Samantha Rudolph: Co-Founder & CEO of Babyation

Episode 482

Samantha Rudolph, an entrepreneur with a deep passion for changing the feeding industry, as in breast feeding, shares all about her company, Babyation. You will hear all about how her invention is improving the entire pumping experience for the better including creating how they have the world’s smallest breast shields, an ultra-quiet motor, built-in milk storage and a patented vacuum-boost technology that mimics a baby feeding for an efficient and comfortable experience for the mom. You are going to love what she has to share and I am excited for you to hear all of her inspiration and lessons. Now on the #TheKaraGoldinShow.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone, it’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show. And I am so excited to have my next guest. Here we have Samantha Rudolph, who is the co founder and CEO of an incredibly cool technology product, drumroll Babyation. And it maybe you can guess what it is if you have not seen it, but it is changing the way that breast pumping is done. So for anybody who has a small baby has had children, you understand the process of of pumping, probably, there’s a lot of man out there that may want to understand the process of pumping. And this is your opportunity, as Sam and I which she goes by or just chatting about. But everything about this product is unique, the world’s smallest brush shields and ultra quiet motor built in milk storage and a patented vacuum Boost technology that mimics a baby feeding for an efficient and comfortable experience. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get one of these machines. It’s absolutely amazing and a great gift as well. So I’m excited to have Sam here to share all about the journey and building this incredible product and company. And yes, so thank you. Thank you for coming, Sam.

Samantha Rudolph 2:08
Thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here. Super

Kara Goldin 2:11
excited. So what an incredible story. First of all, I know how hard this must be especially having to get the patent and, and all of the things not only did it take a while, but also just everything that you have to do to build the product and and you know the all of the processes as well in order to make it happen. But you had a vision. And it was so clear to you. Can you share how this all came about? Absolutely.

Samantha Rudolph 2:46
So many years ago, I was on a ski trip with my husband, we were living on the east coast at the time. And one Sunday morning when we had a real jobs and no kids. We were really living the good life. I read an article in The New York Times and The headline was shouldn’t the breast pump is elegant as an iPhone and as quiet as a priest by now. And very candidly, I did not know what a breast pump was. But the the headline kind of grabbed my attention. And I started reading. And I saw my future flash before my eyes and got really, really angry. I shook my husband awake. And his name’s Jared. And Jared is a very gifted engineer. And I said, Can you believe one more thing women have to deal with as I just stood up on my soapbox and kind of jumped up and down. And you know, I’ll never forget it. He opened up one eye and said, Oh, breast pumps aren’t that complicated. I can build one, and then went back to sleep. And, you know, we skied that day. And then we were driving back to Connecticut where we were living at the time that night. And I said I you know, I was still really amped up. I said, Okay, let’s talk about this brass pump, you know, what, what should a breast pump have and kind of, you know, the latest technology, and we very quickly settled on this concept of discretion. So, you know, every feature we should make should be tied to discretion. It should be low profile, it should be uncontrollable, there should be a place to store the milk. And you know, then we went about our daily lives. And I think neither one of us ever thought we would utter the word breast pump again, until we had a kid. But we couldn’t stop thinking about it. And so here we are.

Kara Goldin 4:09
So how many years ago was this?

Samantha Rudolph 4:13
So we had the idea in 2014. We spent an entire year trying to not move forward. Because we just we were happy with our jobs. We weren’t looking to make a change. But finally, you know, we had kind of enough proof points that this was a good idea. And that we had a unique solution and and that we could build it that we started dipping our toes in in 2015 and then started working in earnest in 2016. breast pumps are medical devices. So they go through the FDA clearance process, which is you know, not an overnight thing. And so we really kind of started in 2016 and then launched in 2022.

Kara Goldin 4:51
So what is the process for actually getting the FDA approval for a technology product? And maybe that’s different actually, for medical devices as well.

