May 11, 2023 • 30 mins
As a new business, it may take a few years before you reach profitability, but that doesn’t mean you can’t quickly reach success. Using a mix of the marketing, financing, and money management tools discussed in earlier episodes, many small business owners can create very achievable benchmarks in their early stages that support the path to profits. Emily Doyle and Mei Kwok, founders of Dune Suncare, share with us some of the early decisions they made that helped their company experience substantial growth in their first three years.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:22):
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Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey everyone, I'm Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And I'm Denise Torres. Welcome to Mind the Business Small
Business Success Stories, a podcast brought to you by iHeartRadio
and Into It QuickBooks. In each episode, Austin and I
chat with small business owners as they share their stories
about the ups and downs of owning a small business.
Plus we'll learn from their experience on how you can
help fortify and strengthen your own business.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That is right, and I am so excited for our
guests today, But before we introduce them, I wanted to
talk to you about your early day running your business.
Was there ever a moment where you thought you may
have to change your plans for your business because you
weren't maybe hitting your financial goals.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Jennis, I'm so glad you brought this up, Austin.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I think this is a struggle that a lot of
entrepreneurs struggle with in the beginning, because we're kind of
just throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to see
what sticks. And for me, I found myself just doing
a lot of different things as a personal finance content creator.
I was doing speaking engagements and workshops and one on
one coaching and trying to launch a course, and doing
affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, and I just felt like
(01:32):
I was being stretched so thin that I really started
to think about what are the highest return on investment
activities that are going to get me to my financial goals.
Let me focus on those things and do less of
the stuff that feels like a heavy lift without a
lot of rewards at the end. I'm curious if you've
had an experience like that to Austin.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I have, Jennie, and that's so cool that we really
align so well on you know, what are those highest
ROI return on investment deliverables that us as content creators
can create and share with our audiences to just get
the best bang for our books. So for me, what
that was is kind of reflecting and thinking, Okay, you know,
I have a limited number of perhaps one off brand
deals I can do, and a limited number of perhaps
(02:11):
one off speaking engagements. But I could write a newsletter
and it could go to two people, or can go
to two hundred thousand people. I still just wrote that
newsletter once, right, So thinking about the compounding effects of
creating content and sharing it and distributing it with so
many people was major for my business. I don't think though,
that there was ever a time where I really was like,
wait a second, am I doing the wrong thing here?
(02:33):
I've always been really just strongheaded and encouraged by my
audience and everything else that I've been able to build
alongside awesome creators like yourself, Jenius over the last couple
of years. But I'm right there with you right figuring
out that best ROI time spent and just doubling down
on your strengths and what you know best. But enough
about us, Let's introduce our guests. At the start of
(02:57):
March twenty twenty, when it felt like there was nothing
else to do. Emily Doyle and May Quak got cracking
on building a bar setting suncare brand that could be
loved and used by all. May being an avid surfer
and darker complexioned Gal, had severe pain points within the
existing options on shelf, plagued with white cast problems and
difficulty finding quality SPF on the go, and Emily, a
(03:20):
freckly fair skinned skincare lover, was frustrated by the lack
of innovation and skincare benefits on the market. By combining
their passions and defining what was missing from their experience
as the lifelong users of sunscreen, it was apparent what
Dune Suncare needed to be, not only for them, but
everyone else as well. Two years later, they have launched
(03:40):
a skin tone inclusive clear gel suncare line packed with
skincare benefits that's created for and accessible to all. Emily
and May welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Thank you, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Love the bio, Love the bio. May. The first kind
of question I have here here is and when I
was doing the research and the background all that fun stuff,
I was just fascinated that you all were able to
sort of create skincare products so like, are you scientists?
Are you skincare professionals? How did the idea of this
company come about? And where does the name Doune really
(04:19):
come into play here?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
As well?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, I'll kick it off.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
So, as you mentioned, March twenty twenty, I was supposed
to be on a weekend surf trip. I ended up
being there for three months and I called Emily and
I realized that we finally had the time and space
to build our dream company. We decided to combine our passions.
You know, like you mentioned, I am a surfer, I'm
(04:43):
in the sun all the time, I'm using sunscreen daily.
And there was nothing that I gravitated towards or that
I felt was innovative and accessible and fun.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Yeah, I got to be honest. I was so in
love with skincare, even at a really early age.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
My mom used to take the grocery shopping after school,
and upon entering the grocery store, I would gravitate toward
the skincare aisle and steal products off the shelf and
sneak them into the grocery cart, hoping that my mom
would never notice. And that love infiltrated into my career
after college so I ran a number of PR marketing
(05:20):
departments for a few fashion designers in New York. So
I worked on everything from contract negotiation points to building
and executing on large scale PR marketing initiatives and press
days and in store launches. So that was really my
first step into understanding the beauty market.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So when we came.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Together to build Doune, we are like, we want two
for one products. Product is paramount, it's got to be
something that's totally differentiated in the space. We wanted to
be skin tone inclusive. We were pulling benchmarks from Asian market.
Clear gel was something we really wanted, and we knew
convenience and extasibility was key. So we kind of like
(06:02):
came out of the gates right away focused on retail
distribution strategy and accessible price point.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So let's talk a little bit more about once you
made that big break and things were coming out, where
did the name of Dune come from? Why Dune? What
does Doune mean?
Speaker 4 (06:19):
All?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Right?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
So Emily was on her daily COVID beach walks and
she called me and she was like, I got the
name Dune, And she ran over to my house and like,
of course, I'm like the pessimist, and I was like,
that won't ever work. But eventually I was like, this
is perfect.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Yeah, so dune. We loved how quick and easy it
was to stay. But moreover, it's universally understood in its definition.
