Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How a random TikTok video generated more than 800,000 signups for a bridal tech startup, with Leslie Voorhees Means, Co-Founder of Anomalie

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How a random TikTok video generated more than 800,000 signups for a bridal tech startup, with Leslie Voorhees Means, Co-Founder of Anomalie · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Lesley Voorhees Means for Female Startup Club.
• 0:13
  Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Roisin, and today I'm chatting to Leslie Means, the founder of Anomaly, a disruptive bridal tech startup that lets you create custom dresses online for a fraction of the cost of regular gowns.
• 0:31
  We're talking about the light bulb moment that led to her starting the business with her now husband, how her background in product development at companies like Nike and Apple became one of the biggest strengths of the company, key advice for fundraising, and the moment that a random TikTok video went viral and generated 800,000 signups to their website in one month alone. This is Leslie for Female Startup Club.
• 0:57
  Do you want to start by telling me the origin story of your business and what made you get into the bridal industry?
• 1:05
  Yeah. So, um, was not expecting to be thinking, breathing, living wedding dresses all day, every day. Um, and was actually not even planning on pursuing a career of entrepreneurship. This actually, uh, emerged out of a personal frustration, um, when I was shopping for my wedding dress a couple of years ago. So, um,
• 1:28
  My background is in mechanical engineering and manufacturing. I've spent my entire career on factory floors, building products, worked at Nike for five years before business school and was at Apple doing operations for the watch when I got engaged. And I'm going to be a little bit more about that.
• 1:47
  Started shopping around at boutiques in America and realized really quickly how frustrating the experience was. You have to make appointments weeks in advance and there's not very much pricing transparency. So everything's very expensive and it's hard to price compare and shop around.
• 2:08
  And then I had a very specific vision for what I wanted in my dress and just couldn't quite find it. So at the time I was traveling over to China a lot for Apple, mostly around in and around Shanghai and did some research and found.
• 2:23
  Suzhou, China, which actually makes 80% of the world's wedding dresses. It's this crazy hub of expertise and manufacturing and silk heritage that goes back thousands of years. And it's very well known, I think, in the Chinese community, Chinese women know to get their dresses made there. But
• 2:44
  walking around when I ended up visiting, I was the only foreigner and thought like, this is a secret, I guess, that I've, um, you know, potentially uncovered and, um, had a really fun time working directly with workshops there. So the, like the craft and quality, um, was really, really, really high and was able to like pick out every single element that I wanted in my dress. And they made the dress to my measurements and was just really happy with the quality and
• 3:13
  the design and then ultimately the price, of course. And I mentioned this to just a couple girlfriends and almost immediately was getting bombarded with requests, orders, I guess. Like, when are you going to China next? My friend's engaged. She can't find her dress. Can I connect you with her? And then it was friends of friends and then friends of friends of friends. And it was very clear that other women were feeling the same frustration as me. And
• 3:41
  I thought maybe there's a business idea here and did a little bit of research on the industry. And bridal in the U.S. is still 95 percent brick and mortar. So it's like one of the last verticals that hasn't really been disrupted by an online presence. And there's also just one big player in the market, David's Bridal, and then all the rest of the market is independent, fragmented mom and pop boutiques. And so
• 4:06
  there's a lot of opportunity for consolidation. So it just, it grew and became more and more interesting as an opportunity. The other part, which was super interesting to me as an operator was the first, you know, couple dozen orders or so, you know, women were saying they wanted something really special and really unique and different for their wedding dress. And they were ordering basically the same dress because wedding dresses look very, very similar. Actually, the
• 4:34
  the components like the core of the dress doesn't change much over time. It's white or ivory. There's lace or no lace like,
• 4:41
  the neckline and straps and sleeves change slightly over time, but really like the bulk of the dress doesn't change very much. And so using the dress as a vehicle, potentially for figuring out a mass customization manufacturing model was like really, really cool and interesting to me. And I could already see on the factory floor, how like some of these components could start to be modularized and scaled, hopefully at an efficiency of
• 5:09
  like what you see in mass produced garments. But there are just lots of really cool, interesting, you know, ideas that kept emerging early on when, when Anomaly wasn't even, wasn't even a business yet that was compelling enough for me to take a leap of faith and, you know, quit my full-time job at, at Apple at the time and pursue this.
