 I have two devices here and I'm trying to work it all, but hello. So firstly, I want to thank Kirstie for inviting me for setting this up and hosting. I also want to thank the San Francisco Public Library for giving me this opportunity to speak with everyone. And on top of that, thank you for everyone who is joining me here today, perhaps watching the recording or re-watching the recording. Thank you so much for joining me with my first talk as a small business owner. But with that, I'm actually going to start my presentation. So before I go into the details of my presentation, I do want to talk a little bit about my relationship with the San Francisco Public Library and that relationship began when I was around the age of four. So when I was four, I got my first library card and I was so ecstatic. I felt like such an adult. I could check out any book I want. I felt so cool. And to this day, I can still remember when someone took my wallet. This was in high school. I was coming back from high school. I was on the money on the bus and someone took my wallet and I lost that very library card. I was devastated to say the least. In fact, you would have thought I would have been more worried about things like my credit card or my ID. But no, I cried because I lost my very first library card. I did get a replacement card. I don't know if this is what influencers do nowadays. Though to be very honest, I haven't used it in quite a while because I do tend to buy a lot of my own books now. However, I am forever grateful to the San Francisco Public Library and to all public libraries for giving me free access to books and for fostering my love for reading. And look at me now. I'm talking at a San Francisco Public Library event. But on to the presentation. So all of you guys signed up because you wanted to learn how I built my refillary business. For all of you entrepreneurs, you future entrepreneurs, or perhaps those that are just interested in business, I will be giving you a small glimpse of my business journey and providing some tips and advice along the way in hope that you can learn from my experience. And for all of those that are not as interested in the business aspect, I will be talking about what it means for us to be a green business, as well as discussing while advertising my awesome green business. But let's begin with who runs the Daisy refillary. So as Christy kindly mentioned, my name is Karen, and I am the sole owner of the Daisy refillary. So we are a small business based out in San Francisco, but we serve the cities of South San Francisco and Brisbane, California on top of San Francisco. And we sell sustainable household care products like this, as well as refills of other amazing products that are earth friendly, human friendly, and all around just amazing. But more on that a little later. So as everyone has probably guessed from my library card story, I am a native San Franciscan. Now, for whatever reason, people seem to think that because I'm a San Franciscan, this is why I do what I do. You know, I'm a tree hugger. Does being a San Franciscan automatically make me a tree hugger? No. However, I do love hugging my trees. Funnily enough, I actually didn't begin my career in sustainability. I actually began as a programmer. In fact, I'm still a programmer. And for all of you that run your own business or in your own business journey and doing it on your own, you'll find that you'll be wearing many, many hats. And for myself, one of those many hats is that of a programmer, you know, managing my website, managing my administrative app, and essentially running all of the technical aspects along with so many other things. But programming, I actually started as a programmer at the age of 14. Thank you, Mr. Ferraro. And for all of us that have a programming background, you'll understand me when I say it was love at hello world. I fell in love. I thought I would be a programmer for my entire life. That was what I was going to do. I went to school in LA for it, graduated with a computer science degree, and a bioinformatics minor, then continued, stayed in LA, and found a job as a programmer slash systems analyst at a hospital. And then when I came back home, I got another job as a programmer at a biotech company. And I thought that this is what I was going to be doing my entire life. You know, I thought this is what I love. But despite the fact that I thought that this was something I loved, I couldn't help but feel like something was missing. So this actually brings me to my next slide. How it all began. Well, it began with a very, very, very mentally exhausted me. I was tired. I loved my teams. I loved my place as I worked out. And I knew I played important roles at both of my jobs, but I couldn't help but feel mentally exhausted and unhappy. So one day, I just quit. I quit my job, and I didn't really have any plans. However, this actually brings me to my first bit of advice for all of you who are listening. And that's the fact that one's work life needs to be sustainable. And this includes not just your employees, but also oneself, to make sure that we are all mentally healthy and that we're mentally sound. And I know that mental health can be a rather taboo topic, especially in the work sphere. However, it's something that I really want to talk about in a dress, because this is a part of my own, my own journey, my own business journey, my own life journey, if you will. And I just want to remind everyone here, whether you are a an entrepreneur, someone starting your own business, or someone just doing their day to day job, that work will always be there. It really will always be there. And so don't forget about yourself and all the other important things in your life. Okay. But with that, I do want to talk about my inspiration and what got me into doing what I'm doing. So I mentioned I quit. I quit my job. I had no plans. I did not know what to do. But I don't know what it was. It was the algorithm, the internet algorithms, the YouTube algorithms, you know, because they're always listening. But I just started binge watching and reading sustainability content. Now, I don't think there's anyone here that can convince me that climate change isn't real. And if there's someone who wants to try, well, let's save that for a different conversation. We're going to have Kirsty filter out those questions. And we can talk about that on a different day. But on a more serious note, I think it's very much so apparent that there are