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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Industry News You Should Prob Read 🗞

Rent the runway goes public: first company to with a woman founder-CEO, CFO & COO. Mad Realities launched, a web3 interactive dating show. Stop giving up after one no. The first 2 black women in the National Inventors hall of fame. LinkedIn has a new freelancer feature. Anya Hindmarch's handbook for budding entrepreneurs.

🔑 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. Tips from Tracy Tutor ✨

EP229: She's a top real estate agent at Douglas Elliman Beverly Hills; first and only female cast member on Bravo's Million Dollar Listing LA; best-selling author; and has just started a CPG wine-brand called UN'SWEET wine. Basically, she's superwoman. And she's talking us though her advice for female founders and how to have the confidence to own any room.

Every entrepreneur starts much earlier than they think they do.

Tracy didn’t fit into any one box society wanted to put her in. This might sound familiar to many of you. How the hell is anyone supposed to know at the age of 16, 18, 21? And have that direction, and really know? 🤯

Tracy decided not to make it about the industry she was in. As long as she was able to utilise the things she was passionate about. This is the most interesting piece she can offer entrepreneurs today:

The greater power is to understand your weaknesses and how to really fix that. That means bringing other people on. That means sharing a bit of what you’re very good at. For Tracy this also meant being able to sell herself in any room.

Be honest with yourself, where do your strengths and weaknesses lie? 🤔

2. Does anyone want your product? 👀

EP230: 7-figure entrepreneur Hannah Diop on the most important advice she can give entrepreneurs in the hair care beauty space coming into 2022.

You want to identify a product-market-fit. That’s fundamental. You can do that with a smaller audience than you might think you need.

1. Find a group of friends or group of core customers who you think your product will work for

2. Give them the product to try out 

3. Ask them to take a survey (getting that data as soon as possible)

People can get caught up and overwhelmed that you need so much data to prove a concept, but if you just strip it back to who your ideal target customer would be. That’s all you ever need in terms of the data to get started.

If you send it to 25 people and 15 of them want you to send them more, you’re on to something.

Start from there. Simple as that. One customer at a time.

FSC Mini-Series from the Founder ❤️

In this new mini-series within the FSC podcast, I’m taking you on the journey while I develop my non-alc wine brand and build it in public. I will be sharing what’s happening in real-time, as well as things I’m learning along the way.

This week: I’m about to drop $42K 🤑

I finally have some pretty cool stuff to share with you.

We went to visit our production facility and the lab to do some development on our non-alc wine project. It’s so exciting. And I wanted to jump straight on here to tell you about the update and experience I had.

• The Production Facility 🏭

I must admit. It was pretty damn cool, but also pretty damn terrifying. I’ve never been into a facility like this. It’s all pretty new to me. We did a tour and learned about the machinery. We spent time learning about the formulation. And just in general, learned a lot about the process and how all this stuff works. It was pretty mind-blowing.

• The Product 🍷

We got super close to finalising our product. We went through so many iterations when we were there. By the end of it my palette was completely overloaded. We weren’t able to finalise it, but we definitely got 10 steps closer.

When you’re about to invest in something that you think it pretty great, it’s pretty daunting because what do others think? Holy shit, what if no one likes this? I’m sure this is normal. I’m sure you’ve gone through this as well.

• Hold on, is this happening? 😲

It’s safe to say it’s starting to feel quite real. I think every entrepreneur has these certain points they hit where they get a bit of a scary feeling. It starts to feel very real. It’s time to actually sit down, work out the numbers, and see how you’re going to move forward. For the first time I actually started to get that overwhelming feeling that I hadn’t felt until that point.

• Numbers, numbers, numbers 🧮

That might have something to do with this next part. We’ve figured out that per SKU it’ll cost around $42K to complete our first minimum order. We originally planned to bootstrap this as far as we could, but now we ask ourselves: what is the best past forward in terms of finance? What path will give us the best chance at success? How do we make this attractive for future acquisition?

In conclusion: it feels scary, but also empowering. We’ve gotten to a point where it’s time to commit to this project and dive in head-on. 

Now, can you help me? 💐

If you’re someone listening to this that has experience in the non-alc or wine space, and have some knowledge about the financial model. I would love love love to chat with you. Just drop me a message. We’re looking for all the insights we can get.

And to round things off, I know you’re wondering… What is the name? 

Stay tuned on that one. I’m on the edge of my seat to announce! I’m obsessed with it and can’t wait to share it with you.

Biz Wins & Failz 🎢

Here are a few crackers 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.

Ami Bateman(Founder of @pleasantstate) opened up about her fail this week:

Our Hype Girl Megan Broderick (Founder of @drinkadash) offered some kind and encouraging words to help reframe situ:

*Our pricing is currently $59 per month, cancel anytime. Come join us in Hype Club if you want to build your network and meet other female founders going through the journey.

What’s on this week? 👀

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

TUES: Lisa Creaven from Spotlight Oral Care - the best oral health products 🪥

THURS: Ashleigh Hinde from Waldo - innovative and accessible eyecare 👁️

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

Click here to tune in! 🎧

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔

📚 Fear Just a Four-Letter Word by Tracy Tutor: how to develop the unstoppable confidence to own any room.

🎧 Boutique Chat, hosted by Ashley Alderson: real-life strategy, growth hacks, business insight, and proven marketing advice for fashion industry businesses.

Job Alert Time! 💼

Check out these cool job listings on our radar:

LDN 📮

• Hunza G, British designed and produced swimwear, is looking for a Digital Marketing Manager to strengthen their team. Check out the listing.

• Onloan, the fashion membership service, is hiring for the role of Customer Experience Executive. Apply here.

LA/REMOTE 🌞

• Fishwife, the cool tinned seafood company, is looking for a part-time Community & Marketing Fellow. More info here.

NYC 🇺🇸

• Hero Cosmetics, the brand making customizable acne toolkits, is looking for a Chief of Staff to support their founding team. Check it out here.

That’s all for today folks! See you next week :)