How NOT to Business Like Elon Musk with Jesi Whelan

Every business creates waste but imagine turning that waste into a NEW business?

That's what Jesi Whelan did with her kids clothing company, Phoenix Pre-Worn.  The clothing that's too torn or stained to be sold gets used in her second business she started with Samantha Hulst from June Bird.
Together they teamed up to create a craft subscription box using textile waste from kids clothing called Canary Kids Club.
Jesi talks about the misconception she had about Big E Entrepreneurism...it's not all Elon Musk and Stock Options!...and how her perception shift made the leap to opening her own business less scary.
We talk about Ghost Energy on thrifted clothing...does it exist?!
What is this place?!
Let's go inside and find out.

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Transcript

Pheonix PrewornDraft 1

[00:00:00] Miranda Black: By pure accident, my next three episodes are about sustainable clothing for kids. 

[00:00:06] Miranda Black: Now, wait before you turn the channel, I did debate launching them all one after the other, because I know not everyone cares about kids or kids clothes. And I don't want to lose you if this is not your bag, baby. 

[00:00:18] Miranda Black: But I edited these in a way that makes it less about " shop these cute kids brands" and more about how do you start a business, especially a de-growth business in the current post COVID uncertain economic atmosphere and who better to talk about an uncertain atmosphere than people with new babies in their houses. 

[00:00:38] Miranda Black: Babies are zombies. They will eat your brains, laughing at you at 3:00 AM and not give a flying poop. 

[00:00:45] Miranda Black: These entrepreneurs all faced harsh limitations on their time, resources, and all of them had to make difficult entrepreneurial choices that ultimately would make or break their businesses. So I think they're worth a listen, whether you have kids [00:01:00] or not. 

[00:01:01] Miranda Black: The first in my little trilogy of sustainable children's wear is a subscription model. What is that? Well, back at my men's wear store, I think around 2014, I became aware of this new kind of shopping where you can get a box of clothing delivered to your house. You try it on, keep what you like, send back the rest and repeat the process again the next month. 

[00:01:23] Miranda Black: I was not interested in this business model for my store because I kind of saw it as a gateway to over consumption. I was given a peak behind the business model and they love the idea of people forgetting to send back the stuff that didn't fit or that the people didn't want. Or the client forgets to pause the box once they have enough clothes. 

[00:01:44] Miranda Black: Over buying by the client was a big allure for the subscription company. And I think these boxes, they kind of prey on people who have shopping issues. People who can't get enough. But subscription boxes do serve a great [00:02:00] purpose for people who are organized and have enough willpower to send the returns back. 

[00:02:05] Miranda Black: And who have limited time or who for whatever reason, prefer shopping from their bedroom, with this built in ability to send it back, knowing it's not just going to landfill, 

[00:02:17] Miranda Black: which spoiler alert is the businesses usual choice for most returns to the really big guys, the, you know, who's. So if you're someone organized enough to try the stuff on and send it back in the timeframe, it's a great option. And who wouldn't love a surprise box of clothes. So what's the de-growth solution to this surprise box of clothes. 

[00:02:40] Miranda Black: Wouldn't it be great. If there was a subscription model that used thrifted clothing, I would sign up for that right now. Well, I found one

[00:02:48] Miranda Black: for kids because kids get all the good stuff. It's a subscription box that's 100% pre loved. Jesi Whelan, she was not in fashion or in [00:03:00] clothing, but she was a mom and she knew two things. Number one, kids grow out of clothes faster than should be allowed. And number two, a lot of parents, she knew were unhappy with the thought of buying clothing for their kids made by poorer kids in poorer countries, mostly young girls and women who are the ones paying the price of that 5 99 t-shirt. 

[00:03:22] Miranda Black: She discovered these more conscious shoppers, and there's a lot of us out there, they were hungry for an easy, low time commitment thrifting option. So who is Jesi... wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's more. 

[00:03:36] Miranda Black: Jesi launched a second business that was born from the textile waste that her thrifted subscription box was creating. It's a What's This Place? two-fer using the circular economy. We're going to get to her other business in the second half of the show. Can you guess what kind of business you can make from stained and torn kids clothes. 

[00:03:55] Miranda Black: So who is Jesi Whelan and what is [00:04:00] Phoenix? Pre-Worn. 

