0:00:00 - Joanna Newton
A few things stood out to me. Did I, should I have not?
0:00:04 - Michelle Pualani
No, I was just saying that was great, that was perfect. I thought you were like no, no, no, I was like oh no, I didn't have him.
0:00:13 - Joanna Newton
That was great. Welcome to the Her First podcast, a platform to help online business owners, coaches and creators gain the confidence needed to build a successful business while creating a sustainable lifestyle balance. We are here to help you prioritize yourself in business and life.
0:00:29 - Michelle Pualani
On the show today is our guest, McCall Brinskele, an inspirational entrepreneur of a brand called MENSE, which has had an evolving journey that I'm really looking forward to diving into today. Now we're going to be chatting about the challenges of being a female founder in a culture of masculine hustle, how to start thinking about pitching investors, and what it looks like balancing her startup while teaching at Cal Poly State University. So, as the founder and CEO of MENSE, welcome McCall to the show. We're excited to have you today, and let's start with the fact that you studied biomedical engineering, so in your undergraduate work, that's what you are focused on. How did you initially get into entrepreneurship from that background of biomedical engineering?
0:01:11 - McCall Brinskele
So I would say that I have always been someone who identifies as an individual with ADHD and it's kind of, I would say, my superpower. And so, even though I really focused in biomedical engineering for my undergraduate degree, I have always had many different interests. I identify as a polymath or a multi-potentialite, whatever you would like to call it, but really that desire to learn about a lot of different things and how a lot of different skills in different areas really led me to entrepreneurship, because it was an area where that was really valued having a lot of different skills and being able to connect the patterns between those different areas of expertise. And so when I was at Cal Poly studying biomedical engineering, I sort of fell into entrepreneurship. Through some of my classes I was oftentimes a visionary on our teams where we were working on developing new solutions within the biomedical engineering space, and then one thing led to another and I was just connected with the entrepreneurial space at the university, or the hatchery is what we would call it here.
0:02:19 - Joanna Newton
That's so awesome. What I love about your story at least what I know so far is that your first initial thought wasn't to go be an entrepreneur. A lot of entrepreneurs are like I just want to own a business, I want that. That comes first. But your business seems to have come out of your passion. Your intelligence, the things going on in your brain have become a business, and as I become an entrepreneur and no more and more entrepreneurs I at least think the people that I find to be the most successful. It starts more with an idea what if we had this, or what if this existed? And then the business part comes, versus the opposite. I just want to own a business, so I'm going to create one.
0:03:04 - McCall Brinskele
And again, especially as someone in a society that's really not for neurodivergent thinkers there is this push to specialize, specialize, specialize. And so when I initially chose biomedical engineering, I was really on the path to that specialization, but it was a way for me to still be creative and then finding entrepreneurship. I was like, oh, all of these skills that I have and this ability that I have is now seen as inability and not a disadvantage in this space, and that was really a wonderful experience for me.
0:03:36 - Joanna Newton
For me, I think, like my superpower, like my business superpower, is figuring things out. I can solve any problem, figure out how to get anything done and all of that. That was a really weird thing to figure out, like how you can be an entrepreneur and that's what you do. Because it's not. It's so general, like, and I could do it, for I think just about anything. You know what I mean. Any type of business, I could like figure out the problems, figure out the processes and like put it all together. But that's very different than being, like I want to own a coffee shop, like that's just very different.
0:04:12 - McCall Brinskele
No, absolutely, and I would attribute again ADHD to that sort of mentality of I've never done this before, but I can figure it out, because I don't think that is something that really comes naturally to a non-divergent thinker. And so, again, that's something that's just so wonderful about entrepreneurship is seeing that value and being able to just be a beginner all the time and not have a problem with it.
0:04:37 - Michelle Pualani
Really celebrating it. I think that we so often get stuck on those things that we are not necessarily good at, that we specialize in. I am connecting with so much of what you're saying because I think over the course of my career, I always questioned myself why can't I do this, why can't I just focus on this, why can't I choose a career and just stick to it? And so I've really been more interested in what are the different things that I can do? How can I wear different hats Doesn't mean I want to wear all the hats, no, and Joanna and I have been having this conversation recently of the visionary integrator role and really understanding how you show up in your business and the strengths that you have and leveraging those, really being able to lean into the fact that you can be more visionary, you can be more creative, you can be more intentional about the choices that you're making throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, instead of just fitting into. This is the job that you have and this is the role that you're supposed to play, and you just have to continue doing that forever, extensively. So I'm so glad that you were brought to entrepreneurship, because I think that it's a really unique opportunity for each individual to learn that about themselves and then better express themselves in the world. As a part of that and I think that your story and the evolution that we're going to talk about today leans into that as well as really kind of understanding your own growth, what you need, and being able to own that as opposed to avoid it, as opposed to discount it. So I feel like when I speak to you, mccall, you have the certain sense of groundedness in who you are and how you show up in the world. I really appreciate that. So I've also been tracking. You know, the program that you came out of is what we call the CIE here in our town of St Louis Obispo. It's the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Hot House, what you said, the hatchery and everything that kind of comes out of their programs.
