The Truth About Baby Products: What Most Parents Don't Know Ft. Coterie CEO Jess Jacobs

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

0:04Coterie CEO Jess Jacobs:She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her.

0:24Do you know how many times a day that we use your products? All day long. I mean, pretty much all day. My daughter has now resorted to wipe, and I have to say, what's the magic word? So now it's wipe, please. They don't even use, like, napkins anymore. Like, they'll make a huge mess when they're eating. They'll just be like, wipe. And I'm like, and then they get to wipe. But you know it's going to be safe and clean and cleansing and do what it's supposed to do and not break. And that's the trust that you should have in all the products that you're using. It's actually way easier from my perspective, and what do I know, than the paper towel, because you can reuse it over and over.

1:01That paper towel is flimsy. It gives up on me after one wipe. So these kids, they can just have the wipe the whole time they're eating. 100%. Well, I have a story about why we switched to your wipes. So I went and got my blood tested and it came back super high in triclosan. And the doctor was like, what are you using that has this much triclosan. And so my soap's non-toxic. My body wash is non-toxic. The toothpaste I use is non-toxic. And that's where triclosan is normally found. So I went on this whole exploration to figure out where I was getting this triclosan from. Turns out one of the most popular white brands has a derivative of triclosan in it that they don't disclose on the label.

1:43Very common in wipes and diapers. We couldn't figure it out. And if you're familiar, if the audience is familiar with the show, but if you're familiar with us, like we try to live as clean as possible. And so we couldn't, we're like, where could this be coming from? So after I went on a deep dive and found that this brand had Triclosan and I was using it every day, all day long to wipe my babies on their most intimate areas, I was like, I need to find a brand that is what they say they are. So that's when I was introduced to your brand. We switched to your diapers and were big fans. I'm so happy to hear that.

2:18I'm so happy you did. And I wish there was a greater industry standard, honestly, across the board for safety and clean ingredients and also publishing those testing results as well. There isn't. And that's kind of where Coterie came from, honestly. Coterie started because we believe that the status quo in the diapering industry wasn't good enough. The diaper industry is not closely regulated, which is really scary and really surprising. It was for me because when you become a mom, you realize firsthand that diaper is touching your baby's skin 24-7. Morning, noon, and night, that diaper's on their skin.

3:05What's in it? It led us all as a team to really dig into that and think about that and understand also that parents shouldn't need to compromise between potentially harmful ingredients and a high-performing diaper. Why do they have to make that choice? So that led to Coterie and And all of our products are hypoallergenic. They are dermatologist tested. They are free from fragrances, parabens, phthalates, triclosin, chlorine bleaching, VOCs, dioxins, BPA. I could go on and on. There's over a thousand plus harmful chemicals that we're free from. Because we think parents deserve to not have that mental burden.

3:58Is that what is in the other brands? because sometimes my kids like if it's a long night will wear one of these other brands yeah so can a coterie go all night yes a coterie absolutely can go all night no problem no problem the regular one yes we so that's also kind of a misnomer in the industry i didn't know that that's what i was gonna ask you live on air if you think about diapers they've been around for decades, there's been such a lack of innovation at the core of it. But actually, more and more diapers come out all the time. Different skews, different sort of this shield protection and that shield.

4:38What is it actually? What is the differentiation between this is a morning diaper, this is a daytime diaper, this is a nighttime diaper, this diaper's for travel, this diaper's for this, this diaper's for walking, this diaper. At the end of the day, the cynic in me looks at it and says, this feels like skew proliferation to take up the shelf space. They all do the same thing. They all do the same thing. Except for maybe the swim diaper. Right. Correct. Correct. Correct. But what's going on? Why are there all these different types of diapers? And we just have one. We wanted to keep it simple. It's the diaper.

5:10That's it. Morning and night. If you're an adult, you're not wearing different underwear in the day. You're not like, it's my morning pair. It's my night pair. It's my evening pair. And why is there a nighttime diaper that essentially, you know, the crux of a nighttime diaper would be that it absorbs more liquid. right? Why isn't that good enough for the daytime too? So I can rip the bandaid off tonight and throw away all the nighttime diapers and switch to coterie at night. Tonight is the night, Lauren. Tonight's the night. Well, you know what's going to happen soon? I hate to break it to you.

