Female Founders: Becca Schepps of Mortal Kombucha On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Sometimes say no — Taking time for yourself isn’t slacking. Sometimes you have to say no, push off an event, postpone a meeting so you can take care of yourself. There was a summer where I, without exaggeration, worked 7 days a week, sometimes physical labor with the brewing and production process, for 3 months. I was absolutely broken at the end. I wish I pulled back a bit. Having the space to recharge gives you new perspectives and could have opened different doors. Rather I was like a juggernaut barreling through walls.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Becca Schepps.
After growing up swimming, jumping out of half built houses onto dirt piles, ducking from soccer balls and playing backyard spud, Becca Schepps graduated to becoming a Cat 1/2 crit racer and co-owner of the team LA Sweat, a women’s cycling team equally dedicated to femininity and badassery. So, when she was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic she was a bit shocked, and started searching for a re-hydrating solution after races that wouldn’t wobble her insulin levels. Cut to finding kombucha, falling in love with it, and creating her own badass booch empire: Mortal Kombucha.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My background is as a Creative Director/Copywriter in advertising. I honestly love working in advertising. I love the creativity and possibility of creating something from nothing and bringing it to life. I think it’s always how my mind worked. As a kid I was always the one who wanted to transform everything I did into an experience, even studying for spelling tests. I would film myself studying and pretend it was a gameshow. I like to think I would have been youtube famous if I was born now, or I would have been a disaster.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
It’s pretty mundane, but I now can operate heavy machinery. I now am the proud owner of a forklift operator license and OSHA certified. But this doesn’t mean that I didn’t somehow damage a $10,000 door with the forklift. Oof.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The forklift accidents can be used as a metaphor. I became very skilled at driving the forklift. And always, just when I was zipping around moving pallets of bottles, ingredients and vessels and I hit max confidence, something disastrous would happen, like when I broke that door. Basically the takeaway is you’re never too experienced to take a moment, become aware of your surroundings and slow down before you take action.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Oh man, so many people helped so many different aspects of my business. There were people who gave me a shot and became our first stores. There were people who opened up their commercial spaces so we had somewhere to make our product. There are the countless founders, CEOs and the likes that listened to me explain my problems and help think up solutions. That all said — we could have never started if we didn’t have a store — so for that I have to give big thanks to Biju Thomas. He had these amazing restaurants called Biju’s Little Curry Shop. I knew Biju through cycling and he became one of our first vendors. I remember going in to present him my kombucha and I believe we still had handwritten labels, no UPC or a full ingredient list on the packaging. He took it in and helped me get my ducks in a row. He introduced me to the person who landed us in Wholefoods, and found us more stores, and even helped find investors as we got bigger. He is 100% a major mentor and someone I look up to.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
I think women communicate differently than men and the boardroom is currently full of men. As a result there’s often a mismatch of communication styles. This mismatch also leads to differently valuing how someone leads and commands an organization.
There’s also this realization that I had the other day. I was asked by someone what I do. I told them I had a beverage company and they followed up by asking me what my husband did. When it happened I thought the follow up was weird. As I thought about it a bit more I realized they were asking me that because the way I answered they assumed it was a cute hobby and I was supported by my husband, which is not the case. A similar thing happened when I was looking for commercial real estate when we were looking to build out a production facility. Even though I am the earner of my household from this business and past businesses, this landlord asked what my husband did and followed it with questions where it was obvious he was seeing if my husband was supporting my cute hobby. I don’t know how to combat this assumption.
I don’t know if it’s a female thing, or how I present myself. It’s very frustrating and I believe it closes some doors on opportunities. However I don’t know if I would want to be involved with people that hold this stereotype about a woman in business. On the flip side there are males involved with Mortal that I feel the utmost respect from, and I’m glad to be involved with these people.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
I think we need to stop engaging with people who uphold these values.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
We think differently. We solve problems differently. We find problems to solve that a man might not ever think of. I think a good example of this is what’s being done out of MIT Hackathon where they’re committed to not making breast pumps suck.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
You can’t have it all. I was very nervous because I knew we were going into raising a round of investment, when I was pregnant. I worried from stories I heard that people wouldn’t take me seriously, that people wouldn’t think I would be as committed post childbirth. I would like to say — I think it was an asset. It helped us find people that shared our company values, that honored women and put family first. No one questioned my commitment to my company or thought I would be distracted. And honestly, anyone that thinks bearing a child is a distraction wouldn’t be the right fit for a partner for us.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Having a relentless curiosity is crucial for being a founder. You have to learn so many aspects of a business. Like if your background is in engineering, as a founder, the next thing you know you’re going to be a semi-expert in supply chain management, revenue flow, and branding. You also need to be someone that brings solutions, not problems to the table. You have to see setbacks as opportunities. You also have to have a short memory for the things that suck and really be able to celebrate the wins.
No job is “regular” — but yes, I believe some people are better primed to support and uplift a company than build it from the ground. I think if you’re someone who can be an evangelist to the company you work for, and truly believe in it’s mission full throttle without the need to reinvent it, you’ll make a great employee.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Always say yes — One of our brand values is “figure out a way to yes” — it opens up opportunities and forces creative problem solving. Nothing is impossible, it just hasn’t been solved yet.
- Sometimes say no — Taking time for yourself isn’t slacking. Sometimes you have to say no, push off an event, postpone a meeting so you can take care of yourself. There was a summer where I, without exaggeration, worked 7 days a week, sometimes physical labor with the brewing and production process, for 3 months. I was absolutely broken at the end. I wish I pulled back a bit. Having the space to recharge gives you new perspectives and could have opened different doors. Rather I was like a juggernaut barreling through walls.
- “Going all in” means something different for everyone. — In the beginning a founder who I admired asked me if I was “all in.” He asked if I was still taking freelance projects or was my focus purely on Mortal. I told him I was all in, and I was still taking projects. He told me that wasn’t all in. I strongly disagree. For me having no financial worries alleviated me from the stress of mortgages and real life hard costs. It allowed me to take care of my family so I could take risks with my business. I think going ‘all in’ is a mindset, and it’s not always 100% physical.
- Keep in touch — you never know who can help you solve your next problem, or the problem you don’t even know you’re going to have yet. So much of success is built on a delicate balance of hustle, execution and good old fashion luck. A breakthrough moment could happen because someone was standing in the right place, talking about the right thing at the right time.
- There’s always a pony — This is a metaphor from my parents. Basically, there will be setbacks. There will be failures. You will step in horse crap. And when you do, don’t look at the horsecrap. Don’t feel bad for yourself. Don’t even wipe it off. Realize stepping in crap means there is a pony nearby. And ponies are awesome. Find the pony. Hop on. Gallop towards greener pastures. And continue the wild ride of entrepreneurship.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
That’s hard to say. I own a beverage company. Our product brings joy to people. And I hope how we started from nothing and have become something has inspired people to take their own leaps and follow their own dreams. I don’t know if that’s truly making the world a better place, but I would like to think, happier people make a better world.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Serena Williams and Alex Ohanian. I know the question is for one, but I couldn’t write one without the other. I love these two. I love what they do and stand for individually and together. I love how they don’t just preach, but take action on their values. I love what Alex Ohanian is doing in the VC world. My husband was a professional athlete and his work with depression is very moving and person to me. And with Serena, oh I’m such a fan. I actually have a giant photo of Serena Williams focusing on a tennis ball in my office hanging on the wall right behind my computer. My husband gave it to me for an anniversary gift. *blushing*
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Either of the women listed above, for all of those reasons.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Becca Schepps of Mortal Kombucha On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.