77. Let’s Close This Chapter Together: Saying Goodbye to iaera surf

Let's close this chapter 🛍 Shop iaera surf w/ 20% off → shop.surfsociete.com

Deciding to close my first business wasn’t easy—but it was necessary. iaera surf began with big dreams, a mission to create surf wear for women, and the hope of shaping representation in the lineup. Years later, I find myself staring at 816 pieces of inventory and the necessity to finally close up the shop, for good.

This episode is about the reality behind that choice: the lessons I learned about running a product-based business, the gratitude I carry forward, and how iaera surf ultimately led me to this podcast and Surf Société.

If you’ve ever poured yourself into a project that didn’t turn out the way you imagined, I think you’ll recognize parts of your own journey here. And if you’ve ever wanted to own a piece of iaera surf, now’s the time—the shop is officially closing, and everything must go! Please help me close this chapter of my life by giving these beautiful pieces the homes they deserve.

Main Themes

• The Vision of iaera surf – Why it started and what it set out to do.
• The Challenge of 816 Pieces – Facing inventory and tough business realities.
• Making Peace with Endings – What closing IAERA made possible for the future.

Resources

• 🛍 Shop iaera surf before it's gone → shop.surfsociete.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Deciding to close my surfwear business
• 2:15 The iaera surf vision and why it started
• 4:40 Facing 816 pieces of inventory
• 7:10 Hard lessons from running a surf wear brand
• 9:20 Gratitude and what iaera surf made possible
• 11:45 One last chance to shop iaera surf

