Felix: Today I'm joined by Jason Wong from Doe Lashes. Doe Lashes is a lash brand known for ultra-fine clean silk lashes that are subtle, comfortable and for everyday wear. It was started 2018 and based out of California. Welcome Jason.
Jason: Hello. Thanks for having me here.
Felix: Yeah. So we've actually spoken to you before. I've spoken to you before about other businesses that you started in the past. Talk about that a little, talk about your background in e-commerce that led you to starting Doe Lashes.
Jason: I think last time we spoke was around 2016 and 2017 really early on that year. It was about my brand Holy Meme Bible. The subject was that I was able to create this product and was able to generate over a quarter million dollars in under three weeks. So that was a fairly exciting time of my life. Now I'm onto my next business, and I think that's what we're talking about today.
Felix: Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about where the idea came from. Where did that idea come from for starting a lash brand?
Jason: Yeah. So I was actually listening to a podcast. The really funny thing about where we're at now is that I heard on a podcast about two guys starting a lash brand and they're doing drop shipping. They were using a drop shipping model on Shopify, creating a store, selling things using their Facebook ads expertise and was able to generate a lot of raw revenue through it. So I was on a flight to Hong Kong. After listening to the podcast I said to myself, "Hmm, maybe I can do the same thing and maybe I could do it my way." I don't do drop shipping. I don't know how to do drop shipping. I've always been a person who have developed brands, inventory around stuff and then ship it out on our own.
So, I was trying to see if I was able to get into the same lash market, but doing it with a model that I was familiar with. So I spent some time developing the product. While I was on a flight to Hong Kong, I set up some appointments to meet with vendors there too just so I can at least get an idea of what I was getting myself into. So that's what the origin of the brand came from.
Felix: Now, would you normally set up appointments with vendors this early or was this because you were there you might as well do it? Or would you usually try and look for vendors like that? Basically the first day that you're looking to start the business?
Jason: It's actually a really good question. I never really thought about that. It was purely because I was on the way already. All our factories are in Asia and if you're building a business in America, it wouldn't make sense for you to fly to the vendor every single time you get a new idea. But I think it was just because I was on the way for a vendor appointment for my other brands. I'd muscled just schedule it since flights within Asia are fairly very affordable. But generally what I would do is that every time I get an idea, I do a lot of internal research on whether or not the idea's viable first. Some products do require different certifications, different vendor requirements. So I usually do that step first. But just because I was on the way already and it wasn't really out of the way for me to visit these vendors, I thought I would just set up the appointment.
Felix: Got it. Let's talk about that research. What is involved when you are doing that kind of personal research to figure out if a business idea is viable or not?
Jason: A lot of people think of product ideas and they're like, yeah, I'm going to be the first person to do it. But oftentimes what I found is that we're really not the first person, we're sometimes the fifth or sixth person to think of the same business idea. And so, the first thing I like to do is to see if there's any history of that product. If someone have tried to create something and if so, why did they fail? Why did they not get to market? Is it because of product defects, is it because the market wasn't ready for it? Or was it because the vendor just wasn't able to supply what we envisioned?
So I like to see if other people have tried the idea first. And what I like to tell everyone is that even though someone has taken the idea already, it doesn't mean that you cannot do it. It just means that maybe the market is validated and it is a sign for you to actually put more effort into it. So the way that I like to see is to see what other people have done already and see what I'm able to do differently or if there's a roadblock that they experienced, I like to see if I was able to circumvent that or if I need to stop the project entirely.
Felix: Got it. So if you determine that another business has failed because of product defects, the market is not ready, the vendor wasn't able to supply the product; depending on the reason for the previous failure, how does that go into your decision on whether you should go in or not? Like do you need to have an answer to making sure the product doesn't have any defects, making sure you pick the right vendor? Is that how you decide to focus your time? Well, what do you do with that information once you do know why past businesses have failed?
Jason: There's usually a few reasons why I'll put a complete stop to it and there's a few reasons why I would actually put more effort into it. Things that would cause me to put a complete stop are if I see that the product does not meet certification standards. So for example, a couple of years ago I made a product called the Ramen Noodle Condoms, which was really just what the name implies. It was condoms that look like ramen noodles-
Felix: Yeah, I saw them.
Jason: Packets and they're a great product. I spent a lot of time into it. But what I didn't realize is that condoms are actually a type II medical device, meaning that I am legally not allowed to distribute them or import them into the United States. So I found out that part a lot later than I was supposed to. So I create all the products, I put all the money into the inventory and on the way to importing it to our country we realized that issue. So things like that are due diligence that I was supposed to do before I put my time into that product. But because I didn't do so, I was now having a handful of products I cannot sell.
So it's products like that, for example, but obviously not everyone is doing medical devices. Some products require different certification. So if you need to do CBD products, you need to get a certifications for that. If you need to do beverages or food, you need to go through different agencies for that. So I like to see if there's, first of all, any legal process I have to go through with this product. Two, if there's any vendors that make something like that already so that I can contact them to get any samples.
If you're creating an idea or a product that has never been done before in terms of the design and the functions, it's really important for you to find something that's the closest to what that is. So if you're making something like Airpods, you'd want to go to a earphone or Bluetooth factory, right? Going to those factory in order to understand if this technology or the function or the product idea that I'm envisioning is even viable. And if they tell us that it's not something that we can implement, I'll start looking for more factories. But if enough factories tell me that this is not the right idea or it is not the right combination, I'll go back to a drawing board and maybe get something together in another sense.
