Coco Quill: Founder & CEO of Whiskey & Woof

Episode 607

In this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we're joined by the incredibly creative and inspiring Coco Quill, Founder & CEO of Whiskey & Woof Candle Atelier. Coco's journey is anything but ordinary, starting from her impressive marketing career with global brands like Yahoo Music, MTV Networks, Disney, and Sony Music. She eventually transitioned into the world of entrepreneurship, launching Whiskey & Woof in 2019—a brand that perfectly marries her love for dogs, whiskey, and unique scents.
Whiskey & Woof has rapidly grown into a beloved brand known for its one-of-a-kind scents inspired by Coco's French Bulldog, Elle, and the joy of good company. Coco shares how her passion for storytelling through scent has led to collaborations with notable names like Kiehls and Sketcher’s concept store, and how she's built a brand that's more than just candles. Tune in to hear Coco's fascinating story, learn about the inspiration behind Whiskey & Woof, and explore her journey in creating a brand that captures the essence of friendship, companionship, and creativity. This conversation is full of insights into brand building, the power of scent storytelling, and the challenges and joys of entrepreneurship. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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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 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. Super, super excited to have our next guest here today. We have Coco Quill, who is the founder and CEO of Whiskey and Woof. And if you are not sure what Whiskey and Woof is, boy are you going to be so excited to learn all about this company. It’s a candle company, candle altiere, but Coco has a fascinating journey, starting with her extensive marketing career with global brands like Yahoo music, MTV Networks, Disney, Sony, and then she decided to create this incredible, very impressive, very wonderful candle company that was founded in 2019 I was telling her that I am still burning it. I blew it out a couple days ago, and then started again this morning, and it burns for a long time. It smells so good, and is good for the environment too. We’ll get more into that, but a lot of her inspiration was from her French Bulldog. We chatted a little bit about that right before we hit record as well. So I cannot even wait to dive into this with Coco and explore the world of sense and design. So welcome Coco.

Coco Quill 1:59
Thank you so much for having me

Kara Goldin 2:01
absolutely. So let’s talk about what the inspiration was. So your love of pets, but French bulldogs in particular. But let’s talk about how your marketing background and how you know the love of pets and then all of a sudden, candles. So talk to me how that all came together to become the company that it is. Yeah. So

Coco Quill 2:23
my French Bulldog, elle, had a micro influencer account on Instagram. So she was constantly getting things that were sent to her beautiful items. I knew a lot of fashion artisans in London. We were living in London for a long time, who would send her just incredibly bespoke, gorgeous items. I would look down at her and I’m like, you’re wearing 500 pounds worth of clothing. I’ve got on 100 let me up. You’re you know, she would upgrade me, basically. And her first ad was for diesel. So from there it was, like, more fashion stuff, like barber and we wound up in a lulu Guinness ad as well. I mean, we had a lot of fun with it. I called her like my little champagne Hunter. And so we would come, and we would visit New York come home. And one time, I had our New York Frenchie crew meet us at the Kings County distillery, because I knew they were dog friendly. And I started to think, Oh, wow. I didn’t realize so many of my other dog mom friends were into whiskey the same way I was. This is something that’s not really explored, and a lot of times in the dog world, people condescend to you. There’s all this dog, 101 basicness. But as I said, elle was a champagne Hunter, so her taste level, pulling me into art galleries, Vogue house in London, stuff like that, led to different opportunities. You know, she was in a lot of media. She represented the American Kennel Club at crufs. She was raised a lot of charity for different sort of charities, like the Mayhew animal home. And I said, huh, how can I change this into and make this into something more? And people were consistently asking, when is l going to come out with a fashion line? But I felt that I wasn’t necessarily qualified to do that. However, I was a member of the British bourbon society, and so when I moved back to Brooklyn with her, I thought, wow, how can I take these two passions and combine them together? And also, elle was getting older, I was doing freelance work at different agencies, and I wanted to just have some more consistent time with her at home, which we all in 2020. Got didn’t we? So essentially, I started just as a hobby, mixing candles. Blend. My own sense, sort of getting my perspective on that. And then it came to me that was something I really wanted to do, and I could combine my passion for dogs and whiskey through scent. So that’s how it started. I

Kara Goldin 5:17
love it, and so Whiskey and Woof. How did you end up really honing in and deciding this is the name that we’re going to go out with?

