Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Fave Hits: Whitehouse staffer turned Beauty Entrepreneur, Stephanie Lee on creating the intersection between wellness & beauty with SELFMADE (part 1)

Transcript

Fave Hits: Whitehouse staffer turned Beauty Entrepreneur, Stephanie Lee on creating the intersection between wellness & beauty with SELFMADE (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Dune here. This is just a quick message to let you know that for the next two weeks, we're bringing you a roundup of our favorite episodes that you might've missed the first time around. Episodes from women like Leslie Carls, the founder of Midday Squares, Ju Ru, the founder of Hero Cosmetics, and Michelle Grant, the founder of Lively. I hope you enjoy these episodes as much as I did recording them. And if you learned something, please do shout about it by posting it to your Instagram stories.
• 0:30
  This is Stephanie Lee for Female Startup Club. Hey, everyone. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Joining me on the episode today is Stephanie from Selfmade.
• 0:50
  Selfmade is a culmination of Stephanie's lived experiences and spurred from healing from her own mental health crisis. She began her journey as a field organizer on the Obama presidential campaign and quickly moved to the White House where she worked for the First Lady, Michelle Obama. She then changed direction from politics into the prestige of the beauty industry as a product developer at MAC Cosmetics in New York.
• 1:14
  While dealing with depression and anxiety, she left the corporate world to travel the globe solo and hear from women about their experiences, about their own self-worth and emotional well-being. And that's when Selfmade was born. If you love Stephanie's story and you're building an e-commerce brand in the beauty space, you might be interested in checking out our private network where you can access modern mentorship from women on the show, like-minded women in e-commerce and CPG space, and experts from brands like Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest.
• 1:44
  You can pop your name on our waitlist at femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist, and you'll be the first to know when we open our doors for founding members. But let's get stuck into this episode. This is Stephanie for Female Startup Club. Stephanie, hi. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, I'm so excited to be here chatting with you.
• 2:06
  Me too. I'm so excited. I've just been browsing your beautiful website. I love everything from the videos, the language, the imagery. It is so my vibe for one. But could you, in your own words, tell us what your business is and who it's for? Yeah. So Selfmade is an emotional wellbeing brand. We're primarily targeting Gen Z and more specifically Black, Indigenous, people of color and non-binary. Yeah.
• 2:34
  So I know that's really specific, but when you target them, you target all. And what we do is we create personal care and digital products that actually institute rituals of mental health, which I think is one of the most important things for our generation and the next generation to date, especially given COVID and what we've just gone through. And so, yeah, we launched last end of last year.
• 2:57
  Born from the pandemic, my whole team is completely remote, which has its own challenges. But it's been really incredible to, you know, have this during the pandemic and have a mission that's really oriented around how do we bring therapeutic lessons that happen within, you know, maybe a scary doctor's office or a therapist's office, but bring them into a lifestyle where you can reach for a product on your vanity or your shower or your nightstand and be reminded about that intention of credible mental health.
• 3:27
  So beautiful and so, so needed and so important. Those, those, some of those conversations can be so scary. Just quickly with the, with the remote thing, does that mean you've not met all your team like in person? Very funny. Uh, I, let's see, uh, we all met for the first time, maybe gosh, April or May. So very recently. Yeah.
• 3:53
  So for the first time, I got actually like a house out in like the countryside in New York and people flew in. But it was very like, you know, I have two co-founders. One co-founder had only met one person in myself. And we have a team of about 10 folks. And so it's pretty interesting trying to create relationships through Zoom. They only go so far, but that's, I think, the testament to how incredible these folks are and how vulnerable showing up to build a business from nothing into something.
• 4:23
  So totally this week, I just hired the most brilliant woman to join my team. Shout out to Pauline. If she hears this, I'm sure she will. And, you know, we haven't met, obviously. And I don't think we will meet until at least the end of the year, which is so crazy to me before, like it wouldn't be like this. But obviously now the world has changed so much. It's really interesting. It is so interesting. I actually did my first I started fundraising as in March when the pandemic was happening.
• 4:53
  And so it made things so difficult, but I went from pitching in person. I flew from New York to LA, to San Francisco, to London, and then took a short vacation and then the pandemic started crashing down. So I got home and then I had been pitching people via Zoom, which is a totally different muscle to flex.
