Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / "You have no credibility!", Cosmoprof & Angel Min Check Size with Ami Colé Founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye (Part 1)

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"You have no credibility!", Cosmoprof & Angel Min Check Size with Ami Colé Founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

0:00
This is Jar and Jai for Female Startup Club. Hello and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Okay, so this episode is insane, like actually just insane and packed with so much goodness.
0:27
We're learning from Jaren Jai, the founder of Amikole. We're covering a lot of that juicy stuff that happens in the lead up to launching a brand, like how you get from idea to sample and from sample to money and from money to launch.
0:43
So if you're in that really early stage, this is an episode for you. Now, we talked so much, we didn't get through all the things because Jara just has so many gems packed in here, but you better believe that there's going to be a part two coming. So bookmark and stay tuned.
1:02
And before we jump in, just one quick ask from me. If you are feeling groovy and generous, please do take a hot second to leave us a review so other ears can find us. All right, let's jump in. This is Jara for Female Startup Club. Jara, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. I am so excited to be here, like truly. Hi.
1:27
Oh my gosh, I am so excited to be here. I was just saying before we started recording that I have been hype girling you and watching you grow this business for what feels like years for me. I'm so excited to be now here and listening to your story and asking you the 700 million questions that I have on my list.
1:51
I love that so much. And it just reminds me the power of the internet because like you can be on the other side of the world and someone is connected to your story somehow. And here we are. So it's so beautiful, these moments. So thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Let's jump in.
2:07
Let's jump in. Actually, you know what I was going to say first of all is I was just looking on your website and your Instagram and I saw you launched the pink cell and obviously as a pink obsessed person myself, I wanted to say a big congratulations because it looked so cool and so beautiful. Yeah.
2:27
Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, Pink Cell is out and it's named after, there's like this mysteriously pink, not mysterious, there's signs to it, but mysteriously pink lake back in Senegal where I'm from. It's really from the salt and the minerals, but when you look at it, it's like this big pink lake and it's so beautiful and I've always been so inspired by it. So interesting.
2:49
It's giving that beautiful flush, but a little bit of a hot pink, a little dare, bold. It works on every complexion. It's just truly lovely in the same award-winning formula that we're able to present this new shade now. So I'm excited. Thank you. Today's launch day. Oh my God. Today's launch day. Oh, double congrats. Super cool. I didn't realize it was like a turd day. Wow. Okay. So how did it go? Good so far. I need to go to Shopify to make sure, but it's been a good, I think.
3:19
This was one of the campaigns where I was a little bit more hands-off, you know, that the team is growing and they're kind of like now adapting to the kind of taste that I like. So it was really exciting to kind of let them fly a little bit. And it just turned out so beautiful. So that in itself was a success.
3:35
Oh, hell yes. I'm going to like even circle back to this when we get a little bit further into the episode and we start getting into marketing because I want to understand, you know, how you launch a new product and like what that looks like for you, what that looks like for your team. So we can get a bit of a blueprint there. But I want to kind of start, I don't want to get ahead of myself because I usually do this where I'm like, oh, let's go over here and then let's jump over there. And then I'm like, wait a second.
3:59
let's just go back to the beginning. And I want to understand, you know, what you were doing before you started the brand, what was going on. I feel like I was reading articles that, you know, you were dreaming about this business from 2014. You've always been into beauty. So where do you want to start kind of your story? Yeah. Oh, that's such a good question. And I think that it's so funny because I think as creators and, you know, entrepreneurs, like
4:27
just like nascent entrepreneurs, like you just have this itch whenever, like you're, you're that student in class that probably talked too much, that probably was doodling a little bit more than the others. And I think that for me, that was me. I was always thinking about like, how do I travel? I want to go somewhere. I want to do something very adventurous kind of growing up. And, you know, I was born and raised in Harlem, USA. And at the time, Harlem is like the Mecca of all things like,
4:54
Black history and Pan-Africanism, everything. The Apollo Theater is right there, literally the place where James Brown, Michael Jackson, Tony Braxton performed. And then my mom had the salon here, and then I just was always around it, kind of just pulsating around. And I would go after school to my mom's job, and I would be very bored and very annoyed. I'd be like, oh, I wish I didn't want to go home.
5:21
But while I was there, I was always like picking up the magazines at the hair salon and kind of doodling and, you know, mood boarding and just always a dreamer. I just always loved the idea of just kind of escapism through beauty. So that kind of was always my DNA and is always a part of like who I was.
5:39
I just kept growing up and exploring. And then I went to Syracuse University and I studied English. And I'm like, what the heck am I going to do with an English major? So I came back to New York City. I do not want to be an English teacher. But it was the art of storytelling and the use of language and being able to kind of paint pictures that I was able to do.
6:01
with words and I would come back. I started on PR a little bit in fashion, but I made my way back into beauty. And I worked at a pro makeup artistry brand called Temtu. They are like a wild brand that introduced me to the world of, again, like consumer goods in general, but like
6:18
pro makeup artists, like their mindsets are completely different. The color theory, shades, complexion, HD versus airbrush, all that thing. So I got a foundation of like makeup world. I would be there for a little bit working directly with the CMO, which was so cool to have that direct access. And then I would quote unquote graduate to work at L'Oreal, like every beauty marketer does. So I went to L'Oreal Paris. I was there doing social media marketing. Yeah.
6:47
And what that meant at the time was trying to figure out how to mobilize influencers. Like we were the crazy brand that was like flying out people to like Aspen and Cannes Film Festival just to get them to post, just to get them to post about the brand. So, you know, anyway, long story short, I did that. And then I was missing the hunger of building and creating. So I kind of left with like no very strong plan B. I was like, I'll figure it out.
