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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, I'm Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 1: And I'm Denise Torres. Welcome to Mind the Business Small
Speaker 1: Business Success Stories, a podcast brought to you by iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Into It QuickBooks. In each episode, Austin and I
Speaker 1: chat with small business owners as they share their stories
Speaker 1: about the ups and downs of owning a small business.
Speaker 1: Plus we'll learn from their experience on how you can
Speaker 1: help fortify and strengthen your own business.
Speaker 2: That is right, and I am so excited for our
Speaker 2: guests today, But before we introduce them, I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to you about your early day running your business.
Speaker 2: Was there ever a moment where you thought you may
Speaker 2: have to change your plans for your business because you
Speaker 2: weren't maybe hitting your financial goals.
Speaker 3: Jennis, I'm so glad you brought this up, Austin.
Speaker 1: I think this is a struggle that a lot of
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs struggle with in the beginning, because we're kind of
Speaker 1: just throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to see
Speaker 1: what sticks. And for me, I found myself just doing
Speaker 1: a lot of different things as a personal finance content creator.
Speaker 1: I was doing speaking engagements and workshops and one on
Speaker 1: one coaching and trying to launch a course, and doing
Speaker 1: affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, and I just felt like
Speaker 1: I was being stretched so thin that I really started
Speaker 1: to think about what are the highest return on investment
Speaker 1: activities that are going to get me to my financial goals.
Speaker 1: Let me focus on those things and do less of
Speaker 1: the stuff that feels like a heavy lift without a
Speaker 1: lot of rewards at the end. I'm curious if you've
Speaker 1: had an experience like that to Austin.
Speaker 2: I have, Jennie, and that's so cool that we really
Speaker 2: align so well on you know, what are those highest
Speaker 2: ROI return on investment deliverables that us as content creators
Speaker 2: can create and share with our audiences to just get
Speaker 2: the best bang for our books. So for me, what
Speaker 2: that was is kind of reflecting and thinking, Okay, you know,
Speaker 2: I have a limited number of perhaps one off brand
Speaker 2: deals I can do, and a limited number of perhaps
Speaker 2: one off speaking engagements. But I could write a newsletter
Speaker 2: and it could go to two people, or can go
Speaker 2: to two hundred thousand people. I still just wrote that
Speaker 2: newsletter once, right, So thinking about the compounding effects of
Speaker 2: creating content and sharing it and distributing it with so
Speaker 2: many people was major for my business. I don't think though,
Speaker 2: that there was ever a time where I really was like,
Speaker 2: wait a second, am I doing the wrong thing here?
Speaker 2: I've always been really just strongheaded and encouraged by my
Speaker 2: audience and everything else that I've been able to build
Speaker 2: alongside awesome creators like yourself, Jenius over the last couple
Speaker 2: of years. But I'm right there with you right figuring
Speaker 2: out that best ROI time spent and just doubling down
Speaker 2: on your strengths and what you know best. But enough
Speaker 2: about us, Let's introduce our guests. At the start of
Speaker 2: March twenty twenty, when it felt like there was nothing
Speaker 2: else to do. Emily Doyle and May Quak got cracking
Speaker 2: on building a bar setting suncare brand that could be
Speaker 2: loved and used by all. May being an avid surfer
Speaker 2: and darker complexioned Gal, had severe pain points within the
Speaker 2: existing options on shelf, plagued with white cast problems and
Speaker 2: difficulty finding quality SPF on the go, and Emily, a
Speaker 2: freckly fair skinned skincare lover, was frustrated by the lack
Speaker 2: of innovation and skincare benefits on the market. By combining
Speaker 2: their passions and defining what was missing from their experience
Speaker 2: as the lifelong users of sunscreen, it was apparent what
Speaker 2: Dune Suncare needed to be, not only for them, but
Speaker 2: everyone else as well. Two years later, they have launched
Speaker 2: a skin tone inclusive clear gel suncare line packed with
Speaker 2: skincare benefits that's created for and accessible to all. Emily
Speaker 2: and May welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2: Love the bio, Love the bio. May. The first kind
Speaker 2: of question I have here here is and when I
Speaker 2: was doing the research and the background all that fun stuff,
Speaker 2: I was just fascinated that you all were able to
Speaker 2: sort of create skincare products so like, are you scientists?
