207 | How Your Soap Bar Can Lift Refugees Out of Poverty with Noora Sharrab
Our guest on the pod this week is Noora Sharrab. Noora is the co-founder and CEO of Sitti, a social enterprise that aims to empower and restore hope to refuge women through the making of olive oil soap and other timeless products.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Noora Sharrab Awarepreneurs Interview on Social Entrepreneurship and Poverty
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Noora Sharrab
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's topic, and our guest, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show and do a rating and a review, it helps people find us helps our guests get their message out there, we really would appreciate it. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Nora Sharrab. And our topic today is how your soap bar can lift refugees out of poverty. Noora is the co founder and CEO of Sitti, a social enterprise that aims to empower and restore hope to refugee women through the making of olive oil, soap and other timeless products. And I also want to say that when we were talking before we hit recording, getting ready and planning this episode, that Nora is one of the most passionate people about social entrepreneurship that I've ever met. Nor Welcome to the show. Hello, how are you? I'm really good. I'm so excited about this conversation. We literally just hung up with a master class for the enterpreneurs podcast success team, all these fabulous podcasts are thinking about social enterprise, and then I get to talk to you today. So like life is really really, really good. Ah,
01:33
I love that.
Paul Zelizer 01:35
So we're called Awareprenuers, Noora. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or an awareness practice that you personally use to resource yourself for this important work.
Noora Sharrab 01:49
Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm, you know, a Muslim woman. And so for me, prayer is a huge element in my day to day. And the remembrance of God is a huge element in my day to day. So if it's taking a prayer bead, and you know, setting time at the end of the day, and just doing some what we call VA care. Or if it's praying five times a day, and taking a moment, within our day, to just stop, you know, refresh, and just, you know, reflect and go back to God and pray to God. That, to me is my sense of like, coming back to my center and coming back to my purpose, and then doing everything, you know, with intention.
Paul Zelizer 02:39
Thank you for sharing that. So, as I mentioned earlier, you're incredibly passionate about this work that you do and helping refugee women and social entrepreneurship as a way to really lift people out of poverty for the long haul, they wind it back a little bit, because they're a professional experience are something that kind of put, I want to do that with my life and spend my career helping people in this way, what what might have contributed to your saying, This is what I'm going to do.
Noora Sharrab 03:12
So I'll take you back to 2008. And I was doing my master's thesis, and I was doing my thesis on intergenerational differences of identity. Particularly with Palestinian refugees. I am a descendant. My parents are Palestinians, they were born in Palestine. I was born, you know, I was a daughter born in the diaspora in a sense, and I really had this sense of like wanting to dig deeper and the study of identity. And through my studies, I ended up traveling to Jordan on I was living in Canada. But I traveled to Jordan for my thesis and I ended up staying and living with two different host families in the refugee camp and in Jordan, one in these ARCA refugee camp and the other in the Jewish refugee camp, both in the in in Jordan with Palestinian families that basically brought me in like their own. And the purpose of my visit was really kind of to understand the culture understand the community that I was studying, but also be able to like just dig a little deeper and not just do very surface like research. And that's why it was important for me that I like stuck around a little longer than like you know, your your pastor buyer type of visit. And shortly after my research and shortly after visiting these families and really diving into the community and once I published my Masters, I realized that there was more there than just me doing research like I really felt a purpose to want to come back and right after I graduated, you know, I met my my soulmate and my husband Osama who is who was living in Jordan at The time and I ended up moving there. And I started working with the UN right away. And there, that's when I was like, Okay, I need to do more than this. And I started my NGO that focused on refugees. And we worked primarily with refugee women and supporting them with higher education. And that's kind of how the journey started. It really just was, you know, it started with just school. And I realized, you know, there's more here than just me submitting a piece of paper and getting a certificate on the wall.
Paul Zelizer 05:34
Beautiful. It feels important to just pause for a minute on a personal level, I'm originally a New York Jew, although I've lived in New Mexico for since 1993. But our two peoples haven't had the easiest history. And just to say that out loud, feels like to disappear, that would just not be in the spirit of what we're all about. So just just taking a moment. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I think it's really important because identities a big part of who we are. And I mean, for me as a Palestinian on, yes, I'm not necessarily a refugee under, like, the official titles of a refugee, but like, you know, our family and my parents came, they were born in Gaza. And so, you know, they grew up in Egypt, I was born in the UAE, and then we moved here as immigrants. So we have this, you know, this, this journey as part of our family that really never connected with the land itself. Like because, you know, we were displaced at one point in my family, and my father particularly wanted a better life for us. And that's how we came to Canada. And
Noora Sharrab 06:40
so, for me, going back to the refugee camps was was really emotional. Because although I resonated and connected with Palestinians, like from, you know, our heritage and our culture, and like, who we were and who we connected with, I felt like I was also living in a completely different world, and that I was living in a very privileged environment that they never experienced. And so I really wanted to create that connect. And yeah,
Paul Zelizer 07:12
yeah, dispel How could you tell us the story of starting your journey with the study of identities and me disappear? That that was like, No, you can't do that. Just feel my care and honor you and your work with an acknowledgement of how your, the people you want to help the most have come to be refugees, and the role that the people in my lineage have had in that I just, yeah, just can't disappear that and I honor your work. And I acknowledge all the suffering. Thank you. So city, that name means something and it's tied to the work you actually do. Tell us about the name? And what does that have to do with social enterprise and helping refugee women?
