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 screenshot & share on IG stories, 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:

Your 5-step plan to build a biz 📌

✨ Cute New Brand Alert ✨ ABI AMÉ has officially launched their Hero product SUMMER SKIN just in time to catch those rays. We asked founder Yasmin the tips to success when you're just getting started..

Here's the 5-step plan I used to build my brand + validate my first product idea 👉

1. Start by validating your business idea (the RIGHT way) – "I read a book called the Mom Test which helped me build a blueprint to validate my business idea and develop a list of questions to ask my target customer. KEY TIP: ask your target customer questions about their previous behaviour to ascertain whether they’re likely to need/use your product (because people are more optimistic about what they’ll do in the future and this may lead to a false positive) e.g. instead of asking questions that begin with “would you…?”, “do you think…?”, ask: “why?”, “how do you…?”..."

2. Talk to AS MANY people as possible (don’t build your brand in isolation) – "I then took this blueprint/list of questions and interviewed as many women as possible. My main objective was to understand the pain points in their body care routines. KEY TIP: ideally, you want to talk to people you don’t know, your family/friends will always give more positive/optimistic answers (as they want to help). I found ‘strangers’ to talk to through Facebook groups and Instagram. Adding a bribe such as a Sephora gift card always helps!"

3. Be prepared to PIVOT – "My original idea didn’t pass this test, it became clear through these conversations that women wouldn’t use the original product I had in mind so I pivoted and decided to solve a pain point that I heard about over and over again. KEY TIP: try to uncover your target customers main pain points in your space and see if you can solve them."

4. Get into the DETAILS – "Once I had firmed up the new idea for my first product, I needed to obtain more specific details from my target customer to help me confirm things like market position and pricing, so I ran a survey of just over 1,000 women. Again, I found these women on Facebook and Instagram. KEY TIP: find Facebook groups where your target customer is likely to be e.g. for me, this was skincare groups, private groups specifically for women."

5. Build community and involve them in EVERYTHING you do – "From here I built a small community, pooling from the women who I had interviewed and taken my survey. We use Geneva (the private messaging app) so I call my community the Geneva girls and they are involved in everything I do. From product ideas to branding and everything in between. KEY TIP: really invest in this process and build a personal relationship individually with everyone in your community. It might not be scalable but they say, do things that doing things that don't scale at the start, for a reason."

Meet Yasmin and learn more about her story on TikTok.

Industry News You Should Prob Read 🗞

Half of new US entrepreneurs are women. Woop. Child care startup Winnie launches job marketplace to help carers find better-paying positions. IG tests new feature to quickly share notes. Australia has a gender pay gap problem. Vinted launches logistics arm VintedGo. Europeans are disengaged at work, how can we tackle it? Hailey Bieber is officially being sued over RHODE trademarking. How Michelle Romanow is equalizing access to funding.

🔑 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, all about sweets & snacks this week.

1. How to be everywhere 🌎

EP357: SmartSweets founder Tara Bosch talks us through her transition from kitchen to a wildly successful $360M acquisition.

Tara based her marketing strategy for SmartSweets on a smart tip from the one and only Tim Ferriss (who we're a big fan of at FSC). It was also mentioned by Ali Bonar on the show back in March last year, and I'm excited to get the opportunity to shout about it again. Because... It's a real goody.

It all comes down to one question: "what niche can I really focus on, so all of a sudden this product feels like it's everywhere?"

Choose your niche. Dive into the space. Create radical value in their lives.

Tara dedicated a solid 10 hours to her phone a day. Finding key influencers that had a voice in their community, DMing them, building relationships with them, and gifting them. Around 90% of those people became radical fans and posted about it organically. Here comes the snowball. ☃️

2. Hot Girls Have IBS 💖

EP359: Learning from Katie Wilson, the (serendipitous) co-founder of the gut-friendly snack brand you've seen on billboards, BelliWelli.

Sound familiar? It just might be, because Katie is a marketing genius. In creating her IBS-friendly snack brand, there is one hurdle she knew she was going to have to conquer from day one. Normalizing the conversation about gut issues. It's a topic that remains kind of... something. But for no good reason whatsoever.

How's that for normalizing gut issues? As you can imagine, people went crazy about it. Stopping on the freeway. Queues of selfie seekers. And a merch collection that hasn't been able to stay in stock.

