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Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome back. U l back home for

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Speaker 1: a little bit. So, yeah, this is this is gonna

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Speaker 1: be a very dope episode. It's always good to talk

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Speaker 1: to the entrepreneurs and people in spaces that we haven't

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Speaker 1: necessarily covered before.

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Speaker 2: It's definitely a first for sure.

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Speaker 3: For sure. I don't think I've even really heard of

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Speaker 3: this situation before.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the term femtech is not a term that I've

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Speaker 4: heard before, but I'm glad I'm up on it now

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Speaker 4: because there's the industry that is when we talk about

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Speaker 4: recession proof in industries, definitely one always going to be needed.

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Speaker 3: It's going to be needed, sure.

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Speaker 1: So Crystal Etontien So, yeah, entrepreneur. So she founded Rugby Love,

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Speaker 1: which is a fem tech company that's now valued at

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Speaker 1: eighty million dollars in just six years, and also co

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Speaker 1: founder of Cage, which is a fund that she has

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Speaker 1: with her husband they invest into into companies and has

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Speaker 1: been extremely successful in the in the world of investing

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Speaker 1: in entrepreneurship. So the fem tech phrase is something that

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Speaker 1: I actually never even heard of before. Female technology, I

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Speaker 1: assume that's what and it's is it like female hygiene products?

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Speaker 5: Yep.

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Speaker 6: So fem tech is for like women's health, anything that

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Speaker 6: women's health, okay, and like personal needs.

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Speaker 7: A lot of people don't know.

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Speaker 3: So like, what are some examples of fem.

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Speaker 7: Tech periods okay, menopause, so hygiene type things, because maternity

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Speaker 7: is with it too, okay. Yeah, so any.

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Speaker 6: Type of technology that is women health related, okay.

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Speaker 4: So it makes the products, makes the technology, makes it

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Speaker 4: a safer.

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Speaker 5: Process for all these the innovation invision.

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Speaker 1: But she also received one of the largest funding grounds

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Speaker 1: for a solo black woman entrepreneur. So this is going

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Speaker 1: to be a variety of good conversations that we'll have

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Speaker 1: from you know, the business and investing and also raising

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Speaker 1: money as well.

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Speaker 3: So thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

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Speaker 7: Oh, absolutely, thank you.

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Speaker 1: No problem. So all right, so let's get into this.

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Speaker 1: So I want to start with the female tech. So

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Speaker 1: you kind of explained it briefly, but what made you

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Speaker 1: want to go into it and what specific do you provide.

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Speaker 3: In the female technology industry?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, So the reason why ones go into it because

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Speaker 6: I was struggling with my sanitary pad. It's like for

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Speaker 6: a woman, we get our period like around like when

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Speaker 6: we're like between like nine and eleven twelve years old

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Speaker 6: and then you don't even realize that you had that

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Speaker 6: thing for decades. Like it's just come every month. It

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Speaker 6: is aggravated, it's stressful, and we wear sanitary pads, and

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Speaker 6: sanitary pads they just don't look good.

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Speaker 7: Y'all have the same one with a woman.

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Speaker 6: It'd be sticking out our underwear, the sanitary nilkin.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, like max pad.

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Speaker 2: Or well not tampar. You're not gonna see hanging out.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but is different from ba Yeah yeah, but you're

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Speaker 4: not gonna see but you I.

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Speaker 6: Mean, yeah, tampon you don't see. But a Maxi pad

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Speaker 6: with the wings. I thought, yeah, men, y'all don't really

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Speaker 6: pay attention.

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Speaker 3: I thought, I thought people just use tampons.

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Speaker 7: No, no, no, no, So.

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Speaker 3: The past is one is one or the other.

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Speaker 7: Girls usually saw me, you saw period usually start with.

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Speaker 5: A maxi pad.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So the pad is like the line that you put

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Speaker 4: that on a line of the panty, right, and then

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Speaker 4: the tampon obviously those inside of the vaginal.

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Speaker 2: I was a health teaching.

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Speaker 4: Later, So the tampi goes inside of the vaginal canal usually,

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Speaker 4: so that is usually when people use that.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you grow into that. But usually when you're.

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Speaker 4: Going to do things like going into water, people tend

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Speaker 4: to use tampons overpass obviously because of the look of

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Speaker 4: it all, but that it's it. But because you said,

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Speaker 4: like this is technology that's invented in the fifties. Yes,

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Speaker 4: and I know why he thought to like, hey, I'm

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Speaker 4: sure women everywhere felt like this is uncomfortable.

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Speaker 2: Can we have something different? So like what sparked you

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Speaker 2: to say, let's change it?

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Speaker 7: Yes? So, first of all, the sanitary napkin was really people.

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Speaker 6: Most people don't even know it was actually invented from

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Speaker 6: a black woman, and most people don't even know that.

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Speaker 6: Like it just thoughted back then, like she invented this,

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Speaker 6: Mary Keller, she invented it. Nobody even knew that she

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Speaker 6: invented this sanitary pad. And now you know, like most

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Speaker 6: white people, they just get the credit for it, but

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Speaker 6: they didn't. So fast forward to me, I was just aggravated.

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Speaker 6: My pad was just sticking out. I was watching TV.

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Speaker 6: I was watching Windy Williams on TV, and I was

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Speaker 6: laying on the bed. My husband was at his business.

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Speaker 6: He had trucks and he was at home, and I

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Speaker 6: was just like, this is just like crazy. It just

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Speaker 6: looks nasty, like for the pad to stick out, And

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Speaker 6: obviously men don't even recognize that, like even though it bothers.

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Speaker 7: Us, y'all don't even recognize it.

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Speaker 6: Like you didn't even know what I was really talking

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Speaker 6: about just now, and you've probably seen it's probably been

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Speaker 6: around you fifty times.

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Speaker 7: Most people don't realize it.

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Speaker 6: So I was just aggravated with it, and I was like,

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Speaker 6: I have to do something about this, cause like why

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Speaker 6: after old these years, am I still dealing with this

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Speaker 6: problem in this way? And as a health teacher, you understand,

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Speaker 6: like it's something that every month we wake up, a

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Speaker 6: woman wakes up that gets her period every single month,

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Speaker 6: and we are really at cravated with it. Y'all don't

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Speaker 6: even understand, Like when you walking past people every day,

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Speaker 6: it is a stressful, like, oh.

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Speaker 7: I got my period?

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Speaker 3: Is he just crimp?

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Speaker 7: It's crams. It's the uncomfortableness. It's also the worry, like

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Speaker 7: if I had my period right now at this moment,

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Speaker 7: I'm sitting here wondering, like when I get up off

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Speaker 7: the chair with is the blood gonna be here?

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Speaker 5: Like it's that I had an.

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Speaker 4: Old girls class, and so like they were twelve and

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Speaker 4: thirteen or fourteen, and I'm trying to explain this process

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Speaker 4: to them, and then they in mine is there's anxiety

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Speaker 4: there right because they don't know what's gonna happen when

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Speaker 4: that day comes.

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Speaker 6: And anxiety is serious, like when it comes to and

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Speaker 6: some people don't know how to the majority of women

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Speaker 6: and girls don't know how to deal with that. So

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Speaker 6: that is what made me say like, I'm gonna create something.

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Speaker 6: I don't know what spalked me that day. I was like,

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Speaker 6: you know what, I'm gonna create something like to actually

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Speaker 6: like fix it.

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Speaker 7: And that's how it all started.

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Speaker 3: And so what is did you create?

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Speaker 6: So I jumped off my bed and I'm just like,

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Speaker 6: I'm going to figure out something to hold my pad

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Speaker 6: in place so that you can't see it, because that's

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Speaker 6: how it started. That's what was bothering me, like the

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Speaker 6: fact that I could see my pad like out of

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Speaker 6: my underwear, and I was like, it's nasty, like but

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Speaker 6: it's not nasty, but it is nasty and I don't

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Speaker 6: like it. So I just got off. I drew like

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Speaker 6: an underwear. I don't know, I won't even call it

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Speaker 6: an underwear. I drew like a picture with like a

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Speaker 6: hole like so that it would like that I would

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Speaker 6: be able to put my pad in.

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Speaker 3: So my product actually caught it like a cup.

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Speaker 7: Nope, it wasn't a cup.

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Speaker 6: I drew like I wanted to make an underwear that

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Speaker 6: I was going to put the pad in like a slot.

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Speaker 1: But like all right, so like when you play football,

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Speaker 1: they have what's called a cup where it's.

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Speaker 5: Like oh yes and something like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a cup that is inside the jockstrap, That's

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Speaker 3: what I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: So that's what you did, kind of panties and you

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Speaker 1: slide it inside the pand where.

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Speaker 6: I wanted my pad where you don't even know that

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Speaker 6: it's there, like if I'm in the locker room with

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Speaker 6: another woman or whatever, you don't see it at all,

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Speaker 6: just like you don't see tampons. Most people were using

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Speaker 6: tampons so that you don't see it. And for the

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Speaker 6: comfortability of it. A Mexic pat was never comfortable.

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Speaker 7: It's just bulky.

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Speaker 5: It's just big.

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Speaker 6: And I wasn't a tampon where because I had pcos

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Speaker 6: so pos is when vestigated to describe it. Pcos is

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Speaker 6: something that a lot of women suffer from, like not fibroids,

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Speaker 6: but like how most women suffer from fibroids, PCO is

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Speaker 6: another form of a condition.

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Speaker 7: And sometimes you get your period for like three weeks

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Speaker 7: at a time, and I mean heavy three weeks. Sometimes

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Speaker 7: it could go for like two months. If you have

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Speaker 7: PCOS three.

