Full Transcript – Emily Vaca – Wild Business Growth Podcast #299

This is the full transcript for Episode #299 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Emily Vaca – Designer Inflatable Pool, MINNIDIP Founder. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Emily Vaca 0:00
Dip, dip, hooray.

Max Branstetter 0:16
Well, hi, welcome back to the Wild Business Growth podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, and you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is Episode 299, one penny short of $3 and today’s guest is Emily Vaca. Emily is the Founder and CEO of MINNIDIP. Yes, that’s MINNIDIP, like skinny dip. And they are the brand of designer inflatable pools, or adult kiddie pools, as they say. And they are one of the most fun companies you’ll ever come across. In this episode, we talk the adult kiddie pool industry, designs on designs on designs, having a crazy amount of puns integrated throughout your business, seemingly, and a little bit of the Chicago, St Louis or St Louis rivalry. It is Vaca en Jaka. Enjoy the show. Alrighty. We are rocking with Emily Vaca, that doesn’t even rhyme, founder and CEO of MINNIDIP super probably one of the most fun companies, fun brands that you’ll ever come across. I think it brings out the kid in all of us and the adult who still likes to have fun in all of us. So really excited to get to mini dip story. But Emily, thank you so much for joining. How you doing today?

Emily Vaca 1:59
I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk to you today. Yeah,

Max Branstetter 2:02
yeah, of course, back at you and you know, we’re gonna dive into all things me. I’m sure you’re just surrounded by dive puns and pool puns make a splash. I’m

Emily Vaca 2:12
the queen of puns, so please bring them on that. That is my shot. Yeah, my talent at the end to talk about but

Max Branstetter 2:19
perfect high pressure foreshadowing. But before that, you’re also the queen of design, meaning that you have a deep background in design, even, you know, going back to school and kind of like your your career before mini dip. Can you give us, like, the day in the life of like, how much like design or design thinking? I know that’s a reason. Like, how often like design and design thoughts like impact your daily life. I

Emily Vaca 2:45
mean, 300% it’s insane. I can’t turn it off. Sadly, I don’t get to execute on those thoughts throughout the day because I have so much, you know, operational stuff that usually takes most of my day up, but I can’t turn my brain off at all. I’m constantly new idea, new pattern, pun, whatever it may be, always, always, yeah, unable to shut that one off. It’s a blessing and a curse.

Max Branstetter 3:12
I was just thinking I was a blessing and a curse. Yeah, totally. Well, I mean, you have a you have a knack for design, and from an early age, what is it that gets you inspired about the world of design?

Emily Vaca 3:24
Oh, man, it’s great question. So both of my parents are creative. My mom is more of a fine artist, drawing, Studio Arts, lettering. I learned a lot about lettering from her. And my dad actually was in the profession of graphic design, so he taught me Photoshop in seventh grade. Both of my parents being very creative. It just, you know, is kind of where I, you know, started to learn about myself as a kid, and just really always loved coloring and and creating and writing. So, you know, that kind of just built up throughout my entire childhood, and then, you know, I was creative in high school and college, from everything from design to studio arts to singing, songwriting, I was a performer. So just my entire world was creative. And luckily, I was able to kind of really harness that into something professional. You know, the day out of college, I started in the advertising world, and that’s really where the design and marketing side kind of met. My really fine arts background kind of propelled me into where we are now, 1520, years later, kind of losing the math on that. But yeah, it’s counting. Yeah, I sure as hell I’m not anymore.

Max Branstetter 4:39
How do you marry that I literally marry with your parents, like the fine art side, as well as like Photoshop, or the more like graphic design side, like, I guess. How does that inspire? Like, how you view your business and how you create today? That

