Joining me today on Female Startup Club is Trinity Mouzon Wofford, the founder of superfood wellness company, Golde.
They produce approachable, effective wellness essentials for inner and outer radiance that are powered by single origin turmeric.
Trinity’s a young powerhouse with a great story to share, she was the youngest black founder to have a brand stocked in Sephora at just 23 years old, and was named Forbes 30 under 30 this year.
We speak a lot about her journey in building this brand as a black woman, why the Black Lives Matter movement has x10 her business, her learnings from along the way and some great insights into the world of wholesale.
Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!
Yeah, for sure. So I am the co-founder and CEO at Golde. We are a Brooklyn based health and beauty brand powered by superfoods. So gold makes everything from a superfood facemasks to latte blends, really to just help you feel like your best self inside and out.
Sounds really delicious. I've seen a lot of yummy looking recipes on your website.
Yes, yes. The factor is definitely important to us.
So what made you want to start the business?
Yeah, so I have been into wellness for a while. I grew up in sort of a wellness family or I like my grandmother, ate all organic and all that good stuff, but I didn't get really super into it until I was a teenager. And my mom, who has an autoimmune disease, switched over to seeing this more sort of holistically minded position and saw an incredible improvement in her symptoms. And that was really a pivotal moment for me and made me say, OK, well, this is my career path and I want to go to medical school. I'm going to practice medicine and do it through this holistic lens. And so all was well, I went down to NYU for college. I was raised upstate. And then as I was finishing up college, I found out from my mom that she had to stop seeing that doctor because she actually can afford it anymore, because here in the States, a lot of things aren't covered by our health insurance system, including anything that's like not just like cut and dry prescription medications. So I had this realization that I didn't really want to practice medicine if it wasn't going to be for everyone. So I graduated and wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life, like any good twenty two year old.
And I ended up kind of like falling into a marketing career in the city. I was working at a tech startup so like super fast growing, very small team. They had just closed their series and funding, which I had no idea what that meant at the time. But I, I was thrown into that world and I really, really loved it. So I had that going on. But I still know in the back of my mind knew that I wanted to get back to that mission of wellness and accessibility. And the missing piece there sort of was my high school sweetheart, who's now my co founder. You say he grew up in family business. His parents have a candle factory in upstate New York where we both were raised. And so he had that window into small business and entrepreneurship and kind of gave both of us the context that one day we could do something like that. So that's really kind of everything that was moving around in my brain and in my life that brought me toward the idea of, I think, having the guts to to launch gold.
Yeah.
I mean, not only did you guys have this perfect recipe of small business experience and like high growth startup experience, but you also had this young drive because you launched the brand at twenty three or something. I think I read, which is absolutely insane. That's so cool.
I definitely think that was a big chunk of the secret ingredient being young enough to be so fearless. I think that like that naivete that it'll all work out is very powerful.
Yeah, I think you go into it being like, oh well, like what's the worst case scenario? Like, just go back and get another job, right?
Yeah, exactly. I think that's the beauty of starting something when you're young. Is that like, OK, well, like worst case scenario, I'll just move back home and my parents will be a little annoyed with me. But like I can I can see the path out of failure. So I think it was really beneficial for us to know that we had that little bit of safety there.
Yeah, absolutely. And how how's the navigating the relationship of being a co founder and having your fiancee now? Right. Yeah, I actually work with my fiancee, too. We've we've been in business together. And I love to hear what other people find of the of the situation.
Yeah, it's such a good question, and I get the question very often of like, I don't know, I'm thinking about going into business with my significant other. Should I? And my answer to that question is always, if you have to ask, you already know, I don't think it's for everyone. And I don't think that's a sign that you have like a not strong relationship or anything. But I think it's a lot to put on your relationship to be really just in it. Twenty four. Seven, because you live together, you work together you don't like. You're always on one way or another. Ultimately for us, I think it has really strengthened our personal relationship because it forces a certain level of maturity and empathy that I feel you can kind of skirt around when it's like just your significant other. But like there's such an intimacy to starting a business with someone that when you have that and you have the personal relationship, you just have to be so honest and so respectful all the time because you just can't there's no room for, like, being in a tiff for the day because your business isn't happening.
