Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 3 Must-Know TikTok Hacks that lead to 433,000+ Obsessed Fans with Contour Cube’s Founder, Sarah Forrai (Part 1)

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3 Must-Know TikTok Hacks that lead to 433,000+ Obsessed Fans with Contour Cube’s Founder, Sarah Forrai (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Sarah Foray for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hello and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. We have such a cracking episode for you today. I'm chatting with the founder and the inventor of Contour Cube, Sarah Foray. Now we had her on the show back in circa October 2021 and I really highly recommend listening to that first episode so you can get the full picture of just how insane this story is.
• 0:39
  and the real power of finding a true gap in the market. This brand journey has just been next level. In this episode, we're chatting through Sarah's top hacks to growing her TikTok account to over 400,000 followers and her tips and insights into the hundreds of millions of views she has across all of her channels, thanks to winning the short form video content game.
• 1:04
  We also take a deep dive into everything gifting and everything influences. And at the very, very end, Sarah takes us through her very new product launch that just came out this week, the Gua Cube, with a detailed plan on how she built crazy hype in the lead up to the launch. Definitely don't miss that final gem.
• 1:23
  And as always, if you love this episode as much as I did recording it, be sure to let us know by sharing it on Instagram stories or dropping into our Facebook group where you can meet 4,000 other like-minded female founders and small business owners. Alrighty, let's get into it. This is Sarah for Female Startup Club.
• 1:42
  Sarah, welcome back to the Female Startup Club podcast. Yay, so excited to be back. Oh my gosh, I love this for us. I've been so excited about this episode. Yeah, me too. I can't believe last time we spoke, it was only eight months into the business, so it was very fresh. And now it's like three years into the business, so that's crazy. That is so crazy. And I also feel like
• 2:08
  What's crazy to me is, didn't we meet like on TikTok in like 2020? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah, we did. Like it's just such a journey. Yeah, it's actually crazy. This is the part two episode. Everyone needs to go back and listen to the first episode. I'm so excited to dig into this today because I feel like you have so many lessons to share and you have so much cool stuff going on and...
• 2:31
  I think like when we spoke, I was looking back at that episode today. And at that point, you at the time, I don't know if you'd already closed it down, but you were running two businesses. You were still working full time. You had grown your channel, though, to like...
• 2:47
  150,000 followers, you had 25 million views. So you're still like super established even that early on. And then now if we look at where you are, you obviously quit your job. You've focused and honed in on the booming biz.
• 3:04
  You have hundreds of millions of views across your channels. I think you have an audience of nearly a million people across all your channels too. You've been on Shark Tank. You've had so much going on. I'm really excited. I want to just quickly start before we kind of go over your story from circa October 2021.
• 3:23
  because I actually forget this part of the story, but you had a second business. You were running two businesses at the time. And something that I often get asked by early stage founders and something that I see come up all the time is like, how did you know which one to focus on? How did you make the decision to close one down? Was it like a really obvious no-brainer answer or was there some decision-making going on there or a framework that you followed? Yeah.
• 3:49
  Yeah, that's an interesting one. I think for us, we really just saw the one, like the Contour Cube product pop off so much. Like it was really quite easy to see. It just take up so much more of our time. All the attention was being taken by Contour Cube. The virality was, you know, really pushing the brand out to the world and to a global audience.
• 4:11
  So for us, we learned a lot from that first business and we quickly realized it was actually a hand sanitizer business. So we realized we couldn't ship flammable goods overseas, but we learned like, okay, we want something that's small and compact, easy to ship.
• 4:27
  but what's something that doesn't have too many rules around it so we can really get this product out there to the world. So we learned a lot of lessons from that first business, but yeah, it was just definitely almost like quite obvious to us that it was the Contour Cube that was really popping off and we needed to focus all our time on that business. And for that business, the hand sanitizer company, was it already kind of
• 4:51
  still generating revenue? Like were you thinking, oh, you know, we should sell this business or were we just more like thinking, let's just close it down and channel our energy here? Yeah, we kind of kept it going. Like we left it sort of up and running. We still had some stock. And so we're like, you know, we still had some customers that were coming back for more. And the cool thing about that product was it was a refillable hand sanitizer. So people did want to come back for the refills. They did love the aesthetic of it.
