Live in Chicago with McKlein Partners

Curt Anderson  00:02

Hi, Nicole. How you doing? Hi, Parinda.

Parinda Saetia  00:05

Hi, Curt. Hi, Nicole.

Curt Anderson  00:07

Hey, happy Wednesday, guys. How are you? What’s going on?

Nicole Donnelly  00:10

She’s here at the amazing, amazing mccline With Parinda. And this is so awesome. She’s showing us all these amazing products that she thinks she sells and manufactures is amazing. So excited.

Curt Anderson  00:21

So let’s dig in. So hey, happy Monday to everybody out there. And we’re we’re hanging out in Chicago doing lives all week. And so we decided to stop by Sir our dear friend and McKlein USA. We have all sorts of fun products to show you guys and there’s just a lot of excitement going on here. So, printer, let’s get things started. So this tell us a little bit about how now, Nicole before I go there. She’s a repeat offender. I don’t know if you know that she’s been on the program before. Right you are you’re she’s back. She’s a glutton for punishment. Right? So she survived the first time she came back for more. So just tell us a little bit give us a little background on mccline. I know it’s a family affair here. Just let’s hear the story of the background and history of mccline.

Parinda Saetia  01:04

Well, welcome guys. McKlein. Um, yeah, I have been, you know, working with in the business for 25 years now. Started right off of college,

Curt Anderson  01:16

when you were 12.

Nicole Donnelly  01:19

Right out of college. So you’ve graduated college and you’re like, I want to start this business. I want to be an entrepreneur. Yes. I’ve never had a job at a college. No.

Parinda Saetia  01:28

Would you go to college? Babson College in Boston? Yeah. Wow. Very nice. Yeah. So it’s an entrepreneur college and I study accounting and computer system. And then, you know, started the website for the company and with my brother, we kind of just coming up with our own brand registered and pick Chicago as the you know, the central point because we grew up here. Okay. So we went to high school and then you know, we went separate way for college. My brother went to Syracuse. I went to Babson. Yep. So, so once we graduate, we know we, we started the business selling bags. So we chose Chicago as our distribution center. Right. So we first started in Waukegan, which is north border of Wisconsin. So then, you know, over the years, we just moved to Chicago downtown. And you know, now we are in Broadview selling bags, you know, for the last 25 years. 45

Curt Anderson  02:31

years. 1998 What, like so young college, you know, fresh out of college? What was that? Like, as an entrepreneur? Was it exciting? Was it scary? Like, what did that look like? Oh,

Parinda Saetia  02:44

it’s trial and error. So it’s been, you know, you know, a very interesting ride. Yeah, it was, it was pretty tough. You know, I mean, we don’t have a lot of experience, but you know, we just me and my brother, so we are only a year apart. So, um, when when I was still in college, he kind of, you know, just, you know, with his buddy, starting, like, finding the White House and why after I graduated from college, then, you know, we fully like, you know, import products in. Right. Right. And, um, yeah, it’s been ups and downs, but we had, you know, like, a really good steady growth, you know, over the years, but now, with the pandemic and stuff, you know, but we are in, in a good spot. Okay. You know, I’m still is still going, you know,

Curt Anderson  03:37

we’re still going at it. 25 years. I mean, that’s, and we talked about this a little bit on Monday, and I’m going to go there. So think about this, four out of five businesses fail. In the first five years, four out of five businesses fail in the first five years and then expansion experts say the word for me exponential, thank you goes down, like every five years, right? So the thing is, like, you’ve survived 25 years, you’ve gone through that cycle five times, and still going strong. Like you’re really in a rare, you’re a rare breed and rare, you know, audience of folks that can you know, survive that long. For any, like, new entrepreneurs out there, like, people are like, Man, I you know, I’m just starting my entrepreneurial journey and like, you know, the picture you 25 years ago, fresh, exciting, you know, like, not knowing what you’re getting into kind of a roller coaster ride. What advice would you share, you know, for somebody just starting out, like where you were 25 years ago?

Parinda Saetia  04:35

Oh, wow. Um, you know, like, I mean, you gotta have to do what you love, you know, like, I mean, we, we come up with, like, bags that were already off the bag before it was like men’s bag like very traditional. But, you know, my my brother and I, we, we, you know, new generation, so we introduced like, new design new, like a lot more women’s back You know, so we just started women’s probably in the last 15 years. So the first 10 years we we focus on men’s back because it’s men’s market and stuff like that, but then we’re like, oh my god, women’s buy more bags. You know, so we, I mean, our products are not as high fashion, but we kind of tried to do professional women’s bags, right. So that can so we, you know, that’s what we do. We try to find the right niche for our product. Right?

Nicole Donnelly  05:28

I love it. What made you decide you wanted to start a business in bags? What did you just love the idea of?

Parinda Saetia  05:34

No, actually, it’s what was it’s a family affair, like you said. So it’s my dad. He has been making attache cases. You know, like, traditional men’s briefcase. Yeah. When since I was young, when I was probably, like, first grade, right?

