Episode 133 - The Founder and CEO Relationship with Brittany and Sheeba
When Brittany Underwood founded Akola Jewelry, she had no idea what the future of the jewelry handcrafted by women in Uganda would look like. Now, you can find Akola jewelry in Nordstrom's all across America.
Today, you're going to hear her whole entrepreneurial story, but you're also going to hear from Sheeba Philip, the current CEO of Akola. Together, Brittany and Sheeba talked about the relationship between founders and CEOs, some avoidable pitfalls, and how their collaboration best serves the overall mission of the business.
Episode Transcript
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As it found her being able to have the humility to know that you're serving under your CEO like she was not serving under me, I'm serving under her, and that's just been a great joy. Every once in a while. You're like, but I used to call the shots and that was awesome. But being able to step back and say, you know, the Lord has designed her to be something that's his which has never been mine in the first place, this incredible business and that blessed so many women and changes so many lives. And and I get to serve her in that.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. When Britney Underwood founded Akola jewelry, she had no idea what the future of the jewelry handcrafted by women in Uganda would look like. Now, you could find a Koula jewelry in Nordstrom's all across America today. You're going to hear her whole entrepreneurial story. But you're also going to hear from Cheeba Phillip, the current CEO of a Koula together. Britney and Cheeba talked about the relationship between founders and CEOs, some avoidable pitfalls and how their collaboration best serves the overall mission of the business. Let's listen in now with Britney and Sheba.
So we've had maybe one hundred and fifty plus of these podcasts, and I've never bought anything from a guest that we've had. But both Cheeba and Britney are one of these awesome necklaces. And I'm going to look like a hero to Kimberly here in a week when my necklaces come in. Does that happen to you guys a lot when you're talking to somebody and you're doing a video call? I mean, I would imagine that the Zune format with you guys being able to show off what you guys have has been helpful as you guys have become probably two of your top salesmen.
Brittany Underwood: Well, it's great, especially because people are so angry because they want to look good on them. So we're glad that we're in a category that's not shoes right now, that it's something that you can admire from any virtual space. And so, yeah, now we've had a lot of people and we did that on purpose. Do we always wear our favorite pieces and that people buy them? I sold them off my neck at times and I had somebody on a virtual zoom call say they want it and will slip it right to them. And that's always our hope is, you know, even before someone hears about our mission and vision and how it transforms lives, that they just love the product. And then it's icing on the cake that, you know, they're actually putting food on the table for families in need.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you for helping me to be a hero. OK, let's go ahead and get started. Tell us what is Akola and how did it get started?
Brittany Underwood: So I guess I'll take that one, Accola mean, she works and we are an affordable luxury brand that transforms the lives of women in crisis through a manufacturing operation in Uganda. And this entire journey began sort of dating me a little bit, I think it was 16 years ago now. So it's been one of those slow and steady journeys. But I was 19 and I taught in a boarding school with World Harvest Mission for summer in college when I was at SMU and I met a Ugandan woman who sacrificed everything she had to care for. Twenty four children who she literally rolled out bamboo mats to have them sleep on her floor. And I had never met a woman who had such incredible faith and just the ability to sacrifice her life for others and was very moved. And that sort of began the journey of a that we kept in touch. It turned into an orphanage project. The orphanage project turned into a Koula when we realized after building it, and then a much more effective and sustainable way to care for orphaned and disadvantaged children by empowering their moms and women in the community. And what they needed was an income so they could take care of them and send them to school. But what they also needed was training and discipleship. And these women have just gone through such hardships that in order to be the mothers they want to be, they need some help. And so that's really what it does for women. And we started the jewelry business that, again, our jewelry is a means to an end to transform lives. But we knew if we don't create beautiful jewelry and if it doesn't sell, we can impact any women. So the jewelry business took off around twenty, twenty sixteen when we launched the Neiman Marcus. And we were one of the first social impact brands to launch in the luxury space, which is really exciting and kind of been on the forefront of the social business movement there. And then our jewelry got into Saks and Nordstrom and suddenly we had this very successful business that also had an incredible mission, was founded on the purpose of lifting families out of poverty. So it's been this incredible journey that I feel like I'm just so blessed to be a part of.
Henry Kaestner: Cheeba, I want to turn to you quickly. What were you doing before a and when did you first hear of Brittany Nicole and what was your first impression?
