Viral Beauty: Le Mini Macaron’s Success

Speaker 1: [Music] our ethos is really about bringing joy to your fingertips and personally for many years when I was going the salon before we had the brand if my nails were done I felt really polished it's a pick me up so that's one of the things that's really important to us is that we're putting tools into the hands of our followers and our customers to be able to do your own nails and lift yourself up I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the she built it podcast your go-to place to Empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome to the Shela podcast thank you for joining us Christina please share who you are and the moment you decided to start your business and launch product my name is Christina KO and I'm the co-founder of Lon macaron we're an indie nail brand and our hero product is the gel manicure kit so you might have seen us on Tik Tok where we've been going pretty viral the previous couple of years and the moment I decided to start my business I don't know Melanie if you know the story but my business partner is my ex-boyfriend and we were a couple and then started the business six months into knowing each other and didn't plan to start a brand uh just started working together but 10 years later we have a brand I love it and I'm a mom of twins and so I want things done quickly and I was always going to get my nails done consistently before having twins and then after the Twins were born it was really challenging for me to get in to get my nails done and so I started to do things like impress if I needed to have that quick good nail look you have such a fun product and your packaging is so fun if there's such a element of surprise when you open up your packaging can you tell us about the product that you created so I was a gel manicure fanatic back in the day I worked in marketing and so I always needed to have my nails done and looking really good and I would go into the salon to get my gel manicures and I loved the results gels are known to be extremely glossy long lasting and Chip free I loved having those results but I didn't like the time it took to go in have having to wait around the price was okay for me I could afford it it was more about the time I wanted that freedom and that flexibility and once you get your gels done you have to book your appointment to get it removed because you couldn't remove it at home and then you were in that cycle to always go back so I was the consumer and I met fra who my business partner it's very interesting because everyone thinks that I come from beauty but he's actually the one who comes from the beauty industry he's French and had worked for a long time with a French Beauty hold sale business so he knew all about the category actually he knows about the nail category the types of products very specifically everything around gel manicures polish LED lamps tools and so we put our heads together and wanted to create something that would make it really easy to get the same results at home so you don't have to go into the salon you can DIY your gels and then when you're ready to remove it you could do that as well and we wanted something very affordable of course because it can get expensive we also wanted something convenient and easy to learn because if you've never done it there's a little bit of a learning curve in the beginning and you want to get it right so that you're happy with the result and you want to do it again so all of those things were considerations for us when we designed the product and so our hero product is the gel manicure kit and our brand is Lioni macaron so macaron is the French I don't want to say cookie because the French would be very unhappy if they heard that yeah but I think everyone knows what a macaron is and they're colorful they're very flavorful and so when we launched the brand we used it as a concept to create our lamps so you've seen our product our little LED lamps are in the shape of a macaron and it's the light that dries the Polish and we use the names of flavors you know like lavender pistachio those are our color names B that's so fun how did you come up with that yeah so we knew we wanted do a gel manicure set so we wanted everything in one kit you have your polish your tools your light so we knew the format of the product we wanted to do we had a friend who was just helping us brainstorm ideas and do sketches for what the lamp could look like and he proposed two ideas one was the ring and the other was the mackerel but he was really like the ring this like ring that sits you know and cures your nail and I was like that's not logical because Rings don't sit us at the base of the finger and I just love the macaron I thought what a great concept it's so iconic it's so French but globally everybody knows what it is it's very recognizable so that's really become our signature obviously we're known for our colors but I think if you look at nail Brands out there obviously nail color Cosmetics people come to our brand for color but our lamp is just so unique and it really stands out and we play a lot with matching polishes with the lamps and all of our sets have different themed color concepts so it's been really fun I think it's what really stands out and people remember us it is and it Sparks curiosity because it makes you wonder how did you associate the two and it's also super fun I mean we all want to do something fun especially when we're doing something around Beauty yeah for sure in the co 2020 2021 people were at home and they were looking for solutions to do their manicures because the ones who were going into the salons couldn't do that specifically our category like nail took off during and the pandemic years but gel manicures very specifically became really hot item to have at home and I felt like people not only were they watching a lot of tutorials and really excited to learn and willing to learn how to do their own makeup their own Nails really well it was like Beauty entertainment you know I felt like it was like we had this captive audience they were entertained they were willing because they had