How Haley Pavone Accidentally Became an Influencer and Built a $1M/Month Shoe Brand

23:57I've won XYZ award. But as you know, as great as that is that everyone wants to give you a round of applause, I think what's much more interesting and relatable and breeds a lot more community and trust and compassion is sharing the really difficult things that you have to overcome. As we all know, as entrepreneurs, behind the scenes, it always takes like eight failures to get to one win, right? Like nine times out of 10, the ratio of wins to losses is pretty skewed in the direction of losses. We just never talk about it. And I always thought that was a real disservice that we're doing as an entrepreneurial community to the next wave of entrepreneurs.

24:33Because if all they ever see are highlight reels, then when something is difficult in their businesses, they might feel like they're the outlier. Like they're doing something wrong. Like, oh, maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead because I'm having all these problems and these entrepreneurs I follow never have these issues, which could not be further from the truth. And so I really see being transparent about the hardships actually is hopefully very encouraging to entrepreneurs that are building right now to know, hey, I'm not alone. What I'm going through is not that weird or unique. Like everyone has these problems and it does not mean you can't be successful.

25:08So I think that's what really keeps people coming back is they've got that genuine and authentic look into my life that they might not get elsewhere. Yeah. And I also think it's because there are sort of relatable problems. Like every female has like this heel horror story. And when they watch your content, they kind of see their problem being solved. I actually looked at a lot of your comments as well. And I saw a lot of comments that also said, I came up with this idea as well, like years ago. So how many times have you heard that statement of like, I came up with this solution as well? Thousands, if not millions.

25:41It's a running joke on the team. And I fully admit, I think every woman has invented this to some extent in her head. Like, I don't know a single woman that hasn't been out in some really painful heels and said, gosh, I wish I could just rip these heels off. Right. Like we've all wanted this product to exist. I'm just the first one to figure out how to technically execute it at a way that works and is safe and looks good and is at scale. So, you know, as we know, ideas are about 1 % of the invention process once you actually get into the nitty gritty. But I do think that's a big part of why it resonates.

26:11I think truly and something I believe since day one, I think this concept was meant to exist. I think it's very needed. I think it was widely ignored by a lot of the fashion industry because they figured, hey, you know, we can sell women a really expensive heel and a really expensive flat. Why would we want to mess with that? That's great. And so I think it really took someone like me coming in who was not from industry, not familiar with the status quo, building an entirely new business model from scratch that's specifically set up to handle this method of purchasing shoes. I think we're just a great example of it.

26:44Took an outsider coming in to shake some things up. So can you tell me about the demographics of your audience? You posted something on LinkedIn that says 97 % of your followers are actually females. So can you expand on that? Sure. Our customer, we have kind of an interesting customer demographic, actually. Because usually when you're building a new fashion brand, it's very much focused around the aesthetic of your product line as the main value. And aesthetic is usually very closely tied to price point. So you'll see really specific demographics around where these women are located, if that style is in line with the trend you're pursuing, the household income for the price point, etc.

27:21What we really see for ourselves here at Passion, yes, style is important. We're making high heels. We want to make really trendy offerings. And we do do that. But the reason women are buying our shoes is actually for the function and the comfort and the versatility value. And those are usually not attributes you see in typical high heels. They're actually more so attributes that you see in athleisure. So we joke this is like the most athleisure high heel you're ever going to get because it's built on a platform of function and comfort and versatility. So our customers are much more sector agnostic than you would expect.

27:55But it makes sense when you think about it in the scheme of, let's say, Nike. Right. Women of all ages, incomes, locations purchase Nike sneakers because, again, it's built on function. We very much are seeing the same in our customer demographics. So it is it is 97 percent women, obviously, because it is a high heel product and we make women size shoes. But as far as location, you know, we've got customers in every U.S. state. We actually have 30 percent of our business already internationally, even though we don't advertise internationally. the concept has just kind of picked up. And so we're global already, which is really exciting to see.

28:29From an income perspective, it's a pretty wide split. We have women that were former Louboutin customers that are just tired of the pain point associated with that product line. And so they're coming in and buying five, six, seven pairs of our shoes since we're at the lower price point. Conversely, we also have a huge portion of our customer base that maybe would usually shop at a Payless or a DSW. They see the initial shoe as an investment that they want to save up for. But then they're able to collect all the accessories and get so much more bang for their buck by using our customization side of the business and really get that value per dollar, more or less like a razor razor blade model.

