Carolyn Cesario: Co-Founding Ground Up PDX and Empowering Women in Transition

Guest: Carolyn Cesario, Co-Founder of Ground Up PDX
Host: Fei Wu

Overview:
In this heartfelt episode of the Feisworld Podcast, I welcome Carolyn Cesario, co-founder of Ground Up PDX, a social enterprise on a mission to empower women transitioning out of homelessness by providing job skills and employment opportunities. Carolyn shares her entrepreneurial journey, the lessons learned along the way, and the challenges of building a socially conscious business from the ground up. Carolyn and I discuss their shared history, reflecting on the importance of confidence, resilience, and building supportive communities, especially for women creators.

Key Topics Covered

1. Fei & Carolyn’s Friendship (00:00 – 10:00)
   • How Fei and Carolyn met 13 years ago at Sapient.
   • Reflections on working in a corporate setting and realizing they were meant for more purposeful careers.
   • Their journey from early professional mentorship to becoming entrepreneurs.
2. The Birth of Ground Up PDX (10:00 – 30:00)
   • Carolyn’s transition from corporate life to social entrepreneurship.
   • Co-founding Ground Up with Julie Sullivan, focusing on supporting women overcoming homelessness.
   • How Carolyn’s passion for healthy eating and making nut butters aligned with the business model.
   • Early challenges in building a business and a social enterprise from scratch.
3. Creating a Social Impact Model (30:00 – 45:00)
   • The importance of job skills training for women in need and how Ground Up’s program helps them transition to stable employment.
   • Overcoming boundaries between personal empathy and professional expectations.
   • The ripple effects of empowerment – how helping women rebuild their confidence and work skills impacts entire communities.
4. Partnerships & Collaborations (45:00 – 1:05:00)
   • Ground Up’s partnership with major retailers like Whole Foods and Target.
   • The power of persistence and relationship building when securing retail opportunities.
   • Influencer collaborations, including a notable partnership with Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski, and how these partnerships help spread Ground Up’s mission.
5. Reflections on Success & Celebrating Wins (1:05:00 – 1:15:00)
   • Carolyn and Fei discuss the importance of celebrating milestones, no matter how small.
   • The challenge of stepping back and recognizing achievements in an entrepreneurial journey.
   • Personal stories of growth, including how Carolyn and Julie balanced their business with personal milestones like becoming mothers.
6. Closing Thoughts & Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs (1:15:00 – 1:20:00)
   • Encouraging listeners to take risks, follow their passions, and embrace the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
   • Final words of wisdom on self-care, body positivity, and the power of community.

Resources Mentioned:

• Ground Up PDX – Learn more about Carolyn’s company and their mission to empower women.
• RedF – Social enterprise accelerator for companies like Ground Up.
• Alli Ball and the Retail Ready course

Listen or Watch the Show

Carolyn Cesario wrote a book too!

Check it out on Amazon.

“NUT BUTTER is a guide for those looking to make their own nut butters, as well as to incorporate more nut butter into your life in a healthy way. After making countless nut butters over the years, from some major hits (Cinnamon Snickerdoodle was a happy accident) to some, well…odder, concoctions (don’t ever make balsamic nut butter!), Julie and Carolyn share their wisdom so that you can make the perfect nut butter at home, too. All recipes will be peanut-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free … but they’re so delicious that you wouldn’t even know it! You’ll come away with the tools and know-how to make your own nut butters, as well as some helpful tips and recipes on how to use nut butters in your everyday cooking. But more than that, you’ll feel less intimidated to start preparing healthy and delicious food. Foodthat fuels your body and makes you feel great!“

Don’t forget to nail your tasty Ground Up PDX nut butter for 15% off with code (FEISWORLD) while supporting an incredible company that empowers women.

Transcript

Fei Wu:
All right, hi guys, this is another episode, very special one of Feisworld Podcast. We’re not live streaming right now, but I can definitely imagine envision putting together clips and share the video version of this with the world because I’m sitting here one of my one of my favorite people. Carolyn, thank you.

Carolyn Cesario:
Thank you so much for having me, Fei. It’s so good to see you.

Fei Wu:
So good to thank.

Carolyn Cesario:
We met. Wait, I didn’t put together how many years ago that was? That was 13 years ago.

Fei Wu:
13 years ago, yeah.

Carolyn Cesario:
That’s crazy.

Fei Wu:
Wow, Yeah, absolutely. I remember just seeing, I remember precisely even what you wore when you showed up at Sapient. I remember it was like all black. You had like these like, like black leggings or stockings as well. And I was like, you know, you seemed shy, but for some reasons I remember sitting down having lunch with you one time eating, I don’t know, like the what was it like a job, something like a safety and like a Java cafe or.

Carolyn Cesario:
Something right? Wow, that’s a throwback.

Fei Wu:
Throwback. And we had this lovely conversation. Instantly I knew that, you know, first of all, you’re someone I could trust, I’d enjoy talking to and we took many walks. We had the pleasure of working on a couple of projects and I always knew you’re going to do something really special and on your own terms. And I’m so glad 13 years later we get to have this conversation. You know, I wish we talked like at the beginning of our 350 episodes, but it’s never too late, so.

Carolyn Cesario:
Late and I would say the feeling is mutual. I was very lucky to have you as a mentor and just someone that I could look up to and kind of show me the ropes, the corporate world, so to speak. But also, yeah, you’re just someone that I similarly was like this, you know, no offense to Sapien, but this it wasn’t either of our like end all be alls. We had a lot more we wanted to do with our lives or our careers, I guess.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, very true. I’m so glad it worked out so well for both of us. And I have to say that even though, you know, we’re five years apart, which it was a pretty big age gap in our 20s when we met. But very quickly I realized the wisdom. And sometimes I even felt a little embarrassed, like there are many moments where we’re walking and I was seeking for your advice. Things that are really challenging, whether it’s personal and professional. And you always had such a calm mind and very logical when it comes to breaking things down. And now in retrospect, I was like 28, you’re 22 and 23. And it was just crazy. But it was such also such a privilege to be able to find, you know, people that you really kind of resonate with and then people who play such an important part in your life. And I definitely really look forward to working with you, seeing you. And Long story short, I want people who are, you know, listening or watching this now, wherever they are, to know that after leaving your corporate job there, there are a few things that I maybe want you to kind of dive into details, anything that you find really intriguing to share with our listeners and viewers who are women creators. We’re men with sisters, mothers and, you know, daughters. And it’s a it’s a tough world that we’re living in now 2024. I think the economy is really strongly steady, but there’s always that talk of like things can go very wrong. There’s a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of loneliness. So I really hope our conversation can bring a joy and hope to people. And not that we didn’t struggle or there’s everything is going super well for us all the time, but I think now as women who are a little bit more mature than, you know, when we met and they’re just so much that we can share. So with that said, I mean this, here’s my memory. Like without the typical reading people’s biography, like, you know, really meeting people for the first time, I just remember like you were so wise when it comes to you. We talk about diet and not just for like weight loss sake. We talked about different things that are nurturing to our bodies. And you’re sending me recipes. I was like, that’s really interesting. And then you were, you know, working on a project and we even met up in Portland, OR, which you are now in Portland, ME, just to differentiate that, you know, I remember cycle designs in Portland, OR and my partner Adam and I were actually on our way to see our friend John Haggerty playing in a show in Portland, OR PDX. And we saw you and I saw the environment. I was like, wow, you’re helping, you know, women needs people are underprivileged and all these things. And it was really inspiring to me. And of course, shortly after that you Co founded what’s called ground up PDX. I’m going to include a lot of these links in the description as well for people to learn that. And I’ve been following you & up for the text updates ever since and specific yeah, this isn’t that great. So gourmet nut butters that spread good by providing employment and training opportunities to women transitioning out of homelessness. And it resonates with me on so many levels. And I I’m not even going to spend the time to get into so much of how much we love like the Friends of Boston homeless. And it’s an organization I was part of as well. So yeah. Where do we begin? Carol, Carolyn, maybe we we start at any point that you find interesting you kind of want to highlight.

