Welcome Back. Here are the six quick questions. Mm hmm. So, question number one is, what's your, why? Why are you doing what you're doing Because I really believe that beauty needs to rebrand science um and make it cool and fun and accessible. Like it is pretty stale out there right now. And I think experiment will make it so much more vibrant and make science more accessible to a wider audience of people rather than just like kind of the more niche but still large. Uh you know, skin intellectual community. I'm like, just gonna stray like from the sixth question, like thing for a second. But like are you doing live shopping on Tiktok and like live kind of selling. I feel like you need like a talk show of like beauty and science and like super fun, like educating platform. So that's part of our Tiktok strategy. So, um we, we really want to have a strong Tiktok strategy around like the combination of beauty science and like weird, wonderful world.

Like kind of like the Bill Nye of Beauty vibe. Exactly. That's what I was thinking. We're on the same planet and I were on the same planet wavelength. It's I love it. And just and on that, why like just a little bit like all of doing all of that creates a situation where like, I feel strongly that consumers will tune into like the science and tune out misinformation and like greenwashing right? Like if you make science accessible and cool and fun, like everybody's gonna listen because who doesn't like stuff that's cool accessible and fun. So, um you know, it's just really like accessibility creates like a lot of opportunity. Absolutely. Gosh, question number two, what has been your favorite marketing moment so far? I know James Walsh, he is the influencer. I talked about that organically purchased our product in our launch week. He, on new year's day of 2020 one dropped a video where it's like the four brands you need to watch out for this year and it was us topic Als du Skin.

And I believe Techo skin. And it was a huge moment because we got a huge sale boost and it was just so genuine. And he to this day absolutely loves the product. He's supporting our launch. Like he is a super fan of avant garde and it was just a huge, huge moment. And like I remember sitting on New Year's Day like eating breakfast and like we had a little champagne and we just go think like this was it was truly amazing. Like so to see that video, great start to the year. Amazing question Number three, go to business resource when it comes to a book, a podcast or a newsletter. Mm hmm. So I am like a newsletter girl. So I do actually love the female startup club newsletter. Um at plug. Um But also I, I love reading a bunch of different marketing newsletters because there's so much to learn about marketing. Um And I am a self taught marketing person. I definitely think like I've always liked it and had a knack for it, but I have a chemistry degree, I don't have like a marketing or M.

B. A. Degree. So um you know, I read like Nik Sharma's newsletter a lot. Um he always has a ton of like cool insights in there and I read up a lot on business and fashion around what's going on in the industry, glossy, glossy pop shout out to Sarah who is my good friend, but she's also the writer of glossy pop newsletter. Amazing for trend, watching, totally obsessed with it. one of my favorites. I love going to link them in the show notes. I am a big fan of both of those newsletters. Very cool Question # four, How do you win the day? What are your am mpm rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? Um totally candid. That is my biggest place of growth that I need help with. Um and I wish I had a better answer for this, but I will say like just some of the things I can turn to, the more unhealthy side is just scrolling through Tiktok if I need to calm down a little bit like and Tiktok is also like a place of inspiration for me as well, like so I enjoy doing that, but I also just spending time with my partner um and us making a meal so like if I need a break and like it's dinner time and I'm like I just need to keep going.

I need to keep working Well actually stopping. Like if we can cook something together like just for 30 minutes it really just recess a little bit. And that that has been like really really nice, just like sit down, watch a meal and maybe watch a video, just talk and then you know, we'll start the night shift right? Um So that's been you know, really helpful in terms of just grounding myself and centering myself especially because like you have a tendency to get anxious and having that, you know uh forcing function of like making dinner together has been really great. It's good for the soul, good for the soul. And in terms of the morning, like I love the morning shower, I think it just kind of like helps wake me up and I always have my coffee. Like that's my signal to the start of the day as I make an espresso in my beloved pandemic purchase purchase espresso machine. And it definitely like signals to me that it's the start and I go through all my newsletters, go through my inbox and then I can start tackling like, you know, larger things.

I love that. I love it. I also need to signal the start of my day with coffee or else you know, I'm just not there. Question # five, What has been your worst money mistake besides like, you know the manufacturing stuff that's not, it's a mistake anyone could make. I was actually the biggest money mistake I made is spending too much on branding agencies I think, you know, similar to, we talked about this before, but you know, again, I always felt like I'm not a designer, you know, I don't know what I'm doing, but you know, I am a very creative person and that's how we got experiment to be so creative without any design help in the first place or any like branding agency health, but when we raise funding, I'm like, okay, we can finally hire the branding agency of my dreams and we can go for it and do it um and it's gonna be amazing fast forward. We went through multiple different branding people, branding agencies and we wasted a lot of money um I would say we wasted upwards of probably like almost like 60 to $80,000 on agencies and has As a startup, we only raised $1 million dollars and a whole lot of money um like I cannot discount how much money that really is and it hurts and like of course we'll all make a money mistake and I am very budget conscious um and I, you know, I'm very money conscious rather and like it pains me that we did that, but it was a huge learning lesson for me because I realized that like a I needed to really truly understand like experiment and how to explain experiment and the only person that can do that is me and I was just giving people vibes some gestures and like, but it was never matching what was in my head, right, like it was never matching what was in my head and that was the biggest disappointment.

