525: They Made $25,000 in Two Weeks Launching Their Haircare Brand | Rina Gocaj & Floriye Elmazi [VIDEO]

29:31I'm co-founder of Sisterwood. We're a hair care brand doing XYZ. If anyone's interested, come check us out on our Instagram page and our Facebook group page. And this is our landing page if you want a$25 gift card. And then one of the groups, I can't remember if it was the postpartum mom one, but it went off. It had like, I woke up and it had like 250 comments. And I was like, what is happening? And they're like, I need this. You know, I'm losing so much hair. And that's when we knew we were like, that's a good market too. Like no one's targeting that market. No one's really speaking to these moms that are frustrated.

30:03And the visually impaired community as well. They were like, oh, I love this. Like I put tape on my products and we're like, we know we've done our research and they appreciated the research and then we'd sent them to another survey that we'd have and just to see if we're on the right track are we doing this right is the braille enough is the tactile imprinting okay we also had a lot of support with vision australia too we went on their radio and we were able to speak about our products and how it helped them yeah that helped as well they they allowed us to target that audience and a whole new market that you know no one else had access to which really helped as well in building that list because you know not only do we have the everyday customer but we've got the visually impaired and blind community and it was just really good work um working towards that another thing that we did that was probably a little bit cheeky is um we gave away like mecca gift cards and sephora gift cards because we knew that that's where a lot of our target audience shops yes so um people would think oh my god did you guys just partner with them we're like no we're just giving away gift cards so we'd have bags of mecca bags and giving it out, having giveaways online.

31:07And it was great because we sort of took that community and bought it to our page and that was what we wanted. Yeah. And so talk to me, we've talked a lot about pre-launch, product development. What happened next, right? You guys obviously sold eventually that MOQ, 10 ,000 bottles. Fast forward to now, like what happened next after you guys kind of, you're like, oh, we're onto something. What happened next? Yeah. Well, after we hit six figures organically as a business, we were excited and shocked that we even did that, to be honest, especially because it was all done organically through email marketing, through online sales.

31:50We also have a really good, loyal community of customers. We have a 48 % customer retention rate, which is a testament to the loyalty of our community. their repeat customers, they come back. And that has helped us a lot. The thing that we never really focused on at the start was Facebook ads because we didn't have the budget too. So we thought, we tested it out. We said, it's too expensive. It didn't work out with the agency that we worked with. We said, let's stop. Let's not make this a priority. We're doing a lot better organically than we are with ads. So let's just keep the strategy going until we hit six figures.

32:25And then we hit six figures. And then we were like, now what? How do we get to seven figures? Like, what are we going to do? And that's where we knew we can't do it ourselves. And I listen to a lot of podcasts from founder to female founder world to others. And we go to a lot of events as well. We're always networking. And that's when I discovered flow. We need help. We need an advisor, a coach, someone. And that's when we found an incredible advisor who sort of started advising us into that little more scale up stage and helping us grow further um and things started getting a little bit crazy as well because then we had a partnership with revolve in the u.s which revolve is pretty big yeah massive we've been doing the founders revolve yes so um we're stocked on revolve in the u.s we're stocked on oz heron beauty here in australia yeah and we strategically decided to only start with marketplaces yes just to sort of test the waters see how that goes we're small So we thought, let's start with marketplace first and then go.

33:28And then we've started speaking to a lot of other retailers. We're currently in discussions with six major retailers. Yeah, wow. And, you know, we may not launch with all of them. We may launch with some of them. We may choose one or two as exclusive partners. We don't know what that's going to look like just yet. But the fact that we had a lot of people reach out and show interest, and a lot of them were interested in different angles. Like some love the postpartum hair loss angle. Others love the scalp wellness angle. and then some love that we're so inclusive and accessible to a target audience that no one else is targeting.