But oftentimes what would stop me is the legal process just because that takes a long time for me. And the way that I like to structure my business is fast to market and fast to sell. Oftentimes a lot of people get stuck in a particular stage of their business that end up taking months or years. I like to do everything a lot faster. So if I see something with huge legal roadblocks, I like to avoid products like that.
Felix: Got it. Okay. I definitely want to talk about how you do that, to get to fast to market and fast to sell in a second. But let's get back to the beginning where you were inspired by these drop shippers. You decided to do your own way, which we'll get to in a second as well. But then you were probably now going to look at the lash market and what it was like. What did you discover when you started doing some more research into the existing lash market?
Jason: What I found very fascinating about false lashes is... for those who don't know what lashes are, they are a strip of cotton band with lasher oftentimes made of nylon or those things that they make ropes out of, nylon, that or different types of hair fibers and they range from price in $2 to $40. And they're the type of product that you put onto your eyes to extend your current lashes. So for a lot of girls who don't have eyelashes, that's what they use to accentuate their look. Knowing that now, I started asking a lot of my female friends who wear lashes just to do some consumer feedback and surveying. And what I've found is that a lot of people don't have a particular brand that they go to. There was no brand loyalty in the eyelash space.
When you asked a lot of people before, what's their favorite skincare brands, what's their favorite moisturizer; they can kind of tell you a few brands that are really well known, that you can usually get common answers. But what I found is after asking 20 to 30 people around my circle and then later on I asked more, no one was able to give me common answers. They were telling me things that I've never heard before. Things that they sometimes just buy off the drugstores and things that they found on the internet.
That was a very fascinating thing for me because I was essentially gauged from a market where not a single brand owned the majority of the market. I was coming into a market competition where I was competing with a bunch of larger brands, but they don't have that much power over me besides the fact that they have more money and resources. So that was a good sign for me, meaning that I was able to attract new people to try our brand because there wasn't a brand loyalty.
That was the first for me honestly, I've never been to a market where there wasn't a huge player already and that just motivated me to keep trying. Just knowing that with the resources that I have, as little as it is compared to other bigger brands, there's still a lot of hope and a lot of potentials for this brand.
Felix: Now that you've gone through this, is that what you consider like a certain green light? When you see a market that has no brand loyalties, is that like a market that's super, super ripe for your method of building a business? Which again, we'll get to in a second. But like is that, nowadays is that the biggest sign that you look for?
Jason: It's not the only sign. It's one of the elements that I do really like personally because when you see a market where there's no large player but there's a lot of players, what that tells you is that it's a validated market. It's a market where there's a lot of people purchasing, but not one single brand has been able to perfect the product to attract everyone. So that tells me that there's an opportunity for me to create that solution for me to combine the elements of what make each brand great, whether it is branding, the product, the marketing, or even a distribution model. Knowing that I was able to study all these brands and combine them together to create a single solution that may be able to attract the larger market and get bigger market share, that was a green light for me but it wasn't the only thing that tells me to go for it.
Felix: Got it. Okay. Now once you know that there's no brand loyalty but there's lots of players in this space, so there's lots of demand but no one kind of leading the pack; what's your plan of attack once you know that there is no brand loyalty? How do you market your product? How do you market differently?
Jason: I like to focus on functions and features rather than a brand. A lot of bigger brands like to close off the existing brand value that they have already. But obviously as a new player with not a lot of capital that wasn't an angle we can go for. We try to look for pain points that people have with these products. Even though you're a large brand, sometimes people will set issues with your product such as buying a particular type of moisturizer that ends up drying faster, makes your skin flaky. So I try to go through these other brands and understand what their consumers are complaining about. And the common pain points is that when they put the lashes on, they don't feel comfortable. It feels very heavy on their eyes. It's really expensive. It falls off easily.
So understanding all these pinpoints. In our ad copy and the way that we portray ourselves to the public, we try to hit on those pain points and tell them that this product actually does not have the problems that people are experiencing with other brands. We don't like to name drop, we just like to present them that this is a solution to the problems that they may be having. And that if they'd like to avoid having the same issues that they have with the other brands, they could try this brand.
So that's a general idea of the way that we market our brand in the beginning. Obviously down the road, once you have a little bit more brand recognition, people see your brand around a lot more. You can do a little bit more types of angles. But in the beginning, with the limited budget that we have, our first step was to convince people that this product was superior to whatever they were buying already.
Felix: Right. Do you think it's like a mistake that you see that entrepreneurs make where they just focus so heavily on the brand? Like lifting it just straight from the ground, focusing on the brand first rather than more, I guess, tangible things like functions and features?
Jason: Yeah. Like promoting different products, it's a little bit different. So when you're promoting a clothing brand, which I think a lot of viewers will have experience in, is that unless you're doing techwear, it's hard to convince someone that your shirt is better than the other person's shirt. But for beauty products or things that you can actually see the features immediately, especially for a market where it's not really competitive by one single player, we felt that it was important to emphasize on a few bullet points of why people need to do this because in today's platform and the markets that we promote our products in is super competitive in terms of brands.
An average consumer will probably see a few hundred to a thousand brands on social media every single day. We cannot just depend on the fact that our logo is pretty or that our brand and our feet looks amazing. We have to tell the consumer on the first touch point on whether or not we are worth it for them to check out, so the first hook, and then why they need to stay and keep looking at our brand. So the different bullet points of why we're a little bit better than the others. As long as you're able to identify the pain points that people have of the other products and you're able to present a solution to those pain points in simple and easy-to-read format, it's a lot easier to get people into the door than to try to convince them just because you have a pretty brand.