Sheeba Philip: Sure. Well, I always tell people it took 20 years to get to a COLA. Just the journey began, honestly, right out of business school. I had spent the first ten years of my career building global brands for Kraft Foods.
And that's where I learned the love of brand and love, of connecting brands with consumers. And as part of my role, I did a lot of work globally. I was the global director of the Oreo brand. And so I spent a lot of time in India and I was helping launch the brand in India. And my family is from India. So I have a real heart for the developing world, particularly Southeast Asia and South Asia. And so I spent a lot of time in India actually for work. And during that time, God just exposed me to the heart of the poor. I mean, if you ever gone to India, I mean, poverty is in your face constantly and you start to see the plight of injustice and social injustice among the poor. And that started to stir my heart during that time as well. I was doing some missions, work, working in India, serving an organization that was helping children get out of potential sex trafficking and putting them in homes that can care for them and educate them. And so all this was kind of happening where I was thinking to myself, gosh, there's something going on in my heart. I've spent ten years of craft building these big brands. I've got this kind of executive MBA experience, but I'm longing to have purpose in my work. And so I never thought I would leave Craft. To be honest, I loved my job. I was doing very, very well there. But God pulled me out and I actually made a radical departure. And I moved to DC to join the International Justice Mission in DC to be the VP of marketing. And I came in to kind of work on their brand and partner with them to just raise awareness around modern day slavery. I did that for two years and love the work, love the organization, but just felt that the Lord was calling me back into business. So long story short, I joined the turnaround team for J.C. Penney and I moved to Dallas to reinvent that brand. And I love the kind of mission of J.C. Penney. It was founded on principles of democratizing retail and bringing Christian values to retail fact. James Cash Penney was a believer, and so it just got me excited to work on a purpose driven brand again. And so I did that. And long story short, the turnaround did not go as well as we all had hoped. And I had a big moment in my career. I actually took a severance package and lost my job because there was a big shakeup at the executive level and that opened up an eighteen month. Journey, while I was in Dallas thinking through what I would do next, and so I spent a lot of time in prayer, Henry, and thinking through God, you took me through craft and then GM and now J.C. Penney, like, what's the story? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? And the Lord revealed kind of three things. One, that I was called to business and purpose, like this intersection of what I would call redemptive business, business that transforms lives that if Kingdome minded. The second thing is I had a heart for the poor and want to work in a global context. Like I just loved travel. I loved being in Third World countries. I wanted to be back in that space again. And the third thing is I want to be around a product that I love and I'm passionate about. And I actually love fashion, love, jewelry. And so those kinds of things I was thinking about at the time of this exploration process, I got involved with Praxis, which I think many people who are hearing this podcast as video would know about. And Praxis in that time, I was serving as an adviser to entrepreneurs and helping them build their strategies around brand and brand building. And God just created a moment where during that time of self exploration about what do I do next to my career and being a Praxis, I was introduced to Britney. And as you heard the Britney story, she had spent so much time building this beautiful business and beautiful brand, but it needed to be transitioned into a for profit. We were a nonprofit to begin with. And with all of the retail momentum we were getting and Britney was seeing, she had the vision to quickly shift the company. And so that created an opening for me to come in and lead the companies for profit evolution and restructure the company into an early stage startup. So all I can say is I took 20 years of just shaping that story and that experience of my life personally to get me ready for the assignment of a COLA.
And I was reflecting this morning, I was thinking back about the Perlis I had about my next job coming out of J.C. Penney.
It's amazing to me how a literally fit every single thing I was looking for as I was going through that exploration process.
Henry Kaestner: Awesome, thank you. She took us through that path and that trajectory is you guys have been growing and changing from a not for profit to a for profit Britney. But I want to take you back to the time when Akolo was really, really rapidly growing. I mean, it's just some amazing things at the time. And one of the world's top 10 CEOs by Inc magazine and the best person in the world by Yahoo! In 2014. What were those times like? I mean, it's amazing where they Amen fun. Was it challenging? What was it all like?
