Felix: Today I'm joined by Connie and Laura from NIU BODY. NIU BODY's a female founded beauty company that creates natural skincare at affordable prices and was started in 2017, based out of Toronto, Canada and is a seven figure business. Welcome Connie and Laura.
Connie: Hi, thanks so much for having us.
Felix: Yeah, excited to have you both on. So, this all started with a problem that you were both personally facing that led you to create NIU BODY, which by the way is spelt N-I-U then body. Can you tell us a bit more about this personal challenge, this personal problem that you both were facing that led you to want to create a business?
Laura: Yeah, definitely. This was born out of both Connie and my own personal passions within the natural beauty space. I had just graduated from university, I went to the University of Toronto, studied chemical engineering and during my fourth year of school started to get really into natural beauty. Just loved everything about trying different products. Started to get really into looking at the ingredients in these as well with an engineering lens.
Laura: I began to be super frustrated with just how expensive everything was. Being a recent grad, I didn't have a lot of money to spend on skincare unfortunately, and a lot of the brands that I wanted to shop because they actually had great, amazing, clean, natural ingredients in them, were way out of my price point. I would have had to drop probably 500, $600 for a full routine. And so that was initial frustration that we set out to conquer, was making natural skincare products more affordable.
Felix: Got it. Now what was your backgrounds at this time? Did either of you have experience creating a product like this?
Laura: Not necessarily. I had my chemical engineering background, so I was comfortable tinkering around in a lab and understood the basics of how to speak that lingo. But actually after I graduated I took a nontraditional route and went into software sales just because I loved the unknown and the risk and the excitement that goes along with being in sales. So, I wouldn't say that either of us had experienced formulating before that.
Connie: Yeah, I would say in terms of just a side passion type of thing. For me personally, ever since I was young I was very interested in natural skincare and also playing around with ingredients in my mom's kitchen. I remember coming home from school in middle school and playing around with green tea and mashing up bananas and using egg yolks and egg whites and making face masks. So, that was probably the extent of our formulating knowledge at that point. Just goes to show you can really start from wherever you are. You don't need to be an expert to start a business.
Felix: Yeah, definitely want to dive into how you gained expertise in a bit. And I think your story of being a young creator, starting off, tracing basically your entrepreneurial and your creator roots back into your past is definitely something the audience listeners out there that are entrepreneurs can certainly resonate with. So, you mentioned that ... did the both of you go just get day jobs at this point while starting the business on the side? How did the careers lead back into the business?
Connie: Yeah, so I can start. So for me, during the time that Laura and I started working on NIU BODY, I was working in marketing in sales at Kimberly Clark. It's one of the large multinationals, they make Kleenex and Huggies and Kotex and such. So, that was my time where I was really learning how to negotiate with buyers and understand brand management, which actually lends itself really well to my current role at NIU BODY where I manage marketing and sales. But we did side hustle it for a year and a half while Laura, I guess, can jump into what she was doing.
Laura: Yeah. Actually to back up a little bit, this was an idea that I initially had after graduating from university and I was working a full-time nine to five and software sales, found that I was really lacking that creative outlet in my life. And had a lot of spare time in the evenings and weekends that I wanted to fill up with a business. I'd had two companies in the past and knew that that was eventually where I wanted my career to take me. This idea for NIU BODY just, I couldn't get it out of my head. I was so convinced there was something here within this market and that it was solving a real need that I had at least experienced.
Laura: And so I "pitched" the idea to one of my friends who happened to know Connie from middle school. And so he had mentioned to me, "Oh, you should run this idea by my friend Connie, do some consumer research with her." So, that's actually how the two of us initially met was just under those pretenses. And I had brought our little minimum viable product with me to that meeting. It was just supposed to be a quick 45 minute sushi dinner, turned into a three hour business brainstorming session and Connie and I were just vibing off of each other the whole time, of having very similar visions for what the brand would turn into as well as our own personal set of values. But also polar opposite interests within what roles we would play in the business and opposite strengths and weaknesses.
Laura: I knew that I wanted a cofounder and at the end of that first dinner offered for her to join me on this crazy ride and luckily she accepted. That was in November of 2016 and then we launched March 2017, continued to work our full-time jobs up until a little over a year ago, September of last year.
Connie: and during that initial time period we were both meeting up at our apartments in the evenings, on the weeknights. And then on the full day weekends we'd usually be together in our apartments. When we were side hustling in the beginning days, because we both only put in $2,000 to start the business. We didn't have money for a warehouse or anything like that. So, all the manufacturing was initially done in my kitchen on our countertop. And then because my apartment wasn't big enough to hold all the packaging supplies and all the shipping materials then Laura would lug all the finished product back to her apartment and then fulfill orders through Shopify from her apartment.
Connie: So, that was what it looked like at the beginning days, which now we can look back on fondly. But it was definitely a big hustle period.
Felix: Yeah, definitely want to touch on that too. The transition from the day job into side hustle mode and then eventually transitioning it to the full-time business. Now, I think, Laura, you had mentioned that you knew you wanted a cofounder. I think people out there that are thinking about starting a business are also potentially at this crossroads where they wonder, "Can I do this alone? Should I do this alone or should I find someone to cofound a business with me?" What goes into a decision like that? If someone comes to you and asks you to ... how do I know I should look for a cofounder or do this solo? How do you help them understand the answer to that question?
