Sondra Noble On Growing A Business
Sondra Noble is a Nashville-based entrepreneur who co-founder Hip Hues, a custom event swag business with her sister. In this episode she talks with Carli and Spencer about building a business with a sibling, scaling a business as you grow your own family, and the importance of mentorship for women entrepreneurs.
Resources
Hip Hues
About Sondra Noble
Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Sondra came to Nashville some 15 years ago and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Vanderbilt University. Her background is in both tech and marketing. With offices in Nashville and Columbus, Ohio, Hip Hues combines art, fun, marketing, and branding by setting up custom, interactive swag bars for any type of event, anywhere.
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Spencer 00:06
Sandra noble, we're excited to have you on signature required. I was kind of thinking of how to best introduce you. And you are Boss Lady entrepreneur. You are co founder and CEO of hip hues. I have a lot of things that I love to celebrate, but entrepreneurship is one of my very, very favorites. It is my heart language. It's my original language, and particularly the way that you do it. I've gotten to see you as a customer perspective. I've been a customer of yours. I've gotten to see you work in the community and the impact that you have. I'm really excited to unfold all of that with you today.
Sondra Noble 00:44
I'm so excited to be here.
Spencer 00:45
Let's start it off, because you have a long standing relationship with Carly, much longer than what I have a relationship with you. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your story. What brings you to your success as an entrepreneur today, there's always good roots and good stories behind it. So tell me a little bit about yourself
Sondra Noble 01:04
Absolutely. So Carly, should I tell it or should you tell it?
Carli 01:09
I know each other. You get us in trouble.
Sondra Noble 01:13
So Carly and I are both from the Midwest, but she and I met at Vanderbilt our freshman year of college. So her freshman year roommate was my best friend from high school, and we basically just, obviously still hung out in college. And I was always, I feel like, either in their room, around their room, in the hall, all the time, all the time, yes, so we really just got to know each other then. And you roomed with her sophomore year as well, right in North and so, yeah, yeah. So it was a lot of you just being around me, whether or not you wanted to be
Carli 01:54
Let's be honest, freshman year, there's always the people that aren't lovely to be around. Was lovely.
Sondra Noble 02:00
This was so fun, no, but so I and obviously, you know, we stayed in contact. I remember her staying with me when she was in town for your wedding after college, and hearing all about your love story. But basically, I have just loved just like these pockets of just Carly. There's Carly again, there's Carly again, and over the years, and you know, you stayed here, I came back. I did my master's. I stayed, ended up settling here. My husband's faculty at Vanderbilt. That's where we met. We were also a big Vanderbilt family, and so we decided to stay here. We started our business here, not we. I, me and my sister started our business here. Jack is faculty, but Nashville has been good to us. Vanderbilt has been good to us, and I have loved reconnecting with Carly, and then also kind of getting in contact with you all and route consultant and many of your brands, as our business has expanded, and as you guys have expanded, so it's been a lot of fun.
Carli 03:03
Well, and Sandra's being modest, because I have, like, a girl crush on Sandra. She I'm a super fan of your brand, of you, but also of your brand. So tell us a little bit about what your company does, because it's one of those things that I wish I had thought of it, and then I probably could have never executed it as well as you have.
Sondra Noble 03:20
And so I actually love that, because it's the intersection our company, my company, is called hip use, and we set up branded swag bars at events, which means that in just a couple of minutes on site, we've made gifting interactive and fun. And so people get to pick their combination of T shirt size, color, design, ink, color, all of that good stuff, and print it and walk away with it in just a couple of minutes. So what's really fun about that? Because I have a marketing background and I love art, but I'm not actually artistic. So you know when Tracy, who is my business partner and sister, and really, she's the left brain to my right, but she is, like, she was an investment banker, she did business. She went to, like, business school, EBA and so. But she, like, has this creative side where she just does everything like she she's a pilot, she sews, she quilts, she makes beer, she like, she makes wine, calligraphy, quilting, and she picked up screen printing one summer. So Tracy is like this, you know what I mean. But she also, like, loves Excel spreadsheets. So anyway, she's like a unicorn. She is a unicorn. I've never met such a person. Yes, she's also a MacGyver. Anyway, so she picked up screen printing one summer and gifted me this really cool Warhol looking, Andy Warhol looking canvas print of the Columbus skyline. We're from Columbus, Ohio, and so she was really burned out after, you know, she did mergers and acquisitions for SunTrust banking after college. And was like, after a little bit of that, she was like, I'm out. And she just, like, in her recharge, picked up screen printing, among many other things, literally snuck. So our parents are entrepreneurs, and, like, snuck. Into their business after hours because they own, or they just retired, but owned a promotional products company, and so she would like, sneak in after hours, like, taught herself how to, like, coat screens and burn screens in a dark room. And so mom and dad, if you're listening, whoops.
Carli 05:18
Wait. So they know this. Or are we like, I don't.
Sondra Noble 05:22
So she, so she taught herself screen printing, which is not an easy thing, because there's a lot of like, it's very scientific and kind of like, almost like photography. You burn screens in a dark room and there's a and you can the way you make the films, a lot of different ways to do it. So anyway, she gave that to me one year. I was like, Okay, you're not an artist. I'm not an artist. This is really cool. How do we make a business out of this? Because we were both, you know, I was in marketing, and I worked in healthcare marketing, and she, you know what I mean. So I was like, we can always go back to our day jobs if we need to. You know, we have degrees, that's great, but we won't always be able to have the energy and the time and the whatever to, like, get something started. So we were in our mid 20s. I was not married yet. She had just I got her to move down here, and we started. I was just like, I had a marketing background, and I was like, why don't we do this, like, with people, potentially at events, when we first started, we sips and strokes, like the paint and wine classes were pretty popular at the time. And so we were like, Let's do this for screen printing. It's more gender neutral and really different. But business wise, you do that once, you're not really going to do it again. It's like, not a great recurring revenue model. So we had all this stuff, and I was like, we have this mobile equipment, and we can do this for brands, unique designs every time. No one's seen this before. Most people, like, couldn't even tell you what screen printing was.