• 5:21
  And sometimes every now and then we get an email being like, are you guys still around? But we also like put that business up or that particular product up on eBay. And like every now and then we still sell it through that channel. So it was kind of figuring out like, you know, okay, we might not be spending enough time on marketing it, but if there is another platform that it can get more visibility on, maybe we can put it on there and like sort of let it have like a second life. Oh, I love that. But it's not on eBay anymore.
• 5:48
  It actually is still on eBay. Oh, it is on eBay. Oh, I love that. Yeah. So like every now and then, like we'll still sell through a couple of units, but it isn't something we'll focus our time on and we're not really putting any marketing efforts into it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Amazing. All right. So we spoke in October, 2021. What has happened since then? Take us on your journey.
• 6:09
  Oh my gosh, I feel like so much has happened. Like you said, we were working full time. So the whole idea about quitting my job was such a huge thing. It was so hard. I didn't know whether to quit or to keep the security and, you know, juggle the two, but it was just getting to a point where actually there was just too much happening and
• 6:31
  And I think the key moment really was we had a crazy influencer post about us organically. And we also had some really cool stockists reach out to us. And that was going ahead at the same time. So we ended up launching in 450 Priceline stores across Australia. At the same time, Chemist Warehouse New Zealand reached out to us and then all
• 6:53
  In and amongst that, Kendall Jenner posted about us organically on her Instagram story. So that was a crazy time. And then that was my sort of moment where I was like, okay, I really actually need to quit my job and focus on these things.
• 7:09
  like things that are really happening for our business and actually work out the logistics of how we're going to even get the products, you know, to Priceline and all these things. So it was really a compilation of just everything all at once when I was like, okay, now is the time I actually need to quit. So, oh my gosh. And so what was that feeling like when you quit your job?
• 7:31
  It was really scary. I was like, oh my gosh, this is the right thing to do. But I think I quickly sort of, I don't know, just got into it straight away. I feel like it gave me so much more time to really focus on things. While I was juggling the two, it was very much like waking up in the morning, doing bits, like in the afternoon, like packing orders, like eating.
• 7:52
  It was just working on the business in bits, but then I felt like I could actually relax a little bit. I could take my time with the business. I got my weekends back, so there was a bit more balance in that sense. But yeah, it was a really cool feeling. Love that for you. And was that in 2022?
• 8:09
  Yeah, that's right. Yeah, 2022 around like September time. So last year was like my full year fully being in the business. And then my partner, Lewis, joined me in February last year. So that was cool. I sort of took that first leap of faith.
• 8:26
  Got it, got it, got it. And when does like the Shark Tank moment enter the picture? How did Shark Tank come about? How did it all happen? Let's kind of touch on the Shark Tank experience. Yeah, so I had so many really cool comments from people
• 8:43
  people around the world just being like, oh my gosh, you should go and Shark Tank on our TikTok videos. And I was like, that's really cool. Like, you know, I really am such a huge fan of the show. And for people to say that, I was like, oh my God, that's amazing. Like, I'd love to do that. And then it kind of planted the seed in my head. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have to find out if Shark Tank is ever going to come to Australia because it hadn't been around for about five years. So I found this splash page that said, if you're interested in...
• 9:10
  Applying for Shark Tank, put your email in here. And I was like, oh, like, look, I can't see any other signs of the show ever returning, but I'm going to put my email address in here and just forget about it. And then six months later, I got an email saying, you applied for Shark Tank.
• 9:25
  a show and you put your interest in for a show and yeah, applications are open and it's called Let's Get Down to Business. And I was like, okay, that's weird. They're being really vague about what the show is, but okay, I'm going to apply. And funnily enough, the whole price line thing was happening. The chemist's warehouse deals were going through, all this stuff was going on. And I told my partner, I was like, I think we should apply for the show.
• 9:50
  And he was like, no, like you're wasting your time. Like stop getting distracted. We've got so much other things to focus on. And it is really hard, like as a small business to, you know, really focus on what you need to prioritize and you can get distracted. So I totally understood where he was coming from. But I was like, look, it's just...
