Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Dorian Morris is building her beauty empire, Undefined, through social impact; working with female & minority owned factories & thoughtful partners (part 1)

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Dorian Morris is building her beauty empire, Undefined, through social impact; working with female & minority owned factories & thoughtful partners (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Dorian Morris for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we're learning from Dorian Morris, the founder behind Undefined. Undefined is on a mission to undefine and destigmatize plant-based solutions through an unapologetic, uncompromising, unfiltered approach.
• 0:30
  Dorian's focused on democratizing plant ingredients like adaptogens and infusing social impact into the process with a collection of plant-based skincare and wellness products. And by tapping into purpose-driven, conscious capitalism, Undefined Beauty seeks to celebrate the beauty of choice over confirmation.
• 0:49
  In this episode, we're chatting through her blueprint in building this business, how she moved away from CBD to adaptogens, and how she's grown the brand by creating something that's truly purpose-driven and has a positive social impact in the world. And before we get into it, while I've got you here, if you are on your phone right now, please take a quick screenshot in your podcast app and share this episode on Instagram Stories.
• 1:15
  It helps me know that you really love the show, it helps other ears find us, and it shows that you are part of our club. Okay, that's enough from me. Let's get into this episode. This is Dorian for Female Startup Club. Dorian, hi, welcome to the show. Hello, hello. I'm so excited to be here. Me too. I'm jealous that you're in LA though. I feel like I'd love to switch the London vibes for the LA vibes. Yeah.
• 1:44
  Yeah, but you're probably not jealous of our $7 gas. That's not so fun right now.
• 1:50
  You know, I was in New York just recently and what was it? It was like when you went to book an Uber, it basically said there's a fuel surcharge now. And it was like crazy, crazy, crazy. The world is a weird place. Yeah, it's definitely a unique time and inflation. I was at Target the other day and I'm like, really? Toilet paper is $35? Gasp.
• 2:14
  But, you know, it's a unique time that we're in. How much toilet paper are we talking about here for $35? Oh, this is like a big roll, like the 24-pack, which as a single lady, I probably do not need 24 rolls of toilet paper. I love that we're starting our episode with toilet paper. I'm still kind of surprised that it's $35 even as a 24-pack. Like, it still seems really high. And I'm going to get back to you on what it is here in the UK. I was shocked and did not buy it. So...
• 2:45
  Lol. Yeah. Don't love that for you. Don't love that for LA. LA in the toilet paper. I'm not into it. But we do have the sun and the waves and I was a mermaid in my previous life. So I'm in my happy place. I love that. I reckon I probably would have been a mermaid in my previous life too. That's so cool. Love that for us. Introduce us to your brand, who you are. What's a bit of the ethos for anyone who might not know what it is yet?
• 3:11
  Absolutely. So Undefined is clean, conscious, inclusive plant magic. My mission is really to democratize beauty and undefine what the beauty and wellness space looks like, because historically she's had one face and that face is.
• 3:26
  no disrespect, was skinny, blonde, affluent, white. And I believe we all deserve access to high quality products that don't cost your firstborn child. So I created Undefined to really bridge that gap by elevating, you know, beautiful plant wisdom, but excessively priced, as well as giving a nod to inclusivity, which comes to life via my packaging,
• 3:46
  as well as my supply chain strategy. So everything is very intentional. I live at the intersection of beauty and wellness because I have both ingestibles as well as skincare and some other really exciting developments and innovation in other categories coming down the pipeline. But ultimately at a high level, Undefined is really giving people tools to really tackle modern day stress, which shows up on your skin as well as just your internal wellbeing. So it's all about giving people
• 4:14
  the right tools to empower them to live their best lives. I love that. And I particularly love your packaging. When I was looking at all of your products online, I was like, wow, I feel like there's a story with the packaging because it's just so cool and different. So this new collection that launched last fall is called the R&R Collection. So it's focused on the benefits of adaptogenic mushrooms to rescue, repair, reset, and replenish your skin barrier. So at the end of the day, it's all about skin health.
• 4:41
  And I chose inclusive illustrations that actually tie back to either the ingredient story or the end benefit. So for example, this little baby here, the cleanser, it has this beautiful Asian American illustration because the ingredient story has green tea, go to cola, shiitake mushroom, which has its heritage and traditional Chinese medicine. So I wanted to give a nod to that cultural context that elevated these ingredients and almost decolonized beauty. And then on the flip side,
• 5:10
  My bestseller, Day Serum, has this beautiful African-American goddess because the focus is hyperpigmentation and brightening. And the more melanin you have in your skin, the more rich you are for hyperpigmentation.
