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Guest: Megan Cox, founder of Amalie Beauty.
Host: Kevin Mako, founder of Product Startup and the leading expert in hardware startup consulting. A hardware entrepreneur since 1999, Kevin has advised more than 1,500 founders and built and scaled MAKO Invent through its acquisition by TriMech in 2024.
Turning Public Research Into Product Validation
Megan Cox explains how public research informed early prototypes for WINK lash and brow oil and helped her start Amalie Beauty for under $2,000. She covers small-group proof-of-concept testing, persistent supplier research, and the search for a capable contract manufacturer.
Episode transcript
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Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, a podcast that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product designers, and other industry professionals. This podcast is run by Mako Design and Invent, and hosted by Filip Valica.
Filip Valica: Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to putting your product on the shelf. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Now onto the show.
Filip Valica: If I was looking at this in the beginning and talking to all those factories and they all said, you can just make 10,000 new. There's no way I would have ever started my business. You need to sit down and just try to think around it and keep researching and keep reading online until you can find a way.
Filip Valica: Because if that's what's important to you, you need to find a way to make it happen. The Product Startup Podcast, episode 21.
Filip Valica: Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step with your host,
Filip Valica: Filip Valica. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Product Startup Podcast. In the last episode, we talked with Matt Rudlinger, the Foundinger, the Found founder of the marketing firm triple r marketing for years matt gave his clients jones carmills on their
Filip Valica: birthdays clients loved the personal touch of receiving these carmills and they quickly became a key part of his business so when he got word that the store was closing matt took over as the new owner we dive into
Filip Valica: the details about buying an existing small business and also go into some topics like social media specifically facebook and lincoln marketing so make sure to check out episode 20 if you haven't already.
Filip Valica: Thanks again to everyone that writes in and lets me know what you think of the show. Really appreciate your feedback. That is the only form of feedback that I get that what I'm putting
Filip Valica: out is working and is resonating. So I really appreciate that. So on to today's episode. Today I'm joined by Megan Cox with Amalie Beauty. We'll talk about her wink brand lash and brow oil
Filip Valica: that she created by experimenting on herself to solve her problem of diminishing eyelashes. So she started a formulation and mass manufactured it, her journey started in her dorm room, MIT, and has taken
Filip Valica: her across the world to China and back. So let's get started. Hi, Megan. Thanks for joining me today. Hi, thank you for having me. When I first got your request for an interview, I noticed that your
Megan Cox: brand name was Amalie, but you've also gone by the product name Wink. Can you talk a little bit about how that idea got started? Yeah, of course.
Megan Cox: So a couple years ago, when I was was in college, I was using false lash extension or like falsie strips all the time because I was cheering and I was dancing. So I was always wearing them for performances. And when I heard about
Megan Cox: lash extensions, I went and got those immediately. So those are, they apply individual lashes to your individual lashes and they last about eight to 12 weeks. I started getting those, but after about a year, they had just destroyed my natural lashes.
Megan Cox: So I bought every product I could find on Amazon and nothing really worked for me. So I just said, screw it. I'm just going to do my own research and find what makes eyelashes grow and I'm going to do this myself. And that's what I did.
Megan Cox: I actually found that essential fatty acids could help grow lashes. It worked for me. It worked for my 12 testers. And that's how Wink was born.
Megan Cox: In about the name, in the beginning, I actually named my company Wink Natural Cosmetics because I didn't have a lot of confidence in my product. I really didn't think it would take off. So I was just like, I'm going to going to put a name down for a corporation, you know, just forget about it because who knows
Megan Cox: what's going to come of this. But about two years later, I had sold, you know, 20,000 bottles
Filip Valica: of wink and people are like, wink the company, wink the product. It was really confusing. And I couldn't get a trademark on my company name. So I change it to my middle name, which is Amelie. So now my company is called Amelie Beauty. Very cool story. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of people are in the
Filip Valica: same position where they just are trying to get their idea out there and they want to get started. And
Megan Cox: you could probably spend weeks trying to find the perfect name. I think you could see that in startups now where they are trying to come up with names that aren't even real words that are just these mashups of letters or they're taking vows out
Filip Valica: just to be creative so that I guess they can get the trademark on their name. I think the company name is important, but if someone made me sit in a meeting, you know, again, again, week after week to brainstorm it, I would want to kill myself. Just put something down and do it. Right, no, absolutely.
Filip Valica: Just take that next step. And so that's a very good, like, just first lesson out of the gate is just do something. something. You're in college, you realize that there's a need for this. You figure out that there's
Megan Cox: a link to fatty acids and promoting eyelash growth. And you've already tested it on some people and you know it works a little bit. Were you getting any feedback from the people that were using it at that point to say, hey, I think you're on to something? Yeah,
Megan Cox: they were all my friends from the cheerleading squad. So we kind of scrutinized each other all the time. Be like, oh, your lashes longer. Oh, your lashes look great. So we did an AB test too. So the people who got the
Filip Valica: A formulation, their lashes were not looking as good. And they were like, hey, I got screwed.
