Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathan & Paula Murdock
Hi Nathan & Paula, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Invuria is a mom-and-pop business that creates premium baby care products, the owners and founders are Nathan and Paula Murdock.
Nathan was born in Utah but raised primarily in the Midwest before coming back to Utah after college for work. Paula is from Brazil, she was born in Rio de Janeiro but raised primarily in Campina Grande in the northeast of Brazil before moving back to Rio after college for work. She always wanted to explore the USA and obtained a tourist visa with the plans to go back to Brazil after six months and apply to be a flight attendant as she had completed flight attendant school.
Those plans completely changed when she met Nathan while living in Utah. They met online four and a half years ago and got married seven months after their first date. Sometimes dating apps do work 🙂
Three years ago, after a long and difficult labor spanning a couple of days, they welcomed our first child, a healthy baby boy.
However, the day after the baby was born, a hospital worker from the billing department politely explained to Nathan and Paula that their health insurance plan on file was canceled.
This came as a huge shock and bewilderment as the health insurance was used without issues for pre-natal checkups.
After contacting his CEO at the small agency he worked for, Nathan discovered that the plan was indeed canceled.
The CEO (who shall remain nameless as he does not deserve any press, good or bad), who had originally started the agency, expressed his frustration as he claimed to no know that health insurance plans were canceled.
A few days later, after doing some research, the CEO contacted Nathan, and according to him, his investment/business partner (who also shall remain nameless) was at fault.
He further explained that a few months before Nathan and Paula’s baby arrived, however, the two men decided to end their business partnership. Sometime afterward between then and the time of the birth, the business partner severed all company health insurance plans, including his own, so he could go get a new insurance plan on his own without it being tied to the agency.
The CEO had his plan already not tied to the agency’s plans so he was not affected, only Nathan and Paula and a handful of other employees were affected.
However, the partner did not notify anyone, including the CEO, of the health insurance plan’s cancellation.
The CEO to his credit made an initial attempt over the next few weeks at remedying the situation via contacting the insurance company (who also shall remain nameless) and offering to repay the premiums. He verbally told Nathan if that didn’t work then he would pay the medical bills, which now had totaled to over $15k, and get him and his family on a new plan.
However, that request fell on deaf ears to the insurance company.
During the following days and weeks however, instead of fulfilling his promise, the CEO became more and more distant, even for strictly work-related matters.
After a few months, feeling rather betrayed, Nathan was forced to purchase his own insurance plan out of pocket and began searching for another job entirely. Thankfully, he was able to do so in a few weeks after searching.
The amazing doctors and nurses at the hospital however still needed to be paid.
Nathan decided to try a the legal route and contacted the Department of Labor, but they flatly told Nathan that they could not help them since they could only help reclaim health insurance if he still worked for the agency that cut his coverage.
Pivoting strategies, Nathan began exploring options with a law firm. After explaining the situation with his lawyers, they made attempts to contact the CEO.
After multiple attempts over a few months, the CEO finally responded via email claiming he would take care of Nathan and his family. He also acknowledged that this situation wasn’t Nathan’s fault at all and was just caught up in his and his ex-partner’s business split. However, he did try to somewhat divert responsibility by saying it was the insurance company’s fault for canceling their plan, not his or his former partner’s.
He offered to speak with Nathan’s lawyers to come to a resolution, but that conversation never happened.
The email was the last contact received from the CEO.
To top it all off, in addition to having his insurance canceled without his knowledge and having to pay for new insurance out of pocket for a few months, Nathan also didn’t get paid for his last two weeks of working at the agency.
For the unpaid wages, he filed a formal complaint with the state of Utah Department of Labor, they ruled in Nathan’s favor, and sent letters informing the rule to both the CEO and the ex-agency partner.
The CEO simply ignored the ruling and no response was received, but the business partner responded rather defensively by claiming only the CEO should pay Nathan his wages since it was the CEO’s agency and only the CEO was in charge of payroll. That claim was denied, but Nathan is still waiting for his unpaid wages.
Circling back to the hospital bills, the lawyers advised Nathan and Paula that since the CEO went back on his word and was now ignoring them, the only next step legally would be a lawsuit, to sue the CEO and the former partner.
However, they warned that it would be expensive, and further counseled that although the $15k amount was a level where it hurt Nathan and Paula, it may or may not be worth a lawsuit given that it might cost at least $15k in legal fees anyway.