Curt Anderson  05:53

Yeah, inspired you. So let’s sit on that for a minute. So as a girl, dad that just That’s music to my ears to hear that you kind of you know, you loved and admired what dad did and like, you know, your, you know, child product of, you know, manufacturer, entrepreneur, you know, fourth generation entrepreneur. So let’s, you know, get like, what, what sparked that inspiration with Dad where you’re like, you know what, I want to take your career that direction, is that?

Parinda Saetia  06:18

Yeah, I mean, uh, well, my dad, he loves making bags he loves like, keeping busy and you know, working with employees. At one point he has like 2000 workers. Did he really? Yeah, making bags day in day out, you know? Wow, he wouldn’t. And he has he he hasn’t gone to school he’s not had a proper education but he can send like his kids to like America, right? You know, that like our own business and continue to sell after 25 years. Wow, what’s dad’s name? TC

Curt Anderson  06:50

TC man, I think we talked about TC and the last time that you were on the show, so Hey, big TC if you’re out there, big shout out to you. Again, guys. We’re here at mccline in Chicago. So Nicole and I’ve been hanging out in Chicago all week. And so you know, drop us a note. Let us know that you’re out there. Let’s see we’ve got you know, a Diana’s here today. Hey, hey, Diana, how are you? Hey, hey, James is here today, James, Happy Wednesday to you. Thank you for popping in again. Guys. drop us a note, let us know you’re there. I’ve had all sorts of amazing product. We’re gonna get into this in a minute here. So let’s dig deeper into that transition about you know, going into female bags, women’s bags, how what was the inspiration there? How did you start, you know, the designs the innovation? What was it like trends, making that transition from men’s to women’s bags?

Parinda Saetia  07:35

Um, well, we, you know, women’s, you know, love fashion. So, you know, like

07:43

not so much those guys. Right? Yeah.

Parinda Saetia  07:44

Because it’s like, we see that like, okay, man.

Curt Anderson  07:49

I hired, I hired my shirt today. So usually, I’m just in my pajamas or my workout clothes. So this is the first time you’ve seen me in a work and nice shirt, right? So anyway, I

Parinda Saetia  08:01

will keep going. So, you know, men, they don’t change back that often. You know, like, we will see, like, you know, someone, a customer would be using the same bag for the last like, 10 years. And I’m like, Okay, do you see one nice fix, okay, no problem. But you know, he has a new bag that you can like, purchase, you know, um, but women change bags more often. So we and we are specialized in leather. And that’s what our niche is, you know, we do have like fabric products too. But we make a lot of leather quality bags. And for women’s. It’s just the turnover is more faster makes such

Nicole Donnelly  08:41

business sense. Yeah, like you’re making more sense. Yeah, because they buy more tests. I love my bags, I buy bags.

Curt Anderson  08:50

So speaking of will go so I so let’s, let’s go here. So you and I met through iMac, the Illinois MEP. And so again, we love giving our shout outs to the Illinois MEP Manufacturing Extension Partnership, our dear friends at iMac. No one was available to join us today. But big shout out. Just talk a little bit about how you’ve had multiple opportunities working with iMac Can you Let’s go there for a minute. And just what’s been your experience working with iMac?

Parinda Saetia  09:17

Wow, very wonderful. They are so helpful. You know, like as a, you know, a business owner, I’m always like, so busy, I don’t have the time to you know, reach out to different organization, but they always you know, like trying to help and you know, we have so many like wonderful projects, like take my company to the next level. Like 10 years ago, we you know, they introduced us to this opportunity of upgrading my, you know, office system to SAP which is, you know, without them I don’t think we would ever, you know, move from a quick book user to like, you know, going like to, you know competing In, uh, you know, in the next level, basically, because the the robust system that SAP can produce for us, you know, it helped me manage my inventory, it helps me with finance, you know, all in one computer system. So that’s what they kind of helped me on my first project. But after that, that’s always, you know, we had, you know, like, just, you know, like, it’s, it’s helped me with my marketing, how to grow my business, and how to be a good leader. And also now SEO is like, a really important thing, you know, to kind of, you know, compete in the search engine. Yeah, you know, yep.

Curt Anderson  10:39

And what was great, what, so I had the honor and privilege of working with Brendan, what was awesome was, like, you know, you had tons of like, first page rankings on Google and weren’t even aware of it, you know. And so as we dug into it, what we one thing that we love talking about with, you know, how do you start your when you start your marketing journey, you know, so for manufacturers out there, you know, like, you know, maybe traditionally you’ve been word of mouth, or you didn’t really have a robust sales team, you know, we found that on Monday, right? It was just like, boy, we just had a great business, our legacy and decades. And so the cool thing is, is like now so you need to embrace that marketing. And you know, one of the first steps is like, know, your customer know, your customer know your customer. And we could around like, you know, what’s our what’s our tagline? What’s our word for that ideal customer? Or soulmate? Right? We’d be like, Hey, who’s that soulmate just really resonates and understands our product that like, you know, they have a problem we want to solve just as you describe, like, hey, women need more bags, they need innovation and understand it. Who was who was your soulmate? When we’re going through our little training together, Nicole? So Nicole, just so you guys,

Nicole Donnelly  11:44

I feel so special, so soulmate.

