Ep. 816 - Unlocking Freedom for Pumping Moms with Ece Filiz

Hello, my beautiful gemsters, and welcome back to another segment here on the Gems Podcast. With me today is AJ Phyllis, and I'm going to tell you a little bit more about who AJ is and why this is going to be an amazing segment, especially for you new or seasoned mamas out there. There's going to be some gems for you, or those of you who are thinking about launching your parent head journey, you could grab some gems here. So AJ is the founder and CEO of Idaho Jones, a brand dedicated to making the breastfeeding journey simpler, more organized, and more comfortable for moms. Before that, AJ was part of the corporate strategy team at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, also known as EBRD, where she enhanced the bank's planning and performance measurement processes, introduced scenarios, planning as a strategic tool, and identified new investment and policy engagement opportunities. She has also worked on the EBRD's fund for funds, learn, leading, and managing investments into private equity funds across Eastern Europe and North Africa. AJ began her career as a financial analyst in JP Morgan's Merger and Acquisitions Department. She holds a BA in Economics and Public Policy from the University of Chicago. AJ has two young daughters and lives in London with her family. Her passion for helping moms navigate breastfeeding challenges is the diving force. When I say diving, I also mean driving force, because you're diving in as a mother, but then you're also driving the things that are going to help other mothers on their journey, because we all know that motherhood is a journey in itself, and not every day is going to be prim and polished. You're going to have those ugly moments in the back end that people may not even see on camera. They may see the pictures that we paint for them. Let's be transparent and welcome on AJ. Hi, thanks for having me. My pleasure, AJ, and thank you so much for being here to share and hold space with the audience today. I want to allow you to connect with the audience in a fun and personal manner. So I like to play either a rapid 10 question game or an icebreaker. What are you in the mood for? Let's see. Let's go for the question. Okey dokey, y'all. We're playing rapid fire with AJ and Genesis. Question numero uno. So with your name, it looks like Essie for those who may see it on the screen, but it's actually pronounced AJ. What is one thing that you wish you could keep or change about your name? I'd keep its meaning because it means the queen in Turkish, so clearly my parents were very humble. I would change the way it's written so people can't pronounce it. I love that. Question two. What is one thing that helped you on your motherhood journey? One thing, confidence, I guess, trusting myself, but that came in much later. I mean like years later. I guess we can dive into that later, but yeah, confidence, definitely. You just got to trust yourself, your instincts, and that's like 90% of the game, but it's just so tough to get there. Love that. Question three. What is your drink of choice, coffee, tea, or something else? Oh, coffee. Okay, I love it. Question four. If you had the opportunity to have lunch with any person past or present, who would it be? That's a tough one. So many people. Oh, man. Helen Marin. Okay. I'm going to ask question five, I'm going to make that a follow-up. So why Helen? She's just such an icon and in an industry that is so, you know, against aging and body types and all the rest of it, she just is there and doing all the things and still working. And obviously, all the things that she played in are amazing. So yeah, what a legend. Amazing. And for those of you who don't know who Helen Marin is, I challenge you to go look her up and see why she's amazing to age. Question six. Okay. If life took you in a direction that was not favorable, how would you make the best out of it? I mean, I have been in that situation. I guess they all have in one way or another. I think gratitude, so finding happiness in the small thing and just putting one foot in front of the other. I think those two are the, are the things that would, you know, keep you sane and keep you moving. Love it. Question seven. What's your favorite color? Green. Although I wear a lot of pink, but green is my favorite color. So I guess green and pink. Love it. Question eight. Okay. What is the funniest thing one of your daughters did that if you think about it keeps you laughing even when you're having a blue day? So my eldest, I can't remember exactly what the situation was. We were doing something together and she said something. I cannot remember what she said and I just kind of, it just kind of made me like stop to be like, huh? And she was like, and she stopped that in her tracks, like narrating what I'm doing. And I think it was, I think it was one of those things where she just, just started reading and she was like, you know, starting to become a person of her own. And I just thought it was so hilarious in that moment. It still makes me laugh. Love it. Question. Oh my God. I'm just laughing to thank you. I know. Question nine. What is your happy place? What is my happy place? When we have nothing to do, it's like a lazy Sunday morning. We're all still in our PJs and we're just playing like on the floor in the living room. That's just, it's such a lovely, and nobody's whining or crying or complaining. And you know, we're just happily playing. That's just bliss and it happens so rarely. But yeah, that'd be my happy place. Thank you for sharing that. And question 10. It is our pass or play question and here are the rules. If you pass our rules or reverse and you get to ask me any question. If you play. I asked one last question to wrap up rapid fire. So are you passing or playing? Let's play. Okay. Last question here. You just came across a windfall of cash. However, to get the proceeds released to you, you must contribute to three charities of your choice. What charities are you contributing to? There are so many, but so my youngest daughter has a genetic disorder. So we've benefited a lot from different various different charities and one of them was a charity that provides these tiny little wheelchairs, electric wheelchairs to toddlers. So one of them would be that because we benefited