We recently connected with Kerry & April Maunus & George and have shared our conversation below.
Kerry & April, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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.
We came up with the idea for Turkey on the Table during walks after preschool drop off.. We both love Thanksgiving and the idea of getting together with family and friends with no expectations besides food and quality time together. We also wanted to find a way to help our children understand the true meaning of Thanksgiving (giving thanks), and find a way to incorporate gratitude with our young children as part of their daily routine. While our idea was not totally unique, we realized there was nothing in the marketplace that both promoted gratitude and provided a visual display for Thanksgiving tables. The most unique part of our product is not only does the fully dressed Turkey on the Table visually represent the family’s gratitude, it also represents the 10 meals donated to people in need via our partnership with Feeding America. The excitement in the beginning came from bringing our idea to life, the support from our family and friends, and the enthusiastic response from our initial trade shows. Now we are motivated by consisently being a part of our customers’ holiday traditions and also being able to give back in such a big way.
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.
We were both stay at home moms with unrelated prior experience. It was a steep learning curve and we relied on the knowledge of others and the internet to get up and running. We had to learn how to physically create a brand new product that could be mass produced, and also set up all of the other operational elements it would take to sell our products both directly to consumers, but also in the wholesale space. There were also many legal items we had to secure including: trademarks, partnership agreement, LLC setup, etc. We are proud of ourselves that we were scrappy enough to get into many retailers our very first year. Also the first year, without having sold a single unit prior, we sold out of our entire container of inventory. By year two, we had hundreds of retailers, and by year 3 we were in big box stores.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
Many people are impressed that we have been in Nordstrom for the past 8 years. Nordstrom is notoriously difficult to identify at trade shows and the buyer’s information is very hard to obtain. April was determined to get Turkey on the Table into Nordstrom so she started at our local store at the Customer Service desk. She explained our product and asked how we could get it on the shelves. From there her tenacity (phone calls and emails) she got in contact with a buyer and the very next year we were on their website as a test. Things went well and we have been a constant fixture in the Children’s department and online for the last 8 years.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
We met first at church. We were both transplants to the San Francisco Bay Area from midwest/south. I (Kerry) recognized right away that April looked like she was lost. I had been in the same spot a few years prior so I wanted to help. It turns out we had children similar ages and we became fast friends. The business idea came second, after a very close friendship. We have always prioritized our friendship over business matters, because that is what matters most to us. Our attorney told us in the beginning that most partnerships end badly, and we knew we would not let that happen.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.turkeyonthetable.com
- Instagram: @turkeyonthetable
Image Credits
Jaime Schrader Photography Evin Photography Megan Gery Photography