Hey! It’s Doone, your hype girl in business. This one goes out to everyone with a whole lot of love as we enter Q4 💕 (that’s everyone minus Edward Blum: here’s how he’s targeting the Fearless Fund & here’s how you can help)

Today we’re covering 👇

• Our youngest (ever) guest on the show!

• How this founder secured $100K in grant money + her tips

• Kim’s going after unicorns

• $5-$25K for small businesses in the states

• Reminder to email us your cyber offers so we can add you to our database 🙂 

She turned $128 into a 6-figure business (at just 9 years old)

Today, I'm buzzing to share the story of Lily, the 9-year-old wonder behind Lily Lou's Aromas. Imagine a world where your childhood ritual becomes a thriving business venture? Well, Lily is living that dream. & she's here to spill the wax (sue me) on just how she made that happen.

• The origin story: it all started as a creative ritual making candles, and before she knew it, friends were on board and ‘orders’ started rolling in

• The money piece: with a modest investment ($128) from the bank of mum and dad she invested in the bare basics and got to fulfilling orders

• The right formula: after months of trial and error and reinvesting every penny back into stock she started srsly levelling up her skills

• The media magic: and documented the story online leading to several viral moments driving traffic straight to her Shopify store (cha-ching)

Lily leaves us with a golden nugget: just start for fun. Her journey from playful crafting to a thriving empire might just be the wakeup call that you needed to remember that’s really what we’re all here for, to just have fun with it.  

Listen to Lily on the podcast →

If you hate wasting time on social media, you need to get Volv

Volv is a female-founded app that lets you stay in the loop without ever getting sucked into the social media vortex. This Snapchat-backed app curates the best content across the internet and digests it for you in 9-second reads using AI. Think hypetrends to viral social discourse to newsletter snippets to breaking news in a few swipes. Their vision is to become the go-to app for quick reads while helping intellectual creators get discovered.

Download Volv to get smarter in 9-seconds - it's free 🙂

💸 €100,000 in grant money? 💸 Here’s how she did it >

Our private community member Cosima started Kynd Hair in 2021. Still in its development phase, Kynd Hair is creating the first plant-based, non-toxic hair extensions in Europe (it’s kind of a biggie). In 2023 she received €100.000 in grant funding, giving her the courage to finally quit her previous job at Oatly and pursue Kynd Hair full time. Here’s how she did it:

1. Make it Simple 🌱 Especially the initial description of your brand, that first one-sentence pitch needs to be straight to the point. Check out this video by Kevin Hale from Y Combinator for valuable insights and examples on achieving simplicity (& if you don't have 30 mins, hop to the section on being concise).

2. Stay Organized 📝 Set up a grant application register where you collect all your answers. This way, over time, you'll be much faster with your responses.

3. Clearly Showcase the Positive Impact ⭐ Most grants aim to support sustainable and social change initiatives. Quantify your impact whenever possible. For example, in our case: Kynd Hair offers the first plant-based, skin-friendly hair extensions in Europe, potentially eliminating 10 million kg of plastic waste each year. You can also align your impact with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the UN: UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Join our Majic Community & connect with women like Cosima →

• Kim’s next move is all around building unicorns 🦄

• Sephora now officially has a woman in charge

• Sporty & Rich are pivoting into skincare 

• X signs a Live Shopping Deal with Paris Hilton and I can’t

• It was meant to be a week for women in tech…

• Whilst also introducing shopping in the DMs this week

• This Chillhouse collab is something I can get behind

• TikTok is testing out an ad-free monthly subscription

• Quite niche but this profitable Astrology site is for sale 💫

• Triangl’s co-founder Erin Deering just dropped her memoir (& is dropping her new fashion-hustle next year)

• Things are only up from here!

This week's grant...

Hello Alice is back with their Small Business Growth Fund, awarding small businesses (>$1M rev) with $5-$25,000 in grant money. Apply here.

This week's lineup...

This week's recommendations...

Ways I can help you this week…

Remote 🌴

• Gender-non-prescriptive kids clothing brand Primary is looking for an Accounting Director to join the finance team. Read more here.

NYC 🗽

• The brand that needs no introduction, Glossier, is looking for a part-time Seasonal Editor to join their SoHo flagship location. Apply here.

LA 🌞

• Parachute Home, making modern bedding and bath essentials, is on the look for a Social Media Producer to jump on board. More here.

Catch ya next week folks! 👋 To get your FSC fix during the week don’t forget to come and say hi @femalestartupclub.