- 2 days ago
Join us for an insightful session with Philomina Kane, founder of Kin Apparel, as she shares her journey from building a vibrant online community to launching a successful brand. You will learn how how she monetized her community authentically using organic (FREE!) digital marketing strategies for the first two years in business and leveraged pop culture and human connection for effective brand-building.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00for y'all we have an amazing conversation coming up so good morning everybody thanks again for
00:05coming back to our circle market stage at essence festival 2024 it is amazing to share energy with
00:11you my name is ariel brown i am the founder of bees bayou skincare for scalp out of new orleans
00:17louisiana i'm originally from lafayette louisiana so this morning i have a founder friend who is
00:23absolutely amazing you may have seen her on shark tank you may have seen her on a billboard you may
00:29have seen her on the side of a building on a bus she's everywhere but i am so excited to bring to
00:34the stage philomena kane founder of kin apparel come on up here we're going to discuss digital
00:41marketing building community and of course her amazing brand welcome to the stage good morning
00:47how you feeling i'm good i'm good is this your first essence yes really okay this is the first
00:54time i'm vending at essence okay and my booth is right there yes y'all she's right there in the
01:00corner of kin apparel actually in 2019 i was here with natural club a hair care brand and i was working
01:07their booth so five years later i have my booth so it's nostalgic full circle well congratulations
01:13thank you we're gonna get into everything kin apparel so first tell us what was your inspiration
01:19for kin apparel all right so you ever heard of the phrase when a girl cuts her hair she's about to
01:24change her whole life all right so that's exactly my story so back in 2014 i was a freshman at
01:31princeton university and my hair started falling out because i was stressed yeah and not taking care
01:37of it so i'm from the boogie down bronze they're in the house and i come from a family of hairstylists
01:46so getting my hair done in the bronze was never an issue so fast forward to college it cost a hundred
01:51dollars to get my hair done i did not have that type of money so i had my late friend ozy cut off
01:57all my hair and that was the beginning of my natural hair journey and a lot of black women we share in
02:03this collective experience known as a hair care journey where we start saying no to the creamy crack
02:08and start embracing our hair naturally and for me that happened in college and i became obsessed with it
02:15i'm talking i was watching every video trying every pro i was definitely a product junkie
02:19and and it led me to start a youtube channel so i started a youtube channel where i was just doing
02:26my hair and for fun and i started get gaining a huge community of supporters people telling me i was
02:33motivating them and inspiring them to start their own hair care journey so that's how kin apparel was born
02:39so kin actually stands for keep it naturally yeah so yeah that's how the community was born on youtube
02:45and eventually i monetized it to start kin apparel that's amazing so like really leveraging community
02:52but from an authentic place exactly a really authentic place um so let's talk about that
02:57on youtube we talk about you starting this community but how did you really know that you had something like
03:03how did you know that it was time to take that community and leverage it for creating a scalable
03:09company got you so when my hair started growing back i and back in college i used to play rugby
03:17so every time i'll be at practice i'll wear a hoodie but i always have a scarf on because i never put the
03:24hood on my head so one day i told myself i'm gonna put satin in a hoodie and i just forgot about it
03:30so it wasn't until 2019 when i had built a community and sometimes youtubers make merch for
03:37their audience so my merch i was like you know what out my first merch for my audience will be satin
03:42line hoodies because i realized like if my hair is growing first of all hoods never fit my head
03:48because it's big let alone my big hair don't care exactly big head and big hair so i knew i had
03:55something if i'm struggling through that then there was definitely other people too
03:58yeah yeah so you saw a problem you had a problem but you saw an opportunity exactly and you had that
04:04community built how important was it for you to align values with that community as you were building
04:11your brand because i know a lot of times we see people put their names on things or they just throw
04:15something together but obviously you cared about the quality you look amazing and the products are
04:21amazing but where did the values come in yeah one thing about ken apparel in building it i wanted to
04:27make something that wasn't a fad like something that i make one time and then i forget about it
04:33because some people build businesses and then after a couple of months they like shut it down
