We caught up with the brilliant and insightful April Kelly a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
April , appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
Like most modern day moms juggling diapers and dreams, my role as a mom often competes with every other area of my life, including work. As a working mom of four children between the ages of 1 and 12, most of my decision making is
centered around my role as a mom. My journey into entrepreneurship is no different. Four years ago my husband and I
were experiencing one of the best moments of our lives, bringing home our third baby girl. We experienced all of the
warm and fuzzy emotions that come along with moments like this. I’d spend most my time inhaling her sweet baby
breath, watching her sleep, and fitting my finger into her tiny grasp. God had blessed us again and although my husband was set on a little boy this time, he couldn’t escape the tug she had on his heart strings. We were
both floating on a high from tender snuggles and the new baby smells… well… up until we weren’t. Prior to giving birth I
had planned to breastfeed just as I had my older two daughters. It hadn’t been long since I had wrapped up an 18-mth
streak with my second daughter and my confidence was through the roof. A few weeks into postpartum, I found myself
overwhelmed and hugely discouraged due the unexpected nursing complications I was facing. As much as I wanted to
nourish my baby naturally, I began to dread feeding time. My breast had grown raw with open wounds from her unusual
latch style due to her tongue-tie and I was reaching my limit fast. One day as I sat in a daze experiencing emotions I
couldn’t put into words, my husband noticed that something was wrong as he walked passed me for the third time and
realized that I had mentally drifted off and grew concerned. When he asked if I was okay you would’ve thought the world
was coming to an end the way I burst into a flood of tears. It was the straw that broke this mama’s back and all of the
frustration, confusion, overwhelm, and weariness had come to a head and I could no longer keep it bottled in. I had come
to realize that my emotions and mental health were out of control and we needed to do something quick. We made the
decision to supplement deciding on a soy based formula, to fall in line with our vegan lifestyle. For a second, I was
optimistic about the future and grateful to be done with the excruciating feeding sessions but that relief was short lived
as my daughter began to show symptoms that we’d never seen before. Her poop changed color and smelled worse than
ever. She become constipated, gassy, fussy and hard to soothe. She ultimately began to develop what looked to be
eczema and for the second time I was thrown into an uncertain frenzy, unsure of what to do next as none of the other
formula options fit our needs and most were packed to the brim with corn syrup, palm oil and artificial fillers. I remember
spending hours at the grocery story scanning the backs of formula cans and googling the ingredients. We started on a
quest to create our own plant based formula, safe to feed our baby, turning our kitchen into what seemed to be a science
lab testing variations of our recipe. After a couple of weeks we struck gold and with the nod of approval from our
pediatrician we sailed off into peaceful days and restful nights. I was also able to begin making strides with my own
health and was finding my rhythm again. Around the same time I was growing an online mom community for women
who lived a similar high-functioning lifestyle as myself. Women who were juggling business, family and everything in
between and needed a safe space to leave their superwoman capes at the door. I went live as I typically did to share an
update about a day in the life. I talked about my bout with postpartum and the formula that I had created and
immediately following the live my phone began to buzz nonstop. I picked it up and noticed that moms were reaching out
with all kinds of questions and comments about the milk and my battle with PPD. It was like a “Me Too” movement for
moms who had dealt with similar situations and that was the aha moment for me. Although I had felt so isolated and
ashamed while going through my experience the reality was that both issues I had faced were more common than I
could’ve known and that was the day I made it my business literally, to do my part to remove the uncertainty and
guesswork that came along with infant feeding to help moms like me make a sure decision regarding the health and
nutrition of their babies. Thus Sure! was born.
April , 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?
We aim to nurture by nature creating complete nutrition products using natural ingredients that we’d confidently feed to our own children, as we did with our third daughter. Once we launch, our product will be the only ready-made plant
based complete nutrition beverage on the market that uses an almond milk base. Cow’s milk is meant for 200lb calves
and they want their milk back. We are offering an alternative naturally nourishing and safe for babies and also gentle
on their digestive systems. As cliche as it may sound, launching this venture has been my biggest accomplishment to date, tied with my successful home birth (with no meds, ouch!) back in 2021. What both of those experiences have in common is that it all came down to me and my ability to pull it off. It wasn’t something that could be faked or handed off to someone else to finish. It was strictly me vs. me. It’s taken grit, tenacity, perseverance and a good ounce of crazy to pull them both off and each time I got weary, I questioned my ability to make it happen and even paused all together to regroup but what I didn’t do is quit. I never do! It’s just not part of my DNA. What also makes these two moments special to me is that they both involve me giving birth. The only difference is that one is a human baby and the other is a business baby. This in itself is a huge nod to what I feel is part of my purpose as a woman, mom and CEO which is to be a testament of what is possible to the people called to my influence through my lived experiences. I am a firm believer that moms aren’t required to live life centered solely on her responsibilities as a mom, unless of course that’s her choice but that’s just it! We get to choose the life we want to live and with kids in tow we can have as much as we are willing to go out and get! I’ve learned to live life on my terms and aim to inspire my daughters and all women to do the same.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Not having a background in food science or chemistry was one of our biggest challenges. We spent the first year of our journey utilizing small business support programs to conduct research on our behalf, free of charge. We also spent
countless hours learning all we could about child nutrition and how the current formula options on the market measured
up, or in most cases fell short! Our initial plan was to launch a dissolvable infant formula tablet. This proved to take way
more capital than we had to offer and would take double the time to development. We decided to pivot creating a roll
out plan that includes 3 phases. The first phase would be centered around the launch of our toddler beverage. This
would allow us to get out into the market the quickest to begin bringing in revenue. The second phase will be the launch
of our formula and the third phase we plan to launch our tablet. Our ongoing challenge is finding an infant formula
manufacturer for the second phase of our roll-out.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Enigma. I am an enigma. Over a decade ago, I started my first real “adult-job” as a salesperson for a media company. I’d spend my days out in the field traveling from one town to the next, seeking out potential new clients. Essentially we’d sell these clients, mostly small business owners, the opportunity to be seen by their target audience on popular television networks like ESPN, HGTV, Lifetime, Food Network, etc. instantly boosting their credibility and increasing their chances of making a sale. My boss was an older white guy, who was your typical southern sales manager with the corner office, a football analogy for every team meeting, and an accent thicker than Texas toast. We were polar opposites. Maybe that’s why he’d coined me as an “enigma” unbeknownst to me. When I was told this by a colleague, I immediately became insulted and even contemplated a trip to HR’s office. Over the years I’ve settled into my new nickname as it actually kind of fits. I was born into extreme poverty, living with my mother, a single mom, and four siblings in a trailer park on the outskirts of the city. From the beginning I was the black sheep, the ugly duckling, the weird one who no one could quite understand. Nicely put, I was different. My mom was sent to prison shortly before my fourth birthday and sentenced to four and a half years. As I sat in the courtroom on the day of her sentencing with family members who I’d never remembered seeing before I could sense that my life was about to change in a major way. My siblings and I were separated and I was taken in by my uncle and his wife. Life seemed to move in slow motion thereafter, as I waited for my mom’s return. In many ways this experience and the stemming series of events that have played out to date all validate what my boss recognized well before it had become clear to me, that I am in fact an enigma. I am a big giant puzzle, made up of my past experiences, both positive and negative that all still somehow fit together to create something beautiful for the world (myself included) to connect with, drawing inspiration, courage, and will power that may have otherwise been difficult for the average human being to digest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thesurecompany.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesurecompany/ & https://www.instagram.com/aprilcarrkelly/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesurecompany
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/april-kelly-1b56a49b/
Image Credits
Kiechey Photography