the bossbabe podcast - 135. How Alyssa Wasko Took Her Brand From Her Dorm Room to Beyonce

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

From starting in her college dorm room to getting her product on Beyoncé- today we’re joined by Alyssa Wasko of Donni to talk about her entrepreneurial journey. Named after her late father, Alyssa started Donni with just scarves and by perfecting her niche and listening to her customer base she was able to grow and scale it into the amazing company we know today.  With a huge celebrity base and an authentic and engaging social presence, Alyssa is taking us through everything we need to know about trade shows, how she built her brand and why she answers every single DM herself!  Learn how Alyssa pivoted her collection launch strategy for lockdown- and sold out, her tips for building an authentic and relatable online presence, how her ‘small but mighty’ Instagram drives 97% of her overall website traffic, and why charity is such a cornerstone in her business.  Links: To check out Donni head to donni.com  Register for the (totally free!) How to Make Six Figures in 2021 Masterclass Webinar at https://bossbabe.com/masterclass To sign up for the BossBabe newsletter, head to www.bossbabe.com Follow:  @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis, @iamnatalie Alyssa Wasko, @alyssawasko Donni, @donni

I want everything to be organic and if you wear it and you love it and you feel the need to share it, I think that's what will resonate the most with people's followers. I think the best influencer relationships are the ones that are supportive both ways. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I am so excited for this episode, you guys. I know you're going to absolutely love it. The interviews that I really love doing are when someone has built a brand from the ground up and it's become really successful and we can really dissect and they're willing

to share the real things that help them build the brand versus just the fluffy things on top. You know I'm not about the fluff and so in this episode I am sitting down with the amazing Alyssa Wasco. She founded a brand called Donnie. It's a clothing brand. And she went from making scarves in college to being an internationally known clothing brand loved by celebrities like Kendall Jenner, Emma Roberts, and Beyonce. So we go into things like trade shows, how to really build a fashion brand, what role social media played in that, how she was able to even get sales in the beginning, all of the things that I know that you'll really, really benefit from hearing. And it was so interesting for me too. There were so many things that I didn't know that I got from this episode. So I know you're going to love it. And I also want to share just

before we jump in, I am running a completely free training. I've put all the links that you need below in the show notes, but I am going to be running a training on how you can make six figures in 2021 because success in 2021 is going to start now. And I really want you guys to be running a training on how you can make six figures in 2021 because success in 2021 is going to start now and I really want you guys to be completely ahead of the curve when it comes to January because what can often happen is it comes January and you sit down you're like oh shit I need to come up with this entire plan I don't know what I'm doing I don't know where my revenue is coming from and that's not really starting the year off on the best foot 2020 has been a crazy ride for all of

us. And 2021, if you haven't yet made that six figures in your business is the perfect year to do that. When everything's kind of going back to a new normal and you are moving forward with clarity and you're ready to do that, then I'm fully here to support you. So I'm going to do this training. It's probably going to be the norm, 75 to 90 minutes packed with value. You know that I don't do any fluff. And we're going to talk all about what it really looks like to scale to six figures and specifically in 2021, because a lot of things have changed in the marketing world. And I've been privy to a lot of it because I'm in some amazing mastermind groups with some of the best leaders in the industry, really.

And we've been talking about this stuff. And I really don't like that we get to hear this but not necessarily everyone does so I want to make sure I'm opening the curtain as always bringing you guys behind the scenes that you're able to make the moves in your business as well so all the info that you need is just below click that link come sign up it's going to be amazing and then with that let's dive straight into the episode because I know you're going to get so much value from it. As always, take a screenshot, share your biggest takeaways and Insta stories, tag me at IamNatalie at BossWave.inc. And then if you really want to go the extra mile, please, please, please leave us a five-star review because it means the world and it really,

really makes a difference. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Alyssa, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. So how is everything going right now? I would want to say coming out of COVID, but I don't even know if we're coming out. But how is everything going? At this point, my loved ones are healthy. So that makes me happy.

And I'm grateful for that. As far as business goes, it's been a pretty wild ride the past couple of months. I think in the beginning, it was super scary for any business. And I really wasn't sure what to expect. But excitingly enough, I think we were right place, right time as far as what our brand is and who we are. We make comfortable and novel athleisure and sweats and loungewear. And I think it just, like I said, was a right place, right time. And we've had a pretty incredible past couple of months. So I can't complain. I love that. Yeah, I think 2020 is the year of the sweats.

