Hala Taha: [00:00:00] Bam. What [00:01:00] if the most amazing business you'll ever build starts with your very own story? I had the honor of hosting a live panel at the iconic Apple Store in soho with five inspiring entrepreneurs who turned personal experiences into thriving, purpose-driven brands. Now, when Apple reached out to me, I was.

Thrilled. I've been podcasting and on Apple for over seven years now, and Apple never reached out to me before. So catching their eye really meant a lot to me and I was so pumped to host their small business event at this iconic store. From family dumpling recipes and rituals rooted in heritage to bracelets that spread kindness and wellness spaces inspired by childhood memories, these founders opened up about what it takes to build something meaningful, profitable, and in the heart of New York City.

We talked about how these entrepreneurs overcame fear, pivoted through the pandemic, built authentic communities, and also how they leveraged Apple technology to run faster, smarter, and more creatively. If you've ever questioned your path or whether your [00:02:00] story matters, this conversation will reignite your belief in what's possible.

Also, make sure you hit that follow button if you're a new listener of the show. We love welcoming new members to the YAP community. Now here's my conversation with the incredible panel at the Apple Soho store 

Holden: Good evening everyone. We're about to get started. Is everyone doing this evening? Alright, that was better. Thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. Welcome to Apple Soho. My name is Holden. I'm part of the team that helps to bring these great events to stores across the globe. We're so glad that you're here celebrating small businesses.

How's that? Let's give a run applause for businesses. Okay. This evening is a celebration of New York's finest businesses. So let's get started. I'm pleased to introduce the market director of your local Apple retail stores, Paul Felcher. Give a big round of applause for Paul, everyone. 

Paul Felcher: Hello. Good afternoon.

Hi everyone. As Holden mentioned, my name is Paul Felcher and I'm the market [00:03:00] director for Apple Retail based here in New York City. Thank you all so much for coming out today as we celebrate National Small Business Month and more importantly, you, the innovators, the risk takers, and the backbone in our communities.

We're so happy to see you here today at Apple. We believe that our. Best work is when we have the best tools, and so whether you are building your first website, opening a new storefront, or managing a growing team, we know that small businesses are driven by big dreams, and we're proud to stand beside you with products, tools, and support that are simple to use and manage and designed to help you thrive.

That commitment starts right here in your local Apple Store where our business teams are dedicated to helping you grow. Plan and problem solve with personalized solutions. Whether you're looking for the perfect Mac to help you power [00:04:00] your productivity or advice on managing a fleet of devices. With Apple Business Essentials, we are here to listen and to support, and it all starts with the products you know and love with tools like MacBook Air, featuring Apple, Silicon giving you all day battery life.

Powerful performance and seamless continuity with your iPhone and iPad. Your ideas are never out of reach no matter where you are. We've introduced services tailored for small businesses like tap to pay on iPhone, so business can accept cashless, contactless payments on the spot without extra hardware.

And Apple Business Connect, which helps you reach over a billion Apple users through Apple Maps and every. Day applications. These services are designed to make running a business more seamless, secure and connected. So thanks so much for being here. We're really inspired by what you do, and we can't wait to see what you build [00:05:00] next.

Please don't hesitate to speak to any member of our team tonight. We're here for you throughout the evening. We're so excited for you to be here. So with that being said, I'm really excited to introduce Hala Taha. Hala is the host of our Young and Profiting podcast, and the founder of Yap Media Network, a podcast and marketing agency.

Her show has achieved more than 30 million downloads and reached number one on the entrepreneurship chart on Apple Podcasts, and Holla has interviewed the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Deepak Chopra, Mel Robbins, and many more. And so we couldn't be more thrilled to welcome holla to Apple soho. To lead tonight's conversation with four local small business founders.

So please join me in welcoming Hala and our incredible panelists. Thank you.

Hala Taha: Thank you Golden. Welcome everybody to the Iconic Apple Store in S soho, and tonight we're celebrating the innovative spirit of New York City. [00:06:00] We're highlighting four dynamic small business owners. And we're really excited for this conversation because they all have the entrepreneurial grit that makes this city so special.

Our panelists tonight represent a blend of passion, resilience, and creativity. And each of their journeys reflects not only their personal stories, but also how their businesses are rooted in the vibrant culture of New York City. So with that, let's give a round of applause for our panelists, as I call them out.

Jamila, Ali Wright,

 Cindy Ramirez, Fulton, who is the founder and CEO of Chill House,

Becky Lynn, who's the chef and founder of Linen Daughters.

Adriana Carig, who's the founder, and CEO of the Little Worlds Project.[00:07:00] 

Okay. To kick us off, let's learn a little bit more about your companies. Every company starts with a spark, so I'm curious to understand what was the spark behind your business? What was the initial idea that led you, oh my God, I need to turn this idea into a business. Let's start with Jimmy and Ali from Brooklyn Tea.

