Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How Nuudii System's is radically innovating for women’s boobs + going from a $10k kickstarter campaign goal to $1M raised, with Founder Annette Azan

Transcript

How Nuudii System's is radically innovating for women’s boobs + going from a $10k kickstarter campaign goal to $1M raised, with Founder Annette Azan · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Annette Azzan for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doona Roisin, and joining me on the show today is the fairy boob mother, Annette Azzan, founder of Nudie System. Hello.
• 0:25
  Nudie System is a radical innovation for women's boobs. It's something in between going braless and wearing a bra and is an invention that all women can benefit from.
• 0:35
  It's been a decade-long journey so far for Annette, and in this episode, we cover everything from the very beginning when she would lock her prototypes in a safe to spending years finding her manufacturing partner, how she launched a Kickstarter campaign with a goal to raise $10,000 but instead ended up closer to a million, and all the things she really didn't expect to see along the way. And please remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast if you're loving these episodes. It's how we find new ears, and it also brightens my day.
• 1:06
  This is Annette for Female Startup Club. Annette, thank you so much for joining me on Female Startup Club today. Thanks. I am so excited to be here and have this discussion. Me too. Me too. Do you want to start by introducing yourself and give us a bit of an overview of what your company is and who it's for?
• 1:28
  So my company is Nudie System. It's a radical innovation for boobs that is not a bra. And the company was actually initially formed 10 years ago, but the last five years has really been our building of the company. And it is for anybody with boobs.
• 1:50
  I love that. So good. I read that it took you three years to develop this patented product. So I want to go back to life before you got started. And I guess that means going back 10 years ago to find out what was happening in your life at that time and what really sparked that light bulb moment for you.
• 2:09
  Well, I've actually, my career has been in fashion and I've never been in the design portion of fashion. I've always been building a business from the business side. So I made a lot of designers, a lot of money through the retail sector. But 10 years ago, I found myself in a quandary, like a lot of inventors, actually, with my second wedding wedding.
• 2:29
  with a very unusual wedding dress that was very skin-bearing and the fabric was so light that basically anything that I put underneath would show, either show through the fabric or show because it was skin-bearing. And so literally out of my eagerness and desperation to wear this wedding dress, I said a couple weeks before I had bought this hideous second dress just in case I didn't come up with anything. I was like, I wonder if I could just, you know,
• 2:59
  Make something. So I basically went to the five and dime and I found a fabric never used for boobs. And my daughters and I actually started to hand sew the first nudie. And the minute that I put it on my body and in my dress...
• 3:14
  I had this feeling, it was like this moment of like, wait a minute, I know I have something on, but I can't really feel it. And then when I looked in the mirror, I just looked like I was completely natural. My shapes, my boobs weren't shaped. They looked real. It looked like I was braless, but I had a little something, something. And that knowing what I knew with my 20 years of
• 3:44
  I'm not the only one who needs this. A lot of women do. So that was my moment of aha. Sounds like magic for your boobs. Just like a little bit of magic. Yeah. And it never said like, oh, I'm going to make a bra. And I knew the moment it got on the body, it wasn't a bra. This was really a different experience.
• 4:03
  Before we get into like how you actually got started and what those next steps were, can you just tell me what you were doing in fashion in the lead up to that? What was your kind of expertise in particular? So, you know, I went to FIT many, many years ago, again, in merchandising, and I had really been...
• 4:21
  mostly in the retailer sector, marketing, helping larger companies. Like I used to work for Norma Kamali, so I worked for a lot of edgy people, up to helping Donna Karan build Urban Zen in its very early years. But also in between, I worked in the international markets for companies such as Düsseldorf Trade Shows, which is the largest fashion trade show in the world, helping them bridge...
• 4:50
  US designers to do a global business, which at the time nobody was doing, you know, was so, you know, super interesting. So I understood from the ground what women wanted, which was important. And then also from the retail sector and also from a global viewpoint. So there was a lot of different types of expertise, but I really understood the needs of women.
