How to Grow in Retail Without Selling Out with Cat Lepetit

Courtney: (00:01) All  Hi, my name is Courtney and welcome to How They Scaled It, where scaling is done with both sides of the brain. On this show, we sit down with growth stage businesses and speak with founders and industry leaders from the e-commerce and SaaS sectors. We showcase their journeys, unpacking the pivotal moments, marketing strategies, and key decisions that shaped their success. Today, I’m excited to welcome Kat Lefetit. With over two decades of experience in the beauty and wellness industry, Kat has left her mark on some of the world’s most iconic brands, serving as a key leader at Unilever and driving strategy as the director of merchandising at Sephora. Now she’s channeling her expertise and creativity as the founder of Sundrunk, a beach and lifestyle brand that’s all about peace of mind and high quality products that are made to last. Sundrunk’s clean, eco-conscious products are as thoughtful as they are easy to use, perfectly embodying Kat’s passion for life, for living a life that’s both kind to people and the planet. Kat, it is such an honor to have you here today. Welcome to How They Scaled It.

Cat: (01:04) Thank you for having me, it’s such a pleasure. I can’t wait to discuss and chat.

Courtney: (01:07) Yes, yes. I want to start with kind of the spark behind Sun Drunk. Was there a personal experience or maybe a gap in the market that you saw that you’re  this is what I want to do.

Cat: (01:21) multiple sparks at the same time.  what I’m saying?  the storm just happened because  many particle were in my brain at the same time. First, I was, we were out of COVID. It was three years out and I was really wanting to create my own company, but I had no idea what. I was in the beauty industry for 20 plus years and I, it was not where I wanted to go. I wanted to be bigger than that. And then,

Cat: (01:49) And then one day, because we moved to Florida three years ago, one day after a long day at the sandbar, which is very specific to Florida. I never had sandbar before.  it’s  a bar of sand in the middle of the ocean. It’s  awesome because you come by boat and you just enjoy the day. And you stay that all day and you just,  drink with friends and enjoy the beautiful transparent water with the manatee coming and the stingray. And it’s just…

Courtney: (01:58) What is a sandbar?

Cat: (02:18) Florida is next level beach. I’m a beach bum, born and raised in south of France on the beach and then California for 12 years on the beach. I I know beach,  it’s anything, but Florida is next level. And then I came home that night and I just told my husband, I feel  drunk.  I love this feeling. It’s just an amazing feeling of being tired, the same symptoms of being drunk, but super tired and super happy at the same time.  your happiness tank is full.

Cat: (02:49) Just love that feeling. And then I woke up the day after and I just had a full download. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had the business plan in mind and I just checked the trademark. I was  if the trademark is open, it’s a sign that it’s for me. And I was  my God, I’ve actually marked it on the spot. And then why I expanded to the beach brand, because first of love the beach, but also as a mom of three boys, every time I go shop for…

Cat: (03:19) beach stuff, it’s always for surfer dudes or fishermen or old ladies. It’s  there’s nothing for me. I’m always   sounds good. will buy something for a teenage girl, surfer girl. I never felt  he was talking to me.  I thought,  I guess that’s my spot. It’s the person  me, a mom, a mom who wants to be a little edgy and not fall into the surfer or the fisherman category.

Cat: (03:47) or the old pineapples and flamingo thing. Not my thing.

Courtney: (03:46) I love that. I’ve never thought of  I think what I love about this idea is that I immediately know what you’re saying when you say sun drunk when you’re   I out in the sun all day and then I felt sun drunk.  that is such a unique experience where you’re just  relaxed.  you feel  good because you have  all of that  vitamin D is in your system. And  it sounds  you had  a sun hangover, which gave you the idea.

Cat: (04:11) Exactly, it’s exactly that. But with the happiness feeling attached to the moment.

Courtney: (04:16) just sun hangovers make you feel good and not  crap.

Cat: (04:21) And I know that you’re getting it. And most of my clients, when they read it, or they take it as drunk because they drank too much under the sun, or they get it. And they look at me and they’re  I love that feeling. And I’m  yes, you got it.

Courtney: (04:28) that’s really what the brand is trying to encapsulate is  that feeling of feeling  relaxed and good after spending the day in the sun, not necessarily drinking all day.

