Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Why authenticity matters, and how it inspired a partnership with Kerry Washington, with Aurate Co-Founders Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui

Transcript

Why authenticity matters, and how it inspired a partnership with Kerry Washington, with Aurate Co-Founders Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Sophie and Bouchra for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doona Roisin, and joining me on the show today is Sophie Kahn and Bushra Ezraoui, founders of Orate. Orate is the premier direct-to-consumer fine jewelry brand offering ethically sourced luxury jewels without the retail markup.
• 0:34
  Founded in 2015 by Bouchra and Sophie, the company seeks to democratize the fine jewelry industry through its online driven model, accessible price points, and social impact strategy. All of their jewelry is designed and manufactured with love in New York City. In this episode, we're chatting through how they got started and brought this brand to market, why authenticity is so important in today's world of brand building, and the key takeaways from raising capital.
• 1:04
  And if you're interested in taking part in some listener research, please do pop into my inbox. I've left my email in the show notes below. This is Bouchra and Sophie for Female Startup Club. Sophie and Bouchra, hello and welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you for having us. I'm so excited to be chatting with you today. I always like to start by getting you both to introduce yourselves and what your business is. So we'll start with you, Sophie.
• 1:35
  Hi, my name is Sophie. I'm originally from Amsterdam. We've been now in New York for around 10 years. And I'm the co-founder and co-CEO of a startup called ORE New York. It's a fine jewelry direct-to-consumer brand. And in one sentence, because I can talk about it for hours, we're basically trying to improve the way women buy fine jewelry for themselves and really empower them in the process. Sounds beautiful. Bouchoir?
• 2:00
  And hi everyone, I'm Bouchra. I am co-founder of Kousi, or Orate, who basically, again, very similar story to Sophie, looking to change the way women shop for fine jewelry for themselves. I'm originally from Morocco, grew up in Paris and the U.S., where I actually met Sophie the first year I came to the U.S. So we've known each other for a long time.
• 2:23
  Gosh, such global women. I love that. I want to go back to life before you started. All right. I think I read that you were at Princeton together in 2009 or something. So it has been such a long time. What was getting you excited to start a business together?
• 2:40
  So basically, Boucher and I, to give you context, we were both working in the corporate world. So I was at the time at Marc Jacobs doing strategy and Boucher was at Goldman Sachs. And we were already very close friends because, you know, we had met at Princeton. It was a very quantitative program. We were very few women. So we loved each other, not just because we're women, but also we had, you know, similar interests other than finance. So one day just in New York, in this cafe called Café Gitan in Olida,
• 3:07
  We were talking about life and how, yes, we liked our corporate jobs, but we really wanted to do more, you know, have more impact, have a meaning in life and not, you know, do the kind of corporate ladder thing. And at the same time, my finger had turned green from this ring I had just bought. And we started talking and Bush was like, well, in Morocco, people wear, you know, fine jewelry, real gold. This doesn't happen. And I was like, yes, but I want something that's cool and that looks good. And they're like, hey, actually, it's kind of this light bulb moment.
• 3:35
  Wow, there's actually no brand out there for women like us in our late 20s, early 30s, where that hits essentially all the boxes of what we're looking for, which is high quality, but affordably priced, ethically sourced. It looks good, but it also does good. Kind of the whole shebang of... And then that's from a product perspective. And then from a brand perspective, a brand that talks to us and not to men.
• 3:58
  There was nothing out there that took our hearts or took our wallets for that case. And we were like, you know what, let's try this. That's kind of how it originally started, that light bulb moment for the first time. The light bulb moment. I love it. And what were people saying when you started telling people, oh, you know, we're going to start this business together? What was the feedback you were receiving? Which part of the feedback would you like to hear? Because the first feedback, I think, was, you're crazy. Yeah.
• 4:25
  And that even like a joke on the side, Sophie and I, again, we didn't have any background, let's say, in fine jewelry. We don't come from families of jewelers. And I come from a family of entrepreneurs. So I do understand what it takes, actually, and all the hard work that goes into building a business. Sophie had background in luxury because she works at Marc Jacobs. And she understood basically the ins and outs of basically working at a global company.