So dunes are natural resilient barriers for our beaches and
everything inland. They helped protect, and when you think about it,
that's exactly what we are trying to do or achieve
rather with our sun.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Caroline, I love that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I love that. So let's get into the nitty gritty. Right,
let's talk business. Let's talk numbers and metrics, all the
fun things. The first year of operating a business is
usually the make or break year, Right, what was the
biggest benchmark, internal benchmark that you all had made for
yourselves that said if we hit this, we got to
keep going. And it was there ever a moment where
you thought, oh my gosh, we might not hit this benchmark.
(07:21):
We're gonna have to shut down.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Oh man, Yes, yeah. We launched on June eighth of
last year, twenty twenty two. We had actually solicited the
support of our PR agency, Autumn PR. They're amazing to
help drive our long lead press and our short lead
like digital press initiatives prior to launch to put us
(07:42):
on the map, and they absolutely blew it out of
the water. I obviously have to give us a little
bit of credit because the product and the.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Branding is good too.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
But you know, we were in book in Vogue and
l and Vanity Fair and Harper's Bizarre. We made Oprah's
June O list. So this was really in the first
month that we were off to the races. And then
shortly thereafter, you know, we joke that we received the
hottest DM slides we've ever received from Alta and Urban Outfitters.
(08:13):
So Alta reached out to us in July, you know,
month to post launch, the biggest beauty retailer in the country,
asking to carry the line at the start of this
coming year, which we are fast approaching our launch in
two weeks from now, in five hundred and fifty doors
across the US. But we knew when we had retail interest,
(08:34):
we had something. We knew we wanted to be an
omni channel business. We knew that's how we were going
to find success, and an omni channel approach is a
multi pronged retail strategy. So man I started calling visiting
all of our favorite specialty retailers, boutiques, high end surf shops, grocers,
(08:55):
and hotels. So we secured about twenty of those accounts
right launch. But I would say the biggest hurdle for
us was about five months pre lunch, we had gotten
a call from our packaging supplier and a contract manufacturer
we were about to go into contract with, thankfully we
(09:15):
hadn't yet. We had learned that our packaging was not
going to be able to deliver until August of the
following year, so pushing our lunch to September, completely missing
the sun season. By the way, we had already raised capital,
so we had investors and partners that were like heavily
(09:36):
counting on us for a summer pre summer launch, and
we had also found out from our contract manufacturer, with
the raw material shortages and all the ships being held
up at the ports, it was going to be almost
twice the cost.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
So we were devastated.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I mean, we thought for sure that was it may
and I scrambled to find new partners that help us
to launch in time and at the price points that
we needed to offer accessible formulations, and we were.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Able to pull it off.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
But yeah, that was that was the time when we
felt like this is really a make or break it moment.
So big kudos to our partners for really like doing
everything in their power to support us in that moment.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And look where you are now, right five hundred plus
Alta Beauty Doors like that is so so exciting. It
actually it leads me to my next question here before
I flip it over to Genie, I'm really curious, what's
your strategy for differentiating your product and brand against all
of your competitors, Right, skincare is such a congested market,
like Ulta must have seen something specific and unique with you.
(10:44):
What was that strategy of differentiating yourself?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
You know, we really broke the category, the suncare category
out into two sectors. So you have the mass brands
like the copper Tone Swine Tropics, Banana Boats of the
world that we've all known their legacy household brand names.
And then you have the specialty, more modern brands, you know,
the supergroups Kolas of the world.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
And when we.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Were really like at the inception point of the brand,
when we were idating on what the whole was in
the market, it really came down to accessibility, quality products,
branding and universality. So we really were looking at our
competitors who were predominantly speaking specifically in the specialty space
(11:30):
to women. While we love our women, like sunscreen is
not marginalized, it's for everyone to wear everyday, year round,
and so we really wanted to lean heavily into marketing
to everyone. Today, we have data that points to the
back end of our Shopify which says that our age
demographic range is between sixteen to sixty five and we
have almost a fifty to fifty split between a male
(11:51):
female customer, which is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I love that insight and I'd love to dive in
more to the profitability aspect of business. Right, So the
first couple of years of business, you're usually reporting losses
unless you just have a Unicorn launch that you know,
super profitable. Did you guys find immediate success.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
We're currently not profitable yet, but next year we will be.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I mean I think that's part and parcel with how
things work, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
For sure, Yeah, we're we're planning to be profitable early on.
We are planning also to have a pretty banner year
comparatively last year. That our growth is pretty substantial just
based on you know, all of our retail partnerships that
are secured. We've been incredibly lean to be honest, you know,
we've really like raised nominal funds relative to how much
(12:43):
growth we've had. And we're a two woman band. We
work with an onslaught of freelancers, contractors and agency folks.
But May and I are running every corner of this
business by ourselves and have been for over three years.
We are really excited to close. Is there a fundraise
if like this is like a plug for investors who
(13:03):
want to come to the table, but we are really
hoping to put money towards building a team at this point,
which it would require for scaling. So Sunscreen unpnounced to
May and I as it's an OTC product meaning over
the counter, is incredibly time consuming if you're starting a
product from zero and also incredibly expensive. If we had
(13:26):
known what we know now then at start, I don't
know if we would have been here today. But that's
why there's really pretty nominal competition when it comes to
who the main players are and who's driving the most
revenue per year.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
So you alluded to some of the supply chain issues
that you ran into, and I'm curious if you have
any advice around building those relationships with vendors that are
affordable and that meet your standard of quality, Like what's
your best advice there.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
We did a lot of vendor vetting, like we were
always in meetings with every different contractor or raw material
supplier just to gather all the correct info we found
to write partners that can meet our deadline and goals.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
She's making it sound much easier than it is.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
It's not it's not easy. It's definitely not easy.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
To lean into what may mentioned. You know, I think
the critical component here is setting a goal for yourself.
