# How One Idea Became an $80 Million Female Health Tech Company | Crystal Etienne

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 29 Jan 2026, 1 h 01 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/b371d7a6-f633-4c8f-a301-b3e10177967d/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

In this week’s episode of Earn Your Leisure, we sit down with Crystal Etienne (chatgpt://generic-entity?number=0), founder of Ruby Love (chatgpt://generic-entity?number=1), to break down how one idea turned into an $80 million FemTech company. Crystal walks us through the early days of building her first prototype, the connection between diet and the menstrual cycle, and the exact steps it took to launch a FemTech brand in a market that many investors initially overlooked. She shares how Ruby Love scaled to over $1 million in revenue in under 15 months, raised $15 million in venture capital, and what founders don’t realize about control, board seats, and product-market fit after taking VC money. We also get into the hidden challenges of raising capital, why scaling too fast can hurt your business, and the biggest mistakes founders make when chasing venture funding. Crystal opens up about changing the company’s name, launching products while running out of cash, creating a fund to invest in Black women, and why—if your goal is generational wealth—selling your company might be the smartest move. Plus, a real conversation on lifestyle costs, $8 million estates, and why Long Island is one of the toughest real estate markets in the country. Invest Fest Tickets: investfest.com #EarnYourLeisure #CrystalEtienne #RubyLove #FemTech #VentureCapital #StartupGame #Entrepreneurship #RaisingCapital #BlackFounders #WomenInBusiness #ProductMarketFit #ScalingBusinesses #GenerationalWealth #RealEstateGame See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:44] Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome back. U l back home for
[0:48] Speaker 1: a little bit. So, yeah, this is this is gonna
[0:51] Speaker 1: be a very dope episode. It's always good to talk
[0:53] Speaker 1: to the entrepreneurs and people in spaces that we haven't
[0:57] Speaker 1: necessarily covered before.
[0:59] Speaker 2: It's definitely a first for sure.
[1:01] Speaker 3: For sure. I don't think I've even really heard of
[1:03] Speaker 3: this situation before.
[1:04] Speaker 4: Yeah, the term femtech is not a term that I've
[1:07] Speaker 4: heard before, but I'm glad I'm up on it now
[1:09] Speaker 4: because there's the industry that is when we talk about
[1:12] Speaker 4: recession proof in industries, definitely one always going to be needed.
[1:16] Speaker 3: It's going to be needed, sure.
[1:18] Speaker 1: So Crystal Etontien So, yeah, entrepreneur. So she founded Rugby Love,
[1:25] Speaker 1: which is a fem tech company that's now valued at
[1:28] Speaker 1: eighty million dollars in just six years, and also co
[1:32] Speaker 1: founder of Cage, which is a fund that she has
[1:36] Speaker 1: with her husband they invest into into companies and has
[1:39] Speaker 1: been extremely successful in the in the world of investing
[1:43] Speaker 1: in entrepreneurship. So the fem tech phrase is something that
[1:48] Speaker 1: I actually never even heard of before. Female technology, I
[1:52] Speaker 1: assume that's what and it's is it like female hygiene products?
[1:56] Speaker 5: Yep.
[1:56] Speaker 6: So fem tech is for like women's health, anything that
[2:00] Speaker 6: women's health, okay, and like personal needs.
[2:03] Speaker 7: A lot of people don't know.
[2:04] Speaker 3: So like, what are some examples of fem.
[2:06] Speaker 7: Tech periods okay, menopause, so hygiene type things, because maternity
[2:13] Speaker 7: is with it too, okay. Yeah, so any.
[2:15] Speaker 6: Type of technology that is women health related, okay.
[2:20] Speaker 4: So it makes the products, makes the technology, makes it
[2:24] Speaker 4: a safer.
[2:25] Speaker 5: Process for all these the innovation invision.
[2:28] Speaker 1: But she also received one of the largest funding grounds
[2:32] Speaker 1: for a solo black woman entrepreneur. So this is going
[2:35] Speaker 1: to be a variety of good conversations that we'll have
[2:39] Speaker 1: from you know, the business and investing and also raising
[2:42] Speaker 1: money as well.
[2:43] Speaker 3: So thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
[2:44] Speaker 7: Oh, absolutely, thank you.
[2:47] Speaker 1: No problem. So all right, so let's get into this.
[2:49] Speaker 1: So I want to start with the female tech. So
[2:54] Speaker 1: you kind of explained it briefly, but what made you
[2:58] Speaker 1: want to go into it and what specific do you provide.
[3:02] Speaker 3: In the female technology industry?
[3:05] Speaker 6: Yeah, So the reason why ones go into it because
[3:09] Speaker 6: I was struggling with my sanitary pad. It's like for
[3:13] Speaker 6: a woman, we get our period like around like when
[3:16] Speaker 6: we're like between like nine and eleven twelve years old
[3:20] Speaker 6: and then you don't even realize that you had that
[3:22] Speaker 6: thing for decades. Like it's just come every month. It
[3:25] Speaker 6: is aggravated, it's stressful, and we wear sanitary pads, and
[3:30] Speaker 6: sanitary pads they just don't look good.
[3:32] Speaker 7: Y'all have the same one with a woman.
[3:35] Speaker 6: It'd be sticking out our underwear, the sanitary nilkin.
[3:38] Speaker 5: Yeah, like max pad.
[3:40] Speaker 2: Or well not tampar. You're not gonna see hanging out.
[3:43] Speaker 4: Yeah, but is different from ba Yeah yeah, but you're
[3:48] Speaker 4: not gonna see but you I.
[3:49] Speaker 6: Mean, yeah, tampon you don't see. But a Maxi pad
[3:51] Speaker 6: with the wings. I thought, yeah, men, y'all don't really
[3:54] Speaker 6: pay attention.
[3:55] Speaker 3: I thought, I thought people just use tampons.
[3:57] Speaker 7: No, no, no, no, So.
[4:00] Speaker 3: The past is one is one or the other.
[4:02] Speaker 7: Girls usually saw me, you saw period usually start with.
[4:04] Speaker 5: A maxi pad.
[4:05] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[4:05] Speaker 4: So the pad is like the line that you put
[4:07] Speaker 4: that on a line of the panty, right, and then
[4:09] Speaker 4: the tampon obviously those inside of the vaginal.
[4:11] Speaker 2: I was a health teaching.
[4:14] Speaker 4: Later, So the tampi goes inside of the vaginal canal usually,
[4:17] Speaker 4: so that is usually when people use that.
[4:19] Speaker 2: I mean, you grow into that. But usually when you're.
[4:22] Speaker 4: Going to do things like going into water, people tend
[4:25] Speaker 4: to use tampons overpass obviously because of the look of
[4:28] Speaker 4: it all, but that it's it. But because you said,
[4:30] Speaker 4: like this is technology that's invented in the fifties. Yes,
[4:35] Speaker 4: and I know why he thought to like, hey, I'm
[4:37] Speaker 4: sure women everywhere felt like this is uncomfortable.
[4:40] Speaker 2: Can we have something different? So like what sparked you
[4:43] Speaker 2: to say, let's change it?
[4:45] Speaker 7: Yes? So, first of all, the sanitary napkin was really people.
[4:50] Speaker 6: Most people don't even know it was actually invented from
[4:53] Speaker 6: a black woman, and most people don't even know that.
[4:56] Speaker 6: Like it just thoughted back then, like she invented this,
[5:01] Speaker 6: Mary Keller, she invented it. Nobody even knew that she
[5:04] Speaker 6: invented this sanitary pad. And now you know, like most
[5:07] Speaker 6: white people, they just get the credit for it, but
[5:09] Speaker 6: they didn't. So fast forward to me, I was just aggravated.
[5:14] Speaker 6: My pad was just sticking out. I was watching TV.
[5:16] Speaker 6: I was watching Windy Williams on TV, and I was
[5:20] Speaker 6: laying on the bed. My husband was at his business.
[5:22] Speaker 6: He had trucks and he was at home, and I
[5:24] Speaker 6: was just like, this is just like crazy. It just
[5:26] Speaker 6: looks nasty, like for the pad to stick out, And
[5:29] Speaker 6: obviously men don't even recognize that, like even though it bothers.
[5:34] Speaker 7: Us, y'all don't even recognize it.
[5:35] Speaker 6: Like you didn't even know what I was really talking
[5:37] Speaker 6: about just now, and you've probably seen it's probably been
[5:39] Speaker 6: around you fifty times.
[5:41] Speaker 7: Most people don't realize it.
[5:42] Speaker 6: So I was just aggravated with it, and I was like,
[5:45] Speaker 6: I have to do something about this, cause like why
[5:48] Speaker 6: after old these years, am I still dealing with this
[5:50] Speaker 6: problem in this way? And as a health teacher, you understand,
[5:53] Speaker 6: like it's something that every month we wake up, a
[5:56] Speaker 6: woman wakes up that gets her period every single month,
[5:58] Speaker 6: and we are really at cravated with it. Y'all don't
[6:01] Speaker 6: even understand, Like when you walking past people every day,
[6:04] Speaker 6: it is a stressful, like, oh.
[6:06] Speaker 7: I got my period?
[6:06] Speaker 3: Is he just crimp?
[6:09] Speaker 7: It's crams. It's the uncomfortableness. It's also the worry, like
[6:12] Speaker 7: if I had my period right now at this moment,
[6:16] Speaker 7: I'm sitting here wondering, like when I get up off
[6:21] Speaker 7: the chair with is the blood gonna be here?
[6:23] Speaker 5: Like it's that I had an.
[6:26] Speaker 4: Old girls class, and so like they were twelve and
[6:28] Speaker 4: thirteen or fourteen, and I'm trying to explain this process
[6:31] Speaker 4: to them, and then they in mine is there's anxiety
[6:33] Speaker 4: there right because they don't know what's gonna happen when
[6:36] Speaker 4: that day comes.
[6:37] Speaker 6: And anxiety is serious, like when it comes to and
[6:39] Speaker 6: some people don't know how to the majority of women
[6:41] Speaker 6: and girls don't know how to deal with that. So
[6:44] Speaker 6: that is what made me say like, I'm gonna create something.
[6:48] Speaker 6: I don't know what spalked me that day. I was like,
[6:50] Speaker 6: you know what, I'm gonna create something like to actually
[6:54] Speaker 6: like fix it.
[6:56] Speaker 7: And that's how it all started.
[6:57] Speaker 3: And so what is did you create?
[7:00] Speaker 6: So I jumped off my bed and I'm just like,
[7:02] Speaker 6: I'm going to figure out something to hold my pad
[7:05] Speaker 6: in place so that you can't see it, because that's
[7:07] Speaker 6: how it started. That's what was bothering me, like the
[7:09] Speaker 6: fact that I could see my pad like out of
[7:10] Speaker 6: my underwear, and I was like, it's nasty, like but
[7:14] Speaker 6: it's not nasty, but it is nasty and I don't
[7:16] Speaker 6: like it. So I just got off. I drew like
[7:18] Speaker 6: an underwear. I don't know, I won't even call it
[7:21] Speaker 6: an underwear. I drew like a picture with like a
[7:23] Speaker 6: hole like so that it would like that I would
[7:26] Speaker 6: be able to put my pad in.
[7:28] Speaker 3: So my product actually caught it like a cup.
[7:30] Speaker 7: Nope, it wasn't a cup.