• 4:49
  corporate that actually wasn't in the fashion space. So that was basically the first feedback. However, however, when we actually spent, we did those focus groups with, it started like with our friends, literally our friends, our family members, all the women, basically our colleagues, all the women surrounding us asking them, how do you shop for fine jewelry? Yeah.
• 5:08
  What is it that bothers you in current customer experience that you're seeing? And how do you think we can improve things around? And that became kind of like a work in progress, almost like a project that we're working on on the side. Like how can we go over all those pain points that we as women work in women or not necessarily, I wouldn't even call it working. I would call it more independent spenders looking to buy, find the way for ourselves and, you know,
• 5:35
  We didn't need men to buy us a pair of hoops or, you know, a bezel necklace whatsoever. It's nice to have a gift, but it was almost like this self-gifted product that we enjoyed as women. That's part of your story as a woman. So the story started building from there. So early feedback actually helped us a lot throughout all the building blocks of what Orate should be and should stand for. So better customer experience, a superior product. Yeah.
• 6:00
  more transparency, ethically sourced, sustainable, like all these points like matter to people and give back in a concrete way. We give back school books for basically the collections that we sell. And a lot of people say we're given X percent of proceeds to X in a very vague way. And it's not part of their DNA. But I think our DNA was more about transparency, but building a brand that spoke to the women that wanted to wear it rather.
• 6:28
  Hmm. Sounds so beautiful and a really nice foundation to build upon. You mentioned in the beginning you were doing this more on the side as a bit of a side hustle. How long were you kind of dabbling before it became to the point where you thought, hey, we're going to actually quit our jobs and pursue this full time?
• 6:48
  So all in all, I would say it was probably like two years from the very beginning of us thinking about the idea. Because, right, you have the idea at this Café Gita, right? Then you need to start thinking, putting pen to paper, looking if it's even realistic. So we did the whole strategy piece of, wow, this actually could really work. You know, looking at all the other players out there, what they're offering. And yeah, there is really a white space. So that takes time.
• 7:10
  sometime, especially if you're having a full-time job. Then all these focus groups with your friends. So I would say maybe we did the class at Parsons where we learned at least somewhat of jewelry and kind of the basics of how to do jewelry design. So I would say like six months was kind of just concept ideation and getting everything ready, then starting off. And then probably the first year was really actually up and running. The year after that, basically, the second year was actually up and running, running the business, right? So we had
• 7:37
  The first thing we almost did is open a store, which is funny. So while we were, you know, while I was at Mark Jacobs and while Bush was at Goldman, we're in Soho, we found this location that was, I remember it was like a thousand dollars a day. We had like $10,000 on our bank account. So we decided, you know, let's get it for five days and see what happens. So we put the jewelry in there that by then we had developed and it started working. And that's also when we knew, wow, this thing actually has traction, right? So anyway, it's a long answer to your story, but essentially it took
• 8:04
  All in all, two years before we decided, okay, we have the concept. We've tested it. It really works. There are women that want this. I'll never forget one day in our little Soho store that looked, you know,
• 8:15
  really scrappy because we had no money and we were just putting the jewelry there to test. These like really cool French girls came in and they were looking and they were like, you know, I won't pretend I can do their accent, so I won't do it. But they were basically like, wow, this stuff is amazing. I've been looking for this all my life and they bought so much. That's when, you know, these type of moments when you're like, wow, we're not crazy. This is, this can really be something. Let's take the jump.
• 8:39
  Wow. Yeah, that is a tipping point. I can totally imagine that sort of profound moment of seeing people's faces also in real life and watching their, you know, what happens to them when they see and discover a brand that they truly love. Yeah. I'm interested to know about in the very beginning, how much it costs to start a jewelry brand like this. And, you know, were you having to place huge minimum orders or if you were able to start small?
• 9:05
  I would say, especially in this space that's very capital intensive, it helps basically to
• 9:13
  kind of have kind of a support system, I would say, to kick off that first, you know, that first kick. So it is, we started very small, like we started and it was really hard because I think the first suppliers that we worked with just took a chance and believed in the story because in their, in their experience, obviously they're used to the traditional way of doing things. And I think the first person who took the stab on it was, you know,
• 9:38
  on us. We're just saying, we haven't seen this before. So you're either crazy or this is actually going to work.