Everyone went too cool or too like just classic gen, z bright, you know, colors everywhere and I wanted something that felt truly unique and I'm so happy to say that I really finally feel like we're there, but you know, it essentially meant like branding agencies just weren't, you know, we never really, truly finished strongly with anyone. Um it was, it became like an in house project, taking what some of the branding agencies did and we were able to kind of take some of that and then bringing it in the house to finally finish it and we're still, you know, kind of redoing this process because they're in that time we've ordered packaging, we've ordered lots of different things, so I would say like, you know, the learning lesson for me there is, you know, trust your gut and your brand intuition, like if you have strong brand intuition, like lean into that, you know, that's not for everyone of course, like branding agencies can be amazing for some people, but I found that for me, I had too strong of a of a point of view for for a branding agency to truly work and when we finally, our first hire was a designer.

Um and she's so much more than a designer, she's truly like Jack of all trades, like the scrappiest perfect startup person ever does all things creative and we worked, we sat down together and were like, none of this is, you know, correct. So we, we brought it in house, so I would say just be cautious if you're going to hire a branding agency, know why you're hiring that branding agency. Um It is hard to pick people, it's hard to truly know who gets your vision. So like try to bet as much as you can. Gosh, how many iterations did you go through? Oh my God, 123. we we did have to let go of someone more due to, you know, a bad situation, Unprofessional situation, but the work was also like not there either, so you know, it would have probably happened anyway, but so we went through, I'd say like 3.5 uh you know, situations and it's, it's one of those mistakes where I kept saying to myself, but I'm not a designer, this person will get it, this person will get it. And you know, I finally learned the lesson of the story of my life.

Yeah, like no, some lessons have to be talked to you over and over and over again painfully, but like it has to happen and you know, if I could do it all again, I'd probably do it differently, but it did lead me to this now confidence, true. Like ironclad confidence I have in myself and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I really am the person that has to carry this forward. You know, it's not just that I'm the ceo, I'm also like the essentially acting creative director at this point as well and like I need to carry that torch forward. So, so that's, that's the lesson I learned there. I feel like all entrepreneurs go through that lesson. Last question. I'm conscious of time question number six, what is just a crazy story you can share from the business, Good, bad, anything in between a crazy story. It's definitely like the fact that, you know, when we ordered our first mask that we had to pack everything by hand, um, and clean every, it took a long time to inspect every mask and the inventory and just like the whole manufacturing debacle in general was, was definitely tough.

Like, you know, just the kind of, we tried to come up with so many different ways on how to get back in stock and we decided to finally commit to like being out of stock, but that your manufacturers, people that you're manufacturers, so you don't end up like us, but of course it's working out for the better, but like, you know, it's definitely really stressful and crazy. I don't know if it was you that said this on one of my like instagram or twitter or something, but like go and walk around your factory, like you need to go there and you need to see the facility if you're going to like work with people in a big scale, I can't remember who who said it, but someone was like, we were talking about manufacturing definitely wasn't me. Yeah and and that's one of the reasons why we switched to the U. S. Is that it was much easier for us to also do that and have full like eagle eye on the process. Um And so we actually did do that. We were able to go to our manufacturer. We set quality limits with them. So that was really awesome. But yes that your manufacturers people do it. Oh my gosh, lisa, this was so much fun. I'm so excited for tomorrow.

I'm gonna be your hype girl on the side cheering for you and I can't wait for you to come back and tell us how it all went in a couple of months. Thank you so much. I am very excited and I'm excited to when this all comes out. So thank you so much done. Thank you. Hey it's Doom here. Thanks for listening to this episode of the female startup club podcast. If you're a fan of the show, I'd recommend checking out female startup club dot com where you can subscribe to our newsletter and learn more about our D. I. Y. Course the ads, N. B. A. I also truly appreciate each and every review that comes our way. It might seem like such a small thing, but reviews help other heirs find us. So please do jump on and subscribe rate and review the show. And finally, if you know someone who would benefit from hearing these inspiring stories, please do share it with them and empower the women in your network. See you soon. Mm hmm. Mhm mm hmm.