Charlene Li: Entrepreneurship in the World of Food & Beverages (Co-founder & CEO of EATABLE)

foreign [Music] Universe podcast the cast get it the cast my name is Alina and I'm the founder and CEO of illuminate where we Mentor job Seekers and help employers to Fast Track their business goals I interview a celebrity cast of incredible individuals who have truly inspired careers we're talking about a work Journey the process of taking the lead to create a life and career they love and what happens when they fish aside their fears and doubts to unleash their fullest potential today we speak with Charlene Lee on entrepreneurship in the world of food and beverages

industry and skills for success Charlene worked as a senior accountant for Deloitte manager for TD Bank before founding the world's most delicious and cool gourmet popcorn infused with the flavors of classic cocktails Wine and Spirits non-GMO gluten-free and Artisan crafted with natural ingredients a refined snacking experience worthy of your everyday celebrations hi Charlene thank you so much for coming on to our show today our first question for you is can you share a bit more about your entrepreneurial story with us how did you enter the world of Entrepreneurship and how did you come up with

beatable well in my past life I was actually a professional accountant so I went through school and did my undergrad studies in Commerce I ended up articling at one of the large accounting firms in Canada and received the CPAs designation so I spent the first 10 years or so of my career or just within the finance world after leaving an accounting firm I ended up working for one of the large banks in Canada as well so going through that time I had always enjoyed my career but I always felt like in a way there was

something missing so I've always sort of considered myself as somebody who was Adept with numbers but also had these creative talents in the background so after a couple years in my career I actually planned our own wedding so when I was going through the wedding planning process I fell in love with the idea of Designing our wedding invitations and stationery and I was sort of a self-taught graphic designer and that was my first foray into entrepreneurship after planning my own wedding and doing our own wedding invitations I was sort of sitting in my corner office

you know in a bank doing Financial stuff all day long and then Moonlighting on weekends with like a binder paper swatches and coffee shops and it did pretty well for a couple years we got published in a couple of high-profile wedding magazines but then I I had my first child and it became really difficult to keep up with custom work for very very demanding clients I would say we're planning one of them you know the Milestone moments of their lives so I sort of put a pause on that but because I had sort of done

it once it got those creative juices going and I I literally couldn't imagine myself sitting in an office for another 30 years of my career and I didn't I had this sort of like little moment of panic I can recall the day it happened and I was like you know what I feel like I have to give this a go like I feel like I have to jump out and maybe explore some creative Realms in my life and so that kind of kick-started a whole series of events that it resulted in us like relocating to

Boston picking up and leaving Toronto where my husband and I were both born and raised and during our time in Boston I was working with another startup and we came across a commercial kitchen that happened to run an accelerator or incubator program that really taught people the ins and outs of running a food business from end to end so on a personal level my husband and I have always been Foodies during our dating days we'd go check out all the trendy restaurants in Toronto so we've always had an appreciation for good food and drink and

then during our time in Boston we kind of just stumbled in that Community Kitchen thinking was like a hobby a way to meet people in the city after coming out that incubator program there was a little pitch competition where we entered in a popcorn recipe that we had actually been making for an number of years in our kitchen stove not thinking anything of it and it was a scotch infused whiskey infused caramel popcorn and literally this recipe was just something we read out of a recipe book on how to make handcrafted caramel on the stove

top and we just decided to slice it up a little bit by pouring some Scotch whiskey in it and and that popcorn won top two in that pitch competition in front of a panel of retail buyers people in the food industry and that was kind of that next Eureka moment where we thought maybe this idea kind of had legs and we should see where you can go with that it felt like a really impulsive decision in a way but I've always been of the thought I didn't want to live my life with regret my husband

feels the same way life is short and the last thing we wanted to do was kind of sit and wait in an office and we wanted to find that fulfillment and so this was that opportunity where we like let's just do something with it so we packed our guys and moved back to Toronto and to be closer to our family and launched edible out of here that is so incredible so inspirational it all seems like it's meant to be but while you were going through the Journey did you ever you know stop and wonder hmm

