Sara is the founder of GEM, a consumer health company reimagining daily nutrition. Sara received a bachelor of science in international agricultural development studies and has spent a decade building and collaborating with startups, non-profits, and sustainable food networks all over the world. Her personal health journey brought her to become an experimentalist in the kitchen tinkering with superfood concoctions, new age plants, and sustainable nourishing systems like algae, ultimately resulting in the first ever real food way to get your daily nutrition - the GEM Bite.
Elevate Your Brand is the #1 marketing podcast for entrepreneurs and “wantrepreneurs” looking for insider tips and secrets from the most exciting new and growing brands in Los Angeles and the US at large.
Each week, entrepreneurial special guests join Laurel Mintz, founder and CEO of award-winning marketing agency Elevate My Brand, to discuss the marketing failures and successes that have brought their brands to the next level. Learn from real-life experiences and be inspired by leaders in your industry about how smart digital and experiential marketing can elevate your brand.
Contact us: https://www.elevatemybrand.com/contact
Stay connected & DM us feedback on the podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatemybrandla/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elevatemybrandla/
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Sara is the founder of GEM, a consumer health company reimagining daily nutrition. Sara received a bachelor of science in international agricultural development studies and has spent a decade building and collaborating with startups, non-profits, and sustainable food networks all over the world. Her personal health journey brought her to become an experimentalist in the kitchen tinkering with superfood concoctions, new age plants, and sustainable nourishing systems like algae, ultimately resulting in the first ever real food way to get your daily nutrition - the GEM Bite.
Elevate Your Brand is the #1 marketing podcast for entrepreneurs and “wantrepreneurs” looking for insider tips and secrets from the most exciting new and growing brands in Los Angeles and the US at large.
Each week, entrepreneurial special guests join Laurel Mintz, founder and CEO of award-winning marketing agency Elevate My Brand, to discuss the marketing failures and successes that have brought their brands to the next level. Learn from real-life experiences and be inspired by leaders in your industry about how smart digital and experiential marketing can elevate your brand.
Contact us: https://www.elevatemybrand.com/contact
Stay connected & DM us feedback on the podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatemybrandla/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elevatemybrandla/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elevatemybrand
00:00.16
elevatemybrand
Everyone and welcome back to another episode of elevate your branded course and your host Laurel mints and I'm joined today by Sarah Cullen who's the founder and Ceo of gem Sarah thank you for joining us today.
00:13.55
Sara Cullen
Thanks so much for having me Laurel.
00:15.53
elevatemybrand
So tell our audience. What gem is all about. So.
00:20.37
Sara Cullen
Great Question. We are reinventing the idea of a multivitamin What it looks like so instead of a pill or a capsule or a sugary candy Gummi Bear. It's a whole food bite and redesigning what is inside your daily bite. So. It's not just 100% of everything. It's the things that you need most based off of your average deficiencies. Um, so like vitamin Bs and D and Zinc but also other superfoods and probiotics and prebiotics that you might not get from your diet and so it's really it's. And you know built under this premise that food is medicine and it's natural and organic and good for you and it's an alternative to all the process sugary things out there.
01:05.65
elevatemybrand
And so what is the difference. This is my biggest question of you. What is the difference between consuming vitamins and minerals through whole food versus consuming it in a pillar power form.
