Interview With Ariel Dubrowin - Founder of Hakol L'Tinok

Entrepreneur Ariel Dubrowin is the founder of 3 businesses in the Jerusalem area catering to new mothers, including Hakol L'tinok - the ultimate directory of services related to pregnancy, birth & babies.

1] How did you get started in your business?

Oh! What an interesting question! This question is kind of complex for me, since I currently have a few businesses and there are really fundamentally two elements to the question - “why are you in business?” (e.g. self employed), and “why are you in the particular businesses you are in?”.

I left my salaried job about 3.5 years ago, when I was pregnant with my son, mostly because I was burned out from the non-profit field and didn’t want to have to report to an office at specific hours, and more importantly, report to a boss, ever again. At the time, I started a home-cleaner-referral business which was a financial success, but emotionally draining. This lasted a year. On top of that business I did some consulting doing English PR writing for Israeli non-profits.

After my son was born, I sold the cleaning business and continued doing the consulting. I found myself lonely since I did all of my work at my computer with an occasional phone call. I wanted to get out of the house and meet people and I wanted to build a unique service for the Israeli public.

Of course, at the same time I was in the throes of becoming a mother, an extremely overwhelming experience. I was breastfeeding him and found this to be an emotionally rewarding experience. I had bought two nursing bras at the hospital when I gave birth and wanted to get more. In the process of adding to my personal undergarment collection, I began to realize that a business idea was hidden in this whole experience.

First of all, I discovered that most Israeli stores carry only one or two styles of nursing bras and each store carries a different set of styles. So, to see the full range of styles on the market, you need to schlep to store after store. And, let’s talk about schlepping – many women buy nursing bras at the end of their pregnancy, when they feel enormous, many suffer from backaches, and most do not want to schlep to 6 or more stores to see their choices of nursing bras, a new and somewhat foreign product to them, on their own without professional guidance. Kal V’Chomer – women just after birth certainly don’t want to bring their new baby from store to store and struggle with them in fitting room after fitting room. On top of all that, most stores carry a very narrow range of sizes, 34-40 B-DD. In the two years I’ve been doing this I have learned that many more women than you might expect don’t fall within that range.

So, a business was born! Hanaka Tova offers a professional fitting for nursing bras, at the client’s home, and offers more than a dozen styles in a wide range of sizes, 32-44 A-H. As of recently, I have also added a few complimentary products – a nursing pillow, nursing pads and a nursing blanket.

In the past two years two other businesses have also developed – importing and distributing of La Leche League nursing bras in Israel and HaKol L’Tinok. I began importing La Leche League bras almost immediately when they became available on the U.S. market because I felt that the brand La Leche League was inevitably fated to become a leader in the field of nursing undergarments, since their non-profit is already a leader in the field of supporting nursing mothers and their brand name is well known in Israel. Basically, I wanted to find a way to profit from their introduction to Israel, instead of paying someone else to bring them here. I also immediately understood that by being “the” Lache Leche League nursing bra outlet, I would get introductions to lactation consultants and La Leche League leaders who could help market HaKol L’Tinok for one-day sales in their communities throughout Israel. This has worked beautifully.

HaKol L’Tinok is an advertising booklet featuring a range of products and services in Jerusalem for pregnant women and new mothers. At some point last year, I realized that there are an enormous number of businesses serving this group that are either run by solopreneurs or just two people. These include doulas, lactation consultants, people who sell slings, maternity clothes, offer massages, birth preparation classes, post-partum depression counseling, etc. Many of these businesses don’t even view themselves as businesses, but instead think of themselves as service providers and don’t focus on marketing. The vast majority of these businesses are run from homes, which makes them almost “hidden”. As a result, women struggle to find all the little things that make life with a “little-one” a bit easier, and many of these businesses struggle to find customers.

