866. How We Chose & Courted Our Female Investors And Developing These Strategic Partnerships

Do you want a bigger piece of a smaller company, or do you want a smaller slice of a larger company? And when I was building this, I was like, no, I'll take a smaller piece of a really big pie. I will absolutely share this, because that's actually the mission behind Light Pink as well, is like, how can we share the love and the wealth within this company? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of bts behind the scenes of building a company. Behind the scenes for us, specifically of building Light Pink. I have my incredible co host and chief of staff on here with me, Lauren Kuhlman. This has been so much fun, Lauren. I'm really, really thrilled because we've been getting awesome feedback already, which is so exciting. So many women saying, these are the conversations that we're craving the real stuff. We were a little bit like, maybe vulnerability, hangover on the first one. Like, did we just, like, ramble all of the shit? Was this just, like, created for therapy for us? But most of the things that you create that are like that, you know what we wanted. It was like every time we have a conversation, Lauren, we say, God, I wish that people could hear this.

Yep, 100%. So we hit the record button, and here we are.

And here we are. So, you guys, it's actually Sunday. So we are recording on a Sunday. I had food poisoning last night. It's a little residual. So today, so we'll see how this goes. Lauren. I mean, that's the most fun. It's the most fun to not know what's coming out of our mouths today.

So you guys, or what you forget?

Yes.

Before we hit record.

Totally. Oh, my God. My brain is just like. But it's going to be great, you guys. This is going to add so much value. Are you ready? All right, Lauren, what are we talking about today?

We are talking about women investors and everything about strategic partnerships. And basically, I'm just going to start with this question is when did you know that you wanted all female investors, and why?

This is such a good question, because I actually didn't know in the very beginning. I had started the formulation. I had started the thought process of the company. I absolutely wanted women investors, but I wasn't going to do only female investors. And I got such a massive opportunity to go and pitch someone who is, like, one of my ultimate mentors. And he's a man, and he's incredible. I had everything prepared. I was, like, so excited about this day. And I went in and pitched, and literally during the pitch, I just had a moment of he's not fully getting it. And while he was actually excited, he said, so this is what he said. I just want to say it once because it did give me the ultimate confidence. He said, right founder, right product, wrong timing. For him and for me, number one, that was like the ultimate letdown and also the ultimate way to be let down, because he wasn't saying that the product wasn't right or a fit. It just wasn't a fit for him in which he was investing at the time. But I had a moment where I was like, oh, I 100% know that my correct audience. It will never be the wrong time for this product, because it's about so much more than that. It is the absolute mission of what we're doing, and we're bringing women with. And I had just this God moment where 1 million percent felt like God chimed in in my brain and said, this is exactly why you got turned down by the person who you wanted to be involved in business with the most, is because if he would have said yes, you would have missed the entire purpose of this company. I would have totally missed it. I have chills even saying it.

I do, too.

You're on it.

I seriously do, too.

Those are those times, you know that beautiful quote about not being upset about who is being removed from your life, who is leaving your life, because sometimes you can't see why it's happening. And I can't tell you how much, like, this person was, like, my ultimate North Star like that I wanted involved in any company. I wanted to work with this person. And now I can see why. That. That was not a fit. And it was just so powerful. It was just this moment of being so nervous for that pitch and getting turned down. And he did it in such a beautiful way, but then also getting so clear afterward what this was actually about. And I was walking just down my hallway at my house in Santa Monica, and it was like, right after this, and I had a bring you to your knees moment. Have you ever had one of those where you actually fall to the ground and you start crying because you just. It's a vision. And that happened to me. I fell on the floor, and I was crying, and I was just saying, thank you, God. Like, I was just like, I'm gonna cry now. And it was so clear, and it lasted only about, like, two, three minutes. I was like, in the deepest gratitude for how that all happened. And I love that Steve Jobs quote. You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. And it was like, this moment of just connecting all of these dots, of bringing me to this moment, like my life, bringing me to this moment of creating these communities of women and you bringing them with me on my journey and always feeling like, oh, my gosh, I'm taking these big leaps, but I'm not doing them alone. I want to bring women with me. And it was that moment of like, oh, I'm creating this to bring them to a new place. That's scary. They're not having the conversations about investing. They're not having conversations about what support at this level looks like monetarily. They're not having conversations about why we all need to be millionaires so that we can all be investing. Investing in women and helping start companies or starting female funds because women are still only getting 2% of VC money. Like, why are we not doing this and really talking about the money? Conversation of how important it is for all of us to make a shit ton of money so we can actually turn the tables. And that's what this was about.

