Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / If you’re building a CBD business, you NEED to listen to these 7 major learnings from the founders shaping the industry right now

Transcript

If you’re building a CBD business, you NEED to listen to these 7 major learnings from the founders shaping the industry right now · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:08
  Hello, it's Doom here, your host and hype girl. Thank you so much for tuning in to my mini solo episode. For this week, we're going to be digging through the archives all the way back to the early days of Female Startup Club to dive into the lessons shared by female pioneers in the somewhat controversial, always exciting and ever-evolving CBD industry.
• 0:35
  Since cannabis is being progressively legalized across countries and its demand has increased a huge amount, we've seen an influx of innovative women-led companies in the space that I've had the chance to speak to who are making a profound and undeniable impact on the future of CBD. And I am so excited to share their biggest learnings with you here today.
• 0:59
  But before we jump in, and you might have caught wind of this already if you receive our Monday newsletter, we have got something very exciting cooking, and it's going to be launching very, very soon. I'm just so excited. Oh my gosh. Whether you're in the nine to five, whether you're a student, whether you own a side hustle, or whether you're a founder actively building your business right now, this is for everyone.
• 1:26
  Everyone who is part of Female Startup Club can get involved and I can't wait to share it with you. If you're a listener of this show and you want to know more, I would love to have you part of it and you can join our waitlist at femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist to be ready for the moment we make our announcement in a few weeks time. All right, let's get into today's episode.
• 1:54
  The first interview that came to mind for me when I was thinking about the CBD space was the chat that I had last year with Valentina Milanova, the founder of Day. Valentina is the creator of the world's first cannabis-infused tampon, created specifically to help with period cramps.
• 2:13
  I actually get these delivered to my mailbox every month via a subscription service, and I love them. But as you can imagine, a concept as out of the box as this one was an easy target for critics and naysayers in the early days, and probably still today, to be honest. Which brings us to our first learning that we should take from the famously resilient women in the CBD space, and that's that you should absolutely not back down from a no.
• 2:42
  When Valentina first started sharing her concept with friends, people at work, her family, no one shared her excitement. Literally no one. It was all, don't talk about tampons, this is uncomfortable, don't do this, don't do that. If this was such a great idea, Procter & Gamble would have invented it already. Yeah.
• 3:04
  But instead of backing down to these criticisms and listening to them, it was these reactions that confirmed that Valentina was onto some real innovation. She went ahead and developed the product on The Quiet, and that's how Day was born.
• 3:20
  Valentina reminds us that basically everything she's done since then has seemed impossible when she first started thinking about it. But therein lies the magic. Take the impossible, believe in it 110%, and never, ever back down when you're faced with a massive mountain of nose to climb.
• 3:42
  The journey of entrepreneurship is famous for being littered with no's, but few industries receive quite as many as the CBD industry does. It is a controversial space. We know that. It's part of the reason Valentina lacked support from her friends, and it's the reason so many founders struggle in the space today.
• 4:03
  And I should take a moment here to mention that that's also a really big reason why we created our private community for founders. So we could come together to learn from each other, support each other, and give guidance when times are tough. And this brings me to my next point. There have been so many developments in terms of legalization and changed understanding about the effects of cannabis, but these deep-rooted perceptions do not change overnight.
• 4:33
  In my conversation with Eugeniel's Nia Davies, she dove into why it's about time for consumer education and regulation to evolve more seriously in this space.
• 4:44
  She sees the war on drugs as having caused this perception of all drugs as being bad for you and having no benefit whatsoever. And because of this, founders now hold the responsibility to redefine cannabis as something that's not just for medical use and not just for recreational use, but which can be taken as a health supplement overall for general well-being.
• 5:08
  The learning here is that as a founder, you need to take that education piece seriously if we stand any chance to change the narrative around cannabis in the future. Take the time to choose great quality, transparent products that have lab tested ingredients and make sure your consumer knows what they're taking and why they're taking it.
• 5:30
  With real results, effective products, and most vitally, the education piece, we can change the perception around the damage that the war on drugs has left in the industry and come together to a more integrative and holistic approach to health. One particularly effective way to go about the education piece, considering the advertising regulations broadly imposed across social media and other channels, is to collaborate with influencers in the space.
• 5:57
  Nia recalls a time when an ad she finally managed to place across Instagram, where she was really careful not to use any of the keywords like CBD, but it was stopped still prematurely. Obviously, this is super frustrating as a founder trying to activate different marketing channels, especially when you're just getting started. Collabs with influencers and bloggers are a great way to get around that. And of course, there are many different types of relationships that brands can have with influencers.
• 6:27
  The founders of Equilibria, Coco Mears and Marcy Capron Vermilion, took a deep dive into this topic during our conversation about their female-focused CBD brand earlier this year. Many brands will blindly send out a product in the hope for a shout-out or predetermine a strict price-based plan for the influencer to adhere to.
• 6:51
  This didn't work for them in the CBD space. Instead, they decided to opt for a more relationship-centered approach. And this is something we highly recommend. It comes up on the show a lot. Instead of looking at influencers as a transactional channel, they actually refer to them as relationship development partnerships. And their marketing team functions as relationship owners.
• 7:18
  They know each other, they're friends, they understand what their financial goals are, and they help them create the content. The results of this kind of approach has led to an increase of real and authentic product reviews, wildfire word of mouth, and exploded their referral program to the next level. The learning? Create meaningful connections to ensure meaningful results.
