De-Influenced with Dani + Jordan - Success, Stress, & Serum: What We Learned From Starting a Business Out of Our Home

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

In 2021, Dani & Jordan created their hair care company, Divi, from the ground up. In today’s episode, they sit down to reflect on and discuss the behind-the-scenes of building a business “in-house”

Hello, welcome back to your favorite podcast. De-influenced. We're both back on the mic. We're back in the mic. We have a podcast at 9 a.m. and a parent-teacher conference at 10.15 a. We're busy this morning. We are busy.

We are busy, busy bees. Well, what's new with you? What's going on in life? Yeah, you know, I had this new idea. Are you ready to hear it? So, you know, AI. It's here. official intelligence. It's here to stay. The Pope was not wearing a puffer jacket.

Yes, but I saw that and I was like, wow, the power of AI is incredible. So I decided just to keep my life in perspective that I'm going to upload to an AI machine. Okay. A picture of myself. Okay. And it's going to put, it's going to do its AI thing and spit out a picture of me at 75. Okay. I'm going to blow it up. Okay. And I'm going to put it in my office. Do you know, Why? To make sure that you eat healthy. One, but to make sure that I don't leave my life with any regrets. It's symbolic.

Wait, are you saying you're only going to live until you're 75? I would be okay with not living past 75. 30 is so young. Is it? My dad's 70. I'm just like, honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do with the, like. My dad's turning 70 this year. You know that?

I know, but he's probably lived. He's probably like, okay, I've done a lot of things here. He has so much more to do. Okay. All right. Just add 32. I'm just saying like 75. But anyway, I want to keep it in my office because I want to look at myself as an older

individual. Yeah. And I want to say, hey, did I spend enough time with my kids? Did I, did I work out? Did I take care of myself? Do I have any regrets? Did I take that risk that I wanted to. And so old Jordan will be staring at me in my office every day.

That's an interesting, yeah, practice. I feel like a lot of people just post like a picture. of their favorite celebrity with a six-pack. But this is very Jordan of you. Yeah, yeah. You know those oil paintings that people used to do of themselves? It's like that. Yeah. It's like, you know. Inspiration. You want me to get one of you? I'm good. Okay. I don't want to see me with saggy boobs. I'd rather not. I like to keep it just mystery. Yeah, I got you. So you're into AI. Yeah. What else do you into these days? I know what, oh my gosh, y'all, Jordan has been making me watch this alien documentary and it is well so okay so here's what happened is that so what happened was so what happened was

listen so what happened was you know we're looking at the charts of the podcast and I'm like who's number one joe rogan's number one and I'm like okay who is this guy I'm like who you listen to some joe rogan some but and like everyone talks about it but I've never hopped on the train I'm like who has three hours to listen to a podcast are they three hours long they're three hours long oh my gosh that's insane. So anyway, I like popped one on. I'm like, okay, top episodes and like one, the one was about aliens. And I was like, okay, I get it. Like this guy. He walks in, he's like, babe, aliens, though. I'm like, okay, listen, this guy's up to something. And so I started making Danny watch all these alien documentaries. So it's not necessarily like aliens. It's more about flying saucers and UFOs,

an identified object. It's straight up aliens. Like, okay, so here's my question. Are aliens real? What do you think? Oh my gosh. Dude, I don't know. I'm like just going down the rabbit hole here. Okay, I will say the one. What's the documentary even making me watch? Oh, Phenomenon. Phenomenon. It's on Netflix, right? Yeah, the guy, the director of that was on the episode I watched.

Okay, so I will say the craziest thing is, is all these people that have had, like, UFO sightings are all very similar stories throughout history, which is so crazy. Gosh, I, like, don't know. How, like, do you want me to get me started? Oh, my gosh. Okay, so the episode I watched was a guy named Bob Lazarus, and he worked at S4, which is right outside of area 51. Okay. Do do do do do. And so this was the mid 80s and he was basically making claims that he was brought in by the government to work on this alien technology. Basically this alien technology this engine that had no propellant and it was just basically like a gravity machine.

And he was like if you can have a engine or a structure that creates gravity, you can rip time apart. Like you can in all these like alien. This is where you lost me. I know. I just, I don't think I should talk about this. Go watch the Joe Rogan episode. No, but it is really crazy how all, in all the stories, the flying saucers are flat, and then they turn on their side whenever they leave. And then they just like zoom out, like defy gravity. And like people on the East Coast, like in the military and the Navy, they're like, oh yeah, we've seen these like our entire lives. And so basically what's happening is like reports that were happening in the 60s, what Bob Lazarus said in the mid 80s,

and then what the Pentagon confirmed as like videos in the like two, thousands are all the same. So you know what else is a very, my mom said that she saw you have I know. So I was watching the show and she was just like immediately and she was like, oh yeah, this is real. And I was like, what? My mom's like no. So my mom, they used to have a Winnebago. they used to drive all over the country with because my mom is like one of five. And so her dad would drive the Winnebago. So my mom was in the front seat middle of night like 3 a.m. Nobody around it. And usually these sightings like happen kind of in the middle of nowhere. You know like the rural area. And my mom said that there was nobody around and then all the sudden this like the brightest light she's ever seen like just flashed on them around light and it followed them for a little bit and they looked up.

There was nothing that they could see in the sky. And then like it was on them for about like two minutes and then it just like just zooped up. And they looked up in the sky. They saw absolutely nothing. No helicopters, no airplanes. Classic alien maneuver right there. Classic aliens. I'm telling you.

