Wanna Build a Winning Brand? 😏; Second Place Wins the Race; How to Start a Biz 🚀

Where women in ecommerce come to get their key insights, tips and tactics

Hi! I’m Doone, your hype girl in business. This is your weekly source of inspiration & information on all things in the female e-commerce and CPG space, read by like-minded Entrepreneurs like you. If you find value in this content please like & share above.

A Quick Recap on Industry News 🗞 

Women’s Wellness CBD Brand Raises $2M Seed. Five Questions with Pinterest’s global head of consumer and brand marketing. Owlet Babytech goes public. The Canva Billionaire who plans to donate her wealth away. Route Content hosts an online event for e-commerce innovators. Sexual Wellness Brand Maude Raises $5.8M Series A.

🔑 Insights From This Week’s Episodes on the Female Startup Club Podcast

Directly from the women building the world’s most exciting businesses in the e-commerce and CPG space.

1. POD: Building a Winning Brand 🥇

Having that unique Point of Difference is so vital when building your brand. It’s crowded out there!

Creating and innovating on products, bringing something to market that truly isn’t available yet. Doing something different to your competitors and giving your customers that reason to choose YOU (as they should 😉).

EP188: Dimitra Davidson totally put the early success of her beauty brand Indeed Labs down to their ability to stand out from the rest.

Bringing a point of difference to a consumer. Being honest with a consumer. Really speaking to consumers. That’s the magic formula.

Have you discovered your unique Point of Difference yet?

2. First the Worst, Second the Best… 🎶

That being said, there might be such a thing as too different.

“You can have the most innovative product, but if there’s not enough education and awareness about what that is, you’re going to spend a lot of time educating.”

EP187: Lauren Gropper, who started her compostable tableware company (Repurpose) back in 2010, found it’s a lot easier to get on the b(r)andwagon and join a trend that’s already there.

There’s an advantage to being that first mover, but you’re also stuck with that education and awareness-building (we’re talking 🤑🤑🤑). The second entrant has the biggest advantage, still getting in there early enough to grab that wave.

FSC Mini-Series 🍷 from the Founder

In this new mini-series within the FSC podcast, I’m taking you on the journey while I develop my non-alc wine brand and build it in public. I will be sharing what’s happening in real-time, including the mistakes we learned along the way.

Part 2: First Steps, First Fail 🥇

👉 Let me break this down into the first early steps of starting this brand…

Step 1: A list ✔️

For me, everything starts with a list. Then another list. Then a couple more lists. 

** BOOK TIP: Russell Brunson’s Traffic Secrets - some great strategy tips, including a handy little list-building tool I use to this day

Step 2: The market 📈

This first practical step meant checking out the market. If someone was doing this already, and how well they were doing it. Queue, 100 bottles of non-alc wine over the course of a couple of months. Sounds fun right? 😏

Wrong, most of it went down the sink! A loss for our taste buds, a huge win for our business idea. 🚀

Step 3: A name 🤔

Whilst all this was in the works, we started thinking about a name. Something classic, timeless… Vivvie.

The Fail: But oh heck, we didn’t check for a trademark. At all. I know, how did we miss this? This is a huge learning for anything building a brand: make sure you’re not infringing on anyone else’s IP, make sure you’re able to own yours.

So, we don’t have a name. It’s pretty frustrating, but we’re staying both positive and super open to any suggestions (just click reply 😏).

Step 4: An understanding 📚

Besides all this, we really just read a lot. Research can be used to really validate the idea and size of the market. Ensure you’re reading, researching, and keeping an eye on all the things being written online.

What’s on this week? 👀

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

TUES: Lin Chen from Pink Moon - An inclusive wellcare + community oasis by women, for women 🌙

THURS: Leila Hormozi from Prestige Labs - High-quality supplements for professional athletes 💪

SAT: Amy Liu from Tower 28 - non-toxic makeup designed for sensitive skin 🌼

Click here to tune in! 🎧

What to Read, What to Listen to 🤔 

📚 Building a Story Brand, by Donald Miller: Clarify your message, become a marketing ninja!

🎧 PIVOT, with Kara Swisher & Scot Galloway: Sharp, unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in tech, business, and politics.

Job Alert Time! 💼

Check out these cool job listings on our radar:

The UK 🇬🇧

• Annoushka, one of the country’s leading fine jewelry designers, is looking to hire a part-time Sales Consultant. Apply here.

• Benefit Cosmetics, the well-known makeup brand, is looking for a UK Business Manager to strengthen their team. Apply directly here.

NYC 🗽

• BYBI Beauty, the pro-planet cruelty-free skincare brand, is hiring an Influencer Executive to support the US and the UK. Apply here.

PS:

If you’re working on something cool, hit reply and pop into my inbox. I’d love to meet you and hear about it.

Also… Hype Club is all systems go! Our upcoming Modern Mentors include Kailey Bradt from Susteau, Allison Moss from Type:A, Alexandra Dorda from Kasama Rum & Becca Millstein from Fishwife.

If you’re building an e-commerce brand and you’re looking for a network and access to the world’s most exciting founders, come join us. We’d love to have you. 👋