think it was a combination of things. So I've always been a working mom, like with 100 things on my to do list at any given time. And, and so I think one of the real drivers at first was about convenience, like how can I have something that just makes my life easier and makes you know, other parents lives easier. But at the same time, you know, there are a lot of solutions today that make our lives convenient. You can have, you know, order online and get delivery tomorrow. But you just have these endless piles of boxes outside your door, and you're generating more and more waste. And that wasn't something that I was willing to compromise on. I'm really concerned about the future of our planet, and I want to be doing something that I'm modeling for my own children, and that parents can model for their, their generations after them of how do we consume more responsibly. And so it has been from the core of founding this business, really something that we're thinking about, how do we not only change the way people consume, but we use clothing that sometimes kids only wear once and you know, it has a full life still left in it. So it is really part of the core of what we're trying to do.
Azhelle
Yeah, I really I resonate with what you're saying, what did you do a little bit differently, with Rent a Romper to avoid from being another just another pile of boxes at your doorstep.
Lauren
The main thing is that we are a circular model. So you are renting the clothes from us, we provide a curated wardrobe for a child and we you know, we ship it to you, there's a box that arrives at your doorstep. And we have in there a pre paid bag where our customers, when they're finished with the clothes, they just throw it back in the bag, and it comes back to us. So we are saving them from having to you know, worry about what do you do with these clothes from generating waste. And really trying to minimize like going out and ordering more things online. You know, we some of our wardrobes come with 15 items, which you might today, you know, shop at four different stores to get those four different boxes or four different trips out. So I think in some ways, we're trying to sort of simplify and streamline that for our families. But also just reuse the clothing as long as we possibly can. And with a circular rental model. You know, we've been in business now about six months, and we're already seeing clothes that are on their fourth family. So we know that they're, you know, there's more to these clothes than just wearing them once or you know, going through one family there's there's a lot longer of a life that we can extend.
Azhelle
But how did you get around the worry that I'm sure parents have about the cleanliness of the clothes that they're renting?
Lauren
It's like the first thing, you know, I thought of I think part of this is that, you know, I'm a mom, I've been through this experience, I've lived this. So I know that kids are messy. I've lived through, especially in the baby stage, like those explosions that happen. We know that's what happens. And so part of from the very beginning, we've baked into our financial model that we're going to lose items, and we don't want our customers to feel nervous about wearing them or you know, their kids rolling around in the dirt. Like we want them to enjoy their clothes. So we've just in our side, written in the fact that we know that that's going to happen. When we receive clothes back, we ask that our customers send everything back to us, we know that there may be staining, that's okay, they send it to us. And we inspect every item. So every item gets checked, you know, visible stains like wear and tear. Because we do want even though you're renting clothes, we want everyone to feel that the clothes they receive are really fresh and clean for their their child. So we do that. And then we we clean everything and we sanitize everything. And there are items that don't get on to the next box. So we end up retiring them. And some of them we can either reuse or donate to some of like local community partners that we have. Or we're working with a couple of companies now to actually recycle or upcycle the clothing where they break down the fabric and remake it. Oh, wow. That's like through the whole cycle of the life of the clothing via sustainable as we can. But we know that, you know, kids are messy, and that's fine.
Azhelle
This is literally exactly what my last guest said. She said it's not just about designing sustainable products out of sustainable materials. It's about thinking about the life of the product. And that's exactly what you're doing, which is fantastic and a big part of why I want to have you on the show. But it also sounds like a really complicated business model. Like how how do you figure out how to align all of the pieces perfectly so that you always have clothes available for a family? How do you align the time you need to clean these clothes? Like? How did you even begin to structure this really unique business model?
