Elisa Marshall : Co-Founder of maman

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 out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can 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, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. I am so excited to have our next guest here. We have Elisa Marshall, who is the co founder of maman. And if you’ve ever been to New York City, if you’ve ever been she’s in more locations than in Soho, but I remember walking down the street in SoHo and finding her wonderful cafe and restaurant and being so so amazed by it. Now they’re in not only New York City, but also in New Jersey, Toronto, Montreal, and most recently, Miami. I may have missed a couple of them, but we’ll definitely talk with Elisa more about that as she launched alongside with her now husband, not her husband at the time, but Ben, they together, have not only successfully launched, but also scaled this incredible brand that is really tied to this feeling of a cherished childhood memories and a passion for quality, and it’s just so, so lovely. 33 locations on Oprah’s list of favorite things, by the way, which I should say that they’re nutty chocolate chip cookie, which, of course, you can buy it by direct to consumer. But I cannot wait to hear more about Elisa’s journey and building this incredible, dreamy place. So welcome Elisa.

Elisa Marshall 2:13
Thank you. Thank you for the lovely intro, and excited to be here and chat with you

Kara Goldin 2:17
absolutely so before we dive into maman, the company you co founded. Can you share a little bit about your background and kind of your experience? How did this all come about?

Elisa Marshall 2:30
I’ll start going way back when I was a little young in in the kitchen attached to the hip of my mother and my grandmother. So I grew up where both of my my mom, my grandmother, were huge influences for me, and from a culinary perspective, both stay at all moms, avid cooks, bakers. So it was something that I learned at really early age. I like to say I was like the first kid licking the beaters with them attached to their hip in the kitchen. So that love of cooking, of togetherness, of, you know, just being in the kitchen, ultimately, really kind of like, stem from a very young age, and then, you know, following that, going into my into my 20s, I really found myself in in a position where I had just a multitude of passions. I studied fashion design. I fell into fashion PR and marketing. I was working that loved it, but I felt like I needed more creative outlets. So I stumbled into event planning, super passionate about that. I ended up, you know, evenings and weekends, working with wedding planners, hosting everything from, you know, over the top weddings to, you know, small brand events, fashion shows, um, again, very passionate about that. Then fell into, like, interior designs, and started doing some friends places. Event design started, you know, styling a variety of, you know, brand events to weddings, and then baking always kind of was a consistent and I ended up having and having a little catering Baking Company as well. So I found myself, like, mid 20s, with a nine to five paying the bills, and then, like, five other passion projects, and it got to the point where I’m like, I cannot find that job that checks all the boxes for me. I cannot find that one thing where I wake up and I’m totally fulfilled and I get to do a little bit of everything that I love. And so I think at that point was kind of like my light bulb moment that, like, I need to create this world for myself, because it doesn’t exist out there that, you know, energizes me, motivates me, gets me out of bed and allows me to do what I love every day without doing, you know, five different jobs at, you know, 20% each. Each job. How

Kara Goldin 4:33
did you get an understanding of how to do this? I mean, it’s one thing to sort of love to be around food and feel like you’re good at it, right? That where people are saying, oh, Elisa, like, I love the the nutty chocolate chip cookies or whatever they were saying, but actually opening a place and getting the real estate, like, there’s a lot there,

