Jaclyn & Em, co-founders A Sustainable Village
This week on the podcast I'm stoked to interview co-founders of my favorite shop in the East Village, A Sustainable Village! It was my first shop that I went into that really made me feel grounded in my new neighborhood in New York City. I’m so excited to introduce you to these amazing founders as they share their goals and vision for the shop. I can guarantee you their story will encourage you to take that next step on your big dream!
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Website asustainablevillagenyc.com
Instagram @asustainablevillage
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Kelly: Hi, everyone. This is a new episode of creative direction with Kelly Bennett. I have on the co-founders of seriously, my favorite shop in the east village. It was the first shop that I went to that really made me feel like more grounded in my new neighborhood. And it felt so at home. So Jaclyn and Em, of A Sustainable Village. Welcome so much to the show.
Jaclyn: Thank you for having us!
Em: We're so honored. What an introduction!
Jaclyn: That's exactly the shop we wanted to create. Thank you so much.
Kelly: You all are nailing it. Uh, I genuinely, I remember texting my mom after leaving your store. I'm like, oh my gosh. I found like my people, it made me so happy and I, that's why I always go into your store to, to like refill my soaps and stuff. And it just always makes me so happy. You all are doing such incredible work. You really created such an, a warm, welcoming shop and that it feels like a community space. So great job.
Em: Best part of our opening, your shop. Like we both agree that having people come in and talking to us and expressing their joy of having a shop like ours to refill it's it's really, truly is the best part of, of being here is an opening the shop.
Jaclyn: And connecting with people
Kelly: Love it.
Jaclyn: being like walk with you on a daily basis.
Em: However, it's really nice to have a sense of community again.
History of the shop
Kelly: I love it. Totally. And that's my next question of how did you all get here? a little bit about both your backgrounds would be super cool because I really admire what you all are doing. It's so important. So how the hell did you get here?
Em I'm going to start in. Um, so, so I started living zero waste or at lower waste, as much as I can, when my kids, my, my son was born. You know, when you have children, your perspective of the world change. And that's sort of just on the back of my mind, try to save the world in small steps, small ways. Um, and, but I work in fashion and I know that's one of the most, uh, polluted industries in the whole world. And so I try to offset my career with what I do at home. I've been doing that for 11 years. Minimizing waste, but then, uh, you know, over COVID and, and previous year talking to friends, I started to feel more like, I need to action on this. It's not enough. I'm doing it by myself. I need to get more people on board. We all need to, everyone needs to, reduce their waste, whether it's plastic waste or any kind of ways, we all just have to do it. And, and so Jacqueline and I met, um, we didn't know our kids.
Jaclyne: We met probably at preschool, um, maybe dance.
Kelly: How cool.
Em: And, um, we just we'd start talking and we get along. We have a lot of the same morals and
Jaclyn: yeah, exactly.
Em: We protest. We love to go protesting.
Jaclyn: And we like protesting a lot.
Kelly: I love that.
Jaclyn: Yea, I So, unlike Em who I say is a true zero waster. I am someone who is on the journey. And so my background is, um, I spent my twenties and finance. I spent my thirties and my early forties in classrooms, but I consider myself an educator. Um, but I've. You know, I've always wanted to, um, have a career that I am passionate about, which is what led me from finance to education. And then the one part was missing in that is I had always wanted to run my own. That was something he's important to me, but I could never figure out what it is I wanted to do in that realm. Because again, my background, which I'm really passionate about is education and kids and advocacy and teaching. Um, and so how to. Combine those things. And then when Emma and I started talking and I started also sort of moving into this, this journey of attempting to be more sustainable, we'd have these long conversations about what we can, what we could do. And we talked about everything for a while. We were going to design our own shampoo bar, you know, we just would all of these different things. And then we sort of, I don't even truly, we, we realized there were so many beautiful. Brands on the market that we're trying to be sustainable that are trying to solve problems. And we want a place to showcase them. We didn't even, I don't know. Do we even factor in the community element of building a business when we did this?
Jaclyn: When did we definitely did. We talked about how we should have community come on the boards and all of that? I think I was so laser-focused on. Okay. Opened this business, like
Kelly: How are we going to do it?
Em: How are we going to make a retail business work? That we built this business, which we love the business this itself, but then the community elements you talk about has been what's really carried us along and pray.
