Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Australia’s #1 SPF skincare brand (& reaching 6-figures in 4 weeks), with Naked Sundays founder Samantha Brett

Transcript

Australia’s #1 SPF skincare brand (& reaching 6-figures in 4 weeks), with Naked Sundays founder Samantha Brett · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Samantha Brett for Female Startup Club. Welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, you are in for a real treat. We are learning from Sam Brett, who is the founder of Naked Sundays.
• 0:25
  Naked Sundays is an Australian SPF brand aimed at inspiring the next generation to love and wear SPF every single day with fun, easy to use sunscreens. This is such an inspiring story and we're going to break down her secrets to success, why she kept it anonymous for nine months, what makes a brand pop and what you need to know about regulations when building a sunscreen brand.
• 0:51
  And while I've got you here, one quick thing. I'm giving away signed copies of my book over the next two weeks. All you need to do is make a cute video on TikTok about the Female Startup Club podcast and send it to me on email at hello at femalestartupclub.com and your copy will be on the way. Okay, let's get straight into this episode. This is Sam for Female Startup Club.
• 1:17
  Samantha, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thanks, June. Thank you so much for having me. Sorry, it's a bit late here in Australia, so kid is asleep. Well, I hope. But it's a bit dark here and it's a bit cold, so I apologise.
• 1:33
  I mean, no apology needed. You look great. I can see your products in the background. They look great. And I'm so excited to talk to you today and learn about this business that you have just been in a total whirlwind with. For anyone who might not know who you are yet, do you just want to give us a quick introduction to who you are, what your brand is, and what the ethos is?
• 1:53
  Absolutely. So my name is Sam Brett. You may know me from the morning show on Channel 7. It's called Sunrise. I was a news reporter there for many, many years, over seven years, and absolutely loved and adored my job of getting up at three o'clock in the morning, putting a full face of makeup on and reporting the day's news. And people think it's so glamorous and it's so fun and it is amazing and exhilarating, but it is also extremely challenging.
• 2:21
  you are in the bushfires or the floods or you're at a crime scene and you really are speaking to people sometimes on the worst day of their lives and sometimes on the best day of their lives. So it's a very full-on amazing career but it is also very taxing emotionally, physically, mentally. You're
• 2:41
  For example, in the bushfires in New South Wales, I was out in the bushfires for days on end, no clothes, no water, no food, sleeping on the floor. It just is one of those jobs that, you know, it's your whole self. Anyway, whilst I was on the road and out in the sun reporting for TV with full face of makeup and lights in my face, I never ever thought about sunscreen or putting on sunscreen. And I started to notice a couple of my colleagues having to get skin cancers cut out of their faces.
• 3:10
  And they would come to work with this big plaster across their face. And I would think, what is that? And you'd see the cancer having been cut out. One had a skin cancer cut out the top of her head, a melanoma. And so I thought, oh, gosh, am I even wearing sunscreen? Yes, I might put it on at 3 o'clock in the morning. But is it still going to be on when I'm out in the sun at 3 o'clock in the afternoon? No. Especially that most people don't know, sunscreen only lasts for 90 minutes maximum. Yeah.
• 3:39
  I didn't know that. Exactly. I don't think people realize that, you know, and the TGA guidelines and the FDA guidelines are top up regularly, top up every, at least every 90 minutes, especially when you're out in the sun. And so I started thinking, well, is there a product out there that I can top off, top up my sunscreen over my makeup throughout the day?
• 4:04
  with bright lights on my face. And so I looked and everything was white or greasy or would take off your makeup and just wasn't conducive to a news reporter life. And I thought, well, it's not only for news reporters, other people out there might also want to wear makeup when they go to work and then take a stroll around the park at lunch, if you're so lucky, and they can't top up their sunscreen. So I'm
• 4:26
  I thought, well, maybe I can create something. And so I got to creating something. And I remember it was in the middle of the bushfires in 2019. It was just such a taxing, emotional, awful time. But on the flip side, outside of that, I got to work on a brand and think about colors and rainbow and lilac and beautiful, fun ingredients. And it was just such a nice world away. And I love doing that.
• 4:52
  And I really thought to myself, if I am going to create something, it's going to really have to hit for the people who are most at risk of melanoma, which I did some research and it's actually the millennials, the 18 to 35 year olds. The me. Yeah, exactly. I point to myself, I'm a bit over that. But, and so I really thought to myself, well, if we're going to change the habits early and that would be the aim of the brand, if I made a brand ever. Yeah.
• 5:17
  The aim of the brand would be to change the habits of people really early on. How am I going to do that? Well, I'm going to have to make the branding as fun and inclusive and simple to use and understand as possible whilst being high performance and have incredible ingredients and be good for your skin. No easy feat. The unicorn. The unicorn.
• 5:39
  Yeah, pretty much. You wanted the unicorn. So I'm interested though, like you have this crazy career. You're obviously super busy. It sounds like you hadn't kind of built a business before. How did you know what to do and where to start? And like, how did you kind of approach, oh, I'm going to start a business? Yeah.