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Speaker 3: Weeks too much straight straight? How is that even possible?

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Speaker 7: With PCOS? That's what happens.

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Speaker 3: Does it stand for?

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Speaker 7: I forgot?

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Speaker 6: It's like Polly. I don't remember exactly what it says.

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Speaker 6: It's us the long word.

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Speaker 3: And that cause is irregular period.

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Speaker 6: Like one day you could have regular, normal periods, like

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Speaker 6: for your whole life. And then one day I realized,

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Speaker 6: like wait a minute, I'm only getting my period maybe

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Speaker 6: like four times a year. But when it was coming,

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Speaker 6: it was coming like for one time, I had it

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Speaker 6: for like a month and a half.

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Speaker 7: Do you they can't really wear a tampon.

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Speaker 4: Because even if if you have a tampon in for

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Speaker 4: a long period of time, that.

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Speaker 5: Could be unstated push out.

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Speaker 4: You can't push out any I mean, if it's in

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Speaker 4: there for too long, it could be risky. Right, there's

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Speaker 4: this risk that come along.

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Speaker 6: With having so in reality, with PCOS, I really couldn't

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Speaker 6: I could wear it, but I'm gonna be changing it

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Speaker 6: like every hour because you're bleeding extremely heavy.

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Speaker 1: A long time poly stolastic ovary syndrome.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I told you it was long shot that Todd Davis.

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Speaker 3: I know, yes, we we we had this in real time. Okay, okay,

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Speaker 3: So so I had that. So you have that? Is

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Speaker 3: there a cure for that?

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Speaker 6: No, you could take stuff, but it like to eliminate

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Speaker 6: it like a little. But I realize I was having

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Speaker 6: it because I which I didn't know at the time,

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Speaker 6: I was having it because I was in pre menopause.

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Speaker 3: So is it a cause for it? Like I wasn't a.

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Speaker 7: Doctor about it.

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Speaker 1: He just told me that I had it because I

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Speaker 1: you know, obviously I'm not an expert in the situation.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I speaking of different women just watch

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Speaker 1: different documentary stuff like that, and they were saying, like

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Speaker 1: even periods, a lot of times, it's what you eat.

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Speaker 3: It's the environment.

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Speaker 1: It causes longer periods like they like traditionally in parishi

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Speaker 1: only be like two or three days. When you have

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Speaker 1: like a seven day period. It's like that's something that

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Speaker 1: you could traditionally be eating to the wrong diet or

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Speaker 1: you know, a variety of stress, different things that nature

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Speaker 1: can actually throw your cycle off, right, So is there

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Speaker 1: any cause for that? Now?

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Speaker 7: My JACTA never told me.

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Speaker 6: Mines could have been stressed because I was going through

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Speaker 6: a divorce, like with my first husband at that time,

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Speaker 6: so minees could have been that. But my whole life

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Speaker 6: since I had my period, My period would come on

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Speaker 6: in like two three days and then one day I

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Speaker 6: just noticed it was here, and I didn't pay attention

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Speaker 6: to it because I'm like, all right, because everybody complains

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Speaker 6: about their period. I never had a I never had

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Speaker 6: cramps any of that stuff. But one day I was like, okay,

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Speaker 6: like this is like the third time, and then it

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Speaker 6: would disappear and not come back after like a couple

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Speaker 6: of months.

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Speaker 5: It was.

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Speaker 6: It was severe, So that's what That's why I was

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Speaker 6: always wearing I mean, not Tampon's maxic pads.

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Speaker 4: So the technology you're making was really the actual garment,

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Speaker 4: not the pad. Right, So the pad is going to

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Speaker 4: be the regular thickness that's going to be standard. What's

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Speaker 4: going to change is the actual garment that it's going into.

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Speaker 2: Yes, gotch you.

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Speaker 6: Eventually I did a pad to like a particular type

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Speaker 6: of bad at the start. No, it was just to

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Speaker 6: make that more comfortable, to secure it properly like under

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Speaker 6: like where I needed it to be so it don't move.

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Speaker 7: That's what it started from. That's all I wanted.

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Speaker 5: You're designing this, yes, Then I wrote a patent for it.

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Speaker 2: Then you wrote the pad, so that was the next

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Speaker 2: step to write the pattern.

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Speaker 7: Like a week after that I started writing the patent.

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Speaker 4: Then you're using it. So how do you get other

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Speaker 4: people now to use it? Cut you make it?

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Speaker 7: Oh yeah, so I live in New York, so that

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Speaker 7: was easy.

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Speaker 6: I just got on the train on the railroads from

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Speaker 6: Long Island to New York City.

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Speaker 5: We're not just walking around.

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Speaker 6: I went to the fashion district and found like a

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Speaker 6: couple of manufacturers who did not take me serious because

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Speaker 6: I'm walking around with a paper like I want to

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Speaker 6: make this underwear with a whole, but the money talks,

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Speaker 6: so I'm like, listen, just make what I tell you,

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Speaker 6: I'll pay you. And it was like okay, And I

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Speaker 6: found four manufacturers to make it like out there and

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Speaker 6: I pay them. They they really didn't take it serious

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Speaker 6: at all, and I took it and I just went

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Speaker 6: with that.

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Speaker 2: So they made how many are you making to start?

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Speaker 6: So I made four samples first, well four different people,

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Speaker 6: because I wanted to see like how it came out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then who were you testing on?

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Speaker 4: Like you're giving out to your friends like, hey, I

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Speaker 4: got this idea, I want you to try it.

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Speaker 7: Yes, So one of my friends was my guinea pig.

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Speaker 6: I would have her test it and style it and

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Speaker 6: all types of stuff. So she was my guinea pig,

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Speaker 6: and my daughter was my guinea pick at the time.

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Speaker 4: All right, So now now that it's tested and it's proven, yeah,

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Speaker 4: you gotta get this out to the people. Yeah, Like

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Speaker 4: now what's the plan? How are we getting fun into

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Speaker 4: manufacturer more? What's the next stuff?

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Speaker 5: Yeah?

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Speaker 6: So I always was well off with funds, but you

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Speaker 6: still even though you got money, you still like, listen,

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Speaker 6: I need to I need to figure out like what

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Speaker 6: I'm gonna do be cause I actually went all in,

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Speaker 6: Like I left my job, like I wasn't going back

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Speaker 6: to work nothing. My husband wants to kill me, but

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Speaker 6: I was like I'm all in. Like when I had it,

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Speaker 6: I just did it. I spent like thirty maybe like

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Speaker 6: almost forty days like writing the patent myself because I

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Speaker 6: didn't want to spend the six thousand dollars to pay

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Speaker 6: a patent attorney. And once the USPTO office told me

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Speaker 6: that they mess up too, I was like, well they

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Speaker 6: got mess up. They got mess up with my doll

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Speaker 6: and my mom would write it myself and mess up.

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Speaker 6: So I wrote that and then I started like preparing

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Speaker 6: to sell it, and then I just started researching. I

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Speaker 6: had no marketing background. I had a business background, which

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Speaker 6: is the best to have. I had a business background,

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Speaker 6: but I had no marketing background. I didn't even know

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Speaker 6: how to do a website.

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Speaker 7: And I did it. I figure it out.

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Speaker 4: So what was your career prior to this, Because you said,

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Speaker 4: I mean this is a I would see a transition.

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Speaker 7: I was a controller, so I was running a business.

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Speaker 6: I was running people's business and the operations.

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Speaker 1: So okay, So you you have this idea, you get

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Speaker 1: it made, you test it out.

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Speaker 3: I'm assuwing.

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Speaker 1: You probably tweak a few things, and now you're at

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Speaker 1: the stage where you say, okay, now I want to

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Speaker 1: actually get this out to the public.

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Speaker 7: Yep, I created a website.

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Speaker 3: You create a website, You create the name for the company.

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Speaker 3: What's what's the product's name?

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Speaker 6: Oh so when I first launched, it wasn't Ruby Low

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Speaker 6: panty prop, it was panty prope.

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Speaker 2: Got it all homework.

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Speaker 5: Bob Shop was talking about prandy sold about panty prop, so.

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Speaker 6: It was panty prop. That's what I always think. It's

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Speaker 6: funny when it comes out, So panty prop. The reason

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Speaker 6: why it's called panty problem because that's what it was.

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Speaker 7: I thought the names, I don't.

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Speaker 6: Want to tell y'all what it was going to be.

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Speaker 6: One of them was late we would be called blood.

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Speaker 6: My sister was like hell no, Like she was like,

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Speaker 6: don't do that. So the name was panty prop because

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Speaker 6: it was something that you prop in your panty that's where.

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Speaker 6: But I never had a problem with that name, like

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Speaker 6: from the time that I wanted to the time that

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Speaker 6: I rebranded. I only rebranded it because you can't really

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Speaker 6: scale the name panty prop. And we were selling globally

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Speaker 6: in like all countries, So all right, so.

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Speaker 3: How do you scale?

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Speaker 6: Like?

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Speaker 2: All right?

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Speaker 1: So once you get it going with you the website,

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Speaker 1: you make the website, how are you promoting this?

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Speaker 3: Like, how are you marketing this?

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Speaker 7: So I started following.

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Speaker 6: I had a big competitor at the time, and they

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Speaker 6: had just raised like two point five million dollars. So

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Speaker 6: I was like, oh, okay, but my product was completely

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Speaker 6: different than theirs, like totally different. It's same concept, but

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Speaker 6: totally different because we still have like the whole, like

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Speaker 6: the gusset that actually secures it in place.

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Speaker 7: So I just thought it being where they were being.