5:44Yes. The diaper gnomes are coming. Do you know what the diaper gnomes are? The diaper gnomes are coming to take my son's diaper. They come at night, but they're not taking the nighttime diapers. So now I can give him. But don't worry, she's got a fresh one on the way. So we're just going to go right back. But I want to be clear, like we are a brand, we're a team of parents. And our favorite thing is when kids truly become independent and graduate out of diapers. Like that's what it's all about. We don't want to keep kids in diapers. We want them to gain their independence. Don't worry, I'm having another one though.

6:15So that'll be right. But the diaper gnomes aren't taking the nighttime diapers just the daytime i was doing the math though like with this other one it's like pretty much like pretty much like a decade it's gonna be like a decade of me doing diaper changing you are power users i don't think it's that big of a deal when people are like i they're in diapers and i have to change diapers i don't find it that well now i don't know any different because it's you know going on do you really find it that overwhelming no no i don't i mean alex is normal you just get your it would be weird for you not to do it at this point yeah it would be strange And I think it also, I hate to do this, but it depends on the products too.

6:50Like our wipes, for instance, are really sturdy, really thick. They don't break through like other wipes. They're also 30 % larger than other leading wipes on the market. So if you're using like a flimsy wipe and your hand is breaking through and you're getting in that mess, I don't care how much you love your baby. Gross. Gross. Jess, I don't like flimsy anything. I'm not a flimsy kind of gal. I can flimsy as they're in my book house i can tell hence our third child yeah i'm not i'm not a flimsy kind of gal what would people be shocked to hear about the baby and newborn industry that you've found since working with coterie great question i think the biggest shock has to be the lack of regulation and standards and it's something that i'm passionate about we're passionate about.

7:42We want the, a rising tide lifts all boats. We want all brands to start to really take this more seriously because health is at stake at this point. It's pretty alarming. We were the first brand to publish our third-party testing safety reports that we did with independent labs. Others have followed suit and that's great. That's what we want. But it was important for us not to just be saying, oh, we use incredibly clean materials and nothing is harmful. We wanted to put our money where our mouth is there. So those safety reports are, again, independent labs. We wanted to show every single ingredient, every single component, test what it is, why we show why we tested it show the results put it all out there i think to what i've realized and this is my own thought all of these daily habits that we all had when we were little from the windex to the tide to the all these endocrine disruptors there's got to be something there that adds up like an allison from branch basics was just on and she she just said on our show she all of the things that her mother did that she didn't know were toxic added up and by the time she was 22 she had hives all over her body and she said lauren it wasn't like one thing it was it was like the accumulation of all these tiny little things that my mom didn't know about that added up well we were there was a friend of mine i'm not going to put him on blast he's he's in the medical space and he was we were talking about like how someone like my dad or i'll use strange Donald Trump or Warren Buffett.

9:31They can drink these Coca-Colas and Diet Cokes all day long and eat McDonald's and all this and not be affected and still actually perform and have high energy and get their work done and live really long time. And he was basically saying there's this generational overload that exists where that generation and their parents weren't exposed to as many of the harmful chemicals and ingredients that we're exposed to. So when they were born, and they don't have that. But then our generation gets exposed to more. So then we can't handle as much load. And now our children get exposed to even more because it's now multiple generations being exposed to these poor ingredients that were largely created after World War II, right?

10:10And then definitely in the 80s and 90s when we were all kids, all the stuff and all the ingredients that they're now removing in many cases from our supplies. So essentially what they're saying is like our children will have weaker resilience than we had and we have weaker resilience than our parents had to some of these ingredients because we haven't had this like generational overload of this stuff in this toxicity being in our system right and it's just a lot as a parent to be thinking about right it's like there's so much on our shoulders today to be making those right decisions for our families for our babies for ourselves i think Coterie is a good example of being a goal-oriented brand in the sense that we just want to make parents' lives easier.

10:53We don't want them to have to stress about, is this clean? Is this going to be effective? Is this going to be high-performing? The more of the mental load we can take off of our customers, the better so that they can focus on other things. It can be too much. It can be so overwhelming to get mired with all of it. And I think parents just do the best they can. And that's exactly what they should be doing. And each individual parent, I think, does know best for themselves. I don't think you start caring about it nearly as much until you have children of your own. I think that's right. Right. I paid attention to some of this stuff, but when I was sharing, I'm like, oh, okay, I feel pretty good.

