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Meet Jennifer and Michael Gallagher of His & Her Bar™ in Scottsdale

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer and Michael Gallagher.

Jennifer and Michael, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My entrepreneurial journey started in January of 2015. I quit my 6-figure 9-5 job in advertising sales, cashed in my savings and 401K to go all in to create my first business which was a luxury activewear brand. I’ll never forget the day I put my notice in at my job, my co-workers started asking me who I was going to work for next and I said no one, I am now an overnight CEO. Everyone except for my husband Michael thought I was crazy for leaving my job, but I knew it was the only way to push me into the direction I wanted to go. I had zero industry knowledge and zero contacts but I was determined to figure it out. I officially launched my brand eight months later. I thought the online sales would just magically start pouring in…and they didn’t, so Michael and I did trunk shows at any place that would let us set up a table to sell to stay afloat and keep the business going. I remember the first December in business we did 22 trunk shows in one month. It was exhausting but also fulfilling knowing that people were trying on the clothing in person and buying items from a collection that I had created from scratch. I’ll never forget the feeling I had seeing my clothing on store display mannequins in a local shop, I felt on top of the world and like I had officially “made it”.

The three years we spend in our first business help catapult us into where we are today. It taught us so many lessons and we went through so many ups and downs. Although in the midst of going through all the setbacks and hardships, we may have not thought this, looking back now we are so thankful for it all as it has made us a stronger couple together and more seasoned entrepreneurs. We made the difficult decision to close the business in 2018 after realizing not only was it extremely capital intensive with minimal return, the most stressful part of it all was unsold inventory sitting and thousands of dollars going nowhere. We knew that we needed to pivot and make a change. 2018 to end of 2019 was pretty much us throwing a bunch of ideas against the wall to see what stuck. In January 2019, I (Jennifer) wrote down an intention to “create a product that would be regularly consumed and better the lives of others” without knowing what the details of this product looked like until about nine months later when it all began to conspire on a run together. As soon as we got home we secured the domain and all social media handles. It wasn’t always going to be an aphrodisiac bar, originally we were going to create 2 bars to start, one for men and one for women but over the next few months we collectively put the pieces to the vision together and created His & Her Bar – the World’s First Aphrodisiac Snack Bar made with All Natural, Vegan, Gluten Free, Non-GMO, Aphrodisiac Superfood Ingredients created to stimulate sexual desire and bring you and your partner closer together. We waited six months until we told ANYONE (including our own family) the details to the business. No one knew but us as we decided it was best that way to refrain from outside opinions during the building phase of the business before we launched. We officially announced the brand May 1, 2020 and started shipping pre-orders this month (June 2020)

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Entrepreneurship can be the most challenging thing you have ever done, but also at the same time is the most rewarding. We have been through our share of ups and downs and everything in between and would be lying if we said it was easy. A motto we like to say is if it was easy, everybody would do it. In today’s world, entrepreneurship can be positioned as something so glamorous and exciting from the outside looking in and yes, it definitely has its perks but it’s also a lot of uncertainty, figuring things out as you go, and doing whatever it takes in order to survive.

We moved to Scottsdale, AZ from South Florida back in 2017 after having the most difficult year of our lives almost losing everything including our home which was at risk of foreclosure in the pursuit of working towards making a business dream stay alive. We were falling more and more behind our mortgage and put our home up for sale so that it wouldn’t be foreclosed on and kept a lot of what was going on financially at the time to ourselves because we felt like failures. From the outside looking in, we had this dream starter home, 2400 square feet, stucco, Floridan style clay roof, tile floors, plantation blinds, corner lot, gated community and we were “living the dream” when in reality, we were about to have it all ripped out from underneath us and we were eating pasta everyday to survive because that was all we could afford at the time.

Thankfully, through the grace of God, we ended up selling our home for FULL Asking price AS IS with no repairs required before closing, allowing us to pay back the mortgage payments we owed and giving us a little money in our pockets for a new beginning. We majorly downsized and went from a 2400 square foot home in South Florida to an 800 square foot apartment in Scottsdale.

Our move to Scottsdale was what we call a RESET move away from everything familiar and from the opinions of others that were closest to us in South Florida. We needed to get away and rebuild so that we could re-focus, figure out our next move and create a comeback. In our eyes, this was only part of our story, the pre-conditioning for greatness and if this was a test to see how much we could overcome, we were going to keep pushing through and do whatever it takes to come out on top in the end.

We thought after moving the only place we could go was up and yes that was true to some extent at first however, little did we know we were in for another test financially summer of 2018 and again just one year ago in the summer months of 2019 as Michael was working in a restaurant and summer months were extremely slow. We were getting letters on our door this time threatening eviction since we were renting and did not own. Once again, we kept pushing and overcame.

