June 26, 2019 • 32 mins
Unexpected success can feel like the best kind, unless the struggles that come with it overwhelm you or undermine your relationships. Raegan Moya-Jones, author of What It Takes: How I Built a $100 Million Business Against the Odds, opens up about how taking the leap is still worth it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Even though I've made bad decisions, I've never not groaned
from them, even if they didn't work out the way
I ultimately hoped that they would. Thanks for joining us
(00:33):
on the podcast where we talk about our things to change,
big changes, little changes, complete life changes. I am Lisa
Oz and I am Jill herzig Um. We live in
an edge. We were just discussing this where entrepreneurialism is
so celebrated in our culture, as it should be. And
(00:54):
as I sort of went through my big job shift,
I kept thinking to myself, well, maybe maybe I should start.
It's something that seems to be the thing to do.
That's this is just it's all about entrepreneurs. And I
had this, you know moment where I looked deep in
my soul and I thought, Jill, you're just not an entrepreneur.
Do you feel like you're an entrepreneurial personal Lisa me yes,
(01:15):
oh gosh, Um. I haven't launched anything yet, let's way.
But that doesn't mean I don't think I have it
in me. I have like this fantasy of an inner entrepreneur.
I don't know. I see you, I see your hand
in many things that have launched. But maybe we won't
go into that. Well, our guest today is a master entrepreneur.
(01:37):
She is the founder of Aiden and an A, which
is UM for all of you who have had children
who are under eighteen, we're probably sixteen, the go to
baby swaddling blanket. And she's also the author of UM
What It Takes. How I built a hundred million dollar business.
(01:59):
I get the odds. Reagan Moyer Jones, thank you so
much for being hee with us today. Thank you for
having me all right. So, edn and A is iconic,
and I only know about it because I'm a grandmother
and I have little grandkids from five down to one,
and they don't come anywhere without stacks of these swaddling blankets.
(02:22):
Tell us about In and A, How it started? What
cut you into this business? What was the birth of
this baby? Well, the birth was really the actual birth
of an A, who is my eldest of four daughters.
So she was really the impetus for starting aiding in
an A because I went looking for a blanket that
was very common back home in Australia, these Muslim blankets
(02:45):
we called them wraps back there, and to my surprise,
they didn't exist here in the US. And I just thought,
how the hell do American parents have babies without this stuff?
Because I know you've seen them with your grandchildren. You
them for so many things to wrap the baby, as
stroller shades, as burp cloths, as tummy time blankets, is
(03:08):
nursing covers, just multiple uses. So I really just didn't
understand how American parents got by without them, and I
thought I can test, having had a baby who did
not sleep well. I was relying on to swaddle, which
is basically just to tightly wrap them so they wake
themselves up by startling all the time, which they do
they do. I just hoarded all the hospital blankets which
(03:31):
were made out of flannel. It didn't work anywhere near
as well. I didn't know the product I was dreaming of,
but it was your blanket right. It existed, and again
I didn't invent it. I remember it being around in
Australia since I was born in the sixties. You know,
it's a very very common product over their very utilitarian
(03:54):
sold in pharmacies and supermarkets, which packed thought no one
else seen the world had it. Well there wrapt so
they've been around for a long time. Yes, my understanding
is that Muslin originated in Bangladesh, you know, eons ago,
(04:17):
So the fabric itself has been around for a very
long time as well. So you said, oh my gosh,
how am I going to be about without a muslin blanket? Correct,
most people would have called their mother back and Astoria said, Mom,
give you send me a box of these swaddlings. Keep
him coming, my friend. Right, Yeah, they wouldn't have started
a whole business around it. How did that happen? Well,
(04:38):
I did do that, but it was actually my sister
that I called because she had a baby six months
before I had an ace, so she was sort of
my go to for all things that I needed to
know and understand. But I just thought because the reason
that I was able to do this was simply because
I was an AUSSI transplanted into the US, just Aidan,
(05:01):
and they wouldn't exist if I had never moved out
of my home country into the States and then had
my baby here. So I did call Page and I
did say to her, can you please send me some
Muslim blankets, which she did, and then I just thought
I need to there was an opportunity. I saw an
opportunity in America because I knew that once American parents
(05:25):
understood what this was and what it did, they wouldn't
be able to have babies without it as well. So
it was you already had a career, you were you know,
it sounded like you were kind of knee deep in
a job as well. So there had to be something
that made you think, I'm going to I'm going to
(05:45):
make the sleep, I'm going to leave this career and
I'm going to do this baby blanket thing. Right. So,
I think, having lived what I've lived over the last
twelve years, having had the idea fraid Andy and then
getting it to where we are today, I think I
was always a little bit bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.
I wasn't aware that's what it was back then, but
(06:07):
I do distinctly recall having ideas for businesses throughout my life,
and ranging from importing jewelry from Ballei and opening coffee
shops and opening where I just always had a desire,
I think, to work for me rather than somebody else.
So I had multiple ideas over the years, but none
(06:31):
of them, really, when I thought long and hard about it,
were viable. So Aiden and an A and the whole
that I saw in the market for these Muslim blankets
was the first upon further inspection, seemed like a viable
business idea that I could could start and grow and
scale into something meaningful. It seems from the outside for
(06:56):
those of us who aren't entrepreneurs are launching your adventures,
that there's you have to be a sort of risk
averse when you do this sort of thing. How how
big a role that is being open to risk play
And would you for people who were a little afraid
of rest when you said don't either. Actually, that is
(07:17):
one of the biggest fallacies around entrepreneurs. We are not
risk takers. We are very cautious people. There's lots of
research around that, and I talk about that actually quite
a bit in the book. And I definitely took risk
you have to to be successful, but I never took
them without a whole lot of thought going into what
(07:39):
I was ultimately going to do. So I like to
refer to myself as a cautious risk taker, if that
makes sense. So a perfect example is I didn't leave
my day job until I had got aiden in an
aid to a million dollars in revenue, so I stayed
working full time at the Economist group from the idea
(08:02):
in two thousand and three. It took till two thousand
and six to actually work out how to make the
product and get it to market. And then I stayed
working at my day job till May of two thousand
and nine. So your boss once told you you didn't
have an entrepreneurial bone in your body. That is a
direct quote. And and at the time, I need to
(08:22):
get that tattooed. And at that time I had already
hit a million dollars in revenue, so the joke was
on him, really, But but that's a perfect example of
actually not taking the risk. I wasn't prepared to put
unnecessary financial pressure on my family. My salary still mattered,
(08:43):
you know. I wasn't married to a hedge fund husband
who had more money than and I didn't need to work.
