In this week’s episode of Hello, Chaos, we had the pleasure of hosting Laura Biggerstaff, the founder of Iron Elk, a company specializing in safety apparel tailored for women in the trades. Laura shared her inspiring journey from facing personal upheaval to launching and growing her business, embodying our theme of "Where AHA meets OH SHIT." Laura’s story is one of resilience and determination. At 58, faced with a sudden divorce, she chose to channel her energy into creating something new rather than succumbing to despair. With a background in customer service and apparel manufacturing, she co-founded Iron Elk with her son, focusing on providing personal protective equipment (PPE) designed specifically for women, a significantly underserved market in the safety apparel industry. Throughout the episode, Laura discussed the challenges and triumphs of her entrepreneurial journey, including the importance of ethical business practices and continuous learning. She emphasized the value of community support, particularly highlighting her experience with a minority business accelerator program that helped her refine her business strategy and connect with other entrepreneurs. Laura also shared her vision for the future of Iron Elk, expressing a desire to partner with trade schools to provide graduates with proper safety apparel, ensuring they are job-ready and equipped from day one. This episode not only explored the chaotic journey of entrepreneurship but also highlighted the impact of perseverance and community in overcoming personal and professional challenges. Laura’s story is a testament to the power of drive and the importance of addressing gaps in the market with innovative solutions. For more insights and inspiring founder stories, tune into Hello, Chaos every Sunday, and don't forget to check out our multimedia platform, OrangeWIP, for more resources tailored for entrepreneurs. Connect with Laura and explore Iron Elk’s offerings at ironelk.com or reach out to her directly at laura@ironelk.com. Join us next week for another deep dive into the chaotic yet rewarding world of entrepreneurship.
Jennifer Sutton: Welcome to Hello Chaos! The weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic lives and minds of founders, entrepreneurs and innovators. Every week, we talk to entrepreneurs from different industries at different company levels and stages of all shapes and sizes. And we hear the real, raw and unbiased founder stories. And it's why our mantra is, Where AHA meets OH SHIT. We drop new episodes every Sunday. Founders usually listen to us on a Sunday afternoon as they prep for the week. Or really, our biggest downloads are Monday morning. Sounds like people listen to us on their way into work. But however you get us, you can find us on all the podcast platforms. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP, that is OrangeWIP W-I-P for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities through hyper-local media platforms that have been designed to inform, inspire, and create connections so that founders can succeed. OrangeWIP is an all-in-one content hub with fresh and engaging stories, curated calendars, and local dynamic roadmaps to navigate the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. That's a mouthful. The entrepreneurial ecosystem. Big words. We've done all the hard work for founders, so they only need to go to really one trusted place to find the local information they need. Every market needs an OrangeWIP. We fuel the city. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ. I'm the founder of OrangeWIP and will be your host today. And we have Laura Biggerstaff, the founder of Iron Elk. Welcome to the chaos, Laura. I'm so excited. I'm so glad you're here. And, you know, we've, we've had our own little journey of, we were just on a panel with one of the, the local cities here, city of Greer, and, you know, founder stories from the trenches. And I was telling you, like, they were like, we want to take the Hello Chaos theme that you guys talk about the where aha meets oh shit, and you know, really, all the founder journeys and get those real, those real stories out there. But you and I met actually, what, a couple years ago, because you and I both are graduates of a minority business accelerator here in our area. So I'm excited to, I've watched your journey, but I didn't really, really know your journey until we sat on that panel. So for everybody, all of our listeners, just tell us about how you got started, because it's a fantastic story.
Laura Biggerstaff: Thank you so much. And like I said a few minutes ago, I had a great time on the panel with you.
Laura Biggerstaff: I don't care that there's all these people in the room. We're just pouring our hearts out. We're raw.
Jennifer Sutton: Telling it like it is. I know I just had lunch with Dave with Remedy, who was our other panel, and he was like, I had so much fun. We should do that. We should do like a stage roadshow. Exactly.
Laura Biggerstaff: I think we'd be the first volunteers for that.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That's right. That was so good. But yeah, tell us how you founded Iron Elk and what does Iron Elk do for everybody that doesn't know what your business is?