Emily Vaca 4:52
really is the thread that pulls it all together for me, especially, you know, with mini dip specifically, I. I create patterns, silhouettes and more of the traditional studio art background for that. And then my marketing side comes together with the photography and photo editing and campaign work. You know, I shoot all of our campaign photos for all of our content and campaigns. I really was able to, you know, my dad taught me how to take photography, very, you know, studio art, fine art element, and kind of turn it into something digital. And, you know, evolve it into what marketing, especially content is now. Obviously, we had no idea, you know, when I was in high school and college, where we would be at now. But just really being able to personalize and create a message with photo illustration, all of that kind of bring it all together. The funny thing is, my dad, he actually wanted me to be a writer, because I also like writing, but I told him, I want to be, you know, a starving artist in college. And he was like, oh God. Like, I can’t believe I’m sending like you to college to want to be a studio artist. And, like, a year in, I realized graphic design where, where’s where it was at. I wanted to do album covers and more, you know, commercial side of art, and that’s where I kind of found that marriage. And he was like, okay, thank God. You know, shot the writer that I was pushing for, but at least, you know, somewhere in the commercial space, and could make me make a living off of it.

Max Branstetter 6:23
Every every artist dream, I’m sure, is further their kid to go into that it’s a tough reputation, the starving artist reputation. But I’m sure there is like a reality there, and there’s like a nerve wracking thing, but you never know sometimes, sometimes an inflatable pool will come around, or something like that. But the last thing before that, so you you know, before you even had the idea for mini dip or launched mini dip, you started your own design house, Lavaca design house. So what sorts of projects were in the work like, what sort of design did you do before mini dip reared its head the day

Emily Vaca 6:59
after I graduated college, I went into advertising. So I was doing everything from 360 campaigns and advertising, so packaging, TV, commercials, websites, content, really the the full gamut of design and marketing, and alongside that, you know, spending so many hours on the computer, crazy hours in advertising, which even more so as an entrepreneur, it never, never stops. But I just missed making tangible things with my hands, also being, you know, just a very like in that fine art. So I missed that side of it. So simultaneously, while I was full time in advertising, I started Lavaca design house. It was a couple different names, but it evolved into what is now Lavaca design house, and it started in the event and interior design space. So it was kind of, you know, just a blog, and then people would see work that I had done and commissioned me to make either wedding invitations or wedding favors, different things come in the wedding space, and then that turned into decor for weddings. And I would also do projects, you know, for my own home, more in the interior design and DIY space. And that’s where Lavaca started, because I just was missing that tangible part of design. Eventually, you know, the freelance kind of start picking up, but it still was kind of more of a passion project, and I was trying to figure out, how do I make these things that I’m creating by hand with all this time and mass produce them? And that was something I had no experience in, and that’s really where I decided, okay, I want to mass produce a product and not have to make every single one by hand, so that I can get them out to more people. And so that’s kind of where that goal of I really want to create my own product one day, hopefully it’ll be in retail stores one day. But it kind of was living alongside this passion they had, and then also my full time job in advertising. So it wasn’t until the idea of mini dip, you know, popped in my brain. This is like, light bulb moment where I was like, this could be the product that I bring to retail, and started there. So that’s, you know, it really evolved from kind of a more design centric commission company to a product based company. Over the years.

Max Branstetter 9:24
So let’s pop mini dip into into all of our brains. Let’s get to the mini dip story. We’ll mini dip our toe. Yeah, exactly. Big splash here. But designer inflatable pools like it’s, I mean, just hearing that it’s like, super unique concept. I think, you know, like growing up, when everybody thinks of inflatable pools, they, you know, there’s probably, like, one or two designs that they think of and, like, can picture, and it’s like, a lot of fun, but it’s also like, like, you only think about little kids with that, and so, like, those huge market opportunity there, but mini dip. Where did this? I. Idea strike you, to go off in this awesome, wild and crazy direction.

