Why You Don't Need VC or to Quit Your Day Job to Build a Real Business with Toni Toomey

Adrienne Garland (00:00.642)
Hi everybody and welcome back to the She Leads podcast. Before I introduce you to our next guest, I'd like to ask for you to take just two minutes to give the show a five-star rating and review on Apple or Spotify. This is so important for the show's visibility and the visibility of each and every one of our guests. The women on this show share their journeys, wisdom and lessons so you can go further, faster, wealthier.

and with more ease. So if you're interested in seeing more successful women leaders and entrepreneurs in this world, like I am, take this easy step to support women everywhere. Thank you so much in advance for helping to share our incredible show with more people. Now, I'm very excited to introduce my next guest. Her name is Toni Toomey, and she's the founder and CEO of Hone, a premium postpartum apparel brand

made from hormone-safe natural fibers. She's also the creator of Mom Built, a community for mom founders building for other moms. She's scaling hone while working full-time in AI and is on a mission to prove that the women closest to the problem are the ones who should be building the solution. I love that so much. Welcome to the SheLeads podcast, Toni.

Toni Toomey (01:23.404)
Thank you so much for having me. What an amazing intro.

Adrienne Garland (01:26.69)
it's so, so good. you know, I am just very excited, excited to speak with you because I totally agree with you that, you know, women, I do feel have sort of been overlooked in the whole world of creating solutions. And I think that more and more women are setting out to create solutions for us. I mean, we are the primary people

that are purchasing, purchasing period in the world.

Toni Toomey (01:59.679)
Yes. Yeah. think it's like 85 % of buying power is with women right now.

Adrienne Garland (02:05.74)
Yeah, and with the whole great shift of wealth to women, that stat is probably only going to go higher. So I know that you have been doing so many different things. And we were just talking before we got on the podcast about just women being more, doing more, having more influence. And as much as I want that to happen, I also want us to not

Toni Toomey (02:16.64)
Definitely.

Adrienne Garland (02:35.276)
you know, burden ourselves and burn ourselves out because we have such great work to do in this world. Yes.

Toni Toomey (02:43.782)
Yes, totally agree. The avoiding burnout is very important.

Adrienne Garland (02:48.614)
Yes. And you know, I know that you recently have sort of moved. So you're in this really interesting part of your journey, right? So you and please, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're working full time, you've started this business, you have a community, you've moved, you have brand new children. I mean, you are just in the thick of it. So I guess I'd love to start with

You know, how did you decide that you wanted to start a company while you had this full-time job?

Toni Toomey (03:25.618)
Yeah, I mean, it's really out of necessity, but also just I, so I've worked for venture backed startups my whole career and I've, I'm a second time founder. So I've done this before. So I really have this belief of like, raise the minimum viable funds to get the business off the ground. And so to do that, that meant keeping my full time job so that I still had.

salary and I'm the primary breadwinner in my family. So it wasn't really an option to just say like, we'll rely on my husband's salary. Just didn't have that ability. And so it was kind of like, either do it while working full time, or I don't do it. And for me not doing it just wasn't an option because I spent 26 months nursing my daughter. And for all of those months, like figuring out what I was gonna wear was

Adrienne Garland (03:56.728)
Right.

Adrienne Garland (04:03.712)
Mmm.

Toni Toomey (04:13.363)
such a friction point, especially when I wanted to like leave the house. Obviously if I was staying at home, it was super easy, but board meetings and brunch and like going out and being out in society, it was so hard to find something that allowed for nursing access that wasn't also like maternity clothes because I was not in maternity clothes. I didn't want to see maternity clothes like ever again. So it was like, this is my problem to solve and nobody else was going to do it. So I just made it happen.

Adrienne Garland (04:15.435)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (04:30.552)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (04:35.072)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (04:43.286)
I love it. So you mentioned that you're a second time founder. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I do like to share on the show sort of the realness of what we all go through. And it's not all sunshine and rainbows and shiny shiny. There are many, many challenges along the way.

Toni Toomey (04:44.37)
Thank

Yes.

Adrienne Garland (05:06.548)
As you're sort of telling us about that first venture, I'd love to also understand that because you've been working in the whole venture realm, did some of the lessons from the other founders that you have helped, did that help you?

Toni Toomey (05:21.069)
Yes. my gosh. Yes. Why I get asked often, like even my dad asks me sometimes like, how did you learn how to do all of this stuff? cause my parents, like my parents are entrepreneurs as well, but they owned a meat market. It was like very simple and just easy to understand business. And there was no venture capital or anything like that involved. And so my dad is always just like amazed that I understand this whole world that he didn't even know exists. And I was like, it's all

Adrienne Garland (05:23.393)
You

Adrienne Garland (05:30.252)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (05:45.826)
Aww.