Spencer 06:48
So I've had the benefit of being able to see you in action. So yeah, when you started off saying, all right, active, live swag bar, and then screen printing, I think there's probably like 80% of people that are imagining something in their head that is wildly different than what you actually do. So just for the sake of someone that has never seen it, because as soon as you see the demonstration, you know what it is right away. But if you have to break it down into the simplest form, for someone that doesn't know what screen printing is, never seen an active swag bar, talk to me about what the product is. I know it, but just for the sake of.
Sondra Noble 07:28
Yes, yeah. So great point Spencer. So what we say for somebody who literally is like, I don't know what screen printing is, I have no idea what you're talking about. So we say it's kind of like, imagine a photo booth on steroids. So we set up this custom activation on site at events. It can be really small, like a photo booth, or it could be huge. If we're getting through a lot of products and people just walk up to our setup. We have different products set up, if it shirts, different sizes, different colors. People get to pick their shirt size, whatever. They get to preview the designs. Most of the time they are branded designs. So we do a lot of corporate events, conferences, although we have done some fun stuff.
Carli 08:09
How many children's birthday parties have you done? Because I'm pretty sure at least two patents,
Sondra Noble 08:14
At least two patents, and another one this summer, we're excited. So we can do really any event type, so it could be fun, or it could be branded, or it could be both. And so people get to kind of customize what it is they want. And then our team, my hip use team, we actually load the shirt onto the screen printing platen, and then bring it down on the design that they've picked. And the actual attendee gets to physically print their shirt. So a lot of times, there are a few different ways that designs can be put on apparel. Sometimes it's heat press. You might have seen that. You might have even had some shirts that crack, and you're like, that's not great. That's heat press, screen printing. That's a very high quality form of printing. That's why we do that. We also print on high quality products. We believe, if you're going to give someone a gift and a cool experience, give them a nice present that they will actually wear. So we print on Bella Canvas shirts, and yeah, so they actually screen print it, that whole process, and then it dries in less than a minute. It completely heat sets and cures. We run it through a conveyor dryer. And so this whole process in about as much time that you would spend in a photo booth, you know, you've you've created and kind of customized a little bit. So not everybody has to get the exact same short color or ink color, but it's still on brand your gift and so, but it's interactive. You always remember, like, oh yeah, at that conference, I printed that shirt, and it's my favorite shirt, you know? And so we like to say that it's an on site experience, it's branding and it's a gift all in one.
Carli 09:36
Well, case in point, Spence took me on a surprise date the first time I realized you had this business. You were, I don't even know if you remember, you took me on a surprise date to the Science Center, the Adventure Science Center.
Spencer 09:47
This is going way back.
Carli 09:48
This is going way back. And they had Harry Potter night. And I'm like, a closet, not so closet Harry Potter. We love Harry Potter. Yes, and you guys were doing the shirts this event. And I remember you could pick what you want on the front, maybe the four different houses you had, the four houses I got you for Harry Potter. Nerds out there. Anyway, I still wear that shirt, and I still remember the surprise that he bought us tickets, and I had no idea what we were doing, and I got a card, because we do events. I said, we have to do this. And I found out it was you. So that's like, our origin story was reconnected. Came from this sweet moment. So yeah, they are very much. It triggers the memory of when you got to make the product. Yes, and it's been a decade.
Sondra Noble 10:30
I love that and that, and we hear that story time and time again from past clients, current clients, even when we do the same event, the same conference, year after year. But they're like, you know, it's new designs, it's new colors. And they're just excited for that, you know, and so, and I can't even tell you how many times we hear, you know, really, people 50, age 50 and higher, being like, I did this in the 70s. I forgot about, I haven't done screen printing. We used to have to cut out the designs with an exacto knife. And this is so cool, you know, like, people that, like, aren't expecting this at a healthcare conference, right? And so just for a couple of minutes, we get to bring art and creativity. It's very Nashville to something very tactile, too, to a very digital world. And so it's really fun for me. So I get to say, like, I get to, you know, make friends and sell art and creativity and branding all day long. And then we get to help people you know really make memories and make something you know, for you know, the cost of really not that much more than just ordering shorts anyway, a really cool event activation that is just more memorable.
Carli 11:39
You're making all these memories for everybody else. How is it working with your sister? Are they the memories you want to remember, or the memories that maybe we pretend don't exist?
Sondra Noble 11:50
We have, we we actually incorporated a little like 11 years ago, so end of 2012 so we are coming up on 12 years. So it has been a roller coaster, because we started this in our mid 20s, and we are now, you know, my 30s Shut the front door, but it has been, honestly a wild but awesome ride at the same time. Because, you know, it's what's really funny. And I can say this, when we first started this, everyone in our family, everyone was like, What are you guys doing? You don't even like each other. Why are you starting a business together? Right? Like, because she was only a couple years out of college. I was maybe four or five years out of college, and we are really, really different. Like, very different, like, polar opposite, different. Like, different friends, different interests, different like, activities, passions, lives. I mean, just very, very different. And honestly, we couldn't stand each other, but getting post college and, you know, working a few years, and then actually, as funny, you know, all that aside when it comes to our business and when it comes to like we have this level of trust between the two of us, because, you know, we know each other really well. We know that we have each other's best interests at heart. We can still agree, and it's still safe, and at the end of the day, we're not, there's no, you know what I mean, there's not gonna be any backstabbing, any of that. And so it's been a really neat journey of learning how to how to communicate, how to, you know, compromise, how to lean into the different pieces of our personalities that make us, as co founders, like, make it magic, right? So she's really good. She's a COO so Tracy's left brain, she is incredible at if I'm like, Hey, I have an idea, or I see this need in the market. So during covid, we added, because live events went away. And I had spent more like six, seven years telling clients we only do events. You want orders. Let me send you to this promotional products company. And then all of a sudden it was like, Uh oh. So, you know, I was like, we all of a sudden, we had, we almost went out of business, first of all, but we had some time to a, take orders and B, figure out, like, what do we do? And for the first time, we had some time to and we we did the risky thing, which has turned out to be really great, which was to invest with our time and money in something completely new that we'd never had the time for, which is on site, leather stamping at events. And so now people can, there's still a branding component to it, but people can personalize with initials and foil colors, leather, higher end gifts. So key tags, luggage tags, that kind of stuff, passport wallets. And so I was like, hey, Tracy, I've been hearing about this for years. Now we have this time. I know it's going to be some time and some money. But like, could we do this at events? And she was like, yep. And like, boom, boom, boom. She's in motion, figuring it out, trying it out. And, like, within a couple of months, we had everything. We'd been testing it and we were launching it. And so, you know, for us to have this synergy and, like, real talk, yes, there are. Moments we again. We see things very differently. We could have been in the same conversation, in the same room, and come away with completely different takeaways. It is comical. Be like I heard this. You heard that, I heard this. And so yes, we still work through that. But there are so many other in so many other ways where it has led to business magic.
