S212: What happens after closing a business? You start a new one! with Eniye Okah

This week on The Commerce Club podcast I’m joined by Eniye Okah - the founder of Beame, and ex-founder of Blob Box.

Beame is her brand new sunscreen brand, built off the back of a problem Eniye wanted to solve. In this episode Eniye and I discuss her entrepreneurial journey, how she went from starting her first business to closing it down and then starting her current business venture. 

We deep dive into the importance of identifying market needs, conducting thorough research, profitability, and recognizing when to pivot in business. 

Eniye also touches on the emotional and mental challenges of stepping away from a business she loved and the connection between mental health and skincare, leading to the creation of Beame. 

We also discuss how to fund a new business, how to get ahead before you have even begun through business accelerators and crowdfunding for your business.

Since this episode was recorded Eniye and 𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗠𝗘 were 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝗼𝗯𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘁-𝗼 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁. Congratulations Eniye!

You can connect with Eniye here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eniyeokah

& check out her new venture Beame here: https://beamespf.com/

If you've enjoyed this episode please make sure to hit that subscribe button :)

Incase you just stumbled across this episode and we haven’t met before let’s get formally introduced here: www.itssophiebiggerstaff.com

If you’re an e-commerce business owner looking for support I host my online courses designed for you here: www.thecommerceclub.co

For more content like this follow me on socials:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/itssophiebiggerstaff

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itssophiebiggerstaff

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-biggerstaff-retail-consultant/

Subscribe for free business resources: https://itssophiebiggerstaff.myflodesk.com/instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Enya's Entrepreneurial Journey
• 6:20 The Importance of Market Research in Business
• 12:19 The Emotional Impact of Business Decisions
• 18:33 Understanding the Connection Between Mental Health and Skin Care
• 24:15 Accelerators and Funding: Building the Foundation for Beam
• 30:18 Building a Brand from Day One
• 39:24 Allocating Kickstarter Funds
• 45:52 Future Goals for Beam

Transcript

Sophie (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Commerce Club podcast. Today I am joined by the lovely Eniye who is the founder of and Beame is not her first business. We actually first connected on Instagram a few years ago when she was running her first business called Blob Box. And I wanted to invite her on today because I know since then, since we first connected and she's one of the few people that I've met online that I've met in real life. I know that she's been on this massive entrepreneurial journey and she's gone through so many different things and processes to get.

her new business being started. So I wanted to talk through that process of starting a new business because I know it's super interesting to people who are also going through it. So welcome, Eniye Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself and your entrepreneurship journey?

Eniye (00:41)
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so excited. So I'm the founder of Beame is an SPF brand. We create easy to reapply and fun to use as well as fun to unbox sunscreen. And we do that by including ingredients and scents that keep you coming back.

Sophie (00:45)
Bye.

Eniye (01:04)
our goal is to get people to reapply their sunscreen because we know that people do wear sunscreen but they don't actually always like reapply their sunscreen so that's sort of our focus and our goal.

Sophie (01:17)
That's so true. Like on your face, you're like, I don't know if you've put like makeup on after you've like put the sunscreen on and then you don't want to reapply it. Like I totally can see the need and demand for the product like yours. So just going back a little bit before you started Beame, as I said at the beginning, you started Blood Box. Talk us a little bit about that business and then how you've found yourself in your second business.

Eniye (01:29)
Exactly. Yeah.

Yes.

Honestly, I feel like I'm

problem solver. I think all my businesses have come from a need in my personal life to sort of like me fixing it. So with Blood Box it had to do with my sister and not like her starting her first period and not knowing much about her menstrual cycle and me just sort of creating a box, a subscription box that you know that could get delivered to her house or anyone who doesn't know about their menstrual cycle and making it like an enjoyable experience for them.

And then with Beame, that started through me going through stress actually during that time of doing too much in my life and...

just everything was just a lot. So I was dealing with so much stress during that time and that's kind of how I transitioned from creating Blobox to moving on to being sort of creating a need and a problem and solving a problem through each and everything I've created if that makes any sense. But yeah.

Sophie (02:50)
Absolutely, I think the best businesses to be honest are out of problems, right? Because ultimately if you've got that problem, so many other people are probably sharing that same exact issue. And ultimately, if no one else has solved it, if you can't find a solution, you've done all of the research, then so have these other people. So you know, most more than likely, it's a good actual way to test in the fact that there is probably market demand and need for that product.

Eniye (03:16)
Exactly.

Sophie (03:16)
Did you, like obviously you had both of these problems in both businesses, did you then go out and do any extra research to kind of like validate that this problem was also shared by other people?

Eniye (03:21)
Yeah.

I did.