Filip Valica: So, yeah, we got a lot of feedback. We actually did measurements too. So we had the real data,
Megan Cox: not just the observational data. That's very cool. So did you expand that at all before you started to create maybe a larger test or before you went into the design and manufacturing phase? Did you test
Megan Cox: over maybe a broader subset of people? Or were you confident enough that the results you got were
Filip Valica: pretty good. I was pretty confident from those results because we saw quantitatively, we saw results with all 12 testers. The results were smaller on some people than others, but I felt pretty confident
Filip Valica: with it at that point, and I just thought I should go for it. So a lot of people at this point
Megan Cox: maybe would be a little bit intimidated because you go into a store, even just a drugstore, and there's dozens of brands that are selling something that's guaranteed to increase your eyelash length, right? What made you think that, you know what, I can go up against some of these
Filip Valica: mega names?
Filip Valica: The fact that none of the products that I bought worked made me feel very confident and that I was using a main ingredient that nobody else was using. This wasn't original research
Megan Cox: on my part. It was research that had already been done and then I duplicated it on my own. So I felt
Filip Valica: pretty confident in my foundation.
Filip Valica: So how are you able to license that research or was that research basically publicly available and you just read it all and decided that since
Megan Cox: no one else was going to take action on it it was going to be you it's publicly available
Filip Valica: okay I mean I accessed it through you know MIT's database but it's also available on Google okay yeah so anybody else that might be in an industry that is looking for
Filip Valica: some help with innovation they can kind of go out there and if if they've got the time to research all everything themselves they should be able to duplicate the same thing
Megan Cox: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you can learn so much from the papers that are already published from what's already been done.
Megan Cox: So your next point was to go to maybe the design phase. Did you have to do any type of testing to confirm that the ingredients that were using were safe or because you
Megan Cox: knew that you were using all natural ingredients that kind of superseded any type of checks that you had to do?
Filip Valica: With any cosmetics, you need to do stability testing. You need to do stability testing within the packaging with the formulation that you have.
Megan Cox: but you can already kind of run everything theoretically and figure out what the probability is that you're going to have any interactions.
Filip Valica: So I knew the probability was already very low. Then you need about two months to run some basic stability tests and microbial tests, but those are not very important with oils. So again, all this stuff is available online. You just need to take the time to learn it. Very cool.
Filip Valica: And are there firms that specialize in some of those tests or were you able to do those yourself? I did them myself, but yeah, there are firms that do it.
Megan Cox: I mean, even my new company will do it for you, but you can do it at home. That's awesome. So there's no excuse now, everyone that's listening. You can do it in your kitchen. Right. So what was your next step after that? You had a formula.
Megan Cox: You had a pretty good idea that there weren't going to be any interactions that was going to be stable. So the next step was I assume you were looking for manufacturers that could do this on some sort of scale, maybe a low quantity instead of mass manufacturing. Oh, no way. I was going to do it myself.
Megan Cox: I really didn't have a lot of money to invest.
Filip Valica: I mean, I pulled together everything I could and I had just under $2,000.
Megan Cox: So when you look at incorporating a business, which I wanted to do, that was 800. Then I had 1,200 left to figure out how I was going to make a batch. So I spent a lot of time on Alibaba, just kind of talking to suppliers and figuring out what I could do.
Megan Cox: I mean, I was on there every day until I found someone who was ready to offload 500 bottles,
Filip Valica: and they offered to do screen printing for me, and then it was a go. So you literally just bought the bottles and then filled them yourself. Yeah, right. So with cosmetics, you need to follow good manufacturing practices, and that's it.
Megan Cox: and those are all available online. If you go to the FDA website, they say just follow good manufacturing practices. So that's what I did. And I filled the first 500 myself. After that, I did move to a contract manufacturer for the next batch because it was like 10,000. Sure.
Megan Cox: But with that 500 that helps you scale, were you able to, did you basically sell those off of a, like a stand or a cart somewhere or like online out of the trunk of your car in MIT?
Filip Valica: I think I was home for the summer at that point. So at the gym I used to work at, I went and had like a little booth and I maybe sold two. And then I contacted the local newspaper and they wrote a story about me.
Megan Cox: I should mention too, I had a Shopify website that I threw up.
Megan Cox: So like incorporated in June, threw up the Shopify website in July, got some press that last week of July. And then a few days later, my state newspaper picked it up and then I was sold out. Wow. So yeah, that was it. What do you think helped you get that coverage?
Megan Cox: Because sometimes people say, you know what? the local paper isn't going to talk to me about this idea. What do you think we're the unique
Filip Valica: qualifiers that helped you get some of that press? I think that it had an appeal here in the community. First of all, I live in a very small community. So I was a valedictorian in my class. I want a big scholarship here. A lot of people knew about me. And the part is, you know, for women
Filip Valica: in their 50s and 60s. So I think it really fit the demographic here of the newspaper readers.
Megan Cox: At the same time, there's not a lot going on in the newspaper. So you should just at least put it out there.
