How to turn waste > revenue & family founder farming, Le Prunier's Jacqueline Taylor

0:00Allison Taylor:Quite frankly, I paid for the research myself. I didn't know if it was going to work. They placed a PO and we didn't even have packaging together. It is essential to keeping the DNA of the business, but also the authenticity and your point of differentiation. All three of us are not afraid. If we do not feel something is right, it's off, we're going to speak our mind. Most founders start with an idea and go looking for an ingredient. The Taylor sisters started with the ingredient and had to build everything else around it. Their family has farmed plums in North California for four generations.

0:34For most of the time, the plum pits were just waste. Le Premier turned them into the hero ingredient for an organic luxury skincare line that now sits in Goop, Anthropologie, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's, to name but a few. This is a story about vertical integration before it was a trend and patience in product development. And then also how to work with two other co-founders who also happen to be your siblings. Jacqueline, welcome to Head Startup. To kick it off with, could you tell me which of the three of you sisters had the idea first?

1:06Allison Taylor:Yes, that would be myself. I graduated from UCLA and I was pre-med going into school. I have an extensive background in science and a love for science. Also, I went to culinary school after I graduated college. And so at the end of the day, those two worlds have combined. And I really have a love of ingredients, creation, creating products and combining them together. We had been throwing away this waste on the family farm. And I really looked at all the waste. I did a bunch of years of science on it. And lo and behold, it had so many beautiful benefits. So this was really a delightful moment.

1:46Allison Taylor:But to answer your question, it was my background in science that really helped spark my intuition to look into the waste on the family farm. so the farm was it a fruit farm or is it particularly a prune farm so great question we have been farming for over 107 years now crazy a long time 30 years of that has been organic and our father really had the foresight before organic farming was truly even like a household term because now everybody wants organic you know it but it wasn't a thing back then he grew just about everything. So cherries, watermelons, apples, you name it. And my sisters and I, we used to do farmer's market selling all the fruit.

2:29Allison Taylor:So that was our summer job. It was something that he wanted us to be productive during summer times. So when we were in our teens, younger, we had all of these different fruit, but then he really saw from his travels overseas in Asia, there was a huge demand for the dried plum, but also to really went into making that change is the shelf life of a dried plum is forever because the process from changing it to a plum to a prune, it extends the shelf life. So as you can imagine with fresh fruit, that perishes super quickly. So he changed all of our crops, took out all the watermelon, the peaches, cherries, and he switched it to plums.

3:13Allison Taylor:So we have been plum farmers now for a very long time, but to answer your question, we did all kinds of farming early on. Honestly, the best peaches I have ever tasted to this day. Oh, amazing. So to build a brand from a waste product is probably every founder's dream. To take something that has no value, it's going thrown away. Where did that idea come from and how did you cost up the supply of this? So I had a really good girlfriend that's very smart, super savvy business-wise. She said, Jackie, you need to put together a business stack. and so she told me to go on statista.com and I pulled all these stats essentially because I know ultimately if I was going to put this together is this going to be a viable business is this scalable will this make revenue and so I put this together I put a big deck together and took me a bit and I approached my father and I showed it to him and of course as you can imagine the dry plum industry has predominantly been male dominated.

4:15Allison Taylor:And so the idea, I will say, made my dad like, what is this? But I remember I sat on the ground in the living room. He was in his chair. I presented it to him and we walked through it and really showing him the numbers. And I thought this could be a viable business. And in our travels, my sisters and I going to Japan and Korea, we would go on his business trips, but it's not as though we would really contribute in the meetings, right? We would sit there, but like a fly on the wall, really absorbing all of this information, taking in everything they talked about, how highly regarded the dried plum was.

4:49Allison Taylor:And it wasn't until we were much older later in life that it was really a light bulb moment. They regarded it as beautiful superfood, but we really weren't doing the same here in the States. It was truly like a huge white space, a gap here in the market. When you think of a dried plum, you think of maybe grandma or mom and dad, your kids, having them for digestive purposes, but not necessarily for beauty purposes. No, because we'd have them in the UK growing up. It's like on yogurt with breakfast, but it was a useful thing to have if you wanted to get your system going. Exactly. Yeah, totally.