• 5:15
  Love that. That's incredible. So you have this light bulb moment, you figure out the magic bra for your boo or the magic non-bra for your boobs during your wedding, the nudie. And then what happens? Do you like quit your job or are you like, okay, hang on, I need to like find a factory. What happens next?
• 5:35
  Yeah, so it's interesting because with that wedding, I had just left Urban Zen because I was kind of in a long-distance relationship and was actually going on my own to be freelance stylist. So right after the wedding, I actually went back and I said, wow, okay, so this is happening in fashion and this is missing. So I took that fabric and I was...
• 5:57
  doing my own raw prototypes and testing them on my own body. And then I started to come up with the name. And then the name Nudie was actually taken. It was bought by somebody on GoDaddy. And so every couple of months I would check, is it available?
• 6:13
  So then I went to my local sewer and said, can you make this prototype on the machine? But it was a very specific type of construction and she could never really get it. So I put my, at the time, three prototypes in a safe and
• 6:28
  And, you know, went on my way doing my freelance gigs and every now and then I would try to kind of say, hey, does anybody know anybody in the bra industry, blah, blah, blah. And it took me basically four years to find my partner who started the company with me, who comes from a production background. And she helped me take those initial prototypes, make them something. And then here we are today.
• 6:54
  Wow, gosh, putting in a safe. I love that. Protecting it from the very get-go. And I think what's important for everyone listening to think about is, of course, you should jump straight online and check out the Nudie because what's different about it is the way all of the straps can be displayed in 12 different ways. So you can have it, you know, if you're wearing a one-sleeved dress or if you're wearing different styles, it's perfect for –
• 7:23
  everything, which is obviously so cool. Um,
• 7:26
  When you met your business partner and you were able to figure out that production line, what was the development process like after that? And was it expensive? How were you funding the business until that point? So, you know, scrappy. It was super scrappy. So, you know, at the beginning, I put some of my own money in, of course. And the first kind of tranche of money went into protecting what was developed here. Okay, so that was IP. Okay.
• 7:55
  So immediately we got a lawyer, best IP lawyers in New York, prior cashman, and we went about to put in our application for our IP, which we have. We actually have two. And then it was a lot of testing because this was a product that had never been made before. So it wasn't like we were going into a bra company and easy development. So we had to come up with ways of manufacturing that did not exist.
• 8:23
  So that took much longer than we thought we had. And sometimes you just have to take that first step because, you know, if you look long term, you will come up with so many issues that will basically stop you from proceeding.
• 8:38
  And that's kind of the biggest thing that I will share. It's too momentous. It's like, you know, having a child. It's like, you don't want to think about anything, but like today, having that child, nursing that whatever, because if you think about our whole life, it's like, oh my God, I can't have a kid.
• 8:54
  It's the same thing with a startup. It's like, had we known what we knew now, we would have probably never started. It would have been too much. But we had to test because Nudie is a product that has no hardware. It has no adjustments. It's all about hugging your natural shape. And that's really the purpose of it is calling BS on the bra industry. I mean, think about it. Bras were actually made to reshape you.
• 9:24
  And in the reshaping of women's bodies, it basically tells you you're not all right the way you are. And that is really the power of nudity. It's allowing women to say, I'm all right with my boobs just the way they are. But having said that, it gives you a little comfort between you and the world.
• 9:44
  It hugs, right? Hugs your natural shape. And but still keeping your own unique shape. That's really powerful. That's why right now the timing is such that women want to be able to feel authentic. I just saw that there was a movie being produced about women going gray and accepting it. It's kind of the same thing. It's just like women are ready to just be whoever they want to be.
• 10:10
  It's so interesting. I've never thought of bras like that, but it's so true. And I'm having this moment of like, holy shit, that's crazy. Wow. Yep. Was the nudie, the way that it looks today, is that the way that it looked when you sewed it for yourself at your wedding? Yeah.
• 10:26
  So it was always a double strap. But the way that my dress was, I created the first one as a halter. So, you know, it didn't. And so the halter would have been more of a specialty product. So we decided instead of going out with the halter first, but the halter is coming.