• 9:44
  And we started very, very, very small, very small. And it grew very fast. And we went from ordering and just making up numbers from ordering 10 pieces to 50 pieces. And it started scaling. And as we were scaling, I think something that was helpful at least having those corporate side jobs on the side, I would say. They were kind of side jobs now that we think about it, is having that support system around us. And we were fundraising together.
• 10:09
  capital around us. We were borrowing money from people who worked with us. We'd be like, we'll pay this back in three months. We'll pay this back in six months. And we were collecting that and just making products and selling it. So there is no shame in starting small, but you just need to have a vision of how that small becomes big and how you get too big. How can you finance the big as you're growing basically from the small?
• 10:33
  That's so interesting. And I think that's something that we haven't spoken about before on the show is rather than immediately thinking, hey, raise money and give away equity, more of this, hey, ask your friends or colleagues or people who are in your life for some kind of loan with, you know, maybe exciting terms for them or something that it's not so big to jump into like a bank loan, for example, or something like that, where it's a lot more strict, I assume. Very cool. Yeah.
• 11:01
  I want to dig into the launch, the launch of the brand, how you started getting customers finding out about you, maybe even more so around the time that you'd done the first pop up and things were starting to move and you were deciding to quit your jobs and go full time into Orate.
• 11:21
  So basically we had, you know, so we both went full time. We had a little bit of money that we could use. And then it was really about, you know, proof of concept was kind of there. And then it was all about getting our name out, right? Because at the end of the day...
• 11:34
  I mean, people think if you have an e-commerce company or you have a website, people will just come. But it's like having a store in the middle of the desert, right? If you don't have traffic, nobody will ever know you're around. So how do we get our name? And so obviously you did the traditional things, such as launch parties and all of that, like physical things the first time around. But then it's really trying to figure out on the e-commerce side how to generate traffic.
• 11:56
  Right now, for instance, two thirds of our traffic is organic, so unpaid. But to get there, that's the thing. In the beginning, obviously, it's really hard to get there. So we did a mix of a lot of stuff, you know, obviously with some Facebook advertising. We had some influencers. We got a lot of press. We worked with affiliates. So kind of like all of the basic...
• 12:19
  standard marketing ideas that are out there, we tried to do, but we tried to always be innovative in how we were gonna do it. So, because also we didn't have all the money in the world at all, you know, and we do have a finance background. So we wanted to be very careful with where our money was being spent. We tried to always just do it differently
• 12:35
  and really learn. So I think one of the things also is with, you know, strategies. I mean, I used to work in strategy, so nothing against them. But at a startup specific, really, you have to adapt strategies much faster than in the corporate world, right? So we could say,
• 12:51
  It makes no sense to start saying, you know, X percent of our budget is going to go here. It doesn't make any sense. You just try it out and you look at it almost daily. And after a week of seeing results, you know where to put more in. So it's very much, I would say, like the main thing that I can say about how we scaled or ate relatively efficiently was by pivoting all the time in terms of where you're going to put your money and how you're going to do it. Because it's.
• 13:16
  Having like this January strategy of the whole year is just it doesn't work like that. Right. Data changes, things change, numbers change. You just need to be on top of it and edit as you go. And when you were doing those pivoting, what were the kinds of things that were really working that you were like, oh, OK, this sticks and now we're going to double down and scale in these areas?
• 13:37
  It really, again, I think things change very fast. As we started, for instance, our pop-up strategy was extremely lucrative because we would open a space and it becomes profitable very quickly, like month two or month three.
• 13:53
  So that was basically something that just did super well. Then COVID hit, for instance, last year, and now you hit a wall of like, how does the physical experience need to change, to adapt and get to the profitability where it has to be? So you pivot completely into something else. So we found different ways of talking to our customers that were not only offline, but they were a combination of online styling, virtual styling, virtual styling,
• 14:21
  texting them, doing different things where basically you talk to your customer or you go after them in a different format or you do a partnership with different brands that speak to a very similar demographic. And there you're crossing that demographic that sees both brands or a demographic that you couldn't have reach if...
