Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Being the Big Sister in period care; August Founder Nadya Okamoto on creating a community of 2.4M followers on TikTok (part 1)

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Being the Big Sister in period care; August Founder Nadya Okamoto on creating a community of 2.4M followers on TikTok (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

0:00
This is Nadia Okamoto for Female Startup Club. Hello, welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today we're learning from Nadia Okamoto, the founder of August, the lifestyle period brand that makes sustainable period care that actually works. Okay.
0:28
Nadia is one of those women that is impossible not to be impressed by and excited about. She's a Harvard grad, an author, speaker, NGO founder, Gen Z marketing agency founder, and now August, as well as a TikToker that's grown to 2.4 million followers in about eight months. It's crazy stuff. The gem in this episode is when she steps through her thoughts on TikTok and her approach to posting. It's pretty crazy.
0:57
And while I've got you here, I just want to say a huge, huge, huge thank you to everyone who has supported the book launch. I am forever grateful for you. Thank you so much. Let's get into this episode. This is Nadia for Female Startup Club. Hello, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have you here for all sorts of different reasons. And I always just love to start by getting you to give a little introduction and tell us what your brand is.
1:27
Yeah, I'm Nadia Okamoto. I'm based in New York City. I just graduated from college in June and I'm the CEO and co-founder of a brand called August. We are a lifestyle period brand making more sustainable period care and trying to make periods a little bit more fun. Love it. Also, by the way, love the biodegradable pads, which is kind of like blowing my mind. Did that exist before or did you invent that?
1:54
We didn't like completely invent it, but they weren't readily available when we started that. We started introducing them. But yeah, it's kind of crazy. Most pads take five to eight centuries to decompose and have a lot of plastic in them. And ours are fully biodegradable within 12 months and they work better.
2:12
Yeah, you kind of blew my mind when I saw that video on TikTok of you dissolving it. And I was like, shut the front door. Like, this seems like crazy stuff that I've never seen before. So, wow. Congrats on that. Love that. Thank you. You have all sorts of cool things on the go. You've been at Harvard. You are an author, speaker, TikToker. You've built an NGO, Gen Z marketing agency. Now August. Where do you like to start your entrepreneurial story? Yeah.
2:41
I think for me, it really starts at 16. At 16 was when I like officially like legally incorporated the first nonprofit that I worked on. And I ended up leading that for about six years. But I think 16 was when I really started, I think, prioritizing my work outside of school, you know, and really thinking of like, OK, who am I? I am someone who like loves and lives and breathes this work. So I think 16 is really the start of it.
3:07
That is some crazy stuff right there. Wow. So inspiring and just crazy to me that you've already been doing this for so long. Where does August start? What actually kind of transitioned you to be like, let's build this into a consumer product brand?
3:23
Yeah, I mean, the nonprofit is still growing and is totally separate. I think that it was a lot of different things along the journey. I think first and foremost, when you run a nonprofit for six years focused on distribution of period products, you're dealing with a lot of period products, I think in my time as executive director, we were collecting as donations and then moving around upwards of 25 million units of period products during my time as executive director. So I was handling a lot of period products. And at the same time,
3:53
I think you kind of de facto become a spokesperson for these brands as you're distributing a lot of these products. And I just kind of was learning more and more about the values of the brands that we were working with and the quality of the products. And I think while I was super thankful for the partnership, there were a lot of things that I disagreed with. And there are a lot of things that I think were easy pain points, right? Whether it be
4:16
You know, why is it impact directly embedded into all of the purchases, you know, but period products can be more sustainable. Why aren't we talking about it? They can be more gender inclusive and we can talk about periods a little bit more boldly. And so I think that along my nonprofit journey, I had a lot of questions about like the role of brands and impact. And I think that that's something that our whole...
4:38
society has been really reckoning with, right? Like in a capitalist system, what is the social responsibilities of business, especially in the consumerist culture and as Gen Z sees like the obsession with brands. And, you know, then I wrote a book called Period Power and through the research of doing my book was learning a lot about
4:58
just the commodification of period products and how they've been mass marketed and really kind of building a thesis on why I think that the stigma has been perpetuated by the markets as well. And so I think that was a huge part of pushing me to really think critically about the power and potential of running a brand differently. And then I was on Gen Z marketing side, working with a lot of these brands and just feeling more and more that there needed to be some change in the industry.
5:27
So it's really like all of that led up to beginning of 2020. I stepped away from both my positions that I was working on elsewhere to really focus on this. I read that in the beginning, you spent like a year to a year and a half just focusing on building the community. And I wanted to know like specifically or like tactically speaking, how were you building that community? Where were you finding people to join your community? What did that actually look like?