04:37so to me i was like if i'm gonna put satin in the hoodie i want it to be the best quality satin
04:42and i want the hood to be big enough to actually fit our hair as it grows so aligning with like
04:48excellence excellence is one of my company's core values and compassion and community
04:53so also just leveraging the community that i built on youtube asking them what do you want what do you
04:59want to see next that's the easiest way so engaging exactly engage them because that's the only way
05:05you're gonna get what they actually want and then they're gonna buy it because you made it because
05:09they asked for it anyways i love that do we have any entrepreneurs in the audience i see some i see
05:16okay you're about to put your hand up but i love that and you also have amazing marketing that you do
05:23yeah so i can only imagine that once you identify the problem you have an amazing community there
05:28waiting for your whatever it is that you bring to the table um now you have to actually take that
05:35community and market to them and communicate to them and story tell to them so can you describe
05:41some of the marketing strategies that you use and maybe what others might want to start using for
05:45their businesses yeah so my marketing my digital marketing is based solely on storytelling so
05:52there's three pillars to it you either want to inspire someone or educate them or make them laugh or
06:00entertain them so inspire educate or entertain and that's how you story tell so there's different
06:06ways to do it so if i want to inspire someone i want to tell them my story so similar to how we
06:12began this with me telling you i started from college doing all of this so telling them that this
06:17is very authentic and it's true to me so you make a video like for example on on social media people are
06:24watching reels so in a reel you take your old clips that's why i always tell people document everything
06:30so when it comes time to put everything together you have all the videos that you can put together
06:35and then you can tell an inspiring story that way secondly entertaining them right now on social
06:41media we see a lot of trending sounds or or like a trending things on on tiktok or instagram every
06:48trend that you see hop on it think about ways that you can incorporate you you see a trend and you're
06:54like okay how can i sell my product with this trend so that's what i'm always doing because trending
07:00sounds go viral so if you're able to incorporate your product into it then one of your videos is
07:06bound to go viral with those trending sounds so that's one of the ways you can entertain people
07:11by telling your story too and then lastly educate so some people don't know satin is good for your hair
07:17right some people go natural they're still sleeping on cotton pillowcases they're still putting cotton
07:23hoods on their head they're still wearing cotton beanies tell us why cotton's not the best for our hair
07:28all right if we if we don't already know all right all right let me let me speak about the science real
07:34quick so when when two surface surfaces collide so like when your hair comes in contact with cotton
07:41they want to cut they want to come together in a sliding motion but you have this opposing force
07:47called friction that's acting against the sliding so that's why satin is important because it's a very
07:53smooth and soft material so when it comes in contact with your hair it's actually going to
07:58glide so it's not going to lead to the friction frizz limp balls all of that and when your hair is dry
08:05it breaks so that's why we put satin in everything so when your hair you know and also the hood is big
08:13the hood is big so it fits over the crown it fits all the hair and i have some models too that
08:17oh yes we're gonna get these models on this stage okay we got the time we're gonna get them on this
08:22day okay so before i interrupted you and ask you about why what was the cotton education educating
08:28your customer and your your um your community so you got inspire you want to inspire inspire you want
08:36to entertain entertain and you want to educate and educate through storytelling yeah and then one one
08:42piece of advice i would give a lot of the times especially like black woman entrepreneurs they get
08:48into this phase where they're like i don't want to be the face of my brand right but i would i would
08:54venture out to say especially when you're starting off it's really important to be authentic and be the
09:00face of your brand because who else to tell your story than you you know it personally it's in your
09:05heart right and it's really hard when you're starting if you don't have a lot of capital to be the face of
09:11your brand so i've been telling people like that part i don't know how you're gonna pay all these
09:15influencers in the beginning so just being authentic and just leading with yourself first
09:21and that's the thing like on youtube people came for the hair care videos but they stayed for me they
09:27stayed for my personality so you always want to lead with that yeah i love that and we know that you
