I’ve often said that many entrepreneurs get their business ideas from practicing empathy. From either experiencing a pain point themselves or wanting to solve a pain or provide a benefit to an audience who needs it. Today, we talk to one such start-up entrepreneur, Shizu Okusa, the Founder and CEO of wellness company Apothékary.
Today, Shizu shares her entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to wellness, and how many of her leadership and product philosophies are inspired by her Japanese heritage. We discuss why self-awareness is key for founders to be successful for the long haul and specific examples of how Apothékary creates an empathetic culture devoted to her employees’ and customers’ well-being. We discuss the number one reason many leaders can’t embrace empathy – to their own detriment. And Shizu shares how they gather customer feedback as well as how they make remote work more personal and collaborative. Finally, Shizu offers her advice to other leaders and entrepreneurs looking to lead with empathy.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Self-awareness is key to being an effective leader. You can’t have the space in your brain for empathy, creativity, and listening if you don’t know where you are at.
- Rather than having a maximum number of vacation days, consider setting a minimum number of vacation days to support your team and encourage them to take care of themselves.
- Empathy is consumer psychology in the business world. It is sometimes seen as a soft skill, but compassion and business success are not mutually exclusive.
- Surveys are a great way to gather information from your customers, but if you don’t take action on that data, that data is wasted.
“The CEO’s job is to provide the healthy oxygen for your team to breathe in.” — Shizu Okusa
Episode References:
The Empathy Edge podcast episodes referenced:
- Melina Palmer: Why Your Customers Can’t Tell You What They Want
- Carrie Melissa Jones: Building Successful Communities
- Emily Vernon: Are You Gathering the Right Customer Insights?
- Aransas Savas: Forget Journey Mapping: Define a More Valuable Customer Experience
- Sandy Thompson: How to Make People Fall in Love with Your Brand
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Shizu Okusa, Founder and CEO, Apothékary
Shizu Okusa is a Wall Street alum-turned-wellness entrepreneur. After leaving an intense finance career, she became inspired to live a more balanced lifestyle and revisit her Japanese roots and passion for herbal medicine. Shizu set out to help others regain their holistic health using traditions she grew up with and ones she learned along the way. Now, she proudly leads Apothékary in its mission to deliver natural herbal remedies that get to the root cause of health issues rather than masking the symptoms.
Connect with Shizu Okusa:
Apothékary: https://www.apothekary.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shizu-okusa-87a25415
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apothekaryco/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apothekaryco/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUlZ43PITt9RsTJNZX1F6JQ
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. I’ve often said that many entrepreneurs get their business ideas from practicing empathy, from either experiencing a pain point themselves, or wanting to solve a pain or provide a benefit to an audience who needs it. Today we talked to one such startup entrepreneur, she zu o Kusa. She’s who is the founder and CEO of wellness company apothecary, she’s who is a Wall Street alum turned wellness entrepreneur. After leaving an intense finance career, she became inspired to live a more balanced lifestyle and revisit her Japanese roots and passion for herbal medicine. She’s who set out to help others regain their holistic health, using traditions she grew up with, and ones she learned along the way. Now, she proudly leads apothecary and it’s mission to deliver natural herbal remedies that get to the root cause of health issues, rather than masking the symptoms. Today, she’s who shares her entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to wellness, and how many of her leadership and product philosophies are inspired by her Japanese heritage we discuss why self awareness is key for founders to be successful for the long haul, and specific examples of how apothecary creates an empathetic culture devoted to her employees and customers well being. We discussed the number one reason why leaders can’t embrace empathy to their own detriment. And she’s who shares how they gather customer feedback, as well as how they make remote work more personal and collaborative. Finally, she’s zoo offers her advice to other leaders and entrepreneurs looking to lead with empathy. So many insights in today’s episode, please take a listen. Welcome, she’s due to the empathy edge Podcast. I’m so excited to have you here to talk about all things entrepreneurship, culture and wellness, which wraps up your own personal history as well as the products that you sell at apothecary. So welcome to the show.
Shizu Okusa 02:41
Thank you so much. This is amazing. It feels like all those terms. And words are combinations of all the things that I’ve strived to do here at apothecary, so I’m happy to be here. Thank
Maria Ross 02:51
you. Awesome. So let’s start because your story is so interesting. Your entrepreneurial journey is really interesting. Tell us a little bit about your story, and how you got to the work you’re doing now. Absolutely.
