Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 Quick Questions with Allison McNamara, Founder of MARA Beauty (part 2)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? I feel like it's so powerful when you feel good about your skin, at least for me. And so I love being able to give the gift
- 0:27of gorgeous skin to people, especially people that have had struggles with acne or breakouts or aging or texture or plumpness their whole lives to see the transformations that people are seeing in their skin is truly like the best gift. And it's the why.
- 0:41Mm-hmm. Yeah. Skin confidence is like a real, it's a real thing. I'm going through like this treatment at the moment to kind of like, I don't know what the terminology is here because I'm so bad at this stuff, but it's kind of like to help my pigmentation damage from sun damage. And I was with the clinic yesterday and we did like a before and after photo just from when I came in to like the few weeks of like this skin stuff that I'm using at the moment. And I can already see a
- 1:08wow, like that makes me feel so good to see that progress, even though it's small. And she was like, yeah, you're going to have so much more progress as well. And it made me feel so confident just in that moment, that tiny little moment. I was like, wow, I feel really good about that. Oh, yeah, it's the best. And your skin looks amazing. So you'll have to tell me more about this treatment. Oh, I will. We can do this offline. Question number two is what's been your number one, like top favorite marketing moment so far?
- 1:35Oh, I have two. Is that okay? Yes, absolutely. So the first one I have to say is not like a skincare focused marketing moment, but it was just such a big accomplishment. And we were really one of the first brands to do it. Our Mara by Air One Skin Detox Tonic Collab. So we did a collaboration with Air One, which is like a super trendy grocery store in Los Angeles. And we did a tonic bar takeover. So for two weeks last August,
- 2:03They used our supplement to make this really delicious drink that was free for members and a small price for non-members. And it was really just a fun marketing activation that with a brand that I love so much and respect so much. So it was really cool for us. That is so cool. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And we're really one of the first, the first beauty brands to do that too, because we, we have supplements and skincare and number two is,
- 2:29Oh, I'd have to say I really loved our volcanic sea clay detox mask launch. It was like height of the pandemic and vaccines had just started rolling out. And I just loved our cozy, cute box that we did. We did this beautiful like sweatshirt that people loved. And we did a custom face coat, nail polish color that matched the color of the product. And then we did these Mara hair claws that we still sell because they're so popular.
- 2:54I love how like when you're describing these marketing moments, like you're creating these different kind of moments. It's not just like, oh, here's the product, like buy the product. It's like, hey, come and experience us in this new way in this cool trendy spot or like, hey, let's also like add layers to like this experience when you receive it in the mail. I think that's so clever and something that everyone listening should definitely think about. It's hard. Sometimes products
- 3:19lend themselves so easily to something like that. Like the mask was like a home run. We had so much fun putting that kit together, but then other products are a little more challenging. So you kind of have to just lean into the ones that you can make really fun. And then if you can't make it fun, don't reach. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
- 3:38Yeah. Don't make it a stretch. Make it feel easy for people to get it and understand it. Yeah. Love that. Question number three is what's your go-to business resource when it comes to a book, a podcast, or a newsletter? This is a good one. I listen to so many things. I love just any sort of self-help improvement book. So I'm always listening to something on audio books. I love, um, what's that? Oh my gosh. Of course I can't think of his name at the moment. I always
- 4:09Um, Ben, I have long COVID brain. I'm with you. Don't worry. I'll tell you, I'll tell you about that one later. Um, but I also love listening to the goop podcast. I really love that podcast. I think it's covers like really interesting topics that are not just business related, but a lot of like mental health and just physical health related. So I listened to Gwyneth Paltrow's goop a lot and a big fan of her just in general. I love goop kitchen. Um,
- 4:34and her website. I listen to The Daily every day, which is just like a general, you know, news podcast. But I think being informed with what's going on in the world is important for running a business. And that's basically it. I do a lot of audiobooks. I'm always listening to something. I love his voice and like the way that he says, like, I'm like, I'm not going to try and say, cause I feel like I'm going to butcher it, but I love his voice.
- 5:00Michael Barbaro on the daily? Yeah, like how he says like Barbaro. Like, I don't know how he says it, but like in that way. Love. I love it. Trust me. It's so good. Question number four, and I feel like you can have some really good answers for this one. How do you win the day? What are your kind of like AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and motivated and productive?