• 5:13
  And then last week I was in L.A. and pitched 100 of like 100 women for the first time in person. And it was like you forget how much of the chemistry and stimulation that is. So by the end, I'm still recovering, basically, after after that week of just chatting with people. But it's definitely a muscle that we're all going to have to get back into using now that the part of the world, at least, is opening up again.
• 5:37
  Yeah, totally. That's so weird. Gosh. Well, congratulations, by the way, for pitching 100 people. That sounds really cool. Thank you. It was fun slash kind of one of those things that it's like,
• 5:48
  you forget like that people can only now see your whole body versus like the square. You have to wear shoes. You have to wear pants. Oh my God. I was like, what are people wearing now? What do people, what do founders wear? I mean, like, that's a totally hypothetical question, but I was kind of like, Oh crap. Like I have to spend an hour getting ready versus like 10 minutes, right. To jump on a zoom call. So totally different world. Do I need to shave my legs? Exactly. I don't remember deodorant. What was that?
• 6:17
  Oh my God, lol. You have had a really cool sounding, impressive looking career. You've worked in politics. You worked at the White House for Michelle Obama. You then went into product development roles at places like MAC Cosmetics. And then you've also done some consulting work for other small brands in bringing their visions to life. Where does your entrepreneurial story start and what actually led you to Selfmade?
• 6:46
  That's a very good question, but that means we have to go very far back in time. I think, honestly... Let's go there. Okay, let's do it. You know, going through what was a lot of therapy when I went through a mental health crisis, you have to look back to know who you are in order to look forward.
• 7:04
  And so I think I dove into that for three years. So being able to actually look back in an honest way without self-judgment, it comes from my mother. My parents are both immigrants. They came from Vietnam and they were like boat people that went to refugee camps and all that good, not great stuff actually. And I think that entrepreneurial spirit comes from survival mode. How do you define success and how do you get there? For my parents, it was just living.
• 7:33
  I internalized it as like money, stable job. I tried the corporate route, but really I think the entrepreneurial self comes from my mother. She's a, you know, went to trade school, a hairdresser, you know, and she's got the hustle. I did the hustle. That woman hustles. And so I've always had hustle, like side hustles in high school. I like designed little like tote bags for like school, like girls at school and like did like,
• 8:00
  all the class shirts and all that stuff. And it was funny because like my mom was like, when you grow up, you need to be a doctor or a lawyer, which is very Asian. And I was like, I pick neither. I've heard it before. Yeah. The answer is no. Yeah. My middle brother is actually accomplishing all my mother's dreams. So that's, that's great. But takes the spotlight off you. Yes, exactly. Although that never,
• 8:30
  I think in particular, it sparked from there. And then, you know, as I was growing up, it kind of probably sparked from my like, why is there no innovation? I worked for corporations. I worked for one of the oldest institutions in the U.S. And there's so much good that can be done within government and politics, but it's big. It can be slow. There's so much good that can be done in the corporate world when I was working at Mac and Estee Lauder companies. But so much of that is consumer buying power. So.
• 9:00
  How do you actually put those two things together and create impact, social impact, but also make money? And so I think that was in part for me. And then I left to go travel around the world and went to Australia. I went to London, all things Southeast Asia. I think I carried a question with me. You know, how do I turn everything that I learned within therapy, but into a lifestyle? And I think that question, once you have the question that you cannot get out of your head, right, it just haunts you.
• 9:29
  I think that's where it kind of that spark happens. And it's a matter of whether you choose to lean into that spark and add some fuel, or if you want to put it out. And I think for me, I, at a time in my life, I was like, I want to do everything I can to see if I can light this on fire. So that's kind of how it started.
• 9:47
  And do you remember the moment where it kind of clicked into place that you were like, this is what it's going to be? I've got it. Like, I've got the idea. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, there are probably micro moments that all add up into this, but I...
• 10:00
  was in Thailand when I was traveling. And I went to a, it's called Wonderland Healing Center. It had five-star reviews on its yoga and vegan buffet. So I was like, might as well go. And it was an island in Koh Phangan. And so when I went, you know, my expectation was to do just really great yoga. But I think what ended up happening is I met a lot of people like me, millennials who had quit their corporate jobs and were searching. And they had gone to a wellness place in order to search for themselves.
• 10:28
  And when I was sitting there and I was surrounded by folks, I realized the immense amount of privilege it takes in order to be well or the pursuit of wellness. Right. And then I also realized as I was sitting there that I was surrounded by people who were not like me, like the people who looked like me were the people serving me food. And I was surrounded by people who had immense privilege, including myself.
