Adam Torres and Davina Kaonohi discuss purpose-driven brand building.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
What does it mean to be a purpose-driven brand? In this episode, Adam Torres and Davina Kaonohi, CEO & Co-Founder of Element Apothec, explore purpose-driven brand building with Element Apothec and the Newport Beach Investor Conference Davina will be attending.
About Davina Kaonohi
Davina Kaonohi is a visionary founder, passionate entrepreneur, and dynamic leader with an exceptional ability to drive success within organizations. With her unwavering dedication to creating positive change, she has made a profound impact as the driving force behind Element Apothec. As a strategic operational leader, Davina possesses a unique blend of skills in leadership development, business strategy, and operational management, enabling her to navigate organizations towards growth and sustainable achievement. With a natural talent for team building and a keen eye for talent, she assembles high-performing teams capable of delivering remarkable results.
About Element Apothec
Element Apothec redefines well-being with an integrated vision for a healthier future. By providing innovative solutions, Element Apothec is poised to lead the transformation of the health and wellness landscape, driving positive change and meaningful outcomes using natural and science-backed products. Born from a need for clean, safe, and effective ingredients, our mission is to develop functional, ethical, and accessible natural science-backed products supported by medical research and education to bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science. Element Apothec is dedicated to building consumer trust through complete transparency, and is committed to bettering the planet through responsible ingredient sourcing, sustainability, and social giving. They imagine a world in which the oneness of nature and science help people live their best life.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today my guest is Davina Kaunowi, who’s CEO and Co Founder over at Element Apostic.
Davina, welcome to the show. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me today. All right, Davina. So excited to get more into element of posse, but first things first. understand you’ll be at the Newport beach investor conference. You were referred over to us from Brad Turner. So big shout out to Brad, but first off, are you excited about the conference?
Yeah, it’s an amazing event. There’s always incredible conversations, networking opportunities, companies presenting, so I’m excited to be there. Now I understand you’re going to have a booth there and you have some involvement there. Like, like what can we expect? Cause I think I’m going to be roaming around there too.
I’m pretty sure that’s booked for me. So we’ll meet in person, but what can we expect? Yeah, so I’ll be there with the booth presenting our company. I’m also helping with the VIP bags as well. So I’d love to help and participate where I can at the event. That’s awesome. So Davina before we get into Element of POSIC, I’m just curious, I see co founder, like, were you always an entrepreneur?
You know, it started when I was quite young as a child. I even had a couple of small businesses, washing cars and babysitting and flower deliveries. So it’s always been part of me, but I did end up going into the corporate direction moved up through, you know, HR operations strategy but realized entrepreneurship is really where my heart and passion lies.
At what point, though, did the concept of being purpose driven or even brand building, when did that come up for you? It’s always been something that’s been really important to me. I grew up between Hawaii and San Diego, and I think part of that is, you know, culture is really having meaning behind everything that you do.
And so whether it be in my corporate jobs, in terms of how we structured, Opportunities for employees and benefits and leadership development, always trying to put in place purpose to make a difference, whether it’s for the employees or, you know, for myself now, building a brand into the products that we create, tell me a little bit more about element apothec.
So Element Apothic is a B Corp. We really see ourselves at the forefront of the evolution of consumer health and well being. We imagine a world in which the oneness of nature and science help people live their best lives, and that’s through the products that we create and the education that we provide to those consumers.
How did you get the idea for this particular brand? Well, it actually started many years ago. My great aunt was really sick, diagnosed with multiple medical conditions, autoimmune diseases, and what she was receiving in terms of her treatments and medications were not necessarily helping, not that, you know, she doesn’t need some Western medicine, but she started also looking to alternatives and additional, you know, remedies and things that have supported cultures and, you know, people for many, many years.
And through that, she started creating her own products to help her. And within a short period of time, she started seeing some noticeable differences. People took notice and asked her to start making products for them. Her kitchen turned into this apothecary store essentially. And she made over eight years, 43 custom formulations to help people with various functional conditions.
And so I was at kind of a intersection of deciding what I was going to do next. Launched a business, wasn’t successful with it for various reasons and had also used her products, had bought her products for friends and friends parents as well used them for my son. And so she said, if, if I want to take the business, there’s an opportunity to help so many more people.
And her goal really was to take her products from the kitchen to the world. So that’s been my passion over the last few years is to build this brand and really impact the quality of as many people’s lives as we can. What does it mean to you to be a purpose driven brand as you build this company?
Purpose driven is really, you know, a brand that you’re aligning your purpose with your mission, your operations, your strategy, and it goes beyond just the profit. It’s really in terms of at the end of the day, what impact, what difference are you making? Of course, profits important, right? We all have to grow and have financial stable businesses, but beyond that, how can you make an impact both internally as well as externally?