Ali Wright: Yes, so we're Brooklyn Tea. It all started with my childhood. Um, my family's West Indian, and tea's a really big part of our culture. We drink tea in the morning, tea at night, tea if you have a sprained ankle. Tea is always the answer. Also, everyone in my family had to have a job at my job. From three years old, so I went to college, was to bring my mom tea to her bedside.

Every morning, years later, I meet this beautiful young lady and a lot of our dating was around tea. We go tee hopping instead of bar hopping, I make her pots of tea with a little cinnamon sticks at the bottom. 

Jamila Wright: Super romantic, [00:08:00] 

Ali Wright: and we kind of had different passions. So she loved the cultural side of tea. I loved the nerdy side of tea, so we brought those together to build Brooklyn Tea.

Hala Taha: Awesome. Cindy 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: Chill House. For those who you don't know, started off as a spa and like a cafe spa hybrid concept in the lower East side of Manhattan in 2017. And that was really because my husband and I were, you know, as downtown New Yorkers do, we just caught ourselves in this like vicious cycle of like always going to brunch and drinking on a Saturday afternoon.

Instead, we wanted to have like a nice little spa day and we're like, I. The two options felt very far apart from each other. On one end, it was like luxury experience, like very expensive. You felt really guilty after getting that $300 massage and on the other end it was very potentially CD environment.

You don't know what their business practices are and basements, those kind of establishments. And so there was something missing in the middle and we realized [00:09:00] there was a huge void in self-care. At that time, but it wasn't until little later on and like a reflection moment for me where I realized that actually this was very much what I was always destined to do was start Chill house because my mother is an aesthetician and I had a spot basically growing up.

Where I very much the entire time was like asking her to do nail services or, Hey, can you play music? She didn't have any music playing in her spa ever. So I think I basically just sought out to fix what I always wanted for my mom to have, and that's how Chill House came to be. And I'll tell show the rest later.

Hala Taha: Thanks Cindy. Let's go to Adriana. 

Adriana Carrig: I started Little Words Project in my parents' basement in 2013 as all great businesses begin in a basement somewhere. I had created it because I had wanted to bring some kindness to the world. I had grown up. I. Dealing with negativity and [00:10:00] bullying from a very young age, and the bracelets are all about inspiring kindness through the words on our wrist.

We can empower ourselves, show ourselves kindness and self-love, and then by one day paying that kindness forward, passing it on to someone who needs it more, show them that simple lack of kindness. And the best part is that each one has a code. On the back of the tag. And that code is unique to that bracelet, which makes it one of one.

And so when you do eventually pay it forward, you can connect it to our website and actually track where the bracelet goes and how your single act of kindness can affect people down the line, which makes it one of a kind as a business concept, but also something so sweet and personal. And really having had that experience growing up is the spark that led me to want to create an entire.

Business out of it, and later a broader, bigger, brighter community that we now have. 

Hala Taha: Awesome. Becky, why don't you tell us what your company is and what inspired you to start it? 

Becky Lin: [00:11:00] I have a restaurant in the West Village called Linen Daughters, and we sell comfort food like Chinese Stumblings noodles and SC and pancakes.

Adriana Carrig: It's all incredible. She brought some today. Yeah, we did. So good. Thank you. 

Becky Lin: Thank you. The spark was lit when I was working at my parents' restaurant as a kid. I remember on weekends after we closed the restaurant, we would make dumplings from scratch and I remember thanking, I really love this feeling of us standing around the tables, making lings as a family.

It was. About the togetherness and sharing stories, laughing late into the night. And, um, as a kid, I remember thinking to myself, maybe one day I could do this. Selling this ha pockets of happiness to people and make other people happy and make myself happy. 

Hala Taha: Nice. Thanks Becky. So one thing that all these entrepreneurs have in [00:12:00] common is that they have local roots to New York.

Cindy Chill House started as a unique concept, blending spa and cafe, and you first opened your spa in the Lower East side. How did you know that it would resonate with New Yorkers? 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: I mean, I definitely built it for myself, so I knew I had one customer, but really it was the origin story, which I kind of shared already was a big reason why.

I just felt like the audience that I was surrounded by really was yearning something new and innovative, and wellness, specifically as a minority myself, I didn't feel represented in this world in this. Category and we really sought out to change that. And we felt like LES was the perfect location for us, given our price point.

We were very modestly priced at under a hundred dollars for every service at the time. Inflation has changed that, of course, in COVID. Thank you. We just knew it was just gonna resonate deeply and. We ended up launching our [00:13:00] flagship location in 2019. COVID happened, and we'll get into that part of the story as well.

So have since let the LES location go, but that really was such a grassroots story for us. We had incredible brand partnerships that put us on the map, such as Nike, h and m, major, major, major brands that have really made us go beyond just being a small business to really seeing ourselves represented as a big brand.

Hala Taha: Love that. Becky, I know that you chose the West Village for Linen Daughters. Can you talk to us about why you chose the West Village and how New York City shows up in your dishes? 

