Foxy Box Founder Kyla Dufresne

Today on Found-Her, I sit down with Kyla Dufresne, founder and leader of Foxy Box Laser & Wax Bar, a Canadian franchise that has grown to 24 locations across the country. Kyla started Foxy Box in the dining room of her house, funding the business with bartending tips when no one would give her a loan, and turned that scrappy beginning into a nationally recognized brand. We talk about the early days of entrepreneurship, what it really takes to scale a service-based business into a franchise system, and the deep inner work required to build something that lasts. 

Kyla opens up about her first failed franchise, the lessons that forced her to rethink what it truly means to be a franchisor, and how surrounding yourself with the right advisors and community can change everything. If you’re building something big and learning as you go, this episode is a reminder that success isn’t about avoiding mistakes, it’s about growing through them. If this conversation resonates with you, head over to Instagram and share with me your biggest takeaways. 

Connect with Kyla:
Kyla’s Instagram
Foxy Box’s Instagram
Follow Kyla on LinkedIn
Website

Links:
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberleyhiebert
Door Gurus: https://doorgurusfranchise.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Found Her, the podcast for women who build empires, break barriers, and blaze trails all while finding themselves. These are bestie level conversations from behind the scenes. The real work, the messy middle, and the wins that last. I'm Kimberly Hebert, founder, franchise builder, wife, mom, and Grammy, and a woman who has done the inner work while building the outer winds. Here we talk business, identity, relationships, and the kind of growth that cracks you open, then puts you back together. Stronger, better. This is your space to rise as a founder and as your truest self. Let's dive in. Hey Bessies. Today we are in for another big treat. I have a wonderful guest here. I'm just gonna read her bio. Um, she's amazing. You guys are gonna be fully inspired. Kyla Dufreen is the founder and fearless leader of Foxy Box Laser and Wax Bars, a rapidly growing Canadian franchise on a mission to empower everyone to feel confident and energized in their body. Kyla started Foxy Box in the dining room of her house, funding the business with bartending tips when no one would give her a loan. Since then, she has scaled the brand to 24 locations across Canada, overcoming obstacles, navigating franchise failures, and learning firsthand how to systemize culture to build resilient, high-performing teams. A mompreneur herself, Kyla brings real-world insights into leadership, entrepreneurship, and balancing life and business, inspiring others to scale with soul. Under her guidance, Foxy Box has become a brand known not just for its services, but it's for its community impact, charitable initiatives, and commitment to sustainability. Welcome to the Found Her podcast, Kyla. I cannot wait to dive in with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, like I was saying uh before we press record, um, you've kind of I've kind of been in your orbit, you know, as a Canadian franchiser myself, um, new to the industry. I'm always looking for other Canadian franchisers, but really specifically more female founders to connect with. And our our orbits haven't fully collided until now. So I'm really excited for today.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

It's gonna be explosive. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Awesome. So, Kyla, the first, I kind of wanted to start off this. Give us a little bit about um starting Foxy Box. Maybe give us a little bit more uh context for your journey through entrepreneurship, how you've kind of grown as an individual and what those early scrappy years taught you.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

For sure. How far back do I go?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

How long have you been, how long have you been doing Foxy Box?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Foxy Box, I started 13 years ago now. So 13 years ago, the wax bar concept really wasn't around. I mean, in the US, there's like an OG that's been around for a long, long time, but in Canada, the concept wasn't um here. So I used to go see a lady out of her home spa for my waxes. And if I didn't pre-book every three weeks, it was pretty hard to get an appointment. She was kind of like a pen and paper kind of gal, didn't have online booking, to phone, leave a mess. It wasn't convenient. A little bit archaic. Exactly it. And so the only other options back then was a high-end spa where I would spend over$100 in a dimly lit room with someone who probably didn't want to be in there with me. Um, or the nail salon, which might not have had the best hygienic standards. So I saw the gap in the market for a fund affordable place to go get waxed. It just didn't exist. And so uh I was a bartender at the time. I used my bartending tips. I put myself through school. They showed me one Brazilian in class. I went, okay, there you go, and sent me on my way.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Okay, so you did become an aesthetician or licensed hair removal.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

