Ep. 24: How to Become an Innovative Female Inventor with Emily Kenison of RobeCurls

The way we approach competition is just to make sure we're always still the best in the market and we stand and just lean into our values of what we are doing.

Welcome to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I'm Claire Sellers, a business mentor and coach who is absolutely obsessed with helping you create the business of your dreams and your most prosperous life. Tune in for inspiring conversations with extraordinary women that will propel you towards becoming The Prosperous Woman. All right. Welcome everyone. I am so insanely excited about this episode and our guest today, Emily Kenison. Oh my gosh. Welcome to The Prosperous Woman Show.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome, Claire. I'm so excited to be here. I am just as excited as you, to be honest. Like, this is very cool. So thank you.

So for those of you who don't know, but if you're in my world, I'm sure you do know what robe curls are. Robe curls are the leading heatless hair curlers, and Emily and I are both wearing ours right now. You can't see, but we look gorgeous. She's wearing teal, I'm wearing black. All my clients just expect that I show up in my robe curls on our calls now because it's, it's just become part of my identity. So I'm so excited.

Thank you.

To talk to you, Emily. Your journey is so inspiring. It's so powerful. You made a huge career pivot and you've built something that in my opinion has so much heart and so much soul. I was just saying before we started recording, your customer service and your team is like through the roof.

Thank you.

I, I mean, I don't think I've experienced such high-touch, heartfelt DM conversations with any brand in my life. So you have so much to be proud of and I'm just so excited to get into it today.

Thank you. It's always been about the customers. Like that's the whole heart of the business. So I'm glad you feel it and it's working.

Oh my gosh, it is, it is working. And I think pretty much all of my clients have robe curls now, so.

Oh, I'll pay you later for all of your advertising, Claire Sellers. You are amazing. Thank you.

Oh my gosh.

Thank you for being their curlfriend.

So I'm so curious, you know, it's interesting before when I was preparing for this episode, I actually had no idea that you were a lawyer.

Yep.

I actually wanna kind of start there. Like how did you go from lawyer? 'Cause so many of the women in my world make these huge, you know, big leaps, big changes. I've got doctors, lawyers, you know, you name it and they start their own businesses. So I actually didn't know that you had also made a huge career pivot like this. So kind of take us back to like, you were a lawyer— how did that happen? And then how did you get to what inspired you to create Robe Curls? So just kind of take us through the journey. Okay.

So I'll give you— there's a short version and a long version. Which one do you want, Claire Sellers Sellers?

Long! We want it all.

Yeah, okay. So I guess the longer version is I'm a first-generation Turkish American. My mom is from Turkey. Education is very important, as you can hear from like many first-generation child stories. Like, education, become a lawyer or a doctor. So my life's path was more so prescribed and I didn't necessarily fight it. I was proud of all those steps that I did to become a lawyer, but I didn't necessarily do it very intentionally, thinking about what I want to do and what I want to put out in the world and how I want to help people. And so either way, in law school at NYU Law, I started studying about intellectual property and patents and inventions. Mm-hmm. And I learned that women make up like 2% of patents that are only held by women. So women are very much so underrepresented in the space of innovation. And what that means though, think about it, is that the products that we use are often created by men that are not being used by the men that they're created by. And so we end up in a world where products can be done better, as I'm sure many women can attest to. They would like things that last longer or that actually do what they say they're gonna do when they don't. Mm-hmm. And I think getting more women into that space would be amazing. And I wanted to be in that space of innovation, problem solving for women, creating new products. And the idea of patents really just gave me like the spark behind it, or it made me feel more comfortable when I got to the space of leaving my job, being like, if I can patent something, I could take that step out because you have some legal protection around the ideas that you've created. So, In my mind, it kind of like, as a risk-averse lawyer, gave me that comfort in what I was doing. One fun fact though about patents in the 1880s to like 1920s, women held a ton of patents. That was like a woman boom in innovation. And while patents, there are a lot of them that are out there, usually only about like 0.5% ever become profitable.

Wow.

Like, ever even make the money that it costs to file the patent fees back once they hit the market. Like, none.

Wow.

Those women's patents, 95% became profitable. So women are phenomenal innovators when given the opportunity and the space to create and support behind it. So women out there, trust your gut. You have an idea.

Yeah, that's an incredible statistic.

It's nuts. It's absolutely nuts. And so, yeah, and when I graduated from law school, I had my idea for my first invention, which were straplets. And that was—

What?

Straplets. S-T-R-A-P-L-E-T.

What is that?

So they are shoe accessories. They go over a pair of pumps you already own. They'll help to like perfect the fit, but then they also add like flair and style. So you can create any type of the it look of the season with the shoe you already own. So it's also a very like sustainable, modular, reusable type of mentality behind the brand and the product line. Does that make sense? Can you picture it in your mind?

Give me a visual, like rhinestones?

So if you picture like Valentino rock stud shoes.

Yeah.

Have you seen those before?

Yeah.

There's straps, they have studs on them. So if you have a pair of black pumps, you can slip that stud Look.

Yeah, right on.

Got it. Look the same, and then you're just reusing the pumps you already own instead of having to buy this shoe that you might wear only a couple times, costs a fortune. And then on top— That was smart. Yeah, thank you. And on top of it, shoes are always hard to fit, you know, when it comes to those fashion footwear. I think it's like 1 in 4 shoes get thrown out being worn less than 2 times.

Yeah, I mean, and even it would probably cover up if the leather was a little scuffed or, you know, like it, it just makes, it's like bringing a new life to, to something loved already.

Yeah. You are doing a sales pitch again. Thank you, Claire. You're doing so, you're so good for us.

Uh-huh.

Nailed it.

So is, is that company still around?

That company is still around. It's a little more on autopilot. Um, it's on strapblitz.com. Um, and yeah, it's still around and it was doing well. So I built that on the side while being a lawyer. And the idea came for it when I had my first week at a law firm job. It was my first law firm job. I'd bought a pair of like fancy pumps that fit perfectly when I got them. Walking around, I slip out of my shoes, I'm mortified, and I wish I'd bought one with straps on them because that would have solved these like Cinderella slips. And that's where the idea came to me. I'm like, strapless, there's so much more to it. You can recreate the look of any type of shoe essentially with these modular enhancements. So went around the garment district. I was working in New York City at the time, so it was prototyping in the garment district, hitting up the professors at FIT College, the Fast and Institute of Technology to like learn more about footwear design, um, and building prototypes and then building the website and filing patents and getting everyone around me involved in the process too. I know people say they keep their ideas secret. I don't really do that. I'm more like, this is what I'm building. What do you think? And testing it on everyone. Um, and I built it over the course of 4 years while being a lawyer and, uh, left my job only once it was like proficient enough to like cover my base expenses, that the product was perfect, the website was built, the patents were out there, and it was doing well. But that was also November of 2019. So by March of 2020—

Wow.

