Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / From a near closure to $6M+ annual revenue in 2 short years, here’s how CurlMix Founder Kim Lewis did it

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From a near closure to $6M+ annual revenue in 2 short years, here’s how CurlMix Founder Kim Lewis did it · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Kimberly Lewis for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, June Roisin, and joining me on the show today is Kim Lewis, founder of Curlmix. Curlmix.
• 0:24
  CurlMakes is a hair care brand for curly hair made simple. But as many stories go, the brand wasn't always what we know it as today. When Kim started the brand back in 2015, it was originally a subscription DIY beauty and hair care box. And when that was starting to fail and Kim was really close to giving it all up, she did a major pivot and went on to scale the brand to a million dollars that same year.
• 0:49
  Since then, the brand has had continued growth, and in this episode, Kim shares everything from her numbers to her growth strategies, how she identified the pivot, and the books every entrepreneur should be reading immediately. And while I've got you here, I have been so grateful to receive all of your really beautiful emails, so please keep them coming. I've left my email in the show notes, so please reach out if you're interested in being part of our listener research.
• 1:18
  This is Kim for Female Startup Club. Kimberly, hey, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. I love talking to women. Me too. Funnily enough, can you start by introducing yourself and what your business actually is?
• 1:40
  Yes, I'm Kim, CEO and co-founder of CurlMix. We're a clean beauty brand for curly hair. We focus on making beauty simple with simple ingredients, simple systems, and simple marketing.
• 1:52
  Amazing. And I know you have such an interesting backstory and you have so many cool, fun little, little things that I've read about. So I'd love to go back to your life way before Curl Mix was started to find out what was getting you interested in entrepreneurship and how it kind of came about.
• 2:12
  Entrepreneurship, my first introduction to it really had to be in college when me and my husband took a, well, I took a tech class my last semester. And basically we were like learning how to build an app. And I was building an app for educating women with natural hair.
• 2:27
  And I learned about the engineering quad, like maybe my last semester. I mean, I knew about the engineering quad, but I went to an event there and they were talking about social entrepreneurship. And I then found out that we had a whole building dedicated to entrepreneurship at my college. The whole time I was there, but I did not know. And I was so salty because it was my last semester. So I had to like leave. But I was like, oh, my gosh, there are so many free resources here. You have to like take advantage of if you want to be an entrepreneur. Yeah.
• 2:53
  So I was like, well, I'm going to have to figure it out on my own. I started working right out of college, but I honestly hated it. And going back, I think it was just a really bad, going back, I think it was just a bad fit for me because it was extremely conservative. So for like a young black girl, like getting right out of college, you don't want to go to a super conservative company.
• 3:13
  But I got in trouble for every little thing, every little thing, taking off my suit jacket or like if I was early to work, I wasn't early enough. Like it was always a bunch of stuff. My manager told me how bad I was every day at the job.
• 3:26
  And so I thought, like, I can't stay here. I was going home crying every night. And my husband, he was just like, I want you to be happy, but not for this amount of money. Like, I don't care what you do. This is not, I want you to be happy. And so I ended up maybe quitting three months into that and then started my first, like, attempt at entrepreneurship. But I was also married. So my husband, we've been together since we were 16. We got married that year. And so there's always been two of us kind of, like,
• 3:54
  you know, to make things happen and be able to fall back on. Even when we were both making $10 an hour, he was working at Starbucks. Actually, he's making $9 an hour. And I was making $10 at the portrait studio after I left. And so that was kind of like what I was doing on the side when we first started our first business. Wow. Oh, my gosh. And so what happened with the first business? What did you learn from that before coming into Kelmix? Oh, my gosh. One, I didn't have a real revenue model. My first business was a hobby.
• 4:23
  Because I didn't have a way to make money. And so and it's so funny. Well, you know what? Technically, tech is the same way. Right. Tech is like I'm building this technology and you should fund it. But it's technically a hobby. And until you figure out how to monetize it. So and so you get a massive amount of users that users that validate your idea.
• 4:40
  But back then, what I found is that people of color don't really have the luxury of building tech companies because you have to kind of go to get funded. And so only three percent of women are actually funded. And then people of color is like you can count on like hands, you know. So you have to assume you're not going to get funded, which means you can't really go after big ideas that might require you to work at it for two years without any kind of payment, you know.