Carolyn Cesario:
I mean, I do think it’s interesting kind of right before he started rolling, I guess on this, we were talking about Sapient. So we both met it. Sapient. I don’t know what it’s called now actually, but.

Fei Wu:
There’s like a metro something a lot of acronyms and yeah, exactly by other companies.

Carolyn Cesario:
But I think like in part why why I was drawn to you. And then I was also reflecting on like there, there was like a little circle of ladies that I feel very fortunate to have fallen into. Interestingly, like I don’t know if it was just our class or what like class is in like the people who started around the same time as me, but there weren’t many men. It was like felt like a lot of the people that I was surrounded by, we’re all women. And I think part of the reason that I was drawn to you in particular was just we were all like cheering one another on. We were all in like various, it was a consulting agency. We all had different projects. So we could really like come together and talk about them, but then kind of add insight and provide like support for one another. So it really set this foundation of like women supporting women that has now really directed a lot of my career as they kind of mentioned. But it’s cool to think about that being kind of a formative role in that which no, I hadn’t kind of like threaded that arc fully, but I think that that’s huge. So thanks Fey for starting off my women supporting women career. But yeah, so I left, I guess just a quick kind of like summary. You already followed all of it. But I left Sapient travelled the world a bit because I was classic 2425 year old. Just not sure what I wanted to do with my life. That question felt like it weighed heavy, which now as a 36, I’m like that’s just funny. Life is long. You know the weight of like your 20s and feel like you have to do everything is intense. But in any case, I travelled, got some perspective and recognized that like I did want to find work that felt like it had more purpose to it in terms of like rather than supporting huge billion dollar corporations like we are doing it sapient or at least I was doing with my particular role. I wanted to do something that supported smaller businesses that were making a difference. So I got a job as a marketing manager at a small ethical fashion company that employed women in Uganda who are making sandals and other like leather bags and things as a means of overcoming poverty and earning education. So that was a really cool experience and got me to see like what a different business model could look like and how business can be a tool for social change and we don’t often like. That was a new revelation for me. I hadn’t really looked at it that way. It wasn’t something we talked about at Sapien at least. And that’s like built into your model, you could have opportunities for empowerment basically. And so Fast forward, I think after a few years of working there, I met my business partner who also had a similar vision for social good and we started Ground Up. So it’s a company that we have an employment training program for women transitioning out of homelessness and overcoming other adversities. And through 6 to 9 months in our program, women kind of get this job skills, confidence and like resume building experience that they need to provide to find employment elsewhere to like reach their goals. So at this point, we have been running ground up for over 8 years, which is crazy. And we’ve employed over 80 women at this point. So it feels like it took a while to like work out a lot of the kinks of this new model, but it really is working. And at this point, our products are in stores mostly in the West Coast, but in like Target, Whole Foods. Yeah, I’m trying to think most of them are like local chains outside of those, but it feels like we’ve really like proven out this concept and we’ve done it all bootstrapped and that’s huge. We really wanted to like maintain control. So yeah, that’s a little bit more of where where the journey has led me, but I don’t know if there’s any particular questions you want me to answer with that.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, for sure. It’s so funny that I always send over these questions like fosters. And I realize the moment I kick off the conversation, it’s never quite the path that are you walking on and which is so much always turned out to be so much better. Yeah. So I’m curious. I’m gonna like dive into ground up PDX just because I think a lot of people listening to this really haven’t been as deeply, you know, sort of involved. Even for someone like me with a text message and newsletters. I feel like there’s so many questions and I’m sure other people really want to know what you’ve been up to. So one really interesting. I also want our listeners and viewers to realize, oh, they have these questions. Like, for example, how did you meet your Co founder? I for grind up PDX. I never, I never ask you, I don’t think.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah, I know. It really is one of those things where it feels like a bit of fate because she she was hired. So I worked at this company, Seiko Designs, the fashion company that also empowered women in Uganda. Julie, my business partner, had just returned from Uganda, overseeing another training program there for women overcoming adversity. So in that case, it was like paper bead jewelry that they made. And she was overseeing a program for 150 women. And she had come back to Portland, OR, which is her hometown after living in Uganda for a few years and was like, I want to start something here and support the women locally because there’s such a homelessness crisis in Portland. And we hired her at at Seiko just because there’s like mutual friends and it was a part time gig. She was just doing customer care. I like kind of managed her. And you know, it was always supposed to be when she started. It was a temporary thing that she was doing while she was starting her own company on the side. And then like after three or four months of working at ground up and like the two of us started chatting about her business model more and what she was doing. And at the time I was making nut butters on the side of my full time job. And so she, she loved the nut butters. We just kind of kept chatting and I’d be like, what’s your latest, you know, idea for your company? And she was like custom sugar cubes and like, cool, tell me about that. Like every week it was kind of like a different product idea. And then ultimately at at a certain point, she learned how to make nut butter with me. And we were like, wait, this could be your product. Like, let’s try this out. And so it was really just this weird fate where, you know, I was excited about the nut butters I was making, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think I was keen to start a company that didn’t have like, a greater purpose to it. And she had full model built out already of wanting women to be employed in a training program, making a product to earn a living and get off the streets. And so it was just, yeah, again, that we met at the time.

