Global HQ... not quite

We wish this was global HQ for Ursa Major, but it isn't. Give us some time...

New York Times article re: toxins in the environment

Here are a few sobering excerpts from the most-emailed column on today's NYTimes.com regarding the possible serious health concerns resulting from a build-up of toxins in the environment, in part due to the widespread usage of these chemicals in personal care (Do Toxins Cause Autism?):

"Concern about toxins in the environment used to be a fringe view. But alarm has moved into the medical mainstream. Toxicologists, endocrinologists and oncologists seem to be the most concerned." ...

Senator Lautenberg says that under existing law, of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200. “Our children have become test subjects,” he noted.

One peer-reviewed study published this year in Environmental Health Perspectives gave a hint of the risks. Researchers measured the levels of suspect chemicals called phthalates in the urine of pregnant women. Among women with higher levels of certain phthalates (those commonly found in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes), their children years later were more likely to display disruptive behavior. ...

“There are diseases that are increasing in the population that we have no known cause for,” said Alan M. Goldberg, a professor of toxicology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. “Breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism are three examples. The potential is for these diseases to be on the rise because of chemicals in the environment.”

We've noticed an uptick in mainstream media coverage on the subject of toxins in the environment and we hope this serves as a catalyst for greater consumer awareness around the issue and ultimately improved public health. It also underscores the reason we started Ursa Major Natural Care LLC (aka, the Big Bear!) - to provide a spirited natural alternative to toxic, mainstream personal care.

Believe it or not, we're @ home working!

Local Severe Weather Alert for Stowe, VT

...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1 AM EST THURSDAY...  THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BURLINGTON CONTINUES THE WINTER STORM WARNING FOR SNOW ACROSS THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY AND NORTH CENTRAL VERMONT...UNTIL 1 AM EST THURSDAY.  * 10 TO 20 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED BY TONIGHT. LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN.  * SNOW...HEAVY AT TIMES WILL CONTINUE TODAY...AND TAPER OFF THIS EVENING. SOME RAIN MAY MIX IN WITH THE SNOW THIS AFTERNOON.  * HEAVY SNOWFALL WILL PRODUCE VERY POOR VISIBILITIES AND HAZARDOUS TRAVEL.  * THIS WILL BE A HEAVY WET SNOW...WHICH MAY CAUSE POWER OUTAGES AND DOWNED TREE LIMBS.  PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

This on top of 14" of heavy snow last night! Just in time for the Stowe Derby. Oh yeah...

Feels like we're the only people in town working today and I'm sure that's true! Not for long however...

Rugged Vermont-esque tie-ins

We had a fun email roll in today from an old friend. Here's an encouraging excerpt:

... read some of the blog (and more perused the pix)! LOVE IT, CONGRATS! I feel an immediate attraction to it and think the rugged VT-esque tie in is perfect to make male products seem maybe less metro?!?! i mean that as a compliment!! can't wait to test some...

Immediate attraction is good... so is the rugged VT-esque tie in. We'll take the compliments when we get'em.

Rather randomly, too, we encountered the fearsome bear you see up top today screened on a canvas bag put out by Rogues Gallery.

Something hirsute is in the air...

Testing the Big Bear's mettle on snow

 It feels great to be back in the Green Mountain State! Winter's still in full effect up here and we're making the most of it by trying our luck at both the Stowe Derby this coming weekend and also Peak Pitch next week at Bolton. While the Stowe Derby and Peak Pitch seem to have little in common aside from snow and skis, they're in fact both about survival! More gruesome details to follow here soon.

Take a good sniff

Our new essential oil blends arrived on Friday by UPS (love it when
that truck rolls in) and they're fantastic! Imagine taking in a deep
whiff of this sunny fruit bowl and you're getting close to what our
zingy face wash'll smell like...

Office away from home

The scene of all kinds of wheeling and dealing carried out (with good
effect!) on behalf of The Big Bear over the past few days... Thanks to
Mr. McClave for hosting.

Parking it for a few days in the city

Down in the city (that would be New York City) for a few days of scouting and meetings for the Big Bear. On the surface NYC can seem so unfriendly but in fact it's a very cheery place, even in the middle of a recession.

