Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Dancer turned entrepreneur, Nude Barre Founder Erin Carpenter started her company with $3,000 of her savings. Now Serena Williams is an investor.

Transcript

Dancer turned entrepreneur, Nude Barre Founder Erin Carpenter started her company with $3,000 of her savings. Now Serena Williams is an investor. · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Erin Carpenter for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone and welcome back. It's me, Dune, your host and Hype Girl. Today on the show, we're learning from Erin Carpenter, the dancer turned entrepreneur behind Nude Bar. Nude Bar.
• 0:26
  She bootstrapped this business for a good 10 years before things really started to get interesting. We talk about that 10-year grind to overnight success, the investment she got from Serena Williams, and one thing to remember about affiliates. If you don't know, Nude Bar is a high-performing bodywear brand redefining the concept of nude.
• 0:50
  They carry the widest shade range on the market, leading the conversation around inclusivity and authentic representation in fashion today, and was born from the first-hand frustrations and colorism that Erin experienced. Growing up as a Black woman and dancer, she experienced years of hardships finding hosiery that matched her skin tone, often spending hours dyeing her tights and pancaking her shoes to meet the industry's requirement of nude undergarments.
• 1:19
  One more quick thing before we jump into the show. I don't know about you, but I like emails. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a good scroll. We send a weekly newsletter out every Monday, and here's why I think you should sign up. First of all, one, if you're interested in these founder stories, we put the key insights from every episode in there so you can easily go back from what's been on the week before.
• 1:46
  Two, even if you're not an entrepreneur, it's interesting. Like we have different job opportunities from female-founded companies. We have books that you might like to read. We have industry news about female-founded companies in the industry. And three,
• 2:02
  We drop in all the resources and links you need from the episodes so you can easily access them on the go. So if you're into emails like me, it's free. You can go to femalestartupclub.com to check it out and sign up. Okay, let's get into this episode. This is Erin for Female Startup Club. Erin, hey, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here and to chat with you.
• 2:32
  Yes, me too. I'm excited to learn from you today. Thank you so much for joining us. I always get our guests to start by introducing themselves and explaining what the business is.
• 2:45
  Yes, so I'm Erin Carpenter. I am the founder of Nude Bar. And Nude Bar is a line of bodywear, intimates, and hosiery, really designed to represent the diverse world that we live in. Ultimately, we make 12 beautiful hues or nude shades to really represent all types of women from fair, medium, and deeper or darker skin tones.
• 3:09
  based on many bad experiences that I had shopping for nude that did not match me. Yeah, let's go back to those experiences that you were having. I read that you started this brand quite some time ago, circa 2009. So let's go back to the lead up to 2009. What was happening in your life that led you down the pathway of becoming an entrepreneur,
• 3:40
  Yes. So, you know, I had these reoccurring, you know, things come up in this specific category. So first was when I was about 16, 17 years old. I got into a program in Washington, D.C., where I grew up at the Kennedy Center, where nude or flesh tone tights were required for a dance program that I was a part of in partnership with the Dance Theater of Harlem, which is a ballet company in New York City.
• 4:10
  And so it was a pretty selective process in terms of, you know, 10 girls and 10 boys in the DC metropolitan area would get selected every year. And one of the requirements was to have nude or flesh toned tights and shoes and underwear as a part of your uniform, along with your black leotard. And so I went to, you know, my local dance stores to purchase these items. And they always had nude that came in beige or to represent white skinned.
• 4:40
  you know, beige, I'm not a beige person. So I just went to class with those items because that was all that I could find. And I felt that, well, you know, this is what they asked me to purchase. So I show up and I was asked to sit out of class because I was not in uniform.
• 4:56
  And so that's really embarrassing. And this is like a part of the dance discipline where if you are in trouble or you're not uniform or you took a misstep, then you're asked to sit out of class. So I asked the teacher at the end of class
• 5:11
  Well, you know, what could I have done to be in uniform? I explained to her, you know, my shopping process. And she said, oh, no, you didn't take enough of the steps. You needed to dye your tights to match your skin. You needed to pat makeup foundation onto your shoes, which we call pancaking in the industry. You need to do these things as a regular part of your regimen to be in uniform and to have the proper nude makeup.
