The Feed Is Fake, Dot Cakes, and Bobbi Brown’s Blueprint

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0:30Jasmine:This episode of Female Founder World is presented by Omnisend. Hey everyone and welcome back to your weekly group chat for your business by Female Founder World. I'm Jasmine. I'm the creator. I'm the host of Female Founder World. Hi guys, I'm Natalie. I'm a team member at Female Founder World and I'm also the founder of a swimwear brand called Beach Street. Hi, I'm Paige. I'm a contributor here at Female Founder World and one of the co-founders our Benny. Before we kick off, for everyone listening wondering where their regular Monday show was this week, we're going to be back with the regular show next week.

1:02Jasmine:So the new format, I feel like some people are confused about what we're doing, but at the beginning of the week, we have our regular interview show. That's me, I'm hosting, and we have different founders at all different stages. That drops at the beginning of the week. And then in the middle of the week, we have this new group chat show. We're in the middle of season one of that now. This week, We didn't have our interview show. We've just got the group chat show, but I promise we're back to regular programming next week. So I want to drop that for everyone who is asking that that is a new format and things are just a little wonky this week.

1:33Jasmine:Okay, let's get into the show. What do you guys want to chat about first? What do we talk about this week? Well, we have plenty of topics for everyone. First is the dot cake. I think we should start with that. What do you think? Jasmine's like, okay, explain. Okay, for those who are not familiar with the dog cake, I guarantee you now it's going to be all over your feed. But it literally broke the internet this past week. What is it? It's literally just a mini cake, just in a different format. And on top of the frosting, it has really compacted sprinkles. So it kind of gives you that ASMR vibe, I would say.

2:10But that's it. It's as simple as that. That's the product. It's in kind of like a cup more than you would serve a regular slice of cake. but yeah in the past two weeks it's like the only thing I've seen people talking about it's definitely like the most popular food trend at the moment but I think we have a lot to discuss on this topic because it's like more than just cakes more than just a treat it's more than food it actually tells us a lot about the direction of hold on this is a cupcake it's literally like no sprinkles it's like but it's like a large it's a large flat cupcake yes is it okay is it like a

2:43Jasmine:specific one that's gone viral a specific bakery like is there a marketing campaign behind this yeah so the dot cake is its own brand in itself it started in 2017 by a high school senior out on Long Island represent from Long Island and I can't believe I've never heard of this so that's also another interesting piece because someone who's lived there I'm like how is this the first I'm hearing of this this isn't like a local secret no and what really set them on fire this past week was that they are now in Butterfield Market, which is when things started to get a little crazy. I think they were officially opened as a business in 2019.

3:19So they've been working at this for seven years. This isn't a brand that just came out on the scene last week, but I think what changed the course of the business was this collaboration or like them being stocked at Butterfield. But yeah, Jasmine's Lily, a boxed cake with rainbow sprinkles. Like I'm going to and be nice about this but I literally don't understand how we I'm sure they don't understand either they don't and you know what I'm sure it's quite delicious like I'm not I'm not saying it's not it's just like it's just funny but yeah they started getting serious attention through Butterfield that's an Upper East Side grocery store it's a kind of like a specialty grocery store they're already pretty famous for a lot of their special dishes or like they have really good frozen yogurt there so they already have that pull from the Upper East Side community and Manhattan in general like they're just quite popular um somewhere where I had first seen this was one of the really popular New York City influencers Greta posted something about dog cakes that's the first time I saw it although I'm not 100 % certain that's where it's it began but at least that's where I saw the snowball effect take place and like that's when my friends started to talk about it.