[00:04:05] Miranda Black: Can you take me back a little bit into how and why you started? First of all, can you explain to me what Phoenix Pre-Worn is? 

[00:04:15] Jesi Whelan: So it's kind of like a meal kit for kids clothes. I curate a custom wardrobe for each child in the family according to the specifications that are set out. 

[00:04:24] Miranda Black: And you're doing that all with Pre-loved clothing?

[00:04:27] Jesi Whelan: Exactly. 

 Do they send any back or do they keep everything? 

[00:04:30] Jesi Whelan: I have a Takeback program. The person has the option. What I'm really doing, Is sourcing all of that stuff, putting it together so that everything is unified, like it's a capsule, wardrobe, uhhuh, where everything goes with everything else.

[00:04:42] Jesi Whelan: There's kind of a single aesthetic to it, but it's also the feel of the fabrics. And I have quite an awareness because of my own kids, of people's sensory needs in terms of textiles. 

[00:04:51] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:04:51] Jesi Whelan: So that's the kind of thing that I try to accommodate. And then if people have things that are like blacklisted in their minds, like never give me Marvel.

[00:04:59] Jesi Whelan: Seemed, [00:05:00] yeah. T-shirts, I just can't handle it then I won't. Yeah, yeah. Right. So it's a way to crowdsource hand me downs, you know? It's like people can give things back to me and then I'll try to rehome them the best I can, or people can pass them on to someone in their circle or in their community. Like if they're ordering from me and I'm shipping to them, maybe it doesn't make sense to ship it back.

[00:05:19] Jesi Whelan: Right, right. Yeah. But for some people being able. Just put things in a mailer bag that I include in the box and then send it off to me at my expense. It's like the difference between decluttering their house and not doing it right. So I wanted to give people that option. 

[00:05:33] Miranda Black: So you send me a capsule of kids' clothing, right? And then I use it and at when it gets to the end of its lifecycle, I can just send it back to you? 

[00:05:44] Jesi Whelan: That's right. And you know, we don't want it to be at the end of its lifecycle. The whole goal is to prolong that lifecycle by finding new homes. 

[00:05:52] Miranda Black: Is this, are you the first person to have done this? How did you

[00:05:55] Jesi Whelan: There is a really cool clothing rental service called Full Circle, and those [00:06:00] boxes are curated, ethically made Canadian brands. They skew toward natural fabrics and organic where possible.

[00:06:07] Miranda Black: Is it new textiles then? It's brand new stuff? 

[00:06:10] Jesi Whelan: I think that stuff is brand new, but the idea is, you know, buy something that is really well made that has longevity built into it, and is for a slightly younger audience where kids will grow out of their things quicker, and I think they'll rent them for a period of like three to six months. And then give back, and then that collection will go back out to another person. So that's a rental. They're high quality and all of that, but it does, it starts with new, they're serving the market that's like zero to 24 months. It's a super high turnover. So basically people just don't need to store any anymore baby clothes than they're borrowing for the time that they need them.

[00:06:45] Miranda Black: And oh my god, I had no idea when I had my child how quickly 

[00:06:48] Jesi Whelan: exactly. 

[00:06:49] Miranda Black: They grown outta stuff. Even in the first three months they go through. Yeah. My child was born early, so he was wearing like 

[00:06:56] Jesi Whelan: mm-hmm. 

[00:06:56] Miranda Black: Preemie kind of clothes, and then it was like one to [00:07:00] three months, but it was so quick. I'm like, oh my God. And some stuff I received that I never even used. Beautiful stuff. Same that I, I put on him and I'm like, oh my God, it doesn't even fit you. You grew out of it before. I had a chance to even use that. 

[00:07:14] Jesi Whelan: Precisely. You know, there are many people out there who feel that managing their kids' wardrobes is an enormous chore and a burden that they don't want to be doing. 

[00:07:24] Jesi Whelan: and not everyone has a great source of hand-me-downs. A repeat customer in Montreal, you know, when she was going out and sourcing hand-me-downs, like she was on a listserve in her neighborhood in Montreal, and so she would go out and be getting these bags of clothing from people around the hood, and she had this job now of sorting through things, finding things.

[00:07:43] Jesi Whelan: She gave herself this unwanted hobby of inventory management. Right? Yeah. You know, even though she was getting the clothes for free, she had a job to do. Yeah. So when I, when I told her my idea, she was like sign me up! She was like, I don't, I don't ever want to be doing this. 