Yes, it really is. So I want to go back and just talk a little bit about, well, why you decided to get started as an entrepreneur. I know it came pretty organically for you. Can you talk a bit about when you really first got started? Yeah, absolutely. At this point, it was about 11 years ago, which is really crazy to say, because I feel like it's part of this started yesterday. But I was in college and my dad had passed away. And I very much so the kind of person who deals with things through both creativity and distraction. So I think I got back to school and besides adding on 10 credits to my course load, I really loved scarves. It was my signature thing at the time. And keep in mind, this was 11 years ago when scarves were like really having a moment. And I made these scarves and I attached little angel charms to them. And it was really

just a creative project for me. I made one for myself, a couple of friends, and then all of our friends started wanting them. And I had a friend's mom that owned a boutique and she asked for a hundred of them. And it was just this very slow snowball effect and it just really grew. And for the first eight years of our business, we were only scarves, which is insane to think back on right now, just as far as an accessory category, a very unessential accessory. And then we built a huge business on just that. And I think it was definitely a coping mechanism for me in the beginning. And then I think it grew into something greater and I named it after my dad, his name was Donald and everyone

called him Donnie. And I think in even as the business got started, and even as I was thinking to myself, wow, there's something here, there's something that's speaking to people, I think that there was an element of comfort, and people related to that side of it and how it was something that you go through. I mean, everyone goes through loss in their lives, but there's definitely different ways of grieving and coping. And I think turning something really hard into something positive. And I think people really connected to that. And in the beginning, people would buy our scarves as whether I had a friend whose mom was going through chemo and bought her a scarf and it was her blanket every time that she went to chemo and it was always wrapped around her. Or a friend had a baby and they would buy a scarf and it would be

their baby blanket. And it was more than a scarf. It was something really special and something that people took with them and had an association with. And I think it was pretty crazy. So yeah, that's how it all started. In the beginning, like I said, I was in college and we started to build momentum. And simultaneously, I was working in really interesting in bringing into my own business, just as far as that corporate background, things to do, things not to do, certainly. But yeah, and it just really evolved from there. And we would style our scarves as clothing, we take a scarf, we'd style it as a dress or an off the shoulder top or a sarong, a skirt. And the pivot once we changed from scarves to more was we would do all these tutorial videos and because everyone wanted to know how do you take the scarf and turn it into this top or things like that. And we make these videos, but it takes a

very savvy and patient consumer to be committed to executing that. And I think one day I was just for this next collection, let's make a top that looks like the scarves, but it's really easy and everyone can wear it. So we did that. And then three weeks later, we had a 26 piece ready to wear collection. And it was like no plan at all. And it just happened. And everything that's really happened in this business has happened just like that. So there's definitely pros and cons to that. Lots of mistakes, but I think it's made us who we are and gotten us to this point. I love it. There's so many things that you said that I just want to pull out. One of them is just the power of doing one thing for eight years. You were saying just scarves for eight years and really getting a chance to focus on that and make it work versus, okay, I'm going to launch

something and starting with 20 different things and not being able to really figure it out. And the second thing is just the amazing story you had behind the brand from the beginning that made people feel something so that they would want to choose your scarf over another one because they felt something from it. And were those things intentional or was it just, oh, I have like, things are just happening and I'm going with it and looking back, that was actually a great way that I did that. Yeah. I think if I'm being honest and like, even like really thinking about that question, nothing has really been intentional. It's like, I always knew I was going to work in fashion. I always knew. I think I always have a somewhat entrepreneurial spirit. Like both of my parents were that in very different ways. And I had weird businesses since I

was like nine years old. So I think that there was always something there, but nothing within this business started intentionally. And I think that starting with one thing, especially these days, it looks small. It looks like I think people want to go in with a bang and I think that us starting with one product and really learning that market and learning so much around just manufacturing and everything that goes into it

on something like fairly simple prepared us for the expansion. I think a lot of brands want to become this lifestyle go-to. And I think I've seen a lot of brands that I adored that were doing one thing really, really well expand into other things. And it's been such a, not a letdown, but I think it just hasn't performed. And I had this mentality, do what you're good at. And if it isn't broken, don't fix it and all of that stuff. But I think because it happened so organically, it worked for us. And of course, there have been so many brands that have expanded into other product categories that have nailed it. But I think because it wasn't intentional is why we were able to succeed in this instance.

