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Episode 6 - Mariana Bettencourt of Sparkl.pt #backcatalogue

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Welcome to the Canopy Founder Friday series.

In Episode #6 of our back catalogue series we are joined by Mariana Bettencourt who is founder and CEO of Sparkl.pt

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianabettencourt1/

● Moving from corporate life to startup 
● Winning the Lisbon Challenge and raising seed funds 
● Being a Founder and the pressures it can take on your personal life 
● Having a passion for beauty & building a brand 
● Being in business with your best friend 
● Dealing with Covid19 as a beauty on demand business

Share in her gifts of wisdom and experience & join us as we seek to discover what makes this inspiring founder tick.

Co hosts Stewart Noakes, Silvia Silva, Pedro Guimaraes, Prabha Rathinasabapathy, Tijana Momirov

Note: this episode was first recorded as a webinar in April 2020 and converted to a podcast so we could all enjoy it away from our screens.

#neverstoplearning #followyourdreams #tribe

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Founder Friday podcast series from Canopy, where we interview inspiring entrepreneurs and innovators about their experiences and seek to find out what makes them tick. This series was recorded live as a webinar and then converted into a podcast so we can all enjoy it away from our screens. All right, let's dive into this episode.

SPEAKER_02:

Here we are live and unleashed at a different time to that which published. We just realized that there's been a problem with the calendar. So apologies to anybody who was scheduled to look at this at two o'clock today. And here we are at one o'clock doing our thing. And so, you know, but it's great to kind of have Mariana here and to capture a little bit of her story and everything. So say hello to everybody, Mariana.

SPEAKER_05:

Hi there. How are you?

SPEAKER_02:

We're good. We're good. So glad to have you here. And I know you've watched some of these Founder Fridays and stuff before, but the whole essence of these things is trying to regularly capture founder stories and insights and really what makes people crazy enough, idiotic enough to be a founder of a startup and go through all this stuff. So it's wonderful to kind of get your insights on this and your story. For those people that maybe don't know you, whoever they are, I don't know, certainly not the Portuguese market who's watching this today, but why don't you say a little bit of what sparked is and your journey so far. And then we'll start to ask some more questions.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, so before Sparkle, I used to work for L'Oreal as a digital marketing director. This gave me some experience and unfair advantage and deep insights into the beauty market. And it was while working there that I spotted an opportunity and a gap. So in 2016, I left the company and started working this idea. At the same time, one of my best friends was also quitting her job and she was looking for something new and fresh. And at a party, I think, at her place, I shared the idea with her and she immediately said, I like it and I totally understand it. So let's do it. So now we are two female founders. Sparkle does what Uber and Deliveroo do with food, but we do with beauty services. So we deliver beauty services at your doorstep. More. We started in 2017. We started then connecting beauty professionals to clients and keeping a fee on each percentage. Started with nails. Then we developed... It had to go for hairstyle, makeup, waxing, massages because people want everything at home. They don't want only nails. And what can I say more about Sparkle? We are 70% B2C, but we also work as a B2B, as an end, as a B2B2C in hotels, events, corporate events, blah, blah, blah, bridal things. And I think it is that. We have a huge opportunity because we had the advantage of being the first movers in Portugal. Obviously, as any other startup, this helped a lot. So I guess it's this about Sparkle.

SPEAKER_02:

So take us back to the beginning, right? So there's you and Filippa, you and a good friend. You are both in like corporate jobs, doing other things. You're both married. Filippa's got kids going on as well. Like, can you make a decision to go into a startup? Now that's a pretty scary decision for a lot of people, but with the kind of things that you've got going on around you right there, very scary. So how did you both make the leap of faith?

SPEAKER_05:

I think we are both emotional a lot, although we are different emotionally. We are still both very emotional. We didn't think about it. It wasn't very rational. It was just we knew there was an opportunity in the market. And we've seen this happening in more developed countries such as the US or UK in terms of beauty penetration. When I say more developed countries, it's in regards beauty penetration and beauty habits. So I thought it was an opportunity in Portugal. We were going through a really great phase in terms, economically speaking, very positive with a lot of tourism. So it was the right moment to do it. But

SPEAKER_02:

these are all like really rational things that you're talking about there.

SPEAKER_05:

I don't know. We felt it. It was like we felt it. We had to do it at the moment.

SPEAKER_02:

And so... I mean, that relationship with Felipe, obviously, you know, I know you both and see you together. And, you know, I really respect and admire that relationship that you've had through all the good times and the bad times. But going into business with your best friend, was that not like super scary? You know, I could lose everything in this one moment, the business and the relationship and all that kind of stuff. Or did it not even feature?