4:31Then you have the Acquired's, which we've mentioned on the show a couple of weeks back when they had the bachelorette party with Swan Beauty, the private jet, Acquired Style, all the things. And they posted a review of it, a very great review. And like, things just went crazy, like crazy, crazy, crazy. She did say like, oh, this is the best thing I've ever had in my entire life. So if you're in Manhattan, you might as well go try it. I think that's what people felt like all right I'll give it a try you know there's seven million people in Manhattan so it yeah and it's not only children like this that makes me think about the cake boss craze or sprinkles when they had the cupcake ATM and those were things that kids would urge their parents to take them to and wait in line for and this is this is different like it's almost like the visual symmetry of the sprinkles on top is what is such a hook for all these videos and all this content I do think that it reads perfectly on camera like it's enticing in the beginning people are like what is this is it a cupcake is it a cake the ASMR of the spoon tapping on top has been a huge hook um I'm curious Paige if you like what kind of hooks you've seen or like where you've started to see this but that's at least what has come across my feed it is so funny so my co-founder texted me like last week being like influencer marketing is back I need a dog cake and I was like, what is a dot cake?

5:54And then you know how that is like the next day. It's all over my feed. I'm sure Jasmine tomorrow it'll be all over your feed. But it is so interesting. I saw a similar post from Robin Del Monte. If you guys know her girl boss town, I love her. She has like great marketing takes on Instagram and TikTok. But she was like influencer marketing is so back dot cakes are everything. And I think it's such a sign of the times. Like I don't know of anything that's like really felt this like viral in so long that just feels so authentic like not like an ad it's just like everyone's obsessed with this and I think the price point is very interesting like it's not this like luxury item like the swan mirror Natalie that you were talking about from the bachelorette it's like the most accessible thing like I'm sure it's overpriced with love for a cupcake but it is something that like anyone could realistically buy and like feel a part of the in crowd.

6:46So it's so interesting and it's so validating, honestly, that like influencer marketing isn't dead because I think a lot of brands like ours, we feel like, oh God, is this like a moot point? Like, are we still doing influencer marketing like we used to? But this feels like 2017. It's actually$12. I thought it would be more. I'm kind of surprised about that. Accessible. It'll probably be full chain tomorrow.

7:07Jasmine:I know I'm cynical, but like, It'll be 14. Okay. This is interesting. I think from the perspective of, you know, what does it mean? What does it say about influencer marketing? But when I've seen this, the first time I saw it was actually someone doing it themselves at home. And I had to kind of look up, okay, like click the little, you know, like search thing. What is it? Dot cake. And realize that it was like originated here. And it was this actual like product in a store that you could buy. I think it's interesting now that it's kind of grown beyond that original product and people are recreating it at home I think that also speaks to the accessibility of this as a trend and probably I don't know it's like a dot cakes like a recession indicator or something that the the viral thing is not like a beauty product it's something that you can like cook in your home but then I'm curious about how the original creator stays connected to the viral moment Like, are they going to start shipping these around the country?

8:03Jasmine:Are they going to try and make their bakery or their stockist like a must-see like New York spot? Like, how do you own this moment when it goes so, so viral and like grows beyond the original product? Do you know what I mean? I honestly, until this conversation, I didn't even know there was an original dot cake. I thought it was just like this brando. Yeah, like craze. and I don't know. I'm so excited to see what they will do this summer because like this is their moment. New York is like about to be even busier than it already is with tourists. Everyone local will leave, I'm sure, this summer.

8:41But I would love to see them like, they should be popping up at Butterfield in a big way. Like let's - Totally. I don't know. I bet they will. Yeah. I think that this is probably really overwhelming for someone who has a small business, the comparison or just even like, how do you create a moment like this? I think if it's any consolation, just think about how people say don't reinvent the wheel. I always say just reinvent the wheel actually because this is literally reinventing the wheel. It's a cake in a different format with a little bit of a different topping, just more compacted than a normal sprinkle topping.

9:13And I don't know, I'd argue that marketing and this influencer marketing rush is reinventing the wheel. Like a good example is Papa Bagels. New York bagel stores have been a thing for god forever and pop-up bagels came in and just had it in a new way they just reinvented the dipping of the bagels and cream cheese and different flavors and then they took that momentum that was crazy that had lines out the door kind of like this dot cakes maybe not to that extent and they've just like been so successful over years with exclusivity and like these meaningful partnerships and pop-ups so i could see dot cakes doing something along that that line of of what Papa Bagels does but it's very unique I'll say that yeah I hope they do not I think um I think that's super interesting the like comparison to Papa Bagels because I think even if Papa Bagels and I'm not a New Yorker you're a cool New Yorker maybe it's not as cool as it once was for the cool New Yorkers but I think like we discount so often as like coastal people on the internet like super tapped in discount how impactful the rest of the country can be that you know like maybe dog cakes will spin out something that's in retail that hits the shelves in like a year I could still see that still being like before their peak of hype cycle just with like the rest of you know America.

