Pia Mance Built a 7-Figure Jewelry Business with $900

5 Aug 2024 · 32 min

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In short

Female Founder World Podcast: Episode Summary

Episode Title

Pia Mance Built a 7-Figure Jewelry Business with $900

Host

Jasmine Garnsworthy

Guest

Pia Mance, Founder of Heaven Mayhem

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Episode Overview In this episode, Pia Mance shares her journey of building Heaven Mayhem, a successful jewelry brand that achieved $1 million in sales within its first year, starting with just $900. The discussion covers her initial struggles, strategies for growth, the role of influencer marketing, team dynamics, and the recent launch of her new product line.

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Key Highlights

Background of Pia Mance

  • Move to LA: Pia relocated from London to Los Angeles with her husband, taking on the role of setting up their new home.
  • Desire for Independence: After several months of household management, she felt the urge to start a business for herself, which had been a long-standing aspiration.

Starting Heaven Mayhem

  • Initial Investment: Pia launched Heaven Mayhem with only $900 due to credit issues after moving to the U.S. She wanted to keep her expenses low and maintain a conservative financial approach.
  • First Product Launch:
  • Created vintage pendant necklaces from materials sourced around LA.
  • Utilized skills from her modeling and influencer background to market her products effectively.
  • Emphasized the importance of initial hype by marking some items as sold out to create urgency.

Challenges and Considerations

  • Financial Management:
  • Initially chose not to pay herself to reinvest profits back into the business.
  • Utilized a company credit card strategically for expenses related to business operations.

Marketing Strategy

  • Influencer Engagement:
  • Collaborated with influencers and celebrities for exposure, including notable figures like Hailey Bieber and Matilda Jeff.
  • Believed in the power of "paying it forward" in networking; helped others without expectation of direct return.
  • Product Launch Strategies:
  • Successfully timed the launch of earrings before Coachella, which generated significant traction.
  • Used platforms like ShopMy for influencer marketing analytics to track sales driven by specific influencers.

Growth and Scaling

  • Team Building:
  • Initially managed all aspects of the business, but as it grew, she began hiring a small team, including an executive assistant and a marketing person.
  • Plans to outsource operations to experts to scale effectively and improve efficiency.
  • New Product Launch:
  • Recently launched a new watch line, which saw strong sales from the outset, attributed to thoughtful marketing and timing.
  • Planned a strategic reveal to build anticipation, though received feedback that the promotion could have been shorter.

Key Takeaways

  • Bootstrap Mentality: Pia's success underscores the possibility of launching a business on a small budget with strategic planning and creativity.
  • Networking and Influencer Relations: Building genuine relationships within the industry can yield significant promotional opportunities.
  • Adaptability: Flexibility in marketing and operations based on audience feedback is crucial for growth.

Resources Mentioned

  • Marketing Tools:
  • Canva Pro for design needs.
  • ShopMy for tracking influencer marketing performance.
  • Future Plans: Additional discussions on scaling operations and exploring retail partnerships are anticipated in follow-up episodes.

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Conclusion Pia Mance's story is a testament to the power of determination and smart business practices. Her insights into starting a brand with limited resources, leveraging influencer relationships, and the importance of community support offer invaluable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

For more details on Pia Mance and her brand, visit [Heaven Mayhem](https://heavenmayhem.com/).

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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast.

0:30If you want to get tickets, I have put a link in the show notes. Okay, on today's episode, I'm speaking with the amazing Pia Mance, founder of Heaven Mayhem. You are now entering female founder world with your host, Jasmine Grinsworthy. Pia, welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. For people who don't know Heaven Mayhem and what you guys are building, what is it? What are you doing? I am building the go-to place for timeless accessories, also known as Heaven Mayhem. Amazing. This is like I am fast forwarding to the end of the story, but the watches that you guys just launched are so nice.

1:04Thanks. They were like a year in the making. Nat is at risk of purchasing a watch any minute yet. That's so sweet. Really beautiful, really clever. We're going to get to that in a second. Talk me through what you were doing when you launched the business. Where were you in your life? So I just moved to LA from London. I was kind of just living life. Like there's a lot of life admin when you move to the US. And 2022, I was married. I'm married. So me and my husband moved together for his job. And we, I had the role of like setting up the house. And I was kind of like, okay, I'm like staying up so late every night on my laptop at the end of this six months.

