There are some beloved characters in pop culture. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Yoda from Star Wars.
And then, of course, Dora The Explorer…
Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch. But for Ellen Bennett, the founder of multi-million dollar apron company Hedley and Bennett, that children’s character’s can-do adventurous spirit resonates with and lives within her. And she has tapped into those qualities to approach entrepreneurship in a somewhat unique way.
I definitely feel like I was a bit of a Dora the Explorer. With enough kind of humble enthusiasm, you open a lot of doors. That's what I did. And it worked. And, you know, I don't always land all of my wild adventures, but in this case, it really was the beginning of a whole new journey. And it's so simple as just showing up sometimes up to the place where you're going to meet the people, or have a chance to talk to somebody who will get you into the next door. And then you keep asking and you keep asking and you're just, you gotta be relentless.
The places Ellen was showing up? They were Michelin star restaurants in Los Angeles and she was going around to the back doors to put her product in front of some of the best chefs in the world. Ellen was not well-known. Her product was an apron — something that every restaurant in town already had in bulk. And she was a one-woman operation trying to leapfrog all of the traditional lanes to go straight to the top and find success.
She didn’t have Dora’s map or her partners in crime to guide her. She was Ellen the explorer and she was out on her own.
Welcome back to The Journey.
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This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.