Founder Feature: Daniele Orellana of MITTS

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1:34we were tasting a lot of wine and i was essentially his buddy and doing the tastings with him which meant a lot more wine glasses and he has these really beautiful josephine ute glasses they're incredibly beautiful and great for aeration but they're also razor thin and I broke at least four to five just during that level three exam period trying to hand wash them at the sink because you're trying to shove the sponge in and they break really just with that bit of pressure hey everybody this is Caitlin Bricker editor at Startup CPG we are back with another founder feature. Today, I'm talking with Danielle Oriana, co-founder of Mitz.

2:17Danielle and her husband Lee are transforming everyday kitchen sponges into something beautiful and functional with Mitz, creating sleek, non-abrasive sponges for delicate glassware and fine kitchen tools. Danielle balances this entrepreneurial venture with her career as a full-time pediatric dentist in Brooklyn. As a daughter of immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the late 80s, Danielle brings that scrappy, fearless energy to her business. She handles everything from marketing to partnerships for myths, despite having zero industry experience before taking the sleep. We talk about what it's like being a first-time entrepreneur, how the idea for myths kind of first started as a joke, how versatility is on their side, and how being a first-timer in the CPG space is felt to them.

3:03Their starter kit fits like a mitt with a tidy base that keeps it dry and doubles as a ring dish, bringing both utility and style to your sink. And if you ask me, they are doing something that no sponge brand has ever done before. They're making them sexy. I had a lot of fun chatting with Danielle. And if you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, let me know. Enjoy.

3:28Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin. And today I'm here with Danielle Oriana, co-founder of Mitts. Danielle, welcome to the show. Hi, Caitlin. Thank you for having me. It's great to see you. I would love for you to introduce Mitts to our listeners. Can you tell us what Mitts is? So Mitts at its very essence is a sponge for delicate glassware and fine kitchen tools, but it's actually evolved to be so much more than that. We started off as a brand trying to solve a problem that we frequently ran across whenever we would try to wash our really high-end glassware.

4:06And since then, have actually found that mitts is a secondhand for your sink. You can use it to wash anything that doesn't go in the dishwasher. So wooden spoons, your fancy chef's knives, your Laguio knives, anything ceramic but isn't dishwasher safe. I even use it to wash my La Crescette. And can you tell us, like, describe to our listeners what the sponge looks like and why it's different from a typical household sponge? Totally. So mitts is, as it names suggest, similar to the shape of a mitt. It has two finger slots and you can insert them in whatever way feels more comfortable for you. And the idea is that because it fits your hand similarly to a mitt, you can get inside all the nooks and crannies and you just have a lot more dexterity as you're cleaning things versus with a square sponge, you're restricted to that shape and you can't really get into anything that is circular or maybe needs to be bent.

5:01And it looks nice, too. So my favorite feature about it is that it's aesthetically pleasing and it comes with its own little dish that, correct me if I'm wrong, also doubles as a ring dish, too. So if you want to take your wedding bands off and put it on there, you're not going to lose them. Totally. So we were designing it. My husband, he kind of came up with the idea of needing it for the wine glass. And then as we started prototyping, I was like, you know, I really hate that whatever, especially for me, I have more than one on my finger. I have to take it off. I've almost lost both my wedding ring and wedding band multiple times.

5:39and I just, there's actually, side note, funny story. I came all the way back home from work once because I could not be sure that I took it off at the kitchen counter when I was washing stuff that morning and I was so scared. We were just recently engaged. So that's when I was like, okay, what if we create a thing that just holds it, makes sure it's dry and doesn't get gross and moldy, but also hangs onto your rings and whatever else while you're at the kitchen sink. I love that. So it's definitely solving an issue and it's just a major bonus that it looks good. So, of course, there's a frustration with the rings and not losing them.

6:19But what was going on in your lives at the time where MITS became an idea for you? So right around the pandemic, my husband Lee, he was studying for his first and second WSET exam. And then once he had passed them, WSCT, for those of you that don't know, is one of the more well-known exams you take on the path to become a sommelier. So he loves wine. He's always been passionate about it. Level three is a little bit more involved. They send you tastings and you have to write down different notes and you're being more thoughtful about the structure of the wine, which meant we were tasting a lot of wine.

6:57and I was essentially his buddy and doing the tastings with him, which meant a lot more wine glasses. And he has these really beautiful Josephine Oot glasses. They're incredibly beautiful and great for aeration, but they're also razor thin. And I broke at least four to five just during that level three exam period, trying to hand wash them at the sink because you're trying to shove the sponge in and they break really just with that bit of pressure. And so So as a gag gift, when he passed, I bought him a brand new set of the Josephine Oot glasses, which are like expensive. They're like close to$100 a glass.