I chuckle every time I walk past this sign in the West Village, and almost always stop to take a quick photo. There's something so 'New York' about the style of the message... And the composition reminds me of a Rothko painting!

Ursa Major mentioned in Burlington Free Press

One of our informal advisers, Greg Strong of Spring Hill Solutions, wrote a column for the Burlington Free Press this weekend about the importance of harnessing "the power of business, markets and human resourcefulness to help address an increasingly urgent set of local and global challenges..." in which he mentioned Ursa Major as an example of a Vermont-based start-up that is trying to "to be a net-positive contributor to the environment, the economy and society at-large from the outset."

We knew something was coming and he gave us a heads up that the piece was going to print a day before it ran and we had a brief window to verify facts and suggest changes to the original draft, most of which were picked up in the print version (but not the online version). Here's the excerpt that talks about Ursa Major:

Ursa Major is trying to get it right from the beginning. This Stowe-based start-up is creating a new line of men’s personal care products —sunscreens, soaps, shaving creams, lotions — from the ground up.

The founders and sole employees, Oliver Sweatman and Emily Doyle, are working hard to develop products, design packaging, secure key strategic partners, raise capital, map supply chains and put it all together to create a livelihood for themselves, their families and their employees-to-be. In other words, everything you’d expect from a start-up — with one important twist: Oliver and Emily are designing their young company to be a net-positive contributor to the environment, the economy and society at-large from the outset.

This means grappling with big questions and setting real goals around things like waste production, climate impact, use of natural and organic ingredients, values-alignment with investors and making a tangible contribution their local economy and community — along with how best to measure success and progress toward their company’s goals.

I believe Ursa Major’s work to expand their awareness, commit to ‘doing the right thing’ from the outset and build lasting values into their DNA is the future of business. Traditionally dubbed sustainability, social responsibility or triple-bottom-line thinking, Ursa Major and enlightened organizations like it (including nonprofits, for-profits, institutions and municipalities) represent a new model — one that aims to harness the power of business, markets and human resourcefulness to help address an increasingly urgent set of local and global challenges including climate change, depleted resources, toxin build-up in the environment, expiring species, failing ecosystems, weakening economies, and social inequities.

We think it's a mistake for young brands to toot their horns too early and our strong preference is to do, and then speak to the media from the vantage point of having done something of value, but this one sorta fell into our lap so we'll take it. Thanks to Greg and the Burlington Free Press for the coverage. Now it's time to get back to work and make good on our intentions!

Our elusive branding effort

Not quite sure why, but we're channeling bears and mountains today. Might have something to do with our ongoing, elusive branding effort! Hoping to share more details here v. soon...

Refocusing on B Corp

We went into Burlington this morning to listen to Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the founders of B Lab, give a talk about what it means to become a 'certified B Corporation' at Vermont Venture Network's monthly breakfast series.

We've been studying the B Corp thing on and off since we started the company last summer but haven't taken the plunge yet, primarily because we've been so busy doing other stuff like making fantastic products and raising capital.

Anyway, Jay's talk was excellent and it served as a good reminder/prod that we need to get re-focused on B Corp and make a decision one way or another, so we're adding that to the 'To Do' list for this month.

We'll share key learnings here as we go. Meanwhile, if you have any insight on the pros/cons of becoming a B Corp, we would love to hear from you. Thanks!

Update on developing our natural scents

 

We're getting much more 'hands-on' with the development of our natural scent blends, as you can see from these photos.

Formulating natural scent blends which enhance the desired therapeutic benefits (healing properties) of a product as well as the olfactory experience (the way it smells), is NOT an easy thing to do.

Thankfully, after buying our own little library of single-note essential oils, reading some books, and consulting with scent-savvy friends like YOSH, we're getting a much better feel for it.

Of course we're trying to include as much organic content as possible but that's not always feasible given our cost constraints (we're doing the best we can to keep our retail prices accessible). Prices for organic oils are often 2-3x the non-organic equivalent.

In any event, pretty soon we'll have some 100% natural essential oil blends that will knock your socks off (in a good way)!