Laura: Yeah, it's a great question and it really comes down to the individual entrepreneur. Fortunate for me, I'd run a business in the past on my own, which was very different. It was an exterior house painting business and I found that experience really isolating. And even thinking back on my time in school, my favorite types of work environments were group projects. I just love working within a team setting. I love having someone else to bounce ideas off of, to stress test my ideas, to add value to their ideas. So, it's that constant communication. I'm not an independent worker, I'm definitely a team worker.
Laura: I'd say if you are torn in that decision, think back to other times that you've had a business or been involved in a team environment. What default you tend to go towards? And also it comes down to, have you met someone that you think would be a good cofounder? Of course, cofounder match and compatibility is super important. I think Connie and I got lucky meeting each other so early on in this because I know it's something that a lot of founders struggle with, finding someone that adds value and perspective to the business, but then they can also get along with well outside of work hours. And those two things are super important. So yeah, it comes down to the individual.
Felix: Got it. Now, so when you went into this meeting for the first time, I think you said over sushi, what was it that either both of you or either of you were looking for, like criteria almost to determine if this would be a good fit or not? I know this was super early in the, I guess, the business, so maybe you want to think about this too much, but maybe even looking back on it, what are the green flags and red flags that you would look for in a cofounder?
Laura: I wouldn't even say that we were going in looking for criteria because we truly didn't expect to go into that meeting looking for a cofounder. It was just to do market research and Connie was just generous enough with her time to be like, "Oh, I'll meet up with my friend's friend to tell her if I like her business idea." So, it wasn't under the context of being like, oh, we're testing out to see if this is a partnership. It felt very much more natural than that. But then as Connie and I were having the conversation and the idea came into my head of being like, okay, maybe this is a good person. I'd say the things that I was looking for was her value set. Like, is she good person in her core? Is she someone that I would trust? Do I think she would try to lie, steal or cheat within the company.
Laura: Obviously those things would be huge red flags. I don't like people with massive egos. So, making sure that the other person was really down to earth was super important. We also talked about the Myers-Briggs personality test. Connie and I both love Meyers-Briggs types and I really believe in them. We found out during that first meeting that we're actually polar opposite. So I'm an INTP, she's an ESFJ, which was a cool affirmation as well, that this is someone who can clearly balance out my personality and my strengths and weaknesses. So those were the things like, having complimentary personalities. That's an interest.
Connie: Yeah, definitely completely agree with everything Laura said, especially the values part. I think a lot of the times when you're thinking about side hustling or starting a business, you're just thinking about the full on hustle mentality. But something that Laura and I found that we both share is we both are probably within the top three people in our networks in terms of the level of hardworking and in terms of the level of hustle we're willing to put in. But at the same time, it's not like our entire days are only working on NIU BODY.
Connie: We both value seeing our families. We both value having time to work on our health and focus on going to the gym and mental health and such. I think that's really important because if you have it uneven where one person is just like go, go, go all the time, then you're going to get into conflict. That's something that we realized really early on was that we both really had this exact same family values and the vision for where we saw our lives heading in the next five to 10 years. But at the same time, our skill sets were just completely opposite in a really good way.
Felix: Okay. So it sounds like, to sum it up, polar opposites in skillset but share life philosophy and work ethic was the winning combination for the two of you.
Laura: Yeah, definitely.
Felix: Got it. Okay, so let's talk about this ... because you mentioned again that this was something that you're both doing on the side, as a side business, and working a day job. Tell us about the balance. Again, this is another spot that I think a lot of entrepreneurs are at, where they are trying to figure it out because they're at this point where they have a day job and they are maybe semi successful with their side business at this point, is trying to make them both work. Tell us about your experience doing this.
Laura: Yeah, it was definitely really challenging I think for both of us to manage that period where we were doing both things. I think what helped us the most was having a clear structure. We would meet up usually for a full day every weekend. Usually it was Sundays and then generally speaking, two weekday evenings throughout the week. So, for us it was usually Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then also trying to make sure that you do as much work together. I think there's a high tendency these days to do as much remote work as possible because technically it's possible to do, but the team dynamics, I think, really suffer when you're not working on things together. Even if you don't technically need to be in each other's presence, make sure that you get that face time in is really important for achieving that balance.
Laura: And then, as soon as you possibly can, get some level of separation between your home environment and your work environment. Even if that means not having stuff like in your bedroom so that there's somewhere that you can go to escape the business and not be surrounded by it. Even though it's never going to leave your mind. You'll always be thinking about the company once you commit to the life of an entrepreneur.
Connie: Yeah. I remember one time when we used to store all the products in my apartment. They were all over my living room. There was oil everywhere on the floor because our first product was coconut oil based. And I remember one night getting up in the middle of the night and I just slipped on some oil and tripped over a box. I fell on my face and it was just one of those moments where I was like, what am I doing? Who am I to think that we can really pull this off? And so, I completely agree with Laura that as soon as you're able to develop some sort of separation that's key.
Connie: In terms of balance in the beginning, it's something we're both still struggling with getting the hang of. Because I mean, for both of us, we think our 20s are when we should be really working hard and hustling. So again, don't have that fully figured out. But I remember the beginning days what was hard was, when you're at the office working your full-time job, you still need to do a really great job obviously for the company that's paying you. And then we would both have calls scheduled with buyers and suppliers and we'd run into little meeting rooms in our office and try to call another person and pretend we were in the same room. And there were times where we'd stay up like for three weeks straight, making products by hand in the evenings for our first large order for 7,000 units. Because we, again, bootstrapped and couldn't afford to outsource that manufacturing.
