Ep 246 Creating a Full-Time Ecommerce Bean Business Their Way with Patty & Caroline of Well Bean

It doesn't matter how much money you have, your age, your current job, or your experience, a beautiful business is possible for you if you are willing to keep taking action and get outside of your comfort zone. 

This is exactly what Patty & Caroline, co-founders of Well Bean, makers of bean-focused bars and desserts (and they are delicious!) are doing. I've been so impressed working with them over the years as they keep making progress and taking calculated risks to advance their business. When Patty shared with me that she officially quit her J-O-B to go full time in the business, I had to have them on to share their story.

Use code SARI10 at https://wellbean.life/ for 10% off your first order. 

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Transcript

Sari  0:00  
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in and food founder journey so you can learn what worked and didn't work and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in!

Sari  0:48  
Welcome back to the podcast everyone, really excited about this episode. I am welcoming on two new guests, and I'm welcoming Patty and Caroline with Wellbeing and really excited to talk about their business. They've been in business since 2018 and they're creating bean based bars and other whole plant foods. And I've been working with you guys on and off over the years, and I just felt like I really want to tell your story, and I really want people to see that there's a different way to do things than the traditional wholesale path. So I'm really excited to have this conversation about how you are getting new customers, your e commerce, like how you're building that and also the inner workings of your business, because you guys have evolved significantly since, you know, having that idea in 2018 over the last six and a half years. So welcome to you both. 

Patty  1:55  
Thank you. Thank you. 

Sari  1:56  
Yeah, so good to have you here. So yeah, you are good. So tell me a little bit. Let's just kind of start go in the way back machine, 2018. Tell us a little bit about how you guys got started, and what made you decide to actually make this a thing, start a business.

Patty  2:23  
Yeah, well, it started with my, I guess, digestive issues, and that was sort of the springboard. I mean, previous to that, Caroline's always been urging me to eat healthier. She's, you know, long time whole food, plant based eater and coaching people and I was just in the corporate world, you know, working my CPA job, my accounting job. And you know that environment isn't the healthiest in general. And you know, things were kind of creeping up on me, like higher cholesterol, and then some digestive problems. And she was just always telling me, You need to eat more beans, greens, nuts and seeds, right? But beans, you know, like beans, beans, always beans. And I'm like, oh, I love beans but they're, you know, I can only eat so many of them. And so, you know, the usual way, like a bean burrito, which isn't really healthy, honestly, for the way that I would eat them, but. And then one day I got a text. It said, we've got to make a bean bar. Then I thought, okay, sure, I'll go along with this, but the reason why I said that is because I was starting to look online, you know, and trying to figure out, like, okay, well, I need quick things to grab and, you know, something easy to take to the office or even eat while I'm driving to work. You know, something just straight forward and simple. And, you know, I was looking for a snack bar, basically, or something simple like that, and I couldn't find anything out there with beans. And if I did, I ordered one that I found, like, obscure, I don't even think it's around anymore, but it had some kind of, like, bean powder in there, but a bunch of tapioca, right? And it didn't taste good. No, it wasn't healthy. So, yeah, I just kind of kept, you know, searching, and I and she had always been making treats, with the bean brownies, bean cake, you know, all these things. Everything beans. So I just, you know, I kind of propose the idea, like, we need to make a bean bar, you know, something for me, first of all. But then I started looking, I'm like, there's other people who need this, and you know, she'll keep it super clean, you know, like, cleanest ingredients ever. And then, so, yeah, I hit her up with the text, basically that said, we need to make a bean bar.

Sari  5:09  
Because you guys are friends, like you said, you've been friends for a long time, and so you're having these conversations. Yeah, and Caroline, I know would you call yourself a health coach? Is that how you describe yourself? Or nutrition coach?

Caroline  5:26  
Yes, yeah, that's one thing I do. I have a master's in marriage, family therapy, and I use what I learned there with cognitive behavior therapy to help people switch to a whole food, plant based diet. And you know, the hardest part about it is getting you know, I can tell them what to eat, and they can buy into it and everything, but then they can't stick to it, so I use the cognitive behavior techniques to help them stick to it for the rest of their lives ideally. 