Speaker 2: Are you skincare professionals? How did the idea of this
Speaker 2: company come about? And where does the name Doune really
Speaker 2: come into play here?
Speaker 5: As well?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll kick it off.
Speaker 4: So, as you mentioned, March twenty twenty, I was supposed
Speaker 4: to be on a weekend surf trip. I ended up
Speaker 4: being there for three months and I called Emily and
Speaker 4: I realized that we finally had the time and space
Speaker 4: to build our dream company. We decided to combine our passions.
Speaker 4: You know, like you mentioned, I am a surfer, I'm
Speaker 4: in the sun all the time, I'm using sunscreen daily.
Speaker 4: And there was nothing that I gravitated towards or that
Speaker 4: I felt was innovative and accessible and fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got to be honest. I was so in
Speaker 5: love with skincare, even at a really early age.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: My mom used to take the grocery shopping after school,
Speaker 5: and upon entering the grocery store, I would gravitate toward
Speaker 5: the skincare aisle and steal products off the shelf and
Speaker 5: sneak them into the grocery cart, hoping that my mom
Speaker 5: would never notice. And that love infiltrated into my career
Speaker 5: after college so I ran a number of PR marketing
Speaker 5: departments for a few fashion designers in New York. So
Speaker 5: I worked on everything from contract negotiation points to building
Speaker 5: and executing on large scale PR marketing initiatives and press
Speaker 5: days and in store launches. So that was really my
Speaker 5: first step into understanding the beauty market.
Speaker 3: So when we came.
Speaker 5: Together to build Doune, we are like, we want two
Speaker 5: for one products. Product is paramount, it's got to be
Speaker 5: something that's totally differentiated in the space. We wanted to
Speaker 5: be skin tone inclusive. We were pulling benchmarks from Asian market.
Speaker 5: Clear gel was something we really wanted, and we knew
Speaker 5: convenience and extasibility was key. So we kind of like
Speaker 5: came out of the gates right away focused on retail
Speaker 5: distribution strategy and accessible price point.
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit more about once you
Speaker 2: made that big break and things were coming out, where
Speaker 2: did the name of Dune come from? Why Dune? What
Speaker 2: does Doune mean?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: So Emily was on her daily COVID beach walks and
Speaker 4: she called me and she was like, I got the
Speaker 4: name Dune, And she ran over to my house and like,
Speaker 4: of course, I'm like the pessimist, and I was like,
Speaker 4: that won't ever work. But eventually I was like, this
Speaker 4: is perfect.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so dune. We loved how quick and easy it
Speaker 5: was to stay. But moreover, it's universally understood in its definition.
Speaker 5: So dunes are natural resilient barriers for our beaches and
Speaker 5: everything inland. They helped protect, and when you think about it,
Speaker 5: that's exactly what we are trying to do or achieve
Speaker 5: rather with our sun.
Speaker 3: Caroline, I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that. So let's get into the nitty gritty. Right,
Speaker 2: let's talk business. Let's talk numbers and metrics, all the
Speaker 2: fun things. The first year of operating a business is
Speaker 2: usually the make or break year, Right, what was the
Speaker 2: biggest benchmark, internal benchmark that you all had made for
Speaker 2: yourselves that said if we hit this, we got to
Speaker 2: keep going. And it was there ever a moment where
Speaker 2: you thought, oh my gosh, we might not hit this benchmark.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to shut down.