• 5:32
  undergarments, tights and shoes. And I was just like, mind blown that this was what was required of me. But this became a part of my everyday life moving forward since I was a teenager. Wow, that is so intense. And just, I mean, I have no words, obviously, this crazy, totally crazy. Yeah.
• 5:56
  Is it at that time that you think about starting this business or is this when something just gets, you know, a seed is planted? Like, hey, there's something missing here. Like I need to keep looking or like surely there's a solution. Surely someone's doing this.
• 6:10
  Yeah, so it was more so that there was a seed planted where I was like, I have to get to the bottom of this. Like, this is crazy. And ultimately, as I moved along in my career and got older, this is something that artists, you know, not just dancers, but actors and various performers were complaining about.
• 6:27
  regularly behind the scenes. It wasn't just unique to dance only. And it wasn't unique to even just black dancers, like even white dancers or performers were saying like, well, the nude on the market maybe is too dark for me. And I'm really, really fair skin or, you know, generally people were complaining about this. And so I just couldn't really understand how
• 6:49
  why no one, at least in the performance wear space, wasn't doing something about this or making better solutions. And ultimately, after years of chatting with various artists about this and even chatting with everyday women, like my mom, who was a computer programmer, working in more of like a corporate America,
• 7:10
  experience or environment where she needed to wear a white button down blouse at work or a suit with a skirt, she wasn't finding nude that worked for her either. So if she wore a beige bra underneath a white shirt, it would show through her shirt. She needed nude that actually came in her skin tone. It's actually the proper wardrobe option. And so as these reoccurring complaints were happening, I started digging deeper as like,
• 7:37
  why is nude just beige? Like, what is that rooted in? Like, why is that something that we're talking about as like one color? And ultimately, the conclusion that I came to is that, you know, the standard of beauty and, you know, what it looks like in terms of like white, skinny, you know, tall, all of these things are pretty rooted in systemic racism and even colorism.
• 8:00
  And this idea that the hierarchy or the standard of beauty is this one prototype of a person is just, it comes from those roots, right? And so therefore, manufacturers and brands haven't really thought outside of the box in terms of everyone else and what the actual world looks like. And so that's where in 2009, I said, you know what, I want to launch this. I want to launch this.
• 8:26
  I had graduated college, I had a BFA in ballet, so I had spent a lot of time in the dance industry already. I had been connecting a lot with wardrobe stylists and costume designers pretty often. And they were all like, oh, I really wish there was a solution to this. So 2009, I decided to move forward with just incorporating and figuring it out.
• 8:51
  So how do you like go about figuring that out? Like, what does that look like in reality to bringing this brand to life? Yeah. So bringing the brand to life, you know, first started with just talking to the consumer, right. Or who I felt was the consumer. So, you know, people in my dance community, as well as, you know, other everyday women outside of my mom who were also in corporate environments. And then, you know,
• 9:20
  From there, I realized, okay, I need to incorporate. I can write off some of these
• 9:26
  things that I'm, you know, supplies that I'm utilizing in order to get things going. And then from there, I, as I was talking to people, a lot of introductions were made. So a friend of mine had a business mentor that was starting an incubator and was looking for more female founders to join it. So that kind of snowballed into, you know, that relationship leading me to pitching investors,
• 9:52
  and so on and so forth. But ultimately, it just started with talking to my community, understanding what the product need was, and spending a lot of time on product development. I read you started with something like $3,000 of your savings. What did that actually go towards, and how far did that get you into launch or into building the business?
• 10:15
  Yeah. So I started with $3,000 of my, my dancer savings really specifically from a American airlines commercial that I was, you know, getting residual checks from. And, um,
• 10:30
  Ultimately, I started with that because that's what I had to start with. So when I got into this incubator program, this particular mentor was guiding me with how to pitch investors. And I started with angel investors. And majority of them were white men and didn't really understand what I was trying to build and really had this perspective that,
• 10:56
  Well, if no one has, it seems like such a simple idea. And if no one has done it before, then why? Then it probably isn't needed. It probably isn't something that is required on the market. And I try to tell that story, you know, a lot as to why it was needed, why it was important and why this beauty standard was this way and all of these things. But ultimately, they just, they weren't getting it. And so I did meet with one female angel investor and,
• 11:23
  And she said, honestly, I think that you need to just start it out of your apartment with as minimal money as you can and just like build a little bit of traction and then go back into, you know, the market of pitching to investors and fundraising and see where that gets you. So, yeah.
