Maya Smith: Founder & CEO of The Doux
Episode 331
Maya Smith, Founder & CEO of The Doux, couldn’t find the product that she was looking for so she created it! Sound familiar? This buzzy, natural hair care line has taken off! Maya’s story from licensed cosmetologist to Founder and CEO of her own multi-million dollar company is a story we all want to hear. She shares all about her journey creating the amazing line of salon-worthy hair care and how she has managed to scale with plenty of lessons weaved into our interview. Her story of building this incredible business is inspiring and you won’t want to miss this episode! On this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow.
Resources from
this episode:
Enjoying this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow? Let Kara know by clicking on the links below and sending her a quick shout-out on social!
Follow Kara on LinkedIn – Instagram – X – Facebook – TikTok – YouTube – Threads
Have a question for Kara about one of our episodes? Reach out to Kara directly at [email protected]
To learn more about Maya Smith and The Doux:
https://thedoux.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ouidoux/
https://www.instagram.com/ilovethedoux/
Transcript
Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be you just want to make sure you will get knocked down but just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go Let’s go. Hi, everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show and I am so excited to have my next guest here we have Maya Smith, who is the founder and CEO of the do and the do is very, very cool. A buzzy natural haircare line inspired by 90s Hip Hop culture. And Maya is a licensed cosmetologist, she created the line to fuse her love for hip hop, and Salon worthy haircare that you can do at home if you haven’t tried it. It’s all over the place in stores, including Target and Walmart, Sally’s lots of others. You can also get it online as well. But I can’t wait to hear more about her journey and how she created this amazing, amazing, very cool and fun brand. And how she’s scaling the do as well and her hopes for also for female entrepreneurs and people that are just thinking about trying to do their own company and any industry, but also just in the haircare industry overall, how she’s impacting that. So welcome, Maya, how are you?
Maya Smith 1:57
I’m good. Thank you for having me.
Kara Goldin 1:59
Yeah, totally, really, really excited. So let’s dig in. For those who are not familiar with the do I gave a brief intro, but how would you describe it?
Maya Smith 2:09
I think the due is the people’s brand. It is a combination of experience and expertise from just my journey as a textured hairstylist. And it is a result of a lot of conversations that I’ve had with people from behind the chair. What a lot of people don’t know about my field is that hair stylists learn we’re really students of our clients. So I really just develop the brand working with people who had a certain set of needs. So the do as a brand is really just a combination of what I know and what I learned from the people that I was serving.
Kara Goldin 2:47
So you are a licensed cosmetologist Did you always know that you wanted to do hair
Maya Smith 2:54
to some capacity, I did not think that I was going to be I didn’t have any plan of being a full time professional stylist. I got started back in the day where you could go to high school and cosmetology school at the same time. In the 90s, there was a lot more support for vocational programs. So I went to Beauty School half the day and, and high school the other half. So when I graduated from high school, by the time I started my senior year in high school, I had a license. And the plan was to go to design school and just do hair on the weekends or, you know, between classes. I didn’t take it that seriously. But because I was still in high school, when I actually started working professionally, I realized that I was a lot better at it than I thought I would be. And I really, really loved always kind of being immersed in this educational environment where I could work my trade, but I was also around a lot of other beauty professionals. So it was like free school. Yeah. And I was able to build these relationships with all of these different people on a one on one basis and really learn more about textured hair at the same time. So I just decided that this is what I really wanted to do.
Kara Goldin 4:11
So you were doing hair for many years. You married a gentleman who is in the military who’s in the airforce did
Maya Smith 4:18
my high school sweetheart.
Kara Goldin 4:21
That’s so sweet. And you were in Germany actually on the base when you had this idea for the do?