Talk a little bit more about the formulation and just some of the products for for, for, for element and plastic. So, the basis of our products is really functional alternative products and remedies to help consumers. They’re all doctor formulated. We have our integrated pharmacist who’s our chief scientific officer.
Medical advisory board that helps formulate their products and all plant based clean products as well. It’s really important to us not to use, you know, traditional preservatives and things that people have been using that also cause harm to people. We also do use cannabinoids and have found that they really do add value.
Working with our own internal endocannabinoid system to elevate the product. So it’s not the basis completely of the product, but it’s one of the many ingredients that we use in our products to make them more effective and more functional. like tell us a little bit more, go a little bit further into maybe one or two products just to kind of explain what they are to give the audience a little bit of a feel for it.
Yeah, so we have a range of products that range from topicals to ingestibles on the topical side. One of our favorite products is a transdermal patch that we have. It’s a patch for pain relief. Actually, the company, the manufacturer that did it used to do opiate patches and felt like they had a responsibility to move away from that and are now working with them functional plant based ingredients.
And so we’re excited for that patch and we’ve been working with them for a while. On the investable side we have tinctures that people take that range from helping with sleep to comp fillings are one that we created for general wellness, which is actually exciting. We created it with a, a cancer center for patients that were going through treatment to help support them.
That includes turmeric, lemon, lime, peppermint, and then several cannabinoids, CBD, CBG, and CBN. We’re all entrepreneurs here, Davina. So let, let’s dream for a moment five years, where would you like to be with this company? And so in five years, I see that we have opportunities for a worldwide distribution that we would be in countries that are allowing hemp derived cannabinoid products.
Some countries do not still have that accessible or it’s complicated to ship that. to them. We’re, you know, in presence in both retail and strong direct to consumer channel. And we’ve also been able to successfully penetrate into working with medical practitioners and health care practitioners and pharmacists and things like that.
So, yeah, I see, I see the company continuing to grow and expand in its global presence. Let’s circle back the conference a bit. this will be my first year attending. I mean, should people consider attending this conference? Tell us a little bit more. Yeah, I’ve attended a couple of them. I think three or four.
hear Brad puts on really good conferences. Is this right? This is my first year attending. Go ahead. Yeah, Brad puts on great conferences. He’s really well connected, always out there, really trying to help these entrepreneurs, these brands to get the visibility and put them in front of the right people to help them grow and succeed.
So you’ll find that at this event, there’s incredible investors, high net worth individuals, great brands, entrepreneurs that are really trying to make a difference, a lot of. Impactful brands, especially in the med tech space general consumer space as well. So it’s, it’s a great event. It’s one of the better investor events that I’ve participated in.
And it’s why I also help support them in, in other ways too, because I really do believe in what Brad’s trying to accomplish and the power of putting the right people in the right places to have the important conversations. That’s amazing. want you to maybe talk to the entrepreneurs out there that are just getting started a bit like that, that aren’t maybe as far along what would you say is for, to those new entrepreneurs they should be thinking about before, you know, launching a new idea, like obviously with the benefit of hindsight, we all have the ups and downs, right.
Of entrepreneurship, but you know, you using that hindsight tool, what would you say to the new group of entrepreneurs coming out there? Yeah, and I think and and I actually help consult with entrepreneurs as well So, you know, it’s really important to really think through your idea and put together a strong business plan Also by the financial aspect of it is something that I think even me going into it Helping companies being on the other side of something.
I realized that it takes a lot more money than you expect it to a lot more time. More money in time, right? It’s so true that when you’re on the other side, it’s easy to tell people one thing, but now being here, it’s definitely a different perspective, but also make sure that you’re really passionate about what you do because being an entrepreneur has.
Amazing highs and incredible lows that you’re going to be dealing with. And you have to really be passionate about what you’re doing, but a lot of it comes in the planning, the idea stage, making sure that you really have thought through all of the different things that you’re going to do and what is going to be your purpose as you’re building this brand, because just money alone isn’t going to be enough.
to really make you successful as an entrepreneur. There has to be, your heart has to be into it because of the ebbs and flows that happen. But just really being mindful you know, it’s helpful to bring on supportive and advisor and talk to them early, even as you’re building out your plan and support to really dive through what your idea is as you’re going to be putting it into action.
That’s a good point you bring up about, you know, the ebbs and flows entrepreneurship. Like, what keeps you strong? What keeps you in the game when things get tough? It’s really the passion that for me I’m also a type A personality, so I feel like I can’t, I can’t fail whatever it is I do. I want to do as best as I can.
But beyond that, it’s just I’m really passionate about what we’re doing. And I’ve had other businesses as well that I’ve launched. I also within each of those found something that was really meaningful to me in terms of the reason why I was doing it. And I, I think that is the one thing that you can hold on to in those slow moments.
Right. Is what’s going to. What’s going to get you up that next day and what’s going to make you motivated to push when it’s really hard? What’s going to help you stay motivated even to help your team stay? You know in the game and motivated when things are challenging, for me Specifically, it’s the passion.
