Joe Mimran (00:02): Hi, I'm Joe Mimran and welcome back to the Export Impact Podcast. Entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart. It takes courage, creativity, and perseverance to start a business and help it grow. But what if you also had to overcome barriers of gender, race, or immigration status? How can you navigate the challenges and opportunities of being a minority entrepreneur in Canada and beyond? That's what we're going to explore today with our guest, Nita Tandon. Nita is the founder and CEO of Dalcini Stainless, an award-winning brand that specializes in durable, chemical-free and eco-friendly ex. She's going to share her insights and perspectives with us about what it takes to make it as a Canadian entrepreneur.
I'd like to begin today's episode by acknowledging that we're recording from my office in Toronto, which is on the traditional unceded territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Metis people. We value taking this moment to deepen the appreciation of our Indigenous communities wherever we are, and to remind ourselves of our shared debt to Canada's First Peoples.
Welcome, Nita.
Nita Tandon (01:28): Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Joe Mimran (01:31): It's a real pleasure. And before I get started, it was very interesting to read that you’re actually from the pharmaceutical science field. I'm curious to know how you went from that to stainless-steel home products.
Nita Tandon (01:47): Well, it wasn't a logical step for sure. I didn't actually leave pharmaceutical to start becoming an entrepreneur. It was more, I left pharmaceutical, but when I left, was just at the time when BPA (Bisphenol A) was being banned around the world. And having access to all the medical journals, all the talk research, everything was talking about BPA and Canada banned it in baby bottles, but they didn't ban it in anything else. So, for me, when I ended up having my child, I knew I didn't want those chemicals around my daughter. It really became a necessity. I just thought if I know better, then I need to do better. And when I went looking for options, everything for kids has chemicals in it. I mean, how can we say that we really want to protect our kids, but we’re putting dyes, BPA, lead in kids' toys, in paints, all of these things. That was really my start. When I looked around, I couldn't find it, so I went back to my roots and said, “What if I created it?” In India, they used stainless steel a lot, so that was really my starting point. I mixed my ethnicity, my pharmaceutical science, and my practicality of being a mom all into one.
Joe Mimran (03:00): That's so interesting. I was going to ask why stainless steel? Because it's not the logical sort of next step. It wouldn't be stainless steel, it would be a PBA-free plastic of some sort or glass would be what you would normally go to because stainless steel—I had always equated it with more outdoor camping products. Was it India that really drove that thought process?
Nita Tandon (03:26): It was. India has used stainless steel for years. It’s eco-friendly. It’s chemical-free—all of that. It’s the durability why India used it. I mean they just didn't want to have to replace dishes on a regular basis. And in India, they also have dishes that are for the entire family. You didn’t separate kids’ dishes versus family dishes. Generally, when women get married, they would get a set of stainless-steel dishes and these are the ones that you would use your entire lifetime. And even when a child is born, they often give a stainless-steel cup and that's the baby cup that they keep for their lifetime. It really was this idea that I wanted something very clean. But Joe, it's interesting that you mention BPA-free. Again, it's the science that sort of rang true for me, which is there's a number of different bisphenols, which is the chemical class. And when they say, “BPA-free,” they generally replace it with another chemical. It's another bisphenol. So, products that are BPA-free aren’t actually safer, they're just BPA-free; all plastic is synthetic, it's made with different chemicals and many of the ones that say BPA-free have been replaced with BPS or BPS, still with bisphenols.
Joe Mimran (04:40): What products exactly do you have in your lineup? I mean, what do you do in terms of a drink bottle?
Nita Tandon (04:46): You can actually have a stainless-steel drink bottle.
Joe Mimran (04:49): Do you sell that? Is there a stainless-steel drink bottle for babies?
Nita Tandon (04:52): I have one, but there's a lot of rules about bringing a product to market for babies. There's a lot of approval that has a lot of cost and time involved. So, it's there, I just need to do a few other things before I can bring it to market.
Joe Mimran (05:06): I see. So, you're working on that as an item. That's interesting, too, that you went from, again, pharmaceutical science to developing products and designing products. How did you make that transition and what difficulties did you have in creating these new products?
Nita Tandon (05:24): I looked in my cupboard and I looked at products that I have of stainless steel. Now, the thing is most people are like shocked and they go, stainless steel is a metal. But generally, what are you eating with every night? I mean, you're generally eating with a stainless-steel fork and cutlery. We think it’s OK in certain areas of being safe, then suddenly when it comes to dishes, we think of it being different. And when we look at surgical tools, it's always stainless steel. When you look at milk and even alcohol, all of that, it's always manufacturing facilities are done with stainless steel. The reason is because it's naturally antibacterial. That was the start for me to say, “If it's the product that people use when you go to your dentist and you get your teeth cleaned, and it's the product that's used because it's so clean, why can't I use that same product to make dishes?” What I really wanted was also something that looked pretty. I didn't want it to have the feel of camping; camp ware and camping are generally done with aluminum and it's lightweight.