Brittany Underwood: It was crazy. I mean, looking back, now that Cheeba is taking on the role as CEO and I've been able to finally spend some more time with my kids and really just operate as a visionary, as chairman of a couple. And now I look back at those times and think how in the world I was having kids, which always happens. I have like 10 years where I could have I was married, could have traveled anywhere. It would have been great. And our growth aligned with the birth of my first child and then my second child a year later. So it was insane. I mean, we never expected the Neiman Marcus launch. I mean, you have to keep in mind, we were this tiny jewelry brand. We weren't creating luxury products at the time. They were seventy dollars, but they weren't five hundred dollars at Neiman Marcus. And women were still working out of the garage of the office that we rented and Uganda and under trees in the village. And we were not a sophisticated operation. But this fortuitous moment happened. And so many people always ask there, like, well, how could you do this? So many special brands have tried so hard to break into sort of the national retail space and certainly the luxury space. And it just hasn't happened. They can't get in. And I would love to say that I was so strategic or just really brilliant, but it was a complete God thing. I mean, from the very beginning, there was a woman I was working as a mentor for the George and Laura Bush Presidential Center and their work around women and Tunisia and Egypt. And I was speaking at one of their events and a woman in the audience came up to me and said, well, your daughter needs to be in Neiman Marcus. And I said, yeah, everyone's jewelry with everyone would love their jewelry to be a Neiman Marcus. But yeah, we could be great. And she said, well, I know the CEO and people say that kind of stuff all the time and maybe one percent of the people follow up. And so I just thought, oh, that's sweet. Wouldn't that be amazing? And I'm a big visionary, but I thought having our brand in every store at Neiman Marcus wasn't even in my wildest dreams. And the CEO of Neiman Marcus, she said she would meet with me for ten minutes, which, again, as we all know, that's a total blow off. Meeting someone me for ten minutes is just trying to be nice. And I remember that day walking into the boardroom at the Neiman Marcus downtown location to meet Karen Katz, who's this legendary figure in retail. And I in ten minutes, you left at exactly like hit ten minutes. She was gone. But I just I prayed and I just said, you know, I'm just going to share my heart. And I said, you know, Karen, I've given my life so far six or seven years to give opportunity to women in crisis. I understand sustainable supply chains. I understand social impact. Our development models really bringing these women who could not feed their families out of abject poverty. But that's what I know. What you know is how to create the top brands in the world. And I've seen Neiman Marcus do that. They would do something for smaller brand and suddenly his brand would explode. And and I said the magic of creating the top brands in the world. So what if we came together? I understand social impact. You understand building luxury brands. We could create something that's never happened in the world before. And by the end, I could tell her eyes teared up and I thought, wait a minute, she's she's into this. I don't know. Maybe we can have a Trump show at Neiman Marcus. And she said, elevate your collection, come back in a month and we'll chat. So I did. And I came back and Neiman Marcus ended up launching a Koula through every single store. It was an unprecedented national launch in twenty sixteen. And I had my son in October. We launched through Niemans in September and so I, with a two week old, was flying to all these different locations to open a color and all these Neiman Marcus stores. And I don't remember much from that year. I really don't remember. It was that crazy. But I was somehow able to juggle launching through Niemans with a staff of five and nocebo at the time, so we had no idea what we were doing operationally and somehow was there for my kids as well, and they lived through it. So it was it was a crazy season, but it just felt so God ordained and you could just feel the Holy Spirit was just there and giving all of us the energy to do what we needed to do to get this off the ground.
Henry Kaestner: So I was going to ask you a year and a half ago, you bring in Shiva CEO and what went into that decision? I think I have. A little bit of a sense about what went into that decision, because you talked about that time, but tell us about that decision. So you're bringing in somebody new is the CEO. It's a big deal. And then also, who are the people that are involved in helping you to bring on board and introduce Cheeba to you?