Elisa Marshall 4:58
for sure. I. Um, so I have to say, you know, a lot of it, I feel like I could draw so much knowledge from all my different jobs. And that’s why, anytime I’m speaking to people, you know, don’t know what they want to do and what kind of career path they want to take, I say, be hungry and do everything. Because everything you do, every career path you take, whether it be something small as a side gig, whether it be like a weekend internship, because it’s something you’re interested in. There are elements in that that you’re going to learn. And I feel like opening, you know, opening a restaurant, given just the one restaurant, there are elements from my sales PR and marketing position, obviously, from the PR and getting the word out there that I draw in. Interior Design is something, you know, the baking falls into play. When I was doing merchandising and working in fashion, I was doing store opening. So there’s so many different, you know, pieces to the puzzle that I was able to collect along the way, throughout all of my careers. But I think the one thing that really kind of kick started it was, you know, back when I met my husband in Montreal, back in 2011 ish, we ended up on our second date, he was a corporate lawyer, and I was everything. And said, he said, It’s my dream to open a restaurant one day. And I said, Oh, it’s my dream to open a little bakery that’s an event spot that’s, you know, like a really cool brand, and basically what it what maman is today. On our second date, we kind of had that conversation, and we both were continuing on, maybe for the first six months that we met with our careers. He went down the more corporate lawyer path. I went down the the everything all over the place path, and we had a really great opportunity with friends of his to go and open up a restaurant alongside their hospitality group over in Spain, in Ibiza. And so we kind of looked at, you know, all of the options he was done with this corporate world. I, you know, I really wanted to learn more about hospitality. I really wanted to, you know, get more into the weddings and the events. And it just kind of was a great opportunity. We were tired of, you know, Toronto, Montreal and Ibiza, I’m sure, as you can all imagine, I was, was sounded very, very glorious to go spend your summers in Spain. So we kind of quit everything. Mind you, I knew him for three months. My parents were devastated. They were so proud. I finally met a lawyer boyfriend, and I’m like, so we’re quitting our jobs, and we’re moving to a visa to open a restaurant on the beach. So all to say we ended up going there. It was a fabulous experience. And you know, for us, it was really working under a great hospitality group where we were able to open a restaurant from start, in terms of all realms, and, you know, create menus, create floor plans, create, you know, wedding programs. So we really kind of find that that experience, which lasted for us about two years, was like hospitality school, 101, and not only was it, was it, you know, learning everything about starting and opening a restaurant, it also like could have been a reality show, because you’re literally doing that, thrown onto an island, which for me, was very foreign. My husband is from France, so he was more used to the European culture and spoke Spanish, whereas I didn’t. So it was, you know, we didn’t have the amenities, and we didn’t have Amazon to send you things the next day like we do now when opening restaurants. So it was a really great, tough experience that just set an awesome foundation.

Kara Goldin 8:29
That’s That’s awesome. I love that story. So how would you describe maman to somebody who is not familiar with your brand?

Elisa Marshall 8:39
Yeah, so it is today, because it’s always, always evolving. So we are a Cafe and Bakery evolving more into a lifestyle brand. My mom means mother in French. Many people don’t know that. And you know for us, we wanted to kind of really create this world that was a multi sensory environment. And I think especially looking in places where we are, like New York, DC, Miami, the culinary and the beverage, you know, the coffee scene, the bakery scene, is very competitive. So what I really wanted to set out to do was kind of creating a space that was a multi sensory environment. So I want people to come into a space where they’re transported in to, you know, their grandmother’s home in a garden in the south of France. So really creating, you know, from you know, my my wedding, from my interior background, from branding, marketing, I think all of those pieces kind of come together and creating a more experiential Cafe environment, as opposed to a lot of places in New York, which back in 2014 when we opened up our first store, we’re very cold and sterile. Um, maman, the word maman income encompasses home. To me, I think it’s something that’s very familiar in New York is not home to so many people. So we really wanted to kind of create. At that warm and welcoming environment where people could gather, whether it be two friends grabbing a cup of coffee, whether it be, you know, eight friends coming around a dining room table to celebrate a birthday, a bridal shower and and really, you know, putting emphasis on bringing people together around the table in a cozy and warm environment. And

Kara Goldin 10:21
it definitely is that it’s, it’s such a beautiful, you know, display of of decor and ambiance, as well as just everything that you do is just, is, it’s like a piece of art. So, really, really amazing. So you launch, you decided to launch in New York City. I can only imagine how difficult that was. I remember when we launched hint, the brand that I found at hint, we first launched it in San Francisco, and very quickly went to New York. My husband’s a New Yorker, and I tell people like that was like Vietnam and many ways, I mean, it was a lot, right? There was, there was, and I can only imagine launching a restaurant there. And you know, you two hadn’t been you hadn’t been in the industry before. You were just still learning. So I What were some of the big challenges early on that you faced, and kind of getting that store off the ground, oh,