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Speaker 6: So say, if they were being in say Google, I

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Speaker 6: was like, okay, Like if I Google, like my keywords,

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Speaker 6: they were popping up.

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Speaker 7: So I was like, let me figure out how to

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Speaker 7: be where they are. So I figured that out. I

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Speaker 7: called Google up and Google had a number at the time.

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Speaker 6: I don't even know if they still have it, but

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Speaker 6: they had a number at the time, and I called

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Speaker 6: them and I was like, listen, I want to do ads.

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Speaker 6: How do I get my ad up there? I want

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Speaker 6: to be like right below them, And they showed me

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Speaker 6: how to do that. I used to pay them probably

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Speaker 6: like five ten dollars a day in like ads on Google,

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Speaker 6: and then I started on Facebook. Facebook back then did

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Speaker 6: not have reps unless you were spending like a lot

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Speaker 6: of money, which I didn't know. But I figured that

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Speaker 6: one out too, Like I figured out how to do it.

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Speaker 6: I would just read, I would look at YouTube, videos,

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Speaker 6: and I figured out how to do it, and within like,

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Speaker 6: I officially launched in January of twenty sixteen. So I

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Speaker 6: came up with the idea in August of twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 6: wrote the patent in September of twenty fifteen, did all

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Speaker 6: that stuff, like the manufacturing and everything like through that time,

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Speaker 6: like the samples and they get in like a small run,

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Speaker 6: and then I officially launched in January of twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 6: By March of twenty sixteen, because everything went so fast,

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Speaker 6: I was able to get all my products out. So

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Speaker 6: my next product was my period swimwear that I'm the

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Speaker 6: inventor of, and that went viral and then we've just

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Speaker 6: been up since then.

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Speaker 1: The online marketing is how you got it out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: online marketing ads and stuff like that. Yeah, and social

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Speaker 1: media wasn't really you didn't really use social media.

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Speaker 7: To now I actually just got I'm just learning social media.

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Speaker 7: I literally just got one air like so.

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Speaker 3: Word, I'm moufing online marketing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So you did the SEO Association optimizers.

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Speaker 5: So when Google, yeah, well at the time I was

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Speaker 5: doing that, but yes, yeah, so.

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Speaker 4: When it's when you search period panning, yep, there's some competitors.

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Speaker 4: We'll get into those later, but yeah, there's some competitors

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Speaker 4: and now you're coming up with them.

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Speaker 2: Yes, got, you got.

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Speaker 6: And one of the big things, like with the SEO,

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Speaker 6: another big thing that I did, I was writing blogs

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Speaker 6: that I didn't know was SEO at the time. I

395
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Speaker 6: just was writing blogs. I would use Fiver, I would

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Speaker 6: pay if there was one girl on it, she would

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Speaker 6: give me some real good blogs. It's like one of

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Speaker 6: my top blogs to this day. I pay like literally

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Speaker 6: five dollars for that blog. And I didn't know it

400
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Speaker 6: was SEO at the time, but I was given out

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00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:07,280
Speaker 6: information because that's what I had read like if you

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00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:10,680
Speaker 6: want to if you want to bring people in, give

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Speaker 6: information that's relevant.

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Speaker 7: So I just started writing blogs pertaining to what my

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Speaker 7: product was.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so how how fast does this scale? Like when

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00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:27,040
Speaker 1: you first start, like numbers wise, like how many units

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00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:27,680
Speaker 1: were you moving?

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Speaker 6: Like I don't even remember the units, but I used

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Speaker 6: to tell my husband. He lasts about it now to

411
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Speaker 6: this day. I used to be like, I just want

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Speaker 6: to sell twenty items, Like if we sell just twenty

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00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:39,840
Speaker 6: of these things today, I'm good and we know twenties

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Speaker 6: not a lot, but That's that was my thinking back there.

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00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:44,280
Speaker 6: I just wanted to buy, you know, to twenty of them.

416
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:47,760
Speaker 6: But it scales rapidly, So like the first year, I

417
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Speaker 6: think I did Like that year in twenty sixteen, I

418
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Speaker 6: think I did like close to three hundred thousand, and

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Speaker 6: then the next year it just shot up to over

420
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Speaker 6: a million. And then after that it was always like

421
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Speaker 6: revenue in revenue, actual revenue in.

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Speaker 2: It's how many products is it's to the underwear and

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Speaker 2: then the swimwear.

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Speaker 7: So that first year was the underwear in the swimwear

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Speaker 7: at that time.

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Speaker 2: Later we start having activewear, yes, okay, and.

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Speaker 3: Then the swimwhear. It is the same idea, but it's

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Speaker 3: just something that you can go swimming in.

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Speaker 6: So the swimwear has actual just another piece of technology

430
00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:21,080
Speaker 6: in it is not like some of my competitors. They'll say,

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00:19:21,119 --> 00:19:23,919
Speaker 6: is waterproof, waterproof? Who wants a waterproof swimsuit? Like they

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Speaker 6: don't know because they're not the inventor of it. I

433
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Speaker 6: am our swim where is actually water resistant. So if

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Speaker 6: you see that they say waterproof.

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00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:33,440
Speaker 2: The swimwhear, do you have to it?

436
00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:35,600
Speaker 5: That is the pad right, like it's built in.

437
00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:37,840
Speaker 2: You're not wearing a pad. You're not wearing a tampon

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Speaker 2: on the planet, right, This is one thing yep.

439
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:41,840
Speaker 7: Got it just looks like a regular swimsuit.

440
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:44,760
Speaker 6: And if you have your period, you on vacation, because

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00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:46,840
Speaker 6: that's the worst with a woman, when you go on vacation,

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Speaker 6: you have your period and you gotta worry about it.

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00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:51,520
Speaker 7: So it serves for that purpose.

444
00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:54,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that in the flow of water. Usually

445
00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:58,000
Speaker 2: water sows down the flow of blood during the metro cycle,

446
00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:02,119
Speaker 2: so not really always though, you never know.

447
00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:07,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so okay, so you're moving, you're moving these units,

448
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,439
Speaker 1: and he was like drop shipping, like you have like a.

449
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:13,760
Speaker 7: No, I'm we're shipping all from my house, so.

450
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:16,280
Speaker 3: You just have a bunch of products in your basement. Yep.

451
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,879
Speaker 6: Every time, every day I would go to the manufacturer

452
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:21,119
Speaker 6: pick up and it was they were in Brooklyn. My

453
00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:23,280
Speaker 6: manufacturer a big manufacturer in Brooklyn, and they used to

454
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:25,399
Speaker 6: do for like a lot of stores. I would leave

455
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:27,879
Speaker 6: from Long Island, go get fabric.

456
00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:28,000
Speaker 7: In the city.

457
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:29,760
Speaker 6: Now I'm in my car and not on the train,

458
00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:32,359
Speaker 6: go to the city and then go to Brooklyn and

459
00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:34,240
Speaker 6: then head back to Long Island.

460
00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:35,920
Speaker 7: Every day every day to pick up.

461
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,880
Speaker 3: My son, Oh, your son was going to school, and yeah,

462
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:39,320
Speaker 3: my son.

463
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:40,760
Speaker 7: Was younger at the time he was I had to

464
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 7: pick him up from the bus.

465
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:43,320
Speaker 1: You were picking up product every day, shipping it out

466
00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:45,200
Speaker 1: every shipping out once a week, and shipping out every day, No,

467
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:47,280
Speaker 1: every day, shipping it out every day yep.

468
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:49,520
Speaker 3: As people make orders online yep.

469
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:51,040
Speaker 7: So when I come back, all the orders to be

470
00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:51,520
Speaker 7: sitting there.

471
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:53,600
Speaker 3: So how did you I'm assuming you're still not doing

472
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,119
Speaker 3: that now? Oh no, so when did When did you?

473
00:20:56,160 --> 00:20:58,160
Speaker 1: When did you start to streamline the process a little

474
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,960
Speaker 1: bit more efficiently the officially.

475
00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:03,440
Speaker 2: Progress.

476
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:06,920
Speaker 7: Yeah, so the first year it was no.

477
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:08,480
Speaker 6: I would say, like the first eight months, it was

478
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:11,240
Speaker 6: all me. If you even called, like you didn't know.

479
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:13,159
Speaker 7: That you were talking to me. I was like all

480
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 7: different sizes of people.

481
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:17,320
Speaker 6: In twenty sixteen, and then in twenty seventeen, I hired

482
00:21:17,359 --> 00:21:21,480
Speaker 6: my first employee. My husband was my employee all the time,

483
00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:23,640
Speaker 6: like when he would get off his own business for work.

484
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:27,560
Speaker 6: But and at that time I was trying to convince

485
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 6: him because we were moving so rapidly and it was

486
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:32,840
Speaker 6: just becoming too much. Because like that ride that I

487
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:34,960
Speaker 6: would tell you I did every day from and if

488
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:38,080
Speaker 6: anybody knows New York. Going from Long Island to the

489
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 6: city to Brooklyn back to Long Island, that is a

490
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,959
Speaker 6: whole day process. And then I had a child who

491
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,919
Speaker 6: was in elementary school that I had to get off

492
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:49,119
Speaker 6: the bus by three o'clock.

493
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:49,840
Speaker 7: It was crazy.

494
00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:52,320
Speaker 6: So when I would get him off the bus, then

495
00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 6: I would have express orders sitting there for me.

496
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 7: I would have to ride to FedEx, come back and

497
00:21:56,600 --> 00:21:58,680
Speaker 7: be another express order. It was just a lot.

498
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:01,000
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't even know how I did it now

499
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 6: that I think about it. But you know, like when

500
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 6: you in the grind, you don't even I didn't feel

501
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:05,679
Speaker 6: it back then.

