552: She Went From $0 to $15M Selling Eyeliner | Iris Smit [VIDEO]

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. On paper, everything looked amazing. I was on shark tearing for God's sake and my business was doing exceptionally well. But I think it was coming from an unhealthy place where it was like, well, when I do this and when I hit this milestone. Then finally I'll feel happy. I really hit rock bottom and I remember driving home really late at night going I just wish there was a reset button on my life. So there was a real shift in my entire life to be honest. That forced me to sort of restructure the way I was running my business, the people I was hiring.

1:16My entire approach to my business completely changed. I think when you don't listen to that gut feeling like I've learned since then the universe bitch slaps you and comes back to bite you. Here are the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:43Look, talk us through the quick flick. You've created this amazing brand, but it was really about gaining ownership over something in your life. So take us back to the moment when you first came up with the idea and really just bringing the brand and the product and turning that process into reality. So yeah, the brand came to me in 2017 when I was studying architecture. I was in my final year and I was in my mid-semester break, which is crazy to think. So I think that was about six weeks and over the course of six weeks, pretty much birthed the brand. and actually at the time I was running an e-com business for my then boyfriend and really got a taste for business.

2:32The e-com world was just popping off at the time and I was like I would really like to do something for myself and create my own brand. I was really into makeup, always had been very much into design, obviously studying architecture and at the time winged eyeliner was just popping off in the world. Everyone was wearing a winged eyeliner. It was like every YouTube video would end with a winged eyeliner and no one could do it. So I decided to, actually first I decided to look for something that would make the application easier. I couldn't find it and then pretty much ended up opening up my AutoCAD program, which I was using for architecture at the time, creating a winged eyeliner shape, finding a manufacturer to model that up and pretty much designed everything, the packaging, built the website, created all my social media, everything over like, it was like six to eight weeks in total, which was just wild.

3:35And yeah, launched the brand very quickly. I think at the time I didn't realise, you know, some of those deeper reasons behind why I was doing what I was doing and it only really sort of came forward a few years later during some very intense therapy sessions and I realised it was my own sort of way of gaining ownership and sort of taking back my identity which had been very much challenged and taken away from me growing up living in a household where I was subject to domestic violence. So I think growing up, I had always felt like everything had been taken away from me. I wasn't worthy of anything.

4:22I was constantly in this toxic cycle of trying to prove myself to the world and sort of measuring my worth of a human as how successful can I be. So I really think I treated creating a business as an outlet to sort of deal and process a lot of that, which I think at the start was really unhealthy. and we can go into it but you know a few years after I started my business everything sort of took a turn and I very much hit rock rock bottom and realized I was sort of doing a lot of things in my business and really using it as an outlet to try and process a lot of the trauma that I'd been through and then realized it wasn't really helping me and then And there was a huge turning point where I sort of had to build my entire business back up from scratch from a completely different place after I had worked through a lot of the trauma that I've been subjected to.

5:20Yeah, wow. Thanks for sharing. So you launched the Quick Flick in 2017, right? Yeah, correct. Okay. And talk to me around like it cost$10 ,000 in savings while you said juggling university. How did that launch go? Why can you talk us through was we did it did it because because it because eyelashes magnetic is magnetic right the magnetic eyelashes really. So I did a false lash application about two years later. So the first product was the winged eyeliner stamp. Yep. Okay. And then I launched that into a range of shades, different sizes. And then, yeah, I did do a lash application. It actually wasn't magnetic lashes.

6:09It was a lash adhesive, which basically works like a sticky note. You know how you can stick a sticky note and then you can take it off and reapply it? But so I actually launched that just as COVID was hitting, which was perfect because we sort of acquired this whole new customer who couldn't go to the salons to get their lashes done. So that did really well for us over COVID. Got you. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Excuse my knowledge around this space. Okay. So you launched the first product, which was your Hero product, in 2017. How did it go? That kind of space, though, pretty hot back then, right? Yeah.

