Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / The Marketing Playbook for Success when you launch into Target with Le Mini Macaron's co-founder Christina Kao (Part 1)

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The Marketing Playbook for Success when you launch into Target with Le Mini Macaron's co-founder Christina Kao (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Christina Kayo for Female Startup Club. Hello, hi, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl popping into your ears on a beautiful day in Sydney, Australia.
• 0:22
  If you're new to the show, welcome. Every week I'm chatting with some of the world's most successful female founders and entrepreneurs to understand how they've built their business to seven figures in annual recurring revenue and above. What's working now and what's not working. We also love to talk about the money piece and we love to dig into the challenges and find the insights that come from going through those hard times.
• 0:46
  Today on the podcast, we're learning from Christina Kayo. Christina is the co-founder of La Mini Macaron. It's a privately funded indie beauty brand that launched back in 2015 with a focus on making gel manicures easy, affordable, and fun to DIY at home.
• 1:04
  The nail brand has since launched in over 30 different markets, including with retailers like Sephora, Ulta, Target, and ASOS, along with about a million others. This episode was so much fun, and we hit on so many gems when it comes to setting yourself up for success with your supply chain, your retail partners, specifically how to approach your marketing when you launch into something like Target, and product development through the lens of social media.
• 1:30
  And while I've got you here, I've also updated the grant document with a bunch of new grants from all over the world that are ready to be applied for this month. And you can download it by going to femalestartupclub.com forward slash grants. Alrighty, let's get into this episode. This is Christina for Female Startup Club. Christina, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast.
• 1:53
  Hi, Dune. Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here. I'm so excited for us to be here. I feel like this has been kind of a long time coming. I somehow came across you on LinkedIn, I think it was, and stalked you a little bit, and now here we are. Yeah, I'm so glad we could make it happen. I know with the time zones, it was difficult, but we're here. But we're here. How's your day so far? Do you have any wins or oh shit moments that have happened? Yeah.
• 2:19
  Oh, it's been good. I'm in Alabama right now. So I spent the day working on a pitch deck for a potential retailer and just catching up with some different people. My team is off today because we're just coming off of Easter, and they're in Barcelona. But the U.S. is working, so I was taking advantage of the time to work. Yeah, I only just realized that. I thought that, you know, kind of everyone had an Easter long weekend, but apparently not. Yeah.
• 2:46
  Yeah, it just depends on where you are. How do you like to introduce Lemini Macaron? How do you like to say who you are and what your business is? So we are a French American brand. And we started back in 2015. And we're an indie nail brand, mostly focused on gel manicures, color, very fun products, accessories, nail art.
• 3:12
  but also a lot on nail care and everything like hand and foot care as well. So the brand has been around for a while. I've been in business for about 10 years and the brand's eight years old this year. And, um, we're a French American brand because my business partner, who is also my ex-boyfriend is French and I'm Taiwanese American. So, and we started the business in Shanghai. So we have this very multicultural aspect about.
• 3:36
  our partnership and also our company. I mean, when we were in Shanghai, we had lots of different team members, we had expats, we had local Chinese. And then since we moved our offices to Spain, it's the same. We have local Spanish and we have international expats as well. Why did you move to Spain of all places?
• 3:56
  Yeah. So we had started the business in Shanghai. And back in those days, actually, I didn't come from a beauty background. I came from marketing agencies and branding.
• 4:09
  And my partner had done beauty, but mostly purchasing and wholesale. And when we started the business in Shanghai, we were very close to our supply chain. A lot of our factories were over there. And so we started very unlike other founders who usually have an idea and they don't know where to manufacture it. We actually knew where to manufacture it. And we were going to visit the factories right off the bat. But...
• 4:35
  when it came to marketing and sales and where we were going to sell the product, me being American, him being French, US and Europe were the natural places for us to do things that we knew how to do. And while we started in China, we did do marketing and sales on the ground there. But
• 4:52
  it was very difficult because we, you know, even though we both speak the language, if you're not a local consumer, it's pretty hard to activate. It's a massive country. So we moved to Spain because we wanted to be in a time zone that was allowing us to really do much more with the US, really activate Europe and distribute there and then still work with Asia. So, you know, we're in the middle of three regions where we can work from morning to night.
• 5:20
  Amazing. And I mean, what a great city. Barcelona is so beautiful. It's wonderful. I think, you know, people ask me, how is it to work there, you know, after being in Shanghai and I lived in New York before.