[7:31] Speaker 6: I drew like I wanted to make an underwear that
[7:33] Speaker 6: I was going to put the pad in like a slot.
[7:36] Speaker 1: But like all right, so like when you play football,
[7:38] Speaker 1: they have what's called a cup where it's.
[7:40] Speaker 5: Like oh yes and something like that.
[7:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a cup that is inside the jockstrap, That's
[7:49] Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
[7:49] Speaker 1: So that's what you did, kind of panties and you
[7:52] Speaker 1: slide it inside the pand where.
[7:54] Speaker 6: I wanted my pad where you don't even know that
[7:56] Speaker 6: it's there, like if I'm in the locker room with
[7:58] Speaker 6: another woman or whatever, you don't see it at all,
[8:01] Speaker 6: just like you don't see tampons. Most people were using
[8:04] Speaker 6: tampons so that you don't see it. And for the
[8:07] Speaker 6: comfortability of it. A Mexic pat was never comfortable.
[8:10] Speaker 7: It's just bulky.
[8:11] Speaker 5: It's just big.
[8:13] Speaker 6: And I wasn't a tampon where because I had pcos
[8:16] Speaker 6: so pos is when vestigated to describe it. Pcos is
[8:23] Speaker 6: something that a lot of women suffer from, like not fibroids,
[8:26] Speaker 6: but like how most women suffer from fibroids, PCO is
[8:29] Speaker 6: another form of a condition.
[8:32] Speaker 7: And sometimes you get your period for like three weeks
[8:35] Speaker 7: at a time, and I mean heavy three weeks. Sometimes
[8:38] Speaker 7: it could go for like two months. If you have
[8:40] Speaker 7: PCOS three.
[8:41] Speaker 3: Weeks too much straight straight? How is that even possible?
[8:48] Speaker 7: With PCOS? That's what happens.
[8:50] Speaker 3: Does it stand for?
[8:51] Speaker 7: I forgot?
[8:52] Speaker 6: It's like Polly. I don't remember exactly what it says.
[8:54] Speaker 6: It's us the long word.
[8:56] Speaker 3: And that cause is irregular period.
[9:00] Speaker 6: Like one day you could have regular, normal periods, like
[9:02] Speaker 6: for your whole life. And then one day I realized,
[9:05] Speaker 6: like wait a minute, I'm only getting my period maybe
[9:07] Speaker 6: like four times a year. But when it was coming,
[9:10] Speaker 6: it was coming like for one time, I had it
[9:12] Speaker 6: for like a month and a half.
[9:14] Speaker 7: Do you they can't really wear a tampon.
[9:17] Speaker 4: Because even if if you have a tampon in for
[9:19] Speaker 4: a long period of time, that.
[9:20] Speaker 5: Could be unstated push out.
[9:22] Speaker 4: You can't push out any I mean, if it's in
[9:23] Speaker 4: there for too long, it could be risky. Right, there's
[9:26] Speaker 4: this risk that come along.
[9:27] Speaker 6: With having so in reality, with PCOS, I really couldn't
[9:31] Speaker 6: I could wear it, but I'm gonna be changing it
[9:33] Speaker 6: like every hour because you're bleeding extremely heavy.
[9:36] Speaker 1: A long time poly stolastic ovary syndrome.
[9:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, I told you it was long shot that Todd Davis.
[9:44] Speaker 3: I know, yes, we we we had this in real time. Okay, okay,
[9:50] Speaker 3: So so I had that. So you have that? Is
[9:53] Speaker 3: there a cure for that?
[9:55] Speaker 6: No, you could take stuff, but it like to eliminate
[9:58] Speaker 6: it like a little. But I realize I was having
[10:00] Speaker 6: it because I which I didn't know at the time,
[10:02] Speaker 6: I was having it because I was in pre menopause.
[10:06] Speaker 3: So is it a cause for it? Like I wasn't a.
[10:10] Speaker 7: Doctor about it.
[10:10] Speaker 1: He just told me that I had it because I
[10:12] Speaker 1: you know, obviously I'm not an expert in the situation.
[10:14] Speaker 1: But you know, I speaking of different women just watch
[10:16] Speaker 1: different documentary stuff like that, and they were saying, like
[10:18] Speaker 1: even periods, a lot of times, it's what you eat.
[10:21] Speaker 3: It's the environment.
[10:22] Speaker 1: It causes longer periods like they like traditionally in parishi
[10:25] Speaker 1: only be like two or three days. When you have
[10:27] Speaker 1: like a seven day period. It's like that's something that
[10:30] Speaker 1: you could traditionally be eating to the wrong diet or
[10:33] Speaker 1: you know, a variety of stress, different things that nature
[10:36] Speaker 1: can actually throw your cycle off, right, So is there
[10:40] Speaker 1: any cause for that? Now?
[10:41] Speaker 7: My JACTA never told me.
[10:43] Speaker 6: Mines could have been stressed because I was going through
[10:45] Speaker 6: a divorce, like with my first husband at that time,
[10:48] Speaker 6: so minees could have been that. But my whole life
[10:49] Speaker 6: since I had my period, My period would come on
[10:52] Speaker 6: in like two three days and then one day I
[10:54] Speaker 6: just noticed it was here, and I didn't pay attention
[10:56] Speaker 6: to it because I'm like, all right, because everybody complains
[10:58] Speaker 6: about their period. I never had a I never had
[11:00] Speaker 6: cramps any of that stuff. But one day I was like, okay,
[11:05] Speaker 6: like this is like the third time, and then it
[11:07] Speaker 6: would disappear and not come back after like a couple
[11:09] Speaker 6: of months.
[11:10] Speaker 5: It was.
[11:11] Speaker 6: It was severe, So that's what That's why I was
[11:14] Speaker 6: always wearing I mean, not Tampon's maxic pads.
[11:17] Speaker 4: So the technology you're making was really the actual garment,
[11:20] Speaker 4: not the pad. Right, So the pad is going to
[11:22] Speaker 4: be the regular thickness that's going to be standard. What's
[11:25] Speaker 4: going to change is the actual garment that it's going into.
[11:29] Speaker 2: Yes, gotch you.
[11:30] Speaker 6: Eventually I did a pad to like a particular type
[11:33] Speaker 6: of bad at the start. No, it was just to
[11:36] Speaker 6: make that more comfortable, to secure it properly like under
[11:40] Speaker 6: like where I needed it to be so it don't move.
[11:43] Speaker 7: That's what it started from. That's all I wanted.
[11:46] Speaker 5: You're designing this, yes, Then I wrote a patent for it.
[11:49] Speaker 2: Then you wrote the pad, so that was the next
[11:50] Speaker 2: step to write the pattern.
[11:51] Speaker 7: Like a week after that I started writing the patent.
[11:53] Speaker 4: Then you're using it. So how do you get other
[11:56] Speaker 4: people now to use it? Cut you make it?
[11:58] Speaker 7: Oh yeah, so I live in New York, so that
[12:00] Speaker 7: was easy.
[12:01] Speaker 6: I just got on the train on the railroads from
[12:03] Speaker 6: Long Island to New York City.
[12:05] Speaker 5: We're not just walking around.
[12:07] Speaker 6: I went to the fashion district and found like a
[12:09] Speaker 6: couple of manufacturers who did not take me serious because
[12:11] Speaker 6: I'm walking around with a paper like I want to
[12:13] Speaker 6: make this underwear with a whole, but the money talks,
[12:17] Speaker 6: so I'm like, listen, just make what I tell you,
[12:20] Speaker 6: I'll pay you. And it was like okay, And I
[12:22] Speaker 6: found four manufacturers to make it like out there and
[12:26] Speaker 6: I pay them. They they really didn't take it serious
[12:29] Speaker 6: at all, and I took it and I just went
[12:31] Speaker 6: with that.
[12:32] Speaker 2: So they made how many are you making to start?
[12:35] Speaker 6: So I made four samples first, well four different people,
[12:37] Speaker 6: because I wanted to see like how it came out.
[12:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, and then who were you testing on?
[12:41] Speaker 4: Like you're giving out to your friends like, hey, I
[12:44] Speaker 4: got this idea, I want you to try it.
[12:46] Speaker 7: Yes, So one of my friends was my guinea pig.
[12:48] Speaker 6: I would have her test it and style it and
[12:50] Speaker 6: all types of stuff. So she was my guinea pig,
[12:53] Speaker 6: and my daughter was my guinea pick at the time.
[12:55] Speaker 4: All right, So now now that it's tested and it's proven, yeah,
[12:58] Speaker 4: you gotta get this out to the people. Yeah, Like
[13:02] Speaker 4: now what's the plan? How are we getting fun into
[13:04] Speaker 4: manufacturer more? What's the next stuff?
[13:06] Speaker 5: Yeah?
[13:07] Speaker 6: So I always was well off with funds, but you
[13:10] Speaker 6: still even though you got money, you still like, listen,
[13:13] Speaker 6: I need to I need to figure out like what
[13:15] Speaker 6: I'm gonna do be cause I actually went all in,
[13:17] Speaker 6: Like I left my job, like I wasn't going back
[13:20] Speaker 6: to work nothing. My husband wants to kill me, but
[13:23] Speaker 6: I was like I'm all in. Like when I had it,
[13:26] Speaker 6: I just did it. I spent like thirty maybe like
[13:28] Speaker 6: almost forty days like writing the patent myself because I
[13:31] Speaker 6: didn't want to spend the six thousand dollars to pay
[13:34] Speaker 6: a patent attorney. And once the USPTO office told me
[13:37] Speaker 6: that they mess up too, I was like, well they
[13:40] Speaker 6: got mess up. They got mess up with my doll
[13:42] Speaker 6: and my mom would write it myself and mess up.
[13:44] Speaker 6: So I wrote that and then I started like preparing
[13:47] Speaker 6: to sell it, and then I just started researching. I
[13:49] Speaker 6: had no marketing background. I had a business background, which
[13:54] Speaker 6: is the best to have. I had a business background,
[13:56] Speaker 6: but I had no marketing background. I didn't even know
[13:58] Speaker 6: how to do a website.
[13:59] Speaker 7: And I did it. I figure it out.
[14:00] Speaker 4: So what was your career prior to this, Because you said,
[14:02] Speaker 4: I mean this is a I would see a transition.
[14:04] Speaker 7: I was a controller, so I was running a business.
[14:07] Speaker 6: I was running people's business and the operations.
[14:11] Speaker 1: So okay, So you you have this idea, you get
[14:14] Speaker 1: it made, you test it out.
[14:16] Speaker 3: I'm assuwing.
[14:16] Speaker 1: You probably tweak a few things, and now you're at
[14:18] Speaker 1: the stage where you say, okay, now I want to
[14:20] Speaker 1: actually get this out to the public.
[14:21] Speaker 7: Yep, I created a website.
[14:23] Speaker 3: You create a website, You create the name for the company.
[14:25] Speaker 3: What's what's the product's name?
[14:27] Speaker 6: Oh so when I first launched, it wasn't Ruby Low
[14:29] Speaker 6: panty prop, it was panty prope.
[14:32] Speaker 2: Got it all homework.
[14:34] Speaker 5: Bob Shop was talking about prandy sold about panty prop, so.
[14:38] Speaker 6: It was panty prop. That's what I always think. It's
[14:40] Speaker 6: funny when it comes out, So panty prop. The reason
[14:43] Speaker 6: why it's called panty problem because that's what it was.
[14:45] Speaker 7: I thought the names, I don't.