Emily Vaca 10:05
It’s so niche and so simple that the fact that the opportunity was there and hadn’t been discovered yet, I was like, I can’t believe this. I have to, I have to create this drop everything. Yeah, exactly. And it took, it took years, but I felt like this is the thing that that could work, if I can just push through and figure out how to do it. How to do it. Yeah, I The idea came from my husband. And boyfriend at the time, had just moved into a condo together, and we had this awesome roof deck in Chicago, and we were having all of our friends over for one of, you know, our first like parties to to show it off. Because of my, you know, Lavaca design house background, I wanted every detail to be perfect. Designed the plates and decor and all every detail, you know, kind of was really thought out. And the only thing missing was, you know, somewhere for everyone to dip their toes in while they’re sipping rose. And so I was trying to convince David to let me get a stock tank, which is what I grew up with in St Louis City. In our very tiny backyard, we had this galvanized stock tank as our pool. They’re called stock tanks because they’re like, What livestock drink water out of on a farm, and that’s typically where you find them. In the 80s, it was my pool growing up, and I loved it. Now they’re super trendy. You know, people are DIYing, I’m painting, I’m doing all of these cool things with them. They were not trendy back then, nor were they really yet, in 2013 when I had this idea, and so I was trying to convince him, it was a roof deck. He said, There’s no way I’m letting you bring a giant metal tub filled with water up here. You have to go get inflatable pool. And my heart sank, because the ones that you were mentioning earlier are the only thing that I could picture, which is what I call the sad blue pool, or ones covered in cartoons. And so I went to the store and bought one. Never bought it out of the box, because it was going to be the eyesore of this party. And that’s really where the the light bulb went off of, why are there not inflatable pools that look, you know, modern and adult friendly and could fit adults. It just was such an untapped market, but such a simple idea to modernize it with, you know, on trend designs. And so that idea was in 2013 and we didn’t launch until June of 2017 so it was years of working crazy hours in advertising and simultaneously trying to figure out, how do I bring this to life? You know, number one, finding a manufacturer was the biggest hurdle. And also, I had to be very slow and cautious with it, because it had not been done yet that I couldn’t just approach, you know, any manufacturer that makes inflatable pools and try to get this made, because they could be like, great idea. We’ll put palm leaves on a, you know, inflatable pool and send it out. So I really needed to kind of be unconventional about the way I reached out. And yeah, in 2017 we launched with three patterns, the palm leaf pattern, it’s our most classic flagship pattern of it’s been since 2017 our number one pattern. So we launched with three patterns, palm leaf, watermelon and donut pool. And now we have over 100 different SKUs. And since launching, there are so many out in the world. So, you know, we call it the adult kiddie pool, that industry has really blown up. Pun intended, but we were the first. We really kind of brought this opportunity. And I think so many people are like, how, how has this not been done? So they kind of, you know, we’re racing behind us to catch up, and then every year since we just continue to innovate and bring new inflatable products to market and just really expand around many to but Yeah, finally getting it into the world in 2017 I can’t believe we just celebrated seven years. Pretty crazy. Congrats.

Max Branstetter 13:43
Well, they say, Yeah, mini dip wasn’t built in a day sandal the history classes, I’m fully on board. You are Queen of the puns because the blown up one, I don’t even catch my favorite one. Awesome. So manufacturing, manufacturing, like a new item, a new category, is a huge, like, really tricky thing to deal with. What advice do you have for any like, fellow or aspiring founders out there that need help producing something at scale that, like, literally doesn’t exist in the world

Emily Vaca 14:17
yet? We started with an IP lawyer, an intellectual property lawyer. I actually was working with him on a patent for another thing, and then this idea came to be. And so I understood from the beginning, and I think also with my background in advertising and seeing competitors in the market and understanding trademarks and packaging and warning labels and all of those things, I had this foundation that let me know that you have to protect your idea. I think so many people like to talk about it a lot before it happens, you know, and you have to make connections and put it out there in the world, and, you know, to be held accountable. But also you never know who you’re going to be in contact with. But you also have to be careful for that same reason. So if you have something. Hasn’t been out there, I would say, protect it as much as you can ahead of time, and then be very careful when you’re reaching out to manufacturers or people that might help you bring your idea to life. So for example, instead of contacting, you know, inflatable pool manufacturers, I figured out what the technique was called. So we need RF welding. So I was contacting, I called dozens of us, RF welding companies, and just kind of explained a little bit of what I was trying to do, but not fully to see if they had the capabilities to bring my idea to life without giving them that full picture of what I was trying to do. I think most of them, they did laugh. I think, you know, trying to protect it, but also they’re like, You want me to do what we make medical devices and and military devices. You want me to use my machines to do what? You know, I was also just being careful and kind of feeling around. Eventually, I found the right partner to help me, you know, create that introductory collection. And also, you know, have them sign an NDA to protect it. But you have to know, as soon as you get a manufacturer starting, people will know it’s coming. So you have to move quick, so very slow, methodical, kind of figuring out what you need. But as soon as you kind of share that out into the world, you have to assume they’re behind you, and you have to be really ready to execute and move quickly. Copycats started way faster than I anticipated. We had copycats in the market within six to nine months. But it definitely depends on what it is, because, you know, ours wasn’t some crazy technology thing that takes a long time to reverse engineer. You know, once the idea was out in the world, it was easy to replicate. But yeah, just try to do some research before you share too much and find the right partner before you you know really trust who you’re talking to. I think building that trust with a good partner is key.

