Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Co-Founder of Coco & Eve, Emily Hamilton shares her blueprint to launch and garnering a waitlist of 47,000 people (Part 1)

Transcript

Co-Founder of Coco & Eve, Emily Hamilton shares her blueprint to launch and garnering a waitlist of 47,000 people (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Emily Hamilton for Female Startup Club. Hello and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl sliding into your ears with a new episode on the Female Startup Club podcast. Welcome.
• 0:22
  If you're new here, hi, welcome. Every week, we interview some of the world's most exciting and successful founders and entrepreneurs who happen to be women, like Emily Hamilton, the founder behind some of the best brands in market right now, Sand and Sky and Coco and Eve. Born and raised in Australia, Emily had a passion for beauty from a young age and always dreamed of creating her own line of products that would help women feel confident and beautiful.
• 0:51
  Today we're digging into the Coco and Eve playbook specifically to understand what made this brand garner a 47,000 person waitlist and tens of millions of reach before launch. We're also going over what a proof of concept actually means and Emily's thoughts on capital as a totally bootstrapped founder that still owns 100% of her company.
• 1:14
  And if you haven't downloaded our grants document yet, there are so many good ones ready to be applied to this month. Like the Cartier Women's Initiative, where you can access up to $100,000 in funding, and the Fearless Fund in partnership with Tory Burch Grant, where you can now access up to $20,000. To download the list of every current grant you can apply to around the world right now, go to femalestartupclub.com forward slash grants.
• 1:42
  Alrighty, let's jump into this episode. This is Emily for Female Startup Club. Emily, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, nice to be in touch. Great to chat with you today. I'm so excited. You're in Singapore. How's Singapore today? Do you have any wins or oh shit moments you can share for today?
• 2:06
  We're doing well, actually. It's been a great year for us after the roller coaster of COVID. So we just did a launch into Alta and it's going well. We're really happy. Yeah, we're really happy. Oh, wow. Congratulations. That's huge. So exciting.
• 2:25
  So exciting. I know that your story starts way, way back pre-Sand and Sky, pre-Coco and Eve. And I want to go back to Bella Box because I'd like to understand what ultimately happened with that business that led you to where you are today and the kind of learnings you took away from that business.
• 2:47
  Wow. So Bella Box has started in 2011 and I really started running my own business in 2009. So the entrepreneurial journey has been long. Before that, I've been in startups. And really the love of beauty, the vibe, the creativity, the
• 3:10
  the energy, it's really grown since then. And when you sort of go into an industry for the first time, you feel the future and you feel the possibilities. And that was really the start with Valabox. I love marketing and I love e-commerce and decided then that I would start my career, really build my career in that. So I think the biggest thing,
• 3:40
  lessons were really it was before D2C right so it's really connecting with the with the consumer um as you know all the way to the brand and that's where I saw the opportunity in that business and yeah I said that's the biggest learning also we we put a database of 40,000 subscribers so
• 4:04
  You know, people want to try beauty products and they want to share them and they want to always discover the new things. And that was really the start of it for me.
• 4:15
  And I feel like around that time, 2011, 2012, the Iconic was launching in Australia. The market was getting educated on shopping online. Things were really starting to shift from a consumer behavior perspective as well as social media. Instagram was kind of just becoming a thing. Advertising on Facebook was extremely lucrative. It was an interesting kind of inflection point for all these things to be happening at once.
• 4:42
  What kind of took you away from Bellabox and into Cocoa and Eve and Sand and Sky? We were really inspired by working with all of these brands together.
• 4:56
  What makes a beauty brand successful? We saw that as well, that consumers would really respond if a particular brand or product was in the box and that they could really try it. So beauty was really this connector. But building brands on social media was just a really big possibility. And we saw that connecting with consumers, listening to them. What do they want? What do they love? Yeah.
• 5:22
  And so we set about building a few brands, which we did over the years. And so it was definitely an exciting time and, you know, space to be in. Something that I noticed both with Sand & Sky and Coco & Eve is that you kind of bent the rules a little bit or ditched the playbook rather and launched with just a single SKU, a single product. Why was that?
