Aden + Anais: Raegan Moya-Jones (2019)

So really quick before we start the show, I want to tell you about our How I Built This Live Tour. It's happening this fall, supported by American Express. I'll be in New York talking with Christina Tosi of Milk Bar, in Boston with Luke Holden and Ben Connor, founders of Luke's Lobster, in Washington, DC with Tristan Walker of Walker and Company. And wrapping up the tour in Denver with Kurt Richardson, founder of Otter Products. You can get tickets for all these shows and get more information at nprpresents.org. And I hope to see you on the road. If you run a company, a lot can change in a year or two, and that is certainly the case for Reagan Moya Jones, whose career took a major turn after we first ran this episode about two years ago. So Earlier this month I called her up. To get an update. You'll hear that brand new conversation at the end of this episode, which first air

in July of twenty seventeen. I had read a lot of literature about women entrepreneurs and I had learned the statistic that Only

Two percent of all women owned businesses ever break a million dollar revenue. Is that true? Yes, isn't that frightening? Shocking, yeah. But I'd set myself that goal. So I just said right. Once I get to a million in revenue I've done something that most women entrepreneurs unable to do.

From NPR, it's how I built this. show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show. How one Australian mother searched for the right blankey for her newborn.

And when she couldn't find it? She built a baby blanket company. Now making a hundred million dollars a year. So back in two thousand thirteen, you might remember the birth of a brand new royal baby, the heir to the British throne. Six ounces to the duchess we're hearing as we're looking at these pictures from Buckingham Palace. The day after he was born. Mom and Dad stood outside St. Mary's Hospital in Paddington and introduced Prince George to the world.

He's uh he's a big boy, he's quite heavy. Uh we're still working on a name. You could just make out that he was wrapped up in a white cottle. printed with tiny cartoon birds. And after a little internet sleuthing.

People track down the maker of that swaddle. Aiden in N A. It's a baby product company that sells swaddle blankets for about 15 bucks apiece. And of course, the effect was instantaneous. Within four hours, the company's website crashed, and then It crashed again the next day. And for Aiden and Nene's co founder Reagan Moya Jones,

It was a pretty big shock because the company was barely seven years old. And over that seven year period. Aiden and Anna had been through a lot of ups and downs. Starting with the recession in two thousand eight. And then eventually a traumatic breakup between Reagan and her business partner that threatened to dissolve the entire company.

A company, by the way, with yearly revenue now of over a hundred million dollars. So how did she create this company, Aiden and NA? Well, the story begins when Reagan and her husband Marcos moved from Sydney, Australia to New York in nineteen ninety seven. after he got a job. And Reagan at the time, she didn't really have any plans.

I came here without a job, without a working visa. And I thought, you know what, I'll do some volunteer stuff, I'll learn to speak Spanish'cause my husband's Chilean. and I'll fill my time that way for two years and sort of treat it as just um You know, uh a new and different journey rather than being, you know, a hundred miles an hour with my work and my studies.

And uh that didn't kind of work out for me'cause about four months in My husband initially was working from home because, you know, they were really setting things up from the ground. Here in New York. And uh He walked into the living room and I was laying on the couch at eleven o'clock in my pajamas, you know.

And he just said to me, What the hell are you doing? Come on, you gotta you gotta get up and shake this off and Find something to do. I don't know that I was depressed. I just I didn't know anybody in New York and I just sort of fell into a rut, I think, and I underestimated how much I needed to be the person that, you know, had a very full

Schedule. So rather than using the downtime productively, I just use the downtime to lay on the couch and watch Morning talk shows. Yeah. That does sound depressing. It was, it was horrible.

Eventually Reagan's visa did come through so she could start working. And within about a year, she landed a job as a sales rep for The Economist magazine. And this sounds obnoxious, but I was really good at it. You know, the wonderful thing with sales is you live and die by the number that you're told to hit. And I was very Fortunate that I never didn't hit the numbers. Did you I did have fun. Did I love it? Was it was m was it my passion? Absolutely not. And I was very frustrated that I wasn't really taken seriously in terms of

being able to be promoted and everything, I was very much sort of kept in my box of what I had always done, albeit in different areas of the business, over ten years. But that was a huge frustration to me that it was obvious I was never really going to go anywhere within the economist. Did you like were you dreaming of leaving and and starting your own thing? I wasn't going to leave it for another job.

