370: 6M Per Year Selling Hair Extensions Without Advertising With Vivian Kaye

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You’re listening to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. Now today I’m thrilled to have Vivian Kay on the show and Vivian is the CEO of Kinky Curly Yaqui where she sells hair extensions and in this episode, we’re gonna learn how she grew her brand to $6 million in top line revenue without paying for advertising. Now before we begin, I wanna thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider that I use for e-commerce

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and it’s crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages, but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10x bigger. Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce, and you can segment your audience just like email. It’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash div. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-I-P-T dot I-O slash div. I also want to thank Clavio, who is also a sponsor of the show.

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Now, are you working around the clock to build the business you’ve always imagined? And do you want to communicate with your fast growing list of customers in a personalized way, but in a way that gives you time to work on the rest of your business? And do ever wonder how the companies you admire, the ones that redefine their categories do it? Companies like Living Proof and Chubbies. Well, they do it by building relationships with their customers from the very beginning, while also evolving in real time as their customers needs change. And these companies connect quickly with their customers, collect their information, and start creating personalized experiences and offers

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And unlike this podcast where I interview successful entrepreneurs in e-commerce, the Profitable Audience podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table and we tell it like how it is in a raw and entertaining way. So be sure to check out the Profitable Audience podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now onto the show.

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Welcome to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast. Today I’m thrilled to have Vivian Kay on the show. Now Vivian and I, we’ve never met, but my friend Kurt Elster gave me such a glowing recommendation that I knew that I had to have her on the show. But he did warn me that Vivian is a little bit quiet and reserved. She’s far from that. There we go. Okay, Vivian is the founder and CEO of Kinky Curly Yaqui, a premium textured hair extension brand for black women that she grew to six million without.

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paid advertising, is ridiculous. And what’s even more impressive is that she completely bootstrapped this business from the ground up. So in this episode, Vivian is going to teach us the secrets behind her success. After all, I personally think that it’s unheard of in this day and age to be able to scale business to seven figures without paying for ads. And with that, welcome to show, Vivian. How are doing today? I am absolutely awesome. How are you? I am good. So are you going to be quiet and reserved? Absolutely not.

03:18
With a store name like Kinky Kurly Yaki, like, I don’t think anyone would think that actually. So let’s start there. What’s the history behind that name? Well, so it’s something that I literally just made up. You know, I woke up one morning and made that up, but the words do need something. So Kinky, well, Kinky refers to the kinky coarse texture of afro hair.

03:46
So people who come from the African diaspora, we tend to have coarse curls. And so that’s what the kinky stands for. Facebook sometimes thinks otherwise, but that’s okay. say, I was thinking the other definition of kinky. Yeah, it gets it. We get into a lot of we get a lot of stuff rejected because it’s like, we can’t advertise or do you know, something that’s sexually suggestive. And it’s like, that’s not what we’re talking about. Right. Anyways.

04:12
And then curly, course, that means, you know, just curly hair. And then yaki is what gets people stuck. So it’s sort of an inside joke. So if you’re a black woman and you wear protective styles, then you know what yaki is. But for everyone else, yaki is it’s a texture of hair. So back in the day, they couldn’t mimic black women’s hair straightened like they couldn’t produce it synthetically. So then what they would do is they would get it from a yak from the animal.

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Yak. And they threw an eye at the end and called it Yakky. So whenever you want to refer to black women, black women’s hair straightened, you refer to it as Yakky. So like I mentioned, if you’re a black woman who wears a protective style, so and there’s a lot of us who do that you don’t realize like Beyonce, Oprah, Michelle Obama, like we’re all they’re all wearing protective styles.

05:06
only because our hair isn’t necessarily suited to this North American environment and we need to protect it so it doesn’t strip the moisture from it. And so we do that with braids, wigs and weaves. so Kinky Curly Yakky is just all those texture names all put together and black women, know what that is. so yeah. Yeah. I, this whole time I thought Yakky was something Japanese actually. It probably is. It probably is because you know what? A lot of synthetic hair comes from Korea and Japan. Oh.

05:35
Okay, that I did not know either. yeah. So what motivated you to start this business? Well, Steve, I was running another business. So I was a wedding decorator and I’m in Toronto, Canada, and it’s, you know, one of the most diverse cities in the world. And I was decorating everyone’s weddings. And so I needed to look quote unquote presentable. So for black women, what that means, and you know, just women in general.