When you have something to say, say it. LOUD.

FSC Mini-Series from the Founder ❤️

In my 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 want to dive into a topic that I know is going to be relevant for every single one of you listening in, the topic of female health. Women have been underserved by the healthcare industry for a really long time. But now finally, with more women in STEM, and more female entrepreneurial disrupters, the future of femtech is looking bright(er). With one huge step back on women's rights this week, our hearts are heavy and there's even more reason to shout loudly about these incredible disrupters making their mark on the space.

OOVA - Amy Divaranuya 🤰

After facing her own struggles with conceiving her son, Amy decided to build a solution to help women having difficulty getting pregnant. Today, she and her team have built the first at-home fertility test, OOVA.

Amy's Advice: "women are smart, and they will figure out exactly what they need as consumers." Come at your customers as an informational resource, and let your them make decisions for themselves. They’ll be all the more loyal for it.

August - Nadya Okamoto 🩸

Nadya, or "the period girl", is the founder behind the lifestyle period brand August. Creating inclusive and (actually) effective period products, with an incredible community at the backbone meaning Nadya now has a 3.1M strong TikTok following.

Nadya's Advice: "if you stand for something, if you have something to say, if you’re a female entrepreneur… TikTok is the place you need to be." Spend as much time as possible on there getting to know your tribe, there’s a lot of potential there.

Lia - Bethany Edwards 💙

Bethany is the woman bringing the first major update to the pregnancy test in 30 years, by creating the world's first flushable, earth-friendly test.

Bethany's Advice: "a truly great product will provide a solution to a problem." It’s potent to be able to shake things up. Make a statement. Offer something different.

Dame - Alexandra Fine 🌺

The Dame team has designed a line of tools to enhance sexual wellness for vulva-havers everywhere, not only revolutionizing toys for sex, but changing the way we experience, understand, and explore sexuality.

Alex's Advice: "if you have a great product, say something powerful." Get everyone interested in wanting to have a conversation back with you.

Milky Mama - Krystal Duhaney 🍼

After having her second child and returning to work, Krystal struggled with her milk supply and realized that there were very few resources for breastfeeding mothers in the same predicament. Queue Milky Mama.

Krystal's Advice: "be kind." Be genuine. Come from a place of trying to help people, instead of trying to sell to them all the time. Creating that warm and fuzzy feeling. That’s what works.

Listen to the full episode to hear about more inspiring women doing their bit for the female health space. These are all stories that have stuck with me in the last year, an incredible little bank of inspo, and if I can pass that feeling onto even just one of you today that’s a mission very much accomplished.

Biz Wins & Failz 🎢

Straight from Hype Club.

We’ve got an ongoing Biz Wins & Fails chat going in HC. This is where we can learn what we can hopefully avoid in our own journeys, and what keeps us feeling like we are not alone in celebrating those highs.

This week, Liza Belmonte from Kjinsen had some exciting news to share:

Yay to Liza! That's definitely a huge win in my books 💕

*The doors to Hype Club are open, now’s the time to join our community of uplifting entrepreneurs building the future CPG companies!

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔

📚 Be 2.0 by Jim Collins & Bill Lazier: what's the roadmap to create a company that not only survives its infancy but thrives, changing the world for decades?

🎧 How I Built This hosted by Guy Raz: by far the most recommended podcast on the show talks to innovators, entrepreneurs & idealists.

*The doors to Hype Club are open, now’s the time to join our community of uplifting entrepreneurs building the future CPG companies!

Job Alert Time! 💼

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

REMOTE 🌎

• DIEM, the community-curated search engine closing the gender info gap, is looking for a Product Manager to be part of the founding team. Interested?

NYC 🇺🇸

• Fast-growing venture-backed animal wellness brand Fable is looking for a CRM and Email Marketing Manager to join their team. More here.

• On the doggie trend, direct-to-dog food brand BARK is on the hunt for a Director of Product Development and Strategy. More info here.

Our June Cheerleader: Zapier 🧡

Want to save some time? With over 4000 app integrations, Zapier is a nifty little workflow automation tool that helps you focus on the things that matter most. Like building your biz. They want you to try for free using the link below!

If you resonated with something in this week's newsletter please screenshot and share on IG stories tagging us @femalestartupclub @dooneroisin :)