We were lucky to catch up with Matt Walsh recently and have shared our conversation below.

Matt, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

The simple answer is YES, I am very happy as a business owner, however, it’s not without its challenges, both normal and extraordinary. Normal challenges include getting your idea off the ground and making sure it’s a viable business model. Extraordinary challenges would include everything that is going on today including COVID, rising interest rates, inflation, and the possibility of a recession. So, despite these extraordinary challenges, I still prefer owning my own business and it’s during these times where the rubber really hits road as far as being an entrepreneur. During the most challenging times, it becomes even more important to be creative yet diligent. During tough times, you often need to dig deep into your creative recesses to perhaps deviate from your normal course of business and for many, including myself, this can be the most exciting time for a business owner and yet for many, it’s all too often the scariest part of owning a business. The fear of failure is real, but you cannot let fear own you! You cannot let fear define you and you cannot ignore its telltale signs. For all the years that I’ve owned and operated a business, there have always been challenges that I did not anticipate (I.e. COVID, economic collapse of 2008, etc.) Rather that fall into the fear trap with my most current business, we chose to rebrand the company that would allow us to market to a broader and more diverse customer base rather than keeping all our eggs in one basket. Although I was never gripped by fear, this is not to say there weren’t a few sleepless nights and over the past couple years, I’ve had some stress but chose not to allow that stress or the back hand of fear to dictate the future of our business. Rather, I embraced the challenge and opportunity to build a more diverse business based on shifting our product offerings to encompass a broader customer base that will hopefully allow us to survive no matter what the economy may throw at us.

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.

I like to think of myself as a serial entrepreneur. I learned long ago that I do not manage up very well within a structured organization and in turn thrive developing and building my own businesses and the teams that will support this business. My current venture I launched in 2018 spending the first 14 months developing a product that was fully tested by those that would be using it the most: spa therapists and spa staff. We are a wellness driven CBD company. Our customers range from those that purchase our products online, to those who attend events that we have sponsored to spas that use our products for services within their business. We also work very closely with a broad range of athletes. These include skiers, snowboarders, mountain bikers, rock climbers, NFL Football players, Pickleball and tennis players to name but a few. Having spent 16 years within the spa industry and living an active lifestyle. We have sponsored events such as the U.S. Open Pickleball Championship tournament to the Go-Pro Mountain Games to the Grammy Awards and others. I’m very proud to have been invited to become a sponsor in part due to how we have branded and promoted our company. Unlike most CBD companies that come from the cannabis industry, our background is spa and sports giving us a distinct advantage for these industries over the majority of our competitors. We understand the spa industry better than almost any of our competitors and as I previously mentioned, we are athletes and work with a broad range of athletes. Our belief is that “everyone deserves wellness”. We must always be in the position to serve others in our capacity of a high-quality developer and producer of products which will benefit everyone. CBD is just one of many, high-quality ingredients we incorporate in our products and therefore do not put this front and center but rather the overall quality of our products and their benefits to the end-user.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We brought on our first major customer in November of 2019 and were adding new customers at the rate of 3 per month until March 2020 when COVID shut down all our customers and opportunity to generate revenues. This caused us to pause for a quick moment and think about the ramifications of COVID and then to speculate on its long-term effects not just on the economy but our business. Rather that shake our heads and quit (or worse, feel sorry for ourselves), we did two things. First, we found a bank and credit card processing company that would work with us so we could create an online store and shopping experience. At that time, this was challenging since one of our many ingredients was CBD. We were able to launch our new online shopping experience in June of that same year. We then thought deeply about who we are, who our customers are, what were we trying to accomplish from a wellness perspective and rebranded our company from Splish CBD to Splish Naturals to better reflect those natural aspects of our product line. This was hands down one of the better decisions we made during the COVID period and has brought us success where solely focusing on the CBD ingredient would have made us “just another CBD company”.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

For any business founder/owner, it’s critical that you invest real dollars into your business. You will definitely invest more time and effort but hard cash investment is an absolute requirement especially if you need to raise additional funds and this investment from you, the founder, will help “grease” the wheels for additional investments, t0 which I recommend starting with friends and family. Share your ideas and plans with this group. They will hopefully provide you with meaningful feedback and if they fully believe in you, your business, your product or service, and your plan, then you have created the potential for investors that are close to you and be able to raise enough funds to get you to your next level or beyond.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.splishnaturals.com
• Instagram: @splishnaturals
• Facebook: @splishnaturals
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/splish-naturals/
• Twitter: @splishnaturals
• Youtube: Splish Naturals

Image Credits
Matt Walsh; Yeung Photography