Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in home care but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Courtney Toll, Co-Founder and CEO of Nori Inc., located in New Canaan, CT, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Our business is Nori, a modernized clothing care brand that creates thoughtful solutions for the next generation of consumers. Our hero product, the Nori Press, is an innovative steam iron designed to press and de-wrinkle your clothes, requiring no ironing board. Our customers are primarily women between the ages of 24-42 that are looking to look and feel their best with the use of efficient solutions on a daily basis.
Tell us about yourself
The idea for Nori was born out of personal frustration. After years of frustration with clunky ironing boards and leaky steamers, I began ironing my clothes with a hair straightener. This DIY hack led my co-founder and me on a 2+ year product development journey to create a next-generation steam iron. As our brand scales, I am motivated each and every day by the 20,000+ customers that have already purchased our product and the many, many more that are excited by its offering.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
It is one thing to launch a company; it is another thing to launch a hardware company! My co-founder and I are incredibly proud of the handheld electronics we created, launched, and received two patents on.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
A career in entrepreneurship is filled with never-ending obstacles, one of which is fundraising. Working capital is the oxygen of your company, and without constant monitoring of your cash flow and careful planning of future debt and equity financing, your company can easily run out of its much-needed lifeline.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Before pursuing an idea full time, try and validate your idea and offer as much as possible (i.e., conduct customer discovery interviews, try to pull together necessary funding, run Facebook and IG ghost ads, etc.)
- Find the right partner. Find someone that complements your skills, is equally as passionate as you, and, most importantly, you genuinely enjoy spending a lot of time with.
- Invest in content. We live in a consumerist economy where content is king. You can never have enough UGC content to test in paid and unpaid acquisition channels.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://nori.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetnori/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-toll-442602116/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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