Nathan and Paula were distraught by this whole experience as you can imagine, frustrated with what they felt was an unfair and incompetent legal system where it seemed only if you have lots of money can one afford to defend themselves.
Despite this, however, Nathan had a good new job (and new health insurance from the new employer) and the joy they felt and the bonds they created from raising their new son overpowered a lot of the negative feelings they were experiencing.
It also so happened though that Nathan had begun saving and investing as much as he could before these events, which had enabled him to become a real estate landlord shortly before these events took place. This income helped with the medical expenses and allowed Paula to be a full-time stay-at-home mom for the time being.
After all this had transpired, Paula one day explained to Nathan that she wanted to start a side project: an online business!
Although being a stay-at-home mom, Paula felt that she should try to contribute financially in any way she could to her family. She convinced Nathan that they could hold off on pursuing more in legal fees (although they would revisit that option later) and invest into a business and a product they could create and sell on their own.
As to what they should sell, she knew the perfect product: baby cologne.
Now, baby cologne is not a popular product for an American parent to use on their baby, it’s a safe guess that most American parents don’t even know that baby cologne exists.
However, in Brazilian culture, baby cologne is a staple baby care product right alongside diaper rash, lotion, baby shampoo, diapers, wipes, etc.
Brazilians have a strong culture of hygiene and doing whatever is necessary to look, smell, and feel as fresh as possible, especially in the hot and humid weather. Plus, pleasant aromas and scents can create uplifting moods and can be tied to positive memories when associated with happy, bonding experiences.
Shortly thereafter, Paula happened to receive a bottle of baby cologne from a popular Brazilian brand from one of her friends who had just got back from visiting Brazil, and once Nathan smelled it, he was convinced!
“Why isn’t this a popular baby product here in America?” Nathan asked himself. After all, several hygiene-related products used on babies are also used by adults – skin lotions, shampoos, soaps, etc.
After more discussion over the next few days, the two of them felt confident enough that he and Paula could make their own “Americanized” version of baby cologne.
After purchasing a few courses and pulling from Nathan’s marketing and business experience, they began the process of building the brand and business.
They created the name, “Invuria” which to them felt it sounded like a brand name which is caring, nurturing, and premium/high quality.
They also want to include the Brazilian influence in the brand, making it a true “Brazilian-American” baby care brand.
This influence is reflected in the first cologne’s name, “Afeto” which means “affection” in Portuguese, and the mascot for Afeto is a monkey named, “Kai’i” which means “monkey” in the Tupi-Guarani language, which was the primary native tribe at the time when the Portuguese began colonizing what is now Brazil.
Over the next year, Nathan and Paula worked slowly but cautiously, Nathan balancing his work and Paula balancing her new duties as a stay-at-home mom. They spent many hours crafting what they wanted their brand to envision and their mission, and they hired both American and Brazilian freelancers to help bring their brand vision to life.
Pro-tip for other new entrepreneurs: use business credit cards with 0% interest for the first 12-15 months to fund your business. It reduces risk, as does following the steps others have done to be successful in whatever business you are starting, which can increase the chances of getting those cards paid back later.
After getting branding in place, they decided they would outsource the production of the cologne which would be much easier from a logistical and regulatory perspective. Through one of the courses they purchased, they were able to find a manufacturer in South Carolina, USA.
After an initial call and describing how they wanted the cologne scent, this manufacturer provided 5-6 samples of cologne that Nathan and Paula could choose from. After receiving them, they decided on one and informed the manufacturer.
Before the manufacturer could begin, however, empty bottles of cologne were needed. They then worked with a manufacturer in China to design and obtain the boxes and bottles for the baby cologne. After receiving the beautiful bottle and box samples, they ordered the first batch.
A few months later, Nathan and Paula received a small portion of the empty boxes and bottles and the remainder went to the cologne manufacturer. They told the manufacturer to go ahead and produce the first run of cologne, which was about $2,500. They then asked the manufacturer for a bucket of the cologne itself so they could fill some of the bottles they received from China and give to influencers for content creation.
However, upon receiving the bucket of cologne from the manufacturer, Nathan and Paula quickly saw that it was not the same scent that they had requested from before. This new mystery scent didn’t resemble any of the 5-6 original samples that they originally could pick from.
After demanding an explanation from the manufacturer, however, the owner of the manufacturing company (who also shall remain nameless), insisted that after talking to his team, Nathan and Paula were mistaken and the cologne scent was exactly what they ordered.