• 5:59
  So the good and bad thing about me is that I never thought about it that way. So I never thought, okay, I'm going to start a business. Let's write a business plan. I think I still don't have, I definitely don't have a business plan. But what I did think was, okay, here's a gap in the market. How am I going to fill it? How am I going to create something that is not only going to fill that gap, but also really change the habits of people? So I'm going to,
• 6:21
  my thinking was more, well, I started off at Google, how to create a sunscreen. And a lot of people say to me, how did you? And I research. I'm a journalist at heart. And I looked into it and I called manufacturers, chemists, FDA, TGA specialists. And I said, all right, how do we do this? And I said, I want it to be clear, glowy, 50 plus.
• 6:43
  good for your skin, not ruin your makeup, mattifying, priming, and they're like, what? A sunscreen? No. And this was, you've got to remember, in 2019,
• 6:55
  There's been a bit of an explosion, which is amazing, of SPF brands mixing skin can SPF, which is where we sit in a new category. But that hadn't exploded back then. So what I was saying to these chemists was they'd never heard of it. And I said, it's got to be done. You know, we have to do this. And so it took about two years. As you say, we launched in January 2021. So it took a long time.
• 7:17
  But yeah, back to your question, Google and cold calling, picking up the phone and making those calls. Good old Google. Don't know what we'd do without it. I was telling my five-year-old daughter that we didn't have phones or Google when I was her age and she did not believe me.
• 7:35
  Yeah, I imagine. People just can't imagine what the world looked like without the internet and without a phone where you could just get anything at your fingertips. Crazy. I want to talk about the money piece and how you were kind of approaching money and capital in the beginning. Were you using your finance? Were you using your savings? Were you going to a bank to get money? Obviously, anything in the beauty and the skincare industry requires high MOQs. It's expensive. It requires working capital.
• 8:05
  Yes, and I exactly agree with you. And even just to do a normal skincare, it's lower MOQs, which is minimum quantity orders, which I didn't even know. I was like, what's an MOQ? Minimum quantity order for your initial rut now for SPF, it's double, triple what everyone else is. And the prices are double, triple. So,
• 8:26
  So I remember saying to my husband in this room that I'm sitting in now, I remember coming to him with the, you know, two paragraph business plan, which was we're launching with four products. And he did the spreadsheets and he said, all right, well that will cost you X amount. And I said, okay, let's launch with two products. So we pulled it down and we're,
• 8:45
  We were going to renovate our house and do all sorts of things. We had a bunch of savings and we took some money out of our mortgage and we really just scrimped and saved and I put in everything. I had a full-time job and so does he. And so we were just able to scrimp and save and we always knew if no one bought any sunscreen, it was okay. We both had really good jobs and if people did and we needed to make more, we were screwed because we had no more money. And, you know, with sales, it was...
• 9:12
  And especially with the big MOQs, even if you do sell out, it's not like you instantly see the cash coming in. So either way, we just wanted to see how it would go. Honestly, we never thought it would take off like it has.
• 9:31
  Were you thinking, oh, you know, I'm going to stay in my job for like a year or what was the kind of plan to quit your day job? There was never a plan. I'm a through and through TV journalist. I'm obsessed with TV reporting. I've been doing it since I think I was like 14. And when I was a child, I just always wanted to be a news reporter. It was my thing. It is my thing. I love it to death.
• 9:52
  but there came a point in the business where it started to become so successful that it just needed my full-time attention. And I'm an all or nothing person. When I'm waking up at three o'clock in the morning, I'm bouncing out of bed. I'm running onto the set. I'm at the news story. I'm ringing the ministers. I'm calling the SES. Like I'm there. I'm in the flood. If there's a flood in New South Wales, I was there. I was at every flood. Like it's weird for me not to be in the floods right now, reporting, interviewing people that are affected. Like I'm like, where am I? Where's Sam? You know, but...
• 10:22
  So I needed to put my full self into Naked Sundays once it started taking off, especially that we got an amazing retailer, Mecca, as you know, in Australia, which is Australia's number one retailer. So even if you're in every other retailer aside from Mecca, Mecca is so much bigger than all the others. So it was just such a wonderful thing to be in there. And I really just thought this is just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for,
• 10:46
  that I just wanted to give my full self. So it was a difficult moment when I decided that I was going to quit my lifelong dream of a career, but I have not looked back and, you know, it's just new challenges now, I guess.
• 11:04
  That is so cool. Congratulations, by the way, on taking that leap and leaving something that you obviously loved so much. That's obviously a big change, but gosh, how exciting. I want to talk about the launch and your first year in business. I read that you did something crazy, like $100,000 in four weeks. You went from zero to a hundred. And I want to know how you did that.
• 11:28
  Yes, I wonder who said that. That's interesting. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know the exact figures, to be honest, but...