• 5:34
  And so you quit your job, you've had this light bulb moment, you've been to China, you've experienced it, you've got like a pool of people around you that are saying like, yeah, I want, I want to get one of these dresses, like I'm in kind of thing. And I imagine it costs like a lot of money to develop the tech. Was the tech developed in the beginning, like right from the word go? Like what was the process, you know, from quitting your job?
• 5:58
  Yeah, it's a good question about the tech because I think looking at other direct-to-consumer businesses, there's so many of them. Many of them have grown astronomically over the last couple of years and also have astronomical valuations and are getting tens of millions, hundreds of millions of venture capital investments. And that was something that was pretty striking early on was like,
• 6:21
  There has to be, I guess, an element of defensibility to justify raising venture capital and also trying to think about how we wanted to scale scale our operations long-term was always something that was embedded in my mind early on. That being said, there was
• 6:39
  Zero technology in the early days. It was hacking everything together. It was, you know, me on the ground in China. I mean, we got married, my husband and I, who's also my co-founder, got married on December 31st, 2016. The next day, hopped on a plane, flew to China and was basically like in China all of 2017.
• 7:02
  on the ground, like shepherding all of the original dresses through. So no technology, no scale, no efficiencies, any of that. But I think, you know, for your listeners, like that's how you have to start any company. And you can have visions of tech. And we hired people.
• 7:20
  people that, you know, some of our first stylists were quote unquote stylists were, I would say extremely overqualified customer service agents that had operational mindsets and understood, you know, how, had a vision for scale long-term as well. But the first
• 7:37
  year, couple years was really, really, really manual. So it's, it's talking to every customer, it's, you know, documenting everything in a very manual way, with the intent to have tech come in and fold into the process eventually, which, you know, we've been slowly building technology like dress builder, which, you know,
• 7:55
  the anomaly team took over 30,000 hours. We calculated it, detailing every single design element of any possible wedding dress and codifying it and also creating a sketch. Now we have
• 8:10
  this like amazing database that can formulate custom sketches and tailored recommendations for fabric and lace and all of that's automated now, but it wasn't automated for a very, very long time. Right. I was playing around on it before. It's really, really cool. I made like all sorts of different fun dresses and,
• 8:29
  Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that. So in that first year, so I'm imagining that was then bootstrapped. It was before you went down the route of VC. It was like the MVP. You were proving the concept. You were like, you had a, I imagine like a significant customer base. And then you were like, yep, I'm going to go and knock on the doors and raise some capital now. Like we're ready to take it to the next phase. Is that what happened? Yeah.
• 8:52
  Yeah, the fundraising question is always something I think that's on founders' minds. I think you have to have a really compelling idea and really, really good demand with your customers before you can even start thinking about raising capital. I think a lot of founders will get in a trap of thinking about fundraising right away. And we were pretty disciplined in terms of
• 9:18
  let's make sure this is a good idea first and establish traction. And ultimately, for fundraising recommendations, which I'm happy to dive a little bit deeper into, if you have the posture of not needing capital, it actually is like kryptonite for investors. They want in even more if
• 9:40
  if you, you know, you have this posture that you don't really need it. And so by being really, um, heads down and scrappy in the beginning, not posting Facebook ads or, you know, all of our traction and growth was organic because brides were telling other brides were telling other brides and that's, um, you know, the, the seeds of virality were there in the beginning, um, truly. And, and that allowed us to continue to be really scrappy with who we were hiring and,
• 10:07
  figuring stuff out before even going after any capital. And then we ended up getting
• 10:15
  outreach from investors before we even had to go fundraise per se, to get our seed capital, which was, I think, a pretty blessed fundraising journey for us. We had to work. We had to hustle for our series A, which I can talk about too, but... Please do. Please talk about it. Yeah. Well, but I think the scrappiness and testing your ideas in a lean and cheap way, especially with your friends and in your network. If your friend's,
• 10:43
  aren't purchasing your product, strangers probably will not. And so those early days are just the best time to really figure out your adoption. And if, you know, I think other people have personal frustrations and that's what spurs, you know, starting a company, but you have to make sure that other people are feeling those, those same pain points and frustrations to, you know,
• 11:06
  to make sure that there's an opportunity there. But yeah, so our series A, we raised a little over 13 million last year, spring of 2019. And I say this specifically to other female founders. I think there's
• 11:23
  you know, a reputation that it's really, really difficult for female founders to raise money. And you hear horror stories about pitching an idea. For us, it's wedding dresses to a bunch of mostly middle-aged white men. But I think this is an amazing time to be a female founder. Raising capital is hard for anyone, period. So
• 11:47
  There's no exaggerations about that. But I think the market is good investors are looking for ideas that have been overlooked. And I think recently companies paved by, you know, women like Katrina Lake, I admire so much the CEO and founder of.