• 11:41
  I started with that $3,000 and I bought my first batch of inventory. I essentially went like door-to-door salesman style. Like I always had tights in my bag. I was still performing. And I would have in my dance bag, you know, samples and tights and swatches and all these things that I'd be showing other dancers and trying to connect with like the wardrobe people for whatever project I might be working on. And I've just kind of sold that way. I picked up the phone and called people. I called every NFL dancer.
• 12:09
  dance team, cheer team in the country to see if they would want to purchase the product. And I really just started really specific with like the entertainment industry with the little bit that I had.
• 12:21
  That is so cool. And I feel like it's something that people often forget is like hand-to-hand combat, like just going like one person at a time. You can truly get your first thousand customers by doing that. It doesn't need to be, I need to reach millions of people overnight. It's like, hey, just start by actually doing,
• 12:41
  going one customer at a time, going and finding that one person and speaking to them face to face and being like, would you be interested in this product? Like, do you need this product? And it's like, as simple as that. I love that. Where did you actually get the product from? How did you develop and manufacture the product in the beginning when it wasn't something that was out there?
• 13:03
  Yeah, so I first just started with sending, like finding various fabric samples of colors that I wanted, like to build out the color palette. And even before that, like building out the color palette, I started.
• 13:17
  surveyed a bunch of, you know, women and came up with, you know, various makeup foundations, essentially, that I felt, you know, would build out the diverse palette that I wanted to create. And then I either found fabrics that were similar to those shades, or I dyed them myself, I had dye experience from
• 13:36
  you know, my earlier days as a dancer having to dye my type. So I even bought a lot of dyes and would like, you know, create these colors myself. But ultimately, that's what I would send as like my tech pack essentially to these manufacturers and say, hey, these are the colors that I'm trying to make. And this is the product that I'm trying to make. And I took a lot of,
• 13:55
  you know, stressful energy of like, okay, can you tweak this? Can you change that? And product development is like really, really stressful. I feel for, especially a first time founder, it's like, you think you're communicating something and then you're not getting what you think you're getting, what you thought you were going to get. And I don't know. So anyway,
• 14:14
  I went through that whole process, but, you know, ultimately it was a lot of lift on my end and I'm, you know, I don't have at all an apparel background and manufacturing background. So I was just like piecing the puzzle pieces together on my own, you know, to the best of my ability, because I felt so, you know, driven to solve this problem. I felt so moved that this, this needed to be solved, you know, even though it didn't exist.
• 14:41
  What's kind of the next phase of this business for you? Like obviously the early days, maybe the first year, the second year, you're doing that hand-to-hand combat. You're reaching out, you're picking up the phone. When does it start to become like a little bit of a snowball where people are coming to you and the table kind of turns? I would say that shift started happening when we got our first celebrity, you know, customer slash influencer. So yeah.
• 15:10
  I founded in 2009. I spent a couple of years figuring out the whole manufacturing process. And then I didn't launch anything until late 2011. And around then my mom was like, you know, you should send stuff to Wendy Williams, the talk show host. She's always wearing fishnets. She wears this brand called Wolford all the time. You know, it's really great brand, but maybe you should send her your stuff.
• 15:34
  And I thought, there's no way she's going to change from like this high end luxury brand to mine. But fine, I'll just send her a package. And I wrote a pretty personal letter, like telling my story, why I'm doing this. And a couple of weeks later, she, you know, her wardrobe team called and she became a customer. She's still a customer to this day.
• 15:54
  And we're like in the credits of the TV show and everything. But what's awesome about that is that I sent this first box for free. They call and they purchase, you know, like fully purchased for the season, what she's wearing every year. And she posts every day on social media, what she's wearing, tagging all the brands from head to toe, like even back then in 2012. And she posts on her website, linking like every product she has on, like,
• 16:21
  you know, specifically what she's wearing. So we started getting a lot of referral traffic, you know, from, I mean, I had like a landing page at the time I didn't even have like an e-commerce website, you know, formally. So therefore it was like, come to the landing page and then I call my phone number basically and I'm going to answer it.
• 16:38
  So that was when we started first getting like people coming to us. And then also other celebrities started reaching out saying, hey, I saw Wendy in your product. Tyra Banks stylist reached out. I saw Wendy wearing your fishnets. We love them. Can we get them for Tyra and Laverne Cox? And so that kind of started happening because of that moment, because of her.