Megan Cox: Yeah. They're more interested than you think. Especially the local papers that want to promote, like, positive things that are happening in their community, there's a lot of negative news, really good advice. So you're able to sell off 500 bottles, I guess, locally and through Shopify, and that
Megan Cox: gave you enough confidence to say, maybe not, I don't know how, were you signing them at the full retail price at that point, or was it like a reduced price just to get it out the door and see if people will buy?
Megan Cox: At that point, the first few bottles, I had reduced it, but that actually, you know, didn't help at all because then people just think, why are you reducing a new product? And then
Filip Valica: they don't want to pay the real price the next time. So the first week I'd reduced it, but by the time the state newspaper picked it up, it was at the full price, which was $30 at the time, and now is $40.
Megan Cox: I should mention one other thing. I made a really lucky mistake when that newspaper article came out. On Shopify, you can choose to have the products, say, sold out when you're sold out, or you can let it keep selling even if you're out of inventory. I didn't even know that was an
Megan Cox: option, but it kept selling even though I was out of inventory. So then I had like hundreds of pre-orders for this next batch. Right. After we sold out of the 500. So then you were scrambling trying
Filip Valica: to guess fill those orders. I guess did you send an email out to everybody to say, hey, sorry. It's
Megan Cox: going to take us a couple weeks to fill orders due to the extra press. I did. And like, I mean,
Filip Valica: the beginning of my business, I think is just the perfect story for people who don't feel confident about getting their business started because I just sent like a plain text email that probably
Megan Cox: looked like crap and my customers didn't even care because they just said we're so happy we're so happy about this you know new product and and your success and the fact that you're from indiana we don't even care and they waited either six or eight weeks until they got their bottles they didn't care
Megan Cox: great good for you totally fine one cancellation yeah so go out there and do it yeah just do it and even if it all you know looks like junk in the beginning if there's a real need people will buy it
Megan Cox: they'll wait they'll pay full price so your next step was to you said you're going to a manufacturer so
Filip Valica: you could scale up then how are you able to find them I started searching online. I called everybody. Nobody could help me, but they would all refer me to at least one person. So finally, I found someone who is also starting out at that
Megan Cox: point. Her company's kind of big now, but she was starting out at that point and she was willing to take me on. And now that I'm thinking about it, I think my next
Megan Cox: batch might have been 3,000 units and her minimum for filling was 5,000. So she charged me at 5,000. But I didn't care. I had to go back to MIT for the fall semester. So I was like, good. Somebody can fill these and not me.
Megan Cox: Sure. So at that point, she was basically just shipping you the finished product and you were fulfilling it or you were sending it directly to a fulfillment center and Shopify was even fulfilling orders.
Filip Valica: Oh, no. We are still fulfilling the orders. We're still fulfilling them now. I'm just in the process and moving to my first warehouse. I have kept that really close, even though it takes
Megan Cox: up a lot of time. I mean, we're shipping over 200 orders a month plus wholesale orders. But I still do it all myself because I want to keep a really close eye on that experience.
Filip Valica: because I think that that unboxing experience is very important for the customer.
Filip Valica: And when you say we, do you have a team now that works with you?
Megan Cox: Actually, no, it's just me, but I do have, you know, my family helps me in any way that they can. That's really great. You have that support. And I guess when you're going to college, were you working out of your dorm room then? Did you have a bunch of boxes just sitting around?
Megan Cox: My mom actually offered to take it for me for the semester. She just said, finish your degree. I don't want you to worry about shipping these every day because I know how obsessive you'll get. So I'll do it for you. I'll do anything you need me to do here, but we're paying a lot for your education, so go learn. Good. That was how long ago?
Megan Cox: Three years ago. Okay. In the last three years, then, you've made some strides. You were telling me before the interview that you ended up moving to Shenzhen. Talk a little about that. Yeah.
Megan Cox: Last year, I had gone through about three or four different packaging types. I couldn't decide if I wanted to do what everyone else was doing in the eyelash and eyebrow enhancer world
Filip Valica: or if I wanted to make my own packaging. and I got emails here and there, which I think I overweighted, and I thought it was, you know, oh, people were, having a lot of problems. In the beginning, some people were, some people weren't, but then finally, everyone's like, we hate the bottle.
Filip Valica: You said it lasts three months, it lasts two months. A lot of people were like, I'm out. I'm not buying this anymore. I just really was not many expectations with our packaging. So I told my customers kind of in a last-ditch effort, I'm going to go to China.
Filip Valica: I'm going to find a factory, and I'm going to follow a very transatlantician.
Megan Cox: transparent process of, you know, testing the pins and then let some of you test them in your own homes. And when we finally find one that we all agree on, I'm going to order that one.
Megan Cox: Great. Great advice about being really transparent. I know customers respond to that really well, especially if you kind of let them in to see what's going on, because people do like to see the behind the scenes of what's going on. They are interested, especially if they really
Megan Cox: love the product and they're really passionate about it. They like seeing the things that you normally wouldn't see from a bigger brand. So in this way, you're kind of leveraging that you were kind of smaller and appealing to that group. So that's pretty smart. Did you then go back to
Filip Valica: some of the people that maybe left your brand to say, hey, you know what? I'm sorry that you left. Here's what we can do for you. I did. Yeah. And I won some people back and some people just said between, you know, price increase and packaging, blah, blah. I'm out. So that's just part of it.