So let's just say time. It's really challenging, you know,
with all the testing and compliance and if you have
clinical hard claims that you're putting on the front of pack,
you have to test against all of those, which costs
money and require certain banks of time. So I would
(14:35):
say start with your desired time, add cushion in, and
then work backwards from there. It's constantly like problem solving
and finding solutions so that you can hit your targets.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Coming up on Mind the Business small business success stories.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
We both had to like drop our egos and get
super vulnerable with each other and just be honest about
where our strengths lie, what we want in the business,
like how we both want to lead.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
We'll be right back after the break. Welcome back to
Mind the Business Small business success stories brought to you
by iHeartRadio and Into It Quick Books. So, as a
(15:26):
company that was developed during the pandemic, what sort of
safety neess have you built into your business model to
be able to weather economic storms.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
One of our longest standing and most valued partners is
our finance and OPS team. They've been with us for
over a year and a half. They've really helped build
our entire financial model projecting for the next five years.
We're constantly updating that to input actuals and put updates
based on new relationships that we have or sell through
(15:57):
expectations from retailers, etc. I also think it's really imperative
to build an infrastructure, a strong, solid foundation and business
infrastructure straight out of the gate. We've worked for a
number of different companies that hire a finance team for like,
after being in business for five years and the books
are a mess and everything is delayed, or you've jeopardized
(16:20):
relationships with some vendors that you were working with for years,
so we're like, we got to get this tight, got
to get it tight right away.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
That really leads me into my next question here, which
is like in the early days, how are you really
balancing these budgets of income expenses? Like what was the
most difficult part of figuring out the cash flows and
how did you really overcome that. Was it your finance
team that you were able to really lean on or
I mean, who taught you all to think that I
need to focus on this day one right out the
gates to make sure that four or five years down
(16:49):
the road it's not a mess.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Well, I think both of us had come from the
production world, so we've worked on production budgets. So like
we've both were really meticulous about budgeting and making sure
we hit those goals. You know, from the get go,
we've set a long term goal of our budget what
we can put in personally, because remember we didn't have
(17:12):
jobs and we worked against that. We split costs in
the beginning and just make sure that we hit those numbers.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Yeah, I think it's understanding what you have and what
you need to work against and what you absolutely need
to spend money on. Like do you absolutely need to
build a team right now, or can you be lean
and handle it yourselves as founders, you know, you're constantly
trying to figure out what's.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
The goal here.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
For us, it was product. We had to spend a
lot of money up front on product. Who would we
be without it? And not to mention, building an OTC
product from zero means a year and a half of
your time and a lot of money upfront. So while
we've also been able to start production on products that
(17:58):
we're going to launch at the end of next year,
even now we're also facilitating terms. So it's looking at like,
all right, I've been in a relationship with this vendor
for a year now, we can do incremental spend against
the quote, or we can come down here because of
X mistakes, or you know, you get into like negotiation
(18:19):
mode to cost save as well.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's interesting. I never really thought about it like that,
But I guess you're right back to though, what may
was just kind of alluding to before, with you know,
being unemployed. You know, as you were unemployed when starting Doune,
what were some of the advantages and disadvantages of nurturing
your brain child without having another job to supplit your
time between.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Well, we both had to take turns to pick up
you know, freelance gigs, but like in between our days,
like we'll be taking on pitches and VC meetings and
just you know, putting one foot ahead of each other.
And big kudos to Emily, she sold Disney stocks to
pay for our first chemist.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Don't worry. It was supposed to put my kid through
private school, but they'll be going to a different school.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
This over lining to COVID, and we always say this
is time and space. You know, there was one thing
that May and I are steadfast on, which is work
life balance. And we weren't willing to forego our evenings
after a full time day job or our weekends to
really put all of our muscle energy money into building
a brand, particularly in the suncare space, because it would
(19:30):
have taken us five years.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So we were really lucky we.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Capitalized on the time that COVID allowed us. And it's
wild that COVID really lasted two and a half years,
which is exactly how long we needed to bring our
launch collection to market. But we also say like at
that moment in COVID, like so many people, you kind
of have to torch your ego on fire. You have
(19:56):
to put it in the trash and start again. You
can't think of out like, oh I I climbed the
ladder for all these years, and I made it to
the top of pr and marketing, and like none of
that mattered anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It was all trivial.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
We are thinking about our health and the well being
of our friends and family and ourselves. It was negotiating
rent with our landlords to try to come down on
monthly costs, and you figure it out.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
We tapped into our savings as well, so as every
you know entrepreneur has probably has had to do.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Absolutely, So I'm curious how do you guys keep the
friendship and still be business partners and you know, keep
everything flowing, because I know that's not easy.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Oh my god, this is such a weighted one. It's
so personal personal. The relationship you have with a co
founder is deeper and more intimate than any other relationship
you'll have, including a romantic one. And you know a
lot of people start businesses with the no that there's
going to be a fifty to fifty divide. You really
don't know how you're going to operate together. Especially if
(21:06):
you've never ever worked in business together before. But I
think where May and I really came together was in
our overall value system. And it's the same way that
we vet partners to come into the company. But you
have to have hard conversations, particularly when you're a little
ways in and you realize like there's strengths that one
(21:27):
person has the other doesn't. It's a division of power
maybe equity. I mean, we went through some really challenging
times to get to where we are now, and it's
made us all the stronger and better as co founders
and leaders. And you know, we always say everything starts
from the top, so we have to be as solid
as possible to be able to lead and manage team
(21:49):
to success.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And I'll add on to that, we both had to
like really drop our egos and get super vulnerable with
each other and just be honest about where strengths lie,
what we want in the business, like how we both
want to lead. Also balance understanding each of those personalities.
Understanding like when someone needs a little break, you know,
(22:11):
it's like a relationship.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yep, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So you know, Dune Suncare has seen a lot of success.
We talked about Alta. I believe you guys are crushing
it on Amazon. So how did you plan on growing
a company that has experienced such a large success so
new into its launch and like, what's next for Dune Suncare?
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Right?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Give me the play by play on the next You
mentioned five years, what's the next twelve twenty four months?
What are your dream retailers? Where you headed? Am I
going to see y'all on Shark Tank?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Like?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What's going on here?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (22:40):
I mean, gosh, We've really been so lucky on the
big box front. We went to Amazon actually as early
as we could. We made the cash program for Blue Mercury.