Connie: But because Laura and I were so sure that we were going full-time with this eventually and we were sure that this was a problem that we could solve for a lot of consumers, I think that really led us through that difficult and dark time.
Felix: Yeah. This started off as a question about balancing the day job and the side business but you touched on something important as well, which is the work life balance. Once you do devote yourself to the entrepreneurship lifestyle and have your business that you're working on full-time, because it is a lot easier to separate that when you have a day job. Because you're working at nine to five and for the most part you can have that clear cut boundary for them, again for the most part. But you are both very purposeful about setting this work-life balance or at least working towards it as entrepreneurs, as people that are working on your own business. Did you both have some kind, I guess, traumatic experience with not having the right balance that makes you both really emphasize the importance of setting those boundaries and having that separation, that work-life balance between your business and your, I guess, your personal life?
Laura: A traumatic experience. That's ...
Felix: It just sounds like you guys are so very purposeful, again, about having this balance that I think a lot of people [crosstalk]
Laura: Just very mature 20 year olds, 20 something year olds.
Connie: I wouldn't say that there was anything specifically traumatic. One thing I would say though is that on a weekly basis, Laura and I have a retrospective where we reflect on the week, what went well and what could have been improved, which I think is a really great structure to have. Something that we noticed repeatedly is whenever we would work full day weekends after going full-time with NIU BODY and not having any personal time, that would be a week where we would just feel really burnt out. Kind of a little more uninspired and things would take a little bit longer to do. So, reflecting on that and noticing that having even those extra few hours for yourself where there's nothing work related actually helps you become more productive was a good realization.
Connie: So, some things that I personally do to try to set some boundaries, again not perfect with this at all, is since I live by my calendar, I physically block in calendar blocks called me time or self-care time in the evenings to make sure that A) I don't book something with a friend or have a meeting at that time. But also I'm not working through that evening. It could be something as simple as like reading a book, going to the gym, et cetera.
Connie: Another thing that helped a lot was pausing my inbox because it's so easy to get addicted to refreshing your inbox and seeing who else you can reply even at midnight. So for me, I pause my inbox at 10 o'clock and then I don't let emails come in until 7:00 AM the next day. So, I can't be tempted to check my phone in the middle of the night. Those sound like very nitpicky ways to ensure that I'm not thinking about work all the time. But sometimes you just have to set those controls in place because you naturally want to be working on your baby.
Felix: Right. Do you believe that this is something that ... well, forget that, so you basically, your reaction is that when you see that you are not making as much progress, I think a lot of people might react by saying, "I need to work harder. I need to work more." You're saying you need to work less and have more self-care time. Do you believe that this is something, this philosophy is something that you should always do regardless of what stage you are in your business? Or do you believe it's more like, I guess almost like an earned luxury once you have some kind of momentum behind you?
Laura: I think it's something that you should always focus on because you can only be, go, go, go for so long before inevitably you will get burnt out. And I do remember that during that period where we were aside hustling and working full-time jobs I ... my immune system was for sure compromise. Because I remember I was getting sick probably once every two months. Whereas I don't think I've been sick like hardly at all in the past year, maybe once in a full year. Even changes like that that are really clear and just feeling like you didn't have any you time, even though we didn't have any necessarily traumatic experiences with this process. But then also, being kind to yourself of not feeling level of pressure of having to do it all. I know that there'll be times and NIU BODY will start to slide. Or maybe NIU BODY's going great, but then my personal life slides.
Laura: I read this quote the other day that's, "The balls that we juggle in life are actually made out of rubber, so they bounce back if you drop them, with the exception of your health, which is made of glass." So, if you drop that, it's really hard to recover from something like that. I think prioritizing your health is always important and the business shouldn't come in the way of that.
Connie: I think somebody Laura and I are both really cognizant of is also the type of culture that we want to build when our team eventually expands. And if people are looking at the cofounders not taking care of themselves at all and working, burning the candle at both ends, then they're probably thinking they're going to be expected to work the same level of hours. We want to make sure that NIU BODY's the type of place where people would be excited to work for and not get burnt out, and can have really creative ideas and just feel inspired and empowered to work for.
Felix: Now, when you are starting this business on the side, I think that the reaction a lot of people have when they are in the same situation where they're starting on the side is that their immediate response or conversation they have in their head is like, "I don't have the time right now. I need to make more time to actually pursue this." Now, when you are going through it, where again you had the day job and you're working on this on the side, did you feel that you needed more time or what is your reaction, I guess, to that kind of comment that you need more time, essentially, to work on your business while you are working a day job?
Laura: I mean, time is always a limited commodity for everybody. So, I wouldn't say that we ever feel like, "Oh man, I have so much extra time in the day, what am I going to do?" So, I wouldn't say that we necessarily struggle with that, but it really comes down to what is a priority for you. And I would just have, and I know that Connie's the same, that we would have so much regret if this wasn't something that we went after and if we didn't put everything that we have into it. So, it's kind of just deciding for yourself like, okay, so if you don't have time for this, is that something that if it doesn't end up happening that you can be okay with? And the answer is yes, then cool. Don't stress about it. But the answer is no, then it's probably worth carving out the time or finding it from somewhere.
Laura: And we're lucky in that we're young, we're both 26, we don't have kids, we don't have husbands, we have boyfriends, but there's less responsibility when it comes to home life. So, I think that that makes things a lot easier as well. I have so much respect for moms with many kids who are able to also have successful companies. I just, I can only imagine the juggling game that they must have.