Pandemic was in full swing. I had a massive retail partnership where they were going to bring us in as an owned brand. I can't like name names. It was technically under NDA, but think of like top 3 biggest retailers out there. They were going to basically license us. That deal was set to be signed and I was flying out March 13th, 2020, and that was the day MSG closed, Broadway closed, like pandemic was done. The retailers like, who cares about that deal? We need to figure out everything else that's going on in our business. So—

Wow.

That put the kibosh. Footwear sales plummeted. You know, no one's wearing any shoes but slippers, and it hasn't really jumped back up since then. But wow, I think it's a phenomenal product and a phenomenal idea, especially in sustainability terms and where the movement should be going with fashion in general. How can we reuse and make more purpose out of the things you already own?

I, I love that. And you know, as you're talking, one of the things I teach inside of my programs is what you did, which is, I call it the three rules of, it's from my theater background, but the three rules of improv, which is dare to be obvious, which you were like, Okay, what's the obvious issue here? I bought these shoes and I wanna jazz 'em up.

Yeah.

And then, you know, you just kept saying yes and. You were just like, okay, I'm just, you know, I know how to do patterns, so I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna go to the garment district. I'm gonna just keep saying yes and keep learning from people and keep connecting with people. And that, it works.

It works. And I, that was exactly the approach I took. It was just like one foot in front of the other and yes and what's next? Like how do we bring this to life? Cause I didn't know what I was doing.

Right.

I was working a full-time job.

And that's the other thing that I just wanna point out because I call it the investor in your dream. So for my clients, I always advise while they're starting their business, if you can, if you need to keep your investor in the dream, keep your, you know, your basic needs covered. Don't— there's, there's something people have glamorized, like go all in on your business. And I'm like, you will freak out. Your nervous system will have a global meltdown if you're like desperate to pay your rent and feed yourself from a brand new baby. That's just like too much pressure. So keep your investor in the dream.

Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself like that. And I just completely agree. Like the idea that you have no money while you're trying to build something is so stressful and it makes the build process so much harder than it needs to be.

Yes.

And it makes it so much more shortsighted too, cuz you're in that situation of kind of like fight or flight, like Yes, it has to work now. Yeah. Paint a longer-term vision, really build, right?

Right. So the pandemic happens and you're like, okay, the shoe straplets are not working. Like, well, we just didn't know. So how did robe curls come to life? Because they started booming in 2020-ish, right?

Yeah, 2020 was the boom. So it all kind of ties together. So With Straplets, some highlights I'll give, I was on a TV show called NBC's America's Big Deal with Joy Mangano. So I was able to get like some more awareness for who I am as an inventor. It was all about inventors pitching mass retailers, Macy's, other mass retailers. And that was a really cool experience. So that kind of gave me a leg up when it also came to the next innovation, even though the first one was kind of stalling. Mm-hmm. I had already built this network from the first round. And then also, I was in a program at FIT. I'd gotten into an accelerator there where they take 20 companies, they search internationally for these fashion brands that are up and coming that are— that they think will be transformative to the fashion environment. So I was in that accelerator for 6 months with Straplets when the pandemic happened, kind of pivoted in that program, was able to use the resources that I was getting for what the new thing was going to be, which is robe curls. Now, why did I start robe curls? So my job as a lawyer, I used to work at a big law firm. I then worked at a hedge fund where— of lawyers where we'd invest in lawsuits. One of the last cases I worked on before leaving my job was Olaplex versus L'Oréal. So I was really diving into the science of hair, and my hair will never hold a curling iron curl. Ever. I love curls. I've pin-straighted.

Same.

I always want some volume, please. It never holds. And I thought it was me. I thought it was the products I'm using. And while doing this research, it's like it comes to light that like heat is the reason why for 60% of women, our hair isn't going to hold a curl. It's just that process of adding heat. I can dive into the science, but basically—

Wait, the heat does— because I have the same issue. My hair only holds robe curls.

Only holds rope curls.

Yep. So the heat doesn't help.

It does not help. So what happens— your hair is always trying to be in balance with the amount of moisture in the air, with the moisture in your hair. And so when you use heat or hot tools or curling irons or blow dryers, you're automatically depleting your hair's natural moisture balance. So it's going to be about 10%, if not more or less, depending on how much porosity your hair has. High porosity hair Means things can like flow in and out more easily.

Yeah.

Lose moisture more easily. Think of it like a screen door. You have bigger holes in the screen door. And so when you have the heat, you lose moisture in the, in your hair. And so once you put the hot tool down, your hair starts sucking in moisture in the air. And just like adding water to your hair in any situation, your hair is gonna go flat no matter how curly your hair is. You jump in the pool, it's gonna go flat. And so if you have high porosity hair, certain hair types, which is about 60% of women, heat is just not going to hold because your hair starts sucking it in. But when you're able to get your hair to air dry so that it's balanced, those shapes are formed with the moisture in the air, with the moisture in your hair, then your curls are going to hold.

Oh my gosh.

And that brings in like the science of fabrics because not all fabrics are treated equal. Think of wool. Wool is comp— not comparable, but a similar effect of heat. And that's why you get static. When you wear like wool caps and things, it sucks moisture out of your hair. So we developed fabrics around robe curls and made sure that like we're getting that moisture balance as best as possible.

Yeah. Wow. Okay, so, well, that was just a whole lesson I didn't know I needed. I mean, it's true. It's, it's literally the only thing that holds, 'cause I, we probably have similar hair. I have very, I have a lot of fine hair and nothing holds it. Except robe curls. So, okay, well now I know why. And now I know, just let's skip the heat tools.

Yeah, skip the heat tools. And so at that point it was like, I learned that, you know, right towards October, you know, 2019. And I start diving into the science of hair and I really wanted to solve heatless curls 'cause I'm like, this has to work. And so I started, I first bought everything on the market 'cause I didn't wanna create something again if it already existed. I don't know.

Were there products on the market like yours?

No, there was nothing. There was maybe like 60, 84 products on Amazon in the entire category. Now there's thousands. Wow. Yeah. There was nothing. And they were all, they dated back to like the '90s, early 2000s, the '50s, their rollers, their spoolies, their, you know, the most innovative one was like the Octocurl.

I don't know. I remember that.

