We were lucky to catch up with Lisa Weaver recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

There are a few major challenges to achieving consistent profitability when looking at the handmade, home goods sector. Product and labor costs, production consistency and market infrastructure are three things that readily come to mind.

The first is our product’s cost of goods. Fair trade, human labor is more costly than the machine-executed alternatives. We are adamant about paying our people well for the work they execute and this comes at a price. As our production quantities increase, our labor costs do not go down. While we do see adjustments with the cost of materials, the largest cost (labor) is fixed. This makes scaling in some channel sectors difficult, as the profit margins might not be adequate when trying to price our products competitively.

While we have a number of quality control measures in place to ensure production consistency, there is still increased potential for errors when making goods by hand. Resolving issues can be extremely costly due to the time it takes to re-make the goods (in relation to machine-made options) and the personnel overhead.

Lastly, the lack of infrastructure in the developing markets where we work creates multiple issues. We operate in countries that lack the necessary resources for timely and cost-effective freight execution. For instance, Nepal is land-locked and thus doesn’t have a port. We have to ship sea cargo via Calcutta, India. The road conditions from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Calcutta, are treacherous and the drive can take trucks 3 to 10 days. The roads are also frequently closed. Recently, the government closed the main passage to Calcutta for an extended period due to a large festival. We were forced to ship a container of product via air, which cost over 3 times what a sea shipment would have been.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an avid purveyor of global design. As the daughter of a philanthropic interior designer and contractor, I had exposure to building and design from a young age. As a young person, I would take apart and somewhat-put-back-together furniture, which my parents greatly appreciated. I am a self-proclaimed “tool hoarder, tinkerer, widget manipulator and crafty nature lover.” I worked internationally for a number of well-known beauty and esthetic brands for over 15 years and the best part of traveling for work was learning about different cultures and communities. I would bring back treasures from my travels to customize my own space (my home is filled with trinkets from Morocco, Israel, El Salvador, Peru, Nepal, Thailand, Chile, Ukraine and so on.) These include a yak-hair rug, a lamp shaped like the Taj Mahal, and a silver, turquoise and amber Moroccan teapot that supposedly brings love into your life when you brew tea! Soon, my friends asked me to help design their homes too, and before I knew it, I was working professionally as an interior designer. To further develop my skills, I enrolled in a trade school and took classes in furniture upholstery, sewing, design and building. My specialty became beautiful, functional spaces with a unique global twist (I design a lot of Airbnb properties).

In early 2020, I ordered a blanket online from a Ukrainian weaver for my bedroom. When it arrived, I was so impressed by the craftsmanship that I immediately struck up a friendship with the artisan (Olesya). That friendship blossomed into a partnership, and Hustle & Blush was born. I founded Hustle & Blush to combine my lifelong goals of helping women around the globe preserve their traditional crafts, while supporting communities with ethical business practices. Hustle & Blush is a line of fair trade-compliant, handmade items that partners with artisans in developing markets. We seek to honor their storied crafts while making them more relatable to the modern consumer. Hustle & Blush then reinvests a portion of our profits back into each of the markets we work with to create an equitable loop.

Our launch collection, Hutsul & Blush, featured a variety of handwoven wool goods from the Carpathian Mountains of Western Ukraine.

Shortly thereafter, we released our Fluff Ewes wool dryer balls that are hand-felted by female artisans in Nepal. Our Fluff Ewes quickly became a cult favorite and category leader on Etsy and have consistently gained ranking on Amazon, as well.

One of the key things that sets Hustle & Blush apart is our witty and playful design esthetic. Our Fluff Ewes dryer balls are as delight-inducing as they are effective. We believe that handmade creations can be as efficient as their machine-executed counterparts, while also providing fair paying jobs, sustainable supply chain practices and supporting development initiatives in the communities where they’re made. And while our practices are conscientious, guilting prospective buyers isn’t our jam. We’re cheeky, creative and offer originality in spades.

Each dryer ball is hand-felted in Nepal where it’s often difficult for women of certain castes to find employment. We seek to not only give these women work, yet also provide dignity and a sense of community, as well. Our team of 450+ women are provided fair trade wages, free childcare (for their little ones not yet in school), a hot meal each working day, menstrual education and products along with medical check-ups. The atmosphere at our production sites is infectious, cheery, communal and inspiring.

In addition, our Fluff Ewes dryer balls contain up to 50% more organic wool than other brands on the market, meaning they will last longer and be more effective, too. Each ball boasts a unique, hand-felted design that is sure to make laundry a less monotonous task as well.

We are currently looking to expand in the US market in 2024 and are excited about what the coming year has in store. I still have the original blanket Olesya made at the foot of my bed, as a reminder of all that H&B has accomplished and will continue to do in the years to come.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

In late 2021, I sent a gift box of product to former colleagues in Korea. I wanted to re-engage as their market came back to life after the pandemic. Upon receiving the box of Fluff Ewes, they were delighted at the cuteness, yet perplexed as to what dryer balls were.

