Female Startup Club

Today on the show we’re learning from Lizanne Falsetto, the founder of thinkThin® and betterland foods™.Lizanne began her entrepreneurial journey at her kitchen table, inspired both by a family recipe and a strong desire to solve a personal problem. On that table, the original thinkThin® bar was created: a revolutionary product that would become one of the most sought-after health foods on the market.Her original instinct for a clear market opportunity in health food evolved into a 20-year tenure as founder and CEO of one of the fastest-growing health food brands in history and was eventually acquired for $217 m in 2015.In 2020, as the pandemic disrupted life the world over, she was intrigued by the influx of food scientists creating cleaner, alternative proteins without the direct use of animals. These discoveries rekindled her entrepreneurial verve and led her to establish betterland foods™, a new venture committed to creating crave-able, delicious foods that are better for people – and better for the planet.There are so many learnings and lessons woven into this episode and I’m just so excited to be able to share this inspiring conversation with you. We chat about the early days of building the brand when Lizanne was still modeling and would bring her home-creations to shoots to get feedback. How this natural desire led her to walk straight into the path of entrepreneurship, and how she learned what she was doing along the way. Setting up "Harvard for a day" chats with consultants, and just getting her product into as many hands as possible.How important it is to keep your messaging consistent. Especially when you have limited ways to get your voice out there, to stay consistent with your messaging. And my favorite tip of all, how important it is to have your own personal financial situation in check when you get into building a business and possibly raising capital. It's so important to understand this, in order to understand the ramifications down the line. We round off by chatting about her incredible exit selling thinkThin® for $217 million. And how important it is to be ready spiritually, mentally, and emotionally before selling your business. Now, let's get straight into it. If you love it as much as I did and you learn something, please do share it on Instagram tagging us or by leaving a review to help other ears find us.LINKS WE MENTION:Lizanne FalsettoBetterland Foods' WebsiteBetterland MilkWoobarsYoung Presidents Organisation (YPO)Female Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformLearn more about Athletic Greens and get your FREE gift at Athleticgreens.com/STARTUPIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-star Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the show we’re learning from Katie Spies, founder of Maev.Founded in 2020, Maev started as a collective of dog parents who wanted better for their dogs. After Katie’s adopted dog George experienced a health scare, she turned her focus to nutrition to keep him healthy and happy. With help from her pet parent community, she began conducting deep research into the modern dog’s biological needs and the shortcomings of products we’ve been told to trust. Fast forward to today Maev has raised $9 million dollars and is on a mission to disrupt the industry.In this episode, we talk through the origins of the story, when Maev was 1-2 people sitting in a WeWork in Soho, hand-making food, and doing things that no one really understood. Encountering every problem that could happen. To have now raised $9M and nailing the customer satisfaction and finding some great businesses to partner with. One thing that makes the journey with Maev a little more difficult than usual, is the fact the product is shipped as a frozen good. In Katie's words, "I've aged 15 years since shipping frozen food." It’s really logistically difficult. We were lucky enough to be able to learn from her mistakes, and she delved into some tips that make the process a little easier for others looking to get into frozen food. Firstly, you need to make sure your AOV is high enough to cover the costs of shipping. Secondly, you can benefit a lot from finding ways to fit more in the shipping boxes. And finally, finding those innovative partners is absolutely key.Aside from that, I loved hearing about Katie's approach to her customers in this episode. It's incredibly inspiring. It's the kind of thing every company knows they should be doing, but it often gets left behind on the list of priorities. And that's that she takes five customer phone calls a week, and has since the beginning of starting the business. The customers or potential customers chat, and she just gets to absorb. There's so much to learn here. If we can understand the customer better than anyone else, you will literally be able to build any product. It’s so fulfilling, and humanizing is great. People want to buy things from people, not faceless corporations. Sometimes they’re a highlight, sometimes they’re a distraction, but they’re always useful.Besides that, we also get into some nifty little tips when it get's to e-mail marketing and some guerilla marketing tactics that have proved successful since the early days of Maev, and helped them build up those initial 100 customers.If you love this episode and learn something, please do share it on Instagram tagging us or by leaving a review to help other ears find us.LINKS WE MENTION:Maev's InstagramMaev's FacebookHigh Growth Handbook (Elad