[14:46] Speaker 6: Want to tell y'all what it was going to be.
[14:48] Speaker 6: One of them was late we would be called blood.
[14:50] Speaker 6: My sister was like hell no, Like she was like,
[14:54] Speaker 6: don't do that. So the name was panty prop because
[14:58] Speaker 6: it was something that you prop in your panty that's where.
[15:01] Speaker 6: But I never had a problem with that name, like
[15:03] Speaker 6: from the time that I wanted to the time that
[15:05] Speaker 6: I rebranded. I only rebranded it because you can't really
[15:08] Speaker 6: scale the name panty prop. And we were selling globally
[15:13] Speaker 6: in like all countries, So all right, so.
[15:17] Speaker 3: How do you scale?
[15:18] Speaker 6: Like?
[15:18] Speaker 2: All right?
[15:18] Speaker 1: So once you get it going with you the website,
[15:21] Speaker 1: you make the website, how are you promoting this?
[15:23] Speaker 3: Like, how are you marketing this?
[15:25] Speaker 7: So I started following.
[15:28] Speaker 6: I had a big competitor at the time, and they
[15:31] Speaker 6: had just raised like two point five million dollars. So
[15:33] Speaker 6: I was like, oh, okay, but my product was completely
[15:37] Speaker 6: different than theirs, like totally different. It's same concept, but
[15:41] Speaker 6: totally different because we still have like the whole, like
[15:43] Speaker 6: the gusset that actually secures it in place.
[15:47] Speaker 7: So I just thought it being where they were being.
[15:49] Speaker 6: So say, if they were being in say Google, I
[15:54] Speaker 6: was like, okay, Like if I Google, like my keywords,
[15:57] Speaker 6: they were popping up.
[15:58] Speaker 7: So I was like, let me figure out how to
[16:00] Speaker 7: be where they are. So I figured that out. I
[16:03] Speaker 7: called Google up and Google had a number at the time.
[16:05] Speaker 6: I don't even know if they still have it, but
[16:08] Speaker 6: they had a number at the time, and I called
[16:09] Speaker 6: them and I was like, listen, I want to do ads.
[16:11] Speaker 6: How do I get my ad up there? I want
[16:13] Speaker 6: to be like right below them, And they showed me
[16:16] Speaker 6: how to do that. I used to pay them probably
[16:17] Speaker 6: like five ten dollars a day in like ads on Google,
[16:21] Speaker 6: and then I started on Facebook. Facebook back then did
[16:26] Speaker 6: not have reps unless you were spending like a lot
[16:28] Speaker 6: of money, which I didn't know. But I figured that
[16:30] Speaker 6: one out too, Like I figured out how to do it.
[16:32] Speaker 6: I would just read, I would look at YouTube, videos,
[16:35] Speaker 6: and I figured out how to do it, and within like,
[16:38] Speaker 6: I officially launched in January of twenty sixteen. So I
[16:43] Speaker 6: came up with the idea in August of twenty fifteen,
[16:46] Speaker 6: wrote the patent in September of twenty fifteen, did all
[16:51] Speaker 6: that stuff, like the manufacturing and everything like through that time,
[16:54] Speaker 6: like the samples and they get in like a small run,
[16:57] Speaker 6: and then I officially launched in January of twenty sixteen.
[17:01] Speaker 6: By March of twenty sixteen, because everything went so fast,
[17:06] Speaker 6: I was able to get all my products out. So
[17:07] Speaker 6: my next product was my period swimwear that I'm the
[17:10] Speaker 6: inventor of, and that went viral and then we've just
[17:13] Speaker 6: been up since then.
[17:14] Speaker 1: The online marketing is how you got it out. Yeah,
[17:17] Speaker 1: online marketing ads and stuff like that. Yeah, and social
[17:19] Speaker 1: media wasn't really you didn't really use social media.
[17:21] Speaker 7: To now I actually just got I'm just learning social media.
[17:24] Speaker 7: I literally just got one air like so.
[17:26] Speaker 3: Word, I'm moufing online marketing.
[17:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So you did the SEO Association optimizers.
[17:31] Speaker 5: So when Google, yeah, well at the time I was
[17:33] Speaker 5: doing that, but yes, yeah, so.
[17:34] Speaker 4: When it's when you search period panning, yep, there's some competitors.
[17:39] Speaker 4: We'll get into those later, but yeah, there's some competitors
[17:41] Speaker 4: and now you're coming up with them.
[17:43] Speaker 2: Yes, got, you got.
[17:44] Speaker 6: And one of the big things, like with the SEO,
[17:46] Speaker 6: another big thing that I did, I was writing blogs
[17:48] Speaker 6: that I didn't know was SEO at the time. I
[17:51] Speaker 6: just was writing blogs. I would use Fiver, I would
[17:54] Speaker 6: pay if there was one girl on it, she would
[17:56] Speaker 6: give me some real good blogs. It's like one of
[17:58] Speaker 6: my top blogs to this day. I pay like literally
[17:59] Speaker 6: five dollars for that blog. And I didn't know it
[18:02] Speaker 6: was SEO at the time, but I was given out
[18:04] Speaker 6: information because that's what I had read like if you
[18:07] Speaker 6: want to if you want to bring people in, give
[18:10] Speaker 6: information that's relevant.
[18:12] Speaker 7: So I just started writing blogs pertaining to what my
[18:16] Speaker 7: product was.
[18:18] Speaker 1: Okay, so how how fast does this scale? Like when
[18:22] Speaker 1: you first start, like numbers wise, like how many units
[18:27] Speaker 1: were you moving?
[18:27] Speaker 6: Like I don't even remember the units, but I used
[18:30] Speaker 6: to tell my husband. He lasts about it now to
[18:31] Speaker 6: this day. I used to be like, I just want
[18:33] Speaker 6: to sell twenty items, Like if we sell just twenty
[18:35] Speaker 6: of these things today, I'm good and we know twenties
[18:39] Speaker 6: not a lot, but That's that was my thinking back there.
[18:41] Speaker 6: I just wanted to buy, you know, to twenty of them.
[18:44] Speaker 6: But it scales rapidly, So like the first year, I
[18:47] Speaker 6: think I did Like that year in twenty sixteen, I
[18:50] Speaker 6: think I did like close to three hundred thousand, and
[18:52] Speaker 6: then the next year it just shot up to over
[18:54] Speaker 6: a million. And then after that it was always like
[18:57] Speaker 6: revenue in revenue, actual revenue in.
[19:00] Speaker 2: It's how many products is it's to the underwear and
[19:04] Speaker 2: then the swimwear.
[19:04] Speaker 7: So that first year was the underwear in the swimwear
[19:07] Speaker 7: at that time.
[19:07] Speaker 2: Later we start having activewear, yes, okay, and.
[19:10] Speaker 3: Then the swimwhear. It is the same idea, but it's
[19:12] Speaker 3: just something that you can go swimming in.
[19:13] Speaker 6: So the swimwear has actual just another piece of technology
[19:18] Speaker 6: in it is not like some of my competitors. They'll say,
[19:21] Speaker 6: is waterproof, waterproof? Who wants a waterproof swimsuit? Like they
[19:23] Speaker 6: don't know because they're not the inventor of it. I
[19:25] Speaker 6: am our swim where is actually water resistant. So if
[19:29] Speaker 6: you see that they say waterproof.
[19:32] Speaker 2: The swimwhear, do you have to it?
[19:33] Speaker 5: That is the pad right, like it's built in.
[19:35] Speaker 2: You're not wearing a pad. You're not wearing a tampon
[19:37] Speaker 2: on the planet, right, This is one thing yep.
[19:40] Speaker 7: Got it just looks like a regular swimsuit.
[19:42] Speaker 6: And if you have your period, you on vacation, because
[19:44] Speaker 6: that's the worst with a woman, when you go on vacation,
[19:46] Speaker 6: you have your period and you gotta worry about it.
[19:48] Speaker 7: So it serves for that purpose.
[19:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that in the flow of water. Usually
[19:54] Speaker 2: water sows down the flow of blood during the metro cycle,
[19:58] Speaker 2: so not really always though, you never know.
[20:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so okay, so you're moving, you're moving these units,
[20:08] Speaker 1: and he was like drop shipping, like you have like a.
[20:10] Speaker 7: No, I'm we're shipping all from my house, so.
[20:13] Speaker 3: You just have a bunch of products in your basement. Yep.
[20:16] Speaker 6: Every time, every day I would go to the manufacturer
[20:19] Speaker 6: pick up and it was they were in Brooklyn. My
[20:21] Speaker 6: manufacturer a big manufacturer in Brooklyn, and they used to
[20:23] Speaker 6: do for like a lot of stores. I would leave
[20:25] Speaker 6: from Long Island, go get fabric.
[20:27] Speaker 7: In the city.
[20:28] Speaker 6: Now I'm in my car and not on the train,
[20:30] Speaker 6: go to the city and then go to Brooklyn and
[20:32] Speaker 6: then head back to Long Island.
[20:34] Speaker 7: Every day every day to pick up.
[20:35] Speaker 3: My son, Oh, your son was going to school, and yeah,
[20:38] Speaker 3: my son.
[20:39] Speaker 7: Was younger at the time he was I had to
[20:40] Speaker 7: pick him up from the bus.
[20:41] Speaker 1: You were picking up product every day, shipping it out
[20:43] Speaker 1: every shipping out once a week, and shipping out every day, No,
[20:45] Speaker 1: every day, shipping it out every day yep.
[20:47] Speaker 3: As people make orders online yep.
[20:49] Speaker 7: So when I come back, all the orders to be
[20:51] Speaker 7: sitting there.
[20:51] Speaker 3: So how did you I'm assuming you're still not doing
[20:53] Speaker 3: that now? Oh no, so when did When did you?
[20:56] Speaker 1: When did you start to streamline the process a little
[20:58] Speaker 1: bit more efficiently the officially.
[21:03] Speaker 2: Progress.
[21:03] Speaker 7: Yeah, so the first year it was no.
[21:07] Speaker 6: I would say, like the first eight months, it was
[21:08] Speaker 6: all me. If you even called, like you didn't know.
[21:11] Speaker 7: That you were talking to me. I was like all
[21:13] Speaker 7: different sizes of people.
[21:14] Speaker 6: In twenty sixteen, and then in twenty seventeen, I hired
[21:17] Speaker 6: my first employee. My husband was my employee all the time,
[21:21] Speaker 6: like when he would get off his own business for work.
[21:24] Speaker 6: But and at that time I was trying to convince
[21:27] Speaker 6: him because we were moving so rapidly and it was
[21:30] Speaker 6: just becoming too much. Because like that ride that I
[21:32] Speaker 6: would tell you I did every day from and if
[21:35] Speaker 6: anybody knows New York. Going from Long Island to the
[21:38] Speaker 6: city to Brooklyn back to Long Island, that is a
[21:41] Speaker 6: whole day process. And then I had a child who
[21:44] Speaker 6: was in elementary school that I had to get off
[21:47] Speaker 6: the bus by three o'clock.
[21:49] Speaker 7: It was crazy.
[21:49] Speaker 6: So when I would get him off the bus, then
[21:52] Speaker 6: I would have express orders sitting there for me.
[21:54] Speaker 7: I would have to ride to FedEx, come back and
[21:56] Speaker 7: be another express order. It was just a lot.