[00:07:58] Miranda Black: It doesn't sound like anyone's doing [00:08:00] it with used clothing.

[00:08:02] Jesi Whelan: I thought about curating boxes of the best brands that I could find that were locally and ethically produced that would be ultimately biodegradable and preferably plant-based. Right? So that was certainly a thought that I had. And then I read a book called Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas. I dunno if you've read that book.

[00:08:19] Jesi Whelan: It's fantastic. She's just, Extraordinarily gifted journalist and like. Long story short, in the conclusion of this really wide ranging close look at the industry, she says there is nothing more sustainable than what's already out there. . Mm-hmm. , and she's saying this from a perspective of like haute couture.

[00:08:40] Jesi Whelan: So Fashionopolis, really made me recommit to the idea of pre loved. Also, since I was 14, I've been a thrifter. That's just who I am. I like the creativity of, you know, I can't just find every single thing I can imagine in every size, in every color. I have to be resourceful. I love the feeling of [00:09:00] being forced to be resourceful.

[00:09:01] Miranda Black: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:09:02] Jesi Whelan: I would love to give that gift to other people. Like there's no reason that I shouldn't feel empowered by thrifting, right? Like there is yeah, a stigma associated with it, with like, oh, you have to buy your clothing secondhand because you can't afford brand new. I think that's disappearing, but it's still ingrained in a lot of people, especially depending on their socioeconomic and cultural background.

[00:09:22] Jesi Whelan: Uh, but I just kind of thought, wouldn't it be great if every parent or every kid could just feel proud to be wearing the clothes they're wearing because they love them. Yeah. Yeah, right. And just giving that to people and saving them some time and making sure their kids look their absolute best at the same time.

[00:09:40] Miranda Black: You know, you say it's a holdover and sometimes I do think, especially when I'm in sort of that bubble of sustainable activists and sustainable clothing brands, and then I step out of that bubble. Mm-hmm. , and I definitely hear, you know, I had a, a physiotherapist I told her what I do and she was like, eewph I would [00:10:00] never buy used clothing.

[00:10:01] Miranda Black: It's the energy that when you have used clothing, there's a bad energy she said that you can't get rid of by Saging. And I was like, what about the bad energy of the women and girls like crying and not being able to go to the bathroom? Like what about that energy on your clothes? 

[00:10:22] Jesi Whelan: And the repetitive stress injury and like damage that it's doing to growing people.

[00:10:27] Jesi Whelan: Yeah. Like the way that they're forced to use their hands and stuff like that beyond what is like ergonomically safe. And here's the other thing that I thought. There's this writer I love named David Sedaris who talks about how, um, how his sister believes that ghosts are real and that they can come into your home on secondhand clothing, and that's why she won't wear secondhand clothing or buy a secondhand anything, um, because of the ghosts. I've had a couple of people say that to me about the energy and what I felt was, you know, there's so much good in the world and there's so many beautiful stories to be told, and an equally likely scenario is that [00:11:00] the piece that I'm taking home belonged to a person who was surrounded by love and was an inspiration to people and yeah, lived a good life. And you know, if the person is ghost, I'm imagining this person being dead for some reason, because I guess the ghost association, but there's no reason to think this person went through a dramatic change in their life and they're in a better place, you know? 

[00:11:20] Miranda Black: Yeah. And so that, that, why can't that ghost be the good energy from people? It's such a

[00:11:25] Jesi Whelan: Exactly. 

[00:11:26] Miranda Black: A 2020 thing to To default to bad energy. 

[00:11:29] Jesi Whelan: Yeah. To just be negative. And here's the thing, like jokes of ghosts aside that you know better than I do, the volume or the number of pieces of clothing that a person has that they don't wear. Like the idea that someone would die and that that's the true source of secondhand clothing? It, I mean, the percentage of like estates or a house is cleared out after someone like unexpected. Yeah. The proportion of clothes that come to thrift store or consignment racks in that way, I'm sure it's a single digit percentage [00:12:00] relative to the castoffs where someone is kind of like, well, I don't feel on trend in this today.

[00:12:05] Jesi Whelan: Or people's bodies change over time, right? 