Max Branstetter 16:48
My family has a four generation RF welding business, so you could have just actually don’t know what RF welding my family, my dad and some uncles have done some welding in the past. So there is that I don’t know what RF. What is RF welding, radio

Emily Vaca 17:08
frequency welding. So it’s kind of like, I can actually like a waffle maker. Okay? It’s like a waffle maker. You’re melting two sheets of vinyl, and, you know, you can’t iron them together. They have to be like welded. And I always joke that if I could have been somehow DIYing inflatable pools the first year by like sewing them or ironing and melting, that I probably would have done that for the first collection, just to make sure it was first. But I knew that that wasn’t going to be sustainable, so I had it to be more methodical, definitely,

Max Branstetter 17:37
definitely capture growth there. So one of the most fun things, and like most just naturally creative things about your business, is the fact that, I mean, you said you’re up to 100 SKUs. Now, if you go and look at the mini dip website, it is so fun, literally, like, there’s so much eye candy just to look around and see, like, the different SKUs you have. And now it’s like, I mean, you started with like, kind of like the tried and true pools, but you kind of expanded beyond that, too. So really, really fun stuff. What’s like the R and D process for mini dip?

Emily Vaca 18:05
I probably have about 15-20, big ideas that have been sitting around for years. So I think

Max Branstetter 18:11
you’re gonna say that came up during this conversation. I’m like, Yeah,

Emily Vaca 18:18
I mean, a couple of puns popped in. I’m like, I gotta write that down for later. I’m inspired by everything, like I said earlier. I can’t turn my brain off. So once I really learned how to kind of engineer something inflatable, it really became my canvas. You know. Also, I used to do sewing and different, you know, things like that. So like, once I learned kind of how vinyl works as a material, and what’s capable that really opened up this door of ideas and products to develop. The most recent one, which is super exciting, is our balloon garland. And ironically, we had our second pre order this morning. Wow, congrats. Thank you. I’m a little out of it because I’m over caffeinated today for the launch, but we sold out in 30 minutes. I it’s bigger than pools for us, and that came from I had developed balloon garland kits back in the day for target, and we sold them at Target that matched our pools, because the pool was always, in my mind, the mini dip was always the centerpiece of a celebration. Every product that we’ve developed since launching those has been to complement that. So whether it be umbrellas for your backyard, cabanas, towels that match, drink, wear, chairs, everything kind of lives in that world. Because, like I was trying to do in that very first party, I wanted everything to match. So we’ve really taken the patterns that have become so iconic, or the colorways and silhouettes, and expanded the assortment around those with it as the centerpiece. And in that process, for target in 2019 we had our first end cap, and I created these balloon garland kits, which are very common where, you know, it’s traditional latex balloons and the. Balloon tape and cutouts of the palm leaves to match our palm print pool, and then fruit slices to match our fruit themed pools, because people were creating balloon garlands around them for photos, because it’s such an Instagramable product, right? So we built, you know, a bunch of those and launched it. And the thing that the feedback we kept getting is that it was so intimidating still to do a balloon garland kit, which, anybody that’s put one together knows they’re insane. Well,

Max Branstetter 20:27
I was going to say what? Maybe it’s because I live under a rock, which is most likely the case. But the term garland, I’ve never heard it in that sense, balloon