Laura Biggerstaff: Well, I, at the crazy age of 58, was faced with a divorce that was unexpected, and I had to make a decision whether to choose to stay in my bed, go into a deep depression, and live there for the rest of my life, or I could, happily actually, I could actually try to learn something new. So I looked at the things I thought I was good at. One of them was, of course, caring for customers and sales was great. That just came naturally. And I also had experience in the apparel, fire related apparel manufacturer. So I kind of put all that together and thought, you know, I might could do this. So I, along with my son, Thomas, started Iron Elk and I started learning things, learned how to create a website, learned how to effectively be on social media and effectively, I'm on Facebook and I'm on LinkedIn. I don't have a clue about the other ones. I've got it set up so that my posts go different places, but for me to see where they are out in the world, I don't have a clue. But yeah, I learned the accounting of it, started with QuickBooks, learned the ins and outs of that. the MBA program, the Minority Business Accelerator program that we both were in with the chamber, that was eye-opening because the financials part of it was something I was definitely not as good at. Still am not good at it.
Jennifer Sutton: The language of math and numbers. Not a clue. I know. But it's so important.
Laura Biggerstaff: It is. It is. I go in and I check every couple of days what my profit loss is and my balance sheet says, and I've still got a heck of a lot to learn, but I'm getting there. So I put all this information together and I thought, well, maybe I could become a distributor for safety apparel. And I started building up my relationships with manufacturers across the country and started becoming very familiar with what they had to offer, the different standards of safety that have to be in these products. And I was actually at a networking event where I had a friend ask me, why don't they make PPE for women? Personal Protective Equipment is what PPE stands for. And I just, oh my gosh, I've got to research this. But I went home and I thought, there really is not a lot out there.
Jennifer Sutton: Not a very inclusive category.
Laura Biggerstaff: not inclusive at all. Basically, if you're on a construction site or some someplace where you have to wear safety apparel, you are getting the smaller size down of a men's safety jacket or safety pants. And men and women are just not built the same. Right. So within the manufacturers that I had been working with, I really focused in on those who were recognizing that this is a problem, and they started to offer women's cuts.
Laura Biggerstaff: And that's… Who'd have thought? Who'd have thought?
Laura Biggerstaff: I don't know. But anyway, that's, and I've made it a point to make sure that Women know that there are alternatives out there for the safety apparel. There are manufacturers that are starting to listen. Got a long way to go, but we're getting there. And just make sure that I give the feedback to the manufacturers. if something just does not fit and they said, well, I'm sorry, that's a 2XL in a woman's size and you put it on and you can't even close it, something's off. That's right. So, you know, I like giving manufacturers that feedback as well, just to get them to take another look at it. Right. So I've been very, very supportive of women in the trades and I just, I love being able to solve a pain point that they have, and that's safety apparel.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, so I just love that. And what's been the most rewarding part of your journey?
Laura Biggerstaff: That I didn't choose to go to bed.
Jennifer Sutton: That's fantastic, that you were like, you know what, I'm going to get up and do something.
Laura Biggerstaff: I'm going to do it. I'm going to choose. It is as night and day as that. I think my kids are proud of me. My friends certainly are. My family is. And I just, in that state of shock and uncertainty and fear, to be completely honest, all of a sudden I'm alone, to just pick it up and say, well, I'm going to learn how to do something. Anybody can do it if they get that right mindset. Right. Right. Learn. And don't, you know, don't skip over things. Learn it. Google it. YouTube it.
Jennifer Sutton: Whatever. Go to the resources in your market. Like, you know, you did the minority business. You know, I was talking to, you know, I'm now a coach for that program and, you know, listen to it. And listening to all the, you know, the different coaches and it's, you know, interesting. I mean, you just pointed like that, that mindset is so important because we've seen people that come through that program and they, they're having people like me and others, you know, that they're taking their time out of their, their day to coach somebody, to be there, to be available. The, the MBA it's not like regular school it's on your business and somebody was like you know you got to be in the right mindset of nobody's going to do the work for you like you've got to do the work but it's teaching you how to apply it to benefit yourself And it's still like some people don't see it that way. It's still a, you know, there's this mindset challenge. We've got to, you know, push people in to go, these things are here for you. So the fact that you just said, I'm not going to be in bed. I'm going to, I'm going to do something. I'm going to create something. I'm off, you know, I'm going to take that risk. It is such a risk and do it. But yeah.
