eCommerce Master Plan

eCommerce MasterPlan | 556: The MASAMI Story: Bootstrapping a Premium Haircare Brand Through Collaboration

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Lynn Power is the co-founder and CEO at MASAMI a premium haircare brand. Founded in 2019 they now sell via their Shopify store and wholesale via Faire. Currently sales have reached just under $1million. Lynn’s also the founder of the Power Beauty Collab which she launched  in 2022 as a way for indie brands to help each other grow. 

 

In this episode, Lynn shares the smart, scrappy strategies that helped her grow MASAMI—and how other indie eCommerce brands can do the same. 

 

Hit PLAY to hear: 

 

  • How Lynn built MASAMI into a nearly $1M brand—without big budgets  
  • The clever “pop-in” strategy that’s changing how indie brands do retail  
  • Why cash flow—not competition—is what kills most eCommerce brands  
  • The power of brand values (and how to use yours to drive growth)  
  • What most founders get wrong about launching new products  
  • Lynn’s secret sauce for retail sell-through success  

    •  

    Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

    [03:48] Hair Hydration Breakthrough Partnership 

    [09:35] Conscious Beauty Collective Origins 

    [13:30] Temporary Retail Partnerships Strategy 

    [16:54] Multi-Location Strategy Stabilizes Business 

    [18:21] “Brand Values and Smart Collaborations” 

    [21:21] Listen to Lynn’s Top Tips! 

     Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/556

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    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Spotify Ad Analytics – https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

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    WEBVTT

    00:00.231 –> 00:02.732

    [SPEAKER_02]: Cash flow is the number one reason businesses die.

    00:03.032 –> 00:16.595

    [SPEAKER_02]: When you actually start to launch your product, you have stuff out there, just double your budget because whatever you think you’re going to need, it’s always way more because there’s stuff that you just don’t anticipate.

    00:16.655 –> 00:27.277

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like you have to figure that out whether it’s getting alone or you’re anticipating your needs and kind of stockpiling, but that’s a big mistake I see a lot of founders make.

    00:30.152 –> 00:32.536

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

    00:33.097 –> 00:37.163

    [SPEAKER_00]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

    00:37.684 –> 00:45.476

    [SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the highly to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

    00:48.806 –> 00:51.169

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome it’s great to have you here.

    00:51.249 –> 00:55.094

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

    00:55.675 –> 01:04.747

    [SPEAKER_01]: Now regular listeners will know that I love to give a shout out to people who are kind enough to shout about us somewhere on social or getting contact.

    01:05.868 –> 01:10.010

    [SPEAKER_01]: So, huge thanks at the beginning of this episode to Adam Pearce, yes.

    01:10.330 –> 01:13.231

    [SPEAKER_01]: Those of you in the UK, that Adam Pearce.

    01:13.271 –> 01:17.832

    [SPEAKER_01]: For putting a very cool comment on Spotify about one of our recent episodes.

    01:17.872 –> 01:23.214

    [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it was episode five hundred and thirty-one another beauty episode with Jamie from Cookie.

    01:24.214 –> 01:26.575

    [SPEAKER_01]: So, Adam, thank you for listening.

    01:26.635 –> 01:30.837

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for saying amazing podcast in your comments as well.

    01:31.977 –> 01:32.277

    [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

    01:32.577 –> 01:33.498

    [SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing in this episode?

    01:33.518 –> 01:34.659

    [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we’re talking beauty.

    01:35.119 –> 01:36.120

    [SPEAKER_01]: We’re talking hair care.

    01:36.600 –> 01:39.141

    [SPEAKER_01]: We have a lovely person joining us.

    01:39.301 –> 01:42.283

    [SPEAKER_01]: He’s going to be sharing her thoughts on marketing.

    01:42.303 –> 01:44.044

    [SPEAKER_01]: We’re mainly talking marketing in this one.

    01:44.485 –> 01:50.068

    [SPEAKER_01]: Fabulous sustainability too, but she’ll be giving us her bootstrapped marketing tips.

    01:50.648 –> 01:54.711

    [SPEAKER_01]: She’ll also be taking us through a very cool strategy.

    01:54.811 –> 02:00.114

    [SPEAKER_01]: She’s using collaborating with other brands to create pop-ins rather than pop-ups.

    02:00.594 –> 02:20.485

    [SPEAKER_01]: I’ll let her explain it, but it’s a very cool strategy that I think many of you could benefit from and make sure listen to the end because her traffic top tip about Pinterest and Facebook ads and something else is very, very intriguing and is going to get you thinking.

    02:20.985 –> 02:22.086

    [SPEAKER_01]: So make sure listen to the end.

    02:28.082 –> 02:35.686

    [SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest, Lynn Power is the co-founder and CEO at Massamy, a premium hair care brand.

    02:36.066 –> 02:41.729

    [SPEAKER_01]: Founded in, in, they now sell via their Shopify store and wholesale via fair.