Fei Wu:
Well, I mean, you’ve always been a really good listener on top of that, which is I think you’ve always been very accepting of not just other people’s ideas, because ideas in general ready to explore. I think Julie sounds like just the same way. And I haven’t really met her in person, but she I feel like she sounds and really looks and feels like someone like people that that really nurtured you, even when we’re working in Boston. And I just love that what you just said, summarizing like sometimes friends come together, colleagues come together isn’t all about it’s not always about my idea, my processes, and this is the has to follow my plan. And instead she’s kind of got the blueprint, the business background. And then you have just this perfect idea. Well, Speaking of which, I remember that you were, I remember you’re talking about like almond butter. You’re like into all these more quantical alternative back in, I don’t know, 2007 eight sort of thing. We’re all like eating peanut butters and and you’re I still love peanut butter and you’re like almond butter, hazelnut butter. You’re telling me all these things and made me want to try it. And then you made things on your own, which I was like, whoa, how could somebody do that? And, you know, it’s so funny nowadays you’re like, go to Amazon and get by all these things. But you started. Yeah, making all these things. I remember like, we’re sampling things and you guys made me. I remember that photo like you and Trudy and I don’t know who made the cupcakes, but you guys made these lovely, oh, cupcakes for my birthday in the office. I feel like that’s like you can see all these clues that that leads you doing something so special that you happen to love. So I’m, I’m curious, so that you probably had other ideas. There were a lot of people like watching, listening to this thinking, Oh, I have all these ideas. I’m sure you have many other ideas as well. But what how did you narrow it down? How did you look at the sugar cubes or sugar something or candies or nut butters or other, I don’t know, crafty things where you know, where like leather goods, like what made you decide on the nut butters? If you remember what the conversation was like.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah. Well, I think like in large part, I don’t know that I would have been involved in ground up. I mean, I always would have been advisor and supporter, but if it hadn’t been the fact that like it was my nut butter creations that we decided to launch with. That makes sense because at the time I was just doing, I was dealing with a lot of digestive issues and like had to make most of my own food at this point in my life and had to be in like a super restricted diet. And so nut butters were like my only sweet treat at the time and I had to have them with just a little bit of honey. Like I couldn’t have any other sweetener. I couldn’t have peanuts. I couldn’t. So it really, they were born out of like the fact that I just couldn’t eat a lot of things. And that was my kind of guilty pleasure. And at the time I, I had, I guess a lot of time on my hands because I was starting to make Not Butters for friends. I’d make like custom, not butter recipes. They could fill out a form on my like, website and I would fill them out. But again, like, I didn’t intend to do much more with it. It was just like a fun passion project for me. So, yeah, when I met Julie, she was looking at all these different products. But I think, you know, and part I think the reason not Butters kind of work. It feels like such a nourishing food that pairs so well with like the training program mission that we were doing. I think like sugar cubes, like no offense to people to do. It just feels like, oh, we’re like eating a ton of sugar isn’t great for you. And so it just kind of feels the antithesis of what we’re trying to do. It’s like nut butters tie really well because they are a healthy nourishing treat. And I think just it also was a process that was fairly straightforward in terms of making them. And so the women in the program, it’s something that they could like learn how to do pretty quickly. And then in a way, I think because at one point she was looking at like gift back at baskets or like woodworking things. But when we thought about it more, it’s like, oh, gaining kitchen skills, like production kitchen skills by working in a nut butter manufacturing kitchen actually really does set the stage for you to get work. And so many other production kitchens, whether it be like restaurants or food service, which there’s a ton in Portland OR. So that actually became a cool stepping stone for us as we were partnering with other companies who were looking to hire production workers for their kitchen. And like once women went through our program, we would refer them there. So it kind of again, like wasn’t something that was even super conscientious at the time, but the more that we started playing with the two, like the model and the nut butters together, it was like, oh, this actually really works and here’s why.

Fei Wu:
Wow, isn’t that fascinating? I mean, as soon as you started building the company and I don’t remember how much, how long it took for you to realize, oh, we’re going to start training women and here’s the program. Could you maybe talk about like what it was it like to design that program with Julie, some of the trials and errors, like what worked out? Well, you know, again, I, you know, I’m like totally not an event person, but recently since the beginning of the year, like running programs and live events with my mom and just realized a level of complexity showing up at the place and realized you forgot to bring the painting or you forgot to bring the tent or like all these like key ingredients for all of these programs. And like, I love to hear some about some of the learnings.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah. I mean, in part I was very lucky because Julie, at least when it comes to the training program, came prepared. Like she had a whole business model on what she wanted the program to look like, which is also sort of comical because as time went on, so much of it was changed and adjusted, of course, based on like actual experience. But it was nice that she she very much had a vision for like a nine month program where she partnered with organizations like nonprofits essentially who knew women who were ready to work but couldn’t get opportunity elsewhere. And so we would interview them, they would apply and go through a process and then they would enter our training program. And then they would be there for nine months, during which time you gave them like, you know, evaluations to the point where they we proved their readiness at the end, I guess. But yeah, like though we had that kind of overarching vision when we started the company, we were committed to like hiring from that population immediately. And fortunately there were a few different internship programs through nonprofits there that had folks like that they could that we could employ, that the nonprofit would fund their their wage, which was amazing because we had no money. We weren’t even paying ourselves. But like from day one, we had an intern. Yeah, this intern worked in Julie’s like basement at the time because that’s where all of our like warehousing was and we rented a kitchen by the hour. So they would come at like 8:00 PM on Sunday nights for like this is not great. But again, from the beginning, we just had that kind of integrated into our, our model. And I’m, I’m trying to remember, I mean, there were so many moments where we realized, oh, we need to adjust this. This doesn’t make sense. Like though we had this kind of plan for what the the training program would look like. In actuality, on a day-to-day basis, it often looks really different. And I think when we were one of like the biggest learnings that we’ve had. I don’t know if this quite answers your question, but it’s like Julie and I as individual, it’s hard to be both like the company and have company policies and then also be individuals that are actually just like directly managing the two employees we maybe had at that time. And so it feels like you’re developed, you’re working with these one or two people, you have a really personal relationship, you get to know each other. But then at the same time, you need to set like a professional attitude and start to really like the, our whole goal was to train these people so that they could find work elsewhere. And so the more that we’re lenient with them or overly understanding or like let them kind of cry and give them hugs or like let them, I don’t know, like, yeah, some like heartbreaking things that sound crisis, but it’s like, you know, a woman came in early to work and she was like, can I just use the shower? Like I don’t have a place to shower. And so we would just go out of like bend over backwards to try to cater because we have so much empathy towards the population we were working with. But at the same time, like that’s not setting them up for success in the like real world, which is where they were going next. And so as I think about the early years of ground up, there were just, there was just so many conversations of like, oh, that might have been a boundary that we shouldn’t have crossed. And like, let’s now have it be a company policy that like, we don’t do this or we, this is like we don’t, we only allow like 3 tardies before this person is going to be fired. Like that’s a simple thing that companies have. But I remember when it was just again, Julie and I in this like commercial kitchen we rented by the hour. It’s just hard to have some of those standards, I guess. But ultimately what we realized doing the business that those standards and policies really are to the employees benefit. Like our whole goal is to make sure that they’re ready. And the more that we like, keep the lines murky. It just wasn’t helping them or us and created a lot of confusion and a lot of like them feeling betrayed by us ultimately because at some point we were like, well, this is a job and we can’t do X. And they’re like, but you did all these other things. So that that was probably like the biggest thing with the training program is as I think about like how it’s evolved over the years, It’s like everything now is documented. We have strict policies. We have strict procedures for like what constitutes a graduation when someone can get like an extension on their program if they haven’t quite met the different things that we expect. But again, like early on, all of those things, we’d be like, I think you can graduate, like, yeah.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, yeah.