• 10:52
  And so I think for me, when I realized, and I was sitting there listening to kind of what the guru was saying, I realized so much about our wellness has to do with our ability to self-trust and turn into our self-worth rather than look outside of ourselves. But the whole world and society tells us to look outside of ourselves.
• 11:11
  So when I dug deeper into like pseudo spirituality and pop therapy, I realized there's so much that I would love to correct. Like there's so much about how do you gain that self-worth and trust? And so I think my idea came from the fact that beauty is hugely something where women already spend so much money, so much time and are taking care of themselves. So why not use that to inject credible mental health? So we develop all of our products with mental health experts,
• 11:41
  And also each product is linked to a very specific psychological concept. So I think like once that kind of clicked into my head because part of my journey was just awareness,
• 11:51
  emotional vocabulary. Like I, I don't only known like sadness, happiness, and excitement. There's like four general emotions that people on a day-to-day basis understand. But once I started understanding how to learn self-awareness and then how to act upon it, I was like, these could be steps. Let's turn that into a routine. So rather than like your three-step, you know, face wash, face spray, face moisturizer,
• 12:15
  you know, let's turn this into a steps of like emotional vocabulary through these products. So for instance, we launched with secure attachment comfort serum. It's a beautiful serum that actually securely attaches to your face to hydrate over 107% instantly, which mathematically doesn't make sense. But that's what the third party clinical testing said. It also has an active ingredient in it that lowers your stress hormone in your skin.
• 12:40
  It's clinically proven. And so looking at a person as a whole human being, rather than like, oh, you have a zit, let's cover that up, right? And then it securely attaches makeup to your face as a primer. Secure attachment is a psychological concept for healthy relationships. How do you actually securely attach to yourself and create that relationship? Because that is the template for every relationship. Therefore, your romantic relationships, your friendships, how do you create emotional boundaries? All of those things.
• 13:09
  We launched True Grit in the spring, which is called True Grit Resilience Scrub. It's a scalp and body scrub. And it's really about, you know, resilience being not this like grin and bear it, like man up and get through it. But how do you fall down, be vulnerable, ask for what you need, get up again and try again, which is very different. And then in the fall, we'll be creating an intimacy serum. That's not about sexual intimacy, but emotional intimacy is the first step.
• 13:37
  How do you be honest with yourself and reckon with the most private parts of yourself and share with yourself and others before you even get to touching another person? Because that is the key foundational part to creating closeness. And so by being able to do this, it's really bringing intention. So again, it was like micro moments of like, you know, you kind of like, I don't know if you've seen A Beautiful Minds, the movie, but it's like the guy's sitting there and it's like all these numbers kind of come in, shapes and numbers kind of come in in front of their face and start making a connection.
• 14:06
  And I think, you know, it's not one moment because I think that's a little bit false and probably like a movie like, but it's a series of moments and conversations, even like this one that helped me get to a point where I'm like, I might have an answer to this.
• 14:22
  Got it. Wow. It all sounds so interesting and unlike anything I've heard of before. So that's so cool. I love that. What year are we talking that you started this thinking process and kind of like starting to shape the idea? Mid 2018, when I left my job in corporate beauty, I realized, you know, I had worked with the venture arm at Estee Lauder and I had met a bunch of founders
• 14:52
  doing really well, like Glamglow and Frederick Mall. And when I met some of these founders, I realized like, oh, if they can do it, I can do it, right? And it's just about seeing people do it. And I think then I kind of realized like, it just takes effort, right? And that moment of wanting to do it to even get started. And so when I left my job, I realized like, A, I was burnt out. I had gone from the White House straight to working at Estee Lauder.
• 15:22
  I was also burnt out because I was still recovering from my mental health crisis and like still, you know, getting to know who I was. And I spoke to an advisor and I was like, I really want to travel the world, but I'm nervous. Right. Like what if investors think I'm spending money like frivolously or I'm not serious about it or whatever? He was like, Stephanie, there's something to be said about taking off the filter of every day in order to be just incredibly creative. So I think.
• 15:51
  That was the start of like me taking what was basically two years to develop an idea in my head. And I will say that he was absolutely right. When you take off the responsibility of like, oh, I need to pay, I mean, this is a privilege, right? Oh, I need to pay this bill or I need to like speak to this boss or I need to be on this meeting. I need to be on this. And you go and experience the world and you get to know people like through this and you chat with people and you do new things and you get vulnerable.
