We recently connected with Lindsey Hoell and have shared our conversation below.

Lindsey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

Yes! Now I take vacations, but I didn’t always. In fact, during my first year and a half as a founder, I worked seven days a week and didn’t take a single day of vacation. One day, one of our investors introduced me to a co-founder of Looker. When we met, we discussed company culture, and I asked how he managed to find time for himself. He shared one of Looker’s key cultural values – “take time to shred” – inspired by the surf culture of Santa Cruz, CA, where Looker originated. Hearing this advice from a successful founder was exactly what I needed; it emphasized the importance of unplugging from the day-to-day grind. He argued that taking time away allows your brain to generate creative solutions to complex problems.

Following this advice, my husband Andrew and I committed to surfing every Saturday, a tradition we called ‘Santa Cruz Saturdays.’ My co-founder appreciated it because every Saturday, as we drove home, I would call her with a new idea. This practice taught me the significance of stepping away from the business. This year, I took a two-week surf trip to Puerto Rico. I remain convinced that taking vacation time is crucial for tackling significant, complex business challenges. I would encourage other entrepreneurs to regularly carve out time to step back and unplug.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m originally from Ohio, but I fell in love with surfing in my mid-20s. The more time I spent surfing the more I began to become aware of the global waste crisis – I constantly saw trash washing up on our beloved shorelines. While living in Hawaii in 2016, I contributed to the launch of the Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Restaurants, a pilot program aimed at helping restaurants meet or exceed sustainable targets. This initiative has since been widely adopted nationwide, fostering an inclusive community of eco-conscious restaurants.

However, the persistent issue of excessive waste from single-use products continued to trouble me. That’s why, in 2020, while enrolled in UC Berkeley’s MBA program, I founded Dispatch Goods. Dispatch Goods, a female-founded reverse logistics company, is dedicated to building a platform that makes reuse plug-and-play for businesses.

Through offering procurement, return logistics support, and washing and sanitation services for reusable packaging, we have successfully unlocked the value of circular packaging commerce for our partners. This has enabled them to save costs, enhance experiences for their end users, and reduce their environmental impact.

I am so proud of the work we have done and continue to do at Dispatch Goods – to date, we’ve prevented over 3 million items from entering the waste stream, and we’re just getting started!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I have the perfect story for this. On Thursday morning, March 11, 2023, I received an urgent call from one of our investors, instructing us to withdraw our funds from SVB (Silicon Valley Bank). As I phoned the board to discuss, I quickly grasped the gravity of the situation: SVB, where I had assumed our recent rounds of funding were securely held, had collapsed. With payroll looming due on Monday, the situation resembled a scene straight out of Silicon Valley. Despite attempting to initiate fund transfers over the phone and online, all avenues were shut down by SVB.

Panicked, I hopped into my car and raced to the main SVB branch, only to be turned away by security, who informed me that SVB had been taken over by the Federal Government. Over the next three days, with my husband and two-month-old newborn in tow, we traversed to various banks, enduring long lines in hopes of persuading tellers to facilitate a same-day account opening. Finally, we located a bank willing to accommodate us. Miraculously, we managed to meet payroll on Monday!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started Dispatch Goods while simultaneously working as a medical device sales representative and pursuing an MBA at Berkeley. Following the receipt of $25K in funding from the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, I decided to take a leave of absence from my job. Although I eventually returned, Dispatch Goods had gained significant momentum by then. I juggled between working on my startup during the day and managing my medical device clients at night. Eventually, my hard work paid off and we landed our first paid customers. I put in my notice, and what was once my side-hustle became my primary focus.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dispatchgoods.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dispatch_goods/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dispatch-goods