Felix: Makes sense. Okay. So your way of... you mentioned earlier about how you decided to approach launching your last brand. You're away different than the way you saw the drop shippers doing it. And it sounds like your way is, again, focused on the functions and features and directly addressing the issues that existing products have. So what did you do that research? How do you know what function or features or maybe even what problems you should be building functions and features to address?
Jason: A lot of these come through study groups and surveys. What I did was, before I even got my hands onto a product, I use my access to my audience on Instagram, which isn't significant. I have about 12,000 followers on just Instagram. And what I did was I did a survey. I asked people to enter information in exchange for free product once I launch it. So I asked them very detailed questions about what's their age, what's their experience in using these products? What's the current brand they're using? What do they like about it? What don't they like about it? If they could change two things about this product, what would they do?
So asking them very detailed questions to identify the pain points that they have. After seeing what are some common pain points that these people have, and I received about 130 answers. So that's a pretty good sample size for what I was just looking for. I saw four or five common pain points and I first looked at myself and I asked, can I solve this? Is that something that I can actually change? It comes down to pricing, comfort, their ability, the packaging. And I knew that I could change all of that with my new product.
So that was the first direction that I had set for myself was to solve the pain points. And then next goes to design. You want to make sure that your product looks good while solving the same problem. You don't want it to be like, here's all the solution, but it may look a little bit tacky. So that's really where the time is spent is to bridge together the solution, the design, the packaging, and the overall branding of the product.
Felix: Got it. It was pretty straightforward to identify the problems and then the features that you want to create to solve those problems. And then you said that the majority of the time spent after that is around designing where you marry both those functions and the features to actually make it look like something that looks nice, especially for a beauty product that you're putting out there. So, what's involved here in the design process to make sure that, again, you are solving the problems but then still keeping it aesthetically looking good.
Jason: Yeah. I'm not a person who had worked at false eyelashes in the past, just making that clear to everyone. Coming into the space, I don't know much about it. To be frank, I didn't know anything about it. So I spent a lot of time studying beauty brands. I didn't want to just study lash brands. I think a common mistake that people make when looking at design is that they like to limit themselves to what other people in their own space is doing. And at the end of the day, you end up creating a second version of another person's brand.
What I like to do is I like to draw inspirations from other beauty brands such as moisturizers, facewash. I remember sitting in my bathtub and looking at the copy from a Dove bodywash bottle for about 10 minutes, just reading how they write their words or how they use the color of the logo to use the same color on their text. Just seeing inspirations from different designs, different brands, their packaging, and then try and see if I was able to replicate that with my own brand.
So I went to a lot of South Korean brands, just because I felt that Korean brands are able to convey colors and formatting a lot better than Western brands where it's a little more plain and straightforward. So, that's why when you look at Dove it's very colorful, it pops in your face and if you ever see it in retail show, it's going to catch your attention. So, I'd like to just draw inspirations from different mediums and see if I'm able to create something that people in my space has not been able to do.
Felix: Can you give some examples of... actually before we get there, what does studying mean? Like you're just literally reading, like buying the products and just staring at the price. If someone wants to replicate this process where they want to do what you suggest, which I think is great advice, which is to go outside of their industry or at least a little bit outside of it and get inspiration from not like competitors but against brands in the same space. How do you immerse yourself in a way where you actually are able to get actionable things that you can try to implement in the design of your product?
Jason: Right. Design comes down to two parts. There's the external design and the internal design. A lot of times internal design is what creates a function of it. And I think that was one point that I did not mention previously. In terms of external design, I just purchase a lot of products in the space who are similar to ours and try to see how they're able to structure their designs together to create the final product. So that's things that you can see on the outside: colors, the fonts, and honest stuff. So I literally just go out, purchase as many things as I can that I feel like could add to the final study of what I want my product to be.
And the internal design, and now we're getting into the product design, is what creates the product with the function that you envision. So I went out and I bought about 20 different pairs of lashes from 20 different brands and I study how they make their cotton band, how thick it is, whether the thickness contributes to durability and comfort. And I found that there needs to be a balance between having thick enough band to hold the lashes and a thin enough band to be comfortable.
So I have to purchase a bunch of lashes and test out which one was the best for the band. And then I go into the lash hair themselves. I look at what type of materials I can customize, whether it is silk, whether it is nylon or whether it is plastic, which is super, super cheap. And then finding which type of pair is best for the [con-band] that I just made. So that's the internal design that we do. There's a lot more complicated stuff beyond that but that's a general idea is that I like to take elements of what I like and essentially Frankenstein my own product at the end that draws inspirations in elements that I think what makes other products great.
Felix: Got it. Okay. So when you talk about external design, almost live as like packaging related, like how do you make the packaging look appealing based on the stuff that you see in the marketplace. Like you're talking about a soap brand, for example, or a lotion brand that you are using for your lash brand; like around the packaging, how it's presented. And internal design is actually how do you improve the product then to get down to that. To figure out how you should design, that you actually look at potential competitors. But this, the way you talk about sounds like you need some kind of expertise to know the things that you just talk about, like thickness and thinness and the types of material. How did you... did you have to learn? I mean, how did you know, based on just buying your competition's products, how did you know what was actually feasible to create in the real world?
Jason: I own a lot of this to my friends and my girlfriend who has been great in advising me. Like I said, I've never used false lashes before. So this was to me a foreign concept. What I found is that with enough research, your online presence will be your greatest resources. So what I did was I went on Reddit, I went on beauty forums and I read as many posts about lashes as I could. Literally every single thing that I got access to. Just to understand the fundamentals of how it works, why people wear it, how people wear it, and what they do with the lashes. So I saw that some people were actually stacking two pairs of lashes on top of each other to make them fuller because a lot of the lashes on the market at the time didn't offer that type of style. So I was like, what if I just made a style where it's two pairs of lashes stack together.