I needed to work, So I decided to play it safe.
And when you actually look at Warby, Parker did the
same thing. They didn't just quit their day jobs. They
straddled both. And I talk about that in the book
(09:05):
to one of their Harvard professors who they asked to
actually invest in the business. Early on, I didn't think
they were going to be successful because they weren't all
in out of the gate Adam Grant, Right, Yeah, he
talked about that. Actually here the biggest mistakes made. So
I think he tries hard enough to think about it
(09:26):
as I would as well. But okay, so if you
don't really need to be a risk taker, if that's
a farcy, what do you need. Well, it's not that
you don't need to be a risk taker, that you
do have to take risks to be successful. I think
in business, in your career, everything you know, if you
play it safe always in life, how far do you
really get. So But but this notion that we are
(09:48):
crazy risk takers as entrepreneurs is just not true. What
I believe is the most important thing and one of
the main reasons I wrote the book because when I
was originally approach to write the book, I said no,
because I don't have a business degree. I'm not particularly smart.
I'm definitely not educated, but I'm street smart. I'm not
(10:15):
book smart. You know, I don't have a degree or
anything like that. And I thought, well, what business do
I have telling people how to run a business. And
then my now agent was the one who said to me, well,
you've kind of done it, so you, and and then
I started to think about it, and I thought, well,
there is the crux of the book. If I can
(10:38):
do it, anyone can do it. And I started to
think about what it was that made me successful. And
I really think the main thing that led to the
success of Aiding and A was a combination of incredibly
hard work. I worked harder than I ever thought I
was capable of working, a true passion for what I
(10:59):
was doing, so I really believed in it, and a
whole lot of humility to be acutely aware of what
I didn't know. And I was very happy to surround
myself with much smarter people that knew a whole lot
more than me and be comfortable with that. And I
think that was ultimately the combination of those things is
(11:20):
what led to the huge success of Aiden and an A.
When we come back, we're going to talk about the
resilience that is necessary with success. We've been chatting with
Reagan Moya Jones, the other of what it takes, how
(11:43):
I built a hundred million dollar business against the odds.
You told us about how you built it in an A,
And then it sounds like when you say, oh, you know,
built a hundred million dollar company. It sounds like it's
all roses and buttercups and everything wonderful and yes to
a hundred million dollars. But there were a lot of
(12:03):
bumps in the road and the and um you had
two There were several, but I just want to start
with two I think traumatic events. One was you had
a cancer scare and the other was your partner turned
on you. So can you just tell us about those incidents?
(12:23):
Sure so? And I'm I'm loath to call it a
cancer scare because I have friends who have gone through
the real deal cancer with chemo and all the rest
of it. Basically, what happened is my dermatologists, who I've
been seeing for many, many years, found something that didn't
look good on my chest and said I needed to
(12:44):
have a biopside, which I didn't. It turned out to
be a malignant melanoma and it was it was the
size of a pin head, and I ended up having
to have surgery where they cut to the bone and
because melanoma has the tentacles, and I ended up with
thirty eights itches and so it was I wasn't ready
for it. And during that time, about two weeks before
(13:07):
that I was diagnosed with that and went through that,
and it was a very short period of time. It
was from diagnosis to the surgery to being told I
was okay, was about five days. So it was very
fast and potentially life altering respect of altering, and it
was ultimately life altering anyway, because I went, well, I
need to calm down here, because I'm a big believer
(13:30):
in stress manifests physical things in your body and all
of that. So it did sort of slap me upside
the head a little bit where I went, calmed down, Reagan,
there's are baby blankets. Let's get this in perspective. So
it was actually a good thing, you know that that
it ultimately happened. But during the same time, about two
weeks prior, my very good friend, and that's the hardest part,
(13:54):
and my business partner who co founded the company with me,
had sent me an email saying that she didn't believe
even the business anymore. She wanted out terms sort of
listed out of what she how much money she wanted,
the time frames she wanted it. Sort of. It was horrible,
and she wouldn't talk to me. She never we never
spoke another word to each other after she sent that
(14:15):
email despite me trying, essentially went through a terrible divorce. Horrible,
you know, and um and as I said, it was
heartbreaking because first and foremost she was my friend, so
and a very good friend, and so it was it
was a pretty tumultuous time and I didn't have enough
(14:36):
money to buy Claudia out, so then I had to
scramble and try and find other people that would roll
the dice on me. And what I was doing with
Aidan and An add three friends which I was I
was I realized not everybody has the luxury of living
in New York and having a lot of friends who
are bankers and things like that. So they were three
(14:58):
women that one i'd work with it the economist, another
one I had met through an Australian connection, and then
it was really a friend of one of the other
friends of mine that were an investor. So those three
women came in and effectively bought percent of to buy
Claudia out. But it was, it was horrible, and that's
(15:22):
a that's a really dark time obviously that you went through.
