Neurodiversity in Entrepreneurship: From DIY Beginnings to Eco-Revolution with Billie Asmus

Experiencing the inefficiencies of standard plastic paint trays , she created a repaint tray , a reusable paint tray , liner and lid , addressing several common yet overlooked problems in painting .

This eco-friendly and practical invention is soon to hit the shelves of low home improvement stores across the United States , showcasing her commitment to practical solutions and sustainability . Billie , welcome to Scenic Route podcast podcast . Thank you , I'm excited to be here .

What you don't know , billie and I , we had to reschedule several times all of because it was my fault .

Last time I fell asleep while putting the kid to bed , and everyone listening who has kids knows how that goes when you're like , you read three stories and you're trying to come like to like , bring them over to the to never , ever , land gently and you start to breathe very deep and regularly and like and calm your entire body down until you self fall asleep ,

for before your child does , that's most likely what happened last .

And essentially before that came about , I was refinishing and restoring furniture for clients and I was painting every single day and essentially just got sick of all the plastic paint tray liners that I was going through and I wanted something reusable and more eco friendly and , to my surprise , nothing was showing up .

And so , you know , I just kind of came up with this idea and decided to pursue it , and it has just been this insane journey for the last couple of years and so many road blocks in the way , but I think I've just kind of had this overwhelming hope for the future that it's just really kind of pushed me forward and has helped me to keep going Right .

That has pushed me to keep going is because I do want to create a better future for my kids and be able to provide for them and not have to worry , you know , about what's going to happen next . But the other big thing is being over here in the United States .

I'm sure you are well aware that our maternity leave and parental leave is horrific and it's it really sucks just watching it happen all around you , and I have been fortunate enough to stay home with my kids for at least like the first year of their life , which not many parents yeah , not many parents in the United States can say that .

And then it's really hard watching it and just seeing friends and family members with postpartum depression and , having experienced it myself , like there just needs to be this bigger change in the world .

And so I've always kind of had this overarching goal to be able to create a big enough business to be able to employ families and mothers and people , you know , that are neurodiverse because I do have ADHD and just being able to be more accommodating and open towards these groups of people , because the world is not made for them in these scenarios , and so I

just want to be able to create a business where , though , where those can just be welcome , to be able to not be afraid to tell me that they're starting a family , and not be afraid to say , hey , I need to take a break , because , you know , I'm autistic and I'm overstimulated , or my ADHD is just out of control , or my anxiety is just really getting the

best of me . Today . I need to take a break , and I get that , so that , I would say , is another one of my huge motivators for just really wanting to explode this business .

I'm dealing with chronic illness and like it's you gotta kind of like structure your business in a way that suits you for for it to be sustainable to you and ultimately like fun Otherwise , nope , not fun at all .

But and right like there has to be this push for more diversity and inclusion and right now , although I think I feel , especially at GTS , become more , there's become more awareness in the online space , it's still something that is not much talked about . Like how well , when you look back , what were some you said before as appointment Lee ?

Oh , the world's not made for them . What do you have ? Personal experiences where you're like the world is not made for me . This is not , this is not suiting me . Yeah .

It was just such a huge struggle for me , especially in school , like academically was just not my strong suit . It just was so hard to retain information and important information .

I could remember , like the paint color on a wall that I had painted in a room like five years before that , but if I needed to remember important information for an exam there was no way , like just it was in and out and it just made it really hard being in a classroom setting or being among my peers because I just felt stupid all the time , because I

couldn't remember basic information and some teachers and professors even in college were not super accommodating for me to be able to like take a test in a closed room by myself or , you know , taking a test when it wasn't timed . So that way I wasn't worried about my time but I could actually focus on the exam itself .

So there was just a lot of situations academically that it was just not accommodating for me with ADHD . But especially in the corporate world too , it's the same thing . You know .

I think some people with ADHD at least for myself , like we thrive having a deadline , because without a deadline or a flexible deadline , we allow ourselves to procrastinate way too much until like that very end time , until it needs to happen . And I still do that .

But you know , in a corporate setting , especially where you have to create like your own schedule and your own deadlines and everything , it makes it really really difficult to be able to get those things done as well as prioritizing what the more important task is .

And you know , depending on the setting you are at when it comes to your job or your career , you know some some atmospheres you might be able to thrive because you're learning something new every day , but other days where it's the same thing over and over again and there's , you know , either too much structure or not enough structure .

