Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How these former Colourpop employees landed their signature product on Ariana Grande, with Jordynn Wynn and Sharon pak, Co-Founders of Insert Name Here (INH)

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How these former Colourpop employees landed their signature product on Ariana Grande, with Jordynn Wynn and Sharon pak, Co-Founders of Insert Name Here (INH) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Jordan Nguyen and Sharon Pak for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doon Roshin, and joining me on the show today are the two best friends behind the coolest wig company you've ever met, Jordan and Sharon from Insert Name Here, or INH for short.
• 0:29
  These two women were early employees of the beauty startup ColourPop, and after spending a few years learning the ropes at the wildly successful biz, they decided it was time to get out there and launch their own thing.
• 0:41
  After connecting with their co-founder, Kevin, in the DMs, they realized they had a really great idea in mind and got to work developing and launching INH. INH is inspired by pop culture celebs and trends, and they produce premium quality ponies, wigs, buns, and extensions that are full of sass and so much fun.
• 1:01
  In this episode, we're talking about the importance of building a sticky community, the time when mega celeb Ariana Grande wore their signature pony, how they're approaching marketing at the moment, and what initiatives are driving their projected $20 million in sales for this year. And while I've got you here, if you haven't done so already, please do subscribe, rate, and review the Female Startup Club podcast so you can get notified of our new episodes every week and help new ears find us.
• 1:28
  Let's get stuck into this episode. This is Jordan and Sharon for Female Startup Club. Jordan and Sharon, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I'm so excited to learn about your business, insert name here or INH for short, and to learn more about your super fun brand. Yeah, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Yeah, thank you so much for having us.
• 1:51
  I want to go back to your life before INH and to talk about how you guys met, what you were doing before and why you decided to even launch a brand. I feel like this is probably the best part about our story is how INH kind of came about. Jordan and I always joke that it's kind of the stars are aligned and we were meant to be partners and best friends. So Jordan's actually from a really small town in Wyoming and I'm from a really small town in Arizona. We both were raised by single moms. I'm a little bit older.
• 2:20
  also have younger brother and older sisters, same family dynamic. We both end up at Pepperdine. And at Pepperdine, we were doing the same marketing classes, courses. We lived in the same dorm, but knew of each other, but weren't friends. And then towards the end, Jordan was interning at
• 2:39
  Colourpop Cosmetics, but at the time it wasn't Colourpop. It was like a third-party manufacturing company. And she was like, hey, they're looking for another one of me. Like you should interview. But I was like, I don't know about that. Like I don't want to work at a startup. Like I'm not sure. And I'm not really into makeup. Like, I don't know. So then...
• 2:56
  Me out of desperation, I was like, I don't want to go back to Arizona. I'm just going to do this, do the interview, end up getting the job. And that happened to be ColourPop Cosmetics. And ColourPop is one of the fastest growing beauty companies online. So Jordan and I were there. And then we helped also build a couple other brands while we're under the seed beauty umbrella. And then we launched INH together when Kevin, our third partner, slid into our DMs. And he was like, what are you guys up to?
• 3:26
  And we got dinner with him and he was just like, do you want to launch anything else? Like, what are your plans? Like, I know you guys did a color pop. Like, let's do something together. And funny enough, at that time, Jordan and I had been going back and forth on business ideas. We wanted to do something together, but we weren't exactly sure what. And she was sending me crazy ideas. Like, we should do a sofa company. Like, we should do a Tupperware company. Like, just like crazy things. And we just were brainstorming. And Jordan texted me one day. She's like, I have it. I know what it is. She's like, wigs.
• 3:55
  She's like, what do you think about wigs? And I was like, oh, wait, I can get behind that. Like, I could see that. We started seeing a huge trend where girls were experimenting. For example, like Kylie and Kim, you never even know what their real hair looks like anymore. It's constantly changing every single day. But it's not accessible to her like a normal, you know, Jordan and I. And she started ordering all these wigs off of Amazon and like testing out what was out there. And she called me. She was like, they're so bad. Like, we need to do this. There's a huge opportunity here. We need to do it. So then...
• 4:25
  I and H was born. Oh, my gosh. Wow. So cool. I love that you guys are like best buds, worked together. You already knew you had the dynamic.
• 4:36
  I want to keep on the early days, even when you were back at ColourPop, to understand what were those early experiences like? What were you learning and what were you doing at ColourPop that kind of made you feel, I'm motivated to do this for myself one day and I actually have the inkling that I'm going to be an entrepreneur myself?
