Catharine Arnston

We have a blind spot there.

And then pursue whatever avenue you need to follow to resolve the blind spot.

I had to teach myself supply chain management.

I had to teach myself graphic design, package design, management, finance.

Yes, I have an MBA, but certainly not in finance.

So

This is the hallmark of an entrepreneur.

You have an idea and you realize there's a lot of stuff you have to do to get the idea out to the marketplace, but you just hunker yourself down and you just tackle one problem after another.

The difference with me and many, many entrepreneurs may be the same is I didn't have any funding.

We're completely self-funded, bootstrapped.

And so in a bigger organization or one that is funded well, you might hire one person to do the marketing and somebody else to do the supply chain, somebody else to do the graphic design, somebody else.

And so you all work together simultaneously to take this thing to market.

When you're a solo entrepreneur, you don't have the luxury of all that.

So I had to do everything myself.

Sometimes I had to do it in consecutive first, get the, you know, get the science, then get the package, get the product, get the brand and get the, and, and, and now after 15 years, it's finally all blending together, but it's because I refused to give up.

Because I saw what was needed.

And while the market was not aware they needed it, I knew they needed it.

And it was proven in other markets around the world what this stuff did and how big it grew as an opportunity.

And I remind my consumers when I'm on a consumer podcast and entrepreneurs, you need to do the same thing.

There are other precedents in my situation, not for algae, but people didn't know about chia or matcha or kiwa or bone broth or lots of other healthy things that had been around in other countries for centuries.