Spencer 15:21
Entrepreneurship is hard enough, just in and of itself. The overwhelming majority of businesses don't make it. And when people come and talk to me about entrepreneurship, they often think about partnerships, and I am quick to caution them on that of saying to understand a business partnership is really to be married to somebody, it is a huge commitment. And when you add family in that, I mean that is like a trifecta, ill advised in so many different cases, because it's one thing to lose the business but to lose a relationship with family and all of those different things. So I wonder, when you first started as an entrepreneur, what was it that really led to that entrepreneurial decision to begin with? Because most people go through life and they're corporate, and they think about that entrepreneurship, but they never played it, yeah. So what was the moment where you said entrepreneurship is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna do it with my sister?
Sondra Noble 16:26
Great question. I love that question. So it does kind of go back to origin story. I It's always, it's always been on the back burner for us. So our parents are entrepreneurs, small business owners. It kind of, you know, they started their own business. I was raised in it. I was going to trade shows and setting up booths and selling stuff from, like, the time I was born. Literally, my mom had us and like, we were going to trade shows. So when I really think about sales and marketing and business stuff, like, I've been exposed to it my whole life, and it always, you know, but you know, we went to, like, my parents, prioritized education. We all went to good schools. We all like, got corporate jobs. And we thought, okay, this is what we have to do. But, you know, we got to the point a few years in where we were like, but why not work for ourselves?
Spencer 17:15
What was your corporate job?
Sondra Noble 17:16
I worked at Google out of college, at their headquarters in San Francisco, doing, I was in their AdWords department, so did that, and like, optimization and so I worked at Google at their headquarters.
Spencer 17:31
Where you see all the amazing stuff.
Carli 17:35
When we got out of college, there were, like, no jobs. It was a rough year, so no no big deal. Sandra just landed at Google. It was a huge deal.
Sondra Noble 17:44
It was a great experience, you know, and I was, and I was there while we were, like, we as Google, like, they were launching Chrome as a browser, like, you know, the droid. I have a first model droid. It was, like, my Christmas bonus. Like, it was crazy. So really cool stuff was happening. And the thing I've taken from that job is launch and iterate, right? You can, like, you know, you got to keep trying things, right? You never know what's going to work and may not work, but you have to keep trying, um, but we both had these corporate jobs trade, like I said, Tracy was mergers and acquisitions at SunTrust, um, investment banking, and we were both, you know, after a few years of that, we were just like, you know, I was managing millions of dollars in ad spend for other companies and daily. And I was just like, I want to do this for myself, right? I want to build something for myself. There's always this, I think there's this inner fire, especially when you grow up with parents who work for themselves. They never stop working. I never saw my parents take a vacation. On vacation, my mom's taking business calls, you know what? I mean, like, from the pool, from this, from that, from the air, you know, and so, like, it's just, it's in your psyche somewhat. And at the end of the day, I was like, we were people. We were just dumb enough that we were just like, you know, because we didn't, we didn't take outside investment. Maybe that was also dumb. We just took $5,000 each of our own savings and started this. So that was our initial investment, 10k and we were just like, we'll see what happens. If it doesn't work, we will find jobs again, but we will always regret it if we don't do it right. And it was a little it was more is more interesting, because we couldn't really find anybody that was doing what we wanted to do exactly right people. And it also made things a lot slower, because people are like, what's screen printing? And why would I want this at my event? And it's branding, and it's this, and it's that, and it's what you know, so you know, and we didn't have all this upfront, upfront investment to like, wow people with, you know, marketing and photos and videos and showing them this concept awareness that we were, like, of this new concept that we were bringing to market. So we definitely grew a lot slower in the beginning. It wasn't until, like, really, 567, years in that we were like, Okay, we're calling this a swag bar. We have collateral. People recognize it from having seen it. Events now, right? Because once you do it, you know there is, like, so much of this, like, people are like, oh, and honestly, now, in the last like year or two is on, it really starting to see, like us have competition around the country, like, three
Spencer 20:13
years after leaving Google, when this is still, like, trying to get off the ground. Did you ever look around and be like, I may have made a mistake here, because if I would have stayed at Google, like, the earnings trajectory, I mean, nobody quits Google. Like, you had to go into HR with Google and then be like, No one leaves here. You're not serious. Like, did you have those moments a little bit so
Sondra Noble 20:33
I did, I had when I left, and I actually came back to Vanderbilt and did my masters. And so Jack and I so my now husband, he was finishing. He also did undergraduate at Vanderbilt. So he and I finished with our graduate degrees at the same time, 2011 and at the time, Google had said when I left, because I was like, I'm going to go get my degree. And they're like, if you if you want, you can come back after there were no Google offices in the southeast, and we wanted to stay here. Nashville was booming, or was starting to boom, right? And we left Nashville, you know, my family is in Ohio, his is in Louisiana. And, you know, we were still together, and we were like, We really like Nashville. We think this is a special place. So, you know, I went back into kind of agency life. I went back into marketing and worked in an agency, and then I worked in house at a healthcare company. And I still love marketing, but that led me into this, you know, kind of like this random thing that we created out of nowhere, of just an idea of this birthday present that I got that kind of just sparked this, how do we do something just completely different? And like I said, I mean, it was, it's a lot. I mean, you know, both of you know, it is a lot of time, energy, blood, sweat, tears, you just don't turn it off, right? You live and you breathe it. And if we hadn't done it when we did it, like before I had kids, or before we'd started having kids. I don't know that we would have done it, because it does take a lot of energy. And fortunately, at least my partner, my husband, Jack like he has a more steady, stable University academia life, and so he's able to he's like, Sure, honey, whatever you want.
