684: She Bet Her House Deposit on Hair Gel - and Built an 8-Figure Brand

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1:14She's a founder of Macau, the brand born from postpartum hair frustration that blew through a year's worth of stock on launch night and is now on track to do eight figures in its third year. So if you're an early stage DTC founder, this episode is your blueprint. Yasmina shares how she turned 90 ,000 followers into a sold out launch and why a big audience alone won't do it. An exact pre-launch move with her manufacturer that saved the business when everything sold out overnight and the Black Friday disaster that made a year's revenue in one week. Then nearly broke her. From house deposit to eight figure trajectory in just three years.

1:51All right, let's get to it.

1:55Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

2:09Hey, I have a quick ask. If you're loving these episodes, leaving a quick review is honestly the best way to support us. It helps the show grow and means we can keep bringing you the founder stories and insights you tuned in for. Please share it with a friend. Thank you so much. Now let's get into it. Yasmina, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. I'm excited. So I want to find out, like, so you started your career building your personal brand as a content creator in the beauty space. So tell me, how did you build this incredible brand, Macau? How did it all come about?

2:43Honestly, it came from a personal frustration of my own. This wasn't something that I was looking to start. I didn't come out one day and go, I want to start a brand of my own. I was looking for a hair gel to solve an issue that I personally had, which was postpartum hair growth and no hairspray and no hair gel, being able to hold it back long enough for me to get to the play center and come back home. I looked like I was electrocuted by the time I got back home. And I shared that frustration with my community. And I even did a series where I shared that I was trying every Slickback product on the market and sharing how long it lasted and not a single product held up.

3:24And so when I saw that, I kind of saw that there was a problem that we were all having. And I thought, why not create one of my own? And at the time, if I'm honest with you, I still didn't want to start a business. This was more of a selfish want. But when I saw the frustrations of others come back to me and, you know, people messaging me, telling me that they too were searching for the perfect hair gel and to let me know when I found it. When I did go about formulating it, it took over a year and a half, almost two years to get to a formula I was happy with. I was using formula products that I wasn't even 100 % with, but that was still better than what was on the market.

4:02And so when I got to the final formula that I was happy with, I remember the day I put it in my daughter's hair and she went to school and I had all these mums asking me what's in her hair and how does her hair still look like you just did it whatever it is we're sold like send us the link and there was no link because I had created it and so that was where I kind of hit go and before that I was really scared because for so long I had just wanted to buy a house with my partner and it was something that I you know I'm sure many of us can relate to there's this expectation that we have as a society that you haven't accomplished nothing until you've purchased a property or you know you've got a married or you've had kids there's always a milestone that you've got to meet and for me that was the one that I wanted to tick off you know I was married I had kids but I didn't have a home and so we had saved a deposit and I thought it's use the deposit to buy a home or use the deposit to start a business and it was a very scary decision to make and ultimately in my mind it was use it to buy a home because I'm someone who I don't like gambling.

5:07I don't like taking bets, not even on myself, which is horrible to think now. And I spoke to a mentor and we were just chatting and he said, Yasmina, I see more for you. You know, you're working for all these brands. I don't think you know the reach that you have. I think, you know, if you've got something on your mind and you want to do something, you should do it because I see more for you. And he didn't even know I had a business in mind. And so I spoke with my husband and told him about it. And he's the biggest entrepreneur and my biggest hype man. And he said, I think we should do it. I really believe in you.

5:39Now to paint you a picture, my husband's bold, knows nothing about hair gel. And he said, are you sure people want to buy hair gel? I just want to make sure that people are going to buy hair gel. And I said, I think they do. And so we press go. And now we're here. So how long were you creating content for and building your personal brand before you decided to kind of go down this avenue of producing the product? And you said it took a year and a half to even formulate. So I had been producing content and on social media for about five years. I started when I first fell pregnant and had been on social media, yeah, for five years.

6:16And then it took an extra two years to actually start the business. It's a long process. I feel like people think it's just product and straight to market. I think if you know what you want and you want to put your name behind something that you're really proud of, it's going to take time and good things take time. Talk me through that manufacturing process. You said you obviously chose between a deposit on your place or putting it into the business and bringing the business to life. Can you share how much did it cost to do the first run? What were the MOQs? How many variations, iterations did you go through?

6:49How did you find the supplier and the formulator? Yeah. So I searched up online. I was looking for suppliers both internationally and here in Australia. I found the suppliers here in Australia for formulation either didn't take you on because you were a startup or were going to cost you so much money that by the time you finally had a formula, you probably couldn't afford to start the business, especially if you're starting with nothing. And so I decided to go internationally. I searched online and found a supplier and we started chatting and we went through quite a few suppliers online at first.

