Phoebe Yu and Kat Dey are the cofounders of ettitude, a sustainable lifestyle brand that uses CleanBamboo fabric to produce bedding, bath, and sleepwear. On this bonus episode of Reversing Climate Change, they join Ross to walk us through the process ettitude uses to turn bamboo into fabric, sharing the benefits of using bamboo as a raw material in terms of carbon capture and storage.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hey everyone, welcome to season two of Reversing Climate Change. We are doing that podcast thing now and launching a Patreon. You can find it at patreon.com slash nori podcast. There are various tiers with different types of goodies available. Do you want to receive a special newsletter digest of what nori knots are reading that week? Be a part of a nori book club, get special access to nori events. Go take a look at patreon.com slash nori podcast for what we’re offering. And in that spirit of being lean in that startup kind of way that, you know, we like to do, this list of goodies is subject to change and we’d very much like your feedback.
Is there something that you’d really like to see but it isn’t listed here? Honest feedback does a lot to help us shape what we offer to you. You can send an email to podcast. nori.com or fill out our podcast survey anonymously in our newsletter which you can find at nori.com slash subscribe. And thank you so much for listening to another season of Reversing Climate Change. Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. I am the co-founder and lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace.
Today I have with me Kat Day and Phoebe Yu, co-founders of Etitude. Thank you both so much for being on the show.
Kat Dey: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Ross Kenyon: Indeed, we’ve never had to deal with something quite like this. It’s a good thing, though, where we originally got into contact because one of your colleagues reached out wanting to advertise on the show. And I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how exactly to do this an ethical fashion and also not... I don’t know, impinge upon the quality of the show or how do I do ads? I don’t always like them when I’m listening to podcasts. I’ve been thinking about it. But I want to disclose that and also say this is not sponsored content.
So I just thought what Attitude is doing is cool and worthy of a show on its own merit. Although that is something that we are thinking about doing in the future. So that is a little public service announcement for you. But I think attitude is cool. I don’t know where to start with it. I think there’s a lot that you’re working on and it’s exciting and it caught my ear when it was pitched to me. So why don’t you, unless you’re, are you both just totally sick of giving this elevator speech?
This is just the bane of the entrepreneur, right? Or have you made peace with it?
Kat Dey: I think we love doing it. We love sharing it with people, as many people as possible, knowing that we have a positive mission here. Our goal is to share it as often as we can.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, great. So what exactly is Attitude and what inspired you to start it?
Phoebe Yu: Cool. It’s Phoebe here. I’m the founder and CEO of Attitude. Attitude is a sustainable lifestyle brand. We’re offering home essentials that are soft on your skin and gentle on the planet. We use our proprietary clean bamboo fabrics and our bedding, sleepwear, and bathroom. They are as soft as silk, as breathable as linen, but at the price of cotton. The idea of Attitude struck me while I was shopping for my new home back in Melbourne, Australia about six years ago. My dream bedding that is naturally luxurious, silky, soft, affordable, and made from sustainable fabric did not exist.
Well, I already saw there’s lots of sustainable innovation going on in the fashion industry. So I think that’s pretty cool. And so I noticed that there’s an opening to bring a more environment-friendly textile to the bedding industry. So that’s how Additive started.
Ross Kenyon: That’s great. We’ve been doing episodes about textiles and fabrics lately. It’s an industry that we all take for granted, I think, unless you’re, I suppose, in it or you’re really interested in fashion. I think it’s just one of these things that we assume shows up at our door, have no idea about the provenance of such items. But I’ve been enjoying some Attitude pillowcases. They’re very soft. They’re very silky. I like that little trilogy that you named. What was it again, Phoebe? It was soft as what? What was it?
Phoebe Yu: Soft as silk. So it’s like have that silky, soft, smooth feeling.
Ross Kenyon: And then what were the other two? Very breathable. Like linen?
Phoebe Yu: Linen is very breathable and bamboo fabric is also very breathable. But at the similar price as traditional cotton sheets, that means it’s very affordable. It’s not expensive as silk or linen sheets. They are quite expensive.