Shizu Okusa 03:04
It’s not super linear, but I think that’s what most entrepreneurs stories are. So I was born and raised in Vancouver on a farm. My parents were both Japanese immigrants coming out of World War Two, they were actually an intern camps. And it was kind of a crazy time for them to grow out. And they were like, please get a stable job. We got you here in Canada. And of course, my first job then was in Wall Street, I chose sort of this, what I thought would be the most stable thing and the most lucrative money wise because that’s the thing that we didn’t have as an immigrant family. And I kind of flew myself to New York got myself a job on the one of the most stressful but most, I would say the most brightest of people on that trading floor. And I joined the distressed investing desk there at Goldman Sachs for about three years and kind of was again like nonlinear, I kind of quickly knew, being empathetic to myself realized this wasn’t the right fit for me. And so I really deeply thought about my eulogy virtues and my resume virtues and how I wanted to shift my focus not just from my resume my career to more of like how I want to live and how I want to be remembered when I die. And I know that sounds so crazy, but you know, I grew up again in like a very Buddhist family. So I traveled the world for a bit I lived on a Banana Farm in Mozambique and Africa. I lived there for a year, then got myself back to DC where I then started my first company. It was a cold pressed juice brand called drink. And I did that for eight and a half years making cold pressed juices and smoothies. We had 15 stores partnerships with whole foods. We got acquired and I was able to then kind of start my second company apothecary and what I call apothecary today’s Mother Nature’s pharmacy, we are providing clean, natural herbal remedies that bridge Eastern medicine with Western health care. And we provide sort of these herbal alternatives to over the counter supplements so melatonin, laxatives wine, energy drinks, quick fixes, and I don’t know what else could be more sort of empathetically focused because, you know, this whole vision has been And I know there are more consumers like me that don’t want to use melatonin as a crutch. I know there are people that drink just as much as I do with wine and don’t want to drink as much. But we want like a better alternative. That’s not gross. That’s not dark and witchy. That’s not like, on accessible from a price point perspective. And so we wanted to create that. And that’s kind of what apothecary is today, four years later.
Maria Ross 05:25
Okay, so funny because you’re describing me with the melatonin and the wine, but I’m so interested in the pivot you made from Wall Street to wellness prompted that? Was it the environment you were in? Was it the culture you were working in? Like? What prompted that? That route?
Shizu Okusa 05:41
Yeah, you know, I think it was. So be I lived, I was on a very interesting desk at Goldman, a very unique and special desk and distressed investing, which means usually, it’s companies that are going through bankruptcy or about to go through bankruptcy. So I was looking at companies that were like bus companies, yellow page books, companies, like who knew right at the time. And all of that being said, it was like, at the very end of the lifecycle for a business, it almost looked like I was just looking at death every single day of a company. And I’m, as you can probably tell, I thrive on the energy I thrive of life, I want to breathe and live and give back life. And I didn’t want to keep doing that in a world where I’d wake up at 4am in the morning, and go to bed at like 11 o’clock at night with alcohol in my system every single day. And I think a lot of people just need to ask themselves, like pretty early on, like, like, is this the life that I intended for myself, we live once we really live a very short period of time in this world. And as much as sometimes we think this day is going by too slow, or like, I just want to get to tomorrow, or I want to get to my next vacation. That’s just like not the way I wanted to live. I don’t look forward to my vacation personally, because I don’t take vacation. I don’t I don’t need it. Like I I was listening to something yesterday about like when when things are going well. And you have momentum you never burn out. Like I’m sure you feel the same way for yourself. Marie is like when you have momentum and things are going great. You can do that every day, all day, every day. Right? It’s when the entrepreneurial bumps in the road, the crashes and falls on your face happen. And that’s when you start to burn out. Right.
Maria Ross 07:13
Right. It’s so true. And I think that that’s the culture, especially for people that work inside organizations. Yeah, that’s the part of the culture that gets to them where they’re like, you know, I am starting to burnout, I do need to refuel, I need to re energize I need to replenish in some way. And I advocate very strongly for that, because as you know, we were talking before we started recording, is that empathy is more accessible to you when you’re in that state of being when you are feeling replenished and rejuvenated. And you’re well as full, as I like to say, because then you can take on another person’s perspective without defensiveness or fear. You can you can get curious, you’re not in such a self protective mode. Yeah. And what I loved about apothecary, and your story is that you had that need as a person in the world. And then now you’ve created this company that creates that for other people. And that’s a common thread, I actually spoke about it or wrote about it in my book, The Empathy edge, where the spark for entrepreneurship is oftentimes, I mean, nine times out of 10. Yes, empathetic, it’s, yeah, I have this challenge and this problem and this need. And I want to help other people with this as well. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 08:29
yeah. It’s really, really good point. I mean, we recently did a whole rebrand for this very reason around empathy. Because I was just, you know, I just told you that was just on the interview right before this. And I was sharing that I think apothecary wouldn’t be alive in a year from now, if we didn’t do that rebrand. And I think it’s such an important investment that we did. And I know investors are probably like, Bran doesn’t matter. But like, I’m like, no,
Maria Ross 08:53
no, we have a whole other episode about that as a brand strategy.