1:42What am I going to have achieved? Like the fricking couch will have arrived. Like nothing. I want to do something for myself. This is important stuff. Yes. But I want to do something for myself. I want to do a brand. I want to have this, I had this idea. I've always had these ideas like in the back of my head. And And when I've been on set or like listening to people, I always think like, oh, maybe I could do that or maybe I'll do that differently or like have my own ideas. And so that was kind of how I decided to just launch into it and start Heaven Mayhem. But I've been getting a lot of questions.

2:10I did a podcast recently and how I started the brand with only$900. So do you want me to explain that to you? Let's talk about that in a second. But you just meant I want some more like background and context on you because like I was diving in. I feel like you just said on set. Give people the context. Okay, so I was doing modeling when I was young and then I was doing influencing. My husband has had a brand like since we met when we were 12. He's been working. You met your husband when you were 12? Yeah, he's been working in this that whole time. So I was just around a lot of people with a lot of like with a lot of businesses, I guess.

2:42So I'm just listening to tips here and there all the time and meeting people in the industry that I would listen to or think like, hmm, but of course, no one's going to listen to me like a 12 year old girl telling you how to run your company. absolutely not but I think just over time I was listening and listening and just getting so many little tips I always say like I've made my entire business from eavesdropping I love that okay talk me through the story about launching because you said you know you had$900 it's now turned into a business that's doing seven figures in like what like a year and a half two years like you guys are pretty new yes um what did that$900 go to how did that happen so a lot of people are getting kind of, I guess, stumbled on the$900.

3:26And I think that it's such a good story because we moved to LA, we bought a house, like I'm in a very privileged position. I'm married. My husband had a great job. So like, yes, of course I have more than$900 to my name, but I only use$900 to start the business because maybe this happened to you when you moved to the US, but there's the whole thing with credit. Like we couldn't get a credit card. We couldn't do anything. So we're spending all the money in our bank account. So like we actually didn't have that much like extra cash to splash and I didn't want to go crazy and like we just moved here and kind of like trying to be conservative with our money I'm not going to go crazy and spend a ton of money so I think it's just a great story that I started it with$900 even though I had I guess the opportunity to start it with more and I was happy to hand make everything on my bedroom floor for the first like six months even though I'm like living in this nice house because I think often people think like oh I'm I'm too far for that like it's an ego thing I'm above that so I think that's why I find the story interesting and I like to explain it because I'm like anyone can really do it like you you just have to put your ego aside and stuff okay so you you had the 900 dollars you spent that on like what was the first product that you launched okay so first product was vintage pendant necklaces so I bought the string the cord I bought the packaging from Amazon I paid for my Shopify subscription my Canva Pro subscription yeah we love Canva we love the reason I paid for Pro is because you can't export something with a transparent background without pro.

4:50Yes, totally. Otherwise, I would have done the free version. So like I was seriously skimping. And then I bought these vintage pendants, which I found all around LA, like flea markets, et cetera. And I launched my first 15 pendants, but it was a collection of, I think, 20 or a collection of 18. And I marked like four of them sold out straight away, which I was like, hype. There's hype guys. Like they're selling fast. Hotcakes, hotcakes, like got to get them. so that was like these little tactics that I used to kind of make them set as sold out and then once I'd sold those I used that money to buy more and more and more and then finally got my hands on some dead stock vintage pendants that this store was just like getting rid of and then I was able to I guess have stock of that so I was able to sell through a few more and once I had a little bit more capital then I went overseas and placed POs tiny like just placing 100 units and then I think at the end of 2022 I had three or four necklaces on my site where I had stock of so then that was slowly selling and then once I had enough money from that I had been I had enough to place a PO for earrings which I wanted to release 12 styles and I released that wow yeah I know it's a lot but the thing is I'd sampled a lot because this whole time of kind of putting in the money for the necklaces I'm also working on sampling things overseas because I definitely couldn't be welding earrings and figuring out how to just do one-offs of that and there was so many that I was obsessed with and a lot of people's advice was like just do just copy the summer fridays model just launch with one and see how it goes like you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket but something about me is like when I get really excited I'm just like obsessed with the product like I just want to like scream it from the rooftops I feel like almost anxiously excited like the night before Christmas feeling totally get that it's like it's in your brain you just like want to out into the world.