• 11:35
  I think we, yeah, we did a lot in the first month. We did a lot of sales and we did a lot of units. And our minimum order value, I guess, in the industry that you constantly are looking at is extremely high because people are not coming on and buying a cream or a mist, they're buying both. They're buying a brush, they're buying a bag, they're buying the whole bundle. So we don't have to be selling tens of thousands of units to have really good, strong sales. I'm sorry, what was your question?
• 12:06
  I just want to talk about the launch. So let's go back to the very beginning. What were you doing in the lead up to kind of pressing go, opening the website? What was your kind of marketing strategy, I guess? Great question. I, being a journalist for so many years, I'm obsessed with marketing. I love marketing. I was also a beauty journalist, like I think when I was 18 and 19. So I used to go to all the beauty launches and I just loved all that. The landscape has completely changed and it's become all about influencer marketing, obviously, and social paid and social organic.
• 12:34
  So I really had to learn what that meant. Like I say these terms to you now, like I know, but back then I'd never heard of social paid. I did not know that you could pay for ads on Instagram. I had no idea. And I remember sitting at a dinner with... You're a marketer's dream.
• 12:51
  Nothing. I'd never heard of it. And I remember sitting at a dinner and this girl said to me, you know, what I do for work is I do paid social. And then if someone clicks on your website, I can really follow them around the internet. And every time they click on a website, your brand will flash up and then they'll get a name. I'm like, what now? A what? But honestly, doing that was the best meeting I ever had because I had no idea about that.
• 13:17
  zero and now I see how important it is for brands when they're starting out. So I was speaking to someone today and it was really interesting. They explained to me that most startups within the beauty space spend so much on R&D and they forget the marketing piece and I feel like, as I said to you, I cut down the number of SKUs that I launched with and instead used that towards marketing. Now, I didn't go for the biggest, baddest influences and put a lot of spend behind all that. We were smart. I felt like it was a smart tactic where
• 13:45
  I decided to go for some really small but really well-known micro-influences that didn't cost an arm and a leg and I just sent them some of the product. And so the plan, as you asked your question, was build the social organically. I just started posting like a year in advance like photos and stuff
• 14:03
  started building momentum that way and then seeded it out to a couple of influencers and they started posting about the brand. And so we were meant to launch on, I think, the end of January. And by the middle of January, I had to call the PR and say, we're getting so many DMs, not from people saying I want this product, but from people saying I need this. So that was the myth that I created that you can spray over your makeup with SPF 50+.
• 14:25
  And I thought, oh my gosh, these people need this. We have to go. And I called the PR and she's like, okay, we're ready. And perfect time. Mid-January in Australia. It's bloody hot. That's right. Everyone needed this product. And so we just, we launched with a bang and,
• 14:41
  you know, they really say that the launch month really dictates the trajectory of the startup. And so for us, it was just such a, it cemented the fact that there was something in what we were doing. When I say me, we, it was just me and my husband. And he has a full-time job. So he was just one eye open, you know, what's that? You know, good, looks good, carry on.
• 15:02
  So, and I had a really small team and I hired that girl that I met at that dinner party just to casually, just to help me with paid social organic, because I didn't know what that meant. We didn't advertise on Google at all, nothing. We did a couple of Instagram ads, couple of influences, but it spread luckily. And thankfully it spread organically very quickly. If you're to say to someone, here's why it's spread organically. What's the, what does that look like?
• 15:30
  What do you think made it just so successful and so – obviously, you have a unique product. It didn't exist. It was amazing. But there's still kind of pieces to a puzzle of why something takes off. Why do you think it did? You know, I really think I had some criteria for this. And I think that as a whole, it didn't exist in the market and it got people excited. But the things that I'm about to say are –
• 15:55
  The branding was fun, different, engaging, and really focused on its target market. Lilac, would you believe it, was not an in-colour back then. Now it's the number one colour. Yeah. So it was on the cusp.
• 16:11
  of that millennial cool factor. So people would see it and they wouldn't know, oh, that's a millennial color. They would think that was speaking to them emotionally. So I think the branding, the color, the fact that it was fun, simple, and that they were doing something good for them, their skin as well, all at the same time,
• 16:32
  I think, made people want, and this is the whole premise of the brand now, it's making people want to share it with their friends and to share. So it becomes this thing of organically spreading because people are so excited to share it. So I jump on the Instagram, would you believe it, every day.
• 16:50
  checking like what is the conversation around naked sunday and the conversation i see to this day and it's been over 18 months is wow how cool is this how fun is it how simple how high performance and also i want to share it with you guys because i feel like you guys would love this too because it's good for your skin so it's the combination of that i think i could be wrong
• 17:14
  I love that. That's so cool. And, yeah, I mean, I'm totally on board with the purple thing. It's such a visually striking lilac that definitely I can imagine it catching your attention when you see it in the shelves of Mecca being like, ooh, what is that? I want that. Because there's no other lilac on the shelves at all.
