Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Greatest Hits: Ann McFerran on building Glamnetic to $50M annual revenue

Transcript

Greatest Hits: Ann McFerran on building Glamnetic to $50M annual revenue · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I'm taking a quick and much needed break. And that means for today's show, we're going back to the archives from 2020 to bring you one of our favorite and most popular episodes. Happy listening. This is Anne McFerrin for Female Startup Club.
• 0:28
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Roisin, and joining me on the show today is Anne McFerrin, the LA-based founder behind Glamnetic, the go-to magnetic lash company. Glamnetic is committed to providing the highest quality products and experience to customers and finding ways to continually make their beauty routine easier.
• 0:52
  Anne launched a brand a year ago from her bedroom and within no time at all was doing seven figures a month in sales. It's so crazy, you guys. In this episode, she's sharing that early hustle with us and what she attributes that success to, a great strategy to get orders when you're just starting out, and why social media and community is so critical to building a brand in 2020. I'm going to be right back.
• 1:15
  And remember to subscribe, rate and review the podcast to help other ears find us. This is Anne for Female Startup Club. Amazing. Anne, let's get started. I'm so excited for you to be here on Female Startup Club today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to learn all about your business and what you've been doing. But before we jump in, do you want to give us a quick overview of who you are and what your business is?
• 1:42
  Yes. So my name is Anne McFerrin and I'm the founder and CEO of Glamnetic, which is a magnetic lash and liner company. We also now have just branched out into nails. I saw, I saw they look so much fun. Very, very cool. Very exciting. We will get to that. I want to go first back to the very beginning before you started Glamnetic and what you were doing in life, what was going on and the light bulb moment that led you to getting started.
• 2:11
  Yeah, it's actually, it's been a pretty windy road, I feel like, to get here and definitely not a straight path to success, which I'm pretty sure everybody's been saying that. But I basically was born in Bangkok, Thailand, and I moved here when I was seven. I grew up actually pretty poor and my parents had had a divorce and basically...
• 2:34
  Due to my parents' remarriage, I was able to come to the United States. So I have a stepdad. That's why my name is McFerrin. So it obviously doesn't make sense because I'm full Asian, but my dad is Irish and German, my stepdad. And so basically with the divorced parents and everything, had a rough kind of childhood, but thankfully came to America and was able to
• 3:01
  kind of reconcile all of that. And I felt like I discovered makeup at a really early age because when I was moving here, I looked different from everybody else. I came into an all white neighborhood and pretty much was the only Asian kid at the school.
• 3:18
  And they made fun of me for the way that my eyes looked and like my eyes being smaller or whatever. And obviously, when you're young and people tell you that you get like pretty self-conscious. So I finally discovered makeup. And that was when I also discovered lashes. And I remember how it just made me feel like a completely different person. I felt beautiful. I felt confident. What seemed like the first time in my life.
• 3:42
  And that's sort of where my lifelong obsession with lashes started. And I sort of just played with makeup my whole life. And the lashes kind of were the sort of the conduit for me to feel confident about myself. So much so that even when I wasn't wearing them, I started feeling confident about myself. It was sort of like a training tool to feel confident. And I felt like this is the power of makeup that people talk about. And that's why I think we're so obsessed with beauty is because it really makes you grow into...
• 4:10
  your best like version of yourself because you feel you're most confident. Yeah. And I think this is also where my, my slogan came from like be magnetic, be glometic. It's kind of that concept of like your, be your most confident self. It changes your aura. It makes you a magnetic person. So over the decade, I tried almost like every lash man you can think of became an expert in lashes, but I always found it was pretty weird that it's only beauty product where you actually have to glue it to your face and,
• 4:40
  Very strange concept. Like, why do you put this toxic glue? Glue it on your eyes, the most sensitive part of your face. It's very strange. Anyways, like that's something I had always been thinking about. Fast forward, I went to college. I, um...
• 4:56
  I actually, I actually moved here into NorCal in a very small town called Tracy, California, and then moved to, so moved kind of a little bit down more to a smaller town called Manteca, California. And literally there's more cows and people there. So I had a very, I had a very sheltered upbringing. I had to be home by like,
• 5:19
  I actually had to be just like inside by 5 p.m. My mom would let me go out like past that. So I had a pretty sheltered life in Manteca. My mom was like one of those like Asian, strict Asian moms that didn't let me go anywhere. And it was like, OK, you need to always study. So I was very good at school, was really passionate about the sciences. I love science. So when I got into UCLA, that's naturally what I gravitated towards. So my major at UCLA was psychobiology.