7:36And so that's kind of where we started thinking, okay, it's crazy that we have all these incredibly luxurious and nice glasses, but there's nothing specifically made to take care of them. Like everything else that you have that is nice, even your glasses, right? Like there's special lens glass cleaning fluid. There's special lens cloths that you don't scratch them, but there just wasn't anything really like that for wine glasses. Which is so interesting. You would think in a market that isn't going away, it seems that there would be a solution. But I guess we just needed mitts. I think at the time, too, we had gone online and tried to do like preliminarily before even we considered creating mitts just to see like, well, is there something and we're just missing it.

8:22And the only thing we found was something that was like a bottle brush, more generalized. But again, it was large, bulky, has the wand attached to it. And I personally was like, I don't want that out on my counter. And I don't want to have to worry about where to shove it in my Manhattan apartment. So then I was like, okay, there has to be a better idea. Like this cannot be that difficult. We're living in 2023, guys. Like we need to come up with something. But yeah, there just wasn't much, which again was super surprising. So how has myths evolved from the inception of your idea to today? Has there been an evolution of myths?

8:58Totally. We started. And again, both my husband and I are not from this world or this industry. We have no marketing, creative or financial background. We're totally from healthcare. So we started off thinking this will be super niche. It will just be for the wine people. They will love it. And that's all it will be. And as I started using it, as time started evolving, I was like, oh, I actually use this for my knives because, again, it's shaped like this and I can just swipe down easy peasy. It doesn't dull the blade. That's why you can't put it in the dishwasher. I started using it for my Le Crescent pan because, again, it's like this.

9:40So really nice. And then we started getting more into like the houseware and home cleaning and realizing that it's much more than just for wine glasses. is that we've had customers write back emails to us and tell us they actually use it for their baby bottles, which is another need apparently that people either like to or prefer to hand wash them. And there, I guess, is not or not anything as comfortable as mitts. So it's evolved quite a bit since we first started. I can speak to that because I have an 18 month old and I have never put her bottles in the dishwasher. I just don't trust the high heat.

10:15So I prefer to hand wash everything. So that's a really interesting use case past that point now, but I could totally see myself using it for that. We actually had people reach out to us and let us know that they use it to wash their chopsticks. Apparently people have really high-end chopsticks that I guess they don't put in the dishwasher. So, you know, we were just like, okay, great. We love washing your chopsticks. That's fine. I love that. I also love that the non-alcoholic world is evolving so much and there are still people out there who are not drinking alcohol but still want to drink out of a nice glass and this sponge is a perfect solution for people who still want to be classy and not just use like a regular pint glass to pour their wine in.

11:03So we also have noticed that as the low ABV world has grown and the market has flourished, people still want to have the ritual of having a nice beverage. So we're happy to see that while maybe people aren't consuming as much alcohol or consuming it differently, we're not losing that luxurious moment of having a nice drink when you get home. Totally. And I am one of those people. So you're not going to lose your market share to a growing non-alcoholic movement. That is for sure. I feel the same way. I mean, I come home and I like the idea of having a nice drink with my dinner, whatever I just spent time making, but I don't really like the way that alcohol makes me feel.

11:49And I definitely don't like the way that it makes me feel during the week when I have to wake up early the next day. So I totally hear that. Love that, Bria. So you mentioned that you and your husband, Lee, are working in healthcare. So you're in the medical profession. How do you balance running MITS while maintaining your medical careers? And what skills do you feel transfer between medicine and building a business? I will say residency for both of us definitely helped, in my opinion, prepare us for this moment, just meaning residency is really intense. You don't really have much time to yourself or time in general.

12:27So you really learn how to manage almost every second of your day. And I think too, between the two of us, Google Calendar, shout out, like has saved us a million times because we have a joint calendar. Anything that is for both of us to be present has a special color and it just keeps us on track. That and just communication is a big thing. We have like little mitts meetings at the end of every day. So when the two of us come home, we either go outside for a walk or we just kind of sit down. It's like, okay, what happened today on your end? What happened from your end? Any decisions we need to make?

13:03Cool. Break. I love the organization too. We'll be right back. A few years back when I ran a beverage company, we had to launch using those plastic sleeves to put our designs on the cans, but they looked bad. The sleeves get stretched out. They don't cover the full can and overall they just look and feel low quality. Lucky for you, digital can printing technology has come so far over the last few years that now you can launch your beverage brand or new SKUs with a fully printed look and it's at similar pricing to those plastic sleeves. Our friends at CanWorks, which is the largest U.S.-based digital can printer, are happy to work with our community at very low minimums, even one pallet.

13:40They've got locations in the East Coast, the West Coast, Texas. Get in touch with them through our contact form. It's at canworksprinting.com slash startupcpg.

