🎉 We're coming to LA, SHEIN's ecomm tech stack, The Wing goss

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👇 Today we're covering

• 📓 Resource roundup

• 🗞️ Skim the headlines

• 💬 What members are saying about The Wing shutting down

• 🕵️‍♀️ Site snooper: SHEIN

• 🗓️ You're invited: Shopify x Female Founder World in Los Angeles

• 🎧 Latest podcast episode: She's Taking on Rent the Runway With Peer-to-Peer Clothing Rental

📓 Resource roundup

• Get your hands on capital and coaching with the Johnnie Walker x iFundWomen First Strides Grant. To be eligible, you'll need to have been in business for at least 2 years, be based in the US, and be generating at least $25k in revenue annually. 10 women-owned businesses will each receive a $10,000 grant. 🔗 Tell me more

• Join our free workshop tonight: Trademarks and protecting your business. Our Female Founder World workshop host Nicole Swartz is an attorney and the founder of Sprout Law, a law firm specializing in trademarking and women-owned businesses. 🔗 Tell me more

• Create and Cultivate has teamed up with Hootsuite on a pitch competition with a $10,000 prize. 🔗 Tell me more

• Brown Girl Jane and Shea Moisture are offering a $125k grant fund to support 10 Black women beauty and wellness entrepreneurs. 🔗 Tell me more

🗞️ Skim the headlines

LAUNCHES: Hyper Skin, a modern and inclusive clinical beauty brand, has launched into 250 Sephora stores. New York-based entrepreneur Desiree Verdejo founded Hyper Skin less than three years ago. This week the brand’s hero product, the Hyper Even Brightening Dark Spot Vitamin C Serum, and its newest addition to the line, the Hyper Even Gentle Brightening Gel Cleanser, have both found spots on Sephora’s “Next Big Thing” display. Congrats, Hyper.

LAYOFFS: Floom, an award-winning online marketplace and SaaS for independent florists, has laid off 40% of its team. “The focus on profitability and cutting out non-revenue generating streams has been happening around me everywhere, and yet the process itself is not often discussed,” founder Lana Elie wrote candidly on LinkedIn, adding: “There's no two ways about it, it sucks.” Floom launched in the UK in 2016 and has since expanded into the US, raising $3.6 million from investors including Firstminute Capital. We’re rooting for you, Floom. In other layoff news, Snap has let go about 20% of its workforce—more than 1,200 staffers. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the tech company is restructuring to focus on "three strategic priorities: community growth, revenue growth, and augmented reality." In the United States, laid off Snap staff are getting four months of compensation and health benefits via COBRA.

SOCIAL MEDIA: TikTok’s testing a new 'Nearby' feed with select users in Southeast Asia that would make it easier to find recommendations near you. The Nearby feed could boost TikTok’s growing power as a search platform: 40% of Gen Z users prefer to use TikTok over Google for search. Over at Twitter, after years of user demand for an edit button, Twitter’s finally rolling out the feature—but only for a small group of paid Twitter Blue subscribers. Users will only have 30 minutes to edit their tweet, will only be able to do so “a few times”, and an edit history will be visible for every tweet.

💬 What members are saying about The Wing shutting down

These quotes are shared anonymously, but the members are known to Female Founder World.

Women-centered coworking space The Wing emailed all members on Tuesday night letting them know that the business was shutting down. Like, right now: “We are very sorry to say that all of The Wing locations will be closing permanently, and members will no longer have access with immediate effect,” the email reads.

The Wing pointed to “a backdrop of the Covid pandemic and increasing global economic challenges,” and we all know the massive backlash the coworking company faced in 2020. There's been a lot of chat about The Wing's closure signaling the 'end of the girlboss'—but, snore, we're not going down that tired old track. Instead, we asked some (former) members to anonymously share their thoughts and what the past few weeks were like at The Wing.

"Obviously The Wing had huge problems, but it also needs to be said that it offered a very affordable space for women to work. I'll never find another desk for $95 a month in New York and am back to working from my couch."

"A friend had been saying for weeks, 'it seems this place is going to shut.' With hindsight, there were obvious signs. All the bathrooms on one of the floors in Soho and the printer were broken and never fixed. There were also always staff shortages—one day, there was literally one staff member for all of Soho's two-floor location."

"All locations I visited were a ghost town after they re-opened and Flatiron never re-opened the cafe which wasn't a good sign. The membership prices kept going lower, but I never saw the spaces get much busier."

"More warning would have been nice. I saw the email at around 8pm that The Wing was closing immediately and had meetings booked in the next day, so really had to scramble. I saw some people on Instagram had booked out the conference room for big meetings too."

"The new team at Flatiron were great. I hope they have been looked after and are OK."

"I guess businesses just can't recover from a branding f*ck-up quite this public and this bad."

"I've been following The Wing for three years before becoming a member in 2022. It felt safe, calm and warm but needed a stronger focus on community."

"Things have felt off for weeks and it was clear something was happening. With that said, it's devastating for many of us. We're now looking at share spaces for double the price."

"Great, so now we have to WeWork? Like that's a less problematic situation."

🕵️‍♀️ Site snooping: SHEIN

Based in China and shipping to 220 countries, SHEIN is the world's largest fashion retailer. Some estimates this year pinned a $100 billion valuation to the fast fashion site—that’s not a typo. There's a lot not to love about SHEIN's fast fashion model, but any entrepreneur would be curious about the digital strategies that are working for the ecomm giant. Ahead, we dive into the tech stack and site evolution of the world's largest, and potentially most problematic, fashion retailer.

Bouncerate: 33%

Average visit duration: 00:11:29

Total site visits in August: 34.9M

Ecommerce tech stack: Zendesk for customer service; ShareThis Share Buttons for one-click social sharing; Criterio to build, scale, and activate first-party audiences; and Aimtell Web Push Notifications for targeted website push notifications.

Social media traffic referral: Facebook (61%); YouTube (19%); Pinterest (13%); Instagram (2%); Reddit (1%)

SHEIN.com homepage in 2015:

SHEIN.com homepage in 2020:

SHEIN.com homepage in 2022:

What's new on the SHEIN website: Email capture pop-up with discount code incentive; minimalist logo update; sub-categories added to navigation menu; free express shipping offer raised from $99 to $159; Home and Beauty categories added to main navigation.

🗓️ You're invited: Shopify x Female Founder World in LA

Female Founder World is joining forces with Shopify to host the ultimate night for consumer brand builders in Los Angeles: Brand Camp.

After a sell-out New York showcase, we're bringing this founder favorite event to LA—and it's free to attend! Join us for a panel conversation with Amy Liu, founder of Tower28, and Natalie Holloway, founder of Bala, and moderated by Female Founder World creator Jasmine Garnsworthy—plus a special guest panelist to be announced. We'll also have a glitterbomb bar by Art of Sucre, and a curated female founder market!

Registration is free but space is very limited. Our last event hit capacity in 24 hours, so register now to confirm your spot.

See you there. 👋

🎧 Latest podcast episode: She's Taking on Rent the Runway With Peer-to-Peer Clothing Rental