You could not be off. Oh.
Oh, my gosh. And so so you guys have this moment, you're like, yeah, we're going to go all in. We're going to essentially quit our jobs and we're going to stop this business together. Did you know specifically what you wanted it to be in the wellness sector at that point? Or like, how did you come up with the idea of being like, yeah, this is what it's going to be?
I mean, I think that it's definitely evolved. So when we first launched, we launched with a single product, our original tumeric blend. And when we first started out, we actually were like, yeah, we're going to focus on Tamarac. That's going to be the thing. And this was in twenty seventeen that we launched. And what was funny was we had seen that tumeric was getting more popular, but it hadn't hit that like skyrocketing. That happened in twenty seventeen and into twenty eighteen. And so we were kind of like a little caught off guard by the level to which suddenly consumers were like I need to have to work in my life, I want to try this product. So that was great. But we also found that the other reason why people were coming to gold was because they loved our ethos around wellness, which was really like I was looking at my own experiences as a consumer in the wellness space. Right. And I was feeling very caught between this crunchy granola stuff that I had grown up with. I come from like Birkenstock land. OK, so and then the other side of it, which was like so luxe and prestige and like seventy five dollars powders. And even if it did appeal to me, I definitely couldn't afford it. And so I just I wanted to do something in the middle there. So I think, you know, we had the interest because we were doing tumeric. But then the larger fascination with the brand and our product offering seemed to really be this new perspective. And we found that over time we wanted to be able to apply that perspective more broadly because there was so much value in saying that, like, wellness should actually feel good. It shouldn't be punishment.
Yeah. You want to you want to drink the drink and enjoy it, drink the green, drink and enjoy it and not screw it. Yeah, I totally get that. Absolutely.
And so then what happened, like did you guys go out and raise money? Was this startup capital involved that you guys have? I mean even at twenty three I didn't have any savings that's for sure. What did you guys do.
Yeah. So I, I had a little bit of savings because I had been working at a fancy tech startup and I was like, I'm one of those people that's like obsessively frugal. I would be I would tell my coworkers about like my grocery budget of like fifty dollars a week maybe like how are you living?
Like tuna noodles.
Yeah, I was like very from an early age, which is interesting. I hadn't really revisited that. But once I was making like a real salary, I was like, oh my God, I only have to pull out like two thousand dollars a month, which is like I think a thousand bucks was going toward my half of the rent and the other thousand was like anything else. And so I did have a little bit of savings, not a ton. But so if and I, I think we maybe just put like a couple thousand dollars into it total between the two of us and just went with it. To be honest, we didn't really know anything about investors. The only time we'd heard about investors was through Isa's family. And they have like the opposite of an investor involved business. Like they they started pouring candles in their garage and now. Years later, they have this very successful business that they've scaled very slowly and very profitably the whole time, so they always told us like, no, don't ever get investors. Like, it's a terrible idea. So we were like, yes, we're going to be the two of us. We're just going to sell some. You see what happens as long as we can pay our rent. And that was the plan.
They like the definition of bootstrapping a brand. And we're also like, yeah, that I've worked in a high growth tech startup. So maybe like maybe I want to power it up.
Yeah.
What's interesting, though, is I think my experience at that startup also kind of turned me off of venture capital a little bit because that was really true. Classic like tech v.c and.
It just I didn't.
Gold has always been and the point of it was always to have something that was very close to me and I saw what a business looks like when it got, like incubated right out of the gate and then raised a lot of venture money. And it just always felt like it wasn't it felt like the founder didn't have the ownership that they wanted to have the level of just complete like there was. There are always other cooks in the kitchen.
Yeah. And someone pulling the puppet strings.
Yeah. And so, I mean, that's not always the case and we'll get into that. But like I to start out, we were very much like, no, we don't like I'm not going there. We just wanted to have fun and make a product that people would like and we didn't need a whole bunch of money to live off of. Our plan was not to, like, figure out how to build a multi-million dollar. Well, it was like it was not even remotely in a far off corner of my brain.