Shizu Okusa 08:59
It’s probably better than anyone. Looking specifically just for numbers. And as an investor, those are all former past indicators. They’re not leading indicators. And when I was looking at some of our leading indicators, as an early stage company, it’s really important that you’re looking at affinity to brand and, you know, engagement to brand. And it was very clear to me that the packaging at the time was not suited for that we were putting powders into juice shop bottles, which was my first company, of course, it didn’t work out. And so now we did a rebrand, we’re being much more thoughtful about like, the packaging. So things, you know, you know, given the podcast is very clear, like, you know, there’s an opening on the side so that people can look inside. It’s very apparent that people from an empathy standpoint, like they want to know what’s inside. So we give them that opportunity we give them so that they know exactly what they can expect inside. Being again, like, if I was a consumer, how would I want to be treated like me lately?
Maria Ross 09:53
Completely and being in lockstep, you know, again, I write about this a lot being in lockstep with your customers. so that you’re speaking their language and you’re creating something they need, from their point of view. I mean, it’s great to start with a product that you have in mind or a service that you have in mind. But you’ve got to road test it. And then you have to understand how does it fit into my ideal clients life? How did? How do they interact with it? How do they feel about it? Because I work with a lot of tech companies, even though I’ve worked with b2c as well. And that’s the thing I’m trying to always drill into their heads is that I know you’re selling to IT people, for example, but every human being buys based on emotion and logic. And often they use the logic to justify the emotion, they don’t even always realize why they’re making the decision that they’re making. And just since we’re talking about this, I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to another episode, Melina Palmer, where we talked about behavioral economics, and why people buy and why sometimes customers can’t tell you why they feel a certain way, or why they’re making the decision that they’re making, because they actually don’t always consciously realize it. Yeah.
Shizu Okusa 11:07
But it’s also like, Do you think that’s a function of just being busier as a society now, like, consumers just don’t want to think
Maria Ross 11:13
no, it’s human. It’s actually how our brains are wired. And she cites a lot. In her books, she cites a lot about basically how the brain works, Daniel Kahneman, ZZ work, and different studies and research projects that have been done around pricing around packaging, around display, and have you we say that it doesn’t matter to us that it doesn’t matter. If you say, Buy one, get one free or buy three get to, you know, if you word it a different way, but it actually does the data show that it does, right. So I love that you’re already building the business and working through the business and I love that you rebranded like, it’s sometimes you have to rebrand, like you do you do consumer needs change, the marketplace change, competition changes, messaging changes all those things. So I love that you’re doing that from a customer point of view. So is that something you know, for leaders and entrepreneurs listening? Is that something that was intentional from day one for you to be so in lockstep with your customers? Was that something that the company came to? Over time? Where did that philosophy develop?
Shizu Okusa 12:20
I think this was so tight, I don’t know if this ties into but I’m just gonna say it, I, I have a lot of focus on one thing, right. And so when I’m building apothecary, I’m very hyper focused on this chapter of my life, which allows me to give space and boundaries to other parts of my life, that maybe otherwise other people would do. So like, I don’t have kids, I’m not married, I’m very focused on the company, my team, and then supporting myself so they can continue to breathe healthy oxygen into the business. And what that means, though, is I also have downtime in my day, make it I’m not running around chasing kids or chasing diapers, or like serving my husband food. I don’t know what other people do. But like that capacity allows me to take journaling time, and really get into the weeds of like, what did I do today? What do I want to do accomplish tomorrow? What were some of the challenges that we faced, and really kind of manifest the things that I think I need to do, and that I think that ties into I think a little bit about the empathy piece has been just around self awareness I’ve been, I’ve been very aware of my journey, both as a founder, both as a prospective partner, for other person, and I just want to be thoughtful about that before I enter a new chaos into my life. And so I think to that, to that end, I’ve been, I’m always thinking about the business. And I’m always thinking about what how to better serve the community and the customers. And when that when I run out of ideas, or when I think I can’t do that anymore, that’s the time that founders also need to be really aware and empathetic to the fact that that’s, your time has maybe passed for this journey of this company. And it’s time to now think about a succession plan. And so I think any healthy entrepreneur will ask those questions, and we’re not going to be self imposed by, you know, restrictions around the shoulds. The, the, the expectations on ourselves that a founder will always be a part of the company. I don’t know about that. You know, and I think it’s for now, it works for now. It’s great for now, I think I’m needed for now, you know, it’s so important for the stage of the business, we’re only less than four years in that we’re really listening to the consumer. It’s a consumer business, right? And so we have to be listening we have to be watching and ultimately be creating for something that they don’t even know they want yet.