• 5:52
  new e-com D2C brands? Great question. I think what we set out to do was really create something unique. And so if we looked at the market, what was missing and what were consumers really looking for and built those brands of that product? And I think the main reason, one of the reasons was
• 6:18
  We were just so focused on building that and capturing market share that the sort of portfolio of the products, the NPD, product development, you know, sort of came after. And would I recommend that? I think, you know, there's probably a perfect playbook, but, you know, a lot of times when you're building a brand,
• 6:42
  you might have the perfect team and, you know, think that's the perfect concept, but it doesn't always work. And the beauty with...
• 6:50
  you know, beauty, is you can really gain traction with a little bit of money, with a great idea. You can see, oh, that's the consumers really loving that and build that up. So I'd probably come to market with a few more products to really give depth to the brand and you're really, you know, thinking about where the brand's going to go. But for us at the time, yeah.
• 7:17
  we were just really focused on getting that traction and really capturing that consumer and making products and brands exciting.
• 7:27
  Today I really want to focus on that playbook specifically around Coco and Eve, especially digging into the early days of what kind of started to get you the traction and how you kind of put this brand together. I know you were leveraging the data that you already had from Bellabox. You knew kind of the gaps in the market and what customers would respond to, but what led you to this brand that is very inspired by Balinese ingredients
• 7:57
  How did this brand actually come to light? What was your light bulb moment for this? So the brand was created in 2015. We launched it in 2018 once we had enough money to launch it. And really the opportunity was hair care. And you had two segments of the market, right? You have supermarket brands.
• 8:21
  You know, it's very cheap ingredients. You've got lots of 10% sulfates. You've got lots of fillers. It cleans your hair and that's it. And then you have the salon brands. And where are the brands that consumers really could connect to and really understand? And we love cruelty-free brands.
• 8:41
  we really see the value of a vegan brand not using animal-based ingredients in your products. And so there's this really huge opportunity in the market and that's where really Coco and Eve was born. But I think that...
• 9:00
  really using ingredients and this efficacy message. We wanted people to try the product and like, oh my God, it's amazing. So that moment, and we also built, like how are we going to make this brand look on social media? Because if you're in the salon, then the hairdresser can recommend. In the supermarket, you just see the product, but what about showing on social media, how people use the product?
• 9:27
  what's their experience with the product. And so we used all these strategies to do that. So we were really the first to create these accessories and these bundles. So the accessories, because it's hard to show us shampoo,
• 9:43
  here's my shampoo on social media, but you could show wearing the hair wrap and you show, you know, the before you use the shampoo and after and the whole kind of journey. So it's really storytelling using social media was really the key strategy to sort of really get the, you know, people interested in the brand and get that traction.
• 10:06
  Yeah, I love that. And I think it's still so highly critical to do today. Design your brand to live on social media and stand out on social media, but also obviously design a brand that people want to recommend to a friend that people are going to come away and be like, oh, I love that. I would use that again. I would buy that again. And I would tell my friends about it on WhatsApp. Yeah. Touch my hand. Look at it.
• 10:30
  Yeah, exactly. Smell my hair. Yeah, exactly. And I think sometimes even though they're both so obvious to do's, they can be overlooked. Sometimes you can try a product and you're like, oh, that was odd. That was an odd experience or I don't, it didn't hit for me. And so I, yeah, I love both of those points that you make.
• 10:52
  For you, something that we love to talk about on the show is the money piece. I know that you are 100% owned business and you haven't taken on fundraising. How much kind of capital did you need to get started and launch the brand? So we had a house of, we had, you know, we've built four brands under Supernova and with the money that we generate. So I think first of all,
• 11:20
  We sort of go back to the very start, why couldn't we be here, why we built the business and we wanted a profitable business.
• 11:28
  And now it's cool to have a profitable business. So, you know, it's glad that we're here. So if you have from day one, we need a profitable business, well, you build the business case to be that way and you make sure it's really building the whole culture, you know, throughout. We will be profitable. We invest our profits back in. And as we've built the whole brand and extended our business,
• 11:53
  we added on more countries and we added on more warehouses and we sort of just, I think the key thing when you're building any brand or any business is just constant improvement, constantly reinvesting and building that up. So that's what we've always done and we need it. Look, we did have money to put in when I was in my kind of,
• 12:21
  mid-30s when I started Supernova and, you know, we'd saved up $300,000 and said, okay, this, you know, when you start a business, it's good to have a good base. This is it. So and that's what we've built the business on from the beginning. Coco and Eve did have investments from the other brands, so probably about $2 million that we invested in the brand today.