Curt Anderson  11:48

Just explain to everybody like, you know, so if marketing is new to them, like how important that you know, describe the soulmate, and like how important it is a know your customer? Yes, this

Nicole Donnelly  11:56

is the first most important step to really having any sort of successful marketing strategy. First step you want to know and identify? Who is your customer? What is their? What are their pains? What are their challenges, what are they like to what keeps them up at night, you know, what makes them cry, what makes them happy, you want to know them as much as you can, inside as inside and out and really try to identify those pain points. Because once you know what their problems are, and you can really get into that, then you can find solutions that are going to solve that for that. And so, you know, in this case, you know, I being the soulmate, like what do I care about, you know, I love bags, I love a beautiful bag, I love a bag that’s going to be really well made with really great materials. And so perintah knowing that about me knowing that me her soulmate really wants a really beautiful back that’s functional, that’s well made. Now as the you know, as the company, that’s what she’s going to be focusing on creating and providing and showing her marketing and I gotta tell you, I was just looking at her wonderful brochures this morning. And I gotta tell you, the name of the product line is one of my favorite places in the world. So she’s like totally speaking my language like these bags are named after cities in Italy and I’m sitting here looking at them and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’ve been to these beautiful cities they are like so she’s speaking my love language right here through this. So this is a really great example of it just fabulous marketing she’s speaking directly to me and my needs my wants are going to be very very different than Kurt’s let’s be honest. Just a little just a

Curt Anderson  13:33

little so anyway, so why don’t we let’s start showing some products here. Okay, so let’s get that let’s start with oh my gosh, look at this thing here. So I’ll go I’ll go ahead and hold it printed out can you just talk a little bit about like when when your soulmate when Nicole like talk about how your soulmate is and it was in mind when you produce this bag?

Parinda Saetia  13:53

Well, um, you know, like we are women on the go so we traveled so we think of like this one we come up with the vertical so you can go down to Nicole can use this bag rolling down the aisle in a rush you know, getting to her seat. So this is going to be like you know, fit perfectly in the eye of an athlete. And so you know, you’ve got the hidden away handling system as well. Oh, nice.

Nicole Donnelly  14:20

Look at that. That’s yeah. Oh, I hear yes. So awesome. I love this for when I’m traveling because then I can put it on my suitcase and I don’t have to carry it if I want to. I can like put it all back. So it’s

Parinda Saetia  14:33

really nice. So it’s a very nice and compact article. And then look like you can even like put this this will fit nicely on the overhead bin. Yeah, or you can like actually slide it under the seat. So I’ve put it backwards that way you might you don’t want to scratch like on this part but you know like, then you can slide it in and you can always access to your magazine and all that stuff. Yeah,

Nicole Donnelly  14:55

I love this pocket on the front too. Like this is super convenient because when you’re on the go sometimes out have a place where we can put something quickly, you know, really like awesome pockets on the inside. So like, there’s something for your phone for your credit cards, everything. I love that feature. And I also love that this is just like standard, it really stands out and looks unique compared to like your just traditional run of the milk bags that you see. It’s like this beautiful leather and beautiful color. So, you know, for someone like me, I want something that’s going to show my personality that’s going to be you know, yep, you know, refract reflection of me and express that in social media. So I love that, right? Oh, and then look at the inside of this. There’s like a laptop sleeve right here, which is super convenient. So love that. Very cool.

Parinda Saetia  15:42

And all that. So it will be a great like,

Nicole Donnelly  15:45

I think I think it would be coming home with a bag which one? Let’s be honest.

Curt Anderson  15:53

Take a look at this one. What do we got going on here.

Parinda Saetia  15:56

So this is like a simple backpack. So you know now, like the new generations, we are always on our phone. So if you know like we have a nice backpack with a nice padding with a piggy back as well keeping that in mind. So you can save these on your luggage if you don’t want to be carrying them. So all your magazines, so it’s a very nice padding with with computer section.

Nicole Donnelly  16:25

I love about this too. I love how you pull the zipper dose down far that’s really nice because sometimes you have these bags of breath right here and just like kind of digging in. But this like the fact that it goes down further and you can like really get in there. Kirk saw me dig into my backpack. Yeah, really nice.

Curt Anderson  16:43

Let’s take a look for this professional bag. That just sharp.

Parinda Saetia  16:48

Yeah, so we have many different product lines. This is one of the most like, economical, like, you know, so people can it’s affordable. Basically, it’s still leather. But it’s a different grades of leather. Okay, it’s a little bit harder, but still like the design. I mean, it has it’s functional. It can be the shoulder strap. You can get everything organized. So we need like four different pockets on the front.

Curt Anderson  17:16

Now, is that a guy’s back? Yes, it is. Yeah, that’s like your see, I’m not a bad guy. But I just fell in love with that thing. I’m like, Just like if you saw how disorganized I’m like look at this thing. And it’s very rugged. I mean, it looks masculine. Like I feel very comfortable. Right? That is okay. All right. That’s a nice bag would be well taken care of. Yes. As opposed to what do we have going on here.

