Building a premium, sustainable hair care brand with Kate Assaraf (Founder & CEO, Dip)

Well, hello and welcome to the super Connector Show when I'm delighted to be joined by Kate Assaraf, who is the founder and CEO of DIP, a sustainable haircare brand based in the US, which we started about five years ago after twenty years in the beauty marketing world. So hi Kate, thank you for joining us today. Hey, thanks for having me. That's excited to get into this.

So you just want to stop by telling us what DIP is and what type of products that you sell and why. Yeah, So DIP is we are a mostly plastic free hair care line. We sell shampoo conditioner, hair and body dry oils, facewash, and body wash. And that's the bulk of our business is the shampoo conditioner bars.

And what we're really known for is championing small business besides being being really great haircare, is getting people off of the ad to cart, you know, impulse shopping mentality and into the small businesses that really vet products before they bring them in, so you don't have to sift through all this digital pollution to find and fake reviews to find out whether our products are good or not. That's that's really what it's about, and and it was born from this frustration of buying things online that had big promises and and big you know, just just lots of marketing dollars spent on making you think it was good, but that then you get it in your hands and it's it's very frustrating to buy something sustainable that doesn't live up to his promises.

Yeah, okay, and I love that. Well, we were saying before when live, I'm spent over twenty five years support and chumpion and small and micro businesses, so that's yeah, I love what you're what you're doing there and thinking I've seen it first hand in the prior to this and working in the beauty industry. That is that why you wanted to do this, because because you were just frustrated with the way things were. And it's I mean, there's many many reasons that DIP came about.

One was in twenty fourteen, I found out not only about the plastic accumulation that was happening but which was kind of the focus of environmentalism at the time, but I also found out of that the health the byproducts to our health and our endocrine systems from plastic and that was, you know, twelve years ago now and it's only starting to become mainstream now that people know about how disruptive plastic is to our health. But it's in every human tissue. But because I knew this before, it was kind of you know, mainstream.

I thought, you know, I would reduce plastic for myself, like myself and my family first. And I found it very frustrating to keep investing in expensive plastic free products only to find out that they didn't they were worse than what. Their plastic counterparts were. And I also found it very very frustrating to keep, you know, trying to do the right thing for the planet, only to feel burned by you know, marketing and finding out that like, oh, this thing I bought, you know, they paid all those people to say it was good, They incentivized all those reviews.

And so I thought, what if I could build a company that didn't follow any of those those traditional ways of building and kind of deceiving customers or leading customers to think something is good. That's that was something for me, Like I wanted to Dip to be the last shampoo conditioner bar someone would buy, and that they would stick with it and really really change their behavior in that just one part of their life. Yeah. Great, Well, if anyone goes on your website, I would encourage them to go on your website and just everything about it.

The way you the way you talk, the language that you use, obviously, the products themselves. You say plastic creators. It's like it's cardboard packaging, is recyclable packaging, even the storage, I don't know what it wouldn't it's bamboo, bamboo, yeah, and so it's all recyclable. And you know you're practicing what you preach.

But but just the Yeah, like I say the word and and the way you talk about the products, and you're encouraging people to think be more considerate about single use products and and avoiding that. And it's like buy less, but buy better yea. So yeah, that's all that anyone wants, by the way, Everyone wants to buy less stuff and have it be better. Yeah.

I think. I think this this planned absolescence that has taken over the United States. I don't know how bad it is in England, but I can imagine people want to buy better things that just last a longer time. Like here, it's so.

Many products you buy break or are so fast to consume that they want you on a subscription. They want you to to really like keep pumping your dollars into companies. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to make something in our conditioner bar, for example, last some people eight months, but it lasts.

Other people two years. So it's something that you don't have to buy over and over again. But you stick with that change you. You know, if someone's using our conditioner bar for two years, you can imagine that that might be like twelve to twenty four plastic bottles gone out of their you know, own personal consumption.

Yeah, it shouldn't be unique, but it sounds unique. It sounds a unique approach to business. But yeah, why why are they not more? Is it just because it's hard?

Is it harder? Is it to a. Well, there's two different paths. You can write a love letter to yourself and fill your bank account with repeat purchase dollars, or you can write a love letter to your customers and know that there's more customers than there ourselves, you know, and I want you know, what surprises people about DIP is that it's great.

They really don't think that, especially if they've bought other bars in the past. They really don't think it's going to be something that is good. And I actually use that skepticism to my advantage because I don't have to tell people it's good. They find out on their own and it's I've built a seven figure word of mouth brand that way, and and that makes me really really happy that people discover it, they find it, and then they tell everyone they know about it.

Yeah, well that's that's the best form of marketing, isn't a word about And like you say, even if people are even if a bar has lasting them a long time, you know they're going to enjoy it, and they're gonna they're gonna buy more of it, and they're going to tell people about it. So yeah, everyone everyone wins that way, I think. So yeah, it's I love running my company. I spring out of bed to run it because I know that the impact we're making it it is we are.

We are inspiring long term change for many of our customers. Of course, not everyone's going to love every then you do, you know, no one's one hundred percent. Like I don't want to pretend that every single person on the on the planet look that tries Dip loves it. But I'd say of every ten thousand bars we sell, I think six we have six that are returned.

Like, that's great. I know you can't argue with that, so I think it's a great brand as well, you know, just the dame. Yeah, so well, I don't sound well, you obviously got lots of expeirits in marketing and branding, but you must have been pretty happy with that when he when he came up. With it, it was, well, it's fun.