Carli 22:18
I was going to ask that question, because Spence and I have pontificated about this entrepreneurial marriage is a very different thing, yeah? Because every time you take an entrepreneurial risk, it feels like you're jumping off a building with no parachute, and you're trying to build the parachute as you're falling, and you're Yeah, and then you're married, and you're holding hands trying to build a parachute, each of you with a hand in the middle, yeah. And so I was wondering was somebody because I didn't originally come from entrepreneurship. I kind of came from a more corporate background, yeah. And I remember where I was when Spence told me he was gonna go the entrepreneurial path. I kept it together, because we were together forever. And he was like, This is what I'm gonna do. And I said, Okay, I support you. He walked out of the car. I remember it was raining like a Hallmark movie, and I busted out sobbing because I was like, Oh no, this is a totally different life. And then I've been on board ever since. But it does take a shift from Oh, I'm going to trust my paycheck. I'm going to trust what I was taught to trust to I'm going to trust the Lord and ourselves to make this happen. So was there a transition for you and Jack, or was it just like, go, babe, do it for for me.
Sondra Noble 23:21
And I'm and I feel very fortunate for this. It really was just a I trust you. I literally have no idea, like, because we showed him what it was that we were in. He was like, I don't understand any of that, but if you're gonna make it work, I trust you.
Carli 23:37
Oh, man, yeah. Legitimately,
Sondra Noble 23:39
He was like, I don't, yep, I support you. And so like, I mean, and that's always been, my personality is like, I like, I know I want something, I know I'm gonna go after it. I'm pretty confident with it. And so, and I always, I always was just like, if this doesn't work, it doesn't work, I don't I'm not gonna regret it. I will always regret not doing it, not having tried it, right? And even now, if anything happens, you know, it is what it is. But we've been we've built something really neat. We've employed a lot of people. We actually have people that have worked for us. And now that we're doing events all over the country that you know are working for us, kind of all over the country, and it's not, there are no regrets. It's been really fun, personally and professionally, because there's so much crossover. There's so much crossover and but having that really patient, stable, you know, person who's like, who does hold down a lot of the fort at home, you know, because, like, I'm out and about, and we don't have like, grandparents or a ton of like family here, right? So it's just us, and so that's really important, whether or not it's two entrepreneurs in the house or one and someone else to have that trust, to have that understanding. And I actually would love to know more about how you guys. Do that with two entrepreneurs in the house, because sometimes I'm like, oh, I want to, I want to, you know what I mean, like, because then Tracy and I have this, like, different dynamic, because, you know, we are still fam. We're not married, but we're still family. And so it's hard to turn it off personally, too. It's like, Oh, wait. We also need to be like sisters and friends right now, but all we can do is talk about business. We cannot turn it off.
Carli 25:21
So it's like, another baby. Yeah, it is you're raising. It's my first baby. Yeah,
Sondra Noble 25:26
But then sometimes I'm like, oh, I want to talk to Jack about this. But like, there's a reason he never left academia. He doesn't care, and he doesn't understand, right? He's so smart, so so smart. But he genuinely just like, I'm here to, like, advance the human condition, and that is it. I'm like, great. I'm gonna go over here and talk to someone else about business.
Carli 25:46
Now, you made him a custom t shirt for his academia life. Does he have, like, a wardrobe that he wears to class?
Sondra Noble 25:53
He we all have a lot of hip hue shirts. But what's fun is we're actually approved vendors at Vanderbilt. So we do a lot of Vanderbilt events, and I don't know, like, we've done some reunion events and admissions, in fact, so he has a lot. But actually it was, I want to say, two years ago, was because he's very clear, like, he has to sign a non disclosure agreement, you know, about, like, or disclose that his wife is an approved vendor at the school, you know, like all of that. So, like, he never promotes hip use, because he can't, right? And that would be impartial and biased and all.
Carli 26:28
So, he's not, like, sign up for his class. All of you get a free teacher.
Sondra Noble 26:32
No, because he does order swag, right? And so he has to do it. He like, does it through other vendors, but completely unrelated. Um, there were there was another somebody in the engineering department that reached out a couple years ago, and we've been doing some stuff with the engineering department. He's like, it's weird seeing you here at featheringo. And I'm like, well, it's fun, and the engineers love it because it's different. So
Carli 27:00
I've yet to meet someone who doesn't love a t shirt, a super soft one.
Sondra Noble 27:03
Exactly, exactly. So, so how do your conversations go? Like, how is it having two entrepreneurs in the same house? Do you guys have other entrepreneurs in your family? Like, did you grow up watching that? Slash? How is that with your kids?
Carli 27:19
Oh, the tables have turned. They're now getting questions.
Spencer 27:22
I grew up with a mom and dad that were entrepreneurial through and through, so I can really relate to your story and seeing that early and often. My mom, when she was just out of college, she was the first in her family to graduate college. My dad never graduated college. She opened the first tanning salon east of the Mississippi what so this was back in the 90s, like when it was a real thing.
