What Happens When You're Ready to Sell Your Business

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of this show and the creator of the Female Founder World universe. Today, I'm chatting with Kandi Kemp, the founder of Supple Skin Co. Kandi, welcome to Female Founder World. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Garnsworthy. Hello. Thank you so much for having me on. I am such a big fan of your show. I absolutely love your show. I'm really honored to be here. Oh, we're so excited to chat with you. And we've caught you at a super exciting time in the business because you've actually just sold the company.

0:35And so one of the things that I really want to talk about in this is like that zero to sale kind of process without having any like venture capital or investors, what that looks like. Because we see a lot of people on the show who, you know, have VC backing and might sell their company to Unilever. And that's a totally different process. They might get a fraction of like that sale price actually in their pocket and it's a different trajectory. I think most of us are probably building these bootstrap businesses that we do want to sell one day and I don't think there are a huge amount of examples of people who have done that.

1:11So I'm really excited to learn all about that process and how you did that. Yeah, for sure. It's definitely very fresh. So good time to talk about it. Good. Amazing. Okay. So for people who don't know Supple, what did you build there? What kind of products do you sell? If people went to your website, what would they find? Yeah. So it's an Australian based hemp skincare product. It was the first hemp skincare range to come to Australia. And I launched one hero product, which was the Dew Drops. I started it, I had acne, acne started, like just my whole life, very oily, acne prone skin. And I created this by accident I just I'd run out of my usual skincare and I had hemp oil because I had superfood cafes as well at the time so I had hemp oil in my pantry and I googled coconut oil no good hemp oil I was just amazed that the benefits for this on the skin so I thought this will last me for a few days and it turned out to be the most incredible product overnight on my skin and so I turned it into a skincare brand three weeks later it launched oh amazing and so what was the first product or it was was it literally like a hemp oil face oil product yeah it was a hemp oil product I had hemp oil and a mixture of some different essential oils a few different things in there and it's called what they called dew drops yeah just the one product and I found that using that one product I didn't have to use my seven step routine it was literally just cleanser and this and that was it.

2:42Okay and you did I think it was like 15 to 20k in sales in that first month and this is as like a fully bootstrapped brand it's not like you're able to funnel heaps of money into paid ads right from the get-go or anything like that how did you do that what was the blueprint? But it was so I think it was a mixture of things one it was Instagram was just really starting to take off and I remember seeing brands like Frank Bord and you know that was all there earlier I remember watching thinking that's lucky they've got in at a great time but I didn't have an intention of doing a product-based business like this to be honest and then when I launched it was the social proof I remember when I made that product for myself the next day I woke up and I looked in the mirror and I was just so shocked that my skin wasn't an oil slick and all the red raised angry bump had almost gone flat and the redness completely literally overnight so I just remember looking in the mirror going god and I literally grabbed my phone and jumped on Instagram stories and said I just made this oil and I can't believe what it's done to my skin I need to know if this is a fluke so I want to send out some samples of it so I sent out 30 samples to people and 29 of those people said to me a week after trying it can I buy this and so from that moment yeah it was only one person who just said it wasn't right for my skin but 29 people said I need to buy this and so it was that moment that I thought okay I actually need to turn this into a business and I decided within that week I came in and sell this launch the website and it was the social proof I decided to give away 100 bottles for free because I thought if I can get that much evidence from 30 samples people in my dm saying I need it I need it imagine if I gave out a hundred bottles of social proof that would come through so I did a campaign a launch campaign I'm giving away a hundred bottles for free and I've shared all that social proof of people saying oh my gosh I need this it's been amazing for my eczema my acne my child's eczema but everybody just felt like they had to cut it and when I launched those hundred bottles disappeared literally in minutes but then I had a 50 % off backup plan because they're already on the website they're already there I've already captured them so I said here's 50 % off code if you missed that one and the next 200 bottles that was all I had because it was bootstrapped they sold within the first couple of hours as well.