I wonder if this was meant to be was it a natural Journey did you ever think it was going to happen before it happened not really I don't think either of us really went through business school and and thought hey I'm gonna make popcorn oh and I'm when I'm done with this seriously I graduated thinking that I was going to be making a career to finance my whole life I mean that was a very important Cornerstone I would say in our education and and spending those years in a corporate environment I would say laid the

foundation for the confidence that it took to kind of take this kind of leap and move outside the corporate world but it wasn't a natural thing at all the first couple of years were very challenging we constantly agree evaluated our identity like what are we doing with ourselves what are we doing and you would tell friends and family and they're like nice like is it a side gang and we're like no I think we could you know really push the idea of wine and spirits infused popcorn that we make with natural ingredients out into the

market and people would take us seriously but in those early days when nobody saw us on any social then we just threw up a Shopify store people were kind of giving us okay that's nice you know I'll buy you for holiday gifts and stuff but they didn't really think anything of it until maybe half a year down the road and and we had our first opportunities to land our products in some major national retailers in Canada like large department stores that people then start to see oh I think they're kind of onto something but in

the beginning no one really believes until they see it and there's this really big sense of that Underdog Story that kind of has to motivate you to get through those really hard days so yeah it didn't really come easy at all funny so tell us about the Underdog Story tell us about a setback you've encountered in your life and how it served you throughout this whole journey yeah so I mean like as I said when we first launched we just threw up a Shopify store those initial orders I still remember the names of our first

initial customers the first customer was actually my dad but I don't know if that counts but the first you know handful of customers like they mean something to you every single order would validate the fact that there's someone out there interested enough to buy it and so we launched right in the beginning of 2019. that was a time that the world was your oyster and then until covid-19 hit that year did we really get thrown in the trench and starting a business is hard enough starting a business within a very competitive consumer packaged Goods space

as a food supplier is even tougher pair that with you know retail closures halts at the grocery stores on sampling and all of that and that really early in our business trajectory already we were forced to adopt and pivot luckily we had created a foundation within e-commerce to help kind of ground that basis and that was at a time when all the large retailers were finding their way to move back online but those were some really trying times we had already kind of invested a lot of personal Capital into this business and to read those

news articles every day about how small shop owners were closing that took a really really big toll on myself and it really made apparent that you know you can start something with stars in your eyes but there's going to be some really low times and that's not even in the midst of a global pandemic so I would say you know there were some pretty low points again like when you're looking at money in your bank account and your and my husband and I work together we live together we're life Partners too so even that brought

its own set of challenges with you know two little kids at home I think that a really big struggle particularly going past into these two years was that mental health aspect of it and that imposter syndrome at a time when everyone's looking for stability are you really gonna start a business in this time is this what you really want to do with your life should one of us go back to work navigating that instability I would say in the economy and the whole landscape really did take a toll on my mental health and it's not

something that people really talk about that much within entrepreneur ownership it's a lot of times it's like very isolating and lonely going through these Journeys feeling like you know your friends and your networks around you who are you know in corporate jobs and they don't really understand you're really good friends we'll really support you throughout that journey and reach out to you and see how you are but a lot of times it was very isolating so I we only had each other it seemed like for a while and even then we didn't always get along

to overcome that I had to get to a place where I would be okay admitting like I needed to find a therapist perhaps so I mean personally I really enjoy speaking about mental health and in the impact mental health has on entrepreneurship I think is very important it affects all of us not just entrepreneurs a lot of people went through some really hard times during those years I'm glad to see you now coming out of it there is more and more discussion happening around this topic and and more and more resources that came out of

the pandemic meant to make it okay and reduce that stigma but that self-awareness I think that comes with going through those hard times is something that makes you a stronger person coming out of it entrepreneurship or not we're all people and we all need connection and so I feel like we came out of that with that raised awareness that business and life is all about people it's about taking care of yourself and so you need to make time to take care of yourself to be better for people in your life it was both a personal

and a business lesson for myself we wear so many hats as a co-founding team of two and we had a family to raise so I think that was a very challenging time in our lives that you know I can look back on like in a weird way like fondly now because it taught me a lot of hard lessons that I probably wouldn't have otherwise learned in the same way so I feel like that's built up my tolerance you know going forward if that makes sense totally totally and so if you had a time traveling machine

and you went back to let's say 2020 March what would you say to Charlene then what kind of tips raised yourself for impact [Laughter] I love that I would tell myself there's gonna be a lot of days where you kind of really question if you're headed in the right place and you're gonna doubt yourself a lot in this journey but I think it's all about grit and it's all about resilience I would not like to think that I'm like the smartest person in the room in any room that I that I enter I mean there's

been so much learning in this journey because I didn't come with a professionally trained food background I didn't know how things worked previous to this in the in the industry so I would say as long as you have grit as long as you stay in the game and keep pivoting keep moving forward you won't lose a lot of people tell me they're really scared to jump into entrepreneurship because you're evaluating what you're giving up like joining in that world right you're like oh I got this nice study career and and everything's good and and people