Stumptown Coffee Roaster business card

We promised you a look at the Stumptown Coffee Roasters business card.

Fellow Vermont entrepreneur out sampling

Ran into Paul from Vermont Cookie Love while checking out at City Market yesterday. He's a jovial fellow and it's always fun to see him out there sampling his goods. He's the most prolific sampler of anything I've seen anywhere - we literally bump into him everywhere we go.

First ran into Paul on Vermont's Le Tour De Farms this past summer (an epic experience, to be repeated in '10). He was, of course, sampling his fantastic cookies to swarms of ravenous cyclists at one of the farms along the route (the one with all the garlic cloves hanging from the roof).

Makes us want to finish up our products and branding and get out there into the market! There's nothing like evangelizing a product you truly believe in, and sampling is the most hands-on way to do it. If you see Paul around, be sure to stop and taste one of Vermont Cookie Love's special creations.

Sunny Saturday SPF sampling duty

Getting SPF 13+ samples out today to friends around town... We try to make a little extra effort when doing this kind of stuff because we think the recipients are more likely to engage - try the product and give us timely honest feedback - if they feel this is the beginning of something special, which of course it is!

Ursa Major brand mood board

We're pretty excited about the progress we've made recently on our 'brand ID system', which is really just a framework for translating our vision and strategy into written and visual language that hopefully resonates with our 'target market' (people who love the outdoors).

As part of this exercise, we've been pulling images from various sources over the past few months (see above). We've been using these 'mood-boards' to explore different packaging ideas for Ursa Major and we're hoping they serve as a good visual cue for our creative partner.

Is this about what you expected? Would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to email us any images (or links to images) you feel represent what Ursa Major is all about in your mind. Maybe we'll post some of your submissions here!

That's it for today. Well, almost - one more phone call and then we're off to the pub for another well-deserved Friday pint! Thanks for tuning in... Oh, btw, next and hopefully final prototypes are due from our R&D lab in two weeks. Let us know if you want to be in our tester group.

Never let a pompous CEO bring you down

We met with a pompous CEO a few weeks back and he derided our pitch and business plan. He did however give us a copy of a book he'd written as we left his office with our tails between our legs. Never one to leave a book unopened, we decided to take a look...

Guess what? This hotshot's book is a pedantic snoozer! I would rather read our investor pitch any day of the week than suffer through even one of his chapters. Anyway, determined to salvage something from the time invested reading his book, we pulled out the highlighter...

Early on (thankfully!) we came across this excerpt, where the CEO quotes a fellow named Thomas Berry. Now, excuse us, we've never heard of Thomas Berry, but we really like the sound of what he's written. Here's a taste:

"We cannot have well humans on a sick planet. We cannot have a viable human economy by devastating the Earth's economy. We cannot survive if the conditions of life itself are not protected. Not only our physical being, but our souls, our minds, imagination, and emotions depend on our immediate experience of the natural world. There is in the industrial process no poetry, no elevation or fulfillment of mind or emotions comparable to that experienced in the magnificence of the sea, the mountains, the sky, the stars at night, the flowers blooming in the meadows, the flights and song of the birds. As the natural world diminishes in its splendor, so human life diminishes in its fulfillment of both the physical and the spiritual aspects of our being. Not only is it the case with humans, but with every mode of being. The wellbeing of each member of the earth community is dependent on the wellbeing of the earth itself."

That's a photo of Thomas Berry, above. He looks and sounds like a good man, doesn't he? You can see it in the eyes!

Can you spot the buck?

 

 

 

We're working hard right now, making a big push on product development, branding, packaging, fragrance, etc. and gearing up for another round of fund-raising. No complaints - we appreciate a good day's work!

We do take breaks however - for meals (!), and to get outside. Some days there's not enough time for a x-c ski so we take a quick walk out back. It's a 30-minute loop, so you can do 1, 2 or 3 loops depending on how much energy/time you have.

About mid-way the dirt road cuts through a thick vein of evergreens (see above). Deer often cross in this spot, usually just before dusk. We always stop and check the tracks to see if we can spot the hoofs of a big buck!