[00:12:07] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:12:07] Jesi Whelan: So these are living people's clothing, ? Yes, for the most part. And I do believe that most people are inherently good. So if I'm taking something that someone doesn't want anymore, for any number of reasons, I am only too happy to accept it and be able to give a little bit of money to a charity in the process. Or to a small business. I go to a consignment store, my neighborhood called, it's our Little Secret, and I'd love this shop, but even like the stigma is even in the name, it's like I won't tell anyone, oh yeah, that this is secondhand and you got it cheaper. I won't tell anyone, but it's an attitude adjustment and I felt that if I was able to support families to make those changes with their kids, because people are so protective and want the best for their kids.

[00:12:53] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:12:53] Jesi Whelan: Then people would start to have the mindset of like, if this is good enough for my kids, it's good enough for me too. 

[00:12:59] Miranda Black: Yeah. [00:13:00] Yeah. Prior to being in the sustainable clothing world, you kind of had a more traditional job path. 

[00:13:06] Jesi Whelan: Yeah. 

[00:13:06] Miranda Black: You worked in healthcare and veterinary medicine, and then like a lot of people did. You took time off to look after your child when your child was born, when you were thinking about coming back into the workforce, because this season I'm doing a transformations, people transforming their lives from sort of traditional. Jobs and how they made that transition. Was there something about having a kid that made you more aware of the problem of textile overproduction? What led you to decide, I'm not going back into healthcare, or I'm gonna do this thing and this thing is going to be a sustainable way of 

[00:13:45] Miranda Black: living. 

[00:13:45] Jesi Whelan: I did not see myself as an entrepreneur. I really had an Elon Musk vision of what that would mean, and I didn't see myself as being that type of person, like so driven. And I, I don't mean to cast aspersions on him, I just, I'm just [00:14:00] putting him as an example, 

[00:14:01] Miranda Black: Cast away. 

[00:14:03] Jesi Whelan: So he's just driven that that's all I'm referring to about him. Sure. And I grew up kind of, before this was even a word, a bit of a social justice warrior in the sense that my desire was to be a philanthropist of some kind.

[00:14:14] Jesi Whelan: I just wanted to try to ease some of the hurt that I saw in the world and try to do things better, and I did not understand that that is exactly what entrepreneurship is. 

[00:14:24] Jesi Whelan: Seeing a problem and taking the leadership action of starting to solve it. Mm. And then trying to bring people in with you and spread that around and look at something that's someone else isn't looking at and do something with it, and then steadily improve, right?

[00:14:39] Jesi Whelan: I didn't define entrepreneurship for myself that way. So I thought, okay, I wanna be in the not-for-profits, squew or I wanna be working in medicine because I wanna ease people's suffering and disease is like the epitome of that. And so I was a, a manager of a veterinary clinic and I was always trying to make these changes to how we would operate the clinic to make things more sustainable.

[00:14:58] Jesi Whelan: Because in medicine, I mean [00:15:00] single use everything. Yeah. Right. And it's not always necessary for sterility, it's just becomes habitual. Mm-hmm. . So I would try to make these changes and I would get some pushback and I just kind of saw. I'm not selling this in the right way. I don't know what I'm doing. But then I was a fundraiser for Greenpeace, like a door to door fundraiser.

[00:15:20] Miranda Black: Oh yeah. Yeah. 

[00:15:20] Jesi Whelan: And there's a lot of hostility toward Greenpeace. Some of it slightly deserved, but not, certainly not what I saw. And there's a lot of misunderstanding about it as well. So I basically saw my role as like an educator trying to build awareness. So the funny thing was, it was kind of like I was going door to door selling people nothing.

[00:15:38] Jesi Whelan: You know what I mean? I had noth like they would be spending money, right, and they would not receive anything in return except for a good feeling. Mm-hmm. . And that's the only thing that gave me any confidence to start Phoenix pre-war. I'm kind of like, I'll actually be selling them stuff they need . Yeah. In addition to the good 

[00:15:56] Jesi Whelan: feeling.

[00:15:56] Miranda Black: We'll be right back after this local commercial. 

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[00:16:20] Miranda Black: Made You Look has jewelers working right on site and they can give you their professional opinion on how it will look and if your idea will even work. You can add some new jewels to make it next level. It's fun. Go to the Made You Look, website and click on repairs. 

[00:16:32] Miranda Black: Because there's nothing worse than being a Jenny or Johnny from the block with a broken rock. 