    02:42.189 –> 02:45.291

    [SPEAKER_01]: Currently sales have reached just under one million dollars.

    02:45.711 –> 02:53.976

    [SPEAKER_01]: Lynn is also the founder of the Power Beauty collab, which she launched in, in, twenty-twenty-two as a way for indie brands to help each other grow.

    02:54.036 –> 02:54.716

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hello Lynn.

    02:55.116 –> 02:56.397

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, thanks for having me.

    02:56.897 –> 03:02.400

    [SPEAKER_01]: Great to have you on the show so much that we can talk about, but how did you end up in the world of e-commerce?

    03:02.800 –> 03:18.227

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is a very good question, because I spent my almost thirty-year career in advertising, and I was running a large global agency and was just not feeling super fulfilled by that anymore, because my job had become very bureaucratic.

    03:19.007 –> 03:24.690

    [SPEAKER_02]: I was dealing with lawsuits, HR issues, finance meetings, not my jam.

    03:25.910 –> 03:28.272

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I decided to leave in twenty eighteen.

    03:28.292 –> 03:36.819

    [SPEAKER_02]: I was doing some consulting with startups because I really liked the idea of getting back to helping businesses grow and seeing almost, you know, instant impact.

    03:37.840 –> 03:44.065

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I ended up meeting my co-founder, James, who had been working on hair care formulations for ten years.

    03:46.326 –> 04:04.746

    [SPEAKER_02]: He had worked at Clara all for twenty years and I will admit I was very skeptical when I met him that he could come up with anything good because he’s one one dude trying to crack basically crack the number one hair issue hydration and he wanted to figure out a way to do it without weighing your hair down which I loved

    04:05.487 –> 04:06.588

    [SPEAKER_02]: But that’s not easy to do.

    04:07.249 –> 04:10.412

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it took them obviously, you know, hence the ten years.

    04:11.052 –> 04:12.293

    [SPEAKER_02]: But I tried the products.

    04:12.373 –> 04:13.074

    [SPEAKER_02]: I love them.

    04:13.094 –> 04:20.020

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it worked out great because he had basically products that were about eighty percent there.

    04:20.941 –> 04:21.762

    [SPEAKER_02]: And nothing else.

    04:22.322 –> 04:24.785

    [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, my background being marketing.

    04:26.187 –> 04:37.039

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we did, we actually started with cleaning up the products a little bit and then doing consumer testing, but then the brand name, the packaging, the e-com strategy, the good market strategy, all that stuff.

    04:37.880 –> 04:41.704

    [SPEAKER_02]: We’re able to do because he is like zero expertise.

    04:42.740 –> 04:47.522

    [SPEAKER_02]: in like commercializing a business or anything kind of marketing related.

    04:47.602 –> 04:53.665

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that’s a good partnership when you have complimentary skill sets and you don’t step on each other’s toes.

    04:54.405 –> 04:55.066

    [SPEAKER_02]: I love that.

    04:55.166 –> 04:56.987

    [SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like you found the perfect person.

    04:57.327 –> 04:57.567

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

    04:58.590 –> 05:00.332

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it’s worked out quite well.

    05:00.632 –> 05:05.556

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I think also, you know, when you can align on values, that is important too.

    05:05.596 –> 05:07.858

    [SPEAKER_02]: We wanted the brand to be inclusive.

    05:08.499 –> 05:11.401

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we tested on every type of hair we could find.

    05:12.062 –> 05:18.007

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we wanted to be sustainably minded, which goes well beyond just the formulas.

    05:18.327 –> 05:20.970

    [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, those were really important.

    05:21.410 –> 05:22.851

    [SPEAKER_02]: And we wanted to give back

    05:23.712 –> 05:32.402

    [SPEAKER_02]: And so we actually set up the Mosme Institute when we launched as a way to support ocean education and research where we get our heroic gradient in Japan.

    05:33.265 –> 05:33.845

    [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

    05:33.926 –> 05:42.032

    [SPEAKER_01]: And how has it been going from kind of high powered ad exec to start up e-commerce store?

    05:42.132 –> 05:48.677

    [SPEAKER_01]: Because there’s very, I mean, some of this, the concepts are the same, but the day-to-day is very, very different, I would have thought.

    05:49.218 –> 05:50.899

    [SPEAKER_02]: The day-to-day is very different.

    05:51.360 –> 05:58.886

    [SPEAKER_02]: It sort of takes me back to when I started my career and was dealing with a lot of, you know, the executional things, although back in those days, my God,

    05:59.880 –> 06:01.301

    [SPEAKER_02]: We didn’t really even have a email.

    06:01.542 –> 06:02.022

    [SPEAKER_02]: Let alone.

    06:03.304 –> 06:04.064

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s crazy.

    06:05.686 –> 06:12.933

    [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, when they when we did mechanicals for for creative, they were literally physical boards that were mocked up.

