The $1.2M Yap Challenge, Rescuing a Failing Launch, and the Case for Monetizing Your Inner Circle

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0:30Jasmine:This episode of Female Founder World is presented by Omnisend. Hey everyone, welcome back to Female Founder World. It's Jasmine, I'm the host of the show. I'm Nat, I am part of the Female Founder World team and I'm also a founder of myself of a swimwear brand called Beach Street Swim. And Paige is in Europe getting married. No big deal. No big deal. She just sent a quick message being like, I'm just reminding you, I'm not on the show today, I'm on my honeymoon. So hopefully we'll get the update from her next week. How beautiful. Oh, I'm dying to know how it all went, but it looks stunning, of course.

1:02Jasmine:It looks so stunning and she just looks so like happy and gorgeous. I just love this. I love this for her. She does. She does. Well, we'll get the update on the wedding next week. You've just come back from Portugal looking very like glowy and tan. Thank you. And beautiful. Okay, but not just talking about our holidays and Euro summers, I want to talk about a few different things this week. The first thing I wanted to bring to you is the Jessie Jean Yap Challenge and we were chatting about this before the show and you were like, oh, this really isn't in my feed, but it is dominating my algorithm.

1:35Jasmine:Do you have any context to this? I didn't see this at all until you brought it to me, but we were chatting before. Like it's not really my typical feed, you know? It's not your feed. So essentially what happened, this has been blowing up on my feed with people who kind of like teach in marketing and social media, course creators, any of those folks that I follow. People have communities. Jessie Jean is a TikTok and Instagram creator of the last kind of few weeks or even years. She's been talking a lot about everything from like how she's career confused as a millennial. And she's like, not sure what to do with her next career step.

2:10And then flipping furniture.

2:12Jasmine:And she had literally zero followers about six months ago. and now she has about half a million and she launched this course and made$1.2 million in just a few days. So she went from not even being a creator on the internet to making$1.2 million of like, to be clear profit, because this is not something that she, you know, spent any time building or advertising around. This is pure profit. Um, and that's happened in a matter of month is absolutely just the wildest case of what can happen on the internet. What she did is she had a, she had like a little, I think it was like one of those road mics, one of those fluffy mics called.

2:51Jasmine:Oh yeah, they're a road mic. Yeah. Yeah. And she just spoke to the camera and she started doing it and she was kind of like, I don't want to say she was bad at it, but she was, you know, she was like kind of average. And then she got better and she got better and she got better. And, you know, she would come on and she would like, yap is the term that she used to the camera, talking about different things. And eventually she kind of like had this real like presence on the camera. And she said, Hey, like I've become pretty good at this. You guys have watched me become pretty good at this. Let me teach you.

3:22Jasmine:She posted a couple of videos about how she learned to do it and what a difference it's made to her following. And then she's like, why don't I teach you guys how to do it as well? And the internet went wild. $1.2 million in challenge sales in a matter of days. And now everyone that I follow, including like really big creators who are kind of those coach and educated creators, they are all doing the hashtag Jessie Jean yap challenge. And it's just the wildest story about what can happen in just a few months when you put yourself out there on the internet. You never know. Like this was absolutely not her plan.

3:58And for me personally, I think there's a real reason that this sticks because we come across so many founders that know that there's an opportunity for free marketing to be on camera, but just don't know where to begin and they feel really stuck. And some of these things that seem obvious to us are definitely not obvious to the rest of the people who are participating in this course or this challenge. So I don't want to say that it like preys on a vulnerable group because that has a negative connotation, but it's like, it is for a very specific niche. And I don't know, I think that she had a background in broadcast journalism a bit.

4:29So yeah. So I think like, there's no education on how to yap on social media out there like even if you come from that

4:37Jasmine:background it's hard it is hard and it's also like voice training or something it's about how to have that presence on a camera I think that's so hard to teach as well I'm interested to see what people what the transformation is for people and what they actually get out of it but I think it's it's such a great example of this thing that's just like it seems to be working on social at the moment, which is publicly learn a skill, learn how to do something, then become good at that thing while people are watching you and then turn around and teach everyone else how to do it. And that's just like the loop of the internet.

5:13Absolutely. I think people like being along for that ride. And it's easier to watch someone learn and master rather than like getting a really professional course. Yes. Because you see someone go from zero to a hundred. So that could be the

5:27Jasmine:appeal. Yeah. They're like their own best case study. I also think something else that she did that's worth like thinking about here is she launched, she was kind of started posting about the fact that she'd acquired this skill. She did a couple of posts. She went mega viral and she launched the paid challenge like that day, the next day. It wasn't that she went off and said, I'm going to go build this thing. It'll take me six months. And then I'm going to launch it like when I'm ready or when it's perfect. She said, I'm going to do a challenge and I'm going to like build it once there's demand.