Noora Sharrab 08:00
Yeah, so city, in the Arabic language means my grandmother, you often also hear like, ditzy or like different ways of saying it, but city and the Shammi dialect or the dialect and Jordan is, it means my grandma. And it started really, with, you know, the inspirations that stemmed from the traditions of our grandmother. And the story starts with a bar of olive oil, soap, and a group of refugee women that were trained in olive oil, soap, making cold press, olive oil soap making. And what happened is you had a group of women that you know, what made hundreds and hundreds of bars of soap that were in boxes and had no access to really get it to the global market, and they just couldn't sell it properly, right? Like they were making pennies on the dollar for every bar sold. And I remember, at the time on my NGO, one of the the NGO, we had our regional manager came up to me and was like, you know, to my home with a bar with a box of soap and was like, Can you help us sell this? And I realized immediately that this isn't about soap, this is about women that were resilient, and really wanted to pull themselves out of poverty. And soap was just a way to do that. And I saw that there was more than just, you know, soap there, there was there were these women that really, really were looking for any ways to just support their families and, and provide them with dignity, right? Like this was a means of like lifting them, giving them dignity, like giving dignity back to them, right. Like, I mean, it was just, that was the core of it. And then, at the same time, my co founder, who I had never met at that time, was also working with the Jewish refugee camp. At the The Women's Center. And someone had mentioned her name. They're like, Oh, there's also this girl, her name is Jackie. And she's also trying to, you know, help us with this soap. And I remember thinking immediately, like, how are we two women working on the exact same thing to help these women sell soap? But we've never crossed paths? And why aren't we working together? Like, you know, why are we working independently. And immediately I got in touch with her. And I said, Let's meet up. And shortly after our first meeting, we decided, you know, two brains are better than one. And we're both in it with the same intention and the same mission to help these women. And immediately, we decided to just become partners and in city. So that was, that was how I started.
Paul Zelizer 10:48
One of the things we try to do on this show north, help people unpack, like what led or what are some skill sets are mindsets that help social entrepreneurs actually succeed both in helping the communities they want to help and also creating a viable company creating a quality lifestyle for themselves and their employees to things you just said that I like to joke about my spiritual highlight, I want to pull out my spiritual highlighter listeners. And notice what nor does that one is, the community came to you. Right? Help us, you were already involved in the community. And you were doing some NGO work. And it was about helping women around education in higher education particular. But notice, the community came to Nora listeners and said, hey, we've got this product. And you know, we're not making what we could be making. But we don't want like just handouts, we want to actually like have a sustainable, good quality life that can support a family. And we can do with soap help us. Right. So that's the first thing listen to the community want to help? I can't emphasize that is
Noora Sharrab 11:48
Yeah, I mean, having a very inclusive environment where listening to the community was, essentially they came to us, right? Like, they had something they needed support, as opposed to us coming saying, you know, you need to be doing this, and we're gonna help you do it. heard
Paul Zelizer 12:05
it called White savior ism, right? That that sense of like, yeah, we're the smart people with all the resources, and we're gonna come fix what's broken. Don't do that. listeners, please don't.
Noora Sharrab 12:17
And you know what, even as a Palestinian woman that works with Palestinian communities, I also was aware that I didn't grow up in this community. So I can't even assume that I know what they truly needs. And and times Jackie, and I will often have these conversations of, we need to check ourselves at the door. And we need to make sure that although sometimes we we may think we know what's best for them, we need to make sure that they that we're listening to, you know, what they are actually needing. And it's it's an informed buckets, it's a holistic type of conversation.
Paul Zelizer 12:54
And the other thing, nor that I hear that I really want to celebrate and emphasize my spiritual highlighter, Jackie, who is this person who's doing something similar? Let me go collaborate with her, as opposed to, you know, who is this person that's doing this thing that I'm doing, and then silo competing, which we see all you know, I get it, there's this human inclination, this is mine, I should protect it, etc, etc. And I just love your response. And I want to pay notice what Nora did, right there. Somebody is doing something similar? How fast can I meet with this person, and now their co founders are collaborator, your co founders? Right?