5:23Allison Taylor:But also an interesting statistic. So dry plums contain more antioxidants than kale, blueberries, and spinach. And this is a known fact. It was a large study done by Tufts University, a nice university here in the United States. And they did the study. And so I knew that, and that kind of was a light bulb moment for me. I thought, okay, if that is the case, if that is true of the edible dried plum, then wouldn't it make sense the same with our byproducts on the family farm? And so I knew we were discarding the dried plum pits, And so I did a bunch of testing. At the time, I was holding other jobs.

6:02Allison Taylor:Quite frankly, I paid for the research myself. I didn't know if it was going to work. So I quietly worked on it while holding other jobs. And it took about two years of research. But I remember the day vividly I was at my parents' home and the results came back. And it was great for hyperpigmentation, dark spots, age spots. And I've always struggled with hormonal acne. plagued with that from my teen years, unfortunately. But it's something that I've always had to struggle with. And so lo and behold, it was non-comedogenic, didn't clog the pores. And I went outside and it was like, this is a viable business.

6:39Allison Taylor:And I was so excited. And that was truly the light bulb moment. So how did you go from the roles that you were in to founding a brand with three sisters with a waste product? Thankfully, my sister is amazing at marketing. She has a very sharp and keen eye for aesthetics. And I went to her and I said, this is my findings. I did the pitch deck to our father and he was completely on board. And she said, okay, I'll jump in. I'll do the packaging. I'll make it look luxe and beautiful because she has experience on a branding side. And so we put our heads together. And then Elaine also helped join in too.

7:17Allison Taylor:She has prior experience. at two consumer product good brands and on their operations side with finance. And so that is where we really collectively came together to put our heads together because we all thankfully have very different skill sets. And I know Alison doesn't want to do science. Marketing is not my wheelhouse at all. And then Elaine is very sharp, just essentially keeping the house very tidy and orderly, which is something you need at the end of the day. And then in terms of that product development the packaging is beautiful everything about it looks like a high-end lox brand i will say the packaging it's reminiscent of the igoblana floral arrangement in japan which represents less is more and so on the side of the packaging it's just very delicate plum blossoms but it's kind of the ethos of the brand that less is more goes into formulation in terms of you each having your own individual roles and then now coming together as three sisters.

8:14How do you work with the original farm?

8:16Allison Taylor:So at the end of the day, my father is a true businessman and very entrepreneurial at heart, no different than our summer farmers markets. We had to earn everything. So you best believe that yes, we do have to pay. The business is completely separate from the family farm. Le Prunier is a different entity than the family business. And so we treat the family farm like a true vendor, any other vendor we would. We place a purchase order. They give us a lead time, a timeline when the product will be ready. What is interesting in that sense that as we've scaled and grown as a business and thus the demand has scaled, we've, of course, as the business had to invest in equipment and machinery to support that growth.

9:00Allison Taylor:We don't have boots on the ground per se. It's the family farm that does the pressing and the cold pressing. but my sisters and I have come in the business and have purchased equipment to support that growth and the production of the oil and the cold pressing which is such a beautiful and very thoughtful and interesting process that we do on the family farm. So you're extracting the oil from the prune stone. Exactly yes. So you had a two and a half year R &D runway that's when you launched. Most founders in your audience rushed to market, but you waited. How did you fund that period? Because that's quite a long time in some sound years.

9:42Allison Taylor:Oh gosh, I held multiple jobs. It was not easy. I think often from the outsides, it can look quite glamorous. And there are moments that it truly has been a lot of hard work and it's having a lot of grit and persistence and working through the nose because you hear that a lot along the way. And just, I will say, Alison, I remember just continued to push me and say, keep going, keep going. And I think at the end of the day, if you don't believe in yourself, if you don't push yourself, then no one else is going to believe in what you're creating, what you're presenting, and you have to love your product.