    06:13.013 –> 06:20.061

    [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, I digress, but it’s not that different in the sense of, you know, you are dealing with a lot of the.

    06:20.946 –> 06:31.134

    [SPEAKER_02]: inner workings and mechanical things around the business, whether that’s creative or apps or code or all that stuff.

    06:31.194 –> 06:42.222

    [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, but I really enjoy that part of the business because I feel like after you’ve been sort of high level for a while, you start to feel like you’re not grounded in anything.

    06:43.423 –> 06:45.945

    [SPEAKER_02]: And this is very grounding almost too much.

    06:48.598 –> 06:49.699

    [SPEAKER_02]: Can’t have everything, so.

    06:50.640 –> 06:53.341

    [SPEAKER_01]: So the product is, I mean, there’s several products now.

    06:53.382 –> 06:55.503

    [SPEAKER_01]: So tell us a little bit about the product set, please.

    06:56.003 –> 06:56.284

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

    06:56.384 –> 07:02.048

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we launched with four formulas, a shampoo, a conditioner, a shine serum, a styling cream.

    07:03.209 –> 07:13.776

    [SPEAKER_02]: About a year later, we launched a large size sustainable refillable bottle and pouches, because we’re trying to continue to grow our sustainability

    07:14.797 –> 07:19.727

    [SPEAKER_02]: Practice, then we also launched a scalp scrubber and a sustainable hair towel.

    07:20.148 –> 07:23.394

    [SPEAKER_02]: The hair towel is made out of recycled plastic bottles.

    07:24.858 –> 07:29.421

    [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we’ve been growing slow and steady.

    07:29.441 –> 07:39.326

    [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I will say like, I’m glad we haven’t added to our assortment yet, because I still feel like there’s so much runway with our current products.

    07:40.027 –> 07:47.691

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I think brands have this phomo of wanting to jump on the latest trend, whatever that may be.

    07:48.751 –> 07:51.093

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it can be really distracting.

    07:52.175 –> 07:56.057

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s so much easier when you’ve only got a limited number of products to deal with.

    07:56.077 –> 07:59.598

    [SPEAKER_01]: So keeping things straight forward, what does the team look like?

    07:59.998 –> 08:03.740

    [SPEAKER_01]: Is it still just the two of you or have you expanded and you outsourcing anything?

    08:04.190 –> 08:09.413

    [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so James, my partner doesn’t really, he’s not really active in the business day today.

    08:09.994 –> 08:14.596

    [SPEAKER_02]: But I have a couple of sort of helpers, my daughter who does some graphics.

    08:14.837 –> 08:16.898

    [SPEAKER_02]: Thank God, she’s a really good artist.

    08:17.498 –> 08:23.522

    [SPEAKER_02]: My niece helps me with some kind of, I guess you’d call it retention marketing and operations.

    08:24.362 –> 08:25.963

    [SPEAKER_02]: My brother does the fulfillment.

    08:26.764 –> 08:29.686

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s, it’s, it’s really a family business right now.

    08:30.566 –> 08:31.407

    [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

    08:31.507 –> 08:42.921

    [SPEAKER_01]: So I mentioned in the intro that you set up your collaboration group, the Power Beauty collab to help indie brands work together to grow.

    08:43.421 –> 08:49.448

    [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a bit more about how that works and a little bit about why you decided to do it, too, please.

    08:50.245 –> 08:53.427

    [SPEAKER_02]: Well, okay, let’s start with the why I decided to do it.

    08:53.747 –> 08:58.650

    [SPEAKER_02]: I had launch Moss Me in twenty-twenty at New York Fashion Week and then COVID hit a couple weeks later.

    08:59.250 –> 09:08.456

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that first year we did a lot of brand partnerships, really out of pragmatism, but I really enjoyed doing them and they really were helpful for us to grow organically.

    09:09.096 –> 09:11.717

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then in twenty-twenty-one, I got breast cancer.

    09:12.398 –> 09:18.662

    [SPEAKER_02]: I had a rare aggressive stage three breast cancer and had to have chemo surgery and radiation.

    09:20.047 –> 09:24.449

    [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was going through that, I was trying to figure out, you know, my business was a year old.

    09:24.930 –> 09:27.371

    [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of keep that going, how to keep myself going.

    09:27.411 –> 09:35.575

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I realized the brand partnerships were so valuable for the business in growing organically that I wanted to double down on that.

    09:35.815 –> 09:38.476

    [SPEAKER_02]: And so that’s how we, we were born.

    09:38.516 –> 09:39.897

    [SPEAKER_02]: We, I decided to launch

    09:40.706 –> 09:53.074

    [SPEAKER_02]: The collective at the time it was called conscious beauty collective, but since we’ve we’ve rebranded, but we started with a location in Stone Sound Gallery in San Francisco for three months and did our own store.

    09:54.094 –> 09:56.796

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it was sort of a proof of concept and it worked really well.

