Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How to create luxury skincare products without the price tag, with Dimitra Davidson from Indeed Labs

Transcript

How to create luxury skincare products without the price tag, with Dimitra Davidson from Indeed Labs · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Demetra Davidson for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today I'm chatting with the founder of Canadian skincare brand Indeed Labs. Founded in 2010, Indeed Labs has grown into an eight-figure business under the helm of Dimitra. We're chatting through the importance of finding your unique value proposition and why it's critical to find a point of difference in today's super saturated market, the current trends and opportunities in the beauty industry, and how to create luxury products without the price tag.
• 0:41
  Indeed Labs is the champion of great skin for real people, and they're most known for the hero cult product, Nano Blur, which I can't wait to try, by the way. It sounds amazing. She's also going to be joining us in the Hype Club as a mentor in the coming months. So if you love this episode and you want to learn more directly from her and get her direct brainpower, come join us. You can go to femalestightupclub.com forward slash Hype Club, and we'd love to see you there.
• 1:09
  Let's do this. This is Dimitra for Female Startup Club. Dimitra, hi. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. You look so bright and happy today. What were you up to before getting on this call this morning?
• 1:29
  Waking up, I'm in Toronto. So we, yeah, it's 10 o'clock here at 10 o'clock in the morning. I had a few calls this morning, but you know, just the usual. Starting off my day, it's Friday, half day here for our team. So lots to cram in in the morning before we head out to enjoy and relax for the weekend.
• 1:48
  Amazing. Well, happy Friday. I hope you guys are going to go for some spicy mugs or something later. We are actually going into phase three now, which means that we can actually go into restaurants and start going into health clubs and all that stuff. So that's starting tomorrow. So this is a huge and most pivotal weekend for people in Ontario. We've had one of the longest lockdowns in the world. So my team is super, super excited for the weekend.
• 2:14
  Let's jump right in. Can you give us the elevator pitch of what Indeed Labs actually is and what sets you apart from the others on the market? Great. Well, there's so much to know about Indeed Labs, but we are a global skincare brand. We are very well known in the UK market. We launched with a product called Nano Blur. We actually created a whole category with it. We were the very first brand that actually came out with a blurring cream. It was an instant product. It was supposed to give you that instant airbrushed filtered look.
• 2:44
  Oh my God, amazing. Yeah, it still is to this day, very iconic. We still are very proud that we, that formula has not been duplicated. We have a line extension now. So we have other nano blur products, color correctors, nano bronze or bronzer. But basically in a nutshell, when we launched in the industry, we saw a need to bring really high quality products
• 3:05
  skincare and make it accessible to consumers everywhere. So what we weren't seeing was these formulas available where consumers bought everything else in the mass market and also at a price point. So there were a couple of things that we looked at when we looked at the industry. We looked at the quality of the active ingredients and putting them at the highest level so that you actually get results.
• 3:28
  We also looked at accessibility in terms of the price point. And even to this day, we still focus very much on accessibility, meaning a number of different things. Accessibility in terms of the results that you're going to get. Accessibility in terms of where you buy your products. And now we know that there's, you know, quality skincare is available everywhere these days. But think back 10 years ago.
• 3:51
  accessibility in terms of the information that consumers are getting. So we actually were one of the first brands that really called, you know, that called out ingredients on the packaging and spoke to consumers in the way that they wanted to be spoken to. They wanted to understand what they were getting. And we're very much a problem solution brand.
• 4:10
  But again, I believe you're a hybrid. So there are brands out there that are accessible in terms of their pricing and their price point. But they focus on the one or two ingredients where we still focus on the very high level science of the actives in the formulas. And our formulas,
• 4:27
  give you multiple benefits for the most part. So we are very much, I believe, a hybrid because we have been compared to luxury brands that are higher price point and more in the Durham area, as well as we sometimes get compared to the brands that are more mass market geared where the price point is more accessible.