Brittany Underwood: Yeah, it was the right time. I mean, I've talked to some sort of younger women entrepreneurs in their young twenties. And and I remember myself in my twenties and you're like, I'm going to do it all. And I got this. And by the time you're in your mid 30s, you're like, no, I'm really good at some things. I'm really bad at other things. And I believe that out in my work, in my life and you just know, you know, your limitations better. And I had hit this place where I knew where am I gifting wise, I'm a visionary. I can say five years into the future and have these incredible dreams of what something can be. And I can inspire other people with those. And I'm very creative and and I don't give up, which again, I think in the end has come down to I mean, we could have gone out of business one hundred different times, I mean, probably every month for the past 16 years. And I never gave up. And so I have those great gifts, but I'm not a great operator. I mean, I'm a little old. I'm very creative. Anything that's dotting I's and crossing D, I mean, I just that's not my thing. And as much as I would try, I'd always tell my team people need to like check over like anything that requires very robust details and sort of that kind of execution. Like I always had to hire around my weaknesses there. So we always had a CEO or a managing director that really executed the vision that I had. I've really never done that with a collar and sort of always knew I wasn't great at that. But I really knew once we had made the decision as a board that we wanted to grow and we had an opportunity to retail at Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue once we had launched their Niemans and we could have either stayed a nonprofit and just impacted a small amount of women and just retail at Neiman Marcus. But in order to grow, we had to get the capital and become a for profit. And at that juncture I knew I'm definitely not a for profit CEO and that's not who I am and I have to be OK with that. And it was at the same time that I really just this desire started building to just be with my kids more and have another baby. I had two little boys at that time and wanted one more child and I just wanted to be around more. So it was actually an easy decision, which I think sometimes to our founders it's hard because you're sort of like you're giving your baby to someone new and backing off quite a bit. And for someone to be successful, you have to do that. And but I was ready. And Greg, learn again who's just been this incredible mentor. I'm sure most people know I'm in this community. He's an amazing Christian impact investor and kingdom minded man. He had really helped encourage me to help a club become a for profit and was our lead investor. And he helped walk me through what it means to not just bring in a CEO, but to let go in some ways and to back off and to play in the right lane. And what that's going to mean and look like and he prepared me for that. And he's also kind of coached me through it with Cheeba. So it was the right time. I knew myself well enough to know that it's not my gifting. And I have an amazing coach, that kind of all that came together.
Henry Kaestner: Awesome. Achieve it. I want to come back to you. Tell us about your working in a and now that you've moved on from JC Penney and it feels like you've got this confluence of all the different things that God has done in your life, kind of come together to heal. What was that transition like? What's it like working at and leading the now?
Sheeba Philip: Well, it's incredibly exciting. Obviously, there's a big transition to make from working in Fortune 50 kind of context. Big, big company now, super nimble, agile, early stage company. So just culturally making that shift for me has been a great learning opportunity. But really I'm excited about kind of where I can apply some of the learnings I've had over my twenty year career into COLA. I think what's exciting over the last year is what we've done around one, which is shifting the culture of the company to be very for profit minded. And so that's been a partnership I have really done together and really shifting the culture, motivating our team to think differently around the business, doing a capital raise and like raising capital is something I've learned. And it was a really interesting experience. And just that's been pretty exciting being able to tell the whole story and kind of shape that vision, a narrative with our partners, our investors and our board.
But what's most exciting is building this Accola brand. I mean, this if you think about even this season, we've been in with covid. I mean, brands and retail are just changing so much. And brands that stand for purpose, stand for mission, that have beautiful product are winning. And so what's been exciting in this time of being a CEO is being able. Shape that narrative more, unlock the story of a collar through our products or our marketing through just everything we're doing right now, particularly in a state of covid. So for me, it's been very, very exciting to take all of my experiences building brands in a global context, working in kind of shaping brands stories and bringing that to a cola. And it was the right time. I think Britney had spent so much, poured her heart into the DNA of the company, and the next phase of growth required us to really dial up our marketing, our storytelling building into e-commerce. And these are all things that I've been learning in my career that I've been able to apply and this kind of stage of growth for Coula.
Henry Kaestner: So tell us a bit as we close out here about how you both complement each other and how having both of you on the team makes your overall team better. So leave our audience with some advice, because so many people that are in our audience are in partnership. Talk to us about the relationship you have now and leave our audience with something to consider about partnerships.