Yeah , you're allowing yourself to take a break and reach you . What are some like ?

We all kind of like know the big ones , but for me , one of my subtle telltale signs is what I'm kind of like feeling antsy when I need to move just for the purpose of like moving or like driving in my car so the purpose of driving , because there's something that needs to process . Do you have kind of like early telltale signs that you look out for ?

We're like um , billy , nope .

body because my brain will be screaming at me get up and just do something . But my body is like , nah , I'm just going to chill out here for a bit . So I'm starting to hit a wall when I get to that point where it's just like there is nothing that is pushing me forward at that moment .

Like it's opposite for me , right , like interesting , and I mean , of course , there is now like golden rule , golden ticket , whatever blueprint to work , weird , like HDD or whatever you're dealing , everyone is dealing with it .

Just like knowing yourself and figuring it out , and can you share with us some insights on how you like structure your entrepreneurship , like your business , your entrepreneurship , how you're building your business in a court , like to work well with your HDD and also with two kids ? I mean that we don't even have any talk about that .

So Mondays , I try to keep that to updating my website or writing a blog post or any other type of like social media content planning . And then I do , like Wednesdays , I do all my bookkeeping and everything that I might need to update there or anything financially related , make sure my receipts are in place , which is like my hardest day .

I have to plan that day because I am not a financial person , so , like , if that is not on my schedule , it will not get done . So sorry to my both . Yeah , yeah , I feel you .

Yeah , yeah , but you know , I mean just being able to try and have a general schedule of what my week should look like day to day and realizing like , okay , that day could be jam packed full of things I know I should be working on .

Or you know , maybe I did a good job of staying up to date on all my bookkeeping that I know that's only going to take me a half an hour to update those things each week and then I'm going to be done and I could focus on other things , and whether that's just running errands for the house or , you know , taking care of other things , or whatever it may

be . But I think just with ADHD in general is like having some form of structure there , but allowing enough flexibility as it comes and goes and not beating yourself up if you don't stick to that schedule or that routine every single day . Yeah , I love that .

So , with the repaint right which I still think is absolutely nuts that no one ever thought of like a reusable solution , like hello , like I mean Wow , so it was for you for actually making like the connections of being like hey , no , this should actually be recyclable , and like reusable , and like what the hell is going on .

Was there ever like a moment where you found yourself in a spot where you like had to decide whether kind of like to throw in a towel and give up or just keep going ?

And I was also pregnant with my son and had just had him , and that was chaotic because it was like two weeks before my patent was filed . He was born and then he was extremely colic and I remember trying to have like zoom meetings with him , like strapped to my chest , and he I was just like praying and like please don't scream , please don't scream .

And then he would just let out this piercing scream , which he's , like you know , a year and a half now and he still has a piercing scream .

I don't know how he does it , but there were times when he was colic , I was exhausted and I I hadn't even announced my idea to the world yet , but I was like ready to be done , because I just felt like I wasn't making progress and it just felt really defeating , even though , like I hadn't really done much at that point other than try and file a patent

and start an entrepreneurship class that I had taken , but that , I think , was a big , pivotal point . But when I had finished that entrepreneurship class and I made like third place in one of their pitch competitions and I made it top three , thank you .

And when I made top three I was automatically nominated to go on to an even larger pitch competition which was statewide , and I was nominated as the top 10 , one of the top 10 startups in the state of Iowa , and that was exciting and that was the only reason that I had brought my product or my idea of public was because this was already going to be like

in the newspapers and everything with the local . You kind of had to hear , and so I was like , yes , so I was like I better start , you know , telling people about this .

But I think the other big pivotal moment was when I realized like how much this was going to cost financially was really daunting , and I remember kind of putting things on pause for like just a few months because I was trying to figure out how I was going to fund this . And you know to how realistic is it .

Because I think when you have this big financial risk involved , especially when it comes to business , you're not just thinking about the potential risk but you're thinking about , like , the people that you could potentially be putting at risk . Because you know , I have a family and we're a sole income household with my husband working full time .

I don't take an income yet with my business . I've been working on it for three years and I think that was just really scary because , you know , with two young kids at home , I just did not want to have this really heavy financial burden and be stuck with it and then realize like this isn't going to actually work or this isn't going to make it .

So when I kind of got over that hump and was able to get some funding in place , I think it was like that additional motivator that I have just kind of started telling myself I have , I literally cannot fail . I have no option to fail .

