Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Inventing Success: Aasiyah Abdulsalam on patents, marketing, and raising capital with The Renatural

Transcript

Inventing Success: Aasiyah Abdulsalam on patents, marketing, and raising capital with The Renatural · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Hassia Abdulsalam for Female Startup Club.
• 0:13
  Hi, hello, welcome back to the Female Startup Club podcast. It's Doon here, your host and hype girl. I'm really excited to be sharing this episode with you today. It's with Hassia Abdul Salam and she's the founder of a company called The Renatural and the inventor of her first patented product, The Week Fix.
• 0:35
  It's a product that's used by anyone who wears wigs and it's been a total game changer for so many women and men around the world. 77,000 to be precise.
• 0:47
  Hacier talks through her scrappy approach to marketing and finding her first thousand customers, the process to patenting a new product, and her experience with raising capital. Now, if you haven't heard me mention the new thing that's coming, I am shouting about this every single episode until we launch. So make sure you go to femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist.com.
• 1:10
  pop your name there. I've been working on this for such a long time and it's literally for anyone and everyone, whether you're in the nine to five, whether you've got a side hustle or whether you're in full blown startup founder mode. I am so close to announcing what's up and I really want to see you there. So go pop your name down to femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist. Alrighty, let's get into this episode. This is Haseya for Female Startup Club.
• 1:40
  Hesaya, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be talking to you today about your business. We were just saying before we pressed record that I met this guy in London at a speech I was giving or a talk I was giving and he was raving about you and raving about your company and said, I absolutely needed to have you on the show. And now here we are. So I'm very excited to get the lowdown.
• 2:08
  Do you want to give me a bit of an introduction to who you are and what your business is? Yeah, of course. So I'm Hathia, the founder of The Renatural. I'm London-born, but I was raised in Ireland as well, and that kind of ties into the business. I was literally turned away from hair salons. I lived in a really rural part of Ireland at the time. So as you can understand, it's quite like
• 2:34
  and then I got really into YouTube, beauty, DIY, and that kind of stemmed my passion for like, first of all, building things from scratch because they were just unattainable to me at the time. And then beauty and hair. Yeah, fast forward to university, I wrote my dissertation about the wig industry, as you do. And yeah, absolutely became obsessed with the white space in this industry. Yeah, I wanted to build like a product,
• 3:01
  around what I found and I realized how expensive that was and how little money that I had after graduating. So I sold what I had. I sold my previous business, which was a sustainable clothing line.
• 3:12
  to invest into the R&D for the product called the Wig Fix, which is what I built the Renatural around now. So that's like a quick synopsis. Oh my gosh, so many things to unpack here. Let's rewind. I want to go back to when you were kind of exploring the wig industry and you started to have light bulb moments around what your business could look like. How did you kind of land on the Wig Fix? And for those who might not know yet, do you want to explain what it is?
• 3:41
  Of course. So the WigFix is the world's first silicone wig grip. So it's actually the only way to secure your wig that doesn't contribute to traction alopecia over time. Think of it as a wiggy replacement or it reduces the need for wig glues, clips, cones and tapes. That's so cool. And so when you were going through the research process and kind of like exploring this industry, how were you thinking about what the product was going to be? And like, how did you land on this as an idea?
• 4:10
  Right, so I think it's, I kind of did the reductive method. So I had this big grand idea of a revolutionary new type of wig that was comfortable and really seamless. And then I kind of like drew back and could just keep drawing back to like what I could actually solve. So one thing that I landed on was security, which was like an imminent issue. And I was like, I can build something around this. It's like smaller, attainable, and then I can like build on this as business continues to grow and,
• 4:40
  And then I see there was a guy on Reddit who has this thread about how to build things when you have no resources. And then he has this method where you sit in a room and then you build whatever you're conceptualizing with the materials in the room. So I was like hot gluing all these random things together
• 4:58
  And I guess that's like my first prototype, a very early, unusable prototype. But it actually works in some capacity. And then it gives you an idea, a visual process of, okay, I can look at this.
• 5:11
  And then this needs to change. This needs to be thinner. This needs to be a different color. So it helps you, it helps you like have a starting point. And I think that's like a, I mean, a random guy on Reddit, but it was a great method for me and what I'm going to use going forward. Yeah. That's actually so interesting. That's never come up on the show before. I've never heard that method. And it makes so much sense to just start at home and start by making something so that you have a point of reference. Yeah.
