Founder's Story - From Breakouts to Breakthroughs: Waepril’s Rise to a 180K-Strong Skincare Community | Ep 208

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

April (“Waepril”) shares how battling teenage acne sparked her obsession with ingredient-led skincare and launched her Instagram career. From zero views in quarantine to brand partnerships and a new website, she reveals the mindset, strategies, and resilience needed to turn personal struggle into a thriving beauty business.Key Discussion Points:Origins of Her Passion:Teenage acne eroded April’s confidence, driving her to decode product labels and hunt active ingredients that truly work.Emphasis on teaching followers how to read ingredients rather than chase marketing claims.Authentic Community Growth:Early quarantine boredom turned into daily posting despite tiny view counts—passion kept her going.Advice for new creators: embrace originality, adapt trends into your own voice, and persist through slow growth.Monetization Pathways:As follower count climbs, brands seek her out for product launches and paid collaborations.Amazon affiliate links and TikTok/IG Shop as accessible entry points before launching a full e-commerce site.Content Differentiation:Stand out by infusing every reel with your personality and story, not just mimicking top trends.Trend hijacking vs. trend transformation: use popular formats as springboards for unique angles.Overcoming Personal Loss:A pause after her father’s passing led to renewed clarity and commitment—turning grief into motivation.Balancing vulnerability and positivity to build deeper audience trust.The Future of Social Commerce:Huge potential in live selling on TikTok, YouTube Commerce, and Amazon Live, especially for beauty demos.The importance of user-friendly affiliate programs for creators without bespoke websites.Key Takeaways:Ingredient Literacy Is Power: Teach your audience to look past branding and focus on actives that actually deliver.Passion Fuels Persistence: When growth stalls, genuine enthusiasm and a personal “why” will carry you forward.Authenticity Wins: Audiences connect with real stories and personalities more than polished, generic content.Accessible Monetization: Start with affiliate links and brand collaborations before scaling to full e-commerce.Closing Thoughts:April’s journey proves that turning personal pain into purpose can create a loyal, engaged community—and a viable business. By prioritizing ingredient expertise, authentic storytelling, and resilience, any creator can transform their passion into influence and income.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://www.avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Notion: https://notion.com/founders* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com slash founders. Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder's Story. Today we have Waapro, AKA April, a Canadian-based beauty influencer with over 180,000 followers on IG and focused mostly on something

that is near and dear to my heart, but skincare and makeup. Now Waipro, I gotta say, I don't tell anyone this, but I've been wearing makeup for many years. I don't call it makeup. I call it tinted sunscreen. But I guess it's technically makeup, theoretically.

So I'm excited to talk through this, but I want to understand from your perspective as to why do you get into this? Why are you so passionate about it? And then how do you see being able to turn this into a business, going from the social media side to the business side? To answer your first question, the real reason or the whole reason as to how I get into this whole beauty industry is when I was in my my fifth, like when I was in my teenager

years, I actually had a lot of acne. And it's something that made me, you know, less confident as a person. Like I always stare at myself in the mirror and say, oh my gosh, like I have a new acne again. Like it's almost like every single day I'll get a new acne. And at that time, you know, I'm not very good at putting makeup, but I bought some makeup, tried my best to cover it up. But in the end of the day, it just, you know, I'm not quite there. I'm not quite there. Like I wasn't a confident person. And so because of that, you know, because of my skin being bad during my teenage years, I start to learn the ingredients of different skincare products. You know, when they say acne-prone skin, within the acne-prone skin, like, you see, you know,

thousands of products in the market. But then which one is for you? So I tried a lot of different products. And some of them made my skin even worse. Like I noticed that I even have more acne afterwards. So I'm like, okay, that didn't work. So I ended up trying out a lot of different products. And eventually I realized it's actually the ingredients that matters. Like the ingredients are the ones that really does something to your skin. And you need to find the

right ingredient that will work well for your skin. So that's kind of how I started this whole beauty industry idea, and which is why if you look at some of my Instagram posts, when I talk about the products, I talk a lot about the ingredients itself, because the active ingredients are the ones that actually make your skin either better or worse. So it's kind of like, it's very important. And I hope, you know, whoever for the individuals who's like passionate about the beauty industry, you know, looking at the ingredients is actually very important.

