Hi! I’m Doone, your hype girl in business. This is your weekly source of inspiration & information on all things in the e-commerce and CPG space, read by like-minded Entrepreneurs - that happen to be women - like you. If you find value in this content please like & share above, or forward it to someone in your network. I love it when you do that!

If someone forwarded you this email you can subscribe here:

Bulletin 📌

Fashion Brand FOR SALE!

💰 Cost: >$100,000AUD 💌 Social Media & Mailing List: 210K

Fully operational w/ Shopify store, stock, relationships, all assets & customer databases. Combined social media of 190K & email list of 30K, and 8-year proven record with hundreds of 5* reviews. Would suit anyone worldwide. Does this sound like your vibe? Just hit reply to this mail for an intro.

New Wave Program ‘22 🌊

🎓Biz Mentoring: May 16 - June 10 (1x 45min online sessions)

UNSW Sydney has designed this program to assist UNSW women in the early stages of the entrepreneurial lifecycle through business mentoring. Have you been looking for a chance to give back to the entrepreneurial space?

Our May Cheerleader: Zyro 🎉

I’m super happy to announce our sponsor for the month as Zyro. It’s a nifty little tool that makes it easy for anyone to build a super ✨cute✨ website or online store, whilst giving a lot of control over your online presence. The ideal combo for solopreneurs and small businesses heading into the eComm jungle.

Industry News You Should Prob Read 🗞

Record number of women appointed to Fortune 500 boards. Women spend a crazy 200hrs a year on non-promotable tasks at work (eesh). We need more time to experiment and fail at work. It’s PNC’s 12th annual Women in Business week. Chingona Ventures lands $52M to fund overlooked founders. Female founders blazing the crypto trail.

🔑 Insights From This Week’s Episodes on the Female Startup Club Podcast

Directly from the women building the world’s most exciting businesses in the e-commerce and CPG space.

1. $1 to $50M 📈

EP331: Learning from Galyn Bernard, founder of all-inclusive non-gendered kids clothing brand Primary, about how she scaled her biz from $1-$50M.

*spoiler alert* it’s not by going for that $50M revenue from the get-go

There’s no beating around the bush. As a founder, you’re going to have some big tasks to get through. Especially to get to such 🔥 levels of revenue one day.

FOUNDER TIP: when you have a shortage of mental energy in the short term, keep a document of all the things you’re stressed about for later (out of your brain, onto that piece of paper, it’ll be there when you’re ready)

We’ve all been there. It’s a real exercise to train your brain to have a clear focus, focus on tomorrow, and follow the breadcrumbs. Especially when you’re doing something for the first time. Remind yourself - you just need to improve 1% daily. Small, smart steps to a big, bright future.

P.s. Give it a go today - you’ll be following in the tiny footsteps of Kim K herself ✨

2. Experimenting with organic marketing 🧪

EP333: A chat with Lisa Guerrera, the founder behind the brand you’ve most definitely seen on IG & TikTok - Experiment Beauty.

What do you do when you have an $8500 budget to launch a beauty brand?

You get creative pretty. damn. quickly. Lisa shares her 3-step organic marketing approach that got her hero product out into the world (without spending a dime).

1. The Product: you have to clock this one early on, but creating a product that is memorable, meme-able, and sharable will simply sell itself

2. TikTok: there’s just no way you’re going to get around this one if you’re a brand launching in 2020 - get behind the screen yourself and work with other creators to push your product out there (bonus points for going viral)

3. Brand Collabs: creating a product that pairs well with other products is a dream for organizing cool collabs, it’s a win-win!

Have a really unique perspective. And own it. Beauty is one of the most crowded spaces. Stick with your vibe, your absurdity, the fun, and the people will follow.

FSC Mini-Series from the Founder ❤️

In my ongoing mini-series within the FSC podcast, you’ll hear directly from me, your Host & Hype Girl about all the goings-on with the Female Startup Club. This week, I’ll be sharing 7 of the (many) mistakes I’ve made that cost me thousands in business. If you relate to any of these, I feel you girl.

1. Building a business you don’t actually enjoy 😻

Time is passing us by. Yesterday the pandemic just started and now we’re half way through 2022. We should be enjoying life not hating it. We spend so much of our life working that it may as well be on something that lights a fire in our belly. Don’t waste energy (and money) on stuff that doesn’t bring you daily joy.

2. Doing stuff driven by money over passion 💰

This is a tough one to swallow. You can get caught up in building this exciting business and the glamour of it rather than something you’re truly passionate about to your core. Check in with yourself, and make sure you have that burning passion and connection. I spent 30k and 12 months building a brand that ultimately was’t in line with my true passion and interests (yes, the non-alc!).

3. Creating solutions for problems no one has 🤷‍♀️

Most startups fail, that’s a hard fact. Just because we have this little lightbulb go off in our heads and think it’s genius, doesn’t mean people will want to actually pay money for your solution.

4. Hiring too early ⏱️

This one sucks. And this is where you lose a lot of money, especially when it comes to hiring agencies. And where you can harbour quite bitter emotions. You need to have the right foundations in business ready to go. I’ve spent thousands on retainers that yield no ROI.

5. Making the same mistake twice, three times, four times… 😕

I’ve hired agencies too early, staff too early, contractors too early, signed up for software I don’t need yet… All of it! Multiple times. Know where your entrepreneurial weaknesses lie, and learn to nip problems in the bud next time.

6. Not having a clear focus 🔎

Pushing yourself in multiple directions is again a total time and money waster. With a million ideas it’s easy to go off on some random tangent, when you should be focusing on what’s working and doubling down on that.

7. Not understanding my numbers 🔢

My god. Knowing your numbers inside and out is critical in building a business. You need to know where your profits lie, to know how much you can be spending to acquire a customer and where you can put a dollar in and get a dollar back. Back when I had my jewellery brand, I had no clue of my true COGS or where my profit margins were.

For the full breakdown of these points and how they specifically impacted me check out the episode.

What’s on this week? 👀

Let’s see what we have in store for you this week…

MON: Nitisha Mehta from Boxed - ️creating impact as an employee ✨

WEDS: Lilly Sparks from afterglow - ️sexual learning and erotic wellness 🍑

FRI: Doone's back - with a solo episode ❤️‍🔥

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔 

📚 Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz: how Starbucks built a company one cup at a time - illustrating the principles that have shaped the Starbucks phenomenon.

🎧 After Hours, hosted by Youngme Moon, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Mihir Desai: a catch-up after work and insightful look at current events.

Job Alert Time! 💼

Check out these cool women-owned DTC job listings on our radar:

REMOTE 🌎

• Bare Necessities, online bras, swimwear, and lingerie is on the hunt for a business development associate for their team. Apply here.

• Primary, the inclusive kids clothing brand, is on the hunt for an experienced UX/Product Designer. If you fit the description, apply here.

NYC 🗽

• New body brand Billie (think razors🪒), is looking for a Chief Growth Officer to work directly with senior leadership. More information here.

If there’s something here that resonates with you, screenshot & share it on IG stories so we know! ✨