6:44Yeah. so I would say it was probably easier to launch a brand back then because there was just less competition it was also easier for me I would say because it was I had the advantage of it being completely unique and a first of its kind so I ended up getting an innovation patent on the design as well and I think it was just like right place right time like I said winged eyeliner was just the look. Everyone was wearing it. But I guess it wasn't like overnight success. I kind of didn't really know what I was doing. I was sort of learning as I went. So I think the first day I launched, I did like$800 in sales.

7:23And most of that was just friends and family, really. And it was a really slow burn. I think it took about four-ish months until I really started to see some traction. I guess I was also still juggling working full-time, going to uni full-time and then sort of doing that in the evenings but I think it really took off when I had some like key influencers using the products in their videos. Back then the influencer space was just completely different, you know, one person could use it and it would just equal$10 ,000 in sales like an hour, you know, it was crazy and then I guess it was just like a catalyst of events after the influencer used it I had a Daily Mail writer see that video write an article the Shark Tank producers saw the Daily Mail article reached out to me encouraged me to audition for the show so it was just like this nice little catalyst of events and then I guess it really sort of started to take off early 2018.

8:26Got you that was pre-Shark Tank? Yeah so yeah pre-Shark Tank pre-me actually filming it, it started to really take off. I think it was just the influencers using it, a lot of the PR that had came about. I wasn't really even running that much in terms of ads. I think it was mostly just organic really at that time. But I think what really made it blow up was Huda Katan, who's the founder of Huda Beauty. She made a video using it. And I think at the time she had like 30 million followers and it just I remember opening my phone up and going what is going on and I saw she had posted um so yeah I actually filmed Shark Tank February 2018 it didn't air until early June so during that time before it actually you know airing the business just really took off started to gain a lot of momentum I had retailers reaching out and a lot of that was just driven by socials and people struggling with winged eyeliner every influencer using the stamp in their makeup video tutorial yeah it all just came together the start of the line yeah and so there's a few things that I would love to unpack um when you get a post from an influencer that has like you said like 30 million followers like what what kind of sales does that equal?

9:55So I think on the first day we did like close to$50 ,000 in sales, which wasn't, you know, it wasn't a usual day of sales. I think, you know, maybe around then we were doing$2 ,000 a day on average. So yeah, I could hear, you know, the Shopify ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, what is going on. But I think it's a very different landscape now with influencers. I'm not sure if we would replicate that again. Yeah. And then you said that the Shark Tank producers actually reached out to you. So you didn't apply. You didn't look to go onto Shark Tank. No, I didn't. And I think one of the reasons I didn't was just the headspace I was at the time where I was like had a lot of limiting self-beliefs and thought I'm a newbie there's no way I could go on Shark Tank you know there's it's very well established businesses that go in I had this very sort of like negative self-talk and yeah when I first got the email I actually thought it was a scam I'm pretty sure I deleted it and then I was like hang on maybe it's real, undelete, and didn't respond, didn't audition in time.

11:15And I just had this voice in my head at 12.30am in the morning saying, Iris, just submit, just apply. So I got up, quickly filmed a video on my iPhone. It was so raw. It was like UGC before UGC was even a thing and then submitted it the next day got a call from the producer saying we loved it we loved how raw the video was glad you liked it and yeah long story short ended up making it on the show so can you imagine had I not submitted how different things would be yeah and so you raised 300 ,000 well you got an offer that you accepted for 300 ,000 but then you decided to turn it down why talk us through that talk us through that experience and did the publicity really help the business grow because by that stage you guys were like on the way to being a million dollar brand yeah so like I said before I filmed it in February it didn't actually air until early June so quite a few months later and when you film there's a large gap where at least for me I didn't hear from the shark for a very long time and so much happened in such a short amount of time.

