How We Built a Global Business Working From Home: Flora & Curl

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance app. That's why this series is a passion project for me. As someone who's set up a few businesses, I know how hard it can be. And I want you to learn from the mistakes, the lessons and the pitfalls of other entrepreneurs so that when you embark on your own entrepreneurial journey, you're equipped to do so. In this episode, I'm visiting a co-working space in the heart of Birmingham to meet Rose, the founder and creator of a haircare brand called Flora and Curl. She took a passion and from that passion built an audience. And after she'd found her audience, created the product.

0:58Now, the success of that product has enabled her to build a global brand. This is an amazing case study on how to utilize modern tech to create a global small business. And the reason I'm meeting her in a co-working space is that since the coronavirus pandemic, Rose's entire team have been working remotely. So I'm excited to find out what we can learn about that. And of course, we're going to talk about support. And support is where Lloyds Bank come into this conversation. They provide holistic support to Rose and so many other businesses, along with really good guidance on starting, managing and growing a business.

1:30So let's get to it then. Welcome to From Startup to Standout. Let's meet Rose. Well, Rose, it is so nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited about your journey because I think that there's such a great lesson these days that modern technology allows someone like you with a passion to turn it into like a global business. So can we start with the conversation about the passion? So I started Florancurl as a hobby and it was from my own desire to find products that were really simple and effective. So I had been straightening my hair for years. And so I wanted to basically go into the local beauty store and find something that would make my hair moisturized and nourished and just restore it back again.

2:13I felt really overwhelmed and I began to kind of look into my mum's cupboard and kitchen and find something that I can make from scratch. so I began sharing my recipes online. What year is this now? This was in 2011 yeah yeah so yeah years ago and so I also launched a blog and I was sharing my journey and one day I decided to ask a question what is your biggest hair problem? I had about 3 ,000 followers then on that blog and about 300 people responded a lot of them were complaining about dry hair and also feeling overwhelmed about where to start. So that was when the idea of Flora and Curl sparked.

2:52Flora is Latin for plant life. And I love aromatherapy. I love playing with essential oils. I wanted to create a really streamlined range, like a capsule range, that would basically meet the basic needs of textured hair. So I like to call it plant-powered textured hair essentials. And so we launched with three products. I opened up a UK Psy. I started with a newsletter base. So I actually went out to my audience and said, you know, I'm launching this brand. Would you like to sign up to be the first, you know, to be the first to know when we launched? So I actually launched a store with 500 people signed up to that list.

3:28And I think that was a great start for me because I had people who were already there invested. And they knew that I had a solid problem that I wanted to solve so they could trust in that. And yeah, launched the first store through Shopify, made a great initial first sale. and then the traction started building. I started learning about running Facebook ads, running them and then the US audience, the US customer base grew as well. So we launched a US site and then yeah, fast forward seven years later, we're a team of 14. We've shipped to more than 80 countries and we're stuck in Boots and Superdrug with lots of exciting retail expansion plans in place.

4:05Wow, the potted history of Flora and Curl in two minutes. There's a lot of information in there. Yes, there's a lot to unpack. But I can see just even having this really brief conversation, like the fact that this is all rooted in passion, right? Yes. And we have so many people that come to high performance because they're passionate about something, but so often they're tied to the job they're doing. It's a regular salary. They've maybe got some demands on their life, mortgages, children, dependents, things like that. So can we talk about this idea of the power of following something that you're really passionate about?

4:36Yes, you can be motivated and dedicated. So those are really essential skills to have. But there is something about being passionate about something. It almost makes you slightly delusional about your idea. And sometimes you need a bit of delusion when things look bleak or, you know, someone else is saying it's not possible. So you need that bit of excitement. And I think that passion just drives you to just keep trying. And even when things don't necessarily work out initially or you hit like a curve, that passion still just drives you and pushes you forward. So I care and also care as well, caring about the problem you're trying to solve genuinely, not because, you know, you're just trying to sell another product.

5:11It's because you're trying to genuinely solve a problem. So for us is, can I empower my customers? Can I make them feel more inspired by their routine and feel like they're saving time and they're loving themselves again through using their hair care products? Can we talk about trust as well? Because I think that, you know, people often say to me, why has high performance been successful? And I believe it's because people trust us, right? They trust us to have powerful conversations that gives real value to people. Yeah. And I think, listening to your story, the entire business really is built on trust.