Ross Kenyon: You guys did a great job with that. That’s a great little tag. I love that. Easy way to wrap your head around it.
Phoebe Yu: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: So it’s made out of bamboo. Obviously, bamboo is hard. It is wooden or lignified. I’m not even sure what the technical term is for its composition. But how do you turn something like that into something that’s soft? I don’t have a background as an engineer or a scientist. How does this happen?
Phoebe Yu: Yeah, so bamboo is actually a grass. It’s not a tree. It’s not in the wood family. It’s actually a weed. So it grows very fast, make it very efficient, very sustainable plant. And then we’re using a very clean lifestyle technology. We dissolve the bamboo in organic solutions to get the pulp out of it. And the clean bamboo fabrication process is also we reuse the solution and reuse the water in the production. So also make it super sustainable and very clean and healthy. Then we get that raw fiber, which is a very super fine and strong fiber, a high quality fiber.
And then we turn that fiber into a yarn and then weave those yarn into the bamboo lifestyle fabric. So we really are there in every step of the production. So to make sure that it’s up to our standards, the quality, the sustainable practice. We also use OEKO certified and non-toxic dyes to dye our fabric. So really like every detail, we try to be the best we can.
Ross Kenyon: So I don’t know exactly how you acquire this and source these, but apparently, you’re buying bamboo from farmers that meet some sort of sustainability standard. And then you’re designing products and creating the materials and then turning them into an end-user consumer product. That’s where you fit into this industry?
Phoebe Yu: Yeah. Why I started it is that I think by setting up my own brand, then I can control What’s going into the product. In my former business, I was helping big companies like Walmart, Target Sourcing in China. That was early 2000s. Nobody really cared about sustainability or cared about just cheap. Then I moved to Australia and get really a lot of knowledge around sustainability, climate change. So I don’t think I don’t want to develop those products anymore. But the only way to control the product narrative is that to be that brand self and connect directly to end consumer.
So we can then tell the manufacturer to do the right thing.
Ross Kenyon: And how did you meet Kat? Where did you come into this process?
Kat Dey: I actually discovered Attitude on AngelList. A lot of entrepreneurs and startup folks would be familiar with that platform. Phoebe was actually still in Australia and I was based in New York. And we connected because Attitude was starting to see some organic sales happening in North America. People were discovering Attitude on social media and realizing that it is an amazing product and literally having it shipped from Australia and paying $40 for shipping. And Phoebe realized quickly that it would make sense to expand here in the US and in general globally. And it was very good timing for me as well because I had just sold my first company, which was also purpose-driven and was looking for the next big thing where I could make an impact.
And I joined shortly after that. And after that, we decided to do an incubator in New York. And two weeks later, Phoebe was on a plane to New York and we decided to Really focus on building the business here in the United States. And now we have our global headquarters based in Los Angeles, actually.
Ross Kenyon: And how bad was it in the last... Or I guess maybe a better way to say it is when did all this change where people started to focus more on things that they put close to their bodies being more natural or caring about the fabrics that they were using? Because organic food has been around for decades. But I suppose I don’t remember seeing a lot of this stuff in my youth. I’m 30, 32 now. I don’t remember seeing a lot of focus on organic products or more natural products at big box stores until recently.
In the last couple years, I think it’s everywhere. So is this just an industry-wide change that you’ve been seeing since... I guess that’s what you’re saying, Phoebe, is it used to be just about cheapness and it no longer is?
Phoebe Yu: I think definitely it’s a good trend. We’d love to see because the consumer... They are more and more aware of the climate change situation because it’s already start to reach a critical moments right now. Like early this year, Australia, the huge bushfire has also raised huge awareness for Australian people to realize that’s a true consequences of global warming and climate change. All these disasters coming up more and more frequently. I think the younger generation, They really kind of noticed that because it’s their future in danger, right? They will live longer.
So I definitely see the trend in consumers that they kind of more and more require brands and company to really put their acts together to develop products that are better for the earth and healthier. So it’s definitely starting to be more mainstream right now.