Yeah. So that was probably the most recently created product, but otherwise there was no innovation. And I tried all of them. They were uncomfortable. They didn't create the right kind of curls. They weren't working. They just fell flat. I'm like, I, I should be able to figure this out. And I don't trust the Conairs of the world to do it because they have billions of dollars, but they're not doing it. And why not? They know that this is a problem for their customers, or if they don't, they don't care to figure that out. This is a problem. Right. So I figured, you know, I already have knowledge from straplets, let me apply it to heatless curls. And with Rogue Curls, I wanted to do it in a different approach. Instead of spending 4 years to build and launch it, I went from idea to launch of a very like scrappy MVP product in 4 months. And during that time, the bathrobe belt trend started to come around.

Oh no.

Which is great. It was perfect.

Was it?

It was 'cause it helped us refine our prototypes and it helped bring awareness to heatless curls and—

True.

And it allowed us, so eventually when we launched the brand name, calling it Robe Curls, when there was nothing on the market, we were the first by about a year and a half. We were able to kind of piggyback on a wave of marketing of people searching for #RobeCurls, which was the viral trend.

Got it.

And our product. Which really helped, really helped. Wow. We were bootstrapped, very little money being spent on it.

So like, take us, cuz I think, I think a common misconception, and you know, so many of my clients are online service providers. I do have some product-based clients, but regardless, a story that new entrepreneurs have is I need to have it all together. I need to have it all figured out. I need to have a bunch of money and it needs to look perfect. And I am, I think like you where I'm just like, throw it together, get it done and start moving and then figure it out and make it better as you go. And so how did you do that? Like, were you in your kitchen? Like, were you literally like putting coat hangers in?

Literally. You got it. Like nailed it. Coat hangers. Yes. I was taking apart coat hangers at one point.

Okay.

Walking down like the aisles of Home Depot, playing with the wires over there. All of it. And it was, I taught myself to sew. So I was making the first round of prototypes and then went through so many versions and I had a checklist of what I wanted out of a product. And if I couldn't achieve it, I wasn't gonna launch it. But it had to look cute, it had to work and create curls that were just like a curling iron curl. But I think cute and comfortable is really important 'cause I wanted to be like a feminist product. You shouldn't be stuck at home waiting for your hair to set.

Right.

That just seems so archaic to me. And it had to be super easy to use. Like you can do it under 2 minutes once you're good at it. You know, not take time because—

Right.

All that stuff is just such a waste of time. You got better to do.

Yeah, I— and actually, I can attest, it literally takes under 2 minutes once you get good at it. It takes a, it takes a couple tries, but once you learn your method, it's like so fast. And, and I love, you know, and this is something else that I teach, like you have to get clear on what your brand values are, and that becomes your map. And that's what, you know, what you just listed, those are, you know, I would say you're— I don't know if those are— you probably have deeper values than that, but that was a map for you. So like, how do values and your brand promise, like, how did those come into play from the obviously very beginning?

Yeah. So, um, from the beginning it was always an innovation-centered brand. Like, I don't wanna bring to market something that already exists. I don't wanna create more waste in the world, and the product has to work really well. Like, I don't want people throwing things away and not learning how to use them correctly or selling them junk that I don't stand by.

Mm-hmm.

And so that innovation center has been like at the heartbeat of what we are continuing to build. Now we're creating the heatless hairstyling space from product formulations because everything we just talked about, the science of hair applies to product formulations. Anti-humidity has to be the key formulating factors when you're developing these products. So we're expanding the brand with that innovation customer obsession, like, as like, I just want to be treated how I would want other brands to treat me as a customer, especially as a beauty customer. And so making sure that customers feel like they are part of the journey, but also that they can learn how to use the product. If you're innovation first, you got to teach them how to use it. And I want to be there for them. And so a customer obsession has been at the heart value as well. as well. And I think those are like the two main core values that drive everything we do, along with authenticity.

Yeah.

I want to build a brand. I think growing up in the 2000s probably was like a peak of this, like Victoria's Secret. You can't sit with us. The Victoria's Secret models, like, you're, you're so cool. You like want to be like them or whatever, but it's so distorted. And I just did not want that to be our ethos. I wanted to be a brand that you can actually sit with and it's real people and real products and your curlfriend. So I think that just comes from, like, my personality as a type of person I want to be in the world, someone that helps create good things that can help millions of women and someone that, yeah, that builds friendships because it's become more isolating as we become more virtual.

Yeah, I love what you just said. And it's something I teach in my beginning business accelerator, the Dream Accelerator. I first have the girls identify their personal core values, you know, because it's really hard to build a brand if you don't know who you are.

Right.

And, and now that I've met you, I'm like, I feel the brand behind, or I feel you in the brand. Like the way that it's not you in the DMs, but it might as well be, you know, like—

Yeah. And that's our team. Our team embraces all of these values as well. Yeah, very lucky to have them. And it's not a one-man show. It— I can't take full credit for any of this. You know, it takes a village to build things.

Totally. And it, it, it's, you know, another thing I, I really speak to all the time is that people should feel your values and who you really are from like the moment they come to your page, from the minute they DM you to when they purchase, to when they open the package or open the, you know, welcome to our program if it's digital, like it should be felt and seamless throughout. And I think that that's to me, I can think of brands that are timeless and they have that.

They do. Thank you for saying that about us. So it means a lot. Yeah.

I love that. I love that. So you, okay, so you're in the kitchen, you're in Home Depot, you're, you're coming up with this thing. Like how did you, let's kind of move into the marketing of it. 'Cause I think that's when, Some people listening are probably like, okay, so she like, you know, made these robe curls, which, you know, has a lot of science behind it, but it's a pretty simple thing actually. Like it, it's not a complex contraption. It's fabric and wire and scrunchies.

Yep.

There's a lot more to it than that, but that's physically what it is. So how did you think about like, okay, how am I gonna get this thing into the hands of millions? Because this is a volume-based business.

Yes, it is a volume-based business. So I first started, I think I had a little bit of a leg up because I had, you know, an Amazon website for strapless and I had my strapless website. So I first started by just putting this product, at that point we called it Curl Scarf, and we blocked it there to see if there'd be movement. I didn't tell my friends, my family, I wanted to see organically if there would be movement. Got lucky with the, the bandwagon that was happening with the hashtag #robecurls that was going around, which had just started to percolate around March, April, May. So we were selling out of product very quickly, but it was small runs. It would be like 20 runs of—

On Amazon.

On Amazon.

Okay.

