Meet Travis Thein

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Travis Thein. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Travis, so great to have you on the platform. There’s so much we want to ask you, but let’s start with the topic of self-care. Do you do anything for self-care and if so, do you think it’s had a meaningful impact on your effectiveness?

Staying active is the number one self-care priority that I don’t allow to waver much from week to week. This started when I was in the corporate world as a Director in Supply Chain at Target’s HQ in Minneapolis. I made the expectation clear that I would block my calendar with a recurring appointment from Noon-1:30pm to go to classes at the gym. At the end of the day, your mental and physical health is so much more important than any fire drill that may pop up at work on a given day. No matter what industry or role you’re in, there’s an unlimited amount of work you could always be doing if you let yourself get sucked in. The key for me to unlock the work/life balance I wanted was finding a way to set the expectation that I’m going to unplug when it generally worked for our team’s day-to-day, and stick to it. That way I never let myself skip a weekday workout to clear my head and de-stress.

Now that I’m running a startup, the mountain of incomplete work feels insurmountable. I’ve still held that same mindset of forcing myself to disconnect. It’s not at a set time now that my schedule is less predictable, but I’ve encouraged my other half at Sol Soils, Leah (COO), to run with it as well. We have both really enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of dropping our workouts on the calendar each day, and the other knows where we are and why we may not be responsive for the next hour or so.

I’m planning to add that as a formal Sol Soils company perk. Having a gym or Class Pass membership paid for and daily usage (any time of day that works for your own busy schedule) as an expectation you can hold me to and not ever feel judged for giving yourself that time to step away physically and mentally from the grind of startup life.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Along with millions of others across the country, COVID led me to find new hobbies with the increased time I started to spend at home. I had always been passionate about the environment and animals from the time I was a little kid growing up in Kansas City, but I decided I’d give plants a try. It started by converting my small, bland yard from struggling turf grass into pollinator-friendly landscapes with native wildflowers and other interesting perennials.

Once winter came, I expanded that growing interest in plants and started collecting fun, rare cacti that seemed pretty easy for beginners. While they were en route, I continued researching houseplants and what soil was best and realized this indoor plant soil category has always been sort of a disaster. What I realized quickly was that if you’re into houseplants, you know you can’t really buy soil off the shelf; you need to make it. Traditional potting mixes retain too much water and make it much harder than it needs to be to keep plants alive indoors, plus they bring fungus gnats with them. Early on, designing my own recipes felt unnecessarily stressful, but it became a point of personal fascination to the point of maybe a slight obsession. I would deeply research each potential soil ingredient and why I would or wouldn’t use it for my own experiments or particular plant varieties. I finally landed on the mixes that made my own plant care regimen SO EASY and forgiving of common mistakes.

Long story short, in the Summer of 2021 I started selling my mixes and created the houseplant care brand Sol Soils with a good friend of mine. It was scary having no formal background in the field of horticulture (talk about impostor syndrome!), but started slow. We would sell a few bags here and there on our website and at farmers markets. Retailers really graviatated to our brand and within 18 months we were in 500 stores across all 50 states. Three years in, we’re in about 1,500 stores and growing more quickly than ever. We are also continuing to release new product lines like plant foods, beneficial microbes, a repotting shock treatment (a totally new type of product for houseplant fans!), and are starting to get into useful hardgoods for houseplant care like uniquely useful repotting tools.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Never burn bridges if you’re able to avoid it. The relationships and networks of people I’ve built across different companies I’ve worked for over the years, or even just friends of friends, have been instrumental in helping me with things I know I don’t have the skills or experience for in building this business. Some of the least expected contacts I have leveraged have proven to be the most valuable. My highest paid, highest ranking ex-coworkers or friends–for example–are not where I’ve been able to close the biggest gaps.

You really do make your own luck. At the beginning, especially being so out of my own professional element moving into potting mixes and consumer packaged goods, I chalked a ton of wins up to luck. (I was in Finance, Store Ops, and Supply Chain at Target, so never interacted with the merchandising or product side of the biz.) But I kept hearing that saying over the years and we keep getting luckier and luckier. I think the relationship focus as mentioned above, and hard work over a sustained period of time can make so many different potential ideas come to life in a very natural, lucky seeming way.

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and do something different if you think the value is there. I ended up inadvertently becoming an expert in a very niche subject matter (indoor plant soil) just from internet research and home experiments over a couple of years. On paper I have no business being in the position that I am, but I’m now competing head to head with billion dollar brands for shelf space and we haven’t done any traditional marketing or raised any funding until a couple of months ago. We started by just putting enough to hit the minimum for having a business checking account remain open, and we bought a few materials with that, once we sold those bags we could buy materials for a few more, and it just grew that way from there. No GoFundMe, capital raise, or family money are required for a lot of different business ideas you might have!

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I’m always looking to partner with folks or other brands! As a startup, we can be highly flexible and make all sorts of different collaborations come to life if it makes sense for everyone. Just sending free product early on to big influencers in the plant community I had grown to respect led to starting an affiliate discount code/commission program which is really what got our brand started on socials. We partner with other brands all the time to help support each other or spread the word about other great, small, eco-friendly brands. It’s so much fun working with other passionate people in our niche.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://solsoils.com
• Instagram: @solsoils
• Facebook: @solsoils
• Linkedin: @solsoils
• Youtube: @solsoils
• Other: TikTok @solsoils

Image Credits

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