We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karrie Laughton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karrie below.

Karrie, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Along with being a paper straw manufacturer, I also own a bar in Rochester, NY, called Lux Lounge. I have owned it for the past 20 years and back in 2018 I happened to stumble across the video of the sea turtle with the plastic straw up its nose. I was horrified! And, even though I considered myself back then to be fairly eco-conscience, I had to admit that my bar and use of plastic straws was contributing to the problem. It was at that point that I swore never to use a plastic straw again, and made the switch to paper. I quickly realized that the demand for paper straws at the time was skyrocketing and I was waiting weeks, if not months to get my orders. It was crazy! I kind of jokingly said to myself, “I should just start making my own paper straws”. Within a few weeks I found myself doing the research and looking into what it would take to actually do this. It was terrifying and exciting, but I decided to move forward and actually take the plunge. I reached out to my mother who recently retired from nursing to see if she wanted to help. Next thing you know we are building out a warehouse space and ordering machines. Things were going great, and then the dreaded Covid hit and threw a giant wrench into everything.

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

My background mainly centered around the service industry. I started bartending while I was getting my photography degree at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) and fell in love with the business. There was a point where I realized that I wasn’t going to be the next Annie Leibovitz, and the bar business had already sunk its claws in me, so I continued to sling cocktails while doing some photography assignments on the side. After about ten years of this I felt it was time to stop working for other peoples dreams and visions and venture out to pursue my own. This is when I decided to open my own bar and create a safe and artistic space for all the folks that danced to the beat of a different drum.

Running my own place gave me the ability to have the creative output that I craved by curating art shows, decorating the space, having fun events and coming up with ways to stand out in a very saturated and competitive field. We are not your typical bar filled with neon beer signs and televisions all over the place. Our internet is spotty, we don’t have any TV’s and we don’t have a digital jukebox. We are old-school to the core, which forces folks to have conversations and interact on a more intimate level.

When I decided to switch to paper straws, this was back in 2018 when the talk of global warming was really starting to be taken more seriously and I was jumping in with both feet. I wanted to be one of the first in Rochester to make the switch, with hopes that more businesses would follow suit. My mission to get rid of single-use plastic was a bit of an obsession, and I won’t lie, not everyone was on board. The straws I were ordering were okay. Just okay. Some better than others, but mainly anything I ordered off Amazon were terrible. Not only were they imported, they were not good quality, and the worst part… THEY CAME WRAPPED IN PLASTIC! Which made me insane and completely confused. Why the heck would they do this? It was after a few months of frustration with the unnecessary plastic packaging, the weeks it looks to get orders, and the poor quality of paper straws that I decided it was time to change the narrative. My new mission was to make the best paper straw on the market, and 4 years later, here we are.

Roc Paper Straws officially launched in September of this year. We have spent countless hours finding the best combination of materials to make the most eco-friendly, durable, and long lasting straw on the market. One of the biggest complaints from consumers is that most paper straws get soggy and fall apart within minutes. Not only are our straws made with all food-grade materials, they are also gluten-free, have no funky aftertaste, and hold up for hours. I have literally had a straw in a glass of water for an entire week and it was still holding strong. No joke!

Over the 4 years that we were building our company, a huge wave of paper straws started flooding the market. Most of them being imported form China or other countries which so often puts quantity over quality, along with having the money to outbid and out-produce small businesses like ours. With years of inferior straws dominating the market, many consumers are turning their noses up to the use of paper straws because of terrible experiences. “They get soggy. Taste strange. Unravel.” Etc. Convincing someone who has been down the road of bad straws that ours are great has not been an easy task to conquer.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I literally had zero experience in manufacturing when I started this business. I figured if I had the space, bought the machinery, and had a good team, the rest is cake, right? Wrong. There was nothing cakey about the process at all. I have hit every road block imaginable. It’s been the bumpiest ride of my life. An exciting ride, but there have been countless days of me saying out loud, “Ugh. It shouldn’t be this hard”.

When it came time to buy our machines, our choices were extremely limited. Because paper straws were a fairly new concept in the United States, the machines were not available in this country. We needed to look at China or India. After a few weeks of research, we settled on a company in China that seemed reputable and was fairly easy to communicate with. There were countless emails filled with manufacturing terms and phrases that were just as foreign to me as their native language. It was like going back to school and trying to get a masters degree without any teachers or mentors.

I read a few books, watched a lot of Shark Tank, and made more spreadsheet than I’ve ever seen in my life. Crunching number was my new workout routine. Straws became my entire world. My every waking moment. I was determined to make this happen no matter how crazy it was or how little sleep I was getting. All the while, I’m just figuring things out as I go. Making mistakes along the way, but fixing them the best I knew how.

Luckily, every vendor I have interacted with has been super kind and helpful. I enter every new conversation with full disclosure that “I’m new to this, so I’m probably going to have a lot of questions”. And, I did. And, I still do. To my amazement, every single one has had the patience of a saint and genuinely wants to help this business succeed. Many have even gone out of their way to share contacts or suggest potential new accounts.

One GIANT obstacle I did not consider was the fact that these machines had to be built from scratch, packed up, and put on a boat for a very long journey. The whole process from start to finish took over 3 months. Three long, anxious, expensive months. And dealing with customs is a whole other kind of headache. But, I figured, once the machines were here and we got over this hump, it will be smooth sailing, right? Wrong again. The machines arrived one week before the Covid shutdown. Without any manuals. Without any sort of directions. With a few photocopies of wiring diagrams which basically felt like a Dear John letter that said “Thanks & good luck”.

After a few weeks of bringing in friends of friends who have had a little machinery experience or a penchant for tinkering, I decided I needed to bring in some big guns. Since we have this giant tech school literally in our backyard, I reached out to the mechanical engineering department at RIT and asked them to help out. We were able to bring in a student who spent the next three months figuring out the machines and getting us on the road to paper straw domination. His name is Bob and we are so lucky to still have him on our team.

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

So, it turns out, even though you believe that your new business venture is the best new idea the world could ever imagine… most banks don’t. Especially a somewhat radical business that barely exists in the country you are trying to set up shop. Banks are a business that are in business to be a successful business. They are not known to be risk-takers or back someone because they have a good story and a great idea. They crunch and compare numbers. The problem arises when there aren’t enough competing businesses to crunch and compare with. We had a solid business plan, done our research, built out a warehouse space, crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s, but all the banks we talked to were not willing to take the leap. The risk was too high. Even though they “believed in our vision”, they couldn’t see a way to loan us the money.

Plan B. We find a way to fund it ourselves. My mom and business partner purchased a rental property about 10 years back that she decided to sell. This gave us a chunk to work with along with the chunk I contributed from taking out a HELOC on two rental properties I currently own. We were also able to secure a personal loan from a family member and I dipped into my Roth IRA. Unfortunately, that was not enough, so I applied for every grant that we were eligible for, which was none. I finally stumbled across a new program being offered by the Rochester Economic Development Corporation (REDCO) that offers loans for small businesses and start-ups. It was a long and tedious process that took over 2 years to close on, but we are grateful we were able to get it. Otherwise, we more than likely would not be here today.

Contact Info:

• Website: Rocpaperstraws.com
• Instagram: @Rocpaperstraws
• Facebook: @Rocpaperstraws
• Twitter: @Rocpaperstraws
• Other: We also have an Etsy store, Ebay, Pinterest (all Roc Paper Straws) and we are on Amazon.

Image Credits
Photos by Shutts Productions – Rochester NY