How to build a purpose-led brand, Siff Haider, Arrae

0:00The sign of a good entrepreneur is just how many times can you get up again? You need to be able to handle it because it's a part of your job description. And if you can't, then you're not meant to be an entrepreneur. I never let myself believe that it was going to fail. Something that I think all entrepreneurs need to have in mind is that you can never leave with ego. The primary driver is what are you wanting to do in the world? What mark are you wanting to leave? I am personally not someone who believes in the concept of work-life balance. If you're not making mistakes along the way and correcting and learning from them, then I don't think you're doing it right.

0:35The reason we decided not to do it was because we... Welcome to How to Start Up. I'm Juliette Fallifield, founder of Fallifield & Mason, the communications consultancy that teaches founders how to confidently run their own PR and podcasting in-house. In today's episode, we're joined by Sif Hayder, one part of the co-founder duo behind Array, the wellness brand that's redefining the supplement space with elegant, effective, natural solutions for issues like bloating, anxiety and sleep. Something that all the listeners of How to Start Up will need in their lives, no doubt. Since launching in 2020, Array has gained a cult following and while standing out in a saturated and often sceptical market, they have done great things.

1:18Stay tuned to hear how Sif approached building her brand with intention from day one and why storytelling is at the heart of everything they do at Array. Hi Sif, it is wonderful to have you on How to Start Up today. You and your partner have co-founded Array. When did you start? Because you have, I think, grown really quickly. Yeah, so we started the brand in 2020. And as you said, I started it with my husband. I've been with him for 13 years, but we got married like in actually 2021. So we were, I guess, still like just dating then. But yeah, we started it in 2020, but we had started to work on the brand back in 2018.

1:55So it took a while for it to come together just because of the category that we are in. But for your listeners who may not be familiar with our brand, it's a wellness brand and we create what we like to say targeted supplements for life's unsexy problems. And we launched the brand in 2020 with two products, Bloat and Calm, and really kind of took off within the first year, I would say. So we launched during COVID. We launched because I was very passionate about health and wellness and had gone through my own journey that got me really passionate about holistic wellness. And I just wanted to provide women with better solutions, more straightforward solutions and solutions that made them feel really excited to use the product.

2:39And so that's why we launched Array. And we launched it during 2020, which was kind of like launching in the Wild West because it was March 2020. The world had essentially shut down. We had just launched a business. We didn't even know if products were shipping out to customers because so much was unknown. But at the same time, even though it was an operational nightmare, it was a blessing in terms of when we launched the business because people were at home. They needed products to help them feel better because they were more anxious and more bloated than ever. and there we were with the solution.

3:15So that's a little bit about how we started the brand. And a captive audience as well. I think that was what's so interesting. And I started the podcast exactly then and I started my business exactly then as well. So I'm in there with you. And a lot of our listeners are the same. So I saw a 7 % increase at Companies House of new businesses being registered in Q2 2020. And there were so many people going, you know what, the world is falling apart. Now is the time. If I don't do it now, a lot of people being made redundant and feeling their way. And I think a lot of our listeners have either started and scaled businesses or thinking of starting and scaling business.

3:48And we offer them that reassurance and that comfort that it is possible. But it's so interesting because you go into it having no idea what you're doing or what to expect. And every guest says that if you told me now what I would have had to do to get here today, there's probably not a rational bone in my body that would have done it. But for you, you just went for it anyway. You could see the pandemic coming, you launched and you have scaled so quickly. But also for our listeners, I think there's a product that we all need more calm and less, you know, the stress comes through your body in many different ways.

4:21So you need these products. But for you, what was the biggest barrier to entry to starting, do you think, in yourself? So I come from an entrepreneurial family. And so I was never scared of going out on my own, I think because that was something that I saw my dad do and he's quite successful and I've had him as a role model. I was never afraid to take a bet on myself. And I think that was just something that I was taught early on. That being said, I'm a very purpose driven person. And so I didn't just want to start a business for the sake of starting a business. But because I felt so called to work on Array in order to help people, I was just like, I'm going to go for it.