33:59And it was just really great, but it was also inundating and scary for us as first-time founders. We're like, there's too much interest. Like, who do we speak to first? And that's where we thought we need that advisor. So having an advisor has been instrumental for us going to that next stage. And I think we advise that everyone get a good advisor early on. if you can't afford to hire a team or a CEO for that matter yeah just get a good advisor and that's been really helping us a lot the other thing that also helped us continue to grow was doing PR early on we invested in PR and worked with incredible PR agency from Sydney Hive HQ Jessie is incredible she was instrumental in getting some really good PR for us during our launch and I think it's important to invest in PR with your launch strategy because it's sort of puts your name on the market and it creates that credibility and trust, which I think is important.

34:54And I think we had some really good features. We were featured on Smart Company, InStyle, Forbes Magazine. So it was really good. And that was also really great. And now it's all about just seeing through a lot of the retail discussions. We get contacted by retailers a lot and we haven't rolled out anything just yet because we're completely bootstrapped. And we're still figuring out whether we want to keep being bootstrapped or whether we want to go fundraise. We've met with a lot of great investors, some that have shown a lot of great interest that want to work with us. And depending on how our retail discussions go, we have investors that are ready to invest, but we don't know if we're ready yet.

35:36Being bootstrapped has been so special to us and holding on to what we've built. I know people say, don't get too sentimental about your business it is business at the end of the day but we don't want people to come in and control I guess um the difference that we're making in the world we want to continue being a purpose-led brand and hopefully as we grow we'll be able to decide what that looks like and I'm sure you'll be able to find the right partner that can give you guys that control I think sometimes there's this there's two sides of the table right where it's like you hear these stories about VCs and they take your money you take their money and then they control you but then there's also other stories where they've been incredible partners to help a business grow and scale there's like you know there's always good with bad right with all these different stories but nicole kidman jewel leaper and lindsay lindsay lohan all have one thing in common right they have used your product and absolutely love us talk us through that like how do you work with these really well-known influential people yeah well that was really interesting um any good stories we've got a few good stories some of them are exciting but Flo and I just thought you know I'll start with one yeah go ahead so um we would get um these singers come into Melbourne like Albanian singers that are very popular around the world and that's our community as well and Rina would contact this hairstylist and she's like I'm gonna get this product in their hands into these um singers and um so every time one would come she'll find their hairstylist would post it out send it to them Rina's like I'm driving there now I'm gonna go take it I would drive myself yes and go drive off product and then yeah they'll get um the products in their hands so like Dua Lipa and a few others and yeah I saw that Dua Lipa was on tour and I just reached out to her hairstylist and he was kind and I was like yeah send me product I'll use it on tour no problem and I just sent him a big package literally drove to the hotel dropped it off and they were like yep we'll get it to him and I texted him he's like yep it's downstairs I'm like thank you and that it was as simple as that I think it's all about being proactive and seeing where the opportunity is present.

38:05If you see that, you know, there's a celebrity that you like that's in your area or that's doing something, or if you know someone that can get to them, reach out. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? They say no. So that's what I did with that when it came to like Leah Schreiber, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey, and all the, Matthew McConaughey loves our products, which is so good because he's got beautiful hair. But that was really exciting. So I actually worked with this incredible lady who owns an awesome agency in LA. And I sort of did this like test trial with her. I said, hey, she only decided to work with us because she loved our inclusive mission and she loved how different we were.

38:46She said, I've never heard of products like this before. This is interesting. She goes, I'd love to send it out to Matthew McConaughey stylist. And I thought, OK, why not? To be honest, I didn't think it was real. I thought, OK, I'm just going to get scammed. I'm going to send free product, lose product. But it is what it is at the end of the day. I sent it out and oh my God, it was incredible. Not only is the lady lovely, but his hairstylist is incredible. And then he came back asking for more and we sent another set. And that was just really lovely just to hear that someone as big as him liking our products made a world of difference.