29:06So we really find that we kind of transcend typical income barriers, transcend location. And then from an age perspective, again, they're buying it for function. So we see women as young as 15 buying them for prom, all the way up to women in their 70s buying them because they're the mother of the bride at a wedding and they want to have that high heel classic look but not be trapped in them all night. So really, I always say our customer is just women that want to look good and feel good. And that doesn't really have a lot of limitations, which is really exciting. Yeah, but I think what's really unique here is that like you are like, let's say this is still like a talent-led brand, like and like 97 % of the people that follow you are actually the demographic of a passion.

29:47If you look at other celebrities, they're never able to recreate this. So let's look at Sydney Sweeney. Sydney Sweeney is now going to launch her own lingerie brand. And although it fits with her like personality and the sexiness of her, it doesn't fit with her audience. I actually expect that more than 50 % of our audience are males and males are following her for different reasons than buying her lingerie. So I think that's really unique about like kind of your target audience. Well, for sure. And especially I think it's because again, you know, I was not an independent influencer before this.

30:18Like really my focus as an influencer and my sphere of influence has always been around building passion, my journey building passion and the product. And so the following that I've built while making that content is very specifically curated to people that are actually interested in the shoe and interested in my journey, which just so happens to be our target consumer 97 % of the time. So it's really worked out in the sense that to your point, I think if you're a celebrity and you've built a following in general, obviously that's fantastic, but it's much harder to guarantee that, you know, a certain percentage of your following is going to be the perfect fit for that product.

30:55My following, yes, they're following me as an influencer, but it's always been rooted in the product and the product story and the product journey. So we actually joke, I mean, the TikTok account is, is mine. It's under, you know, at Haley Pavoni, but it really as a secondary account for passion. The two are pretty inseparable at this point. Yeah. Now, I've been involved in tele-led brands and these celebrities sometimes have like more than 60, 60 followers and they post about a company not even able to generate like$500 in sales because of that mismatch with their audience. Let's look at some numbers.

31:29This is all, by the way, what you share online. For the audience that are listening to this, I can definitely recommend following Hayley on LinkedIn because it's been super interesting to get that behind the scene and also the numbers. So yeah, you wrote that you got more than 10 million free visitors to the site. You're generating 95 % of customer acquisition organically. You spent only 2 % of your revenue on marketing. You recently also hit a very big milestone, which was the first month in which you did more than a million dollars in revenue. So congrats to that. Can you tell me more about what it meant to you and your team of hitting that milestone?

32:03Oh my goodness. I mean, it was huge. I think I wrote on LinkedIn, and it's really been our white whale for the last couple of years, we've gotten really close a couple of times. Like I think we closed one month at 980K, which was ridiculous. And so in September, when we hit the first million dollar month, it actually, I think is a great example of the community that we've built and the value of having your following really feel like they are part of the brand and they're helping build the brand alongside you. We once again were, you know, I think about three days from the close of the month and we were at$940 ,000 in sales.

32:36And so I was like, okay, we have a little under 72 hours to do 60 grand, which would usually be kind of a stretch, especially end of September is starting to move into slow season. People tend to stop shopping going into October, at least in our industry, because they're gearing up for Black Friday. So we were thinking, okay, we cannot. I told the team, I was like, we cannot close this month at 999 ,000. I'm going to go crazy. Like we have to close it at over a million. You're going to buy a thousand dollars worth of your own yields at that moment? If it's like a 2K window, I'm going to pay for it myself because that's crazy.

33:07But I had the idea of I thought, you know, I've again in sharing the journey, I've talked on my TikTok multiple times about how badly I robbed the first million dollar month. I'd shared in the past the months where we'd gotten close, but not quite done it. And so my following has really been around for the journey. You know, they know how badly it's something that we're pushing for. And so I got on TikTok. I shared the live stream from Shopify of how many sales are doing. And I was like, guys, we've got three days to do this, to fill this gap. I'll give you, you know, I think it was like 30 % off certain styles or something.

33:39I was like, if any of you, you know, are trying to get Christmas shopping done, please get in there and support because it would mean the world to hit this milestone. And the passion community showed up. We actually beat the goal by 20 grand. So we closed at a million 20 ,000 for the month. So they didn't even make it. They didn't even keep it too close. They well, well achieved it. And that was really thrilling to see. And just so cool to see how the community showed up. Like the commentary on the video was so great of, you know, we can't wait to see you do this. We, you know, you deserve to hit this.