Carli 27:50
90s. Yeah, original, boss, babe.
Sondra Noble 27:53
Oh my gosh, I love original.
Spencer 27:54
And it's still in existence today, all these years later. She sold it a long time ago, but seeing that entrepreneurial drive has definitely been a bedrock in my life. And, you know, having Carly, Carly has been brought, at first, perhaps unwillingly along, but she came along very quickly and has been supportive the entire way. And that's really what it takes, right? I mean, you've talked about the all in nature that it takes in entrepreneurship is it's not something that you can flip on and flip off. It is consumptive. It's consumptive relationships of time. And if you get your priorities wrong, then it can really become destructive very quickly. Most people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs.
Sondra Noble 28:40
100% accurate, more than I mean, which is why people start and they're like, um, it's way easier to work for someone else.
Spencer 28:47
You're taking that moment where you have received a salary your whole life, and when you go on that entrepreneurial adventure, all of a sudden you're not checking that box anymore, and actually you could do amazing work and have all these great ideas and it fail, and you have paid for the privilege. You're upside down despite you've worked 10 times harder than what you were working in a traditional job. Yep. So I want to ask you a question that is unique to you, in the stats of entrepreneurship, is that less than one in 100 businesses will make it to a million dollars of annual revenue, and of those 100 businesses, still only One 100 of those will make it to ten million of annual revenue. So being successful as an entrepreneur is super rare, and you're in an even more unique category of being a female entrepreneur. That's an even smaller slice. So if you talk a second about. About what your experience has been from that perspective of saying, I've had to do this, but you know what? I've had kids, I've had a life. Talk to me about what that journey has been like for you.
Sondra Noble 30:11
That's a great question. And I feel like there are a couple of different avenues I could take with this. On the female side, right, being a female business owner? Yes, I do feel like and I don't want to go too far down that, but there are more barriers, right, especially since we started and we were young. Yeah, we were we were in our mid 20s when we started our business. And so we not only had a completely new business like concept, we were young, we were women, we were self funded, and people were like, are you crazy?
Spencer 30:48
Yeah, statistically, that's not a great category to find yourself in.
Sondra Noble 30:53
Yes, exactly. And so if we did not, I think so innately, have some of these, and we, honestly, we didn't have mentors either, and I that's one of the things that I think really could have not just outside funding, but I think having good mentors and and CO and or coaches like early on, I think also could have helped us grow a lot faster and more strategically huge. We were just doing this on our own, and we didn't even have our, honestly, our parents, as mentors. Because I don't, you know what I mean, they had their own business. They're in another state, you know, they don't I, you know, they, I don't think they kind of really knew what we were doing until we were probably five to seven years in, and so, so we were kind of just figuring it out on our own. And so it was slower, when I look back on it now, like it could have been a lot faster growth, like we didn't hit the million mark, million dollar mark, until 2021 after almost going out of business, right? And so it was. So there were a lot of barriers. However, I will say no way one just like our different skill sets and the fact that we did have, like, our actual concept was something really special, right? There's something about and there's this book called The Power of moments. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's very powerful. But it's called The Power of moments, and what makes a moment, right? And it kind of dissects it, what makes it so powerful. And I remember reading that from a like, from a consumer standpoint, and I was like, our business inadvertently, and maybe this is a secret sauce, like hits, so many of those things, right? It's like a moment of pride. It's a moment of physical immersion. It's a moment of beauty. It's like all these different things that we kind of create in one so we also working with us, you know, or for us, we had this very special thing that we'd created. And then, like you said, it's, it can be consumptive, and I will say it kind of has been, because I don't really have much of a personal life or time with friends anymore. That's kind of gone, especially since I did start a family, and I have two, two daughters who are young, and so it becomes, like the thing that I prioritize first, right? And so, but because of that, we've been able to grow and expand and create this awesome, and I think really fun thing, and it has been a lot of it is just just this, like, innate, deep, you know, seated like this is, this is what I want to be doing. This is what I believe in. There's almost a, it's almost like a personal mission type thing. And I don't know if I'm really explaining it very well, but it's just there's nothing else I would rather be doing.
Carli 33:38
I really appreciate your authenticity, talking about it being a mom, and because I just feel like the media in the world tells us, girl, go get it. You can have it all. And I do believe you can have anything you work hard for, but you can't have it all at once, no. And so you have this business and you have this family, but maybe you can't have the social life, or you can't read every book you want to read, or you can't go on the trips you want to have. And I just think women are being lied to, and then all of a sudden we feel less than because we don't have all of it at one time. And I just think that's unrealistic and unkind. Yeah, so haven't heard anyone articulate it as strongly as you have, and I want to thank you for that, because that's very real.
Sondra Noble 34:19
Thank you. Yeah, no, I do. I think that's one of the things now that I feel like, you know, my youngest is now three, and I'm like, I'm just starting to, like, feel like myself again, physically, mentally and emotionally, just because so much of it, like, as a business owner, I didn't take a maternity leave. My mom didn't do that. She had four kids every time it was like, You're right back in the office, right? And so I didn't, I've been the only person on the sales side, and so I'm, I had 2c sections, and I'm, like, answering emails and phone calls in the hospital, like it's just it doesn't stop, right? That also took a toll, yeah, on me. And so, you know, I did it because that's what you know, I felt like I needed to do. But when I. Back on it. I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have done it, or I should have maybe asked for help, but I still, still no regrets, but I do think it's like, it's a it's like it's just like a shifting of priorities. You can't do it all at once, but I'm like, Oh, maybe I can start reading books again, because, you know, I started a book club, and I haven't been to it in two years. They still meet and drink without me. I see group me messages, but I'm like, sorry, guys, it's one of my goals to, like, you know, have some, you know, well placed tires, and then I'll be joining again. So, yeah, you just prioritize. But it's still, I don't know, I kind of went off on a tangent. Did I answer your question about, I love your tangent, the women aspect of the business, yes, because, but then to kind of riff off of that, Tracy, my business partner, she just had, she's had her first baby, like, mid April, very recently, and we knew this was coming. And I was like, you're taking a maternity leave, right? You're doing that, right? And so we did everything. We hired a director of operations. We planned for it. She's very process based. So we were like, here are your KPIs. We're giving you these to them, these, to them, these. You know what I mean? So, like, we divvied it up, and she was able to have it and like that was, that's like, the one thing I was like, you have to have that. You have to enter motherhood in not feeling like you've lost a piece of you.