Cat: (04:45) Yes. No, not at all. That’s why I keep telling people there’s no alcohol involved in this feeling. It’s just the happiness of having, on the best day of your life with friends and family in a beautiful environment. And  Sundrunk is here to help you do that. Because I had  many pain points too when I go to the beach.  my body is  heavy because the towels are super thick and heavy and they dry.

Cat: (05:12) It makes the hours before they dry, I bring back the beach in my house.  it’s just, I had  many pain points. Skincare is toxic.  I’m going to address each pain point and make the perfect day at the beach.

Courtney: (05:23) and  you’ve had such an incredible career among pretty major brands  Guinalever and Sephora.  how did you bring those experiences in to shape how you built Sundrunk?

Cat: (05:27) Thank you.

Cat: (05:37) good question. And it’s going to be a very weird answer, but I, tried to stay away from everything I learned. I also want to create my own company to have, to start from scratch and has, have a beginner mindset. It was after 20 years of career in Unilever and LVMH and all those amazing, huge brands, multi, multi, multi million brands. And I had tons of budget, tons of people working for me and it was.

Courtney: (05:45) wow.

Cat: (06:05) It was always the same thing,  going from one run to another, it’s still always the same thing.  I wanted to start from scratch. I wanted to  start from zero, which that never happened in my whole career because I always been in big runs.   I try to erase what I learned and start from zero. And that was very humbling.

Courtney: (06:25) I going from huge budgets.

Cat: (06:31) I was zero now that I’m a little higher than the zero. Now I can use everything I know and I learned into my everyday life, how the PNLs and every line of the PNL, I know how to fill that out and what type of percent I should invest in marketing and this and all that I use for sure now. But at the beginning, there’s nothing that could help me.

Courtney: (06:52) I guess we need go from having major budgets and people working for you to having no budget and you’re the only one running the show. You kind of have to almost forget about it else it makes you too sad. you gotta just focus on what you’re doing.

Cat: (06:59) and it wasn’t emotional.

Cat: (07:05) Exactly.  how can I get to that million million dollars thing  from zero with my sons, which is even harder.

Courtney: (07:14) That’s  interesting.  I guess, but then as you’ve grown, you’ve started to  pull in some of that experience and say,  now we’re ready to  think about financials in this way.  that is good that you haven’t wasted that time in your career. It is helpful in some way.

Cat: (07:28) It’s very helpful now too that I outsource a lot of my work,  the agency for media. It serves me now. I know how to negotiate. I know what to ask for. know the ROI, the ROAs, all that. I know all that.  that’s much easier for me than my peer who are at the same level with their companies and never had that background. they have to learn more than I do, which is…

Courtney: (07:57) I think this is a challenge for a lot of founders is that they’re really good at making a product.  they’re experts at makeup or skincare or something  that, but they’re not business people.  that is running a business is  its own skill set. And  I feel  your experience has brought in that skill set for a lot of founders. It’s just, that’s another thing that you have to learn, which is  exhausting. It’s  hard.

Cat: (08:25) That is very true. And you have to be very perseverant. It’s a tough role to be an entrepreneur.

Courtney: (08:34) It is, it is. But there are also good things,  when you get your first customer, when you get your first big deal.  I’m sure that you had a lot of hurdles at the beginning, but what was it  to get your first customer?

Cat: (08:51) Well,  it took me a year to launch Sundrunk between all the products I have to create for it, the website and all that. And  I’d say to launch for the day of the French Revolution, July 14th, as a memento for me to remind myself that France was born on revolution and be different and all that. And my first customer were my neighbors. I did a big party, invited my whole neighborhood.

Cat: (09:19) and they were super supportive. They didn’t know anything about the brand. I tried to keep it under wraps because I was scared. I was scared about the reception. I was scared about people. know, everybody has an opinion. And  if you start asking, you have 10 different opinions and you’re  oh my God, what am I doing? Am I doing?  I decided not to say anything. And the day of the reveal, it was actually really well received. They loved the story. They loved the name. They loved everything. And that was really nice. I was  it’s a good start.

Cat: (09:48) It’s a good one.

Courtney: (09:48) a nice little safe, safe launch where,  everyone’s going to be a little bit supportive at least. But I love that. I love that you launched on the French Revolution Day. That’s very nice. And it’s also very good timing to launch in the summer with a product  Sundrunk.

Cat: (10:06) In July,  Holy, that’s perfect.