Maya Smith 4:29
Yes, I opened a salon again just trying to serve my community. There were places that were not necessarily accommodating to people with big hair with big curls that wanted to wear their natural texture. So I wanted to create a space where people felt welcome where people felt like their hair needs were, you know the top of the priority so I opened a natural hair salon and just started to work with my clients to fix about what their needs were because at the time, there were, the category just didn’t exist, there was no natural hair products or products, specifically for curly hair in mass retail at all. So they had no place to go to find products. And they didn’t have a lot of guidance in how to transition from chemically straightened hair to curly hair. So we just started, I didn’t have a plan, I just was again, trying to serve, I just started. And through that journey, I started to develop the products.
Kara Goldin 5:32
So how did you think about the ingredients? I think just getting started for so many people who are entrepreneurs in any industry is, I mean, it’s really scary, right? It’s just you have no idea, as I always tell people is still to this day. You know, I think back on those days, I think if somebody would have cornered me and said, Oh, you’re starting a company, you’re becoming an entrepreneur, I don’t think I would have done it. Right. Like, it’s, that’s a scary thing. Instead, I would imagine you just had a product that you were putting on people and it was working, and it was with better ingredients, and etc. How did you know what would even go in? I mean, no one was doing what you were doing.
Maya Smith 6:16
I don’t I don’t even pretend to be a cosmetic chemist i That’s not my bag, what I knew was what was currently on the market. And again, being a part of the conversations from behind the chair, what was needed to give people salon quality results at home. So I reached out, I really believe in focusing on your strengths. I’m the creative mind behind the do, I was there to use the products, talk to my clients get the feedback and make sure that it performed well in the salon. When I developed relationships. Again, I was in Germany, but I developed relationships with chemists, both in Canada and in the States. And I said, Look, this is what’s currently on the market. This is what I’d like it to be, it’s not performing the way that I want it to. These are the attributes in my specifications. This is the kind of hair it needs to work on. Can’t you know what can we do? What do you have? Where do we start? So what I found was that a lot of the formulas, stock formulas and things that they already had weren’t going to work for textured hair. So I had, you know, a group of really talented people that helped me kind of work. Formulation from scratch. I didn’t know really what ingredients to use, but I knew that I didn’t want sulfates in my shampoo, I know that I wanted something that was paraben free, that was skin friendly. But there’s also that balance of making sure that it performs well in the salon environment. And at the time, you know, clean beauty wasn’t really a thing, especially not in the textured, textured hair care category. So yeah, I did not know. But I went to the people that did and I think it’s really important for any entrepreneur that’s pursuing something that they’re not necessarily experienced in to take your strength and you do you and find the best people in the field that can help you along that journey. So everyone on my team just works at their strengths.
Kara Goldin 8:22
Great, great advice. So how did you get the word out? So you first were using it in your salon, and with just kind of word of mouth that people said, Oh, you need to go over and see Maya and her products and, and give her a try or what what was sort of that process like
Maya Smith 8:40
it was exactly that. This is something that we created really just for the clients, because we had logistic issues, my clients had trouble even getting products from the states, the products that we were used to using to Germany. So it was something that I just did, so that I could use the products on them. And they didn’t want what I was selling. I had other products, you know, in my retail space, they wanted what I was using, so it was organically. This is back in the day, when Instagram was chronological. No one was really selling things on social media. It wasn’t ad based in the same way. But the message that we had really resonated. Making textured hair fun and less scary and much more simple is something that we just started to share on social media. And that, you know, I guess that message really resonated with people, not only you know, overseas, but in the States. So before we even came back to the States, we had a tremendous following. Right here in the US of people who were interested in the product, who loved the names, who got the musical references and who really just connected with us on a cultural scale. Not just with the hair, but that they understood what it was that that we had to say about haircare
Kara Goldin 10:05
and love it. And so did you use influencers in particular? I know you use social media, but I feel like your story, your personal story is so attached to this as well, which is great. I mean, but do you feel like people just really resonated with that as well?