Samantha Rudolph 5:07
Yeah, so the FDA has different classes of medical devices, class one, class two, and class three. And there’s different processes based on your class. Breath pumps are class two. And so what I didn’t know, before we kind of started the process is that you have to basically build the entire device in what’s called its final finished form, before you can get approval, or clearance in our case. So we basically had to do all of the development work, get clearance, and then transition into manufacturing. And that’s why, you know, no breast pump company can really spin up overnight, which, you know, as a mom, I really appreciate as a business owner, I wish it could have been a little faster. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 5:44
definitely. So how long did it take front to back?

Samantha Rudolph 5:49
We like I said, we started in 2016. We launched in 2220 22. So it took about six years.

Kara Goldin 5:53
Wow. That’s, that is commitment. So patience and commitment. So absolutely. So the thing, the one of the things that I thought was so unique about your machine is that you have a patented vacuum technology, can you explain a little bit how that’s different from other products in the market?

Samantha Rudolph 6:14
Absolutely. So we actually have, gosh, I think now it’s more than 30 issued patents worldwide, which is a number I never thought I would be entering. It’s, it’s amazing. And I’m grateful, but I’m still surprised by it. So what we did is that we are the only breast pump company that separates what’s on the body from where the milk is stored in. So in order to kind of connect the two, we have two incredibly small tubes combined smaller than the size of a pen, one for milk and one for air. And that’s what allows us to have this kind of vacuum Boost technology that we’ve patented. It’s also what allows our pump to function in a way that mimics a baby’s suction. And we are the only breast pump that can make that claim. Wow.

Kara Goldin 6:58
That’s That’s incredible. So and how are you getting the word out? I mean, you launched in in 2022. So it’s still fairly new, even though you were working on it for some time, what how are you getting the word out about it so

Samantha Rudolph 7:13
far? Yeah, so when we launched, we actually launched with a multi 1000 person waitlist. And that’s because we had been fortunate enough to receive press about what we were doing. And so a lot of people were interested. So we’ve built on that list. We’ve also been fortunate to have won some awards, we were a time innovation 2022 award winner, for instance, a Fast Company, world changing idea winner. So that helps, you know, word of mouth helps kind of, you know, what you would expect on the DTC side. So a mix of em emails, and paid social and influencers and awards and press and, you know, all of those things really kind of helped us out. That’s amazing.

Kara Goldin 7:52
So DTC is how you’re going to mark it. And how is that going so far? Is it Do you feel like it’s pretty challenging and to kind of stand apart? Or also as a medical device? Do you? Are there different? I guess regulations to you can’t make health claims. I don’t know that you would make health claims, I guess. But. But do you find that it’s, it’s different than maybe you thought?

Samantha Rudolph 8:21
I think it’s a little bit different. You know, we we joke that we had six years or to really kind of know what kind of company we are as an r&d company. And then we went on sale, and it was a completely different world. And I think that was something that was most surprising, to me, at least as I thought, you know, day one of going on sale, we would be the same as you know, j minus one. And it was a completely different ballgame, right? We were thinking about different metrics, we were focused on different things. We’ve always had a very mom forward approach, right? We are making this for moms. So our users have always been front and center, they’ve always been our Northstar. That piece wasn’t different, you know, we still have exceptional customer service. But you know, absolutely the type of business that we are in the way we think about our business shifted the day, you know, the hour the minute we went on sale. That’s, you know, that’s a little bit different for us. I think there’s there’s good and there’s bad direct to consumer, you know, there’s obviously the scale is not the same as a retail play. But for us being able to have that really strong one on one connection with our moms matters, you know, across the board, we are allotted for our customer service. Anytime someone has a question, they get a certified lactation expert, either a DLT, or an ibclc. And that requires a lot of, you know, coursework and an actual test in order to receive those certifications. We offer one on one zooms with anyone who wants to either see our pump beforehand, or you know, have help with that after and I’m really proud of that. I’m really proud that we have provided, you know, top level service, I kind of jokingly referred to our team as pumped concierges and you know, I think that Matt For a product like ours, we want this we want our users, our moms, our customers to feel supported.