• 5:22
  although we all want bright, healthy skin. So it's really a universal needs state, but just giving a nod to that community that could use it the most. Oh, amazing. Incredible. It looks super, super cool. And yeah, I haven't seen that. I wouldn't say at all on packaging. It's really different. Love. Yeah. I think Undefined was probably one of the first brands to embark upon this, you know, diversity in action, I like to say, but honestly,
• 5:46
  it has been so heartwarming because I constantly get DMs of people that discover me at Whole Foods or Target. And it's like, this is the first time they feel seen. And, you know, representation matters and seeing as believing is becoming. And so I do think there's power in these small decisions that can really, you know, change the beauty landscape. 100%. And I really think it's like,
• 6:08
  you know, the kind of thing that catches someone's eye when they're walking past you in the aisle and immediately understand what it's about. You know, like there's no kind of like having to research first. It's like, oh yeah, I think I've got what's going on here. Like pick it up and then read the backstory and be like, oh yeah, I was right. Yeah. I mean, the packaging is really an education tool too, because it kind of talks through what is some of the plant magic that's in the formula. So people can start to understand that even if they don't buy my products, oh, I'm going to
• 6:33
  Licorice root does this. Niacinamide does that. And so I really want to, you know, be inclusive. And for me, inclusivity is not just about the color of your skin. It's about bringing people into the conversation that have been historically left out, maybe because they don't know where to start. So it's an information gap. And so the education piece is important or it's, you know, they can't afford it. So there's the economic inclusivity and ensuring that everyone has access because this collection is priced under $30.
• 7:00
  Oh my gosh. Wow. Amazing. Let's rewind a little bit to, you know, why you were getting interested in starting your own brand and what was leading to that moment. Yeah. So I am a beauty and wellness veteran. So going back to the beginning of time, um, I started from my career in retail. So I guess before that UCLA undergrad, go Bruins, uh, hopefully we'll make it all the way in the final four. I'm kind of a sports nut. Um, and so while I was an undergrad, I,
• 7:27
  I did all of my internships in advertising and a little stint in music. So I thought I was going to, you know, launch my career as this like high power advertising exec. And then I realized that advertising didn't pay any money. So I made the decision my senior year to kind of switch gears. And I started in retail at the executive training program at this company called Robinson's May, which rest in peace, Robinson's May doesn't exist anymore. Macy's acquired it probably six months after I started and.
• 7:54
  So I moved on to Macy's, really understanding how to build assortments, think through product planning. Then ultimately from there, I went to business school because I really wanted to get back to the consumer piece of like, you know, I'm a very curious person. And so I like like problem solving and connecting dots. And I find that marketing is kind of a key area for that. So I went to Harvard Business School, really learning kind of general management, and I
• 8:19
  And then I went to General Mills, so a large food conglomerate here in the U.S. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I was there for a couple of years working on some really amazing brands like Chex Mix as well as Yoplait. I really missed, you know, the tangibility of beauty. So I interned at J&J Beauty working on hair care. You see, I have a lot of hair.
• 8:41
  So hair care is a very special place in my heart. And I'd done some internships in business school, also working in beauty. And so I had this amazing opportunity that fell into my lap at this company called Kendo. And at that point, no one knew what Kendo is. People still might not know what Kendo is, but I don't know what Kendo is. Please tell me. So at the time, it was a division of Sephora. You know, Sephora, right?
• 9:04
  Got it. Yeah. Okay. So it was a division of Sephora creating their white space brand. So Marc Jacobs, Kat Von D, now Fenty. And so it was this little incubation engine within the larger LVMH family. And that's really where I learned all things beauty and how to really win within the prestige landscape. So I did that for a couple of years. And when I joined, I think there was maybe 30 people. When I left, it was about 250 people.
• 9:34
  So super high growth, very scrappy, you know, roll up your sleeves. It was a GSD culture. Get shit done. Like that was the mindset. It was like, we are going to take over the beauty world, you know, take names and, you know, GSD.
• 9:49
  And so I did that for a couple of years. Then I went to Sundial, which at that point was a black owned family owned company. Shea Moisture was our largest brand. And I came on board to essentially do what I was doing at Kendo, but for Madam C.J. Walker, which was this new beauty line that was taking the rich heritage of Madam C.J. Walker herself, which if you're not familiar, she was the first self-made black millionaire woman.
• 10:15
  in the US in the early 1900s. So this is before women had rights, before black women had rights. She really built her empire, you know, really through word of mouth. And she was the Mary Kay before there was Mary Kay. And so the goal was to take this heritage of this icon in the black community and bring her to the modern day curly girl. And then I went to cover girl cosmetics briefly.
• 10:42
  Didn't necessarily enjoy that role, but learned something from it. And from there, I launched Undefined. So I've been kind of across corporate beauty roles. But this entrepreneurship journey, I will say, is very different because, you know, in these larger corporations, there's teams, there's money, there's support.
