The Startup CPG Podcast

Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So we knew that were going to be a body care brand when we started because again, shea butter is great, all parts of your body. And so when we launch with the hand cream, we're like, okay, that's just the beginning. But we need to also hydrate our entire body. So we wanted to keep the assortment very tight and again, focused on all parts of the body, which naturally then leads to like, face. So I think in the future we would love to do something in the facial category and consider something there because a little bit of shea butter is also amazing for hydration on the skin on your face. So that's something that we're looking into.

00:44
Grace Kennedy
Hello everyone and welcome back to the startup CBD podcast. This is Grace and today I'm so excited to share my founder feature with Akua, the co founder of Carite. Carite is a dry skin solution founded by three sisters, one of whom is a board certified dermatologist. The skincare brand sources ingredients from Africa and its products are clinically proven to alleviate dry skin for all skin types, tones, ages and genders. Akua and I chat all about Caritay's retail growth, their approach to social media as a body care brand, and why it's so important that Caritay's products are clinically tested. I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think. Hello everyone and welcome back to the start of CPG podcast.

01:37
Grace Kennedy
Today I am joined by Akua, one of the co founders of Carytay, one of three sisters actually that co founded Cary Tay. So welcome to the show, Akua.

01:47
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Thank you so much for having me.

01:49
Grace Kennedy
Yes, I'm so excited to learn more about Cary Tay and actually as this episode is coming out, it will be Akua's birthday so I just have to shout that out really quick. Happy birthday, Akua.

01:59
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Thank you so much.

02:01
Grace Kennedy
But I'd love for you to introduce yourself and Caritay to our listeners. What is Caritay?

02:06
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Sure. So hi everyone. My name is Akua Okunsende and I'm one of the three co founders of Caritay. I'm actually the youngest of the three sisters and Caritay actually means chez nut in French and that really is the foundation of our entire business. So we grew up as sisters, of course, in our family is from Ghana and we used to bring raw shea butter from Ghana whenever went home to visit our family. And if we know anything about raw shea butter, it's yellow, it's kind of pasty, but it's an incredible moisturizer for your skin. And so growing up, that's actually what we used. After a bath or a shower, we would just put on raw shea butter. And that was our moisturizer. But as you know, raw shea butter can be a little bit greasy.

02:47
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And so over time, we said to ourselves, well, we should create something that kind of melds that raw shea butter in a very luxurious way and make it more of a high concentration of shea butter, but infused with lotion and other creams. And so that was really the genesis of how we came up with the concept of Carite. And of course, we named it Carrote, because, again, it means chezene in French. Funny enough, we love skincare so much that my sister, Dr. Donna Bellachi, actually became a dermatologist. And so she has her own practice in Bergen County, New Jersey, which is where we live and where we grew up. And, you know, she sees a lot of patients. She's seen over 18,000 patients in her practice since she's been practicing dermatology.

03:27
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And they often will ask, you know, what can I use for dry skin? I have dryness from eczema or psoriasis or other skin care conditions. And she never could really recommend. Yes, there's Cerave, there's Cetaphil. There are products that are more mass in drugstore, but she didn't really have something that had the shea butter and the efficacy of shea butter in it with simple ingredients. And so we decided to create it. And so Caratay is a body care line, includes a body cream, a hand cream, and a lip balm. So we kept the assortment very tight. And that is our line, and we're really excited to share it with the startup CPG community.

04:03
Grace Kennedy
Yes. And I was saying to Okua before we got started that I received some of their samples and they came in just in time for the cold January and February dryness. And I've been using the body butter, you know, every time after I shower, and I've been carrying the hand cream around with me in my bag. And first of all, it smells delicious, which is definitely not something you always get from these, like, sort of dermatologist recommended products. You get, like, no scent, which of course is fair and needed for some people. But I love the way Cary Tay smells, and it also just works really well for dry skin. So I'm a fan. And, you know, I always love when a dermatologist is behind something because it gives you a little bit more trust and faith in the product.