Becky Lin: My husband and I met in the West Village and it's always been our favorite neighborhood in the city. Uh, after we moved away for a few years, we dream of coming back and when we finally did, we were like, wouldn't it be nice to open a restaurant where I.

Our kids go to school and that they can stop by [00:14:00] anytime and have mommy's food. So that was really why we just wanna be close to home and I didn't wanna miss out on the day-to-day of their life and the spirit of New York City show up in my food in. Couple ways. I think New York's has a very resilient and very adventurous spirit.

And the resilient side came from my family recipes. My parents both came from very poor background. Uh, my dad tasted his first banana when he was 13 and has his first pair of new shoes at the same age. My mom's side, she. Basically was brought up on watery country and uh, was told as a kid that she couldn't use spoons to pick up peas from the bowls because they would allow her too many at the same time, so she could only use chopsticks [00:15:00] for that.

One piece at a time. So the fact that they were able to use the most basic ingredients to create the most comforting and magical dishes just go to show their resilience and the adventure side of the city show up mostly, I think in the dishes that I created, which is based on a lot on my own dining experiences.

Here in New York City. So some of my dishes has ingredients like butter and cheese, which is not very authentic to the Chinese cuisine, but yet people loved it. And that just go to show the open-mindedness and the adventurous side of people here. Anywhere else it would be like, why? And here people are like, why not?

Hala Taha: New Yorkers are pretty open-minded. Okay. Let's move on to Jamila and Ali. So I know that Brooklyn Tea has become sort of a community hub [00:16:00] in bestie, so can you talk to us about how you were able to ensure that it would become such a hub and an integral part of the Bed-Stuy community? 

Jamila Wright: Yeah. In many ways what came to be wasn't necessarily.

Known, but it was planned for. I come from a background of being an elementary school teacher, so I taught first, second, third, and fourth, and I was the dean of culture for four years. And so the parts of education that brought me so much joy and passion was the culture piece. It was knowing that community isn't by happenstance, it's by the little acts of kindness.

It's about rule creation. It's about making people feel seen and dignified and heard. It's about creating an understanding of what joy feels like for people and replicating that. So I knew when we came to the store, I [00:17:00] had to bring the parts in me in the education field to that for two reasons. One, it gave me a sense of self and purpose, but also I knew that a company.

That was going to take off, needed a strong culture. Hmm. The other parts of it was. Trying to fill the void for myself and others that you can fill in New York, is that loneliness, right? It's a transient city, and so you can be next to a neighbor for five years and not know their name. And so I knew when I went into this venture of my husband to build Brooklyn Tea that we wanted people who were feeling lonely at any moment in time.

Could feel like they had a second living room, could feel like they had a home. And so you'll see people sitting on the floor when there's no seats, right? Reading the book, you'll see people coming in and say, Hey, thank you for that advice. And I broke up with that boyfriend and uh, and hey, how is Sophia?

How was her [00:18:00] recital? We have these relationships that are far more deep and more important than just a cup of tea. I love that story. 

Hala Taha: Adriana, I know that you started your business online as a DTC business, and then you opened your first flagship store on Bleecker Street, which must have been such a big thing for you personally and professionally. So tell us about that. 

Adriana Carrig: For anyone opening their first retail store is gonna be the biggest moment probably of their career. And for me, it certainly was no different. I think the only thing that I never probably would've expected is that it would be on one of the most iconic streets in New York City. As I said, I started it in my basement, in my.

Father said the funniest thing when we launched at Bleecker was well from the basement to Bleecker. And that's become my mantra over the last four years we've been in retail, um, has been well from the basement to Bleecker and we, we really did find ourselves, I. I've been pinching myself ever since that I have a store here.

So as someone who is a little bit of [00:19:00] a bridge and tunnel gal, myself, being from Jersey, as you all call us, it certainly was a pinch me moment and remains to be to this day. And I think just the color and vibrancy that exists on Bleecker specifically is such a testament to New York, but also showed us that.

Because it worked here, literally. Thank you, Frank. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. And that's really what it felt like and why it's led us to opening 14 additional stores ever since. So it's definitely been, the proof is in the pudding here. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's so incredible. So a lot of you guys here are entrepreneurs, right?

Raise your hand if you're an entrepreneur or a founder. Amazing. As you guys know, I'm an entrepreneur as well. When it comes to being a good entrepreneur, you gotta know when to pivot. You gotta know when to change your business model, and a lot of the panelists here did that during COVID. So how many people changed their business model during COVID?

Raise your hand. How many people have just pivoted their business at some point in general? I like to see it. So I also pivoted my business model. I actually started [00:20:00] my business in COVID during the pandemic. Everybody wanted to get online. I was the LinkedIn influencer. I had a top podcast, and I was like, okay, I'll start a podcast in LinkedIn agency and help these entrepreneurs grow their personal brands.