10:16Allison Taylor:And so I put all my heart, my energy, and I was so dedicated to this and building it out, the concept, and then also in tandem working with Allison on the packaging. So come 2018, this was pre-COVID, times are very different, right? We launched at Indie Beauty. So at the time, it was an expo here in the United States. And our first ever vendor was there and picked us up, Neiman Marcus. That was your first door. Yes. Yes. Wow. And they ended up placing an order. And at the time, we didn't really know if anything would come of it going to the trade show. But they placed a PO and we didn't even have packaging together.

10:57Allison Taylor:So we had to rush to get it produced and packaged. And as you can imagine, like excitement, but also can we fulfill this in time for their timeline? And you obviously you don't want to annoy Neiman Marcus. You want to go in everything perfect. You have a fragrance client who do the PO for the UK, hey, Mathieu Premier and their first door was Harrods. Go. Okay. It's neck pressure. I know exactly. You need to execute and go now. But thankfully, my sister's so good and has that great design eye. So she really nailed down the packaging. Would you recommend people who are starting into product-based businesses have a long runway?

11:35Were you grateful for that two and a half years?

11:38Allison Taylor:I definitely was. I needed it to be perfect. But not only that, it is something that represents yourself, the family farm, And through and through, I needed to make sure that it was efficacious because at the end of the day, you need to make sure that it works and it's to a certain standard. And I think that's something that is so unique about the family farm. Our father takes so much pride in what he produces and what he sells and creates. And so that same authenticity really goes into the final product. So for me, it was just about making sure the product was beautiful, really efficacious and taking time to do that because you can launch a product quickly, but you'll inevitably have shortcuts.

12:20Allison Taylor:and I truly do think that is why it is such a cult favorite product and it resonates with so many different age groups and different skin types because across the board despite the fact it's literally one ingredient but it's almost counterintuitive because it is one ingredient and when you look at a packaging you oftentimes you see so many ingredients and what am I reading what is this but that's where it's counterintuitive it has so many benefits and with certainty I feel good about putting this on my skin and on my face it's so hard because so many people are done is better than perfect you've got to put your head above the parapet or learn by doing but there's such a fine line i think between launching when you're ready launching when the business is ready launching when the market is ready and it's that crossover and i think when it's your business slash your baby you want it to be perfect but also there's some founders who are guilty of hanging on took too long and actually getting it out there you quickly see the things that need fixing but for you obviously you knew that was the right amount of time and if you're juggling other roles you found that sweet spot i feel as though as the years have gone on post-covid there's been an uptick in beauty but we launched truly at a very unique time when it wasn't saturated we're taking a quick 30 second break from this episode to ask are you thinking of starting your own podcast if 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 so i think even more so it really resonates with consumers and customers because it wasn't a trend to do it at the time.

14:15Allison Taylor:Good timing as well, too. I don't know how you do this because you've done it with your two sisters who are all co-founders. I set up my business on my own and if I make a mistake, it's on me. If I make a decision, it's on me. I can move quite quickly because it's just me. With sibling governance, three sisters, how do you manage the equity split, the decision-making, who has the final call? What happens if you disagree? Talk us through that. For sure. Well, we're all so close and it's natural. you are going to disagree. Not only as siblings are going to disagree, but I do feel as though that's the almost that's amazing part.

14:50Allison Taylor:Because intuitively and inherently, you trust, I trust my sisters, their feedback, their opinion. All three of us are not afraid. If we do not feel something is right, it's off, we're going to speak our mind. And I think that the power of that with all three of us collectively putting our heads together and being like, we all have a different perspective, one from marketing, one from science, one from claims, another from finance operations. And really, that is the beauty of it is that we don't collectively always see things the same. And so there are often times where we're at a bridge of like, okay, how do we go forward here?

15:25Allison Taylor:And thankfully, we have amazing advisors that we lean on. And there's always a path forward. When we go to them, they have past experience launching successful businesses themselves, years under their belt. So really it's leaning into outside help to really help navigate through challenging situations. But at the end of the day, we always come out on the other side through a difficult decision-making and the different perspectives actually helps. And the other thing is the sister part, but there's the three co-founder part. How do you manage that? Is it always two against one? Does that actually help in the decision-making process or is it just all voices are heard?