Lauren
The first answer for that, and when you're thinking about, like a really complex new business is like, you don't know the answers right away, and you don't have the perfect solution. So I think I mean, because in a part, you don't even know, like, the puzzle you're trying to create yet. Because I think for me, like, I'm a very action oriented person. And I just started, we did a small pilot. Back in the fall of last year, we had 10 customers, you know, families and friends and some new people that we had generated organically, but we were getting a lot of feedback from them. So I started just with, okay, let me see how much clothes are gonna cost? Let me start getting close. Let me start figuring out how to ship them. And, you know, one step after the next, how do we receive the clothes back? Okay, I need to make sure that there's an envelope and inside that has a label on it. Or how are people going to know which clothes are ours and which clothes are theirs, then we added a barcode, they bought every piece. So I didn't know the answers from the beginning, you know, I think we've evolved. And as a new problem has arisen, or a new customer piece of feedback has come up, and we adapt. And we added in. So, you know, day one, I didn't have barcode labels on everything we do now, day one, you know, I, this is really, you know, customers wanted to say, needed a reminder of what they had in their box. So we added something where we print a sheet that has photos of every piece of clothing that they have in their box, so that when they go to pack it back up at the end, they can know. And those are things like I didn't think of at the beginning, we keep adding, and we keep learning as fast as we can, and making improvements as fast as we can. So I think in a business like this, that's really complex, and there's so many moving pieces. Like, I definitely don't have any answers at any time. And when you say like, you know, sometimes I don't know, what orders are going to come in tomorrow, like I might get a newborn order and or I might get a size three order. Who knows. And it might be a girl two might be boy, I don't know, I'm just trying to stay like one step ahead as fast as I can. So that whenever something comes in, we can deliver on it. And if and if it doesn't we make it happen. Like, we just yeah, figure it out.
Azhelle
I feel like you must have some project management tool that is just excellent that you could recommend to people because how else could you plan such a complex model? Like what what system do you use to use Trello? Asana, like, what's your poison? What do you use,
Lauren
You're gonna laugh at me. I come from a like project management background. Okay, I ran a program management office and my last, like, one of my last careers. Before this, I use nothing, I am so embarrassed to say, I have, there's constantly moving like, billions of parts. But I haven't been using anything. And I think part of it is just the nature of being a solo entrepreneur, like, I just have to do everything at every time. And it goes completely against my grain, which is Wow, we need to plan. And we need to strategize. And I need to, like know, all of the work streams and when they're flowing and what's happening. But I just as a result of like, being on my own, trying to just make everything happen. And COVID you know, just like so many factors. I haven't had that time to sit and think how do we make this happen in the most strategic you know, streamline kind of way? Yeah. So if anybody has feedback, down life and give me you know, six hours to just do what I would have done in any of my other prior jobs, like, give me a wall, and let me plan out the next 12 months. That would be that'd be brilliant. Well,
Azhelle
I would say a VA for sure. For one, you can at least get a VA for yourself. Right? I yeah, you should Upwork do it. But okay. All right there. I mean, there's so many questions. I feel like I know, I know a little bit about Rent a Romper. But let's clarify how this works. So moms or dads, whoever parents sign up, and they pay a subscription every single month, and then they receive about 15 pieces of clothing at a certain age and size for their kid. And then they return that clothing as their kid grows and they get the next box. But how much how much is this service each month.
Lauren
So we have two options we have we can we call it the complete capsule, and it has 15 items, and that's $39 a month. And then we keep
Azhelle
on. Okay, all right.
Lauren
And then we have a another size, which we call just the essentials. And that is seven items, and it's $24 a month. And we find like, you know, some people already have hand me downs from family, and they just need to supplement their wardrobe or they're missing a few key pieces. So we we do find that customers like that essentials capsule as well. And the complete one is more for people that, you know, they don't have anything, and
Azhelle
how long can they keep them for,
Lauren
They can keep them as long as they want. That's part of our model, like you just keep the clothes and while you have the clothes, you're paying the fee on a monthly basis,
Azhelle
Less than $3 per piece every month. That's, that's insane. And then Okay, I don't have kids. So I don't know. But I mean, from what I've heard, they grow so fast, how, how often are people returning capsules and getting new ones,
Lauren
it really varies at the newborn stage, we might have a, you know, kids that are growing out in two weeks or less, and they they're exchanging it. So that's the other part is that they can exchange it as often as they need to. We have a customer, she just had her baby a couple of weeks ago, and she had ordered the newborn capsule. And once the baby came, she realized her baby's already too big for that. She just box it up and you know, ships in the night, we just sent another capsule with the next size up for her. And then as they grow, you know, three to six months, a year old, they start to wear those clothes a little bit longer. And then our customers are really training those ones out more around every two months, sometimes longer.