• 10:44
  that we would connect those straps down so that it would be more of an everyday nudie. So we decided to go ahead and launch with that. But we have many more nudies down the pike. We're super excited about that. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I bet.
• 11:06
  So you get the product. What happens next? How do you start marketing? How do you start telling people about this amazing invention that you've come up with? So I didn't answer your question before about money. So the first thing we did was I put some of my own money. I convinced some of my kind of friends and contacts that I knew to give me a loan because right then we didn't even have right prototypes. We just had my raw one.
• 11:36
  And then, you know, slowly started to build once we were closer to a finished prototype. It was really interesting. Like the first, so the first two people were women. Then after that, it was three men.
• 11:50
  And it was usually men that knew me, that saw the pitch, saw women trying on nudie for the first time, hearing them like it was just natural and organic, like squealing, crying. And they just there was no convincing. I didn't have to have a whole deck ready because they saw it for themselves.
• 12:11
  A lot of them also a lot of them had, you know, obviously women in their lives or daughters, whatever. And so we just basically were raising on convertible note and we still are actually raising on convertible note up until now. So that's kind of, you know, how it was in terms of building out the money over the years.
• 12:29
  What does convertible note mean? Convertible note, it's actually a debt note. So convertible note does not give you equity. But what it is, it's a note that says, I'm giving you this money, they make some interest, and it will convert at such a time that you have an equity round.
• 12:49
  Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's clever. Instead of giving away equity. Yeah. And usually there's a cap. So there's a lot of plus plus pluses with notes. You know, you usually give them a discount and then you're capping off at a certain valuation. So, you know, if you can raise on convertible note as long as you can, it's much better. And it's also really exciting for those early investors as well.
• 13:13
  Yeah, they're getting money back sooner. Yeah. Well, and also if you're going to an equity round with a VC or PE, a lot of times they may want to even buy out some of those early investors when they come in. Got it. Cool. Yeah.
• 13:30
  Okay, so let's get back into the marketing of what happens when you get into that launch phase and you start spreading the word and you start getting women to know about your product. How are you doing that? So at the very beginning, until we had both of our patents completely approved, we kept it really, really close to us.
• 13:50
  Because, you know, knowing the industry, it's a huge knockoff industry. And we knew that we could protect our IP, meaning the design and what it looks like. But we knew that how we were marketing NewDee, which is true to itself, we could not protect.
• 14:06
  So our very first test website that we opened, we actually had a password protected. Basically, it was just people we knew or people that knew us. They would have to ask for a password and they would go in. So we basically did that for six months to make sure that everything was working so that
• 14:23
  I also joined a group that was very amazingly supportive and they were super excited called the Wolfers. The Wolfers is a group of women over 40. And so that was our big launch was the founder of the Wolfers, Nina Collins, literally just fell in love with Moody and decided that she was gonna wear it with the Wolfers group. They have 30,000 women around the world. So like the December before we did our big launch,
• 14:50
  The women had Wolf, but had it on at their Christmas party. And all of a sudden we started to have incredible orders from all over the world. It was like all night, ding, ding, ding, because it's attached to my phone. So all night I'm going, oh my God, we're getting orders from all over the world.
• 15:08
  So then we started to ship. So we had this test website to make sure that everything worked, right? Because you want to make sure your manufacturing works and, you know, your sizing's right. People are getting it. So that went for a while. And, you know, again, still kind of going out, you know, pitching DCs, blah, blah, blah. But everybody's saying, you know, you need to have a million in sales. You need to have two millions in sales. It's like all these things. And, you know, whether they're true or whether they're not true, we don't know. But we were not getting...
• 15:37
  the VC money. So decided that, you know what? Okay, we're getting a really great response. Let's just do Kickstarter. I say that very kind of lightly. Let's just do Kickstarter because it is a lot of effing work. I'm just telling you, it's a lot to be successful with Kickstarter. You have to be prepared to number one, know your market.
• 16:00
  understand how success is made with Kickstarter because it's not just you just go on and like suddenly it's a flame because there are tens of thousands of campaigns out there. So you have to do marketing. You know, you have to do advertising. You have to have money for that. You have to give every photograph and every piece of your copy time and attention because Kickstarter, especially if you're a woman's business, Kickstarter is predominantly men. It's 65% of men.