I did. had to do like surveys. Like you would find me in like Facebook groups, like literally asking people, can you please complete the survey? I would be messaging like admins of groups like, please, can I just put this out? So I was doing loads of like market research. I was also using a lot of data from like places like Mintel, WDSN, like literally just anywhere I could find actual factual data that, you know, people have done. I'm sort of back what I'm saying actually

exists. So yeah, I was doing loads of market research but

you know, beyond I once I got further with the product, then I was actually testing it out on, you know, do more research with people to physically touch the product and you know, get more insights. So yeah, think I've always been doing research to nail down the product and the problem I'm actually addressing to make sure I'm nailing it right. Because if you're not creating a product that's actually going to solve something you just

It's just not going to work, it? think, especially when you're bringing it to market, you can't just spend so much money and time to create something that isn't going to actually serve a purpose. So that's kind of why I value that time of creating and just, doing a lot of research and getting to know my customer. I think that's the main point of all of this, really seeing what just learning so much about them. Yeah. So that's been my core focus, I would say.

Sophie (04:59)
think that's really good though because so many people don't do that step. You'd be surprised by how many people don't do that step. Obviously I work with founders all the time and I'm like, right, okay, who's your customer? Not a clue. Okay, right, what market research have we got to prove that this product has a demand or a need in the market? Haven't done any. Okay, well, let's go back to basics and let's start there because without that, how on earth?

Do you know who you're marketing to? How on earth do you know if someone is actually going to buy it? And exactly, key point that you just said, you're wasting time and money on doing something that you have absolutely no proof or evidence that could potentially work. So I think you went about that in the perfect way. Ultimately, you have to know exactly who your customer is. At the end of the day, they are the core of your business. Without them, you don't really have the business because no one's going to be buying your product. So I think that that's such an important step.

Eniye (05:32)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Agreed.

Sophie (05:53)
to go through and should be the first step that any kind of new business does is really hone in on one, what their mission is, what their values are as a business, and then who the bloody hell they're targeting and where it fits into the market. Because without those things, everything else you do is honestly a little bit pointless. So I think that's great that did that.

Eniye (06:07)
Hmm. Agreed.

Agreed. Fully agreed. Yeah, I think that's honestly always what I've done with every like plot box. I never stopped researching. You never, I would say as an entrepreneur, you never stop doing research into your customer and your business model and everything. But yeah.

Sophie (06:30)
Yeah, I think so. it changes, doesn't it? The more that you go along with your business as well, it is going to actually change because you evolve as a business and that's okay. You don't have to stick to the same demographic or exactly the same everything that you did where you fit into the market at the beginning. It can evolve as your brand evolves, but you have to keep on top of it. You have to keep knowing it as you go along so that you can adapt everything else that you're doing. So yeah, it's a super important step. And just going back quickly to Blobbox, like what

Eniye (06:39)
Yeah. No. No.

Mm.

Agreed.

Sophie (06:59)
made you make the decision to kind of shut that business and then move on to the next one.

Eniye (07:03)
Hmm.

That's a great question because actually no one's ever actually asked me that. I would say the moment I knew was when I was actually looking at the subscription model overall. I love insights. I'm such a insights person. love it. Anyways, I was doing loads of research and I could feel in the air.

feel it also, but also did loads of research that the subscription model wasn't working. And this was a time that consumers were going, you know, it was inflation that was happening, but it was still happening. And we're going through a cost of living crisis that I could, you get to understand what the economy is looking like. And I just knew that this model wasn't going to work long time. And I could see like the likes of like,

broach box like closing down and they had actually closed on a few months after I had closed down so was like my god this this isn't working even for like the likes of broach box like it's not working for them so that's when I knew something was wrong

And yeah, I just kind of evaluated everything. I looked at my customers, my repeat customers, what was happening. I was asking them, why are you unsubscribing? And I was getting a lot of insights like, it's too expensive.

this is like not really what I would be spending if I had to spend on you know anything for the month like my priorities are like you know groceries or like other like things like this is like such a like luxury expense and then I had to reevaluate like really is this this isn't like sustainable for me I did think about going down the route of sort of like offering like a first time

just like box for like people who have their periods, which is something I already did. But then I didn't really want that to be my core business because I really wanted to like go beyond the first time period and really just go beyond that. So I just felt like as a business model, the subscription box model wasn't working for me.

You needed a lot of volume, if that makes sense, like the products you're buying in, like with any products that we would put in the box, would need substantial to actually make more money out of it. The subscription box model works with a lot of bigger brands because a lot of brands offer them free products, whereas we were actually buying the products from brands. It was costing us a lot of money.

and I wasn't really making any profit. And I looked at my numbers.

My margin was so low and I come from a buyer, you know what, and I'm sure you do, you understand like the margin was like 30 something percent. That's not good enough. Like long-term, like that was pretty scary. looking at that, I was like, there's no way I can really make much out of this long, long-term. This is like, no, it's not a good enough model to, know, like really, really like sit on basically if that makes any sense. so that's when I sort of knew it was time.

Sophie (10:17)
Yeah.

Eniye (10:19)
to kind of like let the business go and not like make anyone want run it down even further so I was like I know this is the best sort of time to leave it now and leave it as it is and you know what I know

I did the best as I could and I think sometimes it's best to know when to leave something before things get worse. And I think I left at the best time if I'm honest, because like I said after that, a few months after Birchbox did close down. And yeah, just think the subscription model is all about volume and yeah, and you need a lot of funding to sort of fund that volume. But yeah.

