We recently connected with Lynn Power and have shared our conversation below.
Lynn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
Once I knew I was going to be launching a haircare brand with my co-founder James (who had worked on our formulas for almost 10 years), it was time to figure out the launch plan. First, we needed to make sure we had a viable product so we tested our formulation on every hair type and texture we could find. Then, we spent time to establish our brand proposition, our brand name (and make sure it could be trademarked), our values and our iconography. Many founders skip over the values but this is critical to inform many of your future decisions including brand voice, partnerships and more. From there, we landed on the package design and started sourcing our bottles and component parts. Then, we created a go-to-market strategy including website, social channels, distribution plan, PR plan, influencer outreach and other tactics. We evaluated different plug-ins for our Shopify site to see what we needed at launch and which things could wait. We did a TON of experimentation to see what worked and we still do lots of experimentation. The whole process took us about 18 months from having formulas to getting into market.
Lynn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I spent almost 30 years in the advertising industry as was formerly CEO of J. Walter Thompson NY. I was becoming frustrated with the bureaucracy of the advertising business (my role largely meant dealing with finance, HR issues, legal, operational issues and other “behind the scenes” work that I didn’t particularly like). I wanted to get back to what I loved about advertising — building brands. So I left in 2018, started consulting with startups and met my co-founder shortly after. He had been working on our haircare formulations for almost 10 years and needed a partner to commercialize the business. It just made sense for us to team up as we have truly complimentary skill sets. We wanted to create haircare products that solve the #1 hair issue — hydration — but do it weightlessly. That’s not easy as most other hydrating products on the market use extracts and emollients that weigh hair down. We also wanted our formulations to be high performing, salon quality and clean (no toxic ingredients). On top of that, we feel that brands and corporations have an obligation to replenish what we take from the earth, so we set up the MASAMI Institute as a way to give back a portion of our sales to ocean education and research in northeastern Japan, where we get our hero ingredient, Mekabu.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
It’s not easy being an entrepreneur, especially if you are bootstrapped like me. There are a lot of tough days where you might question everything. We launched our business in February 2020 at NYFW and then of course, New York City was on Covid lockdown about a month later. That was rough, as much of our business plan involved distribution channels that we no longer an option. So we focused on our DTC business and also on our customers. We did a bunch of partnerships with other clean beauty brands which turned out to be fantastic. But then in 2021, I got breast cancer — a rare, aggressive form of Stage 3 cancer (I had just had a “normal” mammogram/ultrasound 3 months prior!). So that derailed the business again, as I had a full year of treatment (and was a bald haircare founder for 9 months). During that time, I had to rethink what success looked like. I wasn’t going to be able to grow nearly as fast as I wanted. So I just decided that as long as the business was moving in the right direction (and I could manage my health too), that’s good. It means a much slower path but also good that at least I feel in control.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
The brand partnerships I had done during 2020 (Covid launch year!) turned out to be fantastic for the business. We were able to grow our social followers and email list organically. So I decided to scale that idea by launching the Conscious Beauty Collective — a group of 30+ indie beauty & wellness brands creating retail experiences to help each other grow. We launched in 2022 and have done 4 pop-ups ranging from 3-8 months each and a ton of co-marketing (giveaways, blogs, a digital magazine, influencer outreach and more). This has been an incredibly efficient and effective way to grow as we share costs, strategies, resources, contacts and more.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lovemasami.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@lovemasamihair
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovemasamihair
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/masami-haircare
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lovemasamihair
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lovemasamihair
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@lovemasamihair