• 17:31
  Oh, really? That's so interesting. Yeah. Very cool. Did I read that you spent the first however many months keeping the brand anonymous to you? Nine months. Let's talk about that. Nine months. So it's funny because I am not shy. I am on TV every day. I have written multiple books. I've been in the press more times than I care to count. Good, bad, the ugly, all of it.
• 18:01
  And so when it came to creating my own brand, why wouldn't I just say, hey, it's me and everyone who knows me would buy it. But I really honestly felt this is a sunscreen and a sunscreen is all about efficacy, TGA testing, SPF testing, UVA. It's complex. It's chemistry. It's chemical and or physical or whatever it is.
• 18:23
  You know what I'm trying to say? It's made by chemists and I am not sitting in my kitchen mixing up sunscreens. I'm getting the best of the best at what they do. And so I can do the branding and the marketing and I can decide what products I want. But at the end of the day, the product needed to speak for itself, honestly. And I thought...
• 18:39
  If anyone's going to take this brand seriously and really believe that this works and the amount of testing that we do and regulations, I mean, I spent all day even today still to this day, regulations and testing is just constant with this. And I love that because then it means it's a strong barrier to entry for this entire SPF industry and you really have to work hard at it constantly. So I love that.
• 19:02
  But I really wanted that to speak for itself. So I didn't tell anyone about the founder. My PR would call me once a week and say, let's do podcasts. Let's do interviews. The magazines want to find out who you are. And I said, nope, nothing. And...
• 19:15
  I didn't want people just to think that, you know, she's on TV and now she's doing this. And I just really never wanted people to think that. And the good thing is, by the time I decided, okay, it's time, it's me. No one really cared. Honestly, they were all just so into the brand and the products. And they, by that time, everyone knew the products worked really well. They were good for their skin. They enjoyed using them. And so I didn't,
• 19:39
  When the founder came along, like as you say, you read bits here and there and it's an interesting story, but it's not helping. It's just, you know what? I will totally stand behind this. I love inspiring. That's why I love to do a podcast like yours because people listening to this will go, oh, my gosh, I don't know anything about the industry. Let me Google. Let me work for a year and a half on formulations. Let me call up chemists. You know, everyone can, anyone can do it.
• 20:04
  So I love inspiring people. So that always upset me because I couldn't kind of tell my journey. But now I can. So here we are. Now you can. I think it's so interesting. And it's amazing because you've been able to build this brand separate to who you are and your kind of credibility in TV and in people's homes that you're in every single day. And I'm thinking now, like, even when you go to sell, it's probably in one day if you choose to sell, it's like...
• 20:32
  Also having that little bit of separation where you built a product that was so backed by the product itself, not by someone who was like the face of kind of like the celebrity brand route. You know, you just have such loyalty to the products that you've built without it being you from the get go, which I just think is so interesting as a strategy. Because of course you would instantly think, oh, yeah, she's on TV. Like that's how it happened because everyone knows who she is.
• 20:57
  That's amazing. Love that. Very clever. Oh, I wasn't trying to be clever. I just, yeah. Anyway, thank you. Love it. So how does the rest of 2021 start to play out for you? You're doing influencer marketing. You are kind of doing your micro-influencers. You have kicked off with a huge bang after the launch and you've had that huge bang. What are you kind of doing to keep the momentum going,
• 21:27
  Smoothly running.
• 21:29
  Yeah, I mean, it wasn't easy, I'm not going to lie. And we really quickly wanted to come out with our next products that I had told you that I was working on. And so we were able to do that. And, you know, there were slow burns for those ones because they weren't as buzzy and they weren't as, you know, the mist is so innovative that no one had ever seen it before. But then we wanted to come out with a mineral because I realized people very quickly had sensitive skin. So they all needed mineral sunscreen. And so we were able to come out with that, but it wasn't immediate that people even liked it. However,
• 21:58
  Good story here. The overwhelming feedback was people with sensitive skin need a sensitive skin sunscreen. And so I was able to bring one out and didn't do much. In fact, I didn't do any marketing. I didn't even send out an EDM till the day. I thought, oh, I'll just send out an email blast to my, you know, 10,000 or however many I had at the time. Not that many people that had, you know, signed up for our newsletter and just expected it to sell out immediately.
• 22:28
  launch and it didn't and um but the story goes that it is now the number one seller of ours it sold out when we launched into mecca three months worth in 24 hours it has become a complete cult product because i don't know why i know why because the actual product itself so i'm talking about our mineral sunscreen with vegan collagen in it um
• 22:58
  It's all the good things. It's vegan. It's mineral. It's natural. It's 50 plus. And it's got a mix of iron oxide so it blends out your entire skin. So people are wearing it on those no makeup makeup days and they're like, how is this so sunscreen? It's so good. People are wearing it out at night when they go out for dinner because it's the best primer ever due to there's watermelon extract in there. There's the vegan collagen and it just sits on the skin really beautifully. Oof, sounds good.