Filip Valica: So the lesson that I'm taking away from there is that you can't please everybody all the time. No, you can't. And you need to follow your own gut. I mean, I think I had three or four people
Megan Cox: that didn't like one packaging. So I changed the original packaging. So I changed it. And one, it just failed. Like the packaging itself failed halfway through the batch. Like I had a dip brush and the brushes started falling out. Oh, no. So people couldn't even use the product.
Megan Cox: And then now we're back to the bottle that's almost identical to the original one. So I should have just stuck with my gut. Wow.
Filip Valica: Well, and it's hard to do that, especially if you're just coming in and you're new and maybe you don't have as much experience with how some of these different packaging designs go. were you able to lean on anybody for some of that advice or were you just kind of shooting from
Filip Valica: the hip and hoping it works out because you really believed in what you were doing?
Megan Cox: In the beginning, I just, I went with, you know, a packaging that could work that I could afford. You know, that was it. And I tried to get some feedback. I had a team of mentors at MIT
Filip Valica: and I tried to get some feedback from them, but everybody had feedback all over the place. They couldn't even agree between the five or six of them. So in the end, you know, I work on it every day,
Megan Cox: every hour. I'm the only person thinking about it every hour of every day. I should just trust my gut. Yeah, and that's the problem with design by committee as well. I'm an engineer. And anytime you put an idea out there in front of a group, you're going to just get 10 different opinions. And it's
Megan Cox: really hard to sometimes separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, where what's important from this and what's really just something that's just someone wants something of different color and they're not happy. Very good advice. The end of the day, my customers told me, stop focusing on the bottle. We just want the product to
Megan Cox: come out of the bottle reliably so we don't even care what it looks like we just want the wink that's inside there so you know that was good advice for my customers too how did going to shenzhen
Filip Valica: help you make that better bottle why was being there in person so important you would think it wouldn't be because the factories can send me samples and i can test them in my home in the u.s right but there are a
Filip Valica: lot of issues of working with a factory and um wansi which means the relationship in chinese is so important in China that you really need to be there face-to-face. Even when I was in China, I wasn't
Filip Valica: calling them, I wasn't emailing them. I would go to the factory face-to-face even to talk about the smallest things. So if you want your product to get done right, on time, you want it to be exactly the same as the samples. You need to go there. You need to talk to them. You need to create a
Filip Valica: relationship and not just treat them like, you know, these anonymous people on the other end of an email because then it's very easy for them to do the same thing to you and maybe ship out goods that are
Megan Cox: faulty. That's very good advice. I've started developing a couple products and I'm working with some manufacturers and I've really noticed that you start talking to them via Skype and they really want to know about your personal life and they have these long conversations with you about
Megan Cox: things that, and I'm from Texas and a lot of people down here will talk about the weather and whatever it is and I have these long meetings about stuff and I'm kind of used to that but I was really surprised that it's that type of conversation going on in China. So it's interesting that you
Megan Cox: say that even one of the suppliers that I purchased an initial order of 2,200 units, they said, oh, great, I'm going to be in Houston in a couple months, and we can sit down and have a meeting,
Filip Valica: and I'm like, gosh, I'm not even that big of a client, and you're coming down to Houston. It's kind of embarrassing. You know, I need to get something better than a PO box.
Filip Valica: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Megan Cox: And some of them don't have that, you know, that nice of factories either, but the fact that you'll go
Filip Valica: there and, you know, sip to them and talk about whatever, they love that. And one important thing I learned, my first meeting, I went in with a typed up agenda. I'd emailed it to them. I thought that we were going to get in, get out. I didn't want to waste their time.
Megan Cox: And as soon as I left, my partner said, what are you doing? I was like, what do you mean? What am I doing? I'm doing business. Like Americans do business. He said, this is China. He's like, if you don't spend at least two hours there, they're going to think you don't care about your business.
Megan Cox: He's like, so go in there and talk about some random things that don't even matter, but show them that you care enough to take out that much time of your day to spend on your business. That's fascinating. Really good advice. When do you think is a good time for
Megan Cox: people to go to the manufacturer in person and you're having to commute or go somewhere to meet them? When is good time to do that? Do you mean in the manufacturing process or seasonally?
Filip Valica: Yes. You know, you haven't met your manufacturer yet and you're just starting up. Maybe you don't
Megan Cox: want to pay the few thousand dollars that it takes to go to China because you really want to use that for your initial order. How do you balance that against having that good relationship, which is obviously valuable. Right.
Megan Cox: Skype them. And I know mostly I just know about China. I don't know a lot about manufacturing in Vietnam or Thailand.