more and more natural disasters that are occurring and becoming more and more prevalent. We have the fires in Northern California every summer now that at this point have become almost the norm. We have the we had the fires in Australia that in turn cause the flooding in parts of East Africa. And I don't know that if people realize that those events were connected, you know, nature is very much so connected. We had the tornadoes just last month in Southern California. And I don't know about you all, but I never thought in my 30 years of life. And yes, I did just tell you guys how old I am. And yes, I am a millennial. So do with that, do with that information, what you will. So think what you will. But I never thought that there would be tornadoes in California. Now, I'm no expert. And I know that there have been tornadoes in California in the past. However, the fact that there was not just one, but two tornadoes within the span of 24 hours is honestly really frightening. And I honestly believe that this is Mother Nature's way of fighting back, of trying to rebalance itself. Now, I know you guys didn't sign up for a lecture, nor am I trying to give you guys a lecture, telling you guys you're not doing enough. No, not at all. In fact, I honestly believe that every single human being, every single organism does give and take from our planet, does give and take from our earth. However, it's that rate in which we are giving and taking that rich, that rate in which we're taking resources and giving carbon admissions, if you will, that it's that rate that is too fast and is not normal. And that's why we're seeing these imbalances. Now, I do believe that we can help aid Mother Nature in her battle and rebalancing our planet. And this comes down to doing as much as we can, or as little as we can, within our own means, within our own comfort zone. I wish I put the quote on here and it's just coming to me now, but there's this quote about how it's not about having one person doing zero waste perfectly, but having millions and millions of people doing zero waste imperfectly. That I feel is where real change will occur. And it's a long story, very long tangent, not very short. That is what inspired me to start this business, that content that I was binging that this desire to rebalance our planet. And that's what led me to starting my refillery. Now, I've been talking about a refillery and what refilleries are, but what the heck is a refillery? The word of the day, the refillery, what is it? But what is a refillery? Very good question. So the concept of a refillery is still very, very new. In fact, when I would introduce my business to people when I was first starting out and I would tell them, I have a refillery and they would usually respond somewhere along lines of, oh, yeah, it's so cool. The day's your refinery. I get it. I get it. The refillery, it's still new. It's a very new concept. In fact, when I still type refillery in my emails, excuse me, I still get those red squiggles underlined under refillery. But to answer your question, the refillery, look at the name itself. It's essentially a store in which you can refill things. Think rainbow groceries or whole foods and their bulk food aisle. You can fill up as much as you want and buy as much or as little as you want and you pay per weighted ounce. In the case of the daisy refillery, you can not only buy these awesome, sustainable, earth-friendly products, but you can also buy refills of things like laundry detergent, toothpaste tablets, which are one of our best sellers, body lotions, hair care, all sorts of things, but everything household care and personal care in terms of refills. But I'll go into that a little more later. First, we're going to talk about building a small business. So I know many of you guys have signed on through the Workit program and want to learn more about my business journey and how I started. First, I want to mention that given the fact that I had no business background, I honestly didn't know where to start. However, I did know of one friend I could ask. And that friend was from Relate, the internet. That's right guys, my best friend, your best friend, my worst enemy, your worst enemy, the internet. There is honestly so much information out there on the internet that despite the fact that I don't have a business background, I wasn't quite as worried. However, I was very overwhelmed because there is so much information. There's a vast amount of information, but this actually brings me to my next slide. So these points here I've outlined in hopes of being able to help those that are looking to build their own business. And it's only a small part of what it takes to build a business. I'm not going to be going over this pretty quickly because we only have so much time. However, I think these points are so important, especially when starting a business. And even before you start your business, these are all things that I think we should consider. And for those that are not interested in the business aspect, this will perhaps give you an idea of why it took me so long to start this refillery business. But with that, the first thing you want to do is define your small business. So figure out what it is that you're actually trying to do. Are you trying to sell a product? Are you providing a service? Is it perhaps a bit of both? You know, know exactly what it is that your business will be. Then do your market research. So will there be other, are there other businesses similar to yours? If so, where? I like that. I don't want to call them my competitors because I feel like we need more refilleries and low-waste stores, but where are my friends located? And what are their target customers? Who are my target customers? Do your market research and understand whether or not your business will be a good fit. Next, decide if you'll have a storefront or a website or both. Once you decide, this will lead you down a whole different pathway. You know, if you're doing a storefront, for instance, will you be providing pickup? Will you be doing delivery? If you are a service of some sort, will you provide some sort of scheduling system? So understanding where to start is super important, at least in terms of where you're going to actually be located and how you're going to be doing business. Next, calculate your expenses. And I really should have put many expenses, many capital letters and bold and underlined, perhaps triple line underlined, but calculate your many