• 5:47
  And I felt like this sort of fed my experimental and analytical mindset. And also just being at LA for the first time where I had no curfew. I sort of went wild, so to speak. And I just went out all the time. I met so many people and completely expanded my horizons about what
• 6:08
  was acceptable, I guess, in the world. My mom would always say like, you know, be a doctor, do something safe because, you know, I'm a first generation college student. And so getting into college for her was a big deal. So obviously she didn't want to, she didn't want to sacrifice that. I had a different idea though of what work was for me. I couldn't see myself in a medical field.
• 6:35
  So I started taking art classes in college. I had actually been doing art kind of even before that in my childhood, because my mom was actually a really good artist. She was really talented and would paint murals for the neighborhood. But she always told me, like, you can't make much money off of it. But that sort of changed when I went to L.A. and I took art classes and then I started selling my own paintings. And one of the first paintings I sold was for ten thousand dollars.
• 7:02
  Oh my gosh, amazing. And so I thought I made it, you know, I was like, oh my God, this is my path. This is my ticket to success. Exactly. I got this. Exactly. So I was like, okay, forget science. Like I graduated anyway, I graduated, finished college, but right after college,
• 7:23
  I finished, I pretty much jumped right into art and just like making commissions for a bunch of rich people that I found in LA. And on my way there, I met a lot of successful men who had like
• 7:37
  who had their own businesses that were thriving and they were building their businesses. So I felt like I was around those types of people quite a bit due to the art in, in a weird way. Um, I think that's what it was with art and the main thing with art in Los Angeles, you have to be really good at networking. And so I was just always being networking and, and, and obviously trying to sell my art. That was, that was the hardest thing because nothing was guaranteed. Um, since it's all, you know, it's all project by project basis. Um,
• 8:06
  And pretty much I did that for four years. And I showed it like the LA art show, like some big conventions. And I kind of felt a little bit like lost though, while I was doing it, I didn't feel like I had like a lot of guidance in my,
• 8:22
  a lot of guidance in my career. So I wasn't sure where it was headed. Art is so like, I feel like it's definitely one of the hardest things ever to do by yourself. Especially if you have no guidance, no mentor or anything. And I felt pretty lonely being in the studio by myself, like all every day you just had to put in the hours in the studio. And I felt like I didn't talk to people literally the entire day. And sometimes it felt like a self quarantine, um,
• 8:48
  Mm-hmm. I know that feeling. Right. So it was like that for multiple years. And basically on the side, I was sort of discovering business outside of that. How do I start my own business? How do I make money on the side? I got into stock trading.
• 9:10
  um i was doing day training uh like learning how to trade initially it was penny stocks and then it just kind of like expanded to other things um and even crypto sort of like at the height of that um i sort of just and then i would contact like the best people that were like one of the best day traders i contacted him and i was like let me learn from you um and i was doing that like while i was also doing the art so it was like multiple things at once and and definitely learned
• 9:40
  strategic with the money, like with investing and also just learning the technical skills of, of, of day trading, um, I think kind of put me in the mindset of like,
• 9:50
  doing my own business. And I felt like that molded me for like the two years that I did that. And the intense amount of stress and rollercoaster of emotions that you have to go through while doing that is also, I think also trained me and prepared me for entrepreneurship later on down the line. And also how unstable it was. It's the most unstable thing ever, especially in the beginning when you're just like, you have an account and you blow it up
• 10:20
  mistakes. Um, you know, like every single moment it was like, your money was on the line. And if you like mess up even for a minute or two, like you're, you literally could blow up your account. So it was one of those like super high stakes, um, things that I, I went through that I feel like prepared me emotionally and, um, for kind of how crazy entrepreneurship was going to be. And I sort of like was looking for other things to do. And I, I,
• 10:50
  I knew that I was always obsessed with lashes. Right. And, and I felt like, okay, there's a problem here to be solved. And, and I felt like when I started seeing, I had seen like magnetic lashes come out just the normal ones and they were like very thin and plasticky. They had like two magnets max on them. And I,
• 11:09
  I was like, this is an interesting idea, but it's just not quite there. Like, it's not something I would ever want to wear. I liked glam, beautiful, thick lashes. And, you know, the science part of me came out and I was like, okay, I really want to see if I could make something that I would want to wear, where I love thick volume lashes. And...
• 11:35
  I want to add more magnets. I want to have five. And I even came out with six magnets. So I sort of began like just through YouTube, literally just from YouTube, teaching myself everything in product development, just understanding how to even do product development, how to source and all of that stuff. I taught myself all of that. And that's sort of when my journey started. I didn't even know if it was something that I was going to fully commit to. I was just like, I just want to see if I can do it.
• 12:04
  Um, since I was like, Oh, I'm already doing a day trader on the side, doing all these other things on the side. Let me just see. Um, and basically hundreds of samples later, literally hundreds where some of the magnets were literally falling off the band because they were using like tacky, like super glue. And, um, a lot of the factories just had no idea what they were doing, but I finally was able to get a prototype that actually worked and had five magnets on the band and, um,
• 12:32
  It was like a volume mink lashes, mink lash. And it looked absolutely beautiful. So that's sort of like where the research and development started. And I went into it pretty deep for about a year and a half. Of development? Of development. Yeah. Wow. Okay. And then that's when I was like, okay, like I do really want to like see if I can make this into a brand. Like I do want to launch this brand.
