We were lucky to catch up with Recha Bullock recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Recha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
YOLO Health and Wellness, LLC was originally created to promote my health coaching and yoga teaching business. However, in 2021, during the global pandemic, I, like so many of us had trouble finding cleaning products, liquid soap, and other essentials to stay safe during the pandemic. The frustration of having to resort to using what was left on grocery shelves, resulted in having to purchase products that had too many toxic chemicals. I experienced a bad reaction from a generic so-called multi-purpose cleaner and had to toss it in the trash.
I knew there had to be a better and safer way to clean clean my home during the pandemic and global supply chain shortage. A light bulb went off! I found an online formulation class and enrolled in online classes at Formula Botanica and Coursera. I learned how to formulate plant-based products with organic essential oils for my skin and my home. I am a firm believer when you cannot change your current circumstances, you must change your response to it! And I set out to do just that! I honestly had no intention of selling the products that I made; however, family and friends were telling me they were also having problems finding cleaning products.
YOLO Health and Wellness plant-based cleaning and skincare products are not only better for your home and your skin, but better for your health and the environment. Our organic and plant-based skincare products are also curated to promote a regular self-care routine, which can help provide balance, reduce chronic stress, anxiety, and fatigue.
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 background and context?
I more have more than 20 years of public health experience supporting numerous multi-million-dollar contracts to support the National Institutes of Health and other U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agencies. I have always loved fitness, wellness, integrative health, and health-related activities like working out, yoga, meditation, and any form of dancing.
I am a Certified Yoga Teacher, Certified Wellness Practitioner, Certified Worksite Wellness Specialist, Certified Yoga for Cancer Teacher, Fitness Instructor, Health Coach, and a plant-based foodie. My passion for health and wellness comes from a lifelong love of fitness, public health, nutrition, yoga, health disparities, and a desire to help people transform their health with regular exercise, yoga, and eating plant-based foods that are nutrient rich.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
I have wanted to quit and shut down my small business too many times to count. I work full-time during the day in public health. When my work day ends, I start working on my small business. I am what you would call a SOLEPRENEUR! I actually formulate all of my products by hand. I make the products, bottle them, label them, do the write-up for my website, post the products on my WIX website, and market and ship all of the items to customers. I also attend vendor shows where I get the opportunity to meet my customers, talk about my products, and learn what consumers want in products.
I have also spent a lot of late nights performing research, comparing prices of competitors, and reviewing customer reviews, to ensure that I order the best quality ingredients to make my body butters and cleaning products. I must admit that I did get a leg up and received a “highly” recommended vendor list from the online school, Formula Botanica.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I can certainly share a story of resilience that really made me upset. Since the start of my business I had my products on my WIX website and also on Etsy. I have always loved Etsy as a consumer and would not have ever imagined that I would some day have an Etsy store. Sadly, I had to leave Etsy and shut down my online store. Etsy recently sent out via email information that required all sellers to work with a company called Plaid in order to continue receiving payments for purchases by customers. Unfortunately, this same company had recently settled a class-action lawsuit for accessing and/or using Venmo user’s bank information. I had to pivot and made the decision that it was just too risky to give Plaid my personal business bank account number, routing number, and contact information. This was yet another time that I contemplated shutting down my business.
This experience forced me to pivot and think bigger. I am now working on setting up a new online store on Amazon via their Handmade Sellers Central site. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey with lots of ups and downs. I highly recommend anyone contemplating starting a business, to stay the course, never give up, know when to take breaks, and surround yourself with a like-minded community of people who share your visions and goals.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yolohealthwellness.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yolohealthwellness/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YOLOHealthWell
Image Credits
I own all rights to the photos that I have taken.