- 2 days ago
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00next up is the Karate sisters joining us from Karate welcome Karate sisters hi Essence hi
00:12Avino we are Karate co-founded by three sisters from Ghana I am Dr. Nanna Balachi I'm a board
00:20certified dermatologist I'm Abina Sloe my background is in law and our other sister is
00:24kua okansende and her backgrounds in marketing in my career I have treated over 18,000 patients from
00:30babies to adults and everybody in between and one question that I always get is what moisturizer
00:37should I purchase and it's interesting because I'm always torn by answering this question because
00:42there's so many products over-the-counter that have so many irritants that could disrupt the skin
00:47barrier and then cause inflammation so about 10 years ago I remember telling my sisters about this
00:52issue and I said you know what I wish we could just take this unrefined shea butter that we grew
00:56up using as a child and just make it more cosmetically elegant because as you know
01:01unrefined shea butter is not easy to spread so I took out my mom's KitchenAid and whipped up some
01:06shea butter and guess what Karate was born and I did replace her KitchenAid Karate is is a custom
01:13formulated skincare line using unrefined shea butter as well as other botanicals and we are
01:19improving the skin health by via moisturization for all ages all genders and all skin tones shea butter
01:27has so many therapeutic effects it is anti-inflammatory it is full of antioxidants and is
01:33antimicrobial and we also use other plants such as palm oil from our father's farm in Ghana so it is
01:41sustainably sourced because palm oil has so many antioxidants and we also leverage other plants such as
01:47coconut oil roll bush extract rosemary sunflower seed oil and olive oil and because we know the
01:55value of all these plants we were very intentional about picking a lab that was using innovative
02:02technology not to use so many chemical ingredients during its manufacturing and we were intentional
02:08about putting our products in eco-friendly packaging so we know where our brand differentiates
02:15ourselves from other brands because we know exactly where shea butter is from and we use a very high
02:21concentration of shea butter in 2017 we launched our creme mains nourishing hand cream and in 2020
02:28we won refinery 29's beauty innovator award for best hand treatment and just last month we got
02:34cosmopolitan's holy grail award for best hand cream which has been very exciting our other products are
02:40our creme core hydrating body cream and also our bomba led lip balm which we just launched last year
02:46we currently sell our products on our website and although most of our customers are based in the
02:51united states we do have many repeat orders from customers as far as singapore and australia in terms
02:57of customer outreach and engagement we do email campaigns paid ads organic content on social media
03:05platforms brand collaborations and also influencer gifting we currently sell in about 40 different
03:11retailers across the united states and canada and back in 2019 we were one of the brands included in
03:18bloomingdale's lion king style kingdom pop-up shop some of our current retailers are the detox market
03:25group 13 moons and jc penny currently the 13 moon jc penny retail partnership that we have
03:33is our largest to date as they're currently in the middle of doing a 600 door rollout by 2023 we
03:39also hope to be able to expand our global footprint into the uk the eu and also africa but our mission
03:46is not only to improve the skin health of our consumers but to give back to the women who pick
03:51our shea nuts every year that we travel back to ghana we meet with these moments we travel to northern
03:56ghana and we sit down with them and listen to their needs the first time we met with them we brought
04:01them wide brim hats and gloves just to protect them while they're farming and then the following year
04:06we when they told they told us during that time that you know what we walk six miles in flip-flops
04:13and we need proper shoes so we did a shape of souls campaign and we brought back new and gently used
04:19sneakers and this time when and that was back in december 2021 and they told us at that time you know
04:25what we need community transportation so we're hoping that we could fulfill this promise our brand makes
04:31an impact back into the communities that we work with and if we were chosen to receive these funds
04:38it would be a really tremendous opportunity for our brand as we've been a hundred percent
04:42bootstrapped and self-funded since inception and we're now at an inflection point where capital is
04:47really needed to meet the increased demand in all of our purchase orders so that we can increase our
04:53production of our products and the guidance of a mentor would be really important for us as we're
04:59trying to navigate all these different business decisions as we're a small business looking to
05:03grow you know into the global market and we also hope with the funds that we'd be able to hire more
05:09women to help with our operational needs we're currently in the middle of r&d and hoping to launch
05:16a new product in 2023 and our customers have given us a lot of feedback about what they would like to
05:22see us do next and the funding would really help karate increase its brand awareness and while at the
05:28same time we do continue that downstream impact and continuing to reinvest in the ghana communities that
05:34we work with back at home so thank you so much for your time today and allowing us to tell you
05:38a little bit more about our brand thank you so much karate sisters for your impressive pitch
05:45i am going to open it up to all of the judges so we can ask you a few questions and we'll start off with
05:51melissa thank you so much pauline and thank you to the carry karate sisters for sharing the holistic