• 5:33
  And I say, you know, the Mediterranean vibe and lifestyle, and you're from Australia, it kind of tempers a bit, my ambitious side, you know, it kind of gives me okay, hey, maybe it's time to go home and go enjoy the beach a bit instead of just working all the time. So it's really nice to have that environment.
• 5:51
  100%. I feel like Barcelona reminds me a lot of Sydney, kind of having that beach lifestyle that's still a city, still hustle and bustle, lots of different people, different cultures. I love it. I love Barcelona, actually. I feel like I skipped ahead a little bit and I want to go back to 2015 or even pre-2015 when this was becoming an idea that you were thinking about. How did you come up with this as a concept? Like what's the light bulb moment for you?
• 6:22
  Wow. So let's see. I was wanting to take a step back from my corporate career, let's say. So I had worked probably up to the age of 31, always working for large companies, getting to a point where I wanted to do something really different and
• 6:42
  you know, I was interviewing for jobs like marketing director and feeling really not passionate about that. So I decided to take a year where I was working part-time at the same company. And this is a really good idea, I think, for people who want to start a side hustle or get into something else, but you don't want to, um, you know, stop receiving your income and you still need to pay the bills. I really recommend if you can go part-time somewhere where you, um,
• 7:06
  have been working and they value you, it's a great step. And so I was doing that. I met Francois, who is my ex-boyfriend, and we just decided to start a project together. It was not, the idea was not to start a brand or a business, because if you actually know what that entails, it's so much work. Um, and you just have no idea what that, you know, really, um,
• 7:29
  needs to be. But back in 2013, so we met and then six months in, we started working together on a project where, you know, we were doing a little bit of like import export, some design on nail products and accessories. And that's just how I started to get into it a little bit. But yeah, just sort of like...
• 7:48
  tiptoeing into being an entrepreneur without fully, you know, not making income from one day to the next. And then, um, we had like two brands, if you can call them brands, because this was early days, we had no idea what we were doing. We had two projects and brands that we worked on and,
• 8:06
  where we made a lot of mistakes. And prior to launching the mini Macaron 2015, we practiced on those other brands. So, you know, pricing strategy, distribution, how do you have margin? How do you have enough room in margin for a distributor versus a retailer? We had no idea. And so for the first couple of years, we were making a lot of mistakes and learning that.
• 8:31
  In 2015, we launched Limini Macro on Kickstarter. So different approach. We tried crowdfunding, yeah, back in the day. And we did three campaigns on Kickstarter in a year and a half. So my first, yeah, the first year and a half of this brand, I was like in like these Kickstarter cycles.
• 8:51
  trying to set up campaigns, shoot video, like set up the pages, pitching press myself directly. And for that like time, was the macaron actually already, like the device was already part of the strategy and that was what the campaign was funding or did that come after? Yeah.
• 9:11
  We knew going into it what we wanted to do. So between my partner and I, his background is actually in beauty in the sense that he was doing purchasing and supply chain. And he actually very specifically knew the nail industry and the nail business. So when we were talking about what to do together, he was like, well, the aha moment of let's make a, let's make this project together was back in.
• 9:39
  Let me think. I think 2013, we were in the Philippines on a beach on a holiday. And I was flipping through a magazine. And there were these, this is like 2013, there were these like nail art kits that were super hot. And I was like, oh, this is really coming around like nail art and people, you know, like.
• 9:56
  with little tools and you can make like animal print on your nails. And so he was like, let's make this. And we were just like laying on the beach, like, Hey, let's do this project. And, and he knew all the factories. He's like, let's make this, I'm going to go order this and that. And I was in charge of all the design and the box and everything and selecting the items. So that's how we kind of got into doing the nail, you know, business, I guess, is like,
• 10:24
  you know, making nail art kits. That's what we first did before we moved into gel manicure kits. And the idea for the macro actually, we knew after the first couple of brands that we did, which were more related to nail art, and we started to get into gel polish a bit, that we wanted to make a really small layout that would make it easy to do at home. So if you remember back then, there were some sets for gel manicures that were like the big,
• 10:50
  big lamps, they were super expensive. You had like all the bottles. It was very professional, but do it at home. And hard for people to understand what to do if you weren't coming from this and you had no idea. So we wanted to do something that was like super easy. You could DIY, we could explain it really easily. And so our polish has always been a one-step polish. It's face coat, color, top coat all together, really easy to apply and remove. And just making a retail friendly product
• 11:20
  that could bring non-users of gel polish into the fold. That was always my dream in the beginning, that we could recruit people into using gel who had never done gel before. And that's what we do now. We have a lot of new people who are introduced to gel through our brand.