Sari  5:50  
I love that combining psychology. 

Caroline  5:55  
A lot of psychology in it and change and dodge, is very hard for people to change their diet and permanently.

Sari  6:03  
Yeah, so, so, yeah. Six and a half years ago, you're having these conversations. You get the text. What made you think like, we're the ones to be an entrepreneur, to create this, to like, who said that you could do this?

Patty  6:25  
I know, well, I'm not exactly sure, but, you know, at the time, I was just, you know, I've done accounting all my career, basically, and made little attempts to kind of get out of the the normal role of that. And I was wanting more, you know, I guess, more creativity in my job and what I spent my time doing, and more physical activity like sitting at a desk job. You know, it's just not that great, right? And you know, Caroline was trying to expand her coaching and, you know, getting some way to connect with her people out there. And so I think I just kind of like, well, you know, this should really be on the shelf somewhere, you know, something like this, because what I was finding just wasn't that great. And so I kind of dug into, you know, looking at whatever I could find about, you know, upcoming trends. Did my little whatever searches I could stumble across. And I even found something that, you know, looked into like the being, you know, using beans was kind of like an up and coming trend. Cereal bars were, you know, replacing cereal on the cereal aisle. And so once I started thinking about just evolution of like, yeah, I want to find something, I don't know what you know to do. And this kind of, they just kind of kind of sort of came together, you know, mystically. But yeah, little by little, and so, yeah, I did think like, well, there's a lot of people struggling with, you know, diabetes, high cholesterol, digestive issues are rampant, you know, inflammation and, you know, things that, and people are like me, like they're busy, they're just used to eating what they are able to easily get sometimes. And yeah, what's on the market just really wasn't that great. And, you know, maybe some are whole food, but they weren't really satiating. And so, you know, just the story, the little pieces of the story just kind of kept coming together, yeah. And so I was trying, you know, say, you know you could concoct something. I know you can, you know. And we talked about ways. 

Caroline  8:55  
Yeah, I was, yeah, you asked how, why did we think the ones to do this? And I didn't really have much faith in the idea, to be honest, because I've worked with a lot of people changing their diet, and most of the average American eater is not, their taste buds are not attuned to the subtle flavors in natural foods and beans. I love beans I make a pot of beans, like every five days, and I eat every day, you know, and then I make a new pot five days later, and I don't put anything in them. It's just beans, and they taste so good to me. I mean, I eat them and I'm like, oh, my God, this is so good. But most people, they need salt and they need spices, you know, they need sugar, they need fat, you know, something in there to make those beans taste good. But so I've been very skeptical, but I'm starting to believe now. 

Sari  9:45  
Oh, seven years in, she's starting to believe.

Caroline  9:49  
There's enough people out there whose taste buds have been reformed or reformed enough or wanting to reform their taste buds and eat healthy, because it does take a to change your diet, requires your taste buds to change and adopt a new and they can change. That's the beauty of it. Most people don't realize their taste buds can change, to learn to eat like I do, and I didn't grow up eating this way. I grew up in the South eating fried foods, and I didn't have a vegetable that wasn't buttered or deep fried or smothered in 1000 Island dressing until I was in my 20s, so it was, you know, I had to change my taste buds. But anyway, yes, I'm starting to believe, because we're reaching a lot of people, and a lot of people are happy, and we keep getting these great reviews. I mean, people are, like, ecstatic about Well Bean. And then sometimes people email and say, you know, Well Bean has helped them get off of sugar, and I love that, because I was addicted to sugar and it was miserable for decades. So I love hearing that something I've created can help people break free from the sugar addiction. That's very fulfilling. 

Patty  10:59  
She was just hurting me at first.

Sari  11:16  
Love that, I guess I want to know, you know, because this podcast is four people starting a packaged food business, and what were some you know, I think I met you guys maybe three years into your journey, about then 2021 I think. I do remember our very first phone call, or Zoom call, which is so funny. But what do you think maybe one of my questions would be, if you're going into a partnership, what would you tell your you know, what would you tell someone else or your former selves, as you're creating, you know, you guys are friends, you're obviously investing time, investing money. What would you tell that somebody else who's starting a partnership to help set them up for success,? Because I'm sure you've learned through your own wins and failures. 