I think I have always been an entrepreneur. I never defined myself as that, but there was always a desire for me to do something I just never had had an idea. I'd had lots of ideas, but none that I felt were worth sort of, you know, diving in the deep end for. But I mean at some point, I mean y you got an idea. The the idea that would become Aiden and N A So

What happened? Well, I had my first of my four daughters. That's what happened. I was pregnant with an A and I was you know, getting ready as we all do when we're having our first baby with all the paraphernalia that you think you need. And I went out looking for these muslin blankets that were Extremely common

Back home in Australia, so common that You could buy them in you know, supermarkets. It was mind blowing to me when I went looking for them in the US that they didn't actually exist. You couldn't find them. And I guess just to explain to to to somebody who doesn't know what a a muslin blanket is, it's it's sort of like a really soft Cheesecloth.

kind of it's it's like a gauze and um Not only was it In my opinion, and still in my opinion the only thing you should wrap your baby in because it's lightweight and breathable and big enough to be able to securely swaddle the babies. It was the fact that this one blanket did multiple things so

You could use it as a birk cloth, you could use it as a portable crib sheet, you could use it as a nursing cover, you could use it as a stroller cover, you could Yeah, you just use it to So and the the thing with muslin is the more you wash it, the softer it gets. So in Australia this is just normal, like all babies were wrapped in these cotton muslin Yes. So that was you know, and and I just thought every every Australian can't have this wrong and if I introduce this product to American parents I was just

absolutely a hundred percent certain that they would respond to it the same way as us Aussie had. So you um Presumably took leave uh after uh An A was born and uh and then went back to the economist? Yes. I had three months off. And w and did you go back to the economist with this idea churning in your head? Yes. Yes. And how do you then start to make this a reality. What what's the first thing you do? Well, I had no supply chain or operational you know, experience or knowledge. I I'm a salesperson, you know, so I had to find out how I would even go about making this stuff. And that took a long time.

So we had the idea in 2003 when Anne was born and it took it took till 2006 to actually work out how to make it and and get it to market. So did you start this process all by yourself? No, I had a I had a partner, the one person that my husband knew from Australia. His best friend's ex girlfriend, Claudia. Who ended up marrying an American guy and that was the first person I met here and Claudia is Aiden's mum. She was the other co founder of Aiden and Danae. Wow. So you guys got together and she agreed. She said, This is crazy that you can't get these in America. Well, she had Aiden about seven or eight months after I had a name. So I had been in Australia and I was coming back

from Australia and I would stop and hang out with Claudia. and Mark, her husband, in LA to break up the trip. And I distinctly remember sitting on Aiden's nursery Floor. And um I just said to her, we need to we need to do this, Claudia. Like you know, we need to find a way to make this happen. And

She actually said, Well why don't we just try and become a distributor for the company that already makes it out of Australia. Yeah, which which seems like a reasonable question. And I said, Well, why would you do that? I said, and I want it to be better than what is already available in Australia. And I I remember saying, and we can call the company Aiden and Danae after the babies. And that was sort of how it all got started. All right, just like l a logistical question, because you kinda had a a a a growing sense of m how to maybe start a business, but What about the design side of it? I mean

Did you have Were you gonna design the blankets where you can uh design the patterns and the And the shapes are on them? That's a great question.

because I am not the most artistic person, actually I you know, my artistic skills don't go beyond stick people. You know, I really can't draw to save my life. But I am very opinionated and I have a very Clear vision of what I like aesthetically from a design perspective, and I am so type A You know, that

I was very much I want these colours, I want these images, I want it to look like you know, and we Claudia and I hired a, you know, outside freelance design people to come up with our initial designs that launched the first products. So where did you find the manufacturing facility? How did you find somebody who Who who could make these muslin

Cotton blankets. This is actually an interesting story, guy, because I was standing at the reception desk Uh at The Economist. And the mail arrived and on the top of the mail was the women's wear daily. magazine.