• 16:57
  Holy moly. That's so cool. And like the lesson here for everyone listening is like, you've just got to try. You've just got to put yourself out there. If you think like, Hey, you know, what's the worst that can happen? Maybe it's a no, maybe it goes nowhere, but maybe it's a yes. And maybe it's a big yes in a big way that really gets things going. That's incredible.
• 17:19
  Wow. Oh my gosh. I love that. So you get with Wendy or you get your product with Wendy. She opens lots of doors. What gear are we talking? Like where are we at in the journey at this point? Yeah. So this was in 2012. I'm still bootstrapping by the way. Are you working like another job or are you full-time on this?
• 17:49
  Slowing down with my performance dance career. So I, you know, at that time, I kind of had an agent and I would kind of, you know, pick and choose auditions that I wanted to go to and like kind of per gig opportunities. So like a commercial that I would shoot for 48 hours and then, you know, be done basically.
• 18:06
  But other than that, I was also teaching bar fitness classes. I would teach early mornings and evenings and weekends. I would teach anywhere from like 15 to 20 classes a week. And then I would run the business during business hours during the day, Monday through Friday or any other off time that I had. But I was like shipping and packing and, you know, stuffing envelopes and running to UPS, USPS, to answering literally the phone number that customers would be calling, like literally doing all the things.
• 18:35
  And then trying to figure out how I could place the next order for inventory with, I don't know, a little bit of money that I had. Griping it together from the different accounts and the different jobs and all that kind of thing. Got it. Wow. Okay. So that's 2012. And then...
• 18:55
  There's obviously, like we're working towards this point in the story that gets to like 2018 when something really big happens for you. But I'm kind of wanting to fill in the gaps from like 2012 to 2018 before that happens. When is it that you like quit your job? When is it that you're kind of like, hey, I can fully focus on this now. It's really a vibe. Honestly, not until...
• 19:20
  like closer to 2019 is when I was able to like step back from those things or those extracurricular activities, if you will. And so I guess, you know, a bit of fast forwarding is that in 2018, I got pregnant with my first child and I was like, okay, I need to figure out what I'm going to do because I'm
• 19:44
  I could teach up into a certain point, like from the bootstrapping perspective, but at some point I'm going to have to stop doing that because I'm going to like have to recover from giving birth. Right. So, um, you know, I knew I needed to start pitching investors and I kind of had been off and on, you know, over the years, but still nothing was like snowballing. Nothing was happening where, you know, still kind of similarly, either people didn't understand the problem that I was solving. Um, yeah.
• 20:12
  even though I was starting to have, you know, celebrities and influencers and some traction, you know, there was still this question of like, well, is it enough traction? And I mean, I, you know, I find at least in the conversations I have with other black female founders, this is constantly a theme where it's like, okay, you don't have any traction or you need to prove the concept. And then you have some traction that's like, well, then it's not enough traction. So I felt like I was constantly chasing this, like,
• 20:39
  benchmark of where I needed to be and not really hitting it when it came to pitching investors. Are you able to share like what was your traction at that point? Like what kind of revenue were you doing in the year or like how many customers did you have? Yeah. So, you know, we were in pretty early days. So like, you know,
• 21:00
  earlier six figures is around where we were around those days around the time. That's a lot still like it's still, I mean, people were kind of still wanting us to be at like a million in revenue. And I was like,
• 21:14
  do you understand that I started with $3,000? Like, yeah. And also it's like not a high priced product. It's still, you're selling, you're moving a lot of units. Right. Even if you're in six figures, like you're still moving a lot of units. Like what other kind of traction can you want? Okay. Got it. So you're in that situation and then you meet a certain someone and things start to change. Yeah. And so,
• 21:41
  In 2018, during my pregnancy, and, you know, I'm like still like hustling and bustling plus pitching, you know, whoever I can meet. Really random, we get this order for Serena Williams on our D2C channel. And eventually, you know, a conversation started because...
• 22:00
  we sold out of her SKU that she needed for one of her tennis matches. This was like in the middle of her tennis season. And the question was around like, well, when are you restocking? And I had to explain like, well, you know, I'm bootstrapping and this is how I'm bootstrapping. And basically, if I could save up enough money to get this particular SKU, that's kind of how it goes. And I have to do a lot of the analyzing of the data to decide, you know, pick and choose what SKUs are going to be restocked.