• 12:49
  The investment took over two years and then since year three we've been profitable and earned that back, you know, more times as we've been able to scale and grow the business. So, but it was done within the group investing in, you know, in growth.
• 13:05
  Now that you've kind of built, you know, four different brands, you've really done a rinse and repeat on playbook, playbooks that, you know, things that work and things that don't work. For someone launching a new brand now, where would you allocate money, time, resources to?
• 13:24
  Great question. And, you know, the market has evolved so much, you know, during COVID and that was a good two years, right? E-commerce is where it was happening. So, you know, I just say e-commerce to e-commerce and figure that out. And I think that it's still there. It's come back this year. It was definitely last year there was a move back into retail, but
• 13:49
  Where would, what's the playbook? Where would brands start? You know, it's definitely what I've seen over the years. You know, there's a lot of funding going into beauty. So your competitors have funding. So that's where the market is. But I think you need to have proof of concept. I think you need to, before taking on money, it's not just free money. They want to see their return. So...
• 14:15
  And you want to see the return on your own, you know, own investment is get proof of concept. Do people love the product? Do they get the brand? And there's enough people out there that want to experience new things. So I would focus on a market. You know, Australia is such a great market, especially hair care is booming.
• 14:35
  So different markets doing different things, but, you know, Australia is such a good market. If you're in Australia, UK, start locally, like make sure you've got that reach because once you start adding on, you know, this international expansion, the complexity of the business goes up. And I think these days, which is different to two, three years ago, operational costs are extremely high.
• 15:01
  The cost of, you know, packaging and products and operational costs, warehousing, last mile, they've gone up so much and we feel it as a business. So that's a new challenge these days that brands need to be conscious of and...
• 15:19
  Yeah, so I'd say that focus on a market, get traction, people love your product, and if you don't get traction, just iterate and improve until you do, because, you know, sometimes it doesn't always just take off. It's sometimes not that easy, but, yeah.
• 15:40
  When you say proof of concept, you know, for you, would that be like hitting a certain amount of revenue? Would that be just anecdotally seeing the vibe on social media and online? Or would that be something like how would you quantify that as, oh, yeah, we've got it. Let's go. Or is it like, oh, it's just really obvious if you've got it or not?
• 16:03
  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's definitely not an easy question. Sorry, I'm putting you on the spot here. Yeah, no, I think there's like a one shot with that. But I think that...
• 16:15
  what we have the chance to do in the beauty industry is really this breakthrough innovation. And the best example is Olaplex because they just came up with a product that was so new and innovative and you can do that in a small scale. So I think when consumers, I think that's it for me. If you're coming out with sort of a regular shampoo and conditioner and it does well or a tanner,
• 16:43
  what is it about it that you can really make special? And for the tanner, we do self-tanner as well, it was really kind of,
• 16:51
  solving a problem with tans, which is this, you know, sort of bad DHA smells, like ingredient that, you know, you get this kind of like what we call the biscuity smell. So we're like, why don't we get rid of that smell? And like, you know, so that was like, and no one was talking about it. Like, and so when we, you know, the first to talk about it, people were like, oh, my God, I get that. I hate that smell. Like this. So there's so many ways to do it. Um...
• 17:17
  But I think it's really this, you know, the differentiation coming out with something different and new and a different and new way that people get it. So, of course, they buy it and you launch and your revenue is increasing every month. It's increasing and why is it increasing? And you see that engagement on social media as well.
• 17:43
  Got it. I want to talk specifically about the go-to-market strategy for Coco and Eve and how you kind of started to ramp that up because I read some crazy stats like you guys got tens of millions of reach in the first month. You had some crazy 50,000 person wait list, like everything was all happening. So what were you doing to drive that interest in the very beginning?