So I'm flipping through this and then there's a full page advertisement for an Asian Textile sourcing. trade show that was happening in New York City three days later. So obviously I went to that trade show. And I walked the entire trade show of probably forty vendors and then

I got to literally the last vendor before I was about to walk out the door. And I walked over and I said, I'm trying to find someone that can make this fabric for me. It's called muslin. He said, I have no idea what this is, but I work for a major manufacturing company in China.

Let me take this back. and to see what they say and Two weeks later I got it uh an email saying we can make this for you and that was it. So it was literally the last

Booth you went to. Absolutely true story. I was out the door bar one booth and they ended up becoming my manufacturer for ten years. Unbelievable. So so when they they sent you the first sample, did they did they get it right right away? No. Okay. There was a myriad of back and forth in terms of getting the quality to where I wanted it and

I am not a textiles technical person. I have no idea. I understand the basics now, having been in it for so many years, but I couldn't tell them the grade of cotton, I couldn't tell them the warp and weft counts. I c couldn't tell them anything. I just basically said make it like this, but I need it to be softer. And then I worked with the factories over the years on the way to wash it and what to put in the wash to make it soft, and obviously as a mum

I wouldn't u let them use anything that was in any way U you know, they used to use formal to hide in dyes on baby birth. That that stuff just blew my mind. So obviously that was very important to me that there was none of that in any ANA products and it was a long and laborious process with a a hell of a lot of uh failures along the way where

We had full containers of product that when they arrived in the US, like the fabric had turned yellow. So there you know, there's so many stories about The trials and tribulations of actually perfecting the fabrication. Still working at The Economist at this point? Yes. I stayed working at The Economist until May of two thousand and nine. So did you tell your colleagues about it? Did they find out? No. Nobody knew. Were you keeping it secret'cause you just

I didn't want anybody looking or questioning me. And again I I go back to I was a salesperson, I never ever didn't make my budget. I n I didn't want to walk out that door. And then have people say, Well it's all good and well that she's created this business but it was the at the expense of

The economist. Yeah, right. At this point, I guess, two thousand six N A N A is Uh three. And then did you have another child by that point? I actually had three of my four daughters by that point. Okay, so you were still working full time at The Economist and presumably flying back and forth to LA to to work with Claudia on on this side business. And you were also raising? I mean, how did you make all of this work? It was

Really, really hard. But It was a conscious decision that I made. So when I got home from I used to call the economist my real job. When I got home from the real job, I was well in mummy mode and I focused on my girls and then when the girls went to bed At eight thirty.

That's when I would start my day of working on Aidan and Anna and I would do that until, you know, three thirty. Every morning. And uh Because it was a conscious decision on my part I sort of never did. I just never really

complained about it. It was what it was. So It's two taus and six, you have uh your fur you make your first big order Um how many w what was that order like?

What do you remember? Well, we started we both started just putting fifteen thousand dollars in for our first inventory and that we we did the minimum. We had a boy pack, a girl pack, a white pack, and a talent washcloth. And I just went door to door. In

LA and New York to every baby store to every you know, I I picked up the phone, I called Bye Bye Baby, I Yeah, th that was the sales girl coming out in me and actually jumping ahead a bit A year later the target buyer. Called me.

called me and said, can you come in. I took in, you know, six skews thinking they might take one or two and W what's a s how much is a skew? A skew is like one four pack. So I presented six four packs thinking they might take one boy and one girl. Yeah. And Target took all six. Wow. And rolled it out into All target stores from day one. Once you got orders from these big companies, I mean you had to then make the order with a factory in China and I guess

Pay the money, how did you fund that? We uh initially it was um You know, all our And and

the money part of it was actually what brought about the demise of Claudio and my partnership. I don't know if you want me to talk about that, but I can because you know the partner thing is always Well, often a story with entrepreneurs, right? Yeah. So Claudio and Mark were very wealthy. Marcos and I not so much. You know, we we were doing fine, but we didn't have

you know, millions of dollars. Yeah. So Marcos and I kept up for as long as we could, Matt, you know, we'd put in fifteen thousand, then we put in another thirty, then we put in another forty, y you know that. And we kept up as long as we could until we got to a point where We couldn't keep up anymore. There was no access to capital, you know. We started the business at the beginning of the worst recession since the Great Depression. So Claudia said we just need to borrow money off you know, Mark and and his family, which I absolutely did not want to do. It was the last resort.