Laura Biggerstaff: And when I look back to where I was at age 58, I'm 62 now, and just the thought process from the first kind of putting things together. One of the things that I found out, and it took me several years to find this out, but you can't offer everything to everybody. That's right. So it's been a process of just funneling down the things. At one point, I sold industrial floor mats and was selling safety apparel and doing digital marketing for folks. And I'm like, I got to do one thing right. Right. And what has happened through that funnel is I've been really able to focus on one specific thing. Do it well. I'm working less, actually, because I'm working smarter. Right. And so it's been wonderful. And I was going to tell you, I had my aha moment about two weeks ago. So three other of the MBA folks that were in my cohort, we met for lunch. We hadn't seen each other in a year or so. And we just sat there. We were all really nervous. As well, we did it during COVID, so we never got to meet in person. It was all online. Yeah. And so that, you know, we were really getting to know each other. And Tawana Grace is just, I think maybe you have interviewed her. I haven't. You haven't? Fantastic. Well, we were all sitting there and, you know, just talking about the MBA program and what it's done for us. And I think we all agree we're nowhere near where we need to be, but we've sure gotten the tools to get there. And I said, you know what guys, I said, y'all remember on our, it's called an SGAP.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. And for listeners that don't know, that program, it's the, the indeliverable that the cohort is supposed to deliver is called the SGAP. It's a Strategic Growth Action Plan. So it's like a three-year literally a roadmap, a blueprint for how do you go from point A to point B, whatever that is for your business. So, yeah. So, you guys were talking about the ESCAP.
Laura Biggerstaff: We were. And we talked about the fact that we refer back to it quite often because it is that roadmap. And some might think, well, you do this program and then, you know, you've done it. made some new connections and put it to the side, but you really don't. You go back, you use it, it's kind of a benchmark for you as to where you were, to where you want to go, to where you are now. And I said to them, I said, you know, I was a little bit disappointed with the goals that I had set for myself.
Jennifer Sutton: They weren't aggressive enough or?
Laura Biggerstaff: I thought they were, Some would say that I way underestimated what I could do. Yeah. I thought, I'm quite the conservative when it comes to, I'm not going to overshoot myself. You're like, I want to meet these goals. I want to meet, I actually want to meet these goals. Yeah. And so without going into much financial detail, I was off by a year. I put, I want to have this much in sales this year, double that this year and double that again the next year. What I found was I didn't make that first year goal. But when I was sitting there with these girls at the table, I said, but y'all, thinking back, I did reach one of the goals that back then I didn't even think I'd reach that one. And so I was like, I am so surprised. This really does work and proper planning and it's hard work. It takes time. That's right. You've got to be in there devoted to learning new things, asking questions. And the other thing that was very special to me is that with those meetings, Wendell, who was the person, the facilitator, he said, during one of the meetings, he says, you will never be alone again. That's right. I mean, I just lost it. I started crying on the computer and everybody was like, well, she is losing it. But it was after going through the divorce and everything and literally living alone again, I thought, This really means a lot. And this will stay with me forever.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. And the community. So you were 2020, right? Your cohort, roughly? Yeah, roughly. And I was 2018. It was interesting when I went through it. There were several, you know, because, you know, I own a marketing agency and, you know, my background is marketing and market planning and branding and advertising. So I'm a, I've done it for other companies, but I'd never really done it, you know, from, I wasn't sure if I was creating a business to be scalable. Right. Because I'd never, I'd only, you know, two and a half decades, three decades, I was working for other people. And Nika, who was at the time, you know, she was kind of the recruiter, and she's