• 16:20
  all of those pieces are building blocks to becoming an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is like diving off of a cliff without a safety net. And it's scary, but it's also just so freaking exciting. You're laughing because I'm like, you know, you know. Oh, my God. Yeah, you've nailed it. It's 100% like that. That's so true.
• 16:44
  I want to talk about the beginning phases of, you know, how much money you needed to invest and how you were financing in the beginning and what those early steps were in terms of like, what's the blueprint to starting this brand? Yeah, good question. First was getting it out of my head and onto a piece of paper. I think that's the most critical thing because once you have an idea, the next part of it is how do you communicate that idea to other people?
• 17:12
  And depending who your target audience at that point, it was just myself. And I was like, I think as women, you know, we're so much told to like, we need to prove ourselves, you need to have it absolutely 100% perfect before you do anything. That's false, right? I was so scared that even sharing it with my partner, I was like crying because I was like, is this a dumb idea? You know, and I think number one was supporting myself with people who
• 17:37
  are my coach, my cheerleader. You know what I mean? Like they're there to be like, you can do this no matter what. And even if something happens or if something's wrong, you will figure it out. So I think that's number one was putting it on paper and sharing it. Because I think once you have the idea, it's about shaping and molding it and really taking it to folks that you trust in order to understand how can you take this into reality? At that point I had zero dollars. I mean, I had my own savings.
• 18:05
  But to actually get started, the first point that it was like, oh, shit, this is real, was when I started paying a lawyer, which I think is pretty much real for everyone across the board. Because A, it's so expensive. But then you're really putting that intention out there in a very real legal way. For me, it was trademarking, which is a bear. So that was one part of it. And then also part of figuring it out is I also realized in the beginning, like, oh, crap, like I have to learn how to do social media, graphics, blah, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.
• 18:35
  And it's paralyzing. So I had to take a moment and be like, what am I actually really good at? And what am I actually really shit at? What I'm shit at, I need to find people who are really good at and smarter than me. Because being an entrepreneur is not a solo game at all. So I started hunting with people that maybe felt compelled by our mission and what I wanted to do in a very different way. I found two co-founders. One is my best friend.
• 19:01
  who has done change behavior and organizational development with like the Hulus of the world, like TV, tech, talent agencies, all the above. And then my other co-founder has been in venture capital for about 10 years. And somehow I convinced them to leave their very lucrative jobs after a year of working on this at the beginning of this year to come on this really crazy ride. Found wonderful creatives and technologists who...
• 19:27
  And I think with women in particular, sometimes we get so overlooked in our day-to-day jobs that I was looking for people who honestly hated their jobs, but had a spark of passion for whatever their expertise was. So pulling folks together. It was, like I mentioned before, we started fundraising, unfortunately, when the pandemic happened. So largely for the first couple of months, it was bootstrapped because we wanted to start our product development and start working with labs and formulating.
• 19:55
  Luckily, with relationships and a really incredible consultant, we were able to do that work with a formulator and manufacturer for very, very little money. But ultimately, by November 2020, when we actually launched, we only launched with having raised $300,000, which I think is pretty little compared to the fact that it is a capital intensive business.
• 20:18
  But that's a testament to folks who are working two different jobs or for free or for, you know, really reduced freelance rates to make this happen. So it's a huge shout out for this incredible team that's backed this. Yeah, wow, that's awesome. When you say you like your first step was the legal side of things, like how much does it cost to do the trademarking stuff like that side of it, that beginning step? Like what are people looking at there?
• 20:48
  Yeah. So I think personally, I think that the legal world is built to be really difficult so that it kind of weeds out like if you're actually willing to really put the hard work in.
• 21:01
  When trademarking, I had an original name that I had kept close to myself for such a long time because I was really unsure, do I want to do this or not? But when I felt that spark of like, okay, let's do this. By the time I went to go trademark, there's a database that you look at. Someone had put in the trademark a month before. It was November, I remember, because I was devastated a month before I actually started the application. And so
• 21:29
  I think the first step is like the naming part is really critical.
• 21:34
  Looking up the trademark database for us, it's the U.S. patent trademark and patent office. There's a huge database to see if anyone's used it, because if anyone's used it in the particular area you want to, you're screwed. No, like no go. So that's what happened to me. And so Selfmade is actually the third name that I came up with. And I think the second patent or not patent trademark application I put in. So it costs about $250 if you want to do it yourself.