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

All right. This is gonna be a vulnerable one for me. I'm just gonna say that right off the bat. So I am really grateful that you're here. You ladies know me as the host of Confessions of a Surf Lady, also the host of our. Digital women's surf community called The Surf Société, where we get together to learn more, surf better and live happy. And if you've listened for long enough, like the beginning episodes, you'll also know that I had a surf wear line called iaera surf. I started iaera surf in 2016, 17, and it's gone through a lot of phases and it's taken me through a lot. These last, what is that? Eight years? Oh my gosh. But it's finally time to close this chapter once and for all. So that's what this episode is all about. I'm going to share the background story of where this podcast came from and where it's going, and let you know how you can be a part of this journey of closing this chapter of iaera surf, um, and how you can support that. I would be so grateful if you did okay, so before The Surf Société, before Confessions of a Surf Lady, there was iaera surf in 2016, I was sewing a lot. Women's surf wear started to pop up. I started making my own stuff because I thought it would be really cool to like be uniquely represented in the lineup. I still felt like, you know, and I'm, I'm, I think we're, we still deal with this today, that women are not. Accurately represented in surfing. And at that time it was probably more like magazines, maybe a few YouTube videos here and there, like very, very few. Um, and then, you know, in the storefronts and in whatever was being sold to me. The women that I knew in the lineup that were like so resilient, had these amazing stories, didn't really match like the advertising or the storytelling of the brands out there. I felt that creating clothing that fit and function for the everyday surf lady and made her feel beautiful was a way to open up like a new representation of women surfing that I felt like was more accurate to like the people I was seeing in the lineup. I created these really, really beautiful rash guards and then these like high-waisted bikini bottoms. Years later, can't believe how quickly the years have passed. I still have 816 pieces left of surf wear and brain gear for iaera surf. So all of this has been boxed up. You know, we have like the odd sell on our shop once here and there. I very rarely promote it, but people that know about the brand and have shopped it before might come back for something that they loved. Um, but I've decided that now. More than ever. 2025. Uh, this needs to be the final season. And a big part of that is really closing this chapter. A chapter that is still really important. I mean, it led to this podcast, quite honestly. It led to The Surf Société, but there is still kind of like that weight there of having this. Part of the business in this physical form of 816 pieces that I still have. So I am asking you to join me in this journey of moving forward from iaera surf, closing up this part and this chapter, um, and like moving on to what's next. So the first piece I ever designed was this. Orange and blue rash guard, it had an orange body and it had these sleeves that had this like really pretty blue flower color. It sounds kind of crazy when I say it orange and blue. It's like. Uh, kind of intense, but it actually looked really nice and I think there's a picture of it still on the website. It was really cool to just wear it out in the lineup and feel like I had something unique that represented myself. And that's the very first Rosh guard ever sewed. I think I had just taken some random patterns, like raglin sleeve patterns from, the sewing store and just went for it. From there, I like did so many iterations to make what I felt was like the perfect rush guard. That was my ultimate goal, and something that was high quality and locally made. Was starting to really build and create this business and. Then in 2020 I , had gone through a major breakup, like a really big. Life changing, breakup kind of situation. I moved up to la you'll probably remember some episodes where I talk about that. Um, and COVID had its whole thing, but in 20 21, I was like really reevaluating like my work with iaera surf with the podcast and what I wanted to do. And I realized something really brutal about , having a clothing line and. If you ever tell me that you wanna start a clothing line, and I never say this or mean this to like kill your dreams, but I will, I will be like, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Um, and it is really, really is complex and I think at the end of the day, the intentions that should go in with it, the way that it looks. From the outside of having this cool product line doesn't always match up with your actual experience. And I started to realize that for me to wanna grow this business into something that really made an impact and grow a business and be sustainable with it. There were so many things you had to do all at once. Like when you're a business owner, you have to do tons of stuff all at once anyway. But with a clothing line, you are literally designing next year's collection. Selling this year's collection to wholesale and then also doing, selling it like online and on Instagram and it's really, really intense and insane. it's a lot of pieces moving together all at once. And for one person that not being funded , to be able to do that is like kind of impossible., I was really sitting on it and just realizing i'm not actually living like day-to-day a life that I am enjoying. I'm doing the surf business, but I'm not actually surfing more. I was not actually feeling empowered by running this business. I was feeling drained, and I started to realize that my impact to make women feel empowered in the lineup would be so limited this way through product and even more so when I was selling my line to shops I really started to realize that the surf injury industry that is primarily made up of old white men do not want women to thrive in it whatsoever. There were a number of instances that had happened to me. That really made me see it I need these people to push this kind of business forward. Being in stores is, really helpful because you're able to sell big quantities but I'm working against like a system of people who don't even want me here, and I was just like, you know what? I don't want that. Why am I gonna put myself here? Why would I run a business just to be subject to what you think about me and be there as a woman in your shop selling this product and clearly not being respected the way I deserve to be respected as a business owner. So that was a huge, huge eye-opener for me that made me realize, you know what? I don't know that this is like the right thing. And I think that whole process of deciding that I don't think I wanna do this anymore, was like really heavy and at the same time freeing. The lesson here that I wanna share with you is. Not continuing something just because people expect you to continue it. Not grinding through something because people just expect you to be quote unquote successful, but actually deciding what. is right for you in a day-to-day schedule and a day-to-day experience. I think a lot of people could look at my decision, when I decided Hey, I'm not gonna do this anymore as a limiting mindset as a person who doesn't have it in them, as someone who just like gives up easily. People can easily pull that card and there were people when I decided like, Hey, I'm not gonna do this anymore, that were like, oh, I'm sorry. Or they just kind of approached it from this place primed to judge me for failure. I replied I don't know why you're apologizing. This is like the best decision I've ever made. Sometimes from the outside, it's not gonna look like success and that. Vision of it, looking like a failure is gonna weigh heavy. And it does, like, it weighs on me that I still have inventory, that it's sitting there knowing that you're making the right decision for you and the reasons why. And having shuffled through that in your brain and sticking to that is more important than grinding away and forcing something to work for you that's not gonna work for you. And I, I say that in a metaphor way of not just a business, a relationship. The way you go about or do something in your life, if it's not working for you, if you keep trying different solutions and it's not working, it doesn't have to be because you're not trying hard enough. It could just not be the right fit. And even if that looks and feels like failure from the outside, it could be like your greatest success. To quit something that just felt enormously heavy for you to try to succeed at. So I really appreciate you giving me the space to share this story with you. And if you have been listening since. 2019. 2020. Oh my gosh. I'm so grateful for you to be along this journey this whole time. If you've ever listened in to this podcast and felt empowered by it or felt more represented, more seen, or it's helped you in any way, like in even any part of your surfing journey or personal life, I would love if you could help support me in this final season of iaera surf. So here's the deal. I have 816 pieces left, and this is a bold ass goal. I know, but I would be so happy to clear this inventory by the end of the year. So by December 31st. To kick this off, everything's already discounted. To kick this off, I am offering 20% off extra for the first week of this. So from now until October 10th, use the code Podcast 20, 'cause I put my heart and soul in designing those pieces. I promise you'll love it. Okay, so over the next couple months I am gonna keep you updated on where we are, 816 pieces and counting. That's what we're going for down to zero. So I'll have a countdown. I'll be dropping different deals along the way so that we can close up this chapter and move on and feel really good about all of that. Just a beautiful way to close up iaera surf, which really gave birth to this podcast and The Surf Société. Well, thank you for listening not just to this episode, but all the episodes I've produced or following along on Instagram, whatever it is, being a part of The Surf Société. I really, really do appreciate you. Thanks for being a part of this journey. If you have any friends that wanna shop this sale, let them know. I'll leave you with this. It's okay to change course. Just trust yourself, even if it looks like a failure from the outside to others. It's really about you and the experience that you wanna have. And it's a hundred percent okay to quit something that's just not working for you anymore.