502
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:07,600
Speaker 2: So how are you managing the inventory?

503
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 4: Because that a lot of times when people get into

504
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:15,200
Speaker 4: businesses with it selling products, the inventory is an issue?

505
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 6: Right?

506
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:17,200
Speaker 2: Do I have too much and then I'm not selling?

507
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,000
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Do I have it? No?

508
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 7: It was no inventory for me. It was just like

509
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,440
Speaker 7: you buying it, I am gonna have it, and I

510
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 7: am you gonna get it.

511
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,200
Speaker 2: So did the capital that it took to get that

512
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:32,520
Speaker 2: that was something that you had saved or ready fund.

513
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 5: Your price my own funds.

514
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:35,919
Speaker 7: Yeah, I always saved my money since I was seventeen

515
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 7: years old.

516
00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:40,440
Speaker 4: Okay, so you've always been financially disciplined, always, Okay, but

517
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 4: you obviously you're seeing competitors come into the space at

518
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 4: the same time and they raising money, and they're raising money.

519
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 4: At a certain point, are you looking at it like

520
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 4: I have to go that route too if I want

521
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 4: to be in the same breath as my competitors, or

522
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,360
Speaker 4: I'm just going to keep doing Like at some point

523
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 4: you have.

524
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 2: To realize this.

525
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:56,680
Speaker 5: Yeah.

526
00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:58,920
Speaker 6: Once, I when I first thought it, I knew nothing

527
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:02,200
Speaker 6: about the VC world, like how I know now, which

528
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:05,560
Speaker 6: is like most black people, we just don't, like, we

529
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 6: don't know that you can actually raise funds to like

530
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 6: scale your company.

531
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:11,680
Speaker 7: So I didn't know anything about it.

532
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 6: But I had saw that, like I saw the headlines

533
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 6: with my competitive raised that two point five million dollars.

534
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 6: So I was like, oh, they raised two point five

535
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 6: million dollars. So I looked into that and I was like, Okay, well,

536
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:24,480
Speaker 6: let me see if that's what I want to do.

537
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:28,160
Speaker 6: I tried it for probably like two weeks because raising

538
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 6: funds is a full time job and it was taking

539
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:31,880
Speaker 6: me from the business.

540
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:35,879
Speaker 7: These people, these vcs, they they they just.

541
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 6: Waste your time, and I don't like people wasting my time,

542
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 6: so I just gave up after that, like after like

543
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 6: two weeks. So I don't really want to say I

544
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,359
Speaker 6: tried to raise funds at first. I was in two thousand.

545
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 6: At the end of twenty sixteen is when I first

546
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 6: tried it. By January, I was January twenty seventeen, I

547
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 6: was like, I ain't doing this no more, and I

548
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 6: wanted to focus on my business because it was already

549
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 6: just like going so much. So I just kept reinvesting

550
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:05,159
Speaker 6: that money and going to the manufacturers, getting stuff and

551
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 6: sending things out.

552
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 3: So when did you? But you did raise money eventually

553
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen.

554
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 7: So in twenty eighteen at the end, I took it

555
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 7: serious to raise.

556
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 3: Funds and you raised fifteen million.

557
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:17,119
Speaker 7: I did a fifteen million dollar deal, So.

558
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 3: All right, walcomes through that process.

559
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:19,400
Speaker 7: Yeah.

560
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 6: So in twenty eighteen, now I had a few more employees.

561
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 6: We had just moved into our first office. So I

562
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 6: was like, you know what, because I remember it from before,

563
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 6: like this is a full time job that I have

564
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 6: to do this, and I joined Jason Calacanis's launch program.

565
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 6: Jason Callahanis is known for like he was the first

566
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 6: investor in uber and stuff like that.

567
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 3: Cool.

568
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 7: He's real cool.

569
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 6: And I said, you know what if if they don't

570
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 6: take me, I'm not doing it no more, like I'm

571
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 6: not trying to raise anymore.

572
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:49,200
Speaker 7: I was trying like for a month at that point again.

573
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 6: And then as soon as he saw like I told

574
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 6: him the numbers and in the VC world, like the

575
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 6: numbers were supposed to talk, right, but now when you

576
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 6: were a black woman, it don't. But for him, he

577
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 6: was like, you haven't raise no money yet. And I

578
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 6: think at that point I probably was at maybe like

579
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 6: seven million dollars, which I didn't know at the time.

580
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 6: To me, that was a little bit like seven million

581
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 6: dollars like, oh my god, are they gonna give me money?

582
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,920
Speaker 6: But he looked at it like, wait a minute. You

583
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 6: got seven million dollars. You got seven million dollars that

584
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 6: you brought in in revenue in this little bit of

585
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 6: time and people telling you no.

586
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 7: He was like, oh, all in. So I did that program,

587
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 7: and by the end of that program, it was like

588
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 7: a four month program.

589
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 6: I actually was flying back to San Francisco every week,

590
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 6: probably like two three times a week. I didn't want

591
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 6: to move there because I don't like to San Francisco.

592
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 6: I would just get on the plane and go every

593
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 6: single week. And by the time that that program end up,

594
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 6: had fifteen term sheets from investors, and then I had

595
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 6: one from an investor overseas in the UK who actually

596
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 6: had become my.

597
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:55,880
Speaker 7: Investor at that time, and they didn't want anyone else

598
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 7: in the deal, so I had to turn down the

599
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 7: other fifteen. That reason why I decided to go into

600
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 7: the program, and then I took the one the one deal.

601
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 4: Talk about the process, right, we always hit the phrase

602
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 4: that the most disrespected woman on the planet is a

603
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 4: black woman, especially when it comes to VC. Talk about

604
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 4: some of the struggles that you saw you phased during

605
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 4: that process that almost made you say I'm not doing

606
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 4: this song.

607
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 6: Yeah, So the VC world, because once I've decided if

608
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 6: I'm going to raise funds, I got to research, like

609
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 6: what's entailed with it, everything, so I completely understood it

610
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 6: the second time around, not the first time, but the

611
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 6: second time. It's a business transaction. So unfortunately in society,

612
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 6: people don't like doing business with black women.

613
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 7: It don't matter what we say, what we do.

614
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 6: How we look like when it comes to being a

615
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 6: business woman, we are just not respected for some reason.

616
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 6: So I'm showing up at the table with say seven

617
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 6: million dollars worth of sales, and they're telling me no,

618
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 6: And I'm like, aren't like what I researched was like,

619
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 6: isn't the whole purpose for you to make money? Like

620
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 6: you have to make your LP's back money. So I'm

621
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 6: showing you I have an audience. And I had already

622
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 6: had my audience. I knew exactly who my audience was

623
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 6: at that time. I had clicked off all the boxes.

624
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 6: Whereas if I was a white woman or a white male,

625
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 6: you know, you gore raised with nothing, just a simple idea.

626
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 6: A black woman just can't do that. So I had

627
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 6: met James from Black Ops and he said, you know

628
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 6: what he said. He said, I used to be like you,

629
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 6: cause I'm walking in there like I know this, I

630
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 6: know that I know this. And he said, you know what,

631
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 6: he said, just just make them feel like they're on

632
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 6: top of the world. And he said, I don't know

633
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 6: if I could do that, Like I really don't, but

634
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 6: he said no, I didn't think I could do it either.

635
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 6: And he said, how you do it is even if.

636
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 7: You know it, don't say it. And just tell him

637
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,679
Speaker 7: that is a good idea, like oh, like, even if

638
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 7: you know it, I did that and it worked.

639
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 3: But why is a black women do I have even

640
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: say that again, even if you don't know it.

641
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 6: So even if you do know it, act like you

642
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 6: So say if you say something to me and I

643
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 6: know exactly what you're talking about, you're explaining to me

644
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 6: in detail. Most times people will be like, oh, I

645
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 6: know that already. You can't do that as a black woman,

646
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 6: like in the VC world, I have to sit there

647
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 6: and say.

648
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 7: Oh, that's a good idea. Okay, you know what, I

649
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 7: think I'm gonna try that, Like, why.

650
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 2: That's a great idea.

651
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 4: That's so that's I mean, it's ridiculous, right, The numbers

652
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 4: are there, But this is part of the game that

653
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 4: nobody sees, right because a lot of times we don't

654
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 4: even we don't see, we don't hear the stories of

655
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 4: black women in the VC world and trying to raise funds.

656
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 4: You said something understant about your audience and you knew

657
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 4: exactly who that was, and it made me think, well,

658
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 4: I feel like your audience is everybody. Every woman is

659
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 4: at your audience, So who was the target audience that

660
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 4: you're telling to the VCS.

661
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 3: Yes.

662
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 6: So when I first launched, I thought it was gonna

663
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 6: be millennials. Millennials, hey, my product because it's thicker.

664
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 7: My product audience is moms with teen and.

665
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 6: Tweens, parents teens. Yep, it's teen and tweens. And I

666
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 6: figured that out within the first six months.

667
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 3: So were you always like, was the product ever like

668
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 3: branded as a black company or no.

669
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 6: I always stayed in the background. It was just ran

670
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 6: like corporate. It was ran corporate like what I knew, Like,

671
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 6: just run it when you negotiate, when you talk about it.

672
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 6: Nobody even knew that Crystal Ettien was the founder. So

673
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 6: you need to do it on purpose, Like I just

674
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 6: didn't want to. I wanted to run it as a

675
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 6: not focused on me, but more of the product, so.

676
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 3: You able to sell to everybody.

677
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, I could sell to everybody, but I know who

678
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 7: my audience is.

