Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to SANDRA JACQUEMIN. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, SANDRA thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Starsoul was founded by a husband-and-wife team, who shortly after having their first son felt driven and inspired to change the world. On the heels of his celebrating his first birthday, the pandemic was “declared” and while packing up from their week-long Disney celebration all took a somber turn of mood. Shortly after, Sandra and Julio found themselves spending their late nights 2am, 5am, discussing plans to launch a company that would keep overhead costs as low as possible and make a positive impact for people who were out on the ground changing the world. Starsoul became the first monthly t-shirt subscription which donates all proceeds to supporting charities in meaningful and impactful ways by using t-shirts as the vehicle for a different cause every month.

SANDRA, 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?

Watching the news and re-run episodes of Mom was what kept us up throughout the night while breastfeeding. It just seemed, that 2019-2020 became such a heavy year. The world felt under attack, race, religion, political strife – people just tearing down one another. And there we were holding a new baby, asking ourselves the most important question: ‘what were we really doing to make it any better for him?’ What example were we setting? What legacy were we leaving. As a former United States Marine, Julio had served this country in the highest capacity with two tours overseas. Sandra had laid down some of the best marketing campaigns since 1998, introduced the first NBA and NFL DJs, worked on race tracks around the world, put together the most incredible events. In the end, What would be left when we were gone?

“I recall posting my black box, but at the same time, feeling like I was doing absolutely nothing for true change. I immediately erased it. I felt generic and useless going about the rest of my day as if that made any difference. Now, with Starsoul, we connect with individuals that are out there doing the things that I am not… cleaning our waters, saving animals, building homes, rescuing victims. Those are the people we want to advocate for and support.”

There are many companies and brands that are socially responsible and involved, advocating for change and supporting efforts worldwide. What we realized is that we both deeply cared about so many causes that either affected us directly or friends and family. Everything from cancer, heart disease, animal welfare, equal rights, on and on. So how would we choose one charity to support. That’s when we realized the route for us to go in was highlighting one cause per month, and the subscription model gave subscribers not only a sense of unity but kept our overhead low with no inventory issues meaning, we could maximize our efforts.

It became so popular that people started to inquire about kids’ sizes, so we eventually launched Starsoul Kids. It is the same concept, and causes overlap, but the t-shirts are kid-friendly whereas many of the adult shirts are more bold . Both collections however, carry a message with every design that is inspired by the cause.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Clearly, launching a business comes with many challenges, as Julio and myself have both encountered. After the Marines and earning his Masters in Business, Julio started several businesses in many realms including a highly successful boxing gym and health juice café. I decided to go the route of Entrepreneurship during college, turning down internship and starting offers at agencies to launch of my own marketing company. Today it is much different continuing to balance life, business, a new baby and a charity-based business with your spouse.
Launching mid-pandemic however, is a different ballgame. We made a promise to ourselves that we would try to work exclusively with small businesses and independent contractors – everything from the initial designer we used to create our amazing packaging who was furloughed to the mama-owned print shop that does most of our PR kits.
Many of the businesses we first made contact with in the initial phases, were out-of-business soon with the pandemic shutting everyone down. That was a harsh reality and we persevered with many doubts of whether we could make it happen or not. Especially with bootstrapping the whole thing with savings, it is scary.

Our subscribers are like family, and we adore hearing so many stories of the compliments they receive on their tees.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Haha, we dated for 8 months and got engaged. 7 years later, here we are as partners professionally and personally. That’s another story for another day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://officialstarsoul.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialstarsoul/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialstarsoul
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/officialstarsoul/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@officialstarsoul

Image Credits
Kelly Gaudet