I became they just offered like a waxing course. So it wasn't even a learn facials and nails, like, I'm not gonna do any of that. So they did uh just a waxing component for me. And then um, from there to get good at resilience, I used to watch. This is funny, I don't think I've shared this before. Actually, I used to watch the lady wax me like with a mirror and see wax her wax me. I'm like, I know how to do this. Okay, that looks like I could figure this out. And so um, with that, um, and the and my new certification, I would offer$20 resilience for people who would let me practice getting good at Brazilience on them. And I would give them a shot of tequila or whiskey to help them come and me feel like, okay, they're relaxed a little bit. So now, and um, I had set up um in the dining room of my house, I had four roommates at the time, and so I had this room, this um little dining room area off the kitchen. I put up a curtain and that was Foxy Box. Oh my gosh, how can you imagine? No, Kim, it's so funny. I said, you know, I I I said this the other day that I feel like people showed up at the house thinking that they had showed up at Fight Club, not at Foxy Box. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Here, take a shot, lay down, spread them, draw the curtain. That's exactly it. Because I had like I was Foxy Box. I had like, I was like, uh since the beginning, I knew I'm gonna do Brazilience, I'm gonna call it Foxy Box, I'm gonna franchise and take over the world. We could get it.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Oh, did you? Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

We can get into like all the mistakes and stuff if we want to later, but that was my mission. So I would give out business cards that said Foxy Box with my cell phone number on it, and then they would come to my house and they'd be like, What is this? And so it was me, it was my job to make them feel comfortable and confident enough to take their pants off in the dining room of my house with roommates walking about outside. And I did that by offering them a drink and then making them laugh and connecting with them. And I grew, I mean, I won, never had anyone turn and run away and go with no thank you, but I had them call and like call 10 of their friends and tell them what a weird and awesome experience, and you gotta go see Kyla. And that's how I built my business. So those early days were super fun for me. And and we took that kind of experience and all the things that I did then to try and incorporate that into our operating processes as we grew because it was me, I was Foxy Box. That was me. So, how do we take that and then systemize it so that we don't lose our culture? But that was um 13 years ago now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

I think um just what you just said, how Foxy Box was you, and how do you systemize that and not lose your culture? This is the at the heart of every uh business owner's desire to scale, but the the reason why they don't.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

That that fear of how do I how how do I transfer and translate that experience that only uh Kyla can deliver only in our case, only Darren, you know, we had we brought a professional in to help extract some information to gr get some like basics because he was so he such so it is all who he is that it's hard to extract. Because yeah, so tell me a little bit about how was that for you when you started to like how do I systemize me?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, because Kim, I I'm telling you, I can't even tell you how many people went, Oh, you can't franchise, people just come to you, people just come to you.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

I think that's really a common thought in the beauty space, though.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

And and you know, uh that was fuel for me to go watch me, you know, like that was that was fuel for me. I loved it. Like it was my boss at the time at the bar that I worked at. When you can't franchise, I don't know. Okay, I'll take that as a dare, you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

You're like, hold my beer.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

That's exactly it. Yeah. So, you know, that's the fear, and and you're exactly right. That's why people don't want to grow because they can see that even if you open a second location or even when you start hiring and training that first staff member, you see that, okay, it's not me anymore. I'm losing a bit of control, kind of every other person that I onboard into the system. You can see that, okay, it's not, it might not be the same. So, how do you do that? I'm curious to know how your process was and how you extracted that from your hubby. For me, again, yes, it was a very expensive retreat that I did. Um we had we had probably, I want to say I had maybe 10 staff at the time. And I knew we were cool, but I couldn't tell you why we were cool. And some staff I was kind of having problems with. I was like, well, they've got a big client list, but they're problematic for the for other employees. So anyhow, I um I went to a uh what's called a branding retreat, and it was here in the island in the new Spay. The company is called Leap Zone Strategies. I did this six years ago. It cost me about 30 grand six years ago. I have no idea how much it is today. And my experience consisted of a brand strategist who works with big brands like banks and um fast food restaurants, and like she's a branding special strategist, and her partner is an equine therapist. Oh super strange. And it was, and it was amazing. And the reason why she has a therapist there is because she worked with me to go, let's go back, let's go back a bit. What why did you start this business? So we did therapy sessions with horses, which is like the strangest and most humbling and cool experience. Uh, and I'm kind of scared of horses, so it was actually like cover cover covered a few things. Yeah, exactly. But anyhow, we dug deep onto why I started this business. And we went into my childhood and my father issues and going back and men and whatever. And what came out of that experience was I started this brand to make every woman feel powerful and energized in their body. That's my mission. That's why I started this company. Of course, it makes sense. I made started this female brand with all these uh, you know, females and young women that I wanted to create a safe and fun space for them to come to work and enjoy what they do and and and leave people feeling amazing in their skin, you know? Yeah. So once we did all that, then we came up with our our mission, our vision, our core values. How do we want our yet end user to leave feeling um all of these things we fleshed out? Once we had that, then we could bake those into our standard operating processes. Okay, here's a ton of sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Just just sorry to interrupt, but just going back to like the way the therapist, because I do I do a lot of executive coaching, I do a lot of coaching even just internally within my husband in him his process, because he's the subject matter expert in our in our franchise. And the the therapist part of having of being involved in a brand strategist meeting is to me, that's like mind-blowing. That is so smart because it is so connected from as a founder, it's so connected to something kind of visceral, it's something in you, and then being able to kind of connect with that, but also being able to then take that and frame it in something that's bigger than you, yeah, that helps with the scale because now it's like okay, so now you know what your mission was personally, and now you're like, okay, how do I take that and blow that up? It's not so much you've now connected it, yeah, with something bigger than just you.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