Noora Sharrab 13:31
Cool. We're co founder. So I think this kind of really touches on the whole collaboration over competition. And also, you know, you could do more with two heads, really, you could do more, you, you know, some of my weaknesses, Jackie kind of fills in, right and where I can't be, she kind of comes in and I think that's really important because as co founders and, and not to say that you can't run a company without a co founder, but, but really, it really helps when you're starting out, to have that extended team that has, you know, that core purpose and intention to really want to elevate the mission and really achieve it. And so having someone there helped,
Paul Zelizer 14:17
beautiful. So you said something that reminded me before we hit the record button, we were having a conversation that I think would be helpful here. So the women came to you and they said help us, you know, find a reasonable market for this soap that we're making. We're currently making pennies on the bar. And, and when you started talking about what that would look like, you had a conversation with your dad, and your dad made a comment and listeners I asked Nora if it's okay to tell the story. Thank you know, your dad said I would never buy $10 or $4 for a bar soap is never gonna work and you had a very interesting response. about that.
Noora Sharrab 15:01
Yeah, I mean, listen, it's not the cheapest soap in the market. But it also meant that when we were figuring out our cost margins, we were looking at, you know, purchasing resources at a fair equitable rate paying the women salaries that were sustainable. And, you know, keeping in mind overhead costs, logistical costs, and we were a small lean company, right? Like, our margins were very different than, you know, large conglomerates that are producing millions of bars of soap, right. And so that is taken into account when we're calculating cost of, you know, retail pricing, or wholesale pricing, what what may be it, so, we actually retail, our large natural soap bar for $10. And my dad was, we were having a conversation, he's like, you know, what, you need to reduce your prices, no one's going to buy a $10 bars. So, and I remember looking at my dad, and I said, That's okay, you're not my target. And, you know, it's okay, if you go, you know, to your local Walmart, or dollarama, or whatever it may be, to buy yourself on, you know, the soap bar that you want, but the end of the day on, you know, the target audience that I'm marketing to will, because they are going to want to make a difference. They know that by buying this bar of soap, they're making an impact, they know that we're creating employment with every bar, they know that we're paying equitable and fair pricing for resources and for materials. And so all that, you know, adds up. And I think when we talk about fair and equitable and like conscious consumerism, we can't expect, you know, to pay pennies on $1 for a T shirt or for the different products, but also want it to be the best quality, and you know, organic and fair traded and all that, like it just doesn't make sense, the money doesn't add up, right. And we've grown up in a culture where we're used to the 99 cents, we're used to, you know, the slashing of prices. And, and we now expect it, not just, you know, once a year, we expect it all the time. And we expect it particularly from small businesses that have no way to be able to afford these type of pricing that can be competitive on you know, in a globalized market.
Paul Zelizer 17:23
Talk to me a little bit about externalized costs, let's let's riff a little bit for our listeners, because our listeners are social entrepreneurs, and they're trying to this is such a fabulous conversation. I'm so glad you're here, Nora. And to help us with this, right. So I oftentimes see social entrepreneurs and tell me if this rings a bell for you, nor that they're, they're like, I want to help such and such a community, whatever this community isn't really passionate about, and I have this idea and they have a product or service. And then they get it we get to the pricing conversation. And immediately like you can almost feel whatever the Walmart of the space is, like, they just like come into the room and suck all the air out about pricing and, and you're pushing back on that. And like, when you think about a Walmart or somebody who's like Walmart slogan literally used to be always low pricing, they've changed it, I can't remember what it is. But that used to be with everything they were all about was just about the absolute bare minimum cost. And one of the ways that companies like that do that is they do things called externalizing. The cost, in other words, when very when a company that doesn't care about humans, well being and people are literally living in like almost like slave camps to be able to, you know, so they can pay people almost nothing to make that bar soap or that T shirt or cheap food, you know, the people who who Harvest Food and you know, can't afford to like get their kids decent food, there's something wrong with the system, right? And if we want to change the system, but then we like make the numbers try to fit these other folks who aren't playing fair, they're poisoning our water and breaking our communities and harming people of color and all the things that we say we're not against, but then we try to get our prices to match theirs. It doesn't work and a big part of it is because of this thing called externalizing cost. Do you see that? Is that something you've thought about?