• 14:40
  Unless basically you've done partnerships with those other people. So again, like pivoting has been kind of, I wouldn't talk about it like on a daily basis, almost at a time, but it's more every month basically brought a different challenge, especially when you start like in the beginning, for instance, a lot of people put a lot of their eggs into Facebook and Instagram marketing.
• 14:58
  And sometimes you find another channel that could be a little bit more lucrative than that, where you're on Google instead of Facebook, whatever. So it really depends on the business. Our business is more visual. So more visual channels have been working for us. And our business relies a lot on word of mouth. So I think our job is for us to find ways to amplify the word of mouth, if that makes sense.
• 15:28
  for paying basically online platforms but how can we get our own customer actually to be our best ambassador and that's been kind of the best pivot for us for the last two years talking to them more that's so interesting and you mentioned the zoom styling session what happens in a zoom styling session how does it work what's it like
• 15:50
  So basically, I mean, it's what we did. And this is part of the whole pivoting after, you know, in general, and specifically after COVID, we were like, okay, retail always worked for us. It was always profitable. People still want to, you know, what are the main reasons people still come to the store? They don't come to the store to just buy the jewelry, because quite frankly, you can do that online.
• 16:07
  They come because they want styling advice, right? Like there's a certain way that the worried woman styles herself. So why not just do this online? So that's what we had. So we had our retail people that we didn't therefore have to furlough. And instead, what they would be doing is joining these virtual sessions with whoever was interested.
• 16:22
  And they would have the jewelry there and they would talk about styling themselves the same way you would, you know, in a store. And that very much worked. So it's exactly these things. And, you know, you test it, you see if it works. If it works, you do more. If it doesn't work, you take it out. I think one of the things to add on what Boucher was saying is on a high level, I think what really works for Orate is authenticity.
• 16:43
  So this idea of, for instance, what doesn't work for us is paid influencers, these type of things. It really works for us when somebody truly knows the brand, likes the brand, wears it. Whether it's our customers or influencers or press or whatever. I think that was our main, you know, and for every brand that might be different. But for us, that was the main difference. When we knew we really to go for authenticity for real people that really cared about it, that weren't doing this to anyone.
• 17:09
  you know, just make money and slap their name on something. That's when we really took off.
• 17:15
  Mm, that's so interesting. And you mentioned, Bouchra, that another thing that had worked for you was partnerships. And I saw that, I think it was last year, you announced a major partnership alongside Kerry Washington as an investor and a co-designer on a capsule collection. Can you tell us about that partnership and how something at that scale comes about? Like, how does it actually work?
• 17:40
  And this is literally echoing exactly what we're talking about before, word of mouth and authenticity. Carrie actually has been a friend of ours and advisor for the last three years. So it didn't come together just in a very commercial way. It was more first she heard about the brand through word of mouth and she tried the product that she loved. And then what was very important to her, but to our audience,
• 18:05
  us and what we're going to basically show our customer, it was more how authentic can this partnership be? Like Carrie basically stands, she has the style, she has a lot of substance, and this is exactly what our women go for. And we worked on this for the last three years to align on every single point that we wanted to bring to life to that baby that became that partnership, as well as the collections that we designed together.
• 18:30
  you know, to stand for something because Orit stands for something. She stands for something and we wanted to amplify basically Orit's voice
• 18:37
  with her coming, talking to our women. And like that first collection was extremely symbolic. It was about women empowerment. And Orate was born to empower women to basically purchase a product that's very kind of like that comes with a story every time they buy it to just do it with basically the right people on board. So I think for us, a big partnership that sounds big like that took a lot of time, but a lot of reflection to understand basically how basically...
• 19:06
  Carrie can work with us together as a team to amplify basically the whole origin like statement, call it the brand itself, like and how to discuss it and talk about it and have this open conversation. Carrie has been kind of a great, actually, addition to having our team. Sophie and I don't have that pop culture background, if you want to call it that way. And we needed someone to.
• 19:29
  like that to come on and amplify everything that basically we've been trying to bring to the world in a way. And I love that you're, you know, coming at it from that approach of just this almost organic relationship that developed first versus approaching this kind of thing from, okay, well, what's, who's a commercial partner that we should approach and go after it that way. That's so amazing. And I imagine that resonates really well with your community and your audience.