Maria Ross 14:31
100% I have so many things to unpack there that I’m like lighting up about because the one of the things you mentioned was that ability to create enough stillness in space. Yeah, to be able to hear yourself and to be self aware and for the new book that I’m working on that’s coming out anytime you’re raising 2024 You’re one of the one of the pillars of being an effective empathetic leader is self awareness. Because if you don’t know your strengths if you don’t know your blind spots if you don’t know your triggers. Yeah. And like you said, if you don’t know, when you’re hearing that voice that says you need a break, or you need you need to read, refresh, you need to re Energize. Yeah, you can’t have the space in your brain to be able to go. Let me get more creative over here. Or let me take time to listen to my employees over here. Or let me take time to listen to my customers over here. Absolutely. I love that that was such a key component for you. Yeah, in building the business. And so I want to ask you, you know, how do you foster a culture of empathy? Yeah, I think we’ve talked a lot on the show to to larger companies. Yeah. And a few smaller companies. But I really want to dive into this. Because what I love about startups and small businesses that I’ve worked with in the past, is you have the opportunity to build things right from the beginning. Yeah, we don’t always, but what have you done to build a culture of empathy into into the company, so that you can continue to empower and engage your employees to do their best work?
Shizu Okusa 16:07
Yeah. So I think there’s a few things. It’s, I think about mostly scheduling the types of work that we give and mental health days. And so one thing that we started from the very beginning of a company was mental health days. So, you know, this was even before COVID. I mean, we was gonna say, was it before it was trendy? Yeah, it was before 2020. And so like, we gave everybody once a month has a mental health day, you know, you can take that in addition to your PTO. You know, we encourage people to take that, because it’s actually something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, because I’ve started to take vacation. Finally, personally, myself, even and I’m like, I, we need to have a minimum vacation day. Not a maximum, but a minimum. Because, yeah, the way that we hired apothecary, because I do come from Wall Street, I have at Wall Street expectations. But I also have, but that also comes with like being Japanese and having very high expectations and sort of on ourselves, right? I think the Japanese culture is a lot of perfection, unfortunately. But it would balance, right. And all these like nomenclatures like do wabi sabi which means imperfection, is is beautiful and iki guy, which means life purpose, and like, there’s all these words that I think I’ve been surrounded by, through my culture, and my family, that I’ve we’ve tried to, like really instill that with the business. So whether it’s like through a harmony video with my mom, the heritage video with my dad, we tried to really interweave the side about self awareness and meditation and using the lifestyle component of plant medicine. And so that’s one piece. I think the second is like, you know, when I first took my vacation earlier this year, I went to this place called the ranch Malibu, which I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s like a, you have, okay, great.
Maria Ross 17:50
So,
Shizu Okusa 17:50
you know, I absolutely love that it was like, seven days of complete offline, not having to think about a single decision or what I was going to eat or where I would need to be, you didn’t need to be anywhere, but there. And so that was kind of a journey for me to say, you know, I schedule my emails now for our team, I don’t send an email be beyond seven o’clock at night. I don’t send emails on weekends, I scheduled it for Monday morning. And so it’s just being again thought I turned my email on a way purposely so that because I know my team is going to check their email, they’re going to see if I’m on Gchat, or slack. And they’ll be like, Oh, my God, she’s working again. Right? So I purposely go on away, which should also just
Maria Ross 18:28
creates anxiety for people like, even if they’re just checking it, to make sure there’s no fires, if they see, you know, like, I know, when I checked my email, I’ve got like, 300 new messages a day when I log on in the morning, and it just, I feel it rising in my chest, just like, oh, you know, that feeling of like, do I need to go through this do I need to just spend some time clearing it out, so I don’t have to face it. When I come back. It just creates all kinds of anxiety.