7:16
And figuring it out, end up looking at me working at Glossier. So I did a very sharp pivot, and I actually did product development at Glossier. And for those listening that don't know, product development is essentially creating the gunk, like the product and working with the packaging team. It was a 360 kind of hands-on-deck team approach where art was involved in formula and going out to...
7:42
literally Arizona to create like bubble wrap and eye cream. It was the coolest job and the most difficult job ever because I had never had that expertise. I was learning on the job. I was running with the wolves, you know, Glossier, especially at that time was at the pinnacle of all things, modern beauty. So in that space, I kind of,
8:03
And like so, so different. Absolutely. It was very fresh and new, especially coming from L'Oreal, where everything took like three years to come to fruition. This was like six months and it was like in the market. So, yeah, that was like my background. You know, a lot has happened in between just personally in my career.
8:23
fascination with beauty. I love beauty products, love skincare, always was just fascinated with even the into the gloss model of understanding like people like Kelly Rowland and like which toner she was using. I'm like, oh, I need to, I need to buy the Darfran. I need to get that toner. Yeah. Yeah.
8:40
I'm interested in that kind of area. I want to like zoom in here for a moment to this Glossier kind of part of the story, because, you know, you came from this background in social media and marketing and influences. And then if you were thinking about it from an outside perspective, you would think that you'd go into social media and marketing and everything with Glossier. But then you've taken this pivot and you've gone into product development and innovation there. And I'm
9:06
How did that happen? And like, what was the turning point for you to go into product development and innovation? Oh, I love that question. And honestly, sometimes things are just fate. You know, it was so giving a little bit more color to my relationship with Into the Gloss and Glossier. I am naturally a beauty lover. Like I kid you not, like you do not want to see my
9:31
My like archive, I will not throw away a lipstick because I'm like, no, this particular grayish brownish nude is not created again. I need to keep on hold on to it. So long story short, I had been a part of that ecosystem, like, you know, in the disque session, talking to people and finding my people through beauty through the Internet.
9:52
So I had been like an avid reader and I would eventually be like, you know, doing my little top selfies. I would record things and post very like grainy pictures posted on Instagram. And then they would feature me back in like 2014. Yeah.
10:08
So I'd always been in that ecosystem. So I bring that up because Emily Wise basically kind of had me tap the top of mind, I think at the moment, like, listen, like, we want a diverse point of view on product. We want someone who is obsessed with product and someone who is probably a bit more social savvy because it was a digitally nascent brand. So how do we bring the comment section to the very early beginning of the product development portion? So like,
10:34
She, as a visionary, now looking back on it now, because it was a risk on her end and my end too, right? This girl has no experience. Can she bring that magic up front? And can we teach her as well? And the answer was yes and no on both ends.
10:49
is, you know, but I think that that the turning point in terms of like, why was her reaching out to me directly asking me like, hey, would you be willing to come to Glossier? I'm like, of course, I can do social media. Like, this is a dream job. I'll do Instagram at Glossier. And they're like, nope, nope, nope. We need to do the product side. I'm like, what? But I had to, I love a challenge. So I jumped up for the opportunity. And it was just that it was a challenge. It was learning and it kind of cracked my hunger to kind of create as well.
11:17
Yeah. And I just think it's such an important kind of point here. It's like, you've taken like this experience that you had, you had this playbook of social, but like, especially in today's world, the idea of creating brands for a social first approach and designing for social and understanding what's happening on social and then taking that into the
11:40
development and innovation side of things to then re-go back to social. It's just such a, I don't even know how to articulate it properly what I'm trying to say, but like this loop of like, it just makes sense. And she was obviously way ahead of the game when she was doing this back in the day, but it's like now when I talk to new business owners and when I talk to founders, I'm like, we need to be reverse engineering this product development stage.
12:03
for social first in mind. And I want to understand from your perspective, if you have any like key, you know, a juicy learning or an insight or something that if a new early stage business owner who is in that early R&D phase is listening into right now, like what would you tell them to do and how would you tell them to think about their kind of product dev and this kind of piece of the puzzle?
12:29
I think it's the most important part of the piece of the puzzle. Because I think sometimes you forget who your client actually is. And I think you win when you remember at every step of the game what your customer wants to feel, how they feel elevated. How are you making their lives just a little bit different? And that means happier. That means happier.
12:48
you know, more calm, that means whatever your end goal is, you have to work backwards from that. So I bring that up because for me, for example, I want to, I still think about the comment. I'm like, I want this person to say, wow, this is the most, you know, bluest pink I've ever tried. This is the most creamy texture that's not tacky. This is the most, you know, travel friendly packaging that I've been dying to have. Like, what am I solving for?
13:16
And I think about that. I'm like, if I were to walk away happy, how would I want someone to talk about this? Almost as if it was like an obituary. Like, how would I want this person to talk about this in the comment section? Like, if I am in my DMs, quote unquote, what am I sharing to my friend? I say, girl, you have to try this thing out. It does X, Y, Z. So I still think about that, especially when it comes to complexion. Mm-hmm.
13:44
In the group chats, in the save section, like the most intimate one-to-one kind of connection on your social platform about a product. That's where I want to live. And funny enough, like a lot of amikole, a lot of the traction comes still by word of mouth, which is a good and bad thing. And we'll talk about this too from a marketing perspective.
14:04
But it's people really loving the product in its entirety and sharing it with a friend. Like, how do I create that over and over again? So I would recommend everybody to kind of think about that. And I know like PD in general starts from a very selfish point of view, like you want the product and you want to make it.