01:19.63
Sara Cullen
I Love that question the way that pills in capsules in and powder ah mostly pills and capsules the way that they're built is through this reductionist lens where they're isolating vitamins a Plus B Plus C they're putting it to a capsule with a lot of other dirty toxic artificial fillers. And they're saying okay this is your complete nutrition and the way that we're doing it is that we're actually using vitamins and minerals and superfoods from the whole plant compound. So you're getting a assortment of phytonutrients. Antioxidants phytochemicals things that actually do so much more for you than just that isolated vitamin itself and there's a lot of really cool research around this Actually there's not enough. Um, but there's ah you know a few studies that has been done that show that when you actually have you know? Um. And Apple for instance versus like just the vitamin ccapsule the Apple even though it has less vitamin c than the vitamin c capsule does so much more for your body because it has these antioxidants and phytonutrients and other things and so there's proof that it's not just about that one single vitamin. It's really about the holistic effect. And that is what's behind the ethos food is medicine and why trying to get vitamins and minerals from your whole food and from your whole food diet whenever possible is really important. Of course I wish we all ate perfectly. We don't 90% of America's micronutrient deficient. Worse like a lot of our soils are degraded now and our food supply is started of its nutrition and so we do need to fill the gaps in our diet and that's where gem comes in. We have a you know natural alternative way to do that. That's still from whole food and it's delightful and it's enjoyable and it's not another processed Thing for your diet.
03:06.31
elevatemybrand
And so the theory is that you absorb more of the real nutrients prebiotics probiotics. All the things that our body really needs through whole foods Better carry it full stop.
03:19.92
Sara Cullen
Um, exactly.
03:21.21
elevatemybrand
And so at what point actually tell us about your background because I want to know like how does someone like you come to decide I can understand from a personal perspective like I really feel like all these pills and potions and powders are just you know garbage and most of them are my husband always. Says oh you're you're eating your um your pills again. So You can make really expensive urine like yeah, that's probably fair. Um, but ah, what was your background that you then decided to launch a brand in this category.
03:46.45
Sara Cullen
Ah, exactly.
03:53.34
Sara Cullen
My background was more in the agriculture and sustainability space. That's where I got my degree and I have always been long passionate about food and nutrition though just from different angles. It wasn't a nutritionist by you know training? Um, but I've surrounded myself by ah, a lot of. Experts in the field but I started out just being incredibly curious and I really think about myself as like an experimenter in the kitchen I've always been concocting things since I was a little girl um and and figuring out you know combinations and and. And different formats of stuff and so I have been in the startup space building companies for the last ten years now um and really in my late twenty s I had my own set of health experiences at the time I was going through different allergic reactions I had. Different digestion issues I was having hormonal imbalances and so about that time I you know had a kind of look in the mirror of like what's happening what's going on I went to a series of doctors appointments found out that I was food sensitive to corn soy and wheat which makes up 70% of our food supply. I found out that I was nutrient deficient in a lot of things and um, a lot of different vitamins and minerals and I always thought of myself as relatively healthy person. But my biomarkers didn't look healthy and so that kind of brought me to the vitamin a for the first time in my life. Ironically I never believed in vitamins I believe you should get vitamins from your food. But at that point I was like well something has to change I need to I need to figure out how to fill the gaps in my diet but it was so not intuitive to me. You know, counterintuitive to walk into this aisle and see all these processed shiny pink pills and these sugary gummy bears and being like this is how I'm going to get healthy.
05:41.62
elevatemybrand
Ah.
05:42.21
Sara Cullen
Taking this and so that's where I put my experimenter hat on and I started making these very green smoothies I got super into algae. Um, which I can relax we on about I got really into these different superfoods that I felt amazing and ultimately it led me down this path of creating this funny looking bite. That's now gem. At the time I was just creating this fight that was like my own dose of goodness that helped me feel better and and then I started sharing it with different friends and family and and building a small community and ultimately I found out wow this is something that a lot of people are looking for a foundational daily health habit that they can rely on. Um, that doesn't have all the processed junk in it and um, that tastes good and feels good and so that's how Jem was born.
06:26.58
elevatemybrand
It's incredible I remember seeing your early Instagram ah ads and thinking huh. That's so interesting like it's a different completely different format from most things that we see in this category. And i't really think much of it and then I have to say your marketing team did a fantastic job when they launched when you guys launched because you were everywhere and I got so curious. Yeah, you guys crushed it and I got so curious and then the Pr team reached out and they're like would you like to try it and I was like hell yeah I'm so excited I wanted to try this for so long I just never had the opportunity to Reach out. Never you know took the initiative. Um, and you really have 2 kind of key core products. 1 is the daily gem the daily bites right? and then you have these energy bittes and I have to tell you well 2 things 1 the the energy bytes are insane amazing I take them before my workout and they are a game changer. But I I want you to offer them separate from the daily bites can we make that happen I want both but I want to I need the um energy bytes more frequently I feel like.