like, tell me what you thought about being a part of it. And I said, I was like, I don't know. I said, do I qualify? You know, am I qualified? would I find value in it? You know, you know, worry about it. I said, but look, I go, I feel really alone and isolated. I've been in this business now, by that time it was like five or six years, five years I had been running the marketing agency. I said, you know, I sat down when I first started the company, I built a three-year strategic plan. for what I thought, you know, was my business plan, it was my business strategy. And I said, It's interesting, when I reflected back, before I started the cohort, or the, you know, I looked at that 3-year plan. And to your point, it's like, I created all these SMART goals, it was like, I didn't hit, like, I had, I hit the overarching, like, financial goal. in three years, not the one year, the two year, but it was like that end game of like, I was where I wanted to be at three year. I was where I wanted to be at five year by that time. But how I got there was like nowhere, like what I was trying to predict or like the little, the many milestones of like, these are the tasks, the activities that I felt like I needed to do to get to that financial was, I mean, it was like, How the hell did I even guess this? Because none of this happened. It was way over here. And then so I, but I told, that's what I told Nick, I said, I said, that's what I'm interested in. I said, I don't know if, I don't know what I'm doing is right from a, from a operations, a business, you know, set up. And I don't know what I don't know. And, and also, I just like, I don't even know who to talk to, I said, because I feel like when I reach out to people, I didn't, you know, within some of the networking, I didn't feel like it was safe. They were not safe spaces. Right. I get that. to have conversations that I felt like people related to me and that was my aha when I, you know, being in that cohort and I know I, you know, I was not alone. I didn't, I never felt alone again and I haven't since. I cherish that, the community that we have, the minority, you know, especially the women in that community but just all the, you know, minority-owned businesses. It is very precious. to me. And, you know, and a lot of it is, you know, when I did the three-year plan, you know, we hit all that. But it was like, my lessons learned there was, all right, it valid, I was doing about 80%, right? been here was the 20% but you're right like just it's that discipline of hitting those milestones you know putting it's the it's the understanding and the given the tools right that you can just now apply but I reflect on my three I just keep updating it to me it's a living breathing document that I reflect on annually. Yes. I love that thing. But okay, so if you, the most rewarding, you know, as you started like reconnecting with your cohort and all that, what's, so your aha moment was the community. What was your biggest oh shit moment?
Laura Biggerstaff: It happened a lot, and that was the daily. The daily, oh, shit.
Jennifer Sutton: The daily, oh, shit. Here we go.
Laura Biggerstaff: What am I talking into? Bend over. Sorry.
Jennifer Sutton: Sorry. We have an E rating. It's all right.
Laura Biggerstaff: I think it was that my times I felt like this when I had the, I would have moments of the imposter syndrome. Yes. Which is very, very.
Jennifer Sutton: It's very real. Real. So real. Yeah.
Laura Biggerstaff: What am I about to say? What am I about to do that would be interesting to somebody? And am I an expert at this?
Jennifer Sutton: Am I good enough to be in this room?
Laura Biggerstaff: Am I good enough to be in the room?
Jennifer Sutton: And you are. You know that now, right? Thank you.
Laura Biggerstaff: Well, I still have my OSHITs. I love it. It gets better every day though.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. You know, I think I said this in the panel of, I have those, those little like moments of anxiety. I've kind of retrained my brain to go, Oh my gosh, I have to, I caught the, the, you just need 20 seconds of being brave or 60 seconds to be brave. And you got to talk, you're like, this is only going to be a 30 second conversation. It's going to be painful. It's just 30 seconds. It's just got to do it. And I just got to be brave for 30 seconds. And after that, I can go drink.
Laura Biggerstaff: Exactly. Well, and the other thing to this that I mentioned on the panel is you would never know that I have anxiety. Yeah. We cover it. To a network event. That's right. It freaks me out.