Sari  12:11  
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Caroline  14:12  
Yeah, that's, well, starting a partnership specifically, yeah, I think I'm trying to say with the initial communication, yeah, you have to communicate. And we have a long history, you know, and we have to sit down periodically and hash things out and communicate about our relationship, you know, that's really important to stay up to date, because we have different ideas. We see things very differently. I mean, I look at us in the camera and we have totally different coloring, you know, we're at opposite ends, and in many ways, we're at opposite ends.

Patty  14:55  
On our thinking, our approach, but also our skill set. But they ended up being complimentary. So I guess I would say, like, finding, you know, finding what those complimentary skills are, and kind of drawing on those. Like, we both didn't really see ourselves running a business on our own completely. Like, wow, that would have been a different kind of journey, but we've been able to, like, keep each other a little bit lifted up when things were a struggle. Or, she's very much a task manager, so she's always got, you know, like, the next thing and the next thing, right, which is cool, you know. And I had my list I did, like, the business, you know, like certain I'm good about, like, getting things, you know, figured out and set up. But she's really thinking about, like, getting it done today. Okay, I can come up with, what do we need to get done? And she's like, getting it done today. And I'm more laid back. So it was just, yeah, I would say, like, noticing what your individual skill sets were, but, yeah, it helped us keep moving. Like she said, she didn't believe in it initially, but I did. But then she kind of, you know, hopped on board with some of the, you know, like getting the business license and, you know, finding this, I don't know how we found. Oh we said, well, let's go try it. And we went to maybe Farmers Market first, and then found that little fair for women owned business. So anyways, you know, like, how did we figure it out? And some of it was just sort of like evolving organically, and we're like, oh, this popped up. Okay, let's try that.

Caroline  16:46  
I want to say more about the partnership and what we tell two new people, which is, you know, I would say agree with what Patty just said, but also, you know, keep at it until you find a common ground, because we often will, even though we start out at opposite ends, usually if we keep passion away. And it can be painful at times, but we can hit on something, and we both look at it like when we're doing our packaging. And, you know, she likes this, I like that. But eventually we get to a one, and we both look at it, we're like, I like that. 

Patty  17:20  
That's a good blend, actually, but iterations and kind of has a lot of iteration, and I guess I would yeah, sort of like, the balance between getting it done and taking the time of like, well, let's write as good as we can, but not overdo it to the nth degree, but yeah, we sort of find those common grounds of, like, working through the process and sometimes compromising, sometimes giving up, you know, like what our idea was, but then finding, like, okay, this sort of is that nice little balance between both.

Caroline  18:00  
Assuming and expecting that there's going to be friction, I think is important and friction doesn't mean it's wrong. It just, it's just a part of being humans. I mean, we're both humans, it turns out. 

Sari  18:13  
So many bean puns in your world. I mean, what I've observed with working with you on and off over the years is that, I feel like you both really appreciate that there are differences between you two and, you know, Caroline, you can be a little more fiery, and Patty's kind of like the slow, like calm one. But then I love that you are willing to accept that there is going to be friction, that there is going to, it's actually going to make you guys better as a company, as the product is going to be better. And I've also watched you guys learn to trust each other and figure out, like, which lane Does, does each person play in and where? You know, it's finding that balance of I trust you to go do your job and not micromanage. You know, you guys can't micromanage every aspect of the business, but setting up like expectations and communication of like the results you're trying to create and what you're going after, making sure you're on the same page, and then allowing each person to use to go into their zone of genius, right? Because I love that. You're not exactly the same, you know, Caroline, you're much more into the marketing and the customers phasing and really communicating the story. And then Patty, you know, you have, you're more of like the accounting side, the business sense, like the operations, and we need all of those things to function well in a business. And, you know, sometimes people are like, oh, it's so much easier to be a solopreneur, and it can be because you're the only one that's like your way. But I also think you miss out on the benefits of some of that, you know, that sparring and that conversation and the disagreements and really trying to understand each other's side to then get to a place where it's actually better on the other side of it. 