Kat Dey: But we definitely do see this trend where about a decade ago, consumers were really concerned about organic food. And that was just the beginning. And now we’re starting to see organic ingredients and more natural ingredients and beauty. So anything you put on your skin. And only recently, about probably two years ago, maybe less, people are starting to become more conscious about textiles, which are touching your skin because people are realizing, well, skin is actually your largest organ. And it can absorb a lot of chemicals and all sorts of potential toxins.
So you want to make sure that whatever is touching your skin is the cleanest it could possibly be. And especially bedding. You’re spending one-third of your life in contact with sheets. You want to make sure that they’re free of pesticides, OECOTEC certified, organic ideally, and processed in a way that doesn’t use toxic, harmful chemicals.
Ross Kenyon: It makes sense. I definitely feel that way when I’m shopping. I want to make sure I’m not getting something that is horrible. Granted, I have no benchmark of knowing which things are actually dangerous and which are not. But I am susceptible to the marketing and I at least like the idea of it. But also, I’m kind of a fool. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s what things I should actually be getting or avoiding.
Kat Dey: Yeah, that’s a problem because there are no strict regulations, especially in labeling. You might not know that cotton is one of the most polluting industries in the world. It’s using tonnes and tonnes of pesticides to grow. On top of that, it wastes a lot of water to grow as well. So it’s not very sustainable from that perspective. And the pesticides that are being sprayed also have ethical implications as people who are working on those fields are getting all sorts of health problems from inhaling the toxic chemicals. And then in the process of making other types of fabrics, you might be using Different harmful chemicals to actually create the fabric or toxic dyes that you might not be aware of.
So unless it’s organically certified or OECOTEC certified or has any other types of certifications, you really don’t know your exposure.
Ross Kenyon: All good points. How’s it going on the business front? How are things going? How many people are you working with? I don’t know how much you can reveal about the inside of your business. People like that. People like listening to podcasts like Startup. They want to know what’s actually happening. So yeah, what is happening?
Kat Dey: Yeah, we’ve grown a lot. We actually grew six times in the last two years. So we tripled last year and doubled the previous year, which has been really amazing to see. And the majority of that growth really came from United States, which is now 65% of our revenue when it was almost less than 10% before. And the Australian market continues to grow where we have very, very strong brand awareness and We have amazing partnerships with huge Australian brands like Qantas Airlines, for instance. So definitely have a lot of recognition in Australia.
But it’s been amazing to see U. S. consumers welcoming and spreading word about our brand and really embracing it.
Ross Kenyon: How important is it relatively to be in stores now? Are you trying to get those sorts of deals in place or are you totally content to do e-commerce?
Unknown speaker: Yeah.
Kat Dey: Well, we’re now in the middle of the coronavirus crisis and certainly, unfortunately, a lot of retail stores have to pause operations at the moment. So for us, it’s always been a direct-to-consumer model. We sell primarily online, although we’ve experimented with physical retail as well. We actually had our own store, a pop-up store in Los Angeles for six months on Abbott Kinney. And it was actually an amazing experience because as a digitally native brand, it’s always amazing to just see how people react to your product in the physical world and especially our product, which is so tactile.
You really need to touch it to understand how soft and breathable and really incredible it is to the touch. So that’s been really awesome to experience. And we also learned that, for instance, our other categories like sleepwear and bath towels do really well in retail where people are able to actually touch those and try them on. So for now, we’re paused on all of our retail opportunities temporarily, but we’d love to bring that back in the future.
Ross Kenyon: That’s cool. I can imagine this fitting in very well on Abbott Kidney, actually. I remember poking around there being like, this is a beautiful leather jacket. How much is it? Oh, that’s $3,500. I should not be in this store right now.
Kat Dey: Yeah. Well, luckily, ours is a lot more affordable. So that’s been great because people are able to kind of come in and just buy a set of sheets. Even without having an intent to purchase sheets at that moment. Or, you know, they pass by and they see our sleepwear and they, you know, really love the feel of it. But we did hear from existing customers that they would drive, you know, two hours out of their way to come visit our store just to interact with the brand. And that was really amazing to hear.