06:03
But specifically for black women, means, you know, looking, having straight hair, because having curly hair, curly, tight textured afro hair was seen as unprofessional. Really? I did not know that. It’s still to this day. Like even in the US, there are laws that they had to put in place where they couldn’t discriminate us based on our hair. Right. So a lot of black people wear locks, they wear their hair in an afro, they wear braids, and it’s part of our culture, like

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This is how we wear our hair. But because it’s contrary to that European beauty standard, a lot of us got pressured into straightening our hair. So we were using chemicals that we now know affected our health. Black women have one of the highest rates of fibroids and they connect it to the relaxers. the products that we used to use, the chemical products that we used to use to straighten our hair.

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chemically, when our hair grows naturally this curly. And so I needed something that looked presentable. But whenever I went looking for that, for hair that looked like my hair, it was either buried underneath the sexy, exotic, silkier textures, or the places, the stores didn’t have it at all. Even beauty supply stores didn’t have it at all. So then I thought to myself, huh, you know, whatever. I was trying to solve my own problem, right? So I wanted to find hair that looked like mine and I could protect my hair with it.

07:31
I went to, so I joined haircare forums. joined Facebook groups trying to solve my own problem. And of course, while I was there, I just ended up just being Vivian, right? So, you know, was, was quite, yes, quite a reserved exactly, exactly. And so in doing so, you know, I found the solution to my problem. I went to, you know, I didn’t go to, but I, you know, I reached out to a couple of factories overseas and I kept

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asking for samples and I would order them under different email addresses, asking for the different same texture, but tweak it a little bit just to see if I could continue to get that same quality. So after I finally found something that I liked, I was wearing it and I went to a networking event and another black woman pulled me aside and asked me what my regimen was for getting my hair to look like that and who my hairdresser was. And I was like, girl, this is a weave. And she said, I would buy that.

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And that’s when the light bulb went off. So I thought, well, if she would buy it and I already bought it and I already knew there was a forum, Facebook groups full of women who also would buy it. Then there’s gotta be, you know, it’s got it. There’s gotta be something there. So in the down season of my wedding business in December of 2012, I launched Kinky Curly Yaki on Big Cartel. Big Cartel. Yeah. Big Cartel. Shout out to them. Are they still around?

08:52
I think they are still around because I think I have a student in my class on them and she doesn’t want to switch because you there’s all that inertia. You’re not on Big Cartel anymore right? Oh no. No. over to Shopify in 2015. Okay I bet that was a kind of a pain though too right? It was. It took me a minute. So let’s uh let’s take a step back. I want to talk about the sourcing process here. So you just

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decide to contact factories? Are they in China? Were they in the US or? Yeah, no, they were in China. So you know, this was before Alibaba, right? Or least before. Yeah, at least this was before Alibaba and Aliexpress was really a thing. Sure. Right. So this was just, know, on forums with people had their email addresses listed. Right. Wait, okay, I’m sorry. So you actually found these factories on Facebook groups on a hair on a haircare forum?

09:48
on a haircare for a haircare black haircare forum. So there were forums just dedicated to black hair. But they had they had contact information of Chinese factories on there too. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So they had so they had the factories, they had the salespeople’s names, like they had all that information readily available on these on these Facebook on these haircare forums. Interesting. So were these people on these forums running businesses as well? No, or

10:17
These were just black women who wanted to solve their own problems, right? But they weren’t business, like, you know, they weren’t, I don’t want to, I don’t want to sound like I’m insulting them. They weren’t business minded. Like they weren’t trying to start businesses. They just, we literally just wanted to solve our own problem. And there was nowhere in the U in the U S or Canada that that sold these. So you actually had to go all the way to the factory. Well, here’s the thing. So it’s not like there’s kinky haired girls cutting off their hair.

10:44
in order to create these extensions, right? And so then, you know, the biggest supplier of human hair is India, right? And then the one of the biggest labor forces are in China, right? So what would happen is the hair gets collected in India, and then it goes over to China to get hand processed. So the hair gets collected in India, and then goes over to China for processing because all of our textures are manually made.

11:13
So this, for instance, you can’t tell is a ponytail. So it’s a drawstring ponytail. You guys can’t see it. I’m I took it. Yeah, I’ve taken it off. OK. And what it is is it undergoes. it starts out as straight hair. Uh huh. It starts out as straight hair. And then they they they they hand rod it, the hair around a rod. And then they put it into they put it into like a they put it in some water.