Carli 36:31
You are to give her what you didn't have? Because so many women, sorry, but so many women would not do that. They'd be like, I sucked it up. Yeah, suck it up. But I think that's what elevates all of us. Is No this was my story. I thought I was right. I'm humble enough to be like I wish I had done this different, no regrets, but you get to do different. I think that's very cool.
Spencer 36:52
Sandra, I think you hit on a topic too that is really near and dear to my heart, which is about mentorship, yes, coaching, that is the difference between a lot of failed opportunities. People that I see that come on their last string and say, oh my gosh, I've got this business, but they've sunk all this money into it for a lot of mistakes that were honestly avoidable. Yeah, and I think you occupy a unique spot just in seeing how you've been, in a way, a coach and mentor to your sister, and saying, This is an experience that you need to have. But unlike what it was a couple years ago, you knew how to plan for it. You knew how to put it into place and say, this is something worth spending money on, because that wasn't a free choice that you made. It was an intentional choice, though. And I wonder, in your life, do you get the opportunity to pour into other entrepreneurs, whether they're female or not, about the things that you've had to learn the hard way over a decade.
Sondra Noble 38:05
I try Absolutely, so I'm not, while I'm not currently in any, like, formal relationships, I do get so I'm in the events and hospitality industry, right? Although, really we we touch a lot of industries. And yes, when people either ask me for like other young women ask me for meetings, or ask me to look at their pitch decks, or ask me to look at their pricing. A lot of women don't know how to price their products and their services, right? It's like you're really underpriced, or you haven't considered this, that or the other, right?
Spencer 38:34
There's a great study on that, just to interrupt on that part is there is some fantastic data that talks about the difference and how men price products and how women price products is that there is a much higher comfort level for men to price a product more aggressively than what women so I just had to interrupt your chicken like.
Sondra Noble 38:56
So I'm like, it is especially since I'm I'm a part of this organization called Brain Trust. So it's like, kind of EO for women, and getting them to the million dollar mark and beyond. And so absolutely, that is one of the things that we talk about. And so where someone's like, Can I get a coffee? Can we talk like, 100% yes, always yes, because that is like, that is how you give back to other women. And that is, I can think of a handful, like, less than five times, but the few times where I asked somebody to meet and to review something and just, like, take that meeting, it was meant a lot. So I think it's important. And like, I mean, and honestly, to that point, I still think people would say, like, where do we go for that? Is it a is it a paid thing? Is it you just have to luck into finding a mentor? I do think that there's still a lack of awareness for a lot of not even just women, I would just say entrepreneurs around around, what that looks like, especially if you didn't go to business school.
Spencer 39:59
One other call out. That I just found really compelling in your answer is you talked about a mission for why you're doing it, and the sacrifices that we all have to make as entrepreneurs. Rarely do I meet an entrepreneur that is just about the money of saying I'm here to make a lot of money. Now there are some and it's interesting, the stories from those entrepreneurs, almost universally come from a household that knew nothing of any financial wealth, gotcha.
Sondra Noble 40:32
So like that is the end goal. And the yes, that is the big goal.
Spencer 40:36
They’re honestly not after the money. But what freedom, what certainty, what security that provides, but that usually burns out, and when I meet with somebody that has a motivation purely for money, it's immediately about what's deeper there, like what is really you're not after pieces of paper with pictures of dead guys on it. You're you're after what that gets you. So when you think about what your why is, what your mission is, you're in a fun product, a whimsical product, right? You get to put a T shirt. You get to put a great design on it. You spread the ink across it. You have a an amazing moment. Talk to me about what your WHY IS, and your mission in your business.
Sondra Noble 41:25
The why or the mission in my business. So the for I'm trying to think of, do I just do I talk about this for me, like me personally, or kind of on the business side, but I will say that what gets me up every day is, and what gets me probably the part of the job that I'm doing. And I just hired a new employee, which, and she's amazing that I'm most excited to train. And she's like, What do you like the most about your job? And I'm like, it is what I call, like, Discovery calls, right? So talking to new people that either have heard about us or a little bit or not. Don't, like, maybe don't know anything, or you never know. You're just, it's a new it's a new lead. But they've reached out, and they're like, oh, I need a quote for this event, right? And what I love about that is I get to, basically, I think of it like I'm just making friends all day long. But basically I just get to, like, ask questions. I get to learn about people and their events in different industries. Sometimes it's a lot of times it's business, but basically I get to make them look good. I get to make all of their attendees that be that are a part of this, have this really cool, different memory and experience. And basically I just get to sell joy all day. And so, like, what I love about that is I could never be I was always told, because I was wheeling and dealing from the time I was very young in like, toys and stuff on the playground, that I should go into sales. But I've never, ever even considered sales as an adult, because I can't sell something that I don't believe in, that's maybe unethical, like any of that, like, that's I'm not, I'm not your average salesperson, because I'm not purely money driven. Right? If I just cared about money, I would have probably stayed in corporate America or whatever, like, made different entrepreneurial choices, even right, for me, it's more about building something, building something with impact, building something that makes a difference in the community and lives. We do. We give back to, you know, and we try to, like, one of our core values as a company is to spread knowledge and love of creativity in the arts, right? Because this is several 1000 year art form that, like most people have never heard about, right, and that a lot of people don't have access to, a lot of kids don't have access to. So we do a lot of free or reduced events for underprivileged schools and students, and want to keep doing more of that. And so that's, that's, that's the why is that we get to make people feel special and important, and honestly, help brands be more authentic in how they present themselves, right, rather than just, like, Here, here's this free swag, right? Or here's these free tchotchkes and gifts that, like, you're not really, you know what I mean? Like, it's kind of almost like, soulless, right? Or that you're immediately going to throw away, right? Like, I don't need that pin, right? Like, no. Like, it's just more intentional. And so I think it's really special that we get to be a part of just something different and unique and putting a smile on someone's face. Because we do hear that a lot, like, this is my favorite shirt, or my wife stole it, or my kid stole it, you know what I mean? And so it's like, I'm like, yay. Like, that was that was lasting. And so I get a kick out of that.