Emily Vaca 20:37
Garland a string of garlands all put together. So a garland is something, you know, all strung together. And people started developing these really beautiful balloon garlands where it’s different size balloons and clusters all strung together so that you can hang them in what we call an arch, typically, and really create these, you know, elaborate displays and and photo op moments. And so the idea of stringing them all together, it’s very time consuming for anybody who’s put one together and they never turn out, you know, like the professionals when you try to make them. So in that process, because I’m understanding, you know, inflatables and how to make thing, you know, our pools, our beach balls, our ring floats. I thought, How is there not a version of a reusable one that’s vinyl that is already pre connected? So when you inflate ours, you’re inflating one balloon, and it it is already connected to five others, or we also have a 12 cluster. And so it’s a single step inflation, and that is, it’s the first of its kind of it wasn’t out in the market. And that idea came to me in 2019 and, you know, it took five years to what year are we in 24 Yeah, so it took five years to finally get to market. Yeah, it went viral right away. I knew it was a huge opportunity, because I know how much people love balloon garlands, but I did not anticipate the reaction. It’s just been insane. But it’s really cool because using our high quality materials, it’s reusable, it’s waterproof, it’s latex free, which is huge for people who have latex allergies and can’t have traditional balloon garlands. And yeah, it’s a single step inflation, so just kind of takes the guesswork out and makes it they have hooks on the back, so you can string them together if you want, and yeah, so, so that has been cooking for a very long time, and we have a lot more coming with that. But today was our second pre order, because it sold out. The first one sold out in May, and then it went viral, and we have had this massive wait list, so we were trying to figure out how to kind of get from there to our second launch, and then we just launched our first pre order today, and then the second follow up is, is Thursday, because we had to stagger it out, and sold out in 30 minutes. And we just kind of believe is it’s our highest sales day ever on our website. Wow.

Max Branstetter 22:55
Congrats. What a special time, and you’re celebrating it with us. Thank you so much. Congrats on that. I mean, that’s like, obviously, as any company, you need to keep innovating. But like, your innovations have innovations. Like, they have innovative aspects to them. So really brilliant way of going about it. You hit it at Target, which is, like, I mean, a huge break for anybody. Well, first of all, before you even got the news, you were in there. Like, like, what do you think it was about your pitch or about your brand that convinced the target buyers like this needs to be part of our stores?

Emily Vaca 23:26
Being in target was my number one goal from day one, before I even launched many dip, and that was, you know, how I said I was trying to find what is my product that can take to retail target. By

Max Branstetter 23:38
the way, if you start just saying that one line, if I was the target buyer, I’d be, like, sold. All right, she wants to be here. You like her.

Emily Vaca 23:48
I mean, they did not or my buyer. She did not have any clue really, how much of a target fanatic I was and how much it meant to me. I tried to play it cool in that first pitch. But, yeah, target. I mean, I grew up with target. It was my favorite place to go. Me and my mom would go every Tuesday, because that’s when they would put the fresh stock out. It has like, this huge, you know, legacy in my family. And so that was my number one goal. I’m just, I’m a target girl. So when I, you know, envisioned, how do I have a product on shelf one day? I always thought it would be there. So having that goal, and then also my background in advertising, I had worked on packaging that was on target shelves and commercials for products that were sold at Target. And I had really developed this understanding of marketing for the customer in retail and in target specifically, too, that helped me really craft a brand from scratch that would make sense at Target. So going in with that prior to, you know, launching on our.com It helped me understand that the packaging needed to be on point from day one, most e commerce brands might not even need packaging, but I treated it as if it was going to be on retail shelves the first. First day it launched. So our packaging was made for retail, and then also it just was the nature of the product. I could send a cold email with a beautiful photo of this beautiful pool that had not been in the market yet and get attention right away. It wasn’t technology I had to explain. It wasn’t, uh, you know, food that I had to explain the the flavor profile about or get them to taste test. You know, I developed it because I wanted that Pinterest photo of my party, you know, in my Instagram feed. And so it was born from wanting to be beautiful and and show off in a photo. And that allowed that cold email to my target buyer to really speak for itself. I didn’t have to say much to get the attention and to get a response. Not to say it was easy, because I did cold email for almost a year to get the right buyer. Because, as you know, most people know, like Target’s a massive Corporation, and they have so many different departments and buyers, as with any you know, major retailer, so finding the right person and having the right headline in your email to get them to click it open took some finessing, but I didn’t have to sell the product that much because it sold itself, getting that that meeting to then, you know, introduce myself and my background and where it was born from, and connect with my my buyer, I I’m forever grateful to her, because she saw a vision. She saw an opportunity that, knowing it was just me, I it was just me at the time, it was just me the first three years of the company, and having trust that with my background, I could, I could execute on this, she gave me a huge opportunity, and I had that meeting and the agreement to be in every store the following year nationwide, within a year of launching Monita. So it was as soon as I launched it, because I didn’t send it ahead of time, because I was like, they could just copy it. I didn’t, you know, know really, what to expect as soon as it was public, as soon as it was the first, I started emailing immediately, because that was the number one goal for sure.

