Your Next Move - Savvy Ways to Secure Funding

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Whether you’re crowdfunding, getting a bank loan, or seeking venture capital, you need to be able to pitch yourself and your business successfully. Today's episode features some of the biggest lessons learned from the founder of clean fragrance brand MOODEAUX, who has secured funding in an incredibly challenging market.

With the VentureX Business Card from Capital One, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. And with no preset spending limit, your purchasing power adapts to meet your business needs. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness. Terms and conditions apply. I'm Sarah Lynch,

and you are listening to Your Next Move, Audio Edition, produced by Inc. and Capital One Business. On today's episode, Ayesha Bowe talks with Brianna Arps. Brianna is the founder and CEO of Mudo, which is a new kind of fragrance company. In their conversation, they cover Brianna's transition from investigative journalism to the world of STEM entrepreneurialism. They also discuss her use of grants to help get her business off the ground. But before we get to that conversation, Inc. correspondent Britt Morse talked with Cynthia Lowe, SVP, head of Beyond the Card at Capital One, who is an expert at funding business and unconventional streams of capital that can be essential for launching a business.

Thank you so much, Cynthia, for being here with us today. Thanks, Brett. Excited to be here. Throughout this episode, we're covering the types of funding sources that people typically think about when we talk about capital. But there are other forms of capital, too, that can be particularly important when starting and growing a business. Can you give us some examples and share why they matter? A few types of alternative capital come to mind.

The first is institutional capital. This is about whether governments and legal frameworks within each business exist and whether they create trust and stability. Are laws applied evenly and consistently? Another is human capital. Does your team have the skills and abilities necessary for the business? Can they help you grow?

The third is knowledge capital. This refers to the presence of, or access to, specific relevant information. This can really range from patents owned by the business all the way to the ability to access a subscription to a database of relevant venture capital providers. And finally, there's cultural capital. This is about the attitudes, beliefs, and values that make up the business culture in a country or in a community. Understanding cultural capital helps keep team members on the same page about the business

environment. Do these forms of capital have an impact on the bottom line? Harnessing the power of these forms of capital can help your business identify opportunities, save money, and grow. For example, understanding institutional capital helps your business comply with laws, regulations, and norms. Failure to do so can be costly or threaten the company's livelihood. How can companies ensure they're tapping into these forms of capital? So often, business owners and managers get ultra-focused internally on their own business needs.

It's critical to look up and understand what's going on around them and how they can leverage external forces. A few examples that come to mind. One, accessing business networks or building a personal advisory board to really get that outside perspective. Two, working with incubators or innovation centers. Three, making your voice known to policymakers and thinking beyond grants and tax credits to foster business-friendly environments. And finally, making sure that all of these learnings can be incorporated into defined systems for capturing and sharing knowledge internally. Thank you for sharing these insights about using unconventional capital to launch and grow your business, Cynthia. Thank you, Brett. It was my pleasure.

And now, here is Ayesha Bowe's conversation with Brianna Arps. Enjoy. Welcome to Your Next Move. I'm Ayesha Bowe, and today I'm with Brianna Arps, who's going to share her fundraising journey with us. Thank you for having me. I want to know about your business. Can you give me your elevator pitch? Sure. Mudeo is a clean luxury fragrance label founded in October 2021, where we make it more mindful than ever and more intentional than ever to indulge in self-care and accessorize your mood through scent. We were set to launch in 2020 during the height of the global pandemic, a lot of things happened where our global supply chain was disrupted.

We decided it wouldn't make sense to launch experiential brand at that time. So from the very beginning, we've had challenges. But I think what's helped us overcome them is our resourcefulness, our nimbleness as a startup, our wherewithal to determine, to push through and to make it happen. We've had a lot of challenges, but I think what makes us is not our challenges. It's how we've been able to overcome them and bounce back from them. Being a founder can be really lonely. How do you deal with that?

I deal with the loneliness that comes with being a first-time founder by increasing my network. We're in a beautiful space right now that is all about community. So in particular, the Atlanta community, about one in four or five individuals is an entrepreneur. So there's plenty of people to rally around, to get advice from,

and the push that you need to keep going. Are there specific things you do to take care of yourself as a founder? Self-care is major. Like this entire brand is rooted on the essence of self-care and being more mindful about it. Therapy is a big one. I wish more people talked about it,

especially as founders, the need to decompress with someone who might not be in it day to day but can help you create coping strategies. So therapy is a really, really big part of my personal self-care. Let's talk about Mudo. Where are you guys at today?

We have an amazing roster of talent. I started out rocking the ship alone, and now I have a publicist. I have someone on marketing. I have an assistant who works with me. We have warehouse personnel moving into 3PL. So we're growing at such a rapid pace, and I find that the faster we're able to invest in talent, the faster we're able to grow. So it's something that's really important to me. So we're doing really well.

We're doing really, really well. Did you have that moment when you hired like your first employee where you're just like, oh my gosh, this is happening? Yeah. Like it's really, really real? Fun fact, the first person that I brought on to work on Moodle with me was my publicist. And that was real.