• 19:56
  Yeah. And for us too, it just doesn't work. The other side of being very opportunistic around it. I just don't think, I think the audience can tell that it's not real. And for us, it just doesn't feel, it doesn't feel right. And, you know, it's like both ways it's eventually, and, you know, for each brand their own, but I think for us, we stick to what feels good to us, what feels good to the brand DNA. It also has success for the brand in the longterm. Totally.
• 20:23
  I read that you had one of the biggest Series A investments into fine jewelry. And I think that you've had, I think, $15.6 million in funding across your two rounds. What are the biggest takeaways that you've had from raising capital? And what can you recommend to other founders who are wanting to go through this process?
• 20:45
  Well, I think you should always raise before you need it. I think that's something that I would always say, right? So the whole point is you should raise out of strength. So you should never, you know, it's like it's this, in this instance, actually, it helps to really plan and be strategic. So what you should not be doing is thinking, God, I need money and then start because that's really risky and scary. So you should always be well in advance of you needing it. You can start working on a deck, right? Right.
• 21:12
  Telling your story. In fact, in a way you can think of it as I remember in the beginning, sometimes we'd be like, oh, this is not a waste of time. Sounds harsh, but a little bit like we just want to run the business. Why do why should we go out there and be raising money? But actually, it really forces you to have discipline and to think bigger picture again and not be in the day to day.
• 21:31
  and focus on what do investors care about? What do we need to actually work towards on a very, you know, business side? Because yes, of course, we're building a brand and a world and dream, but at the same time, it's a business. And if people want to put in money, they want to see returns, right? So in order to do that, what do you need to look at? So it's the basic things. It's obviously revenue, it's revenue growth, it's efficiency with your capital, which goes into profitability. And then the third thing I would say is loyalty. They want to see three things like money, growth,
• 21:59
  profitability, which is, you know, efficiency. And then the third thing is kind of loyalty or retention. Are these people going to come back? Could it look good now? Yes, but how will it look in the future? And those three things, you know, you can talk long and hard about, but those are the things that you have to kind of show. And we've worked with, you know,
• 22:15
  A lot of analyses, PowerPoints, stories, customer surveys help a lot, research, really kind of building your case. And then, of course, finding investors that, again, are an authentic fit that you feel like are going to be a team player with you along the ride. So interesting. Something that's extremely important is those investors will be with you for a long time. And a startup doesn't exit after a year or two or three unless you have something very outsized and generally the exception, not the rule.
• 22:44
  think of it as a marriage that starts and you want to keep building on that marriage. So something extremely important, you really, we always joke around saying like, you want to find that investor that you can still like sit down and have like a glass of wine with and just have a good conversation and not people that you think would be not a good fit to you culturally or whatever that is. So I think for me, being careful, surrounding yourself by the rights investor board is extremely important, especially the early ones.
• 23:14
  Mm, totally. That makes total sense. I've heard that before, the dating analogy and the marriage analogy. What is the technology that powers your business? What are the kind of platforms that really help you run the day to day? Well, not you run the day to day, but you know what I mean, that help the business function?
• 23:33
  Yeah, so we have, I mean, we're data junkies. So we do have, we try to run a lot of it on data, right? So of course, like number one, we're on Shopify, but that's like a very kind of standard thing, I think for a lot of DTCs these days. And then we have on the marketing side, we have a lot of analytics backend platforms, a lot that we actually built from scratch.
• 23:52
  So one on kind of the fulfillment side, the operation side to see exactly how things work. And then we built kind of a custom one to figure out exactly how we want to deal with designs in a way. So the design process for us is on the one hand, very analytical and on the other hand, very design driven. So.
• 24:08
  We, of course, and this is part of what I'm looking at, right? We look at trends, we see what's happening in the market. We talk to our customers and ask what she was looking for. We do, I mean, we did this literally last week with like an Instagram story. Like, what do you want more of? But at the same time, we also have a data platform that's actually built out of Holland.
• 24:26
  where we have a team that's working on this, really looking at what are customers clicking on, what are they liking most. So it's almost like, okay, people are clicking more on white gold than a month ago. So we should make more of that. Or they're enjoying, you know, they're actually much more into the flower earrings right now than into the pearls. And we get all of that data and then we can make better collections from there. So it's very much, I would say it's an inter...