5:05It's happening. Yeah, exactly. It's happening. And I think in my brain, it's going to sound very odd, but I never had a doubt that it was going to work. I was like, I'm just going to figure it out. And while there's a lot of challenges when you're building a business, because essentially you're learning on the job, I never let myself believe that it was going to fail. Now, of course, when you're building a business, something that I think all entrepreneurs need to have in mind is that you can never lead with ego. So for example, if you are working on something and something isn't working like a methodology or a product idea that you had or whatever it is, I think you need to be able to iterate based on the feedback that you're getting or instead of just holding onto it because you thought you were right.

5:49So my thing was that I knew Array was going to succeed because I was going to figure it out. I had a lot of faith in myself and my husband is my co-founder and he's also incredibly intelligent and hardworking. And I just knew that us together as a team, we'd be able to figure it out. And so - There's no risk when you're betting on yourself. Exactly. So in terms of barriers, I would say that they were just the typical barriers that you go through as you're building a business. So for us, it was the fact that we had launched at a time where no one knew what was happening. And so just that grit and resilience to just keep going and pushing when we didn't know what was going on.

6:26And, you know, there were issues with shipping. There were issues with things arriving late. At one point, UPS lost this massive shipment of products that were coming to our house that we were going to ship to customers that were already late. Dealing with all of those things. So I think as you're building a business, the scale of problems that you're dealing with, there's always challenges, essentially. And so for us, the barriers were dealing with those challenges. But I think it's something that all entrepreneurs can, I guess, resonate with. And also, I think for anyone who is thinking of getting started and they're intimidated, because I remember sitting there being like, what do I even do first?

7:00There's so many things. It's just you have to put one foot in front of the other. So it's OK, I have a product idea. How can I even just get started with the product before the branding, before the social media, before the website? So it's one foot in front of the other. Exactly. And it's that's such good advice of take the breath, do one step, then the next step and the next step and managing that overwhelm. I think I should rebrand this podcast because every single guest talks about you need to manage the weight responsibility, the roller coaster, the overwhelm, do not burn out. Those common phrases come through from everyone because you are doing something that's never been done before.

7:35You're doing something that you've never done before. You're potentially creating a service or product that the world isn't familiar with. So everything is new. How do you build that muscle of resilience? It's practice, to be honest. And I think you just keep getting back up. And I know that sounds so generic, but it really is true. It's a practice thing. I remember initially when we started, I felt like I was letting customers down if we ever made a mistake or, you know, if something would arrive late and someone would send an upset email, I'd be like, oh, my gosh, I'm failing as a founder. and I remember calling my dad and I was like really distraught about something or the other and he was like dealing with problems like this is just what you sign up for when you're deciding to go down the path of entrepreneurship so you need to be able to handle it because it's a part of your job description and if you can't then you're not meant to be an entrepreneur because this is just stuff that's going to come your way so I think yeah like just understanding how to deal with it mentally.

8:35And from then, obviously, it's realizing that you can't let it take a toll on you emotionally because as you scale, those challenges are going to get bigger. And now I look back on the things that I would get upset over year one and I'm like, oh, my gosh, come on now. And so I think the reminder here is that if you're in it, of course, every challenge that you're dealing with will feel really big, but you do get ahead of it and you're going to look back and you're going to be like, oh, that was nothing. And also something that brings me a lot of calm as I'm in the trenches is I look at bigger entrepreneurs and I know that they have gone through much bigger problems than me and they're still standing.

9:15And I think that the sign of a good entrepreneur is just how many times can you get up again? Like you will, of course, take a beating. You will, of course, go through challenges, but you just keep moving and you don't let it affect you. You learn from your mistakes and you just keep going. Such good advice because I think you have to just accept that you're going to have problems and challenges and issues and you're going to have bad days at work. And knowing that it's like, it's not personal. It's just business and separating yourself from the business. I have a job and this is what the job entails.