Connie: I would definitely say, when people are thinking about starting a side hustle and they're concerned that they don't have enough time, you make time for the things that you care about. And you know that story I alluded to earlier where we stayed up for three weeks making these products. It wasn't like it was where we necessarily want to be every evening and every Saturday and Sunday, hand pressing these makeup wipes. But we chose to do it because that was our priority. And I remember, there was one day where it was the first nice day of the spring and everyone was out on the patios and our friends were like, "Where are you guys?" And we were just inside my condo, making these wipes and just looking out the window being like, "Damn, it's really nice out."
Connie: Then we looked at each other and we're like, "Okay, just keep going." But that's the thing, that's a side of entrepreneurship I feel like a lot of people do not see. They just tend to hear about these glamorous stories of overnight successes and things like that and they don't see everything that goes on behind the scenes and all the manual work involved in the beginning of a side hustle. So, definitely keep that in mind, for all the listeners out there, when you're thinking about starting your side hustle that there are going to be sacrifices, but you just have to think about if it's worth it to you to pursue.
Felix: It's something I think what you said earlier too, was that you had both decided that you were going to someday go full-time with this and I think that gives you some of the fuel, the light at the end of the tunnel to go through those sacrifices. Now, what made you so sure? How did you build that kind of belief that the business was going to be successful enough where you were going to be able to focus on it full-time eventually?
Connie: I would say like from day one that when Laura talked about the idea of new NIU BODY, I was immediately drawn in. For me personally, I remember before I met Laura, even two months before I was telling my sister that even though I had a job that I really loved, I still felt unfulfilled and I knew I wanted to start something. And when Laura's idea was in the natural beauty space, it was like a dream come true because natural beauty and natural skincare is my number one love.
Connie: And so, having the ability to start my own business with Laura as well as being in a field that I genuinely was passionate about was something that I could not let go of. So, from day one when Laura and I were talking about the market opportunities and how we'd be different, it was never really a question of if we would go full-time to be honest. It was just when we would do it. How we decided when we would go full-time was we knew that we wanted to have six months worth of money saved up in our bank accounts so that we wouldn't need to be making decisions out of desperation. We weren't the type of entrepreneur to drop everything right away and quit our jobs. We worked for a year and a half to say about that runway. But when we did quit, we felt comfortable with that decision.
Connie: Immediately after we went full-time, our sales skyrocketed. I remember two weeks after we went full-time, we signed a massive deal for like 250, 300K and that's definitely because we're able to put our full-time hours in.
Felix: So you saved up six months of, it sounds like living expenses to do this. How was the business looking at that time where you decided to go in full-time? Was there a, I guess, a path towards revenue at that point?
Laura: There was in that we felt that we had found product market fit. We were starting to see great numbers in terms of reorder rates. Same with us being able to land some retail accounts. As Connie mentioned, within a few weeks of us going full-time, we landed that big partnership, which was a wholesale partnership. There was definitely runway and traction and we had also just gotten into an accelerator, which was a lucky timing type thing because I'd already given my notice. And then we found out that we were getting into an accelerator, which just out of chance, the first day of that program was the first day of us both being full-time. So, all the stars were aligning. Also, I think there's a certain level of just saying, "Okay, I want to go full-time with this. Let's make it happen as soon as it can happen." And knowing that you're probably never going to feel fully comfortable when it comes to making that leap. It's always going to be scary.
Felix: I think that was something you mentioned earlier, which was about how you did not want to make decisions out of desperation. I think this importance also the other side of the coin, where people would tell you that you should just jump out the plane and then figure it out on the way down and just quit your job and have no safety net. And what you're getting at, I think, here is that when you don't have the cash to pay your rent, you're always chasing the next paycheck or otherwise you're going to be homeless or you're not going to be in a good situation. But if you have that runway, you have some kind of cash coming in or cash saved up, you are making more longterm decisions. I think this is really undervalued point that you're making here about why it is important to hedge your bets a little bit so that you don't make again these desperate decisions.
Felix: Now, you mentioned that soon after you quit, you both went into this full-time you landed that 250 to $300,000 wholesale partnership deal. What did you do with your time that allowed you to start making these big leaps in the business?
Connie: Yeah, I mean I can speak to the retail side so if you want to reflect back on when we were side hustling, I could only respond to X number of emails per day. And especially during the work day when other NIU BODY buyers were working too. Because during that time, I was working with my other accounts with Kimberly Clark and so most of the time during the nine to five work day, I was working my other full-time job. Because of that, when I was side hustling, the only time I could really get work done on NIU BODY was in the evenings. And then you'd have to wait a full day for a response from your counterpart person that you're working with.
Connie: And so, when we went full-time, I was able to have multiple messages, multiple calls per day, really get the ball rolling that way. I think that was like a massive change once we went full-time. I think also you're in a different mindset when you go full-time where you just have so much more time to work on your baby. Whereas before, after a nine to five you're kind of mentally drained and a little bit exhausted. And when you're trying to think of creative ways for cool opening cold emails or good ways to respond to a buyer or a supplier, sometimes it just takes you a little more effort to think of it when you're side hustling and to make a good impact through your emails. Whereas, when you're full-time, you feel more refreshed even though maybe you're working more hours, but you just have so much more time as a resource that way.
Felix: That makes sense. Okay, I want to talk about how you use your resources, especially early on, you mentioned you both put in $2,000 for a total of $4,000 to start the business. Now, when you think back on it, what was the best use of the $4,000?