Kara Goldin 10:05
How have you found people to come and work for you? So because obviously, this is a brand new product, it’s, it’s something that is, you know, really unique and different. How has it been to actually recruit people to come and join you? I always laugh when I asked this question, because I remember back in 2005, we, when I launched hint, I hadn’t been in the beverage industry. And, you know, I’m trying to get people to sort of help me so I could scale. And, you know, frankly, those aren’t the same people that, that I had long term. I mean, they stayed for a while and, and they were able to get some of the things done. And some of it was I didn’t even know what I needed, right until I actually got it out there in the market. And then those things kind of changed. But I’m so curious in today’s environment, is that, how hard is it? What kind of people do add to your team initially, and things like that.

Samantha Rudolph 11:13
So recruiting is my jam, I think it’s one of my secret powers, super, super power, sorry, superpowers. And I learned really early on. So before I, we started aviation, I worked at ESPN. And I was a serial entrepreneur there. And I started a couple different departments and technologies. And I was hired to be a manager at ESPN at the age of 23. And I had direct reports under me that were much older than I was. And we had to hire a team of about 100 people, and none of the other managers wanted anything to do with hiring. And I said, But wait a second, this is the most important thing we do. Nothing else matters. If we don’t hire the right people, we can have the best ideas, but we can’t execute it. And so hiring those people really quickly, and understanding kind of what we need, you know who we needed, how to find them. Obviously, hiring for a company like ESPN is different than hiring for a startup in St. Louis. But it really taught me those skills and the importance of getting those hires, right. So our first two non founder hires came on board at the end of 2018, they’re still with us. We work with both of them as consultants as freelance consultants before we brought them on full time to really make sure they were the right people. And one of them actually found us she reached out to us through a cold email, and Jared, my husband, my co founder, wanted absolutely nothing to do with anyone who wanted to work with us. He’s like, they can’t be that great if they’re reaching out to us. But she is fantastic. She’s worked at Apple and at Fisher Price, and it was, you know, absolutely one of the best decisions we made. And so, you know, we’ve we’ve, in some ways, we’ve pivoted a lot, right, our breast pump has remained the same. But we now do our own manufacturing here in St. Louis. So we have a team of 13 people that physically puts together the breast pump. And so some of those people who do it we hired before we made that shift. And so really making sure that as we went through the hiring process and vetting process, that we were hiring people who were flexible, who were adaptable, who are willing to go with the flow, who wanted to learn new things, you know, we no one knew how to build our breast pump, we didn’t know how to build our breast pump until we built it. So right that that wasn’t a skill set that we needed. But we needed people who were flexible, and who wanted to learn and who wanted to be part of a team, and who wanted to grow with us and kind of believed in this, you know, this mission to take something that was reviled for so long and make it better, to you know, take a small piece of the, you know, postpartum experience and make it better. And who really believed in that, that mission and in wanting to be on that journey with us. And, you know, we had incredibly high retention rate. And we’ve been able to hire hire really wonderful people, mostly here in St. Louis, although we do have a few people who are remote. And it’s really worked

Kara Goldin 14:03
for us. How did you come up with the name Babyation?

Samantha Rudolph 14:09
So at the time, we wanted something that was a.com. We wanted it to have baby and something else as part of it. And so we kind of backed into well with baby and innovation or baby and lactation had a baby. Oh, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s how we came up with aviation. And it happened that there was a.com. So it felt like it was right.

Kara Goldin 14:28
I love it. I always talk to founders about do I need a naming agency and I find that most of the companies actually sometimes there’s somebody who has hired a naming agency, but it’s actually very rare. It seems that most people kind of think about it and dream about it and they come up with the name so starting any company and launching a physical product is always challenging, you obviously have other challenges with it getting over 30 patents? What what do you think was like the biggest challenge for you and launching this company? Obviously, you’ve got a lot of patience and resilience. And but what were some of the hardest things, maybe there was a time when you were building the product, and something didn’t work the way that you thought, and you had to shift and pivot in some way, but I’m so curious how you would answer that?