Elisa Marshall 11:26
I could write a whole book on it, but, you know, I think early on, you know, and on the flip side, I think a lot of people look at it as being such a challenge, and I’m such An optimist, and, you know, I’m very fortunate that we first opened in New York City, because we would not be here where we are today. And I actually now opening in Miami. It’s harder to open a restaurant in Miami than it is in New York City. Wow. And that’s a whole other that’s a whole other podcast for you. But you know, I think I’ll talk about the advantages first, because I do think that New York presents so many advantages for a new business. Like, not only is it an influx of people, you know, it’s just the opportunities that are there at all the times that knock on your door. Like, within the first week of opening, you know, three days later we have the editor of Vanity Fair who lives across the street, who came in and is like, what is this place? Who are you? Where am I? Tell me more about your food. This is the best cookie I’ve ever had. And next thing you know, there’s, like, a three page spread. You know, there’s lineups constantly. There’s people constantly. So as much as New York presents a lot of challenges, on the flip side, it presents a huge world of opportunities for new businesses, for new business owners, for visibility that I think scares a lot of people in coming to a big city, whereas sometimes, on the flip side, when you go to these small cities and try and open, there’s so much more red tape, there’s so many more eyes on you. There’s, you know, from permitting, even traffic alone when you’re doing a consumer business, you know, we’re not you’re relying on that. You know, maybe it’s like the three customers who are coming in per hour, as opposed to, you know, multitudes from New York. So I don’t think it’s such a negative hurdle, and I could, you know, speak praises to New York City and what it’s done for us as a business. But challenges, of course, there are so many of them. And I think you know, one of the biggest challenges that I learned, especially when first opening as a as a new entrepreneur and new in the hospitality industry, was was asking for help and not thinking that I can do everything myself. And I think for me, it was really identifying my strengths, which is very easy. And I think any new aspiring entrepreneurs can come in and be like, I’m really good at this, really good at this. But it’s also like, really identify your weaknesses and know what you’re not good at. And I think I’m gonna go back to kind of like the puzzle analogy, because, you know, opening a restaurant takes so many pieces, and I think when you’re too confident and think you can do everything yourself. That’s when things start to fall and start to fail. And so I was so focused on, this is what I love to do. This is what I’m good at. This is, you know, going to be great, but then there’s so much stuff that I’m bad at. I am awful at numbers. I’m awful in math. I’m not for accounting. So it’s like those were the the pieces, and really identifying my weaknesses and and, and I learned that early on, and it was such a challenge to, like, find people to fill in those spaces where they could really help me, and letting go and allowing myself to say, Okay, I’m not good at this. I need to focus on this. This is what’s going to add value to the company. So I need to bring in someone to help me here, here and here, and just, you know, owning that you can’t do everything, you’re not good at everything, and realizing that early on, so you don’t get to the point of burnout. And so, you know, you have all pieces to make it open and fun. Sure? Yeah, I

Kara Goldin 15:00
couldn’t agree more. So, so when did you make the decision to launch a second store, and what was the process that you went through and kind of deciding that, were there consumers who were asking you to go into a certain location, or, you know what, what was kind of the thinking behind it, for sure.

