How I Started A Sustainable, Eczema-Friendly, Children's Clothing Line After Two Failures
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hi! My name is Natalie and I am the founder of Tangerine Rêve, an eco-friendly, eczema-friendly kids' pajamas company made mainly of the sustainable fabric TENCEL Lyocell. We just launched in December 2022 so are brand new!
We are one of the few, (if not only!) children’s pajamas currently on the market made mainly of TENCEL Lyocell. Bamboo Viscose is currently a popular option for most parents but I believe as more parents learn about TENCEL Lyocell and experience its amazing properties (more eco-friendly, silky soft, breathable, hypoallergenic, moisture-wicking, anti-bacterial, and durable) they will love it more!
TENCEL Lyocell is made from wood pulp sourced from sustainably managed trees. It uses a closed-loop system in its production, recycling the solvents used, and has a low environmental impact. You’ll begin to notice that as some big brands become more eco-conscious they are starting to incorporate TENCEL into their product lines - it will be the fabric of the future!
It’s only been a few months but we’ve experienced a 255% revenue increase in February and 300% growth in March, and receiving orders daily! It feels amazing to wake up each morning to new orders showing up on the lockscreen.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I am a (former) international tax attorney. After college, I decided to choose stability and forwent my plan A (a creative entrepreneurial path) for plan B (a stable corporate one). I went to law school and blindly followed the path up the corporate ladder that society paved for most of us.
During my time in corporate, something just didn’t sit well with me – I wasn’t happy and I couldn’t put my finger on what was causing me all this angst. I lost my dad the year before I turned 30, and it was during that time I made the big decision to quit and tried to pursue plan A after all. Life is too short.
To keep the lights on, I continued to do legal consulting as it gave me more flexibility to experiment with some creative side hustles.
First Fail: I first started a small e-commerce retail business for women’s workwear for young professionals. I bootstrapped and figured out everything with 0 industry knowledge or experience. That failed after a year because I didn’t understand digital marketing at the time and couldn’t move inventory as fast as the seasons came and went. Fashion moves fast!
Second Fail: Next, I transitioned the e-commerce site to a podcast, where I interviewed women who went from corporate employees to creative entrepreneurs. Podcasts weren’t mainstream at the time – but I managed to squeeze out 33 episodes, with 13,000+ downloads in 7 months.
I also published apiece on Elite Daily about jumping off the corporate ladder and onto an elusive creative escalator. Then I had to press pause on everything when I was dealt a tough card: infertility. I fought hard and lost that battle with a hysterectomy at 32 years old. We immediately started gestational surrogacy abroad and that chapter of my story ended with my miracle baby Lennon Rêve in 2020. Then the pandemic hit and we got stuck abroad – but that’s another story.
Third Time’s a Charm: Lennon is the inspiration for my current brand Tangerine Rêve. He suffers from eczema and I was looking for more organic and natural pajamas since his flare-ups get worse at night. I stumbled across the fabric TENCEL Lyocell and couldn’t find any children’s two-piece pajamas made mainly of it. So with 0 industry knowledge and experience here either, I was determined to manufacture my own!
You just have to forgive yourself for not knowing what you don’t know, solve it and move on.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
During the idea phase, I did some market research using Jungle Scout, and Google Trends, and just read up on competitor reviews. Once I validated my idea that there was a market for this, I researched ODM manufacturers.
I ideally wanted to go with a US manufacturer but did not find one that had the expertise and specialization that I needed. I finally found a full-service, and (most importantly) ethical manufacturer abroad that was able to bring my vision to life. Our conversations were all via Whatsapp and I had to familiarize myself with the manufacturing lingo each step of the way - tech packs, lab dips, strike-offs, Pantone codes, etc.
I wanted the first collection to be fun and colorful yet simple. I had to design everything myself and didn’t have any design skills - so solids, cute stripes, and checkers it was! We went through a few design iterations and samples before everything was finalized.
Another hurdle I had to overcome was navigating the regulations surrounding children’s sleepwear to ensure they were manufactured and labeled appropriately. In the US, Canada, and other parts of the world, it’s required by law that children’s pajamas are either flame-resistant (aka made from flame-retardant fabrics such as polyester or treated with flame-retardant chemicals) or snug-fitting to prevent burn injuries.
I was also particular about the eco-friendly details down to the recyclable hang tags and packaging and biodegradable poly mailers.
My first production run was 9 designs in 6 sizes, totaling a little over 1,100 units. This was a very generous MOQ and most manufacturers will not work with you on such a small order, although I did pay a higher unit cost for it. I was also careful to check in advance with my freight forwarder about the potential import fees and customs.
You can watch how I started a children’s clothing line in 7 months with 0 experience here:
Describe the process of launching the business.
As part of marketing, I had decided early on to create a TikTok account with some behind-the-scenes of my building the business. Like most millennials, I had been reluctant to hop on TikTok until I realized the exposure it could bring to small businesses.
I discovered it was nothing like the perfectly filtered and curated Instagram, but very raw, relatable, and entertaining. Believe it or not, I studied it for about a month until I decided to start posting. I posted daily trying out different content and a video of Lennon went viral in the second week, hitting 16M views and my account grew to over 60K followers! The problem with this was that my website wasn’t live at the time, so it didn’t help with presales.