Azhelle
I mean, this is it's such a great concept. Because I feel when there's so little I see when I go to my friends like baby showers, everybody's buying them all these clothes, sometimes they buy them so many clothes, I'm like, are they even gonna have time to wear all of these before they grow out of them? You know, and yeah, it's just such a smart concept.
Lauren
There are a couple other companies that are starting to pop up sort of similar models not exactly the same. There's a company that is doing more like a rent to buy type of model, okay. And they're sourcing a lot of their clothes from very specific brands, and their price point is a lot higher than ours. So I think that's one of you mentioned that it is cost effective. One of my key motivators is that we remain affordable, because I think, often, you know, we can find a convenient or a sustainable solution or like, in some ways, both, hopefully, but sometimes it is cost prohibitive. And you know, like, Well, I'd love to do that. But I can't afford $100 a month,
Azhelle
Right? Yeah,
Lauren
You know, this is a solution that I want everybody to be able to, you know, feel like is achievable. And know that it's saving money in the long run, they can make a good decision for themselves in a planet, like compromise on their wallet as well.
Azhelle
Oh, so good. I kind of want to go back to when you talk about your pilot program, because I feel like that's an important piece that people don't think about. So a lot of times when people have a toy idea, and they're like really excited about it, and they're like, I want to turn this into a business, they go full in, you know, they're ordering 500 pieces, 1000 pieces of this one concept before really testing it out. And I really love that you took time to gather friends and family and some people that you didn't know, and just do a soft launch. Did you know at the time that you were doing a soft launch? Or do you just now call it your soft launch? Because now you had a bigger launch? You know, or were you intentionally testing out the concept?
Lauren
I think at the time I knew that it wasn't fully baked. Right? Okay. Yeah, I knew that we're going into it, to learn and to see what happens. And so I think at the time, I didn't call it a pilot. I didn't say do you want to participate in this pilot? I said, we're here for this business. Do you want to participate? Yeah. And so and if like more customers had wanted to comment that time, we would have taken them on. So it wasn't complete, piloted in that sense of like, we'll try this for three months and see what happens. We were just shifting and adapting that whole time. But I think immediately, you know, especially being a solo entrepreneur, like ideas are just me in my own head thinking, I think parents would like this or I think this is the right price or, you know, whatever. I think this is the right number of clothes and The box, right, but that first pilot, I guess calling it that now, like it was just through Instagram, really. And I was with our customers all the time, like, how did you like it? You know? Which brands are great? How did the zippers work? Do you like other brands, I'm talking to them all the time. And then one of our customers right away was like, this is so much clothes, really, you know, 15 items, she had her second daughter. So she already had some from her older one. And so really be based on her feedback was why we added the essential stocks. And so it was it was just learning. And like, I think at that time was trying to, you know, we went into it knowing that things were going to change. And that we would learn from from, you know, testing it out. But I still didn't know, you know, wasn't like we'll do it until this point, it was technically live.
Azhelle
Yeah. What are you comfortable saying? If I asked you was your initial launch profitable?
Lauren
No, no,
Azhelle
But you made changes in that launch that you knew would make it profitable?
Lauren
Yes. From where we launched to today, our prices are higher. Mm hmm. Um, we have added additional product line, we are figuring out better ways to actually source our clothes, right. So one, like being able to be ahead of the curve in terms of inventory, instead of you know, back at that pilot pilot time, I was like, just playing catch up, like somebody would order and I would have to run out and buy the clothes too.
Azhelle
Oh, my gosh, what?