• 12:04
  Stitch Fix, who had, you know, talks about a hard time fundraising. I think there's all these success stories that are around now that have paved the way for the next generation, like me, of female founders. And now I think investors are listening and on high alert for these ideas. And so ultimately, the idea spoke for itself when we were pitching investors. And
• 12:27
  Ironically, I had a harder time with female investors, I think, because there's also a new generation of female VC partners that are growing into new roles, but maybe will not necessarily want to stick out their neck and take a chance on an overtly female opportunity like wedding dresses is kind of fluffy on the surface. And so ultimately our idea really stuck
• 12:52
  investors that were looking for consumer technology, um, not just straight D to C, but something with some operational chops, data chops, which worked out well for us, but it's still extremely challenging and hard. And I, you know, don't wish the fundraising challenges on anyone, but, um,
• 13:10
  there are ways that you can prepare a pitch and prepare a process that can be successful. So ours was thankfully one of those success stories. It's amazing. Congratulations. Thank you.
• 13:23
  And I read that you guys have raised almost close to $20 million now, which is just phenomenal. Do you think looking back, you have anything in hindsight that you would do or recommend women not to do, like do differently or not to do at all from your own learnings? Yeah, I had a really good piece of advice given to me from a female partner at Sequoia, Jess Lee, who's
• 13:50
  has made this knowledge known, and I want to pass it on as well, which is that the stereotypical male founder or entrepreneur is extremely hyperbolic with their pitch and their vision. And she's seen lots of women take on a more conservative approach in terms of
• 14:10
  thinking about future revenue opportunities or growth. And so her recommendation is be as optimistic as possible. It still has to be realistic. Obviously, good investors can sniff out if it's some, you know, crazy hockey stick style growth, but she encourages to female entrepreneurs specifically to
• 14:32
  look at your future plans through rose colored glasses, through the most optimistic hyperbolic view. Um, just given that that's kind of table stakes for, for venture capital pitches. And I think that advice was really helpful for me. Also, I'm, I mean, I'm an introvert, I'm an engineer. I'm not necessarily, I don't think the most charismatic or, um, charming, uh,
• 15:00
  you know, entrepreneur. And so I really thought of going into pitches as potentially like a job interview where you have to, to step into a role that's like a little bit bigger than yourself or play, play a part that's like, you know, you plus plus. And I think that also helped me in terms of being really energetic and energized. Coming into pitches was really like,
• 15:25
  kind of putting on armor and taking on an even bigger role than myself, also because you get a lot of no's. I mean, almost every single pitch will end with a no. And so preparing yourself mentally to take on that battle and like kind of be a step into like having a little bit more presence than you normally would, I think, protects also your
• 15:46
  heart at the end of the day, because it's like someone telling you your your baby's ugly over and over and over again. And so I think that also helped, you know, you have to constantly be convincing other people, your team, yourself, that this is a good idea in order to Yeah, in
• 16:06
  mentally preparing for that too can really help. When you have to go through that rejection, what did you do to, you know, keep your mental health like healthy? Well, you know, I just imagine it must be really a shitty time until you get that yes. And then you're like, well, until you get the term sheet and the money. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, um, I think that's why expectation setting with yourself at the beginning is really, really important. So
• 16:36
  Most people will say no. It's like with breakups. You can believe the no, not the reason. People will give you reasons for not investing and you should just ignore those, believe that they're passing. And then for me, it was carving out a specific amount of time to, this is for our series A, which I would highly, highly recommend for other founders as well. Fundraising can take a really long time.