We took the Kyla entity and we turned that into an uh or an entity of its own and an experience of its own. And and we broke that down to make it easy so that we went, okay, what makes my service? Because listen, I'm like the queen of waxing too, same like your hubby. I was the best at Brazilians. I still probably self-proclaimed the best of Brazilians, you know, in a long time, but I wrote the book on it. And um, you know, if we could take that experience that was me and the why behind it, if you have a company and you don't have the why behind it, you're, you know, like what is the feeling that you're you're trying to re-replicate here? And so once we took that, we could break that down into tangibles to go now. Kyla's experience is the Foxy Box entity. And now, how do we create systems around that to protect that entity? And so put those into our hiring processes. We we made it really clear on who we wanted to align ourselves with, you know, like what's important to us, what are traits that we're like hell knows and what are hell knows.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So we made them made decision making super easy because before this retreat, Kim, I mean, like I said, I can be like, yeah, I know we're cool and my staff are cool, but like I don't know why. Now we're like, okay, here are the qualities that our staff have to have. Yeah. If you don't have any one of these qualities, you don't you are not a part of Foxy Box. That's boom, like that's how you can grow and scale. And it makes it easy for our franchise partners, you know, when when you're doing your trial ships and your interviews, here's how you test for these qualities.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Okay, that's yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Qualities, boom, you have your answer. And don't waste your time holding on to a staff member that you're like, well, she has these two qualities. Listen, you're gonna drag that person along. It's expensive to train, you're gonna have to replace them later. So really getting into follow the steps and the processes with all of these things that we fleshed out, and you can build an awesome team that's gonna stay with you.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

So, how has how has that because, like you said, going deep into the brand and like taking that making that big investment at that time and then it taking you on a journey? I'm saying thinking if you did some therapy uh during the brand strategy retreat, um, how did that shift you just as a human being?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

It's just provided a lot of clarity for me as a leader into um feeling confident in our brand and how to scale. So it it created a lot of confidence. Then I'm not second guessing myself or doubting or like, oh, should I make this decision? One of the things we did was uh make decision-making funnels. Like we ask ourselves if there's big decisions, what are what are some questions we can revert back to? Does it elevate the brand? Is it profitable? And one thing that's important to me is does it make us and other people feel good? So if we have a decision, we go back to these three questions. So it that experience uh you know really gave me confidence as a leader in in my decision making.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

On top of that, like for the like personal growth, I mean, that was just the start, Kim.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Like that was just part of the journey in developing and building and scaling Foxy Box, that has that that goes along with your own personal journey. Like you've had to kind of level up at the same time. This is what I try to tell everybody. Like the two just go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