SPEAKER_05:

You know, Felipe talked a lot about that. I didn't. I was like, come on, we are friends since we are 15 years old. I was seeing a picture because it's her birthday on Monday. And I was looking at a picture. We are really tiny. I wanted to show you this. And we just work as sisters. I don't know. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we hug. Sometimes we cry. But at the end, the good thing that happened was over and over is that if we have a fight in the office, it stays in the office. Afterwards, we can go and have drinks. We have fun. We go have dinner. We travel together. We go out. I don't know. It's crazy. It's kind of, we totally, and now, the really tough part is one we can develop further, but was when I decided that I had, that I was starting being toxic for Sparkle. by the end of last year. And I decided I had to look for a job. I wanted to keep Sparkle. I still believe in Sparkle. I'm working twice as much as I was working before. That was the crazy part and the breaking point where I thought maybe we would lose our friendship. But then again, the other day, I don't know, Flippa called me and she said, I miss you so much. We need to be together. I have friends calling me saying this. And I miss also my friends. And it is great to feel that everything is still okay. And we always manage and we find a way to work together. One way or another, it works out. So it's kind of like a marriage. You have to invest. In every relationship, you have to invest, right? For me and Filippa, we have invested so much in each other in difficult moments that life has, even before Sparkle. Filippa lost her father. I'm a really protective person. So when that happens, I was always there. And I've been there and she's been there for me in the tough times. So I think there's nothing that can break this relationship. And we think, although we are complementary, and we are really different, we have different personalities. She's more shy. I'm shy as well, but it's different. I don't know. She's more detailed. I'm not. We complement each other. It's not compliment. How do you say it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, compliment is a good word.

SPEAKER_05:

At the end, it's a bond that cannot be broken. We've learned that. We think alike when it regards money. So we are not like, I won't risk, I won't ask for a loan. She won't ask for a loan as well. We are here because our business is cash flow positive always. And that is one good thing because I think I couldn't be with a person that risks too much. I see other startups doing it like it's tasty or they risk a lot. They have moments where they have debt they had debts of 4,000 euros or more, 400,000 euros or more, I couldn't do that. It's like, no, and Felipe is the same. So I think in a way we are, they're fine.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a really interesting set of observations you have there. You know, as a reflection for me, this week I joined another board and one of the things we discussed this week was the fact that we do need to have our first row to make sure we all know how to get on properly because it's like if you're not trying hard enough or it's not important enough, you're never going to row, right? But when things get a little bit tough, there's going to be a clear difference of opinion and sometimes those get quite heated, especially when you're emotional and passionate people, as a lot of us are in this stuff. because you're putting a lot into it, right? But how you recover from that row and how you, when you say continue to invest in each other and stuff, it's huge. It's a huge part of the dynamics. A lot of founded teams actually come from very diverse backgrounds together on an idea. They've never had a row or an investment in each other before they start that. It's a strange concept to then have that marriage with people you didn't know very well before, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So, I mean, I learned a lot from you guys when we first met you, you know, in terms of what was this market, me obviously not being your target demographic and stuff. And we did all that time and motion stuff with the nails and, you know, the professionals and learning all that stuff in your apartment and that. So... When you began, you started to look at everything beauty, and then you went down to nails only, and now you're kind of climbing back up again. How have you settled on the kind of market niche? Are you just being broader and broader and broader?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, we started with moms and women, but our target market is women. It can be in the future, man, but it's working women, okay? So it's broader right now, but it's working women. This is for working women. It's impossible to be, like, we are, you know, girls are crazy. We are close, and people are calling us. Please come to my place. I'm going to tell you. Now, during corona? Right now, during corona, I'm going to give a really bad example. I know, okay? So I'll assume this from the beginning. Last weekend, I decided to color my hair. You know, I'm blonde, I'm dark blonde, but I'm blonde. I worked for six years at L'Oreal and I failed the tone, okay? I used the tone in myself that would turn my hair green. I'm not joking, this is true. And then I called a friend, an ex-colleague, a colleague that worked at L'Oreal at the time with me. And I said, Marina, I fucked up with this. I just wanted to cover a little bit of gray and I totally fucked up. She said, what was the number you put on your hair? And I said, seven. Between 10 and seven, there's a really huge gap. So you have a problem right now because your base goes green with that color. I had to call Sparkle to my place. Two days ago, a girl came to correct the mistake that I did. And every woman is like, you're locked down. You can't be with friends. Your self-esteem is really low because you cannot do anything. You exercise, you eat, you take care of the... I don't have children, but you take care of children at home. You fight with whatever your spouse or husband or boyfriend or whatever. Um... And you cannot take care of yourself. Well, you can do some routines, blah, blah, blah. But everyone, like people that have gray hair, people that want to do their nails, they're all down right now. This has a huge impact in women and their self-esteem. You need to take care of your inner self, of course, and your brain and your head. But beauty has a lot to do with taking care of our self-esteem. It's an external ritual that... That helps your inner self. So... I had to call a Sparkle girl like two days ago to my place.