• 17:03
  And it benefits you as a founder because your time is so precious. And also in terms of momentum or interest in the deal to consolidate it as much as possible. Venture capitalists are, you know, they want to extend the timeline as much as possible to understand what the deal looks like and you want to condense it as much as possible.
• 17:23
  For me, it was, I knew I maxed out at about four pitches a day. So I would max out my schedule with four meetings a day and then almost nothing else. So you have to be ready to hand off all your day-to-day activities to your co-founder, you know, someone else at your company and just expect that it's going to be a full-time job. And then I would recommend just know what brings you energy or feelings of like,
• 17:51
  sereneness for me at sleep. Like I need a lot of sleep. I think there's, there's this, uh, rumor that entrepreneurs don't get a lot of sleep. I, I needed like eight and a half, nine hours of sleep during fundraising. And that was my like escape. I think people, you know, go for walks or go with their family or do whatever, like can, um, rejuvenate you. But that was my approach was like, I'm going to get,
• 18:13
  nine hours of sleep every single night during my series. Then you're refreshed coming in the next day. So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. It's, um, it's one of the hardest things. Um, but again, if you go in expecting that, that venture funds are pitched, you know, um, five or six deals every single day, potentially more, and they make, um,
• 18:36
  a handful of investments a year, it's like, it's a numbers game. So you just have to be ready to give that pitch a lot, dozens and dozens and dozens of times to find the right fit. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. That's, that's definitely a full-time job. I want to talk about your marketing kind of after that initial phase where you had all of your, you know, the word of mouth customers and you started to be like, okay, now we're going to
• 19:03
  going beyond. What was that time like? And what kind of strategies did you use to acquire people at scale?
• 19:11
  Yeah, we continue to see good organic word of mouth virality with our customers. We're lucky that we're in this really special event in a woman's life that's also like very photographed and very shared on social. And so we really, really leaned into social sharing. And it also helps that weddings, the pockets of vendors are like these little communities. And so we
• 19:40
  by posting a picture on our, our Instagram page of a wedding, we could tag the photographer and the wedding planner and the hair and makeup artist and the venue. And, and then they shared. And so there was this great community of virality just within these like local localized pockets of wedding vendors, which worked really well for us. And so, um,
• 20:01
  Leaning into that early on was helpful. We've got this like great evergreen content machine too. We, I mean, in the early days, we didn't have any dresses and not any money either. So we hired our, we had some SoulCycle instructors that were beautiful and had amazing bodies that we had.
• 20:20
  Like, hey, can you come wear these samples? And like, that was our first photo shoot. But after that, we started having weddings. We had free advertising, essentially, and free models. And I think the beauty of it, too, is...
• 20:35
  uh, potential customers could see that they were real women. Like they, you know, some of the women were, uh, you know, didn't have a model body, but like you could tell that they're so happy. It's this like amazing day. And our product is the centerpiece of, of this day. And so really, really figuring out, um, a, uh, social strategy, including posting a lot. I think some, um, brands are,
• 21:00
  hesitant, you know, only post like one post a day or like have this beautiful curated feed. We were like, we're throwing it all out there. Like, and I think the good thing about Instagram is the algorithm works on, it doesn't punish you for posting a lot. So we post
• 21:17
  five or six times a day. We'd go on live, like Instagram live, we'd go post tons of stories. And so using the content that was free, I think helped a lot and compounded our social presence. And then that also helped once we wanted to start paying for advertising. Facebook and Instagram continues to be a really, really good channel for us. Women
• 21:41
  usually identify with their relationship status as engaged. So they're easy to find and market to engage women, you know, want all of the content, they want to do research on Pinterest, they want to like scroll through all the pictures. So they're great. They want to look through thousands of things. Yeah, exactly. So, so that continues to be a really good avenue for us. And then the other thing I would recommend is just through keyword SEO. We started a wedding blog
• 22:12
  maybe within the first year. And I was thinking, oh, the world doesn't need another wedding blog, but it ended up being a really, really great way to tap into these local markets. So we would post about these local vendors. And so it helped tie Anomaly's name to different cities. And so when women are searching for,
• 22:33
  you know, custom wedding dress Chicago or custom wedding dress Charleston. Like we can tap into those like local markets with the with the blog SEO keyword strategy. So that also helped and was a cheap way to to advertise since there's a lot of like tips and tricks with the keywords. So you don't even have to pay for Google ads.