Max Branstetter 27:07
Well, let’s get to the number one moment everyone’s been waiting for. Let’s get to what I typically call the unusual. But today I’m gonna call it the pun usual,

Emily Vaca 27:18
because, oh my God, love that

Max Branstetter 27:19
we’re here with the self proclaimed queen of puns. Not that you put a lot of pressure on yourself, but I know not gonna be able to think of any. I don’t know where this is gonna go, but do you have a favorite pun of all time? Oh,

Emily Vaca 27:32
man. There’s a lot of things with, like, my name. Oh my gosh. Like, puns

Max Branstetter 27:37
are so hard. Empire.

Emily Vaca 27:41
Oh, Empire, Emily, yeah, Emily. M, being renewer, I can’t even say right now.

Max Branstetter 27:47
That sounds good.

Emily Vaca 27:49
Yeah, not Yeah. Now I’m getting nervous because I’m on the spot. Yeah? Anything with like M, oh my gosh, that’s banana leaves. Is the first name of our the palm leaf print, because our pups name is bananas. So it’s, like, always, kind of just like adding them in where I can even if, like, they’re not really true puns where people know,

Max Branstetter 28:10
what about vodka? I feel like there’s a lot you can do with vodka. Oh,

Emily Vaca 28:15
we do have a lot, but, you know, it’s trademarked, so I can’t really disclose our company did start out with a pun of our name, and then it evolved. Because there’s another company that starts with vodka that had the same name,

Max Branstetter 28:30
got it. I have to share that. When my wife Dana asks your name, like when I was listening to these interview interviews as prep for this, as research for it. She’s like, what’s the name? She thought the name was vodka.

Emily Vaca 28:43
That’s, yeah, my mom thought, Oh, my this is my boyfriend, David vodka. And she was like, is he Russian? Like, no, he’s Mexican. He’s Mexican, and it means cow in Spanish.

Max Branstetter 28:54
So there’s a lot of like, sounded familiar, yeah, yeah. So

Emily Vaca 28:57
it means cow in Spanish. So our logo, the V of our logo is actually shaped. I made it to look like a cow head, so it has like the horns across the ears, across the top, and then the V is the face. And there’s actually a hidden D and E in there for Emily and David. But yeah, so there’s a lot of cow situations in our, you know, office and our house. I love

Max Branstetter 29:18
hidden logos and puns and logos like that. Like we had my friend crystal profit, who’s got a, you know, a couple awesome podcasts. So she’s, like a podcast expert as well as she’s she has a podcast that she did for like, many years, like daily podcast, called The Poddy Report, and it was like a reference to being, you know, podcasts, but the artwork had a toilet in it because it was, you know, going to the potty. So

Emily Vaca 29:47
amazing.

Max Branstetter 29:48
How about MINNIDIP? Like, how often do puns come up at work that your team is like, all right, Emily, just stop.

Emily Vaca 29:54
Oh, my God. It’s my husband. Poor,

Max Branstetter 29:57
poor David.