But I have to succeed now , at this point , because , that is , there is no other option on the plate right now , because for the sake of my family and just for everything that's at stake here in the future , yeah , I , this is .

So how , how were you able to ? To get funding ? Like , did you do crowdfund or did you find like like an angel share investor , or what did you do ?

So you know , it just kind of depends on how much time you want to spend on those types of things for just like the chance of maybe getting funding . But otherwise I was able to go through .

It's called the Iowa Economic Center and they have small business funding for women entrepreneurs or minority or veteran owned entrepreneurs that need some sort of funding , and so I was able to get funding through them and being able to kind of get things started that way .

But for the most part most of my funding has otherwise been through pre-orders and that's kind of been my crowd feeling , so to speak , is , you know , just raising awareness around the product and saying , hey , like your pre-order helps , go towards the funding and everything to get me further into the manufacturing process .

So that's been really helpful and I'm thankful for the people that have placed those pre-orders .

So I'm curious , like how , when were you like , oh okay , this was a time I totally fucked things up .

And the cost that they were coming back , or the estimates , were just like three times higher than what I had anticipated first of all , but also three times higher than what the general information I was getting from other businesses , other manufacturing and everything , and I remember kind of like sitting on it and they were really pushy about it and saying like you

need to do this , you need to do that and all that stuff , and I kind of just felt a little bit taken advantage of because , again , I was new in this space I mean , I still am considered new , still learning everything when it comes to manufacturing and logistics and shipping and all that .

And so I just felt a lot of pressure and they're like you need to put this money in now and all that stuff . And I was like okay , okay , and so I had paid them $5,000 to start working on some designs and things and pushing forward .

And at the end of the day it just wasn't a good fit and so I did lose some money and it wasn't ideal , but I know it could have been a lot worse in the long run had I just if I had said yes , to keep moving forward .

But the owner had actually he started preaching me on my own product and was like , well , people like this and you should do this , and this is blah , blah , blah . It was saying that level of Muzzpley , oh yeah , and I just got pissed . I was like , oh , my God , right .

I could sort of have him to just be able to come off that way and I never had a super good gut feeling about the company and the partnership to begin with , and I don't know why I didn't listen to that gut feeling , because I knew I should have .

But I'll never forget that moment when he started doing this and saying these things and it was like this CEO and me just kind of came out and I just like cut him off and I was like you don't get to tell me about my own product and things that I already know . Like I know my product best , I know my business best .

Like thanks , but no , thanks , I don't think this is going to work out . You can send me my artwork and I think we're going to be done .

And he was like kind of shocked and like weaned back in his chair and he's like , oh , okay , and I felt back because there was one other girl on the call and she was just completely silent and I was like , yeah , okay , no , but maybe she learned from this to not take shit Like yeah . Yeah , it's okay , I'm over it now . Yeah , oh man .

You kind of had this good feeling and you didn't really listen to it at first , which I'm like hello , yes , Been there Got burned badly . What do you think ? Why didn't you listen to it fully ?

Interactions with them were really great and , mind you , I had a different point of contact when I had first started with them versus like moving forward . And so I think , just you know , I had these good feelings up front

about it . But as I kind of got further in that process , like this doesn't feel right , I don't feel good about this and the cost associated with it was just like it was way too expensive and unrealistic from other cost points that I had gotten in the past . So I was just like no , I need to step back , and I'm glad I walked away from that .

And you know , when you get that intuition , whether it's good or bad , I think you need to follow it and whether that's full force or not or just exploring it , that's , I think , an important thing to do .

But the second thing that I think came from all of that is there were several people in this process of my business that kept saying , like you need to start acting like a CEO , you need to start doing these things . I'm like , okay , but how do you act like a CEO ? You know whatever .

And so it wasn't until like kind of that pivotal moment where I just kind of needed to stick up for myself and say no , like this is not okay and I don't feel comfortable with that . It just kind of , I think , uprooted so inside of me .

Yeah , that I was like , okay , I can be the decision maker and I can be the leader that I need to be when it comes to my business and this industry . So how are you ?

Because I think when we're kind of stuck on a decision or not really sure which road to take with things , we always kind of want somebody else to answer those questions for us and just make the decision so we can move on with our lives Right .

And maybe you have somebody that you really look up to that as a leader , whether you've worked with them or not , or they're a parent or a friend . I think the good thing is just like how would you answer that for yourself in that situation ?