Gil)Female Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-star Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the show we’re learning from Katie Spies, founder of Maev.Founded in 2020, Maev started as a collective of dog parents who wanted better for their dogs. After Katie’s adopted dog George experienced a health scare, she turned her focus to nutrition to keep him healthy and happy. With help from her pet parent community, she began conducting deep research into the modern dog’s biological needs and the shortcomings of products we’ve been told to trust. Fast forward to today Maev has raised $9 million dollars and is on a mission to disrupt the industry.In this episode, we talk through the origins of the story, when Maev was 1-2 people sitting in a WeWork in Soho, hand-making food, and doing things that no one really understood. Encountering every problem that could happen. To have now raised $9M and nailing the customer satisfaction and finding some great businesses to partner with. One thing that makes the journey with Maev a little more difficult than usual, is the fact the product is shipped as a frozen good. In Katie's words, "I've aged 15 years since shipping frozen food." It’s really logistically difficult. We were lucky enough to be able to learn from her mistakes, and she delved into some tips that make the process a little easier for others looking to get into frozen food. Firstly, you need to make sure your AOV is high enough to cover the costs of shipping. Secondly, you can benefit a lot from finding ways to fit more in the shipping boxes. And finally, finding those innovative partners is absolutely key.Aside from that, I loved hearing about Katie's approach to her customers in this episode. It's incredibly inspiring. It's the kind of thing every company knows they should be doing, but it often gets left behind on the list of priorities. And that's that she takes five customer phone calls a week, and has since the beginning of starting the business. The customers or potential customers chat, and she just gets to absorb. There's so much to learn here. If we can understand the customer better than anyone else, you will literally be able to build any product. It’s so fulfilling, and humanizing is great. People want to buy things from people, not faceless corporations. Sometimes they’re a highlight, sometimes they’re a distraction, but they’re always useful. Besides that, we also get into some nifty little tips when it get's to e-mail marketing and some guerilla marketing tactics that have proved successful since the early days of Maev, and helped them build up those initial 100 customers. If you love this episode and learn something, please do share it on Instagram tagging us or by leaving a review to help other ears find us.LINKS WE MENTION:Maev's InstagramMaev's FacebookHigh Growth Handbook (Elad Gil)Female Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-star Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I hope you loved the format last week, where we took a deep dive into the beauty space, because we’ll be following in those footsteps again this week. Strap yourself in, as I take you through the seven biggest learnings our founders have picked up from hustling in the notoriously tricky beverage space, through a pandemic! Let’s get straight into it.Learning number one is that your product absolutely needs to be great. The beverage space is ultra competitive, ultra crowded, and without an amazing product you simply don’t stand a chance. This is one lesson that will always remain relevant, pandemic or no pandemic, your product just has to be really good.The second learning from digging through our beverage archive, is that you want to have real intention behind what you’re building. What is your aim, or purpose? Your intention is your story, and that’s what’s individual to you. It’s what makes you unique and sets you apart from the countless other brands.Lesson number three is all around using your network to your advantage, and not being afraid to ask those oh so important burning questions. Your network loves to help, and that’s something a lot of you need to hear. It’s time to say shush to that little voice of self-doubt that’s telling you not to ask that question, and to stop being afraid to seem uninformed or even dumb. Knowledge is king, and you want to gain as much of it as you can. Go make that phone call. The earlier on in the journey you realize, the more you’ll gain.Learning number 4 is to properly think about where those initial dollars are coming from. As Melanie, you might opt to look to those closest to you when you’re raising those first dollars for your beverage brand. The key thing to take away here, is that raising no money always trumps raising stupid money. And there is a LOT of stupid investor money floating around this industry.Learning number 5 is a major one, and one that’s been mentioned time and time again on the show. You should absolutely, without a doubt, create your beverage brand with a DTC model in mind.Which brings me to learning number 6, one some of us prefer to forget when embarking upon this wild ride. And that’s that failure is inevitably part of journey. Obstacles are just part of this journey, and so are mistakes. The true mark of the entrepreneur is just that grit and perseverance. Daily hustle.And last, but certainly not least, is the learning that if you feel this burning passion in your belly, there is absolutely no reason not to get started on this immediately. That excuse you were telling yourself not to? Forget it. Those reasons are always going to be there.LINKS WE MENTION:Female Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-startup-club Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the show we’re learning from Kayla, the founder of Agua Bonita.Agua Bonita is a Latina-owned beverage company making the first better-for-you aguas frescas on the market. A modern take on a traditional Mexican fruit drink, their aguas frescas come in ready-to-drink 12oz cans, made with real fruit, low sugar, and fun flavors (like mango habanero). And this story is a wild one. I actually came across a post of Kayla’s on LinkedIn sharing a pretty crappy story for any small business owner to go through. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of takeaways in this episode because she’s just so insightful.We talk through those initial 6 months of building the brand. Agua Bonita launched conceptually in July 2020, but those first months were really stealth mode. You conceptualize your brand, identify your values, and what makes you different from the whole market. A lot of thinking through that for the first 6 months. What do we want to do that’s different, how can we do this sustainably, and how do we communicate that?And we can confidently say this initial stage was a success, with 10,000 units flying out the door in the first month. Kayla talks us through how exactly this came about, this complete wildfire response. Firstly, the people were ready for Agua Bonita. This product was just completely absent from the market, and people wanted it. On top of that, Agua Bonita was ready for the people: extensive research into where they can find their consumers, and then showing up in their life throughout the day. Kayla also shared some pretty key know-how around a concept called free-fill when it comes to giveaways in retail. Heard of it? Check out the full chat for the low-down.You should stick around to the end of the episode, where Kayla shares the number one piece of advice she's ever received, and some of her own advice. When it comes to the first, everything takes way longer than you expect it to. Even when you allot a lot of extra time, add even more time onto that timeline. In business, time really does equal money. So you'll need money to make sure those things work out in your favor. When it comes to Kayla's own piece of advice, she's a strong advocate for leaning into your community. You will find so many other founders and resources, so many people that really want to help you. When you’re building a brand, that’s all your really trying to do as a brand. Lean into the community, there are people that want to help. If you love this episode and get something out of it please do share it on your Instagram stories with us @femalestartupclub. You can also find me in the DMs directly @dooneroisin where I love to chat and hear about what you’re working on. Let's get into it.LINKS WE MENTION:Kayla's InstagramAgua Bonita's InstagramHello Alice WebsiteFemale Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-star Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the show we’re learning from Kayla, the founder of Agua Bonita.Agua Bonita is a Latina-owned beverage company making the first better-for-you aguas frescas on the market. A modern take on a traditional Mexican fruit drink, their aguas frescas come in ready-to-drink 12oz cans, made with real fruit, low sugar, and fun flavors (like mango habanero). And this story is a wild one. I actually came across a post of Kayla’s on LinkedIn sharing a pretty crappy story for any small business owner to go through. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of takeaways in this episode because she’s just so insightful.We talk through those initial 6 months of building the brand. Agua Bonita launched conceptually in July 2020, but those first months were really stealth mode. You conceptualize your brand, identify your values, and what makes you different from the whole market. A lot of thinking through that for the first 6 months. What do we want to do that’s different, how can we do this sustainably, and how do we communicate that?And we can confidently say this initial stage was a success, with 10,000 units flying out the door in the first month. Kayla talks us through how exactly this came about, this complete wildfire response. Firstly, the people were ready for Agua Bonita. This product was just completely absent from the market, and people wanted it. On top of that, Agua Bonita was ready for the people: extensive research into where they can find their consumers, and then showing up in their life throughout the day. Kayla also shared some pretty key know-how around a concept called free-fill when it comes to giveaways in retail. Heard of it? Check out the full chat for the low-down.You should stick around to the end of the episode, where Kayla shares the number one piece of advice she's ever received, and some of her own advice. When it comes to the first, everything takes way longer than you expect it to. Even when you allot a lot of extra time, add even more time onto that timeline. In business, time really does equal money. So you'll need money to make sure those things work out in your favor. When it comes to Kayla's own piece of advice, she's a strong advocate for leaning into your community. You will find so many other founders and resources, so many people that really want to help you. When you’re building a brand, that’s all your really trying to do as a