12:39Our sales were like doubling month on month. We were approached by Priceline who had like POs ready to go to range us and one of the main reasons I went on Shark Tank was to try and find an investor to help me with retail because I knew that I wanted to be in retail. I knew the cost it was going to take to do that. And I was just navigating a space I knew nothing about. So yeah, when it came to actually, you know, us sitting down and going through the deal, it just, the valuation had completely changed by that point. And it just didn't feel like the right deal at that stage because so much had changed.

13:19So yeah, decided to go our separate ways and not go through with that that could be pretty daunting um for a lot of entrepreneurs like because most people dream of getting a deal on shark tank especially in the early days like i even like i even i even applied for the first ever season of shark tank in australia i got to the final round but they they didn't put me through um which was a look it was all good um But, and I remember when I was like, did you have to do, I don't know if you felt this, but I had to do like a couple of rounds of like testing with, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the producers were like, look, whatever happens, regardless, you have an amazing story.

14:08Congratulations on all your success. It was early days, founder. So maybe like 2015, 2014, like just before the first season. But I didn't get on. but I know I meant for many people that would be in your early stages like a dream to to you know work with a shark to get an offer and it to look good from a publicity standpoint because there's always that fear that you might get the bad edit because they need that um so yeah so was it was Was it tough like to looking back like, you know, to just say, hey, I don't need this? Are you hesitating to take the next step in your e-commerce journey? Founder Plus has you covered.

14:52With proven frameworks tailored to your business needs for fast results, a supportive community of over 30 ,000 like-minded entrepreneurs and weekly live mentorship sessions, Founder Plus is your key to success. Try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days and start building your dream business with confidence. You can visit founder.com forward slash start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial. Yeah, it really was. I had a lot of pressure from people around me to take it for the reasons like you said. It's an amazing opportunity. How could you turn it down? People dream of this.

15:34There was a lot of pressure, but I just had a gut feeling that it wasn't right. It wasn't the right direction to go in. And I think when you don't listen to that gut feeling, like I've learned since then, the universe bitch slaps you and comes back to bite you. So yeah, it was just like a very deep, deep inner knowing that it wasn't the right direction to go. And based on all the events that incurred after the filming in such a short amount of time, and yeah I guess there was you know pressure how's it going to look from a publicity standpoint

16:13but I guess it was just a it was a challenge to mold me in terms of how much are you really going to trust what I think and not let the voices of other people's opinions who are giving you opinions on a business that isn't theirs how much am I really going to let that impact me so it was a really big challenge on trusting my own inner knowing and where I wanted to take the business. So, so then what happened next? Is that when you really hit rock bottom after that? I started hitting rock bottom around the Shark Tank period, which again, I know some people would say is so bizarre because on paper, everything looked amazing.

16:52And I was on Shark Tank for God's sake, and my business was doing exceptionally well. I had a growing team. Like I was ticking all the boxes you know but I think it was coming from an unhealthy place where it was like well when I do this and when I hit this milestone and when this happens then finally I'll feel happy and whenever I then reach those milestones the happiness didn't come so it felt really really exhausting and I think I hadn't faced everything that had happened to me growing up. I was just living in denial and I guess hadn't processed any of it, had never gone to therapy, hadn't really spoken to anyone about it.

17:37And I was very much living my life with the inner voice of I'm so fucked and I could never be fixed because everything that's happened to me is just so horrific. I could never, I could never move past it. I could never get better. so what's the point? That was my inner dialogue. As I was constantly trying to achieve all these things and thinking once I achieve all these things, it will eventually be better. Then when it wasn't better, it was like, well, what else can I do, you know? So yeah, I really hit rock bottom and I remember driving home really late at night one night going, I just wish there was a reset button on my life.

18:20That's it. That's the only thing that was left for me is what I thought. I just need a reset button on all of this um and yeah I guess that was like a big wake-up call of I really need to take my mental health seriously stop burning myself from both ends and go and get professional help to work through this because there was really no lower I could go at that point yeah thank you for sharing and what happened next like you said to me you had to rebuild the business from the ground up like did you start experiencing losses um like did like you like talk me through that well what happened next was I ended up finding a really good therapist and pretty much did almost two years of very intense therapy twice a week and through that birthed a completely different person I became a completely different person so the business that I had created, the structures I'd created, the people I'd hired, the way I was running my business from that old Iris no longer aligned with the new Iris.