Shizu Okusa 18:53
It does. It does. And I mean, as you know, we can schedule things we can boomerang or inbox, we pause the inbox, but the very least from my job, like, again, if the CEOs job is to provide the healthy oxygen for your team to breathe in, if I’m if I am breathing carbon dioxide to my team, that’s gonna kill the team pretty quickly. And so again, if we’re nature is medicine, we’re sourcing sustainably we’re recycling sustainably from a team side, I also have to be breathing in the right medicine for my team. And part of that is the words that they use the emails that I send out the content that we share the time off that you get the offline and online component. I often tell teams like if you’ve had 10 calls already today, please turn off your video camera. Just get off the camera. I know it’s exhausting. Just get off, take calls while you’re walking. Send voice notes instead by the beach. I don’t care. I just want a job. And I don’t care about formalities. I really don’t
Maria Ross 19:48
know. Why do you think what do you think gets in the way of more entrepreneurs and more leaders quite frankly. Yeah, having that perspective. I’m just curious. I always like to ask other people what they think gets in the way of people being able to be an empathetic leader like that. I think it’s scarcity. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 20:08
I think I have to admit that like when I was a, you know, when you’re when this gets very spiritual, but if you’re thinking about your root chakra falling off, or you’re like Maslow’s hierarchy are very bottom doesn’t have any base, ie like money issues, like you go into complete scarcity mode, and I think you then try to control everything. And then you try to like, you put parameters in place, and then you lose all sense of empathy. Because your empathy, I think, is one of those things that you think about at the very top, it’s close to self awareness, self actualization, in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy. And so, again, if you’re at the very bottom, because you’re just trying to survive, that’s where I think people can’t make those decisions from a place of abundance.
Maria Ross 20:47
100% I feel like if that foundation is weak, yeah, you just you’re in self preservation mode. Yeah, there’s no ability for you to think beyond your own needs, and see and hear and understand someone else’s point of view or someone else’s perspective. Exactly. So I love that I love that. You talked a little bit about, you know, prioritizing the well being of your employees. What about the products you choose to sell, and even this industry that you’ve gotten into? What role does empathy play in that mission? Of being empathetic to community being empathetic to the planet? Like, Was that intentional? Is that because I don’t know that every wellness company talks that you say, yeah, yeah,
Shizu Okusa 21:34
it’s a good point. And I think it’s interesting. It goes, this sounds so silly, but I think it goes a little bit to like color psychology, because when I when we were doing our rebrand, we were very intentional about like, what Pantone colors to choose for our brown book, you’re very intentional about moods.
Maria Ross 21:52
speaking my language right now, like, seriously, all of those things, say something, whether you want them to say it or not, they’re going to say something. So you have to be intentional
Shizu Okusa 22:02
about that. Yeah. And so you probably know, this is like light purple is more like lilac and calming, right, yellow is more uppity and energizing. Green is something that feels more like filling and like its nature. So you feel like you’re just left with like abundance of energy. And so that’s why it’s on our energy blend, to chill the eff out. It’s like a light blue, because we want to take you to the moon and sky and we want even like relax and be expensive. And so we use a lot of that with like color therapy and color psychology. And then I think layering on top of that has been always like the opening unboxing experience. So when we how do we want to feel when we open that box? We want people to be like great packaging, she’s to, like, if I hear that. I’m like, my job’s done. I’m done. I’m retiring. Now, like you, we know that we’ve done our jobs. Right. And most times, it doesn’t require like a 5000 bajillion dollar investment in brand. Like it can be as simple as a little gift note, yes, simple as like a little additional bubble wrap around a certain thing, because we knew it might break or just little touches, you know, and it goes such a long way.
Maria Ross 23:09
Yeah, it really does. It really does. And so, you know, again, kind of getting back to beyond your customer and beyond your employee. What policies or practices do you have in place that are empathetic to the community or empathetic to the environment, let’s say,
Shizu Okusa 23:24
Yeah, so right now, so all of our packaging is completely biodegradable. So we use all of our sort of these secondary cartons and the primary packaging, everything is recycled goods. And then we use wood pulp packaging from this guy here. And then when customers subscribe, which is about 30% of the business, so they subscribe to like a regular product getting delivered. At their second delivery, we actually send refills. And so we know the customers wanting to save money by the time they’re on their second or third order. So we make sure we send them a refill. And that refill actually is like 30% more product. So they get the benefit of having more product, and it’s cheaper. But also for mother nature, we can ship it in a lower, sort of like just basic USPS mailer, and then it saves money on the shipping environment and the bulk, we don’t need to use a box, which is more water intensive, too. And so everything is so thoughtfully, I think created from like our rebrand experience and always putting ourselves where the customer is in terms of what really matters, rent as we think about like all of our new formats, you know, alcohol alternatives continue to be a very big category for us. And so when we’re thinking about the names of the product, like take the edge off, very, very clear, but what that is intended to do wind down very, very clear what it is and what the intention is right is to like wind you down, rose a tinted glass, it’s very clear. You want to lose your mood. It’s a Rosedale alternative. And so there’s just a lot of I think consumer psychology maybe, and empathy. It’s very interrelated. And I think to your it’s interesting because empathy I think, in many ways is consumer psychology as a terminology for business and business world. Yeah, for sure. It’s just kind of sad because it feels like sometimes there’s workplaces that may not feel like the word empathy is like a safe word to use. Because they think it’s too soft.
