She Bet Her Home Deposit On The Next Big Beauty Category

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to Female Founder World. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show. and today I'm chatting with the founder of Bang & Bod. Her name is Priscilla Hadjian-Tony. Welcome to the show. Hi. For people that don't know Bang & Bod, what are you guys doing? So we are a multifaceted face-approved body care brand, meaning that we formulate face first, but it's for your entire body. Which I feel like you were very early in this, trend is the wrong word, shift to body care that was truly efficacious. Is that how you say the word? and now we have seen like more brands come on the scene that are kind of like active body care skincare style products but I feel like when you were starting that wasn't really a thing.

0:44No it was very very new and you know I think it was just time for me suffering with my skin for 15 years I tried everything under the sun face and body because I suffered with hormonal acne for 15 years and eczema. I think for me, I was just really over having to figure out what my skin needed on my face and what my skin needed on my body. And I was like, there's just got to be a better way because I'm spending thousands of dollars on products that just are top level, like that might work for a day or two and then it just goes back to normal or it actually is the opposite and flares my skin up quite crazy.

1:17And I'm just in the worst and a worse position. So I just thought, you know what, there's got to be a better way. And if I could focus and formulate face first with natural high-performing ingredients, well, then that should service both my face and my body. You know, why are we neglecting our body and giving it subpar products and our face gets all the investment? So I really wanted to create these multifaceted formulas that were really results-driven and could really target and help, whether it's heal or soothe or calm, irritated and problematic skin, I guess. And you started, okay, back in 2019 when you kicked off, But you'd spent like three years working full time and kind of thinking about this business and building the products and branding at the same time.

2:01What was the, I guess, the moment where you decided, okay, it's time to launch, it's time to go full time on this? I knew that I had to go all in eventually and I knew I had to give it the best chance of survival. But in order to do that, I really wanted to make sure that it was foundationally sound. And so working in my corporate job, all the hours I was training it to and from work, which is about three hours total. So that's where I spent a lot of my time building the brand. And from there, I could really get granular on what was the purpose behind the brand? What was the change that I wanted to see?

2:34And what was the consumer that I wanted to talk to? Who was me? Because I was, you know, the person that needed it the most. And I think through that, I knew by the time that I would get to launch and through all my efforts and the hope that I had because I told my manufacturers eventually when I got there, I'm not going to launch this product if it doesn't work. You know, we could spend three years on this and if it doesn't do anything for my skin, well then it's not going to market. And so I knew through all that time and money and effort and love, passion and labor that went into that, I knew that I had to just go all in or else it would always be this amazing product with a subpar support.

3:12So I had to make the decision. How did you afford to launch the business? Like launching a beauty brand is not cheap. No, very expensive. I saved with my now husband for nearly four years to buy a house. And at the time that he said to me, I think we've got enough to start looking for a house. And I stopped him in his tracks and pretty much said, well, I've got another idea and he kind of knew dribs and drabs of what I was doing in the background, but nothing to the point where he thought it was, it was really serious or something for me to make a real big call on this. But he had, he has been with me since I was 14.

3:50So ultimately knew my skin journey and knew how much it took a toll on my mental health and me as a person, like it really took a toll on me and he saw that and he was my biggest supporter. And so I think when I just said, I've got another idea and this is what I want to do. He really backed me and believed in me. So yeah, we spent over a hundred thousand dollars and put it all in. What a legend. He's just like, absolutely go for it if you need to. Literally go for it. Like it was not just my money. It was both our money. I said, are you sure? Because I could just pick all this money up and put it in the bin because we don't have a crystal ball.

4:21So what about if that happens? And he was like, well, we can always start again. But in this moment, trying is all that matters. Like you, I want you to try this. And if you can see how amazing and beautiful you are for what I see, then that will be enough. And so he's just been my ride or dies back to me from the very beginning. We put all of our life savings into the business. I moved back to my mom's house, what we both did, moved back to my mom's house. He kept working in his construction job to help fund, like just making sure that our phone bills were paid and our car insurance was paid.