19:29So there was a real shift in my entire life, to be honest. And yeah, that forced me to sort of restructure the way I was running my business, the people I was hiring. My entire approach to my business completely changed because I had been built from this old mindset. Yeah. And can we go a little bit more in depth? Like, can you give us some examples or share some stories perhaps? Yeah, I think, um, like a lot of entrepreneurs when they start, you know, you hire friends and family and friends of friends and you're not necessarily hiring the right people for your business with the right talent. So I think I probably wasn't taking my business super seriously at that time and was just sort of, you know, handing my baby over to anyone and everyone and just trusting them to do the right thing.

20:20But at the time, you know, my friendship group and a lot of the people around me weren't, I realised, the best people for me. And it was my own fault. You know, I was probably quite a negative person at the time and running from an energy that wasn't good. So obviously, going to attract similar people. So once I started to shift and change through a lot of the therapy I was doing, I was like, whoa, what is going on? This just does not feel right anymore. So yeah, I changed a lot of the people who were in the business. I also completely restructured how we worked. Like I was very set on, we have to have an office and everyone has to be based in Perth and all of our fulfillment has to be out of here.

21:08Like that was very much my ego just playing into the image of what a successful entrepreneur looks like, like a nice big flashy office and everyone working from there and a big warehouse. And then once my mindset started to change, I was like, well, actually I can run this remote and open this up so I can hire people from anywhere and everywhere and give them more flexible working hours. So yeah, it changed in many of many ways. Yeah. Okay. There you go. And by this stage, the business was a multi-million dollar year business? Yes. Yeah. So I'd launched, this was, this was after I launched into Pricelive.

21:49This was probably, this was between this whole like kind of shift happened between 2019 and 2020. And I think COVID was just like the major catalyst that was just the confirmation for me especially from the remote angle once everyone started working remote it was almost like a nice little test drive and I was like actually this is right I let go of my office my lease was ending and yeah that was like the final thing that cemented it yeah yeah okay and then when did you launch the beauty fridge because that's your second business but I think it was quite clever um soon after the year so I launched that in late 2019 um and yeah like you said it was it was just like right product right time like skincare was popping off and then COVID hit and everyone was like buying products for their their home and rearranging during COVID because they had nothing to do so they were buying you know products to help with storage and organization um so yeah I I launched that um yeah just before it hit and then COVID hit and it really took off in 2020 also did like a split um model with that where when in store was stuck to like target price line and then also sold online as well yep got you and how fast did that brand grow like you talk us can you talk us through any numbers or details um I don't like to touch on the numbers too much but it yeah it did grow exceptionally well I think with that business though I realized it started to become a little bit of a distraction though to quick flick I've started to spend a lot of time in that and I think I realized this is not really a long-term brand for me it was more just like a I guess like a trend product like just strike while the iron's hot go as hard as you can It was actually, it came again at the perfect time because Quick Flick, when COVID started to hit, was very much like a cosmetics focused brand.