• 23:28
  So I guess the message there is if you back something and you know that there is a market for it, it doesn't have to launch in the first week and make 100 grand. It doesn't have to do all that. It doesn't have to have any influences onto it. We had no influencer marketing for that product. And I remember thinking,
• 23:46
  I said to the PR, why didn't we get any press on this? And she's like, because it's just another mineral sunscreen, you know, get over it. I was like, oh, all right, well, it is special. And that didn't matter because we launched it in June, June the 1st, 2021. I remember this was the first day of winter.
• 24:03
  And by October the 10th, when we launched into Mecca, bestseller, sold out three months' worth in 24 hours, still can't keep it in stock. Still our bestseller. We just launched into the US, the bestseller there. Like it just, we can't keep it in stock. It's just so great. And that's from no spend, nothing.
• 24:24
  Yeah, and I think that goes to show what happens when you create a product that's truly, you know, it truly has word of mouth inherently built into what you do. It is worth telling your girlfriend about it over WhatsApp. It's worth buying it again. And that can spread really quickly, especially with women. I feel like women love to tell their friends about a good product or some, you know, not beauty secret, but like this thing they've just discovered and they're the one to introduce it to their friends.
• 24:51
  Totally. I'm just throwing it to you. So, oh, it's this guy. He's actually got a green lid. I don't know why it's got the purple lid on because I think my daughter's been playing with my little shelf here. But, yeah, so it's lilac. Love it. Yeah.
• 25:07
  Okay, so sunscreen, as we know, and as you've kind of mentioned, it's a difficult industry. There's barriers to break into this industry. What are the kind of challenges that you're facing at the moment? And for anyone listening, whoever thinks about getting into SPF and things like that, what do we need to know?
• 25:25
  Yeah, so I think, so unlike normal skincare, it is classed as a medication in Australia under the TGA, which is the Therapeutic Goods Administration, and it is classed as a drug in America under the FDA. So...
• 25:41
  There are those things to think about. And when you class as either of those, there are multiple rules and things you have to write on the packaging, testing that needs to be done. And none of that to me, none of that is a bad thing. That's all a great thing. You want your sunscreen to work. And I want people to know that our sunscreen works. So I'm not against multiple testing constantly. We test every batch, not just every product, but every single batch that we bring out.
• 26:06
  And we have to adhere to all those rules. So that's a good thing to me. The challenge, I guess, is that recently the TGA have come out and said that under their advertising rules, there's certain things. So when you put up the podcast for your post, you should put underneath a warning, which is, it's interesting, users directed, reapply regularly, because as you say, people don't know that.
• 26:30
  If it's not water resistant, you know, make sure you wear water resistant SPF, make sure you reapply when you're towel drying or swimming, don't put it in your eyes, etc. So I guess for whenever you're on social media now, you have to put that warning and that's fine. But what they've done is they've said from July the 1st, which was this week, you have to add influences into that mix, paid influences or gifted influences. Now, people.
• 26:58
  We don't know how many influencers we've sent products out to or who has bought them. You know, it's just hard to tell. And what the TGA are now saying is they can't give a testimonial if they have been gifted or paid to use your product and promote it. What is a testimonial? Well, that's the big question. What is a testimonial? So, yeah.
• 27:22
  A testimonial, how I understand it from the TGA website is saying, I love this sunscreen and I use it every day. Now, where I have an issue, I am fine with rules. And as part of those rules, they've cracked down on vitamins. Now, I am fine with the TGA cracking down on vitamin use because people say, I use this vitamin, I've lost 10 kilos. I've used this vitamin, my hair's grown 10 inches. Okay, I get that. Let's not say that anymore if we're paying influencers. But...
• 27:49
  What about us? I mean, I'm pretty sure when we started in January 2021, sunscreen wasn't as cool as it is now. Now, I don't know if Naked Sundays had a part in that or if influencers started getting on the bandwagon or whatever. I don't even care. But the point is it has become cool and something that people want to share on social media and say that they love using to encourage other people to wear sunscreen. And not only that, but reapply, you know, and use it properly.
• 28:14
  And influencers are amazing at telling us that. So now the rules come in and the influencers are nervous. And I'm upset because, not because I need influencers to promote our brand. We really don't. I'm upset because all the work that we've all done to really create a cool aspect around the SPF wearing due to influencers being able to post about it, if they can't post about it, I just feel like...
• 28:40
  authentically that's just negative I mean sunscreen saves people's lives let's melanoma is the highest killer of our our our putting myself in your age bracket but our age bracket you know it is and melanoma is real and people are getting it cut out let's let's celebrate sunscreen I'm sorry I just I'm really against these new rules
• 29:03
  It's so interesting because the reality is that even if someone is a paid influencer and you pay someone to use it, chances are that person tests the product and decides whether they're going to actually personally endorse it or not kind of thing. There has to be some kind of like, do I actually want to put my name to this? So then often influencers do fall in love with their product. That's how people go on to be ambassadors. That's how people go on to be investors in brands, all this kind of thing.