Elisa Marshall 15:20
So we sought out with the concept being a grab and go. Because in our minds, New York was just, you know, a city, go, go, go. Like we had maybe, like 1520, seats in the back, a lot of people with laptops. It was, you know, really focused even our build out and how we designed the space was focused on to go, because that was, you know, what our mentality was in New York, people don’t stop to eat lunch or stop to drink a coffee. But what was interesting that we quickly realized is we created an environment where people wanted to stay. No one wanted to leave. So we also found that our space was a little bit too small, and we had tons of events opportunities and inquiries coming in for baby showers, for bridal showers, for birthday parties. We had about 20 seats in our back, and I kept losing them because everything was like 30 or more. So there were big groups wanting to come in, from an event standpoint, and then from a customer standpoint, on a daily basis, we had lineups out the door of people wanting to grab seats in the back because we didn’t have enough seating. And, you know, we were very fortunate that we did have some great press opportunities come up. We were named the best cookie in New York City. And, you know, we we were, you know, highly trafficked. A lot of people were coming to check us out, also being something new and unique that we kind of thought very quickly we need a bigger space. Like we screwed up. This isn’t a to go concept people want to stay brunch was crazy, like we had lineups down the block for people wanting one of these small little bistro tables to dine in with us. So we lived in Tribeca at the time and on the route, on our walk to work every single morning, we love Tribeca. We love the neighborhood. I thought the brand was very conducive for a maman, and we passed this wine bar. Constantly, beautiful space, grape bones, tin ceilings, gorgeous vintage floors, and we constantly passed it. It was very quiet. We went a few nights for dinner, and we’re like, wow, this space is, you know, so beautiful, really high ceilings. And then we literally walked by one day and saw an agent putting the sign up in the window just as we were speaking about expanding. So it was very serendipitous. And we, like, ran right up. And we’re like, tell us a little bit more about your space. And it was kind of the perfect formula that we could have the event space. We could have, you know, grab and go counter in the front. We could it was long and skinny. We could create a natural division where we could kind of have events in the back and, you know, a formal cafe in the front. So it was a it was very much meant to be. And we knew we were really onto something, with the traction that we had from our first one, that it made more sense to kind of expand and have more of a sit down concept.

Kara Goldin 18:10
So you mentioned this a couple times, but you’ve expanded into being a lifestyle brand. So when you think about like that, as getting your consumer to really understand what that means, because obviously you’ve got a lot of fans who love a lot more than your nutty chocolate chip cookies. But how do you think about that? And like, what types of products? And tell me sort of about that whole rollout as well. And I’m still trying to

Elisa Marshall 18:43
figure that out, to be honest. And I think when, you know, when we sought out and created the brand, I knew I always wanted to build something that was more than just brick and mortar restaurant. So I made sure that, you know, with the branding, with everything we did, it had legs to grow more. It had a lot of retail, background, fashion, background, you know, everything from entertaining. So I really wanted to make sure that, you know, in creating something, I wasn’t stifled into a little hole just to do a restaurant. And it could grow bigger like my my mind often does so when we when, when we first kind of really got the the inkling that customers were kind of like buying into this more. It was funny. It was actually at our Soho location, and I had one of my employees come to me and said, I need a new apron and hat. And I said, How come? And they said, a customer just bought it off my back. And I said, it’s mine. I can’t sell it. And they said, No, I love the logo, I love the name. It’s a gift for my mom. I have to have it. He’s like, I hope you don’t mind I sold it. I’m like, No, absolutely not. And so it started organically, and me selling like, the staff uniforms, which are the maman aprons and the hats. And then we started putting it on mugs. People started asking to buy our cups. Um, so our plates? Um. As well. We use all vintage blue and white mismatched China within our space. Um, actually, people started stealing them first, and then I was like, Okay, I’m gonna start selling these. So hopefully it’ll stop you from from stealing my nice things. So that’s really kind of how it naturally transpired, and people just wanting to, like, take a piece of these items home, especially in a city like New York, where there’s so much opportunity, you know, so much tourism. People, you know, love coming and taking momentos of where they were and where they spend time. So I’m really in a position right now to be transparent, where I’m kind of toying with different things that people want, and I’m throwing a bunch of stuff out there to see what sticks we have, everything from fun branded, co branded bracelets to table top. We’re selling our dishes. I have bibs with Lalo that are all over in our maman prints. Just launched a little capsule collection of a baby wear collection. We’re doing some awesome tabletop linens for the holidays. So, you know, I’m kind of at a point in the business where we have the brick and mortar we have the restaurant. Now I’m having fun just kind of throwing things out there and seeing what the customers want. Am I going to go into CPG and do like cookie mixes, which is always, you know, a thought and a vision of mine. We do have our cookbook, so maybe doing something along those lines of bakeware would be fun tie into it. You know, do I stay in the baby business? Do we go into tabletop so we’re really playing around right now. We have a broad range of lifestyle items, and I’m trying to see, you know, what our customers want, or what I can really hone in on and focus with.