Maya Smith 10:22
I think so. We’ve had some, you know, influencer engagement and we’ve, you know, build some relationships with some influencers, but I really believe that the consumer, and again, this, when we started this influencer, economy just didn’t exist, you know, Instagram and Facebook ads, it was still very, very new. But I really do think that, that when it comes to products that are built for salon performance, the professional needs to be the voice that’s leading this conversation. So while we do implement some influencer marketing, when it comes to showing how people can use products at home, I haven’t been really aggressive with influencer marketing, because I feel what most of my consumer needs is education. And that has to come from people who have actual factual experience, that are having these relationships, and they’re in these conversations that happen in the salon surrounding hair. So the word got out really, from people who were using the product. And even today, I’m the voice that is helping people understand the why, yeah, why we’re using this, why this is important how you actually do it, and how you make it, how you care for your hair, according to science, instead of according to the hype that you see on, you know, YouTube, and, you know, Instagram, there’s, it’s just a difference of perspective, when we present our products and when we communicate with our audience.
Kara Goldin 12:00
So you founded the company, and obviously, you’re scaling it significantly, what are a couple of the things that you learned that you had never been in a physical goods company? You know, you hadn’t developed your own company? As it what are a couple of things that you were like, how can people didn’t tell me this? You know, before I started this, that you just had to kind of figure out,
Maya Smith 12:25
I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? Everything from supply chain minimum order quantities, I had no idea how much product was being ordered. You know, when you get into mass retail, how much needs to be ordered and purchased and processed. When you’re doing things on a much smaller scale, your packaging can be a lot more elaborate, you’re a lot more nimble, you’re more agile, because when I made a change, I’m just making a change for 500 to 1000 units. So I can run new labels, I can change my messaging or my ads, I didn’t realize that once we were in mass retail and our brand was scaling that it was a lot harder to change our mind or to pivot if something wasn’t working. Which is always a challenge for people like me, because I’m the creative, right? And creatives love to change our minds. We’re all we’re all about appearance and emotional connection and communicating right with our audience. So my biggest challenge one of the things that I’ve I’ve had to learn is how to advocate for myself as the creative director to be unapologetic about what I expect when it comes to performance ingredients are story, speaking up for myself in that way. But also, I have to balance that with the fact that this is still about numbers, that there’s always someone else that’s concerned about how you’re performing in mass retail and the relationship between where I how I communicate with my audience and what is happening at shelf. I didn’t see that that it mattered I just figured if I was myself I was being myself that people would get it you know, I’m in Target There you go. I didn’t get that there was a whole machine behind letting people know that you’re alive. And you know when you stand behind the chair the way I have for you know almost 30 years you’re able I’m really good one on one. My challenge has also been learning how to convey what you see and what you hear in this moment. On packaging. I can’t stand in every aisle at Target or Walmart or Sally Beauty. So how do I get my consumer to really understand the heart of the brand and hear us clearly and feel good about you know to trust us? Yeah, she’s never gonna meet me ever. There is a so many parts, so many moving parts of consumer packaged goods. But in a nutshell, I’m a creative and I didn’t realize So once I got into this, I would really be in sales. I thought that this business would be an extension of my salon, like, Hey, I do hair, I know what I’m doing. These are the products you need to use. And this is just, it’s kind of like, if you own a McDonald’s, you think that you just would get a bigger McDonald’s when your business grow. But really, you own a McDonald’s and you’re buying a Burger King. It was kind of like the business side of the deuce is a completely different business than my salon business. And I thought that they would be just, you know, it would be an extension of it. And it’s not it is sales. Yeah. Marketing, it’s on a completely different operating on a completely different orbit than what I experienced behind the chair.
