Building in Public #9: Countdown to our charity event
A recap of what's happened while building Mane Hook-Up.
Hey there 👋🏾,
For those of you who are short on time, here are the sections of the newsletter you can skip ahead to…
Progress🏅: Secured partnerships for charity event (and more)
Problems🤕: My body responded pretty badly to stress, and needed a time out
Plans💡: Closing the funding for our event
🎯 Recap of the previous week
The countdown continues for Crowned with Care London
Four weeks and counting until we kick-start Crowned with Care London, our charity event dedicated to helping children in foster care get free hair care.
After kick-starting with Leicester a few weeks ago, we’ve had to double down on the product donations, financial sponsorships and using social media to rally our community together.
It has been a bit of a wild ride, but the entire team has learned a tonne and we can now start to apply some of those learnings to prepping for next month. As exciting as it’s been speaking to new brands and building relationships, this hasn’t come without it’s stresses, but the lessons have been worthwhile.
🏅 Progress
Secured 3x new partnerships and 1x sponsor for our charity event
It’s been a busy few weeks in the build up to London Crowned with Care.
For those who don’t know, we’ve teamed up with a braiding studio in Leicester to give back to our community by offering children in foster care free access to hair appointments, hair products and hair education.
Mainly as, I strongly believe that you can still contribute to your community at any stage. Not to mention, doing so helps us to build a stronger relationship with our community, in a way that isn’t all about our product.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, giving for giving’s sake builds a strong community who become fiercely loyal when you’re filling gaps and gaping holes that have long been there but left unaddressed.
And, with 8/10 Black and Mixed-race children in care in foster care being homed with families from a different cultural background, they often don’t get access to the right hair and skin care
That said, we have had a tonne of positive engagement from hair care brands, stylists and the care community. Especially, considering how well the Leicester event went a few weeks ago.
What we’ve achieved so far
At Leicester we helped:
26 children get a fee hair appointment and hair products
14 braiders, stylists and barbers turned up on the day
Parents, social workers and children left positive reviews
Which has also helped us to prepare for London with:
22 stylists, braiders, stylists and barbers registered for the day
10 hair brands committed to making product donations
45% of our funding raised from sponsors or our community
How social media has helped us fundraise
Word to the wise for anyone who is considering crowdfunding and event planning at the same time, TikTok is a very helpful.
After posting a video for the Leicester event, we raised over £2k, and one post for London has so far raised £600 (and I have less than 200 followers on the platform.
Unlike Instagram, where your organic reach is definitely limited by your follower count (sad face), TikTok seems to be more interested in how catchy your content is. We’re going to run some tests over the next 2-3 weeks to see how much we can raise, while we continue to speak to sponsors.
Highly recommend posting content on this channel to build up momentum for any campaign.
How we have landed our first paid sponsor
Besides seeking funding from our community, we’ve also kick started some conversation with bigger hair and beauty brands about financial sponsorship.
But, I did this with some help from the other founders in my community.
After having a few conversations, and prodding/poking around, I was introduced to a few bigger brands and are in conversations with three at the moment. The most important thing is these founders really trust that I would turn up in the right way.
That has allowed me to start building relationships with brands and land one sponsor (to be announced soon😉).
Again, my advice for any founders who want to get into rooms that haven’t been in before, build a tribe and surround yourself with founders who are willing to go the extra mile for you (and vice versa).
It goes a long way to getting you a step closer to bringing these big ideas to life.
TIP FOR FOUNDERS RUNNING EVENTS: It is possible to raise money and plan an event at the same time but, you have to try and be one step ahead of the game. Mainly as the last minute to-dos will creep up on you otherwise. Also, highly recommend you get an event planner (friend, intern or pro, you choose), because they'll see any gaping holes that you just can't. Landed not one, but two radio interviews 🎤
This was another big win for the charity event as both interviews were predominantly about them!
We were interviewed by BBC Radio Leicester after being nominated for their ‘Make a Difference’ award for community impact. Ant then, we featured on Supreme FM’s Spilling the Tea to Juliet Gee show — this was a couple of hours long, so there’s a part one and part two.