10:39Jasmine:Paige we were chatting in Slack about this about Benny you know if you're new to the show, Paige has this incredible beverage company called Benny. And then I was like, you know, if your next flavor was like dot cake would be really cool. And you're not doing that to be clear. That feels like it's not going to be able to be turned around quickly enough, but you, you know, you should do something. But I do feel like trend cycles are so quick now that I don't know how long this is going to last. Like, are we all going to forget about this in like three days? It used to be that it was something that was, you know, ubiquitous for a certain kind of person online for like months but now it feels like days and it'll be something else next week I think it'll be days for that like coolest nichest crowd but I still think there's like the ripple and I'm curious what you guys think like I think there's like kind of like that OG like middle America like kind of like bachelor crowd I'm terrible but like bachelor tv show that are just like they're just gonna get it a bit later and I'm saying that as someone that is that and like was that I remember my cousins that lived in the U.S.

11:46would bring me like stuff from like remember Silly Bands and obviously this is like years ago um like this is not the same trend cycle that we are but they would bring me like Silly Bands there were like these dumb elastic bands that were shaped as like objects like years after they were cool and they would just get cool for me in like middle of North America so I don't know I'm I'm so curious I'm so curious I was such moment but again like that lasted a good two three school years yeah so it's crazy things just are different now same with cake boss like and the lines outside carlos bakery in jersey that was

12:27Jasmine:years years and years okay well we'll wait and see there's something else that i want to talk about that i feel like feeds on from this you know flows on from this conversation really well because I'm quite cynical at the moment about how trends are being created online. I don't think there is really any such thing as like organic trends anymore. I think things are so orchestrated and there are people pulling strings in ways we don't even understand. And there was an article that came out on Vulture in the last week. It was an investigation that they called the feed is fake. Did you two see this?

13:02Jasmine:Yeah. No, it's kind of insane. It's wild. So the whole thesis, I think it like taps into something that we all were kind of feeling, but it really just showed that up to 90 % of what surfaces to you through social media algorithms is the result of very coordinated stealth marketing campaigns that are run by these underground agencies that most of us have never even heard of. I'm not just talking about like influencer marketing agencies. I'm talking about very specific orchestrated campaigns that know how these algorithms work and know how to influence and sway public opinion. And the article basically says that these agencies operate inside member-only communities.

13:43Jasmine:So they're on platforms like Discord and WOP, is that what it's called? W-H-O-P. And basically the agency will like announce a campaign. They'll specify where they want to see clips or comments and what they will pay. and then members have a few days to make clips and upload as many as they can. It's all about volume and flooding the feed. A clipper who might post one video might earn nothing if it flops or if it does really well, they might earn thousands of dollars from it. And one of the founders of these agencies that Vulture interviewed said that one of his clippers earns six figures posting across thousands of accounts.

14:25Jasmine:So there are people who just do this as a job basically, and it's their business, these agencies are able to influence what we perceive as like cool or trending or right or wrong. It's so, so fascinating. So I think when we're looking at, you know, like dot cake and this trend, this feels like a very genuinely organic one. And I think that's why it feels quite different because I think a lot of what we've seen online has been a result of these agencies and these mass kind of like clipping and commenting and engagement campaigns does this blow your mind as much as it blew my mind seriously no skeptical or like what did you say at the top jasmine you said you feel a bit pessimistic yeah cynical towards the internet i think yeah it goes like it makes me really just trust word of mouth and my friends again because it feels like every corner of the internet is kind of like a dark like reddit thread where you're like Like, who's saying this?

