Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Britta Cox shares her secrets to building AQUIS & selling millions of units each year (after 31 years in the game)

Transcript

Britta Cox shares her secrets to building AQUIS & selling millions of units each year (after 31 years in the game) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Britta Cox for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Boy, oh boy, do we have a story for you today. I am just so excited about this episode. We're learning from Britta Cox, who is the founder behind a brand I'm sure you've heard about, Arquess.
• 0:30
  She started this brand in 1990, which makes it almost as old as me. And she's still showing up every day as excited as ever to learn and expand and grow, which is something I truly admire. And it was so special to see and hear. Yeah.
• 0:47
  We're talking through her journey in the early years when she was literally faxing her manufacturing company and taking out ads in the newspaper to sell her products, through today being a brand that's partnered with folks like Kourtney Kardashian. I think we can all take some key insights and learnings from Britta's laser focus on building this brand and her resilience and approach to keep building this company.
• 1:11
  We also talk about what she would do differently if she was starting this thing again tomorrow. But to rewind a little bit, Britta felt like her hair care routine was holding her back instead of helping her. Her hair care routine meant tons of time wasted, washing her hair and waiting forever while it dried.
• 1:30
  She didn't want rough terry towels that cause breakage, and she also didn't want to wait hours for her hair to air dry or be damp enough to blow dry. That all changed when she had her aha moment, taking note of the high performance fabrics found in ski wear that rapidly wick away moisture to keep skiers dry.
• 1:49
  From that inspiration, Britta developed the first Aquas hair towel. It was lightweight and easy to use with a proprietary microfiber called Aquatex that rapidly wicks away water from hair.
• 2:01
  She had found her time-saving solution. This innovation led to the original hair turban shape. And 20 years later, with a full line of rapid dry hair wraps and towels selling over a million units every year, Arquas continues to champion the message that less is more for hair, focusing on hair when it's at its weakest, which is when it's wet, to protect vulnerable strands and lock in strength.
• 2:26
  If you're a new listener here and you got something out of this episode, please hit that subscribe button and shout about us from the rooftops to entrepreneurs in your life who would benefit from hearing this inspiring founder story. Let's get stuck into this episode. This is Britta for Female Startup Club.
• 2:45
  Britta. Hi, hello, and welcome to Female Startup Club. Hi, Dune. Thanks for having me. This is awesome. So excited to be here. Yes, I'm so excited for you to be here. I'm excited to understand your journey and hear what you've been through on what I'm sure is a very long rollercoaster ride, 31 years in business. Yes. Pretty much my whole life. Wow.
• 3:09
  I hear that a lot. You are the OG of Female Startup Club at this point, so I'm very excited. Do you want to start by giving us a bit of your elevator pitch on who you are and what your business actually is for anyone who doesn't know who you are just yet? Okay, cool. My name is Britta Cox. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area. My brand is Aquas. Okay.
• 3:33
  It's a hair tool, really a towel and turban that dry hair quickly to basically help hair regain strength after being wet and give us our best hair with less effort. Basically as simple as that. I mean, I love it. Yeah. It's simple and it's genius and everyone needs it.
• 3:52
  We do. We do. And that's exactly why I started it. Let's go back to those early days. I imagine, you know, probably in the 80s when you were starting to think about this idea and starting to think about wanting to start a business in the first place. What was that time like and how did you make that decision?
• 4:14
  Well, I think I grew up around an entrepreneurial family. So I think I've always had that mindset. And I was in the ski industry. And I'm very curious about things. And I go very deep in trying to understand them. When I was in the ski industry, I was wearing the first wicking fabrics that wick sweat away from your body, the base layers of clothes that you would wear, let's say, under your ski park. It would wick sweat away from your body so you stay dry and warm. Yeah.
• 4:41
  And at the same time, I grew up with long hair. I just, washing it was always a hassle because of how long it took to dry. I would leave the house with a wet back. I wouldn't blow dry it. I never used a blow dryer. And the big clunky bath towel just simply didn't work. It was heavy, it would fall off and it didn't take the water out of my hair. So as I'm wearing this and exposed to these wicking fabrics, moving moisture and sweat, I'm like, okay, that was my aha moment. Like we've got to make a towel to,
• 5:10
  dry your hair better and more efficiently than what there is. So that was the impetus of that. And because I'm dating myself back to 30 years, I was curious like, who's making these fibers? Where is this fabric coming from? So I literally went to the library when we had things like called microfiche.
• 5:28
  and found the company in Japan who invented the first wicking fibers and worked with them. So I reached out to them. They're, you know, a very large company, thousands of employees, 100 years old, finally got to the right department, right person, finally got their attention, and then worked with them to make a towel to dry hair fast. So we worked really hard on how do we make a towel that is lightweight, very absorbent, so it just wicks the water away, and...