In terms of comfort and looks, I asked a lot of my friends who were already wearing lashes. I often set up impromptu study groups where I just give them products that I've made, ask them what they thought about it, gathered results. And then make the same question, same study group with another group of people and try gather those results from as many groups of people as possible just to have enough sample size to make a good decision. I don't know much about lashes at the beginning. I really didn't. But through enough research and asking the right people and always, always ask the right question, I was able to get a good idea of what I needed to create.
I just want to really emphasize on the good questions park. A lot of people ask questions to their friends and they ask stuff like, "Do you think this is great or do you think this is good? Well, what do you like about it?" Those are questions that won't really get you anywhere because a lot of times people will tell you they like it just because they're your friend. What I like to do is ask very specific questions. I ask stuff like, "If you were to wear this lashes for the entire day, what would be some noticeable things on the lashes that you'd want to have?" So they're like, "I want this to feel weightless on my eyes. I want this to be super light. I don't want it to look fake, I want it to look natural." So we're able to create styles and products that fit that description just because we understood what people wanted by asking the right questions.
Felix: Yeah. And hearing that question, it sounds like you try and get them to think, put themselves in a specific use case. Like if they are actually using your product, make them think about using your product and make them actually think about what would they... getting their opinions out that way. Then you also almost like assume, not assume but you make them realize like, hey, I want to actually hear not negative feedback but, yes, you want to hear constructive feedback. Or yes you want to get them to tell you things that are not good, right? To get more well-rounded feedback rather than, like you're saying, like they're going to say nice things because they're your friends. Like you are kind of coming at them with that frame of mind that, "Hey, I want to hear all your feedback. 100% honesty." So I think that's important way of asking those questions. Now, do you consult the vendors or manufacturers at this point or when are they involved as you are Frankensteining, but you said your version of this product.
Jason: At this stage I would like to get as many samples as I could from different suppliers and I also understand or I try to understand what makes them better than the other. When you ask suppliers why they're better than other suppliers, they'll give you really funny answers. Oftentimes they'll be like, "Yeah, we're better because our material's better." And I'm like, "That doesn't really answer my question." So what I like to do is I like to ask them about what makes their product stand out. I don't try and pin them against other suppliers because then they're able to tell you exactly why they think their product will be superior. They're not trying to compare it to another person.
So getting a lot of samples from different suppliers, understanding what makes them different on the fundamental level. So material, the craftsmanship, whether it is made by machine, made by hand and where's the assembly line. I try to find out everything that I could about the product and find out online what makes them better or makes them different. One funny thing was I did not know that cheap lashes were made in North Korea. That's one thing that I found out when I was in China. So when I went back to China, I visited several vendors after I already made purchase orders with one. I just wanted to understand if there's better options, if I could really improve my products.
And I found that for some factories their assembly line were in North Korea and they just sent it to China for the final packaging. So that made me really uncomfortable because knowing the working conditions there, I wasn't really comfortable with putting my products through that type of assembly line. So I found a factory where they do everything from start to beginning and I was able to see product from start to finish. So I think doing my own due diligence in the type of people I like to work with was really important. Even though getting the manufacturing in Korea would've been about 60, 70% cheaper, I just felt more comfortable knowing that our products were made in an assembly line in a factory where people have good working conditions.
Felix: Makes sense. Now, because of your approach of creating this product, you were training a unique solution, right? Because again you're putting together a bunch of different things. Did that present any challenges when you did have to work with the vendors? Like you came to them with probably an approach of combined bunch of different things that they probably or potentially never did before for any other lash brand. So what will happen when you came to them with... when you pick your vendor, you came to them with your solution? Was it just like, okay, this is perfectly right a go, or were there kind of concessions that had to be made?
Jason: When you're ordering from manufacturers, oftentimes difficult to customize too much beyond what they already have unless you're purchasing in a large enough quantity where they're willing to opening up a new assembly line for you. So if you go to a factory and you ask them to make 100 units of a product, they're not going to customize it to the way that you want unless you're paying a premium price. So what we did in the beginning was we chose a product line from their end that was most similar to what we envisioned; using the same material that we wanted, around the same thickness of band we wanted, but maybe the styles were a little bit different.
And we used that to test and market, release it to our brand and see how it works. And once we're able to have enough traction and confidence, we create a larger purchase order, which was able to have all the customizations that we wanted. And essentially the final product was what we envisioned. So when you're starting at the beginning, obviously you don't have the capital to purchase a lot of stuff. So we purchased very little of what was the most similar to what we're trying to sell to use that to validate the market. Now, every single factory and every single product that you'll create will be different. Some people are willing to do fully customized products for 100 units. Some people require them to be 1,000 units. So, just follow the same principle but know that the numbers will be different from product to product.
Felix: Got it. Makes sense. So, now you mentioned earlier too one way to differentiate yourself is changing your distribution model. Can you talk a little bit more about this? Is this an approach that you've taken for this product or one that you've taken in the past?
Jason: Distribution model just refers to the way that people receive their products. Some people like to do the Dollar Shave Club model where people subscribe and receive a product every single month. There are some people who like to do drop shipping so the customer receive it in two to three weeks. Some people like do it through Amazon, some people will ship it through the US so they get by the six days. We consider all these different types of models and we feel that fulfilling it by our own was the best model just because we like to customize the process a little bit more than what other models could offer.
