TomiFelix: Today I am joined by Tomi Gbeleyi from Makeup for Melanin Girls, which is a direct consumer beauty brand that leverages community feedback to develop cosmetics tailored to the multiethnic beauty consumers and it was started in 2017 and based out Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Welcome, Tomi.

Tomi: Thanks, Felix. So happy to be on here.

Felix: Yeah, excited to have you on. So I think your situation I think is similar to a lot of people, which is that you started a blog, an Instagram page before the business began. Tell us more about that. What was the blog and Instagram page about?

Tomi: Yeah. So the blog and the Instagram, the Instagram page actually started first. And what I was doing at the time was really just sharing content geared towards women with darker skin tones. I was actually sharing different makeup artists around the world that were doing great work, and I was just promoting them, shouting them out, sharing their work and it quickly just became... It took a life of its own. I soon go 10,000 followers. It was something that people were really enjoying. Because at the time, this was around 2015 or so, when I started this Instagram page. There weren't really a lot of spaces or online communities that were exclusively focused on product recommendations and makeup shopping for darker skin tones.

Felix: Got it. So you mentioned that you were sharing the concept from other makeup artists, did you have to create original content here, or was it re-posting it? What was the technique that you were doing to build up your Instagram page?

Tomi: Yeah. So the blog really was where the original content was. So the way I like to describe this work because I'm not sure all your listeners are readers might be in makeup, but the way I described it was a lot of women, especially women with darker skin tones, when they go makeup shopping, it's most like they're trying to hack the system to make it work for them. So what would happen a lot of times is let's say the shopper is going out and is looking for new lipstick.

Tomi: So a new lipstick color could actually be looked... Something that probably that's nude for everyone can actually look different on different skin tones. And what a lot of women were doing was saying, "Oh, this color," let's just say color A looks really really good on your skin tone for a nude look.

Tomi: There were a lot of these exchanges going on, the way friends would do, and I was trying to scale up that conversation. So the original content was on the blog, where I would say, okay, if you have this type of skin, if you have oily skin, here are the best foundations for you. If you are oily and you have darker skin tone, if you have dry skin, here is the content for you. And then on the Instagram, it was just to shout people out that were doing good work. So the same as someone that has a photography page that's shouting out photographers, similar idea but just with makeup artists and specifically those that were doing makeup on darker skin-toned women.

Felix: I got it. So you're almost a curator to some degree, where you were finding out where the conversations were, who were the best content creators, who were the best makeup artists that were covering specific problems that your audience was trying to solve and you were directing them and shouting them out and spotlighting these content creators?

Tomi: Yes, exactly. And in the beginning, the content creator stuff, I was really doing for fun. And selfishly, because I was trying to find good makeup artists myself. But when I noticed a lot of people were enjoying the content, that's when I started the blog and doing original content and that was really what got me to build my email list and get readers, and that type of thing. Yeah.

Felix: Got it. You mentioned that the blog cam first, or Instagram came first?

Tomi: It was actually Instagram first. So Instagram started first and it was, again, fun for me because I wanted... These were conversations I was having with my friends also, and I was trying to find great makeup artists in my area for me also. So the Instagram started first for fun, and then the blog was really my space to make original content and it was really where I was driving value for my followers because that's where they were getting more personalized content for whether it was skin conditions or just specific looks they wanted to create.

Felix: Got it. Okay. So the blog was when you first started to say, "Okay. I'm starting to build an audience. Let me start creating my own content, my own original content." What was your process there for figuring out what kind of content to create, now that you were creating content yourself?

Tomi: Yeah. So there is actually a bit of a story behind the blog. So the way, the reasoning, what spurred me to start the blog, because like I said, at first it was just a fun thing, creating this community and page that was growing quickly was I was ran a campaign that was noticed by the New York Times. So this was in 2015, one of the major makeup companies, they had featured a Sudanese model on their page and this was before you could moderate comments on Instagram. So the model actually got a ton of racist comments and stuff about her lips, so I just started this campaign that was called I Love My Lips The Way They Are.

Tomi: I Love My Big Lips, I believe it was called, and then a reporter for the New York Times was doing a story just about diversify in the beauty industry, how Instagram was becoming a new mode of communication for brands and bullying, all those things in one, and she had reached out to me as part of the story. I think once that happened, that gave me that confidence of, oh, what I'm doing is actually really bringing together a community. I should deliver even more value for people, so that's what motivated me to start the blog as well and doing original content.

Felix: Got it. So this campaign that you started, what was it exactly? Was it you posting things on Instagram? What is required for someone out there that maybe also has an idea for a movement or an idea for some way to counter the negativity that they're seeing in their space? How did you get this off the ground?