It really do. Because one of the, oh my god, I've heard so many, so many um great quotes that I just could like throw out everywhere, which don't want to, you know, when you get to the top of one mountain, you're at the bottom of the next, or business ownership is like riding a lot, or you're on a roller coaster, or what have you. And one of the ones that always stuck with me, which I really appreciate, is that business doesn't get easier, you just get better at handling things. Yeah, and that's so true. I used to lose sleep. I used to cry on stuff if like a staff wanted to leave, or you know, like I'd just be like crying and sweating. Now I'm like, we've done this before. It gets, you know, things don't stop happening ever. We just get better at being calm through the storm.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, that's that's true. You get you start to get used to like these are that's part of what you do is um somebody asked me that one of our franchise uh candidates, like, what about staff? What about if they leave? What if I spend this time and then they leave? Yeah, those it happens. That I mean, we can, you know, try as hard as we can to be great employers and to, you know, create impactful employment, whatever that looks like, and you know, offer whatever we need to. But at the end of the day, this is just that's just a part of business. And, you know, I I think a lot of new business, we try to control all the externals so that you know the best light plans, right? So you can like put everything in a row and then you can then you don't wake up crying in the middle of the night, or you don't wake up with the you're like, oh, I got that, I got that all planned out, it'll be good. I can relax. And yeah, um, you you simply just you learn, yeah, that well, we've had no challenges before, and it won't sink as so. Speaking of challenges, then drop dead.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah, we didn't drop dead, we'll be okay. We can we got this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I mean, we had a we had a big one for us, right? In the beginning of franchising. So our franchise journey is a little bit different because we my husband had a door business that he built family generation, 50 years. It's the only thing he's ever done. Did it started it when he was 13? We had a couple other businesses that I had, like so in our family portfolio. But the main, you know, bread and butter and generational wealth driver for many families was the door business. And when we when he retired and sold his shares, he had a non-compete. And so when we we started into franchising in a very kind of weird way, I won't take up uh your time for that. But what ended up happening is um we had we developed a model that he was piloting, but we had to do it around this non-compete.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

And we went straight into franchising with this new brand because we had 50 years of business experience under a different brand, but we just kind of scaled it right into a mobile model and kind of you know uh built it. But it it presented a real challenge, and about two years in um and uh the other brand is our close family. In fact, one of my two of my children work there, my grandson works there, like it's a very close who bought it as an extended family member. Um, and they they sent us a C-Synthesist and they started coming after us and our assets, and you know, business aside, um it fractured our family big, big way, but also now we have a real legal problem and uh risk, and it almost shut us down. We almost like my husband was like, fuck it, that's it. Let's just sell everything, let's grab a RV, and we'll just fucking go travel Canada and US for the next 10 years. Like it was really it was a very personal attack, and it was very and so we've had those challenges, right? And at that time I had a really great coach who said this. He said this in the moment. He said, Let them take it. It's it's just a name. Yeah, it's just a name, it's just a brand. You guys are the one that holds all the magic. You can rebuild under a different name. And I was like, it was not it was not a thought in my head, right? At first, because it's like, and he just helped us kind of shift so so realizing that big challenges can come along to our business, and every now and then that when those big, big ones happen, when you feel like just like dropping it all, you know, having that somebody to speak into like a little bit of light or a little bit of different perspective shift and be like, oh wait. So, with all of that being said, what is the one moment for you that you had like a failure challenge moment that like at first may have brought you to your knees or felt like it and then kind of rising to the challenge?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

That you shared that story. Thank you so much. I had M chills, and it's so important for people to speak on this because as leaders and business owners, probably once a month I go, fuck it. You know, like that happens.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, like every every founder, every business owner, like shit happens and you're like, okay, is it worth it? And then it's all those other moments where you're like, okay, I love what I do. I get to, you know, this is this this is where I'm supposed to be. But yeah, that happens often. Um that I love that you had your uh there's a few pieces that I want to touch on. One, I love that you had your coach to be your grounding person in that moment. Um, it's so critical. Um, that that has helped me through so many things is I also have a network. I've built that. Um, and and you should, as a leader and a founder, surround yourself with people who can be that person in tough moments because they're gonna get you through and they're gonna normalize things and they're gonna go, I felt the same way, or hey, let's get through this together and put big picture um outside perspective on on your situation. So for me, I have I'm a part of this. We call ourselves the advanced group. There's 12 of us female franchisors. I'm the only Canadian.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And I know that's a thing, hey. You notice that?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Like yeah, I'm happy to put your name in there for for the group. Thanks. Um, but um, we're all emerging brands under 50 locations and we're we support each other. And so people can go, I'm going through this tough time, or I've got legal issues, or someone's trying to, you know, like, can anyone give me advice? Or I've got this question, or has anyone used this supplier, or I'm I got screwed on this deal, or whatever. Yeah, yeah. There for each other. We all jump in with our arms, like, hey, yeah, we're here for you. Um, the second thing that I did was I just put together a board of advisors, which is on top of that, even like a next level that's specific to my brand. Um, and so we're in a position, and as founding, uh, as emerging brands, we're not in positions to hire big C-suite salaries for a very long time. Uh, you know, especially where I'm bootstrapping it just like you, you know, I don't have not private equity backed. We're we're just you know using our own money to grow the so I put myself out there and put my face in front of all of these wonderful C-suite people with locations over a hundred locations, someone has sold for the multiple multiples millions. Um, a tech guy, money guy, and I've got this incredible board of advisors to help guide me through all these tough decisions that I'm like.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Oh, that's a really smart idea. That's scrappy.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