Parinda Saetia  17:40

So this is a double compartment. flap over. So nice professional looking back with a nice shoulder strap as well.

Nicole Donnelly  17:51

This is the front this design here is cool. I like that. Very nice. So

Parinda Saetia  17:57

it’s you know, like, it’s a nice leather bag that will last you for many years to come. You know, it has like the same piggyback system. Just, you know, I mean, these products, retail less than $200. Does it really wow. So it’s a very functional and like, affordable as well.

Curt Anderson  18:16

So you know what? So let’s go there for a minute. Let’s talk about so you have you have your website, of course, but you do a great job with the marketplaces. Okay, so for our friends, entrepreneurs manufacturers out there, and you’re thinking, we’ve been talking a lot of folks about, like, taking advantage of the marketplaces. We’ve had guests that are, you know, from Zorro, DigiKey you know, obviously, you have Amazon, talk a little bit about like, how the marketplaces have been a great fit for you of like getting your product out there. Let’s go there for a little bit. Just talk about your experience there.

Parinda Saetia  18:46

Yeah, um, well, like marketplace like Amazon. Yeah. Yeah, we we have been with them for like, since the beginning of time. So it’s, um, it’s a, it’s a very, like, once you submit your product there, like, any other of my customer can join in using the same, you know, item and like, just start selling them. So it reached out to a lot of people. I mean, yeah, we grow every year with them to like in the marketplace. It’s a great like place to gain your market share, basically, yes, because

Nicole Donnelly  19:20

Amazon is a massive search engine in and of itself, you know, so I love that strategy. Because not only are you getting your visibility and stopping the best kept secret on Amazon, which is huge search engines, but also trying to tackle it on Google is really, really smart from a marketing perspective. Because yeah, Amazon has a huge, huge presence.

Curt Anderson  19:39

Yeah. And I think for manufacturers or you know, whether if you’re trying to get direct to consumer, you’re like, Man, how would I do this? It’s so expensive. That’s a great Amazon’s a great option. However, there’s a lot of niche marketplaces. And again, we’ve been interviewing quite a few of them. So if you’re in a b2b space, you know, and you’re like, boy, you know, how do I get the search rankings or you’re just kind of starting it out? marketplaces are certainly A great place to start.

Parinda Saetia  20:02

And last month, I just like start linking Amazon review to my website. Yeah, that’s really like, it helps a lot. Because, you know, like, all these reviews because like my own website, we don’t have a lot of traffic, because we don’t really we haven’t been because we, you know, picture ourselves as a wholesale distributor manufacturer. We’re not like a retail. Right? But it doesn’t hurt to have like all those hundreds and hundreds and 1000s of reviews that leads from Amazon to my own website. Right.

Curt Anderson  20:32

Yeah, well, that’s that social proof. And so why don’t we go there for a minute just for like folks listening in like, you know, that let’s talk about the good eats for a minute. You know, that’s that’s because what you’re doing is like you’re giving that social proof your point and and the thing is, I remember you and I looking at it, like you have 1000s and 1000s of five star reviews. People are just raving about this, these incredible products. But just share a little bit about why don’t we just let’s go into like beats and like how that’s important from a search standpoint for Google? Yeah,

Nicole Donnelly  20:59

absolutely. I mean, I think it just first of all, you want to think about your soulmates, right, as we’re talking about. And your soulmates are looking at the reviews, right? When I look for a new product or a new bag, I want to see what other people have to say about that bag. And I want to see are people what do they think about the back when Google when they’ve created their, you know, obviously, Google’s algorithm that they use to rank pages on the search engine results page, its proprietary, they’re not going to tell you how they make the secret sauce, but they’ve given a few, you know, they give you they tell you at least at a high level, what you need to be doing on your website and with your content, in order for you to rank higher on the search engine results page. And it’s called as Kurt mentioned, it’s an acronym called Eat. And it traditionally is instead stood for expertise, authority and trust. Okay, so when Google is looking at your site and crawling your pages, they’re looking at is this person an expert on this topic? You know, is perintah is company? Are they an expert on fat bags? And you know, you know, how to, you know, bags for this particular market? Are they an authority? So what other websites are linking back to this website? What other? What are people saying about McLean, like, and what is your authority on that topic? So that’s where backlinks really plays a really important role is getting other people to be talking about you. And then trust is the third that’s a little bit more arbitrary. This a little bit harder to measure. But like is this a trusted, trusted source of information. And that’s looking at things like credentials, that’s looking at social proof that’s looking at backlinks, and all of those things combined. But there’s a new E on the block guys, there’s a new E on the block. And it’s experience. And that’s what Google is looking for. There’s I want you to show me how you have directly have experience on this particular topic. So for example, if you’re a mechanic and you went to trade school, and you write an article on you know, how to change out an oil on a car, that’s great, you have expertise on that topic, right? But what Google is looking for now is your experience can you show me make a video of yourself changing the oil on the car and that is something that Google is really ranking more highly for they want to be able to see that you actually have the experience and you’re showing that experience in your content so yeah,

Curt Anderson  23:11

that’s where those reviews come in. You know so like you’ve been on Amazon since the beginning so you like you have a long track record long history and again, like satisfying you know, 1000s of raving fan customers in those reviews are totally helpful you know, for you for your background and again like you know, you’re you’re going to get some major players right again, I’m not I’m not the soulmate for for No, she’s mine, you know, just 54 year old bald guy is hurt, you know, but you’re my soulmate. But you know, we came around and said like, Hey Nicole, is we’re describing like, Hey, what are we trying to target Well, like you know, a professional that travels busy mom, and we got a couple more bags that we’re gonna get into, but just that you know, I think bringing that social proof of all those reviews onto your website so that is a great for anybody out there if you’re in the same boat. Great opportunity. Let’s let’s take a look at this product here. What do we have going on?