• 22:03
  I had tried it and had no freaking clue what I was doing. And so I didn't get my second name. By the time that I found a name that I could actually work with, I had already started working with a lawyer who was just kind of helping to answer questions, you know, very relationship-based. And so I think when I found the name,
• 22:26
  What ended up happening is then that lawyer started doing all the work, right? So looking at the database, but also looking not just at like IP in terms of a database, but who else is using self-made? Do we want to be associated or potentially mistaken for another brand who's using self-made? And maybe they're doing something that's like gross or not even close to what we're doing.
• 22:50
  So looking at that. And so being able to have all the information around us to actually make a decision and then put in the investment was really critical. I think for her, it was probably maybe $1,800. And then on top of that, the trademark application. And then when you actually file, you have to pay a certain amount of money for every class that you want to do.
• 23:20
  Yeah. So we're like class three is cosmetics. Class 41 might be like educational stuff because we have education piece or something like that. And so for every class, you have to pay an extra. I forget how much money, but it's it's additional on top, incremental on top of that. And so by the end of it, you've paid all this money and then.
• 23:42
  It's a journey, right? So you put the application in, the officer has to take a look at it and actually confirm that you're not infringing on anyone else's copyright. So that takes a length of time. And then they have to open up for public dispute or something like that. So if somebody else has something, they could say, no, no, no,
• 23:59
  we have this first, whatever, and to actually dispute it. Luckily, no issues there, thank God. And then you can actually, once you have the product in hand, file that for file and use. So it sometimes could take over, I mean, it's been over a year. And that I think was really great investment on our part to work with someone who actually knew what they're doing. Because while it does seem easy,
• 24:26
  You're also building a business. So the last thing you want to do is worry about if your trademark is going through or not. And having someone who's paid to like oversee that and essentially babysit that was really key because that was the first part, like that and getting a domain name, you know, like figuring out what your real estate is.
• 24:42
  And I also feel like that step in particular is actually a really important step to truly committing yourself because a domain, maybe you can buy a domain for $9.99, right? You can get like any kind of, you know, whip it up. So there's a little bit of money there, but like it's,
• 24:59
  you know, you're happy to lose it. Whereas if you're going to go down this path of trademarking something and actually investing thousands of dollars, which especially if you're bootstrapping and using your own personal savings, it's a lot of money. And so it really cements the project and the brand and gets you like on board kind of thing. So I think it's a really interesting step that is kind of key in that beginning to be like, I'm committing to this. I'm going to do this. This has got to work.
• 25:27
  Absolutely. And I think also it signals. So then we ended up taking in angel investors and we've been speaking to for our seed round later, we've been speaking to more institutional venture capital. And part of the questions is around trademarking and what's your IP? Like, what do you actually own?
• 25:57
  and how much brand equity you're building. If you build brand equity and you don't trademark and someone else potentially has built a brand maybe four or five years beforehand, but hasn't built necessarily the same or the momentum, they could easily say, we've been doing this for five years. Here's all the proof. They're infringed. Like we have like this domain. So I think it's really important from a sense of security to move forward for yourself as a business owner to have that.
• 26:28
  in your belt and also be able to speak to it is really important for future investors and all that good stuff.
• 26:35
  this is to say in caveat, you should speak to a lawyer. And all I'm saying is from my own experience. Of course. Of course. Yeah, I totally get it. It's interesting because I'm about to go through the same process, both with Female Startup Club and the new e-commerce venture that we were talking about before. And it's like Female Startup Club, the problem that I've got is I do have public recognition. You know, the podcast is a popular podcast. We own the URL and all this kind of stuff. But yeah,
• 27:04
  it is vague, right? It's like not, it's a, it's a really, what's the word they use? It's not distinctive. Like anyone can be using these, these terms together. So I had to go down the route. There's no chance I could do it myself, basically, when we were looking at the different classes that we could do. And so it is this hurdle that I'm like about to embark on, which is, you know, it's a big one. I really hope we get it, but we'll see. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Yes. Yeah. Thank you.
• 27:34
  Something I always think about when I'm talking to founders who are further along in the journey than I am, no matter what the industry is, is like, what's absolutely critical in the beginning that you only know now with the beauty of hindsight? So trademark aside, what are those kind of things for the beauty industry that founders need to know? Consumer. I think, well, the question, I think the question, what are you answering for the consumer?
