☆ New FFW app, celeb marketing workshop, Pinterest grant

☁️ Happy Monday Business Besties. Here’s what you need to know. ☁️

• Resource roundup

• Launch Lab is back

• Skim the headlines

• The new Female Founder World app is here 🎉

• Audience ➡️ community: How 3 brands made the shift

• New podcast eps this week

• Our most popular workshop series is back again for 2024 with new content and teachers (and it’s free, ofc!). 🔗 Tell me more

• Raising $$ right now? Maggie Sellers, TikTok’s fave VC girlie, shared her tips on what she’s looking for as a VC and how to be successful raising. 🔗 Tell me more

• The next Poppi competitor just launched in Walmart and 3x’d their website conversion rate using this tool (and it’s female founded!). 🔗 Tell me more (or meet with their founder for the full scoop)

• This VC put together a list of funds that actually invest in pre-seed businesses. 🔗 Tell me more

• Pinterest has a really cool grant competition open to underrepresented US and Canadian founders. Get your application in. 🔗 Tell me more

• After selling her beauty tech company, Lauren Silvers is now offering a free 60-min masterclass and a super helpful startup course. You can use the code FFW100 for $100 off the full program. (This isn’t an ad, we just love and trust Loz!) 🔗 Tell me more

• You’re invited to two online events today in the Female Founder World group chat: Group Business Coaching with Julianna Dahbura (Deco Beauty) and Retail Bootcamp Chats with Jamika Martin (ROSEN Skincare). Not in the group chat? Reply to this email for access.

There are some brands that seem to have online marketing all figured out. Now, you can learn directly from the founders of these companies all about the one tactic truly driving growth in their business. And it’s totally free for our community.

Join Female Founder World’s most popular workshop series, Launch Lab—back again for 2024 with new workshops and teachers and the same free price.

• 4 June Celebrity Marketing: How Ian Charms Got Justin Bieber & Dua Lipa's Attention (recording available now to everyone signed up!)

• 11 June The Viral Content Blueprint That Made This Biz a Top-Seller on TikTok Shop With Art of Sucre’s Emily Harpel

• 18 June How to Build a 10,000-Person Waitlist For Your Product With Experiment’s Lisa Guerrera

• 25 June Build Your College Ambassador Program With Dormify’s Amanda Zuckerman

BEIS REBRANDS AIRPORT DADS: This Béis collab with influencer Girlbosstown is perfect. You’ve gotta watch.

US COURT BLOCKS BIZ GRANTS: A U.S. appeals court just blocked a VC firm from exclusively giving $20k business grants to Black women. This is despite the fact Black women get less than 1% of all VC funding.

MARA HOFFMAN SHUTS DOWN: Mara Hoffman announced she’s shutting down her namesake brand after 24 years.

POPPI LAWSUIT: Our fave little treat, Poppi, is facing a potential class action lawsuit. The claim is that drinks don’t contain enough fibre to have gut health benefits. The same thing happened to bev brands POM Wonderful and Health-Ade Kombucha years back.

FASHION: Couper, the fashion destination started in 2021 by business besties Caroline Gilroy and Agee Gretta Leinberry, has just acquired another small fashion biz, Sovereign Collective.

OUTDOOR VOICES: For a while it looked like the athleisure brand originally founded by Ty Haney might close down, but they’ve just been acquired and will avoid bankruptcy.

CELEB BRANDS: Rosie Huntington-Whitley says she won’t be affiliated with her beauty brand, Rose Inc. The brand was built with Amyris, the former beauty incubator behind brands like JVN Hair, which has since closed after filing for bankruptcy.

Our famous group chat has moved—and now we have the ✨stunning✨ Female Founder World app you deserve. Here you’ll find all your Business Besties, workshop and Group Business Coaching Call recordings and live sessions, new IRL and URL event invitations, and the entire Female Founder World universe.

Here’s how to join:

➡️ If you were a member of our old group chat, you already have access to the new community home and app. Download the app (for iOS) here and reset your password to login. If you prefer to use the web platform or use Android, click this link and reset your password.

➡️ If you’re a new member, apply to join here and we’ll shoot you an email.

Hit reply if you’re having issues, we’ll get you in! An Android app is coming soon.

Make the shift: audience ➡️ community

The shift from audience to community is undeniable. Where brands, investors, and press used to speak about customers and audiences a few years ago, now the folks in your brand universe are considered your community.

For some brands, community is a buzzword, but for others it’s a legit reframing of audiences to focus on longterm retention and word-of-mouth marketing.

Here are some brands who have made that switch, and made it well:

💇‍♀️ Hally, the Gen-Z hair color brand has been working on their college campus program for the last few years. Most recently, instead of offering the usual “Hally House” brand experience for influencers only, they created a brand-trip style “Hally House” for college students. 

💪 We’re always watching what athleisure brand SET Active does for their community. They walk the talk by having their community co-create collections through voting on cuts and colors on social media. 

🩸Gen-Z’s favorite lubricated tampon brand Marlow has created an online space, The TMI Club, for connection and education on taboo topics. They host events, roll TMI Club content out on their viral TikTok, and have even recently launched the TMI Club Podcast. 

♡🎧 LATEST Podcast Episodes

• This Two-Year-Old Beauty Biz Won 11 Awards: Monique Meneses, Iota

• Why You Don’t Need a Cofounder: Daniella Duboise, Sakara Life

• Her Embroidery Store Made $100k in One Month: Abby Price, Abbode