Noora Sharrab 19:20
You know what, when we first started, our model was very different. So when we for when we were first starting working with women, thankfully I was connected with a lot of wonderful like five star hotels and I'm talking about the Four Seasons, the can pin skis, you know, the Marriott's on in Jordan. And I was thinking initially when we started was, you know, these hotels have hotel rooms and each hotel room has a washroom and each washroom has soap, and they're changing these soap bars on a daily basis. Why don't we just reach and create a partnership with some of these hotels where it's There's CSR to include our soaps and every single hotel room. And then a we're creating, you know, supply based someone's demand. And you know, and they're they're going to need without 1000s of bars of soap, right. So that was the model. And I remember meeting with the managers and the owners of these hotels and coming walking in and saying, you know, this is what we're looking to do. These are our costings. And I had so many hotels that said, we love it, we want to support you, on but this is how much we're paying per bar soap. This is our budget. If you meet how much we're paying for basically on, then you you got it like, well, we'll carry yourself instead of the ones we're carrying now. And I'm not kidding you, Paul, when I say say this, like even the the procurement manager came up to me, he literally handed me how much they were paying, like he was making it so easy for me that it wasn't even like a negotiation, he was like, this is how much we're paying. Now. We source our stuff directly from China, right, we buy, you know, 15 20,000 bars of soap at a time. And they were paying paying literally anywhere between 15 to 20 cents a bar.
21:11
And I looked at
Paul Zelizer 21:12
the price 15 to 20 cents per bar.
Noora Sharrab 21:15
So that was in the hotel room. And keep in mind, yes, it's a lot thinner. It's like you remember the ones that the hotel rooms, you know. And they're, you know, they're really small, they're quite low. They're almost like the sample size. But even even with that sample size, it was like, you know, that included packaging, but included, like delivery, all that. And I remember looking at the price. And at the time, we were looking at like our costs of we were breaking down our cost of goods for the soap. And even if we were to do like the absolute identical sample size, like the lowest we could probably get was like $1. And I looked at the numbers, and I looked at our numbers, I was like, I can't even meet that, like I'd have to eat through my margins to just be able to do it. And I even tried to negotiate to be like, well, would you tap into your CSR budget to buy the soap? Right? And immediately I realized this is not a market I'm trying to compete with like, what am I doing, like I have to pivot completely because I knew that all the hotels wanted to help. They also had a budget that they had to meet at the end of the day, unless they completely like, tapped into other budget within their hotel, to like, basically purchase the soap. And I realized this wasn't something I could even come close to competing with. And it wasn't worth it. And so I had to just pivot. And we immediately just said, okay, hotels is not the thing, they don't have the budget for it. It's not within our margins, let's change. And we changed completely to corporate gifting and the wedding industry, which is where we started picking up and people at that point, were willing to pay a little more. And we were able to create beautiful gifts that you know, would be pitched to, you know, companies that would give them and do customized orders. And I remember getting our very first wedding order. And it was just, we were just floored by the fact that like we were able to create these beautiful products and, and we immediately saw like one person after another after another that would reach out to us and be like, oh, we'd love this, we want to include this and you know, in my engagement and my wedding and my baby shower. And then from there, that's kind of where we push forward. But when we started, we we were trying to enter a market that just didn't suit us. And it was you know, and having those numbers are important because it helped us. It helped provide clarity and like that's not something we can compete in.
Paul Zelizer 23:44
We're trying to enter a market that just didn't include us. Listen to that listener, thank you so much for telling that story. Nor that that's so helpful because I see this over and over again and want to make a difference. But I need to earn a living, right. And if we can't have these honest conversations at social entrepreneurs, then it's just a theory. And theories are great, but they don't help women in refugee camp are the people that you're really passionate about helping so thank you so much for sharing that story. One of the things you did once you started to like get clear on who your audience was, and like, Okay, we got, we have our sense of where we need to go. But you did something with crowdfunding, you've leveraged crowdfunding, in a way, both that I really admire and also hadn't heard before, because one of the things you did was saying we're going to crowd fund to help us get going, which is pretty common. But part of the expenses is we want to be able to pay the people who are producing the soap and give them sort of like a baseline guaranteed income as part of our crowdfunding. Tell us a little bit about that. How did that work? And I don't think I'd ever heard of anybody using it in that way before.