[00:16:41] Miranda Black: Okay. We're back. We just covered Jesi's company Phoenix pre-Worn a curated capsule of clothing for kids. Well, the alliteration right there. Created from pre loved AKA thrifted, AKA already on this planet. No need to create more textiles [00:17:00] option. Delivered right to your door as your kids grow. And if someone has an adult version of the surprise box of thrifted clothing, please get in touch. I am super interested. 

[00:17:09] Miranda Black: Now as we all know, clothing does not last forever. Even pre-loved clothing has a shelf life, especially kids wear it gets ripped and stained, and generally it then goes to landfill. The garbage can or textile waste if that exists in your area, but textile waste it's not an end game. A bin labeled textile waste is the beginning of a new chapter for that textile. 

[00:17:34] Miranda Black: These bins frequently end up on ships destined for the global south, where they often just burn the whole thing, because there's so much arriving daily it's impossible to use it all. Well, Jesi decided she didn't want to add to that mess with the clothing that gets sent back to her that's unusable. 

[00:17:50] Miranda Black: So she teamed up with June Bird. June Bird is an upcycled handmade children's toy maker. The owner of June Bird, Samantha Hulst [00:18:00] makes these cute little stuffies, drool bibs teething rings, all from pre loved textiles. She also makes stuff for kids with sensory processing disorders like this glove that gives your hand a hug. You gotta check out June Bird. If you're looking for kids gifts. And Samantha, she was going to be on the call, but she got sick and wasn't able to be with us today, but I want to give her the credit she deserves because she is essential to this new business that both of them have created called Canary Kids Club. So who is Jesi Whelan and Samantha Hulst, and what is Canary Kids Club? 

 you guys have launched the Canary Kids Club, 

[00:18:43] Jesi Whelan: Yeah. 

[00:18:43] Miranda Black: And it reminds me a lot of something that we subscribed to when my child was really little called Kiwi Co.

[00:18:50] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. , which is a creative craft subscription club. And every month we would get a box with a craft to make. And I actually ended up [00:19:00] unsubscribing for a couple of reasons. First of all, it seemed like a huge carbon footprint to ship it, but also it was all brand new virgin textiles and plastics that eventually went into the garbage.

[00:19:12] Miranda Black: I mean, we kept some of it, but most of it wasn't really appropriate to give to a donation center because it was made by a three-year-old and nobody really wants that, and it had already been created and used, so it a very limited upcycle or donation life. , but your craft subscription model, first of all, it's within Canada.

[00:19:36] Miranda Black: Cuz you're in Canada. Mm-hmm. , and it's all used textiles. Am I right about that? 

[00:19:41] Jesi Whelan: You know, I have experience with Kiwi Co myself. Yeah. There is a big footprint. I mean, all of that stuff is made in China. Like you said, it is all virgin material. We've used the stem kit for our daughter and so it's less crafty and more like building little machines.

[00:19:59] Jesi Whelan: Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:00] So there's a bit more wood in it, but there's still all that other stuff as well, and I, I'm sure it's Virgin Wood on top of that. So I've had the same concerns in terms of waste, but I really love the idea of receiving something in the mail that is an activity that can give us a little bit of structure when we're kind of about to fall into some routine of like just watching cartoons.

[00:20:22] Jesi Whelan: Mm-hmm. , you know, especially in the winter when it's like less easy to go outdoors, which is a big culture shock from us moving from Vancouver. Yes. So having an indoor activity that was off screen was a really big deal to me. 

[00:20:33] Jesi Whelan: So with Phoenix I was seeing, you know, sometimes there's clothing that's just so poorly made that it's not worth mending. Mm-hmm. , and that really upset me. It's not really wearable long term, and that stinks. However, maybe those textiles still have a life in a different form. That's not a garment. You know, 90% of that piece is great fabric. Yeah. So what can I do with that? I really wanted to [00:21:00] try to have a circular design mentality where the output of something would become an input for what I was working on. Like the, the silly irony of you know, taking from a lifestyle of insane consumption and then transforming it to actually something totally different that still has value. Parents really want a way to get their kids away from screens, doing things with their hands, doing things that are creative and open-ended, and like you said, not producing a huge amount of waste in the process.