04:47
Grace Kennedy
So I'm curious, once you guys decided, like, okay, we want to create this thing. How did you get started? Like, what were your first steps? Were you at all in the body care or beauty world before deciding to enter into this business?

05:02
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Not at all. So our path to this brand and entrepreneurship is, I think, very not linear. And I think that's sort of a brand story that a lot of founders can relate to. So my background is actually in financial services and tech. I most recently worked at Google for almost 10 years between new York and London. My middle sister is a lawyer and she's always worked at law firms. And then my oldest sister, as I mentioned, is a dermatologist with her own practice. So we interestingly have very complimentary skills to start a business, but none of us had ever ventured into really an entrepreneurial space. We'd actually always worked for like big companies.

05:40
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And, you know, when we came up with the concept of Carrotay, it was 2013 and were like, okay, well we have this idea, like, let's start to set up the process for establishing a business. So we got an LLC set up for a partnership between the three of us. We got, you know, our tax ID in order, we got an operating agreement in place and like, we just started to kind of piece together, like all the behind the scene things that no one talks about that you need to actually start a business. We got our logo trademarked, which was really important, and made sure we had that in place. My sister being the lawyer was like, that's the first thing we need to get done is make sure we have that get trademark in place and do that.

06:17
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And then we slowly just started to put things together. So we knew, of course, the shea butter we wanted to source directly from Ghana. And what's amazing about shea butter and where it comes from this northern region in Ghana. And a lot of the people who end up farming and collecting the shea nuts to make the shea butter are actually women. And so there are these women led co ops that are responsible for completely farming and collecting the shea nuts that we use for our products, which we really feel like a very close tie too, because ultimately being from Ghana, we always wanted to make sure to give back to those communities. And the fact that they're women and we can empower them just makes it that much more impactful for us.

06:56
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So we knew that our sourcing was going to be kind of taken care of by those women. And to this day, we still source directly from those women, which is amazing. So it really was then a process of getting ingredients sourced and figuring out what our ingredient list was going to look like. And again, having Dr. Nana as our CEO really made it very easy for her to say, okay, these are the ingredients that are great for your skin and great for dry skin. These are not. And she was able to sort of cherry pick and curate, you know, what the ingredient list was going to look like. And from there we launched our first product, which was our hand cream, in 2017. So it really was a process.

07:34
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Like from 2013 when we first got the LLC set up to 2017, we really spent a lot of time, again, finding the sourcing for our ingredients, finding the packaging. We had a very specific packaging aesthetic in mind. And it took a while to find what we wanted. You know, just getting all the different vendors in place to actually create a label and, you know, get it printed and find a contract manufacturer to actually formulate the product to our liking. And this was all done as a side hustle because again, were all working full time jobs. So it really was kind of a labor of love passion project. And it came together with a launch in 2017. So hopefully that it kind of helps to explain the evolution in that these things don't happen overnight, but it can be done.

08:16
Grace Kennedy
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, not only you guys working full time jobs, it sounds like they're all pretty time intensive full time jobs. They're not strict nine to fives probably. So really impressive. And I'm sure you were grateful to have your sisters at that time though, to kind of. And it sounds like you really, each of you had your own expertise. I'm curious what your. Are you like the CFO now?

08:37
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, great question. So I actually run the business day to day, so I see myself as a general manager. We have contractors who help with all sorts of things like accounting operations, some marketing support as well. But I am the person who oversees all of that. But I really see that my role fits into more of our business development opportunities. So I'm always very forward thinking, like, what partnerships are we going to pursue? You know, who are we going to want to work with over the next one to two years? Thinking about new distribution channels, thinking about new marketing efforts, trade shows, all of that. That's what I love because it feels very like a building always, which is really kind of fun.

09:16
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And it's very much pie in the sky because you can just have an idea and just be like, I want to make this happen and just work towards it. And that's kind of where I thrive. So my focus is, yes, day to day, like General manager, just making sure things are running smoothly, but we have people to sort of help with a lot of sort of the operational aspects of the business.