11:43
and then they put it into an oven to bake the texture into the hair. And so it’s not something, it’s such a manually intensive process. It’s not something that, you know, know, it’s not something that can be done in North America. Yeah, exactly. So just in case you guys obviously can’t see what Vivian does, but she literally just took off her hair in front of me. Black women don’t normally do that. So you must be special, So you went to the factory, but you weren’t going to buy in bulk.

12:12
So what did you say to them? Well, at the time, because there weren’t people, I mean, if they were buying, they were buying silkier textures, right? If they were running businesses. So, you know, I asked for a specific texture. I got it. I didn’t. It wasn’t kinky enough for me. So then I would say, well, I need you to do it smaller. I need you to tweak this. I need you to do this. And so they kept doing that until I found the perfect texture. And again, because I was just trying to solve my own problem, like, OK, cool. Yeah, I like it for me.

12:42
That’s it. And there was no communication barrier here. I can, like sometimes I have problems communicating like very simple directions regarding my textiles. I can only imagine like talking to a Chinese person about kinky levels. Well, you just, you just simplify it, right? So all the rods have millimeters, right? So it’s like, so if I wanted, if I wanted this tight curl, I need it to be a two millimeter curl. And so that, and so, and of course you just keep it simple, like, okay, make curl two millimeter.

13:12
Right. That’s it. Okay. And then so you got a sample and then presumably you didn’t buy in bulk in the very beginning, right? No, I would buy for I just bought for myself. Okay. So what would happen is I would buy one, I would buy one and you know, a customer would come in by, you know, two, I would take money and then buy two. So you see that you guys again can’t see this, but I’ve got this bin of Rubbermaid drawers behind me. Yeah, this isn’t the exact one. But this is what I started my business in.

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So I would literally just buy one and then someone would buy two and I would take the money and buy two. And then I would slowly grow my inventory that way. So these factories were willing to just send into you one by one? Yeah. Wow. Well, not one by one, but usually like say, like they didn’t have minimum orders at the time, at that time, right? They didn’t have minimum orders at that time. And so then they were just, they were just willing to sell you three, right? And you would need at least

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three to do your head. Right. Okay. Okay. Can I get an idea? Usually when you get like samples, the shipping is really expensive and the unit is more expensive. So what was like your, I guess I don’t want to ask you what your sourcing costs were, but I mean, the beginning, were you just marking that up like a lot? No, because I didn’t know, like, you know, I wasn’t, I didn’t start the business to do business. Like, you know, I, wanted to solve my own problem and then it just sort of happened to become a business.

14:42
And then didn’t and it snowballed. Right. Let’s about the snowballing. So OK, so you got it. And presumably you posted them in these Facebook groups, I guess. Yeah. Well, you know, what happened was, you know, I got influencers, except at the time they weren’t known as influencers. There were just girls that I knew that also were kinky textures. So I would send it to them and say, hey, girl, can you give me your opinion on this hair? Because I know I like it, but I want to know what you think and how you would manage it and how you would.

15:11
And of course they would take it and go on. This was when YouTube started becoming a thing and people started showing people how to do stuff. And so then that’s what they would do. They would take it and they would wear it and then they would take pictures. And then there was this one girl who did this one spectacularly big Afro. And that’s how it blew up because she said this was the best. And you know, and that was the issue with this type of hair is that it could look good. So you could, and even now.

15:38
You could go to Amazon and buy the same ponytail that I’m wearing for $20. It looks the same, but once you get it, the way it behaves, the way it washes, the way it acts is very different from what we sell, but on surface it looks good. So the fact that, so kinky hair is notorious for being trash after, you know, one wear, but this girl got all this hair and she was able to manage it. That was a big thing at the time. Like, no guys, like this hair.

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really can like this lives up to what she says it is. And that’s because I was my own, like I was solving my own problem. I was my own customer. So I knew what they were complaining about. So I would per if they said, okay, know, kinky hair tangles so easily. Cool. Guess what? This hair doesn’t tangle as easily. And I would show pictures of me running my fingers through the hair, you know, doing all that. And one of the things that I would do to, differentiate myself from other companies was I would wash the hair.