• 4:45
  Wow, it all sounds fab. Love that for all of us who get the nano blur and these new products. Well, not new because you launched them circa 11 years ago, which is wild. 2010, I think I already started, but it all sounds amazing. Let's go back to the very beginning. Obviously, 2010 is a long time ago. Where does your entrepreneurial story start? What got you into Indeed Labs? Indeed Labs.
• 5:14
  So my background is in finance, and I always knew as somebody that really understood numbers and understood financial accountability and business that I would be a business owner. When I came out of school, I was in the luxury goods business. I worked in the jewelry industry, and that's sort of where I got my foundation and my learning about branding and how important I was.
• 5:36
  a brand is to consumers. And I had a really good foundation there, but I always, I've always loved fashion, loved jewelry. I'd never thought I would be in the world of skincare. Fast forward, I did some consulting work and I was presented with an opportunity to partner in the beauty industry. And at the time, the only thing I knew about beauty and skincare was as a consumer. And so the value I brought to the table in the beginnings
• 6:02
  when there was this collaboration with my partners, was, you know, as a female, as a young mother, bringing those frustrations that I was also facing to the table and that collaboration. So that really spearheaded this idea of bringing a point of difference
• 6:20
  to a consumer and being honest with consumers, not using airbrush models, not using celebrity endorsements, but really speaking to consumers and giving them real results. And so that was sort of the beginning. I never thought I'd be in skincare, but you know what? I knew what I needed and I knew what consumers wanted. And I think that was a really good foundation to start.
• 6:41
  That's amazing. When these two, you say you had two partners, they came to you kind of to bring you in as the woman who was going to lead this business and create its success over this long journey that you've had so far. What was the early vision for the business? Did you see it becoming what it is today? And was the plan to bootstrap it? Was the plan to get funding from the very beginning? What did it look like back in 2010?
• 7:08
  You know, it was such a different world back then. And to be quite honest with you, I was absolutely extremely skeptical. I kept saying to these, you know, my partners who were male and also having come from the luxury goods world, I would say to them, I worked for a brand that is steeped in history. So you don't even have to speak to the consumer about what they're getting. They just know when they buy this brand, this is what they're getting.
• 7:32
  But how do we break into an industry that's almost impossible to break into? And so I was actually extremely skeptical at the beginning. It wasn't a yes, let's run out and do this. And actually, as a female and as a young business owner, I was very uncomfortable being in front of the brand. I was very insecure about it, as typically a lot of people are. And so I didn't want to be in front of the brand. I knew what my strengths were operations. I knew how to build strong teams. I knew how to mentor people.
• 8:02
  And so and I, you know, again, I knew how to build a foundation of a business from a financial perspective. So I was the person in the background going, OK, let's build the infrastructure. Let me help you build the operations. Here's the angle. You guys go out and tell the story. Right. And so with that.
• 8:22
  Did you go down the path of bootstrapping the brand until a certain point or did you require capital to get started? Because from, you know, when I look at the brand and what I see now is like, obviously it's amazing, it's huge and it looks so like, it obviously doesn't look like an indie kind of CPG brand. It looks very established, which it is 11 years on. But what kind of business model for finance were you taking in the very beginning?
• 8:48
  Yeah, we definitely didn't raise funding at the beginning. We definitely started very small. The scale up was, you know, we thought it was going to be slow, to be honest. We focused local. We focused on launching a couple of SKUs. We did no marketing at the time. We basically took, you know, people that we knew we actually photographed. We still do to this day, but it's, you know, this is very much a movement in the skincare world these days, but back then it wasn't. So we didn't take models. We photographed, you know, real people and we used our cameras.
• 9:17
  And we did the editing ourselves in terms of not editing the photos, but editing any of our marketing. So we didn't really go to any experts. It was very much very organic at the beginning. We started off very small. We had a kiosk in a mall in here in Canada, you know, and not even in Toronto. It was north of Toronto. We started small, but when we started hearing the feedback and the results, there were, you know, three, four or five SKUs. It was very, very small. What happened was is that
• 9:45
  You know, the consumer responded to our marketing. They responded to our messaging very quickly. And as soon as we took off, then we had to raise funding, obviously, to support the growth of the business.
