711: Natasha Quit Her 9-To-5 In June - Her Drink Bottle Brand Now Does $15K/Month

Nathan Chan (0:01)

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Welcome to Little Empires, brought to you by the team at Foundr. At Foundr, our mission is to support the next generation of e-comm founders. So while you may know us for interviewing some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, this series is a little different. Little Empires shines a spotlight on the builders inside our own Foundr community. The entrepreneurs who are in the trenches taking action, learning and building their businesses in real time. These aren't overnight success stories. These are real journeys, real lessons and real founders creating their own little empires one step at a time. This podcast is proudly produced by the Foundr team to give our students a platform to share their experiences, wins, challenges, and honest realities of building a business from the ground up. Now, let's dive into today's episode.

Leah Fitch (1:54)

Welcome to the Foundr Little Empires Podcast. I'm your host, Leah Fitch. I'm here with Natasha Burger, the founder of Mode & Opal, dialing in from New Zealand with us today. Natasha, it's so good to have you here on the podcast.

Natasha Burger (2:08)

Hi, Leah. I'm so excited. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Leah Fitch (2:12)

Excellent. Well, tell us about Mode & Opal. Tell us about how it all started.

Natasha Burger (2:18)

So for me, Mode & Opal, I launched that late 2025

So I started it when I was on maternity leave. My second son at that time, he cried all the time. He cried until he was five months old. And then I was just thirsty all the time, essentially. So for me, I started Mode & Opal because I couldn't find a drink bottle that I really loved at that time and the difficult time in my life. And I basically was fed up. The one grew mold that it's a really well-known brand, and I couldn't drink from it anymore. I ended up drinking from a glass, and that's just not portable with kids around. So essentially, my founder story is very similar to other founders where they couldn't find a specific product that worked very well for them. And I remember talking to a friend, and she's also working nine to five. She's an accountant, so she's very much in the same life stage as me. She has two little kids. And I said to her, just on the passing bike, hey, I really think I need to find another drink bottle because nothing in the market is working for me at the moment. And I'm so frustrated with it. And I just kind of left that conversation with her. And then I would say like three or four weeks later, she came back and she's like, hey, like that drink bottle thing you mentioned, are you still doing it?

And that conversation really stuck with me because she was saying she was using one of those plastic pump bottles that she uses, and she keeps refilling it because she loves how much water one gives when she goes to spitting classes, that sort of thing. But she also didn't find a drink bottle that really worked for her. So I guess like that whole saga, like me struggling with a good drink bottle in my specific stage of life, and her coming back to me really made me think that, I think there's more of us out there, and that's kind of how Mode & Opal started.

Leah Fitch (4:03)

Okay. All right. So this is products that grew out of your own experience, which we see a lot in our Foundr community.

I'd love to learn a bit more about your background before this started. So did you have any experience in e-commerce, marketing, product development? Like tell us a bit about your background.