Gwen Whiting

And this is something that I would recommend to other people in this process is to have a very clear agreed upon plan of transition, right?

And that was what we did not have zero.

And it was, I had an employment contract that said, you just keep doing what you do.

And that was like incredibly loose and vague, but there was no transition plan zero.

And that it was the downfall of many is that there was no proper transition plan or what that looked like or a person or a process that

And now that I've spoken to other companies and other CPG, then like they share their process and like, oh, they're like, we put one person in the organization, all these different really strategic, like normal processes that you would think a giant CPG brand who had acquired a ton of brands previously would have a system.

And they didn't.

And that was like my Pollyanna assumption that like, oh, they do this like all the time.

There has to be a very clear playbook.

And there wasn't.

And that was just like so stupid and my assumption, but it is incredibly, that's like my one thing I would say, understand exactly the playbook and who does what and how it happens and like really button up that.

I mean, if you go down an earn out path, that's like a whole nother situation of protecting yourself and like really putting the guardrails on of like how you can...

you lose that but again just go in with worst case scenario like not that that will never happen like every worst case scenario you could ever dream of that's what you plan for and have a good therapist like ready for you also so important try to put that in the contract yeah like get that ironed out right away i was not prepared not prepared

You know, I didn't.

I had to wait a long time, and I'm actually not that...

savvy or involved in Instagram so I didn't and it was very heartbreaking like this woman wrote me about she just washed all of her sweaters and she was freaking out and like what's and I do I boil and it's like you can't put them hot water it's just like it was so heartbreaking I was like your sweaters are fine there is nothing wrong with your product like I couldn't say these things I couldn't say there's no bacteria there's nothing wrong with your product you are fine it like

this is just what you're like.

I couldn't say that.

And I was like, the minute I open up like one thing, like I couldn't.

So I just had to silently.