Like I, you know, I have been in beauty product development, marketing, sales for I guess twenty years. And then my husband also he has you know, he's been a designer behind the scenes for many beauty brands that you'd see on shelf that you know, you know, everywhere from drug stores all the way up to Suppora. So between the two of us, we just we took we don't have overlapping skills, but we've built this straight down to the logo. I love the logo so much.

But my husband and I worked on that together and and it was really. Just our two powers combined. And we've both lived a sustainable, a truly sustainable life for a long time, so we knew we understood the customer. I think better than someone who's in marketing that's like, oh, look, plastic free is a movement, like let's jump on that.

You know, it's different when you live the life and you're and you're part of that community. Yeah, well, I think that's that does show that does come across in the way that you're well, the way that you're talking now, but the way that you talk on your website and your social media channels and some of the other videos that I've seen you do as well, you do actually know what you're talking about. It's not just a gimmick like some people. This trend that people I love the people that shop sustainably.

I think they're cool. Like, I think it's very cool that people go out of their way to do better for the earth. I wish it wasn't as rare as it was or as is. And in the United States you're certainly seeing sustainability the market.

The I don't know, I don't know how to say it in a nice way. It's starting to wane that sentiment and people are kind of like getting to that who cares part. I'll just buy whatever in plastic. The Earth's going to burn anyway.

And I find that so upsetting because I actually know that that these little changes do that everyone personally takes do aggregate into something amazing. But you know, I love the Sustainable Chopper. I think that they're very rock and roll. Yeah that's good, right, Yeah, very rock and roll.

I agree. I don't know what it is. I mean, I shouldn't ask a later age, right, but I'm forty nine, Okay. So when I was at school, it was just everywhere it was all about environmental issues.

It was part of what you learned about global warming. Yeah, the ozone layer, protecting the icebergs. I study geography at university and glacial movements and mountain orders and stuff like that. So whenever, so.

Ozone and acid rain were the things. Yeah, exactly what exactly? So I don't understand now how people who are in positions of power leaders or political politicians they did they skip class? Did they not like hear all of this when they were at school, Like, because yeah, why is that?

I don't understand. I think that there's a tug of war happening, right. I think some of the what I understand is that some people, I think the fear mongering of what the future was going to be like today, so say twenty twenty six, like the fear mongering from the seventies, eighties, nineties into what, you know, the two thousands were going to be. Like, people don't recognize the to the doomsday future.

They don't see it happening now. And what people I think should kind of rethink is that it's like the frog and the boiling water, We're really not going to see the changes for a very long time once we're in them. And I think we're kind of getting into the point where like, Okay, it's time to listen, it's time to you know, jump out of the pot and really start to be community based about saving the world. But I think people are disenchanted by the fear that was projected on them as maybe is like kids, and the reality doesn't feel so bad, it doesn't feel.

So doomsday today. That's the only way I can explain that, because I too am like horrified, like you know, you know, for me, it's the national parks in the United States are just such a treasure and seeing like funding for environmental sciences get cut is. A tragedy. You know.

Yeah, I understand. I know, there's always commercial pressures, you know, and like financial pressure, sorry, where people are trying to save money and cook and corners sometimes, and there's always that definitely in maybe bigger businesses or more maybe it's a bigger organization when less responsibility on the individual because it's not my job back and just I'm just doing what I'm told to do here and it's someone else's worry about this. But when it's a small micro business like you or me, you know, we we are we ultimately can decide where we spend out money and what we do with that and who we support and who we don't.

Well, yeah, you're you're describing kind of the tragedy of the commons, which is my degrees in economics and math, and I see that kind of behavioral shift all the time with environmentalism specifically, where everyone's kind of counting on everyone else to save the world and we'll do it's best for themselves, and that that. Is very normal, like it it's been. It's one of these things an economics lore that they've shown over and over again. So you know, I don't expect people to behave in any other way, but I would like them too.

Yeah, yeah, I suppose when it's if it's people feel like it's happening over there, if it's happening somewhere else and they're not seeing it as long as their immediate surroundings are pretty clean and they're not seeing rubbish piled up in the streets, and then they're they're okay about that, but but yeah, but it's but if you go, if people go on holiday. I always remember about twenty years ago I went. I went to Thailand and I can't remember the name of it, but there's this beautiful island beach which is in the film The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, and it was there was just rubbish everywhere, just discarded plastic bottles and litter everywhere, and it was really upsetting to see that.

The people are Yeah, I just don't get it. That's how you have to think of yourself. Are you a consumer or are you a protector of the beach? Are you someone that goes there and expects the beach to be nice and beautiful for you or are you someone that brings waste to the beach, to the beach and you know, say love like that, it is what it is.

And I think that's you. Know, when you go into any natural landscape, it is the biggest source of sadness to see garbage places. I went to Shria, I spent a month in Sri Lanka surfing back in twenty twelve or twenty thirteen around that time. And then I now, my children are, you know, eight and ten, and I brought them to Sri Lanka, and I imagined going back to this pristine place with not a lot of garbage.

And ten years later, or so tenants and change years later, there's garbage everywhere and in our favorite spot, and it. Crushes you in a way. The beach cleans with the ca kids every day just to get just to just bring it back, you know. But that's that's.