expenses. Running a business is not cheap. And you'll find that there are a lot of things that you don't usually think of when running a business. But before you begin, figure out your initial startup costs. What are the things that you need to pay for right away? At the same time, make sure you account for costs that you'll have to pay for along the road, down the road. Now, you also want to calculate your reoccurring costs, whether that be weekly, monthly, bi-annually, annually and whatnot. Think of things like your utilities, your rent, your subscription services for things like bookkeeping or payroll, time sheets, or things like insurance, auto insurance, small business insurance, the list gets on and on and on. But in terms of startup costs, the other things you have to think about is registering your business. So whether that be locally, with the state or federally, you need to not forget that you also have to pay for these licenses and permits and your registration at all of these different levels and the annual taxes that come with it. Next, you've got your expenses calculated. You need to figure out how to fund your expenses because if you're not able to fund your expenses, well, you can't really run your business. So whether that be through your own personal accounts, your personal loans, business loans, government loans, grants, or investing of some sort, make sure you have a way to fund your business. Next, learn about the different business structures. That's right. Especially when it comes down to paying yourself and paying your employees and doing taxes, it's so important that you do find the business structure that will be the most beneficial to you, whether that be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, a limited liability company, which we are a corporation or a cooperative, making sure you understand how these work will be so beneficial along the lines and help you save so much money and protects your assets, of course. Last but not least, and certainly not all of it, advertise your business. This is something that I'm still working on myself and it's of utmost importance. Will you have social media? Will you have email subscriptions? Do you plan on paying for ads? Do you plan on contacting your local newspaper? How do you get a webinar with the San Francisco Public Library? It is so important to be able to advertise your business because you may have an awesome business, awesome business idea, but if no one knows of your business, you're not going to be able to run your business. But with that, if I haven't overwhelmed all of you guys, I trust you when I say I was certainly very, very overwhelmed when I started all of this and I didn't quite know where to start. I would help. These are three amazing free resources, free organizations that provide so much training. Now, I do want to preface this and mention if there's anyone here that perhaps is watching from outside of the United States, these three businesses, these three organizations are specific to the United States. However, like I said, the internet is our friend. If you go online, there's bound to be other resources and other equivalents in your neck of the woods. But the three organizations I do really want to introduce firstly is the Small Business Association. So if there's any place that you should start, it would be the Small Business Association. They provide so many amazing outlines of how to build your business, how to grow your business, and how to manage your business. And just for those that are not here to learn about this, don't worry. I'll go into more about this later. But Small Business Association is definitely the one place that I recommend all people look into before they start their business. They provide so many links and resources, they're absolutely amazing. Next, the Small Business Development Centers. These are local centers that you can go to for training, for informational tools to help build your business. And last but not least, the Service Corps Corps of Retired Executives, the SCORE. These are like the name suggests, retired individuals who actually volunteer their time to provide you with training. And whether that be via email, via video, via text or phone, the SCORE is a great asset, especially if you want more one-on-one training. Now, so in terms of how they played a part in my business, I, for one thing, I mentioned, I was very, very overwhelmed, didn't quite know where to start, but I found the Small Business Association. And like I said, they had a ton of amazing resources, a ton of information. However, and I've been saying however a lot, but however, despite the fact that I had all of this information at my fingertips, I honestly felt like there was a lot to learn. It was a bit of a learning curve for me. I had all this information, but I needed to understand the information and apply this information. So one of the things I had to do was research, research, research. And as part of my research, this included signing up for webinars with my local Small Business Development Center. In fact, I made a note of the name of the webinar here that I signed up with. So there's this webinar I signed up for called So You Want to Be the Boss. And I thought that I was like, now I'm not sure why I'm whispering because it was more like, I want to be the boss. So I submitted for that webinar. And I was very lucky because I ended up being the only person who signed up for the webinar. So after Darlene, who actually gave the presentation, gave the general presentation, I just racked Darlene's brains, her brain with question on question on question. I told her about all of my qualms about starting a business, my anxiety about setting up a storefront. And in fact, at the time, I was doing so much research to start to look into a storefront. I told her about all these legal clauses that I was thinking about adding to leases to prorate for my rent in case of another pandemic knock on wood. And if for those that don't know, I actually quit my job right before the pandemic, took some time to take care of my mental health, and then bam, lockdown hit. Though I honestly during my business journey wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into. I was looking to a storefront, but I didn't know if that was something I should commit to, especially since I didn't know when things were going to be opening up. And I was just loading all of this onto Darlene, and she actually asked me one of the most amazing