5:59Jasmine:And she launched it as soon as she had that, that conversation was going and she had that audience primed and she didn't wait. And I think so many of us would have waited until we had the perfect product, until we turned our knowledge into the perfect thing. And then by then the internet moved so quickly, probably would have just missed it. Oh, if she would have waited for the perfect platform, it just wouldn't, it would have been a huge mistake. Like it's just such a good example of finding something that works and just running with it. She could have spent like a year or two on this and people would have already, it would have already passed her by.

6:31Or somebody else would have done it, you know, they would have seen the trend and they would have like jumped on it and done the program themselves. Something that this reminds me of is advice that Paige shared with us from Alison Ellsworth to have that emergency budget when there's like a cultural moment or a marketing moment or that's obviously like a CPG example, but I think having something in your back pocket, like resources to use if the opportunity arises for her, it didn't cost her anything, I imagine. It could time though. It could time. It could time. Yeah.

7:02Jasmine:She was like giving herself this window of flexibility to like figure stuff out. And then when she saw that there was an opportunity to like capitalize on that, she made moves and she absolutely did. I want to talk about the yapping word, the word yapping. Do you think because she used a word that we already use in our lingo, that helped her case? I've been thinking about this. I don't know. Because in my head, I thought yapping was already, like, to me, it already feels like kind of dated. Like, I was thinking, I feel like we've, like, we've passed, like, the peak yapping cycle. Do you know what I mean?

7:33Jasmine:Yeah. Yeah. I know. Like, this and yap. This and ya. You know, we've done it. Yeah. You have mentioned this before, how it's, like, most of the world, most of the country, like, we're at the pointy end of this. And like most people don't pick up, don't get these trends until so much later, at which point we think they're old and we move on. Right. I also think if she tried to coin a new term or a new program, it might not be as well received because people would be like, what is this? You know? So I don't know. I could go either way. We'll never really know. But I do think that like, yeah, I mean, yapping is kind of old, but I don't know.

8:05I don't know what her plan is for the future. Tell me a little bit more about the challenge, though. Like how is she, is she monetizing this challenge?

8:12Jasmine:yeah it's like 300 that's how she made the 1.2 million so it's like 300 and something dollars to participate and I've been seeing a lot of people kind of doing exactly what she does which is you kind of like hold the mic and like you sit like this and like it's very casual and they clearly are getting the same like prompts each week and they're all kind of doing the same prompt video and I think it's really just about um to me it seems like exposure therapy like it sounds like what she's telling people to do is to block your friends and family whoever it is it's in the back of your head making you not do this oh interesting I saw that she had blocked her mom during this while she was doing the challenge and I don't know if that's the reason why or if it was just she wanted to surprise her with the outcome but it looks to me like she had like a lot of friends and family blocked all those people that like in your head and I think this goes for everyone who's like wanting to build in public and share their brand and they don't they don't feel comfortable because you've got like six people from high school who for some recently care what they think.

9:09Jasmine:And so she's like, block all the people. Yeah. It's always, it's always that block those people. And then they have kind of prompts each week to talk about and to create a video. And I think the whole challenge is just exposure therapy, which is literally what this is. You can't, I think you can teach someone how to deliver the thing. Like you can teach someone how to speak. You can teach someone how to use a mic, how to edit a video. it's a lot harder to teach someone what to say you really have to be practicing and be getting that feedback from the community and be doing it over time to get better at like the how to articulate what you have to say right I think the caveat here is that this is a blueprint but your execution matters the most like you can have all these resources but you ultimately have to learn and apply them in your own way which honestly I think is the trickiest part for some people it's more of like the exposure, which I understand.

10:06Like it's nerve wracking to put yourself out there. Like that is often the hurdle. Actually though, one of the things in her videos that stuck out to me and I catch myself doing this all the time in her video was to stop saying, hey guys, like start off by saying, hey guys, it's not a podcast. It's a person scrolling. It's one person scrolling. It's one person. So I love that. And while that's obvious to me who does this for a living, that is absolutely not obvious to people. So I do think that advice like that is worth something in this world now.

10:35Jasmine:The next thing that I want to talk about is Alamide Oluwe, the founder of Topicals and this very vulnerable post that she shared on social this week, which is about the beauty brand Bread. They're actually Australian owned. She acquired the brand and was essentially relaunching it. And she said that the launch essentially flopped. She said it launched to basically no sales. And this is a brand that already had, I think like a lot of love for the brand. They'd been in Sephora before. And when they relaunched it, essentially nothing happened. They didn't get any sales and Alameda came on TikTok and she was very vulnerable, but not in that like, she's like sitting on the camera crying.