I'm glad you bring that up. It can be very daunting for people, right? Like you said, I have acne, I have some acne scars still you want to get rid of it you see every advertisement you know before it'd be like tv advertisements right and then you try it and it doesn't work makes it worse and then you're more you're less confident you know you're more thinking about the acne, it almost makes it really stress like is really, it's really very daunting. So it's great to have someone like yourself who, who's actually trying it. It's like an unbiased perspective. Is that what you're what you're seeing now from a lot of content

creators is the ability for us to watch them try it. Yes, there are definitely a lot of beauty influencers who do that. Some of them like really has, you know, they used to have very bad skin and they show it from the video. Like, look, I use, you know, product A for two to three weeks and now my skin has cleared up and my acne is gone. But acne prone skin can be very tricky because let's say you have acne, I have acne, but different ingredients will work for you, different ingredients will work for me. So it's kind of like, it's a bit tricky. It's good to follow, like it's good to watch followers. But in the end of the day, every skin, every individual has a different skin, even though, you know, both

of us have acne prone skin, like it could, it still could be different. So in the end of the day, it's important to try out the product when you're on. Yeah. So now you, you know, you built a community, you built what sounds like amazing people who, who really look up to you, they watch what you're doing, they take the advice. What's the next phase for content creators? Once they start building this up, then what do they do next? How do they really monetize? How do they turn it into a business? I think after growing a specific number of followers, the next step would be collaborations. So right now, I will get like sometimes emails from like, you know, brands that I love saying that, hey, we're launching in Canada, like, you are one of the

few beauty influencers that we want to ship our product to, you know, so you can like, tell your audience about us launching. And the other one is paid collaborations. Smaller brands who are trying to get their name out there would love to work with bigger beauty influencers just to help get their brand, their products out there in the market space. No, that's amazing. What do you, if someone came to you and said, look, I have 10 followers, I wanna grow,

I wanna build a community, I'm passionate about XYZ. Is there anything that you can, any tips or strategies that you can give them that worked for you in terms of being able to grow and create the community? Yes, for sure. So I think for me, when I started, it was hard because you post, you probably just get three views, five views, or even zero views. You know, just because you're starting, you only have five followers. But the most important thing is if you're passionate on something, you'll keep going. Like, don't just give up and say, oh, I only have five followers this month, I should just move on with my life. I think for me, the passion is really what got me here

in this position because had I looked, if I look back as to how I started, I could have easily told myself, you know what? This is not gonna work out, I'm just gonna give up and then do something else. But no, I didn't. Like I told myself, you know what? I love what I'm doing, I'm gonna keep going,

I'm just gonna keep posting and then look at, you know, trending reels to keep going, I'm just going to keep posting. And then look at, you know, trending reels, you know, kind of see what's going on in the market, like what's going on in the Instagram space, for example. It's like, oh, this thing, this kind of idea is trending, you know, maybe create something similar. But to me, I like originality. Like I would look at an idea, but eventually I'll make it into my own.

Because to me, what's important is I want people to look at a specific reel and say, oh, it's Vapro who created that reel, not, oh, it's just the top trending reel. I mean, it's good to be the top trending reel, but I always want people to say, oh, it's Vap way post reel, you know, it's different. It almost has like my personality, my passion, my love into that. I really like the individuality. I think it's really easy to just copy trending stuff, trending music songs, dances, whatever it is, just do exactly what everyone else but then what separates you at that point, right? If you're just following along everyone else. So that's a great, and then I could see from

somebody's perspective that if only two people watch it, they get very discouraged and they stop. So what for you made you keep going? Because as we know, like you said, most people are doing this for free in the sense of no one's paying them to post on social media in the beginning. And then if you factor in their cost of their time, they're technically negative, right? In the beginning as they're building up. So what for you encourage you to keep going? I think for me, so when I started back in 2020, you know, it was COVID, I'm bored. I have a lot of time in my hands.

So I started doing it for fun at first, but closer to like 2021. And this was the time when my dad was not feeling well and also the year when he passed away. I remember it was a little bit touching because he, like I was talking to him before he passed away and I was telling him about, you know, I like doing what I'm doing, but he always tells me, like, he's good. Like I always look up to my dad and he would always say like, do whatever you want, right?