13:55Google Calendar really is a lifesaver. My husband and I also have a shared calendar and it is a game changer. Huge. It just makes it a lot easier to be on top of where you need to be and who needs to be there, right? Like there's obviously things only he has to go to or maybe only for me or it just didn't work with one person's schedule but we're okay with that person doing it. So it's just like less friction point for us in terms of organizing everything. So how do you split up your roles in METS given that you're both working in medicine? What do you take on and what does Lee take on? Very good question.

14:32Another thing that definitely helps us in our partnership is we are very different and very similar, but where we're different, it's the other person's weak spot. So Lee is incredibly organized as you would want any surgeon to be. He's very type A and very risk averse. So he's like our supply chain person, our finances person. If you've ever been in a meeting with Lee and I, Lee is the one always asking the money questions. Where it's like the thought doesn't really enter my mind much. I'm just kind of like Lee does the time, the money, and like the logistics of things. And then I try to handle more of the personal relationships and the marketing component just because for me that feels more natural.

15:15I always say that pediatric dentistry is very similar to marketing. Anything with a kid it's like oh he doesn't want a carrot well what about a silly orange stick do you want that and in their mind it's like you know what I'll have the silly orange stick. Never had one of those before. You're like great carrots. I'm gonna have to try that on my daughter. That is so funny. All the time in the office with kids when they come in, especially when they're little, like mostly the under four, especially about flavors, they're very intense about flavors. And so, you know, they'll see the chief is like, I don't want it.

15:50And like, Oh, well, do you want sparkle paste? Did you know Elsa gets sparkle paste? And they're like, what? So again, just very, I feel like that's where for me, in my opinion, the marketing component feels a little bit more natural versus for my husband, who's a surgeon, he's like, I want results. I want goals. I want KPIs. He needs to know definitively for some a little bit more flexible. It sounds like a really great balance. We try. It's tough, but we try. I mean, we could not do it if there were not two of us. If this was one person doing this, for sure, it would be close to impossible. I don't know how single founders do it.

16:29I'm always in awe of them because it's a lot. We have a lot of solopreneurs in our community, and I am equally amazed by them. It couldn't be me. I can tell you that much. Even just splitting the responsibilities between Lee and I, like I was saying earlier, at times feels so overwhelming. And I have another person who I can offload things onto. And still, it's just there's so much that goes into building a business and creating a brand. It's tough. So as a first generation entrepreneur, how has your upbringing influenced what you're doing today? Yeah, I definitely grew up in a house where risks were encouraged.

17:09Both of my parents immigrated to this country from Honduras in the late 80s. And they came as babies like 19 and 24, I think my dad was. So the desire to take risks and to dream, I think, has always been built into me and my upbringing. My parents were not the kinds of parents who ever told me that I could not or that I should be scared. They were always the parents who were like, you want to do gymnastics? Sure. You want to be an astronaut? 100%. You can do it. So it's just something that has lived on through me, pushed me through dental school and residency. And now taking on MITS, I feel like my parents' upbringing and their story definitely prepared me to feel more comfortable taking a risk.

17:55I want to do something that makes it worth it for them in the sense that they left so much family behind and they took such a big risk. And they're very proud of me, for sure. like becoming a doctor for any immigrant parent is like you did it like you couldn't have accomplished anymore. But I still want to create something and kind of like put a name to our name. So that's the goal. That makes a lot of sense. And I like that, too. We'll be right back. Are you going to crush it on Amazon this year? It's such an important channel, but it's so hard to do alone and most agencies are a total ripoff.

18:35We can't afford$5 ,000 a month and a commission on our sales. They just don't get it. That's why I love our partners at Daybreak. They are full service, meaning they do the creative work, the listings, the logistics, and of course, all the ads, all with the most reasonable retainer out there. I work with them personally. I'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you, our community. They do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit. So if you want them to have a look, email them. startupcpg at daybreak.agency and they'll do a free audit for you. Good luck, everyone.

19:08I really like that your parents pushed you to take risks because I feel like most parents are like, oh, don't touch that or don't run too fast or, you know, just encouraging you to be cautious. Correct. Yeah. No, I think because mine came from a place where a lot of opportunity did not and doesn't really exist still, they were like, you are in the land opportunity, like run wild. And I have to say, even for as weird and crazy as things are right now, I do still think this is like being born here is still a very incredible thing. It's a privilege in its own. But yeah. So being in this role of an entrepreneur, have you ever had a moment where you've been like, man, I really wish I had somebody that I could bounce ideas off of other than your husband, or I wish I had a mentor.

