How to Build a 4,000-Person Waitlist Before Launch With Stephanie Lee, Founder of Selfmade

0:28Hey, welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm seeing a lot of, it's just hard to cut through. Like it's a really, really noisy space. And when I see someone doing something really interesting and different, I want to talk to them. And Stephanie's basically pioneering this space called psychodermatology. And it's all about how the nervous system intersects with your skin and your mental health. It's super, super interesting. So we talk about that, but she's also somebody who's very upfront and vocal about the fact that she started a business without, you know, any celebrity friends.

0:59And she didn't know a bunch of investors and she bootstrapped her way to get enough traction to then go on to raise one and a half million dollars for the business. And I have always just wondered, how does somebody go from working a normal job to raising a million dollars for their brand? Like how? I don't know. And I just wanted to ask her, how do you do that? And she walks us through the process and how she got that traction and what she had to prove out. And if you are listening to this episode and you want to learn more from Stephanie, or you're just like, Jasmine, ask her this question. And I didn't.

1:33You actually have the opportunity to speak to Stephanie in a really intimate group coaching call. We have it coming up on the 25th of May for our business best team members. There is a link in the show notes where you can find out more about joining that session. And I just, I know that it's really hard to find mentors in this space and the people that you want to mentor you are super busy and like thousands of other people want them to mentor them as well. And so we do these kind of group calls so that we can kind of scale that mentorship, but still keep kind of the intimacy of a video call. So I would love to see you there.

2:09If you are a business bestie member, it's going to be a great session. Okay. Let's get into the episode. you are now entering female founder world with your host jasmine grinsworthy stephanie welcome to female founder world it's so good to have you on the show i'm so excited to be here i've been following your work for quite some time now okay love to hear that all right so for people who don't know self-made what are you guys doing what are you building over there yeah so it's a pretty interesting business where we are trying to seamlessly connect mental health with beauty and personal care. So we do that through the vehicle of psychodermatology.

2:47So we create everyday Gen Z products with mental health experts at the intersection of our mind and body. And yeah, so we've launched four products to date and we are excited to continue this conversation as psychodermatology and our mental health become bigger and bigger. I think what first drew me to what you guys were doing, I don't even know where I first saw you, probably on Instagram, but it was just like the branding. It was very cool. It really stood out. I feel like you were one of the first brands to really understand this kind of like new Gen Z aesthetic. And you were kind of like the first to kind of tap into that.

3:23I don't want to ask you specifically about branding yet. I want to kind of like talk about the early days and the launch, but I just wanted to call that out because I think it helps people understand who you are, what you're building and the fact that like you are very like cool and relevant and Gen Z and like that there's like a real vibe behind what you're creating. Yeah. I appreciate that because even in the early days when it was just like me, my idea in my head, I was like, I need to get this out of my head. I don't know how to, and I didn't go to business school. And you know, we were kind of talking a little bit earlier.

3:52I was, you know, a person that was like, I have an idea and I want to put it out in the world. So the first thing I did was find a creative person who is like a zennial. So between millennial, Gen Z, and they're actually from the record label industry. And so, you know, when you're talking about emotion and all that stuff, one of the best places is music, right? And so rather than going to like typical consumer beauty, you know, agency, I went to a person that really could understand and spend time with me in order to get it out of my head. Yeah. I love that. And also often a lot less expensive to go with an individual and be able to like find that talent rather than like going to an agency and just the fees are wild.

4:31Oh, absolutely. Cause I'm definitely a bootstrapped kind of not venture backed. So it was very much like homegrown from the heart situation. Love that. Okay. So what were you doing? Like, where were you at in your life when this idea came to you said, you know, it was in your living in your head for a while before you got out into the world. Talk me through that process of like forming the idea. Well, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I've always thought about, I mean, I like, even in high school, I started my own little business, you know? So it's always been a part of me, but I think society and like the fact that my parents are immigrants, refugees, They're like, find a stable job, make money, climb the whole thing.

5:07And so I was at the White House. I went to one of the big top three beauty companies, working in that corporate life, grinding a nine to five. And I was kind of like stuck in that, like need to get a salary, need to have health insurance. So the first thing was like, I have this idea. I think I want to do this, but I'm so scared, right? So doing the work to kind of like unlearn those pieces. And then really where it came down to is that I had a mental health crisis in 2015. And as a person of color, woman, you know, people weren't talking about mental health as they were today. And I had no tools, no community, no resources, no conversations around mental health.