I've been monitoring that for a while. So I was actually introduced to you a couple of years ago through Cheekies, which was the original iteration of your product. It was a reusable, machine, washable and leak-proof menstrual short that provides comfort and protection during sleep. So I saw your company pitch at Demo Day 2022, which was, I think, about a year ago at this point, the time of this recording, and so I actually voted for you with my dollars. At these events, you get a monopoly money and that's how you vote for the different companies that are pitching for, basically, audience award or audience choice. At the time, you had this brand, cheekies, as I've mentioned, which is a menstrual sort, but now Mence is a little bit different. I really want to talk about what encouraged the pivot to a different product and then how did that affect your business journey overall so far?
0:07:18 - McCall Brinskele
I would just say I mean, when it comes to a pivot, I think there are so many factors that play into it. Just because pivot like the one that we did was it was a big change. We changed our name, we changed our target demographic and we changed the product. Ultimately, I guess the things that were sort of the writing on the wall for us changing our brand and changing our product was really the market. And I would say, in just my work now as a professor, I really try to push my students and tell them you have to make sure that you are in touch with what the market is doing and what your customers really want. And I learned a lot about that just going through that first process with Cheekies and working on that first period product, that period underwear that we had designed, because we got to the point where we were actually testing our product with customer users and the feedback we got wasn't great. Looking back on it, I'm like that was completely avoidable if we had just really focused and listened to our customers. And I again I teach my students this there are.
There's a difference between an inventor and an entrepreneur. An inventor, you're a typical engineer who invents something really cool and they think it's awesome, but ultimately nobody buys it. An entrepreneur invents something that's really awesome and cool, but people actually want to buy the product. And so for me, as a biomedical engineer, it's that fight between wanting to develop something that is innovative and I think is great, but then listening to my customer and making sure we are actually meeting their needs and what they want.
And so, going through that process, we really had to kind of backtrack and go back to okay, who is our customer? Who are we trying to serve? Because ultimately, entrepreneurship it's not really a selfish endeavor. You really have to put yourself at the mercy of these customers and the people that you want to serve. It is all about that service to them. And so we really had to go back and realign with our values and what it was that we wanted to do and the product we wanted to put out and the impact we wanted it to have. And ultimately that initial product that we had it was not going to have that impact, and that was definitely a difficult realization to come to, but I'm so glad that we did in this new brand that we're now developing.
0:09:28 - Joanna Newton
One thing that I think is always so important that you brought up is to really listen to your customers, listen to your target audience. Do that research, do that testing, and I can imagine for you it could feel like that initial phase of your business. You could think of it like as a waste. Right, you did all of that work, you created that product, did all of those things, but all of those are lessons learned, all of those are amazing takeaways that you're going to take in the next phase of your business and actually, if you don't have that mindset, then it is a loss right, yeah, and that kind of ties into.
0:10:05 - McCall Brinskele
A lot of times. Perfectionists who are sometimes a lot of time entrepreneurs, they get stuck in that sunken cost fallacy of oh now I've just done this and so I have to keep putting something into this and keep trying to go down this route. And really, the when we had an aha moment was when we just paused everything and we just took a step back and came back to the customers, came back to the basics, and I think it's so much easier said than done. It's like oh well, obviously we would listen to our customers they're the one buying this product but it can get so easy to fall into the pitfalls of the nitty gritty and really not go back and look at those customer interviews that you do in the beginning and that you should be doing throughout your process and continually checking in with them 100% and I think that, thinking through that process, if you're moving on in an intentional way okay, we learned this, now we're going and pivoting to here you take that pivot that can feel really good.
0:11:05 - Joanna Newton
I've seen entrepreneurs make the mistake of just leaving projects on the ground, right Starting things and throwing them out for something else. To me, that can be a waste, but if you're taking it, learning it, applying it to something new, then that's an amazing way to move forward with a pivot, because you're learning those things and taking that into account. Now, maybe we're talking about this later and maybe we're not. So sorry if I'm jumping the gun. I would love to know more about what you pivoted to.
0:11:39 - McCall Brinskele
Yeah, totally so. Initially we were working on a period sleep short. It was an absorbent garment specifically for people with periods while they are sleeping. Since then we have pivoted to a menstrual cup and applicator that is as easy to use as a tampon.
And so we're focusing on the insertion and removal of that product specifically, and the reason for this pivot was because I mean, again, looking at the market for menstrual garments, it was a more saturated market and it really wasn't going to be an innovative solution that was changing people's lives for the better.
This solution had kind of been nailed down already, and so we pivoted into menstrual cups just because it was a sustainable period product that lots of people want to use. You can wear them for 12 hours. And so, pivoting to this product, really we want to make it easier for individuals to use it, because, even though it has all these great things about it, it's really large and intimidating to put a silicone cup inside your body and then it's also difficult to remove, and so there's some anxiety and some frustration with individuals who maybe they can't use pads, tampons or period underwear because they bleed through these products in under an hour, and so we're really trying to make it so that it's easier for individuals to use this product because of those health benefits, and we believe a lot more in the health benefits that this product has over the initial product we were first developing For a lot of folks listening.