Patty  20:30  
That's for sure. I mean, I never would have started the business by myself anyway. I'm not that motivated. But also, you know, often when I'm trying to create an email or something like that, I, you know, I'm looking forward to sending it to her so she can throw out some ideas, even though sometimes ideas that I don't like or whatever. I don't like, to send them out without or do some things without her feedback, because I realize I have a different way about me. So she can temper that a little bit some of the, you know, some of my emails might be rougher around the edge, but she pulls them back a little bit and makes them more Reaper friendly, I guess, pretty him up, the language and everything. 

Sari  21:19  
And Caroline, you like, you help, you know, keep everybody's motivated, and, like, getting stuff done, like said, the task master and the reality is, you guys are, you're doing so much in the business, and I'd love for you to tell us, so when you first started, I'm assuming, like, neither one of you were full time in the business, right? It's like you're just starting this on the side hustle?

Caroline  21:47  
And then I was, you know, less than, less than that. I was, you know, working pretty much full time, and my accounting job, so I didn't allow for a lot of time, but, yeah, we kept, you know, meeting and yeah at it. Yeah, right.

Sari  22:13  
So tell us. And Caroline, maybe you'd be a good one to start, because there's this balance, right? Like you want, okay, let's just say you find you, you know, I know you have, like, all the things you have to do to be legal, to the figuring out the manufacturing, to have a food safe product, the packaging, okay, all of that stuff, which is everything we do right in Launch and Grow, and my program there, so you have a finished product, and you're like, now we're going to start selling this. And it sounds like you maybe went to some markets at the beginning, but you know, neither one of you like, great, you have a product that you've actually put a lot of money into, but it's not like you just automatically start making money, right? There's no, you have a product, so now money starts coming in. So, you know, I know Caroline, you're really, you know, the driver of the marketing and a lot of the customer acquisition. So it's like, there's this constant seesaw, like this balance of you got to put some effort out to go get the customers, and then you get enough customers, and then you're able to maybe work part time in the business and actually be getting paid. And then, like, you know, and now I'll just say, I'll cut to the chase, like now you are both full time in your business, which is incredible, and so, but I'd love for the listener to hear like it didn't just happen overnight. It wasn't like, okay, now we're both full time in the business. Like, what were the steps? Because you got to have enough customers buying your product to make that work. So, Caroline, you want to start? I'm like, what did you actually do to be able to get to this point? 

Caroline  24:03  
Yeah, in the beginning, you know, we were selling the bars at a local, a local store where, and we where. We still have them at Sunshine health foods here in Morro Bay, and we did some Facebook ads, you know, I reached out to a few people that I had met along the way, you know, who would mention it on their shows or whatever, on their their YouTube channel or whatever, and we got a little business that way. I tried my hand at Facebook ads, and I guess that did a little, but not very much, because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And that that is very convoluted, deep rabbit hole, I got to say. But the real thing that really got us going was I happened to come across a person, an influencer on YouTube. Her name, she goes by Nutmeg Notebook, Tammy Kramer, and reached out to her and sent her some bars, and she loved them. And she put them on her show, and boom, overnight, almost we, I don't know how tripled, quadrupled. I don't know what our business it, but it really, that was the big I mean. Yeah, more than the toe, really, like a leg in the door. I mean, she, I would say, we built the business in the first few years off of her. It really exclusively. I mean, because she so much business our way. 