That's so cool that you were like, yeah, we're not really, like, thinking that big right now, but then it grows into that and it becomes this huge thing that you wake up one day and you're like, oh, shit, look what we did.
And I don't mean to say that in like, you know, I think it's such bullshit when people are like, yeah, I don't know, I just like started with five hundred dollars.
And the next thing I knew, I had this multi-million dollar company. There were steps and you made conscious decisions. Right.
So there was a certain point that we reached.
Which I think was like one year in where investors started to reach out and they started to kind of paint this picture for me, like think bigger. What if this was a multi million dollar company? What would you do? What would that look like? And it was literally the first time that I had considered it. It wasn't I wasn't thinking about like, oh, I'm going to build, like, the glossier wellness. So there was a moment there where I really kind of got put on that, like, turn gold into a CPG venture backed startup track. But ultimately, I just it didn't feel right for me at that time. It felt like too early to be jumping into that because we had started as a bootstrap brand. I felt like I needed more time to really see that out before I brought other folks in. So we kind of just let it grow organically. But we were very tactical about growth once that once we got to kind of that one year mark because we were thinking about, OK, we want to build out a team. So it wasn't like, OK, I just woke up and it was big and I had no idea. But it definitely wasn't like our plan from day one.
Yeah. And I imagine as well, like building a brand that's going to be stocked in retailers around the world and that kind of thing. You also have to have cash flow to be able to pay for orders and pay for the manufacturer to produce these these huge quantities. And I was reading you stopped in places like Sephora and Urban Outfitters and Group. And like I imagine these are the kinds of brands who are placing huge, huge orders of your product. So since that time that year, has it evolved that you've had to take on investment from other people or have you thought about or have you taken on business loans or something like that?
Right. We do a mix of things right now. So we just closed actually a very, very teensy tiny angel round from a few folks, which was like just a nice way to build out a little bit of cushion. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Which is great because it's like like you're saying, it's a cash flow game. So even if you're profitable at the end of the year, there are moments when you just spent like fifty thousand dollars on product and you haven't sold it yet and you don't want to be at zero in the bag. So that was really helpful. We didn't really have to give up much equity for it because we raised a pretty small amount. And then outside of that, we've done a lot of like fairly short term working capital loans. We've also like when we had our first big purchase order, which was like, I don't know, like five thousand dollars or something like that. We had friends and family factor of that agreement for us. So they would put up the five grand and then we would pay them back like, I don't know, like fifty one hundred dollars or something like that.
Once that retailer paid us a few months later. So when it was in its early stages, we could really leverage friends and family for like small checks like that as it's gotten bigger. Now, having that small equity raise is really valuable. And we're also now exploring all of these different options because there's so many now, like there's so many different places that you can get like working capital or like inventory funding or all these pieces. So I am very open to raising more money from investors, but I want to be very thoughtful about doing what's truly right for the business and not just sort of whatever is the trending solution at the moment. Because, I mean, we've seen this crazy fall out of a lot of these, like over funded, venture backed brands that were like the industry darlings two years ago when I first started talking to investors. So I'm very hesitant to kind of just do whatever the people are telling me to do because like two years ago, they were telling me to raise ten million dollars and now they would never tell me to do that at this stage.
Yeah, I imagine like the conversations from two years ago to now would be so vastly different based on the landscape. What was your experience like going into those meetings? And as a woman, as a black woman, what were the conversations like and how was the experience?
Yeah, it's a really good question, I mean, I think that I came into the space as the female founder narrative was really blowing up, so I don't think I ever had much trouble on that front because whether it was coming from a genuine place or not, investors were very aware of the fact that they needed to bring in female founders. So that was kind of a done deal, I think, also.
That applied to some extent to me being a black woman, but what was interesting is I found that it was very hard to get people to close. And I noticed that like.