Laura: This wasn't something that we bought right out of the gates, but it was something that we bought, I think, maybe two months in was a really high quality home laser printer. Being a physical goods company, one really annoying point for us was ordering labels for our first line of products. Because they were super expensive at the quantities that we were ordering at, and then if we wanted to change anything about our design or our formula, which is a great thing to be able to do since you're growing and still learning about what exactly your brand means, we found that we were having to waste inventory or we just wouldn't make those changes because of like the sunk cost mindset. So, investing into that printer, which I think was like 250 bucks was amazing. And it served us well for I think over a year and a half, almost two years it was still going and we would use it basically just to print our own labels.
Laura: We would buy these really nice quality printer sheet labels, essentially, and use those for our products. So, if we needed to make tweaks, we could do it on the fly. Just making sure that the money that we invested was not going towards things that seemed really glamorous to have. Like spending a ton extra on really, really nice business cards or having all these brochures printed off because chances are your brand is going to change before you can use up all of that material anyway. And then it's just like money down the drain.
Connie: Something that, of course, you need to spend on is incorporating. So, that was something that, I think, was the first thing that we did after we started working together, was just to make sure we could protect our personal assets. And that was maybe I think $400 Canadian. But other than that, I think I agree with Laura that the printer was definitely the first thing that comes to mind in those initial hustle days.
Felix: Yeah, that's funny. So, you mentioned though that the mistakes that you at least see other entrepreneurs making or that you definitely warn entrepreneurs from making is investing in the business cards and the things that, again, that might change with your brand pretty soon after launching. Do you remember some of the things that maybe you did make mistakes with that you did realize, like the $4,000 ... out of those $4,000 or early on that you probably shouldn't have spent money on? Or at least looking back on it in hindsight?
Connie: Something that I can think of, it wasn't necessarily in the first couple months, but because we didn't have a lot of money to play with, but we also wanted attend trade shows to meet with retailers was we're like, okay. Within the beauty space, for any of the listeners who are thinking of starting a beauty brand, Indie Beauty Expo is one of the most reputable trade shows to attend. They're all over the world. But the cost to attend I believe was $4,000 US, just for a booth. And because we only had 4,000 Canadian in our account to play with, it didn't make sense for us to attend.
Connie: But we also still wanted to get some validation of this Canadian brand in the US market. So, we tried to find a trade show that was a lower cost and we did end up finding one in New York that was round, I think $1,500.
Laura: Yeah. It was quite a bit cheaper.
Connie: And we were like, okay, this is great. This will be a good way for us to meet-
Laura: Our first test.
Connie: Yeah. To meet with buyers and press. And they guaranteed us a lot of things and said that we'd be meeting with people from Vogue and Vanity Fair and Nordstrom and even Marcus. And we went there and it was definitely oversold to us. And that was one of the things where Laura and I looked at each other and we're like, okay, trade shows is definitely something that we're not going to spend on until we're ready to attend the ones where we're going to be meeting with the right contacts. And so then from that point we held off on trade shows for around six months, I believe.
Connie: Once we had some more cashflow coming in, then we booked Indie Beauty Expo and that was completely night and day in terms of the quality of the buyers and press that attended. We made back 3X what we put in within a month.
Felix: So, at least in your industry, the beauty industry, when it comes to trade shows, you definitely get what you pay for. You should in, your experience, go for it at the top tier.
Laura: Oh, 100% yeah. It doesn't mean that you need to spend tons and tons of money on the flashiest booth. There's ways that you can save money on the booth expenses. Because these trade show companies will charge you so much money just to rent a table or a chair. It'll be $60 just for a chair. It's crazy. So, there's ways that you can bootstrap that, but definitely when it comes to things that are out of your control, like who attends a trade show, it's better to go with the main brand ones as well. And then while you're there making use of it. It's unbelievable to us the number of people that go to these shows and then sit behind their table sitting down looking at their phone the entire time.
Connie: Something that I just thought of that could be more applicable to listeners who aren't necessarily just in the beauty space is another mistake is spending too much on agencies in the beginning. An example I can think of is a PR agency. Something that we noticed when we're going on everyone else's websites were mentions of Refinery 29, like Vogue, et cetera. And we were looking into potentially getting agency, which we did end up spending on, and the quality of the press hits that they were able to get us was okay. We were able to get a couple of Canadian press hits.
Connie: But what I found actually worked better was myself just cold emailing as many writers and editors as possible. So, I would creep on different websites and see which editors were ... and assistant editors were writing about competitive products and then reach out to them on Instagram, LinkedIn, email, whatever channel I could find them on, introduce myself as a cofounder and offer to send product.
Connie: From that kind of hustle mentality, again it didn't come overnight. I sent out hundreds of these sorts of emails, but we were able to land things like, again, Elle Canada, Refinery 29, PopSugar, CBC, which is big in Canada, a fashion magazine, Livestrong, HelloGiggles. These sorts of press hits you don't necessarily need to pay an agency to get. That being said, if you do have the budget to pay 10 grand or whatever for a high quality agency, it does help to have that social proof on your site.
Felix: Okay. What was that pitch then when you are hitting these ... when you were not going with an agency, at least early on, and you were reaching out to publications yourself, how were you able to get them to entertain the email at first or the message at first and then eventually featuring you?
Connie: Yeah, I think a big part of press hits and having a story is really just telling the editor about the story of how you started the business. Because, that's something that's really unique to every business. Whereas, you could have a really compelling competitive advantage in terms of the price point or the affordability or the quality. But at the end of the day, there are many brands that can also say the same thing, but no one can copy the founder's story.