Sheeba Philip: I was reflecting on this question and thought this morning in my time of devotion, time with Lord and the scripture that came to mind was coming out of 1 Corinthians 12, which is all around the body of Christ, and having different parts, but each play a unique gift. And together is how the body of Christ is built. And for me, the revelation has been that God has uniquely gifted me and Brittany differently. And you can look at it as CEO- and founder-roles fundamentally require different skills and traits. But just us as individuals, as people are just very different. We had very different strengths and different weaknesses. And so the biggest thing for me has been embracing each other's strengths and understanding the unique roles we play and the fact that it's a interdependent and critical relationship. Akola cannot succeed with just me or with just Britney. A CEO and founder have got to understand the critical roles that each play and the unique giftings they have to build something together. Fundamentally, Akola is not ours, it's the Lord's, this work is the Lord's, and he's just invited us to join in and help him on this. And so I think having that kind of mindset and saying I don't know everything, but he knows. And Britney brings a ton to the table and Britney also saying, OK, there's expertize Sheeba has had that I want to leverage has really helped. So that understanding, that kind of differences and strengths and gifting is number one. And number two really has been unity through prayer. I think for us, understanding each other as daughters of Christ and sisters in Christ has really helped. So weekly we have a prayer time together. We're praying just on the company, the vision where it's going. And that has really built trust, I think, in our relationship and builds a forum and a safe space for us to be open with each other and have crucial conversations. And I think the last thing I would say what I really have learned and I would encourage founder and CEOs to do is to really invite people into the relationship to help coach it along. So, again, embracing the differences and the strengths, joining together in prayer. Two things I would absolutely counsel anyone listening to this right now. But the third would be just bringing in people that you trust to walk the relationship through with you. And for us, it was Greg Lernihan that's on our board at Brittny Mentioned, and Scott Luttrell, one of our lead investors as well and serves on our board. And just two just really trust the leaders, leaders that are great faiths as well, that could give us honest feedback around how to work in our dynamics. We brought them in to help us. And this was a critical year in transition. And I would really encourage anyone who's in that process of working out a relationship as a founder or as a CEO to work with their board and partners as well.
Henry Kaestner: Thank you. See Britney.
Brittany Underwood: She visits the distinct and this is the funny difference between bustiers deviser three bullet points. And I mean, I'm just speaking from my heart, and you don't even know ever what's going to come out. But I think it's funny. I feel like the Lord just keeps on putting people actually in my life. My husband's very similar to say that my best friends growing up were like Shiva and I was always the sort of creative flower child that didn't worship sometimes. And they were like the very organized, disciplined, structured, very confrontational to in a great way personality and the quintessential people pleaser and stray away from that sometimes and just really polar opposites in some ways. And that's where I think when the Lord brought Shiva and I together, I mean, I just think she absolutely complements every weakness I have and I think I complement some of hers. And our strengths are so different that we don't really overlap. And there's really not a place where. Every once in a while, I'll start playing in the day to day more than I should, and she will generally say, I've got this, I've got this, I'll come back to you in a month or in a couple of weeks. Let me run the business. But generally, we're just so different. And I really celebrate that I need people in my life like Sheba. And I think I bring a little color to people like human, like my husband. And I just really I've learned so much. And again, my gifting is so different that I've been able to learn from Cheeba. And I think as a founder, being able to have the humility to know that you're serving under your CEO like she was not serving under me, I'm serving under her. And that's just been a great joy. Every once in a while you're like, but I used to call the shots and that was awesome. But being able to step back and say the Lord has designed her to lead something that his which has never been mine in the first place, this incredible business and that blessed so many women and changes so many lives then and I get to serve her and that. And I think having that right position in your heart is critical and just appreciating and enjoying and laughing. We laugh a lot about, you know, I'm just, again, this creative explosion sometimes and shava in a nice way. She's like, well, let's let's take two of your twenty ideas and let's really think about how we can execute them. And it's fun.
Brittany Underwood: And so I learned and I've grown and but I think that attitude of just humility and of service and serving a vision that was never yours in the first place, I think as a founder, you have to be very careful. And the Lord has to gently remind you that especially when you're doing work like this, that it's not yours. And he used me and my gifts for a season. And this is a season where our company needs Sheba's gifts far more than mine. And I can contribute when she needs me to and she'll call me up and ask me. But it's also OK when she's just running the show. So, yeah, it's been a delight.
And I look up a lot. And she really served as a mentor for me and a lot of ways as well. So I hope that answers the question, but that's my roundabout way of getting there.