4:54And, you know, thankfully my mum who allowed us to live rent free and she really supported me from the beginning with my dreams and so yeah we we made it work and that was yeah about three years so once I decided okay this was going to be real we went all in like investing and and figuring this out for three years before I launched. Wow incredible. Okay so it's 20 it's 2019 you've launched this beauty brand you launched with OneSkew which is your yellow product yeah and you're living with your mum, what was kind of an early sign that made you think, okay, this might actually be a thing. This might work out.

5:30I think because I was at the heart of the brand and I was going through hormonal acne and eczema through the formulation stage. So I knew that if this product could help me with my skin, which was sensitive, temperamental, hormonal, like all the rest of it, I thought, okay, maybe it could help someone else. And as we progressed in formulation, I was working with a contract manufacturing in Sydney for about almost a year. I'd spent majority of the money that we had saved in that initial formulation for me to then go, it's not perfect. And I kept pushing them and they said, well, that's all that we can do.

6:07And I said, well, that's not enough. And I had to call my now husband, partner back then and say, we're starting again. I just was never going to settle. I think all the best advice I could give if it just doesn't feel right, then don't accept it because I had done all this work. I had put all this money for me to just launch a product that I didn't wholeheartedly believe in, just did not feel right for me. And so I just said, yeah, we're going back to the drawing board. And I spent two days in my laptop going through previous contacts, going through emails, calling whoever I could call. And then I finally got a hold of my now manufacturer who spent like two hours out of the day to go through everything with me.

6:50And I'd shared my journey and what I'd been through and yeah they just believed in what I was wanting to achieve and they were like all in with me and yeah nearly 10 years later we're still working together and it's been an amazing journey but yeah it was very costly lesson because as we had all these savings my husband was working so we had to funnel all that money back into the reformulation yeah it was it was a lot like I think most people probably at that point would have been like oh my God, we've just spent all this money. Like maybe we should just stop. And if anything, it just gave me more motivation because I knew in my heart that it was possible.

7:28And so launching that product, I had so much hope and belief. I just needed to get it into the hands of as many people that I could. And that's when the gifting started. I'm going to talk about your gifting campaign and that early strategy, marketing strategy in a second, but I want to like, I want to stay on this kind of piece where you're talking about the formulation and the going back to the drawing board and, and everything there. Cause I think it's like, like, it's such an important point just to double down on, because if you don't think that your product is the best thing ever, you cannot be this forward-facing founder.

8:04That's like proud of your brand. You can't sink all of your money into it. You can't quit your job and do it because you don't like at your core, if you don't believe in it, the business isn't going to succeed because you can't take all of these steps to be able to like help it succeed and to drive that growth and to really stand behind it. And I think like the effort that you put in in the beginning to get a product that you know is going to be life-changing for a customer is the most like fundamentally important thing you can do. Like the marketing is just a bolt on to that really. So let's talk about the marketing.

8:39You said that you had a gifting campaign when we were speaking before the show you talked about you know pretty scrappy in the beginning obviously like we all are and you were reaching out to micros on social and that's how you got started talk us through like how many you were gifting what that outreach process looks like but also like this landscape has changed a lot now people are not just kind of posting product for gifting as much anymore so I would love to know also your thoughts for someone who is trying to kind of kick off a gifting campaign about what's working. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think for me, like, as I said, like I knew the product was incredible and I wanted to get that in the hands of the masses to try it and share their honest, genuine feedback because reviews and feedback was going to be the biggest thing for the brand being.

9:26So, yeah, obviously the efficacy being the first and foremost, the most important aspect of the brand. And so I knew if I could get it into the hands of people and they tried it and they shared the positive or even constructive. I was open to everything at that point. And so I think in the end, I actually gifted my whole first shipment, which was about 500 units over the course of the first few months. And it was the best thing that I could ever have done because at that point, yes, back then gifting was more acceptable that people would gift getting gifts and they were so excited and grateful that they would just reshare it without any costs involved.

10:00And that was how we turn Instagram yellow. That was where the yellow tube you would scrolling and everyone was sharing this yellow tube. And that was just getting like, what's this yellow tube? What's this firming lotion? Everyone that I follow is posting this product. And I didn't spend any money doing that. It was the cost of the product. That was it. That was people out of their goodness of their heart wanting to share the product after they had either tried it or excited to receive it. And we just got insane feedback. Like after a couple of days, people were like, oh my God, I've had psoriasis for, you know, six months and my redness is already going down or the dryness is softening or whatever the comments were.