And it's so bad. You you mentioned the word heartbreak,
and I have to say in reading your book that
was one of the big takeaways from me was that
you've got to be ready almost in the same way
you have to when you invest in a relationship. You
don't know what's going to happen. I know, heartbreak is
a possibility. I mean it almost probability. Yes, I mean
(15:46):
I did don't want to say certainty. Yes, but you're
going to get your heart knocked around for sure. So
Lisa mentioned resilience. How do you how do you find
that resilience in yourself to get back up from a
time like that? It's not easy and I definitely got
very shaky through that where I started to really question
(16:07):
whether or not I should keep going with this, whether
I had what it took to keep going with this
um But ultimately I just dug very deep. For me,
it was as much about the fact that I'd come
so far and been through so much, and the thought
of giving up at that point would have negated everything
that I had already been through, which sort of didn't
(16:30):
sit well with me. But at the end of the day,
it was probably my husband who gave me the final push,
and I remember one day saying to him, I don't
know if I can do this. I think I've bitten
off more than I can chew with everything that's coming
at me. Maybe this is the universe just telling me
to give it a miss. And he said to me,
(16:50):
do you believe in the business, And I said, well, yes,
I always have, And he said, then fight for it,
because if you don't and you walk away from there
is I think the pain of that would be worse
than trying to pick yourself back up and keep going
even if you do fail. Having done that, you mentioned
your husband, and in your book you also talk about
(17:12):
the stream that building this business put on your marriage
and how you were able to work through that as
a couple. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well,
definitely it was the strain of the business. But had
I been in a corporate career and the pressure of that,
So I don't want to in any way imply that
it was the stress of the business alone that put
(17:36):
the pressure on. We also had four kids and two
dogs and live in New York City, so there was
a whole lot going on, you know, And and we
we didn't talk a lot. Once I sort of got
into aiden and and A about the business I've and
turns out that upset Marcos because he wanted to talk
(17:56):
about it and support me when I was going through
the bad stuff, whereas I didn't want to bring it home.
I wanted to leave the work stuff at work, and
when I was home, I wanted to put the Reagan
mum hat on and be there for my family. I
didn't want to be talking about the crappy thing that
had happened in the business that day or whatever. So
(18:19):
he was. He was a huge catalyst in sort of
getting me through the hard times because he saw it.
He saw the warts and all. You know, if you've
got a partner, you know that they tend to see
the really bad stuff right that you reserve often for them.
So it wasn't easy. We decided. He more so decided
(18:43):
that it wouldn't be good if we worked together. He
actually said to me when I once suggested perhaps he
should leave his job and come and work at it,
and no, because timing didn't work out for a holiday.
He looked at me and said, are you a mental person?
You're already the CEO of the house. I'm not going
to let you be the seed of my career as well.
(19:05):
So he had the common sense to deflect that when
I was having a moment, but it wasn't it. It's
still not easy, you know. I don't. I don't run
aiden in an a anymore that your partnership, lots of kids,
lots of pressure. It's you. I remember once being told
(19:26):
that you know, if you stop working at a job
or a career, you'll ultimately get fired. Right if you
start working at a marriage, it's going to end badly.
You know. It's just it's constant work. So we do
the best we can despite it sometimes not looking very pretty.
Thank you for thank you for acknowledging that, because that's true.
(19:48):
And I love when people bring the tea. Um so,
so you talked about the fact that you no longer
work at Eden in an a. That is also a
tough story, horrible U and you don't you don't spare
no because I don't think rather details because I guess
you feel people need to know. I just hope about
that a little bit. I think that I think in
society today, in the crazy world of social media and
(20:11):
everyone trying to put perfection out there which we all
know is not true, which is even more infuriating in
a different podcast, but when you have four daughters and
you're trying to explain to them it's not real, very tough,
but I was. I sold my business to a private
(20:33):
equity firm in two thousand and thirteen and then brought
back in in a meaningful way to my own business.
At the time, I was told that I was going
to continue to run it as the CEO was going
to continue to be my vision. They were there as
you know, financial support to scale the business and offer
support and the areas that as you're scaling at the
(20:55):
rate that Aidan and A was, you often need help
and guidance. Well, very long story short, we did not
see eye to eye, and that became pretty clear very
early on, and ultimately they in two thousand and sixteen,
when we purchased another company, they they called me. I
(21:15):
didn't They didn't even give me the courtesy of meeting
me in person to tell me that they were moving
me out as the CEO because they needed a superstar
CEO to run the company and I didn't fit that bill.
And so that was that hurt. And then into their
last year March two thousand and eighteen, they ultimately fired
(21:39):
me from the company completely because I was I'm not
really a shrinking violet so I was kind of pretty
honest about the fact that I didn't agree with the
direction they were taking it. Well, I love that you
had that fight in you. M Well, when we come back,
we will learn what happens when being fire drives you
to drink. We've been chatting with Rick and Moya Jones,
(22:13):
the founder of eight and A and the author of
the new book What It Takes How I built a
hundred million dollar business against the odds that numbers still staggering.
Um so, and we were talking about how Reagan, you
were fired from your own company, which is like being
kicked out of the house by your baby. And I
(22:35):
can see many people would probably have just packed up
their bags, been happy with the fact that they had
done very very wemp and successful and called it a day.
You gave birth again, but this time to something a
little more grown up and adult. Can you tell us
a bit about your new project? Sure? Well, having spent
(22:58):
most of last year in a very big whole, I
just want your listeners to know that I didn't just
bounce right back. There was definitely a grieving period and
getting used to not living and breathing this business that
I had done so for almost twelve years and a
friend of mine and a colleague at Aidan and a
who also got he actually resigned, but knowing for well
(23:20):
the writing was on the wall for him as well.
He it was his idea to start a moonshine company,
to which I originally said, are you a mental person moonshine?
I'm not getting it? But can you play the banger? No,
I didn't understand it. I didn't. And then on further
(23:40):
discussion with David, he pointed out that you should do
what you know and do what you love. And we
both know and love booze, although my my drink of
joyce is usually wine and champagne, but that's a whole
other story. Three of us are sources or something. And
but and even back then, when he came to me
(24:02):
with this idea, he said, I've got our next business idea.
Let's do moonshine. And I said why, and he said, well,
it's a relatively unsaturated, unsaturated category within a very big
liquor industry, obviously, and no one's really done anything much
(24:24):
with that category. And so then I started to think
about it, and I did find similarities. Everyone laughs hard
when I tell them this. Between Muslim blankets and moonshine.