7:26And, you know, my husband said, I think this is a lost cause. I don't think we should look at international at all. How can we trust that they're actually going to send us anything if we're sending them money? And we finally came across one who is our current supplier right now. He's amazing. And we were speaking to him and I was saying that this was the idea that I had and I didn't have a benchmark product and that's often what formulators do. They want you to either send them a benchmark product even if it's a link to a product and we didn't have one and he was willing to try and he wanted to make my vision come true and I think that's what made me know that he was the one.

8:04He also wanted to understand exactly what I wanted and was okay with the fact that I wasn't happy time and time again and that's something that I find when you're first starting out is hard to come by. There are a lot of suppliers that will work with you, but if you are not happy time and time again, they will want to cut you off or ask for a lot more money. All up, we spent, I'm pretty sure it was like almost close to$10 ,000 in just sampling in a year and a half, which is a lot of money for just a formula. There's no packaging. There's no website. There's no after pay PayPal fees and any extra fees that you actually have to run a business.

8:45This is just formulating. So that was quite expensive. And then we added in another$30 ,000 to actually get our first batch when we shipped it all over. And we made so many errors in that process. Like we had sampling come to us, but I think when you make mass production, sometimes the color's a little bit off. Sometimes the text is a little bit off. and I'm someone who didn't want to start until it was perfect and that's something that I learned along the way not to do because I think if you're not if if you're proud of the first product that you've made you probably started too late and that's that's the quote I kind of lived by and I was like that's okay this is going to be something I look back on and laugh I ordered way like way less than I probably should have but I don't regret it I think I was taking a bet on the business and I was scared.

9:38So I think we did well in that sense. But yeah, it was a very, it was a long lengthy process. That was three years ago, right? Yeah. So three years ago, you launched the brand? Two years we were launched. Yeah. This is our third year. Okay. So third year in, multiple seven figures, on track to do eight figures in the next 12 months. So the brand's growing super fast. As I was sharing offline, you graciously said some goodies to me for my fiance and she was just like so stoked she was like oh my god I was looking at Mikael I was gonna buy this I like this is amazing she was so excited so as I was saying you you are doing something right I'm curious though what was your kind of following like before you launched how much traction did you have how did you build up that momentum quite quickly so at the time I had 90 ,000 followers on Instagram and the traction that I had around it, I did take my audience along in the journey of starting a business.

10:43I didn't share exactly what. When it came closer to the time of launching, it was maybe a couple of weeks before, I think it was a month before, where I started drip feeding a little bit of information about what I was bringing out and creating hype around it. I was sharing that I was coming out with a business and this is something that a lot of us will love. And I was sharing that this, I was solving a problem that a lot of my community was having. So we got people really excited. And when it finally got to time, I was just posting actually every day leading up, which was a month before, because I didn't want to start off too early.

11:19And even then we had to keep pushing back launch because things were going wrong. And I was stressing that this would make people impatient. So we had our Afterpay not accept Not not accept, it was just delayed at the time. So they weren't getting back to us and we didn't want to launch without Afterpay on our website because we know there are so many mums that use Afterpay, so many women in general. Some women I know that use Afterpay because they don't want their partners to know what exactly they're buying. So they're happy to use that because it comes up as just Afterpay repayment. So I do confessions on my page.

11:52So I knew all of this information based on how people shop. We wanted to have PayPal on there. when we ordered our shipping boxes they arrived and we didn't have enough shipping boxes so that was another panic but at the time of launching we thought that's okay because realistically we're not going to sell all of our stock in one night but we did and so we were packing our orders packing our orders and then we got to and upon like launch and selling out honestly our our mines had exploded we couldn't believe that all of the stock had completely sold out so we had already previously spoken to our manufacturer and said hey the hype is really real we think we need to order a little bit more can we give you a deposit and can you start production now when you're producing overseas there's a lead time yep so it's going to take them a month to actually make it and then a further month to actually ship it to you and so we knew that in two months that hype might die.

12:54And so that was the risk that we had to take. So we said to our manufacturer, we just said, can you start making the products? Can we give you a small deposit? And can you start not knowing that it was going to sell out? This is before launch, but we said, can you? Because there were just so many people once they found out what the product was, and I started using it in my hair every single day, showing from product sample to finished product, my idea of why I picked the packaging I picked, why I chose the formula that I did, why is it different to everything on the market, why is it solving a problem that maybe you are having personally.

13:30My journey in that led me to believe that, do you know what, there's something here and we need to order. It was just gut instinct. And so when we went live, I thought maybe within a week or two, at best, that's our best case scenario, wow, we've sold out within two weeks, but not within 24 hours. So by the next morning, 10am, we were just shocked that there was nothing left on the website. I was packing all night long from launch up until 5am the next morning, went to our local post office because I didn't want to call Oz Post to come pick up deliveries because that would cause a delay in my mind.