16:02Allison Taylor:It's really all voices have a chance to be heard. And like I mentioned, I value the different opinions because sometimes I see something differently than my sisters and vice versa. And so it's that different perspective. I think that really putting our heads collectively together makes things work. So I have three little ones and my youngest sister, Elaine, she's just had her second child. And I feel as though it's been nice also because you can lean on the support and the ebb and the flow as I've had children really being like, hey, I can't travel right now. I have to be at home for something kid related.

16:38Allison Taylor:And then maybe one of the sisters at the time can do a bit of travel then. So it allows a bit of flexibility on the home part too, which has been very nice. So given that you weren't coming from a beauty background per se, to launch into new Marcus Boomingdale's and say, good, they are incredible retailers. How did you go about getting into retail? With every single retailer, it's a partnership. We create a specific brand deck, but I really do feel as though ultimately the heritage piece, the farming story really resonates with whatever client or new vendor. So I really do feel as though that is something we have focused on in our vendor pitch and our vendor deck.

17:20Allison Taylor:and because it's truly such a unique aspect the family farm is vertically integrated so at the farm we oversee the entire life cycle of the farming practice and also creation of our oil and so from start to finish we grow the ingredient we harvest the ingredients we are there cold pressing the ingredients and so truly we own that entire life cycle so can guarantee that ingredient and authenticity. And I'm two hours from the farm. So I can go there. I can be there to really give that guarantee because I do think that's what speaks so strongly also. And we've been farming for so long. The market is saturated.

17:58Allison Taylor:And what is the North Star? What is the point of differentiation? And that is something we truly breathe on the family farm, that ingredient story, but also that attention to detail and the raw ingredient. And that is translated into our final formulations. And for you, when you found out you got into Goop, what was that feeling like? It was amazing. It was so amazing because Wynneth, she's an amazing woman and dynamic, interesting. And so of course, it's to get that seal of approval being brought on was just really amazing. And they have a store here close to where I'm at in Marin. And then of course they have one in SoCal.

18:37Allison Taylor:And so they've been so supportive and a great vendor. We do events there for the new launches with our products. And they've just been such a wonderful partner, but very exciting, particularly too from a marketing perspective. I think that's always has a halo effect on the brand because anytime you launch a new product that of course, they'll do a product roundup sometimes for their holiday time. Like what are their top products? And I know Plum Body and Plum Talks, several of our products have been included. And so that's been a nice halo effect we see sales-wise, of course. Yeah, it's just wonderful to see an independent brand succeed at such an international level.

19:13And with the Asia origin story, what did you see in the Japanese and Korean markets that U.S. King Beauty was missing?

19:20Allison Taylor:They just regarded the dried plum as this beautiful superfood. And it has so many benefits, vitamin A, vitamin E. It's really great for anti-aging, but also inflammation. So not only topically, but also as you ingest it as well too. So of course, for your heart health, for your gut health, you name it for osteoporosis. It has a multitude of benefits. And we saw in Japan and Korea, particularly sometime they would pickle the plum, but then also they would do yogurt. So almost like an extract, a thick molasses, and they would put that in their yogurt in the morning, but it is so delicious. And so that is really the white space and it's seen as a sexy ingredient over there.

20:03Allison Taylor:And it just really was not over here. And what I truly think resonates here in the States and for that white space, that gap is that the entire line is national eczema association approved. And so we're also Surret seal approved. So that's pregnancy, breastfeeding safe, pediatrician tested, dermatologist tested. There's no essential oils in any of the products and hypoallergenic. And that is true of all the products. And thankfully, mother nature has been kind and this is true of the our plum beauty oil and the dry plum which is amazing and i think to answer your question that is really truly what resonates what they were seeing overseas in asia but we weren't particularly utilizing or running with here amazing and then the ip of it all how did you kind of own that space with your discovery so it is not fun having people come in and try to, we've had experiences like this.