There's so many people that are retired or have extra time or just want to pay it forward. I do that. You would probably do that, Kim. I always mentor people underneath me because they mentored me. And so people want to help people, especially in the franchise industry. So putting that together was a game changer for me. Um, my come to my knees moment where I went, and then what got me through that? Um, my first franchise. I just was on stage speaking about this at a franchise conference. I sold my first franchise. Like I told you earlier, I said, I'm gonna start this, I'm gonna franchise, I'm gonna franchise, franchise. I didn't know what the fuck franchising actually meant. Like I didn't truly understand what franchising was. So when I first sold my first um franchise, it was to two of my top aestheticians. They said, We're ready, Kai. We want to be your first franchise.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

It makes sense, right? They know they're they're in the business, they see it.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Exactly it. And I thought, okay, this is how I'm gonna grow. I'm gonna run my Foxy boxes, and then other waxers are gonna start Foxy boxes, and we all just run their business, then they pay me money and I get rich. Like, truly, that's what I thought franchising was. This is what franchising is. My franchise coach said to me, Um uh, you know, so going back a little bit, we were running and and partners for about six months. There were so many things that went wrong. One, they were incredibly undercapitalized. Two, I sold a license agreement, not a franchise agreement.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So closed.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

We both didn't know what our roles were in this business relationship. I was still working in my business full time, taking customers. I had nothing systemized. I had like an operations manual I wrote on the fly.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

There you couldn't even use AI back then.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

AI back then, yeah, exactly. Um, so their build out, I didn't have a build-out guide, which is what we have today. So their store didn't look like a Foxy Box. Like there was just so many learning lessons in that experience. Yeah. But I put a pause on everything. I hired myself a franchise business coach. I stepped out of my business. I looked holistically and went, okay, my franchise business coach said to me, the moment you sell a franchise, you are no longer in the business of running Foxy Box Wax Bar. You are in the business of selling franchises and supporting those people in the success of their business. And that was my pivotal mind shift that I had to have because I didn't understand that. I thought, I'm just gonna run this and then other people will run their businesses and I can answer via email or text if they need something.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Like I learned, we systemized everything. I learned how to be a great franchise, how to be proactive in support, giving weekly KPIs, getting clear on their numbers, their unit economics, coaching them and being proactive and getting them to where they need to be to be successful in business. So that moment was was like critical in the shift for me. And then we separated with them. We we we did everything to um try and repair that relationship, but they just hated me. And so I went, my coach said to me, Kai, if you want to grow this franchise, you cannot have these guys as your only franchise partners. They're your validation. People are gonna call them.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

And if they're not gonna grow, it's gonna look terrible, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