After explaining the benefits of dryer balls, they were intrigued and curious as to how their market might respond to our brand. We decided to try and gain distribution in Korea. We began by presenting the line to multiple TV home shopping networks and national retailers. While we garnished interest from a TV show host, the network felt that the limited percentage of households with stand-alone dryers in the market (most Korean households have a 2-in-1 washer/dryer combo) would pose a risk to sales potential. They had also previously aired a dryer ball line 2 years prior and it had majorly failed (sold only 20% of the necessary inventory quota).

We pressed on and met with one of the largest big box retailers in Korea, E-Mart Traders (the Costco of Korea). E-Mart Traders miraculously wanted a custom set of Fluff Ewes! They requested a much more aggressive price than I was willing to agree to, yet they desired the brand. Being that E-Mart Traders is one of the largest appliance retailers in Korea, they had the inside knowledge that dryer sales were heavily increasing in the market. We utilized this info to leverage the Lotte Home Shopping Network to give us a chance and were confirmed to air on Korea’s number one home goods shopping show in May, hosted by celebrity, Mrs. Choi Yura.

Over the course of a 6-month period leading up to May, we had to pass multiple production tests, an initial sample air shipment and produce all of our marketing support to be cleared to air on TV. Lotte decided to air us during one of the busiest weeks of the Spring/Summer season. I flew to Nepal to meet with our team, review production/quality control and get content to support the show. Our order was supposed to ship in early April, about 10 days after my departure from Nepal. Due to a translation error/miscommunication, our Nepal team missed the shipping deadline. I was crushed.

After a discussion and agreement with Lotte, the show was moved to early June and we were to get the goods shipped out by the first week of May. Around May 1st, heavy rain hit Nepal and our storage facility was flooded. About 30 percent of our inventory was damaged beyond repair. We had to inform Lotte that we were not going to make the second ship date either. We rushed production and did our best to get the order shipped by late May. In response to our inability to ship on time, Lotte moved our air date to early July, on the lowest viewership night of the entire YEAR. They were frustrated and thought there was no future with a handmade line that couldn’t meet deadlines, and rightfully so.

About a week prior to our show, Lotte notified us that they would be happy if we sold 20% of the stock on air and then they would seek to sell the remaining portion online in the weeks following the broadcast. Their lack of confidence was a bit defeating. They also requested a discount so they could lower the price to sweeten the bundled deal to their limited audience to encourage more sales volume. I declined the request. I felt that if we started out too low, we would not be able to reengage consumers at the right price point thereafter. Although frustrated, they agreed.

We aired on the Lotte Home Shopping Network on July 14, 2022, at 9:30pm for a 30-minute broadcast. But by 9:45pm, Choi Yura and her co-host had sold out of all 9,000+ sets of Fluff Ewes dryer balls and Ewe Dew laundry fragrance oils. The screen went dark. This was a show first and a record, at that. Never had a brand launched in July and done even a fraction of the sales we captured. Lotte was elated and so were we.

We have since been on six additional live shows, broken multiple sales records and have achieved further distribution in the market. The consistent volume has allowed us to employ over 450 women in Nepal.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve had to unlearn that success doesn’t have to come at the price of one’s authenticity. I’ve been able to foster a unique career path that feeds my soul, serves the planet and harnesses my innate creative gifts – and also happens to be in alignment with who I was when I was a kid.

I have been an animal-loving, creative entrepreneur since childhood. I had over a dozen animals – 4 bullfrogs, 6 guinea pigs, a dog, lizards, snakes and a beehive growing up. I loved getting in my beekeeping suit to attend to the hive after school. In my spare time, I would hang out in our bonus room with the menagerie and create all sorts of things.

At 10, or so, I crafted a line of custom sweat outfits and would sell them, along with jars of honey, honeycomb, homemade jam, fresh lemonade and sun tea, at a little farmer’s market style stand on the corner of our street. I enjoyed parading my array of animals out as trinkets to get people to stop and shop. I even executed a discount program for those that would bring their empty jars or honeycomb tins back when repurchasing.

As a family, we supported a nonprofit organization that provided schooling for children in El Salvador. We sponsored three children for years and were able to correspond with them via mail. Once we began getting an allowance, my brother and I had to contribute a portion of our earnings to the monthly support for these kids. I would utilize the funds I got from my summer stand to garnish my portion of support for the year.

At 13, I was able to meet all three kids we had been supporting when down in El Salvador on a family trip. It was amazing to see how they had been impacted by getting an education. One was in college, studying to be a dentist and another was going to be a teacher. The third was still in high school. It was a profound lesson in the capacity to impact other’s lives in a positive way.

Looking back, this childhood experience and entrepreneurial model is somewhat similar to how I’m now executing Hustle & Blush. I have such fond memories of getting to integrate all of these passions into a creative outlet that served others, too.

Contact Info:

• Website: hustleandblush.com
• Instagram: hustleandblush
• Facebook: hustleandblush
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71644601/admin/feed/posts/