0:04

Ruby.

0:08

Globe trotting is one of the big perks of tennis

0:10

player Sloane Stephen's career.

0:12

It's Rome, it's Paris, it's New York,

0:14

it's all of these places.

0:16

Right the downside, she's

0:18

always on the go.

0:20

We're away from home. Well, I would say probably

0:22

more than you. We traveled like forty weeks a year.

0:25

Sloane has traveling down, but the

0:27

personal care products available to her left

0:30

a lot to be desired, especially for

0:32

a woman playing tennis all day every

0:34

day. During COVID, she

0:36

was inspired to start her own company, Doc

0:39

and Glo to provide the clean beauty products.

0:41

She's so craved she has put

0:43

her heart, her energy, and

0:45

her own money into the company. A

0:47

few weeks before launch, she heard from

0:49

her website designer.

0:52

We hired a company to do all of our branding,

0:55

and we were working on the website.

0:57

We had already had the products, and one

1:00

of the website designers

1:02

called us and was like, hey, do

1:05

you guys know that your website

1:07

looks exactly like this other company's

1:10

everything down to like the packaging

1:13

like identical.

1:16

She couldn't believe it. She had the products

1:18

in her hand. The branding was set and

1:21

now she couldn't use any of it.

1:24

That was my Like, oh

1:26

shit, I just paid so much money

1:28

for this. We literally have to start

1:31

over from scratch completely.

1:38

Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase

1:40

for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.

1:43

I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business.

1:46

On the Unshakeables, we're sharing the daring

1:48

moments of small business owners facing their crisis

1:51

points and telling the stories of how

1:53

they got through it. Joining

1:55

me today once again is Kathleen Griffith.

1:57

Kathleen, have you ever worked with an athlete business owner

1:59

before?

2:00

I have not directly

2:03

worked with an athlete business owner,

2:05

but it's who I admire

2:08

most.

2:09

And our guest today is absolutely someone

2:11

to admire. On today's episode, Doc

2:14

and Glo from the globe trotting Sloane

2:16

Stevens. As

2:21

much of the world knows, Sloane Stevens

2:23

is a tennis player. This informs so

2:25

much of what she does and who she is.

2:28

You'll hear more about it over the course of the episode,

2:30

but it's also how she came up with the idea for

2:33

Doc and Glow in the first place.

2:35

I came up with the concept and the idea.

2:38

During COVID, when we were like playing and obviously

2:40

being a professional tennis player, we

2:43

were traveling, but we were in bubbles, so we were

2:45

always all together, but we could never use.

2:47

The locker rooms.

2:48

Everyone just smelled really bad, and I was like,

2:50

there has to be a better way, Like why is

2:52

it so smelling? Why is everyone stinky?

2:55

In between sessions, Sloane and

2:57

the other players mostly just hung out in their

2:59

rooms. She always loved cosmetics

3:01

and skincare products, so she started experimenting.

3:05

Soon she was giving out little samples

3:07

to family and friends.

3:09

I started off thinking very

3:11

small. I wanted to create something

3:13

that fit my lifestyle and the

3:16

struggles that I have gone through as an athlete and

3:18

just being an active person in general. And

3:21

I always take everything

3:23

I have with me on the go because I travel forty

3:25

weeks a year, so to be able to have

3:28

like my favorite perfume or my favorite

3:30

lotion, like, I literally am a traveling

3:32

hotel.

3:33

So for me, it's very normal.

3:35

But I wanted to create products for people who

3:38

could also have their own little hotel in

3:40

their bag.

3:44

Okay, so what are your products do? What's the premise?

3:47

So basically they're all fragrance

3:50

free except for one, which is a body scrub. But

3:52

I'm a fragrance girly, so I wear a

3:54

ton of fragrance. And I

3:56

always felt like when you wear deodorant,

3:59

everything is always like masking your smell

4:01

but not actually taking away

4:03

the odor, so you still have BO. You're just putting

4:05

like a very heavy scented

4:07

deodorant.

4:08

On top of it. It's bo and flower. Yeah,

4:10

okay.

4:11

I just wanted something that was clean

4:14

and for the purpose of taking

4:16

away the BO, but also just

4:19

so that you could still express yourself through

4:21

your fragrance or your perfume or whatever your cologne.

4:24

Her sample products were well received by friends,

4:27

which inspired her to make some products for real.