0:13:11 - Michelle Pualani
They might be in a product-based space, they might be in a digital product-based space, they might be in coaching and services. So we kind of have a wide net of entrepreneurs and business owners, which they do take different forms, and I think that, especially in the online space, this is a step that's very much missed, and especially as someone who's coming from a practitioner background I'm coming from a teaching coaching background in person and almost kind of getting constant feedback. You're getting feedback after a class, you're getting feedback while you're working with someone, you're getting feedback through the process of actually delivering and doing what you're doing. But something like development of a product doesn't necessarily have that. There's a lot of steps to the process. As you're moving through that that can pull you in different directions and you start to make assumptions. I was having this conversation the other day with a consultant about assumptions versus facts versus finding, versus research versus data. Certain things are good, right, like listening to your intuition when it comes to certain assumptions that's awesome but also really looking at what are people telling us? What are we finding? How can I learn from people and find out what they actually need, how they want to engage with this type of product or with this type of service before I just take all the time to create it and this is a great conversation around the monetize before you make it model or creating that MVP and really understanding that.
I think that, mccall, you were in a situation through the summer accelerator program to really, of course, maybe having some of these discussions earlier on, maybe pivoting earlier on, but it really gave you a breeding ground to understand and you only went to the pitch competition with the cheekies, right, Like you didn't go to market, there wasn't all of this time in product creation and you'd invested and sunk all of these resources into it. So you really went through an experience that was testing, that was trial, that was discussion, that was presentation of an MVP and then being able to pivot and change and shift from there. So we're going to get more into your journey of that summer accelerator program. One of the things that I wanted to talk about, as you speak to the market research, as you speak to understanding your customer, there's something that I'm doing right now as I create my new physical product and part of that is getting funding and investment and understanding like capital and that whole world and really even besides the financial aspect of it, is really actually clarifying your message, putting together an understandable presentation of your product, what you're doing for people, how it helps them and what that means. And so you have this experience, coming from that program, of creating a pitch deck and really understanding the competitive landscape and, like we've been talking about putting in the research that's so important, to understand the analytics and numbers of your business, understand your customer, understand what it is that you're really doing. And so, through that CIE program, which is the 2022 summer accelerator for those listening, it's just an intensive 13 week program that really helps Cal Poly students, specifically, and recent graduates, develop their startup ideas into scalable businesses Again, something that I've been watching, monitoring, going to events for for quite some time and then, at the end of which each startup pitches their business idea, having had the help of dedicated CIE mentors and staff.
So if someone didn't necessarily have that support, if they didn't have the resources in place, where would someone start if they were interested in kind of seeking out not just investment capital when it comes to a pitch deck, but also opportunities? They don't have a summer accelerator program. They don't have those kind of resources. When we're starting businesses.
We have so much to consider, we have so much to think about in all of the areas that we're discussing today when it comes to research, when it comes to finances, when it comes to team, when it comes to products and programs and services and all of these things and I think it can be really overwhelming. Where do I start? What steps am I going to take as I get going? So, just kind of thinking back to those early stages and if you have any advice or guidance for someone listening who can say this is the first thing that I'm going to do, should it be I come up with a product, or should I start having some conversations with people? Or should I seek a mentor, or should I try to get my first client? What would that look like if someone were just getting started?
0:17:35 - McCall Brinskele
Oh my gosh. Okay, yes, because this is the what would I wish I had known when I was starting out or what do I wish I had maybe done differently to get me farther along. I would say a lot of entrepreneurship is about who you know. So I would say getting a mentor is like the number one step finding someone who is in a place that you want to be in your future career, whether that be in entrepreneurship or just in general. I think getting a mentor is your first step in any career that you pursue. But getting a mentor for sure, I think, is that first step.
If you come up with an idea, you don't know yet if that's going to be something to pursue, and having a mentor can really help you figure out if it is worth pursuing, if you should start going out and doing customer interviews, they can really help guide you through that path. And I say that because when I was in my undergrad in biomedical engineering here at Cal Poly, I actually was connected with a mentor. I filled out a survey through my department and I said that I was interested in medical devices as well as entrepreneurship, and I was paired with a retired patent attorney who had lots of experience under his belt and really took me under his wing and gave me lots of advice as I really started to pursue my entrepreneurial journey. So I would say getting that mentor because they can give you advice as you're going through this pathway. They can also be someone to give you introductions when you are looking for VC funding or if you are looking for grants. Having someone who's gone through that journey before I think is just invaluable.
0:19:06 - Michelle Pualani
With the point of funding of grants.
Through the process of the summer accelerator, you created a pitch deck and you started to really understand your industry and really understand the numbers behind your industry, looking at the competitive landscape and understanding what it was that you had to offer as a product, as a company, at scale and growth and everything else and you were asking for investment.
So, as someone who has struggled with financial investment whether that's asking for the sale or getting in front of someone and really pitching an idea, a product, a service and feeling confident in them do you have any advice or could advise someone who is in that stage of I want to apply for grants or I want to look at different investment capital?
What you were looking at for angel investing or further down the line would be VC having some place to start where they can say, yes, I actually have something and I want to start looking at the funding for it, as opposed to I'm just going to bootstrap or I'm going to figure it out or I have to start making sales right away, because I think so many female founders don't have the money that they need in order to see an idea come to fruition.
