IAM1573 – CEO and Founder Creates Kids’ Clothes That Cares for the Planet

Born in New York, Louise Vongerichten Ulukaya spent her childhood days growing up in both New York and the south of France where she studied and practiced ballet. In 2005, Louise went to Washington DC to study finance at American University. Upon completing her degree, she returned to France to pursue her MBA at ESSEC Business School in Paris. After living in Dubai and Hong Kong, Louise returned to New York City. Since her return, New York has been graced with two of her restaurants under the Chefs Club name. In 2016 Louise decided to establish the Food Dreams Foundation with her family and to pursue her philanthropic endeavor by helping students access education and jobs within the culinary industry. Since then, more than 60 students from every part of the world have been participating in the program.

After the birth of her first son in 2019, Louise decided to create a children's clothing brand that cares for the environment, respects the people making it, and looks and feels good while being accessible for all. She set out to design clothes that would care for the planet and for the environment while also not compromising on the comfort, look, and feel of the clothes. After 2 years of research to perfect the best technologies and blends of materials to make earth-friendly clothes for kids, Mon Coeur was born.

Website: Louise Ulukaya

Instagram: shopmoncoeur

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00:24 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Louise Ulukaya of Moncore. Luis, it's great to have you on the show.

01:01 – Louise Ulukaya

Hi Gresh, this is so nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

01:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I appreciate you taking some time out to talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. Of course, before we jumped into that, I wanted to read a little bit more about Louise so you could hear about some of those awesome things. Born in New York, Louise would spend her childhood days growing up in both New York and the south of France where she studied and practiced ballet. In 2005, Louise went to Washington D.C. to study finance at American University, and upon completing her degree, she returned to France to pursue her MBA at Essex Business School in Paris.

After living in Dubai and Hong Kong, Louise returned to New York City. Since her return, New York has been graced with two of her restaurants under the Chef's Club's name, and in 2016 Louise decided to establish the Food Dreams Foundation with her family to pursue her philanthropic endeavor by helping students across education and jobs within the culinary industry. Since then, more than 60 students from every part of the world have been participating in the program.

After the birth of her first son in 2019, Luis decided to create a children's clothing brand that cares for the environment, respects the people making it, and looks and feels good while being accessible for all. She set out to design clothes that would care for the planet and for the environment, while also not compromising on the comfort, look and feel of the clothes. After two years of research to perfect the best technologies and blends of materials to make Earth-friendly clothes for kids, Moncore was born. Luis, excited to have you on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:32 – Louise Ulukaya

I am so excited. Again, thank you so much for having me. This is an amazing platform. So very excited.

02:38 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. It got even more amazing now that you're on the show and, we get to hear a little bit more about all the awesome things you're doing. But to kick it off, I wanted to rewind the clock and hear a little bit more about how you got started. What I touched on is your CEO story.

02:49 – Louise Ulukaya

Yeah.  I come from a hospitality background, so I really didn't know anything about the fashion world until four years ago when I was pregnant with my first son. So really what I knew was restaurants. I used to own and manage restaurants. When I was pregnant with my son, Miran, I discovered a need in the markets, a need for a clothing brand for kids that was both sustainable, that would look super cute, and at the same time, that was comfortable. Because as a first mom, or just as a mom in general or parents, we don't want to compromise on the comfort of the clothes.

I decided to start the journey by really aligning all those values together. It took really about three years of R and D, of trial, of putting all the inspiration together, of really finding my voice in regards to the closing brand and how I would tell the story not only on the design, but also on the branding, on the website, on all the different assets of the brand, and retell the story through the color palette, the logo, all of that fun stuff. About a year and a half ago, I launched Moncure, both on direct-to-consumer as well as wholesale.