I don't know. Can I say one last thing on this? So like, okay, here's the craziest part is there's like old paintings, okay, from like the 1600s. And it's like of, you know, like. Little people. No. Well. Because the aliens are little.

Kind of. Yeah. They're humanoids. That's what they call them. And they all have big heads and big black eyes. And little. Allegedly. Allegedly.

I'm not saying, do not clickbait me. I am not saying I believe in aliens yet. Don't believe in aliens. Yes. I'm scared that you're going to talk about this. The aliens are going to come visit you. They might listen to this podcast. That's why I don't like to talk about this stuff because I'm like, if it is real.

He just like shows up in our bedside. He's like, I come in peace. No, they don't talk to any. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. They don't have genitals and they don't talk. Well, what do they do all day? They just watch us.

Oh, man, this is a great start. What's going on with you? It's so weird. You know, not much. I'm excited for this parent. teacher conference. I mean, yeah, why we even, why should we even go? They're just going to be like, sell the genius. Honestly, like, she really is. She's such a genius. Um, Jordan gave me a pep talk the other day. He was like, which one, which one? I think I know which one resonated. This one was like,

it was good, right? It was so good. Was it the one when we were laying together on the back patio? Yeah, tell them what you said. Gosh, dude. I was so proud of this pep talk. I was proud of it because I was like, this one is hitting so hard. And I never know when to stop because I'm like, if I say one more sentence, it might go the different direction. But I told, I don't know, you might have to tell them. I told you that it's not that you have to be tougher and it's not that you have to be more of a jerk. Because I was talking about how I'm like, I'm so sensitive, but I have a, I have a tendency to like, I can't really find middle ground. Like if I am not going to be sensitive, then I'm going to be really guarded, really harsh, put up a wall and just be like, you know, kind of tough and

angry and I have a hard time like finding that middle ground and so I watched these like you know I pulled up this like lady on Instagram that's like you know if you don't like my Instagram unfollow me like F you like I don't care what you think and I'm like this is so inspirational like I wish I could be like this like she was so just confident in who she was and then Jordan was like yeah but Danny this isn't you like that's this is you still performing and like I think that if you truly felt confident with like who God says that you are, then you wouldn't feel the need to perform. It would just like seep out of you. And like you would when things are thrown at you, you would like already have this like kind of armor on because you're confident in who you are.

And like if you're not, then that's whenever like you're more performative. Like oh, it doesn't like sticks in stones. Like, you know, it's not going to bother me. Yeah. I think a lot of people adjust to getting hate or going through ridicule by just like, you know, kind of masking it with. this like exterior toughness. And I was like, Danny, I don't want you to become that because that's not who God made you to be. I was like, you know, the image that I've had in my mind of you, and honestly, both of us, like I think we've both gone through this lesson is like, you know, there's that verse in the Bible that's like, you're like a wave of the sea, like getting crashed by the wind or whatever. And so it's just like, I feel like we've just been like getting hit with

waves and we're going with whatever waves are hitting us. But I really wanted you and I to get better in this season about being firm in who we are and being confident in that. And I think for you in particular, you know, being kind of like the front facing person on the internet, I was like, don't, don't become that person. Like, don't become a jerk. Like, just be more confident that like you are doing the right thing, that you believe in what you're doing, that you're operating with conviction and, you know, and that's how I had to feel about the de-influencing thing. I was like, I am not doing this like for any other reason except for like to have a podcast and to like like I when I look at the bigger picture I'm like I was not coming from a bad place like everything is coming from a genuine place of me trying to like

share my own story and like message my own story and so like you need to feel confident in that day and don't feel because sometimes like people get mad and you're like oh my gosh did I do something wrong well your biggest pitfall sometimes is that you you want people to understand your intention so much that you think that you're going to be able to explain yourself to everyone. And you're always going to have. But I don't. I usually don't say anything. You don't say anything.

And then you feel really hurt by it, right? And so it's just like a skill set. I told you it's like a muscle. Like you have to learn this muscle, especially in this day and age of the internet. Like you have to be confident and firm. And so I think you've been doing a really good job, you know. Thank you.

Wow. We're just bonding so hard right now. Anyway, this episode was actually, we're going to talk about, Divi, you know, we have FLC coming up. We're actually leading for Vegas tomorrow morning. We are going to Divi, FLC, or sorry, Ulta FLC in Vegas where all the store managers all come to a conference and you get to actually meet the, they get to meet the brands like face to face. So we have some fun things going on. We have like an Elvis impersonator. Every half hour, every hour, we have like something special. Well, like, Divi is like the new kid on the block.

And so we were going to have a booth against like Oliplex and all these other big brands. And I was like, guys, like we got to do something different. I was like, we need jugglers, we need magicians, we need cotton candy. We need Elvis. I'm wearing my sparkly blue pants. Oh, you are? With the Ryanstoyans. Love it.

Yeah, I'm just going to get them over with them. Yeah, if you're going to be in Vegas, come see us for sure. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. Divi for life. And then we're staying for an extra day. We're going to go see Jerry Seinfeld, which I'm like, okay. Jordan really, I was like, out of everything, we could have seen Hedell. We could have seen the Jabal walkies.