23:59Eyeliner stamps, lashes. And I very quickly realised COVID was having an influence on consumers to shift away from wearing like very heavy, full glam makeup and become more focused on their skin health. Natural looking makeup. that sunscreen started to come big. So during the time where I needed to really like double down and create new products and really innovate Quick Flick and move it away from just being a cosmetics brand, I had Beauty Fridge on the side doing exceptionally well and almost carrying Quick Flick through that transition period. And then once Quick Flick had all of this new innovation, we launched our sunscreens 2020 or 2021 and then went really hard into the sun care category I sort of toned down beauty fridge and then quick flick stepped back up so that it actually worked really well they're sort of lent on each other yeah got you and yeah look you have played in a few different categories but what I love is you've got the brand right and then you can play in different categories but for the most part in the beauty space how and you you've bootstrapped the business so you've had limited marketing budget how do you creatively market the quick flick and stand out in a crowded beauty space like a lot of people want to move into the beauty space yeah so I think there's a few answers to that question so I think the main well one of them would be really honing in on the founder profile and messaging so if you go on my socials you'll see that I'm very active on there and show like a behind the scenes sort of angle to the business and really focus on storytelling taking consumers behind the journey of what goes into running a business you know how do you develop a product from scratch which I know sounds like a lot of people do that but I think I started doing that before a lot of people were doing that which is where I've sort of become really well known for taking people on the journey saying to our customers these are the 20 different shades we're trying to choose which one would you like really involving them in the process I think the other one on our branded socials is really honing in on problem solution because that's what our brand is all about it's like problem solving beauty products.

26:31So give me a problem. How do you reapply sunscreen over makeup? Let's show the problem, which is let's go and spray white sunscreen on our face. Put on the screen problem and it's like it's such a good hook. People are hooked. Oh, the problem. Oh my God, what is that? It's like a good visual hook. And then the next clip, the solution. Applying our product, you can see straight away how it works. It doesn't leave the white cast like the previous clip. And it's short. It's like a 10 second video. So really understanding people want to see quick solutions. They don't necessarily want to be, have their attention grabbed for a long period of time.

27:12This is how to acquire new viewers, right? And then once we've got them in and interested, then start showing them more of those longer form pieces, like how do we develop this product and really educating them and taking them behind the scenes and showing them everything that goes into it, which is really interesting to some people. Like a lot of people say to me, what should I post about when I haven't even started? Like it's, there's nothing interesting I can post about. I'm like, creating a business is interesting. There's so much you can show because not everyone is starting a business. So I show in the lab, designing the packaging on my laptop, all of that process and really involving our community.

27:51So they feel they've gone along every single step. They've had input so that when the product is launching and hitting shelves, they're already, they're eager, they want to buy it. People get angry at me. Hurry up. Can you just launch it? When is it coming? Literally, I show a product once on my socials and I'm like, I'm thinking of this. People already start commenting, when is this coming? So I think really involving your customers in the brand, almost like, you know, they're a partner with you along every step of the way. Yeah, look, there is definitely a massive trend for founder-led brands and building in public.

28:32Like that is something that is going to continue to massively rise. And the founders that are not doing this, they're really missing out because it's free marketing, right? Agreed, 100%. Yeah, if you're not doing it, you're missing out on a huge piece of the pie. Yeah, and you said that you were very early on doing that before others were did that come naturally to you or was that a strategic move uh it just came naturally to be honest I think after I went on Shark Tank I was kind of just like forced to profile myself I think like people would ask like where's Iris how's she going can Iris do this tutorial what lip liner is she wearing in this video like I just started to see people were taking an interest to me.

29:19So yeah, around 2020, when TikTok was sort of starting to rise, that's when I got more heavily on TikTok and sharing the behind the scenes, which, do you know, it was a real challenge for me because it felt unprofessional at the time. Because back then it was all about this nice polished front. Like you wanted to look like a huge professional brand. And you didn't want to show them how you were designing your products. It felt like you were a small-time brand if you were doing that. But I just started testing and posting and doing little things here and there and would see the interest people would have.

30:01I think one of my videos, I was just sketching out a shelf-ready tray for our retailers. People were fascinated by a cardboard tray that sits in grocery. But no brand's ever spoken about that. You don't think about that when you go into grocery and go, oh, there's a cardboard stand on here. Someone designed that. And there's so many things you have to think about when you're making this stand. So when you start showing the behind the scenes on that, it's interesting to people and they don't feel sold to. So they're getting a natural interest into your brand, but they don't feel like you're forcing them to buy something.