Sheeba Philip: Three, if I can just I'm going to play by the rules and add one more thing that, as Brittney was talking, just triggered in my mind for anyone who is leading a business right now during such a difficult time like that. I mean, I think all of us as entrepreneurs and leaders are thinking about how do you reinvent your business right now and be relevant? I would say leverage your founder and the founder CEO relationship to reinvent your business. I can't tell you enough. Like I think the relationship is unlocked. Growth for a COLA. When covid broke in March, I still remember the phone call pretty call up and she was like, OK, things are changing quickly and rapidly. We need to shift gears. Retail's changing. The businesses adapt very, very fast. And we were probably on phone calls, I would argue Britney like almost hourly, the few weeks when things were like just hitting the news and we were moving in a shelter in place and quickly figuring out how do we adapt the business. And I want just to bring up a story of just leveraging the strengths and the relationship. You know, Britney is a huge visionary. She can think through ideas very, very quickly. And I remember her calling me up and saying, we've got to shift very quickly. Our product assortment. We've got this great bracelet kit that we launched in Neiman Marcus three years ago. I think moms are looking to do things with their kids right now at home while everyone's sheltered in place and no one's in school. And I just think we got to just not push earrings and jewelry out right now and promote this kid. Let's get it online and try and, you know, then the CEO thing kicks in and you're like, OK, how do I make this happen? I've got women in Uganda that are now sheltered in place working from home quickly. I've gotten calls with our Uganda team. How can we wrap bees and make things very, very quickly, literally from their homes? Not in our production facility. We were able to quickly build agility into our supply chain, change everything from soup to nuts, know, I think forty eight to 72 hours and release the product within a week. The product online and I kid you not were the best PR we've gotten in a year.
We were automatically in vogue.
US Weekly people BuzzFeed all around how a COLA has brought this bracelet making kit to people in a time of crisis during covid. It all happened, though, through leveraging the strengths that we had. I mean, Britney had the idea it was her idea and she came up with it quickly. She called me, we talked it through. I took the ball and then I ran with it. So goes to you saying that in a time of when everyone's trying to figure out how to survive. Think about this is the time to innovate through leveraging your relationship and that founder CEO dynamic where each of you are coming to the table with unique strengths. And so for us, this is unlocked, I think, growth in a time where many retail brands are struggling. We are actually really excited about the future of a COLA. And it's because of the dynamic we built and how we've kind of pulled on each other during this time. So I'll just end with that.
Henry Kaestner: That's really good. That's awesome. OK, guys, we're talking through this. It occurs to me that this is the first time we've ever talked to entrepreneurs that start off looking to solve a problem or really lean into an opportunity providing meaningful work for women in Uganda. There's an incredible heart behind it. It starts off as a ministry and people get behind it and they do grant funding and they see some success in they're celebrating alongside you. And yet at some point in time, you see that in order to really scale this, we should transfer into a for profit. We've got a business here. Tell us about that transition. Tell us about even some of the details behind it. So presumably some amount of people provide meaningful grant funding. What does it look like for them as all of a sudden now there's a for profit business? Just talk to us through the process and the pros of it, maybe the challenges of it. But you guys have this unique part of what I think a lot of people are looking at, or I think our audience is saying my heart is leading me to solve this problem. I want to start it up. I don't know if it's a not for profit or if it's a for profit. If I start off as a charity, can I move over? Walk us through that a bit.
Brittany Underwood: Yeah, so it's very interesting, the question of for profit actually created a course called Social Innovation at Southern Methodist University and taught it for four years as an adjunct professor, talking about I mean, really anchored on one of the first classes was what organizational structure do you choose for your idea? And I was very biased towards non-profits because I started as a nonprofit and I thought in my mind for so long and even taught this, if you want to achieve a mission, you do it through a nonprofit. That's what a nonprofit is created for. Right. And if you want to keep it first, you want your mission to be central. It has to be in a nonprofit. So I thought that way for a long time until a couple reached the point where we couldn't grow as a nonprofit. So then the bigger question was, do we only impact a smaller amount of women just because we want to stay in nonprofit? Or do we get the chance to impact thousands of more women through our model if we're for profit? And so suddenly what I thought was so black and white, you achieve a mission. It's through a nonprofit and you can have a great business and then have a mission if it's a for profit. But certainly you can't put it first. And what was just so interesting for me is I just reached a place where we weren't putting our mission first by remaining a nonprofit, which is something I didn't expect. And once we realized that and our board grasped that as well as it really was, we had these two new accounts. We had been a Niemans for a year and a half. We had performed well. We had a chance to launch their Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue. I mean, the fact that we kept up with Neiman Marcus as a nonprofit, it it almost killed our whole organization. I mean, truly, we had to take out impact investment structured as low interest loans. We didn't actually raise donor funding for the business. We used all of our donor funding for our social programs. So we raised all this