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So the hair doesn’t come looking like this. It comes uniform looking like how it looks right off the rods that I was referring to. Right. So I would wash the hair. So it looked the way it was supposed to look when you’re about to wear it. So then girls would be, well, that’s what I want it to look like. And that was a big problem too. Right. Because you would get them, you know, but one company would say, yeah, it’s this curl. Another company would say it’s the same curl, but when you wash them, they would look totally different. Interesting. So did you have a YouTube channel then? No, no.

17:04
How did you demonstrate all these things? So I, you know, I was one of the first hair extension businesses on Instagram, right? So Instagram launched in like 2011 or something. Right. And I was on there in 2012, 2013. And I was also in these Facebook groups, right? So I would do videos. So I didn’t do a YouTube channel. I just did videos and I would show people. And then I also relied on these other girls that were doing it. And I didn’t even ask them to do it. They would just do it. I’d send them the product and say, girl, tell me what you think. And they would create content out of it.

17:34
How did you find the YouTubers or were they just your friends or? These were just girls in the forums. Oh, okay. The forums in the Facebook groups. Okay. They weren’t YouTube. They weren’t YouTubers at the time. They were just girls who had hair, who had a, who were vlogging or whatever they called it back then. So when you go to one of those communities, like I, I’ve seen it done wrong. Like sometimes people come into my group and they just start saying,

18:03
selling hair extensions. Well, obviously they wouldn’t sell hair extension. But you know what I mean, right? So what was your approach there? Like, how did you come across as not salesy? Well, so the funny thing is, no one knew it was my company. So I was already in these groups, and I was already providing value. I was being Vivian, I was answering questions, even, you know, when it was not hair related stuff, right. And so then this the brand started to get, you know, well known in these groups.

18:32
And so, someone decided that they needed to find out who was behind this company because it’s not like I was like, hey, guys, here’s my company, Kiki Carley. I didn’t do anything of that like that. I was just, here’s, you know, send it to a couple of girls and the girls did whatever they did and then that’s how I grew. And then someone created a fake Facebook profile to out me. So, at the time, me, my cheap butt, my photo butt didn’t buy that who is. That who is privacy.

19:00
for your website. And so then they did the who is search and found my name and then put me on blast in these Facebook groups. But what they thought would be my downfall was actually what helped to create a million dollar company. Because when they found out that it was my company, they were like, oh, well, if this belongs to Vivian, that means it’s black owned. She actually knows what she’s talking about. She were supporting somebody who was in our community all the more better. Boom.

19:30
Business skyrocketed. Amazing. So if you were to do it all over again, would you be more overt about it being your company? Yes, absolutely. Because people don’t necessarily buy hair. They buy me. They buy they don’t buy product. They buy people. So your website though, I guess back in the day, it didn’t look like it does now, right? no. Your face is on it, right? Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that it’s your store. Yes. What was the shape of your website back then?

19:58
Oh, goodness. was, you know, in my Samsung S3, you know, with that, with those crazy filters Instagram used to have, you know, those crazy filters from 2012. those in the show notes. But yeah, yeah. You know, using Microsoft Publisher, you remember Publisher? So the website wasn’t all that, basically. No, it wasn’t. OK, it wasn’t. it’s in the, you know, what you see now is this third iteration.

20:26
Even this, you when I moved to Shopify, was, you know, I did a whole photo shoot I came to, I think it was DC or something, you know, there were the three. these were three bloggers that were up and coming or vloggers that were up and coming. said, girls, can we do a photo shoot? I’ll meet you all at this place in the US and we can all take pictures. And that was in 2016, I believe it was. So you did that on the on the frugal side too, because these are just people in the community.

20:53
Just people in the community who were bloggers or bloggers are trying to be, you know, now they were influencers. Yeah, like 3000 people at the time or 3000 followers. And we did a photo shoot. So, and that was the next version of the website. And of course, started to keep up with the whole, okay, let’s do tutorials and let’s do how to wash your hair. Like all that stuff that’s practically mandatory now was not a thing at the time.

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If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now, what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself.

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Now, first and foremost, protecting our IP starts with a solid trademark and Emerge Council provides attorney-advised strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult.