Jennifer Sutton: I know. Somebody was telling me, I'm like, they're like, you love it. And I said, no, it takes every bit of energy. It does take energy. Takes energy. And, uh, Bravery and it just drains, you know, but you got to do it. But naturally, I would just be a wallflower of like, I'll just sit back. I'm a people, I like to people watch and observe. And I'm not a really good spot. But I mean, one of the things that I started OrangeWIP and really, because I love the community, I just am trying to make it a bigger community. But doing this podcast has helped me, like, because I love the conversations with other founders. I feel every time it's like our journeys, we all have the, you know, the same ahas and the oh shits, as in we have them, right? But a lot of the journeys we are, we have, it's just so relatable. And it's less isolating. And I love them, because I'm not a small talker. I can, I dive deep. It's like, we get into the childhood dreams and anxieties and I'll find all your, all your secrets. Not on the podcast, not publicly. But, but yeah, you, you don't realize, because you're, you're playing the part, right, of the founder. So you gotta, Yeah. All right. I'm going to ask you, what do you think, so you had, you know, this, it wasn't ever a dream of you to be a business owner and an entrepreneur. Like you were literally like, oh, you know, shit, how am I going to, you, you described like, how do I survive?
Laura Biggerstaff: It was survival. There was no passion there. Yeah. It was just pure survival.
Laura Biggerstaff: I wasn't passionate about safety apparel then, but.
Jennifer Sutton: You're like, now you are. I am now. Yeah, I know.
Laura Biggerstaff: But I mean, what the heck am I going to do? It was survival. I had to figure out how I was going to survive. Yeah. And that's a scary place to be in. But I tell you, just just learning, never stop learning. The more you learn, the more the more you're comfortable with that information and the more you can connect it in conversations. And next thing you know, you're on a podcast.
Jennifer Sutton: You're on a panel.
Laura Biggerstaff: I'm on the panel.
Jennifer Sutton: You're going to events. Yeah. You know, I say this, this is one of the, I don't know where I heard it, but it's a quote from somebody, but I've applied it like in my everyday thinking of every lesson, you know, daily. Like I think I learned something daily. It's either a gift, or it is a, it's a lesson to be learned, right? So everything, you know, no matter what barrier I've got to go, what is this thing trying to teach me? Is it literally a gift that has been, that I just need to celebrate or I need to take it and go, somebody's trying to tell me something and I need to learn from it.
Laura Biggerstaff: Exactly, exactly. And are you, I don't know if you were planning on asking me this, but… Oh, I will. But you go ahead. Oh, I was just going to just mention about the fact that how important it is if you're having a bad day to recognize it and appreciate that you're not going to have a good day every day. You're not going to perform at this level every day. And to just acknowledge that, do whatever it is that makes your mind set free. And I think I've told you mine is I get on the computer and play puzzles. Yeah. Anything to clear my mind out and anything to keep me out of the bedroom, you know, so I'm not getting depressed and down. I make myself stay up and, um, And empty your head. Yeah. Empty the head and acknowledge that you're going to have a bad day here or there, because if you don't, you're going to get burned out. Right. Right. you're going to excel so much more the next day. That's right.
Jennifer Sutton: Do you think that's a do you think that's a myth that people have about starting their own business, that it's like happy days all the time? I hope not. I know. That's why I was like, you know, we talk about and I think we talked about that panel of There's, there's going to be good days and there's going to be bad days. But I think with founders, as we're building a business, it's like our happy days can be like, way better than anything you've ever, ever seen or felt in your entire life. It's like the, the euphoria of the wins. It is. But your bad days are like the lowest of the lows. It's like we come into these extremes sometimes. And so I think we also find sometimes it's hard when we're in the middle to recognize even a good win, like a small win that we probably need to celebrate. And we're getting better at jumping through the little hills. Yeah.
Laura Biggerstaff: I would totally agree with that. I think, too, when you have a bad day and you do recognize that it's important not to beat yourself up for taking time for yourself.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That's right. Because it's about… Don't beat yourself up. You've got to have mental health. And I say it's not just mental health. You've got to do self-love and self-care because it's hard. This isn't a four-day work week. Like, you, you know, you're, you're going to think about time and money differently. And, but the, but really understanding, like you said yourself, like you're going to have that, how do you overcome those? What do you need to do to, to, to clear those? Because it's about developing that mental toughness. It's that building that resiliency. But I call it the little band, you know, if we're all rubber bands, our heads, like how do we make sure that we're the stretchiest?
Laura Biggerstaff: Exactly. That's a great way to think about it.
Jennifer Sutton: But it's about being mental tough because you've got to be ready for those dips, the dips in the valleys.