We sit at the front of all those major doors
across the US, Urban Outfitters, Anthropology dot Com, as well
as Goop, Gwyneth Paltra's company. And with the launch of
(23:00):
our new mineral sunscreen, which is totally proprietary, it's formula,
we're so excited to bring it to market. You know,
this year is really focused on nurturing those relationships that
we have and growing into more doors. So by April
we'll be in about seven hundred doors. Oh my god,
we are in April. What day is in two weeks,
(23:21):
we'll be in seven hundred doors total, maybe a little
over that number, and we are projecting the scale into
most of those retailers.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Doors by the fall of this year.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
So our focus is really on figuring out our best
plan money wise to support our inventory. That also means
maybe we're supporting our raise with debt or inventory financing,
so we've been having conversations with those groups as well
to best prepare for a huge amount of growth and
push an inventory. It takes about three months on average
(23:56):
to get a raw material in, so if you sell
out as something you're screwed. You need a backup plan,
you need inventory waiting on the ready and then in
the future. We have really exciting new category launches skin
Tone Inclusive Beauty, rolling out more products within our Sport
and Surf line. We're launching our first sport and surf
(24:17):
product at the end of this month, which will be awesome.
Hint hint, it's like a non aerosol spray with a
higher SVF level. Yes Exclusive, also some fun stuff in
maybe the baby category. So you know, we've really worked
(24:38):
hard at building this cachet around the brand early on
by aligning with those high end specialty boutiques, grocers, you know,
surf shops, hotel groups.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But we are planning to, as you know, be.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
As accessible as possible, so that means rolling into accessible
retailers to help support that mission.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
With telling you too much, that's what's up.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
You know. I've actually worked in the consumer product industry
for fourteen years, so I know exactly what it takes
to launch these types of products when you have a
big ass conglomerate company behind you, and y'all are doing
this two woman show, very bootstrapped, very lean, and so
I just want to give you all the flowers you
deserve because this is no easy feat.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Thank you so much. You really appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Thank you so much for having such a joy. We
loved it.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
That was such an incredible conversation with Emily and May.
First off, I'm like, I didn't even realize I needed
clear sunscreen in my life, and now that I know
that it exists, I can't go back.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
How about you, Austin?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
What stuck out to you most in this conversation?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know, I think something that really resonated with me
was when they were talking about keeping track of their
income and expenses early on, and keeping those books super
clean off the jump right. As a small business owner myself,
that's something I really struggled with. It was hard for
me to project my cash flows, figure out when invoices
were due, figuring out, you know, when I would collect
(26:11):
on you know, from this vendor or whatever's going on, right,
and so just keeping track of your income and expenses
was just such a good takeaway from this. And something
else kind of on top of that was what should
I spend money on? Emily specifically, she was talking a
little bit about how should I hire this person to
help me grow this or is this expense really right
(26:31):
for my business? Or can you know, May and I
do this ourselves. Can we kind of put our heads
together and figure out a solution without spending thousands on
a consultant or an agency or something of that nature.
So really having that internal reflection and understanding what is
right for the business, what's right for that long term
profitability projections. I just think those were the two biggest
things for me. What about Eugenius what stood up for you?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah? I think it was a good reminder that even
though you're trying to enter a market that's quote unquote
super sadatated. There's always an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself,
and they saw the opportunity and built a community of
really engaged consumers that are buying into their brand. Right,
you might be thinking to yourself, well, who needs another
skincare brand? Who needs another sunscreen? And the fact is
(27:16):
that they really did a great job in identifying how
exclusive some of these brands have felt in the past,
and the fact that they're being unapologetic in their approach,
I think is why they've been able to stand out
and see the success that they've had in such a
short amount of time.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, and I think something that's also really interesting about
this conversation is the power of direct messages.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
She said that she got into Alta and Urban Outfitters
because they sent her a DM. As a constant creator
building my business, I know some my first customers came
from just cold DM saying hey, here's the products I have.
I've got this cool newsletter, like go check it out, right, Like,
dms are so so powerful.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, They're not just for like sliding in and sending
creepy messages.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
You know, my.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
First tweet to a magazine editor, led to my first
media opportunity with Joqiro Dinetro and I actually launched my
entire coaching business because I started getting dms on my
Instagram stories from people who were like really interested in
what I was talking about and were like, Hey, can
you teach me how to do this? So you just
never know the power of direct messaging somebody and seeing
what opportunity you can come up.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I totally agree. And just to kind of wrap things
up here, something that I've yet to really see other
people do as well as them was the PR She mentioned,
the Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, she mentioned Oprah's June list, Right,
I don't even follow that, but I think that's what
it was. But I know that's a big deal. And maybe,
you know, thinking back to what should we spend money on,
what should we not spend money on, I'd imagine the
(28:38):
let's spend money on a PR agency was a really
good idea for their business.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah. Absolutely, especially when you are focusing on having an
impact across so many different channels. I think having that
person whose job is just to find you those opportunities
to stand out, that's one of the many reasons why
we outsource as entrepreneurs because we just can't be doing
all the things. And that's a really good reminder just
to focus on those highest return on investment investments in
(29:05):
your business.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I love it. Well, that's it for today's episode. You
can find me on social media at Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And you can find me at Jokiro dinetto podcast.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
You can learn more about Emily and May by following
at Dune Somencare on Instagram. You can follow Into It
QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks, and to get
tools you need to start, run and grow your business,
head to QuickBooks dot com today.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
We also want to hear from you, so be sure
to leave a rating and review and join us Thursday,
May twenty fifth, when we speak to Kristen Nino Deeguzman
about transitioning to being a founder who learns how to
outsource and delegate tasks.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio in Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Our executive producer is Molly Soosha, our supervising producer is
Nikia Swinton, and our writer is Tyree Rush.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Our head of post production is James Foster. See you
next time in
The views, information, or opinions expressed during this podcast are
solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent
those of Into It QuickBooks or any of its cornerstone
brands or employees. This podcast does not constitute financial, legal,
or other professional advice or services. No assurance is given
that the info is comprehensive, accurate, or free of errors,
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Into It QuickBooks does not have any responsibility for updating
(00:22):
or revising any information presented. Listeners should verify statements before
relying on them.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey everyone, I'm Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And I'm Denise Torres. Welcome to Mind the Business Small
Business Success Stories, a podcast brought to you by iHeartRadio
and Into It QuickBooks. In each episode, Austin and I
chat with small business owners as they share their stories
about the ups and downs of owning a small business.