Kelly: That's the thing
Jaclyn: Yeah.
Kelly: I feel like you need both.
Jaclyn: Yes.
Kelly: You absolutely need both. And also, I didn't know either of your backgrounds, but now hearing that, and then seeing the shop, I'm like, okay, this totally cause you have the education. I always love when you put like fun facts on your sandwich board outside, and I could see the fashion. Yeah. I could, I could totally now see. Because also your shop is really cute and the way that it's merchandised and the way that it's curated, I'm like, okay, I could totally see how this, both your worlds came together for the store. That's so cool. So tell me a little bit more because I am so. Uh, in, uh, inspired. And I look up to people who own shops, because I know it's not an easy task at all. I used to be a partner in a restaurant. We had two locations and that, that was a beast of a business model. And then I knew like, restaurants are not for me. And also like lifestyle shops. I've worked with a lot of owners of them, but can you give us a little behind the scenes of like how, okay, so you had this idea. You're like, okay, We're not doing the shampoo bars. We see that there's other products out there we're going to do a store. And how did you take that idea to opening up your doors also during a weird time? Right? I feel like it's not even a year yet that you've been open. Right.
Jaclyn: No, no. How? I mean, how did it even start?
Kelly: How did you do it?!
Jaclyn: It’s so crazy!
Em: There's I think, and you can, you know this from, from being an entrepreneur yourself and owning your business. I think what it comes down to is you just don't give up, like, we keep coming back to that. You just keep solving problems along the way. And so there were times when we. How do we move forward? And there were times where we were stuck, but just not being able to move forward and what we would just walk around the neighborhood during this is when there was nobody around when the city was shut down and we would go on walks together and just talk and just try to figure out how to do okay. You know, just observing the community and then we realize we need to help rebuild our city somehow. Like how do we incorporate that in? And it's all like the birth of the shop slowly come together when we walk by ninth street and we're like, I think this is the space. This is it.
Kelly: There's something magical about nith..
Jaclyn: It's a magical street.
Kelly: I walked down there, I'm like, this is a magical street it really is.
Jaclyn: I live on ninth street.
Kelly: Cool. See bringing the magic.
Em: I always knew it was a magic street, but I never thought I would own a business on the street. Sort of the concept of stores. Well, I was raised in California and in California we have, they're never really called zero waste shops, but we have plenty of stores like this that I grew up with in my sort of small Northern California, somewhat hippie town. So I think the concept of it and Em has been using every single one of these products for years, you know, like nothing new, nothing new, but like mostly, you know, our staple products. And so it was this combination of like when I was in California over the summer. Drive around and explore the different stores and go in and talk to the owners and say, I want to bring that, we want to bring this concept to New York. You know, and you just, you meet and particularly in this field, we're in now, it's a very supportive field. It's primarily women.
Kelly: Love it.
Em: We're backed by primarily, I'd say 95% is women. Um, we are all very supportive of each other. There's Facebook groups. There’s a few of us stores like ours that are throughout the city that are one in Queens, one in Brooklyn. Um, two in the Bronx, we all do. We all talk we all share.
Kelly: Love that.
Em: Beautiful community that we're part of, because we're all exploring this on our own. And we truly all believe, um, a rising tide lifts, lifts, all ships. Like we say that all the time, a rising tide lifts all ships. We would love to see our store on every single corner, not our store, but a store like ours. Right.
Jaclyn: We like, we believe in it.
Kelly: I love that. And I love how there's this network of shop owners doing zero waste or refills shops who are connecting with each other and who are supporting one another, even in a city where, you know, could feel very competitive, right? Like New York city is not for the faint. So it's just really nice to hear that you all are connected and supporting one another because you all also, what it. sounds like too are on a similar mission. Like you all just want to help people make more sustainable choices, simplifying. It brings some convenience to that. So that, I think that also relates to the community aspect of when you could connect with someone on their ethics, their values, how they want to see the world, how they see impact. I feel like that type of connection and building from there is just, it's a game changer.
Jaclyn: Absolutely.
How the storefront is designed
Kelly: Yeah. So what do you feel like for your shop you would love for people to experience or some changes that you would love people to make in their lifestyle? What does that look like for you as far as, even from the, the products you curate and how you set up your store? I would, I would love to hear that.