• 4:56
  I think that Sharon and I both realized while we were there that we really loved building things. I think that after we got to kind of witness and be a part of building multiple brands, we realized that there's definitely like an art and a science to it. And the initial aspect of like building a community and like making it successful.
• 5:15
  and then understanding what people want to see and what they don't want to see. All of that part is where I think we thrive. And so we had told each other for a really long time because when we first started working together, we actually didn't get along that well because we weren't really friends. We had done a bunch of group projects together. But then when we got thrown into the ColourPop environment, we were two of basically five employees for the first couple of years. And there was...
• 5:39
  not a lot of structure. And so that's where we got our nickname Shorten, actually, that a lot of people still call us to this day, because people in the office wouldn't know who was doing what project. So they'd be like, Oh, just give it to Shorten. And so then Sharon, I would look at each other and be like, Okay, who's gonna do it? Because there was no like top down direction. So we ended up having to kind of like duke it out a lot at the beginning, because we were both like very driven, very ambitious, and very competitive. And
• 6:03
  So at the beginning, there's like a lot of stepping on toes. Obviously, you both want like the big project. But then what we kind of ended up realizing after like a few fumbles is that we actually have very, very different skill sets and very different strengths and weaknesses. And so when we were able to kind of figure that out and really like we had a lot of really real conversations with each other where we had to sit down and be like, this is not working. Like this is not pleasant. We're not enjoying our time.
• 6:27
  And we really had some like come to Jesus conversations where we made a lot of progress and we decided like, hey, these are the things that you're really amazing at. And these are the things I'm really amazing at. And instead of like choosing who's going to do them, we'll either just be like, oh, this is more of a creative visual project and this is more of like a copy strategy.
• 6:46
  like we just started divvying it up among each other based on who was going to do it the best. And since we both really believe that the other one had really strong skill sets and were different from our own, it got really easy to be like, okay, clearly yours, clearly mine, clearly yours, clearly mine. And I think that's when we realized that I always say like sharing the yin to my yang. And I think that those experiences are what made us think like, oh, we should build something together because we did have a really special relationship of
• 7:11
  Not only could we work really well together, but like we could fight really well together. Like we always overcame like any, any obstacles that came our way or any disagreements. And we always grew a lot from them. And so I think we both realized those are really special relationships that are hard to come by.
• 7:26
  and who you work with is so, so important, especially when you launch a brand. And so I think a funny story too, at the very beginning, when I told Sharon to apply for the role, my mom had actually told me, she was like, oh, instead of picking a friend, why don't you pick somebody who you work really well with? And so I had picked Sharon because we had worked well in group projects. And all of that came together very serendipitously because now obviously we work together a ton. And thank God that was like the initial kickoff point. Yeah.
• 7:55
  Shout out to your mom. You have her to thank for this. That's so cool. And I think it also takes a lot of maturity, especially like in your early 20s, to be able to sit down and have those tough conversations and then to actually flip it on its head and totally empower each other to thrive in that environment and like –
• 8:13
  both end up doing really well, like climbing that ladder together. And I imagine, you know, just the experience of working at a startup in the early days, there's just so many critical learnings, I think that's hard to replicate if you haven't worked in a startup and you don't understand the kind of hustle that comes along with it in that journey. Do you think there are any kind of key learnings that stand out for you that you were like,
• 8:35
  I'm going to take this from ColourPop and build this with INH? I think the biggest thing that we learned at ColourPop was the community aspect of a brand. Having a community is so incredibly powerful, especially a group that's going to go beyond the product. And with ColourPop, they have this...
• 8:52
  insane, avid fan base who's just talking about ColourPop all day, every day. Like it's beyond the actual product itself. They're finding connection and relationships with one another through a brand and a product. And that was something that was like, we need to replicate this at INH because that's what stickiness is. That's what like your customers are going to go evangelize for you for the brand. It makes things so much easier. And then also just seeing how happy INH makes our customers has just been such a...
• 9:21
  amazing feeling that I just knew that we needed.
• 9:26
  Can we go back to the beginning when you guys had this moment, you start talking to Kevin Gould, your third co-founder in the DMs, you start meeting him for dinner, this kind of thing. What happens next? Do you guys be like, yeah, we need to like get a friends and family around. Do we pile our savings together in a bank account and, you know, scrap our way through it? What's that early beginning phase like for you guys? I just want to know if you were Jordan's hogs. The first thing that happened was panic. We were like, oh my God.