Plus we'll learn from their experience on how you can
help fortify and strengthen your own business.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That is right, and I am so excited for our
guests today, But before we introduce them, I wanted to
talk to you about your early day running your business.
Was there ever a moment where you thought you may
have to change your plans for your business because you
weren't maybe hitting your financial goals.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Jennis, I'm so glad you brought this up, Austin.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I think this is a struggle that a lot of
entrepreneurs struggle with in the beginning, because we're kind of
just throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to see
what sticks. And for me, I found myself just doing
a lot of different things as a personal finance content creator.
I was doing speaking engagements and workshops and one on
one coaching and trying to launch a course, and doing
affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, and I just felt like
(01:32):
I was being stretched so thin that I really started
to think about what are the highest return on investment
activities that are going to get me to my financial goals.
Let me focus on those things and do less of
the stuff that feels like a heavy lift without a
lot of rewards at the end. I'm curious if you've
had an experience like that to Austin.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I have, Jennie, and that's so cool that we really
align so well on you know, what are those highest
ROI return on investment deliverables that us as content creators
can create and share with our audiences to just get
the best bang for our books. So for me, what
that was is kind of reflecting and thinking, Okay, you know,
I have a limited number of perhaps one off brand
deals I can do, and a limited number of perhaps
(02:11):
one off speaking engagements. But I could write a newsletter
and it could go to two people, or can go
to two hundred thousand people. I still just wrote that
newsletter once, right, So thinking about the compounding effects of
creating content and sharing it and distributing it with so
many people was major for my business. I don't think though,
that there was ever a time where I really was like,
wait a second, am I doing the wrong thing here?
(02:33):
I've always been really just strongheaded and encouraged by my
audience and everything else that I've been able to build
alongside awesome creators like yourself, Jenius over the last couple
of years. But I'm right there with you right figuring
out that best ROI time spent and just doubling down
on your strengths and what you know best. But enough
about us, Let's introduce our guests. At the start of
(02:57):
March twenty twenty, when it felt like there was nothing
else to do. Emily Doyle and May Quak got cracking
on building a bar setting suncare brand that could be
loved and used by all. May being an avid surfer
and darker complexioned Gal, had severe pain points within the
existing options on shelf, plagued with white cast problems and
difficulty finding quality SPF on the go, and Emily, a
(03:20):
freckly fair skinned skincare lover, was frustrated by the lack
of innovation and skincare benefits on the market. By combining
their passions and defining what was missing from their experience
as the lifelong users of sunscreen, it was apparent what
Dune Suncare needed to be, not only for them, but
everyone else as well. Two years later, they have launched
(03:40):
a skin tone inclusive clear gel suncare line packed with
skincare benefits that's created for and accessible to all. Emily
and May welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Thank you, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Love the bio, Love the bio. May. The first kind
of question I have here here is and when I
was doing the research and the background all that fun stuff,
I was just fascinated that you all were able to
sort of create skincare products so like, are you scientists?
Are you skincare professionals? How did the idea of this
company come about? And where does the name Doune really
(04:19):
come into play here?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
As well?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, I'll kick it off.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
So, as you mentioned, March twenty twenty, I was supposed
to be on a weekend surf trip. I ended up
being there for three months and I called Emily and
I realized that we finally had the time and space
to build our dream company. We decided to combine our passions.
You know, like you mentioned, I am a surfer, I'm
(04:43):
in the sun all the time, I'm using sunscreen daily.
And there was nothing that I gravitated towards or that
I felt was innovative and accessible and fun.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Yeah, I got to be honest. I was so in
love with skincare, even at a really early age.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
My mom used to take the grocery shopping after school,
and upon entering the grocery store, I would gravitate toward
the skincare aisle and steal products off the shelf and
sneak them into the grocery cart, hoping that my mom
would never notice. And that love infiltrated into my career
after college so I ran a number of PR marketing
(05:20):
departments for a few fashion designers in New York. So
I worked on everything from contract negotiation points to building
and executing on large scale PR marketing initiatives and press
days and in store launches. So that was really my
first step into understanding the beauty market.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So when we came.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Together to build Doune, we are like, we want two
for one products. Product is paramount, it's got to be
something that's totally differentiated in the space. We wanted to
be skin tone inclusive. We were pulling benchmarks from Asian market.
Clear gel was something we really wanted, and we knew
convenience and extasibility was key. So we kind of like
(06:02):
came out of the gates right away focused on retail
distribution strategy and accessible price point.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So let's talk a little bit more about once you
made that big break and things were coming out, where
did the name of Dune come from? Why Dune? What
does Doune mean?
Speaker 4 (06:19):
All?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Right?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
So Emily was on her daily COVID beach walks and
she called me and she was like, I got the
name Dune, And she ran over to my house and like,
of course, I'm like the pessimist, and I was like,
that won't ever work. But eventually I was like, this
is perfect.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Yeah, so dune. We loved how quick and easy it
was to stay. But moreover, it's universally understood in its definition.
So dunes are natural resilient barriers for our beaches and
everything inland. They helped protect, and when you think about it,
that's exactly what we are trying to do or achieve
rather with our sun.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Caroline, I love that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I love that. So let's get into the nitty gritty. Right,
let's talk business. Let's talk numbers and metrics, all the
fun things. The first year of operating a business is
usually the make or break year, Right, what was the
biggest benchmark, internal benchmark that you all had made for
yourselves that said if we hit this, we got to
keep going. And it was there ever a moment where
you thought, oh my gosh, we might not hit this benchmark.