That was very real because I used to work with my publicist at another company. And so after I left that company, I decided to start Mudo eventually, right? And she was the first person that I called. And it felt real. I felt very proud that I was investing in this idea of mine. And not only that, but that felt even more proud that she wanted to invest her time and energy into helping to build Mudo. So that was a really proud moment for us.

And also to be able to have someone on monthly payroll, retainer, like that was really big for us, proof that we were doing something right. How did you know that you were ready? I knew I was ready to bring on additional help when I felt burnt out, when I knew that I cannot do it alone. And I think a lot of building Mudo, since it came from such a personal place and such, I was laid off, right? I was laid off in 2018 and decided to start my own company

eventually, right? It was so personal. So me stepping out of my own way to admit that I needed help was a really, really big moment for us. And it's been instrumental in our growth. So I don't regret it. How long was it after you were laid off that you started Mudo? That's a good question as well. So I was laid off in October of 2018. And then from there, I started consulting, marketing consulting.

And then from there, I took on a few full-time roles at two different companies. But all the while, I was saving little nest eggs and doing little things to build our brand, working on the branding, obviously getting our legal foundation correct. So I think there's this misconception where people who wish to start their own ventures think that they perhaps need to just jump in right away or they feel guilty, perhaps, not being able to just jump in and leave everything behind and go gung-ho on this startup. But I took my time. So it took quite a bit of time. So I went full-time September 2022.

So I was laid off October 2018. So I was still working, consulting, but also working full-time for other companies. And then it got to a point where I knew that I needed to give Mudo my all for it to thrive in the way in which it did. And a year from 2022, September 2022 to September 2023, we like 300 times our business. So obviously, it was important for us to do that and for me to take that leap of faith into going full-time. We've just been rocking and rolling ever since. That's something that you and I share.

Two years before I left my job, I was thinking about starting a startup. I woke up a little bit earlier, and I stayed up a little bit later, and I just put that time in. I resonate with that. It's really expensive being broke and being small. Yes, yes. And then it motivates you, right? It's like, I can't keep doing this without a return. Like, I got to make something shake.

So I'm glad that we share that in common. And it's real. And I'm glad that people are going to get to see that it doesn't have to feel like an overnight thing. You can take your time and build a nest egg and then go. And I feel like that's part of the modern founder's journey. Absolutely. I speak to so many people and they're just like, I'm going to raise a bunch of money. I'm going to quit my job.

And I'm like, well, wait a second. How about you keep the job and you build the business? The business will tell you when it's time to go. Absolutely. And then keep the business. The business will tell you when it's time to go. Absolutely. And then keep your benefits. Like, please. Like, health insurance is very expensive. Very important.

Yes, it is very expensive. Take your time with it. I think also enabling yourself to spend a little bit more time. You make less mistakes because you're not rushing. You're able to really set a great foundation for your business so that when you're able to jump ship into the scary waters sometimes of entrepreneurship, you feel like you built a comfortable raft that you can sail these murky waters with. Absolutely, right? Make sure you have the fit, that you've established the client base, and you can transition in. The mistakes feel different when you still have a track. Yeah, they do. They do. And they feel, it feels more rewarding

when you're able to look back at what you had to do to get to where you are and feel comfortable and confident that your next move is your best move. And that's, you know, going gung-ho on your business. I love that. How important are mentors to you? Do you have some? How did you find them?

Share a little bit more about mentorship. I would be not sitting in this chair right now with you if I did not have mentors. These people, and ironically, perhaps not ironically, actually, a great host of them have been black women who saw something special in me well before I could even see it in myself and really urged me, pushed me to do something about it. And I really wouldn't be here. And I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of them through my extended network. I work

for a lot of these amazing women. A lot of these amazing women answered my cold call, cold email. And I love them for it. And I would be nowhere without them. When you were going through the process of reaching out to mentors, how did you work on your confidence and your self-esteem? I just did it. I just did it because you really have to be honest with yourself and you'll, you, you, you get to the point where you're like, if I don't make a move, nothing will happen. Like you got, you gotta be sick of your own, you gotta be sick of your own BS. You know, you gotta be sick of sitting in that for you to decide to make a move. And I just got tired of not knowing things. I got tired of not being in the cool people circle. Like, I really wanted to know, and I really wanted to learn.

And I think it just took a little bit of nudging, but we got there. And I think the best part about it, though, is people who recognize that someone wanted to emulate them in a way and took the time to sit in that and reflect in that and be willing to pour into someone. We're all busy. We're all incredibly busy. But I think we owe it to people who are coming up alongside of us or behind us to educate them, to champion them, to give the knowledge and the resources we've acquired. We owe it to us. We owe it to our younger generations and people coming up alongside us. So it was just a rites of passage. and I'm glad to have fallen in line in that way. Well, one of the things that people may not know about you is that you're moving forward, but you're also giving back. And in this particular question about mentorship, you've not only reached out to people who can mentor you, but you're working as a role model and a mentor for others.