4:30

We custom formulated six products.

4:32

It was like a whole process of figuring out what ingredients

4:35

we wanted to put in it. Obviously, like the whole

4:37

brand story kind of when you develop products,

4:39

like you have to stick to whatever that

4:41

is.

4:42

So talk to me a little bit about the brand

4:45

identity. As a professional sports player,

4:47

you already have an image and a brand and a following,

4:50

So whatever you come up with has to work

4:52

with that image and brand, because that's part of how you're going

4:54

to sell your product.

4:55

Definitely, so I wanted

4:57

to be in clean beauty things like that.

4:59

That for my personal preference of

5:01

what I wanted to create and what my vision was for the brand,

5:04

and obviously being an athlete, like all of those

5:06

things are very important. Just in general,

5:09

the brands that I resonate with the most are the ones

5:11

that have the most connection and have the best storytelling.

5:14

I name the company Doc and Glow

5:16

after my grandparents, who I

5:18

feel like in my life taught me the most about self

5:20

care and my vision. I feel like for my

5:22

brand is very clear. My vision for

5:24

my tennis career has been very clear, and for

5:27

the brand, I know clearly like what I want to work

5:29

towards where I want the brand to live. I know what consumers

5:31

I want to reach. Is that difficult?

5:33

Absolutely?

5:34

The same thing with tennis, Like I knew I wanted to win a Grand

5:36

Slam one day.

5:37

Is that difficult? Absolutely?

5:38

I had to train every day and do all these things.

5:40

And I think in any job

5:43

that you do, or any passion project that you have, you

5:45

have to have a clear vision in order to

5:47

execute it. And I feel

5:49

like the way the space is moving

5:52

and where wellness is going and where

5:55

self care is going, it's become more

5:57

of like a premium thing.

5:59

But I feel like self cared wellness is literally

6:01

for everyone.

6:04

So you found a chemist to make the product that you wanted,

6:07

and then I assume you found a manufacturer to make

6:09

the stuff.

6:10

Yeah, we did, and all this has been very

6:12

expensive.

6:14

I should mention Sloane has been funding

6:16

all of this on her own, using her tennis

6:18

money to pay for doc and Glow.

6:21

We found a manufacturer, we

6:23

created our bottles, our packaging.

6:26

Did all of that process started with the

6:28

first two SKUs. And it's been

6:30

obviously a very long process in terms of me

6:33

being a tennis player and learning from

6:35

scratch, learning it on the fly has

6:37

been interesting and difficult,

6:39

super challenging, but also super

6:41

rewarding just to be able to do something

6:43

different.

6:46

Most of the small business owners we talked to on the

6:48

show have a ton of energy and a great

6:50

deal of focus on their business. But Sloane,

6:53

she's next level. I

6:55

just want to back up for a second. So you're still

6:57

playing professional tennis, right, Yeah,

7:00

you haven't retired. That's still like quite

7:02

a job.

7:02

Yeah.

7:03

You have to train, you have to tour, you have to do all the

7:05

things that go along with being on the professional tennis

7:07

Tour. You got your MBA while

7:09

you were doing that, which pretty impressive. I

7:11

have to say that didn't sound easy.

7:13

No, No, definitely was not.

7:15

When I started knowing nothing about

7:17

scale, knowing nothing about how I was going to get

7:19

the brand out there, knowing nothing about retail.

7:21

My biggest and best skill is

7:23

like, I'm not the smartest, I don't know everything,

7:26

but I am the most resourceful person you'll

7:28

ever meet in your life, and I will

7:30

find someone to teach me. I will find

7:32

someone who knows how to do it. Very

7:34

similar to tennis, like watching people, seeing

7:37

them play, and then being able to play with

7:39

them at some point in my life. I'm very much

7:41

in my learning period right now, but I'm

7:43

using all of the resources I have to make

7:46

the business as successful as I can with

7:48

what I have right in front of me. It sounds

7:51

so cliche, but the championship mindset of

7:53

like you keep going, like you bet on yourself,

7:55

you keep going, you keep fighting, you keep competing until

7:58

eventually you get to where you want to be.

8:02

Kathleen, what did you think of Sloane's story?

8:04

I love all things sport. I love athletes.

8:06

I'm so excited to dig into this one. I

8:09

don't know if you're familiar with John Wooden's

8:11

Pyramid of Greatness. No, He's

8:14

got this great pyramid of success where the top

8:16

of the pyramid is competitive greatness.