• 9:56
  Got it, got it, got it. And when you say, you know, when it took off, what were those moments that led to it taking off? Was there a specific like turning point where you really remember, you know, this happened and we kind of made a leap forward and it was all off to the races from there? Or was it that slow, incremental, like step by step by step chipping away?
• 10:17
  It was very quick. We were very, very lucky. We made a splash. We chose to launch in the industry with Nano Blur. And because our messaging was we were going to bring you a point of difference, this is not gimmick, our products work, we chose to start off with a product that actually gave you instant results, which is still to this day the only product in the entire range.
• 10:39
  that is not a treatment product is an instant product. And so nothing like that was in the market. And we made very bold claims, we spoke to the consumer, like they'd never been spoken before, spoken to before, and our packaging was bright and colorful. So that was actually a really good call. It was sort of a happy accident, we decided, let's launch with this product, because our messaging is going to be strong, and we're going to show people results. And we were picked up immediately, and especially in the UK and your market. And so
• 11:06
  That's when we decided to put some funding behind a big splash. When we launched in the UK market, we did a huge marketing campaign. We were on every billboard, every bus shelter. And that was when we really caught the attention of consumers. And so we were lucky. We got listed in retail partners in the UK, and that really helped to launch the brand. But also that helped really to transition this industry and to bring a small brand like ours to life.
• 11:36
  and have a consumer go, okay, I guess that a small brand can do this. And that was a real pivotal moment for, I believe, the industry as a whole.
• 11:46
  And I also think that this really speaks to the importance of actually creating and innovating on products to bring something to market that truly isn't available yet and doing something that's truly different. Yeah. And we took a chance. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How did you come up with the idea for Nano Blur? Obviously, it was really part of your story of getting started and
• 12:09
  you know, creating this immense buzz around the brand. But like, how do you actually come up with ideas like that? Do you sit down in a room and be like, what are we going to do here? Or did you have like this clear idea of this is what it's going to be? This is what we need.
• 12:23
  So definitely, even to this day, creating new products, there's a lot of different variables involved. It's not always one way. Sometimes an active ingredient will come across our desk and we look at it and go, wow, that's really amazing science. This is cutting edge. We need to bring this to consumers. Other times we see an opportunity in the market. And so this was a collaboration of our creators, our scientists.
• 12:48
  as well as us, as well as there was a movement in the market at the time, high definition was just becoming to be very relevant. You could see everything on these screens now. And so we had this opportunity because we knew that this formula was going to be able to do something revolutionary.
• 13:07
  Remember back 10, 11 years ago, we didn't have filters. So this was giving you an instant filtered look in real life. And so it was a collaboration of a bunch of different variables that created this product. And then we actually went out to try it on consumers, which we still do to this day. I still do consumer trials with all of our products.
• 13:30
  to go, what's your feedback? How is this resonating with you? Does this work? Do you like this? Do you see results? And it was really a grassroots. It was like something that to this day, this is exactly how I run the brand. Gosh, amazing. I love that. That must be such an exciting aspect of the business when you're coming across these things and being like, wow, this is new technology in skincare that we can bring to market. And the ideas that are centered around that, that seems really fun.
• 13:58
  It is. It's so fun. And a lot of it is born from feedback from consumers. A lot of times consumers will say to us, when are you launching this? Or I have this problem. And then we go out there and we look for things to address these problems. And, you know, sometimes it takes long. There are products that I have in production for years before they actually make it to market because we really have to do our due diligence with them.
• 14:21
  But we're always I mean, we always have a bunch of products that we're looking at in terms of product development. And it's about the timing of the market. Sometimes the market is ready for it. Other times it's not. Sometimes we want to leave the market. So there's a whole bunch of different variables. But I love that question. That's the number one question that I get asked all the time. How do you decide what makes it to market? And so, you know, you have to have a crystal ball sometimes. It's actually quite interesting.