• 11:00
  And I am a bootstrap team of one currently. So it's definitely been a fun journey and roller coaster to really do things differently and take a very different approach to brand building. Holy moly. What a journey. So much experience. Definitely like a veteran in the beauty industry. Gosh. Wow. Yeah, I've had multiple lives.
• 11:24
  How do you sort of think about like you had all this experience, you knew the like the blueprint of building a brand within those walls of having, you know, funding and team and all the bits already kind of figured out. When you were starting to launch your own brand, what were those early steps? What did you need to do to get started as a woman of one? Yeah. So as I was thinking about, you know, my next steps after leaving CoverGirl, I was actually a...
• 11:53
  working for General Mills again as an internal consultant. And that's where I started to ideate. It's like, okay, Doreen, you've now built brands for other people. It's time to build one for yourself and really taking kind of the toolkit that I've learned kind of across each of those different roles, because they were all very different and added something very different to like my learnings. And ultimately I think, you know, entrepreneurship is about leadership and leadership transcends, you know, individual roles within companies. And so as I was thinking about kind of,
• 12:22
  how I wanted this to come to life, literally had a ginormous post-it note with my best friend, who she was also in the beauty space. And we're like ideating names and concepts. And I'm like a big idea person. And we'll say sometimes I need to corral the cats and get a little bit more focused. And so there was a couple of different, you know, areas that I wanted to play. I also like, as I take a step back, it was almost like building this
• 12:49
  umbrella idea. And I had multiple little like collections within this broader vision, which came to life as undefined, which is nice because it's all about, you know, breaking the rules, you know, not following a playbook and doing things very differently. So I think it gave me the legs to do things, you know, unconventional.
• 13:11
  And so where I started was I dated a name and then making sure that I had the ability to have a URL and Instagram handle. I then started embarking upon kind of the product development journey and really thinking about what I wanted to bring to life and how I'm going to be differentiated in the space. This was 2018. So very different space than we are now.
• 13:32
  I actually started on the CBD side of the business. And this is right when CBD, which is one of the major cannabinoids in cannabis, became legal in the U.S. And so I was an early mover in that, you know, the wild west, we'll call it, of CBD. But the one thing that I noticed as I was thinking about the space or looking at the space is that a lot of the brands were either, A, very expensive or B, very expensive.
• 13:57
  crunchy granola, they look like they came out of an apothecary. And I felt that there was an opportunity to kind of elevate the conversation and demystify the plant magic, but also do so in a way that's fun, fresh, unapologetic. At the end of the day, it's beauty. It's not, you know, it shouldn't be so serious. And so that was the angle that I took. And I launched at Indie Beauty Expo in fall of 2020, 2018. And I haven't looked back since. And I will tell you my little secret.
• 14:27
  I actually made the decision to launch less than a month before the show. And so it was not this grand vision. I was at Cosmoprof, which is a big trade show in Vegas, looking at suppliers and vendors. And I met up with Richelieu Dennis, who was my boss at Sundial. He was the founder and CEO at Sundial. And he's this visionary. He basically grew Sundial to this multi-million dollar company, Foodstrips.
• 14:57
  in a very different context. And he was also breaking rules and really his thing was, what's the right word? Desegregating the hair care category because historically it was like, here is your black ethnic hair care and here's your other hair care. And he was like, no, that's segregation. We should normalize hair as hair is hair. So met up with him and he gave me the feedback that I'm never gonna be ready.
• 15:25
  launch and no matter what, I'm going to learn something. And so it was really this light bulb moment that, you know what, I'm going to jump off the cliff and I'm going to build my wings on the way down. And guess what? I can evolve. I can pivot how I launched day one. Doesn't have to be how the brand looks and feels at day 365.
• 15:46
  And so that has always been my mindset that I will test and learn and I will, you know, use these learnings. So then continue to grow and evolve listening to my consumer until I can find, you know, a product market fit. And so, you know, coming out of Cosmoprof, which was July, I launched in August, which meant doing things very scrappy. So literally in my mother's garage, filling products, labeling products,
• 16:14
  creating very scrappy visuals for my booth. And so it definitely was an intense month. And I big, big thanks to this guy named Orlando who was my creative visionary who I still work with today.
• 16:30
  Um, cause if it wasn't for him, I would not have launched or my family who was literally helping me fill bottles in the garage. This is crazy. I have so many questions. So you launch in the, in the August, was it? Or the September at the expo? August 22nd, 2018.
• 16:47
  which is actually an important date because 22 is a very important number to me. I'm kind of witchy and spiritual. So 22, it was the perfect stars aligning. And when I signed up for the show, I was the last booth in the very back corner. And so the universe had my back and knew that that was kind of the moment for me to kind of birth the brand. And coming out of the show, I was voted one of the consumer favorites.
