Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / The blueprint from $1M to $5M+ with Etoile Collective’s founder, Michelle Hu (part 1)

Transcript

The blueprint from $1M to $5M+ with Etoile Collective’s founder, Michelle Hu (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Michelle Hu for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we're chatting with Michelle Hu, the founder of Etoile Collective. Etoile Collective is a beauty accessories brand making one's interaction with beauty products a more enjoyable and chaos-free experience.
• 0:30
  She started the biz in Australia in 2016, and now the product range has expanded to include thoughtfully designed organizers, purposefully built travel cases, and vanity mirrors and furniture. We talk through building the brand entirely through social media, how it works with high ticket items, and her key tips for building a business.
• 0:51
  And while I've got you here, I also want to quickly say a huge thank you to everyone that's been buying the book and shouting about it on social media. I just can't believe the response we've had and the love you've been sharing. So, so, so, so many thanks to you. I'm so grateful for each and every one of you for being my hype girl when I really needed it. Thank you so much. Let's get into this episode. This is Michelle for Female Startup Club.
• 1:21
  Michelle, hey, welcome to the show. Hey, Dune. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm so excited. I love your podcast. Oh, my God. That never gets old. Do you listen to the podcast? Yeah, I do. It's like so many good gems and so many founders that I look up to as well. That is so cool. How did you find the show? I cannot remember the first episode that I would have listened to.
• 1:45
  But I feel like you've had some like huge founders that just like I honestly cannot remember the first person that I listened to. That's so cool. Oh, my gosh. Well, you know a little bit about me then and how the show goes. So that's great. Tell me a little bit about Itch While Collective for those of our listeners who might not know yet. And tell us about the ethos behind the brand.
• 2:08
  Yeah, absolutely. So I started Twiwild back in 2016, very, very casually, not thinking that this could ever eventuate to something that I do full-time. We're all about building a destination that will make one's interaction with beauty more enjoyable. So our product range includes thoughtfully designed travel cases, makeup organizers, vanity mirrors, lighting, and also some furniture. And I went full-time in the business two years after it started and have been going full-time ever since kind of early 2019.
• 2:39
  I love it. I was deep in your TikTok content and was like, oh my God, all these things I never knew that I needed, but I need. And you know, those videos you do where it's like a messy makeup bag and then transformed into like the neat thing. I was like, I'm that girl. I've got that messy, like everything just jammed in. And then I pull everything out to try and find something. And I'm like, I hate this, but like, I don't know that this is great solutions. I love it.
• 3:03
  Those videos do so well. Yeah, they do. They do. Let's take a bit of a rewind to pre-2016 to how you got to start with this idea. Like what was leading you towards starting your own side hustle because you were working full-time at the time and why beauty kind of containers and what are they called? Like what, how do you categorize them? Organizers. Organizers. Oh, we call the whole thing like beauty accessories. Beauty accessories. That's kind of a niche. Got it.
• 3:32
  But yeah, I have always been someone who kind of fell into the beauty game really early. Like I remember in year eight, I was the first amongst all my friends to get started and like try experimenting with different makeup. And I think
• 3:45
  It was because as a child, I was always someone who was very self-conscious about my ethnicity and having different like facial features. And so I remember turning to YouTube and discovering Michelle Phan, who was kind of like an OG beauty YouTuber. And she would kind of morph herself into like all these different looks. And I was like, that is incredible. I want to give that a go. And so I started experimenting with like mascara, eyeliner, all of that, and just started creating my collection.
• 4:14
  Couple of years on, this collection grew to like so much product. And I just remember feeling very stressed about the whole thing and just had like bits and pieces kind of everywhere. And I've always thought that, you know, the beauty process is meant to be a super uplifting process meant to make you feel good, look good, all of that. And I mean, I wasn't feeling any of that when I was actually getting ready for.
• 4:38
  So I really just wanted some products to keep myself organized, have a little like beauty nook in my room where I could go to and just have the process feel really good. I couldn't find any of these products in Australia. So I had my dad's help who kind of worked offshore to kind of source some products. And I really just used it for myself for a couple of weeks. And then I guess on the flip side of all of this is that I've always been someone who's
• 5:04
  very into consumer goods, branding and marketing. And so I thought this was a great opportunity just to kind of have fun with it and just to see where I could take it. I didn't really have any business plan in place or any
• 5:18
  kind of idea of like turning this into a full-time thing. I, yeah, just thought it would be an outlet where I could creatively, you know, test all these different things that I enjoy doing. That's amazing. And what were those kind of like early steps to you actually, you know, getting ready to launch this business online?
