Britt Gardner & Erin Jewett, Co-Founders of WODA

Britt Gardner & Erin Jewett, Co-Founders of WODA

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs You Should Know. CEOs You Should Know
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Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Michael Blaze. Welcome to CEOs you should Know. Joining
me today Britt Gardner and Aaron Jewett, co founders of
Woda Bag. How are you doing, ladies, great? Thank you well,
thanks for coming in. So let's start by telling our
listeners what Woda Bag is.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Wo A bag is a non toxic fully EVA backpack
that is cleanable, durable, and super lightweight.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
It's made for the boat, the beach, the pool, really
anything that at the end of the day you just
need to host down. It's pretty much a virtually indestructible backpack.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
And for those of you who aren't familiar with EVA,
it's the same material that's used in croc shoes.

Speaker 5 (00:49):
Just to explain what it's made of.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, you were showing me the samples, and they come
in different sizes, different colors. They can be customized to
your business. You said you do laser engraving of names,
whatever name you want to put on it if you'd like, right, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
So it comes in two sizes, the original and the Mini.
The original was the first one we designed, and that's
it holds a lot of stuff. It's tested to hold
up to thirty pounds, So this is good for a
big beach day or a lot of stuff, you know,
travel things like that. And then the Mini is more
intended for kids, camp, solo excursions, things that you just
don't have as much stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
So how did you get the idea for water bag?

Speaker 6 (01:26):
We needed it.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
We were on the beach with our girls at the time,
they were eighteen month olds, and I was carrying a
tote bag that was just really difficult to hold that
and my daughter.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
And I was using a cloth backpack that was just
always getting moldy. And at the time, our daughters were
in this watermelon phase of their life, and so they
would throw the watermelon rinds in the backpack and I
mean this, by the end of a couple weeks, this
backpack was just destroyed. And so Aaron and I we
would spend that summer we met. We just kind of
spitbolled all these ideas back and forth about what the

(02:00):
best backpack would be, the best material, what it needs
to do, you know, it needs a pouch inside for
your keys and your phone, and so we truly saw
a need for it this summer that we were designing it,
waiting for our prototype. The amount of times that we
used to say, we need a woda bag. It was,
you know, even taking our girls to the park or
to the aquarium or anywhere that it was just getting

(02:21):
messy and dirty. We just needed a backpack to do
it all. And that's you know where the idea came from.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, I think it's an awesome idea and an awesome product.
And you know, I'm one of those people where my
wife would always complain because I'd grab, you can't do
this anymore because now we're all paper, but I'd grab
like a plastic bag from the you know, the grocery store. Yeah,
just tote that around. And She's like, you are totally embarrassing,
and I'm like, but it works. Who cares. I'm not embarrassed. Well,

(02:50):
my wife was embarrassed.

Speaker 6 (02:51):
You needed a water bag classical?

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Yeah, absolutely, I needed a We have a lot of men,
you know, we designed the bag for men and women,
and we're finding a lot of men are using the bag,
not even if you know, e if they don't have kids.
People are using it now for hunting, for fishing. It's
just it's a all around backpack. We're seeing it not
just being used for coastal activities, so that's that's been

(03:14):
a really rewarding part of this whole product.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
It's great for hiking.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
We've had people buy it out in the Midwest for
dirt biking.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
We had at Seaweed some a couple of people came
up and bought it for their duck decoys. So people
are using it actually for hunting, which is cool. We're
hopefully going to bring on a camouflage lid. We can
customize the colors and the designs on it, and so
one of the things we had a lot of requests
for was a camouflage lid for Seaweed, so we're hoping
this year we can we can do that.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Well, it's pretty cool and it's breathable, it has you know,
the vent holes in it, and as you said, I
mean you can wash it out, so it's very durable.
You can keep it clean and sanitized and that's always
a problem with cloth bags, right.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yes, correct, and our EVA different than a lot of
other products out on the market. Ours is a non
toxic certified EVA, which means it's free of thaltes, lead,
and mercury, which are hormone disruptors. So, as as mothers,
that was very important to us to know that what
we were putting on our bodies and on our kids'
bodies were safe.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
And the material can handle like lysol wipes or sanitizing wipes,
which we liked, you know, during the time that we
were developing, as you know, with all the germs and everything,
that was really important to us to have it be
cleanable and antibacterial.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Now whatda is an interesting name? How did you come
up with that name?