• 5:57
  It doesn't cause friction on your hair. Why do you think they were interested in working with you and like accepted working with you? I mean, obviously, A, it was a different time in the 90s and B, a huge company kind of taking this thing that didn't really exist for hair and being like, yeah, let's bring it to life.
• 6:19
  I think the constant threat of any entrepreneur is just being just relentlessly determined to make things happen. And honestly, they did not think I was their monthly customer and they ignored me in the beginning. Again, dating myself, I was sending them faxes and trying to make phone calls and get to the right person. And it was only a story that...
• 6:43
  five years later when we sold our millionth towel and I got a free first class trip to Japan that, you know, and they promised me, they told me their story about working with me from their perspective. And they said, Oh, you know, girl from California, not really our client, not really our type of customer. And they just ignored me. And then they said, Oh, but you know, faxes middle of the night, what time is it in San Francisco? More faxes and faxes and faxes. Maybe we should talk to her.
• 7:08
  And so this was their story. And they're not going anywhere. And literally, when I got to Japan, their big company had a newsletter, a monthly newsletter. It was a two-page spread about their story and journey of working with me. And that was, you know, very insightful because I learned a lot of insights from their perspective. It was really cool. So, you know, they learned very quickly that I had a unique experience with, you know,
• 7:34
  being a woman, having hair that needed to dry quickly, having a unique viewpoint on how something works. And it became a really beautiful relationship. I mean, they were, learned things that they had never learned. Well, our first customer was Macy's department store.
• 7:50
  So that helped because they were very proud when they came over. And, you know, we had a display at Macy's and I was running, you know, Macy's ran newspaper ads with me. And they were like, wow, because usually what they were doing, they're selling wholesale fabrics to big manufacturers.
• 8:07
  So they didn't have a retail presence and they didn't have that kind of feeling to see their fabrics branded and displayed in a department store like that. So it was just a really beautiful relationship, really learned so much from each other.
• 8:22
  gosh, they almost became like the gentleman who actually was in charge of the ultra fine fiber department that became the person who gave me the, I really had the global rights to the fabric and this proprietary fabric we made together. And Mr. Nakano became like, almost like a dad to me. I became, he referred to me as his daughter. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was very sweet.
• 8:45
  It's funny how when I talk to any entrepreneur on the show, what it all comes back to is relationships and relationship building, whether it's with your manufacturer, whether it's with your customer, whether it's with a retailer. Really, when you break it down, it's problem solving and it's relentless kind of, you know, going after what you want. And then it's relationships. That's like the three core kind of things, I think, when you drill into it.
• 9:12
  And those relationships, like the common thread in that is authenticity, like the passion and the love and the authenticity of how much, you know, I really understood how much this helped women to have a better day, drying their hair faster, getting better hair with less effort, saving time, which everybody is short of time. And it just became, you know, has really a very personal thing to people.
• 9:33
  I mean, it lasts for years and it literally something they use every day, something that makes their life better. And that means so much. And so it really comes from a place building those relationships with authenticity. So you're right, whether it's with our supplier or with our customers. And, you know, for our 30th anniversary, we reached out to a lot of our customers and we got the most brilliant.
• 9:53
  beautiful, again, like love letters that they had for this towel and for their brand and just how much they loved it. And they remembered, you know, where they got it and who gifted it. And then they in turn would buy one and gift it to others. It's just, it really is a story of relationships and based in authenticity. Yeah.
• 10:12
  inherently had word of mouth built into the product. Exactly. And especially for women, I feel like women talk a lot to girlfriends, whether it's in like the DMS on social media, or like your group chat with all your girls. It's like, if you find something that's genius and makes your life a bit easier, that women understand you share that with your girlfriends. And next thing you know, everyone's got the same product.
• 10:33
  Exactly. And for now, it's so fun because Aquas lends it so well to things like TikTok and social media and Instagram because, you know, these before after pictures and, you know, people putting the turban on, doing masking and, you know, and just mother, we see a lot of mother's daughters, you know, with the mother daughters both having their turbans on and sitting around and having their, their self care moments and their moments together. It's our reading books and storytelling at night. It's pretty beautiful. Yeah.
• 11:02
  That is really beautiful. I want to switch to understanding more of the marketing side. I know you said in the beginning you were running ads in the newspaper, which is obviously very foreign to me. Right. Although having said that, you know, I do see brands today doing crazy, amazing things when they do, you know, the full page ad in the New York Times and it's some witty thing.
• 11:24
  clap at some kind of brand doing something, but different times in marketing. When you were getting started, could you paint the picture of what life looks like? As in, you know, did you need a lot of capital invested to get this off the ground? What were you doing to actually attract customers? And who were your sort of first 1000 loyal customers? Mm hmm.