[00:21:31] Miranda Black: So what does the box like what do they create in the box, for example?

like, for example, there's a set of materials and they generate a finished product like, we did a couple of clothes peg dolls. So we sent out a bunch of different shapes and sizes of fabric and four little clothes pegs so people could kind of like dress them up the way that they wanted to and they could use a bit of needle and thread to fit them and tailor them onto the close pegs.

[00:21:57] Jesi Whelan: Or if they were on the younger side, they just use [00:22:00] glue and you know, they could make a costume for their clothes peg, or they could make a little clothes peg family, or they could make the person themself and their group of friends. So there was like, Creativity with it. 

[00:22:10] Miranda Black: Do you include the needle and thread or do the people 

[00:22:14] Jesi Whelan: Yes. Yeah, we include... 

[00:22:15] Miranda Black: you include a needle and thread. Not scissors though. 

[00:22:17] Jesi Whelan: No. There are a few things that we assume are in a household. Yeah. Right. 

[00:22:21] Miranda Black: Scissors would be one, but maybe not a needle. And thread people don't have needles and threads.

[00:22:25] Jesi Whelan: Right. And they, it used to be in every household. Right, right. Because people used to mend their stuff.

[00:22:30] Jesi Whelan: Yeah. And that's the other component of this. We want to provide fun projects that also build a skill so that someone can mend their clothing cuz they know how to now. Right. Yeah. So let's say, let's say we have a little board and we're gonna sew a zipper onto that board and then open and close it, and then we're gonna sew a button onto that board and a little loop for it.

[00:22:48] Jesi Whelan: And we're gonna put that on and off. Right? So there's like a whole small motor development component of this. Yeah. That is beneficial for kids of all ages, but this skews our kind of our audiences more [00:23:00] kids who are kind of the preschool kindergarten age, and then the early primary age above that. 

[00:23:04] Miranda Black: I was just thinking that my child, you know, it might sound boring to an adult, like sewing a button on sewing a zipper on it and undoing it and doing it up, but they love that kind of stuff. 

[00:23:14] Jesi Whelan: They love it. 

[00:23:15] Miranda Black: They just love those small little things that they can repetitively do. Like they just love repetition and Exactly. I guess I'm, I have an audience of one, so maybe true other kids, other kids don't.

[00:23:28] Jesi Whelan: I can agree though. My kids are the same, and again, I only have two, you know, like I have a couple of friends and neighbors who have like four or five children, so they have a much better anecdotal experience to draw on, but I think every human. loves to work with their hands in some way, whether that's in clay, in finger paint, in knitting.

[00:23:46] Jesi Whelan: In cooking, yeah. Yeah. There's a tactile component of our lives that's often overlooked when we're just tapping and scrolling all the time. I love libraries for the same le reason. I'm like a person of the 18 hundreds born, and in this time and I [00:24:00] just, there's just things that I love about digging in the garden or I don't know, just like very simple life pleasures that I would love to share with more people. And I think that sometimes they just need a holding hand. They're not gonna go from buying a very disposable, fast fashion kind of wardrobe to suddenly buying like the absolute premium, ethically made stuff and mending it themselves like that is, is too, 

[00:24:25] Miranda Black: or knit or knit their own sweater 

[00:24:27] Jesi Whelan: or knitting their own sweater. But it's just about making those like incremental changes. Like when I was in my twenties, I was a burn it all down person, like every person in their twenties is. But now I'm kind of like more of an incrementalist and just think that any move we can make in the direction of sustainability and like family harmony.

[00:24:45] Jesi Whelan: One of the big reasons I wanted to do a subscription box is because I saw the way that it helped my kids just self-regulate in terms of social emotional development and a household that was like overall happy [00:25:00] versus constant meltdowns, tantrums, lack of cooperation, inability to hold to routines.

[00:25:06] Jesi Whelan: Mm-hmm. , just so much conflict and stress. Yeah. That I felt really came from isolation and too much screen time and not enough healthy movement and too fast of a pace and not just kinda like slowing down to read a picture book enough. It's hard to encourage a person to do that on their own, but if they can just have something come into their homes that coaches them through a bit of a lifestyle shift.

[00:25:34] Miranda Black: Yeah.

[00:25:35] Jesi Whelan: In the direction of slowing down and simplifying and, and what's simpler than, Reusing things we have to create something fun or beautiful and have some moments of quiet and calm. Mm-hmm. wrapped up in that.