• 29:31
  So I'm like, that is a really tough one. There's a bit of a blurred line there. What's the repercussion? And how do people get essentially caught? Like, where's the line drawn? Yeah, well, as I said, law came in the beginning of the week and no one really knows. And how are they going to police this? And where is the line drawn? And I guess, you know, lawyers and legal experts are asking a lot of questions of the TGA and
• 30:00
  We're behind the scenes looking at rallying the government because sunscreen is such a positive thing to share. And the fact that influencers are enjoying sharing sunscreen is such a great thing. I would hate for that to change.
• 30:14
  Mm. Mm. Gosh, that is such a weird one. Thanks for sharing. Gosh. So put your disclaimer on your podcast. Yeah. Well, I haven't tried the product. I haven't seen the product. So I'm not like an influencer. I'm not being paid. This is no influencer moment here. This is me trying to understand your story. Well, let's just put that out there again, TGA. If you're listening, there's no money exchange. You don't even like the product.
• 30:40
  We're talking about the business process with no business plan. This is business. Business. Oh, my gosh. That is so bizarre. I'm going to look that up later. I feel like there are people, you know, listening who are probably like, fuck, like maybe it's not sunscreen but something else that falls into these kind of regulations where people need to really consider.
• 31:00
  you know, everything. And it only applies to Australia. So you can say you love it if you're in the UK, which you are. So there you go. I can pay you and send you products if you'd like. And it doesn't apply in the US either because the TGA listing of the products doesn't apply in America. So I don't need my TGA number on my products in the US or in the UK. I need a different set of regulations there, but not the TGA product.
• 31:26
  Goodness me. Gosh. Is there anything you wish that someone told you in the beginning before you were getting started that you can share? Abort mission. Fuck. Crack. No. Honestly, I will say, guys, like for everyone listening,
• 31:46
  I have done so many great things. I wrote a book, Meghan Markle was in it, I did a book tour around the world, lived in LA, did the whole Hollywood thing, was on e-news, like had the red carpets, Channel 7 news reporter for seven years.
• 32:01
  best life, like best fun of everything. And now this is going to sound terrible. This is the hardest I've ever worked. This is the most of myself that I've put into anything. I used to think news reporting was a 24-hour job, and it literally is. You're on air sometimes 24 hours straight, and I have been in those stories where the story never ends. News is 24-7. This is, if there's possible, 28-7. I'm a CEO and a founder now.
• 32:31
  And social media coordinator, marketing coordinator, advertising coordinator, financial planner, financial, I pay all the bills. Like never, ever, ever stops the amount of things that I do for the business. And so I am working 28-7 if that's a thing. I'm going to make it a thing. And so you really, before you start, I wish someone would have told me that.
• 32:51
  And the other day my husband would have made a difference. What did you think this was? Yeah, my husband was like, what did you think? Are we just going to swan around at events? And I was like, yep. And I do go to a lot of events. And, you know, the events these days are business events with cool business women. And we all talk about and every one of them say the same thing.
• 33:10
  I was at this other founders event the other day and the events are very far in between, but they're so amazing because we get to share our war stories. And, you know, we were all sitting there and I remember the other founder of an amazing fashion company saying, you know, she said to me, she's the only person that's allowed to post on their Instagram and check every post. And I said, I do that too.
• 33:31
  You know, you as a founder, sometimes you don't pass anything on. So would I have, would it have changed anything if I would have not? I just think I would have been better equipped or mentally prepared for what it has. Like I didn't do anything. You know, when you're like before I had a kid, I like cleaned up the house and did the nursery. Like I didn't, I didn't do anything. I just started and never realized anything.
• 33:55
  that my life would change forever in a whole different way and you really don't have time to catch up. So maybe I would have, like, gone to the gym a few times, bought some clothes, like, washed my hair, like, you know, things like that, so I would have time to catch up.
• 34:12
  I think it is a common kind of misconception because especially, you know, when brands are so beautiful, they have beautiful packaging. You see the glossy Instagram, the really cool TikTok and the cool curated behind the scenes. And you think like, oh, owning a business is so glamorous, but it's bloody stressful. What do you want to shout about? What's happening this year that you want everyone to know?
• 34:37
  So look, 2022 has come around so quickly, hasn't it? And I feel like it's been a tough year for everyone. I really feel like, I don't know if it's the same in the UK where you are, but definitely in Australia, you know, things have changed a lot. The retail landscape has changed. Beauty has changed. It's becoming saturated. Everyone's a bit nervous. Sorry, I was going to give advice. But anyway, well, I guess my advice is... You can. Okay. My advice is honestly and truly...
• 35:07
  Don't let what's happening in the world dishearten you or sway you from starting your dreams.