34:11We're happy to shop and support. And I just, you know, I don't know a lot of other brands that could go on and say, hey, we're like this close to hitting our sales goal. Please shop. And people will actually shop. I mean, it's just incredible to really see and feel that love from the community. They care about the business and are invested in our growth. Yeah, I love that. And it also drives customer loyalty. And yeah, you talk about community and having this kind of community of super fans. And what I also really love about your approach is that you actually involve them in product development.

34:39So you ask them about shapes, styles, like colors. So can you tell us more about that and how that is also helping you with de-risking inventory and that type of stuff? Absolutely. It's one of my favorite things about the way that we're running our social media strategy. And it's something we're very uniquely positioned to do. I think a lot of fashion brands are very worried about talking about what they're working on because of, you know, knockoffs. They don't want to see another brand come out with the exact same color. I get very excited because of our utility patents. I'm like, look, you know, someone might steal this exact design or colorway that we're developing since I'll be teasing it, you know, in some cases a full year out because the development timeline for footwear is so long.

35:17But at the end of the day, it's not going to be a heel that turns to a flat, which is why my customer wants my red shoe that looks like that instead of someone else's. So I felt like it gave me a lot of freedom to be more open with the development process than most brands would be. And it has paid off in spades. So I really bring my customers along in the content of every step of the development journey. I tell them what styles we're considering. I tell, you know, I'll show them mock-ups of what we're looking at. And I ask for their genuine feedback. Sometimes it's something as simple as, you know, I'll show them a red shoe we're working on and ask, is this the right color red?

35:51And the community has been so incredible. They know. It took a couple of videos of me going on and being, don't be too nice. You know, don't tell me you love it if you don't. This is a small business. The most detrimental thing that could happen to me is I go buy$200 ,000 worth of red shoes and it's the wrong red shoe and you guys don't buy it. So, like, please, you are not hurting my feelings if you tell me you hate the red and it needs to be something else. But now they know. Like we have that relationship. We have that understanding. It's wild to think I have that understanding with a group of 994 ,000 people.

36:21But that's what we've been able to cultivate on the platform. And so it's really helped us in the sense of, you know, if me and the design team are going back and forth between how we should position straps on a shoe, I'll make a quick video, show the two options. We go to the comments and we can almost always get a very clear directive of, hey, style option A is way more popular. Or sometimes we'll notice, you know, style A is resonating really well with customers of this demographic. Style B is resonating well here. So maybe we make both in different color. I mean, there's so much data to be derived and it's all happening in real time.

36:56I mean, it's unbelievable the amount of feedback we're able to get in 24 hours. So it's really mitigated our product liability. Every time we make a new product, we're able to feel so much more confident in it because we already know several thousand people have endorsed it and are interested in it and now have also been waiting for six months to a year to buy it because they they got the sneak peek. It's already mentally in their head is something that they want. And so what this has created is a really awesome cash flow model where we're able to run, you know, I forget the word, but a negative isn't a negative cash cycle or something where whenever we put out product on drop days.

37:3170 % of the time we sell out of all the product in under 24 hours, which is really amazing. Yeah. Like whenever they're sold, they're kind of recommitting to buying it. So yeah, it's a super interesting insight. I think one of the reasons why Passion House has been commercially so successful is this unique business model. So if you look at the traditional business model of selling shoes, it hasn't changed in decades. You just buy shoes, you wear them. And after a couple of months when they're done, you buy a new pair. You already mentioned that you have this razor blade model. And I've even seen like super fans, so to call them, that have similar collections that you have in your background with like multiple flats and several interchangeable heel kits.

38:09So can you tell us more about the uniqueness of your business model? Sure, absolutely. And to your point, it really is a completely new way of selling shoes. In the past, footwear models have really been built on. We're going to sell them multiple full pairs of shoes. What's challenging about that is, number one, it's a higher price point for the consumer. It can tend to be more wasteful in a lot of ways. And three, it becomes much more risky from a trend perspective. So I think the customer feels very constrained with what trends they can buy into. For instance, you know, the example I love to give is like anytime Taylor Swift does anything, right?

38:46So, you know, she, when she released her Reputation album, obviously Snake Skin was super in because the whole theme of the album was snakes, right? You can never really predict what these micro trends are going to be. But if I'm a consumer, I'm thinking, gosh, do I want to go buy a$250 snakeskin boot for this moment in time, especially in today's day and age with social media? Snakeskin will be in for 40 days and then it's out again. And it's like, great, I just spent$250 for a 40-day period in which I'll maybe wear that boot twice. Right. So it's much more high stakes to compete in such a quick trend environment as far as which pieces you're going to invest in to feel like you're participating in that trend, but not completely bank robbing yourself.