Something that unless you really experience that, or unless you like really spend a lot of time in nature and appreciate it and let yourself feel small, you don't. You don't pick up on how your little changes impact these beautiful landscapes. Yeah, maybe it's that Just people feel like it's someone else's responsibility. And not there always I see, I'm always floored by mothers who their kids up with plastics, you know, plastic stuff just for convenience.

I understand it, right, because convenience is convenience is wonderful, right, But I'm always thinking about renting this planet from. My kids, Like, I don't think my time here is going to be is temporary. You know, I'm in my forties. I lucky if I get a couple decades left on it.

But hopefully they're here for a long time and they're able to enjoy things and find seashells and you know, see, like I don't know, eat seafood. Those are things that I think about a lot. Yeah, So do you want to. Tell us a little bit more about the process of starting the brand, like how easy or how hard was that?

So I would say it's easier because I've been in the industry for a long time, so I already had kind of, you know, a head start, like I knew exactly which chemist I wanted to work with. I knew kind of the. Legal pieces of starting a brand, and also understanding exactly, you know, in the formula what I wanted and what I didn't want into what standards to build it. So in that sense, I wasn't starting like sometimes I watch people start beauty brands without any of that kind of industry knowledge, and there's a lot of rookie mistakes that we kind of didn't have to make or didn't have to in the hard way.

So I don't want anyone to think that we started from a night a point of. Kind of like it. I don't know, just being naive about the industry. Jonathan, my husband and I had been in this for a very long time.

We knew the legal requirements for packaging. We knew all of those pieces, so my the thing I didn't know was could we build one bar for all hair types that would knock someone's socks off? Like, That's what I didn't know, And that was the goal. I was like, if I can't make one bar that a whole family with mixed hair types and mixed curl patterns like could use, then I don't want to do it because I don't think that one family, you know, I think about a family of even four or five or six people, Like I don't like the idea of them having to have several different bars in their shower, Like they couldn't like store them, You couldn't identify them unless you had a million colors.

It just gets too complicated. So I that is the problem I wanted to solve, and and it was lofty because for someone with fine hair to be able to use the same bar as someone would like coarse curly, you know, type four hair like that, that was a challenge. Katie. We're talking about how amazing nature is.

I've got the door open and it's hailstone and outside, so I'm literally just gonna shut the door just okay, So. No problem there we are. There's a there's a big blocks of ice just bouncing. Yeah.

I thought someone kept turning the sink. On in your. Yeah, it's because I've got a little puppy here down by my knees and she's she's normally asleep, but she's she's roaming around, and I thought I would have the door and then it's all of a sudden, just hailstones. It's just gone crazy outside.

But anyway, yeah, well we all live anyway. So we've touched on a little bit before. You're talking about not using influencers. I know you're big on that on well, basically avoiding fake you know people who maybe have lots of followers and pretend they use a product, but they've never used that product before and have no intention to use that product.

And it's much better to use real life customers. Do you call it user generated content in the US? Yeah, yes, I'm pretending. I'm I'm an expert, and it's all about that.

There's certain categories where I think using influencers works and I think it's important right, Like, and I would say a perfect example for that is swimwear. Like you need to have a whole bunch of different body types and shapes to sell swimwear and to do it right, and to do it in a way where because if you can imagine the return rate, I have a friend with a well known swimwear company. The return rate on swimsuits is so high. So I understand using influencers and and you know, any anybody to promote that because it really makes the most sense for that business.

So I'm not anti influencer for everyone. I just noticed that in sustainability, so many brands used influencers and they all said these bar shampoo and conditioners were amazing, and I bought a lot of them because I was on that oh my journey myself. I didn't want to start a company. I want to just buy someone else's product and pray that it was, you know, going to replace the stuff that I used.

In the shower, which was very high end stuff, and it never did. And I found that very very frustrating. So I use that kind of as like our own marketing campaign, like, oh, we don't we don't engage in that. Everyone that you see talk about DIP has actually parted with their own money and actually genuinely loves it, Like we don't pay them to say that.

And of course if someone has made like an amazing video. We had someone in particular where their video went crazy viral. I think it was like in twenty twenty two, Like we offered her, We're like, we will pay you or if you want, if you have a charity that you love, will like pay the charity. And she was just so incredible.

She was like no, you know what, She's like, pay the charity. And that was like a really cool move. But so we I've done my heels in on that particular thing, because I think customers are frustrated, like they're frustrated with buying something and really wanted to do better for the earth, only to like really be disenchanted. And I was that customer, and I didn't want anyone to go through that cycle because of something a marketing thing I put.

Out No, No, I love that. I think. You know, it's definitely it's changed in the last couple of years. People are moving or brands are moving away from that influencer because it can be really expensive, you know, and and often just because they've got lots and lots of followers doesn't mean that's going to translate to people buying their products.

That sometimes people are just following them just because they like the way they look or they like something about them, but not that other thing that they're talking about. Yeah, where you'll have like a beautiful girl influencer and all her followers are men, so she's not even talking to the people you're trying to get in touch with. Yeah, exactly. So that's it's good.

You know, I'm I'm not an influencer, but I'm an. Influencer in the small business micro business world. So I do have companies of want to work with me, not me talking about their beauty products or eithering like that, but but I do have companies that want to work with me because I've got influence online or in person through the work that I do. So there's just different different types of influence.

And then you know, I'm obviously a man, the elephant in the room. I don't have much hair, right, but I do see hair care products. I do see TV ads, I do see billboard post as I see magazine ads. You know, I do.