brand. Lean into the community, there are people that want to help. If you love this episode and get something out of it please do share it on your Instagram stories with us @femalestartupclub. You can also find me in the DMs directly @dooneroisin where I love to chat and hear about what you’re working on. Let's get into it.LINKS WE MENTION:Kayla's InstagramAgua Bonita's InstagramHello Alice WebsiteFemale Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-sta Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re learning from That Pommie Girl, Sarah Ashcroft. If you know her, you’ll know of her super cool blog called That Pommie Girl she started in 2013 that’s lead her down a path of exciting entrepreneurship.After working on her blog for a number of years Sarah started SLA The Label in June 2019. Originally born out of Sarah’s love for airport outfits, she had become known amongst her followers for her travel looks across all her social media platforms. As a result, when launching SLA The Label’s first collection it felt natural to start with loungewear. Followers and fashion fans fell in love with the collection which saw the first drop sell out within 24 hours making sales of £60k and in just three years it's turned over almost £5million in revenue.In this episode, we get into those early steps of founding a fashion business. That first year you've decided to take the plunge and are first starting to navigate the space. Two business tips stood out far from the rest, and I'll share those here as a little taste of what to expect in this episode.Firstly, do not rush the process. Sarah remembers rushing the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey with SLA. When launching their first collection she was nowhere near where she wanted to be for the launch, but impatience got the better of her.Impatience with launching a new business is a great sign. You're just excited for this thing to be out in the world, and to be able to share your creation. But, there's a but there, it can also mean you push your business out into the world a little before it's due. And that's what Sarah believes happened here. Her tip is to give yourself the time to feel that you are 100% ready to launch. There's just so much that can go wrong, and if you're not fully ready for those consequences it can be pretty detrimental for your business (and with that also you!).The second tip she shared revolves around the idea that it's a better idea to launch with a (or a couple) of key products. In other words, don't expand your products and offering too quickly. It can work out better for business in the long term to stick with your small launch collection for a year, and to really nail that down. Sarah believes the result would be far fewer. Nailing that thing, doing it well, getting a good customer base. It's the way to go. This episode is a fab one for the fashion girl. I was so surprised at her highest performing marketing channel and I think you will be too.If you love this episode please do share it on your Instagram stories with us @femalestartupclub. You can also find me in the DMS @dooneroisin where I love to chat and hear about what you’re working on.LINKS WE MENTION:Sarah's InstagramSLA The Label's InstagramFemale Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-startup-club Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re learning from That Pommie Girl, Sarah Ashcroft. If you know her, you’ll know of her super cool blog called That Pommie Girl she started in 2013 that’s lead her down a path of exciting entrepreneurship.After working on her blog for a number of years Sarah started SLA The Label in June 2019. Originally born out of Sarah’s love for airport outfits, she had become known amongst her followers for her travel looks across all her social media platforms. As a result, when launching SLA The Label’s first collection it felt natural to start with loungewear. Followers and fashion fans fell in love with the collection which saw the first drop sell out within 24 hours making sales of £60k and in just three years it's turned over almost £5million in revenue.In this episode, we get into those early steps of founding a fashion business. That first year you've decided to take the plunge and are first starting to navigate the space. Two business tips stood out far from the rest, and I'll share those here as a little taste of what to expect in this episode.Firstly, do not rush the process. Sarah remembers rushing the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey with SLA. When launching their first collection she was nowhere near where she wanted to be for the launch, but impatience got the better of her.Impatience with launching a new business is a great sign. You're just excited for this thing to be out in the world, and to be able to share your creation. But, there's a but there, it can also mean you push your business out into the world a little before it's due. And that's what Sarah believes happened here. Her tip is to give yourself the time to feel that you are 100% ready to launch. There's just so much that can go wrong, and if you're not fully ready for those consequences it can be pretty detrimental for your business (and with that also you!).The second tip she shared revolves around the idea that it's a better idea to launch with a (or a couple) of key products. In other words, don't expand your products and offering too quickly. It can work out better for business in the long term to stick with your small launch collection