Toni Toomey (05:49.647)
the past bosses that I've worked for like a hundred percent. I think finding the right boss and the right mentor is literally what set me up to be an entrepreneur. And I, my first venture was in the hospitality space in Austin. And it was great. I was young. did everything myself. I'm still doing everything myself, but I physically did everything myself because I had the time and the, the like mental capacity to do it. And

Adrienne Garland (06:00.642)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (06:09.944)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (06:17.368)
It was such a great learning experience because it's one thing to run operations for a startup when somebody else is like holding the bag at the end of the day. It's another one. It's like all on you to manage everything and like, you didn't bring in enough revenue. Well, it looks like you're not getting paid. So it was, it was a learning experience and I was glad that I did it. And then after I sold that company, I knew that I wanted to work for.

Adrienne Garland (06:27.331)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (06:36.109)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (06:46.467)
like a really good founder mentor. And I found somebody, was, he's older, like more my dad's age. And so was like, that's perfect. Somebody to learn from, grew up on Wall Street and then founded and sold his own company around the dot com bubble. And then was starting a consumer app. And so I joined that to run operations and built the customer team, like everything on the op site and was just literally his number two for like four years. And that.

Adrienne Garland (07:12.994)
Wow.

Toni Toomey (07:14.709)
That's where I learned how to build and manage a financial model and all these things that I didn't even know were skills I would need the first time around.

Adrienne Garland (07:24.428)
Yeah, this is incredible. you know, I'm just thinking so much about my students. I teach at NYU Tisch Center for Hospitality. So and I teach an entrepreneurship class. So so many of the students are interested in, you know, starting their own venture. And a lot of them do not have the business background. They have the hospitality background, which is customer focused, which I think is

Toni Toomey (07:39.02)
Nice.

Toni Toomey (07:51.459)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne Garland (07:53.804)
such a great skill to have as an entrepreneur. The customer truly drives the business. But there's also some students that are in class where their parents are entrepreneurs. And they often say to me, I do not want to be an entrepreneur because I saw what my parents went through. And so when I was reading your background, was thinking to myself,

Toni Toomey (08:02.242)
Yes.

Toni Toomey (08:09.847)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne Garland (08:22.147)
This obviously prompted you to pursue the path of entrepreneurship. But when you were going through college and everything, did you think that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Toni Toomey (08:33.641)
No, definitely. So very similar. Like I, I think when you're young and you're going through that and your parents are entrepreneurs, you only see the downsides and the struggle and you get like the short end of the stick a lot. Like my parents didn't get to come to all of my like marching band games or any of that stuff because they were busy running businesses. And so

Adrienne Garland (08:53.678)
Hit.

Toni Toomey (08:56.269)
when you're young, you still kind of hold that resentment, I think. And then I got a little bit older and I realized like, oh, wow, okay, they were doing that to like, build a better life for me. And like, while they were doing that, I was reaping the rewards because we didn't want for anything. I got to go to college without racking up a ton of debt. Like I, there was just a lot of things that I took for granted that were direct fruits of the labor of what they did. And then

Adrienne Garland (09:05.709)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (09:16.941)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (09:20.847)
Hmm.

Toni Toomey (09:21.918)
I got to see my parents actually sell their meat market a few years ago after running it for like 25 years. And it was, it was passed down to them from my grandparents. And so it was just this beautiful, like full circle moment where they had a really great exit and they were able to retire and just like not worry about money anymore. And I was like, okay, that right there, that's, that is the goal. And like, I,

Adrienne Garland (09:34.767)
Wow.

Adrienne Garland (09:45.903)
That's what I want.

Toni Toomey (09:51.595)
But yeah, when I was in college, I did not want to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be a casino host. And I went to, I went to school for hospitality and I was at Texas Tech and majoring in rim. They have a great rim program there. And I was actually supposed to like go to Vegas for an internship for like my senior capstone. And it was right around the 2008, like 2009 housing crisis. And

Adrienne Garland (10:06.127)
Wow.

Toni Toomey (10:17.513)
Vegas just like dried up overnight. mean, all the internships were canceled. Like everything just got pulled because the economy got so bad that nobody was traveling. And so I was like, okay, well, without this internship, I can't graduate. And like, I don't know what to do. So I just stopped going to school and started working. it's like, this is, I don't want to keep like wasting time. So I went and managed a shoe store for a couple of years.

Adrienne Garland (10:19.929)
Wow.

Ugh.

Adrienne Garland (10:38.871)
Wow.

Adrienne Garland (10:45.805)
Yeah, that is crazy. I mean, it's funny. We see everything that's going on in the world now. And I feel like so many people talk about this, it was sort of like before COVID and then after COVID and COVID, everything changed. But there have been some real periods of decline in the economy as we were, you and I were sort of going through college, graduating from college.