• 11:39
  Oh my gosh, I love that. And it makes so much sense because I feel like you would see your product on a retail shelf and be like, wow, this is really cute and fun and it looks easy. It doesn't feel intimidating that I'm going to have to do this whole big setup at home. It's like, oh, this can come with me on the go. Was the macaron just like there as the idea or were there multiple ideas of what the shape would be? How did you land on that?
• 12:08
  Yeah, that's a great question. I guess that's probably our special sauce is the mackerel, which is like... Like why not a hamburger? I'm kidding. Right, why not a hamburger? Those early designs look like hamburgers. But it was, actually we had a friend who was doing some sketches for us of what the one finger lamp could look like.
• 12:27
  It was a French guy who was friends with Francois. And he had two options. He was like, one option is the ring. And it was this like round lamp and it sat on the end of your finger. And I was like, that's not very logical because rings sit at the base of your finger, not on the end. And he was like, the ring, the ring is so great. And the other idea was the macaron. And I was like, the macaron is a marketing concept. Like this thing has legs. I'm like, this is going to be...
• 12:56
  taking us really far because it's very iconic. It's that French delectable treat. But, you know, all over the world, people recognize what a macaron is. And so that was sort of the idea that was like there. But, you know, just kind of jumped out at me.
• 13:12
  And it was really great because in the beginning we named all of our colors after mackerel flavors. And so you could really play on like all those fun, playful, delicious flavors and treats and linking that to all the colors that we wanted to launch. And we don't do it as much these days. We've really evolved the brand, but in the early days.
• 13:36
  That was such an easy link and everybody understood it. And I feel like so many opportunities for really cool, experiential, macaron-themed pop-ups and events and just gifting.
• 13:50
  Yeah, totally. I mean, early days, we were really playing on the bakery concept, you know, so we wanted to do like cafe pop up, have sweet treats, do your nails. While, you know, we did a lot of photo shoots using macarons, like real macarons.
• 14:07
  the hand holding the macaron, like having the flavor names. When we did actually a PR event in London, we launched in London back in 2017. Our agency had custom macarons made with ingredients, like inspired by our names. So we had like a rose creme shade and they had these like rose petal macarons. It was so beautiful. I love that. But yeah, really playful. And like, that was always a part of our DNA to have this brand that was like,
• 14:35
  French, but like not that posh on an inaccessible French. It's really that, you know, French aesthetic and that like really beautiful French are very known for design and taste. And obviously the mackerel is French, but I think the heart of the brand is very playful. And it's probably also because I'm American. So like the tone of voice, the copywriting always had a bit of this American, we played on franglais, you know, like French, English franglais a lot with like
• 15:03
  our copywriting. And I think that's what makes us really different from a lot of, I guess, brands in our space, like nail brands, other types of beauty brands, that we have this sort of duo personality of French American. So visually very French, but personality, very American, very playful, very accessible. You know, we wanted to make it for everyone. We didn't want to be like posh and it's not for you. Really accessible. It's kind of Emily and Paris vibes.
• 15:32
  Yes. A lot of people tell us that. Everyone, they're like, it's Emily in Paris. And we have some girls on our team who do the social and TikTok and they're like, I'm Emily in Paris. Cute. I love that. So it's really fun. Yeah. What was the process like in terms of R&D and making a device like this? I know that your co-founder was part of the industry and probably had a lot more of experience in the blueprint of creating something like this, but...
• 15:59
  for anyone listening who's out there thinking like, oh, I have this idea for a device, where would I even get started on doing something like that? Yeah, I think one of our advantages early on was that we were in China, he had all the right contacts to get going. And he was already doing because he was doing purchasing and supply chain. He was already purchasing these types of products. I think, you know, five or 10 years ago, it was pretty hard if you weren't,
• 16:28
  connected with a supply chain or factories, I mean, you weren't really gonna fly over there to China or Korea to have people help you develop. If you wanted to do it in the US or Western countries, it's super expensive. Some of these devices, they're just not produced in certain Western countries. The countries that really produced them were these Eastern countries. I think nowadays it's a little bit easier for people to get started as an early stage founder.