5:44And so I devoted myself to going to therapy sometimes three to four times a week. And for me there, I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe there's these incredible, like, psychological things that have existed for years upon years upon years that are patterns. And we haven't learned about them. We haven't learned about our attachment style. We haven't learned about how to tap into our emotional resilience or what true intimacy actually is. So for me, my brain started around rather than just beauty, because I had been living that life for such a long time. It actually was around how do we find a different vehicle to meet people where they are with these lessons and make it a livable lifestyle, you know, beyond the four walls of therapy.

6:25So I guess for me, it was almost like a couple ideas that started to tumble together. And I remember speaking to one of my advisors and I was like, I really also want to travel the world. I have about 20 grand that I've saved up. So do I travel the world or I start this business? And he was like, well, there's something to be said about traveling the world, getting distance and taking off the filter of every day. Because you never know how much more creative that idea comes out to be. And so I think one of the first steps in the early days was to like leave the corporate grind because it really is very narrow, you know, like very tiny, you know, vantage point.

7:04And I traveled the world for about a year and I spoke to people across the world about mental health and self-worth and, you know, what are their practices and routines of like how they get back into their bodies. and I came back in 2019 to start the business and there you know we're saying like a lot of the steps to starting a business are so opaque you can't google it right and so a lot of it was talking to folks kind of like you or friends who were connecting me with other folks and like really finding entrepreneurs in innovative spaces to even figure out what are those first few baby steps so that's kind of what it looked like it was just a lot of talking and a lot of vulnerability basically what you just said before about like always wanting to be an entrepreneur and then you know, working corporate life and how that is, it just feels really narrow.

7:46Like that really resonates with me. I'm definitely someone who always wanted to have a business. Like I did not care what it was. I just always, I just knew that that was like the creative output I wanted to put into the world. And I have tried so many things before I got to this one. And when I was working in, um, in media and like there were elements of it that I really loved. I loved like the creative output and having like that digital product out in the world every day, something new and always being, you know, on the, on the verge of like spotting trends and news and being the first person to know about stuff, which I think like lends itself to what I'm doing now.

8:20But yeah, but like when I was in that job, I didn't necessarily know like what the business was. I was just like, this is not it. I just need to find a way to make money that is out of this like narrow structure of the nine to five. And then I know that eventually it'll lead me down the path to like whatever the thing is because I can't like, I've got blinkers on, like I can't, I can't see out and I can't, I'm not going to get where I want to go if I'm like staying in this, in this space. So like, I do think there is something for just like, okay, just find the way that you can make the money to be self-employed, to give yourself like the distance, the space, the connections, the experience to be able to like find like what that business is that you want to build.

9:02Absolutely. And like corporations, and I say this to young people all the time, wait, that made me sound really old, but I'm not that old. but like you know young people in the sense that I was just at University of Michigan hold on I need to know like what is I also say young people and I'm like what is the age that you get to when all of a sudden like people are young people and it's not you like I think it's like I think it was like 34 35 and I was like oh shit I was like I actually I don't even know if you know this but yeah exactly I'm like oh gosh I'm kind of scared of the youth but inspired by the youth so it's a a little bit of a weird relationship.

9:38But, you know, something that I say to them is that like corporate structures are made to serve a bottom line and the people at the top, right? And so therefore, they're like fall in line, there isn't space to be innovative, there isn't space to be creative, because they just want you to be a cog in the whole system. And so it limits our ability to think so you literally have to like punch your way out. And like, know that even though it's scary on the other side of like uncertainty and taking a bet on yourself that like, what would you rather do take a bet on yourself or the person at the top who's like a jillionaire because of, you know, family money or some sort of privilege.

10:16Right. And so, yeah, it is way scarier, but I mean, I'm sure that you feel this, it is way more fulfilling from a personal standpoint than it is to just be doing work and giving someone else your A plus. Totally. And like, you know what, But I have a lot of running a business is stressful and there is definitely an element of like fear, but nothing compares to the stress and anxiety that I felt when I wasn't building it. And I knew that I wanted to be doing something. And it's just like weighing up those two things. Like there's going to be a negative emotion in there somewhere that you have to kind of like face and deal with.