Toni Toomey (11:00.849)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (11:15.427)
graduating into recessions and having to figure it out. And I do think that that prompts a little bit of this entrepreneurial mindset and saying, you know, what once was is no longer. And what can I do with the brains that I have, the energy, you know, and where is the opportunity? And that type of mindset is something that I feel like everybody needs now because I'm sure

you know better than anyone, AI has just disrupted everything. you know, there are so many directions that I think we can take this conversation that I really want to dive into with you because you are a founder of a business that's solving a real problem. You're in the world of AI. And sometimes those two things don't seem to

be, they seem to be at odds with one another, right? And so, you we think everything is AI, but everything is not really AI right now. Yeah. So how, I guess a little bit of a question is, you know, with your role working a full-time role in AI and starting a business, how are you seeing that AI is maybe helping you to

Toni Toomey (12:23.311)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (12:40.121)
grow or scale your business in a way that might not have been possible 10 years ago.

Toni Toomey (12:45.767)
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I honestly, like there's never been a better time to be a founder. And there is just no way that I could have a full-time job and be building a company at the same time. If it weren't for AI and the, mean, just stuff that used to take me multiple days to do, can do in half an hour with Claude or chat GPT and like financial modeling is probably one of the biggest everything, anything in a spreadsheet, um, any kind of.

Adrienne Garland (12:59.759)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (13:11.299)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (13:15.226)
research, like anything, I will say, I really, really hate AI writing. It just, it makes me cringe. And I just hate that so many people are like, yeah, just have AI pump out your content for you. And I'm like, but then you're just contributing to like the pile of AI crap that's on the internet. The all reads the same with a short choppy sentences and like

Adrienne Garland (13:22.381)
Yes. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (13:38.275)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (13:42.466)
It's just so obvious and it actually like pains me and I've started unfollowing people because I'm like, why? I don't need your AI content. I talk to AI all day. I don't need to go like see more AI content, but I think in the realm of like figuring it out as millennials or older millennials or the older and millennial, we have been through so many.

like once in a lifetime events that we just had to like, figure it out and like make it through. And so I think that's why we are so good at kind of navigating that. And I think we're in this realm right now of figuring out what should be AI and what shouldn't be AI, like just because you can do it with AI doesn't mean you should do it with AI. And I think there's this huge like,

Adrienne Garland (14:09.699)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (14:25.741)
Yes.

Toni Toomey (14:32.735)
split coming right now where people are craving that like genuine human connection more than ever. Because if you do spend your day talking to AI, like you want that human connection. And so there's just more and more like pull for that. And that's actually why I started the mom founder group because I was like, we as mom founders, it's such a unique and can be like very isolating time because you feel like nobody really understands.

And you really want that human connection, but you maybe don't really like get that kind of connection from your friends who aren't also building businesses because they don't understand. They're like, what do mean you can't turn it off? Like, just stop thinking about work or like just clock out. It doesn't work like that.

Adrienne Garland (15:09.091)
Yeah.

No. Yeah. So this is so interesting. I also keep going back to like, you know, your origin story and even, you know, something that you mentioned very quickly, but I think it's so important because this does not happen for a lot of women. You said I sold my business, right? And then you moved on to the next. I just want to go there for one second because

First of all, want to say congratulations because a very small percentage of women ever end up selling their businesses. And it's something that I do think that we need to normalize. I actually just interviewed a woman the other day that she helps women that maybe have a little bit of smaller businesses to recognize that there's

Toni Toomey (15:45.015)
Thank you.

Toni Toomey (16:02.582)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne Garland (16:04.131)
tremendous value in those businesses and it might not be for this humongous transaction. It might just be to pass it on to the next person that wants to take it further and faster. And I just, love that message so much. And I just want to highlight like the fact that you started something from nothing as a 20 something year old and then you sold that is an incredible accomplishment. Forget about everything else that you've done since then.

So that's incredible.

Toni Toomey (16:34.142)
Yeah, that's I, I appreciate that because I definitely like discount it for a long time. I didn't even like say that I was a second time founder because I was like, that doesn't really count. Like I was yeah, I don't know why I thought it didn't count. Such imposter syndrome. And then one day, like somebody pointed out like, you know, if you were like a white male, you would literally have it plastered on your LinkedIn like exited founder. Exactly.

Adrienne Garland (16:48.606)
yeah.

Adrienne Garland (16:58.711)
You sure would. Yes. Yes. Multiple. Yes. Serial entrepreneur. Yes.

Toni Toomey (17:04.033)
And I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like I would never do that. It's just like a footnote for me.

Adrienne Garland (17:08.053)
Yeah. there's no, and there's tremendous lessons in that. And I think that that is what every woman needs to see that, you know, when you start a business, even if you're starting out of college or you're in college, or there's so many incredible young women doing amazing things, but it doesn't mean that what you start has to be what you hold on to for your entire life. Then you can

Toni Toomey (17:34.849)
Exactly.