So, we put inserts into a box. We have a fully custom box with freebies inside. We like to write notes to our customers sometimes. So that was the distribution model that I thought made me stand out from the other people I was looking at. So that's what I mean by distribution model. It's not like we're creating a whole set of different types of business model. It was just the way that we deliver our stuff. I thought about doing subscriptions for this product, but I feel like I needed to create a larger brand in order for me to convince people to subscribe to my product every single month. So, that's still a work in progress. I'm till working on a flow on that first. But distribution model can just be switching our current model to a subscription based model where people will pay us an X amount of dollars per month in order to receive X amount of products per month.
Felix: Got it. So distribution model, the way you differentiate against the way you deliver your products, almost like the packaging, the unboxing experience, how important do you think it is to focus on this early on? Like would you focus on trying to optimize the distribution model, like we were talking about early on, or is this something that you can worry about or you rather should worry about only later?
Jason: I think this could be tabled to later on for most people and including me. I did not do the subscription model yet just because I knew that it wasn't time sensitive and it wasn't really high priority. I like to split up stages to my business by stage one, two and three. Stage one is really trying to get the product to the market, getting people to see it and getting some type of revenue. And stage two is where I like to optimize my product, optimize our funnels, our marketing strategies, improve our brand overall now that we have a little bit more capital. And stage three is where I like to change up a big part of our business.
So this is where the distribution model will be coming in. This is where we will be raising funding if we need to and this is where we're scaling to newer channels and new mediums I would never try before. So, I will say that distribution model isn't something that you need to stress over too much, but it is something that you need to consider if you could improve later on in the different stages of your business.
Felix: Got it. It sounds like you are in stage two right now moving on to stage three. Now, when you talk about stage one, you mentioned how one of your goals is to get to market fast and to sell fast, get some revenue and get in front of people. Now, where do you think most entrepreneurs, especially ones that are new, what do they usually get stuck in in stage one and never really gets them anywhere or definitely doesn't get them to stage two? Where do they usually get stuck?
Jason: A common mistake that I found is people getting stuck on things that really don't matter in the long run. I know some people who make a logo and a website design and they're stuck on that for two, three months because they don't know what's the right combination. Sometimes they just don't have time for it. Like maybe they have a full time job, totally reasonable. But a lot of people are getting stuck on things that aren't making them money immediately rather than focusing on the product, the design of the product and the distribution of the product, like trying to sell it.
I'll say for what makes us able to get to the market so fast is our ability to understand what needs to be done first. So, making the product, making the store and getting the marketing strategies out to get in front of people's eyes faster, rather than getting stuck on things like making a Shopify store or creating a theme or like custom-design an entire theme. When we start every single one of our brands, we use a free Shopify theme. And just through some simple designs on Upwork or Fiverr we're able to get the store up and running with amazing designs in about one to two days. We like to expedite processes where we could, and after starting so many brands, we have a template where we just follow and create brands in about 48 hours.
Felix: That's awesome. We can get at a high level of what's involved, like maybe things that you haven't mentioned yet, like what's involved in that template to start a brand in just 48 hours.
Jason: We identify what needs to be done. That takes a long time. So we'll design the local product images. Having that high up on the list is that every single time we want to launch a new product or we launch a new store, we'll follow that template and set request for those things to be done so that when the store's finished, all those things could be implemented. So what we do is a lot of internal stuff like changing our upsell model, changing our update sequences, the email stuff. So that will take us, our own internal team about a day or so. But when we put the request in for the new logo, the new banner pictures, product images, while we're doing that our external team, so just our contractors and our freelance designers can work on those while we're working on the internal stuff.
So at the end of 48 hours or maybe the next day, we're able to have all those things together and just launch a product. So I like to launch and then improve later on. It's a model that some people may question. Just because I personally like to launch things really fast and fix issues as it comes. Obviously I'm not going to launch an incomplete website, but what I mean is that I like to launch the bareness as a city of something, and then throughout the time when I feel like I could change something, I'll make the change to it.
An example to that is when I make a store, I'll have a popup asking people for email. After two, three days I realize that the email popup isn't really converting so I change the copy on it, I change the color on it. So a lot of times people are stuck on that stage before they even launch a website. They're like, "Oh, what color should I use? What text should I use?" I just like to launch it and see and optimize it from there. We can see the stuff that we're improving after we launch a store aren't things that are going to make or break our website. It's more so like we launch things that'll make us money immediately and then fix the things that will make us more money throughout the way.
Felix: Yeah. I think important thing here is that nothing that you do is really final, right? Like there's no final version of your website or a final version of your logo design, a final version of our packaging. It's just that you don't want to kind of make these decisions in isolation and silo, right? Like where you are determining inside your head what's the right thing to do, what's the right color? Let's put it out there and then let the data, let the results speak for themselves and give you that kind of guidance. Now once you are in stage one, it sounds like the main goal is, let's see if this can even sell. So where do you get your first sales when you are in stage one of a business?
Jason: This is something that everyone can do and my first sales is always my friends.
Felix: Nice.
Jason: With the lashes, I set up a challenge for a $500 brand and that was one thing that I was really proud of was to create this brand with only $500. The reason why I set this challenge was because-
Felix: And just real quick, this is like an artificial ceiling for you rather, this wasn't like I only got 500 bucks to spend. Like you wanted to see if you could do this with 500 bucks.