Kara Goldin 15:45
Can we talk about notifications for a second, who actually leaves those sounds on anymore? Well, besides this one. That’s another sale on Shopify, the all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business. Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere. Whether your businesses, vintage tees, or hint water. Shopify makes it possible for businesses to connect with their consumers. Shopify powers millions of businesses from first scale to full scale by helping them set up their online store and the vibe they want. You can sell products, gain new customers and get the data you need to operate your business in a simple and fast way. And with Shopify, you can synchronize your online and in person sales, and view all your sales metrics in one place. You can reach your customers through tons of social media platforms, as well like tick tock, Facebook and Instagram through Shopify as growing suite of social media channels. Shopify has all the sales channels sorted. So your business keeps growing from an in person POS system to an all in one e commerce platform to and if you’re looking for a solution that has great customer service support, well, Shopify has that as well. Their team is always super helpful answering any questions that I’ve had in growing my business, their team really makes you feel like they have your success in mind. Join me and millions of other businesses on Shopify today and take your business to the next level. Sign up for a free trial at shopify.com/kara. all lowercase, go to shopify.com/kara to start selling online today, that shopify.com/kara Have you found other entrepreneurs to be really helpful to you? Or do you feel like you’re still so much in the business versus like trying to network with other entrepreneurs.
Maya Smith 17:56
I mean, I meet a lot of entrepreneurs, but I find that the ones that we align with most aren’t necessarily in our field. Because the Do I still kind of feel like I’m on an island we’re very unique in our space and at shelf because we’re one of the very few brands in multicultural that’s founded by an actual hairstylist, there are lots of corporate entities and influencers and celebrities that have created products for this space. But everything from the way that we speak to our consumer, the things that we share, the way that we educate, has to be more effect based Yeah, and less, you know, ingredient stories and marketing stories, we have to completely tell the truth because of you know, my position as an as a hairstylist. So I feel like I’m able to share more with entrepreneurs in you know, the streetwear space and the fashion space and accessories because they understand my pain. But it’s it’s harder to relate to people in the beauty space because there aren’t that many the professional voice just really isn’t there. And quite frankly, it’s not important to a lot of the retailers it is a numbers game it is based on Celebrity and popularity it’s much more of a popularity contest. I find that major retail is less interested in your actual experience and more how many people are you able to attract what you know how many people your message and your your brand is able to attract so you know your Instagram following all those things really lead the conversation. So there are a lot of times that it does feel isolating to us, even as a team.
Kara Goldin 19:49
Interesting. I have tons and tons of ideas as you’re as you’re talking so so women women founders receive 2% of venture cap Capital has actually gone down. It was at 3%. It’s crazy. And now at 2%, how have you funded the company to date? Have you done outside financing?
Maya Smith 20:10
Well, what’s funny is we put all of our money in a sneaker box to start the salon. I’ve done a lot of, you know, bulk orders through, you know, my tax returns. Yeah. So the actual building, the foundation of the brand has been 100%. So we have had help with like strategic partners at different points of the journey. But I mean, we’re still it is just, it’s myself and a very small team of people, the product revenue has, you know, basically been generated by our sales in in mass retail, and, you know, our E commerce. So it’s still very, very grassroots and love. And we’re in a phase where we’re, you know, you know, starting to talk more about having those conversations about larger partnerships, and what acquisition looks like, and what is the end game because I believe that, you know, acquisition at some point is a healthy, it’s part of the healthy lifecycle of any brand, right. But when it comes to funding, especially as a woman led brand, a female led brand, it’s still really shocking to me how little we’re represented, and when it comes to our, our credit worthiness, getting people to really understand the full vision, especially a multicultural, because being a black founder and female founder, it’s really difficult to get to banks and really explain, the purchasing habits are very different for someone with textured hair, how often we visit the salon, how often we wash our hair, what kinds of products are really important to us, a lot of the things for you know, with textured hair, they’re just cultural necessities. So where, you know, our non ethnic counterparts, so to speak, have I have this need for shampoo in product, you know, at this frequency, we, we need something different. And so I’ve had a challenge, just getting people to understand the value of what we provide, and getting the capital to actually, you know, make it stick because everybody wants to, you know, give you money when it’s working, right. But what female founders need is someone that really looks into the brand sees what it is that they’re trying to do, and put some, you know, put some meat behind it before it gets started. Because how you start has so much to do with how successful you are moving forward, you have to have some steam behind the brand. Yep. When it comes to marketing now, it’s just the way the world is,