• 5:37
  As you were kind of, you obviously developed this first thing at home in your house. What happens then? Like, how do you get started? How do you get from that thing in the house to, you know, this amazing product that's ready to sell? Right. So you have the product and then you have all of the different design changes and materials that you think would work for the product.
• 6:00
  And then I went to talk to a silicone expert because I knew it had to be based around silicone. Silicone has an incredible medical properties. It's used for like burn victims. It's used to stimulate new hair growth. So I knew I wanted medical grade silicone to be a massive component of the Wix-Vix. So speaking to him, I got like, this is gonna be like the texture, the density, the short hardness, the thinness of the silicone, the type of silicone and the color. And then I sketched out like a piece. I taught myself how to make a cab online.
• 6:31
  And then I actually used my friend at the time to use his 3D printing credits at this printing house in London. So we actually 3D printed the first WIG fix, but it was like extremely hard. It was just like a solid model. And then I had that, took pictures of that, found a medical manufacturer in Germany. And they were like, so they make units for hospitals and stuff. And then I came to them with this concept and they were just like, what? But, okay, sure.
• 6:58
  Um, yeah. And then they made the first sample of the Wig Fix and, uh, yeah, it was like giving birth when I got it in the post. And did you need to do any more iterations from that or the first one was like the one? Oh my God. Yeah. There were, there were like four different iterations. It needed to be thinner, shorter, um, a different, uh, length, more stretchy. And then like four times, uh, back and forth with sampling, uh, we've got the final product.
• 7:24
  Oh my gosh. And as you were going through that R&D process, what were the people around you saying? Were you telling people already or were you kind of like keeping it under the radar? What was the communication at that point? So my previous business was actually going pretty well. And then kind of selling that to start this was not popular with my friends and family, I guess.
• 7:49
  because they were just like, what is this random wig concept? The wig market is very fragmented, and people greatly underestimate how big it is. Actually, 23% of the world now wears some kind of hair extension piece. The wig market is over 230 million people now that wear full unit wigs frequently. So it's much bigger than people think it is, and it's one of the fastest growing segments in beauty. I knew that through my dissertation, but from the outside looking at it, it just seemed like a very random jump.
• 8:17
  from studying geography, behavioral economics, having a sustainable clothing line, and then I'm starting this wig business. So yeah, but it made sense in my head, so. That is so cool. I still wanna kind of like stay around this early beginning phase and talk a bit about the money piece because obviously you've gone through a patent, you had probably, I imagine, legal fees, setup costs, your first inventory order.
• 8:46
  it sounds like it required a lot of capital to get started. So the question is, how much did you need to get started? And how were you thinking about funding in the beginning for the business overall? Were you thinking of bootstrapping or were you thinking of venture capital? What was your pathway? So I had that big grand wig idea. I first spoke to some angel investors that I knew and just some mentors. And honestly, the feedback was like, is this a medical or elderly play? And I'd be like,
• 9:16
  Both, neither. They really didn't get it. So yeah, I set out to kind of build what I could myself, build a community, build traction around it. And then I can like expand into other way concepts that I think would take off. So I knew I was going to bootstrap this from very early on. And that's why I kind of like changed my focus from my previous brand to this company. Yeah, and I really like planned out just, I gave myself seven months.
• 9:43
  So I had money enough to sustain my life, to focus on this idea and to invest. I think it took about like £5,000 for all of the printing, all of the design work, all of the material experts and the sampling. And then I hacked a great deal with the manufacturer. So they actually used...
• 10:03
  It was such a small product and it was such a unique product that we bought like the, they have to buy the samples and you have to make the mold for the product. So they had the mold and they were just like, okay, we can send the first batch of inventory to you and you can pay us in the next 90 days. That really happened. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. It never happened. I...
• 10:25
  I sent them like all of the design work and told them it was like research-based and like I kind of really hyped up the idea, like if it takes off, this would be great for you and me. And as for legal fees, legal fees are insane when it comes to patenting the product. So I took a route where you could file a PCT. So PCT is basically a legal document saying you plan to file a patent
• 10:52
  And it's giving you a window period of, I think, 12 to 18 months. So you can file a patent in any territory you want at that time. So it just gives you a delay period. But then when you do get your utility patent granted, it backdates to that date. So you will be protected in that time if you go through with the patent. So that's what I did initially. And that was a few thousand pounds as well. But it's much cheaper than a patent that can go upwards of 12 to like 20,000 pounds, honestly.