8:18

And so the whole concept

8:20

is just about embracing competition.

8:23

That's where you've got to be. And I think for business

8:26

owners, we think there's

8:28

almost something wrong with that

8:30

too, because there is such a spirit of collaboration,

8:33

which is great, but at a certain point, as Sloan

8:35

talked about, you've got to have

8:37

grit, you've got to know when to battle back,

8:39

and you've got to know when to put your elbows

8:41

out.

8:42

This is sort of the golden age of athletes

8:44

as entrepreneurs, and I think that's driven almost

8:46

entirely by social media. I mean, it used to be you

8:49

had a career and then the most you could

8:51

hope to do after that is maybe the occasional endorsement

8:53

deal. Whereas now, because athletes are

8:56

brands themselves and they have a

8:58

megaphone in the form of social media, they

9:00

take that competitive spirit and they channel it and it's

9:02

a smart thing to do financially given what they do for

9:04

a living and how long they can do it.

9:07

Yeah, they've gotten so much more savvy, not

9:09

only in creating their own brands, but taking equity

9:12

in bigger brands that ask them to do

9:14

commercial endorsements. I think Naomi

9:16

Osaka she had something like twenty

9:18

equity positions across SweetGreen

9:20

and all of these different brands that she

9:23

was asked to endorse, so a

9:25

lot smarter. I mean, I think going back to

9:27

Sloan and the mindset of an

9:29

athlete in general, that's so fascinating

9:32

to me is the singularity of focus,

9:35

Like you have to have such

9:38

a strong vision, which is

9:40

what she talked about. And one of the things I encourage

9:43

entrepreneurs to do is think about,

9:45

what is the vision of what you're looking

9:47

to create? If you could

9:49

remove every limiting belief, every

9:52

aspect of self doubt, every

9:54

constraint, what would you go create if

9:56

you could do be have anything

10:00

and then five x that, like it should

10:02

be something that you can't do in five

10:04

lifetimes. And she

10:07

talked about having a vision that

10:09

is so lucid and clear. For

10:11

her team, everyone knows how to go

10:13

and execute. So for anyone

10:15

who's listening, I think spend time there

10:17

really solid time

10:20

on crafting your vision and

10:22

then you have that singularity of focus to

10:24

realize that vision. That's what

10:26

great athletes do and it's something that we

10:28

can adopt as entrepreneurs.

10:31

Yeah, well, she seems to have cracked the code.

10:34

That is true.

10:35

One other thing that's interesting, and I'm curious

10:38

what you see on the corporate side

10:40

of the house, but I'd come across a

10:42

study years ago that

10:44

I think it was like ninety five percent of

10:46

women who are in the C suite played

10:49

competitive sports at some point. So

10:52

do you see the athlete mindset also playing

10:54

out internally where you are?

10:57

Oh? Yeah, I mean a lot of the senior executives

10:59

I've worked with over the years, and by the way, this was

11:01

true. I've been an executive in the US

11:03

and the UK, so I've been on both sides of the Atlantic,

11:05

so they were different sports, but a

11:08

huge percentage men and women. Doesn't matter.

11:10

Of the executives that I

11:13

have worked with played competitive sports and were reasonably

11:15

successful at it, there is no doubt

11:17

that that competitive mindset translates.

11:20

I'm always wary of sort of causation and

11:22

correlation, so I

11:25

think there's something to the sports piece of it, and

11:27

the fact that you have to work on it, you know, compete as

11:29

a team or as an individual and be driven and all

11:31

that. But I think it's also the bigger

11:33

driving forces the fact that when you play sports

11:36

or do any other sort of outside activity

11:38

that requires a lot of time, it

11:40

forces you to focus that energy that much

11:42

more succinctly all the time. Right. If

11:44

you're a varsity athlete in high school and

11:47

you got good enough grades that you did well, you had

11:49

your stuff together, I think that's a pretty potent

11:51

combination. Okay, let's get

11:53

back to sloan. So you

11:56

have a vision for your brand. You launched the product just

11:58

last year, right.

11:58

And yeahs old, wow,

12:01

we're a baby, we're newborns.

12:03

Now, what I find amazing is so our show,

12:05

The Unshakeables is all about the tough moments

12:07

that entrepreneurs and business owners have to go through.