14:22
But then like you plus one, like who is that person? Are they feeling the same way about the product as you feeling? Or are you like you're feeling and then kind of working backwards there. But all of that is just super important. And it's just like still here for social. Like the comment section is where the magic happens.
14:41
Yes. Oh my gosh. I love all of this so much. And it really reminds me like, even just the other day I was talking to, you know, my kind of close girlfriends in a WhatsApp chat and I'd been complimented on this product that I was wearing like multiple times when I was out. And I was like, okay, yeah, like I thought it looked good, but now I'm getting compliments. Right. So like,
15:00
I'm in the girlfriend group chat being like, yo, you guys buy this because I have received these compliments about every time I wear this. And then I screenshot it because I was literally like, this is, I should post this on social media. This is like how word of mouth is in action. Like this is it right here. Like this brand needs to know that this is like what's happening behind the scenes because it's so good that I need to tell my girlfriends to get it. And like that is just powerful when you can hear,
15:29
hit that nail on the head. Yes, yes. And that's happened with our lip treatment oil. Like I didn't, I didn't expect it to kind of,
15:38
take on like the heroic kind of skew within our portfolio. I mean, I just knew it was a great formula because I was, again, selfishly really wanted a good thick gloss that wasn't too tacky, but I'm like, wow, like it's really like the girl pulling out her gloss and then just talking at brunch and then, you know, applying this glaze over the lips. And I'm like, whoa, what's that? Oh my God, girl, you have to try this lip oil. Like that is magic. That is magic. And it's
16:04
It's so hard though, because you can't really create that. You can't manufacture it. Like the product stands on its own. And that's why I said it's a blessing and a curse because that might take a little bit more time, like a slow burn. You become like a classic in a way. But the instantaneous like gratification, you're probably not going to get on launch day or things like that. So it's a good and bad thing.
16:27
Yes, yes, totally. Okay, let's get into how you move from Glossier to launching your own business, Amikole. And I want to kind of like get to the point where you start by going to Cosmoprof. And I don't know if there's like, you know, more that we want to go into before that happens. But I want to get to that point of the story.
16:49
Oh, absolutely. So it's 2019. Just to paint the picture for you, I'm having like a quarter life crisis. I'm like, I'm leaving quote unquote, my dream job and I'm not ready to, you know, start something like who am I, you know, as, as a, especially me, like I, I'm a true New Yorker. I love working. I love like,
17:09
you know, waking up and putting on this armor to go attack a challenge, you know? So I think at that time I was kind of like, am I cut out for startup? Like just had so many questions. And I kid you not, I just booked a solo trip to Thailand. I booked a solo trip to Thailand. I bought my notebook.
17:28
I bought my notebook. I bought my like, you know, this very bare minimum. And I just, I just spent every single day asking myself the question, like, if the sky truly was the limit, what would you do? What would you do? Like, you know, if no one gave you
17:44
you know, any parameters or guardrails, like what would you create? And I kid you not, like it just started to pour. And I think there's something very beautiful that no one talks about enough, about like solo traveling when everything is foreign to you, where you have no choice but to listen to yourself.
18:00
especially in a space where you don't speak the language, where your voice is louder for some reason. Like you're very clear, like I'm going to go, I'm going to do this today, especially when you're by yourself, right? This is my schedule today. I'm going to trust myself that I want to leave the beach at this time and go this. It was very interesting and introspective. So as a creative, it was a great recharge to say, listen, I want to create something. I want to be able, and I had one like, kind of like,
18:26
I could you not, I have like a snotty video of me crying and like, this is being like all poetic and weird. But I walk into, I'm like, what happens if I can create like classic beauty staples for a cohort of women that I know historically have not been considered thoughtfully? And it's not just like disconsidered thoughtfully is really the key here because...
18:47
I had been on the beach all day and, you know, I go into the bathroom at a hotel and like all the products I couldn't use. Like the shampoo and the conditioner didn't work for me. The blow dryer did not work for my cross hair. It wouldn't it wouldn't straighten my my 4C hair. So I'm like, could I could you imagine having a beautiful day on the beach and coming home and being able to use the products and have a nice.
19:10
like shampoo and like, you know, wrap up my hair and go to sleep. Like, no, I got to rock this crazy hair until I get back to New York City because solutions are not readily available because again, it's thoughtful design. Like where can I go into spaces and feel that, that complete, like I'm, I'm seen, I'm seen. So I recorded the whole thing and I got back to New York City and I said, you know what?
19:35
I am going to consult still just so I can pay my bills in New York City. But every single day, I'm going to chip away and try, try, try, try to use my connections, to go out to Cosmoprof, and to go out there confidently and very delusionally because I had zero dollars for this brand.
19:55
Um, I went out there, Vegas, 104 degrees. I don't know what that is in Celsius, but very, very, very hot. And I just went in there and I was just knocking on every booth, essentially like, hi, my name is Jada. I had this brilliant idea. Um, I know this exists because I had been interviewing all these people. I know these people, they are looking for this solution beyond, you know, this huge celebrity backed brand. We need real people.
20:22
solutions made by real people. And some people said no. Some people call me back when you have more traction. And one CM took a bet on me. Like, you know what? What's the worst that could happen? Let's try. And luckily, they're still one of our CMs to this date, actually. They took a bet on me and I basically, for an entire year, very thoughtfully went through numerous rounds to get
20:52
And in the meantime, I just went out there and I just on the internet telling people every single day what I was doing, how I was doing it. Very, very vulnerable. Like, I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I had this crazy feeling that it's going to work out. And 2021, literally two years later, that's when I finally got funding to bring this to life. No, I think, I think, sorry, 2020 is when I got funding at the end of 2020 and we launched 2021. So...