• 28:01
  is really, really critical. Depending what business it is, the question is completely different. And that question is the foundation for how you develop, how you market, how you message, and how you connect with your consumer. For instance, when I was at MAC Cosmetics, the question was, yes, for the consumer, but how do we, it's either like filling a portfolio gap. What are the trends and innovations that we need to create product for that our makeup artists and consumers are using? For self-made,
• 28:31
  It is, what are the emotional needs of our consumer? How do we create a product to fit that emotional need? Very different questions. So knowing that, and then also we have done an incredible amount of research and data. We have a junior advisory board of eight women. We started with eight women in our target audience. And instead of doing a survey to 300 women, we wanted to have really intimate relationships with these folks and know who they are
• 29:00
  so that we understand how the context to how they're influencing the brand. So we've run messaging, packaging, we've even developed product with them. We've done data with them around these very particular emotional pieces, which is like attachment styles, resilience and emotional intimacy or just physical intimacy as well. So that was really, really critical to know your consumer and come up with those personas of who your consumer is
• 29:28
  know where they're shopping, how they think about it, their behaviors. There's a psychology to all of it. I think that was a part that I was like, I intuitively know my consumer based on conversations, but to see data is really, really, really important to influence your decisions. I will also caveat and say that it's a science and an art, right? So being able to really be able to make that mix known and act upon that
• 29:57
  is really critical, but we've done surveys. We now have a junior advisory board of 24 women in our target demographic. And then we've done round tables with them, including mental health professionals. And it's been really interesting to see the data that comes back, like how people see brands, how people, you know, habitualize product, even down to the fact that we're, like I said, we're coming out the intimacy product.
• 30:25
  And we did a survey about like, what do you want this product to accomplish? Like what key benefits or issues? Folks in our demographic want help with achieving an orgasm, but want less help achieving pleasure, which is so interesting because from a physiological and psychological standpoint, those two things in orgasm and pleasure are completely connected. But what we were able to do by looking at the data and speaking with our mental health experts
• 30:55
  about this data is understand that we are such an achievement and accomplishment based society and orgasm is the ultimate accomplishment. Also, as women, we are not taught to enjoy pleasure. Pleasure is something that is, you know, even is for your partner. And so,
• 31:15
  For us, it's about how do we talk to women about owning our own pleasure, being in control of that. And that orgasm is not the only thing. Right. And so it has complete. You know, it completely influences how we talk to our consumer, because.
• 31:31
  Each consumer subset is so different. And I think that data portion is something I kind of overlooked, again, because I'm an intuition-based person. But luckily, we brought on a UX researcher who is like, data, data, data. And so being able to really have all the points in front of you to make decisions, especially early on, is really critical. Because at the beginning, you could take 50 steps in any direction. But part of it is narrowing down which steps and what direction you're going to. And having all that information helps you take those first couple steps.
• 32:02
  Totally. And I think as well, like even if you are like you, probably like me too, more of an intuition led kind of thing, having the data actually proves out your theories and proves out your assumptions. So you're not trying to convince someone that you just know because you just know.
• 32:18
  You know someone because you knew it and then you proved it with that data. And I think that's really important, especially if you're going to be going out and pitching to, you know, friends and family or to institutional funding. Like to get any of those things, like you do need to have the data to back it up.
• 32:37
  What about on the flip side of that question, what about the pitfalls? Now that you have the hindsight to look back on, what are the kinds of things that you shouldn't waste time or money on? Or what are the kind of things that you could tell other founders in the beauty industry, you know, watch out for this because I've experienced it and now I know. That's a really great question because I don't even know if I've had the time to really reflect
• 33:07
  as women, and then as if you're planning on being an entrepreneur, there's part of you that's probably very type A, right? Perfectionist. I think some of the pitfalls that I've encountered, not just with myself, but with my team is this idea of perfectionism. It has to be absolutely perfect before it goes out. Actually, no, it has to go out and you can iterate along the way. I think so much of our paralysis comes from like,
• 33:33
  like spinning in circles around one, one or two things and talking ourselves around in circles, when part of it is like, put it out and see how people react and then quickly change it. You know, perfectionism is a way to like psychologically stave off rejection or, you know, failure. But really perfectionism is your worst enemy.