People would say that my business, which was like profitable revenues doubling every year. One hundred plus retailers, including Sephora, whatever, they would say that we were too early. But then I would see that they had invested in a pre revenue business from a white woman founded Brand. So in the moment, like, I would have these I would have these really great conversations right there. Superexcited, they're very enthusiastic, but they couldn't pull the trigger on me. And it kind of took me a while to really fit with the fact that part of that was because I'm black founder and there's just more for me to have to prove compared to the average white founder. I am very interested to see what is going to shift now in the landscape now that there is such an over response to trying to bring more diversity, specifically black voices into entrepreneurship, definitely had a lot of investors reach out in the past two weeks.
I can say that must be a bad feeling to to be like, hey, I didn't hear from you like a month ago. It's good. I mean, but it's really awesome. But then it must be strange. I was reading your article that you wrote for the Huffington Post about, you know, it's a strange time for black owned businesses at the moment. And there was something that you wrote that was in my mind and in it something like it can be challenging to separate the profound from the performative. And I was like, I imagine that's like an interesting thing to wrap your head around. What if the experience has been for you?
You know, it's interesting, I, I read. I can't remember who said this, but someone, a black woman was talking about this and she said and the question that she was asked was like, do you think that these people are actually being sincere or are they just making these pledges and whatever because they have to?
And she said, I don't care if they're being sincere or not as long as they're doing it. I don't if we're getting black people where they need to be, where they've always deserve to be, but where they've been held back from being able to get to, I don't care if a white person is doing it because they feel like it's just going to look good or like they have to do it, which I thought was a really interesting point that like at the end of the day, a lot of these initiatives are around like folks in power doing what they know they have to do, as opposed to really feeling it deeply that it's the right thing. But at the end of the day, if you get a couple of black people on the executive board of a company, they're going to be the ones to do it fully with their heart. And they'll hopefully encourage the non black folks around them to see that perspective a little bit more deeply and understand it. But maybe that first step is inherently a little bit superficial and maybe we kind of have to say, OK, well, I'm not congratulating you on this because, like, you should have done this long time ago, but this will create momentum towards positive change.
Yeah. And from being something that could be perceived as a shallow moment can be an authentic change and authentic difference in culture and business. Yeah, yeah, exactly, I want to talk about some of the milestones that you've had in your career. I was reading that you were the youngest black woman to be stalked by Sephora. You've also been bulb's 30 under 30. You've had this amazing track record and you just you're really young. It's so cool, so impressive. And I want to talk about how you've kind of grown into this entrepreneurial woman.
Oh, yeah, it's interesting because people often ask me, like, are you celebrating these wins, like when it's like thirty or thirty or whatever? And I'm like, no, I just went right back to work. And I think that maybe a part of that is unhealthy. Like, I should pause and say, like, yeah, you really did that, but.
I think.
And maybe this is just consistent for founders, like my eye is always on the next prize and it's not so much like a prize for me, but it's a prize for gold and the team of people that are now working to build it, which is so cool to me. Like, you know, this company was me and my boyfriend for like a very long time. And to now have, like, multiple people who are like standing beside us and just as enthusiastic about it. And that's like, if you were going to ask me, what's the most exciting thing about this? It's like that scene these other people come in and carry this with us is so cool. So I think I really spend a lot of time celebrating their wins. In the end, the team's wins more than I do like my own personal ones. Yeah, I think. But I mean, I guess to answer your question, though, about this journey to this point. Right. I think I've always had that entrepreneurial sense in me and I've always wanted to have a platform to share my voice. I've always been sort of a nurturer and a leader. So it's exciting for me to be able to speak out about accessibility and wellness, about exclusivity and entrepreneurship. That's really, really cool. So I think that those were always. I never had a very clear directive as a child. This is what I'm going to do, but I think all those things were always in me and now I have this incredible channel, positive channel to unleash those energies and support a change in the world.
Yeah, absolutely. And you have also just such an amazing community.
It seems like you've got this posse of people who are just so so therefore it when I was looking through your personal Instagram and your brand Instagram, I really felt that.