5:55
At the beginning, building our community, which we call our inner cycle, was super word of mouth, right? It was like me bringing in a few close contacts, texting our friends, saying, hey, you know, we were paying a lot of attention to the demographic information. So we wanted to make sure it was like diverse and political views and geographic representation and age and race. And so...
6:16
For a lot of it, it was like, let's really intentionally build a community that is hyper diverse, hyper inclusive and word of mouth. And then naturally, as we grew now, it's like anybody can join our community right through social. And we slowly let people into that digital home. It's like it's off of social media on an app called Geneva, which is kind of like Slack for Gen Z. And that's really where we're building a lot of it. So I think that it was kind of progressively.
6:42
How do we grow a community while maintaining that like special sense of intimacy? Could you go a little bit deeper, like in those kind of early months, the kinds of things that you were doing relating to the brand? Like, were you actually developing the brand with the community, asking them kind of like to play a part in it? Or was it more of these like just conversations in general?
7:03
It was kind of a mix of everything. Like, honestly, so we are, most of our team members we hired from directly from the community. Like we were on phone calls with, and we were like, wait, you're amazing. Or, okay, this person keeps reaching out with interest and being more involved. So I'd say that like about half of our team are former community members and current community members, right? But I think that a lot of it was like, we really followed the lead of our community. There was never like a, oh, this is exactly how we're gonna develop the brand and product with the community.
7:33
well, let's just see how they want to be involved and like learn from them. And so a lot of it was, you know, we would do these surveys, these paid surveys, just trying to figure out like, what are the pain points? We would do like longer deep dive calls. And then, you know, we would maybe bring on a few other people to like try the product before we made any final decisions. On the brand side, it was like, we presented the three different name ideas and you know, the different logo concepts before choosing. We would like present to them and kind of hear their feedback.
8:02
And so I think a lot of it was listening and then coming up with different proposals and then like kind of feeding it back and saying like which ones work, which ones don't work. Like before we even decided on like how the products were going to be branded, we sent the like unbranded sample products to some of our like 20 of our community members. And we were like, just try the tampons and like let us know if they're better, you know. And so I think that a lot of it was, you know, kind of also following the lead of the community on how they wanted to be involved.
8:32
you know, kind of force community to be involved and it's not the most authentic thing. And for us, we were like, we just, if we, we don't want to make anyone uncomfortable and we want to just really follow the lead. And there are very clear examples of people who are on one call with us and then get so excited. And then we're talking to them every week, you know? So I think it really depends on the individual as well. Totally. And how big in those early days was the community when you were sending out packages and getting people involved in pitching and all that kind of
9:02
For a little bit, it was like 50 and then it was like 100, you know. And so I think that now it's like over 2,000. Oh, my God. Wow. It's definitely like progressively grown. But in the beginning days, like we were dealing with a community of maybe like 20 to 40 people. And then it became like 100. And then, yeah, over the last six months, it's grown to like 2,500. Yeah.
9:24
And I love to ask that because it's like, obviously, people can look at things now and be like, oh, yeah, of course, you have thousands of members. It makes so much sense. But like everyone starts somewhere. A community can just be five people getting together, like you said, with a WhatsApp group and just chatting and sharing and seeing how it evolves. It doesn't need to be like overnight 2,000 people, you know?
9:44
Yeah, and it can't grow that quickly because I think that the beauty of the community now is I really cherish the days that we spent really focused on just growing the community intentionally because now I log on to the community home and people are having these...
10:00
really deep conversations. And I think it still has that intimate feeling and that's something that I never want to lose. And I don't think you really get that if you grow from zero to 2000 overnight because people don't really get to know each other. I think also growing slowly, thoughtfully allowed us to really give the time to think about how do you do community moderation? How do you give space for organic community discussion, but also like maintain the psychological safety of people who are joining the community and,
10:27
especially when we're talking about things that, you know, do get really intense around like mental health and things like that. So I think that for us, like it was really important that we spent those early days focusing on like, what is our community? What's the purpose of the community? How do we interact with the community? How do we navigate building a community and how do we maintain the intimacy of it too? Yeah.
10:46
Absolutely. It's so true. I just wanted to also say a quick shout out to Geneva because they are so great. I love that platform. It's so fun to use so much better getting like off Facebook groups and like off Slack and into this new space that's very like, I don't know, visually pleasing. Yeah, for sure. For sure.
