How Ami Colé‘s Founder Is Rewriting the Marketing Playbook

0:00Hey, welcome to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm Jasmine, the host of the show. And today I'm chatting with the founder of Amikole. Her name's Jara. Let's get into the episode. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Grinsworthy. Jara, welcome to Female Founder World. I'm so excited to be here. It is so good to have you on the show. I'm such a fan of Amikole and what you guys have built. Talk me through the origin story and how you got started. Oh my God. It's like so funny, like that question, because it's truly a genesis of everything that I've been through. I'm first generation, sending leaves American, born and raised in New York City.

0:39The melting pot of all melting pots. I had been a very early beauty concierge and lover, you know, growing up in my mom's hair salon. So she's had a hair salon in Harlem for about 32 years now. So I basically grew up in the space. So that was kind of always my backdrop, background music. So when I went to college and eventually started work, I was just always trying to find the right fit for me. Like the things that I would see in Harlem growing up between music, culture, beauty, and then my love for the beauty industry. So I would kind of been jumping around since. But, you know, I worked, you know, in places at L 'Oreal and Glossier and Rebecca Minkoff and all of these things kind of threaded what would be, which is my time as a founder now at Amico Le.

1:29But essentially throughout my career, I would say professionally, I had always been missing that feeling of home. You know, that what I saw in Harlem, what resonated with me and people that would come into the salon, I just did not see reflected in the industry. For me personally, that meant makeup that I could truly see myself and celebrate who I was, makeup that really made it okay to be melanin rich and not really have to transform. So after, you know, my time at Glossier where I was really focusing on product development, which means literally building products like from concept all the way to like the gunk in the tube, that was my job.

2:08So after that, I was like, wait a minute, if there's any time to do this, it would be right now. So I jumped ship and I put on my entrepreneurial hat. And we can talk about this later about like where I got the bug from. But that was kind of the genesis of Ami Kole. So collectively picking up the tactical skills from a professional perspective. But then also the love that I have for beauty in my culture. And talk me through what it is that you guys have built. If people aren't familiar with the brand, who are you? What are some milestones to help people kind of like picture where you're at? Because you've really just built a movement.

2:41I feel like every beauty girl that I know loves the brand. Oh, I love hearing that. Well, thank you so much. Yes, Amicole is a clean beauty brand. We are made to celebrate melanin-rich skin. Essentially, in terms of a North Star, like what do we do? We create very edited, high premium quality products at an accessible price point to really celebrate you. So you're going to never pick up one product and it's masking your skin or transforming. transforming it's truly the makeup essentials that you can put on in the back of a taxi you can put on you know on your way out and truly truly feel like your best self we try our best to make sure that they're multifunctional so if you leave the house at 9 a.m three three o 'clock your makeup is still on and you're still looking good we love that yes from a product perspective that's always been our promise and I know clean beauty sounds very convoluted but why we started there is really important.

3:35When it came to women of color, specifically black women, reproductive health was a huge issue. And when we looked at the source and like what was disrupting what we call the endocrine system, it was a lot of the beauty products that we're using. So from relaxers, you know, we tend to get relaxers pretty young and those are chemicals literally on your scalp. That's changing the chemistry of your body. So by the time you're into your quote unquote prime and ready to reproduce, we were looking back and understanding that how we've been living and interacting with beauty was very disruptive to how we can thrive.

4:08So I personally was, you know, starting to think about family and like how I can eat better, be better, live better. And I'm like, okay, if we do create a brand, we want to create something that would not disrupt your normal life, but really be the best that you can be, both visually looking like your best version of self, but also what you're putting on your body. What are some milestones that when you think about what you guys have hit over the last four and a half, four and a bit years that you just think, whoa, that's amazing? Honestly, every single day I'm like, how am I here? Okay, so very key milestones.

4:43One major milestone I think very early on was 2020 when we raised over a million dollars of capital for the company. This was pre-idea. I had a bunch of samples that I had. I had a very big dream and I had a big heart and my eyes were wide open. I needed to make this happen. So after, again, this is like prime COVID time. We were at home. I'm pitching 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. back to back on Zoom. And the first couple of no's felt like a dagger, like in my eyeballs, in my heart. And I have some very snotty videos of me crying. I documented the entire thing. But then afterwards, you kind of get the grit.