21:20
Just to, again, timeline this out, 2019, all of that year into 2020, I'm researching, I'm interviewing my friends and family and kind of heat mapping which kind of products they are using and which shades, like super crazy data stuff.
21:36
And then I went to Cosmoprof, went out there with a very short brief, like I wanted three products and I wanted to be this, this, that and service this. And then funding came, thank God. And that was able to turn everything on to go into production and get ready for actual launch in 2021.
21:54
Oh my gosh. Wow. So cool. I have so many questions. Let me think where I want to start with this. I want to like with Cosmoprof, when you went there and you're talking to this contract manufacturer who's been like, yep, okay, let's try it. Let's do it. What does that look like in terms of, you know, how much did you need to spend? What was the minimum orders? Like what were the finer details of that relationship in the beginning? And then that's going to lead me into the money piece, which is like where I have, you know, a million questions. Yeah.
22:22
Of course, of course. So for contract manufacturing, particularly for this contract manufacturing, they give you up to about like
22:31
three rounds, sometimes the grace period, depending on how friendly you are, be up to like five rounds of iterations, right? You know, so you go into them. But the negotiations on the unit economics, you want to negotiate up front. So, for example, at the time, lip treatment oil, the minimum quantities was usually 5,000. But they're like, you know what, we know that's a lot for a new brand, you have no...
22:56
For instance, credibility, quote unquote, like we know that you're not like walking into Sephora with a PO. So purchase order. So like you're starting on dot com. We'll do you a favor. We'll start with two thousand five hundred of the lip treatment oil. And then your next order has to be five thousand.
23:14
And I was freaking out about 2,500. I'm like, how am I going to sell this? How, like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And, you know, the traditional D2C playbook was already dwindling. I think what was more complicated was the complexion products, right? So complexion products, if you think about it, 200,000.
23:32
2,500 minimum quantity order. If you're coming out with six shades, like times six, that can be very, very hefty. So that's why I knew, um, and to be transparent, I think like, yeah, so the first purchase order was quite significant. I didn't have that in my bank account.
23:50
With that, you know, $2,500 for the lip oils and then like $2,500 per shade in the complexion products. Even before you got to that point, what are you kind of spending to get the sampling done? Like what's the initial kind of money that you're just actually having to pass over before you even have this like product that's ready to place that purchase order?
24:12
And I think this is why FATE comes into fruition again, because luckily I was able to do the development very cheaply. I think all in the most, I didn't pay for the development fees. Like some people pay, like you have to pay them for them to actually develop samples for you. So basically it was amortized into the actual first P.O. purchase order. So basically this was all a part of the unit economics and then hopefully that you'd scale with them.
24:41
And, you know, kind of make that pinky promise that you would basically choose them to scale with them to bring in that business. So luckily, I did not have to pay, but I did explore that. There were different options where you could, for instance, go to a chemist.
24:56
and say, hey, I want you to create a formula that I own from scratch. You would build it. You would essentially sell me that recipe. And then that would be an either an upfront cost that could be, you know, anywhere from like $10,000, $5,000, $25,000, depending on how quote unquote complicated it is. Like, you know, bi-phase development that will require both an oil and like just a beautiful emulsion that might take a little bit more of chemistry brain work.
25:24
That can be more expensive. And you also have to think about like your raw materials and things like that. So buying the actual vats of products for this person to then make, that can be very expensive. And I did explore that. I did explore that. But unfortunately, that didn't work out with the chemist that I loved because he was like a color genius. But unfortunately, he actually passed away. Very unfortunate. And, you know, I had to go through the CM route. I know it was very...
25:53
It was very deep and devastating. He was such a sweetheart and just a colored genius. But, you know, as fate, everything happens for a reason. And, you know, so I ended up going back to the CM and luckily they were not charging me for that. So I got lucky in that sense. But I do know some people that do pay up to about like $10,000, $25,000 on the development fees.
26:14
Got it. And was that something that you negotiated up front with that contract manager or that was their business model that they build it into? Like they basically, you've sold them on you as a founder and this business plan and what you're going to do. They believe in you and they're like, okay, yeah, let's do it. And we'll build it into that future cost. Or was it more like you, I mean, they believe in you and they believe in the vision, but you still negotiated to have that built in?
26:44
I would say, and I haven't talked to CMs in so long, so do forgive me if I'm missing some details. I would say it's the former, because at the end of the day, the CMs, that's their business model. They want you to come and love a formula or love to work with them,
26:58
or see some type of raw material and grow with them, especially if it's quote unquote turnkey where you're coming in, you're buying the actual product and the packaging or a vendor that they have relationships with. So at the end of the day, that's their business goal as well as to be able to sell four to five programs, to be able to scale this, to have a brand that's having traction in the wholesale side.
27:20
That in itself, you know, there's a huge, I think on their end, a huge sampling, you know, bucket that they have from their P&L that they're not charging us per se. But they make money back when they kind of, there's always some type of fees that you pay later on. But it's more so like that's their business model. Right. Okay. Okay. Got it. All right. So you get these amazing samples. You're really happy. You've negotiated some smaller MOQs. You've got to place the purchase order.
27:51
How do we get the money to place these orders? What happens next?