Carolyn Cesario:
It’s just it was a lot of like learning as we go, in spite of having a clear vision we necessarily wanted. It just changed a lot.

Fei Wu:
I think that’s AI think that is the epiphany of like entrepreneurship. A lot of people think you’re an entrepreneur, you have somewhat steady income, things stay the same. You have everything figured out. And in real life, it’s just the opposite of that. And you know, like I can’t believe you started, it sounds eight years, 2016 is when you started on a PDX at the very beginning. And that’s it’s crazy as we are friends. That’s kind of when I kicked off Feisworld January first, 2016. And now in retrospect, all the roller coaster moves and unexpected things happened. And even today things are changing, you know, other quarterly basis, sometimes more often. And that that’s only natural. And what I, I think I found really exciting about what you just shared is that, you know, you’re giving these women a chance. They’re also giving you a chance. But there still need to be structure and and different like SOP’s in place just to I know that the expectations are met to more or less. And I often, you know, really wondered. And then that you were talking. I realized I remember your face when we went to Pine Street Inn to serve food to the homeless people. People were homeless in the Boston area. Some. I just remember you being part of. Were you there? Where am I making it up? Yeah, we had the hair net and everything, and that was kind of my first exposure to. And then it’s so funny, you look at the crowd of people, it’s like, who else decided to take this to the next level? I love what you’re saying. I think that even people are listening to this. They know that there are pros and cons of working with friends, like really good friends. It’s so hard, right, To establish that boundary. It’s like, I much rather has to be friends and I don’t have to criticize the work. I don’t have to change things or have to let’s set expectation. That sounds really harsh and cold. And then in your case, you know, working with a population #1 is nobody ever chooses to be homeless. And their background, their experience may be quite complex, is what I’ve learned from friends or bows and homeless and not to assume and have to approach in a certain way. And I wonder what it’s been so many years. What have you and Julia learned in terms of communication, setting expectations, approaching people as people? And yeah, like, teach us a few things because I think it’s much better to know how to start a conversation, how to nurture, how to approach one another as opposed to, oh, let me just stay out of it so I don’t offend anybody, you know?

Carolyn Cesario:
I think the number one thing for us has just been clear expectations, clear boundary setting, clear policies and really adhering to those, which feels hard, especially when it was just the two of us. Like we’re fortunate that now we have managers who manage most of our team. Like I don’t think either of us directly manage. Yeah, basically we have a good director of operations who kind of funnels everything at this point. But when it really was just the two of us, the hardest part was that we would, it’s like we can’t be too nice. And that sounds harsh, but we’d actually early on to, he hired a friend or two of ours to help manage the kitchen and stuff. And it’s like even with that friendship and business is hard to mix. Like my business partner and I are really lucky that we can have super honest and direct conversations. And ultimately I think we’re business partners first and friends second, which I actually think is a good thing. But if you’re friends first and then trying to, if you’re kind of being too nice to one another or I don’t know, it sounds bad, but it just doesn’t mix. It didn’t work for us. And I think that’s the same with some of the managers that we hired. We were like, we really like you. You’re a great person, you’re gonna be good at this. And then you put them in this setting that maybe they aren’t living up to the expectations that we thought. And then it just gets awkward very quickly. And so we’ve actually probably like ruined a couple friendships, now that I think about it over that. I mean, clearly not like amazing friends, but still people that I like, admire. But also I’m like, oh, you just it wasn’t the right fit for this company. And I think part of it, though, would have been like setting probably clear expectations up front around all of it. And instead it’s like you’re like, oh, we think you’ll be great at this. This will be fun. And probably made it sound like in reality, the work that we do is hard. It’s hard physically, especially working in production. It is just, you know, like we try and bring as much fun and energy to it as we can, but I don’t feel like it’s super glamorous. And I think working with population that we do can also pose challenges. And I think that was a big learning we had is like every manager and really person on our team should have some sort of trauma informed training to understand kind of how to navigate the workplace given everyone’s coming in with their own background, their own traumas. How do you like respectfully work around people? And then also the biggest thing is like, how do you not bring your own baggage into the situation? Like if you’ve had a really bad day or a horrible night, how do you come in and like set that at the door out of respect for your Co workers and show up? And so yeah, making sure that most of the folks on our team, especially all managers are trained on that was like a number one priority for us over the years. And then, yeah, I’m just trying to think about in terms of like the women that we work with. I feel like the more that we can just be really clear so that nothing feels personal. Cause they’ve just had often they’ve had so many people in their lives, like haven’t shown up for them or they’re really like confidence. I would say, I guess it’s the number one issue that these people are facing across the board. Like we were not expecting that when we started this. We thought it would be more of like a resume recommendation that we could provide. But overall, what we’ve heard is like confidence and then creating an environment and like a sense of community. You have been like the two biggest things that we’re providing for people. Just a time and a place where they can kind of like build themselves back up again, which is so special. And it’s amazing. Like there’s such a palpable energy of that that when you’re at our warehouse, just like seeing all these women who really are showing up for one another, even if it’s in subtle ways, which it often is. But it’s super cool. And I think, where was I going with that? Like, Oh yeah, the community building, leaving yourself at the door, treating one another with respect, I guess. Like we just have really clear ground rules around how people are supposed to treat one another. And if someone violates that, it’s very quickly like we take the person aside and deal with that. But again.