10:50But the harder one for me was like not doing it. Absolutely. And also knowing that like there are ups and downs, like that is just what life is. And it is scary because like, if you're not feeling that fear, that means you're not doing something new. Yeah, totally. Something that you said before about having this like bigger mission and having a physical product as the vehicle for that mission is something that I think a lot of people are inspired by. I think a lot of women and particularly that I speak with are building businesses that are not, and they consume a product businesses are like very authentically tied to a deeper mission.

11:21You know, I'm seeing a lot of, a lot of big corporations now trying to like tap in and And it feels very like, I'm like, I see what you're doing, but I do see women building these like really authentic, genuine consumer products that for them, it is really like a talisman of some sort that's connecting to something deeper. And I have tried to do that before and failed. Like I had a company where we were making these ceramic like travel cups. They were like, I was seeing them kind of like popping off in Australia. And I was like, oh, I can like, I can do this in the US. And I found, worked with an organization to like get them ethically made.

11:54and we were employing women in developing countries and we were giving back money to like educate women. It was, you know, it was like this mission and it was also like a sustainable thing. And I was like, this for me is about female entrepreneurship and education and opportunity and all this stuff. And like, I just couldn't make that connect in a physical product. And, you know, now I've got a media business where I can literally say what I mean rather than having to kind of like manifest it and into a physical product. And it's like really roundabout way of just asking you, like, how do you infuse those two things?

12:30Because it is really, I've tried to do it and it is hard. Oh my gosh. It's so hard. Even to the fact that it's because we live in this capitalistic world and, you know, I like I mentioned before, I'm not BC backed or anything like that. You know, I have talked to funds where they're like, I believe in doing social good and all that good stuff. And I believe in mental health, but what makes you think that you can be venture backed, right? The world thinks so binary or siloed, right? You, you either do good or you make a lot of money, right? And so, and that's bullshit. And so essentially, you know, with self-made, it's a bit of an experiment.

13:03Can you do good and make it lucrative and appealing to do that right from that respect? But you're absolutely right. It is extremely hard to do that, especially in this world. And so infusing those two things, number one, when I started the brand, I started it with two mental health experts as advisors. And even before then, what I did is I actually spoke to about 20, 25 mental health practitioners, because I was like, here's my idea. If it doesn't make impact on the world or positive change in incremental steps, then there's no point. And so when I validated it with them, you know, first of all, they loved it.

13:42They thought it was so delightful because there has never been a way to bring what happens in those four walls of therapy where you're like broken or whatever it might be into what is a lifestyle and much more tangible. You know, like you were talking about, like these are everyday products and like talisman, like they sit on your vanity, they sit in your shower, on your nightstand. And that is a very powerful thing. If you can get someone to put a dollar down, then that's really an important like behavior that you can obviously capitalize, but then you have that person. Right. And so another piece that I did was really have the mindset that, you know, consumers are our stakeholders.

14:22They're not even the word consumer, like consuming, right. We're like more than that. We're humans, we're stakeholders. That means the folks that I'm speaking to and serving are, have a stake in what we're doing, what we're building together. And so when I think about that, you know, in that light, you know, consumers vote with their dollar, right? And that is a very important thing for businesses today to know, is that when they're putting that dollar down, it's because they believe in it, or they believe in what it stands for, and they want to be a part of that. And I want to welcome those folks who want to be a part of it.

14:55The third piece is that there is an avenue to be a part of this. We started this brand with a junior advisory board prior to even launching. And this is a board of folks in our target demographic, Gen Z, unbucketable women who love, you know, beauty and fashion, but also work in refugee policy. Or, for instance, we have someone who works as a policy director at March for Our Lives and gun control. Like you can do both of those things. You can be into beauty and you can, yeah. Two things can exist. Those two things can absolutely exist and they should. And we're multidimensional people. And so we should be treated as such.

