Personal care on the go usually hinges on one product – wipes. Cleansing, freshening up, a quick swipe can take you from sweaty to ready in a few seconds. Unfortunately, wipes aren’t the most eco-friendly part of our daily routine. About 90% of all wipes on the market are made entirely of non-recyclable plastic, and many contain harmful ingredients that are just as bad for you as they are for the planet. What to do? Turn to Busy Co., a personal care company focused on sustainable and healthy solutions for (unsurprisingly) busy people!

We talked to Busy’s Co-Founder and COO Jamie Steenbakkers about how she bootstrapped the company out of college and why transforming personal care is her chosen path.

“Just about everyone in my family is an entrepreneur.” – Jamie Steenbakkers

Jamie is a characteristically friendly Canadian, who grew up surrounded by business owners, including her grandparents, mom, and dad. Her father is in property development and owns a racetrack, where Jamie spent her formative years.

“I was the youngest woman in Ontario to be a racecar instructor and driver. At 16 years old I was an AC certified instructor, teaching 50-year-old men how to drive their Porsches properly. I think that's where I got a lot of my spirit - the experience at the racetrack.”

For college, Jamie was ready to venture to America to be in the heart of business and innovation. During undergrad at Babson, she took a foundation in entrepreneurship course where she met her co-founder, Michael, and started the company that would become Busy. They invented and produced a small run of a dry shave gel that made it easy for women to shave on the go (based on Jamie’s own needs), and their project took off!

“We developed a whole line of products around why all these women were buying the shave gel,” Jamie said. “It was because they were busy, they were running around and they were trying to balance a job and kids and school and sports and all these different things. So, we built a line around that woman. We had a dry shampoo, a dry conditioner, body wipes, and the dry shave gel.”

*COO and Co-founder, Jamie Steenbakkers.*

The Aha Moment

“We realized that our body wipes were our bestseller tenfold. Who cares about the shave gel? These body wipes are selling like hotcakes. We decided to double down on wipes.” – Jamie Steenbakkers

At the time named Busy Beauty, the company shifted its focus to the bestselling wipes and expanded into wipes for the face and body with various scents. Jamie and Michael pooled their own money and won several competitions to keep the business going. As their senior year approached they decided to turn the passion project into their post-grad job in 2018.

“We needed enough money to be able to support ourselves with salary, and get an office and be a real company, essentially, once we graduated,” Jamie said. “We raised $500,000 the summer that we graduated from local entrepreneurs. The first snowball we got was John Replogle - the CEO of Burt's Bees and Seventh Generation. He was just a huge inspiration for us and introduced us to a lot of the other investors in that round.”

Today Busy Co., which officially launched in 2020, is a line of zero-waste wipes giving women the freedom to freshen up in five minutes with face, hand, sanitizing, deodorant, feminine, and (best-seller) body wipes. Busy goes above and beyond recyclable, using upcycled cotton fabric for most of their wipes.

“Not only are our wipes biodegradable, but we're also not actually creating anything. We're just taking waste and we're repurposing it, Jamie said. “And the biggest thing about our wipes is that they're unbleached, so they are a lot healthier. As an entrepreneur, I want to feel good about what I'm doing. I don't want to just sell you fast products that get you ready fast.”

Marketing Highlights

After years of incubating Busy, Jamie has a strong grasp on her customer base - who she considers solution seekers and beauty enthusiasts. For the beauty enthusiasts, Busy offers much more than a quick refresh. They’re a wipe and serum in one, formulated with hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, retinol, and squalene oil.

Busy has grown through strong retail distribution and standout partnerships, including Smile Makers to hit the sexual wellness trend and a hard-to-get airline partnership with JetBlue.

“We find that doing as many partnerships as we can do is really fruitful. With JetBlue, things like that, you're not making a ton of money off these deals by sending a hundred thousand wipes, but it's amazing exposure. We have people to chat to us all the time, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I saw your wipes on JetBlue. How did you do that?’,'' Jamie said.

Jamie has transformed her business multiple times since its inception and is ready to propel Busy to heights that set a new standard for self-care.

“One of the most challenging things we did was going from shave gel to a suite of products and then going from a suite of products to just wipes. So much thought goes into each of those transitions.” Jamie said. “Now we're going into our Series A, which is really exciting.”

The Advice

Jamie turned her college course idea into a full-fledged beauty company. We’re listening! Her advice for launching your own company is below:

You have to start somewhere. Don’t spend too much time perfecting your first product - launch with an MVP and follow the clues to take you where you’re meant to go.
On that note, be flexible! Be able to pivot and move your business plan in whatever direction you get pulled in.
For those in the beauty space, join the Cosmetic Executive Women's organization for professional development.

Ready for good for you, good for the planet, and time saving self-care? Check out Busy wipes.

Photo courtesy of Busy.

Written by Kendall Embs.