• 12:58
  I want to quit painting. Yeah, pretty much in a way. I was like still doing it on the side to make money because it was, you know, it was good money still. And I needed that to invest in inventory and all of this. So that's when I sort of,
• 13:14
  Went full throttle and I decided, okay, like, I'm going to do this. And taught myself everything in like marketing, photography, literally got myself like professional camera equipment and started doing photography and shot. Like, I remember like I asked my friend, I was like, hey, do you have any friends that are models? Like, let me just...
• 13:35
  I want to shoot them. She's like, oh, sure. And she just thought it was a really fun, silly thing that I was doing. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm going to start a brand. I don't think she actually...
• 13:46
  was think that I was serious, I guess. And she's like, no, it's like a tiny little brand, whatever. So I was like, okay, yeah, let me just shoot her maybe at your studio. And so she let me borrow her little studio in downtown LA. And she saw the photos. She's like, holy crap. She's like, how did you do that? She's like, how did you? I was like, yeah, I taught myself everything. It's from YouTube.
• 14:07
  The school of YouTube. Love the school of YouTube. Yeah. And so she was super impressed. She's like, oh, this is crazy. And that was pretty much the first image that I shot and the one that went on the homepage banner. Silly, like so funny enough, like recently one of my interns sent me like kind of like a video from from Spain of
• 14:31
  Basically, the old, the first photo that I took, someone painted a mural of it in Spain. No way. I don't know how. What? I don't even know how that photo got out and reached Spain. And then in 2020, someone painted a mural of it in some back, like, I don't even know. It's crazy. I was so confused.
• 14:50
  I was like, how did it even get out? But yeah, they literally used the photo as like inspo to paint the mural. So I thought that was hilarious. That's so cool too. That's amazing. Yeah.
• 15:03
  Wow, your mom must be so proud of you now. That's such an interesting start of your entrepreneurial journey. And oh my gosh, obviously fast forward to today, it's just absolutely nuts. And I totally want to get into where it is now, but I want to stick with that early on hustle. When you were getting started with the product development, I always love to ask about the numbers. Did you invest personal savings? Did you have to get a loan? Were you using the money from the paintings to be able to fund that?
• 15:31
  And, and then what happened next? Like, how did you actually start selling and being like, I need to find some customers now and get people on board with what I'm doing? Yeah. So I actually invested my personal money. Like I didn't really understand how to raise money. I didn't even know that I could and didn't know people, anybody would be interested. It was one of, I just had heard people about, I think I heard about people raising money, but I was like, so intimidated by the concept. And I also was like, I don't,
• 16:01
  I have money. Like, I don't need to raise money. I had saved up every... Like, I was... That's one thing that I give myself credit for was I was really frugal with my spending. I would earn a lot and I would just save, like, literally every dollar and try to get, like...
• 16:17
  I was also kind of an influencer on the side, like for my Instagram account. So I would get free clothes, free food sometimes, and makeup. And so I never had to buy anything, which was amazing. I tried to use like my sort of micro-influencer power to get whatever I needed without having to pay money because I knew I needed to save the money because money was hard to come by at the time. It's the hardest thing.
• 16:40
  Um, but yeah, I pretty much invested that into the inventory. And initially you don't need a lot of inventory. Like I started maybe with 200 units per SKU.
• 16:52
  And I only had five SKUs. And yeah, so it was very, very chill. Wasn't that capital intensive at all. I can't I can't say that for tech. Like, I don't know what that is like. I'm sure tech tech is like capital intensive. But for me, it wasn't. And so what was the second question? Yeah.
• 17:15
  Launching? What was your go-to-market launch? How did you start finding customers to buy your product? Yeah. So I actually started with a very small Instagram. My initial, my other Instagram, I had gotten traction on. I had like maybe 40, 50K followers and I had painted, this was another weird side note. I actually used to paint murals for like the vlog squad, like David Dobrik and like
• 17:45
  all of them, they had asked me to, I guess I was like one of the few like artists in LA that could do that. And they somehow contacted me, found me. And basically I painted a mural for, for David Dobrik when he was doing pranks on like his, his assistant, Natalie. And,
• 18:05
  So I was in one of his videos. And then after that, it was like Jeff, who was like also in the vlog squad, asked me to do a prank on David's. Then I painted a mural in David's room. And then it was Dirty Dom, who was also part of the vlog squad. And then it was Sam and Colby, who they have a big YouTube channel. So I was able to leverage like a lot of, I guess, like those jobs to kind of get me started in terms of like having traction. They would shout out my account. And.