39:19And then we continued to send to more hairstylists. We also sent to Vito Trotta, who is a celebrity makeup artist that does shows in LA, in California. And he was on set with Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning, if I'm saying it right. I'm sorry if I'm butchering it. But yeah, so he used it on set and that was really exciting as well. So it was really great just getting a lot of these celebrity use it. And we also, I felt like being a little bit ambitious and reaching out to bigger celebrities on my own. So I started finding agents online. and started reaching out to agents and that's when I reached out to Lindsay Lohan's agent and I was like I want to send products to her I love her hair I've always loved her hair growing up and I'm like I'd love to send product to her so we sent product to her agent um her agent got us in touch with her husband and her husband was like yeah send it no problem then I sent it to him and then she reached out personally and was like thank you like the products are amazing thanks for sending it through so that was also really lovely she reached out personally which was also was so nice so that was really kind of special yeah yeah and i think it says volumes when you send the product to somebody but they just don't accept it you know like imagine how much stuff they would just accept free stuff but for her to actually reach out and say hey i like actually used it one and then actually took the time to say thank you and give you guys the compliment of the product that it's been life-changing it's amazing that speaks volumes absolutely absolutely but like you said um you have to be intentional when you send to these celebrities you mentioned they get a lot of products sent and that is true and that's why Flo and I were like well what's going to make them want to accept ours we're no one they don't know who we are um and it's all about creating the right package that's going to capture their attention you know you send these fancy boxes to influencers why not create fancier boxes for these celebrities and create a personalized note that's really going to make a difference.

41:21And for us, we wrote Lindsay a huge one-page paper. And we were like, we're either crazy, she's either going to think we're stalkers or we're nuts, or she's going to appreciate it. And she loved it. But we reminisced about, you know, what we loved about her hair and why we thought this product would be good for her. And again, you know, she had a baby, you know, postpartum hair loss is real. And she always has this golden, long, red, beautiful locks. and we thought the products would really help her with like her scalp and everything and we were really intentional we know a lot about Lindsay because we grew up watching her over the years so we included all that in the paper and it made a world of difference and I feel like had we not included that she would have probably just been oh okay another product but you have to be extremely I guess purposeful and intentional with people yeah no um sorry Chloe you're gonna say something you remember um when we were writing the letter rena was started off with like writing about our business and our product and i was like no me you know we have to connect and and make it meaningful and we've read our own experiences of what we how we connect with her ourselves personally so that um letter when she when we got the response from her and she said thank you and she got tears in her eyes reading it it was really special so yeah that meant a lot to us because even before we launched the business we thought hey if we're lucky enough to get into celebrities hands who would we want first and on the count of three we've all said lindsey we've had like this young not obsession but we've always admired and looked up to her like our younger selves so it was pretty special getting products out to her yeah that's an incredible story so the consistent theme that i see among successful founders when it comes to especially to the e-commerce space is they spend the time getting the product right and this is something that you guys have done right and it took three and a half years most people when they want to start an e-commerce business they want to launch in like three months what would your guys advice be to people right like because you guys have went through a lot of iterations you said a lot of sampling you know most people probably would have gone and got it out there like what kept you guys keep going through that iteration process what would you say to people honestly nathan people is what kept us going when we embarked on the journey like flo thought it was going to be 12 months yeah i thought it was going to be roughly 12 to 24 yeah i thought no flow might be a little bit longer we didn't think it would be three three was like really pushing it and stretching it out what really kept us going and we are i'll never forget the day we were actually so close to giving up i was about to tell Flo that I want to be her co-founder anymore.

44:01Really? What happened? I was a little bit homesick and you know I'm from New York, moved to Melbourne. I've got two little kids. It started becoming a little bit overwhelming with COVID, missing home, not being able to travel back and seeing that it was going to take so long. And then Flo and I had a meeting and we had a meeting with the Vision Australia community. And when we found out that little kids go to camp and have to spend two and a half hours labeling products to just be able to tell which is their shampoo while they're showering at camp. And the kids were my son's age. And I just looked at my son and I'm like, if he had to sit there for two hours labeling products at camp, I'm like, he shouldn't.