• 5:38
  Oh, it was so, such a casual process. So first and foremost was getting the stock in and I did have my dad's help in kind of finding our initial manufacturers. And personally, I just designed products that I needed for myself. So, you know, we started with four acrylic organizers, a lipstick holder, a palette holder, a brush holder, and a compact holder. So very kind of
• 6:03
  basic designs, but at the time I honestly couldn't find it in Australia. Um, and then from there, it was a lot of admin work. So like starting the Instagram, starting our website, getting all the, um, you know, business registrations and everything up and running. And then we essentially, you know, as soon as the website was functioning, we were like, Hey everyone, you can now shop us. But we had like no marketing plan, no launch plan. Um, everything just kind of grew organically from there.
• 6:33
  And to getting like to that point, you know, getting the inventory, getting that kind of like early batch of products, what was the investment that you needed to put in of your own money and how were you funding the business in the beginning? So it was all for my savings from my full-time job. And fortunately, like we, these products didn't really have a super high MOQ, so minimum order quantity. So I think it only, we kind of only invested maybe...
• 7:00
  few thousand dollars in our first batch. And then from there, we kind of, you know, used the revenue from that to kind of invest more and expand the product range. And yeah, it grew just organically. And kind of from day one, we were profitable. So that was
• 7:16
  certainly really helpful. And when you say you grew organically, is that like you just literally on social media or is it you going to markets or, you know, just telling friends or what were the specific things you were doing to kind of get the word out there in the beginning? Purely on social media. I mean, this was a complete different backdrop in 2016, 2017. The height of Instagram. Literally. And people just loved seeing vanity inspiration. So I remember we would post
• 7:45
  just like a corner of my own bedroom where we had these organizers set up. And people loved seeing that. They would tag their friends. Like word of mouth was super powerful for us. We didn't really switch on paid marketing till I went full time in the business two years after. So everything was just, yeah, via word of mouth, people tagging friends, being like, oh my God, take a look at this. I need this. And I don't think it was like, you didn't really see that content on Instagram at the time. So it did really well for us.
• 8:15
  I mean, Vanity Inspiration still does really well for us now. We just have kind of adapted the content creation process to, you know, what social media has now turned into. And is that how you would say that your Instagram grew in the beginning? Or did you have like a kind of strategy? Because you obviously have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. You've got a hundred and something thousand followers on TikTok now. Is it just been purely through content?
• 8:40
  Through content creation, yeah. So we have always wanted to be a place where we could inspire others to do something with their own space, you know, get rid of the chaos and just declutter. And, yeah, we've always wanted to inspire people through content
• 8:56
  our own personal content and also content that we kind of repost from our customers. And I think people really like to turn to our page when they need ideas of how to organize or, you know, how they can kind of reinvigorate their space. Yeah. And I think it's like really shareable content too. It's easy to like send it to a person.
• 9:19
  Yeah, and it's also kind of the content that you can scroll for hours because it's always like something new or, yeah, like a new idea that you can add to your space. So true, easy to watch. Let's go back to this time when it's like circa two years in. What is the prompt for you to quit your job? Firstly, I hated my job. So I was in banking, doing finance, and I really didn't enjoy that. And in those two years, Etoile grew up.
• 9:48
  completely organically. Like I was not putting in very many hours at all to kind of get this thing to grow. And I did have a financial milestone in my mind. This came from absolutely nowhere. Can you share what it is? Yeah. I said, if it could organically reach $20,000 in sales a month, I'll go full time. And yeah, we did that in October, 2018.
• 10:13
  And yeah, I was like, all right, I'm so done with banking. Let's go full time on this. I know like specific levers that we can pull to grow. So that was like a complete rebrand, a redo of our website, expanding the SKU range,
• 10:29
  turning on paid marketing, like Facebook ads, Google ads, all of that. And I thought, you know, I think there's a lot of room for growth if I go full time and spend all my time on it. Oh, my gosh. And so when you're thinking about like that time, 2018 to, you know, like last year, if you had to break down those kind of like key milestones, key major moments that were leaping you forward, what would they be? Paid ads has definitely been a huge one.