questions. And that question was, what do you think about going mobile? What do I think about going mobile? Well, Darlene, I thought highly of it. In fact, the day zero three is mobile. We, for those of you who may have met me at my markets, I do markets indeed, but for the most part, we actually don't have a storefront currently. And we offer instead milkman style deliveries. What that means is if you want refills, and you want to use your own container, which we absolutely love, you can leave your containers outside and we come and deliver. You simply select a delivery date and we remind you throughout the entire process. And more on that later, we'll show you just how you can order with us for a local delivery and how all of that works. But so we talked about building a business, but this actually brings me to my next point and advice I have for everyone. And it's don't be afraid to start over. I went on and on about leases and doing all this research for storefronts. And I ended up not using any of that information, possibly in the future, potentially. But I found, especially on my business journey, that I tended to have to start over a lot. And I feel for all of you entrepreneurs out there and for honestly, everything in life, this is very applicable that there are times that we'll have to start over. You know, I had to scrap my website at one point and redo it. I had to redo my administrative app. I had to forgo on the idea of purchasing a zero-emission cargo van because it simply just wasn't in budget, hopefully in the future. I had to deal with the hurdles of starting a business in the midst of a pandemic. So starting over is for everyone that is currently looking into starting their own business. And again, for everything in life, starting over is something that I think is just a part of the journey. And for me, because I believed so strongly in my business idea and believe so strongly in my business idea, I, despite the fact that it was overwhelming and at times upsetting that I had to start over, I was willing to start over. So don't give up. Now, we've talked about starting a business. But what does it mean to build a green business? Now, before I actually dive into this, I do want to introduce a very special guest who's joined us here today. And then he's from the Department of Environment with San Francisco. And he actually runs the California Green Business Network, which is a program we're also certified in. And for all of you business owners or for all of you consumers out there, so California green businesses are awesome. They're certified green. The program itself is wonderful for all businesses looking to become greener. They help support you both with information, but also financially to help you become more sustainable in whether that be with water output, with electricity, with all sorts of things in order to make you a greener business. So for those of you who perhaps are not looking to start a business, it's still great to be able to support California green businesses through that are certified with the California Green Business Network. And you know that they're sustainable because they've gone through the certification process. But Kevin here has kindly volunteered to stay at the end of my presentation to answer any questions that you may have about the California Green Business Network. So if you have any questions, feel free to put them in the chat and Christie will filter through them and we'll ask Kevin afterwards. But to answer the question, you're most welcome, Kevin. To answer the question, being a small business for the day's refillery is more so than just selling sustainable products. In fact, it's all in the details. That's right. For us, it comes down to some of the smallest things. So for instance, do we want to have business cards? Yeah, we find that business cards tend to be very good at advertising our business and a lot of people tend to ask for them. But what's the most eco-friendly option? Let's go ahead and shoot for business cards made with recycled cotton t-shirts. Yeah. Okay, cool. Now our vendors. So do the vendors we work with ship plastic free? Well, some of them do. So let's make sure to work with them. But some of them don't. Do they provide an option? Well, if they don't provide an option, perhaps we shouldn't work with them because that I think says a lot about a business itself. Now, what do we do with all that paper stuffing that we get from these plastic free shipments? We reuse them. They're clean. They're great. We have a lot of nude products like our soap bars and our deodorant pucks. And we just wrap them up with our clean recycled paper. So great, reduce reuse guys. Now, scales. We need scales in order to wear products because people are buying everything per weighted ounce. What sort of scales should we use? Well, in our case, the rechargeable kind. And, you know, we think that being able to recharge our scales, it's a more eco-friendly option than always having to replace the battery. Even if batteries do tend to last a while. Now shipping. This is the question I get pretty often. Do we offer shipping? Unfortunately, the answer is no. And the reason why we opted to not offer shipping is because we're actually shipped a lot of the products ourselves. So it doesn't really make sense to us to then go ahead and ship again, especially because a lot of delivery fleets are not zero emission. So in order to reduce our carbon emissions, we made the decision to currently not offer shipping. Now inventory. We have all of this inventory. Where should we store it? Well, in a solar powered storage space, of course. But what if we need all these shelves and tables to actually store inventory? Where can we get all of this furniture? Now for all of those that are looking to stock for their business or just for home or in general, places like next door, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, great places to find furniture that has been loved and can use a little more loving. These I found so many cheap and sometimes free pieces that I used for my business. And it's super awesome. I use the next door. It's great. And by nothing groups. Thank you, Kayla. So we talked about all of these small details that make our business screen. Again, it's all in the details. But I think one of the most important things about running a small business is working with businesses that are also ethical and sustainable. So for us, we prioritize working with B corporations that are