Sophie (10:54)
Yeah, you've made some really good points, three really good points in that and first of all, yes, subscription I think is a pre-pandemic, in the pandemic, perfect business model, like absolutely perfect, like people wanted something being delivered to them consistently, regularly, on a regular basis and it worked so well and I feel like since maybe like 2022, 2023 it started to kind of like really decline because

Eniye (11:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sophie (11:24)
people aren't necessarily, as you said, like they don't have the disposable income anymore. So the first cut to be made is like, what have I got on my direct debit list that I can cancel out? And it is going to naturally be like a subscription based business, even Netflix, for example, they've introduced all of these like lower cost solutions for their, their streaming, right? Like it's, they've got like, what is it? think it's like 4.99 a month, but you can pay, but it's got ads or something. Cause they obviously clearly could see that people were struggling.

Eniye (11:35)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Exactly.

Hmm.

Sophie (11:52)
cancelling the Netflix subscriptions as and when they needed to. Like I've even done it with my Amazon one, for example, I don't have that anymore. So I feel like exactly you're completely right. Subscription model definitely had a peak, which is exactly the perfect timing that you were in it. And I think that was an amazing way for you to be introduced to business and then grow and understand like the operations because then you've obviously been able to take those learnings into your next one. And then the second thing is profit.

Eniye (11:52)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sophie (12:18)
We're both from buying backgrounds. So we both completely understand that. But again, a lot of the business managers that I work with don't really understand that profit is kind of the first thing that they should be thinking about. If you see in the background, actually, I've literally got that profit first, like sat behind me. And I don't always follow that, I will be honest, because in my own life, I am not the best at it. But in a business capacity, yeah, in the business capacity, you have

Eniye (12:36)
I her.

Yeah

Listen, it's tabasco. Yeah. Yeah. You know how important it is. Yeah.

Sophie (12:48)
to know your numbers, you have to understand the data. So I love that you said you like looking at the analytics and the insights to understand that and make smart decisions. And I think it's such a brave thing to be able to look at something and be like, I've built this business. You were obviously really passionate about it at the beginning because you had a problem that you wanted to solve and I'm sure it was a really amazing achievement for you to like go through that process, build something out of your own problem that really had a demand and a need in the market. But to be able to sit there and be like,

Eniye (13:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie (13:17)
this subscription, like analyze the market and say, actually, the subscription model isn't gonna work. And I'm not making the money that I need from this. It's a really big deal to say, I'm gonna step away from this now. Like I'm gonna go out whilst it's still on a high kind of thing. That's a really brave thing to do. So I really commend you for being able to do that. How did that feel from like a personal level? Like, was it emotional or was it like just a logical decision that felt like the right thing to do?

Eniye (13:41)
Wow. It was a logical decision, you know that actually affected. So we actually won a 10 grand grant that month and I had to actually be like, I'm stepping away from this. Yeah, yeah. So and I didn't, we didn't obviously get the funding because I was like, I'm stepping away from the business. So.

Sophie (13:51)
you

Eniye (14:03)
that was funny and that made me really sad because obviously I worked towards like grants like that and then had to step away from that opportunity mentally it was a lot I would say only a few months ago was I able to like get rid of the stock because I couldn't look at the stock like I gave it to charity because I was like there's no way I'm gonna like try sell this like I gave it to like a period charity but like

I felt sick that I had like all that just in like it's just it was like a core memory for me and building such a core brand and like a really impactful brand really it did it did take a lot like mentally to sort of like realize like wow I can't believe I come stepping away from this so mentally it was a lot it was a lot

Sophie (14:52)
I can imagine. can imagine. think like I feel like I'm kind of at that stage of my obviously we have different businesses, but I feel like I'm at the stage of my first business where I'm like, okay, I think I've taken that business to where it needed to go. And now it's time for me to pivot and change into something else. That's not going to be me stepping away from the business completely, but it definitely is going to be me changing quite a lot about that business. And it is, it is taking me a good six to eight months to come to terms with the fact that that needs to happen.

Eniye (15:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

No. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sophie (15:23)
because it's almost like you've built this thing and you obviously are really passionate still about that thing, but the market doesn't need it anymore. And also it's not giving you the results that you personally need. So you have to make some really tough decisions. And I really commend anybody that does that. And then also finds the, because this isn't an easy journey, this journey of starting a business, right? Like then finds the strength to then be like, I'm going to start again. Let's go again. Let's do round two.

Eniye (15:25)
Mmm.

Yeah.

No.

No.

Honestly, I couldn't believe it. was like, my partner was like, are you okay? Like you've not even finished your other business. I was like, I want to the next one. Because I usually like have to be doing something. Like I think it was like the day after like I closed, I was like mentally done with the business. I was like sitting in my bed and I was like, what am I gonna do? was my evening. I'm like.

Sophie (15:52)
you

Thanks

Eniye (16:17)
This is my life now, like doing nothing and I felt really like not complete. I felt like this can't be it for me. Like and I was like this can't be like where it ends. So I knew that I needed I personally what gets me going is having something I've built on my own. Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie (16:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, I love that and I think that's such a good realisation to have, it's like right this isn't my end of my story, let's go round two. So was it at that same point that you then started Beame? Like what's taught me through that process of like what was the initial things that led you on that journey with starting Beame?