[21:59] Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't even know how I did it now
[22:01] Speaker 6: that I think about it. But you know, like when
[22:02] Speaker 6: you in the grind, you don't even I didn't feel
[22:05] Speaker 6: it back then.
[22:06] Speaker 2: So how are you managing the inventory?
[22:07] Speaker 4: Because that a lot of times when people get into
[22:10] Speaker 4: businesses with it selling products, the inventory is an issue?
[22:15] Speaker 6: Right?
[22:15] Speaker 2: Do I have too much and then I'm not selling?
[22:17] Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Do I have it? No?
[22:19] Speaker 7: It was no inventory for me. It was just like
[22:21] Speaker 7: you buying it, I am gonna have it, and I
[22:24] Speaker 7: am you gonna get it.
[22:26] Speaker 2: So did the capital that it took to get that
[22:30] Speaker 2: that was something that you had saved or ready fund.
[22:32] Speaker 5: Your price my own funds.
[22:33] Speaker 7: Yeah, I always saved my money since I was seventeen
[22:35] Speaker 7: years old.
[22:36] Speaker 4: Okay, so you've always been financially disciplined, always, Okay, but
[22:40] Speaker 4: you obviously you're seeing competitors come into the space at
[22:42] Speaker 4: the same time and they raising money, and they're raising money.
[22:45] Speaker 4: At a certain point, are you looking at it like
[22:47] Speaker 4: I have to go that route too if I want
[22:49] Speaker 4: to be in the same breath as my competitors, or
[22:53] Speaker 4: I'm just going to keep doing Like at some point
[22:55] Speaker 4: you have.
[22:55] Speaker 2: To realize this.
[22:56] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[22:57] Speaker 6: Once, I when I first thought it, I knew nothing
[22:59] Speaker 6: about the VC world, like how I know now, which
[23:02] Speaker 6: is like most black people, we just don't, like, we
[23:05] Speaker 6: don't know that you can actually raise funds to like
[23:08] Speaker 6: scale your company.
[23:10] Speaker 7: So I didn't know anything about it.
[23:12] Speaker 6: But I had saw that, like I saw the headlines
[23:14] Speaker 6: with my competitive raised that two point five million dollars.
[23:16] Speaker 6: So I was like, oh, they raised two point five
[23:19] Speaker 6: million dollars. So I looked into that and I was like, Okay, well,
[23:23] Speaker 6: let me see if that's what I want to do.
[23:24] Speaker 6: I tried it for probably like two weeks because raising
[23:28] Speaker 6: funds is a full time job and it was taking
[23:30] Speaker 6: me from the business.
[23:32] Speaker 7: These people, these vcs, they they they just.
[23:35] Speaker 6: Waste your time, and I don't like people wasting my time,
[23:39] Speaker 6: so I just gave up after that, like after like
[23:41] Speaker 6: two weeks. So I don't really want to say I
[23:43] Speaker 6: tried to raise funds at first. I was in two thousand.
[23:46] Speaker 6: At the end of twenty sixteen is when I first
[23:49] Speaker 6: tried it. By January, I was January twenty seventeen, I
[23:53] Speaker 6: was like, I ain't doing this no more, and I
[23:55] Speaker 6: wanted to focus on my business because it was already
[23:58] Speaker 6: just like going so much. So I just kept reinvesting
[24:02] Speaker 6: that money and going to the manufacturers, getting stuff and
[24:05] Speaker 6: sending things out.
[24:06] Speaker 3: So when did you? But you did raise money eventually
[24:08] Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen.
[24:09] Speaker 7: So in twenty eighteen at the end, I took it
[24:11] Speaker 7: serious to raise.
[24:12] Speaker 3: Funds and you raised fifteen million.
[24:15] Speaker 7: I did a fifteen million dollar deal, So.
[24:17] Speaker 3: All right, walcomes through that process.
[24:19] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[24:19] Speaker 6: So in twenty eighteen, now I had a few more employees.
[24:22] Speaker 6: We had just moved into our first office. So I
[24:26] Speaker 6: was like, you know what, because I remember it from before,
[24:28] Speaker 6: like this is a full time job that I have
[24:29] Speaker 6: to do this, and I joined Jason Calacanis's launch program.
[24:34] Speaker 6: Jason Callahanis is known for like he was the first
[24:37] Speaker 6: investor in uber and stuff like that.
[24:39] Speaker 3: Cool.
[24:39] Speaker 7: He's real cool.
[24:41] Speaker 6: And I said, you know what if if they don't
[24:44] Speaker 6: take me, I'm not doing it no more, like I'm
[24:46] Speaker 6: not trying to raise anymore.
[24:47] Speaker 7: I was trying like for a month at that point again.
[24:49] Speaker 6: And then as soon as he saw like I told
[24:51] Speaker 6: him the numbers and in the VC world, like the
[24:53] Speaker 6: numbers were supposed to talk, right, but now when you
[24:56] Speaker 6: were a black woman, it don't. But for him, he
[24:58] Speaker 6: was like, you haven't raise no money yet. And I
[25:01] Speaker 6: think at that point I probably was at maybe like
[25:03] Speaker 6: seven million dollars, which I didn't know at the time.
[25:06] Speaker 6: To me, that was a little bit like seven million
[25:07] Speaker 6: dollars like, oh my god, are they gonna give me money?
[25:10] Speaker 6: But he looked at it like, wait a minute. You
[25:13] Speaker 6: got seven million dollars. You got seven million dollars that
[25:15] Speaker 6: you brought in in revenue in this little bit of
[25:17] Speaker 6: time and people telling you no.
[25:21] Speaker 7: He was like, oh, all in. So I did that program,
[25:24] Speaker 7: and by the end of that program, it was like
[25:27] Speaker 7: a four month program.
[25:28] Speaker 6: I actually was flying back to San Francisco every week,
[25:32] Speaker 6: probably like two three times a week. I didn't want
[25:35] Speaker 6: to move there because I don't like to San Francisco.
[25:37] Speaker 6: I would just get on the plane and go every
[25:39] Speaker 6: single week. And by the time that that program end up,
[25:43] Speaker 6: had fifteen term sheets from investors, and then I had
[25:47] Speaker 6: one from an investor overseas in the UK who actually
[25:53] Speaker 6: had become my.
[25:53] Speaker 7: Investor at that time, and they didn't want anyone else
[25:55] Speaker 7: in the deal, so I had to turn down the
[25:58] Speaker 7: other fifteen. That reason why I decided to go into
[26:01] Speaker 7: the program, and then I took the one the one deal.
[26:05] Speaker 4: Talk about the process, right, we always hit the phrase
[26:08] Speaker 4: that the most disrespected woman on the planet is a
[26:11] Speaker 4: black woman, especially when it comes to VC. Talk about
[26:13] Speaker 4: some of the struggles that you saw you phased during
[26:15] Speaker 4: that process that almost made you say I'm not doing
[26:18] Speaker 4: this song.
[26:18] Speaker 6: Yeah, So the VC world, because once I've decided if
[26:22] Speaker 6: I'm going to raise funds, I got to research, like
[26:24] Speaker 6: what's entailed with it, everything, so I completely understood it
[26:27] Speaker 6: the second time around, not the first time, but the
[26:29] Speaker 6: second time. It's a business transaction. So unfortunately in society,
[26:36] Speaker 6: people don't like doing business with black women.
[26:38] Speaker 7: It don't matter what we say, what we do.
[26:41] Speaker 6: How we look like when it comes to being a
[26:43] Speaker 6: business woman, we are just not respected for some reason.
[26:47] Speaker 6: So I'm showing up at the table with say seven
[26:51] Speaker 6: million dollars worth of sales, and they're telling me no,
[26:54] Speaker 6: And I'm like, aren't like what I researched was like,
[27:00] Speaker 6: isn't the whole purpose for you to make money? Like
[27:02] Speaker 6: you have to make your LP's back money. So I'm
[27:05] Speaker 6: showing you I have an audience. And I had already
[27:07] Speaker 6: had my audience. I knew exactly who my audience was
[27:09] Speaker 6: at that time. I had clicked off all the boxes.
[27:12] Speaker 6: Whereas if I was a white woman or a white male,
[27:16] Speaker 6: you know, you gore raised with nothing, just a simple idea.
[27:19] Speaker 6: A black woman just can't do that. So I had
[27:24] Speaker 6: met James from Black Ops and he said, you know
[27:28] Speaker 6: what he said. He said, I used to be like you,
[27:31] Speaker 6: cause I'm walking in there like I know this, I
[27:33] Speaker 6: know that I know this. And he said, you know what,
[27:36] Speaker 6: he said, just just make them feel like they're on
[27:40] Speaker 6: top of the world. And he said, I don't know
[27:42] Speaker 6: if I could do that, Like I really don't, but
[27:45] Speaker 6: he said no, I didn't think I could do it either.
[27:47] Speaker 6: And he said, how you do it is even if.
[27:50] Speaker 7: You know it, don't say it. And just tell him
[27:53] Speaker 7: that is a good idea, like oh, like, even if
[27:55] Speaker 7: you know it, I did that and it worked.
[27:59] Speaker 3: But why is a black women do I have even
[28:01] Speaker 3: say that again, even if you don't know it.
[28:04] Speaker 6: So even if you do know it, act like you
[28:08] Speaker 6: So say if you say something to me and I
[28:10] Speaker 6: know exactly what you're talking about, you're explaining to me
[28:12] Speaker 6: in detail. Most times people will be like, oh, I
[28:15] Speaker 6: know that already. You can't do that as a black woman,
[28:18] Speaker 6: like in the VC world, I have to sit there
[28:20] Speaker 6: and say.
[28:21] Speaker 7: Oh, that's a good idea. Okay, you know what, I
[28:24] Speaker 7: think I'm gonna try that, Like, why.
[28:29] Speaker 2: That's a great idea.
[28:31] Speaker 4: That's so that's I mean, it's ridiculous, right, The numbers
[28:35] Speaker 4: are there, But this is part of the game that
[28:36] Speaker 4: nobody sees, right because a lot of times we don't
[28:39] Speaker 4: even we don't see, we don't hear the stories of
[28:41] Speaker 4: black women in the VC world and trying to raise funds.
[28:44] Speaker 4: You said something understant about your audience and you knew
[28:46] Speaker 4: exactly who that was, and it made me think, well,
[28:50] Speaker 4: I feel like your audience is everybody. Every woman is
[28:52] Speaker 4: at your audience, So who was the target audience that
[28:55] Speaker 4: you're telling to the VCS.
[28:57] Speaker 3: Yes.
[28:57] Speaker 6: So when I first launched, I thought it was gonna
[28:58] Speaker 6: be millennials. Millennials, hey, my product because it's thicker.
[29:02] Speaker 7: My product audience is moms with teen and.
[29:05] Speaker 6: Tweens, parents teens. Yep, it's teen and tweens. And I
[29:09] Speaker 6: figured that out within the first six months.
[29:11] Speaker 3: So were you always like, was the product ever like
[29:16] Speaker 3: branded as a black company or no.
[29:19] Speaker 6: I always stayed in the background. It was just ran
[29:21] Speaker 6: like corporate. It was ran corporate like what I knew, Like,
[29:24] Speaker 6: just run it when you negotiate, when you talk about it.
[29:26] Speaker 6: Nobody even knew that Crystal Ettien was the founder. So
[29:30] Speaker 6: you need to do it on purpose, Like I just
[29:32] Speaker 6: didn't want to. I wanted to run it as a
[29:35] Speaker 6: not focused on me, but more of the product, so.