Yeah, that makes sense. And what was it like being in college and getting an order for 100 scarves from a boutique? Because I imagine back then, that was a big deal. Oh my gosh, I was beside myself. I mean, I was also at this point making them myself. So it was thrilling, to put it mildly. It was so exciting. I mean, it was definitely stressful. I mean, when I was in college, it was, I didn't necessarily know how do you get your cost to a wholesale, build in a wholesale margin and how do you do this and how do you do that? So it was really an interesting time learning all of that, but it was crazy. It's like I started doing it and I was like in a dorm room and we would have trunk shows and apartments and it was just a funny and looking back, it was really funny.

I would have like events at my sorority house. But those things are really what gave this legs from the get go. And even though it's funny to look back now, I will always be so grateful for that period because that's what made this last more than me making a scarf for myself and friends. Yeah, I can just imagine how excited you must have been to get that at that age. So you were doing this in college, but then you went and took a corporate job. How long were you working in corporate before you went full time with this? Yeah, so I before any of this even happened the summer before I had interned with Chanel in New York. And then once this whole thing happened, they had hired me on a consulting basis when I

went back to school. So I always had the two while I was in school and they gave me just an amazing job offer. Once I graduated, that was very hard to turn down. And they had felt like my family in a sense. And they were knew me before my dad had passed away and knew that I was going through that. So I was so, so lucky that my team was very supportive. And it wasn't like I had to hide or they knew I was doing it. And if I had to leave early for a trunk show at a store, they were just really great, really, really great. And I got really lucky with my team there. And I did that for about two and a half years after graduating, at which point it was just that Donnie was building so much. And it was

one of those situations where I didn't feel like I was doing anything well because I was spread too thin. And I left. So I had two and a half years after graduating. I don't even know when that was. And then I left and I opened up a little office in Nolita in New York. So that's where I lived then and opened up like a little wholesale showroom. And it was where we did wholesale PR. And then the rest of our team was in LA where we did more of like the operations, logistics, manufacturing, production, and all of that stuff. So I was flying back and forth at that point, probably once to twice a month, which aged me, I think, like 80 years. Yeah, it was great. And working at a company like Chanel was incredible for so many reasons. But you see how teams work well. And I was able to take so much away and apply that to our business now, and I'll forever be grateful for that.

Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners

a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. That's incredible. So in the beginning, were you selling mainly to retail stores? Were you doing any direct to consumer? We were doing direct to consumer, but our wholesale business was definitely the main part of our business at that point. We had some really great retail partners from the get-go, which even looking back now, I'm so grateful for all of that.

It's funny that stores, I mean, of course, stores sell scarves and accessories. And again, scarves were a little bit more popular at that time. But yeah, our business was really, I would say, probably 70% wholesale, 30% direct to consumer or custom or corporate gifting at that point. And I think there's a huge benefit to doing direct to consumer. But I can say that our wholesale business that we built over a long period of time is definitely what gave us our foundation and our credibility and our branding. And even though that's definitely a a time consuming, and it's hard

wholesale and like the logistics around that is definitely complicated, but in my opinion, worthwhile. And I don't think we would be where we were. We are now without building that part of our business. Yeah. And I can imagine going into it with very little experience must be quite daunting. Were you just doing cold outreach and just seeing what happened? It was a mixture. I mean, I think our wholesale business has been a series of trial and error, much like anything else in our business over the course of the past 10 years. We did it ourselves. We had multi-line showrooms. We had one person in our house doing all of our sales. And then we tried and figured out what worked while we were simultaneously making product

and figuring out who we were and what our customers wanted. And I think, I mean, there was a period of time when we were doing 12 trade shows a year. And that was really intense, but it was great. I mean, we would do them in four shows in New York, two shows in Vegas, we were doing Paris, we were doing Oh, gosh, I don't even know. But we were doing a lot of trade shows a year. And it's hard work doing trade shows. But it's a really quick way to learn the business, certainly. And I think that just the community, obviously, trade shows are a little bit different the past four or five years at this point, but that's a really quick way to learn the industry as far as other brands and people and it's a crash course, I think.