07:26.86
Sara Cullen
Yes I love that you're asking that and yes, it's on the horizon actually so that's I'm thrilled well on Amazon you can't get it by itself. So I'll send I'll send you the link.
07:30.99
elevatemybrand
Okay, good did good good because I like went on Amazon I was like I need more but I need more of these. Oh yes, okay.
07:45.10
Sara Cullen
It Well it might it might not be live yet so I will double check for you and for your listeners when it's the energy bite was recently oh great I Love that yet. Our energy bite was our our most recent launch and I'm obsessed with this product as well. It is a great Pre-workout byte.
07:50.50
elevatemybrand
Um, because I gave away I kept giving them away to people. Yeah.
08:04.31
Sara Cullen
Has kelp. So again, all of our products have algae in it these different superfoods. It's awesome for metabolic support and then also has a half of ah ah equivalent of a half a cup of coffee it about forty Milligrams of caffeine. It's from green tea extract and then also has l theanine so it bouns out the jitters. And it has you know your prebiotic fibers. It has um cacao in there as well. So it's like this like chocolate salty bite and it's it's really fun. It's nice It's a nice boost also has iodine which is also great for your metabolic support. So um, and Ginseng that's the other main adaptogen which. Really helps with energy and blood sugar stabilization. So. There's a lot that we crame into every single bite we have this holistic philosophy where we don't just look at energy in 1 way, you know we look at energy for your gut with your metabolism with your mind. How can we kind of address those things and give you that holistic energy support without the crash.
08:44.74
elevatemybrand
Totally.
08:57.80
Sara Cullen
And so it's ah it's a really exciting bite that just launched and I love that ask I'll figure out a way to to make it more readily available.
09:05.23
elevatemybrand
I'm what I mean I'm telling you I drink I've done all of the shitty energy drinks that are so bad for you. I've also tried a lot of the adaptogenic energy drinks. Not my favorite for the most part these bites like they were a game changer me so much that I was like. I was like putting them in little baggies and giving them into my friends so that they could try them before the workouts we were going to together. That's how much I Love this product. Truly Yes, Um, okay, we're gonna take a quick break I will stop fan Girlling. We'll be right back see dude.
09:22.74
Sara Cullen
All. Yeah I Love that.
09:38.40
elevatemybrand
Thanks for sticking with us and if you're just tuning in I'm chatting with Sarah Cullen who is the founder and Ceo of gem I want you to share with us like what is the process look like to get all of these nutrients into this like little delicious bite and they are very tasty. I was very i'm. Super food sensitive in terms of flavor profile. Um, and I was very nervous about these bites but they are quite delicious. Are you drying ingredients like I don't even know what that process would look like to create these.
10:10.96
elevatemybrand
I would imagine. Yeah.
10:11.18
Sara Cullen
Yet, it's it's quite a complicated process for such a simple bite and it's taken us a long. Ah, it's been a long journey to get to this place of having a delicious tasting bite because it's not easy. I often joke that it would be a lot easier if I would have started a gummy bear company I could have just put a bunch of sugar in there and had it tastes great but we don't do that. We use all natural. Um you know, dried fruits and things in like prebiotic fibers like Chi root to help sweeten and so um, it's taken us a long time to get that right? and so we've worked with.
10:25.82
elevatemybrand
I have.
10:43.15
Sara Cullen
First and foremost I have itleidoscopic scientific advisory board. So we have a functional medicine doctor a registered dietician a neurologist and a biologist we have the spectrum. Yeah more um and so.
10:50.63
elevatemybrand
Oh my god.