Kara Goldin 21:47
I love how you talk about listening to the consumer, because whether you’re a restaurant or you’re a, you know, CPG brand, or, you know, even a B to B play, you just you do really need to listen to the consumer, and you need to guide the consumer as well. I mean, you launched your cookbook, which is delightful. It’s so good, super, super, great. And what are some of the biggest risks you think you’ve taken with maman that you were like, Okay, I’m pretty sure this is gonna work, but you know, we just have to try and see, and maybe you pulled back on something along the way too. But I’m so curious, like, what you would how you would answer that still doing

Elisa Marshall 22:36
risks every single day, because that’s just the life of an entrepreneur, but I think the biggest one that really stands up in my mind was like raising money and going from mom and pop shop and bootstrapping and Ben and myself, you know, self funding all of our companies, all of our locations. Ultimately, we got to about six in New York City, and then we were approached by investors in private equity firms, and it was either, you know, do we go big and do we scale this, or do we stay small? And for myself, it was a very difficult decision, because there is so much soul that goes and still, to this day, there’s still so much soul that goes into each location. And to me there, you know, even we’ve had so many people approach us for franchise, but we’re not a cookie cutter model. And I almost, you know, I’d love to get there in the books, but I would love to never have it feel that way. And I cringe when people think of us as a chain, because I wanted to be a cozy point neighborhood coffee shop and cafe. So I think the biggest risk we took was growing and expanding and expanding into other markets and bringing in partners who, now, you know, have a say in what we do from, you know, a financial standpoint, from an opening standpoint, you know, we’re very fortunate that they, you know, still give us majority creative control and are not micromanaging our day to day or the brand and our vision. And we’ve been very fortunate, they’ve supported us where we’ve needed support to grow. But I think the biggest risk is going from something that’s comfortable and tiny and cozy to now, which next week will be 38 locations. Wow, it’s a great, yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s Go big or go home kind of thing. And it was right before covid that we actually ended up raising money. And after that, it was just kind of very quick, rapid expansion. So it’s been, you know, great to see the brand grow. And I think the biggest challenge is with with every location, is, how do we keep that warmth, how do we still make it feel like, you know, like the first one,

Kara Goldin 24:53
yeah, no, it’s, it’s so true, especially when you bring in investors too. It’s, it’s. It’s, they’re looking at different things, and it’s, it’s a it’s challenging, for sure, so, but I think so far, you guys have done an incredible job maintaining the quality and the feel. And it’s, it hasn’t dramatically changed. And in my view, as far as I can see from a consumer. So when you think about, like, the hero products within your like, what are the ones that you always seem to run out of, or you sell the most of? So