Noora Sharrab 24:56
Yeah, I mean, our mission is city is really to create self reliance. Since through the generation of employment for the refugee men and and women that we work with, and so how can we create self reliance when we can't create job security. And so when we started, we knew that a we needed a place to do to create to make the soap. So we need to, we needed to raise some money to, you know, get equipments and things like that. But in addition to crowdfunding, what we did at the same time, actually, was we reached out to different corporate partners that may have not been able to give us cash necessarily, on but wanted to support on through in kind donations. And so just think of, you know, we came into this camp, we rented out an old abandoned home, and we wanted to renovate it from scratch. And I can't even tell you, the money adds up real quick, when you're starting to look at like tiles and paint and, you know, all these construction materials, and, you know, building a kitchen and building a washroom and all that. And we knew that there was no way we would be able to raise that much money. And so I started on knocking on corporate stores, I walked into a ceramics company, and I said, Do you have any leftover ceramics in your warehouse? And he's like, yep, here you go. And I'm like, do you have any leftover like a washroom a sink that you don't want? And he's like, yep, I have the bunch in the warehouse. They're like overstock, you can have it for free. I walked into a paint company, and it's like, Can I have some paint? And they're like, sure, here you go. I walk I'm not even kidding you. I think in a span of two weeks, I had the, like, so much in take donations that were completely just given to us. Because we, I walked into these companies, with just, you know, almost my heart on the table and saying, this is what we're looking to do. And this is the community we're looking to help. This is our vision and what we're trying to achieve, how can you help. And what I realized from this, Paul, is that more people have a willingness to help, they just don't know how. And it may not always be a check that they're writing. And it's important to know that because sometimes in our community, even if we look at our direct local community, you know, you may have you know, your local pop, you know, your local business that wants to support you, but they're like, Listen, we might not be able to write you a check, but we may be able to give you something else. And it's important to tap into that. So in addition to the crowdfunding, that was something that really helped us. But when we were looking at our crowdfunding budget, and looking at what we needed in terms of expenses, the number one thing we wanted to make sure is we didn't want to wait to start selling soap to pay the women, because that was the model that has been used by many on marketplaces, social impact marketplaces, where, you know, they collaborate with organizations halfway around the world, and they buy, you know, bracelets on consignment, and only when they sell, you know, the artisan gets a percentage of the sales, we didn't want to run on that model, we wanted to run on a model where, regardless of whether we sold one bar, or 1000 bars, you know, in bilibid, or, you know, Sarah, or whoever it was that we were working with, was going to get a salary at the end of the day, and she was going to rely on that paycheck. And her family could know that like, okay, she's going to get x amount at the end of every month. And she wasn't going to worry about whether we did well or we didn't. And so crowdfunding on when we were putting together that budget, we wanted to say, Okay, what do we need for about a year and a half, so that we made sure that these women had a salary at the end of the month. Because we don't know. I mean, any business usually takes time before you know, you can build off your attraction, right? And you can start selling. And we knew we needed time, we knew we needed time to raise some like awareness and marketing and really get our stuff together. And so having something there knowing that we could lean on and pay these women at the start of our journey was important.
Paul Zelizer 29:18
Again, just about it for thinking about that you didn't just think about yourself that you built, caring for the women you wanted to help. This is the impact you wanted to have. And you bake that into your startup crowdfunding again, just about you. I don't think I've ever heard that before. I'm pretty sure I haven't. Good. So let's do this. In a minute. I want to come back and hear exactly kind of what it looks like now and what kind of products and different revenue streams and you've got some exciting new things you're launching, we're gonna get into all that. But first, I want to hear a word from our sponsor. Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place and you want it to grow in terms of both impact and income? If so, I'd like to talk to you about podcasting for a minute. Here's why. When I started to dig into podcasting, and get a sense of who listens to podcasts, three things really stood out. One is a podcast listeners are what are called early adopters. They like new ideas, they're seeking new ideas actively. And they're some of the first people out there that I'll try something new and out of the box. Number two, they're natural leaders. And they are the people that both in their personal lives and at work and in their community or church, that people naturally gravitate to and ask when they're coming into challenges or trying to navigate something. And number three podcast listeners make more money, not just a little bit more, but a lot more. So if you can learn to access your new, fresh, innovative impact oriented idea to these kinds of humans. Do you see where I'm going with this? If you would like to learn how to do that, where printers has a podcast success team will help walk you through every step of the way, whether you want to be a host and thinking about your sound and technology choices. And how do you get people to actually listen to your podcast? You want to be a guest like Nora's being a fabulous guest today? And how do you do that skillfully and find podcast guest on that are going to help move the needle in terms of your impact and income goals. We'll walk you through every step of the way. It's called our podcast success team. And you can learn more by going to a where printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody who's in the podcast success team that sponsors this podcast. So during the second part of the show, we'd like to joke about putting on our entrepreneur glasses. So So remind me how long in the journey is city at right now?
Noora Sharrab 31:59
So we started in 2016. So we're in our five years
Paul Zelizer 32:04
and yeah, and what does the company look like? Now in terms of the number of you know how many bars of soap you have some other products? And like kind of like, yeah, give us a little bit of like, what's a top level look like right here right now?
