 Today, we're excited to welcome someone who is fighting inequality through business. Alana Reinholtz joins us to talk about founding Bird and Stone, a jewelry company dedicated to women's empowerment, philanthropy, and giving back. This is School of Hustle, the show where we find advice and inspiration from people who are making their own way. I'm Shannon, the VP of Social Hierarch Go Daddy, and I live and breathe at the Hustle of Business. Today, we're filming from the Hustle of It All at the WeWork Times Square in New York City. Everybody, let's give Alana a big warm welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have you here because you founded a fascinating company called Bird and Stone. It's a company that's building a more equal world. I'm wondering if you could tell us all more about what building an equal world means to you in your business. Thanks. Yeah, we're really proud of the values that we've built with Bird and Stone. We are female founded, everything is made in the USA, and everything gives 10% to a non-profit partner that we work with. And you make jewelry. Yeah, so we are the first, so we are the first direct-to-consumer jewelry company that gives 10% to a non-profit partner that you help choose. So we connect consumers to causes that they care about. And you mentioned on your website that all of your products are ethically made. What does ethically made mean? And why is that important to you when you're running your business? Yeah, I mean, we're really proud that I got to decide where the manufacturing is done and it's done in the USA. We make everything in family-owned factories in Rhode Island. So we pay fair wages. It's really great for rapid prototyping and bringing things to market. So yeah, we're proud of that. And what is your business model? Yeah, so that's a great question. Everything that we make gives 10%, so that's top-line sales revenue to a non-profit. So for instance, we have a Futures Female Bracelet. That's one of our best sellers. And it's in partnership with the local affiliate of Planned Parenthood. So Planned Parenthood of New York. So for every product, every cuff that you buy that says Futures Female, they get 10%. And so we've replicated that across a whole host of issues. We support women in politics. We support fighting against climate change, growth and education, et cetera. As you expand and you increase in sales, how do you ensure that that quality and that mission is not compromised? That's a really great question. I think it also has to do with the type of investing and funding partners we get so that we don't have to compromise on those values. Impact is at the core of the company, and we could talk about this more, but I started the company from a fundraiser. I sold jewelry as a way to get to Kenya. And did you make the jewelry or your friends? You did. Yeah, so I made jewelry. I was in Midtown, right around here, buying beads at the bead stores. I taught myself on YouTube how to make bracelets. And it was a fundraiser for a trip to Kenya. I was working a corporate job in finance at Bloomberg. And I was, yeah, so I needed a couple thousand bucks for a volunteer trip when I was 24. And we made jewelry to fundraise for the trip. So that exact, that's kind of the birth of the business model for the company. So everything we do gives back. It's not 1% of sales or anything like that. That is wild. I have to ask, when you came back from Kenya, was that when you knew you had to do this jewelry thing more long term? Yeah, so when I went to Kenya, I lived with a group of rural women who were starting businesses and they were in poverty. So they were getting microloans, $100 microloans and they were getting out of poverty by starting businesses. So I was completely transformed by the women I met. And I saw that women were literally carrying their babies and the world on their back. And they were showing up to my business classes to learn about profit and loss. And I just said, oh, what can I do to support their work? And I thought that it should be, you know, it's very much a grassroots nonprofit. I don't think I should be there, but I wanted to support their work. So the first partnership we had was a collection that supported microloans for women starting businesses. And you also mentioned Planned Parenthood earlier. What are some of the other causes that you support and how do you go about finding people that you're going to align with? So to answer your question, yeah. The Planned Parenthood partnership came out of this need a couple of years ago saying burdened stone supports women and girls. That's what we do. We started to empower women and girls with jewelry, but a lot of reproductive rights are actually endangered in the country and we're seeing that right now in places like Alabama and Missouri. So we started with the Planned Parenthood of New York affiliate and what's so cool is we've sold tens of thousands of cuffs that support our local Planned Parenthood. And we see people asking for affiliates in California and Texas and something that we did this year we're really proud of is our first match. So during the abortion cuts in the news in the last month we were able to match $1,000 of donations within 24 hours on our social media for people, for the organizations in Alabama, excuse me, in Alabama and Missouri for all those women who don't have access to get safe reproductive care. Wow. The massive impact, it almost traces back to you teaching yourself how to make jewelry with sort of at the heart of all of this. That's wild. You also, I don't know if this is true, but I believe you also speak Swahili. So conversationally Swahili, I would say I learned a lot of words to teach business classes in Kenya but yeah, so a lot of business words about... You're so well traveled and I'm curious what lessons and experiences from those travels like really make you successful in your business. Like what things do you bring into your work today from this background that you have? Well I think what was so interesting about the trip to Kenya is realizing my privilege and how growing up here in the U.S. and just working hard I could get to a really great college and I could start a business with access to customers and so that experience there with these women working really hard in poverty they just didn't really have the resources. It sounds like you gained a ton of empathy and compassion