Speaker 5: Oh man, Yes, yeah. We launched on June eighth of
Speaker 5: last year, twenty twenty two. We had actually solicited the
Speaker 5: support of our PR agency, Autumn PR. They're amazing to
Speaker 5: help drive our long lead press and our short lead
Speaker 5: like digital press initiatives prior to launch to put us
Speaker 5: on the map, and they absolutely blew it out of
Speaker 5: the water. I obviously have to give us a little
Speaker 5: bit of credit because the product and the.
Speaker 3: Branding is good too.
Speaker 5: But you know, we were in book in Vogue and
Speaker 5: l and Vanity Fair and Harper's Bizarre. We made Oprah's
Speaker 5: June O list. So this was really in the first
Speaker 5: month that we were off to the races. And then
Speaker 5: shortly thereafter, you know, we joke that we received the
Speaker 5: hottest DM slides we've ever received from Alta and Urban Outfitters.
Speaker 5: So Alta reached out to us in July, you know,
Speaker 5: month to post launch, the biggest beauty retailer in the country,
Speaker 5: asking to carry the line at the start of this
Speaker 5: coming year, which we are fast approaching our launch in
Speaker 5: two weeks from now, in five hundred and fifty doors
Speaker 5: across the US. But we knew when we had retail interest,
Speaker 5: we had something. We knew we wanted to be an
Speaker 5: omni channel business. We knew that's how we were going
Speaker 5: to find success, and an omni channel approach is a
Speaker 5: multi pronged retail strategy. So man I started calling visiting
Speaker 5: all of our favorite specialty retailers, boutiques, high end surf shops, grocers,
Speaker 5: and hotels. So we secured about twenty of those accounts
Speaker 5: right launch. But I would say the biggest hurdle for
Speaker 5: us was about five months pre lunch, we had gotten
Speaker 5: a call from our packaging supplier and a contract manufacturer
Speaker 5: we were about to go into contract with, thankfully we
Speaker 5: hadn't yet. We had learned that our packaging was not
Speaker 5: going to be able to deliver until August of the
Speaker 5: following year, so pushing our lunch to September, completely missing
Speaker 5: the sun season. By the way, we had already raised capital,
Speaker 5: so we had investors and partners that were like heavily
Speaker 5: counting on us for a summer pre summer launch, and
Speaker 5: we had also found out from our contract manufacturer, with
Speaker 5: the raw material shortages and all the ships being held
Speaker 5: up at the ports, it was going to be almost
Speaker 5: twice the cost.
Speaker 3: So we were devastated.
Speaker 5: I mean, we thought for sure that was it may
Speaker 5: and I scrambled to find new partners that help us
Speaker 5: to launch in time and at the price points that
Speaker 5: we needed to offer accessible formulations, and we were.
Speaker 3: Able to pull it off.
Speaker 5: But yeah, that was that was the time when we
Speaker 5: felt like this is really a make or break it moment.
Speaker 5: So big kudos to our partners for really like doing
Speaker 5: everything in their power to support us in that moment.
Speaker 2: And look where you are now, right five hundred plus
Speaker 2: Alta Beauty Doors like that is so so exciting. It
Speaker 2: actually it leads me to my next question here before
Speaker 2: I flip it over to Genie, I'm really curious, what's
Speaker 2: your strategy for differentiating your product and brand against all
Speaker 2: of your competitors, Right, skincare is such a congested market,
Speaker 2: like Ulta must have seen something specific and unique with you.
Speaker 2: What was that strategy of differentiating yourself?
Speaker 5: You know, we really broke the category, the suncare category
Speaker 5: out into two sectors. So you have the mass brands
Speaker 5: like the copper Tone Swine Tropics, Banana Boats of the
Speaker 5: world that we've all known their legacy household brand names.
Speaker 5: And then you have the specialty, more modern brands, you know,
Speaker 5: the supergroups Kolas of the world.
Speaker 3: And when we.