Okay, I've had chills the whole time you've been talking, so it's so crazy. I think everything happens for us, but it's hard to see in the moment until you get through it and you're like, okay, this is exactly why this is happening. When you connect the dots looking backwards. And that opened you up then to be like, okay, it's going to be female only. They're going to get the mission, and I'm going to bring them along for the ride and change all of these people and what they're viewing with money, it's insane. That light think is so much more than a drink still to me. And that's like, what makes me so excited. Because every single person you're bringing along is changing their lives. So whether it's helping them build a business, learning about investing, making more money so they can do bigger and better things, and supporting more people. But what made you learn to start, like, figuring out which people you wanted to look for and how you wanted them to be strategic and play a part in light pink rather than just finding any random person. That was a name that was thrown around to you.

So I just need to, like, do a whole episode dedicated to Bill Glaser, who started Outstanding Foods for real, because he has helped me so much. And honestly, it was looking at the way that he structured his company because we were investors in that company and we're also his friends. So he helped me learn about raising money, and he also structured his company with Something called strategic investors. And anyone who could bring an audience, a platform, a skill set, or just freak show enthusiasm, like to the company. And I loved this because he was essentially taking his investors and making sure that they were marketing for and he was really painting this picture about what an opportunity it was to invest in a company and the more that you share it and the more that you get it out there, if you're passionate about it. And he really just wanted people who were like very passionate about his company and about him and what he was doing. So he wanted to feel very aligned with his partners. He wanted this to be an exciting thing. He wanted this to be an exciting venture that they really felt like they could get behind. And if you're thinking of investing, Chris, and I always say you should either feel like you can really move the needle on it, you should feel like you have an audience who will love it. You should feel like it's a product market fit for you and your audience. You should be really excited about it. Oh, and you should really, really love what the founder stands for and believe in them. Like out of everything that we do, we essentially mainly always invest just in the founder. Like if we believe that they are going to work their ass off, if they're a winning founder, if you love what they do. And in my experience, to anybody listening, investing is one of the, especially investing in a startup, it's one of the riskiest things you can do. So I recomm and literally only investing if you have that money that you are willing to lose and that you want to do it for even a bigger purpose. Like for me, a lot of times when I'm investing in a female owned company, it's because I'm so passionate about that particular person, company and mission. And I know like, I may never see this money ever again. So I kind of like give it and forget about it if I'm being completely real. Which is why in the beginning of this podcast, it's so important that we make so much money because we. I knew what I did not want. And this is just being so transparent. I wanted to make sure I did not have any person invest in this company who was like riding on this money, who every year was going to be like, I need this money, I need this money. You don't know and you cannot make decisions from a very creative gut soul, like, good for business place. If you are a. Like if you have a lot of fear around. Oh my gosh, these people are putting so much pressure on me. Like, that is not A good free place to be.

Right.

Like, we feel very free and light in this company to be able to make what we know and what we feel in our guts are the best decisions for the mission and getting it out there. So just going back to what is that strategic partner? It really is anybody who can bring value, audience, platform, skill set, freak show enthusiasm.

Yep. And it's interesting too, because we have so many different people who have so much to bring in such different ways. So I think we could maybe talk about too, like all of the organic reach because of paid advertising being so high right now. I feel like we are in such a good place with our female investors where there's so much that they have to offer, whether it's an email list or their social platform or a podcast. So. So how do you pick strategic, like, what matters to you? What would you say is like the biggest benefit to you? Because there's so many different people at different levels in different businesses. So it's.