Laura Biggerstaff: And don't give up. If you choose to give up at some point, plan it out a long time before. Don't let one day make you give up.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That's right. But I think that you're like, you've got to be, you just got to know you're going to have some good days and you're going to have some bad days. I think I was sharing like, what, what, what do I do to help clear, like you do puzzles. I just like, I just, I have a Tumblr, which I know is so silly and I'm in different fandoms. I write. Really? I do a little like fan fiction and drabbles. A lot of people, nobody knew. I don't really publicize that, but that's kind of like my release because I'm just getting back into, you know, I just turned to creativity because, you know, being a business owner, you're so much in like math and accounting or structure and procedures or dealing with you know and and working with people and all that and and uh so it's like how do I just you know tune out and then I think and then I do my and I've started this it's this is recent for me in the last I would say year maybe two is I do a day, the nightly journal that I, and it's so simple. It's just, I do a daily three of what was my most joyous moment? What was the moment that caused me the most anxiety or is causing me anxiety? Like, cause you know, we get into that. I'm like, I shouldn't have had, I shouldn't have had that conversation. I shouldn't have said that or man, that was an awful, that was an awful moment. Um, or to think of like, you know, I call them the ghosts, they kind of creep in, but I was like, I just write them out. Cause when I get them out of my head, it just makes me, it clears my head and it makes me sleep better. And then I end with, what am I looking forward to the most tomorrow? Those are my three things. Um, and then it's just fun to kind of like, cause sometimes it's repeated, you know, and then you start, um, recognize like, God, I was worried about that six months ago, man. Isn't it? It's so amazing. I've had moments like that, and I've like rocked it. Those bad moments, those aren't bad moments anymore.
Laura Biggerstaff: You just have to get through them. Yeah. And like you said, you learn a lesson. That's right.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah.
Laura Biggerstaff: And the highs are so high.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, yeah. Glorious.
Laura Biggerstaff: Especially as an owner, entrepreneur, When you have a win-win, oh my gosh, it is euphoric.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. And to have the, and that's why I was like the community that we've built is so precious. It's like, who do you share it with? Because sometimes you want to share with your team, but there's some things that are like so silly. I don't want to share that like with my greater team, but this is so, you know, but I need to share it with somebody. Exactly.
Laura Biggerstaff: Exactly.
Jennifer Sutton: Okay, if you could hit rewind on anything, Laura, what would you do differently?
Laura Biggerstaff: With my business.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, with your business.
Laura Biggerstaff: I would have started earlier. And I mentioned this in the panel, too. I think I might be a little ahead of the times for female safety apparel. So I would have liked to have been in the position to start the company, say, three years before that. Because right now where I am, it's coming along. And we're getting there. And people are saying, oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes. This is what we need, and inclusion, and everything. But there, and I think I said this at a point, you can't convince, as it is now, say a big construction company to change all of their uniforms to you because you sell female safety apparel. for there may be a handful of females that work there.
Jennifer Sutton: So I think I'm just… You're at the early stage, you're at the early adopter. Yeah. But that's a good position to be in.
Laura Biggerstaff: It's good. And like I said at the meeting, if I do anything, it's I'm making an effort to get the word out there. Even if I don't reap the benefits from it down the road, somebody will. That's right.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. I'm good with that. So if you could pick two things to change about your business for moving in the future, what would they be?
Laura Biggerstaff: I would like to hire somebody to completely handle my social media. You're like, take that off my plate. Take that off my plate. And I would like to hire somebody who would do bookkeeping. I would like to focus more on one of the things I've really wanted to do is, and I'm just not big enough to do it yet, is I would like to go to tech schools or trade schools. And when they have someone graduate, I'd like to have them with a set of safety apparel in their size that fits. I handed it to them at the end of the graduation stage or something. I feel like they go through the classes, they learn their trade. They graduated, they get their certifications. It's like, what do I do now? What do I wear to an interview? Can I even get on site to, you know, because I don't have that. Oh, yeah. And so I would really like to be able to offer that to a graduate or somebody who's just received certification that they have PPE from head to foot. So that's one less thing they have to worry about.