• 18:34
  And I would gain a lot of followers. And, and from there, I sort of pushed those followers into my Glamnetic account, which was a baby account I had just started. And so I just kept promoting like, Oh, I'm going to start a brand. I'm going to start a brand and, and sort of just like kind of hype that up. And, um,
• 18:51
  It still was a small account. It wasn't a big audience by any means, right? But I found that if I started DMing every single person that followed the account, and every... Like, there wasn't that many. But if I DM those people and give them an offer on the product, then they would use the code.
• 19:12
  So that's what I did in the beginning. I literally DMed. Like for the first month, I DMed every single person that followed the account, like just manually. I spent all day doing that on top of actually taking photos of all of the product shots. Like every post was created by me. Like I would...
• 19:34
  I would set it up. I would take the photos and then I would face tune them. And, and I would do that like for every single photo, even like the quote unquote user generated content was not user generated content. They were my friends. I would come over people that girls I would find. I was like, Oh my God, you're pretty. Like you want to come over and like, I'll put lashes on you and everyone would say yes. And I would shoot, um, I would start shooting videos with them and, um,
• 20:01
  It's pretty funny. Yeah, I put makeup on all of them and I would do a photo shoot with them. And so that's how I got all of the content in the beginning because obviously no one was wearing it organically. Like I didn't really start gifting until like maybe half, like second or third weekend. And then I got my first intern who I met really randomly at a party. And she was just like, I told her my idea and what the concept of our lashes and everything.
• 20:30
  And then she was like, oh, wow, that's so cool. She's like, you know, can I be your intern? Like, I need, like, I need experience interning at a startup. And I was like, yes, I mean, it's not really, I said, it's not really a startup. It's just me in my room in Koreatown.
• 20:45
  And she was like, yeah, that's fine. Like, any experience is appreciated. And so... That is so good. And so she would come over every day and help me. She would help me do the DM sales. And I would give her a commission for, like, every sale she made. Oh, my gosh. Genius. That's so cool. Yeah. It was a whole thing. And, yeah, she stayed with me for a while.
• 21:15
  Like, thankfully, because I was like, I don't have any money. I'm sorry to pay you right now. But eventually, you know, it started snowballing. And I so Shay, who was like my first intern, she stayed for like a couple of months and then she had to go back home. And then I finally. Oh, yeah. And then Kevin, I met Kevin.
• 21:37
  who's not my business partner, he came in like a month into the business and he saw what I was doing and he felt like,
• 21:46
  oh, wow, this actually can go somewhere. And he believed in me enough to be like, okay, like I want to be a business partner with you. And that's sort of when he sort of helped me, I guess, build infrastructure around the brand, just in terms of like the financing side, the finance and the ops. It was a part of the business I wasn't thinking as deeply about. I was thinking more about obviously the creative, the marketing, the products, inventory and all of that. And then obviously as you get larger, that's something that's very important to deal with.
• 22:17
  But yeah, so then he came in as a business partner. And then I actually hired my first official employee six months into...
• 22:28
  You got medic actually starting. Before that, it was- You're like, please, please stay forever. I hear you. It was actually the hardest thing to hire a first employee because I was, I mean, the job requirement was coming to my house in K-Town, the small little back house. It was literally a back house in front of a bigger house. And it was because rent was cheap at the time and that's where I stayed as an artist. And they would just have to work with me in my room. And like, literally there was a desk
• 22:57
  right next to my bed. We would just have to sit like next to each other. And we literally wouldn't have any room to move because it was so small. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. No, I literally found two perspective. Okay. The first, the first person that I thought was going to be my first employee was,
• 23:16
  First day in, I had trained her in all of these things. I was doing customer service at the time. I was doing, I mean, I was doing everything. I was doing the Instagram, the marketing, the emails, like legit everything. And so I sort of onboarded her and there were so many things to onboard. And I felt like, okay, at the end of the day, my mouth was so tired from talking. And then the next day I get a text from her. She's like, oh, like this isn't going to work for me. Oh no. And I was just like, oh.
• 23:46
  I went through all of that for you to say that. Okay. I was pretty disappointed. I was like, okay, I guess she doesn't want to work in like a really small, tight room with me, like being the only person responsible for everything else. I understand. Okay. And then the second employee came in and he seemed promising. I was like, oh my God, he's so good. Like, I really like him. And basically four days in, he told me he was going to take another job.
• 24:15
  And I just felt so like kind of defeated. Like, why is it that terrible? Like working with me? I was just like, why is this terrible? And I was like, wow, this hiring is really, really hard. Finding the perfect person is really hard. And then I asked my friend, like, can you give me a referral? Because I am having a hard time finding somebody. And that's when my friend Banya, the same girl that...