• 11:20
  if you go with like a reputable, like, yeah, legal firm. So yeah, those are like the starting costs around the wood fence. Wow. What was the process to patent? Like, was it difficult? Was it easy? Oh my God, it was really confusing. Uh, it's something that I never, I didn't have any experience with. And now like, I feel like I can give IP advice and just like actionable advice and like legal advice, honestly. Um, yeah,
• 11:50
  Yeah, so just like the PC, I went with Albright. I would totally recommend them. I'm not sure if I can give names on this, but they were so great in just like explaining things. And I think, you know, you're working with someone amazing when there are no stupid questions. Like I probably ask them basic and stupid questions and it's really patient. They send like lots of documents on like reading materials and even videos sometimes. So with the PCT and then we went for the utility pass in the UK, I think six months in, because the way fix is,
• 12:19
  doing pretty well at the time in those six months. So, yeah, that's when we went to the utility patent. And it does take like a year to actually be granted a utility patent. And then you can file in other territories, the most popular being like the US and Hong Kong for like a beauty product. Wow. Gosh. So it does take a really long time. It does. It does. Yeah.
• 12:43
  I'd love to talk about your launch into market and what you were doing in the lead up to launch and how that first six months went. You obviously just said that it was doing really well. It was really exciting. So I'd love to dig into your marketing approach and how you were getting the word out there. Sure. Sure.
• 13:01
  Um, so I met up with, um, a founder that I used to work with for coffee. And then I told her about what I was building and she was like, she wanted to invest. So she's still my only angel investor and she's absolutely amazing. And it came up so serendipitously, is that the word? Yeah.
• 13:18
  So she invested 20,000 pounds and that really accelerated like the launch and the marketing towards that. Yeah. She doesn't know much about wigs, but I guess I couldn't like shut up about it. She was like, Oh, here you go. So that's amazing. Yeah. She's great. Yeah. So that really helps with like the marketing costs. But of course I still have to be like scrappy. When you think about launching your products, of course you have like the website. I mean, I was, I've been on Shopify since like,
• 13:43
  the years at the time. So I could like build a website pretty easily for that. Product imagery, I was pretty good at that. I was like the photographer for my previous brand. Models, I had the connections from my previous brand. So I really do feel like my previous brand was like a bootcamp for what I'm doing now. So I, yeah, so did all of that. And then with marketing, honestly, the first day, two of my best friends and my mom were like the only people to buy the product because like it was such a soft, I guess, launch.
• 14:13
  And then within a week I received an order from someone I didn't know. I remember her name so well, but I don't think I can fix the GDPR, but I was so excited. I was like, I don't know her. She's from New York. Oh my God. I'm so excited. And at the time people in the U S were paying $30 shipping for a $33 product. And then yeah, as we started growing, I went to like drag shows in London.
• 14:40
  And I would like ask some of the performer friends that I knew. That's so cool. It's a great idea. Yeah, to kind of talk about the product and like, you know, do their performance with the product and give me like some promo on stage. And then after they would do that, I would like hand out little QR codes to the audience like, oh, yeah, you can invite here. Here's a 20% discount. So that got me, I think, like my first like 100 orders. And then the next like big bulk of orders came from an Orthodox Jewish woman
• 15:09
  And I was from North London, so quite familiar with like how they used to wear wigs and shayton market. And she ordered 150 for people like her and women in her community. And like that was awesome. So those are like my two like big like initial jumps.
• 15:24
  But yeah, within the first six months, we hit 100K. So I was like super excited that like, because I had no expectations, like none. This is like the most random thing I could have done. But yeah, that's how that happened. Whoa, whoa.
• 15:39
  Hold on a second. That's so cool. So you're going to the drag shows. What else are you doing marketing wise? Like, are you posting on social media or are you just literally showing up at relevant events and handing out the QR codes? What else are you doing to kind of get in front of, like, for example, the Jewish woman? Like, how did you get in front of her? How did she know about your product?