• 16:29
  So we knew that in order to be successful, that we would need to reach not only women on Kickstarter, but men. And so we were able to do that successfully with the Boob Fairy.
• 16:43
  With our video. The video was... Oh, it's so good. It's so amazing. It was edgy. It was funny. It was, you know, tongue in cheek. It was all the things that needed to be. And so we had such incredible support with men. Men buying it. And it was really, it was so, it was such an incredible experience because you're going from like zero to, you know, like a thousand in no time. You know, the first two hours of Kickstarter, we did 50,000.
• 17:12
  Oh, goodness. And your goal was $10,000, I saw. Yes, yes. It was just like, you know, and again, your phone is connected to it. So you basically see everybody's name coming up, right? And then we had incredible feedback. Like we would have guys that didn't have a woman in their life that would just put in $5 and they would say, you know, we're putting this money in because we want to see Victoria's Secret, you know, gone and Playtex gone. We want our women to be free. And I mean, it was just,
• 17:42
  an amazing, amazing experience. I mean, you obviously struck a serious nerve with men and women all over the world, because I read that you had about 12,000 backers. Yes. You reached almost a million dollars in funding. Yes. I really want to try and understand, you know, more of how you like got that success, you know, the time that it took to prepare the money that it costs to, to launch a campaign. Um,
• 18:10
  And so, yeah, if you could share a little bit more about that. It took a lot longer than we thought. So, you know, you have to be approved by Kickstarter number one. So, you know, that application is fairly simple. But it took us three solid months to prepare for it.
• 18:24
  The video, we used an outside amazing production agency that we were super fortunate to get because we are small fry in basically what they do. And we had to have a marketing arm that does advertising for us. And we had one of the best. We actually got...
• 18:46
  We were fortunate in that they choose who they will market because their campaigns are all over a million dollars. They just, you know, they have so much business and they have so much success that they look at your assets and they say, you know, are you, you know, is this possible that these people will have success? And usually you have to have your video done. So they take a look at your video. Our video was not done. We were already behind on our video, but they liked the product as much in the team and believed in us that they actually took us on.
• 19:15
  So those two factions, I would say, are the biggest. Your video has to speak to you, has to speak to the audience, they have to get it, and also the advertising. And the great thing is that even though we were fairly new, we had all that time into development and we were in front of so many women that we were able to build on marketing, on the experience of the feedback of these women.
• 19:43
  So usually a company would open up and they would kind of be testing or coming up with marketing strategies not based on real experiences. So we knew what spoke to these women. And so, you know, even though it took that length of time to get the production right, it was like really great time because we knew exactly how to reach these women. So then you inject that in every company.
• 20:12
  piece of copy in the Kickstarter was every word was, you know, thought and rethought and rewritten over and over again. I mean, it was really an incredible process. And then we would form it out and we would have, you know, test groups. Is this resonating with you? And then we would come back and redo it.
• 20:32
  Wow. Focus groups for the Kickstarter. Crazy. Totally. Totally. Then, you know, how are you explaining your assets? Then you're really looking at each, you know, you have different buckets of pledge pledge groups, you know, diving in and looking at that. And so everything was with a fine tooth comb because you've got such a finite period of time.
• 20:54
  Right. And part of Kickstarter success is you have to reach your goal like as soon as you launch, because what happens is Kickstarter's algorithm, if you've reached your goal, then shoots you up as the best of and then they start to market you.
• 21:09
  Right. Okay. Cool. Yeah. It's like success breeds success. Yeah, totally. Um, yeah. Okay. And so are you able to share, how much does it cost to, to fund like that Kickstarter campaign in terms of like what you invested in the advertising, what you invested in the video kind of, you know, you really had to lean into it. It sounds, um, and it sounds like it was a big investment.
• 21:34
  Yes, yeah, you do. So we spent in just the preparation of Kickstarter, I'm going to say around $25,000. And then we spent another $120,000 on advertising.