They're incredible, like I, I, I'm not over it, I could do a whole podcast just talking about those guys, they're the coolest. I see them like I did an Instagram post on Gold's Feed yesterday or something like that. And someone asked a question about like, hey, like I want to make that moksha loaf recipe that you guys posted. Can I sub in, like, honey for maple syrup? And someone else responded. I was like, yeah, I did this. And they were like things like credible so on it and so excited. I just it's I love it.
That's the thrilling part. And that's probably where you are like, yeah, I can put myself on the back right here because you guys now talk between each other. That's really cool.
Yeah. That kind of leads me to the next set of things that I love to talk about on the podcast, which is marketing in general and how you find your customers in the beginning and how you also then shift from that beginning pool of kind of loyal people who found your brand, discovered you and have been loyal since to now fast forwarding where you're acquiring at scale. Yeah.
So we are still very early on in our customer acquisition journey, I would say, because we've been largely self funded, we've really lied on organic word of mouth, but sort of like I think what we've done over time is we've started to guide that organic word of mouth because we found that it's so effective and it's really affordable. So we just kind of create programs to encourage folks to share with their community. We are starting to run ads soon. We were supposed to start them like a couple of weeks ago. But then like this whole crazy thing happened with support. Black business and gold blew up and we sell through all our inventories.
That's amazing.
It's a great problem to have, but our ad agency keeps checking in with me every week and is like, hey, are you ready to start the product? I'm sorry. I don't know if that's the topic. But so, you know, we started off just like word of mouth. We had an Instagram. I was like all I had the wherewithal to do. And we found that over time, folks became interested in our brand and they wanted the opportunity to they wanted to join this community that was sort of like organically growing. And so we ended up creating an ambassador program which has been extremely, extremely successful for gold. So I don't know, we started off with but now we have like seventy five people that rotate through on a quarterly basis on our ambassador program. And we really just kind of welcome them into this inner circle and they get some perks. But mostly it's like that community peace and that belonging.
And like we found out recently that they have like a whole group chat, like they're all sorts out of. Oh, God. Exactly.
Exactly. But so they are really incredible at sharing, like, hey, this is my favorite product. This is what I like to do with it, whatever. And we're really for the investors, we really tend to recruit like everyday girls, not people with like thousands and thousands of followers, people who are just sharing their real life with their real friends and like maybe like a couple of hundred people who follow them outside of that, who found them, whatever. And their engagement is incredible. And they're so good at creating that content. And then that spurs the folks in our broader community who aren't ambassadors to also want to join in and share their favorite martial recipe and things like that. And so it's really this very organic sharing opportunity. Typically, the past couple of days have been so weird. So like our feeds being a little bit different, but typically our food is like almost just like one hundred percent UGC. And so I think folks are like really excited to like tag us and see if they like getting our stories or get on the field. And like, it's just it's very it's extremely collaborative and that's been extremely valuable for building the brand and building out that early stage acquisition at a very cost positive rate.
Yeah, well, it sounds like a really nice little community to be part of. And so, like, do you pay them to be ambassadors or do you like how do they like how does it work?
Yeah. So they basically get they get like a welcome shipment of product. It's not necessarily every product though. They get like whatever maybe what's new or like our favorite standbys, whatever. And then they get a gift card to the site on any given month that they make at least one sale. So as long as you drive at least one person with your link to make a sale, then they get a gift card to the site that's equivalent to about one product. So basically they're able to as long as they're active and sharing, they're able to get a lot of gold goodies for free or at a massively reduced price point. But it's not like we're not like showering them with gifts. We're not like paying them thousands of dollars. It's very organic. And I think that's important because the point of it is not like I'm going to pay you a shit ton of money so that you'll say something, because then whatever you say is going to be.
So it's going to feel like such a transaction. Yeah, it's going to be like a product that you just genuinely want to use month on month. So if you like, hey, I actually want to tell you guys about this like and I want to be able to get more products because I love it.
Yeah. I mean, when these people rotate out of the program, they keep buying like they're not like, oh, well, I just did it because I was getting it for free. They're literally like their customers. And that's often times now where we're recruiting people from like they've bought a few times from us and then we're allowing them to join the ambassador program. So we really I don't want to create these sort of weird levels between like the ambassadors, which are these super fancy people with like tens of thousands of followers or whatever. And then like everyone else, like the ambassadors are our customers. Our customers see themselves in our ambassadors. And so that content is so relatable and it really works.
