ā˜† Walmart wants new brands, our $15k grant, DIY a popup store

PLUS Briogeo's founder wants to mentor you.

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Female Founder World
July 22, 2024

ā˜ļø Hi Business Bestie. Hereā€™s what you need to know today. ā˜ļø

  • Resource roundup

  • Skim the headlines

  • DIY a popup store (itā€™s cheaper than you think!)

  • New podcast episodes

  • Weā€™re giving away $15,000! Enter the Female Founder World Grant presented by VistaPrint. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Briogeo founder Nancy Twine sold her beauty company for 9 figures! Now, she wants to mentor one Female Founder World business owner. The winner will be contacted tonight. Enter via Instagram now. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Applications are open to pitch at Walmartā€™s annual open call for brands that are made in America. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • 150 businesses will win $10k in this grant program. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Kristyn, the founder of CrateAway shared her business bible download. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • The Fearless Fund has a new IRL pitch competition happening this August in Atlanta. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Canadian girlies can win $10,000 for their biz. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Hereā€™s a great guide for understanding when (and when not!) to use trends for your marketing. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Food and bev founders should take a peek at this 2024 grocery trend report. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Berkeleyā€™s accelerator program is open for applications, and participants get a $200,000 investment. šŸ”— Tell me more

  • Become a paid Business Bestie member to unlock Female Founder World subscriber perks. šŸ”— Tell me more

COMMUNITY MARKETING: Weā€™ve been saying community marketing is the new influencer marketing for a whileā€”and celeb-owned beauty brand REFY just proved us right. Instead of working with influencers, the brand took customers on the most aesthetic content-fueled brand trip.

AMAZON PRIME DAY: U.S. consumers spent a record breaking $14.2 billion over the two days of Amazon Prime Day. If your brand isnā€™t on Amazon yet, it might be the time.

FEMALE FOUNDERS: Fast Company says women are starting businesses at record rates. They said flexibility as the #1 reason why, but hit reply to let me know why you started your biz.

UNICORN TRENDS: PitchBook put together the ā€œunicorn trendsā€ of the common threads between new unicorn companies (companies valued over $1B) since 2016.  

TIKTOK VIRAL: TikToker Brooke Schofield gained 500k followers in 24 hours. Her secret? Social media expert Coco Mocoe thinks it might be the fact she released the stories over a very long multi-part series of videos.

Female founded TBH Skincare has gone super viral on TikTok, reaching all the worst parts of the internet. Their light, silly videos have landed a ton of nasty comments from the likes of Andrew Tate, and 2.8M new followers are tuning in to watch the drama unfold.

SKIMSā€™ FIRST STORE: After featuring Bridgertonā€™s Nicola Coughlan in their latest campaign, Skims opened their first permanent store. Located in Washington DC, it sounds like theyā€™ll be opening four stores in 2024, with New York and LA on the pipeline. 

RHODE POPUP MADNESS: Rhode Beautyā€™s NYC popup store had a wild 5 hour lineupā€”at 6am there were already 1,000 fans lined up.

BOISSON IS BACK: After abruptly shutting down and filing for bankruptcy, non-alcoholic store Boisson is coming back. CPG expert Nate Rosen shared that some brands arenā€™t so happy with the news. 

SAKS BUYING NEIMANS WITH AMAZON: Looks like the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue landed a $2.65B deal to buy rival department store Neiman Marcus. Amazonā€™s also stepped in on the merger in an attempt to meet a luxury customer.

Another luxury acquisition, EssilorLuxottica purchased Supreme for $1.8B.

MARKETING MOVES WE LOVED: 

LAUNCHES TO KNOW: 

Itā€™s the summer of pop-up stores. When Hailey Bieber opened a popup store for her beauty brand Rhode this summer, people queued for 5 hours to experience it, but you donā€™t need a celeb budget to bring a pop-up to life. 

We looked into how some of our Female Founder World business besties are bringing pop-up stores to life on a budget, and the learnings are helpful.

ā˜† Fashion brand Parke opened a popup in NYC for a very limited time and it went completely viral on IG and Twitter, with queues down the block every day. Learning: Create exclusivity for your popup by confining the space. Parke opened for a handful of days, and Rhode held a ā€˜pocket-sized popupā€™ for their new ā€˜pocket blushā€™ launch and opened a teeny tiny temporary shop. 

ā˜† Resource: Platforms like Parasol Projects, The Storefront or Peerspace can help you find space for your popup. Learning: See if a founder bestie can collab on the space to split the costs and the hours managing the store. 

ā˜† Paige from the Female Founder World team is building the bev brand Benny. Theyā€™re popping up in Toronto for a few weeks right now and are collaborating with tons of cool brands. Tip: Host events and limited time activations and partnerships within the store to create buzz and reasons for people to visit. 

ā˜† Resource: Lots of cities have popup markets, which are much more affordable and convenient for vendors than your own space. NYC founders can take a peek here, Toronto founders here. There should be something similar in most major cities. Tip: Look into local opportunities for budget-friendly spaces. 

ā˜† Ian Charms is an accessory brand with celeb fans. They landed a free temporary space in Rockefeller Center, NYC, when the center wanted to encourage new, cool brands to refresh the area. Tip: Reach out and see if any spaces in your city would be open to a reduced rate as a marketing activity. The worst outcome is they say no, so why not ask?

ā˜†šŸŽ§ New Podcast Episodes