Elisa Marshall 25:31
our nutty chocolate chip cookie so that is one that actually made it on one of Oprah’s Favorite Things lists. Again, another amazing opportunity of of opening a shop in New York City is, you know, the editor of a magazine walks in and tries the cookies and snowballs into you being on her favorite things list. So that one is kind of our claim to fame. It’s a really awesome cookie, dark chocolate, macadamia nuts, walnuts, almonds, nice contrast of salty and sweet, crunchy and mushy on the inside, and then it’s got that nice texture contrast as well. In addition to that, I would say we have a lot of fun in our kitchen. Our head pastry chef, John Louie, is so talented, and I think what he really brings to the table, which makes us unique from a lot of other like French bakeries, is we like to play with American taste palettes, but using French techniques. So we’ll kind of like merge the two and take, you know, our Oreo cookie, for example, which is, you know, a classic, delicious cookie known in the US. But he’ll do, you know, a white chocolate ganache on the inside and a salted chocolate cookie on the outside. You can even take a flavor profile, like our pumpkin spice lattes, again, something that, like, you know, the American culture loves, but how do we do this? Using, you know, French technique, proper ingredients, and they’re in the back with cans of pumpkin, boiling it down, adding syrup, adding sugar, creating homemade syrup. So, you know, a lot of our standout products come from like the love and the ingredients that we put behind it. And then our Tish is our one other dish that always sell out. I think it’s a great, you know, high source of protein for breakfast, for lunch, for afternoon, pick me up people, even grab them and take them for dinner. Can be eaten cold, room temperature, warm. We always have a variety of seasonal flavors. So we play with a lot of different seasonal vegetables and flavor profiles. For that one, my personal favorite is some of our bowls. We have a great like Farrah bowl that I love, that has a variety of, you know, avocado roasted vegetables, tomatoes. We do an awesome chocolate hot sauce. So I think a lot of people see us, you know, more savor or sorry, more sweet bakery and coffee shop. But we have an incredible savory program too, with delicious sandwiches, salads, soups and even even cocktails and wine and beer in most locations as well. So really encompassing, kind of like a full brunch menu. So

Kara Goldin 28:14
you just went into Miami and which totally makes sense, a lot of your consumers during the pandemic, ended up moving down to Miami too. So they’re also familiar with the brand. But how do you have bring that consistency? Because I would imagine, as you start to move, you know, outside of maybe one one cafe, but maybe it’s, it’s a couple of more, like there’s this consistency that is so important. And how do you make sure that you achieve that like and you know you can’t be everywhere, right? So it’s a very different world than just having one restaurant, absolutely,

Elisa Marshall 28:56
and it took us about five locations to figure this out. And you know, if I give you our cookie recipe today, and I have the cookie recipe, and we both follow the exact same recipe, the cookies you make and the cookies I make are not going to taste the same. And that was a problem we were running into in New York, when a customer would go to our Nomad location and try our cookie, and a customer would go to our Soho location and try a cookie. It’s the same recipe, but, you know, there’s always little variations. So in order to save on, say, like save in in terms of consistency and quality as well, we opted to go to our Commissary Kitchen model. So that was something that we started in New York and have developed now here in all of our markets, and for us, from a from a business standpoint, you know, financially, it makes much more sense, because we’re able to invest heavily into one amazing dream kitchen. We invest into incredible pastry chefs. Because if you’re making 36 cookies. Or 200 cookies. It’s the same amount of effort that’s going into it. And how our model primarily works is all of our most of our bakery items are produced in the Commissary Kitchen, but then they’re finished in the actual location. So for example, all of our cookie dough is made and rolled into balls and then sent off to all of the stores every morning. So we have drivers who do routes to all of the different locations within the kind of like mapping of their commissary, bring them the raw cookie dough, and then they bake on site. So that way we have consistency. So if you go to, you know, Upper East Side and Soho, you’re going to be having the same cookie. You still have the freshness, because they’re able to bake on site. We’re not actually sending the finished products for us from a business standpoint, you know, we’re not investing in the dough sheeters and all the crazy equipment that’s required to make a lot of these specialty pastries and croissants. And, you know, the talent as well the team. So it’s, you know, we kind of go heavily into one location and create, really, you know, spoken wheel concept. Where exactly here in Miami, we have Wynwood. We built out a beautiful dream kitchen in Wynwood and then supporting it, you know, we’re in West Palm we’re in Coral Gables. We’re in Sunset harbor and and four more to come, where it’s all being centralized through the one kitchen.