5:40So let's go right back to the beginning. And I want to know, for people that maybe want to follow in your footsteps, how did you go about building that trust at the very start? Yeah, sure. I think it's consistency. And people can see that you're authentic because they can see that you had that problem, firstly. And so they know that you can resonate with that problem. so they can kind of trust you to create a solution because they know you're probably going to fight hard to solve that problem. So for me, my hair was really thinned out from years of chemically straightening and using straighteners on my hair.

6:10So I was really just passionate about restoring my natural hair again and wanting to just see it flourish and be healthy again. So that just drove me to produce more content, to share my routine with my audience on my blog, to be there answering questions, communicating with them, interacting. It wasn't just a blog, you would actually be interacting. Yeah, interacting with them. So your hobby, just interacting with them. So I still feel like I'm simply shy about sharing my story. I don't know why. But when people hear my story, I'm surprised. It makes them even more connected to the products because it's like, oh, this person knows what they're talking about.

6:42They actually had this problem. So, you know, I'm definitely going to try my best to look into Flora and Crow and what we're all about. So I think that trust element is vital in creating like a loyal customer base, not just a customer base that maybe buys from you once and that's it. And what about the important first step of actually turning a passion into a product? Because I think that you can have a blog, you can love fashion and beauty, you can be passionate about protecting your hair and giving advice to other people. That is still a long way away from suddenly going, here's a product. You know, how do you source it?

7:13How do you create it? Where do you get the bottles from? How do you brand it? I think the thing that holds so many people back is that the leap seems so huge. So could you tell us about the day that you took the leap? Yes, I wasn't in haste. I wasn't trying to run a race. I think I made a decision to work part-time. So I actually moved to Birmingham, worked part-time in transplanting, moved from London. And so one day out of the week, I was dedicating that to my business. I wasn't just going to just, I'm going to just ditch my job and then just take this on full time because at the end of the day, it's a risk.

7:47And so it has to be a calculated risk where I'm kind of building slowly and seeing what the appetite is in the market. and so when it got to a stage where you know the traction was coming I you know I went I went full time on this business but before that I actually quit my previous job to spend six months in cosmetics formulation school so I actually wanted to understand the science of formulation and the formulations that I launched with actually mine and I even essential oils in each product or each range sorry and were mine so I wanted to understand what it takes to create an effective product and so I had some savings so I launched Florham Crow with£5 ,000 in my bank.

8:29It's just saving. Money is the thing. Most people go, I haven't got the money to launch a business. Yes, so bootstrap. £5 ,000. Yeah,£5 ,000 I had saved. My parents weren't too happy with that because for that, so they thought I was crazy. So I decided to learn from scratch how to create my own website so I started using Shopify, designed the website myself, really basic. I found an amazing illustrator in London who could create some botanicals in our first packaging. And so I put the labels together myself, just with my knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, because I used to use that in Transplaniac.

9:03This is proper bootstrapping, isn't it? Bootstrapping, printed the labels, found a label printer locally. I was still manufacturing. I was still making the products in my mum's kitchen. And so, yeah, really bootstrapped just myself, doing the social media, doing the email marketing. and then when I started to gain more traction and the revenue started to build I decided then okay it's time to find a third party manufacturer. My mum was very pleased I moved out of the kitchen and brought on my first employee. We found a third party fulfillment center as well so kind of just building slowly. You don't want to run before you can walk and I feel like sometimes people just want to run a really fast race and it's sometimes guilt just build slowly and eventually it will happen.

9:45Before I launched, I amassed 500 people subscribed to the launch newsletter. So the first day we had 50 orders, that was, wow. I thought, wow, this is amazing. I guess people who were watching me on YouTube and following my blog. And then sales died down a little bit, but then we just - Did that worry you? That worried me a little bit. But then I thought, okay, well, there's something here because yes, it's all well and good having your existing following by your products, but how do you build a sustainable business? So I started to run some ads. I love the fact you say we. It was literally just you.

10:19Going back to years ago, just me. I learned how to run some basic Facebook ads and I started getting some traffic in to a Shopify site. And so people were buying and the conversion rate was pretty good. So it's always telling you that, okay, people see the products, they see what we're all about, they're buying into that. So sales started to pick up as well. and then it was we started seeing a lot of orders coming from the US and that was incredible like the UK is one piece of the market for us so the US market is huge for us in a textured hair space so just seeing the amount of sales coming through that kind of made me realize okay I think there's something here let's you know orders were coming in let's look for a third party for film and center just you know as I continue to build out the business and bring in more traffic.