679
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 3: Who's your audience?

680
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 2: Race?

681
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 7: White women? Yes, okay, And I always wanted it to

682
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 7: be black women. But with black women. I'm a black women.

683
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 7: I had a daughter, Like, you got to talk to

684
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 7: us differently.

685
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 6: Like black woman is not going to like you tell

686
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 6: a black woman, okay, put your daughter in the pool

687
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 6: with the swim where with her period, a black woman's

688
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 6: gonna be like, I gotta try this out first, like

689
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 6: like even me, I ain't throwing my daughter, you know

690
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 6: with that, But a white woman will. She's like, this

691
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 6: is gonna save the day, and this is how it is.

692
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 6: I would because I was just different with my daughter.

693
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 6: Even when it comes to like women's health, like it's

694
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 6: just different.

695
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 7: Like a black woman.

696
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 6: When I gave my daughter birth control pills when she

697
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 6: was going to college, some of my friends was like,

698
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 6: you've built Like like I'm like, I'm promoting it, but

699
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 6: it's like, no, I ain't promoting it like my Like no,

700
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 6: I want to make her and set her up for success.

701
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 7: Like my daughter just graduated law school.

702
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 6: She ain't never been pregnant because I had those conversations

703
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 6: with my daughter and she's you know, was on birth

704
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 6: to droll pills like at that time.

705
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 7: But a black woman and white women, we just.

706
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 6: I don't know, it's just it's just different. It's just different,

707
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 6: and like we just we just want to protect our

708
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 6: orders more. I don't want to say white women don't

709
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 6: want to protect their daughters, because they do. But black

710
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 6: women we just like we can't throw our daughters. We

711
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 6: just can't throw you out there to the wolves. We

712
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 6: got to test it first, so it's a different conversation

713
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 6: that would have to be said. And the reason why

714
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 6: I think the white women are more of my customer

715
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 6: base is because what I did in the beginning when

716
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 6: you ask me about my competitor, like being where they were,

717
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 6: it was like I went out where they were.

718
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 3: And then in like promotional all that, did you use

719
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 3: like white women as like models or something?

720
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 7: Oh?

721
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 6: No, I used everybody. Yeah, because I wasn't like, like

722
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 6: the white women just kid to me. I didn't ask

723
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 6: for them, like I love them that they they are.

724
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 6: And I would love black women to really like talk

725
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 6: to their you know, daughters about their health much earlier,

726
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 6: or their period or their personal care and hygiene.

727
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 7: We just like it's just like shunned like to talk.

728
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 2: About Yeah, I have the conversations.

729
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, some people do, but the majority you know does not.

730
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 6: It's like I don't want to talk about it.

731
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 2: It's like talk to that he's a health teacher.

732
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 5: No health teacher.

733
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 4: I mean It's cool though, because again it makes the

734
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 4: conversation even more comfortable, right, because it can come from

735
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 4: mom or could come from Dad, And so it makes

736
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 4: my daughter like like, hey, I can go to both

737
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 4: of you for this, that's understandable.

738
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 2: Hey Dad, I need you to go here to get this.

739
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 2: So that's great.

740
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 4: I want to go to the name change right, because

741
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 4: panty Prop was the name. But at what point is

742
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 4: it now when you're raising or trying to raise, you

743
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 4: change the name.

744
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 7: After I raised?

745
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 5: After you raised it, so I raise it got real?

746
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, so why do you change it? And how do

747
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 2: we get to the name?

748
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 7: So after I raised, when you raise a fund, deals close,

749
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 7: you know, wires thought.

750
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 6: Coming in, like the pressure comes on now And I

751
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 6: don't ever feel pressure for nothing, but I felt pressure

752
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 6: like the next day after that first wire came through,

753
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 6: I said, okay, like I knew what I was getting into.

754
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 7: It's a it's a business deal. So now it ain't

755
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 7: just me, it's literally not me.

756
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 6: It's like, now there's a board that even though I

757
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 6: controlled the board, like I negotiated very well, my attorney

758
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 6: was really good, negotiated. I still control the board, but

759
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 6: it's still you. Still you have an obligation and a

760
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 6: vegetiary duty, like to do certain things like when you

761
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 6: take someone's money. It's not borrow money from your aunt

762
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 6: your mama. Is a business deal and that a lot

763
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 6: of people don't understand. Also, so changing the name was

764
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 6: because when you raise funds, you are basically telling the

765
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 6: world and telling your vcs and all their LPs that

766
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 6: gave them the money. I'm going to scale this and

767
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 6: I am going to make you a return. They're not

768
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 6: giving it to you, you know, to just sit it

769
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 6: there and not do nothing, so you have to start scaling.

770
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 6: So the word pany actually is like offensive in some

771
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 6: countries because at first I was like, no, like this

772
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:58,479
Speaker 6: is because we've never had a problem, No one's ever

773
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 6: complained about the name, like our custom anything. So I

774
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,719
Speaker 6: was like, we're going to lose everything that I built up,

775
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 6: like over these last three years, well it was like

776
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 6: three and a half years at that time. We're going

777
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 6: to lose everything. And I didn't want to change your name.

778
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 6: And then I was talking to my investors, my investors

779
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 6: that were in, and they was like, you know what,

780
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 6: just like think about it, but we need you to

781
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:19,320
Speaker 6: change your name. And then I really thought about and

782
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 6: I said, you know what, like I'm a fair game.

783
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:25,360
Speaker 6: I really thought about it. And I said, you know what,

784
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 6: as long as we don't lose nothing, then let's change it.

785
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 6: And then that's when I change it to Ruby Love.

786
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 2: Ruby Love.

787
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 4: And you talked about having vcs, but a lot of

788
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 4: times when people raise capital, they lose equity in their company.

789
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 2: And so how did you go about that? Right? They do?

790
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 4: You don't want to dilute yourself to the point where

791
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 4: you don't have control of the own the thing that

792
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:45,439
Speaker 4: you built.

793
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 2: Yes, how was out for you?

794
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:49,280
Speaker 7: So two things.

795
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 6: One, I'm a solo founder, so right off the back,

796
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 6: I have the edge there solo founder. If you are

797
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,800
Speaker 6: two partners, you start off with fifty to fifty, so

798
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 6: right there you have to elude it way down.

799
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 7: But the most important is not the dilution. It's actually

800
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 7: the board.

801
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 6: That most people don't understand is who controls that board,

802
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 6: because that's when you see founders getting fired and things

803
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 6: like that, or saying they stepped down, whatever whatever they

804
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 6: want to call it.

805
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 7: It's fired.

806
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:19,359
Speaker 6: Though, Like if you control the board and the vote

807
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 6: is always in your favor, you still got to discuss it.

808
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,320
Speaker 7: But as far as like the equity part of it,

809
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 7: that really is not a big deal.

810
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 6: But I didn't lose that much equity because I already

811
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 6: had I negotiated because I bootstrapped it, like I already

812
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 6: bootstrapped it to I think at that point we was

813
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 6: a like twelve million dollars.

814
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 7: So I'm not gonna give you fifty percent of my company,

815
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 7: Like why would I do that?

816
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 2: He went to the negotiation knowing that this is the number,

817
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 2: whether it was twenty, this is what it is.

818
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,399
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a five hundred thousand dollar legal bill

819
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:51,879
Speaker 6: likes to negotiate like that whole entire thing.

820
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 7: But it worked at all the way in the end,

821
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 7: even to this day, it worked out in my favor.

822
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 3: So did you have another round raising after that?

823
00:35:58,960 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 7: Nope?

824
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 3: That was just then. That was it?

825
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 7: Yeap in twenty nineteen.

826
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: Okay, so and then you invest you have, so let's

827
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: talk about that. When when did that start and how

828
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: is that going for you?

829
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 7: Yeah?

830
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 6: So after my company was like all set up, like

831
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 6: I had like fifty four employees, like everything, like the

832
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:25,200
Speaker 6: I put the operation like in sound like where it

833
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 6: just operates.

834
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 7: I think me and my husband was just like you

835
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 7: know what, like this is like missed up? Like what

836
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 7: happened to me?

837
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,800
Speaker 6: Like all these years like building this quick scaling company.

838
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 6: It's like really messed up. And then we were like,

839
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 6: we know what we want to help people. We want

840
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 6: to help black women that are being ignored. And that's

841
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 6: when we just said, we're just going to put our

842
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:44,919
Speaker 6: own personal wealth.

843
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 7: We don't have no LPs.

844
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 6: Not that we use our own money, like most of

845
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 6: the people that are giving out money, it's not their own,

846
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 6: it's not their money, it's LPs.

847
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 7: But we use our own funds to do that.

848
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 3: And how much money have you invested so far?

849
00:36:57,280 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 7: So we invest all the time.

850
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 6: We invest either a thousand to twenty five thousand dollars

851
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 6: because we get you like at the like the we

852
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 6: call it soil.

853
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,280
Speaker 7: You know it has like preceed we live under preseed

854
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 7: because some people just don't some people just don't understand it.

855
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 6: And my goal in his goal was to get take

856
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 6: that black woman and like really show her like everything

857
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 6: I told y'all of protecting yourself early and not just

858
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 6: thinking this your mom's money.

859
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 7: So we invest in just in black women, black women period,

860
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:31,799
Speaker 7: like to do it.

861
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 6: Like in not even just like monetary ways, like we

862
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 6: just invest a lot of our time and everything into

863
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 6: black women.

864
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 3: Has anything worked out so far.

865
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 6: No, because it's everything is well new, Okay, yeah, we

866
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 6: just thoughted that in two thousand and twenty I think no,

867
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one.