Kara Goldin 31:25
That’s terrific. Well, I’m excited to visit you and and the those locations down in Florida, for sure. So I’m so excited that they’re there. So when you think about you know where this brand goes, you’re obviously opening stores. You’re going from 33 to 38 pretty quickly. I keep saying stores, but I mean cafes, but I guess there are stores.

Elisa Marshall 31:50
I call them the same thing, yeah.

Kara Goldin 31:53
So when you when you think about the brand and what you aspire to be when you grow up, you know, what? What is that? Where do you think it goes?

Elisa Marshall 32:07
That’s an amazing question. Started as wanting to be a Spice Girl has taken a very different turn, you know? And it’s funny, because if you were to ask me a year ago if I would be here in Miami right now, I would never say that. So I I am adverse to answering those where do you see yourself in five year questions? I’m a huge dreamer, but I’m also so opportunistic. And I didn’t think Miami would be a next option for us from an extension standpoint, so you know, and I didn’t think we would ever have more than one store, either. So it’s been so amazing for us to see how our life has evolved and all of these opportunities that have come our way. So, you know, very hard to see, I think, definitely for future, within the next few years, we really want to open in other markets. We are looking for other markets that are conducive to our commissary model. So, you know, Miami is a perfect example, because, you know, it’s a large enough, dense enough city that we could open, you know, two locations within 10 minutes from one another, but it still feels like they’re not competing with each other, and they’re in completely different markets. So we’re looking at Dallas, Texas is actually a next market that we’re, we’re really interested in and going into, and, you know, creating kind of a handful of cafes there. But then, for myself, is, is really nailing down what customers want from a brand perspective. I’d love to get more into tabletop. I’d love to get more into into merch. And, you know, again, as mentioned before, it’s always a dream to have kind of like a CPG line, and I want to see more maman products in the homes of people. And it’s just kind of figuring out and what realm that would be in and what direction that could go. So it’s exciting because we have so many opportunities. I

Kara Goldin 34:03
love that word for you opportunistic, because I think that that is so core to I mean, there’s many words that are core to entrepreneurs and founders, but I think that having you know that mindset of being opportunistic is such a clear thread. I, as I mentioned to you before I started this podcast, I guess like eight years ago now. And whenever I’m interviewing founders in all industries, it’s like, you know, you’ve got to keep looking, keep searching, keep you know, absolutely maintain your company, your own company, but always be looking for what else, what else. And I think that that, that that is so true for you. So last question, looking back, what’s the one thing that you wish that you knew before starting maman? Maybe it’s even about yourself or the brand, like, what’s the one thing that you knew? Yeah. Um, or wish you knew I should say,

Elisa Marshall 35:01
I think, leading into the last question, I was wedding planning, I was such a planner. I always knew exactly what I wanted to do, and saw my five year plan. I’m going to get married at this age, have my kids, I’m going to have my restaurant. And I think I I wish I wasn’t so hard on myself, or took that so seriously, and kind of went with the flow, because so many amazing things have happened, and it doesn’t always go to plan, and that’s not necessarily a negative thing. And life throws at you what you need and when you need it, and you roll with the punches during that time. So I wish I knew to take things less seriously, to be more open to opportunities which I have, which I learned now. And, you know, I think really it’s just having, not having that like such set in stone mindset, especially as an entrepreneur, because you never know where things are gonna take you, where your business is gonna take you, it could all fail and crumble and shut down tomorrow. So not living your life on such regimented plans and saying yes more and having more fun and taking more opportunities. So

Kara Goldin 36:15
so true. Well. Elisa Marshall, co founder of maman, thank you so much for joining us, and we’ll have all the info in the show notes, including that you can get many of the maman items that we talked about but didn’t talk about online at their on their website, but we’ll have all that info. But thank you so much.

Elisa Marshall 36:37
Thank you so good chatting with you. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 36:39
you too. 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 goodbye for now you.