Yeah. One hundred percent I've wanted to ask you about, like, you know, when you have your retailers and I think you mentioned before, you got like one hundred plus retailers who stalk the brand new in the early days. How did you make sure that people were actually going in and buying those products so that the retailers would keep ordering through your products? Because I imagine you could just like get a stock is down on board. But then if no one knows by product and no one buys it, then they're like, OK, well, that didn't sell through. Yeah. Do you have to have a strategy to that?
You do. That's also such a good question, because I think that a lot of folks, maybe even myself included in the very early days, you say like, oh, like I'm in this retailer now. So like, here's a million dollars for me. Right. And meanwhile, it's like, no, no, no, you have the shelf. But now it's your responsibility to make sure that inventory turns and you need to create a reason for the buyer to not just replace you with something else.
And in the beginning, we really took anything that came our way. So like any retailer that reach out to us.
And most of it was that way, we didn't really we were still working on our full time jobs in the very beginning, like there was no time for us to do a lot of heavy outreach. So a lot of it was coming in inbound. And anyone who reached out to us would say, oh, yeah, we'll put it on the shelf as long as it's not like totally not a fit. But there were some times where we were working with, like a large ish retailer and it wasn't really selling. And then I remember we actually like we flew out to L.A. to go visit all their stores and it wasn't merchandised. Well, they had it because it wasn't just this was a beauty store, but because it wasn't ingestible and this was so new. This was still like maybe early. Twenty, eighteen, twenty, seventeen. So beauty as well as very new concept, they had it merchandized next to like chips and candy and stuff like that, like the little fun stuff near the register. So there was no like and there was no shelf talker. There was no there was no context for the customer to even understand what they were looking at, which was actually like a tumor plan that they should put in, like their morning smoothie or like make a latte with to help their skin glow. And so we really did our best to try to get them on board, but then also when we talk to the staff.
I actually remember, like the manager of one of those stores trying it and being like, yeah, like I like McDonald's, like this is not like my thing.
And I was like, it's not going to work. I feel like a little shit.
Well, and sometimes that's just the case, right? Like if the team is not on board and they don't care about what you're selling and they don't even like it, you're not.
It's really hard. Yeah.
Yeah. And so luckily, I mean, they placed a big order and we got paid off of that. And I think they just never sold through it because they never put the love into making it happen. And there was only so much that we could do as at the time a team of two, like we didn't have like these like salespeople to just like come in and work it. So I think there is like. There is a point where I think if you have to spend tons and tons of money getting your product to sell in that retailer, it might not be a fit and it might just not be a fit right now. Maybe you're a little ahead of the curve. And what often happens is the buyer is very on trend. But then like the consumer or like the store staff is like even just like six months behind that. Right. So but then there's that lag and your new product hits the shelves. And the people who work in the store, like, what the fuck is this?
Yeah. Yeah, they've got to have the education to.
Yeah. And so I think brands can do a lot for that education. But there also just comes a point where it's just like it's not even profitable to keep sending someone to educate a constantly rotating staff that like, isn't super excited about your product.
Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts there. I hadn't even thought about the turnover of staff. So you have a great manager of the store and then if that manager of the store leaves, then one. Oh, wow. Yeah, crazy. And what about like did you ever have to do like point of sale fliers or things for the customer install.
Yeah, I mean I think that shelf talkers are super, super valuable, just like some cute little postcard that like the store can put like in like a little like stand up thing and what do you call those things.
But we got it like just something simple.
You mean people don't need like you don't want to.
Customers, it really just depends on the store experience, right? So let's think about, like the little indie shop that you go to versus like this mass retailer when you're in the little indie shop, it's all about discovery. You're taking your time, you're picking things up, your reading the story. So it's also more of an opportunity to share more information. But like in the mass retailer, there are like thousands of products. You're literally just here for toothpaste and somehow, like. This other product has to catch your attention and draw you in very quickly, so I think the way that you strategize really depends on where you're sitting and what that customer is expecting from you.