• 24:44
  had given me the studio to shoot in. And she was like, oh yeah, my friend, Stephanie Villa, who's also a YouTuber, her best friend's girlfriend is looking for a job.
• 24:57
  I was like, okay. She's like, yeah, she's like straight out of college. She's been looking for something. So I said this, I told her, this is a great opportunity. I hyped you up. And I was like, oh, awesome. Okay, great. So that's when Mia, I met Mia and she was my first official employee. She stayed. She stayed.
• 25:16
  Thank God. And she's actually super talented at design and video editing. So that was such a huge help for us, especially when we were starting to run ads for the first time and just actually having any video assets at all on our Instagram. So that helped tremendously in having her there. She also learned how to do emails, email marketing. And so we sort of figured it out together, everything, every step of the way.
• 25:45
  And at the same time, our revenue was like doubling month over month. So we actually hit our first like...
• 25:53
  million dollar a month at month six when Mia joined. Oh my gosh, out of your apartment. Out of my really small apartment. What? That's insane. You're like, okay, maybe now we can get an office. Maybe now we can upgrade. The hustle has been here, but we can move. Yeah, it was so silly. I was like, I don't even understand. It didn't make sense. I was like, I don't understand how we're doing so well. And I'm like literally out of my little tiny
• 26:24
  And yeah, so we actually did get our first office. I actually didn't like being in an office. I don't know. I just felt like it was very distracting to be around a lot of other people. And I felt like when I was in my apartment, I could just focus like...
• 26:39
  really, really well. But yeah, we basically, we started hiring like our second and third employee. And then we had all of a sudden three people in the office, I hired them pretty quickly right after Mia. So it was like maybe two weeks, Mia was there. And then back to back, I had two employees join. One was for customer service, and the other one was for social media. And so then Mia could focus on my content creation. Yeah.
• 27:03
  And it was just crazy because I was in an office and it was like a really small room. And then everyone would just like throw questions at me left and right. You're like, I don't know the answer either. No, I mean, I did know all the answers, but that's why they would ask me. So I would be like, OK, now you guys figure it out because I can't sit here and literally answer every single one of your guys' questions.
• 27:23
  And so people management was like a whole thing that I had to learn really, really quickly. Right. Because I was just like, this is overwhelming. I can't even get my work done. And that's how I felt about an office is like, it's too, it was too accessible, especially since we only have one office. I didn't have my own. I felt like I was too accessible. And yeah.
• 27:44
  Well, I guess two weeks, two months later, COVID happened. So he went back out of the office, back into just, you know, our apartment. So I then I was like, OK, now I'm back to where I was. And actually, this is I actually prefer this. It's pretty great. I was like, oh, I get I get more work done this way. And basically, virtually we grew. Oh, my God.
• 28:09
  We grew so quickly virtually. We have like 35 people now on the team. What? Oh, my gosh. And that was in the span of, I mean, since March, it was March. We had three employees and now we have 35.
• 28:24
  That's so crazy. I'm so curious to really understand what you think is, what you think was driving that significant growth. Because of course, the DMs would have, you know, started to get that early kind of traction and people buying. But obviously, at some point, something else kicks in and something else is working in a really great way for you. What do you attribute that success to?
• 28:47
  Yeah, so we dialed in on like just marketing and in all sorts of ways. So a lot of it was like influencer marketing. We started really like having a lot of deals be like huge converters for us. I think the first deal we did, oh my God, this one YouTuber, she did like,
• 29:04
  it was like 30X what we paid her. And I didn't expect that from influencer marketing. But I think it's definitely dependent on like who you pick and who's the right audience for you. It just depends on who your niche market is. And we sort of really figured out like who our audience was and basically the messaging behind the product. And then that's when we also started running ads. And I was like, it was like a founder first sort of ad where it's like, I am the one...
• 29:32
  talking about my own products, you know, like there's not a lot of founders that go on and just say like, Hey, I'm the founder and this is my product. And like, this is why it works. And like, this is what, this is why you need it. Like, I think just me being super transparent from the beginning, even on all of our socials, like I'm like on stories every single day, like doing a tutorial on the, on the lash. Um,
• 29:56
  I'm talking to the customers like every day because I used to do the customer service. So I understood the customer really well. I would even text some of them because I was like, oh, like, sorry, like I'm trying to get I'm trying to like correspond with you faster. Here's my phone number, like text me. And.
• 30:12
  I think just being like really transparent and like casual about the whole thing. And like, uh, cause we were small, it allowed us to really understand the customer and like really hone in on the messaging in a big way. And, and that's when it allowed all of our marketing channels to thrive. Like emails was like emails is a huge revenue drive for us SMS. Like,
• 30:32
  The ads, huge, and also like influencer marketing. But we definitely didn't just use one channel. It was like literally every single channel that we could find. We started finding... It basically was just like a gradual steps in like maximizing it and like optimizing it so that you can get max ROI and revenue from it.