• 9:54
  But Jordan called me right after. She's like, I shouldn't have told him our idea. Like, I'm so dumb. Why did I do that? Like, we both were just in absolute meltdown mode just because finding partners is really difficult. And you're like getting in bed with these people. And most of the time you don't know them that well. So I think for her and I, as really young, we were in our early 20s, about to go into deep waters without really any guidance. That was the first thing was panic. Yeah.
• 10:24
  And we weren't like planning it, like it all just like kind of happened. And it happened really quickly. So we weren't like planning on doing it. Like we had been brainstorming a bunch of ideas, but we weren't like, let's do this until Kevin basically reached out. And then he was like, let's do this. And we were like, okay. And in a few months, it like from meeting with Kevin and telling him the idea, we launched a brand like months later, like I think four months later. And so...
• 10:46
  It really was a big whirlwind. Luckily, Kevin has been the one funding the brand to date. And so that was like super, super helpful. I think that's a big obstacle that a lot of startups probably struggle with. But we were really fortunate in having a partner like Kevin who was able to bring that to the table. Are you able to share any kind of ballpark numbers on initial startup capital that's needed to start something in, you know, DTC, product-based, e-commerce space?
• 11:16
  I think it really varies depending on the product. Our product, the cost of good, I think got a little bit higher than many product categories. But we started off, we only did like a couple hundred thousand dollars as like the initial investment. And that was primarily all for inventory.
• 11:33
  And so we did like a really small order and we did it pre Halloween, which was our all of our wigs. And so we just wanted to like get it done and get it done as quickly as possible. So that way we could have some inventory for Halloween. But we did a very small order quantity. So that way we could kind of like test the market and see what people were interested in.
• 11:54
  And I think it also depends on like lead times too and like production lead times because it does take a while to hand tie all the wigs. Like it's like a two month lead time just for production. So it really depends what your actual product is.
• 12:08
  Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And so, okay, so you launch at Halloween and you start just like telling your friends or how do you start getting the word out there and finding those early adopters of your brand, those early first customers who, who really like champion you guys now? Out of the gate, it was friends and family. And I,
• 12:31
  Not going to lie, we were slightly disappointed with the initial... Because you know, when you're building a brand, you're just like building to that, you know, starting line or like to that point, you just like want to go. And when you get to the finish line, you get there and you're like, oh, wait, nobody knows about us. We're an absolutely new brand. Nobody cares. Like, I don't even know why we spent so much time to just get it so, so perfect. That's like one of our biggest tips to entrepreneurs is...
• 12:57
  don't be a perfectionist when it comes to launching a brand because there's just so much that needs to happen once you get to the finish line anyway. So it doesn't really matter as much. Just don't get hung up on it. Like I just know so many people who want to do it. They're like, I needed the perfect unit cart in. I needed the perfect PR cart. I'm like, no one's going to read it. You're not going to have enough people to even send it to. Don't worry about it. So yeah, I think that was just a funny aspect of it.
• 13:25
  Yeah, for sure. Wow. Absolutely. And I hear that a lot from female founders is like if you didn't, if you're not like embarrassed about your first iteration, like you didn't launch soon enough. And I think people also forget there's like so much work in the lead up, but it really starts the day you launch, like having to go out there and talk to as many people as possible about your brand.
• 13:47
  You've spoken a bit earlier about building a sticky community. Can you describe what that is and like how you specifically did that, what the plan was and what you would recommend other founders do to achieve that?
• 14:00
  I think one thing that people often ask us about the INH community because it is super, super active. And I think that one of the parts like a lot of people are like, so what's like the key? Like, what's the one key? And I think that high level, like it is a lot of like the nitty gritty actually getting in there and doing yourself work that a lot of people think there's like shorts.
• 14:19
  cut for like Sharon and I respond to a ton of comments. All of our DMS were like constantly going through and liking like from our personal pages from the page, like anybody who talks about us tags us even like I do stories. And I think that in the very beginning that kind of like one on one interaction.
• 14:37
  And not only are you going to really learn and understand the customer, but they're going to feel like they know you because you have been so hands-on with them. And I think that that's one of the biggest misses of a lot of brands like startup or existing brands is that they don't have that direct touch with their customers because it does take a lot of work and it is difficult to scale.
