We were lucky to catch up with ASHLEY GREENWOOD recently and have shared our conversation below.

ASHLEY, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

In 2018 I was working as a childcare director in Seattle, Wa with 1-5 year olds. With my desk at the front of the school I got the privilege of hearing all the funny, adorable, and insightful things all the toddlers and preschoolers had to say throughout the day. While working one morning, a two year old student was walking back from the bathroom with a teacher ready to pick out a new change of clothes from her cubby. She had just had a potty accident and was getting cleaned up. The first thing she said was, “I want to change into my comfy pants!” which were a pair of black leggings (she had come to school in skinny jeans). I then realized that comfort was just as important to toddlers as it was adults, something that didn’t even occur to me that they thought about. Weren’t babies and toddlers little people that were meant to be dressed in adorable outfits that we wished we could pull off?

There is a reason athleisure and leggings became so prominent in the fashion industry in the last decade. This got me then thinking about my own daughter and the frilly dresses, skinny jeans, and bows that I was putting on her on a regular basis. She was only 6 months old at the time and had very little ways of communicating her discomfort or frustration if her movement was restricted due to her adorable outfit. Her big job as an infant was to learn to move and operate her body and I was probably making that task a little more difficult for her, something I realized I needed to change. Then came the idea of Hello Dahl Baby. I wanted to curate wardrobes that were functional, comfortable, and cute. This shop would be a place where parents can trust that whatever they purchase for their babies and toddlers would be developmentally appropriate and allow them to play, move, and explore their environment without wardrobe restrictions. Bonus points for being gender neutral and easy to mix and match pieces for the busy mom on the go who needs to just quickly grab something and still have her baby look put together.

Now, with my background in child development and my first employment experiences in retail I have started Hello Dahl Baby which started as purchasing from other brands and has expanded to its own brand. Now with three littles of my own it has been fun to see them dressed in clothes that I have either hand picked or designed with their comfort and sense of exploration in mind.

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

I started working in childcare about a decade ago for my first job out of college. I started as a teacher’s assistant and worked my way into a director role. When COVID hit I had a 6m old baby and decided it was time for me to work from home. I then transitioned into an administrative role and later started working on my business, Hello Dahl Baby. I got the idea for Hello Dahl Baby after I heard a student say she wanted to change into her comfy pants, and I realized she, like most adults, preferred leggings over skinny jeans. I had worked retail before, back in college, but had no experience in starting a business and manufacturing clothes. But, with most things I want to do I decided to jump in with both feet and bought my first collection of clothes from all my favorite brands I shopped for my daughter and launched Hello Dahl Baby in 2020 and would figure out the manufacturing piece later if that was still something I was interested in.

Even though I had a great part time job that allowed me to stay home with my daughter and our son who we were expecting 6 months later, I still wanted something that gave me even more flexibility that I can call my own. To do this that meant I would be working part time, pregnant with a toddler, and starting a small business, but I was excited about the opportunity. This new business would allow me to combine things that I loved, child development and all the cute baby things that I spent so much time shopping for when my daughter needed new clothes.

I still have a lot to learn but this experience so far has been amazing, even during seasons of low sales, or manufacturing issues. The community of moms that Hello Dahl Baby has brought me has been just what I needed during this season of life of sleepless nights, toddler tantrums, and all the sacrifices that are made by moms to keep everyone’s day running smoothly. I have met some amazing business owners that have become close friends and I cannot imagine what life as a mom of three would look like without this community. I am excited to continue seeing where this takes me and to watch this community grow.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Once I had the idea of Hello Dahl Baby I shared it with a few close friends, my husband, and my mom. After months of talking about it but not actually going for it my mom told me she was going to push me to get this thing going. She believed in me, even when I was having a lot of doubt about the whole thing. For some additional context, I grew up very poor with an entrepreneurial dad. His businesses rarely made money which left our household income to my mom. She worked in a factory (and still does) and saving money has always been hard with all the monthly bills. One day she came to the house to see Dahlia and she handed me an envelope with $3k in it and told me I had to start the store. I was shocked. For my mom $3k is a lot to give and the fact that she had so much belief in me and my ability to start this business was a huge shock to me. I knew this was the exact push I needed and started applying for my business license that night. With her gift I was able to get the right licenses and pay for a very small collection of baby clothes in very limited size runs but it was just what I needed to get this business off the ground.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Retail can be super unpredictable throughout the year. Some days I will randomly get a surge of sales and other weeks will be so slow that I will barely get a sale or two. During the slow times I tend to worry that this could be the end of my small business but somehow something random always happens that gives me the sales I need to make goals and the encouragement I need to keep going. It typically looks like a big wholesale order or someone making a large purchase out of the blue but my favorite time was when I woke up to my phone buzzing with order after order after order. When I looked to see what people were suddenly buying (I didn’t have a recent launch or sale so it truly felt very random) it was all the same Kate Quinn romper. On Instagram someone messaged me saying they were so excited to see that I carried that particular item and knew others have been looking for it too so she shared it to a Facebook group she was a part of. This explained the sales and within the hour I had sold out of that particular item and was getting messages asking if we had more in stock. This will always be such a special memory for I had been in busy for about 6 months and had never had that kind of sales in one day. It was a great lesson in the power of sharing on social media.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hellodahlbaby.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellodahlbaby/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hellodahlbaby
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-greenwood-35064a237

Image Credits
Jillian Keefe Photography, Siri Johnson Photography, and Hailey Atkins Photography