Speaker 3 (04:38):
So? Woda means water and Polish and Britt has Polish descent.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
Yeah, my dad is Polish. I made a name is
Orzak and Aaron's husband is Polish as well, and so
it was the first name that we came up with.
And it's a water friendly bag, so you know, we
just started thinking it's not a dry bag.

Speaker 6 (04:56):
It's a water bag.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
You're supposed to hose it down, you know, get it,
use it around the water. So we just thought it
was perfect. It was short and sweet.

Speaker 6 (05:04):
It is the first name we come up with.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Actually, So now did you know Polish or how did
you go how did you go through that problem?

Speaker 4 (05:10):
I literally googled water and Polish. It was the first
thing that I thought of, and it Cameme Woda and
I texted Aerin and I said, and she goes, did
you know that Brent her husband? She goes, did you
know that Brent is Polish? I said no, did you
know that I was Polish? And I said no, So
it was It was kind of cool. And it's a
way to kind of bring it back to our families too,
you know, our family descent.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
So yeah, and then in Polish is actually pronounced voda,
but you know, we put the southern spin on it.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Yeah. People actually ask us, they say, is that just
like another slang way of sand water? You know?

Speaker 5 (05:42):
Yeah, I kind of.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
I mean it could be, but not, Well that's awesome.
And then and then you both agreed. Immediately you were like, media, Yes.

Speaker 5 (05:51):
It was so easy.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Like I thought that naming it was going to be
so hard, but it was literally as soon as we
heard it, we were like.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
And it was the logo too, the way that the
letters look the A actually kind of looks like a
backpack too, which isn't he and so once we found
the font for WODA, it all just happened. The name
and logo came very quick. I was probably the easiest
part of our entire product.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, that's great. Now, how long did it take to
get from conception to market?

Speaker 5 (06:23):
It took us a few years.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
The idea came about around twenty twenty, and we kindly
slowly worked on it because we were, you know, full
time moms at the time, and which we still are.
But it took us a few years in development when
we had to find an engineer that could help us
with the CAD designs, and we worked with one for
a while until he got us to about the point

(06:46):
that we felt like we needed to move on and
find a factory.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
Which we got a lot of nose from a.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Lot of factories because we were told that the bag
was too big, that it was going to be too
difficult with the holes, So we got a lot of nose.
But then we finally found the right factory and the
right engineer to help us get the last ten percent
of the bag designed. And when we got our first prototype,
we were so excited because we knew we really had

(07:14):
something great.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, I would say that was our you know, aha
moment was when we got our prototype, which was June
twenty twenty three. Yes, yes, June twenty twenty three, so
I guess, you know, twenty It really took about three
years of design, but it was there was some some
stops in between there. You know, there were big life
changes and again a lot of hurdles, a lot of
nose and so every time we got a no, it

(07:36):
was just hard. It was hard to keep pushing through,
and so we'd take a break and then you know,
get back into it. And so it three years really
for the entire design start to finish.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Now did you self fund this or did you have
to find investors?

Speaker 5 (07:50):
We self funded it.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yep, we self funded the start of it. So the
initial design, the large upfront costs is the mold obviously.
But then we were able to take pre orders, so
the Charleston community really rallied together and you know, we
had a lot of pre orders in December of twenty
twenty three, and then the first products came in March
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
And the you know, the money from the pre orders
helped us to be able to place the first container
order and get it here.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
You mentioned manufacturing. What were some of your biggest roadblocks
along the way. Did you have any other problems besides manufacturing.
I would suppose, you know, you're taking a product from
simply an idea to you know, something tangible and something marketable.
I'm sure you ran across some roadblocks.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yes, you know, we had to find freight companies to
get it over here. We had to deal with multiple
trucking companies because there were issues at the time with
the Panama Canal, so we had to reroute our freight
completely and one time we had to have it come
into LA and then trucked all the way across the