Yeah, I love talking about my journey. And in particular, I love talking about how I was able to pivot careers. I think when you're growing up, it's so scary to think that I have to pick this one thing, do this one thing for the rest of my life, and it's going to go in the straight and narrow. It's just scary.

And I'm glad that I'm able to talk to kids, high schoolers, college kids, and educate them on the fact that your one path can lead to another path. Your journey is your journey, and you don't have to stay stagnant. You can switch. You can change your mind. I think that's also something in particular with women. We're sometimes conditioned or we're afraid to change our mind about something. And it's cool to see their faces light up when I talk about transferable skills and I talk about how I was able to leverage my career as an editor to ultimately build a six-figure business. It lights up their eyes and it makes me even more empowered and inspired to give them the codes, to give them the resources and the

education, the tools so that they can do it too, whenever they decide to. I am very proud to not only just be the founder and CEO of Mudeau, but at the same time we launched, we launched an initiative in which we call Black in Fragrance. And it's all about building a global ecosystem of support for marginalized, underrepresented founders, perfumers who identify as black, right? So we felt like we didn't need to reach a certain pinnacle before we decided that we were fortunate enough to give back or whatever. We decided to build it day one. And it's something that I'm very proud of. We've been able to provide small micro grants to three black women-owned businesses who are all in the fragrance space. And it's been able to provide small micro grants to three black women owned businesses who are all in the fragrance space.

And it's been able to enable their journeys in a myriad of different ways. And these companies are thriving today, some of which have launched. We invested in a pre-launch. We've given a small micro grant to a pre-launch business. And to see her now thriving, it just reinforces the importance of everything that we are doing. And it's only the beginning for Black in Fragrance. I look forward to relaunching it in 2024 and having its own identity and its own brand

pillars and its own solid mission. And I invite people to keep an eye out for it and to join forces with us because the work is necessary. And obviously, we are doing great work in these spaces, and we deserve to be in these spaces. What really inspired me to build Black in Fragrance was the lack of just seeing us on shelf, just Black fragrance founders, Black perfumers on shelf. We've been here. We've been here for a mighty, mighty long time. But for some reason, we've been highly ignored, highly underfunded, highly uneducated in the sense that we don't necessarily know that we can become cosmetic chemists and then we can become form, we can

become formulators, we can become perfumers. Like that educational track is not something that is promoted to us. And so I think Black & Friggas came from the notion of me wanting to shed light on us and our talents and our inspirations and our abilities, our capabilities, our brands, our businesses. And we've been rocking and rolling ever since. What's your next move in terms of funding goals? Our next move in terms of funding goals is closing our seed round. We're really close to doing so, and I'm excited about the people that we're talking to, the conversations that we're having, and how we'll be able to get to the next level and stage of Mudo. Can you share a bit more about the funding you've received, and how have you used it to grow your business?

Absolutely. I think transparency is key. So aside from traditional VC funding or institutional funds, a lot of what we've been able to raise has been in non-dilutive capital in the form of grants. As someone who's a first-time business owner, I did not know anything about grants, but let me tell you, there's a lot of them out there and there are a lot of amazing people who are willing and ready to see businesses like ours and willing to see us thrive as well. Can you talk a little bit about why you chose to go that route? Absolutely. When I started my business, I didn't think of Mudo as just a small business or another

small business. I actually thought of us as a startup, a fast-growing startup. And with fast-growing startups, it was important for me to not dilute my equity out the gate. And it was important for me to not accrue a lot of debt in the form of bank loans, etc. So grants became a very viable option for us. And we've been fortunate to have raised over $200,000 in non-dilutive funding. I'm curious, what was it about grants that attracted to you? Typically at this early stage, especially under $200,000,

you'll see people going for a friends and family round. Grants offered us the opportunity to practice our storytelling. So I'm a former full-time journalist, editor, and if I know anything, it's how to tell a great story, how to tell a great product story, how to tell a great brand story. And grants gave us the opportunity to fine tune those skills so that when it became time to pitch into investors in a more formalized setting, that we were ready and confident and had our story down pat. So it was a way to practice as well as rack up a little bit of free money, if you will, to help us take us to the next level. It's brilliant. Use grants to perfect your pitch. Yep, absolutely.

Can you walk us through how much money you've raised through grants? Yeah, we've raised a little over $200K, and that has come from a wide variety of sources. Arch Grants, we received a $100,000 grant. Glossier, the behemoth that they are, $50,000 through their grant program. Okay, thank you, Glossier. And a few others that have been just as instrumental in our growth. So, and I will say, I often tell people that it doesn't take a whole lot of yeses. I've applied to hundreds of things. It took maybe seven or eight yeses for us to amount, for us to reach that amount. So it doesn't take, it doesn't take a lot to really get to the next level, but you just have to partner with the right people who equally believe in you and are willing to pour into you in that way. Can you share a little bit

more about your process? How many grants did you apply for? How long did it take? How many yeses did you receive? We have applied to hundreds. And when I say hundreds, literal hundreds of grants. I have a spreadsheet that we keep count of our yeses and our nos. And when we receive feedback, we go on our tracker and we update that tracker. But I would say substantial seven or eight yeses have allowed us to amount to that over 200K figure through larger programs, some of them small. I think our smallest grant has been maybe 2,500. So some small and some very, very large, so $2,500 to $100 plus. When you were applying for grant funding, were you interested in raising traditional venture capital, or did you set out specifically to raise grants?