15:24You'll see, you know, like on like TikTok, like someone talking about like, I'm looking for the best, like, I don't know, glow up tips before my wedding or something like that. And all of the comments will be like so specific to like certain products. And it's hard to trust. Like, I think here's a real person. Exactly. Like years ago, I was like, yes, real people giving their real opinions. But now it's so hard to trust. But then on the brand side, I'm like, great. How genius is that? Like, I want Benny to be like everywhere. It goes to something that our coach always says, Barbara, who we're obsessed with.

16:00She says, yeah, business coach. He's the same person. She's amazing. Love you, Barbara. That like to build kind of like the brand and like the personal brand, the brand brand, like the kind of like umbrella or like halo effect around whatever that entity is. You just have to start saying it. So like for our campaigns for Benny, we'll call campaigns like our viral blah, blah, blah campaign or like everyone, like they can't stop talking about the new Benny flavor. Like, is that true? Not really. But I think that's kind of like a micro way that we use this. But the Vulture article was crazy.

16:38Jasmine:The comment piece that you just said was so interesting to me because I definitely, I'll see a post and then I'll often look through the comments to really like sense check my gut reaction in my opinion on something or to get like the authentic read but your algorithm also dictates what what comments you see as well and a lot of what you see in there if it is actually coming from these paid actors it's it just like throws out the whole way that I navigate the internet honestly you know where I've seen this a lot and this is a little bit different than your typical brand side is with the music industry yeah I as a creator have been reached out to by loads of agencies where they'll say, okay, we have a, they call it a campaign.

17:19We have this campaign going for this new artist that they, I guess, represent, and they'll try and get as many creators to use their new released song. Sometimes it's actually like quite famous people that they just must like represent as their agency. Um, or maybe they're just an agency and this is all they do and they're a client of theirs. And yeah, they'll just basically give you a couple of examples of trends what you have to post. And I think the more views you get, the more you get paid. I personally have never done this just because the money is just like very minimal. But think about it.

17:52If you have like UGC creators that are just trying to get their foot in the door and can make a little bit of money from this, why not? And if they do a bunch, I could totally see them making a good amount of money. So that is very interesting. And I kind of forgot about that until we started talking about this. I also have a friend who's recently in the music industry and she just released a song and she had these agencies reach out to her like do you want us to you know reach out on your behalf to all these creators and gave her a rate and she was like I'm kind of thinking about it because think about all the songs that we either rediscover or discover for the first time when they're totally trending on TikTok so that's another way that I've seen this yeah and I do think that like people are totally unaware of this yeah totally unaware

18:37Jasmine:and it's just like advertising is becoming more and more like sneaky is the wrong word like the first words I thought were like sneaky and insidious it's not it's not necessarily that it's just becoming cleverer and cleverer and it's kind of that idea of when I went to university we learned about guerrilla marketing and that was um you know literally like people on the street doing like really scrappy things but now it is that concept of guerrilla marketing taken into these into the algorithmic world and this is what it looks like. It makes me think of platforms like TYB. We've spoken about TYB before, the community platform that you can integrate with Shopify and other e-commerce platforms as well.

19:19Jasmine:And Home From College, the platform as well that just released micro gigs where you can pay people like$5 to take really small actions. And the idea is, I think it's kind of used in this way where you can get that mass volume of comments or interaction and create this idea of like a trend essentially through having real people engage with something but they're being paid and it's interesting because it's like that's not being disclosed as an ad or a sponsored post because how do you do that in a comment and these regulation bodies are just not going to catch up with that but I don't know it's this it's an interesting space I think right now it is such, it is honestly like a really incredible opportunity for brands who want to grow.

