We caught up with the brilliant and insightful J’Nelle Holland a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, J’Nelle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with 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
I have cold feet. When my feet are cold in bed, I can’t relax and go to sleep. I used to use a hot water bottle until one day I discovered a pillow from England that was filled with cherry stones. When warmed in the microwave, it delivered moist, penetrating heat, which truly amazed me, and warmed my icy cold feet.
It was 2008, and the global recession affected everyone’s income. My husband and I had all our eggs in his art business, and even though I was of retirement age, I needed to create some other form of income. I knew whatever product I created, it would have to be natural, sustainable, minimally packaged, using recycled parts, and most especially, whatever it was it had to be beneficial to people, not be just another knick-knack.
The little cherry-filled pillow was the perfect example. Using cherry pits, which are a sustainable byproduct that normally go to a landfill, was exciting, plus they have the mysterious ability to produce moist heat from a woody pit. An added feature was that they could help people in pain or suffering from cold conditions. Though I had never known about cherry pit-filled pillows, apparently, they are a Swiss tradition, known and loved throughout Europe, but little known in the United States. I made a few for friends and family. They liked them so much they asked for more. That’s when I knew I had a product, a market for a business, and something I could be proud of.
I have to credit SCORE, a group of retired businessmen and women, who generously give of their time and expertise to help fledglings like me form a company and bring a product to market. I truly had no idea where to begin, but they were relentless. After getting my business and resale licenses, liability insurance, and, later in 2012, forming an LLC, I began sourcing my materials. I thought it would be simple: fabric, cherry pits, and a woven label. It soon became clear that hang tags, packaging, and many other little details were involved. From my SCORE advisors, I learned how to price my products in order to make a profit and how to package the products for display in gift stores and spas.
Ecological packaging was vital to me. It had to be minimal, eco-friendly, and yet attractive, and supply benefits and instructions. I wanted my products to stand out and be artful, useful products. With my husband’s help, I designed business cards, hang tags, and found my first soy-inked printer. One of my very first customers suggested that I use twine to wrap my denim pillows. which gave them a crafty look without needing a box.
I decided to make my pillows bigger and stronger than any I had seen, and in a variety of shapes. After much trial and error, trying to clean the pits myself or find a California grower to do it, I finally discovered a family in Michigan that cleans and dries cherry pits, with their own patented process of using only water and heat, no chemicals. I began buying them in 40-pound bags and graduated to ordering them by the ton.
At first, I began using recycled denim, but the supply could not keep up with demand if I were to grow my business. Commercially dyed denim was expensive and stiff. A warehouse in Los Angeles was able to supply 100% cotton, bull denim, and a dye house a mile away was able to dye the denim in beautiful shades of red and blue with natural dyes.
Finding a sewing shop was a trial-and-error process, but I ended up with one of my best partners, Seamstress Contracting, a woman-owned business, just 40 miles away. We have now been successfully working together for over fourteen years, all the while, I have been practicing doing business in Spanish, and Olga practices her English.
In order to market anything, professional-looking product and lifestyle photos are vital. I shot all of my product photos and staged lifestyle photos in our bedroom or garden, posing our friends, relatives, or the teens that worked for me. I hired a part-time graphic artist to help, and I quickly learned to edit and adjust photos. One of my students was studying video, and she and I made four educational videos of a massage therapist, a colon therapist, and two chiropractors, all explaining why and how they use Hot Cherry Pillows in their practice. Because cherry stone pillows are a natural, moist, and weighted heat, they can relieve pain, increase circulation, and promote healing.
Professional marketing was a whole new experience for me, and my advisors pointed me in the right direction. I did the legwork, and they encouraged me. I approached various gift shops, spas, and wellness centers. To date, I have had three entirely different websites, growing as they went along, making mistakes and learning solutions. I hired coaches, marketing people, took classes, joined leads groups, went to a spa trade show, and manned booths wherever I could afford. Most people knew about buckwheat pillows, but few knew about cherry pit pillows. I needed to educate almost every person who passed my booth.
Early on, we became certified by Green America, later by the Better Business Bureau, and reviewed on TrustPilot. All these steps were taken to make my company legitimate.
Hot Cherry Pillows are now sold in wellness centers, like chiropractors and physical therapists’ centers, and used by massage therapists in spas and salons. I have wholesale customers who sell them in gift shops, general stores, and eco-friendly establishments.
Learning how to supply and market on Amazon became a whole new achievement. And soon I was making a profit and earning enough to supplement our income from a spare room in our home. I hired students to wrap and tag, bag and pack my products to sell online and to retailers. My products are available to consumers on my fully developed retail website and several wholesale platforms.