• 21:46
  Wow. Okay. That's incredible. And so it was obviously funded within a few minutes. Like if you had reached 50 grand in two hours, I'm sure it was, you know, funded in 10 minutes. What happened after that? How did you guys keep kind of putting it out there? And how long did the whole campaign go for?
• 22:04
  So the Kickstarter campaign was 30 days because, you know, we were working with some people who had done a really successful campaign. So it was wonderful. We got their feedback. They said, you know, the thing is, you have to keep powering by putting money in for advertising. So, you know, the longer the campaign is, the more money you have to have for advertising. And sometimes it's not worth it. So we did 30 days in Kickstarter. Yeah.
• 22:26
  And then when we ended Kickstarter, we were ending on such a high note, like people were still big time pledging. We decided to then roll it over to Indiegogo. Okay, so we did 750 in sales and Kickstarter rolled it into Indiegogo on demand and then raised another 200,000.
• 22:47
  Oh my God, I didn't even know you could do that. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. So you just roll the assets over and because it's going to, it takes companies like ourselves months to produce that merchandise after a campaign and then ship everything. So we knew we couldn't go back to opening our website. So it's better to just kind of, you know, keep selling. And so that's what happened basically from the time we launched Kickstarter, June 11th.
• 23:15
  to the end of the year, we were pretty much just on crowdfunding. Wow, that's so interesting. And that brought us 16,000 customers around the globe. Oh, my gosh, that's a nifty little customer base to get started with. Holy moly. Yeah. What came out of that experience that you didn't expect, aside from obviously the massive growth?
• 23:40
  I didn't expect as much emotional connection to the product. I mean, I say that, but I take it back because we did see that one on one with women. But again, what we didn't expect was the men.
• 23:56
  and crowdfunding you that, you know, it's, I say, I hate to say it because it's really not about men, but men responded in such a positive way. And I know a lot that has to do with the lingerie industry and, and how we looked has been so much focused on, it's been man centric for so many years. Right. But what the message was, was, you know, men just want us to be ourselves. I love that. That is so cool.
• 24:24
  And what are your biggest learnings from it that you could share for other founders who are thinking about going through that process and looking for like, you know, key advice, key tips? And especially what did you receive from that other company that was helping you who had also gone through a successful campaign?
• 24:41
  Yeah, don't rush into anything. Also to do work ahead of time. Like I think if you're completely out the door and don't really know, you haven't tested anything, it's a real pop shot to go into a Kickstarter campaign.
• 24:59
  like really building some basis before you go into it. Because once you're in there, it's fast tracking. And if you don't know what track you're supposed to be on, it could just be explosive. You know, it could just be not worth it and all over the place. It has to be so, so defined. You have to know exactly who you are and who you're marketing to. Totally. Totally.
• 25:28
  So the campaign, when did that finish? When did that wrap up? So Indiegogo wrapped up at the end of last year in 2019. And then we shipped everybody at the end of January. And then we reopened our website. So we went from a test website to a real website. And it's like, okay, now let's go out into the big world. And that was super exciting. But we were taking that 16,000 customers with us.
• 25:58
  right, as the basis. And so what happened? So first of all, it was interesting. What we tracked was we had people that went from Kickstarter who pledged, who got their product, that went back to Indiegogo, pledged again. They came back to the website that bought more. So we had that happening at the same time. We didn't do any advertising for the first two months of our website. We just basically were...
• 26:25
  building our email campaigns and reselling the people we had already sold to, because that was enough at that point. And then we started our advertising campaign in April, just in time for COVID. Oh, my God. The timing on that was, in a way for us, superb.
• 26:45
  Yeah. I kind of feel like that would have worked in your favor. No, like women are at home. They want an alternative. Totally. They want comfort. Yeah. Yeah. They were ditching their bras. I mean, timing was just key for us. I mean, it's horrible to say. I kind of,
• 27:02
  I'm at odds with myself thinking about that. But it was true. Women just realized like, oh, so why did I feel like I had to wear a bra? Because women really feel forced. They feel forced to wear bras. That's the biggest issue. So they're returning to nudity. We had eyes on the internet because people were working from home. So it was like an amazing time for us for growth.