I'm interested in marketing and advertise in any way, so I do see it, and a lot of it is just clearly fake, or it's just like yeah, not real people, or just most people aren't like that, or most people don't talk like that, and most people don't don't wash the hair like that. I think customers can tell that, like I think people can tell I think, you know, when I was in marketing, people would advise me to market to people as if they were in fifth grade or ten year old. I don't like that because my customers are very smart.

Like I've been told to take there are websites too wordy or any of those things, and I'm like, my customers are smart. They want to know more about the company, they want to know more about sustainability, they want to know more. They want to know more. And a lot of people write to me and say thank you, you know, for the stuff on your website, whereas marketers have told me to like tone it down, take a lot of stuff out and I'm like the fact that the very fact that you're saying that you're trying to homogenize my brand with my competitors, and I'm not interested.

My brand has. Some depth to it, like DIP exists because of very specific reasons and and customers identify with with the back it's not like the backstory, but they know that that feeling of being burned by sustainability, they they appreciate, knowing that I felt the same way when I started. Yeah, again, I think your website's great. I would encourage people to check out what what what's your website address?

Again, it's dip already dot com. Right, Okay, Yeah, definitely check it out because yeah, there's some good information on there, not just about the products, but just it's if you want to live a more sustainable life. You know, there's some good guidance on there and some useful links to the relevant organizations that you're involved in and support. And so I like that you're doing that.

And I mean, when I know the person, when I'm into something, I'm really into it. So I'm like same, Reading all the website, I'm following on all the channels, I'm like really into something. Yeah, there's plenty of people like that. I want to celebrate that type of person, the reader, the person who's like really like they're not just a good shampoo, like I'll buy it, you know, they're they're they're like, oh, what what is this about?

Like there's and for me specifically, like DIP is bigger than shampoo conditioner. And it sounds very annoying to hear that, But what I mean is that I do everything I can to get people into sustainable stores in the United States. I really really want people to shop in these refill stores. And the reason for that is because I want that effect of someone going into buy Buy DIP and then they can now have access to all the vetted, plastic free solutions at their fingertips, with a store owner there that can help them and guide them through their their you know, beginnings of sustainability, Whereas if the same person was trying to buy things individually from different companies, they might get like just fatigued out of it because of all of the reviews and like all of the kind of cloud of digital information and noise that comes with shopping for anything these days.

It's I want people to go in store and and be like, oh my gosh, this store owner has done all of their homework on all of these products, and this is what I should be choosing from. Yeah. So it's it's people who are bought into the ethos or the lifestyle or they just yeah, like you say, it's depth, isn't it. And it's a bit more more than just the It's what they what the products symbolize about themselves.

And you know better than anyone, like when people buy things, it's yeah, it's it's what. It's the story they tell themselves as well, isn't it. It's like what, Okay, if I'm buying a DIP products, this is the person I am, and this is the type of way I live and it actually means something to me. And the planet is important and the environment is important.

So do you I'm going to get all marketing like, do you have a certain persona or a certain type of customer that you tend to attract or do you just is it too big now? Too? The type of customer I attract or DIP attracts, it's not a certain like traditional persona. It's it's literally someone who feels burned by sustainability and is looking for the best of the best.

They're looking to resolve that ick that they get from the sustainability movement. And there's a very specific emotion that DIP taps into and I know it because it is so strong for me. I can't tell you how many things I bought that were sustainable and we're supposed to make my life easier. That completely just disappointed me in a way.

And you're always paying more for those things, you know, And so from even when when it came to developing DIP, like I used very expensive conditioner. It was my one indulgence. You know, I wear my hair every day. I want it to look shiny and beautiful.

So when I made the Dip conditioner bar, I made it like last a very very long time because I was buying conditioner more than anything else and I wanted for me and my conditioner bar saves me personally five hundred dollars a year. Most people it'll save It depends on what you're switching from, to be honest, but you know, for a lot of people it'll save two hundred dollars a year, or it will save even. More if you're big saving. Yeah, it's a big, big, saving.

So I wanted that feeling of like I bought this thing and like it's cost me more money. I like, yeah, upfront, I guess if you are used to buying an expense of shampoo conditioner, dip seems expensive, but if you're buying pricey shampoo conditioner, which is what it actually replaces, because the chemist I worked with has has formulated some of the best products that are in high end retailers in the world, you know. So I deliberately wanted someone that made really or that was very familiar with, like very intense luxury conditioner, and so people don't get that.

They don't feel burned when they buy Dip by by, you know, the initial higher price point, because it works really well and their hair looks so beautiful. And they also know that no one has been paid to say that to them that didn't already believe it in their own heart and soul. Yeah. No, I love that, it's sadly saying else.

I love that. I love your ten commandments on your website. I think that's really good. Just everything that you do, and so we've touched on some of it, but I love it.

Say renegade honesty, where where where does that come from? Why do you want to what does that mean? So? I mean the beauty industry is not known for truth telling, right, Like it's not it's not known for it at all.

You know, in my two decades and beauty, I've seen a lot of very deceptive marketing happen. I mean it's the same with food marketing, Like sometimes the thing you're seeing on camera isn't even food, right, and now we're having this kind of deceptive marketing of like sometimes the people you're looking at aren't even people, it's AI. So I mean this is something that I think people are craving. People are craving authenticity.