• 10:09
  you know, a couple of questions I need to answer. And then it was a video application. So I was like, we have so much TikTok content. I could easily put a video together. We can do like a voiceover for that video. And so we did that. And then basically we got a callback and then we had a Zoom interview and then you had to submit a business plan and then you go through background checks. And then I think the really cool part of the whole experience was being able to
• 10:37
  have a creative input into what your display is going to look like. So that was really, really cool. So, and do you have to pay for that or they, it's all covered. They cover most of it, but if like little things like our acrylic display stand, things like that, we brought that, but they did help custom make like the whole pink table. They helped us with a mini freezer. So that was really, really cool. And yeah,
• 11:00
  And then yeah, and then basically the funny thing is, is they don't really tell you that you're on the show like 100% until like two weeks out. So they're like, oh, like it's looking good. Like if I were you, I would start practicing your pitch. And I'm like, okay, but that's a lot of effort. So.
• 11:16
  So I want to be 100% sure if we're going to be on the show that we're putting all this time and investment into it for a reason. But yeah, no, we wanted to be a lot more prepared than unprepared. So we made sure that we practiced all the time. We watched and binge watched all this stuff.
• 11:34
  seasons of Shark Tank. We watched Dragon's Den. We watched it all just to help us prepare. And then on the actual day was so nerve wracking. We were just, yeah, I don't think we slept the night before. I don't think anybody slept the night before. Oh my God, I bet. But the cool thing is it was just around the corner from our place at the entertainment quarter. And that's where we filmed it. And yeah, I guess we sort of got there and we were able to see our setup.
• 12:03
  just a quick display just to see what it looks like, which was really cool. And then, yeah, on the actual day, it felt like they basically prepped us. We went into like the white room and we did a pre-interview and then, um, they showed us the lift and all the behind the scenes of the lift situation. And I remember the producer saying, okay, basically you're going to walk through the lift doors. And as soon as the doors open, the music going to play and, um,
• 12:32
  you have to walk to the middle of the carpet. And as soon as the music stops, like start your pitch. And I was like, okay, cool. And she's like, all right, you're on standby. And I was like, oh my God, no, we're on standby already. So yeah, it felt like super quick, but we were pretty prepared, which was really, really good because no matter how much pressure we were under, we practiced so much that our pitch came out the way we wanted it to come out. We even did like these minor tweaks to our pitch as well.
• 13:00
  Those last minute tweaks you always worry about because like, oh, my God, am I going to remember that last minute change I made? But it all it all worked out. I love that. I love that. And I was so lucky to be part of your pre-practice pitching moments and getting to watch the show air with you and your family was so cool.
• 13:22
  What was, I mean, I obviously was, you know, front row seat on your journey with you, but for anyone listening, like, what was the impact of going on Shark Tank? And I want to kind of summarize, like, you know, is it like a hell yes, you should absolutely take that as an opportunity? Or is it like a yeah, like it was good, but I didn't see the results that I wanted? Or like what happens after you go on Shark Tank?
• 13:46
  I would say yes. I totally understand if you're umming and ahhing about it. The only thing that I was kind of umming and ahhing about was, do I really want to share all these numbers with the whole world? I get really, you know, everyone's quite conservative, like nobody wants to share their numbers and I totally get that. But I think knowing who the sharks were really outweighed us, you know, and worrying about our numbers and
• 14:13
  Yeah, I thought that the sharks were so amazing. They were so new, innovative. They all had econ businesses. It was very different from the old shark tank. And I think just going on the show was just a massive thing for us. To be able to say that we were on the show, to be able to showcase our product, especially from a brand that was the original creators, was pretty much a dream come true. You want to be able to
• 14:39
  get your brand in front of like these investors and actually get real time feedback. Like it's a real thing. Like they actually want to buy into your business and to be able to get that positive feedback and see them, you know, really keen and get like four out of the five sharks was just a huge thing for us.
• 14:56
  And we even, you know, saw, I think at one point in time, there were like over like 6,000 people on our website, just like on the airing night, which was incredible to see. And the power of TV is still so strong. Like it's still there. People love it. And I guess it was interesting to see that aspect as well. It was kind of different because back in the day, I think when Shark Tank aired, everyone would go and watch it.
• 15:22
  when it aired, whereas nowadays there's things like Templay, it's like on demand. So there was a heap of people watching. I think there was a quarter of a million people watching like an episode at one time. But I think...