10:59.20
Sara Cullen
They've all come together to help inform. How do we look at you know how we look at your health from different angles and making sure that we fill the gaps in the right way. So I started with this scientific born scientific research and formulating then we go out and we actually meet with the suppliers meet with the farmers find the best quality product. And we have a very rigorous ah process in how we screen for our suppliers. We're fairly transparent about it. We actually have our research library. Um, on our website as well where you can see where it comes from what's inside of it but we are really we make sure that we don't have ingredients that have a lot of fillers. And have a lot of processing ingredients to try to get the purest form possible from the whole plant compound whenever possible. So we take that approach a lot of these ingredients are dried. That's why we have shelf stability you don't need to refrigerate this item and. And then we have our own special kind of proprietary process and how we kind of press and mix and blend and and put the bites together with our manufacturer and that's how we get this beautiful bite.
12:03.12
elevatemybrand
So cool I Really appreciate the texture I like the seeds in it. It's actually really fun to eat and I love that you've also done. It's kind of like um, a needs State approach is that a correct way of saying it. That's like if you need you have the daily.
12:15.44
Sara Cullen
Yeah, yeah.
12:18.58
elevatemybrand
Vitamins and minerals that you need. But then you also have energy the sleep the chill like you've got these different I would call them need states is that how you would approach it.
12:25.68
Sara Cullen
I Yeah that that's how I that's how we think about it. We have our foundational bite The gem bite that's kind of the reinvented multivitamin I mentioned earlier and then we have a few other products that reach these neat states to your point so you have energy which is you know we talked about a great. Pick me up whenever you kind of need it. Ah we have our kombitee which is ah pure. It's really pure magnesium and also has some lemon bomb that Magnesium is like the oil for your whole body machine. You need it for a lot of functions to help calm the mind to help go to the bathroom. All the good things to help calm the muscles the nervous system and so it's an awesome compliment when you need that chill throughout the day so you have kind of your energizing your chill I mean you have your sleep bite which I love this. It's a chocolate cherry profile I don't know if you've had a chance to try it yet. Um, a lot of sleep products are melatonin based.
13:13.70
elevatemybrand
No I haven't yeah oh.
13:20.62
Sara Cullen
And Melatonin is actually habit forming so the more melatonin you take the less your body produces so it's wonderful to have a sleep bite with what we have that is anti-melatonin. We don't have melatonin in it. We have other natural roots and herbs that help. Ah, you know make you sleepy and help you fall asleep and stay asleep and wake up restored so things like Valerian Root um which is great. It also has magnesium in it lanine and and a few other awesome nutrients. So our sleep bite is really special chocolate cherry. And those are our 3 kind of need state products so to speak that surround our the the gem by the hero product.
13:59.51
elevatemybrand
So do you take all these bites every single day. Be honest.
14:08.31
Sara Cullen
Honestly I take I take up to three bytes a day and that's exactly what I expect from our customers and what we try to build our library around so like we we really aren't trying to. We don't expect you to have you know. More than 3 bites because it starts to become like a meal. So I I always have the gem bite and that that is the truth I do eat that a day sometimes I eat more than one a day that is also the truth I've me a dose on all of these things. So I've done upper limit for everybody especially in prototyping and testing. And then I usually alternate between energy or calm depending on what I'm feeling for that day or what I Need. Um, so if I feel like I need you know some extra caffeine or I'm like and doing my workout earlier in the day I'll have the energy bite if I'm having a very stressful day I'll usually go for the Calm. So I I do tend to to mix that up based off of my mood. And then the sleep I Um is also dependent on my mood. So I Love to have that as an after as an evening treat after dinner and it it really depends on if I need it or not and that's why we have the you know the needs date bites. Something where you can kind of buy all a cart with your gem Bye and the gembi is what we want you to have a subscription on but the rest you can kind of pick and choose what works for you and build you know the right product suite for your lifestyle.
15:26.50
elevatemybrand
That makes sense So A lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs and um I Always love to hear kind of what are the biggest lessons along the way like what would you tell someone else not to do like what are some of the things that. Now and how long has the product been in market.