Kara Goldin 22:51
you’ve gotten great presence on shelves, and and it sounds like you’re doing it without actually a whole lot of capital, which is amazing. And especially in today’s day and age, when people are really pushing for profitability in companies, maybe you’re an accidental entrepreneur, and you’re sort of I think you wouldn’t be evaluated on, you know, with high marks that you’ve been able to accomplish quite a bit, the distribution
Maya Smith 23:16
has really been key, our initial launch and target was like, I want to say six skews. So just that that initial order has was enough to kind of start the ball rolling as far as getting us more production, being able to order and manufacture products at a better margin. You know, just getting in mass retail. through one of our distributors really did help the beginning of that, that journey. But you’re right I am I guess an accidental
Kara Goldin 23:47
entrepreneur. i That’s why I call myself that all the time that it’s you know, it’s I wrote a book called undaunted that I talk about my journey. And you know, I never really I didn’t know I was going to be an author either. i There’s a lot of people who say I’m gonna write a book one day, I’m gonna start a company. Nope, not me. I just just kind of did it. So anyway, I think what you’ve done is just amazing. And you should stop and breathe and applaud yourself, because I don’t think entrepreneurs do that enough, more than anything, do my best. I feel like you’ve definitely created a product that, you know, has education around it, as you said, not only for the consumer, but also for the icon, the gatekeepers at the at the retailers, they want to know, why should they put your product on the shelf and all of these things. So you really have to educate a lot of different people. But also like how have you used kind of your success to help entrepreneurs make the world a better place? You’re obviously creating a product that is better, but I feel like you probably inspire a lot of people out there just because You know, you’re not sort of the profile of somebody that’s supposed to go create a company that’s available a product that’s available in stores. How do you think about
Maya Smith 25:09
that? Certainly, it’s funny that you mentioned that because it’s just yesterday I was I was getting my hair braided. And the young lady, she’s maybe like 23, young, single mom, military veteran, and she is starting to build like her own salon. And so I really think, you know, I spent some time just chit chatting with her even when we were done. Just sharing what I know. And you know, I was like, if you, I needed a you when I yeah, I needed a me when I was a you. I think that sharing and with entrepreneurs, again, I don’t like to talk about what I don’t know about. So where I really start is with people that are having the experience that I had a decade ago, two decades ago, I want to invest what I know into the professional community. I think hair stylists are the original influencers. We are the ones who should be hairstylist, immune days, fashion stylists, we’re the ones that should be leading the conversation when it comes to beauty. And so most of us, usually we make the money, we’re able to generate the capital, because you have a creative career, that’s usually a cash business, we have a lot of the money to get us started. But we’re usually not organized, we don’t have the mentorship. And there aren’t enough people in front of us, for us to have a vision, there’s not enough models of people who have been successful. So I just tried to share as much as I can, in the professional community with the stylus community, like, Hey, I’m doing this, but you can’t, you can’t not only can you do it, but more of us need to be here. And so I need you to support me. Number one, I need you to support me, because if I’m successful, you’ll be successful. But let’s take a few steps back. This is how I did it. This is how I started. Now, I believe in seasons, I know that sometimes you need to be at the right place at the right time. What was happening in the industry, when I started was really instrumental in why I’m successful now. And so while we can’t repeat exactly the time, the timing and what was happening in the industry, there are a lot of key things that stylists need to know about how to promote themselves as a brand and how to amplify their message. And it’s just, it’s really up to me. And people you know, that are professionals like me that are in the retail space, because we tend to contribute a lot to the haircare space, but there’s usually no equity for stylists to even participate in that. You’ll see these big brands that will hire stylists to demonstrate their products. They’ll hire stylists to, you know, be on set. But it’s very rare that even you know celebrity brands don’t really necessarily speak to the person that’s actually performing the service, even though most of our favorite celebrities look the way they do because of someone in my field. Yeah. So you know, when it comes to how I’m able to contribute to my community, it’s making sure that they’re aware of that and that they see their power. And they see how much we really are needed at shelf there needs to be more celebrity. I mean, more more stylists led brands, more professional led brands. And you know, so I’m just here to encourage them and to kind of help them find a pathway to get there.