• 22:30
  And ultimately that, you know, always had us in a position where we were sold out of things all the time, which is obviously a bit frustrating to the customer. But that is the reason why it's just like there wasn't like a ton of outside capital, if you will, that was coming in to support that. So anyway, you know, that conversation led into, you know, well, would Serena be interested in investing? I just, you know, asked and like shot my shot. No way. Oh, my God. Yeah. And so.
• 22:57
  Around that same time, that conversation led into them, you know, suggesting I apply for a pitch competition that Serena was doing in partnership with Whitney Wolf Hurd from Bumble, the dating app. And so Bumble, the fund, and Serena Ventures were coming together to invest in Black female founders. I thought this was like not going anywhere like that. I mean, this was like posted on social media and everything.
• 23:24
  I'm sure thousands of people applied for this. So, you know, I just thought I was going to get lost in the shuffle. And I went through several rounds of like, you know, conversations and as a part of the process, as did the other finalists. But I made it as, you know, one of the top three finalists and eventually won the investment. And they were my first investors in. That is so cool. How much was the investment? How much did you win? I can't share.
• 23:53
  Oh, okay. Right. Sorry. Got it. Got it. Got it. You know what I think is funny? And we've spoken about this on the show before is like, everyone thinks that it's just like overnight success, but actually it literally takes 10 years to reach overnight success. And I feel, I feel like that's probably how you're viewed. Like now you've got this amazing celebrity partner. You've got people who
• 24:16
  you know, obviously celebrities that wear you, you're doing all these amazing things, but you've been hustling at this since 2009, which is, I don't know, a long bloody time. Gosh, that's great perseverance. And I mean, people, you know, a lot of times when I do talk to other founders about that, they're like, you're crazy to like, keep doing this for so long. But
• 24:41
  I feel so like my company is very mission driven and what we do. And I feel so compelled to like truly solve this problem of nude being more inclusive that, I don't know, I don't feel like it's,
• 24:58
  like crazy. Yeah. You don't feel like it's been that like long period of time. Like I want to do it. Yeah, totally. So, okay. So this is 2019. You win the competition and then what do you use that money for? Is it like investing in new stock and marketing or is it new product development? What's kind of the roadmap after that and how have things changed since then?
• 25:24
  Yeah, so I definitely invested in some inventory because we knew that between, you know, some PR opportunities that were coming up, that there was just going to be, you know, an opportunity for the brand to get some exposure. And like, obviously, we need to have inventory for that. So I did spend a little bit on inventory. I did start, you know, I had.
• 25:46
  you know, some part-timers and 1099ers, but I started having more hours, you know, as the business is getting busier. And so that it wasn't all on me because, you know, keep in mind that I'm still, my firstborn was born in 2018. So I'm still like a new mom, essentially, and kind of juggling that as well. So, you know, getting additional help on the team front and then also
• 26:10
  yes, investing a little bit in marketing. We started kind of early on testing like really small amounts on, you know, digital marketing. So Facebook and Instagram and Google. Wow. Gosh, that's so cool. Fast forward to today. I love to talk about your marketing approach now. What's working for you? How do you acquire new people, new customers, and kind of further spread that good work?
• 26:36
  Yes. So organic is actually really huge for us. You know, and I mean, most of the life cycle of the company has been organic. And for us, our biggest channel is Instagram because seeing is believing, right? Being able to see the color and how it maybe matches a person and you might connect with that person, the shade that they are and the body type that they are. Because we're not just inclusive in skin tone. We're also inclusive in sizing. We go from children's sizes up to size.
• 27:04
  a 4X, 5X, which fits up to 350 pounds and 6'5". So literally, we like to showcase so many body types and different types of humans, non-binary, et cetera. And so we're able to do that pretty easily on our organic Instagram. But other than that, obviously, we play in all the paid digital channels. Affiliate marketing has actually been a really great place for us to play as well.
• 27:32
  And then influencers, of course. When you say affiliate marketing, do you mean like a referral program? Yeah, essentially. So, you know, when we're we use affiliate marketing in twofold. So one is working with an influencer and, you know, they maybe get a percentage of the revenue or revenue share. And then the other side of it is that some media outlets will also want you to be under an affiliate network as well.