• 10:56
  So on like Facebook and Instagram and then more recently TikTok as well, that drives a lot of growth. But organically, like I think we've doubled down on content creation and we've always like adapted to different trends, you know, go from Instagram to TikTok, going from posts to reels and just keeping up with the times and how people want to see content. That is definitely our bread and butter content creation. And the best thing is it's completely free. It's organic. It's organic.
• 11:24
  That is definitely like the biggest thing that has driven growth in the past few years.
• 11:29
  I feel like once the iOS 14 changes happened, like everyone needed to really triple down on just like content and storytelling, which obviously you lend yourself really well as a brand to be able to do that. How long do you actually spend creating content like you, either back in the day or whether you still do now? What's the kind of like posting schedule and how much time do you invest into that on a daily basis?
• 11:56
  It's so funny because we've always found that the content that performs the best is the content that takes like the least amount of time to produce. And which is amazing. Classic. I know. We did a video a couple of weeks ago that went viral on our TikTok that got 3 million views. And it literally took me about two minutes to video. There was no editing. It was just the actual content with a song in the background. And like that was it.
• 12:25
  Oh my God. And what's the impact of like that 3 million views? Like, did you see like a crazy spike in sales immediately or was it just more like tons of followers or what was that like direct impact? Crazy volume. So we had another video. It wasn't this one, but one last year and we saw
• 12:43
  traffic to the website increased by literally about 8,000% overnight. It was wild. But the flip side of that is you can never control like where the video goes viral. So back then we were just in Australia.
• 12:59
  And I think the TikTok went viral in the US and we don't like really push international shipping because our products are kind of heavy and bulky. So it's really hard to convert international customers. So we really didn't see much of a sales uplift, but we just in terms of brand awareness and traffic, we saw a huge, huge uplift. With this video three weeks ago, actually, we were just in the middle of like we were about to launch our US store.
• 13:29
  And we weren't quite ready. I think we're about 90% of the way there. And then this video went viral. We kind of saw 15,000 visitors onto the US site, but it was a password protected page. So that moment we were like, all right, scrap this. Like we just have to launch now. We've got so many visitors to the website. And it kind of provided the perfect backdrop to our US launch. Wow, that's so cool. So cool. So exciting. And so you're based in the US now, kind of growing that side of the business. You've moved from Australia to the US.
• 13:59
  Yeah, that's correct. So fun. My gosh. I wanted to ask you about the high ticket items because obviously that's like such a cool way to, you know, increase the lifetime value of a customer, increase the average order value. What's it like though, in terms of the logistics and, you know, mirrors, I know that you have like products with lights on them. Like, I just feel like all this stuff becomes like harder operationally.
• 14:25
  Oh my God, it is a nightmare. Yeah, it's really, really difficult. I would tell anyone who's thinking about getting into like furniture or like really heavy, bulky, fragile stuff. Like it is logistically really difficult. Firstly, it's expensive to warehouse. So yeah, it's expensive to ship. It's expensive to warehouse. Things break. Couriers aren't fantastic. And
• 14:50
  I mean, that's probably the thing that I dislike most about Etoile. And I wish like my former self knew how difficult I was making my life by expanding into like mirrors and furniture. With that though, like obviously being so difficult, is that something that you then think, hey, it's worthwhile pursuing? Like, or is it something that you're thinking we should scrap that complicated side of the business and just kind of like, you know, it's a good revenue driver, but also it's not worth the headache? Yeah.
• 15:21
  I mean, I think like the magic with a twile is being able to come for one thing and then also discovering other pieces that you might want in your beauty space. So we really think it's in having that entire kind of product portfolio. So the furniture range and the mirror range is there to, because like people want that for their beauty room. And yeah, it's just something that we have to deal with. I think we're getting better at it. I mean, one thing that we've implemented over the past few years is same day delivery in Metro Melbourne and Sydney.
• 15:50
  which is a lot easier than when things have to go into a depot and then onto like the final driver. So that has worked amazingly for the business. And, yeah, so it's really great for these big bulky products. What is your best piece of advice for entrepreneurs who are early on in the journey and just kind of getting started?
• 16:13
  Um, firstly, I think start creating content for your business before you actually have like an official business. So when you're creating your mood board or sampling products or designing products, like just start documenting it and taking photos of it. And I mean, I always encourage everyone to start posting as soon as possible. But even if you don't want to, like these are the videos that you're going to want to have access to five years down the track when you start talking about your story. So yeah, start, just take videos like as soon as
• 16:43
  Um, secondly, I think start with a small group of really passionate consumers that you're really trying to appeal to and work towards getting these people to be your brand evangelist. I think it's really hard to be everything to everyone. Um, and word of mouth is so powerful. So yeah, start small and get these people to really buy into what you're doing. And then the last thing that I want
• 17:07
  would recommend is to not be afraid to kind of shout about your small business. I think women especially, like, we're so, we tend to be really self-conscious and worry about scrutiny. But I think the more you speak about what you're doing, the more people buy into, like, what you're doing and the more kind of...
• 17:24
  the high chance of success you're setting yourself up for. You know, something I wanted to touch on really quickly that I thought you did a really good job at is obviously there's a lot of people out there in the market who create, you know, beauty organizers and that kind of stuff. And I love how you're able to kind of lean into when people ask you the question, like how, why are you different? And like, you know, why is this so expensive and all this kind of thing? And you create content specifically, like real,
• 17:48
  showing people the difference and then people are like, oh, okay, yeah, I totally get it. Like that makes sense. And specifically what I'm referencing is I saw a video on one of your accounts where it was like, you know, why is your product so expensive or what makes you different was the question. And it was like you or someone
• 18:04
  whoever was doing the content, throwing like a competitor product and it kind of like smashing and then you throwing one of yours. And it basically like, sure, it has a little crack in it, but like it still functions. It still looks perfect and it still spins. And I was like, that's a really great way of like leaning into the, you know, those kind of questions and creating content that shows people why you're different.
• 18:27
  Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's one of the biggest challenges that we've had in the business because I understand, like, you know, we don't have, it's not like a skincare product, you're not putting it on. These are quite homogenous products where there are competitors, like, everywhere. And, like, one of the most difficult things that we've kind of had to do over the past couple of years is build the moat for the business, like, tell people why we're different and show people, you know, this is why we cost this much and this other person costs this much.
• 18:58
  But, yeah, again, we know we're not for everyone and if price is the thing that you're trying to prioritise, like we're probably not the person to go to, but if you do want something that will last and that's really functional and something that has been really well, you know, well thought out by someone who loves beauty and uses it, then...
• 19:16
  you know, we're here. We're here for you. Love that. Yeah. Where's the business today in terms of like, how big's the team? Obviously you've expanded into the US, you've done the international thing, but how big's the team? Are there any like rev figures you can share for the year? Anything you want to shout about upcoming? We are actually still really lean. So we have two warehouse managers in Melbourne. We have someone in customer service and then it's just myself. But we tend to work a lot with
• 19:45
  freelancers and agencies who do our Facebook ads, our SEO. Who else do we have? That's crazy. I read an article where you're doing like 5 million a year or something nuts. And I just expected that you'd be bigger than in terms of team members building that. That's amazing. Yeah, no, we're very, very lean. I think this was a personal decision. I think when you
• 20:15
  kind of managing the team becomes a full-time job. And we did have a team, but then since I moved to the US, we kind of hit reset on the business a little bit. But I just remember, like, I would spend so much of my time worrying about whether they were really enjoying their job, whether they could see, like, job growth and job satisfaction. So for now, we've decided just to go with, just to outsource a lot of that. But maybe in the future, like, I did really, really love having a team.
• 20:41
  So hopefully down the track we will be able to kind of build an in-house team again. I also feel like the world has changed so much because of the pandemic and we're seeing more of like you can just hire someone remotely to do the one thing that they do really well just to do that at scale and having like lots of people who do it and, you know, that's how I run my business too. And rather than trying to have all sorts of different things done by someone remotely,
• 21:07
  if that makes sense, like just kind of getting the good bits done by delegating, I guess, to people who know how to do it best. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think there's pros and cons, but for my skill set, we've just decided to outsource a lot of that for now.
• 21:27
  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.
• 21:51
  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.
• 22:14
  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.
• 22:31
  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.
• 22:55
  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.
• 23:18
  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.