They don't get the funding that they need, and we know that based on the data, is that the women receive so much less funding, partly because they're not necessarily asking for it, partly because they don't have the resources, partly because they haven't sought the support or the mentorship or the tools in order to get themselves in a place where they are funding. So I'd love to hear what that experience was like from you when it came to the pitch deck and when it came to actually asking people for money and even just knowing I need a certain amount of capital to get this business started and make it run successfully over the first year, however long that runway was looking for you.
0:20:53 - McCall Brinskele
So I'm going to try to touch on all of those points. There's a lot to unpack here, I will say, with putting a pitch deck together and getting the confidence to ask for money, to really believe in your product. Again, I know I keep repeating myself, but it's going back to those customers being able to pitch something in a pitch deck and really be confident in it. You have to know that you are saying what your customers have told you. A lot of my pitch deck had customer backing. A lot of my pitch deck had words that were actually said.
I feel anxiety, I feel embarrassment, I feel frustration and being able to put numbers behind that from interviews that I had personally done with customers. That is where my confidence came from when we were doing those pitches, because I knew this problem like the back of my hand. I knew that this was a problem. We may have not had the right solution at that time, but I knew that this was a real pain point for people and they needed to be heard and for me.
A lot of times people say fake it till you make it, and that is a method that works for a lot of entrepreneurs, but for me as a biomedical engineer and very much in the facts, wanting to know everything in order to mitigate the risk as much as I possibly can.
Again, engineer and perfectionist, I think going back to those facts and having those to fall back on is crucial and incredibly helpful when you're talking to potential investors who, again, when I talk about those mentors, I have mentors who have now come onto my advisory board. I have friends who have mentors who came onto their advisory board and as they watched this company grow, they eventually became investors of that company. So I would also say it's about the relationships that you cultivate with those mentors, with those advisors and with the people in your circle, and getting those introductions and just continuing to talk to people and think about developing those relationships and being authentic and true to your process. Wherever it is that you are at whether that is pre-seed or bootstrapping, having an advisor or an investor who watches you go through that process they have a lot more faith in what you're doing. I think when they're able to see that and your integrity and your grit, I think that helps a lot.
0:23:13 - Joanna Newton
Some things that I heard you say that really stuck out to me. First was that you know your business. You know your business, you know your customers. So when you're getting up to sell or pitch your company whether that's for sale, for funding, for whatever it is you have real life experience, real life knowledge to back up what you're going to share.
And I think, as business owners, sometimes there's people around you who want you to scale really fast and pass off all the tasks to other people. And there's this reality that I need to be that close. I need to know exactly what is going on so that I can be my biggest ambassador. When I do sales calls for my agency and someone asks me like what's the process going to be like when you're building my sales page, I should know exactly what that process is the back of my hand and be able to spit off examples of people we've worked with without even thinking it should be that easy because I'm that close to my business. So I think knowing your business and knowing your customers is super important.
And then the other thing that you shared was that authenticity like being your authentic self. This is something we talk a lot about on the podcast. I think there's a lot of pressure to feel like you need to show up in a very particular way that matches other entrepreneurs and all of us being female entrepreneurs the way we don't always show up like the way men do, and that's okay and showing up as your authentic self in those situations, because then you'll find the right funding, you'll find the right partners, You'll find the right mentors.
0:24:52 - McCall Brinskele
Just to dive in on that finding the right funding, finding the right mentors. There is a lot of pressure to grow quickly, to accept investment and I don't think we talk enough about that process of needing to kind of date your investors, needing to kind of have that relationship with your investors, because once you accept investment, investment comes at a cost and you need to remember is this an investor who's going to be wanting to be on my advisory board or is this an investor who wants to give me funding and doesn't really want to be involved? Those are important things to know and I don't think you really can know those things unless you have long conversations with them and cultivate that relationship. I also think a lot of investors appreciate when you show that you care about the relationship and show that you want to have that relationship and you value them as an individual and I think going through that process you find investors who are more aligned with your values and your company's values, really taking the time, sorting it out, grounding into it.
0:25:51 - Michelle Pualani
I think that we as entrepreneurs sometimes rush, and I think that there's this sense of what we're going to talk about in terms of the hustle, the pressure Do get it done fast and a lot of times you have to fight that in a big way. You have to say, okay, slow down. Let me think about this, let me reflect on this how can I be more intentional about the relationships I'm cultivating, about the choices that I'm making, about the products that I'm developing, about the interactions that I'm having with my customers and my audience? And what does that look like? And when we're in a world of quantity and when we're in a world of overproducing and over curating and getting as much as possible out there and being in front of everyone, it has this sense of go, go, go. And so, using that femininity, using that intuition, using that kind of emotional capacity to sink back in, to really feel into what you're doing. And then also, I want to bring up the confidence you said confidence a couple of times is really having the confidence the confidence in your product, the confidence in your program, the confidence in your coaching, the confidence in whatever it is that you're doing?
