We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mandy Hurley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mandy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. undefined

When I first started my business, Simple Sundries, in 2019, it was a home-delivery mason jar refill service of soaps, lotions and cleaners. A service that allowed people to reuse and refill their own containers with home and personal care products. I’d deliver shampoo, dish soap, whatever they ordered from my online store, in mason jars and during delivery would pick up the empty jars from their previous order. But once the pandemic hit, canning became popular and the traditional mason jar lids I’d been using for my jars became scarce. I couldn’t find enough to keep up with my orders!
Plastic soap pumps were also difficult for people to find as more and more businesses ordered them to bottle hand sanitizer. I had been volunteering with an organization called James Neighborhood Recycling who specializes in hard-to-recycle plastics. During one of their collection events, I discovered there were a lot of plastic lids out there that fit mason jars. While there, I also noticed that people had used plastic soap pumps in hand, asking if anyone knew anywhere they could be recycled, since JNR wasn’t able to. And the problem was that no one recycled them.

So, people who wanted to buy pumps couldn’t find them and people who wanted to recycle pumps had nowhere to take them. It was interesting to watch such a telling snippet of the waste stream unfold. The answer was so obvious to me. Let’s clean out these old pumps and reuse them.

But the problem with the plastic pumps is that they are all different sizes and you never know if the pump will fit onto the mouth your bottle. In fact, most of the time it won’t. But mason jars. Mason Jars have a uniform sized lid and it’s why I used them in my refill delivery service. It’s why a lot of refill stores use them. Mason jars are easy to find, easy to thrift. A lot of stores were buying mason jar pump lids, but no one else was making them out of reclaimed materials.

I began collecting the right sized lids and pumps at recycling collection events. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of them. After collecting, I’d clean out the pumps, run the lids through the dishwasher, drill into the lid, insert the pump, glue and viola! A mason jar pump lid made from 100% reclaimed materials. Because this allowed all pumps to fit a mason jar, I’d made that pump more marketable, more reusable and more streamlined for a retail setting.

Because people love mason jar soap dispensers ad love reusing their jars, I was able to sell the pump lids wholesale to other refill stores and sustainable shops across North America. I also sold them in my own retail store. I saved lids and pumps from the waste stream. I saved consumers from buying new plastic. And since they had been purchased at a refill store, one can assume they were reused at least one more time. Creating an innovative aspect to the circular economy.

Mandy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I consider myself a social impact entrepreneur. My mission as a business owner is to help people see waste-reduction as a climate solution, one that is effective, actionable and can be done every day by anyone. Waste-reduction is at the center of my entrepreneurship.

Before I became a business owner, I worked in Portland, Oregon at the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization for 11 years. I was involved in family engagement, youth activities, and hunger relief, but was frustrated by the lack of growth and the limitations of non-profit funding. I felt that I could better support the community as a small business owner. So, I started Simple Sundries, a store that offered families an affordable and accessible way to cut back on plastic waste through refills of soaps, lotions and cleaners. The store was based in a low-income neighborhood and had a major impact on the community. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the best way to truly reduce waste is to help other people reduce waste.

My passion for social justice is what lead to the creation of Project Save, Refill & Give. I began cleaning out plastic bottles, refilling them with products from my refill store such as shampoo, laundry soap and lotion. I then labeled them and donated them to local school food pantries. Over the course of six years, this project saved over 2,000 reclaimed containers that were refilled and donated to local school pantries where they were given to families at no cost to them, keeping that container from the landfill while also keeping those families from buying new plastic containers. Project Save, Refill & Give as it became known, provided over 1,000 vulnerable families and 20 school food pantries with needed products. Home & personal care products are the most requested and least donated items in food pantries across the country.

I have since moved to Iowa, and I still run a modified version of Simple Sundries out of my home, though my primary focus is my new business. Running Simple Sundries through the pandemic and a move across country made me ready for a change, and I wanted to do something that made everyone smile, especially me. So I renovated a horse trailer into a mobile ice cream shop that sells cones and uses biodegradable cups with wooden spoons to reduce waste. Porch Swing Ice Cream’s mobile shops will be available for events, family reunions, weddings and more. We will also sell canned water, reusable travel cutlery, and more items that help people reduce waste on a regular basis.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My business was new when the pandemic hit, less than a year old. And I was only doing delivery service at the time. Because it was a drop/off pick up service, it was already contactless. And because everyone was on the internet all the time, it was easy to get decent business by posting on social media. Because it was already conducive to the lockdown, I didn’t really plan to do anything differently with the store beyond expanding my customer base. But people who had been using brick & mortar refill stores no longer had a place to do so in person since the pandemic shut them all down. I had a garage at the time and decided to turn it into a little store where people could walk up, and get their containers refilled in an open air environment

People really liked it. They’d hand me their containers and while I refilled them, we’d chat. I got to know some great people. And because I lived in an underserved area, I was able to attract some new customers who maybe wouldn’t have stumbled on a refill store otherwise. There were three schools on my street so it was fairly busy with foot traffic and that helped attract interest. I loved it. I would’ve operated in that garage forever, but I ended up selling my house and moving the store into a brick and mortar. The new store was chosen for its location, an underserved area that was heavily impacted by air pollution from a local glass recycling plant. I felt that opening the store in that neighborhood offered a little bit of climate justice.

Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.

I was looking to sell my business for about a year before I did. I put it out on social media that I was looking for a business partner who would eventually either franchise or take over the business altogether, depending on what worked out best for us both. After seeing the social media post, a regular customer-turned friend expressed interest in buying. So, we worked together for months, both learning from each other and finding ways to move the business into her ownership. When it came time to make the sale, I got a real estate agent and a lawyer, and then the buyer found their own lawyer. The real estate agent helped me valuate the business so that both the buyer and I knew what the business was worth before agreeing to a final sale amount.
In the end, we agreed to an asset sale so I could recreate the business with the same name & branding in a different state. She changed the name and logo but otherwise she purchased a turnkey operation. I did sign a non-compete clause, but I moved to a different state so there was no competition.

If you are looking to sell, I would recommend giving yourself lots of time to find a good buyer and put feelers out there early, even if you are just thinking about selling. Also, take the time to valuate your business using financials, FFE and intangible assets such as website content and don’t be afraid to bring in a professional to help you. Don’t take an offer you don’t like unless you are desperate to sell. Because I sold to the right buyer, I knew she was set up for success and that I was leaving my cherished business in good hands, with someone who would treat it with the same love and inclusion our customers came to know.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.simplesundriesdsm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simplesundries/