But two of the other things I would say when it comes to leadership is there's a lot of things that I want to practice and implement in my business as I do grow with employees , and I need to practice those things myself now , so that way it becomes second nature when I do start .

I don't feel like your business , or profit especially , should become more important than the people that are in your life . So those are just some things that I have tried to really implement just in the last couple of years , as I've been starting to grow my business and just kind of work on it myself and hopes to implement that in the future .

And just this openness to talk about mental challenges and I mean , my parents surely did not ever talk about helping mind , whatever , right ? So I had to learn a whole lot of things and , like , pay a whole lot of money to therapy and I'm trying to teach my kid differently and I really feel that there is a dawn .

Maybe it's the eternal fucking optimist in me , but I truly believe there's a dawn coming where there's a whole new generation of where it's normal to ask for pronouns so they feel comfortable , where it's normal to take breaks because you're fucking exhausted , or to accommodate people who have HDHD or whatever it is , because that's just the fucking fine thing to do .

Even though they've been successful , they're still going to fall at some point , and I seriously believe that kindness and inclusion is going to be the winning apple over everything here in the future . Agreed .

But what are you paying your virtual assistant in the Philippines ? Oh , it's amazing . It's like four bucks an hour .

I'm like I'm pretty sure she's not making a living with four bucks an hour , even in the Philippines , right , like , mm-hmm , oh it's , it's insane , right , it's always kind of this , this thing of even saying , hey , okay , I do define success differently .

And , yes , money is important and I want everyone to have the money they want , need , desire , but , right , just going after the money , we've done that , we've been there , we've done something else , because it's not starting as well .

yeah , there . I think there just definitely needs to be a change overall when it comes to just the corporate world in general , because needs are not being met . Everybody's burnt out , everybody's tired , there's not enough childcare , there's not enough parental leave yeah , we've got 12 weeks , which is better than in the US , but for Europe that's really bad .

Okay , yeah , I thought Switzerland was like one of the best places .

You have like a year of like parent time and they have to keep your job open , your position open , for when you come back , Like there's so much more and now there's like all these things are like oh , why didn't no one ever like , for example , my kitty just started kindergarten here at H4 and kindergarten times are from 8.30 to 11.50 .

Well , thank you very much . What am I supposed to do with these two and a half hours ? I get off in the morning Like there's no , that's a topic for another day . Everything goes wrong . Yes , A lot of things going wrong . Part two A lot of things going wrong . I mean , I just had an interesting thought .

You first before said you kind of like you were hiding your business for a very long time . I mean , so what other gifts or talent that you have are you typically hide , from others too ?

Oh sure , I don't , I don't think that's the right way , yeah , yeah . And so I think , like I was really nervous to just tell people , aside from my husband , because I was not prepared for people to be like , well , that's stupid , or why would you waste your time with that , or do you know how much work that's really going to take .

And I remember when I kind of first told some of my family and it was neither good or bad with our reactions , it was just kind of this hmm , you know , just okay , oh , I know .

And I was like , hmm , yeah , and like you know that they've got thoughts running in their head , but I'm not saying I'm out loud , right , and and obviously since then , like I've come a long ways , and so they have definitely started to show their support more and more , because I think they realized , oh , she is serious , yeah .

So I could see from their viewpoint that , oh great , this might be another project that she's going to start and not actually follow through with , but that has not happened . I think there's a lot of things that I've been doing .

No , definitely not , Was there like something that made you more resilient in terms of I don't really give a shit what they think about my idea . I know it's great .

When I went through school again and I took an entrepreneurship class , they really pushed you to do market research and interview people , and that was really hard because I had to talk to hundreds of different types of people , whether they were in painting or just homeowners or they just did it for fun , and I couldn't tell them about my product .

I just had to ask them , like what are your struggles with this , like what are your frustrations , and I couldn't ask any type of leading questions or tell them about what I was working on .

And so I was gathering all of this information for a long time and it just really kind of started to reiterate , like okay , I am moving in the right direction because my product is solving a lot of these issues that people are facing when it comes to painting .

And one of the questions I remember asking was like do you wish there were more eco-friendly alternatives when it comes to painting , or painting supplies that were recyclable or something ?