from it and it's just such an amazing charity to give these little kids independence. So that'll be one. Another one would be cancer research just because we had some close friends and family members affected. So it's all like health related. And the third one, I cannot think any one specific charity off the top of my head, but it would be something about education, scholarship, giving kids from disadvantaged backgrounds an opportunity for a good education, something along those lines. I love that. And thank you so much for sharing. And it just goes to show like, you never know what someone is dealing with behind the scenes because you may see AJ as the founder of Idaho Jones and, you know, she's killing it. She's doing amazing things in her business for other moms, but you may never see some of the things that she's dealing with with her family. So it just goes to show that sometimes we need to have gratitude and grace for everyone, no matter where they are in their journey. So I want to thank you, AJ, for playing rapid fire. An audience. I hope you learned a little bit more about who AJ is personally and professionally. Now we're going to dive into the meat and potatoes of the conversation, which is the brand Idaho Jones and what got AJ involved in that. So I want to first start by asking you the name. Why did you choose to call the brand Idaho Jones? I wish there was like an inspired, amazing story behind it. But so when we first decided to start Idaho Jones, we were thinking, obviously, as every brand does, what should we call it? And we didn't want it to be like a cutesy one word names that so many brands that are, you know, geared towards motherhood is, we want it to sound a bit more serious, a bit more kind of designer like elevated. And we wanted it to be Jones. My husband also has a very different name just like me. So we thought, okay, obviously neither of our names are going to work. So we wanted it to be Jones. So it's kind of relatable and, you know, everyone knows. And then we wanted the first one to be the first name to be a feminine name. And the one that we initially thought of was Imogen, Imogen Jones was taken. Then the second one we thought was Ida Jones, and that was also taken. So in the end, we came up with Idaho Jones. We also liked that it's not quite as feminine as some of the other names that we thought about. We didn't frankly think about all the associations people would bake with Idaho, with Indiana Jones at the time. Yes. It kind of became apparent to us later. But here we are. And later on, actually, the name Idaho Jones did become available. But by then, people were actually giving us kind of positive feedback about the name just because it's kind of memorable and unexpected in the space that we're in as a brand. So we've actually come to really like it, and it seems like our customers do too. I like that. And it's so funny that you were talking about y'all were going through different naming mechanisms and trying to see what you wanted to call the brand and y'all landed on Idaho Jones. But one thing that stood out as you were sharing that was you didn't have kids at the time. So since you didn't have kids at the time of the conception of the brand, what was your first piece that you launched? And why? Actually, we did have my eldest, so I was still on. She was about eight, nine months old when we started kind of applying for trademark and getting started. So we did have our first baby. And the story is a bit similar to I guess all a lot of other brands in the sense that I wanted to. So I guess rewind back, like you said, I was like the type A corporate girl, you know, just going from meetings to meetings, especially with my job at the EBRD. I was traveling tons and I had board meetings. I had dealings with the senior leadership. And then I had the baby and I was like, this is all not making sense to me. So I wanted to create a brand that gives mom not your identity back per se, but a bit of that feeling of being well put together. So whenever you were going to work, you were looking nice prim, polished, put together, and you had your bag. But then once your baby came into the equation, you needed to really rethink the rethink your wardrobe. Well, not necessarily your wardrobe, but your bag, because you want to make sure that you have everything in one place and still meeting the needs of corporate. Would you say that I kind of got that right? I don't want to misspeak for you, CJ. No, that's more or less a cry. I mean, the ethos behind our brand, I guess, is that everything needs to be functional. So save mom's time, look good, and feel good. So it still needs to accomplish everything that moms need to accomplish, but also give them that sense of kind of being put together, like you say, prim and proper, and also make them feel good. And ideally, all of these things together. I wouldn't say necessarily a corporate feel, because obviously there are all different types of moms. Obviously, that's the kind of style that we started with just because of my background. But we're trying to expand and we'll have some more fun styles coming in the future as well. I love that. And I love that you found a need for it and you took your background, but you were also cognizant of other moms' backgrounds to just really give an overall functional design, but also give something that was like cute and worthwhile where moms could wear it during their, you know, think of it as well as afterwards the back could still be versatile as well. So whenever you first launched the brand, were you still in corporate America? I had, so I actually never went back after the maternity leave. So that's when I resigned and decided to go full in on Idaho Jones and it was one of the scariest decisions I made, but yeah, I'm glad I did it. That is amazing. And now Idaho Jones has been in business for going on nine years, right? Yeah, almost. Almost nine. So whenever you made that leap to go from the corporate side of the house into, you know, being your own entrepreneur business owner, it was scary to you. But what was the driving factor that just said, you know what, I'm going to do it afraid? I think, first of all, the, I guess the, the, the mission, which I thought was so important because at the time there are, now there we have more brands doing kind of similar things or kind