And we took off right away because everybody was looking for that opportunity. So every step back. You can definitely find an opportunity if you're a creative entrepreneur. So let's talk about everybody's pivot. I know that Chill House and Brooklyn Tea, you guys made really big pivots during COVID, and your businesses took off probably more than you could ever imagine with that change in business model.

So I'd love to hear about it. Let's start with Jamila and Ali from Brooklyn Tape. 

Ali Wright: Yeah, so one of our pivots led to another pivot. Before COVID, we were really focused on the store or the tea room, the community. But after everything shut down, we realized that we had been neglecting social media and their net in general.

So we really focused on like making these fun videos about. These herbs that we've been selling forever, [00:21:00] but no one's really buying. So we made these like really cool, really stupid videos about each herb and like one's they're good for your respiratory system and things that people were thinking about as they were trying to find more agency over their health During COVID, I.

Well, it worked. Um, we made an immunity box and it sold like crazy. So it went from like two orders a month, one being from my mom to like a hundred a day. Oh, wow. Which led to the second pivot. We turned our basement, which was basically an employee lounge in like, I. A very, uh, not, 

Jamila Wright: I'm gonna say lounge. 

Ali Wright: Section. Yeah. So we turned, we turned it into a mini factory. So we made it so people could be spaced out, but also fulfill these orders at scale. And that really taught us, one was the power of social media and, you know, our website, but other lesson was to be ready when something big happens so you can fulfill that success.

Hala Taha: Amazing. And Cindy, how did you change your business model during 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: COVID? I [00:22:00] mentioned in 2019 we opened up our Soho flagship, which still is up till this day. We're gonna go through some renovations in August, so definitely come visit us in September. And now of course too, but we had amazing traction with that location and things were great.

Sales were up over our projections and everything felt great. And of course COVID happens. It's March 20, 24 months into opening up what was our dream location. Had to close down our doors, of course. And at the time we still had the LES location and we had pivoted that to be face and body. We had a grand plan.

We're gonna scale that, have the flagship do all these crazy things in brick and mortar. And then of course, you know, the universe told us that that was not gonna be the game plan anymore. So the good takeaway about COVID at the time for entrepreneurs is that it offered us. Time, time to think, reflect, really just get creative and figure out what makes the most sense moving forward and be introspective and just, I don't know, this survival mode, right?

Just like full survival mode. But [00:23:00] what did come out of that was our hero product. Chill tips. Switch. You guys will check out after this panel. They're over there in the back and you get to take one home. Today. These are press ons, and at the time, you know, it was still kind of very new in the Presson game and it was very right product market fit, you know, right opportunity, right time.

People were doing their nails at home and so we just took off ever since. And within like a year and a half, I'd say our tip sales alone outpaced our store revenue, which was very telling. And then of course you have to make decisions on that. Just ride the wave, do what works. And yeah, we've just grown, we've doubled our revenue year over year since making that big decision.

But you know, our flagship is still, it's home base, it's our community hub. It's where innovation gets. Created, and it's still very important core part of our business as a New York small business. So we love to keep that alive and well, and obviously are gonna invest in it as well. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. What an [00:24:00] incredible turnaround story both of you guys had.

Adriana, I know that you first started as a DTC business in 2013, so you were way ahead of the curve in terms of having an online business. So when COVID hit, did you feel more prepared and how did you approach it? 

Adriana Carrig: We were lucky to have such a robust community built by the point of COVID that I was actually able to tap my community.

As we continue to do, every time we hit a roadblock and need support, my first line of defense is to go to the people that help me build this thing from the ground up, such that I will literally say, Hey, you all we're struggling. We need you to place. Some orders now so I don't have to furlough my team or close our doors or any of the above.

And they really responded well to that and continue to do so. So yeah, that April of 2020, you know, crazy enough to say was our best month, lifetime to date as a result of one Instagram post that said, please [00:25:00] buy. And that is where the benefit of D two C came into play. And then on the flip side, I was one of the.

Few crazy people opening up retail when everyone else was getting out of it. In 2021 is when we opened our first brick and mortar. Granted, it was towards the end of the year and things were starting to settle, but that move was only made possible because of the incredible pricing that we were able to snag on Ecker Street in Manhattan as our first door.

Yes, selling only exclusively word bracelets at the time. Now, you'll experience if you do make your way over there at some point, it's a full bead bar. You can make your own bracelet. It's a beautiful experience. It's definitely our new copy paste formula for what makes. These stores. Great. Is that be Bar?

But when we first opened, it wasn't even there. So that just goes to show how lucky, frankly, we were to be able to snag that location and create what I call lightning in a bottle, which is what happened in that first store. store. So, 

Hala Taha: yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Becky. I know that you had a totally different career [00:26:00] during the pandemic and you started actually selling meals online, which gave you a little bit of pulse of the community and what they were looking for in terms of.