Tomi: Yeah. So what I did there was basically start the hashtag associated with it, and I wrote... I think a lot of times, people are wary of doing really long posts on Instagram. If you do have a following where they're interested in what you have to say, I find it doesn't matter. They would actually read your long captions. So I wrote a pretty in-depth story in that post of how I was bullied when I was younger for having bigger lips, and it's unacceptable that this was happening to this model and she was just trying to do a job and people were attacking her on Instagram and attacking the company.

Tomi: So I wrote this sort of... I would say now that I think back on it, it was a heartfelt story of my experience. And at that time, I already had a few followers. I think the page was at 10,000 at that time, so a lot of people felt that kind of connection to this story because it was pretty personal. And then, they started sharing their stories too, and that's what caught the attention of the New York Times.

Felix: Okay, got it. So people were raising their hand and saying like, "This story resonates with me." This hashtag, this movement, this campaign that you started resonated with them, so you started recognizing that, wow, there is a pretty well-knit community that you were building around you, and that's when the New York Times picked it up. Did that lead to more? Would the community grow exponentially at that point and once there was more attention from a big establishment like the New York Times?

Tomi: Actually, no. I got probably a few more followers but for me, that incident was more the beginning of me realizing I had the tenets for business. And something you might not know, Felix, is I've actually been a longtime listener of Shopify Masters, and I do think it was one of those things that you would pop in on the commute to work in the morning, when I was still working full-time and always thinking I would like to start a business on my own. And I think listening to other stories of entrepreneurs, there is this thing of sometimes part of being an entrepreneur is knowing when you get lucky as well and I think that was when once the New York Times thing happened, that was when the idea sort of set in motion is like yes, this is fun for me but I'm actually providing value that could be transformed into a business.

Felix: Okay. So the New York Times article was a validation from that you had something going on that some kind of buzz that you could ride or at least use to kick off some kind of business, and you were building this community. What made you make this jump? Because I think a lot of people get stuck here where they see they might be building an audience, maybe $10,000, which is not easy to get, right? A lot of people don't have 10,000 followers but you grew 10,000, maybe someone else out there also has 10,000 followers. How did you make this connection that you could turn this... Or not turn into a business, but build a business off of this?

Tomi: For me, it wasn't really just the buzz. For me, it validated the value. I think ultimately for any business, as an entrepreneur, especially now, I have to say there's sort of a glorification of the job of being an entrepreneur. A lot of people think it's about the founder, but ultimately it's about the value you're providing for others. And with that New York, we ended up getting a ton of articles after that. But for that first one, what it validated for me was the value of what I created because I didn't know the value of it at the time. I just thought, hey, this is really cool. A lot of women connect to the stories I'm sharing. A lot of women have had similar experiences, but I didn't know the value of it or that it would even be a way to attach a monetary value to it. So having the reporter do this in-depth story about diversity and beauty, that was when the value of what I was creating really stuck for me.

Felix: That makes sense. Okay. So you saw that there was value in the community that you're building, the stories you're telling, that there was some kind of attraction that people were coming to you and the community that you were building. How did you decide what kind of business to attach to this, what kind of products to launch? Because you could go anywhere.

Tomi: Yes.

Felix: Not going to say anywhere, but you could have done a lot of different things. How did you figure out and narrow down the makeup, essentially?

Tomi: Yes, so that's a really good question because my first thought was just to go through content marketing because at first, so I had this community on Instagram and this was great advice for other entrepreneurs out there is ultimately you do have to own... Actually, I think it's the founder of Shopify that I got this from, Toby. He says the only thing you own is your website domain and your email list, that's pretty much it.

Tomi: So at that time, I realized I'm building this great thing on Instagram, but if the Instagram platform disappeared today, I don't even know how I would connect with this audience. So the very first thing I wanted to do was just to create a way where the audience would be coming to visit me for my own original content. So my first initial thought was actually a blog, and the blog was going well. The very first post, I believe I had 1,000 readers, which to me was just crazy. I was like this any people want to read the recommendations I have and the things I have to share?

Tomi: So content marketing was definitely my first path that I went down. I actually got a volunteer team of about 14 writers from the community because so many people were excited about this and wanted to help. Our initial idea was sort of like be the BuzzFeed for makeup for darker skin tones, have all these stories of celebrity makeup tips, all of those things. Content was actually my first play, if you will.

Felix: Okay. Makes sense. So you were focused on content marketing, so you started this blog. How were you driving the traffic from your Instagram, which is where your audience existed at that time to your own content and your own platform on your own blog?

Tomi: Yeah. And at that time, I wasn't even thinking about content marketing. I thought the content marketing was going to be the business.

Felix: I see what you're saying.

Tomi: Because brands were going to pay. So coming back to the value conversation, a lot of brands  that have really made diversity their focus. But in 2015, a lot of brands were just still trying to figure out how to better connect with this more ethnic audience that I had. So basically, I was already getting offers to advertise these sponsored posts. So in my mind initially, the blog was going to be the business.

