How Dallas Women Do It — Serial Entrepreneur and Self-Made Millionaire Suzy Batiz

For serial entrepreneur Suzy Batiz, life hasn’t been a straight and narrow path. Instead, it’s been one full of reckoning and realizations. Batiz, who founded Dallas-based Poo-Pourri at age 42 after bankruptcy, divorce, and everything in between, has approached entrepreneurship from a place of radical acceptance and change — and now, the founder of Poo-Pourri and Supernatural (a gorgeous line of natural cleaners) is helping inspire others to do the same.

Batiz talks with PaperCity about everything from her go-to oat milk latte in the city to the most important realizations she’s made in business.

PaperCity: What does your entrepreneurial journey look like?

Suzy Batiz: By the time I was 20 years old, I was married, divorced, and bankrupt. So I came out of the gate, always kind of an entrepreneur. And I had so many businesses! But I mean, I’ve had painting forms, feeding forms, I sold clothing out of the trunk of my car, had a recruiting firm, had an interior design firm. So I was a serial entrepreneur.

And then my second bankruptcy when I was 38, 19 years ago, really flattened me, I thought I was over, and went and had a spiritual sabbatical. In that spiritual sabbatical, I found happiness really for the first time in my life. I had really been looking at external themes to provide that particular pleasure, and, you know, I thought that something outside of myself was going to give me something. And, what I discovered is that really our happiness, and our peace and abundance is really an internal state of being. So I became really happy within myself for the first time in my life. And of course, ironically, after that is when the idea for Poo-Pourri came, and I came back into business. And that was 15 years ago.

PC: What has your journey been with starting and growing Poo-Pourri?

SB: It’s been amazing. And when I came back to business, I said, you know, I just want to have fun, because what’s worse than losing everything is losing everything, and then realizing you didn’t even have a good time doing it. So I vowed when I came back into business, I didn’t need anything outside myself to prove anything.

I decided to launch Poo-Pourri because I thought the world needed it, and I felt obligated to share it. So I came into it from different motivations that I had before earlier in my life, and just really had fun. I wanted to have fun growing, not wanting to do the typical, you know, ‘oh, my God, we gotta go, we gotta scale fast.’ Instead, really nurturing and taking care of the business as a living dynamic organism on its own versus something that was just a path to get me something I wanted.

 

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A post shared by Suzy Batiz (@suzybatiz)

PC: What do your days look like as a founder and entrepreneur?

SB: So my day now is different than it used to be. I took a couple of years off and they hired a CEO. So my days now, I’m in the office Tuesday through Thursday. I take some calls on Monday and Fridays, but generally, I keep those days open for writing. I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately.

I’m a sprinter, so I like coming in and working a full day, eating my lunch at my desk Tuesday through Thursday, and then really providing some space and freedom the other four days. I’m a creative so I need that time off for my mind to really just ponder existence, and that helps stimulate my creativity. When I’m in the grind every single day, I don’t have a lot of creative thoughts. So I’ve learned to really balance when I come in and, you know, use my left brain strategically, versus how can I pull out and create space so that I can come up with some creative ideas and concepts.

Do your inner work, and then your external world starts reflecting your internal state of being. — Suzy Batiz. 

PC: How do you prioritize your own mental and physical health?

SB: I often say that people know me as an entrepreneur, but really, my full-time job has been my personal development. Many years ago, I knew that there was a lot of healing work that I had to do, and that I had to create. I started trekking down to Peru and seeing a shaman 13 years ago. So I would run my business, but then on the side, I always knew that I needed to feel not just my own trauma in my life, but generational patterns. Whenever I made the Forbes list, I literally laid down on my floor and cried for hours. And the reason I cried was that I realized that I have broken a lot of generational poverty that has run so much in my life.

There’s a really wonderful book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it’s basically about how the environment you grow up in is what you create. So to turn that trajectory from growing up poor (you know, my grandparents being what we consider poor) and then to have made the Forbes list was like a major 180. And it wasn’t about making money, but it was about really feeling worthwhile, that I could, could shift that trajectory. And that’s what I teach in ALIVE OS — it’s possible to get yourself out of any situation, you know, you just have to have focus and determination and do the work. Do your inner work, and then your external world starts reflecting your internal state of being.

 

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A post shared by Suzy Batiz (@suzybatiz)

PC: What piece of advice would you give to Dallas women?

SB: Don’t get caught up in the hustle. You know, a lot of people are like, “Oh, my God, you’ve got to get all the funding, and you have to scale fast and you need to, you know, go go, go, go, you have to be a millionaire by the time you’re 30.”

I started Poo-Pourri when I was 42.

So, the advice I would give is, don’t buy into all the external world and those demands. Really focus on your business and nurture it! You learn so much the first few years, so don’t worry about going fast. Learn about creating the best-paid product or service that you can create and then you can start scaling it out to the world.

OK, let’s have a little fun…

PC: What’s your go-to Dallas coffee order?

SB: I love LDU. They have one over on Fitzhugh, and I get a weak oat milk latte. Mark, the owner, is fantastic.

PC: What’s the best Dallas meal you’ve ever eaten?

SB: Cosmo’s! They have the best kimchi tater tots, and salads. Their pho is incredible — it’s literally the best pho I’ve ever eaten in my life.

PC: What are your favorite local wellness spots?

SB: I practice with Brian Johnson of the Movement Standard, which is a movement-based studio, and it’s amazing. It’s based on this work by Ito Portal and is incredible. My favorite facialist is Rula at The Joule. She’s amazing.

PC: What’s your favorite Dallas hidden gem?

SB: One of my favorite places, of course, is Dolly Python. You can find amazing little vintage nuggets! You have to dig through stuff, but I love it. I’ve found some amazing pieces — when you find that one thing, it’s a goldmine.