• 5:02
  Um, and so I basically started that with my first business was a social network for natural hair. But I learned that one, a social network's going to have to compete with Facebook. So it was like, if you're not going to be better or have to be different, like, you know, I'm not different because different is not always the best. It was too niche to really make enough money around advertising because that's going to have to be how you make money. And so when I realized that I did this for maybe a year and a half, I got my first check for $200 from someone.
• 5:30
  So I did that for my first business and didn't make any money. And I was like, okay, I'm not, I graduated with a business degree. I can't just not be making like any money, you know, especially not coming from where I come from. And so, but I had picked up a lot of skills. I learned how to web design. I learned how to take photos. I learned how to market and sell because I was going to Expos and I was figuring out people's problems and telling them why my product was perfect for their problem.
• 5:56
  I had started creating content and videography, like doing videography for experts in the hair care industry and then posting it on my site, which is the Natural Hair Academy, which is like my social network. And I learned so much, like so much on my dime because we invested about maybe $15,000 from Tim's appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
• 6:16
  Do you know the TV show? Totally. Yes. Okay. So we threw out $15,000 of that money on my first business. And we were like, oh my gosh, this doesn't make money. And I feel like I paid for an MBA, honestly, because I learned so much. So I was like, the next time I started a business, we're going to make money on day one because I just can't afford to live like this. And that is when Chromex came about. And so we actually started Chromex as a DIY subscription box.
• 6:44
  After an episode of Shark Tank, we were watching this lady make like organic cookies. And she basically had all the individual ingredients and they would put them in a box and she would ship it to people. Almost like Betty Crocker, but for like organic cookies. And I was like, oh, my gosh, anyone doing this for hair, I DIY all of my hair products in my kitchen. And I would love it if somebody would send me all the materials and mix it myself. And my husband was like, well, Kim, why don't you do it? And I'm like, there's a reason this doesn't exist. No one wants it. And he's like, no, Kim, just give it a shot.
• 7:11
  We launched it. It flopped. But then I realized I didn't know how to launch things. So then I read Influence by Robert Gildani.
• 7:19
  I learned how to pitch journalists. I'm like Googling how to pitch journalists and reading all the blogs about the best way to pitch them. I applied that, got one important journalist to say yes to covering our story and our launch and then traded it up the chain to everyone else who said no. So take this like, hey, like Refining 29 is going to feature our launch. Like, would you reconsider? And then all of a sudden I had like eight different press people who were like, oh, yeah, we'll cover it. But they were ignoring my emails before. It's a good insight. The leverage.
• 7:46
  And I read it my website based on Robert Cialdini's principles of influence. So, like, for example, you need authority or you need social proof, which means you need reviews or you need people who are more credible than you to say that your product is really good, which is why people use influencers or celebrities or doctors. You know, that's just too. Or you have to give people something to get something. When someone gives you something, they automatically feel inclined to give that they owe you.
• 8:10
  And they just kind of use principles and studies. So that's why you get 15% off when you come to a website, because now you're like, well, maybe I will buy. Like you kind of feel it's a psychological thing. I did all this stuff and then we launched and then we sold 100 boxes on our first day. So I was like, oh, my gosh, this is how you launch. This is how you do it. I've been like playing in the mud for the last three years to figure out entrepreneurship. And this is kind of like how you do it.
• 8:40
  And our Flexi Gel was our most popular best-selling box that we had. People loved it. And they were using it to do a wash and go. And so I was at a point where I was actually going to close the business because our subscription boxes, we did $130,000 the first year, $140,000 the second year. But it wasn't growing like a subscription box should grow. I guess a subscription box company should easily have like a thousand, I think in a minimum, a thousand subscribers monthly after your first year doing it. And we could barely keep a couple hundred.
• 9:10
  And in fact, our customers started to like unsubscribe. So I was like, oh my gosh, like our best customers are subscribing. And like the boxes were piling up in their house. They weren't getting to them. And it was because the boxes were fun. They were novelty, not necessity. And so I realized I needed to build a product that you needed because they were still going to sort of buy hair care products. And so was I. Honestly, if I'm being honest, I'd make a deep conditioner DIY, but I'd still go and buy my regular products.
• 9:35
  And so we actually pivoted at the top of 2018 to just selling our flaxseed gel as a ready-made product. And then we also added our moisturizer because those are our two best-selling products. And then that year we went from January, so we made $3,000. And then in February we made $8,000. And I was like, oh my gosh, if we could just get back to like 16, that was our best month ever as a DIY subscription box. And that was the month we did about $30,000. So we had grown, that whole year we ended up doing about a million.