39:28Right. What our model lets them do is play around with trend and different styles and different looks in a much less risky environment of, you know, they've got their base shoe. A lot of our shoes are very classic silhouettes that never go out of styles. Let's say a basic black boot or a basic black sandal that they'll buy into. But then when there's the trend of snakeskin, they can purchase the heel kit accessory for$30 to$50, swap that onto the shoe for the 40 days that it's relevant. But then if it goes out of style, they don't have to throw the whole shoe away. They don't have to completely, you know, ditch that style entirely.

40:02They can just remove that snakeskin heel and swap on one that's Bratzummer green for as long as that's relevant. You know what I mean? So it's really letting customers, kind of the way I like to think about it is obviously, you know, fast fashion is the trend right now because of how quickly trends are moving in the social media landscape. We let them have a taste of the fast fashion fun without nearly as much damage to the environment or to their wallet. So it's giving them that, but in a more sustainable and functional way that's much lower risk to pretty much every party involved. So it's a win-win-win across the board for the company, the customer, and I would say for the environment as well.

40:39Do you have like a funny story of one of your super fans that has like this crazy collection? Oh my gosh, yeah. There's quite a few that have huge collections. I actually, we had a customer. I was pulling our report at the end of last year for, you know, the top customers. And the number one name was a name I hadn't seen before. And we're still a small enough brand where we pretty much are on a first name basis with our biggest 20 customers, right? And so I was surprised. I was like, this gal has come out of nowhere. Like, I haven't heard of her before. And I found that she had found the brand in, I want to say, March of 2024.

41:11And by the end of 2024, she had spent over$20 ,000 on our shoes. She was collecting everything that we had. And so I sent her an email. I was like, I would love to meet you. Like, clearly you are really interested in our product. And I would love to just learn more about who you are, what you love about the shoes, so that we can create more super fans like you. And she was so sweet. We hopped on a Zoom and she took the Zoom from her passion room. So I was in my passion room. For those of you on video, you see I've got heel kits behind me. There's a whole other wall over here. She was in a room that looked a lot like mud.

41:45Like she had hundreds of heel kits on the wall. She'd built custom shelving, the whole thing. And it was just so surreal for me to think, wow, we have built something that women are this excited about. They are building their own collections. They're dedicating not just closet space, but in some cases, entire rooms to be their passion room. And I think it's just so unique to have created a brand and product that drives that kind of loyalty and passion. Yeah, it would be really fun if in the future this becomes like a real collectible. Like once you sell your company and then it's like, oh, I was like actually buying the first ones when it came to market.

42:18So, yeah, I love that. Well, and that's something we've actually started to lean into as well is pretty much every season we have our limited edition items where, you know, they're not going to be restocked. It's the style of the season. And again, it's in trend at that moment in time. And so we make it, we bring it out. We make the 500 to 1 ,000 that we make. And if you're a customer that got one, fantastic. So we're actually already seeing a secondary market for the shoes, which is really cool. Yeah. A bunch of our customers made a passion BST, which is buy, sell, trade group on Facebook. We did not instigate it.

42:52It's actually funny because no one on my team is an admin. And sometimes they have questions for us and we can't post freely. someone else has to approve our responses. But I think there's over a thousand people in it now and they post all these listings. And it's been really funny to see over time how the aftermarket value has changed. You know, now there's some heels that were limited two years ago. They're getting resold for more than what we sold them for, which is really cool to see. So it's becoming a bit of a collector's item every season, which is a really fun aspect to have here too. I love that but at the same time i just hope that like these stupid resellers are not gonna buy like immediately like 100 pieces and from and making sure no one else can buy it and then selling it immediately i hope not we have not seen that yet so far it's all been fair play and it's you know customers that buy it they wear it for two years and they're ready to move on to the next thing but yeah we'll have to see if that becomes an issue we'll have to come up with some kind of code where you can't buy more than you know three units of the same thing at a time or something but that'll be one of those good problems to have, right?

43:55That's a good problem to have. You recently launched a partnership with Emmy Combs, like a very large influencer. Can you tell us more about that partnership? And also, is that something that you want to do with other celebrities and creators in the future as well? Absolutely. So Emmy Combs was such a dream come true to work with for us. I ever since starting the company have wanted to do guest designers. I think it's such a fun thing to do. It's a really cool way to expand the brand mission. And I really wanted particularly to partner with really strong, powerful, empowered women, because that's very much what our brand is about.