Tomi: So in terms of driving traffic from Instagram to the blog, a lo of what I was doing was I first started with the basic thing, like low-hanging fruit like giveaways because I was getting free products too from brands and things like that to promote to my audience. So that was the first low-hanging fruit and the other side is I was just asking my audience what they wanted to see. So I knew a lot people wanted product recommendations. There was more of the posts that were doing the best, so I was actually testing before writing a blog post, I would test it with my audience. I would post a snippet of it.

Tomi: Let's say I wanted to do five top foundations for dry skin. I would actually make that into a visual, put it in my community Instagram page, see how many people respond to it. And then, I would write the article about it, versus if I put another post about hyperpigmentation next to that one, if a lot of people didn't comment, then I would not write the story on that. And just for some readers that might not know of these makeup terms or cosmetic terms, hyperpigmentation is just a skin condition when someone has different colors in their skin tone. It's a skin condition like rosacea or eczema, or something like that.

Felix: I gotcha. You were testing the waters instead of just diving in and spending hours, maybe days or weeks creating the content. You first teased it out and see if people wanted to know more about it. You did this by creating some kind of teaser, some kind of image of something that you were going to create. And then, were you leading them towards giving you feedback on whether they want it or not, or you just threw it out there and then did it in bias? I guess, how much were you asking for feedback versus just tossing something up and seeing how they would respond?

Tomi: I think we were doing more toss up, and then by the time I got those, when it was just me, I was doing just toss up. And then, I started to realize, okay, this is a lot of work. I need some help. I need experienced writers, so I was trying to reach out into the community and I was able to enroll about 14 volunteer writers and that were passionate about what we were doing and the mission of the blog at the time. And also, there was opportunities to get free product because the business model was we were writing these sponsored posts at points for larger brands. So they would either pay us or give us products like PR, and then the writers would be able to get some of the products.

Tomi: So once I got some experienced writers in, we actually have more of an editorial calendar and how to send that would get people to leave more comments and things like that. So in the beginning, it was just me just tossing things up. But once I started getting writers on board, it was actually more of a planned scheduled calendar of content.

Felix: Got it. Okay. So 14 writers, that's a pretty large team to manage. First of all, how did you, I guess, not filter, but how did you interview them or figure out that they would be a good fit and how did you manage a team of 14 writers?

Tomi: Well, I was working full-time, so I did not manage them very well, which is part of why I ended up actually moving towards more e-commerce, so it was a mess. Needless to say, there were a lot of different opinions. The editor-in-chief was still me. If I could go back, I would have just hired one of the girls that was really good and made her the editor-in-chief.

Tomi: What ended up happening was I had a few writers that were really, really good and committed, and some of the others because it was volunteer, they wouldn't be putting their stories on time. It was a lot to manage and a lot of people to manage as well, so we were putting out a lot of content but there wasn't always clear direction for the team, which sort of led me... A few months in, I was making some money here and there. People were paying us to putting out content. But I saw that lack of direction and I actually decided to just... Anyone that wasn't volunteering on a steady basis, just let everyone go and redirect what I wanted to do and which is how I ended up with actually creating products because that's what a lot of our customers were asking for. But I was actually really really scared of going that direction because I just felt, oh, I don't have the domain expertise. I'm just a sales and marketing person.

Felix: Yeah, definitely a different skillset where you had to learn a bunch of different things, jumping from writing and creating content over to now creating the physical products. Tell us about that. What was the process you had to go through to start shifting from more of this content-focused blog, like making money from ads and sponsors now to selling your own product.

Tomi: Yeah, it took me about a year to make the transition because the thing with the content was the content was already working. I was already getting a few contracts here or there, and I already had this team. So it was difficult for me to make that leap, but the customers really kept asking for it. Under different posts, they would leave comments about, "When are you coming out with your own product" and this type of thing, but I was really scared. It was really something that I didn't know where to start. I didn't know who I was supposed to talk to. But what really encouraged me to make the change was actually when my Instagram page, I don't even know what was going oo. I think they were doing some kind of glitch where my account was compromised and my page got deleted. I think that was a really... I actually cried that day, which wasn't in [crosstalk]

Felix: How many followers did you have at that time?

Tomi: I had 100,000 at the time.

Felix: Wow.

Tomi: That was made me realize how much work. I think sometimes when you're passionate about something, sometimes I can be bad at actually counting up the hours I was spending on this. Because keep in mind, I was working full-time the whole time while this was all going on. I was in a pretty demanding sales role and it was one of the top performance, so I was still trying to do well at work. So when the Instagram account went down, that was a rude awakening for me for sure because I realized just how much time and effort I spent just trying to grow this community and provide value to people. And at that time, I wasn't even really looking at my revenue numbers. It was just about let's move this thing forward.

