Building in Public #10: TED Talk goes live, charity event success + ghosted from a $3k project
A recap of what's happened while building Mane Hook-Up.
Hey everyone, I'm so sorry for missing last weeks building in public newsletter. I underestimated how much time needed to bounce back from the Crowned with Care charity event. Thinking I could finish writing and editing in all of a few days (but that wasn't the case). As a thank you for bearing with me, I will make the next deep dive post available to everyone for free. P.S. I'm planning to make some changes to the newsletter in May so stay tuned!Hey there 👋🏾,
For those of you who are short on time, here are the sections of the newsletter you can skip ahead to…
Progress🏅: We helped 40 foster kids get free hair appointments and products!
Problems🤕: A client ghosted me (skipping out on a $3k invoice)
Plans💡: Prepping for the next 6 months of events
🎯 Recap of the previous week
So much has happened… I don’t know where to start
Fist of all, a huge thank you to everyone for bearing with me as I got back into the swing of posting the newsletter. The past 4-5 weeks of event planning for Crowned with Care have been very intense, but I can 100% say that the results were well worth it.
That, combined with my TED Talk finally going live, seeing some growth with the Mane Hook-Up platform (as well as the podcast) and I can honestly say that Q1 has been filled with blessings. So, without further or do, here’s a recap of progress, problems and plans from the past few weeks.
🏅 Progress
My TED Talk is LIVE 🥳
As most of you know, in December I was 1 of 10 speakers chosen to take part in the TED Ideas project that showed the behind the scenes process of preparing for and delivering a TED Talk.
When I was working on the application form back in October, I knew one thing for certain.
I wanted to talk about how the Black hair industry can help us create wealth, and create opportunities for future generations. This is something that sits with me each and every day. Especially considering the role I want Mane Hook-Up to play in helping textured hair stylists to 4x their income.
So, when I got the opportunity to talk on stage back in December, I poured everything into it. Weeks of writing, rehearsing, getting advice from speaking coaches to make sure the message was heard loud and clear.
Have a listen to the talk (it’s only 10 mins) and let me know what you think in the comments!
P.S. This was my first keynote speech so be kind lol 😆
TIP FOR FOUNDERS GETTING INTO PUBLIC SPEAKING: Make a point of speaking to other people who have been in the speaking world some time. They can often open up doors and get your first few gigs. And, if you don't feel comfortable diving head first into keynotes, start with some panels! We helped 40 foster children get free hair appointments & built relationships with 10+ hair brands in the process
After almost four months of preparation, we finally delivered the Crowned with Care London event on April 13th.
We brought 21 textured hair stylists and 10 brands together to offer 40 Black and Mixed-race children in foster care hair appointments, products and education for free.
And it was incredible, not only to bring the event to life, but also to see the immediate impact of our work on the local community. Children having their first experience in a salon. Paired up with stylists who care and have the textured hair knowledge to answer their questions.
That all said, since running the first event in Leicester in February, we have achieved a lot…
What we’ve achieved
Across London and Leicester we helped:
75 children get a fee hair appointment and hair products
36 braiders, stylists and barbers turned up on the day (+ we had a waitlist with more)
Parents, social workers and stylists gave us a 4.8/5 star rating
10 hair brands committed to making product donations
£9k raised with 30% coming from our event sponsors
How the event helped the community
There are a lot of issues that both foster parents and foster children currently face when it comes to hair care. For example:
Finding the right stylists or barbers — this is especially difficult if the foster family comes from a completely different cultural background.
Understanding the difference in hair and skin care for children of colour — with 8/10 Black and Mixed-race children being housed by families from a different cultural background, foster parents don’t typically have that knowledge or education about textured hair care.
Knowing what products to buy and where to get them from — similarly to the above, as they come from a different background, they often don’t know where to go.
And, in one day, we gave the foster parents and their children access to all three of these things, offering the children a dream experience where they could learn from licenced professionals, get some quality products and feel far more confident about managing their hair going forward.
Not to mention, once the event had finished, they got a discount code to use for an online beauty product store and 2x hair education videos from our Head of Education and Community. All of this to provide them with the immediate and long term support they need to help the children in their care.
How the event helped the business
Running Crowned with Care has not only supported our community, but also put the team in a great position. We now have:
Build strong relationships with 60+ stylists across two major UK cities
Started relationships with 10+ hair brands we can work with again in the future
Relationships with some of the biggest local authorities in London
Gained some press coverage for the event and our brand (BBC, local newspapers and radio)
A template for any events that we want to run in the future that has been tried and tested
We started Crowned with Care to make sure that an element of giving back is engrained into the fabric of Mane Hook-Up as a business. It was always about the community and never about the business. But, we have inevitably gained a lot from just turning up and supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
Which just goes to show, when you work on solving a long-standing problem, the right opportunities will find you.
TIP FOR FOUNDERS RUNNING EVENTS: Find an event coordinator who can help you to think of what could happen in every eventuality and plan for it. The most important thing with events is having peace of mind and (while you will probably face a challenge or two on the day), having a plan will make it that much easier. Is this helpful? Share the Inside Small Giants newsletter with your community.
