Focus is your superpower 🦸; why community matters ❤️; Mark your diaries! 📆

Where women in ecommerce come to get their key insights, tips and tactics.

January 24, 2022

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!

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Worth Shouting About 📢

✨ Bulletin Discovery Event ✨

On January 25-27, Bulletin Wholesale is hosting their 2022 Virtual Discovery Event: three thrilling days of discovery, education, and wholesale buying. Discover best-in-class brands, get ahead of S/S 2022 trends, AND score free shipping with code FREESHIPME – for these three days only!

There will be a live virtual panel each day at 1PM EST, where a Bulletin team member will chat with experienced brands and retailers about their growth strategies, how they form enduring and profitable business partnerships and the real pain points and opportunities of running a mission-driven business.

Industry News You Should Prob Read 🗞

Serena Williams is now Board Advisor at the NFT startup Sorare. Serial entrepreneur Elizabeth Polke launches CBD startup. Uber and Visa announce Grants For Growth Program to support small businesses (US). Blossom Capital closes $432M fund for Series A deals in Europe. Stop gender stereotyping if you want more women to reach top jobs. Forever 21 names new CEO.

🔑 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. This week, we’ll be pulling out key insights from our Fave FSC Hits of the last year. The best of the bunch. Pens at the ready!

1. Focus is the only superpower you need 🦸

EP264: We spoke to Kate Erickson from Entrepreneurs on Fire, an epic podcast hosted by John Lee Dumas. Kate is the behind the scenes wizard that’s helped grow the show into a 7 figure biz all while living in Puerto Rico.

Her secret to this success?

“Nothing that we ever created was created simultaneously.”

When you do too many things in many directions it often doesn’t work. Your mind becomes cluttered. It’s a recipe for disaster.

At Entrepreneurs of Fire they never launched their community, released a book and created a journal etc at the same time. Everything was done on its own. Total focus on that. Running a tight ship, following these three steps:

  1. Launch 🚀 (prove the concept)

  2. Work out any kinks 📈 (improve the way that it works)

  3. Create a system around it 🤖

And only then can you focus on the next thing. There are a lot of great opportunities and platforms, there is any number of things you can be focusing on at any given time, but it’s really important that you focus on one at a time.

2. Why community matters ❤️

EP261: Julissa Prado Rizos’s Curls was Founded on the principles of Curls, Community, and Culture. When you hear her founding story, you FEEL that.

Being an entrepreneur can be notoriously lonely. Let’s not kid ourselves, there are a lot of challenges.

“You will never have all the answers, but you can reach out to the resources around you and to your community, and they will help propel you forward.”

Consider your community every step of the way. 

And once more for the people in the back… From initial inspiration to fixing the blunders, or celebrating the highs, it’s all better shared.

The brands that typically perform the best are those that really know and understand their customers. For Julissa, she feels so immersed with her customers because when she sees them she sees her cousins, her tias, her parents, and herself. Build a company culture with community at its core.

3. The Magic Growth Formula 🪴

EP262: I chatted to Allison Moss, Founder of Type:A, mostly known for its hero deodorant which is patented and unlike anything else on the market.

Allison’s growth strategy has led to Type:A becoming a 7-figure business and being stocked in over 1400 doors nationwide. Her magic formula?

📧 STARTER EMAIL LIST 📧

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Instagram followers are not your followers. They are just people that follow you. Your mailing list is yours. These are your people. Gaining those folks is really important. They’ve opted in.

“Investing in this pre-launch did get us off to a really strong start.”

🤳 ORGANIC INFLUENCERS 🤳

Something that worked very well for Type:A in the early days? Gifting products to micro-influencers brought a high ROI and response rate.

“It was the effect of having the constant chatter of the product happening, hitting the same demo and same people over again from different places.”

(This is so in line with Ali Bonar’s tip on the show last March):

“Pick influencers in every sphere people associate themselves with. Make people feel you are ‘everywhere’, completely infiltrating their filter bubble.”

📰 VERY PUBLIC RELATIONS 📰

Time and time again, our guest entrepreneurs tell us that PR is one of the first (and most impactful) things they outsource for their business. As Bill Gates put it:

“If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations.”

PR should be considered as damn good advertising. It’s advertising from an earned source. For Allison, the PR strategy was all about getting that conversation going in an impactful way. Making sure there was a consistent buzz around Type:A, in spaces that truly represent the brand.

FSC Mini-Series from the Founder ❤️

In this new 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.

We got merch ✨

We’ve just finalised our first merch collab (& first collab in general) with The Dairy. They’re a super cool Aussie brand that partners with incredible artists from all over the world to put their art on phonecases and desk accessories. I’m talking artists such as Jasmine Dowling and Amber Vittoria, and so on. You take take a peek on my IG to get the vibes and I’ll be live in a week or two via their website.

Mark your diaries 📆

FEB 24: I’m hosting a little soiree to celebrate the launch of Your Hype Girl (📚) in London. We’ll be doing it in partnership with Soho Works (part of Soho House) and it’s going to be a chill intimate evening with some good music, drinks, friends and vibes. If you’re in London, you’re invited. I would so love to meet you in person! More details and reg details to follow via the newsletter.

FEB 28: And of course the official book launch day. (!!!)

I’m going to need all the help I can get from you, our community. We’re doing a launch week promotion starting the 28th that makes it super easy and affordable for anyone to buy the paperback or kindle version.

My ask is that you support in any way you can during this week. Whether that’s buying the kindle or paperback version, leaving an amazing review, spreading the love of social media, liking a post, or even telling a friend who might like it. These are the things that will help other female founders, entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs know or learn about the book if we hit an Amazon best seller (🤞)

Biz Wins & Failz 🎢

Here’s a cracker 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 in this alone. A lot of us are seeing a lot of highlights, but tbh there are also so many downs and things that go wrong.

Megan O’Brien (Founder of Matchmega) shared her failure with us this week:

“I just printed my business cards in prep for a trade show next week and realized I forgot my email 🤦🏽‍♀️”

This was all too relatable for Emily, who had hers printed waaay too early and now show the wrong IG handle. Biz card probs. We’re keeping our fingers crossed the new ones arrive just in time for the trade show. 🤞

*We’ll be opening our doors to Hype Club again soon, so if you’re looking forward to joining the next round of intakes keep your eyes peeled for our memo!

What’s on this week? 👀

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

TUES: Amanda Klane from Yasso - changing the frozen snack game 😎

THURS: Elle Liu from Eucalypso - High-quality Tencel eucalyptus bedding ☁️

SAT: Doone's back - with a solo episode ✨

Click here to tune in! 🎧

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔 

📚 Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker: mastering the inner game of wealth, through the missing link between wanting success and achieving it.

🎧 Two Broke Chicks, hosted by Sally McMullen and Alexandra Hourigan: one of my personal fave’s! All about trying to navigate your 20s and online shopping addictions (espesh in the midst of a global pandemic) ❤️‍🔥

Job Alert Time! 💼

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

REMOTE 🌎

  • The Female Founders Fund, the early-stage venture fund investing in technology companies founded by women, is seeking to hire an in-semester MBA Associate to complete market research. More here.

LDN 📮

  • AllBright, the members’ club celebrating women of all ages, is hiring a Brand Copywriter to join their marketing team. Find out more here.

NYC 🗽

  • DEUX Foods, the vegan cookie dough, is hiring a Performance Marketing Manager that will be responsible for project management. Apply here.

  • Haven’s Kitchen is looking for a Graphic Designer to help make and edit content for their creative cooking company. Read more here.

Reply to this email if you want to be on the guest list for our London party :)

Keep shining bright, till next week! ✨

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