When I started to really think about it, well, it
was really about the fact that muslin existed, It just
didn't exist the way I had it perceived in my head. So,
(24:46):
for instance, the muslin in Australia was primarily white, sold,
as A said, into very basic. It was like a
nappy a diaper, and I just thought, well, it can
be beautiful as well as practical. So then I started
to think about the same with moonshine. It's a primarily
a liquor that is just super high alcohol content that
(25:09):
serves the purpose of getting people smashed. And I thought, well,
what if we turned that on its head and created
a high end moonshine that is designed to really taste
good that served in five star bars and restaurants, and
you know, is known for the actual taste and flavor
(25:30):
of that the alcohol as much as the fact that
it's it's a high alcohol content. And as I said
to David, yes, we could do something with that. I said,
but the problem there is you and I haven't got
a freaking clue how to make high end We don't
even know how to make bad moonshine. And that's when
(25:51):
the I thought you were going to say that every
new mother should have a stell set up in the basement.
You had one. And I do say that for others
of multiple children, the transition from baby blankets to booze
is not a big jump. Really, you get it. And
and that's when, for all intents and purposes, our distiller,
(26:14):
who was out of Memphis, literally fell out of the sky.
He just sort of appeared out of nowhere in one
of those life moments where it was such a slap
upside the head with the universe telling me this moonshine
thing is a hundred percent where you need to go next.
You had that with the Chinese baby blanket manufactured. You've
(26:37):
had these people just popping out. And I do that.
I'm a big believer in manifestation. I believe the energy
you give out you get back, both good and bad,
and I've experienced both ends of it over the last
few years. And this guy had been tinkering with a
(26:58):
recipe and moonshine recipe for over a decade. He's a chemist,
chemical engineer as well as someone who had grown up
in the South and was playing around with stills and everything,
and he really did have an incredible moonshine recipe, and
we've already won a gold in a silver medal for
(27:18):
the Liquor in World Spirit competition. We've only been on
the market since May one, but we're already in Jean
George Restaurants, so we've already accomplished the fight. We're one
moonshine exactly. You know it's a. It's a When you
look into you know, Jehan George and I see it
(27:40):
on the shelf there, I'm like, wow, we actually did this.
Employees only have put it on their first moonshine. Ever
to go into employees only, well, you do the sales yourself.
Do you walk into a bar and say, guys, I've
got this beautiful bottle of St. Lunar Radio. I am
so in there for everybody, by the way to St.
Luna's Spirit. It's yes and yes, I at least I
(28:03):
am so back in the trenches with my little backpack
and moonshine, walking the streets of New York City trying
to convince people to buy it, lugging boxes out of
trade shows. So yes, I've gone from the CEO of
a hundred million dollar business to the girl pounding the
pavement again to try and spread the word on moonshine.
But that's so lovely. I mean, it seems as though
(28:24):
ego has never played a huge role in your career.
I'm Australian and allowed to have an ego. It doesn't
doesn't work, they disown you. Ego just cuts in the
way it does. It really does. And look and I
love the building part. That that was always the fun part,
the innovation, the building, the creating. So I'm enjoying it.
(28:47):
What advice would you give your daughters when they are
facing challenges and obstacles and going after their dreams. We're
kind of advice with you with them, and I already
give it to them as you've got to start early now, right.
My My youngest is nine, my oldest is about to
be sixteen, and I just tell them that. And I
(29:09):
really believe this. Anything you want badly enough, if you
believe in yourself and believe in what you want, and
you're prepared to work really hard to get it, you
can have it. That's that's what it's about. It's about
self belief, and they're willing to work hard to accomplish
whatever it is you want to accomplish. And are you
(29:31):
seeing that shape them already? Are you seeing that in them,
that willingness to work and that believe in there know
what they want. I'm hard pressed to get them off
their phones and out of their bedroom, but but I
I'm I'm still holding out a whole lot of hope
that if it's I keep instilling it, that once their
(29:54):
brains actually get past this madness of teenagers and the
crazy hormones, it will be in gray ending them. And
they're already somewhere. But the difference between you and I
would assume your daughters. I don't know your daughters, but
it sounds like they're it. I'm wondering what role adversity
played in your success, because you're because you didn't have
(30:15):
the kind of upbringing that you're giving your children, and
so you're much more probably scrappy than you're back. You're
kind of a wild child. I was. I'm kind of
still a wild woman, and I just have to tone
it down. So do you think having to struggle makes
you more resilient and makes you fight more for what
you want? And is that an obstacle we have with
(30:36):
our kids being successful? I do. I definitely think that,
and I try very hard despite the fact that the
girls have been born into the family that they've been
born into and there by default, you know, reaping the
benefits of their dad and my hard work and success.
(30:57):
But I do try very hard to show them that
it's not easy. When they asked me for ten dollars
to do, I always say that they're so over me,
But I always say, do you know how hard people
have to work for ten dollars? I said, And that's
really twenty dollars that you have to earn because the
taxman takes half, you know, and every chance I get,
(31:20):
I explained to them that through college, we'll get you there.
After college, you're I'm having these And you should have
seen my eight year old head spin around on her
shoulders when she heard she actually had to pay rent
for her room once she got to She's wait, like,
I have to pay to live here? I said, eventually if?
Because so, I'm constantly trying to give them those life lessons.
(31:44):
But I also know and believe a hundred percent that
living it through experience is very different than having a
mom and a dad telling you these things. Because my husband,
you know, he was an immigrant into Australia's Chile and
he arrived. He lived in a hostel for the first
(32:05):
year of his life in Australia. His mom and dad
clean toilets to make ends meet. So we both came
from very sort of let's say, humble backgrounds. Marc costs
more so than I, so we do try very hard
to remind the girls that what they have is extraordinary
and not normal. Well, I'm sure you are a huge
(32:25):
inspiration to your daughters, as you are to us. Thank
you so much for being here with us today. Thank
you for having me. I've had a great time. If
you want to connect more with Reagan, you can go
to St. Luna spirits dot com. Yes, and thanks for
me too, and thanks to all of you for joining us.