• 10:05
  and revenue. And I was like, wow. Oh my God. Wow. And so I'm just wondering when you kind of, was it a hunch that you had that you should switch from DIY model to bestselling product? Or were you going out and reaching out to every customer and being like, Hey, what did you love about us? We're thinking about changing.
• 10:26
  Actually, I had tried doing the full size product in the past, like maybe like a year prior. And I read a little commercial for it, but the price was too high. It flopped like it was a jars were not ideal for customers. They were like glass jars that I had custom like I had custom wood top for them. And that was cool. But like the grass, the jars would break or they weren't suitable for holding hair products in the shower. It was just all kinds of stuff.
• 10:49
  And so I was like, so that didn't work. So I had chalked it up to say, oh, we shouldn't do ready-made products. But then I met my advisor and my advisor came from Backfish Capital. They invest in underrepresented founders and Arlen is the founder of it. And Crispy Pitts is her like work wife and co-founder. And so Crispy Pitts is amazing. But I met Gilbert, who's my advisor. She's so amazing.
• 11:14
  Yeah, she's the unsung hero. And it's like people don't necessarily know who she is all the time, but it's like when we went on Shark Tank, she was the one who was like,
• 11:23
  our pretend shark and kind of gave me some really valuable feedback that really helped us do better on the show. But my advisor was like, well, what's your best selling product? And this is, I want to say, this is September 2017. I'm seven months pregnant. I'm getting ready to close my business because I'm just like, I am about to have a baby and I need to make, this isn't making money. And Tim has a full-time job the whole time. Right. And I'm like, I can be making as much as he's making, but I'm making nothing. So I was like, I'm just going to,
• 11:50
  Close it up. So I was talking to Gilbert and he was saying, well, what is your best selling product? And I was like, well, it's our flaxseed gel, but no manufacturer will make it for us. Like I've gone to three and they all said no. And then he was just like, well, why don't you figure it out? And I was like,
• 12:06
  First of all, I've been trying to do that. The second of all, OK. I mean, he's like, well, I know a girl who figured out how to carbonate tea and like manufacturers wouldn't do that for her. So he was like, I think maybe you can figure out how to, you know, make flaxseed gel, but also a scale. And so I spent about a month in my kitchen making it. And the tricky thing about flaxseed gel is that it's tricky to get stable because it's food, you know, and you're putting the food in your hair.
• 12:33
  But it needs to be able to sit on a shelf for a year. And I spent a month in my kitchen. I made 50 different batches. And every time I would go outside, people would be like, oh, my God, what is in your hair? Like they would flag me down the middle of the street, cars flying, everything. So I would crack up. I'm like, OK, so this is something people really, really want. And so what we did, because we had launched so many things and lost so much money by this point, we probably had spent maybe $25,000 of our own money between the different businesses that we've been trying to launch.
• 12:59
  And like a little bit of credit card debt and stuff. We're just like, we're going to do pre-orders. If people don't put their money up for it before we launch, like before we give it to them, they don't really want it. So we did pre-orders of just ready-made bottles of flaxseed gel, I want to say in October.
• 13:15
  And we ended up selling hundreds in a matter of hours. And so for me, I could barely keep a couple hundred people as a subscriber to this box. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is what people want. And then we launched it again the next day and sold another hundred. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is it, Tim. We figured it out.
• 13:32
  And so we decided that December after I had my baby, the one that just kind of interrupted us. He's three now. Actually, I call him a two, right? He just made three. I had him that December and we pivoted the entire business. So literally at the top of the year, we started selling ready-made flaxseed gel. And then we turned our next best selling box, which is our moisturizer, into a product. And those are our two main products. And then we added oil and a body butter later. And that was the product suite that we used to get us to a million dollars in revenue.
• 14:01
  Wow. What a year. So this was 2018. Is that what you said? 2018. And my husband took his job three months into the year, like his contract ended. So he was like, I'm like, you can come work for us. And he was like, I'll give you three months. If we're not paying ourselves in three months, I'm going back to work. And so I was like, okay, I got to make this happen. A little pressure. Love a bit of pressure. Nice. And so I'm wondering when you were going through that kind of relaunch phase where you're switching from the DIY to the products,
• 14:30
  What was the messaging? What was the marketing that you were doing to get people, you know, even to know that you'd switched into that pre-sale phase? The marketing around it, I basically marketed a wash and go. And basically, like it was a one product wash and go initially, the flaxseed gel, like you can't certainly do a wash and go with just the flaxseed gel. And then they started asking for the moisturizer and that's when we created that. But then also I kind of started looking up hashtags for competitors and I'm going to
• 14:55
  for products that were adjacent to what we were doing. So other gel products and later their hashtag and they're reaching out to micro influencers who are using those products and doing revenue sharing with them. So basically they would earn 10% of sales and they would give their customer 20% discount. And then people would come back and buy, you know, Chrome mix for the first time. And then maybe they would come back and become second, third time users, et cetera. Yeah. You totally acquired them by that point. That's so interesting. Yeah.