• 16:01
  So that was on a forum. It's called Shaitel. And like, I think that's a great play on words because it's like the Shaitel market. But yeah, good pun. Yeah, so I posted about it there. I posted about it on a few like alopecia hair loss Reddit forums. And so the natural hair movement was like a bit more popular then. And people were wearing blueless wigs to leave their hair down.
• 16:27
  to like a low maintenance hairstyle. So I was posting about like, this is a great way to secure your wig that induces natural hair growth underneath and secures it without any glues and stuff. So that really appealed to like a lot of different segments. So I was kind of posting a lot on forums and like YouTube videos. And then I reached out to a ton of influencers that I previously worked with for my other brand and they started to use the product. However, with influencers, it's like, I mean, gifting was more popular then. It's not as rigid as it is now, but...
• 16:56
  Yeah, I think it was too good to be true for a lot of people in the market. The wig fix is actually the first wig-related patented product in over 55 years. So that just shows how, like, archaic the industry is. So when something new pops up, people are just, like, really skeptical. So it took a lot of, like, easing into it and speaking to people about it. But definitely forums, Instagram, real-life events.
• 17:23
  And then I just went to sell in like Facebook ads, Facebook ads. That was doing really well. Pinterest ads were doing really well as well. We had like, it was just a pretty product and it's not something you often see in the wig industry. It can be really intimidating to look at huge bundles of hair or wigs with all these straps and stuff like that. This is like a cute little pocket product. So yeah, those are like how I started out with marketing. Yeah.
• 17:47
  Oh, my gosh. In that early kind of time, because this all sounds so exciting and there's so many good things happening to you, did you hit any roadblocks or things that were unexpected, challenges, things that weren't so great? Yeah. So very early on, I realized the demand from the U.S. was just like eclipsing everywhere else.
• 18:12
  So to ship products to the US, they have to kind of pay $30 shipping. I mean, they would want it in like two days. Yeah, so it's kind of difficult for me to fulfill that. So I had to find a 3PL quickly, because I mean, I obviously couldn't be in the US. So at the time, a lot of third party fulfillment centers, one multi-like country, they had like partners instead of the company being in two countries.
• 18:42
  So I eventually found one and I didn't hit the minimum order quantities. I think they wanted like 500 orders a month. I think I was like 200 or something. And then the company was barely like two months old. So they were just like, you know, come back in a year and see how well you done. I was like, no, no, I'm going to lose out on all these American customers if I don't find an optimal shipping pathway. So yeah.
• 19:05
  Yeah, I think I just like tested them enough into they started like a pre-order system. So I was like, okay, can you give me two months and then I'm going to like hike up all these pre-orders and then you can mash it from the US within like two months time. And I never had like a pre-order process before, but they've done it for multiple companies since and it's like worked really well.
• 19:28
  Like, yes. So, yeah, within two months, they actually shipped out 4000 orders in a day. That capacity is just like next level. But yeah, that was pretty insane. When we could launch, they had a warehouse in Ohio. So it was like one day shipping within the US, which was great. And it was the 4000 orders for the wig fix.
• 19:49
  Yeah. What? Wait, whoa. That's crazy. Yeah, the month was a lot bigger. Oh my gosh. So obviously you've kind of realized at that point that you're seriously onto something that you've really tapped into a need in the market and a gap in the market. What, what are you doing after that? Like how do you kind of take that momentum and keep on adding fuel to the fire? So I had like,
• 20:17
  I couldn't afford PR because, of course, I had to be really, like, resourceful. So I have, like, Google Alerts set up for, like, wig, wig making, wig stylists, and anyone from, like, major fashion or beauty magazines, like Alert, Corpopolitan, Vogue even, that wrote about wigs. I would send them, like, a PR kit. It's really easy to find, like, templates onto.
• 20:39
  online as the wig fix and what we were building and like really hit on the angles that they like oh it's female founded it's black female founded it's uh the ip part um the fact that it's helping the hair loss community and black women so i would email them and then we started getting a lot of just free press um from like pretty high level magazine by cosmopolitan like alert
• 21:02
  um stylecaster was one of the main ones as well they were there was like a surge in sales when they posted which I'm like super grateful for um yeah so that led to a lot of like great opportunities and like PR with PR how were you managing your kind of working capital at that point because it sounds like the brand was exploding you would have been needing to place bigger orders but I guess you had the relationship with your manufacturer where you could pay after the fact um
• 21:32
  Did you need to think about working capital? Were you needing to think about doing a raise or kind of like anything to scale the brand? I know you started to launch into retail and things like that. Or what was the kind of money piece at that point? And what year are we talking about at this point? Where are we in the timeline? So this was 2020. 2020. Okay, cool. Yeah.