09:34have come a long way but entrepreneurship isn't easy it's not it's not you know there are some fun
09:39amazing moments but it's work it's sacrifice can you share with us some of those early challenges
09:45that you may have had in building ken apparel and how you overcame those yeah i would say one of the
09:51earliest challenges well i started this business during the pandemic so a little bit about me i was
09:57working as a marketing director for a hair care company called natural club they're actually in beauty
10:03con right now um full full circle moments crazy but i was working there for three years and after
10:10the three years i started ken apparel in april of 2020 and this was early in the pandemic yeah this was
10:17before i even knew the pandemic was happening because after i put in my two weeks then we were
10:22quarantined so i was like oh so my goal was all right i'm gonna pursue this and if it doesn't work
10:29i'm gonna be a full-time youtuber and it ended up working because if you remember through the
10:34pandemic there was a lot of support for black-owned businesses right and also everyone was on their
10:41phone we couldn't go anywhere so i used social media to my advantage right because everyone was seeing
10:46every post right so that's how everything started what was the question what was the question
10:52what are those early challenges yes the early challenges so in the beginning well in the beginning
10:59there was no money there was no money to buy the inventory right so what i did was and this is why
11:04it's important to start a community because once you have people that trust you they believe in you
11:09they're willing to buy your product and wait so what i did was i did pre-orders so with the pre-orders
11:17i told people hey this is gonna take five to six weeks to ship to you right but because they they
11:23loved me they enjoyed me so much they were willing to wait right so what i did was i put out samples of
11:29the product and i had a shopify website and then they bought it they bought the product and they
11:35waited five to six weeks the money that came in from them buying the product is what i used to actually
11:40buy the product right exactly so i did that a couple times until i had enough money in the bank
11:46to be able to buy products up front and then release an item so i would say that was the one of the
11:52earliest challenges not having enough capital but when you have a community it's easier and another
11:58thing kin apparel has been fortunate enough to win over 250 000 in grants give it up for that right
12:05amazing y'all so 250 000 in grants that's non-diluted not non-diluted just free money right and half of
12:13that was given because people voted for kin apparel to win right so a lot of grants are it's like a public
12:22like what is it called like um popularity contest a lot of grants are popularity contest the part
12:27the company with the most votes gets the money right so imagine you already have a community of
12:33supporters you just go to them and be like hey y'all i need y'all to vote for me so and that that was how
12:39i was able to win like half of those grants so that yeah so that's an easier way to and i honestly i always
12:46say community first business second because it just makes everything easier and it's just so hard
12:52to start a business when like you don't really have people supporting you in the being there's so
12:57many things you have to do so just always lead with who you are first build it and then start the
13:04brand yeah and people want to be a part of your story they want to be a part of that journey and say
13:09i remember when she started yeah just doing youtube and talking about her hair it's crazy because a lot of
13:14people have come to the booth and they're like i know you from youtube and i'm like wow you're a
13:19og kinfolk like the ogs were on youtube when i used to wash my hair in the college bathroom sinks like
13:26that's how it started that's amazing yeah when i was filming videos in the bathroom and now we got a
13:32whole booth ass right so what's next what are your aspirations for the future for ken apparel yeah so
13:39right now ken apparel is online only uh so right now we are looking into getting into salons we
13:46our products can be in brick and mortars like small shops retail so that's what we're working on right
13:51now um i'm happy to say that in november y'all gonna see us somewhere i can't say where but like it's
13:57coming it's coming um so definitely if anyone is here that owns like a salon or a shop that's willing to
14:04have some of our products there that's what we're really looking into for 2025. that's amazing
14:09so we've got some time i would love for you to talk about your outfit and your models
14:14so we're gonna bring them on the stage do we have everybody our other models well let me we're gonna
14:20while you guys get one more model get one more model get one more model i'm gonna ask her one
14:25more question while they come on over so y'all don't go anywhere so another question for you we