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And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a hundred dollar discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L dot com. Now back to the show. So when you first went on, presumably these are expensive, right? I mean, you just talking about the labor involved, the fact that it’s real hair and you were just giving them away to people on the groups. How did you know who to give them to? That’s the thing. You think you know, right? And you know what I tried to do was I tried to work with

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girls who I knew were really serious about building a brand. Okay. Right. Because you you could see even now you can see that there’s influencers who are just simply doing it for the money. And then there’s people who are actually looking to really engage and grow their audience. Right. And so I watched them, you know, I have a marketing and branding background. So I would just sit and watch girls and be like,

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know, and I fell for a couple of these people, you know, especially the bigger influencers who were like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, send me some hair and we’ll, and we’ll do something then they did nothing with it. Or if they did do something with it, then they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t tag me or whatever the case may be. So I just chose to work with at the time they weren’t known as that but micro influencers, right? What’s considered a micro influencer to you? To me now, I would say 30,000 and under 30,000 followers and under

23:39
So presumably now you probably have a more structured process. So I’m just kind of curious what your process is now for finding an influencer. You know what? I actually stuck a pin in the whole finding an influencer thing. Did yeah, because the game changed. Right. So these girls that I started with that that had 3000 followers back in 2014, 2015 now have over a hundred K. Right. So now these girls are charging, you know, fifteen hundred dollars just for a post. Right.

24:08
Whereas before it was like, okay, I could give them one set of clip-ins and they would create three, like they would create, you know, I would say maybe 10 pieces of content on that one set of clip-ins. Whereas now it’s like, you give them one set of clip-ins, costs you $1,500. You need to send them more stuff in order to create another piece of content. So it’s just been a little bit different. I’ve used apps like, and this was before it got acquired by YouTube, but I think it was called a Fame. Fame bit.

24:35
So before it got acquired, I used them and that, that helped me launch my, my clip-in. So that was a really good, a really good place to do that. But it’s been, I had to stick a pin in it because what I was finding was, you know, all the apps that I was using, especially Instagram became pay to play. Right. So I could pay someone $1,500 for content, but nobody would see it. Right. Yeah. Right. It’s interesting. So did you ever try paid advertising?

25:05
Oh, yes. Well, it wasn’t until it wasn’t until I had already hit my first million. And I thought, wow, well, I built this. I built this first. I built this business without paid ads. So I so I hit my first million without any paid ads, without email, without email, without email. No email. Wow. No email. No email. So this was just simply word of mouth and repeat customers.

25:34
Well, how did you get the repeat customers without email or did they just come back naturally? They just came back naturally. Once you once you once you have that good stuff. And as this was before the market got oversaturated, right? So you’ll have to I didn’t mention this, but I was I created the niche, the niche did not exist before I started it. So I was the only company who was selling only kinky textures.

26:00
So I didn’t even try and slide in, you know, a silkier, you know, more popular texture that you would see on say, Nicki Minaj. No, I wasn’t selling that stuff. I was selling this stuff that, you know, you’re that girl that works the nine to five at Pepsi doesn’t no one even know she’s wearing extensions because it looks like her hair. Right, right. So the influencers early on that you worked with, were they did you continue to work with them? Yes. I worked with them for a good two, three years.

26:28
And then they just got really big and wanted more expensive. Yeah. So then, you know, even one right now I worked with, just landed a gig. She’s in the Seychelles and she landed a gig with Qatar Airlines. wow. Yeah. So, okay. So, but it’s so nice to see that growth, right? Because these are girls that I worked with. Another one launched a hair product company, right? And so it’s nice because these are the girls that I knew.

26:57
were about their business, not just interested in getting free stuff for the sake of getting free stuff. They were interested in growing their brands. And so I feel like we both grew up together. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in my experience, or just even speaking to my colleagues, I find that the influencers who know what they’re worth tend to charge like way too much. Whereas it’s much better to just target people who have decent size followings, but

27:23
They’re not really thinking about monetization just yet. No, I think that people with the decent size following is also engaged with their audience. Right. Right. And there’s that’s one thing that I’ve learned is that those people who have the smaller audiences, even myself, I engage with my followers. So I know I know who my OGs are. know who my regular people comment and DM and and all that stuff. And I can rely on them to to help me do stuff.

27:51
And so I knew that’s, what these girls could do. Whereas now with a lot of these bigger names, it’s like, they don’t even check their DMS. Yeah. Yeah. It’s probably cause it’s just too many. They’re probably flooded with absolutely. And, know, that happens to me too, but still, mean, social media, social media, that’s what you’re, you’re supposed to socialize. Having a one way conversation isn’t, that’s, that’s sad.