And I know a lot of companies talk about authenticity, but read the reality is it's not something you can buy. It's something that has to surface and bubble to the top on its own. And so the renegade honesty. If someone asked me like, hey, why did you make why do you have this ingredient instead of that one?

I can tell them I'll be like this one you know often has supply shortages, or this one you know, like for example, the one I use the most is synthetic fragrance. We use really high end synthetic fragrance instead of essential oils. And we're very upfront and honest about why we do that. And for us, like I will explain to someone we use synthetics because they're homogenized.

They're the same in a lab every time that we can take the allergens out. We you know, they don't require like you know, questionable farming practices or you know, slave labor, which happens a lot, and if you're getting exotic essential oils shift from all over the place. So I mean, those are things that people don't think about, but when you tell, when when they come after you, they're like, oh, synthetic fragrances. You know, I can be like, this is the environmental reason why we made that decision, And it was very very that's particular decision was very risky because everyone demonizes synthetic fragrance, not realizing that it's like there's a good synthetic fragrance and high end that's like I felt like free and amazing, and then there's like really crappy low end stuff.

It's like the same with wine, like with so many things. You know, you go to a hospital, you can have an amazing nurse or not a very good nurse. Like there's there's a you know, a spectrum of all different things that led to our decision. M hm.

That's I didn't know any of that. So that's something new that I didn't know about the essential oils or I know what essential, but I didn't know about the variants or the child labor or anything like that, slave labor. There's so much, I mean, there's so much in the beauty industry in particular, and there's a lot of kind of cover ups in the essential oils community also, and so you know, you I have to be like, I have to be careful. How I say.

That's not trying to annoy everyone who loves essential oils, but it's I basically just say I don't sit at the church essential oils being the best. Yeah, that's good. And then I'm just looking at about human customer service, no salesy pressure, no gatekeeping. Yeah, the human customer service is a big one.

If anyone has ever purchased something and then ended up in like an AI hell loop. With but. Yeah, it's horrible. Someone I just want to horrible, horrible, horrible.

I have a dedicated human customer service person. She's in the United States. She's awesome. I've known her for a very long time, and uh, her name is Janet, and I sing her praises because she is just the best.

If I had an issue with a company or a product, or any shipping issue or whatever, I would love. To have Janet on the other end. And I think about that. I put myself in the shoes of my customers all the time, and I'm like, I would love to interact with a Janet.

So I suggest everyone kind of ditch the AI hell loop for your customers and get yourself someone like her. She's amazing. Yeah, I know, no, I like that. So yesterday was so by my MacBook.

So I do use a book, right, And my battery is failing, right, so the new battery, right, So I've got booked in. I'm taking it to get a new battery and it needs a new repair. They can't just slaughter battery anyway. I rang up yesterday to just say is it okay if I bring it on this day whatever?

And I was just going round and round. I just couldn't speak to a real bit. I rang the store and I just couldn't see this someone. And then eventually I got through to someone who was not in the store.

Store they were in some who knows where they were, and then they had to ring the store to anyway, we've got there. Thankfully I had plenty of time on my hands, but that was really frustrating to go through that. But then I kept when I lived in England, I could not believe how bad customer service was with companies. Well that's a shame, because it used to be really good, right, So.

I remember that as a kid I used to go visit all the time. And then when I lived there and had to deal with companies like what's the phone company? Three two two two? Yeah, but I had to deal with well, I had to.

Eventually I was leaving the UK, I tried to just cancel my cell phone there and it probably took six hours of just going on this like roundabout loop. And at one point I remember I had to put my husband, who's my boyfriend at the time on the on the phone just because so I could. Have a break. Isn't it We've been getting like my furniture delivered.

It was like customer service it was just so alien. I think maybe that was one of the reasons I'm such a stickler about customer service now because I found living in England like lovely for so many reasons, but the customer service like threw me into like a rage. Yeah I know that's I mean, some of that's obviously deliberate because they hope that you're just going to give up and stop because make it so difficult for them for them to cancel, that will just just hang up. But when I when I when I first my very first job after the university was working in tech support for a software company.

Was it was good, Like the training was really good and that company was well known for providing excellent customer service because they had real people doing it. I mean talking about twenty yeah, twenty twenty five plus twenty eight. Years ago, but you know it's changed. But but what I also realized is people would only ring us if they'd tried to fix something on their own.

They were usually at the end of the tether. They were like rain those frustrated. They just needed someone to help. So it actually.

Got through me or my colleagues and we fixed the problem. They were so happy and so grateful sorted it out because it was easy for us to fix, but it was they probably been trying on their own and struggling for a long time before they finally thought, I'm just going to ring. I don't know what else to do. So good customer services is really really priceless.

It's it's valuable and. Agree, yeah it shouldn't be rare, but it's rare. It's something that people write to us a lot about their like E've been in our reviews online. They're like amazing customer service.

Wow. And that makes me so like it's it's such a source of pride for me because it's very easy to give AI customer service. It's cheap, it's easy. But I pay some money full time salary in the United States, and I really you know, I really love having them on the team.

And I know right now it's in vogue to lower your headcount and replace everything you can with AI, but it's something I would never ever do. Now. We I do as well as this online podcast and video and lots of content. I run in person events every month as well, so we we.

Do have people talking about AI and technology. But I always I always get people who are not just full on just AI everything and just get rid of people. It's always with a sense of caution it's always like, look, yes you can do this, but how do you do it in an ethical way? So most most of the people that speak of my events are more balanced in the light.