Adrienne Garland (17:36.772)
do something, sell something, or even if something isn't sellable, you can move on to something else and you're not a failure. You're in the mode of building value and understanding where does value come from, what do customers actually want and how can you be the one to fulfill that need.

And it's super interesting too. I do feel like a lot of women in the stages of our journey, see that, like we hit our heads against the wall of problem after problem after problem. And we are always saying like, I wish there was this thing. And for you to then say, hey, this is the thing. I have the skills, let me do this. That is incredible. And...

It's sort of like repeating what you said, but the fact that you funded that through your own means, a job, right? That also allowed you to build something on the side, which is incredible. That's something incredible that that company is doing. I'm sure that they see that there's tremendous value for them, right? To allow their employees to go build.

Toni Toomey (18:40.895)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (18:55.059)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (18:59.309)
great things in the world. That's a very progressive company. It's something that I think we need to look at because the venture capital model at this point, and I'm sure you know this better than anyone, it's broken. And it doesn't support women.

Toni Toomey (19:03.449)
You

Toni Toomey (19:15.39)
Yeah. It's, yeah. It's, think it's like 2.5 % of funding goes to women or something like that. It's, so wild. And there are so many angel groups out there that are like hell bent on changing that. And I just, I love it so much. Like every single one that I come across, I'm just like, yes, this is amazing. And there, there's so many that are like taking the approach of teaching women how to angel invest. And I think

Adrienne Garland (19:36.366)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (19:42.563)
Yes.

Toni Toomey (19:43.377)
There's such an imposter syndrome for women out there thinking like, I don't have the money to invest or I don't have the skills to invest. And it's like, no, you do. Like you're, if you're putting a few thousand dollars into the stock market, you could put a few thousand dollars into a startup through an SPV and like, just start doing it and go for it. Like, yes, it's riskier. This is not financial advice by any means. Like it is a risky avenue.

Adrienne Garland (19:59.194)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (20:06.509)
Right. Yep.

Toni Toomey (20:10.139)
But like women supporting women is how we get things done. And it's, it is cool to see the tides changing. I hope that by the time my daughter is starting her first business, it's a much better split.

Adrienne Garland (20:24.247)
Yes, and that is so important too. I just attended an event the other night last Friday and it was put on by a company called Vangels. That's a good name, Gangels. Yes, so it was such an incredible event and it's true. What we learned about is you don't need to write these

Toni Toomey (20:39.996)
Yes, I'm familiar with GANGELS.

Adrienne Garland (20:52.205)
humongous checks in order to participate. And that's another incredible message that I really want to get out to everybody that is listening in is, you can invest a couple thousand dollars and actually make an impact. I think that the venture capital model is for a certain type of company, a certain type of founding team. And maybe that's where it

Toni Toomey (20:55.546)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (21:21.709)
belongs. so even though I just said it's broken, maybe it's not broken. Maybe it's just for a certain segment of the market. And what hasn't happened yet, but as you're talking about, there's a real focus on it, is that women are investing these maybe smaller amounts, but to a much, much greater number of companies. And that's a very valid model.

It's just like anything else. It's either low volume and high price or high volume and low price. And both of it works and neither one is better.

Toni Toomey (22:05.86)
Exactly. Yeah. And even if those investments don't go anywhere, like if you invest and the company goes under that founder has learned such valuable lessons, they will never forget you as an investor. And like once a founder, always a founder, you're pretty likely to start another business. And like, you're going to go back to those same investors and you're going to be a better founder. And you're likely, you're more likely to have an exit on the next one around. And like, it's just,

Adrienne Garland (22:22.383)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (22:35.426)
it's good to build that community and network and have that kind of support among women because it's just not the same like pitching to a room full of men when you're a woman. Like the questions you get and the looks and the confusion and all of that. it's, the bias is so real. I like, I was at an event last October and

Adrienne Garland (22:47.491)
No.

Toni Toomey (23:02.253)
We were, it was like a big business conference in New York and it was amazing, but we were in this like movie theater room for a presentation and this woman sits next to me and she was like, I think we're the only two women in here right now. Like some more trickled in, but it was like, I don't know, maybe 2 % of the room was actually women in this like room full of founders. And I was like, I just want to see these numbers change so bad because women have some of the best ideas.

Adrienne Garland (23:14.498)
no.

Adrienne Garland (23:21.561)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (23:25.861)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (23:32.064)
And I saw yesterday on Instagram, a reel that said like, you trust a stranger to make your food. You trust a stranger to fly you somewhere, but you don't trust yourself to build the idea that you have. Like that's silly. And I was like, wow, so powerful.