Megan Cox: But if you are working with China, Skype them, get Wii chat. It's an app. Talk to them on there like you would have a friend. Check in with them. If you see something on their moments, which is like a Facebook wall type thing. You know, ask them about their
Filip Valica: life. Just create their relationship. You don't have to go to China. You don't have to spend the money. But you do need to put in the time. And you do need to treat these factories like their people. And you'll find out who are good people, who are bad people, who care about you, who don't.
Filip Valica: And you can kind of, you know, take some of the risk out of the process that way.
Megan Cox: Right. Just like anywhere else in the world, you're going to have people that you really like to work with and others that don't respond. Right. Exactly.
Megan Cox: And seasonally, don't go to China in January or February. Right.
Megan Cox: And everybody is manufacturing for the holidays during May, June, and July. Tickets get super cheap in August and September. So right now, it's $500 round trip, Chicago to Hong Kong. Wow. Go there, you know, in August or September, you'll save, you know, you'll get the tickets
Megan Cox: half price. They're not busy anymore.
Filip Valica: They just got the things out for Christmas. And no one else is manufacturing again until, you know, Chinese New Year, right after in March. So this is a great, right now is a great time to go. Very good tips. So you're living there now. So that must be really nice because you can just kind of pop in and out.
Filip Valica: And also you get a pulse to see where the market is going. So if you see different types of packaging being.
Megan Cox: created you can kind of jump on that and be one of the first people to market still it is really cool and when you're here you realize how many things you can actually create and in the u.s you might think very narrowly but when you're in china you see so many new things happening all the time they
Megan Cox: throw buildings up in weeks and they they set the trends like for example i just bought a phone ring a couple months ago these haven't come to the u.s yet but they will because things i saw my first year in china
Megan Cox: they're now coming to the u.s so you do get a lot of ideas and everything can be done so cheaply it just
Filip Valica: it feels like everything's moving so fast. Wow. It's really cool. Very exciting.
Megan Cox: Yeah, it makes me really want to do that. I convince my wife in 16-month-old.
Filip Valica: No, without the baby, I don't think that's going to do. Right.
Megan Cox: Let's move to the next stage in the process. You've got a manufacturer now that's able to ship some product. Have you done any type of IP protection or patenting or anything like that? I'm sure you trademark the name. Yeah.
Filip Valica: And I, you know, my trademark is getting issued probably. as we speak. It's supposed to be any day now, but I wasn't able to trademark my first company name. I'm not able to trademark Wink, and I finally was able to trademark Amelie.
Filip Valica: Otherwise, there's not really any protection in beauty. You trademark product names. You trademark phrases that you can. You trademark your company name. And that has a lot of value in
Megan Cox: beauty, whereas it doesn't have as much value in other, yeah, in other industries. But that's about it. So then the formula for your product is basically a trade secret. You're following the Coke approach. Right.
Megan Cox: So we have to list all of our ingredients a certain way in a certain order, but you don't know what the percentages are. Makes sense.
Filip Valica: I actually kind of believe you should share the knowledge because you find it's a little counterintuitive, but when your customers know why it works and what's in it and they
Megan Cox: kind of know more about the process, they appreciate and respect that. And they're not, some people will just say, oh, go make it myself, but those people
Filip Valica: would have made it themselves anyway. Sure. There's not a lot of people that are going to defect. No, and you're not worried about the one person that makes it themselves because they're not going to do it in any type of scale like you will, and especially solving some of the problems
Filip Valica: that you've had to solve going to market. No one's going to deal with that unless they're a company themselves.
Filip Valica: And I'm assuming that when you're marketing now, you're not just marketing the product, you're marketing your brand and what you stand for. Exactly.
Filip Valica: And, you know, I blog a lot, and a lot of my platform is about empowering yourself to understand the science behind the beauty products you use. So you know why you're using it and why it works and not just what it is. So,
Megan Cox: I try to take the marketing out of it all. And if people end up making products by themselves, awesome, that's actually what I want.
Megan Cox: Yeah, because it just creates an educated consumer in a way. Exactly. And they'll realize they might want to not go through all that trouble to do it again and it's just easier to buy the product. Yeah, a lot of my customers are like, that's great, but I'm not going to do this myself. So I'll just keep paying you to do it for me.
Megan Cox: So you talked about you're not really a traditional marketer in that sense. I saw a recent blog post that you had dispelling some myths from. YouTube bloggers. That whole thing has been really interesting to me and it obviously
Megan Cox: follows a natural progression but you had people that were on YouTube that were advising other people how to apply makeup and you have the same thing in other industries whether I'm a woodworker myself there's tons of those guys out
Megan Cox: there and then bit by bit they got more popularity more views on YouTube and they were picked up by some really large companies a couple of these people have huge contracts what are your thoughts on that and where are you going with the marketing with Emily?
Megan Cox: Well, I'm a little iffy about it because you see a lot of people who apply makeup
Filip Valica: crossing over into, you know, more the science of beauty. And they don't know what they're talking about at all. And they have people defending them in the comments just, you know, endlessly. And I'm saying, guys, look at the science.