Ross Kenyon: Well, keep in mind, two hours out of their way, they were probably just like three miles away.
Kat Dey: Yeah, in Los Angeles traffic, certainly.
Ross Kenyon: That’s great. That is cool. I like that hybrid approach too where people like the pop-up stores. There are definitely brands that I like that I don’t mind buying from online because I trust them. I think what they’re doing is cool. But of course, if they have a pop-up store and I’m in the area, I definitely want to go see. And part of that is also like a fan culture thing. I want to interact with them sometimes. I think that’s a big part of what it means to buy things or be fans of brands in 2020.
I don’t know if you catch some of that on your end too.
Kat Dey: Definitely. Both as a consumer and as a brand, we definitely want to show that we’re human beings behind the company and that’s been really important to us. So when people come and interact with us physically in an actual physical space, we’re able to actually show that, hey, there are real people behind this company and we have very positive intentions for Being transparent and also for making a positive impact on the world with our product and with our supply chain and everything that touches the entire process of what we do. So I think that has been really helpful.
It’s also been really cool to have an opportunity for this extra education about materials. You can come in and we actually, you know, our store associates would tell you, you know, how things are made with, you know, actual props. Like here’s bamboo and everything, by the way, in the store was sustainably made. So we actually use bamboo for shelving. And then you could see kind of raw bamboo and how that turns into this sort of a, Fiber, kind of a soft fiber, looks like cotton ball, and then how that turns into thread, and then how that gets dyed, and then turned into our flagship fabric.
So I think that’s been really interesting to be able to do in a physical space.
Ross Kenyon: Maybe I missed this. I’m curious where the bamboo comes from. Where is it grown?
Phoebe Yu: Yeah, our bamboo mostly come from FSC certified organic bamboo farms in China. Because China is the country we have traditionally used bamboo as a material for thousands of years. And there is a fun fact of bamboo, I think your audience might be interested. It actually can rapidly sequester carbon in biomass and in soil. So it’s taking carbon out of the air faster than almost any other plant. And it thrives on inhospitable, degraded lands. So it’s also very useful for when People try to regrow, destroy the forest. They first grow bamboo to make the soil better before they then grow trees and because then also grow quicker.
So on average, bamboo can take sinking the carbon around two tonnes per acre per year. So it’s really a really amazing sustainable plant to have and also to use that to make into different products.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, bamboo is basically magic. Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Kat Dey: Oh, and so just to add to that, bamboo is listed as number 35 solution to climate change by Project Drawdown. They are basically doing this calculation of, you know, two tonnes of carbon per hectare. If we plant more bamboo in degraded lands, currently not being used for anything, really, we can save, I think they’re saying, eight to 21 gigatons of CO2. So that’s pretty amazing.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, absolutely it is. So okay, so you buy this bamboo from China, and then it’s shipped across the ocean to you, and then you’re doing all of this in Los Angeles? From there, everything happens in LA?
Phoebe Yu: No, most of our production all happen in China, close to on the East Coast of China, where there’s big textile companies that have the machine and technology to turn this organic wall bamboo into the fiber. There’s also a patent on that, which covered USA, Japan and China. So that’s exclusive to Attitude. So I spent four or five years on R&D with those manufacturers to commercialize that to turn into the final fabric that can suitable for using into bedding and towels and sleepwear.
Kat Dey: Yeah. So there’s another reason we do that is just to minimize shipping back and forth. So everything is done fairly closely together until the final product is ready to be distributed to the US or other markets.
Ross Kenyon: Got it. Okay. Understood. I don’t know if you’re going for that whole Dove Charney, American Apparel, everything in LA approach. It seems kind of expensive and difficult to do so.
Kat Dey: We’d love to eventually have some part of the production process locally. So that’s something we’re looking into, potentially the cut and sew part, which LA is well known to do fairly well. So we’re actually exploring that option too. But we do ship globally. So it’s, you know, it’s not just the US market that we’re serving.