Tomi: So once the account went down, that's when I was really focused on building a brand because I was like i need to build the community as a standalone of itself. I need a grant that has an identity and not just something that's dependent on a social media platform to exist. So that was a really rude awakening. It was pretty... I actually cried that day.

Tomi: The way I got it back was also ridiculous. I legit was just searching because when they would email me, the customer reps would have their names on there, so I would go on LinkedIn, try and see who I could talk to. Try and explain to them I was a real person and I had this community, and I wasn't a spam account. And eventually, I got it back. So once I got it back, I feel like my engine was just raring to go and I was like I've got to do this. I have to not be scared. I have to build the brand.

Felix: Now, when you talk about building a brand, especially beyond the social media platform because I think a lot of people think that they can have a business that's sustained off of just their Instagram following, but you're talking about building a brand beyond that. When someone out there wants to invest, or I guess wants to do something similar and build a brand outside of just their social media following, where did you find you need to invest your time differently?

Tomi: So one of the things I did was, A. At that time, I just had this blog and I had the Instagram, but there was obviously there was no dedicated product website. There was no clear identity of this is the brand and this is what I'm doing, so that was one of the first step was building, like in terms of the marketing materials. The first thing I actually did was build a brand book of this brand I'm about to build.

Tomi: I think a lot of people, we... Especially, when you see a founder that's like they're generating revenue, everything looks glitz and glam and they're talking about their story. The boring part of doing the business plan, writing a brand book, it was critical because how can you go on a journey and you don't have your GPS? You need direction.

Felix: Can you say more about this? What is a brand book, and what needs to be inside of it?

Tomi: For the brand book, I actually... I wouldn't even say... I didn't have any prior experience before building it. I actually just went online on Google and looked up brand case strategies for Lululemon and Nike, and I actually came across Pinterest. Pinterest.com, they have actually their brand guideline and branding guidelines on the website, and that was some of my first steps. I tried to look at some other brands online, whatever files I could find. And what was in there for me were literally my brand colors, my brand story, my brand vision, our brand spiel. 

Tomi: I also put in there our buyer persona of who my buyers were because just different fictional characters. And what I did was I actually watched videos. Thankfully for me beauty because influencers are such a big part of the beauty e-commerce landscape now. I actually watched the videos of my target customer and we put sentences that they have said into my brand to reflect who my audience was.

Felix: Wow. Okay. So the brand book, is this something that has changed over time since you started back in 2017, or is this supposed to be concrete that you don't really veer away from?

Tomi: It wasn't even really... Because I was starting out, it wasn't really set to be concrete. It was helpful for me, even when I ended up getting my first hire. It was just helpful for me to explain who my brand was to other people and what I was trying to do, and then explaining to myself too. I tweaked it here and there, but not very much it was just meant to be this is who my brand is for and this is the kind of voice. Because even when you decide on Twitter when you're going to start engaging with customers that way, is your brand vulgar or is it fun, or is it lighthearted? When I would onboard someone new, it was helpful for them to have this guideline so they would know the kind of voice that my brand will have.

Felix: Got it. Now, when you talk about the buyer persona, you mentioned that you were running down or copying down sentences that people in this space were saying. Why was this important for you to do that?

Tomi: It was important for me, especially because I was putting out so much content, I wanted to use those same words that my customers were using. So for example, when it came to email copy and then sending out, I started doing a lot more email marketing. I still wanted the brand to feel authentic to my followers because I come from more of a business background and I that [crosstalk]

Felix: You can definitely use technical.

Tomi: [crosstalk] type of person, so I really wanted to make sure it didn't come off like me and really came off more of my customers. Because if you go back to the basics of the brand, it started almost like as friends having conversation and I was really wanting to markets that once I launched my period, that I kept that same feel or that same language.

Felix: Yeah, I think that's a very important point about writing copy where when you are starting a business, you believe that you need to appear more established, more corporate maybe than you really are, just to be taking more seriously. And a lot of times, that bleeds into your copy and into your marketing, and just it is a little bit colder of a message than if you were to take the approach that you've taken, which is to take the exact words from the conversations that real people are having in your audience. I think that's a are important point, and it makes it a lot easier too, I think, a lot of times and just take what they're already saying rather than try to come up with something yourself, which might even be further from the mark.

Tomi: Yes.

Felix: Yeah. So you mentioned too that you got pretty determined with the buyer persona when you described the actual individuals that might buy from you. Can you talk more about this? How detailed did you get?

Tomi: I did just different fictional characters. The only detail was in terms of language, what kind of aspirations did my buyer personas have, and I had two or three, just to give me an idea again on who I was going to be focused on. And to be honest, it just helped to simplify decision-making. Because really as an entrepreneur, more than 50% of what you're doing is just making decisions and everything was so new, especially for me, I was doing a new industry, so I needed to be able to... So let me try and make this more concrete for listeners.