It's been really a beautiful journey. A year and a half later, we are in about 60 stores worldwide. We are both on our website as well as retail. So it's been amazing. I think being the CEO of and as well as a founder of this brand has been just the most amazing journey for me because as a mom again, I'm combining all the different things that I've been learning from my previous life, work life if I can say it that way, as well as just putting all my love and consciousness of a mom and knowing what's needed for the kids. So it's been really amazing.

04:44 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like that too. I appreciate you so much for sharing that journey, the three years doing the R and D and all of those things, and finding your voice, as you said so well because I think we don't sometimes see the behind the scenes, we'll see a really successful clothing brand, all the awesome things that you're doing, but we don't kind of see the behind the scenes things of that process, of how it manifests itself, but just the process that it takes to actually get it to where it is now.

05:07 – Louise Ulukaya

That's right. Also Pandemic was right in the middle of when I launched. We had to be very flexible in our way of doing things because we couldn't access even models to fit the clothes. So I had to use my son to even wear dresses. My husband is not aware of that because he would not be very happy.

Really hard to find ways of making it happen without the resources that you can have on a regular time, on a regular basis. Because we were completely remote during the prime time for us of really, again, R and D and trialing the clothes and the photo shoots and all of that. So it was definitely an experience on top of the regular experience of launching a company.

05:58 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. You have to be flexible and definitely creative as well. It sounds to be able to make sure that comes to action. We'll make sure we don't send this over to your husband, so you don't have anything to worry about as well. But I love that you said you found a need in the market because I almost feel like that's synonymous with being entrepreneurial. I know you had that background, but to be able to not just see that need in the market, but actually to create something I commend you for being able to do that.

06:27 – Louise Ulukaya

Thank you. Yes. It always starts almost of the time. It starts by being a consumer, having that experience, and saying, okay, it's great. I'm a mom. I'm looking for the best, closing solution for my kids.

06:43 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely love that. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know you touched on your brand and what we can find in retail and on your site. Could you take us through a little bit more on how you're serving your clients, how you're making that impact, and how you're doing all and better?

06:57 – Louise Ulukaya

Yes. So we wanted to develop really a brand that was accessible to a large community of moms and dads out there, not only in the US but also in the international market. The way I developed it on the business level was really to make it as accessible as possible in regards to price point. There is definitely a premium when you Shop at Monker, because just like when you shop organic blueberries at the supermarket because of the making, because of the supply chain, and the development of the close of Moncure, which is made 100% in Portugal, which was also very important for me to do, is that sustainability on the material is one side of the business.

But the sustainability of who makes the clothes is also a very important point. That was extremely important for me, as important as the material. We decided to sell in as many stores as possible. So this is why really, in one year we were able to really grow and really cover the whole of America.

Now we are growing more and more and more. We just launched Neiman Marcus about a month ago. We're selling throughout the country in all the Neiman and Marcus. We're also selling online. We're selling in any specialty child store across America and we're looking at increasing by 60% our growth by the end of this year. So it's been really a great journey on our website where we sell worldwide international shipping.

08:35 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you in sharing that. I almost wonder if that's part of the thing that does set you apart and makes you unique. I think sometimes when you think sustainability, you can sometimes get so caught up on the material and obviously, there's a place for that. But I don't think we can sometimes look at sustainability according to the journey and all those different factors.

I feel like you and the brand itself even have this ability to understand the 360°, the holistic look at what that experience should be, and not just say, oh, it should be that way, but actually produce and create that experience. Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce and the thing you feel kind of set your part?

09:11 – Louise Ulukaya

Yes, I think so. There are a lot of companies unfortunately out there that do the market, that does the sustainability angle really for marketing purposes and because it's like a cool thing to do or because we are green. Then really when you look in deep and take a deeper look at how it's made, then there's going to be only maybe 3% of recycled material included in the closing.

