BONUS: How Your Business Can Have an Impact

00:00:01

Thomas Ling: So we're not just making a product because I came from a very, very unrelated space, and the switch was to do something I was passionate about and something I cared about and trying to do something that had an impact. And it's weird. How do pet products have an impact? But in the way that we interact with our products and our employees and our community is how I feel I'm having an impact and doing and putting into the world something that represents the value systems that I have.

00:00:27

Andrea Marquez: To celebrate Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, we're highlighting an Asian and Pacific Islander-owned small business that's taking care of your furry friends while doing some good in the world.

Hi, I'm Andrea Marquez, and this is Small Business, the podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be digging into clean ingredients and sustainability with Thomas Ling, the owner of Kin+ Kind, a manufacturer and retailer of pet grooming and wellness that's on a mission to clean up pet care. Starting Kin+ Kind wasn't always part of Thomas's plan.

00:01:05

Thomas Ling: I went to Harvard Law School and I practiced for about a decade and I enjoyed being a lawyer. I liked doing law, but I didn't feel passionate about the type of clients that I was servicing. It wasn't moving me towards having an impact on the world.

00:01:18

Andrea Marquez: Tom has spent a lot of time doing pro bono work, and he still continues to do that on the side, but pets and the environment have always had a special place in his heart.

00:01:28

Thomas Ling: I grew up working in pet stores. There's a cute pet store down the corner that I would hang out, and finally they said, “Do you want to get paid?” I was like, “Yeah, that'd be great.” And I just had a ton of pets in my home. So I had rabbits, I had birds, I had fish, I had dogs. Just always surrounded by animals, but dogs and cats, I've always really ... Think they're part of your family.

00:01:47

Andrea Marquez: His sister Janine, who helped co-found Kin+ Kind shared his obsession with pets, and she ended up opening a pet store.

00:01:55

Thomas Ling: We actually worked at pet stores together, and so it was kind of a space that I was familiar with. She's passionate about all these things and seemed interesting and exciting. It allowed me to bring the idea of being passionate about environmental issues and trying to make a product that brought those environmental issues into the pet space. Just seemed kind of a good fit.

00:02:15

Andrea Marquez: But Janine eventually ended up leaving Kin+ Kind to start her own company.

00:02:19

Thomas Ling: And so she's like, “Thomas, your sustainability is nothing. Hold my beer.” So she went and made a company that doesn't use plastic.

00:02:29

Andrea Marquez: So this passion to help the environment and have a bigger impact clearly runs in the family. And one of the main ways that Kin+ Kind tries to do this is by bringing transparency and authenticity to their products.

00:02:41

Thomas Ling: That means using natural ingredients that are certified by the United States Department of Agricultural Inspectors under the USDA Organic Program or the USDA Bio-based program. Plus that means we make everything ourselves here in the United States.  

We're using the highest regulatory standards so that we're able to be good to our team while we're being good to the world. And the last thing that we used as kind of our pillar of transparency and authenticity is that we have made everything specifically for pets. So we had our own veterinarian and our own plant scientists pull these things together themselves to make sure that we have ingredients that are dealing with pets in a holistic, natural way that's effective and safe and good for the environment.

00:03:27

Andrea Marquez: There's a lot of responsibility behind your brand. Am I hearing a dog collar?

00:03:33

Thomas Ling: That is.

00:03:33

Andrea Marquez: That is.

00:03:35

Thomas Ling: Yes.

00:03:35

Andrea Marquez: I love that. That's so cute and super fitting for this conversation. So, Thomas, can you explain to me what clean ingredients are?

00:03:45

Thomas Ling: So that's about using things that are both responsible and transparent to the consumer, and that's really missing in the pet space. So in the pet space, there's a lot of greenwashing, there's a lot of omission because it's not that tightly regulated from a labeling perspective. So they're not required to put everything that's in their bottle into their labels. So step one is, Hey, what's in that bottle? Because pet parents are rightly concerned because they want what's best for their pets and feel very passionately about certain ingredients that are natural, that are responsibly sourced, and you need that level of clarity.

00:04:21

Andrea Marquez: This is a good time to mention that Amazon through our Climate Pledge-Friendly program is helping customers discover products with third party sustainability certifications like USDA Organic to help sellers like Kin+ kind offset some of the economic hardships of starting a sustainable business. So, Kin+ Kind does a few things to ensure that they're transparent about what's in their products. First, Thomas says that they use the common name and the scientific name for every ingredient they use.

00:04:52

Thomas Ling: So we don't use fantasy names, we don't use made up names.

00:04:55

Andrea Marquez: They also have third party certifications on their products.

00:04:58

Thomas Ling: Because inspectors come in, they audit our books, we do lab testing for our products so that there's 100% certainty that you know hat's going in or on your pet.

00:05:08

Andrea Marquez: And they use responsibly sourced ingredients.

00:05:11

Thomas Ling: We are a certified USDA organic brand because we feel very passionately that things should be grown with minimal negative impact on the earth. So if you're certified USDA organic, that means all of your ingredients are USDA organic. That means they're grown without pesticides, they're grown without GMOs, they're grown without other harmful farming practices because the United States Department of Agriculture defines what that means.  