Tomi: So later on in my business, I got an opportunity to do a popup shop with a pretty renowned magazine establishment and in order to make that decision, I just looked back at my brand book and my product, like buyer personas. And I was like, you know what? This is a very cool opportunity but my audience is not going to be there, so that's ultimately what it's helpful for. It wasn't like it fundamentally changed my business. It just really helped me with making better decisions because every day, it's just an onslaught of emails and opportunities, and how do you decide which one to pick? It's a lot easier when you have some kind of brand guideline or/business plan to point me in the right direction. It just helped me to eliminate some of the noise as well.

Felix: I like that, that about how these guidelines helped you make decisions and you believe that as an entrepreneur, that is the majority or at least the most important part of your job is to make these decisions and things like decision fatigue are real, right? Every day, you have to keep on making new decisions every time rather than just referring back to what have you done in the past? Has it worked, has it not worked? Is this in line with maintain you've done in the past? Yes, or no? I think that makes it a lot easier to just to not waste your time and energy on things that don't actually matter, so I think that's an important reason why things like the brand book and business planning come into play.

Felix: So now, you mentioned that you built the brand book first, that you wrote down your vision. You just laid out the plan for how you wanted this business to go. What was next?

Tomi: So the next thing was to actually source the products. In the beauty world, typically we operate by... I think this is even across industries, I shouldn't say beauty. MOQs are something, like whether you're ordering from Alibaba or you're ordering from a local manufacturer or lab, or whether you're doing apparel or beauty, minimum order quantities are pretty standard. So in the beauty industry specifically, you hear the numbers that are typically quoted are about 5,000. So I was hitting that roadblock with a lot of labs that I would talk to because they would just be like, "Listen. It's 5,000 minimum order quantities." Because a lot of the labs will have to make their own profit as well, and they've got all this machinery and equipment, so they're not just going to do a lot of samples. A lot of them weren't willing to do that.

Tomi: So I first started online, reaching out to people. LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn so much. I feel like people underestimate [crosstalk]

Felix: That's your sales and marketing background.

Tomi: Well, yeah, that sales and marketing background kind of kicked in because then I would just find people within companies, try and message them directly. Obviously, I got a lot of ghosting, people not responding to me or being like, "Who is this small business owner bugging me?"

Tomi: So the way I got actually my most leads... So on LinkedIn, someone was like, "Hey, you're a fellow comedian," in Toronto and I know someone that knows someone. I can help you get a lower minimum order quantity. So that was great, but I also was pointed into the right direction for trade shows.

Tomi: So in the beauty industry, there are a couple major trade shows that happen across North America and internationally, and that's sort of where all the manufacturers are and are based. I was able to just cold-pitching people, cold-emailing people, I was able to get some leads. But in the beginning, it was quite tough because if you don't have 5,000 minimum order quantity, the deposit for that ready to go, a lot of labs are not interested in talking to you.

Felix: I want to take a moment to pause here and talk a little about your LinkedIn experience. I think this is important where you are losing LinkedIn to build your network when you don't have the access to the knowledge or access to the resources at your immediate disposal. So when you are using LinkedIn, any advice here for anyone out there that is trying to connect with the right people to get their business off the ground?

Tomi: That's a very good question because I think it's almost become innate to me. I haven't sat down to think of the different steps. But what I would do, say if I went through Google and found a company that was in the right wheelhouse for what I wanted to do, I would just try to go... A lot of times, you can find, you can search for the titles within the company because a lot of companies will have their LinkedIn page up. So I would essentially search for individuals with the titles I was looking for, maybe the buying manager, that kind of thing, partnerships lead. And then, I'll search for those titles within the company. And once I find the person, I would connect but I will add notes to that connection, like maybe make a little blurb.

Tomi: Depending on how much the personal brand, if I found them on a podcast or anything else, or find even activities they liked t are similar to mine, I'll try and just make a quick comment like, "Hey, I noticed that you also are a fan of beauty brands in Toronto. I am Tomi. I'm doing X. Can you help with XYZ? Here is my email. We'll talk further." So send that out to a bunch of people and sometimes it's kind of a volume game. I try not to be too spammy, so I connect back with something that I think is important to them. And then, once I did that, I would get a couple leads from there. So yeah, I love LinkedIn. It's been very useful for me actually, which a lot of people wouldn't think for a very e-commerce Instagram-driven business, LinkedIn has been a very powerful tool for me as well.

Felix: Do you have any advice on how to use these connections that you've been building to get more press and more PR for your company?