Eniye (16:53)
Yeah, yeah so once I had closed Blob Box down I actually went to South Africa to visit my family. I was obviously severely stressed.

in that time and also you could like when I'm stressed you can see it in my face like my face can't hide it and I'm a person that barely wears makeup so like when you like when you see me it's just like my god like this is like not the same person so you can see it visually in my face so I had gone to South Africa to visit family I came from a household where I didn't wear sunscreen at all my mom till this day does not wear sunscreen like literally at all so I wasn't wearing sunscreen on my holiday I

obviously severely stressed. I didn't also realize that when your skin is stressed the sun actually causes more damage to your skin. I did not know that so I also, I mean didn't also wear sunscreen. also didn't reapply sunscreen so things were not looking great on my skin so I was obviously going to South Africa to get, I would say, myself back to the way I was mentally and I wasn't there.

Sophie (17:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eniye (18:06)
So I was sort of using the sun to boost my mood, but it was just causing even more damage, truly, my skin physically. I was physically feeling fine, you know, getting there, but my face wasn't. So it was just causing so much damage. And I was like, there's, I'm like, there has to be a way like I can fix what is going on on my face.

And I didn't realize obviously like this is something called psychodermatology. It's basically the connection between your mental health and your skin. didn't truly know what that was until I created Beame, like that the actual word, know, the field of study, that's what it's called. But yeah, that's sort of how I was looking for like something to protect my skin, but also reduce the stress on my skin that I was going through in that moment.

Sophie (18:44)
Yeah.

Eniye (18:57)
Thanks

I did find we're like just about some protection and I was like, okay, but I'm going through something physically on my skin on a day to day basis and I need to get my mood back and I need to get my, skin looking back the way it was. So why isn't there anything like that? And there's loads of products in the beauty market, but there isn't any, there's not that much products that actually sort out your stress levels or like anything like related to all the stress you're going through in your face. And that's sort of why I created Beame.

so you kind of focus on the emotional element of what you're going through to help you with your skin and especially because you know the sun doesn't play a major factor in all of the emotional side of things so that's sort of like what why i created beam i was going through a really difficult time sort of

grieving my business and just yeah, really stressed from life and everything that was happening. And that's sort of like when the problem I really wanted to solve was happening, but yeah.

Sophie (20:00)
That makes perfect sense and there is such a big link like the more research that I do with mental health and obviously like the new business that I've launched with Tina like the more I understand that the more I understand that like everything is so connected and I think it's great that you came to that conclusion and you've tried again trying to solve that problem but I guess guess for you like well you hadn't been wearing sunscreen did you know much about that field or was this like a completely new thing for you that you had to learn something about?

Eniye (20:13)
Mm.

It was so new. It was so new. like obviously my experiences in buying but I had never done like

sunscreen or like sun care. I had mostly done like fragrance. So like I really was into like scents, but like, I hadn't done nothing in like sun care at all. Like I knew nothing about the market at all. I think it's like, it's very different when obviously when you're buying these two different sorts of buying like branded buying and like own brand and I never did like own brand like product development. did more like branded like the brands and like that that's the site. I never even

Sophie (20:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eniye (21:03)
didn't even saw anything about the product life cycle of creating a new product from scratch. So everything was sort of new to me and yeah, like I knew nothing about the Suncare market at all, truly.

Sophie (21:16)
So it was a journey of you learning about it as you go along, I guess. Yeah. That's super interesting because it is, it's like, you could identify that there was a need, but actually it was in an industry that you haven't got any, any like experience with. And I think that that's also really common is someone has this an amazing idea for something, but

Eniye (21:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sophie (21:38)
quite a lot of the time it actually puts them off starting because they're like, my God, I've got to start from scratch and I really don't know anything about this market. But for you it was almost like, well, I know that I need to solve a problem so I have to learn about it, which I think is really, is really cool. And when you had that idea then and when you started doing the research and you started to understand a little bit more about that industry, I know that you did a couple of business accelerators and you went through that process. Talk me through that process from kind of like ideation, going through the accelerator and what did you get out of that?

Eniye (22:07)
Yeah, so I at the time, I still have a friend. my friend, she was starting her own body care brand. And I was telling her for ages, I really want to start my own skincare brand. I really want to. And I basically just asked her, what did you do? Just tell me what you did, because I still don't really know what to do. She's like, you need to get a chemist or you need to get a manufacturer.

guiding me through what she was doing because she was only starting her journey of doing creating her product. So I was like, okay, so she gave me a contact of a chemist to reach out to, reached out to her. At the same time, I was doing loads of, you know, research because when you're talking to a chemist, you actually need to know what your product needs to look like. Like the chemist would be like, fill out this form, tell me.

what your benchmark is, tell me how many mills, tell me what your UV protection needs to be, like they will ask you so many detailed questions and you need to sort of be ready because you can't just...