11:08that is for me anyway the most inspiring part of your story and i want people who listen to this conversation to understand that it's now possible thanks to modern technology yeah to run a global small business it's a small business because you've got how many staff 14 15 14 of us 14 stuff but it's global 20 30 years ago nobody with 14 staff was selling products around the world but technology has allowed this to happen so let's talk about the fact that when this does happen and you need to employ people, when you employ people, you go from being a founder and a startup owner to being a boss. Yeah.

11:41And having to create culture and having to sell your dream to other people and having to deal with people, which, as any business owner will tell you, is the single hardest part of running a business, right? Yeah. So how's that gone for you? The majority of the time during the week is you're at work, right? So five days out of seven days. So how do you build a culture that people don't want to run away from? So retention was really helpful for me, especially at the start. I think when you're building the foundation, you want your team to be really invested, to grow and build with you. So it was important to start thinking about ways of how to make communication seamless, how to build a culture of transparency, accountability.

12:20I think it's about modeling those values myself. I always find that as a leader, you have to model what you want your team to emulate. yeah um and so give me an example what did you do so i call it the three c's we care we create and we communicate so the first is we care is we care about each other we know that we're all investing hours of the week to try and make this a dream that we want it to be so caring being kind and approachable is really important those important values to have in this company in the team we communicate is transparent communication not being afraid to share your opinions even if you disagree with one another is actually great because you can learn from each other.

13:03We're open to testing and then we create. We love creativity, thinking outside of the box, especially in such a competitive industry. We want people to want to break the rules and try things. So how do we create, you know, budgets for testing and thinking outside of the box so people feel comfortable coming up with ideas? So, I mean, you might have someone who's absolutely brilliant in the team, but they might not feel comfortable sharing a really brilliant idea because they feel like everything is so structured. So I think allowing people to feel like they're themselves in work, comfortable, expressive is just, it's amazing because you never know, you test an idea that might sound really crazy at the start, but then it works really well and it delivers the goals that we're trying to achieve numerically.

13:46So whatever values you stipulate, I think it's good to write them down and, you know, share them with the team and model them so that it sets a standard across the board um and when you're hiring as well it's you know even if it's not part of the job description you actually make sure that it's highlighted somewhere because you're not just hiring for competence as well you're hiring for cultural team fit and that is I feel like sometimes underrated but it's important to make to create a team where people feel that they enjoy just coming to work and interacting with everyone else um do you subscribe to the idea of attitude over ability?

14:22I think there's a balance. I think competence is important, but I don't think we should completely ignore attitude as well. And how often do you communicate with the whole team, like a whole team email? Yes. So we use Slack to communicate and we have a biweekly team meeting where everyone gets to share their contributions in terms of what they're working on, what goals they're set for themselves and the progress. We have remote appraisals and we also have, we're about to introduce a one-to-ones. I'm actually about to implement line management. So that's something for me is handing over to my line managers.

14:56Handing over control of the business you've created. Delegating. That's always so hard for fans. That's hard. But then I realise someone might have more time than me and they can do the job. And I don't want to be rude, but also more skill. And more skill, yes. You can't be the best person at everything in this business. No. And why, as I, obviously at the start, you have to kind of be a jack of all trades because you're bootstrapping, you learn in different areas. But then you, as you grow, you can afford someone with more experience and more skill. And hopefully you can delegate and that person has more time and they can actually do that thing a little bit better.

15:29They have more experience and more knowledge. And so delegating has been great for me because I'm able to like set budgets and I'm able to focus on what I love doing more, like sales and creative direction, branding. I love that. Those are my areas where I excel. So why not focus on that and trust in my team? We've spoken a lot about the business, but not about the product. And we've got some here. So that, what have you got there? The scalp refresh shampoo. That's our Soothe Me scalp refresh shampoo. And I don't think I need the curl activating lotion, but I'm sure it's very valuable for people that do.

16:02I would love to know what's special about your product? Because one thing that you have done, which, and I give you huge credit for this, you haven't gone into a market where there's no competitors. Like you've basically gone into a market where you will be taking on businesses with not a few hundred thousand pounds budget, but budget in the millions to promote and develop and grow their businesses. So how do you stand out? What's the key? Yeah, so our mission is to simplify our customers' routine and with high quality plant-powered ingredients. Compared to the norm, we don't use any synthetic fragrancing.