11:06
Before we get into like the marketing side of everything that you're doing and kind of like now building your community through, I want to talk about the money piece to launch the brand. It's something that we always love to ask on the show. What kind of capital did you need to invest kind of pre-fundraised to get the brand off the ground? And what was your approach or your thoughts towards funding in the beginning?
11:28
Well, this is my first time. This is not my first time raising capital, but it's my first time raising capital for a company. You know, I think that like I raised on my nonprofit probably raised like six million dollars over six years to really support the organization. But this was my first time like working on a for profit venture social enterprise that was and also raising capital. And I think also being on the product side.
11:52
people don't realize like how much money you need, right? Like we needed to raise a lot of money simply because of the product brand that was making a new sort of product. We had to put in a minimum quantity order, which was like a few million tampons and pads, right? Which means that like upfront initially to have product or do that development in general, you have to put cash up front. I think similarly, like while me and my co-founder weren't paid for a while, everybody else who was involved was paid, you know? And I think that was really important to us from the
12:22
For us, I think that before Fundraise, it was just me and my co-founder honestly developing the brand on our own. I think we spent maybe $5,000 on a graphic designer to really focus on developing the brand with us and trying out different names and things like that. And so I think that at the beginning, we were self-funding that little bit. And just we took over a year to Fundraise. And over the course of a year and having so many conversations, we ended up closing our pre-seed round at nearly $2 million. Yeah.
12:51
So we raised $2,000, and that was really meant to last us through the first eight to 10 months of business and also to cover the first few purchase orders, which honestly is already a lot of the cash. And so for us, it was really focusing on figuring out, making sure that we had a really stellar product, developing a supply chain that we felt really good about.
13:13
And I think, you know, for those of you who know August know that we're carbon neutral. So we offset all of our carbon footprint. And like, that's a really big part of it. And making sure that we have a supply chain that we can be super transparent about and proud of, which also took capital, right? Taking capital to do the third party investigation or inspections and making sure that we...
13:31
have the capabilities to build out a really thoughtful website and a really thoughtful customer experience. And yeah, I think a lot of people, direct-to-consumer brands are raising a lot of money for paid media, and that's not something we really did. We spend very little on paid media, and instead we've leaned a lot more into TikTok and organic channels like TikTok and Instagram. But yeah, I think that for a fundraising perspective, we ended up raising from a few really values-aligned venture capital funds. Hannah Gray led our round, which is like a
14:00
you know, women run a venture capital fund in the consumer space, had some follow on from some other really cool funds, but raised a lot of it from angel investors. That's so cool. When you were doing the fundraise, were there kind of instances, because you're saying, you know, you wanted to raise specifically through Value Aligns, you know, investors, were there times where it just didn't match up and you had to go in a different direction? Yeah. Yeah.
14:30
So many times, I mean, we turned out actually a lot of money along the way and for a number of reasons, right? Sometimes there were funds that we talked to who just weren't founder friendly, meaning that they wanted terms that were just not fair as, you know, early founders at all. Sometimes it was, they were kind of wanting to give us money on the contingency that we don't show period blood or, you know, we immediately come out with other period products, right? Like, I think that there was a lot of pressure on like how we were going to market the brand, right?
14:59
I also think that people think of direct-to-consumer brands in really different ways. There were some people who thought, no, you have to spend like 5x what you're planning to on paid media the way you win in direct-to-consumer's pay-to-play, right? Which is very typical on the direct-to-consumer side, right? I think that we've seen examples like Casper, I think is especially highlighted as an example of these brands that raise a lot of money to spend to convert people to ordering, right?
15:23
And I think for us, we knew that if we were going to build a brand that really had brand loyalty and authenticity and long-term potential, we needed to authentically build recognition and that trust, which meant not buying followers, buying attention. So that meant, from a business perspective, having as low of a cost of acquisition as possible because we were focusing on organic growth and community.
15:46
And that's something that not a lot of people believe that we could do. Right. And, you know, to be honest, like I definitely felt like we could do it, but I have been really proud of how well it's gone. Like, you know, I started on TikTok about six to seven months ago and I'm about to 2.5 million followers. And like, that is not something I expected, you know? So I think that there was a lot of pressure and kind of things that we had to work through. And it took a lot of negotiation and a lot of turning the other way if capital didn't make sense.
16:15
Um, and yeah, I think in the end it really worked out because we were able to get a cap table of majority female investors, which is really hard to do in a space where the majority is definitely not women, but also a cap table of people who really understood and I think gave us the freedom to create this brand in the way that felt authentic to us.