5:23You get the grit and the grip of things and, you know, 10 pitches, 20 pitches. And that first yes hits and you're like, wait, what? This is happening? And I think when we collectively raised that amount of money, it was not only like, yes, I can make my dreams come true, but also historically, there had only been like less than 10 black people, 15 black people, black women specifically that were able to raise over that amount of money. So I was really, really proud. But I think as we continued to go, you know, launching the website. I will never forget May 17, 2021 and blowing through our entire forecast in the first day.

6:00Then raising, like having a team, you know, actually bringing a team at the table. Then we had been like, you know, grinding, grinding, grinding. And then, you know, having a contract with Sephora. I used to work at Sephora when I was in college. So this was like a full 180 moment. I'm like, what is going on? Like, what is life? life um so I think collectively there's been things like that I think most recently like being on Oprah's favorite thing list amazing you know my mom is like she's so funny because not a lot impresses her but Oprah obviously impresses her so I think that everyone touche my dad was like okay my mom was like Oprah you do have a real job so I think recently that was really really exciting and it just you know those like crumbs of affirmation that this business is so hard.

6:51Totally. It keeps you going, doesn't it? It keeps you going. It keeps the lights on. So I think those like sparks in those moments are really, really monumental, but we're just beginning. It's so crazy. Let's talk about that launch day where you blew through your forecast. What did you do to get that traction on day one? Like, why do you think it hit so well? Oh my God. I can lay it all off for you. Please do. So again, I'm going to paint the picture for you. It's 2019. I just kind of left my quote unquote dream job, you know, to kind of figure myself out, you know. So I went to I literally booked a ticket.

7:26I went to Thailand by myself with a notebook. And I'm like, if I could dream of anything, what would it be? And it was Ami Kole. And I became obsessed. Like I was on the beach. I was running. I was doing this. I was just writing things down. And then it's going to be in this packaging. And it's going to be called this. And I want to be here and all these things. So when I came back to New York City, I'm like, hey, guys, like Revelation. I know no one's listening. Everyone was listening, obviously. So I have like 2000 followers. Right. I'm like, guys, my next thing is going to be my own thing. Like, do you want me to document this process?

7:57And everyone was like, heck yes, document it. So I'm like, OK. So then here I am in Brooklyn. I am recording basically on a daily basis. Everything from going out to Cosmoprof, which is this huge, very overwhelming conference for all things, It's all things packaging, you know, products and formulations, everything. I had heard of it. I'd never been there, but I just put it on my credit card. I went out to Las Vegas. It was 105 degrees. I'm literally sweating through the streets of Vegas and going booth by booth trying to figure out who is this vendor that I'm going to partner with to make this come to fruition.

8:37And I'm recording it. Like the whole thing on Instagram, the IG stories. I would get samples in. I'm like, hey, guys, in this make-believe world, what's the perfect lip gloss that would fit in your purse, but also your back pocket? So when you're out in Brooklyn having a good time, you're not going to lose it. You can find very specific questions. And everyone just became more and more invested. And that's how people literally, even investors, found me. So they're like, hey, there's this girl. We know that she loves beauty and people are trusting her because they're really engaged. So let's watch this space.

9:09So I did that for an entire year before I even launched the brand. And so by the time it was time to go, everyone was like, we've been here with you since. Yeah, we're ready. Like literally since this was a drawing, a concept. So it was so beautiful to do it with them. And it felt very much like that. I think that a lot of that, and I know we hear community over and over again, but a lot of it was that classic old school community vibe. And it felt very familiar to me. Again, I'm of African descent where everything is sharing. Everything is oversharing. Coming from a salon where we hear way too much information about people's lives.

9:43I just naturally am that person. So I use social media for a very long time. I love talking about marketing. This is like my favorite part of these conversations. What else is working now that you've kind of been in the business for a few years? And I'm sure you've had some things that have not worked out and stuff where you're like, yep, double down, let's try and do that again. Like what's really, yeah, what have you learned this process? it's so interesting I think the tools of marketing have definitely changed the psychology of how people connect why they love why they come back why they replenish why they share at the core of it's always going to be the same right so I think we're just trying to find new tools to reach the person first of all and then to kind of get them in the space of loyalty but I would say very transparent apparently even throughout my career what had worked prior to just does not work at all anymore right the playbook is completely if not shredded like turned upside down um I was at a company very you know fast paced and in high growth and we launched a product we put it on Instagram we paid and it happened you know like anything else was kind of like cherry on top but 50 at least of the sales attributions would be coming from paid media and paid marketing now, especially as a small brand.