Jason: Yeah, for sure. The reason why I got you this figure was because for my first product that went viral, the Meme Bible, I only spent $500 and I was able to create a huge, huge sales for the brand. I did about 200K in a week or so with just $500. So knowing that now, and it's been about three years since I launched that book, I asked myself, can I replicate that with the same amount of money? And the answer is, I cannot replicate the same sales number, but I'm able to replicate the same level of success in our own way. So I set that artificial ceiling for ourselves was to use only $500, I can go over a little bit, and try and recreate the same business model using the same framework that we set. Doing so I was able to create the brand by focusing more on a product and then dedicating a lot of time to do things I'd otherwise hire people for.
A lot of people have product ideas and they hire someone to measure store, they hire someone to design, they hire someone to take photos for them, and that will end up costing you $1,000 or more. What we did was we did everything internally. I learned how to take pictures, I learned how to do the graphic designs. I spent most of the money on things that I cannot change. So the inventory stuff, on the shipping of products. And then, even though we have our own warehouse now for our other products, I decided to fulfill all the products within my own home. So I was fulfilling things in my living room just like how another person with just $500 would do. I started this challenge because I want to know that if I'm trying to teach people how to do this, I should be able to do this over and over again. So I set the same framework, I set up the same model and I was able to follow it to a tee and recreate the same brand.
Felix: Got it. You'll definitely get into the details of how you spent the $500. Now, before we get there, is there a danger... I understand the reason, is there a danger to having too big of a budget?
Jason: Yeah. I think a lot of mistakes that founders have in tech especially is that they raise a lot of money with just an idea and they get really good at spending money. What I found is that when you don't have a lot of money and you're working on a fairly tight budget, you focus a lot more on how to make more money. And honestly this is just a general idea of what I think is going on. But when you're a tech founder and you get a fundraising round of $800,000, you're like, "Okay, how can I spend $800,000 to make money?" When you only have $500, you start thinking about, "How can I make more money with essentially no money?" So that gets you a little bit more into creative mode and it makes you think about things that are outside of your box.
To make my first sales, I created banners for my Instagram story, for my feed for my Facebook. I had a good amount of friends who were willing to support my business. So I will say that everyone who are listening to this podcast will probably have at least two to three friends who will make a purchase on your store because they support you. But if you're able to get someone to support you and solve their issues at the same time, then I think you have a really good customer base start. So our first customers were just friends and family who really do wear false lashes and found that this is like a solution to the issues that they have currently. So that's how I got my first few sales.
Felix: Got it. Now, I'm assuming the 500 bucks are all spent in stage one before you ever got to stage two. Just talk about that. What did you spend $500 on to basic kickstart a fourfold business?
Jason: Yeah. The $500 was spent on inventory. Our first invoice was $560. And I order 50 units of each skew and I have four skew total. So that's 200 units at about $2.70 per unit for the product. And I still have the invoice with me. I look at it sometimes and see how far we've come. So that was the first spend. And then next is a Shopify store. You can get the 14-day trial. For us, we have a partner at council. We can just create stores here and there without the 14 day trial thing. So that didn't cost us any money until we had to go do the subscriptions, which is $29. And then I pay someone on Fiverr to create the first few designs for the banners and then I hired a friend to do our local for about a friend of ours.
So I only had to pay her a couple hundred bucks. So at the end of the day, it comes out to about 6, $700 for the full brand with the designs done. But the reason why I spent so much money on that design was because for this brand in particular, you have to make sure that the packaging in a box looks really nice. Because we're doing a beauty product, we're in a very competitive cups or mugs. You don't have spent a lot of money on the box if your product is good enough. So that's just one thing that I want to emphasize. So at the end of the day, we didn't go too far beyond our initial budget and were able to get the stuff to the market and be able to be sold with just about 6, 700 bucks.
Felix: Now that you are... your business is rolling, you have a couple of sales from your friends and family, maybe some strangers, when do you know you're ready to focus on the things in stage two? And just to recap, you talk about optimizing the products, the funnels, and the marketing strategies and improve their brand overall as a part of stage two. When should an entrepreneur know that they can now focus on stage two activities?
Jason: Everything that I do in stage two comes from being funded by stage one. And this will be different for every single person. Your stage two may cost $100,000, or it may cost $5,000. What we found is that stage two is an ongoing process. It's not like you just need to transition your entire brand into stage two. The designer in South Korea should redesign our entire packaging. So that caused a pretty penny, because it will a design firm which they designed the color, your brand profile and everything. I think that costed us about $13,000. So we had to make enough money in stage one to afford that. And it was an ongoing process. So to get to stage two, you have to first generate enough revenue in stage one for you to afford that on top of your overhead expenses, as well as your inventory expenses. So that number will be different from person to person, but typically you should be able to get to stage two after five to six months in business.
Felix: Got it. It makes sense. Okay. Now, that you are getting to stage two, you're focusing on the funnels and the marketing strategy. Let's talk a little about that now that you are at scale and trying to obviously sell and successfully selling beyond friends and family. What is the marketing strategy that you have today to get customers?
Jason: Our strategy has always been an influence on marketing, and that was one thing that I focused on for my initial brand. I'm a firm believer that you should do things that you're good at and focus all your time into that. And if you need to expand outside of that, hire the right people for it. For us, we knew that our bread and butter was influence on marketing, and following the same framework of marketing strategies that we have for our other brands I was able to replicate that for this brand. And what I mean is that we focused a lot on micro influencers. We have a previous list of micro influencers with under 100,000 followers that we had from our previous brand, but you can easily recreate the same list on your own just by reaching out to people. What we did was that we reach out to those people and reach out to their friends who may not have known us or our previous brand and ask them if they'd like to receive a product in exchange for a promotion on their end.