• 14:57
  but I think it pays itself back like tenfold. Like it's worth, it's a hundred percent worth it. Even commenting, like when people respond to your Instagram posts and they're just like cute pic or something, like engaging with those people is really, really important. Yeah, for sure. And then you're building the loyalists that really love you and keep coming back and keep spreading the word for you.
• 15:18
  I want to talk more about the specific kind of marketing initiatives you guys use to drive your rapid growth. You know, you have a huge following now. You guys are doing seemingly like so many cool different things. You're in a lot of press online. What kind of initiatives did you launch or are you launching that help fuel that? I think Jordan can speak a little bit more to this, but I think a really important thing that we learned is building a brand six years ago is not the same thing as building a brand now. Yeah.
• 15:48
  you have to take an omni-channel approach. You need email, you need SMS, you need all these funnels running, like performance marketing. Without any of those moving funnels, you really can't have a brand. So for us, it's just been going hard on every single funnel and capturing the audience on every level because there's just so much noise in the world right now and you're just getting pushed so much content in your face all day, every day. So you have to have all these multiple touch points to make it work.
• 16:19
  Our other founder, Kevin, always says, like, we're going to chase these people around the Internet. And I think that that's like a really accurate depiction of what we're doing. And we're like, OK, we're going to give an SMS and then we're going to drop this email over here. And we think we're going to talk about them.
• 16:34
  that people truly need to hear about the brand, especially these days when the barrier to entry of just launching a brand is so low. There are new brands every single day just popping up like wildflowers. And so an important part is to be a brand that they're hearing about repeatedly from a bunch of reliable sources. So that way they kind of understand like, okay, this is a legitimate brand that I can trust that I'm hearing like...
• 16:54
  being talked about everywhere. So I think that's really important. I think that that can be really overwhelming when you're very first launching a brand because you're like, Oh my gosh, there's like 15 channels. There's no way that I can optimize all of these. So I think that if you're just getting started, a good way to prioritize is I think social media is really important and really easy. You don't really need to have some crazy skill set to get started. And especially if you have this touch point on your customer, it really is a learn-as-you-go process anyway.
• 17:23
  So I think social is really important to get going. And then I think getting your retention, at least like your retention capturing tools up like your like email capture when they land on the website, your SMS capture when you land on the website. Even if you don't have like a really elaborate email or SMS platform built out yet, it's just important that you're at least like retaining all of that information so you can reach back out to these people later.
• 17:47
  So I think those are the really important ones. And I think after that, you can decide if you feel more comfortable going in the performance marketing angle or more influencer angle. I think that they both have their weaknesses and strengths.
• 18:04
  Yeah, absolutely. What do you think for you guys was the step change in the business where you were like, yeah, we're seriously onto something, you know, it's all picked up either through influencer marketing or through something like performance marketing. What were those moments for you guys?
• 18:21
  I think I have a couple for me that I was like, oh, well, holy cow. One of them was Ariana Grande wore our ponytail in her In My Head music video with Vogue. And it was really cool because we worked with her hairstylist and worked with Vogue and they asked us for hair pieces. But like it didn't sound like it was like guaranteed, guaranteed. So we sent it and then like we didn't hear back from them for months. And then like one day there, her video goes live and we were in the credits and everybody started sending it to us. And we were like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.
• 18:51
  That was a really big moment for sure. Holy moly, that's crazy. And that must have just been like, you know, that thrill of like, yeah, we're onto something here. If Ariana Grande is wearing our hair, like we got this. Yeah, we're like the pony queen. The ponies are in her video. Like that was really crazy.
• 19:10
  And then I think another really big moment for us was when we initially launched, we got a ton of support from like a lot of our influencer friends who we've met and like kind of grown with over the years. And but a really major beauty influencers, Desi Perkins, and she's really well known for her Halloween looks and she's like famous for them. Like everybody looks forward to them every year.
• 19:31
  And for Halloween last year, she like didn't even tell us and she just ended up wearing our wigs in every single Halloween look and they were so epic like every year she gets better and better so this year was like especially epic and that was a really big moment for us as well.
• 19:46
  That sounds so cool. Also kind of to kind of branch off of the moments that Jordan has kind of touched on. We initially launched with six or seven wigs and one ponytail. And we thought wigs were going to be the biggest part of our business. And I think a big aha moment for us was when we started really seeing that one hero product come to life.
