Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / GEMS: Finding an Iconic Mentor with Chillhouse founder Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton

Transcript

GEMS: Finding an Iconic Mentor with Chillhouse founder Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:09
  I read that one of your mentors in the beginning was Sophia Amoruso. Is she someone that you're talking about as one of the founders who was helping you in the beginning? Yes. Would you be able to tell a little bit about how that came about and how she was able to help you?
• 0:25
  My God, that's such a crazy story. I feel like she probably thinks of such a psycho anytime I share this story because I was always a huge fan of hers. I was a nasty gal shopper when I was younger in my early 20s. And she was like an entrepreneur I could actually relate to. You know, she didn't have a fancy pedigree.
• 0:46
  college education or anything like that. It was more so that she just kind of went, went with her gut, with her intuition, and she just worked her ass off. And she was unapologetic about her personality. She was unapologetic about her leadership style. I just love that she was super raw. And I've anyway, so I followed her for so long. And at one point, prior to launching Chill House, I ended up on a trip for her girl boss, Netflix,
• 1:12
  I guess, promotional, it was a promotional trip that influencers and media were invited to. So I, luckily, my friend Alyssa Coscarelli, she, she couldn't go. And she's like, I put you up for it. Would you want to go? And I'm like, you have way more followers than me. Sure. If they want me, I'll happily go. I'm obsessed with Sophia. And then there was also this like Chelsea Handler episode that she was going to be on. So I get to meet Chelsea. It was unreal. I was obsessed with both women, of course.
• 1:38
  So off I go and I get to interview her and everything. So but I'm amongst like 50 girls or something insane that she had to meet that day.
• 1:47
  And then fast forward like a year and a half later. And I've noticed that like, you know, it was a crazy year when we opened up Chill House. We had an influx of followers that range from celebrities to founders and entrepreneurs that I really admired. So it was definitely like a very wild time in my life where I was like, wow, there's so much attention happening. I don't know. I don't know how to feel about all this, but cool, like very flattered. So I did notice at one point that she followed me and she followed Chill House. And I was like, whoa, big step, big step.
• 2:17
  You're like, this is cool. She follows me back. This is so cool. I have the attention of my favorite entrepreneur of all time. And then I'll never forget this. At one point, it was just a random day. We had a party that canceled last minute at Chill House. And this is like back when maybe we were still figuring things out. We like didn't have her credit card on file, whatever. It was floppy. We didn't have a system for when people canceled.
• 2:43
  last minute, you know, these sort of parties last minute. And it was, it was a lot of money that we had lost because she decided to cancel last minute and there were no repercussions. And I just took to Instagram, Instagram stories was like early Instagram story days. And I started complaining about this situation. I was like,
• 3:01
  Please, like if you ever find yourself like wanting to cancel, like please consider the business. It's like so disrespectful to do this last minute, blah, blah, blah. And it's not like me to complain about customers anymore. But in the beginning, I was very sassy because I was dealing with so much, you know, and I'm still dealing with so much. But luckily now I have people that deal with their own individual customer service concerns. Right. I have a lot of people that it gets to them first. But in the beginning, it was coming to me first. And I was like, oh.
• 3:30
  So yeah, she was like, DMs me as I'm complaining. She's like, I love what you're doing. Let's talk. I'm like, of course you DM me when I'm like complaining about customers. That's such a Sophia thing to do. And that was amazing. That was like, okay, I must be doing something right. Like this is, you know, part of being an entrepreneur is being vulnerable and, and, and
• 3:52
  sharing these sides of what happens on a regular basis and anyway so she really took a liking to that I guess and dm'd me decided to dm me in that moment and that's kind of when I feel like a lot of things change for us we really we realized that we were more than that little store that we had the opportunity to really take things to the next level we had the attention of some really notable people
• 4:15
  And yeah, she she came on board. We ended up flying to L.A. and went to her house and chatted with her and she became an advisor and investor shortly after that. So and then, yeah, we've had that, you know, that's just having her to bounce ideas off of has been incredible. So she's one of the few like, yes, really badass.
• 4:37
  entrepreneurs that we have. And it was a wild story. And I was like, what is happening? That has got to be the coolest thing ever. That is like the ultimate fangirl moment for an entrepreneur in today's world. Obviously, having followed her career and everything, that's just so cool. Congratulations. Wow. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, it was a really crazy moment for me. I just never knew that I would manifest that.
• 5:04
  I love that for you. Very bizarre. She doesn't reach out to let me. She's very supportive of female businesses and all that, of course. I mean, she's made a whole career out of it. But we were her first advisor role and her first investment, I think. Oh, wow. Which was crazy. Yeah, that is really interesting. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:28
  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.
• 5:52
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• 6:15
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