Kara Goldin 28:49
We’ve had a number of people on the show that have shared stories about challenges. We all have them, we don’t get an opportunity, let’s say to talk about them or focus on them. But I think there’s so many lessons learned along the way. I certainly had them when I was building hints and points where I thought, Okay, we’re done. We’re not going to be able to recover from this, but then we got back up again. So I’d love to hear if there’s one story like that that you’ve had along the way that sort of comes to mind. Oh, how
Maya Smith 29:25
I mean how much time you got? I would definitely say the one thing we did have to work through Was this the pandemic. It happened so fast for all of us. When we started we had had a website when we relaunched the brand and it was in target. My website we stopped selling on the website and we just were forwarding everybody just trying to get traffic to target because you know how important it is in that first quarter for people to support the brand because you know a lot of the decisions know that are made for the following year. are made because of your your data. And you know, your POS in that first, you know, two quarters. So we just sent everybody to target to whoever our retailers were for a really long time. And then when the pandemic happened, we started getting all these direct messages. There were a lot of out of stock issues because the supply chain, and then we were faced with the challenge of how to now communicate a lot more directly with our consumer. And so we started our actual e commerce branch of the brand during the pandemic, I didn’t really have any intention of doing e commerce. But because, you know, the set of circumstances were presented to us realize, like, look, we have to be able to provide for our consumer directly. So that was, that was definitely a challenge, because again, I didn’t my husband’s background in the military was logistics. Thanks. Good. Thank goodness. So I did have some support. See how that worked out? Yeah, no, exactly. I did have some support, and just learning how to set up our warehouse. But we went from just, you know, me being the face of the brand and showing up places and kind of leaning on retailers to sit to realizing like, Hey, this is our brand, we have to step up. Because we can’t depend solely on our retail partners, we have to be here for our consumer via e commerce. So that was definitely a challenge. But we made it through and actually, you know, our E commerce is doing great now. But I don’t think it would be where it is. If we weren’t if we had not had that challenge during the pandemic, because there just wasn’t a need for it.
Kara Goldin 31:40
Yeah, definitely. Well, we had Harley, who is the president of Shopify, he was on the podcast recently. And he talked a lot about that. I mean, it was they, you know, if you’re not on Shopify, you don’t have your direct to consumer a relationship with your consumer as he as he calls it today, then, you know, you’re not doing your job. Because you, you know, maybe it’s not a pandemic, but something else will
Maya Smith 32:06
happen. And the way that people are shopping has completely changed. Totally, it’s completely changed. Yeah, I haven’t been to the grocery store in like, two years. Yeah, I just don’t go to the grocery store anymore. You know, there are a lot of things about just our day to day in our target market, that’s completely changed. So we have to respect the way that our consumer is finding us and shopping and really honor what she means.
Kara Goldin 32:33
Yeah, definitely. And if she wants to shop, but, you know, one o’clock in the morning, and she’s thinking about something, you know, that’s what she’s gonna do, she’s gonna go on, you know, your website, or Amazon or whatever it is. But, you know, with hints, it’s interesting, because the more presence we have, outside of direct to consumer, our sales actually grow. And so you know, we will have different products online, and we’ll have on in Costco or in Target, or different flavors, in our case with with hand, but it’s not an either or gone are the days where, you know, that’s really archaic thinking mostly on the on the side of retailers.