Their meals and their dishes. So what did you learn from that experience, selling your meals online about the community before you actually launched your restaurant? 

Becky Lin: I learned the importance of intention and personalization. I sold my food through a site called Chef, SHEF. They have helped me tremendously.

In fact, my favorite customers over there, so I remember Chef would give us postcards to put in each order for our customers, and I would spend hours each morning writing notes for them and. Part of it is because I didn't wanna just be like, thank you, goodbye generic notes. I wanted to be very personalized and special for them.

It goes to show not only your effort [00:27:00] in the note, but the effort you put into the food. And I get a lot of notes back as well from them, which is a sign that I was doing something right there. But the. Most important lesson, which is less direct, is through my chef customer who's sitting there today and his partner couldn't come.

Hi Jeff. So we became friends after we moved few blocks away from them, and we were having lunch one day, and I was telling them my story of growing up as a restaurant kid and how I didn't know my dad. Growing up because he left when, when I was five to work here to support our family. I'm from China originally.

Um, my dad left when I was five by himself, and I remember Michael looked at me and said, you have an amazing story. You should share this. Like a human of New York style [00:28:00] post. I remember the exact words. So I did, and um, I learned that they, the importance of storytelling and how that built connection with your customers.

I think someone coming from a very reserved background and conservative culture, storytelling can come off as. Braggy and, uh, self-absorbed. But I've learned from then on that it's a great way to let people into your world hmm. And build long-term relationship. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. When people feel like they know you, they're trusting of you.

And they'll buy from you. Right. So,  okay, let's move on to community. Speaking of community. So Jamila and Ali, I know that you have a really unique business model where you blend in online with a physical space. So talk to me about how you make that work. 

Ali Wright: Well, I'm online. She's the physical space. Um, so we tried to.

Really replicate what we do in store online. [00:29:00] We've tried many things. We kind of throw everything at the wall to see what sticks on the digital side, and we just really found that doing the same things we really do in person online is really the way to go. I. 

Jamila Wright: Yeah, I was gonna say more of the same. We really bring or try to bring people virtually into the customer, in-person experience, and so we're having a busy day at the store.

They're with us having a busy day at the store. If someone came into the store and they just had a fabulous time and they were talking to us about that moment, we're like, you mind if we record this and like let people know we're talking about the. Troubles that we had, like if the store was flooded, the basement, uh, floor was flooded from a of rain that just happened.

Like people walking through all of our glory and all of the glory with us and just simply how to make a tea. They're experiencing that with us when we're doing it behind the bar and it's pretty raw and it's pretty uncut, and so. It doesn't feel scripted to [00:30:00] them, and they feel like they're having a piece of that shop experience with them.

And so that's been the way that we try to connect the two worlds is bringing them into the physical space as much as possible. Hmm. 

Hala Taha: How many folks out here are working on building their online communities? Raise your hand. How many of you feel like you need some better strategies when it comes to growing an audience online?

Okay, well, you're gonna wanna listen up because Cindy and Adriana have built massive communities online. So my next question is for you guys, what are some of your top strategies for building a tribe online? Let's go to Cindy then. Adriana. 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: I've always been super New York grassroots, like physical store, build a community there.

But you know, obviously since we expanded into product where a lot of people may not know the origin story, they grab chill house off of the pegs at Target and then they interact with the product and that may be the end of it, right? So you do have to get really creative in bringing people [00:31:00] into your world.

There are some strategies around product. I don't know how many of you have product businesses, but. Certainly, maybe throw a QR code on there and then bring people to your website. Even though you have to be careful with your retailers and making sure that people still shop that retailer. You do want people to ultimately know who you are and how you started and bring them into the flywheel.

So there's definitely a lot of strategy there. One of the biggest tools for us as far as community building goes has been this really great platform called TYB, which allows us to build cohorts. Of community. So we have our new year cohort, we have content creators that we can kind of manage on there.

And then we also have just regular like brand loyalists or just fans of the brand that are excited to earn rewards in exchange for. Doing us some favors, like boosting our content or all these little fun little tricks that a lot of marketers do nowadays. So I'd say that's been one of the things that have really helped us [00:32:00] engage in a real way where people are incentivized.

But the biggest thing for me has always been the store and being able to meet people in person and bringing people into the. Very, very early stages now of creating new products, which we recently just did for our latest launch for Everywhere, which is our long wear nail polish gel-like replacement nail polish.

Check it out. But we actually had our customers come and test it before we even went to market with it. And that's just something we're really excited to do. Just bringing people in very early into the process, having them be. Cheerleaders for that product because they got to experience it first. And I think there's such a beautiful thing about having that physical space that we are so lucky to all have here on this stage, and it's not gonna be for everyone, but to me it's what makes Show House special.

Adriana Carrig: Hmm.  Honestly, I would echo what Jamila and Ali said. I think showing people the ups and the downs and behind the scenes and pulling back the curtain, nothing [00:33:00] makes you feel more connected to someone than when you know their story and know what they're going through. And I'm often candid to a fault, to the point where I have had advisors and my investor and people who maybe are smarter than I am.