Fei Wu:
Addressing the issue on the spot, I mean, you’re giving away like so many Nuggets right now. Seriously. Because this is like you said, physically it’s hard, Emotional spiritually are hard. I think not just for these women as well as it’s for you and Julie, you know, came from not to say that we’re trauma free. I think many of us have gone through trauma of different kinds, but they’re all different. There’s also like the cultural differences. I don’t know where these women are from. They may not all be American. They may not grow up in a in a family or frankly, having a very supportive family of the same or different culture. And so once you look at them all together, there’s so many, so many permutations of issues as well as ways of celebrations that could happen, good things that could happen. It’s very complex, so.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah, like it sounds easy enough, but I think I mean, just in general, most people don’t have much of an awareness around like what unfortunately, I shouldn’t say most people, but it’s we’ve had a lot of experience where people just aren’t aware of how their actions and words and behavior are maybe impacting others. And so that’s probably the number one thing is like, how am I showing up in this space in a way that is respectful to those around me? So training on that as much as we can and like letting people know again, OK, you’ve crossed the line. So, but here’s here’s we have it in documentation like that. This is a a policy. And so you’ve now crossed the line here and then set warnings. And then unfortunately that doesn’t mean that we’ve had to let people go if it doesn’t, if they aren’t a good fit and they are creating a lot of like drama for the team or, you know, and that’s always hard because I think because we are like in a second chance employer, we always want to give a second chance. We always want to be like, no, we can work with this person. But unfortunately, as we’ve gone on, we’ve recommend we can see the signs quicker that we’re like, this person’s just not the right fit. They don’t sometimes it’s, it is due to like, you know, team dynamics, but more often than not, it’s actually due to attendance and just like readiness for a program like ours and readiness for professional employment. So those are, those are hard. I think that was also birth a big learning for Julie and I early on was just how to deal with the situations where we actually feel like we can’t help someone and like it didn’t end super well.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, I mean, good. I think kudos to both you and Julie. I mean, for people who are, you know, currently out doing the math, you were barely like 28 years old when this happened and then working through your way through your 30s. And, and then I was just thinking like, you know, there’s, there’s some training that I received while working at the Friends of Boston hopelessness. And then there are women who had devoted their entire life 2530 years previously working in like Law Offices and then decided to work in a basement to support the organ organization. And I have to say that it’s a, it’s a little bit, you know, at the beginning, a lot of people can say, I just served dinner that one time thing. And you have this feeling you’re like it’s AI have to say that sometimes it’s quite intimidating, especially the certain places that we have worked at, they’re not just women, but they’re also men, you know, homeless, you know, homeless men who kind of they sometimes, you know, without proper training, sometimes you don’t really know how to react or respond to a situation. It could be really daunting. You know, we can always fake and lie about. It was like, wow, that was, that was a little scary. And I don’t know if I did the right thing. Do I get a second chance? But you and Julie are like day in and day out in these situations. And I feel like when I see you again, I know and I know now that you’re a very different person. But I, I think I am aware that how challenging it could be. And you’ve, you have come so far with this program.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah, it’s it. I really do feel like it’s take it took a long time, like five years until I feel like we actually were like, oh, this is running smoothly and smoothly. Honestly, being that Julie and I weren’t the crux of and I would say Julie in particular, because she she has handled more of the training program over the years. That was just like I’m more product marketing, etcetera. And she was always like leading that. And I think it took five years till it felt like it it was its own entity and we didn’t have to be super tied to it. So that that meant like we had a job coach who would work with the women and help them with resume building and things like that. So it wasn’t just Julie or I sitting there reviewing resumes, you know, like getting to a point where it’s it was more fully functioning. It took a while. And I also think it’s recognizing your own limitations like we are. I think you called out. Yeah, we were very young. We are still arguably, I guess, and we’re 2 white women and it’s like a lot of the population. I mean, it was pretty varied. I would say Portland, OR in general is quite white. But in any case, like we were young white women who came in with this like vision of what we wanted to do. And I think that that also has its own weight to it, which we don’t have to get into fully. But I think a big priority for us was trying to find managers who have some shared understanding of what, like the people that we’re hiring have gone through or some shared background because, you know, neither Julie or I also have been homeless. Like there was just a lot that when we come into the workplace, we felt like, I don’t know, I think I really cringe like the idea of like the white savior coming in and being like, we want to help these people. And so, yeah, a priority for us was finding managers and also like helping to promote from within. So let the people on our team really do have a shared baseline more so with the population. I think that also earned a lot of respect. So like one of our employees just celebrated her four year anniversary and she’s like a huge mentor to the folks on our team. She helps train a lot of people and like that’s amazing. And anyways, it just, it just took a while to really like build up the right people and the right structure to make it so that it works and again, works without Julie and I being at the center of it all. So.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, I mean, that’s still learning, but it’s incredible. I mean, yesterday I was just talking to a couple at an art festival and they have four children and they have two separate businesses, the art business and also the fitness business. And exactly what they said in our, you know, just standing around for 30 minutes talking and realize how much in common that we have and how their gym is so successful because they have trained the right coaches and everyone. The gym kind of runs on its own and only SC there’s level escalation, big issues that have to step in and kind of help resolve and consult. So kudos to you and Julie for establishing that environment. And I want, I’m kind of curious, I want to go back whether are these, you know, trainers or trainees that you mentioned, they’re kind of sweet moments. And some of those are pretty subtle. Like what are some of the sweet moments that you remember whether happened way, way back or like something recently that you just you find a really sweet, you know?

Carolyn Cesario:
I mean, I think like the person I was just mentioning who celebrated her four year anniversary or ground up like she is. She has she started there with no confidence at all. It was really sad to see Like she she’s actually know I want to say she’s in her 60s would be my guess 50s or 60s. And she started to ground up after like, getting let go from a job she worked out for many years because I think she was a little older and not maybe as computer savvy. And they just didn’t see like, growth potential in her. I feel like she told me exactly what they said and I can’t remember what it was harsh. And she was let go and then unfortunately, yeah, became homeless for a little while. And when she started to grown up, she just had zero confidence in herself, especially professionally. And over the time there, she had a great, like, kind of crew of women that had started around the same time. And I feel like I saw them all really get to know each other And like, I’m not, I don’t try to pry into conversations, but they would always like come in around the same time and I’ll be chatting and I could just kind of like slowly see her start to smile more. And we do this like team huddle every morning. And she just started opening up more. Like initially she was pretty quiet and then she started to open up a lot more and share in our team huddle. We have a question of the day to get everyone kind of talking. And it’s usually it could be something of like, you know, if you could have any superpower, what could it, what would it be? But I just again start saw her starting to like open up more and more in those and she eventually worked her way up to become like one of the pros at our machine, which is a beast. She like named the machine babe. And she was like, this is my this is my baby. Like I’m a pro. And now she still is probably like the number one expert on that machine in our building. But again, like she just kind of worked her way up slowly, slowly. And I guess the cool thing or like the sweet moment now is in the last year. So she instituted this in our morning huddle. She started doing words of affirmation every morning. So she would come in and and bring like a word of affirmation that everyone on the team like, and then other people could bring their own too. But she would always read it. And she was like, this is what helped me a lot in my journey and I want to share it with you. And now it’s gotten to the point where she does like contest where people can submit their words of affirmation and she’ll pick winners and like she makes blankets for the winners. And it’s just so cool to see that it’s someone who again, started with such little confidence, has now become like a mentor and leader on the team to the point where she has instituted her own like morning huddle, affirmation circle and stuff. So.

