We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Niki Price a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Niki, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I was making batches of my probiotic coconut water, in my kitchen, delivering to customers front door steps in my neighborhood.
A couple years later was on vacation and visited the flagship Whole Foods store in Austin, Texas. I remember walking in the store and thinking to myself, “my product will be here someday”.
It was a defining moment, I felt the certainty to my core.
Niki, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’ve always been into health and nutrition my entire life. Self-taught, red dozens of health food books. I came across a recipe for cultured coconut coconut water, from Donna Gates book Body Ecology. The book is like a nutritional Bible.
Personal benefits, unlike anything I had ever experienced. Results transcended to friends and family members continued to repurchase. My own son had a personal story with continued use of antibiotics due to chronic ear infections.
The product just simply works. It’s potent because it’s fresh, made with raw, coconut water, and packaged in amber glass and AFFORDABLE, You shouldn’t have to be wealthy in order to be healthy. It’s changing lives, the GUT microbiome is connected to everything function in the body.
We are a mission driven company. Paying it forward. We have always GIVEN as a fundamental core principle of the business. Our work in South Sudan goes back 30 years. Today we partner with our parent company LifeSeasons still serving those in South Sudan www.gemsdevelopment.org
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I look at my situation and think if I can do it,, anyone can do it. I was an elementary school teacher, who knew nothing about food manufacturing or business. I had zero classes on either subject.
It’s a humbling experience, I asked a lot of questions from experts, those who were ahead of me in the field. Some of them said, “don’t do it.” When one question got answered, I completed the task moved forward one step. Then I asked another question…. And so on, and so forth for many years.
The odds were not in our favor, over half of new businesses fail.
100% of our success is relationship driven. It was the most successful strategy in addition to grinding it out. When we finally got into stores, I would still hand-deliver product to receiving in the back. I would drive my car around the front of the store and get out by sampling table and then, so what I just delivered. Over and over again store after store. Across the country, 18 years later, I still travel to all the accounts nationally to say thank you and support sales through education never finished, but it’s my passion and it’s helping so many people. .
Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?
One of the best parts of our story is my business partner, and I always said,
“no debt, and no investors”.
If we didn’t have the money, we didn’t do it. We also made very few financial mistakes. We made a few small ones but not a lot of big ones.
I honestly to this day, believe the company was blessed because of the intention behind it. Fundamentally we came from a space of gratitude, and desire to serve others.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.inner-eco.com
- Instagram: @innereco
- Facebook: Inner-eco
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niki-price-472a3a33?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Twitter: @innereco
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClE9dVmYWznhOXiM9Aq2BMQ
- Other: @inner.eco TikTok