    09:56.816 –> 10:10.564

    [SPEAKER_02]: We had thirty two brands and then we did a few of our other other stores and then now we do what I call pop-ins, which are curated shelves of anywhere between six and twelve products that we pop into and existing retailer.

    10:11.465 –> 10:17.529

    [SPEAKER_02]: So that is what we focus on, but we do a lot of co-marketing around that, whether that’s, you know,

    10:18.854 –> 10:26.700

    [SPEAKER_02]: We have a digital magazine, influencer outreach, live streaming, live shopping, giveaways, all sorts of things.

    10:26.820 –> 10:43.253

    [SPEAKER_02]: We do a lot of collabs, brands pretty much find me by word of mouth and referral, and then they pay a fairly small fee to join, and then we just try to do as much as we can to kind of help each other grow.

    10:44.142 –> 10:44.802

    [SPEAKER_01]: very cool.

    10:45.242 –> 10:58.747

    [SPEAKER_01]: So I love the pop-in idea of rather than the logistical challenge of staffing and managing a whole physical store for a couple of days or a week, you’re taking over a small part of someone else’s store.

    10:59.348 –> 11:06.950

    [SPEAKER_01]: But then still doing all the marketing, all the activation, all the collaborative activity that makes it a success.

    11:07.531 –> 11:07.871

    [SPEAKER_01]: It seems

    11:09.090 –> 11:14.371

    [SPEAKER_01]: I don’t know if anybody else doing it, but it seems such an obvious step in some ways.

    11:14.992 –> 11:15.632

    [SPEAKER_02]: That’s the thing.

    11:15.752 –> 11:20.093

    [SPEAKER_02]: It is interesting because I do have a lot of people saying, oh, that’s so interesting and so innovative.

    11:20.133 –> 11:21.213

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m like, it’s really not.

    11:21.994 –> 11:26.075

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s kind of, you know, and there are other people that do it.

    11:26.175 –> 11:29.516

    [SPEAKER_02]: There are a couple other similar concepts here in the US.

    11:30.456 –> 11:38.338

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s not like it’s crazy, you know, innovative, but I think what we do a little differently is we pay rent to our retail partner.

    11:39.077 –> 11:57.900

    [SPEAKER_02]: And we pay twenty percent commission and the reason I do both of those is because the rent is meaningful because we we work with a lot of small businesses, salons, stores, boutiques, medsphas, but you know, they they’re hurting to it’s not like, you know, it’s that easy for us and they’re just, you know,

    11:58.857 –> 12:07.399

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s meaningful and then the commission is the incentive to get them to actually sell through our products because it’s one thing to put up a shelf and pay rent.

    12:07.439 –> 12:09.400

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s another to actually get the product sold.

    12:10.020 –> 12:18.863

    [SPEAKER_02]: The thing that most people don’t realize and this includes most of the founders in the collab is that getting your products into retail is not the hard part.

    12:20.072 –> 12:23.855

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s all the stuff you need to do to sell your products in retail.

    12:24.015 –> 12:24.896

    [SPEAKER_02]: That’s the hard part.

    12:25.617 –> 12:38.608

    [SPEAKER_02]: And so that’s why we use the money we get from the brands to do marketing around the store and help everybody make sure it’s a success.

    12:39.794 –> 12:42.776

    [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it’s kind of that scenario.

    12:42.816 –> 12:47.119

    [SPEAKER_01]: I think you’re so right, so many people think, all right, we’ve got listed in Walmart.

    12:47.319 –> 12:49.060

    [SPEAKER_01]: Life will be easy for now.

    12:49.100 –> 12:49.880

    [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no.

    12:50.441 –> 12:54.703

    [SPEAKER_01]: That was like the door opened a teeny tiny bit and you’ve got so much other work to do.

    12:54.864 –> 13:01.388

    [SPEAKER_01]: And it’s exactly the same if you’re doing a pop up or a pop in and even with your own store, but obviously when you’ve got

    13:02.463 –> 13:09.145

    [SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got the store owner incentivized to help because they’ve got that commission coming through and the rental on the shelf.

    13:09.225 –> 13:14.206

    [SPEAKER_01]: Then you’ve also got all your partners invested in it.

    13:15.007 –> 13:24.149

    [SPEAKER_01]: I would assume that when they go well, particularly well, you’ve got the store owner going, when are you going to come back?

    13:24.389 –> 13:25.289

    [SPEAKER_01]: Can we do this once a year?

    13:25.330 –> 13:25.910

    [SPEAKER_01]: Can we do this?

    13:27.170 –> 13:28.770

    [SPEAKER_01]: Does it become overkill, I suppose?

    13:30.883 –> 13:43.974

    [SPEAKER_02]: So actually what we do is we commit to three months for both the brands and the store, which allows us enough time to kind of evaluate whether this is going to be a workable concept.

    13:44.955 –> 13:49.239

    [SPEAKER_02]: And the right partnership, because not every partnership, frankly, is the right fit.