10:38But it was like instant. And then the customers were buying and they were sharing their results and they were happy for us to share on socials, which was super scrappy. I would just literally screenshot the before and after that customers would send me and put on stories and then talk about it and be like, you know, I'm so grateful that the product is helping, genuinely helping people with their skin because for me, the mental side of skin was something that was never spoken about. And I suffered with the most. And, you know, I think the landscape has changed that, you know, accepting ourselves is way more than what it was, but it's still hard for me.

11:07It was just when I could see all these people seeing such insane results, I was just like, this is the beginning of something amazing. And I think from that moment, the biggest lesson was, yeah, never settle. Once I had seen how far, even with the aluminium tube, like that was a 12-month journey and trying to work out the material composites with the formula and make sure that worked. The recyclability and sustainability ethos, aluminium tubes were much more costly, much more hard to ship. You know, plastic would have been the easiest option. Yeah. But it felt like I took the hardest route in everything that I did.

11:39And I think because I just genuinely cared because I was the core customer. Yeah. So you mentioned the gifting campaign and how you kind of got things going in the beginning. What does the launch look like now? You have like 14 or 15 skews, right? Yeah. Yeah. So like now you're bigger, your budgets are a little bigger, you're, you have more brand awareness, but also just like the internet is different. What would you do now if you were going to launch a product? What's that process? Like community is everything. So we, our products stem from the feedback that our customers give us and what they would love to see from us next.

12:11We don't just launch for the sake of it. Like our products can take up to three years to formulate, develop, test, trial. So it is a long time in the making before we get to a launch. And then when we look at a launch, it's, you know, really leaning into the initial customers feedback. We have a Bang & Besties Facebook group that we really want to lean into more from a focus group perspective and being able to give people the opportunity to try the products before we actually go into production. Definitely gifting is still a big part of our strategy, even if it's them to try it. So then if we did want to work with them in the future, they are already a Bang & Body customer, but they've loved this new product and they want to work with us or you still have to gift.

12:48I think that's just so important because if someone doesn't have the chance to try it, then you'll never know if they'll ever share, you know, just randomly, we might just get a post being like, guys, I've been using this for over a year and I'm obsessed. And it's like this huge influencer I've never really spoken to. And like, they're just a customer. So I think like, you know, gifting is really important, but what we do now is definitely leaning into our community and show up on the social platforms, share the journey of how a product comes to be. I do a lot of communication on what that looks like from why the product was being developed in the first place.

13:21Like you're filming yourself talking. Exactly. And we go through the process or the packaging that we use and why we've decided on this. Like we did a big campaign for our firming oil that is now our best selling skew alongside our jumbo firming lotion and also newly launched gradual tan. I think through that building relationship and understanding the consumer's desires, obviously people ask us for all different types of things, but some things just isn't really aligned. And so how do you get that feedback? Like what is the process if somebody's out there and like, okay, I want to launch something.

13:51I have a community. Are you doing surveys? Is it reading comments? Is it something that you're doing within your Facebook group? Like how do you tangibly go and get that feedback from someone? Yeah. So we definitely have call outs within our Facebook group on what people would love to see from us next, as well as having deeper conversations on skin concerns, like what our customers are facing or what they would like to see from us. And then we also do post-consumer surveys. So after someone purchases on the website, they get sent a survey to communicate why they have initially purchased from us, what they were looking for, what are their skin concerns, and then also on the back end if they've purchased from us two or more times, they get a survey that says, yeah, what would you like to see from us next?

14:33So just like we get a lot of different type of feedback. early on I think it was like literally a few months after you launched you got a big press like coverage in the daily mail that led to a huge amount of sales how did that come about and how does press fit into your strategy now because I feel like maybe it's not as impactful yeah so we've been working or we've had press or PR I think from oh a year actually before I launched So I was working with a PR agency who actually, funny, she actually thought I was a hoax because I was working with her for a year paying her retainer, but I didn't have a product.