Now, I spent a tonne of time trying my best to get onto radio stations but had very little luck. So, I will say that this particular type of PR feels very cliquey and it’s less about how interesting your story is and more about who you know and are connected to.
That said, it’s one of many reasons to keep networking with other Founders and even people in different communities.
TIP FOR FOUNDERS LOOKING FOR PR: In a couple of weeks, we've had two radio interviews, a major newsletter feature and a couple of social media features. The key to all of this? Connecting with creators and editors directly through warm introductions. A few years back, I had a PR freelancer help us get into some major publications. Now, after 18 months of building my personal brand, it's easier for me to get coverage myself. The best thing you can do is couple investing in freelancers with investing in yourself to make sure it pays off in the long run. I took part in a braiding and cornrowing class (thanks to IVYWILD)
Now, while this doesn’t sound like a big deal… for me this was my first experience on the other side of the chair.
As someone who’s building a technology company for afro hair stylists and their customers, I am verryy familiar with the experience of getting my hair done, but I haven’t spent much time doing hair myself.
So, this was a great way to learn, first hand, the level of skill that’s really needed to do great hair care. Let me tell you… this stuff isn’t for the faint hearted.
Several hours (and about twenty attempts to cornrow later) and I had finally managed to make sense of how to do it. But not to anywhere near the level of precision, detail or style that I see in a salon — not that I was expecting to master the technique in one class!
On the upside, doing this made me keen to spend more time learning about styling from our stylists so I can better understand their pains and problems. As a Founder, it never hurts to get closer to your customers through personal experience, and I was incredibly grateful to take some time out to trial being a stylist for a few hours.
TIP FOR LIVING IN THE DAY OF A CUSTOMER: Ask some of your favourite customers if you can shadow them for a few days. This will give you a better idea of their day to day (and teach you a new skill or two at the same time). Is this helpful? Share the Inside Small Giants newsletter with your community.
🤕 Problems
Body responded pretty badly to stress 😟
One thing is sure about being a Founder. It’s important to have your mental, physical and spiritual health in check. I usually feel like this is something I’m on top of… but for the past three to four weeks, my body has been through it.
From horrendous back ache to tight muscles, and struggle with sleeping, this is the first time I’ve had a back to back spell of my body seriously reacting to stress. As someone who runs 4x days a week, lifts weights and enjoys walking, being unable to move is a serious kill joy. I love being able to move my body (pain free). So, it was a real challenge to navigate my way through this pain.
Having tried everything to make it better. Three physio appointments and over £100 later, I realised that the bulk of this was coming from stress. The stress of doing 101 things, running a business, being a wife, helping and juggling clients. The reality it is it all adds up.
Like most of the problems that sit in this section of the newsletter 😭, I have no idea how to fix this lol. What I do know for certain is worrying makes it worse, and worrying is really wasted time that you can’t get back. Because it can’t add an hour to my life or help me figure out how to solve the real issues behind the stress.
So, for all the Founders who have been struggling with similar issues, don’t be afraid to take a break. Whatever it is you’re working on will be there when you get back. If you have a good team and trust them, nothing will be on fire when you get back.
Take some time out to destress. It will be the difference between you getting through the work and it getting on top of you.
TIPS FOR FOUNDERS WHO NEED A BREAK: People typically have 25 days of holiday a year. That works out to 2 days of holiday a month. Take your time off and enjoy it. Your mind and body will always thank you for it.💡 Plans
Closing the funding for our event!
With four weeks to go and £4k (minimum to make everything work) left to raise, my mission for the next few weeks will be raising as much money as possible for Crowned with Care London.
So far, we have one sponsor secured and I’m in conversations with other brands to get the rest of the funding over the line. Next up:
Understanding what our sponsors want: this is the first time (in a very long time) that I’ve had to consider creating sponsorship tiers and agreements for brands to collaborate with us. So, my job for the next few weeks is to truly understand what they need and how we can position Mane Hook-Up as an Crowned with Care as an event worth investing in.
Interested in supporting the community pot?: Make a contribution to our GoFundMe here. Any support from our community would be so appreciated!
I’ll be doing a deep-dive all about brand partnerships and what to look out for so stay tuned for more!
🤔 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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