• 28:03
  so that they can post your brand or talk about your brand. So we kind of, it kind of works in two folds for us. Ah, that's clever. So kind of like if, you know, I'm just pulling someone out of the hat here, publisher like Refinery29 partners with you, they become kind of an editorial slash advertorial partner and then
• 28:24
  they drive the commissions through your site. That's so clever. I always think of affiliates in terms of the influencer side of things, but I forget that publisher angle, which is so key to keep in mind for everyone listening. What do you think is important advice or your top piece of advice for entrepreneurs coming into 2022? I mean, you know, the biggest,
• 28:46
  thing for my brand, you know, as we talked about earlier, it's just perseverance, right? And obviously we're in such wild times in the world and just life in general. So, you know, things are different, things are confusing, things are more challenging in various ways, but, you know, just pushing through and persevering and just talking to other founders. I mean, that's such a
• 29:16
  What to do next, I ping other founders within my community and say, hey, have you tried this? Are you dealing with this? How have you solved this problem is always really helpful. So definitely perseverance and asking for help and support.
• 29:33
  I mean, I'm so with you. We, as part of Female Startup Club, we started a private network for women who are in e-commerce entrepreneurship, DTC, CPG, that kind of thing. And I just learned so much from asking other people like, hey, how are you doing this? Because I forgot to tell you this earlier, but I'm also through this journey of Female Startup Club, I'm building a non-alcoholic company and it's,
• 29:58
  in development at the moment. It's of course taking a lot longer than I thought, a lot more expensive than I thought, but I'm learning so much through this, you know, peer to peer network by being like, how are you doing? How are you trademarking the brand? What lawyer did you use? Like, how much should I be paying? Like all these things that I just had no clue about. It's so true. You need to surround yourself with other people who are a few steps ahead of you to get those bits of gold.
• 30:26
  Oh gosh, this was so fun. At the end of every episode, I asked a series of six quick questions, some of which we might've covered, some of which we might not have, but I asked them all the same. Question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? Yes, my why has evolved over time. But the main why is really
• 30:50
  You know, I think about the girl, the younger girl that I was and the bad experiences that I had shopping for products that represented me and what that made me feel in terms of how beautiful I might be or, you know, my self-esteem and things of that nature. And so I really hope to change that for women and girls, for them to see products that represent them, to feel that they're worthy to shop in this store or that store. And so I really hope to change that for women and girls, for them to see products that
• 31:20
  And to just have, you know, other views of what beauty is. And, you know, I guess the way that that has evolved is I'm a mom of a little girl now, a brown girl. And I hope that by the time she's old enough to shop for products like this, she won't even have a thought that's like, oh, am I beautiful? Because there's already products that represent her. She's there. And she should know that she's worthy of shopping there, being there, being in whatever room that she's in.
• 31:49
  Oh my gosh, amazing. Literally changing the world. I love it. Question number two is, what's been the number one marketing moment that's made the business pop? I feel like there's been a few. So, I mean, Wendy Williams would be, you know, one piece of it.
• 32:06
  But I mean, so much has happened since then. We've been on Good Morning America and that was huge for us. I just was live on HSN and that was like a huge moment. You know, ultimately I would say any visibility that's been like TV type of PR driven have been really huge for us for growing the brand. Yeah, amazing. I can only imagine. Gosh, Good Morning America, that's a good one.
• 32:32
  Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What books are you reading, podcasts, newsletters that other founders should know about? Yes. So, you know, honestly, I spend a lot of time on social media following other founders. And then when I hit certain points in my journey, I'm like, oh, I saw that this founder was dealing with X, Y, Z. I literally DM.
• 33:02
  And a lot of times I then become friends with those people, right? To where we're now text messaging and, you know, can have the back and forth of like, oh, are you trying this? Are you doing this? Or we may hop on a monthly Zoom, you know, things of that sort. And then I'm also in just various like women, female founder, entrepreneur communities that, you know, I've joined to kind of stay in the know of things and feel like I have some sort of community community.
• 33:29
  I love usually in terms of like finding books or things that I'm reading. It's usually recommendations that I get from either other founders or advisors that I have as well that may say, hey, you should check out this book. Yeah. Any recommendations that you that you want to make note of? A top recommendation?