Courtney: (10:08) as you were getting everything to launch or even after you launched and you started kind of working through and starting to promote the brand, what kind of hurdles were you facing? What was  the biggest challenges that you had?

Cat: (10:22) many. It’s  every day you’re hit with something different.  The biggest hurdle,  that’s obvious, is when you launch a brand, you think people know about your brand. And you ended up, I was  a few days with zero sale on my website and I was  how come? There’s $320 million in this country. How come they don’t know about my brand? How come they didn’t hear about it?

Courtney: (10:26) I know.

Courtney: (10:44) Because you’ve been  focused on it,  all you’ve been thinking about for the last  year or  is sun drunk. you’re  how can other people not know about this?

Cat: (10:52) I know.

Cat: (10:58) Exactly. I thought the brand awareness will go faster and that was my biggest hurdle. was  man, how am I going to compete with the thousands of millions of brands out there? Now we’re talking. Now we need to invest.

Courtney: (11:12) how did you start to kind of build that brand awareness journey?

Cat: (11:21) just to, to go back in time, I launched Sundrunk in July, 2023. And we’re in early 2025. You remove the four months of hurricane disaster. I basically have only a year and a half of company under my wings.   how I decided to do it, first of all, I was not in a rush. I’m not here to make a multi-million deal and sell my company.

Cat: (11:48) I did it because I wanted to learn something new. wanted to have fun. I wanted to go after my passion. I wanted to learn.  many other reasons that make millions.  I decided to go slow and learn every aspect of it.  I decided to, I’m very grassroots and I’m a very client oriented person. I love the experience, the client experience.  I decided to create my own little booth and do pop-up events everywhere I could. And that’s…

Cat: (12:16) how I’ve been doing that for a year and a half every Sunday, every first Saturday of the month, every Tuesday, I have a booth in different area of my community and I sell to my clients. And that was the best learning experience ever because I’m facing clients every day, all the time. I talk to them, I get their feedback, I get their pushback, I get their reaction on every newness and…

Cat: (12:43) I can fine tune and it’s  much learning. I loved it. Now that it’s been a year and a half, now I’m ready to expand that with all the learning I know about my clients and I know her very well. Now I can expand to online.  that’s the next move of 2025 expansion online.

Courtney: (13:02) well, it’s  you kind of did almost  guerrilla focus groups where you  pulled in,  you can’t just go do a focus group and it’s really hard to get a lot of data on people. And a lot of people use ads, online ads to collect data about  what their customer is  what kind of messaging they want. But you kind of did a much more direct way of just  going and talking to people all day every day, which is a ton of work and  exhausting.

Courtney: (13:32) I’m sure that  your customer better than anyone else in the world  now, ?

Cat: (13:35) I think I do, but also I think it’s biased because it’s my community.  it’s very specific to Florida. It’s actually tons of snowbirds.  they are from Canada, Wisconsin, Indiana,  all those cold weather.  it’s also very biased. It’s very different.  I’m sure online will bring me a tons of learning too. And I’m excited with who else can I, can I touch?

Courtney: (14:00) that’s amazing. With the events,  these were  farmers markets and what other kind of events were you going to? I think that’s such a, I don’t hear a lot of DTC brands going to in-person events just around them,  I’m curious about that.

Cat: (14:15) Because it’s a ton of work and people are  no way, I’m not doing that all day.  for example, at the end of February, I’m doing the Gasparilla marathon here in Tampa Bay. And it’s  50,000 people coming to run. It’s going to be humongous, but you have to be there at 6 a.m. 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. is pretty intense and it’s a lot of people and it’s awesome. But I’m a health nut. I’m not a runner, but I’m a health nut.

Cat: (14:42) And I do love that type of people, that mindset and my sun care being super clean really resonate with them. The towels absorb the sweat very well.  it’s also great for them. It’s very lightweight, compact.  I think it’s perfect for that niche. And I did it last year, it was very successful.  I know also that Health Nut, love my brand and I love that tail, cause it’s neat.

Courtney: (15:05) Well, you do have  a focus on  an eco consciousness and sustainability.  I think that probably really aligns with people who are into health and wellness.  that totally makes sense. Has that been difficult when  when  you’re creating your products to make sure that they are eco conscious and they are sustainable? I feel  that’s probably a little bit more expensive than,  what other brands do.

Cat: (15:15) Totally.