Samantha Rudolph 15:32
Yeah, you know, I kind of break it up into the, the physical design process. And then everything else, you know, some of our parts have been through 60 iterations. Because, you know, when you’re moving error, and you’re making feel like, things are within 1000s of inches tolerances, like, it’s, it’s crazy. So, you know, that there definitely been challenges on the design side, and, you know, all credit to the people on the design side, who, you know, who kind of broken down the barriers and made it work? You know, on the, I think, kind of on the founder side, right? The word you mentioned, was resilience. And I think that that’s not talked about enough, you know, just how resilient and how mentally tough you have to be, to be a founder to be any founder, but to kind of come back day in and day out on a six year journey before you even have the chance to see like, is there a there there? You know, is? Is anybody going to want my baby? I mean, you know, that’s, that’s tough. And, you know, for a medical device, six years is fast. But for any normal, sane human beings, six years is a very long time. And in so, you know, really being having that mental fortitude, having, you know, a very just clear vision of, you know, what is your why, what am I doing here? How am I going to push past a hard day, you know, for me, for my family, for, you know, for Jared, for our team, for our kids, for the moms that, you know, have written us for years to tell us how a product like ours would change their lives. And I don’t, you know, I don’t want to be dramatic about that. But, you know, this is, it’s not used for too, too long, generally. But you know, a breast pump is just, it’s such an intimate experience, it’s, you know, it’s physically on your body, you are using it many times a day, for many months, you know, sometimes in the middle of the night, it is a very emotional experience. And I think it does affect how you view those first few months of your baby’s life. You know, there was a study by milk stork that said that 95% of women say that pumping is the hardest part of breastfeeding. And so to make a product that’s better, and that makes a difference is a privilege. And it’s not one that we took lightly. And, you know, we actually would print out emails that we received, or Facebook messages or Instagram comments about how a product like ours would make things better. And, you know, I looked at them a lot on a hard day. I think we all did, you know, making a making any physical product is hard. Making a medical device is harder, making an app that controls a medical device, because the app is also a medical device. You know, we we did not start out with something easy. But we did start out with purpose. And I think that really helped. Definitely,

Kara Goldin 18:20
so what’s your favorite part of growing Babyation? I heard you talk about consumer feedback and I feel like that’s always been what’s gotten me up on those challenging days where I’ll go back to read those emails, letters, posts, etc. How hint has changed lives and I think that I would imagine you’re hearing that as well.

Samantha Rudolph 18:49
Absolutely no, I will never forget the very first person to post a comment after we went on sale our marketing manager called me and she’s and I was driving and she said you know you need to pull over and I’m like, Oh God, like this is what’s what’s gonna happen here after I pulled over and you know, the person basically said, you know, I’ve used 16 breast pumps and this one is far and away the best one and I just started bawling because it’s you know, it’s six years of work it’s six years of heartache and struggle and stress and you know, exuberance, right the day we got our FDA clearance like you’re you’re flying higher than you flown in a long time. And so to kind of see that that very first comment just meant and still means everything Yeah,

Kara Goldin 19:31
it’s it is I always share with friends of mine who have never written a note to accompany I always say you should you should write to them because if nothing else, there’s a founder over there somebody that’s developed a product that worked really hard. I think you worked extra hard waiting and six years for for this that will really be inspired by it. So you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve met many entrepreneurs, I’m sure along the way and When you think about what makes an entrepreneur successful, you talked about resilience, I totally agree with you creativity, beyond the great product or service, what do you think it is that really makes that entrepreneur? Somebody that you’re going to bet on?