Maria Ross 25:12
I don’t know. Exactly. I mean, I mean that, yeah. Welcome to like my world of just trying to make the business case for empathy. When really what I’m trying to do is just make the world more empathetic. I’m just starting at the place where we spend the bulk of our time and energy, which is that work. So but but the benefits, they’re there. They’re not mutually exclusive. I talked about this all the time. Actually, when I sign off on the podcast, I say cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. No, we’re not signing a light on on entrepreneurs and leaders and companies like yours, who are showing that you can find success that way. Yep. And everybody wins. Like, yeah, this Yeah, nothing bothers me more than the either or thinking of like, purpose or profit. Yeah, it’s not mutually exclusive. The or ambition? No, there, it’s both and right. So, uh, gosh, so many questions I want to ask you. What would you what are some ways that you can share that are great strategies or methods for staying in touch with your customers on a consistent basis? Do you do anything innovative in terms of gathering that customer feedback? And it doesn’t have to be, you know, overly innovative? It could be something. Yeah, effective. But what are the ways that you actually gather feedback? How many different mechanisms and methods do you have?
Shizu Okusa 26:33
So you know, the craziest thing is like, we have over 500,000, email customers subscribers, and when we do launches, we send it from Shizu. apothecary, the people are willingly going to be able to just be me back. And then on our Instagram, you can look today it says, founder, Japanese and female founded by she’s a Prusa, you can click on that, and you can DM me at any time. So my door’s always open for our customers. And I think the surprising thing is, most people will probably still not reach out to you, even though it’s that accessible, but at least knowing that the door is open, and there is a door means so much to people already. And so when people ask questions on Instagram about a certain product, or like they ask questions, generally, I always respond to that myself. As for my personal, my personal account, and so there was always a means for someone to get in contact with me whether it’s by email, hack, I don’t know, smoke, smoke signal, by letter for sure. Because shipping from our facility, so people, people write letters to me from to the facility. And then they can also DM me. So I think it’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter as much. Like we don’t purposely need to say she’s just reaching out to you, we always have a door open. That’s always been an open door. But that
Maria Ross 27:50
may not scale over time, like you’re one person with one personal account. So how do you think about actually making sense of that feedback? So not? Not just the gathering of it, but just synthesizing it and prioritizing it? Are there methods that you use that could be helpful for listeners of trying to figure out you know, everyone just falls back on surveys all the time, right? Yeah. And yeah, that’s very methodical. And that’s a very organized way to gather information and collate it and, you know, make it into pretty graphs and charts and all the things. But you know, it’s also about are you asking the right questions? Are you getting getting feedback that’s useful? How is that feedback being implemented in a future product decisions or pricing decisions? So can you talk to us a little bit about your process around synthesizing that feedback? Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 28:43
absolutely. So there’s a few things that we do do, including like, you know, we saw not, so we have automations, running so few automations. Right, which are after you purchase something, there’s a post purchase survey, like did we serve you in terms of all of your needs that you were looking for today? That’s part one. Part two is what were you primarily here looking for? And 80% of our consumers say stress? So that’s on one thing. So right, I think if that continues to be the answer, we’re doing a good job, because I would say 50% or more of our products are focused on stress, if not the connection to stress. And so from that perspective, I think we continue to serve our consumers where they are. And then we have every one week, so t plus one week, meaning the time upon delivery, and a week later, we’ll send a post purchase survey through a review system. So it allows him to anonymously review. So that you know, it is a survey system on that regard. And I think that there could be a world and this is actually a world that we believe will come very soon because we are hiring the community liaison community person, so that person will be dedicated specifically to creating and fostering a healthier community of communication. And so that includes things like our Facebook group and they make sure that we’re engaging people through the right recipe. We are creating journeys soon as well right which are going to be these plot Medicine journeys that will be international. So to allow consumers to come with us and go through journeys of meditation, heart opening exercises. And so it’s just been like, that is all part of listening, I think to our consumer and where they are today. And then also just getting gathering input from like these reviews and surveys. But to your point, I think from a brand perspective, we still have room to go, right? Short, right, we will always have room to go.