Joe Mimran (06:27): I thought it was stainless steel that went into camp ware. I didn't realize that it was aluminum, so that's also super interesting. But you know, to every genesis of a business—not every, but so many—is problem-solving. When we started Club Monaco, I was looking for a 100%-cotton plain white shirt that was properly cut back in 1984. Believe it or not, they didn't do 100% cotton. It wasn't easy to find and certainly at a good price from the cut that we were looking for. You're always looking to solve a problem and that's a genesis of a business. You started selling in Canada and then you decided you wanted to export into the U.S. Tell us about how that went. What were the different challenges you faced between selling in Canada versus the U.S.?
Nita Tandon (07:16): It was easier in the U.S. for me and the reason being is that California is already ahead of the curve when it comes to reducing plastic and understanding the chemicals in products. They already have legislation in place, so I didn't have to educate my customer on BPA, or some of these other chemicals, phthalates, all of that type of stuff. They found me very quickly. I figured out just by Googling how to get all of my codes ready and with an e-commerce business, you can actually export fairly quickly. There isn't a lot of logistics in place. I exported right from the get-go. And then in Canada, in 2015, people didn't really even understand the word sustainability. No one was talking about it. I had to spend a lot of time just on social media educating. When I first started the company, it was really when my daughter was taking naps that I would sit on the computer and figure if I had to speak to a friend, what would I tell them about this product? I knew nothing. I mean, social media isn’t my generation at all, but I just created accounts much later in life and just played around with it. It became very organic. I didn't have paid traffic or anything. That's just a very new thing for me, paid traffic. But it was really just talking to other moms about what was in products.
Joe Mimran (08:34): And so, you built a little bit of a community and got the word out there. It's interesting that the U.S. was easier than Canada because usually when you're shipping to the U.S., you've got cross-border issues and you've got all kinds of warehousing issues and sometimes, the quantities can be bigger, too, than in Canada, so that puts a financial strain on the business early on. It's interesting that you were able to get better traction in the U.S.
Nita Tandon (09:01): You know, it's interesting because I think a lot of times when people think of export, they really think on such a big scale. You're thinking of getting into big-box stores and volume and all of that. For me, export was selling one container to one family. Anything under $800, there's not a whole lot of logistics. There's no tariffs. There's nothing really. If I had UPS or Canada Post, they would even help me out and say, “This is what you need.” And as long as I had my HS (Harmonized System) code and after a couple of deliveries went through no issue, I just started sending more.
Joe Mimran (09:36): And now you're selling retail stores across the U.S.
Nita Tandon (09:39): I just got in Lowes USA and am very excited about that. I mean, they have 2,200 stores across the U.S. and so, the goal is to get into all 2,200 stores, but we're not there yet.
Joe Mimran (09:51): That would be quite a win. 2,200 stores selling your product. The name Dalcini, how did you come up with it?
Nita Tandon (09:58): The word dalcini—my husband is Italian, so we wanted sort of an Italian-looking name—actually means cinnamon. And the reason I wanted the company to be called cinnamon is because I wanted some reference to India, but I didn't want it to be an ethnic product. I looked at cinnamon, for example, because every household has cinnamon in it, but they don't think of it as an ethnic product. People just like it and it's used in so many different ways. That's what I wanted for stainless steel. I don't want people to bring it in their homes and say, “I have this ethnic product.” I just want you to have it in your home. My goal was that no one else would know what this word meant, but my goal was always to have stainless steel in the home and be in the home just the way cinnamon is.
Joe Mimran (10:45): It's an Italian product with an English definition from an Indian thought process.
Nita Tandon (10:54): Exactly.
Joe Mimran (10:56): That's fantastic and it works. Now, you know, I alluded to this when I introduced you today, and that is the challenges that a woman or a minority faces in business—a unique set of challenges for many fall in that category. What has been some of the challenges you've faced and can you sort of cite some specific examples?
Nita Tandon (11:20): The biggest challenge is getting financing. Generally, female-owned companies don't get the same kind of capital investment; less than 2% of BC funding goes towards women and even less, if you’re a visible minority. And so starting point, that was a challenge. Now for me, I had a long history with a particular bank and everyone was telling me, no bank is going to fund this. It's not going to happen. I actually had the opposite happen, which was I went into the bank, I wanted to separate my personal from my business and I didn't come in with a business plan or anything. It was just I was opening two separate accounts and the business account person said to me, “Well, would you like a little bit of a cash injection to start your business?” And that was a shock to me. I realized that my story isn't typical to a lot of women, but I think it's because I had good credit and they had seen a history of me paying my bills. They were able to look at that. I'd say to women or people, in general, is make sure you have good credit. I mean it's sort of the foundation to starting a business is people want to be able to trust you before they trust the business.
Joe Mimran (12:32): That's certainly good advice. I've never been to a bank where they automatically want to give you money unless you have money already in the bank. You must have had something there that would give them that kind of confidence. But you raise this issue of less than 2% of BC funding goes to women. I think hopefully there's enough attention to this issue that things are changing. I'm sure now that you're growing your business, you're having to find more funding, and as you do that, where are you finding support? What are the resources where you're going to get that support? And again, this could be a big help for female listeners.