Maybe tell me that I need to like do less or not say so much, or just chill in general. I, I obviously need to go to Chill House, but you know, I still keep it real. I try to keep it as real as possible and I do often ask my community to show up for us, and whether that be through product testing or. One other really cool thing that we do quickly is when you do connect your bracelet, using that code to our website, you gain access to our private Facebook group.

It's called Nice Nation. It's where our community members are going on. They're sharing their stack of the day, they're sharing what word that got them through something recently. They're just sharing what's going on in their lives and it's this really beautiful space for connection. And it's the first place I go when I need to temperature check my community.

It's the first place I go when I wanna. [00:34:00] Share a surprise and delight little piece of news with them, and they always celebrate and celebrate us hard there. So I think it's really, it's showcasing what you do best and what you do poorly and being okay with whatever people think of you and welcoming them in.

And that authenticity, I think, really keeps people connected. And genuinely, I believe it's the reason that I do have the fleet of stores that I have and the product that we have. Has everything to do with the fact that the customer bought in early on this little friendship bracelet that could, right.

It's not like I reinvented a wheel or anything like that. I genuinely just commodified something that we've all been making for years and as a result, a community was born. 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: When it comes to content creation, because I know things are always shifting and like it feels like you just have to document your entire life.

I think when it comes to entrepreneurship, let go of feeling cringey. Yeah, because I feel like long gone are the days of like trying to be [00:35:00] cool or play it cool or act like you have it all together. I think the more open you are about really needing your community to show up. You're eight figure business plus and you're still asking your community to show up for you.

Oh, I'm about to post something tonight. I'm not gonna lie. When you kind of be like, I'm chilling. You know, in like my eight figures. No, we're still building and we still need our community to show up for every milestone. Mm-hmm. We have target end caps. We just reset with forever where in them. And we're gonna do this whole thing where we're like, you guys have to show up.

'cause if you don't, then we're not gonna have our polish in line in the aisles next year. And so it is very much about asking people to show up for you so you can keep doing your job. 

Hala Taha: Love that advice. Great job girls. So  as entrepreneurs, we also need tools and technology to run our business. Of course. So next I wanna hear how we use Apple products and services in our business. So why don't we start with Brooklyn Tea. 

Ali Wright: So we still do a lot of events and festivals and tap to [00:36:00] pay has been a game changer for us. We used to have like this separate card scanner. We'd always forget it. We'd forget to charge it.

It was a nightmare and we've done it multiple times. Yeah, so with tap to pay, it connects to our Clover device, which is our POS system. So we just really just flip the phone over. They can use their card or their phone to pay. People are always really impressed. They think it's magic. Yeah, and it also just shows up with the rest of our POS system, so just looks like another employee.

Instead of having like some money over here and some money over there. We can see what we made for the whole day, both at the festival and in the store. In one place and it's super simple. 

Jamila Wright: Yeah.  It's also made us feel like more businesslike people when we're both very type B. So I'm like, who's the responsible person here?

So having iPads so you can have your opening checklist and your closing checklist and your inventory list and everything to make your staff feel [00:37:00] like you're the responsible person in the room and that you have a grip on your business when you're, uh, not sure if you do. But that iPad makes them feel real confident that we are onto something and I just love that for us,

Hala Taha: Cindy. 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: That's so true. My God. It was the first thing we did when we opened up the flagship, was come into Apple and buy like eight iPads so that everyone had one in their room. When they can look at their. Bookings and then, yeah. And of course they still use it till this day, but it really does elevate a business, right?

Obviously the technology is top-notch and then the sleek look and feel of all of the products just make the physical aspect of your business just that much better. So we're huge op, I mean, aren't we all Apple fans at Chill House and Yeah. And everything from a desktop to iPads. To Apple Pay was a huge game changer for us.

I think we all, our purses are a little lighter these days, which is really nice. So love apple, 

Hala Taha: Becky. 

Becky Lin: Apple has helped us in many [00:38:00] ways. We actually had a squirrel true through our files, cable outside, and we lost connections on our POS for a few days. My husband who works in tech still, still does introduced me to tap two pay, and we were able to continue to accept payments during that time.

And then we also switched our landline phone to iPhone because our landline phone doesn't show how much battery there was, and we would. Incorrectly ducted and then the battery would die. And then we would have no phone orders for a whole day. And we were like, why are we so slow with the phone orders today?

And then by the time we discovered that it was too late. So we switched to iPhone now to take orders and we can always tell how much battery there is. So that's been really helpful. The other thing is we are in the process of, uh, opening a second location and apple map. Help us [00:39:00] understand where our customers were coming from.

We didn't want the two locations to be too close to each other, so the data helped us make that decision. 

