7 Years of GLJ - A Birthday Celebration!

Hey there! I’m Kathleen, content writer and member of the GLJ marketing team. I started with GLJ shortly after the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, but I discovered GLJ in 2018 and obviously fell in love with all their tasty, yet healthy products. I can now say I’m a GLJ number one fan - drinking Detox Greens every morning and taking good life collagen daily. Safe to say, I’m living the GOOD LIFE.

With GLJ’s 7th Birthday on the horizon, it had me wondering about the journey of the cold-pressed juice company so far. I studied business in university and I have always had a passion for local businesses, so I was curious. I needed to sit down with GLJ founder, Andrea Dershin, and learn more about what inspired her to create GLJ and what some of her biggest successes (and fails) in business were so far.

Being only 7 years old, which might feel like a lifetime to some, I know that GLJ has a lot more in store! Not just because I work behind the scenes on content and social media, but because GLJ has an amazing community that has been so loyal over the last 7 years. This is something that is on the forefront of our minds when our 3 person marketing team gets together every week to discuss content for the upcoming weeks. It’s the people who follow GLJ and those that resonate with its messaging that make all the difference. On behalf of the entire GLJ team, we know that it is YOU that has got the company this far so thank you.

Check out the interview below where I ask Andrea all about GLJ and the past 7 years of success and lessons learned.

Kathleen: What motivated you to start GLJ?

Andrea: The short story - my personal experience with feeling really good by following a plant based diet rich in whole foods and fresh veggie juice combined with the knowledge I learned studying plant based nutrition, was what inspired me. I wanted to get as many people as I could on the healthy band wagon. That, combined with becoming an entrepreneur while living in Beijing, I knew that was my path moving forward.

The long story - In 2012 I was living in Brooklyn NY and had just given birth to my second son, Leroy. I was really getting into plant based nutrition and worked on getting my Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition through Cornell University and Dr. Colin Campbell. During that time, Gabe and I decided we were ready to move from NY to Nanaimo to raise our boys in my home town and started the process of figuring out what we were going to do when we landed.

I was in the process of selling my shares in my business in Beijing (a restaurant and bar) and wanted to use those funds to start a new business in Nanaimo. I had always wanted to do something in the health + wellness arena, but wasn’t quite sure what that would be right away.

I had really gotten into juicing. I especially loved making Gabe veggie juices in the morning after he’d been out DJ’d late the night before. (How our All U Need was born!)

I went back to teaching yoga soon after Leroy was born and a few of my students who knew I was studying nutrition and getting into juicing hired me to start making them green juices as well - pretty quickly I was making a lot of juice!

This got things percolating. I started doing market research on the cold pressed juice industry. It was promising. Then I started looking at what was happening for cold pressed juice in the Vancouver Island market. I was quick to realize at that time there were no cold pressed juice companies on Vancouver Island. Zero. I took that as a major sign.

I really was at the height of my new found love with plant based nutrition. It had transformed my energy, confidence and ability to listen to my body . . . I felt REALLY GOOD in my body. I felt like I had all this knowledge bursting out of me and was incredibly inspired to move home and share my love for healthy goodness with the island community.

Fun fact! All U Need was inspired from when Andrea used to make Gabe veggie juice the morning after DJing late the night before.

Kathleen: What challenges did you overcome as a small business overall, and/or a small business on Vancouver Island?

Andrea: Location. We chose to purchase a home that would be suitable to open a home based biz in the basement. That was challenge one. Really, we made a few missteps with locations over the years . . . I think Nanaimo is a particularly challenging town for business in that regards . . . it’s really spread out. We had unique challenges with our previous store fronts, and our tiny kitchen at our family home came with a plethora of challenges - veggie tetrus day in and day out. But thankfully, the current kitchen warehouse + shop feels like a location dream come true. (It just took a while)!

Increasing costs of produce and staff wages over the years means we constantly have to be innovative with ways to save money else where.

Shipping delays - especially on packaging and ESPECIALLY since COVID (and you know COVID brought on a host of other challenges along the way!)

The size of Nanaimo and the Vancouver Island market place has it’s limitations.

Customer’s wants + needs- When we launched in 2014 we came out with mostly veggie based juices . . . the island wasn’t quite ready for all that veg! We had to pivot quickly and introduce more fruitier juices - then work to keep reintroducing the veggie ones and now our 100% veggie juice is our best seller!

Order Quantities - For years, we weren’t able to order in quantities that allowed us to get ingredients, + packaging at lower costs. Making this business financially viable took a lot of growth.

Human resources: hiring your dream team, keeping your dream team, moving forward when one leaves . . . dealing with uncomfortable and challenging issues, covering staff when they are sick or away . . . there is always going to be challenges even with the best teams on the planet!

Figuring out how to make GLJ profits grow . . . sales grew year over year, but profits took me a lot longer to learn how to grow.

Balancing home life and business took many years to figure out!! This was by far the biggest challenge of running a business in the beginning. The early years were really hard on my mental health and balancing family life. Especially when the company was struggling. It’s a lot easier to find balance when your business is stable and running well. And a lot easier when it is not in your basement!

Figuring out how to differentiate my personal self worth from the business . Learning how to set boundaries with my customers and stand back from feeling that my sense of worth is attached to their perception or experience with the business is still a work in progress for me.

Kathleen: How have you maintained resiliency in your business as an owner/founder juggling all there is in a business?

Andrea: The support of my husband and partner in life Gabe. He is absolutely unbelievable. He goes with the flow and always has my back - constantly believing in me. I couldn’t do what I do without him. We truly are partners - in parenting, housework, cooking, running a biz - all of it.

My parents have also been incredibly supportive over the years.