Parinda Saetia  24:04

So this one has like over 600 reviews on Amazon so this is one of the like

Curt Anderson  24:10

sort of flagship Yeah, like when you’re

Parinda Saetia  24:12

I think this one is the keys lock.

Curt Anderson  24:16

That lock is very cool.

Nicole Donnelly  24:18

Love that. There’s certain things

Parinda Saetia  24:20

that you want Yep. And this is where the key is is hidden in this like very little sleep. So I mean look at the details in case you know like you can have easy access to like your lip balms your cell phone so let’s see. Let’s put it in. Just to make sure it works. Yeah. Put it in twisted and beyond ago,

Nicole Donnelly  24:42

this little pouch right here super. Like this little that’s what very nice. It’s all hidden. You can’t see it. Super nice. And then I love that it has this laptop’s leg sleeve in the middle because I need my laptop all the time. Just ask my kids Yeah.

Parinda Saetia  25:02

Yeah, so it’s a very nice compact back.

Nicole Donnelly  25:05

Wheels. So very nice. And the color the Yeah. Beautiful. Love it.

Curt Anderson  25:11

So how, like, how do you? How do you come up with like these great designs? Like, what makes you think like every little detail I get fits in the bin or like, where to put the cell phone? Like where do you guys

Parinda Saetia  25:22

we have a team, you know, like my brother, my dad, they they’ve been, you know, in this business for so long. And you know, we we do research all the time we go our research do you do? Well we we go out to in the stores, we which we go look at what’s out there, what people are carrying, when we go when we travel, we look at how, you know, like at the airport, that’s the best like, because people are shocked. Yeah, yeah. So you know it live, you know, we you will see, like, we keep looking at what people are carrying what, you know, what are they using to get all these professional and we attended trade shows as well. And, you know, and other thing is like we just use internet, you know, we just see oh, like what are the bags that are out there in the market. You know,

Nicole Donnelly  26:10

I love that that’s ethnography. That’s a really, really great way to do market research. For anyone out there who’s looking at creating a new product. Actually seeing people who how they’re using that product or service in the wild is such a great way for you to learn and innovate for sure. I love that. That’s awesome. Man, I’m

Curt Anderson  26:28

in love with this one. Yeah. What’s, what’s going on with this bag?

Parinda Saetia  26:33

Wow, this is a three in one backpack. So you can hand carry them into your office. Okay, or this part here. It opens up and the shoulder strap is all hidden inside. You just have to hook it like up here. Really easy to hook up. So two straps on the side. And then it all right. Yeah, definitely.

Nicole Donnelly  27:00

What do you think, guys?

Curt Anderson  27:01

Oh, that is perfectly that is you? Yeah, that is so you

Nicole Donnelly  27:05

know what I love about it. I love the leather. It’s beautiful. It’s

Parinda Saetia  27:09

very nice our leather. And also another nice things about this one is it comes with

Nicole Donnelly  27:17

actually a shoulder strap as

Parinda Saetia  27:21

well where is a shoulder strap? It has 20 different compartments always.

Nicole Donnelly  27:25

Like I said I love how the zipper comes down all the way

Curt Anderson  27:30

through all sorts of different pockets here.

Nicole Donnelly  27:33

Like a little makeup is

Parinda Saetia  27:34

how you can unlike unbutton this and then Yep, take it well, I mean for toiletry you know, like, like, my brush Yeah, this is like a laptop section in the middle compartment for your magazine and you know your notes and stuff.

Nicole Donnelly  27:56

So and it’s Oh, there’s another little pouch in here. You got a little pencil case kind of that’s cool.

Parinda Saetia  28:03

So you’re actually is for your laptop courts. Oh, no kidding. So you can keep everything like nice and organized.

Curt Anderson  28:11

Man you know when she and she saw my cords right now and that’s what she was, you know, you see that little subtle hint

Nicole Donnelly  28:19

that is really paying attention to like the problems you’re trying to solve with their bag right? Nobody likes having those cords everywhere right? Like right now if I go my backpack right now it’s just like cords

Curt Anderson  28:29

right? All sorts of like look at all these little pockets in here. And again I think you know I think the point with all this is like you know again as manufacturers just think like how paying that special attention like you know we were talking with folks we’ve been here in Chicago all week talking to different manufacturers on lives. And just like you know that customer attention customer detail dedicated to like solving their problems. What’s the let’s get into like the legacy like culture Dad, your brother, like what’s been like the commitment into like, kind of customer success, you know, satisfying your soulmate and Nicole as she’s walking through the airport, she has her toiletry bag or you know, or like Kurt has his hair supplies right here in a comfortable pocket like how do you you know that dedication to customer satisfaction like where does that come from? Let’s let’s let’s go there.