• 15:39
  Yeah, it's kind of different to back in the day when I feel like maybe there would have been like half a million people watching at that time. But because like on demand has changed kind of our behaviors, it was a little bit different in that sense. And I also imagine like the behavior has also changed, though, in the perspective of like social media and clips and things like that. So maybe people didn't catch like the episode when it aired, but then they've seen the clips and they've kind of like followed the journey through social media instead of following it.
• 16:06
  on TV. 100%. And in saying that, we actually were able to repost our episodes on TikTok and we made a little series out of it. And this is such a cool hack because if you have a little series that you can sort of bring your...
• 16:21
  customers or audience on a journey with you, they're really into that. So like we, we posted our first part of our pitch and everyone was commenting and being like, we'd love a part two. So we posted a part two. And then when people see that first video and that actually video, that video went viral. Yeah.
• 16:38
  But they could see in the comments straight away, oh, there's a part two. And then they go into the part two and then they kind of you take them through this kind of journey and like they're kind of stuck in a loop as well. So it was such a great way to daisy chain our videos and get even more eyeballs on that episode itself.
• 16:54
  Love that. Love the word daisy chain in this analogy. I am definitely going to steal that. I feel like this is a really good segue into the first kind of biggest lessons bucket we're going to go through today. And I want to explore this biggest lessons you've learned in organic content and TikTok.
• 17:13
  Where do I want to start with this? I guess like broadly speaking, you know, organic short form video content has been such a powerful driver for you in this business. So what would you say are just like the broad lessons you've learned as a starting point?
• 17:31
  I think consistency is always still key. So I think everybody knows like the algorithm just loves that. We started posting three times a week and now we're posting daily. I think we're going to try to post at least three times a day. Oh, wow. I know. I know. So when you think about it, that's 21 videos a week.
• 17:51
  But we want to work smarter, not harder. So we want to think of seven ideas, but then how can we do each idea three different ways? So I think that's the beauty of TikTok. You can do a voiceover video, or you could do a trending sound video, or you could do an entertaining video, or you could even do one of those photo carousel videos. So...
• 18:14
  Pick one of those things, get one idea and try to do it three different ways. And I think that's a really good way to hack, you know, the quantity that you want to post on the app. I have a few questions here just quickly before you go on. So when it comes to your like system and workflow and like process, are you thinking like,
• 18:34
  First of all, how do you come up with the ideas? And then what is the, are you like batch recording these kind of pieces of content? Or are you like every day I have time scheduled between X and X? Are you kind of like doing everything from filming to editing and posting yourself? I just want to kind of understand like the system that you're using for your content creation, especially when we're thinking about daily three times a day, like how do we manage that amount of content output?
• 18:59
  Yeah, so I like to draw a lot of my inspiration from other creators on the app. So I find myself scrolling through the platform and I'm literally just saving videos. I'm like, that's a great idea. I love the way they film that. And the more you save, you're basically keeping it in a bank for later and you can refer back to them. Your swipe file. Yeah, definitely. I love to think about a specific idea and the ideas sit in three baskets, whether it's entertaining, educational, or inspirational. Yeah.
• 19:28
  So I think of an idea and then I script it out. I love to write a script. And then from the script, that's when I think about what is the visual going to look like? And then what's the sound that I'm going to add to that idea?
• 19:41
  The second way I like to do it is because TikTok is such a great sound-based platform, sometimes the sound is what triggers my idea. So it could be a trending sound that I'm like, oh my gosh, that's such a great clip of a viral sound that I could use. And then that would trigger, I don't even need a script for that sometimes, that would just trigger the idea of how I would film that and then go from there. So...
• 20:07
  That's how I like to curate my ideas. I'm either thinking about the idea or I can see a sound that triggers an idea.
• 20:15
  And then in saying that, I think montage videos are probably like my biggest hack because montage videos allow you to make an endless stream of content, especially when you're really lazy and you don't have a lot of time. So what I mean by that is you could literally just put your camera up, film yourself packing orders, film yourself going to the post office, filming yourself like...
• 20:38
  looking at prototypes and then showing like the end result. And then when you piece that all together, people love to see how far you've grown and like see your journey. So whenever we don't have much time for filming, I have a bank of all this B-roll that I can use for later. And whenever I hear a trending sound,
• 20:58
  I'm like, oh, that could be great for another inspirational montage. Or maybe I can use the same montage and do a voiceover and tell my story in that way. So honestly, montage videos are like my go-to thing nowadays. And we've had so many millions of views from just montage video after montage video. That's amazing. I mean, I love your montages. They are absolutely five stars. How much time do you reckon you spend on TikTok per day?