Coco Quill 5:25
Well, I love that you asked this question because Alliteration is important as well. It’s catchy. People, some people walk up and they get it right away. Other people, I’ll be doing an event or out, and they’ll say, I don’t really get this. Does it smell like alcoholics and wet dogs? And I think that feedback is also incredibly important for me to say, How am I explaining? How am I communicating this in a clear way? And I don’t really get phased by those things, because I worked at NBC Universal on a reality SVOD called Hey you, and the face of that was the Kardashians. So people would write the most vitriolic messages in response to these ads online. I was like, I would not bother. But it taught me a lot about patience. And I won an internal reward award, sorry for addressing those people. And I think that also it gave me the skill set to say, let me take a step back. This is not personal. This is feedback. What can you learn from this? So the whiskey part of it is inspired by friendship. You know, they are whiskey inspired scents. All of those scents are centered around sharing your space, sharing conversations, luxury in a in a great room, where you don’t want to leave the other person’s side, you’re like very much like we are a collective and even if another person is not in that room and the wolf side of it, and I know a lot of people giggle about this. How can you make do they smell like Cheetos? There’s all these bad associations with dogs as far as scent, and I wanted to change that, because not everybody has a dog 101, you know, a modern dog owner wants to travel there. They probably have a dog passport. They’ve probably been to Europe, or they’ve gotten on a plane, at least, even if it’s a two hour flight with their dogs with them, and that’s, you know, they’re a member of the family. So I kind of used my writing, my marketing background, and said, How can you make these sense, the cinematic representation of a dog’s personality.

Kara Goldin 7:43
I love that. So

Coco Quill 7:44
that’s where my marketing background and my writing background came in, because and I went back to the rule, the Kis rule, the keep it simple, stupid rule, which is really about don’t overthink it. What are these two things? You’re making whiskey sense. You’re making dog sense. What would fit the w and w? And I played around a lot, but then the alliteration of that was so wonderful. Although I would advise anybody who’s starting a brand to maybe not have an alcohol in their brand name. It’s not, you know, there are a lot of rules about that that come up, but it’s fine. I’m really happy with the brand name. I love it. At one point I did want to change it. I have a scent called wasted inheritance. And I thought I just, it’s just a whimsical thing that I love. And when that came to me, I thought I could change my brand name, but I was already trademarked, so I’m not going to change the brand name. So

Kara Goldin 8:45
great. So you mentioned one of your scents. You’re known for some of your very unique scents, but how many scents Did you launch with initially? And can you sort of share some of those scents that you decided to go out with.

Coco Quill 9:04
Yeah. So initially the first scent, there were four of candles, and one was a personal fragrance. And the first four, there were two whiskeys and two wolves. So the first one, the whiskey one, took me over six months to develop. I like really layered scents. There are people who you can go out and you can make a basic candle, you can blend two fragrances together, stick a label on it. Great. People will enjoy that. But I wanted things that would make your head turn, that someone would come into your space and be like, Wow, what’s going on. So I experimented and experimented. I tried now at least five different types of waxes. I wanted strong, bold scents that didn’t peter out halfway through the candle, and that has to do with like wax quality. How much fragrance can you. Of each different type of wax can hold a different percentage of fragrance. So for me, I was like, it’s not necessarily about just blending two things. If I’m going to blend, I’m going to go for it, and I’m going to see what is something that I want to be pervasive. You know, coffee is something is a scent that I use that is very overpowering. So when I’m putting it into my formulas, I will go until it hits my nose, and then that’s enough for an entire batch of candles. So the first four were sophisticate, which is my signature bourbon. I’m still doing that L, because l was my French Bulldog. That’s about when you’re passing rose bushes, you’re about to hit the beach, you’re following paw prints in the sand to a piece of driftwood as the ocean waves lap gently next to you. So that’s el scent, because she loved flowers. And then there was Duchess, which I think about everything. So it was number six Duchess, and at the time, Prince Harry was number six in line through the throne. And I had, we had lived in London, and of course, they had gotten married. And she was Meghan Markle lifestyle star. Website was called the TIG It was named after her favorite Italian wine, tienello. So so I made sort of a light regal scent, number six Duchess, and that one I no longer sell because the manufacturer stopped making. I have a lot of different vendors, and that vendor stopped making the wine that I was using, and I was, I’m very particular about stuff, and there are other sense to explore. And then the fourth one was called confidant. And that’s really about, you know your friend. You may not have seen this person in a long time, but as soon as you see them, it’s a vault of secrets between you. You will tell them anything you know you can trust them. And it’s the same thing. And you maybe you’re you’re having dinner or drinks, and it’s really that scent that hugs the two of you together. So that’s called number four confidant. And my friend who inspired that is actually one of the executive producers of the Netflix show the circle. Ah, yes, that scent is inspired by Chet Fenster, another great name. So, of course, he inspired a candle. That’s