• 15:24
  Micro, I mean, less than 20,000 followers on Instagram. So, and that was where we focused. Although like you can definitely do a YouTube approach, but YouTube folks are more expensive. Instagram content is shorter. I mean, quicker for most people, but it does live longer if you go like the YouTube route. Yeah, totally.
• 15:43
  I'm interested to know, you said that in January you did like 3,000, then you doubled and then you doubled again. And you were kind of growing at that steady pace all the way to doing a million in sales in 2018. You know, that's huge growth. So what do you think you were doing to scale up to get those kind of numbers?
• 16:00
  We started with micro influencers. So I did have a small list. My list maybe when I started at the top of the year was a few thousand people that were like kind of subscribers. You know, this is 2018. I started my first business in 2015. So this is maybe like three years, years in.
• 16:16
  We're going to be 10,000 subscribers max, I want to say. And I was doing all the email marketing then. So email marketing is going to be your bread and butter. It still is. Right now it makes up over 40% of our revenue. So email marketing is still huge. But back then I was doing it and I had my customer service manager, who's now my CCO, my chief customer officer.
• 16:35
  She was helping me do the influencer management and customer service at the same time. So she was a good generalist. In the beginning, you need a few generalists. You need some people who believe in you and you need them to be down for the cause and be able to do multiple different things and for them not to be like, well, that's not my job. You know? So you need some people on your team because at this point, I had Tim had quit his job to come work for the business. My customer service rep was working part time. But she almost got to the point where she was like, hey, Kim, I need a real job because she's like, yeah.
• 17:02
  It's $10 an hour is like nothing. So I'm going to like leave. And I was like, oh, no, no, no. Like come back. She was my first employee. I hired her before I paid myself because I really needed help. And people don't work for free.
• 17:14
  So at least not for very long. So she was on my team as well at this point. And so me and Tim were basically toggling back and forth between making the product, sending emails. And we hadn't seen money on ads until I want to say April of that year. So from 3000 to 8,000 to 30,000. And then like next month was like 25. But that was all from like influencer marketing and like,
• 17:41
  micro influencers in email. That was it. We weren't spending any money on ads yet. We started spending money on ads, I don't want to say in April, and maybe we started at like 50 bucks a day. And we worked with someone who kind of knew hair care, and he had a lot of clients in the beauty space, and particularly the black beauty space, so that was his forte. And then we started putting paid ads behind what we were already doing. You know, we had our first six-figure month, I want to say that August, right?
• 18:06
  which is great because then we filmed on Shark Tank in September. So we applied to be on Shark Tank, I want to say maybe in May that year, go back. But then you, you know, do a four or five months of prep and then you film. Most people, I don't know if they know that, but it's like a, it's a pretty tough process to go through with,
• 18:24
  producers of the show and getting all your setup done and your staging and your models and you're paying for a lot of that and you're also practicing your pitch seven or eight times it was tough so doing that while the business was scaling was difficult once we got to about 30,000 though in revenue I was like this can in monthly revenue like this is not this can't be in my house my baby was five months um at the time and so he's like learning to walk and crawl around all these boxes like you know it was like starting to just take up so much space
• 18:52
  And I was like, I can't, at this point, I can only make 60 bottles in a batch.
• 18:56
  And so I'm literally on my house and my, you know, we just had a baby. Right. So everything's here. I have a stock pot on every eye on the stove. Right. Therefore, there are four stock pots on the stove. One of them is like a little eye and the other one's like a big eye. So this one cooks faster, but this one's lower. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is annoying. I'm having to teach my husband how to make it so that I can be the one making the emails and like marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Like making it make money. Right. Right.
