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:

Industry News You Should Prob Read 🗞

Sequoia wants to invest $1 million in your idea, then teach you how to really sell it. Check out the latest grants on our radar through this TikTok. Using FinTok to reach the next generation of female investors. STORY Pitch Decks just launched their UPLIFT Pro-bono program, and you should apply. How thirteen lune is forging its own growth path. Coalition wants to make more women operators and investors at the same damn time. For those needing a hand with marketing tools, NORBY is THE ridiculously easy tool for busy people 

🔑 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. 5 reasons this skincare brand went from $0-100K in 4 weeks 🚀

EP366: We're learning from Samantha Brett who is the founder of Naked Sundays, an Australian SPF brand aimed at inspiring the next generation to love and wear SPF every single day with fun, easy-to-use sunscreen.

Your launch month dictates the trajectory of your start-up. I asked Samantha to break down her wildly successful launch strategy into 5 reproducible steps: 

1. Originality 🦚: create something that doesn’t exist in the market, you need to find that gap and you want to get people excited.

2. Branding 🌈: ensure branding is fun, different, engaging, and primarily really focused on your target market.

3. Timing ⏰: do your research, identify a budding trend in your space, and then really lean into that.

4. Efficacy 🌞: create something that's good for you, consumers care more and more about the efficacy of their purchasing decisions.

5. Sharability 🦠: make sure people want to share it with their friends, and make your product so fun that it spreads like wildfire.

Now, all there's left to do is employ & launch with a bang 💥

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 is all about diving into the learnings of some of the highest rev-generating business founders that we’ve had on the show. Keep a pen and notepad at the ready, there’s some real gold here.

1. Rowena Bird (LUSH): "surround yourself with the right people"

When it comes to the people you’re building this with, the people you’re facing every day, it’s important to genuinely like and respect them. Not just for your sake, but for all parties involved. At the end of the day, if you’re not looking forward to talking to someone you might not be opening up to issues in the business. And that’s obviously an issue. In everything from your co-founders, to your investor relations and the people you hire, business continues to be all about relationships and people. 

2. Amanda Klane (Yasso): "don't get complacent"

That means evolving with the times, keeping a pulse on the trends, and meeting the customer where they want to be met. The trick lies in not getting too attached to what you created at the beginning but evolving it to make sure your product can be the best it can be for that particular moment in time. You want to make sure you’re consistently creating something that’s filling a customer's need. So get out there, talk to your customer, and iterate, iterate, iterate.

3. Ju Rhyu (Hero Cosmetics): "there is power in bootstrapping"

Having a tight budget forces you to think twice about every move and be resourceful and creative. Further down the line, showing an investor that you’ve gone through this process and made it to the other side can be seen as a big plus for credibility and ultimately set you a higher valuation for the business. Focus on bootstrapping your business in the beginning until you’ve proven traction and figured out the foundations. You might then find you don’t need to raise. 

4. Elyce Arons (Frances Valentine): "create things you love"

When you have that passion for what you’re creating, it really makes it all that more fun and achievable. You need to enjoy what you’re doing to really love the process of all of it. If you have a really great product that you believe in, and you have other people who believe in you, then you can actually get it done. But, if your heart and your passion aren’t in it, don’t do it. Keep true to what you started it out with.

5. Leila Hormozi: "be fast enough"

That's what a lot of people mistake, they don’t move fast enough. They don’t build the team, or the infrastructure, so they can’t grow fast enough. There’s a traditional reason companies want conservative growth: it’s much more sustainable. But in order to capitalize on opportunities, like the ones we’re seeing now that the internet is a thing, you have to go about this differently. 

What’s on this week? 👀

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

MON: Nicole Centeno from Splendid Spoon - healthy plant-based meals 🥄

WEDS: fave hits - Lezlie Karls from Mid-Day Squares - designed to stop cravings between meals 🍫

THURS: fave hits - Lillian Ahenkan (aka Flex Mami) - showing people the power of deep connection ✨

FRI: fave hits - Ju Rhyu from Hero Cosmetics - the leader in functional skin solutions 🌸 

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔 

📚 The Emotional Entrepreneur by Scout Sobel: guiding Millennial and Gen Z women through the emotional challenges of running and scaling a biz.

🎧 At The Table hosted by Patrick Lencioni: learn from one of the foremost experts in leadership and business in his simple and approachable style.

 & What to use: if you haven't yet, I can't recommend enough to get started with Zapier's workflow automation process, it's such a time-saver for small biz owners and has left me a bunch more time for the things that matter 🧡

Job Alert Time! 💼

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

NYC 🗽

• NYC's most chill destination, Chillhouse, is looking for an on-site Front Desk Receptionist. More information here.

LDN 🇬🇧

• Mamamade, delivering fresh homemade baby meals, is on the lookout for a superstar Brand Manager to join the team. More here.

AUS 🌞

• OzHarvest is looking for a National Digital Marketing Guru for its mission to halve food waste in Australia by 2030. More here.

• Award-winning indie media house Urban List is on the hunt for a new Branded Content Manager. Something for you? 

Toronto 🍁

• High-quality hosiery brand Threads is hiring for a few Paid Internship positions for the upcoming Fall-term. More information here.

& whilst we have you here...

I want to tell you about an easy little life hack that's seriously improved my life over the last year. After getting seriously tired and burned out (covid vibes...), I started taking Athletic Greens' AG1 powder from hearing about it on Tim Ferriss's podcast. What a game-changer. I'm stoked to be able to pass along the tip through FSC now, as I know this can do a serious lot of good to those of you listening and tuning in. 

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