#TTGSparked: Kris & Whitney from Static Schmatic
For this edition of #TTGSparked we sat down with Mother/Daughter duo Kris and Whitney, two amazing ladies from Aspen who founded Static Schmatic, the best all-natural, anti-static spray on the market. Here they talk what inspired them, what it's like working alongside family and their tips for juggling everyday life with owning your own business!
Tell us what inspired you both to create an Anti-Static spray?
It was a cold winter in Aspen, and we were entangled with static - on our hair, clothes and on my kids. The constant wearing of hats, scarves, jackets, ski helmets leads to a ton of static electricity, as you can imagine. There weren't any products we would spray on ourselves, let alone my children, so my mother and I got to work. We wanted a spray that was all-natural, safe for the environment, odor-free and stylish so we teamed up with a natural chemist (who we refer to as our mad scientist) who created just that. Our sprays are so safe that my children were our primary testers. As soon as we found the right formula, we took to the stores. Local retailers used Static Schmatic in fitting rooms and loved it. Our local animal shelter tested our pet spray to eliminate static shocks on dogs and cats. They now sell it in their shop. Now we ship to all 50 states and we're working on expanding around the globe! We're ramping up our marketing efforts, have a small production staff and are adding different sizes to our collection. We're loving this journey!
What was the process of creating the spray and then getting it on the market?
It's an understatement to say it's an eye-opening process. As I mentioned, our family was the primary testing group and support group for our sprays, and we're a bunch of picky people! Once we found the right formulas, we asked our friends and local retailers as well as our local animal shelter to test Static Schmatic and give us their honest feedback. We have great support from our local community, and they really helped get Static Schmatic on shelves straight into women's purses. We're constantly requesting feedback, evaluating feedback and using it to improve. We read every email, and we respond within hours (usually minutes) because we take everything so personally and care so much. A major aspect to selling is giving back, and we love working with non-profit organizations that focus on women and famillies. Our natural chemist hires single mothers to give them a flexible schedule to work and fill our orders. We also love presenting on invention day at our elementary school to help children think big and achieve.
What's it like working alongside your Mom/Daughter?
We're a family business through and through, and we involve my children and husband in all we do. We have the unique opportunity to work and live together. We just relocated to Salt Lake City, and our new home office is on the third floor, which feels like a cozy, bright tree house. It's a clean, creative space with stacks of notebooks filled with ideas, pitches and more. It also has a large play space for my children so they can create and imagine while we do the same. The best part of working together as a mother/daughter team is that we're so similar that making decisions is quite easy. We tend to stay up too late at night getting things done, but it's the time we're most productive with the least interruptions.
What are your best tips for juggling kids/grandkids and owning and running your own company at the same time?
Tip #1 is that we keep our priorities in line which places our family above all else. When Kris went through a divorce, my sister and I were in high school. She started working in a store where we were not allowed to visit her or to simply check in after school. None of us were comfortable with that so she promptly quit and created her own interior design business which is still a major success, 25 years later. She set a precedent that we follow every day. Our children and family come first. Always.
Tip #2 is to set a positive example for my four children and Kris' seven grandchildren by how we live our lives. They motivate us to create, accomplish and achieve. We want them to see that with hard work and vision, ideas become reality. Tip #3 is to laugh a lot. How can you not?!
What are 3 brand you'd love to work with?
We love The Honest Company and all that Jessica Alba is doing to make cleaning and beauty products safe. We also love Sephora and they are our go-to for discovering the best beauty products and ways to keep ourselves looking and feeling great. We'd love to work with both of those companies. One of our bigger goals is to replace the main chemical-filled anti-static aerosol spray that smells terrible and leaves a cloud of haze lurking over head. It's still used in retail stores, which means our clothes are pre-treated with gases and chemicals. We'd love to supply Nordstrom, Lulu Lemon and Anthropologie (and so many more) with our sprays so they can use them on their clothes and in fitting rooms to help people see how pieces fit without static cling.
How would you ladies describe your personal style?
We're both natural and casual. We go for a modern yet classic look, and we both love shopping. We look for classic pieces that can be worn everywhere from school drop-off to dinner at night - mostly because there's no time in between to change. We laugh because if you were in Kris' closet, you'd see rows of black and white with some gray and navy interspersed. You can't go wrong with black!
What's been your Static Schmatic highlight so far?
We were approached by The Grommet early on, and it's been one of the greatest opportunities in terms of a wonderful partnership. They truly have our best interest at hand, and we're working on some exciting expansion opportunities with some larger stores together. We'll be so excited to announce those new developments!