Speaker 5: Were really like at the inception point of the brand,
Speaker 5: when we were idating on what the whole was in
Speaker 5: the market, it really came down to accessibility, quality products,
Speaker 5: branding and universality. So we really were looking at our
Speaker 5: competitors who were predominantly speaking specifically in the specialty space
Speaker 5: to women. While we love our women, like sunscreen is
Speaker 5: not marginalized, it's for everyone to wear everyday, year round,
Speaker 5: and so we really wanted to lean heavily into marketing
Speaker 5: to everyone. Today, we have data that points to the
Speaker 5: back end of our Shopify which says that our age
Speaker 5: demographic range is between sixteen to sixty five and we
Speaker 5: have almost a fifty to fifty split between a male
Speaker 5: female customer, which is remarkable.
Speaker 1: I love that insight and I'd love to dive in
Speaker 1: more to the profitability aspect of business. Right, So the
Speaker 1: first couple of years of business, you're usually reporting losses
Speaker 1: unless you just have a Unicorn launch that you know,
Speaker 1: super profitable. Did you guys find immediate success.
Speaker 4: We're currently not profitable yet, but next year we will be.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's part and parcel with how
Speaker 1: things work, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: For sure, Yeah, we're we're planning to be profitable early on.
Speaker 5: We are planning also to have a pretty banner year
Speaker 5: comparatively last year. That our growth is pretty substantial just
Speaker 5: based on you know, all of our retail partnerships that
Speaker 5: are secured. We've been incredibly lean to be honest, you know,
Speaker 5: we've really like raised nominal funds relative to how much
Speaker 5: growth we've had. And we're a two woman band. We
Speaker 5: work with an onslaught of freelancers, contractors and agency folks.
Speaker 5: But May and I are running every corner of this
Speaker 5: business by ourselves and have been for over three years.
Speaker 5: We are really excited to close. Is there a fundraise
Speaker 5: if like this is like a plug for investors who
Speaker 5: want to come to the table, but we are really
Speaker 5: hoping to put money towards building a team at this point,
Speaker 5: which it would require for scaling. So Sunscreen unpnounced to
Speaker 5: May and I as it's an OTC product meaning over
Speaker 5: the counter, is incredibly time consuming if you're starting a
Speaker 5: product from zero and also incredibly expensive. If we had
Speaker 5: known what we know now then at start, I don't
Speaker 5: know if we would have been here today. But that's
Speaker 5: why there's really pretty nominal competition when it comes to
Speaker 5: who the main players are and who's driving the most
Speaker 5: revenue per year.
Speaker 1: So you alluded to some of the supply chain issues
Speaker 1: that you ran into, and I'm curious if you have
Speaker 1: any advice around building those relationships with vendors that are
Speaker 1: affordable and that meet your standard of quality, Like what's
Speaker 1: your best advice there.
Speaker 4: We did a lot of vendor vetting, like we were
Speaker 4: always in meetings with every different contractor or raw material
Speaker 4: supplier just to gather all the correct info we found
Speaker 4: to write partners that can meet our deadline and goals.
Speaker 3: She's making it sound much easier than it is.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not easy. It's definitely not easy.
Speaker 5: To lean into what may mentioned. You know, I think
Speaker 5: the critical component here is setting a goal for yourself.
Speaker 5: So let's just say time. It's really challenging, you know,
Speaker 5: with all the testing and compliance and if you have
Speaker 5: clinical hard claims that you're putting on the front of pack,
Speaker 5: you have to test against all of those, which costs
Speaker 5: money and require certain banks of time. So I would
Speaker 5: say start with your desired time, add cushion in, and
Speaker 5: then work backwards from there. It's constantly like problem solving
Speaker 5: and finding solutions so that you can hit your targets.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Mind the Business small business success stories.
