Meet Lisa Karandat & Alexa Monahan, Co-Founders, Good Juju Body & Home

Lisa Karandat and Alexa Monahan are Co-Founders of Good Juju Body & Home, a line of all natural and plastic-free everyday essentials. Having spent much of their careers having a direct impact on the health of Canadians, the pair came together with a mission to inspire, educate and empower people to make small, incremental changes to their daily routine — changing consumer behavior to make a measurable impact on the environment, while creating a more sustainable business model. 

My first job ever was…

Lisa:  Delivering newspapers.

Alexa: Cleaning grocery shelves.

I decided to be an entrepreneur because… 

Lisa:  I have always loved business and reached a point in my career where I was drawn to take all the experience I had accumulated and use it to make an impact in the way that I wanted vs executing someone else’s vision. 

Alexa:  Having worked for a family business my whole life, I was ready to create my own mark in the world.  I like the challenge of learning something new every day and creating something that reflects my values and passions. 

Our proudest accomplishment is… Creating a purpose driven company that has is already making a difference in tackling the biggest issues of our time.  The climate crisis and diversity and inclusion.  The climate crisis is the biggest existential threat to humanity, and we are really proud is doing something to tackle this. A portion of each and every dollar earned and spent at Good Juju goes to supporting the climate.  

Our boldest move to date was… Having the courage to start Good Juju!  After we left our past careers we could have taken the safe route to get another job in the same industry.  But we took the look leap and as hard as it is, we wouldn’t have it any other way.  Being a woman in business has opened some doors, but also closed others, and to have the courage to continue to persevere is a daily decision.  

We surprise people when I tell them… We don’t want to be called Boss Babes or Mompreneurs.  Words have power, we are business people and we find too often that women are defined by these labels which would never be applied to a man.  We find that these terms can minimize our contributions and separate us from male entrepreneurs in a diminishing way.  We want to be champions for women as leaders but to ultimately work to inspire ALL entrepreneurs regardless of how they identify.   

We knew it was time to launch our business when… We looked around and we uninspired by the lack of sustainably minded businesses who offer great products.  For most companies, being sustainable means purchasing carbon offsets, but the reality is that the way we do business needs to fundamentally change.  Carbon offsets are not nearly enough.  When we started Good juju we wanted to inspire consumers with a better way of doing things, but to also inspire businesses to do better.  

Our best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is… Get a partner if you can. It’s very hard to do this on your own, and to have someone to cry with, celebrate with, and keep you going is invaluable! Having said that, if you are going to get a partner, make sure you share the same fundamental values around business.  Compromises will have to be made, but if you trust your partner and know they share your values, you are more likely to bend if they feel more passionate about something than you do.  It also allows you to have another perspective on things that you may not have thought about.  

Our best advice from a mentor was… Being an entrepreneur is an endurance sport and you need to take care of yourself.  Work out, take care of your mind, eat well, and rest.  Each day is roller coaster, and you can easily ride the extreme wave of emotions going high to low within hours.  To stay centered is practice and a skill that you need to cultivate to manage the stress and enjoy running your business.  

When the going gets tough, I tell myself…

Lisa:  Call Alexa.

Alexa:  Call Lisa.

If we had an extra hour in the day, we would… Do something for me, walk, read, go into nature.  As an entrepreneur it is very hard to shut off, there is always work to do.  Those moments of self-care will have big returns.  You cannot pour into your business if you are empty.  

We stay inspired by… Other amazing companies and women founders.  One of the best things about starting Good Juju is the amount of women founders that reached out to network and help.  They are all doing such amazing things and keep us inspired to keep going with their success and keep us learning with the knowledge and sharing.   

The future excites us because… There is so much potential to do good in this world. We are trying to change consumers’ fundamental daily habits and the potential impact of that is huge!  Our goal is to remove 50 million plastic bottles from the waste stream by 2030. 

Our next step is… Focus on rapid growth.  We have proven our products and business model and now it’s time to scale.