We were lucky to catch up with Andrea Faulkner Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andrea, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

Over the past 10 years, we have been so lucky to bring people onto our team who have helped us grow Tubby Todd. To encourage growth, the best thing you can offer your team members is a clear understanding of what the goals for the brand are, where you are headed, and how they can contribute to scaling up the business. Three years into running Tubby Todd, we decided to bring on a minority investment with operating experience to aid with scaling up the brand and eventually, we decided to sell a majority share to a Private Equity partner that we still work closely with today. The Private Equity partner has been important to our growth as they helped us scale and provided the opportunity to invest in new people and channels and make smart operational decisions while still allowing us to be able to hold onto and control our internal strengths, such as building community and making impactful creative assets. My husband and I are the Co-founders, which has been beautiful, challenging, and insane all at the same time. We are both high energy, but in very different ways. Our differences have been such a great strength to the organization as it has allowed us to divide and conquer different areas of expertise in owning a business, and working with your spouse is a foolproof solution for keeping your ego in check.

Andrea, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m the Head Mama and Co-founder of Tubby Todd Bath Co., which my husband Brian and I launched in 2014 as a solution to our own family’s sensitive skin. Our mission is to connect families through good, clean (and fun!) body care basics. We named the company Tubby Todd after my husband, Brian Todd Williams, because “Tubby Todd” was his nickname when he was born weighing 11 lbs… aka the biggest baby ever born in the San Jose Hospital! Our son Walker had horrible eczema and after trying literally hundreds of products and getting so fed up, we decided to create our own. What started with our signature Hair + Body Wash has grown into an entire line of body care basics that have worked MIRACLES on our kids and for families across the nation. It has been so thrilling to create a skin solution that has worked for so many people, and helped kids who struggle with mysterious skin issues, dry chapped skin, eczema, and diaper rash-prone skin.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Managing a team comes down to outlining clear goals and expectations for everyone. Every new hire should understand your company mission, the key metrics you are aiming to hit as a team to accomplish that mission, and what each team member is responsible for continuing. It is TOUGH to verbalize, document, and communicate this type of focused work environment, but it is ultimately what leads to the most successful environment for everyone involved.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Covid was a very challenging time for our team for many reasons. On top of the global pandemic and tense social environment, there were manufacturing shortages that made it almost impossible to source the components we needed. In 2019 we had closed on a building for our team and then spent a year remodeling the space. Our renovation was completed one month before the 2020 lockdown began but within weeks of moving into the new space, we had to send everyone home. There were some discouraging weeks involved with this time, but our team was then able to focus on sourcing any and all components that would match our products (think a white cap as opposed to black), and then we used the giant, empty office space we were sitting on to house these components during the supply chain shortages – which allowed us to stay on top of keeping the product in stock. In the end, it became a strength for our brand and meant that we had very few periods where products were out of stock during a wild time. What a RIDE.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tubbytodd.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tubbytodd, https://www.instagram.com/andreafaulknerwilliams
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TubbyTodd
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreafaulknerwilliams

Image Credits

Headshot – photo credit to Taina Millsap
Brand Imagery – photo credit to Robyn Shinn and Taina Millsap