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 🗞

Front CEO Mathilde Collin announces $65M Series D. European eComm grew 13% in 2021. Luvleen announced as E&Y entrepreneur of the year finalist. Going from a failing beauty entrepreneur to millionaire (featuring us!!). CAMEO’s Carolina Martinez saves small(est) businesses post pandemic. The colleges bringing more CEOs to the beauty industry. Why this great resignation is working for women. Use this nifty little trick small biz founders are using to save time (& try it for free!)

PS, I want to share some brand love ❤️ I started taking the Athletics Greens AG1 powder daily last year after hearing about it on Tim Ferriss's podcast (bc, tummy issues, tiredness, all of the damn things..) and it's been such an easy way to fit proper nutrition into my day - it's safe to say I'm completely obsessed! Super happy to have them support our podcast this month, all with a little freebie for you guys right 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. Where founders go wrong 👀

EP362: Chatting to the founder of Word of Mouth Digital, Tash Todd Williams about the tips and challenges for small biz owners today.

Tash runs a successful digital agency with a special love for female founders and entrepreneurs, and watching so much biz building has taught her a thing or two (or three) about where small businesses go wrong. Pens at the ready.

1. TAX 🧾 The officials can often get pushed aside, which is something you see going wrong so often with sole traders. These little mistakes can add up to insurmountable debts real quick. Check-in with your obligations, check in with your liabilities and protect yourself and your business.

2. MIX IT UP 🌈 Be careful not to put all of your eggs in one basket. If you think IG is working for you now and it will in the next 5 years, it won’t. I’m telling you that now. Make sure you have a strong channel mix and diversify. Split out your risk and make sure you’re always channeling new people to your business through new traffic sources. It’s SO risky to rely on one source.

3. NUMBERS 👻 Almost every business owner Tash has ever spoken to doesn’t have a full understanding of the facts and stats behind their data. That's pretty scary stuff. You've got to look at every single piece of the pie, every aspect of the business, and project realistic margins. If avoided, it's sure to bite you.

2. A mentor is a must 💕

EP364: Talking to Helen Hall about her company Blender Bombs and how she turned $300 into a $20M business.

Helen attributes her success to mentorship and all the people who have done this before her. I love that.

Especially if you're new to the space, having a mentor is such a great way to kickstart your business journey. Someone who has been there before, someone who's made the mistakes that you don't have to make, can provide such a valuable perspective. It's networkingXL.

(Ps if you want access to mentorship and community, think about joining our private network for early stage female entrepreneurs, Hype Club. We host weekly sessions to help you with things like Tiktok, Influencer Marketing, Amazon + so much more. And we'd love to meet you!)

Listen into Helen's episode to hear how she approached finding a mentor and how much it costs $$$

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'm bringing you the low-down from one of our Hype Club workshops. With a couple of founders in the group looking to launch soon, expert Carina McLeod (founder of Ecommerce Nurse) popped by to teach us the initial steps to getting the hang of this tricky channel.

7 key steps to a successful Amazon launch 🚀

1. What are you going to sell? 👀

Back to the basics of supply and demand, make sure that there’s a real demand for what you’re wanting to sell before placing your listing. Through ZonGuru you can set up filters for buyer demand and search volume to get an idea of how many people are actively looking for your product. Bc if you’ve got a product that nobody is searching for, that’s going to be a real problem 🤷‍♀️

2. Curate your keywords 🔑

Create a list of 10-30 keywords that describe your product, (you might already have this handy for SEO purposes). Make sure they are consistently mentioned when it comes to your titles, bullet points, and product descriptions.

3. Stay in stock 📦

Running out of stock is always bitter-sweet, but on Amazon, it can be pretty detrimental to your performance on the platform. It’s because once you start getting sales, Amazon sees you’re getting sales, and your product will start appearing more. This all stops as soon as you go out of stock. So, if you know you’re going to fall out of stock, do whatever you can in your power to slow sales on the platform down.

4. Know your competition 🏅

One way to stay on top is to make sure you have your competitor monitoring all figured out. Check what customers are focusing on, and what types of questions they are asking. Helium10 is a great little tool for checking others statistics for forecasting, benchmarking, and if you're just feeling a little nosy.

5. Reviews ⭐

Drive positive authentic customer reviews to your product page. With extra emphasis on the word authentic there. Reviews impact sales hugely and work as one of the main reasons to attract customers to your product.

6. Ensure traffic 🚦

You can have the best product page in the world, but if a customer can’t find your product, you’re not going to find any sales. You can drive traffic through Amazon itself, by investing in PPC, pay-per-click advertising. And tbh, you will have to bite the bullet and do this to ensure any success on Amazon.

7. Get familiar 🤗

The last step to Amazon success, is to realize your listing isn’t something that you just set up and leave to fend for itself. You need to nurture it on the daily. It’s all about momentum and relevance. What was a strategy yesterday might not be a strategy today. So, get yourself nice and familiar with the platform, because you’re in this for the long run.

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, Henrie Pillow's founder had some great news to share:

Yay to Larissa! Pitch competitions & grants are an absolute game-changer for so many business owners. Check out our latest TikTok for all the latest Small Biz Grants for small business owners. 💸

*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 🤔

📚 Play Bigger by Al Ramadam: legendary category-creating companies and reveal a groundbreaking discipline called category design.

🎧 The Goop Podcast hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow and Erica Chidi: chats with culture changers, and industry disruptors about shifting old paradigms.

Job Alert Time! 💼

Check out these cool women-owned DTC job listings on our radar, the market is hot 🔥:

REMOTE 🌎

• Blueland, reimagining conventional cleaning and personal care, is looking for a storyteller to take on the role of Head of Brand Marketing. More here.

• Hero Cosmetics has a bunch of cool job openings from Copywriter to Junior Brand Designer. Something for you? More info here.

• Performance PR agency Dreamday is hiring an Affiliate Account Executive to strengthen their team. Apply here.

Sofia, Bulgaria 🇧🇬

• The company on a mission to raise the standards of the Female health industry, Daye, is looking for a Graphic Design Intern. More information here.

NYC 🗽

• Female Founder Fund is looking to bring on a full-time NYC-based Investment Associate. Find out more here.

AUS 🌞

• E-Comm recruitment firm LP Talent is hiring for a Creative Director on behalf of a Global Womenswear brand. More information here.

• Boutique creative agency Willow & Blake is on the hunt for a Client Relationship Manager. Something for you?

Our July Cheerleader: Athletic Greens 💚