• 30:56
  And I feel like I've also like, because I'm like, just that's my personality is like very obsessed with optimization. So that, I mean, that's the reason why I was like into the product in the first place was like, I want to optimize my life. Like I love efficiency. I just love,
• 31:13
  Yeah, I just I love being efficient. I feel like that's that's one of my things. I like to work smarter, not harder. And I like to tell my team that, like, think about the relative amount of work to relative amount of reward that you get. And in the beginning, I think my team also wasn't able to think like strategically about anything because they were just busy and like learning and just doing. A lot of the girls that came in, actually, it was their first job.
• 31:41
  real job in like anything marketing related. And I sort of taught them from the ground up. So like one of the girls, Kelly, she had worked at like a travel agency. And then she came in and I was like, you're going to do social. She was my second employee. And I think she had a hard time in the beginning, like understanding like what to do.
• 32:03
  And then sort of just like being like really like patient and being like really like working with her, like very closely and monitoring everything that she does in the beginning, making sure she doesn't make mistakes and like catching all those mistakes. If she makes it, it was like super important in her growth and learning. And now she's like killing it at social media. Like in the beginning it was like really rough and I was like, and now she's like doing social media and now she's doing email marketing and she's also helping with ads. So it's like,
• 32:30
  Now she's doing multiple things. So I feel like if you really focus on
• 32:35
  on, you know, the people that work for you and like help them grow, like they're, they're going to help you grow, you know? Yeah. I just feel like when you get really big though, especially as a CEO, you don't, you're, you're not that hands-on with your employees anymore, but I feel like that's super, super important for their growth. Like even like she's never had any experience coming in. And I just, I didn't even interview her. I literally was just like, Hey, do you have another friend? I asked him. Yeah.
• 33:02
  I asked Vanya if she had another friend in us. She's like, oh yeah, Kelly's looking for a job. So I was like, okay, cool. She's hired. I didn't even really interview her. I was just like, okay, let's just join.
• 33:10
  And that's kind of like the mindset. I was like, I'm just going to work with her because I believe in her. You know, like if you believe in people from the beginning, they're going to help you out. And I feel like all of our employees now have just helped us really scale. Like having this many people was actually really important. And I'm glad like I hired that many people because they all really helped us scale. I wouldn't be able to do it by myself. The amount of content that's necessary. Yeah.
• 33:37
  I mean, just on social is absolutely insane. Like, I feel like you have to be so good at content. And I feel like we've gotten so good at content. Like, it's just like the psychology behind all of the posts that we post, the ads that we post, like everything is all like A-B tested. And we try like hundreds of content, like every week. It's crazy, isn't it? The amount that you have to produce and output content.
• 34:04
  And I also think there's something to be said about hiring young talent who are like really hungry to like actually get into something and who haven't been like molded yet. And, you know, like disheartened by working in like some corporate job that they hated. And, you know, they learned these rules six years ago and they're still following those practices.
• 34:23
  Yeah, exactly. I think even if I think back to myself, like my first job was just so awesome because they too gave me that like, you know, push to be like, hey, can you be this person? And I was like, yeah, I can be the person on social media. I'll be her. Yeah, exactly.
• 34:41
  I feel like everything is like, it's not rocket science. Like none of the stuff in branding is, is like rocket science. Collectively, it might look like rocket science, right? But if you actually like break it down, like customer service, it's not rocket science. Social media, it's not rocket science. It's just like,
• 34:59
  It's just learning like psychology in a way, right? And understanding the customer and like understanding what content is going to do well and testing it. Like it's just literally testing. It's just like some logical thinking required plus some creativity thrown in. But it's not like it's I feel like everyone can figure it out.
• 35:17
  Yeah. And definitely just showing up and, you know, making sure that you post a million times a day and making sure that you do the same tomorrow and the same the day after that. And then you'll look back in a year's time and be like, voila, I have an amazing business as you do. Where is the business today and what does the future look like for you guys? Yeah, today. Um, I mean, I think we've gotten to the point
• 35:42
  in within hiring where now like everyone has their own like KPIs and goals that they're able to to meet and I like set them like every month um like oh I want this goal like for every single person I set a goal and then we do like progress on it like weekly like oh okay like how how are you pacing on that goal and so this way like they can take charge of their own personal growth because if you don't give goals then they're not
• 36:06
  going to grow. So where I'm at that point now where I can give that like, I think two months ago, which is so crazy, because it's so soon. That's how fast we've grown, like just in six months, like we probably, it's like, six months for us is like was like a two years time for like normal businesses. But
• 36:23
  Yeah, basically two months ago, they weren't there. And then now they are because of the amount of just like work and learning that they've done. And I always push them like, what are the two things you learned this week? Like I push them to like always learn new things.