11:32That was it for me too. That was it for me too. That changed everything. Then when you have kids with everything, And I see some, listen, I know what people, some of the critics of this show say, they're skeptical. But if you look at just the data of what's going on, like kids are getting sicker than ever. Cancer's rising. Obesity's out of control. We have issues with illnesses that we've never had to deal with. Like this is, all of this stuff is on the rise. And so you don't have to be a genius to say, okay, something we're doing or something we're consuming or something that is in our environment is causing some kind of issue.

12:04you don't have to have like the tin hat and go down the woo woo but right but you start to think about that as a parent you're like okay well then what are the things that i should avoid so that i don't potentially put my kid at risk right you know if it's not even really about me anymore right exactly you frame everything with your kids so that's exactly what happened to me i was using one of the other giant diaper brands with my first child so i have two girls Quinn is two, almost two. Penelope is almost five. So with Penelope, I was using another brand, but I was so careful about everything else.

12:41I was thinking about everything around her being so hyper clean. Her clothes, her nursery furniture, everything she was eating, obviously. A pacifier would drop on the floor. I would sterilize it before it would go back in her mouth. I went into overload for sure. But I never thought about the importance of a diaper. I don't know why it truly didn't cross my mind I look back and I'm like how bizarre but that was before yes yes the pampers and yeah yes something I don't know there's nostalgia something and that was before joining Coterie when I switched to Coterie and joined the team I first was using the diaper and trying it out to get that first-hand experience and I was blown away by the difference it made in my life, not just for my baby's life, my life as the parent.

13:30I was not having to worry about, is she going to get diaper rash? Her diaper rash went away. It didn't come back. I wasn't waking up in the morning and having to change her crib sheets that were typically soaking wet from her peeing in the night. I just thought that was standard. I was like, that's just part of being a mom. You got to wash the sheets every day. Most of all, though, she was finally sleeping through the night. And then guess what? I was sleeping through the night and my whole family was sleeping through the night. Why was she sleeping through the night? She wasn't peeing in the middle of the night.

14:00So a lot of people think and believe that when a baby wakes up at night, oh, they're hungry. That's what it is. It's not always the case, especially as they get a little bit older. What's often happening is a baby is peeing in the night and they're getting freezing cold. Because if you've ever dropped water, when the water hits your skin, your skin's like 98 degrees. When water hits your skin, it's cold. It's a shot of cold. That's what wakes them up. Our diaper wicks away that liquid from the skin in seconds, mere seconds. It's doing it four times faster than leading brands. That's allowing them to sleep through the night.

14:39It's not disrupting their cycle. Which is going to create a happier, healthier baby and to your point, family. And family. And family. What you set off air was so interesting. Why I have such admiration for your brand is you called it a niche. What did you call it? A niche? Yeah, like we've connected with this niche audience, this parent. It's essentially myself. Like that's, I think about what I would want, what would be important for me to see and feel connected to. And that was a large way that we developed this brand. We did it all internally from scratch, but we were so tired of the sea of sameness, like the Google Gaga marketing.

15:28Like, who are they talking to? They're talking to babies? Like, what's going on here? And it was just very cliched versions of parenthood. Everything is perfect and joyous. And there are extreme highs, but there are also lows. And we wanted a brand that was parent-centric in the way that it touched on the realities, too. not everything is perfect let's talk about mom guilt let's talk about all of the things that parents and moms really deal with day to day and do it on an honest level but why you guys the brand to me like from a branding perspective is so genius is it is it's a niche is it a niche or niche i don't feel like getting yelled at okay i think it's both okay i think it's you know what i I switch it up.

16:15Today, I'm going to say niche. I think it's so genius that it's a niche brand, but it's daily habits that you do all day long and it's on subscription. This is from a business perspective. I just think it's a smart, savvy situation. I think that you guys have created something that people want, which is a clean brand that you use all day that's on subscription. How do you guys think about that from a business perspective? Well, I'll go back for a second and just talk about my background related to this because I've always been an innovator. I've always been thinking about how things could be better.

16:54And I've been obsessed with brands and brand building. My first job was as a copywriter. I'm essentially a glorified copywriter. My team hates it when I say that, but it's true. And I'm so proud of that. It's a great skill. I was like Peggy from Mad Men. That was me. And I worked my way up. I became a creative director. And spent a decade plus on the agency side working with these epic, epic brands embedded in their systems, places like Apple and Nike, helping them to craft their most inspiring stories and connect with the finest, finest points of their audiences. And that's really where the magic was unlocked for them and for me.