Jaclyn: Oh, Em you take this one, you take this.
Kelly: Take it.
Em: For the refill rate is like none other, I love our refill. It is the center of our business, but, but let's let it get, sorry. I've already talking about. When people walk in the door, the one thing that I always think about and like, I would say, oh, please buy, you know, in my mind, I hope that they would buy either a shampoo bars, a conditioner bars, or shampoo or conditioner because I strongly believe that if every household switched to one of these products, then we're going to introduce so much plastic waste in New York city. I mean, we have 3.9 plus million households in New York. If each household throws up one bottle a year, that's a lot of bottles. So when somebody walks in and a new to this, I would immediately show them the shampoo and conditioners as the first thing, because we all use. Every day, all the time. And then, um, I, we showed them other products, but that's like my and the refill of course.
Jaquline:. Yeah, no, yeah. That's really. Or we just say with handed dish soap start easy, right? Like if shampoo is a little too much for you to, to reach, that's fine. Just come get some hand in dish soap. Start there.
Kelly: I love your just soap. I have my body washes now from your refill station and my, um, cleaning products, my spray. And so it, and it's so fun also too, just from a consumer point of view, like I get my bottles and I go and we talk and refill. And it just also, I think, connects us to the little things in life and the things that maybe, you know, you order it online and it gets shipped to your door. When you could just take a beat to do it in a little bit more of a mindful way. It just, I don't know. It makes me happy. It sounds kind of corny, but it really like makes me happy that I'm able to do that.
Em: Emotional. And actually we used to be closed on Mondays because it's just the two of us running this business and we have other jobs. Life is stressful. Um, but I had a little more freedom in my schedule, so I was like, okay, let's try and open on Mondays and see, and we found that we were actually a Monday store because people used us to take breaks. They were like, oh, let's go. Let me go refill my hands. So my shampoo. Go talk to Jacqueline and em, see what's up. Take a walk. They're not going to go clothes shopping on a Monday. Right. But they will go to their local store and pick up their cleaning supplies.
Kelly: That's a really interesting observation and it's kind of like setting up your week, right? Like you refill everything on Monday and then, you know, you have it for the week and it just can be almost be like, here's the word I was looking for? Like a self-care practice of being mindful of what you're using it is.And it's like, Part of your self care is the products that you use and how you import operate them into your lifestyle. So that's how I like to think of it too.
Jaclyn: We borrow, maybe we borrow that for marketing there Monday.
Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. Please do, because that's how I see it too.
Em: Should I, I was going to say champagne, but that would sort of ruin the purpose of the self care line.
Kelly: You could have like tea, you could have tea.
Jaclyn: Tea! Thank you.
Kelly: Like we have so many great local tea shops in the east village, even in particular, like having some combo or like a collab or something that would be really fun.
Jaclyn: Oh, yes, Kelly. Thank you.
Kelly: You're welcome. These are the things I think about, well, walking down the street, so, okay. I love that idea and let me know when it happens, cause I'll totally be there. And I would love to hear from you all, because I do work with a lot of, I specialize in working with lifestyle brands. I'm obsessed. Like literally this is what I live, breathe and sleep for the last. 12 years. And I work with a lot of people now, especially I feel like with the pandemic and with the shutdown, a lot of people were like, okay, I'm going to go back to what I was really passionate about or had the more time and space to do that, making more products. And there was kind of like this surge of I'm sure you all saw too, of like new products coming to the market. But what are some things that you. all look for as far as the products then that you carry? Because I feel like that gap of making stuff or doing farmer's market or selling it on your Instagram to actually being in a shop like yours still feels like this mystical journey that someone's going on. So do you have any advice or tips or. Things that you would love for people to be mindful of maybe when they pitch you or when you're looking for new products, I would love to hear your insights on that.
Em: I mean, that is our goal to be a shop in which we have curated products that we believe in. Um, and I don't want to talk over you. Um, I think that, um, many of the products that we picked out or we. Research on like some of the most important things for us, the brand is also supportive of the community or trying to do something else other than just making a product, you know, that they're, they're planning somewhere or they're a part of the 1% community, or they're helping locally to some sort of charity. So those are that, that sort of makeup brands stand out. just a product. So that's really important to us because we want, we want to also get there. We want to be a store shop that can eventually contribute to the community in some ways or another. We are contributing to the community.