• 33:58
  It keeps you from moving forward. And it, for me, kept me from moving forward for a long time for even just doing my own business. And the moment that I realized I'm doing this for myself and everyone who needs this, I'm not doing this for approval. I'm not doing this for, you know, accolade. I'm doing this because I want to solve a problem. That was number one. But perfectionism pops up in many different ways. For instance, our creatives.
• 34:24
  You were mentioning about the branding and all that stuff. I think it's incredible. Our creatives can sit there literally for hours, moving a little tiny icon left or right, trying to figure out where to put it. And I'm like, time is of the essence. Just put it. Just put it somewhere. You know what I mean? Just put it somewhere. We can always move it later.
• 34:43
  And I think that's been one incredible lesson for us as a team is that there is no end. This is a journey, right? This is not to a static place. And we are smart enough that we can always pivot no matter what comes our way. So I think that's the pitfall is the moment that you are feeling,
• 35:02
  you know, paralyzed. If it's perfectionism, you really have to have a pep talk with yourself or ask someone to give yourself a pep talk because it's incredibly, incredibly important to move past that obstacle or you will not get anywhere. Totally. I think like I operate under done is better than perfect. And I think that is just so key in building a business. It's like, just do it. Like, let's just move quickly and like use this time to keep doing other stuff and keep that ball
• 35:32
  All right. I want to move on to marketing. I want to talk about the launch. How did the launch go? What were you doing to generate that early buzz and awareness? I remember before we started recording, you were saying that you've got some really cool retailers and some really cool stockists. So obviously to get to that point of being interesting to those buyers and those retailers, there must have been some really cool stuff going on. As I imagine, your branding is
• 35:58
  But yeah, we'd love to talk about the launch plan and how you were generating buzz in the beginning. Yes, complicated question always, I think. When we started, because of the pandemic, we weren't able to raise all the money up front so that I could bring on people. So largely it was me by myself and a bunch of part-time people. So the way we use like traditional digital ads, Facebook, Instagram, all that stuff and actually did a wait list. We got over 3000 people on our wait list.
• 36:26
  it's so incredibly important to own your list. If you, on Instagram, your followers, those are not your followers. Those are people on Instagram that are following you. But if you own your mailing list, that is your own property and those are your people. So A, you're not.
• 36:42
  Gaining those folks, I think, was really important. Is that public? Can people see? No. But those are the people that you can engage with and that have actually reached out to you and want to follow that. So I think that's really important. They've opted in. They've opted in. As much as, you know, they have the choice to opt out, that's the next part. How do you continue to keep them engaged, I think, is a question that we're continually trying to figure out for our consumer.
• 37:08
  So the next part is we actually used an outside media agency to help us with our ads. And we realized, you know, after paying attention, what that did help us do is understand who's buying. You know, for us, we are largely pointed at young millennials and Gen Z. But what we saw were actually millennials buying stuff. So that was a really interesting data point for us. We also realized we are not getting the return that we want because consumers now just flick past ads
• 37:38
  on their social media. So we didn't stop those ads until probably end of March. And we totally redirected all of our efforts back to affiliate influencers, gifting, and now moving into more of like paid influencers because there's a whole societal thing happening in the US, which is you have to pay brown and black folks. You can no longer take people's work.
• 38:02
  and claim it for free when you're making a profit off of that, which is duh, but at the same time, a very interesting way that the social media influencer world was already working and doing. So for us, once we did that, we're actually able to increase our monthly revenue run rate by three times. So again, it's really understanding, yeah. I mean, we're talking small numbers at this moment because it's like a soft launch and like we've done product after product rather than like, here's a whole suite of products, right?
• 38:31
  That was largely because we know we need to educate the consumer on the way that we're doing this very differently. What's cool is because we're doing it in a different way, and it's also so inherent to how we use product, emotions already are inherent to how we go about our day, that Gen Z gets it off the bat, which is really cool. So from that marketing aspect, we've completely, we may do ads again in the future, but we know that building our community, which you know, because you're doing it, is so critically important.
• 39:01
  The other thing in terms of retailers and distribution, we did, I mean, it's painfully expensive to do creative. I saw that you did a rebrand on your website. For us, you know, production, creative, we have all in-house. We could have easily gone to a creative agency and just say, do this. But so much of this is from the heart.
• 39:21
  and bringing people's vision of how they want to bring emotional well-being and mental health to folks is really critical. So finding those wonderful people like our creative, we have co-creative directors. One is from the music label industry and saw how it was just so male run.