The actual launch itself was stressful. I gave myself 7 months from the idea to launch to capture the holiday shopping season. I was set on having presales go live in mid-November with orders to be out for delivery by mid-December. My inventory shipment wasn’t even going to arrive until early December, so I left no room for error.
I received the final product samples in September to use for our photoshoot in October. I started the Instagram account on the last day of October with 2 weeks to build hype for the website to go live in mid-November. The day after the website went live, I left on a family trip to Vietnam for 2.5 weeks. An important part of our business is to give back to orphanages in Vietnam. We visited a few orphanages and took people behind the scenes here.
When we returned home from our trip, my shipment arrived a couple of days later and I hit the ground running packing orders. Presales came mainly from family, friends, and Instagram. Overall, it was a good launch given the two-week time frame, but I would recommend at least a month or two to build hype for presales!
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
I have been documenting my journey and “building in public” from the very beginning. The IG reel of our brand story performed well (484K views, 52K likes)! I had another short reel of just spreading eczema awareness that also did well (884K views, 14K likes).
I try to take a more authentic and relatable approach to social media and show more behind-the-scenes of the making of the brand and growing it. A lot of people share their success stories when they hit the big milestones, which is inspiring, but I think it’s just as important to share the small wins and the highs and lows of the journey there.
Understanding digital marketing is critical and I’ve been doing everything I can to drive traffic to the site.
I try to create content that can be repurposed across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, and even Clapper. I find that TikTok (and CapCut) has better editing options so I create my videos on there and then use a free app like SnapTik to download and remove the watermark.
A big tip for people doing this is that TikTok purposely creates a millisecond audio lag when you do this - so you would need to run it through another app like Inshot to adjust the audio! Another quick tip is to screen-record the video on TikTok in the EDIT option before posting.
I recommend running Instagram ads and the majority of our sales have converted from them. It takes some trial and error at the beginning for the algorithm to understand your audience so start with a small budget and slowly increase when you start to see conversions.
For organic SEO reach, I have a blog that has also helped us rank for a few keywords that have led to sales. I use Semrush to gauge which keywords have high search volumes and then ChatGPT with the content.
This is a lot of work and you start to feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none at the beginning when you’re trying to bootstrap everything.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We are still in our infancy stage (4 months now!) and have big dreams to grow! We are lucky to have already been experiencing exponential growth month over month thus far. The majority of our sales have come from Instagram referrals, which is not surprising given Millennial Moms are our main customers.
We’ve recently had a few wholesale inquiries, which is exciting, and are working to be better set up for B2B. We are also looking into adding a few new products this year and considering listing them on Amazon to reach a wider audience.
You can watch our latest reel here celebrating our small wins:
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I had a very little experience from beginning to end and had to figure everything out - how to design & manufacture children's clothing, navigate the regulations that came specifically with children's sleepwear, how to launch it, how to market it, etc.
There were a few roadblocks along the way that caused a lot of sleepless nights. I was putting one foot in front of the other and when an issue arose - it was one of those things where you just have to forgive yourself for not knowing what you don’t know, solve it and move on. Don’t dwell on the past or fear the future. Enjoy the highs and lows of the journey. It’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint.
I do feel like I could have taken a lot of stress off myself and launched after the holidays, but I knew consumers tend to spend less in January/February so it was critical to just shoot for that unrealistic deadline. I do believe in just putting yourself out there, even when you’re not ready. We tend to wait and sit on the sidelines longer when we wait for “perfect.” Just do it and pivot along the way.
Understanding digital marketing is critical and I’ve been doing everything I can to drive traffic to the site. I’ve only scratched the surface, and am excited to keep learning and implementing.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
For the website, I currently use Shopify and recommend it! It’s very user-friendly and makes shipping worldwide very easy. To minimize cost, I went with a free template and it has worked well for us.
For marketing, I use Meta ads and Google ads.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss - I’m sure this is a common & cliché one that started it all for most entrepreneurs. I highly recommend his podcast too - The Tim Ferriss Show.
- All of Seth Godin’s works - he reshapes the way we think by making us think.
- Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert - is a beautiful book on doing creative work.
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield - a simple and poetic read on being a creative amateur vs a professional one.
- The One Thing by Gary Keller - a great book on productivity.
- Atomic Habits by James Clear- how to form habits to achieve your goals.
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson - love Naval’s refreshing philosophies on work and life.
- Burn the Boats by Matt Higgins - I had been living by this ancient motto of burning all the ships and going all in on Plan A before this book came out. A great new book that perfectly embodies this concept.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
If I could go back and give my 20-something-year-old self advice, it would be to go all in with your plan A. Do not resort to plan B. Burn the ships and don’t turn back. Steven Pressfield said, “Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us.” The biggest regret you will have is having never pursued that unlived life.
I had to take a few detours to realize this but I am going all in on my plan A because I know my 90-year-old self would want me to. Even in your 30s onward, don’t be afraid to reinvent yourself – it’s never too late to be who you might have been.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Not at the moment as we are still so new, but of course I hope to in the near future!
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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