I know that our products make a difference. I see it in, in family, friends. I can see the impact on the quality of life that it brings to our customers and the reviews that we get. And that alone tells me that we can’t quit even when it feels really complicated. That’s great. And I think about like the ebbs and flows and you’re right.
If it’s like money isn’t, can’t always be enough. Like when it gets really hard, if you’re not, if there’s not some other purpose or something else behind there, then it becomes easier to quit. Like you hear about so many ideas, not picking on anybody, by the way, I just mean in general, you hear about so many ideas that maybe succeed and fail and maybe an idea was supposed to run its course.
Right. It doesn’t mean every idea has to fail. So like that, that’s a thing, right? If not, we’d all be probably selling still candy from school or something. I don’t know, like some ideas are supposed to have their end date. Right. But but some aren’t supposed to have their end day and some are supposed to continue further on to, to who knows.
Right. I can think about in my life, like thinking about when an idea no longer worked to be like, yeah, that was probably, there was some learning there that I will say definitely failed. But there was some learning there. In your experience, cause you, you mentioned you’ve had previous ideas of things you’ve done.
How do you know what an idea it’s time to kind of call it quits on an idea or just trying to time to move on to the next one? Like for me, I normally find it when it’s like, it’s when I kind of lose my passion or I’m just not like, it’s just not what I want to do anymore. It’s kind of hard to explain for me, but that’s why I asked this question.
Cause I’m always curious what other people think. What, what kind of, how do you know when it’s time to move on from an idea? Yeah, I mean, for me, is a combination of, you know, looking at the financial viability to realize maybe I thought this was going to be more successful. Maybe I thought there was a better market fit.
Maybe I thought people would, you know, there would be higher customer retention and realizing that it’s just much more complicated or requires a lot more financial dollars. To put into the business. But also, like you said, it, you know, it’s, that moment when you realize maybe it’s not the best idea where that passion starts to fade away a little bit.
But, but even so I would say, even if the passion starts to fade, sometimes it can, because it just feels so hard, but you know, if you go back to your why, so it’s, it’s determining, you know, is, this really I mean, at the end of the day, is it really a viable product or viable company that’s going to be able to make it?
And can I get through those? Low moments or not, but when you don’t have either of them, then yeah, it’s really hard. And I think sometimes it’s, it’s one of the hardest decisions I think you can make as a founder when you’ve poured a lot of money, your heart and soul into something or, you know, people around you have also trusted and invested in you to make the decision to to close the business, but it’s something that’s also really important.
say it’s, you know, it’s kind of making a grownup decision, right? To make hard choices to say, okay, I see this wasn’t the best and let go of our egos a little bit and and move past it. Yeah, and understanding that there’s a, you know, to me that there’s another day to fight. There’s another idea.
You can still have great success. And I guess I like, you know, borrowing from the stories of some that have gone before us that have you know, hadn’t had great success later in life or other things that might have been in their second business, their third, their fourth, their fifth, like who knows, right?
Yeah, exactly. And I would say, though, I mean, I think one of the biggest things, though, is the tenacity, right? And persevere. And so it is hard. Sometimes it’s really hard. Sometimes in so many founder stories, you hear where they were, you know, on their last dollar and continue to persevere and found a way to make it.
So, you know, you know, caution entrepreneurs just because it feels hard and maybe a really challenging to really explore the options and persevere. Of course, then it comes to a point where you have to make those hard decisions, but, but don’t give up just when it starts getting hard though, because some of the most successful companies got to the point where, where they were borrowing anything they could from friends and family just to make it.
And now they’re multi multi million and even billion dollar companies. So, so that’s also important to keep that in mind. Wonderful. well, Davina, I just want to say thank you for coming on the show today and sharing more of your background and you know, what makes you tick as an entrepreneur. I know I was inspired and I hope my audience is as well.
That being said, if somebody is listening to this and they want to learn more about Element Apothic or even to follow your journey, I mean, what’s the best way for them to do that? So for Element Apothec, you can go to our website, it’s at elementapothec. com and for me, I’m active on LinkedIn, well not lately, but pretty active normally and you can find me at the Davina Kaunohi my name on LinkedIn.
Wonderful. Well, we’ll put in for everybody listening. We’ll put that all in the show notes So you can click on the links and just head right on over and I’ll follow up with Davina And speaking of the audience if this is your first time with mission matters hey first off hit the word Thank you for listening.
But second off hit that subscribe button if you haven’t done so already We have many more mission based entrepreneurs and executives and experts It’s coming up the line. We don’t want you to miss a thing. So don’t forget, hit that subscribe button. So you get that push notification and Davina, thank you so much for coming on the show and look forward to seeing you at the conference.
Yeah. Thank you for having me. I look forward to meeting you there.