20:02Jasmine:But as someone who's also like consuming content on the internet, it's like, what's even real? Totally. I think publicists and politicians and celebrities have been doing this for decades. Yes. And we're just starting to see it now bleed into social media. I'm thinking of specifically the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni case. There was a portion where her crisis management team was talking about something in the comments and trying to get a load of like positive comments about her because once people start to see and do that gut check on the comments and see how people are feeling they tend to jump on that bandwagon of groupthink and then like pile on so I don't think that this is a new concept but I think it's new in the way that they're using it and it is clever it's like how are we to disclose TikTok comments like you got me I have no idea we are sheep we are all sheep yeah everything's an industry plant though it's cool that you can like manufacture that yourself wild insane I just think that the way that we need that we need to be approaching marketing now is just not like there's no playbook there is so much happening behind the scenes and undercover that you don't even know about and when we're thinking about I'm just going to do like an influencer gifting campaign or what it's like there is so much more that you can do that is not going to be in any like marketing podcast most of you it'll be in this one but like most of the time it's not going to be in a marketing podcast it's not going to be a playbook that people are sharing but it's probably the thing that really is like shifting the needle okay what do you guys want to talk about next honestly on this kind of like industry plant piece and like building our own virality I saw a really interesting article about Jones Road Beauty and kind of how they don't need outside retailers have you guys seen this at all yes it was a post Bobby Brown's new not new but like newish yeah It was a Camille Moore post that went pretty viral talking about Bobby Brown's new-ish, like you said, Jasmine Venture, post kind of selling Bobby Brown to Estee Lauder, her new brand and kind of how she's been building it differently to what we see so often of like these aspirational beauty brands and how that's really working.

22:10I resonated very deeply in my own experience with Benny and our Target launch. It feels like that's kind of our own, you know, contemporary moment to like an Ulta or a Sephora. But I will get back to that post. So Bobbi Brown originally sold her first business for tons of money,$75 million, which really, I think, gave her the right to do things her own way with Jones Road. So she did it with no investors, no board. And now five years since launching, it shared that she's doing$200 million in revenue. And she's turned down Sephora repeatedly, which is so baller. Very, very cool. She has 12 of her own retail stores, but everything is like direct consumer.

22:52Have you guys, like, what do we think about this?

22:54Jasmine:This is fascinating to me. I think it says a lot about Sephora and what it actually takes to grow in these mass retailers right now. I remember speaking, it must have been five years, six years ago now, to a, you know, a venture-backed beauty brand, founder-led that was launching into Sephora. and it was in one of our female founder world, like mentor calls that we do in the group chat. And she said that it will take five years for most brands minimum to be profitable through Sephora. And you need to be ready for that. It'll take like everything basically from your business. And that like turned on this light bulb for me around changing the idea about what a mass retail launch actually means for a business.

23:36Jasmine:Because I think a lot of us who haven't done it might look at it and think, oh, once you've made it, once you're in there, because the volume is so high, those orders are so big. it's like the holy grail for brands but actually it is it can be like a really competitive money pit for a really really long time and take a lot of focus away from growing some other channels for the business and it's very interesting to see a brand that has all of the options in the world turn it down yeah no a hundred percent it makes me think of the amikole situation of I think it was late last year like the buzziest brands of for everywhere but just couldn't continue to raise that investment and have ended up having to shut the business down which I'm sure a lot of that investment is going towards Sephora it's like so similar to our Benny story and I think a lot of founders myself included you think like this Sephora or this Target or this Whole Foods whatever it is that's going to be like this golden stamp of validity for press for investors and everyone's going to want to get on board.

24:37And it's been exciting. But like on our personal experience, like it's not like it's been night and day, honestly, from the investor conversations that we had pre-Target to post-Target. I think had we spent the money that we've spent at Target on direct to consumer, we're a beverage brand. It's very different. But if we'd just been working and we're bootstrapped, we still haven't closed that crazy investment round. If we'd just been funneling everything into our own channels I don't know what the situation you know would be and they always say it's so classic that cautionary tale of like once you're in if you're out to get kicked out of these retailers it's like a pretty you know grim outlook so the Jones Road story is so inspiring.

25:19I always think about that yeah I always think about that five-year mark that Jasmine told us about ever since you told me that I would have had no clue and we always say you know something like Sephora is a once in a lifetime or once in your brand's lifetime opportunity and you don't get to go back and change it and try again so I feel like almost the gold star is not needing a retailer like Sephora at all I mean that's a huge win but the question is how do you achieve that how do you achieve that cool factor I think a lot of it comes down to the product like if your product is truly great and you have that word of mouth that's amazing but then it's like you have to have the word of mouth and the community and the buzz about how great it is to achieve that so it's like do you spend your money and your efforts trying to achieve that or go towards like the retail side of things.