• 20:05
  And then we started really focusing our efforts on that one hero product, which is our clip-in ponytail in Mia. And that has opened an entire category of ponytails for us, which is one of our biggest, you know, obviously product categories. So I think that was probably really monumental just because we saw that it was resonating with people on a deeper level.
• 20:27
  Yeah, I think it's like a matter of right timing as well, given that there are all these huge pop stars that we look to who are having these really cool hairstyles. But another thing that I thought to myself, which I'm sure is the case of why people love the pony is because how easy you guys make it to put in. I'd never really understood how you put those in your hair until I was actually watching the videos of how
• 20:50
  you know, the videos you have on like TikTok and stuff of the girls actually putting them in to show the step. And I was like, oh, okay, this makes so much sense. And I love it. It looks almost easier than wearing a wig.
• 21:02
  A hundred percent. That's also one thing we realize is when we first launched it, everyone was like, this is too much. This is like too much work. It's like, it's a little extra, but then the ponytails actually save time for you. And it's a lot easier. It makes doing your hair fun and easy. So I think that's one thing that we're really working on changing the conversation on is like, we're here to save you time and make your day, like start your day quicker.
• 21:26
  Mm hmm. It's like it's like a cheat kind of and I think Sharon's totally right that it's so easy to apply it literally takes like seconds and it's kind of like if you I think a lot of people with like cooking or something they're always really discouraged to like take on this big recipe because you put it all this time and at the end it doesn't look good. I think these are like fail proof because when you like it's always gonna look good like I really don't it's like rare that I'll.
• 21:49
  have a bad hair day, I can just pop it on and like, it always looks good. And so I think that that's the nice thing about it is it's very DIY. Anybody can do it at home and it always looks good. And so it's, it's like a good combo on the pony. Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk about, um, partnerships and how partnerships have helped you guys grow. And if that was something that you learned at ColourPop and brought forward, or if that was just you guys being like, yeah,
• 22:19
  I think that partnerships, well, it's interesting because I think partnerships have been going on for a really long time. Sharon was just reading a book about like Bobby Hundreds and how important partnerships were for them. So I think it's definitely been like a concept that has been out there.
• 22:34
  for a while. I think that social media in the last 5 years have really elevated what it means to do partnerships. But I think that they're definitely really, really important for any brand. It's such an easy way to work together in a mutually beneficial partnership for both brands.
• 22:50
  to access new customers, to add something like a little bit new and unique. Like you can either do something simple like a collaboration. I guess that's the more advanced. You can do something simple like a giveaway or you could do something really advanced like a collaboration. But there's so many different ways to work with, you know, other brands or individuals. And I think that it definitely brings a lot to the business.
• 23:12
  Yeah, for sure. For sure. I saw your recent collaboration. I've just forgotten her name, but it was on your Instagram and it was looking, yeah, it was looking really cool. She looks amazing. What are you guys doing now in your marketing that's working really well for you? And where is the business, you know, today?
• 23:31
  I think there's multiple things that are working really well for us at the moment. We have a really, really strong product pipeline. And one thing that's really kind of in our favor is we're in a category where there aren't that many options and there aren't that many brands. So a lot of the products that we offer are kind of...
• 23:49
  It's like a new, it's like an innovative product. Not a lot of people have access to it. So I think that's one thing that works really well for us. And then number two is we have this extremely sticky community. We call them the INH Babes. And it's like a Facebook private VIP group. And in this INH Babe group, they're just talking about how much they love INH and they're showing each other their collections and they're uplifting one another. And I think that's probably my favorite thing is that they're,
• 24:16
  cheering each other on. We have a lot of stories come out there being like, hey, I'm a busy mom. I just had a baby and I forgot to take care of myself. Like I forgot what it felt like to pamper myself. And I recently invested in some INH buns and ponytails and I feel so beautiful. And I'm so grateful for this group for encouraging me. Things like that is just like,
• 24:37
  Like, wow, you know, it's a feel good moment. And we have a lot of those moments that are happening. And then Jordan can speak a little bit more on this side, but our retention funnels have just been, I just, a lot of brands I talk to, they're not even touching SMS. SMS is the way to go. Like the conversion rate on SMS is just wild. Yeah.
• 24:54
  And we're just constantly A-B testing new platforms and optimizing, optimizing, optimizing. Even our website, we're working with an optimization agency and they're showing us like, hey, like add a order bump here at checkout. This will help you increase your AOV. Little things like that. I think that's working in our favor. We're...
