Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / What it takes to get a small biz off the ground with some buzz, with Habit Founder Tai Adaya

Transcript

What it takes to get a small biz off the ground with some buzz, with Habit Founder Tai Adaya · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Tai Adaya for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doon Rasheen, and joining me on the show today is Tai Adaya, founder of Habit Skin, the company that's telling you the anti-aging truth around sunscreen.
• 0:28
  Habit is solving the annoying problems we have with sunscreen by innovating with SBF formulas and changing consumer behavior. Launched during the pandemic, Ty shares exactly what it takes to get a small business off the ground, how long it took to develop her products and find the right manufacturer, a winning strategy that generated thousands of people signing up to her email database, and a few bits and pieces about the skincare industry you might not know about.
• 0:55
  I should probably also point out that we had some really annoying tech issues throughout the episode and we were dealing with some random echoing on our end. So please bear with us. This is Ty for Female Startup Club.
• 1:08
  Ty, thank you so much for joining me on Female Startup Club today. This is our third time lucky trying to fix our technical issues. So thanks for bearing with me. Thanks for having me. Hopefully we get through the tech issues. Yes, third time lucky. I'm so excited to learn more about your brand habit and how it got started and why you decided to build this business. But before we jump in, can you introduce yourself and what your business is?
• 1:37
  Yes, my name is Tai Adaya. I'm the founder of Habit. Habit is reimagining the sun care category. So we're developing sunscreens and really innovating on form factor, texture and scent. And the brand is really creating a new narrative around sun care as a category. We're bringing out the health aspects and the anti-aging aspects of sunscreen and really building a narrative around those aspects through our brand.
• 2:04
  It's amazing. And it's so important and something that like, I feel like I've like gone the last 10 years without focusing on that. And now I'm like, oh my God, sunscreen. I need to wear this every single day. What have I been doing with my life? It's so, so important. And especially if you're going to be someone when you're older, that's going to care about the signs of aging. It's very, very important to start young. And that's really where I saw the white space and the opportunity to build a brand around that.
• 2:31
  Mm, yeah, so true. So true. I feel like there aren't any cool options that are like the go to, you know, even for things like smell and texture, like it all seems really same, same. Yes, yeah. Especially in the US, we have like Coppertone and Banana Bow and it's like very like outdoor beach focused products that are not like the nice go to products that you want to reach for on a daily basis. Totally, totally.
• 2:59
  Well, I want to go back to the beginning. I know you've recently launched, but I want to talk about your life before Habit, what you were doing and what inspired you to get into sun care and sunscreen. Yes. Yeah. So I have had a long career, mainly working at e-commerce startups. And so I've
• 3:20
  I've had a lot of experience working with consumer products specifically. I did a little bit of healthcare. So I worked at GoodRx, which is a healthcare startup based in LA, a startup based on prescription drugs and price transparency. I worked at Casper, the mattress startup.
• 3:40
  Cool. And so a deep dive into just like how do you sell a consumer product online? And then I worked at a color cosmetics brand called El Maquillage. It's an Israeli brand. I did the U.S. brand launch with a big focus on e-commerce.
• 3:58
  And I had had a ton of experience selling things online. And I always knew I wanted to do something on my own. My dad is an entrepreneur and I kind of grew up seeing that. And so I always knew I wanted to do it eventually. And I wanted to basically take the things that I had been drawn to before and the things that I loved and combine them into habit. And so I...
• 4:24
  I feel like Sun Care really does sit at the edge of beauty and health. And I love that it has both of those aspects. And so I don't know, I was just drawn to the category and I really felt that there was an opportunity to create something new and develop something that people would love and really kind of just approach it from a different perspective.
• 4:43
  Mm hmm. Totally. Totally. Was there like a light bulb moment where you're like, this is definitely it? Or was it more of like, you know, different events culminating and like coming together and, you know? Yeah. So it's kind of been like this thing. So like the true, true story is my two best friends from college when we were like 1920, we started talking about Botox.
• 5:06
  And so we, you know, even as 19 year olds, we knew that when we started to get older, we were really going to care about our appearances. And so we, you know, I think Botox was not as talked about widely then, but we talked about it and we were like, okay, let's, you know, start getting Botox when we're 25. We like made a pact that we would all start.
• 5:26
  start at 25 as 19 year olds. Um, and so I didn't start at 25, but I started at 27 and I ended up broke the pact, but I ended up spending in the first year over a thousand dollars, um, on preventative Botox and basically just like the little area, like on the top of my forehead to prevent the vertical line. And so I'm,
• 5:52
  yeah, it was a lot of money to spend at 27. And I started to go on this journey to really figure out what works in terms of anti-aging and being able to prevent those signs. And I started to interview a bunch of dermatologists and I started to read a lot of papers on the NIH, the National Health Institute's database. They have a lot of really good free papers that you can read on there. And I just started to like see the research and
• 6:20
  It was one study that I saw that showed the efficacy of laser versus Botox versus using sunscreen preventatively and like far and away using sunscreen preventatively is the best way to prevent skin aging. And that for me was the moment. I think I knew that like no one was really talking about it in that way. And I was like, okay, there's a big opportunity here.
• 6:46
  Wow, that's so crazy. I definitely didn't know that. And I feel like, you know, in those last few years where I've really started to care about my skincare and care about my routine and stuff, those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking about. I'm like, well, what do I do? What is more preventative skincare? And you think that you have to go out and spend so much money and you need an expert and you need this and that when actually...
• 7:07
  the solution is really simple. It's put on sunscreen every day. Yeah, I think it's a bit of a generational thing. So I'm 30 right now. And that was my concept of anti-aging. I think throughout my 20s, it was like you have to go towards the expensive, invasive thing.
• 7:24
  But a big inspiration for me was I'm very preventative when it comes to nutrition. I'm very preventative when it comes to working out and fitness. And I realized that I was not being really truly preventative when it came to my skincare. I was going to things that are more geared at fixing problems rather than preventing them. So I think that happens to a lot of women that are millennial, Gen Z, like the
• 7:48
  they've just been so exposed to Botox and fillers and that is their concept of anti-aging. Yeah, it's so crazy. I've really, it's really interesting because I've never really thought of it as, as that, as taking that approach. Yeah. Really cool. What does one do to start a skincare sunscreen brand? How do you begin? Yes. Skincare is a little different.
• 8:10
  This also is what drew me to the category. In the U.S., it is considered an over-the-counter drug. So it's not purely a cosmetic. I think a lot of people actually see the category and think that that adds unnecessary complexity and get afraid. I was drawn to that. I loved that there was...
• 8:31
  that aspect of regulation. And unlike cosmetics, the claims that you make against a sun care product have to be real because the US FDA has purview into that and I actually regulate the market. And so the hardest part about starting Habit was finding a God lab and manufacturing partner that would be able to help me create my products.
• 8:54
  And so that was the hardest part because I was literally cold calling and cold emailing manufacturers. And no one really wants to work with a small player. And so I spent a lot of time just searching for manufacturers. Like on Google or something? Yeah, on Google, using databases. Yeah.
• 9:14
  For over-the-counter drugs, since they are federally regulated, there is actually like a lot of good resources. And so I basically did a bunch of backwards tracing through some of the NIH databases. But yeah, so like I did a lot of backwards searching and specifically like
• 9:34
  To make sunscreen, you have to work with a manufacturer that's OTC compliant. And so that's a special license that they get from the FDA to be able to produce over-the-counter products. And so I used the fact that they have to register those licenses to do some of those backwards tracing. And I talked to a bunch of them. And, you know, I was just a lone person, basically, you know, trying to contact these manufacturers. And I eventually found one that was willing to take the risk with me.
• 10:04
  And that was for sure the hardest part. And then, um,
• 10:08
  From there, we started developing. What kind of questions did they ask? Like, what did they want to see from you to be able to take you on? And like, was it a commitment financially or was it a commitment in terms of just, you know, passion? Yeah, so I presented to them my view of how it was going to approach the market. And I would say that they specifically have worked in the past few years with a couple of brands that have taken off.
• 10:38
  they like to bring in a couple new brands a year. And so that was an attitude that I appreciate that they had. And yeah, I basically was like, I'm trying to work in sun care, but I'm going to talk about anti-aging. And I don't think anyone is really talking about anti-aging. And so they were drawn to that perspective of it. But yeah, they were kind of like my first pitch. Yeah.
• 11:01
  um, to the manufacturer. And it was really kind of like, how are we going to tell the narrative around this category? How are we going to approach product development in a new way? And yeah, they like, I think they have it institutionalized, but they do take a couple, uh, a couple of bets. I'm probably not going to be profitable for them for a while. So I really do appreciate them as a partner.
• 11:23
  And in those early conversations, did you have to negotiate smaller minimum order quantities and a smaller batch? Or did you have to basically jump in and order, you know, thousands of bottles? Yeah. So, um, I did end up having to do a pretty big, uh, first order. Um, I did 5,000 for the first order. So with sun care, like it is, um,
• 11:48
  they're a little bit more strict with regulations. And so because they're having to kind of invest all of that, so they like have a person on the team that like directly liaises with the FDA because you have to pass those tests. And so I did have to like plan for doing a bigger first order just because it's like not...
• 12:05
  Super worth it for them to be doing tiny quantities. What I did convince them to do is before we had passed our FDA testing, I started to basically waiver people and have them test the product. And so from that, like to do that, we were doing some small batches that enabled testing. And that was kind of the compromise there. And then once we passed the testing, I did my my first order of five thousand.
• 12:31
  wow, that must have been such an exciting moment to be like, okay, let's hit the button. I'm really doing this. This is going to be my business and my thing. There was a lot of false starts. So like, yeah, I, you know, I went out to my manufacturer for the first fill and,
• 12:47
  for the first production and fill. And like, again, just like with things that are considered drugs, everything has to be super, super exact. And so I flew out there to be there for the first fill. And we realized that an ingredient didn't match up
• 13:03
  exactly to what we had used in like the batch, like the smaller batches. And so that ingredient had to be ordered. And again, it's like an FDA thing, or it's like, if you test a certain formula, like the formula has to be, you have to produce what you tested, including down to the ingredients and where they are sourced from. And so that was a false start. So we ended up having to like scrap that day and just like, you know, wait for the ingredient to come and
• 13:30
  fill on another day. That's so crazy. How long did that process take from when you kind of met the manufacturer and decided, okay, let's start sampling together to, you know, getting that first batch of 5,000? Yeah. So my initial, I initially thought of the idea for Habit in probably like August, 2018. And it took me a good six months to find the right manufacturing partner.
• 13:56
  I did start down the path with another manufacturer that just didn't really work and then found my manufacturer that I'm working with currently. So that actually I always tell people that took longer than actually formulating. And longer than you probably expected. Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah.
• 14:16
  And then when, like, I love the chemist that I work with. She's my age and she kind of just gets what I'm trying to do, what we're trying to do. And so once we started, I wanted to do a mist for our first product. So our first product is number 41. It's an SPF mist. It's very minimal, very clean. It's only 16 ingredients, whereas most sunscreens have 16.
• 14:40
  30 plus, I really kind of just wanted to pare it down and make a really pure, clean sunscreen product. So I like wrote a brief against the product that I wanted to build that was definitely more on the like non-technical side. So I wanted to talk about how we would take the product to market, the claims that I wanted to make, how we would package it, how it would look and feel. Once I took that brief to start working with their chemist, she helped me kind of like fill
• 15:09
  But I think by that time, like it felt, it felt good. Like it felt like we were moving and that started to move a lot faster. So that took around three months. The FDA testing took another three months. But while we were waiting for the FDA testing to come back, we were, like I mentioned, we like wavered people and started testing with, with actual real consumers. Oh my gosh. That's so amazing.
• 15:36
  What I'm also wondering is like, how did you fund the business? Was it personal savings? Was it a lot of capital that you needed to hire someone to, you know, create a formula or a formulation? Yeah. So I've been, so I was bootstrapping it at the beginning at first, um, basically through savings. And then I did a small round of,
• 15:57
  basically friends, family, and I have one institutional investor that does like super, super early stage because when I pitched them, I was super, super like didn't have a formula stage. And so that's kind of how I've been funding it. But I've
• 16:14
  definitely been like funding it as the need comes. So when I was looking for manufacturers, it was basically just on my own, like super bootstrapping it. I worked out a deal with my manufacturer where I was not paying for the development, but had committed to the, to the number of units that I would buy. And basically when I was ready to start going to market and while the FDA testing was finishing, I raised money from the institutional fund.
• 16:41
  Amazing. Yeah, I think it's tricky because sometimes you don't know whether like you should invest all of your personal savings or if you should go and get a loan from the bank or, you know, what you should do. So it's always interesting to hear how other people have done it, especially in the very early phases of getting started.
• 16:59
  Yes. Yeah. I mean, I, I think that it's kind of a personal decision. Like I ended up, you know, I ended up taking money from a VC. And so I'm on that path now where, you know, that is a certain path and there are students.
• 17:16
  and, you know, raising subsequent rounds. But I, for me, I feel very strongly about the SunCare category and I feel like it's going to grow. And so that like trajectory, I felt aligned with venture capital. And so that was the route I decided to take. And like, honestly, like I also just like, didn't know how to go and get bank loans.
• 17:36
  So I had friends, I have friends that went that route and I basically like got advice from them on how to approach investors and how to kind of structure my pitch in a way that would be attractive to venture capital. Do you have any tips or learnings that you think other women should know when going into those meetings or when trying to find a VC? Yes, absolutely.
• 18:03
  So I always say like, and I'm still doing it. So like, we're going to raise another round soon. It is extremely tough. I think that I, I had heard the statistics about being a woman and raising capital and then, but you hear them and you kind of don't like internalize that. That's true. And then you go out there and it's like, Oh, it really is true that it is that tough. And so yeah,
• 18:28
  I would say it's like good to know what you're getting yourself into. I think again, like us based, I think 2% of venture capital goes to women. And then if you look at non white women, I think it's like 0.2%. And so it is good to just like, no, like that's not right. It's definitely not right, but that is kind of, that is that world. And so for me, the biggest thing was I would take every rejection. So personally, um,
• 18:55
  And I had to really learn how to surround myself with friends and advisors that could pick me up when I was feeling down. And I also tried to like depersonalize. I was like, OK, well, you know, women just don't get as much investment. And that is the context of this world. And I should not take it so personally. And so I kind of just kept having to mentally tell myself that over and over again. And, you know, starting a business is an endurance business.
• 19:24
  It's an endurance game. And so you have to learn how to not let like every single rejection get you down. And just like, basically, I think you get better over time at finding the type of investors that work. And like, I think a quick like tactical tip is like definitely find investors that look like you. It was so different pitching habit to women investors versus men. Men kind of automatically...
• 19:51
  saw this as beauty and didn't, didn't like totally get it. And when I pitched women investors, I think there was just more of a baseline understanding. And so I would say like, as you're thinking about who to approach for those first meetings, like try and pick people that look like you.
• 20:11
  Yeah, so true. So true. What I also find is so funny is that the data shows that for every dollar invested into a female led business, it actually generates more than twice the amount of revenue than it does if you invest a dollar into a male led business. So the opportunity for women led businesses are so huge.
• 20:30
  It is. And it makes, I, I, it makes no sense. Like there should be more investment into women. Like the statistics are there to back up that the performance is there and the returns are there. I think what ends up happening is just like most investors are men and they go to what feels familiar. A lot of investment happens with, um, like a lot of entrepreneurs that, that raise VC are already coming from very like wealthy and privileged families. And I think those are
• 21:00
  they're like considered less risky bets. And so it's this like kind of incestuous circle where, uh, you're kind of like in the club or you're not. And I feel like women so often get excluded from that club and it is unfortunate. And, you know, like part of why I am doing habit and why I kind of went that route for, uh, for funding is I want to prove it's possible. Like I know the odds are against me, but I, I want to show that it can be done. And I kind of,
• 21:30
  want to do it just to prove that I can. Yeah. And you will. And you are. It's amazing. It's amazing. I love to talk about the marketing side of things. And I know you're so in it at the moment because you launched recently. So I want to jump into your go to market strategy. What did you do to prepare? Like, was there a pre-launch? What was happening? And how did you launch?
• 21:53
  Yes. So I will say that we launched in 2020. And so the pandemic has definitely played into a lot of how we launched, I think, for the like for the better and for the worse. So I started testing our product before it was approved with a group of people. And we took that group of testers and we really started to build a community out of that group.
• 22:17
  I, you know, I raise money, but it's not a lot. I'm being very, very scrappy with our marketing and trying to go for the things that really feel word of mouth, authentic. And again, like taking a super, super scrappy approach with everything. And so our go to market, we were originally supposed to launch in March 2020.
• 22:36
  pandemic upended things. We delayed indefinitely when it set in that this was the new reality. We wanted to get some of the summer months because we are in sun care and there's a lot of natural interest in sun care when it's summer. And so we ended up launching in June of 2020. And the pillar of our marketing has been our community. So we had the initial 40 testers of the product.
• 23:06
  And we basically grew that primarily through Instagram, some TikTok. But we built a community of people that are interested in skincare, sunscreen. And especially like during the pandemic, we kind of found that since everyone was trapped at home,
• 23:23
  it was a little easier to build the community because people wanted to just find people to connect with. And so that like from that perspective, it was great to create a community in which people could feel a little less isolated, even though it was just like, you know, online interactions. And so we really, really relied on that community at launch. I launched with a two week free period. So we gave everyone in the community and our community a code.
• 23:50
  in which they could share to their audiences and communities the code for the first bottle free. Oh my gosh. Cool. So we were really able to use that as our marketing. And then once we started to like really get, and it was so cool. So cool seeing like habit in people's hands after working on it for so long. And we, um,
• 24:15
  started to be everywhere, especially online. And then after we started to like really be everywhere, we started to get some press pickup as well. And that was really, really useful to kind of get exposure to new audiences and really introduce the brand in a big way. And so we had a lot of features through the summer and that was really kind of cool and hard to believe. Like we were featured in Vogue in July and that was a crazy day because there were so many people on the site.
• 24:44
  And so, yeah, we're building it up that way. We are a super young brand in terms of marketing. We're really trying to be super experimental with everything we do. It is very, very important for brands nowadays to not only experiment, but have a good framework for understanding how to do it.
• 25:01
  measure those experiments against each other. And so we're taking that approach. We're doing a lot online. We did a little mini out of home campaign in New York at the end of the summer. And we will continue to experiment with different marketing tactics and continue to evolve our marketing mix.
• 25:21
  Yes, for sure. I want to go back to the, to your launch strategy, because that is so cool to unpack that you gave away free products. And I imagine you were able to build an amazing like email database of, you know, potentially thousands of people. Are you able to share any, any numbers around that or what that impact has been since that you've seen like returning customers, that kind of thing?
• 25:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say like we, we do have, we did build our email list up to thousands of people. I think we have like a 5,000 person email list now. That's amazing. We have a lot of, we have like 50,000 followers on Instagram and we're basically like, I don't know. I, I will say this, like I was very nervous about launching during the pandemic. And so when we were launching in March, we were originally not going to do that. Yeah.
• 26:15
  type of promotion. We were going to just like launch and basically try and do like a little launch party in New York. And then the shot strategy totally had to shift. And so I honestly was just, it was like nervousness. And I was like, what's the quickest way that we can make like a big impact?
• 26:33
  And also just get people to try. I think it's so important with any skincare product, people really want to try. And we realized that, you know, people are not getting to try things as much like, you know, the retail stores are closed. And so it was a combination of how do we enable trial and like use it in a way that we can also have like a big splashy launch. Yeah.
• 26:59
  And so, yeah, like it was a little bit of a reaction to the pandemic, I would say. But yeah, it was so good. Like we were able to really like build up our community. We got more people to join our Creatures of Habit community. And so it was really helpful from that way. We have our community's 200 members now and we will be testing our new products against that community going forward.
• 27:22
  Yeah, I love that. That's so interesting and really cool. Do you think that in the future, when you release new products, you'll do that same approach of like releasing something for free to create that splash? Or is it in hindsight, you're like, it's too expensive, you know, giving away that many free products is a big commitment. Shipping them is a big commitment.
• 27:43
  So with the mister, it is not really a sampleable product because the mist, the mister is an ultra like fine mist pump. And it is not really yet possible to create that type of mechanical pump in a sample size. And so that product itself, because the packaging is so specialized, like I would love to sample it, but it might pump me a new factory, I don't think so.
• 28:11
  capable of doing that yet. For our next products, they will be samplable. And I think we will continue to probably not like full size, but we will continue to sample out products just with the mister and like launching that, just giving it out
• 28:31
  our community created so much content around the product and that was so special and so nice. And so I do think that there is like a little bit of that calculus of like, it is a new product. We are a new brand. Like we still have to build so much trust with consumers. I do think in the short run, like I'm building habit for the longterm and I am growing it to be a big business. And when you take that approach, you're,
• 28:58
  I think trial and like free trial makes a lot of sense because we are building products that we're testing really well. And we are trying to build really innovative products. And so our bet is that, you know, if we sample it out for free, initially we can get people to come back and purchase.
• 29:16
  Yeah, absolutely. Are you able to share any information on what the future looks like for you and what are the next products and what the new journey will be? Yes. So again, like caveat, we were originally supposed to launch our first product in March and our second product in the fall. My manufacturer was shut down for quite a bit this year. So our product development cycle has been...
• 29:43
  a bit upended. But with the mister, a lot of the thought for that product was how do we create something that really makes application and more importantly, reapplication really, really simple.
• 29:58
  So with a mister, you can apply without touching your face. You can apply directly on your skin over makeup without messing up your makeup. And so we really were solving for the use case of reapplication. Sunscreen has a lot of problems. So people don't like...
• 30:15
  The texture. People don't like the scent. People don't like that it's greasy. People don't like understand how to use it. They don't know the right amount to use. So I will, I can't reveal too much, but our product development is really aligned with those problems of sunscreen. And so next we're tackling the right amount to use.
• 30:36
  And that's all I can say for now. Wow. I'm so excited. That sounds really cool. And that's definitely something that I struggled with because I, you know, put a certain amount on my hand and on my face. And then recently I saw this influencer posting like something that she had read about, you know, the fact that you were meant to put way more on or something like this. And I was like, oh God, like I've never even thought about how much you're meant to put on. And then since then I've been like, damn it, I just don't know what I'm meant to do here. Yeah.
• 31:05
  Yeah, I said that's like kind of one of the problems with the category is that it really is a it really is an over the counter drug. And so there is guidance around how you're supposed to use it. But people do treat it like skin care and it's kind of seen as optional if you are using it in the first place and like.
• 31:26
  There's like a lot of especially like like the example of foundation, like a lot of foundations get SPF thrown in there. And like it's almost like competing, like competing goals there because like a foundation, you want to apply it thin and you want to have it look natural and fit in with your skin. But you're applying a really thin layer and that's probably not enough SPF.
• 31:50
  you're not probably hitting the rating that's printed on the foundation bottle. And so, yeah, I think it's a big issue. You know, if you take Advil, it says take two Advil every, you know, four or so hours like sunscreen really does function in that way in which there is a right amount to use, but it really hasn't been packaged to consumers like that. And so we really are trying to take these problems that exist and
• 32:18
  come up with great new products and also just kind of talk about them in a different way. That is so cool and so interesting. I'm so excited for you. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to launch their own business? Yes. Yes.
• 32:35
  I think that it is incredibly important to surround yourself with good people. I think that's like, that's been the most surprising part of my entrepreneurial journey. It's like, you are going to have some bad days. You're going to have some really tough days and you have to not let that stop you. And I think a big part of that is having good advisors, having good friends who are
• 32:59
  you know, a little further along than you so that they can like give you a reality check. I have two advisors for Habit. One advisor is more of a business advisor and I have an advisor that's basically become someone who I lean on more for the emotional support and that's really, really valuable. So I would say like, you know, know what you're getting yourself into, surround yourself with the right people so that you are really like shaping yourself to win and setting yourself up for success. Absolutely.
• 33:29
  We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. I'm so excited. Question number one is what's your why?
• 33:38
  My why with sunscreen really is anti-aging. I think that women are taught to fear aging and then they're sold billions of dollars of anti-aging products, most which do not work. They're just like products that say anti-aging. They have no actual mechanism for protecting your skin.
• 33:59
  I think that it is okay to age. You shouldn't be meant to feel bad about it. And you also, if you want to protect your skin and if you want to stay, you know, looking, looking good, like that's also, you're free to do that as well. With habit, we are trying to give people effective solutions that are proven and effective.
• 34:22
  preventative. And I do think that, you know, sunscreen is the best anti-aging substance we have. And we really are just trying to tell that story and get people to invest in things that work rather than things that feel very fear mongery. Yeah. And I guess that's the problem that we have is that, you know, how are you meant to know what works and what doesn't? You really
• 34:46
  that you trust and that you're able to have that transparency with and have that like direct line to, I guess, because a lot of brands, of course you can't just like ring up Estee Lauder and be like, yo, is your product real? Yeah. And I mean like with sunscreen too, it's like, it's like, yes, trust us as a brand, but also trust that this is like a regulated healthcare product and that like
• 35:09
  you can make a cream and you can slap anti-aging on the label. There's no one that checks. There's no one that monitors that. You cannot do that with over-the-counter drugs. And so we are really trying to like take some of that trust from a regulated category and insulate into the brand. Amazing. Question number two, and I might know the answer already, but what's been the number one marketing moment that made your business pop?
• 35:36
  Yes. So I was our creatures of habit, our ongoing marketing moment. Absolutely. But yeah, that day that we were featured in Vogue was crazy. We had been getting like good traction before, but I think we were like basically really relying on our community that day. We were just exposed to thousands of people that had been.
• 35:55
  are not maybe big on social media. And so that was crazy because there was, I was like on Shopify on the backend, just like looking and it was crazy to see so many people seeing the brand for the first time. Oh my gosh. I probably would have cried. I did cry that day for sure.
• 36:14
  Happy tears. So good. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading? What are you listening to? You know, are you hanging out on the internet? Yes. So I like still like I get some help from people sometimes, but I pack our habit boxes on my own from my apartment and it has given me a crazy good opportunity to crush books on Audible. And so I've this year I've gotten so good at getting through books on Audible and
• 36:43
  I've especially been drawn to biographies here. Biographies of powerful women have really inspired me. And particularly, I listened to Michelle Obama's biography and she reads it. And that was great. Like, so, so, so inspiring. And then one biography that I keep coming back to because I just find the story to be so inspirational is Chanel, her biography and kind of her story of how she built her.
• 37:09
  Chanel, the label. That is a really, really good read. I didn't know that Michelle read her biography. That is awesome. Yeah, she reads it. So you just get to listen to Michelle Obama for a few hours. Highly recommend. I'm going to download that immediately after this call. I've been wanting to read it. And for some reason, it's just like not in my Kindle app. So right now I'm going to put it on the Audible, get that downloaded.
• 37:36
  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. So my biggest thing is like I am such an early bird. I don't I function better in the morning. So I currently have a team of four girls that works for me. And we all like start as a team around 10 a.m.
• 38:02
  But my early mornings when I get a lot of like alone work done and I need that to set my day. So I'm usually up at 6 a.m. and I will work for a couple of hours, like make breakfast and then like be super, super ready when the team signs on.
• 38:19
  That's so cool. I'm reading the 5am club at the moment because I really want to be more of an early bird person. 5am is probably too early, but I'm aiming for more around six. So I do six. Like, yeah, it's perfect. Six feels manageable. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Mornings are just so beautiful. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it?
• 38:47
  This is a really hard question. But I think that if I had only $1,000, I, so I'm a super, my background is in marketing. I'm a super scrappy marketer. Like I, I give myself credit for that. I would have a marketing campaign for $1,000 and I would really try to find a way to create some type of viral moment or something really, really impactful for that $1,000 and
• 39:14
  And I think it could pull it off. So that's what I would do with the last thousand. Nice. Love that. Love the confidence. You've got to have it. Amazing. Question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? And that can be around a personal experience or something that's happened to you or just your general mindset and approach.
• 39:32
  Um, I am a big believer. Like if I, I let myself cry it out and sometimes I need to, and I'm not ashamed to admit that sometimes I have to cry it out. Sometimes there's not time for that. And what I have done, um, especially like we've all just been so inside this year, if I'm really stressed out or like dealing with some type of failure, I like go have a self care moment and like take a hot shower and like kind of just like do my routine. And that really gets my mind off of it.
• 40:01
  what's gone wrong and just like makes me feel refreshed. So I would say like a hot shower. Nice. Love that. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I have absolutely loved learning about your brand and what you're doing. And I feel like you're just solving such a relevant problem that I've experienced too. So I just love to see it. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.
• 40:28
  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.
• 40:53
  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.
• 41:15
  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.
• 41:32
  Hey, it's Dune 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.
• 41:56
  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.
• 42:19
  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.