But it had got to the point I think we'd borrowed a hundred thousand off Claudia and Mark and then we borrowed another two hundred and fifty thousand off Mark's dad. And very long story short, it was more Mark I think that was just not comfortable with the fact that in his mind they were funding the business. Yeah. And

It just got it just got to the point where, you know, I got a demand of You've got thirty days to come up with this to buy us out. If you can't do that we have the right to pay you the same and if we can't come to an agreement We're going to dissolve it.

When we come back in a moment, how Reagan's company and friendship with Claudia Changed forever. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to how I built this. From and PR.

Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So when Reagan's friend and business partner, Claudia Told her she wanted out of Aiden and A? Reagan had to figure out how to hold on to the company.

When Claudia exited the business in two thousand uh very ear two thousand And Age? It was

I it was me. It was just me alone doing all the work. I was sales, customer service, manufacturing, you know, marketing, finance. My husband was helping with the finance side of things. So I hired one person to at least alleviate some of the work that I was having to start doing it. eight thirty, nine o'clock at night once my girls went to bed because that was also a line I've drew very deeply in the sand for myself that these little girls did not sign on from an for an entrepreneurial mother.

But I did believe in the business. And I went out to A few of my other friends who were watching what I was doing to raise the few hundred thousand dollars that

Clorio. You know, wanted For you know, the work that she put into the business so far. To buy her out. To buy her out. So Three other people came into the business.

And bought forty nine percent of the business for like five hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. Th this is a really important story because We don't get to hear these stories too often about

The reality of of starting a business with a partner where at the beginning it's There's this vision of of of a kind of a utopian business and there are partnerships that that really work. But but often Oftentimes the case is is is more like this where money gets involved and tension builds and people get nervous about the investment. And you can kind of understand where Claudia and Mark were coming from. I mean you can I mean

I mean they were getting nervous. They were they had a lot of money on the line. Mm-hmm. But I mean, I I I have to imagine that it ha it took a toll on your friendship. Oh, we've w she never spoke to me again. 'Cause I just responded and said, Claude, what are you doing? Breaking my heart here. We can talk through this, you know. I was the legal guardian of their children, that's how close we were. And um It was horrible. It is horrible.

But you know, it was I wanted to talk to her, she just i in her mind it was over and look and I there's I get it. She was under the pressure of her family and it was her marriage and all of those things. So I don't not understand why it happened. Yeah. It was just um It was just heartbreaking that it did. Yeah.

Did you Did you think that the business was gonna collapse? No. I never thought that. I I thought I might collapse. Yeah. Um, I and I questioned whether or not I could keep going because obviously it was an extremely emotional time and Um, but no, I've

I've never ever doubted Aiden and Danae. Was there any tension in in your marriage? I mean was Marcos fully supportive? Fully s he was the one who actually when I started to get a bit shaky, uh, through the whole drama with Claudia And I said to him, Look, I I don't know if I can do this. You know I and he said to me, Do you believe in the business? And I said, I absolutely believe in the business. He said, well then fight for it. Yeah. You know, don't give up, fight for it. Have you ever been

Had any contact with Claudia since Since the breakups are absolutely none. Unfortunately the friendship was very much a casualty of of the business. But

She must know. where the company has I know. People ask me why I didn't change the name and I it's why I still refer to myself as the co founder, even though Claudia's been gone for Fever.

Um I co founded this business with her. So I d it didn't feel right to me to just sort of cut her out of the story.

So so you buy out Claudia's share? Well I don't know. And you move on, you you continue to grow this business believing that this is going to work. And at what point were you finally able to leave the economist? What was the the milestone you hit in the company that made you comfortable that you could f focus full time on this thing? Well I had read a lot of literature about women entrepreneurs and I had learned the statistic that

only two percent of all women owned businesses ever break a million dollar revenues. Is that true? Yes. Isn't that frightening, yeah. So that I set myself that goal. So I just said right. Once I get to a million in revenue I've done. Something that most

Women entrepreneurs So at that point I allowed myself to quit. And focus on AidN and A full time. Alright, so you when you finally when you leave the economist, I'm assuming you told them why. No. You didn't? No, I didn't. I just said I've I've got another opportunity and here's my two weeks notice.