11:15Jasmine:She's just saying like, this is how it is guys. What did we do wrong? Bringing the community in and asking them to help her, you know, reshape the next launch and figure out what they did wrong. and it was just a really interesting case study of building in public and I think like how to do it I mean it was a case of like what not to do and what to do I think did you see this yeah I did and it's interesting because obviously I see tons of building in public content and this is the first time I've seen something to this extent of like this was a total flop I've seen like obstacles and I've seen people overcome them, but this was just like an honest brain dump, which I really loved.

11:57I mean, it's gotta be so hard. It's so vulnerable. I think a lot of founders would just shut down and, you know, close that chapter, close that box, maybe never even speak of it. And I wouldn't blame them for that. But I think the irony is that she does mention in her like series of videos that she is shy. She doesn't like to be, you know, forward facing, but her opening up about this has done the marketing for her like I know I've known of bread before didn't know that they're relaunching this product it actually looks amazing I'd be interested in trying it and this is the first I'm hearing of it so it's kind of ironic like

12:30Jasmine:now we know about it so exactly that's what I saw in the comments it was very much this idea of oh I hadn't I didn't even know about it I would have bought it I guess I saw that and I went through Bread's TikTok to see, okay, what have they been doing? And for context, it's actually called Bread Beauty Supply. It was founded in 2020. They're a hair care brand and Alameda has a holding company called The Cost of Doing Business. And with that holding company, she's buying black owned brands. She wants them to remain black owned and basically take her learnings from topicals to build these brands.

13:04Jasmine:And so I think she would have gone into this thinking, I've got the blueprint. I know how to make this blow up. And she wasn't necessarily that like build in public founder when she launched topicals I think it was back in 2020 and so she was probably just applying the same playbook and it just didn't connect and I'm wondering if that's because something has fundamentally shifted in the way that we market in the last six years or if it's something else yeah I think 100 % yes I do think that's a piece of it I think it's a piece it's really obviously it's always been competitive it's even more so now but I really do genuinely love this product and this concept something that stuck out to me when she was you know chatting on tiktok was that she is using her savings to fund all these projects so i'm wondering if maybe she didn't do as much as she possibly could with the marketing because she figured the money may be better in a different place and i think when you're handling so much and all of it is relying on you it's really it's really easy to lose sight of like okay how are we going to launch this.

14:08Otherwise you can just like fund, fund, fund, put money behind all these different areas to like get the word out. And I'm kind of curious if like the reason why there was a lack of that is because of the fund, the self-funding. I'm curious. I don't know.

14:21Jasmine:Jasmine, I want to know if you were in this similar situation, would you go online and share that it was a total flop or would you just like close that chapter? I'd like to think that I would, honestly but I don't know like I definitely think I need some exposure therapy around building in public and sharing online I definitely am in a space right now where I kind of feel a little bit frozen around it I think that we as a community should probably do some kind of like build in public challenge to like flex that muscle and help give people some stuff to post because I think a lot of people feel this way but I feel like in 2026 like it's the only option yeah no I agree I just feel like I wish I could but I'm not sure it's like you never know until you're in that situation yeah it's the only way to go dad it's like opening a bag of chips i'm so sorry dad could you maybe not that's dad oh my god my dad's exactly the same i was once on a call i was once on a call and i was in his like study at home and he just like opened the door and came in and i was like oh dad i'm gonna call and he was like oh and he just like kept doing his stuff i I was like, okay.

15:25Jasmine:This man. Also, he would never do it with my brother who works in finance. Oh, same. Never. That's the thing is like a thousand percent. That's so true. He would never. Okay. Anyway. Well, we have a lot to cover. We have a lot more to cover. Also, I'm actually having dinner with Maeva next week in Sydney. So I'll get the tea on her side because she was the founder. Oh, I'd be so curious to know. Yeah. All right. Let's go on to the next. What's next on the list? So we need to discuss influencer squads, the future of like being a creator. What do you mean? Like Taylor Swift squads? No, no. Okay.

16:00So I don't know. I assume that you've seen this before. I've seen it a lot. And I mean, not to like pat myself on the back, but I've been trying to do this with my friends, but it's just, it's so hard logistically. But basically people have been following along friend groups rather than like, well, I guess also individual creators, but it's super symbiotic for all the creators in the friend group because it's kind of like a tv show like you then follow your favorite character yeah so i mean like obviously for a couple years the influencer marketing situation has been kind of the same like you follow your creators they do brand deals you kind of know all about their life you have this like power social relationship with them but like at what point do we get bored with that maybe never but something i've seen that's a little new and I think is like really fun for brands and just for consumers in general are like these groups of creators.