    13:49.599 –> 13:53.582

    [SPEAKER_02]: And also make sure the brands are the right fit for the store and the demographics.

    13:54.443 –> 13:59.326

    [SPEAKER_02]: At the end of the three months, we all kind of discuss it and evaluate and decide if we want to extend.

    14:00.147 –> 14:14.795

    [SPEAKER_02]: So right now, we have fourteen locations that we’re doing and about ten of them are extended from one of them, the very first one we did was June of last year and that one’s still going.

    14:15.456 –> 14:18.818

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have several from last year that are still going.

    14:19.838 –> 14:24.103

    [SPEAKER_02]: And when they work well, there’s no reason to stop it.

    14:24.223 –> 14:32.812

    [SPEAKER_02]: And the benefit for the brands and the retailers when your products are sold in a specific location and consumer start to understand that and expect that.

    14:34.006 –> 14:40.670

    [SPEAKER_02]: Then it becomes hopefully you’re not only acquiring new customers, but they’re coming back and buying more.

    14:41.490 –> 14:48.234

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then we also do samples, which work really well, because we’ll give out samples and people will come back and convert on the samples.

    14:49.134 –> 15:00.320

    [SPEAKER_02]: So having these B, I mean, the name sounds temporary and it can be temporary, but to have them be more semi-permanent is actually better.

    15:01.770 –> 15:05.472

    [SPEAKER_01]: Because I guess then you just have them kind of like slowly stacking on top of each other.

    15:06.233 –> 15:12.356

    [SPEAKER_01]: So they’re constantly driving new customers and awareness and revenue, but not stopping.

    15:12.697 –> 15:21.162

    [SPEAKER_01]: So rather than launching and stopping and launching and stopping in that constant churn going on, you’ve actually got something that’s stacking up and driving more and more impact.

    15:21.422 –> 15:28.246

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s more scalable because now we have, like I said, fourteen, we’re launching another one in San Diego and June.

    15:29.006 –> 15:29.867

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then from there,

    15:31.419 –> 15:39.685

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there probably will be one or two that I end up closing, but you kind of refine the system for the ones that work.

    15:40.526 –> 15:41.967

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then we’ll keep launching more.

    15:42.107 –> 15:45.110

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, by the end of the year, we could have twenty or twenty five.

    15:45.270 –> 15:53.236

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then it starts to feel pretty meaningful in terms of visibility, distribution, awareness, all that stuff that we need.

    15:54.231 –> 15:54.951

    [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

    15:55.091 –> 16:05.877

    [SPEAKER_01]: And so for you, is that more about new customer acquisition and brand awareness as like a traditional pop-up, you know, short-term pop-up would be?

    16:06.498 –> 16:13.322

    [SPEAKER_01]: Or is it now becoming more of a solid, reliable, revenue source?

    16:14.302 –> 16:15.543

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s a little bit of both.

    16:15.883 –> 16:20.365

    [SPEAKER_02]: Some of them are reliable revenue, which is great.

    16:20.906 –> 16:22.346

    [SPEAKER_02]: And others are more

    16:23.623 –> 16:25.385

    [SPEAKER_02]: unexpected or unpredictable.

    16:25.646 –> 16:28.950

    [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is there are so many factors.

    16:29.571 –> 16:37.962

    [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, being in the US also having a pop-up in California is really different than doing it in New York for so many reasons.

    16:38.082 –> 16:39.564

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then you factor in things like

    16:40.545 –> 16:48.649

    [SPEAKER_02]: seasonality, you know, if you’re somewhere, and it’s, you know, I live in Palm Springs, it gets to be a hundred and twenty degrees here in the summer.

    16:49.550 –> 16:50.810

    [SPEAKER_02]: I don’t know what that is Celsius.

    16:50.850 –> 16:52.411

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s a lot, forty something.

    16:52.711 –> 16:54.292

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s uncomfortable.

    16:54.452 –> 16:55.993

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it’s super hot.

    16:56.113 –> 17:02.616

    [SPEAKER_02]: So like during the summer here, you know, the business is slow, but then it picks up in the winter.

    17:02.697 –> 17:06.358

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like you have, but it’s the opposite, you know, in

    17:08.153 –> 17:10.795

    [SPEAKER_02]: in the East Coast or in a Chicago or somewhere like that.

    17:10.875 –> 17:30.931

    [SPEAKER_02]: So having multiple locations and multiple geographies kind of allows you to sort of flatten that line across everything so that you’ll have blips and divots along the way, but across your business, you’ve got some consistency which is really good.

    17:32.091 –> 17:35.293

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then yes, regular sales is fantastic.

    17:35.353 –> 17:41.057

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then the ability to acquire new customers all the time, which is such an important part of anyone’s business.

    17:42.138 –> 17:48.702

    [SPEAKER_02]: And when you’re in beauty, which is so crowded, you’re constantly on the hunt because your customers are fickle.