15:12And she was like, is this a joke? And I'm like, no, the product's coming. It's just like, you know, been delayed. And it actually gave us the most amazing time to actually build a strategy when it came to media and publications. And there was a lot of imprint at that time, less online. So it was quite complimentary to being a new e-commerce brand and then having this great credibility in print as well. They were helping get the brand name out there. And then out of the blue on a Sunday morning, 7am, my phone was blowing up and I was like, who's calling me or who's contacting me? But it was actually the silent buzzing of the Shopify notification of the sale.

15:52And it went from, yeah, ones to like a long standings for like maybe God. what felt like all day it just did not stop and the first thing I did was call my manufacturer and be like so this has just happened and when's our next order and they're like I'm like do I need to turn off the website they're like absolutely not do not turn off the website we've got your stock coming to you like don't stress like they just had my back in that moment and they just let it ride which was incredible it was I think a three-page article of like myself customers before and afters testimonials like it was the most incredible piece that could ever have asked for and that really further even cemented us on the map because we already had this social Instagram traction but then getting this article that was like yeah at that point a credible source and it had so much communication around the brand now efficacy that I think it just really drove a deeper conversation like how many sales came from it I think we had like nearly 2 ,000 orders in two days oh wow which was insane because obviously I did not have the infrastructure to support that.

16:55And so I was, I think for the, for five days, I slept maybe two hours a day and I had family and friends on rotation coming to help me pack. That's incredible. On my mom's living room floor. Yeah. My mom would literally go to work. She would leave me packing, come back. I was still in the same spot. She would then change and literally still on the floor with me and we'd be packing together until we could get friends and family to help. Something else that happened quite quickly is your retail expansion. Can you tell us how Mecca came about? That was your first August? Yeah. So Mecca was always a dream retailer.

17:24And for people who are in the US, Mecca is kind of Australia's like big beauty retailer. We had that for many years before. Sephora even looked at Australia. Yeah, correct. And so we, I actually went with my sister to Meccaland when Meccaland was a thing back then. And I was there wanting to support an influencer who had been a huge supporter of ours and I had some product top ups for her. And I thought it was just a great opportunity to support her. She was on a panel. And then after her panel, I kind of just said hi. And cause we were speaking on online for what felt like a year. And then finally met in person and Joey, the founder of Mecca actually came up to us to thank the person that was on the stage.

18:05And she kind of just looked at me and was like, do I know you? And I was like, Oh, and I don't know what came over me. I was like, hi Joe, you don't know me, but my name's Priscilla and I've just launched this product, um, this brand two months ago. and I had the product there, which was just crazy because I was gifting it on. She's like, oh, that's amazing. That's incredible. We'd love to get you in contact with my team. And I just thought, oh, okay, like nothing of it. And she's like, no, no, no, what's your email? And I was like, wait, this is actually happening. Gave my email. Day later, her team got in contact with me.

18:35And it was about a 13-month journey from that moment to actually getting confirmation that they were wanting to stock us. I think they just really wanted to understand the growth and the brand community and making sure that we could service their demands because we were only two months old and obviously didn't have any investors, 100 % bootstrapped. So I could understand like the process that they wanted to see how we would stack up in that aspect. And then, yeah, 12, 13 months later, we got a lot of attention. Obviously, the brand within one year had just absolutely blown up. Everyone at that point I felt knew the brand.

19:15We had built this insane community, so it was a good time to kind of lean into retail. And at that point, we had other retailers asking to stock us. So I went back to Mecca and said, we've got these other opportunities. I just need to know where we're sitting. Totally respect if it's not the right time for us in Mecca, but we need to look elsewhere. And they're like, no, no, no, we want to stock you. We organized a launch. They, I think, purchased three months worth of forecasted stock from us, and we sold out in that in eight hours. Wow. Yeah. And we were eight hours. eight hours. How did you support the launch?

19:46Why was that so successful? It was just our community on IG. They didn't even post on their platform nothing. We literally posted that we were now available in Mecca and we sold them out in eight hours. And that was our community's doing. And how did you, so you literally just supported that by posting on Instagram? We just post on Instagram and we send an EDM, like an email. How big was your email list then to be able to drive that kind of? Oh, I probably would say. That's wild. I've actually never heard I've never heard that before. I've never heard a story like that before. Three months worth of stock in eight hours.

