Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / GEMS: Launching in Sephora with Bread Beauty Supply founder Maeva Heim

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GEMS: Launching in Sephora with Bread Beauty Supply founder Maeva Heim · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:08
  I'm so interested to know about the Sephora piece of the puzzle, because like you said, how do you get a launch contract with a brand like Sephora, which is obviously like huge and, you know, the goal for any beauty brand, I imagine. What were the kind of steps that you did to get on their radar? How did you make that happen?
• 0:28
  Yeah, I think it's interesting because I definitely know of brands that have been offered to launch in Sephora and have declined. And I think, you know, certain styles of brand work really well there and others maybe not so much. But for us, I knew that I wanted us to be omnichannel. I was like, we need a retail partner and Sephora is like our big bet. And then, of course, we want to sell through our own e-com so we can have that close relationship with our consumer. But for me, it was kind of an...
• 0:54
  I have talked about this in the past, but this idea of like taking a side door, because to your point, everyone wants to launch in Sephora almost every round, right? And so going a traditional route of, you know, finding someone's email and sending an email to a buyer is probably not going to get you cut through.
• 1:11
  And so what I did was, one, I knew that there was an opportunity to potentially speak to like a Sephora executive at events. That's one way that I've been able to kind of meet different people and get people's contact and build relationships. And so I ended up going to this conference in L.A.
• 1:33
  And I knew that there was going to be a Sephora VP speaking there. I think it was actually their head merchant, but last minute she pulled out and somebody else ended up coming. And I just basically like semi-stalked her at this event. I was like, I'm just going to wait for the right opportunity to approach her. And there was that window of opportunity. She kind of went off to get some lunch and then come back and she was just wandering around and,
• 2:02
  Yeah, I approached her and I just said, introduced myself, said I'm working on this hair care brand.
• 2:08
  you know, what is your advice for being able to get a meeting with a buyer? And at the time, you know, I knew that this wasn't very common. Like it's not very common that you can kind of approach the floor and go, hey, I've got this brilliant idea. Give me a purchaser and then I'll go and do it. Unless you're a celebrity or you're an influencer because you've got that built in audience. But I knew that, you know, Jen Atkin had done it. I read this article where she was like, yeah, I pitched the brand. And so I was like, yes, let's launch it. And I was like, cool, maybe Jen can do it.
• 2:36
  I'll give it a hot crack. And so, yeah, I told this VP from Sephora what I was doing and she was like, great. Do you have product samples? And I had some really early product samples at the time. And I said, yeah, I've got some samples and I've got a brand deck. And she was like, great. Well, here's my card. Email me the deck and I'll get it to the right person. And I was like, oh, okay, great. Okay.
• 3:04
  She was like, how easy was that? And I thought, was that too easy? I don't know. I just asked for advice and now you're going to connect me with the buyer. Okay, fine. Let's do this. And so I booked a flight to San Francisco because I thought if there's a chance that, you know, this deck gets to the right person and they want to do a meeting, like I want to be there for it. Like, let's do it. And so I booked this trip to San Francisco and refined this deck while I was there, sent it off at midnight on a Sunday.
• 3:34
  Got an email back, I think Monday from the haircare buyer and she said, I can meet you for 15 minutes tomorrow. You were like, thank goodness I came to San Fred. And I thought, wow, okay, yes. But I think my flight or bus was going back that night and so I had to change like my tickets and everything and I was like, worth it. And then the other way that I kind of went about it to kind of take that side door approach was I knew that Sephora had this Accelerate program
• 4:03
  And felt like bread could potentially be a good brand for that. And I reached out to all of the contacts that I knew in San Francisco and LA, told them about what I was doing. And one of them from San Francisco said, oh, this is cool. You should actually meet with the woman who runs Sephora Accelerate.
• 4:21
  And I said, great, well, I'm in San Francisco. Please introduce me. And she did. And it just so happened that she was also available the following day at 10 a.m. And then the meeting with the buyer was at 11 a.m. They both picked the same spot, which was Joe and the Juice downstairs from the Sephora office. And so I set myself up in the corner of Joe and the Juice at, I think it's 525 Market Street.
• 4:46
  and prepared for my meetings, which honestly were like life-changing in the end. Because one, I met with this Sephora buyer. We ended up chatting for like an hour, an hour and a half. And she loved the concept, was really bullish on hair. She's the hair care buyer, but was really bullish on growing hair, which is the fastest growing category at Sephora. It's the smallest, but super fast growing. She was really bullish on textured hair and really felt like this was a brand that was missing in the space.
• 5:14
  And then I met with the manager of Sephora Accelerate, who is amazing and is still the manager there today. And, you know, she was very supportive, but it wasn't open to Australia based founders at the time. So she was like, you know, it might open next year. And if it does, like reach out and you should apply.
• 5:31
  And so I kept in touch with that buyer and actually ended up, you know, meeting with her a couple of times over the years as I went back and forth from Melbourne to LA. And when that Sephora Accelerate opened up for the first time to Australia-based founders, she ended up putting me forward as a recommendation, which was amazing and a huge bonus for,
• 5:53
  me to be able to, I think there were some parts at the start of the application that I could skip over. So like the application video and stuff, I was like, no, I'm still doing that. I still did an application and the video. And I think Lily, who's the manager of Accelerate, said that the application that I did was the longest they've ever had in history.
• 6:13
  You were like, I'm getting in. I'm just going like throwing everything at it so that you cannot say no. And so that's kind of how it all came about and then got to be part of Accelerate, which was just the most incredible experience I've probably ever had for the business. And we got to the end of that, did demo day, presented the brand to a bunch of investors who were, you know, already, you know, interested in the beauty space specifically.
• 6:42
  And then following that, got the contract to launch with Sephora, which was amazing. Long time coming, but we got there. Oh, my gosh. Isn't it crazy, that feeling of like a really serious goal that you have coming into fruition and actually like being realized and you just being like, oh, hang on a second. I had an idea and then I had a goal and now I'm actually here. Yeah. It's the best feeling. Yeah.
• 7:11
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• 7:35
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• 7:58
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