• 18:08
  circa 2018, 2019? So we're really one of the first to really have this messaging about cruelty-free vegans. So it's coming out with something different that really connected and it was this fun, engaging aspect. So we really used social media. So we always do like April Fool's joke. So we always did that like from the beginning and we –
• 18:37
  worked with like influencers in really creative ways so we worked with this UK influencer and it was recreating the Kim Kardashian break the internet probably don't remember that but like she you know she threw like champagne and on the glass on her bottom and we recreated it with oh I forgot that oh yes
• 19:01
  Oh, my God. So it's just kind of like a picture on social where you create some hype, but like obviously. Or a video. Yeah, a video. Or a video. Oh, my God, I love that. That's so much fun. Oh, I love that. I feel like all of those things, like fun marketing initiatives as well, really keep the journey enjoyable because it's sparking joy within yourself, within the team, within your customers, and that lifts the vibe. Yeah.
• 19:29
  Yeah, and we did, for our birthday as well, we just did a...
• 19:33
  a Balinese pool, you know how they did the flowers in the pool and so we got that done and we do lots of fun on social media. So we got the, there was a trend where is it real or is it cake? So we got the tan as a cake and they cut it. So it looks like a real tan and they cut it and it's cake. Oh, my gosh. Sort of things just to get the views, man, like just...
• 19:59
  Viral is like every day a topic and yeah. I mean, you're about to hit a million followers on Instagram. You're pretty close. Are you going to do something to celebrate? Yeah, we should. Yeah, no, definitely. No ideas yet. So if you have any ideas you want to do, let us know.
• 20:19
  What's shifting the needle for you now in terms of revenue drivers? Like is that something that for you it's still the same kind of playbook like influences and social first approach or is there other things, i.e. the retail playbook, new product expansion into different categories, things like that? So it's an interesting space we're in now because we're
• 20:47
  You have Europe and UK, which is going through this...
• 20:54
  you know, really strong inflation, erosion of living cost, like erosion of like the cost of living increase and so erosion of sort of, you know, lifestyle and so you have these challenges in that market whereas US is growing really strongly, Australia and Canada. So you have sort of different things going on in different markets and...
• 21:19
  I think what is sort of been the journey for us, and it was probably a little bit too long, where we were definitely an e-commerce brand. Our retailers were online, which served us well during COVID because, you know, everybody was buying online and that's where the consumer was. So what we did in 2022 was really focus on,
• 21:46
  getting in store. And so that work we did last year is really paying off this year.
• 21:55
  where we have launched into Boots and into Alta. The launch into Alta has been amazing. And it's just had this halo effect. So, you know, in beauty, what's really sort of come out of the end of COVID is this omni-channel strategy. And for us, it's your direct channel. It's marketplaces like Amazon, which don't, you know, largely don't have that market share like in Australia, but they do in certainly...
• 22:23
  you know, Europe, UK and the US and the retailer and the retail is predominantly, you know, for us, physical retail and having all of those channels working well set up is really the key that's, you know, driving our growth this year.
• 22:43
  What's the goal for you as someone that's bootstrapped? Do you see the vision of exiting these businesses that are doing so well at some point? Or do you see the vision of creating more brands and adding to the portfolio for a future exit of the entire portfolio company? It's definitely evolved over the years. As funding has poured into beauty, it's become so competitive now.
• 23:11
  And, you know, your competitor has $10 million in the bank and mentors. And so that's a reality. So we've had to adjust our strategy that reflects that. And Coco and Eve has just been far and away the biggest success story ever.
• 23:33
  For us, it's growing so much. This year, we're at 35% growth. So the focus is on that. But yeah, we definitely, I think the next step is to get investors on board to really help with that growth. So it's definitely on our radar and something we're looking out for. I think that
• 24:01
  Most of the, you know, media talk is how, you know, founders make all this money in two years. And I just think that's the, you know, that's the exception rather than the norm. And if you want to really start up and see that through, I think you've got to commit 10 years. I think it's like I'm in it. Don't be afraid if it's taking longer than you think.
• 24:26
  you know, just focus on the big vision and keep improving. Just focus on every day what you can improve and it really changes things when you do that and so then the right partner will come along and so, yeah, that's where we're at. That's so exciting. What's that saying? It takes 10 years to reach overnight success.