Like it's very important to get your passion out there because a lot of people out there, when they know like, oh, I'm not earning enough money, I'm just gonna do something else in life. But he always tell me, if this is something that you love, keep going. Like, don't just give up, right? Don't let five different people who said, oh, you're real is like really bad. Like don't let five bad comments like discourage you. Like always keep going. In the end of the day, it's your Instagram, it's your life. This is how you want to live your life. And this is kind of how I kept going. Like I always remember that conversation that I had with my dad before it passed away. So thank you for sharing. I mean,

being so vulnerable is not always easy, right? And so, of course, you know, my condolences to what happened, I can imagine that that's very hard. Did you feel then, in order to continue on, was social media a big part of that? Yes. So after my dad passed away, I actually stuck for a bit. Like, I think I gave myself a couple of months. Like, I just like, it's hard, like, when you're so sad, it's hard to be joyful because, you know, when you create Instagram Reel, you want to ooze out, at least I want to ooze out positive energy.

It's like, hey, I'm using this product and I love it, you know, and I want to ooze out, at least I want to ooze out positive energy. It's like, hey, I'm using this product and I love it. You know, and I want to, I want to ooze positive energy. But after my dad passed away, it was very, very hard for me. So I kind of just, you know, I told myself, you know what, I'm going to give myself a couple months break and I will come back, you know, with a better mindset and just really focus. I feel like before my dad passed away, I was really doing Instagram for fun. Like just, you know, hey, I get freebies.

You know, this is product A, product B. But after my dad passed away and after that conversation with my dad, that's the time when my mindset is very like clear of like, I really want to get into this and I want to be successful. Or at least I'm going to and I want to be successful. Or at least I'm gonna try my best to be successful. It sounds like it really gave you the motivation.

Yeah. You know, it's like sometimes the challenges in our life give us the most life lessons and motivation sometimes to move to something something different. I'm curious something I see a lot of people doing when it comes to makeup and I find this very fascinating is they'll talk about maybe something serious so they're talking about vacation trips and they're putting on makeup. What is this trend in terms of like you're doing like makeup or skincare, but you're talking about something completely different?

This seems to be something it's continuing to catch on. Like you mean like talking about makeup, but at the same time traveling? Is that kind of... So they'll be like putting makeup on or they'll be like doing some sort of skincare, but they're talking about something totally unrelated, like has nothing to do with skincare. But it's like the act of putting makeup on, like they're filming themselves putting makeup on and talking about a vacation they went on. I was just watching this video about a woman talking about her vacation, but I see like, but she's always doing videos of putting makeup on her skin care, but she's not talking about that. She's talking about something else and I'm wondering about is this like a way to grab attention? I'm trying to figure out like what was the psychology around why I'm seeing people doing this but they're not

talking about the skincare. They're talking about something else. I think it's more like perspective and originality because if you're going into the social media space, it almost feels like it's very saturated. As you know, as we know, it's a very, very saturated space. If you're just going in and like, hey, this is product A, this is product B, it's like, well, 500 influencers have done that already. So it's almost like, hey, even me as an individual, I go like, hmm, what would be something cool that people haven't done before? And then you just go with it. And sometimes if I see like,

oh, it's the top trending thing to do, I was like, maybe I should give it a try. So that's what I would do. I would just like, I think that is the idea behind it is trying to be original and not be lumped together I would do like, I would just like, I think that is the idea behind it is like trying to be original and not be lumped together as like, you know, oh, you're just one of the 500 influencers that has done ABCDE. You know, at least that one's different and they think it's fun.

Plus it gives them a little bit of a personality to it. That makes total. Yeah. I mean, like you said, there's billions of people personality to it. That makes total yeah I mean like you said there's billions of people on social media it's really hard to stand out many times. It takes a lot of effort and energy. What is I know YouTube is obviously TikTok has TikTok shop and they've been you know crushing it. I've seen people do like a million dollars in a day selling on tickets, insane numbers, right? Which I know like in China and certain parts of Asia,

that's kind of the norm, but it's more coming to the US, North America, Canada. I know YouTube just launched YouTube Shop or YouTube Commerce, I forget what they're calling it. How do you see the future of, from your perspective as a content creator, being able to obviously sell live and then if you have a brand, you know, using that brand with other creators to also sell live, how do you see this whole social commerce thing playing out?