30:34But then once they're in there, you know, inevitably they may towards the end. Yeah. And that connection and relationship that you build with your community, it's so much stronger. Like you don't need like a super large following. Like if you look at, you know, your Instagram, TikTok, you know, collectively it's like only like, is this around a hundred thousand? I don't remember the numbers, but it's, yeah, it's like a hundred thousand plus, right? So mine are the brands. Your personal. yes I think personally across like all my platforms I've got about 150 ,000 yeah there you go right and so some people wouldn't realize that like you don't need a super super large that's a large following but you know what I mean like even if you have millions yeah yeah yeah like even if you had 20 ,000 on TikTok and 20 ,000 on Instagram like 50 ,000 but a really good strong relationship you can move a lot of product you can build a large community because that's a lot of people right yeah absolutely like you would get i'm sure like hundreds if not thousands of responses sometimes to your stories right that you can't keep up yeah 100 and especially on videos where i'm asking for feedback on product goes off because people love to give their opinion you know but not everyone would like so I have like you know 20 30 ,000 followers on my Instagram but I don't I I don't really which I will in the future like try and build a relationship like deeply with my community and the founder community people just followed me over the years and I don't really post right and that's you know so if I did a post it might only get like a thousand views 2 000 views you know and then like if i ask the question i get you know 30 40 50 comments but not like you would think because i haven't spent the time to build that relationship to build up that engagement and it sounds like you've been doing that for quite some time and now it's reaching critical mass right yeah okay so um you've talked about how you stand out um how do you find new product ideas because you've moved in in many different categories sunscreen to makeup to like even like like the beauty fridge like like you you seem to be hitting a lot of winners is there anything that you can share around how you identify trends or identify up and coming products to launch under the quick flick yes of course so main one would be just listening to what customers are saying so yeah people aren't afraid to share what they're struggling with what problems they're experiencing with beauty applications for us in general like with the sunscreen one I was seeing a lot of people searching online and coming to me and saying could you create a way that you can easily reapply sunscreen when I wear a full face of makeup there's nothing like it out there.

33:43And then thinking of the solution in an innovative way. And I also, when I think of the solution, I also like to think, how am I going to market this? How's it going to be visually appealing? How can I show it in the first two seconds and hook people in? So I'm almost thinking like good product, good visual hooks on marketing and also making it, you know, look good on TikTok and on Instagram rather than designing all the product and then sitting down and going, okay, how are we going to market this? I'm already thinking how am I marketing this as I'm designing the product. So, example, also our sunscreen.

34:24I know people can't see this at the moment, but a lot of our products we've gone for a domed lid. When I went into market looking on shelf, there's no other brand sitting in grocery with a domed lid. It's different. it's going to stand out. Because it looks different, it's going to spark comments from people who are going to comment on how the packaging is different. So just thinking about the whole, like the end to end, where people are going to buy it in retail, what's it going to look like online, how am I going to demonstrate and market it? Again, I developed a tanning mousse, I made the applicator look like whipped cream because I knew when I marketed it, spraying out a product that looks like whipped cream that's tanned is going to hook people in.

35:14Every single time I start a video spraying this tan, no joke, the video will get over a million views. So I'm thinking about all of that as I'm doing it. And then also just sitting online and reading and just consuming as much data as you can, looking at what other people are saying about other brands, what are they writing about in their reviews, what are the negative reviews saying, like what are current products not meeting and just absorbing all of that when you're thinking about what your solution could be.

35:50I said something else before when it was recording, I can't remember what I said.

35:58Those would be the main ones, yeah. But I definitely think for us the winning is the products work, obviously, but they're just so visually appealing and they hook people in when I market it because of the application or how you apply it. And talk me through how you bring the products to life. like how do you source the product and manufacture like talk us through that piece do you use agents often or because because yeah you it sounds like you run a pretty lean team as well yes yeah so people would be shocked to know that the product is all done by myself and I've become really good Like, yeah, I think you're right.