Cat: (15:32) It is more expensive for sure. And it goes back to I’m not here to make money for now because I don’t want to compromise. And I think if I compromise, my whole brand will flop and I don’t want that. I’m all about authenticity and I think people are their best when they’re authentic and my brands needs to reflect that.  I will never compromise. And yes, it’s more expensive. It’s harder on the margin.

Cat: (16:02) But I know in long run it will work. When we scale and the numbers will grow, I’m sure it will be much easier in the long run. But for now, I’m compromising. It’s  easy though, because the first year when I create all the products, my goodness, you go to China, the price is cut by four. Easy peasy. It’s just insane. And I go on that.

Courtney: (16:22) wow. That’s wild.  guess that’s kind of the standard, but…

Cat: (16:31) It is wise. It is crazy when you think about it. Now I understand why everything is made in China. I get it. I hate it. And I get it.

Courtney: (16:38) I think also what’s interesting about your eco-conscious focus and sustainability is that you were hit with two back-to-back hurricanes, which I know is extremely hard and probably essentially just stopped your business for a couple of months. But I think it also highlights how important what you’re doing is.

Courtney: (17:02) it probably even  lights a fire in you to say  no, this is the  thing to do.  I can’t compromise here because look at what’s happening, ?

Cat: (17:06) Thank absolutely. There’s multiple events that happened in my life where nature is  important to me and it should be for every single human being on this planet. And I don’t understand why.  as I said, I understand why now because when you see how cheap it is somewhere else, why would you buy a shirt for 46 bucks instead of…

Cat: (17:34) That’s a guy yesterday I was at a market and the guy said, Oh my God, your shoes are  expensive. I bought my Walmart for 10 bucks.   Ask yourself why you bought it for 10 bucks. That’s, that’s the thing that for me, I don’t understand as a human being why we were doing that to ourselves, but those people are not my clients and I actually don’t want them as my client. Nope. Thank you.

Courtney: (17:57) mean,  having a really well-defined,  avatar or ideal customer, I think is really healthy for a founder because then you can let go of kind of all these people who are… Because if you’re selling to everyone, then you’re really selling to no one. I think just sticking to your guns and…

Cat: (18:09) Cool. No, I agree. I agree.

Courtney: (18:18) There are obviously compromises that I’m sure you’ve had to make, by saying I will not compromise on X, Y, and Z,  sustainability, eco-consciousness, quality, I think it’s good to have kind of your boundaries  then you can compromise on the other stuff that’s just not as important.

Cat: (18:34) – Yep, yep. Absolutely. You got it. Exactly that.

Courtney: (18:40) But you are in a pretty competitive space. You mentioned there’s a lot of other brands out there.  you really stand out just by your own designs and obviously your sustainability. But are there other ways that you’ve kind of carved out a space for Sundrunk to really differentiate and stand out?

Cat: (18:57) it’s outside of the designs that are very us and inspired by the nature, because as I said earlier, Florida is just mind blowing of insane nature in the water. It’s crazy.   inspired by that.  I would say the vibe is very important.  you belong to the sun drunk team or or you.

Cat: (19:25) You want to be in the moment, the present moment, not in the future of anxiety, not in the past of trouble. You want to be sun drunk and you should start to feel that you belong in that group. And all my clients who love sun drunk, they follow me and they’re   they are messaging me all the time of  my God, I went on the cruise and I thought of you and there’s a connection on.

Cat: (19:52) between people who really enjoy the moment and get it, there’s that connection. And I think that’s the point of difference. Also, I am not, my number one competitor is a towel company. I’m not going to say the name, but they are a towel company. I’m not a towel company. I’m a vibe company. I’m  vibe.

Courtney: (20:08) no, you’re a lifestyle brand. And I think that Sundrunk, the name itself, it does already feel  a lifestyle.  you’re  halfway there, and then it’s just about kind of giving that vibe and showing it really consistently. Has it been hard to develop the branding for it, or has it all kind of come naturally to you?

Cat: (20:34) I put a lot of pressure on myself on the logo because I wanted the logo to really be the vibe I had in my heart. It was hard because I didn’t really know how to express what I felt.  I hired a very cool designer that I found on Instagram actually, and she’s awesome. And then I just hired a photographer that I just love the vibe that she does,  for…

Cat: (21:02) normal photo shoot that she does for other people. But she just pulls stuff that I  I don’t know, there’s an angle that I really  about her. But it’s not enough and I’m feeling a little stuck of how to express it even more and being different because there’s many brands that are beach brands. But when I look at them, I don’t see some drunks.  I need to find what is my edge.