44:28Again, we're all about, you know, letting women live the life that they want in comfort and style. And there's something very empowering about that. Not to mention, it's kind of the it's kind of the anti high heel in a lot of ways. And a lot of what a lot of the narrative around high heels is a little archaic, let's say. So anyway, we really want to work with incredible women that can come in and bring their own style and voice to the brand. Emmy could not have been a more natural first partnership for us because she was a genuine passion customer. I want to say she got her first pair of shoes about two years ago.

44:57For those that aren't familiar with Emmy, she is a beauty and fashion creator that has over 20 million followers across platforms. And some unique things about her are she, well, for one has alopecia. So her signature look is always incredible. She's such a beautiful woman. But then she also has arthritis, specifically in her feet. And so for a really long time, she was actually unable to wear heels because of the discomfort that it caused her. A couple of years ago, I want to say, I think she said she saw one of our ads and thought, wow, this might be amazing for my arthritis. I can wear heels when I get to an event, when I'm taking pictures, and then I can go down to flats if my arthritis starts to flare up.

45:34And so she bought a pair of our shoes and not only found that turning them to flats did help, But actually our unique cushion profile because of the midsole that we're using provided relief for her arthritis even as a high heel, which was not a benefit that we expected. But we have now learned and proven that the shoes actually are providing relief to women with chronic arthritis, which is really exciting, as well as other joint issues. But anyway, because of that, we became the only heel she could wear. I mean, she said that in our promotional video. Passions are the only high heels she will buy.

46:05And so she started building out her own collection, obviously reached out to us and we started working together in a more informal sense, but she has quite a few pairs of our shoes now. And so back in 2024, we were thinking, okay, we're ready. We've built up the brand enough. We had about, I want to say 800 ,000 followers on Instagram for the brand at the time. And so we thought, you know, this is the perfect time to really try to bring in that first guest designer. Emmy was the first person we thought of immediately. We're like, you know, here's a woman that resonates with everything about our mission.

46:35She understands our product. She's a genuine lover of passion and the brand. And so we reached out to her and it was the most easy partnership. She just immediately was like, yes, I love this. Let's do it. She'd actually said she'd had on her vision board wanting to do a more formal collaboration with us. So it was very mutually aligned. So we dived right in and she made a beautiful collection, got a signature Emmy shoe, a line of accessories. It went live in September. We got our first New York Times billboard appearance out of it. I mean, it was such a crazy and fun campaign and it resonated really well with our customers.

47:11We had a fantastic sales day and are continuing to see great sales on the line now. So it was a wonderful first partnership and definitely something we want to explore more in the future. We really look forward to bringing in different perspectives into the brand. So which celebrity or creators on your fishing board? Like what is your dream collaboration? Oh, gosh. Well, if anyone here follows me on TikTok, they know I'm a big Swifty. I think the dream collaboration would be Taylor Swift. Actually, because, you know, I really credit Taylor Swift's brand with a lot of my success on TikTok. Because one of my first series that went really viral was during the Ares tour.

47:47I was going to go to the Ares tour, of course. And so I decided to bedazzle a set of heel kits to match every single Taylor Swift era. And so I did a video for every era bedazzling these shoes just by hand. It's not something we're selling because we don't have a formal relationship and I would never steal another woman's type B. But it was just a really fun, creative project for me as a genuine fan of Taylor to work on these heels. And so made all these heel kits. The videos got several million views. I mean, it became a huge following and I think represented about a 150 ,000 increase to my followers just from following along with that series alone.

48:24And it really does fit so well into what we do with customization, with trends. You know, she moves through these eras and different followers of hers identify with her different eras in different ways. And so I would love nothing more than to bring Taylor in to formally guest design a ERA's heel kit collection and do a specialty line, I think would be really, really cool. Well, let's manifest it, you know? We're manifesting. It's the dream. She's, of course, like the hardest celebrity to get for a collab. But I figure if we talk about it enough, maybe it'll land on her desk someday. So what is next for passion and what are you most excited about?

49:01So what's next, you know, it's always interesting because it's always a mix of what we want to do and then what we have to do, especially in the macro climate of the world today for our industry. But what I get most excited about is kind of going back to that initial strategy. I've hinted at it a few times in this conversation, but from day one, I've really wanted us to have a physical in-store presence. Of course, we've grown the brand entirely online, mostly out of necessity. It kind of became that way in the pandemic and then it's been working and so we keep doing it. But something I appreciate is that the footwear industry is very unique in the sense that the fit for shoes is really specific.

