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In this ongoing series, we share advice, tips, and insights from real entrepreneurs who fight business battles every day. (Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Who are you and what is your business?
I’m Patricia Santos. She is the CEO and founder of Volition Beauty. Volition Beauty is a creator-driven prestige beauty platform offering effective, clean, vegan, and cruelty-free skin care. We turn creators into beauty entrepreneurs and turn their ideas into best-selling products. We sell through volitionbeauty.com and partner retailers including Ulta, Goop, Dermstore, Amazon, and Costco.
I founded the company in 2017. In 2018, one of his first products, Prismatic Luminizing Shield SPF50, sold out in his 24 hours and had a waiting list of 10,000 people. In 2023, our new launch, Semillon Retinol Serum, sold every 2 minutes. It was a great ride.
What inspired you to start this business?
My journey began back in Boston in the late 2000s. I was an investor in a major venture capital fund. I’ve been lucky enough to meet, support, and fund some amazing entrepreneurs. That was the great part of the job. But it wasn’t all that surprising. That’s something I’ve seen some great beauty founders not receive funding. Currently, less than 2% of venture funding is given to women. You can imagine how bad it was in the early 2000s.
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Part of the problem was that these entrepreneurs looked nothing like the investors they were pitching to. VCs (other than me) didn’t understand their company or brand because they didn’t buy or use the products they were selling. I wanted to change that. I became obsessed with changing that. And we wanted to give these amazing entrepreneurs another way to bring their breakthrough product ideas to market.
What was your biggest business challenge and how did you pivot to overcome it?
Significant supply chain challenges, brick-and-mortar store closures, and increased competition during the pandemic, just to name a few. And like many DTC brands built online, one of the biggest challenges is the growing inefficiency of finding new customers on social media. CAC has increased by 200-300% over the years.
Since the pandemic, we’ve pivoted to focus on hiring creators instead of paying for underperforming platforms. Our creators are more authentic, creating bespoke products for our audiences and driving innovation. They promote our differences. While their support and social posts drive awareness, Volition nurtures these new customers and builds brand loyalty by encouraging repeat purchases through email, social media, text/SMS, and loyalty programs. and support them.
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking for funding?
Please change your way of thinking. VC funding in 2023 was less than half of 2022 levels. Funding for consumer brands is virtually non-existent. Many VCs play tourist in categories they know little about, such as beauty, e-commerce, and fashion, and unfortunately end up losing a lot of money. The way these categories of entrepreneurs obtain funding in the future will not be the same as in the past.
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This is one of the main reasons why Volition partnered with investor Emil Capital Partners to launch the Beauty Accelerator. Accelerator is designed to help entrepreneurial creators looking to break into the competitive beauty industry. The program includes an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City for workshops with Volition’s mentors and management team, covering fundraising, brand building, and beauty product innovation, hosted by investor Emile Capital Partners. reaches its climax. The most attractive business cases will be given the opportunity to commercialize their own beauty brand within Volition’s newly launched Creator Brands division.
What does the word “entrepreneur” mean to you?
In Tagalog (my native language growing up in the Philippines), there are words like:Makrit”. And that means being persistent and patient, but to the point where you can wear out your welcome and annoy people. I think this is necessary in your daily life as an entrepreneur. We must fight for product perfection and demand the best from our employees, vendors, and partners. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, if you’re not a large company or don’t buy in large quantities, people will find it annoying. But entrepreneurs persist nonetheless.I think all entrepreneurs should be like that. makrit Creating something great from nothing.
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What do many aspiring business owners think they need, but don’t actually need?
First, a large seed round. Over the past decade, seed round amounts have ballooned from less than $1 million or $2 million to $10, $20, and sometimes even $60 million. So many brands founded during this time didn’t even need to understand how to build a good, profitable business or how to acquire customers economically. They won’t be forced to find a fit between product and customer, even if it didn’t make economic sense, because they just put advertising money into Meta to increase sales volume. was. But times are changing and that’s not the way to build a business that gets funded now. The pendulum is swinging, and investors want to back gutsy entrepreneurs who want to build sustainable businesses.
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