I guess this is a perfect question. I want to. It's funny, I wanted to share this, so you're literally reading my brain. So I had a great conversation with the founder of an alcohol company. And he was telling me. Cause he had some pretty strategic investors as well. And he was talking about how the main investors that actually got his message out were like the people who actually didn't really have a big platform. They were just so excited for the opportunity. Like they had never had an opportunity like this. And they felt like they were a part of something, maybe big or something that was like really touched, a big mission that they wanted to be a part of for the first time. And he said they were actually the ones who got the word out the most. And you know, he did that specifically, especially in the area in which the product was being released. So really thinking about, okay, if I'm going to release in California first or if I'm going to release in Arizona. He was releasing his product in California only actually, and he got a bunch of these, I don't want to say smaller, but people without really audiences, they weren't like influencers. They were just so passionate. And they told him what they wanted to do. I'm going to do this. I want to go here. I want to, you know, make sure that my local grocers all carry it. Whenever I go to grocery stores, I'm literally going to go in my car and like go to this place and this place and. And do this. And he wanted those people who were just die hards because they had the opportunity that they knew if they did this for the company, they had potential to really score big as well. If the company sold and they did, they ended up scoring big. So when I started getting strategic investors, I did not want to just say, oh, we want this woman because she is this incredible founder or she's a celebrity or. And we want the. It's interesting because you want a good mix. You want those. I will tell you, this is really important for anybody raising money. You want to find one or two of those right away, like right off the bat. And sometimes you can even structure it so that they're investing a small amount or some of them aren't even investing. You're actually giving them shares in return for guidance or mentorship. And obviously you'll have an attorney who will help you structure all that. And you can have that conversation about, what does that look like? How could we do this? What would be interesting for them? And honestly, I had to have this conversation with a couple of them, like, what would feel good for you in order for you to do this for the company? So go in knowing what you want and then asking them a couple things. So we only did that for a few people. And then what happens, though, is that influence within your company starts to tilt the way that people are perceiving it, right? You have these people who are interested in the company, they're really passionate about it. And some of those people, they just straight invested. Like, they did not ask for a damn thing. They were like, I love it. I'm obsessed. Let's do it. They gave money. I didn't have to do any of that. There were a couple plays where I was like, oh, no. I can absolutely see this playing out the way that this is going to be so powerful for the company. Just big needle movers for down the road. So you kind of have to think of the now and what you need for now to help get people interested in your company. Because honestly, someone was just telling me that they were raising money for their company. And the first question that they kept getting asked was, who are the cool kids in it? That's a legit. The exact question. And these are the things that people need to know behind the scenes. These are the real conversations people are having. Who are the people of influence who are in it?

Who are your.

I mean, right down to, like, if it's a product that's going to go on, you know, if it's more of a TikTok product, if it's more of an IG product, if it's more of, you know, you have to really think about where your product is going to be pushed. Who are your TikTok influencers? Like, for real, like, you need to study who is going to be your marketing for this company? And if it feels out of reach, if you're like, yeah, but I'm a nobody and I feel like I can't get these people. That is absolutely not a true conversation. There are so many opportunities that people want to be a part of. You just have to sweeten the dealership. Like, you just have to sweeten the deal. And you have to think bigger. There's a saying that goes, do you want a bigger piece of a smaller company or do you want a smaller slice of a larger company? And when I was building this, I was like, no, I'll take a smaller piece of a really big pie. I will absolutely share this. Because that's actually the mission behind Light Pink as well, is like, how can we share the love and the wealth within this company? So I hope that you know, when women are listening to this, there's so many creative things that you can do and to remember, like, oh my gosh, if you think even bigger, you're going to have a bigger piece of the pie which you can share with even more people, which will also involve. Now this is. Some people will not agree with this. Some people want to bootstrap, Some people want to own their entire company. And that's great. Like, that is awesome if that is your mission. But I 100% knew what this was going into it. And the more people who can actually get involved and who can get the word out, that is going to be our really out of the box thinking for our marketing plan, which we're going to talk about on our next podcast next week, is really viewing how you structure your company as like an out of the box marketing plan.

So many questions were coming up when you were talking, but one of them being you brought in female investors not only because you mentioned how you didn't want to raise money. Well, you kind of talked about like, it's not one way or another that's better about raising money or bootstrapping. But I know you've mentioned just to me that you wanted to raise money because you wanted to go bigger and faster, like right away rather than just bootstrapping. It would take a lot longer to build this company to where you want it to go. So I know that was one of the reasons you started to raise money. But it's also not only that, it's Also bringing other women along for the ride and like doing this together rather than alone. So I think that's the reason, right, that you and you raised the money was for both of those.

Well, if you know.

And there's.

There's a few things I want to talk about.

And this.