[29:37] Speaker 3: You able to sell to everybody.
[29:40] Speaker 7: Yeah, I could sell to everybody, but I know who
[29:42] Speaker 7: my audience is.
[29:42] Speaker 3: Who's your audience?
[29:44] Speaker 2: Race?
[29:45] Speaker 7: White women? Yes, okay, And I always wanted it to
[29:49] Speaker 7: be black women. But with black women. I'm a black women.
[29:52] Speaker 7: I had a daughter, Like, you got to talk to
[29:53] Speaker 7: us differently.
[29:54] Speaker 6: Like black woman is not going to like you tell
[29:58] Speaker 6: a black woman, okay, put your daughter in the pool
[30:00] Speaker 6: with the swim where with her period, a black woman's
[30:04] Speaker 6: gonna be like, I gotta try this out first, like
[30:06] Speaker 6: like even me, I ain't throwing my daughter, you know
[30:09] Speaker 6: with that, But a white woman will. She's like, this
[30:13] Speaker 6: is gonna save the day, and this is how it is.
[30:16] Speaker 6: I would because I was just different with my daughter.
[30:19] Speaker 6: Even when it comes to like women's health, like it's
[30:21] Speaker 6: just different.
[30:22] Speaker 7: Like a black woman.
[30:23] Speaker 6: When I gave my daughter birth control pills when she
[30:26] Speaker 6: was going to college, some of my friends was like,
[30:28] Speaker 6: you've built Like like I'm like, I'm promoting it, but
[30:31] Speaker 6: it's like, no, I ain't promoting it like my Like no,
[30:34] Speaker 6: I want to make her and set her up for success.
[30:37] Speaker 7: Like my daughter just graduated law school.
[30:38] Speaker 6: She ain't never been pregnant because I had those conversations
[30:44] Speaker 6: with my daughter and she's you know, was on birth
[30:48] Speaker 6: to droll pills like at that time.
[30:50] Speaker 7: But a black woman and white women, we just.
[30:53] Speaker 6: I don't know, it's just it's just different. It's just different,
[30:56] Speaker 6: and like we just we just want to protect our
[31:00] Speaker 6: orders more. I don't want to say white women don't
[31:01] Speaker 6: want to protect their daughters, because they do. But black
[31:03] Speaker 6: women we just like we can't throw our daughters. We
[31:06] Speaker 6: just can't throw you out there to the wolves. We
[31:09] Speaker 6: got to test it first, so it's a different conversation
[31:12] Speaker 6: that would have to be said. And the reason why
[31:15] Speaker 6: I think the white women are more of my customer
[31:19] Speaker 6: base is because what I did in the beginning when
[31:21] Speaker 6: you ask me about my competitor, like being where they were,
[31:24] Speaker 6: it was like I went out where they were.
[31:27] Speaker 3: And then in like promotional all that, did you use
[31:29] Speaker 3: like white women as like models or something?
[31:31] Speaker 7: Oh?
[31:31] Speaker 6: No, I used everybody. Yeah, because I wasn't like, like
[31:35] Speaker 6: the white women just kid to me. I didn't ask
[31:38] Speaker 6: for them, like I love them that they they are.
[31:40] Speaker 6: And I would love black women to really like talk
[31:42] Speaker 6: to their you know, daughters about their health much earlier,
[31:45] Speaker 6: or their period or their personal care and hygiene.
[31:48] Speaker 7: We just like it's just like shunned like to talk.
[31:51] Speaker 2: About Yeah, I have the conversations.
[31:53] Speaker 6: Yeah, some people do, but the majority you know does not.
[31:56] Speaker 6: It's like I don't want to talk about it.
[31:58] Speaker 2: It's like talk to that he's a health teacher.
[32:01] Speaker 5: No health teacher.
[32:03] Speaker 4: I mean It's cool though, because again it makes the
[32:06] Speaker 4: conversation even more comfortable, right, because it can come from
[32:09] Speaker 4: mom or could come from Dad, And so it makes
[32:12] Speaker 4: my daughter like like, hey, I can go to both
[32:14] Speaker 4: of you for this, that's understandable.
[32:16] Speaker 2: Hey Dad, I need you to go here to get this.
[32:18] Speaker 2: So that's great.
[32:20] Speaker 4: I want to go to the name change right, because
[32:22] Speaker 4: panty Prop was the name. But at what point is
[32:25] Speaker 4: it now when you're raising or trying to raise, you
[32:28] Speaker 4: change the name.
[32:29] Speaker 7: After I raised?
[32:30] Speaker 5: After you raised it, so I raise it got real?
[32:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, so why do you change it? And how do
[32:33] Speaker 2: we get to the name?
[32:35] Speaker 7: So after I raised, when you raise a fund, deals close,
[32:41] Speaker 7: you know, wires thought.
[32:43] Speaker 6: Coming in, like the pressure comes on now And I
[32:46] Speaker 6: don't ever feel pressure for nothing, but I felt pressure
[32:48] Speaker 6: like the next day after that first wire came through,
[32:52] Speaker 6: I said, okay, like I knew what I was getting into.
[32:55] Speaker 7: It's a it's a business deal. So now it ain't
[32:57] Speaker 7: just me, it's literally not me.
[33:00] Speaker 6: It's like, now there's a board that even though I
[33:03] Speaker 6: controlled the board, like I negotiated very well, my attorney
[33:06] Speaker 6: was really good, negotiated. I still control the board, but
[33:09] Speaker 6: it's still you. Still you have an obligation and a
[33:12] Speaker 6: vegetiary duty, like to do certain things like when you
[33:16] Speaker 6: take someone's money. It's not borrow money from your aunt
[33:20] Speaker 6: your mama. Is a business deal and that a lot
[33:23] Speaker 6: of people don't understand. Also, so changing the name was
[33:29] Speaker 6: because when you raise funds, you are basically telling the
[33:32] Speaker 6: world and telling your vcs and all their LPs that
[33:35] Speaker 6: gave them the money. I'm going to scale this and
[33:38] Speaker 6: I am going to make you a return. They're not
[33:41] Speaker 6: giving it to you, you know, to just sit it
[33:45] Speaker 6: there and not do nothing, so you have to start scaling.
[33:48] Speaker 6: So the word pany actually is like offensive in some
[33:54] Speaker 6: countries because at first I was like, no, like this
[33:56] Speaker 6: is because we've never had a problem, No one's ever
[33:58] Speaker 6: complained about the name, like our custom anything. So I
[34:01] Speaker 6: was like, we're going to lose everything that I built up,
[34:03] Speaker 6: like over these last three years, well it was like
[34:06] Speaker 6: three and a half years at that time. We're going
[34:07] Speaker 6: to lose everything. And I didn't want to change your name.
[34:10] Speaker 6: And then I was talking to my investors, my investors
[34:13] Speaker 6: that were in, and they was like, you know what,
[34:15] Speaker 6: just like think about it, but we need you to
[34:17] Speaker 6: change your name. And then I really thought about and
[34:19] Speaker 6: I said, you know what, like I'm a fair game.
[34:23] Speaker 6: I really thought about it. And I said, you know what,
[34:25] Speaker 6: as long as we don't lose nothing, then let's change it.
[34:28] Speaker 6: And then that's when I change it to Ruby Love.
[34:31] Speaker 2: Ruby Love.
[34:31] Speaker 4: And you talked about having vcs, but a lot of
[34:35] Speaker 4: times when people raise capital, they lose equity in their company.
[34:39] Speaker 2: And so how did you go about that? Right? They do?
[34:41] Speaker 4: You don't want to dilute yourself to the point where
[34:43] Speaker 4: you don't have control of the own the thing that
[34:45] Speaker 4: you built.
[34:45] Speaker 2: Yes, how was out for you?
[34:47] Speaker 7: So two things.
[34:49] Speaker 6: One, I'm a solo founder, so right off the back,
[34:51] Speaker 6: I have the edge there solo founder. If you are
[34:55] Speaker 6: two partners, you start off with fifty to fifty, so
[34:59] Speaker 6: right there you have to elude it way down.
[35:01] Speaker 7: But the most important is not the dilution. It's actually
[35:03] Speaker 7: the board.
[35:04] Speaker 6: That most people don't understand is who controls that board,
[35:07] Speaker 6: because that's when you see founders getting fired and things
[35:11] Speaker 6: like that, or saying they stepped down, whatever whatever they
[35:13] Speaker 6: want to call it.
[35:14] Speaker 7: It's fired.
[35:14] Speaker 6: Though, Like if you control the board and the vote
[35:19] Speaker 6: is always in your favor, you still got to discuss it.
[35:23] Speaker 7: But as far as like the equity part of it,
[35:25] Speaker 7: that really is not a big deal.
[35:26] Speaker 6: But I didn't lose that much equity because I already
[35:28] Speaker 6: had I negotiated because I bootstrapped it, like I already
[35:32] Speaker 6: bootstrapped it to I think at that point we was
[35:34] Speaker 6: a like twelve million dollars.
[35:35] Speaker 7: So I'm not gonna give you fifty percent of my company,
[35:38] Speaker 7: Like why would I do that?
[35:40] Speaker 2: He went to the negotiation knowing that this is the number,
[35:43] Speaker 2: whether it was twenty, this is what it is.
[35:46] Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a five hundred thousand dollar legal bill
[35:49] Speaker 6: likes to negotiate like that whole entire thing.
[35:51] Speaker 7: But it worked at all the way in the end,
[35:53] Speaker 7: even to this day, it worked out in my favor.
[35:56] Speaker 3: So did you have another round raising after that?
[35:58] Speaker 7: Nope?
[35:59] Speaker 3: That was just then. That was it?
[36:00] Speaker 7: Yeap in twenty nineteen.
[36:02] Speaker 1: Okay, so and then you invest you have, so let's
[36:07] Speaker 1: talk about that. When when did that start and how
[36:11] Speaker 1: is that going for you?
[36:12] Speaker 7: Yeah?
[36:12] Speaker 6: So after my company was like all set up, like
[36:17] Speaker 6: I had like fifty four employees, like everything, like the
[36:22] Speaker 6: I put the operation like in sound like where it
[36:25] Speaker 6: just operates.
[36:27] Speaker 7: I think me and my husband was just like you
[36:29] Speaker 7: know what, like this is like missed up? Like what
[36:31] Speaker 7: happened to me?
[36:32] Speaker 6: Like all these years like building this quick scaling company.
[36:36] Speaker 6: It's like really messed up. And then we were like,
[36:38] Speaker 6: we know what we want to help people. We want
[36:40] Speaker 6: to help black women that are being ignored. And that's
[36:42] Speaker 6: when we just said, we're just going to put our
[36:44] Speaker 6: own personal wealth.
[36:44] Speaker 7: We don't have no LPs.
[36:45] Speaker 6: Not that we use our own money, like most of
[36:47] Speaker 6: the people that are giving out money, it's not their own,
[36:51] Speaker 6: it's not their money, it's LPs.
[36:52] Speaker 7: But we use our own funds to do that.
[36:55] Speaker 3: And how much money have you invested so far?
[36:57] Speaker 7: So we invest all the time.
[36:58] Speaker 6: We invest either a thousand to twenty five thousand dollars
[37:01] Speaker 6: because we get you like at the like the we
[37:04] Speaker 6: call it soil.