6:42Yeah. I'm just like, sorry, this is what has to happen. We're doing all 12 and yeah, I did it and they sold really well. They're all still the best sellers. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Okay. So when people like bootstrap like that, I feel like often it can be really hard to figure out how to pay yourself or when to pay yourself because you're, you want to fund the business. You want to keep owning a hundred percent of it. Do you pay yourself from the business now? No, but yes, it's so common. It's so common. Yeah. I don't pay myself and yeah I don't pay myself at all I will say like I kind of fund my life sometimes on my company credit card because like we'll be on a shoot and I'll buy the food for the shoot or like I'll buy the clothes for the shoot and I'll be like oh well I can keep that top because like we used it in the shoot but apart from that like I'm pretty I don't spend a ton of money yeah and then I also do some influencing jobs as well to like fund my lifestyle but I think soon I'm going to start paying myself purely only for like business efficiency reasons.

7:35I probably won't even see the money in my account. It'll just like go through my account to like go to another account kind of thing. It's so common for people who are building particularly consumer brands where like product is expensive and you want to be like meeting demand to do consulting work or like something else on the side as well so that they can like fund the business growth. So that's I feel like a really important thing to call out. Okay, so what was like one of the big kind of marketing moments early on that helped you get this growth? well I launched the earrings right before Coachella yeah and that was really helpful I'd had a few influences where the necklace is before because I think I just guess I got on the trend before the trend um did they find you or did you find them I they they found me I guess but I when I'm saying I got on the trend before the trend sometimes I like to say I made the trend of pendant necklaces but I really hate when people like big themselves up like that because I I guess I didn't make the trend, but like I was right on time.

8:31So they found me. I sent a necklace to Matilda Jeff. She loved it. She posted it. I got a ton of people on my site. And so I had like this little bit of traction, but then earrings launched right before Coachella time, not intentionally, just like they were ready at that time. And I was gifting it to a couple of girls that were in town, a couple of bigger influences who I had supported their brands without, without even a thought of thinking about heaven mayhem like mariana hewitt i had loved her podcast for years love summer fridays she launched her smoothie at erwan i was obsessed i did so many tiktoks of it then i met her like heaven mayhem wasn't even in my brain but then when i launched that she was so supportive and sweet and i like did a story and linked to the website so just so just things like that really helped can i just say just like to call out of that like you know not everyone is going to have be have a platform and have influencer relationships but like the thing out of that that I think people need to listen to and hear is just paying it forward because people help people who help them.

9:30And that's what networking is. I could not agree more with the paying it forward. I also think I pay it forward all the time to people who I know will never help me back, but I know someone else will. So I know that like by me giving advice to this friend and like helping them grow their business, they might not actually do it back, but like something different will come along and like someone different will come along and help me. It's just like the way the world works. And like, sometimes people ask me like, oh, how did you blow up? How are you so successful? I'm like, I don't know. I think it's because I'm nice.

9:59Like, I'm like, I don't know how to describe that, but I genuinely think you're right. Like paying it forward and doing the extra effort all the time has like kind of come back around somehow. Okay, business besties, let's switch gears for a second. Real quick, I want to talk to you about this season presenting sponsor, Vistaprint. They are sponsoring this entire season of the Female Founder World podcast. and we love a supportive sponsor. So much so that we're actually working with Vistaprint ourselves to create the merch and all of those beautiful event perks that you know and love from our in real life female founder world events.

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11:21Use the code FFW25 at checkout and step up your branding game. We put a link in the show notes if you want to learn more. Okay, so what were some of the other moments that helped drive the growth for Heaven Mayhem? Getting it on celebrities was big. Hayley Bieber was big. Everyone always asks me about that. Hailey Bieber was big. What? Yeah, Hailey Bieber was pretty big. Everyone always asks me about celebrities. Hailey Bieber was really big and that was so great. How did that happen? I literally told this story a thousand times, but I'm going to tell you. Tell it again. So her friend bought some earrings, one of her really good friends, and I was so excited about it.