That's something that I feel like I lacked for a long time, because I used to question and that came from comparison. It came from looking at other people and saying, oh, they're doing this, oh, they're successful with this, oh, they did it this way, and not thinking back to wait what's my voice? We just had a really great interview about brand voice and about authentic voice and cultivating that for yourself and bringing all of those unique qualities to the table. And sometimes we get so lost in the comparison, Sometimes we get so lost in well, this is what somebody else is doing, this is the pace that they're moving at, this is how they're creating their startup, this is how they're launching their business, and that can really really be a struggle and a sense of pressure and a point of tension if you're not careful to really consider, so kind of following the summer accelerators, you're moving out of that process.
One of the things that we've talked about is that you did feel a little bit of hustle. You felt that pressure. You really felt like you were kind of being pushed through the program, not necessarily for outside sources, but again, sometimes internally. Right, we let that build in ourselves and so you burnt out through that process. Can you tell us a little bit more about that feeling of moving through the program, of feeling burnt out as an entrepreneur, and kind of why you think it happened or where it came from?
0:28:15 - McCall Brinskele
I try to talk about this a lot because I don't think we talk about how real burnout is, especially for entrepreneurs. And you mentioned how I talk about having confidence in what you're doing, and you also mentioned comparison. I think comparison it's so hard to not compare yourself when you're an entrepreneur, because being a beginner in this space we're all beginners. Entrepreneurship is going out and doing something. It means undertaking. It's undertaking something that involves a lot of risk and that's a very vulnerable place to be. And so the initial desire, I think, is to compare yourself, is to check yourself and see because you're going into the unknown what are the markers that I can look to to check whether or not this is going to be successful, to check whether or not I'm going down the right path. And again, I think in that there is also an element of courage that you do have to tap into, because you're walking out into this vulnerable space and you have to walk out in spite of the fear. And I think something that really that I didn't have, that led to that burnout, was kind of checking in with those mentors that I talk about, having someone to say, hey, I know that you are not in the same space as this other company. That's okay. That's not your path.
Not all these entrepreneurial paths have to look the same. There is no one size fits all for entrepreneurship and I think, coming into this space for the first time, I wasn't as open to asking questions. It felt like it would be weak to come out and say I'm scared or I don't know if this is the right path or I don't know what I'm doing. And I think being able to acknowledge that I don't think those are questions you bring to everyone, but I think that having those mentors, having those advisors who you trust to tell you you're on the right path, you're not on the right path, maybe you should think about this, I think, is a crucial thing that I should have tapped into more when I was first starting out.
0:30:16 - Joanna Newton
What's really interesting is, I think there's so much in our corporate culture or school culture that knowing the answer is what makes you successful. So if you're in school, if you're the first person to get the answer right or figure out the essay or the test question or whatever it is, you're a star. In the corporate world, you're a star, and it's not the same in entrepreneurship. It's not.
0:30:42 - McCall Brinskele
And that's also. You're so right, that's what we're taught. I came from engineering. Everything was a test. There was one right answer for every single thing, and that's not how entrepreneurship is, and even though that is how the corporate world is perceived. I see job postings all the time, looking for people who are creative, looking for people who aren't afraid of failure or are afraid of being wrong, and really I think that's more of what our world needs are those people who know that there isn't one answer or who have practiced resilience so that they are okay when they get it wrong or when there isn't just one right way to do things. But I think that's really hard in our society today. Again, for a society not for the neurodivergent thinker.
0:31:25 - Michelle Pualani
I think everything that you're sharing is really important, mccall, for us to understand at a deep level, like not to just have these conversations at a superficial. Yes, we're talking about them. Yes, we can be conscious of this, because a lot of the things that we talk about, even on this podcast when we talk about perfectionism, when we talk about not making yourself small, when we talk about discovering your authentic, unique brand voice a lot of those, if you were to ask and, like you said, getting to know your customers oh yeah, that's like duh, that's a part of the process. Like, yeah, you're supposed to do that, that's supposed to be in your foundation, but we're not taking the time to really let it sink in. I feel like I think that we're not embodying it enough. I think that we're talking about it and we are aware of it, but that we're not actually living moment to moment, day to day, in that particular way, in that ownership of letting go of the comparison, of really showing up as yourself, of really being authentic and vulnerable about where you are, whether that is positive or negative, and I think maybe we need to shift that all together.
Wherever you stand in your startup, wherever you stand in your business. It's not good or bad. When I look at incredibly successful people, all they do is talk about how challenging things were previously or where they started or their origin story, and it's always tough. It's always not enough money or in debt. It's always about where they didn't have enough during that experience.
And I have to kind of sit in this myself is really recognizing, like where I'm at right now, even though I'm not as quote unquote successful as I want to be, even though I feel like I'm not as far along that this is a part of the journey and that it's not a bad thing. We really can't judge the experience of where we started. You look at Amazon, you look at Tesla, you look at all of these brands and businesses who are near bankruptcy. Do we judge them because of that? No, we celebrate them going through that experience, and so I think that we really need to identify that, wherever we are on the journey, that it just is and that we can own that and be okay with that.
0:33:38 - McCall Brinskele
Absolutely. And also it's interesting that you highlight those companies, because we do always see the success story, we see the end point that they got to. But when I think of Amazon, I think didn't they start out as an online bookstore? Wasn't that what they thought their customers needed when they first started out? I think we forget how far these companies have come and we forget about the journey. We only see the end destination, but really, entrepreneurship is all about that journey. You wouldn't be there if you didn't go through all those hard things. You wouldn't be there if you didn't fail over and over and over again. And you wouldn't be there if you didn't keep coming back to those customers and keep checking in with them, because customers are brutal If you don't have something that they want, they're not going to keep buying from you, they're not going to keep coming back to you, they will go to the next solution, and so really, at the end of the day, it is just, it's that journey of learning that it's okay to fail, as long as you learn from it.