• 14:46
  Yeah, I bet. I'd love to talk about what kind of trends you're seeing in the industry at the moment and kind of what you're seeing the opportunities are, especially for founders who are just starting to create the next wave of indie, D2C, CPG brands in the industry. What are you seeing that's really exciting and the opportunities that you think are coming ahead? Well, one of the things that I am really excited about, even for our brand, is,
• 15:14
  I want to take a more minimalist approach to skincare. And so one of the things I'm seeing now are products with multiple benefits. And I'm excited about that because Indeed Labs has always been that brand that speaks about multiple benefits. Our formulas do give you multiple benefits. And I think that that's really, really important
• 15:31
  One of the things that I find is not sustainable is how many products are on the market and how many brands have to always come out with new innovation to feed this thirst in the market. It is not sustainable on so many different levels. It's very confusing to consumers. It's horrible for the environment.
• 15:52
  And so I'm really excited now that we're really bringing that to the forefront, because that's one of the things that I've been very, very frustrated with for a very long time. And a lot of brands are controlled by this need. What's new? What's innovative? What's coming? And we need to take a step back because we have a lot of really great quality products. You don't have to try to reinvent the wheel all the time. Consumers need to catch up. And so I think that that's going to be something that we're going to really see a lot of going forward.
• 16:21
  Hmm. Cool. Yeah. I'm excited for that. I think as well, like if you're having products that have multi-purpose and you're just having less steps that you need to do, I'm all about that. I'm all about the, you know, minimal step routine. Minimal. Yeah. I find that, you know, people are buying, you know, a whole bunch of different products because they're calling out an ingredient and then they're, you know, being a chemist in their own home. And that's just really hard for consumers.
• 16:44
  You're spending a lot of money. It's a lot of time, a lot of steps. And so I feel like brands have to be a lot more responsible about what they're putting into the market as to not really oversaturate the market with extra product that we don't need.
• 16:59
  In the beginning, a moment ago, we were talking about how, you know, your brand has been likened to luxury skincare and you're someone that doesn't have that luxury price point. I'm wondering, tactically speaking, what your advice is to entrepreneurs who are creating indie CPG brands that want to do, you know, luxury position products, but at a more affordable price point. What's your advice to those people?
• 17:23
  For me and for Indeed Labs, it's always been about mass market. So if you're going to look at something with that high level quality, it's going to cost. Obviously, there are costs associated. And so the model has to be that you're going to sell a lot of product. And that's why it's so important for Indeed Labs to continue growing our community and
• 17:44
  to continue expanding our reach, because the idea was to actually connect with consumers everywhere. That's the only way that we can actually be competitive in this market. We have to be mass market. And so my advice is know, you know, absolutely know what your model is going to look like. You have to understand that financial accountability and really position yourself so that you can sell multiple units. I mean, luxury goods,
• 18:13
  You'll see that there's one product sold, you know, whereas for us, we have to sell hundreds. Yeah, absolutely. That's great advice. Thank you so much. When you're talking about, you know, for you guys, you're needing to grow, you're needing to stay really competitive in the market. What are the kinds of things that you are doing in 2021 to grow and, you know, further that reach?
• 18:36
  We're expanding in different markets. We just launched a whole bunch of new markets. Today, we are in a really unique position. Unfortunately, there was a lot of sadness that came with COVID, but also from a retailer perspective, we've connected with consumers,
• 18:51
  in this, you know, virtual or digital world. And so there's a lot of e-retailers that allow us to expand our reach all over the world. And so we continue to open up new markets, open up e-retailers, expand our reach that way, which is great. And then, like I said earlier, I'm really looking at our brand and condensing, really focusing on those products that have resonated with consumers and,
• 19:16
  upgrading the technology in some of our existing products so that we are not always launching new products, but upgrading the formulas.