Noora Sharrab 32:19
Yeah, and so we have a humble team with me and my co founder, a small communications team. And then currently we support actually we are the sole breadwinner says the pandemic actually, for 34 refugee women and men with disabilities in the camp that we work in, on. So we've definitely grown since we started from that, from that level on and we currently hold around 20 different skews. We sell our products through Whole Foods and Ontario well.ca, which is a popular Canadian health and beauty marketplace, you can find yourself our stuff on our website. But we also do a lot of corporate gifting. We do a lot of customized gifting. We do a lot of wedding gifts. And maybe not so much in the pandemic because less people couldn't get so
Paul Zelizer 33:31
many big weddings of late
Noora Sharrab 33:33
night, some very big weddings a lot of smaller, we still we've still done a little like smaller weddings. But um, but just gifting in general has been such a big hit for us on during COVID. We ran a safe hands campaign we did a partnership with UNHCR and od and helped raise money towards supporting refugees during the pandemic and donated a bunch of you know, over 1000 bars of soap to the community and did a campaign about like proper washing of hands and the importance of washing your hands during this. But for us, what we're really excited about and what I've been working on for months now has been a launch of our first ever quarterly subscription box that will really help us as a company create recurring revenue. And the box will not just be an opportunity to get beautiful handmade city products right at your doorstep every three months. But also when every box that goes out where we've decided to be to make it super thematic on is we're partnering with local based businesses to include their products and also tell their stories alongside hours in the process and really be able to bring you know, a great value for For the customer, basically right at their doorstep. And so for our very first box, which we are launching, beginning of May, so like, right may 3, where it's going to be out on. So by the time you guys hear this, it might be live, and you can go get it. And we are partnering with nine women owned businesses, where we're telling their stories, we're including their products, so you get a chance to really support the businesses, not just city, but you're also supporting the businesses that are included in the box on. And it's an opportunity for us to really just create and build our community through it.
Paul Zelizer 35:40
Hi, my name is Paul and I love recurring revenue recurring, like if somebody hadn't heard that term before? What is recurring revenue mean? And why are you so passionate? What does it mean for a company that really learned how to do recurring revenue well, so when
Noora Sharrab 36:02
we, I'll tell you so when we never thought of recurring revenue before we thought of subscription models, potentially with soap, because you know, you use soap, it finishes, you need more. So obviously, you want to subscribe to get some at your door, if you in case you forget to order some more. But we felt like it wasn't enough, like we didn't maybe have enough skews for ourselves. And recurring revenue really meant that, you know, if I had X amount of subs, if I had 1000 subscribers, and I knew that these 1000 subscribers are going to be getting a box every quarter. So from an inventory perspective, it really helped us on know that like, Okay, I'm going to need to make X amount, every three months that is going to have to be ready, that are going to be included in these boxes that are going to be shipped out to these customers. So it helps us from a production perspective in terms of what we're manufacturing and what we're planning on. And it helps us rely less on the sporadic sales that we were getting from retailers or distributors, or some of our corporate gifting clients. And and although we're so thankful for those, they're also very, like they're not consistent. And so the lack of consistency sometimes puts us at a difficulty where we might not have enough runway, we don't know what to project for the coming few months, we don't know if we might get a surge in sales, or if we might get none. So by creating a subscription list, and by creating this, this recurring revenue, it helps us know that okay, I'm building a certain number of subscribers. We want to create an our mission with this, and I just want to go back a bit. But our mission with this and our intent with this was how do we create sustainability and self reliance on job security when we can't as a company project our next six months or our next 12 months. And so in order to do that, we had to kind of dig a little deeper and say the recurring revenue model was a way to help solve that problem. And help us identify where we we needed to create that sense of security not just for the company, but also for the women and the men that we were employing.
Paul Zelizer 38:17
And for listeners, I'll put a link in the show notes and you can go check out that subscription box highly highly encouraged is super cool, what you're doing there great quality stuff, but we're printers the way it works for us to transparency since we're talking about recurring revenue, we have a membership community called the where printers community and the reason that that's such a helpful thing contrast, like you know, a box and city knows that there you have these many people signed up and every quarter they're going to deliver a box with soap and other products that are aligned. And occasionally somebody will like you know, tap out and somebody else comes in but it's pretty regular. Right? Same thing with the membership community. You know, we have different levels of membership from 25 to $250 depending on what one wants, but it stays pretty regular month after month after month and contrast that listeners with selling one bar soap at a time or one coaching session or one t shirt or you know one plate of food it CSA is Community Supported Agriculture where farmers sell a box of food to their subscribers who sign up for a whole season and they pay up front when farmers have to lay out all this money. I am such a huge, huge huge fan that I wish more social entrepreneurs would think about recurring revenue because it's such a not only cash flow does it stabilize, but also the emotional energy of the founders and people running the company. You know, these wild swings were like I would imagine, Nora like around the holiday time you know December ish in November. She probably sold tons of soap, right. And then because people are giving them as gifts, and maybe in January, it's really lean right that those ups and downs are so hard on us as social entrepreneurs, as opposed to that much steadier like this is about how many subscribers or members I have. And that doesn't have these radical shifts from month to month. It just eases the process. And it helps you be more sustainable as the person steering the company, which then allows you to have more energy available to do things like positive impact and new products and new innovations as opposed to being scramble mode, and survival mode. So I am a huge, huge fan, it helps you be a better both impact, however, and also just more sustainable journey as an entrepreneurs, you can hang out and help more people and have a better quality of life while you do it. So I'll get off my soapbox. But if you haven't thought a recurring revenue, please do some thinking about how you can make that apply in your situation. So one of the things that what Yeah, speaking about sustainable impact, talk to us like what does it mean these 34 people that you're helping? What does it mean to have this job? Like, what? What's the like on the ground? Here's a family that didn't use to be a soap maker for city. And now they are like, what are the ripple effects for their family on the ground?