868
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 4: Actually, well, fundamentally, what are you looking for and when

869
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,479
Speaker 4: you're investing, right is it? Obviously you said black women

870
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 4: number one? Yeah, but what what are you looking for

871
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 4: inside of these companies to say, all right, this is

872
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 4: worth an investment. And once you've made that, do you

873
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 4: stick with them in the sense of like a mentorship.

874
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 7: Yeah, so we do mentor.

875
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 6: As far as like what we're looking for, We're looking

876
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,919
Speaker 6: for a company that you believe that can scale, because

877
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 6: you could scale anything like it could it could be

878
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 6: a paper clip and that could be scaled. It's the

879
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 6: person and how you go about executing that.

880
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,760
Speaker 7: That's what people don't understand. It ain't really about the idea.

881
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 6: It's about like what you do with the idea, Like

882
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 6: if I could scale an underwear, you know, with a

883
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 6: hole in it, like anything could be done.

884
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: So what are some of the biggest mistakes that you

885
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: think people make when they when they're trying to get

886
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 1: VC money.

887
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 7: They think it's a loan. They treated like a loan.

888
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 6: I get that all the time, especially like the level

889
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 6: of the women that we like want us to invest

890
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 6: like they don't know anything. So that's what that's what

891
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 6: we started noticing. I would have people crying the phone

892
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 6: to me like, oh my god, when I tell them

893
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 6: your business is not scalable right now, they don't get

894
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 6: the right now, so they think it's alone. That's one

895
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,800
Speaker 6: of the mistakes that they made. The second one is

896
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 6: they just they take it personal where you shouldn't take

897
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 6: it personal. Like anything a business, you cannot take that personal.

898
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 7: Personal is personal. Business is business.

899
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 6: And those are two of the biggest mistakes that especially

900
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 6: black women, that we make.

901
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 2: When it comes to VC. And we've heard both sides

902
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 2: of the coin, right where it's you know what, if

903
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 2: you don't have to take anybody's money, don't because you

904
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 2: don't want to have to answer to someone.

905
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,799
Speaker 4: And then obviously there's the other side where it's like, well,

906
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 4: if you want to scale and to grow, not because

907
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 4: you need the money, but because you want to expand

908
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 4: you do it. Does that in between phases like what

909
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 4: am I supposed to do? So I notice plenty of

910
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:50,800
Speaker 4: people who listen to the show and they try to

911
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 4: add that phase, talk about the pros and concept of

912
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,120
Speaker 4: doing both, because you've done both, right, you've had the

913
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 4: business without it, try to get it, and obviously you've

914
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 4: had the business with the funds raised, and.

915
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 7: Then I also have the business without the VCS.

916
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:03,759
Speaker 5: Either there you go.

917
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 7: So there is no in between stage. It's either are

918
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 7: you able to and willing to deal.

919
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 6: With what it is to scale your business? There is

920
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 6: no in between. You're either going to take it or

921
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 6: you're not. I actually feel a lot of people would

922
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:20,879
Speaker 6: be like, oh, but you had a fifteen million dollar deal,

923
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 6: Like you know, what are you complaining about? Like why

924
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 6: you don't have VCS anymore?

925
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 7: Like why did you get all your shares back? Like

926
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 7: why did you do that?

927
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 5: Why did you do it?

928
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 6: I feel like if I didn't have VCS, my business

929
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 6: revenue would be over two hundred million at this point

930
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 6: because of where I was, I was already on a

931
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 6: fast fast, fast fast. I feel like VC for me,

932
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 6: from my particular situation was a hindrance. Why because we

933
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 6: were ready so fast and so scaling and it was

934
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 6: a very it was already you know when you.

935
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 7: Like you think about everything.

936
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 6: Like before you do it, Like that's where it's like

937
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 6: the grind at the time. You have to answer the people,

938
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 6: no answer the people, and you have to do certain things.

939
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 6: So now I have to hire a big C suite.

940
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:09,240
Speaker 6: We're paying people.

941
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 7: Every Body in.

942
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 6: The sweet seat is getting over two hundred thousand dollars.

943
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 6: If you would have told me that prior, I'm like, oh, sure, no,

944
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 6: Like I can't do that.

945
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 7: So that's one.

946
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 6: You have.

947
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:25,240
Speaker 7: It's a lot of time consumer.

948
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 6: You gotta have board meetings and board meeting and just

949
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,479
Speaker 6: like getting in a boardroom and just like sitting talking

950
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 6: about stuff, you have to prepare for that.

951
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 7: You have to literally now I have fifty four employees.

952
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 6: Now I'm responsible for fifty four employees that really I

953
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 6: would say that probably half of them wasn't even needed

954
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 6: at the time.

955
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 7: When you get into VC, they don't tell you.

956
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:50,839
Speaker 6: It's like this unspoken thing like where it's they don't

957
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,720
Speaker 6: tell you and it's not said, but it's like, Okay,

958
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 6: I gotta do it because it has to be done.

959
00:41:57,520 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 7: I have the money.

960
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 6: And now you also feel like, and I'm very frugal

961
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:03,879
Speaker 6: like when it comes to like money, so I don't

962
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 6: even spend And that's one of the problems that me

963
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 6: and my VC's actually had like my partners, my investors,

964
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 6: is that yeah, okay, I have the money, but that's

965
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 6: not relevant to us. Like vcs goal based on most

966
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 6: of the world goes based on everything on data. And

967
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 6: sometimes data is good, don't get me wrong, but sometimes.

968
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 7: Data is not the answer.

969
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 6: Like it's just not It's like real life, real grind

970
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 6: like in this And sometimes I would ask them like

971
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 6: are you you over you over there across the seas,

972
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 6: like are you in this building every day?

973
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 7: Are you receiving these emails every day? And it's not.

974
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 6: So it's a it's a grind. So VC money is

975
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 6: not for everybody. Everybody wants it. Everybody literally wants it

976
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 6: because they want the headline. But if you think past

977
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,320
Speaker 6: the headline and you look under, the headline, is not

978
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 6: for everybody.

979
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 2: Could be a hindrus.

980
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 4: It sounds like from your experience that taking the VC

981
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 4: almost stop a little of the innovation from you.

982
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 2: Right, Like you lost a little bit of the grind

983
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 2: that got you to this point.

984
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 6: Never lost the grind, it was the grind with the

985
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 6: trying to explain it and then now taking time to

986
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 6: do that and then like second guessing yourself because you

987
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 6: have someone you have their money, and you're like, Okay,

988
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 6: I want to do the right thing because I want

989
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 6: to do the right thing by my investors, and I

990
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 6: want to do the right thing by myself, and I

991
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:30,880
Speaker 6: want to do the right thing by my customers. And

992
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 6: that when you put all of that together, it's a

993
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 6: lot for people to deal with past the headline.

994
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 3: So you wouldn't have done it.

995
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 7: No, that's why I got all my shares back.

996
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 2: No, okay, so you saw your path to two hundred million,

997
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,319
Speaker 2: it slowed you down. Where is that path now?

998
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 7: So what I did last year was.

999
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 6: I decided, you know what, because we were going for

1000
00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 6: so many years, we were scaling so fast, there were

1001
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 6: things that first of all, my VC should have told me.

1002
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 6: We were still running our own VC firm, I mean

1003
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 6: our own fulfillment center, like in our building. First thing

1004
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 6: they should have told me was like, don't run a

1005
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 6: for filming center. I don't even know we were in

1006
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 6: a for filming business. But you know, when you just

1007
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 6: keep going. You know that story when I told you

1008
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:17,239
Speaker 6: I was going home, picking up my son, going to

1009
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 6: do the things. All I did was just hire new

1010
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 6: people to do that. But I should have not should

1011
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,319
Speaker 6: have outsourced that to a three PL so last year

1012
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:26,399
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty two.

1013
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 7: A three pl so. A three pl is where they

1014
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 7: actually shipped your stuff out for you.

1015
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 6: We don't do no shipping in the building, like no

1016
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:38,839
Speaker 6: more for like since last year, I scaled that out

1017
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 6: to a three pl which should have been done, especially

1018
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 6: at the rapid rate that we were shipping.

1019
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 7: We never had enough people to like, actually get it out.

1020
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 6: If you look at our reviews, all of our bad

1021
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 6: reviews are based on people not getting their item.

1022
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 7: It's not on the product. It's like I didn't get.

1023
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 6: My stuff on time, which is people saying, oh, that's good,

1024
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 6: that's those bad reviews are good.

1025
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 7: But no, it's like you have to that out.

1026
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 6: But if I would have went to a three pl

1027
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 6: years ago, saying, like in twenty sixteen seventeen, even when

1028
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,719
Speaker 6: I was only shipping maybe ten twenty items out, that

1029
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 6: should have been done right off the back. And then

1030
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 6: I also would have not spent so much on payroll

1031
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:15,879
Speaker 6: because payroll is the biggest expense. That that was one,

1032
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 6: so I had to scale it back in order to

1033
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:26,800
Speaker 6: prepare it to be sold eventually. So there was so

1034
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,919
Speaker 6: much stuff I had to outsource customer service. One point,

1035
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 6: we had eight people in customer service service, a customer

1036
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 6: service awartment, handling customer service. There's no company that should

1037
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 6: be handling customer service. You should manage customer service, but

1038
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 6: you only need like one or two people. But we

1039
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 6: were actually having a full customer service. Outsource it because

1040
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 6: now you're just managing the company. That was another thing

1041
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 6: I did. So I did all of this last year,

1042
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 6: and I scaled the company back. We actually stopped advertising

1043
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 6: in June of two thousand, no like May of twenty

1044
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 6: twenty two. Up to this day, we still do not

1045
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 6: advertise right now. I skilled it all the way back.