    17:49.122 –> 17:56.988

    [SPEAKER_02]: And even though they may love your product, it’s just too easy for them to have their head turned by something else.

    17:58.183 –> 18:00.045

    [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, very much so in the beauty space.

    18:00.705 –> 18:04.948

    [SPEAKER_01]: So you obviously have that amazing marketing and advertising background.

    18:05.028 –> 18:20.921

    [SPEAKER_01]: So what, what would your key recommendations be for anyone else in, I guess in the beauty space who’s bootstrapping, who’s at the similar stage to you, what, what are your, if you’re willing to share, what are your go to marketing strategies tactics at the moment?

    18:21.481 –> 18:30.131

    [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the first thing is basic, which is understand your brand values, your brand story, and your foundation, which shockingly a lot of brands don’t do.

    18:31.052 –> 18:40.263

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it just means like take some time to map all that out so that you really understand it, because it really helps inform a lot of your marketing and your choices.

    18:40.944 –> 18:42.305

    [SPEAKER_02]: even like who we partner with.

    18:42.445 –> 18:50.149

    [SPEAKER_02]: And when I launched the Power Beauty collab, I wanted to partner with indie brands because I feel strongly about supporting small business.

    18:50.769 –> 18:57.773

    [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to partner with brands that were clean formulas by EU standards, forget the US standards because they’re all over the place.

    18:58.133 –> 19:01.134

    [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, there is no consistent standard here.

    19:01.875 –> 19:05.997

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to follow the EU, which is much more rigorous and

    19:06.737 –> 19:07.057

    [SPEAKER_02]: better.

    19:08.219 –> 19:24.014

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then I wanted brands that share our values meaning you’ve got some kind of give back strategy, sustainability, minded strategy, your vegan fair trade or cruelty free like you have these things baked into your ethos, they’re not an afterthought.

    19:25.335 –> 19:28.117

    [SPEAKER_02]: And brands that are diverse as well.

    19:28.317 –> 19:39.062

    [SPEAKER_02]: And so getting all that sort of sorted for yourself and understanding how it’s going to also manifest in the real world, because some of these terms can start sounding generic.

    19:39.954 –> 19:42.075

    [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, you need to make them real.

    19:42.695 –> 19:43.735

    [SPEAKER_02]: That step one.

    19:43.755 –> 19:54.117

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then step two is when you actually start to launch your product, you have step out there, you know, you have your go to market strategy and all that.

    19:54.838 –> 20:04.960

    [SPEAKER_02]: Just double your budget because whatever you think you’re going to need, it’s always way more because there’s there’s stuff that you just don’t anticipate.

    20:05.900 –> 20:07.320

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m moving from New York to California.

    20:07.700 –> 20:12.882

    [SPEAKER_02]: California charges an eight hundred dollar franchise tax every year, just because you live here.

    20:13.402 –> 20:18.663

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like, well, that’s got to come, you know, like, all this stuff comes from somewhere.

    20:18.743 –> 20:20.043

    [SPEAKER_02]: So you have to budget for it.

    20:20.123 –> 20:23.364

    [SPEAKER_02]: And there’s surprises, lots of surprises along the way.

    20:23.444 –> 20:24.264

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now we have tariffs.

    20:25.004 –> 20:26.904

    [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, people didn’t budget for that.

    20:27.205 –> 20:33.366

    [SPEAKER_02]: So just plan to have, because cash flow is the number one reason businesses die.

    20:34.537 –> 20:49.005

    [SPEAKER_02]: So if you don’t plan ahead for some of that, and especially if you’re in a business where you have inventory and you’re making products, every time I make, I need more inventory, it’s like fifty thousand dollars, which I don’t have sitting around, right?

    20:49.085 –> 21:00.472

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s like you have to figure that out whether it’s getting alone or you’re anticipating your needs and kind of stockpiling, but that’s a big mistake I see a lot of founders make.

    21:03.749 –> 21:08.554

    [SPEAKER_00]: The Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.

    21:08.714 –> 21:10.116

    [SPEAKER_00]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

    21:21.447 –> 21:26.850

    [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and all listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

    21:26.870 –> 21:28.471

    [SPEAKER_01]: Say, Lynn, are you ready for the top tips?

    21:28.891 –> 21:29.211

    [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

    21:29.711 –> 21:31.152

    [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip.

    21:31.272 –> 21:38.256

    [SPEAKER_01]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

    21:39.396 –> 21:43.478

    [SPEAKER_02]: I actually got so much out of the book thinking fast, thinking slow.

    21:43.498 –> 21:44.619

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’m Daniel Kahneman.

    21:44.979 –> 21:45.820

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s not a new book.

    21:46.699 –> 22:02.286

    [SPEAKER_02]: But if you’ve never really dealt into the psychology of decision-making, it’s fascinating and very relevant for today more than ever because it really talks about how our reptilian brains are constantly trying to make fast decisions.