5:09Wow are you someone who kind of always wanted to build a business I know I don't think this was your first business right I'm curious about your background. Yeah it's not my first it would have been about my eighth or ninth mm-hmm so a bit of a definitely love to start a business and I think it's the I love coming up with the concept and the brand and then starting something and then I love to pass it on to the person who can continue it on so I love that creative side but this is my first proper e-com beauty business the others have been I've had hospitality I've had um hair salons I've had clothing children's clothing bridal business like all different industries but this one was the one where I thought I don't want to give this like this one up this one's my baby which is really interesting that I've just decided to sell it actually so have you sold other businesses before this one I have yeah um very differently to this one because they were not turning over as much money and it was an easier process I literally sold the other ones on my Instagram stories to someone that was already a fan of the brand.

6:18Oh, wow. Wow. Okay, cool. So within, I think, six months, you were doing half a million in sales through Supple Skin Co. How were you building that? So originally you had that kind of giveaway, you had that social proof, you're creating content, but what kind of took things to that next level to get you to half a million? 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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7:4725 % off your first order at vistaprint.com. Use 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. Because of that first blast out that I did, giving out those 100 bottles, the that was impact the point of doing that was I wanted people to see it everywhere I mostly did it around the Gold Coast and Brisbane so that it was kind of in the one area and I wanted people to see it everywhere because keeping it local like that people that are local just think I'm just seeing this everywhere I go that was the point of that and then I had a lot of Gold Coast influencers purchasing the product so I didn't realize until we were sending it out oh I know who that is and then the Daily Mail picked up yeah it was very cool we're so lucky I had people tagging me going did you see this person doesn't talk about you on their YouTube channel and and um because of that Daily Mail did an article and that was the first moment it would have been about three or four months in and by that stage we were doing maybe around 20 20 to 30 ,000 a month and I just had this one day where I was sitting there and I poured every bottle by hand at this stage still I still think I still poured them by hand till it was I was doing around 50 ,000 a month wow and I just remember pouring it like one drop at a time it was so painful but my phone was just making that cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching and I thought what's going on and it just didn't stop and I called my brother because he's the only other person that worked with me in the business and I said have you done something and he looked up the google search and said no but Daily Mail has done an article oh interesting because I didn't know they didn't contact me it just came out and it had the best caption it was something like Australian made her product um game-changing products cures eczema because the influence that that had posted about it had eczema and she was raving about how great it was wow that was the most incredible article we could have ever had happened to us.

9:55I think that one article brought in about 30 or$40 ,000 and I was hand pouring everything. So that a lot of that had to be pre-order because I just wasn't expecting it. Yeah. How did you, that's amazing. How did you, I guess, like professionalize and outsource and as the business was scaling, you know, there's only so long that you can like personally hand fill all of your products. What does that process look like now, or I guess like just before you sold the business and how did you scale that up? With my first formula, the Dewdrops, I just reached out to a heap of manufacturers and I was lucky to find the one that I went with right from the beginning was just perfect and we're still with them today.

10:40And I had that original formula already. So all they did was bottle it for me, send me samples to make sure I was happy with it. And And theirs was actually nicer. It was just they sourced oils from different regions that had a bit of a more subtle scent. So it wasn't quite as earthy. And so it was the formula that I ended up sticking with. But still use them today. And then from then, when I wanted the next product, I just said to them, this is what I want in it. This is my must-haves. This is what I need it to do. And then we worked together and formulated that, just going back and forth. So you built the business over, I mean, like, I actually can't count, but six years, I think, before you sold it.

11:21Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, six years. Over that process, like towards the end of the business, what were some of the things that you were doing that were working really well to build awareness, convert sales? Like, what were those channels? What were those strategies that you were just doubling down on because they were working so well? Yeah. I really made a switch post-COVID, I would say. I had a new baby at this time as well. So I was really in my little baby bubble. And I just had like a change of perspective. And I was just thinking, I want my community to be my influences. I want my real true users to be my ambassadors.

11:59So I started the Apple Ambassador Club, the healthcare club. and I just ended up changing my whole marketing campaign where instead of using paid influencers, I didn't use paid influencers that often, but I just felt like I could see this shit happening. I could hear people talking about it in chat rooms and forums and just saying that they didn't trust influencers. When it came to skincare, I think influencers are brilliant if they're working long-term with a brand in skincare and brilliant for any other industry but I think skin is like the trusted industry that you need people that are genuinely using it and not chopping and changing brands all the time yeah I thought well the everyday customer is where it's at for me I want to see what somebody that I know is doing or you know what they're using and what works for them and I saw what it you know me just talking about my experience how that worked out so yeah just starting to use real customers and creating like a very strong community, I would say.