Kara Goldin 12:25
That’s incredible. I hear Keanu Reeves has some sort of role, I guess, in in as you think about it, the candles and the development at least. Can you share a little bit about that,

Coco Quill 12:40
yes, well, so I had this one scent that started as a bespoke scent, and it’s been a memorial candle. It was the wedding candles for a rock star. It’s been all sorts of machinations. But somebody was talking to me, and they were like, and so where is your John Wick scent? And I said, Yes, John Wick, the Patriot saint of dogs, but I didn’t want to name it that, because, you know, I don’t want Warner Brothers coming after me for IPs. So essentially, you know what I’m talking about. So, so the Keanu sent once I realized I it’s sort of crystallized. Oh no, actually, I would have more room to play if I wind up developing the scent more towards being piano, because piano is a dog person. And then I thought about it, so piano had like, he smokes tobacco. Sorry, he does. He says it’s a filthy habit. So this scent was tobacco. It’s got the fresh coffee because John Wick needs adrenaline, and then it has sweet anise because he played Neo and that helps with depression. And then it’s rounded out with saffron and bergamot through all of his travels. And for me, I think piano also represent I feel represented by him because he’s mixed race Asian, and so am I. So I love feeling like connections on so many levels, and then it’s really a dedication to kind of his whole, his personality, and these significant roles that he has played that have really, you know, been a showcase in many ways, for dogs. I don’t know if anybody else would really say that about his career, but he is in a band called Dog Star.

Kara Goldin 14:26
Yes, yes, he is. That’s That’s terrific. So you have been busy growing this business, but also you’ve been very successful at collaborating with other brands like teals and Sketchers. Can you talk about partnerships? And sort of the how you see partnerships? I mean, you came from a world of where partnerships was so key, I would imagine, between Disney and Yahoo and Sony, and now you brought that into your startup, but not. A lot of people, I guess, think that they can go and do this when they’re really focusing on getting their brand off the ground. But I think you know, what you’ve done has really shown people that they can, you can at every stage, and sometimes, you know, you borrow equity from other brands, as I always think about it in order to scale what you’re doing. But I’d love to hear your perspective on that. I

Coco Quill 15:26
think collaboration is part of life in general, and that is how my brain works. I am always looking to bring two things together that fit together. So partnerships for me that work. I mean, through this, I was able to not only meet one of my shoe designing heroes, John flu vague, I went to a party for an anniversary party, and they they had a store in my very close to our home, and I was able to collaborate with them and do some pop ups there and stuff. And it just felt like I felt understood, and they understood my brand. I think that’s extremely important. You want to look for people who have a common reality, and maybe not necessarily an esthetic match, but it’s like a lifestyle match. So for instance, there’s a women’s brand called Grayson that I did a collaboration with, and then they asked me, Hey, do you want to be in our influencer holiday box? And I was like, absolutely, that just makes sense. You know, it was. It’s like, you see these things, and they seem very, very obvious. I mean, keels has been wonderful to me. They did my launch party. They were extremely supportive. We would go in there all the time, on a regular basis, actually talking to them about doing something else again. And they introduced me to an agency owner who, once in a while, she reached out, reaches out to me. The reason they introduced me is because she was highlighting small business in a New York gift pack from the larger brand that she was representing. And the original thing did not wind up working out. But then she called me when Pernell Ricard, the alcohol company, wanted a bespoke candle VIP gift. So I wound up doing that for royal salute, and each one was numbered. I mean, every part of this was absolutely signature for them. So it was a matchup. It was a natural matchup where they were taking an existing product that I had, but we were able to, with my scent skill at that point, to make it fit their brand like I I thought about all the notes that they had, and, you know, just really my understanding of branding helped so much because I gave them a full deck to present to the to the internal people who said yes, and they were like, no one comes with this kind of thing. So I think knowing and going beyond and having that collaboration, even if you are an influencer and you’re trying to launch your brand, you have to know where’s my target demographic. It cannot be everyone. You have to hone in. You’re not Disney on day one, you know, you have to say, This is my target audience. Build out some profiles and then find out where they are in life, and what other brands might appeal to them that you already have a natural affinity to and work with them.