• 27:25
  And so we have been building ever since. So where we started in April, we've more than doubled in sales now. Oh, wow. Congrats. That's so cool. How does it work for you guys on social media, like on platforms like Facebook and Instagram? I know there are, you know, there are hurdles when you're using that kind of marketing to market bras and women and bodies and that kind of thing. How does it go for you guys? What's your experience?
• 27:53
  Yeah, you know, we're doing something really different here. So, you know, we are building a completely new category for boobs. So our challenge is to get women to understand that it isn't bras or braless. There's now nudity. It's in between bras and braless. So it's like that messaging. You have to tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them over and over again. Because women just want to, they see something on the boobs, they want to say it's a bra.
• 28:23
  And we need to manage expectations. So our marketing campaigns had to be so targeted with how we explain nudity. I mean, people, women still just say bra, and then some people really understand once they get it that it's not a bra and why. But, you know, we're building a category, which is basically nudity. That's a tall order. Totally.
• 28:48
  I think that's amazing. What I mean, though, is with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, they can ban your ads really easily. And by having lingerie swimwear, it's a difficult category to market. And that's where I'm wondering if you've experienced that problem and if you have hurdles with that. We do. And we experience them on a weekly basis. There's an algorithm in Facebook that
• 29:16
  We don't even know why, but they'll just ban it out. And so that is, you're basically challenging them continually, even to be verified. Okay, so we have spent now hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising between Facebook, between the crowdfunding and our website. And we're still not verified on Instagram. Yeah.
• 29:41
  And we don't know why, you know, it's just and there's nobody to talk to. It's like they're so large. It's super frustrating. And we work with a well-season marketing company. You just have to deal with it when it comes along. But, you know, it's it's it's been a challenge. You're completely right. And I have no wonderful solution to that, except that you just have to go in and re-challenge when they kick your ass out.
• 30:10
  I guess the wonderful thing about it, though, is that it forces you to not be so reliant on one channel. And it makes you build the build the moat with all the other channels and PR and things like that. Correct. Correct. And influencers. It's been really amazing. You know, we've had so many influencers that have just reached out to us when, again, they feel a connection to what we're doing here.
• 30:37
  And so we've really been able to build our community organically on our influencers who, who are, you know, are not doing it for pay, but they really feel something. Totally. I can definitely see that. I can feel it through your, through your content.
• 30:53
  Something that I saw online that made my heart feel really so good was that all your products are made by women in the U.S. and sometimes up to the age of 94 years old. Can you tell me about that and how one makes that commitment and goes about actually, you know, bringing that to fruition?
• 31:13
  Okay, so the two parts. So we are made in the U.S. We know the women by name. And I have to tell you, it's the whole, you know, the process of developing with them was so beautiful because when we launched, I mean, there were tears from our manufacturers. Tears. These women, you know, when we first went in, they all thought we were crazy because they're like, we're going to make what? Because this was like innovation. They didn't even believe it could really be done.
• 31:44
  And that sort of connection and knowing, you know, the conditions that your factory is made in, it's just it's all real from the beginning of the weaving of the fabric until we, you know, we fulfill it. We have a fulfillment center in Long Island. It's women run. You know, so that's kind of the trueness. And then nudie has been on women from 14 to 94.
• 32:10
  I actually have a wonderful video of three generations wearing me 29, 62, and the mother who is 94. Oh. All wearing them and all loving them.
• 32:24
  That is so amazing. So we, you know, we would love to continue to manufacture in the US. You know, we've had some challenges with COVID. You know, our factory was shut down for almost two months, which was super difficult because it was just the time where our sales started to take off. And then we basically had to pull everything back.
• 32:45
  because we just didn't have enough inventory. We were selling out of things. You know, we're asking people to be patient, but it's just what, what happened. Right. Um, so that was just, it was like staring a ship through a storm and actually it kind of still is, you know, it's like, is COVID going to shut us down again? Like what's going to happen? We
• 33:11
  As you grow and expand, how do you navigate whether you should stay, you know, operating and manufacturing out of the U.S. or whether you should look to outsource? Is that a decision you have to make or are you already decided and you will stay in the U.S.? Again, no.