• 17:11
  That's amazing. Which was like, you know, a shock and surprise, but it really gave me the fuel to say, okay, people are watching and they're digging what I'm doing. So it gave me kind of the momentum to continue and evolve. I love that. When you say you launched within a month.
• 17:28
  just so I'm clear, do you mean like you'd already gone through product development with a lab, you already had products, or you literally would, you just developed the products in your garage, and then you were taking those X number of products to the expo, and like that was like launching it to the world? So I had already worked with, let's see, I had started working on Undefined in February of 2018.
• 17:54
  And so I had this grand idea of having this multi-skew collection, solving these key pinch points. And actually one of the products is still in development because it's taken that long because it's such a tricky category and hopefully, you know, knock on wood, it's going to launch this year. But so there was multiple products that I was working on and there was only one that was close enough. And because I made this decision to launch this.
• 18:19
  I literally couldn't get on their production line. So they're like, hey, Dorian, we believe in what you're doing. We will basically batch some bulk for you. You can pick up these gallons, like 25 gallons of bulk, which I literally picked up in my car and hand fill it because I bought like a filling. Actually, at that point, I did not have a filling machine. We were literally hand pouring these into bottles with a funnel. How many? How many bottles are we talking about? I know.
• 18:45
  I think for the show, because I was testing out the right sizing and there's two different sizes. It was 100 ml and a 50 ml. So I think in total we had filled maybe 500 bottles and it was messy everywhere. We were covered in, it was, it's called glow elixir. And so we smelled like, you know, roses and geraniums. We were definitely glowing. My family was like, if I smell this again.
• 19:08
  I'm going to kill you. But yeah, we were filling it in my mom's garage and labeling it and boxing it and getting ready to pack it in a suitcase so I can ship off or fly out to New York. So it was definitely an adventure. I think that's what they call elbow grease. But in your scenario, it was elbow rose and geranium grease. Yes. But you learn so much by getting hands on. And as much as it was a painful experience...
• 19:38
  I think it helps me on my journey. Absolutely. For sure. Getting involved in the action. Gosh, I want to spend a little bit more time in this phase of building the business to understand the money piece of the puzzle, because we love to talk about money on the show. Love to understand, you know, how much you spent to get started and how you were financing it and how you were thinking about the money piece. Obviously, building a CPG brand requires working capital. Yeah.
• 20:05
  Let's discuss. Yeah. So I'm currently self-funded. So every, you know, from the beginning of time, it was Dorian's investment. Luckily, I've worked across these large companies and I've always been very frugal. My friends would call me cheap. I call it frugal. So I had amassed the savings just from, you know, working. I started working when I was like 14.
• 20:28
  So I've always just been kind of a, you know, I've got to stay busy. And a lot of times my business equals money because I'm creating, I'm doing, I was a waitress for a long time, which I really loved. And so that, you know, put money in my pocket. And so when I launched, I want to say, cause I've always done a, I think a good job of mitigating risk. So I will do things in small scale. I mean, I only made
• 20:53
  whatever the 500 units or whatever it was that showed, because that was the minimum of the bulk requirement and like their 25 gallons or whatever their minimum was. And so I worked with, you know, buying glass off the shelf local here in the U S it was all of these little things that I did where I was, you know, being very conscious that I will probably evolve and I don't want to have so much inventory that, you know, is a waste. And so I probably spent for launch a,
• 21:23
  I've actually never calculated it. But back to the envelope, I'd probably say. Six thousand dollars, but half of that six thousand dollars was actually the booth fee for Indie Beauty Expo. It was a very expensive show. And so like the actual products themselves, it wasn't that expensive because, you know, the labor, me and my family.
• 21:46
  I don't know if I paid them. I paid them maybe in hugs and love. Or maybe like, I don't know, bought them some pizza. I'm the oldest of eight. So I have a lot of siblings that, you know, pitched in to help. And friends. I think if my friends listen, thank you, friends, for helping me pour products back then, back in the day. And so it wasn't a very expensive execution. It was really, let's, you know, invest a small amount of money. And then every dollar that comes in from a profit standpoint, I'm investing back into the brand.