We're going to see Jerry Seinfeld. so I'm really excited about that. Oh, you know it's going to be in Vegas while we're there. Did I tell you? No. Ashley Nichols and Bert. The most fun person I've ever met. He's an Instagram husband and he, like, we've been on a lot of trips with them and like

if he's there, it's the best experience. And that's, to me, because I've always wanted to be that guy, like when you hang out with a group of people. You always, when I started dating Jordan, he said, I've always wanted to be the, you know, that guy with the Hawaiian t-shirt on. That like everyone's like, oh, Jordan's here. It's going to be fun. So what did I give you for a wedding?

A Hawaiian D-shirt. A Hawaiian shirt, yeah. Oh, that's so sweet. But I've always wanted to be that guy that, like, is the life of the party. I think you want to be that person too. Not really. I want to be around that person. You want to be around that person.

Yeah. I've always wanted to be that guy that's just like outlandish and like when he comes. And I think it's a gift. Like, so people who have that, I try and explain it to them as like, no, you're not a degenerate. Like, it's a gift. Like people, people really need this in their lives. I love those people. Like, even I gravitate towards the people.

Jordan always says this. Like to the people that are even like slightly a little annoying, like so obnoxious. Yeah, but you like the loud, loud, loud people. I like loud, obnoxious, say what's on your mind. Like the type of people where you're like, oh, you want to be on like their good side because you're on their bad side. Like they, like those are the people that I'm like, yes. Because I just feed off their energy and it's so not me. Um, so anyway.

Yeah. But yeah, so we'll be in, um, Vegas and we'll be doing divvy things. So this episode, we were going to talk a little bit more about like kind of just divvy, the business side of divvy growing divvy. Yeah, we've never really like told the story of. Yeah. So yeah, the origin. Like should we start with the origin?

So I don't want to ramble too long. But basically I, um, started losing my hair whenever I was in college, uh, mainly from stress. started kind of pulling out my hair when I was studying I was doing YouTube I was going out to LA all the time like it was just I was in a sorority I was a young life leader it was a lot on my plate I was also trying to keep up my GPA so I could apply to PT school so like just all the stress everything I think a lot of girls start to lose their hair in college started to cover it up with hair extensions all the different types of hair extensions bleaching the crap out of my hair and just over time lost a ton of it so when we

got married one day looked in the mirror and it was like I literally have no more hair so I went to Jordan I was like I don't even feel comfortable like leaving the house I'm so upset and so Jordan took me to a wig shop long story short we tried on all these wigs like $10 wigs 20 dollar wigs and I was like so bombed because they were such so bad so bad um ended up getting into wigs for a year found some good quality ones and then during that year really focused on really my overall health, lifestyle, wellness, started kind of making my own scalp serum because as I started doing more research about like scalp and scalp health, I was like, dang, there's really nothing out there, but like I would go to whole foods or order all these ingredients online. And I was

like a little chemist in my bathroom trying to create things that like really detoxified my scalp, stimulated my hair follicle, cleansed my scalp, like all these different things. And so you guys, I mean, honestly, people on Instagram, We're like, hey, can you just send that to me? Like, you know, the ingredients. And I was like, it's kind of more complicated. We're like not going to ship you a peachy petri dress. Yeah, yeah.

So I told Jordan, I was like, hey, we should, you know, find someone to help us create this product. And so actually the first person that we reached out to, the first manufacturer said no. Yeah. They were like, we just don't think this is like a need. And they just didn't think that it would take off. And honestly, we didn't know if it was going to take off. Because I was just like, let's just create this one scalp serum. And so ended up finding great partners launched it and was just like shook by how it took off.

And it's kind of one of those things that I was like, I know it'll work for me and it's worked for me. But like are other people going to appreciate it and actually use it? And I think what blew up were the before and after pictures that like we never asked for still to this day. I get tagged in like probably like 10 stories a day from people using divvy that are like Danny. Like this before and after is insane. I think too, like one of the biggest reasons it was so effective for a lot of people is because it was the first time they ever took care of their scalp. Yeah. But so yeah, it's been like quite the journey.

And then it's more, I feel like Divy has just been like growing by listening to y'all and like what people want. So when we did shampoo and conditioner, we are launching our hair vitamin. Our hair vitamin is the best. I'm not even just like saying this. Like it is the best hair vitamin in the world. No, blood, sweat and tears poured into that thing. Like in the world. Yeah.

No, it's truly like, I mean like there's nothing better that you can put into a vitamin in the market. I know all the competitors. Like I was, I'm a very competitive person. I played sports my entire life. Like I know how to like look at all of the competitors and look at what they're doing and say, okay, I want that plus more or that even better. And so I can confidently say it's that even better and more. Yeah.

You remember whenever you were first going through. your journey of hair loss. This was like the hair loss days. And you remember how many like doctors and dermatologists and hair loss centers we went to? And I think the wild thing for me during that time was like how there's no single cause for like hair loss. Of course. I kept wanting like a easy answer.

He's like, okay. So what cause is? So what's this? Is it sleep? Is she not sleeping? Like like in there's no. The problem with hair loss just in general from a scientific perspective is like it could be stress.

It could be diet. It could be your, you know, your stem cells. Yeah, it could be your genetics. It could be all of these different things. And so that was just like a really tricky time for me. And I think that a lot of people don't understand that. It always starts with why am I losing my hair. Well, and for me it was so many things.