Thanks as always to Alicia here went are amazing producer.
(32:46):
We well be with you against him
Even though I've made bad decisions, I've never not groaned
from them, even if they didn't work out the way
I ultimately hoped that they would. Thanks for joining us
(00:33):
on the podcast where we talk about our things to change,
big changes, little changes, complete life changes. I am Lisa
Oz and I am Jill herzig Um. We live in
an edge. We were just discussing this where entrepreneurialism is
so celebrated in our culture, as it should be. And
(00:54):
as I sort of went through my big job shift,
I kept thinking to myself, well, maybe maybe I should start.
It's something that seems to be the thing to do.
That's this is just it's all about entrepreneurs. And I
had this, you know moment where I looked deep in
my soul and I thought, Jill, you're just not an entrepreneur.
Do you feel like you're an entrepreneurial personal Lisa me yes,
(01:15):
oh gosh, Um. I haven't launched anything yet, let's way.
But that doesn't mean I don't think I have it
in me. I have like this fantasy of an inner entrepreneur.
I don't know. I see you, I see your hand
in many things that have launched. But maybe we won't
go into that. Well, our guest today is a master entrepreneur.
(01:37):
She is the founder of Aiden and an A, which
is UM for all of you who have had children
who are under eighteen, we're probably sixteen, the go to
baby swaddling blanket. And she's also the author of UM
What It Takes. How I built a hundred million dollar business.
(01:59):
I get the odds. Reagan Moyer Jones, thank you so
much for being hee with us today. Thank you for
having me all right. So, edn and A is iconic,
and I only know about it because I'm a grandmother
and I have little grandkids from five down to one,
and they don't come anywhere without stacks of these swaddling blankets.
(02:22):
Tell us about In and A, How it started? What
cut you into this business? What was the birth of
this baby? Well, the birth was really the actual birth
of an A, who is my eldest of four daughters.
So she was really the impetus for starting aiding in
an A because I went looking for a blanket that
was very common back home in Australia, these Muslim blankets
(02:45):
we called them wraps back there, and to my surprise,
they didn't exist here in the US. And I just thought,
how the hell do American parents have babies without this stuff?
Because I know you've seen them with your grandchildren. You
them for so many things to wrap the baby, as
stroller shades, as burp cloths, as tummy time blankets, is
(03:08):
nursing covers, just multiple uses. So I really just didn't
understand how American parents got by without them, and I
thought I can test, having had a baby who did
not sleep well. I was relying on to swaddle, which
is basically just to tightly wrap them so they wake
themselves up by startling all the time, which they do
they do. I just hoarded all the hospital blankets which
(03:31):
were made out of flannel. It didn't work anywhere near
as well. I didn't know the product I was dreaming of,
but it was your blanket right. It existed, and again
I didn't invent it. I remember it being around in
Australia since I was born in the sixties. You know,
it's a very very common product over their very utilitarian
(03:54):
sold in pharmacies and supermarkets, which packed thought no one
else seen the world had it. Well there wrapt so
they've been around for a long time. Yes, my understanding
is that Muslin originated in Bangladesh, you know, eons ago,
(04:17):
So the fabric itself has been around for a very
long time as well. So you said, oh my gosh,
how am I going to be about without a muslin blanket? Correct,
most people would have called their mother back and Astoria said, Mom,
give you send me a box of these swaddlings. Keep
him coming, my friend. Right, Yeah, they wouldn't have started
a whole business around it. How did that happen? Well,
(04:38):
I did do that, but it was actually my sister
that I called because she had a baby six months
before I had an ace, so she was sort of
my go to for all things that I needed to
know and understand. But I just thought because the reason
that I was able to do this was simply because
I was an AUSSI transplanted into the US, just Aidan,
(05:01):
and they wouldn't exist if I had never moved out
of my home country into the States and then had
my baby here. So I did call Page and I
did say to her, can you please send me some
Muslim blankets, which she did, and then I just thought
I need to there was an opportunity. I saw an
opportunity in America because I knew that once American parents
(05:25):
understood what this was and what it did, they wouldn't
be able to have babies without it as well. So
it was you already had a career, you were you know,
it sounded like you were kind of knee deep in
a job as well. So there had to be something
that made you think, I'm going to I'm going to
(05:45):
make the sleep, I'm going to leave this career and
I'm going to do this baby blanket thing. Right. So,
I think, having lived what I've lived over the last
twelve years, having had the idea fraid Andy and then
getting it to where we are today, I think I
was always a little bit bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.
I wasn't aware that's what it was back then, but
(06:07):
I do distinctly recall having ideas for businesses throughout my life,
and ranging from importing jewelry from Ballei and opening coffee
shops and opening where I just always had a desire,
I think, to work for me rather than somebody else.
So I had multiple ideas over the years, but none
(06:31):
of them, really, when I thought long and hard about it,
were viable. So Aiden and an A and the whole
that I saw in the market for these Muslim blankets
was the first upon further inspection, seemed like a viable
business idea that I could could start and grow and
scale into something meaningful. It seems from the outside for
(06:56):
those of us who aren't entrepreneurs are launching your adventures,
that there's you have to be a sort of risk
averse when you do this sort of thing. How how
big a role that is being open to risk play
And would you for people who were a little afraid
of rest when you said don't either. Actually, that is
(07:17):
one of the biggest fallacies around entrepreneurs. We are not
risk takers. We are very cautious people. There's lots of
research around that, and I talk about that actually quite
a bit in the book. And I definitely took risk
you have to to be successful, but I never took
them without a whole lot of thought going into what
(07:39):
I was ultimately going to do. So I like to
refer to myself as a cautious risk taker, if that
makes sense. So a perfect example is I didn't leave
my day job until I had got aiden in an
aid to a million dollars in revenue, so I stayed
working full time at the Economist group from the idea
(08:02):
in two thousand and three. It took till two thousand
and six to actually work out how to make the
product and get it to market. And then I stayed
working at my day job till May of two thousand
and nine. So your boss once told you you didn't
have an entrepreneurial bone in your body. That is a
direct quote. And and at the time, I need to
(08:22):
get that tattooed. And at that time I had already
hit a million dollars in revenue, so the joke was
on him, really, But but that's a perfect example of
actually not taking the risk. I wasn't prepared to put
unnecessary financial pressure on my family. My salary still mattered,
(08:43):
you know. I wasn't married to a hedge fund husband
who had more money than and I didn't need to work.