(07:21):
We're gonna have to shut down.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Oh man, Yes, yeah. We launched on June eighth of
last year, twenty twenty two. We had actually solicited the
support of our PR agency, Autumn PR. They're amazing to
help drive our long lead press and our short lead
like digital press initiatives prior to launch to put us
(07:42):
on the map, and they absolutely blew it out of
the water. I obviously have to give us a little
bit of credit because the product and the.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Branding is good too.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
But you know, we were in book in Vogue and
l and Vanity Fair and Harper's Bizarre. We made Oprah's
June O list. So this was really in the first
month that we were off to the races. And then
shortly thereafter, you know, we joke that we received the
hottest DM slides we've ever received from Alta and Urban Outfitters.
(08:13):
So Alta reached out to us in July, you know,
month to post launch, the biggest beauty retailer in the country,
asking to carry the line at the start of this
coming year, which we are fast approaching our launch in
two weeks from now, in five hundred and fifty doors
across the US. But we knew when we had retail interest,
(08:34):
we had something. We knew we wanted to be an
omni channel business. We knew that's how we were going
to find success, and an omni channel approach is a
multi pronged retail strategy. So man I started calling visiting
all of our favorite specialty retailers, boutiques, high end surf shops, grocers,
(08:55):
and hotels. So we secured about twenty of those accounts
right launch. But I would say the biggest hurdle for
us was about five months pre lunch, we had gotten
a call from our packaging supplier and a contract manufacturer
we were about to go into contract with, thankfully we
(09:15):
hadn't yet. We had learned that our packaging was not
going to be able to deliver until August of the
following year, so pushing our lunch to September, completely missing
the sun season. By the way, we had already raised capital,
so we had investors and partners that were like heavily
(09:36):
counting on us for a summer pre summer launch, and
we had also found out from our contract manufacturer, with
the raw material shortages and all the ships being held
up at the ports, it was going to be almost
twice the cost.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
So we were devastated.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I mean, we thought for sure that was it may
and I scrambled to find new partners that help us
to launch in time and at the price points that
we needed to offer accessible formulations, and we were.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Able to pull it off.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
But yeah, that was that was the time when we
felt like this is really a make or break it moment.
So big kudos to our partners for really like doing
everything in their power to support us in that moment.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And look where you are now, right five hundred plus
Alta Beauty Doors like that is so so exciting. It
actually it leads me to my next question here before
I flip it over to Genie, I'm really curious, what's
your strategy for differentiating your product and brand against all
of your competitors, Right, skincare is such a congested market,
like Ulta must have seen something specific and unique with you.
(10:44):
What was that strategy of differentiating yourself?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
You know, we really broke the category, the suncare category
out into two sectors. So you have the mass brands
like the copper Tone Swine Tropics, Banana Boats of the
world that we've all known their legacy household brand names.
And then you have the specialty, more modern brands, you know,
the supergroups Kolas of the world.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
And when we.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Were really like at the inception point of the brand,
when we were idating on what the whole was in
the market, it really came down to accessibility, quality products,
branding and universality. So we really were looking at our
competitors who were predominantly speaking specifically in the specialty space
(11:30):
to women. While we love our women, like sunscreen is
not marginalized, it's for everyone to wear everyday, year round,
and so we really wanted to lean heavily into marketing
to everyone. Today, we have data that points to the
back end of our Shopify which says that our age
demographic range is between sixteen to sixty five and we
have almost a fifty to fifty split between a male
(11:51):
female customer, which is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I love that insight and I'd love to dive in
more to the profitability aspect of business. Right, So the
first couple of years of business, you're usually reporting losses
unless you just have a Unicorn launch that you know,
super profitable. Did you guys find immediate success.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
We're currently not profitable yet, but next year we will be.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I mean I think that's part and parcel with how
things work, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
For sure, Yeah, we're we're planning to be profitable early on.
We are planning also to have a pretty banner year
comparatively last year. That our growth is pretty substantial just
based on you know, all of our retail partnerships that
are secured. We've been incredibly lean to be honest, you know,
we've really like raised nominal funds relative to how much
(12:43):
growth we've had. And we're a two woman band. We
work with an onslaught of freelancers, contractors and agency folks.
But May and I are running every corner of this
business by ourselves and have been for over three years.
We are really excited to close. Is there a fundraise
if like this is like a plug for investors who
(13:03):
want to come to the table, but we are really
hoping to put money towards building a team at this point,
which it would require for scaling. So Sunscreen unpnounced to
May and I as it's an OTC product meaning over
the counter, is incredibly time consuming if you're starting a
product from zero and also incredibly expensive. If we had
(13:26):
known what we know now then at start, I don't
know if we would have been here today. But that's
why there's really pretty nominal competition when it comes to
who the main players are and who's driving the most
revenue per year.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
So you alluded to some of the supply chain issues
that you ran into, and I'm curious if you have
any advice around building those relationships with vendors that are
affordable and that meet your standard of quality, Like what's
your best advice there.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
We did a lot of vendor vetting, like we were
always in meetings with every different contractor or raw material
supplier just to gather all the correct info we found
to write partners that can meet our deadline and goals.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
She's making it sound much easier than it is.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
It's not it's not easy. It's definitely not easy.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
To lean into what may mentioned. You know, I think
the critical component here is setting a goal for yourself.