I think when I very first started out, grants seemed to be a little bit more accessible to us. I think venture capital was very, very scary. It still is scary. I mean, anyone who's raised, I think it's scary. Or if you haven't, there's a little fear around it. Grants just seemed like a perfect opportunity to practice pitching, to practice storytelling, and to get in front of people who didn't want from me but to succeed from day one.

So, I mean, grants just offered us the opportunity to do just that. And now, at this stage, venture capital is something that we're very much so interested in. What are your views on traditional venture capital? I think traditional venture capital can be an instrumental tool to taking a young startup to the moon. For us, I definitely think that there are other avenues that we could pursue and have successfully pursued prior that would enable us to have our financials down, our debts down, be able to survive due diligence, right?

Can you share a little more about how losing your job may have influenced your fundraising strategy? Definitely. Anyone who's lost their job or who has experienced a sudden loss of income in whatever way knows how resourceful they need to be to get back on their feet. And through my figuring things out,

I stumbled across a lot of people who are wanting to give help in the form of grants. So for us, that became a viable option for us to pursue in hopes of growing at an equitable pace. Can you tell us a little bit more about the process for applying for grants? First, you got to find them.

First, you got to find those grants. And it's not always easy, but I will say through web searches and especially through social media, there's a lot of entrepreneurs out here who are being willing or who are willing to share opportunities that are out there. So through crowdsourcing opportunities, that's the first step. Second step is to build out your pitching materials. So for us, that includes a pitch deck and we have multiple pitch decks. I think that's

an important thing to note. We just don't have one. And that's also crafting the perfect application. We have a Google Drive folder that really houses a lot of our successful applications. So we sometimes cherry pick answers and filling out new applications and then submitting the applications. And a lot of these grants involve interviews, involve meetings with boards or meetings with executives. So preparing yourself to be grilled very intensely and to keep calm and keep composure. And then I will say the next step is the follow-up. A lot of people fail to follow up, even if it's an application. You're either going to get two things.

You're either going to get the funding or you're going to get the feedback. So the follow-up is something that's really important as part of that pitch process. I really like that. You're either going to get the funding or get the feedback. For those who are listening to this interview, are there places that you recommend that they go to look for grants? Like, can you give me maybe a website or a specific resource? Yeah. Hello Alice is a really big one. They offer a lot of coaching as well as a hub for small business grants. Another source is Female Founders World. They actually have a Google Drive where they keep it on, like it's a Google sell sheet, right? They keep an ongoing tracker. New Voices has been instrumental to us. New Voices

Foundation, they often publicize opportunities. Who else can I share? I think those are the big ones. How did you prepare for the process? Was it something that you refined along the way, or did you have an idea of what to expect going into it? That's a great question. Our pitch process has evolved tremendously, and a lot of that came from being humbled very early on. And I will say every no has allowed us to practice what

has led to a success. I will say another big part about the pitch process for us is pitching with your peers. Oftentimes when you're writing decks or answering applications or even practicing your verbal 30-second elevator pitch or whatever, you sometimes might miss holes in your speech or your application themselves. And my peers have been instrumental in helping me plug holes or answering questions that they felt like were unanswered. So peer mentorship, peer networking, going through the process with people who are in a similar boat has been very, very helpful too. So now I have to ask, did you find a place online where you could review other founders' decks, or how did you come up with the anatomy of the perfect deck? I will say it's less of reviewing my peers' decks and more about Googling

what goes in a pitch deck, what goes in a pitch, and then from constant research, you know you have a problem slide, you know I have a solution slide, you have a competitive advantage slide, you have your story, you have all of these things that are essentially what you're getting asked in these applications. So some of it's a little bit redundant. But I realize, like, if all of these people are having a problem in solution slide, honey, I better have a problem in solution slide. So a lot of research. I'm a nerd. I graduated from YouTube University, y'all.

Like, not really. I graduated from the University of Missouri. But I love that. Because as a founder, you see, okay, this is like the perfect deck, right? There's a prescription online for slide one, slide two, slide three. But I think you're right. It's about telling a compelling story. You've got to have the highs, the lows, and everything in between.

And how you put it together is really your magic mix, right? It's the shine that you put on that deck and how you present the deck that really delivers the final touch for investors. I agree. I will say, I always tell people when I'm asked for advice, I say your lived experience is your greatest competitive advantage.

What I've gone through, which is why I even started Mado, is completely different from your story and why you've started your company. So your greatest competitive advantage is your lived experience, and that's where you start the story. Absolutely. And put that in your deck. Put it in the deck. Put it in the deck.