certified ethical and sustainable. So we actually look into their certifications to actually ensure they're ethical and sustainable. Because there are some B corporations out there, Wink Wink, and S Pro that may not be as ethical as we think. We also prioritize working with 1% for the planet members. So we ourselves are also 1% for the planet, which essentially means we donate 1% our bar revenue, so not just our profit, but our revenue to amazing environmental nonprofits that have been vetted through 1% for the planet. And we also work with other small businesses that prioritize sustainability and promote sustainable living. In fact, if we can't find enough information about some of the businesses we work with, we have our potential vendors fill out a vendor application to ensure that they really are ethical and sustainable. Because sometimes small businesses can afford certifications and I completely understand. However, what I have come to find through my vetting process, I call it, is that not all businesses are up to answering my many questions. And this is actually advice I want to provide to everyone. When you're looking to support a business and you're not sure whether or not they're greenwashing or not, ask questions. So I've found that I've had a number of vendors who decided it wasn't worth their while to answer my many questions. And I in turn decided it wasn't worth my while to work with them because I think it said a lot in itself when there is no transparency. And for us transparency is so important. So all of the people that we work with, we've vetted, we ensure that they really are who they say they are and have all of these ethical and sustainable processes in place. So as customers, as consumers, remember, knowledge is power. Use your knowledge. If you have questions, ask questions, send emails. And if you end up getting a roundabout answer or no answer at all, then maybe it's not the best idea to support this business. Okay, so we've talked a lot about building a small business and one of the things that we also like to promote as a green business is the ability to be sustainable by allowing customers to reuse their containers. But how do you do that? How do you order a delivery with the daisy refillary and use your own containers? Well, this actually brings us to the demonstration portion of my presentation. So I'm going to quickly escape from the presentation. We're going to navigate to my website www.thedaisyrefillary.com. And you'll see here we've got my awesome website. And we've got all of our product collections. We've got purchasing options here. So we've got zone deliveries, scheduling with house call events. I'm going to go back to and talk about what zone deliveries are a little later. We've got how it works. We've got these guides for you to understand how the refill process works, how to sanitize your own containers and so much more. And of course, an about page so you can learn more about us. But for example, we actually want to purchase some laundry detergent. We need some laundry detergent. And we want to purchase some laundry detergent refills. So that would either be under refills cleaning or under laundry. So I'm going to go ahead and click laundry. Now you'll see here we have these amazing products, some of which are sold out that we need to restock. But we know and we love the grapefruit and bergamot laundry detergent. So we're going to go ahead and repurchase this awesome product. And for those that are watching now, those that are still watching the recording in April of 2023, we do currently have an earth month sale where all our refills are 15% off. So keep that in mind. But before the discount, we have we see here that it's 31 cents per ounce. What does that mean? We'll go into that a little more later, but we're going to keep scrolling. We're going to see this awesome box here. I'm going to point this out because we're going to go back to this later. But you'll see here as we scroll down, there's more information about the product. How to use hair instructions, ingredients. And for us, it's so important that all of our customers know what's in their products that they purchase. In fact, I'm actually going to go to a different example really quickly. This big heart Swedish dishcloth. All you need is love. That's right. So you'll see as we scroll down here, there's more information about the Swedish dishcloth, you know, what it's a replacement for how to use again, hair instructions so that you know how to take care of it. So it lasts longer and you're not having to repurchase more. And you know, that's great less waste. Materials, packaging, if there is any, as well as the end of life. Because for us, it's so important that our customers aren't just throwing everything into the landfill and that they're retiring things appropriately. So this here, this here Swedish dishcloth replaces 17 rolls of paper towels. I love Swedish dishcloths. I'm going to add one to my cart. Okay. Now we're not here to buy Swedish dishcloths. We got distracted. We're actually here to purchase detergent. So let's go back to detergents. So we're on our detergent page. Now we have here a 16 fluid ounce container. So I want to point out that fluid ounces is not the same as a weighted ounce. So you pay per weighted ounce. However, that deals with weights, whereas the fluid ounce deals with the volume. This here isn't empty. We're going to pretend it's empty for the sake of this demonstration. I actually have some this detergent that I refilled here. But we're going to pretend it's empty. It's 16 fluid ounces. And we don't know how much to purchase or do we? So what you can actually do is you can increment and decrement the number of ounces. And what you'll see is as you do that, the numbers here in this lovely box I pointed out at the beginning changes. In fact, we see here for eight ounces, we're looking at about 7.37, 7.373 fluid ounces. So we're going to increment this until we're right at 16 fluid ounces or right under. So that's a little too much, so 17. Then we're going to add that to cart. Awesome. So we are ready to go. But now what if we don't know the volume of our container? You know, what if we're not sure what our refill container volume is? What's this here? Not sure what your refill container volume is? Learn how you can find out here. What a coinkie dink. Let's go ahead and click on that. So here you'll see we actually list out three ways in which you can figure out the volume of your