I think there's definitely a huge potential to make it as a business. Because if you look at Amazon right now, they have an Amazon shop. And definitely, I think after COVID, during 2020, 2021, I start seeing Amazon shop growing their beauty products. And I think that's the idea behind it is because for us beauty influencers, especially when you're starting off and you want to start earning, you know, commissions here and there, Amazon is actually a good place to kind of start. Have like a little bit of a website and then attach it and then put your commission links. And that is good for people who are starting, people who can't afford to, you know, have their own customized website yet at that time. So there's definitely a huge potential there when it comes to business and earning money. You know, funny enough, not many people know this only really you, April and maybe two others. Back in 2015, I was doing skincare videos for Amazon live and it was only me and Korean women

That's it me and Korean women, but the crazy thing though is nobody ever bought It was very very hard to convince people in the US at that time a lot like thousands of people would watch these videos That I would put but nobody ever would buy and I was like forget this I should have followed your I should have followed what you said because who knows right? that I would put, but nobody ever would buy. And I was like, forget this. I should have followed what you said, because who knows, right? I could have a substantial amount of following. But I just quit after a few months that I got rid of it. But I am really inspired, though, by the fact that you keep going, you continue building, you had a really dark moment that you turned around

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Dream of better for you and the planet. You are yourself and I think people can see the authenticity in what you do, which is why you're continuing to build this community. So I know you have a new website out. Can you tell everyone where to go? And then also, of course, if people wanna watch your videos,

they wanna follow you, they wanna contact you, how can they do so? Yeah, for sure. So I just launched a new website. It's called glambyapril.com. So in that website, you get to see all the stuff that I've been working on. I have a couple of YouTube videos.

I just started YouTube though. So my main social media platform at the moment is Instagram. So you can either type in my real name, which is W-A-E-P-R-I-L, which is Waipro. You can easily search my name. Or my Instagram handle is April underscore April underscore beauty. What are some of your favorite products that you're using right now? So I have a lot of skincare products that I really love at the moment. So I don't know about you, Daniel, but I do the double cleansing method.

So double cleansing method, I don't want to go too much on it. But basically the idea is you want to cleanse your face twice. And the whole idea is because you want to first use an oil-based cleanser to remove makeup and the second one is a water-based cleanser to just further make sure that your face is clean. So the reason why I like the double cleansing method is because I find with makeup, makeup products typically contain both oil and water-based ingredients. So when you just use a water-based ingredient as a cleanser, like, sorry, water-based cleanser, sometimes you still leave some gunk on your face. Like, it doesn't come off.

So this is why I like the double cleansing method. I feel like it's the best to make sure that your skin is really clean. So my two favorite products for the double cleansing method is the one from Pharmacy Beauty. It's called the Double Cleansing Balm. Oil-based cleanser, but unscented, perfect for sensitive skin. So that will work on almost everybody.

I have been using this product for a couple of years now and it has worked wonders. I cannot stop using the product. If I stop, it just, my skin is always, it's almost gonna scream like, what did you do differently? What did you do differently? You gotta go back.

So that was the first product. The water-based cleanser that I love at the moment is the one from It Cosmetics. It's called Confidence Innisfil Cleanser. It's a water-based serum cleanser. Super nourishing, super hydrating, and at the same time, it cleanses my face very effectively. So those are my favorite cleanser. Favorite moisturizer is the one from Kiehl's. It's called the Ultra Facial Cream.

Very, very popular product. And I like the fact that it's unscented. And it's that moisturizer that I can use all four four seasons and my skin feels moisturized. Because as you may know, when it comes to like winter time, typically you'd need a thicker cream. And then when it comes to summertime, when our skin tends to be oily and greasy, we want something more water-based. But I find with the Kiehl's Ultra Facial Cream, like you get to use it all year long and my skin feels hydrated. It's just, it feels amazing. So that's why I keep talking about it

cause I'm like, ah, I wish people would like give it a try. Like if you know, if you Daniel or like any of the viewers who's watching this video haven't tried that product, like I would like suggest you to do so cause I love it so much. But yeah, and the other favorite beauty product that I tried, which I'm highly recommending to a lot of ladies out there, is the YSL Lash Class Mascara. So that mascara recently launched,

I would say, a month ago. So it's a recently new product. But what I find is that the applicator one is amazing in like making your eyelashes look really volumized. It's one of the few that can do that. A lot of the things like in the drugstore, it doesn't do it as well. But that one just like, oh my god, like, wow, I can see my lashes now. Because I don't have a lot of lashes, so I can really see a big, like, noticeable difference. So, yeah, there we go. Well, there we go, we got the whole lesson.

So we gotta check out those four products. Weybro, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you again for being vulnerable today, for sharing your story, and sharing some tips and strategies that we can all take away. And I hope everyone checks out your website and then your social accounts as well. And thank you for joining us today on Founder's Story. All right.

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