0:34:35 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and you think about. You brought up Amazon, right. Amazon was an online bookstore At the time. That is what people needed. I remember getting my used college books from Amazon and that's what I needed. And I also remember you had to order them super, super early so that you could get them in time for class, because it took like three weeks to get your books. But they adapted and they changed for the times and with what people needed. Now you look at another company I thought of like Blockbuster. Blockbuster was huge. We all went to Blockbuster to get movies. They did not adapt fast enough so they died. Huge company, like. We all remember exactly what it was. Remember going out of Friday night with like your dad to pick up your two movies for the weekend but they did not adapt fast enough.
And what's funny is I actually remember this happening, this shift happening. Netflix had started coming out at the time. They only had, like the mail order Netflix, like it came in the mail when they were quicker.
Yeah, when they, yes, like just all of that happened. And then Blockbuster, too late in the game, started a DVD service, like too late, and you could like either get it from the store or return. Like they started a subscription but it was too late. Like Netflix came in, had everybody you know. So you have to, as an entrepreneur, be willing to disrupt yourself, because if you don't disrupt yourself, someone else will, and you just have to be on the lookout for that next thing at all times.
0:36:09 - McCall Brinskele
Oh my gosh. No, I'm so glad that you brought that up. I talk about that all the time in my classes, those examples specifically of Netflix moving Blockbuster going downhill, because that's what happens to those corporate companies that we talk about Once you start getting revenue. Sometimes you get stuck and you're like we don't want to change this because we have this sustainable innovation that continues to give us money and it's scary to put money out into other areas. I think one company that I saw sort of successfully or not sort of successfully do this, very successfully do this, was.
0:36:41 - Joanna Newton
I think, Toyota started.
0:36:42 - McCall Brinskele
It was called Scion is what they started, and they didn't really make a lot of money off of Scion. It was cars geared towards college students, but it allowed them to capture that market so that they could keep their customers and so that a smaller company didn't come along and target that niche demographic. I think it's a big lesson seeing blockbuster and other companies that are overturned by these small entrepreneurs who have less to lose, and so they go after those small innovations because they can sail fast, because they're not afraid of losing that revenue and that capital.
0:37:14 - Michelle Pualani
I think that being agile is really important here really being able to evolve and grow and listen to the market and understand and not being afraid of iterating Joanna three weeks and now we have prime like get it same day or next day. You don't have to have everything figured out from the get-go. It's going to be a process and it's going to evolve and things are going to change and that's okay. As you've changed McCall, going from cheekies to a whole new product, you also had a co-founder in which you started cheekies with, but as things evolved, you have now gone your separate ways. How have you navigated that split and what does that look like for you?
0:37:52 - McCall Brinskele
When it came to picking a co-founder or to moving forward with this company, I think I really had to come back to again what are my core values? What is it that I want to see this company do In that my co-founder and I were not aligned, and so she had an opportunity to pursue a career closer to home for her that did more, aligned with her personal values and her future goals. Through that, again, I definitely learned that you really need to I guess vet is probably the word or date before you marry your co-founder. I think making sure that you are aligned with your values and aligned with your goals for the company is crucial and something that should always be talked about and something that always changes.
The time when we first started out on this company, we thought we had the same values. We thought we had the same ideas, and that is a forever-evolving aspect, I think, and something that needs to be a continuous check-in with the people that you are working with on a daily basis, just because entrepreneurship it's already a lonely endeavor. I am definitely an advocate for over-communicating in that area, for continuing to check-in and just making sure that you choose to partner with someone who has similar values to you if not the same values, but definitely has the same vision for where you want this company to go and the impact that you want to have on the world with it.
0:39:15 - Joanna Newton
There's that saying. I'm going to totally get it wrong, but people say you're the sum of the five people you spend most of your time with right.
0:39:26 - McCall Brinskele
Oh yeah.
0:39:27 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and so think about choosing a co-founder is pretty similar, is like choosing a spouse right. If you're going into business with someone, it is that intense and I think people may forget that. It's like having another family member, another person that you're accountable to day in and day out. Your success is their success, your failure is their failure. It's combined and making sure it's that right. Partnership is super important and then if you decide to leave that partnership, it very well, is the right decision for everyone involved, but can be really hard to take that step and make that choice and say you know what we'll actually be both be better, not together, which is a really hard thing, I'm sure to do.
0:40:16 - McCall Brinskele
Yes, it is a really hard thing and I'm very thankful for the programs that I have here at Cal Poly and the academic setting that I get to have in order to really practice these, because bringing on a co-founder who doesn't align with your beliefs farther down the line can be pretty detrimental to a company and can potentially lead to the demise of that company. So I'm very thankful for the mentors that I have and the programs available to me that allow me to seek advice and practice these things before there really are bigger consequences.
