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 🗞
Lessons to learn from Glossier. Evernow raises $28.5M with help of celeb investment. Why we should empower female entrepreneurs. Imaginary Ventures in looking to Web3 for the next Glossier. Michele Kang becomes major owner of NWSL. SomerCor and NAWBO Chicago Partner to finance female small biz owners.
🔑 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, some names you’ll be familiar with.
1. Do I like you?
EP314: We’re learning from Rowena Bird, Co-Founder of LUSH Cosmetics, a business that started 27 years ago and has since amassed more than a billion $ in sales.
This episode is full of so many brilliant learnings. Rowena kept coming back to the importance of actually liking who you work with. It’s simple-but so true. She herself is part of the 6-strong founder-friendship team that created this revolutionary empire - and has found the last 27 years to be all about these relationships.
When you look at who you work with, ask yourself 💭
“Do I like you? Would I have dinner with you? Would we have a lovely time?”
That’s the starting point. If you like who you’re working with it makes life so much easier. You’re always supporting each other and there’s so much to be said for that.
👉 On the flip side, if a partner isn’t right, then don’t ignore it. The longer it goes on the worse the situation gets. Remember: if you’re not enjoying your day-to-day you’ve lost.
2. The simple art of buying less 💸
EP316: Chatting with Maggie Winter, founder of AYR. All Year Round is the fashion brand on a mission to create confidence through season-less, ageless clothing.
When Maggie started AYR, she was in the perfect spot between naïve and equipped enough to take the leap. A few years on, here’s her biggest learnings thus far:
“On a tactical practical level, do not buy too much inventory.”
It’s easy to start your business with the vision you have, but it's not realistic. You need to start at zero. There are three areas in business where people invest the most…
Marketing 🦚
People 🤗
Inventory 📦
Marketing spend you can turn off quickly. People spend is painful. But inventory is impossible to get out of. You are impacting the lives and livelihoods of people globally. They are committed to that cash.
Build a waitlist, build community and build demand. But be very careful about how much you purchase. Buy less. Always test before you invest.
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 in this alone celebrating those highs.
And there are a lot of them lately! Must be something in the water? Christel Mena, working on creating a genderless fine fragrance brand in NYC, shared her win with us:
“The first two formula iterations for my fragrance line are finally done and ready for me to smell for the first time! I’ll be testing them out in NY this May and hopefully I’ll fall in love with what was created 🙈🙈 wish me luck!”
Nothing more exciting than receiving formulas, totally here for it. 🍀
*The doors to Hype Club are open again, so if you’ve been looking forward to joining us - now’s the time!
What’s on this week? 👀
Let’s see what we have in store for you this week…
MON: Tiffany Chen from Tiff’s Treats - warm, fresh-baked cookies 🍪
WEDS: Daniela Vianna from Ephemeris Co - ️customized birthcharts ✨
FRI: Doone's back - with a solo episode ❤️🔥
What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔
📚 Be 2.0 by Jim Collins and Bill Lazier: the roadmap to creating a company that not only survives its infancy but thrives into an enduring great company.
🎧 Boutique Chat, hosted by Ashley Alderson: real-life strategy, growth hacks, proven marketing advice, and interviews of top leaders from the boutique fashion industry.
Job Alert Time! 💼
Check out these cool women-owned job listings on our radar:
NYC 🗽
REMOTE 🌎
Partake, the super delicious cookie brand, is growing its team! They’re seeking new team members for Marketing, Sales, and Finance. Something for you?
The UK 💂
LA 🌞
Can we feature you on TikTok? 📢
You might’ve picked up on the fact I am loving TikTok RN. Do you have a money mistake to share that might help other founders to avoid/learn from? Check out our series here and hit reply if a story springs to mind.