• 24:49
  an overlap between fashion and tech. And having those two things is really important. And if you look at all the data points we've accumulated since we've launched, it's more than 10 million data points. So we have a lot to really look at all the different points, what are people looking at it from different angles, right? So we have email, but then you have your whole social platform, you have your site, you have retail. And even in retail, we've collected a ton of data. We did that from the very beginning. Every time a customer comes in,
• 25:17
  Have you heard about us? Why are you here? What are you looking for? How long did they stay? What did they buy? The whole thing. So we can even look at an omni-channel approach. Like what are the customers that actually buy retail and online? What's their profile? So as much as, you know, when you see it, you're like, oh, this is nice, pretty jewelry. There's like a whole tech backend that goes behind it to power it. Because we, you know, we're at the end of the day, we are nerds and we love numbers. And we believe that data is one of the most important things. And we believe that data is one of the most important things.
• 25:47
  So we make our decisions based on data as much as, except for design, where there's also definitely a design component, but all the business decisions are definitely based on data. Wow. I love that. That's so cool. Holy moly. Tech founders as well. Sounds like. Where is the business today and what does the future look like? We're in a new world. Actually, this whole COVID thing was, I mean, it sounds bad, but
• 26:14
  Today, the business is actually exactly where we thought it would be, quite frankly, when we started. When we started, we believed that basically digital will prevail. We believed that we needed to have our own way of talking to our customers, our own way of analyzing all this data we're talking about, having this omni-channel approach, owning our data.
• 26:41
  building our own systems that basically not only help us build a brand, but have a very efficient supply chain. Something that we didn't touch upon too much in our conversation is, where should the business be? Like day one, we wanted to have such a wide net of,
• 26:59
  ways of thinking about like problematics, basically that would only have in one place and that we can activate if there's like crisis one, two, three, four. And this is something that we were surprised by, like in the upside, like COVID happened and it was pretty terrific, I would say for us, for the business. It was very scary for us, like, you know, our lives, our, like our team, like we wanted to make sure everyone was healthy. Our customers, like our customers going to buy fine jewelry,
• 27:26
  And then they came to us and say, yeah, we are going to buy fine jewelry because it's a symbolic gift.
• 27:32
  It's something that I want to self-gift myself because it makes me happy. It's something that I'm going to wear to a Zoom call. It's something that became kind of a necessity in that wardrobe that came into this new way of living that's, you know, very digital. So actually the business proved to us that it could actually live through crises that you only see once in 100 years. And we're very, very proud of Orit at this point, like Sophie and I, when March basically started,
• 27:59
  came 2020, it was almost like we closed our eyes, like what is going to happen? But then we were very proud of a team that like powered through it and actually very happy with the foundations that we worked on that you don't realize actually over the years, like, yeah, let's work on an ERP system. Like the system is going to do X, Y, and Z, but those were just projects that we're working on, like in case something happened and then COVID happened. So I think the business here talks to
• 28:26
  its customers better internally is much better run like in a very basically consolidated and very kind of efficient way and now the next step is how you grow this beast at this point love that and let's not forget b to add to that for five seconds actually while you were saying this you know when we and sometimes you forget because we're so in the day-to-day and we have young kids and you're just like
• 28:52
  working, working, working, you know? But when we started Orate, people thought we were just crazy to even sell jewelry online.
• 28:59
  You remember people were like, I don't want to buy my earrings online. Like who's going to buy, you know, these were mostly men, but they were saying like, you know, why would people buy their jewelry online? Like, don't you want to try it on? Like, it was even a foreign concept, just the fact, because we were saying guys, A, you know, e-com is the future. It's really easy to ship. It's so light. I mean, crazy. Nobody's doing this. And then the experience in retail stores is so intimidating. Nobody likes it. If you go to those, you know, fifth Avenue luxury brands and you're all scared and people were, you know, you just don't feel good.