Ross Kenyon: Got it. And what stage of the business are you at? Well, you’re bringing in revenue. You’ve clearly raised money in the past. Are you still fundraising? What are you trying to achieve next?
Kat Dey: Well, our goal is to continue to impact as many lives as possible with a high quality product that improves their lifestyle, their sleep, their health, as well as has a positive impact on the environment as compared to alternative solutions such as, you know, People might be sleeping on conventional cotton or even organic cotton, which is unfortunately not sustainable either. Although it is healthy because it doesn’t use pesticides, it is unfortunately not sustainable given the fact that it requires more water and more land to grow the same amount of cotton than conventional.
And it’s also really expensive, so not very sustainable for billions of people on the planet. And then other alternatives like polyester, unfortunately, is, you know, of course, fossil fuel derived, also not really great. And, you know, sheds and when you put it in a laundromat, you know, all of that microplastic ends up in our waterways and eventually we end up eating it as well. So also not a great solution. So we’re really, you know, our goal is to educate as many consumers about their alternatives and options and grow the company that way.
And so we’re hoping to double again this year. And it seems we’re on track, especially now that people are so conscious about climate change, health, and they’re also staying at home a lot more often and kind of thinking about how to improve their overall home lifestyle.
Ross Kenyon: Are your competitors some of those big box stores you mentioned earlier or just cheaper cotton products? Or I imagine... I don’t know. How crowded is the field that you’re operating within this sort of like bedding, loungewear, lifestyle brand sector? How fierce is it? Is there a lot of people out there like you who maybe they’re not making very soft bamboo fabrics? Maybe they’re making it out of... Some other weird material that I don’t even know about because I’m clearly not in the know. What’s going on in your space in general?
I imagine it’s probably quite active.
Kat Dey: Very active. Certainly, you know, big retailers are the main areas where people are shopping right now in terms of just overall kind of bedding home products. You know, most people will think Bed Bath & Beyond or even Ikea or, you know, West Elm or whatever, Home Goods, all of these places. And then on the more kind of higher quality spectrum, there are new direct-to-consumer brands as well offering fairly conventional products but with a new marketing spin. So usually it’s kind of the same products you might find in those retail stores with just like a slightly different story.
Unfortunately, a lot of them are made in the same factories, and we know which factories they’re made in, so it’s really not a differentiated product. In the bamboo space, there are actually other companies that sell bamboo sheets, but they are rayon or viscose technologies, which use toxic chemicals in the process, so it’s really not a sustainable or healthy product. Consumers really need to read what they’re buying. And the FTC actually requires brands that use bamboo fabrics to disclose that it’s bamboo viscose or bamboo rayon. So that should be clearly labeled on those brands.
Ross Kenyon: What is on the horizon for, I don’t know, are there parts of your production process that you’re looking to make even better, either aesthetically, experientially, ethically, sustainability-wise? What’s happening there? A lot of people talk about the circular economy in relation to And how exactly we’re going to recycle fabrics or companies might, there’s a process for dropping them off or returning them so they can be turned into new products and incentivizing consumers to participate in this production and this process in a circular kind of fashion. Is this something you’re looking at?
Is that, does one need to acquire a certain type of scale before that’s even possible? It sounds logistically complicated to me. How are you thinking about stuff like that?
Phoebe Yu: Yeah, we definitely will keep innovating on textile fabrics. So bamboo lights out is our signature fabric, but we have other innovative fabric that was in the making, already start prototyping. Our original plan was to launch this year, but now we might push to launch that early next year. As always, we will always use our sustainable material to make a new type of fabric that is also highly functional, like good for the skin, breathable, and very soft. So that’s always our core competitive advantage. And also we are revamping our packaging. So to also try to use packaging materials that also are more sustainable.
We’re already using our cutoff fabric. As our bedding, the bags that we store our bedding. So that’s kind of a recycle and reuse. We always think if you can recycle and reuse, it’s always better. And we are switching all our buttons. Our PJ used to be plastic. Now we are doing. Using a plant-based button. It’s a type of nut. So then we will change all that.