time to spend time investing into DIY and learning little tips and tricks and that stayed after Co I think we see this across many Beauty categories people have become very well-versed in how to do things for themselves and like you mentioned in the beginning not wanting to take time out of their busy schedules so being able to do it at home when you have the freedom and flexibility to paint your nails like you said you're a busy mom and having instant dry nails versus waiting around is really a GameChanger so that really helped us a lot we saw consumers behaving that way in Co yeah it seems like you had the perfect timing with Co because I was the same I was running a business I had two five-year-olds and six-year-olds at home at the time you want some time for yourself too so you stopped and thought how can I get that without leaving the house and everyone had time to spend a little more time figuring out products that they wanted to use because I know I was like how can I have an at home spa day a minute away you know the family that's not leaving and the business that's continuing to move forward as our lives are all compacted and we don't really get that downtime a lot of us didn't for business partners usually it's great when two people come together with different skill sets how do you work together in that way you want to look for someone with a different skill set than you because that will help to grow the business definitely we're actually quite complimentary in terms of our skill sets my background I came from advertising agencies marketing Creative Design and also these days working a lot on sales and he actually came from the product development supply chain operations like he knew about shipping internationally like he knew all those details so we were very complimentary I in terms of what we were able to bring to the partnership and our background and knowledge obviously we are ex boyfriend and girlfriend so it brought a lot of complication over the years you know I meet a lot of business partners who are couples either present or former and it's a common topic I think a lot of people tend to get into business with someone who's a partner in their life and I would say it's not easy I think one of the things that's helped us a lot and this is a very recent change for us is we actually just brought in someone to help us run the business so we have a managing director and neither one of us is now officially the main person running the business we have different sides of the business where we can really specialize on what we're good at so he's going to hone in on supply chain and product development I'm going to hone in on sales and working with our retailers in the US gets really healthy to be a to and it's also it comes with time our brand just turned 10 we've been in business for 12 years but the brand Loni mackerel started in January 2015 so it's been 10 years and an amazing change for us because after a certain period of time you just need to go to the next stage and go from being a baby brand to a teenage brand and you know have more professionals who can help you grow that business yeah and I'm happy for you with that growth my husband and I own a separate business from she built it together so I understand of having that relationship friend and then also switching over to the business side and when you disagree with the business perspective having that conversation and then saying okay now we're gonna we're going to leave that conversation aside and go back to the relationship side so it is but I'm thrilled for you with that growth as you grow your teams how are you building a sustainable company culture and what do you think is the most important element of leadership I think we've seen so many different stages of our growth and it's been challenging for many years we always had smaller teams you know five people and then 10 15 people and then in the covid years the teams got much larger and we weren't ready for that so we were growing and scaling and we had this opportunity in the end of 2021 where Target rolled us out and it really changed the game for us and I was very focused externally on retail Partnerships and marketing and our team we just kept hiring more people because we needed the people to help support the business a culture that starts very organically where if you're a team of seven or 10 people it's quite intimate you know there's not so much hierarchy you can very easily communicate there's just these different relationships in the room and you can easily communicate and update people on what's happening but then we were suddenly 25 people and I was so used to communicating oneon-one and it just was is n sustainable you need layers you need more leadership in the room you need more experience so the culture has changed and evolved over the years like we got to 25 we realized we needed to support the team there's a lot of younger members of the team we were going through the shift to work from home whereas that just never existed before and then different people had different expectations of what they wanted from that and I was always very keen on having a work in the office kind of culture because I think bringing people together and collaborating in person just allows you to like go so much faster and really connect but we saw the shift happening out in the world and we need to also adapt to that today it's great now I think one of the things that made a huge difference for us was relaunching our company values so we had company values set in place a few years ago we've done a lot of sizes recently to relaunch the values so we have three values pride and passion above and beyond and learn and grow and and it's very authentic to who we are one of the things I've learned with working with coaches is that at the end of the day you need to be true to who you are and the values reflect you and then the people in the organization there's going to be people who it resonates with and people where it doesn't and you know if people leave it's okay because they can find another company that fits them and then we can reinforce the team culture and