Samantha Rudolph 20:21
So I actually started investing a little bit, you know, I’m not, I’m not a huge angel investor yet. But I’ve really kind of become taken with this with this prospect of both investing and mentoring early stage companies. And I believe that I will only invest in people who when their backs up against the wall, they are going to find a way, right, they are going to say, you know, not today world, I’m not given up yet. And I’m going to figure it out. That presumes, of course, that they have the right idea and the right execution and the right solution and all of those things. But, you know, I know plenty of founders with really good ideas, and really good execution, who just they were done. And, you know, that’s okay. I believe that we all have the right to say, when we’re done. And I believe that there’s honor in that, and that is fantastic. But, you know, I am sure there are many days that 99.999% of the people who kind of experienced the journey I have, would have been done. And you know, we’re never on the other side, because there’s always there’s always another mountain, if I can kind of mix my metaphors. But it’s incredible, you know, the things that we accomplished last year, in this year, to not have been able to have those those wins those experiences, I would have missed out on so much. Yeah, so no, no, I think the founder matters. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 21:46
I think it definitely matters. And I think your point of showing that you get back up again, and that you’re owning your mistakes and transparent about those things is, is really critical. So looking back on creating Babyation, do you think there’s anything that you would have done differently?

Samantha Rudolph 22:05
So I’m sure I’m Yes. Even I’m sure he just, you know, yes. You know, you especially when you’ve never made a product, a physical product or a medical device before, and you’ve been through the manufacturing process? You know, we we custom built almost all of our parts, if we didn’t have to, or could have built it differently. I mean, that would have saved everybody some pain. So you know, yeah, absolutely. You know, I’m sure there are ways we could have messaged something better, I’m sure there are ways that we could have built something smarter. So, you know, yes, I’ll you know, all we try to do is learn from them and do better next time and kind of take them with us, not in a paralyzing way. But in a hey, remember, when we didn’t make as good of a decision here? Let’s try to not do that. Going forward?

Kara Goldin 22:54
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s, I think about actually, in growing hand. I mean, there’s so many stories and so many things that we didn’t do, right. But for us, it was packaging, we were so confident that our packaging was perfect. And that as long as we had what was inside the bottle, you know, that was the key thing. And while I think you have to have that I think packaging is is really important, especially if you’re on retail shelves, but I think it’s also important, just for people to be able to visualize it and be able to see it, we actually I interviewed somebody yesterday, who was talking about this that actually has a frozen product. And the problem with frozen products is you know, oftentimes you have to cook it not ice cream or something like that. But oftentimes it might have crystals, right. And if you have a clear packaging, and you’re looking through, the consumer doesn’t really want to see that. And so there’s things like that, that are so critical, and in the packaging that once they ultimately changed the packaging, they were able to significantly grow their business. And I thought, Wow, that’s so interesting. Right, super, super interesting. So, so last questions, I love for you to share a success tip or nugget of inspiration for somebody who’s sitting here saying maybe they’ve like you develop their own home version of their product, and now they’re thinking I should really go and take it to market what what inspiration or suggestions would you give to people.

Samantha Rudolph 24:34
So number one, make sure that you you know the the problem you’re trying to solve as a real problem and that you’ve solved it well. Number two, make sure you’re going into this not to get rich overnight because there are way easier ways to do that. Number three, make sure you have a group of people around you that you can be vulnerable with because there will be hard times and you will always want to you know We’re often we often need to project a really good face. But we also need to find people that we can be vulnerable with. And then I think the last thing is, when you have a hard day, and I don’t care what you’re doing or how successful you are, you’re going to have hard days, you need to know what works for you. So you need to have that list of emails that you need to look at, or the people you need to call who will help you, you know, help boost you up. And you need to be able to figure out why you did it in the first place.

Kara Goldin 25:29
Yeah, I think that’s so so key. So Sam, thank you so much for coming on. We’ll have all the information for Babyation in the shownotes, but also for you too, and so that people can follow you and hear about the progress. I’m so proud of you. I mean, this is this is a major, major project that has come to be and I think it’s going to be a huge hit. So very, very excited about it. So thank you everybody, too, for listening. And until next time, thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review. And feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and good bye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening

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