15:33And so knowing that we recruited folks who are mental health activists and beauty enthusiasts. And this is a year long program where they actually advise me and the business, tone of voice, packaging, product, formulas, you know, even like keep their eyes out for like what might not feel right. You know, for instance, our True Grit has a scent that's inspired by Palo Santo. Palo Santo has been over harvested. So therefore, you know, there is some sustainability issues around it. And so one of the young people, oh my God, I said it again. One of the folks on the junior advisory board said like, hey, the red flag.

16:12And so we were able to work on that messaging of the fact that it's not actually Palo Santo, but inspired by and what that means and how can we make that much more tangible of a conversation rather than just like dismissing it? So again, these folks are with us building the business, whereas they're not standing on a college campus handing out Red Bulls as ambassadors, right? They're actively a part of this. And so I think those three things kind of add up to a triangulation of how we've kept this as seamless as possible, doing good, because the fact is, I don't fucking know what I'm doing. I'm literally talking to people who are the experts in their area and really trying to build bridges here.

16:49Okay. So what actual products do you have out in the world now? You said that you've got four, what are they, you know, like, and how do they speak to your mission? Yeah. So we have secure attachment comfort serum and that one is our best selling, um, secure attachment embodies, um, attachment styles. And so our relationship with ourself and our earliest caregivers are the template for every relationship fourth. And so it actually has a, um, active ingredient that helps to lower your cortisol levels within your skin cell cells. So when you are insecurely attached, you're waiting for that crush to call, you're going through a breakup, maybe your parents are going through a divorce.

17:23That insecurity also heightens your anxiety as a stress response. And that stress response, especially in this modern world of cortisol flooding, is chronic, you know, and so it has an effect on our skin. So therefore, whether it's dryness or moisture barrier weakening, acne, flaking, all those things. Our minds and our bodies are so intrinsically connected from the moment that we are a little embryo. Our skin and our nervous system come from the same layer called the ectoderm. And so the fact is our Western society treats it very siloed. You go to a hand doctor, you go to a dermatologist for your skin, whereas Eastern medicine and Eastern holistic approaches have always thought about it as a holistic connected being.

18:11And so by using our skin as a way for a mirror to our inner world, potentially we can serve and understand what our deeper needs are, right? So if you go up to a mirror and you're like, oh my God, rather than saying, oh, I have a zit, I'm so ugly, I have to cover it up or I want to pick it. Maybe the behavior changes. I have a zit. Oh my gosh, I must be stressed. Why am I stressed? Yeah. So really using that as data points for our emotional world. Our second product is True Grit Resilience Scrub, and it's an everyday exfoliator that has a chemical and physical exfoliator in it. And it really stands for the fact that friction leads to growth mindset and knowing that when we tap into our resilience, like those are opportunities, right, to like bounce back and continue forth.

18:57And that leads us to emotional maturity. Our third product is Self Disclosure intimacy serum. We just won Vogue's first awards for the best loops for multifunctional, which is very exciting. So this is for post pre and post sex discomfort alleviation. This is also really about emotional intimacy and knowing that self-disclosure is actually the action behind intimacy, sharing your thoughts, feelings, stories, all those things with yourself and with other folks in order to create that closeness is really important to feel safe in your body and then safe to engage in pleasurable acts. Feeling pleasure is one of the most vulnerable things you can do.

19:42You really have to let go to let your body feel that. And so having those baby steps to doing that work is really incredibly important when there's so many brands out there that are like orgasm, orgasm, like splash emoji, right? Like even that feels like a lot of pressure. Like what if you can't, right? So practicing pleasure, practicing self-pleasure is really important. And then fourth, we have corrective experience comfort cream, and that's assisted to secure attachment. And corrective experiences are the action behind healing. It's the ability to choose a different pathway and lower your defenses in order to stumble and potentially find a different way to move forward.

20:21And so every single product, as mentioned before, really embodies a psychological concept because one of the first steps to self-awareness is expanding your emotional vocabulary. Wow. Okay. I love how considered this is. What are some milestones that you are like really proud of in the business that can just like help speak to and like help people understand where you are at in this kind of founder journey? Oh, gosh. Well, one, launching. Yeah. I think it's a big milestone. That's a big one. an idea can be an idea for a very long time yes right and so what something that i've learned and i've been doing this for three years gosh and we've been like out in the world for about two years is that one of the hardest things is turn is turning ideas into action there are a lot of people who do ideas there's a lot of people who do action but the ability to move it from that those two phases in that middle messy middle ground who is fucking messy right um and so i think that's one of them actually launching because there's so many times where you're like oh i want to try to do this and try to do that trying is not actually action right doing is the action and so that is incredibly scary because i was like oh shit i was like what if this like what if no one gets it what if no one can like see what we're attempting to do here in the world because it is very different and new.