• 21:26
  It's a good question. I probably scroll on there an hour in the morning and an hour at night throughout the day as well. Oh, God, I think I'll probably be embarrassed about my scroll time. But I try to scroll in the mornings really is where I try to just capture things.
• 21:45
  like ideas throughout the week and save sounds, save videos. And then by the end of the week, I'm like, okay, cool. I've got my ideas. I can script them out. I can figure out what it is I need to film and then batch film it all in that one day and then sort of edit it as I need to throughout the week. And do you ever feel like, do you struggle with the negative side of TikTok when it comes to, or just content in general, like that feeling of like,
• 22:11
  content burnout where you've, you're kind of like, shit, I've committed, I need to post a video today, but I'm, you know, I'm just not feeling it. Those kind of emotions that I hear a lot of founders go through.
• 22:24
  Yeah, no, definitely. If there's a day that I feel like I don't feel like filming, I just don't do it. I'm like, it's going to show in my video that I'm just not feeling it. So I'm just going to park it for now, give myself a rest. And I think that's why maybe filming those montage videos and being able to post those kind of videos when you're not really feeling up to filming or doing more like entertaining videos where you know they're short and snappy because you might be just doing like a lip sync or you might, it's a lot...
• 22:53
  quicker to film those kind of shorter videos. That's what I like to kind of film and maybe build kind of like a library of so that when I'm not feeling up for posting, I can sort of use that instead.
• 23:09
  And for you, obviously content burnout is one, but have you experienced any other kind of, you know, not so obvious challenges of building kind of such a heavily content-based business on platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels? Challenges for organic business.
• 23:30
  Yeah, it does. Like, obviously, after a while, I feel like sometimes you can get a bit of, like, idea fatigue. You're like, what do I do now? What do I do next? And you want to constantly kind of think of new ideas of, you know, what to come up with, especially because it has taken us a little bit of time to come out with new products. Yeah.
• 23:47
  So trying to think of new angles of how to sort of capture your audience does also kind of come into play a little bit there. But what I think what you just touched on just then is to overcome that, we've really been able to look at repurposing a lot of our content, not just on TikTok, but on TikTok.
• 24:05
  Instagram Reels, on YouTube Shorts, and on Pinterest. So once we've got one video, we're like, this is great. We can capture such a diverse demographic from repurposing this content and reposting it onto all these other platforms and reach an even bigger audience.
• 24:20
  So we've done that and we've actually noticed recently that Reels has really been popping off for us. Like a video that we thought would really do well on TikTok might have only hit maybe like 20,000 views, hit like 200,000 views on Reels. So I would definitely say that...
• 24:39
  get onto repurposing your content because you never know what kind of like new audience you're going to tap into. A hundred percent. And you said something earlier, which is just so spot on. It's like, it's also about just consistently showing up. So just being like, no matter what my workflow is, I'm going to repost these one-time
• 24:54
  video across three channels here and like who cares about the metrics necessarily it's more like just do it and day after day after day after day after day this consistency and like learning the platform and figuring out what's working and what's not working eventually it snowballs and kind of takes off how are you thinking about TikTok shop and how will that kind of integrate for you guys
• 25:17
  I think TikTok shop is going to be great for what we've heard. It's really popping off for some people in the U S that are already using it.
• 25:25
  And I think it will be massive at the moment. We've kind of got a little kind of stepping stone towards that where you can actually add product links to all your TikTok posts currently. So people can click on that, but then they take it to an external link and then they buy through your website. So the fact that TikTok shop is all in app, they don't have any of that fluff. They can just buy on the spot straight away. It's going to be massive.
• 25:50
  And even just being able to sort of like leverage more influences on the app, you know, they'll be able to drive more traffic to your TikTok shop. I think it's going to be massive. I'm so excited to see how it kind of takes off in Australia. If anyone was listening right now who's kind of like in that early stage of building their business, they haven't started on TikTok yet, they keep hearing like over and over again, you should start, but they're kind of feeling, you know, overwhelmed and not sure what to do. And...