44:43He should go to camp to have fun. The product should already be labeled for him or someone else should be doing it for him. But they let them do it to empower them and help them feel like they can do this. and that's when it really struck a chord for me and Flo and I looked at each other and we were like this is much more than just a hair care product you know for the postpartum moms it's for everyone it's for everyone especially this audience that is overlooked and underserved and the way that we looked at the industry is we said you know what we've watched the beauty industry evolve over the years from you know sustainable products to inclusion catering to different skin colors and skin textures and hair types, but we haven't watched the beauty industry focus on inclusion for the differently abled person, for the disabled community.

45:28I feel like beauty is very much created for the abled bodied human that we tend to overlook the disabled community. And it's a little bit unfortunate. And that to me was the biggest factor. That's like, we need to keep going because this is more than just a hair care product. It's a brand with altruism it's hair care that cares for a reason we care for moms we care for people we care for the visually impaired and that's honestly what kept me going throughout all of it i would say people that are starting on their journey and creating these products not to just create a product that you just want to sell and make money off because it's it's not going to get you very far you really need a purposeful business you need to solve a problem you need to help people in this world um and because that's what's going to keep the longevity of your business and keep you motivated and keep you inspired like you got to love what you're doing and why you're doing it and that's what actually keeps us going we're doing it um for people in our community we're doing it for our own families um we're doing it to make this world a better place so it's um it's more meaningful so when you're starting out try solve a problem try help someone in the world and you'll enjoy what you're doing.

46:47And we saw that even though we had no product and this was very much pre-launch phase, even though no one really knew who Sisterwood was yet, the only people that knew were people that, you know, worked with us through our R &D stage. When we were recognized before even becoming a brand, that spoke volume because when we would do all this research and send out questionnaires, we had a few people who had alopecia who would send us messages and who'd say like, this is what I need. Cause you know, like I don't really have hair to take care of, but I want to take care of my scalp and I still want brands to think of me.

47:20And then we had this really incredible customer. Well, she wasn't a customer yet, but she was really lovely during the early trial stages where we had her trial products. She had undergone chemotherapy. She was in remission. She wanted to regrow her hair back. And when you look at photos of her before, she had long luscious locks and then had to go through chemotherapy and obviously lost all her hair. she wanted products that were going to help her grow her hair out and she wanted to test trial our products and she test trialed them and had been trying other products on the market for months and nothing was really helping accelerate that process and then she started using ours and within three months like her hair grew so much and it was just it was nice to get that feedback from that community and then you know we had moms come to us like we had a mom who had a son that was visually impaired and had slight autism as well and she said the product calms him down in the shower he loves using the little beads and plays with them and i love he loves being able to differentiate which one is which and you know hearing that people are so empowered by our product i just feel like that itself just kept us going we said we need to properly get it on the market so it's not just the people that are test trialing our product that have access to this wonderful product but also the rest of the world and that's what kept us going yeah there's a lot of um different touch points that help you keep going um one that i remember as well is our um manufacturer and that helped us formulate the products with science and chemist he was like girls you're still going like i really believe in you you're doing so well she's like so many people have like stopped their businesses when we started at the same time so these little things and feedback that we get along the way they keep you going you know our manufacturer is great and finding a good manufacturer is important so if anyone's listening that's important but yeah he kept us going too because he's like i can't believe you girls are still here that's incredible he goes it's a long journey he goes you're about to hit three years and you're still going and we'd still come to him with different things and he's like oh no what do you want today you want to make the product magic now and he would say all these funny things and we're like yes we need this we need that so because it required a lot of innovation we're currently making three new more three more new products so that's exciting too yeah yeah and for anybody that's thinking of starting a brand and you i'm sure you guys experience this too like the hair care industry it's pretty intimidating right like there's some big big players like how did you guys build the confidence like you've never done this before right like you know like you come from that industry but like to take on big brands why you like how did you work through that um even though there's competitors out there there's enough people in the world for everyone um being i've been in the beauty industry for like 15 years and your customer and client becomes your friend and they come back to you because they like you for um you helping them and giving them the best treatment so doesn't matter how much competition is out there whoever likes you will come back to you or will want to try there's enough people in the world for everyone so and enough money in the world for everyone so yeah you shouldn't be scared of that and if you're creating your own community your business is going to grow every day like even if it's that one percent input that you're putting in that adds up so um yeah it's important just to not be afraid and face those fears and just be as creative as possible try multiple different ways to grow your business yeah we had a really unique question um after we launched by some really good investors and when i think about it now i think it's also the reason why we had the courage to start a hair care brand.