And so people throw away that term organic. They don't really know what it means, but if it's got that organic seal on it, you are compliant with the program that the United States Department of Agriculture has put out there that makes us feel good that we're protecting the earth.  

And that makes you feel good that you're protecting your pet because you know what's in that cosmetic or in that supplement that you're putting it. And the newest category is a Pee+ Stain so you can feel good about what you putting in your home so that you know that you're not inhaling these ingredients that are just bad for you, your family, your pet.

00:06:06

Andrea Marquez: Kin+ Kind wants to be a responsible company and provide clean and transparent products to their customers. But being a clean company goes beyond this. It also includes caring for your employees.

00:06:18

Thomas Ling: So we have our own team working in our own facility. So being local obviously is good for our community, but it's also good because it's good for the employees. So our employees have healthcare benefits, they have dental benefits, they have retirement programs because this is important. It's important that we are running the kind of company that we want to see out in the world, and we're doing here is how we want to be treated, and we want other people to be treated.

00:06:44

Andrea Marquez: Thomas mentioned greenwashing when he was talking about the pet space, and if you don't know what that is ...

00:06:50

Thomas Ling: So greenwashing specifically just saying, I'm natural, and then there's nothing in your package that's natural or there's nothing in your package that's good for the environment. There's nothing other than the name of your product potentially. So there are a lot of products, particularly in the pet space that says, I'm natural or I'm clean.  

Then you look in their bottle and you're like, “There's not a single natural ingredient in here.” So it's kind of this practice. People know that there's a consumer demand for natural, and a lot of it's a lot of confusion because these terms, organic, what does that mean?  

Natural doesn't have a legal definition and they pretend that this is good for the environment or that this is good for pets, but that they have no right to that claim. Some of it can be quite difficult. That's something we should be concerned about. It's not fair to you as the consumer. It's not fair to the environment because they're putting out products that aren't good for the environment.

00:07:40

Andrea Marquez: But using high-quality ingredients that are natural or organic isn't cheap. So if you're planning on starting a business that centers around sustainability or a specific value you have, Thomas says that you have to be prepared to potentially roll your products out at a loss when you're first starting out.

00:07:58

Thomas Ling: I have a lot of experience at that. Yeah, so in terms of, hey, if I was in a kind of different space and I wanted to put my values into my business, I think it's focusing on a small segment of people who share your values and can you have a value added service in that small segment instead of trying to do something at scale, because if you try anything at scale, it takes a long time to ramp up. It takes a lot of experimentation, it takes a lot of cost before you can do that. And so kind of do a proof of concept in a small idea.

So if it's like, Hey, I want to make brownies, you're never going to make money doing it, but go ahead, make brownies, see if there's a market for it, then scale up. But you're not going to make any money in the first infinity period of time until you know okay, this is a good product, I see a path forward to profitability for it because I've done the math. So, okay, I need this equipment and I need this price tier, and I need X, Y, Z to profitability. So you have that mapped out, but you find that that there's a proof of concept that there's a market out there that wants it and responds well to it.

00:08:59

Andrea Marquez: But for Thomas, the benefits he gets from having a clean company outweigh the cons.

00:09:04

Thomas Ling: I'd rather have a smaller business that succeeds based on its values and that has customers that relate to it than a large business that just turns out things to a larger public. My products are not for everybody. I sit on pet shelves next to value brands, and that's fine. They're just a consumer might want that value because that money might mean a lot to them, or they just don't really care about my values, and that's okay. It is what it is.  

But being able to have a company that I want to go to work for every day is in of itself a value that's dissonant with kind of the idea of capitalism, that I should only produce the thing that the market wants because if I produce only the thing that the market wants, I'll only produce the highest-margin product, which isn't good for me or the other important stakeholders, the people who work with me at my company or the people I'm serving.

So there are other values other than that pure consumer choice. And then two is, yes, you can run a successful business if you find a cohort of people that you want to work with and consumers that you want to serve because they have demands and they want those demands to be met. And those demands are value-based. I'd love for that community to grow, and it is growing. We see that the natural space and the clean space are areas that have very consistently been growing more rapidly than other areas and areas that there was a shocking low level of sacrifice during harder economic periods.

So during COVID, I thought, “Oh gosh, I'm going to go out of business.” I am like, “I'm doomed. I'm doomed.” There's no way that I'll be able to stay in business when people don't know if they were going to have money in a month. And it was so scary, and it was interesting that no, actually, we grew huge leaps and bounds because people continue to think of their pets as family and the values that they were putting into the product that they're getting for their pets were important to them. So they stuck with us and we grew. And so that's great having someone that's loyal to us as a value-based business as opposed to just a commodity that's on the shelf because the next person who makes it cheaper, you buy it from them, but they didn't. They stuck through it.

00:11:12

Andrea Marquez: So aligning your business with your values, even if it makes the product a little more expensive than usual, might get you a bunch of loyal customers. I learned so much about creating a sustainable business and what it means to be a clean business. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at www. smallbusiness. amazon. com.

If you liked what you heard. Don't forget to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode, and I'd love to know what you think. So please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com with your thoughts.

That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to You by Amazon. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta Luego, and thanks for listening.  

This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.