09:36
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely, that makes sense. I mean, you need someone running it day too, don't you? So I'm curious, after you guys launched in 2017, over these last few years, where have you really poured your energy in terms of getting Caritay onto people's hands, I guess, and you know, in front of customers. Like, how did you get it to the customer?

09:55
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, I think a lot of our focus has been on retail partnerships. So when we launched in 2017, we originally thought were going to strictly be D2C and I think after eight months of just being D2C and you know, the excitement of the launch kind of died down. We're like, okay, how are we going to really get brand awareness out there? And there really wasn't an efficient way to do that beyond of course being organic or paid social on social media platforms. And again, like TikTok didn't exist then. So it's interesting to think of like the ecosystem changing. But Instagram was just becoming a platform for brands really at that time. And so we kind of took that and made sure were present there. But we also realized, okay, strictly D2C is probably not best move and we should consider retail.

10:41
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So we first partnered with the Detox Market, which you might know is a. It's actually Toronto based retailer focused on clean beauty and they have stores in Toronto, in LA and New York and they were our first retail partner. They're fantastic. We still work with them today and we really built our sort of retail database and partnerships with just cold calling and like reaching out to retailers, sending them packages to try their products. And like, you know, as you said earlier, when you try the products you like, you're like, oh my gosh, this is great. A lot of people felt the same way. So it wasn't so hard to get into retail, I think, especially when we really wanted to just focus on sort of the independent clean beauty retailers within North America.

11:24
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
It was a game of, you know, making your list, cold calling, sending packages and then getting on shelf. Again, not as simple as I'm making it sound, but that was really our focus to feel that were not only partnering with wholesale and like learning the tricks and the trade of it, but also a very easy way to get in front of customers that we wouldn't have otherwise. The people who are already shopping at those retail stores would then be able to discover our products. So retailers really do act as like a marketing channel as well. Some people don't really think of it that way, but we do. And we invest in making sure that we are talking to our retailers on a regular basis. We do a lot of in store events too, to kind of do like meet the makers.

12:06
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And for us to get to meet customers and learn, you know, their reactions to our products and what else they are looking for. And that's really been our focus since we launched is like retail and thinking about how to grow that.

12:18
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I hear so many times on this podcast people saying, we really thought we launched thinking were going to be totally dtc. And then we quickly realized, no, we need a retail presence. So I think that's such a common trajectory and, you know, important for people to be reminded of. And another thing I hear again and again on this podcast is, you know, getting into retail is one thing and getting off the shelf is another. And so you spoke a little bit to some of the things you guys do to sort of get off the shelf in terms of like in store events. But could you speak a little bit to how you know, not only get into the store, but also make sure your product moves?

12:51
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, I think a lot of it's education with the staff. So I think we're very lucky in that we have nana who can speak to the efficacy of specific ingredients and really go deep on helping to train, you know, the staff at these different retail partners to ensure that they really understand why the ingredients are set the way they are and that our products are made for dry skin. They are actually have been clinically tested as well. All of these things really help to feel that the customer understands the product and that they know that they're getting something that's going to work for them.

13:23
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So I would say honestly, like education is the first step and just understanding like who the important people are at the store, who's going to be on the floor of the store to talk to customers and really ensure that they understand who we are as a brand, what our brand story is, and then the ingredient story as well. I think also telling our customers on social media and people that, you know, are interested in our products, where we actually stock the product. It sounds really simple, but some people don't like to shop online. They want to go to the store, they want to try the products, they want to make sure it works for them, they want to compare it to others.

13:57
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And I think reminding customers that you can walk to a store and you go Buy the product is something we try to do regularly. So whether it's through social or email marketing, we often will promote the various stores that we're in so that people know where they can shop in real life, I think that's really important and something that's sometimes often missed. Even with us, sometimes we miss that. We just assume, oh, you'll go to our site and see our stockist. Listen, No, I think people need to know where they can walk and go shop, because there are still shoppers who like the omnichannel experience, you know, and like to be in physical retail as well.