• 35:14
  Imagine how many people said to me, absolutely do not do your sunscreen. Why would you do that? That's insane. Like imagine how many people said to me when I was a celebrity reporter back in the day, how many people said to me, you can never be a hard news reporter. And I said, well, it's up to you. Like I'll prove that I can. So never, ever listen to anyone. If you feel like you have an idea and you want to do it, you just go out and do it. And I'm telling you, the number of people who said you can't do this mist,
• 35:39
  and I just did it eventually with a lot of hard work, you can do it. I don't really have anything to shout about about Naked Sundays because I prefer to use this time to inspire the others, so I'd rather talk about you guys. So I just feel like never look at it and think, oh, look how glamorous and it's so much fun and I want to be a founder. Rather think,
• 36:02
  what product or what service or what is missing from the market and how can I help that? And I felt like with my platform, even though I didn't tell anyone who I was, but with my sort of news reporter background, I really knew the gap in the market and I really felt like I could make a difference there. So if anything, I think maybe I will shout about reapply your SPF. Don't think just putting it on in the morning is going to last all day. It's not.
• 36:27
  Yes. Oh my gosh. I've learned that from you today right here. And I'm going to be, well, I mean, now I'm going to have to get some mist because I am also like, how on earth would I put sunscreen back over my makeup? Crazy. So crazy. Never thought about it. Okay. We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. Some of the questions we might've asked before, but we asked them all the same. So question number one, what's your why? Why are you doing this?
• 36:53
  You know, as I said to you, and I really strongly feel like this, I love to motivate other people. It's just something in me. I've written books about how to be a game changer or interviewed women about what inspired them and most importantly, what were their challenges and how did they overcome them?
• 37:10
  So my why is really just there are always going to be challenges, but I'd really love to tell you it doesn't matter. I failed at a bunch of businesses, ideas, and multiple things. I've absolutely crashed and burned out, and it didn't matter. Well, it didn't matter at the time, but I never let that deter me, and I just wanted to keep going. I always knew I wanted to do something. I wanted to do business. I wanted to be able to inspire people. So my why is just telling everyone that, you know, just keep going.
• 37:37
  I love that. What has been your favourite marketing moment so far? So we did this incredible campaign last year and we repeated it this year. Actually, did we do it last year or this year? Anyway, I think we did it last year in November and then we repeated it this year and it was called Give Melanoma the Cold Shoulder. And we got a bunch of influencers to post nude.
• 37:58
  like with their shoulder and we raise money for the Melanoma Institute and the Melanoma Research Foundation in the US and the Institute in Australia and just the amount of people that came on board and everyone was posting nude photos of themselves. It was just so fun. Sounds fun. Love that. For a good cause as well, yeah. All for a good cause. Amazing. What is the most ultimate life-changing business resource that you have used and can recommend?
• 38:26
  My GM is the best. Oh, sorry, you mean an app. Oh, my God, I love apps. I do the website myself, so I do all the programming and I do all the everything. So what is LifeCheck? Shopify is life-changing. Gorgeous for customer service is life-changing. Stamps for reviews I love. There's so many things I love. Oh, who's my favorite? Okay, you know what my favorite is? It's a BOGO app.
• 38:57
  It's a buy one, get one free app. And then what I can do is I can program it to like just for a promo, like it's best friend day coming up. So everyone gets a free mini miss to give to their BFF and I can just program it in and it's so quick and easy. And so that's so sorry. I'm very tech, really.
• 39:15
  And I'm not tech. See, this is the thing. I'm not from a tech background. I know nothing. I've never even used Shopify in my life. But you know, you learn. You teach yourself. What was the app called for that one? The BOGO. The BOGO app. It's called the BOGO app. Is that what it's actually called? Yeah, BOGO. Oh, okay. Oh, my gosh. Cool. Love that. Great. Thank you. That's my new favorite word. BOGO. That's a lot of words. I don't even know. Yeah, I don't even know what BOGO is, but I do now. I do now.
• 39:40
  Lol. Question number four, how do you win the day? What are you doing in the mornings or the evenings that keep you feeling happy and motivated? Okay, so this is not a sales pitch, but my girlfriend, Sally Obermeeter, who you might know, she created Swish and she created this green powder years ago, like 10 years ago.
• 40:00
  And I got really sick because I work 28 hours a day and I got really sick all the time. And I said, Sal, you never get sick. And she was like, oh, it's the cream powder. And I was like, can't be. And then anyway, I started on it, obsessed. So it's just like greens mixed with water, tastes delicious. And I do that every day. And I've got my daughter to give me cuddles, which I love. She like snuck into my bed last night. There's nothing better. And how do I win? Yeah.
• 40:28
  Yeah, have a glass of water in the morning, cuddle my daughter, go on my BOGO app. Oh my gosh, love it. Speak to my GM who I love and have dinner for the family. They would think that was winning for them. I mean, that rarely happens, but it did happen tonight. Oh, that's so nice. I love that for you. I'm very simple. I'm super simple.
• 40:56
  Question number five is what is the worst money you've ever spent in the business and how much did it cost you? One month I remember. I just remember saying to my PR, listen, you know, let's just get like heaps of influences and let's just get them on board and I guess I'm...