15:45.59
Sara Cullen
Product has been in market this is its 6 year so five and a half years I actually six years ago to the day almost I did my very first prototype run of the original gem bite. But we actually didn't really launch until you know.
15:47.35
elevatemybrand
Wow Wow. So.
16:03.18
Sara Cullen
Six or eight months later so it's been about five and a half years
16:04.11
elevatemybrand
Um, so tell us some of the good bad and ugly along the way.
16:09.27
Sara Cullen
Oh so many lessons learned could spend couple of hours on that I you know I I think that I would say my first offering for entrepreneurs is to think really long and hard about what.
16:12.50
elevatemybrand
Totally.
16:26.85
Sara Cullen
Funding model makes sense for your business model and I I do think this is already changing a lot in the landscape but originally a lot of people had a knee-jerk reaction to just go out and raise venture capital but Venture Capital isn't a fit for all business models. You know, sometimes there's that sometimes there's crowdfunding. There's other types of alternative financing. So I would first think about that like what type of um funding platform. Do you need? That's really important because for me personally we were on the venture capital train and once you're on that train. It's hard to get off and so you're forced into a high growth mode which is good for some businesses like ours and it's It's bad for others. So I think that's the first thing that you need to have um, a long hard look in the mirror and really ask yourself honestly what works for you and take some time to think about that and then the second I would say is all around resourcing and teton building and I've talked about this before on podcasts where. I wish I mean it's easier in hindsight right? hindsight's 2020 in the early days you need the money before you can hire so you spend all your time fundraising and I wish I spent more time building the team versus fundraising. Ah you know it's it's hard to create those priorities early on but the more you can focus on.
17:25.55
elevatemybrand
Ah.
17:41.73
Sara Cullen
I was the sole founder as well. So you know for me, it was really important to build out a strong leadership team and I wish I would have spent more time thinking through the org development the team development and those early days of scaling I was very much roll up my slaves.
17:55.78
elevatemybrand
Ah.
17:59.17
Sara Cullen
There's no way but through let's get the product market quickly try to make money quickly and and I love that test and learn mindset I think there's a lot of benefits and value from you know that I had that type of mindset and there is also a lot of downfalls in that I went really quickly and ah.
18:14.31
elevatemybrand
Yeah, yeah.
18:18.39
Sara Cullen
And so yeah, there's pros and cons to that. But I will say the 1 thing about that that I love that I didn't spend a lot of time on my brand in this in the beginning I actually didn't do that until that 2 years in when I understood my customer and that I do not regret. So if you there was a lot of.
18:32.35
elevatemybrand
Um, interesting.
18:38.42
Sara Cullen
Founders that I meet with who spend 2 years working on their brand before they even have their product done before they've even launched the product and I'm like who are you building this brand for so if there is a way to prototype your product and understand your customer base before you build your brand I highly recommend it.
18:44.13
elevatemybrand
Right.
18:55.36
Sara Cullen
It It served a lot of value for us.
18:56.95
elevatemybrand
Ah, so much to unpack there. We're gonna take 1 more quick break will be right back.
19:06.98
elevatemybrand
Thanks for sticking with us chatting with Sarah Cullen who is the founder and Ceo of gem. You were just dropping nuggets of wisdom ah or bites of wisdom I should say it was right there I missed it. It was right there bites of wisdom before the the second break. Um I don't know if you know this but we have a second company. That's a venture fund investing in this category. So I love that you called out the fact that not all thank you? Yeah, it's ah it's a labor of love for sure. But so necessary to invest in in women and diverse founders in our opinion but to your point.
19:28.41
Sara Cullen
You grit about.
19:40.66
elevatemybrand
Not all companies are set up for venture funding and ah also to your point people see it as this like be all end all magic Silver bullet to running a successful company and the truth is is that it comes with its own. Challenges Perils What have you along the way. Why did you decide venture was the right direction for you.