Fei Wu:
That is super beautiful. That is like, this is one of many stories. And on top of that, I think the ripple effect is, you know, 5-10 years from now, if this woman chooses to pursue something else, I think you and Julie will be super happy for her as well. Any other any other women. And so I was just thinking like as they leave, as they carry on their lives, how they currently and then like even current tents, like how they’re impacting the friends around them, their children, their siblings. And then as they leave the job, they have all these skill sets on like two kids carried with them to their future endeavors. And just the ripple effects of like how many, you know, how much happiness, how much joy hope that they can create in their in their own world. And it’s like, this is super exciting and people don’t know, like don’t even think about, don’t even know that this could happen until somebody shows them the way.

Carolyn Cesario:
We’ve always just like we’ve always wanted to be an example for other companies or businesses who want to institute a similar model. And we’ve had plenty of folks come to us and say, like, how did you do it? What’s the key? Like help me do this at my own business? And we’re, we’re not quite at the point where we’re like actually able to like we’re always have to have one off conversations. But our goal is to eventually have some sort of like, I don’t know, resource, like a webinar or something, some sort of like templates that we can share with companies that says like, here’s how you can do it on your own as well. Right now it’s much more one off. But Julie especially takes so many conversations where people are like, OK, cool, I want to do this. And, you know, there’s definitely some considerations beforehand, but I think it yeah, it’s amazing. And if other folks can do it, that’s great. A small plug for, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Red F, but it’s like the social enterprise accelerator and kind of resource for other companies that are like ours, the second chance employers and such and they’ve been.

Fei Wu:
Red F, you said?

Carolyn Cesario:
Red F Red F OK Listening happen to be interested in starting their own social enterprise. They’re just a great place to start there. They’ve been a big support for us and connected us with other businesses who are similar because we felt like we were doing it in a silo when we started. Like didn’t know that many other companies that had similar programs. And through Red F, we’ve connected with a lot of other folks across the country who have similar models, so.

Fei Wu:
Awesome. Wow. A great shout out of resources. And while we’re on this topic, do you can you think of any other resources and organizations? If not, that’s OK, but just figure I ask.

Carolyn Cesario:
Red F is huge for a while we were we still at Julie was taking like this course called retail ready by Ali Ball and Ali’s great. Highly recommend that, but it it helps a lot if you’re looking to start or to launch a grocery item in particular. So retail ready would be the other big, those are the two probably most helpful resources for us at this point.

Fei Wu:
Wow, how how good is that? I mean, just like after all the experimentations, thank you for naming them. And you know, I’m sure people have this question even from the beginning of this episode is that you mentioned Whole Foods and Target and local boutique sort of different, you know, vendors and I’m sure food trucks are which is very popular. Why I am like literally like farmers market and all these shops are popping up. Do you remember? I mean, without you mentioning specific names like wanting to be in these shops, these even big chains. How did you make that happen? What was that journey like?

Carolyn Cesario:
It’s a good question. It’s we’re still very much on the journey too. And I think that’s what feels hard because, and one thing I will say is Julie and I recognize like we, we’ve tried to celebrate the successes along the way, but it’s often hard because you’re just always looking at like the next thing. Like for instance, we’re in target, but only in. 360 stores and we’re like, we want to be in Target nationally now. And so it’s just to get this, it’s not good. So not good in terms of like you’re just always on to the next thing when you’re not agree. You feel the same. Yeah. But as we, as I think about the stores that we have gotten in like because, because Target when we first got into 360 stores last year was a huge deal. It still is. The process for getting there always takes longer. It’s like over the course of several years, like you meet the right contact. Sometimes because we’ve reached out to them, sometimes they’ve reached out to us by chance or we’ve met them at some event or there’s a connection. But even once we still have that initial connection with their buyers. It just takes a lot of time to really convince them to carry your product. I think the grocery space is so inundated right now with natural foods products like, you know, compared to when we started this business like 8 years ago.

Fei Wu:
Competitive.

Carolyn Cesario:
Space, Yeah. And a lot of, you know, buyers, their first thought is like, oh, I don’t want to carry it up another nut butter. Like, why is yours different? Or it’s, it is expensive, I guess compared to others on the shelf, but they often compare it to peanut butter, which isn’t really fair because peanut butter is a lot cheaper than almond and cashew butters. But so, yeah, as far as kind of how those processes came to be, it was a lot of like, I will say Julie has handled it. I handle our econ side, She handles grocery and she is my opposite in so many ways. She’s so outgoing and she will not take no for an answer. And she has just like the best extrovert energy. And so she just becomes best friends with the buyers over time. Like it’s a Whole Foods buyer. She just was like Denise, like you and I are going to be besties. I’m going to call you. I’m going to email you. I’m going to like send you all the samples. And finally, eventually Denise is like, OK, I’ll trial you in certain locations or something and and got us there. But yeah, I guess I’ll have to say like it’s time.

Fei Wu:
It takes years.

Carolyn Cesario:
Energy and it’s getting it’s getting the buyer at the right time to like sometimes it really is just like they’re not open to it. You can meet them in an event and they’re like, I’m not no, like I’m not into it right now. But then you’ve happened to follow up a year later and they’re like, oh, actually I was just reconsidering so.

Fei Wu:
That’s so.

Carolyn Cesario:
True magic formula for it.

Fei Wu:
There isn’t just relentless, you know, like it just you just can’t give up. I mean, first of all, Julie sounds like a little bit like me as I’m embarrassed to. I shouldn’t be embarrassed to admit like I realize a lot of right, that’s what it takes because you people think that sometimes opportunity just like fall on to your lapse doesn’t doesn’t work that way at all. Like with my mom’s work. To your point, I remember, I mean, just as an example, it was a really big deal, at least in our little art community at the end of February this year, February 29th, I’ll not forget that. So mom had her show like multiple paintings, Dragons and huge silk paintings displayed at Harvard Museum. Specifically. It’s basically Peabody, Peabody archaeology. And then there’s like the Natural History Museum at Harvard at the beginning. I know it was like so cool. I know I’m going to send you some photos. It’s just like it just the between the Mayans stones and like the structure of the museum. Like it couldn’t be more beautiful. It’s like a dream come true to see my 7172 year old mother, like walk around the museum when the lights shine through her silk painting. I was, we were, yeah, very unreal. Like we’re melting, but to get through the opportunity, so many people have asked me, it’s like we were at Harvard Ed Portal in Alston and they’re like, oh, this is not really the right place for you. Should really be displayed at Harvard Museums. At the beginning, I was always almost a little annoyed. It was like I thought of that too, but we got to start somewhere and then.

Carolyn Cesario:
I’ve had that exact not so many times.

Fei Wu:
Right. He’s like, why aren’t you in Whole Foods? Duh. Like why not Target? Why not? I don’t know BJ’s or Costco’s.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yes.