• 16:57
  I do know that a lot of founders tend to just look on like Alibaba for, it depends on what you want to make, but you know, and you just have like lower MOQs, like minimum order quantities than back in the day. Like when we started, it was like a thousand, 2000, 3000, 5000. And obviously the more you're producing your unit cost is cheaper. And so, you know, you like the factories love it if you're running 10,000 runs, but who can take on that inventory? Right.
• 17:27
  But now I think there's a lot more with just how e-com and cross-border, you know, has developed. There's a lot of stuff that you could probably find on Alibaba, I think. And maybe customize kind of what is already there and make it a little more customized versus like a full new thing that hasn't been seen before, for sure. What kind of money did you need to invest to kind of get your first batch of inventory, you know, a website, like kind of set up for launch?
• 17:56
  That's a good question. So we had two of these other brands where we tried and we failed. So in total of the three brands, I would say we probably sunk like a couple hundred thousand in USD, but that's across like three brands, many types of mistakes. We did do the crowdfunding on Kickstarter, you know, for Le Mini Macaron, which I think
• 18:20
  You know, nowadays, I don't know if people would really do. I mean, Kickstarter is still there. You could still do it. And it is a good way to really bring in some funds immediately. But I would say with like doing a website, you know, you could do a lot of it yourself, right? Before you're needing all the bells and whistles of like a Shopify Plus site, I would say, I mean, I was doing our first site on Wix before we went to Shopify and it's,
• 18:45
  I think our site, like I was running that site myself with one person from our team for like two and a half years before we officially brought in our first econ manager. So early days, it's like if you it kind of depends on what you want to spend your time on as a founder. You know, I would say back then, three to five, six, no, five, six years ago, people were spending founders are spending time learning.
• 19:10
  SEO learning, like how to program a site, it was pretty easy because those sites like Wix and Shopify were really user-friendly. It's different these days, you know, because I think content has changed the game and also like iOS, you know, Facebook, iOS, all that changing has made it really challenging. So I think with, um,
• 19:29
  content emerging now as being in so much demand. I think a lot of founders are struggling with how much time do I really spend on content? I think we're pretty lucky because the brand is eight years old. We've been in business 10 years. By the time that we have been needing content,
• 19:46
  all this heavy content, I do have the team that was built up, you know, so like since up to COVID, I was still doing a lot of content myself with support of a few people. But since COVID, the business changed a lot. And, you know, we really have a lot of people behind the scenes
• 20:02
  really pumping out content across like, I don't know, five, six, seven platforms. So I think that is a challenge for a lot of founders. And you do it well. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, my head of marketing is like, we're a content factory. And I'm like, it's true. Like you really need great eye-catching content. Like, you know, when it comes to like paid, like, you know, paid media, like Facebook and Instagram and all that, TikTok, and then also organic, you know, and then just like UGC stuff. Yeah.
• 20:28
  You really need to be doing both. And it's really hard if you're an early stage founder now. It is really hard. And it's so true. Everyone's got to really get on board and become the content machine because that's how you're growing now and getting that visibility. I'd love to kind of stick around the launch phase for a second here, for a hot second.
• 20:47
  In those early years, you know, you've done the crowdfunding Kickstarter campaign. What happens next? Like, is it off to the races? Is it a big bang launch? Or is it slow and steady? If you have to summarize kind of those early years before you've gained like the full snowball effect, what was that like? And what were you doing that was shifting the needle?
• 21:08
  So we, you know, I always would tell him, I was like, we are too global for our own good. Meaning we were like two expats in Shanghai wanting to do business all over the world. And I would say from 15 to 2016 and 17, so like two to three years, we were really trying to do business everywhere. Like we would
• 21:31
  get in touch with retailers directly. For example, Sephora Dubai, right? Like they had at that time, like two stores in Dubai and they're like, sure, we want to launch you. And we're like, let's do it. And we launched in Sephora Dubai and, you know, we had to like export and then import the products there and, you know, like set it up in the stores for, for two locations. So, um, yeah,
• 21:53
  You know, but back then we were just like literally just chasing all kinds of retailers in all sorts of countries. I think it's not a typical thing to do. Most people, you know, are from their home country. They're probably just wanting to start out organically.