container. But right now I'm going to quickly stop sharing and actually demonstrate the method that I use, the tried and true method that I use to measure out the volume of all the containers that we are donated and in turn donate back to you through events or online that you can use for free to refill. So I have here a jar that I want to measure the volume of. And due to webinar magic, it's already filled with water. And what we know is that the water, the volume of the water, is actually the volume of our container. So what we can do is we can take a measuring tool. In our case, we have this awesome two cup measuring cup. We're going to pour our water into our measuring tool. And then we see now here, you can't really see it. But trust me, it says 200 milliliters or right above three quarter cup. And that's our volume, pretty simple, right? Now, if you do not have such a large measuring tool, and if you have something smaller, all you have to do is take your water and pour it in increments and do some addition. So I think it's pretty simple, but that's really awesome way to find out the volume and size of your container and the way we use. Okay, back to our presentation. So we know how to figure out the volume of our container. Excuse me. And now we're ready to check out. Okay, cool. So we're here in our cart. We see here right here that we also indicate in our cart for your refill products just what volume of a container you need for your refill. And this will also be indicated in your confirmation email. So in case you forget, it's all here. Now we scroll down and, huh, where's the checkout button? Well, you actually can't check out yet. And that's because you need to select a delivery date and set your zip code, because we want to ensure we can actually deliver to you. Now before we go and select a delivery date and set our zip code, I actually want to talk to you guys about zone deliveries. And that's something I pointed out at the beginning when I was hovering over purchasing options. But let's go ahead and navigate to that page. What are zone deliveries? So zone deliveries are essentially days in which you can get to your delivery fees, your delivery fee reduced. So your zip code is assigned to a zone, which is in turn assigned to a delivery date in the month. And on that date, you get the delivery for a reduced fee. Usually we charge customers $3.99, so less than a round trip on public transportation for delivery. However, if you opt for a zone delivery date, you only have to pay a dollar. And the reason we do this is we want to incentivize all of our customers to choose a zone delivery date so we can group up our deliveries. And in turn, we're driving less and reducing our carbon emissions. So pretty cool. Now what if we want to purchase right away? Like we can't wait. We have a pile of stinky laundry. I can't wait for a zone delivery date. I need my laundry detergent now. Totally understand and totally fine. You simply just select any date you want that is available. And whether that be a zone delivery date that is not in your zone, and you just pay the $3.99 fee. In our case, we're not in a hurry to get our laundry detergent, so we're going to opt for a zone delivery date. And let's pretend I live in zip code 94080. So 94080, okay. That zone delivery date is April 17th. So let's go back to our cart. And we're going to go and select April 17th as our zone delivery date and turn 94080 and set our delivery date in zip code. And what you'll see here is we do indeed end up getting the discounted fee of a dollar. So really cool. So as we scroll down, we also see our checkout button has appeared. Yay. But not just yet, guys. Let's not click checkout just yet. We still need to let me know, the daisy refiller, you know, that we are going to be using our own containers. And that's actually where this field order special instructions come into play. So if you're using your own containers, please indicate where you will be placing your containers and that you will be using your containers in the order special instructions. So this way, we can come and find your containers, refill, and then leave the containers where we've found them. If we don't fill this out and we can't find your containers, unfortunately, that means we won't be able to refill and you won't be able to enjoy your awesome products. So please do if you are planning on using your own containers, please do let me know. Thank you, ERC. Please do let me know on in the order special instructions. You can also let me know if you happen to be buying more than one refill and you'll have multiple refill containers. Let me know here where which refill can go into which container or you can also label your containers. And I'll find out the day of. So we're going to pretend I filled this out. We're going to pretend I checked checked out. I'm going to stop sharing real quickly. And so we pretend we've checked out after you check out, you simply just go through, you know, credit card and you pay and you submit up your order. So we're going to pretend we submitted our order. Our delivery date is April 17th, but today is April 11th. So what if I forget to put my containers out? Not a worry. We remind you the day before the date of we send you either an email or text notification or both depending on what you sign up for. And we let you know the day of so you can leave your containers out after we've come and refilled. We also then let you know again through a notification of some sort, whether it be email or text, and you're good to go. What we also do is we tape are your containers with compostable tape. And that's just because we want to make sure that you know if someone's tampered with your container. This is a milkman style delivery. We're bringing back the milkman, but it is a different age from when we used to have a milkman. So to be extra careful, we do tape up your containers with compostable tape. But that's it, right? It's pretty simple. I think it's pretty neat in itself. And I'm absolutely in love with the whole idea. So we're going to quickly go back to share. And now that actually brings me to my closing statement. I know you guys are sad to see me go. Now, before we actually enter into our da, sorry, before we enter into the question portion of this presentation, I do want to talk a little bit about how things are going for me. I think for a lot of people who are interested in building a business, they might be thinking, you know, yeah, so how are things