• 29:29
  So we wanted to upend that. And people thought it was just an insane idea to buy fine jewelry online. So, you know, now everybody thinks it's completely normal. We're not even talking about it anymore. And even more so after COVID, but that was a whole, you know, investment thesis essentially. And COVID just brought that forward. Even my dad was, you know, I don't even know, 66. He used to buy his little shampoo in the store and now he once bought it online. He's like, I'm never going to go back to the store again. I was like, well, so basically COVID just kind of, you know,
• 29:56
  Proved, you know, like Bush was saying, pushed everything forward 10 years and everybody's now into the power of e-com. And it's great that we, you know, we thought of that in advance. So in that sense, it was good for us. Obviously, for other reasons, we definitely didn't hope COVID would have been there. But from a business investment thesis, it improved very well for the business. It amplified basically everything that we were believing in. Yeah, our hypothesis basically just proved itself.
• 30:23
  And sustainability, by the way. So both the e-com side, and we always believed in sustainability, about, you know, basically leaving either a neutral footprint or a positive footprint, whether it's, you know, by through the giving back in sustainability, in terms of like just like social sustainability, as well as for the planet, right? We have recycled gold, diamonds that are basically not mined. We have to make sure that from, you know, being good to the planet, essentially. And I think this year too, COVID showed that to the world, how interconnected we are.
• 30:52
  And how, you know, whether it's fears about climate change and all of these things, people can now see, wow, this could actually indeed happen in 10 years that we have a huge flood. And again, something like this will happen. People, it feels way more real. So it's been a wake up call, I think, from all sides. So in that sense, the fact that we believe in both of those things is just helping the future of Orit.
• 31:14
  Absolutely. Gosh, times have certainly changed from, you know, early days of people not believing that you would buy jewelry online. I can't imagine it any different. Now, I have a question for both of you. We can take it in turns. What is your advice for women who have a big idea and want to start their own business? Sophie, you go first.
• 31:36
  Two things. One is just do it. I really, truly believe, and I've always said this, I hear ideas all the time. And quite frankly, I've had ideas all the time, right? But talk is cheap. And ideas are nothing without executing. And I really believe that if you feel good about it, and it's your dream, you should do it because you only live once.
• 31:55
  And it's better to even, who should I said it? Even if we fail, we would have tried. We would have followed our dreams. We're still young. You know, we can do something else. So I would really just do it and not talk about it for too long, but give yourself a timeline. Within six months, the thing needs to be standing. You'll very quickly see if it's going to work or not. So that's one. The other thing I would say is don't underestimate how hard it is
• 32:14
  Like it is a lot of work and I would not be doing it if I had other challenges in life. That would be my only thing. It's all consuming, right? So if you have other things that are really grabbing your attention, I would wait. But if you don't, then go for it. Then jump right in. Love it. Jump right in. Don't wait. Don't wait. Because something can happen. You know, you can, I don't even know. And then you won't be able to do it anymore. Totally. Totally.
• 32:41
  What about you, Boucher? What's your advice for women who have a big idea? I think for me, this advice changed over the years, but I do think that my biggest learning is you really need to build the capacity around you. Like I was thinking about it, like what does building capacity around me means? Surround yourself by the right investors. That takes you a long way. Build capacity.
• 33:04
  the right team and actually invest in the right team and also surround yourself by great advisors, formal or informal, because what we found across the few years that, you know, we started Orate, like without all these three, basically it's extremely hard to push your, your company. Like without the right capital, it's hard for you to invest and grow. Without the right team, forget about it. Just close shop and
• 33:31
  then just, you know, don't even do it. And without the right advisors, you're blindsided by some things that you haven't thought about. So I think all of these things bring you to like the realities of
• 33:43
  what we're talking about earlier and Sophie was mentioning, it's hard. It's really hard, but you want to know these people who have done it before, people who invested in something similar before and people who actually believe in your company and who will believe in your company. Like your team is the first, basically kind of the first people you need to sell your company to are your team. Like you pitch it. It's like, it's hard to work at a startup. It's not an easy corporate job.
• 34:06
  So they really need to believe in your cause for them to actually work hard and go the extra mile to make things happen. And I do think my second advice would be, you know, you'll get a lot of no's, a lot. Like before you get a yes, you'll hear a lot of no's. And it's OK. You learn from your no's and it's something that you change your attitude with. Like in the beginning, when you hear a no, you're very sad about it.