27:56
Oh, what a great question. So you know what? And again, very naively, and I think I'm just, I'm just now looking at, now looking back at me, cause you, you know, as a founder, you, you kind of like, you watch yourself grow as a human being as well. Like I, I'm quite bullish, like I'll, I'll get it done, you know? So like, you know, I'm a dreamer. I really do believe in manifestation. So a lot of my, um,
28:22
I think, so a couple of things happened. I kept posting on Instagram every single day, like, hey guys, I'm very naive. I'm talking to like 10 people, right? And then it started to be like 100 and then it was like 200. I'm like, hey guys, I'm building this thing. I'm going to show you what I've been doing. And luckily these people that have been following me, they've been following my career for a while too, just being in the beauty industry, being like adjacent to the PR world. So
28:45
I think I had a little bit of a following. I don't remember exactly. It couldn't have been more than like 5,000 or 10,000. But regardless, I was on a daily check-in and having people come in and comment and just follow my journey. But with that said, it attracted investors. So people were like, hey...
29:01
We hear this ex-Glossier human is creating something new. It's so funny now looking back at it, Glossier has definitely been a brand of incubation in terms of new products and new businesses. So I think that people were just already listening. And then editors were listening too. Like, hey, this could be something really interesting. Let's get on this story. So one of my first stories actually was Birdie.
29:24
And I forget the exact title, but essentially it was like, look at this girl. She's kind of, you know, made her way through the beauty industry. She's working on something that's coming out next year. And that article had like tons of views and clicks and people were just so keen and curious to understand like, what was I building? You know, how was I building it? What, you know, and who was I, you know, to do that? So I think that
29:50
Interestingly enough, like your career is never in vain. I wasn't a big fan of PR, but I was very appreciative of the way editors worked and pitch stories. And sometimes I just pitch myself like, hi, I'm working on this thing. You know, I would love for...
30:05
I don't even have a website yet, but could you kind of link to my wait list and have people wait there or have them follow my Instagram, but I'm onto something. I have this beautiful idea and here are some samples. You can play around with it. And you're getting the exclusive before it drops. It's going to be a big drop. I just kept seeing it up. And that Birdie article really kind of carried me through. I had a couple of
30:28
you know, people like reaching out to me and like, you know, asking just from a PR front. So it was a little bit of a marketing turn. Thank God, again, with my background, I knew how to turn a little bit to be able to at least get people excited. So by the time we launched, we had a wait list of like 6,000 people.
30:47
No. So, oh my God. Wow. I promise you. So whenever I did like a panel and they couldn't pay me, I'm like, okay, you can't pay me, but is there a way that you can have your audience opt into my wait list so they can be the first to know about this product when they launch so that I would barter myself wherever I would go to say, hey, the most expensive currency that I have right now is an email. So how do I get an email? Yeah.
31:12
How do I do a wait list or how do I get, you know, how do I produce? I did this actually, like it was like a beautiful giveaway with like multi-branded. I didn't have any products. I'm like, hey, Jada, you want to join this giveaway? I'm like, I don't have nothing to sell yet. So I literally produced like 10 pouches that were Amicole branded that would launch eventually. I'm like, hey, can I do a small run of this? And I literally participated in the giveaway that way. I just put it in the pouch.
31:37
And I told them that they would be the first to get an exclusive, you know, a kit when we did launch. And that was even cooler. So I would do like creative, sneaky things like that to get people kind of excited or at least feeling exclusive, very close, close to the development and kind of being on the inside before we would actually launch. I love that. And I think that you raise like a really good point that I just want to like zoom in on here. It's like,
32:02
I think we can all get lost in this like, oh, you need to do something that drives 6,000 leads overnight kind of thing. Like it needs to happen all really quickly and everything needs to be pouring in. But actually, you know, if you think about, okay, I've got a year until I launch or, you know, two years until I launch because I'm in development still or whatever it might be. It's like, okay, in that year or in that two years or sometimes three years.
32:24
if you're able to just slowly chip away and be like, cool, I'm going to talk about it here on Instagram and maybe I get five signups a month. And then maybe I talk about it on a panel and that exposes me to a few hundred people and I get a hundred signups for that month. And you slowly chip away and it slowly starts to snowball and pick up and increase over time. And then you land at 6,000. But
32:46
it is those tiny incremental, like I'll do anything for just that one email over here and that one email over there and maybe a handful over here. And to remember, like it is the slow burn, but like eventually you land at 6,000 or 10,000 or even a thousand, whatever it might be. But it's so important to just take those small actions that, I mean, it's not small actions, definitely not small action to speak on a panel, but, you know, taking these like
33:14
repeating the message a million times. It's totally that. And again, to your point, 1,000 is a lot. If you had a party and 1,000 people showed up, just make it a really good party and make sure that you're empowering them to walk away and say, that was the most beautiful party, whether intimate or kind of extravagant
33:35
whatever. Like, again, remembering what you want the comment to be like when they walk away, what are they going to say about this brand or what can they anticipate? And you'd be surprised like the, my Dye Core, like customer is so loyal and so evangelistic in a way that they drive that LTV. They drive, you know, a sense of loyalty that you can't,
33:57
get during like a big, you know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale. Like those people are coming in to discover, try a little bit, might not stay, might take another year to buy, but that first 1,000, they're going to be your core for a very long time. And if you're a lucky brand,
34:12
And you can grow with them, you know, as the ages kind of grow and you're not kind of like being outgrown as a brand, then you have a very loyal customer that's going to do a lot of work for you that you cannot replicate. It's such a magical sauce. So I treated it as a job. I kept looking for spaces that I wanted to be a part of.
34:31
I kept identifying podcasts and trying to figure out like, hey, if I have an expert voice, what is it? Like, maybe it's just one thing. Like, if it's just like, I'm really keen on undertones when it comes to a foundation. Like, okay, fine. Everyone's talking about shade diversity, but it's beyond that. It's undertones. And for me, um...
34:49
I took pride in the fact that I wasn't a makeup artist. I actually don't know what I'm doing half the time. I want to grab something very quick and easy to look alive. I'm so busy. Especially now, I'm a new mom. What can I grab and go to look like the best version of myself? And that's my point of view.
