you were knocking on doors when folks didn't, and you ended up talking to the head of the Container store, right? Was, I mean, tell me about that story because you people weren't listening at first.

Yeah. Well, it's not about the deck, it's about the story for me. Um, and when people, when I would, you know, present the idea, you know, as an older founder, they were not shy about saying, wow, you're not

Wait, are we older founders? What?

I'm an old founder.

Are we we're wiser founders is what we are, right?

We're wiser founders, that's right.

Hey, by the way, the average age right now of folks starting their companies, uh the average is 45. Side note, that just came out. It's so exciting. Yeah. Okay, back to your story. continue.

So that's good.

And I do love that women find their confidence again at age 55.

Let's go. So, let's use it, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Um we had a lot of nos and we had a lot of people, everything from, are you not just tired by now in your career? And I'm thinking to myself, what do I need more makeup? And I learned really quickly to just let, if they say something stupid to let the silence fill the room.

And then I come back with what I want to say. When I met with Garrett Boone, who it was one of the original founders of Container Store, um his administrative assistant, I reached out, said, well, he's not investing right now. and I said, I get that. That's okay. I just want to meet him because he really is known for creating customer experience in modern day retail.

And he introduced a new category through container gardens, or through container store. And he came to my office, stayed about an hour and said, I got to be part of this and he invested and he has become a dear friend, a confidant and somebody I absolutely love spending time with.

So, you know, what what is that I I want to take that lesson to folks that are just getting started with a wild idea, right? I mean, I love our small business owners and entrepreneurs because they're going to hear no over and over, but you got to keep going. And then you sought out one of the biggest names in business at the time.

I mean, what what, you know, if I'm sitting there and I've heard no 100, 200 times, what what do you tell that founder in that moment?

Keep going, get back on the horse and try again. If you actually believe in what you're doing,

then find the right partner. And I will say you have to be pretty brave to walk away from the wrong partner. We met with Julian and I met with a couple of um investors who wanted to come in as lead investors, and uh it didn't feel right. And when I said to my husband, he goes, how'd it go? I go, I got the ickes. And he said, enough said.

So you have to be prepared to walk away from the wrong money and get the right partners who not only will believe in you, but believe in the mission. Um, and no means, no doesn't mean no

forever. It means no right now. and we don't know what's going on in their world. I mean, it took me a lot of time to get Bonnie Plants on. Um, you know, they're one of our uh uh a strategic partner and a small investor. And I met them through LinkedIn, they're one of our farm partners and we love Bonnie Plants. and originally they were like, no, we're not doing any kind of small investments right now. And, you know what? I kept pushing, pushing. They invested and one of the coolest experiences of my life, we had a big investor meeting and the CEO of Bonnie Plants at the time came to the meeting

and somebody asked him, well, why did you invest in Gardenunity? Because they're the nation's biggest plant network company. And he said, because we grow gardens and they're growing gardeners.