Adrienne Garland (23:32.304)
you

Adrienne Garland (23:45.487)
Wow, that is silly. Yeah. I mean, I think that is so powerful. And I think it also speaks to the company that you are building because nobody except for a woman who is nursing a baby would have a thought cross their minds like, wait a minute, what am I wearing? I'm wearing

plastic and this is transferring over to my baby. I want my baby to be as healthy as possible and live as long as possible and I need to set him or her them up for the best life possible. What am I doing that that that type of problem would not surface in a man's life period ever. Right. And and it is no and we're talking about

Toni Toomey (24:35.848)
No. Yeah. Not on their radar.

Adrienne Garland (24:42.426)
health. And we're talking about a time in women's lives where our hormones are all over the place. and adding something into that mix is just awful. Terrible tragic.

Toni Toomey (24:56.16)
Yeah. Yeah. We, we have an epidemic in this country right now of like women's hormones being under attack because of all of the endocrine disruptors. And there's actually like good progress being made on the apparel front. The state of Texas has like filed lawsuits against Lululemon and all these other brands for basically poisoning their customers and like finally calling them out. And I'm just, I'm so hopeful that it's not like a

Adrienne Garland (25:18.468)
Ugh.

Toni Toomey (25:23.808)
flash in the pan kind of thing that fades because this all came out about Lululemon like years ago. There was a huge story about it and there was all this stuff and there was like, okay, boycott Lululemon and it lasted like five minutes. And then people were like, but I love the way that their leggings perform. And it's like, but at what cost to your body? Because you love the fact that they don't stretch when you like are working out in them or they hold their shape, but they hold their shape because they're plastic.

Adrienne Garland (25:41.838)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (25:52.399)
Yeah. Right? Especially for people that are looking to improve their health, they're literally working against themselves. And unless you have the awareness around that, you don't realize what you're doing to yourself, how you're harming yourself. And I do think it's so important. There's a lot of conversations, I think, in just in my friend group and everything about

Toni Toomey (25:52.723)
That shouldn't be on your body.

Adrienne Garland (26:19.905)
all of all of this and I also I have a couple of questions for you just around just the you know sourcing the fabric and all of that but I saw in I don't know if it was a LinkedIn post that you wrote or an article but you recommend that there's a Netflix documentary plastic detox I think it's called and you know I haven't watched it but I can't wait to and I thought to myself

Toni Toomey (26:43.046)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (26:49.265)
you know, when we get rid of all of this stuff, right? Because I think that that's going to be the next wave, right? We want to introduce all the natural fibers. We want to get rid of some of the stuff. As we're getting rid of this stuff, are we causing like a secondary problem there?

Toni Toomey (27:08.263)
Yeah, I mean, what really needs to stop is we need to stop making this stuff. getting rid of this stuff is good for you as an individual, but the problem is where does it go when you get rid of it? there's breakout science happening all the time of microorganisms that can eat plastic and can break this stuff down. And there's all this work being done to figure out, like,

Adrienne Garland (27:12.581)
Right.

Adrienne Garland (27:20.144)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (27:32.998)
we have made enough clothing already to clothe everyone on the planet for the next like 60 years or something crazy like that. It's, it's absolutely wild. And we fast fashion is like the absolute biggest contributor to this. They are pumping out just thousands of pieces that get worn on average, like three to four times before they fall apart and end up in a landfill. And that, that is the biggest culprit. And I think

Adrienne Garland (27:40.443)
Wow.

Adrienne Garland (27:54.161)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (28:00.142)
that doesn't stop until consumer behavior stops. Because if you, as long as consumers are buying it, big companies are going to keep making it. They have no conscience. They're not going to stop. There's no reason to. Exactly.

Adrienne Garland (28:03.589)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (28:10.127)
Right, they're profit focused. Yeah, they're focused on how can they maximize their profits and these fibers are cost effective. They're not planet effective, they're planet harmful. so that's one thing that I'm thinking in your business as a major challenge is these plastic fibers.

Toni Toomey (28:23.324)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (28:35.417)
and I'm sure I'm not using the right technical term, but these plastic fibers are so readily available. They're so much less expensive than natural fibers. How does that sort of factor into your entire business model?

Toni Toomey (28:52.783)
Yeah, I mean, there's, there's definitely like an education piece there of trying to bring the consumer along. And thankfully, like consumers have never been more educated than they are now just with social media and everything. Like it's so easy to learn about this stuff and more and more people are getting on the bandwagon of like, okay, no more fast fashion.

Now it's like discernment of what actually is fast fashion, because usually when I say fast fashion, somebody thinks like forever 21 someplace like that. But then there's also these other offenders like anthropology and people want to think, my gosh, no, they're not fast fashion. They are. When you look at the numbers of what they're cranking out and the fibers that they're using and all that stuff, they're just like a dressed up more expensive fast fashion. And so there's kind of this like education component of

Adrienne Garland (29:39.739)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (29:45.453)
like, Hey, you need to switch your mindset from, need 10 new pieces every season to like, I'm going to buy this piece and it is going to be in my closet for the next 20 years because it's made from natural fibers and it's going to hold up and it's a timeless design. And it's something that I like want to keep around. And that kind of like shift in preference is it's slow for sure.