Maria Ross 30:26
And I love this because I love hearing this from the perspective of an actual in the trenches practitioner, and I’m gonna put a link to a few episodes I’ve done around customer journey mapping, gathering customer insights, and also on building effective communities, because I’ve interviewed experts in those areas. And I think anyone listening to this, with their eye on trying to gather the best practices of things, will just give them a little package in the show notes of other places they can go as well. I love that, though. Because we want to hear what’s really going on, you know what I mean? Yeah, you can talk to consultants and experts all you want, but how are people actually leading? How are they actually running their companies? Right? And so how will you this is kind of an interesting question that maybe some founders have on this that are doing everything very old school personal touch away? How will you know, when you get to a point that you can’t manage? people contacting you directly? Um, have you thought about that? Or is it Yeah, I know, it’s, when you come to it. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 31:27
you know, you can ask my team, but like, I tend to operate in a capacity where I don’t think I feel like I actually have 50 people working for me, I think I operate from a world where, like, I today was a launch of our wind down product or like, which I think is going to be like our number one SKU going into next year, I sent a photo to literally everyone in the entire company, because we have like one email that goes to everyone is a listserv, and I sent a photo of my nails. And I was like, Look, guys, in celebration of wine now launching, here’s my matching manicure. Er, and I was like, I was like, I don’t care if people don’t perceive me to be the CEO that they think I need to be or whatever. It allows me to continue to be free, not feel bogged down, not feel bogged down by bureaucracy. Yeah. role. And I think what I’ve learned the most about myself over the last year is that it’s, it’s money to me is less important than freedom. And I think about the moment where I know my freedom becomes constrained, whether through customers emailing me and there being that being just too much, I’ll know, my body will tell me and I’ll hire someone to like, you know, potentially be my EA or something. But that’s far, I actually gave my EA to our head of operations, because
Maria Ross 32:37
like I don’t want to manage. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Oh, my God, I love it. Well, you’re speaking to really about tapping into your authentic leadership style. Yeah. And I think that’s why so many entrepreneurs go off on their own. I know, I went off on my own because I was tired of the politics, right and tired of, I wanted to do things my way and not like at the expense of not listening to people. But you know, when you have there’s so much added stress on employees. Yeah, you know, which is some of their dissatisfaction with workplace culture is most a lot of it’s not about the actual work. Yeah, it’s about the environment that they swim in. It’s about the, like, I can’t just focus on my work, because I’ve got to worry about politics, and I’ve got to worry about optics, and I’ve got to worry about that person that’s going to stab me in the back. Which is, is. It’s not hilarious. It’s sad, but you know, CFOs, do you realize how much productive hours are being wasted by your people? Because of poor workplace culture? Yeah, like to say it’s fluffy. You say it’s soft? Yeah. Like, attach $1 value to that if you need to, to understand the impact. And so I know, because you’ve stretched you know, you’ve been in Wall Street, you’re starting your own business. I know, you get that. Yeah.
Shizu Okusa 33:50
I mean, you know, the trading floor is probably a whole new extreme, right? Like, I learned to yellow across the room and be yelled at, and to be sitting beside someone with their, their pants, kind of like half on button because they’re trying to eat lunch. And they’re just kind of like, I don’t give a shit like that vibe. That’s the vibe of trading floors. Right? And, you know, recently with apothecary, even because we’re fully remote, and I was reading about this, from a culture standpoint, it’d be really easy to feel like you’re just a zoom face, right? Like you’re just a face that logs on and then logs off and can be really replaced, replaceable, but like, that’s not what we want to create. And so now, you know, onboarding has been a very big progress and work in progress for us. The onboarding now has a buddy system, and like a full transparent 3060 90 Day goal setting process. And so we know that that all that first 90 days will really set the company up for success with that first employee, but the buddy system is huge. Because otherwise in remote, you’re kind of just talking to your three or four people in your department. And so the buddy system allows for that cross functional relationships and to be able to make friends Isn’t the company that could because you might not have to work with them directly? So that’s a lot, I think on retention,
Maria Ross 35:05