So, you know, we put two offers in front of them. One is I'll buy back your store because they were profitable, they were a successful business. One, either we'll buy back your store, or two, you can keep your location and change your name. We just have to separate. Yeah, they chose they still operate in that market, and then we went back to market as a franchise system, more prepared than ever. And the the moment that my it shifted for me was the moment you get like a happy franchisee that's stoked to be a part of your system and is successful, you're like, okay, yeah, shit. Yeah, I should be. Because you doubt yourself so much in that time. Like, oh god, do I am I cut out for this? Do I know what I'm doing? And then you have amazing franchisees that join your system that are just like, oh yeah, this is and you're like, Yes, this is what it was about. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Wow, hey, so yeah, and I I I I would say, like, as a franchise or a newer like emerging brand, the biggest thing, even um our business coach, like the director of operations, he does the business coaching. We do weekly coaching with our our partners. Uh, you know, learning how the difference between owning their success and being responsible and kind of just working through those. I I think I think as we get more franchise partners moving through the in opera in operations, that becomes less and less. But the first, especially these first few, you're just so and even us, you know, I'm a little bit further removed. I do all the friend dev though. I do all the friend dev, I'm the CEO, like all that. Um, it is imperative to me that their experience is good because they are our validators, right? And then just trying to make sure though that we don't own their success is a little bit, is it takes a little bit, it's it's a little bit of a process you have to go through to learn to let go and be okay with somebody being unhappy.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Yes, yeah. It listen, I think it's so clear, and we started doing this like a little bit later on, but incorporating that into your discovery is that um, you know, making sure that they understand you're in charge of your success. I'm gonna give you all the tools, I'm gonna give you all the keys to the car, but you gotta drive. If you're not driving, it's just gonna sit there. I think the cons the misconception about franchising is that turnkey, I hear that all the time. Turnkey, just step into a business and it's successful. That doesn't matter if you start one from scratch and do your own thing or you buy a franchise. Both of them require work. You've got to put in the work. The the benefit of joining a franchise is that all of that back end is already built out for you. You don't have to build a website, standard operating processes, we're gonna train you on everything. You've got the brand power and marketing span behind you, you get coaching, um, support from a whole system. That's why you join a franchise. But that doesn't mean that it's easy. That doesn't mean that's open your doors and people flood through the doors. You got to put in the work.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah. And I often say, like, we're not McDonald's. Um and if we were McDonald's, uh, you wouldn't be capitalized for that. Number one. Number two, um, really, when you're owning and stepping into uh because I think typically that's what people think with franchising, like McDonald's level, right? Recognition, brand recognition, revenue. Um, but that's that is you're a logistical operational partner. Yeah. And so it's a little bit different than building a personalized brand within a the franchise brand, right? So it the uh kind of the boutique where we are now, because like you, we're not, we're not uh we're not a corporate brand.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

There's still a lot of um personality that we want emulated in the brand for the experience for the end user, the customer ultimately, right? And so um, yeah, anyway, it's just it's an interesting discussion because I see and you know, this is not our first rodeo, and I'm around uh entrepreneurs all day long, uh, thousands and thousands. The the first three years in any business, I don't care which one it is, you are balls to the walls. You're like you said earlier when we were off uh recording, you you know, talking about marketing. You have to be repping your brand and just marketing as it has to integrate with your life. So it's not a it's not a chore task, it's just the integration of what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Exactly right. Kim me um that you said that like the first three years of business. I say that every trade show that I go to, I say that. I say, look around here. We're surrounded by like every food concept and whatever. It doesn't matter what business you open here for the first two years. I say first two years, that's like you're this is like having a new baby. You're this is the hardest thing of your life. And then on the other side of that, you're like, oh, I can do it again, and then you get back in and you forget.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, you forget. That's why we oh my gosh, that's so funny. That's exactly what we thought when we started this business. We had had just enough break from selling the other businesses and kind of the retirement that we got into that, like, oh my gosh, so it'd be so nice to help others, you know, find the success that we did in this industry. And you know, you just have all these like honeymoon kind of feelings, and then you start it and you commit, and then we're like, oh my god, I forget that it wakes up all night long and it requires constant feeding.

unknown 29:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

That's how you end up with more kids, and then yeah, you forget. Um, so what is what is the thing for you today that gets you up and out of bed and charged up? You're 13 years in, you're scaled 24 locations, so you have a lot of um a lot of uh activity and a lot of you know uh partners. What is the thing that keeps you motivated and going today? And yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

I think it's funny because you said, what's the thing that gets you up and moving? And it's my two-year-old. So that's what gets me up and moving. That's for sure. Um but the thing that keeps me going is is our the impact that we're we're making, truly. Like seeing our sign launch in new communities, my heart just you could palpable see it beating through my chest because our franchisees who we align, we're very intentional with who we align ourselves with with our franchisees. And all of our franchisees are as dedicated to making a positive impact as we are. We always say we're not just a transaction for hair removal, we are a movement, uh, and we want to leave uh communities better than how we found them. So every year, I mean, uh it's important to us that that those values are aligned with our franchise partners. Like we don't want someone that just goes, I like the numbers, and we go, yeah, great. The numbers are great too, but we're more than that. And so every year on International Women's Day, we hold a fundraiser called Foxy Fest. This started, I mean, you know, the you know Lilith Fair, I'm sure. Like the I was inspired by Lilith Fair and went, man, that would be cool to have like a Foxy Box um um festival one day where we had all these female lineup performers and we just raised money and had like a Foxy foundation and like all this. Um, that's always been a goal of mine. So one year I meant like, fuck it, let's just start it. And I rented a venue in Victoria, we called it Foxy Fest. I had all these female local um musicians, dancers, spoken word poets, comedians who volunteer their time, come out and all the ticket proceeds from that event went to a local charity. Now that event is a part of our system. We hold that event in every single location that we're in across the board. If there's a new location that just opens, it's a heavy lift to throw an event. So if our local locations are in year one, we go, okay, hold a raffle in store to give back to a local charity then. Like you don't have to throw a big event.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Put on the big event. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

