Tribute to a Wandering Path
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When I watch my kids navigate their small corners of the world, I can visualize the threads that tie one experience to the next. I love seeing them construct these tiny webs, with one path leading meaningfully to another. When it comes to my own wayfaring, connections such as these are often harder for me to see, but they are beginning to reveal themselves with the help of hindsight.
Prior to starting Dearist, I had a varied career with seemingly disparate work experiences - from auto insurance to frozen packaged potatoes, and from diamonds to coconut water. I used to anguish over past career choices, questioning the whys and hows that took me from one industry to another. But as I cross a new milestone for Dearist, with our redesigned gift boxes now available in stores, I have been reflecting on the learnings from previous roles that show up in my current work. What follows is a tribute to that wandering path. It led me to landing one of my most favorite, illuminating, engaging jobs I ever had, from which I was later fired.
Okay, so technically I was not fired, but I didn’t want to leave. I had built a strong analytics team that altered the way the company made decisions. Then, I was pregnant with my first child and had six months left before a planned relocation to a different city, hundreds of miles away. I made a concerted effort to remain with the company but ultimately had to part ways, albeit on very friendly terms. They just did not think it would be possible for me to work remotely. Ah, it was a different time pre-pandemic. Where to begin…
In 2015, I was in my twenties and living in New York City. I had been working at a new job with a luxury jewelry brand that was nearly synonymous with the city itself (and breakfast). Despite the legacy that attracted me to the company, the role turned out to be a spectacularly bad fit. After ten months on the job, I made the tough decision to put in my two weeks notice without any prospect of another job waiting for me. This was a move that ran counter to everything my immigrant parents taught me about being responsible in a new environment. On top of the anxiety of unemployment, nothing quite reminds you that you live in a city you can't afford like being required to list said parents as guarantors on an apartment lease. Still, I was determined to find a new job and stay in the 500 square foot (that’s being generous) studio I shared with my husband and large dog.
I will always be grateful to the person who picked out my resume to interview me for a chance to work at Vita Coco, the leading coconut water beverage that had the likes of Madonna, Rihanna, and many a bodega behind it. This person who interviewed me was actually interviewing candidates to become her manager, whom she would report to directly. In what could have been an awkward dynamic became, instead, a lasting professional relationship. A few years later, as she was making her own career moves, she named me as a reference for a role she took up with a different company. I gave her a glowing review.
While my day-to-day work at Vita Coco had me deep in Excel sheets analyzing sales data and consumer trends, the company had a culture that encouraged us to experience the brand ethos. During the early weeks of my onboarding, I said yes to an afternoon bike break, taking the Vita Coco sampling bike down to Madison Square Park to hand out packs of the drink. I did not mention this when I signed up, but it would be my first time maneuvering a bike in NYC, let alone one towing a large metal cooler. The sampling event was such a fun New York moment, hearkening back to a lemonade stand I once set up as a kid.
I had joined Vita Coco right as we were entering warmer weather, which coincided that year with the company’s first national advertising campaign. To kick off the campaign, the company organized a sales blitz, or a push to ensure Vita Coco was stocked and looking its best on store shelves across the city. Members of the sales team from all over the country descended upon Vita Coco headquarters to cut their teeth in our largest and most competitive market.
I was well aware of the lore behind these sales blitzes. Before I was even hired, I had read the New York Times piece on Vita Coco’s grassroots operations that made the company what it is today. The article profiled a man named Goldy who led the ground game of getting Vita Coco into retail stores, yoga studios, and anywhere drinks were sold. True to the write up, he was just as ebullient as I had imagined him to be when we met in person. I said yes again, this time to riding along on the sales blitz.
Goldy paired me up with a colleague who had flown in from Dallas. We were to meet with a distributor rep early the next morning to replenish cases of Vita Coco at the established accounts along his route. I got a firsthand lesson on what Goldy meant when he said we needed to defend our shelf space, as this distributor also restocked other beverages next to ours. I learned about what a great display could do to lift sales, as well as the benefits of simple yet witty signage.
Along with selling product displays and refreshing old decals with new campaign materials, we were on a mission to open as many new accounts as possible. Even though Vita Coco seemed ubiquitous in stores, there were still countless opportunities. One of the stops we made on the route was at an account where Vita Coco was not being sold. As the distributor rep carried in cases of Fiji Water, he told us it would not be worth mentioning Vita Coco here. The gatekeeper at this particular shop had turned him down several times in the past. But on that day, the gatekeeper said yes. I sold him one case of Vita Coco, surprising myself and the rep. Word got to the CEO, who gave me a big high five in front of everyone when we got back to the office.
A great product, on display, with clever wording. These were key to winning the street fight among beverages, which I learned when I stepped away from my desk and joined the sales blitz. It was only after I had opened up my first three accounts with Dearist that I realized where this know-how had come from. You can hear it in the way I talk about the new Dearist gift boxes looking great on the shelf. It is in the way I offer to include an acrylic display to show samples of the book series. You can see it in the wordplay I came up with for our definition of Dearist - a person who writes letters.
Vita Coco is also where I would meet Rhea, the talented designer behind the illustrations throughout the Dearist books, stationery, packaging, and website. Two years ago, I reached out to her about this idea I had to teach kids how to write and send letters in the mail. By that time, I was already years removed from that special era in New York City, but I always remembered her graphic design work on Vita Coco. It has been a joy reconnecting with Rhea and building Dearist together. She has always come through for me on the many, many edits I send her.
I am learning to embrace this web of experiences and take new things as they come, like how my kids take the twists and turns along their paths as a given. I am able to see now that an ill-fitting job challenged me to make a leap for something better; that the chance I took on a sales ride would serve me again years later; and that leaving a company I loved would enable me to start one of my own.