Lauren
Because I didn't know like, you know, I think at that time, I also had an assumption that parents that were newborn parents might not necessarily want rental clothes, and maybe it would be like six to 12 months, you know, or once they kind of get into it. And they think, Oh, goodness is too much. I don't want to buy a gun. I'm gonna subscribe. Yeah, my assumption was wrong. So I had bought, you know, six to 12 months or 12 to 18 months, and my subscribers were newborns. So I had to go get the clothes.
Azhelle
How did you find your subscribers? Was it a challenge to find them and then to convince them like, this is safe for your baby? Trust me, I know, it's cheap. And you know, people when something's cheap, they're like, What? Why is this so cheap? Like, I know, this is cheap, but this is safe and healthy. And I'm gonna help you save money and clothe your child like, how did you find them? And how did you convince them to try this service out?
Lauren
I think we're still in that. I'm still fighting them. And I'm still convincing them. But it's been actually more of a challenge being in COVID times because particularly with suffer kids, and I'm sure you find this with toys as well. Like one you want to hear it from another parent, or you want to see it, like for yourself in action. Right? And my initial thought in the beginning of the year was we're gonna go out to mom and baby shows we're gonna go to like expecting parent expos. We're gonna have a booth, like, show people know the clothes are really great like them. Because the other thing is we're not, you know, it's not Oh, that's a cute piece of clothing, send it to me, right? It's a more complex, like, you're going to return the clothes, they're going to be rented. So people need a little bit more like engagement to really grasp it. And so a lot of our growth right now has been through word of mouth. So our initial customers we've had some people like buying gift cards who then that's an endorsement for someone else. Yeah, to that and subscribe. And we have done a handful of virtual baby shows so similar to like if you would be in an exhibit hall there's been a couple of that have moved virtually and instead of that your as an exhibitor, you get a Facebook Live segment. So we get 20 minutes to talk about venture offer interesting, um, and not has been really good as well. Because I think people then get to, you know, like, even though it's video, I can hold up the product, I can show them what a box looks like, I get to explain the model. I can, like literally Hold up. Here's a return bag, you just put the clothes back inside.And so I think that has helped a little bit, getting us a bit more momentum. But a lot of it has been just organic, talking with people, one on one, one on one, whether that be through social or, you know, our current customers sending another friend so it's been slow, especially at this time because you can't like get out and face to face with people we've been, we've been doing it, we've been finding people, I think it just takes a little bit of that extra time and, you know, explanation about our product. And and the model, people have been pretty comfortable and very excited about the idea. It's like, I've never heard of this before.
Azhelle
Right? It sounds like you have almost a personal relationship with a lot of your customers. So I'm curious to talk about how you, you know, take care of your customers I saw on your website, you had like a baby on the way contest? Are there other creative ways that you marketed your brand to your current and your new customers?
Lauren
I think part of it, for me comes from why I founded this company, like, it's really personal to me, the things that I care about, and like how hard it is to be a working parent. And I want to be a brand that really helps me make people lives better, and is like, very honest about the reality of parenting. Like, I think so much today's like, Oh, look at this pretty baby picture. But like, let's not talk about the fact that mom hasn't slept in three days. And, uh huh, whatever, from the start, any customer that has engaged with me, I really try to go over the top two, one, really, truly engage with them, and just make them feel like their life has been made easier by us and not more complicated. So I think that takes time, but also just like, whether it's over email, like through our initial email marketing campaigns, they're really personalized. And, you know, we asked things like, tell me about your baby, are you expecting, you know, what are your kids names? Like, Tell me your story. And I try to share through my like, writing in my blogs or whatever, just really personal things, because I think that's what it's about. But I think that's just sort of my approach to it is like, I think our customer, our customers are the only reason we're here. And the only reason that I made this company is to help them in their lives. I just think that that's really important engaging with them, whether it be over email, or through Instagram, through any channel we can. And, and I it's funny, you asked about that baby contest, you know, last Facebook Live session, we did I happen to be on the day that my brother and sister in law were in the hospital delivering their baby. Ah, so So I was like, so nervous for the show, because I was also thinking about them and like what's happening, but so we ended up doing a contest and a giveaway. And I sort of like on the fly, I thought, you know, we'll have to do something, this will be so fun. So we had all of the Facebook Live guests. Guess when the baby would be born and what they would name him because we needed the name. Nobody got the name, right. But we did give a free subscription to the person that gets the closest time of the birth.