    22:03.106 –> 22:09.609

    [SPEAKER_02]: And that’s what we do with everything, whether it’s politics, brand choices, friends, et cetera, and so

    22:11.590 –> 22:20.232

    [SPEAKER_02]: knowing how to shortcut and rewire like you’re marketing to appeal to people’s reptilian brains is very helpful.

    22:21.532 –> 22:22.052

    [SPEAKER_01]: So helpful.

    22:22.353 –> 22:33.035

    [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you you’re a proper marketing strategist with that book recommendation because that is a proper hard core must read if you want to be a serious marketer books.

    22:33.095 –> 22:34.215

    [SPEAKER_01]: I love that recommendation.

    22:34.255 –> 22:34.855

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Lynn.

    22:35.496 –> 22:41.117

    [SPEAKER_01]: The traffic top tip which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.

    22:42.018 –> 22:43.700

    [SPEAKER_02]: I’ll go with the doesn’t get the press.

    22:43.941 –> 22:44.482

    [SPEAKER_02]: It deserves.

    22:44.722 –> 22:51.272

    [SPEAKER_02]: We are very active on Pinterest, which is sort of like a stepchild social channel, right?

    22:51.612 –> 22:53.475

    [SPEAKER_02]: People kind of don’t really take it seriously.

    22:54.127 –> 22:57.189

    [SPEAKER_02]: It is fantastic for driving traffic to your site.

    22:57.750 –> 23:05.655

    [SPEAKER_02]: The tricky thing is those people don’t convert necessarily as heavily as traffic coming from an Insta or Facebook or TikTok.

    23:05.715 –> 23:14.921

    [SPEAKER_02]: But what we do is we use Pinterest to get the people to the site and then we have a couple tricks of our sleeve to push conversion.

    23:14.941 –> 23:17.323

    [SPEAKER_02]: The first is retargeting on Facebook.

    23:18.164 –> 23:22.948

    [SPEAKER_02]: I don’t do any Facebook ads to do customer acquisition anymore.

    23:23.228 –> 23:25.610

    [SPEAKER_02]: We strictly do retargeting it’s much more efficient.

    23:26.231 –> 23:43.566

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then secondly, we also use a retargeting solution called safe opt, which allows you to get identity resolution on those anonymous visitors and retarget them legally through their database.

    23:45.873 –> 23:47.670

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the combination is kind of

    23:48.135 –> 23:52.937

    [SPEAKER_02]: The thing, it’s very tough to find one thing that does everything on its own.

    23:53.097 –> 24:02.181

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s usually you have to create these little flows or bundles of experiences to optimize the tools.

    24:02.981 –> 24:04.162

    [SPEAKER_01]: I love that that you shared.

    24:04.222 –> 24:06.122

    [SPEAKER_01]: And just one quick fellow question on it.

    24:06.583 –> 24:08.643

    [SPEAKER_01]: Pinterest eating adds organic.

    24:09.324 –> 24:09.944

    [SPEAKER_01]: I do both.

    24:10.744 –> 24:11.205

    [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.

    24:11.505 –> 24:12.405

    [SPEAKER_02]: But this is the thing.

    24:12.565 –> 24:16.587

    [SPEAKER_02]: On the Pinterest ads, I spend less than a hundred dollars a month.

    24:17.327 –> 24:23.311

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I get four thousand and visitors a month in traffic like from Pinterest.

    24:23.911 –> 24:25.973

    [SPEAKER_02]: So like, I think that’s worth it.

    24:26.393 –> 24:28.735

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then obviously the organic is great too.

    24:29.135 –> 24:33.638

    [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I think it’s a very efficient way to drive traffic.

    24:34.599 –> 24:35.019

    [SPEAKER_01]: Love that.

    24:35.059 –> 24:35.639

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

    24:35.980 –> 24:46.367

    [SPEAKER_01]: The tool top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in a phone up or just a way of working, is the record little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day.

    24:47.422 –> 24:51.204

    [SPEAKER_02]: So obviously, Canva is a must-have for anyone.

    24:51.764 –> 24:54.786

    [SPEAKER_02]: That is literally, I mean, Canva, twenty times a day.

    24:55.426 –> 25:14.095

    [SPEAKER_02]: But I will say, I just started using a social app, a social media scheduling app called Marky, M-A-R-K-Y, which I really love because even though the best practice in social media is to not post the exact same content everywhere,

    25:14.935 –> 25:19.121

    [SPEAKER_02]: When you’re a small business and you have zero bandwidth, I say, nor that.

    25:19.141 –> 25:27.834

    [SPEAKER_02]: A tool like Marky will post that content on not only Instagram, Facebook.

    25:29.205 –> 25:33.307

    [SPEAKER_02]: TikTok, but also Twitter linked in.

    25:34.247 –> 25:35.888

    [SPEAKER_02]: There’s something I’m missing Pinterest.