So let's just say time. It's really challenging, you know,
with all the testing and compliance and if you have
clinical hard claims that you're putting on the front of pack,
you have to test against all of those, which costs
money and require certain banks of time. So I would
(14:35):
say start with your desired time, add cushion in, and
then work backwards from there. It's constantly like problem solving
and finding solutions so that you can hit your targets.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Coming up on Mind the Business small business success stories.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
We both had to like drop our egos and get
super vulnerable with each other and just be honest about
where our strengths lie, what we want in the business,
like how we both want to lead.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
We'll be right back after the break. Welcome back to
Mind the Business Small business success stories brought to you
by iHeartRadio and Into It Quick Books. So, as a
(15:26):
company that was developed during the pandemic, what sort of
safety neess have you built into your business model to
be able to weather economic storms.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
One of our longest standing and most valued partners is
our finance and OPS team. They've been with us for
over a year and a half. They've really helped build
our entire financial model projecting for the next five years.
We're constantly updating that to input actuals and put updates
based on new relationships that we have or sell through
(15:57):
expectations from retailers, etc. I also think it's really imperative
to build an infrastructure, a strong, solid foundation and business
infrastructure straight out of the gate. We've worked for a
number of different companies that hire a finance team for like,
after being in business for five years and the books
are a mess and everything is delayed, or you've jeopardized
(16:20):
relationships with some vendors that you were working with for years,
so we're like, we got to get this tight, got
to get it tight right away.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
That really leads me into my next question here, which
is like in the early days, how are you really
balancing these budgets of income expenses? Like what was the
most difficult part of figuring out the cash flows and
how did you really overcome that. Was it your finance
team that you were able to really lean on or
I mean, who taught you all to think that I
need to focus on this day one right out the
gates to make sure that four or five years down
(16:49):
the road it's not a mess.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Well, I think both of us had come from the
production world, so we've worked on production budgets. So like
we've both were really meticulous about budgeting and making sure
we hit those goals. You know, from the get go,
we've set a long term goal of our budget what
we can put in personally, because remember we didn't have
(17:12):
jobs and we worked against that. We split costs in
the beginning and just make sure that we hit those numbers.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Yeah, I think it's understanding what you have and what
you need to work against and what you absolutely need
to spend money on. Like do you absolutely need to
build a team right now, or can you be lean
and handle it yourselves as founders, you know, you're constantly
trying to figure out what's.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
The goal here.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
For us, it was product. We had to spend a
lot of money up front on product. Who would we
be without it? And not to mention, building an OTC
product from zero means a year and a half of
your time and a lot of money upfront. So while
we've also been able to start production on products that
(17:58):
we're going to launch at the end of next year,
even now we're also facilitating terms. So it's looking at like,
all right, I've been in a relationship with this vendor
for a year now, we can do incremental spend against
the quote, or we can come down here because of
X mistakes, or you know, you get into like negotiation
(18:19):
mode to cost save as well.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's interesting. I never really thought about it like that,
But I guess you're right back to though, what may
was just kind of alluding to before, with you know,
being unemployed. You know, as you were unemployed when starting Doune,
what were some of the advantages and disadvantages of nurturing
your brain child without having another job to supplit your
time between.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Well, we both had to take turns to pick up
you know, freelance gigs, but like in between our days,
like we'll be taking on pitches and VC meetings and
just you know, putting one foot ahead of each other.
And big kudos to Emily, she sold Disney stocks to
pay for our first chemist.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Don't worry. It was supposed to put my kid through
private school, but they'll be going to a different school.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
This over lining to COVID, and we always say this
is time and space. You know, there was one thing
that May and I are steadfast on, which is work
life balance. And we weren't willing to forego our evenings
after a full time day job or our weekends to
really put all of our muscle energy money into building
a brand, particularly in the suncare space, because it would
(19:30):
have taken us five years.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So we were really lucky we.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Capitalized on the time that COVID allowed us. And it's
wild that COVID really lasted two and a half years,
which is exactly how long we needed to bring our
launch collection to market. But we also say like at
that moment in COVID, like so many people, you kind
of have to torch your ego on fire. You have
(19:56):
to put it in the trash and start again. You
can't think of out like, oh I I climbed the
ladder for all these years, and I made it to
the top of pr and marketing, and like none of
that mattered anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It was all trivial.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
We are thinking about our health and the well being
of our friends and family and ourselves. It was negotiating
rent with our landlords to try to come down on
monthly costs, and you figure it out.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
We tapped into our savings as well, so as every
you know entrepreneur has probably has had to do.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Absolutely, So I'm curious how do you guys keep the
friendship and still be business partners and you know, keep
everything flowing, because I know that's not easy.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Oh my god, this is such a weighted one. It's
so personal personal. The relationship you have with a co
founder is deeper and more intimate than any other relationship
you'll have, including a romantic one. And you know a
lot of people start businesses with the no that there's
going to be a fifty to fifty divide. You really
don't know how you're going to operate together. Especially if
(21:06):
you've never ever worked in business together before. But I
think where May and I really came together was in
our overall value system. And it's the same way that
we vet partners to come into the company. But you
have to have hard conversations, particularly when you're a little
ways in and you realize like there's strengths that one
(21:27):
person has the other doesn't. It's a division of power
maybe equity. I mean, we went through some really challenging
times to get to where we are now, and it's
made us all the stronger and better as co founders
and leaders. And you know, we always say everything starts
from the top, so we have to be as solid
as possible to be able to lead and manage team
(21:49):
to success.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And I'll add on to that, we both had to
like really drop our egos and get super vulnerable with
each other and just be honest about where strengths lie,
what we want in the business, like how we both
want to lead. Also balance understanding each of those personalities.
Understanding like when someone needs a little break, you know,
(22:11):
it's like a relationship.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yep, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So you know, Dune Suncare has seen a lot of success.
We talked about Alta. I believe you guys are crushing
it on Amazon. So how did you plan on growing
a company that has experienced such a large success so
new into its launch and like, what's next for Dune Suncare?
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Right?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Give me the play by play on the next You
mentioned five years, what's the next twelve twenty four months?
What are your dream retailers? Where you headed? Am I
going to see y'all on Shark Tank?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Like?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What's going on here?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (22:40):
I mean, gosh, We've really been so lucky on the
big box front. We went to Amazon actually as early
as we could. We made the cash program for Blue Mercury.