• 21:52
  So at the time, yeah, we had the really good like inventory, or really unique as I come to find like with other businesses, relationship with the manufacturer. So that was great in that we could like sell the inventory before we have to pay them almost. And then I shook up like lines of credit with just my bank just to have like a good overdraft system.
• 22:17
  uh, that was favorable towards me. And then Shopify capital is great. As soon as they see that you're growing, they start to like literally offer you every day. Um, so I knew I had like, uh, like, you know, if we have cashflow problems and this is like worst case scenario problems. And, um, that also like great working capital, uh, vehicles, like Lendo and Swoop, which I haven't personally used, but I have them on like my notes is like, you know, these are the people I would go to if, um,
• 22:46
  I needed working capital at the time. But we were growing life just really effectively. It was pretty much myself,
• 22:54
  freelancers, one marketing person, and then the 3PL, which is like running it. So it's pretty lean. Wow. That is so amazing. And like, so we're at 2020. If you had to distill the kind of key pivotal moments that take you from 2020 to today, I know you've sold something crazy, like 75,000 of the wig fix.
• 23:20
  How do you go from 2020 to here? What are your kind of key moments? Good or bad? I think some pivotal moments where the influencers started to actually believe and post about it in people. So there were really, really big influences that we couldn't afford to, like, have a collaboration with, but they would like be doing Get Ready With Me and like wearing the wig fix and then their wig in the videos.
• 23:49
  And then people will be like, oh, what's that thing on your head? What are you wearing? What is that? And I would stay up until like 5 a.m. responding to all of the comments in the Wixix account. This is a Wixix. It does all of this. 3Natural.com, here's a 10% discount. On like hundreds of comments, me and the other marketing, we probably answered over a thousand comments on YouTube through that. And then we had a collaboration with Patricia Bright. And I think that was like our first big,
• 24:16
  collaboration. And that was like a huge surge in sales. That was amazing. And she was so great to work with. And after that, I think other influencers saw, okay, a huge like influencers kind of co-sign this. And a lot of people started reaching out to us to work with us. And that was great. And then we had, we built like our affiliate system as well, which I really feel like we should have done earlier. And honestly with the affiliates, I feel like the wig market is really unique in that it really depends on word of mouth.
• 24:43
  because it's just so hard to navigate. You don't know what's good. You don't know what's real. You don't know where anything is coming from. And that's just how it's always been. It's not going to be like that if I have any ways. But like if with the affiliates, one that I remember, which was so nice to see was it was a Facebook group. I'm not going to be like super specific, but it was like Christian women in Wichita, Texas, or something like that with hair loss.
• 25:11
  It was like a Facebook group with like religion and some state or some town in the US. And she became an affiliate. She has 300 Instagram followers and she requested to become an affiliate. She's in this group and she really likes the product. And she made like this 16 minute video. And I was just like, this is so cool. She had like a deep Southern accent. And I was like, oh, it feels like, yeah, yeah.