• 22:54
  That's amazing. And I saw I was watching that video that went viral on TikTok of that woman that mentioned Anomaly. And I think I read that you guys were getting like 20,000 signups that day after she posted it or something, which is crazy. Did you know it was coming? Yeah.
• 23:12
  No, we had no idea. We were actually just talking about this last night because it's the type of thing that you couldn't even pay for. We couldn't have like... You can't plan it. Yeah. Yeah. It was truly a viral thing. So she posted and there was a viral event that happened in TikTok. And then the
• 23:32
  the sound, I don't know if you, I've had to like learn all about TikTok and be on there with all the teenagers, the sound then went viral. And so it 10 X again. And so last month we had almost 800,000 people sign up in the, in the month, um, in one month, it was, it was like,
• 23:51
  getting to be 10 to 15,000 people a day over and over and over again, with spikes of like 40, 50,000 people a day, just enough that like the engineers were going crazy. Our site was crashing. Everyone on Tik TOK was like, it keeps crashing. Like we were giving everyone a terrible experience, but it was, it was a really good lesson for us just given a lot of the Tik TOKers are younger. So not even our customer, not engaged women, but the idea of,
• 24:21
  Having a tool to create a custom sketch and starting to plan out, you know, dream about your wedding dress was I think it reinforces how compelling this idea is. So it was it was kind of exciting, terrible for our conversion rates. Our conversion rates plummeted 0.001 percent or something now. Yeah.
• 24:43
  Um, exciting to just, uh, you know, feel, um, a part of the excitement of the idea and like what, what dress builders like moving to with, with this visualization and custom sketches. So, yeah. And I imagine it opens up a lot of ideas about like, okay, well, what can we do for the younger woman before the wedding moment comes into her life? So whether it's prom or, you know, those kinds of events in a younger woman's life.
• 25:09
  Totally. And you look at like the success of Pinterest, which has a massive market cap. They're essentially a wedding dress search engine. And it's like, why is that so valuable or compelling? There is something about this, you know, dreaming towards your future wedding or planning out.
• 25:27
  different, uh, important garments in a women's life, quinceanera dresses or prom dresses. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's an important customer for us even before she's, she's technically engaged. Absolutely. What is your main piece of advice for women who have a big idea and want to start a business? Yeah, I think, um,
• 25:52
  I would absolutely encourage women to chase after the idea. Time is of the essence. And so I think if you have, if you have an idea, there's no necessity to, I hear a lot like, well, I'm taking this job because it's a stepping stone. I want to do this and then I can, you know, get the knowledge that will be required to start a company. I think absolutely not like the best thing you can do is try out
• 26:18
  something now because it there's never a good time to quit your job and go all in on an idea. And I think the longer you wait, probably the less likely you are to chase after it. And and then also I would say, again, back to the scrappiness point or the bootstrapping point is is if you can test.
• 26:38
  your ideas in a cheap way on your friends. Ideally, they're really good testing ground to figure out ideas and what works and what doesn't and figure out, you know, your biases for what you would want as a customer. But what would other people want? And before even.
