Hey! It’s Doone, your hype girl in business. With Britney’s memoir “the woman in me” already topping Amazon’s bestseller list, this one goes out with a quick reminder to bring out the woman in all of us this week. The tenacious woman. The fearless woman. The curious woman.

With that in mind, let’s get straight into it 👇

Quitting is cool ✨

Let's get straight into tackling a problem that's prevalent in society - an unhealthy obsession with pushing through at all costs. It's time for an honest and open conversation about the realities of our journeys, the lessons we learn, and the power of self-auditing.

In this age of social media and highlight reels, it's easy to believe that success follows a straight line and that failure is simply unacceptable. But here's the thing: we’re only seeing a fraction, and that fraction is heavily curated (despite what that lengthy rambling Instagram caption might have you believe).

Natalia once ventured into creating an app for sharing life meditations. She soon discovered the significant financial investment required to compete with the big players in the app market. It became clear that developing such an app demanded a dedicated team and a substantial amount of effort, AND it just wasn’t going to work out. While it was bittersweet to stop, closing this door ultimately led to her co-founding Form Nutrition (and she never looked back).

We often hear messages like "never quit" that associate quitting with failure, weakness, or giving up. But I want to challenge that notion. What Natalia and I share, is that throughout our career journeys, we've made the decision to quit various endeavors. From courses to projects that no longer aligned with my goals (the non-alc wine brand, ahem). Quitting doesn't equate to failure; it means making room for growth and embracing new opportunities. I firmly believe in self-auditing, assessing what we don't enjoy, and making choices that bring us closer to what we love. Let’s take the shame out of quitting.

Listen to Natalia on the podcast →

What we can learn from Barbie’s marketing (even without a $100M budget)✨

Love her or hate dislike her, Barbie is an icon and she is back as the hype of the summer, hijacking our conversations and having us feverishly awaiting the new Barbie movie. You can’t have missed the fact that she’s just everywhere RN.

So, how did the Barbie marketing team pull off their genius campaign (apart from the rumored $100 million USD budget, of course)? We’ve taken a closer look for you and can’t wait to spill the tea on a few things that every brand can learn from the insanely brilliant Barbie movie marketing campaign:

1/ Get by with a little help from your friends 👯

Just like what you should be aiming for with any social media strategy, you want as many people to see your product as humanly possible. The dream of going viral is real, and what best way to achieve that than having your most followed influencers promote your products?

In the run-up to the release date of the movie, the Barbie marketing team cleverly had their cast post pictures of themselves in the signature Barbie style (hello millions of followers), and they didn’t stop there. They used AI (who doesn’t love a bit of AI these days?!), to create a "Barbie Selfie Generator“ where users could become Barbie themselves. Needless to say, you would need to have been living under a rock to not have heard about the new Barbie movie by this point. Create exciting opportunities for your friends and community to get involved.

2/ Tease a little ✨

From the first trailer on, the audience actually has no idea what the film is about. The only thing we know is that the film is about Barbie and that they have managed to cast Ryan Gosling (oh yes) and Margot Robbie (double yes) as its stars. The Barbie marketing team leaves the content vague on purpose and even the press only gets to see the film shortly before it is released, but that doesn't dampen the hype. On the contrary! Isn’t it always more interesting to see if the hype was worth it?!

Building anticipation and keeping your audience’s attention are incredibly powerful marketing tools when launching any new product. Build that intrigue and keep your audience guessing, what are you going to pull out of the bag?

3/ Ride the hype 🏄‍♀️

The number of brand collaborations that have emerged in the run-up to the Barbie release date has been unreal. From the Barbie Malibu Dream House on Air B&B to Barbie-flavoured Krispy Kremes and Burger King Burgers (yes we are intrigued). Brand collaborations can blow fresh wind into your product portfolio and allow you to ride the brand’s hype. You know what they say, if you can’t beat them, join them. You might not have the budget to collab quite as hard, but what’s stopping you from jumping on the hype? Get ready to go pink 🎀

• Daye launches first-of-its-kind virtual clinic for period pain

• Parade x GANNI is beyond a vibe 

• SKIMS goes retail and launches this fire campaign all in one

• Goes who started another biz and guess who only employed men

• Peppy closes $45M series B on its mission for Women’s Health

• CEO pay is at a 9-year low, time to re-think this founder thing?

• Even Emoji’s aren’t safe nowadays

• US shoppers spent HOW much during Prime Weekend

• Portugal is the latest to jump on the 4-day work-week trial

• Click-to-buy TV ads coming soon near you 

• First prescription-free pill gets FDA approval in the US

• Bumble hires Barbie and Ken as your dating coaches

This week’s hot tip...

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This week's recommendations...

Remote 🌴

• Hello Alice, the free platform designed for AND by small biz owners, is looking for an Email Automation Strategist. Apply directly here.

LA 🌇

• This is an exciting one! All Places, a business and legal strategy firm, is hiring a Chief of Staff to come and join the mission. Apply here.

• Modern bedding & bath essentials brand Parachute is on the hunt for a Trade Specialist to join the team (remote also!). More here.

• Harper Wilde, bra Shopping without the B.S., is hiring a Project Manager within the marketing department. Apply here.

NYC 🗽 

• Latin X haircare brand Ceremonia is hiring an In-House Chemist to work on developing new products. Something for you?

• Rent the Runway, the premier subscription fashion service, is hiring a Senior Inventory Analyst to join the team. Apply here.

That’s all for today folks! For those of you feeling the ✨fun✨ Threads vibes, come and say hi 👇