35:06
And I think being able to offer that and saying, hey, this is what I want to talk about. Like, is there a space for your on your platform or in your community to be able to kind of add more color to this? And I think that people like, OK, sure. Like, why not? And it's 45 minutes. We can talk about it. And then, boom, you have the most successful podcast and an additional like 3000, like not 3000, but like additional like a thousand emails and people just waiting. And they're still showing up in spaces. So it's really cool.
35:34
That is really cool. So you have this wait list. You have 6,000 people on it. You've been talking. You've been out there. You've been putting your authority voice and your authority hat on in all the places.
35:49
But I was reading an article that was saying, or you were basically saying, you know, you couldn't go and knock on the doors of your friends and your family to raise money through, you know, you didn't have that network of people around you for a friends and family round.
36:07
But you did have a thought in your mind of how you would raise. And I want to talk about your strategy, what you thought, and kind of like the practical side of that. Like, are you going and literally like sending an email? Are you picking up the phone? Are you sending a text message? What happens? And I just want to talk about like that space because I feel like sometimes it's like...
36:28
Like for me, I'm a practical person. Like I want to know like the exact, like, what did you actually say in the text message? You know, like what did you actually do to get that outcome? And so I want to talk about this part of the fundraise. Oh my God, absolutely. And I think this part of the fundraise gave me so much anxiety because it's just the imposter syndrome that you cannot shake off because it's...
36:49
here you are, you know, I'm more creative led. I definitely have a business acumen, but I think I, I think I can speak for a lot of people that have never been in the world of VC. You have no idea where to start when it comes to equity conversations, when it comes to like your total addressable market and all the, the kind of very data forward questions that you have to be prepared to answer. So to start, I, again, I think I got lucky because I think around that time,
37:15
I had other founder friends that were also fundraising and starting brands. I had massive, almost daily calls with people like Mesa from Behave Candy and Elamide from Topicals and Maeva from Bread.
37:33
We were all fundraising at the same time. So we were always sharing notes like talk to this investor, you know, do this with this investor. But I think the first very practical and tactical step is to get that pitch right. That is really working on a deck, concise.
37:48
especially when you're pre-market, like, which is even harder, right? Like, you're saying like, hey, this is the problem. I know this is a problem. I've personally experienced it. I'm the person for this job because you're kind of pitching like your job to someone, right? I know I'm the person for this job. Here's a problem. Here's my solution. Here's why I'm the person for the job. Here's my professional experience, my personal experience. Here's the data to back up the total adjustable market. Like we know historically, like, especially black and brown founders, they tend to,
38:18
go into a store and over index and spending because they can't find the right shade. So the foundation and beauty products, they're willing to spend two X or five X the amount of, of, of, compared to general market. Knowing where she shops, knowing a little bit more of our demographic and essentially how are you going to do this? So I think for investors, they want to see, they want to see a little amount of work possible. Like they want to just give you money when the idea is already ripe and ready to go.
38:47
So I essentially had this deck that took, oh my God, crazy amount of work. You know, again, like being able to storytell, I'm such a lofty, wordsy person. I had so many words on the deck, like, whoa, this is much, you know, get more concise. And that was through like my friends and my friends of friends being able to kind of edit down. And then I had my samples and then I would go in and I said, hey, like, you know, Maeva, who do you know? And Mesa, like, who do you know? How, who have you pitched?
39:16
Can you, number one, create a blurb for me, introducing yourself, introducing what you're working on and how much you're raising? So I would do that. And then they would forward over to their network. I would go into my network to understand, like, for instance, all right, cool. I worked at Glossier. Who the hell at Glossier might have some extra dollars to be able to spend on this? Like, I literally went back to my very first boss interview.
39:39
literally Rebecca Mankoff herself. I'm like, hi, Rebecca, it's been 17 years, basically, since I work for you. You've been very instrumental in my ideation of being a female founder. And I'm working on this amazing thing. I would love for you to be a part of this journey with me. And she cut me a check. And it could be like the smallest check in the world, but it's that traction that people really love to see when it comes to fundraising money. So,
40:06
what was the minimum kind of amount that you are asking for? Because again, I think that like when we hear like raising money, you're kind of thinking like, oh, everyone's putting in, you know, or you could think in your mind like 50,000 or they're putting in 500,000, but actually like an angel check or a small check can be really a thousand bucks or 2,000 bucks. What was the minimum that you are asking for? Yeah, absolutely. I think the smallest check that I took at that time was about 2,500.
40:33
2,500. And I think for the more like more quote unquote advanced or, you know, the more strategic and seasoned angels, I would even take 5,000. I'd say, hey, Rebecca Minko, for example, right? I'll take 5,000. But is there a way that we could be on the podcast when we launch? Is there a way that we can kind of hold a spot for advertising for an extra spot on your podcast? Like, so some type of barter system yet again, to make sure that she was in the cap table? Yes, because cash gets you far. But
41:01
Again, you were burned to the $5,000 really quick, but how do you add more value as an angel investor? Is there anyone else that you can introduce me to? Henry Davis, example, I think his check size, I think it was a little bit more like $25,000, but he came in and said, who do you need me to talk to? Give me your deck. Give me your player. Let me run through your deck and let me actually look at your tech stack for when you're launching.
41:25
to make sure that you actually going to have the right data to make sure that you can build out the right dashboards or whatever. So just understanding exactly like who is this person good for? What are they good for? And how do you want? Why do you want them in your ecosystem when it comes to your product and your company and brand? So that was my first very tactical thing. Very overwhelming again. But you I mean, I kid you not. This was during COVID, too. So a lot of these meetings were through Zoom.