of going along the same lines, kind of trying to make it better for moms or make it look better for moms. But at the time there were very, very few of these brands. So I really thought there was a big need in the market. And I also thought that I could do it maybe stupidly thought, you know, having any background in design or, or anything e-commerce related, I just thought I could, I could do it. But yeah, it was, it was very scary because I was always in a kind of a large corporate environment. I always have the support systems. I had HR and IT and, you know, all of a sudden you're just kind of in your bedroom trying to figure it all out on your own. Yeah, but I think I'd say the, the mission. And also I guess maybe having had a daughter, I've obviously, like I said, I have two daughters. I just thought, you know, if I, you know, have this thing and never actually take action in terms of the idea, it's not a very great example that I like to set for my daughter. So I thought I'd, I just have to give it a try and if, even if it doesn't work, at least there is a story, okay, we'll give it a go. I love that. And it also shows like to how like you can take your skills and assets that you have acquired in corporate and put it into your own business and then improve. And you're also learning more about yourself, one being a first time mom, stepping into the motherhood journey, coming from a corporate background where you have skills that you acquired there, learning how to start up a business, run the business, maintain the business, have sustainability and all of those other factors just to go, just go to show that, you know, moms, we are so resilient, despite what is going on in the back background. If we put our mind to something, we can achieve it. It's not always going to be easy, but as long as we have a great support system, we have a good business plan, we know what we want, when we want it, we could figure things out along the way. The biggest thing is not to give up. So when you were going through R&D, so that's research and development on the bag and prototypes, what were some of the challenges that you face designing the first bag, if any? So the very first bag actually asked this question, I didn't answer fully. I apologize. The very, very first bag that we did was actually a diaper backpack. And from there quickly, I actually discovered the world of pumping both in my own journey and also, you know, with other moms in the wild. And I actually realized that's kind of the direction we'd like to go. And then from then on, we just started focusing on only kind of pumping related products. But to go back to your question now, there are lots of challenges when you're doing a new product from scratch. It's getting the functionality right. I think that's the highest priority for me, because like you said, us moms, we do so many things. And I demand kind of the same level of performance and multifunctionality from our products. So getting every little piece right is really, really important to me. And that's why we actually do probably way too many samples and prototypes before we launch a product, just because I want to get it right. And obviously in time, we've kind of perfected this a bit more. Now anything that we do, once me and my designer were happy with it, we actually get real moms to test it and provide feedback. And that usually means that we have to kind of rejig the whole thing and then almost start over. And then so it takes like seven, eight prototypes, especially if it's a bag to look before we actually launch it to the Microsoft and getting the functionality right. The top priority, then pleasing everyone is very challenging. So that's why we're going to have more variety of products in the future as well. Because obviously, as you said, moms come in all shapes and sizes. They have different preferences. And also obviously they have different pumps that they use and prefer to use. So that's why by now we have quite a few different bags that accommodate different types of pumps. And in the future, we'll also have kind of more styles and colors and options, again, to kind of appeal to a broader base of moms. And I like that one, you can't please everybody, but I also do like that you're taking into consideration other moms and just trying to see how to make it easy for them. And as a mom who uses Idaho Jones, I have the pump apporter, which has been a lifesaver, especially if you have like a pump and it may not fit into any other bags that you have and you want to get things done around the house, it really makes it easier to really give you that hands-free design. So whenever I first saw the pump apporter and I found out about your brand, I was like, oh my gosh, this is a lifesaver because sometimes you would be confined to sitting down in a place to pump and you know household chores need to get done or you need to do something before your spouse gets home or the kids while the kids are napping until you try to get in so many things. And then in the end, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm exhausted. But whenever you do have something that gives you a little bit of freedom and flexibility, it does go the extra mile because you could say, okay, I accomplished a little bit more even though you didn't get everything done on your to-do list. So I think that's just amazing. Thank you so much. Oh, sorry. Oh, don't go ahead and say thank you so much for bringing that because actually the pump apporter probably is the one that the bag that I'm the proudest of and we almost didn't launch it because my husband is very kind of data and numbers driven and he was like, there's nothing like this on the market like I can do research on it and I was like, it's needed. We need to make this product happen because at the time there are all these you know moms just attaching into a belt like putting in a satchel and that kind of stuff. And I was just like, we obviously you can't make it look very, very pretty just because of the size of the shape of the spectra, but at least we can make it as beautiful as possible. But the most important thing is that it's functional, it doesn't, you know, swing around and you can actually get stuff done when you're pumping because especially for some moms spectra is basically the only pump that they can use that gets them