SPEAKER_02:

It's so interesting to me. This is like when you first introduced the concept to us and you were explaining the use cases. And the one that always sticks in my head is the idea of somebody getting a waxing or a treatment of some kind before they went to a meeting and getting it done in the car park, I think you said at the time, before going into the office. And I was kind of like, you know, I'm just like, I'm happy to wake up in the morning still having hair, right? It's a very, this is a whole different experience for me. But, you know, your market resonated very clearly with you. I remember when you launched through the Facebook group, you know, and you had the first bookings on the first evening and it was, yeah, incredible journey. And, you know, for some of the startup people watching, you also have taken part in a couple of programs and competitions as well, haven't you, including the Lisbon Challenge?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, we participated in Liz Room Challenge, then we entered in Maze, but we quit it. We were struggling at the time and it was really tough, so we entered the program, but then we quit. Lisbon Challenge was a great experience for us because it's made us we came from corporate worlds we were used to working a lot like working 12 hours per me per day is normal it's a normal thing but we didn't have this mindset of growth and startup and bootstrapping doing things without spending money I remember at the beginning and you must have this you were a great help for us at the beginning and always have been but mainly at the beginning when we wanted to invest in an app or a website. And you kept on saying, yeah, Netflix, but stop. You have so many MVPs that you can use. And I remember that I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

You argued with me so much. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_05:

See, we're emotional. We used to argue with you. Like, I'm so shamed right now. But... Yeah, and then we just launched Facebook and it was, whoa, what happened? What just happened here?

SPEAKER_02:

And your cash flow was positive from the first day, right? Which is

SPEAKER_05:

amazing. From the first day. We only invested the amount of money we had to invest that came from the revenue of those services. So it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, people say, you know, female founders, first-time female, first-time founders, first-time female founders going into programs like Lisbon Challenge. Oh, you do okay. But, you know, you guys didn't just do okay. You came through and you got investment at the end. You know, you were in the top, what, top two, top one for Lisbon Challenge, that cohort, top one. Okay. So what's the secret to that? How did you, not necessarily beat the other startups, but how did you rise through that program to do that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_05:

I'm going to tell you something that is contradictory. I think it was because we had experience in the beauty market, this is obvious, but it was because we already have experience in working. So Flippe worked for 15 years or 14 years in the beauty and luxury segment as a brand manager. I worked, I have been all around, but I worked also for six years in L'Oreal and this gave us an unfair advantage. It was as if we've tried before and tried before and tried before and then we reached that point. sweet points and opportunities we had to grab. We were certain. It came from insights that we saw in the market. Me, as in the beauty industry, by contacting every day with beauty professionals, I understood they were I understood they were needy. They were asking for something like this. And on the other hand, Flippa is a mother and she's married and she has a really tough... I don't know how she manages her day because her husband works a lot as well. And she said, Mariana, if this opens, either if it's Sparkle or another company, I will use it every day. And at the beginning, we started asking a few group of friends, fools and friends, fools and family, I don't know. And we started asking and doing serving monkeys, asking them, like, would they use this? What would be the advantage? And it was all there. Like, it was all there.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's that kind of understanding of the customer, understanding of the market that really took you through?

SPEAKER_05:

I think it was this and my relationship with Flippa. My friendship with her. I

SPEAKER_02:

mean, we've mentioned a couple of times, you know, you're both married and obviously Flippa has children at home as well. And for every business I've been in, my partner, spouse, or Lisa at the moment, you know, it's always very challenging for the other side, right? It's always very challenging for the partners. Is it okay to ask questions about that side of things? Or should we move past that into another question?

SPEAKER_05:

You can ask, but there's a limit that I want. Because I've been through really three tough years. Miguel went through a really tough thing in his life at the same time. I quitted L'Oreal and he just entered the Hollywood movie industry. case that I... It was really tough on us. I can tell you that at the beginning it's really important to have someone if you have family or if you have a husband that understands and supports you. It was... And I gave a lot of interviews, I think, to Portuguese newspapers where I could, where I explained this and I said that if it wasn't for him, I couldn't do it because he was always giving me, we're talking about a really positive, we're talking a special forces guy, okay? He's a special forces guy. And I think if he is a special forces guy and he's done a course in Portugal that only like 90% of people just quit, right? You can imagine how strong he is and how powerful he is in his head. I've lost myself because for me, it wasn't the startup experience that destroyed my marriage. So not the startup, but the ecosystem and everything we had was destroyed. So I wouldn't... I don't want to go further on this. It's a really recent and tough thing for me. But it wasn't easy. But it wasn't only because of the startup. We can manage work. We both worked a lot. He's from the army. He's a doctor. He's a surgeon. So we're talking about people that work a lot. It's not that. I used to work a lot at L'Oreal. It's more than that. It's... And it's not only the startup thing. I think mainly it was the thing he went through together with the struggle of the startup. And that's one of the reasons, not the only one. I gave it, as you imagine, I fought a lot about it. But it was one of the reasons that I needed to find a job by the end of last year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