Connie: What worked really well for us was saying we were 23 when we started the business. We were fresh out of university. We each had $2,000, young female founders on a mission to make natural skin care accessible for everyone. And a lot of editors could relate to the story because they themselves had found struggles with affording high quality skincare. And then as we're able to get one press hit, as soon as we had one, I would reference that in the next email being like, "By the way we're also mentioned Elle," and that immediately gives you social proof and you just piggyback off of that.
Connie: That goes the same for when you're getting a new retail partner. Once we landed our first small retail partner, which was in a small area of downtown Toronto, I would start including that in all my emails that got sent out to retailers just to show that one retailer took us on.
Felix: Yeah. That social proof definitely is compelling. It's just like a coastline where someone doesn't feel like they are taking that big of a risk anymore because someone already featured you. And they also don't want to be left behind and not feature you once they start seeing other press do it. So, you mentioned that you hit them up on multiple channels. I think you mentioned some email, LinkedIn and Instagram. Was there a channel that worked better than others?
Connie: Yeah, Instagram works really well and Twitter also. Well, what I would do is a lot of editors will postings on Twitter. I personally don't use Twitter very often, but I would find something that they had been writing to their community about on Twitter and then DM them on Instagram and mentioned that in my DM to them. And most of the times, it's harder to contact them through email because they're getting a bunch of in bounds every day. But on their personal Instagram accounts, often it's surprising that these assistant editors and editors tend to have maybe sub 10K followers. So, they'll have the time to go through their DMs and you if you have a personalized message that you're reaching out to them with, more often than not, they'll at least reply and give you a shipping address.
Connie: So, what I would do is I would end the DM with something like, "I'd love to send you some products to try free of charge. We're not expecting anything. If you're interested, just provide a shipping address." And I think nine out of 10 times people would respond. Whether they chose to write about us was another story. But at least getting the response, I thought Instagram is the best for that.
Felix: Got it. Now, something you mentioned earlier was about how during a time where you were thinking about going full-time into this you both discovered that you had found the product market fit. What were you looking for to determine that you did have the product market fit?
Laura: I guess for us, one thing that was a huge validator was very early on we went to these markets where we got to set up our little six foot table for the day, bring a bunch of our products in and a lot of them were local artisans, the other vendors. But these markets get quite a bit of foot traffic and allowed us to have really great and detailed conversations with people who would be our target demographic and target buyers. And just to understand how they shop for skincare products, the types of questions that they asked, how they interact with the product once they're trying it for the first time. And that was a really great learning experience for us. And then also helped to guide what types of products that we released and then also what type of tone we use when we talk about the products to shoppers and consumers.
Laura: So, that was a very early validator for us. And I remember very distinctly this one time that a lady who we had met at one of the markets in-
Connie: August.
Laura: ... August, came back, I think, three months later to the next market specifically just to see Connie and I and to talk to us about how much her skin had changed. It was a remarkable transformation. I remember the first time that we saw her, she had fairly severe hormonal acne and very active breakouts. And then when we saw her the next time it had almost all cleared up, maybe 10% of it was left. So, it was just such a great encouraging feeling to see the change our products had on her skin. And that's still the highlights of our days, is being able to see reviews and testimonials from our actual customers.
Felix: Yeah, that's certainly amazing. What tweaks are you making to discover, I guess to figure out that product market fit because it sounds like you were just actively trying to improve that. What kind of changes were you both making that time to get a better fit?
Laura: Yeah, we tweaked around with our packaging quite a bit, so upgrading it. Since we were bootstrapped initially it was like we didn't have any exterior packaging of boxes and then we upgraded to a model that was a little bit more handmade and then version that was actually mass produced. And getting customer feedback on those things throughout in terms of the types of messaging that we use. Even something as simple as on our website we used to have this series called Boss Babes, but we realized that within the market that we're going after, that term doesn't really resonate with many people anymore. So, we changed it to Her Hustle. Just small things like that. Pricing as well, scents too. So, seeing people's faces and how they respond to different scents really guided the types of scents that we would use in future products. So, it's like over all corners.
Connie: Yeah. Another thing I can think of is changing a product dispenser from a pump top to a cap top. Things like that where we're like, "Oh everyone's going to want a pump top cleanser." And then when we launched it, people were like, "Actually no. For a cleansing oil, I prefer to be able to control how much oil comes out because I might not be wearing that much makeup and a whole pump is going to be wasteful." And we're like, "Ah, did not think about that." And so, I think like Laura said, for anyone who's thinking of starting a business, especially a product based business, going to local markets and flea markets, it's exhausting, but it's so worth it. And we still have customers to this day who continue to support us through shopping on our Shopify website that we met at our markets and our first couple months of starting NIU BODY.
Felix: Speaking of Her Hustle, you mentioned that you guys have again, Her Hustle, which is a biweekly interview that you both have launched. Can you describe the kind of content that you create of it?
Connie: Yeah, the initial concept for Her Hustle came around because a big mission for Laura and myself is supporting women in business. As a small business right now we're not able to necessarily donate large amounts of money to supporting other female foundations or charities. But a way that we knew we could give back was raising awareness of how to start your own business, the common struggles that female founders face and just highlighting other people's successes so that their brand can be visible through our channels and on our Instagram. As we started posting about these interviews, we also realized like, "Hey, we can also make this work well for us too with copromotions where say we partner with a haircare company, we can both pull in some products worth like $300 between the two of us and have an Instagram copromotion on both of our accounts. And that way our audience can follow their account and vice versa."