Adrienne Garland (29:56.656)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (30:11.427)
But it's, it's happening and there's a lot of tailwinds in our favor right now. And we, we specifically are also doing, a rental and a certified second hand, option. So obviously natural fibers made in Italy, like sustainable, we are on the more expensive side. And I am sensitive to the fact that like not everybody can afford that because I wasn't always in a place that I could afford that, but I still wanted these investment pieces. And so.

I think by having the certified secondhand where moms who are dresses are meant to be worn when you're done nursing, but some women don't want to, or they just want to swap out their wardrobe for whatever reason. Like, okay, send it back to us and we'll sell it to somebody else who really wants one of these pieces at a more reasonable price point. And then the rental option just allows women to try it. Or maybe they need something for an event, like a wedding.

Adrienne Garland (30:48.88)
Right?

Adrienne Garland (31:02.309)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (31:06.209)
They don't usually dress up, but they need something for a one time use. This stops them from saying, okay, let me go the fast fashion route and just order something on Amazon. Let me rent something that's really nice that I'll get to enjoy for a time and then send it back instead of putting it in a landfill. So we're trying really hard.

Adrienne Garland (31:22.585)
I love that. Yeah. I mean, and these are the new types of business models that are so thoughtful. They're thinking about the whole entire system of producing the product and not only producing it, but who's wearing it and how does it get back into the system. Ultimately, these clothes are going to have some type of end of life.

That is probably something to think about in another 10 years from now. But I think that this is the very responsible way of starting a business. it's more of a long-term vision for products. I agree with you. of educating consumers on why having a longer-term mindset is important.

for themselves, for the planet, for the future is critical because why are we even so obsessed with this fast fashion? has everything to do with what we see on social media.

Toni Toomey (32:36.244)
Yes. Yeah. It's, we just have such a consumerist mindset and it's one of the biggest indicators of this is like you go into a house that was built in the fifties or sixties and the closets are a 10th of the size of closets that we have now because that's all you needed back then. A husband and wife could share a single closet because that was the clothing that they had and the pieces were built to last and nobody cared. Exactly. Nobody cared that you wore the same dress twice.

Adrienne Garland (32:48.87)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (32:59.28)
And they were beautiful. Yeah.

No, they thought you were wearing your beautiful dress. Yeah, I know.

Toni Toomey (33:05.355)
And now all of a sudden it's the worst. Exactly. Yeah. And it's, we just have really embraced like the consumerist mindset and to the detriment of the planet, really.

Adrienne Garland (33:18.246)
Yeah. Gosh. So one of the other things that I know that even confuses me sometimes is there's advances in technology when it comes to fiber and fabrics. And they're being branded. Now, some of those fibers and fabrics, they are natural. But they have these crazy names. And so you don't really know, is this fiber natural? Is it not? And if it is natural, was it?

produced using chemicals. is so confusing. Is there any way that you could maybe give us some type of guidelines so that as we are not just picking out clothes for breastfeeding, maternity, things like that, but even any stage of life, what should we really be looking for? Because I think we need to have this like, let me pick natural fiber mindset.

Toni Toomey (34:12.347)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. mean, it's the the advances and the confusion is completely done on purpose. Like it's the same as plastic. Like when everybody figured out that BPAs were so bad and plastic, they like rebranded and they were like, okay, we're to get rid of the BPAs. But they just replaced other toxic stuff. People just don't know that it's toxic yet or like it's not out there yet. And so

it's just this cyclical thing. there's, think bamboo is one of like the most controversial, like natural fibers. And I say natural because while bamboo is natural and it doesn't take a lot of water to grow, it's, if you hold a bamboo reed, it is not something you would want to wear on your body. Like it's not soft. And so you just have to think about what has to be done to make that soft. And there are like closed loop systems that require less chemicals and all that stuff. Like there's a more,

Adrienne Garland (34:59.696)
Mmm.

Toni Toomey (35:06.536)
way to make bamboo fabric, but personally it's something that we still avoid for my family because of the residual chemicals. We just don't know enough and there's not nobody's out there funding scientific research about this because there's there's nobody to fund it. Nobody cares like nobody. Nobody is going to put the money behind it and so it's it's one of those that like and some people love it and they swear by it for its cooling effects and all these other thing and like totally personal choice. I think.

Adrienne Garland (35:24.188)
Right.

Toni Toomey (35:36.263)
The biggest stuff to avoid is like polyester, just polyester is plastic through and through. And like I, the other thing, it's really hard because in the like crunchy, like clean minded community, there's often this like black and white mindset where they're like, it's all or nothing. And like, if you're not wearing a hundred percent got certified organic cotton, then you're just like destroying your body.