It was stress at first. And then I was pulling out my hair because of the stress. Then I had hair extensions, which caused traction alopecia. Right. Which traction alopecia and hair extensions, this is what really interesting was when you have hair, extensions, people assume that wherever the hair extension is pulling from is where you, so you'll get like a little bald spot. That's actually not how it works. When you have traction alipisha, it's like wherever the hair extension is pulling from, it affects like inches like a big surface area around that

that hair extension. It's not just exactly the follicles that it's pulling on. So you'll see hair that's like around the hair extension or two inches away from the hair extension actually falling out too. Yeah. So, you know, traction alopecia was a really big thing. genetics plays a lot into it, hormones, all sorts of things. And so, you know, and there are some people that have just like straight up, you know, um, uh, alopecia or whatever, whatever it is. But for a lot of people, it is very complicated because it's so many reasons, like layers to it. The second thing that I thought was really cool that I feel like you skipped over was like whenever.

So you were in college and you did, which was your minor biology? Yeah, minor. Minor. Because you had a minor in biology in order to, in order to apply for the PT program. And, you know, it's almost like a divine thing because in so many ways, like when we were interviewing these different chemists, like we were like, at this point, we're like, okay, we want to create this into a product. And there's a lot of chemists that are total BS out there.

Like I will say, like, it was hard to find the right partner to develop this. And, you know, the first story about like, oh my gosh, that they sent us that email. They were like, hey, we don't think this is going to go anywhere. Good luck. You know, and that was like the first manufacturer. And we were like, oh, my gosh. Gosh, like, and so it's just so funny, you know, but, you know, your biology background, like, came in so well because, like, the chemist, if I was just in the room by myself, I would have gotten totally bamboozled. But you were like, hey, like, this person's not, like, they don't, like, you remembered all of this, like, college biology. It was crazy how it started. And then, like,

I started, like, talking their language, kind of. And so then they took me more serious. And then we got to, like, really get to the root of our issues or what we really needed. Um, Yeah, it is very cool. Thank you. Thank you, University of Texas. Hook him. Why, do you remember why a lot of people ask this? And I actually don't remember the story. Do you remember why we called it Divi? Oh my gosh. We went through so, remember we were going to call it like, uh, Una? Una, that was the name. Unah. Um, but there were so many like really, really cool names, honestly that were all trademarked. So we could not, we didn't have access. to like any of them.

So anyway, we looked at a lot of different names and then started just honestly pulled out like the dictionary, the the thesaurus, and we're looking for synonyms of words that we really liked. One of the words we really liked was divine. And then I shortened it to divvy. And then as I was like processing the word divvy, I really liked how like whenever you are focusing on your scalp health, hair health, you're kind of like divvying attention to different areas in your life, like just, not just like your scalp health, but it's awesome.

So your lifestyle, your stress management, your health, your diet, your exercise. Yeah. And so I really liked that Divi made it more of like a lifestyle brand. And it's short for divine and we're all just divine. Love it. Yeah, it was funny. I remember that story where like I would walk upstairs and Una, Una not working was a big hit.

Do you remember that? Because we loved the name and you were like so attached to the branding. You saw the whole vision with Una and then it sank. And I just like remember like Danny was like Eminent. or like Slim Shady like on the dictionary like looking up different name and she was like what about like Kara? Like you just find a word that you like that and add like a new like and she was like but like with an accent mark. Yeah because if you think about it every brand name is weird at first but then it grows on you like I remember divvy I was like it's so weird like now I'm like I can't

imagine it being anything else and I'm obsessed with the name. So yeah you just kind of play around with words. I would say it took us about two weeks to find a name. Tell them about the branding exercise. Oh my gosh. Okay. So we work with the graphic designer that we've worked with for like 70 years. So we have like our go-to. I knew kind of like the branding. I wanted to be like clean looking, clean lines, slightly more like medical, you know, nothing too out there or too funky. Because I would say like my, for the Danny Austin brain, I like flowers, hot pink, bright colors. And I really had to tone it down because I wanted it to also be like gender neutral. I wanted it to kind of just like blend into your countertops whenever you have it out. But we also experiment with some other

colors. Purple and orange. It was so bad. This like this like bright bright green. Yeah. We called that the Shrek bottle. It looks like it looks like Shrek. It is so bad. Yeah. There's like a bunch of like old iterations of the branding that should go in the history books now that are just so so bad. I kept some of them. Do you remember when we first launched, speaking of the bottles, what happened and when you had to fly out? Oh my gosh. These are the stories that like, like, I mean, you know, Divi's still only like two years old, but it's, it's a big company now. Like, it's got a lot of people, but it's like all of the early day stories like are the ones that make it up. When we launched that day, I can't remember exactly what happened.

Oh, okay, so like it sold out really fast. And I think it was on our second lunch. Yeah, it was on restock. So yeah, what happened is on the restock. The bottles come in. So we got our second batch of bottles. We had already had the bulk. We needed the bottles.

Yeah. And, you know, because they're glass, you have to blow the glass. And so they were blown wrong. So they were kind of like overblown. So all of them had what we called bubbles in them. Yeah. So there were probably, I think, like 10,000 bottles in this PO. Yeah.