This is amazing of you to share so much. Thank you. This is a proper founder story. Thank you. It's huge. People sometimes forget that stuff. Isn't it amazing? Look at what everybody's achieving. You don't necessarily see how fast you have to move and all the things going on in the background to make it work. Incredible. So we've had a question come in while we've been chatting here from Pedro, all the way from Al-Fajid, so not too far from where you are now. He asks, which are the levers and constraints you see for expanding your business to other countries? I guess it's an early question, right? Maybe we need to have the corona question first, which is how different is it right now for Sparkle?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, we've changed our business model. during the lockdown. So we are selling products and we are offering virtual makeup sessions and etc. But we believe after the lockdown, we will gain a lot with it. We know that a lot of salons aren't surviving. They are struggling to... Well, they were already struggling to survive. And after a lockdown... as this was, they will be in a lot of depth. And now I'm revealing the secrets of Sparkle, but you asked me what was our main target as a customer, but our main target as a beauty professional is someone that has experience, that has tried to have a business because they need to have that kind of startup while also... But it didn't go okay. So the best professionals we have are professionals that had a salon but

SPEAKER_06:

failed. Okay. They

SPEAKER_05:

don't know what it is to have a business and they have the responsibility to pay their bills because they have debts and they are really experienced. And unfortunately, we're talking about a bad thing, but it will work out fine for us because of that.

SPEAKER_02:

If you're in America, this isn't a bad thing, right? You can't even raise money in America if you haven't screwed up at least one business before. It means you haven't tried hard enough.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. So this is one of the things we think it will work okay, fine or better for Sparkle. The second thing is people will be scared to go into a salon. A hair salon. And if you think about the virus and if you think about the hairdryer and what the hairdryer does with the air in a hair salon, you totally get you cannot enter a hair salon. When we say that, the virus stays several hours in the air floating. It depends on the atmosphere and the air we're talking about. But in hair salons, it's really dense because you have a lot of... artificial products that you use as aerosols or sprays or something. So it's dangerous. And I think people are scared to go into salons and be with other people at the same time. Or if not, at least being in a space that you are not sure is clean. So people are reaching out. We have a lot of new customers that want to pre-book when the government says we can come out from the lockdown. And we have been giving 10% discount to these clients that come and try to put them inside our funnel. And that's why our projections are really cool. Right now, we have good projections.

SPEAKER_06:

It's very good.

SPEAKER_05:

About going abroad. Now is not the time. You can all see that. It will be difficult to move to other countries right now. I think we still have a lot to grow in Portugal. We were supposed to enter in Spain by the end of this year. beginning of January. So let's see, because we also have, we raised money last year. We didn't receive the total amounts. Investors have freezed their investments. So to go abroad, we also need further investments. And so... Right now, I think it's not the time. We'll focus in narrowing down these kind of things that we have been testing, such as selling products, how could it work operationally together with services, if professionals will bring the products to people's homes or not, or if we put it in our app. We have a lot to learn, and I think it's okay. We can survive. We have this concept of... that you have heard, of course, that is the concept of unicorns versus cockroaches. Unicorns are so last season. Cockroaches are tough. They are brave. They are resilient. I'm going to read just a little bit. They are resilient startups that put up successfully with ever-changing conditions of the business world. Usually, founders have put their sweat, blood, and excessive time into it. The goal of cockroaches is continuous growth. profit, and long-term success. We may take longer, but the future is firmer, more secure, and sustainable. So I think Sparkle is a pink cockroach.

SPEAKER_02:

A pink cockroach, very

SPEAKER_05:

good. And that we will survive. And I think investors right now are looking for these kind of startups. And... Yeah, I'm a positive person, Stuart.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think there's a huge place for cockroach startups, especially right now. And the reason they're called that, right, is because the cockroach is the only thing that will survive in a nuclear apocalypse, right? So I think my screen is telling me Sylvia's on. Are you here, Sylvia? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, but can you see me or not really? No,

SPEAKER_02:

just here.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I'm sorry. Hello. I don't know why it doesn't appear to be... We'll

SPEAKER_02:

just drop you out, Sylvia. There's a huge amount of repeat on that. I don't know if you had maybe two sessions running up at once. We'll bring you back in in a minute. So, Mariana, you're still there? You're

SPEAKER_05:

okay? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic. So, what's next for you and what's next for Sparkle?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, next, I think we've tackled slightly this issue, but it is about growing, scaling, adjusting to this new phase, selling products, trying to create a business model around products together with services, and maybe in the next year, expansion into another country, but not this year anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Do you have any vision about when the lockdown is going to finish and things are going to change? Are you planning to three months, six months, 12 months?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, we've done like three P&Ls already, like three projections of the future. So for us, as we are optimistic, and because we are optimistic, we think lockdown will be over by the 2nd of May. Like the government told us we could start. One thing is that, Stuart, we weren't forbidden to provide services. Okay? Everything that could go on demand could continue in Portugal.