But many of our stores still put on this big event. Last year we raised over$25,000 for local charities. That is incredible. And um, you know, on top of that, uh, you we're we're also the only green circle certified hair removal franchise in North America. What that means is that 100% of our waste is kept out of landfill. Oh this program. So, like typically they're single-use items. We've got wax and stuff on them. This program takes all of our waste. They're a B Corp, so they have to buy the pound um to keep everything out of landfill. They put it all through a process which converts it into clean energy. And then the remnants from that process get put into things like paving roads and creating bike tires and all of these things. So, you know, the thing that gets me up out of bed is that I'm here to advocate for the beauty industry to do your part and take care of this GD planet because it's me, I'm one of them. Um, and it's mind-blowing to me that there's so many people that aren't doing their part or being green, having green initiatives. Last year, Foxy Box had 70,000 pounds of waste out of landfill and grown 20% over last year. So that number is going to grow even more year by year. We saw the amount of waste going into landfill and went, we gotta do something about this. This is wild. We can't just chuck garbage and in. Um, so those are the things that get me up out of bed is that you know, we're we're a part of our communities. We're not just like, come get your wax. We're we're really a part of our communities. We we we love to create um safe spaces for people to come and and enjoy what they're doing. You spend more time at work than you do at home. You might, you know, you might as well love what you do. And so to be create that environment for staff and for customers and and is that's what fuels me.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so one more question before we uh kind of have to wrap this great conversation up is what is your so this podcast really, and a lot of the listeners, we talk a lot about the messy middle. Um, and so if I were to ask you today, what what what would be a messy middle moment that's kind of recent and fresh for you that you could share uh to help? And really it's to give witness, it's not to expose anything, but it's really to give witness and testimony that it's not about perfection, right? It's it's not about you knowing all the things, it's about how you move through the messy part.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

So if you have something you'd love to share with the audience, my messy middle is like if listeners are just listening and I'll see my hands, my messy middle is right now list is this long. Um, it was a humbling moment putting together my first um, I had my first board meeting. And so the messy middle is like, okay, let's take a pause and set up. You think you kind of know everything, you're like, okay, we got this. And then you bring expert eyes on your brand and go, okay, we need to take a pause, take a moment, and set up infrastructure for scale. Everything that we do now, we need to look at, okay, how can we, how can we set this up to scale? Um, because we're just kind of as you grow, you just kind of piece things together. And everyone's wearing 10 hats, and we're like, okay, how do you do this role and this role? And now you do, and okay, now this person needs to take on this, or we have to separate that. So the messy middle is is kind of always, I think. I say this to my I said this to my franchisees that um I held um regional dinners where I had all my franchisees together in each province and and shared with them, uh, you know, we are a constantly evolving system. It's not that we don't have we have great systems, but we're always going, how can we improve and what's next? Because we're and figuring out how to get better as we grow. So, I mean, I'll share one of the things that, you know, we just tried to launch um a new model, which I thought would be very successful, and it's not been super successful. Um, and so it's it's not seeing the growth that we did. We we wanted to launch um what we called an express model, which is like one room uh inside um uh another business or on its own. And we thought, okay, okay, we can this will be a low cost entry for people, and we can, but I think the execution wasn't fully um wasn't fully, we didn't execute it properly. Um the trend wasn't there. So we're we're now wrapping our heads around okay, how do we take these and and make them launch? And and we've got to step in as as a franchise level to help get them off the ground because oh okay, yeah, because they've they've joined the I still think it's a really great model. It's just that I don't think we executed it um as efficiently as we should have. So yeah, there's things that like, yeah, the the fuck ups. I mean, I'll share more on that, Kim. Once we've had the I'll go on the stage and share that. Yeah, there's the messy middle was my failed franchise. I've rebranded and opened up a full salon. There's lots of messy middles, and it's constant. And it's just like um you do you know uh um oh my gosh, one of my favorite uh Cody Sanchez. Do you know Cody?