Emily Vaca 29:58
It i. Mean, it really is, like, he can, the other night, he was like, I can see the wheels turning. Like, he’ll make a joke, and then I immediately, like, pause, and I’ll be like, looking at him. And he was like, I see you trying to ruin it with a pun. Stop. Like, it’s immediate that I try to, like, one up it. But mini dip is upon itself, kind of, I guess so it’s a plan Skinny Dip, which is why it has two ends in it. People, you know, spell it with one end a lot, but yeah, the two ends are from skinny dip, and it’s a play on a small dip, a small pool. But also it was really important that I wanted to create a name that was a verb and a noun. So we go mini dipping, and it’s a mini dip, so that for sure, kind of was where it started after having a list of like 500 other names that kept coming back to mini dip. But yeah, like dip dip Hooray is our tagline. I’ve tried the we call dips like, instead of dibs and, oh my god, I mean just mini everything. But

Max Branstetter 30:59
you could do a ton with mini and with dip and with skinny dip, and as I told you about before we hit record, because I had to tell you right away, when I was listening to an interview and prep for this, I think it must have been because I was in the other room or something, or, like, folding clothes or something. Maybe the sound was muffled, but I swear a fellow podcast host called it mini dick. So surprised you didn’t go with that

Emily Vaca 31:22
route. We have to buy the URL now and redirect it to our website.

Max Branstetter 31:26
I’m not gonna search that URL, but there’s

no better time to wrap up with some rapid fire. Q, A, you ready for it? All right? We won’t talk about anyone’s crotch. Let’s get wild. What? I’ll try to ask a normal question for once, if you could only pick one of your SKUs to be at your home, what would it be?

Emily Vaca 31:53
I mean, we have a minute up on our roof deck pretty much every weekend, even if we don’t get to get into it and enjoy it. It’s, you know, for testing purposes. And then the Garland has been, yeah, just gotta make sure, you know, let’s sit the the heat in the sun for a while, like every weekend, we’re working by trying to test the product. So that’s fun. And also, we never get to just enjoy it anymore. But that’s okay. The Garland has been hanging up in our living room for about two and a half months, since Mother’s Day, when I installed it for a reel. So that is just like a permanent installation in our house now. But this, I mean, it the funny thing with, like, all of our patterns that I create and we’ve evolved, you know, not everything is a pattern now, but I created them because I’m a designer, not an artist. I like to explain the distinction of like an artist has a style, and they have their illustration style, and people go to them because they kind of create things that look very similar, and they have a technique that they’re known for, a signature. As a designer, I’m usually creating four others instead of more from a fine art side. So every pattern that I create, I try to envision a particular person who wants to match it to their swimsuit to their style. But I will say my personal style is like the Bora. Bora and the Tulum are my top two favorite patterns that I’ve ever created, and that’s usually we have remnants of those throughout the house, whether it be like a towel or different artwork around. So, yeah, it’s, it’s hard to pick, but we always have some water feature, and then the garland, for sure.

Max Branstetter 33:28
And Bora Bora to Lin, like, just the names, take you on vacation. So pretty, pretty clever there as well. They

Emily Vaca 33:34
were inspired from vacations in both locations. There you go.

Max Branstetter 33:37
You find inspiration from vacations, from your products and vice versa. You know, vicious circle,

Emily Vaca 33:44
uh, vocation vodka. Ah, there we go. There, that’s, that’s, that was the original pun for our honeymoon, that

Max Branstetter 33:52
you could drink vodka on Perfect. All right, you are now you said St Louis City. You mean, like, St Louis, Missouri, is there a separate city called St Louis

Emily Vaca 34:03
City? Well, I lived in the city, which I was very proud of, okay, that’s very large, a lot of suburbs, yeah, yeah. They’re from the Lou and I’m proud, um, I’m from the Hill, which is the, like, Little Italy of St Louis City. So, yeah, as I grew up there, you know, forever, and then moved to Chicago. So

Max Branstetter 34:23
how does it feel? I know there’s like, you know, big Midwest rivalry, which is tough to say, between and I’m from the middle, between St Louis and Chicago. How does it feel to be like a quote, unquote, you know, enemy sports fan in Chicago.