Kelly: I was going to say, you. I just opening up your doors. You are so, but I hear what you're saying. You want to be able to maybe do other initiatives or projects or whatever, but you start, you start where you start. Right. And I think that's a cool philosophy of looking at it, like curious of like, oh, how can we keep it growing? Or how can we, you know, make changes in different ways. Um, but to go back to, as far as the products that you're curating. Looking at those impacts driven brands that
Jaclyn: That’s part of it.
Kelly: Yeah. So tell me more.
How they determine if a product is worth selling
Em: There's sort of a three-pronged approach. The product has to be good. We have to like the product itself. Like it has to be good. We test all of our products. We test everything on our kids. We like, you know, we we'd give out samples to our friend. Like everything we sell in here, we either have tested. We know people who use them. Um, that's very important to us. Um, the second part of that, as we have to like the brand, as, as Emma was saying, they have to get them half-full brand. We have to like the brand, they have to be good people, right. And, and many different elements to that and what that looks like. Um, and we like to, if we can, we like to be able to, um, focus on women and minorities and small batch. We try not to have products that are sold on Amazon. We know many brands need to do that. So we're, that's not a, that used to be sort of a goal of ours, but we recognize that brands need to grow. And we know that there's a way. So, um, but with almost all the brands we sell, we have personal relationships with them because we'd like them, they are doing those things. Um, so those are the main factors in which we will sell a product. Um, you know, they're having some brands that we like, but we had to stop caring because they were, you know, doing some practices that we did not support.And so we will pull them from the shelves. Like we will do that if we need to do that.
Kelly: Integrity is everything.
Em: We're who we are. We are authentic people, our brand, we are who we are. We can't be what we know if we don't, if it's not working for us, then that's it.
Kelly: That's it. also, I would say with your brand, um, what was it a couple of weeks ago? Maybe a month ago when I walked in and it was a pop-up of, uh, a new product that you were having, and it was just so much fun also to connect with another founder. I see their products And, hear their stories. So that is something cool too, that, um, I I've been seeing with your, with your shop in particular, bringing in different brands or featuring different brands and letting people taste it or try it or test it out, which is cool. It feels like people are with you on the journey of what you're carrying in your store.
Em: And, and to have a retail store, you need an experience, right? That is acquirement these days of having a retail store. And so our experience comes in primarily through the refillers right. And the experience also with like seeing all the products. Because most of these products we sell, they're targeted on Instagram to you. They're not in one place. There are these individual products look to you in different ways. Um, so we have the refill rate and also seeing the products, but we like doing things like that too, because you were here when poop shark was here. That's a neighbor who invented a compostable dog poop bag. Cool! That is so cool.
Kelly: That is so cool.
Em: We opened the shop to find, find things like that.
Kelly: It's so cool because I was in there and I shared it on my Instagram stories. I got so many messages like, oh my gosh, how cool is this brand? I'm now following them seriously. I got so many messages. Yeah. And I was like, oh cool. They're like, can you show off more new products that you find I'm like, okay, sure. But it was so funny, like people really, really connected with that. product. I'm like, honestly, I just walked into my favorite shop and the founder was there. Wasn't anything planned, but I, yeah, I, it was cool to see so many people's reactions to it. And that's the power of what you all are curating and cultivates. Those moments where you can meet the founder and see new products and have a space to have those conversations, because like you said, and I feel like it's a great metaphor for life right now. It's so fragmented. It's like over here and over there. And it's like, when you could have a space where it all kind of connect. And it feels like, okay, cool. We could just talk and connect. It's S I F I value it more than ever. I think before I may have taken those moments for granted, but after the last couple of years, I'm like, oh my God, this is, this is so nice. I, I deeply, deeply appreciate it.
Em: Before opening the store. I was someone who would not walk into a shop if no one else was in that shop. I was that person. And now I'm have a shop in which, you know, we're a small shop. There's plenty of times. It's just one of us sitting in here greeting someone and it's changed. And I've just seen that in, in the conversations with having with people. Is we're meeting that connection so much more.
The future vision of the shop
Kelly: You are. And my next question is what is the vision for the shop? Like what would you love for it to be, or do, or, you know, I know that's a big question, but what's on your hearts as far as like what you would love it to evolve to
Em: We are literally having those conversations as we speak.