• 19:24
  And just connecting and growing, you know, we have always been committed right from the first, you know, minute that we launched this brand that we were about consumers, all consumers everywhere. And so, you know, growing that global fan base of consumers, all of our marketing is a lot of it is, you know, user generated. It's all consumers out there. And really, our brand has grown by word of mouth. It really has because we don't again, we don't do massive campaigns. That is not our model.
• 19:55
  Gosh, yeah. A lot of people talk about this on the show. It's like, you just need to actually keep reinvesting into your product, making your product as good as it possibly can be so that people talk about it. And then of course your acquisition costs can be lower because you don't need to spend so much to acquire a new person every single time, which obviously isn't sustainable in the future. So I love that for you. And I think obviously word of mouth is something that sometimes brands overlook this. I feel sometimes I have a product or I try something
• 20:24
  how did this get on the market? Yeah. This stinks. And it's evolution. It's evolution. It's learning. Consumers will tell you. They'll tell you what's important to them. And, you know, we try really, really, really hard to, you know, you're not always going to get things right. And we do make mistakes. And that's just part of life. However, I've always been super committed to the learning and the process of learning and getting things right. And I just love connecting with consumers. I love when people come to me and they say,
• 20:52
  Have you considered this? And I, you know, I think it's really, really important that as brands, we just continue to actually learn, learn about what's important on every aspect of our business. Yeah, absolutely. Are you able to share any fun things that are in the pipeline? What's coming up for you? Any cool products that you want to shout about? What's going on in the kind of next six to 12 months that you can share?
• 21:17
  We have a lot of really exciting things happening. Unfortunately, I just can't share a lot with you right now. But we do have a few products that are currently launching in the next coming weeks. We're launching a toner, an acid toner. We're also launching an essence, which is microbiome certified. So I could talk about those really great things. These are all things that are really, really important to consumers right now, especially in the world of skincare, because
• 21:42
  Now consumers know that the optimal health of your skin is really, really important. So we're really looking at not just correcting that one issue that consumers might have, but also making sure that your skin is always at its optimal health. And so those are a couple of the really thoughtful formulas and ingredients that are coming to market.
• 21:59
  very, very soon. But then we're also doing a bunch of other really exciting stuff. One that I can't talk about right now because it's very premature, has nothing to do with skincare, but it has a lot to do with connecting with consumers everywhere. The other one is a new brand that we're looking at launching. Again, that's something I can't talk about just yet, but it is really in the, you know, it's gotten really progressed in its stages of being ready
• 22:27
  So there's a lot of really exciting things that are happening for Indeed Labs. And I just can't wait to bring them to our consumers and our fans. Oh, my gosh. That all sounds so exciting. Cool. A new brand. Yes, lots going on here. Love that. So when you say a new brand, is it like completely separate to Indeed Labs or it's like a sister brand under Indeed Labs? Yeah.
• 22:50
  Definitely a sister brand under Indeed Labs. It's powered by Indeed Labs. There's a lot of philosophy of Indeed Labs. It's definitely targeting a different consumer. And so it's going to have its own life and it will look different than Indeed, but absolutely came from me, came from my team. It's definitely powered by Indeed Labs and happening all under the same umbrella. Gosh, I'm so excited. That sounds amazing. Yeah, me too.
• 23:18
  What is your key piece of advice for entrepreneurs who are earlier on in the journey? I think that you have to know what the why is.
• 23:31
  You know, you really need to know what it is that you're bringing to the market and the why. And there's so many, you know, that could be one thing or it could be multiple things, but you need to understand the why. So what is your point of difference? What's going to give you that competitive advantage? Why are you bringing this to market? And, you know, I hear from a lot of people saying, I've got a passion and I have a love or I've got this great idea. And that's okay. I mean, that's absolutely where it all starts.
• 23:59
  But we can all have a good product or a good idea. Unless you actually consider that consumer, who that consumer is and why it's relevant to them, it will be an uphill battle. So you have to consider all of that when you're starting out.