Connie: It just started out really organically. But now it's something that a lot of our audience really enjoys and looks forward to. And because we have such a large roster, I think we have over like 75 or 80 of them now we're able to approach really large, successful, inspiring business women. One example I can give is, I was at Shop Talk with Laura in March and it's a retail conference in Vegas. One of the people speaking was Raissa Gerona, who is the CMO of Revolve. She's massive and has been credited with being one of the first to really capture the influencer marketing trend. I ran up to her after her presentation and was like, "Hey, we have this thing, it's called Her Hustle. We have like, at that point then we had like 50 interviews including X, Y and Z people, would you be interested?" And she was like, "Sure." So, we were able to Raissa on the blog, which was amazing.
Connie: And from there we were able to get other people, including an actress from Harry Potter who now has a vegan subscription box. And it's all kind of continued from there. And so, I think one point that's important about this is that content is so important. You shouldn't just be posting on your Instagram like, "Here's my product, here's my product, buy my product." You should also be posting value add content that people are going to enjoy following your Instagram or your emails for. So, whether that be for skincare, specifically educating people on what other ingredients are good for your skin. Or products that you don't even currently have, but where to shop those from other brands. Like, something that's not just me, me, me focused really helps a lot.
Felix: That makes sense. I think it's super cool with the kind of people that get to meet through interview and it's certainly an avenue that I think a lot of other brands should pursue. Now, what is your process, for anyone out, there that is thinking about doing these kind of interview based content creation? What is your process for creating this kind of content?
Connie: Yeah. So, for us, initially, and something that we would love to do is to have more video content. In the beginning, since our budget, again, was so small from bootstrapping, we decided to just do it through email. So, the way that works really well for us now is we have a whole library bank of questions and we just send the potential interviewee, a Google doc with the questions that we've written out. And one of the questions also asks them to link a folder of images that they would be okay with us sharing on the blog. And then once they have that all filled out, we plug it into our content calendar. Our social media coordinator then ensures that the blog post is formatted well. And then if the other person that we're interviewing has a physical goods company, then we often ask them, "Would you be interested in a copromotion?" Slot that into the calendar as well.
Connie: But honestly, it's not that hard to put together because again, it's not really a face to face interview per se. Back, actually now that I reflect on it, in the beginning days we did do everything face to face, but that was when we only interviewed Toronto based businesses. But even that took a lot of time because then we would be transcribing the interview and ultimately, at the end of the day, I find that the people we interview actually prefer to have some input into how it's written. And so, they like to be able to write that in the Google doc.
Felix: Yeah, I like that how you have it totally systematized so it doesn't have to take much time or even much effort on your behalf to create this kind of valuable content that your audience wants. So, once it is created, how do you promote the content after you've created it?
Connie: Multiple ways. One of them is, again, is through Instagram. It's usually every other Monday is the Her Hustle feature. And then on Instagram, if they do have a complimentary product, like hair care or makeup, for example, or a journal, then we'll do a co-promotion where we'll both share a photo of both of our products on both of our accounts and then encourage followers to comment and follow both accounts. That's one way that we raise awareness. We typically see a lift of a couple hundred followers from every giveaway that we do. And then we also promote on emails. All of our emails that go out aren't just product focused. Again, it shouldn't be about just pushing your product onto your audience.
Connie: One of our emails that goes out every month is just like a content type email where we talk about the month, we recap the month and then we also share our Her Hustle interviews in that so people can click on that through there. We also always ask that the person who we're interviewing shares it on their personal channels. Say we interview someone with half a million Instagram followers, being able to secure them to even post an Insta story about that is amazing for awareness.
Connie: Those are a couple of the avenues that we use to promote Her Hustle. But if you have any ideas, we're more than open.
Felix: We can certainly to talk after. When you are looking to identify which brands or which influencers to work with, how do you, I guess, filter? How do you decide who to go after?
Connie: Yeah, it's a really good question. Initially, again, because it was such a small thing in the beginning days, I looked at which female founders I personally knew in the Toronto area because we'd be meeting them in person. I remember the very first one was one of my friends Jessica, and she has a juice company right in the heart of downtown Toronto. That was a really cool one to start with. And then as we started to build up a roster, sometimes we had people actually reach out to us where they're like, "Hey, I saw this and I have this business. Would you be interested in writing about it?" So, that's one way that we find people.
Connie: Another way is, Laura and I love to create lists of inspiring role models and ideas that we have. I even have a running list of just people that'd be really cool to try to get on the Her Hustle series. So, that's one way that we get people. Oftentimes Laura and I are meeting so many different founders at different events and markets and trade shows and conferences and usually we'll be able to get a couple of Her Hustle features from there. One thing that we always think about is, is this person going to be able to provide some sort of insight or is their experience really interesting that people would resonate with it or be inspired by? It's not just like any random person who is starting something new and wants a quick shout out.
Felix: When you are doing these giveaways, you mentioned that you are looking to get promotion from your side and also the brands that you partner with. Now, what's the ... when you go from the Her Hustle side to go into the giveaways, is that like a pretty high conversion rate where most brands will agree to do a giveaway?
