Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 quick questions with Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, founder of Ami Colé (Part 2)

Transcript

6 quick questions with Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, founder of Ami Colé (Part 2) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. Question number one is, what's your why? Why do you wake up every day and build this business? My why is always the little girl in me that really wanted to
• 0:29
  almost have an industry love her back in a way that she loved her, loved it. It's very much like my love letter to myself to showcase the things that I imagined, the things that I saw on a global stage. The beauty that I saw coming into the shop, the music that I enjoyed, the way my mother smiled, the way that she was so simple and classy, being able to kind of cocoon all of that and present it in such a beautiful, loving way to the world.
• 0:59
  I love that. Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far? Ooh, my favorite marketing moment so far...
• 1:13
  I think that we had a very beautiful segment on the Today Show that not only talks about the product, but also the brand. And I think that was a big homage to my mother. You know, we named the company after my mom and the brand after my mother. So for her to see something in her language, like she watched, you know, daytime TV. So for it to be on her screen, she was like very much like shocked because she's like, wait, you have a job and is actually doing well. Like what's going on? So I think that was a huge marketing moment for us. It resulted in great sales, too.
• 1:43
  wow what is your go-to business resource where are you learning or listening and kind of upskilling I found a friends always they are in the fire with me things are you know constantly changing like spitfire so I think having the tactical advice from my peers has been like the ultimate like unlock for me love that me too question number four how do you win the day
• 2:13
  Do you have any rituals that keep you going? So right now I'm in the thick of things. I have two kids, thank God, but I have two under two. And my ritual or my winning end of day is like, you know, kind of crossing out a lot of my checklist right now, you know, because I'm in the thick of like fundraising and all the crazy things. But yeah.
• 2:35
  you know, being in the bathroom, locking the door, having my baby go to sleep and just like taking off the day, like whether that's a shower or like a good uncleansed and like skincare ritual, like that makes me really happy. I think on a tactical moment, just having...
• 2:52
  you know, just kind of like seeing the team go. It's really rewarding to have your vision be able to be translated into action and kind of like watching something come from start to finish. And it happens at least once a day where you see like, oh my God, yes, it landed. So amongst the craziness, amongst the losses, the wins on the team side always make me feel really good. And question number five is, what's been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you?
• 3:20
  Oh, what a great question. The worst money mistake. The worst money mistake that I've made was actually a very tricky app on Shopify. So I love Shop app, but unfortunately they had like a beta that, you know, it didn't mark up the promotions correctly on Shopify. So it came in not as revenue. They kind of credit you back. It was a very weird thing.
• 3:42
  kind of masky way to market, but it ended up kind of skewing one of our months. We're like, what, like, how is this month so phenomenal? Come to find out it was a very, very tricky fine print app on shop app that was, you know, it cost us some money. It cost us like $50,000. And luckily we were able to retrieve like 21 of it, but it was a very expensive marketing campaign that we did not
• 4:06
  opt into. So luckily we were able to retrieve some of it, but it was very expensive. And the second one was not being able to, um, people can be really tricky on the internet, right? So we had a, we had a gift of purchase and people were abusing the code. So we ended up giving out way more brushes than we wanted. We gave, we gave literally like 500 brushes when it was supposed to like,
• 4:29
  50. So that was a big mistake on the team. We definitely had a postmortem to figure out like, where was the loophole there? And how was the code abused? But it was very much like tactical kind of marketing approaches that we're trying to constantly crack to get, you know, gift to purchase sounds very healthy, like, you know, opting into a new, you know, cash reward system, but it all costs something. So be careful or test for a very short window to see cause and effect.
• 4:58
  Oh, yeah. Good learning there. And last question, question number six. What is just a crazy story, good or bad, from your journey in building the biz? Let's see. Let's see. I mean, there's so many. I kid you not. Being an entrepreneur is so wild. But I think that...
• 5:17
  Right now, it's like trying to right-size the team. You know, I think that feels really good and bad because it's a hard, you know, when people opt in to work at a startup, you want to love them and keep them. But understanding where the business is and trying to pivot accordingly can be a very tough one. So I think that, you know, I'm always a people champion and I always want people to win. I'm always so excited to kind of uplift talent. But I think that really understanding like the revenue implications of it and also where you need to go
• 5:46
  it's always a tough conversation. So I think that one is like the bad one right now. Oh my gosh, this was just...
• 5:58
  good stuff. This episode is packed with learnings, packed with insights. We need you back for a part two. I've got so many more things to talk to you about. And I am such a hype girl. I love what you're doing. Thank you so much. And I'm going to be cheering for you for this new launch that you've got. Oh, thank you so much. Yes, you can find us at Sephora. We're currently not in Australia, but we'll make our way soon. You let us know if we need to be at Mecca Sephora.
• 6:24
  But yeah, we're currently at Sephora. You can find us there if you're statewide and amikulia.com and also on Amazon.
• 6:36
  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.
• 7:00
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• 7:23
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