Plant-Based Pet-Safe Pest Control: Esther Salata of Benesafe Solutions

Esther Salata is the founder of Benesafe Solutions. She created a pet-safe pest control product that safely kills mosquitos in your backyard while keeping you, your pets, and the environment safe. It was important to her to use natural, plant-based ingredients. This is where her background in biology came in handy to find what ingredients would be really effective and the regulations around different pesticides. In addition to her own findings, Esther found mosquito labs and reached out to professors to see who would be able to help her conduct a scientific study of her product. She explains why this kind of efficacy data was needed to justify the business. Benesafe turned out to be more effective than the learning competitor - so I’d say that study was definitely worth it! Running a minority woman-owned business all by herself, Esther has to play the part of marketing, sales, distribution, website development, social media management… and everything else it takes to start and grow a business. She shared with me the struggles of being a one-woman operation. Her advice is to embrace your struggles and failures because they mean you’re taking a risk. And you can’t grow without taking some risks.