• 19:22
  And so that was so tough. So we actually ended up finding a co-working manufacturing space here in Chicago where we could, they had all the industrial hookups that we would need. And that was one of the biggest reasons we needed to move out because we need to be able to buy machinery that would allow us to make 700 in a batch. And then that even took some, a ton of Googling because me and my husband don't have like, I worked in logistics. So I do have a manufacturing background, but I did not have a contract manufacturing background. So I didn't know like,
• 19:50
  proper emulsions or homogenizers or there's a lot of stuff I just didn't know about. And these are like machines. Emulsion is what you want to get with the product, but homogenizers are the machines you use to get it. And there's a huge learning curve and we're trying to make something that manufacturers won't make. So like we have to figure out how can I recreate this stock pot with Flexi Gel?
• 20:10
  So then we started going to like the pack expo back when the world was open. They had like expos where all the packaging companies would come and show off their machinery. Or I was on eBay looking for like cheaper versions of the stuff because like Webster aren't store would charge you $30,000 for something. I was like, I don't have that. I have two. Like, what can I get? And I would see like eBay. So then we ended up buying the machine that makes the Flexi Joe on eBay at like a super discount. Luckily, it was not a lemon, which means that, you know, a lemon is like...
• 20:38
  A dud. A dud. Yeah, because we definitely the second one we bought was definitely a dud and we were out a couple thousand dollars. I know. Yeah. So it's a risk. Yes, very much so. But we got lucky that when we bought work and we were able to move into the facility, the facility that we started in was like a thousand square feet. Now we probably have around 10 to 15,000 square feet overall in the different units at the co-working space. But we have one to start.
• 21:00
  And we were literally making the flaxseed gel and the moisture outside of there. And then when we started growing so quickly, you could put a hole in the wall and then just rent the unit next door and add it to your lease so you don't have to move. So I love that.
• 21:14
  And that was just kind of like all the things that we were doing. I mean, it's more to the story, but that's kind of like what we were doing as we were edging up to that six-figure month. And then we maybe did like $200,000 that November. And that was when I was like, we cannot continue to do this with just me, Tim, our customer service manager, slash influencer manager, slash everything in between. My cousin, who then came on to make products with us. There's about four of us. And we had a big Black Friday sale.
• 21:40
  But we could not afford like we couldn't get everything out. Like it was like we had four people, but we had maybe like a couple thousand orders in the queue. And I was like, you know, I put a post on Facebook and I was like, you know what? I'll pay you guys like twelve dollars an hour if you could be here tomorrow morning, which is like maybe in five hours. Like I'll pay you for the next four days and will help us get these orders out.
• 22:02
  And I had like five or six people in my inbox. I was like, I got you. I'll be there. And I was like, wow, wow. And then it came to help get it together. And it was like magic. And I just couldn't believe it. You know, I was like, this is what it means when you hire people. So I never looked back. I never went back to the old, like, I'm going to have a super small team and everybody's going to be struggling, you know? Yeah. Lift everyone up. Make the business run smoothly.
• 22:26
  Oh my gosh. I want to talk about Shark Tank. You went on the show, you turned down a massive deal, and then it ended up being the best thing ever. Can you tell us a little bit about the situation and the experience? I went on the show and...
• 22:44
  The valuation, you know, Shark Tank has like terrible deals. Like that's like that's what they're known for. Right. And part of it is so that you can do as a consumer can do easy math at home because getting into the details of saves and convertible notes and the details of options and stuff.
• 23:01
  The pool and just all of that, like they don't want you to do that on TV. Right. They want you to know that like I'm getting one hundred thousand. This is one hundred thousand dollars for 10 percent of this company. That's easy math for everybody at home. Right. But it's like might be a terrible valuation for you and really unrealistic for you to go home with that valuation and have to deal with that. And so, you know, they're trying to get TV. Right. And so for us, we needed like four hundred thousand dollars. And the only way we're going to get that is that Robert lowered our valuation to about two million dollars.
• 23:30
  Robert Herjavec was the one who made an offer. At the time, we were on track to do a million dollars. So we were on track to do a million dollars. We weren't really worth two, not in the venture sense, right? Like if I could have gone to a venture capitalist, they would have probably given me a $6 million valuation, which actually did end up happening.
• 23:47
  In December, someone offered me about a $6 million violation, but I didn't think they were just going to be money. I didn't think they were going to have the connections that I wanted. It's actually turned that down, too. And so it wasn't until after the episode aired in March the next year that we got an offer for about a million dollar investment from the CEO of LinkedIn and other partners. He's a former CEO. He stepped down last summer.
• 24:09
  And that was for a much higher valuation, which is like around 12 million posts. And then we talk about post money, right? Like on Shark Tank, like that's not even a thing, you know? So Shark Tank is really for like quick math, easy to digest. It was a great opportunity. It was also extremely difficult having to manage a growing business while also, you know, rewriting your pitch seven or eight times.