28:21
So how did you go from one to six million? Just doing the same thing I did at one million to get to one million, which is just keep doing it. You just do it at scale, right? You just keep doing the same thing. You do more of it. You do a lot of testing. So it’s like, okay, well that worked. That didn’t work. Like say FameBit, FameBit worked famously. Like I loved how it worked. And so then it was like, okay, so how can I do more of that? But at the time there weren’t other FameBits or at least affordable FameBits, right?

28:50
Now there’s a plethora and it’s like, even now they come to me, as I call myself an entrepreneur personality and I’m like, no, you guys are all garbage. You just want access to my data and that’s it. But yeah, no, it’s a challenge. The times are different. I always like to say that I didn’t start the business to become a $6 million business. I started the business to solve my own problem.

29:17
Right. And and so e-commerce for me has become it’s become kind of gross for me. Wait, what? Yeah. Because you know what? Because I’m not into the cack in the row ass and the this and that’s not the reason why I started it. I started it so that Keisha in D.C. can, you know, instead of crying over her failed twist out at six o’clock in the morning when she has a job interview that morning.

29:46
Keisha could just find a wig or find some clip-ins to accentuate or lengthen or add volume to her own hair. And she can go about her business and do her job without people focusing on what she looks like. And so- Presumably you have enough money already. So what are your motivations now then in terms of growth and- Well, honestly, know, I scaled to the 6 million and then I was like, I don’t like it here. I really don’t. And I admire-

30:14
brands that can do that. And the founders are like, yeah, let’s go, let’s go. It turns out I’m not a very good CEO. a better marketer. I’m a better brander. I’m just a better person, I guess you could say. And I like to say that I started Kinky Curly Yakky to give black women confidence. So I enjoy just giving people period confidence. So whether that be black women or women or entrepreneurs or whatever the case may be, I just enjoy

30:44
that journey. So e-commerce just, mean, selling hair extensions just so happens to be one of my, my, my house, right? But it’s not my why selling hair extensions is not my why. Yeah. You know, I was on your website earlier today and I noticed you have like another kind of business that essentially is what you just described, right? That’s outside of your e-commerce. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah. Well, um, I’ve, you know, what happened was in 2020,

31:14
You know, we all got hit with the pandemic. Yes. And for me, even more so, I got hit with it back in 2019, like Black Friday in that November 2019. Except at the time we didn’t know what it was. Right. We just know China all of a sudden just stops shipping stuff. Yes. Right. And so it was we had a huge supply chain issue because what we sell is human hair product. And all of a sudden everybody stopped going places. Right. And so.

31:43
Um, it was out of my control and you know, my kid was home from virtual school for virtual school. And I had to quickly figure out how to keep cashflow going. And so then I thought, well, what do I, like, what are people doing? Like I had to just sort of sit back and okay, wait, everyone has to go online. Wait, I know how to be online. I know how to set up a Shopify. Everyone, all these brick and mortars and people who used to sell in person are now all, you know, having to open up and do things online. I know how to do that.

32:13
So then I started teaching things like Shopify prep school, getting people just get the essentials up and ready so you can sell whatever you can keep your livelihood and sell it online. So I started doing that. And then I started coaching. people who couldn’t, okay, I have a business. Now they’re at home from their nine to five. Now they have time to think, oh, is this really what I wanna do? No, it’s not. I wanna be an entrepreneur. Okay, well, let me help you do that.

32:38
You know, one thing I forgot to ask you is how do you scale what you do or what made you successful? Because a lot of it is just like talking and interacting with people, which inherently doesn’t scale, right? Yeah. Well, I, know, for the first four years of business, so until 2016, so until June of 2016, I was doing everything myself. So I was customer service, fulfillment, you know, packaging, everything. That was all me. And then in June of 2016, I hired my first employee.

33:08
And even how I hired her was just sort of a roundabout way because I had a partner at the time who was trying to force me to figure, know, put out, put something on monster or, you know, indeed, or whatever it was at that time and find an employee when I was just like, no, I need to really interact with this person. So I went to a beauty supply store and I asked for some help and this girl came to help me I liked the way she did it. And I said, I’m looking for someone to help me with customer service or are you available? She said, sure. I gave her my number. She called me the next day. She’s been my employee ever since the person who answers my, my

33:37
customer service was my second ever customer. So she’s someone who knew me from the forums, who bought my hair and supported. And then she went on mat leave and she’s like, I was like, Oh my gosh, know, customer service is driving me nuts. She’s like, that’s what I do for a living. And I’m on mat leave. So let me help you. She’s been doing that for me ever since. So really it’s about scale for me, isn’t about, you know, having a team of a hundred. It’s just having a small lean team who is really passionate about