Yeah, and I imagine, like for you in particular, your branding is part of that strategy because you have this amazing, colorful, bright, eye popping packaging that I really, really love.
It looks so great. I was watching one of your unboxing videos of pulling out the little sachets, and it looks really good.
And we just you and I do like all the well, it's mostly but I assist in the design process for all the packaging. And we just did a big redesign of all of our law tables. And so I'm glad that it's been well received so far.
Wow. Yeah, definitely five stores for me.
What advice do you have for women who want to start a business or have a big idea?
I always recommend that.
People really think about why they're starting this business and what their goals are for it. As I spoke to you earlier, this wasn't necessarily something that I was as clear on in the beginning. It can evolve. It's OK.
But like you should have a sense of whether or not you're trying to. I don't know, like bake cookies and sell them on the weekends or you're trying to, like, have a massive startup that employs hundreds of people and you don't like you, you don't have to and you really shouldn't overly analyze how you're going to get there from the very beginning. But with that plan in place, you can much more easily navigate the questions that are going to come up around, like, how am I going to figure out cash flow? Is that going to be investors or is it going to be taking a loan from my uncle with an extra 10 grand in the bank? Right.
And I find that, like, so often people get really stuck on questions like that. But like, I just don't know what to do. But oftentimes the answer fits in what you're actually hoping to do in the long term and where you see the business going. So I think if you can start with that, that will really help to inform all the decisions, all the little decisions that you're going to have to make over the next several years.
Yeah. Revert back to your original. Kind of like that's the end goal. How does my answer. Go on to that. Exactly. Oh, thank you so much, I love that advice. We are up to the six quick questions that I ask to every woman. Ready? Yes, great. Number one is what's your why?
Uh, accessability. Getting your products accessible to everyone.
Yeah, I mean, and it's not even just the products, it's.
It seems to be it's revealed itself as a guiding mission throughout my life, whether it's mentoring earlier stage founders who are looking for advice on how to get started or thinking about how to take wellness products into the 20 to 30 dollar range and not the like 50 to 70 dollar range. I just think that's the future.
Yeah, I agree. Official number two is what's the number one marketing moment that's made your business, pop?
Oh.
Number one, marketing moment, something that's really worked for you guys, where you've woken up one day and been like, wow, that really kicked, but that did well, honestly, the past two weeks of this movement to support black owned businesses has been ridiculous.
The level of visibility and attention and enthusiasm and new customers that we've acquired it like we literally 10 hour business overnight and sustained it, which is a little scary.
It's so cool. It's crazy.
Look at what really went to the point where, like, I was like Kourtney Kardashian was like listing us off and I'm like Demi with her, like saying thanks so much. She's like, oh yeah. I'm like, what is happening?
Oh my God, that's incredible. I mean, it's ridiculous. Wow.
It really like all of a sudden I'm like my fave like one of my favorite tennis players was like shouting. I was like, what? So that which was really just kind of being there and being ready for it, being known as a black owned brand and having, I think.
Broad market fit like we're a black owned brand, but like anyone can use our products, so if you are a non black person trying to support a black owned business and you're looking for something that'll work for you, gold is a great fit. So I think we kind of were in the right place at the right time. So we didn't like we didn't feed anything to make that happen. But just like all of our hard work over the past three years. But that has by far been the most explosive moment of our business thus far.
I think I could make another explosion like that for like a true step change in the way that your business has grown, like literally overnight. It's just so incredible. Amazing. Question number three is where he hung out to get smarter.
Oh, I like to.
Talk with other female founder friends, I like to talk a lot with Isa's family because they're entrepreneurs and they've been at it for so long. And so even though they have at this point a very different business from ours, they just understand those like universal life lessons of like how do you deal with, like, someone who's copycatting you or like how do you deal with a super angry customer who's just totally cannot be calm down there like these universal things? That doesn't matter if you're doing online sales or wholesale. They just come with experience. And so I find it really valuable to talk to someone who's like twenty years and it's like, oh yeah, don't worry about it. Here's how you handle it onto the next.