Spencer 44:44
Feel like we just went on a journey there with you a little bit. I know it's like, Lauren, you're wise. I think that's really important for every entrepreneur, but just all of us in general, to take a moment. And it was great. To see you went, you went layer after layer, and then next layer was like, we sell joy to people, right? We got one layer like, side.
Carli 45:09
It's like, your body language, it's like, released. It was really cool.
Spencer 45:14
And then you're talking about giving back to the community and making brands more authentic that I think really starts to get at the heart of what makes me love hip hues. Because when I bring somebody to my event, I want to create wow moments. I want them to come away feeling like that was truly special. This is one of Carly's greatest gifts. She does a party unlike anybody that I've ever seen.
Sondra Noble 45:44
I know that's true. That's true.
Spencer 45:48
And you're right that you show up. I go to so many conferences and you get a grab bag of crap. You said it right.
Carli 45:56
It's soulless sugar coat it, babe,
Spencer 45:59
Just like you don't want to throw it away, because that kind of makes you feel bad.
Sondra Noble 46:02
Yeah? You're like, I'm not going to use any of this
Spencer 46:04
But your product, it's immersive, it's interactive, and it really does create that moment, just like what you were talking about in the in the book. I haven't read that book, but I can just hear it from the title that our generation in particular is so experiential, yes, right? Yes, so much conversation that we don't buy stuff anymore. We buy experiences. And the shirts that you all use are just unbelievably soft, like they're
Sondra Noble 46:37
still has to be good.
Spencer 46:40
They are the greatest, great shirt that you create a moment for people, and by extension, what you do is let me express my brand better, and you help advance my cause in a way that has people years after they've come to my conference, they're not talking about the keynote speech, they're talking about the shirt that they've got and how their kid steals it out of their closet. And I see them as I go in different events and all the other places they'll show up in one of the shirts.
Sondra Noble 47:10
And so, oh yeah, your kids have your shirts.
Carli 47:13
And I would say, you help us love on people. It's like when we're throwing a big event, we don't always get to talk to every person, but when they take something that you have put that much care into, I think it pushes forward how much we care about them. That's well said. So you I love you pass our love for people, on and on and on, and it doesn't end. It's a chain that's very cool.
Sondra Noble 47:36
I love that.
Spencer 47:39
Okay, so the last thing that I want to spend some time on is a passion of mine, again, is coaching entrepreneurs. So in Tennessee, Tennessee is one of the very best places to be an entrepreneur. Agreed. It is agreed from doing business in a lot of different states, there are states that will eat you up and spit you out, and we create more than 50% of all the jobs in the United States. It's small business owners. So talking today, what are your biggest struggles as an entrepreneur? Is it access to capital? Is it hiring people? What things do you struggle with in business? Because I think, like a lot of people, may relate to it, or it may be something unique to you.
Sondra Noble 48:24
That's a great question. Okay, so a few things, one, we are both a product and a service, right? So hip use is unique. We're not just a service. We're not consultative, right? We, you know, we do provide a service because it's an on site experience, right? But we also provide this very tangible product, so our overhead is pretty high, right? And so because we have we have a big team. We have to house and inventory a lot of different products and equipment, right? So we we have unique problems from both product and service based industries. We have more and more employees, right? And I, like, probably the biggest face issue facing us right now is that I need to hire and go out for the first time, a sales team I have been supporting as a single like co founder, right, all of our growth for over a decade, and that is not sustainable, and that has held us back, right, like we I actually need other people who are actually salespeople, right, growing the team, and not me, doing everything, whereas I have this like operations team of like, over 30 people executing on everything right, from full time to part time. And we don't have any contractors, everyone who works for us. We made them an employee, right, even if it's just gig work. And and so one of the biggest issues is, is we're kind of in that growth phase, right? And then another big issue that we faced a couple years ago is, and this is the double edged short of being in Nashville is being a small business and renting in your space, renting. You're owning a space, right? And so a lot of stuff doesn't hit the market. It just, it's like developers snatch it up or whatever. And so, like we thought we knew that the place where we were renting at track one in Wedgwood, Houston, we were there for our almost a decade, forever, right around Did you ever you visited our studio there, right? Yeah. So we were at track one forever. The person, his name is Scott Lewis. He was amazing. He really helped a lot of small businesses, like almost incubate and start there and make really affordable rents and so. But, you know, ultimately, a developer, almost 10 years in, made him an offer he couldn't refuse. And we were, we saw the writing on the wall, you know, and we were like, we need to, we need to find a space. And then we went on this almost year long journey of frustration and whatnot, just because there, there was nothing that we could afford. And the only way we even got the building that we ended up buying in East Nashville, because we need, we have to warehouse. We need a lot of space because we we have, we have trucks, we have, we have, you know, all of this that we deploy for events, pallets that we're shipping out for events across the country, as well as screen printing and leather stamping and all the inventory. So we needed a lot of space. And it was a unique space, right where we could, like, you know, loading docks and like all of that. But that's also client facing, because we host on site experiences.
Spencer 51:25
Understand why you don't have a lot of competitors?
