September 25, 2019
By: Daisy Jing
I can’t believe 7 years have gone by since I sold the first Banish kit! I specifically remember waking up one morning in Sept 2013 and seeing 3 orders for the Banish kit; the first customer was located in Spain. In honor of Banish’s birthday, I will share with you 6 early facts about Banish and 6 things I’ve learned running Banish.
1. Banish started by accident. In college, I wanted to be a dermatologist, so I actually studied premed. I took all the required pre-med classes, so I did spend inordinate amounts of time on Orgo, microbiology, etc. I realized memorizing was not my strong suit. However, this background in chemistry and biology set me up for researching skincare when I had acne.
In 2010 I started my YouTube channel to share tips and tricks about skincare; in 2012 I tried out microneedling/Vit C combo, on September 2013 that’s when the first Banish kit was shipped out.
2. To save money, I would rent out my room on Airbnb and sleep on the couch downstairs. I actually didn’t mind. Instead of focusing on ‘What I didn’t have” or “what I couldn’t do”, I started out with a “can do” attitude and I credit my resourcefulness to the beginnings of Banish.
3. At the beginning of the business, I was a one-woman show. I would start my morning with answering emails, updating the website, taking product photos, doing live chat.
In the afternoon, I’d film a YouTube video (because that’s when the lighting was the best!), then edit, upload, respond to comments; in the late evenings, I’d make and package the products. I’d sometimes be up till 3 am. Then I’d wake up at 8 to be the first in line to drop off the shipments at the post office. Because I was a one-woman show, in the beginning, I understand how each component works and why it’s so important, for example, to purchase from this particular vendor for this ingredient, or use these labels for packaging. It’s very hard to learn how to manage a process if you haven’t done it yourself.
4. The first shipment of products was destroyed; I was devastated. I had put about ~$35k of inventory over 5 personal credit cards. After a day of sorrow, I simply wrote out the ‘next steps’ I needed to do in order to move forward. I could have wallowed in my sorrows or negativity, but I always focused on putting one foot in front of the other and creating blinders on anything else.
5. One of the earliest memories of feeling like I was onto something, was when I went to three separate office depot stores and purchased all of their bubble wraps. The orders kept growing that I had to drive more to more stores to purchase packaging supplies…
6. MY FIRST HIRE WAS MARIEL, THE SWEETEST GAL FROM A LOCAL COLLEGE NEARBY. It was a huge leap of faith for me to make a hire, but I was so glad because she’d help me free up some time. I would pick her up from after class, have her work with me, and then drop her off at the train station.
We are going to constantly be innovating on new products, testing and experimenting with so many different ingredients and products that work for us. We will always focus on the ingredients and composition of the products, never on the look and feel.
We are going to focus on telling the stories of our Banish soldiers,
We are going to focus on empowering our Banish soldiers to feel their best and give them the courage to be authentically themselves!
Here’s to another 7 years!
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