11:05And granted, just to give you all just a laundry list of obstacles. We launched during a pandemic where no one was wearing makeup. Makeup was in decline. We launched, I think, maybe a hair before IOS 14 update. So the original marketing plan that we had and felt very confident about was literally in shambles for the first year. And I think we were We were riding off the high of community and word of mouth for a very long time, but now it's getting harder and harder. But in terms of what is marketing, what is working for us right now, like channel diversification is just so necessary. I think before we were like, we're going to die on the hill of DTC.

11:45And obviously that's like nowhere to be found. We're looking at DTC in a different spectrum, as in how can I provide a direct connection on this platform, which is the Internet, my computer, my website or my phone directly to the customers. But that's also including Amazon and understanding by channel, like what each channel functions as. You know, our DTC is a central hub of loyalty, of testing to understand, like, of the bundles that we do create, what is getting the most traction, why, at what price point. We understand Amazon is a high place of discovery. Like how can we be a part of that conversation for someone who just heard something about a lip oil and ummy, but not really piecing the puzzle together.

12:27So being top of mind in that search or a part of that journey. How do you do that? Oh, it's very tactical. So there's like some SEO optimizations that we do to make sure that if someone types in lip oil that we bubble up, you know, through a sponsored post perhaps. Affiliate marketing. Everyone is shopping like crazy on Instagram. So trying to figure out like who is that trusted affiliate influencer that is showing you how she makes her an espresso coffee, how she's bathing her child and what's in her house and her nook and also what's on her lips. Right. And making sure that we're part of her storefront and really Amazon specifically is servicing.

13:05We're kind of a little bit further along in the consumer journey where they're at least just considering us and making sure that we're giving them the right tools. So that means A plus content when you do land on there. Like, what are you learning about clean beauty? What does that actually mean to us? How can we get this to you as soon as possible? So we know as a D2C brand that we cannot not D2C, but D2C native brand that we cannot beat prime. So why not? Why fight the machine? Right. We're going to go to Amazon and figure out, you know, if it's Christmas, like what we're experiencing right now.

13:37Like, how can we be a part of that wish list or the gift guide, et cetera? Not to mention the overall affiliate model of the industry now, like a lot of magazines and publications are linked. So being top of mind, a part of that kind of conversion funnel really helps. And then we have Sephora. Like we sell beauty products. We sell complexion products. We want to be known for skin. So testing and trialing is really important. how do we get this customer to walk into a Sephora door to feel confident enough to ask for her shade match to understand like why she's buying this lip treatment oil versus that one and being very conscious but that is really you know the key authority in terms of pushing you know the product efficacy so for us through your content that you're trying to teach all of that oh content in field team.

14:30We actually deployed a little small field team right now. We have a head of a field that came to us from Bregio, excellent at education and being able to excite the BAs, which is beauty advisors at Sephora. Those are your white glove service people that are coming in. And if someone asks a question, they are your search engine. So we are providing them with the education tools, the one-sheeters explaining exactly what it does, why it does this, and why it's better than that one. At what price point and when to have those conversations slash build those baskets. So understanding every single channel is really important in looking at influencer marketing as a different thing.

15:09I think when we started, again, because everything was so word of mouth, everything was very organic. We hadn't paid for influencers. Not that this is a good thing, but I'm just saying like how much traction we had maybe up until maybe year two of our marketing plan. But now we have a lead that's really thinking about it from a growth perspective, even our social media channels. Yes, IG is beautiful. It's your lookbook. It's your welcome home. But how do we have stories really activating people to go back to a certain call to action, whether that is Amazon or our dot com, engaging them in ways that feel like just one step above.

15:45So everything needs to work harder. Everything needs to be more efficient and every dollar needs to be counted for. You know, people get really distracted because there's so many things. Like we're not at the phase where we can have like these beautiful pop-up shops or extravagant influencer trips. So we're not there yet. And I think there's a place for that in terms of brand awareness. But right now we're still working within the spheres that we do have with the resources that we have as well. Oh, okay. What you just said there about, you know, there are so many different things that you can do.

16:15It can actually be like quite overwhelming. And I think you can look at the brands who are like 10 years ahead of you doing all of these things and think that like you need to be kind of playing at that level too to be able to get any traction but it's really interesting to see where you've prioritized are you guys doing any paid ads now or is that not part of the mix yet yes we are doing paid ads but we've actually been scaling literally 25 percent week over week scaling down interesting scaling down moving those dollars into influencer marketing again thinking about it in a different way where now before influencer marketing kind of was like cherry on top.