• 25:12
  really flexible. And I don't know if it's because Jordan and I are from like startup background, we're like very fearless when it comes to trying things out. And if it doesn't work, you just cut it. If it works, you just go even harder and you optimize it even more. But yeah, that's kind of what's been working for us.
• 25:27
  I think the other thing that's been really unique for the I&H team that's been working well is that we have a really young team. Almost the entire team just graduated college or are still in college. When we first started hiring people, it was literally me, Sharon, and Kevin. And we had two other hires who had had jobs previously, more senior hires, and everybody else was an intern. And I think that having a lot of really young people on the team who are really ambitious,
• 25:52
  they're baby entrepreneurs, I think is really helpful because they're really innovative. And they're always thinking like outside of the box. And they're not coming from like another background where, okay, this is like how you do something. They're literally just like free balling it. And we should try this. And I think that that's like makes the marketing like really unique and fresh.
• 26:11
  Yeah, they haven't been molded and like groomed is the wrong word, but they haven't worked in a company where they've been groomed into a role. They're able to just like be fresh with their ideas and thought process. That's really cool. I love that. You're baby entrepreneurs. When you mentioned this SMS marketing, what do you mean specifically? Like, are you just sending out text messages or is it a text message chat where people reach out? What is it?
• 26:34
  We have like a multi prong approach on SMS. We have and like Sharon said, we've tried a lot of different platforms because it is like the wild, wild west right now with SMS because it's so new. Right now we're with attentive and they've been a really good platform.
• 26:49
  good partner for us. They've been building out a ton of new features, like they're optimizing really quickly. But we're pretty deep in our flows. We have a lot of auto-triggered flows for pretty much any instance that SMS provides right now, which is like browse banning, card abandon, post-purchase. And then we also do a ton of campaigns, but we do a lot of A-B testing. Every single message that we send,
• 27:14
  in email and SMS is A-B tested. And we're always A-B testing either something like send times or the actual content, like picture, no picture, like how strong is the CTA? Is there no CTA? Is it coming from sharing? Is it coming from another customer?
• 27:31
  So I think that we've had a lot of big learnings there. And the return per message is insane. Like you're making like probably 20x right now on the cost per message. And so they're doing like really, really well. And it's been a really fun platform to kind of play with, especially because there's not a ton of people in SMS yet.
• 27:52
  Wow, that's so cool. That's really unexpected. I wouldn't have thought that like SMS would be like such huge returns. It's so interesting. And yeah, really cool that you get to play around with all the different kind of campaigns and stuff that you're sending out at the moment. What advice do you both have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own thing?
• 28:14
  I think for me is just go for it. This is like the classic, just do it. You could so easily get stuck in this. I'm so scared of this. I'm so scared of this. Like, what if this happened? What if this happens? Just jump in the pool and you'll figure it out as the days go on.
• 28:30
  And I think knowing that those fears are everybody has them. Even when Sharon and I launched INH, I know Sharon was really scared. She got over it a lot faster than me. But it took me a while. It is really, really scary to start something new and make a jump in a different direction. And I think that when you accept everybody feels this way, I think it'd be really rare for an entrepreneur just to be like, well, I'm not even worried about it. But
• 28:58
  That's just not going to happen. And so I think that realizing that the fear is like totally normal. And then when you jump into it, like giving it your all, because I think that at the very beginning, when you're launching a brand, like it takes all these little baby steps and it's like, it doesn't actualize into like this big thing. Like it's not like you're just like making hundreds of people.
• 29:17
  of dollars or even hundreds of dollars overnight. When we first launched INH, we were doing a one or two sales a day for a month. It was pretty minimal. And so it takes all these tiny, tiny building blocks and it's so slow to come to fruition. But you just have to believe the entire time that what you're doing is making a difference and not get lax and just be going... I know everybody said that entrepreneurs are working 24-7 and it's the
• 29:47
  Yeah. And I think something that's like super critical in the thinking is just compound effect. Like if you just take those small steps every day, eventually like things are going to start to like snowball. But if you don't take those small steps, then of course there's nothing that's going to snowball for sure.
• 30:05
  We are up to the six quick questions that I ask to every woman that I speak to. Usually when I have two co-founders on the show, I'll just run through the six questions like with you, Jordan, for example, and then Sharon will go afterwards with you. So question number one, Jordan, what's your why?
