Meet Desiree Stolar from Unshrinkit!
You might recognize Desiree as one of our top 10 finalists in Small Business Big Game or from her recent appearance on Shark Tank.
Desiree co-founded Unshrinkit back in 2013 as part of a class project — two years later her solution for shrunken sweaters is flying off the shelves.
Along the way she's learned a ton about how to handle customer service and why solving an existing problem is key to finding a market for your product.
Let's hear from Desiree!
Name: Desiree Stolar
Business: Unshrinkit
Started: December 2013
Tell us a little more about how Unshrinkit was born. Who or what inspired you to create your product?
My co-founder Nate and I started Unshrinkit while we were still students at Harvard Business School.
In the winter of 2013, we were given $5,000 to work on a micro-business as part of a class. Our team of six decided that collectively we wanted to build something with our hands — it was important to us that at the end of the project we could send something home to our parents and say "Look what we did!" The last thing I wanted was to tell my mom to download an app because I knew that would never happen.
Before we all dispersed for holiday break, we agreed that we would try and think of things that actually solve a pain point and make our lives significantly better or less stressful.
It literally just so happened that I received a cashmere sweater for Christmas that year. And I immediately shrunk it the first time I washed it.
My heart froze for a second when that happened. I knew that it was an expensive gift and I felt so embarrassed and dumb because there was no way to fix it.
I mentioned it to my husband and he said, "Oh, that's not a problem. That doesn't happen very often." When I pressed him further, he admitted that all he does when this happens to his clothes is throw them away!
I decided to ask more people. It turns out, this is a huge pain point for many, and they were desperate for a solution. I learned then that sometimes the first person you ask — even if you love them dearly — might not be your target market.
Who was your first customer?
I was probably our first "user," in that I tried saving that sweater with warm water and conditioner. I was so determined to make it work that I wore it to class, but over the course of the day it became a crop top and it was entirely inappropriate for business school. I had to borrow a jacket from a friend, and that's what made me realize — even home remedies don't work.
After that, I spent a lot of time researching all the different home remedies online. What struck me was that there are millions of YouTube views and thousands of websites and blogs out there just devoted to discussing how to fix your shrunken clothes. The lightbulb went on: "It's not just me! There is actually a market here with millions of people who are having this issue on a regular basis."
Our first customers ended up being our classmates and friends because we started the company as a class project. It was a great way to learn quickly what people thought about our product in real-time because we could immediately ask questions like, "Are people asking for this? Are they using it and telling others about it?"
One of my favorite stories from our early customers came from a young woman whose grandmother had knit her a sweater that she'd accidentally shrunk. Her grandmother had since passed away, and it was an irreplaceable item. She thought she was going to have to hide it forever from her mom because she had messed up this precious gift, but when she got a bottle of our product and it worked, she was overwhelmed with joy.
When did you know that you business was going to work?
On October 17, 2014 everything changed for our business.
Up until then, we had been selling our product casually. We were convinced that people who loved and knew us would take a chance on our product and use it, but we didn't have any money to do marketing and we hadn't even tried to penetrate the market in terms of awareness.
We got on a website called The Grommet that showcases new gadgets and products. The warned that they expected to sell around 200 bottles in the first week. We were still full-time students and making the product in our bathtub, so we thought, "Great! This is totally feasible."
We came out of class together on October 17 and all of a sudden our phones went off at the same time. I looked down and there was a message from our buyer that said we sold out of 200 bottles in the first hour.
That was the first moment when I truly realized we had market proof and that we were solving a real problem for people.
I also took a cue from how The Grommet was marketing their product on our site because they included a video showing people how and why to use our product. When people understand that a problem can be solved and there is a solution on the market for it, they will react!
What are the big lessons that you learned early on when building your business?
We got bigger before we expected to get big because of our exposure on The Grommet. Our sales exploded before we'd had a chance to update our packaging, our instructions and even the ingredients inside the bottle.
Two big learnings came out of this period.
One, never underestimate how long it will take to complete R&D (research and development). When our sales picked up quickly, people were still buying the same products we had been making in our dorm room. We thought we didn't need to worry about customer management and our customer service responsiveness because we planned for the new version to be released in early 2015.
Well, it ended up taking until April of 2015 to update our product. By that time, it was out there. It was in the marketplace, it was in people's homes and it was only version 1.0 of Unshrinkit. Sure, it didn't take us long to get to the base product, but when we wanted to upgrade to version 2.0, it took an exceptionally long time, even though we had some amazing chemists working with us.
Two, don't wait to update your packaging and address customer service needs. There was a lot of confusion around which fabrics you could use Unshrinkit with on our version 1.0 packaging and we weren't clear about how much water was needed in terms of gallons, quarts or cups.
For version 2.0, we included more explicit instructions that actually align with the language people use and we had really nice messaging in the box with warnings if you try to use it with the wrong fabric or fiber. We also included contact information for anyone who had questions and a money-back guarantee.
We knew from testing that over 90% of people had a generally positive experience with our product. However, those 10% who either really loved it or really hated it were the people who went online to talk about it. When we started offering a money-back guarantee, it reassured our customers that we stand behind our product.
What do you wish you'd known when you were starting out?
There were a lot of lessons, but a big one that stands out is to read every customer email that comes in.
One of my co-founders, who has more of a transactional focus, was initially in charge of owning all of our customer emails. We realized after about a year that it didn't make sense for someone with that mindset to be receiving the majority of our customer emails. I have a background in marketing and customer service, and I care a great deal about each individual customer and the experience they're having. I know in the aggregate that if you do your job well, that will pay off in dividends.
Sure, there is often an assumption that customer emails are just chores or "things that have to be done." But there were gems in our backlog of emails — stories from our customers about special clothing items they'd saved, opportunities from people who wanted to sell our product in their small shops, even offers from people who wanted to feature us in their blogs or magazines.
What also really struck me after we committed to responding to every single email is how surprised and impressed our customers were when they received a real note back from one of the co-founders. We don't sent automated responses and we take care to write back in language that is human and specific to the garment they shrank or the question they have.
What's next for Unshrinkit?
As a team, we could have never anticipated some of the opportunities that have come to us after participating in Small Business Big Game and after being on Shark Tank.
We promised ourselves that between our appearance on Shark Tank in mid-November and the end of 2015, we're going to focus on continuing to sell our product and our upcoming launch in Bed, Bath & Beyond. Then, we're committing to taking six weeks to figure out what we want to pursue in 2016, given all the opportunities for distribution, acquisition and licensing that have come in recently.
Back in 2014, three months after creating Unshrinkit, we said our mission was to place a bottle of Unshrinkit in every laundry room in America. We didn't say whohad to place it there, and we didn't know how it would get there, but we knew we wanted it there.
Now we have a couple different ways to make that possible — all because of Shark Tank!
Nate and Desiree on Shark Tank in November of 2015 