41:51
I kid you not, maybe 150 meetings back to back. Like I treated it as a job. Like I was literally eating cold sandwiches, drinking a coffee and a water and back to back hitting up these, these investors. And you get in the flow of things. You kind of start to pattern recognize the questions that they're asking you. What makes you unique? You know, what's your cost of goods? Where are you contract manufacturing? Who would you hire if we gave you the money? And then you just start to fine tune those questions and answers. And then
42:18
you know, one meeting turns into the second meeting. And then the third meeting, you're like, whoa, I have traction here. I think I'm going to close on this deal. And then someone cuts you a $100,000 check. You're like, holy crap, this is a real company. And this is the biggest amount of money that I've kind of seen coming one lump sum. So I'm like, oh my God, we're onto something here. And then you just don't stop. You're like, okay, boom, it's go time. And then you feed each other, you know, founders like, hey guys, I got a hundred. I'm like, oh my God, go girl.
42:43
Like, you know, and it's such a magical moment. It's maddening because you're just like, it's either you make it or you bust, but it's just so crazy. It's yeah. Oh my God. So how much did you raise in that? Did you say pre-seed or seed round? This was pre-seed. So this is pre-seed essentially means that you have no product yet, like no proof of concept. The people are really banking on you to kind of create that. So I ended up raising 1.6 million. Yeah.
43:12
That's amazing. And at what valuation? Oh, I think at the time we did like, I don't want to share that information. Sorry. Because that, because, you know, investors are saying that. Fair enough. Fair enough. It's okay. It's okay. I'm like, wait a minute. I was about to share. I can tell you offline.
43:28
Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I love that for you. Okay. So you do this amazing, super successful raise. What happens next? You've obviously then placed your purchase order. You've got this product, you've got the cash. Let's get into like the marketing. Let's get into like, you know, launch moment, go to market strategy and like what you've been kind of working your career in, in terms of social and strategy and marketing. Like how does this all start coming together? Yeah.
43:57
Oh, what a great question. I think a lot of it came with the storytelling and understanding the campaign. I had gone back to Senegal, West Africa, and I shot this beautiful brand moment to really get a strong pulse on who we are and why we're different. So I did that. And I think, again, like visually, it was really important for me to have the representation that I really wanted growing up. Like, again, going back to that little kid
44:24
in the hair salon, kind of sifting through everything from like Delia's catalogs to like, you know, J.Crew catalogs to, to, to just regular, you know, beauty, uh, you know, magazines, like how I could bring that storytelling forward. So we were very, very visually, you know, strong. And then we thought about everything at the time. Um, again, this was off the heels of, um, of COVID. So a lot of audio platforms, you know,
44:55
What was the audio platform that exists? Clubhouse. Clubhouse. Oh, my goodness. Yes. So we were looking at traditional, like non-traditional. Exactly. People don't have time anymore. We knew this was going to happen. We knew that Clubhouse was going to bubble and explode once people left outside. But at the time...
45:15
We're thinking about like audio forward. We had a podcast placement that was super rich. We had a lot of Clubhouse kind of, you know, popping in and kind of talking about the product and talking about the brand. Beauty Clubhouse that came from literally from Clubhouse is now an IRL beauty community is super rich and kind of fruitful. So I was thinking about niche pockets of the world that I could be able to infiltrate the story. Right.
45:45
thinking about like which platform and for us it ended up being audio at the time um
45:51
still had a very, very strong PR angle as well to really get the story out there and again, understand why. And I think also understanding like what the product was about, like being in front of the editors and just beyond the brand, the products are super amazing, you know, trying them out. So we had a crazy robust desk side schedule back to back for like a week, talking to editors, maybe up to like 20 editors a day, telling them exactly what the brand was with one of our PR agents that we actually still have to this day
46:21
social, social, social, social. So we had a lot of, you know, big social push again. Now you have to remember too, everyone was excited because it's been two years now of me talking about this brand. So finally it came and it was D-Day. And I mean, the audience showed up and everyone was there and really excited. So again, we focus on social, social storytelling. We were D-to-C. So we got a lot of traction straight back to the website.
46:48
Um, press was really, really important for us getting that out there. We didn't really invest quote unquote into influencer marketing because that, but our budget didn't allow at the time. Um, but a lot of it was organic. We just had like, we, we had very organic, beautiful, um, you know, uh, mailers that we sent out with very like handwritten notes. It just felt really special. It was felt really special. So we got back to the one-on-one of marketing, focusing on specific channels with the bandwidth that we had.
47:14
At the time, the team was about three, including this, excluding our head of PR. But we had a head of brand, which, again, was super critical at the time with the visuals and the collateral, the website, packaging, et cetera.
47:31
We had a head of operations who was just getting things from Italy to China to back to New Jersey. So all of that. And then we had a head of social media and community that also did CX at the time. And then you have myself kind of leading the marketing still and getting in front of the brand and shouting on the rooftop, every rooftop that I can get on that Omicola exists.
47:56
Do you remember if there were any like kind of moments within all of that that felt like it was a needle shifter, like something that you were like, oh, this is a pivotal moment where I can sense that we've like, you know, okay, we've found product market fit or something that's happened that kind of like really started to snowball the effect? Yeah. Oh, what a great question. Yeah.
48:17
I, in the beginning, I think people were just so gracious. They were so happy to see us win. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I think we blew out like our first month of sale, like productions in like the first day. It was a very, very strong launch. And to this day, we have not been able to replicate that.