17:34From there, I switched to a personal care brand called Lola. It's feminine care. that's where I start to really understand the importance of ingredients but then becoming a mom is what transformed my thinking about products and that was the unlock and then coming to Coterie and it's been just the greatest greatest joy of my life since except for being a mom and marrying my husband I know we always forget the husband it's like you have to check the box and say the Wait a minute, who else? My sister, everybody. Let's not forget, the husband is the one that makes it possible for you to become a mom.

18:12So essentially. He played a very important role and he still does. He like, the truth is, I say this like with all sincerity, he does more than I do. It's the truth. It's the truth. I would say that you do equal to me. You think you do more. No, I didn't say that. No, call it out if you think you do more. there was a look my husband helps me as much as being married to a woman would help me I know that sounds kind of weird he's never said like I'm not going to change that diaper I'm not going to take them to school he's very very hands on and I would say if you were going to really do an honest percentage do an honest percentage I'm not it's a question for you right now at the minute where I'm literally crowning you're doing a little more like i hate to break it to you but what about when you're not crowning but physically what are you doing right now i'm trying everything i'm yeah i'm busy i'm not saying i literally was just asking the question no but jokes aside no i've always felt it's 50 50 i think it's at least 50 50 for sure okay all right i do want to say though your dad gare bear i think showed you a really good example and role model he always took you guys to school.

19:30He always showed up for all your stuff. He was very hands-on. He cooked you dinner. He was very comfortable. I always say that entrepreneurs in general, business people, men, women, sometimes ambitious people, they lose sight of what the whole reason for doing the whole thing is in the first place. For me, my priorities are straight. My wife and my family above everything else and then everything else to support my wife and my family right like so like listen i love what i do from a career perspective i'm i like making a income i like making a living i like creating big things sure but like if those ever become the thing that's taken away from the other thing then like i'll throw the i'll throw the business thing away right sometimes what's the why it's them because people sometimes especially and i think this is why you see a lot of successful people end up in a miserable way because they lose sight of that and they just like it's just more and more.

20:27You can always build another business. You can always make more money. Yep. To be honest, this is going to sound, this clip will get pulled out of context. Once you kind of figure out that skillset, it's not the hardest thing to figure out. I find trying to be a good dad and a good husband and all that is actually much harder to stay good and consistent at. So anyways, I think like I've always had the perspective of that. And so I want to be involved with my children, my wife. I don't want them to be like, oh, this guy was always gone and working all the time exactly i would say though your mistress is we don't talk about her on the show your your mistress is crafting business deals and putting business deals together i don't know what you're talking about like if you had a mistress your mistress is being creative with deals oh like if oh like i would know i'd like my thing that i like to do yeah obviously like i'm an entrepreneur i like i of course i have i have a mechanism cheating on me with like the business deal fair yeah and i think for every parent it's like whatever that time is that you're with your kid it's like you're showing up and you're being present and i don't care for me it's not always a very long time and i'm sure that you know you all can relate to that and feel that way too how do you deal with that when i'm there i'm really trying to be off my phone and be with them.

21:44It's hard. And it is. I mean, listen, sometimes my, some of my friends are like, wouldn't it be nice if one day you like we go and we live on a ranch somewhere in the Illinois? I'm like, listen, nobody, I got to get back to the office and be part of the auction. Right. Like some people like they like that. Exactly. You have to know yourself to know what feeds you. And, and if you're not, you know, it's the oxygen mask thing. If you're not putting on your oxygen mask and for you, it's like doing deals and getting stuff done. It's the sport that I think I've personally chosen to play. And imagine if you were into tennis or golf or whatever the hell thing, and you're like, someone would say you can't do it.

22:14I have to be able to do the thing. Exactly. But I can't be at the expense of losing the most important thing, if that makes sense. Right. But they sort of interlock with each other, in a sense. It's not fun for you when your wife's in a bad mood. I think you've realized that. I think it's fun for any man when their wife's in a bad mood, right? Or mad. Nobody's like, wow, this is going to be great. Emma Greed said something on our podcast. I love her.

22:36Coterie CEO Jess Jacobs:It was so good. She's so fabulous. I was like, I tell my kids, like, I'm sorry, I have to go to work. Like, I'll be back. You know, mom has to work. I don't want to go to work today. Like, but I have to go to work. And she said, no, you should go to your kids and be like, I love my work. My work lights me up. I love going to work. It makes me happy. Yeah, I love that. I think that's right. That switch was amazing for me. I think that's right because you're showing them that you enjoy everything you do day to night. Yes. I think putting that positive spin on everything is always the answer, truly, to the best that you can for your kids.