My team. We have been so incredibly lucky to have hired some amazing humans along the way. Their contributions with ideas, energy, hard work, and good vibes has been a HUGE part of our resiliency. I can’t imagine having been on this journey or being where I am without them. They are everything.

Hard work and hustle.

Faith in what we are doing + making - I always believed in the why behind it all. Still, when I drink a juice I think to myself “wow, this is really damn delicious.” I am still amazed with how good I feel when I drink veggie juice and eat healthy whole foods. I will never stop being in the effects good food has on our bodies and our spirit.

Kathleen: What is your favourite part about running a business on Vancouver Island?

Andrea: The people. I love the people I get to work with, I love chatting with customers, meeting people in my community, and collaborating with other great business owners on the island.

Kathleen: What was a pivotal moment in the lifetime of GLJ that you knew you had 'made it'?

Andrea: The one that sticks out the most is when I signed the lease to our warehouse and moved the business out of my basement. I knew we had made it. (FYI that was year 5, I think.)

Kathleen: What are some of your favourite collaborations you’ve done over the last 7 years?

Andrea: Oooh - my very first one ever was with Kiyo Salon and Kiyomi Schulz - and that started what has now become one of my most cherished friendships . . . she had faith in me and loved our products from day one. I wrote an article on “Enzyme Power” for her salon newsletter and it felt like such a huge deal at the time.

We have also really enjoyed making ginger juice for Root Side Mixers - we met the owners when they first launched on the Island and were looking for a cold pressed juice company to press the ginger for their products. They are incredible to work with and the first of what we call our “manufacturing clients” so they hold an extra special place in our hearts

(I am such a sentimental cheeseball in case you haven’t noticed!)

Kathleen: What has been the best business advice you’ve been given, and who was it from?

Andrea: My great friend and business mentor Jade Grey - who I worked with in Beijing loved the book Good to Great by Jim Collins and we were constantly implementing it’s wisdom into our decision making with the restaurant.

There is one particular concept that has helped me the most:

First Who, Then What—get the right people on the bus. Basically it means to make sure I have the right people on the bus (aka our team) and then figure out where everyone will sit on the bus.

Think about who first and what second . . . ”When facing chaos and uncertainty, and you cannot possibly predict what's coming around the corner, your best "strategy" is to have a busload of people who can adapt to and perform brilliantly no matter what comes next. Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

Kathleen: How has GLJ grown over the last 7 years?

Andrea: We started as a husband and wife duo - making juice in our 150 sq ft commercial kitchen in the basement. We had 7 juices and 2 cleanses and did everything ourselves, trying to make as much juice as we could before our kids woke up (then 1 and 4 and half). We had a small counter top Norwalk juicer and our capacity for one juicing day was 225 bottles which required my parents to both come and help all day long.

We brought on more people slowly and made the kitchen bigger - expanding to about 300 sq ft. After a year in business we invested $50,000 to buy our commercial x 1 juicer and a delivery van. We started self delivering between Vic and Qualicum.

After 2.5-3 years of just operating out of the house we took on our first store front in the mall - it was successful as it helped us see how viable having a shop was . . .the location just wasn’t the perfect fit.

Year 4.5 ish (I am bad with dates) we took on the lease at the warehouse and our kitchen went from 350 sq feet to 1700 sq feet, with a couple hundred sq feet for storage and we moved our shop to be inside Modo Yoga.

And finally with COVID forcing us to close down the Modo shop we were forced to do everything under one roof. The best thing that could have ever happened!

And then, as fate would have it - a few months into COVID, the space next to our warehouse came up for rent. We busted down a wall, connected to 2 spaces, and renovated our dream office and store front. Now housing everything under one roof - about 2700 sq feet in total.

I love that some days I get to be in kitchen mode - and show up ready for a physically demanding day. Others I get dolled up and work from our beautiful office. All while having weekends off and getting home for my kids after school most days of the week. It feels really good.

Build your team by getting the right people on the bus. The people who believe in your vision and your mission. What they do day to day can evolve and change over time, but having the right people beside you makes all the difference. - Andrea Dershin, GLJ Founder.

Kathleen: What advice would you give someone who was thinking about starting their own business?

Andrea: First I have to say, I am so inspired by the young women I see - doing their thing in business these days. I am inspired by how they are getting out there and making a name for themselves by turning their passion into their business. And I think they have just as much to teach me as I do them. I think the younger generation is embracing authenticity and carving their own path in a really great way.

If I was to give them advice . . . it would be:

Build your team by getting the right people on the bus. The people who believe in your vision and your mission. What they do day to day can evolve and change over time, but have a tribe of people who support you.

Learn your numbers early - learn how to make a budget and follow a budget. Learn how to be patient and save up for things. Wait until you absolutely have to expand cause you are busting at the seams to expand.

Test the waters of a new idea or roll it out as a pilot program or in stages until you know you have a hit (before you invest in the packaging and marketing).

Figure out what makes the most financial sense for you to be using your time on, and balance that with all the things you LOVE doing. in your business, and the things you just gotta do (even if you don’t love em!)

Prioritize self care. Take care of yourself in every way you can. Layer on self care thick, and layer it on often. Eat wholesome nutritious foods most of the time, have fun and enjoy what you like for the rest. Drink water, get lots of sleep and plenty of exercise. Treat yourself right!

Put your Mental+ Spiritual Health at the top of the list! For me, that includes therapy, time with spiritual healers, physical healers, time with friends, laughing with my family . . .all that stuff! Finding a great therapist who can give you tools to help you work through stuff from your past, helps you get aligned in the present and deal with stress when it arises. Learning your triggers and how to get grounded when they come can be a total game changer. You are worthy of reaching your loftiest goals and your happiest most beautiful life. Keep putting you at the top of your list. It took me a lot of work to get where I am, but hot damn! The work is worth the reward of FEELING GOOD.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Much Love, Andrea