Which the nice thing is we're made in the U.S. So Jordan was able to literally fly there. So I flew out there and I was like, okay, guys, like we are going to recruit 10 people and we are going to go hand by hand and like select this bottle can be cleared. This bottle cannot. And so if you were like in those earliest customers, you might have gotten a bottle that had like a weird bump in it, you know, but it was like cleared because it was like it's not bad enough to where it's going to cause like an issue. But, you know, sorting through 10,000. bottles like by hand. I thought it was going to go crazy. And I was like, this is just what you have to do. Yeah, you were at home with Stella. You were sending me pictures of all the bottles. It was wild. But like,

those are the things you kind of have to do in the early days. Honestly, we probably still do it to this day. Oh my gosh. Yes. Like that's what I love that. But yeah, whenever we launched, I remember, I was like, you kind of have to pick your things that you want your brand to stand for. Right. Like you have to be like, okay, I want my brand to be sustainable. I want it to be, So my biggest thing was like I wanted to be made in the U.S. Because I'm not big USA girlie. I feel like people don't know that about me. Yeah.

I'm like a big USA Pride girl. Like I'm like I watch those videos online and I'm like, I start crying. I'm like, God bless that USA. Like I anyway. So if I wanted to be made in the USA, I wanted to be clean. Of course, I was like number number number one. Because there's, I mean, you're literally putting this on your scalp. Anything that you're putting on your head.

By the way, you know that magnifying? Or, uh, not the magnifying glass. Oh yeah. The microscope. The scalp scope. The scalp scope. Oh, M.

G, you guys. So we did the, I did the scalp scope when I was losing my hair a long time ago, where I was able to actually look at my scalp and see all of like the sebum, the product build up, literally blocking your follicle from growing. Like I'm not, I'm not making this is up. Like literally, it's like having like a black head on your scalp or like a white head. Like it's clawed.

The hair cannot grow. So that was like a big thing. When I saw that, I was like, ding, ding, ding, like this has got to go. But also it's, you know, nowadays, like all these, you know, everybody's telling you don't wash your hair. Just put dry shampoo, washing your hair is bad for you. Yes, maybe it's bad for your hair, but I wouldn't say it's like bad for your scalp to get in there and get rid of like all that product build up. So that's why with Divi, you can give yourself like a little scalp massage without washing your whole hair, your whole head. But oh my gosh, that thing is nasty.

Yeah. It's nasty when you see your scalp. I think that like, I mean, I think that you were, when you came to like the team and like us with the idea, like I think you were probably one of the first people to say, hey, the scalp is an extension of your skin, which now everyone's saying it. Like everyone's like the skinification of the scalp, right? But you were like, hey, I'm doing this face routine with my skin. Like, this is a huge component of why my hair is not growing. And you were right. Like that was your theory and you were right. And that was what why I think did. And Divvy so effective is because it's like the first time that people are actually taking care of their scalp. And like I said, it was like the before and after. Do you remember like the celebrities that started reaching out to it? Y'all, that was like another thing. Like it was so word of mouth and it still is to this day. We had like a lot of country artists like their wise reaching out. We had Daniel Jonas. We got on a call with the Jonas brothers. No, not the their manager. Should I tell that story? No, but Kevin Jonas was on it and Daniel Jonas. No, just their manager. Babe, I talked to Danielle. You did?

I literally talked to Daniel. Oh, you did, yes. Kevin Jonas was on the call. Yes. You don't remember that? I don't know. Everything's a blur for the past three years. You talked to Kevin for a different reason.

Yeah, okay, that's correct. And then we were all in the office. And then you were like, we're going to go up to New York. No, you're right. You're right. Okay, they were on the call. Kevin was on the call. And they were expressing their interest in Divi.

Daniel was telling me how it like has changed her life. It was something they really. really wanted to get behind. And she still uses it. And then I guess they wanted to like invest in it, which we, we don't take investors. So like we have funded the entire business ourselves. And we like a lot of people have come to us to invest in Divi, but we don't really want to give up that control right now because like whenever you bring in investors, a lot of

times they might have different goals than you. Like they are probably more financial, financially driven and we're more like, we don't make a dime off Divi right now. Like it's like we're more like just trying to you know create what people want. Yeah. I think like but it's been flattering. I mean like do you remember in New York like we had, it's a big private equity firm. I don't know if I should say the name.

But they did like goop and they invest in Spanx and they very. Say their name. Can you not? I mean I can. Blackstone. Yeah. But they, um, so they they took us out to dinner very early on like four or five months in. And it was so I mean just coming from like.

Yeah. It's cool. I was like, I was like, oh my gosh. So much to take his dinner. I was like, I was so flattered. And they have been awesome. Like they've actually like been great at like adding value and and just adding being valuable to us along the way. And they're very big on like supporting female entrepreneurs. And you know, we talked about it. And I was like, Danny, I just like don't know if it's the right time. Because typically when these, you know, I'm like so against like investors. Yeah. I mean, because like the thing about it is that for now for now for now. For now.

Yeah. So when when people come in to the company, usually what these big. private equity groups will do is they'll stack your team with an executive team. And you don't, you have, but it's like you lose some influence, you know. And so we really. Because they're so financially driven. They're so financially driven. And we wanted to build this the right way. And I think that that's like very unique about, you look at like Mr. Beast. He brought on private equity like very early on. Like he already had all this capital and all these like people. And there's, and not saying that that's the wrong way to do it. Like we have, we have another friend that has a hair care brand and she started with a lot of capital and then you build this brand.

You have investors come to you and say, and this is what happens with a lot of influencers too. And a lot of influencer brands that you guys know of, you know, these investors will come to them and say, hey, we already have the product. We already have the name. We already have the idea. We have the team. We just want to put your face on it.