Parinda Saetia  29:17

Um, well I mean my like all of these like have to create it to my brother he loves like designing bag he loves you know, like, making product that is like usable, functional

Curt Anderson  29:30

and durable, right? I mean, like these like these again, I’m not a bad guy, but these are like these are quality quality products. Right?

Parinda Saetia  29:38

Yeah. So I mean, he you know, he he’s a professional, you know, on a goal and he wants to make sure that like the bag that he’s carrying can like do all sorts of things metal, hundreds of things in one and you know, that’s that’s the dedication that we put into the each bag that we sell. It’s really hard for the E commerce business to like really showcase like What you can do so sometimes we get, you know, from customer like, Oh my God, I didn’t even know if this case actually detach, or this case has this and that. So it’s always a surprise to my customer that like, oh my god, this bag can do so much more than, you know, because if you’re just looking at like when the bag is close like that you don’t even know what’s inside. So you know, as a as an E commerce like company like you’re trying to, you know, put all your product out there, you need to make sure you have like a good that product can speak for itself without having like a salesperson like Oh, directing you because you know, nowadays different you know, the product is not installed on your website. Oh, that’s

Nicole Donnelly  30:38

interesting. You say that for them. Because Kurt and I have been talking about this a lot is that there’s there’s been this big increase in, in b2b e commerce or not b2b e commerce b2c e commerce with where people these companies are going on. And they’re actually showcasing the products on these live shows like this. And I like we’re doing right now. And that way people can actually get to see what it looks like on the inside. And the younger buyers, what’s really interesting is younger buyers, they don’t want to spend the time browsing and trying to find the perfect bag, they will actually come to these live streams and they’ll just buy whatever the person is recommending because at the time factor, they just want to vertically. So I think that’s like a really cool opportunity for you know, companies to be thinking about is like, how can you showcase your product in like a live video type of format? And I

Parinda Saetia  31:23

hope like you know, I’m gonna be learning from you. That’s that’s the next the next

Curt Anderson  31:29

step, right? I know, and we had fun. We have fun, don’t we definitely have fun. So all right, so let’s go here. i We do we want to try to get out on the floor. Alright, before we go there. I have one question. So as a nimble entrepreneur, you throw on many hats, and again, all of our entrepreneurs out there same boat, you know, like you’re your own HR, I’ve got to handle finance, brothers, you know, your brother’s carrying, you know, taking care of the innovation or some, but there’s things that you play to your strengths, things that play to his strengths. We’re going to walk on to this amazing critical facility that you have, how are you able to, like, carry, like, tackle multiple functions throughout the day? Change those hats? Great question. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Parinda Saetia  32:15

I mean, you know, it’s like, it’s trial and error. We, you know, I, I love what I do. So every day is always, you know, like, new challenges every day, like, okay, it’s the UPS guys coming is the FedEx guy coming? I mean, you know, and I have a great team of people that, you know, like, helped me every day, you know, shipping out and, you know, taking care of customer service, all of that. I mean, it’s a teamwork, I can do everything on my own. And I just, I just have to work, you know, like, I have to balance life and work is always really hard. You know, I mean, I am not an expert in any way, you know, I’m still learning. Yeah, after 25 years, and we still, it’s still a learning experience. It’s,

Nicole Donnelly  32:57

you said a couple times trial and error, which I think is so it shows a lot of grace. I think as entrepreneurs as leaders, we have to give ourselves grace to say, like, anytime we’re trying something new, would you whenever you’re owning a business, it’s all new, doesn’t matter how much experience every day is uncertain. And just like going into it with some grace for yourself, and for your team, like we’re learning this, we’re gonna make some mistakes, we’re gonna figure it out. I would love to before we go to the floor. Can you share an example like recently of like a trial and error that you had that you kind of had to go through? And you’re like, oh, wow, I’m

Curt Anderson  33:31

no curveball. Yeah. Well, I

Parinda Saetia  33:33

mean, you know, like, I mean, I have been in this for so long, and I’ve been out of college for a while. And, you know, like, I mean, that’s old news, new things and new rules. For example, like, I just learned the new rules of being an E commerce business that I’m supposed to have this accessibility. I think that’s, that’s a good like, I want to get that out there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, that’s an error on my judgment that I didn’t know about it. Yeah. But I learned it the hard way.

Curt Anderson  34:08

So before, so why don’t we? Let’s hit that. So what happened is, so there’s an ad, a compliance American Disabilities Act compliance, which you see in retail stores, or in any public setting airports, libraries, you know, whatever, you know, and it’s also impacting websites. And so, do you want to share you want to share your experience, or I don’t know how deep you want to go have?