(08:59):
US to US.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
So that was one of the freight It.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Wasn't at logistics, I would say was one of the
things we learned the most. It was very you know,
I think it was our second container was stuck in
LA to a point where we were contemplating flying to
LA and getting the container and driving it ourselves. It
was a very crucial moment in our launch. I think
it was June of twenty twenty four, so that we
had pre orders. People were every i mean every other

(09:25):
email was where's our water bag, Where's our water bag?
And so it was very as hard as a business owner,
you know, your startup. It was like our time to
shine and our product was stuck over in LA and
so we had a good trucking friend that kind of
pulled through and got us our product. And so we
we've unloaded containers ourselves in our front of our house.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
We've stored thousands of bags in our garage garages.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
We personally packed up over four thousand boxes and ship
them out ourselves.

Speaker 6 (09:56):
We when we first got our.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
Container and we wanted to save money and you know,
we ran a very lean business to start, and we
delivered the bags ourselves. We were driving them door to
door I mean in the area, in the Charleston area,
which was you know, we did what we had to do,
but in hindsight it was kind of kind of crazy.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, it's awesome that you went and you know, took
that upon yourself to do. And that's what it takes, right,
is being motivated and problem solving.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Absolutely, you have to be determined. You had to be
willing to do it yourself.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
Right, And we weren't want to term bootstrap in it.
It really means, I mean, there was we joked there
was one day there was actual blood sweat, and I mean,
you know, we were frustrated with the container. I think
I sliced my finger packaging up a box and then
we were just dripping sweat in Aaron's garage in the
July heat, and I was like, what have we gotten
ourselves into?

Speaker 3 (10:53):
And our little girls have helped us, like the bush
boxes around, our husbands have been so supportive. Yeah, so
it's really been a family business that everyone's pitched and
helped for sure.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Now do you have a business and background here, you know,
whether it be education or real world to either one
of you have a prior business experience.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
Neither one of us do it all. I'm a nurse
by background.

Speaker 6 (11:18):
And I'm a civil engineer.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
We actually I don't think I took I mean I
took one econ class, I think. So we've just learned
that all as we go. We've we've googled a lot,
we ask for a lot of advice, a lot of
mentors have helped. But it's definitely been a learning curve,
you know. And I think that we've done a good
job with that too.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Well, obviously, absolutely, And you know, and especially if you
didn't have any background whatsoever, you took it upon yourselves
to go learn right right correct. And did you at
any time take any part in any kind of like
brain trusts or anything like that any groups.

Speaker 5 (11:53):
No, not really.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Just like Britt said, we've had a lot of friends
that have you know, had their business or you know,
made a product, either in the food and beverage industry,
and we've just used a lot of ideas from them.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
But otherwise, I say, we bounce ideas off of each
other a lot too. I like to kind of go
down rabbit holes and read a lot of articles and
then I'll just send us screenshot to your own with
a big red circle on it, and I'm like, this
is interesting, you know marketing thing or something with social
media or you know, trends or whatever that we're trying
to really learn all these different things. It's kind of

(12:30):
we both just learn it and then we kind of
take advice from other people and just bounce ideas off
of each other. And I think we both do a
good job of hearing each other out and learning from
each other, honestly.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
And I think another one of our big hurdles has
been social media because it's constantly changing, and you know,
we're doing all of it, So we're having to learn
that aspect as well.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
For sure, there's a lot of you know people. My
brother said a joke, he said, you know, is everyone
a business master now that you've started business. I'm like, yeah,
everyone comes to us and says, this is what you
need to do, this is what you need to do.
And we're like, we know, we know. But one of
the big things is, you know, TikTok. We haven't even
remotely tapped into TikTok. There's you know, we just started
with Amazon. There's you know, influencers that we need to

(13:14):
bring on micro you know, influencers we need to we
need to get ambassadors, we need to be doing a
lot and so that's also you know, a big learning curve.
So we I feel like we know what we need
to do, is just.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
More of the time and manpower to do it right.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Sure, and it's a long process, and I mean, you've
come so far already. I have faith that you'll be
able to pull it off of you know, even further
down the road and have more success than you've already experienced.
You know, it takes that dedication, and it takes the
willingness to learn and face those obstacles and not be
crushed by them.