51:13It's a funny story because Flo actually wanted to start a skin care brand. And when she asked me to be her co-founder, we landed on hair care because our manufacturer actually said, look, at this point in time, I don't think your girl should do skin care. And at that moment is when we did a lot of research and realized scalp care wasn't a thing yet. Scalp care now is very much a thing. Every brand is focusing on scalp care. It's booming. But when we started working on it it's there was still nothing really on the market with scout care so very new too though um it's still very new today absolutely but i feel like the brands that are out today were not out four years ago when we were creating our products either so i feel like we all kind of sort of started coming on the market around the same time and you see a new brand pop up all the time all the time but for us it was having that differentiating factor and pioneering a space that no one else is looking at.

52:09When we started the brand, we looked at the evolution of beauty, like I mentioned before, and the one thing I saw that was not evolving was the inclusion in that disabled community in different ways. Like you look at companies like Sephora, and they have Clean at Sephora, and they have ranges for all different skin colors and skin textures and hair types and hair textures, but there's nothing really on retail shelves. that's helping visually impaired people or disabled people. And when we think about it, they are a large target audience. In Australia alone, there's 500 ,000 blind people. Globally in the world, there's 2.2 billion people that are blind and visually impaired.

52:49And that's a large number considering there's, what, 8 billion people in the world. And by 2050, that number is going to rise by 50%, which is a really large statistic. And the numbers spoke volumes to us. We were like, there's a huge market here. There's a huge opportunity to pioneer a space that no one's pioneering and really bring inclusivity to the forefront of the beauty industry the same way that sustainability is and clean beauty. Because, you know, they're huge now, but it took a brand to pioneer that space for that space to become what it is today. And I feel like it always takes one person, one step to come to market and create something different.

53:28And that's why we wanted to create Sisterwood. And it's been incredible because after we've launched, we've watched a few brands create products with Braille on them, products with packaging that have tactile imprinting on them. And that's what we want in the beauty industry. And going back to what that investor asked us, they said, well, what are you going to do when every brand starts adding Braille to their packaging? Well, that's the point. We want every brand to add Braille. We want it to be the beauty industry standard. we want everyone to start being inclusive because while it does take some sort of effort the guys that are bigger than us it's a lot less effort for them so they can be inclusive quite easily if you think about it and we just feel like the beauty industry really needs to fix its standards and that's why we created sisterwood we wanted to pioneer this space and we felt like there's a big enough market here and we do feel like you know the future of beauty is inclusive to be quite honest because it's everyone's starting to talk about it now and blind visually impaired people are starting to become more spoken about the things that they want the things that they're not seeing on shelves and it's important to just listen to people and listen to what customers want also when we started our business we were pitching to retailers from the beginning and we were getting a lot of no's because people weren't seeing the value in inclusivity and now everyone at this time everyone so many people want us now who do we want to who do we want to launch with and so it's funny how when in time things change and when it's the right time for you um so don't give up on your beliefs even if you're getting no's keep going because it doesn't it doesn't matter and adding to that Flo and I actually when we were speaking to our lawyers we purposely decided not to patent or trademark any of our tactile and printing systems.