9:48And it takes the pressure off as well. And then you just keep going. Exactly. And the other thing that I have learned is that when you're going through a challenge when it comes to the business, you can let it make you feel like, oh, I can't believe this is happening to me. Or like, why me? Like, why now? I did everything right. Blah, blah, blah. Instead, I think a real mindset shift is, oh, I'm going through this because this is like the next stage of my business. You welcome the growing pains, if you will, because you're growing. If you were just in a place where nothing was changing and you were just in this place of calm at all times, it would probably mean that you're not growing as fast as you would like to because with growth comes challenges and that means that you're just learning new things.

10:38Yes, it's so true. And the more you do, the more you will have to deal with. And so someone else said, don't plan for failure, plan for success. Because if you succeed, what impact does that have on your life? And is that you don't have any time off or you don't have a second to yourself to think anything through. Because I think I've gone through five years of business and it's a roller coaster with people, clients up, down, left, right. God knows the world fell apart a hundred times in the last five years. And for me, I've learned in the last 12 months, less is more. And I was thinking we have more clients, we have more people, we have more people, we have more clients and go, go, go.

11:12We're a service-based business. That might not be success for me. And my success metric might be different. And I wanted more time in my life for not working. So that meant less clients, less people, richer work. And that might change again in the next couple of years. Once I've done some work and some personal development, I might come back and scale again. But it really is important to work out what success is like to you. But for you guys, it was obviously coming from a personal passion. You wanted to create these supplements and clearly you are taking the supplements because everything you're doing is working.

11:43You've done everything with intention. Why was that so important to you? For both Nish and I, authenticity is a very core part of who we are. And we are both very high integrity people. I said to you right at the beginning that I'm a very purpose driven person. And so for me, I have always felt like my goal is to, for me specifically, help women feel like the best versions of themselves. And so I feel like I've always been rooted in that mission. And so, of course, the intentionality behind what we do and what we release and how we message things out, it just goes part and parcel of that because I think women deserve to be seen and heard.

12:24I like to be spoken to in a certain way. And I just hope that through our brand, we can also help women feel the same way that I want to feel when I'm spoken to, if that makes sense. Yeah. So there's that higher calling. So yes, you set up a business, you want it to succeed, but you want it to succeed for bigger reasons than just profit. For sure. And I think that I've noticed this with a lot of other business owners as well, that I think money and success and whatever you value from that standpoint, it can't be the primary driver. I feel like the primary driver is what are you wanting to do in the world?

13:00What mark are you wanting to leave? What is really driving you when you wake up in the morning? And I think the money and the success and the accolades, they are all a sum or product of the difference that you're trying to make in the world. So if you go into business and your primary motive is chasing money, unfortunately, that doesn't happen right at the beginning. You are really slumming it at the beginning and you are having to be scrappy and it's not glamorous. And no matter how big your business gets, you still have moments where it's not glamorous and it's not easy. And so I feel like you have to be driven by something more than just that.

13:34Oh, God, yeah. And this year I'm doing a course with a friend who's a coach on purpose. So we became a B Corp set-aside business two years ago. And I thought, if I'm going to work this bloody hard, I need to know it's the right work. And I'm doing it for the right people because it's not about money. Money is the means to the end. It is an enabler to do the work. And what does that work look like in terms of sole reward or purpose reward? And it's bigger than just being B Corp as well. And for me, that taking the time out of the business to do the work to then come back to the business has been really rewarding.

14:04But because I hit five years, it's like, God, that went fast. Yeah, it does go fast. For you, given you are a wellness brand and you have to practice what you preach, how do you manage that work-life balance? So I am personally not someone who believes in the concept of work-life balance. And I say this because I think when you do what you love, it's just normal for it to bleed into every facet of your life. That being said, I really do believe in having non-negotiables. And those are things that allow you to show up as your best self day over day and also allow you to sustainably run a business.