SPEAKER_02:

In the home?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. We were with two lawyers looking at the law. And the thing that could be bad for us is that they said we needed to have a distance of two meters from people. But then again, the law wasn't clear. Like we could provide services at home. The guy that comes to solve problems with gas or with televisions or with phones can come in your house and can provide these services because we weren't 100% in lockdown, okay? We're not like Spain or Italy or UK, okay? We still can go out for a run. And we had these services that we could ask at home. And for Sparkle, it wasn't clear for the lawyers that we had to stop. Either way, we thought it was a question of trust. We stopped because we have physical contact. And even if we inspire our services and protocols and what you do in a surgery room, like totally everything is disposable and totally sterilized, we decided we wanted to stop. And even some, like 90% of the professionals wanted to stop. It was a question of trust as well for Sparkle. Once again, the brand has grown with people in a way that they trust us. We enter people's home. We always had these expectations and sterilized kits. And we always had this protocol where they had to wash their hands before they do the service. They had to hygiene the hands of the clients. So it's not like it's everything new for us. But we decided to stop. And it was a decision taken by us. We could continue. And we know of some professionals that continue to receive people at their homes or the other way around. So right now, we believe that in the 2nd of May, we will be able to start providing services. We have been training them with some doctors and nurses, training our professionals to understand the importance of protecting themselves and protecting others. And we will be working on a lot of videos and how to make people understand how careful we are going to be. We are going to do like, we were already doing this when COVID started, when the coronavirus outbreak happens, but we are doing it, now we are doing it much more. At the beginning of May, we are going to start calling people every calling either clients and professionals before the services to make them tell us if they are like, it's a questionnaire where you have to answer like doctors do to see if you're infected or not. And to try to figure out if people are in quarantine, but they want to do a service. We don't want to put our professionals in danger. Neither are their clients. We are going to be really tough on that.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. No, it's an interesting line you have to tread. And I know how obsessive both of you are about the quality and about the focus on the customer and the protection of the professional. So this is a big ask. It's a big time. I don't know if Sylvia is able to join us with reflections. Are you there? Can

SPEAKER_04:

you hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear

SPEAKER_02:

me?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think so. Getting a little bit

SPEAKER_04:

of it. I'm sorry. Sorry for not being able to put the screen on. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you have any reflections or questions for Mariana?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. I would like to know the universe of people that you have on your team. How many people do you work with? How many people rely on your company? Well,

SPEAKER_05:

in-house team, nine. People that rely on our company are 150. Because all of these freelancers, like 50% or 60% of what they earn, and there are some that 90% or 100% comes from Sparkle.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow, so it's a huge impact, the COVID now. Yeah. So hopefully, so all of these people are being trained, like you said, by nurses and doctors? All of them. The 150? All of these. And do you manage to, do you have the investment already for that? We

SPEAKER_05:

have put our team in layoff, all of the team. And that way we could, and we stopped investing in advertising. It's all organic. We have a great thing that is building relationships, either in our team or it's the culture we created around the brand Sparkle or the company Sparkle. For me, culture is one of the most important things to invest. You need to work hard, but you need to play hard as well. And what happened was our team told us they wanted to help us. Either the in-house team or the other team that is the freelancers. They just said, how can we help? Do you want us to do tutorials? You want us to try to sell products and help you sell products? We can arrange a way of doing this together. And what happened was we could save a lot of money. We saved 80% of our budget during this month. And we are going to save the same amount in the next month. And this just gave us a longer runway. And it made us... be able to invest in other things such as having a doctor or a nurse giving training. We have Monday, Tuesday, every day of the week we have a three-hour session with slots of professionals because we want 15 max in these trainings.

SPEAKER_02:

Is this in-person training or is this video training?

SPEAKER_05:

No, it's video training. That's one of the other things we're testing. We always talked about giving training through video because if we want to expand, it would be interesting to see if we could recruit and give training through video or virtually. And we have been recruiting virtually and training virtually as well. We didn't stop our recruitment. Although people went on layoff, they voluntarily, and that's why I'm so keen in working on the culture of the company, They said, Mariana, I don't care. I'm on layoff. I'm in layoff. I don't know if you say in or on, whatever. But I want to help you. I want to help Sparkle. I love what I do. I love the brand. I love our team. Let's do something. So they are voluntarily doing interviews to other professionals. It has been an amazing experience for me. I almost cried twice when we had to have these meetings with professionals telling them that... Professionals, no, but with our team telling them that we had to put them way off. I almost cried because the reactions. I've seen people being fired, and I've fired people. This is not like firing someone, and it's a totally different ecosystem and environment and... This never happened since the 19th century. So I was moved and I grew as a person and I almost cried a couple of times while talking to them.

SPEAKER_06:

Amazing. thank you do you

SPEAKER_04:

have any other reflection yeah I actually I can I can find your your website and everything but if you want to share there I can copy and share with some friends because I'm sure they are looking for they I'm sure in special do you operate in Lisbon or around the country around the country

SPEAKER_05:

like the main cities we have all the services like Lisbon Porto Lisbon Porto and But then like for nails and all the services, but then if you want to do hair, makeup, bridal services, we are all over the country.