23:15Internally, you could think whatever you want about it. But I always try to sort of make light of things and make the most of things and not let it all get so heavy for them, at least. Anytime I'm hopping on a flight, it's like, it's going to be so quick. Mommy's going to have fun. You're going to have fun. I'm going to be back so soon. And guess what? I'm bringing a present when you come back. and then like that's what oh yeah that's what it's all about so no but she she said that before essentially like her kids would view it as something she did not like doing or she was unhappy doing so they didn't want her to go be unhappy right so as soon as it switched and was like hey i'm actually going to go enjoy this because like have fun they like it you know what are some micro things you do as a mom to balance out the business and being a mom such a good question i will say we as a team as a coterie team we're fully remote so we work from home so it blends in a way and i love that and we have a team of a lot of parents and i'm working in my office my kids are in the back of the zoom everyone and everyone else's kids are in the back of the zoom it's not a big deal everyone's used to it we just sort of like roll with it again it's like a team of all parents.

24:28But I also think you guys are like you have diapers and you have wipes. So the kids in the back, it's like the essence. It's the essence is part of it. And if we weren't a company and a business that put our employees first and really prioritized them as parents, how would we be able to show up for our community in a real way? So it's really about making it feel like a cohesive and conducive environment where you can be your most productive self and also like i think parents are unbelievable i've become so much more productive as a parent truly because maybe it's because i only have a short amount of time it's like in this hour i need to get what i would previously get done in two weeks and it's gonna happen and i'm so focused and i'm gonna nail it i talk about this all the time we have some women in this company that are pregnant and expecting and i've talked to them and they're nervous like oh i like i feel like i'm going to be so wrong.

25:23I'm like, no, you're going to be more productive. You're absolutely right. Something skyrockets. And it's the motivation, right? You know what it is? I look back before we had children. We were lollygagging all over the place. How much time did we waste? There was so much. Now, think about it. Well, we were traveling and relaxing. We'd go to New York and we'd do a couple of meetings, but then we'd just be fucking around all the time, eating and drinking. Traveling, having a lot of fun, yes. A lot of martinis. My husband and I traveled everywhere. And it was like me and my best friend TV. Like we are just this.

25:54And that was it. And how much time I spent, I look back, I'm like, wow, I didn't even, you didn't even realize it. Where did the hours go? And now, right, every hour is regimented, but I'm far more productive now. I'm far more motivated now. Becoming a mom skyrocketed my career. Yeah. That doesn't surprise me at all. And I also, you have a greater reason now to be more successful because you have more than yourself to consider. Exactly. What do you think makes a successful team member or employee? You manage a team. What are the traits that you look for? So it's a great question. I think there's a lot of things.

26:33I honestly think that EQ piece is so important, that emotional intelligence. Great one. You know why? You can't teach it. You can teach everything else on the technical side, truly. But if someone doesn't have that emotional intelligence and that willingness and that curiosity to learn and take it on and step outside of their comfort zone, then you're not going to get very far, truly. And that's just something you have or you don't. So when you're interviewing someone, how do you get that piece out of them? Because if you ask someone if they have EQ, everyone's going to say yes. No, no, no, no, no.

27:15It comes through, I think, in the way somebody is talking about the things they enjoy doing. My favorite interview question actually has nothing to do with the day to day work or the job or their background. It's like, what do you do for fun? I want to see somebody get really passionate. I want to see their eyes light up. I want to see how they They pour themselves into something that they care about and what their curiosity looks like. And to me, like, that's it. That's it. How have you guys built your team? Like, what does the team look like behind the scenes? It's a lot of parents. It's an incredible team.

27:54I'm so proud of them. It's, you know, it's diaper scientists. It's true experts. It's brand builders. It's creatives. it's everyone that you can imagine just coming together all across the country everybody's remote how big is the team it's about 70 people now that's amazing and how long have you guys been around like five and a half years that's really really cool so you have a team of 70 so you have all different kinds of facets correct correct but it's it's still a lean team given you know what we're doing and and what we're producing and we like it that way too there's a closeness there's a real culture that we've cultivated we stay very true to our values one of our values is change together I love that one because it's the it's kind of like the nod to changing and changing tables and changing your baby on the changing table but also this idea that as a startup and you guys know this well there's gonna be pivots there's gonna be like shifts like the bus is gonna change directions and as long as we all know where we're going we're all on the same page and we all have the same North star in mind, that's great.