16:33We use plant-powered, naturally derived essential oils and just making someone feel really good when they use the product. Like aromatherapy is really powerful mentally. It makes you feel incredible. So that's one point of differentiation. So with simplifying the routine, we don't have a huge range. We don't want to have a massive range. We just want to keep it really sweet and simple. And then we also care about the environment as well. I feel like people tend to get really overwhelmed when it comes to talking about the environment. I really believe that every little helps. And progress is better than perfection.

17:05so we decided to rebrand in november and swapping out plastic to aluminium and it wasn't it wasn't a straightforward project but we managed to make it happen thanks to my amazing team um so we managed to reduce plastic um in our packaging because the beauty industry is definitely one of the biggest plastic producers so we wanted to say less plastic fantastic um we also support we forest and reforestation and planting trees and basically doing what we can to give back to the environment i mean we are called flora and curl but we're not just trying to sell product it's trying to say that you can have beautiful products on the shelf that also are making a a bit of a better difference um to the environment look finally before we wrap up so far it's been a really lovely positive conversation okay yeah but your business is at seven years yeah which in itself is a huge achievement as i said at the start of this piece so many businesses fail in those first three years yes so rewinding back to those first three years for anyone who's enjoying this conversation thinking they would love to follow in your footsteps what were the biggest challenges and the biggest lessons in those early years that you'd love to share with us yes so um i think the biggest challenges were trying to um compete i guess in terms of marketing not you know we didn't till today we're not we don't have an external investment so bootstrapping building ourselves up um that way um the advice i would give to anyone starting is to not run before you can walk.

18:29Sometimes, especially in the product-based business, you feel like you need to launch 20 products or 10 products in one go. Why not start with one really good product, one really amazing product or two products that you've tested and put through the fire and, you know, build on that. And then you can learn from that. So if that product's selling really well, you're getting great traction. What can you learn from that in order to inform the concept for your next product and build that way? Yeah, I think just being focused and simplifying your goals at the start will help you stay, you know, to keep your mind on that bigger goal and grow sustainably and profitably as well, which is helpful in the long run.

19:05Absolutely. And look, before we part, can we have a really realistic conversation as well about the overwhelm, the loneliness, the sleepless nights? In fact, it's the first thing you think about when you wake up, the last thing you think about before you go to bed. You're the first one to see the issues on the horizon before anyone else is even aware of them. Yeah. What is it really like being an entrepreneur, being a self-starter? Yes, it's a lonely journey. And I didn't have a blueprint. And I think on the internet, there's a lot of talk about the glimmer and the stars. But there's not a lot of talk about the challenges and struggles.

19:38I do know there's a lot of founders who have, you know, they filled initial businesses or they had different ideas that didn't work out until and they found that idea that worked really well. So I think not being afraid of failure, that was that's just something that I needed to just have in mind that it's OK to launch a product and it not do so well or, you know, launch that first iteration of a label or packaging and it's OK. Like don't chase perfection that you lose the picture of like the beauty of the journey of getting there. There's beauty in learning and getting data. It doesn't have to be perfect.

20:10As long as you have data and you have someone buying the product, you have time to refine. And that's what our rebrand journey taught us. So we funded the rebrand journey, very expensive, but we had an existing customer base who we could rely on, who were invested in us. So, yeah, it has been difficult trying to project manage that. and being so passionate. I think no one quite understands, like, I guess the dedication, the long hours, but I feel like I'm at a stage where I have built a team so I can like delegate and trust in them and it's time to kind of relax a little bit. So few people get this far, so make sure you do take time to just reflect on what you've done.

20:48I will do, I will do. Thank you very much for having me. Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. So cool to meet Rose and have a chat with her. And I think the message is clear that when creating a startup or being an entrepreneur, there are so many amazing moments, so many rewards, so many possibilities, but at the same time, some serious challenges, and you can't go into this journey without your eyes wide open. Hope it also came across to you because it did to me that after all these years, Rose remains as passionate about her brand and her business as she was at the very start.

21:20And I think it's a great reminder that good things are happening in British business right now. And Lloyds Bank have got the ability and the expertise to support you on any business journey. If you want to find out more, just go to the Lloyds Bank business website and join us next time for another episode of From Startup to Stand Out.

21:56Oh, man.