Suzy Batiz
Founder and CEO of Poo-Pourri
You’ve heard of Poo-Pourri, right? The spray-before-you-go deodorizer? That stuff seriously works. We bought our first bottle not too long ago and there’s no going back to the aerosol variety! Suzy Batiz can thank the olfactory sensitivities of the population for her multi-million dollar success. It was at a family dinner where someone stunk up the bathroom (pretty sure we can all relate to that) which gave her the inspiration to explore Poo-Pourri.
Suzy’s life hasn’t been a cake-walk. In fact, as she describes it, her “life used to be a living hell. [she] experienced poverty, molestation, domestic violence, a suicide attempt, and bankruptcy, all before 30.” She has actually gone through bankruptcies with two failed businesses. With Poo-Pourri, however, she struck gold. Imagine going from not being able to feed your family so you had to rummage around the house and have a garage sale to being on Forbes list of richest self-made women? Suzy has grown her businesses to be worth over $500M without raising capital.
The secret this time around? Suzy believes her success with Poo-Pourri is due to creating a business that was alive within her, that she was passionate about. After her second bankruptcy, she committed only to doing things that made her happy. She didn’t want to take on investors because she didn’t want to lose her freedom. She credits her intuition with her success.
So how did she create Poo-Pourri… Well, from mixing essential oils and asking her household visitors to use them and poop… in her bathroom. I guess we all knew entrepreneurship wasn’t for the faint of heart (or any other organ, for that matter). She made her first million in revenue within her first year of launch. And the rest is history in the making.
Advice from Suzy to other aspiring female entrepreneurs:
Create a GREAT business or product, not a good one. There's enough good in the world, but when something is great, people will talk about it—and that’s the best marketing there is.
Think less; feel more. Use logic and data only to confirm what you already know is right in your gut.
Your business is a living, dynamic organism that you birthed. You can dream of what you want it to be when it grows up, but it will also tell you what it wants to be, similar to a child deciding what to be when they grow up. You will know what's best for it, so don't put much emphasis on external opinions and validation. Not one person thought my idea for Poo-Pourri was a good idea, and in fact, they all thought I was nuts—and here we are 13 years later and on the Forbes Richest Self-Made Women in America list!