14:27
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And what sort of. I know you said, you know, when you first launched into retail, you were really focusing on these, like, small, clean beauty retailers. Is that sort of still your target retailer? Or have you guys been expanding into other channels outside of maybe the small, clean beauty shop?

14:44
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, it's a great question. Like anything, things evolve. And so, you know, from 2017, now it's 2025, there has been a big shift in how consumers are shopping. I do think there's still a population of people who prefer to shop in store, but as we know, Amazon has really taken a big, you know, leap into the beauty world. And I think I saw a stat that last year the beauty category grew 300% year over year in revenue for Amazon, whereas Amazon only grew like 20% year over year in revenue. So, like, the growth is really massive there. And we made the decision mid 2023 to start selling on Amazon. So that has actually been a big shift away from where we started.

15:28
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
We still obviously have our independent retailers that we focus on, but we also decided that if people are going to search for beauty products on Amazon, we are missing a big opportunity if we're not there. And so we've decided to sell there. And actually, it's been very interesting. Like, we don't get a lot of data, so we don't know who these customers are, but people are definitely shopping. And it's been kind of awesome to have, again, the dichotomy of the two types of places that people want to search for their products and shop and the convenience of it all. So we kind of have to move where the customer is from that perspective. In addition to Amazon, we've also worked with a couple of spas, which has been really fun. So we're in the New York area.

16:08
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
We're at Sage and Sound on the Upper east side. We're at the well in Flatiron. We're at a place called City. Well, in Brooklyn, as well as the Four Seasons in Maui. And we're looking to expand to more places around the Four Seasons as well across the country. We're also at Miraval in the Berkshire, so there's quite a few spas that we partnered with from the retail perspective. So they have, you know, a little retail shop set up outside the spa. After the customer goes, the guest goes and has their treatment, and then they're looking for products. So that's a really natural fit of a place where people are okay looking to shop for good skincare. And then in addition, we are looking to think about more national distribution. So the likes, of, like, a Whole Foods and New Leaf in California.

16:52
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Like, we're trying to think of different potential grocery channels that could be a good fit for our brand. So more to come. We're hopeful that we'll get some more expansion over the next year to two in the grocery category and then continue to focus on growing the existing channels that we have as well that I mentioned. Yeah, absolutely.

17:11
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. If any Whole Foods buyers are listening, you should really stop Cary Tay, because you have at least one customer right here on the podcast right now.

17:18
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I love.

17:19
Grace Kennedy
I will go buy carrot tay at my local Whole Foods. And I actually love the beauty section at Whole Foods. I totally do shop.

17:25
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I think it's great. I always go down that aisle. I feel like I don't love grocery shopping. So, like, I feel like when I go to Whole Foods, I'm like, oh, this is, like, nice. I can do something else besides, like, pick up vegetables. So I enjoy. Enjoy the aisle a lot. And I feel like I do discover. I buy my vitamins there. I discover a lot of products there. So we're hopeful. Fingers crossed. That's another channel for us as well.

17:42
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's awesome. Another thing I was thinking about that's changed since 2017 that you mentioned is the TikTok of everything. And how have you sort of adapted to bring Caritay to TikTok, where obviously so many beauty brands are and really utilize social media. And what's been your approach?

18:03
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I have to be honest, TikTok has been interesting. I think we started out first. I'm trying to remember probably 2020. And at the time we really focused on having creators make some videos for us and us posting on there that I feel like has changed in terms of what people want to see and the authenticity of that to lead people to actually purchase the product. Right. So we organically will post amongst the three of us. And usually we just try to be very Lighthearted. We'll, like, do a trending video or a trending audio and do a dance and whatever. And like, that worked for a while and people were interested. I think now people want to be educated on the platform. And again, it keeps changing. Like, I feel like Every week on TikTok is a new thing.