12:10

And you're pretty new and you've kind of already had

12:12

one, right, Oh my god.

12:14

So before we even launched, we

12:17

hired a company to do all of our branding.

12:20

We went through a whole brand

12:22

discovery. We created basically

12:24

an entire company, and we're

12:27

moving forward in the market with it and

12:29

This was going to be our launch, This was going to be what

12:32

our brand represented going to market.

12:34

And we were working on the website.

12:37

We had already had the products. We

12:39

were in full motion, and

12:42

one of the website designers

12:44

called us and was like, hey, do

12:47

you guys know that your website

12:49

looks exactly like this other company's

12:52

down to, Like the packaging like

12:55

identical. It was basically

12:57

like a knockoff, so much so that the website

12:59

developer would not create our website.

13:02

The company that designed all of our stuff didn't take

13:04

any accountability for it. We got

13:06

a bunch of emails back being like, oh, things

13:08

are always similar in the market and

13:10

things look alike. That

13:13

was like the worst thing that's happened to us.

13:15

Everything else has just been like a oh

13:17

damn, but we'll figure out a way,

13:19

we'll pivot. That one was like I

13:22

felt like I had just got stabbed in the heart because I was

13:24

like, oh my god, what are we going to do?

13:27

And of course, while all of this is going

13:29

on, Sloane still has to show up

13:31

and play tennis.

13:33

I was at a tournament in Rome as one is Yeah.

13:37

Everyone was just like, wait, we can't tell her, and

13:39

I was like, what do you mean?

13:41

Sloane wanted to know what was happening. And

13:43

if you thought getting bad news about your business

13:46

during a huge tournament would stop her, think

13:48

again.

13:50

One of my better skills is that I

13:52

move on fairly quickly, which everyone thinks

13:54

I'm a little bit crazy for. But I

13:56

am able to just kind of put it in back of my mind. When

13:59

I was younger, sports psychologists told me,

14:01

like, when you get upset or things happen, you got to.

14:03

Just flush it.

14:04

Got to flush the emotional energy down

14:06

the toilet. You just got to flush it from your brain. If

14:09

I'd let tennis affect the rest of my life, you

14:11

know, something is always affected the

14:13

Doc and Glo side, Like, I can't let that affect

14:15

me at practice the next day or my match the next day or

14:17

whatever it is. So being able to flush

14:19

things and move on has been super

14:21

helpful.

14:23

Even though she wasn't able to move forward with the

14:25

first round of Doc and Glo designs, she

14:28

was able to find the bright side.

14:30

Imagine if we went to market with that brand and

14:32

like, it would have been like Sloane Stephens

14:34

copy someone else's brand. And I'm

14:37

happy that we were able to catch it. The brand

14:39

that you see now is a completely different brand than what we

14:41

started with. But what I really do

14:44

think about is the people who don't

14:47

have the means or the

14:49

money to pivot in those situations

14:51

and start from scratch. So a lot of like amazing

14:54

ideas get squashed at the very beginning

14:56

because there's not enough money, not enough funding. At

14:59

that point, I was like, Okay,

15:01

I can either let this kick

15:03

my ass or I'm gonna have to fight back. And

15:05

I think that was when we like really buckled down and like figured

15:07

out what we're gonna do, how we're gonna

15:10

do it. And then the vision became even more clear because

15:12

we were like.

15:13

Up against it more constraints.

15:14

Yeah, exactly, and I was like, we've come this far, Like

15:17

we can't stop here, Like we have

15:19

to have this brand launch. People have to see it.

15:21

They have to see what we worked hard to

15:23

get to, what we've created, the products

15:26

we've gotten here, so we need to like finish

15:28

it.

15:29

Okay, So how long did it delay your launch? Oh?

15:31

Easily, like a year and a half. Oh wow,

15:34

Yeah, it was a long process.

15:36

It was a.

15:36

Lot of burning cash while you were figuring

15:38

out.

15:39

Yeah, a lot of burning of cash, a

15:41

lot of trying to find ways to be scrappy

15:43

and like figure out, okay, like we've already done this,

15:45

we need to just like change the color. We need to change

15:48

this. And like going through all those details were

15:50

tough, which.

15:51

The grit feels a little bit different than when

15:53

you're grinding it out there on the court.