19:58And when those moments pop up, who are the people that you turn to? Or how do you push through? So definitely, I mean, when we started this entire process, when I tell you that we legitimately started with like Googling, how do you create a product? Like, that's how zero knowledge we had. There have been many times where I feel genuinely afraid because I don't know the answers and the risks are pretty big. And I don't know anybody who owns a brand or really built a business, especially in the CPG space. So what I have learned to do too, is I rely a lot on startup CPG. That was probably the best find that I came across on Instagram specifically.

20:43And that That is an incredible wealth of knowledge. I can just hop on there and ask like, hey, has anybody heard of this company? Or when did you guys start using a marketing team? Or what's the deal with meta ads? Is it supposed to be this expensive and impossible? So for me, Startup CPG has been incredible. Outside of that, I rely a lot on our marketing and our engineering firm. Our marketing team who helped us with the branding, they have been so kind and so generous. They're called Make Super Good. The one of the guys who runs it actually lives in our building. And that's how we met. And he has like popped into our apartment.

21:21He'll just talk to us about everything, go to market strategy, you know, timeline, when to take investors, what we should consider. So we've been very fortunate that the people who started with us from the beginning have been kind enough to lean into those roles of mentorship a bit more than I think maybe a traditional marketing firm, especially if it's a big company. Not so much. What kind of advice have you received from them since going to them initially to now? They were very adamant of like, grow slowly. You don't need to rush to, you don't need to be the graza of sponges where you're like selling out on your first day of going in.

22:03And they were also very much like master one place first, right? Like make sure the wine people are bought in and then you can start considering like the cleaning and houseware space. Don't do everything all at once. Just kind of, you know, check each box individually. And they've always told us to from the beginning, be very receptive to feedback, even if it means you need to pivot. Like just it means it's completely different than what you plan to do. That's OK. Like just go along with it. So they've been great. I love hearing that. It is very refreshing knowing that there are founders out there like yourself who are taking feedback that sometimes might be hard.

22:41And like you're saying, it might make you pivot your entire brand. And you're taking that feedback and really considering your audience, your market, and incorporating it to make your brand better. Totally. Every piece of feedback we get, we consider. And it stings a little bit sometimes just because it's your baby. It's this thing you've created. And so it feels personal. So Lee and I have a rule where we're like, okay, take five minutes to feel personally slighted by it. And then like really we'll talk about it and we're like, well, maybe that is true though. Or maybe like that's not our market or like maybe that's not our demographic and that's okay too.

23:23But for sure, being able to receive feedback and then actually act on it is really important. You can't take it personal. So is that the advice that you would give other founders? I would say yes, get as much feedback as often as possible and as early as possible because feedback is like the cheat sheet to success, right? It is your audience or an audience telling you what they think and what they want. So if you waste time feeling personally upset by it versus working on it, you're just, it's like getting the answer to a test and just throwing it out the window because it's not the answer you thought was right.

24:01I couldn't have said it better myself. I have oftentimes found myself on the other side of things because I'm obviously not creating a brand. So I've had to deliver not the greatest news to brands about, you know, like mold found in a product or broken during shipping or whatever it may be. And it does not feel good to be on that side of things delivering the bad news. So I can't imagine what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it. But it must take a lot of strength and sometimes self-control to be able to take that and really just like think about it and incorporate it. I will say that's probably another thing that health care prepared us really well for.

24:47Attendings are incredibly knowledgeable and they're the people who mold your knowledge in your specialty, but they can be incredibly harsh. Like the field of health care in general is definitely, I would say, in all of the industries, maybe finance is a little like this, too. Like they're harsh. Lee has horror stories, but the feedback you get is not nice and it feels very personal. Oh, man. All right. I have a question because this is such a different product from other products that will have an expiration date on the box. How are you manufacturing mitts? And what about the product not having an expiration date feels safe or not so safe to you?

25:29So we actually manufacture in China and it's made out of an open cell polyurethane material, which is what helps it dry faster and then also makes it less prone to mold. But having it manufactured in China, as you can imagine right now, was scary when we made that decision. Now feels really scary because of everything going on. But at the same time, it's just not feasible to manufacture in the U.S. for what we're doing. And so we're looking at alternatives. But in the same token, we don't have that shelf life on our product. So we, you know, there's this very famous quote, the tale of the ancient farmer, where it's like, you think that something bad happening to you is bad in the moment, but it's actually good in the long run.

26:18So when we first started, we were upset we couldn't manufacture in the US. It felt like when we really wanted to manufacture in America, but we also wanted proximity to the product so we could check in on it more frequently. But again, we were just like, it's just not feasible. It doesn't exist here. There's maybe, they told us maybe one or two guys who still do tooling for the mold for sponges here. So we were upset about that. But now we had to play such a large order at the time that we're in a good position currently in terms of how much we have on stock that we're hoping by the time we need to replenish, hopefully something will have been sorted.