going for you? Is it feasible? How are things? And to answer that question, as realistically as possible, well, we are surviving. We are surviving. We are currently not profitable and I haven't been able to pay myself. However, I think this is just part of owning a business. They say it takes about one to five years before your business becomes profitable. So for all of you that are concerned at Ori, it just takes time. And for us, I guess it means we either have, so we started, it's been seven months now, we started in September of 2022. So it's been seven months for us. So we either have five months or four years and five months or somewhere in between before we become profitable. Hopefully not any longer. But despite circumstances, I have to say that I haven't been as happy as I have been as of late. And it's I am truly so thrilled to be able to talk to people about sustainability, to introduce to people the refill concept and so grateful that there is so much interest. And I do also want to take this time during my closing statement to thank all of those that have been there for me along the way, to support me, to listen to me vent about how overwhelmed I felt to my family and friends. Thank you so, so, so much. You guys are awesome. And to all the other, to all my sustainability warriors, both old and new that have joined my community of sustainability warriors. Thank you so much. Without you guys, I honestly wouldn't be able to run this business. So I'm so grateful for your support. And I mean, just all around. Thank you guys. But with that, it is time for questions. Christie will be filtering through the chat for questions. And again, if anyone has questions about the California Green Business Network, Kevin is also here to answer any questions. So if you have any questions now, feel free to put them in the chat and take it away, Christie. Well, thank you, Karen. That was great presentation. I really appreciate your, your page about for your slide about building a small business. Thank you. Thank you. So we had a question earlier. Someone asked whether refinery only applies to health care products or can they also be for food? So currently, because we, so we rent out a storage space and I, the storage space I don't think would be as equipped for food. So right now the Daisy refinery is focusing on just sustainable household care and personal care products, but we're hoping in the future as we grow that we do eventually add food. So not yet, but hopefully in the future. Thank you for that question. Someone was wondering how long it took you to start your business from the market research part to the launch? This is, this is a complicated question. Well, so I mentioned for those of you, some of you might have joined in late during the presentation, but I mentioned that I had, I started over a lot and I think especially I had mentioned I quit my job right before the pandemic, then I proceeded to, you know, take some time off and I figured out what I wanted to do and then lockdown. So I didn't launch until September of last year. So you took a little over two years for myself, but that was because I was doing a lot of start over, I was doing a lot of research. I don't think it usually takes people that much time for myself. I'm very detail oriented. So even when it came down to researching all the vendors that I wanted to work with, it took time and a lot of it, I like to tell people there's a lot of email tag that I had to do. And that was because, you know, you guys, I have all of these questions, I want to make sure I'm doing my due diligence. I want to make sure that, you know, the people that I am supporting are who they say they are. And so that along with, I think, just learning about different business structures, learning about how to start a business, it was honestly a learning curve for myself. So it took about, I would say a little over two years, but I do admit that I did take some time off to reflect and had to come back and then revamp things. And this was all about, you know, just, I mean, it was, it's just a part of the business building journey, I think, you know, you'll find you have to start over a lot. And you'll find you have to start over not just in business, but in life a lot. And it's okay. And I, I'm proud to say that I've started over many, many times. Well, your website is great. And I, that probably took you a while. Did you build it yourself? I did. So I actually, for all those that are interested in e-commerce, I use Shopify, but Shopify has an handful of free templates, but a lot of what I had to add on top of the free templates did require some programming. So this included adding the delivery date of the ability to select a delivery date. And then I had to build my own administrative app to add the notification process part and a bunch of other things for HR. And just to make things a little easier on myself, especially because it is me, myself and I, it's, so three of us only have so many hands and heads to do the work. So it's nice to have certain things automated. But yes, the answer is yes. Someone asked about your delivery. So they are asking, how do you ensure that the delivery part is sustainable? Great question. So sustainability, there are many ways in which one can become sustainable. I mentioned that we currently don't have a zero emission cargo van. And that's just because it's simply out of budget. However, we have been trying to implement processes like the zone delivery where we're grouping up our deliveries so that we're not driving as often and thus emitting less carbon emissions. We allow customers to use their own containers, which is great because I don't know about you, but before I started this business and donated all my containers, I had a stockpile of containers that I couldn't find bringing me to throw away because I mean, they could have be of some use and they became of some use. The other thing we do is we also use compostable tape. So tape you can actually compost to secure your containers and ensure that they're not actually tampered with. And this is a big part. I think the sustainability aspect comes into play because you're allowed to use your own containers. You're not just going off and buying unit products that may be in plastic, may not be in plastic, but still end up being recycled. And while I love recycling, I love composting, I think a lot of people forget that there is energy that is required to run these processes. So I try and promote reuse