Savon Pop Chai Soap

I am hitting on a theme lately: woman entrepreneurs who have given birth to new businesses around the same time as starting their families. I just interviewed Alysia Melnychuk, owner of Savon Populaire, a Montreal based organic cosmetics (soap etc.) company. Like Kim Fuller of IDG Communications, Alysia started her business just before the birth of her eldest child more than six years ago. And like many entrepreneurial moms, she used her maternity leave time to further develop her ideas so that when she returned to work she was rearing to go.

And she has been going strong ever since. Even the birth of her second child almost 5 months ago hasn’t stopped her. Though this time, she wishes she could pull back more. Her biggest challenge has been finding a way to replace herself. Her solution, by necessity, has been to farm out various aspects of her role to four different people on a part-time or project basis. Not surprisingly, no one person had her entire skill set. Parcelling out her roles and caring for a small baby has necessitated that this entrepreneur truly assume her company management role, leaving technician type soap production issues to others. As it is, she is putting in 20-25 hours a week still (often at night when her children go to bed).

It is hard for me to let go because I pride myself on creativity in our soap making and on quality. This is forcing me to do it and it’s good practice.

Her current situation also made her question her ability to continue with the current company set up. And selling is not an option as Alysia is too excited to walk away as the company is poised for a growth spurt. After very careful consideration, her answer is to create a co-operative.

Over the coming months, Savon Populaire will become a co-op with 3 partners who have an equal voice. There will be a lot more “letting go” to come for Alysia. Fortunately, her passion for creating body friendly, environmentally friendly products and her love of working in collaboration with people instead of in a boss/ subordinate role will continue to drive her. Savon Populaire will be all the better for it as one of the new partners is a herbalist who brings many innovative ideas and know how. Happily, the third partner is a current employee who is being groomed to step into a partner role.

The biggest risk Alysia ever took in business was to start the company in the first place. She did it with no capital and no cash flow. There were some very lean years at the beginning where Alysia’s resourcefulness is all that kept her company going. She told me of how she retrofitted a clothing iron to be her product sealer in order to save $300. It seems there have been many ingenious moves like this. She’s most proud that she has created something that now has worth in terms of brand equity and company assets that she could sell.

Alysia’s biggest failure (and greatest learning) came from realizing that remaining foggy on details where money is concerned is a recipe for big problems. Her initial naïveté didn’t serve her well and she’s now very careful to stipulate clear terms when money is involved.

Soon Savon Populaire will move from their Montreal Parc Extension workshop and manufacturing shop to new larger retail location (TBD) with local shopping traffic and launch a whole new product line. With two new partners, a new retail location, a new product line and a great deal of enthusiasm for what is possible, we can expect to see great things coming from Savon Populaire in 2010.