Hala Taha: Hmm,  

Adriana Carrig: Okay. I love Apple. I love everything about Apple. I think it's the coolest, prettiest, best brand ever. I really do. I think Steve Jobs is a genius, and I'll be so bold as to say that I started this business because of Steve.

I don't call him that obviously, but I refer to. Steve Jobs often in my day to day as his quote, that you cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to keep going and trust that the dots will connect in the future. My team is laughing at me because it is truly what has kept me going on this journey.

It's what inspired me to put one foot in front of the next, in the very beginning, and it does come from this legacy that was. Built here and that every single Apple store continues to replicate no matter where you go. I mean, it's [00:40:00] such the inspiration for, you know, that feeling you get when you walk into an Apple store.

That's as a retailer, what I want people to feel when they walk into a little Word store, and it's not necessarily the same feeling, but what I mean is the consistency. Hmm. And that brand consistency that really you feel when you look or open an Apple box. I mean, there's. Every single touch point is perfection.

And so while I don't deign to be perfect by any means, I do really respect that. And it's what has guided and informed many of the ways that I have run my business and inspired my team to interact with one another. And I am just, I'm Apple till I die. My husband's pc, I'm not gonna lie. Um, finance bros tend to be right.

They hate Excel and Apple, but I don't know what they're talking about because I love it and my whole team does too. And so without go going through the list. Of actual tech that I use. You can imagine if Apple makes it, we have it at Little Words Project and we use the crap out of it. 

Hala Taha: Hmm. I'd love to take a quick vote.

How many of you guys here use Apple Business products outside of Mac and iPhone? Raise your hand. How many of you are considering it? Great. Well, we're gonna have a demo after this where you guys are gonna learn how all of our entrepreneurs here use their Apple products.  So we're gonna have one more question [00:41:00] here, and it's a two part question. We're gonna go down the line. Let's start with Brooklyn Tea. I wanna know, what is your ritual for grounding yourself, as well as how would you distill one entrepreneurial lesson or your core entrepreneurial lesson to the group? 

Ali Wright: Our ritual is every morning we go over our calendar and it seems really simple, but if you don't, then you'll have a 10:00 AM call that you forgot about and it'll be really important and people will be mad at you and you'll be like, I thought about this last night, but not this morning.

So we really like open our iPhones and we just go like hour by hour and just make sure we're not gonna like drop the ball in anything. I'm gonna do part two 'cause it's one of my favorite quotes. It was from Deepak Chopra who you've interviewed. Yeah. And it's um, focus on excellence, ignore success. We really try to instill that in everything we do.

And we try to, even if it doesn't have an immediate result, try to do things as close to perfect and care [00:42:00] about that journey of making it perfect as we can. 

Jamila Wright: We talked about this in the back room, like what is that core value that you have? And it's humility. And I said that because we are constantly failing.

That journey to success is a joke. That journey to perfection, like we're always falling flat on our. Face. I'm like, why can't we just get like a perfect day? And so being humble allows us to have humor about it so we don't take it too serious and end up in a depressive hole because been there, done that.

We can't do that every day if we're going to eventually mess up at something, I can't repeat that feeling every single day. So I have to lead with, um, humility because that gives me access to the humor. And I tell people all the time when we just crap out on something, I'm like, oh, this is just for the book.

I'm not writing a book. Right. Not really, but you know, there's these people who have these grand stories and they look back at these failed moments. I'm like, this is for that book that I'm writing. [00:43:00] I talk about how I failed at that. So that what gets us through. It's just laughing off. Um, so you don't cry.

Hala Taha: Cindy, what is your personal habit or ritual to keep your energy and focus? And then how would you distill one lesson from your entrepreneurial journey? 

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton: Obviously chill house. I have to practice what I preach. I try but fail a lot. I'm a mom of two. I'm in the weeds trying to grow this company and failing forward, failing backwards, failing sideways, all the ways I, and yeah, I think ultimately I've always been of the mindset that.

I have to trust the universe that when something doesn't really stick the landing, that it's for a reason and I have to look for the signs as to what the reason is. I'm still looking for some things that flopped and understand what the bigger meaning is there, of course, but that's always what I have [00:44:00] to keep reminding myself.

And the only thing that's kind of gotten me through the dark times, and again, going back to another chapter in the book, it really is. Romanticize the shitty part of entrepreneurship because. Yeah, maybe I might not be writing a book tomorrow, but one day I will, and one day I hope to pass on the shitty lessons I've learned onto someone that's just starting out.

And it's important for me to fail in order to teach people at the same time. So teach my kids, teach my employees, hopefully, many of which maybe wanna be entrepreneurs someday. So I gotta just keep that in mind. It's always just, it's part of the journey. 

Hala Taha: Becky, 

Becky Lin: the ritual, uh, is sleep more and drink less for sure.