the best output. So I felt very, very passionate about that product and I'm so happy that you know feedback like yours keeps coming because yeah, it's it's just a really, really proud moment for me. Yes. Thank you so much for just launching it and I actually have the mini pump apporter because the pump apporter is a bigger one, but I told other moms I know, like think about the pump apporter as a fanny pack, just like a fanny pack times two, but it's not like huge, but it's not small either. So it gives you that, that that glow, it gives you a glow to know that you're pumping liquid gold and you're glowing up because you're giving yourself the freedom to get things done. Definitely. So that is amazing and I know we're definitely going to have to have a part two, but I want to see is there anything that I have not asked you about the brand, you transitioning from a corporate setting to a full-time business owner. What else would you like to share with the gemsters about Idaho Jones? I guess I'd say the I briefly mentioned this, you know, we don't always get it right in terms of the design or maybe sometimes quality, just because we're such a small business still, even though we've been around for a while. But one thing that I really take pride in is our customer service. So even if there's an issue, even if something isn't working for you, I always invite our customers to just reach out to us. We have a terrific customer care representative, Bea, big shout out to her and she will always make sure that, you know, first of all, the issues come to me and that we solve them one way or another. So we always want people to leave their Idaho Jones experience happy. It might not be that, you know, the product work for them. That's fine as we discuss not all products work for everyone, but at least they are happy with the experience and the, you know, the relationship that they have had with us. So I would really, really encourage anyone who has any, you know, questions, comments, ideas, which sometimes do come from customers to reach out to us or a very listening ear and we'll always respond back. So that's like one thing that I really, really would like to highlight. Thank you so much, AJ, for highlighting that. And Jemsters, I also want to tell you to go check out the church see bag because that's another bag that I have. And as of this weekend, my daughter tried to hijack it and say it's her backpack. And I'm like, well, it's our backpack because your stuff goes in it, but it's very lightweight. It has a whole compartment. So if you're on the go, you could put a ice pack in the front part. You could prep your baby bottles, whether you're doing the formula or you're doing breast milk and put it in there. There's a cute pocket on the side. I mean, it's so functional. I also like that there's a padding inside. So for those of you who are still in the corporate environment, you could put your laptop in there. You could put your tablet or anything like that and kind of use it as all in one bag. Because if you've ever been that mom that has multiple bags, you know, over time, your shoulders are going to hurt. Your back is going to hurt. You're going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm just so tired of doing this. Well, why keep doing it if there's a solution on the market? You have options. So I just want to tell you, go check out the church see. Again, I'm glad you mentioned that because actually that's the bag that I use as my everyday bag. So when I'm going to meetings or anything, I set my lunch in the pump compartment, which is, you know, nicely hidden, and I still have my laptop and my notebook and all the other things. So that's my everyday bag, obviously, even though I'm still, I'm not pumping anymore. See sustainability, AJ has it all covered around for you pumping, breastfeeding, and when you're not using it, this bag is going to be with you for a lifetime. I know. I know. I know. So AJ, I want to give you a chance to tell the audience how they could connect with you, become part of your community, and get in that pipeline with you. That'd be great. So our website is www.idaho-jones.com, and we're also on Instagram, that's idaho_jones. Yeah, we're happy to connect on both of these fronts. As I said, on the website, if you just shoot us an email, you'll get a response within 24 hours. And yeah, come follow us on Instagram. We share real life motherhood journeys, pumping hacks and tips, and also little tips and tricks about our products so that you can get the best out of the ones that you do have. And there you have it, y'all. You just heard AJ with Idaho Jones, the mother that is bringing you pumping gear, whether it's backpacks or they also have breast pumps too. So they have a Moxie and they have the Toine Pump, super cute color. So definitely go check out their website and get plugged in with the community and share with a family member or friend. And if you have a baby shower coming up or a baby sprinkler, these would be great items because we know that moms are going to use it. And also dad, dads could use these bags as well too, because they're not like a pink color. They're not blue. They're very neutral colors right now. So he would have no shame in the game, grabbing it and going with the baby. And I am Genesis Amaris Kemp, the founder and host of Gems podcast. We're available on 40 plus audio platforms. You could find the video to this recording on YouTube. All you do is type in the name of the show, Genesis Amaris Kemp. You could just type that or you could put Gems with Genesis Amaris Kemp and it will pop up. And I just encourage you to just go support a woman business like Idaho Jones, share with a family member and a friend once again. And if you have any questions, you need help or whatnot, this community is here for you. Don't do it alone and don't feel like you have to isolate yourself. We're on this motherhood journey too and it takes a community for all of us to connect. So I just encourage you to do not stand by yourself alone. There's a community for a reason to reach out and ask for help. Community for help is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. And it shows that you are trying to do the best that you can, but you need a little support and that's a okay. So signing out, Ms. Genesis Amaris Kemp and AJ. Thank you so much.