I needed to work, So I decided to play it safe.
And when you actually look at Warby, Parker did the
same thing. They didn't just quit their day jobs. They
straddled both. And I talk about that in the book
(09:05):
to one of their Harvard professors who they asked to
actually invest in the business. Early on, I didn't think
they were going to be successful because they weren't all
in out of the gate Adam Grant, Right, Yeah, he
talked about that. Actually here the biggest mistakes made. So
I think he tries hard enough to think about it
(09:26):
as I would as well. But okay, so if you
don't really need to be a risk taker, if that's
a farcy, what do you need. Well, it's not that
you don't need to be a risk taker, that you
do have to take risks to be successful. I think
in business, in your career, everything you know, if you
play it safe always in life, how far do you
really get. So But but this notion that we are
(09:48):
crazy risk takers as entrepreneurs is just not true. What
I believe is the most important thing and one of
the main reasons I wrote the book because when I
was originally approach to write the book, I said no,
because I don't have a business degree. I'm not particularly smart.
I'm definitely not educated, but I'm street smart. I'm not
(10:15):
book smart. You know, I don't have a degree or
anything like that. And I thought, well, what business do
I have telling people how to run a business. And
then my now agent was the one who said to me, well,
you've kind of done it, so you, and and then
I started to think about it, and I thought, well,
there is the crux of the book. If I can
(10:38):
do it, anyone can do it. And I started to
think about what it was that made me successful. And
I really think the main thing that led to the
success of Aiding and A was a combination of incredibly
hard work. I worked harder than I ever thought I
was capable of working, a true passion for what I
(10:59):
was doing, so I really believed in it, and a
whole lot of humility to be acutely aware of what
I didn't know. And I was very happy to surround
myself with much smarter people that knew a whole lot
more than me and be comfortable with that. And I
think that was ultimately the combination of those things is
(11:20):
what led to the huge success of Aiden and an A.
When we come back, we're going to talk about the
resilience that is necessary with success. We've been chatting with
Reagan Moya Jones, the other of what it takes, how
(11:43):
I built a hundred million dollar business against the odds.
You told us about how you built it in an A,
And then it sounds like when you say, oh, you know,
built a hundred million dollar company. It sounds like it's
all roses and buttercups and everything wonderful and yes to
a hundred million dollars. But there were a lot of
(12:03):
bumps in the road and the and um you had
two There were several, but I just want to start
with two I think traumatic events. One was you had
a cancer scare and the other was your partner turned
on you. So can you just tell us about those incidents?
(12:23):
Sure so? And I'm I'm loath to call it a
cancer scare because I have friends who have gone through
the real deal cancer with chemo and all the rest
of it. Basically, what happened is my dermatologists, who I've
been seeing for many, many years, found something that didn't
look good on my chest and said I needed to
(12:44):
have a biopside, which I didn't. It turned out to
be a malignant melanoma and it was it was the
size of a pin head, and I ended up having
to have surgery where they cut to the bone and
because melanoma has the tentacles, and I ended up with
thirty eights itches and so it was I wasn't ready
for it. And during that time, about two weeks before
(13:07):
that I was diagnosed with that and went through that,
and it was a very short period of time. It
was from diagnosis to the surgery to being told I
was okay, was about five days. So it was very
fast and potentially life altering respect of altering, and it
was ultimately life altering anyway, because I went, well, I
need to calm down here, because I'm a big believer
(13:30):
in stress manifests physical things in your body and all
of that. So it did sort of slap me upside
the head a little bit where I went, calmed down, Reagan,
there's are baby blankets. Let's get this in perspective. So
it was actually a good thing, you know that that
it ultimately happened. But during the same time, about two
weeks prior, my very good friend, and that's the hardest part,
(13:54):
and my business partner who co founded the company with me,
had sent me an email saying that she didn't believe
even the business anymore. She wanted out terms sort of
listed out of what she how much money she wanted,
the time frames she wanted it. Sort of. It was horrible,
and she wouldn't talk to me. She never we never
spoke another word to each other after she sent that
(14:15):
email despite me trying, essentially went through a terrible divorce. Horrible,
you know, and um and as I said, it was
heartbreaking because first and foremost she was my friend, so
and a very good friend, and so it was it
was a pretty tumultuous time and I didn't have enough
(14:36):
money to buy Claudia out, so then I had to
scramble and try and find other people that would roll
the dice on me. And what I was doing with
Aidan and An add three friends which I was I
was I realized not everybody has the luxury of living
in New York and having a lot of friends who
are bankers and things like that. So they were three
(14:58):
women that one i'd work with it the economist, another
one I had met through an Australian connection, and then
it was really a friend of one of the other
friends of mine that were an investor. So those three
women came in and effectively bought percent of to buy
Claudia out. But it was, it was horrible, and that's
(15:22):
a that's a really dark time obviously that you went through.