That's right. Yeah, So I just think it's really important definitely when I'm gonna I've got that position and talk about influence as well. I don't want people rushing headlong into something. That that they're they're going to regret or it's going to damage the people around them or the community that they're in.

So I think it's really important. Talking about We touched on a little bit about I know you're not you're not a massive fan of Amazon or selling to Amazon. You're not saying you've never use Amazon for for certain things, but you've chosen not to. You don't sell your products on Amazon, Is that right?

I So I prefer to have that friction point of someone going into a store. And so many of my store owners now like we're probably around you know, give or take depending because stores are closing all the time in the United States, these independent retailers, you know, we're between four and five. Hundred stores all the time. And I know a lot of the store owners, I know who they are about their lives, their families, like they're not strangers to me.

And some of our small stores are selling you know, thirty thousand, fifty one hundred thousand dollars worth of DIP. Per year in their small stores. And if I put my products on Amazon, I know that would decimate their business. And I don't want that.

I like, I live a very you know, the business is successful, like I don't need it to like ten x to also be successful. Like actually, I think that might be one of those dangling carrots that like, careful when you get a bite, because it's actually gonna, you know, pull out your feet from under you, you know. And so for Amazon in particular, I am a customer of Amazon. I do shop there, but I also it's usually the second or third place I go for something before I buy it.

I don't need to have. There's really nothing I need, like in an emergency that I can't get locally, right like bread buttermilk. I can get those things. I don't need anything that fast.

And you know, I know because my products last a long time. Imagine if someone just decided to buy in a pinch a conditioner bar on Amazon, well, then that person doesn't need to go back to that store for another year or two to purchase. So it doesn't make sense for my business in particular. I'm sure it makes sense for others, but not for mine.

Yeah, no, no's that's a good position to have another I think I'm gonna power to you for doing that, and it's yeah, you've got protecting your brand and protecting the people who support you as well, you know, because these dependence have supported you and your brain. I love that. There's so fun. I mean, like I you know, entrepreneurship is lonely.

There's no way around it. It's a lonely game. It's not that fun. But what makes it fun for me is my relationship with my retailers.

In fact, even before jumping on here today I went and had coffee with Too I'm in New Jersey to retailers that Carrie Dip. We went and had coffee together. And it's so nice because had did have had I put my stuff on Amazon, I wouldn't I wouldn't really have that kind. Of human to human relationship.

And so it's really really fun to round round out retailers and their the vibe of their store and the coolness of their communities and Also there are different curations of sustainable things that you know had that you know, we're DIP is in that among these other products. It's very cool for me. It's it's and it's and it's fulfilling as an entrepreneur. Where I think the add to cart life is not you don't have that relationship with your retailers.

You don't have it with like a Target buyer, I guess, or you know a Target employee, or Walmart or Sophora or Alter any of these big box stores. You just don't get that same feeling. And I love I just love these retailers that I get to kind of chum around with and uh and and know is full human beings. Yeah, all start here in the United States.

Well, every every sale accounts more, doesn't it. It means more for sharing it. We're sharing everything to them. Yeah, and it's people are excited when they can go.

And so like a lot of buying, DIP is smell intensive. Like you want to you just shop the way you want to smell. And so if they go into a store, then they can smell all of them and be like, oh I like this one. It's like this isn't what I would have bought had I just seen the descriptions online, but they you know, that's an experience that I want people to have.

M Yeah, I was looking at you your fragrances. I mean this the sound amazing, so you're really pretty. I've got them here Coconut and almond, tobacco and drift woods is it? What's this?

What's the next one? And sand the woods wild sage? And is it. Bativa or yeah?

I mean you're testing here? Was it jasmine? Is that right? Rose water and jasmine?

You're testing me? Actually you've got your matcha tea as well? Yeah, Rose, and that's really. And gene and honeyed you, I mean the old they all sound amazing, but they also sound different like fraguances.

But is it coconut almond? Is that you? Is that your that outstells the other ones two to one, and it's reminiscent of like that late eighties coconut scent that you would smell everywhere. And actually that that particular scent is an homage to my older sister.

She's sixteen years older than the man. She always smelled like coconut when I was a little girl, and that particular smell reminds me of my sister and uh, and like, I love it so much, but it's it's a retro coconut. It's not like, I don't know how top. It's not that it's not sophisticated, but it's got like a nostalgia to it when you smell it.

Okay, it sounds sounds great. And even the like tobacco and driftwood, that's that sounds that sounds lovely. It's really that one I put out there for because men aren't really invited to like sustainable shopping and in many instances, but so the thirty percent of our customers are men, and I put that one out there for men, and and they love it. But also all the cool girls in Brooklyn, so in La by the tobacco and drift wood.

It's I think it's really I think it's really interesting where which groups latch onto which scent? Yeah, that's that's fascinating that it's different locations, different areas are got different different favorites. It's really felt like a weird fact is that in Nashville in it's like, you know, Nashville is very country. We have two rose scents and they don't sell there really.

I think that's like interesting, like oh that that particular city doesn't is. Not drawn to Rose. Strange, Yeah, super strange. I thought Rose was universal, that everyone loves that one, but I was wrong.

What's what's your favorite? Is it? I like the rosewater Jasmine by far my favorite. I love it so much.

And then I also love the Mimosa, but no one buys that one online because it's in a gray box. In person, people like are are very loyal to this Mimosa scent, but online because it's in a gray box. We just noticed it doesn't It's fun. It's like really fun to see all those.