Laura: Yeah, 100%. Giving product for promotions is very low cost but usually very effective. Again, you can definitely see a lift in terms of sales as well as in terms of your audience on Instagram. One thing, again, that works really well is having a promo code that you share afterwards. I'll give an example. Say we partner with Verb Hair Care, which we have in the past, the giveaway bundle is $500 of haircare and NIU BODY product and there's two winners. But even if you're not one of the winners, you can use the promo code, Verb on NIU BODY's website to get 20% off NIU BODY product. Or you can use the code NIU BODY on Verb's site to get 20% off their hair care products. You can track the results that way and see if people are actually interested.
Laura: And because you're partnering with a brand that has an audience that is similar in interests and demographic to yours specifically with makeup and hair and such, you will see an impact that way. So, oftentimes people ask how do you do marketing in the beginning days when you don't have a budget and you just are side hustling? I think Instagram still is like a really great tool and doing co-promotions, even if you don't have a blog or anything but doing co-promotions with other small businesses, even with sub 2,000, 3,000 followers that are in a complimentary business with yours works really well to grow your following in the beginning days without paying for followers because we're not about that.
Felix: Now, how often can you do this if this strategy is this successful? Can you run a giveaway every single week or is there a certain threshold where people are tuning out of it?
Connie: Yeah, that's again an amazing question. I remember there was one point where we were getting so many requests to do giveaways that it was pretty much like one every five or six days. And we're like, "No, this is not what we want our brand to be about. We don't want to be about discounting our brand or people are just following us for giveaways." So, now what we do is, we plan to have one every two weeks. It varies though because right now, for example, as we're recording this, it's the holidays and so we're having one a week. So, each week we have a different theme. So, one week is self-care, one week is gratitude. But most of the time we try to keep it to one every two weeks max because again, you don't want people to be following your brand just to get something for free. At the end of the day, they should really like what your brand is offering and be compelled to purchase if they really do enjoy what you're offering.
Felix:  I want to talk a little about the site, the online store itself. Was this was a designed in house, did you guys hire agency for that?
Laura: Yeah, it was designed in house. When we first launched we just had one of the free themes and now this one is, the base theme to it is prestige. I think it was like $120 theme that we made some customizations to as well.
Felix: Now, when you look at this site, what do you believe is the most important part of this site in terms of conversions or getting the purchase, essentially?
Laura: I think make it very, very clear what you do when they first land on the site so that it's very obvious that we're a natural affordable skincare company when they first land. Having proof. So, for us reviews and testimonials is massive. And making sure that you really focus on driving more of those to the website. And then, of course, calling out those press hits as well if you do have any. Those two things make it really clear what you offer, having social proof. And then the third would just be decreasing the burden of your checkout flow. So, making sure that all of that's really seamless. We love that Shopify now has multi-currency functionality because that was a huge pain point for us in the past of ensuring that customers can check out in their local currencies. So, anything that you can do to make it really easy to buy.
Felix: Are there any tools or apps that you use to power the site itself or just the business in general?
Laura: Yeah, we use a lot of different apps. So, I guess you mean more so from the backend standpoint of site operation. So, for email collection we use Privy because we really like the Spin to Win the feature that they have. We find that that converted way better. I think we got twice as many emails from it when we AB tested versus just a normal email popup. So we use that. We also recently added this app called Gifter, which auto adds a gift to cart. So, whenever someone has anything in their cart, in our case, we give them a free makeup bag with their purchase. So, it's just another incentivization to make people excited to complete.
Laura: We use Klaviyo for email automations. We have a bunch of meta fields that we use as well. Pickzen is the company that we use for our skincare quiz just because within skincare people want to know that they're finding the right products for themselves. And then we use Stamp.io for our review collection.
Felix: Awesome. Thank you so much Connie and Laura. So NIU BODY, N-I-U-B-O-D-Y.com's the website. I'll leave you with this last question. What would you say is the biggest lesson learned in 2019 that you want to apply going into 2020?
Laura: It's a good question.
Connie: Oh, that's a hard one. There's so many lessons that we learn every single day. It's hard to think of just one. Well, I mean I can speak for myself where I think oftentimes you get so excited with all these things that you're building that you can get really carried away and only thinking about the future and comparing yourself with other businesses that are doing amazing jobs. And I think that's something that we've had to work on this year is being able to reflect and be like, "Damn, we actually did a really good job." We grew this with just $4,000, now we have an actual office in downtown Toronto. These little things, it's so easy to overlook and forget about all that you've accomplished. So, that's something I would say is definitely big learning.
Connie: Another thing is protecting your time, which we touched on earlier in the podcast. Just ensuring that you're not spreading yourself too thin and always having time for yourself and your health like Laura mentioned.
Laura: And then for me, I'd say the biggest thing I learned this year was the importance of having the right partners within your business and that people are really what makes a company tick. And that these partners can be both internal employees but then also external vendors. We've been very fortunate in being able to have some amazing suppliers and even logistics people like freight forwarders that help us to ensure that our company is operating well. Really investing the time to finding those right people and waiting until you find the right ones is the best way to grow.
Felix: Awesome. So I mentioned niubody.com, N-I-U B-O-D-Y.com is the website. Where else should listeners go to keep up with you two?
Connie: Instagram is @N-I-U.B-O-D-Y, so that's definitely where you can find us. We often post founder Instagram stories and chats and Q&A's. So, that's where you can definitely interact with us more. We also regularly check our DMs. So, if you have any other questions after listening to this podcast, whether it be about what partners we really prefer or what apps we like, we're more than welcome, more than willing to share.
Felix: Awesome. Thank you so much again for your time, Connie and Laura.
Connie: Thank you.
Laura: Thanks so much for having us.