Happy Anniversary To Rapha
Celebrate with us using sale code RAPHABLOG to take 15% off through October 30th!
Friends, it’s been 3 years! So much has happened in three years…. it’s absolutely crazy! Here’s a little history:
We began our journey in 2018 when I (Karen) experimented making our very first batch of soap in August. We gave it away and got crazy feedback about how good it was. Did you know we started under a different name? We were Oasis Creations Farm for just a few months in the beginning…. I know awful, we like Rapha better.
2019 began and the work to begin was long and hard. I began my role as a single mom as we started our business, and Sarah worked next to me endlessly to get this business off the ground. We were so blessed to find two farmers markets, Plymouth and Maple Grove. In 2019 we sold 1,492 bars of soap. It wasn’t a lot, but it added income to the household. We started making our liquid goat milk soap in 2019, and we sold enough that by the end of the year I ordered a bottle sample from China. As the year wrapped up, I was negotiating an order of 4,000 soap bottles, and I first heard about covid and how it was affecting China. I did place that first order in December, and then waited until the Chinese were able to get back to work to fill my order.
Then 2020 happened. Covid hit the United States, and that impacted us in a few ways:
people started to realize the need to support local businesses
we started selling hand sanitizer - that’s a story in itself
there were shortages of products causing people to switch to buying from us
Eventually our bottles did get manufactured, and we waited wondering if they would ever arrive. I used up every last bottle in our supply filling hand sanitizer orders. I found a local supply for 99% alcohol, only to have the government mandate that it could only be sold to companies supplying the medical community. I then switched to Everclear which made our amazing hand sanitizer that we sell today.
We went through our supply of liquid soaps and emptied every single bottle so they could be refilled with hand sanitizer. It was a crazy time. You could not purchase a bottle stateside, and then all of a sudden we had 4,000 bottles show in our driveway! The timing was incredible. We started shipping hand sanitizer all over the US, and with each order we included a sample of our goat milk soap. This put our products into so many households that would not have otherwise found us.
By the end of 2020, we would have sold 5,475 bars of soap! That was a 75% increase from 2019! We’re talking about 21,900 ounces of soap which is approximately 1,300 pounds! That in pounds is the equivalent to the size of an average giraffe!!!
In 2020 we added shampoo bars, conditioner bars, deodorant, lip balm, ceramic coffee cups with our logo, gift sets and soy candles.
In 2020 we got into 14 new stores…. 3 Lakewinds Coop’s, The She Shed, Too Good to be Threw, Minnie and Paul, All Seasons Dry Cleaning, Maple Plain General Store, Smith and Trade, Mama’s Happy (2 locations), Linden Hills Coop, Longfellow Market and Muvado. Marketing to these stores took a lot of work, and eventually I had to make some changes so I wasn’t working quite so much. In the beginning I delivered many of our orders… so that had to stop. I eventually stopped marketing to stores, we were busy enough and we had to get a handle on our procedures before we grew any further. We wrapped up our 2nd year in business.
We added New Hope as our 3rd farmers market to our schedule in 2021. I have a few friends in New Hope because of the school my daughters went to when they were younger, so it was so fun to see those familiar faces. Sarah started running some of our events by herself, even doing two events at the same time!
We added a few more stores in 2021: You can find us in Southdale Mall at Founders Co, in Maple Grove we are now at Fox Fun. I then took a break from marketing and started the farmers market season. Then halfway through the year I received an email, and The Wedge placed their first order!!!
Back when I was brand new, a friend really wanted me to get some advice from a soap maker that had been around for years. This sweet lady gave me some valuable advice, and then told me she thought I should just go get a job as a secretary. She said that I wouldn’t make enough money, that it was just a hobby. But she did not discourage me. I think she made me work even harder…. because unlike her, I did not have a husband who was helping to support my family. I was alone, and failure was not an option. This business grew faster than it would have because we had bills to pay. God supplied every single need that we had, and then some.
We are so excited to see where God takes this in 2022!