Put it in the deck. Can you tell us more about the investment from Pharrell? Yes. I mean, I'm still like, you know, like to say like, yeah, our first institutional investor is, you know, Pharrell Williams. You know, that's super, super cool. I will say Black Ambition, which is the entity in which that magical investment came about, is an amazing program. It was a nine-month process in which I applied, simple application, to which I became a semi-finalist, then became a finalist, and then became a top finalist, and then got to Demo Day and then was awarded the $100,000 prize. So I will say it's been an eye-opening experience.

It's been an experience rooted in deliberate determination. When I wanted to give up, when I didn't quite know what the process would entail, you just persevered through. And we were fortunate and blessed enough to come out on the other side a top prize winner. Can you share a little more about the nine-month process? Sure, sure, sure, sure. So after applying, if you are accepted to become a semi-finalist, so there was a few thousand applicants in the 2023 cycle. From there, they narrowed down the applicant pool down to 250 semi-finalists. And then all 250 of us were enrolled in a mentorship Black Ambition boot

camp. And I think it was about two or three months long where we learned more about honing our pitch, more about receiving support, growing a network, a whole curriculum of things that we went through for two or three months. And then from there, we had another application. We had a video component to this new application. And then from there, we just like await. We had a video component to this new application. And then from there, we just like awaited our fate, right, to go down from 250 to 50 finalists. That's a huge, huge jump. So what an honor that was in general. And then from there, they cherry-picked top finalists who were awarded on demo day. And what an honor that was.

I'm just curious about your mental health during that. Yeah. Yeah. Mental health. I mean, just in general, right? Just in general, being someone at the helm of a company that I really, truly believe in and a company that has high growth potential, it can mess with your psyche a little bit. It's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure to constantly prove yourself. And it takes some breaks. It takes some time to sit with myself and say, no, I'm not okay today. How ironic is it that I have a wellness brand and sometimes I'm not well. And so in order for me to continuously share my message out to the audience, I have to tap in with myself. And oftentimes that's like, hey sis, you might need an extra hour of sleep today.

And that's okay. Or, hey, sis, you might need to check in with your therapist. Or like, how are you eating? Did you eat today? How many times did you eat? How many times a day did you eat? Or did you drink any water? So self-care, wellness, it looks completely different.

But to your point, like, it was a lot of checking in with myself to make sure that I was okay. I have spoken with founders. and they're always raising. Can you tell me how you're thinking about your next raise? And are you in the mode of always raising? I will say I'm always raising because I'm always thinking about how the next infusion of capital will get us from milestone to milestone to milestone. I think some of the biggest mistakes that I've seen, now I haven't done too much, but the biggest mistakes I've seen is raising just for the sake of raising without an intention or a goalpost in mind. So every opportunity, every check that we receive, it's for a very specific purpose. So now as we're

gearing up to expand into different doors, big doors, funding is needed. Can you share a little bit more about that? I don't know about you, but I feel like when I attract money, it's almost when I'm not asking for money. Yeah. So when you say you're raising with something very specific in mind, can you walk me through your mental process? Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest part is making sure that you're keeping an eye on your runway and how much you have to work with at any given time. Cash flow is king. Cash flow is king. And I think if you need money, it might be a little bit too late. So I need to take probably like my own advice. Just kidding. Anyway. Yeah. When you need money, it might be a little bit too late. So I need to take probably like my own advice, just kidding. Anyway, yeah, when you need money, it might be too late. And that's something that

I've heard for a really long time. And so, and I also hear, you know, as you've raised, like you said, you're always continuously raising, you're always wondering where that next check is going to come from to do that next big thing. And I think it shows traction. It shows promise when you're able to go back to those who've poured financially into your business and share with them that you were able to achieve X, Y, and Z and now we're going past the alphabet to do bigger and better things. I think that's important.

So I always freeze with something in mind. Can you tell us a little bit more about the waiting game for funding? Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned that you waited nine months for Black Ambition, and it was a process. And congratulations, by the way. Can you share more about the process of waiting and what is it that you do?

If you don't hear anything, that doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. That's something that I've also heard, especially as you're going through the grant competition cycles. Sometimes if you don't hear anything, it's because you've perhaps moved on to the next round and they're waiting to share the next big thing with you. So waiting, it can be daunting though at the same time. Even if it means you're anticipating something positive, it can be just as nerve wracking just not knowing. But I mean, as founders, we always have something to do. So a good protocol or good business acumen is to follow up if after this specific milestone period has passed.

So say they're, we're going to reach out this date, this date, and you don't hear anything. I think waiting a few days or even a week after the fact to just see perhaps what might have happened or if you can receive any feedback from your application, that's a good time to do so. Oftentimes, sometimes these grant competitions, they run off cycle. Sometimes they don't hit every single milestone. So showing that you care and want to know what's going on in the process could also be a really good thing. Oh, I love that. So check in even if you've passed the deadline. just follow up. Just follow up. Can you share some of the challenging experiences that you may have had raising funding? Yes. I think some

of the more challenging conversations I've had have been around questions centered around my ability to run my business, my background, my credentials, terminology. Sometimes it's as simple as that. Do I know what this means? Yeah, I mean, but at the end of the day, I focus less on the challenges. I focus more on having a productive conversation with an individual, VC, investor, whatever, and sharing my passion, sharing the business vision that I have for my business, and focusing more on the traction that we've acquired, and gauging whether or not this particular individual, VC firm, whatever, could be a benefit to us just as much as we could be a benefit to their portfolio.