12:01I still had Shopify on my phone. Well, I still do actually, but I was like getting every order and looking at every order and I recognized the name was so excited and then I saw them at a coffee shop together and the night before I saw a psychic and so I was just like really feeling myself yeah and I went up to them I was so nervous I was literally shaking and I was like hi I'm so sorry to interrupt you and her friend like instantly was like which I would do too she like went on her phone and anytime I'm with a friend who is like kind of famous someone comes up to them I'm like perfect my time to like go on my phone and relax for a minute like check my emails and um you're like they're not asking yeah they're not talking at me so like fine I'll let them have their moment and um then I'm like no no I'm actually speaking to you and Hayley's like they were all a little confused but I think it was kind of good because I think most people got to Hayley and then I just said like thank you so much for buying from my brand like I've been DMing you a bit trying to get in touch I'd love to send you some more things and then Hayley was like that's so sweet like oh I have a brand too I'm like really I'm kidding I was like oh I love road I love it I love it and then I was just like okay well thanks so much like enjoy your breakfast or whatever I was so nervous and I'm so proud of myself for going up to them because I've told this story a hundred times and it's got so much clickbait and like I feel so cloudy but I was so shy like I was really nervous and then the next day her stylist reached out and asked for some samples to be sent to Hayley's house for her like fitting or something and then she wore it wow so that was great that was really amazing and then I think and you could see direct sales after I will tell you she wore it once I posted it I was freaking out a lot of my friends and people were freaking out the sales weren't crazy I then she she was posted it in a kind of far away photo she then posted another pair of earrings in a really close-up photo then I saw sales yeah and then she's worn it many times since sometimes I'll see sales sometimes I won't.

13:54So I will say like, I'm so grateful for all the celebrities and all the influencers and all the customers and everyone who wears it. But I don't think there's like that one thing that changes your business or like, I mean, if there was, I would do it again a million times, but there's not that like one moment that's going to change everything forever. I think it's really interesting how sometimes it just doesn't hit, even if it's the same celebrity. That's really interesting. Okay. What are some of the other things that you think have been driving this growth? Because like the numbers are crazy.

14:21Like you're bootstrapped. You've just, you've clearly just created something that people love so that's the that's the ultimate thing isn't it it's like people love the product I think it's the product I think it's unique I think it came at a time the earrings came sorry the necklaces came first and they were unique and ahead of their time and then the earrings came and they were just so unique and like everyone was wearing dainty earrings these like big statement vintage inspired everyone loved them and very uniquely have a mayhem there's no logos but if you know you know like you can tell straight away I also think what really helped which is like a very jewelry specific is they're so close to your face so like if you're filming anything you can see them a selfie a get ready with me an outfit pick anything you can see the jewelry so I think that helped a lot and then just like little things like gifting to stylists reaching out to stylist assistants to try and get it on celebrities to try and have good relationships with stylists to then place it in an editorial to then get press and then post the press on heaven mayhem and like just kind of adding to this big story of like a heaven mayhem brand even though that might not really have made me any sales it's just like any direct sales sorry it's adding to this huge heaven mayhem brand that then people are like buying into also influencer gifting has been big but we don't even gift like crazy like i only gift people that ask all my friends like people really i need to be very specific about the gifting because I just, it all adds up in cost wise and I need to be very specific, but I'm using ShopMy as an affiliate platform, which has helped a lot.

15:51ShopMy? Yeah, ShopMy. Are you on it? I'm not on it, but I've heard of it. It's amazing because you can really like read into the data, see who's selling, see how much they sell, how much volume they drive. And then it's like, oh, okay, the proof's in the pudding. Like if you're making a lot of money, I will pay you or I will like invest in you more. Yeah. Oh, I will tell you one influencer who sells like crazy. her name is things I bought and liked the thing is is she only she's anonymous I don't even know if it's one person or multiple or anything she will only post things she bought and liked so there's no way to get in touch there's no way to gift there's no way to do anything paid nothing which I think is why her audience is so engaged but like my sales she's posted heaven mayhem a couple of times and the sales have like gone up like 300 400 percent that day wow that's incredible That's such a good tip.

16:42Thank you for being specific about like the account. Like we want to hear that. That's what we want to hear. How have you, have you been building the business? How have you filled in those knowledge gaps? Like no one's born knowing how to scale a company. And there's all this stuff that's just, I mean, Google's great, but is everything on there? I don't know. Not around building, not around like manufacturing, I don't think. How have you been like plugging in those knowledge gaps as you've been building the company? I think, like I said, it was eavesdropping a lot. So I learned a lot from my husband.

