We recently connected with Molly Beane and have shared our conversation below.
Molly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers
On Aug 3, 2018, I woke up excited for an important meeting I had that day to raise a $1M seed round for my clean skincare business, From Molly With Love.
Later that day, I woke up a second time — in a CT-scan machine in the ICU, not knowing where I was or how I got there.
As I was preparing for that meeting, I slipped and fell down a flight of stairs. I cracked my skull on the hard tile floor, suffering a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The $1M investment wasn’t to be — and my life changed forever.
My doctors advised that I take a month off from looking at screens. How could I do that? I was scaling my business through a high-growth phase. I had employees to care for, customers to service, and targets to achieve.
Over the next three years, I had to significantly scale back the business because of the damage that TBI did to my health. I could have lost it all, but somehow both the business and I survived. I had to swallow *a lot* of pride and be flexible with my goals and vision in order to keep it all together. We went from being a fast-growing startup to a lifestyle business. And that is OK.
The moral of the story is that you never know what could happen as an entrepreneur. Some bad stroke of luck could derail you and your business at any point. Be flexible with your vision and have contingency plans. And purchase disability insurance — just in case.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Molly Beane is the founder of From Molly With Love, an all-natural “clean” skincare line with a unique mission to end “beauty shaming” and encourage radical self-care.
Molly started the company to address whitespace in the beauty industry. Companies in the beauty industry are missing a vital opportunity in today’s cultural climate. The modern woman no longer wants to be treated like an object. She is sick of being made to feel like she doesn’t measure up to impossible beauty standards. She demands more from the companies she shops from. We’re here to give her what she’s asking for.
Today, From Molly With Love uses inclusive, empowering, and feminist messaging to help women identify and resist toxic beauty messaging. The brand does not use terms like “anti-aging,” features extremely diverse models in their marketing, and publishes empowering feminist content. From Molly With Love’s 40 SKU product line is affordably priced but has the look, feel, and quality of luxury products.
From Molly With Love sells in hundreds of retailers across the nation, including at big retailers like Urban Outfitters, Francesca’s, The Detox Market, and the Cosmopolitan Resort in Las Vegas. From Molly With Love also sells online at frommollywithlove.com.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
I noticed that we were getting a lot of repeat customers, so we built in-depth email funnels to nurture our return customers. These emails are highly targeted and take the customer on a journey — not only to sell them more products, but also to provide value (i.e, showing them how to use their product), ask for feedback, and to make them smile (empowering & funny content).
Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?
Yes, diversifying our revenue streams has helped us weather tough times.
From Molly With Love has a loyalty program where customers can pay a monthly fee for discounts and other perks. We sell our products direct to the consumer on our website, and on other platforms like Etsy and Amazon. We also wholesale our line to brick & mortar retailers.
I also do business consulting on the side for businesses like mine that want to break into the wholesale business.
Finally, I am building a YouTube channel. It isn’t monetized yet, but I’m halfway there after just four months of creating content.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://frommollywithlove.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/frommollywithlove and http://instagram.com/heymollyb
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FromMollyWithLove/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-beane/
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/heymollyb
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MollyBeane
- Other: I’m on TikTok at https://tiktok.com/@heymollyb. I also write a weekly newsletter about living & thriving in dystopia at http://mollybeane.substack.com