16:51And they're usually all like in that influencer space. They usually all have their own personal style, but it's like Paige says my show is on. So I don't know. There's like this specific example that I've seen. I've actually seen a bunch, but this is one that's been like very relevant lately. What's the name of them? Oh, four and the five. Great example. They're a viral New York City-based influencer group, but their name is Four and the Five because they're living across the city's five boroughs. And you kind of learn about their career, their friendships. I would say it's like a sex in the city for the digital age, maybe not as crazy kooky, but they just started and they're already working with massive brands.

17:34So I would love to know what you think about this. This is so smart.

17:38Jasmine:Yeah, I know. This is so smart. It is, it's basically taken what we're already doing, which is we're watching these like friendship groups go on the same trips and like, you know, hanging out together, but we're watching it on individual accounts from lots of different perspectives. This is such a smart idea. I feel like it's very much blurring the line between scripted reality TV, social media, which just feels like the future of entertainment and where things are going. I love this. And also I think like the, obviously the, the creators do this first and then the brands catch up. And I just think that if you're a brand, like I'd get straight on this.

18:10Jasmine:What a fun idea. I think it's almost like how crazy people get about brand trips. It's not even because of the activities during the brand trips. It's like the friendships and the interactions between the people on the brand trips. So that's – it's almost like that but perpetually existing. Like for example, right now we see the Aloe trip going on. A couple weeks back during Memorial Day, there was Hayley Batchelder and like her, you know, friend group. And they're all creators and now they all have followings. And people were following along with every day and they knew like the niche jokes. and like it's actually crazy it goes a long way in new york city there's also a group that i love chase marie ariana baccarriza i really don't know how to pronounce her name and sarah cuervo and when they go on trips together which is like so fun to watch they kind of like coordinate their outfits but it's like not obvious to the consumer like they just look really good together but then when you think about it you're like but you know they definitely yeah exactly yeah exactly like They've got their brand and they're, oh my gosh, I love.

19:08Jasmine:It's also kind of when I think about employee generated content on accounts, on brand accounts, it makes me think of that. Like that's essentially what that is. It's a group account. And if you have the same rotating group of characters in your office, that's what that is. That's so true. My one question right now is what happens when brand deals get involved? Like, do you split it four ways? Do they give you more budget? I'm curious. I wonder. Oh, true. Yeah. I wonder how that works. I mean, true, but like you probably just have to launch a product together. Anyway, I love it. But it's the same way as like, I don't know, are you like the cast of friends where you all get paid the same amount per episode and like you have this like agreement beforehand?

19:45Jasmine:I guess. Well, I guess we'll just have to watch and wait and see and see what happens with these influencer squads and where they'll be in a few years time and if they, I guess, monetize their friendships. We've all had that moment when you're sending out an email marketing campaign and you're stuck in some clunky platform, drowning in features that you've never even touched, but you're definitely overpaying for. Then you go and ask customer support for help, please help. And you're hit with an AI chat bot. It's genuinely so frustrating. That's why Female Founder World is partnering with OmniSend, a reliable and easy to use email and SMS marketing tool trusted by over 150 ,000 brands just like yours.

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21:09Jasmine:Now it's time for our smart swaps of the week. And if you're new to the show, smart swaps are just the things that we are switching into our lives and into our businesses each week that are just making things a little more productive and a little bit more enjoyable. Nat, do you want to kick off with yours? Okay. This week I have a social media swap. This is called Preview. I've used this for actually years. The app has updated a couple of times, but it's so simple. I've tried all the apps and the desktop things to plan out my grid. And now that I'm a business owner, I care way more about my grid than I used to as a creator.

21:41And I just feel like it overcomplicates things. And I just always find myself going back to preview. So it's a free app. I think you can have, if you want to pay more, you can get more than one account on there, but you just like upload your photos and drag and drop, and then it automatically puts what's posted. So I would just recommend downloading it, testing it out. It's so easy to plan your grid. And then if you're on the go, you're like, oh yeah, that's what I have to post. It's so good. Huh?

22:05Jasmine:I love that. Okay. So mine, not revolutionary, but just a very specific way that I am using Claude at the moment. we are basically redoing our membership the moment it's going to be repositioned as ffw pro and you're going to find a curated basically database of all of the conversations that we've had on the show it'll be categorized by the different categories we'll have special videos and conversations micro courses all of the things that you need as you're building your business and a big part of this is trimming down some of our longer conversations and organizing them by topic or like some key questions that you might have and serving up these videos as the answers.