Like we just need for you to say, like come into the lab, you know, take some pictures like you're mixing the formula and picking out colors. That's literally all we need you to do. Come in for a photo shoot and we got you. And like you in basically the founder really does nothing. They have some input, but like overall, and I'm not saying that's a wrong way to do it. In fact, that sounds amazing. Yeah.

But like, and I think that's like a great path. But I think for us, I was like, because I think we enjoy building from the ground up so much. Yeah. I was like, this is half the fun. Like, why would I take that part away? I mean, half the killer part too. Like literally didn't see Jordan for all of last year. And I feel like at a certain point, you're like,

what's the point of growing this business if like on Saturday and Sunday I don't even see my husband and he's working 24-7 you know that's a whole other conversation but I mean we can talk about it 2020 is like probably the worst year of my life I mean best and worse it was the hardest year of my life for sure like I mean we scaled from zero to 20 employees in one year we you and I handpicked every single one of those employees we hired every single one like we started with divy and so you'll have to understand, we were working out of our playroom upstairs and then Stratton's nursery is next door, so it literally shares a bathroom. And we made Stratton's nursery while I was pregnant, a divvy office where our first two or three employees worked out of. So literally I'm pregnant.

I'm working out of the playroom. They're working out of the nursery. Like it was, and then we finally got like a kind of like a we work space just for the interim. And we had like probably like five or six employees working there. And then we, grew too big to be in the workspace so then we bought divvy house which divvy the house behind um or like the office space and the heart behind the divvy house was like i always wanted my you know divvy to be run out of a house i don't know why i just loved that culture i love that it felt like and i think it's because i work out of my home yeah and i love that like i love that i can like just feel comfortable you know doing an interview and having no pants on and just filming from the you know like i

love the homey vibe and I just feel like it creates this environment of like comfort kind of um and so with the divvy house we were like I mean it was so hard to find spaces in Dallas Dallas is like so freaking expensive like for what you're looking for and it's like I really wanted to keep it like in not downtown Dallas but like Dallas you know um and we found we were looking at all these office spaces they were all so cold and like old and just not Fluorescent light cubicles and I was like, no, this ain't it. There were some opportunities where we thought about like buying it and then renovating it, but like I'm not a renovation girl.

No. Renovation galley at all. We are not that couple. Like we're not like to be Joanna around here. I couldn't even, yeah, like I struggle with my leaf blower. Yeah. It's just like not what we want to be doing. Like we'll find the the resources to do it.

But anyway. And then we came across the Divy House, which let me just say was an old. It was a home that was rezone for commercial. And it was painted green. Literally, y'all, it was painted green. And it was so cute on the inside. And what's so fun is we went in, we kind of spruce it up a little bit. We kept like a lot of the character of it.

And so that's where people live. Sorry, not live. That's where they work now. And it's so cute. I absolutely love it, but we are outgrowing it too. Yeah, that's kind of awkward. Yeah. Our conversation.

So we're going to see what happens there. But yeah, so Jordan and I do work like a lot on Divi together. How do you feel like it's been working together? Like we're, do you feel like what are like the biggest challenges of working together on Divi? Kind of like what is, you know, our day to day working on Divi? What does our relationship look like? Yeah, I mean, let's just talk about like last year because I think it's different this year

than it is last year. But like last year, you know, it was hard because, you know, we just went from. working together on the Danny Austin side, you know, to then having like two things. And I feel like we had to kind of divide and conquer. And it was weird because it was kind of the first time that I felt like we had more of a conventional marriage where it's like I would sometimes go to the office and then I would come home at five and like we would eat dinner together and it would be like, how was your day? Because like before we knew everything, we were doing the whole day together. And so it was kind of a, it was hard for me because I missed you a lot.

And like I missed like the old. That's where we're going with this. Well, no. I like miss. I missed like the old dynamic of like, oh my gosh. Like we were just like doing everything together. You know, now we have to kind of like divide and conquer. It was also just like very different problems.

Like, you know, we had a team of three here at Danny Austin. And then we have a team of like 20 at Divi, which is just like so much harder. And so it was like the challenge was like how do we create the culture of the Danny Austin team, which is very personal. very like family oriented like people love their jobs but how do we the challenge was like how do we do that for 20 people like do we have the emotional capacity and then we hired you know our people manager which was like I think a good move oh a great move because you have to understand like too because I'm in kind of a public position Jordan is you know like somewhat public too it was really important to have like

that person in the in between that was kind of like HR essentially in HR we call her the people manager and she creates like the most fun culture like the first thing whenever you start working for divvies you fill out like a form of all your favorite things your birthday like and so everybody really takes care of each other and it's really sweet um we all went to taylor swift and then they wrote me the cutest little cards yesterday oh my gosh but you know i think the funniest thing for you danny has been like shifting from like not wearing pants like doing everything by the seat of your pants like on the danny austin side to divby like do you remember like Danny you got to understand Danny I feel like you've never worked in like a corporate environment is that fair to say then I got fired that one so this is a this is a really

funny story okay so I hired I was at a company like a wearable company called wiseware like early in my career and you know so funny because I hired this is like 20 what 17 so like influencer marketing 2016 maybe 2016 so influencer marketing was like not even like really a formal thing but Danny had a YouTube audience. And you have to understand, like these are the days where I, I was on YouTube. Like I said, people understand like the first three years of YouTube. I'm making 20 grand a year. Like I'm having a hard time. Like I'm not this like big superstar. People were like, oh, you started on YouTube and you were kill. No. No, you were like a personal assistant to a jewelry company. I was like three or four jobs. I was like really big on eBay and podger.