Kara Goldin 18:33
So you’ve worked for some incredible brands. You also in your other business in in marketing, you’re helping people build out their brands, but now you’ve got your brand right that you’re founding and scaling what’s been some of the biggest challenges that you now see sitting in your seat that maybe you couldn’t see when you were helping to support other people’s initiatives,

Coco Quill 19:04
I think the biggest thing is to remember your budget as a startup is not the same as you might get working at Sony or NBC or Amazon, where you are going into something and you might be thinking, oh, a trade show is the right thing to do. This is how we do it. This is how we break projects. You know, spend 15 to $20,000 and you’ll get all of these orders. Things are not the same. And you and my suggestion to anybody that’s starting out, whether it’s a trade show or it’s a an ongoing pop up or market situation where you’re paying fees up front, and sometimes those can be extremely expensive, and all the fees for everything have gone up since the lockdown. So something that might have been $300 is now $600 and you have to make that money back before you see the profit, and you have to be able to stick to your budget. So. I do know several people that went to New York now, it was like a 10, $15,000 booth, and they got one order because they just didn’t put as much effort into it. They thought, oh, I came from a huge corporation. This is just what we do. But you’re not necessarily sticking to your values, representing your brand, building it out at the same level, or continuously networking. You have to continuously network. And I think that’s where a lot of small business owners are like, No, it’s okay. I don’t want to do that, but you have to continue, because 90% of things that you throw at the wall are going to fail. And there’s a lot of people that will blow their budget and say that didn’t work, so I’m going to give up. That was a hurdle that I couldn’t and I think one of the biggest blockers towards scaling is every time I go to a manufacturer, they want me to make my product less they want to use materials that are not as high quality. And so part of me is like, well, maybe this can stay at the scale. Maybe I don’t. Maybe scaling for me is different than it would be at a company like Disney, and just because I worked for Disney doesn’t mean that I know how to build something from scratch, but I also am lucky that I had that built in micro influencer community. I didn’t want to totally depend on them and bring them over to my brand, because I did think, well, what if Elle passes away? I don’t want people to think I’m just monetizing her. And, you know, people have really stuck with me through stuff. So I think building the foundation, building the core community and participating is a really key foundation to keeping your audience growing with you, and ignoring that audience leaving comments online unanswered. That’s low hanging fruit. Engage with it. Otherwise you know you’re going to see how detrimental that can actually be towards your brand.

Kara Goldin 22:05
So you’ve worked closely on digital marketing campaigns and help clients over the years, and then you launched your own brand. What role has digital marketing played and and really growing your brand? How have you gotten the word out? Also about, you know that you were putting up a sign and saying, you know, I’m open. So what do you do next?

Coco Quill 22:32
What do you do next? I think that’s such an interesting thing. So for me, I did have that micro influencer community, and I also have a big network, because I’ve worked at a lot of global companies. So I started telling people that I was doing this stuff online, and really, I’m a digital native so that’s my prime focus. When I do advertising, it’s online. That’s where people are, and the in stuff, the brand awareness that you get at when you’re doing a pop up at, say, a place like keels that is supporting local businesses that make sense. Obviously they’re not, you know, pick everyone, but when you get those partnerships with people, it places you, if you’re careful about it, in before the demographic that you actually want, and some things you’re going to try and you have to pivot, because that was not it. That was not a good thing. Like I did a pop up for a well known furniture brand. I’m not going to say their name, because I don’t want to put them down. But that particular location in Hoboken was really just couples buying furniture. They were not looking at anything else, they would come in with a plan, we’re buying that couch, we’re buying that bed, you know, we’re we’re getting this dining room table. They did not want to shop around. They were very goal oriented. And I just said, This is great. I never lose my money doing those things. But I think you go, Okay, this is maybe not my demographic. They don’t align the way I thought they aligned. So next time, instead, I’ll put more effort, maybe I’ll go back to this other collaborator. And I think that’s the thing is, like you first build up a strong base where you are, and then it comes out. And I was working on a sustainable brand for watch brand for bomb Mercier, the watch company, and they very much were about just doing for a very long time, events in France and in New York. They try to expand too early, at the agency’s behest, to California, and blew a lot of their money. They’re not with that agency anymore, but it was like, you know, it’s the correction of, okay, just like in music, this song is going really well in Germany. So we’re going to concentrate on Germany for now, because that’s where you’re strongest. And there’s so many examples of that. Pink was one of those artists, like, she’s not beyond. Say Beyonce is over here. You’re doing well in Germany, you focus there first, and that’s why Germany is like, her gets as much say on her calendar as the United States.