Speaker 4: We both had to like drop our egos and get
Speaker 4: super vulnerable with each other and just be honest about
Speaker 4: where our strengths lie, what we want in the business,
Speaker 4: like how we both want to lead.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after the break. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Mind the Business Small business success stories brought to you
Speaker 1: by iHeartRadio and Into It Quick Books. So, as a
Speaker 1: company that was developed during the pandemic, what sort of
Speaker 1: safety neess have you built into your business model to
Speaker 1: be able to weather economic storms.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: One of our longest standing and most valued partners is
Speaker 5: our finance and OPS team. They've been with us for
Speaker 5: over a year and a half. They've really helped build
Speaker 5: our entire financial model projecting for the next five years.
Speaker 5: We're constantly updating that to input actuals and put updates
Speaker 5: based on new relationships that we have or sell through
Speaker 5: expectations from retailers, etc. I also think it's really imperative
Speaker 5: to build an infrastructure, a strong, solid foundation and business
Speaker 5: infrastructure straight out of the gate. We've worked for a
Speaker 5: number of different companies that hire a finance team for like,
Speaker 5: after being in business for five years and the books
Speaker 5: are a mess and everything is delayed, or you've jeopardized
Speaker 5: relationships with some vendors that you were working with for years,
Speaker 5: so we're like, we got to get this tight, got
Speaker 5: to get it tight right away.
Speaker 2: That really leads me into my next question here, which
Speaker 2: is like in the early days, how are you really
Speaker 2: balancing these budgets of income expenses? Like what was the
Speaker 2: most difficult part of figuring out the cash flows and
Speaker 2: how did you really overcome that. Was it your finance
Speaker 2: team that you were able to really lean on or
Speaker 2: I mean, who taught you all to think that I
Speaker 2: need to focus on this day one right out the
Speaker 2: gates to make sure that four or five years down
Speaker 2: the road it's not a mess.
Speaker 4: Well, I think both of us had come from the
Speaker 4: production world, so we've worked on production budgets. So like
Speaker 4: we've both were really meticulous about budgeting and making sure
Speaker 4: we hit those goals. You know, from the get go,
Speaker 4: we've set a long term goal of our budget what
Speaker 4: we can put in personally, because remember we didn't have
Speaker 4: jobs and we worked against that. We split costs in
Speaker 4: the beginning and just make sure that we hit those numbers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's understanding what you have and what
Speaker 5: you need to work against and what you absolutely need
Speaker 5: to spend money on. Like do you absolutely need to
Speaker 5: build a team right now, or can you be lean
Speaker 5: and handle it yourselves as founders, you know, you're constantly
Speaker 5: trying to figure out what's.
Speaker 3: The goal here.
Speaker 5: For us, it was product. We had to spend a
Speaker 5: lot of money up front on product. Who would we
Speaker 5: be without it? And not to mention, building an OTC
Speaker 5: product from zero means a year and a half of
Speaker 5: your time and a lot of money upfront. So while
Speaker 5: we've also been able to start production on products that
Speaker 5: we're going to launch at the end of next year,
Speaker 5: even now we're also facilitating terms. So it's looking at like,
Speaker 5: all right, I've been in a relationship with this vendor
Speaker 5: for a year now, we can do incremental spend against
Speaker 5: the quote, or we can come down here because of
Speaker 5: X mistakes, or you know, you get into like negotiation
Speaker 5: mode to cost save as well.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I never really thought about it like that,
Speaker 2: But I guess you're right back to though, what may
Speaker 2: was just kind of alluding to before, with you know,
Speaker 2: being unemployed. You know, as you were unemployed when starting Doune,
Speaker 2: what were some of the advantages and disadvantages of nurturing
Speaker 2: your brain child without having another job to supplit your
Speaker 2: time between.
Speaker 4: Well, we both had to take turns to pick up
Speaker 4: you know, freelance gigs, but like in between our days,
Speaker 4: like we'll be taking on pitches and VC meetings and
Speaker 4: just you know, putting one foot ahead of each other.
Speaker 4: And big kudos to Emily, she sold Disney stocks to
Speaker 4: pay for our first chemist.