• 22:09
  Let's do DTC, maybe Amazon in my home country. And then let me look for retail locally and start, you know, and that's what I would recommend. You know, I wouldn't suggest running all over the world the way we did. But yeah, from 15 to 17, we were like doing retail in China and Taiwan and Hong Kong, like directly ourselves, hiring marketing people to like do, you know, write all the stuff, you know, for, for the different countries.
• 22:34
  And then we were doing like Dubai. We had a deal in Canada. It was crazy. Like we had no idea. We were just like shipping a container to Canada to launch in 90 stores and like didn't know that, hey, maybe you should have a company in Canada when the container arrives to like import it. But we didn't know. And, you know, it was just like and then we just had this holiday PO that was amazing. So we did it.
• 22:58
  But it failed because we didn't support it with very much marketing. We had no idea, you know? Right.
• 23:04
  But there were a lot of mistakes like that. And then we had just pockets of like retailers. We also had distributors. But I think even though we spent sort of a couple years launching in different retailers in different countries, which, you know, some were good and we made money and some failed. But we also had international distributors because we were international. One of the things that's always been sort of feeding us is that we have certain territories that's, you know, we have a lot of mistakes.
• 23:31
  We have other distributors. They take care of those markets. They do pay for things, you know, a lot of times up front. And that helps us a lot. So in 2017, we decided to open up in Europe further and, you know, establish an office in Barcelona. Some of the people in China moved over with us. We started to hire many more, I guess, front-facing marketing and salespeople. And then we really, since 17, focused heavily on the U.S. and Europe.
• 24:00
  And retail. So we had retailers like Ulta.com launched in 2017. Like we've been with them for many years. In the UK, we were with like Feel Unique and Look Fantastic. And just opening up some of these like e-tail. We were with Sephora Spain for a bit. So just starting to be much more on the ground, you know, in the Western countries where we wanted to do marketing. Yeah.
• 24:24
  And just kind of getting everything going there. And then I was flying a lot to the U.S. in 17, 18, 19, pre-COVID. Like we did QVC. I appeared on air a couple of times. Not the right audience for us because, you know, much older, like TV shopping, shopping audience. It was a great experience, but it wasn't the right channel fit for us. Yeah.
• 24:47
  So yeah, just a lot of like tests, you know, back then. That's so interesting for the QVC thing. How do you land an opportunity like that?
• 24:58
  You know, I think these days they do look for a lot of indie brands. So when I met them back in 2018, I actually met them in Cosmoprof in Bologna, which is Bologna, Italy. It's the biggest beauty expo. A lot of people might know Cosmoprof Las Vegas, which is the US version. But the one in Italy, which happens in the spring is like
• 25:20
  I don't know, 100 times bigger than Vegas. It's massive. And the whole world just descends on the city. And QVC was there, like their global team from all the different countries.
• 25:31
  they were there looking for brands. And so they just like sent this email out. If you were on the distribution list of the expo saying, Hey, like come pitch us. And so I just went to pitch them and they were so the buyers from like, it was like six or seven different countries from like France to Japan to USA. And they were so into our products because, you know, we're very, um,
• 25:55
  easy to demonstrate on air because you have like the little led light it dries the nail it goes on and off you paint it's very colorful so for um video it's always been very eye-catching and yeah I met them through the expo but I do think for any founders who you know want to do QVC HSN is also really good I have a lot of founder friends that I think HSN maybe gears a little bit younger you know
• 26:19
  I know a lot of different founders who do HSN these days, same format, you know, and it's consignment. So you have to be a little bit careful with the inventory, because it's your inventory if it doesn't sell, but good awareness driver, right? Good recruitment of like new people, new eyes, they buy it once. If you have a product that's replenishable, they can like bounce your site. Great for discovery.
• 26:43
  Yes, absolutely. And getting that word of mouth moment, because even if it was an older crowd, say, who aren't going to be buying, they could be buying it for their grandkids or, you know, passing it on to their daughter and being like, oh, this is really cool. I saw this on TV. So it sounds like in your early years, you were just pretty much 100% focused on the retail strategy. That was your blueprint or your playbook that you were following. But then obviously COVID happens, the world changes, everyone's at home and retail shuts down.
• 27:12
  What happens for you during the pandemic?