    25:36.428 –> 25:38.008

    [SPEAKER_02]: It will post on all of those.

    25:38.529 –> 25:44.351

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I have a philosophy that eighty percent done is better than perfect, right?

    25:44.991 –> 25:52.214

    [SPEAKER_02]: So it’s again, maybe not truly a purest best practice from a social media strategy perspective.

    25:52.334 –> 25:54.115

    [SPEAKER_02]: However, getting

    25:55.035 –> 26:00.941

    [SPEAKER_02]: easily scheduled posts on all those channels regularly is gold.

    26:01.601 –> 26:04.183

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, it saves me massive time.

    26:05.204 –> 26:06.846

    [SPEAKER_01]: We are of a mindset there, Lynn.

    26:06.906 –> 26:08.167

    [SPEAKER_01]: I totally agree with you.

    26:08.287 –> 26:09.708

    [SPEAKER_01]: And I love that recommendation.

    26:09.728 –> 26:12.130

    [SPEAKER_01]: Not come across marquee, so I have to go and have a look at that one.

    26:12.571 –> 26:17.715

    [SPEAKER_01]: And the carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

    26:18.554 –> 26:27.221

    [SPEAKER_02]: So there’s a lot of options to offset your carbon footprint and you can use something like sendle for shipping and they bake it into their shipping rates.

    26:27.922 –> 26:37.610

    [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think looking at your packaging that you’re shipping in is a great way to think about being more sustainably minded.

    26:38.491 –> 26:45.997

    [SPEAKER_02]: So we actually switched out some of our packaging to use recycled maillers.

    26:47.058 –> 27:00.281

    [SPEAKER_02]: as a way to try to avoid things getting in a landfill, but also trying to look at every piece of our ecosystem and how can we make it better, how can we make it more sustainable?

    27:00.621 –> 27:02.301

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s a journey.

    27:03.281 –> 27:04.102

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s so, Liz.

    27:04.122 –> 27:10.443

    [SPEAKER_01]: But before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?

    27:11.018 –> 27:11.639

    [SPEAKER_02]: Of course.

    27:11.859 –> 27:13.461

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I’m easy to find.

    27:13.661 –> 27:19.487

    [SPEAKER_02]: And if you can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me personally at Lynn Powered on almost any channel.

    27:20.068 –> 27:23.792

    [SPEAKER_02]: But social media for Massamy is our website.

    27:23.832 –> 27:29.338

    [SPEAKER_02]: First of all is lovemasamy.com L O V E M A S A M I dot com.

    27:30.058 –> 27:38.587

    [SPEAKER_02]: and our social channels are lovemasmy hair everywhere and powerbeautycollab.com and same thing.

    27:38.687 –> 27:40.829

    [SPEAKER_02]: Powerbeautycollab almost everywhere.

    27:41.510 –> 27:41.890

    [SPEAKER_01]: Brilliant.

    27:42.031 –> 27:43.872

    [SPEAKER_01]: Lynn, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

    27:43.892 –> 27:48.037

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s been great chatting to you and I love your pop-ins idea too.

    27:48.057 –> 27:49.538

    [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you very much for being on the show.

    27:49.999 –> 27:50.820

    [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you.

    27:56.690 –> 28:04.914

    [SPEAKER_01]: what a cool collaboration strategy, working with other brands in your space to create those pop-ins and pop-ins instead of pop-ups.

    28:05.574 –> 28:09.416

    [SPEAKER_01]: Love that idea, hold out of other great advice there from Lynn too.

    28:09.436 –> 28:17.780

    [SPEAKER_01]: Then you get your hands on our notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterpland.com.

    28:18.160 –> 28:22.963

    [SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our direct episode short links that’s ECMP.info for such

    28:23.723 –> 28:29.371

    [SPEAKER_01]: The number of this episode just drop that into the URL bar and you’ll go straight to the right page on the site.

    28:29.952 –> 28:38.004

    [SPEAKER_01]: When you get yourself to the website, why not add yourself to our email list so you don’t miss out on any of the other stuff we share to help you improve your business.

    28:38.705 –> 28:46.291

    [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you liked this episode, then make sure you check out episode five hundred and twelve, which is another Clean Beauty product chat.

    28:46.691 –> 28:54.157

    [SPEAKER_01]: This time with Clean Beauty, I guess online department store, Naturalismo, and we’re chatting with Judith Harvey about how they grow that business.

    28:54.758 –> 28:59.442

    [SPEAKER_01]: And you can find all our beauty episodes at ECMP.info forward slash beauty.

    29:00.184 –> 29:04.407

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.

    29:04.747 –> 29:15.093

    [SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.

    29:15.133 –> 29:20.597

    [SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

    29:20.937 –> 29:23.919

    [SPEAKER_01]: Hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

    29:27.018 –> 29:30.323

    [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

    29:30.783 –> 29:35.590

    [SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at ecommercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.

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    eCommerce Master PlanBy Chloe Thomas