17:12And I think I will say he's helped me a bit, but like he hardly helps me in terms of work. Like a lot of people think like easy for you, but not really. Like, yeah, sometimes he tells me some stuff and has saved me some time. And I think it's also an ego thing for me. I'm like to everyone, no, no, no, I've done it. But so he's helped me a bit. And just like, honestly, Google, like I've taught myself all my Facebook ads. I've taught myself all of this stuff. however I will say I've gotten myself to I think as far as I can get myself to and everyone who I've hired up until now has been in positions kind of underneath me where I'm teaching them I'm the boss and I think to be honest I'll always be the boss but I'm teaching them what I think it should be and I'm teaching them how to do ads because I taught to do ads but now I'm not doing it like that anymore like now I've hit this like turning point in my business where it's like I continue to run everything the way I think or I hire a ton of people who are way smarter than me to do it for me so like now I'm outsourcing an operations team so I only have three full-time employees one of them started last week wow congrats thanks so like what do they do one of them is my EA so she does everything that I do but just like a little more efficiently but she kind of like completes the job for me yeah I find this applies I then tell her to do the rest I I don't know she just helps my life run smoothly and she thank god because we really need her and she helps with a lot of operation stuff and she's helping with a lot of wholesale stuff I'm also hiring someone for wholesale because like our wholesale business makes up about 20 % of the business however I want to make it like 30 % and grow it like 10x yeah so I got to hire someone and then I have a marketing slash socials person and then I have a content person who started last week and the purpose of that person was I said to her like I can't be justifying to hire you full-time for heaven mayhem content so we need to get this like Pierre Mance heaven mayhem story content going because I think it's so valuable like those founders on TikTok who talk about their brand and I would love to do it because I love talking and I and I just love it I could talk underwater but like I just don't really have the time so I'm like this is your job yeah you got to get me to do it so that's my team but then I outsource this operations team who's made up it's like almost a company and it's it sounds a little like is that legit is that good but it's made up of people who have been in the industry for like 10 15 20 years who know a lot more than agency kind of but it's kind of like a new concept they're more like yeah it's like a fractional ops team.

19:53Kind of, kind of. It's kind of like hiring a marketing agency, I think, but I've never hired a marketing agency. Yeah. So they're helping me a lot. I then hired a freelance, like she used to be the head of marketing at somewhere really big. And she's like giving me freelance consulting advice kind of thing. I'm hiring an ad agency who she's going to help run. So it's like all of these things, I could definitely do it, but I'm only getting it so far. Like you said, like, how do I find this knowledge? Like I didn't go to business school. yeah even if you did go to business school like not one person could know everything yeah so I think that is like the point that I'm at that I'm like please like smart people come at me like you guys I want them to like teach me first first question would you recommend the COO or the operations agency is that something that you can recommend do you want to hold that close I would recommend them I'm not gatekeepy but I just don't think they they want inbound yeah I I think they're at like a bit learning purpose right now.

20:48Okay. Yeah. When you're ready, share it. Yeah, I will. And then you could put it in your newsletter or something. Yeah, 100%. And then my next question is what is like what's stopping you from making like a big senior hire now? Nothing is really stopping me. We're kind of looking for someone to come on just in terms of cash flow, I guess. A big senior hire requires a big senior salary and probably equity. and like I'm like scared to give equity. Yeah. I don't think I would want to do that. So I'm looking at like a pretty big salary and I guess I just need to find the right person. And I think I'm kind of confused where that role would sit if it's kind of in like marketing and growth because I kind of got operations covered now.

21:33CEO, I think I can stay in this role for now because I'm - You 100 % should stay in that role. Yeah, I'm really good at getting everyone to do everything and I'm really on it. And I think no one cares as much as your company. Totally. And you've got the vision. You're like setting the vision. Exactly. So I think I'm looking for someone like a head of growth. We thought it was director of marketing, but actually like in the interviews, I've realized it's not. Do you have a leadership coach? No. Should I get one? I have someone great I can recommend to you. Please. I would love to connect. I'm going to link.