• 26:19
  struggling, I guess, to just get started. What advice would you have for someone in that position?
• 26:27
  I think for me, I would say what really helped us grow on the platform was just telling our story. So if you don't know where to start, start by telling your brand story. Why did you create your product? Explain how it's filled a gap in the market. And from that first video, you're going to understand sort of what your audience wants to see or hear from you. So you'll see a lot of comments come through even on your very first video. And then from there, you can reply quickly.
• 26:56
  through a video format, which is kind of unique to TikTok, but now you can do it on Reels. And you'll be able to see from there, like you'll start open conversation basically with your audience and you'll be able to know what it is, you know, that they want to know from you specifically. So I definitely start, um,
• 27:13
  Start posting your story and start with that one video. And then in that next video, think of like one thing you'd want to improve from the last one. You don't have to be perfect with the first video because you can always make another improvement in the next one and the next one and the next one. And you'll get better and better over time. And then you'll find what your style is and how you like to film and what it is your audience wants to see from you. And it'll definitely snowball like you said.
• 27:41
  Yeah, I love that. I mean, storytelling is just so powerful and I think it's easy to, you know, it's such an obvious one, but people want to buy from humans. They don't want to buy from, you know, a faceless brand. And so when you're able to use that to your advantage and tell your story and tell what makes you unique and your why behind it, I think that's obviously such a powerful emotional connection you can build with your audience.
• 28:06
  The other thing I think that's just important to remember, and we just touched on this before, is like the consistency of just being like, I am committing to this as a channel and you just need to get your reps in. Like I think for me on TikTok, it wasn't until I was like 200 videos in that my videos started working. You just have to commit to being like, I am going to figure it out and I'm just going to keep on going. And
• 28:27
  not giving up after posting one video which doesn't perform or two videos which don't perform. It's just more like let's just keep on going because it's a skill that you have to develop and kind of get used to.
• 28:39
  all that kind of good stuff. I want to kind of shift into the next biggest lessons bucket that we're going to go over. And that is all around something else you do very well, gifting and influences. So I thought we could kind of start with the Kardashian thing. You mentioned earlier, Kendall Jenner posted about you totally organically, which I mean, that moment just must have been so insane. But let's talk about this moment, how it happened, what we know about
• 29:10
  Yeah, so it was completely crazy out of the blue. Woke up one morning and Lewis was like, what's going on? Why do we have so many sales? And I was like, oh, I've got no idea. Like maybe a TikTok's gone viral or, you know, maybe a blogger's done something on YouTube or something like that. Like the thought never crossed my mind. And then next minute we had all these screenshots from all my friends being like, oh my God, like are you awake right now? Like, have you seen this? And then I go on to her profile and there we are in her Instagram.
• 29:37
  story, completely organic. And I'm just sitting there being like, this is the wildest thing that's ever happened. I didn't even know that they would do an organic post like that. I didn't even know that Kendall would ever do that. Like, when does that ever happen? So I was just mind blown. I was screaming around my living room. I was like, what's happening? This is so wild. And then, yeah, from
• 30:01
  a video about it on Tik Tok as you do. I was like, okay, well this is amazing. This is the craziest thing that's ever happened to our small business. So let's create a video about it. And yeah, obviously that video did really well on Tik Tok and yeah, like we just kind of spread the word and people were as amazed as we were.
• 30:18
  And to be honest, people didn't believe us. They're like, oh, you definitely paid them. You know, you definitely paid Kendall to do that. And I was like, I wish I knew how to get in contact with her. And I wish I had a spare. I don't know how much she charges, but you know. What's really interesting about that is I'm like,
• 30:35
  Just to kind of cut in here for a second, also it's like you've built this habit into your business where it's like something happens, this event happens, and that could be anything that goes on from your day to day. And then that triggers you to be like, how can this be a video? And so it's a good mindset for everyone to just remember of like anything that happens, how can this be a content piece that is potentially going to go viral on my channel? And just being in that constant headspace of like, oh, something's happened, triggered moment.