49:38And so footwear is the slowest moving fashion category to really transferring to a fully D to C model. About 60 percent of female consumers still will not buy a shoe online. They want to go in store and try it on first. So I know we're leaving a lot of money on the table, especially because they feel that way about normal shoes. Our shoes you have to learn to use. They feel a little different. And so I think having that in-store try-on and immersive educational experience will make a big difference for us. And I get very excited thinking about reinventing the way shoe shopping is done. You know, I think no one's really done anything different with a shoe store in years.

50:15We all know, you know, you walk in, they've got the sample shoe on the top of the rack and then stacks of shoes underneath. And that's pretty much it. It's not very exciting. It's not very one-to-one. I think we have a really unique opportunity to basically create the Build-A-Bear of shoes. I was literally about to say kind of the Build-A-Bear model. Yeah, I love that. Exactly. It would be so fun, especially because so many of our customers already say, you know, the creativity associated with customization and the mix and match and playing around with the shoes, it kind of brings out their inner child in a way.

50:45A lot of our customers say it reminds them of Polly Pockets. It's like making a Polly Pocket shoe. It's so fun. It's like a candy store. It's interactive. And so I think we could really create a very unique floor experience where the customer comes in and leaves same day with a fully custom suite of products. It wouldn't even just be one shoe, but with all the mix and match components, they'd leave with four or five, six shoes from a value perspective. And no one has ever executed that before. So I get very excited about what our eventual in-store experience will look like. I love that. Then the last question, what would be your number one piece of advice for entrepreneurs who want to start creating content in the same way that you have?

51:22Oh my goodness. On the content side, I would say this is so cliche, but really just do not overthink it and be yourself. I think the biggest mistake I see with entrepreneurs is we feel so much pressure, especially professionally, to be perfect all the time, to only share the wins, to not talk about the bad stuff that's going on, and also to be living life very filtered and in HD. I talk to founders like, oh, if I'm going to film TikTok, do I have to go buy a super expensive camera so that I've got 1080p HD quality? What's been really interesting for us because I've tested a lot of stuff, super high quality content actually doesn't perform very well anymore.

51:58My whole theory is I think today's, you know, zillennial consumer really has grown up in a ad environment. We've been bombarded with ads on social media for over a decade. We have ad fatigue. We're tired of it. I don't know about you, but I think of my own scrolling behavior. If I'm scrolling TikTok and I see hashtag ad or hashtag sponsored, I immediately skip. If I'm scrolling TikTok and I see a video that's clearly shot super HD, I immediately assume it's an ad and I skip. What really resonates is just be a person. Like film on your phone. You don't need a full face of makeup. People just want to understand what's going on in your business.

52:36They want to learn. They want to feel like they're in a community with you. The best analogy I have for this is I always tell people when you're scrolling TikTok, are you out at a party with your friends or are you home alone on the couch in the dark? You're probably home alone on the couch in the dark. The content in that moment is meeting the need for connection and entertainment. And that's what people want. And no one feels connected to a super scripted HD advertisement. Right. In that moment, you are their friend. And so really just get on there and be yourself. I know that sounds so cliche, but when you think of the psychology of it, no one wants to be watching an advertisement for five minutes.

53:12They want to be having a conversation with their friend about their day and the realities of what that looks like. And so if you can bring that to the table, authenticity is what really resonates now. As even for written content, the same, like I create content on LinkedIn. And sometimes I spend like two, three hours drafting the perfect LinkedIn post and it doesn't do anything. And then sometimes I just spend five minutes like full of grammar mistakes, but I don't care. I just publish it and then all of a sudden it works really well. So definitely resonate with that. To end, where can people find you?

53:41You can find me and the brand. For the brand, it's at Passion, P-A-S-H-I-O-N, footwear, on Instagram or TikTok. For me, it's at Haley, H-A-L-E-Y, underscore Pavone, P-A-V-O-N-E, also on Instagram or TikTok. Or of course, you can shop convertible heels at passionfootwear.com. Haley, thank you so much for being on the show. Of course. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the Hot Start VC podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a rating or review. It really helps us grow. You can also subscribe to our newsletter at hotstart.vc for more breakdowns on how celebrities and creators build billion dollar brands.

54:18Thanks again for tuning in and we will see you in the next episode.