• 24:34
  coming up with an entire like set that you have to pay for and then bringing the models to LA. And then some people I pitched with, even after you, you know, Shark Tank starts with about maybe 30,000 applicants, 30,000, 40,000 applicants, and only 88 actually pitched on the show. And so there were some people I pitched with that didn't air because it's not guaranteed. And so like, that is like a whole other stressor, right? So what if I don't go up? What if I don't? So then your pressure should be like,
• 25:02
  be honest and do the right thing. What do you want? Are you going to take this deal? Are you just standing on TV and you're going to actually go home and be like, no, I'll pass. And I didn't want to do that because I wanted my show to air. So I was like, I need to be honest and forthcoming about where I am and what I'm willing to take and what I'm not. And so my husband and I, we sat the night before we aired, the night before we went to film, we were like, what is our BATNA? A BATNA in MBA school you learn is a better alternative to negotiating an agreement. And so,
• 25:31
  And basically it's like your walkaway numbers, like what I won't accept, you know? And so I was like, we will not give up 20% of our company. I was like, we'll do 15. And that will, and if they won't move, you know, then we'll just say no. And Robert would not budge. He was like, no, 20%. He won't. And typically...
• 25:49
  For what he was offering, 20% is a whole round in venture. So every time someone raises like a seed or series A or series B or series C, it's typically 20% of the company. And everyone gets diluted, right? The 20% Robert was trying to take was literally the whole round for $400,000 versus the future valuation I got was like 10%, you know, versus the 20, you know, and twice the money. So it was just, yeah, that was kind of crazy.
• 26:15
  Did it have still an impact on the business once it went to air? Oh, absolutely. We were spending a lot of money in ads at that point. We've since reduced that a lot. But we were close to like a million dollar a month, I want to say, when it aired. But again, if we hadn't been spending that kind of money on ads, maybe it would have been like maybe six, seven hundred or something like that, I would think. But it also has reruns. So we get reruns at least once a quarter since it aired.
• 26:41
  which is like really, really cool. It's not as big as like the launch because when you first air, you get like, you know, it's never that big, but it's also a nice boost to keep you kind of like nice free press, basically. Although I think, yeah, I mean, you pay for it in other ways, right? So much for the margins and all that, you know, you pay for it in other ways.
• 27:04
  So since you've aired on Shark Tank and that came out in March 2019, what's been working for you now when it comes to acquiring new customers? Content. We have to constantly serve them with content and educational content, showing them how to get the best wash and go ever, showing them how to use CurlMix products, how to refresh their hair, how to protect it at night, how to, you know, use our body butters, or just literally like being in front of them, teaching them as much as possible.
• 27:32
  that's so general but it's like it's that is it and it's the hard thing and finding which platform makes the most sense to do that one whether that's clubhouse or facebook or tiktok or twitter or you know whatever your wherever your customer is you need to be there and giving them content i haven't spoken to anyone about clubhouse on the show yet what's been your take of the platform
• 27:54
  I have only used it personally. Honestly, I feel like it's just a stage for people who do coaching. And because you don't just start like random clubhouses and then they're like popping and will grow. You kind of have to plan it off the app and then get on there. I think there's value. You really have to qualify who you're listening to before you get on there. Otherwise, you're wasting a lot of time. So it's not something I'm like, oh, I can't wait to get to the clubhouse today. It's something where I'm in the bathtub and I'm like, I'll scroll through and listen to something and pop around.
• 28:23
  Honestly, podcasting is better because you qualify your information and you know what you're going to listen to and you're going to get something from it. Clubhouse is cool if you need to, if you're a coach, I think that's the platform for you. Yeah, that's an interesting insight. I agree. So where is your business today and what does the future look like?
• 28:43
  Last year, we had about $6 million in revenue. And so we've grown a lot. We have over 30 people on our team. I have not raised money yet since that $1.2 million. I am in the process of it now because I want to get bigger. My vision is I want to be like Procter & Gamble. That is what I want to do. We're still here on the south side of Chicago, manufacturing stateside and all of that, and employing women and people of color. My whole executive team is women.
• 29:10
  So like at the next, I'm very proud of that. And right now I'm just focused on getting the 10 million. You know, it's really difficult to get there. Investors all told me that and I was just like, yeah, okay, whatever. Like, you know, but it is hard. It's hard because you have to,
• 29:26
  It's not about getting this in a million has more to do with processes than it does do with being innovative. And that is the thing that most small businesses have a hard time doing. In fact, I would say 100 percent of us have a hard time putting in processes because you go from being a solo founder to how do I get.
