It was an idea I kicked around in my head: How would a young tattoo artist like me ever do that? But I wanted to start a skincare brand, but for everyone, not just for people with tattoos. So I got a great manager and partners who pushed me to explore it. Then we met Miguel at CollabWorks, a product development team that works with emerging categories. They helped us find laboratories and product development people and put a structure and plan together. I'm an artist. I cannot think that way. So it's nice to have these people support me and teach me how to start a brand and how to work with products. It was quite an adventure.
Hornitos was an amazing partner as well. They fund interesting projects and took a chance on this weird little idea. We're so lucky that they decided to help us. It’s taught me so much about being a founder. It’s this next level up in this chapter of my life.
Launching a new product line in the midst of a pandemic must’ve been challenging. How did you decide when was a good time to go live?
We were going to launch in April, at the same time everything happened. No one really knew what to do. It was so much still so up in the air—how to proceed, not only with business but in terms of personal safety. So we pushed it back, and said, “Alright, let's table this for a while and see when we can launch, because it could be next week, or four months from now. Who knows?”
During that time, the team and I talked all the time. We were really affected by what's going on. We had all this soap ready to be sold and shipped. Then someone said, “We all have to wash our hands.” That was one of the first things we heard. “Keep your hands clean. Don't touch your face.” You didn't need an antibacterial soap. You just need good lather and warm water. And our soap is super at lathering. So we said, “Let's do something here. Let's give back before we even hit the pavement running. Let's do something for the community.”
So we partnered with an organization called Baby2Baby, which is an amazing charity that helps kids who need resources. I wanted to start with an organization in my community. As a father, I couldn't even imagine what it'd be like for my kids not to have these resources, especially at a time like now.
So we raised over $270,000 and donated every single cent to Baby2Baby. We banded together and worked on this project as our skincare brand, but not as a commercial driving profit. It was cool, because we didn't have an ulterior motive. It was like, “Let's see how much money we can raise to help Baby2Baby.” I feel like it kept the “WD 40 in the gears.” It kept us going with our weekly check ins and managing our product and learning how the online sales go.
How did you use Dropbox as you were developing the new product?
I don't know how we would have done it without using Dropbox, to be honest. Because for me, I was so used to just texting. I'm not savvy with the screens at all besides social media. I would text five pictures and then email 20 pictures and then they’d tell me, “Oh, we never got any of them.” I’d go back into like all your files are too big. None of them were sent. It was annoying, because we couldn't be in person to meet.
So how do we share ideas? Put it in the Dropbox. Then you go and download everything you need. On the tool side, it was very important to keep us connected, archive our information, and be able to send large files. Even before we were locked down, it was such an important thing, because a lot of our team live in different places. We have people in San Francisco and Chicago. Our product development team, one’s in Nashville, one’s on the east coast. For all of us to stay in tune and share our information properly, we had to all have a shared Dropbox folder.
Dropbox Paper was great. Being able to do edits right there and send them back and forth, instead of having to like screenshot, then send a separate note. It was all in one place. For me, that was key because I'm a visual and at the moment, person. If I didn't just do it right there and send it back, I’d completely forget.
What would you like to do with the Woo brand when we're on the other side of the pandemic?
A big part of the Woo brand is the lifestyle—traveling the world, seeing people, being with people, creating experiences and interacting with different cultures and cities. Because our world can be so small now, it'd be a shame to not take advantage of that. A lot of what I do is inspired by my travels. It's such a key element. There's so many different places that we wanted to go show the product or have a presentation or do a pop up. The first thing will be a global sharing tour to start spreading the word in different countries, and showcasing that it's a lifestyle brand for everyone, with or without tattooed skin.