Now nearly sixteen years in business, I have repurposed nearly 80 tons of cherry pits, hired 15 students, and done it all as a part-time home-based business. I love that I make pillows that help people feel better. Hot Cherry Pillows are good for people, good for the environment, and good for business.
J’Nelle, 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 care about people, and when they’re uncomfortable or in pain, I want to help them feel better with my pillows. And I truly care about the environment. That’s why I choose materials that best comply with my goal of using natural, sustainable, and up-cycled materials, whenever possible.
Caregivers like me use Hot Cherry Pillows to comfort those i need, and to rejuvenate our own fatigue and stress. Many wellness centers benefit from using my products in their therapeutic practice. Chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, massage and colon therapists find that their patients/clients benefit from weighted moist heat treatments, which help them relax, increase circulation, and promote healing. Some also use them chilled, finding that our pillows, when stored in the freezer, provide a cold pack without the burn of gel packs.
Spas are always looking for ways to pamper their clients, both in the treatment rooms to warm chilly feet, or with a warm neck wrap to relax a waiting client. More importantly, massage therapists have an opportunity to promote a product. (They can’t sell hot rocks or hot towels.) Therefore, the Spa director can create another income stream by offering the same moist heat treatments for home use.
As regards the problems I solved for my customers:
One has only to read the stories they tell in their reviews. Hot Cherry Pillows are family favorites because every age can benefit from the warmth and weight of a moist, heated pillow, or a chilled one.
Moms are our focus market because they do most of the purchasing, and they need the help and relaxation that Hot Cherry Pillows provide. Whether it’s warming a chilly crib, getting active kids to jump into bed, soothing a teen’s menstrual cramps, or a young athlete’s sore muscles, a warm pillow can make all the difference. Moms are often caregivers to the elders in the family. Grandparents are often chilly, and a warmed Hot Cherry Pillow can increase their circulation, making turning up the heat less of a priority. Dads and moms can be stressed, overworked, and in need of comforting, too. Every household should have several on hand, some in the freezer to always have a cold pack handy, and some ready for relaxation and promoting sleep.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Because my product is mainly a warm pillow, our peak season is naturally the colder months, and the holidays in particular, because they make wonderful gifts for all ages. Therefore, I had to create a market during the warm months focused on the therapeutic uses of Hot Cherry Pillows. One year by August, when sales for both wholesale and retail were frightfully low, I looked for an outside company to do some marketing. I felt they would do a much better job at advertising than I would. Their monthly fee was high plus a 5% commission, but they promised a profitable return. There was also the cost of ads. Once implemented, we began getting sales…lots of sales. The workroom was bustling; we were fulfilling more orders than we had ever seen. I was excited about this upturn in orders. However, by the week after Christmas, when I was calculating the benefit of their marketing and volume of sales, it became apparent that the fees, advertising, and commission cancelled out the entire profit. Come January first, instead of being flush from the holiday sales as we had been years before, the business bank account was shockingly low. I immediately cancelled the service, but the damage had already been done. For the rest of that New Year, I was forced to tighten my belt, economize, and watch every penny. I made it through the slow season with a 3% loan to cover the shortfall. The next August, I hired an individual to do the same job at 1/5 the price. That year, and every year since, he has been a valued partner, facilitating a profitable return and taking that marketing burden off my shoulders. I realized that as a small company, hiring a larger company wasn’t a good fit.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
I am an artist, a maker, and now a manufacturer. It didn’t start out that way. I began cutting and sewing my pillows, making all the patterns myself. I created various sizes and experimented with how many pits to put in each one. At times, materials were wasted; however, eventually, I graduated to working with my seamstress, who, frankly, did a much better job. She uses special sewing machines to serge the edges of each cutout before stitching them together, to make the seams very strong. We 100% guarantee the workmanship of our products. One in about a thousand has to go back because maybe the label is missing. I am very proud of the sewing shop for its precise workmanship.
I thought it was a simple product, fabric, pits, and a label, but it is so much more. Presentation packaging and packing materials, ribbons, printed elements, and supplies all have to be ordered and kept in stock. Procuring the fabric, designing the woven labels, ordering the printing and papers, and making sure that the workroom has working tools and supplies, all of this needs to be constantly monitored.
The most complicated of these is the inventory. I had to learn about supply and demand, when to order more fabric, and how many yards to plan for the dye house to dye. To order the woven labels, I had to plan one month ahead. All of this is a delicate balance between paying for the materials and labor months in advance of selling the products and being paid.
I’m just an artist that needed to make a living, Out of necessity I became a manufacturer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hotcherrypillows.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotcherrypillows/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hotcherrypillows/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-nelle-holland-22024441/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/hotcherrypillow?lang=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIZ0vdQ0GAe8CNSdkHbWCtQ
Image Credits
I have taken all of my product and lifestyle photos myself. I own the exclusive rights to them.