22:02Barbara. Hi. I know you listen to the show. I'll link her in the show notes for other people as well. She's amazing. Yeah, she's awesome. She'll work with her. Oh, okay. Amazing. Yeah. She's been really helpful in like team structure and all kinds of stuff for me. oh I've got to connect with her then so I'll continue I was talking I was like starting these marketing director interviews and like I feel really bad because a lot of people applied for the job and now I'm like I don't think this is the job yeah and like that's just like some honest feedback of like learning well honestly for me I'm like actually better to learn before you make an offer and someone's on the team I think this is a good time to find that out Yeah, true.

22:41Also, I'm also like with all the interview processes now, my EA interviews them, I interview them, then we have like an in-person interview with me and then they do a project. Or the project actually comes before the in-person interview because I really want to hire real slow to make sure that they're right fit because they're quitting their job usually and like making all these sacrifices and then they come on and like, well, that would be bad. Do you feel any, like, this is something I felt and so I'm projecting, but have you felt any nerves around bringing in someone who is really senior and leading them or do you feel really confident doing that?

23:20No, I feel really confident because... Good for you. Yeah, but I'm not, I'm not, the reason I feel so confident is because I hope that they're confident in their abilities. So I'm like, you do you, you teach me. Yeah. I'm super confident to learn from you and like I'm gonna I would have this other person who's freelance consulting for me give me some kpi so I can make sure that they're doing well yeah like apart from that I'm like what's the worst that's gonna that's such a good way of thinking about it because like I think I get stuck in this mindset of being the one that needs to direct everyone what to do and so like hiring someone senior in an area that I don't know anything about is kind of like how am I going to guide you I'm I can't guide you yeah I actually have no fucking idea yeah but that's why I want them to guide me.

24:02Yeah. Also it's crossed my mind before that, like, I don't know, I think I'm a little chaotic and like, you know, sometimes a little crazy and stuff. And I've, it's crossed my mind that people would think like, oh my God, I could be running this way better than her. But that's not in my head anymore. Like I always think like, how do you get over that? Because I'm literally like, okay, go do it. Like imagine, go do it. I would love you to quit your job right now and go and start this instead I can't wait to see where you'll be in two years like you know what I mean like I doubt that they're going to do that because it's not easy like it looks so easy but it's really not yeah um okay I want to talk about the watch launch what made you decide to launch watches how have you has it launched yet yeah yeah yeah it launched on July 18 so it's only been like brand new a week and a half yeah what was your from all of the learnings you've had kind of growing the business and building it what was your launch plan like your marketing okay so and what worked okay we were like we're still learning on the job every single time so the reason I wanted to launch watches was because I wanted one myself and this is how every single thing happens I want something and I'm like okay we're gonna make it why would I spend$25 ,000 on something when I could spend$25 ,000 developing the product actually cost more than that but like putting that instead of saving up the money to buy it I should put it into development so like I just get this feeling like I said the night before Christmas I'm like so excited can't explain it knew that we had to do this product yeah so we started working on it it took about a year um and it was just like fully my vision the marketing rollout I was really unsure what to do because one part of me wanted to take everyone along for the ride and like show them from the beginning this is what I'm working on but the other part was really scared of like copycat brands or people just being like with way more infrastructure and money being like oh amazing idea let's get that out now and they can do it within two months and like I just cannot so I was like let's just hold the cards extremely close to my chest and I started the marketing rollout eight days before I showed what it was.

26:13So no one knew you're working on it like publicly you didn't post on stories nothing? Nothing. We posted two weeks before we had like this whole plan two weeks before I did a Q &A um saying like what do you think the new launch is a week and a half before we did like guess the colors we've done belts so people thought it was like new leather belts or something we did like a few swatch teasers stuff like that but like once the products already landed in the US so like it's all good to go yeah um and then we did a few like little guessing games and stuff and then we unveiled the watch on the same day as wwg women's wear daily magazine launched like unveiled it as well which was amazing because it just kind of created this really cool hype around the brand and kind of legitimized it it wasn't just like a small little social media launch it was like a legit launch and then eight days later we launched it on the site and it was the best day of sales we've ever had that wasn't a sale day like a black friday um and then the feedback from the watch launch was like everyone loved it everyone loved the rollout they loved all our content however they felt it went on a little long they were eight days yeah well it was like eight to ten days I think they felt that it was too much like okay cool we get it it's amazing I'll just want to buy it now right so I'm not sure what to do next time I think I love to take people along for the journey but like I said like there's so many good things coming and I would love to share it on my stories right now, like first samples, I'm obsessed.