So even in the challenging moments of these conversations, where some of them have been quite patronizing, I focus more on making sure that I represent us well, regardless. Can you share a question that you've been asked that may have been challenging and how you respond to it? Okay, in a roundabout way, the aura and the essence of the question is, what makes you think you can run a business? I am running a business. That part. That part. That part. And I think, you know, I don't know if it's necessarily meant to be patronizing or condescending.

I think it comes from a lack of understanding around the business itself, not necessarily my ability to run a business. And so I try to answer those questions or bring those questions back to our successes, our traction, who our audience is, the data, the market research we've done to validate our claims, to validate our position. So a lot of it, I try to just shug those off and just bring it back to the fact that I am running a business. It is successful. It is scalable. And it will be very profitable in the near future. If anyone's looking for advice on how to present their pitch materials, one of the greatest lessons that I've learned is by password protecting documents and using services that make

it easy to track links, to track opens. And not only that, it makes it easy to follow up with people. You can see oftentimes with these services what page someone might have left off on. Maybe there was a question that they might have had. And you have their email, so it's easy to follow up with them and offer clarity or offer a chance to get on a follow-up call, to discuss whatever page they might have left off on. So I think the biggest things I've learned about having my pitch out there is being prepared, having a data room, building a data room that's password protected, and also just evolving my pitch over time after receiving feedback. Some

investors look at information way differently than others. Some may need more information than others. So keeping that feedback in mind has allowed us to create compelling pitch materials that I think have lended themselves to our success. When you're pitching, how quickly do you know when someone's not going to invest in your business? That's a good question. I think it's less about deciphering whether or not someone's going to invest in the business. Sometimes you can read body language, but at the end of the day, no one wants to be rude per se, right? So I think I know more than anything by my performance of the pitch. Sometimes I have an off day, and sometimes I just don't do it well enough to convince someone to pitch, or sorry, to invest in

our business. But I much rather fast forward through all of those rejections to get to the positive ones, right? To get to the approvals, to get to the, yes, we want to give you this grant. Yes, we're interested in going to the next phase of due diligence with you. I think at the end of the day, I just try to keep a positive outlook, even when I know someone might not be feeling Mujo. Could you offer us your favorite response to a hard question that you were asked by an investor? I will give a tip. So whenever I receive a question that I'm like, I don't really know how to answer that, I take a beat. Sometimes I say, excuse me, I need a moment to answer that. And I also repeat the question, which gives me a little

bit more time to think about it without looking like I don't know what I'm talking about. We're going to take a quick break and be right back. Here's a little tip for growing your business. Get the VentureX business card from Capital One and earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Plus, the VentureX business card has no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. And when you travel, you'll have access to over 1,300 airport lounges. Just imagine where the VentureX business card from Capital One can take your business. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness. Okay, so now we're going to talk about challenges.

So you mentioned that you may have encountered investors who, let's just say, did not have the best intentions. Can you tell us a little more about that? Yes, that's a really great question. So I think in years past, let's just throw it back to 2020. The landscape for receiving institutional funds looked completely different than what it does today. The goalposts, the metrics just weren't necessarily there all the way. I think investors weren't necessarily needing to see revenue. I think they didn't even necessarily need to see attraction and other forms of KPIs. I think you just had to have a great idea in a lot of ways and you might

receive funding. Now, the goalpost is, it was at the 50-yard line. Now, it's whatever the next yard line in football is. It's past the goalpost here, right? Where it's a little bit more difficult. Investors want to see movement. They want to see revenue. They want to see an audience. They also want to see that you know what your CAC is. They want to know what your customer acquisition cost is for those who might not know what CAC stands for. They want to know that you're not spending too much to acquire these customers. Or they want to also look at your margins and want to make sure that your margins are healthy and strong so that ultimately that you're profitable and that you can turn a quick profit and make them their money back quickly.