Noora Sharrab 41:33
Well, we're really excited, we're actually launching our first ever impact report that will be coming out. In about a month or so. So stay tuned for that kind of a disclaimer, before I continue.
Paul Zelizer 41:48
Please let us know when that goes live.
Noora Sharrab 41:50
Yeah, um, but what it means is a lot of the women that we work with, and the men as well, because we also work in partnership with the rehabilitation carpentry workshop that employs men with disabilities and trains them in carpentry on and you work directly with them. So they're kind of part of our model. On a, you're lifting them out of poverty. So there's less dependence on aid, there's less dependence on charity, when we're creating employment. And the women we work with, and particularly some of the ones that come to mind, they are the sole breadwinners, so their spouses are either not there. Or I know, particularly for one woman, you know, her husband suffers from a chronic illness. So she's the only one that can provide for the family, on or she's providing for her kids. And so you can think of one woman's appointment with an average household of five to six people. That it's not just supporting her, but you're supporting her and her family. And you're creating a role model with future generations. So look, that, you know, employment, and the ability to use your skill sets, to feel a sense of dignity and feel empowered, is a way to kind of not just lift people out of poverty, but really create a positive, forward thinking approach when we're working with these communities, the average life cycle of refugees over 25 years. So we know that the problem is not going away anytime soon, for some of these communities, and relying exclusively on charity, and aid is not a sustainable solution. So this is where social entrepreneurship comes in. This is where coming in with this hat on of thinking, How can I how can we look at you know the prevalent problems of unemployment? And how can we work with this community with the existing skill sets that they have to create opportunities for them, that can help lift them, support them, and empower them?
Paul Zelizer 44:10
I'm contrasting that how beautiful that is with let's say a more traditional. I did my undergraduate internship at the largest social work agency in New York State, and I'm not picking on them, but it's called the hillside Children's Center. And I remember every, you know, holiday season, get this massive in pouring, you know, there's lots of kids from really tough backgrounds and you get this massive importing of food and clothes and toys, right? And then like, what they stopped being poor in January, right? They didn't need to eat in February, right. So the difference between that like, I appreciate people's generosity, but it was also like oh, it's the holidays, I'm I want to do something that makes me feel good, but what works to actually help the communities, you want to help like a steady job that can help, you know, five or six family members live together and in a stable, well fed well housed, you know, everybody's hopefully got access to health care, when we start doing that sustainably, that's really different than that model of helping that is, it has good intentions, but it oftentimes actually doesn't have great impact. So I just want to highlight what you're doing there. And how important that awareness of sustaining people long term to live good quality lives when we're thinking about the communities who want to help, as opposed to some of that other giving model, which oftentimes doesn't address some of those more structural inequalities.
Noora Sharrab 45:50
Yeah, and if I may just share like a really quick story. I recall at one point, visiting a home and she opened up her clothes, she's like, come come, and she opened up her cupboard. And there was a, there were, I think, maybe like 10 stacks of blankets, or maybe more. It might have even been like 15 blankets stacked on top, like one of those winter super thick blankets. And I was like, Okay, what is this? And she's like, every winter, they do a winter drive, and they give away blankets. But how many blankets do we need? And it really brought to like that, like, it's not that people like, and it's how people help. And it's remember how what would I said like, sometimes people want to help, they don't know how. And I think we need to shift our understanding with, it's not always going to be giving away a bag of blankets, or, you know, jackets. And maybe sometimes that's what's exactly, that's exactly what's needed. And that's what we we get done. But sometimes it's really important to really ask like, what do you need, what might work for one family may not work for another, right. And it reminds me of the same exact, you know, ration model of, you know, development company, organizations that will come in, or agencies that will come in, and they'll donate lots and lots, whether it's flour and sugar, and you see it being donated, you know, every quarter every month, or whatever it is. And shortly after, you know the distribution happens, you'll see that flour and rice and sugar and maybe even those shoes that were donated, quickly being sold on the side of the street, because the family needs that, you know, few dollars a little more than that bag of flour. Right. And it's common, it's common to see that
Paul Zelizer 47:47
one of the things you said when we were chatting, getting ready for the interview, Nora, you said, this is not a pity purchase. So yes, people have some prayer, urgent needs, and you are addressing them. But you're not. There's a way in which excellence is and the product itself is you're bringing it into the marketplace with more than just you should buy this soap to help these folks who need housing and food and etc. that that's part of the story. But you didn't compromise the the what the product itself is all about. Can you say more? What do you mean by that this is not a pity purchase.