So that taught me quite a bit. And then working with different showrooms and agents and things like that were also a quick way to learn. But yeah, even just line sheets and making sure your margin and all of that stuff, it's a whole different beast, certainly, but learned pretty quickly. It's sink or swim in that side of business. I can imagine. And so for anyone listening who doesn't really know anything about trade shows, but is interested in creating a brand, can you explain a little bit about what they are, how you get into them and what they look like when you're there? Absolutely. So one of the biggest trade shows in New York is at the

Javits Center. And it's essentially booth after booth after booth and each booth is its own brand. So basically you would apply certain trade shows have different rules and like certain credentials that you need to have in order to be able to sell. Maybe it's certain stores you need to be in, a number of stores you have to be in, how many years you've been around. Every trade show has different guidelines, but you would apply. And then you'd almost set up your booth as if it was just a booth that represents your brand. It's your branding moment. And it's where you show your product and buyers walk the whole show and they stop at brands that they either know already

or brands that something new that catches their eye. And you hope that they come in and you hope that they what we call write an order. In the beginning, when we started doing trade shows, that was very common is that they would write the order then and there. As we continued, they would take notes and then they would submit their order a couple of weeks later. But how it works in fashion is you show your collection about six to seven months before it will deliver. And that's the calendar. So we would show in February, we would show our fall collection, which would deliver in August. So you do it in advance. And in order to come into the shows, shows are not open to the public.

You have to be a buyer and you have to show credentials to even get into the show. So you either have to own a store or have a resale license or certain things and you come in. And so it's an intense process, I guess, on either side. And it's usually for three days at a time. And it's almost like setting up a pop-up shop for three days is the best way that I can explain it. And I think the brands that do the best are the ones who really can showcase who they are pretty quickly. It's almost like an Instagram if you think about it. If someone tags something on Instagram and you visit that page, they have about five seconds to capture your

attention and see if the branding resonates with you to take it a step further. And I would say that's how I envision a booth. And you want to make something that represents you and that hopefully garners the attention of a buyer to want to come in. Yeah. And I'm imagining it's an exhausting few days. It really is. It's very physical. I think there's a lot of fashion happens to be a quite grueling and physical industry. And I think a lot of people think it's this really glamorous thing, but it's a lot of hard work. I mean, setting up a trade show, we would basically have movers come take everything out of our office and move it into a convention center. And these convention centers, there are rules. You can't just roll in with a sofa and tables and all

of this stuff. You have to go in through a certain entrance. There's logistics. There's certain movers. There's all of these things that need to happen in coordination, but it's a production. And it's not only that, but then you are on your feet selling from early in the morning to the night. And then typically speaking, you would take your buyers out and entertain them. A lot of them are in town for a short period of time. And if they're an important buyer, you spend time with them. So it's three to four days of a lot. But it's a great experience. And now looking back that I don't do them anymore. I look back at them fondly. But at the time, it's grueling, certainly. Yeah. And I can imagine you'll have

team to help you. But as the owner, you want to be there just in case that important buyer comes around and you don't want to blow that chance. So can imagine it's like wait do I have five minutes to run to the bathroom yeah can I eat my lunch here yeah you just hear so many stories about it and I think yeah it must be exhausting okay we're gonna take a quick break right now to hear from our sponsor this episode is brought to you by our boss babe newsletter. Look, we know you're busy and you get so many emails, but trust me when I say it is one of these newsletters that you actually look forward to getting. We are making it super easy to get all of your inspo, info and resources in one place. So once a week, we'll share a quick email with you with an overview of everything

you need to know from freebies to a recap of podcast episodes to the blog posts that we know you're going to love. It's the absolute holy grail for ambitious women and it's totally free. So if you want to sign up, just go to bossbabe.com forward slash all the news. And let's dive right back in. So I want to pivot to, you have so many celebrity fans of your brand from Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Emma Roberts. How did you build a celebrity clientele? Because I think for every fashion brand, that's like such a goal in the beginning to get some loyal celebrity followers. How did you do that? In the beginning,

again, it was this really cool, like I had a friend whose mom knew Jessica's, was best friends with Jessica Biel's mom and loved our scarves. And she was like, let me give her one. And then she wore it and it was on the cover of Us Weekly. And there were a lot of things like that that happened organically, which was really cool. And then as we slowly built, we worked with our PR firm and they work with all of these stylists who were constantly requesting our pieces.