Sondra Noble 51:29
Yeah? So it's, it's a lot of, you know what? You know where it's not, it's not software as a service by any means. But we couldn't find a space, right? And the only reason we lucked into the space that we did, and we it's so funny when I think back on it, we were like, and it was a stretch, like, we're looking for something in the one to $2 million range, and this was in 2021 2022 but like, we thought that was, like, a stretch for us, because, like, you know, I mean, and then we were like, ha, ha, ha, that's never going to happen. Like, and the only reason we got the building that we did in East Nashville at over 3 million was because the owners of the company, I'll give them a shout out, because we're very grateful to them. Call your roofing in the Douglas Jones area in East Nashville, and that's very up and coming in the Galison corridor, near where Oracle is going to be is because they were like, we're not, we're selling to a local business. We're selling to a small business. We refuse to sell to a developer. Wow. And we had developers, like, trying to undercut us, like, you know, not really over, you know what I mean, like coming over us, like, because it was such a great, a great deal, and it was a huge stretch for us, but that was the only way that we could have gotten it. So I do think that's another thing that's on our radar. And Tracy, actually, my business partner, actually spoke at a National Business Journal panel last, I think last fall, on on that, on pretty much how hard it is for small businesses to either rent or buy in this market in Nashville. So that's an issue. And then I don't, I think there was one other thing I was going to touch on, but really, I'll just come back to kind of what I said. I think it's just, I think either mentors or coaches or, if not having even some sort of forum, right, whether it's EO or braintrust or a mastermind, that you're a part of peer coaching, something like that. Because if you are a solo business owner, that can be hard, but it's all it also can be hard having partner, a partner, or partners, and so being able to, and I believe so much in that, you know that I joined braintrust in 2019, but and I did it just by myself. So Tracy wasn't in a vault. They call it a vault or a forum, and I did it, and like, two or three years later, I was like, Tracy, you have a very different mindset, and you handle a very different part of the business. You need to have your own group that we can each bring our own individual ideas and like pieces of the business to and really have more eyes on it, more business owners weighing in on it. And so she joined a couple years ago, and that's been really great as well. And so I do think that, you know, finding the time to connect and to collaborate, as hard as that can be when you're just nose to the grindstone, I think that's really important. Really, really really important. So those are some of the ones that come off or come to mind off the top of my head.
Carli 54:25
So I'm hearing two things, yeah, you need time to work on your business, not in your business. Well, that's true. So that's why you need a sales team, yes. And two, you need community, yes. And I think, yes, I know we can relate to that as partners and married, we need our own communities, yes, also so that we can have sounding boards. It's just healthy, for sure. So I think that's super relatable. Sandra, you're not alone. Thank you.
Spencer 54:54
A really smart decision that I see you making right now in the business, and a lot of business owners go way too. Long, myself included, you've done this is because we can do most of the things in the businesses. We have to wear a lot of hats. We feel like that we ought to, and what a lot of entrepreneurs seem to feel nervous about is to spend the money to be able to hire somebody that can do the job, sometimes not as effectively, right? When you're the owner of the business, it's natural that you're probably going to do some things at the most or highest level of effectiveness, but you sometimes wait until you're drowning and then an extra cup of water on top, and say, I need to hire somebody. Yeah. And then by that time, you got to train them, and heaven forbid you lose them. Uh huh. It's a tough dynamic, but it sounds like you're going through exactly that cycle now, of coming out the other end of that, yeah, you're hiring sales hiring the operations manager.
Sondra Noble 56:00
Honestly, 2024 is the year of people like getting our house in order, right for growth, because we do, you know, we want to, we're we've been doing so many more events, really, around the country, and the travel fees can sometimes be not prohibitive, but if we can launch hubs around the country, which is what we want to do, you know? And so our new director of operations, Laura, she's amazing. She has an operation. She has an operations background, and helped open Amazon stores and warehouses around the world, actually. And so we're really excited about what that could bring. So hiring strategically for the people that can get you where you want to go is important and but hiring salespeople is very, very difficult, and so, and that is what we have learned the hard way, and also because, again, we sell both the product and an experience. It's very different. We don't sell like, just a venue, like a hotel or, you know what I mean? It's not like, here are your packages. It's like, you need to tell me about your event. Every quote is a little bit different, different products, different quantities of people, where is it located, and so it's just, it's not a super cookie cutter sale. So that's also been just one of the just, you know, things to overcome is that it's a very unique type of sale, relationship based sales, though, that's what I go for.
Spencer 57:19
It's a good title. It's like entrepreneurship. Things to overcome.
Carli 57:24
Your memoir, you're gonna write your own book for book clubs. Author at it okay, but if you had to go back and tell baby Sondra you weren't a baby, but like in 2012 if you had to go back and tell baby Sondra something or the thing, that when your littles come and be like, Mama, I'm starting my own thing. It's my time. What do you wish you knew?
Sondra Noble 57:46
Oh, my gosh, that's a good question. There's like a million things I could say to this, um, I would say, and maybe this is just because this is where I am now. But because drive is never a question, I'm not going to say something like, try, like, never give up. Keep working hard. Because if anything, that's like, my downfall. I do that too much. So if anything, I would, it would be like, slow down, enjoy the ride. You will get there and ask for help faster.
Carli 58:25
I could have used that.
Spencer 58:28
Sandra, it's a real treat to have you on signature required.
Carli 58:31
This was so fun. Thanks guys. You're amazing.
Spencer 58:34
You have an incredible story. And just to see your success, having seen it from a lot of different perspectives, it's fantastic to feature you here, seeing your mission, not only the impact of my own own business, but on the other businesses that you get to interact with on a daily basis. It's clear that you care, and it's really neat to see. So we're excited to have you here, excited to see the future for your company and all the ways that you sell joy to a lot of people down the road, so thank you for Thank you.
Sondra Noble 59:02
Thank you.