And like I remember this in 20 years time, like you don't let it get you down. Yeah. Perspective is is very valuable. Oh I love that. How nice that have them as a bit of a sounding board. That's really lucky. Number four is how do you win the day and that's around your A.M. and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and fulfilled and successful in life.
I love a good routine. Nothing gives me more satisfaction in my life. I am very much a morning person, so I wake up very early like five or six usually. And I always try to start the day with like two big glasses of water because I always wake up dehydrated. And the easiest thing to do is just like drink a bunch of water then and then you're good and you just need to keep drinking water at a normal level instead of like otherwise. I just feel thirsty all day. I'm thirsty right now, so I don't have any water. Why does tons of water right in the beginning of the day and then Monday through Friday, pretty consistently I make a smoothie for myself and for you say, and the basis of it is always the same. There's like celery and lettuce and like some frozen fruit. But like, I'll switch it up a little bit. And that's great, too, because it's super hydrating. And you also have gotten all your nutrients, all your veggies, all your fiber and that kind of like takes a little bit of the pressure off for the rest of the day, in my opinion. Like, it's not like, oh, I had a smoothie I'm going to let loose, but like, I just feel like, OK, if I don't eat, like, more super nutritionally dense foods, I still am going to feel really good.
So that's kind of my morning situation. Evening. I try to.
Once I log out of my computer, whatever time that is really just be done, like not get back on my phone and check email or anything like that. I'm also just not a night time worker. I know a lot of people do their best work at 11 o'clock at night, and that's not me. So I'm pretty good about like. Just log off, help with cooking dinner. He's the he's the chef in the house, not me. And then just like I don't usually just, like, zoned out to Seinfeld or something, just like something so light and simple and like.
Yes, I'm a bit like I also live by a green juice every morning, I just love having as much green things as possible. And even though I eat a lot of veggies for lunch and dinner, I also just feel like, OK, no matter what, if I had that juice. Yeah, I'm good.
Yeah, exactly. So like, if it ends up being like, oh shit, I don't have time to really like make a lunch, I'm just going to have like a rice bowl with some pickles. I'm not like, you know, because it's not even like a wellness Shamie thing because I think that gets a little weird. But it's just like I just need fiber. I need it.
Meanwhile, Super Bowl with pickles is like literally that's heaven.
I'm without a doubt about that.
Now I'm thinking about that question number five is if you only had one thousand dollars left in your business bank account, where would you spend it?
There have been so many days, like that's like not a faraway dream for me. That was like very recently.
I would spend it on a team and I know it wouldn't go that far, but like having someone who can even just part time help me get through emails or anything like that to make me more effective is so valuable.
And that's often that's not necessarily like a super expensive salaried person, but just like making yourself more efficient so that you can go in and do the work. And I'm used to like I, I worked for free for gold for a very long time, and now I still work for gold, almost for free, but.
I think I'm happy to do that, I'll work around the clock if I have to. So if I can just make myself a little bit more efficient so that I can get it done.
Great, great. Love it. Get the admin sorted. Yes. And the question, though, is how do you deal with failure?
Uh.
Failures, tough man like you can say all the nice things about how it makes you stronger and you move past and whatever, but like when you really do feel like you failed, it's hard to not feel angry and ashamed. I think that my definition of failure has really shifted over the past couple of years with gold, like the things that used to really get me upset, like, oh my God, a production run is ruined or something like that, I'm like, oh, that's not deal. We can figure that out. That's not a failure to me anymore. That's just like the usual. So I think I've kind of strengthened that muscle of dealing with crisis, but something that really feels like a failure, like man like we tried out.
This thing, and it didn't work out. I think it's totally natural to be like, man, that sucks and acknowledge that it sucks and not just be like, no, we're just going to push through it. You well, obviously, that's what you you don't have a choice, but I think it's OK to like to sit with it and feel it.
Yeah. Natural. Yeah. And accept it. Wow. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. This was for you. I really appreciate it.
Oh I have the best time. It was a really great way to start my day.
Oh great. Love that.