SPEAKER_04:

It's very interesting how your business is running now or it's been running because even you didn't know that this could happen to COVID-19. Actually, it's fitting very well in the industry. in this new way of working, isn't it? It is. So I wish you all the best. And we definitely need a business like that nowadays. So all the luck. And if you can share the link here on the... I

SPEAKER_02:

can

SPEAKER_04:

share with my friends because I think they are looking forward. for it.

SPEAKER_02:

If you see extra orders from that over the next couple of weeks, then you know who it was.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you so much for sharing. This is a new opportunity of business, so this can give ideas as well how we can think about opportunities for the new future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks, Sylvia. Thank you. Hey, we've got a Pedro here as well. We have a few Pedros in our tribe. We've got a special Pedro joining us now. So Pedro, what's your reflections or questions for Mariana?

SPEAKER_01:

Hi. First of all, congratulations. I find your business amazing. And what makes it more amazing for me is that it seems like you are a very people-centric founder with a very people-centric business. And I find it incredible. Just a small tip. Would you consider creating a referral link for your community to share and help you on this pre-sale with a 10% discount? Okay, just a tip for the future. Thank you. Give one to Sylvia and she will speed up the movements. And that goes to my reflection, which is, um, Based on your description, I see that coffee actually made you rethink a few things, obviously. And this can create eventually new revenue streams in the end. And I think most important is the ability to increase the bond between you and your team and your customers. And I see you are pretty much focused both on your employee experience and your customer experience, which I find great. Would it make sense to keep exploring this past COVID? I know it's talking about future. It's the worst thing to do now. But since you are so focused on your team, your customers, your community, and these revenue streams, in the end, you could actually own the relationship between your customers and beauty and self-esteem and care and stuff like that. And this could end up adding a lot of new revenue streams or opportunities for you. How do you see this?

SPEAKER_05:

Well... It's

SPEAKER_02:

like the longest question ever, Pedro. It's like the longest question ever.

SPEAKER_05:

As an advisor, I have a former general manager of L'Oreal. He's called Javier Valle. And he's Spanish and he's in Spain struggling a lot right now. And he, like three weeks ago, we were talking and he was saying, Mariana... You need to be the closest ever to your community. I know you are obsessed with this, but you need to go further. If you want my money, I will give you my money for you to just get close to people right now. Offer services. Offer them services. Say that when they return, like one month after COVID, you will offer them services and I'll pay for that.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And I said, Javier, okay, we are already offering something really important. That is, we had 20 in value. The brides have a huge peso, I'm liking the word, on our business. And right now, we have 300 brides for this year. And we have around 100 canceling their weddings. Okay. And they were crying, literally crying. And we offered them... What we did was we did a contest with one of the biggest Portuguese influencers, Pipoca Maisus. And we offered these brides their dress, the photo session, and the services for their wedding when they want to book again or reserve again the dates.

UNKNOWN:

Wow.

SPEAKER_05:

We did a lot of things to try to maintain people with us and to give them, I don't know, to be close to them and to make sure that we are more than just a service provider or someone that connects beauty professionals to clients. So this has been always, this has been since the beginning, an obsession for me in Flippa to create a brand that becomes a love brand. And we did this. This was the moment where communities, such as we are talking about the major top influencers in Portugal. And I can tell you that there are things that I cannot touch because I'm currently working for Sparkle and for one of the biggest retailers in Portugal. But I can tell you that the relationships we built were so strong that they were asking us to help us, like the biggest in Portugal. I didn't have to do anything. They just called us and they said, let's do a live, a makeup live. I will do it. I will call people to be together with Sparkle in this moment. Influencers and actresses kept on asking us questions. to help us. It's crazy. So, in a way, we were doing what Javier was telling us. I don't think we need to offer services for a month. I think we can... We did a lot yet, already. But we did a lot of effort. I don't know if I'm answering your question, but our mindset is focused in putting a lot of effort in creating and maintaining this relationship between all our community. I think I don't know if it's clients, professionals, or... But I don't know if I answered your question. It was so long that I think I lost myself.

SPEAKER_01:

Also, it's considered answered.

SPEAKER_02:

Pedro, you've attended a lot of our Founder Friday interviews. I wonder if you have any reflections for Mariana on what she said so far today.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, actually, I find you... One, I find different the way you position yourself as a pink cockroach, which is great. Congratulations. It's a very interesting way to put it. Second, the human factor makes you different from other startups. I think it comes from the nature of the business and, of course, the nature of the founders. I find you have a very interesting relationship with your founder. It's like very straight bonds. It's unique and it's important for a startup to have a strong team and a strong alignment between the founders and finally I think you're doing pretty much everything that could be done and it's incredible because great ideas are now being like changed by the guys that still have money and want to do something and want to actually to pick a ride from some companies that are doing the right things. So find that those invitations as a compliment and I would say like an incentive to move forward and to keep doing what you do because it's amazing and I think you will actually explode as long as you keep doing the right things with help with people like Stu, which is a great help. I know it from experience and I think at the stage you are reacting quite twice Darwinism. You are being quite adaptative and in the end you can end up really better than you started despite this huge pandemic situation we are facing today. That's what I would say. You

SPEAKER_02:

see your community, it's got some needs for some mail services now too, right? You've got some raving fans over here already. I

SPEAKER_05:

have some friends that have been asking me, shall I shave my hair or not? How do you think that I will look with my hair shaved?