Our new business, His & Her Bar officially launched June 9, 2020 and there have been some obstacles we have faced with starting a new brand in the middle of a pandemic. Being a food product, we are limited as to how we can get samples into consumers hands. For example, in the past we would set up as many events as we could and that is not something that is really going on right now. Also, with a lot of brick and mortars just recently reopening after being closed for a few months, they are putting holds on new vendor orders while they get back on their feet. This means we have to be extremely creative and think outside the box unique ways to attract new consumers to purchase online and connect with us personally and as a brand.

In the big picture looking back on everything we have had to face and overcome thus far, we look at every new obstacle as an opportunity to think outside the box and just keep pushing through no matter what.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
His & Her Bar is the World’s First Aphrodisiac Snack Bar made with All Natural, Vegan, Gluten Free, Non-GMO Aphrodisiac Superfood Ingredients created to stimulate sexual desire and bring you and your partner closer together! We are the most fun, sexy and interactive food brand on the market!

To keep things fun & sexy, we will never call any of our bars a traditional flavor name. Our first bar is called “Foreplay” which symbolizes the beginning of it all (you know what we’re talking about!) and it is also the very first bar we have released.

FOREPLAY has a creamy consistency with an earthy & nutty flavor from a mixture of Almonds, Cashews, and Maca. The Chocolate, Dates, and Vanilla give it the perfect combination of just enough sweetness and you will taste a hint of Cayenne at the back end of consuming the bar giving it a little spice.

We use “just a little hint” of cayenne in each bar making it subtle without overpowering your taste buds.

His & Her Bar is unlike anything out there in the market today and we consider ourselves creating a new market segment as a “lifestyle snack bar”.

What were you like growing up?
Michael – Growing up was always a challenge for me because I never felt like I could fit in. One thing I was exceptionally good at was basketball and learned really quick that the best place for me to make friends was on the basketball court. Nonetheless, I was bullied a lot throughout grade school and it wasn’t until High School that I realized I wanted more for my life so I decided to join the US Navy in 2001, a day after high school graduation. My family was supportive, considering most parents cringe at the thought of their kids leaving home for bootcamp, and here I was again feeling uncomfortable and lonely, however in this case it was just the military giving me a heavy dose of the growing pains of life! Eventually, I would meet my incredible wife Jennifer in 2008 on the beach in Jacksonville, FL and after three years of dating, we got married in South FL. In 2014, I became a Florida certified Firefighter and served my community for three years before eventually heading to Northern California to make wine in Napa Valley. I’ve had a passion for wine since 2010 and now I have a wine podcast where I interview Winemakers and share their stories and their journeys of how they got to where they are today. I consider myself very outgoing but at the same time, I appreciate the simplicities in life. I always prefer to be around people in any case and feel my strongest personality traits are being funny and entertaining, even if my dry sense of humor seems to get in the way!

Jennifer – Growing up, I was always a girlie girl that loved being in front of the camera. I would make up plays, dances and commercials with my friends and neighbors all the time and my mom was my personal videographer. If YouTube or TikTok was a thing back then, I would have been a child star LOL. I also did lots of arts and crafts with my mom which I believe sparked the creativity in me at a young age. My grandmother (who is now 96 years old) was an aspiring fashion designer and a talented painter. I like to say that I inherited a mixture of their creative talents along with the business mindset and entrepreneurial spirit. I believe I was always meant to be an entrepreneur.

I also did lemonade stands at a young age and was upset when my mom made me split the profits with my friend when it was all my idea to begin with hahaha. She inadvertently taught me the proper way to go about a business partnership without even realizing it!

I never liked school. I only did well to make my parents happy and went to college and got a degree to give the corporate world a shot, something my parents wanted me to do so badly. I bounced around jobs waiting for something to feel right until it never did. I was doing well financially and landing jobs that on paper I was “not qualified for” and did really well in various sales positions but it was like a ticking time bomb and only a matter of time before I was over it and wishing away my days for the weekend. On Monday morning, I couldn’t wait for it to be Friday and on Sunday evening before bed, I was upset that it was about to be Monday again. Finally after three years (too long) of talking about it, I FINALLY took the leap and left the corporate world. It was at that time despite all the uncertainty that I knew I had finally landed exactly where I was meant to be and the journey began.

Pricing:

  • His & Her Bar – FOREPLAY $3.69 a bar/$44.28 per box of 12 with local pickup options available

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Photos done by: Cailyn Victoria Photo & Film

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