Then it's made in again a country where it's not really sustainable and where child labor is big. So that's something that upsets me very much because for us, of course, we market as sustainable brands because that's what we are, but it's really part of our core and we are the only 100% truly sustainable kids brand out there. Every piece of clothing, every piece of the clothes that we're making is made 100% from upcycled and recycled material. Our blends are made of deadstock cotton. So it's pre-consumer cotton that normally goes to landfill that there's so much waste in the fashion industry and there's so much cotton that when they cut in the factory to make shapes and to make collection, they don't know what to do with it, so they just dispose it to the landfill.

So what we do is we collect those and we re-inject them into the making of our fabrics. We hope that more and more companies are going to do that because again, there's so much that can be done with it instead of growing more cotton that uses tons of water. By the way, when you see companies that use organic cotton, it's using even more water to make organic cotton. So yes, it's good in a way because it's not using any chemicals, but at the same time, it's using even more water.

At the same time instead of doing that, you can use cotton that is already being produced. Yes, it takes more time, there's a cost associated with it, but at least you're saving the planet from using too much water and it's not needed. So I think that also differentiates us very much because we are really truly doing it. We have all the certification, we have all the traceability, which is very important when you think and when you talk about sustainability in the closing industry.

11:29 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an App or book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

11:41 – Louise Ulukaya

I think for me it's really trying to take a step back. That's something that I learned through some mistakes that I've made as a CEO and as a leader in the company, is that if I see myself too much in too much in the daily problems or daily challenges or daily just creativity and all that, it's hard for me to understand what I could do better, what the team could do better. I implemented that and everybody is doing it.

Even just little walks in the city where I take one-on-one, with my director of operation, my manager of the design, and we just take walks and we go grab a coffee, we go to park and we talk about other things even than the business or and then we get back at it with some ideas. For me, it's been very important to take a big step back and not get caught up with the daily things that it's then I don't see myself as efficient and as creative in ideas of making Moncure better from inside and out.

12:50 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? This is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your younger business if you were to hop into a time machine.

13:01 – Louise Ulukaya

Being stubborn with your idea is very important, I think, because you get a lot of opinions, and I did myself also in both my businesses, whether it was when I had restaurants or even when I started Moncure, people challenge your ideas, doubt your ideas, and it's good also because it makes you rethink it. It makes you even more eager to do it, or maybe you understand that maybe it is not such a good idea and you should do it things differently. It's great to have opinions from others, but I think being very stubborn with your idea is extremely important while being flexible on how to get there.

For me, I knew I wanted to create a brand, a sustainable brand that is stylish and comfortable for kids and babies. But these million ways of getting there and the way I fought it initially on how to get there and also when I would get there, timing-wise of things, it's completely different on how I got there. Along the way, the journey changed a lot with the Pandemic. The Pandemic arrived, so I had to take a different turn. Challenges, financial challenges. There are so many different challenges in the journey of being a CEO and being a founder of a brand. That's why I like to call it being stubborn while being flexible with you. With how to get there.

14:26 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So what would you consider to be your answer to my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, where we now have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show? So, Louise, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[14:36.80] – Louise Ulukaya

For me, the CEO is really the definition of leadership. It's really regrouping everybody together and working towards that goal. For us, Moncare is making the best closing option for kids. It's reminding people of why we do that and how we can do it better. I think that's really about leadership, completely, 100%. It's also bringing the community together, the working community together. It's making sure that there's cohesion and a culture. Of all the people working for you they really feel inspired by what you do, by the brand, and just getting them excited every day. Excited to come to the office or to Zoom.

15:28 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, Louise, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you mentioned working on.

15:43 – Louise Ulukaya

Yeah. So you can reach out to us through our website, which is moncure.com on our Instagram handle, which is Shopmonker.

15:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I'll definitely hold you to that. I truly appreciate all the awesome things that you're doing and the things you're bringing to light. Again, this makes things possible that sometimes people say that can't be possible. I think that's a true definition of a trailblazer and an entrepreneur. So thank you so much for doing that. Of course, your time today, and I hope you have a phenomenal day.

16:11 – Louise Ulukaya

Thank you, Gresh. You as well.

16:13 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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