55:28And we thought we're going to create it. We're going to leave everything unprotected. If people copy it, that's beautiful. They're going to be inclusive. We don't care if they take the same symbols. And there have been brands that have took our symbols. And we've been happy. And people, I think we got like 300 DMs. Did you see this brand started? They're trying to be inclusive like you. And we were like, that's amazing. And we're shouting them out. and they're like why are you being nice about it and we're like well this is what we want we want the beauty industry to be inclusive we want everyone to start doing this so when you guys were talking about your story then the thing that was coming back to me was this just incredible patience that you guys have right and this idea i think so often we're sold this get rich quick rubbish or overnight success and i remember even when i started founder no one would get back to me right to do interviews and then i never i remember one of my mentors saying to me nathan just keep going right just keep going like eventually it'll come to a point where people come to you right and it's exactly what you guys shared right like it just takes time you have to be patient there's ups there's downs and that's why i love like speaking to you guys right and hearing your story around the ups and downs and just you've just kept going and going and going so we have to work towards wrapping up like we talk to you guys all day but if there was anything that you'd love to share with our community anything around kind of founder your experiences you know you know tapping into our community and tapping into you know founder plus now like you know our courses our programs and how we've been able to help you guys or anything on your journey.

57:10What would you guys like to share just to finish off? No, absolutely. Like I said, the founder course has been incredible. And the start and scale course especially has been instrumental in helping us start our business. I feel like we probably, it would have taken us a lot longer to launch without it, if I'm being completely honest. There was a lot of incredible things in there. I remember during one of the modules, Greta mentioned something about sourcing and being able to source the right supplier. And after we had multiple failed molding iterations, I went back to that and I said, I really need to do this part of the module.

57:46I need to focus hard. How am I going to source properly? And she had some really great websites and key steps in there that were so important. And she always gives this really great resources on how you can better things and be more efficient. And that helped us. If I didn't have access to the course, it would have taken even longer. And it already took us long enough. So the founder course was extremely important. And then when we did launch, something that helped us a lot was the start and scale course. The module where Greta talked about like influencer discussions and how to deal with them and what you should be paying them and how you should be negotiating.

58:20And even the templates, if you're a first time founder and don't know these things, the course just offers these incredible templates and drafts that are created for you that you can just edit. It was just game changing for us. And I feel like when you're a first time founder in an industry where you've never been before, I think it's important to have the right resources at your fingertips. And the thing I loved about Start and Scale that we both really enjoyed is the community. You get access to people. you're not just speaking to, you know, your team that helps us, but you're speaking to other people going through the same problem.

58:54So if you're a solo founder and you know, you don't have support the way we do, that community is instrumental. They uplift you and they share wins and they tell you, they even share suppliers. I mean, it's just incredible. And I've never seen anything like it. And I just found so much value in it. What an amazing experience. And, you know, that's why we created Founder, right? Like when I first started, it just started just doing interviews, sharing people's stories but then as time went on you know people wanted more help and right like how can you connect the community together but then also how can we get these incredible people that we're interviewing to teach like Greta and that's how it all started I love that amazing I love that awesome well Flo is there anything you'd like to share just like any words of wisdom advice it's been a crazy journey you guys been building this business for what five six years now There's this quote I've actually seen on Instagram and it was Coca-Cola only sold 25 bottles in their first year.

59:53So keep going. Yeah, you've got to dream big and face your fears, gain the knowledge, start that course. We started with Founder. And the one thing that really made me excited to start it was having that community as well and being able to ask questions. And you always need help. So don't think that you can solve everything on your own. You need to get the help and support out there. The founder community was the first community that did our first ever survey. So we're grateful for that. Yeah, well, there you go. Okay, that's awesome. Yeah, so yeah, it's fun. It's challenging and rewarding throughout the journey.

1:00:34Well, guys, congratulations on all of your success. I look forward to cheering you on from the sidelines, seeing the next big retailer and as you continue to grow this brand. So congratulations. Thank you, Nate. Thank you, Nate. And thank you to the founder community. You're welcome. Hey, guys, if you love this episode, make sure to check out my interview with Trini Woodall on how she built a diehard community of followers backing her every single move with Trini London. The true beauty of our community is that there's a passion and we inspire a passion for them to make the most themselves. But that community itself fosters, you know, lifting up women.