• 41:18
  you've got to be really discerning when you get the influences and not just spread yourself really thin. And I remember just coming out of that and going, where did all our money go this month? And I spent way over budget and for no ROI. I laugh now. My staff, my team, my GM, everyone was just appalled and they all blamed me and it was my fault. And I just, you know, and it really made me realise that
• 41:46
  Influencer marketing is wonderful, but you need to know what you're doing. You need to be discerning. You need to watch. And I do all that. Like we rarely spend on any influencers. But that one month, I just, I don't know why. It just sounds like, let's get influencers. It sounds cool. And just everyone listening, like it sounds cool. And yes, but yeah.
• 42:07
  Just, yeah, just think about your own brand and think about who you follow as an influencer yourself and how you know who you follow and who you like and who you don't. And just, you know, don't think of influencer marketing as a thing you have to jump on the bandwagon. You don't. You just have to go, okay, I really like this person. I'm going to contact them. I'm going to give them my products. I'm going to try them. They're going to either love them or hate them. If they love them, maybe they'll post about them. And often they will just without you even paying them. So that was a mistake.
• 42:36
  Test and learn. Test and learn. I'm being really honest now. I always got fired. Oh, my God. Yeah. You're out. You're out.
• 42:48
  Last question, question number six. What is just a crazy story, good or bad, from the journey of building this business? So I went to, I just got back from New York and LA and I went to, and I did a beauty editor lunch and breakfast in New York and then another one in LA. And I left my family, I left my daughter
• 43:07
  Got on a plane, took 24 hours, middle of COVID. It was just, I was so nervous. I wore like a suit on the plane. And anyway, and then before I flew into LA, the beauty editors in LA had all left to go to Paris for like one of the big brands for a beauty lodge. And so none of them were there. So I had booked a really small table at the back of a rooftop restaurant that my friend who lived there told me was really cool. And it was a lot of money.
• 43:36
  for 10 at the back of a rooftop restaurant for breakfast 10 a.m. They were like, you have to pay and you have to put your booking and when you've only got 10 and you're not allowed anymore. I said, oh, my God. So the PR calls me the day before. She's like, we're cancelling. We only have three people coming. And I said, excuse me, I just live 24 hours. I've left my daughter. I'm here. We are not cancelling. So I called in every, as I said to you, I used to live in L.A. So I called every one of the people I'd ever met in L.A. and I said, do you know any influencers? Do you know any beauty people? No.
• 44:04
  any of you. Yeah, this was 24 hours before. And most of them were like, I'm sorry, it's too, it's too soon. And all of my friends said they couldn't come as well. They were like, we can't come. It's too, too short notice. Anyway. So I fly in from New York to LA. I get to the hotel where the event is at midnight. I wake up at 8am to messages from my friends in LA going, I'm coming.
• 44:30
  And I'm bringing five people. I'm coming. I'm bringing 10. I'm coming. I'm bringing 12. And I was like, and as I texted one of them, I was like, oh, and they were like, and they're all bringing their agents as well. Anyway, I get to this breakfast. You will see photos of you on Instagram, on my Instagram, Samantha underscore Brett. I get there. I kid you not, there are 60. The top beauty influencers in America.
• 44:58
  dressed to the knives. The waiters are like putting out knives and forks. They're like, what's going on? Like there was no product. People were like walking around with product like this, like hauling it off, like so excited. No one let, the breakfast started at 10. No one let, four o'clock in the afternoon, we're still drinking champagne and everyone was there. And it was the most fuzzy, beautiful event. I had to say a speech. I didn't even have anything prepared. I thought it was a little breakfast for 10. And the beautiful restaurant was,
• 45:26
  hiring a rooftop in LA would have been $50,000 minimum, American. Didn't charge me any extra. They were short on staff. They didn't have any staff. They didn't have any food. But because it was a breakfast, they just made everyone toast and eggs and gave them all like cocktails and mocktails. And it was just honestly the most beautiful day. So unexpected. I felt so blessed. There was so much buzz. Everyone posted for free, like fantastic.
• 45:53
  I didn't pay anyone to even be there, nothing. And they just all posted. There was so much buzz. It was the most electric day. I was wearing this like Cinderella age dress, like literal massive shoulders and big puffy like dress because I just thought if no one comes, Lisa, I'll get a photo. And it was just one of those moments, June, where I looked, I thought to myself, all right, we've got something here. Hopefully I can continue.
• 46:22
  It all worked out. Gosh, that's amazing. Everyone rallying for you and just whipping it together really quickly. That is so special. I love that. What a great way to finish this episode. Thank you so much for joining and for sharing your journey and everything that you're doing. I'm so excited for you. Thank you. I really appreciate you having me on. So amazing of you. So thank you so, so much. To the TGA, no money was shared, no products were given.
• 46:51
  There will be no fines being dished out over here. We're just trying to motivate people and get them to wear sunscreen. Leave us alone. Gosh, thanks so much, Sam. Thank you.
• 47:08
  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.
• 47:32
  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.
• 47:55
  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.