Or website, which we already had a bit of a marketing for since we had been around for about a year at that point. And yeah, and I would get feedback. I didn't really do any heavy marketing per se. It was more about perfecting the product in real time with real customers. So I spent a year of just working with— it went from an FIT student who was producing production runs for us. 50 units was the capacity per week. So we do— Oh my gosh. And then we moved from there to a factory in Virginia, a woman-owned factory. Um, and they tapped out at like 5,000 a week was their production. And so then from there we went to China and we perfected the product each run, which allowed us to not, you know, put 10,000 units into the MOQ of a Chinese factory and hope this is the right thing. It allowed us to really perfect the product. It's simple, but it's hard to make a complex idea simple. It's hard to make a, you know, the product simple. It's the truth.

Yeah.

And that was the goal of the product. And so, yeah, it was, it was very scrappy. And when it came to marketing, it was only by September, a year later, a year and a half later, after having launched in June 2020 to September 2021, perfecting the product, selling it scrappy but not marketing. September 2021, we had built the brand. The product was perfect. I was stoked. We launched it on Indiegogo, we launched it on Amazon, we launched it on our website, and we worked with Alex Gabori, who is a YouTube influencer in the haircare space. Millions of views on her videos. She's phenomenal and she is such a great connection with her community as well. So I was like, instead of going broad on marketing, I'm just going to try to get this one dream influencer.

Interesting.

And it worked. And so she's still part of the team. She's come back full circle. She's now working with us again.

And I—

Oh. Founder title 'cause she's been with us since the beginning and we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for her. And wow, videos that she made. So she put us on YouTube and that was pretty much off to the races.

Wow.

It's been, marketing has not been our like strongest forte, but I think our customer obsession approach has really led to word of mouth marketing.

That's how I feel. Because you guys aren't, you know, like, you're not flashy. You're not doing ads. Well, I haven't seen ads. I'm sure I would be getting them, you know.

No, we're not doing ads.

You know, it really, to me, it feels kind of grassroots, you know, like it just kind of snowballed. And it's interesting, like, why did you— because most people, if I were in your shoes, I think I don't know what I would have done. But I think I probably would have sent the product to like 20 influencers.

Yeah.

Why did you just choose one? That's like a very strong choice.

It was a strong choice and it came twofold. One is I wanted her, someone that could be more of the face of the brand. So she's all over our website. We got into Walgreens, she's in our Walgreens packaging display. I wanted just one person that I knew I could work really closely with to refine the images and communicate how to use the product correctly, make those great YouTube videos, um, well. And number 2, the deal we made with her was simple in its mindset cuz she was taking a risk. I mean, she works with big brands that pay her a lot of money and we had no money for marketing. All of our money was going into inventory. Um, and so I said, I'll give you a cut of whatever we make. Forget coupon, you know, referral codes. Yeah. Like just wanted someone to feel like we valued them and this, that this is part of their journey too. So it was timeframe of, you know, for a couple months after we launched, I just knew any business that we generated would've been through her marketing.

Right.

And I thought, you know, with that approach, I'd rather go deep and true and build a relationship with one and rather than 20, which would be very hard to manage at that time as well. And yeah, I mean, it worked in that regard. And we've kept in touch that entire time. She's back with the team. And so we're so grateful.

Wow. I love that. And, you know, a lot of people would have said, oh, we don't have any money for marketing. And one of the things I always say is there's a way through every block. And you were just like, okay, we can't pay you upfront, but we'll give you a cut of whatever comes, you know? And so And I love just throughout what you're saying, first of all, I'm hearing one of the things I always say, which is done is better than perfect. But I'm also hearing you are quite committed to perfection. You know, you, you want it to be like you were, you've iterated and iterated and iterated. Like even when it seemed good enough, you were just like, can we make it better?

Yep, exactly. Can we make it better every single round until it was perfect. Yeah. And it still is like best on the market because I'm not good at selling. I remember one of your videos was talking about like how to do like kind of a sales approach. Like you have to really believe in the product. And I couldn't do that unless I knew it was the best one out there. And I still stand by that, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And I always say like the only time sales is hard is if you aren't 1,000% obsessed with what you're selling. When you're obsessed with what— and this is what's so rewarding to see with my clients is that when we actually develop a product or service or program that they're obsessed with, they're shocked every time, the first time when it sells out. And I'm like, because you're obsessed with it, you can't stop talking about it.

Yes. And that is the strongest, strongest sales tool is like the—

The only one you need.

It's the only one you need. You need your friends to tell you that this is what you need to do because I believe in it and I love it. And I, I, that's how I shop these days, you know?

Same, same. Exactly. So have there been other, aside from Alex?

Yeah.

That you've worked with? Have there been other surprising ways that you've seen like upticks in sales or that you've used marketing, like aside from working with, with her?

Yeah. So we've been featured in, I think about 250 major press mentions like Allure, Glamour, Vogue, everything, Today Show. I think being on the Today Show, huge up to you.

Huge.

And they actually put you on their like holiday segment and like Kathy and Hoda are there and you're like, wow. And I remember we had actually missed the email that came in that said, can you send us products for this segment? 'Cause I was on a TV show for Straplets at that time and I just was overwhelmed with that. Totally missed the email. So all of a sudden we see our sales going through the roof and we have no idea why. So it was just such like an incredible surprise and it really caught us by attention. But yeah, I think marketing in that regard, press has been very helpful. From an ego standpoint, it means like the world to think that we're in these publications as well. And we didn't have a press person on the team as well. So I think that also just speaks a lot. You know, we didn't hire a press agency.

Yeah.

I did that with straplets. It was very expensive. We got nothing, you know, a couple little dribbles here and there. But if it hits, it'll hit and you don't have to necessarily shell out the cash for it.

Yeah, so two questions on that. How did you, first of all, why do you think it hit on robe curls and not on straplets? And two, like how did you get those placements? I used to work in PR. I mean, they just came to you like, They just came— Passive.

Passive. I think one thing was we were on Amazon. I believe this is my hunch and you can let me know if I'm right or wrong. My hunch is that they're looking for products that are doing high volume sales.

Mm-hmm.

They do affiliate code links, so they get a kickback. Essentially, if they link to a product and someone clicks that link and buys, they get a percent commission. And so I think because we were ranking so high, in this space, which was a matter of timing, you know, being first to market and then also like best in market when all the other ones came in with the reviews being so glowing, with the customer support being so good. I think it allowed us to survive what was a hard time. We had a lot of competitors all of a sudden in the market.

Yeah.

And I think the press noticed that we were, you know, a good selling product to link to and they wanted to write about heatless curls. So that's the real reason.

Right.

Trying to dial it down.

Interesting. You know, and I, I think a lot of this I'm also hearing is timing. You know, it was the pandemic, people were at home, like it, it was like the perfect storm of just like the people were doing the, the, you know, bathrobe curls. You got the hashtag, it's the pandemic, people are at home, they're looking for weird new things to do and buy.