for sure for sure. Because you can’t, you know, I’ve done a few episodes on hybrid work. And yeah, actually spoken to people that do really great team building and skill building work with remote teams and how they’ve managed to combine that with philanthropy. Actually, it’s really cool. But I’ll put a link to that Terry Terry Schultz is episode. But it’s this idea of, you know, what people do miss about the in person environment is the happy accidents. Yeah, the the magical moments that you don’t plan for that just happen. And unfortunately, when we are on Zoom calls all the time, when we hang up, we hang up, and we’re by ourselves. There’s no one to debrief with. There’s no one to sort of collide with in the hallway. But it doesn’t mean we can’t be innovative. And it doesn’t mean we can’t form close connections. Sure. So I love that you’re being really intentional about that, rather than what I’m seeing a lot of leaders do is out of fear of the unknown. They’re snapping back to the way things were because they’re more comfortable leading that way. Instead of saying things have changed. Now let’s figure out how to make this work environment work for us and still foster collaboration and foster creativity. Yeah, I love that you’ve actually looked at the the pressure points within that process. And you’re addressing them very specifically, like the onboarding process, for example, or the buddy system being very specific examples of like, these were the these are the problems, the challenges, we’ve pinpointed with working remotely? Yes, solve for those rather than throwing the whole thing out and demanding everybody come back to work. Yeah, absolutely. So I love that. Okay. So as we wrap up, I could talk to you for another hour, like I say to all my guests, but we can’t as an entrepreneur, what advice would you give to other businesses, looking to build companies with an empathetic approach, looking to understand that empathy and profitability, empathy, and success
Shizu Okusa 37:05
can coexist? Whoo, new processes. Say more. I think for us, you know, so recently, what we’ve tried to do with every launch that we’ve done, so for example, we had our very big black Friday, this past Black Friday, and it has defeated all expectations that we originally would have had. And because we’re starting, we’re always kind of like, on the next thing, we’re already thinking about January. Now we’re thinking about like our new launch in February, March, April, May, June, it’s exhausting to keep going that way. And it’s exhausting. For me, too. As much as I’m excited about the next new thing, it’s really important to do a post mortem. And so now we intentionally create these post mortem calendar invites to ourselves, keeping ourselves accountable with the right people on that call to say what went right, what went wrong? What can we do better? Where did we struggle? Where could we have done better and supported each other? What actual mistakes happened? What was the cost to that and also celebrate the wins along the way. And so, from a company standpoint, those are new processes that we’ve put in place. And I think like, that allows us to always just be better. And that’s also just the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, right? Kaizen has always been this idea of constant improvement. It’s also tiring to say that because my life is full of constant improvements, and I’m never perfect, but hey, that’s the life that we live in. So right now is probably one concrete and good example for other leaders to put into place. So what
Maria Ross 38:32
I hear you saying, If I can paraphrase that, is that never losing sight of that growth mindset? And being willing to learn from mistakes? Yeah, and create new processes or new ways of doing things going forward? Absolutely. We
Shizu Okusa 38:44
are never a fixed mindset company. I think that from a culture fit, we probably wouldn’t ever hire someone that had a fixed mindset from like a culture personality standpoint. And so it’s very early on that we recognize that if we made a bad hire, because they’re not growing, and it’s very clear, yeah, right. They’re
Maria Ross 39:01
really happy with the status quo. And they don’t want. Yeah, that’s actually a really good piece of advice, too, is is higher, right and higher, don’t just have, you know, as part of my branding work, we will articulate values and will our vision as part of it. But those can’t just be pretty posters that live on the wall. Yeah, those have to be applied in everyday actions and used to vet everyday actions and used to vet new hires. Yeah. And not to not to create a very cookie cutter culture or cook cookie cutter employee base where everyone looks and sounds the same. Yeah, but do people embrace these values? Are these values they can get on board with are these values that they live, eat and breathe as well? Right, right.
Shizu Okusa 39:49
Right. Absolutely.
Maria Ross 39:51
I love it. I love it. So such great advice. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank
Shizu Okusa 39:56
you for having me, Maria. I appreciate it.
Maria Ross 39:58
We’re gonna have all your link in the show notes to all your wonderful products. I think you you gained a new customer in me so yay. But we’re gonna have all those links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go or listening while they’re working out or on their morning walk, where’s one of the best places they can get in touch with you and learn more about you?
Shizu Okusa 40:16
Yeah, I think if you’re on a morning walk, YouTube is the best place to listen and engage with our video content. So that’s just apothecary ko on YouTube. For Instagram. You get a lot of recipes if you’re looking for inspiration on your next healthy mocktail or a digestive bitters tincture relief recipe, liver detox, all of that apothecary CO on Instagram. If you have business questions, you can find me on LinkedIn that she’s Yakuza. It’s a pretty rare name in the world of Japanese. Japanese names there. And yeah, I think that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, just Google us and you’ll you’ll definitely find us
Maria Ross 40:50
and I will just point out for folks listening it’s apothecary with a que nada. Yes. So off the carry.co. But again, we’ll have all the links in the show notes. So thank you so much for your time. It was great to connect with you. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 41:01
I appreciate it. Appreciate you. And thank you everyone for
Maria Ross 41:04
listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that kashflow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access, show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