🤕 Problems
A freelance client ghosted when they owed me a $3k invoice
(here’s what I learned)
As a founder who is bootstrapping (which also means freelancing on the side), I do my best to find and work with clients who are easy to work with.
And when I say easy to work with, I generally mean… they know what they need from me, they trust me to execute and pay me on time. Combine that with the fact that I love a bit of strategic work, and I’m more than happy to get stuck in.
Fortunately, I went 18 months completely undefeated. Great clients, amazing missions.
Until about 3-4 weeks ago…
The back story
Now, I’m going to share the quick version of this story so I can get to the lessons (because I think that’s the most interesting part), so bear with me. As someone who is part of more communities than I can count, every now and then, I drop a friendly message in there to let people know I’m a marketer and happy to help where I can. I did this about three months ago, and a Founder from one of these communities messaged me privately to discuss a project in more detail. We had a few calls, I shared a proposal, they said please get started asap as we needed the work to be done, well… yesterday.
Contract sent and signed, I shot over my invoice and got started with the work.
Now this is where I made a mistake… because I started ploughing through the first stage of the project, before my invoice had been paid. In my mind, a contract signed was a strong enough signal that they were committed, and I didn’t mind.
Oh little did I know what I was about to deal with.
Four days after the contract has been signed, they start trying to negotiate my payment terms (I ask for 50% upfront). This leads to a pretty brief conversation over email, where they state they’re happy to pay for the work I’ve done to date and want to pause the project for a couple of months.
A red flag… but that point, I’ve done about 1.5 days of work, and as I’m sensing they have a cashflow issue, so I meet them half way and send an amended invoice (expecting it to be paid before I send the work that’s been done to date).
Then crickets.
I send emails and a couple of text messages, nothing.
They totally ghost, leaving me $3k down (that would have been the 50% upfront fee) and not even payment for the time I had put in.
Afterwards, I felt a mix of emotions. Angry, sad, anxious and probably everything else in between. But, I was also really disappointed as the group the Founder had come from was solely dedicated to women of colour supporting each other.
To say I felt let down was an understatement, but I also realised I was very much underprepared for what happened. Mainly because I had always had good working relationships with my clients.
Now that I’ve reflected on what happened, I wanted to share my learnings so that other founders who are freelancing and building can learn from my lesson instead of learning the hard way.
The lessons
Don’t start the work until you’ve been paid
Funnily enough, this is a rule that I usually live by. But in this case, I just responded to the urgency my client showed to get the work done, instead of just acting in my best interest. That meant I spent a good day and a half on work that I didn’t end up being paid for in the end.
Contracts are helpful, but you need the means to chase a client if they break the terms
Which leads to my next point. Contracts are great, as they typically act as a form of protection on both sides. But if the setting is slightly different to usual (e.g. you’re in the UK and your client is in the US, as it was for me), then you have to be prepared to either chase the client if they break the terms of be in a position to take legal action should you need to. Contracts are just a fancy
Have some contingency money stored away just in case a client doesn’t pay
Probably the most important point of them all is, be prepared by saving up 2+ months of earnings just in case a client does a disappearing act. That way, as much as it will be painful to lose your time, you’ll at least have the peace of mind that bills will be paid and there’s no need to scramble.
Be prepared to walk away from a situation professionally (even if it feels awful)
Finally, be prepared to walk away from situations that don’t serve you. As tempting as it can be to send a scathing email or text message, don’t give them any ammunition. You can chase for an invoice for days, weeks or months, but it is ultimately down to the integrity of the person you’re working with to pay you or not. Unless you have the means to chase them legally, know when to walk away and let go. You’ll be much better off looking for a new client that you will be fighting an old one.
Like I said, I would rather everyone who’s reading learns this lesson than lives it! But if you happen to experience something similar, also remember this isn’t a reflection of your worth either. Remember that.
TIPS FOR FOUNDERS WHO ARE FREELANCING ON THE SIDE: One of the biggest challenges I have had is finding balance between having set time for my business and clients. Until I started time-blocking using my Reclaim calendar. Even if you time block manually, make sure you are separating the time spent on projects and delivering for clients. You don't want to drop either ball, which means planning your time where you can. 💡 Plans
Planning the next 6 months of virtual and in-person events
With Crowned with Care finished, we’re starting to map out all of the stylist events that we’ll run for the next 6 months.
The aim is simple, we want to help stylists understand how they can build incredibly profitable businesses, by learning from other people who have been there, done it and worn the t-shirt.
Given this has been in the works since the beginning of the year, we already have:
Guests lined up until UK Black History Month (which is in October).
Two venues to choose from — one to get started with and another to build up to once we have more sponsors in place.
Things like catering, goody bags and live streaming sorted (which is a huge relief).
So my next plan of action is to get these events planned, in the calendar and to start promoting them in the next 4-6 weeks. Which means there will be plenty for myself and the rest of the team to do!
🤔 Questions?
Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below! Until next week,
J x
P.S. Here are some of my other posts:
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