(upbeat music) - We continue talking to women business leaders, and we have Dawn Fitch in the house.

She is founder and CEO of Pooka Pure & Simple.

Dawn, great to have you with us.

- Thank you, Steve.

It's good to be here.

- All right, you got 30 seconds for the so-called elevator pitch, which is a dated expression, I know.

Pooka Pure & Simple is?

- Pooka Pure & Simple is a line of natural bath and body products that I started in my kitchen 23 years ago.

I like to say I started when I was two, but obviously I did not.

It's a line of natural bath and body products, but we're also moving into being a health and wellness brand for women.

- Why?

That's the what.

Now I wanna know the why.

- The why is I got sick.

I'm a graphic artist by trade.

I went to school for design.

I worked in the music industry.

I got off the train in Manhattan, had my theme music on in my head, and I went numb from the waist down while I was walking.

And it was the scariest experience ever.

It started a five-year journey of trying to figure out what was wrong, what's wrong with my health.

And doctors just kept sending me home, said, "Oh, you're healthy".

So you don't feel good, you hear that, you gotta make some changes.

So I changed my diet and I read an article about your skin.

It's the largest organ, what you put on is going into your system.

So I was like, I'm cleaning out the inside and outside.

I opened up my kitchen cabinet and I just started pulling things out there, olive oil, soybean oil, to put on my skin.

And I started to feel better just from cleansing everything.

So it really has become a mission for women, women and men, to put cleaner products on their skin.

- Why the name Pooka?

- My mom, when we were little called us the pookalitas.

We have no idea what that means or why she did, but we know it was a term of endearment.

And when I was making products, I had no plan of starting a business.

Just wanted to feel better.

But the graphic artist in me was like, all right, put a label on it, make it neat.

And I wanted to put Pookalita on it, but I just couldn't fit it.

Cut it in half, put Pooka on there.

So, it's named of love for my mom.

- Your mom would be proud.

You started in your home.

- Yes.

- Where is the business now?

- We have our own warehouse in Kearney.

The business has grown.

We're in 62 Whole Foods stores now.

We have a large e-commerce following.

We have some smaller wholesale accounts across the country.

And we built a community around our business, which is really, really important to me.

I was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, so everything I do with this business has a health focus that people don't even really know.

But I put special things in the products for healing 'cause it's stuff that I use.

- Could you describe some of the products?

- Sure.

We've got our biggest line is body butters, which are shea butter, which is great for skin elasticity, for aging skin and for dry skin.

But what makes ours different is I slip in ginger and turmeric essential oil into every body butter 'cause ginger and turmeric are great for inflammation, they're great for skin healing, but I'm a girly girl, so the products all smell good.

We have things like guava mango, island mimosa, but underneath it got some really good things working to keep your skin really super healthy.

- All right, I'm gonna let the girly girl thing go, 'cause I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think I know, but lemme try this.

As a student of entrepreneurism where we wouldn't be here doing this right now, because we're in a business, we're a not-for-profit that raises money all the time.

That's business.

I've often thought, Dawn, that being an entrepreneur, being your own boss, which is a euphemism for you better find a way to pay the bills, not just your own, but everybody on your team.

That's the way I look at it.

- Exactly.

- Do you believe that you are a born entrepreneur or somehow it just crept into your life?

- I think it crept into my life, but I do think I'm a born entrepreneur because I come from a family of entrepreneurs.

Like my dad, we had the T-shirt business when we were younger.

My sister and I had a flower business and babysitting.

So when I look at all the touchpoints in my life, I'm like, wow, I had a little business here, a little business there, and I think I got away from it, but I think it was gonna come around and get me again no matter what I did.

So I believe I'm a born entrepreneur and a situation happened and I just sort of stepped into it.

- Well, it's interesting being an entrepreneur now versus 10, 20, 30 years ago, e-commerce wasn't around then.

What has e-commerce meant to your business?

- Oh, my goodness.

When we started, there was no Facebook.

This was 23 years ago was.

(Steve laughing) I know, I feel like a fossil when I say that.

There was no Facebook.

- No, no, no, go ahead.

- But, so we had to do things very grassroots.

Everything was, we captured email addresses.

We didn't even really know what we were gonna do with them at that point, but we captured email addresses and it was parties at people's houses.

It was word of mouth.

It was buy some products, buy some ingredients, sell some stuff, buy some more.

It was very, very, even finding ingredients.

Now I can go to the internet and say, hey, I need beeswax.

Back then, I went to the white pages and tried to find the ingredient.

Sourcing ingredients was even harder.

So for me, just being able to see both sides, like, this is a dream world now.

I love this.

This is great.

- The other part about being an entrepreneur, I've often said my favorite four letter word that I would say on public broadcasting is grit, G-R-I-T.

Some of my team is tired of hearing it, but I don't know where anyone who is successful would be without it.

You have it.

Where's it come from?

- I think it comes from the passion part of the business.

Being diagnosed with MS, like there have been a lot of ups and downs.

So a big part of this business is education.

I was saying I had a bad MS day.

And I said, there's gotta be other women that are having the same thing, feeling bad.

So I went to Facebook, I grabbed 20 friends.

I said, look, we're gonna talk about just health and wellness and how to feel better.

And that group is now 6,000 women.

So they keep me going.

We keep each other going.

I think the grit comes from knowing that we're putting out a good product, but we're also building a community with like-minded people who wanna feel better.

- Before I let you go, you're part of this discussion, which this program is kicked off with Michele Siekerka, the CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

You were featured at the ninth annual New Jersey Women Business Leaders Forum that BIA business industry held.

Why was and is that forum so important?

- Just getting the message out to women, to young girls that we are here, just to see our faces and like I said, more for me young girls, let them see the powerful women are out there and the different things that they're doing and to share and build community.

After that forum, I mean, I have so many new, I wanna say new friends, but I also have new mentors, just new icons that I can look up to, people, resources that I can call.

So that forum is amazing.

It builds community for women and helps to build stronger businesses in New Jersey.

- That's Dawn Fitch, founder and CEO Pooka Pure & Simple.

You're terrific.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate it, Dawn.

- Thank You.

- See you again sometime in the future.

More success.

- Yes.

- Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by NJM Insurance Group.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

The North Ward Center.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Johnson & Johnson.

PNC Foundation.

The New Jersey Education Association.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

And by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

And by BestofNJ.com.

NJM Insurance Group has been serving New Jersey businesses for over a century.

As part of the Garden State, we help companies keep their vehicles on the road, employees on the job and projects on track, working to protect employees from illness and injury, to keep goods and services moving across the state.

We're proud to be part of New Jersey.

NJM, we've got New Jersey covered.