Speaker 5: Don't worry. It was supposed to put my kid through
Speaker 5: private school, but they'll be going to a different school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: This over lining to COVID, and we always say this
Speaker 5: is time and space. You know, there was one thing
Speaker 5: that May and I are steadfast on, which is work
Speaker 5: life balance. And we weren't willing to forego our evenings
Speaker 5: after a full time day job or our weekends to
Speaker 5: really put all of our muscle energy money into building
Speaker 5: a brand, particularly in the suncare space, because it would
Speaker 5: have taken us five years.
Speaker 3: So we were really lucky we.
Speaker 5: Capitalized on the time that COVID allowed us. And it's
Speaker 5: wild that COVID really lasted two and a half years,
Speaker 5: which is exactly how long we needed to bring our
Speaker 5: launch collection to market. But we also say like at
Speaker 5: that moment in COVID, like so many people, you kind
Speaker 5: of have to torch your ego on fire. You have
Speaker 5: to put it in the trash and start again. You
Speaker 5: can't think of out like, oh I I climbed the
Speaker 5: ladder for all these years, and I made it to
Speaker 5: the top of pr and marketing, and like none of
Speaker 5: that mattered anymore.
Speaker 3: It was all trivial.
Speaker 5: We are thinking about our health and the well being
Speaker 5: of our friends and family and ourselves. It was negotiating
Speaker 5: rent with our landlords to try to come down on
Speaker 5: monthly costs, and you figure it out.
Speaker 4: We tapped into our savings as well, so as every
Speaker 4: you know entrepreneur has probably has had to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So I'm curious how do you guys keep the
Speaker 1: friendship and still be business partners and you know, keep
Speaker 1: everything flowing, because I know that's not easy.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, this is such a weighted one. It's
Speaker 5: so personal personal. The relationship you have with a co
Speaker 5: founder is deeper and more intimate than any other relationship
Speaker 5: you'll have, including a romantic one. And you know a
Speaker 5: lot of people start businesses with the no that there's
Speaker 5: going to be a fifty to fifty divide. You really
Speaker 5: don't know how you're going to operate together. Especially if
Speaker 5: you've never ever worked in business together before. But I
Speaker 5: think where May and I really came together was in
Speaker 5: our overall value system. And it's the same way that
Speaker 5: we vet partners to come into the company. But you
Speaker 5: have to have hard conversations, particularly when you're a little
Speaker 5: ways in and you realize like there's strengths that one
Speaker 5: person has the other doesn't. It's a division of power
Speaker 5: maybe equity. I mean, we went through some really challenging
Speaker 5: times to get to where we are now, and it's
Speaker 5: made us all the stronger and better as co founders
Speaker 5: and leaders. And you know, we always say everything starts
Speaker 5: from the top, so we have to be as solid
Speaker 5: as possible to be able to lead and manage team
Speaker 5: to success.
Speaker 4: And I'll add on to that, we both had to
Speaker 4: like really drop our egos and get super vulnerable with
Speaker 4: each other and just be honest about where strengths lie,
Speaker 4: what we want in the business, like how we both
Speaker 4: want to lead. Also balance understanding each of those personalities.
Speaker 4: Understanding like when someone needs a little break, you know,
Speaker 4: it's like a relationship.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, Dune Suncare has seen a lot of success.
Speaker 2: We talked about Alta. I believe you guys are crushing
Speaker 2: it on Amazon. So how did you plan on growing
Speaker 2: a company that has experienced such a large success so
Speaker 2: new into its launch and like, what's next for Dune Suncare?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Give me the play by play on the next You
Speaker 2: mentioned five years, what's the next twelve twenty four months?
Speaker 2: What are your dream retailers? Where you headed? Am I
Speaker 2: going to see y'all on Shark Tank?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What's going on here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean, gosh, We've really been so lucky on the
Speaker 5: big box front. We went to Amazon actually as early
Speaker 5: as we could. We made the cash program for Blue Mercury.