• 22:15
  And now fast forward, you know, three years later, I'm still self-funded. I don't actually pay myself. So everything has been a labor of love and everything that I do, I pour back into this business. But luckily, I've had the, I guess, privilege and opportunity to win some amazing grants that have given me equity-free money. And that has been kind of the economic engine to help fund, you know, inventory, you know,
• 22:43
  And I wouldn't even say marketing because actually all of my growth to date has been organic. I actually haven't spent any money on marketing outside of like these events that I've done, which I guess they are a form of marketing, but I haven't done traditional like performance driven, you know, I haven't done Facebook ads or anything like that. But it's also because when I started on the CBD side, there were so many handcuffs. So I actually couldn't. So I had to actually build the business very different. And it was this,
• 23:12
  you know, I'm going to build a slow and steady foundation. So then I can, you know, have this, you know, foundation to then grow upon. I think also, and I've never actually talked about this, but reflecting on some of the decisions, some of my business school classmates had taken to like raise a bunch of money. And then you get on this hamster wheel. I think I might've had a little bit of like,
• 23:39
  What is the word when you're like traumatized by something? Yes. I think I had like PTSD through watching their journeys that I knew that I didn't want to do that. I wanted to have the flexibility to pivot. And I felt that if I'd raised money, I then would have this monkey on my shoulder dictating decisions. And so I chose the path.
• 24:00
  To grow, definitely slower, but slow and steady wins the race, they say. So it was a very different approach. And I do think that ultimately, I probably will have to raise money. I hope that now that I've actually shown there's traction, I have large retailers and some exciting stuff coming down the pipeline, that'll also make me a bit more valuable as I embark upon fundraising. And the other piece, and it's something that I think,
• 24:30
  It's probably not talked about a lot, but being a African-American woman and there's not that many African-American women that have raised a lot of money. I also felt that because representation matters, I wanted to make sure that this business was going to be successful before I go out and ask someone for money, because I felt that if I was to fail and knock on wood, I'm not going to fail. That's then going to reflect negatively on the next entrepreneur behind me.
• 24:58
  And so I wanted to be very conscious because, you know, my decisions matter to the broader ecosystem of just entrepreneurship and black entrepreneurship. Yeah, I understand that. Gosh. Unfortunately, I wish it wasn't that way, but it unfortunately is. Yeah, I see where you're coming from. Gosh. Okay. I have so many questions because we've covered like a little bit of the beginning, but like a lot at the same time. So I just want to keep on this early, like you've done the booth, you've done this like
• 25:27
  it's a trade show called Expo West. Is that what you said? Expo West. Oh no. So Expo West, which is a lovely trade show is not where I launched. It was called Indie Beauty Expo. It's no longer around. Oh, okay. Indie Beauty Expo. Okay. They were the owners of Beauty Independent, which is a trade publication and they used to have these amazing events. I actually, you know, visited a bunch before I launched and after, because it was just this community of like indie brands that are like,
• 25:54
  just scrappy and like supporting each other. And they're still friends to this day that, you know, we're constantly helping each other that I'd met at these trade shows. And so rest in peace. I wish they would bring them back. They're not going to, but if I hadn't launched there, I honestly don't know where I would be because that was like the first piece of coverage that I got from like a press. It was, you know,
• 26:16
  an introduction to retailers who chanced upon my booth and, you know, kind of watched my journey. And so I'm a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. And it's this beautiful spider web of life that you never know who you're going to meet. That's going to open up a door. And so, yeah, if I hadn't launched there,
• 26:33
  Who knows? Well, I think you would have crushed it regardless of where you launched. Truly. You're amazing. Thank you. If you had to kind of break down how you got your first 100 customers after the expo and then how you got your first 1000 customers, what were the kind of key things in those early days that were kind of getting you traction after the expo? Yeah, because I didn't have the ability to do traditional ads.
• 27:02
  Everything was driven by word of mouth and the word of mouth was actually driven by events. So I would do a lot of these local events that were like not flea markets, but like.
• 27:14
  craft fairs, but that doesn't sound sexy. Like they're sexier than like craft fairs. West coast craft is a big one, renegade craft. And so I would do these shows across the nation. So Chicago, New York, I did a South by, they had like a little wellness expo. And so I would do these events and I, people would chance upon my booth and I actually would use these opportunities as a consumer insight tool.
• 27:38
  to understand, you know, what is stopping you? So one, do you know CBD and the benefits? What's stopping you from actually trying it? And so like, it would be a learning opportunity for me to then sharpen how I tell the story and how I educate just around the plant magic. And as I would meet people at these events, it was like this word of mouth, you know, evangelical experience where then that's how people would find out about the brand, shop me, you know, on my website. And so it was really grassroots experience
• 28:09
  Boots on the ground, you know, word of mouth. Oh, my gosh. But that's crazy. I'm still like, but how? Like, what else? Like, how do you get to having this huge brand just by one-to-one conversations? Like, what were the milestones that kind of leapt you forward?
• 28:27
  I've actually never really thought about the milestones, but it was honestly these events, which again, that's not necessarily scalable because it meant me traveling across the nation myself. And I normally would be the only one at the booth setting it up, working in the booth, breaking it down. Um, while I'm trying to like, you know, manage everything else within kind of the, you know, entrepreneurship journey. And so, yeah, I didn't really sleep a lot, but you had nice products.