Fei Wu:
You’re like, we didn’t think of that. Thank you. And, and so, and then I emailed them in November and then in December was nothing. I was like, OK, I’m familiar with this. This is, I’m, you know, exactly like what happened in my 20s and people are not interested in Chinese paintings or history or women in history or whatever. That’s OK. And and then in January, I decided to follow up again and I found out that office I was contacting like she was like, are there a couple of people who had COVID and we’re all recovering or I have colds and stuff? And we just got through to the email now and we want to invite you to have a show in four weeks. I’m like, you know, so they’re cancelling everything. And we didn’t even at that point. You sometimes, right. You don’t know what they’re inviting you into. Is it is it not butter is on the shelf? Where is it? Having a meeting isn’t running a webinar. You don’t know what it even is until you show up. You’re like, wow, OK, this is great. And but yeah, that’s what it take. It is so non linear for people like us. And you just have to, like, dance.

Carolyn Cesario:
And like jumping on any opportunity. And then often like, I don’t, I don’t know if you found this, but it’s having to like upsell. It’s like they’ll accept our museum museum exhibit. But like, what if we also add on this other thing to make it last longer or something? Like we’re like, oh, you want to carry us? But what about if we did this shelf talker with this thing? And like, I don’t know, just trying to to like give them the ideas because yeah, like you said, opportunities don’t fall in our lap. Like we have gotten lucky with a couple small things, but for the most part it’s US just kind of like planting seeds wherever we can.

Fei Wu:
That’s so true. So I can’t believe it’s been an hour. Caroline, I gotta ask, do you have like another 10-15 minutes or no double check?

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah, let me look really quick. I can just tell I have a one-on-one after this, but I can just tell her it’ll be like 10 minutes late. Is that OK?

Fei Wu:
Yeah, 10, one-on-one. Yeah, no problem. I’ll try to wrap it up in like 5 to 7. I just.

Carolyn Cesario:
Hold one second.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, let’s do another five. I didn’t realize you have a meeting right after this. So.

Carolyn Cesario:
No, I can. I can stay on till like 1210. Is that OK?

Fei Wu:
OK, sounds good. Yeah, I love what you said. Even the sounds like a small thing, but once an opportunity is like the relationship is cemented after the first engagement, but even during the first thing. I mean, what you said is exactly what my mom did. Again, watching my 72 year old mother without much marketing. Whatever experience at the Harvard Museums, like #1 you have to physically be there. If you’re the artist, see what you can do. How about here? Can you put your painting there? She’s like, it’s silk. So it’s very transparent and this and that. And she’s like, oh, and she listened to their questions and everybody was so interesting in Dragons Cut, almost like more so than like Chinese empresses. She’s like she then spent one week 10 days painting like 12 Dragons that size from the very beginning of 5000 years ago, which looks like a little cute something I don’t even like a cute fish almost right like it evolves into the Qing dynasty was so like complicated. So she adapted to what people said, really listen and propose this. And then like became more beautiful than we could ever imagine. And I, I, I mean, what you just said about, OK, how about not making it up now? Not butter. How about we give a talk? How about we invite the women that we work with to like meet the customers And we don’t like, did you guys do anything like that? I’m just curious.

Carolyn Cesario:
Most we’ve probably done is had. Well, OK, we do like demos at grocery stores and we have trained and we do a lot of events and we’ve trained some people on our team to like go to events. And you know, it’s always really cool if if you’re working an event and you’ve gone through a training program, like, and you can actually speak to it. So you’re selling the nut butters, but you’re also like, oh, this is what we do. And actually I’m one of those people. And a lot of our team doesn’t feel comfortable sharing their story, which is so fine. But the couple people who do say like, it’s just such a special moment. I like markets when they can tell the person like, I made this jar and this is my story. And This is why Ground up’s great. And the customer is just having like the most intense emotional reaction to that. And then of course wanted to support our product, which is great, but it’s not. That’s not an expectation, but it is always really special when it happens.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like it’s not always a part of expectations or not married to the outcome like whatever you propose. And I was just wondering, did you for the nut butters like who are at the beginning of probably the early years, did you have people’s names or like people who like work on the the particular jar to like either sign or put a sticker on it or something like that?

Carolyn Cesario:
Most we’ve had like people hand dated it. We didn’t have people write their names. We thought about it, but it was such a team effort. Yeah, the final stage is just signing or sorry, like writing the name, the date in your handwriting, which still felt like a cool touch at that moment in time. But we finally had to give up on that too, because it just was people’s handwriting’s pretty like vary a lot and people will be like, I can’t read the date and it’s like the expiration date. So yeah, stickers. But yeah, I know it’d be cool to do something like that. We’ve tried. I think storytelling is just a challenge for us in general because what we’re doing, I think obviously is very impactful. But it’s hard to convey that in like a quick marketing message. And it’s also hard when, and again, no like to no fault of their own, like a lot of people don’t feel comfortable sharing their stories. So finding people who are OK being more of like a spokesperson for ground up is hard. We’ve had a couple over the years and those individuals I feel grateful have even come back. Like, you know, of Whole Foods and his team came to visit our headquarters last year and then we had like 3 graduates from the program come and talk at that luncheon, which was super cool. And to hear like what they’re doing now, too, it’s just very full circle. But for like the average customer, I think it’s always on our mind to be like, how do we better convey the story? And yeah, it’s hard.

Fei Wu:
That’s why we’re doing the podcast, right? Like the long form conversations in many ways, it’s much easier to kind of set up the questions and wait. It’s OK to pause and wait for people to really think about what they want to say. Yeah, another question that kind of just jumped out at me. I noticed I was like beyond happy for you guys is to see some really key influencers really step up and partner with you guys. One of one of the recent ones is this very, very attractive, I would say chef actor. I couldn’t believe it. I just you know, I think it’s really interesting. What’s the name of the show? Like is it?

Carolyn Cesario:
Like Queer Eye.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, yeah. But did you, I mean, how did that come about? Did you reach out to him? Did he like?

Carolyn Cesario:
It’s so funny. Yeah, he that’s definitely one of the most exciting ones for most people on our team. But he can never remember the initial contact. It’s always we, if you like, look at our Instagram DMS with like most of the influencers we partnered with, it’s us sending them probably like 5 to 10 messages before we ever get a reply. And I can’t remember if I can’t remember how Anthony first tried her products, but maybe like one of our collaborations, we do a lot of flavor collaborations with influencers. And I think maybe one of our collaborators sent him products as like a like when an influencer launches their club, they’ll pick other people they want to gift it to. It’s kind of like APR box. Yeah, might have been why, I’m not even sure. But he very quickly, like the second he had them, he loved them and started messaging us back immediately. And then it just became a regular thing that we were just sending him not butter. And he would occasionally post about it. And again, like this was huge for our team. It’s actually on our wins board still is. Like Anthony posted about our not butter. Like what? And then we kind of just kept cultivating that relationship and ended up doing a collaboration flavour with him. So last year we did a caramel apple flavour with Anthony, which was so exciting. And did you meet him? I didn’t meet him, unfortunately. I had a lot of calls with his team, but I never actually got to meet him. But I’ve messaged with him on Instagram. So that’s like as close as we’re gonna get, I think.