21:02Allison Taylor:I actually did a bunch of claims and I've learned through the process to trademark and patent things because people try to use your verbiage. And so that's been interesting, but through the process I've learned, you have to trademark, you have to patent, you have to keep it proprietary. And so thankfully I've been very meticulous. So we just launched our plum mist and plum cleanse early on in this year. And one of the ingredients is our midnight mirror and it's beautiful ingredients, but it has gone through so many steps on the backend to make it proprietary and unique and to really retain those bioactive ingredients.

21:39Allison Taylor:And to go back to answering your question, it is essential to keeping the DNA of the business, but also the authenticity and your point of differentiation. We almost act like we're a beauty brand, but we're also an ingredient house as well. And so those two worlds emerging really creates our North Star, but our point of differentiation in a very crowded space too. And every founder I've interviewed, I'm always so impressed with how many hats they have to wear. And now I get the three of you having all those skill sets is an absolute benefit because, you know, you're looking at marketing, communications, product design, product development, the legal side of it all.

22:17And then obviously scaling, growing, big orders coming in that that whack-a-mole mentality i think and he says oh no it's easy it's no it's done and if it's not you're probably not growing exactly it's all stressful in a good way right but yeah if you're not stressed you should be stressed yeah how do you manage that

22:35Allison Taylor:how do you manage that overwhelm definitely my weekends i very much look forward to i do date night on sundays with my husband every sunday we go out just the two of us and i find that really kind of helps me have my Zen come into weekend, but then I really value the time with my children. I have two daughters and a son and you just kind of step out of your head from work and into just really being grounded and doing things with the family, which I really love and finding time to do travel with the family or whether it be work. So really trying to find things to take your mind off going to the spa, getting my nails done.

23:12Allison Taylor:Like those simple, simple little things that I really enjoy. It's so funny that you look back at when you were salaried by somebody else, things you took for granted that you'd have time to do. It's like I had such a structure because if five days a week would be commuting to the office, so it meant I had to get up at six, go to the park, do my exercise, come back. I was a bit more robotic, whereas now when you've got the freedom to run your day however you want it, it's, oh no, too much choice. It's truly overwhelming. Sometimes you'll have calls that start at 8.30 in the morning and go till 3.30, like back to back.

23:43Allison Taylor:And it's then that I'm like, okay, today I'm going to step away and I'm going to finish the day early. So it's just, it's understanding your rhythm and your pace and your cadence that you're comfortable with. And I particularly find too, if I have a really taxing, busy work week, I always like to have a green smoothie in the morning time. So really just to have that clarity, clear head in the morning. I try not to eat a lot of carbs that day. Just having a fresh thought process and really being clear headed going into a meeting or something that's very important. you are not the only founder that said you have to look after yourself before you can look after a business so something that we do is a question from our previous guest which was joe glenn smith she used to work for harper's vizal and pandora and then pivoted in her midlife to become a coach for other people looking for career transitions and her question for you is if you stripped away everything you should be doing what would you choose to spend your energy on sure i love my children.

24:40Allison Taylor:I spend quite a bit of time with them on the weekends, but I'd probably be spending doing more during the week. But then also I don't play as much tennis. So I would probably allocate more time to be doing that. I used to have played it in high school. I find that it's just great. You're working out and you don't feel like it. Yeah. Oh, I've just recently taken up paddles. So it's the same thing. It's ridiculously competitive and it's quite easy to be okay with it. So everyone quite enjoys it, but it's quite fun. But your brain is occupied. You're not on the screen. I hear you. It's good to have something else.

25:14Allison Taylor:Exactly. And you jump back in and you haven't done it in a while. You can't be too terrible, right? Because it's riding a bicycle. If you do it again, you're still relatively good-ish. If I had all the hours in the day and all the time in the world, I probably would be doing more tennis. Love that. And what would your question be for the next guest? Anything about entrepreneurship? What is the best piece of advice that you have been giving along the way that has made the business for you and how you look forward towards your business that's it there's a few nuggets you can't remember everything especially when you do a podcast that's all advice it's very true i listened to a few old episodes i was like god i really should listen to my own podcast because there's so much good stuff in here but yeah there's a few things that you hang on to i think my favorite is you and young who said automate delegate solve anything that keeps recurring in your head and taking up headspace.