18:47
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
But when we've leaned into education around shea butter and our story and, you know, what type of ingredients are good and what products we recommend, they're not even our products, but what is in our daily routines, I think people tend to gravitate towards that because they want to be educated and informed on, you know, what a doctor is doing for their skin. Right. And, like, what they're eating and what their lifestyle is like. So we focus more on that. We've also set up TikTok shop, which hasn't really panned out the way that I expected it to. We've gotten a handful of orders through it, I do think, and it's hard to track this, but I do think that people may have seen, you know, our products on TikTok and then gone to Amazon or potentially our own site to shop.

19:28
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And from that perspective, I think that's great. So I'm like, okay, if that's the way that they want to discover our product and lead their customer journey to another site, that's fine with me, too. So I do think it's a lot. We have to be in all the places I think we have to be online and our own site. We have to be on Amazon, we have to be on Instagram, we need to be on TikTok, we have to be in store. I think, like, you have to kind of do it all because customers are discovering you at different points of the journey and you don't know which point is going to trigger a purchase or, you know, continued loyalty of your product. And so we try to do all of it.

20:01
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Also LinkedIn, that's another stealth place where I think making sure you're posting there and connecting with people, I think is another way to engage potential audiences, too.

20:11
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. Brand founders have to be everywhere and do everything. Everywhere.

20:15
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Everywhere. Yeah. And I'm grateful there's three of us because it's, you know, for solo founders, I feel for them, it's a lot of work.

20:22
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. I mean, and thank God you have three of you that. That definitely helps things. So it sounds like you guys on social media kind of have moved away from sort of the creator economy of, like, paying influencers. Do you still do, like, gifting or different things? Like that or have you largely kind of moved away from the creator perspective?

20:42
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I don't think we've moved away from it. I think we have just been more intentional about who we're gifting and why. So if we come across a micro. I actually love micro influencers. I think they are very powerful and they tend to be more authentic in how they show up with our products. So if we come across a micro influencer that we think is interesting, we will reach out to them. They are usually incredibly responsive. We will gift them a set of products and you'll see like a post within like a couple days and we'll give them an affiliate link so that they can drive commissions for themselves. And we've seen that work pretty well. We're not, I wouldn't say we're actively gifting a hundred influencers a month, which is what I think the recommendation sometimes is.

21:23
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And maybe that would be helpful, I'm not sure. But we just do it when we come across people we think are good people and a good fit for our brand. And I think for now that is working fine. Again, I think our focus, yes, customers are great and I would love them to shop more on our site and on Amazon. But I think for us right now, our wholesale distribution model is taking up a lot of our bandwidth. And so we're thinking through again how to pivot while the market is changing as well. And that's been more of our focus, less so the growing of the social media, you know, ecosystem.

21:57
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, social media in and of itself is a whole nother job. So, yeah, you got it. Focus your energy where you have it. Another thing that I was curious about is also your product development over time. Obviously you said you launched with the hand cream, but now you have the body and the lip. And I'm curious about, like, why you decided to add more SKUs. And then also if there are any other future products down the line you're hoping to bring to Carrotay.

22:22
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah. So we knew that were going to be a body care brand when we started because again, shea butter is great, all parts of your body. And so when we launch with the hand cream, we're like, okay, that's just the beginning. But we need to also hydrate our entire body. Right. So the body cream actually was launched about six months later. And the difference in the formulation is really just there's more concentration of shea butter in the body cream so that it's thicker in consistency. I'm sure you could tell when you tried it's thicker consistency, and so it absorbs really well on the body. You just need a little bit more of it. So that's the difference there. And then the lip balm was just a natural evolution too, because, again, it's like, we think of it as, like, head toe hydration.