Courtney: (21:30) well, I think that that’s  important as you go into online because when you’re in person and you’re selling at these events,  you are the brand.   your personality, your energy comes through very well. And  you’re at the stand, you’re talking to people. When you’re online, it’s all about the visuals and the consistency.  I’m excited for you and your branding journey. I think you’re…

Cat: (21:31) That’s what I’m hoping for this year.

Cat: (21:55) me too. And I’m very open to any tips and tricks you have and any good recommendation because that’s where I’m a salesperson. My whole career was in sales, not in marketing.  that’s where I have my biggest learning curve, which is amazing. And it’s very humbling for me because I always,  we always butt head with marketing teams in sales. And now I’m  my God, I wish you were here with me and helping you.

Courtney: (22:19) I know. I know. We…

Cat: (22:26) Not cool, Pets are marketing people out there. I love you  much. think for 20 years I didn’t really understand what you were doing. No, I get it.

Courtney: (22:33) We always joke that sales and marketing are always at odds with each other for some reason but I don’t know why because  they should They should be leaning on each other  much because sales has all of the information about the customer and marketing is bringing in the customers  they should be  buddies, but there’s always kind of this   Yes

Cat: (22:51) It’s a different brain. I can tell you because now I have to use both brain and I’m  wow, mine is really small and that’s  the marketing side is  zero.  it’s a muscle that I think people that are in marketing have that brain and that thinking that salespeople don’t understand. We’re very  numbers and let’s run, let’s do this. Marketing is  let’s talk about it.

Courtney: (23:08) we have to figure out  how it makes you feel and the messaging and it takes a really long time to convince people of things and  I appreciate that on the marketing side that you you’re seeing the light now

Cat: (23:28) my god, I totally see it. Totally. Mea culpa to everybody.

Courtney: (23:33) As  in numbers, speaking of numbers, how are you measuring your own success with Sundoing? Because I know that you weren’t  I have to make money  now, I have to sign a multimillion dollar bill.  are there certain things that make that you feel   yes, I’m doing this correctly. Yes,  the signal tells me that I’m growing correctly.  how are you looking at success?

Cat: (23:56) Such a hard question.

Cat: (24:03) I go back to my default mode, which is sales.  if I sell and my sales are increasing little by little every day, every month, I feel good. That’s my signal of you’re growing. As long as I’m growing and I’m not stagnating, it’s all good for me. I’m, I go with that for now. But now that I’m going to start all those ads and all that, of course I will follow all the good ROAS and…

Courtney: (24:22) Yes.

Cat: (24:30) I have all my ads to see if I’m progressing. But still, I still need to see the sales that goes with it. I need to see that.

Courtney: (24:38) I think that’s fair, especially since you’re self-funded,  that, mean,  the sales actually are essential to,  surviving.  Do you have any other metrics that you look at,  around following or  repeat sales?   lifetime value, things  that, that you really care about?

Cat: (24:42) 100%.

Cat: (24:47) That’s my idea. That’s saves my deals. Literally.

Cat: (25:01) I’m not there yet, to be honest. know I have to look at that for sure at one point, but my pool is  tiny. I need to get more people to buy and then if they rebuy it’s awesome. Usually I know because they are  vocal. They let me know, I love your product. I’m going to buy that little. I started actually, I started to do a live shopping  on the platform called Palm Street, which I really  And  you have followers and I have those clients. come.

Cat: (25:30) every single show they show up and they buy more and they buy more. I’m  you have everything. And she’s  I don’t care. I will give it to my friend. And they were  into it. And I love it  much.

Courtney: (25:33) Wow.

Courtney: (25:41) that’s  interesting.  you have  a very very strong audience  now  it’s just about expanding and  what that tells me though is that  you have a proven product  the thing that you’re making people really really  because they get  passionate about which is such a good sign going into more online sales because what The the brands that do the best online are the ones that not only have  the flashy ads and everything But they have to have a quality product or else

Courtney: (26:11) that will die out, you have to build customers that will buy again and again.  the fact that you already have some that are  passionate is a very good sign.

Cat: (26:19) that’s very nice. I  that. But I really do think it’s also because they feel they belong to something.