14:39So as an example, for me, going to the gym, prioritizing the physical health and then also the mental health component. So as an example, I don't look at my phone first thing in the morning. I give myself an hour in the beginning of the day and then an hour without my phone at the end of the day. And those are things I'm just not really willing to compromise on unless, I don't know, the world is ending and there's something like truly egregious happening, which truthfully, like nothing that bad has ever happened to this day. So you know yourself, you know what you need to tick better to be the best version of yourself.

15:12Exactly. And the idea of work-life balance, and I put that in air quotes, right? So it's like, I have set hours that I'm going to work and I have set days and I'm very rigid in terms of that balance. What I'm trying to say is that you have certain non-negotiables and that's what you need in order to do this in a sustainable way. Other examples, I will always make time for my friends and my family, no matter what. I will always make time to go for date night once a week with my husband, again, no matter what. So I feel like once you have those non-negotiables, that's how you have the balance. Because those are the tools that you need in order to live life sustainably.

15:50And also, you want to have fun along the way. I don't want to just be a slave to my work either. I love what I do, but I have interests outside of this. And so I like to have the flexibility to do that as well. I was chatting to a friend recently about this. I said, it took me years to work out the business will always need more than I can give it. So what am I prepared to give it? And where's that line? And where do I stop? Because if I'm not healthy and functioning, the business is definitely not going to be either. We're taking a quick 30 second break from this episode to ask, are you thinking of starting your own podcast?

16:23if so this is great news because we run a course that will train you how to produce your own podcast yourself this course is for people who do not want to outsource and pay someone else to do it you want to learn how to do it yourself we teach you everything that you need to get up and running with your own podcast show and so much more just dm us at hello at fallowfield mason to book your spot and for you how do you work out what fun looks like outside of work so it's just the things that bring me joy. So for me, again, I love spending time with friends and family. For example, I just got back from some time that I spent in Istanbul with my family.

17:03And I did that over Labor Day weekend. I think I went for six days total. But that stuff is really important because those are things that I always look back on. And I'm like, I'm so glad I made time for that. So once a year, I do my family vacation. And no matter what, I will be there. Other things are just a couple of times a year. Nish and I take trips as well. If one of my best friends is having a destination wedding, I will always go. And then just like outside of the travel bit, of course, I love to read. And so I always make time for that. It's my hobby. I like to cook. And that's also something I make time for.

17:36While I may not do it every day, I still make time for it a couple of times a week because it's also really nice to do something with my hands. So just yesterday, actually. We had a product meeting for like a bunch of launches that we have coming up and that was done towards the end of the day at 5 p.m. And so I was just making dinner while we were having that meeting. And so we had that meeting like in my kitchen on like the big countertop. And so I was just cooking and roasting things while we were having this meeting. So I feel like I make time for these things because they bring me joy and they just make life a lot more fun.

18:12Oh, God, yeah. Especially when you're cooking yourself and you're nourishing yourself. And it's a virtuous circle. It's all feeding into the bigger pot of energy. But I love what you're saying. It's like sitting here thinking, you make time for this and you make time for the travel. It's like, how do we make more time? There's only 24 hours in the day. If we had a magic time recipe, that would be wonderful. But that's it. You have a limiting factor that you cannot control and time is it. And we always talk about this in entrepreneurship, that money will flow, money will come and go, but time is of the essence.

18:41And I was giving a talk earlier today at Soho Farmhouse on podcasting and saying how you have to invest time in it and you need to work out what you're doing, who your audience is, what problem are you solving for the listener? Because if you are going to commit this time, you want to make sure it's worth it. So for you, what has been the biggest reward with Array since you started five years ago? I love that question. We get emails and DMs often, and some of them really do blow me away and they remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing. They will be messages and emails from customers being like, oh, I've dealt with this problem and this has really helped me or I'm postpartum and this product has really helped me.

19:24And again, my purpose is to make people's lives better. And so to hear from customers, knowing that I have helped them even a little bit makes me feel really happy and allows me to keep going. The other thing is, in the same vein, when we were building Array, our goal was also to build a really strong culture and create a workplace where people were excited to come to work and really loyal about where they worked and, yeah, cherished every single day because, again, life is short and you spend a lot of time at work, so you may as well love what you're doing. And so we really wanted to create that kind of workplace.