• 30:23
  My why? I think I love building brands and building like, I'm going to still share in the why. But I love like the building, like the sticky aspects and like interacting with a customer and like the surprise and delight of learning who they are and what they want and then making it for them.
• 30:46
  For sure. That's nice. Question number two is, and we've kind of touched on this already, but what's been the number one marketing moment that made your business pop? Yeah, I would say, um, like I said, Ariana Grande was really big. And then I think when we first kind of like hacked our performance marketing, we were like, okay, like we get how this works.
• 31:07
  What do you mean when you hacked your performance marketing? On paid marketing, like Facebook and Instagram marketing, it takes a little while to figure out what you're doing because the content that you need is so particular for each brand and so different for each brand. And so we started off with a really small spend and then we were just doing a bunch of testing and it wasn't really taking off until it did. And then it made a really big difference.
• 31:33
  Got it. Cool. Amazing. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? I try to hang out with smarter people just generally. My boyfriend has a ton of really smart friends. Sharon and I have some smart friends. And we also reach out a lot to like other founders or other business people just like cold turkey to see if they'll be our friend because I think that just talking to other people in the space is the best thing you can do.
• 31:59
  Agreed. Story of my life, what I'm doing right now. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and your PM rituals that keep you feeling happy, motivated and successful.
• 32:12
  I think one of my biggest things in taking time to go on a walk in the morning with my dog, I think a big part of that is because then she's like chill for the day. So I don't have anxiety. But then also having a cup of coffee. If I do not have my coffee in the morning, I'm like a zombie throughout the day. And then the whole day I'm thinking like, why do you suck? Like, why are you so like just not engaged? And then I have a coffee and I'm like, oh, no, you're fine. You just need some caffeine.
• 32:36
  Um, I think that's really big. And then getting enough sleep. I am such a baby in every definition. Like I have to get eight or nine hours of sleep and people always used to be like, that's insane. But I'm like, no, if I don't get eight or nine hours, then I'm just not like happy the next day. But we're both the same. We're both completely out by like 10pm, like no texting, no responsing. Like we're just completely unresponsive, but then we'll both be awake by like five or six.
• 33:02
  Oh my gosh, that's so early. I wish I was getting up at five. I'm the same though. If I don't sleep eight hours minimum, I mean, I'm pretty rough the next day. And also if I sleep like a really like less than six, for example, I feel like nauseous. It really like rocks me. I'm pro on the big sleep factor. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank
• 33:31
  I think Sharon and I saw that maybe he sent this question or something and Sharon and I were like, wow, that's tough. We were really going back and forth on this. It's going to be hard because a lot of our questions are going to be similar. But I think we both were like, I think we would do influencer marketing because the cost is technically just like, like if you're just gifting, if you just did the cost to go to the product and you made sure you gave it to people who were for sure going to post it, I think that that would go the farthest.
• 34:01
  Yep, for sure. And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? And it's around your mindset or your personal experiences.
• 34:10
  I think that I don't, I don't know if it's like a cheat, but I feel like I don't really like believe in failure. I think I'm somebody who, um, I rebound very, very quickly and I don't ever like think about something as a failure on my part. I think of it as just like a learning and I'm kind of like, Oh, well that was like, that was maybe a big one or a steep one, but I don't ever feel like I failed in something. I think that
• 34:35
  you're like always growing and learning and, and to, to tell yourself that, that you failed or just be being really, really hard on yourself. And so I'm, I try to give myself the benefit of the doubt and just, well, that was a big learning curve. Love that. Amazing. Thank you so much. Sharon, your turn. Question number one. My turn. It's going to be challenging.
• 34:58
  What is your why? Like Jordan said, the why is definitely the community aspect of it. But I think also number two, and I could probably speak for Jordan too, because we talk about this all the time, is just growth. We both love learning and growing so much. And every day we just learn something new. When we both started INH, like we didn't know what the P&L was. I remember her and I would be texting and be like, what is the P&L? How do you read this? So the growth and learning aspect is just, that's my why. Like I love it.
• 35:28
  love that and another one that I bet Sharon and I would both agree on is the team oh yeah the team oh my gosh yeah we love the team yeah how big are you guys now we have about like 15 to like 20 people now
• 35:44
  Oh, wow. Cool. And lots of fun vibes, I bet. Yeah, we have an amazing team. Yeah, it's really fun. And like everyone's really young. So they're very moldable and like receptive and they take feedback really well. And then they also have that fiery energy. So whenever an example is on launch days, we treat them kind of like we're like launching off a rocket ship. And we'll like count down until launch day. And everyone's like giving updates, like X people on the site.