Azhelle
So that's so nice. Yeah, that's great.
Lauren
And I think it's exciting, like a lot of the people that we're reaching out to as prospective customers are expecting. And so that time is just it's such a special time, and everybody's really either anxious or excited about it.
Azhelle
Now, I do have one more question where you get your clothing from? What was your first idea to gather, you know, affordable clothing that you could rent out and at an even more affordable rate? And then I'm curious to know what you discovered, along the way, like new avenues for this clothing.
Lauren
So I guess, first I'll preface with I am not a fashion person, like my background is not in this industry. So right at the beginning, I I knew I wanted to keep things really affordable. So I was trying to, you know, just buy clothes, the cheapest I could find. So I was like, going on the Old Navy sale for like 60% off the clearance, you know, so I was getting like $1 t shirt or whatever. Oh, and I was just trying to find brands like that, like at the at the very earliest stage, it didn't matter to me where it came from. I wanted to find as cheap as I could, because I also like I didn't have the advantage of I'm going to buy in bulk. I was buying individual pieces, right needed to keep it really cheap. There's a whole lot of production of clothing that in big box stores like that, that gets discounted and then discounted again and then discounted again. And either like may end up in landfill or somewhere else capturing that dead stock from those types of organizations or businesses. Like can give it this additional life. Yeah. And I think at that beginning that was part of my approach of like, let's let's find it's okay to have those brands because we're doing something better with them. To close over time, it has changed though, because I think now we're in a position where I can buy in bulk. And we have now wholesale partnerships. So I do have a wholesale partnership with Gerber.
Azhelle
Wow, okay,
Lauren
is that okay? Yes, it's great, amazing, which gives us a lot of like our basics, you know, we need a lot of one Z's, and like shorts and pants. So we get great prices through them for those basic items. And then we also have, you know, we're building out wholesale partnerships with others that are like smaller, organic brands, you know, when we might buy smaller inventory stock from them, but we're trying to build out this sort of inventory. And I think one thing that Rent a Romper can do versus some, you know, some other brands are just shopping is like, you get to test out a lot of brands. So you might get a box of 15 items, but it might have seven different brands in there. Things you never heard of before. So it is also introducing people to new things and letting them test outs, you know, items were some of the items we have in our box. Like if you bought a off the shelf, it would be $40. But you get to try it or keep it for three months.
Azhelle
Wow, I love it. I'm now I'm like, I'm totally snooping on your Instagram, by the way. Great, great photography, like one of your last three images is extremely powerful showing the complete capsule with all of the clothes and it looks like insane amount. I can't believe you can get this for $39 a month. That's amazing.
Lauren
It is amazing. That's one that was our customer. She took that photo. That's a super Wow. I mean, they're It's amazing.
Azhelle
And I love that. So I'm curious to know, like since COVID, have you noticed any shifts in the market? Or how you're going to market yourself that you're you're realizing, Oh, I thought this was going to be a temporary change to how we do business. But I think this is going to be a permanent change.
Lauren
Yeah, right around March when we went into lockdown was like, right, or about the same time we actually did a US are stronger launch, like we were already long, but we put up our new website. And you know, so we were going to make a bigger push around that time. And we were going out, like already scheduled to attend all of these trade shows and conferences, which all got canceled. So I think at that beginning, there was like, first from our just marketing perspective, like, okay, shift, how are we going to reach people, but also we just needed to be really clear about the cleanliness. And at that time, I used to have somebody that would come help and like wash the clothes and help inventory. And for the first few months, I did not do that at all. I did everything myself because I just wanted to have so much control right over what was happening with the every all the cleaning process. At the beginning there. You know, it's lasted so much longer than me initially thought but the cleanliness was a really big part. The other thing is that people like even if they wanted to people can't really go to the stores.