• 11:47
  You know, I think the exposure of working with, you know, Macy's, they were very helpful to kind of do a lot of these ads. They had a lot better experience and the days were different than that was how you reached people is through more direct mailings. We got Neiman Marcus early on as a customer. We did a little campaign with them where we went into the credit card mailing to when people got their bills. And so it was just a bit of a different, you know, era. Yeah.
• 12:13
  But what's interesting, and this is what's so, you know, with entrepreneurism, you just have to be so agile all the time and just paying attention and pivoting to what works. Because, you know, as everything changed to digital and social media, and as that and Instagram, let's say, you know, paid advertising has gotten so expensive, we're seeing more at home again. So you're seeing I'm getting a lot more mailers from brands that are sending direct mail.
• 12:38
  now again, because it's less expensive than paying media and or outdoor. So more billboards and more things at home. That's why you're probably, you know, we're all seeing a little bit more ads in newspapers.
• 12:50
  So your question about early investment and how do you get started? I mean, honestly, I come from a family of entrepreneurs and we're very bootstrappy. And that was my first three years. For the first almost year, I didn't earn a salary. I think like many entrepreneurs who are thinking about getting into and starting a business, like I kept...
• 13:16
  You know, the thing I was doing that paid me while I started my new venture. And until my new venture could pay me, that's when I let the other one go. And I think that's a very common thing. I think it was only literally our third year I brought in.
• 13:32
  an investor who was really a friend. At that time, it's really seed money you can get. You can't really get professional investors until you're pretty sizable. And so you really need to go to friends and family route. And a friend of mine was fortunately really believed in what I was doing. And
• 13:51
  really believed in me and gave us our first investment. And not only just an investment in equity, but also gave me a line of credit. And that was pretty amazing because I worked and leveraged that really for the first five years. And then it wasn't probably our fifth year that we could even get bank financing for,
• 14:12
  because again, banks will only, and we were profitable early, but as I needed to grow, then I needed to be able to use the line of credit I had and use, because as you grow, you need a lot more inventory and you have a lot more receivables and so you need more and more cash all the time. And it was really my fifth year that I actually got bank financing, which is like what they call it, ABL, an asset-based lending loan and its percentages of inventory and receivables. Okay.
• 14:41
  But you have to have a, you know, depending on what the bank covenants are at that time, which always kind of changes. Generally, banks like to see, you know, three years of profitability and, you know, certain things that make them comfortable to know that you're going to be good for your loan. And then you have to sign a personal guarantee.
• 14:57
  It's a lot of yourself on the line. It's very much later. Like we've recently taken a strategic investor on, which is amazing. We love them. True Beauty Ventures and others. And they come with a tremendous amount of experience. And when you decide to get that type of capital, really deciding on who can help you really grow your business the most.
• 15:22
  Where do you need support and how can they most, you know, align with what you need as well? And it's been beautiful because it's a journey of really, you know, you say, okay, you've been in business for 30 years. You must, you know, entrepreneurs, we get bored. But it's always learning. Business is always changing and you're always needing to be adaptable and agile. And really being astute to what's going on in the market and aware so you can pivot and do what you need to, to survive.
• 15:52
  I mean, I think surviving through, you know, 30 years, I've learned that that just, you just don't take no for an answer. You just, you're super resourceful. When the tough get going, the going get tough. Gosh, that is just incredible. My goodness.
• 16:08
  I'm interested to talk about the True Beauty Ventures partnership to understand like at what kind of scale you were at when they entered the picture. And then what is it that they were able to strategically do to help you grow even further and take you to that next level?
• 16:24
  Well, you know, we're very far down our road because we're already doing $20 million in sales by the time we did that. So that's what's so ironic. You know, like you have to get so far until you can get that more strategic kind of, you know, funding. I mean, they just, you know, Rich and Christina and their team, just they are amazing people. They have amazing experiences that they bring to the table to help you identify, you know, the right people to hire.
• 16:54
  what, you know, talking to other brands, what's working for people, what's not working for people. And just a great sounding board when you have, you know, key decisions to make. They have just very unique and experienced insights and they're very available and super, super helpful.
• 17:14
  Gosh, yeah. I guess that's such a, for entrepreneurs who are early on in the journey, like that just seems, you know, like a mountain to climb. So I've probably jumped too far ahead and I'd love to go back a little bit, rewind a bit to understand what the kind of pivotal things that happened in your journey to get you, you know, from like one to 10 million in revenue, even, or even just to 1 million in revenue. Like what are the key kind of
• 17:38
  initiatives to growth in those early foundational years of making this kind of a long-term brand? I think it's, again, it's just really looking at the market, thinking about
• 17:52
  you know, we were consumer based. We needed to rely on retailers. That's what there was. So identifying like, where are people going to buy the thing you have? And I mean, honestly, I had not one salesperson for the first 10 years. I did all the sales. I did all the cold calling and I just didn't take no for an answer. That's how I got Neiman Marcus was just calling and calling and calling. And then we were able to, you know, when I was looking at the landscape, there was no Sephora, didn't exist.
• 18:22
  back in 1990. So who was getting those customers? It was Bath and Body Works and The Body Shop, if you remember those brands, and even Aveda and some specialty retailers. So we were able to partner with all of those brands. And it was really unique because Aquas was so unique that we were able to get into both Bath and Body Works and The Body Shop with our brand.
• 18:50
  as Aquas and usually everything else in the store was their brand. And I mean, I really always held to, I need to support my brand. No, I will not do private label because, you know, it's important that I grow awareness and, and they never pushed back those brands, even though they didn't push back hard on me. Um,
• 19:09
  I even did partnerships with the Gap at times. So I think really leveraging communities that exist and is always key in those communities change. And, you know, it was where it's, you know, people walking into stores and now it's people walking into stores, it's people online, it's people on all these different platforms, it's wherever people are, you meet them and you just understand like, what is that community? So today, for example, I've,
• 19:34
  And, you know, Aquas is, if I were looking at from the outside today, it's like, who are some of those places that can help raise your voice? And, you know, Violet Gray was one of those early partners that really helped raise our voice with Aquas. We did a partnership with them where we embroidered. They gave us, you know, a list of a lot of their key influencers that they worked with. And it was over 50 people. And we took all these celebrity and we embroidered their first names on our turban.
• 20:04
  and we did together with them a mailer to everyone. So that happened. And I think Goop is another partner that we really appreciate and love because they do a lot of the way they write their content and share other learnings. They've been able to not just say, here's a towel that dries your hair fast, but they're able to write about why that makes a difference to people and how, what happens. There's so many learnings we want to share with people about what happens to hair when wet
• 20:33
  And how by drying your hair quickly, you actually save your hair and get better hair with less effort. And then my little hair hack is everyone should wash their hair at the end of the shower, not the beginning. Because the less time hair is wet, the stronger it stays.
• 20:49
  And that's just something people don't know. So part of it is like we have learnings from our brand and from our science that we want to share in the community. So who can help you share that information and who's best suited to? And sometimes those, you know, platforms and partners who are communicating in more of an editorial way can help share more learnings, which is why we really appreciate a lot of those partners.
• 21:13
  Yeah, identifying the voices of trust within the communities that you really want to target. The partnership with all the celebrities, that's so cool. I saw you have, you know, people like the Kardashians who wear your turban. Is that how that came about?
• 21:31
  Well, yeah, I mean, the Push collaboration was also a super big, you know, Kickstarter of awareness because Courtney had loved our towel and turban and she, their team, as she was launching Push, reached out to us to do a partnership with them.
• 21:49
  Oh my God. Cool. Yes. Yeah. It was one of those amazing moments that you're like, wow, pinching yourself. And, you know, Courtney was amazing in the amount of content she created and she really went all out and they were great to work with the Push team and,
• 22:06
  And, you know, we had an understanding like, okay, we'll do XYZ hits and whatnot. And they just did so far and above what we expected, like beautiful videos and engagement and had, I mean, she had it on everybody. Wow. It was a great partnership.
• 22:24
  What's the impact of working with a celebrity like that at that scale? Are we talking thousands of orders, millions of orders? Are you able to share any kind of that next layer of data or insights on what it's like to work with a celebrity?
• 22:41
  I think everybody's experience is a bit different. I think we did tremendous numbers, at least five times what we would normally do in that period of time. But what you can't really calculate is the awareness factor and how it ripples through the whole ecosystem. And the level of awareness and the other things it brought is really invaluable. Gosh, I can only imagine. Yeah.
• 23:10
  But I do think that it's very hard to spend, especially anybody in a startup, to be able to afford just to pay outright to anyone. To get the ROI on that is very difficult.
• 23:23
  Yeah, you really need to be at a certain level and you need to, I think like, I've heard some horror stories of people who didn't do that foundational kind of influencer marketing and building the brand so that there was all the, you know, micro influences, mid-sized influences, and then reaching up until you get to the point of being able to have a celebrity where it all kind of comes together versus just going straight for a celebrity, doing a one-off post, expecting the world, it crumbling on you and you being like, oh crap, I've just spent, you know,
• 23:53
  potentially six figures on something that didn't work and craziness that kind of comes from that. Totally. Yeah, that's exactly our experience. You have to really build your foundation with every level and the micro influences are extremely important. And if you watch how the ecosystem gets fed, it starts with micros who then goes to mid-level, then to upper and then it goes up. But if you just
• 24:20
  throwing money at the top celeb right out the gate is kind of like going to Las Vegas and putting $100,000 on a black jacket. Totally, totally. I guess it's also you need to have proven the concept in the market, which is a given, but also have the infrastructure to even fulfill the demand and kind of keep up with what could potentially happen when all those kind of things come together in a really beautiful way.