13:02And how do you do that? So like how do you like make your customers create content or leverage their testimonials? Like what are some of the practical ways that you go from, okay, I know that our customers love this to let's make sure that potential customers know that our customers love this? We were very lucky. It was very organic because the customers loved the product so much. they wanted to create content so it was when I when it came to me actually choosing them I started a Facebook group first of all that was called the People's Healthcare Club and got people over there and it was the people who were constantly helping others out in the community or someone had a question they were jumping in with answers for that those people sharing photos sharing their own experiences and then when I announced I was doing the first round of ambassadors I was choosing 10 of them, it was an easy pick because I could just see, yep, you're always active.

13:57You're always giving your advice. And I wanted it to be very genuine in that way. And then I'll just think when people see that and they see there's a community happening with your brand and I'm promoting them on my stories and I'm sharing that they're a genuine customer. I think that helps new customers build loyalty because they can see that there's a lot of meaning behind it. Another thing that I wanted to talk about with you. So you started the business with what, like$400 or something. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And then, okay. So then you build it into something that's doing like half a million in six months.

14:29I just feel like this is such a, for someone who is bootstrapping, there's like a lot of financial complexity that goes into that, like cashflow forecast, being able to plan for your inventory. All of that is just, I don't know. There's like, it's complicated and something that you need to learn. you also ended up I think taking some loans through Shopify Capital to kind of fuel the growth of the business how were you learning these like financial skills was that something that you learned in a structured way did you bring in someone to help you for the girls like me who are like financially literate and are trying to learn all of this what are your what's your tips I think I was probably the same as you Jasmine it was very much learn as we go um I should have listened to my brother a bit more because he was in you know I brought him into the business with me and he kept saying we should do it this way and we should do it this way but I just I need to go with what just I'll just go with the feeling and we just keep going it's the vibes it's the vibe let me just feel it out uh so we definitely had our problems as well where orders were coming in and I mean it was hitting 100 140 000 months and I wasn't prepared for that a lot of the time you know the the um the hype just kept building and people kept sharing it and more publications so I definitely wasn't ready for that and we did have our share of delays with customers we're very very lucky that our customers love the products so much and were totally and they often buy in bulk so they're prepared to have their backup as well they love buying in bulk so it was okay in that respect but yeah definitely had our share of struggles it was with that initial the way that I launched with the$400 I didn't have the product to sell yet it was pre-order but that was how I launched with$400.

16:28I used that money to buy some bottles, but I didn't have the product to fill it yet. I knew that once I got those first sales, then I would order the oils. Then I would fill it. So that's how much of a bootstrap business it was. Wow. Oh my God. That's so impressive. And why did you do the Shopify Capital? Like what part, like what was the inflection point in the business where you're like, I need to, I need to get some support. And why didn't you go for investors? I have had businesses in the past where I've had investors and I felt that it just lost the one thing that I regret doing with some businesses was I've always been very community focused and very much a heart-led founder I think like I do like to go with what I feel is the right thing to do and then when you bring investors in then all of a sudden you have to consider their best interests as well so I think it changes the way you make decisions and I saw that in some of my other businesses and then I also thought to the detriment of the community and the customers sometimes.

17:24So this time I was adamant that I didn't want any investment to come in. I wanted it to just be founder owned and that was it. And so I took out the Shopify Capital Loans purely just to get more stock. That was just for stock. And then the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is your wholesale business. I know that you use Fair. How, like what was the split before you sold the business between like D2C and wholesale and how were you building up that channel to be honest I haven't pushed wholesale as much as I could and I'm excited for the new owner to do this and have that opportunity because it's something that I really didn't delve into very much it literally would have been maybe five percent wholesale okay oh my god okay so so much opportunity there for the new owner to build out that channel wow absolutely the last thing I want to talk to you about we mentioned this at the beginning of the show but I really want to understand what is involved in selling a business that is bootstrapped that is in a category like beauty how did you know you wanted to sell like what was that point where you're like I want to sell the business because it seems like something that you've loved building yeah it came as a shock to me because even at the end of last year I was planning to have a warehouse next year and do a whole studio you know I wanted to open this warehouse where I could help other founders to come in and have space for themselves as well because there's nothing like that.