20:05.52
Sara Cullen
It's a great question I originally set out to actually crowdfund for gem. So I didn't have that mindset in the beginning and I was going and I was in the midst of building a crowdfunding campaign and I had started a beta community on Facebook groups. In fact, which was popular at the time. And I had invited a lot of folks to it I also had invited some investors in my network and it was through that that I started getting interest from investors and venture capital and ah. There was a moment where I really saw from the surveys and from the customer research I was doing and from this beta group I saw the interest and the product market potential and I knew that in order to take advantage of that especially being first to market as this real food vitamin I need to grow and scale very quickly. And so I think it was seeing that momentum very early on I then pivoted from doing a crowdfunding campaign to raising money and it also helped that I had these investors in the group that were interested in and a market kind of ready for it. So It just seemed like the right time to presco and then personally. I wasn't in a financial place to fund this myself or to continue working on the side. So I knew that success for this company met me being 100% invested and that was only possible with the venture capital money so there there were those realities as well at the time.
21:32.74
elevatemybrand
I Think that's all super fair. Um, would you do it differently looking back or are you glad that you went down that route that route.
21:41.91
Sara Cullen
I'm glad you went down that Route. It's been good for our business model and we have a high margin business where direct to Consumer. We're able to our operations make sense for venture capital the way that we can scale. It's not the case for all food and beverage. It's not the case for all vitamin min oils and supplements. So I Still think it's worth and and again it was important for my own personal financial state at the time and what I could do and how I could dedicate my time. So I think you have to look at all those factors in order to determine but I wouldn't yeah.
22:05.60
elevatemybrand
Sure totally.
22:16.60
Sara Cullen
That's actually something that I don't regret and then ended up being a really great choice for us.
22:17.46
elevatemybrand
Yeah, sounds like another great choice was working on the brand after having launched it knowing your customer. You know our day job is the marketing side of the fence and I see that all the time to your point earlier. About founders that get so singularly obsessed with building a brand with 0 customers. It's like it's not analysis. Paralysis. It's more perfectionism right? They're like the color has to be perfect and the logo has to and you're like just get it to market and then get feedback and iterate accordingly. So. Did you do that and was that intentional or was that just because you were moving so quickly to talk to us a little bit about building the brand side.
22:54.97
Sara Cullen
It was intentional I had started a company prior to gem. It was a cbd beverage company and I had spent probably almost a year building the brand and then definitely less than a year by six months actually launching it and operating it before it kind of went bust. And so I had experience building a brand without understanding my Target market and by the way we did I think 2 or 3 it was a little I already had experience failing essentially and I already had 2 or you know and I think we did 2 or 3 rounds of different brand books before we even launched.
23:18.63
elevatemybrand
So so so it was a little ptxy.
23:34.54
Sara Cullen
So I had experience spending that kind of money without getting the results and I knew just from a financial standpoint I didn't want to do that it and it didn't make sense to me I was so obsessed with the customer I was so excited to build this product with the customer at the heart and center of it. That the only way to do that was to build almost a Skeleton Brand Of course it kind of became the brand for a little bit before we invested in our actual look and feel but we we started out actually black and white. You know, almost like the idea was to be like brandless um and just have the product speak for itself. The customers. Um. Being at the center of it and just being obsessed about customer feedback and I'm and I learned so much and that was what allowed us to get to our hero product fairly quickly in a short amount of time was and and our ability to scale. So it it was yeah it was awesome.
24:25.52
elevatemybrand
And was the name originally gem and always jam or was there other iterations. So.
24:29.75
Sara Cullen
Um, we had different lc names and you know before we transitioned to a ccorp but Jem ended up being I believe what we first launched with then people call us daily gem because that's our Url Daily Gem Dot Com but we're just simply gem and it's a it's a fun name.
24:50.68
elevatemybrand
That's really cool and what is the meaning behind it for you ahlarious I Love the on. You're so honest there. It's great. Yeah.