Yeah.

And you just, you got in at the right time.

I, yeah, I, I definitely think timing was key. It was, um, which I'm very grateful for cuz you can't necessarily manufacture that.

Yes, you cannot.

You can create a viral moment, but we can't create this movement.

The movement. Yeah. And, and that's the other thing, you know, and I've, I've experienced this in my business and it sounds like you've experienced that. When you hit that sweet pocket of sales, when you're obsessed with it and everyone around you is like, you literally feel as if you have created a movement. And when you're in that pocket, and it doesn't stay that way forever, you know, you're gonna have ebbs and flows and ups and downs. But when you hit that pocket of just like, I'm so obsessed with this, like I am running full steam ahead because I believe in this thing with my whole heart. And it's like, you just start getting people on the path with you, that is like, that's it. There's no better feeling. It's so good.

It literally is the best feeling in the world. And it takes obsession. I always said I'm obsessed, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. And when you're obsessed and you're going through that pocket, it, it brings and garners more opportunities. It, it, it catches fire in other ways, you know?

Yeah.

And it gives you the confidence to do things you might not think of doing otherwise. Like I pitched Walgreens, I never knew how to pitch a, you know, retailer. I'd done it with Strapless, but it's still not like I'm not a broker or anything. I've never done this before. And I got us into Walgreens 2 months after launching. We were on Walgreens shelves. Wow. 130 stores, number 1 category seller. You know, we were there. Wow. Wanted to expand us to 5,000 stores. So we did good.

That is— and aren't you in Target?

We're in Target.

Yeah.

Yeah. So can't handle all of these things bootstrapped. So I took that success. I wanted Walgreens because it was a pandemic. So I was like, they'll stay open. Smart. Pharmacy will stay open. But I always dream account was Target because I think they do right by their customers.

Wow. I love that. Yeah. So we've talked about, you know, not— it hasn't been all roses. So I'm curious, like, what have been some of the challenges that you've experienced along the way?

It has not been all roses. Oh my God. Challenges. So By December 2022, we made Google's top 100 list. We were one of the top 100 most searched for products of the year, their holiday 100 list. So that to me was nuts. By 2023, we became one of the most counterfeited products. And counterfeits these days—

Meaning people were fake making your product or just copying you with a new name?

Fake making our product. And copying us with a new name, but fake—

Oh, wow.

Product as well. And we, at our peak, we had 3,000 new listings, like online listings popping up each week. And so 2023, my head was just surrounded by like, how do I keep our business afloat? And I think, you know, one thing people don't necessarily realize is on Amazon, which was a big channel of sales for us, one in two purchases in the US is made on Amazon. So no matter what, Amazon is a big sales channel.

Yeah.

You're kind of forced to play there. Amazon lets other sellers sell on your own listing. So we would have 98 other sellers on our Rogue Curls listing. And so if you bought from us, you would get a counterfeit product on Amazon.

Is that still the case?

Not the case anymore, but we have—

Oh, okay.

How to solve that. And that's called, like, you call it ASIN hijacking. Amazon allows it. We now signed up for brand transparency. We also have like a brand protection agency that's constantly crawling the web and taking things down. Edison is their name. They're amazing.

Wow.

File lawsuits, batches of 400 sellers at a time would be in a lawsuit. Win that lawsuit, file another one, file another one. And what happens with these lawsuits is these sellers warn other sellers. There's websites where they basically post saying, if you're selling this product, I just got tangled up in this lawsuit. I lost all of my money associated with this product. Get out of this. Sell something else. They're coming after us. So if you didn't get called up in this lawsuit, you're likely going to be in the next round. So it kind of cleans up the market beyond who's named in those cases.

Yeah.

So it took about a, like, you know, months, a year of just like Oh my God, how do we figure this out? And this is a newer problem too, so you can't really like Google this. This is a post-pandemic where people become more online shopping oriented. And these websites, they would copy everything as well. Like it would have pictures of me as the inventor, literally our website copied. And since we— That is insane. It's insane. And since we are so new in the market too, people don't necessarily know who the original creator was. So the website says that they invented it. Well, okay. And like, they might remove the name Rogue Curls thing, you know, because it's trademarked, but they don't care. The buyer doesn't know. So it became like a very weird time to have to go through this. And I've helped other people going through this. So if anybody listening to this episode is going through this, I'm here to help. If you know someone going through it, like, it's my— it's the way I can give back. 'Cause it is, it'll kill a business, period. I'm shocked we survived.

Yeah. That is, that, you know, that's something that people, I wouldn't even have thought of that, you know? It's, and it, like you said, there wasn't a roadmap for that. You just had to figure it out.

You had to figure it out. You had to figure it out and stay in and keep going. Like you were saying before, just like one foot in front of the other.

Right.

Like, how do we get through this?

Right, next step.

And, And like, I guess like some interesting tidbits, like we would say we would do, like we'd have to market that we have counterfeits and like to buy from our website and stuff. And we always tried to do right by the customer. So any customer that got a counterfeit and they came across these videos, they can reach out to us and we would give them our real product and try to make it right. But like on Instagram and stuff, anytime we posted about it, it would be taken down as like whatever, fake content. Essentially Instagram would flag it as fake content to say that.

Oh.

These are counterfeit products being sold on Amazon.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well, it sounds like you figured that out. Thank goodness. And you survived it. But I can see how that would really kill a business, you know? And I, I had my friend Eva who owns— she's like a Fulfilled by Amazon product expert and she owns tons of products on Amazon. She didn't talk about that, but she's had products just completely taken off Amazon.

Yeah, that happened like this.

In a flash.

Like nothing you can do. I appeal, I show them utility design patents, doesn't matter. Show them trademarks, copyrights, doesn't matter.

And so what is your stance on Amazon versus purchasing directly on your site? How are you navigating that now?

Oh, it's a complicated question because the business has to stay on Amazon no matter what.

Right.

We prefer customers buy from our website. Always.

That's good to know because I always buy on Amazon. I must confess.

Yeah, and that's fine. And that's the thing. I'm not going to shame any customer because like, yeah, I buy on Amazon. I've gone through the wringer with Amazon. Amazon has made it so easy for the market to buy things, return things. You feel low risk. So, you know, I don't want to cause more problems for the customer, for the market, and change that. But yeah, it is a— and the other thing, you can't close your Amazon account. They own it. So if we were to say we tried to shut our Amazon account down during this time because people are getting counterfeits worldwide, they're getting counterfeits. Amazon opened up our listing internationally, so we're getting complaints in the UK saying your product's bleeding on my sheets. Like, how'd you get our product in the UK? I mean, it's a mess.