Tomi: Yes. So my company, thankfully, has gotten a lot of press. We've been featured in BuzzFeed, Glamour, Essence Magazine, and Teen Vogue, and all of that is being done without any PR firm or anything. So a big focus of mine, what I did was actually just sort of scrape and find information for articles that were written about businesses like mine, competitors of mine, and then I identified the reporter that wrote it and reach out to them, again, focusing on something they've written that I genuinely and honestly liked. And then, sending that personalized email out, let them know what I was building, if they would be interested in a PR package and go from there? Of course, there were a lot of reporters that didn't respond, but some of the ones that did were at these mega publications.

Tomi: The cool thing about getting press coverage is once you get one or two, it's a little easier to get a couple more. Definitely, cold-emailing and pitching journalists does work but they do get a lot of inbound, so you just have to be more personalized in your approach and really think of things that they've written that you liked that would be relevant to your brand if possible and then follow up on them.

Tomi: The other thing is once a journalist has written about me and I cold-pitch them. I remember there was one of the publications that liked the brand, but they had a huge round of layoffs. I made sure to still follow up with the journalists I knew there to make sure they were okay. It's again just trying to create that personalized contact because if they have another article coming up, they might remember you and put you in that as well.

Felix: Awesome. So lots of focus on relationship-building and use this as introduction to get your press out there, but don't just end the relationship there. Try to obviously follow up with them and extend the relationship, and there are probably many more opportunities to work with them in the future.

Tomi: Yeah. Yeah, I would say sometimes there's a lot of wins you can have with small businesses and e-commerce with that one-time thing. But really, some of the great outcomes come from building or trying to build long-term relationships.

Felix: Yes, that makes sense. You mentioned too that you try to be as personalized as possible, and that's helped you. So a numbers game, it sounded like you were saying, but at least will skew to your favor, getting a connection by having a much more personalized message.

Tomi: Yeah.

Felix: You mentioned a couple obstacles along the way already. You lost your 100,000-follower Instagram account at one point. You had these minimum order quantities you were bumping up against, hard to find suppliers. As you were going through this, these are real obstacles that I think anyone out there is going to face or something similar that they'll face. What kept you going? What kept you saying, you know what? It's worth trying to figure my way around or over, or through this obstacle and keep on trying to get this business off the ground?

Tomi: Well, when the Instagram page went down, like I said, I had this rude awakening where I realized I didn't really own anything. Yes, I had the blog. I had some email addresses, but what was the visual representation of this community that I spent hours, lots of long hours after work trying to build, trying to curate? So that was already a motivation factor for me of I wanted to build something long-lasting. So building that was already a big motivational factor after it went down.

Tomi: And then, the other piece of it, like wat was motivating me was also just the mission of a lot of people, like all these women that I didn't know, they would send all these beautiful kind messages of how the page made them feel beautiful or their daughter, who was like 10 years old, and it was helping her with bullying at school. Those messages were a really huge reason why I was trying to make this happen because people were sharing with me pretty detailed messages about something that I thought was simple was adding a bright day or adding value to their life.

Felix: That makes total sense. Now, you were looking for manufacturers this time. How did you end up finding the right partner to partner up with to create the products?

Tomi: So to sell myself to a lot of these companies because the reality is there is a lot more beauty brands now on direct-to-consumer platforms, like with Instagram, Shopify and those type of things, so they get a lot of in-bounds as well. I decided, you know what? Let me highlight the things that are different about me. I would share with them and gotten published in the New York Times, we have these many followers on Instagram. You definitely will have opportunity to order more once you can work with us on some samples, so that was really what I focused on doing was sell the opportunity as well and not just like I'm begging you to work with me and more like, "Hey, here is what we have. We have some traction. Let's do some samples, and let's work together." And eventually, one of the labs sent me samples and once I got a good one, I was ready to roll.

Felix: How long did this take you to finalize the product, ready for sale?

Tomi: It took about five months because what I was able to do, so in our industry, you can have a stock option, which is sort of off-the-shelf development from a lab or a custom formulation. I didn't quite have enough. So a custom formulation lead time can be a year plus, so I went with a stock formulation but they were able to tweak it slightly, which was the perfect medium for me because I just was ready. I wanted to launch quickly, so that was the best option and it worked out really well.

Felix: Got it. Did you have to do any testing, or how did you determine during those five months that, okay, we have the right product now for sale?

Tomi: To be honest, in terms of actually A/B testing with the audience, I didn't. I was just so happy to get a lab that was willing to do smaller minimum order quantities, they had a stock formulation that already had the health and safety standardizations ready to go, so I was just happy to have something in order to put on the website and have a product. But to be honest, I actually didn't even do further testing with the audience. I just put it out and thankfully, it sold out and it was just a product I really liked. There was definitely a gamble because I didn't test it with my audience. I didn't email them and say, "Here is what's coming out." I had the website ready. I put it up and I put it on the site.

Felix: I think there's something to be said about the advantages of moving fast and not be so caught up in trying to plan things before launching. How much of a risk was it? How much did you have stocked up on that launch day that if it flopped, were your life savings down the drain, or how bad was it?

