Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Phoenix Gonzalez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Phoenix, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
They say every great product is born out of a necessity and that is how The Silked Pillow Sleeve™ was born. Through the mother of invention, I solved a problem for myself that became a thing in 2018.
In my early 40’s my hair started greying and breaking and I kept complaining that I needed to do something. So I started researching hair care ideas and I kept being led back to Silk Pillowcases. The biggest thing I kept reading and hearing was that sleeping on silk is slippery and a lot of women complained that it slides off in the night so they weren’t getting the real benefits. So I decided to tie one of my large vintage silk scarf around my pillow to see how I liked sleeping on silk. Well, every morning for about a week I would wake up and the scarf would be bunched up instead of sliding off. Finally, my husband looked at me and said why don’t you make yourself something.
So I did and then I traveled to a Las Vegas Hotel with it for a conference. To my surprise, 3 things happened: 1. My Hair kept its moisture/style. 2. My Skin didn’t get dry from hotel recycled air in Las Vegas or get rashes from the harsh detergents used to clean their cotton pillowcase, the skin benefits were a BONUS. 3. I realized because of my open-ended design/invention I didn’t have to worry about the size of the hotel pillow, my Sleeve just slid right over the existing pillow and cotton hotel pillowcase making it completely versatile and the hotel workers didn’t touch my pillow for 5 days.
Excited about what I had created I contacted my Bestie Sandra Mc Curdy of 20+ yrs, we got together and decided this was something that we should test to see if our friends liked it. Further more we did a bunch of research to see if anyone in the world had an open-end pillowcase, to our surprise no one had one. We also found that a lot of people were talking about carrying their bedding when staying at hotels, but the biggest complaint they had was never knowing what size the bedding/pillow was. The Sleep Insitute did a study and found 1 in something like 10 people travelled with their bedding and pillowcases was at the top of the list.
This is when we knew we were on to something special. So special that all of our girlfriend encouraged us to start a crowdfunding campaign so they could support us. They ended up funding us $4000 in late 2017 so we could make a pattern and learn how to going into production with a manufacturer. The end result was us gifting every one of our funders SILKED Pillow Sleeves™ for Christmas a gift. With 60 units left in inventory we launched a website and started SILKED as a BETA in 2018 so we could learn more about the industry. SILKED came out of beta in 2019 and now in 2023 has over 650,000 customers travelling around the world with our product.
Phoenix, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
For Silked co-founders, female entrepreneurs, and friends, Phoenix Gonzalez and Sandra McCurdy, satin and silk were never beauty secrets, but a constant nightly ritual that their Afro-Caribbean mothers performed to promote manageable hair. Growing up in an ethnic household hair was always a topic of conversation amongst the women in our lives. Phoenix and Sandra wanted to create an easy and accessible way to share this age-old, age-defying secret with the world, and in April 2017 they established Silked in Los Angeles, California.
ENTREPRENEUR #1: PHOENIX GONZALEZ – The Business Development Master Mind
“The Trini”, born of West Indian descent with Scottish, Spanish, and who the heck knows.
Hair type; curly with a side of thickness. Skin: normal to dry.
ENTREPRENEUR #2: SANDRA MC CURDY – The Creative Director
“The Jamaican”, born to an English father and a Jamaican mother.
Hair type: fine, wavy to curly texture. Skin Type: dry and gently aging.
At the intersection of necessity and innovation, we present Silked. Founded by Two Besties, silked was designed for self-care on the go. Say hello to travel sleep innovation that’s hypoallergenic and antibacterial. The Silked Pillow Sleeve™ offers a restorative night’s sleep, retaining the natural moisture, that can be lost when sleeping on cotton. Our open-ended design turns a “Hotel Pillow” into your beauty sleep Bestie, you’ll never have to wonder what size your “Hotel Pillow” is ever, ever again! Continuing with our tradition of offering natural ways to preserve our skin and hair Silked also offers Silk Eye Masks, Face Masks, Hair Scrunchies, Beauty Towels, Bonnets, Kimonos, and most recently Face Serums helping our customers boost their beauty, day and night!
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
We first launched a crowdfunding campaign to seed the company’s manufacturing we raised $4000. Then we were approached by a team of investors who wanted to give us $100,000 for 50% of the business 3 months after we launched the beta. We decided it wasn’t a path we wanted to go down and we decided to use credit to get us into markets that could expose us to buyers for online stores and brick-and-mortar stores. We funded the first P.O. with credit and then once we had proof of the full process from order to net 60-90 day payment documented, we put together a deck that illustrated the process.
We went out to friends and family and offered them an 8% return on their money for a 120-day loan, which was more than any bank or short-term investment was offering. To this day we have never taken investment, we have applied for grants and found a production partner that helps fund our larger P.O. for a portion of profits. We knew from Phoenix’s technology company that we did not want to take on investors and we also wanted to stay lean as a team to reduce overhead capital costs.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
We have made a few PIVOTS. Silked mission is to offer all-natural alternatives that support your beauty journey day and night. As female founders who are past 40, we truly are building our brand in the most all-natural way that aligns and adjusts to our clean beauty journeys, as life/skin/hair/well-being changes in our lives we are seeking out the things that matter to us and that we know will matter to our customers.
PIVOT Examples:
1. When COVID hit we understood the need to pivot to support our customer’s journey through self-care. We designed silk face masks because we had done a lot of research on how beneficial silk is due to its antibacterial properties and the fact that silk preserves natural oils and moisture in our skin instead of the rashes that everyone was faced with from wearing paper masks.
2. In 2022-2023 we have seen our customers want to invest in things that support them in getting out and enjoying life more so we re-launched our Satin Pillow Sleeve late last year heading into the new year with a focus on travel and we also partnered with FabFitFun to offer their customers the travel sleep. We also decided that it was time to introduce our first piece of clothing a Kimono, making it versatile for day or night as a test in Spring of 2023 which has been a hit and we have sold out twice already.
3. Currently, we are preparing the launch of the next addition to our line as we enter the FACE Serum market offering an all-natural way to care for and enhance our skin’s overall well-being.
Contact Info:
- Website: silked.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silkedco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silkedco