16:48Again, most of it was like a brand play. But thinking about influencer and even strategizing the different ways, whether it's affiliate, even SEO purposes from a blog perspective, et cetera. TikTok versus Instagram versus Amazon, there's so many different spheres, I would say. So taking those dollars and then activating those influencers to be able to tell your story has been a little bit more beneficial for us. And I will also say that we don't have a huge content team. So I think when people forget about paid media and when it does work, even for the bigger brands, you're spewing out 40 to 50 pieces of content every single week.

17:26So by the time something exhausts, you have a team that's ready with, you know, content to be able to churn that back out. So even if you have the amazing, you know, paid media strategy, amazing paid media team, the sauce that you need to get that engine running, you know, as a small brand is not really viable. So what you try to do instead is maybe whitelisting some influencer content, making sure whatever they post that you're reaching the maximum audience size. That way it makes a little bit more sense versus trying to spew out 40 pieces of content a week. 40 pieces of content a week, like just created for paid ads.

18:02One channel. Oof, that's too much. TikTok might be a little bit worse. It's so interesting as well because it's like, you know, we're all, literally everyone is building a media business at the moment. You're not, you know, you might not be selling the media content, but all of us are just producing so much all of the time that we're on par with these publishers. Yes. Yes. I can only imagine like the cadence and the appetite and what people are working from home. You know, it's just it's just a different time where things were way slower back in the day. And it's like if you were like on Periscope, they were like you were like phenomenal groundbreaking.

18:36I used to work at like Rebecca Minkoff where she would be testing out technology early. And it was like one Periscope for like a year of fashion week, like hiring Man Repeller. And they were like, oh, my God. Now it's like, oh, and then what? It's hard. It is hard. What role has press played in what you guys are doing? Because I see you everywhere. Oh, my God. Yeah, that makes me so happy. Such a funny story, too. And I think this is so important because, OK, just because you have investor dollars doesn't mean it makes anything easier, right? You have key stakeholders with very strong opinions about how you should run your business.

19:15And they've seen this, they've done this, et cetera. And I remember in my gut and core of core, I'm like, in no disrespect to any PR agency, but I'm like, no PR agency can do what I think that we need to do in terms of the connections and the type of stories, et cetera, et cetera. So I sat there and it's literally, this is terrible, guys, don't do this. But it was like three weeks before my launch. I'm like, oh, we don't have a PR agency. and luckily again throughout my entire career I'd been just networking I never knew what I needed this the connections for but I'm like one day I this is it right this is it and I just knew in my gut that this connection I will need later and I just held on to it like literally just coffees lunches dinners and this not nothing to ask and I'm just like okay one day it's gonna come in handy so this time came and I was finally ready to launch this brand I'm like damn I remember in 2012, I worked at this company and my girlfriend from college worked at this other company that was a PR agency.

20:14I wonder what she's doing. So I literally call Janine, my PR manager. And now I'm like, Janine, what are you doing? She's like, hi, girl. Have an ear from you in a while. I am in Brooklyn working at my dad's like dentist office. I'm like, OK, you want to do PR again? She's like, wait, what? I'm like, no, seriously, I need you to jump in. and she and I sat down, wore room and we put that pitch together. We organized our desk sides and we went crazy. We went out there, we told the story. And I think the beauty of Amikole and non-biased speaking, but there's just so many angles of connection, you know, whether you're like a pure product junkie.

20:55I mean, I am the girl that used to be on Into the Gloss ad nauseum. I would be in comment section, I would be buying everything that Kelly Rowland, you know, posted on her top shelf, et cetera, et cetera. And then first generation, you know, of the hustle mentality and having, you know, watch my parents, you know, stories come to fruition and live literally living through that. Then you have the, you know, Pan-African experience as well, which spans far and beyond. There were just so many different angles to tell this story. So I am so, I would, I don't want to say lucky or blessed because I don't believe in that per se, but I'm just so happy that we were able to give a fresh take on things.