Jennifer Sutton: I think we need to manifest this, Laura. I think some of your manufacturers, I think you could partner with them and they would work with you to make that happen.
Laura Biggerstaff: I never thought about it from a manufacturer's point.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, I think being distributed through you, I think you organize that program and develop those partnerships. I can't imagine that wouldn't be something that they wouldn't want to support you and gift you those things to gift to those graduates.
Laura Biggerstaff: Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. They would love it.
Laura Biggerstaff: They would love it. I just never thought about going about it that way.
Jennifer Sutton: There you go. There you go. We're going to, we're going to manifest it. We're going to make it happen. Wow. So, so, okay. What do you do? What, okay. Is there, um, something that, that, uh, is describe yourself or tell us about something that you do that's not on your LinkedIn. It's not on your resume. That would really surprise us.
Laura Biggerstaff: I lived in England for 13, 14 years. Really? What party? Well, I started out in the Cotswolds. Okay. Then moved to Manchester. Oh, wow. All family did through Millican. We were one of the first few expats. And we had three kids and my second son, he was six at the time. And so they all grew up, they all have British accents back then.
Jennifer Sutton: And you're like, I've got this big Southern accent. I know.
Laura Biggerstaff: And you have children. People used to follow me around in the grocery store when I lived there just to hear me talk. And I just kind of got used to it. Let's go get some pickles, you know. But my second son never moved back. He met the most gorgeous English young lady, and my two grandkids are there. Are they in Manchester? They're in Manchester. So you could go visit? My second son still lives there. I go visit every Christmas. I want to spend a lot more time over there. I can work from pretty much anywhere. It's my laptop. It's just my laptop. And so, yeah, I want to spend, I want to spend some more time with them as much as I can, because my other kids are, one's in Austin, Texas, and one's in Pittsburgh. So we're spread out everywhere.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, at least they're in fun places to visit.
Laura Biggerstaff: Exactly, exactly. So that's one thing that people don't really know.
Jennifer Sutton: I would have never known, I would have never even guessed that. Yeah. That is fantastic. What else do you do for your free time? I mean, besides puzzles and stuff like that, what else do you do?
Laura Biggerstaff: Well, about a month ago, I had an English bulldog who was 14 and had to put him down, her down. But I also had a dog that was gifted to me by my children as a rescue when I got divorced, so I would not be alone. And they got it off of YFF Pet of the Week and just surprised me with this beautiful puppy and said, here's a lap dog, but she's 50 pounds now. Anyway, so, but, but my, the Daisy we had to put down recently, just absolute broken hearted over that. Stella, who, who is, is a part lab, part pit mix. And she is going through the grieving process big time. Oh, she lost her best friend. Best friend. I mean, they were tight. So what I've been doing is going on long walks. with her playing outside. There's this great place, and I guess I'll plug it, but it's called the Unleashed Dog Bar. Where is that? It's kind of behind Haywood Mall in Greer. Yeah. Holy cow. It is so fun. It's a bar, but there's an outdoor playing area for all the dogs. you literally unleash your dog in there. They have a dog swimming pool in the shape of a bone and the dogs go crazy and you sit there and have a beer.
Jennifer Sutton: Wow. We're going to have to take our dog. We've got a, we've got a 115 pound Bernese mountain dog. I don't know how, like she's, he's friendly, maybe too friendly.
Laura Biggerstaff: Well, you never know. I was a nervous wreck taking Stella the first time, but I thought, you know, again, just like I do my personal life, my business life, you just got to try it. Well, let's go see. Yeah. And it's been wonderful.
Jennifer Sutton: That's fun. He's, and so he's getting over the, the morning. Slowly. Slowly.
Laura Biggerstaff: Still not eating as well, but that's all right. We'll get there.
Jennifer Sutton: One day at a time. That's right. What is, what do you think is the best piece of advice you've ever received from, from anybody that really influenced your own decision-making that you like really took to heart?
Laura Biggerstaff: ethics. There's only the right way, the ethical way to do something and you can never get in trouble. I'm saying, mama would say you can never get in trouble for being too kind. And I translate that into my business and my work ethic because you have nothing to worry about if you, if you follow by the rules.