Filip Valica: Like, yeah, that one blog I was talking about, a blogger who had, she's very popular, but she had 10 million views on this video saying that Vaseline helped. helps grow your eyelash. That's just not true. There's nothing behind that. But people will defend
Filip Valica: that to the end and say, I use Vaseline and Vaseline grew my eyelashes. Coincidence, maybe it's just,
Megan Cox: you know, light, but it's not true. So I don't know where that's all heading. I'm not sure if companies will realize that it's not worth the money or if it actually is worth the money,
Megan Cox: I'm not sure. So we'll find out. I do work with content creators that I respect. I have a few times paid for content, but I feel that that hasn't yielded any better results than, you know,
Megan Cox: the pro bono posts that people make just because they like the products that I sent them. So at this point, I'm not paying for content. I create my own content. I work with people that I like. They work with me because they like me. That's it.
Megan Cox: So can you give some tips to people that are kind of in the same boat? They're looking for a partner in getting the word out about their product. And there's hundreds of blogs in any industry.
Megan Cox: and it's even hard to get numbers on them to say how popular they are, how many views that they get. And there's the different sites that you can use for that, I suppose. I'm going to be introducing a product to the market at some point, hopefully pretty soon.
Megan Cox: You could basically hire a person to do it full time to go there and do all the research and contact people on your behalf. I'll tell you what I do. If that helps at all, what I do, I follow people on Instagram or YouTube or their blog.
Megan Cox: And when I decide I like them, if I'm just browsing, I browse on my phone. in my spare time because you could literally sit there and do it all day. Take a screenshot and save it for later. And then I'll email those people. And when you email them, think about how they're going to read and respond to the email.
Megan Cox: Because they sit there and they get emails from people all day. So you need to think, what do they want to hear and what's going to make them want to try my product?
Filip Valica: And you can't be too pushy either because a lot of people, you know, walk up to them with a $10,000 contract. So how are you going to compete with that? So I email people I like. I genuinely talk about the content that they've posted that I like and why I like it.
Filip Valica: You know, why I like what they're doing because they'll respond a lot better to that. And then offer, you know, would you like to try my product? It's no pressure. That's it.
Megan Cox: And I'd say five to 10% of people email me back and half of them that I send product to actually end up posting about it. So let's run through the numbers again. You said five or 10% respond back. Like five or 10% respond back and say, okay, I'll try your product.
Megan Cox: And then half of those people will actually end up posting. So when I ship a sample out, you know, there's a 50-50 chance of the post about my product.
Filip Valica: Yeah, so maybe out of everyone that you talk to, two or three percent, that's a lot of work. Yeah, well, you either spend money on ads and you don't know how they're going to work or you spend a little bit of time and a little bit of money for these content creators and you pretty much know how that's going to go.
Megan Cox: And, you know, after having a little bit of experience with it, I can tell you when someone has this many followers, this is probably how many sales I'm going to get. And it's not a huge number, but again, these are these are ads that I'm not paying for.
Megan Cox: And they're genuine, too. That's good advice. I notice that on my side with the product startup as well.
Filip Valica: I'll reach out to, let's say for every 10 guests I reach out to,
Megan Cox: two will respond back to me, say that, yeah, they want to go on the show. And then for whatever reason, I might get maybe one that actually comes on the show. And it might be even less than that. So less than 10% of the people that you actually reach out to, something comes from. You know what?
Filip Valica: Some people started reaching out to me to test their products because they read my blog. and when I get the products in the mail, I feel pressure. I'm like, ha, ha, ha, I have so many products stacking up now. I don't even know how these bloggers get through all the products. I mean,
Megan Cox: and I want to genuinely try them out and be able to talk about the products intelligently, and that takes time. So you just, you have to be patient with it, too. From the product reviewers perspective, is there anything that people can do to make it easier on you?
Megan Cox: Like, would you prefer data that comes in, or do you prefer doing your own research along with the product? Or here's how we recommend you testing it? Do you feel like that's kind of a leading question? You would think so, but it makes your life a lot easier.
Megan Cox: I mean, one company sent me their product and then this, it's like a marketing card, but it had
Filip Valica: some of the science on there, that really helps. If I know where are your socials, where are your website, you know, how or why does the product work? You already did all that research for me.
Megan Cox: All I have to do is give my qualitative assessment of how well it worked. That's perfect. Make the whole process as frictionless as possible. Yes. And I email that information to them, and I also send it in a hard copy format. So they have both. and when they go to write, they can go to my email and just copy paste.
Megan Cox: But if you do tell them exactly what to say, that's an ad and they need to hashtag add it.
Filip Valica: So I don't tell them exactly what to say. Yeah, and I wouldn't want that either, because for me, it's all about having the content creator speak in their own voice. That's worth way more than you writing their ad for them. Yeah, I totally agree. Are there any other places that you're using for marketing that you found really effective for your brand?
Filip Valica: I do have that, you know, 50 to 65 is my main demo, probably 55 to 65 more closely.
Filip Valica: So I did have some success on Facebook with ads there.