23:02
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Like, lips get very dry, especially in the winter, very chapped. What we love about our lip balm is that you don't have to put your finger in it. It just. You can apply it just like this. And so it's because it came out during COVID we wanted to be very sanitary and make sure that people, you know, didn't have to continue to, like, sanitize their hands and put their hands in. I just don't love those tins where you have to, like, put your finger in all the time. I just think it's kind of, like, not sanitary. So we love the fact that you can just apply it like this. Also, like, easy for kids. Like, I have two boys, and, like, they'll put it on in the morning before they go to school. I think it's like, a really good application.

23:36
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So we wanted to keep the assortment very tight and again, focused on all parts of the body, which naturally then leads to, like, face. So I think in the future, we would love to do something in the facial category and consider something there, because a little bit of shea butter is also amazing for hydration on the skin on your face. So that's something that we're looking into. I do think that our products are also great for babies and pregnant women. So I think there's something there around future development in those spaces. And then I'd also say, like, the feet. But I would argue that, you know, the body cream is great for your. Your feet anyway, so I don't think we come up with a different product there.

24:12
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Way down the line, I think we look at, like, hair care, but that is a very difficult category. I don't know if you ever interview folks who are founders from hair care brands, but I think that's a tough for nut to crack. But definitely shea butter, being that it's so hydrating. Again, a natural evolution to hair care in the future, I think as well.

24:29
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that makes sense. I did interview the founder of a haircare brand, Umanos, once, and she. She said to everyone, when, after she launched her haircare brand, they were like, why'd you start with hair care? But it's a great product. So.

24:41
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, I bet.

24:42
Grace Kennedy
I bet I was Thinking about what you were talking about, like, breaking into these different industries and, you know, beauty and body care are, you know, such large categories, and there is so much out there. I'm curious how you guys have, like, what your experience has been like coming into this category without, you know, experience in this world. And also how you've been, like, sort of differentiating the product. You know, obviously the product itself is great. And I was going to say too, about the body cream that it's kind of like, whipped almost.

25:14
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, it is.

25:15
Grace Kennedy
I'm. I'm getting distracted just thinking about it, but I was curious, just like, yeah. What has it been like to break into the beauty industry and also like, be a part of it for these last eight years that have really changed and evolved in so many ways.

25:28
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah. I think to your question about not being in the industry and breaking in, I think we're very lucky that Nana really is actually tangentially in the beauty industry. She understands skin health in and out, and so I think I've learned a lot from her about what's good for your skin, what's not. And this also includes, like, how you eat and how you move and your lifestyle overall. And I think that has helped us think about how we are going to develop our products in the future and how we want to market our products that we currently have now and who we want to partner with to do all of that. So I do think as much as, like, Abena and I didn't necessarily have those backgrounds, Nana kind of led the charge in educating us.

26:09
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And then I think our backgrounds are only complimentary. Having a lawyer to review all the contracts and, like, understands all that legalese and the details and, like, what we shouldn't be signing and what we should. She just manages all of that and takes it and runs with it. And then, you know, I have a business background. I have a business school degree. I think just having that sense of, like, okay, thinking differently about finances and strategy and marketing, like, I don't have deep expertise in all those areas, but I know enough to be dangerous, if that makes sense. And so that's really helped them and in the skills that they meant they might not have. So again, I do think we don't have, you know, the two of us don't necessarily have those backgrounds.

26:49
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
But Nana is a skin expert, so she's been able to lead us, you know, down the path correctly. And then in terms of competition, we got this question a lot, actually. And I think it's really simple. Our differentiators, like, we're three sisters. It's a family business. I think that is like a very rare thing. Most of the founders you see are co founders, like their friends or, you know, they have, we're similar networks or whatever and they come together to start a business. We're a family and everything that we do is rooted in family, even from, you know, sourcing from where our family's, from our ingredients. So just our brand story is very interesting. The fact that we do have complementary skills with someone who has like inherent expertise, like over 18,000 patients, a medical degree has seen all sorts of types of skins.