But one thing that we did differently about the strategy was that we don't ask people to commit to stuff. A common mistake that people do when they work with influencers is that they ask them to promote something in exchange for a product, which sounds very confrontational. It sounds pretty aggressive because they're like, "Hey, I'm going to give you free product. You just have to post about us." And from a brand side, that sounds pretty harmless, but the influencer who's receiving the same message 100 times a day, you're just another brand that wants something from them. So the way that we approach influencers is that we don't ask them to commit to anything. We don't ask them to post or anything. Well, you send on a product as a gift and if they like it, they will post about us.
And using that strategy, we are first able to improve our response rate from the influencers because they actually feel like they're comfortable with us. Then two is that people who try a product and actually like it are willing to post about it. This comes down to making a good product. You cannot send them a really bad product and expect them to post about it because that would decrease their integrity amongst their audience. Always make sure that you're working with influencers who are within your niche. You are working with people who you have developed good conversation and relationship with over the past few days that you've contacted them. And lastly, you just want to make sure that you're sending them a good product with no commitment, because that's how you're going to get most of the responses.
Felix: Got it. You basically are just asking them, would you like a free pair of lashes or something to that effect, and that's it? There's no obligation, no other mention of anything other than like, "Hey, I just want to give you free products?"
Jason: Yeah. The message that we send them was that, "Hey, we'd like to..." Or actually I said, "Hey, we're a brand new lash brand and we'd really like to get your feedback on it. Can we send you a free pair for you to try?" So you can see that in the language that I put in the copy that I reach out with, is that first we set our position is that we're a brand new company. If you click on our Instagram it's not going to have a lot of followers. We're not famous. Only been here for a short little while. But working on a product and want you to try it.
So in that whole message, nowhere do we ask them to commit to anything. We don't ask them to post. And we position ourselves in a way that's honest because you don't want to lie and say that you've been doing this for years when you have about 50 followers. So, letting the influencer know that you're a new brand and that if they work with you, they're supporting someone who is trying to create something new. And they're just someone to try the lashes. They don't have to post about it. It makes them put their guards down and it makes it easier for them to respond to you.
Felix: Got it. And you mentioned too that you're kind of like priming this, I guess, DM ahead of time by building a relationship a few days ahead of time. What are you doing that time to establish some kind of relationship with them in just a few days before you ask them to get their feedback on a product that you want to send them?
Jason: I actually ask them the same questions that I ask to my friends. I'm sort of looking at them as influencers or celebrities or whatever. I see them as ordinary people who are just content creators and have a good amount of audience. I ask them questions like, "Hey, we're making this. What would you change about it? What would you like to see different in the lash industry? Yada, yada, yada." Asking the same question just to get them comfortable and get them to answer a question first and foremost, and then we shoot them with, "Hey, we made the product now. Can we send you something to try?"
It's a long process. It's tedious, no one wants to do it, but it's the same process that we have followed over and over again. And it's this process that a lot of people can replicate just simply because of how many micro influencers they are on a market today. So, following that same concept you're able to do the same thing for your product. You just have to change the language a little bit. But at the end of the day, the core message here is that you need to build relationship with your influencers or else you're just going to be left unread in their other inbox.
Felix: Got it. When you are looking up these micro influencers, you mentioned you had a list already from previous brands. I'm assuming not in the lash or beauty space. So how do you identify which people out of that list is going to be worth or not worth, but is even going to be likely to want to work with you? Like what do you look for in their bio, in their kind of posts and their kind of content that determines that they are more than likely to want to work with you?
Jason: The previous list that we had was for our clothing brand. So, similar market, it's like soft Korean color, silk colors. So we found that the same list could be applicable to the same brand. But for most people who don't have that list, it's so easy to build up that list again. Let's just pretend that I don't have that list. If I were to create a brand new PR list, I will look for people who are already working with other brands. I spend some time, maybe like a minute or so, going down their feed, see who they're tagging, what type of beauty brands they're working with or what type of content they're creating. And then I can determine whether or not they're up to promotions, like the way that we're structuring.
Oftentimes you want to look for content creators who are already tagging brands in their content and are very open to working with new brands so you can look at people who are working with brands who are not big, or like multibillion dollar brands. And if they're willing to text small brands, like the ones that are tag in the picture, it means that they're more willing to work with brands like you. When you look for influencers, always important to look for the... a lot of times you would think that you just need to send products to models that you're selling a bikini.
But what people don't realize is that people that follow models are oftentimes guys. So you're essentially getting someone to sell your product to a bunch of guys. So, it's really important to find the right influencers for that. There's no easy way to do it honestly. It takes some time to study their content, look at their comments and see what's the general demographic. While influencer marketing may be very cheap and effective, it takes a lot of time for you to understand what to look for. And that takes months or years to fully master. But if you're willing to put in the time for it, you're able to vet each influencer that you're working with easily.
Felix: Got it. Now you mentioned that this is a channel that you focus on rather than another channel because... or maybe you are focusing on others too, but you're hiring out for, and this is the one that you do decide to spend your time on. What do you think that you'd do differently about this channel that makes you feel like the effort that you put into this is much better than effort you might put into like Facebook ads or Google ads or whatever other methods that you can use to drive traffic to your particular store.