14:07I would personally take them to the post office, drop every single one off. I still have videos of myself, my pregnant sister, all my friends in the garage at the post office even, just scanning because she had so many orders she couldn't scan them on her own. So she got us all in in the back room and we were just scanning and she was thanking us for supporting her franchise business even though it's Australia Post. It was such a wholesome experience but also one that was extremely stressful. Upon launching there were so many people that were receiving their orders and as you know when something gets shipped that's glass sometimes they break and so we'd sold out some customers you know there was a small percentage of customers that got product that was broken but we were sold out with a lead wave two months until the next stock come and so we were stressing because we wanted the customer experience to be incredible we realized that boxes that were that Macau came in was actually too thin and that we needed to make it thicker because Auspost or any courier really will just pick up the box and throw it on, you know, just chuck that.

15:10There's no, there's no fragile with that one. So for the time being, we end up getting stickers of the word fragile and we just stuck it on every single order. We were still packing for weeks on end all orders. And as people were receiving theirs, they were trying it in real time on social media. They wanted me to repost. They wanted me to see that that they were supporting the brand. These were community members that have grown with me. They've watched me give birth and talk about my birth and cry on my down days and be happy on my good days. And so they felt a part of the journey, which I found so beautiful because it felt like my friends were supporting me.

15:48And so as everyone was sharing Macau at the same time, it created more of a demand and more of a hype. And my stress was that how can I maintain this hype? Because just because you have a social media presence does not mean that you automatically will have a sellout. People come back and repurchase because of a good product. I never wanted people to purchase because I am the one behind it. I wanted people to purchase because this is a genuine product that I would buy from no matter who created it. And so at the beginning, I was hesitant to keep showing my face. I started paying UGC creators as much as possible.

16:23Pump out as many videos as you can. And I wanted the feed to be filled with different faces, different ethnicities, you know, different hair textures, different hair types, different walks of life. A woman who's going into the office, a woman who's, you know, a mom postpartum at home. And then I realized that you don't have to hide from it. People don't want to purchase just because it's you. They want to purchase because there's a loyalty there and also a trust there that you are being honest about what you say you're delivering about your product. And so, yeah, I don't know. I've kind of gone on a tangent here.

16:58No, it's good. It's good. No, no, this is great. And it's funny. You got me thinking like it's funny how when you launch a business, because I went through the same thing where you don't want to make it about yourself. Yeah. And so I even got to the point with Foundr where I was so obsessed that I didn't want to make it about myself. Like it's really embarrassing. But there was a point in time where I didn't even want to run this podcast anymore. And like I put like a job ad out, who wants my job and had hundreds of thousands of applications like and then I couldn't go through them all. So it's so embarrassing.

17:34I couldn't go through them all. So I just went select all. Hey, you've been selected for the next round. This is the brief. Do a YouTube video on why you're the best fit. And then there was hundreds of videos. Wow. And I never chose anyone. See. Because I came, I ended up going full circle like yourself being like, I needed to choose myself. Yes. I need to choose me. Exactly. And so it's funny that you went through that same realization because I think, yeah, you don't, you don't really, when you create a business, you don't want to make it about you. You want to just, it's fun to create things.

18:09It's fun to build. And that's how Founders started as well. I think it's especially when you believe in it, when you know it's good. you don't want the reason to be because of you because you know the idea on its own or the project or the podcast or the product is great on its own and it can stand on its own two feet and you almost don't want to hinder the success of your own project and so sometimes we get in our own head but it's it's fiction not fact so how many units did you sell out in the first day we sold out of 20 000 units on the very first day yeah we thought we had at least a year's worth.

18:45We sold out in one day in 24 hours. Okay. So then did you take pre-orders? Yeah, we took pre-orders right away. Yeah. Okay, good. Instantly, the website went on pre-order and when the orders did arrive or were arriving, there was delays. And as any founder does, you put on the pre-order for the date that you think it's going to arrive and you don't put it in for the date that's two weeks or three weeks later. And people buy and they don't read and they get angry and all that stuff. And I was doing customer service. I was doing everything, to be honest with you. We had no team. It was my husband and I.

19:22Yep. And I was responding back to emails. I was so genuinely heartbroken when people were upset that it was on pre-order or they weren't getting their order on time. I was sending out emails apologizing. And at one stage, I stopped using my name to sign off. I started using fictional. Alias. Alias. Yeah. And I made it a male. And I was like, do you know what? These women are going to be more enticed to speak nicer to a male than they are to a female, which scientifically there's got to be some sort of research behind that because it works. And so I started signing off because people were writing to customer service like they were talking to me on Instagram.