And uh my then boss who I wasn't a huge fan of. I was having a discussion and I distinctly remember it was about a week before I was I handed him my resignation so I knew it was coming and I sat in his office and he said to me, Oh what would you know you do not have an entrepreneurial bone in your body. And then here's here's even this story gets even better. That boss ended up working at Cranes and we have won multiple wor awards with Cranes as the fastest, one of the fastest 50 growing entrepreneurial businesses in New York.

I mean d do experiences like that with your boss do they like add fuel to your fire? Are are they Powerful motivators for you? I you know what my biggest motivation w always was with this guy and it was never about making a lot of money. Mine was very much proving to myself I could do it because I had been told by many people over the years. That I was only capable of

X. When In my heart of hearts I always thought I was capable of why. But I was just never afforded the opportunity to prove it. Okay, so so by two thousand nine you you leave the economist and then I guess you're you're profitable, but by the way, what what is your revenue that year? We closed two thousand and nine at

Just over four million. So as soon as I focused on it, you know, a hundred percent, it changed the game. And then we we more than doubled every year for the five years after that. I I th I guess it was around two thousand ten where you took on some outside investment. That's correct. I took on my first private equity firm in twenty ten. Why did you do that? I mean up until this point you are

The majority owner, you know, you're doing well, four million revenue. What did that enable you guys to do? Well it enabled me to scale. So it gave me some money to be able to hire some more people, buy more inventory,'cause we would literally be, you know, the core team w there was about eight of us, nine of us. And we would be sitting there late at night going, Okay, well we need we d we'd do our inventory planning We'd say, Okay, well, we need this and then we'd look at it and go, Well, we can only afford half of it.

And we just have to cut half of what we really needed. We could never keep up with the demand. So when the private equity firm came in, it enabled us to get closer to it at least back then. Yeah. I I know that um like at a certain point celebrities started to be f like, you know, us weekly like they're they're just like us. They swaddle their babies, except the swaddle was like your swaddle blankets. When did you start to see celebrities using the blankets. One week after we went on the market, and when I say went on the market, me walking the product to the stores and handing it to the store owners in LA Adam Sandler and his wife, who'd just had their baby, were photographed on Malibu Beach.

with their baby in a carrier with an Aiden and an A blanket draped over the front of the baby and it was a four page picture in Us Weekly. So we had celebrity press from a week after we went on the market. Did anybody know what the blanket was though? No, not back then, but we actually named a pack paparazzi once, sort of as a nod to how many photographers photograph our blankets with the celebrities trying to hide their babies away. Um back in in twenty thirteen, uh Prince William and Kate Middleton, uh I guess we should call them the the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Uh they had a baby, Prince George.

Uh s they leave the hospital and uh um what did you what did you see? They left the hospital in an Aiden and an A blanket, which blew my mind having been raised in Australia because that I would have bet every penny I had on the fact that was never gonna happen. Because there's royal protocol and no royal baby has ever come out in anything that other than a white wool blanket that has been royally appointed to the f family, you know, and lo and behold they walk out in Aiden and an A and the world goes wild. And so did sales just go crazy?

Yes, you know, the typical reaction, the Royal Effect our website crashed twice, we sold out of that around the world, people were coveting it to the point where they were paying three times the value of the it was insane. I was like, guys, we've got other Patents over here of the say but they all just wanted what the royal baby had. It was uh interestingly It was uh from a pack called Jungle Jam, which th was the third pack the

I ever released So that particular design had been on the market for eight years when the Royal Baby came out in it. I mean just to be clear, these are not like ex super crazy expensive, right? I I mean how much is a four pack? Uh well now it's forty nine ninety five. When I started it was forty four dollars. And that was always I never set out to build a a luxurious celebrity, you know, endorsed

Brand. I wanted to create and make other mothers aware that of this amazing product that as a mother I just didn't understand how they could have babies without it. When you um Around I guess around two thousand

Thirteen you guys You guys got a big investment, right? That's correct. Swander pace capital Entered in And they became the majority Shareholders.