for a year, and to really nail that down. Sarah believes the result would be far fewer. Nailing that thing, doing it well, getting a good customer base. It's the way to go. This episode is a fab one for the fashion girl. I was so surprised at her highest performing marketing channel and I think you will be too.If you love this episode please do share it on your Instagram stories with us @femalestartupclub. You can also find me in the DMS @dooneroisin where I love to chat and hear about what you’re working on.LINKS WE MENTION:Sarah's InstagramSLA The Label's InstagramFemale Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokClearco WebsiteIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for eCommerce businessesFemale Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.comFemale Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/fema Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey and welcome back to the show! It’s Doone here, your host and hype girl.Thanks for tuning in to the solo episode for this week, where we’ll be taking a deep dive into the beauty space, going over the biggest learnings our multi-millionaire beauty-founder-guests have gained from founding and building the brands absolutely killing it in their space right now. So Let’s get straight into it. Learning number 1 stems from the dreaming phase. When you’re n the very early days of imagining your beauty brand - and you’re dreaming about the vision you have. And you’re asking yourself what am I actually actually going to create? The luxury of being in this position is that nothing exists yet, because you haven’t made it. You can literally create ANYTHING. So why not create your product in a way that will make your life a little easier down the road? When we look at successful beauty brands today, there are a couple of things that founders seem to have gotten right straight off the bat. My first learning is that you should create something valuable, you should create something beautiful and (nowadays) you should create something memorable or memeable. My second learning is that you absolutely want to be making that pre-launch effort, and you absolutely want to kick off with a bang. Start as you mean to go on. The truth of the matter is, beauty is SUCH a saturated space, and you need to give someone a reason to pay attention.The third learning, is to really think outside the box when it comes around to pitching your product to retail. Buyers in the beauty world are getting hit by constant blasts. There’s so much out there, there’s so much being created. Give yourself a chance by really making an impression. Ok. but I can hear you asking already. How to go about that? Amy Liu’s story for getting Tower28 stocked in Sephora is a real cracker, and we’ll talk through that in the episode.Lesson number four is all around not getting complacent when you do land your dream retailer. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely a win worth celebrating. Give yourself a huge pat on the back, and celebrate with your team. But it’s by no means the finishing line. Getting in is the easy part, what’s hard is getting the sale through.Which bring us to another area you can absolutely not get complacent in as a founder. It might not have always been the case, but today I can confidently say you would struggle to do well with your business if you’re not leveraging this platform. If you listen to this show you know what I’m about to tell you. TikTok, obviously! In beauty, you’re in such a fab position to do well on TikTok. So, that brings me to learning number 6, and one that lies particularly close to my heart. As a woman, if you’re planning to be an entrepreneur, a pitfall i’ve encountered time and time again is this idea of perfectionism. So much of our paralysis comes from spinning in circles around certain things, when what we should be doing is just putting it out, seeing how people react, and then changing it. Get it out and iterate along the way. We are smart enough that we can always pivot, no matter what comes our way.And my last but not least learning from chatting to all these amazing women in the beauty space, is that all good things simply take time. We’ve heard time and time again, that it takes 0 years to reach overnight success. And it’s okay it takes time. Let’s get straight into it! This is me for Female Startup Club.And if you have something specific you want me to cover, just directly reach out on Twitter or InstagramDoone's InstagramIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re learning from Lilly Sparks, founder of afterglow.Afterglow is introducing a new category called erotic wellness and they’re building an online universe—where porn is made by and for the feminine gaze. A universe where doing guided masturbations and partner exercises is just as normal as reading the morning paper. Where women can be both celebrated and centered.In this episode we talk through Lilly’s transition from building a CPG company to $10m in revenue and deciding it wasn’t what she saw for her future, and transitioning into building her dream vision of what she’s truly aligned with. And holy moly it is so interesting.LINKS WE MENTION:Afterglow's InstagramAfterglow's TwitterLilly's TwitterFemale Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokIn sponsorship with Zyro, easiest to use website builder and eCommerce platformIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: hello@femalestartupclub.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.