• 27:16
  So March 2020, we went into lockdown and we had no idea. Like, honestly, we just had no idea if it was going to be really bad for us. Maybe we were naive. We had no idea it could be good for us. We were very fortunate. So during the two months that we were, our team was in lockdown, we just did a ton of content at home. Like I was doing a lot of social content, like stories and just shooting things all over the apartment.
• 27:46
  And then
• 27:48
  It was an incredible moment for us. I mean, I think we were very, very blessed that our category, which is specifically gel manicures at home, but nail in general just exploded because, you know, the people couldn't get to the salon. Also they were bored. So, you know, painting your nails, especially with a device, that's fun, it's different, was actually really curious. Like people wanted to, they were just like buying stuff, right. And wanting like entertainment and,
• 28:16
  It's color and it's nail, but it's also beauty tech and it comes with a USB. You can plug it in. People were just really interested to try it out. I saw some of our retailers. QVC called us and they were like, Hey, we just want to do this beauty steal. It was April 2020. Can you give us one item for the whole month of April and it's going to be the beauty IQ steal or something?
• 28:44
  It sold out in three days. So we gave them like a thousand units. It was supposed to last the entire month and it sold out in three days. Like they did a promo on their Instagram and it just like flew off the shelf, I mean, off the virtual shelves. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, Oh my God, we just gave them this inventory. And then our website just was rocking and rolling, like totally selling out because everything was working, you know, like everything was working. And then by May we were just like low on everything. And then we were like ramping up production.
• 29:12
  And then we restocked in July and 2020 was a year that really just transformed our business because prior to, you know, I always say like there was almost like the business we had up to 2020. It was like one type of business. And since 2020, it changed.
• 29:30
  it just looks like a completely different business. Like we have been trying to scale. We have scaled. The team changed a lot. I would say in the early days, we always had like under 10 to 15 people with like interns being a big chunk of those people.
• 29:47
  And then, you know, since COVID, like things were just booming. And I said to my partner, I was like, we need to use this momentum and really invest into having like more of a team, a lot more people doing marketing and social. This was in 2020. You know, and we weren't even doing TikTok. You know, it was just really Instagram and kind of like Facebook. Yeah.
• 30:10
  And also just invest deeper into marketing, right? Like pre-IOS changes, okay, let's just go heavier on the ads and just pump out organic, make sure we're doing all the email stuff. And 2020, 2021, we just kind of like really leaned into it and hired some great people that are still with us, a lot of them. And, you know, it's really interesting because we launched in Target a year and a half ago in the US, and that was sort of our big offline store rollout in the US. Yeah.
• 30:39
  And a lot of people are like, how did you manage to launch like 500 stores of Target and have it do? Yeah, it was, it was crazy. Like we, you know, that was a very interesting period because we were, okay. So in spring of 2021, we were riding high off of all the COVID wave of like great sales, more awareness, having a bigger team. So it was kind of like people were kind of getting used to working together from the marketing side.
• 31:09
  And, you know, we had this opportunity to pitch Target because it was sort of like this, like momentum of like nail and at home gel. And, you know, so I was like, OK, well, if this is the opportunity, like I'll take it. I don't care if it's COVID or what. Like, let's just run with this. And we pitched them. They were like, OK, let's let's do something for holiday. So it's holiday 2021. It was like a year and a half ago. And we got this opportunity.
• 31:39
  who is a friend of mine who was a year ahead of us, right? So she launched in Target the year before us. She was tracking, I was tracking a year behind her and we had a call and she has a skincare brand. And she's like, Christina, I think they're going to discontinue us. This is halfway through her year. And she's like, if I were to do it all over again, these are like the five things I would do differently. She's like, I think they're going to discontinue us. Like, we're not selling well. And, you know, a few of the main things were,
• 32:08
  One, they launched with no brand awareness. She's like, we were pre-funding. I didn't have anyone doing marketing. We went on shelf, just zero awareness. Two, our pricing strategy was off. I think they were probably around like $30. It's Target's mass retail. She's like, our pricing strategy was really off. The types of products were on shelf next to it.
• 32:31
  Um, and then there were a few other things and I talked to her in July. Our launch was in October. It made me really nervous. I was like, okay, we're not failing this launch. Like I've been through sort of the previous, like eight years of business where we did fail and we had a lot of these like in and outs of retailers because we didn't really know what we were doing. And now we had in front of us the biggest opportunity that we'd ever had.
