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 🗞

Incfile data shows growth in Women Entrepreneurs outpacing male couterparts. Woop. Boss Beauties raises $4.4M for NFT collection. 13 sexist stories shared by female entrepreneurs. Construct Capital confirms $300M fund. Tofino Capital reaches first close of $10M fund to back startups in frontier markets.

🔑 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. What every entrepreneur needs to hear 📢

EP322: Learning from Jane Fisher, the co-founder behind Harper Wilde, the intimate apparel brand empowering future generations and doing their bit for the planet.

There isn’t a big bang. I repeat, there isn’t a big bang. 💥

POV: you’re building a brand. You’ve been working so hard. Launch day is the end goal. The flood gates will open, and the water will start pouring.

Reality Check: you remember it takes 10 years to reach overnight success. Ah.

It takes a tonne of work, and time, to build a brand. The consumer base and the trust that comes with it simply takes time. And lots of it. That’s the healthy thing to hear. In a world where everything is available to us at the click of a button, let’s make sure to keep healthy expectations when it comes to building a business. One step at a time. Keep compounding your efforts. 🚶‍♀️

2. Lessons for life and building businesses ✍️

EP324: A repeat of a conversation I loved so much, with Mimi Ikonn from Intelligent Change - showcasing a view on business and life we can all take inspiration from.

This episode is bursting with pointers and life lessons. Here they are boiled down to three fundamentals you must take into consideration building your start-up.

🙅‍♀️ Don’t create for creations sake 🙅‍♀️

“So many people start a business just for the sake of making money. This is extremely unhealthy.” Not only to our world, but it’s also not good for you. You’re not going to enjoy doing this day-in-day-out. Create something distinct, something useful and something you can be proud of putting out into the world.

💡 There are always problems to solve💡

“Out of great disappointment or problems, you can create solutions, and you can create a business.” This is how the best businesses are created. You feel you’re solving a problem in the world. You can easily tell your story, and make your own marketing.

✨ The Golden Rule: Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated ✨

Mimi considers customer service the most important part of the business. It’s the number one touch point. And something that is so grossly undervalued. “People will talk about bad experiences more often than positive experiences.”

FSC Mini-Series from the Founder ❤️

This week we cast back to the mini-series episode that was a hit, learning all about what it takes to build an impactful community in todays climate. Ex-Glossier community lead Kim Johnson hosted the Hype Club masterclass bringing together 5 steps of community as the backbone for anyone building a biz.

1. Get to Know Your People

What do your members think? What do they want? What have they expressed?

First and foremost, focus on getting to know your people. There is no shortcut for having conversations with your members. It will help you not only build a space that’s relevant for them, but a space in partnership with them - it is essential that there is mutual investment and growth taking part.

2. Define Value

What can we uniquely bring to the table? What are the through lines?

Try to understand why each person is there. Providing the value provides a toolkit to what your community is seeking and how they thrive. All communities are a spiderweb are different connection points between different people for different reasons - recognising these points allows you to get intentional.

3. Bring People Together (IRL & Virtual)

Can we meet IRL? What are the key connection points? Or experiences?

These reflections allow you to get much more targeted in bringing people together. Aim to create many small touch points over a few larger ones - people will feel more comfortable showing up and being vulnerable. Get an idea of what stage they are. The thing that matters most to them at that time.

4. Build Rituals

Rituals help you grow together. The things you consistently do in your community to inspire connection. Rituals are the binding force. Build a process around your co-creation - identify your most engaged- create consistency.

5. Invest in the BTS

Start building the infrastructure today for where you’ll be in the future. Investing in the background will help you foster thoughtful authentic interactions even as your community scales. TAKE YOU TIME! A community isn’t built in a day. 

Learned something new? You might be interested in joining the Hype Club. We record all of these masterclasses to they remain accessible for all members.

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 in celebrating those highs.

Liza Belmonte (founding a fashion start-up) shared her win with us:

The learning? When hiring a team, if you’re wondering whether to pay extra for someone with contacts in the industry… YES, YES, YES. 👏

*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? 👀

This week, we’ll be replaying some of our favorite episodes from the last months:

MON: Alexandra Fine from Dame - game-changing products for pleasure 💙

WEDS: Denetrias Charlemagne from AVEC Drinks - premium, better-for-you mixers ✨

FRI: Galyn Bernard from Primary - ️soft, simpler clothes for kids 💜

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔 

📚 Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz: the principles that have shaped the Starbucks phenomenon, and how they built a company one cup at a time.

🎧 Business Wars hosted by David Brown: Netflix vs. HBO. Nike vs. Adidas. Business is war. The outcome of these battles shapes what we buy and how we live.

Job Alert Time! 💼

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

NYC 🗽

• Goldune, making sustainability a little less beige, is looking for their next Ops & Community Delight wizard! Know anyone who might be a fit?

REMOTE 🌎

• Gloria Chou, the award-winning PR expert, is looking for a Content Strategy Rockstar to be part of her team. Read more about the opportunity here.

• Three Ships, the natural skin care company, is looking for a Director of Marketing to join their growing team. More info here.

LA 🌇

• Harper Wilde, taking the B.S. out the bra, has a bunch of really cool job openings from VP of Brand to Project Manager. Check them out here.

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.

Keep shining folks ✨