You know, think you want to create a product, you need to have that. So that's why a lot of market research needed to be done before that, before I actually spoke to my chemist and outlined what I did, because you're only allowed with my chemist certain amount of reiterations of changes of what you want it because then it starts getting more expensive. So that's sort of what I did. I did go through, I think one accelerator in the new year after that, because I started, I started like researching about the idea in September, then I created

my company in October.

In the new year, I did do an accelerator, but that was based around funding, like getting funding for my business because I had none. I like for Blood Box, I relied on grants. But this is very different because the business model is different. It's Blood Box, could sort of phrase my grant funding around like the impact. you can with my product as well because

Our aim is,

addressing something really, really important like, you know, skin cancer, like the 18 to 34 year old age group in the UK, we have like the highest skin cancer rates. So I guess like all of the things I've created sort of impactful and they have a lot of data to back what I've done. But yeah, it was super hard to sort of get funding to, you know, fund that even the development of the formula for my chemist, because I have to pay her for that.

So I did this accelerator and I actually got a grant from doing the accelerator, which was great. And that funded my chemist, or part of it funded my chemist. the accelerator was good for, yeah, like

raising funding but it's it's so the funding landscape is so hard is a product business like in the consumer space so it probably wasn't the right time for me to start fundraising considering i hadn't much but sort of an idea and not actually done anything in theory to prove that anyone wanted the product

if that makes any sense. it was great like inside because I knew nothing about much about fundraising, but it was, I loved the program and I met and I connected with so many people, networked with so many people that I still speak to to this day. And it's been, it's, it's been part of my, I would say my story that I did that accelerator. So that's the only accelerator I've done for Beame. It's called Founderland. And yeah, it was, it was amazing. I really enjoyed it. And then

Yeah, I think that's the only accelerators I've done. Yeah.

Sophie (26:01)
Okay cool that's really good though like I think going through like that process and learning about like the funding like that's even if You don't do that process again for beam for example like you've got that skill now like you've learned something you've taken away from that and I think Accelerators, I don't know a lot about accelerators, but I do know that they are really great for getting

Eniye (26:13)
Yeah.

Sophie (26:21)
getting funding at the end of it and the connections that you make. I'm sure you made quite a lot of connections, not only people doing similar things to you, like going through that startup process, but also people that can potentially introduce you to people that may help you with the development as your business grows as well. So that's really cool. And then once you had that funding for your accelerator, then what was your kind of like next steps?

Eniye (26:22)
very good.

Agreed.

So my next step was basically to then start my formulation of my product. As soon as I got that, I also, did fund that, some of the funding came from my job as well. As soon as I got like the first iteration of the formula, I basically started reaching out to the people who were doing my surveys and like, I'm like, listen, do you want to test the product? Because I've got it here.

and just getting feedback to make the formula as good as we can to bring it to market. So that was like my main goal in all of that whole thing. And it was great because, you know, I can actually get some user feedback to add onto like my pitch deckers of what you said investors. And we're like, this is how many people have tested it.

They like to see like results, they like to see numbers. That's one thing about investors. They like to see exactly, you know, how many people have tested it, you know, how many people are going to buy it, like sort of like that. So that's, was building my own data as a brand. I think that's super important to do when you're in the idea stage of doing all of this, creating your own data house you can use. yeah.

Sophie (27:58)
Yeah, no, definitely. think data is king, right? Like it literally can tell you everything that you need to know. So it's such an underrated tool that I see in business. And it's something that I try and teach people to use more in their businesses, because going back to what you said earlier about the different types of buying, I was in the same style of buying as you. did like branded and more strategic buying rather than product development. And that is all we did. Like they said, buying in the fashion industry.

Eniye (28:20)
Mm.

Thanks.

Sophie (28:27)
sounds like it should be really creative. No, actually, it's very highly analytical and you have to be super commercially minded to understand the numbers and the facts and the figures because ultimately that is how you make more money. So I think it's so good that you now have all of that data behind you. You've got all of those facts and you can then use that again to raise more funding or you can use that to invest more into different areas of the business that you come out of the fact that you understand this data and the research.

Eniye (28:33)
Yeah.

Sophie (28:56)
I think that that's really, that's a really good thing to do. And then at what point did you start like marketing the brand? Like I know you, I remember hearing you talk about it, even when you're going through your accelerator, like on LinkedIn and stuff, but like at what point did you be like, right, I need to get this out to the world now.

Eniye (29:14)
As soon as I had the idea, like on day one, I literally created, like I was searching, like, does anyone have like my domain? Does anyone have...

Sophie (29:16)
Okay.

Eniye (29:25)
like my Instagram or social media handles. It's like from day one, was purchasing all these things, creating accounts and I was talking about it and I was following anyone and everyone who wanted to listen to me talk about my brand basically. So I would say, yeah, even when I was in South Africa, I think that's when I created all the accounts and started talking about it. And...

I've probably never, probably not stopped talking about the brand. And it's probably been the best thing I've ever done because some people like, you know, like you could have seen the journey of how it really started versus how it is for now. And it's been, it's been super different. yeah, but I've been talking about it since day one.