Kara Goldin 25:10
So interesting when they’re doing the planning, yeah,

Coco Quill 25:13
it’s like, it’s like, you know, you have to use data, and you have to tell the data will tell you where you’re going, because we have instincts, but you have to look at the facts that are there in front of you, and it sometimes it will guide you in a direction you didn’t know. You look at the websites like, what’s the public asking? And you have to do SEO searches. And those are kind of constant reminders, so I put those, those days on my calendar to really be like, shut everything out, do the deep dive back into the audience. Where are we now? Look at the data.

Kara Goldin 25:50
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s really, really critical. So I always talk about fan mail, that fan mail is obviously nice to get for any founder and brand, but also kind of the the fuel on those really tough days when maybe your candle manufacturer ran out of Wix or, you know, like something happened, where you’re there’s going to be a major problem, and then you get this fan mail where people are, you know, you just can’t make up the stories, right? They’re, they’re just, they’re wild and passionate and and, you know, they think you’re the best thing in the whole world because you’ve created something. Does any of those come to mind? Any examples that you think of that you can share with us.

Coco Quill 26:42
Well, when I started making my room spray, it’s made with organic witch hazel, so it’s skin safe. A lot of people actually use it on their body as well. So I was showing a friend at Dumbo house, and she’s like, can I spray it? And I was like, Okay, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. You know, there’s other people around. But the event we are at hadn’t started, and this woman immediately smelled it as she was walking by, and she was like, what is that? What are you doing? What are you stiffing? I need that. What is that? And so I told her, and it was called Summer of sex that was inspired by when we they said, Oh, everybody’s gonna be cool and crazy because lockdowns are over, but most people were like, oh, everybody’s still feral. Get away from me. So it was really the idea that, you know, we’re going back to the 1920s Roaring 20s, kind of thing, anyway. So this woman bought it. And it’s really about like, your crush gets out of the shower. They smell so good. You’re like, come here. I have to get you dirty again. And she smelled this scent, not knowing any of the backstory, when what is your website on her mobile phone, she bought it immediately. Two days later, she lived in Brooklyn. She was very close, so her package got there very quickly. So two days later, I took out Elle. We went on a long walk. I did not take my phone with me. I just wanted to enjoy her. And you know, the night I come back home and there’s all these, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, sales. And I said, What is this? And this is what I also love about digital marketing. There is always a cause and effect that you can trace through the path. And so when people say influencer marketing doesn’t work, they’re wrong. It’s just the wrong influencer. So it turns out this woman hosts a very big sex podcast, and she posted she wasn’t paid. She just bought it from me, and she burned that, she bought a candle, and she bought the room spray, and she put it up in her stories. That was like, you know, a lot of sales in two hours, just in the first two hours. And she didn’t ask. She’s never asked me for anything. And I just recently gave her a shout out. And I was like, Oh, I remember when this it’s the anniversary of this scent launching. And she, I was like, shout out to Mandy. And she returned that. And I heard ching ching ching ching like the sound of the sales. And I was like, wow. So that was a surprising one that shows you the direct impact. But I’ve had others that are really like, funny that have to do with scent. That’s like, Oh, I’m so glad I ordered this from you, because my son’s bathroom always smells like pee, and now it doesn’t okay. You know, a lot of people who have dogs are like, Ah, this is like, dog fart repellent, you know, spray it and the scent is gone. And I even heard last night, did you fart in my room? And then it was followed by, oh, God, I have to get Coco’s room spray where it’s I love it. There’s stuff like that that happens all the time. My optometrist sent me, actually text messaged me the other day, and he said, you know, my daughter, my two. Year old threw up in the back seat of my BMW, and I looked in the front seat, and I was like, Oh, thank God, I had the room spray and he could spray it. He’s like, I just couldn’t get that odor out without it. So I do get funny stories like that a lot. I think scent is a really personal thing, and everybody you know, I often say to people, I wish you good smells only. And we all know that’s not the case all the time. So yeah, I have I do love when people say something surprising to me, or they message me and they they’re like, I’m looking to feel this type of way can you help me? And it’s just, like, very comforting to feel like, wow. After being a digital girl, my whole career, I’m making a physical product that people take into their home that makes them feel better. I mean, that’s a gift.

Kara Goldin 30:56
I love it, and you’re smiling and having so much fun with it. And which is laughing, which everybody needs a dose of that. So Coco Quill, founder and CEO of Whiskey and Woof. Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll have all the info in the show notes. But if you have not purchased a Whiskey and Woof, candle, candle set, room spray, all of it, you must go on to the site. They’re really, really terrific. And thank you again, Coco for joining us.

Coco Quill 31:26
Thank you so much for having me.

Kara Goldin 31:28
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.

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