Megan Cox: I've had more success with some ads than others. And I think it's seasonal too. So during the Christmas in January, during Christmas in January, I did really well. And then those results kind of over the course of the year.
Megan Cox: So right now I'm not running any Facebook ads. And I think that's the only place where I've had periods of good success with return on ads.
Filip Valica: Well, with Facebook, you get to really drill down to your audience because they have some granular settings. in their marketing, so you're able to really focus on your target market.
Megan Cox: Yeah, but you have to know your target market first.
Filip Valica: It's like they have those granular settings, but then I'm sitting there saying, do my customers watch Ellen or do they watch Oprah? I mean, these are some questions you need to know the answer to if you're really going to get that granular on Facebook.
Filip Valica: So it has a lot of value, but you have to put in the leg first or, you know, it's not worth anything. I'm really glad that you brought that up because I've struggled with that myself. When I've tried to promote the product startup, I initially started with, Okay, people that like small business and listen to podcasts.
Filip Valica: And it was like 5 million people on Facebook that you can advertise to, right? And so I blew through a lot of my marketing budget and got very little in response because my audience was too broad.
Filip Valica: But I didn't have the data, like you said, to kind of narrow that down to say, here's the people that are actually going to respond to you. That's really hard to get that. And I do have customers that will literally give me all that information.
Megan Cox: They are happy to answer any survey of any length, any day of the week. But I have 30 of those people. and you really that's the minimum group that you need to get you know some type of trend so that's not even really enough i kind of need to guess where my next customer
Megan Cox: is going to be based on where my past ones are that's tough yeah it's really hard even if they do place or order you don't really know all that about them anyway you
Megan Cox: might know where they live but that doesn't really help you yeah i don't know if they're a homeowner or renter if they're divorced you know facebook really gets personal with it i have noticed some success with using the facebook retargeting pixel by creating
Filip Valica: a lookalike audience. So for people that aren't aware, Facebook has some code that you can put
Megan Cox: it on a website. And if that person is also a Facebook user, it will record the hits or the visits that the person makes on your page. And if you have enough hits, you can basically
Megan Cox: retarget those people with ads through Facebook. And if you don't have enough hits on your
Filip Valica: website, because Facebook does care about privacy to an extent. And so they're making that data anonymous. So if you don't have enough hits, it will create a lookalike audience. So
Megan Cox: So it can extrapolate some of that data. But it never really tells you, or I haven't been able to figure out how to pull that data out. It just will create the audience for you, but it won't say 76% of your people like Ellen.
Megan Cox: Exactly.
Filip Valica: So they're not, yeah, they're really not going to tell you that. I have found that the retargeting has been very expensive for me.
Megan Cox: Like I will pay up to $1.50 per click. And then I think people have already kind of made their decision about Wink. It's usually for Wink. I think they've already made their decision, yes or no. They might click again, but. they usually don't buy.
Megan Cox: Whereas my regular ads, I'm spending about 17 cents or, you know, 15 cents per click.
Filip Valica: And that's where I really see a return on it with, even with a $40 product. Like I ended up, you know, maybe I spent $15 and get one $40 sale. So that's about the returns I was seeing before. Wow. That's really high. Yeah.
Filip Valica: So your cost of marketing is 20, 30% of your product sometimes. Yeah. I mean, more. If I'm talking about Google AdWords, it's almost one to one. Wow. Yeah.
Megan Cox: Yeah, that's why I create a lot of content because even though it takes a lot of time to index it and, you know, move up in the rankings, I spend a lot of time on keyword research and content creation because ads are so insanely expensive in beauty. Wow.
Megan Cox: Is that just because you think there's just a ton of competition out there and a lot of noise and you're competing against just a sea of information? Kind of. I think a lot of people tried a lot of eyelash and eyebrow enhancers before Wink even came on the market and didn't have success.
Megan Cox: I think beauty in general advertising is expensive. Yeah, there's a lot of things going on there. Wow, that sounds tough.
Filip Valica: Any tips for someone that's looking to advertise their own beauty product? Basically, go the route that you're going and try to go round up, create your own fan base?
Megan Cox: Yeah, create content that really matters to people and really has some value as soon as you can and just keep creating it. And then take your time testing with very small increments of money on Facebook, Google, anything that's paid.
Filip Valica: Just really take your time to do that and do it very slowly. So you said you're going to move to a model where you're not having to fulfill orders yourself.
Megan Cox: You're still selling on Shopify.
Filip Valica: I know if I were to sell a product, that's probably the route that I would go because they have really great integrations with other software. Are you going to move into selling through other fulfillment centers in the U.S. like other warehouses or selling on Amazon?
Filip Valica: What's your next step with that? Okay.
Megan Cox: So we already sell through Amazon through seller, Central, and vendor express. So we sell there. We sell through a catalog, through some other websites.
Megan Cox: actually probably 80% of our sales are not through our own website.
Megan Cox: But in terms of fulfillment, I'm working with a warehouse now in Chicago to have them actually ship out my orders every day because it is time-consuming, but like I said, I'm glad that I've kept it this close to me the whole time because I've been able to change things out,
Megan Cox: write notes, figure out, you know, how to make the packaging better.