• 39:38
  that she was like, screw this shit. I'm going to go do my own thing. And she did a female run, female label. I scooped her up because her eye is incredible. Has she done beauty before? Nope. But she was incredible. Our other co-creative director is a micro-influencer who we actually brought on as talent for our first photo shoot. She loved the brand so much. She was like, how can I help? And I was like, oh, well, we need a lot of help. So come on by.
• 40:04
  And so I think investing in people who really understand and get the heart of this comes through in the creative. And so that creative and the branding, and I think the value proposition we're bringing to the table is what made this attractive so that we actually haven't had to do any outbound retailer searching or anything like that. Folks have come to us. What that does is gives us a choice on who we want to partner with and when we want to partner with.
• 40:30
  So that has been really exciting for us about how we think about expanding our online footprint. How do we talk to people that we want to talk to, which is that Gen Z folks and doing that in a way that doesn't come out of feeling like, oh, my gosh, we have to do X. We have to do Y, because in those moments of like freneticness, like I have to do this to be like the other brand. That's where mistakes happen. Right.
• 40:52
  So keeping the eye on the prize, I think of like how you want to grow this brand or your brand and having that plan stick to your plan. You know what I mean? There's always going to be other things, other brands coming up, you know, down the path that make you like look the other way and, you know, shaking shiny things in front of your face. But I think staying intentional to how you plan that your brand is really, really important. And then figuring out that data in order to pivot, for instance, the digital ads to the influencer piece.
• 41:20
  And for you, what is the prize? Like where's your eyes set for say the next 12 months or what are some of the exciting things that are upcoming for you that you can shout about? Yeah, so we've started our Instagram live piece where we're really a microphone for other folks' stories. I think that's a pillar to this is that part of being a community isn't just listen to me talk at people. In fact, this brand isn't even about me. It's about all of us.
• 41:48
  And so really using it as a microphone for other folks to share their own stories and lived experiences with their own emotional well-being and beauty is really critical.
• 41:57
  The digital tool, we have a beta community that I'm starting to invite everybody to join as much as possible because another part of this brand is that we're building it with you, not for you. Hence having a junior advisory board, this beta community around our digital tool. Right now we have the programming curriculum, which we're piloting kind of like a book club around, which has been incredible to see people's reaction to it and going through the practices of getting to know yourself, whether it's like understanding your own
• 42:25
  attachment styles, understanding how to tap into your own resilience. It's been really incredible. So I think that's like the major piece for the next six to 12 months is growing that community,
• 42:36
  building this out of beta for the common room so that really the ecosystem is your physical product, your digital product, because no one lives just in the physical world and no one lives just in the digital world. And those two things together with the community actually really empower healing. And that's the ultimate, right? So. That sounds so awesome. Sign me up. I'm keen to be involved however I can be. It sounds amazing.
• 43:02
  What is your go-to piece of advice for women who are on the entrepreneurial journey, but a bit earlier on than you? So there's like the stat out there that you're an average of your five closest friends. When I decided, oh, I think I want to be an entrepreneur, a creative entrepreneur. I basically decided I need to get to know as many creatives and as many entrepreneurs as possible and have conversations like these and see, you know, what makes them tick.
• 43:29
  Like where do they get their inspiration? Because part of it is yes, like kind of like taking in what they're saying in terms of advice. But the other part of it is putting yourself in those shoes, seeing yourself as an entrepreneur or as a creative.
• 43:44
  That is important to visualize. Visualizing is the number one key step in creating a goal and moving towards that goal. If you can visualize it, you can start moving. So I think my piece of advice is whatever you want to be, surround yourself with people who are doing it.
• 44:01
  And that is a great line for me to be able to insert. Everyone come and join our network for women in e-commerce and surround yourself with people like you and people like me. Exactly. Exactly. It's powerful when you're not alone.
• 44:16
  It is. It is. And I think like on a serious note, you know, we were talking about this before as well. It's like entrepreneurship can be lonely. It can be really sucky. If you don't have that network inherently built into the people around you, you need to go out there and find people who are going to support you and cheerlead for you and give you advice and be there when things are tough. And
• 44:38
  It is one of the most important things and we hear it come up, you know, I would say almost every episode, the importance of network and the community of entrepreneurs you surround yourself with. So thanks for sharing that.
• 44:52
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 45:17
  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.
• 45:39
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 45:56
  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.
• 46:21
  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.
• 46:43
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.