• 36:39
  And so, yeah, we're there right now where I can set goals and they can basically strive and understand how to get there on their own without my oversight. Because before it was like heavy, heavy, heavy oversight. And I was very overwhelmed because I was like, this is, I had like 22 direct reports. Yeah.
• 36:54
  And I was just like, this is this is too much. I'm it's a very flat company. Like we don't have like managers. It's just pretty flat. And then they all report to me. So now it's gotten a little bit better where they can all take charge of their own projects. And that doesn't have to happen anymore. And so I feel very good about it because I just feel like if everyone's growing, then I feel like I'm doing my job properly. Yeah.
• 37:21
  because I feel like that's my job as a CEO. Like not only like, you know,
• 37:25
  the foresight in the company and like where we're going, but also like our employees growing like and they are. And then also something that I've been spending a heavy amount of time on and have been since the company started is product development. Like now we have a product development team before it was just me. And now I've built a team and I spend about three hours a day with them Monday through Friday in the evenings.
• 37:54
  And sometimes they'll go on until 10pm. They're like, we literally start 530. And sometimes they'll go on until 10pm. It's actually insane. Just because I really care that much about the product. I really care that much about what the customer gets in their hands.
• 38:11
  We have a very ambitious pipeline next year. You know, we want to really expand the nail category as well as like some other parts of the face, like makeup wise. I don't want to say what it is, but we have like two really big collabs next year. We are trying to push for even more. We want to do a collab like every two months, actually. And...
• 38:36
  three new category launches. So... Oh my gosh. Yeah, we're very ambitious over here. I push them very hard. I'm like, okay, guys, like where are we at? Because we need more. We need more. What more can I get from you? I really love the, what you guys did with the colored, the colored like eyeliner with the lashes over the top. It's so cool. Oh yeah. Thank you. Very amazing. What advice do you have for women who have a big idea?
• 39:06
  I think just take the first step and you're going to be there before you know it. Because I think that was the hardest thing was just taking the first step, like diving into the sourcing and the product development. That was scary because it's so foreign, but you know, like...
• 39:23
  internet, the internet's there. Like it's there for you. I'm like, you know, how it was 20 years ago. So you have an advantage, you know, you have no excuses. I feel like in 2020, because all of the resources are there for you. Like, even if you don't have a friend who knows it, like the internet knows it. So, but it just, it's just having that,
• 39:44
  drive and and wherewithal to do it I think that's that's the hardest part is just like do I have motivation um you have to ask yourself that first because you have to have like a lot of motivation I feel like if you want to get into a business and actually start it and make sure and and work because you have to work every single day to make sure that you're meeting you're going to meet your goals because if you stop working even one of the days you're
• 40:12
  Like I think ever since I went into research and development, I've worked 10 hour days every day, like nonstop. Now there hasn't been a single day that I haven't put in 10 hours. So it's just, you just have to have, you just have to have that. If you, especially in today's market, with everything being so ultra competitive and saturated to stand out, I think that's what it takes. But, you know, getting that, that first step and like,
• 40:42
  seeing like results, I feel like it's very motivating. And then you keep going, you can keep getting motivated from those, those results. So it's like a snowball effect. It's like a really, really small snowball in the beginning, but you just have to take that first step. It's going to be really hard to start that, start that snowball from to actually like start rolling. And once it starts rolling, then you're going to work even harder and work even harder and work even harder. And that's kind of like what happened with me. It was like,
• 41:07
  I was like, oh, I'm starting to see like that. Actually, what I'm doing is making an impact on people. Like I loved, I remember like even from the early days, like the first month, people would DM me and be like, wow, this is the first time I've been able to apply lashes. Like I feel beautiful, like thanks to you. And that made me feel so good. And I like, I like loved that so much. And it kept me going, not even just, you know, like,
• 41:33
  feeling like, oh, I'm getting a lot of sales. Like, oh no, it's actually, I love, I love making people feel good about themselves. Cause I knew, I knew that feeling when I was younger and I felt self-conscious about myself was like that feeling of like, wow, I'm actually, I'm actually beautiful, you know? Um, so I was really happy to kind of,
• 41:52
  give people that same feeling. And so for anyone starting, like try to understand like what your why is and like why you want to do it. And also like, are you willing to make sacrifices for it? And like maybe not see your friends for months and just...
• 42:08
  You know, like it's definitely it's definitely like a lot of sacrifice. But I think now in quarantine, it's even it's a lot easier because you don't have the temptation of like, do I go out? Do I travel? Do I do all these things? It's like you have nothing else to do. So you're staying inside. I would just do it. You know, everyone should knuckle down now. Now is the time to launch your business or your side hustle or your project. Exactly. Exactly.
• 42:31
  That's a really nice segue into the six quick questions part of the episode. Question number one is what is your why? Which I guess you've already answered, but if you want to quickly recap it.