Jennifer Sutton: If you're doing the right thing by other people. Yeah. Yeah. I always say like walk in their shoes. And if I'm doing right by them, it's all good. Exactly.
Laura Biggerstaff: Yeah.
Jennifer Sutton: Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Um, and now you probably already answered this, but, uh, if you had to sum up your journey, your entrepreneur, your journey, what would your word be? Like how I, you know, I think I said in the, you know, my word is serendipitous. I didn't plan for it. I fell into it and just everything aligned of me starting the business. Um, and, and it's grown from there, but yeah, I always like to ask this question.
Laura Biggerstaff: I like the word drive. I had the drive, no matter what it was, the drive to stay alive, the drive to carry on, even though there were obstacles. the drive to learn new things. So that would be my word, is drive.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, drive. It's a great word. And it's funny, I don't know if I told you, like, I, this is, I don't know, almost our hundredth, but we've interviewed, you know, hundreds and hundreds of different founders. Everyone comes up with a different word. Everybody has a different word. And I love it. Yeah. All right. Well, Laura, you know, we're out of time. Like, We're in that time. I know. It's just, you know, it's just us talking. So how do you want people to connect with you, connect with Iron Elk? What is the best way for people to get to know you or the company better?
Laura Biggerstaff: Well, my email is Laura at IronElk.com. And that's L-A-U-R-A at I-R-O-N-E-L-K.com. I am on Facebook and I am on LinkedIn. And I encourage, I'm very much into Rotary, the Rotary Club of Greer. If you want to know Laura, then come see me there. That is something I'm really passionate about, and it's important to give back to the community, and this group in particular has a lot of fun while doing it.
Jennifer Sutton: The Rotaries. You know, I forgot one more question. I do have one more question. Where did Iron Elk the name come from?
Laura Biggerstaff: My son came up with that. From living in Manchester, it was an industrial area, and he always thought the name Iron showed strength, and the elk was a strong uh, magnificent animal, uh, as well. And, uh, he just put them together and our logo is fantastic. Yeah. It's got the Elks.
Jennifer Sutton: It's got the Elk. I love, I was like, wonder what, yeah, I should have asked that earlier.
Laura Biggerstaff: It's simply that it started out as a promotional products company because, um, my son, and you talk about journeys. Yeah. Um, my, my son started the company as promotional products. Okay. He had an accident and had a traumatic brain injury, and his life just was put on hold for a year, but he's made a full recovery. During all this time is when I started being alone, to put it in a nice way, and started thinking of what I can do to survive, and we just kind of partnered. So he's, he's 49% owner and he doesn't, doesn't like do any of the day to day. Right. But, but he calls me, he's 38 and he, he calls me and he's like, you know, you got a little white angel on this shoulder. You got a red devil on this shoulder. Slow your roll a bit, mama. You know, he keeps, he keeps you in line. He keeps me in line and I, and he's very creative. My gosh.
Jennifer Sutton: I'm glad that he is recovered, because that, all that happening all at once, Laura, that's, that's a testament to your, to your resilience and your drive. I mean, seriously, that's a, that's a celebration all in itself.
Laura Biggerstaff: It's a whole different thing. It is.
Jennifer Sutton: Now again, people can find Laura at laura at ironelk.com. And I appreciate you hanging out with us today, Laura. It was fantastic. It was my pleasure.
Laura Biggerstaff: I forgot to mention the website is Just iron l.com. Okay, that's easy.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, you see all our products see everything there And for everyone listening or watching us, thank you for joining us This podcast episode will be published this coming Sunday and available on all podcast platforms So subscribe, like, and comment, and share this great content so we build a more connected community. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That's OrangeWIP, W-I-P, for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are 100% free. And in the three areas of South Carolina, the upstate, the midlands, and the low country, So find your city and enjoy the great content. Check out the new edition that we're going to be dropping this coming Sunday. Actually, it's going to be all on, we're celebrating Hello Chaos, the podcast, and mentioning the word journeys that we have interviewed and all the various words. That's what we're going to be celebrating in this coming edition. great content, great stories. Go subscribe, support us. It's fantastic. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us, just send an email at hello at orange whip.com. And thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you again next week.