Defying the Entrepreneurial Odds: Building an Emerging Sustainability Brand During the Pandemic with Stephanie Downs

Pivot! A Vegan Business Interview Series

Stephanie Downs has more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and spent over a decade advising fashion and automotive brands on animal alternatives. She also founded the largest plant-based meat company in India.

In this episode of Pivot, Stephanie Co-Founder and CEO of Uncaged joins us to share her story of founding a sustainability brand during the pandemic. Uncaged is a biomaterials company combining the power of nature and technology to reimagine leather.

Stephanie Stephanie and co-founder and CTO Dr. Xiaokun Wang spent two years in the lab working to find a way to replicate the characteristics of leather. After testing thousands of combinations, they developed Uncaged's proprietary bio-leather materials and launched a business in the midst of a pandemic.

Tune in to hear Stephanie and Dr. Wang's journey into vegan entrepreneurship and what it takes to get a sustainable brand off the ground.

Get to know Stephanie and Uncaged better here: https://www.uncagedinnovations.com/

Quote

There's never any harm in planning out the big picture and then breaking it down into chunks. I personally do it to make the big goal less overwhelming. So we take a big, one-year goal, and then break it down into quarters, and then break it up down into months.

— Stephanie Downs

Shownotes timestamps

🦊 [00:20]Taking animals out of products and still having cool things.
🤯 [03:36] Stephanie’s business history: from working with PETA, starting her plant meat business and going into leather-alternative space.
🍍 [06:23] Most vegan leathers are made of plastic: innovation in next-gen vegan leathers.
👗 [09:00] The demand for leather alternatives is vast and mostly comes from fashion brands.
🚘 [11:10] Collaborative relationship with smaller and huge brands: electric vehicle industry and creative processes.
👀 [13:28] Market penetration is different within automotive and fashion industries: startup needs to strategize where to focus the energy.
🎩 [16:08] Staying sharp in strategic mindset: breaking KPIs into monthly plans and additional tricks.
🎯 [18:40] Helping companies hear your voice and choice, plus voting with your dollars, are great approaches to getting more vegan products made.
✨ [20:22] Vegans are loyal customers: vegans love luxury too.
🐮 [22:58] The importance of educating consumers: leather is embalmed skin - how the products are made.
🥗 [25:54] Switching to vegan food is the hardest because food is an emotional thing, but people will start using other vegan products very easily.

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Thanks for listening to Pivot, our vegan business interview podcast. This is recorded as a live-streaming session, so I hope you’ll join us for future interviews as well! If you are feeling inspired but unsure of how to take actionable steps to improve your business, I invite you to explore our two premium paid podcasts, Going Solo and Fix It.