So, you know, I think those goalposts existed, but now they're increasingly different and more difficult to obtain with limited financial resources. Can you share a little more about how you're looking at attracting future investors? I know for me, to me, I make dating analogies, right? And it's not that I'm just interviewing you. You're interviewing me, and there has to be a fit. Do you have a process? Are there questions that you want to have answered in looking for your future investor? Absolutely. You know, even before I get to the point where I'm asking questions, it's important for brands and founders and CEOs and executives to do their own sort of due diligence. And that comes from who's on your, who's in your portfolio. Yeah. Perhaps if you

might know someone who's, who owns a brand in their portfolio, maybe you call them up. Hey, how accessible is your investor? What connections have they been able to make for you? What opportunities have come about, not just from this initial investment from this person or this entity or this firm or whatever, but what has that relationship done for you? And I think that's increasingly important, especially if you're a brand or a startup that is high growth, that has a lot of traction. I think in a lot of ways, you can be a little picky. You can be a little choosy. You can be really selective when it comes to determining who you're going to partner with. Because at the end of the day, this is a partnership and it's a partnership

for life. Or until you sell or until you exit, you have some sort of disillusion of the company, whatever, right? Until that happens, you are with these people forever. And I love that you have dating analogies because you're married and there is no option to divorce these folks. So you really need to be careful and cautious and ask great questions, some of which I alluded to earlier. I'm huge on having a list of qualities. And I love that you call people in the portfolio and ask what their experience is because I did the same thing. And one of the things that I absolutely loved about the people who are on my cap table is that they are there for me. It feels like we're family. I can call you on a Saturday afternoon.

You know, anytime I have an issue, I can reach out. And I think that's really important, right? For founders to know what it is that they want to get out of the experience and deliberately pursue investors who can bring that to them. Absolutely. And it can't just be money. Yeah. It absolutely cannot just be money

because money is fleeting. Like it has to be, you have to know that this person, this entity, this whatever is going to be with you through the good times and the bad times and help you strategize how to get out of those bad times as quickly as possible. And that's something that we're actively, you know, researching and asking the questions,

right? You know, we have one institutional investor, perhaps there will be others down the line. And I think having support through Black Ambition, that's a, the bar is up here. I would raise my hand higher, but I don't know if that's polite. But the bar is pretty high in the amount of connections and opportunities that they've been able to present us after the fact. So it's important.

As a founder, what types of qualities are you looking for and invested or bring other than money? Being communicative is important. And it alludes to what you were saying about I can call you or text you on a Saturday or after business hours about something. Being communicative. And if you don't have the answer, being resourceful enough to tap into your network to help me find the answer. That age old saying, your network, your network, help me find the answer that age-old saying your your network your network help me out here your network is your net there we go there we go and I'm glad

that you are now in my network so you can help me finish my sentences here uh but no I mean it's important and not only that I think um someone who is able to be um-minded. And I think, I mean, that's a given when you step into the role of being a VC. Also, I would say someone who can problem solve. Some of the best VCs, in my opinion, are people who've done it, been there, done that. Because you know the challenges, you know how difficult it is, you know how supply chains can be, you know how negotiating contracts is. So someone who could lend their experience to you and help you get to a resolution faster is important. A lot of things. It's a lot. It's really a lot. But to your point, creating a list and being able to kind of like grade people on

will help you stop entertaining the wrong people very fast. Absolutely. As a minority founder, it was really important for me to find a firm that did a lot of instruction and teaching. And what I mean is we have someone who contributes, who they have courses, they do grants, they have a way for us to be able to send some of the staff for training. And that was huge to me because I don't know what I don't know. And I felt overwhelmed. Did you ever feel like you're overwhelmed and where do you go to educate yourself? Yeah, I definitely feel like I have a deal with being overwhelmed often. And I think some of that, you know, I have a background in media and journalism and storytelling. So in some ways, unlike my counterparts or my even people in my network, I didn't start out having the most

robust business acumen there is. So being able to tap into my network of founders, people who are also in the trenches with me, growing and learning is important. And they've been able to lend their mentors to me, their board members to me. And so a lot of it's transactional in that way, where I'm asking deliberately for help about what specific thing that I need. And it helps me to feel less overwhelmed. Knowing what it is that you're not necessarily the strongest in and finding people who can pick up that slack for you and then vice versa lending that. I think it's just like with any relationship. It's not like what can I take, take, take, take, take from you.

It's also what can you give and get back in return? Can you share a little more about how the current funding climate has changed over the past few years? And how has that impacted how you approach the future? I think the way in which VCs are seeking and sourcing startups that they may want to invest in looks different. I think the way in which the economy has turned or just the rise of Gen Z and now Gen Alpha, like they're out here and they have coins. Wait, they're Alpha now? Okay.

There's, you know, they have millennials, you got the Gen Zs, you got Gen Alpha who are out there with buying power that's increasing by the minute, it seems, you know. So you have all of those factors in play. And VCs are looking for founders and startups who can speak to those changing times and create products and services that have meaningful solutions to the new age consumer. But then not only that, like how innovative are you? Like are there outdated, antiquated industries like fragrance that haven't necessarily been touched or approached in a different way?

Like are there brands who are speaking differently or maybe they have a different outlook or maybe they look different like physically, like the colors on our packaging, whatever. So being resourceful, innovative, creative, fun, what traction you have, I think all of that's kind of changing. But more granularly, you've got to have some numbers here. You've got to have some numbers, at least in my experience and the feedback that I've received, you've got to have some numbers, some traction. In particular, if you're in CPG, retail. Retail

is really, really important. How many doors are you in? And how quickly can you get in other doors that would be advantageous to your startup? So I think people should really pay attention to retail if they aren't, if they're a CPG brand. Are you tech-enabled? Do you have some sort of proprietary? What's your secret sauce? I think that's the best way to put it. Like, what's your secret sauce? Is it something proprietary?