Speaker 5 (13:50):
Absolutely for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
You know you look at as you mentioned. I mean,
because you're doing a startup, so not only do you
have to worry about the product and the conception, the
design in the manufacturing, as you said, the logistics of
delivering it, but marketing it and building a website and
all of these things.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Oh yeah, I've learned way more about website work than
I ever thought I would. And shopify and.

Speaker 6 (14:15):
Taxes, Oh yeah about the taxes.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Now, don't forget the taxes.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
Absolutely, we don't do that.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
So I take it. You guys were friends before this endeavor.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
So we did not really know each other. We had
mutual friends, but we really met on the beach.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
We met on the beach with our daughters, and our
daughters started playing and they're still best friends, thick as thieves,
which is great.

Speaker 6 (14:39):
And no, we we were.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Not really friends prior to this, and you know, we
started the business together and thankfully it's been a great
success and a great partnership.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yes, so this was literally just an idea that you had.
You started talking his two moms on the beach, and
that's where this idea was born out of it.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Literally we needed it, and that's you know, they say
that the best inventions come from a need, and we
we it's easy to sell our product too, because we
truly it's not to sound cheesy, it's been life changing
for us. We use it every day.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
It's easy to sell something that you really believe in
and feel like it is a good product and you know,
can solve a lot of problems for people.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Right, Well, that's just awesome. So something else that you
experienced lately that was very exciting was Catalyst by Bemock. Right, yes,
so tell us about that experience, and I guess we
should set this up. Catalyst by Bemock is kind of
a local shark tank type event, right where people go,

(15:41):
entrepreneurs go and not only do they network, but they
pitch their products right and try to get funding.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
Correct. So we applied. It's there and it was their
inaugural Catalyst by Bemock. We applied. There was two hundred
and eighty five other companies that applied, local companies.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
We got paid. So there was ten finalists. We pitched
our product.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
We had a five minute pitch and then five minute
Q and A, and we we got third place.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
We did very well, well.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
That's excellent, congratulations.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (16:13):
It was very exciting.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
It was something you know, Aaron and I, I wouldn't
say we're we weren't thrilled to be speaking on stage.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
It was nerve wracking.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
It was you know, it was exciting, but we were
very anxious, you know, just to have it completed. And
you know, we wanted it to be good and we
wanted to be able to come across as you know,
confident in our product as we are, but you know,
doing that in front of a live crowd and judges
was scary.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Yeah, scary, and it's you know, we're very hard workers,
and so it was putting in the time beforehand. You know,
while you're trying to run a business and while you're
trying to run your house, is was tricky. I think
there was a lot of just stress in that sense.
You know, there was other companies there that had teams,
like actual marketing teams and people that were doing this
stuff for them, and it was Aaron and I and

(17:00):
Aaron's house trying to put together the video and pitching
it to our husbands and trying to get feedback from them.
And so it was another thing that we learned how
to do. But it was awesome.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
It was so exciting, and they did such a great
job putting on the event. We met so many people
that I feel like we're going to be able to
connect with in so many various ways and help each other.
But it as nerve wracking as it was, it was
also just as fun and exciting.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
It was very cool, and they're going to do it
again next year and I highly recommend any local I
guess they do Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester County local startups
to apply because the whole process was just seamless and inspiring.
It was just a very cool thing to be a
part of.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
And even if you don't want to apply, I was
talking to someone at the gym this morning saying that
you just need to attend just for the network rank.

Speaker 6 (17:48):
Right, it was the networking was great.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Now, how similar was the experience to what you see
on TV with like a shark tank. Was it a
little more friendly or did they really grillly you over
the product?