SPEAKER_06:

And

SPEAKER_05:

do the referral thing, trust me, it will help you.

SPEAKER_01:

Just click on the referral link and distribute through your community and they will feel excited because one of the drivers on people motivation it's success it's uniqueness and by doing that to make them feel special part of the community don't do it as I'm helping I'm generating a promo code do it like I love you the worship you have you are special to me I want to offer your friends that you find suitable to the opportunity to have this access to the same to the same privilege and because I like worship I want to offer you this opportunity to offer your friends I would go this way in terms of communication and people like Sylvia I'm sure will be more than happy and I'll do it to my friends also okay it's just a tip

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you for your kind words. I don't know if you realize how important it is to hear those words. As a female founder, I've struggled a lot because this business is for women. And most of the investors, although they are rational, they don't understand the business. It was difficult for us to find the right investors and we struggled a lot because it's difficult for one to understand the

SPEAKER_06:

business.

SPEAKER_05:

But it's huge. Beauty is one of the biggest markets in the world after travel and fashion.

SPEAKER_02:

And there won't be much travel for a while. So I think beauty goes up another notch, right? Yeah. Thank you, Pedro. Thank you for being here. Thank

SPEAKER_05:

you so much. Thank you very much

SPEAKER_02:

for your words. So Tiana, what is your viewpoint on all this? Thank you for being here today.

SPEAKER_03:

Hi, guys. I apologize. I was super late. I just wanted to say that I remember Mariana from one of the demo nights in Lisbon, like live, on site, in real life. And I'm happy to see that the business kept on growing. So since I was super late, I don't know what you guys already covered. I was definitely interested in hearing how the current situation affected the business and if maybe you're thinking about adding some new services that could be done at home that can be useful at these times in addition to the services that are already on the platform? I think you already mentioned this, sorry.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, part of it, yes, but about the new services, no. So what happened was we started selling products. This is something that we had on our top of mind, but not for now. We had a plan to scale until a certain amount of number of clients, and then we would start selling products. Because also of the team, they didn't have enough team to do all of this. Like selling products takes a lot of effort and operational investment that we didn't have. And so, but now as we stopped selling services, we tried, we tested to sell products. And we are learning a lot on that. About new services or about... about launching services. We are going to launch here

SPEAKER_07:

at home. Sorry, thank you so much for letting me jump in. Nice to meet you and really pleased to see you go live today. I'm sorry, I was stuck on a call, so I'm going to have to catch up on the recording. But please tell me, what was the last thing that you said? I was super interested to hear.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I was just finishing to answer a question. Yes, I heard. I was saying that we will launch hair color at

SPEAKER_07:

home. Hair colors.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. We will start doing hair color at home to people.

SPEAKER_07:

Awesome. Awesome. Actually, on that, and because we're all really rooting for your success, I know your business from Stu, and he very early on told me about how great a job you were doing by using Facebook Messenger, for example, very cleverly. And I'm a subscriber to your... I've purchased your services, I get your Facebook messages, etc. Recently, from my Portland, Oregon community in the US, I saw my hairdresser over at there, starting to do some coloring sort of tutorials. And in fact, I think, you know, really, I was asking my hairdressers to do, I was like, you guys should do podcasts or tutorials because, you know, everyone's going to need to cut their hair and some basics like, you know, cutting your own fringe or something just to kind of keep that engagement going. or something, or like you say, selling these extra products to help that. I don't know if you're already doing that, but that's something that would be cool. Well,

SPEAKER_05:

we started looking at Google Trends and we understood that people were struggling with taking their nail polish off, the long-lasting ones, you know, the ones that you cannot use your nail artist to take them off. And we started by creating a kit, a survival kit. They're called survival kits. where you have all the materials and a video tutorial that we send to teach you how to take your long-lasting nail polish off. This was first. Then we understood in Google Trends as well that people were concerned with health and with fitness. And because they are confined to their homes and they cannot move around or go and do a lot of gym or go to the gym, People started being like, you see a lot of people talking on food and how to be healthy at home. People saying in Instagram they won't come out of their door because they're so fat after the lockdown. So we understood why. Body was one of the categories that was interesting for us as well. So we launched a kit with the products that help you get slimmer or to do a massage yourself with some gadgets that will help you. So we went on a lot of trends and what people were looking for and we started launching the beauty box. It's kind of a beauty box that you already have all around the world, but instead of survival kits with the instruments to help you go through this phase. Regarding tutorials, we only did regarding bras. And we didn't do hair color or haircuts because haircuts, well, we have that service. We didn't remember to do that. We should have, it's true. But regarding hair color, we didn't do it because we didn't launch the service yet.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Prabha, do you have any reflections on Mariana and some of the things she shared today?