27:31
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Like that's not something that other people necessarily can bring to the table. And then I think the third thing is the fact that we've gone through clinical testing. So what we love about our products are that they are accessible but they've gone through like medical clinical testing. So they don't feel super like they need a prescription or that they're super medical or dermatological necessarily. They feel more accessible but they've been made with the rigor of a dermatologist. And our clinical trials have shown that the body cream specifically has shown 225% more hydration than the comparison moisturizer after 24 hours of usage. That was a test that was done. And so we know that our products are clinically effective for dry skin. And I think anyone who tries it and uses it on a regular basis can attest to that.

28:21
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So those are really our differentiators. Our brand story, having, you know, Nana being the science backed lead for the brand and then the clinical efficacy of the products.

28:31
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, it makes so much sense. You have kind of the anecdotal element and also the hard data of like this really works. I'm curious and maybe this is a bit of a tangent, but I am, I'm just curious about how clinical testing works and how you kind of go down that process because I'm sure, you know, for a beauty brand doing clinical testing feels really important. So how do you go down that path?

28:51
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
So it's about finding a lab and like identifying a lab that can do it for you. We're fortunate that we do have a connection to a lab through a friend in California. And so she and her lab, I can actually shout them out. Sula lab, she's wonderful. The owner is AJ Ade, she's also Ghanaian and she ran our clinical trials for us. And so, you know, it really is just being able to identify what you want to run in terms of the trial. And she can obviously speak More to this, but, you know, there's a cost associated. She gets a panel of a statistically significant number of participants of all different skin types tones to make sure that it's diverse in that perspective, and runs the trial. And so she was able to do that for us.

29:35
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And luckily our products came back that they were very clinically effective. And it's an awesome thing that now that we can talk about, not only is a dermatologist developed, but they're actually clinically effective. So we're grateful for that. And definitely for any future products, we'll be sure to be doing the same thing.

29:50
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, no, that's awesome and super interesting to hear about how that all works. Cause I always see on beauty things like clinically tested at this, and I'm like, how do they do that? I don't actually know what's happening there.

30:02
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah, it's all about, like, just having a lab partner and, you know, paying the fee to do it. And, you know, you want to hope that you get the right results. So. And I think there's also. And she can speak to this more. But I believe there are different levels of clinical testing. I think you could do, like, a more general one. You could focus on sensitive skin. I think there's different angles, but, yeah, I think more and more customers want to see this as well. Speaking about the evolution of 2017, I don't think anyone cared about that. But now customers are super smart about reading ingredient labels and they want to know that this stuff works and it's not going to cause a rash or a breakout or something like that.

30:39
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I think clinical testing is going to become more and more critical for brands. Can't just, like, make a product in your kitchen and, like, you know, people buy it. Like, it's not. People are getting smarter than that, so.

30:51
Grace Kennedy
Totally. I mean, they learn everything they need to know on TikTok, so.

30:54
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Exactly.

30:56
Grace Kennedy
So question I like to always ask is, you know, if you were starting over again in 2013, 2014, is there a piece of advice that you wish you'd been told by someone further along in the business than you? Like, what's something you wish you'd known or wish you'd had the perspective about?

31:16
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Great question. Well, I think the. The first important piece of advice is keep your job. Like, if you have a job, do not quit your job to start a business unless you have a lot of money and you can do it. We are a bootstrapped company, and it's because we had jobs and were able to use our money to fund our business. And that's not something that, like, I don't regret that at all. Like, I definitely think it's required. And I think actually it'll make you figure out how passionate are you about continuing or not? Because now I'm running this full time. I'm not at Google anymore, and I'm still very passionate about growing this business.

31:54
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
And you may find that after starting, you're not so passionate or you feel like this is too hard or you want to go back to corporate, and that's fine. But I think having the perspective of both is really important. And I'm glad that I had 16 years of working in corporate jobs before starting, you know, before going full into this. And I think that's important to have perspective. So that's my biggest piece of advice. I think something that I wish I had known is probably how hard retail is. I think doing independent retail is. I don't want to say it's easy because it's not, but I can talk to the owners of these stores on a very regular and easy basis. I can call them, email them. They respond very quickly.