Speaker 5: We sit at the front of all those major doors
Speaker 5: across the US, Urban Outfitters, Anthropology dot Com, as well
Speaker 5: as Goop, Gwyneth Paltra's company. And with the launch of
Speaker 5: our new mineral sunscreen, which is totally proprietary, it's formula,
Speaker 5: we're so excited to bring it to market. You know,
Speaker 5: this year is really focused on nurturing those relationships that
Speaker 5: we have and growing into more doors. So by April
Speaker 5: we'll be in about seven hundred doors. Oh my god,
Speaker 5: we are in April. What day is in two weeks,
Speaker 5: we'll be in seven hundred doors total, maybe a little
Speaker 5: over that number, and we are projecting the scale into
Speaker 5: most of those retailers.
Speaker 3: Doors by the fall of this year.
Speaker 5: So our focus is really on figuring out our best
Speaker 5: plan money wise to support our inventory. That also means
Speaker 5: maybe we're supporting our raise with debt or inventory financing,
Speaker 5: so we've been having conversations with those groups as well
Speaker 5: to best prepare for a huge amount of growth and
Speaker 5: push an inventory. It takes about three months on average
Speaker 5: to get a raw material in, so if you sell
Speaker 5: out as something you're screwed. You need a backup plan,
Speaker 5: you need inventory waiting on the ready and then in
Speaker 5: the future. We have really exciting new category launches skin
Speaker 5: Tone Inclusive Beauty, rolling out more products within our Sport
Speaker 5: and Surf line. We're launching our first sport and surf
Speaker 5: product at the end of this month, which will be awesome.
Speaker 5: Hint hint, it's like a non aerosol spray with a
Speaker 5: higher SVF level. Yes Exclusive, also some fun stuff in
Speaker 5: maybe the baby category. So you know, we've really worked
Speaker 5: hard at building this cachet around the brand early on
Speaker 5: by aligning with those high end specialty boutiques, grocers, you know,
Speaker 5: surf shops, hotel groups.
Speaker 3: But we are planning to, as you know, be.
Speaker 5: As accessible as possible, so that means rolling into accessible
Speaker 5: retailers to help support that mission.
Speaker 3: With telling you too much, that's what's up.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: You know. I've actually worked in the consumer product industry
Speaker 1: for fourteen years, so I know exactly what it takes
Speaker 1: to launch these types of products when you have a
Speaker 1: big ass conglomerate company behind you, and y'all are doing
Speaker 1: this two woman show, very bootstrapped, very lean, and so
Speaker 1: I just want to give you all the flowers you
Speaker 1: deserve because this is no easy feat.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. You really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having such a joy. We
Speaker 3: loved it.
Speaker 1: That was such an incredible conversation with Emily and May.
Speaker 1: First off, I'm like, I didn't even realize I needed
Speaker 1: clear sunscreen in my life, and now that I know
Speaker 1: that it exists, I can't go back.
Speaker 3: How about you, Austin?
Speaker 1: What stuck out to you most in this conversation?
Speaker 2: You know, I think something that really resonated with me
Speaker 2: was when they were talking about keeping track of their
Speaker 2: income and expenses early on, and keeping those books super
Speaker 2: clean off the jump right. As a small business owner myself,
Speaker 2: that's something I really struggled with. It was hard for
Speaker 2: me to project my cash flows, figure out when invoices
Speaker 2: were due, figuring out, you know, when I would collect
Speaker 2: on you know, from this vendor or whatever's going on, right,
Speaker 2: and so just keeping track of your income and expenses
Speaker 2: was just such a good takeaway from this. And something
Speaker 2: else kind of on top of that was what should
Speaker 2: I spend money on? Emily specifically, she was talking a
Speaker 2: little bit about how should I hire this person to
Speaker 2: help me grow this or is this expense really right
Speaker 2: for my business? Or can you know, May and I
Speaker 2: do this ourselves. Can we kind of put our heads
Speaker 2: together and figure out a solution without spending thousands on
Speaker 2: a consultant or an agency or something of that nature.
