Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashleigh Valero. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Ashleigh thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

In pretty much every business book I’ve read, especially related to starting a physical products business, the advice is to expect delays and that the process will take twice as long as you plan. This is quite an understatement. When it came to starting our baby products company, Baby Yoyito, we knew right away the pain point we wanted to solve. My husband/partner and I were first-time parents who did three cross-country road trips during the era of the pandemic with our infant child. The pain point we knew we wanted to solve was the lack of changing stations in public restrooms, especially men’s restrooms. We see you daddies out there taking care of your babies. Childcare is not exclusively a woman’s role anymore. So understanding our audience was easy (we were our audience), and finding manufacturers and getting samples (to my surprise) was easy. But the major delay came in product testing. We care about the quality and safety of what we put out to families. We are doing everything the “right way.” Could we have launched our pain-point solution by now? Yes! Would it have been safety tested and certified? No! The first time we submitted a sample to product testing was in January 2023; I was so excited. There is no way it would fail, we would be able to launch, we would start helping families and make some money while we were at it. Wrong! We did not pass product testing. A couple of issues were minor things, such as the specific language used on the warning labels. Easy fix. However, there were two design changes that we had to make. This part took a while. It required us to go back and forth with our manufacturers and their design teams to find a reasonable solution that they could actually execute. Meanwhile, while we were working on finding solutions, and fixing what we refer to as the “game changer” for parents and families, we did go into production and launched our first product, the “Day Trip” diaper bag. This bag is larger than the average diaper bag, allowing families to be out all day. It’s able to fit toys, extra clothes, snacks, and beverages for the entire family. We are proud of the product, and solves many of the issues we had as new parents with existing diaper bags; mainly size, storage, and function. So while we had to shift focus to our diaper bag, we were finally able and ready to submit our second sample of our diaper-changing solution in February 2024. Over a year later! There are many other delays and issues. Most are easy to solve. This one, for us who are bootstrapping our way through this world as business owners, was not an easy fix. Now, we wait…

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

It takes a special kind of crazy to do what I do each day. My academic and professional background has been in higher education and counseling. I have worked at colleges and universities for nearly 15 years in various roles (coordinator, counselor, success coach, professor). I am a mom of a 4-year old (our business inspiration) and a 1-year old, a wife, a full-time employee still working in higher education until we can get our business off the ground, and full-time CEO of Baby Yoyito (which in the startup world that means you do nearly EVERYTHING for the business), oh and not to mention I am a newly licensed agent who sells life insurance. Like I said, it takes a special kind of crazy to be in this world. Am I making the right decisions, maybe? Am I doing too much, probably? But what I do know, and what keeps me taking one step forward everyday is that I’m doing this for my family. I want to be the person in my family who is the most financially successful, and I want to bring my family with me. I don’t want them to worry about the bills being paid, or affording childcare, or healthcare bill. I accept this responsibility because I want to provide for my family.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Yes, recently I’ve had to learn to unlearn two things. That is, letting go of things I can’t control and stop trying to solve other people’s problems that are not my business to solve. I have always been the helper, the go-to person, the reliable one, and I was proud of these traits. But after some time you come to realize that what you do for others is not always appreciated. You end up pouring more into others (and/or other people’s businesses) than you do into yourself. You end up burnt out, with no benefit to you. I feel that I have done this my entire career. I think this is part of the appeal of being an entrepreneur and working for yourself because at least you will appreciate and be rewarded for what you pour into yourself and your business. What it took me to learn this lesson was surprisingly simple. Something inside me told me to stop, and I finally listened. In my extremely toxic 9-5 day job, someone came to me with a problem in the department that needed to be solved, and as I usually do, I addressed the issue directly and tried to solve the problem…even though it’s not my business to solve. Well, let’s just say that in my attempt to help, ended up causing unnecessary office drama. So I decided…it’s not my business. These are adults who can solve their own problems. Ever since I came to this realization, the stress levels at my 9-5 have dropped dramatically. If it’s not my business, don’t do it!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

To get us started with our first business, we used the cash we got from the sale of our house. We had been living in Florida and for many reasons decided to move back to California. The road trip between Florida and California with a one-and-a-half-year-old is what inspired our business idea. So what money we had from the house, we took half and used that to start a business, and the other half we kept for savings and emergencies, etc. What we put into our business was about $15,000. And if you are a business owner, you know that $15,000 can be used very quickly. We have been what I would consider conservative with our spending. The bulk very easily went to monthly and annual expenses and a few samples from manufacturers. By the time we needed to do our first purchase order, we did not have enough to pay for production. We did what any first-time business person would do and we went to our business back to request a business loan. After getting all of the paperwork together, a three-year business plan with projections, SWOT analysis with competitors, our credit history, etc. We were denied. All the business startup books we’ve read said this is likely to happen. But of course, when you have too much pride, you don’t want to ask other people for money. You want to do it all yourself. So we ended up finding an angel investor. We asked for $75,000 in a loan to cover our first and second rounds of inventory, some marketing, and the monthly expenses until we were able to generate more sales. The agreement was that we don’t have to start repaying the loan until we start making consistent sales. The only way you can find a “sweetheart deal” like this is if you go to your family. For some, $75,000 is not a lot of money, and for some, it would be impossible for friends and family (typically a business’ first angels) to contribute. I would consider this to be very fortunate for us, and we will forever be grateful for this loan. Without it, we would not be as far as we are today.

Contact Info:

• Website: babyyoyito.com
• Instagram: @babyyoyoito
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BabyYoyito
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleighvalero/

Image Credits
Eric Mattson