• 26:57
  bringing in capital to the equation, there's a lot you can do with zero dollars. For instance, Instagram is an amazing tool to reach customers. You do not need any dollars for your ads to reach people. And I think working with ways to be scrappy in the early days is the best way to test out ideas. And then also, I would recommend make sure it's something that you really
• 27:25
  love and are passionate about. Because you're going to be, again, thinking about it, dreaming about it, talking about it all day, every day. My husband and I joke, we're probably just insufferable with our friends because all we do is talk about wedding dresses at dinner parties. And when we're hanging out, you know, it's just, it has to be something that you live and breathe. And
• 27:47
  be willing to think about a lot. And again, like convince, be ready to convince other people of this idea. And so if you're hesitant or like, you have to be ready to like go all in and make a big bet on, on the idea because investors, potential, you know, people that you're recruiting for your team can sniff out if there's like any, you know, worrier being less compelled about this idea. And so you have to be ready to just
• 28:14
  sing it from the mountaintops. Oh, I love that. Get on top of the hills and shout about it. Yep. Custom wedding dresses for us. Custom wedding dresses for everybody. Okay. We're at the part of the podcast where I ask you the six quick questions. And number one is what's your why? Why?
• 28:37
  I would say I have two. One is our customers. It's just such a happy event to be a part of. It's the most important garment arguably a woman will ever wear. And the most exciting, fulfilling part of the job is when brides send photos, either of when they try it on for the
• 29:00
  Anomaly's Slack channel is like chock full of like, I got back, you know, wedding photos from my bride from a couple months ago. And so it's, it's like the most fun thing to be a part of. I will never, ever get sick of looking at wedding photos and happy customers.
• 29:15
  So that's definitely a why. And then another why, and that maybe people don't talk about this much, is you can get a lot of financial gain. Like you can do really well. It's a very, very, very small chance. But the hope is that this is wildly financially successful. And, you know, we're my husband and I are committing our lives to this. So we're not diversified in any way. But the hope is that, you know, this will really hit someday and we can
• 29:43
  hopefully retire early and explore other ideas, but, um, it's a, it's a big bet on making it big as well, which I think is really fun and exciting. I've been financially independent, um, and, you know, paid my way through basically everything since I was 18. And so the idea of total financial stability is also, um, really compelling and interesting to me. So that's, that's also why we're trying to do something really, really big.
• 30:12
  I love that. And I'm so on board for that as well. I think it's like, so important to think about the money side of things and what you want for your life and what you want for your future, um, potentially early retirement. Number two is what's the number one marketing moment that made your business pop? And we probably already know the answer. It was the TikTok thing. I'm trying to think of what, um,
• 30:37
  It would have been before that, which is we've been lucky enough that influencers, we haven't ever had to do any sort of influencer strategy or partnerships because women love posting about the experience. If we can give her a really, really good.
• 30:53
  experience. She will post about it on her own. Um, but then yeah, TikTok, uh, this TikTok event where this woman just posted about, um, going through dress builder and getting this highly customized sketch that went crazy. It was so funny on the ground, like with the team, because half the team was the engineers figuring out how to like,
• 31:15
  like our site was crashing and the data reliability. And then the other half of the team was like, what the hell is TikTok? What does this even mean? Does someone have a TikTok account? Like, what is this? Because we're all, you know, over the age of 25. So how long did it take you to figure out that it was the TikTok video? Because I imagine at first you were like, OK, what the hell is happening? Like something's happened here.
• 31:37
  Well, we, it was such an uptick. So it was, it was over 10 X what we had ever seen before in terms of signups. So we knew it was something either PR related, like some article had come out or it was something with social. And so, yeah, we, we dug around, we went to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok was probably the third or fourth thing that we, we looked at, but yeah, it, it took a little bit to figure out where, where this is all coming from.
• 32:03
  And I forgot to ask you this before, but I'm just going to slot it in here and break the format. How do you guys find your PR efforts? Because you guys have incredible press. You know, you're in the New York Times, you're in Forbes, you're in TechCrunch, you're in these amazing places. Does that drive traffic that's significant for you?