Jason: I think with pay acquisitions like Google ads and Facebook ads, that requires a lot data and a lot money to be spent upfront. So the way that Facebook and Google works is that it works entirely on your preexisting data or it works with your capital to gather those data. So if you have a lot of emails, a lot of names that you can upload to Facebook, they can find people like that, or find people who are similar to that and drive your marketing content to these people. But that cost money first and foremost, or you don't have any data on hand. You can pay Facebook and be like, "Hey, I want to target people who likes beauty brands. I want to target people who likes fashion or whatever." And then with enough money, Facebook can find the right people.
The reason why I like to focus on this type of medium with influencer marketing is that for us, we're able to get it free. Using the free promotions through these influencers, we're able to get their audience to go on our website and that way we're able to collect the data on these people and then use this data to do the pay acquisitions. That way, it will be a lot cheaper for us in the long run; because for you to do cold traffic targeting for Facebook, your CPM's got to be 13, $14. If you're doing retarding campaigns or warm audience campaign where you only target people who have visited your website or people who are similar to people who are visiting your website, your CPM will be a lot cheaper. Our way is always to gather data, do free channels or free methods of marketing, whether it's word of mouth, influencers or SEO, and then using the traffic that we generate through this method to do pay acquisitions in order to save more money in the long run.
Felix: Got it. And just to recap, you're basically using influencer marketing to get the most kind of warm, maybe hot traffic, hot leads over to your site from these influencers than through your Facebook pixel or whatever pixel you're using to then build these custom audiences that you've retargeting or to build lookalike audiences so that you have now a warmer traffic to drive rather than completely cold. So that makes a lot of sense. Now we'll talk a little about the website.
We have, I'm looking at the website now, I think everything is awesomely designed. For anyone out there that wants to check it out, doelashes.com, D-O-E-L-A-S-H-E-S.com. The navigation bar at top, so you've got the home, you got lashes, which are the products. You have a page called the Doe Difference. You have a page called Shop on Ig. You have a page that says Love Letters, which are reviews, and then Track Order, and then Help. How did you determine what should go into the navigation? Like why did you decide to do things like Shop an Ig and then like a page called the Doe Difference on the top navigation bar?
Jason: The navigation bar, in my opinion, is what makes people get warmer and warmer to your brand. And you should only reserve that space for that particular purpose. Home, people able to see the different types of lashes that we have. But after seeing the lashes, maybe they don't really know what to do with it. They're like, "Okay, that's a cool product, but I'm not that convinced yet." If you click on the Doe Difference, it takes us to our about us page, which tells you a little bit more about the brand. It makes people who are not familiar about what we're trying to do more understanding of what we're trying to accomplish now.
And the Shop on Ig button is my favorite, just because it takes people to a gallery of pictures on Instagram of people wearing our lashes so the customers are able to see exactly what the lashes will look like on each pair of different eyes on different face shape in different people. Having this content and this library of people makes a lot more sense because when you're purchasing something that goes onto your face, it's important for you to see other faces who are so much like yours and see how it looks like on your eyes, right? So, having this page up here is a lot more effective than just having a blank product page on top of a white background.
And then, after seeing all these pictures, people are able to see the Love Letters, which are just reviews. The different things that we distinguish is that for this review page, we ask people for years of experience, what's their first impression, what's the impression after they use it? What do they think this pair of lashes is best for? And then we ask them specific questions like, what's the ease of use, what's the durability and what's the comfort? And they can rate it on a scale of one to 10. Having specific questions like that allows other people who are not been able to use our lashes to make better decisions. We always ask our customers to leave us good reviews, or I mean honest reviews, based on their experience. And then in exchange for that, they get a coupon for the next purchase.
Felix: Awesome. You definitely check out the reviews page, I think it's a very interesting way to break it down. How did you know what questions to ask like years of experience, first impression after use, and best for. How did you know that those are the kind of questions that customers or prospective customers wanted to know the answers to?
Jason: I make those questions based on reading reviews on other people's brands. And then I look at, what do people usually look for? Do they look for how long this pair of lashes will last, if this lashes is best for partying or going to school, or does having years of experience wearing a particular beauty product matter? So understanding what people care about, I start asking specific questions to our actions for our future customers.
Felix: Got it. Now, are there any apps or tools that you use to set all this up, like the Love Letter, Shop on Ig? Any tools or apps that you'd recommend other people check out?
Jason: For the review I use Okendo, that's O-K-E-N-D-O. It's a little bit pricey, so I don't recommend going to Okendo and we didn't go to Okendo in the beginning. We only went to Okendo in stage two, and stage one we just used more affordable type of review like Yotpo or Loox review sites. And then for Shop on Ig, I believe the call shop on Instagram. So those two apps are my favorite apps for this part.
Felix: Awesome. So I'll leave you this last question. So again, doelashes.com is the website. What has been like the biggest lesson that you've learned so far in building this brand that you want to apply in future brands or in the future of growing this brand?
Jason: I think for this brand in particular, having good relationship with your customers is really important because this is a disposable product, meaning that after people use it for a few times, no longer people will use a pair of lashes. So we found that retaining our existing customer is our first and foremost largest school. And we do everything that we can in order to meet that, whether it is refunding them or returning them, or giving them a new pair of lashes if they're not happy with it.
We have really good return policies, and having that policy and those standards that we have across the board, we're able to get people to come back every single month. Our kind of customer return rate is about 30%. And that's one thing that I'm really proud of because typically most e-commerce brands don't get anywhere near that number. So focusing on the customer who are already paying you to get them to come back to your store and spend more money in the future has always been the largest influence to where we're able to do today.
Felix: Awesome. Good. Thank you so much. Doelashes.com is the website, D-O-E-L-A-S-H-E-S.com. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience, Jason.
Jason: Thank you so much for having me.