and understanding and those are all such great things. I'm just amazed by this story. This is so amazing. Partnerships are so important to your business model and you've made such a massive impact for Planned Parenthood locally. It sounds like what are some other partnerships that you're working with right now? Yeah, so I can talk about two. So first there's non-profit partnerships so every product we make is in partnership with a non-profit that's fighting for a more equal world. One is we fund She Should Run which is getting 250,000 women to run for office up and down ballot by 2050 so that's their goal and so we made this bracelet that says who run the world? And yeah so that was really exciting. We launched it last summer right before the midterm and then actually led into our first for-profit partnership so normally we work and fund non-profits but we were approached by the SKIM so if you know the SKIM they are an awesome millennial daily newsletter that's providing great information about the world in tidbits and in great ways. Yeah we worked with the SKIM to make a no-excuses bracelet and so no excuses was a campaign for them to get 100,000 millennials to vote in the midterms and so that was our first time that we did a corporate partnership where we could make a bracelet and make an impact with someone else's audience. And do you find that your customers are posting their bracelets and jewelry on social? Yeah that's such a great question. So you could look at our Instagram tag photos and the stories that we get are unbelievable. I would love to tell you one. Yeah please tell me one. Someone wrote us in that they wear their futures female bracelet every day and this is a 45 year old woman in the Midwest of the country and she said that she goes to her sales job at an engineering company and fought for equal pay and she was so scared to go to her boss's office but she looked at her wrist every day and was reminded by it. So that's kind of why we're doing what we're doing. That's what you're all about. Thank you for opening up. This was really fun. Now the next section is one of my favorite parts of School of Hustle and it's called Hustle Time. In Hustle Time we set a timer for 60 seconds and we see how many cards you can get through in that time. You ready? Wine, white or red? Malbec, so red. One thing you'd want on a desert island with you? A good book. Chardonnay, yay or nay? Nay. Favorite pastime, music or movies? Movies. First place to visit when you retire? Early bird or night owl? Night owl. Coffee or tea? Coffee. Favorite part of your day? Yoga. Top best part of your workout? What? Best part of your workout? Uh, shavassa. Personal trainers, effective or too much cash? Too much cash. Grape flavor, yay or nay? Nay. New York or London? New York. Ideal fake sick day? Look at the beach again. The beach? Would you rather visit liquorice castle or peppermint forest? Peppermint forest. M&M's or Skittles? M&M's. If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet? Winston Churchill. Favorite kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Oh, the blueberry girl. Most powerful emotion, anger or love? Anger or love? Love. Okay. All right, we're going to count it. All right. Okay. Now it is the moment of truth. Ideal sick day. Take that out of the deck. Everyone up. Like ideal fake sick day. It's like the excuse that you give work. Right. But entrepreneurs don't take off sick. It's just so confusing. How are we doing? 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. That's really good. Favorite part of your day? Morning yoga. Best piece of advice you've ever gotten? Just start. Worst piece of advice? You have to know everything to start. How do you use your career to inspire others? I think just showing up and being brave every day. Ever felt like walking away? Absolutely. One thing you still need to learn? I'm learning how to lead leaders. What do you want people to learn from you? It doesn't have to be perfect. Just ship it. What's next for you? Getting more women funded. Who inspires you? Michelle Obama. Who challenges you? My partner Nate. Now the next piece of advice here is actually for our favorite pug noodle. These come in. Noodle has a ton of birthday parties to attend this summer. He's popular and he never likes to arrive empty pod to these parties. Noodle feels that jewelry is so personal and he just doesn't know where to begin. So what advice would you have for Noodle and people who want to buy jewelry as a gift for someone else? Yeah, that's a great question. I think what's so cool about our website is that you can shop by cause. So if you have a friend who cares about women's rights or about fighting climate change or supporting girls around the world, you can actually pick the cause that they care about. And they all have inspirational phrases on them. So the idea Noodle is don't think about your cause but your friend's cause. Think of that person and channel them and then go forth and pick something that they can wear with pride and excitement. And it's very easy on your website. Now I have to ask you to share with us how we can follow you on that website and Instagram. So tell people where they can go. Tell Noodle where he can go to go shopping. Yeah, you can go to birdandstone.com or follow us on Instagram at birdandstone. Fabulous. Well in closing, I always like to leave with a final thought. I'm going to read you three quotes and I want you to tell me which quote resonates the most with you and why. Okay? Okay. Find peace in what you cannot change. Creativity is intelligence having fun. Or you must expect great things of yourself before you can do them. I think the first one, find peace in what you cannot change. How so? Why that one? I think there's so much in building a company about getting to that level and saying I'll be happy when. And so personally I've done a lot of work on that and enjoying the journey. So it's all about just reveling in your strengths and not trying to be anyone else. That was so much fun. Thank you. I know that everyone watching really enjoyed Alana's discussion today. I know that I did. I would like to ask everyone to follow birdandstone and social. And also follow GoDaddy because we are bringing entrepreneurs every week across social, giving you more advice and inspiration for fabulous people like Alana every week. So stay tuned and keep watching and we'll see you soon.