Be Your Own (Lady)boss: Heeding the Call of Creative Entrepreneurship

---

"To me, success is having work I enjoy while being able to support my family while working with folks I respect and enjoy."

---

---

"Because I have had such positive response from the vegan community I would never put an animal product in my brand. I love that! The power of people thanking me and expressing their values has informed future decisions."

---

---

Dream a Little Dream
Have you ever fantasized about starting your own business and sharing your creative vision with the world? We asked Nieves to share her top tips to help other women who aspire to be their own bosses. Here's what she said:

1.  Make something you love love love, because you will be talking about it day in and day out so believe in it with all your heart. If you don’t totally believe in it, work for someone else…it’s easier!

2.  Be sure other people resonate with it too before putting too much time and/or money into it. Test on friends and colleagues. Do they love it? Are they asking for more? Most anybody will be verbally supportive but when they ask for more of whatever it is you’re offering, then you know it has a chance.

3.  Start small. That way if it works, great, if doesn’t, fine, you gave it a try and you can move on to your next great idea. 

4.  Do something for your business idea every day until you’re busy with it all the time and then take days off!

5.  Consider whether you can scale up and maybe even scale back down and still maintain your vision.

Nieves Rathbun launched her all-natural, vegan skincare line, By Nieves, in 2008. Today, she’s a grassroots-gone-big success story, setting her own rules (leaving the SF Bay Area for the rugged Lost Coast, for starters), and living according to her own values. Here, Nieves shares her story of taking a good idea, adding a hefty dose of passion, and transforming it into a lucrative venture.

Was entrepreneurship something you approached by careful design, or something you fell into?
I fell into entrepreneurship very slowly. I had been making some products for myself and sharing them with friends. Selling some here and there but mostly I thought of it as a hobby that paid for itself.  I was actually kind of reluctant to go into business. I had owned a small business in my late teens and decided I would rather let someone else worry about all the teeny-tiny details that running a business requires.  In 2007 I got off the fence. I decided to do everything I could for the business for a year (while working other jobs too, of course) and see if it could fly. It did!

Tell us about being your own boss.
I love being my own boss because I can make decisions about the business that feel right for me. I can live by my ethics and at the end of the day I can feel good about my business and how it affects the world. One of the many challenges/blessings of owning my own business is making all the decisions. I love being able to make choices that agree with my ethics/ideals/unconventional strategy, the other side of the coin is that I have to make all the decisions and then live with the outcome good or bad. It feels like a good idea to me to avoid the big chain/corporate accounts for a lot of reasons but is that the right decision? We’ll see!

Your upbringing was rather bohemian, with a dash of vagabond and a pinch of hippie. How did your early years inform your approach to entrepreneurism? 
I love how you describe it! My upbringing has given me an unconventional vision of success. To me success is having work I enjoy while being able to support my family while working with folks I respect and enjoy. Looking for win-win situations wherever possible. Looking to see how my actions ripple out into the world.

Before you transitioned into natural skincare, you studied herbal healing. What initially attracted you to “alternative” therapies?
Being raised the way I was herbal medicine and nutrition was the go-to medicine. I admired the healing arts and absorbed all the books I could find, one of my first favorites was Herbal Handbook For Farm and Stable by Juliette de Baïracli Levy . When I was young I thought I’d be a magical herbal healer running around with my medicine bag like Ayla from Clan of the Cave Bear or something.

How did you know the time was right to launch your line?
I felt like the momentum from word of mouth was at a place where I needed to jump on it or let it go by. Ironically this was right at the peak of the financial crisis, in some ways I’m glad to have started there because if the company can survive in that climate, it can only get better.

Describe your business’s early days. What were some challenges, and how did you overcome them?
Some of my early challenges continue, because I am a small company without investors, and every move I make is slow and small. By scaling up very slowly, I have avoided many of the common pitfalls for a new business, I was/am able to try things at a small scale I can test theories and methods without a huge investment, then, as I find the way, I can scale up.  The other big challenge was and is just keeping up with all the details. Some days I just know some things are falling through the cracks and I can just hope I’ve covered the important stuff.

Your products are vegan; was this intentional alchemy or are your products “accidentally” animal-product free?
I did not intend to make vegan line, I just made the products that I want to use. In fact it was an early customer asking that helped me realize I do have a vegan line. It is interesting and kind of encouraging.  Because I have had such positive response from the vegan community I would never put an animal product in my brand. I love that! The power of people thanking me and expressing their values has informed future decisions. I find that super encouraging for the bigger picture of business in general; customers can influence a company’s policies!

What is your long-term vision for By Nieves?
My long term vision is to be able to support 5 to 20 people for reals, like paying a mortgage  reals. We’re making progress and someday I’d love it if we could transition to worker owned or some inclusive type of governance.  I’m working on releasing a product later this year, a body oil formulated to help with circulation. I designed it to help with spider veins and cellulite, just like all my other products, this is something I need! It has a lot of vetiver (among other things), so it smells amazing. I keep thinking I might do a facial cleansing bar but I move very slowly with these things.  I enjoy having a succinct, versatile line. I take adding a new product very seriously, it has to be amazingly awesome in all the ways my other products are.

How has shifting your business from the über-urban Bay Area to the more rural, sedate deep northern California coast influenced you as a creative entrepreneur?
It feels great to be making these lovely products here in this beautiful and wild setting. I love thinking abut them being infused with this spectacularly beautiful place and going out into the world and hopefully bringing a little of that energy with them. I feel lucky to live in this day and age where it is possible to remain connected to the world while living in the boonies. Of course there are days when I wish I could just take the family out for Vietnamese instead of cooking dinner, but oh well, we visit the city often enough to take care of our cravings.


---

Learn more about By Nieves at the company's website: www.bynieves.com

photos courtesy of By Nieves