- 5:22I wish I could say I was like that girl and had like a full morning routine, but mine's like much more simplified. So I'll wake up usually between seven, seven 30. I'm not a super early riser. And some days I do Pilates first thing in the morning. Other days I kind of just go straight into my routine. I love my gratitude journal. So it's pretty short. It takes me like a few minutes. I always do that, you know, do my skincare. I've been doing some stretches lately because I feel like I've got a lot of tightness as I'm getting older.
- 5:52So I do about like five, 10 minutes of stretching, you know, walk my dog, make my coffee. And then I jump into work pretty fast. So I wish I had a little bit more time, but you know, there's a lot to do. And then at night, I just really do my skincare and watch Real Housewives because balance. Balance. Balance is key. Love that for you. Question number five is what's been the worst money that you've ever spent in the business? Like a money mistake. Yeah.
- 6:21Yeah. So when I first bought those dead stock bottles, I mentioned earlier, the person who sold them to me told me that I had to get them engraved in order to get the writing on it by someone who did wine bottles because they had already been sealed. And I didn't know anything about what I was doing. So I listened to him. I paid all this money to have them freighted up to San Francisco and,
- 6:45And they get there and the guy was like, yeah, we can do this, but they're not gonna be shiny gold. It'll be like a flat gold, which is not what I wanted. So I had to ship them all the way back down here. I got these labels printed and the labels weren't correct. So I went through like three revisions of the front of the bottle for the universal face oil without actually wasting any of the bottles. Just I wasted a lot of time and a lot of money. So, and the reason for this is because I didn't order the components from, you know, a manufacturer
- 7:16And they came, they didn't come custom for me. They were sitting here. So that's definitely one of the challenges. And it probably would have, it probably would have evened out, honestly, cost wise, if I would have just ordered them originally from, you know, Korea, where they come from. But of course, the quantities would have been different. Totally. How much was it that you kind of like lost in that saga-ish?
- 7:38I think around $10,000 of some sort. There was a lot of it. I mean, it's still a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It sucked. I was like, Oh my God, what am I doing? But hate that for you. Question number six, last question. It's a kind of a blend on from this. Um, I might have to mix these up in the future, but anyway, for now we'll go with it. What's been a major fail in the business that you can share and how did you deal with it?
- 8:04I wouldn't say it's a major fail because honestly, I think every kind of downturn points you up again. Right. Because that's how the cycle goes. But one crazy story that was wild was when we were getting ready to launch our retinol oil, which was our second product that we launched. We, okay, the bottles left from Korea and the largest storm, like in our generation has hit the coast of Korea.
- 8:33And they couldn't find the boat, which is really scary for the people on it. They couldn't find the boat for two weeks. And they were like, yeah, well, we think it may have like sunk. We're not sure. And a lot of manufacturers are DDP, but we didn't have DDP, which means delivered at place. They're responsible until it gets here, but we didn't have DDP pricing. So basically like they were kind of saying like, well, they're gone. So you have to buy them again.
- 8:59But luckily for the people on board and for our bottles, they arrived safely just like a month and a half late. Jesus. Whoa. Yeah. It was really traumatizing. Yeah. Gosh, that is wild stuff. Wild stuff. Question on that. What happens like do you have to have insurance? Like what happens if they actually, you know, went missing like properly?
- 9:24Yeah, at the time, I don't know if I had, I definitely had business insurance. Like I had liability insurance and all of the things that you need to operate a proper business. I had that at the time, but I don't know how it works with things that you've ordered that you haven't received. I mean, knock on wood, it hasn't happened since then. And we never got to that phase, but yeah, I should look into that. I'm sure insurance would kick in in some capacity, but I'm not sure how much, and they would probably argue over who was liable for it.
- 9:52Hmm. Gosh, that's a crazy story. I'm actually going to change that question to be like, what's a crazy story in the business? That's it going to be moving forward to everyone listening. Love that for me. Alison, thank you so much for taking the time to join me and share your story with Mara. I've loved hearing all the things. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This has been so fun.
- 10:17Hey, 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.
- 10:42And 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.
- 11:04As 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.
- 11:21Hey, 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.
- 11:45And 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.
- 12:08As 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.