• 29:45
  dozens of people ahead. How do I get my team ahead? You get to learn to motivate people and also give them direction. But if you don't actually know how to do what they're hired to do, which many of us may not know how to do because we're didn't stay in corporate very long or whatever. It's like you actually have to become more corporate the more successful you become. And so that is a huge challenge. And that's kind of where I am in my business today. Yeah, I guess that's a really big learning curve. So it's going
• 30:15
  What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to start their own business? I think women want a big idea. One, you want to validate it with people and having them actually purchase it. So that's the best way to validate it. The second thing I would say is I'm not someone who thinks that,
• 30:35
  you should be a solo founder. Not if you're trying to build something big. Like if you're going to do a lifestyle business, you don't necessarily need like a founder, right? But if you want to do something like really big, I don't know. And maybe I'm qualifying big. It's like, if you want a business that's like 20 million plus, I don't know. I really think you should have a partner because it gets so tough. And you want somebody that you can like,
• 30:52
  lean on or who that will pick up the slack when you're like, I just I don't have the mental space or somebody who is just in it with you when it sucks, because doing that by yourself, no one else will understand, you know, and I think there's value in that. But I know some people who are like, I'm a solo founder and I don't need anybody else. I just think that's kind of lonely, you know, and I think if you're going to do anything big, you have to have other people involved. Otherwise, it won't ever get that big because you can't make it big by yourself.
• 31:22
  Yeah, you need people in the trenches with you. That's for sure. We're up to the six quick questions. Part of the episode. My favorite part. Question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 31:36
  I want to create a place to work for people of color where you don't feel like your color is the thing that people care most about or see first when you walk into a room and it's an issue. That was why I escaped corporate. I felt like I didn't belong and I don't want I want to create a work environment where you literally come to work and not think about the fact that you're black. And that's really like that doesn't exist for a lot of black people. Amazing. Thank you.
• 32:02
  Question number two is, what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? Well, we were on our way to a million dollars. We actually made a million dollars before Shark Tank. So it can't be Shark Tank that made my business pop, right? So it was like, what made that pop? And I think what made us pop initially was working with micro-influencers and also doing Washington Wednesday, which is our content. We do weekly lives.
• 32:28
  Now we do daily lives, but we do still weekly lives where we would show you how to get the best washing ever on your hair. And it would be me and myself, myself and my husband and like a model. And we would literally do their hair for an hour live. And so we did that almost for three years now. Wow, that's cool. I love that. An hour. Holy moly. That's cool. Thank you. That's the content piece. We actually have like a salon in our office. Love that. And that is where we like do the hair. That's clever. Very clever. Thank you.
• 32:58
  Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What have you been reading or listening to or, you know, newsletters that you subscribe to to get smarter? I actually have coaches, business coaches. I have about four different people telling me what to do all the time. I know sometimes we think entrepreneurship is an escape from management, and honestly it's not. Like you get way less managed if you just work a regular job. I have a business coach, my advisor Gilbert. I still meet with him monthly for an hour.
• 33:25
  And I literally have to like lay my soul bare. Essentially, so I like, here are all of my numbers. Here's how we perform this month. Here are the issues that I'm having. Here's who quit. Here's what I need to fire. Here's, you know, this initiative didn't make us money. I lost $1,000. I lost $100,000 on this. Like, you know.
• 33:43
  And then getting their feedback and letting someone else into my business. Most of us are, like you were saying earlier, we have a hard time talking about money. So most of us are not going to show other people like, this is all I've got and this is where it is. Give me your feedback. Yeah.
• 33:57
  That is going to get you where you want to be much faster. You can read books. I've been reading StoryBrand lately. I forget the author. StoryBrand, Positioning, Influence by Robert Chagini. These are all excellent and core marketing books that I think you kind of have to know and understand if you really want to be successful, especially in the beginning, if you're going to do a product-based business because it is marketing. That is what it is, you know? So you have to be an expert at that. Those are just some tips if you want to like learn, but I also would say hire a coach. Yeah.
• 34:26
  Where did you find your other coaches aside from Gilbert? Where do you look for a coach? Going to networking events and finding people that were like kind of in the know or whatever. And they kind of reached out to me and said, hey, I saw you were asking these questions at this event on stage. You know, I do X, Y, and Z. I think I can really help you. That was one of my coaches. Another one, I joined a mastermind on Facebook. It's a Facebook group, but it's a paid mastermind. And so there are like a bunch of other entrepreneurs and they're making anywhere from, you know, five to seven figures.