So she was like, hey, like I'll consult for your your startup. And so I was like, oh, that's a great idea. Like we need to figure out influencer marketing. It was like this like female jewelry kind of wearable bracelet. Like that was the whole team. With an all male team. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So many lessons learned from that whole company. But anyway, um, so we hired Danny as like our influencer coordinator. And Danny, you know, of course being Danny like doesn't can't just do influencer marketing. She has to be like, you know what? I think that there's bigger, larger issues with this company. And so she's like, hey, can I have a meeting with the COO? So COO. Can I just, one thing about me is like I have to believe in what I'm selling. Yeah, you got to believe in it. I'm like, I was really just, I wanted this

meaning because I wanted to fix the problem so that I could believe in what I was selling and become successful at doing it. Yeah. So let's change his name. His name is Greg. So she's like, I need to meet with Greg. And so Greg is like a former Marine, you know, he's probably in his late 40s, early 50s. Like looks like a Marine. And he's like, this is my company. Like I'm taking this to the moon. You know, he's just like passionate about his product. He's also over products. He's over the supply chain. He's over the product development.

He's over everything. Yeah. So Danny is like I, I got to have a meeting. So I set up a meeting and I can't be there. So she drives down to San Antonio and she goes into the office and she has this whole presentation. I worked so hard on this.

Like it was like a PowerPoint essentially, you know. And I looked at all the competitors. I looked at all like the price analysis, like the industry, the market. Like I basically presented to him. why like where we fit in the marketplace and like why we were too like too expensive. Yeah. Or what we were doing that like wasn't like competitive over like what Apple was coming out with. Like and I had all these ideas of like how we could fix the product because I knew when we launched,

I was like y'all are way too expensive. It doesn't do half the things that like a Fitbit does. So like why would people pay double a Fitbit to do for it to do half of what a Fitbit does? Like it doesn't make any sense. And so I'm like really just trying to present facts, you know? And man, that meeting in my eyes went great. I like presented everything. I had, I was like on the debate team, you know? I was like killing it. So I get, we see each other for dinner that night in Austin and I'm like, hey, you know, how did the meeting with Greg go? And she's like, oh my gosh, it could not have gone better. It was incredible. She was like, I killed it. She was like, I killed it. I presented my slides. He totally understood. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's great. And so then

15 minutes later, I'm walking Hazel. And he calls me and he goes, who the hell does your girlfriend think she is? Who does she think she is? He's like, I never want to see your girlfriend again. He's like, she doesn't even believe in this company. She doesn't even believe in this product. You know, she thinks everything that we're doing is wrong.

And so I like have to defuse that situation. You know, fast forward a year you were right about everything the company went under. Yeah, but it doesn't matter because I didn't really understand like the politics of corporations. Of corporations. Yeah. And the hierarchy. And I had always worked for myself. I was like such a millennial.

Like, you know, going in there and like, ew, like it makes me cringe. Like thinking about it. No, I mean, but it's like it's so, so fast forward to today. I think it's still been not challenging, but it's like new for us that we are now developing a team that has structure that where people make decisions that we trust to make decisions. And like sometimes Danny just like wants to waltz in there and be like, guys, let's create this product. And it's like, do you understand that we have our products mapped to?

out for the next three years. I know, but did, I did so well yesterday whenever I was talking to our VP. Like, um, we have a new hire. She's amazing. Whatever. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But no. Like, um, we have like four VPs now. So I on the back end was just doing a little thing. You know, I was reaching out to like all of these influencers online on Instagram, getting their addresses so that I could ship them to be people that I didn't even really know just to ship it to like, so they can be introduced to the product. So I reached out to probably like 50. influencers and I heard back from probably like 15 maybe 20 yeah and so you remember like I did so well I said hey I don't want to step on any toes here um but who should I send these addresses to and I need this to

get going like ASAP like who do I talk to about this instead I usually would walk in there be like all right guys so here's what we're doing today it's going to be spent doing but like because I'm very um like action oriented like I'm like and that's what I that's why I love working for myself I'm like okay, we want to plan a talent show. Okay, let's get on the phone right now and book a venue. 100%. Let's not talk about booking a venue. I'm like, let's book a venue and then let's start getting this out.

Let's go film the video to get people submitting their video. I'm just like, go, go, go, go. I don't really think a lot about it. And whenever there's like a corporation or business a team, like you can't just go, go, go. No, they like, yeah. But you want to remain slim so that you can pivot. Like when Lemonade comes out on, you know, social media, I want to have someone that I can trust that's like,

smart enough to maneuver and switch and be like, okay, like, okay, Danny, like, I'll start posting for divvy on Lemonade and not feel overwhelmed by it. But, like, they're quick on their toes. Like, that's the thing is you don't want to have too big of a team to where, like, everybody's like, Lemonate, let's go over a meeting about it and strategize. And let's talk about it. Let's hire a content creator. Maybe they'll take three photos a day.