Caroline  25:28  
Did you pay her>

Caroline  25:33  
We paid in Well Bean. You know, she had Well Bean credit.  She loves Well Bean. So she and she did to her grandkids, and her husband loves it so, so she actually, we, I think we're she's about to get ahead of us again, because she's still over the years. She's, you know, posts about us periodically, and then we get another bargeable from her. So that was great, because she was willing to paid in Well Bean and not in cash. So that was helpful, and I was going to back up because that was like post like COVID. You know, we got online. But before that, we had two and a half years of just cottage kitchen license, making it from my home and then going to local markets, because you can't sell online. Or you can sell online, as long as you, you know, deliver it locally. But anyways, we were hitting a few store, you know, trying to get in. We were in California Fresh, we were at the Cal Poly market. We were at a, you know, gas station here, in a cafe here, just local stuff that we were trying to reach out to as well. And then when COVID hit, we're like, you know, people are not going out, they're not in the stores. They're watching their money. They're starting to buy online. And we're like, we got to start selling online if we're going to survive. And so that was the pivotal point, you know, then we had to figure out how to get our commercial, you know, our packaged food registration, to do all of that, and a website, because we didn't really have that. I mean, there was a lot of evolution from the first couple years, and then faced with what was going on in the world, how to catapulted us in a different direction, basically. And, you know, in certain things about our product too, make more sense direct to consumer, rather than looking at wholesale and yada yada yada thing. But, but yeah. And then so when we did go online and she found, you know, Tammy Kramer, that was incredible. So, and, I mean, it was still, it was enough for us to handle, and then, you know, like, get another, you know, another edge into, you know, growing a business.

Sari  27:58  
Oh, I appreciate you saying that. I didn't. I realized you started as cottage food, but that makes sense. And what I mean, not every product can start that way, but especially, you know, you're working, you guys are working full time. This isn't, you know, you don't have a ton of cash invest into it, so it's a great way to test it, to get feedback, to try out recipes to, you know, sell to customers. And California allows you to do wholesale, you know, in the state as well. So that's great. I didn't realize, yeah, that makes a lot of sense that you were able to kind of slow, you know, a little like a manageable pace with every your lives and the risk, right? Because then, when you did, you know, COVID changed a lot of things for all of us. But when you decided, like, this is working, we want to do this and make that next, you know, I describe it as like a staircase, right? You guys want to take the next step. And, yeah, you had to make some bigger investments. You needed a commercial kitchen. You started, I don't know when you bought Flow, right? It was that the name of your first, what's the name of your first? 

Caroline  29:19  
Well, yeah, Flo is not with us anymore, but, well, she's in repose in the front room, actually, but she's not about to go to the great manufacturing facility in the sky, I'm afraid, here in a little bit. But anyway. 

Sari  29:33  
But yeah, you, you bought some equipment. 

Patty  29:39  
Oh gosh, yeah. It started out very basic, you know, as most people do, right? We're like a little kitchen age and a little Cuisinart, you know, but now rolling out the dough, rolling out the dough by hand, packaging it, labeling our own stuff, hundreds of labels. How do we seal these things? Then we have the hand, heat, seal, wash, and everything was, yeah, learning curve on everything and then, yeah, you, you get to the point like, we can't do this anymore. And I said, well, you know, they make some kind of, like, you know, automatic wrapping machine. 

Sari  
Yeah, well, it's so interesting. I know at each step, one of you has had hesitation, and then you have conversations and you talk about it, you know, I remember even, like, when you were hiring somebody, right? And so each of you are like, it's like, you help keep each other in balance, and then have the conversations and work through the, you know, solutions, and try to get to a place where you can both, you know, live with it, or sometimes the thing that you're like, I never wanted that. And then it's like, oh, you know, why did I wait so long? Should have done it a long time ago. But I guess Caroline, I want to keep going on that journey of like, okay, so you've got the influencer, which sounds like that was catapulting in the business. And what a beautiful, I think that's a testament to you guys just kind of like, you didn't force this business. You weren't heavy handed about it. You kept pulling strings. You kind of were like, let's just keep taking the next step forward. And you found this great relationship with an influencer who's willing to be paid in Well Bean, which is amazing. So what were some of the other things that, and I know it's a group effort, but I know Caroline, you kind of drive the marketing effort. So what, what were some of the next things that you know, getting new people into your funnel and into that, casting the nets of marketing to bring awareness and get new customers? 