in my peer group are doing so well in their corporate Journeys and then you're like at what point do I feel like it's okay to jump out of this secure State into a life of Entrepreneurship I told a couple of people I've spoken with over the years I'm like we thought that you know a corporate was safe but the pandemic taught us that it's it's not really or or people had to be open to change right would one industry got hit really hard retail Hospitality events got hit so hard people had to be open to

change and evolution what I studied in school may not necessarily be what I end up doing in life and our our company actually found a way to take what was going on and use it to Pivot and grow along with what was actually happening so we'd always taken pride in our products being very Gourmet and we always wanted to push the boundaries in terms of flavor profiles to kind of take it a step up from what typical popcorn and the marketplace look like so when we had an opportunity to bring on a chef in our

team that ended up being for load from you know a large Hotel job we were like yes we need help we need help making more popcorn and and bringing fresh ideas into what new flavors we can roll out because in the beginning we had our stuff tested by pastry chefs and sommeliers that really validated that but at the end of the day my husband Vince and I don't have a food background you know like what I think books think tastes good I think tastes good but I want to make sure that you know somebody else

or our customers also think it tastes good so we took what was bad in the economy and we found a way to kind of work with it and help us build our team during that challenging time so yeah just be open to change and adapt I would say that's incredible and so given the interesting times that we're in what is one piece of advice you would offer to someone currently striving to attain their dream job I think it goes back to what I was saying before and be open to change be open to adaptability because

I find that a lot of times we as as humans and crave stability in our lives especially in uncertain times and we have a tendency to try and plan what the ideal version of our life and career looks like and I think while planning is super super important sometimes when you're so fixated on your thought on what a perfect life and a perfect career looks like or a perfect job you might miss other things that come at you that are not completely in line with that so I would say you know when you're evaluating a

position in a career sometimes people are like you know I have to work for such and such company and I'd be like you know what that that's there's no guarantee that all the stars are gonna go align and and you're absolutely gonna get a job in that company what I would focus more so on is what are the skills that you're hoping to develop in your career and how can skills that you're taking with you from a previous job translate into something you can apply to another job you can look at sort of the course

of your career as something that's building your personal brand or a personal toolbox of skills that can take you anywhere you want to go no matter what the industry no matter what the company so don't get so fixated on what you think you want but just be open to what comes at you in life and just be prepared to grab those opportunities when they do come last question for you Charlene so how do you balance everything you're a mother you're an entrepreneur I don't think balance actually exists in my repertoire to be honest yeah we

wear so many hats this particularly Hit me hard during the pandemic as I explained before it just you know during really hard times I had a mentor tell me a while ago that you can have it all you just can't have it all at the same time and I really took that to kind of evaluate how I spend my time in my life because if it were up to me and I had you know 10 years of my life back with no kids yet I would be the type that's working the Midnight Oil staying up

till 4am on my computer doing everything grinding it out until you get to do what you want right but actually having children it sort of showed me in a really hard way that just because you want to do something and you can't do it there's gonna you're you're gonna have physical limitations you're gonna have constraints on your energy level and your sleep and I found myself in the early days with my son when he was just months old figuring out how to be productive in like a 45 minute window where he's napping and so that

kind of taught me you know what you can't be so fixated on like doing everything in one sitting you can't be the perfect mom and the perfect boss and everything truly I think that women have to make a lot of tough choices in their lives and and be very intentional about what parts of your life you're prioritizing at any given time so I sort of ended up structuring my week in such a way that I made sure that there were enough buckets of time in my week so that I could provide even coverage to different

facets of my life whether it's you know being in the home at work I kind of live and die by my calendar a little bit it it seems a little crazy but it works and it was the only way that I felt comfortable that I'm giving enough attention to the various different facets of my life and it required a lot of discipline to be honest to be very intentional about blocking that time out and then drawing boundaries between if I'm at home you know I'm at home and I'm present with my kids so no devices

no cells but when they're asleep and I open up my computer I don't need to feel guilty that I'm you know not spending time with them so I think it's just the intentional scheduling of that time that makes me feel a little bit better about balance but I don't think I've truly ever felt at any point in my life I'm doing it all very well anyway well you're certainly a role model for myself you're urging how to step into the world of Entrepreneurship and perhaps in a decade how to become a mom or who knows

maybe in a couple years I'm not sure well the first thing is I need to find a boyfriend I'm sure you'll have no problem with that no problem at all yeah well thank you so much Charlene for being on our show it is such a pleasure to have you here thank you so much for having me Lena and I'm in so much all of what you've done to create the illuminate Community as well and everything that it just does for this Market I think it's even more important now than ever to provide that link between

people in the job world as well and give them these resources to even help decide where they want their career to go so have talk to you as well thanks for having me [Music]