Speaker 2: So really having that internal reflection and understanding what is
Speaker 2: right for the business, what's right for that long term
Speaker 2: profitability projections. I just think those were the two biggest
Speaker 2: things for me. What about Eugenius what stood up for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it was a good reminder that even
Speaker 1: though you're trying to enter a market that's quote unquote
Speaker 1: super sadatated. There's always an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself,
Speaker 1: and they saw the opportunity and built a community of
Speaker 1: really engaged consumers that are buying into their brand. Right,
Speaker 1: you might be thinking to yourself, well, who needs another
Speaker 1: skincare brand? Who needs another sunscreen? And the fact is
Speaker 1: that they really did a great job in identifying how
Speaker 1: exclusive some of these brands have felt in the past,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they're being unapologetic in their approach,
Speaker 1: I think is why they've been able to stand out
Speaker 1: and see the success that they've had in such a
Speaker 1: short amount of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think something that's also really interesting about
Speaker 2: this conversation is the power of direct messages.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: She said that she got into Alta and Urban Outfitters
Speaker 2: because they sent her a DM. As a constant creator
Speaker 2: building my business, I know some my first customers came
Speaker 2: from just cold DM saying hey, here's the products I have.
Speaker 2: I've got this cool newsletter, like go check it out, right, Like,
Speaker 2: dms are so so powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, They're not just for like sliding in and sending
Speaker 1: creepy messages.
Speaker 3: You know, my.
Speaker 1: First tweet to a magazine editor, led to my first
Speaker 1: media opportunity with Joqiro Dinetro and I actually launched my
Speaker 1: entire coaching business because I started getting dms on my
Speaker 1: Instagram stories from people who were like really interested in
Speaker 1: what I was talking about and were like, Hey, can
Speaker 1: you teach me how to do this? So you just
Speaker 1: never know the power of direct messaging somebody and seeing
Speaker 1: what opportunity you can come up.
Speaker 2: I totally agree. And just to kind of wrap things
Speaker 2: up here, something that I've yet to really see other
Speaker 2: people do as well as them was the PR She mentioned,
Speaker 2: the Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, she mentioned Oprah's June list, Right,
Speaker 2: I don't even follow that, but I think that's what
Speaker 2: it was. But I know that's a big deal. And maybe,
Speaker 2: you know, thinking back to what should we spend money on,
Speaker 2: what should we not spend money on, I'd imagine the
Speaker 2: let's spend money on a PR agency was a really
Speaker 2: good idea for their business.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, especially when you are focusing on having an
Speaker 1: impact across so many different channels. I think having that
Speaker 1: person whose job is just to find you those opportunities
Speaker 1: to stand out, that's one of the many reasons why
Speaker 1: we outsource as entrepreneurs because we just can't be doing
Speaker 1: all the things. And that's a really good reminder just
Speaker 1: to focus on those highest return on investment investments in
Speaker 1: your business.
Speaker 2: I love it. Well, that's it for today's episode. You
Speaker 2: can find me on social media at Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 1: And you can find me at Jokiro dinetto podcast.
Speaker 2: You can learn more about Emily and May by following
Speaker 2: at Dune Somencare on Instagram. You can follow Into It
Speaker 2: QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks, and to get
Speaker 2: tools you need to start, run and grow your business,
Speaker 2: head to QuickBooks dot com today.
Speaker 1: We also want to hear from you, so be sure
Speaker 1: to leave a rating and review and join us Thursday,
Speaker 1: May twenty fifth, when we speak to Kristen Nino Deeguzman
Speaker 1: about transitioning to being a founder who learns how to
Speaker 1: outsource and delegate tasks.
Speaker 2: This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio in Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Molly Soosha, our supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Nikia Swinton, and our writer is Tyree Rush.
Speaker 2: Our head of post production is James Foster. See you
Speaker 2: next time in