20:03hey babe I've been waiting for your hair gel I'm so disappointed it said it was going to be shipped on this day and it's not shipped yet and I started to get sick of the fact that it was treated as if it was so small of a business even though it was but in my head I had a vision for it and I thought I need to really put in boundaries here and I need to show that this is a actual business an established business and there has to be something there even if I don't have employees yet I'm manifesting that one day there will be someone on a customer service and I won't be doing this all on my own so between packing shipping and then doing customer service I was exhausted mentally physically emotionally it was tiring you don't even get to enjoy the fruits of your labor because you're on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing you're fixing errors I ordered at one stage shipping bags because I realized that AusPost does prepaid shipping bags.

20:59That's what I was using. And so I started thinking about getting the printer and just printing them off and sticking them on our own bags. And I wanted to use compostable bags because I thought it was the perfect way to go. And so I ordered. And at one stage, I ordered by accident 30 ,000 bags instead of 3 ,000 bags. And so this pallet arrived to my house and it was to my garage. Jesus, there's no warehouse. It's just my house. And I'm like, what's this? And like delivery for Yasmina. And I'm like, oh, okay. And he puts it down. I thought maybe some stock had arrived early. Like this is incredible.

21:36Like my supplier's a gun. He knows how stressed I am. And I open it up and it's from Australia and it's the shipping bags. And I just, I remember just sitting there on the floor, just crying, thinking I'm not going to get a refund. This is the worst, like I've now spent profit on these bags and who knows how long, like what if the next shipment comes of pre-order and we don't sell that. This is launch. Launch is always known to be the best, the best night that you're going to have in your business. And that - How much did all those bags cost? A lot of money. Clearly I was so sleep deprived. I didn't see how much because when we started our business and one thing I can really, if there's a founder listening, someone that's starting out, is I never mixed my personal account with my personal bank account with my business bank account.

22:22Business was always separate and it stayed that way. And I never took a single dollar out of the business account. It was always reinvested back in. And so when money was coming out of the business account, I wasn't monitoring it because I knew everything was spent on exactly what it needed to be spent on. And so the fact that that check didn't bounce, I'm shocked that it didn't get declined, but somehow it didn't and they arrived. And luckily I called them crying and I said, I'm so sorry I've accidentally ordered a pallet worth and I needed only$3 ,000 and the lady laughed and she said I know exactly who you are because we were shocked to get an order for$3 ,000 for a brand we've never heard of and we actually googled you like good on you you're doing so well but I guess you know we'll take them back and so we sent them back which was good but yeah definitely some a learning a learning experience I'll never forget that one that's for sure.

23:12So there's been growing pains? A lot. Yeah. You said before you came on today on one of your stories that you have a lot that you want to share. What is it that you wanted to share today? I think what I wish I knew more so, this is the type of podcast and I want to always be that person that shares my knowledge. And so if it helps avoid someone else going through this mistake. I think so often people think creating a business means that you create an extra stream of income in your life. And while that's definitely true, it's an investment. It's the same as buying a property that you want to get investment money from.

23:54You have to build on it and you have to knock it down and start again and that costs money. And so when you're starting a business, you're constantly investing and you're not only investing money, you're investing your time, There are sacrifices to be made, sacrifices that go unseen. I miss so much of my kids' lives, not so much now, but there was a stage where I missed so much of them growing up and just the little things, whether it be an award at school or whether it be being able to sit down and just freely play without being stressed and having my mind be elsewhere. You miss out. You don't get to go.

24:31I missed a cousin's wedding recently, which was overseas last year because it was such a pivotal point of our business and I had to be here for our growth really. So what I wanted to say was that when starting a business, don't know going in that it's not going to be a return on investment straight away, that it's going to take hard work and a lot of times, a lot of long nights and a lot of tears, but it's going to be worth it. I think what I wanted to share was that my advice to you is continue to reinvest into the business what I found personally is and what I think we've done really well is treat it as a business that's not our own it's we have the same love for it that we would if it was our own which it is but we don't treat it as if it's our own we don't take money from our business we kind of let it grow and I treat it as if I'm working for someone else, a really strict boss that's going to be really upset if I don't get my work done.

25:36And I think that's a good way to look at it because I think when we treat it as our own, it's similar to a partner over time. You get used to them and all of a sudden you find yourself, you know, after a hard day, you kind of let it all out or your kid when they let it out after coming back from school, that's how you end up treating your business after a while because there are long days and long nights. And so I think treating it as though it's not your own for a little while is quite healthy. So I think that's what I wanted to share. Top of my head so far, but I'm sure something else will come to mind.

26:08When it comes to kind of sacrifices, what has been one of the hardest times that you've had to go through in these past couple of years building Macau? Single-handedly, the memory that I have that comes straight to my mind when you say that is our first ever Black Friday sale. We'd never been on sale. So Macau had always been full price all year round. And so we decided to do our first ever Black Friday sale. And it was our biggest sale of the year, our only sale of the year. And we weren't anticipating how many people had their eye on the product, but were holding off on purchasing until that time.