24:56.46
Sara Cullen
There's no meaning I wish I had some elaborate story it I wanted a fun I wanted a fun pithynit you know name that represented this gem of a bite and it. Think it came like in a morning shower moment to me and just fun gem and there's all kinds of Punny things that we could say about it. So it's a great name exactly.
25:20.75
elevatemybrand
Totally I I say that all the time we have our best ideas in the bathroom you know, um well this has been so much fun. We are almost out of time in the last few minutes I always like to do what we call our quick fire so this is just whatever comes up top of mind you ready.
25:37.87
elevatemybrand
All right? What is your biggest pet peeve.
25:38.36
Sara Cullen
Um.
25:44.70
Sara Cullen
Um, my biggest pet peeve I have so many um I think my biggest pet peeve This is ah do I Know what's actually tough of mine.
25:59.75
Sara Cullen
I Think my biggest pet peeve is getting a contract that's not reviewed out of nowhere and just having me sign it without any briefing on it.
26:07.84
elevatemybrand
As a former Covid M and a too many I can appreciate the shit out of that. Um, yeah, yeah, um.
26:10.27
Sara Cullen
And oh yes, see i. So yeah, when you you said top of mind I wouldn't say this is like my largest pet peve in life but it is top of mind today.
26:20.49
elevatemybrand
I get it I get it. Um other than the com bite. How else you deal with stress.
26:25.80
Sara Cullen
I Go to the basics water sleep walking around I think that the best wellness Hacks are those that are free in life and of course gem but you know it's just simple as like okay I'm stressed out I just need to go walk around the block and you take a few deep breaths. And need to drink more water. Maybe you need to take anack and I think it's really important to simplify ah those hacks that you do because when you overcomplicate it. It just makes you more stressed.
26:55.82
elevatemybrand
A hundred percent um what was last concert or show you went to? um.
27:02.97
Sara Cullen
My partner show in fact, Ah, yeah, he has a band and I watched him this past weekend.
27:09.30
elevatemybrand
Super fun. Ah what was the last thing that made you cry.
27:15.94
Sara Cullen
Um I cry all the time probably stress I Love crying I like a weekly cry. Ah no, um, just yeah, being overwhelmed with a lot of things happening in life.
27:29.60
elevatemybrand
I Totally get it. Yeah, that's a Killer last question is what is your favorite word and why and this could be a word that's had real meaning to over time or something that just pops into that to your head for the purpose of this conversation. Can't say your brand name.
27:31.92
Sara Cullen
But old stress.
27:47.39
Sara Cullen
Can I give you 2 curious. Okay curiosity is my first one but I feel like it's a little basic but curiosity is one that means a lot to me. It's what it's what led me down the path of creating Jem I think it's what makes their team and our culture so special.
27:47.81
elevatemybrand
So I'll allow it. So.
28:06.30
Sara Cullen
And that we're curious about our customers about how we can make things better about different facets of our business and I think that that's just an important quality to have and and to nurture and cultivate. The second word is quite ascopic which you probably heard me use when I described our scientific advisory board and it's. Our ethos too about gem and in really looking holistically and looking at all the facets and bringing them together and connecting the dots. So those 2 words are very much embedded in me personally but also professionally with the company. Yes.
28:36.17
elevatemybrand
You said Kaleidoscopic I don't think you said that when you were talking we were talking earlier. Maybe you didn't I missed it because that was ah that is a word that I would remember I Love a good vocab word and I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say that it's cool I like it.
28:50.14
Sara Cullen
There you go I give you 1 basic 1 more interesting one.
28:55.50
elevatemybrand
Ah, well you were anything but basic as a founder I'm so glad you shared some time with us on the podcast today. Any final words of wisdom to wrap us up and then of course share where people can find your awesome products.
29:08.66
Sara Cullen
Um I I think we said it all. Thanks so much for having me, you can find jem at daily gem.com
29:12.84
elevatemybrand
Amazing! Thanks for sticking with us Sarah and everyone who tuned in and stay tuned for more from elevate your brand coming up next.