And it just happened. I mean, listen, like you send a bunch of stuff and you hope that they wear it. And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, but gotten really lucky in that. And I think it's interesting. Actually, this was one of the best. When Beyonce first went out in public with Blue. She was wrapped in one of our scarves and it was the most insane thing of all time. But it was interesting because I felt that within our immediate community, they knew our customers knew our story and they connected to the story. But most people didn't, they heard about it that way. I don't think Beyonce knew our story. I don't think she paid attention to the hang tag that came on the scarf, but in some way there was some

comfort that she felt to wrap her baby and walk out in public with her the first time. And I think it was just this underlying comfort takes on many forms and I think is the foundation of at least what we strive for in anything that we make yeah I can imagine waking up to that and just not even knowing what to do with myself oh my god I was actually beside myself that was and now at this point this was probably seven eight years ago and it's still the best moment ever oh Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah. So speaking of doing direct consumer, you have such an amazing Instagram presence. What are the kind of main drivers of business for you online and to your website where you might be being introduced to new clients, people that are just discovering you in stores? Yeah, our Instagram, I refer to it as small and mighty. I mean, we don't have a huge following,

but I think we have a very engaged following. And it generates, I think, 97% of our web traffic, which is pretty crazy. That is crazy. Yeah, it's pretty wild. I think I like to think because we just keep it real. We don't, I think we've learned like what really like resonates with people. And we started doing this new drop format, which happened because of COVID. We were supposed to launch our entire spring collection. We normally do one launch for an entire collection at one time and we were supposed to launch it the day that the lockdown happened. And I was just like, this is not right. Like this feels tone deaf, many other things. And I was like, well, I just want us to be a place to provide entertainment smiles and

we'll launch this when it feels appropriate. So our Instagram at that point, I think it was about two weeks. We just were posting funny videos and beautiful things and nothing product related. And then people were like, remember that collection you were dropping? When is that happening? And I was like, you know what? Let's separate out our drop and we will do a series of surprise drops, not tell anyone that they're coming. It's just a way to excite people and make their day. And through this, it pivoted into this new drop strategy. And I would be able to really like launch a style, immense detail on that style and like educate our customer on Instagram.

And I would try on different sizes and I would have other girls try on different sizes and talk about the fit and talk about the details and talk about the fabrication. And we would sell out really quickly. And I think because we really had the time to, instead of launching 30 products, we'd launch one and people would really learn like, is this, do I like this? Do I not like this? Like, what do I like about it? Should I wait for something else? Should I buy this? And it just worked really well. And that's how we do things going forward since then. And so that's our new thing. And I think that our Instagram, because we do these videos and I let people ask questions

and I respond to every single DM that we get, which my team constantly reminds me is not the best use of my time, but I think it is a good use of my time. I think that that personal part of us is a huge part of who we are. It's like for you to be able to DM and say, I'm this height and this size, this is what jeans I normally wear. What do you recommend? And I kind of do these one-on-one size consults and people know that it's me that they're talking to. I think it makes us this accessible and friendly brand. And I think that sometimes I'll respond to people and they'll be like, I can't believe you're responding. Brands never respond. And it's like, I don't want to be, that's not who I want to be. And we're actually doing like a whole web redesign and we're working

with this amazing company. And they were like, what do you want people to feel when you come to your website? And I want them to feel welcomed. I don't want it to be some stark cold thing. I want it to feel warm and inviting and accessible. And no matter who you are and what age you are and where you're at in your life, I want it to feel like it's something that makes you feel at home. And I want people to feel that way on our Instagram. And I hope that they do because we really listen to what our customers say. I listen to every single thing we take into consideration and we take it back to the team and we wanna be better.

And we're making this for them. So to not listen to them and to not make them feel heard or welcome is there's no point. So I think all of that contributes to our Instagram and why with such a size of our following, how it still really generates and pushes our business through. Yeah. And I think there's such an important lesson in that too, saying, Oh, I don't have a massive following, but a really, really engaged one for anyone that's

listening and is wanting to grow that business on Instagram, it really isn't about the following numbers. It's about, do those people really connect with your brand? And the fact that you're selling out with every drop without any pre-launch hype is incredible and really goes to show the importance of having people on there that are really dedicated. What do you think about influencer marketing on Instagram? Is it something that you do a lot of? It is. We have for a while, we worked with them when they used to be called bloggers and transitioned into this influencer world. Yeah. I mean, listen, if you are someone that I feel our PR team feels is on brand. And I am happy. I think the biggest thing is authenticity. I think there's a lot of times that brands will pay influencers to wear their things. And I think

that ROI isn't about who the influencer is. I think it's the match between influencer and brand, as long as it feels on brand for them. And I think we've worked with influencers for years and I'm the most generous person. If you feel, if you're obsessed with our product and it seems like a good fit and on brand, it's like, I know that that will be mutually beneficial for them and for us. My biggest thing is I let them choose. We let them choose the styles that they want, the things that feel right to them. We don't generally do a seating with one style. We really open it up to our whole collection because I want to feel that these girls are picking what they feel is most them.