• 32:56
  And I was like, we are not feeling this. We're going to throw everything at it. Everything that she told me, I just went deep and was like, okay, she said awareness. Like, we're just going to go crazy. And I mean, we had the whole team was oriented. Like we've had a European business and an international business. And we have e-com and we have retail.
• 33:18
  I oriented like, I don't know, 70% of the company to really just help with the target launch. I was like, everyone's just going to work on this. We're going to do social, we're going to do influencer, we're going to do campaigns, like, and it's going to be a 360. And we're going to do giveaways. And the influencers are going to do giveaways. And then we need to go target store and shoot content. And then all the influencers are going to go to the store to shoot content. So it was just like, how do we amplify as much as possible? And, you know, I was just really proud of the team. Like,
• 33:47
  Everyone just pushed so hard and we had a great launch that quarter in holiday. And then we rolled out, so that was like 250 doors. And then we rolled out to 500 doors that following January. So that was then 2022. So, um, it's been really great. I think it's been such a huge learning to be in this like really great retailer, you know, a mega retailer for the U S market.
• 34:12
  You know, I think we have never let up ever since we had this opportunity. But I'm very fortunate because, you know, we're not a business that's been around for two years and we're just like struggling to, you know, do I make content myself? Do I have to hire people? Inventory issues, cash flow. Like, I'm very fortunate in that because we have the years of the business. Yeah.
• 34:34
  There's a lot of people to work on marketing. There is a whole team that works on logistics and inventory. So when we had this big moment, we had the resources, actually. And we had sort of the previous failures to know what we definitely don't want happening to buffer up against that.
• 34:52
  And for you now, like, you know, a year and a half, two years into the journey with Target, how much of your team and like resources, budget, etc. goes towards Target versus like your other retailers and your e-com store and that Amazon, for example? Yeah, that's a great question. I think, you know, we do business in different countries in different regions. The US market is a very good
• 35:22
  And the way the business is set up right now is great because whereas Europe is different because Europe is very fragmented, you have different languages and countries and it's just fragmented. The US I'm like, okay, it's one, it's one country, one language, one currency.
• 35:40
  If you were just doing D2C, it is really hard to make your marketing budget make sense because it's so expensive just to do D2C now post iOS. You have to do ads. You have to do paid media. You can't go it without doing paid media. However, it doesn't work the way it used to. So it needs to be part of a larger strategy.
• 36:04
  Um, and when I look at the market and this is why I think a lot of founders talk about, you know, post iOS, it's like omni-channel, you have to be omni-channel. You need DTC, Amazon and retail. Like you actually need to be doing all of it because the great thing about retail is that they, it brings the volume and it brings, um, just a lot of points of sale, right? So you're going to have a lot of eyes on it. Um, why distribution? It brings the volume and frankly, the larger POs, right?
• 36:34
  So that's a good PO for an indie brand. How many products would that be for $100 of a target, for example? It depends. I mean, it depends on how they forecast, right? And it depends on the time of year. But if it's holiday for every door, maybe it depends on how much shelf space. But is it one-facing per product? Is it double-facing? Do you have a shelf? Do you have multiple shelves? Do they want you to have...
• 37:00
  And four to five units per SKU so that they're holding it in the back. You kind of have to forecast it out. When do they start the season? Do they start selling mid-October and set the shelves? Some of them are starting in September now. Everything is starting earlier.
• 37:16
  Every year. It's crazy holiday. It's crazy. Like what used to be black Friday is black November. You know, it's a whole month of November is promo. That's like what we've seen the last couple of years. And what does that mean? It means that like holiday shopping starts like early, early September, you know, like we're doing advent calendars and it's like, let's start in September for holiday advent calendars. It's crazy.
• 37:41
  Wow. Gosh, that is crazy. But yeah, the sales season has been brought forward a lot. And I think with inflation, a lot of retailers are worried about things not selling. So they want to start promos and just bump up the sales season much earlier to help them. Yeah. If you were starting this brand tomorrow, knowing what you know, and having been through many mistakes and many great, amazing achievements, what would you do differently? Yeah.
• 38:11
  So yeah, the landscape has changed tremendously. And, you know, sometimes I meet founders who are starting like this year or last year. And I don't envy that because you just have tons of choice in terms of digital marketing. Like, what do you even do first? And the demand for content is so heavy. So I would say if I were starting a brand now, I would really focus on content and
• 38:40
  And there's two ways you can do it. So as a founder, it is a really great idea for you to be the founder face. I don't do it as much now just because I simply don't have the time with the way our business is structured. But I do think it's a great idea, you know, because then you also have a bit of...
