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 📌

What's going on in the Hype Club this week? 📆

• Tuesday: Kalish Nesbitt (IFundWomen) will be sharing everything we need to know about crowdfunding in this Crowdfunding 101 workshop 💸

• Wednesday: Tash Todd Williams (wordofmouth.digital) will be discussing diversifying channel mixes and why it's important not to rely on one channel 👀

Industry News You Should Prob Read 🗞

Rihanna files a trademark for Fenty Hair. Lisa Health launches AI-powered app & closes $2.5M seed. UK's leading sexual health platform (also) raises $2.5M seed. Everything behind the Little Miss trend you're seeing everywhere. Parfait using AI to upend the $13B wig industry. IG now lets you turn reels into ads. Truist announces $120M commitment to strengthening small businesses. Shopify and YouTube launch YouTube shopping. Zalando, About You and Net-a-Porter launch sustainability platform. Why acquiring new companies makes good business sense. HOT TIP: Zapier is a super handy time saver for small biz owners by automating all your workflows in one space, check it out here.

🔑 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. Building a 150K+ strong tribe 🤗

EP377: Michelle Cordeiro Grant, the founder of LIVELY, talks us through her unique launch and building a true sense of community.

Building your tribe is two-fold. Building a community digitally, and also bringing women in physically.

When it comes to building digitally 🤳 look at brands that are similar in mind to yours and scan their followers. Keep a special eye out for people that don't have a lot of followers but have great content. These are your people. Simply reach out to them.

When it comes to building physically 👋 host focus groups (for LIVELY it was 12 women at a time) to help choose images, styles, and taglines. This creates invaluable data. Physical focus groups help you understand exactly where to focus. It does take time. But when you know all your focus women are on board, you have the confidence that this content is going to pop.

With this two-fold method, you’re building a brand with your customers. Not simply selling to them. You build the relationship, then the machine.

Psst… On the subject of building your tribe, I’ve found Norby to be the best when it comes to both growing and activating audiences - a total dream of a platform for small biz owners, influencers and entrepreneurs 💭

2. Did you know 45% of searches begin on Amazon 🔍

EP379: Learning from Margaret Wishingrad, the co-founder of Three Wishes Cereal, the healthy cereal of your childhood.

Did you know that 45% of consumers go directly to Amazon to start their product searches? This blew my mind. For Margaret, this meant that Amazon would become the channel to focus on.

I asked the founder of Three Wishes to dig a little deeper into how it might practically look to build your brand out on Amazon, and she gave us some handy tips for getting yourself established in the busy market space.

• Amazon PPC Campaigns: sponsored pay-per-click advertising created and managed by the brand owner is absolutely vital nowadays

• Invest in ads on any other Amazon properties that lead back to Amazon

• Re-directing Google: catch your google searches and directing the consumer to your Amazon platform to simplify the purchasing process

We actually hosted a great workshop in the Hype Club a couple of weeks back where Amazon expert Carina McLeod shared her 7 key steps to successfully launching on Amazon. It was absolute gold. Check out the low-down here.

3. The email that generated $150,000 💌

EP381: We’re learning from the co-founder (Jessica Warch) of the modern fine jewelry brand that Meghan Markle loves - Kimaï.

If you thought cold emailing was outdated, it might be time to change your mind. Jessica talks us through a mind-blowing story that reminded me just how important it is to try your luck. No matter how big the goal.

The Kimai founders were on the hunt for the perfect match for their brand, and landed on Meghan Markle. She was the dream. But how do you reach royalty?

Their strategy was all around looking at her close friends that might be more accessible that she is. With the help of LinkedIn, Facebook and guessing emails, the girls gave themselves the chance at a stage on which to tell their story. Why they’re doing what they’re doing. And Meghan loved it. 💗

They ended up selling to Meghan through cold emailing a friend, and the rest is history. In the 2-3 weeks after she wore the earrings they made $150,000 without any marketing.

They then took advantage of that situation to go and fundraise with the advice: take advantage of the situation because you never know what happens afterwards. A $1.2M seed funding round later, this is clearly a fairytale ending. ✨

What’s on this week? 👀

Let’s see what we have in store for you this week, as we'll be replaying some of our favorite episodes from the last few years...

MON fave hits: Fiona Chan from Youthforia - good for your skin make-up you can sleep in ☁️

WEDS fave hits: Melanie Travis from Andie Swim - luxury one-piece swimsuits and bikini’s 👙 

FRI fave hits: Stephanie Lee from SELFMADE - bringing mental health into your daily routine ✨

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔

📚 Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard: the founder of Patagonia shares the persistence and courage that has gone into building one of our most respected environmentally conscious companies.

🎧 They Got Acquired hosted by Alexis Grant: stories of life-changing business acquisitions and founders who don’t follow the Silicon Valley narrative.

For your complete podcast biz fix check out this list of popular shows hosted by women ✨

Job Alert Time! 💼

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

LDN 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

• Vintage shopping platform FINDS is hiring a Social Media Executive and Community Development Intern. Drop into their DMs.

NYC 🗽

• Problem-solving pet brand Fable Pets is looking to hire a Creative Director and CRM & Email Marketing Manager. Something for you?

• Rent The Runway, transforming the way we get dressed, is on the hunt for an Office Manager in the Big Apple. More info here.

• Better-for-you candy brand BEHAVE is looking for a dynamic CPG & DTC Marketer to help make their ecomm business great. More info here.

& whilst I have you here...

Since hearing about it on Tim Ferriss' podcast last year, I've been ultra-consistent in fitting an Athletic Greens AG1 smoothie into my day, every day (which, if you know me, is quite the achievement). They make it so easy to fit all your nutritional needs into your day, and I'm pretty proud to now be able to pass along the pointer through our platform - and hopefully improve someone's life the way Tim did mine. 💚

If you resonate with something in this week’s newsletter we’d love to know! Share it with us on Instagram tagging @femalestartupclub & @dooneroisin ✨