• 28:56
  To look great. I'm not only the founder, I'm also a user of the products, my 38 year old skin. So because I was a team of one, I was extremely flexible. I didn't have to be accountable to anyone. And so like if I was exhausted one day, guess what? I'm not going to work. Got it. And so it was actually, you know, very interesting time. And then later in 2019, which actually this is another key milestone,
• 29:23
  So I'm always thinking about how can I solve a problem? I'm a very like problem solution person and chatting with another entrepreneur friend who went to undergrad with me at UCLA. She also had a beauty brand and she had a physical brick and mortar store. And we were at, I believe like, there's a platform called Hello Alice, which is all about connecting women business leaders. And we're at this like Hello Alice event, which was really amazing. And she basically was like,
• 29:51
  She wants to focus on her brand and get rid of the store. And I was like, I actually could use a store to use it as a standalone space to tell the story and educate because the CBD category needs so much education. This is 2019. So this is before it was a commonplace. And so we basically struck up a deal where I was going to take her space and I would keep her products in the store. And then I realized that, you know, Undefined at that point had two skews.
• 30:20
  I wasn't going to build out a store for two SKUs. So Undefined Collective was born, which was a multi-branded retail platform. It was 50 brands focused on conscious capitalism. So all brands in the store were female founded, minority owned, LGBTQ, local, or CBD. So half the store was CBD.
• 30:42
  but you broke it out by category. So it was like beverage, edibles, skincare, tinctures. And so it really was your one-stop shop to come in and get educated around CBD and other conscious brands. I even had a tincture bar, which I equated to like a wine bar. So you can come up for free, taste the different tinctures, which were all female founded because they all had a different, you know, cannabinoid ratio or different taste profile. And, you know, where the hemp was farmed, you know, changes the experience. And so it wasn't artisanal,
• 31:12
  you know, experience, but also a tool to educate around CBD. And in the process, I also just met some amazing people that are still on my journey today because they were part of my collective. And it's so amazing to just, you know, watch some of these brands blow up. In fact, one of them was on Shark Tank last week. And I'm like thinking about her one little deodorant skew that was on my shelf. And now she's like killing it. Is it Sarah's brand? Yes. Yes.
• 31:40
  I saw her Instagram post today and I was like, yeah, girl, love that. Yeah. So Curie was one of the brands on my non CBD side of the store. And so again, this was also an opportunity that came to life in about a month. And so I found out I had the space, literally had to paint, build up fixtures, paint,
• 32:01
  Build an assortment. I think what I'm learning actually is that I work well under pressure. And so I kind of need these like burning platforms and like deadlines to kind of keep me moving. And so it was like an idea. And then we launched on summer solstice again, because I'm kind of witchy and it was a beautiful opportunity. And my family worked the store. So again, getting my family involved, my mom, who was one of the first black
• 32:25
  female sergeants for the CHP, which is the California Highway Patrol. So like our policing system. So like, you know, I grew up in this just say no to drugs household. She was like, literally the store manager. And so she was this like ex cop turned CBD evangelist managing the store. That sounds amazing. Does the store still exist? No. So this is a, yeah. So I had had the store for about three months, four months, um, in this location in Oakland, which was
• 32:54
  An amazing location, very well trafficked. It was a great growth engine, both from an economic standpoint, but also just elevating the other brands. Because again, one plus one equals five when indie brands come together. And that was the whole promise. It was like, join my platform. You can do free events. Let's all win.
• 33:14
  And did that for a couple months. And the plan was to actually take that concept and do it in LA. So I moved to the art district, which is this kind of cool, funky area in downtown LA. I got a live workspace. So I built out a full showroom downstairs. I lived upstairs. And then COVID. COVID hit. So yeah, I built it all out. And then unfortunately, I couldn't open because this was literally right when COVID started. Yeah.
• 33:40
  And so I ultimately made the decision to like let that concept go. But also as a team of one, I recognize that I only have so much mental bandwidth and I was starving undefined beauty in order to allocate so much time to undefined collective. So it served its purpose. I met some amazing people. Actually, again, the platform and the retail audience.
• 34:04
  experience actually informed my innovation pipeline, because at that point, I only had topicals. And I recognized that, wow, ingestibles is really where people were gravitating towards, because it's the most
• 34:15
  common use of CBD. And so it informed my development of glow bars, which were my vegan CBD chocolates, as well as glow drops. It's a beauty tincture. And so it was really solving the pinch points that I recognize when people are coming into store. And so like infusing other functional botanicals, check, making sure it doesn't taste like dirt, check, making sure that it's priced under $50. And so, you know, that, you know,
• 34:39
  experiment into retail in informed undefined beauties evolution as well. It was like your focus group, but like supersized. Yes. Again, it's always about learning. I feel like as an entrepreneur, nothing is a failure. It's all about just learning. It's just all about learning. And so it's kind of like reframing, you know, what failures air quotes can be.