And it's so bad. You you mentioned the word heartbreak,
and I have to say in reading your book that
was one of the big takeaways from me was that
you've got to be ready almost in the same way
you have to when you invest in a relationship. You
don't know what's going to happen. I know, heartbreak is
a possibility. I mean it almost probability. Yes, I mean
(15:46):
I did don't want to say certainty. Yes, but you're
going to get your heart knocked around for sure. So
Lisa mentioned resilience. How do you how do you find
that resilience in yourself to get back up from a
time like that? It's not easy and I definitely got
very shaky through that where I started to really question
(16:07):
whether or not I should keep going with this, whether
I had what it took to keep going with this
um But ultimately I just dug very deep. For me,
it was as much about the fact that I'd come
so far and been through so much, and the thought
of giving up at that point would have negated everything
that I had already been through, which sort of didn't
(16:30):
sit well with me. But at the end of the day,
it was probably my husband who gave me the final push,
and I remember one day saying to him, I don't
know if I can do this. I think I've bitten
off more than I can chew with everything that's coming
at me. Maybe this is the universe just telling me
to give it a miss. And he said to me,
(16:50):
do you believe in the business, And I said, well, yes,
I always have, And he said, then fight for it,
because if you don't and you walk away from there
is I think the pain of that would be worse
than trying to pick yourself back up and keep going
even if you do fail. Having done that, you mentioned
your husband, and in your book you also talk about
(17:12):
the stream that building this business put on your marriage
and how you were able to work through that as
a couple. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well,
definitely it was the strain of the business. But had
I been in a corporate career and the pressure of that,
So I don't want to in any way imply that
it was the stress of the business alone that put
(17:36):
the pressure on. We also had four kids and two
dogs and live in New York City, so there was
a whole lot going on, you know, And and we
we didn't talk a lot. Once I sort of got
into aiden and and A about the business I've and
turns out that upset Marcos because he wanted to talk
(17:56):
about it and support me when I was going through
the bad stuff, whereas I didn't want to bring it home.
I wanted to leave the work stuff at work, and
when I was home, I wanted to put the Reagan
mum hat on and be there for my family. I
didn't want to be talking about the crappy thing that
had happened in the business that day or whatever. So
(18:19):
he was. He was a huge catalyst in sort of
getting me through the hard times because he saw it.
He saw the warts and all. You know, if you've
got a partner, you know that they tend to see
the really bad stuff right that you reserve often for them.
So it wasn't easy. We decided. He more so decided
(18:43):
that it wouldn't be good if we worked together. He
actually said to me when I once suggested perhaps he
should leave his job and come and work at it,
and no, because timing didn't work out for a holiday.
He looked at me and said, are you a mental person?
You're already the CEO of the house. I'm not going
to let you be the seed of my career as well.
(19:05):
So he had the common sense to deflect that when
I was having a moment, but it wasn't it. It's
still not easy, you know. I don't. I don't run
aiden in an a anymore that your partnership, lots of kids,
lots of pressure. It's you. I remember once being told
(19:26):
that you know, if you stop working at a job
or a career, you'll ultimately get fired. Right if you
start working at a marriage, it's going to end badly.
You know. It's just it's constant work. So we do
the best we can despite it sometimes not looking very pretty.
Thank you for thank you for acknowledging that, because that's true.
(19:48):
And I love when people bring the tea. Um so,
so you talked about the fact that you no longer
work at Eden in an a. That is also a
tough story, horrible U and you don't you don't spare
no because I don't think rather details because I guess
you feel people need to know. I just hope about
that a little bit. I think that I think in
society today, in the crazy world of social media and
(20:11):
everyone trying to put perfection out there which we all
know is not true, which is even more infuriating in
a different podcast, but when you have four daughters and
you're trying to explain to them it's not real, very tough,
but I was. I sold my business to a private
(20:33):
equity firm in two thousand and thirteen and then brought
back in in a meaningful way to my own business.
At the time, I was told that I was going
to continue to run it as the CEO was going
to continue to be my vision. They were there as
you know, financial support to scale the business and offer
support and the areas that as you're scaling at the
(20:55):
rate that Aidan and A was, you often need help
and guidance. Well, very long story short, we did not
see eye to eye, and that became pretty clear very
early on, and ultimately they in two thousand and sixteen,
when we purchased another company, they they called me. I
(21:15):
didn't They didn't even give me the courtesy of meeting
me in person to tell me that they were moving
me out as the CEO because they needed a superstar
CEO to run the company and I didn't fit that bill.
And so that was that hurt. And then into their
last year March two thousand and eighteen, they ultimately fired
(21:39):
me from the company completely because I was I'm not
really a shrinking violet so I was kind of pretty
honest about the fact that I didn't agree with the
direction they were taking it. Well, I love that you
had that fight in you. M Well, when we come back,
we will learn what happens when being fire drives you
to drink. We've been chatting with Rick and Moya Jones,
(22:13):
the founder of eight and A and the author of
the new book What It Takes How I built a
hundred million dollar business against the odds that numbers still staggering.
Um so, and we were talking about how Reagan, you
were fired from your own company, which is like being
kicked out of the house by your baby. And I
(22:35):
can see many people would probably have just packed up
their bags, been happy with the fact that they had
done very very wemp and successful and called it a day.
You gave birth again, but this time to something a
little more grown up and adult. Can you tell us
a bit about your new project? Sure? Well, having spent
(22:58):
most of last year in a very big whole, I
just want your listeners to know that I didn't just
bounce right back. There was definitely a grieving period and
getting used to not living and breathing this business that
I had done so for almost twelve years and a
friend of mine and a colleague at Aidan and a
who also got he actually resigned, but knowing for well
(23:20):
the writing was on the wall for him as well.
He it was his idea to start a moonshine company,
to which I originally said, are you a mental person moonshine?
I'm not getting it? But can you play the banger? No,
I didn't understand it. I didn't. And then on further
(23:40):
discussion with David, he pointed out that you should do
what you know and do what you love. And we
both know and love booze, although my my drink of
joyce is usually wine and champagne, but that's a whole
other story. Three of us are sources or something. And
but and even back then, when he came to me
(24:02):
with this idea, he said, I've got our next business idea.
Let's do moonshine. And I said why, and he said, well,
it's a relatively unsaturated, unsaturated category within a very big
liquor industry, obviously, and no one's really done anything much
(24:24):
with that category. And so then I started to think
about it, and I did find similarities. Everyone laughs hard
when I tell them this. Between Muslim blankets and moonshine.
