The Beginning

Hi. It’s Jen with my new blog on running a company and raising a family…sort of the “how to do what not to do” approach. As time goes on, I feel that this blog will be titled “When should HRS intervene?” or “How to disguise the New Yorker in you, especially when dealing with someone out of the country, like from NC (I love NC, I live there!)”. I will focus on things that have gone exceptionally well for the family/business, and things that…have not. Let’s begin:

Six years ago, Ryan decided we should take all of our money and start a “.com” on sun protection, and he did, SunFriendlyProducts.com. We had two kids 4 and 2 at the time, and I was 9 months pregnant with my 3rd, weighing in at 210 lbs, when Ryan said “you can work the company, be home with the kids, and I can go back to the business world. “Good idea sweety” I said. Yeah right. Those that know me know I speak my mind “Are you nuts, you want to spend how much to buy items and stick them in our garage, and then I work a company, while nursing one kid, changing a diaper on another, and dealing with the 5 year old who has a ‘mind of his own”--- “NO! No, No, No, No.(with some other terms thrown in” Three kids, all under the age of 5?? I came home from the hospital with my baby, 2 kids at home, and a tape gun in hand.

”…and then you do it…and you realized, “this is AWESOME!” I have no CLUE how I made it thru the first couple of years, but Ryan kept saying, "It will get better"—and it has!

Some basic principals:

1.do NOT use a screw driver to open the tape gun to change out the tape, it just slides in place. The part that unscrews is meant for the actual manufacturing of the gun, and is there for assembly purposes only, not to change tape.
2.when you run out of labels with the UPS machine, do not read the instructions on how to change the labels…its as basic as dropping the roll in, and should NOT take more than an hour to do so. Just drop roll of labels in like toilet paper, close, and press green button, but do not call the UPS support team, they don’t understand. Call me if you have any problems, I can be reached at 1.800.PICK.UPS.
3.When printer does not work, do not continue to hit “print”. If you do this, your IT director (in my case, Ryan) will add paper to the printer when he gets home which will “fix” the problem, and your document will print out the amount of times you have hit “print”. (ie: hitting print x times will cause x print outs)
4.People are not okay when you ship them an item they did not order. (I tucked this in just incase some of my customers read this)
5.Understand that when your kids are making noise in the background, 99.9% of customers accept it, understand it, and enjoy it. Also understand that when your five year old answers your business phone and says, “hello SunFriendlyProducts and let me get my mommy for you, she’s going potty”, that you need to be able take the phone from the five year old, give them the “mom-look” and at that same time, explain your situation (I choose words like “that is our youngest member of the team”). I will never forget how hard that woman laughed at us.
6.Ease up on parenting. Do not rely on the parenting books unless you plan to be supermom. In my case, I would have lollipops on hand, and when the kids got crazy while I was on a business call, I would toss lollipops at them. I am not kidding.
7.If you start your business from home, make sure have bones on hand to chuck at fido if he should bark.
8.Disney is over-rated when you go there for a ‘family vacation’ to get away from the growing business, only to find your entire website, customer data, and everything you built…gone. It was all restored, but the words, “I’m going to Disney World” make Ryan sweat to this day.
9.When you go to the post office with your 5 year old carrying boxes, your 3 year old carrying boxes, and a few packages resting on your 6 month old’s belly in the infant carseat carrier, expect people to remember you, but not to understand you. Make sure you let them know each package is under 1 lb.
10.LAUGH, LAUGH, LAUGH.

But the biggest rule of thumb is humor. There is so much to share, but for now, I think you can see how our family, and family run business, got to where we are today. After Chase’s (9) first sun burn, Ryan said, “Jen, there is a need for sun protection, lets start a business where it’s a one-stop shop for sun protection”. After asking some successful CEO”s of larger organizations what will make a successful business, we learned you need a niche, a need, and a way to get people there. Ryan pulled it together, and we started our company with lack of funding, tight purse strings, many skills including the desire to grow a business and work to get there, and a dream…and we are so glad we took that chance! Since our start, we have designed many UV blocking swimsuits, offered many varieties of UV blocking clothing, introduced the Solaroo Brand, and expanded our product line 10 fold. We have gained major media attention being a Wall Street Journal favorite pick, featured in many magazines and newspapers, and featured on live tv with ABC news and NBC news!

We really did it…5 years later we have some-what well adjusted kids, and a business that we treat as our fourth child, that is our dream come true! We also forgot to pick our daughter up at school one time, and we lost our 4 year old…briefly…but we found him…another time, another story.

But the most important thing, in my opinion, is to work on something you believe in. Our company is truly dedicated to protecting families from the sun with stylish items—and my kids are growing up in the products that I sell. I am a very proud mom and proud business owner, and my sun protected kids can vouch for that! I could not sell items I do not believe in, with the passion that I have for my product line. The only way to be successful at what you do is to enjoy what you do!

Stick around, lots to blog about, but this how we got to today.

Thanks for reading the beginning….