Meet Shannon Zappala | Co Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shannon Zappala and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shannon, what matters most to you?
Regan and I value health and family above all things. It’s equally as important to work really hard but, also, to have fun. Regan and I love a long, busy week followed by a glass of wine with the team on a Friday!

What should our readers know about your business?
Two things motivate us daily…the freedom of owning your own business and showing our kids that with hard work and passion, you can do anything. Recently we were asked about our purpose, cause and passion. We realized that building a noteworthy, unique and fun company was our passion. We are passionate about hiring women in our company and providing them a super fun work environment, a way to contribute to their families and a very flexible schedule. We want everyone that works here to LOVE coming to work. We have 3 core values: 1. Heath and family first. We have a trainer that comes to the office on Fitness Fridays for an outdoor bootcamp class. 2. One of our favorite quotes is “Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.” Believe it or not, someone is always trying to take what you have built, you have to work! 3. Have fun! It was definitely not easy getting to where we are today. Another one of our favorite quotes is “If it was easy everyone would do it.” There isn’t a secret technique to get incredible sales/success other than grinding and selling every day. Also, we had a dozen what if’s and they were all negative. What if people don’t like our product? What if we embarrass ourselves? What if we aren’t good enough? We challenged ourselves to replace all of the negative what ifs with positive ones. What if everyone loves our product? What if we get into our favorite stores? What if we are good enough? We still do this today! We’ve learned so many lessons along the way. One of the most important is listening and responding to the customer. They always comes first. No matter how many orders you have to ship or how short staffed you are, you have to respond in a timely way to each and every customer inquiry. Another lesson we’ve learned is that as the business grew, we found that it is so important to hire the right people. Quality employees are such a value add to running a business. We want the world to know that 2 friends/moms with backgrounds in Marketing and Finance (not product development!) worked extremely hard and built a successful product and brand from the ground up. The reason I want the world to know this, although not easy, is if you have the passion, drive and commitment, you can do it! Take one day at a time. It can be overwhelming but if you do one thing each day to propel your idea and/or business forward it becomes more manageable and tangible. The idea for GOVERRE started one evening at a concert in the park where we saw everyone drinking their nice wine out plastic cups (including us!). Fast forward years and tons of hard work later, our product/brand is nationwide and loved by our 3 Shark Tank investors Mark Cuban, Robert Herjavec and Lori Greiner!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We love Encinitas (Regan lives there!) so our itinerary involves all of our favorite places there… Start the morning with a delicious breakfast burrito at Serranos Mexican Food. Then head over to Cardiff State Beach for a beautiful beach day. Right next door to Cardiff State Beach is one of our favorite restaurants, Pacific Coast Grill. A great place to grab afternoon appetizers and yummy margaritas. If you’d rather have an afternoon picnic on the beach, instead going to a restaurant, Seaside Market is the best for grabbing to-go food from their deli. After the beach, a little shopping might be in order. Hansen Surfboards has the cutest clothes, swim suits, sandals, etc for that southern California lifestyle. Lastly, dinner at Herb & Sea is a must. The food and ambiance is out of this world!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We absolutely have to give credit to Guy Kawasaki’s book “Art of the Start”. This book was our bible when starting our business! Regan and I did not come up with the GOVERRE overnight. We knew we wanted to start our own business, but we didn’t have know if it was going to be a product or a service. During many brainstorming sessions, our idea(s) had to meet certain criteria we discovered in “Art of the Start”: -Create a new product or service that adds value or -Make an existing product or service better -Is it new or is there a twist? -Is it Fun and or sexy Without this book, I don’t know if we’d be where we are today.

Website: www.goverre.com
Instagram: @goverregirls
Twitter: @Goverregirls
Facebook: /goverregirls

Image Credits
Stacey Feeney