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, Cody Sanchez, yeah, no boring or boring businesses.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Yeah, so she says all the time, and you she's like, the reason I'm successful is because I move fast. You've got to you've got to do stuff, try shit, fail. And then by the time someone else has thought of the idea, I've already done it three times and fleshed it out, and that's why. And that's why I'm great.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

So that's that's a really great nugget. Like move fast, fail fast. Like get, and that's why I I'm kind of the same. I always say to my team, like I have a lot of unicorn on my team internally, um, and they have really high expect our high expectations. And I always say to them, listen, it's not that I don't have I do have high expectations, but we need what I call an MVP, the most viable product, whatever it is, whatever kind of, and we need to put it out and get some feedback before we spend too much time and then put it out. Like this is stuff that's not not people like buying in, not other partners, but like in different systems and processes, right? Different um products and things like that. And uh because they can get a little too like, oh, it's not just right. That takes too long. I need some feedback.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

It will never launch. You gotta try it. This express model is like, we just gotta try it. If you think about the logistics too much, you're never gonna launch it. Like, you just gotta trash it and go, okay, how do we tweak it? Now, how do we make it better? Now, how do we okay? Now we've got it. It's just a constant tree trial and error, truly.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Like, you've got yes, so are you guys moving to the US?

SPEAKER_00 38:21

We've been trying, Kim. So uh we've put a pause after my board meeting, we put a pause on Fran Dev for the moment. Not to say that we're not signing, we've got some in the pipeline that we still probably move forward with, but I pulled my ad spend off because what the consensus is is let's set up some more infrastructure, like streamlining distribution, number one. Um put everything on, make things easy for franchisees. Currently, we've got five suppliers that they need to order different things from. You need to have one website, be the become the distribution center, or flush out a product line, like to make our brand even better. There's something internally that we should flush out before we go, okay, let's launch our next um um franchise dev push. You're the first one um publicly that knows that we've got, hey, we're putting pause on on ad spend for fran dev at the moment because we're we've got something amazing and we just need to like let the brand.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

And I think that's what happens. I talked to some other founders in the US uh in mobile home services, and they did the same thing. They had a rapid growth, um, brought on like I and I'm not saying yours the rabbit, but they brought on a lot of units in a short period of time. And then they just put a they just put a stop on bringing on new units so that they could continue to now improve the infrastructure inside. Um, because I I agree, it doesn't matter where you're at, um, there's always uh some there's always a time. It's kind of like you rise up to this level and then you're like, okay, what can we secure and enhance and then move again and then move again, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Yeah, it to me it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

We got to 25 locations, and we've done this with um just us. And now all these beautiful brains, we're going, whoa, whoa, okay, let's just take a moment, make this even better, set up a foundation so that we can get to 50 locations. Once we get to 50, we'll do the same thing, probably. Okay, boom. What needs to change here? The what needs to so that you have the infrastructure set up and the foundation for that growth.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah. Kyla, I really appreciate all the uh magic and nuggets and and transparency, the vulnerability in sharing uh your story. I've loved getting to know you. Um, where can people find more of you? Where can they follow your founder's journey? Where can they follow your business? Where can I stalk you? I mean, follow you.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

I give myself the number and I can add us so you can stalk me, but uh, that'll be all fine. Um you can find us foxyboxwaxbar.com. Um, you can find us on Instagram, Foxyboxwaxbar. Uh you can follow me personally on LinkedIn, Kyla Dufray. And you can also follow me on Instagram if you want to see my beautiful baby and chickens and yes, we do.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

That's what yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

It's just Kyla underscore Foxybox. Uh and give us a follow, check us out. We're a hilarious brand. Like I like I laugh at our our social media all the time. I don't run it, and it just makes me giggle when I see it. So I love it.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

I'm that's the same with our brand. That's the we get the one thing we get the most feedback because we're doors, we're boring. It is so boring and not sexy. It's not Foxy Box, I can tell you that. And uh the feedback we get all the time from whether we're at franchise shows or from consumers, just scrolling, whatever, is how funny our media is. And we run a mockumentary once a month. So we film a mockumentary kind of like The Office, but it's called the Door Company, you know, and so there's just a lot of fun. So I I enjoy the standout uh brands and having fun. So I'll check that out. Thank you so much for your time today. Um, we really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Okay, when we came.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Found Her podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please, please, please leave me a review, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes, and more importantly, please share with your business bestie. You can join our newsletter, find me on Instagram, all the places. I would love to hear your feedback and connect with you during your journey of building your legacy.