• 36:11
  X people on the site, like we're at blah, blah, blah revenue. We're blah, blah. So it's just like a very fiery, passionate energy. Yeah. It sounds like you're all in the trenches together, like really into it. Question number two is in your opinion, what's been the number one marketing moment that made the business pop?
• 36:29
  I think the number one marketing moment for INH has just been the love and support from the influencer community. They have just been such rock stars. And I also think a part of it is because of the product offering itself. We just have a very unique product and there just aren't that many brands out there offering it. And a good example is for beauty brands, influencers have hundreds and hundreds of products and brands that they could pick from. But from INH on the hair side, there's only so many. So the love and support has just been amazing.
• 36:59
  Yeah, that's so incredible. And I think developing a product that influencers naturally gravitate towards is just such a key thing to, you know, maybe you don't think about that in the early days, but like looking back in hindsight, it's just like incredible. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter?
• 37:17
  Instagram. I'm constantly DMing people. It's completely fearless. I don't care. Shameless. But I'm like DMing big entrepreneurs and CEOs. Like an example is Toni Ko. She launched NYX Cosmetics and she sold it to L'Oreal for $300 million or something crazy like that. And she's like a fellow Korean entrepreneur, fellow female. So I just cold DMed her and was just like, I'm a huge fan of you. I really look up to you. I would love to meet with you. And
• 37:46
  We got coffee and now we hang out quite often. So Instagram for sure. Love that. And I love going in with that, like the no fear of rejection. You're like, well, worse can happen. They don't reply. Question number four is how do you win the day?
• 38:05
  How do I win the day? Sleep early. I'm a really early sleeper. I also wake up really early. That one hour to two hour period in the morning when the world is basically asleep has just been such a blessing because you could just get really concentrated focus in. I feel like during the day when you have meetings back to back to back, it's really hard to really focus in on anything. So I get a lot of my deep, clear thinking done in the mornings.
• 38:31
  You're part of that 5am club. I am. I am. I wish I was part of that club. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in the business bank account, where would you spend it? I feel like Jordan already mentioned this. We actually talked about it. 100% just gifting. Also, I think one key with gifting is just don't cold ship anything. Build the relationship. If you only have a thousand dollars, like you want to, you want,
• 38:58
  and I hope that they're for sure going to post it. So for example, is there's this beauty brand called Esker Beauty out there and they actually DM'd me and I DM'd them back and I was like, wow, I really love what you guys are doing. Like body care is like really popular, blah, blah, blah. And they were like, we would love to send you a package, blah, blah, blah. They sent me the package. I love the product. I DM'd them back. I'm like, I really love it, blah, blah, blah. And then they DM'd me back and they were like, we would love to do like an affiliate thing for you. And I was like, honestly, like you guys are a small business. Like I don't even want a commission off of it. Just give me a discount code and I'll try to convert people
• 39:28
  So because I truly believe in the brand. So building that relationship where I get like this FaceTime and like personal connection with the founder has just been I think is just super powerful. Absolutely. For sure. Question number six. Final question is how do you deal with failure?
• 39:48
  So I don't really deal with failure because I'm a constant fixer. It's my toxic but also positive personality trait. It's extremely exhausting for the people around me, but I'm constantly fixing, making better, optimizing. So there's no such thing as failure for me. It's just a learning curve. You get on with it. And also...
• 40:08
  hot yoga has been kind of been my personal self therapy where I get to talk through a lot of my emotions and feelings with myself where I ask myself like, why did that bother you? Like, what about that? Can you do better next time? Things like that. And then after I feel it's just so much better because you're just not emotionally charged that point. You're not emotionally charged at that point. So yeah, hot yoga.
• 40:32
  Love that. Love it. Wow. You guys, thank you so much for being on the show. I have loved learning about your brand and everything that's been going on. And I'm a big cheerleader on the sidelines for what you're doing. Um, so thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. Oh, and what products should everyone be checking out on your website? What's the number one bestseller?
• 40:57
  I'm going to say The Waver, which is our newest or first hot tool. And then second is our clip in Lola ponytail. Amazing. We will be sure to link them in the show notes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good day.
• 41:18
  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.
• 41:42
  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.
• 42:05
  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.
• 42:21
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 42:46
  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.
• 43:08
  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. Thank you.