16:35
Absolutely. And I also read that you were raising through the pandemic, which also added like another layer of interesting challenges to tackle. You mentioned paid marketing and TikTok. So let's kind of like transition this into the marketing piece of this episode. I'd love to know kind of like if you're just to drill down your kind of like launch plan and what your approach to marketing was to getting that first thousand customers and
17:03
just a general kind of overview on like TikTok in the early days for you. Like how often were you posting? What was the strategy? Is there a strategy? That kind of thing.
17:12
So like the strategy from the beginning was like, let's just test as much as we can. Right. I think that like I honestly hadn't spent time creating content myself. And so I think from the very beginning, it was like, I need to just play around on this platform. And, you know, I'm like three years late to the TikTok game. So I just need to like play around with it. But crushing it.
17:33
But, like, I felt really late to it. So I was like, I need to play around and figure out what works. I need to, like, understand even how to edit the videos. So from the beginning, there was less of a strategy. It was, like, more of a mentality of, like, I have a lot of catching up to do and just, like, learning the platform, you know. And I think it's kind of, like...
17:50
the whole 10,000 hours situation of like, you know, perfecting something. At first, it was just like, we haven't spent any time on TikTok. Let's just like spend as much time on it as possible because there's a lot of potential here. And, you know, I think that kind of quit faster than we thought. We're getting like a few viral videos and then we realized we could kind of replicate that virality, like following. And a lot of it is like, I think our marketing strategy is that like we don't plan ahead like six months or a month of content calendars. We're like,
18:18
kind of day of what are people talking about? What are the trends today? And I think that's where we have an advantage as like a younger team too, is like we really understand that from a high level marketing strategy, we can't be like, I think the old ways of doing things is like building out a six to 12 to 18 month content calendar and then building backwards from it. And I think while there are those like really fixed moments that you should build around when you're thinking of how you actually build content and the trends and like the aesthetic even, what's,
18:45
It's a lot more in the moment, you know, and I think that that was something that was really important. I think it was also something that we were well positioned to do because we're so clear on our values, on our differentiators, on why our products are better, how we talk about it. And we spent probably months like working on long Google Docs that were just like reasons we like August more.
19:05
reasons, you know, our sustainability is better. And like going over these Google Docs that essentially became kind of like messaging guides. But in the moment, it was just like kind of a messaging exercise. It was like, let's just kind of keep reiterating, like, how do we alter the sentence? How do we make the sentence shorter? How do we make it more clear and concise? So a lot of it, like our strategy was just like, let's play as much as possible and be hyper aware of feedback. And I think that that's something like now I do consulting on the side.
19:33
you know, on my weekends and stuff around social strategy. And I think that the biggest mistake people make is like they put content out based off of what they think will do well. It doesn't do well, but they keep doing more of it. And I think that's the biggest mistake because it's like if something is not performing, it means that like it is not engaging. So you should probably change your strategy rather than like hating on the algorithm waiting for people to engage. Right. It's kind of like you need to back up a little bit. And that's, I think, something that like we're also really aware of.
20:01
That's so interesting. Yeah. Like don't try posting the same variation of a video 50 times. If it doesn't work, do something completely different the next time. When you said you spend a lot of time on the platform, like how much time on the platform are we talking? Like how many videos were you posting? Maybe more like when you were starting to kind of like pick up and go viral. Like 50 plus. What? 50 videos a day?
20:25
Yeah. Holy crap. Are you kidding me? Now it's more like 20 a day, I would say. So like I literally was making, you know, six as I was waking up and like I could literally like make it right now. And it just becomes like, okay, I'm drinking like my brownish smoothie on this podcast, talking about making TikToks. And you know, it's like I, it becomes kind of natural and like that's
20:51
literally a TikTok. And so I have like four ready to go as of like the last hour. And I posted maybe like, you know, I didn't post too many yesterday, maybe like 16 yesterday, but I think you kind of like get the hang of it, you know? Got it. So you're really integrating it into like every moment within your life versus like planning some thing kind of thing. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah.
21:13
Is there anything that you can share, like what the impact of that has been on the business? Like, do you see direct sales from a viral video? I mean, I'm sure you do, but like versus your account versus your brand account?
21:26
I mean, I think that the biggest difference and like is and people ask me a lot, like, what's the strategy behind how I balance my account versus August account? And the thing is, like, it's more just that like as a business account, August cannot use trending audios. So like I just have an advantage as a personal account to be able to go viral.
21:46
Got it. That's so interesting. So because it's a business account. I probably spend, yeah, I probably spend one to two hours on TikTok a day. Like I don't spend a lot of time on it. I just like make content really quickly. Now you've like mastered the art of the content. I love that.
