Today we’d like to introduce you to Kaitlyn Rackens.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Kaitlyn. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I spent four years living and working in the Washington DC area and during that time I was really into health and fitness. I was a part of multiple online fitness communities of women and one topic that was constantly coming up was what supplements everyone was taking. The same themes would constantly appear: no one knew what to take and women were concerned about “bulking up” or gaining weight because of supplements. The supplement industry (especially protein powders) is highly saturated with products for men and the products that are marketed to women are mostly fat burners, diet pills, and other products that provide no value to overall health (and might actually do more damage than good).
I always thought there should be a women’s supplement company that made high quality, trustworthy products and a brand that would allow women to immediately identify that a product was for them. Fast forward to a few years later, my now business partner had the idea to start a collagen company and after doing research on collagen, all the benefits, and how beneficial it was for women, in particular, I went back to my idea about a women-dedicated supplement company and combined the two ideas to create Collagen For Her.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ha, no! Starting a company and figuring out how to grow it has been so much harder than I ever could have imagined. We started the company with a $10,000 investment, which sounded like a lot to me at the time but I quickly learned that is nothing when it comes to trying to start a business. My business partner and I are both pretty scrappy when it comes to finances so we have figured out how to make a dollar go a long way but it has definitely been a challenge trying to grow a company without a ton of capital.
Manufacturing can definitely be a struggle and I’ve learned that everything takes longer than you anticipate. We’ve sold out of product multiple times due to delays in manufacturing that were out of our control (so we had a few weeks/months early on that we had no product to sell). In business, there are a lot of things that are out of your control, so learning how to manage risk while still being aware of the things you don’t have 100% control over is an ongoing challenge.
And about a million other things!
Please tell us more about Collagen for Her. What do you do? What do you specialize in? What sets you apart from competition?
Collagen For Her was created to help women take the guesswork out of buying collagen supplements. We like to call ourselves the supplement company for women who don’t take supplements, meaning that a lot of times supplements have a negative stigma and the idea of taking them can be intimidating for women due to all the options. When I used to try to buy protein powder, I would go on Amazon and we overwhelmed with the thousands of options, most of which had a ton of ingredients that I couldn’t recognize or pronounce and after looking through about 10 pages, I would decide that I didn’t actually need to buy protein powder that badly. I quickly learned this is an experience that a lot of women have but if you take the right supplements they can be so beneficial for overall health, so it’s a shame that so many of us have this same experience and end up not taking anything at all.
We specialize in creating collagen products for women that have minimal and pronounceable ingredients. We keep it very simple. All of our supplements and even our collagen mud mask contain only ingredients than an average person could recognize. We like to say if you can recognize an ingredient, your body will too! There are so many supplements out there that contain a laundry list of ingredients that might be marketed as “natural” but who actually knows what any of that means.
It’s scary! We believe that you should know what you are putting in your body and the easiest way to do that is being able to read a label and immediately understand what is in a product. We also make sure our products are easy to use. We understand that not all women drink protein shakes every day, so our products are designed to be extremely easy to use. For example, you can add a scoop of our unflavored collagen to your coffee or a scoop of our collagen lemon water to a glass of water. We design all of our products to be easy to incorporate into your everyday life!
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
All of the above! Starting a company comes with a lot of ups and downs, so it is important to have people around you that will constantly remind you that you’re doing a great job, even on the days when you feel like you aren’t. We’ve been lucky enough to meet mentors and advisors along the way that will give us honest advice when we are trying to make an important decision. I also have to give a lot of credit to my parents who have been nothing but supportive since day one. I joke that my parents are my #1 sales reps because they try to sell it to just about everyone (and a lot of the time it works!) so our customers include my mom’s co-workers, my dad’s dentist hygienist, our entire extended family, and the waitresses at any restaurant my parents have ever eaten at. Thanks guys!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.collagenforher.com
- Email: contact@collagenforher.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/collagenforher
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/collagenforher
Image Credit:
Keegan Evans
Suggest a story: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