• 33:50
  You know, I'm always really inspired by, like I actually, you know, spend a lot of time listening to episodes from this podcast and on the way, cool. Yeah, I love hearing just other founder stories. I love listening to how I built this on NPR as well. And even though, you know, those founders are way further along than I am, it's still just inspiring. And I feel like if I listen to those things on like a Monday or Tuesday, then it just gives me a little extra push for my week because I hear, you know,
• 34:20
  you know, a gamut of stories of things that they had to overcome, essentially. And obviously, as a founder, you're overcoming challenges every day, every other day, whatever it is. Yeah, I mean, I, I know those feelings. I know those feelings so much right now. It's just day after day, there's like highs and there's lows every single day. I feel it.
• 34:42
  Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? So in the morning, I do have like a morning routine and usually that's, you know, exercise of some sort. It's pretty diverse, but I mean, it could be anything from like bar to yoga to high intensity interval training. And I usually do that anywhere from like 30 minutes to an hour, or it could be
• 35:13
  riding the Peloton, whatever. So I do that first and then I'll, you know, journal a little bit. I have a gratitude journal and I always find this helpful because it allows me to just kind of feel good about, you know, where I am and where I'm going in my day. And, you know, as we were just saying, there's so many ups and downs in this entrepreneur journey.
• 35:36
  And a lot of times we're like, gosh, I'm crushing it today. And then other days we're like, I'm really, I'm failing like that. I don't know what's going on. And so I find that the gratitude journal just kind of puts things in perspective of just like, you know what? I'm grateful for these things. These things are amazing in my life. And it just sets the tone for my day. And then in the evening, I do also write in the gratitude journal kind of closing out the day with like.
• 36:03
  good things that happened in the day or my wins for the day, if you will. And then I, you know, relax and have dinner with my family. Love it. I'm trying to do a lot of morning and evening gratitude stuff. It's just about saying it out loud. My husband and I say it to each other, but trying to keep focused on, on what we're grateful for and not the things that kind of bring us down. Yeah.
• 36:27
  Question number five is if you were given a thousand dollars of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend it in the business? And it's kind of to highlight your most important spend of a dollar right now. Yeah, I would still spend it on our organic social and just, you know, I mean, there's a lot of ways to spend that, but anywhere from like bringing on, you know,
• 36:52
  more influencers that can produce more content for us for the organic social or creating our own content. But yeah, just on our organic social. And question number six, last question, how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things don't go to plan? Well, failure is so tricky and I feel like a complex word in a way.
• 37:19
  I guess I think about failure in the sense of it's just a part of the journey. Like it's, you know, part of the course, if you will. And I guess I try not to, you know, as I do my gratitude journal morning and night, I try to focus on those decisions, those things that happened, failure or whatever, don't define me as a person.
• 37:44
  So that's like one outlook. And then I always think of every experience as, you know, I'm being led to these experience. I'm a God believer. So like God has led me in this direction. And I'm,
• 37:59
  you know, whether it be good or bad, it's for a reason. It's to show me something. It's to reveal something to me. It's to give me an experience that's going to make me better in the future. And so even though it may not have turned out the way that I wanted to, it's for a reason. And I always try to, you know, take in some type of positive perspective about it. Because now I know either that's not the right path for the business, or now I know that
• 38:24
  you know, that's something I'm not good at and I need to outsource it or, you know, whatever it is, right. There's, there's always a positive way to look at it. And that's how I try to keep my mindset. Absolutely. Find the lesson, find the learning, grow from it and move on. Yeah. Erin, this was so cool. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on Female Startup Club and talk about everything that you're up to. Is there anything you want to shout about in the future?
• 38:54
  Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I love talking about this stuff and it's just really great to, you know, chat and really an honor to be on the show. But yeah, I mean, other shout outs are that we have some other exciting opportunities coming up. We're going to be launching in some big box retailers soon. We recently launched on HSN. So that's kind of an ongoing thing as well. And it's just, it's a really exciting time in the business. And, you know,
• 39:23
  In some ways, it feels like finally, you know, but it feels like the right timing and I'm really excited about it. Ah, I'm excited for you too. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for this big box retailer. Woohoo. Awesome.
• 39:44
  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.
• 40:09
  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.
• 40:31
  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.
• 40:48
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 41:13
  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.
• 41:35
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.