• 24:14
  And, you know, again, I said, for me and for Indeed Labs, it was about starting small. You don't have to have this grand idea. You know, a lot of brands try that. Some of them are very successful with it. But I will say that even the ones that, you know, touch consumers in a mass way right out of the gate, they have a lot of, you know, if you really peel it back and look at those brands, they probably have.
• 24:39
  Some kind of investors, funders, company that are backing them really understands being big and scaling up. So you really need to give yourself time for that scaling up as you understand what the opportunities are and what the threats are and how your business is doing. I would say, you know, unless you actually have that foundation of somebody that can really power you and go, OK, I've done this before. Let's do this. Then you really need to kind of understand your model first.
• 25:08
  And listen to what the people are saying, your consumers are saying about you and what they want to see more of and keeping tuned in. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that advice. Thank you so much. It's actually a really nice segue into the next part of the podcast, which is where we ask a series of six quick questions. And the first question is, what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 25:33
  That is such a good question. And I, you know, I asked myself and I get asked that question all the time. I, you know, like I said, at the beginning, I never expected to start a skincare brand. I didn't expect to be in this business. And, you know, soon after we launched, it was not very long after I would say a year, a year and a half after I was left in a situation where I had to take over. And for a long time, I felt like,
• 25:59
  I didn't know the why. Why have I been put in this position? And then I realized that this is my calling. I absolutely love it. I'm doing something right. You know, the products that I'm bringing to market are resonating with consumers. I am a consumer. I'm a mother. I'm a friend. I'm a consumer. I'm a woman who is, you know, aging and hopefully aging gracefully like we all want to.
• 26:22
  And so I think I bring a lot of value to consumers. And now it's just become my passion. This is what I do. It's just become my baby. Amazing. I love that. I love that. You've got to love the day-to-day. You've got to love the journey. It's got to bring you joy. Yeah, I'm so with you on all of that.
• 26:41
  And it's not easy. It is not easy. I don't want to ever make it look like it's easy. And, you know, so that like, again, so the why we ask that question a lot as entrepreneurs, why am I doing this? And then I asked for the signs from the universe. And so
• 26:56
  They always come back very strong and they give me that encouragement to keep going. And that is whether we win an award or we land a new account or we hear unbelievable feedback or we're picked up organically by an amazing influencer or, you know, somebody in Hollywood, a makeup artist. Whatever those signals are, they're my sign to keep going. And I just love it. I really love it.
• 27:19
  I really love that too. I actually posted on my Instagram, you know, the other day is if I'm having an off day, I just read the beautiful messages that people send me like in my Instagram DMs about Female Startup Club. And it's that kind of thing that really keeps you going when you actually know for sure someone's telling you that you've made an impact. It's really powerful.
• 27:40
  Absolutely. Yeah. I was on an interview yesterday with somebody applying for a position and she didn't even know that I was the brand owner. She kept saying, I've listened to the brand owner speak on Clubhouse and I love listening to her and I'm so excited about this opportunity. I said, thank you. And then she, you know, she went on to say she gives such great advice. And I said, I, you're speaking to her. This is me. She couldn't believe it. And so I love hearing things like that. I love hearing that kind of feedback.
• 28:09
  It just keeps us going, you know, and it's just something little. It's just something so little, but I love hearing feedback like that. Yeah, definitely powers you, keeps you going. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that made the business pop?
• 28:27
  I think it started off with NanoBlur right at the beginning. We made some very bold claims. We don't make those claims anymore because we were told we can't. And also, you know, we want to be very conscious of the way that we position ourselves.
• 28:41
  But at the beginning, we started off with 10 years younger in 10 seconds or something like that, because the formula dries and you could actually really see results. 10 years younger, that was a little aggressive. But at the end of the day, it was that kind of communication, that very disruptive, that very bold, that loud messaging that really launched us in the industry and had consumers pay attention. So that was a pivotal moment for us.