of products as much as I can, including the reuse of our own containers. Does that answer the question? Yes, and I think too your website has a section on how to sanitize your own containers. Exactly. Thank you for pointing that out. Yes, we have under the how it works list, you can find a link to learn how to sanitize your own containers so that you can reuse your containers. Someone asked if you're receiving container donations. So yes, we do. In fact, we get a lot from our neighbors. So if any of my neighbors are watching, thank you so much. We do take container deliveries. However, we usually try to get them at our events at our markets. If you happen to do a delivery with us, you can also make a note in the order special instructions that you want to donate some containers and just let us know and then we'll come and pick up those containers along with your delivery. Great. Someone's asking if it's possible to ring the person if you don't if the person doesn't live where they can put their containers out. Yeah. So again, if you're not as comfortable with just leaving your things along, feel free to just again leave it in the order instructions. If you will be home that day, excuse me, if you will be home that day, just let me know. And if you need a ring, I'll go ahead and ring the doorbell and give you a high and have a conversation and refill and I'll be on my way. Someone's wondering if you only distribute other people's products or if you sell your own products also. Such a great question. For now, I like to tell people I'm a sustainable Walmart. So right now I do resell a lot of my products. I don't have any products that I make myself. Fortunately, I don't quite have that background, maybe in the future. But currently I do, I vet all of the businesses that I work with. Like I mentioned in my presentation, I prioritize working with B corporations, 1% for the planet members, and other small businesses that we've vetted to ensure are actually ethical and sustainable. But I don't make any of my products now. Don't quit out the expertise. I'm going to leave it up to the experts for now. But who knows, maybe in the future. Someone's wondering if you have any partnerships you're creating with other refill businesses. They mentioned a company in Coal Valley called Lysimple. They said that it would be great if you could lean on one another and keep businesses like these alive. Awesome. I actually follow a lot of refilleries and there's this great resource called the Refillery Collective. It's this forum of just a bunch of refilleries across the United States, and I think Canada as well, where you can go and post any questions you have about running a refillery, about all the columns and concerns you have. What sort of pumps should I use for my containers? This is such an amazing resource, the Refillery Collective. I think the beauty of this business in itself of having a refillery is that there's so much support from other refilleries. You see that not just in the Refillery Collective, but in just every day to day. There's just so much support because we all generally think of each other not as competitors, but as friends, because we need so many more low-waste stores and refilleries like this. Great suggestion. I'll have to look into them. They're in Cold Valley. Okay. Thank you. Someone was wondering what kind of containers do you accept for donations? Glass, wine glass, plastic? Great question. We love our glass and that's just because they're more durable, but we also like to say that plastic is great. Metal is great. Plastic isn't evil. Single use plastic is. If you can reuse your containers, it's great. We do like donations that are, so containers that didn't used to contain things that might have a strong scent. That's just because it's a lot harder to remove the scent sometimes and sometimes that will mix in with the product. That's not great. We also prefer having containers that actually have tops to them or pumps. That's because when our customers come and refill, they usually have to take it along with them. If there isn't an enclosement of any sort, it wouldn't work out unfortunately. Thank you. Thank you so much. I love these questions about donations. Well, you've received a lot of compliments and thanks in the chat. I don't see any more questions. Unless Kevin wants to say something, I think Kevin, if you would like to, you can unmute yourself. Otherwise, I don't see any other question. Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Kevin. Hi. This is Kevin from the San Francisco Green Business Program. I put the information from our Green Business Program in the website, but if anyone has any questions, I'll also leave my email in the chat shortly. I'll just give our short one-minute pitch about our program. We are the San Francisco Environment Department and we recognize businesses for meeting a high set of environmental standards. Our process is free. We also have rebates and we can even in some cases pay for items up front for businesses to help them go green. Then we cover all the different sustainability areas of operating a business, so everything from energy to water use to what type of chemicals and cleaning products. Of course, encouraging folks to use recusables and care in such a great example of that. We really love our business and everything to employee engagement and including developing an environmental policy statement. Yeah, folks have any questions? I'll leave my email in the chat. Thank you so much. Kevin. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you everyone for coming and listening. This was my first talk and it was so exciting. I love being able to talk about sustainability, so it was just so great to be able to talk to everyone today. Thank you so much for joining. Well, Karen, you did a fabulous job and I just wish you a lot of growth for your business. I plan to get some bottles refilled as soon as my potions and soaps are gone and I also started using those laundry sheets yesterday. They're great, aren't they? They're great. I watched them dissolve in the drama as the laundry started and I was like, oh, I can totally do this. But thank you so much. It was a great presentation and you're getting a lot of thanks in the chat as well, so thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you so much. Please look for Karen at various markets and check out her website. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. All right. Goodbye everyone. Thank you.