1046
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 2: So it's word.

1047
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 7: Well, we built up over the years, built up almost

1048
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 7: a million and subscribe.

1049
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:13,839
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's the data.

1050
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:15,399
Speaker 7: Yep.

1051
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 3: So this is a subscription based service. Is that subscription

1052
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 3: based subscribers?

1053
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 7: We have a subscription like for like for a product,

1054
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 7: but it's not like our biggest thing. It's just people.

1055
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:27,959
Speaker 7: We just have a customer base. We have a large

1056
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:28,919
Speaker 7: customer base.

1057
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 4: So how do you this is a lot a lot

1058
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 4: of people and this is world wide right yes, global?

1059
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,240
Speaker 4: So like when do you add a new product because

1060
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 4: that obviously we add them already.

1061
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 2: So this is it.

1062
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 7: Yeah, any more products we would innovate to a different.

1063
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 2: Category underwear, swimwear, activewear. Yeah, act where it was recently at?

1064
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 2: Where was that at it?

1065
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 7: That was all done in like the first year.

1066
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 2: Okay, So you have all those three products and we're

1067
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 2: just selling those.

1068
00:46:57,840 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 7: Yeah it three products we have a lot of.

1069
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:02,800
Speaker 6: One of our biggest items is actually our first period

1070
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 6: kid after like our actual like I'll swimwear and our

1071
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 6: underwear as our first period kid. So it's a kid

1072
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 6: where parents could talk to their kids when they first

1073
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 6: get their period.

1074
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 7: That is like one of our big big products.

1075
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 2: Do you are you in schools?

1076
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: No?

1077
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,320
Speaker 7: So I did no retail.

1078
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 6: I was asked to do retail, and I did it

1079
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 6: once I was in Macy's. Once I pulled my stuff

1080
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 6: out because I was making way more money online. Retail

1081
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 6: is just like retail is for branding. Back then, I

1082
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 6: didn't think like that.

1083
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 2: So it's all online really no marketing, and it's super successful. Yep.

1084
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 2: This is rare.

1085
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,439
Speaker 7: It is rare, but it's doable. It's a lot of work,

1086
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 7: but it's doable.

1087
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 3: Okay. So all right, so your plan is to sell

1088
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 3: a company, absolutely, and you have a timeframe.

1089
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 7: So back then when I first raised the funds, it was,

1090
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 7: you know, they give you seven to ten years.

1091
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 6: But now like I'm preparing it. Scaling a company and

1092
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 6: then preparing it to sell it is two totally different things.

1093
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 6: So yes, like now at this point of view, somebody

1094
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 6: was to ask me today, like in the next couple

1095
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 6: of years, because I just put everything operationally sound like

1096
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 6: the way a company that's gonna get acquired should be.

1097
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 7: I just did that last year, okay, And.

1098
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 3: What's your rational if for I wanting to sell it?

1099
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 7: Okay?

1100
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:32,439
Speaker 6: So I think every company, and black people are gonna

1101
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,800
Speaker 6: kill me because we know how we feel about it.

1102
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:39,479
Speaker 6: But I think that every company, the majority, I would

1103
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 6: say ninety eight percent of companies, if you are really

1104
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 6: trying to build like generational wealth in a legacy, you

1105
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,359
Speaker 6: need to sell it. Most people, especially us as black people,

1106
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 6: feel a legacy is I'm gonna pass it down, So

1107
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 6: my kids, I'm gonna do this.

1108
00:48:58,440 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 2: How can we have anything if you sell everything?

1109
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:00,879
Speaker 1: Right?

1110
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 6: What people don't understand that I actually explained this to

1111
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 6: people that I'm mentored to, Like, do you really think

1112
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 6: that the Hiltons is running the Hilton still but we

1113
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 6: still think of them as running it. No, it's just

1114
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 6: the legacy, like that's what you're known for, and it

1115
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 6: going on living their life and doing other things. Like

1116
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 6: every time a black person, especially a black woman, sells

1117
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,720
Speaker 6: her business, we've just seen it happen this year, every

1118
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 6: single time, it happens everywhere all mad when in reality,

1119
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 6: we really should be congratulating that black woman because that's

1120
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 6: another one of us being able to.

1121
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 7: Build that legacy and generational wealth.

1122
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 6: Like at this point, now we ain't gonna be the

1123
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 6: Mary Keller's where you forget that we created the sanitary pad.

1124
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 6: It's like, no, I made that, Like I created that

1125
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 6: and now my kids and my grandkids and this is

1126
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 6: able to live off of that legacy. And that's what

1127
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 6: people don't understand. And I think it's because people don't

1128
00:49:55,840 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 6: understand like how VC works, how getting a company acquired works,

1129
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 6: or getting it to IPO works.

1130
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 7: They just don't understand that.

1131
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 6: And that's where the I don't want to call it ignorance,

1132
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 6: but that's where the knowledge needs to be taught. And

1133
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 6: anybody that I mentor I talked to, I explain that

1134
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 6: to them and then they finally get it. They're like, oh,

1135
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 6: like if I think about it like that, now I

1136
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 6: actually get it. It's not like you leaving the black

1137
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 6: people behind. It's actually like no, like I'm doing this

1138
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 6: for us because we sold it. Now I could cash out,

1139
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:32,360
Speaker 6: and that legacy is always You will never lose the

1140
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 6: founder title. I'm only losing the CEO title. And the

1141
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 6: CEO title is a.

1142
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 7: Lot of work. Like who wants to do a lot

1143
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:40,919
Speaker 7: of work?

1144
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 6: If you think about like say like a Jamaican restaurant,

1145
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 6: like just one Jamaican restaurant, like they be slaving in

1146
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 6: the air, Like that's why the man every time you

1147
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:54,839
Speaker 6: go into a Jamaican restaurant, they got an attitude. Yes,

1148
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 6: but if they actually took that one Jamaican restaurant and

1149
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 6: scaled it into ten and then made it a franchise

1150
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 6: and then somebody brought that one day, you still always

1151
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 6: will be that founder.

1152
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 7: Unfortunately, our kids they don't want that. Then I knsey

1153
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 7: say that I'm gonna work that hard and I don't

1154
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 7: blame them.

1155
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 3: What's your exit plan? That's important.

1156
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:16,720
Speaker 7: It's important.

1157
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 2: Never entered before you know how to exit. So have

1158
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 2: you had offers along the way, I've.

1159
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 7: Had offers last year.

1160
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 6: They were lobull because my revenue went down because I

1161
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 6: stopped advertising and I had to scale it back, but

1162
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 6: I kept The reason why I had to do is

1163
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 6: because I kept going for years.

1164
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 7: It was very transactional.

1165
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,239
Speaker 6: Like the company we got all those sales because it

1166
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:39,399
Speaker 6: was very very transactional, but it wasn't prepared to really

1167
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 6: be like operational sound to prepare.

1168
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 3: For a sale.

1169
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:43,319
Speaker 5: So I did.

1170
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 6: But they gave low offers because like the revenue went

1171
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 6: down because I scaled back.

1172
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 4: Any of the people or the company that offers you

1173
00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 4: surprise you at all or was it like your competitor

1174
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:55,879
Speaker 4: that you knew were watching you and watching the growth.

1175
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 6: No, No, it was just companies that just come out

1176
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 6: of the woodwork. So we had two offers for like

1177
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 6: to buy it, but it's lobulls. I know it's worth

1178
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:07,400
Speaker 6: way more than that, and you're offering it at a

1179
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 6: time when like I'm scaling it back, So all we

1180
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:10,400
Speaker 6: have to do is.

1181
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 7: Just scale it back up. We actually ran out of cash,

1182
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 7: like most people don't even say that, Like the company

1183
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 7: ran out of cash?

1184
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 2: How did that?

1185
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 3: So?

1186
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 2: How did that happen?

1187
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 6: Operation is expensive, like to do all those things that

1188
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 6: I need like it is, it is a lot of money. Like,

1189
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 6: so first of all, if you're running your own fulfillment,

1190
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:29,800
Speaker 6: since we have a ten thousand square foot warehouse, we

1191
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 6: had to move that whole entire thing to a three

1192
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:34,800
Speaker 6: pl that's expensive with trucks.

1193
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 7: You don't even that one caught me by surprise of

1194
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 7: how much it was. So it costs a lot of money.

1195
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 6: Whereas money that you were using for advertising, now you

1196
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 6: got to use it for this, Like this is business

1197
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 6: that ain't personal, like I always tell people, like my

1198
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 6: personal life is a okay, Like I ain't got no problems,

1199
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 6: I ain't got no financial problems. I ain't got no

1200
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 6: issues at all, Like I am personally good. But when

1201
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 6: you ask me my business, I'm oh, lord like take

1202
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 6: me away. And people people can't even get that, like

1203
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 6: how is like your business aggravating you?

1204
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 7: But your personal life is good? Again because it's business.

1205
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 4: So when you run out of cash from a business standpoint,

1206
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 4: I mean that's gonna that could affect the personal right right, No,

1207
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:21,279
Speaker 4: I mean if I run out of cash, right, like

1208
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:22,399
Speaker 4: our business was out of cash.

1209
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 2: Business a business was out of cash.

1210
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 4: Right and I got to go home and then I

1211
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 4: have a wife, like you have a husband, Like, how

1212
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 4: are these I mean y'all doing this together?

1213
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 5: You pay yourself, how are these conversations going at home?

1214
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:36,720
Speaker 6: Well, you always that make sure you can pay yourself.