• 25:35
  and literally like the product is being used by someone but like I have probably pretty little in common with them that than the fact that we wear wigs and um in two months she's sold over 460 through her link yeah yeah through the Facebook group through her church um through her Instagram which is insane and I just think with like micro influences like
• 26:00
  I mean, everyone knows now how incredible they can be in promoting brands in a really authentic way. And that is just, I would never forget that because that was just like so incredible. And I like how reach, you know, but when people really trust you and believe in what you're,
• 26:18
  selling and it can also benefit them. It can be like incredible. So yeah. She obviously came to you, but did that impact the way that you go out and look for affiliates? Like, did that mean that you kind of started to look for other people like her that you could invite to be an affiliate? Yes. I think like through her, we, um, it was like a blog post about her and more people and just like the general hair loss community were reaching out. Um,
• 26:47
  a lot of like influences in that space and like the black hair space and the drag space were like reaching out as well. And they will have like varied results. But I think that in the hair loss community, especially there's not a lot of products and businesses that cater for them in a really authentic way. So they rely on themselves, especially online. You can like,
• 27:08
  there are lots of like deep online communities and like, it's great to see that they're like supporting each other. But when someone really recommends a product to them, it's like really trusted. And I think that's like next level, especially in like that hell off community. Yeah. I read that you expanded into retail in the U S into hundreds of stores. What was that like? It's all about cashflow. So yeah,
• 27:37
  Yeah, it was, um, I think going into retail is, uh, something I'd never experienced on that before. And my previous brand, we were like, and a couple of top shop stores, but that was literally like two or three. Um, with this it was launching into 600 JC penny stores. Um, and it was like a couple of POs that like with quantities that I haven't dealt with before. And, um,
• 28:03
  it's a learning process. Like they're just being distributed to like the last few stores right now. And I'm like, I can finally breathe again, but it is, uh, it can be like super stressful, like e-commerce and retail is just so vastly different, um, in the way that they like operate and just like with margins and stuff like that. But I have an incredible, um, like buyer partner. Um, they're really incredible ones. I think, uh, added landing international, um, um,
• 28:33
  that can like help your brand and like help you navigate the space. And they've been like an incredible partner. There's also one that slipped my mind, 13 Loon as well. That's a pretty new one. And they first helped with like just getting me in the door, which was amazing. So yeah, they can really help with just ask questions. There's no such thing as a dumb question. And even if you feel like you come across like,
• 28:58
  Oh, you're being silly or dumb. Like I literally don't care at this point. You have to be shameless in order to like grow. So, yeah. When you kind of got that account that you would land into 600 stores, what, since then, what are the things that you're kind of, your key learnings that you could pass on to other founders who are earlier on in that journey, but looking for that kind of key distribution partner?
• 29:23
  I would say make the timeline and like the payment terms always work for you. Like nothing is ever set in stone. Like I don't think anything has a set price. It can be like problematic to say, but like just always like negotiate in any way that you can, the benefits to you and the brand. Make sure like you have enough cash flow. Sometimes retailers like take ages to pay, like even if it's like,
• 29:48
  60 day or, uh, not in situations that I'm in, but like, I've just like been cautious with that. Um, and if you have really like short windows, uh, that can like literally destroy your brand. If you have thousands of units on the line or something, especially if you're self-funding it, um, yeah, make sure your margins like make sense. Um, some people don't want to get into retail because like they slash in their margins, but you know, uh,
• 30:14
  uh, just really, uh, assess your, assess your customer acquisition costs and see, like, if it makes sense in that way, because it can go to Facebook or retail, you know, in some, in some instances. So, um, yeah, definitely cash flow, negotiate. Um, yeah.
• 30:30
  You know, earlier you were saying like when you were just getting started, it was pretty much just you and some freelancers and your marketing person. What does your team look like now? I mean, going into 600 retail stores, booming D2C business, it seems like there's a lot going on. Yeah, it's still like pretty lean. It's still like less than three full-time people. And then
• 30:55
  We still have freelancers that we work with, and then we still have the fulfillment partners and still the same partners. We've really grown with them. Yeah, so the team is still pretty lean as we're actually developing like a product roadmap right now with new products, new inventions coming, which is like where I thrive. So it's been like a great time for me.
• 31:19
  And that's going to be like an interesting journey moving forward in the next few months. Is there anything you can share? That was my next question around product expansion and the future. It just said I'm actually like I have an actionable plan now. It always started off with that big grand wig idea. And it's like full circle. I like going back to that. But as much as I can share. I am so excited. That sounds amazing.
• 31:48
  What is your key piece of advice for founders who are just getting started? I would say don't just make sure you have like your budget, cashflow, forecast in place. I wish I discovered like Finmark. It's like this forecasting platform. I wish I discovered it sooner because it just, I don't know, it's colorful and really easy to like visualize. They have like the saying that,
• 32:15
  cash flows, but she likes a story just in numbers. It's like, oh, you're gonna work with this influencer, so it increases this month. But yeah, I don't know why that just really helps me with forecasting and management. One key piece of advice is that any expert that you're working with, legal, accounting, buyers, there's no stupid questions. And if you're ever made to feel like you're asking a stupid question, then they're not a good person to work with.