And it was like 79 , 80% of people that I interviewed said yeah , I wish there were more eco-friendly alternatives , that I didn't just have to go to the store all the time and throw them out . So when I was doing those interviews , I think it definitely reiterated that I was in the right direction , that I was doing the right thing .

But the second time that really happened was when I had posted a video . Let's see when . It was this this was back in June . I had posted this video just talking about my product and I was just saying like hey , I'm Billy and I created this thing called the Repaint Tray and I showed my prototype I just talked about .

I'm a mom , I get the struggle of what it's like to do DIY projects and have kids around , and these are my frustrations and here's why I invented this product and I hope to share it with you guys and that you can enjoy it too . And that video went crazy viral and it was like within 48 hours , I had over like 10,000 dollars in pre-order . That's amazing .

And people were reaching out . Yeah , people were reaching out globally . I had somebody from France and Canada and Australia and Denmark and Italy , all these places and people were reaching out like can you ship it to me ? And I'm like listen , I haven't even started shipping in the United States . Yeah , and it's not shipping , but really expensive .

And I've been working on it . I'm trying to figure it all , but you know that all just went on Perfect . That's the plan . So seeing people globally excited about the product and saying like I've never pre-ordered something so fast in my entire life it was just this big conversation that's so beautiful and I'm like , oh , I'm moving in the right direction .

People want this , they see value in it and they see value in me . And it was just really exciting to kind of just see that explode , because then it was like this additional boost of motivation to just keep pushing forward .

Viral is nice , but whatever , it's just shiny object syndrome . We don't care . Well , back orders , we care . Like . When you said , like oh , you know , I just said hey , I'm Billy , I invented this , I have HHD , I'm a mom . This is what I struggle with .

I already knew , like she's going to tell me that this hit viral because it was like yes , yes , yes , yes , yes , yes , all the boxes , like it's authentic , it's personal , it's like very niche . I'm like she's going to tell me this this went viral . So , yes , I loved it . The branding percentage is very happy .

That's not even covering , like the shipping and fulfillment fees or anything else in between . But I would say the fairy godmother wish .

There is a really big pitch competition coming up with Lowe's and I had so many people reach out that had sent me the link to their pitch competition because if you make it to their second round , then you get invited to pitch in person to Lowe's corporate and to some of their buyers and executives .

And if they pick you which this is like a global competition if they pick you , then they put in a $5 million purchase order agreement and will distribute your product . Yeah , they'll distribute your product to over a thousand retail stores .

It was very similar to that other one where I was just like hey , I'm Billy , I did this , blah , blah , blah , and Lowe's wanted a more specific video . They want to know , like , why we should put your product on your shelf . You know what is the problem that you solve for people and what it would mean to you if you were selected .

And so I had kind of created a video around that and I had posted it and it did not go viral by any means . But the cool thing was is I had posted it on LinkedIn and a girl that I knew from high school which we went to two different high schools and I honestly like completely forgot she existed , so really sorry about that .

But she had shared my video on LinkedIn and she's like hey , I know this girl and she's like , and I work in Lowe's corporate no way , I was like I love to see this on the shelves .

And I was like , no way , I was like so excited that she had shared it and granted , she's not in the merchandising side of things , but the fact that she had shared it and other people were already seeing it and reacting , right , I was like somebody might know somebody and get out of our chain , you know , yeah , right .

So I'm like I would be so freaking happy if I just made it to that in person pitch , to just be able to talk to people and like get my name in the door somewhere , and if I wanted all that I'd be like I already told my husband I'm like I would ball my eyes out if they announced my name . Probably I'd be a blubbering mess , which is okay .

I know Europe is a bit tricky with shipping at the moment or still , but I know I've listed it in the US , so this is your thing . Go check it out . And , billy , where can people find you if they want to like see all your cool videos and stuff ?

Otherwise , you can just look , search repaint tray on Facebook or go to my website , which is repaintstudioscom , and you'll be able to see all my blogs and a little bit more about me , and you'll be able to listen to any other previous podcast interviews that I've been on as well , too , that's really cool .

He talks a lot about sales and just personal growth and also just being a leader in the industry as well , and so I definitely think you should go check it out . It's called there Is no F in Sales by Simon . We'll also go to mention that a show and all of his proceeds from his book goes to helping homeless people in the UK too .

So , billy , thank you so much for being here and talking to us about how , like yeah , about what is going on in your mind , how you structure your business , and best of luck with your reprint tray . Thank you so much . I'm happy we got to talk .