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

Hi Becky, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think perseverance is a major component of becoming successful as an entrepreneur. There will be so many obstacles, setbacks, and small failures that will arise when trying to start or build a business, big or small, and it’s easy to let those challenges convince you to the throw in the towel. Having a mindset that those challenges are learning lessons or stepping stones to improvement will help you overcome them, instead of looking at it as a sign to give up.

I must say that I have not always had this mindset. When I was first starting out and lacking confidence in my small business, I took setbacks rather personally. As I gained confidence in my craft and abilities to run a business, these challenges started to become motivation and lessons learned. This has helped tremendously in growing Nashville Soap Company.

Becky, 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?

Nashville Soap Company was founded in the kitchen of our Nashville home in early 2016. After having my daughter, I started to pay more attention to what we were putting on our skin. We switched out our bath and skin care products with more natural & non-toxic alternatives. After countless hours of research and testing, I began handcrafting my own natural soaps. I wanted to know exactly what was going into and onto our skin. I started to share with friends and family, and just fell in love with the process. From choosing which skin-loving oils and butters to use, to selecting the intoxicating essential oil blends and natural clays to craft each batch of soap.

Drawing upon my love for music and the city I called home, Nashville Soap Company was born. We have a fun spin on an old proverb that reads, “What Soap is to the Body, Music is to the Soul”, on all of our soap boxes. This could not ring more true, in my opinion. Both are cleansing and essential.

We have since expanded our line to include more of our favorite products. All natural, of course.

10% of sales from our signature ‘Nashville’ soaps and candles are donated to Nashville Rescue Mission here in Nashville, TN. It was important to me to find a small way to give back to Music City.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

As a mother and small business owner. juggling those two can be challenging. Trying to grow a business during the pandemic was particularly challenging with those two job titles. My daughter was home for her entire kindergarten year, learning virtually, along with my one-year-old son. All of this while running a small business from my home and no options for childcare support.

The pandemic also brought major supply chain issues, as we all know! Trying to source containers and ingredients became another full-time job. Again, although this was a very challenging time, I now look at it as an incredible lesson in resilience. I was able to grow my business through all of that and the experience has taught me so much and given me confidence in facing huge hurdles.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

All of our products are handcrafted. Many hours went into researching and testing soap recipes before launching Nashville Soap Company. This goes for all of the products that we offer, which now include bath soaks, body scrubs, body oils, candles, and more.

When first starting out, our soap batches were only 10-20 bars. Figuring out how to increase production efficiently and without losing the quality of our products was a process. I think it helped tremendously that we slowly increased our batch sizes, instead of making a huge jump. We now pour soap batches that yield 300 or more soaps per week, depending on the time of year.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nashvillesoapcompany.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nashvillesoap
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nashvillesoap