Azhelle
Yeah, oh, that's a good point.
Lauren
People can order online, so I'm sure that people are but I think this is an alternative to like, you don't have to leave your house. You know, you can just subscribe and we'll deliver and so I think that is an advantage.
Azhelle
Such an advantage. I didn't even think about that.
Lauren
Especially for like, new moms. Yeah, like, you know, I have a six and a four year old now. And you know, sometimes I'll drag them out of the house to go with me to the grocery store or something. But when you have a newborn is climate, like people don't want to take them to the shop.
Azhelle
So okay, I mean that. I feel like I've learned so much about wrench romper. But I want to know what's what's in store for the future? I know, it's only been six months, but I'm sure you have some plans. So what do you think is going to be the future of Rent a Romper,
Lauren
I have so many dreams in the next few months, we're really going to be growing and adding new wholesale partners. So we have a few more in the works that I'm really excited about. We're gonna just keep getting like our whole inventory better and stronger for everybody. And then we have a couple of new features that we've been working on. One is seasonal rentals. So had a lot of our customers asking and inquiring about like, I mean, who knows what's going to happen at Halloween that night? Can you rent Halloween costumes? Yeah, can you rent you know, we go to my in laws in Michigan every, you know, holiday time and I don't want to buy all new winter clothes. Can you rent winter clothes. So we have been starting to get gathered inventory for that. And we'll be hopefully in the coming months launching seasonal rentals. So even if you're not in the baby stage, you'll be able to rent the seasonal wardrobes for your kids, you know, all the way up to age eight.
Azhelle
So just one more question. I mean you're doing amazing things with your business and I would love to give some inspiration to fellow toy or even children's product entrepreneurs that might be listening.
Lauren
I think the first thing I would say is like, go for it. Number one, you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to have everything perfect or planned out, just start and be willing to like learn and adapt along the way. And I think the faster you get going and the momentum just picks up from there. So I know sometimes there's a hesitation at the beginning of like, is this the right idea? Should I be like, just go and put it out there and learn and adapt? So I think that's the first one. And then I think the second one is just like listen, listen to customers, listen to people that are like willing to give you feedback, or at all, whether that's negative or positive, or whatever it is. And you'll get a lot of feedback. And then I think it's your job to sort of distill that, and, you know, move forward. But I think like, take every meeting, take every piece of feedback, talk to every customer and just listen because it will just help you hone in on what is going to make you successful.
Azhelle
I agree with that. 1,000%. All right. It was such a pleasure to have you on the show. Lauren, thank you for so much for stopping by.
Lauren
Thank you so much. It was so good to talk to you. And I really am excited about what you're doing and sharing all of these experiences.
Azhelle
Thank you. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Lauren Gregor from Rent a Romper, and found inspiration in hearing about her successful circular business model. My purpose for having Lauren on this episode is for inspiration, not just for starting any company or toy company, but one with a more sustainable business model. Lauren didn't have it all figured out. When she first started her business. She dove in took action and figured it out step by step. Now you can check out Rent a Romper at rentromper.com or at Rent a Romper on Instagram or Facebook. And if you can't write it down right now, maybe you're jogging or going for a walk, don't worry, just head over to thetoycoach.com forward slash 36 to grab the links and connect with Lauren at Rent a Romper. Okay, now it's time for a nother listener spotlight. I hope you enjoy this part of the show as much as I do. Today's listener spotlight comes from EA productions. EA says always something to learn. As an inventor who has licensed a product I'm still surprised at how much there is to learn. This podcast is a great tool for getting inside details and setting you up in the right direction to educate yourself on the industry. Thank you so much for that awesome review. I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this podcast each and every week. I know there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week. I'll see you later people.
Intro/Outro + Jingle
Thanks for listening to Making It in The Toy Industry podcast with Azhelle Wade, head over to thetoycoach.com for more information tips and advice
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