money that were only loans. And you got to pay those back. And there is no patient loans out there. I mean, they are short term. And suddenly we started and it almost felt like an albatross around our neck of like we don't have any long term capital to grow, like we can't make long term decisions and and we certainly can't expand. I mean, it's hard enough to just do this with one national retailer. And even more than that, we didn't have the team. People like Cheeba normally don't come into nonprofits. You can't get the talent that you want. There's no equity incentive. Great people have a big heart and want to help you, but for a limited amount of time. And and we didn't have the team either. So to me, it suddenly went from I was sort of the person who chain myself to the railroad tracks and said over my dead body will ever be for profit for profits, just want to make money. And we're not about that. Like we don't care. Like we're just doing this because we want to help women and kids just suddenly realizing, like, wait a minute, I don't think we survive or grow unless we change our model and get creative. And so once that became clear, it was an easy transition. I mean, I just got there in my heart. I realize this aha moment of putting our mission first in this case means a for profit. And I had, again, the great coaching and mentorship of Greg Vernon, who sort of I remember he told me in the early days for profits aren't bad that he got within a year. I'm going to hear you say for profits aren't bad. And now I'm a huge advocate of doing this kind of work for for profit. I think it's the way you get the right talent. I think it's the way you grow and impact more people. And I'm also still a huge cheerleader of nonprofits. I think in a lot of situations, nonprofits made sense when we started. It made sense to be a nonprofit. We would have never as a for profit, the market would have weeded us out in less than a year. I mean, we were not market efficient. We had to train women who had absolutely no money, no education or skills, that we had to teach them how to count beads on their necklace. Like we weren't working with artisans. We were working with women in crisis and training them. We do train them to make our products. So we had to start as a nonprofit to kind of create something that was market ready. I mean, we didn't do that on purpose, but we would not have existed now if we had started as a for profit. So I think it's different for every situation. I think you just have to look at your mission. And when your organizational structure is getting in the way of achieving your mission, you change it. It's not about if you're a for profit or a nonprofit, it's how you can best serve the people that God's given you to serve. And that can be there are a lot of different organizational structures and that's unique for every person or organization.
Henry Kaestner: Cheeba you mentioned how Scripture's influence you recently in our podcast. We always sign off and ask, what's God telling you through his word? What are you hearing from God as he speaks to you right now?
Sheeba Philip: I think for me, John, fifteen is a chapter. I've been really.
Through this idea of the Lord is the vine and we are the branches, and apart from him, we can do no good thing that we're so dependent on him. And abiding in him is where we find our rest and we find our joy. And I think given particularly this season we're in with covid and the strain of leading a business and life during this time, for me, that idea of what does it mean to abide and the Lord rest in him and understand that he is it. Everything is around him. And my dependency on him is so critical that I see him as the vine, the one true vine. So that to me has been my source of hope and encouragement during this time.
Brittany Underwood: Yeah, for me, Ephesians three, I mean, God can do more than we can ask, imagine or dream. And I think for Sheeba and I, we've been in prayer from the time that covid hit. Saying, Lord do more than we know to ask or imagine or dream. And we know that you're the God of big things that moves mountains on behalf of the widow and the orphan and those that you love and to build your kingdom. We're your hands and feet and blow us away by what you do, not by what we do, and just teach us to be faithful to what you put in front of us. And so I think just believing that God is so much bigger. Bigger than covid, bigger than our current retail environment, and that he's opening up a new way, a new path, and he's done that for Akola over the past six months. For us, we've transformed our business in ways that I think we needed to do, that we wouldn't have done without covid. And I've watched God just do crazy things for us that we didn't deserve and we didn't earn and didn't come out of any brilliant strategy session.
He just put it in front of us and knew we needed it to get through the season. And so I've just been blown away. I mean, every day I think I've learned to just say, like Lord just work miracles and to anticipate them and believe that every day he is working on our behalf and working on behalf of the poor and trusting in that and not being afraid and having courage and just excitement in the journey even when it's tough.
Henry Kaestner: Thanks so much for joining us on today's show. We hope you enjoyed it. We are very grateful for the opportunity to serve you the larger Faith Driven Entrepreneur community, and we want to stay connected. The best way for you to do that is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at Faith Driven Entrepreneur ERG. And while you're there, we want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it's been very rewarding to see people come to the site and listen to the podcast now for more than over one hundred countries. But it's even more important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you'll help make it something that best equips you on your entrepreneurial journey, one that you're proud of and one that you're going to share with others. Hey, this podcast wouldn't be possible without the help from many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman and program director Johnny Wells. Music is by Karl Kedwell. You can see and hear more of his work at Summered Drugstore.com Audio and editing by Richard Bahle of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.