Wow.

It went up to 98%. It's always under— it's about 2% normally. Because they're, they're sending garbage, just trash product. I, I can show you a picture of the comparison.

Wow. This is something that as an online service provider, I don't deal with.

Yeah. You don't have to.

You know, you like, I, and I, I have several product-based business, physical product-based business clients. And you know, you just, in a way you lose control when it's a pro, a physical product. There's an element of like, you can't control And so a lot of probably what you're doing as the founder is trying to damage control and maintain integrity, cuz that, that's so important to you.

So important to us is exactly it. Damage control, maintain integrity and solve this thing as soon as we can.

Yeah.

I'm just working overtime to do that.

Wow. So that's a huge challenge. Another challenge I would assume is competition because now there's like 18 million types of heatless hair curlers. I personally, before I found— I found Rogue Curls because I tried 3 others and I couldn't sleep in them. My hair looked crazy. I literally couldn't get them to work. And then I don't even— I think, I mean, I searched on Amazon and I found Rogue Curls and it was the only thing that worked. And I was like, this thing is amazing. And that's how I became obsessed with you guys. I started tagging you and became friends in the DMs and all the things. So that's how I'm here. So— So one thing I heard you say, and I wrote it down, is when you said, you know, the bath, bathrobe curls started trending, that hashtag started trending. I said, uh-oh.

Yeah.

As in the competition. But I wrote down that competition was actually a blessing. It wasn't really competition, but that trend was really like your tee up to enter the market. So how have you handled competition since the beginning until, you know, now when you're not the only only kid on the block.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, there's— the way I look at it is we captured lightning in a bottle, and that's a good thing, and that's why we are successful, and that's also why we have the competition. So, you know, it's made our journey easier, but it's also made it really more challenging with the competition. I think the way we approach competition is just to make sure we're always still the best in the market, and we stand and just lean into our values of of what we are doing. And, you know, fun fact, with like all these counterfeits, we have to buy each and every counterfeit in order to take them down. So I have literally tested and used thousands, and I'm not joking, we have thousands of counterfeit products and copycat products, each and every one out there. And I feel so confident that our product is the best in the market and that the consumer word of mouth will get it there. And that is what has allowed us to continue to like drive forward, just leaning into the customers leaning into the product integrity, leading into our pipeline, which all of these hiccups has delayed the launch, but we have products ready to go, prototype final samples, they have been tested, they are ready to go, they're going to hit new needs that are missing in the market. We're so excited for them. But just leaning into our core values is how we've like handled the competition.

Mm-hmm.

And I know, like, there are some big names that have come out with, you know, some of them are my patents, you know, whether or not they could take them down, I'm not going to fight them because they're US-based companies with hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the space I come in. I know what it's like to sue in these cases. Like, that's a distraction for our business. And you're going up against David versus Goliath. So when you look at the big ones, I'm like, okay, let the Conner have their cheap version. So be it. Pitch. They, you know, threw a wire in their product simply because we had a wire in ours. Their wire has no— they don't know what it's for. So it's a really limp wire. It doesn't do anything. You can't twist to create the curl shape. You can't twist to put it into the headband. And the fabrics they're using, like, we developed our own fabrics. And so you look around, you're like, okay, it's going to happen. They have more marketing dollars, but that's not what we have, you know? So we got to lean into what we got and keep going.

I think that's the thing. And for me, again, it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning is if your heart is in it and you're actually obsessed with it and you know that it's the best out there, the competition is kind of irrelevant.

It's irrelevant. And, and I think you get used to it too. It would definitely hurt so much when it all started coming out.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Claire Sellers, the ones that stole your images. I mean, like, you can't get out from under that unless you actually solve it. But eventually you get kind of like, okay, this is what it is. And I think there's one thing that I heard that I kind of leaned into as well, like just from like a mental perspective, which was when Pepsi came out, Coca-Cola used to be the only one with the vending machines. You heard about this?

Yeah, I always tell my clients this, but you tell the story because it's so— no, no, no, go ahead.

And then so Coca-Cola was afraid that, oh no, we're going to lose half of our sales now that Pepsi is going to put their vending machine next to us. And instead, both of their sales doubled. And so the fact that there is more awareness, that the fact that there is options, that the consumer has these choices, I think it just garners more respect for the brand. And if it's not doubling now, it'll double soon, you know, that type of thing.

I love that. Actually, that was the— I was just going to say, my clients always say, but there's so many X type of coaches out there. And I'm like, why did Pepsi come along? You know, like it just It's rising tides lift more boats.

So beautiful. Well said.

I like that. You know, it's, and I think again, like our job, I think as female founders is to be the ones that are obsessed with the product, obsessed with the clients, and just relentlessly dedicated to it. And you, you really can't lose when you know that your heart's in the right place. And that sounds cheesy, but Honestly, people will buy based on— women buy based on emotion. So people are gonna buy your product because of your story, the, the sweet reels you guys make, like over Conair any day because you guys make us feel something.

Yeah. Yeah, I, I think so. I hope so. And I'll just give a nod out to like other women inventors cuz there aren't that many, but if you come across them and they're successful, they had to go through hell and back and survive so much to still be around. So if their products are still around, trust me, it's better than the knockoffs and counterfeits or whatever that are out there. So like Lashify, that founder's phenomenal. She makes the Cluster Lash System, and that was their patented invention. You have Turbie Twists with Angela Carr. You have, you know, Sarah Blakely Spanx. You have all these women founder inventors. Mm-hmm. That have survived being in these high competition spaces because of what they create.

Yeah, that's such a, that's actually a perfect segue 'cause I was gonna talk about, I know you have an amazing team, but you also had mentors including Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. Talk about like your mentors, your support systems. Did you have coaches? Like how did you, 'cause there's so, what you, I mean, you've done so much and you've had to figure it out. What is your mentor system, your support system? What has that been like through this process?

Sure. I think I have a couple different categories of support system. I have family, friends. My fiancé has been a huge support system through all of this. And that's just that you need that love, that grounding love when you go through the hard times that you're okay just curling up in a ball and crying to. And then I have some, support systems that make me feel very valued. The fact that I'm on the right path, and that would be Sarah Blakely. Mike Genderski, who was the CEO of Bliss, Bliss Spa, Bliss Products, CMO of Burt's Bees. He essentially created the natural beauty products category. He was the SVP at L'Oréal. He is a marketing genius, the most wonderful, kindest guy, has an incredible brand called Hear Me Raw, all about sustainable beauty products, really has like the earth earth's consciousness in mind and everything he creates. So his values align with mine. He's amazing. I also have Natalie Mackey from Winky Lux. Winky Lux is a beauty brand all about like a wink at luxury is the, is the nod of the name. And she is so supportive of female founders and opens up opportunities to you. So we'll do like grassroots marketing together. She offered like they were going to Bama Rush, where they get 2 billion views on TikTok. And we went down there, did a super grassroots marketing effort.