34:07
what we’re here to do, right? Which is helping. Yeah, Are you selling on Amazon at all? not. Absolutely not. Okay. No. Is this type of product not good for Amazon because there’s all those cheap knockoffs on there? Yeah, that too. I also feel like I worked really hard to build Kinky Curly up, Yakky up as a brand that I feel like being on Amazon would dilute it. You know,

34:34
Now I realize that being on there is really about brand recognition. So if someone types it in, then boom, okay, well, this brand already has a reputation. If they go to my website, they’ll see I have thousands of reviews. So if I do go on Amazon, would be about brand recognition, but I wouldn’t put my premium products on there because they can’t compete with the $25 ponytail. They can’t. Right. Even though it’s much better quality, you’re just thinking that. Right.

35:04
Okay. Whereas you can do a lot more on your own website to show all of that. Exactly. Right. I own that channel, right? Whereas I don’t own Amazon. Well, actually, what is your primary channel for sales today? Primary sales would be organic, organic organic Instagram or Facebook or organic search, organic search. Yep. So I was up and up on the SEO. So, you know, we’ve got that. So we’ve got that SEO history.

35:33
Right. And so if you type, if you type kinky hair extensions, we’re probably the number one or at least on the first page, number one result. Nice. Can you talk about how you establish those ranks? Like, are you creating content on regular basis? Not right now. So, you know, we were doing blogs back in, I want to say 2017. So we have a bunch of blogs that went up there and they were talking about core things that people back when we would Google. You know, I knew how to SEO all the

36:03
you all the pages and all the pictures and all that jazz. I personally manually did all that because I know what black women are searching for. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so I did all that. So, you know, and it’s paid off. It’s, know, SEO is not a overnight thing. It’s a long-term strategy and it’s paid off. So even now, when I don’t have any ads turned on, the only thing I have on is email.

36:29
It seems like all those cheap knockoffs on Amazon, they’re probably run by Chinese companies. I’m just guessing. I don’t know for sure, but they obviously don’t know what it’s like to have black hair, right? My hair is straight. I would have no idea. And so I guess that’s your main advantage. Yep. Well, what happened when, you know, in 2014, I found out I was pregnant and had my son. And when I came back, there were, uh, you know, I took a two month mat leave or something. I couldn’t even do that. But when I came back, there were all these Chinese companies that popped up.

36:59
and had black women front the companies. Oh, really? Yes. So really, all I know what happens with these Chinese companies is you just sit on YouTube and just watch the content we produce. And then they create products based on the content we produce. Right. How do you fight that? You fight them by being by actually creating a brand that people can that people that your audience can resonate with, right?

37:27
Like with Amazon or these Chinese companies, can’t be me. They don’t know what my, they don’t have the same experiences I have with same skillset. They don’t know what it’s like to have a failed twist out. I know what that feels like. Right. And I can communicate that better than any Chinese company can. Just wondering though, if they like throw money at other black women. They do. They absolutely do. And it makes it hard for companies like mine to compete. Right.

37:55
Right. They flood the market with their products. They pay them, you know, they pay them whatever they pay them. But, know, to the girl who doesn’t care because she just wants free stuff, she produces that one video and she’s done. She doesn’t care. She’s going to have a bin full of all these trashy hair extensions, but who cares? They paid her, you know, 35 bucks or whatever it was for that video and hair that she didn’t have in the first place. Presumably those are one and done. Right. As soon as you buy that cheap product, you’re not going to buy it again. Right. Yeah. Interesting.

38:25
And then you mentioned Instagram is Instagram a large driver of sales or is that more just for branding? It’s more just for branding. It used to be. But because of the whole the whole algorithm and all that jazz, like it’s it’s you know, we we rarely post on there anymore. It’s it’s actually kind of discouraging to post on there, I find. Yeah. But email for us has been organic traffic and organic search and email for us. And we haven’t even touched SMS yet.

38:52
And so it’s something I plan to do this year. It’s just this these past 18 months have just been honestly, I’ve had my head up my ass. Honestly, and like COVID. Yeah. Yeah. And, you I’m a single mother and I’ve been at home with my son in the first grade. So it’s not like I can just leave him with a computer and he’s getting work done. No, I physically have to sit there with him. So last year was not a million dollar year. This year is certainly not a million dollar year. And I’m OK with that.

