How This Founder Quit Her Day Job, Focused On Her Side Hustle & Built It Into a Multi-Million Dollar Wellness Brand with Carly Stein Kremer, Founder of Beekeeper’s Naturals

Nov 13, 2023

01:05:18

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Carly Stein Kremer is the founder of Beekeeper’s Naturals, a company that focuses on products made from natural honey, bee propolis, royal jelly, and other byproducts of bee raising.

The idea for Beekeeper’s Naturals came after Carly was on a college abroad trip in Europe and experienced a terrible flare up. She suffered from chronic tonsillitis, an illness that dominated a majority of her life. So she went to a local pharmacy to find some relief, and stumbled upon a compound called propolis, a combination of tree and plant resin created by bees to protect the hive that also has over 300 compounds that are beneficial for human immunity. She quickly realized the power of this natural ingredient herself and that’s when the passion and idea for the company was born.

Fast forward to today, Carly and Beekeeper's Naturals have sold over 2M units of their hero product, Propolis Throat Spray, which sells one unit every 30 seconds. Beekeeper's Naturals is also currently ranked as Amazon's #1 brand in the Cold and Flu category. The company has quickly expanded from 5,000 retail locations to over 18,000 across major North American banners, including Target, CVS, and Walgreens, doubling revenue year-over-year.

In this week’s episode, we sat down with Carly to talk about her very windy journey starting the business – even though she had the idea in college, she ended up pursuing a job in finance and years later left her comfortable and reputable job at Goldman Sachs to start the company. We discuss the importance of securing your finances before taking the leap to start your business, why resilience was key to her own entrepreneurial journey, and how we can all cultivate it in our lives today. We talk about how she created her first products from her kitchen, the steps she took to create awareness in the early days when she was selling at farmer’s markets, and how she thought about fundraising throughout her journey. We also chat about how she tackles her anxiety and calms her nervous system, how she sets up her day to succeed, and so much more.

In this episode, we'll talk to Carly about:

* Resilience for business success. [03:35]

* Early challenges & health impact. [08:47]

* Propolis discovery during exchange program. [11:28]

* Career opportunities and creating first products. [17:16]

* Finance career, unhappiness, and coping with anxiety. [22:08]

* Goldman Sachs timeline & transition to entrepreneurship. [ 31:02]

* The early business traction. [36:32]

* Carly’s quote, “The individual with the calmest nervous system will win”. [53:58]

* Carly's commitment to "One-hour-to-react" principle. [59:26]

* Letting go of a false sense of urgency. [01:01:29]

This episode is brought to you by beeya: