Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Best of ‘22 - Launching a beauty brand with less than $10K, selling out your first 1500 units and going on to raise $1M in capital, this is the story of Lisa Guerrera from Experiment Beauty (Part 1)

Transcript

Best of ‘22 - Launching a beauty brand with less than $10K, selling out your first 1500 units and going on to raise $1M in capital, this is the story of Lisa Guerrera from Experiment Beauty (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hi, it's just me popping in with a quick message to wish you and your loved ones a beautiful break this festive season. I hope you're able to take some time for yourself to recharge and reset and come back full of energy in 2023.
• 0:15
  Over the next few weeks, our team will all be taking a much-needed break, and you'll be hearing the best episodes from 2022. When I look back over this year, there were just so many amazing episodes. It was near impossible to choose just one handful, but we did, and they're amazing, and I'm sure you're going to love them.
• 0:34
  For now, I'm off to spend some quality time with my mom and my family in Queensland after three whole years of not seeing her. Can you believe it? Three years. Oh my gosh. I'm going to be doing all the little things that are good for my soul over this period and dreaming up my goals for 2023, which you're going to hear about when I come back in January. I'm so looking forward to reconnecting with you in the new year and bringing you more of the good stuff with Female Startup Club.
• 1:04
  This is Lisa Guerrera for Female Startup Club. Hello, welcome back to the Female Startup Club podcast. Today we are learning from Lisa Guerrera, the founder of Experiment Beauty.
• 1:26
  Now, chances are you've seen this brand on Instagram or TikTok, whether you know it or not. But if you haven't heard of the brand, Experiment is a chemist-led company building science-backed beauty 2.0.
• 1:39
  They're rebranding what a science-backed beauty feels like for the next generation of consumers and also what it looks like. All of their products are clinically backed, thoughtfully sustainable, and ridiculously fun. You'll probably recognize their first product, which is the acid neon green reusable sheet mask we've all seen cruising around the internet.
• 2:03
  I love this chat with Lisa. She shares her journey so deeply and there are so many takeaways you're going to learn from her. And as always, if you're on your phone listening to this episode right now, please do consider taking a quick screenshot of the podcast and sharing it to your Instagram stories or leaving us a review in your podcast app to help other ears find us. And of course, you are always welcome to slide into my DMs or my inbox because you know how much I love to chat.
• 2:33
  Let's get into this episode. This is Lisa for Female Startup Club. Lisa, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hello, I am so happy to be here, finally. I am so happy to be here, finally, after a few scheduling mishaps. I don't know if we'd even call them mishaps, just missing each other. Chaos, it's all good, but we are here now, so I'm really excited. We're here now. Are you in New York at the moment?
• 3:03
  Yes. So I'm in our office. Did it snow today? Who said that? That might be a piece of misinformation. It is sunny and nice outside. Oh, yesterday? Did it snow yesterday? It was cold, but no, I don't think it snowed. There was a bad rainstorm though. And maybe it snowed upstate. I don't know. But at least by my apartment, it was a horrible rainstorm. Fake news. I got told that it was snowing. Yeah.
• 3:32
  misinformation will get you. It'll get you. Misinformation will get you. And here I am passing it on. Damn it. So no snow, but I love that for you because it should be nice weather. Holy moly. It's really sunny here in London. And I am just like a whole other human when the sun is out and it's like, you know, we're starting to reemerge and I'm like, Oh goodness. This is so good.
• 3:54
  I literally saw this tweet recently that was like the vibe or no, it was a Tik TOK. It was someone saying like the vibe in New York is absolutely unmatched when the sun starts coming out. Like it is unmatched people. And I'm sure in London, it is incredibly similar because I feel like London and New York have similar relationships.
• 4:11
  Like there's a dreary time and then there's a very happy sunny time. Yeah. There's depression followed by depression followed by like more depression. And then there's like the pub. And everyone is out in the whole of the UK at the pub. Exactly. That's amazing. Well, my sister is heading to London, I think in the next week or two. So I'm sure she will feel that as well.
• 4:36
  Oh my God, please tell her to hit me up so we can do something I can show her around. Oh yeah, she is super sweet, so I'm sure she's going to have a good time too. Amazing. Well, let's jump into it. I would love to start by getting you to give us a bit of the elevator pitch. What is your brand? What's the ethos behind it? Who are you? Yeah, so I'm Lisa. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Experiment.
• 5:00
  a chemist-led brand building the next generation of science-backed beauty for the future consumer. A high-level experiment makes unexpected essentials that are science-driven, thoughtfully sustainable, and ridiculously fun.
• 5:16
  The first product that we actually launched is called Avant Garde, which is a fun and functional reusable sheet mask that completely replaces the need for single use sheet masks entirely. It's this bright lime green color that you may or may not have seen on social media. And it is super shareable. And it replaces something that is really wasteful, which is single use sheet masks. I think we've all I mean, a lot of people listening to this podcast probably have used a sheet mask.
• 5:40
  It creates a small mountain of unrecyclable trash next to you every time you use it. And over time, I just felt like I don't really want to use these anymore. And I really wanted an alternative. And Avant Garde really was that. It's a silicone mask that you put on top of any of your favorite skincare. And it creates a custom masking experience. And it honestly works even better than a single-use sheet mask.
• 6:03
  But so that's experiment. That's our first product. I'm obsessed. It's so cool for anyone who hasn't seen it. I am sure that's how I discovered you was on social media because how else? And I love you say where you say that, you know, you specifically kind of,
• 6:20
  did that cool, bright, like shareable moment. And you thought about that in your product design, like, yeah, how do I get people to share about this? How do I make it social and put that kind of like in that R&D process? But before we go down that pathway, because it's a whole other pathway, I love to always just like kind of go back to the beginning. What was getting you interested in this? I know that you were like a chemical engineer, no? Something like that. Yeah. You were in that vibe.
• 6:48
  In that vibe, yes. I wanted to be a chemical engineer. But so a little, even going further back, and I am definitely going to send you this video because I think you're going to get a kick out of it. When I was 12, like I've always loved beauty ever since I was a kid. When I was 12, I got a pink camcorder for Hanukkah. And I started filming YouTube beauty YouTube videos on it.
• 7:07
  XO Lisa Rose XO. Give me those views. They're still public. But it is 12 year old me giving anti aging tips. I was telling people to wear sunscreen. I've been on this flow my whole damn life. You manifested this. I'm not a mess of it. But so I've loved beauty my whole life. I've loved science my whole life. My dad really like, you know, cultivated that love of science and me and chemistry, but just science that I instantly when I started learning it, like,
• 7:37
  Loved. I got it. A lot of people, chemistry is the hard thing for me. Bio is the hard thing. So loved chemistry. Decided to major in college because I basically was like chemistry is the coolest science and beauty is powered by science. Like I had really bad cystic acne. So I was constantly deep in the Reddit threads.
• 7:55
  when I was in high school and college of like how to help my cystic acne. So I was a very like early educated beauty consumer from the get go. And so I did my bachelor's in chemistry. And during that time, I was working in labs. And honestly, Faith, like, I really want to do cosmetics, but I didn't tell anybody that.
• 8:15
  Because one time I told a guy in physics that I wanted to work in cosmetics and he was literally like, so you want to make lipstick for the rest of your life? And I was literally like, okay, I'm not telling anyone ever again. Eye roll. Righto, bro. Literal eye roll. But, you know, I was still very interested. And so I decided to actually do my senior thesis. I had to like do a 40 page thesis.
• 8:40
  And I decided to write it on something that really bothered me in beauty. I know it's too much writing, too much writing. It was a traumatizing time. Slides, decks, I'm not there. I'm not that person. It's a lot. And so I decided to write it on something I really cared about in beauty that I saw was becoming more of an issue, which is misinformation in beauty and how the natural beauty movement and the clean beauty movement affected consumer purchasing behavior. So I did.
• 9:05
  I did my thesis on something called chemophobia in the beauty industry, which is the, so chemophobia is fear of chemicals and there's a really interesting history behind it. Basically like the idea that, you know, chemicals or chemically sounding things
• 9:21
  are like scary or bad. And people essentially, it's a fear of the unknown, right? But from from a chemical perspective. And as a chemistry student, that meant a lot to me, because I knew that like, okay, just because something sounds scary, especially in chemistry, doesn't mean literally anything.
• 9:38
  Even some of the most dangerous chemicals in the world can have a dose that is perfectly safe. So a dose makes the poison is what we say in chemistry a lot. So, you know, this movement in beauty that was around like natural and clean and like totally cool if you use those products. But the marketing behind them was actually quite misleading on the science front. And so I wrote about that and how it changed consumer behavior.
• 10:01
  And with that sparked my first business idea, which was a ingredient translator app. And I ended up starting a whole business right out of college. That is so cool. Does it still exist? I don't even know. But I did this for like two years. So I was trying to go to grad school. I had my famous year stint in grad school doing chemical engineering.
• 10:23
  And I wanted to work for L'Oreal, but like I went through to a hackathon with this startup idea, ended up winning and kind of the rest is history type of thing. It was called See Through. I did it for like two-ish years. We went through Sephora Accelerate in 2019 with See Through. And then I also won an L Future Beauty Award for that work in Ingredient Transparency. And at the time I was like
• 10:46
  23, I believe. And 24, 23, 24. And even though we had some good success that we launched with a few brands, it was basically like an app that you install into your Shopify that made your ingredients list transparent or clickable. So as consumers are shopping, they could know what all those scary chemical sounding ingredients were in your products. And it was to essentially help educate consumers because that's really the antidote to misinformation education. Yeah.
• 11:12
  And yeah, so I did that for about two years, just kind of realized B2B life was not for me. Sales. I was good at sales, but like, it's just not what I wanted to do. And every single brand I interacted with, I was like, hmm, here's how you can do it better. Here's how you can do your marketing better. You guys should really consider like dropping clean. And nobody wanted to hear that from me at all. So I realized, okay.
• 11:36
  I really need to work on the brand side and ended up joining Apostrophe, which was a teledermatology company as their head of brand at 24. Youngest person in leadership, only woman. And my whole job was to switch their marketing towards this consumer that I've basically been studying my whole life, which is this intellectual, the consumer that wants to know the science behind their products. That was like me, that wanted to know how their beauty products work and how to pick the best products for their skin from a scientific lens.
• 12:06
  And so successfully did that for about a year and a half. And we got acquired by HIMSS, which was really cool. And I left shortly after.
• 12:14
  kind of in tandem and parallel with that starts the story of experiment where at support accelerate. Actually, I met my current co-founder. She was a cosmetic chemist at benefit cosmetics. She'd been in the industry for years on both like the manufacturing side and the formulation side. And we just really saw eye to eye on what was coming in beauty. Like what we really saw was like on one side, get this clean product.
• 12:42
  you know, misinformation driven, like movement and beauty was really fueled by like people's desires to find products that they trusted. And then on the flip side, you had all these like really cool brands and fun brands that didn't have much substance. And then on like the like, there's like three sides to this. And then on the left side,
• 13:01
  We both saw like the science-backed beauty movement start to take hold. So we call this science-backed beauty 1.0. These are brands like The Ordinary, The Inkey List, CeraVe, Polished Choice. Brands that honestly paved the way for consumer education, for more consumers to be interested in products and ingredients. But they all felt really one note. The aesthetics were very, very similar in the world.
• 13:24
  They were very serious. They didn't make science exciting, particularly. They did a lot of education work, for sure. But we felt like the future of science-backed beauty was fun, accessible, something that anybody could get into, not just a niche group on the internet, right? Something that was colorful and essentially branded science.
• 13:47
  the way that we as chemists saw it something that was a weird world of like merely magic right like chemistry can like literally change into like change one thing into another like seemingly magically right like that's really cool like why are we talking about how cool that is that is really cool it's so cool um that's why i love chemistry um and so you know we really saw it and we got talking and early on in my days at apostrophe um
• 14:11
  I was marketing towards more of the millennial consumer, the millennial intellectual. But what I was more interested in was people like me and younger who grew up learning about beauty on the Internet. So these are like Gen Z intellectual. So they're not just concerned about efficacy. They want...
• 14:28
  a brand to have it all. They want a brand to have a sustainability story. They want them to have aesthetics that they feel like are shareable and that they can vibe with and that they want to be a part of. They want to be part of more than just like a brand that works at the end of the day. They want to be part of something that they feel connected to emotionally. And we felt like just the science-backed brands were not giving that. And so we felt strongly that we wanted to create something of our own and that's how experiments started.
• 14:52
  Well, I mean, well, there's a lot here. It's a saga. There's a lot. I also like, also in between that, it's like, it's hard because like I'm doing a lot at once and I'm like, I need to like stop doing so many things at once. But I also like during the pandemic, I started a TikTok around beauty science and that also just helped fuel this like notion that like Gen Z was different. Like, wow.
• 15:15
  we knew that like we could present science in a way that was like fun and TikTokable, shareable. So now I have like a following. Oh my God, I haven't seen your personal TikTok. I've only seen your brand TikTok. Shut the front door. I'm going to have to obviously search you afterwards. This is so bizarre that I haven't seen it.
• 15:35
  I have a little over 60,000 followers, people who are just like really interested in beauty designs. And that's really cool because like this community used to be so much smaller, but now because of TikTok, I feel like the interest and like, does this thing really work? Is this actually BS? Like is the marketing trying to pull the wool over my eyes? Like these are things that like Gen Z is asking like a hundred percent, like they want the receipts.
• 15:59
  We want to know, we want the reviews. We want the reviews on brands. We want to call out the brands that are not doing the right thing. Well, not even not doing the right thing, but like educate people on what this means and what that means. But that is so cool. Okay. I want to start just more online with like, where did you get the idea for EventGuard? Because it's so cool.
• 16:22
  And you're like, this is so much fun. And also how come this didn't already exist? And like, just what's the like brainstorm dreaming process of you guys like sitting down being like, what's our first product going to be? Like, what's it going to look like? You know? Yeah. So like.
• 16:40
  We, it's funny, like Emmy and I sat down, me and my co-founder sat down and we were like, okay, we know this brand has to exist, but like, what would be the first product? And we really felt strongly that we wanted to bootstrap this launch. We were both at separate jobs at the time. And we only had essentially like, you know, what was in our bank account and we didn't have much. We're not wealthy founders. We're not people that come from money. Like we just had like whatever we had in our savings. So all in all, what are we talking? What are we talking?
• 17:09
  I'll give you the number. So all in all, I'll give you the number right now. All in all, we spent of our own money $8,500 on the launch, which is very low. And I'll get into like how we did that. We're very scrappy. My claim to fame is that I am scrappy. And that's what I did with my first startup. I could barely raise any capital at all. So like,
• 17:30
  you got to get very creative very quickly. And I didn't have any like connections to VC or anything like that in my first startup. So like, you know, very much like,
• 17:39
  learning by doing. And so we were like, okay, skincare is an expensive endeavor, like formulating a skincare product is hard. But I remember in like, in my apartment, I have this what was called like in Japan, it's a sheet mask holder. So it's meant to go on top of a single use sheet mask to just like hold it in place. Because you know, like when you're sheet masking, like everything is just sliding around. And you're not actually relaxing, you're more just like very stiff.
• 18:05
  Yeah, you're tense. Everything else is droopy. Yeah, my neck is like tense. Like when I'm doing a single-use sheet mask, it's like horrible, honestly. But I had the sheet mask pulled because I'm like, ooh, this will solve all my problems. One day I was like, looked at it and I'm like, wait a minute, do I actually need the sheet mask? Because I know that like,
• 18:24
  The way sheet masks work, single-use sheet masks, like the cotton ones, is that at any of them, they're soaked in serum. They're material-soaked in serum. And the reason people love them so much is because they work via what's called occlusion. It basically means that it's keeping the serum really close to the skin.
• 18:42
  And they do that through this cotton material, whatever material, keeping that serum on your skin and essentially force feeding it to your skin. And that's what occlusion is. And I looked at this and I know silicone is a perfectly occlusive material, meaning that there's very like nothing escapes out of it. Like if it's covering something, nothing will evaporate off. So I looked at it and I'm like, wait, I think we can use this.
• 19:04
  with justice here. I'm like, you don't need a sheet mask underneath it. And so I tried it one day and I was like, Emmy, this really works. And so she tried it, she got one. And we were just like, wait, this really works. But there was a ton of issues. The material was really stiff. It was ugly. It was like this like pink kind of fleshy kind of color that just it did not look right.
• 19:27
  And the sizing was just like, it's funny, like, I have what we call a small head, Emmy has a big head. And on Emmy, like it was very tight on her ears and was uncomfortable to wear. So she wouldn't want to wear it for long term. And the material is really stiff, not stretchy.
• 19:42
  So we started doing some digging. Literally, we went to Alibaba, started doing digging, saw a lot of these masks, hit up a bunch of different manufacturers to see if we can get something better. And it started from there. So we found a manufacturer, we made some changes to the product, we added sizing.
• 19:58
  We changed the color. We changed the material to be more stretchy. It was a little serendipitous on how that happened. They actually sent us like, not the wrong mask, but it was different than the sample they sent us. And we actually ended up liking it so much more. We're just like, yes, this. But what was really intentional was around the color specifically. We made it this bright.
• 20:21
  lime green color because we wanted to lean into the humor of wearing this mask. There was no way we could make it pretty and like clean and gorgeous and serene like every other beauty brand. And we're like, experiment is all about like literally experimenting with,
• 20:36
  having fun, not taking yourself too seriously. And so we leaned into literally the meme ability and the humor of the mask. And we knew that that acid green color had meme potential. It was going to be shareable. People would think it's hilarious as long as you own it. You got to own it. And so that's what we did. And so we really felt strongly that this product was something we can make a hero because, you know, we knew that sheet masks were essentially on the cancellation train. Makeup wipes, you know, have been on the outs.
• 21:06
  They're bad for the planet. Anything single use is not great. So we knew that single use sheet masks were next on the chopping block. And they're actually worse than makeup wipes, because they each come individually wrapped with stuff that is completely unrecyclable and plastic. So just go straight into the garbage. And yeah, so we just knew that that was a solution that if we leaned into it, and if we owned it, and we really like
• 21:30
  put our effort into it and made it cool and made it shareable and made it funny, we could actually build like a pretty cool organic like marketing moment as like making avant-garde the billboard of the product. And in terms of the name, it's funny, like looking back, like
• 21:48
  We had no idea what to name this thing. The whole time we were just calling it The Mask. And then Emmy like put down a bunch of names and like we glazed over avant-garde at first. I'm like, it's not clear enough. And then eventually we came back around and we're like, wait a minute. It's like the perfect name. Our name is literally Experiment. Avant-garde is literally like,
• 22:08
  the way it's properly spelled is like an experimental art movement. Like this is literally perfect. So yeah, that's how we got to the product. And we, we started like as a single product, but we knew the brand was going to be like so much more like the, the philosophy that we started with was so strong that we knew like,
• 22:26
  this is a great place for us to bootstrap and start because this product is not super expensive to produce. But from there with the profits, we can like work to chemists, like Emmy would formulate a serum to go with it or another product. So that was kind of the path that we had laid out in our heads at the time.
• 22:43
  Before we go on, I just want to like ask about protecting your brand, because I'm wondering, is it something that you have been able to kind of, you know, protect the IP and patent and things like that? Or are you facing or have already faced, you know, copycat kind of movement in what you're doing and wondering around that like protection kind of side of things?
• 23:04
  Yeah. So for our first launch, we knew there were going to be copycats. Like that was just kind of like, we just felt there was something about the vibe of the brand. Even before we launched, we were like, this is going to be great. And, you know, there have been other sheet masks that come out of the market. But what's interesting is that
• 23:20
  I know where all of those were created. They're all kind of like off the shelf. They didn't make any changes. It's more of a merch item for a lot of brands. No one's owning it or trying to own it. Whereas like we were the first to truly like own that as like a hero product. So that alone creates a little bit of a moat. And we also had such a strong community already built up around the product. So like community owning things like
• 23:45
  That does create a brand moat. And definitely in the learning lessons category of this, we can get into that story. But we were sold, we've been sold out for a long time and we're heading into relaunch. And after our first soft launch run to essentially test whether or not this was a product that people wanted to.
• 24:02
  We went back to the drawing board and redesigned the product. And now it is actually patent pending in terms of design. So we are also legally protected now. But before we just were going off of brand moat vibes. That's what we were going for.
• 24:17
  Got it. Yeah. You've got to start somewhere. Got to like get the vibe out there and then protect yourself. I want to stick around though. I feel like we've still moved a little bit further forward and I want to stick around the launch. So you had $8,500 to invest in like getting this product correct and like, right. How many, like what was the MOQ that you were able to order is my first question. And then we'll go on from there. For the soft launch or for this launch?
• 24:47
  Yeah, for the soft launch, we had 2,000 masks. We ordered 2,000 masks. Boy, oh boy, was that chaos. So we didn't do a good job at vetting our manufacturer. They gave us a great product, which was like, we got really lucky in terms of that. But the quality control, we had no idea about QA. We didn't know anything. And so we ended up having to hand inspect, hand clean, and hand pack all of our masks.
• 25:17
  in our apartment for every order. And it was, we look back on this and we laugh and we're like, this is, but it was a monumental effort. And it was really, really hard to do. But we ended up having to toss almost like, or reject rather, like we didn't toss it, but reject rather, I think it was like,
• 25:38
  30% of our inventory, which really, really sucked out of that order. So I think in total, we had about 1300 masks, or 1500 masks that were viable. So yeah, it was that was really hard. But again, like learning lessons, like we didn't know what we were doing at all. But our goal is just like, okay, cool, this is a good product, like we'll do whatever it takes to make sure it gets into the hands of consumers.
• 26:00
  What happens in that scenario? Like, does the manufacturer kind of take responsibility and send you new ones or do they refund you or do you have insurance or is it just like a loss and you have to cut your losses?
• 26:14
  So we had to take that loss because, again, like we didn't set clear manufacturing guidelines. We're just like, yeah, like this looks good. Like we didn't truly like we were just kind of going for it. So we did have to take that loss. And, you know, the manufacturer, again, that we were working with, there's a reason we ended up cutting ties with them. They weren't really the best or most communicative.
• 26:37
  I think on Alibaba, a lot of brands should be aware of trade companies. These are people that are not actually manufacturers, but they're almost like the middleman between the actual manufacturers of products, and they try to source stuff for you, but they pretend like they're the manufacturer. So it can be really confusing to know who you're actually talking to. And we were in that kind of situation. I didn't know that. Yeah. I definitely encourage any brand. That is crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:05
  A person that does Alibaba really well. How do you figure that out? Oh my God. We just kind of like over the course of the interactions, like as stuff, like when we were like, Hey, this order's not right. Or like whatever, we just realized like, Oh, we're not talking to a manufacturer. We got a friend of a friend who knows Alibaba, like sourcing, who he's now an investor, got Alibaba sourcing.
• 27:30
  like for sure. So it's definitely like something I think a lot of brands should watch out for. It doesn't mean every trade company is bad. It's just like,
• 27:37
  it gets more and more opaque, right, as the layers of people between you and the actual manufacturer are. Someone who's really good at manufacturing, like with Alibaba and finding the right people is Kira Moon. Lindsay, the founder of Kira Moon, she is so good at that. But we were not at the time, but we got very lucky is what I'm saying. Yeah, you still had that 1500 to launch with. Still good. We still had it, yeah. And we were just kind of like...
• 28:05
  we were really like doing it as we went. Right. So, um, it was definitely just that kind of vibe. Okay. So now I actually want to talk about the launch and how did you sell those 1500 units? Like if you had to just break it down into like, this is what we did, did we spend any money to acquire or was it all organic? But like, this is what we did to sell those units and like the impact around that.
• 28:28
  Yeah, so we didn't spend a dime on marketing. And the reason we didn't was because we were bootstrapped or very, very limited funds. And we both, again, had separate jobs. And we were really just trying to see like how far could we take this? Like the photo shoot that we did was like my friends got together, like we pulled in, it was in my apartment. Like it was very, it was fun. Like looking back on it, it was definitely really disorganized and like very ragtag. But yeah, we didn't spend any money on marketing. The way we kicked it off
• 28:58
  was a few ways. So we, I was a TikToker. I'm, I am a TikToker. So like, obviously did a launch post that launch posted really well. And then, uh, it got my friends involved as well on Tik TOK. So I sent, I believe seven or eight of my Tik TOK friends,
• 29:16
  who are in skincare, like, hey, you know, we're launching this product, would love for you to try it. Like, and if you can support us on launch day, that would be amazing. And they all did. They all were like, so generous and like, posted about it on launch day. And that really helped a lot. And a lot of them just love the product. A lot of them still use the original mask like a year later to this day, because it gives them like, just they're like, no, this is a really good product. And then the so so TikTok is definitely one bucket of how we were able to organically
• 29:45
  you know, acquire customers. The next bucket would be brand collaboration. So on our launch day, we also collaborated with a different skincare brand because our product paired well with other products. So other serums, moisturizers. So for launch day, we partnered with Topicals. And in that partnership, we did a giveaway as well as a set that we sold on our site with their Like Butter Mask. So it's called the Butter and Bake Set.
• 30:12
  We sold that on launch day as well. And that sold out in 10 hours, which was really exciting for a new brand. Like we didn't have a lot of followers. Like we had less than a thousand followers. Like it wasn't like,
• 30:25
  We didn't spend any money on the launch either. For something to sell out in 10 hours was really cool. And that giveaway also that went live on both of our pages on launch day put our visibility up a lot. Because part of that giveaway, to have an extra entry, you have to post your stories. You post the giveaway, post your stories. And our product packaging for AvantGarde actually has someone wearing AvantGarde on the packaging, kind of like magazine-like.
• 30:51
  And because of that very visual packaging, people immediately knew what it was. So they got really, really excited by it. And we got a ton of visibility that day just from that giveaway and stories. So that was super helpful in just getting us in front of as many people as possible. And a really big influencer actually organically ordered the product. We saw his name in our Shopify and we freaked out.
• 31:16
  So that was really cool as well because he said he saw us on stories or something. Someone posted about us. So that was really cool. Oh, my God. That's so cool. Yeah. So the brand collaborations, the TikToks, that was really, really helpful. And then obviously the last bucket is just the nature of the product. The nature of the product is very shareable.
• 31:37
  is memorable. When we were raising our round, our pre-seed round, even investors were like, I feel like I've seen this somewhere, like on Instagram, maybe. Like, I remember seeing this green mask and it's us. And that's what's really cool is that it's very memorable. It's,
• 31:53
  It's kind of a weird product and it sticks in your brain. So just the nature of the product also sells itself. And a lot of consumers, once they got the product, wanted to take a selfie in it, wanted to show it off. So naturally, that also just leads to more sales. 100% I totally get it. You're making something memorable. You've got a moment, like a real moment happening online. I love that for you. Holy moly. So you sell out. When do you sell out? What's our timeline at the moment?
• 32:23
  Yeah, so our timeline for that, and we were doing this part-time, didn't put any marketing money into it. We sold out, I believe, in a few months. So we had two sizes of the mask. So for small heads and big heads, our small size was more popular and it sold out
• 32:38
  I think in March. So a few months after launch. And then our larger size sold out in May. Once the small size, the sales started slowing down. And we were also trying to figure out, like, how do we get more of this product? So there was a lot of, like, behind the scenes stuff we were trying to figure out because we didn't expect it.
• 32:55
  like necessarily to pop off that way. And so we were trying to figure out like, oh, this is a real business. Okay, like let's get our stuff together. So that's when those things sold out. Test is done, like approved, concept approved. Yeah, or concept approved, like let's get it going. Concept proven rather. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:14
  So what are the steps that take you from there to now? The reason we were also scrambling is that two months after we launched, I believe in January, Urban Outfitters DM'd us and they wanted to carry us in store. So we were trying to figure out how to get more and that's,
• 33:30
  Again, a separate learning lesson. But it was definitely like we were gaining traction pretty quickly. And we're like, oh, my God, we could launch nationwide and Urban Outfitters like in the next few months. Like we have to be ready for something like that. So we were figuring a lot of stuff out at the time.
• 33:46
  Oh my gosh. And so like, what do you do? What do you do from then till now? Obviously you're gearing up for the 2.0 launch. There's about a year in the middle here, a bit less, 10 months in the middle. What is this 10 months been to you? What have you been doing?
• 34:03
  So when we sold out, we were basically, I think it was in April when we were almost sold out that we had ordered more masks from our manufacturer to launch into Urban Outfitters. So Urban Outfitters gave us a really big PO. It was one of the bigger POs that they would give small brands. They wanted to do a nationwide rollout, which was like no test stores, just like every store like in North America and online.
• 34:31
  So it was a lot. And so we had to do a new- What's an order like that? Are you allowed to share? I don't think I'm allowed to share, actually. Okay, okay, okay. But- Doesn't matter, doesn't matter. A lot. It was definitely-
• 34:42
  It was, it was like, it was not like crazy, like target numbers or anything, but it was definitely like a lot for us. And so we had to do a new order. And so when we ordered those masks, I remember getting a call, like four missed calls from my co founder, who was in North Carolina at our co packer that we were using for this order. And
• 35:01
  frantic calls at like five o'clock in the morning. And when I wake up and I call her back, I'm like, what's happening? She's like, I opened the box and the masks are completely wrong. And it was like truly disaster scenario. It was like a day before we were supposed to ship out to Urban Outfitters. And we were, all we had to do is pack up the masks and ship them.
• 35:18
  And they were completely wrong material, which was critical to how successful this mask was because it was so much more comfortable than the other ones on the market. Was it the same manufacturer or a totally new second manufacturer? So that's where we started understanding, is this a trade company? Because it was the same people we were talking to, but it's clear they were sourcing it from somewhere else at that point. And when we asked them about it, they were like, oh, you know...
• 35:48
  It's the same thing. We just used a different mold. Like they gave us very weird answers. And you know, it wasn't, it wasn't kosher. So we tried to order, we asked them, can you please send us in the right material? So we showed them our material, which is more opaque and like much softer and stretchier. And then they sent another order.
• 36:07
  time it was the right material but the wrong shape of the mask it was a very weird shape it didn't fit at all it was like we cannot sell this and so after so much back and forth they just don't they stonewalled up oh how deflating yeah it was so deflating how do you deal with urban outfitters do you have to be like uh please don't hate us for the future but like we're a new brand yeah no but essentially so you know
• 36:34
  To Urban Outfitters credit, they were incredibly understanding. And, you know, we kind of just were honest, we were honest with them about what happened, and that we were working to fix it. And when the fix didn't work, they sent us the wrong thing again. And they stonewalled us and said that they threw out our molds, which was very weird.
• 36:50
  They yeah, it was it was a very weird it was clear that this was like, we didn't vet them correctly. And so we had to cut ties with them completely, which was scary. But we had already been in the process of like working with consumers to take feedback on the mask and like redesign it to like fit better.
• 37:09
  And so we were already in that process. We were like, okay, we just have to stick to that process. And so we had to tell Urban Outfitters, like, you know, the story. And we're like, we would, when we're ready, like, we would absolutely love to, like, do this again. And they were super understanding. So, you know.
• 37:26
  In the 10 months that we've been sold out, we've been redesigning the mask with an industrial design partner. And then, you know, they found us a manufacturer in the U.S., which is very hard to do for this product because it's kind of hard to manufacture. But we were able to do it. We found a manufacturer. And we were also raising capital. That's amazing. Yeah. No, it was amazing.
• 37:48
  It was a lot of work, but it ended up working out. And we also filed a patent for that design. And it came out really, really awesome. And so we also raised capital during that time, which helped a lot in terms of keeping us afloat. Originally, I was...
• 38:02
  more on the fence about raising capital because of my previous experience at my previous startup. It was really hard for me as like a 22-year-old female with no connections, like to run around and try to find capital. So I was a little traumatized from that experience. And so I didn't want to do it again. But I just felt so strongly that like,
• 38:22
  okay, if we can just get through this, like, there is something to experiment, there's an essence to experiment that I feel really strongly about, and that we think this can be big. And so I started pitching investors. And so fast forward to like the end of last year, we were, you know, gearing up for a pilot run for our masks, like, you know, things were looking up, we were building a waitlist,
• 38:43
  And we finished raising a million dollars. So we raised a million pre-seed and we have some really great investors who are super excited about the idea of like a Gen Z, like science backed beauty company that like,
• 38:58
  was actually like looking at beauty very differently and like representing like a beauty brand in a very like unique and disruptive way that like they were they were super excited. So having that capital raise also felt really empowering because then we actually had the money to like now invest in this launch and hire people and get the help that, you know, we needed.
• 39:22
  Holy moly. Congratulations. That is amazing. What a journey. The launch is tomorrow, but by the time this airs, it'll be a few weeks ago. How have you been preparing for this launch second time around? What are the key kind of things you're doubling down on?
• 39:40
  Yeah, so learned a lot from our first launch in terms of like, how powerful your community is just in general. So like, for this launch, we built up a waitlist, which we didn't really have before. So we built up a waitlist, we expanded our influencer community. I mean, these are personal relationships. These are friends. These are, you know, we're lucky to kind of have this not every brand.
• 40:07
  you know, out the gate has these kinds of influencer relationships. One of our investors is an OG skincare influencer, Leah Yu. So,
• 40:17
  you know, having these kinds of connections is really, really helpful. So we have a lot more influencer muscle, we still aren't spending, you know, any marketing money yet. Like we, the lesson we learned is that organic is really resilient. We had been sold out for a year, and we still have a really great community. And that I think speaks to a lot about
• 40:38
  the value of like true organic engagement. Not to say that paid is not in our future. It absolutely will be and, you know, must be. But, you know, we want to build organically as much as we can. So doubling down on our influencer community and our community in general, building a wait list.
• 40:58
  you know, that email list is like super critical in terms of like just getting sales, you know, out the gate. And, you know, we are doing some PR this time around as well. You know, we have better design that's more scalable this time around. We did a lot of branding projects. Still the green, same color. Still the green, still the green. That's absolutely iconic. And, you know, still keeping that same essence of experiment. I think like,
• 41:25
  that is something that was tough in this past few months. Like, when you finally raise capital, like, you kind of want to spend it on something like that you couldn't do before. Like, you almost get a little spendy. But, you know, it's like, in a sense, like, because you feel like, oh, my God, finally, like, I have money, especially if you were bootstrapped before, you know, it's a very different feeling. And, you know, we spend money on like branding projects and all these things. And, you know, eventually, we just realized, like,
• 41:50
  the essence of experiment, we were really pretty damn close at first, we were just doing it ourselves. Like we didn't have any designers or anything like,
• 41:59
  you know, branding agency behind our first launch. So, but this time we did get some help, more professional help, especially on the photo shoot front. So it got really creative there. I mean, your website is also like 10 out of 10. Website. I love your website. Thank you. Thank you. Our website. Yes. So like we invested specifically in like. Slick. Oh, thank you. We invested specifically in like website photography and,
• 42:23
  These things that really do like tell our brand story better. But in terms of like Instagram, it's still pretty lo-fi. And like, I think that's to our advantage as well. Again, back to the organic piece. I learned through the previous launch, like one message that really stuck with me was someone in our DMs was like, what I love about your Instagram. And this was not like an influencer or anything. It's just someone who followed us. Like what I love about your Instagram is.
• 42:49
  is that I feel like I could see myself on it. And to me that like made me feel so deeply good inside because I think, you know, having cystic acne, like knowing like without makeup, my skin is not like crystal clear, perfect. Like so many even beauty founders, like sometimes I get self-conscious or I'm like, oh my God, I'm a beauty founder. My skin isn't clear. What am I doing? Or I'm a beauty influencer and my skin isn't clear. But, you know, just having someone say that, like that,
• 43:17
  they feel like they can see themselves on our Instagram means a lot because like, I think most beauty Instagrams tend to not really feel like you belong on there. It's, it's much more polished and you know, if it fits your brand vibe, absolutely. But like, I think there's a lot of power in people feeling like they can truly identify with your brand and like feel comfortable. So, you know, again, this time around, like,
• 43:42
  we're keeping that same vibe. Like that doesn't change. Like our voice doesn't change, right? It's really that we're just taking what we started with and like amplifying it 10 times. Totally, totally. Just elevating it a smidge to a different direction of the same, but slick. Yeah.
• 43:59
  Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh, that is so cool. I'm so excited to follow along tomorrow. I think it's going to be such a big hit. Well, I mean, we obviously know it's going to be a big hit, of course, but I'm going to be cheering for you and shouting about you on social media myself, of course. Before we jump into the six quick questions, I always love to ask, what is your key piece of advice for beauty entrepreneurs who are, you know, building a brand early stages in 2022?
• 44:29
  Have a really unique perspective and own it. Own it, own it, own it. Beauty is one of the most crowded categories of consumer products. And, you know, I don't think that's necessarily a detriment. Like, I think there's room for so many brands. Like, we all, like, who has one brand in their medicine cabinet? Nobody. We all...
• 44:50
  have different brands that play well together. So there's a lot of, there's both like a lot of white space and it's incredibly crowded, but the way you actually gain market share is having a unique perspective and really sticking with it. So yeah,
• 45:04
  For experiment, that's kind of our view of science-backed beauty, right? Is that we like the absurdity, the fun, leaning into it and, you know, sticking with our guns and our principles. So like our next products that come out, you know, we'll be very focused on the science behind them. And, you know, I can't give too much away. Is there anything you want to drop there? There will be a serum as our next launch in the summer. We're already dropping lab samples to some influencers and we will be doing like a public
• 45:34
  a lab drop for, you know, our entire community as well. So really excited about that. But the serum is next. That I can say. Details about it, I can't share. But, you know, it is going to be really focused on the science. So, like, that's my biggest piece of advice is just, like, really have a unique perspective. Like, you know, try to carve out a unique perspective for yourself that, like, other beauty branches aren't hitting on. Even if it's small, like, it can really resonate if you just, like, wedge in there.
• 46:03
  Oh, I love that. To everyone listening, wedge. Find the wedge. Wedge in there. Find your wedgie. Wedge in there. Have a wedgie. So, yeah. Oh, my God. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much.
• 46:25
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 46:49
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 47:12
  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.
• 47:27
  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.
• 47:52
  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.
• 48:14
  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.