Fei Wu:
This is we’re gonna get. I have to say that he is such a he’s so sweet. He’s just and.

Carolyn Cesario:
He didn’t he opted to not take a single penny from this collaboration. That was the first person that’s ever done that because he’s probably got he’s well off enough that he can afford to. And honestly, we probably offer such a small amount of money compared to what he’s used to that he was just like, keep it for your program. Like I really admire what you guys are doing. And that is just speaks volumes to like who he is as a person. So Oh my.

Fei Wu:
God, now I have a bigger crush on him.

Carolyn Cesario:
I know same.

Fei Wu:
Oh my goodness, it’s like, you know, I’m past that. I don’t want to say oh, past that age or whatever, but like I haven’t even with entrepreneurship, whatever. Like I’ve now looked at like a TV show be like, oh, you know, it’s just Oh my God, they’re so incredible. But this man, it just Oh my God, like even watching the TV show, I couldn’t believe it was like he is stunningly. There’s something so attractive about him. What is it, Carolyn? I was like.

Carolyn Cesario:
What?

Fei Wu:
Weird feeling you?

Carolyn Cesario:
Should be glad that Anthony is gay because I’m like, I don’t know, he’s he’s got something.

Fei Wu:
He’s got something real special. And then I see him and then I see him eating peanut butter. I was like, oh, that even that is so incredibly sexy. And I was like, Oh my God, it’s ground up PDX. And I just lost it. I lost it. I was beyond that. Made my day, made my week.

Carolyn Cesario:
It’s honestly still surreal to me when like celebrities or whatever have tried butters that I’ve made. Like I kind of disassociate. That makes sense.

Fei Wu:
You shouldn’t, I mean, OK, on that note, jokes aside, I think we can talk about Anthony for like entire other episode. Anthony, you watch this, but it’s so it’s so interesting, like can we, you know, since your time is limited, I could you maybe take a moment, think about and reflect on how you can you’re able to celebrate your success. Like, how do you, like, you don’t talk about like I manifested this and you just always in the on the go, like in the work itself, but how do you learn over the years to allow yourself to celebrate, to be like, I did a good job, you know, like this is amazing. I’m amazing. Like I think that’s really important for women to know that because. So. Yeah.

Carolyn Cesario:
And, and like I, I think I mentioned before, I would admit that I can still do more to celebrate successes and have those like pinch me moments. I think sometimes, especially with flavor launches, like there’s so many people we’ve collaborated with that I’m so excited about. And then by the time they actually launch, it’s like a year after I started starting the process that my enthusiasm is lessened. So people are like, Oh my God, you did this thing with this person. And I’m like, yeah, like no big deal. So it feels like it’s, I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s, it’s almost like it’s kind of this funny thing. We’re like, even with Target, it’s like we know we’re getting into Target, but it was like 6 months before we got in. And so we celebrate a lot earlier and then later we’re just like, no big deal. But in reality, these things are very big deals. We might just not always show it initially. But no, Julie and I have made like a very concerted effort to celebrate our wins meet. A big thing was adding this like wins board to our office so that we can encourage everyone on the team to like add things that they’re excited about because we recognize that as a company, we probably weren’t doing enough initially to truly appreciate all of the the little wins to like, they could be as simple as someone learning how to like get trained on our forklift. But so definitely like as a company, that was something we wanted to institute. And I think Julie and I, because ultimately no one will ever understand what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. Like, I don’t know, having employees, we love our team, but like they’ll never understand some of like the weight that we carry. I think that’s a whole different conversation, but I think it’s just recognizing like us as individuals, we need to take the time to celebrate the win. So we did. We’ve gotten pretty good at like going out to dinner with our husbands and getting like a fancy meal. And we’re like, we’re going to put out in the company, which for us is like a huge treat and being like, let’s just go around and like share all the successes that we’ve had and take a moment. Because. And the big one this year is Julie and I both have babies now, which we felt like something we could never do while running ground up. It was just like it is all consuming for the first six to seven years of the business. And so that was a huge win that last time I was back in Oregon, we all went out to dinner and just had a moment to like sit back. And a lot of it is just reflecting on the early days and realizing like, OK, we never thought this would happen. Let’s take the time to just like sit and celebrate that. So yeah, it’s hard though, and I but you need, it’s so necessary to to appreciate how far we’ve come.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, I’m so, so glad you shared this. And it’s absolutely critical wherever whoever you’re watching this your man or a woman and doesn’t matter, like take a moment to appreciate yourself, to thank yourself and.

Carolyn Cesario:
To by the way, while we’re on the topic, like I could certainly use some still, but just to like, how do you celebrate your successes?

Fei Wu:
Yeah, I, I finally learned to do it and to take pauses like he said, not just, oh, what’s the next episode? Who’s the next guest I’m going to interview? I feel like I was on that on that train for quite a while. It’s always like next episode, let’s hit what, 4 episodes a month? And they’re like, wait, wait a minute. Like do people, are people really going to be missing this if I delivered 2 episodes as opposed to four? It’s really about the quality of the conversation. Let me really like marinate in these little Nuggets. And we even went back and produce these clips, which we didn’t do for the first like 8 years of the podcast. So now, you know, we even at an I developed PodIntelligence, which we’re looking back at 350 episodes, look at the cross sections of keywords and topics. But that to me is a way of celebrating me. Like there is more to learn, there’s more to see and to share from what we have already produced as opposed to keep moving forward. I actually learned, I think the past 4-5 years, I learned to really love my body. Like I think as a woman for so long, it’s, it’s incredible. It’s like, oh, you have like like you, I also have like, you know, in my 30s, a lot of digestive issues. I became gluten free and I start feeling better. But there’s always like, I felt like was always battling with my body. And now it’s like, OK, I’m feeling not so great right now. That’s OK. I’m going to like take care of myself. And then, like you said, that the self love and taking time for yourself to treat yourself to a really good meal, to spend a little money on you on not just investing back into the business, be like, I really like this. I want to you know.

Carolyn Cesario:
Yeah.

Fei Wu:
Material goods are OK every once in a while. Exactly.

Carolyn Cesario:
Exactly. I think that’s such a good point. And yeah.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, it’s so, so lovely. And I know Caroline have taken up all your time. So I’m going to, you know, just pause the recording and I would encourage people to check out all the links and information I’ve included in, please try out Ground up PDX. And it’s just an incredible company. Online orders are extremely easy and I look forward to ordering some for myself like right now. And with that said, Carolyn, I’m going to take us offline and thank you so much for the conversation.

Carolyn Cesario:
It’s a joy.