26:17So yeah, I think it's amazing. I mean, I'm so proud. I'm like, what a great positive story to have someone like that who's so worthy, have the ability to turn down such an opportunity.

26:29Jasmine:I think it's really cool. I think Paige, like listening to what you were saying, Benny as a beverage company, you need to be convenient for everyone to buy. So you need that. I feel like it's a long game for you guys. I agree. I get it. But for a beauty brand that maybe has a higher price point and lower shipping costs, you know, it actually might make sense not to pursue that. It also makes me think of our retail bootcamp program. So we need to host this live again soon. We aren't doing it on demand anymore. We're doing it a couple of times a year and I'm teaching it live, but it's a, it's a program that focuses on building up your indie retail channels first before you go into these massive retailers and learning from that.

27:08Jasmine:And also building out like a profitable wholesale channel before you start going into the more mass channels. And I feel like this is like quite validating, although that's not the exact direction she went. It does validate this thesis that, okay, launching straight into mass retail as a small brand can be just like a big money pit and might not be the best way to go. Totally. It's so classic, mo' money, mo' problems. Like that is how we feel. thank you jasmine for the validation no regrets but i do think like the opportunities right now with like tiktok shop and amazon like cannot be understated and are just so much more affordable for founders that i think so often we're chasing those headlines or like what's the buzziest news story that will get us on forbes 30 or 30 or like get us this pr or this investor instead of building like a truly like foundationally solid business um no love retail boot camp i can't wait for it come back but I like I get that but I also think that building brand is a long game and you're not going to see results from it tomorrow but building brand is a really long game and it is defensible and all of the things and that's what I think you're talking about with what you're you know the way that you're going and it's not like you're not going to see you know you're not going to see ROI on that tomorrow but I think it's it's like important and it's just a different strategy that's what I'm going through with my business right now we had you know great launch it was fun we don't have any plans to be in retail anytime soon but it's like okay now we're starting to invest in things that are going to help us in the next couple months next year year after that next launch whatever it is that we decide to do and it's kind of like just throwing money and ideas at the wall and being like well hope this works just to build that before we can do anything else there's really nothing else to do I want to talk about before we before we get to our swaps just sport and this is like such a random just sport it's just just a bunch of our sport can you tell I'm a massive sports fan go Nix yeah go Nix I there's there's something happening here and we need to talk about it I'm not someone who I'm not someone who is like a massive like fan of any team or like really knows anything about sport, but let's just talk about sport.

29:32Jasmine:And I'm not just talking about women's sport. I'm talking about female fandom in sport, which I think is a massively, massively untapped audience. There are a couple of reasons why I think that is about to shift in a really big way. But if I was building a consumer brand right now, you know you're looking for the white space where there isn't a lot of noise but that your demographic is held captive and live sport is that I saw uh Laney the founder of say beauty post that they were advertising on screen at a Knicks game and they were the only brand that was like targeting women on that like in that area and then I saw Pinterest release their latest trend report and usually this is like a seasonal report right or it's fashion or beauty but they released a sport report which I think speaks to the fact that we're starting to understand that sports fans are also people that buy beauty products and like pin their mood boards and outfit inspiration for the season I think all of this is kind of coinciding with we've got um winter olympics We've got World Cup coming up.

30:50Jasmine:Like, I don't know. My husband last night was really excited because like the Knicks are in some finals or something. No? Natalie? Yes, yes, they are. They are. Like there's something happening. What final? I don't know. No. Oh, my God. This is so, I hate this. We're like fulfilling every single cliche right now. but there is a massive fandom of women around a lot of these teams, these athletes, sports in general, in these stadiums, watching these games and the brands are not tapping in. So I think that if you are a brand that is looking to reach women, don't discount this space. I'm not just talking about like the WNBA.