SPEAKER_07:

Like Tiana, hi, by the way, to everyone. I'm Prabha and have participated before. I'm afraid of asking questions that recover original ground, but I was super interested to hear how you guys were doing in this stage and how you're pivoting. What were the themes? Can you give us some... Can you throw some balls in the air, Stu?

SPEAKER_02:

We've covered a lot of ground today. A lot of ground today. From founder stories to teammate and founder relationships through to the COVID stuff and what's going to happen next. But yeah, it'd be good to get some feedback from you after you've watched the early segments.

SPEAKER_07:

Will do.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks for being here today, Papa. All the way from Aveiro. You see, we've got the whole of Portugal represented, even a little bit of

SPEAKER_05:

Brazil over here. Our headquarters is in Aveiro.

SPEAKER_07:

Is it really? I did not know that. Yeah, it's all in Aveiro. I keep telling you, Stu.

SPEAKER_05:

I

SPEAKER_02:

think you're doing some demo nights in Aveiro, so you might get another call.

SPEAKER_05:

You should. You need to go. It's in Aveiro University. It's incredible. I would move there. Right.

SPEAKER_07:

Well, come and say hi as soon as we're back to a little bit of normal. And we'd love to check it out with you.

SPEAKER_05:

I go there

SPEAKER_07:

several times. We have a team there. We have a lot of team there. Fantastic. Fantastic. You got to let me know when you're next up. And we'll do a demo night for you, too. We'll

SPEAKER_02:

organize it. See you later. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very

SPEAKER_02:

much. So Tiana, I guess last reflection from you and then I've got a cool time on something. So Mariana, at the end, I'm going to ask you for your piece of advice for any first time founder, but let's just get a reflection from Tiana. Anything to add?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, unfortunately, I only joined at the end, so it's difficult to reflect since I was not here to listen, unfortunately, to the whole story. But yeah, in general, my impression is that this is one of the businesses that has a great chance of succeeding under the circumstances. And I'm happy to hear that and keep on following. And if there is anything we can do to help, we are here.

SPEAKER_05:

Thanks,

SPEAKER_06:

Chiara.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you very much. I'll share the code with you for you to use as well. And if you could help me share the discount code, it's perfect.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm not in Lisbon. I'm on the other continent, but thank you anyway. I don't think I will be able to use this right now. But thank you anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

I can share with the family

SPEAKER_03:

before the latest one. Yeah. Okay. Thanks,

SPEAKER_02:

Tiana. See you later. Thank you

SPEAKER_05:

very much. Thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_02:

So Mariana, our time together today has come to an end. Thank you so much for all the sharing that you've done. And I'm in great admiration and got a huge amount of respect for what you guys have achieved and for both you and Felipe as individuals on that journey as well. So thank you for sharing the insights to that with everybody else today as well. So what I'd like to finish with is, you know, your advice. If somebody's watching this and they're a first-time founder thinking, I'm going to go and be an idiot. I'm going to go and start my own company and give it a go. What would you say to them? What's your Mariana advice to them?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, two advices. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I need to open the door. I'm sorry, Stuart. I really need to

SPEAKER_02:

open

SPEAKER_06:

the door. Go, go, go.

SPEAKER_02:

And so now we pause. And thank you, everybody, for tuning in. tuning in to everything today and I hope you'll share the link when we post it a bit later and get Mariana's story far and wide. We've had some really good feedback on these Founder Friday interviews and so glad that we're keeping them going. We've had some amazing founders on this so far and we've kept all of those for access onto Crowdcast so people can access all of those all the way back to, I think, Sanjo from Talview was the first one that we did. Hang on, I'll just put Ariana back on, sound back on. All right, I muted you while you were answering the

SPEAKER_05:

door, so no problem. We are going to launch the masks for people with our logo and they just arrived.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, fantastic. All right. So close us out, Mariana. What's the advice? Two advices.

SPEAKER_05:

Really quick. The most important advice I would say it is to create a good culture in your startup and with your team. The culture you create plays the key role if you are successful or not. either if it is with your founder or with your team. I think it's really important to stop. And for that, you need to keep yourself healthy as well. So these are the two pieces of advice. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And you need to take time for yourself to make sure you are there for your founders or your team. And you need to set the tone. You need to set the tone. And the founder has to be the example. So you need to switch off when you know you need to rest. You need to make your team switch off when you know you need to do it. It's kind of paying attention as if you were in a relationship. That's my piece of advice.

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic. Well, thank you again, Mariana. Really appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02:

Have a great weekend. Have a

SPEAKER_05:

great

SPEAKER_00:

weekend. Thank you for listening to the Founder Friday podcast series. If you've enjoyed this episode, please feel free to rate, review, and subscribe on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. If you'd like to recommend an entrepreneur or innovator for a future edition, please go to our website, www.canopy.community, and tell us all about them. This series is made possible by the kindness of the members of Hashtag Tribe, along with support from our sponsors, Damia Recruitment, CrossFit, poor angels investment, and ideas, spaces, and co-working.

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Stewart Noakes

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