Ross Kenyon: Wait, your buttons are made out of nuts? Is that what you just said, Phoebe?
Phoebe Yu: Yeah. So it’s implementing right now. So it will be in the new batches. Yes, it’s from a nut. It’s kind of having the feeling... Touch and feel almost like ivory. So have that naturally a bit yellowish color, but it’s very strong. We did a lot of wash tests. So it’s pure plant-based. It will not be plastic anymore. And we’re also glad to see bigger manufacturer also was innovating. We use YKK zippers for some of our bags and products. And they are also releasing new products that are used recycled Plastic and even part of it are plug-based.
So we are also exploring that to switch our zippers to that. So I think the raw material and actually the packaging are the most impactful according to its carbon emission or their impact on the environment. The circular economy definitely is great for people especially to can reuse. And for the recycle part, we also explore this company called TerraCycle. They can recycle pretty much everything. So they’re already working with a lot of big brands that they will take back. The consumer can send to them. They will recycle on behalf of those brands because usually the brands don’t have the proper facility to do that.
So that’s the options for the final product when they finish their life cycle. But we also learn a lot from other sustainable brands, which already have a lot of experience in this field. What makes the most impact is actually on the raw material you’re using and the packaging. Using better material, so it’s just overall cut the whole emissions and its impact on the environment. To recycle it as a circular economy, that’s kind of more like last resort. Because you don’t want to encourage people to start with a bad product in the first place and say, oh, I can recycle it, then I’m duty-free.
No, it’s not. So it really has to start from a really well-designed, very sustainable-made product and its packaging. So that’s what we learned recently.
Kat Dey: But absolutely, in terms of reusing previous sheets that people have, or even their attitude sheets, we have lots of content on our website on what they can do with it. At the moment right now, it’s very topical, for instance, to make face masks to prevent the spread of COVID. So we do have tutorials on how to do that with your old sheets, for example. We also encourage for... Sheets that are no longer usable. You can’t use them as rags or something else. You can donate them to animal shelters. And that’s actually something that we do as well with some sheets that we get returned to us, which have been used in the past.
So we definitely find useful uses for the remaining stock.
Ross Kenyon: Cool. And that’s good to hear. I mean, given the origin of the company, I imagine this must be something that you think about quite frequently.
Kat Dey: Definitely. I mean, we try to cut waste everywhere. That’s something that we definitely spend a lot of attention on.
Ross Kenyon: Great. Well, if someone wanted to try these out, and by the way, thank you for sending me some pillowcases so I can make sure that they are soft enough for me to feature on the show. No, I really enjoyed the pillowcases. Is there anything else that you want to tell the audience about Etitude or where they can buy these products or learn more?
Kat Dey: Sure. You can go on attitude.com, which is spelled E-T-T-I-T-U-D-E.com, which stands for Eco Attitude. That’s the name of the brand. You can purchase all of our products there. If you live outside of the US or Canada, we also have attitude.com. au, which is our Australian website, which ships to a few Asia-Pacific countries as well as some European countries. So check it out there. We have a special discount code for you guys. It’s code Nori. I believe you get... 20% off for your purchase. So that’s pretty exciting. We’re really happy to offer that to your very conscious audience.
And also wanted to mention that we are proud members of 1% for the Planet Network, which means that 1% of all of our Bamboo Lyocell bedding sales are donated to environmental nonprofits. And actually, Earth Day is coming up, which is when we will be Making that 5%. So really excited to be able to support nonprofits that are fighting climate change.
Ross Kenyon: Cool. Thank you for that. Wow. Anori discount code. I think this is a first. So this is cool. This is an exciting milestone. And thanks for being willing to be the first to do so. So thank you both for your support, Phoebe and Kat.
Kat Dey: Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you.
Ross Kenyon: And there are links in the show notes to everything that we’ve talked about and links to Etitude itself if you’d like to purchase some loungewear, bedding, etc. Take a look and support the show and Etitude. And thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher. Tell your friends and thank you so much for listening. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it in Apple Podcasts and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience.
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