[37:05] Speaker 7: You know it has like preceed we live under preseed
[37:08] Speaker 7: because some people just don't some people just don't understand it.
[37:13] Speaker 6: And my goal in his goal was to get take
[37:16] Speaker 6: that black woman and like really show her like everything
[37:19] Speaker 6: I told y'all of protecting yourself early and not just
[37:24] Speaker 6: thinking this your mom's money.
[37:26] Speaker 7: So we invest in just in black women, black women period,
[37:31] Speaker 7: like to do it.
[37:33] Speaker 6: Like in not even just like monetary ways, like we
[37:36] Speaker 6: just invest a lot of our time and everything into
[37:39] Speaker 6: black women.
[37:40] Speaker 3: Has anything worked out so far.
[37:42] Speaker 6: No, because it's everything is well new, Okay, yeah, we
[37:44] Speaker 6: just thoughted that in two thousand and twenty I think no,
[37:48] Speaker 6: twenty twenty one.
[37:49] Speaker 4: Actually, well, fundamentally, what are you looking for and when
[37:52] Speaker 4: you're investing, right is it? Obviously you said black women
[37:55] Speaker 4: number one? Yeah, but what what are you looking for
[37:58] Speaker 4: inside of these companies to say, all right, this is
[38:00] Speaker 4: worth an investment. And once you've made that, do you
[38:02] Speaker 4: stick with them in the sense of like a mentorship.
[38:06] Speaker 7: Yeah, so we do mentor.
[38:10] Speaker 6: As far as like what we're looking for, We're looking
[38:12] Speaker 6: for a company that you believe that can scale, because
[38:15] Speaker 6: you could scale anything like it could it could be
[38:18] Speaker 6: a paper clip and that could be scaled. It's the
[38:21] Speaker 6: person and how you go about executing that.
[38:24] Speaker 7: That's what people don't understand. It ain't really about the idea.
[38:27] Speaker 6: It's about like what you do with the idea, Like
[38:29] Speaker 6: if I could scale an underwear, you know, with a
[38:32] Speaker 6: hole in it, like anything could be done.
[38:36] Speaker 1: So what are some of the biggest mistakes that you
[38:38] Speaker 1: think people make when they when they're trying to get
[38:40] Speaker 1: VC money.
[38:41] Speaker 7: They think it's a loan. They treated like a loan.
[38:44] Speaker 6: I get that all the time, especially like the level
[38:46] Speaker 6: of the women that we like want us to invest
[38:49] Speaker 6: like they don't know anything. So that's what that's what
[38:51] Speaker 6: we started noticing. I would have people crying the phone
[38:54] Speaker 6: to me like, oh my god, when I tell them
[38:55] Speaker 6: your business is not scalable right now, they don't get
[38:59] Speaker 6: the right now, so they think it's alone. That's one
[39:04] Speaker 6: of the mistakes that they made. The second one is
[39:06] Speaker 6: they just they take it personal where you shouldn't take
[39:11] Speaker 6: it personal. Like anything a business, you cannot take that personal.
[39:13] Speaker 7: Personal is personal. Business is business.
[39:18] Speaker 6: And those are two of the biggest mistakes that especially
[39:22] Speaker 6: black women, that we make.
[39:25] Speaker 2: When it comes to VC. And we've heard both sides
[39:29] Speaker 2: of the coin, right where it's you know what, if
[39:31] Speaker 2: you don't have to take anybody's money, don't because you
[39:34] Speaker 2: don't want to have to answer to someone.
[39:36] Speaker 4: And then obviously there's the other side where it's like, well,
[39:38] Speaker 4: if you want to scale and to grow, not because
[39:41] Speaker 4: you need the money, but because you want to expand
[39:43] Speaker 4: you do it. Does that in between phases like what
[39:46] Speaker 4: am I supposed to do? So I notice plenty of
[39:48] Speaker 4: people who listen to the show and they try to
[39:50] Speaker 4: add that phase, talk about the pros and concept of
[39:54] Speaker 4: doing both, because you've done both, right, you've had the
[39:57] Speaker 4: business without it, try to get it, and obviously you've
[39:59] Speaker 4: had the business with the funds raised, and.
[40:01] Speaker 7: Then I also have the business without the VCS.
[40:03] Speaker 5: Either there you go.
[40:04] Speaker 7: So there is no in between stage. It's either are
[40:08] Speaker 7: you able to and willing to deal.
[40:11] Speaker 6: With what it is to scale your business? There is
[40:13] Speaker 6: no in between. You're either going to take it or
[40:15] Speaker 6: you're not. I actually feel a lot of people would
[40:19] Speaker 6: be like, oh, but you had a fifteen million dollar deal,
[40:21] Speaker 6: Like you know, what are you complaining about? Like why
[40:23] Speaker 6: you don't have VCS anymore?
[40:25] Speaker 7: Like why did you get all your shares back? Like
[40:27] Speaker 7: why did you do that?
[40:29] Speaker 5: Why did you do it?
[40:30] Speaker 6: I feel like if I didn't have VCS, my business
[40:33] Speaker 6: revenue would be over two hundred million at this point
[40:37] Speaker 6: because of where I was, I was already on a
[40:40] Speaker 6: fast fast, fast fast. I feel like VC for me,
[40:44] Speaker 6: from my particular situation was a hindrance. Why because we
[40:48] Speaker 6: were ready so fast and so scaling and it was
[40:52] Speaker 6: a very it was already you know when you.
[40:55] Speaker 7: Like you think about everything.
[40:56] Speaker 6: Like before you do it, Like that's where it's like
[40:59] Speaker 6: the grind at the time. You have to answer the people,
[41:01] Speaker 6: no answer the people, and you have to do certain things.
[41:05] Speaker 6: So now I have to hire a big C suite.
[41:08] Speaker 6: We're paying people.
[41:09] Speaker 7: Every Body in.
[41:10] Speaker 6: The sweet seat is getting over two hundred thousand dollars.
[41:13] Speaker 6: If you would have told me that prior, I'm like, oh, sure, no,
[41:18] Speaker 6: Like I can't do that.
[41:19] Speaker 7: So that's one.
[41:23] Speaker 6: You have.
[41:24] Speaker 7: It's a lot of time consumer.
[41:25] Speaker 6: You gotta have board meetings and board meeting and just
[41:27] Speaker 6: like getting in a boardroom and just like sitting talking
[41:30] Speaker 6: about stuff, you have to prepare for that.
[41:32] Speaker 7: You have to literally now I have fifty four employees.
[41:36] Speaker 6: Now I'm responsible for fifty four employees that really I
[41:39] Speaker 6: would say that probably half of them wasn't even needed
[41:42] Speaker 6: at the time.
[41:43] Speaker 7: When you get into VC, they don't tell you.
[41:45] Speaker 6: It's like this unspoken thing like where it's they don't
[41:50] Speaker 6: tell you and it's not said, but it's like, Okay,
[41:55] Speaker 6: I gotta do it because it has to be done.
[41:57] Speaker 7: I have the money.
[41:58] Speaker 6: And now you also feel like, and I'm very frugal
[42:01] Speaker 6: like when it comes to like money, so I don't
[42:03] Speaker 6: even spend And that's one of the problems that me
[42:05] Speaker 6: and my VC's actually had like my partners, my investors,
[42:10] Speaker 6: is that yeah, okay, I have the money, but that's
[42:14] Speaker 6: not relevant to us. Like vcs goal based on most
[42:18] Speaker 6: of the world goes based on everything on data. And
[42:20] Speaker 6: sometimes data is good, don't get me wrong, but sometimes.
[42:25] Speaker 7: Data is not the answer.
[42:26] Speaker 6: Like it's just not It's like real life, real grind
[42:30] Speaker 6: like in this And sometimes I would ask them like
[42:32] Speaker 6: are you you over you over there across the seas,
[42:35] Speaker 6: like are you in this building every day?
[42:38] Speaker 7: Are you receiving these emails every day? And it's not.
[42:41] Speaker 6: So it's a it's a grind. So VC money is
[42:45] Speaker 6: not for everybody. Everybody wants it. Everybody literally wants it
[42:49] Speaker 6: because they want the headline. But if you think past
[42:51] Speaker 6: the headline and you look under, the headline, is not
[42:54] Speaker 6: for everybody.
[42:55] Speaker 2: Could be a hindrus.
[42:56] Speaker 4: It sounds like from your experience that taking the VC
[42:59] Speaker 4: almost stop a little of the innovation from you.
[43:01] Speaker 2: Right, Like you lost a little bit of the grind
[43:04] Speaker 2: that got you to this point.
[43:06] Speaker 6: Never lost the grind, it was the grind with the
[43:10] Speaker 6: trying to explain it and then now taking time to
[43:13] Speaker 6: do that and then like second guessing yourself because you
[43:18] Speaker 6: have someone you have their money, and you're like, Okay,
[43:22] Speaker 6: I want to do the right thing because I want
[43:23] Speaker 6: to do the right thing by my investors, and I
[43:26] Speaker 6: want to do the right thing by myself, and I
[43:28] Speaker 6: want to do the right thing by my customers. And
[43:31] Speaker 6: that when you put all of that together, it's a
[43:34] Speaker 6: lot for people to deal with past the headline.
[43:38] Speaker 3: So you wouldn't have done it.
[43:40] Speaker 7: No, that's why I got all my shares back.
[43:43] Speaker 2: No, okay, so you saw your path to two hundred million,
[43:47] Speaker 2: it slowed you down. Where is that path now?
[43:50] Speaker 7: So what I did last year was.
[43:54] Speaker 6: I decided, you know what, because we were going for
[43:57] Speaker 6: so many years, we were scaling so fast, there were
[43:59] Speaker 6: things that first of all, my VC should have told me.
[44:02] Speaker 6: We were still running our own VC firm, I mean
[44:04] Speaker 6: our own fulfillment center, like in our building. First thing
[44:08] Speaker 6: they should have told me was like, don't run a
[44:09] Speaker 6: for filming center. I don't even know we were in
[44:11] Speaker 6: a for filming business. But you know, when you just
[44:12] Speaker 6: keep going. You know that story when I told you
[44:14] Speaker 6: I was going home, picking up my son, going to
[44:17] Speaker 6: do the things. All I did was just hire new
[44:19] Speaker 6: people to do that. But I should have not should
[44:21] Speaker 6: have outsourced that to a three PL so last year
[44:24] Speaker 6: in twenty twenty two.
[44:28] Speaker 7: A three pl so. A three pl is where they
[44:31] Speaker 7: actually shipped your stuff out for you.
[44:33] Speaker 6: We don't do no shipping in the building, like no
[44:36] Speaker 6: more for like since last year, I scaled that out
[44:38] Speaker 6: to a three pl which should have been done, especially
[44:42] Speaker 6: at the rapid rate that we were shipping.
[44:44] Speaker 7: We never had enough people to like, actually get it out.
[44:46] Speaker 6: If you look at our reviews, all of our bad
[44:48] Speaker 6: reviews are based on people not getting their item.
[44:50] Speaker 7: It's not on the product. It's like I didn't get.
[44:53] Speaker 6: My stuff on time, which is people saying, oh, that's good,
[44:56] Speaker 6: that's those bad reviews are good.
[44:58] Speaker 7: But no, it's like you have to that out.