27:46I can't wait for you guys to have it, but I cannot because I don't want anyone to copy me. Yeah. But can I also just say like eight to 10 days, you know, and that feedback, the feedback is because people just want to buy it. That's awesome. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't build the hype because it resulted in what you want, which is sales and people saying, I actually just wanted it sooner. True. I would just stick with it. Eight to 10 days. Also, I felt so most of the products on the website, the most expensive belt is 200 and then the earrings range from like 90 to 140. This was higher.

28:19The watch is 280. It's one watch. We have three different strap colors which are interchangeable. So there was almost like a bit of education around it as well. So I wanted that time to like really show people what it is and like why they should get it and how they can wear it and like all the inspiration and stuff like that. I want to know how your first retailer came about. You launched into, was it Shopbop? Were they first? Launched into Revolve first. Revolve came, they all landed in my inbox it was like amazing and crazy I remember once I was revolve sorry let me talk about that revolve was amazing and I think if you're listening and you're trying to get retail accounts for your brand like it's really funny because at the start the orders are so small so you think like oh I just need to land this client I just need to land this account and it's done but like it's really not it's like so small but like it doesn't even scratch the surface but over time if you're selling for them it grows and like the marketing from it has been really really great I think Revolve and Heaven Mayhem's partnership has been so great because we get so many messages to us being like when's this on Revolve and then on the flip side when Revolve has it they see people see it sold out so they'll try and come to us so like we get their customer but Revolve's definitely getting a lot of customers coming for Heaven Mayhem so I think it works really well and then yeah we got a lot of other retailers in my inbox.

29:39We, I was in Ibiza with Cody. We had a two day trip. He was so hungover coming off the back of a bachelor party. And so like, he was no fun anyway. So I was like, I'm going to go tan. And I was tanning and I was like, no, no, I don't have time for this. This is when my assistant, my personal assistant was doing the customer care inbox and like plus filling the orders at my house. Right. She's busy. She's busy. So I was like, okay, I'm going to get through the entire customer service inbox, cleaned the entire inbox out and like noticed that we'd missed an email from Bloomingdale's Essence and someone else and like who was it maybe like Anthropology or something but no problem got replied to them all we're now in Anthro and Bloomingdale's not an Essence yet hopefully we can be but like they've come to us and like landed in the info at Heaven Mayhem email wow it's been pretty cool oh my god guys check your check your generic yes and check the junk pia it has been so amazing hearing how you've built this business i am going to do a part two in that'll drop i think on wednesday where we're going to learn about the resources and things that have been like helping you as you've been building this um but thank you so much for coming on the show this has been incredible thanks for having me i just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick thank you and shout out to all of our paid Business Besties subscribers.

30:56For$9 a month, Business Besties bypass literally years of networking by getting access to all of the people that you need to build your dream business. Besties get access to exclusive in-person meetups in cities all across the US, Australia and the UK. You get access to our group chat and you get to bypass the waitlist. You also get invited to exclusive monthly group business coaching call sessions where you can speak to experts and founders and ask them all of those questions that you just can't Google. It's$9 a month. You can cancel anytime. Head to bestie.femalefounderworld.com or click the link in the show notes for more.

From the publisher

Pia Mance is on the Female Founder World podcast with Jasmine Garnsworthy!

Pia is the founder of Heaven Mayhem, a jewelry business that hit $1 Million in sales about a year after launching. Pia started the biz with $900 and now it has fans like Hailey Beiber, Sydney Sweeney and Paige Desorbo—she shares her thoughts on how influencers and celebrities impact the bottom line in this conversation.

In this episode Pia covers the scrappy ways she’s built her business, how she's thinking about building a team and paying herself as the business owner, and insights from the latest product launch.

LINKS

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Get 25% OFF your first VistaPrint order using the code FFW25 at checkout: https://www.vistaprint.com

Sign up for Retail Bootcamp: https://bestie.femalefounderworld.com/retail-bootcamp

Get the Female Founder World resource roundup https://femalefounderworld.beehiiv.com

Become a Business Bestie subscriber: bestie.femalefounderworld.com

Check out Pia's business: https://heavenmayhem.com/

Check out Jasmine's leadership coach: https://www.instagram.com/barbaraalevin/ 

Here's Pia's fave influencer marketing tool: www.shopmy.us

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