• 31:04
  100%. It's like, what unicorn moments happen to your business? What business milestone has happened that you can then talk about? It's always about, that's what content is, just talking points. What else can you share with your audience? Not everyone is going to see her post that. Our advantage is there was a lot of organic PR that came from that post. And then,
• 31:25
  For us to be able to then talk about it as well, just kind of catapulted that even more. So how did she get your product? Did she see a video of you on TikTok and she bought it? Have you looked back at your orders? Like what is the, what happened here? Do we know? Yeah.
• 31:38
  Yeah, no, I've tried to look back at my audience to be like, oh, what alias does she use? But honestly, I think I put it down to the virality of TikTok. Like there is no other way like we would have been put in front of her otherwise. You know, I feel like it's been our organic reach that's really been able to kind of get the product sort of.
• 31:59
  her way. It could have been gifted. It could have been bought from a stockist in the US. Like we don't 100% know, but I definitely put it down to our TikTok virality for sure. And that's, again, just a really powerful reminder that every video that you post on TikTok, you have
• 32:19
  the potential to have celebrity eyeballs, influencer eyeballs, buyers from retailers watching and seeing what you're doing. It's just so powerful to make sure that we're capitalizing on these channels that are just booming, especially for business owners and small business owners. Crazy.
• 32:39
  And then a year later, we got an email from Poosh and they're like, hey, just wondering if you guys ship within the US. And we're like, oh, yeah, we do. Why do you ask? And like, well, every year the Kendall, so the Kardashian Jenners create a holiday gift guide and all the sisters plus Kris pick one gift of choice to gift at Christmas. And Kendall's actually chosen the Conto Cube as her stocking stuffer of choice. And I was like,
• 33:08
  wait, what? So it wasn't just like a one hit wonder. She, yeah, a year later was like, yeah, I want this to be my skincare pick or gift pick, which is amazing. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That is so crazy and just so bloody cool.
• 33:27
  I'm wondering if you know, and I know that these have both happened for you really organically, but if you're not having any luck with the organic kind of unicorn moment and you do want to figure out how to partner with celebrities like that, how would you actually go about getting your products in the hands of a celebrity? Do you know the answer? That's a good question. I feel like at the moment we're kind of doing things
• 33:54
  mailer giveaways and influencer giveaways and like teaming up with brands in that way to try to get the brand out there more. But for really big celebrities, I think it is a PR agency that you might have to reach out to from what I've heard. But yeah,
• 34:10
  Yeah, honestly, I'm not even 100% sure. Do you think that you would invest in, like now with where you are in the business, are you investing in those kind of like higher tier influences or, you know, paid partnerships with celebrities or is your strategy just organic and if it happens, it happens? At the moment, it's really organic and I think, to be honest, we've been really lucky because I feel like what we've actually been able to achieve is not just...
• 34:40
  virality, but like word of mouth virality. So this year alone, we've had Lisa Eldridge, which is a celebrity makeup artist, post about us organically in her YouTube channel. She did a 2024 beauty haul. She actually loves icing her skin. So I watched her video before I even launched the brand, and I was like, wow, that's really inspiring. So that felt like a whole full circle moment for her to have the product in her hands.
• 35:06
  We actually had the owner of Gizu, that hair oil brand, also post about us. I use it. Yeah, me too. Amazing. Yeah. And I was like, wow, this is so cool. She tagged Contour Cube in her post as well. And I was like, that's amazing. So at the moment, it's really been organic. That's really pushed this in front of these influencers and celebrities, which has been amazing. But I
• 35:32
  we do want to create more of a strategy around that. And we are working with other brands and teaming up to kind of send our product out there and seeing how that goes. But honestly, we've been quite lucky with the organic side of things. And I know you touched on it before, you know, you make a video when something like this happens, but how else do you leverage a moment like the Lisa YouTube or the founder who posted the product? Like if this happens organically, like, yes, you make a video, but how else do you leverage that? Like, are you kind of
• 36:01
  then going and leaning in to try and partner with them at a further kind of date or doing anything else off the back of it? Or is it just kind of like create the video or create extra content around it and leverage it that way?
• 36:14
  Yeah, that's a really good point. I think for us, we also kind of go down the PR route. So we kind of push it in that sense of reaching out to journalists who's written about us before. This is kind of newsworthy. It'll be great to get this out there even more. So we kind of push it in that way. But
• 36:34
  Yeah, I guess for us, it's also kind of hard to reach out to these influencers directly sometimes. I feel like they're a bit unattainable in some ways, but definitely trying to do some more of a collab with them would be an absolute dream. Limited edition runs, like my mind goes wild with what you can actually do and build more of a relationship with people who really love your product. So it's definitely something that we want to do in the future.