Parinda Saetia  34:33

I’m sure. Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, like I said, like, I have had my website for like, over 20 plus years since the beginning of time. And I mean, the first website that we had, I launched myself, I write the code, and that was HTML. So from, you know, fast forward to like 2022 in December of this year, a guy walks in and serve me a paper that’s like, Oh, I’m not in compliance. With my website, yeah. So I was like, Oh, what is this? This is a joke like, so when I read about it, it was this, you know, blind lady that she couldn’t navigate my website. And she couldn’t buy a duffel, a duffel bag. So I said, Oh, wow. You know, like, why didn’t she just give us a call? And you know, we can walk her through everything and help her. But yeah, but it this is what’s happening that like, because it’s, there’s a new rule that came out, maybe 2017 2018 That like, all website needs to be in compliance, correct?

Nicole Donnelly  35:38

Yeah, that’s such a great point to make for small businesses out there to be thinking about, like, if you’re designing a new website, or you’re looking for a new website designer to help you just making sure that they know about this and that they’re building your site to be in compliance, right? Yes. Yeah. So

Curt Anderson  35:53

So point taken today, and we might, we might even have like a dedicated episode to this topic. So on your website, Google, you know, or just Google ADA compliance for my website, and talk to your web designer, and just make sure that you that your site, and, you know, so now, you you got through that little trial, and the thing is that the fines are significant. In some cases, there are 10s of 1000s of dollars, and it’s very, you feel violated, you feel like somebody’s trying to, you know, scam you, I mean, it’s really an uncomfortable setting, and you reach out to IMEC. And then, you know, you and I talked about a little bit, and so, you know, I think you got to, you got to find down to a little bit, you know,

Parinda Saetia  36:39

from 27,000 to like, 2000. So, it’s like, you know, it’s really good to be negotiating on, I mean, like, you have to negotiate, because some people might like, to settle, and they’re scared and all that, but, you know, like, I just want to get the word out there that, like, you know, it’s better to be in compliance from the beginning. So, you know, you won’t be you know, having to waste a lot of time, on negotiation.

Curt Anderson  37:03

And for all the folks, all of our customers, all the, you know, people that have different abilities, different challenges that they’re facing, you know, and just putting, you know, so like, some of these things that will help again, this is not my area of expertise, but you know, having, having videos, having live streams, you know, showing the product, having captions on those videos, so there’s a lot of these things. And, you know, there’s a lot of tools and resources to help you become ADA compliant. And so, you know, again, live in, you know, like, we learned today, we’re learning every day, right, we had, and so every day, we’re all making, you know, we’re just human, we’re just making mistakes, but, you know, having an ADA compliance, that was a great question. And that was a topic

Parinda Saetia  37:44

that was like, yeah, yeah, but it is something that I would like, you know, keep spreading out for other people that I had, like trying to,

Nicole Donnelly  37:52

you know, so important, because you didn’t know about, it’s not like you were maliciously trying to do any, it’s just a matter of knowing. And so the more that you talk about it, like you’re doing is you’re basically serving everyone out there who doesn’t know, so it’s your right, it’s important for people to get educated, right?

Curt Anderson  38:06

And for folks with those challenges, it is great, like, hey, let’s communicate a better higher level. And so just kind of, you know, raw, we’re all trying to figure things out as we get through life together. How about, I don’t know how this is gonna work logistically, we’re going to take a little test, what I’d love to do is I’d like to show everybody your facility of a great warehouse, all sorts of incredible products. So bear with us, and let’s take a little venture out what are some?

Nicole Donnelly  38:29

We got some comments here. I’ll put Gary’s here.

Curt Anderson  38:33

A Gary’s here we’ve got Hey, Nancy O’Leary is in the house. Hey, Nancy. We’re actually wearing her town. So hey, hey, guys. All right, we’re gonna go out on the floor. Let’s do this. Let’s see how this is gonna work. Let’s, let’s go here. So bear with my, okay. Here we go. I got I got I Okay, cool, guys, go ahead. Go ahead. We’ll go right out this door here. Here we go. Here we go. We all show these guys. Alright. We’re just showing real quick. That’s, that’s the think tank right there. And so we’re going out on the floor here right now. And man, look at this facility. So look at this. Everything happens. Look at this place. Look at so printed. Let’s go over. So just if you wanted like give us a little we can take a little tour here.

Parinda Saetia  39:14

So like, the product comes in, and we just put them all on pallets. Everything is normal order. Yeah, everything pre package, and we just load them and put them on a pallet. And then everyday we just pick and pack UPS come and pick them up. We just put a label on them onto the box. Like there’s a nice nice, you know, like space for it. Yeah. Everything is made at our own factory in Thailand. So

Curt Anderson  39:47

that’s awesome. Yeah, this is just so impressive in how like when you started 25 years ago, did you think that you’d have a place that looked like this?

Parinda Saetia  39:54

Now it’s much smaller and every every year we gradually change them and you know get bigger and bigger. And but you know, just this is a very nice facility where, you know, it’s nice and clean and no leaking.