0:40:50 - Michelle Pualani
Ultimately, if you don't have the same vision with a co-founder or with the leadership team, even that's actually a big part of the EOS model is ensuring that you're on the same path, you're rowing in the same direction, ensuring that you are aligned with vision, with goals, with where you want to see the company scale and grow to. If someone envisions the company as a $2 million company and the other envisions it as a $10 million company, your decision-making process is going to be different and your priorities are going to be different. So that is really going to affect how you navigate starting and founding and creating and growing and doing all of those things. You're hiring, your product development, all of those pieces. So it is really important to be intentional about that, which is why I'm so glad that I made the best choice in Joanna not that we're co-founders, but we're co-creators of the podcast, and that is just as important when you're developing something together and really finding that alignment, I think, is incredibly important.
So I'm really glad that you have the resources and the tools that you have, mccall, in order to navigate that, as well as what you're doing now as a faculty member. So teaching within entrepreneurship really keeps you immersed and ingrained in what it is that you're doing on a day-to-day basis with MENSE is so cool. So I want to ask what is it for you that's important in really cultivating new and budding entrepreneurs and business owners? Because you're working with these students who are young, who are innovative, who are kind of fresh. You know they're ready for big things as they move forward. So what are some important things that you find in bringing to that role as a professor?
0:42:29 - McCall Brinskele
Oh my gosh. Well, I will just say being able to teach has been such a privilege and again, I am just I am so grateful for the opportunity that I get, just being here at Cal Poly, getting to teach new minds, new innovators. I will selflessly say that I probably get more out of it than they do because they just they constantly remind me the principles of entrepreneurship and the things that I so easily forget, because they are those fresh minds, because they're coming to this with a new perspective and continuing to teach it just it keeps me fresh and it reminds me, as I'm working on my own company, to come back to the basics, to come back to those principles, and so for that I'm so incredibly grateful. But I would say one of the important things that I believe that I bring to my students and that I think they really value is just that, that reminder that, hey, I was once a Cal Poly student and now I'm working on a company.
I think so often we talk about the highlight reels of entrepreneurship, we talk about Amazon, apple, all of these big companies, and so we forget that that is a person that started out as a beginner with just an idea, and so I really think my work in being a professor at Cal Poly is reminding those students you can do this, you just have to start, you just have to be brave and you just have to be your authentic selves and go out. If that is what you're calling is and so that's, that's really my work as a professor I would say it sounds to me like you're really like putting your passion into practice every single day.
0:44:01 - Joanna Newton
Right, you're sharing the entrepreneurial journey you're having and you're encouraging others to do the same.
I know, when I was in college I went to I went to school for business, administration and marketing my favorite professors were all were most of them were adjunct professors, so they were people who were doing the work in real life and had stories to bring, had real life experiences.
And the ones who were just professors have been professors for a long time. Right, they had only been professors for a long time. They shared a lot less relevant things to what business was today because it changes so fast. So if you know even, for example, if you're it practices social media marketing, what social media marketing is today what worked six months ago is different than what works now to a year. So if you haven't done social media in 10 years and you're trying to teach me what works, you're not going to know. And that relevancy to you, kind of doing what you're doing for your students, I'm sure they recognize that, that you can relate in that way, and then also your openness to listening to them will also teach them to be open to others in that same way, that hopefully, as as they grow up and get older, they'll also listen to the younger generations too, and that that cycle can continue.
0:45:21 - McCall Brinskele
Yes, that is the goal. We want continuous feedback, especially in entrepreneurship. I really don't think entrepreneurship is designed to be learned based off of case studies of these big, successful companies. It really is the entrepreneurs coming back and giving back and talking about the nitty gritty, talking about the hard times and how they first started out, because when you show someone that huge timeline, they just see they had an idea and now they're this big company. But where is that journey, where is that in between? And that's really what it's all about and that's really what I think we need to continue to teach these young minds about.
0:45:57 - Michelle Pualani
Is it's just hard work, is really what this journey is about and knowing that what someone else is doing right now in their business doesn't apply to where you are.
I think that's a really critical thing is the journey that you're talking about.
We can look at people who are doing two million, five million, 10 million, a billion dollars.
We cannot replicate that just because it's successful for them at their level. Actually, even more so, because it's successful for them at their level, it's likely going to be not applicable or templatized or copy and paste for where we are. So we always have to assess where we are on the journey and always be iterating in our own experience and with our own systems and processes and creativity within that framework. So thank you for shaping our young minds and thank you for changing that next evolution for business owners who can start to get away from that hustle mentality that we've talked about as well. It's really ground into. I think what you offer is that reflection point, is that sense of calm, is that sense of intention and focus. So, as we're talking about big businesses and what that looks like, I want to know what do you envision for MENSE, what's the plan moving forward, where do you see it going and what are those big dreams that you have for this particular brand and business at this point.
0:47:17 - McCall Brinskele
Absolutely Well, I will say, because we've pivoted.
We are back to square one customer development, talking to those individuals who have this problem, in order to really make sure we get it right this time provide something that is going to change lives my big vision for our company.