I want to bring this conversation to women because I'm listening to it a lot from men. So I'm listening to a lot of podcasts. I actually just listened to a Grant Cardone podcast as well. Whether you feel like he's polarizing or not, he's doing really well. And I really love to just look at all perspectives about money. So let's talk just about money first. So if we look at money and how money actually works, if you think about raising money and you think about your money. So, Lauren, let's say that you have $100,000 in your bank account, and you are thinking of starting a company. And you don't necessarily need 100% of your company, but you want to go faster. And that 100,000 is actually like your peace of mind. The money that you want to invest into another company because you want to grow it. You want to grow the money that you have. So if you were going to start a company and you didn't want the whole piece of the pie, you could raise money and then invest your 100k into something else, into another woman's company. So your money is now working for you. Instead of it sitting in the bank, which essentially could be going backwards. And we don't even know how banking is, you want to put it in these different places and diversify it. So this thought is going to, like, blow people's minds. They're either going to love it or they're going to hate it. And this is my take on money, is your money should be always working for you. Now, it doesn't mean that it's not going to grow for you within your company, because that is true as well. But if you do love this mission and idea about creating opportunities for people, you can be creating opportunities for people within your company while bringing on those skill sets. And this was huge for me. I wanted the marketing, I wanted the skill sets, and I wanted the opportunity that these investors brought, and I wanted the speed. So I wanted marketing opportunity speed and skillset. Oh, and you know what else? The number one thing for me, I wanted that accountability. Like, when I'm anxious, when I feel like it's too much, when I feel like there's too much pressure, when we, like Lauren, you Know when you and I cannot get a wall down, when we are just like busting down the same damn wall or feel like we are so stuck. These women either help us, give us answers, give us a new person, we ask them questions, they give us guidance, they inject steroids into us. Like going and never quitting. We don't feel like we can quit. Like, that's an absolute non option because of them. Like, we can't let them down. Like, you 100% know that now. We're just like, well, even when we want to quit, we can't quit because.

We got all the.

We got all this and we have all this help too. I think that's huge, right? We're like, yeah, we're still not using our investors enough. They said they want to be used more. So you just have to kind of know who you're going to use and who you're not. And that's, that's a whole other podcast. But yes, that is why. So that's why I ended up raising. Wanting to raise the money is just all of those reasons. And honestly, it's the scariest thing I've ever done up till this point was do that. We need to do a whole other podcast. We need to write this in our tracker, if you would. Lauren, I don't know what I would do without you. I would never be able to do this ever. But talking about the pressure that really comes with this and how to cope with it, that is a real, real, real conversation that we're going to have to have on here soon.

2026 is the year that you launch your business. It's the year that you've become the boss, you become the leader. That idea that you have that has been eating at you forever that just will not leave you alone is going to come to life. Maybe it's something that someone tells you you should always sell or a store you've already designed in your head. And with Shopify, 2026 is when you finally make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made this leap from household name to first time business owners. Just getting started, you guys. I use Shopify for glossy and I remember when they sent me my little shopping bag celebrating my 10,000 sales and I literally cried because I was so.

Scared to take the leap.

And I'm so glad that I did.

And that I use Shopify.

It gives you all the tools to easily build your dream store. You can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match your brand. Setup is fast with Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos so marketing is built into you can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. So as you grow, Shopify grows with you. You can handle more orders, expand to new markets and do it all from the Same dashboard in 2026. Stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com happy go to shopify.com happy that shopify.com happy hear your first cha ching this new year with Shopify by your side. There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be one of them for you and when you want more. When you're starting a business, you need Northwest Registered Agent because you get access to thousands of free guides, tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. And it's all in one place. You can build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow business for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. Real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business.

Every step of the way.

You can sign up for free account to begin managing your business hub with lawyer, drafted operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, membership certificates, bills of sale and more at no cost. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business, they give you the full free tools you need after you form it like operating agreements, meeting minutes and thousands of how to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And let me tell you, this is life changing because I had no idea how much went into this. So don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business Identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com/earn free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent at www.northwestregisteredagent.com forward/earfree Ooh, I cannot wait for this.

Especially because we are going to be able to talk about being vulnerable with our investors too. Like what we're sharing with them versus just like holding everything in and or even when you're raising money what you're sharing with people that were potential investors. So we can talk about that as well.