32:31
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I think if you're working with larger retail, you either need a broker who has, you know, buyer relationships or, you know, some way in to make sure that your product's gonna be top of mind for, you know, the entire catalog of stores in the country. I think it's. I think doing a national retail rollout is tough. We haven't quite done one yet because again, we've been focused on more the independent, but we're anticipating we will. And I think as much as it's exciting, I think it's going to make our jobs a lot harder. So we're mentally and physically and, you know, financially and emotionally preparing for that. And I think I wish I had more of a kind of rule book for how that's going to go. And I don't. So we'll see.

33:10
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
But yeah, I think having that guidance and we've gotten advice here and there and it's been great, but having that guidance ahead of time, making sure we're super ready, I think is something I would hope all founders have access to.

33:21
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And speaking to that, you know, what resources or, you know, has it been mentors have you looked to or pulled from as you've been growing carrote these last few years? What has been that place where you can say, oh, God, what do I, you know, do you have a friend or, you know, something like that to go to when you're at These decision points, you're like, what's the rule book or the playbook or what do I do?

33:43
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
A lot of it is actually other founders. Like that is something that I think is underrated. I have WhatsApp groups of other founders and we just talk to each other and getting advice from people that have either done it or tried or, you know, they have, they know this buyer or that buyer or whatever, like that is actually I think the most valuable information that you could get because they're going to tell you the real deal. They're going to tell you what worked and didn't work. They've been in the trenches. Like they know. So other founders are my like lifeline. I'm on like a tech spaces with a lot of people who've, who are in this industry and I think that's really helpful.

34:18
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
I do think there have been people like, you know, mentors that I've had through accelerator programs I've participated in and that have also been very helpful. So I think getting involved with accelerator programs is always good for not only educating yourself, but also just the access you get to people that you wouldn't have otherwise. I recommend that to founders. And then, yeah, just being scrappy, like honestly, like LinkedIn, like I was saying this earlier, like stealthily, is like kind of a great platform. Learn what other people are doing, you know, what partners are hot and responsive, which are not, you know, cold messaging people. I got, we got onto Saks.com through a cold message on LinkedIn.

34:58
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Like LinkedIn can really be very helpful to identify people not only just for retail, but people who could be helpful to help you grow your business or just schedule 15 minutes to learn from someone who might have done this before. So those are my tips. I think being scrappy, basically you don't necessarily need anything formal. It just is like learn how to be scrappy and use your network to learn how to do things well.

35:20
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that makes so much sense. So my last question before we wrap up is just how can the startup CPG community support Karatay?

35:28
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Yeah. So follow us on Instagram yarriteay so M Y K A R I T E definitely, if you decide to purchase the product or try it, we would love a review that goes a really long way, both either on our site or on Amazon or wherever you choose to shop. And I think if you hear of any opportunities aligned to what we're looking to do, like growing our distribution channels in, you know, the spa area, hotel, grocery, we would love to hear from you. If you've done it before and you have some tips like, we'd love to hear from you, we'd love to hear from other founders. So definitely feel free to reach out. I'm sure my contact information will be shared as well.

36:05
Grace Kennedy
Yes.

36:06
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Awesome.

36:06
Grace Kennedy
And everyone should go purchase Caritay also because it's Akua's birthday today. Oh so wish her a happy birthday and go purchase some Caritay. I, as a user of the product myself, I can testify that it is. It truly works so well and my skin struggles in the winter. So you know, it looks good right now.

36:23
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
You're good.

36:24
Grace Kennedy
Oh thank you. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show, Akua and I can't wait to see. Thanks for having me next for Caritay and good luck with everything.

36:33
Akua Boakye Okunseinde
Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Have a great day.

36:38
Grace Kennedy
All. Alright everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us out so much if you left a 5 star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I am Grace Kennedy, the host of the Founder Feature series. So feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature and if you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack. You can sign up via our website startupcpg.com.