Um, and I should add to it today. Eat more regularly because I forgot, totally forgot to eat today. That's why I, I was running away earlier, so I was. So low on sugar that I was almost passing out anyway. I'm gonna eat a huge meal after this. Um, so sleep better. I didn't have that balance in the beginning of my career.

I was going to bed late as a restaurant owner. That's usually the case. I was sleeping in late, so [00:45:00] I missed out a lot of mornings with my kids. And I was using wine and alcohol too. Drown out the stress a lot, and that only made things worse at the end. So I've learned my lesson the hard way. Now I try to get my eight hours every night, if not eight hours, seven hours, I'll take it.

But, uh, definitely no more than one drink at a time because I know my body is not made for drinking. And I, I have friends who can do four or five, no problem. Everyone's built differently. I have learned to accept that I'm not made that way. So. It's sad, but it's true. And the most important lessons, this journey.

Yeah, it's full of up and downs. Um, but um, when it comes to entrepreneurship, I think it's important to surround yourself with the right people, no matter how talented or passionate you are. It comes down to the people you're surrounded yourself with. And, uh, on that note, protect [00:46:00] your team's energy because I'm sure you've all worked in a toxic environment and it's just not a way to succeed.

So slow to hire. I've learned to slow down when it comes to hiring and, uh, I picked kindness. Over experience all the time. You can teach somebody how to cook, but you cannot teach them how to be kind. Hmm. And on that note too, be kind to yourself. You're gonna make a lot of mistakes on the way, but just remember, this is a journey.

You're the heart of your business, so take care of yourself. When your mind and body is taken care of, everything else will fall into places. Much easier. 

Adriana Carrig: Thanks, Becky. Adriana. Yeah, I would piggyback off of Becky on that. You know, we're obviously all about kindness and self-love and self-kindness, and when you do show yourself kindness, you can then really show that same kindness to others.

Our 2025 word of the Year was Grace is grace. It quickly became a very bestselling item of [00:47:00] ours, and I think it's because everyone is looking for that excuse to let themselves off the hook. And we all need to do that a little bit more. And that is what giving yourself grace is. And giving grace to others is, in my opinion, true kindness.

And so doing that over and over on your entrepreneurship journey is necessary because it is. Constant failure. That is just what it is. It's this constant feeling of never being good enough at your job, never knowing what you're doing. And entrepreneurship especially, I mean, I was an English major in college.

I literally avoided math and business like the plague. And now here we are. So no matter what you study, you're still learning your biggest lessons when you're in the middle of the business growth. Hmm. Or. Failure, right? And that both things can be true, and you can also have and run a multimillion dollar brand or business and still feel like the day to day is riddled with failure.

And that is something I think all entrepreneurs need to hear and understand because it doesn't mean that you're losing or that you're not gonna [00:48:00] succeed in the end. It means that as long as you're working along the way to be your best self and put your best foot forward and give yourself grace when you fall short, that you will eventually.

Find joy in this journey because at the end, that's really what it's all about. 

Hala Taha: Beautifully said. I'd love to give a round of applause for our panelists.

 What an awesome reminder that the most meaningful businesses aren't built from strategy alone. They're born from lived experience, deep emotion, and a desire to create something that truly matters. In this special panel, we heard from five incredible entrepreneurs who didn't just start businesses, they turned their life stories into something transformational.

For example, Becky turned her childhood weekends folding dumplings into a restaurant that feels like home blending, resilience, heritage, and bold creativity. Cindy Reimagined self-care through chill house, [00:49:00] creating a wellness space. Her younger self and her mother always deserved. Jamila and Ali poured their love, culture, and community spirit into Brooklyn Tea, making it a beloved gathering space where people feel seen, heard, and welcomed.

And Adriana transformed her pain from being bullied into a brand that spreads kindness, connection, and healing one bracelet at a time. Each story proved that the path to success is rarely a straight line.

It's full of pivots, late nights, false starts, and moments of doubt. But with authenticity, courage, and a willingness to lead with your heart, you can truly build something that matters. So if you're listening right now with a big idea in your heart, or maybe you're in the messy middle of building something, know that your story matters.

Your voice matters, and the world needs only what you can create. So don't be afraid to start small, to pivot when needed, and to ask your community to show up for you. That's how real movements are built. That's how small businesses become something big. Thanks so much [00:50:00] for always tuning in to Young and Profiting Podcast if you feel inspired by these incredible entrepreneurship stories.

Please drop us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, castbox, or wherever you listen to the show. You can also share this episode with somebody who's ready to transform their business, and if you wanna connect with me directly, hit me up on Instagram at Yap with holla or find me on LinkedIn. Just search for my name.

It's Hala Taha. I love to hear from you guys. I love to get your feedback. I love to read your dms, so make sure you reach out to me. And I also wanna give a massive shout out to Maxi, our amazing audio engineer at Yap Maxi. Your work makes this show sound world class, and we're so grateful for all your magic behind the scenes.

This is your host, Hala Taha, AKA, the podcast princess signing off. [00:51:00]