• 33:29
  We really don't know what's going to happen. I think it's much easier to do a product that involves development right here. Like if you're close, you know, you can fly down easily, you know, you have a sample in a day. So, you know, we kind of keep that door open again, you know,
• 33:49
  especially here in America where we know manufacturing jobs are being lost on a daily basis. I'd love to, you know, as long as the price can stay good while paying people a living wage, you know, people think, oh, why is Moody so expensive? It's like,
• 34:04
  we pay people living wages. You know, we don't... Is it expensive? I don't think so. Well, it's all relative, right? Yeah. I thought it was pretty good. Yeah. So, you know, ultimately, we will stay here in some form. I don't know what the future brings. You know, if we have a huge...
• 34:23
  say we would love to be in Sephora, any Sephora out there. But if we do a big strategic partnership where, you know, we grow, you know, immensely where our factory can grow with us, perhaps we would look, but we would look to make sure that at the bottom line that the things that are important to us as a company translate over to whatever factory conditions, pay, et cetera, et cetera.
• 34:49
  Yeah, totally. So as of today and like looking to the future, where is the company now and what's coming next that you can tell us about? So excited about next year. We're going to be launching some new styles, colors. I don't want to say too much about the product, but lots of things there. Again, we hope to have some strategic partnerships.
• 35:16
  some possibly celebrity partnerships, lots, lots happening there. Again, we kind of, it's, it's very interesting because with COVID, it has, you can only think maybe a week or two in advance. It's like, you don't plan on anything. So we almost have like two plans happening at the same time.
• 35:35
  okay, so what happens if this happens? And then in the best case circumstance, then this can happen. So we have both. And we will next year would have had, we would have had a year behind us of web sales with some hardcore metrics, which all the investors want to see. So then we will be able to go in front of VCs again and with sales behind us and strong metrics and branding behind us and hopefully go to an equity round.
• 36:06
  Oh, so exciting. Holy moly. With a strong valuation. Yes. I mean, surely, surely you need to be on Shark Tank, obviously. Yeah, I think we're past Shark Tank. Our Shark Tank was Kickstarter. That's true. That's true. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to start a business?
• 36:32
  Um, you know, everything starts with the idea, right? It starts with the dream. And then it goes to the knowing. Like, I think a lot of people have amazing ideas. But you have to have the belief system, which is what I had 10 years ago, because when you think 10 years is a really long time. Right? So it's the knowing inside of you
• 37:03
  And then it's like a marathon. You have to prepare yourself mentally and physically to know that this could be longer, shorter, that it only takes maybe one large investor. It only takes the first few people to buy in, put their money down and not to be not to be dissuaded by no.
• 37:29
  Love that because there's a lot of no's. There's a lot of no's, yeah. Lots of rejection. Yeah, totally. But, you know, there's a lot of people out there. There's a lot of money out there. I know that I feel confident that the timing will be such that we will get the right investor at the right time. So, you know, I do have that belief and feel confident.
• 37:51
  enough passion for what you're doing. Like I never thought, oh, I knew that this was big. But, you know, that first feeling was like,
• 38:00
  I'm a woman. I come from a woman's family. I have daughters. It's like the bigness that I feel about newly is how it's really going to change our lives. Like, and, oh, by the way, that means it'll be super successful financially. It's not like, oh, this is going to make a lot of money, but it's like, because that part just wouldn't power me personally. And I don't think it powers a lot of people, um, at the beginning. So that was what, that's something like that.
• 38:29
  Thank you very much. We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. And we might have touched on this one already a little bit. But question number one is what's your why? My why is basically what I said. You know, I, again, being in front of women for so many years and, you know, I've seen them in all sorts of positions where women.
• 38:52
  they've really haven't accepted and loved their body. And I can see that chipping away at their self-esteem. We as women have so much power and we have so much power within ourselves and starts with our bodies. That if we woke up every morning, not even loving it, but just accepting it,
• 39:12
  what we could do in the world. We have a lot of important work to do here, especially now. It's like, just carry this body along as your foundation and let's get on with it. So that's kind of my why is moving. Totally. Question number two is, what's been the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? And again, I'm sure I know the answer. It was Kickstarter. Yeah.