the spirit with the values that we have so these are all really recent changes for us and I'm really happy to see that it's helping our company and it's helping the team and I can see us getting like healthier and stronger so it's been a very cool journey and it's so much better to show up when you know you're why behind what you're doing as a team member and you start out Nimble and businesses can operate with smaller teams especially with all the technology that we have it's great to start from the very beginning because you know your systems and then know how you want to push them out to your now we have all the technology sometimes too much my cheddar fingertips with all the shiny new platforms and different directions definitely what is next for your company I saw a video of you doing your nails in your car I have not tried your product yet but I cannot wait our listeners are busy don't have a lot of time like you so can't wait to try your product and tell us what's next so September we launched regular classic air dry nail polish and so for 10 years we've been known for gels our gel formula is a one step so you've got your base color top coat all in one bottle that's our differentiator if you go to the salon it's a three-step gel there's other brands out there with three-step but we're really known for our one step gel so I always say it's like easy to apply but easy to remove when you're ready to change the color so I'm excited for you to try it because it's just so easy to apply and and get it into your routine so we've been known for gels for a long time but we wanted to venture into nail polish because there is a big audience of people who like to use the classic air dry nail polish while we have a very devoted audience using our gels we call them our sheres our community because Sherry is darling in French they love using gels they love the benefits of gel but we also know that there are a lot of people out there who maybe just won't do gel or they'll only do at the salon and they want to have the flexibility of nail polish so we launched a line in September it's called the suite and it's a superfood infused nail polish with a quick dry formula we added blueberry avocado and spinach to the formula it's also got Biotin for nail health so we're really thrilled with the line I think we've got 35 Shades to start and we have a very amazing retail partnership coming very soon so if you stay tuned we'll be announcing that on our socials it was a labor of love it takes a long time to bring things to Market and I think in the nail category and color it's important to be on Trend but then Trends happen really quickly things were taking off on Tik Tok and consumers want to see it and have it available so we're always working quickly to bring things to Market but we're excited to have this line because we're able to just reach more consumers With Our Brands and our ethos is really about bringing joy to your fingertips and personally for many years when I was going to the salon before we had the brand if my nails were done I felt really polished it's pick me up so that's one of the things that's really important to us is that we're putting tools into the hands of our followers and our customers to be able to do your own nails and lift yourself up and with your nail polish I'm sure you can reach different demographics and then we also have our toes that we want to look nice and you're right you just feel so much better going into a meeting with nice nails yeah it makes a difference it does and I was talking about my previous experience I was traveling a lot and growing the business and had twins and I had someone in Los Angeles that did my nails but when I would travel for 2 months at a time it was hard to find someone so having a solution is so helpful for women with busy Lifestyles yeah actually when we launched our brand we did three kickstarters in the first couple years there were a lot of flight attendants that would reach out to us and they would buy the products because they were on the road um and in different cities and they would just take it with them because the lamp has a USB so you can travel with it plug it in anywhere you have a USB socket yeah just like really on the go making it just and flexible so flight attendants were always telling us this is so great because I can just pop it into my bag it's really Compact and if I just need something to touch up and then we also had a lot of people who they were devoted to Salon gel manicures but then when they were in between the manicure if they had a chip or if they needed a little touchup they liked having our set as a solution magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy we've talked a lot about business today what do you do for you to make sure that you're finding and living your joy one of the things I've realized recently I've been doing the business 12 years is it's so easy to be very consumed with the business there's always something to do and people reaching out and being able to turn off and just have a mental break people talk about that but I've really realized how critical it is yoga meditation I've really been embracing doing these types of activities and just cutting off from work there's enough hours in the day where I'm working so having that personal time is so restorative such good advice sometimes we have to schedule it in and I'll say oh I'm going to work out and if I don't get it in first thing in the morning I'll I'll get distracted or writing emails or proposals or things like that and then you don't do it and I have really started to like five minute meditations it's amazing what five minutes can do it carries me through the day if I can get it in the morning thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story with us can you please share with us how and where we can find you yeah um so our website is lony macon.com I'm on LinkedIn my Instagram is the Christina KO it's just my name so you can follow me or you can follow our company thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at sheb builted on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave [Music]