14:29know that you were on shark tank tell us a little bit about that experience and do you recommend that
14:34that for other entrepreneurs shark tank was the best experience whenever entrepreneurs ask me
14:40should they do shark tank yes yes yes yes because the exposure is everything right and one thing
14:47about shark tank they're always posting the clips so whatever clips they post about you i download all of
14:53them and i use them as ads and they never flag you for it they allow you to do your own thing and it's
15:00also it builds like repertoire and credibility when you're able to say you were a business on shark
15:04tank so yeah i was on shark tank in 2021 um one year after starting the business um i got two sharks
15:12it was a handshake agreement on the show so two sharks and then one of my sharks was lori and the
15:18other one was emma greed who's the ceo of good american and skims um founding partner of skims so after
15:25nine months of due diligence i actually um ended up just going with emma greed as my investor and
15:31she's she's my investors still today that's amazing so congratulations so we've heard grants you've
15:38heard investors we've heard community community definitely right we've heard marketing digital
15:43marketing yes and one thing i want to say is right now a lot of people are getting deals off of being
15:51popular like your social currency is everything um ken apparel was fortunate enough to be part of a
15:57whole chase for business campaign that's all over philadelphia delaware and new jersey there's billboards
16:03of us commercials like we're everywhere and that's off the strength of what we've been able to build on
16:10social media when shark shark tank actually reached out to me they emailed me and asked me if i wanted to
16:16be on shark tank and when i got on the call with them there i asked them how did you find me and the
16:21lady said i was searching people i was searching for black owned businesses on instagram and you came up
16:28so i'm like wow so hashtags go a long way i'm always hashtagging black woman owned business black owned
16:34business but i can find you yes they are searching they want black businesses on that show so that's why i'm
16:41always telling people please be on social media because people are always looking and that's yeah
16:47that's how you build social currency so talk about your business yes be seen be heard be authentic so
16:53let's give her a round of applause we're going to bring up some of her amazing models and i want
16:57you to talk we've got about five minutes y'all come on up let's see those outfits come on
17:03come on come on rejuvenation all right so all right i'm gonna start with jecca so jecca is wearing
17:13our beautiful hoodie dress great for the summer and the spring of course they got the big satin hood
17:19so turn around big satin line hood and show them it it covers all her hair yup from the front from the
17:26front um yeah from the front covers all her hair and then take it off and then we recently released
17:32satin line visors so turn so for people that like to wear their hair in a puff you could do so and
17:39then it cinches in the back and it's sat in line it's protecting your hair and it's super cute
17:44cinches show off the curves period and show them the pockets the pockets are also sat in line we don't
17:51play about the same all right so this one this is aaron and aaron is wearing our two-in-one travel set
17:59so show them what it does
18:06yeah so let's say you just took a trip to mexico and it's hot you get there pop the sleeves off
18:15and then yeah yeah pop the sleeves off and you're good so this is our travel set two in one and then
18:21turn around that is so creative sat in line of course and then show the pockets and all of our stuff a lot
18:29of our stuff is unisex so it's great for man woman everybody period all right moving on hey this is
18:38my friend right here anacom also uh entrepreneur ceo of rejuvenation okay so this is our timeless set
18:48our timeless crop set it's so beautiful i love it show them show them the detailing
18:53period beautiful beautiful big hood and then the the satin line pockets of course
19:00period so cute so if y'all are interested our booth is literally right there
19:06kin apparel and we don't only sell sets and hoodies we also have hats dad hats bucket hats beanies
19:13pillowcases everything and this is our latest set it's our windbreaker yeah y'all like this we got like
19:20five left five left in there all right so thank you thank you all give it up for kin apparel
19:27so philomena where can they follow you where can they shop we know your youtube okay but also where
19:34can they shop where can they follow yes so you can shop right there you can shop right there or you can
19:41find us on instagram kin apparel underscore and you can also find us on our website kinapparel.com and if you
19:49want to speak to me i'm naturally philo on instagram that's naturally philo awesome y'all give it up
19:56for philomena kane y'all thank you so much thank you thank you don't go too far we'll be back unless you
20:01go shop and then come back all right
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