• 34:27
  and that's something that we learned from a lot but something that's really hard while you're doing things is forgetting about celebrating the yeses like Sophie and I will get the yes but we move on there's a next challenge and we never really take time to ourselves and celebrate the yes that we got like pat yourself on the back because it's it's hard so I do think those small celebrations actually are great into you know your mental health your you know show that even to your
• 34:57
  the non-challenging side of things, but actually like the things to celebrate because, hey guys, like we reached this milestone and we should celebrate it. I think for me, those were the two main advices. One thing I would add to that is don't get dissuaded, right? Because everything be said is 100% accurate. Like you do need a team, you do need advisors, you do need the right money behind you. But if you have a brilliant idea, you can do it and like, look at that, but don't get dissuaded by not having it because...
• 35:21
  You can also build that as you go. Because I do think bigger picture, the fact that 2% of funding goes to female entrepreneurs is beyond sad. And I think it has something to do with the fact that women potentially are more risk averse. Like you've seen the research, right? I think at Google it was, where if you wanted to get promoted, you just had to ask for it. And then they noticed after a couple of years that it was only the men getting promoted because they were like, let's say you needed to know 10 things before to get promoted. If men knew two out of the 10, they would stick up their hands and be like, I can do this.
• 35:49
  women would need to know eight out of the 10 to stick up their hands. So they would basically never ask for it. So I do think that collectively as women, women are, you know, brilliant and can do a lot. We should also encourage ourselves, you know, get a support network, but go for it and help each other and believe in yourself because I do, we both, you know, strongly believe that the world would be a better place if women are also building things out there.
• 36:15
  Absolutely. Gosh, that's the truth. The point of Female Startup Club, getting more women inspired to go big and launch businesses for sure. We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. But what I'll do is I'll alternate between the two of you for the questions. And essentially, I ask every woman I speak to at the end of the episode these questions so that later in, you know, when we've interviewed a few hundred people, we can look back and look at the data and see if there are any trends that come through for what people say. Okay.
• 36:44
  Question number one is what's your why? Why do you do what you do? Believe in it. If you don't believe in it, it's not going to happen. I need to believe in it. Amazing. Question number two is what do you think's been the number one marketing moment that made your business pop? I actually think there hasn't been one moment. And I think that's
• 37:07
  precisely the point. I always thought, you know, I was always talking about this to my husband. He's like, there would be that one moment. That's not how it works. It's actually hard work, grind, day to day to day, you grow faster. You grow more and more. But there's never, there's not been one moment. Question number three is, where do you hang out to get smarter? What have you been reading or listening to or subscribing to? Truth is, I've been trying to actually do.
• 37:39
  as much time as I can for myself I've been trying to take walks I've been trying to just take a shower by myself I think for us it's really like of course we do a lot of readings but what's hard for us is just when you're very very fried and just take yourself out of everything I think my best way to hang out is or whatever my best thing is to just be outside in nature and think in peace totally
• 38:06
  Same. It's not happening a lot lately because London's been so gray and gloomy. Question number four is how do you win the day, Sophie? What are your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and motivated? I think sleep is number one. If you sleep good, if I sleep well, I can do almost everything. And that's something really hard to do because you want to do a lot, achieve a lot, but sleep is kind of the basis for everything.
• 38:32
  And then honestly, that's it. If I sleep good, I feel like a power woman. That's it. Love that. Love a power woman. Question number five, Bouchra. If you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? And it's to kind of show, you know, what's the most important spend of a dollar for you kind of thing. On people. We'll pay our people. They make the business. Yeah.
• 39:02
  And last question, question number six is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach towards it? I truly believe Bushra and I are both fighters. It's, you know, Kelly Clarkson's song, What Doesn't Kill You Make You Stronger. I think that's it. Like very much, we'll maybe be sad for half a day and, you know, we have each other, which helps. But then we're just even more of a fighter. I think the more you take us down, the more we want to win.
• 39:28
  Love that. Thank you both so much for taking the time to join us on Female Startup Club today and share your incredible story and all the things that you've been creating for women in the world. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you, Dune. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
• 39:48
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 40:12
  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.
• 40:35
  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.
• 40:51
  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.
• 41:16
  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.
• 41:38
  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.