[00:25:50] Miranda Black: I think simplicity is a really good way to end, but is there any last advice that you would give to people who are transitioning into a more [00:26:00] simplicity, 

[00:26:00] Jesi Whelan: simplicity oriented like kind of lifestyle?

[00:26:02] Jesi Whelan: A lot of the time people. Make a lot of career decisions based on risk, which is logical. Mm-hmm. and I read a great book years ago, and this was another kind of thing that inspired me, was called "The Hundred Dollar Startup". And like in the economy we have today, there's a strong argument to be made that staying with a company or in a role working for someone else is the greatest risk that any of us can take.

[00:26:28] Miranda Black: Ooh. 

[00:26:28] Jesi Whelan: What is less risky is using our powers of observation and our innate human creativity that everyone has to find a problem that's out there, that people need solved, and just work on solving it with them and for them. I think all of us have that power, and I wasn't this person before, but I just really feel that it's a big goal in my life now

[00:26:50] Jesi Whelan: and we don't all have to be Elon Musk, you know, he's doing something different than what I wanna be doing. He has different goals, he's a different skillset, but I have value to [00:27:00] offer at my level for my audience, and I think that many people, especially women, underestimate their value in terms of what they can create and bring to make the world a better place.

[00:27:12] Jesi Whelan: you know, so I would invite people to reevaluate their assumptions or their beliefs about what entrepreneurship or business can be, and how hard they're willing to work for something they truly believe in, and if they care about sustainability as priority, that puts a lot of fire under you. It's kind of like gives you energy you didn't know you had.

[00:27:33] Miranda Black: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:27:37] Jesi Whelan: Thank you for having me. And by the way, I want to just tell you I absolutely love the Unboxed Market episode. Oh, nice. That you did like it. Really? I, I, I got, I was so excited by it. I f I found it so inspiring. Yeah, 

[00:27:51] Jesi Whelan: she's great. That was a big favorite. 

[00:27:52] Jesi Whelan: I been going the audio of, of you kind of like being with her in the environment.

[00:27:58] Miranda Black: Oh yeah, thanks. That was the [00:28:00] first time I did that and I was super scared and I didn't know how to edit it and I was like, ah, 

[00:28:04] Jesi Whelan: it was great. Like I, I found it, it like, it really made me feel this kind of fun hustle and bustle feeling. Oh, thanks. Okay. This was such a pleasure. Thank you so, so much. 

[00:28:14] Miranda Black: Thank you.

[00:28:15] Miranda Black: So, what did we learn today? I loved the creation of a second business from the waste of the first business. That's ingenious. I would love to hear about more businesses that are fueled from what we now call waste. Cause I have a feeling that our definition of waste is going to change over the next decade And what will that do to economies that are currently being left on the table? 

[00:28:39] Miranda Black: And I really love the reminder to reject the Elon Musk vision of what an entrepreneur is and cozy up to more tangible business dreams. Think of all the a hundred thousand dollar ideas that are being missed . When you're focused on chasing the $44 billion idea. And don't even get me started on the fact that those $44 billion don't even [00:29:00] really exist in real life. Whereas someone's small business is real actual money and real actual product. 

[00:29:08] Miranda Black: You tell me which one is worth more. 

[00:29:09] Miranda Black: The reason I love sharing small business stories is that they reveal a realistic path to being your own boss. We are so quick to pick up a book written by a Titan of industry and they have great stories. But they're often a bit out of reach. Their path is frequently paved with so much luck and these massive lightning strikes. 

[00:29:31] Miranda Black: Small business owners they all have their own lightning bolt moments too. They might not be newsworthy, but they are life-changing. My story for next week is about someone who had one of those lightning bolt moments that change everything. 

[00:29:45] Lindsay Down: one day I was driving home from work and there was a For Lease sign in the window of a little shop, and I thought, oh, and then I was home, sick the next week. And just on, a whim, I contacted the leasing agent and I went and saw the space, and then I [00:30:00] told my husband,, I think I'm gonna leave my job and open up a shop.

That's next week with Lindsay Down from Pure Color Baby on What's This Place? Podcast. For more stories of businesses and business owners, making the leap to a de-growth economy, subscribe to What's This Place? Podcast, and give me a review people. That's how my business gains traction. Thank you to Phoenix. Pre-Worn, June Bird, Canary kid's club and Made You Lookjewelry for making this episode happen. I will see you next time.