Nicole Donnelly  40:11

Yeah. Yeah. Largest this facility like how big is how much space? Do

Parinda Saetia  40:15

you have? Um, we have about 12,000 square feet. Very nice. And

Nicole Donnelly  40:19

how is supply chain going for you? Like, has it been improving lately? Yeah,

Parinda Saetia  40:23

it has improved a lot. You know, during the pandemic, it was just outrageous, and so expensive five times more than what we normally pay. But now it’s back to normal. Oh, good. Everything’s Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly  40:39

Such inventory here. This is incredible. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  40:44

So, so we were talking about, like, different aspects of the business, right? So you’ve got operations, you got finance, HR, like, have inventory control, like, how do you how do you manage inventory control? Well, we

Parinda Saetia  40:55

use SAP we, you know, my every morning, we run reports, we, you know, transfer the reports to our customers, whether it’s EDI, or just simple email, Excel, and you know, so yeah, we we communicate with our customer every day on inventory level. Yep. To not have any cancellations and

Curt Anderson  41:15

right. So fulfillment. And you know, and again, like some companies will get in trouble, you know, carrying too much inventory. So that’s always, that’s always a challenge as

Nicole Donnelly  41:22

well. Right? Yes. Yeah. Finding that balance.

Curt Anderson  41:26

In how long you’ve been here. You’ve been in this facility for how long now? Running on two years. Two years? Yeah. And how does this compare to your previous facility?

Parinda Saetia  41:36

Better, you know, it’s just um, and we actually this one is a little bit smaller than the Chicago office. This is in Broadview. It’s very nice and quiet place here. Yeah. And everything is, you know, new to me, is, let’s see, we have our own docking system. I can show that to you. And, like, we do our own repairs here. If because our bag is limited lifetime warranty. So we can’t resell this, you know, if the wheels that you’re using ran, like you know, run flat and stuff, then we fix them. Very nice.

Curt Anderson  42:20

We’ve got some good music going here and everything. So it’s a beautiful day here in Chicago. So I guys gonna start dancing. So why don’t we let’s we’ll come over here. And then what we’ll do is we’ll we’ll start winding down. So any any other words of advice? Any thoughts for entrepreneurs out there? Like, I mean, this is, this is 25 years in the making, you know, like, and we always talk about, like, you know, that overnight success, people don’t see all the blood, sweat and tears. Like, do you take a moment, like you ever come out here, just take a moment and just like really relish like, what you’ve accomplished here? 25 years, like, just, I mean, look at this is a dream come true. Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly  42:58

Right. Started at such a young age as a woman, like, I just have to my hat’s off to you. Oh,

Parinda Saetia  43:05

thank you, thank you. It’s, you know, it’s hard work and making like, you know, it’s, it’s fun to be making, you know, good quality product to supply to my soulmate, like you and you know, heard and, you know, so I mean, it’s, it’s teamwork is, you know, it’s just, every day, putting, you know, getting yourself out here, and, you know, making it happen.

Nicole Donnelly  43:26

Yeah. Yeah. What’s next? What’s, what’s next for you guys? What’s next for you? And the team? What are you looking forward to? Um,

Parinda Saetia  43:33

well, I mean, if we want to stay in this market, we want to grow, we want to, you know, you know, keep making, you know, good quality product, like, I don’t know, like, what’s next after backpacks? You know, like, I mean, just keep reinventing it. You know what? I’m, I mean, I’m not 100% sure yet.

Curt Anderson  43:56

Another 25 years, right. Can I come back here in 25 years? How old will I be? I can’t do the math. I don’t know. They’ll give me all the nursing home. But we’ll do another interview. 25 years. How’s that?

Parinda Saetia  44:09

Yeah. Hopefully we keep making bags. You know,

Curt Anderson  44:12

awesome. Why don’t we let’s start wrapping up, Nicole, any words of wisdom thoughts that you have from this great interview today? I

Nicole Donnelly  44:19

think it’s so impressive your tenacity and just what you’ve built over the last 25 years. And yeah, kudos to you for everything that you’re doing here. And the fact that you have your family involved and helping you and the legacy of your father is just really tremendous. So good. Well done.

Parinda Saetia  44:33

Well done. Thank you,

Curt Anderson  44:35

for no last words, thoughts that you want to share with us.

Parinda Saetia  44:39

No, thank you for you know, like your, I mean, you’ll help with, you know, all the SEO and like, and then we’re gonna continue to be I’m going to be continuing learning from you. It’s very important to you know, like to grow my business with all of that learning and education. Stand up, you know you and IMEC is going to be giving me

Curt Anderson  45:03

this year. So well hey, well, thank you. Thank you, Nicole. So, guys, how are we doing on time? Hey, we met we knocked this down. We did this live so hey, we thank you guys for joining us today. So this has just been an absolute honor and privilege. Let’s get over here. So we’re gonna wind we’re gonna wind things down so have a fantastic rest of your week. We appreciate everybody in the chat box drop a note so Nancy, thank you Gary. Thank you guys and hey, have an awesome incredible rest of your week. area. So just be some hate I always say just being inspiration just like printed here man. 25 years look at all this look like do a little 25 years of entrepreneurship and this is right here in Chicago. So Alright guys, have a great day and we will see you soon.

Parinda Saetia  45:52

Bye. called me up to choose the bag