Speaker 4 (18:01):
It was way more friendly. They were They weren't trying to,
you know, stump us or embarrass us by any means.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
I think it was.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
They had great question, great they were really like trying
to you know, make sure they were asking the right questions.
But they definitely did it in a you know, a
nice way and great polite and.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
It was questions. I wasn't sure if it was going
to be more marketing like you know, like very numbers
and right, and it wasn't. It was just actual questions
about the product or what we would do if we
got more money than we were asking for. And you
know where did you know, they just wanted a few
more extra questions than our presentation had and so we

(18:40):
were we felt prepared, but we're excited. You know, Bemock
has the tennis tournaments and not only is it the
Charleston Open, but they have an even larger one apparently
in Cincinnati, and so we're we're hoping that you know,
we get connected with that. The bag, like you said earlier,
the front bump out can be engraved with sports teams,
with you know, corporate branding, really anything you can think

(19:02):
of names, and so it's a good it's a good
gift to give, it's a good giveaway bag.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
It's great for companies as Christmas presents. We've been getting
a lot of orders for that recently.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
So we think that Bemock, you know, with their hotels,
they could sell them at their hotels with the Charleston
Place logo or the Cooper logo, you know, they could.
There's a lot of opportunities to work with them, and
so we're excited for that opportunity, not just the funding,
but just to be a part of bemock is a
huge opportunity within itself.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Now, what would you give what kind of advice? And
I know, you know attending bemock would be one tenant
of that, But what kind of advice would you give
to an up and coming entrepreneur who has an idea
but you know, is just facing everything we just talked
about and you know, but is dedicated and wants to

(19:52):
take it to market? What kind of advice would you
give to them?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
I think, you know, ask as many questions of as
many people as you can are in any kind of
business industry. Obviously, like you said, be determined and don't
get two down if you get told no A bunch.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
I think the hardest part is bringing the product to market,
and so you know that last ten percent they say,
is the actual hardest part. And so I think keep
moving forward the launch is always super exciting. Scaling is tough.
I think there's ups and downs with any business as
in as any life you know experience.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
There. Yeah, there are times of the year where you
know we're doing better than other times of the year,
and you can't get too discouraged with that because it
is just the way, you know, depending on what your
product does when people want to buy it more right.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
I think also you have to stay positive about the
whole experience, you know, where you have to want to
learn things, you have to want. You have to love
your product first of all, because it makes it easier
to sell. You have to be passionate about it. And
I think that it's you have to be thankful that
you're able to do it. You know, there's times where
it's hard to you know, a lot of work and
a lot of stress. But I think that there's a
lot of people that would love to start a business,

(21:03):
and so we we put in the time. And I'm
not saying we're lucky by any means, but this is
it's a it's been exciting.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
But we also took our time, like you just said,
and made sure that it was a design and a
function and the elements that we really wanted before.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
We didn't rush it to mark.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
We didn't rush it to market. We we perfected it.
It's you know, we say those three years they were needed.
It was we had a lot of no's, a lot
of different you know, people wanted to create the product
and not up to the quality that we wanted it
to be.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
In some of our HEMI prototypes. So we had one
prototype that was three D printed, So you know, when
we got that, it was just kind of like, wow,
this is because it was so rigid. Obviously we knew
it wasn't gonna be the same material.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
But take your yes, I think, take your time, get
the product perfected, and then you know, getting it to
market is hard.

Speaker 6 (21:55):
It's that's a that's a hard part of the business.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Speaking of taking your product to market. If people are
interested in a Woda bag, what do they do to
find out more? Where can they get one?

Speaker 4 (22:07):
So we sell online at wodabag dot com and then
any wholesalers or any large custom orders, we just have
them sent to our email which is info at wodabag
dot com.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
And we do have various retailers across the US, so
you know, you can always ask us, email us and
ask if there's one in your area, but mainly our website.
Instagram would be the best way to purchase.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Well excellent, and you're based here in Charleston, which is great.
It's always great to see success, homegrown success here in
the Low Country. Yes, and you can go to Woda
Bag woda bag dot com to find out more and ladies,
congratulations on your success.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Thank you so much. We appreciate all the support and
for being here today.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Brick Gardner and Aaron Jewett, co founders of Woda Bag,
thanks for joining us for CEOs you should Know today.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Thank you you've been listening to iHeart Radios. CEOs you
should Know heard every Tuesday and Saturday morning right here
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