Courtney: (26:25) Yes.  having a community.   then also as you grow, kind of have to be careful not to tarnish that community and make sure people feel  they’re part of something small and special.

Cat: (26:36) Or we can be big. My dream will be to have bars and restaurants on the beach and just  go at it. Just have fun.

Courtney: (26:40) and that’s truly a lifestyle brand where,  you’re creating a place where someone can live,  in a bar, restaurant, whatever it is. That’s  that’s really cool. I love it. Well, when you think about consumer trends, we’ll get you’ll get to the restaurant, you’ll get to the bar. But  now you’re selling consumer goods. they’re constantly changing, especially in the wellness industry, which you’re kind of adjacent to. How do you keep innovating or choosing your products and staying in tune with what your customers want?

Cat: (27:21) again, I’m a little weird on that front. Because I feel  we are at the point, we’re in 2025 where we do innovation for the sake of innovation and I do not  it. I agree, I  my iPhone, I  the computer, fine. But to go further and further, always pushing for different and because it has to be different and we have to be different.

Cat: (27:50) I don’t  it. I’m actually kind of the opposite. And that may be my differentiation is more go back to the roots, go back to the tradition. Because for example, when I went to the pinpoint of those towel, because when you go to the beach, you need a towel, but I love big towels because I have a long body. And  I looked into big towels and there is other towels that are very green washing of

Cat: (28:16) We recycle water bottles and they’re super thin and they’re absorbent and  I looked into it. But oh my God, it’s innovation for the sake of innovation. And it’s for the sake of the story of we are doing the good for the planet. We are recycling a bottle well. I’m sorry. This is  bad for you. We’re talking about microplastic. We are ingesting a credit card of microplastic every week and you’re adding microplastic on your body. No, no, no, no, no.

Cat: (28:45) For me, I’m trying to go back to the roots.  the Turkish towels are one of those. They exist in the 17th century. And the craftsmanship is there. And it’s a beautiful craftsmanship. I want to go back to that. I want the purest, the simplest form for you. And same thing for skincare. I think we’re going way too crazy. We added  many horrible things in there just to make it more transparent, less…

Cat: (29:14) heavy, blah, blah, blah. Well, you go to the beach, you go in the water anyway,  just be careful what you put on your skin because it goes in your bloodstream.  for me, that’s more important.  what does it do to human than the race for the most innovative things?  I want to be out of that game, not interested in that game. I’m actually want to go back in time.  I think that was going to be my different shader is how I can bring back

Cat: (29:43) old tradition that still work wonders for the other beach.

Courtney: (29:48) honestly,  I kind of love that.  I think innovation is important in a lot of industries, but there are some things where it’s  we cracked it. We figured it out. We figured out the best way to make a towel. It’s these Turkish towels. They figured it out in the 17th century. Let’s stop. Let’s just make them cute.  let’s do fun designs,  and.

Cat: (30:05) exactly. Exactly. Instead of producing more plastic that is going to completely deteriorate in the environment, one more thing,  I hate plastic. And to be honest, I was about to not do sun care again because of the plastic. Every bottle is in the plastic and I can’t with plastic. Come to my house. There’s no more plastic in my house.

Courtney: (30:23) it is. There’s  many other solutions other than plastic that’s just  much better.  there’s no excuse on plastic anymore, think. But I also think  when you say, hey, we’re just going to go to the basics. We’re to figure out what work, what is the best thing that we’ve already figured out. And  that’s what we’re going to focus on.

Courtney: (30:46) It actually is such a relief as a consumer to not have to learn about a new thing and  decide if it’s better or not and do the research and be  no, this thing that they  it’s been working for centuries. It’s been working for  long. Why would it stop working now?  it’s  you don’t have to think it’s  We figured it out. I love that actually. But a surprising answer. I feel  most brands really are just  how do we make

Cat: (30:58) rest is good. It’s all good. It’s all good. It’s working.

Cat: (31:10) Nice.

Courtney: (31:16) the newest version of this thing that everyone will buy. And I think there is a charm to saying, we’ve already made it. We just make the best version of it.