• 39:39
  Yeah, it was Kickstarter, Kickstarter, our video, all our photos, etc. Yeah. Yeah.
• 39:45
  That and also I have to say we did a very, very initial, nobody's seen it. It's not it's not public. It's always been private, but maybe one day we'll make it public. But we had four women at the very initial phase come in. Nobody knew about nudie and we just basically handed them nudie. And then we caught them on camera. And that was the number one video that got investors investing in us because they could see it was just real. And that was also super powerful.
• 40:13
  I love that. That kind of reminds me of when they did their campaign for Da Vinci's painting last year and they, they just recorded people's expression, seeing it for the first time. That was so powerful. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, you can't, you know, when it's real, it's real.
• 40:32
  the best. Totally, totally. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading? What are you listening to? Who are you hanging out with? So my daughter's,
• 40:44
  Got a lot. They're both psychology majors. They're 21 and 24. I learned so much from them. My team, I have to say my team is everything from early 20s to 50s. So we make decisions collectively, whether it's colors or talking about marketing or marketing people, West Coast, East Coast. I'm in groups, so I'm in the Wolfers group.
• 41:10
  you know, women over 40, we've learned a lot. That group has been super interesting. You know, I love Medium because, you know, again, that's taking it directly back to the people. So, you know, LinkedIn, all the other great things, you know, just articles. You know, women, you have to be brave. You have to take your courage into being in the startup world because we're behind the eight balls.
• 41:39
  I mean, I'm a woman of color, so I'm like behind behind people, you know, but you can't let any of that stop you. Totally. Totally. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated and productive.
• 42:01
  Now it's easier because we're out there in the world and it could just be an email that we've received. Like I'll just share this email and that keeps me going. A woman said, you know, I had to go to emergency surgery and I just have to tell you that, you know, I'm packing to go to surgery. And my husband turned to me and said, why don't you bring your nudie? And she said, I brought it to the hospital with me and I could keep it on. I didn't have to be flopping all over the place. They put my EKG in, but...
• 42:32
  Those sorts, that sort of feedback can power me for months. We share all of that as a group and that keeps us going like, oh my God, okay, we're onto the right thing. We're onto the right thing. And so it's really easy now that we're out in the world. It wasn't as easier when we were kind of just creating it on our own. Yeah. Gosh, that's so special. So powerful. Yeah.
• 42:58
  Question number five is if you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? On my team. Because, you know, we can, with marketing now, you can do a lot of, you don't have to be advertising, right? So my team is where everything starts, right? So I would spend it on my team. Because as a group, we can come up with great ideas and be, you know, on the ground doing it. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
• 43:27
  And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? And it can be around a personal experience or just your general mindset and approach. Yeah, you know, my friends call me like an internal optimist. I actually had an internet company called Fashion One-on-One. I was creating many years ago when at the very beginning of the boom of the internet. And it was, I used to be in the trade show industry. And so it was a virtual trade show. So I kind of, I knew what was going on.
• 43:57
  And then the internet crashed at the time. And it was just when I was going out and I was close to getting my funding of $1.2 million. So I've seen failure. That was like getting, that was like getting my master's, I must say, building that. So I also come from a family of people who have never worked for anyone else. So I'm used to
• 44:22
  I'm used to my own work and not working for others. So for me, failure is just like a blip. It's just like a blip. And it's just kind of having the confidence that, okay, so this didn't work. Something else could work. Got the passion to keep on going. The fire. Yeah, it's the fire. Yeah.
• 44:50
  Oh my gosh, that was just amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today and for sharing your incredible story and what you've been developing for women all around the world. It's just so inspiring to see. And I really love what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. This was really fun. Thank you for letting me share my story.
• 45:12
  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.
• 45:37
  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.
• 45:59
  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.
• 46:16
  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.
• 46:40
  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.
• 47:03
  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.