[45:00] Speaker 6: But if I would have went to a three pl
[45:01] Speaker 6: years ago, saying, like in twenty sixteen seventeen, even when
[45:04] Speaker 6: I was only shipping maybe ten twenty items out, that
[45:07] Speaker 6: should have been done right off the back. And then
[45:09] Speaker 6: I also would have not spent so much on payroll
[45:11] Speaker 6: because payroll is the biggest expense. That that was one,
[45:18] Speaker 6: so I had to scale it back in order to
[45:22] Speaker 6: prepare it to be sold eventually. So there was so
[45:26] Speaker 6: much stuff I had to outsource customer service. One point,
[45:30] Speaker 6: we had eight people in customer service service, a customer
[45:33] Speaker 6: service awartment, handling customer service. There's no company that should
[45:36] Speaker 6: be handling customer service. You should manage customer service, but
[45:40] Speaker 6: you only need like one or two people. But we
[45:42] Speaker 6: were actually having a full customer service. Outsource it because
[45:46] Speaker 6: now you're just managing the company. That was another thing
[45:48] Speaker 6: I did. So I did all of this last year,
[45:52] Speaker 6: and I scaled the company back. We actually stopped advertising
[45:55] Speaker 6: in June of two thousand, no like May of twenty
[45:59] Speaker 6: twenty two. Up to this day, we still do not
[46:01] Speaker 6: advertise right now. I skilled it all the way back.
[46:05] Speaker 2: So it's word.
[46:07] Speaker 7: Well, we built up over the years, built up almost
[46:10] Speaker 7: a million and subscribe.
[46:12] Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's the data.
[46:15] Speaker 7: Yep.
[46:17] Speaker 3: So this is a subscription based service. Is that subscription
[46:20] Speaker 3: based subscribers?
[46:22] Speaker 7: We have a subscription like for like for a product,
[46:24] Speaker 7: but it's not like our biggest thing. It's just people.
[46:26] Speaker 7: We just have a customer base. We have a large
[46:28] Speaker 7: customer base.
[46:29] Speaker 4: So how do you this is a lot a lot
[46:32] Speaker 4: of people and this is world wide right yes, global?
[46:35] Speaker 4: So like when do you add a new product because
[46:38] Speaker 4: that obviously we add them already.
[46:41] Speaker 2: So this is it.
[46:41] Speaker 7: Yeah, any more products we would innovate to a different.
[46:46] Speaker 2: Category underwear, swimwear, activewear. Yeah, act where it was recently at?
[46:51] Speaker 2: Where was that at it?
[46:52] Speaker 7: That was all done in like the first year.
[46:54] Speaker 2: Okay, So you have all those three products and we're
[46:56] Speaker 2: just selling those.
[46:57] Speaker 7: Yeah it three products we have a lot of.
[47:00] Speaker 6: One of our biggest items is actually our first period
[47:02] Speaker 6: kid after like our actual like I'll swimwear and our
[47:05] Speaker 6: underwear as our first period kid. So it's a kid
[47:08] Speaker 6: where parents could talk to their kids when they first
[47:10] Speaker 6: get their period.
[47:11] Speaker 7: That is like one of our big big products.
[47:14] Speaker 2: Do you are you in schools?
[47:17] Speaker 1: No?
[47:18] Speaker 7: So I did no retail.
[47:20] Speaker 6: I was asked to do retail, and I did it
[47:22] Speaker 6: once I was in Macy's. Once I pulled my stuff
[47:24] Speaker 6: out because I was making way more money online. Retail
[47:27] Speaker 6: is just like retail is for branding. Back then, I
[47:29] Speaker 6: didn't think like that.
[47:31] Speaker 2: So it's all online really no marketing, and it's super successful. Yep.
[47:37] Speaker 2: This is rare.
[47:39] Speaker 7: It is rare, but it's doable. It's a lot of work,
[47:42] Speaker 7: but it's doable.
[47:45] Speaker 3: Okay. So all right, so your plan is to sell
[47:48] Speaker 3: a company, absolutely, and you have a timeframe.
[47:53] Speaker 7: So back then when I first raised the funds, it was,
[47:55] Speaker 7: you know, they give you seven to ten years.
[47:57] Speaker 6: But now like I'm preparing it. Scaling a company and
[48:02] Speaker 6: then preparing it to sell it is two totally different things.
[48:04] Speaker 6: So yes, like now at this point of view, somebody
[48:07] Speaker 6: was to ask me today, like in the next couple
[48:09] Speaker 6: of years, because I just put everything operationally sound like
[48:12] Speaker 6: the way a company that's gonna get acquired should be.
[48:16] Speaker 7: I just did that last year, okay, And.
[48:21] Speaker 3: What's your rational if for I wanting to sell it?
[48:26] Speaker 7: Okay?
[48:27] Speaker 6: So I think every company, and black people are gonna
[48:32] Speaker 6: kill me because we know how we feel about it.
[48:36] Speaker 6: But I think that every company, the majority, I would
[48:39] Speaker 6: say ninety eight percent of companies, if you are really
[48:42] Speaker 6: trying to build like generational wealth in a legacy, you
[48:48] Speaker 6: need to sell it. Most people, especially us as black people,
[48:51] Speaker 6: feel a legacy is I'm gonna pass it down, So
[48:55] Speaker 6: my kids, I'm gonna do this.
[48:58] Speaker 2: How can we have anything if you sell everything?
[49:00] Speaker 1: Right?
[49:01] Speaker 6: What people don't understand that I actually explained this to
[49:03] Speaker 6: people that I'm mentored to, Like, do you really think
[49:07] Speaker 6: that the Hiltons is running the Hilton still but we
[49:09] Speaker 6: still think of them as running it. No, it's just
[49:12] Speaker 6: the legacy, like that's what you're known for, and it
[49:14] Speaker 6: going on living their life and doing other things. Like
[49:17] Speaker 6: every time a black person, especially a black woman, sells
[49:21] Speaker 6: her business, we've just seen it happen this year, every
[49:24] Speaker 6: single time, it happens everywhere all mad when in reality,
[49:28] Speaker 6: we really should be congratulating that black woman because that's
[49:32] Speaker 6: another one of us being able to.
[49:35] Speaker 7: Build that legacy and generational wealth.
[49:38] Speaker 6: Like at this point, now we ain't gonna be the
[49:41] Speaker 6: Mary Keller's where you forget that we created the sanitary pad.
[49:43] Speaker 6: It's like, no, I made that, Like I created that
[49:47] Speaker 6: and now my kids and my grandkids and this is
[49:50] Speaker 6: able to live off of that legacy. And that's what
[49:53] Speaker 6: people don't understand. And I think it's because people don't
[49:55] Speaker 6: understand like how VC works, how getting a company acquired works,
[50:01] Speaker 6: or getting it to IPO works.
[50:03] Speaker 7: They just don't understand that.
[50:04] Speaker 6: And that's where the I don't want to call it ignorance,
[50:07] Speaker 6: but that's where the knowledge needs to be taught. And
[50:11] Speaker 6: anybody that I mentor I talked to, I explain that
[50:13] Speaker 6: to them and then they finally get it. They're like, oh,
[50:15] Speaker 6: like if I think about it like that, now I
[50:18] Speaker 6: actually get it. It's not like you leaving the black
[50:21] Speaker 6: people behind. It's actually like no, like I'm doing this
[50:24] Speaker 6: for us because we sold it. Now I could cash out,
[50:29] Speaker 6: and that legacy is always You will never lose the
[50:32] Speaker 6: founder title. I'm only losing the CEO title. And the
[50:36] Speaker 6: CEO title is a.
[50:37] Speaker 7: Lot of work. Like who wants to do a lot
[50:40] Speaker 7: of work?
[50:41] Speaker 6: If you think about like say like a Jamaican restaurant,
[50:44] Speaker 6: like just one Jamaican restaurant, like they be slaving in
[50:47] Speaker 6: the air, Like that's why the man every time you
[50:50] Speaker 6: go into a Jamaican restaurant, they got an attitude. Yes,
[50:55] Speaker 6: but if they actually took that one Jamaican restaurant and
[50:58] Speaker 6: scaled it into ten and then made it a franchise
[51:01] Speaker 6: and then somebody brought that one day, you still always
[51:04] Speaker 6: will be that founder.
[51:07] Speaker 7: Unfortunately, our kids they don't want that. Then I knsey
[51:10] Speaker 7: say that I'm gonna work that hard and I don't
[51:12] Speaker 7: blame them.
[51:13] Speaker 3: What's your exit plan? That's important.
[51:16] Speaker 7: It's important.
[51:16] Speaker 2: Never entered before you know how to exit. So have
[51:19] Speaker 2: you had offers along the way, I've.
[51:21] Speaker 7: Had offers last year.
[51:22] Speaker 6: They were lobull because my revenue went down because I
[51:25] Speaker 6: stopped advertising and I had to scale it back, but
[51:28] Speaker 6: I kept The reason why I had to do is
[51:30] Speaker 6: because I kept going for years.
[51:31] Speaker 7: It was very transactional.
[51:32] Speaker 6: Like the company we got all those sales because it
[51:35] Speaker 6: was very very transactional, but it wasn't prepared to really
[51:39] Speaker 6: be like operational sound to prepare.
[51:41] Speaker 3: For a sale.
[51:42] Speaker 5: So I did.
[51:43] Speaker 6: But they gave low offers because like the revenue went
[51:46] Speaker 6: down because I scaled back.
[51:49] Speaker 4: Any of the people or the company that offers you
[51:51] Speaker 4: surprise you at all or was it like your competitor
[51:53] Speaker 4: that you knew were watching you and watching the growth.
[51:56] Speaker 6: No, No, it was just companies that just come out
[51:59] Speaker 6: of the woodwork. So we had two offers for like
[52:03] Speaker 6: to buy it, but it's lobulls. I know it's worth
[52:05] Speaker 6: way more than that, and you're offering it at a
[52:07] Speaker 6: time when like I'm scaling it back, So all we
[52:09] Speaker 6: have to do is.
[52:10] Speaker 7: Just scale it back up. We actually ran out of cash,
[52:13] Speaker 7: like most people don't even say that, Like the company
[52:15] Speaker 7: ran out of cash?
[52:17] Speaker 2: How did that?
[52:17] Speaker 3: So?
[52:17] Speaker 2: How did that happen?
[52:19] Speaker 6: Operation is expensive, like to do all those things that
[52:23] Speaker 6: I need like it is, it is a lot of money. Like,
[52:25] Speaker 6: so first of all, if you're running your own fulfillment,
[52:27] Speaker 6: since we have a ten thousand square foot warehouse, we
[52:29] Speaker 6: had to move that whole entire thing to a three
[52:32] Speaker 6: pl that's expensive with trucks.
[52:34] Speaker 7: You don't even that one caught me by surprise of
[52:37] Speaker 7: how much it was. So it costs a lot of money.
[52:41] Speaker 6: Whereas money that you were using for advertising, now you
[52:44] Speaker 6: got to use it for this, Like this is business
[52:45] Speaker 6: that ain't personal, like I always tell people, like my
[52:48] Speaker 6: personal life is a okay, Like I ain't got no problems,
[52:52] Speaker 6: I ain't got no financial problems. I ain't got no
[52:55] Speaker 6: issues at all, Like I am personally good. But when
[52:58] Speaker 6: you ask me my business, I'm oh, lord like take
[53:01] Speaker 6: me away. And people people can't even get that, like
[53:05] Speaker 6: how is like your business aggravating you?