• 32:43
  yeah, I wish I took, I wish I like heard that earlier on. And then, yeah, just if you have an idea and you have actionable plans behind it, don't let anyone tell you that it's like super, it's not going to work. Like, I think I internalized that a lot at the start. And I was like, almost made me defensive in a way. And you like, don't want to do that. I mean, because you're potentially building something great. And yeah, just if you have an actionable plan, I have to like,
• 33:09
  emboldened that because if there's no plan, there's no business. So yeah. Gosh, that is so many great pieces of advice there. I'm going to check out Finmark, was it? Yeah, Finmark. Finmark ASAP. That sounds really, really cool. And yeah, powerful advice around, you know, if someone makes you feel stupid for asking a question, they're not the right person for you because I think you can get in that trap of feeling shy or like your question isn't valid and...
• 33:36
  Every question is valid. I'm so on board with that piece of advice. Thank you so much for sharing. At the end of every episode, we ask a series of six quick questions, some of which we might have asked, some of which might not have, but I asked them all the same. So question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing this every day? I feel like in beauty, there's so much research and development that happens with new products. There's always new products, new formula, new kind of packaging.
• 34:05
  And the wig industry gets none of that. And it's super archaic. We're literally wearing wigs that were invented for King Louis XVI to hide his syphilis-induced hair loss. The same wigs, same exact wigs. And they don't work it for the customer today. I just feel like there's an incredible white space in the market that I can build great products for. Oh, my gosh. So cool. So exciting. Question number two is what has been your favorite marketing moment so far?
• 34:36
  seeing when Kimmy Kimball, which was like Beyonce's wig stylist, we wrote a blog post about her and she put it on my story and was like, sent me a really long message. I'm like, you're doing so well. I'm so proud of you. And I was like, Oh my God. Yeah. She's like incredible. Yeah. That is so cool. Gosh. Love that for you. Question number three is what's your go-to business resource when it comes to like a podcast or a newsletter or a book?
• 35:06
  I'm currently reading a book for the second time called Burn Rate by Andy Dunn. I think it's like such a great book. Favorite podcast. This Week in Startups has like really golden nuggets of advice sometimes. I'm currently reading How to Build a Goddamn Empire by Ali Craig. She has standard bulletins.
• 35:29
  Um, yeah, currently it's great. I love it when people are super vulnerable and transparent with their like journeys. Ali's amazing. We've had her on the show. Love her journey. So happy to see her business be acquired recently. Very cool. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM habits and rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? Yeah.
• 35:53
  I like slow mornings. So I get up earlier and I've been like so happy and like more productive ever since. I don't like intense like mornings, like an hour just to walk around and do nothing basically. And yeah, this is a common one. But like the gratitude, just finding three things down a day that you're grateful for. And at the end of the day, three wins, no matter how simple they are. That's been helpful as well.
• 36:22
  I'm not consistent, but I'm trying. I love that. That's really cool. Question number five is what is the worst money mistake you've made in business and how much did it cost you? Oh, um, probably, um, with accounting. So we sold so much to the U S that I was paying like VAT on those orders. And I really shouldn't have been, um,
• 36:47
  like because you don't need to pay VAT on your US orders. So I was technically overpaying. And that cost like a few tens of thousand pounds that I got refunded, but that was a chokehold to say the least. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that's a crazy one. Yeah. Glad you got it refunded, though. Thanks. Thank God. And last question, question number six is, what is just a crazy story, good or bad, from this journey of building a business?
• 37:18
  I would say like two weeks ago, I was like at a club. I'm in New York for the first time, like as a legal adult anyway. And a girl was like in the bathroom and she was like adjusting her wig. And then I saw the wig fix and I was like, oh my God. And then we had like,
• 37:36
  a whole conversation and then the entire like bathroom got in the conversation of you should do this and invent this and we need these changes in my head I was like on my notes app on my phone like doing a little focus group in the bathroom um random micro but yeah that is so cool you um get the information any way you can so yeah that was fun wow gosh I love that that's amazing
• 38:03
  Yeah. So fun. Wow. The world is so wild. That's cool. Yeah. This was so cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your journey. I'm so excited for you and I'm so excited to see the new products that you're coming out with. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's great.
• 38:25
  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.
• 38:49
  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.
• 39:12
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.