• 29:04
  And then since then, there have been just a bunch of different products that consumers love. For example, another pivotal moment for us was when the news covered in the UK that everybody should have a retinol. You know, the news broke that, you know, retinol has been endorsed by dermatologists. It's the holy grail of, you know, skin care, health and health.
• 29:26
  and good aging. And so we were also picked up at the same time and won an award for our retinol. And so that was sort of like the perfect storm. Like it literally sold out and we became, you know, a household name with our retinol. And so there are moments in time that we have no control over where the market just does something
• 29:45
  And we sell out completely. And so I love those moments. They happen often. You know, we now are bronzers trending. And so we've had a couple of sellout moments with our bronzer. And those, you know, that was just something that we we did. We took a chance on that's a color product. And we never had color product before. And so those are the perfect things that happen in the marketplace that have to that help to like really push the brand along.
• 30:09
  That's so cool, the bold claims you did at the beginning. Who told you you couldn't do those bold claims? I'd love to see look 10 years younger. Yeah, that's the kind of messaging that I need. But there are advertising standards. And we weren't trying to be offensive. We weren't trying to be gimmicky. We didn't want to be gimmicky. We said we're not about airbrush models and celebrity endorsements. But again, brands sometimes make mistakes. We've made a claim like that.
• 30:36
  And you're not going to look 10 years younger if you're, you know, already young and don't have anything really to worry about in terms of, you know, fine lines, wrinkles, what have you. So, you know, we, we had to be conscious and again, as a brand owner, you learn, as you go along, you go, okay, sorry, I didn't mean that. So we know, we're going to stop now. Sometimes consumers tell you, no, I don't, I'm not comfortable with that. And other times, you know, it's advertising standards, but in, you know, but for the most part today,
• 31:03
  Consumers will tell you when they think that you're not doing something right. And we love that. But I will say that since then, we've never really had an issue where someone has said, I'm not comfortable with that. Because we do spend a lot of time connecting and considering consumers. And like I said, all of our products, they go through very extensive consumer trials. So we do hear a lot of feedback before anything even goes into the market.
• 31:29
  And that's something that I do as a brand owner. That's because I want to make sure that the quality, the integrity, you know, I want to know how consumers feel about things before they go into market. Excuse me. That's not something that we have to do. That's something that I insist on doing. Yeah, that's so interesting. I honestly, I didn't even consider that there were these kind of like advertising standards. And of course, that makes so much sense. But I just, you know, oblivious to it.
• 31:57
  I mean, who would know, right? Yeah, exactly. You would know. You would know because you've been told. We know. Of course, we know. But as a new brand, you know, and a lot of times this is part of the learning. We are brand new. We are breaking into an industry that was, you know, again, that there were the major players in the industry that had been around for hundreds of years. And we were new. We were very new coming to the market.
• 32:20
  Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to or subscribing to that others would benefit from knowing about? Oh, my gosh. Do we all hang out on TikTok these days? I've learned how to make banana bread about a thousand different ways. But there are industry, you know.
• 32:41
  There are newsletters in the industry. You know, for me, high-level science, I spend a lot of time speaking to our chemists. I, you know, I really want to be very, very versed on ingredients and what they do and how they all work together. So, you know, for a consumer, I wouldn't recommend that. It's very high-level science. But for me, I spend a lot of time reading these publications and trying to understand them as a brand owner.
• 33:10
  So that's where I get a lot of my knowledge and expertise in the business. And then, like I said, I go out to consumers and I ask a lot about, you know, the end use product. How do you feel about this? Is it right for you? What would you do different about it? And I love that feedback. In fact, actually, right now I have in clinical trials the new brand that I was talking about. And I, you know, I was actually speaking to a consumer that had been trying it the other day. And I said, I need the feedback, whether it's good or not.
• 33:39
  whether it needs tweaking. This is the feedback that we need. There's no ego. I have no ego in this business. It is a strong desire and a sincere desire to always bring the best to consumers. And I will only know if a consumer gives me that feedback. Yeah, that's so key. I really love that. And I think it's so true. It's not about like, you know, being hurt by hearing the wrong thing. You actually need that to help shape and make it better.
• 34:08
  Absolutely. We are always growing and learning. And so for me, it's just part of the process. For sure. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? I start off my day with planning. So usually I plan from the night before. I always know what my next day is going to look like. I'm very much a planner and I'm very organized that way.
• 34:36
  I start off my morning with my workout. It's almost like a meditative workout. I do a really long run or walk. So there's some form of cardio, core training. And that's just my day, sorry, my morning. And that's my opportunity to be with myself and collect my thoughts and organize my thoughts.
• 34:57
  And then connecting with my team. So I don't like to micromanage people where I have a connect in the morning. As soon as I finish my workout, I do my connect and everyone has their marching orders. And then I just love just seeing my team come up with their own ideas and really come to the table within a collaborative and creative way. And so I think that that's where the wins really come from. It's just, I always have, my vision is crystal clear. I always know where I'm going.
• 35:24
  I feel like I've been very, very blessed that way. I can almost see where I need to go all the time. But that's because I've also learned to really trust my instinct. And so I think that's kind of my guide. And, you know, so we have good days and we have bad days, but we just keep going. Amazing. Question number five is, if you were given $1,000 of no strings attached money, where would you spend it in the business? I would definitely say I would put it back into...
• 35:52
  marketing and communication with our consumers. So if there was an additional $5,000, I probably would say, you know, my team calls me the godmother of skincare, because I'm always giving away free product, and we don't have sample products. So I'm giving away full size products all the time, I would say that I would take that $5,000, I would invest it in writing off more products so that I can get it into
• 36:18
  the hands of more consumers and hear their feedback. So I think that that's so important for me. I love to give away the product. And I think that that's something I do inevitably anyway. So I definitely would spend the money on that. Amazing. And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things don't go to plan? I never use the word failure, to be honest with you. I don't even think
• 36:47
  you know, even in my personal life, that anything is a failure, everything is part of the journey. Everything is part of the learning process and experience. And I firmly believe that if something doesn't work out the way that you wanted it to, and not to be cliche, but it just wasn't meant to be. I've closed so many doors and opened up others and had so much heartbreak with things that I thought were supposed to be a certain way that turned out to be entirely different, but way
• 37:17
  It's part, again, it's part of the process. It's what makes us whole. Life is not perfect. We just have to keep going. And so I don't, I don't think about failure. I think about learning and if it doesn't work, then you just got to try something else. I don't get stuck, which is a good thing as a brand owner. You know, I don't live in the past. I don't live in the future. I try to just learn and then keep going.
• 37:42
  I love that. I don't get stuck. I'm going to keep that as one of my pocket mantras that I need to keep in mind. That's amazing. Dimitra, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Female Startup Club today and for sharing your story and your journey and what's coming next. I'm super excited to see the new brand.
• 38:01
  It's been so fun speaking to you. And I thank you so much for hosting me and for asking me and giving me an opportunity to answer as honestly as I can, because I love one of the things I love doing is mentoring others. And it's not easy, but you just got to keep going.
• 38:19
  Well, I mean, we would love to have you in our, we just launched this week, actually, our private network where we bring together Indie CPG brand owners who are building the new kind of wave of brands. And we have women from the show, like yourself, come in for mentor sessions to share a little deeper about, you know, your knowledge and your experience on certain topics. So if you're up for it, we would love to have you. That would be so fun. I'm sure that, you know, the women in the group would get so much value from you.
• 38:50
  Absolutely. I love sharing. If I can learn and impart, then that's what part of my job is. Amazing.
• 39:01
  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.
• 39:26
  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.
• 39:48
  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.
• 40:05
  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.
• 40:30
  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.
• 40:52
  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.