• 37:00
  Yeah, absolutely. And so when we're thinking about just overall the bucket of gifting and influences, similarly to, you know, the lessons that you shared in content and TikTok, if an early stage founder is listening to this right now and they're like, okay, amazing, I know that I need to gift influences and I want to.
• 37:18
  know that I want to get my product out there. What are the kind of just practical steps to getting started? And like, what's an easy sort of strategy or framework or flow to follow to getting it actually happening?
• 37:32
  I definitely create a list of all the people I'd probably want to potentially reach out to. And then I do definitely like to DM people directly and see if they'd be interested to try it. I've actually seen quite a few influencers loving icing their skin. They love ice facials. And I'm like, oh my God, amazing. You're going to love my product too.
• 37:50
  So they're not even like huge, huge influences, but they are like their own personal brand and they love it. So I love reaching out to people who already organically love doing something related to my brand already. So I do reach out to them directly and like 99% of the time they reach back out and they're like, I'd love to try your product. So I've done a lot of gifting collabs and that's been really, really effective, especially when you're on a smaller budget. You definitely want to figure out what you can afford and what you can't, but you're
• 38:17
  I really love doing gifting collabs. Just as an example, this flaxseed face mask has been going viral on TikTok. People have been making their own face masks using flaxseed. And I saw an amazing creator create the flaxseed face mask and freeze them as ice cubes and then ice her face with it. And she was like, this is the best thing ever. And I was like, that's such an amazing...
• 38:40
  DIY hack, I would love to a try that and also send it to her. And so yeah, I've sent her some cubes. She absolutely loved it. She made a few videos for us. She's tagged us. She asked if she could have her own coupon code, her own discount code. And she's absolutely loving the product and promoting it like crazy. So definitely keeping your eye out for those kinds of creators and reaching out to them directly would definitely be the way I start.
• 39:06
  How big is like your operation right now? Like, let's just paint the picture for anyone listening. Like, is it you and Lou or are there more people involved in this at this point? Yes. So mainly me, myself and Lou, we do have a customer service representative that we've
• 39:23
  recently hired, which has been really amazing. We also have a full-time graphic designer. So that's really helped us in just everything from like Klaviyo EDM designs to helping with our brand deck and Facebook ads. Like that's been an amazing game changer, especially because we're graphic designers from background and we're like, we love design. We love graphic design. But then we found that we were spending hours doing something that wasn't really like a
• 39:51
  pushing the needle in any way. So we were like, okay, no, we really need to pass that on to somebody else. We're actually looking to bring on a VA as well. And then the biggest thing that we did was work with a 3PL. So previously, and back when we did our last podcast, we were packing all our own orders. So we're packing all our orders from home. My mom had to come help us. And that was like- Working full-time jobs. Yeah, literally, it was crazy. So being able to, yeah, have-
• 40:21
  like a 3PL take care of the pick and packing of our orders has been amazing, not just to the B2C side, but the B2B side, like they take care of the wholesale orders and there's, you know, all kinds of things that things that come with that as well in terms of like labeling and cartons and things like that. So that's been really, really helpful to help free up our time so we can focus being working on growing the business and not being in the business.
• 40:47
  Yeah, I love that. Final question before we get into the six quick questions. For someone that's listening right now that's in the early stages of building their business and they're feeling overwhelmed and just like, what do I do every day? Oh, my God, I'm struggling. What are the consistent actions that should be prioritized every single day to chip away at?
• 41:09
  I think definitely starting some kind of content creation plan. I think definitely our business started from the growth out of TikTok and being able to see if there was any demand from our product from the beginning and then being able to leverage that to grow an audience and build a community.
• 41:29
  I would also just kind of write down a massive list of everything that you want to achieve and then prioritize that and cut down that list to like your top three things that you want to focus on for Q1 and then sort of work your way through it from there. Yeah. That's perfect. I mean, that's a lot already. Get the content down, Pat, basically. Yeah, definitely start there. Oh my God. So many lessons, so many learnings. Thank you so much.
• 42:02
  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.
• 42:27
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• 42:49
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