15:55

Everything about tennis is definitely

15:57

a grind between the travel, the

15:59

tournament and like, again, tennis has afforded

16:01

me so many amazing things in my life, and like, I

16:03

love tennis and the sport of tennis.

16:05

But it's hard.

16:07

Yeah, it sounds hard, Yeah, but.

16:08

So is entrepreneurship. It's all hard.

16:10

So once you got through that moment

16:13

and you redid your brand, what was your proudest

16:15

moment? Was it sort of seeing that product out there for the first

16:17

time? Was it your first sale? Talk to me about

16:19

some of the highs since.

16:20

Then, Oh, so many good

16:22

things.

16:23

So when we launched,

16:26

we like I had like a little on the Nasdaq billboard,

16:28

which was super cute, and then we did

16:30

a launch party, and then when we launched

16:32

the actual brand, when it went live, seeing

16:34

like the first person like buy something that wasn't

16:37

my mom or my husband.

16:38

I was like, this is a random person.

16:40

They just bought something that was

16:42

super fun, and I feel like, you

16:45

work so hard.

16:45

You don't know if anyone's going to buy it.

16:47

You don't know if anyone's going to be interested, you don't know if

16:49

anyone's going to cover it. And Vogue

16:51

covered it and Glossy and

16:54

ESPN, like all these people covered it, and I was

16:56

so thankful for that, but I was like, you never

16:59

actually know what the response is

17:01

going to be.

17:01

Well, congratulations on your success, thank

17:03

you. Let's

17:12

take a second here, and let's really dig in. I

17:14

was struck, particularly by her

17:17

oh my goodness moment, because today's

17:20

world is so filled with

17:23

near copies and sort of copies

17:25

and almost copies and fast followers.

17:27

I mean, there are whole brands out there

17:30

whose stated raison deetra is

17:34

I'm going to watch for what someone else

17:36

does that hits, and I'm going to copy it

17:38

as fast as I can and be really efficient

17:40

at manufacturing it and take market share.

17:44

So I'm curious your view on that,

17:46

because she got to a point where she

17:48

couldn't do it because she felt like it was too

17:50

close of a copy. How do you think about

17:52

that.

17:53

I'm of the school that nothing is original

17:55

anymore. So everything is

17:58

a remix, a revamp. You're

18:00

not coming up with anything original. And my lawyer

18:03

once said to me, and don't come to me for legal advice.

18:05

But would the reasonable person of sound

18:07

mind see this as being a

18:09

knockoff or being a dupe?

18:12

So I think that's first and foremost a really

18:14

good question to ask yourself when you're creating

18:16

something. We've seen recently

18:19

more and more of what you're describing Burkin

18:22

bags. Are you familiar with Burkin bags?

18:24

First of all, I mean to the degree

18:26

that I know anything about any bags, Yes, but not

18:28

as far as I would take it.

18:30

So wildly overpriced bag

18:32

by Hermes. They can range anywhere

18:34

from twenty to thirty grand a pop. And

18:37

Walmart just came out with their

18:39

dupe, which is unapologetically

18:41

a dupe. I mean it is pretty much in your carbon

18:44

copy minus not having the Hermes logo

18:46

on it, and this thing, it was so brazen

18:48

of them they marketed that way,

18:51

and it's selling like hotcakes. I mean, it's

18:53

completely sold out. So I

18:55

think it is something that you need to ask yourself.

18:58

Am I copying or am I setting my

19:01

business up for someone to copy me?

19:04

Yeah? I also think there's a difference between

19:06

copying a product and copying a

19:08

brand. You know, a brand is something

19:11

that really will be likely copyrighted

19:13

or patented, or it'll have some kind

19:15

of anti infringement legal framework

19:17

around it. Number one. Number two,

19:20

how do you define a product? I mean, is it a Burkin

19:22

bag, is it a purse? Is it a bag

19:24

of a certain shape and size? Versus

19:26

if it's a brand, then you're talking about colors

19:29

and logos and trademarks and things

19:31

that are likely a bit easier

19:33

to protect. The last thing I would say about

19:35

that, though, is I would rather

19:38

be copied than accused

19:40

of copying, because you

19:42

want to start with something that you think is original,

19:44

and if someone is copying you, that's a sign

19:46

that you're doing something right, Versus

19:48

if you are accused of copying someone, then you're

19:50

just in a mess of stuff that you don't want

19:52

to be in. Yeah.