18:49I love that. Yeah. So I had this whole vision board and I'd been looking at properties and it was only in January this year that I did my beginning of year goal setting for the year and I like to kind of reflect over different parts of my life and I rate it out of 10 and I started this community for women like me who are stay-at-home mums and maybe feel a little bit lost with their daily habits and routines and I've been loving that so much and I felt like that was a 10 out of 10 and while supple I still love it I felt like I was giving it like maybe an 8 out of 10 and that was a shock to me because I thought I've never felt that with this business before and I was finding myself not wanting to give it as much as much of my time so I just did a bit of journaling and reflection on that over a few weeks and then there was something that happened I just thought this is my sign I saw someone else talking about their business and she talked about the moment that it was the right time to leave and that just landed for me and I thought I think it's the time for someone to take it to the next level because I don't think I'm going to be taking it up another level from here.

19:59Wow okay first of all are you a primary parent and also building the business. Are you home with kids as well? I have a four-year-old at home. Yeah. And I've got my other three kids are older. Oh my God. Okay. Cause when you said like the stay-at-home mom community, I'm like, yeah, but you have a business that's doing like six figures a month. Okay. Amazing. Good for you. So then you've decided, right, I want to sell the business. Something that I hear from people is like businesses are bought, they're not sold, as in like you want the buyer to come to you. But when you make the decision and you know that it's time for you to leave and pass this on to somebody else, what are those first steps first to like figuring out what your valuation is, who you should be selling to?

20:49What was the first thing you did? Yeah, I considered first going through people that already know and love the business and wholesale clients, a few people that had always shown a bit of interest. And then I decided to look into a broker as well who does e-com, which is what I ended up going with. When it came to choosing the right buyer, the broker had said to me, it will probably be a process of six to 12 months to really do this properly. And within 24 hours, there was something like 40 to 50 signed NDAs and she was just blown away most of them were from America and most of them they were very big on buying business growing it and then slipping it and so I had a lot of interest I had a lot of offers very quickly but I didn't I didn't take the highest offer I didn't take anywhere near the highest offer actually because the highest offers were all in America and that wasn't that wasn't a deal broker for me but it was the person running it I wanted to make sure they would nurture the community moving forward that was really important to me and so I talked to a few of them and the buyer that I chose I knew she's Australian based as well she has other businesses in e-com and I just knew that she felt like the right fit wow okay that's super super interesting how do you find a broker I literally just googled it and I looked up some search engines and I looked up some forums and especially for e-com and I found whichever one I thought felt the right ones for me I had a few zoom calls with some of them I went through a period of thinking do I want to do this with so much effort it's a lot of yeah yeah I bet yeah I did go through the period of oh this is so much effort I'll just keep it and then I went back to no I want more time with my children I've worked so hard for so many years and we're about to leave on a holiday tomorrow for a month.

22:52And it's the first time because I now will no longer have the business that I get to spend a month just with my children and not working. Oh, that's so beautiful. And like you have earned that good for you. I hope that you enjoy it. I have more questions about selling the business. I'm so curious about this. So I'm guessing a broker like takes a percentage of the sale. Is that right? Do you know what standard is for an e-com for that? It's 9 % broker. Nine. Okay. awesome and then so then you are going through the process of vetting potential buyers but what's going on behind the scenes in the business to get the business ready to sell I'm guessing you there are things you need to prepare you need to get your ducks in a row cross your t's dot your i's all of that what does that look like yeah so the due diligence process was obviously all of your financials profit and loss um your balance sheet make a bank I know I didn't do banks I I didn't have to do bank statements.