22:01
Is TikTok your kind of most important focus now for 2022 and what you just tell everyone to focus on? Or is there something else that you like to tell people? No, I think if anything, like we spent the last six months really figuring out TikTok and what resonates. And now it's kind of using that as a vehicle to really figure out other channels. Like I'm really obsessed with SEO and SEM right now because it's something I don't understand and I'm really curious about. So I've been really like fascinated by that.
22:27
I'm really fascinated by YouTube and really figuring out longer form content. So I think that if anything, like I've looked at it more like let's like these are all platforms to kind of game. Right. And like in thinking about it that way, it's like now I'm really comfortable. And people would say maybe I'm too comfortable making TikToks, like showing my period blood and stuff like now I've gotten comfortable with that. And I feel really confident about where we are and how we're growing. And I kind of have an understanding of like what works for our community.
22:57
And so now it's kind of like, how do we take that learning and think about other platforms? Because I think like, it's also just so we don't get bored. You know, I think that like, it's like, I don't want to be, I don't want to spend all my days on TikTok. Like, that's just not, it's not going to make any of us happy. So I think a lot of it is just like really maintaining the momentum that we have on TikTok while also being excited about exploring other platforms. Yeah, absolutely. What is the challenging part or what are the challenging sides of building this business right now?
23:27
Oof.
23:30
So many. I think that, I mean, I think that right now, like fundraising is, is what, right? Like we are, we actually just signed a term sheet. I can't share any details about it, but we just signed a term sheet for our seed round. Congrats. And like, that's really exciting. But I think that like, it is really nerve wracking to see like how quickly we grow. And like, again, I think as especially as like a 24 year old founder, like I'm really aware of my blind spots and like, I'm really aware of the things that I'm not good at. And I think that for me, one of the challenging things
24:00
there's less room to fuck up, right? Like there's more pressure and there's more at stake. And that can be a lot to take on. And I have experienced burnout before. And I think that fundraising is really exciting, but it's also really daunting, right? It's like, there's more pressure when suddenly you're raising six, 10 million than when you were raising two and pre-launch, right? So I think that like, for me, a big challenge and like our team is like,
24:23
We're a small team of six people. And I think sometimes we have these moments where we look at each other and we're like, what is happening? Like things like this is a real thing in the world. And it's really exciting, but it's also can be really overwhelming. And it's something that I think that that's where our company culture is so important and like really being in it together because it can feel really scary. How do you like manage the overwhelm?
24:46
I think for me, like, sleep is everything. Like, I have to sleep at least eight hours a night. Also really being better about taking time where I'm not thinking about the company, where I can also kind of, like, remove myself from it. Like, I'm going on a trip with my sisters this weekend. I was hanging out with them last weekend. And, like, to me, that was a space where I could just, like...
25:04
kind of just be with them and like get back grounded and like who I am. And I think that that's really important because at the end of the day, as a CEO, I have like imposter syndrome. So I have like no idea what I'm doing.
25:17
And I feel like I don't really know who put me in charge. But then, like, hanging out with my sisters and really spending time with the people I love reminds me that, like, okay, I'm doing this because, like, I'm a big sister in every part of my being. And this is kind of, like, my in-service and, like, what I feel so fulfilled doing for all my other little siblings out there who have periods. And I think that having that space to...
25:39
get regrounded in why I do what I do and also feel really grounded in like my values and my sisters keep me very grounded. Like we never talk about work. We're like very in like who we are, what we've gone through and like our value system. And I think that that's honestly just really important because then I'm able to
25:55
come back to my work with a new found sense of like trust in my instinct. And at the end of the day, like, that's what you need as in leadership is just like, you kind of just need to trust your gut. Like you, especially in a fast paced startup environment, it's like, you have to be making big decisions. It can be really scary. But if you have trust in who you are and who your values are, like having that trust in your instinct can feel a lot more natural.
26:18
Absolutely. I love the big sister vibe. That's so cool. So sweet. What is the best and worst advice you've received about building a business? I think the worst advice I ever received was like to raise as much money as possible. Um, and you hear that a lot from people. It's like, oh, there's so much capital, just raise as much as you can. And it's like, first of all, like, that's not good as a founder. You dilute yourself too much and, um, it's not the most thoughtful way to grow. Um,
26:45
And I think the best advice is just to like really take time to focus on taking care of myself. You know, I have burned out. I've like gone through so much mental health stuff from like losing myself in my work. And I think that, you know, it's cheesy, but it really is like you have to take care of yourself so that you can really sustain your energy. And I think that's really important. Very true. Very true.
27:10
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.
27:35
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.
27:57
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.
28:14
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.
28:38
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.
29:01
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.