And I think that that's what's proven to be the most successful for us. Again, I've never paid, we don't do anything sponsored. I want everything to be organic. And if you wear it and you love it and you feel the need to share it, I think that's what will resonate the most with people's followers. So I'm a big fan of influencer marketing in an organic sense. And it's definitely a big part of our business. And I think our Instagram, obviously that generates a lot of followers and things of that nature and it's nice to support I think the best influencer relationships are the ones that are supportive both ways yeah I completely agree with you so

with your fall collection that's coming up are you doing that all together or are you doing it in drops the way you've been doing it previously? We're gonna do it in drops just because it's proven to be, I think going back to just the education part of it, I think that in itself is what is making this so successful. We also are doing a new initiative, which we're calling our 101 series, which we started about two years ago at this point.

It was really just in our office. We would do every girl in the office would try on a certain style. We're all different shapes and sizes. We talk about the fit. We talk about what size we were wearing. And they were so chill. Everyone stop what you're doing. Let's do a 101 video today. And it wasn't like a production. It wasn't like, get prepared. You're coming to work in full hair and makeup. It was really just a girl sitting at her desk and talking about what she was wearing. And people really loved them. And I think once COVID hit, I strategized with our PR team. And the idea came up to extend our 101s outside of our team and our office because that wasn't possible anymore. And now we've started doing it.

You can see them on our Instagram and we send one of each when we're launching a new product. We'll send the style. We make extra, extra small to extra, extra large. And we send out that style to people of all shapes and sizes. And then we compile it all. And it's a size guide. It's a style guide. It's a lot of different things.

And I think that has been a great way to engage our community. These are real people and real girls. And again, it's not like a model and a photo shoot and all of that. It's real people. And I think that keeps things really relatable. And it really lets our customer know exactly how things fit, how it drapes, should you size up, should you size down? You can wear this with sweats, you can wear it with jeans. Oh, look, she styled it with a slip

dress. It's just a great way to engage the community on so many different sides and really educate them on the product. So we're definitely we're rolling that out in a bigger way for our fall collection. And we're shipping to our stores now. And we like to give our stores, we let them launch everything first and give them a couple weeks to sit with the product before we launch it on our end. So in the meantime, we're just building content, building the 101s, and we'll drive traffic to our retail partners and luckily the assortment is different so you can get things different things different colorways different styles from all different places i love that and such a great way to really incentivize the stores to keep carrying when you're letting them push it first and also i know you guys have

donated a lot of money to charity since the pandemic started, which is amazing. I think 2020 has just been such a rough year for everyone. So doing that's been amazing. And you've partnered with, is it Black Girl Ventures for your autumn winter collection? Yes. So Black Girl Ventures is for our autumn winter collection. For our spring collection, we did the Bale Project, which... So we basically, even before the pandemic, every collection, we pick a foundation.

And we have since the first scarf. And we've always had a charity tie into everything that we do. And the Bell Project, we chose back in February. And I think it was a really interesting coincidence based on everything that's gone down since then. But I think we raised about $15,000 for them. And now we're entering our fall season and we're doing Black Girl Ventures. And we're also going to be collaborating with a Black-owned ceramics company. I'm sure everyone has seen her on Instagram. It's called Koi Collective. She makes these amazing mugs with these little smiley faces on them. And

she has gotten a lot of traction and her business has grown tremendously the past couple of months. And I'm really excited to be partnering with her and all the proceeds from that are going to Black Girl Ventures as well and just supporting and helping fund some Black-owned businesses. I love that. Well, I'm so grateful that you're doing that. And it's amazing just to see more brands partnering with charities it's something we've been doing a lot more of as well so it's such a great thing to be doing especially this year more than ever I think we just all need each other and we need to all just be supporting each other so where can everyone find you and also the brand so the brand

on our website right now we're in between between things. So there's definitely some goodies, not what we normally would have, but we just launched some jewelry and some matte. We have convertible mask and sunny chains and we'll be gearing up shortly for some drops. But our fall collection will be landing first. Revolve, SAC, Shopbop, Carbon 38 and Free People. And then slowly then we'll start launching on our website. You can find me on Instagram. My Instagram is Alyssa Wasco and Donnie. And that's where we are. Love it. Well, thank you so much for being on here and being so open about

what it really took to build. I think there's probably a lot of women listening who are interested in getting into fashion that have a lot clearer path now so thank you absolutely thank you so much for having me if you loved this episode please subscribe download a few more and please leave us a review I really want to hear what you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next to To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy of The Boss Babe 25. The Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth.

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