Cat: (31:26) and that’s something that really drove me crazy when I was in the cosmetic industry. Because you’re in that race and everybody’s playing the same race. We’re all running for the same thing. Every three months you need a newness. Every three months you need to say something different on a product you had 10 years ago and you try to re-refresh. And it’s  B.S. to me. I’m  tired of this. I don’t want that. I want to think differently. And I think people are…

Cat: (31:53) probably tired of this thing too and look they go to Walmart to buy their stuff they’re tired new new new new new new new they want cheap they want they want different I don’t  I want my niche of customer that gets it and and are  me here wants to go back to the basic of the closest to nature the better

Courtney: (31:54) Those aren’t your customers. I think that’s the thing.

Courtney: (32:13) I love that.  if not innovating brand new versions of your products, what are you going to be doing in the next couple of years? How do you see Sun Drunk developing over the next five to 10 years?

Cat: (32:26) it’s a great question. It’s a wonderful question that I really need to ask myself. I’m  into day-to-day. Clearly, I want the experience at one point, the restaurant or the bar or whatever on the beach, maybe somewhere else in the US, who knows? I’m totally open to the universe pointing me in the  direction.

Cat: (32:50) I don’t know, it can be anything, anything related to enjoying the day with family and friends in the sun, usually near water, because I’m all about the water. But I think the sky is the limit for me. And I don’t want to close myself of I’m going to do water bottles and I’m going to do,  the basic thing that I’m thinking  now because I need to expand my store. want to, I may have a store in two months here in Florida.

Courtney: (33:17) nice.

Cat: (33:19) I’m thinking about how I’m going to make that store look amazing and be  sun drunk and  what type of products I need to bring and what do I need when I go to the beach and I usually that’s how I work is what do I need?  this I’m going to go after that. But I want it bigger than that in five years. I hope it’s going to be more experiential than just products.

Courtney: (33:39) I love that. think  in five years, your full lifestyle brand that people associate with a lot of different things. Some people might associate it with a location. Maybe some people associate with a specific product. But I think that those solutions will present themselves as you start going online and you start reaching more people. And I think if you just stay open to any of those possibilities, which it sounds  you are, it’ll appear for you.

Cat: (33:57) Absolutely.

Cat: (34:03) Yep. I think my compass is to not do what everybody’s doing. That’s my compass. Exactly.  I’m just going to follow my gut. We never do in business.

Courtney: (34:09) that’s pretty easy because you can see what everyone else is doing  it’s easy to not do that.  I love it. Awesome, well, I do have one last question that I ask everybody. If you could go back to when you were very first starting Send Drunk and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?

Cat: (34:37) Oh my god.  because I asked a lot of people before I launched and people were  don’t do it. That was the advice. Don’t do it. All the people I asked the questions and they  don’t do it. And I was scared when everybody was saying that. was  why are you telling me that? I’m scared now. And that’s why I stopped asking and I was  head down, I’m going to do my thing and I’m not going to ask anymore. But if it was…

Cat: (35:04) I think I’m going to stick to what I told myself when I started. Just follow your guts and your passion. Be authentic. And I swear to God, if it’s your compass, you will figure it out. Everything is learnable, but you have to enjoy it. And if you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. Don’t do it. It’s a roller coaster. It’s a lot of super high and super low. As an entrepreneur, I get now why people were  don’t do it. It’s scary sometimes, but as long as you love it.

Cat: (35:35) you’re gonna be successful.

Courtney: (35:35) And that aligns  well with the brand vibe too. It’s  this is something that’s supposed to be enjoyable and it’s supposed to feel good. And even the things that are scary should come back around and be worth it.  You will. Awesome. Well, thank you  much for being on the show. Where can people find you online?

Cat: (35:40) Thank The day we do it again. And they will be.

Cat: (35:57) www.sundrunkworld.com and same thing for the IG and TikTok and Facebook it’s Sundrunk World. The world of Sundrunk.

Courtney: (36:01) and Drunk World.

Courtney: (36:07) Amazing. Everyone go check out Sundrunk. Thank you  much for being on this show, Kat. Of course.

Cat: (36:14) Thank  much for inviting me. I appreciate it.

Courtney: (36:16) And thank you everyone at home or on the go for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please make sure to subscribe, share with a friend, leave us a review. And if there’s anything that you’d  to hear on an upcoming episode, just let us know. And for more insights, please follow us on LinkedIn or visit rightleftagency.com. And we’ll be back next time with more stories of success, innovation, marketing strategies to help you grow. See you on the next one. All  Amazing. I’m going to stop the record.