Noora Sharrab 48:31
So when we first started working with the camp, particularly the Jewish refugee camp, it is considered one of the poorest and badly maintained refugee camps in Jordan. And so when you think of the camp, you think dirty, you think sewage running in the street because they don't have a proper sewage system. You think of children walking around barefoot. You think of homes with holes on the rooftops and water leaks through the homes. So the sanitary conditions are not there. The conditions and the expectations and the livelihoods very poor, right to start. So when you're telling people that we're we're making soap out of a refugee camp, immediately they get the sense of, okay, it's going to be like a crappy quality and be like it's probably going to be ugly or it's going to be like whatever you know, they're going to compromise on the overall let's say presentation of it. And if I'm going to buy it, I'm gonna buy it because I feel bad for them and not because it's really the best in the market. And when we started I was like, why can't our soap bar be, you know, just as good as like an expensive luxury boutique and friends. Why do we have to compromise on how we present and market this and I looked at you know, we use in particularly for our olive oil. so far. We Two prime primary ingredients. One is extra virgin food grade olive oil, which the farmers we work with, are always astonished that we're actually using such premium level olive oil to make soap. And lie, those are the two ingredients we use, you can't get any pure than this and anybody else that tells you that they have pure olive oil soap to that quality, I will compete with them because I bind every olive oil in the market that I've seen. And I've always used them alongside ours to be like, Huh, I wonder how they're doing there's, um, and the reason I say that is because for me, compromising quality also meant that it was compromising the story we're telling of the woman. And that by maintaining this high level sense of quality and presentation that alongside that we were also, you know, it was a representation of the community. And it was a representation of the stories we were telling. And we had to maintain that really high level, and really lift and go against the the misconceptions that people would have coming out of that community and say, No, just because it comes from a poor community doesn't mean it's poor quality. And so that doesn't have to equate each other. And so I didn't want it to be a pity purchase. I wanted people to buy it because it was the best soap in the market.
51:23
Right.
Paul Zelizer 51:25
And they just happened to be helping people who could really use some support. Exactly. Yeah, I just love that story. Thanks for sharing that with us. Or I could hang out with you all day, you're doing such fabulous work. But I won't do that to you. I won't do that to our listeners, if there was something you wanted to leave our listeners with, that we haven't touched on yet, or just something you want to highlight. As we're starting to wind this down, what would that be?
Noora Sharrab 51:54
I think it would be that don't underestimate your ability to create a difference. Even if it's one purchase, even if it's one person. And I think a social entrepreneurs or as social beings, we often underestimate that ripple effect. And we don't realize that these small changes that we're making has such a grand element behind it, right? Like there's just so much there's, there's a bigger story behind it, there's a bigger community behind it, there's that trail effect that we might that invisible kind of line that goes back to where it started. So I would say like, just don't underestimate your ability. And if you're not doing so already, live a life with intention, and live a life with purpose. And if you can't find that dig a little deeper, you know, try to find something that drives you that inspires you, that moves you want to be better. Because I when I think someone asked me, you know, what do you want after all this? And I said, I said, No, there has to be a greater purpose there has to like we have to do good, because what's the point? We weren't who are not in this world to just eat and sleep and be right and be like, we're here to create massive change and create massive impact. And if we're not doing it, we need to check ourselves, right. And I and I tell my kids this right? Like I tell my kids like, you know, be kind think of what you're doing be intentional in your actions. And, and if we're not, and I have no, I have to check myself from time to time like, okay, is this with purpose? Is this with intention? Why am I really doing this? You know, and we might falter and slip and forget our paths, but as long as you're working towards it. You know, I think that's that's important.
Paul Zelizer 54:02
All right, thank you so much for being on the show. today. You're such an inspiring company you've created. Thank you so much. So that's all the time we have for today's episode, we'll put a link in the show notes. Please go check out what they're doing. Particularly go check out and spread the word about the subscription boxes. Totally awesome. Before we go, I just want to say we love getting listener supported guests and topic suggestions. It happened today, one of our long term community members said Hey, boy, you need to meet this gentleman. He's doing awesome things. I checked it out like whoa, this is awesome. She introduced us and boom, we've got a fabulous episode coming up. We love listener supported topics and guests. If you have an idea, please go to the website, go to where printers calm and look at our contact page. And we have three simple criteria. They're public, they're transparent. We get a lot of pitches, but we did most of the ones To say yes or people who pay attention to the fit. So please tell us your thoughts if you think it's a good fit. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these poignant times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.
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