Sophie (30:11)
Yeah, you have to and like even if you haven't got any of like the content or the material like I'm sure you didn't do a photo shoot on day one, you know, like you didn't do that for the other product but like you still have to be talking about the concept, talk about the idea because then later on down the line like I remember you first starting talking about it and then I've seen the involvement of it until to like what it is today which is really cool and it's not like I've seen it every day because I've not been conscious but every time I see you pop up I'm like I know what she's doing, I know what she's working on.

Eniye (30:17)
No. No.

Yeah... No...

Sophie (30:38)
then I'll maybe spark something to be like, I'm going to check out Instagram and then I'm going to be like, that's really cool. I'm going to click through on to website. Like it takes you on that journey before you even have the product. And I think that's so important. And that's something I've definitely tried to do with Tina as well. Probably not as much as I probably could have or should have, but it's definitely something that so many founders again, don't do. They think they have to wait until they have.

Eniye (30:38)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah.

you

Sophie (31:00)
their product to start speaking about something when actually start talking about when you've got the idea, show the progress, show the process, go through the whole thing. Because I think that's how people connect with you as a brand in a much deeper way.

Eniye (31:01)
No.

No.

Play three.

I agree. like I said, from day one, I even set up like, I got like a MailChimp account. set up like people need to sign up to my website. Like I was creating, I was gathering data. was gathering emails from day one because I knew how important emails are. Like I said, investors, they love numbers. Like at least, you know, I've got people on my email list. I've got people in my community. I've got, you know, so I was basically gathering a lot of information from people as I can.

I was even doing a quiz when they would sign up and ask them about their skin, literally anything I can to get as much data and information from people from day one. So I've never stopped doing that.

Sophie (31:55)
No, it's really good. I bet that's then equated into things like, for example, you've just gone through a Kickstarter crowdfunding process. Like surely that helps you with that as well, because you already had an audience to market that to. Yeah.

Eniye (32:08)
Yeah, yeah, it was it was it was a tough journey but if that massively helped me because I've been speaking to my audience since day one Yeah

Sophie (32:15)
Yeah. And tell me a little bit more about the Kickstarter then, like what made you go down that crowdfunding route and like what was the process for you to like raise the money that you wanted to raise?

Eniye (32:26)
So actually, people don't know this, but the amount I was raising my Kickstarter is actually what I was, I wasn't meant to raise, I was meant to raise more.

Sophie (32:37)
the whole.

Eniye (32:37)
So that actually was never my target at all. It was not meant to be that low, but it is what it is. And you move on and things happen. But it was just the dynamic of playing the game on Kickstarter. You have to put a really low target to sort of like tell the algorithm, like it's you're doing well. So that was not my goal. My goal was actually meant to be a lot bigger. But anyways, I was going through it. I told you, you know, I think it was October.

2022, yeah, I registered the business and I've been fundraising since then. So I spent like, you know, almost a year and a half trying to raise money from investors and nothing was going anywhere. And I was doing so much and every time investors would be like, no, but we want you to get here to, know, see I was, was getting fed up with the same answers. I was like, you know what, I have to take this into my own hands. I knew financially I couldn't fund the business through alone. I know some people

be like, just take on a line. But like, I was not in the position to take out a line that it's not this everyone's like life is so different. can't just go, you know, out.

Sophie (33:40)
Yeah.

No, I understand that. I'm the same person. Yeah, no, get that. I wouldn't necessarily take out a loan. I would rather be applying for all of the grants, all of the funding and try and get external funding than I would take out a loan.

Eniye (33:50)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And even that time I was applying for grants, like every single time I would see a grant, I was applying. So I never stopped, but I was getting frustrated because I feel like my time I just kept getting pushed back and back and nothing was moving forward in terms of what I could do with the funding I needed. And I didn't realize how expensive sunscreen was, is to manufacture.

I'm going to say any other ingredient like like any other product on the market. So I was like you know what

I'm going to look into crowdfunding and I did because I saw brands like Fussy, they launched on crowdfunding and I was like, you know what, if they can do it, I'm sure I can at least raise something. That was just my mentality at that time. So in January, I started speaking to people that had crowdfunded in the consumer space and asked them, was like, can you just tell me how you did it? And I was talking to so many people probably for every week or year.

I was bringing to like two people possibly even a day from one another. I was just trying to get as much information from people.