When I started to really think about it, well, it
was really about the fact that muslin existed, It just
didn't exist the way I had it perceived in my head. So,
(24:46):
for instance, the muslin in Australia was primarily white, sold,
as A said, into very basic. It was like a
nappy a diaper, and I just thought, well, it can
be beautiful as well as practical. So then I started
to think about the same with moonshine. It's a primarily
a liquor that is just super high alcohol content that
(25:09):
serves the purpose of getting people smashed. And I thought, well,
what if we turned that on its head and created
a high end moonshine that is designed to really taste
good that served in five star bars and restaurants, and
you know, is known for the actual taste and flavor
(25:30):
of that the alcohol as much as the fact that
it's it's a high alcohol content. And as I said
to David, yes, we could do something with that. I said,
but the problem there is you and I haven't got
a freaking clue how to make high end We don't
even know how to make bad moonshine. And that's when
(25:51):
the I thought you were going to say that every
new mother should have a stell set up in the basement.
You had one. And I do say that for others
of multiple children, the transition from baby blankets to booze
is not a big jump. Really, you get it. And
and that's when, for all intents and purposes, our distiller,
(26:14):
who was out of Memphis, literally fell out of the sky.
He just sort of appeared out of nowhere in one
of those life moments where it was such a slap
upside the head with the universe telling me this moonshine
thing is a hundred percent where you need to go next.
You had that with the Chinese baby blanket manufactured. You've
(26:37):
had these people just popping out. And I do that.
I'm a big believer in manifestation. I believe the energy
you give out you get back, both good and bad,
and I've experienced both ends of it over the last
few years. And this guy had been tinkering with a
(26:58):
recipe and moonshine recipe for over a decade. He's a chemist,
chemical engineer as well as someone who had grown up
in the South and was playing around with stills and everything,
and he really did have an incredible moonshine recipe, and
we've already won a gold in a silver medal for
(27:18):
the Liquor in World Spirit competition. We've only been on
the market since May one, but we're already in Jean
George Restaurants, so we've already accomplished the fight. We're one
moonshine exactly. You know it's a. It's a When you
look into you know, Jehan George and I see it
(27:40):
on the shelf there, I'm like, wow, we actually did this.
Employees only have put it on their first moonshine. Ever
to go into employees only, well, you do the sales yourself.
Do you walk into a bar and say, guys, I've
got this beautiful bottle of St. Lunar Radio. I am
so in there for everybody, by the way to St.
Luna's Spirit. It's yes and yes, I at least I
(28:03):
am so back in the trenches with my little backpack
and moonshine, walking the streets of New York City trying
to convince people to buy it, lugging boxes out of
trade shows. So yes, I've gone from the CEO of
a hundred million dollar business to the girl pounding the
pavement again to try and spread the word on moonshine.
But that's so lovely. I mean, it seems as though
(28:24):
ego has never played a huge role in your career.
I'm Australian and allowed to have an ego. It doesn't
doesn't work, they disown you. Ego just cuts in the
way it does. It really does. And look and I
love the building part. That that was always the fun part,
the innovation, the building, the creating. So I'm enjoying it.
(28:47):
What advice would you give your daughters when they are
facing challenges and obstacles and going after their dreams. We're
kind of advice with you with them, and I already
give it to them as you've got to start early now, right.
My My youngest is nine, my oldest is about to
be sixteen, and I just tell them that. And I
(29:09):
really believe this. Anything you want badly enough, if you
believe in yourself and believe in what you want, and
you're prepared to work really hard to get it, you
can have it. That's that's what it's about. It's about
self belief, and they're willing to work hard to accomplish
whatever it is you want to accomplish. And are you
(29:31):
seeing that shape them already? Are you seeing that in them,
that willingness to work and that believe in there know
what they want. I'm hard pressed to get them off
their phones and out of their bedroom, but but I
I'm I'm still holding out a whole lot of hope
that if it's I keep instilling it, that once their
(29:54):
brains actually get past this madness of teenagers and the
crazy hormones, it will be in gray ending them. And
they're already somewhere. But the difference between you and I
would assume your daughters. I don't know your daughters, but
it sounds like they're it. I'm wondering what role adversity
played in your success, because you're because you didn't have
(30:15):
the kind of upbringing that you're giving your children, and
so you're much more probably scrappy than you're back. You're
kind of a wild child. I was. I'm kind of
still a wild woman, and I just have to tone
it down. So do you think having to struggle makes
you more resilient and makes you fight more for what
you want? And is that an obstacle we have with
(30:36):
our kids being successful? I do. I definitely think that,
and I try very hard despite the fact that the
girls have been born into the family that they've been
born into and there by default, you know, reaping the
benefits of their dad and my hard work and success.
(30:57):
But I do try very hard to show them that
it's not easy. When they asked me for ten dollars
to do, I always say that they're so over me,
But I always say, do you know how hard people
have to work for ten dollars? I said, And that's
really twenty dollars that you have to earn because the
taxman takes half, you know, and every chance I get,
(31:20):
I explained to them that through college, we'll get you there.
After college, you're I'm having these And you should have
seen my eight year old head spin around on her
shoulders when she heard she actually had to pay rent
for her room once she got to She's wait, like,
I have to pay to live here? I said, eventually if?
Because so, I'm constantly trying to give them those life lessons.
(31:44):
But I also know and believe a hundred percent that
living it through experience is very different than having a
mom and a dad telling you these things. Because my husband,
you know, he was an immigrant into Australia's Chile and
he arrived. He lived in a hostel for the first
(32:05):
year of his life in Australia. His mom and dad
clean toilets to make ends meet. So we both came
from very sort of let's say, humble backgrounds. Marc costs
more so than I, so we do try very hard
to remind the girls that what they have is extraordinary
and not normal. Well, I'm sure you are a huge
(32:25):
inspiration to your daughters, as you are to us. Thank
you so much for being here with us today. Thank
you for having me. I've had a great time. If
you want to connect more with Reagan, you can go
to St. Luna spirits dot com. Yes, and thanks for
me too, and thanks to all of you for joining us.
Thanks as always to Alicia here went are amazing producer.
(32:46):
We well be with you against him
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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