[53:07] Speaker 7: But your personal life is good? Again because it's business.
[53:11] Speaker 4: So when you run out of cash from a business standpoint,
[53:15] Speaker 4: I mean that's gonna that could affect the personal right right, No,
[53:19] Speaker 4: I mean if I run out of cash, right, like
[53:21] Speaker 4: our business was out of cash.
[53:22] Speaker 2: Business a business was out of cash.
[53:24] Speaker 4: Right and I got to go home and then I
[53:27] Speaker 4: have a wife, like you have a husband, Like, how
[53:29] Speaker 4: are these I mean y'all doing this together?
[53:31] Speaker 5: You pay yourself, how are these conversations going at home?
[53:34] Speaker 6: Well, you always that make sure you can pay yourself.
[53:36] Speaker 6: So running out of cash, we still have a big
[53:39] Speaker 6: audience that we still are selling. It's just not being
[53:42] Speaker 6: scaled the way it was.
[53:43] Speaker 7: Like that's what people don't understand.
[53:44] Speaker 3: You.
[53:44] Speaker 6: Yes, you do run out of money, but every day
[53:47] Speaker 6: there are still sales being made. Now you just have
[53:49] Speaker 6: to reorganize finances. You gotta cut your payroll down. You
[53:53] Speaker 6: gotta do things like that, and those are things that
[53:55] Speaker 6: people don't understand, Like we literally.
[53:58] Speaker 7: Ran out.
[54:01] Speaker 6: Cash, but we are operationally and we are still in
[54:04] Speaker 6: a good position. And then we also have great brand
[54:08] Speaker 6: equity and great branding. Whereas we built up a business.
[54:12] Speaker 6: I literally built up a business that people want to buy.
[54:15] Speaker 6: So we ain't never bad. It's just you might have
[54:18] Speaker 6: a headache some days, like oh lord, But as long
[54:22] Speaker 6: as you could keep the lights on it, make your payroll,
[54:24] Speaker 6: you know, and get your orders out because it's a
[54:26] Speaker 6: consumer product, it's not service.
[54:27] Speaker 7: As long as you can do that, then you're good.
[54:30] Speaker 5: You still have a.
[54:30] Speaker 6: Business and it's still if I was to shuck the
[54:32] Speaker 6: business down tomorrow, which it wouldn't, but if I say
[54:35] Speaker 6: if I did, somebody still would want to buy it
[54:38] Speaker 6: because of the brand equity that is therese Yes, so.
[54:43] Speaker 7: It's yes, you ran.
[54:44] Speaker 6: When you hear people run out of cash, Yeah, they
[54:46] Speaker 6: ran out of cash, But like, was your business in
[54:48] Speaker 6: the sound position to keep going to keep bringing in cash?
[54:55] Speaker 1: So you live in a eight million dollars stay, I do, so, yeah,
[55:02] Speaker 1: talk about the challenges of that.
[55:04] Speaker 7: Oh so that's my person, Like, that's where that challenge
[55:09] Speaker 7: comes from. It's a lot. Most people will be like,
[55:11] Speaker 7: oh my god, like I want to you know, I
[55:13] Speaker 7: want to.
[55:13] Speaker 6: I want to live in a mansion and I love it.
[55:16] Speaker 6: Me and my husband have lived in That's what we do.
[55:18] Speaker 6: We flip mansions, right, so living them to maintain them
[55:22] Speaker 6: in a lot. My taxes is one hundred thousand dollars,
[55:25] Speaker 6: our landscape and bill last year was like three hundred
[55:27] Speaker 6: thousand dollars.
[55:28] Speaker 7: It's a lot. So me and him always ask people
[55:30] Speaker 7: like do you want like, I know you want to
[55:32] Speaker 7: live here. I know it looks nice. I know you
[55:35] Speaker 7: want to drive the mayback like he does. But do
[55:37] Speaker 7: you want to maintain that stuff. Everybody always want it,
[55:44] Speaker 7: but they don't want to know what comes with it.
[55:48] Speaker 6: But for us, that's a business too. Like we live
[55:51] Speaker 6: in the mansion. The mansion just take way longer to
[55:53] Speaker 6: sell than like how people flip houses.
[55:55] Speaker 7: It takes way longer.
[55:57] Speaker 6: Like we buy them for cash, we fix them up
[55:59] Speaker 6: really fast. And with mansions in the States, you cannot
[56:03] Speaker 6: You can't just put like cheap stuff in there, like
[56:05] Speaker 6: you got to get like the good stuff, like a
[56:07] Speaker 6: refrigerator's like thirty thousand dollars like to go in.
[56:09] Speaker 7: So we just have an eye for it. We love
[56:12] Speaker 7: to doing it, and then we just like living well.
[56:14] Speaker 3: So you got the wolf applying there.
[56:17] Speaker 6: We have wolf at our last mansion. This one we
[56:19] Speaker 6: did Viking and true old Viking.
[56:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty thousand hours for the freeze.
[56:23] Speaker 5: There's a lot.
[56:24] Speaker 2: So this is fair. I've seen it. So so y'all
[56:28] Speaker 2: have that. This is part of the real estate portfolio.
[56:31] Speaker 4: Are y'all doing that specifically in New York or y'all
[56:34] Speaker 4: throughout the New York?
[56:36] Speaker 7: Okay, Long Island, Long Island, And it's a hard market.
[56:42] Speaker 6: Long Island is a hard market because your money is
[56:46] Speaker 6: sitting there, like we just pay cash for it, so
[56:49] Speaker 6: like we have money just like sitting there. But like
[56:52] Speaker 6: if you pay four million dollars or other than cash
[56:54] Speaker 6: and you could get back eight nine million dollars, it's
[56:57] Speaker 6: okay to sitting wait for that for like two years.
[57:00] Speaker 3: What made you want to get into that market of
[57:01] Speaker 3: flipping mansions.
[57:02] Speaker 7: I just always liked real estate.
[57:04] Speaker 6: My grandmother in the eighties, which when I was younger
[57:06] Speaker 6: I didn't realize it. My grandmother, a black woman, was
[57:10] Speaker 6: buying in selling houses in Queens and Long Island, which
[57:14] Speaker 6: in the eighties was like not easy to do, and
[57:17] Speaker 6: she owned twenty three houses at one point, and I
[57:21] Speaker 6: just loved it, like going.
[57:23] Speaker 7: With her, like a fixing up the houses and things
[57:25] Speaker 7: like that.
[57:25] Speaker 6: What I didn't like, I would never be a landlord
[57:27] Speaker 6: because that instance dealing with her when I was younger,
[57:30] Speaker 6: like as a young child, turned me off from tenants,
[57:34] Speaker 6: like I called all types of names from her tenants
[57:38] Speaker 6: collecting rent, So I would never be a tenant. I
[57:42] Speaker 6: know a lot of people flip and they want to
[57:43] Speaker 6: do the airbnbs. I know that my personality is not
[57:47] Speaker 6: for tenants. So the easiest way to do that is
[57:50] Speaker 6: to do what I like, and I like, I've always
[57:53] Speaker 6: loved mansions in the States, so why not do that?
[57:56] Speaker 2: So you're selling to the one percent? Yeah, pretty much.
[57:58] Speaker 7: That's why it takes like a year to sell.
[58:00] Speaker 1: Ye.
[58:02] Speaker 2: So do you have a team that helps you run
[58:04] Speaker 2: outlaies or you just you're doing this yourself?
[58:06] Speaker 6: You're oh no, no, no, not for privation, No, no, no,
[58:08] Speaker 6: we have people that we call in like real contracts. Yeah,
[58:11] Speaker 6: well you're dealing with the States, with these towns, especially
[58:13] Speaker 6: in Long Island. No, you got to do everything right.
[58:15] Speaker 6: You gotta get permits, you get an extension. You can't
[58:17] Speaker 6: just like throw the wall top. No, they will come
[58:21] Speaker 6: and tell you to take all your wolf down because
[58:22] Speaker 6: I think they're my Simtobay can't be like PVC. It
[58:26] Speaker 6: has to be like a particular type of pipes and
[58:28] Speaker 6: stuff like that. So, No, we have people that come
[58:31] Speaker 6: in that we hire companies to do that that we've
[58:32] Speaker 6: been dealing with over the last couple of years.
[58:34] Speaker 3: Though, So what's next? What's next for you the next
[58:39] Speaker 3: year or two?
[58:40] Speaker 1: I know, obviously planning and sell your company, so you're
[58:42] Speaker 1: working on that, but yeah, any other initiatives or anything
[58:45] Speaker 1: else that you guys are working on looking forward to.
[58:47] Speaker 6: Yeah, so preparing for the sale in the next couple
[58:50] Speaker 6: of years to keep flipping mansions and the States probably
[58:55] Speaker 6: our next one, though you're only gonna live in that
[58:57] Speaker 6: one and then do another one because it's the first
[58:58] Speaker 6: one we lived in through contry diction. And then the
[59:02] Speaker 6: next thing is we took our investment firm and now
[59:06] Speaker 6: made it a brunch black women conversations that actually scaled
[59:10] Speaker 6: up real quick, like we just even just we just
[59:12] Speaker 6: went on Instagram with that maybe in like April, and
[59:15] Speaker 6: we almost have like ten thousand followers for that. That
[59:18] Speaker 6: is bringing a group of because I have high end
[59:22] Speaker 6: friends and I have low end friends. So bringing a
[59:25] Speaker 6: bunch of women at different levels, because at every level,
[59:29] Speaker 6: everybody still always got the same problem, especially as a
[59:31] Speaker 6: black woman.
[59:32] Speaker 7: There's a black woman, all black man, we all usually
[59:34] Speaker 7: have the same problem.
[59:34] Speaker 6: I don't care how much money you make or what
[59:36] Speaker 6: level of status you at, we still deal with the
[59:38] Speaker 6: same stuff. And it's been working. We've done my team.
[59:42] Speaker 6: I have a small team for that that handles like
[59:44] Speaker 6: the social media and the operations for that. We do
[59:46] Speaker 6: the brunches and we do them at my We do
[59:48] Speaker 6: them at my house.
[59:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, we say high income and relaxed income. Yes, it's
[59:52] Speaker 2: never low, yes, just relaxed.
[59:54] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[59:56] Speaker 1: Well, thank you, this is a great conversation. How can
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: people follow you on social website and information?
[1:00:03] Speaker 6: Yeah, so my company is Rubylove dot com. My Instagram
[1:00:08] Speaker 6: is I am Crystal at Tien. But bear with me
[1:00:10] Speaker 6: on that one because I only got along like a
[1:00:12] Speaker 6: year and a half ago, I think, and I'm just
[1:00:15] Speaker 6: even learning Instagram.
[1:00:18] Speaker 7: And then our investment firm.
[1:00:20] Speaker 6: If they're people are interested for me and my husband
[1:00:22] Speaker 6: to look at their company, or if they want to
[1:00:23] Speaker 6: be invited to the brunch, they could go to Black
[1:00:26] Speaker 6: Women Conversations or Cajuncolt dot com.
[1:00:29] Speaker 4: Yeah, and all your competitors out there and with the
[1:00:31] Speaker 4: X stop playing. You know who you are, Ruby Love,
[1:00:35] Speaker 4: that's the brand exactly.
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: Sure.
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: Well, thank you guys for rock orders. We'll see you
[1:00:41] Speaker 3: next week. Peace.
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: Peace,

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