• 24:51
  We're all out here thinking people just pop on TikTok overnight and everything's just rosy, but in actual fact it's taken 10 years of hard work to get there and to get to that point. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it feels like that, but, yeah, you've just got to commit for the long haul and it'll come.
• 25:09
  I actually just wanted to circle back to this point that you made around launching into companies like Alta and, you know, you're having this big success in retail. Has that shifted your marketing playbook? Like, what are you doing differently now to make sure that those partnerships and at such a huge scale are a success?
• 25:30
  I don't look, I think, you know, we do invest quite heavily into marketing. I think there's a lot we can do for sure. But one campaign we did to launch into Alta was we worked with influencers online.
• 25:50
  basically their story of going into Alta. And we had a TikTok go viral, like it went viral and completely we just sold out. And so it's a video where she goes into Alta and we'd launched it there. We did sell quite well, so there was little stock left.
• 26:08
  Then she finally managed to get the stock and she showed how she used the product and it just went viral. It's got 10 million views on TikTok and it's benefited all channels. Yeah. Not just Altar, it's been on Amazon and our direct. We feel that. So we feel that you have to have this mix between kind of above the line, just getting that reach with the right people and being there and sort of, you know,
• 26:36
  driving to purchase and we just see the consumer I mean maybe they'll purchase on site first but then they go into Alta or they they've seen it online and they like oh I like that brand but I want to see it in real life so then they will go into Alta so this is just I think that that commitment to creating you know interesting sort of engaging content above the line and trying to get the reach for that and
• 27:03
  Also, you have your e-commerce strategies to, you know, continue driving sort of direct channel as well. So with this 10 million views video, it was on her channel that it went viral. And was she like an influencer you partnered with kind of being, you know, a micro-influencer where you're like...
• 27:23
  you know, it's just content. It's going to be great. Like we're not hoping for a viral video. Of course, we're always hoping for a viral video, but you know what I mean? Or were you like, hey, strategically, we've chosen this person who has a very big reach. Most videos get a lot of views and we think that it has the potential or the kind of recipe to be able to go viral. As in, was it planned or was it unplanned? So TikTok is...
• 27:50
  such a great channel. It's extremely difficult. So for us, we typically don't pay huge fees for influencers. And it's really about that long term relationship. So if it goes well, they do a post of paid organic, paid organic. So it's
• 28:11
  It's not just a one-off, here's $10,000, this is the view. So it was really a campaign to create awareness that we had launched into Alta. So it wasn't a huge budget. It was, you know, it cost less than $2,000 for that video and it was working with those influencers who had that affinity with Alta, that people, they're the followers and...
• 28:38
  And I'm not sure if you saw all the content about Drunk Elephant where their DeBronzee has just gone completely viral. So we looked at the videos that were doing well for popular products like DeBronzee and we said, okay, we like this concept when they go into store. And so we give them a concept and give them free reign basically to create under that theme.
• 29:00
  And that typically works for us. So, yeah, we give sort of basic briefs and, you know, try to find the right people and, you know, don't, we don't, you know, pay those huge...
• 29:12
  fees. So, you know, TikTok, it's just one of those things you can't guarantee when it goes viral, but definitely. That's amazing. Wow. Amazing when it does. So amazing. And off the back of that, have you established a longer term partnership with that creator now or how do you leverage what's happened?
• 29:33
  No, for sure. Yes, we love her. So, yeah, we keep working with her and, yeah, no, it's our goal for all partnerships that we can, you know, build that relationship with them. Amazing. Gosh, what is your advice for small business owners and founders who are in the early stages of building their business in 2023?
• 30:01
  I think that consumers love creativity. They love trying new products that are different and interesting to them.
• 30:18
  It's all in the product and how you position it. I think there's certain retailers too that are great to connect with. You know, I think that Priceline is an interesting one. So we sell the tan with them. I know they're taking on some brands if you're in that price point. So it's good to connect with a retailer and, you know, have that strategy. But now it would be like just be all over TikTok, just figure out,
• 30:47
  how you can get that traction on TikTok if you want those, you know, to get that reach. Find those viral videos, figure out the formula and recreate. Yeah. Love it.
• 31:07
  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.
• 31:32
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 31:54
  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.
• 32:10
  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.
• 32:34
  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.
• 32:57
  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.