So explain how this works. They they bought a big share of the company, but that allowed you to cash out some of some of the value of the company. That's correct. They bought they bought the whole company. what I did was bought back in as a major shareholder in the company. I mean so in a sense I guess that made you financially Uh I mean you were at that point sort of sat financially for the rest of your life. Yes. Baby blankets have afforded my family an incredibly wonderful life.

So Pretty incredible. Result. It is. Although what I will tell you guys is I much prefer

the entrepreneurial building of a company now that we're over a hundred million dollars. It's just very different, you know, obviously the way you run a hundred million dollar company to the way you run a you know, a twenty or even a thirty, forty million dollar company. You know, you can get by with running your business on Excel spreadsheets at thirty million, it doesn't cut it at a hundred. Like at thirty million, I was still very much involved, you know, in

a lot of the day today. Whereas now at this size, oh my gosh, there is so much that You know, I'm only getting updates once a week. I'm just not involved in that kind of way anymore. So I definitely do not enjoy this as much as I did when I was much more in the weeds of the the business and That's interesting. You know, I I missed that.

Given that you got the sp Big payout. Do you ever think I don't know, maybe I'll just like Stop.

Well It's I could never be the lady that lunches. It's just not y remember back to the story of me on the couch in my pajamas you know, so too much time is not a good thing for me. But um not only do I think that it would be good for me that if I maybe wasn't the CEO of this business, it might be good for the business to bring in somebody who has run a business of this size and has scaled from a hundred to three hundred because I I really believe that that's where this brand is going and

Do I think I could do it? I know I could do it. And selfishly Being the mum of four little girls My worst nightmare would be In fifteen years time when I am sitting at a bar with my four girls as as

adult women. not being able to turn to Aidan and Anna as a company and a brand and say, Hey, your mum did that when you were tiny babies at our kitchen table and Now look at it, it's a you know a half a billion dollar global brand. How much of

What happened to you and this company is because of luck and how much because you're just Really smart and hard working. I would say it would be forty percent luck and sixty percent Hard work and tenacity. You know, because i you've got to take advantage of the luck, right? So

There has definitely been many serendipitous moments along the way of this journey. But without really working hard and believing in what you're doing, you That's not going to be enough. That's Reagan Moya Jones. I first talked to Reagan about two years ago.

And about a year after that conversation. Her business? Her Whole life in fact took A dramatic turn. So I called her up a few weeks ago to hear about

What happened? So Reagan Uh we are back together again. Um, obviously the last time uh we

talk to you. Things have changed a bit. Ac actually quite a bit. Can you tell us about that? What what happened at ANNA? Um In twenty eighteen. Well, uh plain and simple, I got fired. From uh my own business, which was pretty heartbreaking. Wow.

uh the investors and I just didn't see eye to eye and They didn't think that I was capable of continuing to run the business and They just became extremely cantankerous and unpleasant and because they had the controlling interest of the business.

They won, I guess, and uh and ultimately fired me. I mean this is the crazy thing, right? Which we don't Often. hear about on the show which is When w you you

create something, right? Like you start this going door to door selling these m muslin c kind of blankets and pounding the pavement and s you know going to buy buy baby and try to convince people that this they they need to sell this thing. You build it up. And then the moment You know, you really have to scale it. You

Oftentimes you need to bring in outside money. But there are strings attached with that decision. On the one hand, you will make a lot of money personally. But on the other hand Yeah. Basically means that you're giving up

a lot of control over the thing you built. Exactly. single worst decision of my life, I would say. Well. Yeah. And the thing is, Guy, it actually happens more often than you think. I'm just someone that is

willing to speak openly about it. And I'm doing that because if I can Help one other entrepreneur avoid quite frankly, the hell that I went through after being fired from a company that I'd lived and breathed for over a decade. then I'm you know, I'm happy to do it. But I do think that there's a lot of shame around

being fired because I'm acutely aware that most people hearing this will go, Well she clearly really screwed up and that's why she got fired. Um When I sort of know the ins and outs of it.

