Is there any better feeling on Earth than warming up your cold hands? Our December Business of the Month doesn't think so! Keep reading to learn more about Toasty Touch and why they should be #1 on your gift lift this year. 🎄 UMLF: Hey guys! We’re excited to interview you as our Business of the Month. Can you introduce yourselves to our readers? “We're Nico and Natalie Dicou, co-founders of Toasty Touch and inventors of the world's thinnest heated gloves. We're a married queer couple. We work best when we're together, so you'll always find us strategizing and putting our brains together to solve a business dilemma. It's fun being in business with your best friend.” UMLF: Tell us about Toasty Touch and why you decided to start this business? “We started Toasty Touch because we saw that this product was not on the market and we decided that we could bring it to life. In Fall 2020, Natalie got diagnosed with Raynaud's, a circulation condition where your hands become icy cold and white in mildly cold temperatures. She tried every heated glove on the market, but they were all too bulky or too thick. You couldn't do the things you wanted to while wearing them. The bulky heated gloves made your hands warm, but you couldn't even pick up a phone call while wearing them. Natalie became obsessed with the idea of making battery powered heated gloves that were thin enough to let you type with or make a phone call while wearing them. Here's a blog she wrote about it: https://toastytouch.com/blogs/coldhandsblog/imafrostyblog UMLF: We’re sure there was a lot of trial and error with bringing your gloves to life. Can you tell us about your creation process?
“Creating these gloves took patience and effort, for sure. We had so many prototypes and designs and feedback sessions with our manufacturing team. We really wanted the fabric on the gloves to feel luxurious and comfortable, not too tight or rigid. We added touch screen pads to the fingers so you could use them with your phone or typing, and also made it so they are comfortable enough to wear for an extended period of time. They have three heat settings, and the rechargeable batteries fit into a small zipper pouch under the wrist. Right now we carry the gloves in the color black, but gray and navy blue will be hitting our store in a few weeks!” UMLF: Your gloves can obviously benefit so many people for different reasons! Have there been any surprising ways people have utilized your gloves that you didn’t expect? “We love hearing from customers on how they're using our gloves. While these were developed primarily for indoor use because of their lightweight nature, people from all walks of life have been using them. We've learned that crossing guards, photographers and mail carriers are big fans of Toasty Touch heated gloves. Anyone with cold hands can benefit from warm, soothing heat applied consistently all the way to your fingertips. Our reviews (https://toastytouch.com/pages/reviews) describe our product as "game-changing" and "life-altering". Our customers' reviews literally bring tears to our eyes when we read them because we know how much they are helping people. It's really wonderful to be a part of.” UMLF: Entrepreneurship has its highs and lows. Can you tell us about a challenge you faced as a small business owner and how you overcame it? “We started this business almost a year ago in February. We picked a date to launch and announced it on our social media platforms. The day came, and we had tons of interest on our site and traffic coming from all over. We set the stock levels and launched the store. No sales. But there were tons of people on the site! What could be going on? Nico realized that on our product page, during a website theme update, the "add to cart" button had been accidently deleted and was not displaying. So there was no way for customers to check out! It was beyond frustrating to realize! After designing and implementing our whole store and launching the site, Nico had forgotten to double check the add to cart button was live! In that moment, Natalie gave a good pep talk to Nico, she refocused and added it back to the store with a little on the fly coding. We were able to get back on our feet and have an exciting first sales day of our ultra-thin heated gloves. It totally was unexpected and just something we had to work through together It just goes to show that even when you plan for everything, things you already thought were covered pop up and say "Pay attention to me!" As an entrepreneur it's up to you. You have to handle these moments with grace and patience, and it will most likely make you laugh looking back at it!” UMLF: How has the Utah Microloan Fund has helped your business? “The UMLF helped our company Toasty Touch immensely by providing a loan to our business when we were needing to ramp up our Google ad spend and order more inventory. It could not have come at a better time because it set us up for success and our biggest sales months ever. Thank you to the UMLF team for believing in us and helping us get our ultra-thin heated gloves out into the world!” To stay in touch with Toast Touch visit: www.facebook.com/toasty.touch www.instagram.com/toasty.touch https://toastytouch.com
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |