Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / This female founder launched her beauty brand on Tiktok, now she’s got more than 50M+ views, Youthforia’s Fiona Chan shares exactly how she did it (part 1/2)

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This female founder launched her beauty brand on Tiktok, now she’s got more than 50M+ views, Youthforia’s Fiona Chan shares exactly how she did it (part 1/2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Fiona Chan for Female Startup Club.
• 0:13
  Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we're learning from Fiona Chan, the founder behind a brand called Youthphoria. Now, while they've only just launched last year, they've managed to build some crazy buzz in the beauty industry, garnering more than 50 million views on TikTok and growing.
• 0:34
  At Youthphoria, they believe that makeup is an extension of your skincare. All of their products are formulated to be so good for your skin, you can sleep in it. And Fiona actually tests all of their products by sleeping in it for an extended period of time. And so does her husband.
• 0:51
  Most conventional makeup brands formulate with fossil fuels and liquid plastics, which can be harmful or irritating for the skin. So instead, Euphoria use skin-friendly plant-based ingredients to provide luxurious textures and targeted treatments for your skin. Sounds like heaven, right?
• 1:10
  In this episode, we're chatting about the beauty industry as a whole and Fiona's advice for standing out in a saturated space, how she harnessed the power of TikTok to get traction and commits to creating two videos a day at least, and why you should get onto super great if you're in the beauty industry.
• 1:27
  Now, before we get into the episode, and just in case you haven't heard me talking about it yet, I have my very first book coming out at the end of Feb featuring the stories and learnings from 51 of these brilliant women from the first year of the show. And I am just over the moon to be sharing this with you.
• 1:47
  If you are someone who might be able to help me get the word out or you know someone that I should talk to to help me get the word out, I would love to meet you. So please slide into my IG DMs and let's have a chat. You can find me at Jun Roisin, which is D-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N. Let's get into this episode. This is Fiona for Female Startup Club.
• 2:12
  Fiona, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Happy New Year, by the way. Yes, it's an exciting new year. I'm so excited to finally be done with 2021 and I'm so looking forward to 2022. Oh my God, I hear that. I'm like done with 2021. I'm like, bring on the new energy and the new vibes and all the good stuff that's going to come from 2022. Yeah.
• 2:39
  But you had a really big year last year. I'm actually surprised that you say that because I imagine for you, you launched this new business, you skyrocketed with it, and you've had so many exciting things on the go. Yeah, 2021 has been a fast year for us. We launched the business in April, not really knowing how to launch a business. And we kind of just learned on our way. So I'm
• 3:02
  We kind of have, you know, a few months under our belts. We know a little bit better how to do certain things. So it's kind of exciting to see us launching new products with kind of that skill set. You've ironed out some of the creases and kinks. Now you're... Oh, there were so many. You know what I'm trying to say. You've hit success. Now you're on the way to the next level, the sky, the stars. I don't know what.
• 3:26
  I always love to start each founder startup story by going back to the origins of when you were kind of thinking about starting a business, when you were thinking about, you know, becoming an entrepreneur and how you kind of launched the brand, how you kind of came up with the idea.
• 3:42
  Yeah, so we came up with the idea for Youthphoria, I mean, right when the pandemic hit. And for those of you guys who don't know, Youthphoria makes makeup that acts like skincare. We test all of our products by sleeping in it because for me, I wanted to make makeup that was so good for your skin, you could sleep in it. I am someone who sleeps in my makeup a couple of times a week. And now, you know, I sleep in my makeup because I'm testing new products. But this was something that I was doing since I was like 18.
• 4:08
  And there have been so many experiences. I want to say like, you know, a handful of times where I've ended up in the hospital with these crazy allergic reactions because I slept in my makeup. My skin is incredibly sensitive. And this is just something that is such a big part of our process where we test everything by sleeping in it. I recruit my husband to test a lot of products also overnight. And it's because for me, I really wanted something. I really wanted a brand that had done this for me.
• 4:36
  a lot of the ideas for Youth For You kind of came about during the pandemic. I mean, at the time I was living in Hong Kong, kind of got stuck there because of the pandemic. And I was just thinking, okay, well, what can I do from my apartment? I just wanted to start a business. And I think it was like that first week of not being able to see anyone that I realized that
• 4:56
  For me, the best part of wearing makeup is the fact that I get to go see people. I know I'm going to have a good time. And I am literally someone who wants a wine. I will sleep in my makeup that night. And so, you know, I really envisioned this as a post pandemic company, something that was going to be really fun. But yeah, it was really I think I was just in the closet of the apartment that I was living in.
• 5:19
  Thinking about, okay, what can I do? What's really resonating with me? What will make me happy in terms of what, you know, once we get out of the pandemic, what does that look like? But yeah, I think, you know, when you start a company during a pandemic, I'm sure it's incredibly different. There's a lot of things you can't do, but a lot of the early days was just Googling how to do certain things.
• 5:40
  And so, like, I guess you can't visit manufacturers, you can't, you know, go out and meet with potential partners, nothing. You've got to be doing it all from the house. Can you kind of go a little bit deeper on what your day-to-day like was kind of like in those early days of trying to figure things out, trying to meet with manufacturers, suppliers, and get those early samples ready? Yeah.
• 6:04
  Yeah, so for our manufacturer, there's one that we use that's in Korea. We actually were able to fly to Korea before the pandemic hit. And during that trip, you know, we just, we literally just Googled like makeup manufacturers. I mean, I'm sure there are better Google terms. I think we set up meetings with maybe 10 that we met in person. And for me, it was just like,
• 6:24
  The person that I ended up choosing to go with initially was it was because we just, you know, clicked very well. We do things kind of differently in terms of manufacturing. There's definitely easier ways of going about it. And for me, I needed someone who really understood my vision and knew that they were going to make these crazy custom formulas for us. Normally, the way that you would do it is you would go to a manufacturer. They would kind of give you a book of like products that you can select.
• 6:50
  For me, I wanted to do something just so different and they would have to completely just, you know, rethink the formulation process. So for me, it was just important to find someone that understood that vision and would work with me. And it was an incredibly long process to make some of these formulas as well.
• 7:08
  How long did it take from kind of like meeting them and starting those early conversations around what you wanted to having the finished sample ready to go with packaging? With packaging. Well, packaging takes it's I think packaging usually takes a lot more time just because it's.
• 7:24
  Like our packaging is incredibly customized and that was not an easy process. I don't know that I would recommend doing that on the first go because it was very stressful. But I think like from initial concept to when we finally launched the business, it was about like 13, maybe 14 months.
• 7:41
  your packaging and kind of like product design with the little Lego-y, clippy things, I don't know what you call them, is so much fun. I love looking at them. And I'm just curious to know, like, how did you come up with that idea? And how did you actually get that to fruition? Like, what do you have to, like, it's not obviously stock standard packaging. It's very out there. Yeah. So for me, I just remember looking at this messy apartment that I was in. And when we
• 8:10
  Started the company. We didn't expect the pandemic. It was a very messy apartment that I was in. And that's kind of how we came up with our tagline, life's messy, but your makeup isn't. And I took that concept and brought it into our packaging. That's why it stacks. It is nicely organized if you play around with it.
• 8:26
  and also like our ingredients. And for me, I wanted Euphoria to kind of emote a emotion. So Euphoria kind of means when you're really happy in your adult life, it just reminds you of your favorite childhood memories. For me, it's when I'm at a music festival, it reminds me of the first time being at Disneyland. And I wanted to bring that emotion into our packaging and our products. So
• 8:48
  That's why, you know, like our containers, they have this Lego S throwback concepts. And that's also why like our formulas are a little bit unexpected. You know, there is like a nice element of surprise to the experience of our products.
• 9:03
  Do you get a lot of feedback from customers about your packaging? Is that a big part of what other people talk about for the brand? I assume it is, but what's your take on it? I think so. And also the formulas itself. I think I get a lot more feedback about the actual formulas because it's so different. Our best-selling product is BYO Blush. It's a color-changing blush oil. And I think,
• 9:24
  People love just seeing like the color changes on their skin or how it looks on their skin. So we get a lot more feedback about that, actually. That's so cool. I love that. Kind of like those perfumes that change based on, you know, who you are. It changes the smell. I love that.
• 9:40
  The beauty industry is notorious for needing a lot of startup capital and a lot of working capital as you get into it. How much money did you need to invest in the beginning to get the brand kind of like your first order and to launch? And how are you thinking about the money piece and like the funding path in general?
• 9:58
  We self-funded the company. I think I spent about like mid six figures. It was a lot more than I expected. But a lot of the costs went into, we did custom molds that actually cost quite a bit of money. And then we did a lot of custom formulations. So our MOQs were a lot higher than what you would typically order just because I wanted that customization. So it was, I don't know that I would go about it. Actually, no, I think I would go about it the same way if I were to do it again.
• 10:26
  But those were the two pieces that I really wanted to invest into. There are other places where I will try to cut costs just because for me, formulation ingredients is the most important. And I really wanted that customization for our components. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And were you kind of self-funding through savings or grants or loans or how were you approaching that?
• 10:51
  Yeah, it was literally my life savings. I remember paying for that first bill for your components. And you wonder, how many units am I actually going to sell? And it is incredibly expensive to do custom components because, you know, in a like, for example, like a lip gloss container, that's like six molds or six or 10 molds that you have to make. And it is so expensive to do. And I remember just thinking...
• 11:16
  Like, is this really what I want to invest in? Is packaging so important that I have to do this? And I think I just had a gut check of like, I really want to do this. And to go back to your earlier question, like, how do you actually make components like this? I don't have like a technical design background. I literally drew out things with a ruler on a piece of paper and I...
• 11:39
  Took a picture of it on my phone, WhatsApp, or WeChat it to our manufacturer. And they kind of had the drawing and they 3D printed like different options. So our very early designs of this, they are so ugly. Like all the proportions are really off because I'm not actually a designer by trade.
• 11:56
  But they, you know, they do help you. And it's actually incredible. You can just draw things on a piece of paper. The manufacturers are really good. They have technical design teams that will, you know, kind of 3D render it. And then they will send you examples before they actually go into making the molds. And then once you get the molds, you realize, okay, the edges are not as smooth. And it's actually a pretty long process.
• 12:19
  Oh my gosh, that sounds like so much fun. It's incredibly stressful because I think the first time doing it, you don't know. You're like, oh my God, is the quality going to be good? And then you kind of realize, okay, this is actually part of the design process where, you know, by the second round, they smooth out the edges or like the actual dimensions get, they look a little bit more even. But in the beginning, like I really had no idea of like proportions, like the curvature of these edges, like how to make things actually look and feel really nice.
• 12:47
  Have you kept the same packages from like your first approved kind of concepts or has it already evolved into different things like further down the track?
• 12:57
  Yeah, we've changed packaging for BYO Blush. We added a green tint to the bottle. So originally it was like a clear bottle on the bottom. And I think what I realized is that a lot of people like to put makeup next to the window. And that was really affecting the formula. So I added a green tint to it to protect the formula. But this was something where we figured it out right away, pretty much a month into launching the business.
• 13:21
  And I was already thinking about, okay, how can I improve the packaging this next go around? But that's kind of like my process. If there's an improvement that I can make, I will try to make it as fast as possible. Does that also mean you were kind of doing like your, you said you had to do bigger minimum orders for the actual like formulation itself, but for the packaging, you were doing smaller orders so that you could iterate or were you kind of like doing big orders and then having to like throw it away? Yeah.
• 13:48
  No, it was always big orders. I mean, we didn't throw it away. We ended up selling through all of it. But when you decide to do custom packaging, like even using standard molds, but just like your label screen printed on it, it's usually the MOQs for that is 10,000. So packaging MOQs are always going to be larger than formula MOQs. But when you make a mold, you kind of think about, okay, how many units am I? Am I going to sell more than 10,000? Like that's kind of my thought process for it.
• 14:18
  This is a nice segue into like the lead up to your launch and how you were planning to sell out of, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of units. What was your thoughts in the lead up? What was the launch plan and how did it go? I had no plan. It was it was an incredibly stressful launch week. I had just moved from Hong Kong to the US. I moved because I knew that I needed to be on TikTok.
• 14:44
  from the early days of starting the business, I knew I just wanted to be on TikTok and to
• 14:49
  make a product that would work well for TikTok. And so I moved back from Asia just really to be on TikTok. So I had no furniture. I had like a folding table trying to launch the website. And I was thinking like, should I have a launch plan? And for me, I was just ready to turn on the website and see what happened. And when you do that and you have no plan, you launched your crickets. And you start wondering, oh my God, did I make a big mistake? Did I spend like literally all of my life savings to do something and I wasn't sure
• 15:18
  about it. It took about like two weeks to kind of pick up some traction. But yeah, we didn't really have like a major launch. I do remember that Press was starting to pick it up kind of organically, not that that translated into a lot of sales in the initial days. But what really...
• 15:33
  popped for us or, you know, a mini pop was we actually had a customer post about us on TikTok. And I remember one day I was like, oh, I'm getting more than one order. I wonder what's going on. Like something must be going on. And then that's when I realized, OK, I should probably be on TikTok and start making content consistently. And is that when you're saying like the after about two weeks, you started getting traction? Is that because you were showing up on the platform every day or that was because other people were also starting to talk about it?
• 16:01
  Yeah, that was because other people were on the platform. I think as soon as I saw two people post about us on TikTok, I was like, okay, let me just make a throwaway TikTok. And I think it was like my third one that went pretty viral. And then we had a series of videos that go viral and other people going viral on it.
• 16:19
  And then it became a really big marketing channel for us. But it took about, you know, a couple months for us to kind of figure that out. Wow. And so is your TikTok strategy now focused more on like you creating content as the founder and face of the brand? Or is it focused on other influencers and other TikTok creators talking about the product? Or is it a mix of both?
• 16:42
  Definitely a mix of both. On our account, it's me creating content. It's something where I block out several hours a day just so that I have, you know, the time to create content. And then
• 16:53
  you know, as just part of the ecosystem, we have influencers on TikTok that like to talk about it. And of course, like our customers, sometimes we find that they also post on TikTok as well. And it does help just to have a lot of people creating content all at the same time. And I think you guys have something crazy, like 50 million views or something like that on TikTok. Yeah, that happened pretty quickly. Not all of it is from the Youth4 account. It's
• 17:20
  Holy moly, that's so crazy. How have you started to diversify your channels and what else are you using to drive customer acquisition or is TikTok the go-to channel? TikTok mostly, but we also repost a lot of our TikToks onto Reels and Reels is a great channel. I think for us, just because our products are so visual, just the use of social video, whether it's on TikTok or on Instagram Reels, it's just been so beneficial for us.
• 17:49
  Hmm. Gosh, that's so exciting. What's your marketing plan kind of for Q1 of this year and moving into this year in general? Does it change? Does it stay the same? Are you kind of bringing on new channels? What else are you doing?
• 18:03
  I think it's still going to be mostly TikTok and Instagram Reels. You know, we've been experimenting with paid Instagram ads. We haven't found a ton of success yet, but, you know, we'll experiment with different things. We might try YouTube ads, a different mix of paid channels, but they, to be honest, haven't really been.
• 18:19
  that beneficial for us. Most of our customer acquisition is organic through social. We're actually preparing for a new launch. And this is the first time where we have a few, you know, we have a lot more experience under our belts. We know, you know, how to look for influencers, how to seed. We're going through this with a slightly different approach. Like the last time I launched a product, I just turned on the website and it was very stressful to do it that way. This time, you know, we're building hype going into this product launch.
• 18:47
  I'm creating a lot of contents. And I think about launches now in a way where I'm like, how many TikToks can I make about a product? Before it used to be like, okay, like what are the benefits? But now I'm thinking about it in a way that's like, what can I storytell? I can talk about.
• 19:02
  why I decided to make a product. Here's like all these ingredients that are really great about it. So I'm pretty excited for Q1 launch. I mean, it's going to look very different just because it's the first time we're adding a new product to the mix. How long in advance are you kind of building the hype, like before it actually launches? What's that kind of time period?
• 19:21
  Well, this time we're going to do it for about like 20 days, I think, just so that we kind of know what's going to land. But, you know, it's pretty exciting because for me, I'm at this point, I'm making two TikToks a day just to see what's going to resonate with our social audience. And I never really know until I actually do it. And in hindsight, what is it that resonates? Like what are the kind of videos that have worked really well for the Youthphoria channel or Reels on your Instagram channel?
• 19:49
  I think people like to know why I created a product. What was my thought process behind it? A lot of people love watching the blush change on different skin tones, like why I created something like that, because it was so different. So I do a lot of storytelling of like why I wanted to create this product or how I went about testing it and things like that.
• 20:10
  And like, just ask one more question on this. How do you actually map out what you're going to do? Like, do you just make a plan the day before? Or do you have like a month worth of content ideas like in a spreadsheet? Or is it literally just like show up and see what you're in the mood for? Or like, how do you kind of, and I'm asking for other brand owners who are listening, who are like, oh, you know, maybe getting a bit stuck on the TikTok and the reels kind of journey. How do you approach the strategy and planning for it?
• 20:36
  I don't actually have a big plan for TikTok. TikTok is a little bit more reactive. For Instagram, we plan about like one or two months ahead with knowing that we're gonna slot in TikToks that I'm creating. Just because like you can be very topical. I created this series of YGK makeup trends that
• 20:53
  are making a comeback. And that is very topical based off of either it's like the Met Gala and I'm doing it the morning of and I'm, you know, staying up the night before looking at all the looks to know what I'm going to talk about. That stuff is very reactive. But there's other things where I know I'm always going to talk about certain ingredients or, you know, I have these content pillars that I know I can go back to or like why I created this. Or I talk about like, I don't know, making my husband also test in these products or, you know,
• 21:20
  situations when I was younger where I wish this product existed. There's certain pillars I always go back to, but it's usually like morning of, I will know generally, you know, I might do a YGK makeup trends video. I might do a, let's talk about this feature. I might do a makeup tutorial, but it's very dependent on, you know, what's going on that week. I make, you know, kind of like two to three day plans. I don't do anything further out just for TikTok.
• 21:46
  Mm-hmm. Wow. That's so interesting. And how cool. Wow. Two videos a day is a lot to be doing that and like posting on other channels and everything like as the founder. Yeah. I think for me, you know, my, my biggest advice is if you're going to create this much content, pick a content style that is very easy for you to do and produce. For me, there are certain styles where I just know I'm not good at. I can't make these like fast cuts, these crazy edits.
• 22:13
  there are other people that can do it in like five minutes or less. So for me, I just pick a style that I can do easily and I can do consistently. I won't try to change my style because it just doesn't come naturally for me. And I think it's so important to be able to audit yourself and be like, I know what I can do and what like my strengths versus my weaknesses are and like lean into what you're able to commit to. Yeah, exactly.
• 22:38
  What do you think is your best piece of advice for beauty entrepreneurs coming into this year?
• 22:45
  I think, you know, just get started. I think the, for me, the entrepreneurial journey has more, has actually been a bigger mental health journey. And you find out so much about yourself going through this journey. So, you know, I wish I had just gotten started. I'm a very different person now than I was even like a couple months ago. And it does get very, you know, I feel like you just developed like a resilience over time with dealing with these different situations. So, you know, it's something where there's no reason to wait.
• 23:14
  I love that. Thank you.
• 23:20
  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.
• 23:44
  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.
• 24:07
  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.
• 24:23
  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.
• 24:48
  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.
• 25:10
  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.