I did like get like loads of like support and help like people like who helped me like tell me about where things to find things or what to use and stuff. So that was sort of like my guide and I just knew that I really wanted to launch a crowdfunding. So I invested a lot of my money to find someone to create the page, how it should visually look. And at that time I was also redoing my branding for Beame.

because I literally initially when I created the brand, think I searched like yellow on Pinterest and I literally just put that on my website. So I had no branding at all. had no logo. I did have a mock up someone I asked someone to create for me a designer of the products of how they look for what they so different now and like the logo. that but at that time during my crowdfunding we were going through

A whole rebrand. had invested a lot of money into that. yeah, I hired someone to do the page of my crowdfunding, the copy. I really wanted to make sure that my branding messaging was very clear. I'm not that great. I knew like where my strengths are. I'm just like, this is not my thing. Like, I'm not good at this. I know what I want to say. So they basically laid it out for me and did everything for me, like visually. They helped me with my video because you have to create a video.

for crowdfunding, like a professional one, I would say, because that's just how the platform I work uses. I use Kickstarter, which is probably one of like the best platforms for crowdfunding. And that's basically how I I launched in September. So I had been planning it since January. So it's been it took months to get to the stage. I was and you know, I didn't just wake up like it took months and like, I would get opinion from

like people on like it LinkedIn when I was posting about my crowdfunding and people give me tips I'm like listen like thanks for like I've been diving doing I've been researching for a while and like they would know nothing about crowd I'm like I know like I've done like I know what I'm doing yeah like it was getting a bit so like I think yeah it's also like sometimes you need to learn to listen to people's opinions with a pinch of salt

Sophie (37:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a process. I do know a couple of people that have gone through that process. And I feel like a few again, a few years ago, like in the pandemic time, there was so many more grants available specifically for women owned businesses, like there was like NatWest back her business and like things like that. Whereas now there's really not

Eniye (37:22)
you

Agreed. Agreed.

Sophie (37:46)
that many options for funding because no one has any money. So it is a tough time to be raising money and trying to get capital and exactly what you just said like actually your target that you achieved wasn't necessarily the target that you wanted to achieve. But it is still finance right there is still money coming into your business which is obviously what the end goal is at the end of the day but it is a flipping process for you to get to that like if you weigh up all of the hours that I imagine that you put in and

Eniye (37:48)
No. It isn't.

Yes. Still money.

Sophie (38:14)
the money actually that you invested even just to get to the point of putting the crowd fund alive. Like that is a big job in itself, isn't it?

Eniye (38:19)
Yeah.

It was a lot. It was a lot. like, I know people see like it looked like I smashed my goal. did theoretically on the platform to what it looks like, but theoretically in my mind, I've still got to get the funding that I didn't raise from somewhere where it's a very tough time to get funding in general at all.

Sophie (38:39)
Yeah.

It is, I'm going through the same processes so I feel your pain. What are you going to do with the money that you have raised? Obviously you did achieve the Kickstarter target. What is that being spent on in your business?

Eniye (38:57)
So that's been spent on our SPF testing. That's also really expensive. People don't realize how expensive it is. It's so expensive. that's basically the money we've raised is half of our SPF testing. yeah. It's a huge chunk. It is, no, it's a huge chunk. then.

Sophie (39:13)
Wow, okay, and that's quite a big chunk of money as well. It's not like it's like a few hundred pounds, it's three thousand pounds.

Eniye (39:23)
some of the funding will go towards getting a bit of the batch of our product to do like a small manufacturing run.

to send to like retailers to test the product because we need to get them to test in an aerosol format. So like there's a lot of things that are like building up to getting our product to launch so that we can get to even be in a retailer or whatever. So yeah, there's the funding is going to places but yeah, we need more funding in terms of the manufacturing run. So yeah, there's a lot more that has gone to it.

Sophie (39:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I guess with your product as well, like just thinking about as you just said, retailers there, your previous business was literally direct to consumer, right? Like you were going directly from yourself to your customer. Whereas this business, more than likely, you're going to go down like wholesale routes or like different channels to get into retailers because that's the nature of your product is probably better placed in a retail environment. So

Eniye (40:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie (40:33)
How are you navigating that? Because that's quite a big difference in two business models that you've operated.

Eniye (40:39)
Yes, so I knew with my new business, I wanted to have control of my margin because I like, don't know if I remember I just said, I didn't before my margin was so poor. It was, you know, I really wanted to pay businesses fairly, but also it was impacting my business because I wasn't doing, I wasn't getting a fair chance to kind of really have a good margin. So I really knew that my business now

Sophie (40:50)
Yeah.

Eniye (41:09)
I need to be in control of the margin heavily. So that's been like my plan with Beame and I knew that I wanted to sort of use my strengths being from a retail background. I really wanted to make sure that I can actually use what I've been doing for years to launch my brand into retail. So that's sort of what my angle has been. And briefly, like the first thing I did when I had the idea of Beame, also forgot to mention, I actually reached out to one

of my retail contacts and I was literally like speaking to like the buyer of like Suncare and I was like this is like my idea I want to be in like get me in and it was the easiest thing I probably had done it throughout all of this and I was just like you know what this is what I want to do where I know what my strengths are in my business so yeah

Sophie (41:49)
Good.

Yeah.

100%, you have to know your strengths. Like exactly going back to what you said earlier, like I know my strengths in my business, I know my weaknesses. And if I can pay money to outsource my weaknesses, I will pay the money if I have the money because I don't want to be working in a position that if ultimately if you run a business, you're doing it because you want to be working on something that you love. Obviously, there's always going to be things in business that you don't like. But if you can outsource those things that you're not good at or you don't enjoy, that will make your life.

better and you can work more solely in your zone of genius and doing the things that you really enjoy doing and are good at and working on the business development and the progression, that is where you should hopefully be and then everything else in an ideal world, if you have the money, you outsource all of the other things. So I think you've hit the nail on the head there and you're really doing things in the best way you possibly can. And I imagine from the two businesses that you've set up, what...