21:41I think another milestone is that while we are bootstrapped, I was able to raise about$1.5 million in pre-seed funding. I've grown up, unfortunately, I think I've grown up, like I mentioned before, a kid of refugees. And while I've been very high functioning and ability to do big things in the world, there is that voice in my head that's like, oh you're not good enough or oh this is dumb or like oh why did you do that um and particularly around fundraising you know and you probably know the stats more than most people that i speak to right in terms of like last year bc funding total funding for females was 1.9 percent which was down from the year beforehand i can't believe it's dropping it's it well because it's all performative like everything out there in the world it's like oh women bipac this and that it's just it's not real.

22:32It's all smoke and mirrors. And I think that was a big learning and a big milestone for me in that learning is that I had to fight brick for brick for that 1.5 million. I didn't go to, you know, I don't, I don't know celebrities. I don't know, you know, a lot of influencers. I'm like a person that came from like doing social, you know, doing mission oriented work at the White House and then making beautiful things and wanting to make that in the world. And so So that was, I didn't, there was a day that I was like, I don't even think I can raise, you know, a quarter of a million. And so to get to 1.5 million, I think helped prove to myself, like, actually you can do this.

23:09And even if shit and like obstacles pop up, like that's just another day in the books, like you just keep punching walls down. And so I think those two pieces are pretty, pretty big. And then I think actually another milestone was more recent. It was in March when I went to South by Southwest and I did a panel on ambition, mental health and loneliness with a fast company. And, you know, prior to when I was doing this in the very beginning and still sometimes to this day, I'm like, what kind of founder do I want to be? You know, and it was like I started this in the days of a girl boss, you know, and I was like, I'm not a girl boss.

23:50Like, I'm barely a girl at this point. Like, I'm like a tomboy. You know, like, what does this mean? And like that picture of perfection and body image and perfection is definitely something that I'm trying to, I'm like a recovering perfectionist, basically. And I was like, I really don't know. I don't even know what to do with my hands. Like, what do I do with them in my pictures and all that stuff? You know, like, that's the kind of like awkward person that I am. And so I think like getting over that and just like being my most vulnerable self and transparent about like who I am, how I'm showing up and knowing that I just don't have the answers.

24:22going to South by Southwest was, I think, a culmination moment of like sitting up there on a bigger stage about and saying like things I truly care about and truly believe in and how I'm building this business. And then having kind of like that, that really nice validation of like, yeah, fuck the shit out there. Like, thank you for doing the work that you're doing. And I think that was really powerful validation for me that like, I can be a messy person. And that in itself is a powerful thing. Amazing. I want to like switch gears a little bit and talk about some tactical stuff that's been helping you as you've been growing the business and particularly around like marketing, you know, like this landscape, I say this all the time in the podcast, people who listen to every episode are like sick of this phrase, but the digital landscape is shifting.

25:07Like things are so different to what they were pre pandemic. Like this is a totally different game. What is, what worked when you first kind of launched and what is working now in terms of like just getting new customers, like that top of funnel stuff? Oh my gosh. Not only is it shifting, it's shifting, shifting like incredibly quickly. So even by the time I was launching to like what it is today is like a 360. So something that worked in the beginning was like, we did the influencer gifting. We've done all those pieces. We actually intentionally did ones that were like traditional micro to like regular influencers, but then also like regular people, right?

25:48Because we were, we're very much around grassroots and like human people and not wanting to just put people on a pedestal just because of X, Y, and Z. So I think that's one thing that was really helpful. The second thing is that we ran, we actually ran ads before we even launched around the business and the products in order to kind of like introduce and do a little of that testing pretty, pretty early on. Um, and that helped, uh, garner a wait list of folks. Um, we did about 4 ,000, uh, within I think two weeks of a wait list because I think people were just hyper curious about the approach that we're doing.