Do you have your trademarks in order? So there's a lot of things that people are looking at. I think knowing that ahead of time, you can build out a brand that hits on those points without having to be told to do that, you know? Got it. Is there anything else you can share about how you were able to find funding through Instagram? Yes. There's a lot of amazing resources on Instagram, pages like Female Founders World or even founders like Alicia Scott of Range Beauty. There are people who are posting these opportunities. And I found the people that are posting most frequently, I like to subscribe to their pages so that I never, or hit that

notification bell so that I never miss another one of their posts. So Female Founders World, New Voices, Hello Alice is another one. There's a lot. There's so many. Being funded is more than just the money. How has receiving funding from Pharrell contributed to your success? That's an amazing question. I would say the funding was great, but I think the network, the access to receiving the codes, that's something that Pharrell mentions. It's like sometimes startup founders that look like us or look like me and you don't have the codes that we need to necessarily succeed. So it's sometimes we need people to give us those codes. So the network and then the resources.

The Black Ambition team is amazing, and they're always providing an opportunity to grow, whether that's learning a new skill or being tapped into a mental health resource or even the latest opportunity that they shared was a free brand revamp. So there's always different ways for them to show their commitment to wanting to see our growth and networking resources has been two big pillars alongside funding. Can you tell us a little more about the importance of sharing your wins?

Sharing your wins is important. It's not selfish. You're not being braggadocious. It's important because you never know who that win might reach after it's been shared. We actually received a kickoff call, kickoff email, whatever, from our very first retail partner finding an article about us through LinkedIn that we had amplified. So it's very important to share everything, even the small ones. But I love that, right?

Because I think sometimes people are like, oh, you know, I'm afraid of how I might appear by posting something about me on my page. But it's important, right? Because beyond that initial blip, you don't know what people but it's important, right? Because beyond that initial blip, you don't know what people are doing that day, right? They may or may not be watching the show. You want to share it. You want to amplify it on your channels. And it lives there. It literally lives there. And so people can go back. They can reference it. They can see, oh, wow, Mudeau was on the Today Show. Oh, wow, Mudo was on Good Morning America. And that's amazing.

Yeah, and I also think it helps with building traction and showcasing that traction. I want everyone to know we are everywhere, doing everything any time of day, you know? And it really helps to show that you have a chronological proof of reference for anyone, especially investors. They want to see that you have some traction. I mean, you've accomplished a lot and you've done it all with non-dilutive funding. Absolutely. I'm proud. I'm actually really proud. I'm really proud of us. Honestly, it wasn't until

I sat down towards, what was it, Q3 of 2023, where I sat down and just looked at everything that we had accomplished last year. And it felt really remarkable that with a little determination, perseverance, wherewithal, resourcefulness, that we were able to get it done. And there's so much more that we have left to do. Like we're nowhere near where I want to be and want to end up,

but I'm proud that we were able to accomplish what we have in such a relatively short amount of time. I mean, I think it's important for founders, write it down. Write it down. Please write it down. Write it down and reflect on it because you can get so caught up in the day to day that you forget that you accomplished all this in January and all this in February. And it really is impressive when you look back on all of what you've done. Absolutely. And I also say, as often as I try to put my phone down,

I do, I try to put my phone down, in particular like social media and Instagram, I will look back at my saved section on Instagram. Like anytime I saw one of my peers do something cool that I felt like I wanted to do, I would save it. And it's really remarkable how a lot of those saves have become my now reality, just because I put the intention out there. And I think that's a big part, not just writing down what your wins are, but what do you want to achieve? And then revisit it a year

later and see what had happened. Like a living vision board. A living, yes. My Instagram is a living vision board. It's a mood board, pun intended, like it's all of the things. What do you love the most about being an entrepreneur? I love the ability to be creative and to define what that looks like every single day. It looks different, but I love being creative and being able to exercise my vision the way I see it. Can you walk us through some of your most significant challenges and what you learned from them? Sure. I think one of the biggest challenges for us was figuring out how to find sources of capital and then building our grant tracker was instrumental in being able to apply for some of these things.

So yeah, finding funding was an initial challenge. Also finding great talent. I think that's something like hiring great people was initially hard and I think it's hard still. What surprised you the most about your entrepreneurial journey? What surprises me the most about my entrepreneurial journey is that even when you think, when you start to think that you figured it out, you know nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. So that's the biggest, most surprising thing.

What's your next move in terms of funding? In terms of funding includes opening up our first round, our first seed round, and meeting with different investors and talking with them and hopefully perhaps securing some more additional funds. This has been so great. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

That's all for this episode of Your Next Move. Our producer is Matt Toder. Editing and sound design by Nick Torres. Executive producer is Josh Christensen. If you haven't already, subscribe to Your Next Move on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Your Next Move is a production of

Inc. and Capital One Business.