Bewildered, since Nathan and Paula still had a small amount of the original scent they picked from and could tell it wasn’t the same as this new mystery scent, they relayed this information again to the manufacturer and requested he make it right by making the correct scent or offering a refund.
The manufacturer instead however doubled down and refused to do either.
He implied that Nathan and Paula perhaps had mixed up the scent they wanted with another one of the 5-6 samples they could’ve picked from. Nathan and Paula were sure that wasn’t the case, but to prove their point they agreed to have the manufacturer send another sample of a different scent.
Upon reception, however, sure enough, it was not the scent they asked for.
What’s more, Nathan and Paula soon discovered that this second scent they received was the same scent used by a brand of baby shampoo they happened to have.
Putting two and two together, it was clear that this manufacturer had simply reverse-engineered this shampoo to extract its scent and put it in a cologne form instead of coming up with an original scent.
Nathan and Paula were not interested in rehashing someone else’s product scent and passing it off as their own, but they also did not feel the scent they paid $2,500 for (plus the thousands in shipping costs for the empty boxes and bottles) was at the standard they wanted. However, the manufacturer was not interested in providing any sort of solution other than to have Nathan and Paula buy more from him.
What happened next Nathan and Paula can only unironically attribute to God’s divine intervention.
Unsure of their next steps, while visiting Nathan’s parents around Christmas, missionaries from their church also attended dinner one evening. The conversation got onto the topic of starting a business. One of the female missionaries was eagerly asking questions to Nathan and Paula and was very excited to hear about Invuria.
During this conversation, however, one of the male missionaries interrupted and informed Nathan and Paula that he had worked at a cologne factory in Utah, not far from where Nathan and Paula lived, to save up money for his mission. He said this company could probably help them out.
Curious, Nathan got the name of the company and thanked the missionary for the info.
At that point, Nathan and Paula had a few options:
1.) Sell one of the two scents anyway from the original manufacturer
2.) Contact this Utah-based manufacturer and see if they could make “Afeto” how they wanted it to be, but that would cost more money.
3.) Cut their losses and quit the business
After more discussion and thought, Nathan and Paula decided option two was the best for them, even though it meant going into more debt.
The new manufacturer, Tab HQ, who is being named because of their top-notch professionalism, was happy to work with Nathan and Paula. They smelled the scent samples from the original manufacturer and confidently claimed that they could easily make a scent way better than either of those.
A few months later, they did just that! Nathan and Paula are proud of the new, “Afeto” with its amazing and uplifting scent and its other features – all-natural and organic ingredients, no alcohol making it ideal for sensitive baby skin, and the packaging design, Paula’s brainchild, gives the vibes of being a nurturing and premium product and brand.
Nathan and Paula had to spend thousands more to get their remaining empty boxes and bottles back from the original manufacturer, but they are glad they found a new manufacturer who has integrity.
Regardless, Invuria and its first product, “Afeto Baby Cologne” will launch very soon!
The final step before launch is updating the website, which is currently in its final stages of production!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No not at all, though those struggles were explained in the last section 🙂
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Invuria?
Invuria is a producer and seller of premium baby and toddler care products. Our first product is baby cologne, which will keep little ones smelling fresh and clean and make baby and parent cuddle times much more rewarding.
Our product uses all-natural and organic ingredients, and although other baby cologne brands use natural and organic ingredients, too, a few aspects that set Invuria’s Afeto baby cologne apart are: its original unique scent, a brand made to bring the best aspects of American and Brazilian baby care cultures together, and the cologne is made in the USA.
Once can soon purchase Afeto at invuria.com, but for now they can sign up for the newsletter and they’ll receive a discount code when launch time arrives.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
Likes about Salt Lake City:
– Being close to the mountains
– All the benefits of a major city – sports teams, concerts, amazing restaurants and cuisine from around the world, etc. – but small enough to where crime rates are low and it’s relatively quick to get from place to place
– No humidity
– Hobbies for everyone, both indoor and outdoor
– Strong family-focused communities
– School choice for public schools giving parents and kids more options for their education
– Melting pot of cultures. Nathan’s ancestors were part of who settled Utah, but it is now home to people from around the world. There is a strong Brazilian community as well.
Dislikes about Salt Lake City
– The weather can be sporadic! We had snow in May, then literally the next day it was sunny and over seventy degrees!
Pricing:
- 39.99 per bottle
Contact Info:
- Website: https://invuria.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/invuria_baby/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Invuria
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@invuria_baby