• 34:55
  And there are different cohorts and whatnot. And so that's where I found two of my coaches. And then Gilbert, again, networking and backstage capital. And that's how I found him. So really like putting myself out there, talking to people, telling them about my ideas, not being afraid to speak and not being afraid to talk about my numbers. I think that's gotten me really far. Love that. Love that for you.
• 35:16
  Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM or PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated. I love a cup of coffee, black or like just a little bit of cream.
• 35:29
  It's my first thing. My second thing is I lift my calendar. Yes. What I'll do, though, is I'll take my, I have my meetings, but I'll take my to-do list and I'll insert the task itself into the calendar. So it's not like I have a calendar and my to-do list is over here. It's like I have a calendar. I take my to-do list and I put it on my calendar and say, oh, I think it'll take me an hour or whatever. And then I always go back and adjust the time for how long it actually took me. So if a meeting ran over 15 minutes or 30 minutes, I adjust it because I want to be able to go back in a month and say, how did I spend my time?
• 35:58
  Mm, that's clever. Thank you. Thank you. And so, and that's important to me because sometimes if I spend my whole time doing something that someone else could do, then like I probably dropped the ball on maybe fundraising or dropped the ball on like talking to the bank about something or like making budget cuts or something that like only I can do, you know? And that's the biggest thing. And I told you, like trying to get to 10 million is about processes. So I have to create processes for things that I don't have to, that someone else can do in place with me.
• 36:26
  Not because it's beneath me, not because of that at all, but because I have to make harder decisions that I'm avoiding because I want to re-answer my email, you know? Of course. So I win the day by maybe doing three main things on my to-do list that happen to be on my calendar. Great approach. Love it. Question number five is if you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, how would you spend it? Oh, that's a good question.
• 36:55
  I would not spend it on ads. So I'll say that. If you had $1,000 left. If I had $1,000 left in my bank account and I needed to make money, I would pay $1,000.
• 37:08
  100 to 10 different people to create content for me that I would then post on social media, ideally Facebook, and then I would tag the product in that post. And then I have 10 pieces of content. And if I only have 10 and I only have a month, I'll spread it out over 30 days or I was like, try to do it back to back. But that is how I think I would spend it. And then after I got the sales from those things and I would go make whatever I was going to make. I would,
• 37:38
  Nice. Love it. Love that it's Facebook too. And I love that you didn't go straight to ads. Obviously that can be a quick one. Last question. Question number six, how do you deal with failure? Every time I fail, the bigger the failure, the easier the next one is. So I think, you know, I think every time I have something that crisis that happens, I'm always kind of like, oh my gosh, the worst thing ever. And then three months later, something even worse than that happens.
• 38:05
  Um, and so it gives me a new level of bottom every time. And so every time I have a new level of like a bottom, the, like the small, like losses are like nothing. They're like, Oh, whatever. Like that's not a big deal. You know? So it used to be that like, well, let me say what kind of like really stressed me out before. Yeah.
• 38:23
  I was switching ad companies and they were like, I was struggling because they were like sucking. And it was during the time that the election was happening in the beginning of it. And so basically performance on ads and social media is just all bad during like election season.
• 38:39
  And so I was like really sad and I feel like I was like failing. Like I was like, I'm not getting, you know, I'm not able to do my job. Freaking out, crying. And then, you know, recently, like someone that I really liked working here, like told me they were going to quit. And then like, that's way bigger than like the loss of the ads, you know? So then it's just like, there's always something, you know, there's always something. And they're not quitting because they hate it here. They love it here. They're quitting because they want to start their own business.
• 39:04
  So, you know, and it's the other thing is like, I think there is it's tough. It's really hard. And everyone's so inspired by social. But I think there's a lot of stress and difficult decisions that come with starting your own business that people will never truly know until they do it. And they'll be like, oh, my gosh, like everyone else is out here acting like it is the bee's knees. And like it isn't it's amazing what you're able to do. And I love it. But it's hard as hell. Hard as hell.
• 39:31
  It is hard as hell. Holy moly. What a journey. Kim, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and share your inspiring story and how far you've come since 2015. Holy moly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I was happy to be here. This is so much fun.
• 39:52
  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.
• 40:16
  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.
• 40:39
  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.
• 40:55
  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.
• 41:20
  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.
• 41:43
  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.