Changes, you know. Yeah, yeah, well, I know we said before you went I went online? Where where do you sell to them? Is it?

Is it just the US at the moment, just. The US and Canada? You know, the shipping internationally has just gotten cost prohibitive pretty much. Well, well, I said before.

We've got some friends in Texas and Canada and another parts of the US. So my partner we've been talking talking about coming over there soon, so we'll. Have to come and buy some. And I've been wanting to come to New York, New Jersey for years, So give me another reason to come.

Well, I'll have to, I'll have to meet up for a coffee. Yeah, you totally should. I'm in the Lake District of New Jersey, which people I don't really think about. They think about the Turnpike and the airport and Newer Airport, but where you know, I'm halfway between Manhattan and the Poconos, so there's mountains near us and lakes really beautiful.

Yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't realize that. You know, the main thing that I know in New Jersey for is Bond Jovi.

Oh yeah, you're still super proud of him. My sister she was. She was really bon j Yeah. Yeah, great hair.

Yeah. Good to have him endorsing your products. That would be really really fun. Maybe maybe get a load of hair rockers from the eighties, maybe the best.

Cool but you've. Yeah, what was gonna say, I've lost my trainer, So I'm just excited about eighties rockers now. Just want to want to listen to Jovi. So what's what's what's next for you?

Then? What what's what's your plans for for DIP going forward? So right now immediately coming up is for the first time ever, we're going to run ads, and a big piece of that is that DIP is DIP is fine and growing on. Its own without ads.

But I've discovered that so many of our retailers are struggling and if I can do anything to get more people into these stores, like they don't. Have the marketing budgets to run ads a lot of them. So as a company, I will do what I can to you know, amplify their message as well as my own and trying to get more people into their doors. It's becoming like a real real issue.

In the first half of this year, the weather has been so bad in so much of the country that like that also, stuff like in store shopping very very much suffers when it snows every weekend, which is what happened here on the East Coast, Like it snowed every weekend in the first two months of this year, and that means no one's going to stores. They're just buying the necessities at the grocery store. And I, you know, I feel. Very compelled to amplify the movement that has helped me so much.

And also you know, it's it's win win if I can, if I can get more people into these stores to be honest. Yeah, it's like not pure altruism. I don't want people to think that that's how I'm presenting myself. It's it's very much a tactical business decision, and I'm excited to see if it works.

Like I have no idea if it's going to work. You know, you can like. Tele a horse there's water somewhere, but you can't we even really lead them anymore, you know. Yeah, that's exciting.

So, so where will you do the ads? Is it like online ads? So are you going to do some bad publications actually printed. All sorts of stuff.

So I'm going to see what really resonates and what works and what doesn't work. We're also doing a partnership. So I haven't been a trail runner since since I was I don't know, I've been running since I was eleven, And so we've partnered with Vacation Races, which is races there are half marathons and sometimes marathons and five k's in the nation, in and around the national parks, and so DIP will be at starting in June, will be at eleven of those around the country, and I'm like really excited about that.

That's probably the marketing activation that I'm the most excited about because I get to meet other runners, and like, I haven't talked about the shampoo much, but the shampoo is gentle enough to use every day, and so if you're running, if you're a woman who runs especially, you don't have to choose between your run and a good hair day. Basically, so you. Can shower every day without disrupting your the oils in your hair and your scalp health. And that's like a very big deal.

But the reason I made the shampoo that that gentle. Like it's not if someone uses like hair gel or moves, it's like not the best shampoo for them. But if someone is like, you know, a nurse or works with you know, works in a kitchen somewhere, or like works with children or training for something, the shampoo is like the best for them. I love that.

I'm going to ask you something. But then if you can see We've just had a comment on LinkedIn by at the Shahak who was the Man of Sunderland, right, he's actually the mayor of the city where I live now, and he's just said he's just an amazing guest. So so, but but at the time, he's a he's a great So he's I don't know if you have counselors in over there, but he's like a representative political representative of the people who live in this city. But he's also a big champion of small businesses as well.

So he's a great, great guy. So that's that's cool that he's that he's watching and that he's commented. But but actually, you know, you talked about running there and before went live as well talking about swimming. So we've got four kids, as as you know from what I said before.

One of them swims five nights a week, training, trains five nights a week, trains three mornings a week. She regularly does like garlas and swim meet and stuff like that. So I'm just thinking of the top of my head, and I know, I know you said that you do do somewhat with the diving teams. Yeah, the USA diving where we were approached by us, say diving because someone was already using dip and and I was like, of course, we'll sponsor the diving team, Like how cool is it.

I love people that do things that are really hard. You know, running a store is really hard. Just challenging. Running a marathon is challenging.

You know, Diving from some height into cold water many times is so challenging. I love people that go above and beyond and do cool stuff. So yeah, the diving team, I love sponsoring them. It's it's that's kind of the fun part of running besides of running the business.

Besides like you know, obviously having an amazing team, and then like the customers are really cool and the store owners are fun. But like then that other part where you get to decide where your profits go. Like, you know, we we've sent as a team, we've redirected five million dollars back into local economies, which is it's like I couldn't really talk about my plan until I did it and proved that it worked. Right, No one cares about a playbook of a company that's just starting.