• 32:21
  Yeah, which was a little counterintuitive to me early on. I was thinking we should push for, you know, press in consumer outlets, Vogue or Vanity Fair, you know, the bridal magazines. But what's really cool is the biggest lift we've seen is from our original TechCrunch article recently.
• 32:43
  And I think it just shows that our brides are, you know, smart, savvy. They're looking for, you know, new cool ideas and probably like me are frustrated and smart enough to understand that the industry is really antiquated. And so surprisingly, the business and tech outlets have been the most successful for us. Yeah, that's awesome. Really, really cool. The New York Times piece is a really cool one.
• 33:10
  Thank you. Yeah, that was, oh, I remember when that came out, I was just sobbing. It was so cool. I was just thinking about my parents, like my parents now finally, I think, understand what I'm doing all along. They're like, are you sure you should have quit your job at Apple? Yeah, of course. And I was like, once we were in the times, it was okay. Yeah. They're like, okay, here she is. Show all the friends, send it out. Question number three is where do you hang out to
• 33:39
  Such a good question. I have found podcasts recently have been obviously like physically, you can't really hang out anywhere right now, but there are so many interesting podcasts. And what I really like about that, I used to be a voracious reader. And of course, being a startup founder, you have very, very little free time.
• 34:02
  But I love having, I always have my phone with me. And so the 10 or 15 minutes that I'm getting ready in the morning or winding down at night, I can listen to a podcast and feel slightly more educated. There's a lot of cool founder stories. So like how I built this. I really love hearing other, other founder stories and then.
• 34:23
  I'm a big Radiolab fan. So some like weird sciencey snippets. So I do not really read the news. My husband reads the news a lot. And that's kind of how he gets educated. But I love yeah, I love
• 34:38
  smart podcast. So I'm, I'm all on board with on the podcast stream. Yeah. Podcasts are great. I feel like I can consume a lot of podcasts when I'm teetering around the house, like doing, doing mindless things like cleaning. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and your PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and fulfilled.
• 35:03
  Yeah. I mean, I mentioned before I need a lot of sleep. Um, in the early days of the company, I was not getting a lot of sleep and I just feel like I can approach the day with so much more, um, creativity and resilience if I've gotten a good night's sleep. And so, um, PM routine, I always take a bath or shower at night. So my hair can dry when I sleep. So that's one productivity hack. And then, um,
• 35:31
  Uh, also just having like a, a wind down time where, uh, I like do not talk about work after a certain time in the evening, which is hard because I'm married to my co-founder and all we talk about is the business. And so being really, um, purposeful in terms of like cutting off a time, um, in the early days, it was impossible. Like we talked about it all, all the time, but just more recently, we're able to like create a tiny bit of separation.
• 36:00
  And then AM routine.
• 36:03
  I am like just incoherent until I have at least like two cups of coffee. So I'm all on board with, uh, um, having quite a bit of coffee and, uh, also not, um, when I was fundraising, I would try and put a schedule, all of my pitches in the afternoon. Cause I feel like that was when I was most creative and powerful. And so if you can start to track throughout the day, when, I mean, some people are morning people, some people are evening people. I'm like.
• 36:31
  12, like noon to eight, I'm like on fire. So that's like when I plan all of the hardest stuff. And then in the morning, I'm more checking emails doing, you know, like kind of grunt work when I'm not like, as in the zone. So I think the scheduling thing is real, like your body, it has cycles. And so if you can understand and like, at least like be aware of what those are, you can plan out your days to be the most productive. Yeah.
• 36:58
  Yeah. And that's definitely the benefit of working on your own business because you're able to do these kinds of things. I also find that for me, mornings are just like not the best time. And I'm like way better in the afternoons, like after lunch onwards. Yeah. Which I was laughing because this started at 830. My time I was like, okay, I'm going to have to get up really early and have coffee. So hopefully I'm bringing more energy than I normally want.
• 37:23
  No, no, no. The time zone thing is real. I mean, we usually it's flipped because we have a team in Hong Kong. And so we have to like really ramp up at night, you know, to be able to overlap with them at all. So that's usually when I'm, you know, like thinking the most about about time zones. Yeah. For me, I'm like.
