Hard Work, Hustle, and Home with Rachel Cohen, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Snowe

In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

• How childhood and jobs and internships during high school and college taught Rachel a lot of skills that she uses today
• What led to the idea of Snowe and why she knew it was the thing she would be passionate about and would move forward with to build a brand
• Why Rachel and her team spent two years researching, surveying, testing, and sourcing to lay a solid foundation before launching the brand
• How product development began in their very own home with ideas of how to innovate a hand towel to be what they envisioned as better than other hand towels on the market
• Why they launched the brand with a big press event in New York City that created a brand experience to communicate the vision and the voice of the brand and why that gave a lot of credibility and success to Snowe right from the start
• What advice Rachel has when hiring and how her team makes sure that a new hire fits well within the company culture
• What fundraising was like for Snowe, especially from Rachel’s perspective, being a female, and how they overcame roadblocks
• What advice she has on overcoming challenges and what some of the challenges they have faced were, including a leak in the warehouse on their first Black Friday
• How she continues to grow and learn as a leader and what is next, new, and exciting coming up for Snowe

To Find Out More:

SnoweHome.com

Quotes:

“Ultimately I realized I wasn't a thousand percent passionate about this particular idea. And that was something that was really valuable to learn. When we started Snowe...I really then knew the difference of, OK, this is it. This is the passion that you kind of need to go forward.”

“What's interesting about the home space is it’s not until you're thrust into your first apartment in your twenties that you even really think about it. You grow up thinking about fashion, cultivating your style and how you dress yourself at an earlier age often, but for home you have no idea what your aesthetic is, no idea what's out there.”

“A big initial brand vision that I believe we've stayed true to was that things get messy, life gets messy. It's OK. How do we create a brand and celebrate those moments around it?”

“Speaking to customers is the most valuable information you get. And you have to kind of piece together the art and the science.”

“We brought it to life and did a press launch event that ended up being really successful and helped us get some great press out of the gate that I think then just helped build credibility from the start.”

“Our team and our people are our most important asset. I think anyone is remiss to think you can launch a company, build a brand, and do everything on your own.”

“I think the biggest thing is also thinking through ‘What's your vision? What is your ultimate vision for the company? How do you see yourself getting there? What are the steps in between? How do you start to envision that? And then how do you learn to articulate that?’”

“The same way founders have to be passionate about what they're doing, investors have to be excited and passionate.”

“You can't over prepare for what you're about to embark on. And all the things that happen or all the things that go wrong, you know, they're going to happen. It's part of the journey.”

“The qualities that are most important are perseverance and resilience.”