• 7:44
  And I'm aware I've skipped a little ahead here, so let's backtrack for a hot second. Back to the basics of supply and demand around bringing a CBD product to market in the first place. In order to get that oh-so-important gap in the market, Sagely Naturals founder Kerrigan Behrens started, and I'm a big believer every brand should do this, by looking at consumer insights.
• 8:08
  she realized that she needed to find out what the barrier to entry is for someone to actually try this kind of product. Where those pain points lie that might prevent someone from trying CBD in the first place. And surprisingly, through focus groups, she quickly came to the realization that the vast majority of people already believe in the medicinal benefits to cannabis.
• 8:32
  So the education piece didn't need to be centered around that. In fact, the biggest barrier to entry was the fear of getting high. People clearly had this association between CBD and hallucination, and Kerrigan realized her mission would be to bust this myth.
• 8:51
  to make CBD feel like this normal, everyday product that you're proud to carry around. Because that's what it is. The beautiful thing about CBD is the fact that you can get all these key health benefits without having to get high.
• 9:06
  With this insight, she was able to focus on making the product as approachable as possible with a clear central message around the brand. This is a great example of how listening to your consumer is an absolutely vital early step in developing your brand's feel. I can guarantee there will always be something that surprises you and changes the trajectory of your business for the better.
• 9:32
  Kiva Confections founder Christy Palmer found a similar thing to be true in creating a brand aesthetic for her brand well over 10 years ago now. She knew from the get-go that product and packaging would be the way to gain consumer trust, especially in an industry as controversial and questionable as this one. As a way to combat the unpredictability of the space, she opted for a strategy of consistency and trust to be communicated through packaging.
• 10:00
  a great way to build on trust is through consistent actions. Beautiful packaging and a consistent, reliable product is what fueled word of mouth for them in the early days. Being meticulous and having a methodology about everything from the quality of what you're offering to the placement of the information on the package, it all comes together to create a thoughtful, professional brand that consumers trust. And therein lies the key, especially in any industry that doesn't have trust inherently built into it.
• 10:30
  Next, I want to dive into the specifics of how the money piece comes together in building a brand in a high-risk category such as this one. A lot of the CBD founders that I spoke to quoted difficulties in raising and building connections with investors as a major pain point for kicking off their entrepreneurial journey.
• 10:50
  Despite the landscape changing significantly in the past few years, many VC funds still classify hemp-derived products as vice products, meaning internal rules make it hard for them to invest in it, even if they wanted to. I'm lucky that I got the chance to speak to Primer co-founder Laurel Angelica Myers, who was able to secure a $9.2 million seed plus round about how exactly she went about this.
• 11:18
  Her main piece of advice centered around going in with a very clear financial plan, how much you want to raise, and exactly where the brand is going with a clear vision for the future. This is going to give people more faith, if not just for your idea, but also for your ability to execute against it. And that's what people are really investing in at the end of the day. A person and the idea and the vision.
• 11:43
  show off what you can bring to the table, and make them excited about joining your business. Make them excited about you. Additionally, you also want to be showing off how you are uniquely positioned to solve this problem. How there is a clear problem with a clear opportunity and you clearly being the best person for the job to solve that. You want it to feel almost ludicrous that they could be considering not investing in you.
• 12:13
  And now finally, I wouldn't dream of chatting about CBD without mentioning the industry's very own Cush Queen, Olivia Alexander. She has shown us, like no one else, that a bad situation can turn out to be a stepping stone for greatness.
• 12:29
  She is a woman we can all learn from whichever industry we're in. Prior to founding Kush Queen, the cannabis lifestyle brand that has catapulted into a multi-million dollar company, Olivia made her income from her 3 million following on Instagram. But that all came tumbling down when Instagram decided to remove her account in accordance with community guidelines. That's pretty messed up and pretty traumatizing.
• 12:56
  But instead of wallowing in this moment of total despair, she decided to turn it into an opportunity. She took that moment to focus on what she truly wanted, which was to start building Kush Queen. And it turns out that this was exactly the type of body armor that would serve her well building in this notoriously tricky space.
• 13:19
  I wanted to leave this solo episode with exactly this message, that all the challenges that inherently come with entrepreneurship do serve a purpose. They provide us with all the tools and inspiration needed to face that next roadblock head on.
• 13:36
  Okay, and that's all for today, folks. What I love about the female-founded cannabis space is that the founders work together like a team. It's a tight-knit community of strong women working together opposed to against each other in their plight to educate the world on the positive effects of CBD and join forces in battling through those regulation issues. Okay.
• 13:58
  When you're starting a business in CBD, you're a woman not fighting against competition, but joining a team. And we can all take a leaf out of that book. Alrighty, that's all for today, folks. If you know someone interested in this space, please do share this episode with them. And as always, if you're on your phone listening to this episode, take a quick screenshot of the podcast and share it to your Instagram stories or leave us a review in your podcast app to help other ears find us.
• 14:28
  And if you're like me and you love to chat, please do slide into my DMs to say hello and let me know where you're building. I would love to be your hypergirl. You can find me at Doon Roisin, which is D-O-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week. Bye.
• 15:06
  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.
• 15:30
  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.
• 15:53
  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.