• 42:42
  Yeah, it's just like making people's lives more efficient and making them feel beautiful and having beauty be accessible. Because a lot of the girls who have tried or are getting into the glametic, it's their first time ever applying lashes, which is insane. So we're really converting people into lashes from having not worn it ever before. And there's so many people actually who've never worn lashes before. And I was like shocked by it because I was like, wow.
• 43:09
  You guys haven't discovered the power of lashes this entire time. It is incredible. I don't think I would be able to do it, but I'm sure with your products, you know, it would be easy enough, but I'm so uncoordinated with my hands in this region of my face. Question number two is, what's been the number one marketing moment that made your business pop?
• 43:31
  I think like when I learned to become absolutely obsessed with optimizing every aspect of the business in the same way that I became obsessed with optimizing beauty. So like, obviously, I think like there's so many channels and there's so many possible ways to advertise and get your product out there. But I think the hardest... It's easy to enter. It's hard to be good at it. So becoming obsessed with like understanding...
• 44:01
  like how a channel works and why it works. And then actually executing it is the hardest part and optimizing and continuing to make it better, making the returns better on the channel. I think once somebody becomes obsessed with it, then they're going to figure it out.
• 44:19
  Yeah. I'm going to start seeing results. Yeah. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading? What are you listening to? Yeah, I would say YouTube. Like I said earlier, it's just, I feel like you can learn everything and anything from YouTube. I mean, even like leisurely watching random stuff about like, not even just about business, like you learn so much because I feel like people are great teachers. Like
• 44:46
  people who create YouTube videos, they're amazing teachers. And like, obviously they have incentives to be so. And so I feel like everyone should watch YouTube and learn like Google, everything that you want to learn because it's all on there.
• 45:01
  It is all on there. It's just so crazy what you can learn. The most random stuff. It's so awesome. Question number four is how do you win the day and keep yourself feeling happy and motivated and successful with your AM and PM rituals? So I had to have my eight hours of sleep despite working from like
• 45:23
  I work like 9am to literally like midnight, sometimes 2am. And if I don't get my eight hours of sleep, then I'm not like, I can't do all of that. But I don't really, this sounds really bad, but I don't really have a morning routine. I sort of just get like literally right when I get out of bed, I start working immediately. But I enjoy it. I really enjoy it. So it's the same like it's a lot of work. I don't actually, I don't drink any caffeine. Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow.
• 45:53
  Yeah, my employees are like, how? Like, you're a robot. Like, how do you do it? They think I'm bionic. They've seen me on caffeine and they're like, please do not drink caffeine. Please do not drink caffeine. I can't handle you. Yeah, because I already have like a baseline level of just like a lot of energy. And I feel like caffeine like messes that up. And it makes me feel like, if anything, I get a crash. I get like groggy after I drink caffeine. So I just, I don't even touch that.
• 46:22
  And I fast until like noon. I don't eat. I'll just drink water until noon and then I'll have my first meal there. But I'm working literally from like the time I wake up in the morning to the time I sleep. Like it's nonstop. Hard worker. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it?
• 46:47
  Yeah, I would say since TikTok right now is actually one of the fastest growing platforms and probably underutilized, I would gift TikTokers. Because the TikTokers that are actually willing to get gifting have a lot higher followers than somebody like, for example, like a 300k Instagram.
• 47:07
  a follower TikTok would not accept gifting on Instagram. It's kind of like this weird, it's in that space right now, that time where it's not quite there. Like you can't quite monetize TikTok, but the traffic and the conversions there. So I would definitely gift a bunch of like big TikTokers.
• 47:28
  That's so interesting. Really, really interesting insight. Love that. Yeah. Last question. Question number six is how do you deal with failure? And it can be around a personal experience or just your general mindset and approach. Yeah, I don't really feel like I like that word doesn't exist in my mind. Like failure, like I failed. I never like ever said that in my life. I don't think.
• 47:52
  I think I'm such a resilient person. So I would say like if I were to like say failure was when I lost tens of thousands of dollars in a single trade when I was day trading and that would be like, okay, that's an actual fail. But it's like you laugh at it and then you move on and then you basically work harder to prevent yourself from making that same mistake again because that's pretty painful to go through.
• 48:20
  And I feel like I've sort of put that same mindset in business is just like, okay, it's more of just like pivoting and kind of going with the flow. Because life just kind of presents you with random things you have to deal with. And if they don't work out, then it's fine. You move on to the next thing. It's just how you define it, I think, in your head.
• 48:47
  Absolutely. Wow. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today. I have absolutely loved listening to your story. It is just such a whirlwind and I'm so happy for you. That all sounds incredible. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
• 49:07
  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.
• 49:31
  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.
• 49:54
  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.
• 50:10
  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.
• 50:35
  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.
• 50:57
  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.