Was fun.

Yeah. With Winky Lux and Bubble Skincare's team. And, but it's just these being surrounded by them. I think there's an emotional component to it as well as a strategic component. And that really helps to drive the business in the right direction. You just wanna surround yourself with the ones that have those values. You know, I don't lean into the ones that I've met along the way who want to mentor, who I'm like, I'm not sure. Sure, that's my value. Well, why don't you launch hair clips and this and that? I'm like, there's enough of that in the world. That's not my value, you know? So it's, yeah, finding the ones that are aligned and leaning into them. And you have to do the work too, you know? Like, as a mentee, I always am prepared if I'm having those meetings as to like what I'm looking for in terms of advice, what I'm looking for in terms of support. And if they give it, you can— you should always weigh it. You know, they come from different times that they've built things., but making sure you're following through at least with some plan and being, putting that foot in front of the other once again. Got it. Yeah.

I love that. And, but you, how did you, how did you get linked up with Sarah Blakely? Because that, some people might look at that and be like, well, she had an in, you know, like, so how did you, how did that happen?

Yeah, sure. So with Sarah Blakely, That's a fun story. It's a good viral clip too, if you want to find the video of how I got Sara Blakely to be my mentor. She was speaking at a conference, the How I Built This Summit. It's an NPR phenomenal podcast. If you're into entrepreneurship stuff and startups, listen to it. And they had a conference and she was speaking there. So I went to the conference and I made a poster that said, Sara, will you marry me? Strapless. I was doing strapless at the time, and I crossed out "Mary" and wrote "mentor" over it.

Ah!

And I thought— I made this poster, and I was going to be like, you know, Blink-182 concert, like, hold it up while she's speaking. And I was like, I hope she sees my poster amongst all these posters because it's 5,000 people there, thinking it's going to be like everybody's holding up these things. I'm the only one with a poster. But she saw it. She loved it. She laughs about it on stage. And then I ran into her when she was leaving with her team afterwards, and she was like, where's the poster? Let's get some pictures. And I had had this, like, moment, like, if I do actually get a second with her, what would I do? And so we're standing together taking pictures, and I'm like, no, but I'm serious. This is my product, Straplets. Will you mentor me? And I slipped it over her shoe like a ring slips over your finger. And she said yes. And that was the beginning of our mentorship relationship. Wow. And we would talk, we still talk every quarter thereabouts, you know, going through things that are like most topical to what's happening. She was one of the first people to get the prototype for Rogue Curls, giving feedback on that throughout the journey. And she's awesome. She's been helpful with like processing strategic decisions for sure.

Mm-hmm.

But in terms of like necessarily like opening doors, I'm not leaning into her for that specific— at least the doors that we've opened, I haven't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is such an amazing story. And I feel like it's just— like, you didn't know her through a friend of a friend. You literally made a freaking poster board with a funny thing on it and showed up at an event. You know, 'cause I think a lot of people would assume, "Oh, she had that connection through her parents or through this or through that." You know, people make up these stories, and I'm just here to tell you 9 times outta 10, it's you had to do the ballsy thing and email or write a poster board or, you know, show up at their event or whatever it might be. Like, this is what you have to do when you want something. It doesn't just fall in your lap.

Exactly. I think being intentional of what I want has always been very helpful cuz then I'm like, I'm gonna get this. I want Sara Blakely to be my mentor. She's a big inspiration behind Women Inventors and what I've built in So I'm not like doing this for all the people out there, but I'm doing it in a way that I think she would also respond to. It's Sarah Blakely. She would— I, I couldn't imagine her not getting a kick out of it.

Oh my gosh. It's— I'm gonna look that up cuz I'm envisioning the poster board. That is so creative and it's so true to you. Like now that I'm getting to know you more, like that's so on brand for you as a, as a woman.

It was such a cool moment. It really was. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So ask your, your ideal mentor to marry them if they'll marry you. Yes. Yeah.

Good advice.

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Good advice. So as we're kind of winding things down here, one thing I just wanna touch on, and I just want everyone to hear how amazing your customer support is and how I feel like I literally, you guys gave me a, I don't know, what is it? A discount code?

Yeah.

No, no, no. Affiliate code. Because I was referring so many people to buy Rogue Curls and you guys DM me and you're like, we made a code for you. It's Claire 10. I was like, amazing. I mean, I feel like I'm part of the Rogue Curls family.

You are part of the Rogue Curls family. The amount we've talked about you with our team, like sharing your comments, sharing your stories, like, yeah, you are part of it. It's so cool to like see you in person because I'm like, yeah, even the videos you've made and our heart and it keeps us going. It like really does so much joy.

I think that is— I'm, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like that. How have you done that? Like, how have you put such an emphasis on community and sisterhood and made people feel like they're part of the movement? Because I think that's like your secret sauce personally.

Thank you. Um, I think there's a couple things. Number one, like, customer obsession has been a key value since the beginning. So our first hire, Gabriella, is incredible. She's the head of customer delight. We don't call it customer service. It's whatever— I love that. Delight the customer. And she creates like the most like, you see things outside the box then. It's not just like replying to servicing your issues. It's like we have a customer now. How do we go above and beyond past purchase? And she has that ethos and she does such an amazing job. The Curl Talks program is my favorite part of the day. So anybody that buys our product, you can sign up for a free one-on-one virtual curl class. Class. Most of the time it's with me. It's like 15 minutes. I will help you with any struggles you're having with the product, make sure you love it, make sure it looks great. And it's an amazing way to connect with the customer too and just like be real. I mean, there have been so many like heartfelt moments, just like when you go to your hair salon, like—

Yeah.

We're both therapists. I have to say, as like a business owner, like I need therapy too. So talking to the customer, we're just like venting. Sometimes there might be wine involved Friday night. I'm like, go get your glass, let's do this. Yeah. And during the therapy too, and during, not during therapy, during the pandemic when people weren't getting outside as much.

It was huge.