I really have a heart for social justice, and so I really want there to be more education around menstruation. In the United States and in other countries, this is still a topic that we don't talk about, and I think that's such a tragedy for this day and age that it's not something that we can be open about with our parents and with our children, and so I really want to be cultivating that conversation, as well as helping individuals in developing countries who are not able to maybe go to school because they don't have access to products, and so their menstruation prevents them from getting education and from maybe getting out of poverty or learning what they could do with their lives. And so that is my big picture, what I would love to see for men making that big world change. It's a large goal and it'll be a long journey, but I'm excited for this journey.
0:48:25 - Joanna Newton
One piece of unofficial market research I can give you is that on this podcast we've, oddly enough, talked about menstruation a lot.
It just seems to be a topic that comes back over and over and over again, and we also will cut like shorts from all of our episodes and I'll share them on my social. Michelle's share some on her social. We also put them up on our YouTube channel. Whenever we talk about a period, for some reason we get all the trolls. It brings out all of the trolls who can't seem to handle the fact that we're talking. They want to argue. It's always men. They want to argue with us about its existence or about it being a problem or all of that. And what that tells me is that it's something that doing.
The work of increased education, increased awareness, increased access to the right products for the right time is still so needed. It's 2023. I feel like maybe this should have happened like 60 years ago. It didn't. But the work that you're doing I know is important, because I know the little bit. We talk about it. The reaction is like visceral People just can't handle it because it's something we don't talk about, it's something we don't make sure we have access to, and I think that's super important what you're doing Well, thank you.
0:49:56 - McCall Brinskele
I appreciate that, and I will say it's so funny because even in the United States and we see those reactions and things we are still so privileged. I have had conversations with individuals who tell me that they got pregnant when they were 16 because they didn't understand how their own anatomy worked or how pregnancy worked. I've talked to individuals who can't even get access to period products because of their mailing system. If they were to order something online, they wouldn't get that product to them for at least a year, and so I think it's so important to talk about the global impact of this conversation that needs to be had Also underscoring the mission and intention behind what it is that you're doing, the why we talk about that a lot as well, is really understanding what's driving you as an entrepreneur, as a business owner.
0:50:49 - Michelle Pualani
It's not always going to align perfectly and it will evolve over time and there will be different iterations of that, but, seeing the two different products that you have, it's not always about the product or the program of the service. Actually, it shouldn't be Really. Essentially, when you're creating your business, you should have that mission, the values, the core of the heart of what it is that you're doing and how you're bringing ideas and solutions into the world, as opposed to relying on the technicalities, because those technicalities will shift and they will change and they should evolve with the business. But those underlying principles and foundation are going to stay intact and that's what's super important. So, as we're starting to wrap up this episode, we'll come to final thoughts in a moment. But where can people find you, mccall, where can they hang out with you and where can they support men's, your business?
0:51:39 - McCall Brinskele
Oh well thank you so much, michelle. You can find me at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship if you're in San Luis Obispo. If you'd like to reach me, my email is McCall at mensclubcom, and I would love to talk to anybody who's going on this entrepreneurial journey.
0:51:55 - Joanna Newton
Thank, you so much for being here with us today and sharing your story. I knew I was inspired just hearing you talk about everything you've gone through, where you've come, your ability to pivot, change and grow. I'm really excited to follow along and see what men's is doing in a year, two years, three years and on and on, because what you're doing is important and will hopefully change things for women.
0:52:25 - Michelle Pualani
As final thoughts, I feel like you have so much to offer. Just getting to talk with you in the short time that we have. You have such a broad awareness and knowledge, but I think also like a deep wisdom and connection point to some of these topics that we're talking about around entrepreneurship. I'm so glad that you are taking a teaching position and have that, because I think that the type of person that you are is so needed when it comes to education and public education within the scope of university and college here in America. I think that some of the points that we talked about in terms of hustle mentality, letting go of the comparison to where other people are and really tuning in with yourself and letting go of some of that pressure her first prioritizing you in business and life it's really that intention of sinking into what you need, what you're looking to accomplish in the world, how you're showing up and how you're living your life and how you're making those choices and really discerning for yourself. What are you going to take, what are you going to put down, what are you going to get rid of? What are you going to seek out? How can you be a bit more candid about the process, especially when you're getting started, to seek the support.
I think that when I got started, I was so embarrassed by what I was doing and I tried to downplay it in so many ways oh, it's no big deal. Or, oh, I'm just coaching. Or, oh, I have these products. Or, oh, I created this course and we don't give ourselves enough credit and we don't own it enough to say it out loud and talk to people and network and really seize the opportunity to celebrate what it is that we're doing as we're moving through the process, especially when we're getting started. So, if you're listening, taking the time to celebrate, to own what it is that you're doing and to share it with the world and really let yourself talk about it openly and with confidence. So, mccall, I'll come to you. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners to kind of take away from this conversation?
0:54:22 - McCall Brinskele
I would just say again listening to your customers is key. Make sure to surround yourself with mentors who care about you, who have your best interest in mind and always, always, always come back to your values. If you don't know what they are, I suggest that you take the time to meditate and think to yourself what are the things that I really value and what is the vision that I have for this company? And making sure that those align is really the only advice that I have. As long as you're aligned in all of that, I think you're set up for success.
0:54:55 - Joanna Newton
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to catch our next episode. What is one thing you can do today to prioritize you in business and life?