But I you know, I'm prepared to have people think that I really messed up In the the better interest of getting the story out there that this is actually What eat? Can happen and often does happen when you

Sell the controlling interest. of your business to a private equity firm. I mean, here's the thing, Reagan, right? I actually think a lot of people who've just heard our original interview, right? And listening to us now.

I actually think a l and I'm trying to channel channel their thoughts. And I think A lot of people will be thinking He hang on. She

you know, moved to the United States, she struggled. to kind of figure out what she wanted to do, she built this company from nothing. She turned it into a hundred million dollar company and She walked out of it. Set for life, financially set for life.

And okay, she was fired by a bunch of investors and private equity people, but man, she succeeded. Like that I think actually a lot of people Yes, and that's absolutely correct. But It doesn't take away And I'm gonna go as far as to say the pain of having somebody rip

what you've put your blood, sweat, and tears into for over a decade. out from underneath you in You know, because their perception is different to yours. Yeah, they they said to me We need a superstar CEO.

In the chair now, Reagan. And we don't believe you're itch. And I know there are many other founders out there who have gone through the same thing. And what I say to people is If you are still passionately involved in your business if you still care

just don't sell the controlling interest to private equity or financial Institute just don't do it. You can So

that just don't give away the controlling interest'cause no matter what they're telling you When they're courting you. Once they have control. Yeah.

It's a very different story. Th this is a really important point because a lot of people will say to me, God, you know Are most of the people you interview motivated by money? And the answer is. Absolutely no. I mean yes, of course financial security and success is exciting.

But but this actually is a great example of of how that's not the case because The m the money's there. You have the money. Yes. It's the emotional connection. It's that It's that thing that that it was your identity. It is your identity. That's what's painful. Exactly.

And it still has my eldest daughter's name on the door, which is Just you know, a l a little bit of salt in the wound as well. It it took me a good year to sort of get over it. Um I you know, safe to say I'm back back in the room now, but I definitely fell into a very big hole for about a year.

Did you get depressed? Yeah, I would say I was depressed. I put on nearly thirty pounds. I drank way too much wine. I you know, I was eating and drinking to cope, I was confused about what my next steps were going to be. But Other than that I was kind of

thinking, well well what's next? What do I do now that that I don't have this because as I said, I lived and breathed it for over a decade. I'm curious, right again, um I mean And you're still pretty close to it, so it may not be the right

time for you to kinda answer this question, but If if somebody if this happened to somebody else, right, that they That they were fired from the company they started. Um How important do you think it is to just take time

off to just kind of disengage from Entrepreneurship and business entirely. For a period. Do you think that's healthy? Was it healthy for you? I think it depends. I think it depends on who you are. I I think m

most entrepreneurs are pretty type A driven people, I would say. So for me being idle was actually a bad thing. I had to find something to focus on something that was Of interest, meaningful to me. That was

That was part of The healing. You are so driven, you know, and who knows where that drive comes from in anyone, right? Right. And I know that you decided to start a new company recently. Can you Can you tell me about it? Yes. Uh it's it couldn't be further away from baby blankets. It's actually a premium moonshine company. So I've gone off on quite a tangent. So yes, it's a a company called Saint Luna and yeah, it it's been fun. It's been It's very interesting to be back going door to door, even though this time I'm just going door, door to door at bars and restaurants rather than

to you know, baby Boutiques. But nonetheless, it's it's pretty much the same hustle. So you've got this new company, it's called Saint Luna Spirits.

It is moonshine. But it is I guess it's charcoal infused moonshine. This is like this is like a b really trendy thing, charcoal like water and what is the charcoal thing? Tell me tell me about that. It it purifies things. So Our distiller who created the recipe for it had been working on it for ten years and he's He's a kimkolengier, so he's combined.

the tradition of making moonshine with chemistry and just come up with this. phenomenal recipe for moonshine, so it's a great product. What do you distill it from? Wheat or uh corn or No, it's actually rye based. Oh wow. Ryan Millassis. So it's very smooth. That's so cool. So you're back out there, you're hustling. I'm back hustling

Yeah. You know, there's a great quote from from an episode that we had a couple years ago with Whitney Wolf, the founder of Bumble. Mm-hmm. And she said, you know You can you can temporarily kill someone's confidence. But you cannot kill ambition.