• 39:00
  fame, really, you know, which goes a long way. It goes a long way with your retail partners. It goes a long way with investors. It goes a long way with consumers. It makes a difference, right? If the founder has some awareness themselves. The other thing is, like, if you want to, for example, build your TikTok and make, you know, content,
• 39:21
  If you want to hit like viral videos, it's a lot of work to make your own content. And I think brands need to make their own content and founders need to do it. But if you want to have viral videos, I would say the chances are higher if you're leveraging creators, um, because creators don't have to have like a massive following for a video to go viral. Like we just had a launch, um, last month of a new mini gel manicure kit color.
• 39:47
  And we had a creator who has 33,000 followers on Instagram. The Instagram reel she made for us is at 2.2 million views. Oh, wow. And nobody expected, like, she has 33,000 followers. But, you know, I think if you just have, like, the right piece of content and people start engaging with it. So using other creators and influencers to help you make content is amazing.
• 40:12
  really a great idea. But how you brief them and the type of content you make, it really needs to be eye catching and stand out. So I think you have to think about for your product, what is going to
• 40:26
  make the person's like thumb stop scrolling. Yeah. You know, on TikTok or stories. Yeah. What's the hook? Like we're lucky. Our product is very visual. You know, it's a little led lamp. It's colorful. You put your finger inside our key visual, the iconic thing that is like really recognizable for us is that like finger in the lamp shot. And that's the thing. Like we use that everywhere. Like all of our paid ads, our, our banners, like we're doing truck ads in Chicago and New York.
• 40:56
  all the trucks have like the finger in the lamp because that's just us. Right. So I think you have to figure out like, what is that visual for your brand and your product? That is very, very unique. I think there's a lot of products now like hair removal, like sugar dough, they do like sugar hair removal, sugaring. You have like these brands like August, you know, like period. I mean, they're doing stuff that's like, it is, you know, maybe a little bit, um,
• 41:24
  like gross, you know, but that works on TikTok, right? Like people want to see stuff that's like really unexpected, maybe a bit like sort of ugly content. That's very eye-catching. I mean, it's true. Like, you know, that more personal like body care, it is really eye-catching. And I think these like younger founders, like Gen Z founders, they totally get it. They totally get it. And they do it really well. Yeah.
• 41:46
  Totally. I also think if you're early in starting a brand, as in like you haven't launched yet, you should be thinking about how your product looks on social and designing your product with that in mind of like, what is going to be the catch of this product on social? And potentially even rethinking what you're doing to make sure that it is like a social first approach to branding.
• 42:10
  Dude, that is really good. That is like a nugget. No, but that is like, honestly, I think that's a really good nugget, I think, for your listeners. Because social is your free platform, right? So how do you, if you're in like product design phase, how do you go to market with something that is going to work?
• 42:32
  be really different. Yeah. Right. Like I used to work. Yeah. I used to work for at an ad agency and my boss was like, how can you be different and better than the competitors? And it's just different and better, like just different and better. And you know, I mean that like, how does that translate? But I totally agree with you. Like design for social. Yeah. Social first approach for sure. What advice do you want to leave us with a final
• 43:04
  Well, so the thing that has been working for me is just this community of founders, which you're helping to cultivate and create a community of founders that... I'm in beauty, so it's the beauty people that I really love talking to. But it's such a supportive community. I think just really reaching out to fellow founders...
• 43:28
  to have like calls, you know, just like meet and greet calls, like Zoom calls, and attending events where you can meet these other founders, join Slack groups, and people are really helpful. So for me, the community has been amazing because I've learned so much. And with some of these people who have become friends, like we get really transparent, you know, we're kind of like, how's it going with that retailer? And how does your like agreement work with them?
• 43:57
  you know, what failed, what's working. What's the off the books advice or like insights that you can share the non-public facing advice? Yeah, totally. And I think so, and I'm just all about like constantly learning to grow further. And I think the community of founders has been just amazing for that. I love that. For everyone listening, you should join our private network called Magic. Shameless plug.
• 44:31
  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.
• 44:56
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 45:18
  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.
• 45:34
  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.
• 45:58
  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.
• 46:21
  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.