19:54

I remember someone gave me that advice early

19:56

days, that you can try to protect

19:58

your brand as much as possible, but it ultimately

20:01

comes down to how much you're willing to reinforce

20:03

that legally in market

20:05

and take action, and for a lot of small

20:07

businesses, it's something that you can't do. So I'm

20:10

definitely aligned on the school of better

20:12

to be copied than get caught

20:15

copying. That is not a place you want

20:17

to be, And it's smarter to go back to square

20:19

one and start from scratch and scrap

20:21

what you've done if you find yourself in that position.

20:24

Really good insight, Kathleen. Thanks. Let's

20:26

hear how Sloane story ends. Tennis

20:29

in particular, offers an interesting analogy

20:32

for entrepreneurship because you know, if you play in the NBA,

20:34

you're a salaried player. You get paid

20:36

to show up. Yeah, tennis and golf and these individual

20:38

sports aren't like that. You're essentially a small business

20:41

yourself. Right. You have a team and you

20:43

win, and you pay them whether you win or

20:45

not. So tell

20:47

me about some of the things you learned about managing

20:49

a team, leading people, pulling the

20:51

right people together that you've been able to port over, because

20:54

that is a different experience than many other team

20:56

sports.

20:57

Yeah, definitely. From fifteen

20:59

years old, I've had a coach, a physio,

21:02

an agent, I've had massage

21:04

therapists, I've had all these people on my team, you have

21:06

to manage like weekend and week out and

21:08

pay, yeah, and pay, and they travel.

21:10

With you all year long.

21:12

Like you see your team members more than you see your

21:14

family. It's not really managing them.

21:16

I just know like how to handle it. I know

21:18

my boundaries, I know what keeps me balanced.

21:21

I know how much or how little or

21:23

whatever it is. And then I also know how much

21:25

they all cost. So it's like not wasting

21:27

anyone's time and making sure that everyone

21:29

is here to do a job. We're here to win, we're here

21:31

to work hard, and we're here to go home.

21:33

So is your relationship with your doc and Glo

21:35

team different than your relationship with your tennis

21:38

team.

21:38

There is actually some overlap of team members

21:41

too, Yes, but I would feel like, no,

21:43

it's pretty much the same.

21:44

I'm like so blind.

21:45

I'm just like business is business and

21:48

we need to figure it out and we need to move on. And

21:51

in tennis, I'm like, Okay, we show up, we're here

21:53

to play. Coach, come with a plan, physio,

21:56

come with whatever, massage

21:58

sticks and things and exercise quit Like

22:00

everyone has like a plan. And I feel like with

22:03

a startup and a small business, you

22:05

have to be so scrappy and like everyone kind of has

22:07

to do a bunch of different things whether they

22:09

like it or not.

22:10

You have to right now.

22:11

Yeah, Like that's what you have to do as a small business

22:13

owner.

22:13

And I feel like my relationship

22:16

with both sets of team members are very

22:18

strong, but very different just in terms of

22:20

Dock and Glow is like so much more fun and we

22:23

get to do other things and we don't have to be on a

22:25

tennis.

22:25

Court, and like everyone's like, this is great,

22:27

and I.

22:28

Feel like my tennis

22:30

career has been also

22:32

so fun because it's like it's Rome, it's Paris,

22:35

it's New York, it's all of these places. Right,

22:37

But it's like physical labor. That's

22:41

a very it looks like is physical

22:44

labor. And I would say running

22:46

a business is more emotional labor for

22:49

sure.

22:49

Interesting. Yeah, Now this wasn't

22:51

the first enterprise you founded, right, You found

22:53

it a foundation. Yeah, tell us

22:55

about your foundation and tell us how running

22:57

a foundation is a bit different than running a business, right,

23:00

Oh.

23:00

Man, Yeah, it very much so is.

23:02

So.

23:03

I founded the Sloane Stephens Foundation in twenty

23:05

thirteen. We do all of Compton

23:07

Unified School District. We do recess

23:10

tennis, after school tennis, and Saturday

23:12

tennis. So every school in Compton

23:15

has the opportunity to play tennis. The goal

23:17

of getting rackets in hands of people who would

23:19

never even consider tennis or think about

23:22

tennis or tennis is too expensive, it's inaccessible,

23:24

all of those things, getting access

23:26

to those kids to be able to play the sport of tennis,

23:29

and then on top of that, also having

23:31

the educational component be very important.