23:50I had to do all the Shopify reports, Google Analytics, Meta, put everything in neat little folders, all the Dropbox files and just getting everything ready. Knowing this now, if I started another business in e-com, I would go into it always prepared for an exit. I didn't think I would ever sell this. Yes. I didn't run it in a way that I didn't run everything neat and tidy in the background like I would if I knew. So many people say this. and you get so like focused on the growth of the business and that always is going to take priority over like you know those annoying little things like balancing your cookbooks but yeah that's such a good call out to you know even if you don't think you're going to be selling it in the short term like it probably is going to happen at some point if you build a successful company you're going to want to leave at some point so you want to get all of that stuff sorted yeah and it's not hard if you do it from the beginning.

24:45Okay so the very last thing that I want to ask you Candy is for a resource recommendation something that's been helping you as you've been building slash selling Supple Skin Co that you would recommend other folks go and check out. Yeah my recommendation is probably more of a personal one I think as a mum and as a mum of four and busy I have multiple businesses going on and I'm somebody who has in the past really struggled with focus you know focusing on the one thing at a time like I want to jump I mean same probably very much the same breed so I find that it's all about those before bed and morning habit for me I never used to be a habit person at all and it's part of why I created this community as well just to try and help other women who feel a bit loft in that same way so for me it's the nighttime habits every night before I go to sleep I'll write the things that I want to get done the next day that are really important because you know you have those moments of inspiration and for me it comes late at night and I think I want to do this and this and this and then the next morning you go well that's a silly idea or there's no time or you forget what am I meant to do again so writing that out each night before I go to bed I always do what I'm what's important to me to get done the next day and then in the morning before I touch my phone I used to grab my phone as soon as I woke up and check my emails and check my comments or messages from customers I no longer do that until after school drop off which is huge for me so that's a good I get up at five that's four hours of no time which is huge sometimes I grab it to take a quick video or photo to kind of post later or I'll just jump in my community with an update if we ever had a challenge or something on.

26:34But otherwise, I don't get to check my emails or social media till after school drop off. And that's been a game changer because it means I get ready in the morning. I actually have a shower. I actually do my hair and makeup. I spend time with my kids, clean their house, other things that are a bit more productive. Yeah, I honestly think like the amount of times that I waste, not even just in the morning, but just in the day where it's kind of like my phone is just in my hands like I don't even know what I'm doing I'm like checking our community group chat I'm checking our sales I'm like refreshing emails checking dms and it's just this constant whirring thing of like we're really quick on like a lot of response times in the community chat but like we probably don't need to be you know what I mean I'd be way more productive if I could make myself a green smoothie and have a conversation with my husband in the morning I should probably prioritize that I literally did a challenge in my community where it was not checking you can't check your emails you can't check your notifications leave your phone and walk around and do other like if we were carrying it I mean you carry it from your kitchen to your laundry why yes 100 % why it's like even if I don't have a pocket it's like in my hand I was thinking this today I was like walking um really early this morning with my baby like in the pram and I was holding my phone while I was walking the pram and I'm like just just put it in the bottom of the pram why am I holding this thing like it's not I am unwell like what is this addiction I'm really curious about these habits can you share any other ones that you have that have kind of been helping so that that's a really good one I do my morning pages and yeah it's a little bit different to journaling because for me it's like whatever comes out sometimes it might be a story I think I think they're morning pages for me more so than journaling and sometimes it can be journaling but more so than just journaling it's about letting that creative brain out to play a little bit as well so sometimes I'll write a story or literally just write what's on my mind sometimes I can't think of anything to say so I'll just say I have no idea what I'm writing and that on the page I've no idea what I'm writing today but this is what I'm thinking and this is what I'm feeling and then it all just spills out.

28:45And then I find after I empty my brain, I feel like there's so much more space for creativity as well. I used to do those as well. Maybe I'll pick them back up. That's very inspiring for me. I had a few months of just forgetting about the morning pages and then I was starting to drop some of my other little morning habits as well. And as soon as I picked them back up again about a month ago, it was just the reminder of how important it is. Candy, thank you so much for coming on Female Founder World and congratulations on building, scaling and selling your skincare business. That is so exciting.

29:17I'm really, really thrilled for you. And it's been really inspiring hearing your story. Thank you so much for having me on. Really, really, really loved being here. 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. For$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.

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