And I've I thought about that so many times. And that's the same story here. It is. That is exactly what it is. And they really did They killed my confidence, but Only for a period of time.

Which was really tough for me. to sort of start thinking, well, maybe they're right, you know, maybe I'm I am useless and I can't do it. But you're right, they you know, they didn't break my spirit and they didn't They couldn't take away the ambition, she's absolutely right. I mean

There's also something to the idea, like at least in my experience, I wonder if if this this resonates with you that I mean that kind of anger You know, when somebody does that to you it can generate a kind of anger that can actually be very productive. and anger that can really motivate you.

To You know, almost to kind of show them. That you actually are. Really? Talented. Yes, absolutely.

But what I will say is it wasn't until I let go of the anger That I was really able to move forward. So the anger was killing me. And it wasn't until I let go of all that that I was able to really go, okay That was that, and now let's prove that you can do it all over again.

That's Reagan Moya Jones. She's the co-founder of Aiden NA. And now, St. Luna Spirits. By the way, before she was fired from Aid and NA, she had just finished a book about her life story. But after leaving the company...

She had to call up the publisher and tell them she had to, well, rework the ending. Her revamped book came out earlier this year. It's called What It Takes. how I built a$100 million business. the odds. Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that.

And today we're updating a story that we first ran about a year ago. This is Brian Sonia Wallace tapping away on his vintage Smith Corona typewriter in his apartment in Los Angeles. He uses it for his business, which is writing poetry. On demand. Poetry is Like the ultimate non commercial art form.

You know, unless you're a professor or an Instagram celebrity poet, you're you're really not usually making a living doing this. But about four years ago, Brian sort of stumbled into the poetry business when he was laid off from his job writing grants for a nonprofit. I thought, okay, let me see if I can pay my rent for one month. It was this uh experiment in Whether you could make any money off of this poetry thing. So Brian started to show up at arts festivals and other events around town with his typewriter and a small table. I originally had a sign that said, Give me a topic, I'll write you a poem, pay me what you think it's worth.

And it turns out people would pay anywhere between five and forty dollars for a custom poem about their boyfriends or their girlfriends, even about their dogs. Anyway, by the end of that month, Brian had earned enough money to pay his rent and his utilities. And it was funny because after the month I was like, okay, well now I'm gonna hang my typewriter up and focus on other things. And I kept getting calls from either people who I had met on the street or people who had seen something about it. asking me to do private events.

But when it came to private events Brian had no idea what to charge. And I remember there were a couple early ones. One in particular I remember I did like an investment banking conference. And I didn't really understand that you could uh set a baseline price and that people had budgets and would pay for event entertainment. Brian even scored a gig at the Mall of America, where people lined up for custom poems. Including one particularly interesting customer. Did my usual open Hi, how are you? What do you need a poem about She thought for a minute, she said, you know, I've actually just come from

a week long silent meditation retreat. It was really intense and emotional and so I just came to get some dip and dots as a reward. So Brian got to work. And a few minutes later The poem.

It's scary. how hectic a week of silence can be. left alone with our thoughts. And no release fell. Do we implode?

That woman ended up hugging Brian after he read her that poem. Apparently it happens to him a lot. Finding a lightness that starts Deep in the core of my belly. And and With dip and dots.

At the mall. Brian Sonia Wallace's business is called Rent Poet. This year he expects to hit$10,000 in revenue, which is a big boost since last year. He now works with a small team of people, eight freelancers, all trained in the art. If you want to find out more about Rent Poet, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org, and of course, if you want to tell us your story, Go to build.mpr.org. Love hearing what you are building.

And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at hibt at npr.org, and if you want to send a tweet, it's at how I built this, I'm at guyrod. Our show was produced this week by Rachel Faulkner with original music composed by Ramteen Arabi. Thanks also to Julia Carney, Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkinpur, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is David Job.

I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening. to how I built this.

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