Advertising poses its own challenges. First, there aren’t (weren’t) direct marketing venues targeting mothers in Jerusalem. Most advertising opportunities are expensive, and target the general public, so for example, a small ad by a lactation consultant would be dwarfed by a big ad from a furniture store, and the lactation consultant, by placing an ad, would be gambling in the hopes that a new mother took the time to scour such a publication for services that would help her in these busy months of her life. And, the Israeli publications that do target parents are national and even more expensive than the local ads I described above. It makes no sense for local service providers to invest in that kind of marketing.

So, HaKol L’Tinok was born! I organized the publication of a booklet (printed in full-color and bound like a book so women will save it and use it for a few months) which features Jerusalem area businesses (Jerusalem, Gush Etzion, Beit Shemesh, Mevasseret and Modiin) and will be distributed directly to 40,000 new mothers and mothers-to-be in the coming year via many of the service providers that are advertising, plus the batei hachlama in the area, the tours of Hadassah Ein Karem’s birthing facility, the registration packet at Bikur Holim hospital’s maternity ward, and a long list of OB/GYN and ultrasound clinics. The booklet is being distributed for free and the advertisers paid affordable prices to market directly to their target audience – a win-win situation from all angles. Hopefully, HaKol L’Tinok will help these businesses grow and will help make it easier for new moms to find the products and services they need and want

2] What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

1) Consult “the experts”, i.e. people who have more business experience than you and can teach you about your field of products and services. In particular, see if you can find someone with expert knowledge who will not be your competition, probably someone in a different geographical region, and ask them if they can help you with any specific questions you have. A woman who runs a lingerie shop in Kedumim, for example, was a great resource for me! A nursing bra designer in Manhattan taught me a lot about fitting and style. Eventually, your goal should be to train yourself as the local expert in your field. Knowing the ins and outs of your particular product line is crucial to drawing business.

2) Develop a referral network. This relates to the point above but relates more to local contacts. I have found it extremely helpful to nurture my relationships with experts in fields related to my business, but not in competition. Doulas, lactation consultants and birth-prep-course teachers have the same client base, and have offered me an amazing avenue to market my business. I introduced myself to them and my service, and regularly remind them of my existence and inform them of my new products, so that they will remember to refer their clients to me. Most of my clients come from referrals from these professionals, who are happy to offer their clients this information.

3) Develop a niche-market and a unique service. Had I opened a store called “Hanaka Tova” for nursing bras in Malcha or downtown, my business would have failed. The reason women tell their clients, friends and sisters about me and that my business continues to grow is that I offer the luxury of home-fittings, a very unique service. Had I tried to capture the larger lingerie market with a storefront, I probably would have failed as well. This would not have met a specific need and would have lacked any sort of niche market.

3] What outsiders here in Israel have been most important to your business? (e.g., bankers, accountants, suppliers, mentor, etc.) And can you recommend anyone?

I could not have considered running a business without the unwavering support of my account and his assistants. I highly recommend David Yisraeli in Efrat.

As I mentioned above, there is a long list of professionals who work with my customer base and send me a lot of clients and I would have gotten nowhere without them.

4] What sources of information such as books, seminars, cd’s, etc.. Can you recommend for other starting entrepreneurs?

I strongly recommend that you make your car (or bus rides) an opportunity for learning! This is not my unique idea, but is something I’ve learned from many gurus and which has helped me a lot. There are a few podcasts which I listen to regularly in my car (I spend a lot of time in my faithful Toyota) on my MP3 player.

- The Queen of Cold Calling (Wendy Weiss)

- Small Business Trends Radio (Anita Campbell)

- Sale’s Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips (Jeb Blount)

- Duct Tape Marketing (John Jantsch)

- Start-Up Nation

Like Nobody’s Business, Startup Studio, Get More Business by the Small Business Guru, The Cold Calling Podcast (these seems to have been discontinued, but I highly recommend the archived episodes)

I also have a subscription to “Audible” which is an online audio-book store and I download a different sales book each month to listen to. I started doing this after I listened to a series of books by Brian Tracy, and an interview with Zig Ziglar, both of which I found extremely valuable.