39:21
I am okay with that. Are you still active in those original groups where you established? No, no, with a lot of those groups, think of they’ve all sort of migrated, you know, everyone’s sort of grown up and grown out, but I still keep in touch. A couple of them still follow me. Like I, a lot of them still follow me. And so it’s nice to see their names pop up every once in on the shop of my dashboard. like, Oh, that was my, I still remember my very first customer.

39:47
Right. And my second and my third. And so, yeah, they still support, but no, I don’t, I don’t go into those groups anymore. So for everyone who’s listening, wanting to do what you do, what would be, I guess your best advice for someone just starting out? I would say, because you bootstrap this whole thing. Yeah. From zero. didn’t have any outside cash or anything. I would say make sure you’re solving a problem and make sure you’re solving a problem that is, um, that resonates with you.

40:17
because this is going to be one of the hardest things outside of parenthood. This is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. And if you’re not passionate or if you’re not interested or invested in getting in solving that problem and finding the solution, then this is going to be a really tough journey. So I would say one, make sure you’re solving a problem and two, be yourself because

40:46
At first I thought, okay, I would look at the girls who own hair extension companies who had long silky hair and Gucci and Lambos and high heels and all that stuff. And I was not that, I was the exact opposite of that. And at first, that’s the reason why I hid myself. But then as I mentioned, when people actually found out it was me and they knew me for who I was, then they were supportive. And it was like, oh, so I can be myself? Yes, you can.

41:14
And that’s what will differentiate you from the competition. And then finally, I would say study your competition and do something different. So if your competition is selling mugs and all they sell are mugs that are black, then why not sell red mugs, only red mugs and really niche down, niche. So that’s really what I want to get to, niche it down because that’s what’s going to help you get your foot in the door.

41:40
and differentiate you from everyone else doing the exact same thing in the oversaturated market that you’re in, no matter what it is. So once you niche down and you really get well known for doing that one thing, then you can start to expand. You can either go wider or you can go deeper into that niche, but just start out doing that one thing really, really well and get known for it. That’s exactly how we got started.

42:05
We became known for handkerchiefs. And even though I have no passion for those products, I developed a passion for the business part. Right. You know, like the cack and the real ass, right. That you don’t like. That’s actually my wheelhouse. Right.

42:19
And what I like about you, Vivian, just, I mean, we haven’t met before, but now that we’re chatting, you’re just very relatable. And just after talking to you, just want to buy from you. And I think that’s your superpower. Yes, that is right. And that’s the thing, because it’s like, because what I’m, I’m not passionate about selling you hair extensions. I’m passionate about making you feel good about how you are, just you. Right. And I would just buy from you because of you. Right. If I needed hair extensions, I’d be a bonus.

42:48
Thank you. appreciate you saying that. So Vivian, where can people find you online? And I know you have a couple of websites. So yeah, well, for hair extensions, if you’re into that, you can find me at kinkakurlyyaki.com. For myself, I am an absolute pleasure to follow on Instagram, especially in my Instagram stories. I’m known for my Instagram stories. So you can follow me at it’sviviank, that’s I-T-S-V-I-V-I-A-N-K-A-Y-E.

43:18
You’ll see me on the black lady with the crown and balloons. Um, and of course I have a website. So Vivian K.com. So you said that you weren’t doing Instagram. That was for your company, but for yourself or myself doing it. Yeah. that’s how I started to get business that way too. Right. Yes. Because I get high on my own supply. Right. So I’m always wearing my own products. So yeah. So it’s a, yeah. So you’re still doing it. doing it just in a roundabout way. Right.

43:48
Cool. Well, Vivian, it was a pleasure to speak with you. I’m glad that you weren’t reserved and quiet like you normally are. Oh, you know, today was a good day. And I hope this whole lockdown for you lifts so you can get some more work done and all the cat and the rohess stuff that you love. Oh, yes, rohess. Yeah. All right. Take care and thanks a lot.

44:16
Hope you enjoyed that episode and were inspired as much as I was by Vivian’s story. more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 370. And once again, I want to thank Clavio, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows, like an abandoned card sequence, a post-purchase flow, a win-back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO.

44:46
I also want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for ecommerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is the next big own marketing platform, and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash dev. That’s P-O-S-T-S-C-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash dev. Now I talk about how I use these tools in my blog, and if you are interested in starting your own ecommerce store, head on over to mywifequaterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away.

45:16
Thanks for listening.