Caroline  
Well, we had so much success with Tammy that we kept pursuing influencers, and then there were a few other people along the way that brought us a lot of business that we connected with. And we love the influencer thing, actually, we but we got to a point where we weren't really finding new people and we weren't able to grow so we decided to try some Facebook marketing. So we actually hired a small marketing firm. In fact, I think I heard about them through you. Anyway, we started with that, oh, I think, a year ago, about a year ago, and anyway, and that actually we got a lot of business from that, but it's very expensive, but then, when, before the election, when Mark Zuckerberg decided to donate a million dollars to or actually act after the election to Donald Trump's inaugural fund, I didn't care for that. So I was like, we got to get out of this Facebook marketing thing. I hate it, spending 1000s of dollars, and now we're supporting Donald Trump. Sorry, I don't like that. And I do like supporting the influencers you know, who are promoting healthy eating. So we said, let's work on that, and Umai also does that. So anyway, so in the last few months, we've been moving our Facebook dollars to influencer marketing. So now when we do spend money, we're giving it to people who are trying to do what we're doing. It's a triple win. I mean, we win because we get customers and the influencer and we win also because we're paying money to support something we want to support. And of course, the influencer wins, and I think our customer customers win because they find out about us, and also maybe they're turned on to other influencers who can help them with their healthy eating. So anyway, I'm very excited about influencers, and Umai knows how to work with them. 

Sari  
Finding the whos. Working with me find, you know, making the commitments. I know it's not always easy to make those commitments, and they are investments and in your business, they cost money. And so, you know, working with Umai. And I did see a recent, yeah, I saw a recent influencer campaign. So I was like, oh, they're doing some new things.

Patty  
Yeah, I was also going to mention that we've sent a lot of free bars to many different conferences, health conferences, the National Health Association, different whole food, plant based conferences, you know, local like, you know, bike or running event and different things that we've come across and that, you know, has also opened up the door to finding customers, but yeah, so sending bars. Some of them want a big sponsorship fee, and we were able to negotiate, well, we're not quite big enough to do that full thing, but would you like some bars? You know, we could do that, and we'll offer a coupon code for it. We'll send some promotional material if that's interesting, because they're looking for swag, you know, things to put in their swag bags and, you know, little giveaways. Or, anyways, that's another, that's definitely another, like, up, you know, thing that we have done, we're still doing, and that gets, you know, like we're sending, I don't know, 100 to 300 bars at a time to some of these events. 

Caroline  
Yes, and I love it, because usually they'll let us send our little flyer. And we call it the Why Beans flyer, because on one side, and it's like a half page flyer, on one side, it talks about some benefits of bean, some bean research. On the other side, it has Dr Greger's Daily Dozen list. So apparently, a number of people have said they hang that up on the refrigerator. So I love it. I mean, whether they order Well Bean or not, they're getting some great information that they're finding helpful. And, you know, it's information about following a whole food, plant based diet, and how they can do it in their, you know, on a day to day basis.

Sari  
I love that. Yeah. I mean, you're providing value. And also what I'm hearing is, and I want, you know, I really want people to hear like, it's not just one thing, like, you have to try different things and be willing to donate a lot of product. Like, I think people miss a like, they just don't understand how much free product you're going to give away as a business owner, and you can look at it like it's marketing, right? I could pay for a big, fancy sponsorship, or I can get my product into the hands of people. But I think one thing I see sometimes is people are really stingy with their product, and like, never want to give away free samples. And I'm like, you got to be willing to give away a lot of product.

Caroline  
In fact, that's good marketing. We met with the CFO of Clif Bar a few years ago, and he said that was the number one thing to get our bars in front of as many people as possible. As many people as possible to taste them. And, yeah, I love it. I would much rather invest the money in sending them bars than have our name splash across the, you know, the backdrop or something, and they don't actually get to taste the bar or, you know, experience it. 

Sari  
It'd be so much more powerful, yeah, to have people actually trying it. And that's a brilliant idea, all right. Well, the last thing I want to talk about because I recently just did a podcast about going full time in your business, finally quitting, you know, quitting that job, and if it's possible. And of course, I've been following along in your journey a long time where I think Caroline, you were maybe still part time, and you just maybe went full time in the business, and then Patty, you were part time, and you were still working at your other job, part time, and I saw something, or I can't, maybe you emailed me and said, I did it. I'm full time in the business. So, I mean, I know how you know you deal with the numbers and all of that. But, like, tell me about that. Like, how did you make that leap? How did you know it was the right time? Like, give us hope for people who are like, I want to go full time in my business. Like, how did you do that?