20:02And so to hear from our team, and by the way, we have basically no turnover in our company. Our first employee is still with us. She's like my sister. Everyone in our company has been here for years. And so to hear from our team members being like, this is the healthiest workplace we've ever been a part of, or I'm so happy to come to work every day, or if I miss an in-person day, then I feel like I missed out. That's crazy to me as a founder. I'm like, that is like the biggest pride for me. It's so rewarding. And I see our team and it just brings me so much joy to know that I love every single person that I work with.

20:40And we're all working towards a shared goal and we have so much fun along the way. oh I love this because I think when we work for other people we don't realize how important teams are and when you employ people you forget so when you work for someone else your customer and your client your outward facing stakeholders are really important but when you have a team and you employ people they are your number one priority above everything else and when they have a good day at work or I remember seeing this whole kind of murmur of conversations happening with the colleagues and I was nothing to do with it it's like wow they are all having fun together without me.

21:14And it's because of this business that they're all here together. And it gave me such a moment of joy of like, these people are awesome. And they're all talking to each other about work we're all working on. And I created that. So that validation of giving other people that opportunity is fantastic as well. But if anybody's listening and they have a favorite business or product or supplier or podcast, go and tell that business how much you love them, because it can feel like such a one-way street. You're putting a lot of content out into the world and you've got an amazingly engaged audience on your socials, but you're constantly feeling that beast.

21:46But to have that feedback back is so, so important. The best feeling. Well, speaking of your brand, we can't leave this conversation with asking you how you identify your branding. So our goal when it came to building Array, the parallel I like to draw is skincare. So when I was younger, I would go into my mom's dressing room. And this is like when I was young and I would look at her skincare and it was very clinical looking. It was very sterile looking. And now we see the skincare industry. And this has happened right in front of our eyes where there's so much joy in using skincare. Women aren't afraid to talk about the skin issues that they have.

22:27You're excited to go shop for your skincare. And it's this thing that you take joy in when you have it as a ritual that you do every day and night. And the reason behind that was, number one, skincare all of a sudden has become easy for the consumer to understand. So you can walk into wherever you're going to shop for your things like Sephora, Boots, wherever people are going. And you're finding things for your acne or your dark circles or your fine lines and wrinkles. And the product has been packaged in a beautiful way. It's science forward. So you know that you're using these things and it's making a difference.

23:03And so that was really the concept that we had when it came to building Array that we wanted to build products that really work. People would take it and they'd feel the impact and they'd know what they were taking it for. Our products, for example, they're named bloat. You know what you're using it for. Tribiotic, constipation, like these are things that you know what you're using it for. Tone, which is like a creatine gummy. So again, like it's simple to understand. And we also really wanted the branding to speak to people. And we knew that that was an important piece of things because no matter how efficacious your product is, if the customer doesn't resonate with it, they'll just buy it and shove it to the back of their pantry and forget about it forever.

23:42And so we knew that we needed to make packaging really beautiful. And we knew that we also needed to be relevant in terms of just the overarching culture. So making sure that we had a strong social media presence, that we had the right partnerships that we were able to speak to the consumer in a way that allowed them to feel seen and heard and not like a snooty wellness brand that felt out of reach, you know? And so that was really the concept behind how we have designed the brand and how we speak to consumers. It's so simple now you see it, but the work that goes in behind the scenes to make it simple is so hard.

24:19Absolutely. How important is storytelling and PR in your business as well? storytelling is everything for us we do everything very 360 so you know when we launch something as an example we make sure that every team is talking to each other and working like a well-oiled machine that's everyone from marketing to email to performance marketing like ads and stuff like that to our website the photo shoot needs to look a certain way so everyone's working together so that everything looks and feels really really cohesive and that really is a part of the storytelling. The same thing when we do a partnership with another brand, it is really like a company wide effort in order to make that the most successful thing ever.