• 35:02
  Yeah. We hear that a lot on the show. A hundred percent. It's a, it's a, it's a moment to learn. It's a moment to grow. What's working for you now, you know, since you had to close the stores, you had to then realign, focus, launch new products. What's been kind of the last two years? Yeah. So I think what's unlocked a lot of growth for me was actually shifting away from CBD. So because unfortunately, I,
• 35:26
  The category still has a lot of regulatory hassles. I made the decision last year to embark upon this new collection. And when you see behind me, the R&R collection, and actually the impetus started as I was working on glow bars, which were my vegan chocolates, because I wanted to make sure that they were infused with adaptogens. So I partnered with this female chocolatier in the Bay area and we're literally like in her kitchen, like mixing powders and potions to create these chocolates.
• 35:53
  And as you know, we're building these out, like, hey, why don't we create two that don't have CBD? And so we did these recipes and we launched them. And that was kind of the first step towards the R&R collection, which is focused on adaptogenic mushrooms, sans CBD. So no CBD. Because actually...
• 36:11
  A lot of benefits that these mushrooms can have mirror a lot of the same things that CBD does. As you think about the ability for it to, you know, rebalance the homeostasis within your system. Like that's what adaptogens do. They adapt to what you individually need. And so it was kind of this light bulb moment again, like, let's do some development without CBD. And I, you know, I was meeting retailers at events and like, Dorian, we love the brand. We love you.
• 36:41
  but we can't take CBD. Let us know when you, you know, when you have something not CBD. And so that was kind of also in the back of my head. And so I embarked during COVID on development of the R&R skincare collection, which is a full line. There's a cleanser, a day serum, a night serum, a moisturizer, an exfoliator, a mineral mist, and now an SPF. So it's kind of your full stop from a skincare standpoint. And it's really about, you know, you know,
• 37:07
  simplifying your skincare regimen. It's not about, you know, 20 step Korean skincare routine. It's about how can these individual products solve multiple skincare concerns in an easy to understand, easy to affordable, easy to afford way. And so by launching this new collection, it actually unlocks a lot of growth. So I launched the collection in August. So yeah, August around like my anniversary of the brand. And I also launched Nationwide with Whole Foods.
• 37:38
  So that was kind of my first big retail partnership, you know, in 500 stores.
• 37:44
  Oh my gosh. And I know that you're in like Target and all these other cool stores. What is your kind of like key piece of, you know, advice or insight into getting into those stores? Like obviously a lot of people listening into the show are kind of building brands. They're looking at those retail retailers and being like, oh, that's my dream. I want to get into Target or I want to get into Whole Foods. What's your key piece of advice for those folks listening in?
• 38:14
  I had met Amy Jargo, who's no longer at Whole Foods, at Indie Beauty Expo. And so we had met at this trade event and we became friends and she was following my journey and she was one of the people that wanted to take a risk on Undefined. As an indie brand who has no marketing budget, team of one. And so it was really the relationship that allowed her to have faith in what I could build. And then for Target,
• 38:43
  also events. So I guess my first interaction, well, maybe not the first, but one important interaction was, well, two interactions. Through Undefined Collective, we would do a lot of events together because it's a shared resource and allows us to kind of peacock and seem like we're bigger than we are. I was at BeautyCon. And so I had a booth at BeautyCon. I believe it was like five
• 39:06
  five brands. And one of the buyers from Target approached the booth and was like, I've been watching you. I love this. Let's stay in touch.
• 39:16
  That would have been, I don't know, maybe summertime. And then I ended up doing another event in Atlanta that Target was sponsoring with Essence. So Essence is a large, they do a lot of events. It's a magazine. And so I did the Essence Target pop-up, which again was sponsored by Target. Also did a pitch competition. So I won some money, which actually funded the booth, which was nice. Win-win.
• 39:36
  And, you know, it was just engaging with the target buyers that ultimately landed me in the target takeoff program, which is their accelerator, which gave me kind of a peek behind the curtain. And, you know, really gave me the tools to launch successfully at target. I'm only a month in, but off to a great start. Actually, my new product, Sun Serum.
• 39:57
  is actually sold out in my inventory. So I've had to like cut cases. So it's like a blessing and a curse, I guess. But it'll be back in stock in a couple of weeks. I can fill orders to Target and hold those. Oh my gosh. Congratulations. Thank you. That's so cool. And so the advice I would actually give is be very thoughtful on one, how you're building your business. Because as you think about retail, it's an expensive proposition. Right?