23:33

So during the summer we do summer reading

23:36

camps, we do SAT and

23:38

ACT prep like we do all of those things. Go mom's

23:40

a school psychologists, so she's been in schools

23:42

for a really long time and education has

23:45

been a really big part of our family in our lives.

23:47

And then obviously the tennis part is really

23:49

important. And my true belief

23:51

is like one of the best players in the world

23:54

probably is just sitting on their couch

23:56

and they just haven't picked up a racket yet. So

23:59

finding those kids, it's giving them the access,

24:01

introducing them to something new, whether it be

24:04

you can be a professional player, or just get college

24:06

scholarship, or work as a commentator

24:08

or work as a PA, whatever it is. There's so many

24:10

opportunities and I feel like tennis is

24:12

so overlooked because it's seen as a sport

24:15

that's very rich or inaccessible, and so giving

24:18

kids access to that and showing them that there's a little

24:20

bit more on the other side is a main coal.

24:23

Now, obviously running a nonprofit is different

24:25

than running a small business. One of

24:27

the biggest differences for Sloane has

24:29

been the need to fundraise.

24:32

Fundraising is difficult, Grant writing

24:34

is extremely hard, and

24:36

then I feel like begging people for money is

24:39

so weird, Like it's been very

24:41

hard.

24:42

No matter how good the cause is.

24:44

No exactly some people are like, I'll

24:46

give you money for doc and Glow.

24:48

I'm not going to give you money to your foundation.

24:49

I'm like, this is basically free for you, Like

24:51

you could help a thousand kids with your

24:54

donation or your whatever it is.

24:55

And I feel like it's difficult.

24:58

Again.

24:59

Something that was funded for the first

25:01

seven years was the foundation. I

25:03

funded it myself just to keep it going.

25:06

And JPMorgan Chase does our financial

25:08

literacy classes, so that's been super

25:10

helpful. Our parents and our kids love that.

25:12

So we've had some amazing sponsors come

25:15

in and really help us and give us support,

25:17

and I think that's kind of what keeps us going.

25:20

The Sloane Stephens Foundation is still going

25:22

strong, and it's almost time for Doc

25:24

and Glo to go out fundraising if it's going to

25:26

scale and succeed. Sloan has

25:28

some conflicting thoughts about that.

25:31

Figuring that out is quite stressful,

25:34

but I feel like in due

25:36

time. But where do you find the

25:38

money? Who do you ask money of?

25:40

How much percentage of your company do you give away?

25:43

Like the company is me, I'm one

25:45

hundred percent me and like my mom

25:47

like that's it. So it's like where

25:49

do you go from there? How much do you give away? What's

25:51

smart? All of those questions are now coming

25:53

into play because I want

25:55

the brand to scale. I want the brand to do well,

25:58

but it takes a lot of money.

26:01

It does take a lot of money, and raising

26:03

money is difficult and it's a very personal

26:05

decision. So successful

26:08

tennis career, successful foundation, and now

26:10

an emerging successful business, what's next

26:12

for Dock and Glow?

26:14

Next for Doc and Glo, I would say,

26:17

we're going to do some really fun collaborations in twenty

26:19

twenty five, which is really exciting. And

26:21

then our retail arm

26:25

is growing, which we're very excited

26:27

about. And yeah, I just want more

26:30

people who live active lifestyles

26:32

on the go to be able to experience the product and just try

26:34

it. And even if that means giving people a product

26:36

for free so they can just experience it. I

26:38

created something for people for it to be accessible

26:41

and for it to be fitting to their lifestyles

26:43

and whatever that may be and whatever movement that

26:45

may be. And that's

26:48

just the goal to get as many people product

26:50

in their hands to try it and experience it.

26:53

That means the better it goes, the more you have to invest.

26:55

Definitely, but we're on the way. We're

26:57

on the way.

26:58

I feel like money is definitely

27:00

an obstacle, but when you're putting

27:02

it towards your dreams and something that you really care

27:04

about and you're passionate about, it's not

27:06

an obstacle.

27:08

That's awesome. So I have one last

27:10

question for you, which I ask every guest on the show, which

27:13

is, if you could give one piece of advice to an

27:15

aspiring or current business owner, what would it

27:17

be.