• 37:43
  I'm pausing all the kind of Australian podcasts because it's like really early in the morning and I'm going back there. So I'm like, I'm going to do all that when I'm like back in Australia. Whereas now I'm like focus on like this side of the world and America and like focus in the afternoons. I'm so sorry about that. No, no. Question number five is if you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, where would you spend it?
• 38:09
  Oh, um, I would probably, am I allowed to split it up? You can. It's a hypothetical question. I would do half to Instagram and Facebook ads are,
• 38:26
  have been absolutely wonderful. Like I said, when, once we started, um, paying, doing paid ads like that, it's just such an efficient way to reach customers. We've, we've tried other things like going to wedding fairs or going other routes. And it's just on a dollar by dollar basis. It is so efficient for reaching real, like really good customers. So I would do half I'll do half to Instagram. And then the other half I, um,
• 38:56
  would probably give to our stylist team, which, you know, is a bit counterintuitive for us because we're really, really tech focused. That being said, we can never automate away the interaction with the human for something that's as important as a wedding dress. So we're never like, we're never going to have a completely tech a hundred percent tech experience. And so I would probably send the rest to our stylist team because we're
• 39:23
  those women hustle and like love talking to brides. So I would, I would, you know, send it their way so we can continue servicing brides, especially where, where we are now. I joked because in the early days, everything's so manual and now we're so tech focused. There's still a lot of manual components of our business. And so being able to keep that up and running. Yeah, that that's where it would, that's where it would go. People, people in Instagram, I guess.
• 39:50
  Yeah. I mean, great answer. A hundred percent. Good people are key. Question number six is how do you deal with failure? And it can be around a specific experience or it can just be your general mindset and approach towards it. Yeah. I think, I think this is a trait that's fairly common with,
• 40:10
  most, if not all successful entrepreneurs, not, not that I am one yet, but that you have to have such, such thick skin and resilience to deal with failure. So the ups and downs, I can't think of any one particular moment because there's been so many, I mean, how many this week, how many yesterday? It's like, it's a,
• 40:33
  complete roller coaster. So I think, uh, again, like acknowledging what's happening in your body when that, when that happens, like giving yourself a break, like,
• 40:43
  understanding that they're going to happen and continue to happen. And that doesn't necessarily reflect on you as a founder or a leader or your business traction, just being ready for that, and bouncing back, which I, there's a lot of information out there. I'm trying to think of the book specifically, I can follow up on resilience and how it can actually be a skill that you can develop too. I think there's,
• 41:09
  a common misconception that you're like built as a resilient person or not, but it's actually something that you can develop over time. And so there's nothing more humbling than being a founder, but being ready for those ups and downs and developing that resilience and being ready to just bounce back in. Cause there's going to be after the low, there's going to be something happy that happens, receive a bunch of wedding photos or something. So you've got to be just ready to ride those, um, those waves. So.
• 41:39
  For sure. I'd love to get the name of the book from you after this sometime, because I'll link it in our resources. I love to get the recommendations of what people read and all that kind of thing. And I also just wanted to say, you just said a moment ago that you don't think you're a successful entrepreneur yet. And I tend to disagree.
• 42:01
  Oh, thank you. That's crazy. You definitely are. Well, I guess, and maybe that's the nature of a startup is like, you're always thinking about the next thing and you don't really have time to look back and reflect on the
• 42:14
  how far you've come. When we do do that in Anomaly, it's like, oh man, things were really crazy then, but maybe we're doing okay now. But then I continue to look back and like, no, actually things were really crazy then. And hopefully things have like more steady state right now. But no, I think, I think we're just thinking about our growth and our future and servicing more brides. And so it's always like,
• 42:37
  kind of what's next and we're not quite there yet but that's what's so um motivating and fulfilling about uh about having your own journey being able to to blaze your own trails as a founder for sure thank you so much for being on the podcast i have loved meeting you yeah thank you so much for having me
• 43:03
  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.
• 43:27
  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.
• 43:50
  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.
• 44:06
  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.
• 44:31
  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.
• 44:53
  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.