• 40:24
  But it could be powerful to building brand awareness, which is kind of how I think about retail. It's like, I can't afford a billboard or a TV commercial. So the shelf and those walking the shelf, that is my billboard. And so that's how I kind of think about wholesale. But it's a very expensive proposition. So making sure you're building enough margin into your cost of goods so that way you can fund retail. Because of course...
• 40:50
  Every retailer is going to have different kind of margin expectations, but at a high level, it's typically 50%. So if you don't have enough cushion within just your cost of good structure, it's going to make it very difficult to launch into retail. And then also just be very thoughtful on who you decide to partner with because undefined is a very purpose-driven approach. And I didn't, I didn't mention this, but one key pillar is called conscious capitalism, which I evolved from the retail concept, which means across my supply chain,
• 41:18
  I partner with female founded, minority owned and LGBTQ businesses because as a business owner, I can empower other like-minded business owners through my voting with my dollars. So like my warehouse is female founded and my contract manufacturer is minority owned. And so it's all of these little things behind the scenes that is really focusing on doing good and doing well at the same time by elevating other communities, you know, that have been historically, you know, not given a seat at the table. And so...
• 41:47
  I've also taken that lens as I think about my retail partnerships, because I want to make sure that they also have similar values, because for me, it's not just about profit. It's about doing things the right way. And so Target, as a good example, has made a big commitment to really helping bridge the gap within the black community and helping to support black owned brands.
• 42:07
  as well as just local initiatives that they do to, you know, invest back into the local communities. And so I wanted to be very thoughtful about who I decide to partner with. Same with Whole Foods. They do a lot from a local standpoint to amplify local brands.
• 42:22
  I love that. That's so cool. Wow. All the things are going on for you right now. Holy moly. Yeah. And there's so much more. Because the brand is really about democratizing beauty and wellness, again, being very thoughtful about who I'm partnering with, I just announced today that I launched with Vitamin Shop. So I'm in 450 vitamin shops across the nation. So as people are going in to buy their supplements, so that way they can focus on their wellness journey
• 42:49
  They can also walk on over to the skincare aisle and pick up their adaptogen infused skincare. And so that was also being very thoughtful. I'm also going on air with HSN in two weeks. So that'll be exciting to really tell the brand story to a very different audience who's married, maybe not so skincare savvy. And so it's going to be around educating, normalizing and demystifying some of the plant magic. So yeah.
• 43:12
  Excited about that too. Holy moly. You deserve a million pats on the back. That's crazy. Oh, thank you. How many stores are you in in total across all your retailers? And I'm just asking this as a fact of like for someone who is bootstrapped, that is like beyond. That's huge. Yeah, and actually let me do that. I'm doing the math. I've actually never calculated this before. So drum roll, please. I'm in 1,235 stores.
• 43:39
  What the Mackie, that is crazy. Holy goodness. I'm going to write that down so that way I remember. Oh my gosh. Wow. I'm just like, yeah, mind blown. I imagine there's a, but are you still a one person show? Is that what you say? I am. And I have the gray hair to show for it. Well, so I think where it gets tricky is that because there's so much to do,
• 44:05
  recruiting takes time. And so like, I just don't have the mental bandwidth to say, okay, I need to focus on recruiting. And so I ended up on this, you know, slippery slope, but I've recognized that now is the time. I must bring on support or else I'm going to, you know, I want to make sure I'm maximizing these opportunities and I need to build marketing. So because everything is to date, it's been organic. Now is the time that I have these retail channels.
• 44:32
  to really invest into core brand building. So that way there is brand awareness because it's not going to be a situation where you build it and they're going to come. And within these channels, although I talk about being accessible to be priced, it's still a, I'm still a high price within the channel. So like within Whole Foods, I'm in the natural skincare set, which I think I might be the only independent black owned brand in the natural skincare set. And it's, you know, $28. And so-
• 45:02
  Compared to the other, you know, your vino, right? $10 moisturizer. So there is a premium. So I really need to justify the cost, which is, you know, it's a beautiful ingredient. It's the conscious approach. And so there is the storytelling that's necessary.
• 45:19
  to ensure people understand, you know, what I stand for and how I'm really undefining the space and doing things very differently. Yeah, absolutely. Exciting times for you ahead with all of this growth and adding fuel to the fire with marketing and team and all that kind of stuff. I'm going to be excited to watch you go from here. Yeah. I mean, if there's anyone listening that, you know, is loving my vision and wants to come join team undefined, definitely reach out. Love that for you. Definitely reach out.
• 45:48
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 46:13
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 46:36
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 46:52
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 47:17
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 47:39
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.