48:36
that launch day. So I think that we had a very strong, uh, product market fit because again, I think the, the brand story of it, the, the humanness of it as well. I'm not like a celebrity. I'm just someone who kind of worked, worked hard, you know, through the corporate ladders. And I been a person that worked at Sephora as a, as a cast member and just a beauty lover. So I think that again, um,
48:59
it's hard to say a moment. I will say like May 17, 2021 was so special. Like my friends, like at the time we're living all over, you know, the United States, one from LA, another from Philly, another one from, you know, at the time, I think she was also, yeah, I think she was also in Philadelphia. They all came to my house and we celebrated. And it was just such an exhale moment. Like I was just so happy that we launched, you know, again, COVID and,
49:22
the ports were all jammed up and the marketing and the stickers and that all the things I'm like, okay, it's finally a package that is out to the consumer. And when you start to see it online and people like actually posting their, their packaging and unboxing is like the craziest, most unreal moment ever. And you can never relive that. And I think that as founders, we always rush to the next goalpost. But I think retrospectively, like, I'm happy that I spent some time
49:51
loving that time because I knew again that it was a fleeting, not fleeting moment, but truly a fleeting moment. But yeah, anyway, long story short and very ineloquently saying that it's just so many moments that just overwhelms you. You don't know what to say. Absolutely. And I love that idea of like, yeah, celebrating these
50:11
moments as you go, because it is easy to just get in that state of inertia where you're just like, okay, next, next, next. I've got this next goal and the next goal and the next goal. Whereas like you need to really stop and be like, wow, this is awesome. I need to pat myself on the back here.
50:24
My question for you now is like, for anyone listening who is in the early stages, they haven't necessarily found product market fit yet, or they're trying to figure out, should I bootstrap or should I raise or, you know, just those early kind of things that you go through. What is the kind of advice that you would give to someone? Actually, let's focus more on the marketing kind of angle. If you're in the early stage, whether you're bootstrapping or whether you're going to raise
50:49
What is your advice for getting started on marketing and social media and strategy in that early phase where you need to be scrappy and lean and try to find product market fit? Oh, absolutely. And I think the key in your North Star always has to be, it's two things. I think you always have to listen to your gut. Your gut is what's telling you the product needs to exist. It's telling you, hey, I should reach out to this person. Like, yeah.
51:17
Now is not the time to be modest. You have to kind of push yourself, especially introverts, push yourself and understand that you're working towards a goal and you make it almost like your job. And I think that shifting that mindset will change for you to be able to get those things done. So your gut is always going to be your best friend. The second thing is you have to be a good listener.
51:36
So sometimes your gut will tell you something and then your friends will be like, I don't know, I would, maybe I'll buy it, I don't know. And if that's the case, you probably shouldn't bring it to market or you should tweak it enough for it to actually fit the market and not just your own selfish need, especially product junkies or creatives. They're like, no, you don't see my vision. Like, unless you're an artist, like a music artist, even then you still need to have a fit in that space. So I think those two things, and I think really, really understanding
52:04
not only what kind of company do you want to run, but what kind of lifestyle? I think that now that I know what it means to be a VC-backed brand and needing to kind of chase a turn in velocity, it's hard. It's hard work. And I think that...
52:20
I know now it was even easier to raise money when you had no proof of concept versus when you do, because that data that you have is your Bible. Everyone's going by exactly what's on the page. Context is kind of subjective, and some people just want to see a hardcore P&L. And that can be really difficult when you're trying to
52:40
maybe friends to have a slow burn or maybe, for instance, not go into global chain wide or expand as quickly. So really understanding what kind of business you want to run. And then also what kind of lifestyle, because it's very fast paced. It is very high stress to be very transparent. If you're thinking about starting a family, for instance, like you have to be willing to quote unquote juggle it all or have a plan for it because they're not
53:07
And they're not separate. They're definitely dependent on each other. You are the founder. You are the mom. You are the leader. So it doesn't change. You have to be able to understand if you're ready for that. And if you're not, even better that you know that answer, right? It's just a matter of like, now, am I going to create a product and self-fund it and have it fund itself? And then with that said, you cannot be
53:31
disheartened or distracted when you can't go into, say, an Ulta or Sephora because that requires strong capital pipeline to be able to kind of get into those spaces. So with that said, you have to put your blinders on and say, hey, I'm just selling on TikTok.
53:47
Hey, I'm just selling on .com. I'm just selling on Amazon or I'm just selling on my website. So that way you understand that I need to focus on what I'm doing. I need to focus on getting the best margin possible. I don't need to focus about getting Sephora to call me unless I have an influx of cash coming in.
54:03
So I think that having those holistic understanding and write it down, I get chills looking at what I wrote down in 2019. I thought it was so silly. I thought I was being dumb. I'm like, oh, I'm just talking, talking to myself. But when I read my diary, the things that have come to fruition and the things that have happened, I was crying maybe two days ago. I'm like, what? I literally did this. I need to write down now my next version of this because it just blows my mind how...
54:32
much things can happen when you put your head down. But in those beginning stages, please write down why you want this to come to fruition. You know, who do you want to be? Who do you want to be like five years from now, two years from now? Like, what are you surrounding yourself with? Is it an apartment? Like, what are you seeing?
54:50
What is your family like? What's your relationship like? All of that you need to write down to then retrospectively be able to course correct. Like, hey, honestly, this company is turning me into a person I don't want to be, or this pace is not where I want to be. I want to be more growth. So at least having some type of guardrails is so important because once you're in the sauce, honey, you're in it. It's really hard to pull your head out and remember. So
55:20
who you want to be on top of what you want to create as well. Oh my gosh. I feel like everything you said is just so powerful and epic. I have loved chatting with you. I feel like we need to do a part two.
55:41
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.
56:06
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56:28
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