It was huge. It was huge. And so it becomes a moment to really have a profound impact on someone and make them feel confident and beautiful. So I think that has been an amazing part of our ethos and something I don't want to get rid of. To what extent is it scalable? I don't know, but I'm going to hold on to that as long as possible. And in my dream world, we have air dry salons. You can come in, we'll like haircuts, colors, everything is geared towards what does your hair look when you air dry it, product tools, formulations. And so being able to like do more of that in-person connection. Grassroots marketing is also another thing I love. Like going to band—

Yeah.

Going to the sororities, going to the college campuses, meeting with the bands, college bands. We went to like a marching band thing.

Oh, cool.

Like, 'cause they're outside in the heat sometimes, you know, with like a thump.

True.

And they love the product. And so just connecting with different types of people that are using our product in real life, I love that.

I love, I, I just think that it's so unique and so special. And for me, that's like, now this approach is critical.

Yeah.

Having, you know, a, a people-first, community-first approach is what builds brands that people are obsessed with. I think that's it. Like, that's the differentiator. So you've done that. That so well.

I was— I would be obsessed with the brand. I would be. If a company did this to me, I'd be obsessed with them too. Yeah.

I mean, like, I'll just— before we close out, I'll just tell you guys, I was dating someone who had a daughter and she had super thick hair and I could not robe curl her hair to get it to look like mine. And I was like, I can do it on myself, but I can't do it on her. And Gabriella literally was like, okay, here's the plan. And she like sent me the products I should get. And she was like, you need to this type of way. And I mean, it was like a 4-paragraph message. And then she was like, and we'd love to do a one-on-one curl consultation. So we can, we can show you both how to do it, like book here. I was like, wow. Oh my God.

Education. We've learned so much. We're experts in this industry and we just want to share that knowledge and help each other out. Like, I think that's what all of this is about. Like just being able to help each other out. Out, make yourself more beautiful, build those relationships. That's the pure joy in what we're building.

Well, and I'm sure that it helps you get through all the tough times too, when you're like dealing with the legal and the Amazon craziness and all of that. So you both— everybody needs it. It's a win-win to be people first.

Nailed it.

Nailed it. I love it. So my last question before we close out is what's next for Robe Curls? Like, what's the What are y'all working on over there?

We're building an entire category. So we started with the product. 80% of women used to use hot tools pre-pandemic, blow dryers, curling irons, all that stuff. Post-pandemic, that has shifted. 80% have put down the hot tools. Gen Z, Gen Alpha, like they may not even have picked up a curling iron in their life.

Mm-hmm.

And so we want to meet the market with where it's going. And honestly, like, I don't trust any other brand. This is like going back to perfectionism thing. Like, I don't trust them to build the truth. Like, with beauty marketing, like, you can say anything. And when I realized that, like, that kind of just— there's no FDA checking on things. Like, so I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it with our ethos, our values, our integrity, our truth, and build products that are like actually deliver. And so from styling tools to product formulations to accessories we're building out that entire ecosystem. And Alex would be so stoked for all of this too.

We have all— It's a Rogue Curls takeover.

Rogue Curls takeover. That's what's next. That's—

I love it. And I love the idea of in-person salons. I mean, I would open one in Charleston and I'll come hang out with you every day.

That would be a great market for it. You guys would be phenomenal. And with you there hyping it up, I mean, yeah.

Forget about it. It's over. Game over.

Game over. Top of the list is Charleston. Yes.

Okay. I love it. I love it. Well, this has been so much fun. You are just such a dream human, and I just have loved every minute of being with you. So thank you for being here.

Right back at you, Claire. Thank you so much for like all of your support through this entire journey of building Rogue Curls, like being our curl friend, being on this podcast. Like when you asked, I was like, absolutely. I love it. It's just what you're creating is amazing. So thank you for including that too.

Thank you. And I always like to ask these 3 just super fast questions to close out. So the first one is, what is the next dream that you're devoted to creating? And it can be work or personal.

Uh, next dream besides like the, the hairstyling space, like building that out, uh, that is my number 1 devotion at the moment. Next dream would be to support women inventors. So I don't know if you've seen the movie Joy. Um, but it's phenomenal. It's about Joy Mangano. Uh, she's like the queen of QVC, has invented all these products.

Um, Oh yeah. I haven't seen it, but I know what you're talking about.

You know what I'm talking about? You can watch it. Yeah. Great. But Jennifer Lawrence is in it. Bradley Cooper.

Oh, I have seen it. I have seen it.

And there's a scene at the end where other women are coming up to Joy and she's helping bring their products to life cuz she already has all the tools and ecosystem in place. Like, I wanna be that because we are going through the ringer. We continue to have like ups and downs, but we've learned so much. And so I wanna make it easy for women who have their ideas to just get them to market and use like the resources that we have here to create that livelihood for them and to bring more good into the world with better products that are not adding to the waste, but removing from it. That would be like, to me, like the coolest thing ever.

Wow. Well, that's, that's a program waiting to be built. I'm so excited for that. Thank you. Yeah. And what does prosperity mean to you? It's different for everyone. I'm always curious.

I've never really thought of that word. What does prosperity mean to me?

People have said prosperity to them is, you know, having their feet in the grass in the morning.

Interesting. Okay, so it's like what—

what makes you feel— for me, prosperity is purpose. It's the same.

Yeah, I I think for me then is connecting with people. I'm a big people per— I love people. I really do. And like these moments with you here, like this is my feet in the grass moments. Like just being able to have these moments that you're like, wow, I got to meet someone. But connecting and genuinely connecting.

I love that. I love that. No one's ever said that before. See, it's different every single time. You never know.

No, not less loneliness in the world.

Nice. More community.

More community.

And then we will link your Instagram, but of course the Robe Curls Instagram, and everyone can use my code CLAIRE10. I'm always shouting that. Everyone I meet, I'm like, use the code CLAIRE10. Everyone, if you don't already have them, get your Robe Curls 'cause they're literally the best.

The best, the best. And we're here to help. And if you don't like it, don't worry. Return policy is also amazing. You can keep it, gift it to a friend, friend. Like, that's how much we stand by the restaurant and the product. We know you'll love it.

Oh, well, you guys are just the best. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. I'm so excited to share Rogue Curls with even more of my people, and we'll talk to you soon.

Sounds good. Thanks again, Claire Sellers Sellers.

Thank you for tuning in to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I am so grateful for your presence and for being a part of this community. Feel free to DM me me @itsclairesellers on Instagram. I would love to connect with you and hear what resonated with you in this episode. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. And if you enjoyed what you heard today, leave a 5-star review. Your feedback means the world to me and helps me reach more incredible women just like you. And because I love to spoil you, just DM me a screenshot of your review on Instagram, and I'll send you my free Prosperity Activation Course as a thank you. It's my way of investing in you and your dreams.

Thank you.