But now that we're four and a half years in and I've proven that we can, you know, redistribute this money into local economies, like that is a huge win and I can talk about it. We've donated fifty thousand. Dollars to surf Rider, not only for their ocean efforts, but also they send people to Congress in the United States to fight and plastic laws they want they want to really make the change that I can't go to Congress myself, so I love funding a team that can go. And there's other things that we you know, we're also in the United States.

The Great Lakes are a big, biggest source of fresh water, one of the most important waterways in the world, and so we now have committed to donate to support the Great Lakes. And those things are the most fun part about like start having a company, and and I hope that our customers appreciate where we spend our money and how we do it because like really just you know, collecting a lot of money doesn't really make sense. Putting it where it can inspire the change that you do want to see in the world is like the only way that I see, you know, companies should be moving forward.

No Again, that that just reinforces who you are and what the what the what the company is all about, and so well done. And I'm going to say thank you for doing that as well that to the people that you're support and now keep doing what you're doing, because you're obviously doing a great thing obviously, but having a successful business enables. You to do that as well. And if you had lots of other people, lots of other shareholders or people tell me what to do, you may maybe wouldn't be a to do that.

But when it's. No shareholder would let me do what I do? What are you crazy? But you know, it's part of the fun culture of the brand.

Like if we see someone with a gofund me, that's because we follow a lot of our customers back. And so if we see someone who's like struggling or has a family member struggling and there's a gofund me, we'll contribute. Or we see like if we see something that's cool. Or a customer started a business, will buy from it, you know, like it's it's fun.

And I think that a lot of people. And I keep saying like entrepreneurship is time of miserable, but like these are my life acts for making entrepreneurship fun, like do some good support your customers back, like have a good time. You know, I don't know, it makes it more uh, I don't know, more human, I guess, and part of me every time I see one of my competitors like run into the arms of AI for everything. Like I almost laugh.

I'm like what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? Yeah? Exactly, but it's I mean, it can be hard.

I mean I love I love being my own boss, and I've been doing it. I've been helping people do it for over twenty five years. I've been helping other people start and go their own business. But it's ten years that I've been in business, and I've definitely had difficult times along the way.

Oh yeah, but most of it is being great, like and yeah, just but it does. It's it's you get to choose what type of business you you want to run, and who you want to work. With and how you want to operate. And I'm much much happier doing this than than I ever was working in corporate so big er businesses.

So no, just quickly before I forget, I don't touch on it again before about swimmers, like, I think definitely thinking about what's like over here when they do the garlas or the swim meets. It's like a captive audience. There's you a hundred two hundred kids and parents and cares who are just sat there all day watching swimming. It's a captive audience and you know, obviously there to support the swimmers, but they're often a bit bored.

So if you've got if you've got great products on sale throughout the day. So there is definitely I know there's like an Olympic pool here which which our daughter trains are and compete at and everything. And whenever they have a gala, they always have a local company that sells swimming costumes and they always do amazingly well. And there's other smaller, smaller companies who always do well because you say, it's a captive audience, and it's it's their tall audience.

So maybe maybe. Maybe a local swim meet might be might be already doing it. Well. We do.

We do have so my my both my sons they swim and actually it's lakes around. Yeah, they have they're part of. A lake swim team, okay, which I really love because it gets it gets kids to not be scared of seaweed and not be scared of fish. You know, you have to exist with nature in these in these lanes that are in lakes, and so yeah, the dip has been very successful among there.

But people do buy they'll buy some for and I'll give them a discount obviously, but they'll buy some for their entire swim team at a pop. And the reason is, if I don't know whether I mentioned, is that the conditioner bar also instantly entangles hair. It's like ouch list tangling when you come out of the pool or the ocean. So if you're a.

Surfer and you get knocked around like me, I'm a terrible surfer, but I love it, my hair always gets, you know, completely tangled. And so I wanted the dip bar to be such that you could dip the bar and water, run it down your hair and air dry and go. And so it works, you know, after swimming and chlorine. It doesn't take chlorine out.

It just lets you detangle and air dry, and that minimizes the break it especially if you're on a swim team and you're putting your hair in caps and it pulls and all that. Like it's it's important to keep your hair soft and and not brittle. Yeah, I'm getting upon and don't there'll be I'll tell them all about this. They'll they'll want So we're gonna have to come over and we're gonna have to get someone.

We're gonna have to find a way that we're gonna have to We're gonna be able to stock some over over the UK. But I know there's a lot of people who will be watching this from the US as well in Canada, so yeah. Let me know if if someone's buying from the UK and the shipping charges are crazy, let me know. I see if I can add you know, the value of the shipping, like I can maybe add a bar to it.

I mean you have to put it in the cart notes, so I. Know, yeah, that'd be cool. But yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll foret okaid.

It's it's come up to the hours. So I've thubbly enjoyed that. I've really enjoyed talking to you, and I love what you're doing, and so keep doing it and good look for the future. Is there anything else you want to I want to say or add at the end.

So you know, the main point I want everyone is to if you can shop in store, it's better for yourself. I think it's just better for just you know, the life to know your store owners. When I lived in Ascot and I loved the high street there and I loved I mean, I don't know what still I was in twenty twelve, and I you know, I knew my butcher, I knew my banker. I loved it.

I loved it so much. But if you want to find me, I'm Kate Asserf on LinkedIn and if you wanted to look through DIP the website dip already dot com, and our socials are at dip already on both TikTok and Instagram. Amazing, amazing, love it, Kate, thank you very very much. Really enjoyed that.

And yeah we'll leave it there.