Tomi: No, I didn't have that much. I was able to get them to give me about 200 units, which is pretty small. So I didn't have that much. It was just I am doing this regardless. I was already... I was knee-deep in the whole process. I was very motivated to get it done, so it was just like you know what?

Tomi: Honestly, I didn't even think about the possibility of it not working, to be quite honest. So there is something to be said for the blind optimism I went in with that because I wasn't even thinking of it failing. I was just thinking we've got the product now. We've got our new website. This is going out there, come hell or high water. I was just ready to share with everyone.

Felix: Okay. Talk to us about this, how did you launch to your community? What was that launch plan like?

Tomi: I have other social media channels like Twitter and our email we were using, and customers, I think... Well, I would say blog readers at the time had been reaching out. So thankfully, the launch coincided with when the page was back up online. So what was really cool was once the page was back up online and we sent out emails telling everyone that we were back, the very first post back was the product.

Tomi: So there was the combination of that excitement, that they could see their favorite content again and we were back with this product. That was really the launch. There was really no... I wish I could say there was a strategic plan, but it was just kind of like, "Hey, we're back. It's here. Hopefully you like it," kind of thing.

Felix: Makes sense. So you mentioned that you launched this on the same domain as the blog, so people are driving traffic there?

Tomi: No. I realized the blog was a bit noisy because we were... Again, I was writing sponsored posts for other brands, right? So once the blog became... Then, that's when the blog became content marketing because it wasn't content marketing before. It was meant to be the product, so I created a whole separate... As part of that brand identity work, created a whole separate website, a full separate... Adjusted the name to be makeupformelaningirls.com because the blog was actually thankfully called something different and put all our new pictures.

Tomi: I did do a photo shoot. The photo shoot was kind of hilarious because I physically wasn't there. I was traveling for work, so I just kind of did it all online and was on Zoom while they were doing the makeup for the models. So all that stuff got done but it was on a separate page from the blog and then a blog post was also put up to redirect people back to this store.

Felix: Got it. Okay, makes sense. So now, you mentioned that this very first production run that you released out to on your website, sold out. What was the next step after this?

Tomi: Well, at first there was a lot of screaming and just being like, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. It was so exciting. I was just like holy! Oh my God, this is really cool. That was the beginning of just getting really excited for everything. So the next step was really me being like, okay, I've got this. I've got something special here. People want to buy it. So the first step was to order more because I didn't have very many, and then I started going all in on the influencer marketing side. So sending it to people that matched our brand identity. This was all free at the time. I wasn't even doing any paid ones and that went really well. We'd had one. There was a little bit of luck there. And again, just identifying those alignments because we had been promoting her on our content marketing site before the product came out. So that by the time we reached out to her, this was an influencer that had a million on YouTube. By the time we reached out to her, it felt very organic because it was like, oh yeah, we had done a Humans of New York style post on her when we were running contests.

Tomi: So by the time we reached out for the product partnership, it was very, "Oh my gosh, I love that you have a brand now. You've always been supportive of me. Definitely, going to put this out there." So that was the next step was, okay, we've got a couple people. I wanted to buy more products, keep spreading the word, go on that momentum. And then two months after, I also quit my job because I realized I needed to go all in on the brand.

Felix: Got it. So the initial influencers that you worked with were already people that you knew personally or already collaborated with?

Tomi: Yeah. I would say I knew them personally for sure. So what I like to tell other people is let's say... And I think it goes across... Even if the influencer is more of a professional influencer or like a business, not necessarily even just for the e-commerce space, a lot of people like to talk about themselves. A lot of people like to be celebrated, so we did a lot of content just... Okay, let's say we said top influencers to watch, top 10 influencers to watch, we would post. We would share the post with every single influencer that was listed on there, and I think it made people feel good.

Tomi: A lot of people put a lot of hard... People don't always see it, but some of these influencers put a lot of time and effort into creating content. And then, getting a shout out that is basically just free, it makes people feel valued. I didn't know them personally, but we had written several articles about them. We basically repurposed those, sent them out, like, "Hey, we wrote this article about you, and guess what? We have a product now." 

Felix: Yeah, that's awesome that you are basically already coming into this discussion with this influencer, already having delivered value to them by creating these articles, creating content about them, celebrating them like you mentioned. Now, when you are working with an influencer, nowadays that you have more experience with this, what is an ideal arrangement with an influencer?

Tomi: So now, we definitely send out contracts. Having someone, when you get to the point... Ever since the beginning, I was doing everything myself. So when you get to the point where you can hire someone to be your influencers and partnerships manager, I look at them more as partnerships. And now, in the beginning, it was very short-term focused. I just wanted to get the word out there, get more traffic to the website. Now, versus just thinking of the size, how many followers they have, I just try to think of a good content creator that is putting out god content that is interested in a longer term partnership with us.

