DISTIL UNION

Nate Justiss and Lindsay Windham are the founders of @distilunion, “a micro-collective of designers creating products that improve experiences in our everyday lives.” _

Q: What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?

A: “Know your break even.” It seems overly simplistic, but hearing that early on really flipped a switch in me. Coming from the design side at bigger companies, I didn’t have experience in running a business. My strategy before was just to produce cool products and let the business folks figure out what to do with them. Now my company’s success is my responsibility. I quickly learned that knowing our cost of goods sold was crucial to setting marketing & sales goals while maintaining profitability. Our mission with Distil Union is to create beautiful and useful goods — but in order to continue doing that, we’ve got to have a sustainable business that keeps the lights on.

Q: What’s one thing you wish you’d known before starting your business?

A: I almost answered that by saying I wish I’d known how much time it was going to take. But on second thought, knowing that would have discouraged me from pursuing it! Honestly, I’m very glad that I made the leap. While we do spend A LOT of time working on the business, it doesn’t come with the same stress of being at a job where you’re watching the clock or feeling unappreciated. All the time we put in gives us the reward of pride in what we’re doing. Whether it is putting more time in to improve the products, marketing, UX or operations, we benefit directly by being personally proud of the final product.

Q: How has your business grown in the past few years?

A: We were doubling every year, but we did just about the same in revenue this year as we did in 2015, which is quite a feat considering the knockoffs on Amazon. Diversifying our sales channels and significantly improving our own Shopify website have been key strategies to mitigate what could’ve crushed our small business. _