Filip Valica: And you can do that without shipping out the orders every day, but I don't know. I like it. Well, it's a lot easier because you've got access to inventory. right away. So unless you're in the same city as your warehouse, making changes to product packaging
Filip Valica: is really difficult. It is. And I've had the opportunity and the money to move to a warehouse a lot of
Megan Cox: times. But when I was in China, you know, for a year and a half, I was just worried that something was going to happen and that the warehouse wouldn't care as much as my parents would. So basically your parents were shipping out product for you while you were in China.
Megan Cox: Yeah, they have really been there for me, you know, the whole way. amazing. It's really great to have that support. As we start nearing the end of the interview here, I always ask people some of the same questions. Did you have any tools or books that really
Filip Valica: helped you make some of these next steps that made things easier for you? Actually, not in the beginning, but after about a year I read, I think it's called Discipline Entrepreneurship. It's
Megan Cox: by Bill Allette out at MIT. So I've read that, you know, five times. I've read that book so many times and mapped through the process and that has been very helpful in thinking about how to run my
Megan Cox: business even though technically it's a small to medium enterprise which is like not covered in
Filip Valica: his book still those steps are really helpful to think through you know your cost of customer acquisition and the lifetime value of your customer and to figure out if your business can actually make
Megan Cox: money in the long run very good advice so i'm going to put a link to that book in our show notes and then lastly you know i always ask if you were giving advice to your younger self or someone that's creating a product and they just haven't been able to take that next step, what do you think
Megan Cox: is the one or two things that are super critical to keep in mind to help them progress? I would say,
Megan Cox: just try to get out of your head and try to think of some new way to, like some
Filip Valica: new route to get to the same point because if I was just looking at this and, you know, I told you I have a business now where I help other beauty entrepreneurs take those next steps. So if I was looking at this in the beginning and talking to all those factories and they all
Filip Valica: said you can just make 10,000 units. There's no way I would have ever started my business. You need to sit down and just try to think around it and keep researching and keep reading online
Megan Cox: until you can find a way. Because if that's what's important to you, you need to find a way to make it happen. Very good advice there. So where can people buy Wink and where can they find out more about you? And maybe if they have a question, could they give you a shout or send you an email? Yeah, of course.
Megan Cox: So you can buy Wink at
Filip Valica: www.omilebeautom.com.
Filip Valica: You can also buy it on Amazon, but I I prefer you buy it on my website. And if you want to email me, my email is Megan atomilebeautcom. You can email me any time with questions. And I'm going to spell that for everybody.
Filip Valica: So it's AMA-L-I-E Beauty.com. And what if they needed help bringing their beauty product to market? You said that you've got a sort of service that kind of helps with that. Yes.
Filip Valica: So I do have a company called Jeannie Supply, and we help people take that next step from doing some small units in their home.
Filip Valica: take this step to 1,000 or 2,000 units, help them get screen printing, just help figure out solutions there. So you can also email me at Megan at genie Supply.com. If you have questions about, you know, beauty packaging and the manufacturing process,
Filip Valica: FDA compliance, anything there. Perfect. We're going to have all those links on the show notes as well. Thanks again for coming on the show, Megan.
Megan Cox: You've been a huge inspiration. I know I get emails a lot from people that are looking to create their own beauty product and we just hadn't had enough of those people on the show. So thanks again for coming. coming on the show, sharing your wisdom. I wish wink all the best. You have a really cool product,
Megan Cox: so I hope it takes off. Is your goal to get into stores or to expand into retail? Yeah,
Megan Cox: I have some goals. I'd really like to get on either the home shopping network or QVC. So I am actively pursuing that goal right now. I have some feelers out. So I'm just going to keep going until I get to that point because I feel like that's the perfect demographic and the perfect
Megan Cox: setting for my product. So I'll just keep going that way. Absolutely. Good luck, Megan. It was really good talking to you. Thank you so much for having me on the show. And that's all I've got for today. Thanks for listening, everybody. I've put all the links that we've covered under
Megan Cox: the show notes posted on the product startup.com.
Filip Valica: So join me next week as I speak with Chloë Thomas. She's an author and the creator of eCommerce MasterPlan, a business that helps e-commerce entrepreneurs make better decisions with their
Filip Valica: online businesses. She's also the host of the eCommerce MasterPlan podcast, which is the number one e-commerce podcast in the UK. So we'll have lots of tips about selling online on episode 22.
Filip Valica: So tune in next week to hear that episode. Thanks again for your support. I'll see you guys next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Product Startup podcast with your host, Philip Veliza.
Filip Valica: For more great content and to stay up today, visit theproductstartup.com.
Filip Valica: Your guide to getting there. Thanks
Filip Valica: for tuning into this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the first firm in North
Filip Valica: America to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product businesses. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako-design.com.
Filip Valica: That's M-A-K-O-D-D-com for a free consultation. from one of Mauco Design Four Design Studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
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