1215
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 6: So running out of cash, we still have a big

1216
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 6: audience that we still are selling. It's just not being

1217
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 6: scaled the way it was.

1218
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:44,720
Speaker 7: Like that's what people don't understand.

1219
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 3: You.

1220
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 6: Yes, you do run out of money, but every day

1221
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,759
Speaker 6: there are still sales being made. Now you just have

1222
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 6: to reorganize finances. You gotta cut your payroll down. You

1223
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 6: gotta do things like that, and those are things that

1224
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 6: people don't understand, Like we literally.

1225
00:53:58,480 --> 00:53:59,360
Speaker 7: Ran out.

1226
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 6: Cash, but we are operationally and we are still in

1227
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:08,280
Speaker 6: a good position. And then we also have great brand

1228
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 6: equity and great branding. Whereas we built up a business.

1229
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 6: I literally built up a business that people want to buy.

1230
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 6: So we ain't never bad. It's just you might have

1231
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 6: a headache some days, like oh lord, But as long

1232
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 6: as you could keep the lights on it, make your payroll,

1233
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 6: you know, and get your orders out because it's a

1234
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 6: consumer product, it's not service.

1235
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 7: As long as you can do that, then you're good.

1236
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 5: You still have a.

1237
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:32,759
Speaker 6: Business and it's still if I was to shuck the

1238
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 6: business down tomorrow, which it wouldn't, but if I say

1239
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,880
Speaker 6: if I did, somebody still would want to buy it

1240
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 6: because of the brand equity that is therese Yes, so.

1241
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 7: It's yes, you ran.

1242
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 6: When you hear people run out of cash, Yeah, they

1243
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 6: ran out of cash, But like, was your business in

1244
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 6: the sound position to keep going to keep bringing in cash?

1245
00:54:55,480 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: So you live in a eight million dollars stay, I do, so, yeah,

1246
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:03,880
Speaker 1: talk about the challenges of that.

1247
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 7: Oh so that's my person, Like, that's where that challenge

1248
00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 7: comes from. It's a lot. Most people will be like,

1249
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 7: oh my god, like I want to you know, I

1250
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:13,320
Speaker 7: want to.

1251
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:15,920
Speaker 6: I want to live in a mansion and I love it.

1252
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,440
Speaker 6: Me and my husband have lived in That's what we do.

1253
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 6: We flip mansions, right, so living them to maintain them

1254
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 6: in a lot. My taxes is one hundred thousand dollars,

1255
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 6: our landscape and bill last year was like three hundred

1256
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:27,800
Speaker 6: thousand dollars.

1257
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:30,759
Speaker 7: It's a lot. So me and him always ask people

1258
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 7: like do you want like, I know you want to

1259
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 7: live here. I know it looks nice. I know you

1260
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,320
Speaker 7: want to drive the mayback like he does. But do

1261
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 7: you want to maintain that stuff. Everybody always want it,

1262
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:48,320
Speaker 7: but they don't want to know what comes with it.

1263
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 6: But for us, that's a business too. Like we live

1264
00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:53,360
Speaker 6: in the mansion. The mansion just take way longer to

1265
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 6: sell than like how people flip houses.

1266
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 7: It takes way longer.

1267
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 6: Like we buy them for cash, we fix them up

1268
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:02,840
Speaker 6: really fast. And with mansions in the States, you cannot

1269
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 6: You can't just put like cheap stuff in there, like

1270
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 6: you got to get like the good stuff, like a

1271
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:09,360
Speaker 6: refrigerator's like thirty thousand dollars like to go in.

1272
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,880
Speaker 7: So we just have an eye for it. We love

1273
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 7: to doing it, and then we just like living well.

1274
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 3: So you got the wolf applying there.

1275
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 6: We have wolf at our last mansion. This one we

1276
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 6: did Viking and true old Viking.

1277
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:23,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty thousand hours for the freeze.

1278
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 5: There's a lot.

1279
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 2: So this is fair. I've seen it. So so y'all

1280
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:30,880
Speaker 2: have that. This is part of the real estate portfolio.

1281
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 4: Are y'all doing that specifically in New York or y'all

1282
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:36,040
Speaker 4: throughout the New York?

1283
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:42,359
Speaker 7: Okay, Long Island, Long Island, And it's a hard market.

1284
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 6: Long Island is a hard market because your money is

1285
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 6: sitting there, like we just pay cash for it, so

1286
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 6: like we have money just like sitting there. But like

1287
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:54,279
Speaker 6: if you pay four million dollars or other than cash

1288
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 6: and you could get back eight nine million dollars, it's

1289
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,279
Speaker 6: okay to sitting wait for that for like two years.

1290
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 3: What made you want to get into that market of

1291
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:02,320
Speaker 3: flipping mansions.

1292
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:03,879
Speaker 7: I just always liked real estate.

1293
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 6: My grandmother in the eighties, which when I was younger

1294
00:57:06,719 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 6: I didn't realize it. My grandmother, a black woman, was

1295
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 6: buying in selling houses in Queens and Long Island, which

1296
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 6: in the eighties was like not easy to do, and

1297
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 6: she owned twenty three houses at one point, and I

1298
00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 6: just loved it, like going.

1299
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 7: With her, like a fixing up the houses and things

1300
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 7: like that.

1301
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 6: What I didn't like, I would never be a landlord

1302
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:30,760
Speaker 6: because that instance dealing with her when I was younger,

1303
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 6: like as a young child, turned me off from tenants,

1304
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 6: like I called all types of names from her tenants

1305
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 6: collecting rent, So I would never be a tenant. I

1306
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 6: know a lot of people flip and they want to

1307
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 6: do the airbnbs. I know that my personality is not

1308
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 6: for tenants. So the easiest way to do that is

1309
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 6: to do what I like, and I like, I've always

1310
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 6: loved mansions in the States, so why not do that?

1311
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 2: So you're selling to the one percent? Yeah, pretty much.

1312
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 7: That's why it takes like a year to sell.

1313
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: Ye.

1314
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:04,640
Speaker 2: So do you have a team that helps you run

1315
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:06,680
Speaker 2: outlaies or you just you're doing this yourself?

1316
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 6: You're oh no, no, no, not for privation, No, no, no,

1317
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 6: we have people that we call in like real contracts. Yeah,

1318
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 6: well you're dealing with the States, with these towns, especially

1319
00:58:13,040 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 6: in Long Island. No, you got to do everything right.

1320
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 6: You gotta get permits, you get an extension. You can't

1321
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:21,040
Speaker 6: just like throw the wall top. No, they will come

1322
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 6: and tell you to take all your wolf down because

1323
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 6: I think they're my Simtobay can't be like PVC. It

1324
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 6: has to be like a particular type of pipes and

1325
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 6: stuff like that. So, No, we have people that come

1326
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 6: in that we hire companies to do that that we've

1327
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 6: been dealing with over the last couple of years.

1328
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:38,479
Speaker 3: Though, So what's next? What's next for you the next

1329
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:40,480
Speaker 3: year or two?

1330
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: I know, obviously planning and sell your company, so you're

1331
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:45,479
Speaker 1: working on that, but yeah, any other initiatives or anything

1332
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 1: else that you guys are working on looking forward to.

1333
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 6: Yeah, so preparing for the sale in the next couple

1334
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 6: of years to keep flipping mansions and the States probably

1335
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 6: our next one, though you're only gonna live in that

1336
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 6: one and then do another one because it's the first

1337
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 6: one we lived in through contry diction. And then the

1338
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 6: next thing is we took our investment firm and now

1339
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 6: made it a brunch black women conversations that actually scaled

1340
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:12,880
Speaker 6: up real quick, like we just even just we just

1341
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 6: went on Instagram with that maybe in like April, and

1342
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 6: we almost have like ten thousand followers for that. That

1343
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 6: is bringing a group of because I have high end

1344
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 6: friends and I have low end friends. So bringing a

1345
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 6: bunch of women at different levels, because at every level,

1346
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:31,720
Speaker 6: everybody still always got the same problem, especially as a

1347
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:32,240
Speaker 6: black woman.

1348
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 7: There's a black woman, all black man, we all usually

1349
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:34,880
Speaker 7: have the same problem.

1350
00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 6: I don't care how much money you make or what

1351
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 6: level of status you at, we still deal with the

1352
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 6: same stuff. And it's been working. We've done my team.

1353
00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 6: I have a small team for that that handles like

1354
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 6: the social media and the operations for that. We do

1355
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:48,720
Speaker 6: the brunches and we do them at my We do

1356
00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 6: them at my house.

1357
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, we say high income and relaxed income. Yes, it's

1358
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 2: never low, yes, just relaxed.

1359
00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1360
00:59:56,400 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, this is a great conversation. How can

1361
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:03,600
Speaker 1: people follow you on social website and information?

1362
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, so my company is Rubylove dot com. My Instagram

1363
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 6: is I am Crystal at Tien. But bear with me

1364
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 6: on that one because I only got along like a

1365
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:15,480
Speaker 6: year and a half ago, I think, and I'm just

1366
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 6: even learning Instagram.

1367
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 7: And then our investment firm.

1368
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 6: If they're people are interested for me and my husband

1369
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 6: to look at their company, or if they want to

1370
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 6: be invited to the brunch, they could go to Black

1371
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 6: Women Conversations or Cajuncolt dot com.

1372
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, and all your competitors out there and with the

1373
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:35,680
Speaker 4: X stop playing. You know who you are, Ruby Love,

1374
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 4: that's the brand exactly.

1375
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 2: Sure.

1376
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 3: Well, thank you guys for rock orders. We'll see you

1377
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 3: next week. Peace.

1378
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 2: Peace,