Tomi: And long-term partnership in my particular situation would be like a product collaboration. We ended up doing a nude lipstick product collaboration, for example, with a YouTuber and that went really well because it was actually she actually gave insight on the colors we were using. It wasn't just like we slapped her name on something. That's more of what we do now. It's not so much, okay, influencer, how many people follow you. It's like you create good content that aligns with our brand mission.

Felix: And you're not looking for an influencer where you're just doing a one-off deal where they post or do a review about your product, then dump the relationship. You're looking for someone that you can be long-term partners with and you mentioned even to the extent of collaborating with them on products that you guys release?

Tomi: Yes. Yes, because I think those one-and-dones can be good low-hanging fruits, but let's say you get that sale in for this month, what happens next month? When we had more of those brand partnership, it was we even did a couple popups where she came out to them. It was more of they were partner with our organization versus just a highlight us and with a code under their video, one time.

Felix: Also it seem there's at least more of a steady flow or more manageable flow of a marketing channel if you have these established partnerships, rather than having to start up a new relationship each time. That makes sense.

Felix: I want to talk a little bit about the website. So makeupformelaningirls.com. What do you think is the most important page of the e-commerce site?

Tomi: That's a very good question. For me, just aesthetically because we're doing beauty, for us it was really those first homepage with the images for people to see. But ultimately, I think the products as well and description of the products for SEO and making sure we're addressing the customer. But for me personally, just that aesthetic piece was very important. Because for my brand, it looks better now. But in the beginning, it didn't look like that at all. It was more of a janky experience. But because we're in the beauty space, I want...

Tomi: And because the value that I provide, like I told you some of the contents that people would say is like, My daughter has been on your page and she feels so confident in herself as a dark-skinned girl," or "My daughter was bullied for having bigger lips," or "My sister is dark-skinned and she feels like she never gets any representation," that sort of thing. So for me, I really wanted people landing on the page to feel that sense of you're welcome here, if that makes sense. This is for you, and this... You're trying to buy a beauty product. Yes, you're not going to have a salesperson telling you in person these things, but I wanted to make sure those messages were on the site.

Felix: Makes sense.

Tomi: So it sounds like you've gone through at least a couple or at least one revision of the website.

Felix: [crosstalk] What would you say were some of the most important changes that you wanted to make each time you went through a revision? What were some things that you focused on to... Let's say particularly to increase sales and conversions on the website?

Tomi: Outside of aesthetics, definitely the Shopify apps, the product... So this was actually an intern that worked with us that identified this, the product images and the zooming in, there is an app on Shopify that we actually just implemented for that, especially where we're doing products so people can zoom in on the product photos.

Tomi: Easy Tabs, these are just product description tabs on there. Frequently bought together was really good for that sort of Amazon style experience to be like if you bought this, you might like this as well. We also use a live chat called Tidio, that is an app on Shopifyq. So that when people come in, again, because we're selling you beauty products online, that feeling of having someone asking you questions, we wanted to recreate that, so that's an app that we use as well.

Tomi: And, of course, I think app for reviews, people wanted to know how we looked on other people, if other people were happy with the purchase. 

Felix: Awesome. So you mentioned that you were using a live chat on your website. How is that staffed? You have someone working on that, or is it you? How do you make sure that you are attentive to customers' questions if anyone else out there has life chat on their site?

Tomi: So the thing with the Tidio live chat app we use, it's pretty good because they've also tried to incorporate more standardized questions. I want to say... Yeah, everyone uses the term AI so wrongly  where it's like it's not AI, it's creating rules and things like that. But I will just call it AI for the sake of simplicity. So they have these chat bots that they've integrated, which is very helpful. And then, what we do is if it's something easy that can be answered like a shipping question, the chat bot would respond. But then, the person can get the ticket.

Tomi: There are other platforms out there, but I really like the interface of this one. You can also see frequency. So frequency of how many tickets or customer questions someone has answered, which if you do end up hiring people or it's very easy to see. Or even if you are working on your own and you want to track your volume of respondes, that's also nice to see on there.

Felix: Awesome. So we talked about makeupformelaningirls.com is the website. I'll leave this last question. What do you think has been the biggest lesson you've learned in the past year that you want to make sure you take advantage of the learnings from this year?

Tomi: The last year is that you can't do everything yourself. Hire if you have the opportunities to. I think hiring is always like a chicken and a egg question because you feel like, well, I don't have enough money to hire them now. What if they wouldn't be able to stay on? If you have something or if you have opportunity, it could even be volunteers that are really early. But the more you can get other people helping u, even if you get burned and they're not really great at first, ultimately that can move your business forward. You just can't do everything.

Felix: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience, Tomi.

Tomi: Thank you so much for having me, Felix.