We sit at the front of all those major doors
across the US, Urban Outfitters, Anthropology dot Com, as well
as Goop, Gwyneth Paltra's company. And with the launch of
(23:00):
our new mineral sunscreen, which is totally proprietary, it's formula,
we're so excited to bring it to market. You know,
this year is really focused on nurturing those relationships that
we have and growing into more doors. So by April
we'll be in about seven hundred doors. Oh my god,
we are in April. What day is in two weeks,
(23:21):
we'll be in seven hundred doors total, maybe a little
over that number, and we are projecting the scale into
most of those retailers.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Doors by the fall of this year.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
So our focus is really on figuring out our best
plan money wise to support our inventory. That also means
maybe we're supporting our raise with debt or inventory financing,
so we've been having conversations with those groups as well
to best prepare for a huge amount of growth and
push an inventory. It takes about three months on average
(23:56):
to get a raw material in, so if you sell
out as something you're screwed. You need a backup plan,
you need inventory waiting on the ready and then in
the future. We have really exciting new category launches skin
Tone Inclusive Beauty, rolling out more products within our Sport
and Surf line. We're launching our first sport and surf
(24:17):
product at the end of this month, which will be awesome.
Hint hint, it's like a non aerosol spray with a
higher SVF level. Yes Exclusive, also some fun stuff in
maybe the baby category. So you know, we've really worked
(24:38):
hard at building this cachet around the brand early on
by aligning with those high end specialty boutiques, grocers, you know,
surf shops, hotel groups.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But we are planning to, as you know, be.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
As accessible as possible, so that means rolling into accessible
retailers to help support that mission.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
With telling you too much, that's what's up.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
You know. I've actually worked in the consumer product industry
for fourteen years, so I know exactly what it takes
to launch these types of products when you have a
big ass conglomerate company behind you, and y'all are doing
this two woman show, very bootstrapped, very lean, and so
I just want to give you all the flowers you
deserve because this is no easy feat.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Thank you so much. You really appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Thank you so much for having such a joy. We
loved it.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
That was such an incredible conversation with Emily and May.
First off, I'm like, I didn't even realize I needed
clear sunscreen in my life, and now that I know
that it exists, I can't go back.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
How about you, Austin?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
What stuck out to you most in this conversation?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know, I think something that really resonated with me
was when they were talking about keeping track of their
income and expenses early on, and keeping those books super
clean off the jump right. As a small business owner myself,
that's something I really struggled with. It was hard for
me to project my cash flows, figure out when invoices
were due, figuring out, you know, when I would collect
(26:11):
on you know, from this vendor or whatever's going on, right,
and so just keeping track of your income and expenses
was just such a good takeaway from this. And something
else kind of on top of that was what should
I spend money on? Emily specifically, she was talking a
little bit about how should I hire this person to
help me grow this or is this expense really right
(26:31):
for my business? Or can you know, May and I
do this ourselves. Can we kind of put our heads
together and figure out a solution without spending thousands on
a consultant or an agency or something of that nature.
So really having that internal reflection and understanding what is
right for the business, what's right for that long term
profitability projections. I just think those were the two biggest
things for me. What about Eugenius what stood up for you?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah? I think it was a good reminder that even
though you're trying to enter a market that's quote unquote
super sadatated. There's always an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself,
and they saw the opportunity and built a community of
really engaged consumers that are buying into their brand. Right,
you might be thinking to yourself, well, who needs another
skincare brand? Who needs another sunscreen? And the fact is
(27:16):
that they really did a great job in identifying how
exclusive some of these brands have felt in the past,
and the fact that they're being unapologetic in their approach,
I think is why they've been able to stand out
and see the success that they've had in such a
short amount of time.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, and I think something that's also really interesting about
this conversation is the power of direct messages.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
She said that she got into Alta and Urban Outfitters
because they sent her a DM. As a constant creator
building my business, I know some my first customers came
from just cold DM saying hey, here's the products I have.
I've got this cool newsletter, like go check it out, right, Like,
dms are so so powerful.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, They're not just for like sliding in and sending
creepy messages.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
You know, my.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
First tweet to a magazine editor, led to my first
media opportunity with Joqiro Dinetro and I actually launched my
entire coaching business because I started getting dms on my
Instagram stories from people who were like really interested in
what I was talking about and were like, Hey, can
you teach me how to do this? So you just
never know the power of direct messaging somebody and seeing
what opportunity you can come up.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I totally agree. And just to kind of wrap things
up here, something that I've yet to really see other
people do as well as them was the PR She mentioned,
the Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, she mentioned Oprah's June list, Right,
I don't even follow that, but I think that's what
it was. But I know that's a big deal. And maybe,
you know, thinking back to what should we spend money on,
what should we not spend money on, I'd imagine the
(28:38):
let's spend money on a PR agency was a really
good idea for their business.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah. Absolutely, especially when you are focusing on having an
impact across so many different channels. I think having that
person whose job is just to find you those opportunities
to stand out, that's one of the many reasons why
we outsource as entrepreneurs because we just can't be doing
all the things. And that's a really good reminder just
to focus on those highest return on investment investments in
(29:05):
your business.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I love it. Well, that's it for today's episode. You
can find me on social media at Austin Hankwitz.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And you can find me at Jokiro dinetto podcast.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
You can learn more about Emily and May by following
at Dune Somencare on Instagram. You can follow Into It
QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks, and to get
tools you need to start, run and grow your business,
head to QuickBooks dot com today.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
We also want to hear from you, so be sure
to leave a rating and review and join us Thursday,
May twenty fifth, when we speak to Kristen Nino Deeguzman
about transitioning to being a founder who learns how to
outsource and delegate tasks.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio in Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Our executive producer is Molly Soosha, our supervising producer is
Nikia Swinton, and our writer is Tyree Rush.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Our head of post production is James Foster. See you
next time in
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