Adrienne Garland (35:39.25)
Mm.

Right.

Toni Toomey (36:02.982)
But I think that that's a really dangerous mindset because you have to do what you can. Most people cannot afford to just throw everything away from their closet that has polyester in it and buy 100 % organic cotton. You're also not gonna find everything. Like some things just are not made in natural fibers or they are just like cost prohibitive.

Adrienne Garland (36:11.758)
No.

Toni Toomey (36:25.284)
like a sofa, we recently bought a new sofa and I really wanted one made from natural fibers and it's literally 10 X the cost. And I have a toddler, so I'm like, okay, I just have to like acquiesce on this and deal with the, the polyester sofa. And so it's the same in our wardrobe, do what you can, don't buy new polyester stuff, look at the tag. And if it's not cotton, wool, cashmere, like put it back.

Adrienne Garland (36:28.24)
Right.

Adrienne Garland (36:33.115)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (36:38.225)
Right.

Right.

Adrienne Garland (36:53.809)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (36:53.919)
and don't buy it. And it's crazy how little you will buy when you start doing that too. And I, I'm a big fan of avoiding acrylic too, because it's, it's itchy and it's not fun. And it's, but there's so many sweaters that are made out of it. And linen is another just incredible natural fiber that's like really having a moment right now and makes really great like knitted sweaters.

Adrienne Garland (37:05.286)
Yeah, I can't stand it. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (37:16.722)
Hmm.

Toni Toomey (37:21.186)
Like Madewell, have one that I absolutely love. That's a hundred percent linen. And so those are kind of the fibers that I try to look for. Hemp is another one that is really starting to gain popularity to manufacture from it is pretty expensive right now because there's just not a lot of it because the demand has been low, but hemp requires a fraction of the water that cotton does and it doesn't require pesticides like cotton does. So.

Adrienne Garland (37:37.489)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne Garland (37:47.282)
Hmm.

Toni Toomey (37:49.194)
It's like very, very sustainable, great for the planet. And for a long time, it was illegal to grow in the US, even though it's like 0.03 % trace amounts of THC in it. The government was like, absolutely not. That's too much, too much. And so it's finally starting to like come around and be more widely available. And so I think we are going to start seeing more natural fiber options.

But along with that, exactly like what you said, there is all of this like scientific research and new fabrics being created, but there's no way to create a new natural fiber. So if it's some new like branded name thing, it's not natural. And there's some sort of like polymers or some process, yeah, that has gone into making it. And so if it's some name that you don't recognize as a personal rule, I avoid that.

Adrienne Garland (38:32.423)
Right. Chemical in it. Right. Exactly.

Yes.

Adrienne Garland (38:44.977)
Yes. Yes. And what you're also speaking to is just the way that our capitalist society is organized, but this whole idea of, must have the latest, the greatest to be fashionable, to be beautiful so that men find you attractive. And so you need to constantly be buying all of these things that also drain our financial resources.

And if we're only making 87 cents to every single dollar, if we're spending it on all of these things that are hurting our wallets and also hurting our bodies, like what are we doing here? And I think that that is the thought process that people need to go through. Not only like, hey, let me make sure that what I'm buying is good for me, what I'm eating is good for me.

Toni Toomey (39:13.761)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (39:43.452)
all of that, but maybe I don't need so much because it's not just harming me now, it's harming an entire gender. It's harming an entire gender. And it's so insidious and we don't even question it. So take a pause, be thoughtful. You don't have to, as you're saying, go to the extreme.

Toni Toomey (39:49.153)
Yes.

Toni Toomey (40:01.634)
Absolutely.

Toni Toomey (40:12.128)
Exactly.

Adrienne Garland (40:12.339)
but just start to make some choices that are going to enhance your wealth, really, and your health. And then take some of those resources and maybe put them into investing in other women-owned businesses like yours that are doing things to help people. I love that so much. And I think that we need to understand that we do have that kind of power.

Toni Toomey (40:31.273)
Yes. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (40:41.197)
even if it's not this big policy change, if we can just do these things on an individual basis, they will add up.

Toni Toomey (40:51.008)
Absolutely. 1000 % they do add up. And I, that was such a great point. Like we are making 87 cents on the dollar. We are already paying the pink tax for literally everything. And then we also have this like societal pressure of, you have to like get your hair and makeup done all the time and you have to buy all this stuff and just spend all this money so that you can be viewed as attractive, like conventionally attractive. it's, it's such a scam.

Adrienne Garland (41:01.874)
Yup.

