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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$1000 SMALL BIZ GRANT 🤑

Would $1000 help you with your business right now? Would $1000 help someone you know?

👉 Click this link to enter your email + website and send it to EVERY Entrepreneur and small business owner you know to increase your chances a million percent.

I go into more detail at the end of this newsletter + share my hot tip to scoring.

A Quick Recap on Industry News 🗞

Crown affair wins its first beauty award. Why it’s more profitable to back women-led start-ups. The cost of restricting women’s healthcare. Canva’s Melanie Perkins $12 billion giveaway. Kulfi wins Allure award. How to accelerate your success as a Female Founder. Want to join Ticket Venture’s show as a female founder? April Koh is now the youngest woman to run a unicorn 🦄. Women’s health brands rally against Texas’ new abortion law. Mutiny raises $18.5M from Sequoia to help B2B brands personalize their websites. This Little Girl is Me trends on LinkedIn to support Inspiring Girls International. Register for London Tech Week this week.

🔑 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. Stay Organic Baby ✌️

EP211: An episode with a friend of mine, who you’ve probably seen on the web doing her super cool things. The one and only Lil Ahenkan (aka Flex Mami).

If you’ve been following Lil, it’ll come as no surprise to hear she’s a big advocate for organic marketing. She’s clearly a boss at it. Just check her IG. But that’s not without having (painfully) tried other avenues.

In the end, organic marketing is really driving it. We’re talking 80% of all sales.

Ask yourself: how do we build our internal lists, and speak to our customers directly as many times as we need to for our message to get across?

Organic content isn’t an overnight quickie. It takes time, planning and a serious amount of effort. Lil’s content may look totally done on the fly and casual, but it’s all highly organised, intentional - and takes TIME to create. Use your lead generation tools. Speak to your audience in an organised environment. Through this, allow your message to get across as intended. When you want to, opposed to when the algorithm blesses you with a view. Take control. Show up for your community. Be unique. 💫

2. TikTok’s Secret Sauce 😏

EP213: Chatting to FLO Founder Brianna Bitton on what it takes to develop a world-first PMS gummy and how they’re rocking their TikTok presence.

Scrolling through FLO’s TikTok genuinely had me in stitches. I highly suggest having a peek for your daily dose of lol. I had to know, what’s the strategy?

A sprinkle of relatable, with a dash of fun and a handful of education. Voila. 

This all stems from wanting to make a fun impact on the space. Bringing a topic that has been so taboo to the forefront of our lives. To the forefront of the conversation. This is something all (well, 51%) of us are going through. But relatively alone. Let’s showcase that we’re all going through this together.

Be silly, relatable and fun. And you might even educate someone in the process.

FSC Mini-Series 🍷 from the Founder

Part 6: I’m giving away a $1000 Small Business Grant (in cash) every month 🤑

I don’t know if you caught the announcement at the top there, but let me delve into this a bit deeper. If you listen to the show, you’re probably aware that I ask the guests at the end of every episode what they would do with $1000 of no-strings-attached money. It’s not life-changing. But it does allow for creative thinking. Where is the most important spend of a dollar in your business?

It got me thinking, where would I spend that money for FSC?

The first giveaway is in full swing. Take action ASAP. We teamed up with Flowium to give away the cash. Just get to the website, find it on there and follow the prompts.

PLUS 🔥I have a really hot tip! 🔥

And read carefully: you’re in charge of your own destiny on this one. Kinda. To get in with the best chance of winning, refer as many people as possible when you’re completing the steps. You’ll have more chance of winning the cash. So don’t rush. Wait until you have 10 minutes. Grab a cuppa. And start referring.

I’m super excited to see what comes from this.

And on the wine front of things… 🍷

Everything is moving slowly. So, so slowly. Everyone I’ve spoken to says this, But once you’re in it and realise how slow it is, it can be pretty frustrating. We’re closer to finding a name. I can’t wait to share this whole process with you once it’s finalised, because it’s been super eye-opening process for me. All I can say: I’m super excited to share it with you, once we know it’s 100% trademarkable. That’s that! 

Shoutin’ It Out 📢

I want to take a minute to tell you about one brand from a woman in the Hype Club that has just launched September 15th. Introducing… Balaeyon.

💙 RaeDawn is NYC’s favourite Make-Up Artist (MUA), beauty enthusiast, and recently added Founder to her resume. Balaeyon is a brand of balance beyond beauty. Her aim was to create sustainable, multi-purpose beauty products for women of ALL backgrounds & ethnicities, and I can only say she’s succeeded. It’s beautiful, it’s inclusive, it’s clearly effective, and it’s the female founded small biz you want to be supporting. Go check them out or give them a cheeky follow.

👑 Also, a big, big shout out to Kelsey Reidl: our resident business and marketing coach. Kelsey has been hosting Hype Club masterclass’ around marketing strategy for your small biz, and she’s been an absolute dream mentor. Her thing is guiding visionaries into taking the plunge to launching their business.

👉 This Wednesday (22.09) Kelsey will be hosting workshop #2 around building your marketing playbook. Don’t forget! If you want to get in on this Hype Club action, come say hi. The only requirement is you must be actively working on your own ecommerce biz.

👉 This Thursday (23.09) we have Sam Safer Valentine joining us from Norby to host a masterclass on: How kick ass customer experience builds brand, community, relationships and sales. Sam is co-founder and COO of Norby, the venture-backed startup building the marketing stack for creators, community leaders, and emerging brands.

Keen to join? *Our pricing is currently $59 per month, cancel anytime.

What’s on this week? 👀

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

TUES: Sarah Moret from Curie - body care products for humans in motion ✈️

THURS: Shai Eisenman from Bubble - affordable modern skincare ✨

SAT: Doone’s back - Part 7 of the non-alc wine brand journey 🍷

Click here to tune in! 🎧

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔

📚 Clean Beauty Book by Elsie Rutterford & Dominika Minarovic from Bybi: 100 recipes for the skin, body and hair.

🎧 Hardcore History, hosted by Dan Carlin: the only podcast that unites my Gen Z brother and 93-year-old grandmother in admiration.

Job Alert Time! 💼

Check out these cool job listings on our radar:

Austin 🇺🇸

• Rosen Skincare, the next gen of acne care, has a couple of Higher Level Positions open in their Austin office. Check them out here.

NYC 🗽

• Golde, the approachable superfood brand, is hiring a Brand Experience Manager. Could that be you? Apply here.

LA 🌇

• The Quality Edit is hiring a Growth Marketing Manager of Paid Acquisition (part-time/freelance) to start ASAP. Please email Lauren directly.

Aus 🐨

• The Sheet Society, Aussie’s millennial bedsheet company, is looking for a Social Media Specialist. Apply here.

PS:

Don’t forget to reply and A) tell me what you would do with that $1000USD CASH I’m giving way and B) apply by clicking here 👋