We were lucky to catch up with Karen Starns recently and have shared our conversation below.

Karen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Risk-taking is a superpower. I left Microsoft after 13 years in search of professional growth and new horizons at Amazon. I left that great job at Amazon to tackle a global transformation at Pearson. And then I boomeranged back to Amazon for more growth. I left Amazon again to jump into my first CMO role at OJO, a real estate tech startup that offered huge impact, incredible personal growth, and exciting potential upside.

These kinds of moves are only possible when you have the basics of Maslow’s hierarchy covered. I’ve been super fortunate to be in the position where the choice has truly been my own – multiple times over. All along, I’ve been supported by family and friends even when my decision is not one they’d have made themselves. I choose growth, I choose possibility, I choose the unknown where success is not guaranteed. Stasis is the enemy. Goethe sums my mindset up perfectly: “the dangers of life are infinite, among them is safety.”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

With 25+ years of global marketing, brand management, and commercial leadership experience, my primary career path is that of a seasoned tech executive. I’ve had the incredible opportunity to lead strategy, marketing, and growth for some of the world’s most iconic brands including Amazon, Microsoft, and Pearson. Currently, I’m Chief Marketing Officer of Real Estate Technology powerhouse OJO, where I’ve just led the company through the initial stage of a comprehensive brand transformation. Starting a side hustle during the pandemic was a thing that nearly everyone I knew was toying with. I recently read a stat that 34% of American adults have a side hustle. (source: https://smarts.co/side-hustle-statistics/#:~:text=Two%2Dthirds%20(67%25)%20of,to%20start%20a%20side%20hustle. ) I love craft cocktails and was on an experimentation streak. From there, I went down the rabbit hole on bitters and started making micro batches to test and share with friends. I kept tinkering in the kitchen with a vague plan of sending special handcrafted holiday gifts to my team given we hadn’t seen each other outside of Zoom for months. During that exploration, something magic happened when I started working with salt. The holiday boxes were a hit and included a turmeric-centric Golden Finishing Salt, a Sriracha-based Fire Finishing Salt, and what has become our House Arrest signature – Emerald Finishing Salt.

To be honest, as a marketer, I was nearly as excited about developing a brand, designing packaging, and building a website – so I set out to quickly learn Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Shopify as well. Having full accountability for all aspects of product development, brand strategy, packaging, marketing, sales, and distribution of this burgeoning bootstrapped venture has been an incredible experience.

Every aspect of the House Arrest brand is rooted in things I love – food and drink; art and artisanship; collage and story; subtle humor and layered meaning. What I continue to seek on this entrepreneurial journey is exactly what I want for myself, my family, and my friends – distinctive products that offer an easy, healthy way to elevate flavors.

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

I’ve spent my career in companies that are very good at developing and launching new offerings. Their multifaceted planning approaches include market opportunity analysis, prototyping, financial modeling, product development, and detailed go-to-market plans. And even then, success is not guaranteed. (Ex. I was part of the team that launched Amazon’s Fire Phone. We were unsuccessful in the category, yet plowed a ton of our learnings into other projects.)

House Arrest Goods checked the boxes of high-quality products and proven (unpaid) demand. I took the leap and turned a passion project into a bootstrapped online retail business. The initial go-to-market strategy for House Arrest Goods was not built for success as a side hustle. I stood up a direct-to-consumer channel to capitalize on the built-in demand of friends and family without having the time or the marketing investment to achieve the kind of scale that this approach requires. In addition to finishing salts, I was also selling a line of aromatic bitters, a range of bar and salt accessories, and branded merch in my storefront. The bitters are expensive and take weeks of tending and the accessories required me to source and hold inventory. Once designed, print-on-demand merch didn’t require much tending – and the apron was a pretty good seller. Yet, it was clear that these products were distracting me from my core. I recently made the decision to focus exclusively on Emerald Finishing Salts.

More importantly, I’ve shifted my sales strategy and have added a wholesale channel. I am excited by early momentum with the type of businesses where I love to shop. Within the next 12 months, my goal for House Arrest Goods is that the majority of sales are wholesale. My wholesale store is on Faire, where I’m able to differentiate by having great products that are small-batch and handmade and a business that is woman-owned and not on Amazon. Consumers can still buy Finishing Salts on our House Arrest Goods website, and I hope that soon they’ll also see our products on the shelves of their favorite home goods stores and gourmet retailers.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Choose Possibility was the single-most influential book that propelled me at the start of my entrepreneurial journey. Author Sukhinder Singh Cassidy’s perspective on risk-taking was the push that moved me to maker of finishing salts and aromatic bitters to business owner – entrepreneur, product developer, and marketer of a new culinary brand. The book makes a compelling case for risk being a continuous practice vs. occasional foray and the author demonstrates, through her personal career journey, the power of building a risk-taking muscle.

The book is loaded with powerful frameworks, illustrations, and mental models. Most resonant with me was the antidote to inaction. Looking at the relative weight of Fear of Missing out and Fear of Failure helps us navigate a risky decision. FOF > FOMO results in inaction; if FOMO > FOF, action is the step you’ll likely take. This got me thinking about the downside of failing to choose. Whereas, inaction on House Arrest Goods would leave me with a lifetime of what ifs, taking the plunge would open the door to potential success and guaranteed growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://housearrestgoods.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/house_arrest_goods
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/house-arrest-goods
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/_house_arrest
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/housearrestgoods/_saved/ Faire: https://housearrestgoods.faire.com

Image Credits
Headshot: Kaylin Balderrama Photography Product Images: Karen Starns