Kelly: Love it. Okay, cool.
Em: Even this time last year, this was, I mean, what is this ready in May, June, we were just looking at real estate, you know, and
Kelly: Wow.
Em: Yeah. And so it's a conversation we're having now. We weren't even sure. We will be honest. We signed a year long lease because when you open a business that is so risky as ours and that every single person was like, are you sure you want to do this? Um, you know, you, you have to be practical about it. And you know, a few weeks ago we did our first sit down and we, we always sit down and talk, but you know, we said, okay, we're going to continue doing. Like that, that conversation happened. So now it's evolving. And so that's happening now.
Kelly: Well, thank you for sharing that because I feel like so many people when they're starting a business, put so much tremendous pressure on themselves, like this is going to be my life forever. And it's. Okay. Maybe chop break that goal down a little bit, sign a year, lease, put everything you have, give it a year and then have honest conversations with yourself or with a co-founder. Do you want to keep going, do you want to do this? So I appreciate you for sharing that honesty, because I feel like normalizing those types of conversations of checking in with your cell phone, with each other are so freaking important, especially for entrepreneurial.
Em: Yes. I agree. Yeah. Great.
Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. So what is like maybe the,
Em: It's not like we don't like our vision is we are honestly, we're so proud of ourselves. We’re having this conversation with you right now in the last year, we're also, I mean, we're in our forties. We are like, we've, we've lived, we've lived some lives.
Jaclyn: So we've had careers.
Em: We’ve had careers. it does help with us feel to sort of step back and, and have the honest conversations and well, the bigger picture and focus on the minutia and also get that, you know, nothing is permanent life. Saying that, but nothing is permanent life. So like, what is this going to look like in the future? And, you know, these are conversations that we continually have also, we've been collecting data. We, you know, like we've had the shop now for almost a year. We know a lot more now than we did in September about what the consumer wants, where our motivations. Um, and so we, we have more information now. And so what do we do?
Kelly: I’m so curious. Yeah. Was there anything that stood out to you of like, Okay. That's interesting. Let's focus there.
Em: For me, it was the community element of it, truthfully. I just wasn't. I was so focused on keeping the bit, you know, we were so focused on keeping the business open, you know, margins and all, and the business.
Kelly: Right, right, right.
Jaclyn: I think at the end of the day, for both it's like we, we have to keep it open because the community really, really wants us here. And we actually really enjoy being here being part of the community. And that's sort of our final decision.. Like we have to be here for everyone.
Em: We have to be here.
Kelly: That's so cool.
Jaclyn: Yeah, yeah.
Kelly: Well, I appreciate both of you so much for anyone who's in New York city or, uh, traveling to New York city. Where can people find you? Where is your shop located?
Jaclyn: Three 18 east ninth street between second and first.
Em: Yes, that right. A few blocks or a few doors down from the Silca across the street from Mud.
Kelly: Um, I'm telling you ninth there. I just tell people like the whole shopping experience on ninth is so fun. It's I only live a few blocks away. So for me, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the dreamiest little, I love the east village so much. Um, it's just so dreamy and especially nights with all the shops on ninth, you all being a cornerstone of that. It's just fun to go down and like just hop to the different stores and shop and explore, like there's so much. And, um, I'm starting to make a guy with all my favorite shops because I have so many friends from Vegas and the west coast are like, I'm coming to New York. Where should I shop? Because we all are obsessed with like your style of brands. Um, so I'm starting to make that guide to, because even people traveling, they want to see what's happening in New York of the stuff that maybe isn't so touristy, but like, locals are doing.
Jaclyn: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kelly: I love it. Well, thank you both so much. I appreciate you both so much on so many levels and thank you for coming on the podcast.
Em: Well, I can thank you for being one of our first customers and always supporting us that is exceptionally meaningful in so many
Kelly: Ah, that makes me so happy. Yeah. I moved back to the east village in September, so I'm so honored that I was one of the first! I was, so I was such a nerd when I saw it. Cause I was watching the store and then when I saw it was open, I'm like ahh! Got my little basket ready. I was like, I got my bottles. I'm ready to do this. So thank you both so much.
Jaclyn, Em : Thank you!
Kelly: All right. Thank you everyone for listening. And I'll see, on the next episode.