• 24:48
  I think that leads to one thing that Dune, I think, has always been helpful is anticipating the worst as well. You've got to think about, okay, this could go really well and I'm going to assume that I can sell XYZ. But if I don't, then what? You have to factor that in. So whether that's in your agreement that if you do something with somebody else's brand on it and you don't sell all of that as a co-brand with both your names and that doesn't sell, what are you going to do with that inventory? You don't want to go back and take your labels off and go sell.
• 25:18
  you know, so you can go sell it, you know, somewhere else or do something else. So you really have to always be thinking about like, what's your plan B? Plan for the downside as well as the upside. Yeah, I really like that. That's a great piece of advice, especially because you can get caught up in the excitement of what could go really well. And you're not thinking about necessarily what could go really wrong and how that could totally muck you up. I love that. Yeah.
• 25:41
  It only has to happen to you once. Let me think about that up front. What's going to happen if it doesn't go as planned? Do you have any examples? Oh, gosh. Not off the bat. Sorry. Not off the bat. That I can think of. I think the biggest thing is just always being resourceful and never letting fear take over and just know that there's always a way and just don't give up.
• 26:11
  My favorite book is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. If you read the story, oh my gosh. I mean, he can tell you how many times he almost went out of business. And that's just, you have to be really comfortable, you know, with whatever happens. Totally. Yeah, I'm really excited to read that. I'm going to link it in the show notes for anyone listening.
• 26:32
  Something else I was wondering about your product. I know that you have, you know, patented things and you obviously own your IP. Have you had to deal with copycats or issues on that side of the business by having a product that was really, you know, unique at the time, totally the first of its kind? And how has that kind of evolved for you?
• 26:53
  So, yeah, I patented the turban shape, which I had the patent shape, you know, for 14 years. And I think, you know, by having a patent, it gives you a great leg up, but it's very, you got to defend them. And if you don't defend them, you lose your...
• 27:09
  you know, rights to do that. And it's very hard with, you know, copycats. The thing is that they can't get into your retailers because your retailers can't be selling things that are not legal to sell. So that pretty much gives you the biggest ability to keep other people out. And as let's say my patents now, that patent expired, I had it for 14 years and I see copycats trying to do my shape.
• 27:34
  but they can't do my fabric because that's a proprietary fabric. And honestly, what's being sold out there as a hair towel is really what the fabric was designed for cleaning cloths. So most people copy me and selling, you know, like on Amazon for a lot cheaper are selling.
• 27:54
  knitted terry fabric that was designed to pick up and grab and hold dust inside of it. And it's really great for that purpose, but it's exactly what you don't want on your hair because as your hair is wet, your cuticles are raised and those little loopy fibers grab onto your upraised cuticles and give you more frizz and probably worse than a cotton towel. So, yeah,
• 28:18
  At the end of that day, you know, it's education. And it's when people use Aquas and they see what a difference it makes with their hair versus the copycats and people talk about that. And that's, you know, what keeps you above and keeps you giving you the edge on everything. So you just, I ignore copycats because I can only do the best and create the best product I can always create. And they're going to always try to be like trying to keep up with you, but they can't.
• 28:48
  You know, what's really exciting recently. So here's our copper shirt. And this is our new antimicrobial antibacterial fabric, which runs ultra fine fibers of cotton through it. So it doesn't, bacteria literally can't grow on it. So it's not a coating. It's not like a chemical coating. It's actually microbes when they eat, they try to eat the copper thing because it's the source of nutrition.
• 29:18
  deprives them of nutrition and water and they die. So literally bacteria cannot live on it. So, you know, we're just, you always have to think a step ahead of everybody, you know, and always be innovating and, you know, doing the best to serve your customer. I always have wanted to put the best possible product out there. And some people will say, well, gosh, Britta, your towel lasts too long. People keep it for years. I've said, isn't that great? It's very sustainable, you know?
• 29:47
  It's like back in the day when our parents would buy something like my mother-in-law. I'm at her house right now in Switzerland and she has like a blender that she got for her wedding, you know, like forever ago and it still works and it's still amazing. And like it was made to last. I love that.
• 30:03
  Exactly. The world needs more of that, as we know. Exactly. And then people buy it as gifts. They love it so much. They get so much love out of it for so many years. Then that's when they gift it and they talk about it. So I hear you. I totally hear you. Gosh, if you were to start this business again tomorrow, what would you have spent more money on in the beginning? And what would you have not wasted time or money on at all? I think I would have...
• 30:33
  built a bigger infrastructure organization of people first. I think one thing people need to ensure that they have is a large enough margin to support growing their business and supporting the infrastructure of people that it takes to do that. I was quite naive. I was creating a new category. There was no such thing as a hair towel. So I was,
• 31:01
  being compared when I was talking to the first buyers to the bath towel. So here you have this big, huge, bulky bath towel that's like on Macy's White Day Sale was selling for $20. And here I was taking this very thin, small,
• 31:16
  towel and selling it at first. So like when I started in 1990 at Macy's for 15 and there was like, wow, that's so much money. And so basically I worked on a smaller margin than I ever should have starting off. I should have pushed harder early. And I was a little bit naive because I kind of did the math backwards. I'm like, yeah, I can live on that. I'm like, yeah, but I can't hire a
• 31:38
  on that. I can't factor commission for that. So that's why I was the salesperson for 10 years. So margin is really important to give you enough to build your business. So I would build that in. Mm-hmm.
• 31:56
  Yeah, I love that. And that's something I think that, again, you can really overlook as a new entrepreneur because you just want to. I also feel like sometimes you're just like, oh, I just want to make it like the best possible price so it's easier for people to buy. And you don't realize that that actually really works in your negative and isn't.
• 32:12
  sustainable, especially, you know, when you're going out and acquiring people through digital ads and things like that, which are really expensive now, you don't allow yourself to do that or you don't have the margin, like you say, to do that. So, so interesting. A great piece of advice again. Thank you so much.
• 32:29
  Gosh, where do we want to go with this? I'd love to know when you think about marketing today, what is it that's really like your sweet spot at the moment? Like, how are you growing? What are you working on that's kind of taking that business forward?
• 32:44
  So, you know, for us, we're not a D2C brand, we're more of a digital brand just because it is not a consumable because it lasts a long time. So really, it's the community building and love of the product and sharing of that. I think, you know, for us, TikTok is working really well.
• 33:03
  of brands and people we speak to right now. The cost of acquisition at Instagram has gotten very high and not necessarily sustainable for a lot of brands and especially for a product that's not consumable like ours. TikTok has a lot more.
• 33:19
  you know, opportunity in that way. And people are having a lot, our influencers and community are having so much fun doing a lot of this, you know, before, after and transitions with different turbans on, turbans off, done hair, you know, just having fun with it. We're also leaning heavy into like just educating people about understanding their hair. One thing we've really come to know is that, you know,
• 33:42
  People don't really understand how their hair works, even the biology of their hair. And so by helping them try to understand how to get their best hair with less effort, that's really our core mission is just helping women. Once you understand how your hair works, you can actually do a lot, get a lot better hair with less effort.
• 33:59
  and just understanding it. So like, for example, I have not used in shower conditioner in five years and I could never comb my hair through before without in shower conditioner. And one trick is washing your hair at the end because when your hair is wet, that's what causes the tangling in the first place.
• 34:17
  So, you know, so I'm not weighing it down with heavy silicones. And so it's not getting attracting all the dirt and everything from the air and weighing it down and then putting me in this vicious circle or having me to have to wash it as often. So I wash every five to seven days, you know, and my hair is better than it's ever been and stays fresher longer. I have to wash my hair so often. It is. It's just a nightmare. And it takes so long. It's so long.
• 34:44
  My gosh, yeah, I guess it's, there's such a big education piece to it. And that lends itself so perfectly to TikTok because TikTok is so much fun, especially for, you know, products with women and hair and up close and beauty and all this kind of thing. But then also being educational at the same time, it's perfect recipe for success. I love that for you. Few more questions before we get into our six quick questions, which wraps up at the end of
• 35:14
  How long do you see yourself working in the business? And what's kind of your personal goal now? Because obviously, you know, these days people are building businesses, they're exiting there. Like you don't hear of people necessarily being in the business for 30 something years. So it's interesting to understand like what your goals are now and where you want to go.
• 35:34
  That's a very good question. You know, it's interesting to me because it is constantly learning. And I think that there still is so much
• 35:46
  of the world who isn't aware of our towel and understanding their hair, what it means to dry your hair and care for your hair properly and through the daily routine. So there's still a lot of excitement. You know, we're growing big in Asia and China and, you know, on Tmall. And so there's just new things we're still learning that is really exciting to me.
• 36:08
  You know, we're in Sephora globally in the Middle East and throughout Southeast Asia and Europe through our learnings also and learning about what happens to hair when wet and the biology of hair. My husband joined the company in 2016 with Aquis. And...
• 36:27
  And together, we've been really looking at the biology of hair and how people want to express their hair differently. And, you know, a lot of times that means that we have to use chemicals and other things in our hair to, let's say, I want the blonde hair of my youth. And as I get older, it gets darker. I want to keep it long. So I'm using I'm highlighting and, you know, we're doing things specifically that are damaging our hair.
• 36:49
  Or I want pink hair. Or if you have kinky hoily hair, maybe you straighten your hair. So we have a new brand we've launched as well, which is super exciting. Tell us. Tell us more. Well, it's called K18 Hair. It's a biomimetic hair science. And I don't want to go too into this because I'm like really going off piece here. But I think the point, I guess, is that there's always things you're learning. And so...
• 37:17
  You know, we're continuing to grow Aquas, which is super exciting. And we're converging because, you know, we're going to a lot of salons as well who can help us educate through that route. So that's also kind of a new angle to how we can grow the business in a different way and a new learning. And we're partnering actually with our own brand, our own new brand called K-E-Team.
• 37:39
  Amazing. Anyway, you'll hear more about it in the future. I'm very excited to hear more about it. We can have a follow-up episode. We can have a follow-up episode on how you're launching this new brand and the difference between launching in 1990 to 2021 slash into 2022. I'm sure you'll have lots of great insights. Last question before we jump into the six quick questions.
• 38:03
  which are nifty and they're quite quick. But what is your key piece of advice or your key kind of learning that you love to pass on to other entrepreneurs who are earlier on in the journey than you are? You know, be open-minded, be aware of what's going on around you and be determined to find your path through that. It's just determination. If you really want to make something happen, you will.
• 38:32
  The reason I say being mindful of what's around you is because you don't have time to make a lot of mistakes. You don't want to waste your time going down paths that you shouldn't go down or that will just distract you. You want to be super hyper-focused. I think being focused is also keen. Don't try to do too much. Do something really well and deep before getting too widespread.
• 39:01
  I think that's a struggle of entrepreneurs. It's definitely my struggle. I'm like all over the place. I want to do a million different things. And I think that's like the flavor of the moment. You know, everyone wants to try and do all the things and that's where you kind of spread yourself thin and then you're not able to just keep stacking. Okay. Don't jump at every shiny object.
• 39:24
  Don't do that. Shiny objects that looks really good, but you just can't pursue all of them. I think you got to just constantly be looking at your goals, your path. And, you know, there's times you always adjust them, but you just have to be make sure you're heading down the right path and being focused. And it just goes against, you know, our grain as an entrepreneur because we want to do everything.
• 39:47
  And you can't. So you got to stay focused. Totally. And I think also what's hard about it, though, and what's hard about what you're saying is it's hard sometimes to know if you're on the right path. If you're like, oh, should I keep trying to stick this out because I think this is the vision? Or if you should be like, OK, you know what? I need to have the courage to cut this and stop doing it because it isn't working the way that it should be working. And knowing where that is, it's a fine line.
• 40:17
  You're right. And I think that's when you have to really tap into other people who have done what you're considering to do or those different paths and see if it's worked for others. I know that, you know, I'm in a few different groups of startup founders. And, you know, there's a couple that we just, you know, we said, look, this paid performance marketing is just it's not really necessarily necessary.
• 40:42
  working, you have to be really careful about how you're spending money. And, you know, we spent a lot that was, you know, didn't make sense, you know, been pivoted. And we talked to a lot of other people who have also pivoted. And, you know, we saw people spending a lot of their, you know, they had one chunk of money.
• 40:59
  to use and they blew through a lot of it unnecessarily. So just learning from others, you've got to find those communities of people who are doing the thing that you're thinking about doing and finding out if it had worked. And you can't always just take one person's experience either because you don't know how well of a job or what are all the circumstances that relate to your experience with that versus theirs. So it's a lot to navigate. Yeah.
• 41:28
  It is a lot to navigate. It's tricky times out there. It is. And it changes so fast. It changes so fast. You have to just keep up on it. It does change so fast. And, you know, when something new comes into the scene, like say TikTok, when that's kind of blown up and blown up for a lot of businesses, knowing, you know, whether you need to lean into something like that or whether you should stay focused, it's kind of having those...
• 41:54
  I don't know, those moments of where to place your focus and where to place your energy. So interesting. Yeah, for sure. Okay, let's jump into the six quick questions. I love to ask this at the end of every episode. Some of it we might have covered already, but we might not have. So question number one is, what's your why and why are you doing what you're doing? So I continue to be excited about Aquas because I really love how much it helps
• 42:21
  women and people who are using the product. I mean, I get a lot of joy, people having great experiences, like literally just getting their best hair with less effort, which gives people confidence, gives people more time and helps them live a better life. It's the reason I started it. And so when other people
• 42:36
  seeing that, it really gives me a lot of satisfaction for having done this and having worked my butt off. And what keeps me able to do it is just that I'm learning constantly as well. So that really keeps me interested in it. Yeah, I love that. Second question, question number two is, what do you think has been the number one marketing moment in the 31 years that made the business pop?
• 43:06
  Probably our collaboration with Poosh. Yeah. And Courtney. It's a pretty big one. It's a pretty big one. She did some pretty amazing videos and collaborations with other, you know, her community. That was amazing. Absolutely. Stars are aligned on that one. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to or subscribing to that is a piece of gold besides Shoe Dog?
• 43:36
  side shoots. Your dog's a good one, but, um,
• 43:39
  Really, it's the communities of people we work with and the other brands who are doing what we're doing and leveraging off each other's experiences. Yeah. By far. Because it's real time. Totally. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated and productive? Yeah.
• 44:07
  I think I have a strong constitution, you know, just physical constitution and mental, which I need my sleep. I need my eight hours sleep, ideally. Keeping a nice, healthy, balanced life. You just need a lot of energy to do what, you know, we do. We work hard and we have been able to do it. You know, I've been able to do it for 30 years.
• 44:36
  I keep a positive outlook on things and you have to have a positive outlook and keep your health. Yes, absolutely. The small things of self-care, the small moments of self-care. Yeah, I think I don't, I'm not overwhelmed by stress. I think that through the most difficult things that have happened that, you know, I can always find a path. And so I just, there's a lot of confidence in that. And there's always a solution.
• 45:06
  So I think it's a lot of, again, just having a strong constitution physically and mentally to be able to face everything each and every day. Withstand the storm. Yeah. Yeah. The storm on repeat. Totally. I totally get that.
• 45:24
  Question number five is if you were given a thousand dollars of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend that in the business? And obviously it's not a lot of money, but it's to kind of highlight where is the most important spend of a dollar for you? Oh, my gosh. I thought you were going to ask me the last thousand dollars in your bank. I was like, buy a bunch of wine. Yeah.
• 45:50
  thousand dollars. How limited it goes. Maybe I'd, I'd key in on some really great influencers and take them to a wonderful dinner and give them some product and share some love and hope that they'd share some love back with me. Love it. Perfect. Relationships again. It's relationships. It's all relationships. Yeah. Question number six. Last question. How do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and your approach when things don't go to plan?
• 46:19
  I just, what is plan B? There's always a plan B. Yeah. There's always a plan B. There's always a way out. And I think that, you know, I've had a lot of situations over the years and I just, sometimes I think it's amazing how you can turn some of the worst things and leverage them and make it into a positive in a funny way. Totally. I so agree with that. And the first thing that comes to my mind is, you know, someone gets a negative review. Yeah.
• 46:49
  But then the company comes in and turns it around and changes the experience and goes above and beyond and turns it into this great thing and saves this customer. And, you know, we see this time and time again online. And I love that as a simple example of turning something that isn't so great. You can turn it around.
• 47:07
  Absolutely. And, you know, for that, I'm really thankful to our community support team. We have such an amazing, authentic group of people who help our community troubleshoot questions or how to use something. And I just so appreciate them because they have such an authentic caring for each and every customer. They know how great the product is and what the results can be. And when someone doesn't have a good experience, like, oh my gosh, I'm going to help them figure out like,
• 47:36
  And they really feel it comes from a heart of like, I really want to help them have the good experience. And I think, you know, who you hire that reflects your own values to be able to, to have that same mindset is really important too, and build a culture around it within your company. I think that's a good, important thing for people early, early on. What is the culture within my, my own company and our community that we want to build?
• 48:02
  Totally. And I also think people who are in the customer service space of a business are so critical. And it's often, I find in my personal experience, overlooked because these are the people who are talking to your customers every single day. They're so important to being able to keep that good word of mouth kind of moment going based on the interaction. So super, super important. I agree.
• 48:30
  Britta, this was so awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some of your insights and learnings. I am so inspired by you. 31 years in business is such an accomplishment and something I haven't had on Female Startup Club before. So thank you so much. I'm really grateful to have met you. Thank you, Dawn. It was really great to get to know you and thank you for having me and I love helping entrepreneurs. I really appreciate this
• 48:59
  Yeah. Reach out anytime. I welcome people. That's amazing. Thank you. Yeah.
• 49:09
  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.
• 49:33
  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.
• 49:56
  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.
• 50:13
  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.
• 50:37
  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.
• 51:00
  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.