Eniye (42:42)
Mm.

Sophie (43:01)
differences, what challenges have you faced like from journey one? Because I imagine you had learned so much through that first journey, but going into your second journey, you had a base level knowledge now of like how things should go, how things should run. So in theory, it should have been slightly easier. I'm sure it wasn't. But in theory, like what lessons did you take and like what challenges have you had to overcome in this new process?

Eniye (43:07)
Yeah.

I would say before I was sort of clueless about the funding landscape, but now I know that there is money out there. I know it's very hard to get, but I know there is money in different ways. And I sort of was a bit clueless with my previous business about the funding landscape.

Sophie (43:36)
Yeah.

Eniye (43:49)
Yeah, would say compared to my previous business, I spend less on this business because I fully understand how things work. Now I would say, and I also know how to use my time better without burning myself out like I did with my other business. I know what I move a lot faster with things. make a lot. The decisions are just much quicker. I would say with this business than my previous business because I'm not relying.

you

on that sort of like support from others and if that makes any sense but what's also really different with this business is because I rely so much on other people like you know my chemist, my manufacturer, like so many people to get my product in line it is a lot slower versus my other business I'm like okay just always send my products by this day you know I can tell it like even an earlier date and the products will arrive but this business it's

very different it's so much you rely on so many people to get the acts together if that makes any sense but yeah

Sophie (44:55)
Yeah, you're dealing directly with this first hand supply chain, right? So obviously there's like extra people's involved and you're relying heavily. So it's really important in those scenarios to like build the relationships, which it sounds like you've done. You've got like a really solid production line that may change as your business grows and develops, but it sounds like you've got off to a really good starting point. And I've really enjoyed like hearing about the whole story, but what's next? Like what's the next step for Beame and yourself and like, where do you kind of see the brand going in the future?

Eniye (45:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so what's next for Beame is we are hopefully going to be launching into a retailer or two in the new year. And I look.

Sophie (45:34)
Yay!

Eniye (45:38)
We are gonna be also we're working on me to meet MPD So that's currently in the pipeline for anyone who is listening or watching You sort of need to have that if you're going into retail, so it can't just for one product But yes, that's kind of like our goal and I would say our focus at the moment if I'm gonna send a whole has always been to is to focus on products are easy to reapply so that's sort of like

at the forefront of the beam in the business and really what makes us stand out and will make us stand out as well as the emotional side of things of our products through the ingredients and scents. that's sort of like been, yeah, that's never changed since day one and it will be core I would say in the next few months for the business. yeah, yeah.

Sophie (46:27)
Yeah, well, it's an exciting time and I'm really excited to see where you take it all next and which retailers you end up going into and how it all comes together. But congratulations, because it looks amazing. The branding looks so good. I think it's really iconic. Like every time I scroll past I'm like, I know that it's you. So I think that that's really says something about all of the work that you've put in and like it looks really good. So congratulations and

Eniye (46:43)
What the fuck?

Sophie (46:52)
I love your journey, I think it's super inspirational and hopefully people listening are inspired to go off and start their own journey or maybe even inspired to shut down one of their businesses to move into something new because it might not be working anymore so I think that's really admirable. So for anyone that's in that situation right now, watch your number one bit of advice for someone either looking to pivot into something new or start something new completely.

Eniye (47:06)
Yeah.

I would say always trust your gut. would say that's definitely what helped me get to this point. But also really, I think it's important to be re-evaluating your business as often as possible to actually see what's working and speaking with your customers. That's what made it super clear for me to leave that business behind and move on to this new chapter and really understand what wasn't working. And now, like before, I didn't really have control of my

margin but now I know that's like my focus I would say with this new business like I want to change things personally like what my new goals are in terms of like ways of working with people so I think yeah reevaluate like what's what you want yeah out of this and whole thing yeah yeah

Sophie (48:02)
Yeah, such good advice. I love the advice about the numbers. I bang about on about it like all the time, like look at your analytics, look at your numbers, but this is proof. This is proof, evidence that it has to happen. So yeah, no, that's really good. well, thank you so much. And if anyone wants to follow being yourself, like how can people find you?

Eniye (48:12)
Yes.

god. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, you can follow Beame, B-E-A-M-E-S-P-F on Instagram, TikTok, and our website is [beame.com](http://beame.com/). And you can also follow me, nea.beame on Instagram and TikTok. Yeah, that's for now. Bye.

Sophie (48:43)
Amazing. Well thanks so much for joining me. I've really enjoyed catching up with you and hearing the full story as I say I'm watching from the sidelines but it's been really nice to delve into it with you so thanks so much for joining me.

Eniye (48:54)
Thank you so much for having me and it's been great speaking to you and appreciate it.

Sophie (48:58)
Thank you.

Eniye (49:05)
I see.