21:34It felt very authentic to the receiving party and they felt more than happy to support and talk about this. And I was very vulnerable and I talked about my strife through the industry and luckily it landed. So all that to say, I think it translated also from the customer reading the article. They're like, oh wow, I think I remember her on Instagram kind of. I felt this or I had also been at a very big corporation and didn't see myself as well. So there were many ways to connect. And luckily, press has been really good to us, but it's been very, very, very important part of our brand discovery process.

22:08Yeah. Talk me through that. So when you land a big press feature, does it directly correlate to sales? To sales. Oh, what a good question. We were just talking about this too. Attribution is so interesting. So, huh, I would say press, don't underestimate it. I think people say don't invest in press, you know, TikTok is here, just get that influencer. And there's something about the slow burn of press that you can really appreciate. And I think about, you know, the customer journey. Okay, fine. She found you out through TikTok. She also found about seven different brands from TikTok from the same influencer last week, bought three of them.

22:45And she's really trying to figure out, do I really need this lip oil? So then she's probably looking and Googling and searching, and then she'll see something back from 2012, or sorry, not 2012, but 2019, about me talking about the brand and accolades since, you know? So it's kind of like this bedrock of a library of sorts, you know, trying to explain to you with, you know, little connection to the brand outside this this influencer why we exist you know what's in the gunk you know why this person particularly me you know why I created this brand and where we're going and how does this fit into your life so they are able to kind of do the research on their own and I think press was been been able to answer those questions for her um and then like you just never know whose lap you're landing into you know what I mean like read you read about you somewhere yes by the time I I so for story so funny I want to tell you about it later but um by the time I talked to them and and you know me like a little bit of imposter syndrome you're like hi my name is Jada and I have a brand like we know who you are I'm like you do what do you know um and they had done their research and they're really happy and aligned because their core pillars slash business goals are directly correlated to my goals as well as a producer of content I'm sorry producer of product um and then And again, like you never know, like Mindy Callen just found us out through like, you know, like I think she's a Googles or something like that.

24:13Or like I think Violet Gray perhaps. And she was just like searching and she just found us. And she's like, hey, like she literally just DM'd us like, hey, I don't have any mascara left. Where can I buy them? I'm like, we're going to send you the mascara. Like what? But and everything else. Everything else. Oh, my God. but had it not been for that library um it does it gives a little bit of brand authority and awareness and um just archive that you just you need that yeah interesting um okay so I want to talk a little bit about like team who has helped you build this who is with you now and you know for someone who's earlier on are there any freelancers agencies that you can like recommend that helped you get this off the ground oh my god let me tell you something right now if it's one thing that keeps me up at night, it's always going to be team.

25:00And it's something that as an entrepreneur that is so hungry to get something started, you forget how important it is in terms of people building with you. Not only people building with you, but also sharing the same vision, the same momentum, the same end goal is very, very difficult. And also understanding that, first of all, it's very hard to hire and fire people. But also, I've come to terms now as we continue to grow during this journey of ours that there are chapters. The first year, year and a half, when you're just trying to build something and get something established and have a proof of concept, it's going to be completely different from your growth team.

25:46It's going to be completely different from your international expansion team. So there are different chapters of your business that you have to be comfortable understanding how does this person play and they can be excellent a star in that chapter but you also as a ceo and business owner and especially with stakeholders understand when it's time to transition those roles into a different profile so i'm learning that now and i think it's like i had to put it in that perspective to not be like she's such a lovely person and she put in so much work in this company and it's so heartbreaking and it feels very cold, but I have to, even myself as a CEO, I know there's going to be a time where I have to sunset my role.

26:26You know what I mean? I understand like, okay, I have gotten us from point A to point B in the interest of this company, in the interest of the customer that is counting on us. We need to transition here. So anyway, laying that groundwork down, um, in the beginning, it was really important for me to have just brand support. We knew how important branding would be. We knew how important the experience of Amicole would be. Beautiful. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. So we knew how much of a differentiator that would be for us on the market. So we invested in that. Again, we launched during COVID when the ports were literally jammed up and like Italy at one point just were not even answering their calls.

27:06I'm like, do I need to hop on a plane to be in Italy? And I actually did that. I went to Italy to figure it out. So head of operations is really important and continues to be. so building out supply chain building out you know the more the more channels you are available in the more you have to understand you know so supply chain as I mentioned transportation freight air versus ocean which warehouse makes the most sense for you there are some warehouses that are strictly DTC others that understand the EDI process for Sephora Target Ulta so there are many things that you kind of have to tick off as you continue to grow so operations always needs to be very sound and secure.