27:18

Oh right, Well, my favorite quote of all time I always say

27:20

this is it's not if, it's when. So

27:23

I feel like, if you work hard, and

27:25

you fight for your dreams and

27:27

you again rowing in the same

27:29

boat. It's not if it's going to happen, it's when

27:31

it's going to happen, because you put all the work in, you've

27:33

dedicated yourself to doing whatever

27:36

it is, and you will be rewarded.

27:38

In the end. So the end is when,

27:41

not if.

27:42

That's terrific advice. Sloane Stephens from Doc

27:44

and Glo, Thank you for being on the show.

27:46

Thank you for having me.

27:50

Okay, just thinking about her story, she's really

27:52

running three businesses. She's running her

27:54

tennis career, which is a business. She's

27:56

running Doc and Glo, which is absolutely

27:58

a business. And she's running her foundation, which

28:01

you know is not for profit, but it's certainly a

28:03

business. I was just in awe that she

28:05

can do all three of those things. That seems

28:07

like a lot.

28:08

Yeah, I actually loved your point. It

28:10

was something I hadn't thought about before that when

28:13

you are an individual athlete in

28:15

certain sports like a tennis you're

28:18

essentially an entrepreneur because you're

28:20

making money if you in and you're not

28:22

if you lose, and you still have a team to play. So

28:24

I thought that was brilliant I'd never thought about

28:27

it that way, the breath of responsibility

28:29

that she's taken on. I see a

28:31

lot of this with entrepreneurs, and it was certainly

28:33

my own experience. I had this very

28:36

thriving, successful brand consultancy.

28:39

Then my next thought.

28:40

Was how do I pay this forward to other

28:42

women entrepreneurs who are starting out

28:44

who don't necessarily have the network or

28:46

the resources or the tools that they need.

28:49

And so started channeling

28:51

and funneling a lot of the money that we

28:53

were making in my business

28:56

into this passion project

28:58

that has now certainly taken on a life of

29:00

its own. And so I think you can

29:03

absolutely do well by doing good.

29:05

And it's something.

29:07

Ideally though, that you can embed in

29:09

your existing business as opposed

29:11

to needing a separate business that does

29:14

well. That's something I'm still looking to

29:16

do, like how do you reconcile those two worlds?

29:18

And perhaps there's something she can do to bring her

29:21

foundation more front and center into

29:23

Doc and Glo. Have a percent of the

29:25

proceeds get donated, just make that more

29:28

obvious for consumers, because

29:30

we know that model works. We've seen it work with Tom's

29:32

and other brands. Buy one, get one, give

29:34

one. It's a formula that consumers

29:37

really love.

29:38

We see so many entrepreneurs

29:41

trying really hard to either pay it back or

29:43

pay it forward. I mean pay it back

29:45

just in terms of how philanthropic they

29:48

are, and pay it forward. And I'll give

29:50

some examples. You know, we're lucky enough to Chase to run

29:52

programs for veterans,

29:54

for diverse women, all kinds of areas

29:56

that have been historically underpenetrated

29:59

with respect to entrepreneurship. To

30:01

help coach those individuals

30:03

and help them develop the skills they need, we

30:05

have something called coaching for Impact. We coach all these entrepreneurs

30:08

they graduate from the program. We've graduated

30:10

thousands, and so many of them come back to us

30:12

and say, how can I help? Who can I

30:15

mentor who can I coach? I've gotten

30:17

so much out of this I want to give to the small business

30:19

community around me. We've had guests

30:21

on the show who tell us how

30:23

they helped the competitor get off the ground because

30:25

they just believed in that person

30:28

and what they were doing, and they wanted to be constructive,

30:30

and they figured they could handle another competitor and they'd

30:32

rather that than someone they really believed

30:34

did not ever get their start.

30:36

Yeah, it's incredible to see how small

30:38

business owners rally around each other too.

30:41

Kathleen, this has been one of my favorite stories, and

30:43

I'm super grateful that you came on the show

30:45

to explore it with me. Thanks for being here.

30:48

Same here. I'm so inspired.

30:50

I think I'm going to go pick up a racket or something

30:52

this weekend, try

30:54

my hand at tennis again. But yeah,

30:57

super inspiring. Loved her story,

30:59

and I think we can all embrace

31:02

that athlete mindset just a little bit more.

31:04

All right, watch the Backhand. Thanks

31:09

so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables.

31:12

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