Emily Vaca 34:36
We like to go to the the cards, cups games, altogether, but we’re not rooting for any particular team. I we’re kind of in the middle. I’m definitely a bait for me. Yeah? Well, my dad likes to, I mean, my dad still lives in St Louis, and then we’ve lived in Chicago now for 20 years. I’ve lived in Chicago longer than St Louis. Yeah, it’s, it’s fun to kind of, it depends on whose score. And then, you know, where I’m, like, I cheer for everybody, but I’m definitely a Bears fan.

Max Branstetter 35:05
You looking at your background, I saw that you worked, you did some work with what I think is an agency. Was it called euro or gyro?

Emily Vaca 35:14
Oh, gyro, yeah, but it smell like Euro, right? Well, that’s

Max Branstetter 35:18
it. That’s really the main thing I wanted, I wanted to I want to know, because I saw that and I initially started craving a

Emily Vaca 35:24
euro. It was very confusing when I first started working there, for sure

Max Branstetter 35:28
that was more of a statement for clarification than a question. But last, last one, besides a mini dip, what is the most beautiful site from a Chicago roof deck like? What’s your like? Favorite day of the year to enjoy the roof

Emily Vaca 35:44
deck? I mean, fall is my favorite October is my favorite month. That’s when my husband, I got married. I’m definitely I love the fall. And from our roof deck, we can actually see the Sears Tower. It’s crazy, like they cut a tree line, just like a little dip. So we can a dip. And a dip, a MINNIDIP from our deck, so I can see the city there, which is that is always amazing. And then also on the other side of our roof, which basically touches our like bedroom window, is the L train, and it goes by we live directly. It’s very loud.

Max Branstetter 36:23
That’s like the classic Chicago, like, you know, room starts shaking. No, it’s pretty cool for the atmosphere.

Emily Vaca 36:29
Yeah, we always have to pause the TV when the train goes by in the morning, but we’re used to it after being there for about almost 10 years now. But yes, seeing it go by. I still can’t get over it. There’s a lot of photos from a roof deck from our very first photo shoot, and you can see the train going by in the background, which is, yeah, that’s probably my favorite scene from Chicago,

Max Branstetter 36:50
perfect. Well, let’s bring this train home. Emily, thank you so much. This has been a blast. I stand by even more so now that, like you, have one of the most fun businesses brands out there. So thanks so much for coming on. And where’s the best place if people want to try out mini dip or just connect with you online, where’s the best place to send

Emily Vaca 37:09
them? Yeah, so I would head to our Instagram or our website. We are at mini dip and mini dip.com and don’t forget, there are two N’s in mini dip. So m, I n, n, I D, I P. From there in our profile, you can find me. It is in the bio of our Instagram handle, but my handle is @ShopLaVaca, and that’s a little bit of a behind the scenes more from my perspective, shop

Max Branstetter 37:31
La Vaca, it just rolls off the tongue. What a name, perfect. And then last thing, final thoughts. It could be a quote, a final pun, just like a word of wisdom to leave everyone with, take us home here,

Emily Vaca 37:44
this is the first thing popping in my head so but as a perfectionist, I always wanted everything to be perfect before I launched it. It would never have happened. Eventually, I just had to dive in and get it done. And I would say, you know, get it as far as you can but don’t let perfectionism hold you back. Progress over perfection.

Max Branstetter 38:08
Dive in, make a splash, just a water cascading waterfall of puns and tips and advice and stories from Emily Vaca, thank you so much, Emily for coming on the podcast, sharing your magnificent mini dip story, and thank you, wild listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth podcast on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter and stay tuned next week, at the time of this recording, or the time of this release for Episode 300 it’s an awesome, awesome 300 milestone celebration. We are Sparta yada yada yada. And on addition, you can find us on Goodpods where there are good podcasts and podcast people and podcast recommendations. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and it’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship meets puns-esque of this episode until next time and episode tres 100, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!