20:14Three months worth of stock in eight hours. And then we replenished within 24 hours. And then that sold out again, I think, within a day or two, which was insane. And then we were featured as our Firming Lotion and Fragrantsy Firming Lotion was the number one and number two product in all of Mecca for, I think, one week. Wow. Just like the screenshot of that, which is a pretty incredible moment. And then you've gone on to launch in Sephora and other stockists, which is amazing. But the one thing that I hear when somebody talks about retail launches, selling out with retail partners is like, this is really expensive stuff to do.

20:49Retail launches are very expensive, particularly like from what I've heard about a Sephora launch, there's lots of support that has to go into it. How did you, how did you finance that? Was it all through DTC sales and money that you'd put away? Did you have any financing? What did you do? I think with Mecca, it's a little bit different because we did initially launch online with an in-store rollout and then COVID hit. So we stayed online. So really there was no expense for us in an output perspective. It was just the product. So obviously they take a margin from your product and yeah, ultimately you're just giving that product to them.

21:24But we didn't have to pay for any additional marketing because that's all included in the margin. We didn't have to, like pretty much it was gifting. So we would then have our stock that we gave to Mecca to sell on. And then we obviously gave them gifting stock that they could potentially gift or seed to their community and influencers per se. But in terms of a monetary dollar, like there was no, that wasn't a thing in that respect. Launching into Sephora was a little bit different because we had a much bigger launch. It was rolled out in all doors. We've just launched our Bespoke custom end caps, which obviously was an investment from the brand, but it's been amazing.

22:00Like even it's like a ray of sunshine. Like I don't know if anyone walking to Sephora, you'll see us beaming yellow in the store, which is pretty incredible. And already the uplift in revenue from those sales, like from those stores with that new end cap has been awesome. Wow. So you sold around 700 ,000 yellow tubes. Yeah. Amazing. And I'm guessing a lot of those come from retail, but I'm curious about what is driving most of those sales through your website? Yeah, actually those 700 ,000 is mainly D2C. Oh wow. Yeah. Like we, I would say 80 % is D2C, 20 % is retail. Definitely looking to grow that piece a little bit more, but our D2C is so strong that every time we grow retail, it's like our D2C grows as well.

22:45Yeah. It really is all about community. Like that is the heartbeat of everything that we do. It is the voice of reason when things get tough. It's like we're doing it for the customer and what their desires are and the love like it's everything I know and everything that I am it's when it's intertwined like that it's hard to separate but definitely through community and showing the efficacy of the product and being purposeful in your actions I think is what drives a long-standing brand I think a lot of people talk about building community and community being their superpower but it's a word that we just hear so much and I'd love to know like specifically tactically what are some things if someone who is launching a brand or who has a business and they kind of want to double down okay I feel like I have an audience but like not a community you know what do you what are some of the steps that you take to build that what are some of the things that you do so before COVID and as soon as we launched we were a very offline heavy event brand so we did a massive I think IRL all the way absolutely we did a massive moonlight cinema event in Melbourne and we sold over 700 tickets and it was for a Galentine's Day event.

23:59And so we had, yeah, over 700 customers, community members at this event and it was incredible. And so from there we just, we had like little ones before then and we had little ones after it. But it doesn't have to be like expensive, it can be scrappy. Like we just did recently a collaboration with a really vibey cafe in Bondi and we were giving the first couple of hundred people in line a free, one of our free new gloss balms and also a matching kind of smoothie style coffee thing drink it was really nice and we had a line around the block and it was like super cost effective I think the whole event just maybe cost us a thousand dollars like it was just the most low touch high impact kind of opportunity that you can do and it doesn't have to be big you can do run clubs you can do reading book clubs you can do dinners like you know you can do any people just want connection Yeah, I think also just like getting offline and getting into the real world just supercharges that online community as well, giving people a way to like tangibly understand what you're about.

25:01And then they go and become these ambassadors for your culture online in a way that just can't be replicated if you're only publishing to like TikTok and Instagram. Yeah, exactly. So I think through that has really helped expand the brand offline where it's actually like people behind the brand. The last thing I want to ask you about is a resource recommendation. for someone who is listening. And I always feel this, I listen to these stories and I'm always so inspired to go and take action. And I just want like a little thing. Like I want a book, I want an app that you use, a Shopify plugin, like something that's helping fuel your growth in your business that you can recommend people can go and take that little micro action right now.