Adrienne Garland (41:15.239)
Yes. It's a scam. It really is a scam. And I don't think that we realized it was a scam, but I think that people are starting to wake up to the fact that it is a scam. So I do hope that more more women start incredible businesses and that we just get a little bit more, I don't want to say smart, because I don't think that women are not smart. I think just more

don't even know what the... Thoughtful and decisive about just the whole journey of everything that we do and what the impact is that it will have. Because I do think that women have this incredible ability to see 25 steps ahead and then protect against that for everybody else. We just need to do that for ourselves. So good. It's so good.

Toni Toomey (42:05.351)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (42:11.206)
Yeah, absolutely.

Adrienne Garland (42:14.172)
So I also just wanted to ask a couple of questions in the community that you've built. What are some of the challenges that these women founders are facing? If there's any, you don't have to name any names, but I was just kind of curious, like what's happening within that community, if you'd like to share.

Toni Toomey (42:34.256)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think one of the biggest like problems right now is marketing in general and like getting because everything is just so flooded and it's not like it was 10 years ago where you could just buy an ad or like get an influencer and that, you know, video goes viral and you sell out.

Adrienne Garland (42:40.5)
Mmm.

Toni Toomey (42:57.262)
It's, there's so many influencers and so many people and so much content just flooding the internet that it's really difficult to stand out. And I think ads do not convert the way that they used to consumers don't like to be sold to there really is this education component and like relationship building. And back to what I was saying before about how people are really craving that human connection, like

Adrienne Garland (43:05.959)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (43:12.05)
Mm-mm.

Toni Toomey (43:23.289)
as entrepreneurs were often encouraged like, just use AI for everything because the big companies are doing it. But like, okay, that's fine because they're big and they have their reputation and people follow them already. But when you're a brand new startup, people want to know about you as a person and they want to know your story and they want to feel connected to the brand. So they feel like they're supporting a good cause and that takes time. And like, there's no shortcutting that you just have to like,

Adrienne Garland (43:38.118)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (43:50.771)
Yeah.

Toni Toomey (43:51.676)
put in the reps and keep going. And so as a mom also building a business, it's hard to find the time and the creative energy to like keep going and beating your head against that wall when you feel like I'm just not getting any traction. And then Instagram will like wake up and decide to change the algorithm and you go from, I'm having all these successful videos to like, nobody's seeing anything I'm posting.

Adrienne Garland (44:14.812)
Yeah. So what are some of the creative things that people are doing? Because no matter what, it requires posting on other people's platforms.

Toni Toomey (44:27.216)
Yes. Yeah. And I, think community building is one of the biggest things right now. Like I, I'm a member of multiple communities and it, really is where I go to find things. I don't like when I need a recommendation on something, I don't search Instagram anymore. I go and ask my mom communities and female communities. And so I think being a part of those building your own where it makes sense.

Adrienne Garland (44:44.564)
Mmm.

Toni Toomey (44:52.48)
is super important and just building those relationships. And it's again, like that, that takes time, but I think showing up authentically in those communities and on social, like even building a social media community, like an inner circle type group where people can follow you and you can get their opinions and stories and stuff like that is, is helpful. And it's a great way to build that comradery with your, supporters and also involve them as you're building the business.

that's been one of my favorite ways.

Adrienne Garland (45:22.034)
Yeah. It's funny. It just reminds me of the way that things used to be. Maybe it's digital now, right? And maybe we can be in community with someone across the pond, but it's the same and it is all about human connection. And you talked before about almost like the divide that's happening right now with AI and technology and then human, right? And I personally...

Toni Toomey (45:28.663)
Yes. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (45:51.061)
hope and think that human is going to win because people do want to connect with their hearts and their minds and on a personal level. And I just think it's like obvious now like, wait a minute, that was good, right? And efficiency, efficiency, okay. But where is it really getting us? And the more and more, the faster, faster, it's just, it's leading, it's accelerating our demise.

Toni Toomey (46:20.501)
Yes, very much.

Adrienne Garland (46:20.762)
It's true. It's true. my gosh. So Toni, how can people find out about your products? How can they get in touch with you? All the things.

Toni Toomey (46:33.972)
Yeah. the best way is follow me on Instagram. it's Toni T O N I dot to me T O O E Y. so I talk there about hone and mom builds and everything. I'm organizing a founder walk meetup in San Diego. So if you're in the area, like would love to have you come as well. Or some people are probably going to fly in for it as well.

But that's the best way and we're gonna launch Hone. Our first dresses will be up for sale this fall. So super excited for that. And yeah, that is the best way to find me.

Adrienne Garland (47:04.244)
Amazing

my gosh. Well, thank you so much for spending time with me here today on the She Leads podcast. I loved our conversation. I can't wait to see everything that you do. I mean, I would love to come out to San Diego. What a beautiful place. And I would love to go on that walk with you. So we'll put all of that in the show notes. And again, thank you so much.

Toni Toomey (47:31.169)
Thank you.