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

Natalie , appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I was inspired to start Barzee when my brother Nicholas was sick with terminal brain cancer. I was living in Las Vegas and he was in Sydney, Australia, where we grew up. I was traveling back and forth to visit him and was introduced to Turkish towels by a friend and I instantly fell in love with them. As a mother of three I was always looking for ways to make traveling and outings with my kids easier, sustainable and stylish. I found with Turkish towels I was able to carry more towels, taking up less space and weighing less than a traditional beach towel. In fact, they were so light and comfortable my kids liked to carry and wear them themselves! After my brother died I found myself struggling and overwhelmed with grief, I knew I needed an outlet to channel my grief into something meaningful and creative. I decided I wanted to share these amazing towels with other moms and travelers around the world, and that I could bring this desire together with my main motivation in life, to create a lasting legacy to Nicholas’ memory. 15% of profits from the sale of Barzee towels goes to two amazing charities – Neverthirst Water and Mercy Ships International, to make a difference in the lives of the worlds neediest people, in my brother’s memory. All that was left to figure out was the name, and that was easy – Barzee, my brother’s nickname from when he was a baby.

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

I always loved architecture and design, so after graduating high school I studied Architecture at the University of Sydney, but moved to the states a semester short of finishing my degree and started a family. With my children growing up and all in school, and also dealing with the grief and trauma of the death of my brother, I decided to channel my design and creative experience into a retail business. Having had no experience in retail, e-commerce or working with manufacturers, it was pretty daunting, but it all started to fall in place by achieving one small goal at a time. One of the unexpected but most enjoyable aspects of starting Barzee was the friendships I made along the way, creating connections and collaborations with people on the other side of the country and the other side of the world. Barzee has pushed me out of my comfort zone, made me grow in unexpected ways, given me purpose, helped others, and honored my brother’s memory and spirit.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I had no experience with retail or manufacturing before I started this adventure, so I learnt everything as I went. I started by looking on Alibaba for manufacturers and contacting different factories on there. I would then look at their websites and read any ethics/environmental statements that they provided, as it was very important to me that the towels were produced in an environmentally and socially ethical way. After reaching out to companies that seemed like a good fit I then asked to be sent some samples of their existing stock to look at. The next step was to have an actual sample of my designs made and then compare for quality. The most important lesson is to not just look for the cheapest price, I ended up going with the more expensive product, with higher quality, and more importantly an ethics statement that was very closely aligned with my goals for my company.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

My best wholesale clients have been customers who have found me on their own through instagram and reach out to become a stockist. They tend to be surf/swimwear stores in holiday destinations, which is great because they sell year round. Instagram is definitely a great tool for growing your business and getting your product seen.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.barzeeswim.com
• Instagram: @shopbarzee