05:58story around your brand it is truly inspiring how it really is kind of a farm to table type offering
06:05and how much you give back to the communicate to the community to create a sustainable supply chain
06:12and your commitment to the long-term growth of this brand i do have some questions for you
06:18and would love to hear you know how the first question i have is how do you stay close to the
06:24professional community um being backed and led by a board-certified dermatologist where what is the
06:30role that the dermatologist plays in your product development sure so when it came to when it comes down
06:36to formulation i'm always working with a chemist and just making sure that i'm very intentional
06:42intentional about the ingredient selection um so we have countless talks and emails um taking allergens
06:50out because i know listen i'm not i don't want i don't want to pat i don't want the um testimonials
06:55like oh i got a rash you know so i'm just really intentional about what ingredients that we pick um
07:01when it when we are coming down to formulation great thank you for that hello sisters hi
07:12so as you as you were presenting you talked about uh numerous routes to market you talked about your
07:17direct consumer business online your partnership with bloomingdale's with jc penny but you also
07:23mentioned that you've got a global business as well as you think about providing access to your
07:28products how would you prioritize how you would come to market over call it the next three to five years
07:34we're doing it very carefully especially once we leave the united states because we want to make sure
07:41that they are presenting our brand in the best light and since we are not going to be necessarily there to
07:50be able to you know educate and do all that we're probably most likely going to target smaller retail
07:58stores ones that truly work with small brands um understand the needs of a small business not any large retail
08:07store um that's overseas so we're going to you know tread lightly as we start to look at smaller
08:15retail shops that are really unique in the types of brands that they carry thank you
08:23all right and i have a couple questions as well i also love your story i love how you talked about what
08:29you put into the products and the packaging but clearly you know most of all what you're doing for
08:33the community and the impact you're making there in ghana so thank you for telling us um about your
08:38business ultimately i'd love to know a bit more about your growth aspirations so if you're willing to
08:45share the size of your business today but also sort of a quantified what your growth aspirations are
08:50for the future as well as what your sort of prioritized strategy is to drive that foundational
08:58business growth yeah so we and when we first started we purposely took a slow growth strategy
09:05because we really wanted to make sure that each of the products we have we were spending the time
09:10making sure we were nailing down the formulations to make sure that each of the ingredients really
09:15were scientifically backed and can prove to work well with the skin and also we wanted to make sure that
09:21we had a really great handle on our operational side to make sure that we could do both the direct
09:27to consumer well as well as the business to business which i think we've done a really great job so far
09:33since we are in um all of these retailers and are starting to work with these much bigger retailers
09:40as well we do hope that in the next three to five years that or even just next year be able to
09:47you know double our revenue and then each year at least grow by about you know 30 percent really
09:53taking our time not expanding too quickly because we don't want to lose sight of exactly what we're
09:59doing we want to do what we're doing is we're doing it well taking our time and making sure that we're
10:05making all the right steps obviously if we were to win this and get that guidance and mentorship um
10:12that would be really great and helping us navigate what is the best growth strategy for a small brand
10:18as ours as we are trying to look into expanding into these bigger retails doing more customer
10:24engagement more customer outreach so that we you know take these careful steps but really do it
10:30properly and not make any mistakes and do it well thank you so i have one final question if i don't have
10:40any other questions from um our other judges and that's with respects to how you're currently communicating
10:47with your customers today and if you were to win how do you see that strategy evolving to connect with
10:53your consumers so we do a lot of really engaging with people on social media online that's really
11:02the easiest way to talk to people um really getting that brand awareness out there and if we were to
11:12win we'd really be able to put more money into our marketing efforts you know that's one of the
11:17more expensive parts of any business and right now um you know as we're trying to meet this increase in
11:28purchase orders but at the same time trying to do marketing we're like hmm we really have to pick and
11:32choose where our money goes so if we were to get this funding that we'd be able to breed like you know
11:38what we can do both at the same time and run with it and i think it would be really tremendous for our
11:43brand and i think our our current consumers really love our website and they love the blogs that we
11:49send out on a monthly basis because we are educating about the plant ingredients that we always use and
11:55why we leverage them so much in our formulation so there's also this educational piece that we would
12:01um love to highlight and continue to do in our marketing thank you so much for your answers ladies
12:09um and love the fact that you guys are sisters in business i'm one of six children so i love seeing
12:16this and thank you so much um for sharing your incredible journey good luck to you both thank you
Comments