And I'm like, dude, just like, go get on Lemonade and start posting some pictures that we already have. Yeah. No, it's, it's, she's so. stress right. It's so funny though because like, okay, so last year that was like all we did is like we would go into Divy and be like boom boom, boom, boom, this way you have to do. And so like, but it wasn't sustainable because it was so much, it was so hard for us. And so we it was challenging hiring like these VPs and like these executives for the company because you, you know, you would interview these people that come from like fortune 500 companies and they just move too slow. They would be like, I know,

I need a team of 20, you know. And then you would find these like real like good hustlers that were like, understood corporate culture and politics and stuff, like enough, but like we're still kind of in their hustle state. And so we worked with this recruiting firm and they were hell-bent on like, you need to hire a president. You need to hire president. You need to hire president. Girl, I'm the president. Yeah. And so they were, they kind of like were saying like, if you need help, you need to hire president. The president will staff team. So they set us up with all these interviews with these like presidents of, you know, vital proteins and all these like companies. And I'm like,

interviewing these people and I'm like, this will wreck our culture because they were used to running a company so large that it just wouldn't have worked. But no, and like not saying that they aren't qualified. They're qualified in their own areas. But not at our stage of the company. Not of our stage. And not saying that like one's better or worse. It's just like it's different. It's different. Like it's it's a different space working with a team that has 20 employees than working for a company that has 400 employees. It's just. So different. And like I said, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just different. Yeah, it's just different. I'm trying to smooth it out here so you don't get backlash.

Let me ask you this. Okay. When you were first creating videos on YouTube, did you ever expect to be here at this stage, like running divvy, Instagram and all that? No. Expect to be here like running divvy? no, but I have this like very, like there's this thing about me is like I'm very positive. Yeah. So like I always knew that whatever I would be doing, I would be very excited about it and feel really good about it and be good at it.

But I didn't know exactly what it'd be. Yeah. So no, I'm not surprised that like like, yeah, I'm like it's weird. It's crazy to be like we have divvy and to be here and everything. But like I'm just a very positive person. Yeah. I like you are a very positive person I always always glass half full always glass half full and like it's always going to work and if it doesn't work it will make it work you know I'm just like we'll finesse it

and we can work and and that's the thing too is like I don't know what this doesn't maybe this is me going a soapbox but like it's kind of one of those things where it's like I um like no matter the amount of like hate that I get or the amount of like criticism like I know that I'll always be able to like get back up you know and so because I'm so positive like I don't I can't think of like one thing that would actually knock me down enough to just stop and so I um you like that we call you the cockroach the cockroach yeah the cucaracha because the cucarrauma and I don't know like I just I don't know what advice would you have for like other like so I think there's a lot of people in your audience that are like small business owners I think so what what would advice would you

have for them starting their business and just the attitude that you need to have going into it. I think it's like a good mix between being authentic to who you are, but also remembering that like everything that you're doing is for serving people. It's all about your audience. It's all about listening to your audience. And just keeping that at the heart of every decision that you make because it can be really easy to be like, oh, I want to do this because it's cool. Or I want to do this because it'll like get press. But it's like truly I think just saying true to like the mission behind your brand like I think that every brand should have like a mission statement.

Yeah. And every business should have something that they kind of live by and like something that keeps the longevity there and the heart behind it because a lot of times like a lot of the brands that I have seen, it's just like okay, it gets old after a while. Like these products that were buying like you can use them for a year. But like why do I continue to use them? And I think, like, tart is a great example of a brand that, like, has so much heart behind it. That, and, like, it's just has such good vibes.

Like, every time I use it, I just feel good. Like, and I know that, like, who I'm supporting, like, they have a really, like, Maureen has such a great heart and, like, it's always wanting to give back and is just a good person, you know. Don't, like, share the mission statement because that's, like, cring and kind of lame. But, like, what's your heart for Divi? Like, what do you, like, from your words, like, what is the heart behind Divi? I think when it comes to anything to do with with hair loss or your hair journey, because I've been there, I know how difficult it is and how emotional it is.

And you kind of just feel like out of control a lot of times and you're like, why is this happening? And I feel like with Divi, it was like one step in the right direction of kind of giving, like empowering those people again and, you know, serving them in that way. but also with the lifestyle brand, it was like something that I really wanted to focus on was just like your overall lifestyle. Like not just having this one product that like fixes everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Well, what are you looking forward to most with Divi this year? I'm looking forward to our vitamin launch and some other products that we're launching. There we go. I love it. We hired a cool new person too. Oh, I love her.

She's about to change. the game you don't even know yeah like literally it's she's like I don't know who you're smarter than me oh yeah and I love that no there's so many people that we've hired that are smarter than us and like given fields like do you should we say it the VP from you I wouldn't yet oh okay secrets secrets secrets I don't know just wait until it's actually for sure yeah okay anyway well cool good pod well thanks for listening you guys um our next episode what's our next episode going to be about we just decided we kind of like winked You know, because this whole thing, this whole podcast thing that we did,

we really were just going to do a series of like six or seven episodes. So this might have been like one of the last episodes. And then we were going to break, kind of like feel it out. It's a lot of work. Y'all's feedback. It's a lot of work. Get y'all's feedback. See what you like, what you don't like.

And then we were either going to like rebrand or keep the brand and like launch again kind of thing. Like actually start like a season because this was more of like a warm up. A therapy thing for you. Yeah, just to see if we even like it. So feel free to leave us a review on Apple. And then you can also rate us on Spotify, which helps a lot. And maybe we'll see you guys next week. Bye.

Bye.