Patty  
Yeah, that was certainly growing to a certain level. You know, we started paying ourselves, finally, probably around maybe year three, like a small, small amount. And then, you know, Caroline was doing all the, you know, most of the production, all the shipping, and, you know, so she was working the job. And then when we got to a place where I wasn't yet, you know, doing, I was helping with production and some of that, but we finally got enough to hire somebody to help us with, you know, a few hours in our production, and then a few hours with shifting, and it's sort of like again, and that's difficult when you're trying to find somebody to just plug in for a few hours a week on your schedule. You know, it was tricky, but, you know, it kind of kept coming along.

Caroline  
And going to interject real quick. Also, she had kind of cut back a little bit on her hours at work. 

Patty  
Okay, so that's a big thing that, like, fortunately, I was working at a place that I had our cut off like 10 hours. So I was working more of a 30-35 hour position. And then, you know, during, again, some things during COVID kind of shifted, but I think it was being able, they could see, like, more flexibility in people's positions. Some places you work can't do that, right? So. I just kind of, you know, it became like, okay, they know I was doing this. I didn't make a big thing about it at work. I was kind of more private about it because I, you know, didn't want it to be like, hey, I'm trying to leave you all but at the same time, this is a passion thing that I'm working on, so yeah, it became kind of like 20-20 you know, 20 hours at that job, and 20 hours with Well Bean. And then, you know, a little more time came and when we have these little step ups in, you know, our sales, then we hired somebody to work a little more part time hours. And what happened was kind of like that little evolution, this one person needed more of a full time job, and we knew they were going to leave. And so it was like we might be at that bridge, and it's a little stretch, and we might need some funding to fill the gap, because, you know, I had a lot of personal obligations, and, you know, just maintaining my level of income at least to a certain point. So we had to calculate all of these things like, what's my take home? Am I going to have insurance, blah, blah, blah, all those things have to get figured in, right? And I could say, well, I can step back this much. Can I make it happen? Well, there's going to be a gap. There's a potential gap. Well, let's do it for six months, if we can get through the six months and not take on too much debt, basically, to stretch that, you know, stretch forward, and that's where we're at. We're like coming out of, you know, I think it was last July that I went full time, and it's been a stressful year, but for various reasons, you know, personal and business. But I think we, I haven't gone back, and it's like, I think we're, we've made that leap.

Caroline  
And we didn't even have to fund it with that loan money, did we? 

Patty  
Well, I'd say, in a way, we did, however, yeah, there was, you know, when we moved into this place, we had some setbacks, and, you know, we did have money set aside too, I should say, like, all along, it's like, no, we need to make sure we build a little working capital, and, you know, building towards the next machine. So we were, you know, we were trying to be careful about that, and, but, yeah, we had an issue with the machine that failed, and, you know, that wasn't anticipated. And it was like, oh, but we did Kiva, you know, a couple Kiva loan rounds at this point. We recently got, you know, our first line of credit with the bank, you know, and buying this next piece of equipment rolled into some of that and, you know, and also all of the marketing money, like all of these things have just been, you know, one step at a time, like we didn't just say, oh, you know, it is sort of been growing into it, right? You make a decision, you see where you're headed, okay, sales are increasing enough we're at this sort of rate. If we can get to the next level. This next door opens for that. So, yeah, it was a combination of a lot of things to help me to make that but when that person left, it was kind of like, well, yeah, I was kind of thinking that, like, maybe there's he really wanted me. I mean, obviously, you know, she was really fully here, and I wasn't always here, and that creates a little bit of strain right with the partnership. So we, you know, we had to negotiate some of that too, when you talk about, like, you know, ownership and compensation and all of that. So we've had to work through lots of layers of things. So, yeah, with me going full time, yeah, we are still investing, like she said, you know, in the influencer marketing, working with the marketing firm, because without that, just our own efforts probably wouldn't keep getting us to that next step. You know, to make things more solid and to go the next round. But even it's still an organic process, like, we are not going out there for, like, the big funding. And, you know, might need somebody to say, thank you.