Skin in the game — A female founder’s journey (Series)| #1: The beginning
Hi there, you’ve just landed on entry #1 of what will be a series of blog posts. Over the course of the next few months, I’ll be sharing my journey as an entrepreneur through these blog posts. Who am I? A 29-year-old based in Singapore who decided to leave a stable, very comfortable, and a well paying corporate path to start-up. Through this series, I’ll share my personal & professional experiences of starting-up, and I’ll try to be as transparent as I can.
For now, here’s what all you can expect from future posts:
- Starting up 101
- How to make your pitch deck
- What do VCs look for in a venture
- Mistakes not to make (Whatever I make, that’ll be here too)
- Dynamics of finding or having Co-founder(s), Advisor(s), Early stage employees
- Impact of starting-up on relationships
- How to plan finances
Let’s begin with the ‘what’ & ‘why’ of my venture.
Industries across the globe are evolving at an unprecedented pace and we’re witnessing some of the most bizarre & ‘unreal’ ideas come to life, grow, and almost becoming norms. From driverless cars to e-scooter sharing, from gene editing to decentralised currencies, ideas that were merely on paper or just an imagination are now becoming multi-billion dollar industries. And thanks to the internet, everything is becoming a lot more accessible — from knowledge to commodities, making us more aware of the world, about ourselves, and our needs. This newly found awareness and knowledge are generating a momentum that has started questioning the premise & status-quo of every industry. Ridesharing, co-living, bike-sharing, are all case in point. I spent my last 5 years in two such industries working for disruptors like Uber & ofo, and boy weren’t they adventurous.
This pushed me to question a few things in my life and why I was doing them a certain way. A rather small but an important thing that bothered me the most was how restricted I felt while taking care of my skin, not makeup but actual skincare. Think about it. We’ve been using what’s being made for millions of people even though our skin might not be like theirs. When it comes to skincare, there are multiple factors that come into play — our skin type, the climatic zone of our location, our daily sun exposure, our stress level, our food habits, just to name a few. However, when it comes to (off-the-shelf) products, they only take into account 2 to 3 such factors at best, thanks to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy, and well, scalability. As a result, we end up with 10 products on our shelf that we won’t use and unresolved skin issues (whiteheads, oily zones et al). That got me thinking, what if I could turn the process the other way round — Make products for each individual customer’s need and not make a customer work around existing products. Well, for that reason, I decided to complete the full circle by going back to the industry where I started my career — Skincare, but this time, as an entrepreneur.
I’m currently in the MVP stage of my idea. Last 6 weeks or so went in finalising the pitch deck, working on the MVP, and validation. Here’s the necessary plug:
Say hello to ‘Yours’ — a personalised skincare solution because we’re all tired of trial and error with off-the-shelf products. Tired of arranging bottles on dressing table that didn’t “suit” us. Tired of unsatisfactory results. It’s time you get a skin care regimen which is absolutely Yours.
If your skin is asking for more details, log onto lovefromyours.com, complete your skin-assessment to pre-register for a personalised skincare regimen.
I’ll touch upon all the points on starting up in the weeks to come, stay tuned for that. For now, my next few weeks look hectic, of course, with lots of traveling, building a team, meeting VCs, and meeting vendors. If you are or you know someone who might be interested in joining an early stage startup in Consumer Tech, feel free to connect. As for your comments / thoughts / feedback, send them my way through LinkedIn or Twitter.
The realist in me knows this journey is going to be a tough one, from bootstrapping to leaning on savings and husband till the business receives or starts making capital. But the optimist in keeping my head up high. Let me leave you with this quote by Seth Godin:
“The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.”
