Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joe Carr. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Joe, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My wife, Serenity, and I started Serenity Kids out of our own experiences as children and for our baby Della.
Serenity struggled with illness for much of her childhood. She was constantly sick, had trouble sleeping, and eventually developed severe digestive problems – what we now know was leaky gut. Like most kids, she ate tons of sugar, grains, and dairy. But once she learned how to eat in a way that was healing and not harming her body – quality meats, veggies, and healthy fats – her health dramatically improved. Her experience made her passionate about changing the way families eat so they can live happier lives. And one way to do that is to educate from infancy and provide nutrient-dense food that is delicious and convenient.
As for me, I spent my childhood dealing with undiagnosed autism. Nobody knew that I was autistic, so nobody knew how to address the challenges that I had. In addition to the social and emotional difficulties I had, I also struggled with constant stomach pain and was overweight. The thing that moved the needle the most for me, and my physical and emotional health, was changing my diet. This experience drove me to want to change the way we feed and treat children. Because I believe food can be a powerful way to change a child’s life.
When Serenity and I started thinking about growing our family, we started paying more attention to baby foods. We found that the market was full of sweet flavors and fruit-filled products without the key nutrients that babies really need. Nothing convenient existed that contained well-sourced meats, healthy fats and vegetables that babies need to thrive. So, we decided to make it our mission to provide food that allows babies to grow up happy, healthy and strong.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories – perhaps a time when you took a risk marketing wise or pulled off a sale where the odds were heavily stacked against you. Give us the backstory, paint the picture and help us feel what you felt back then.
A big risk we took was entering Walmart stores. We typically sell to a very naturally minded consumer and our market research had always indicated that this segment of the market didn’t frequent Walmart stores. But Walmart approached us in a very friendly and eager way, and we ultimately decided to give it a shot. They launched with severn pouch flavors and two puffs flavors in 900 stores, and quickly increased products and store count after a successful start.
It felt like a big risk, but it really showed us that the market for nutritious, delicious, and convenient food might be even bigger than we thought; and that is even more motivation to continue to work towards our mission.
Can you tell us the story of how you built your audience on social media? Any advice for those just starting to build a social media presence?
Honestly, by being real. We were brand new parents ourselves so we created content that we found useful. Parenting is hard . We wanted to share content that would be relatable and funny but also provide value to our audience. We started with communication pillars on nutrition, parenting hacks, recipes, and recommended baby and kid products.
We always aim to be relatable, and that means sharing everything from a funny parenting meme to launching a campaign to normalize postpartum bodies. I’m proud of our “This Body Carried a Baby” initiative where we asked our audience to share their real, strong, resilient bodies before and and after carrying a baby. Thanks again!
Joe, 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?
Serenity Kids make shelf-stable baby food purees that are the optimal balance of meat, vegetables, and fats for growth and development. We also make grain free puffs snacks and formula and are always looking for new ways to innovate delicious and nutritious products for babies and toddlers
We’re solving the need for tasty and convenient foods that are genuinely nutrient dense. I like to call this the Serenity Trinity: nutritious + great taste + convenient. Not only do our products help kids eat healthier, the convenience without nutritional compromise also helps parents make their lives easier. We hear from so many parents that they love feeling like they aren’t sacrificing quality for convenience when they buy our products.
Another aspect I’m really proud of is our commitment to the environment and sustainability. We source our ingredients from regenerative farms that are committed to improving the environment and the health and wellbeing of their animals. We also have extremely strict quality standards including third-party testing, like Clean Label Project, for heavy metals.
Finally, I’m proud of our company culture. We care a lot about our employees and work to provide an environment that really supports them and their families through flexible work arrangements, unlimited PTO, ongoing education, and a number of other initiatives they’ve shared.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
In the beginning, we self-financed using credit cards and a family loan. This got us to a product prototype and allowed us to establish the beginning of our brand with a website and company video. We used this initial branding and prototype to tell our story, share our mission, and conduct outreach for our first fundraising round. We ended up raising two rounds of capital before our launch. Once we launched, we saw some quick success with an offer to sell our products in Whole Foods Market stores nationwide, but that meant we needed to raise yet another round. We’ve had a few more fundraising rounds from the time we started – each time to help promote more growth and expansion. Each time, it comes down to telling our story, sharing our mission, and of course reporting on the huge growth and success we’ve had in just our few years of operations.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I’ve learned that not everything has to be fast. Just because people say they want something doesn’t mean we need to build it now. There is a drive, as a business, to want to give people what they want but the priority needs to be ensuring that it’s the right business decision and that there is a foundation to building it right.
My first experience with this lesson was actually launching our first products. I was eager to go to market and overly optimistic about the amount of time it would take to start selling.
The entire process was monumentally harder than I thought it would be. I thought it would take six months. It took two years. Once I accepted that I had to let go, have patience, and just trust that it would all come together at the right time, it did. Our products launched on the day our daughter was born, and this is a constant reminder to me that our timing, while much slower than I expected, was always meant to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://myserenitykids.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myserenitykids/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myserenitykids
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-carr-0a511624/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/myserenitykids
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMBgRm2M7vnw-eMJl3uY9rQ
Image Credits
Serenity Kids