Yeah, crying with some of them. That's great. That was fun, but they loved it. I mean, they were just so grateful for, like, the vulnerability of where we were at during that time when that happened. So. Okay, so tell me. I would love to know from your perspective, because I think when you came in, we were so busy onboarding you, raising money, figuring out what this company was, cans, boxes, formulation. Still just like so many things that were going on. I mean, I can't tell you the layers of that go on behind the scenes. I'm literally like, how are we not launched? And we're busy every single damn day. Like, I just. From morning till night. Like, I don't understand. And I do. But with that said, when you came on, it's like you. I don't think the picture was fully painted for you. I don't think I fully painted it. Like, you got pieces over a lot of time. When did you really get what we were doing? Like, tell me a little bit about. Because I know that you bleed light pink. You're so passionate about it. I'm obsessed.

I would say it was probably maybe three months in, because it was still taking, like, we were still. I don't even remember how many investors we had at the moment when I came in, but we were like. I think it was when we kept sending emails to investors and you kept doing more calls that I was sitting in on with investors, or we'd be writing emails together and I would be putting things in the investor tracker. So the more involved I got, like, reading the emails, typing the emails with you, listening to the calls, talking with the attorney, figuring everything out. I think once I got my hands into that a lot, and we were working on the weekends, all day Saturday, here and there, to really dial this in and be like, who do we want to ask next? Oh, cool. This person said, yes. We got this lead from this person. I think once all these dots started to connect and I was putting more and more time and focus into that is when all of it, like, started to really come in and click for me because I had more awareness about what was actually happening. I think because I didn't really know it was happening at first. It's just like, hey, we're raising money. Here's a list. You're going to jump in and help with this. But it got really meaningful the longer I just even heard about you talking about your mission. I think too, about light pink with everybody we had a call with. It started with, like, why you started light pink, what light pink is. So the more I kept hearing you speak it, the more I was like, okay, this is what we're doing. We're pulling people into light pink for a specific strategic reason. And these people are like, benefiting their selves too. Because they're aligned, their business is aligned, or they're personally aligned. Both aligned personally and business related. But I would say a couple months in is when I really started to hear all of that start to come together for me, rather than just doing like the day to day tasks. It wasn't just like it started like that, just kind of like learning everything, doing the tasks, and then it was like, okay, all of these are meaningful for these reasons.

While you were doing that, I was just thinking about how blessed we are to have found each other in the beginning. So good. Thank you, Jackie Koch, for matchmaking and just thinking about how I know that you share this with me and we'll talk about this on another podcast. So again, if we could enter this, listen to the tracker. But just so you guys know what is coming in this podcast, like how beautiful it is that sometimes we'll be texting each other and you'll talk about how you found everything that you were looking to know if you wanted to build it alone or what that looks like initially, and you found everything that you wanted to build within this company. And I think that sometimes people can be out there trying to build something on their own, but they're actually supposed to be a part of someone else's vision in the beginning or whatever that looks like. Because, like, Lauren, I know that you're going to do whatever the hell you want to do after this. Maybe it's together, maybe it's your own thing. I just feel like that is such an important conversation that sometimes we are out in the world and we don't realize that we can actually be a part of someone else's mission and let it become, not let it have it become our mission. Like, I fully feel like we are building this together. Like it is your mission. Like, I defer to your opinions and ideas so much because it is such an important piece of this puzzle. So I just think that that is a really huge thing that people need to hear. I don't think that. I really wish I would hear founders talk about, like, their person who was like the spine of the company a lot more in how much we actually use them and how much we defer to them and how much they're like, you know, it just feels like you're building with them. Because I think what happens is a lot of founders can get really. They can feel pressure. They can quit. They can, you know. Or you never begin because you feel like maybe you don't have the skill set to be able to integrate to be able to make sure that the needles really move. So we'll have to break that down and like your skill set and my skill set on one and what that looks like like our working situation. Okay. I know that you have got to go. I've got to go. It's Sunday. We're going to go do the damn thing. Don't ask me what that is for me. It's so good.

I know.

Please go pamper yourself.

Okay.

So grateful for you guys. We'd love to hear your biggest takeaways what you want to hear next what questions you have for us. So give us a tag also tag drink light pink. Let us know what you loved, what you took away and until next time time earn your happy. We will see you soon. Bye, everyone. Bye.