Maya Smith 33:21
That’s exactly what we did. Yeah. Which is, which is we watch some tools. Yeah, I liked some tools. And some, you know, little thing, shower caps. Barnett’s things that people were asking us, what do I do, now you have all these people doing their hair at home. So I used that as an as an opportunity to provide hair tools, detangling, brushes, things that people can actually use before, during and after that, you know, the time that they were using the products, and they were only available on our ecommerce site, smile. And that’s been kind of our way to, like, we don’t want to compete with ourselves at retail. But we also want to have a point of difference. You know, when you shop direct with us, you’re getting an extended experience, you’re getting a VIP treatment. And we only offer these things here
Kara Goldin 34:13
when we went direct to consumer back in 2012. And first started in Amazon. And you know, the key thing was that we weren’t getting the data from Amazon. We’re still we sell a ton on Amazon to this day. But we also have a direct to consumer channel. And it’s interesting because we would go to retailers with a new flavor, and then they’d pass or they would not like that some other retailer had the product before them or you know, whatever the reason was, so we started taking these new flavors, and we put them online and we call them smash ups. And we still do it to this day. That’s where we test products and So, you know, the day that we started getting phone calls from Target and Whole Foods and all the rest saying, Hey, we’ve got customers, you know, why didn’t you present this flavor to us? And you know, we said we did you said no. So to have a like that, yeah, we’re like, do you want it? Yes, of course we want it, you know. And it I mean, it’s it’s hysterical, right? how that how that was. So anyway, I think in the future, even for your your core product, that was something a big lesson learned. So if somebody is going to try a product from the do what is the one product, I know what it is, but I’m gonna let you talk about it that you’re really known for.
Maya Smith 35:43
So the gateway drug, the Beyonce of all curl foams, I love to say is most Deaf texture foam. It’s our number one seller, it is also the number one selling curl mousse is the crowd favorite, it’s our favorite, because it’s the most versatile of all the products that we have. And it works on you know, anyone, like even if you don’t have curls, you can use it as a route booster. So it is a multi purpose product. But I think what makes it so unique is I mean, it’s not obviously not the first mousse ever on the market, not the first phone for curly hair, but it is the first that was formulated to use as one product. So traditionally, in you know, natural hair, textured hair culture, we’re kind of trained and indoctrinated to use, you know, a leaving, and then a gel, and then a cream and you know, layering all of these products to kind of control entertain our texture. But we formulated mu stuff early, you know, in the brand’s development to just be one product, because my clients were in the military, they didn’t have all day to use, you know, 10 products on their hair, and they wanted something that would dry fast to find their hair. And that would detangle at the same time. So while you know, of course, there’s a moose popping up on every corner, we’ve really been the thought leaders behind one product application. And that’s really what’s led to most deaths. Popularity is not just the product itself, but really this this pivot in messaging in the category, which is, okay, traditionally, we’ve done it this way. But this product is showing people how to do it differently. And there’s a lots of a lot of products. And I’m sure you experienced this even in your category where there are a lot of products that appear to be similar, but what’s missing in every category is innovation. Yeah. So how do we take something that everybody’s doing? And not only just, you know, smack a new label on it, but presented in a way that’s more effective, and that serves people better?
Kara Goldin 37:55
Yeah, definitely. I love the product. And my son, my 17 year old son uses it as well. So yeah, and he’s, he’s got a nice bushy hair. So he absolutely loves that he’d kill me if I asked pushy, but it’s curly. Ya know, he loves it. It’s such a great product. And so excited to have a wonderful founder on here to share more of the story as well and all the lessons. So thank you again, Maya, everybody go out and you buy the do and share the story all about Maya and the do with all your friends because it’s super cool.
Maya Smith 38:38
Thank you.
Kara Goldin 38:39
Thanks all for listening to this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. And I want to thank all of our guests and our sponsors. And finally, our listeners keep the great comments coming in. And one final plug if you have not read or listened to my book undaunted, please do so you will hear all about my journey, including founding, scaling and building the company that I founded. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks everyone for listening and goodbye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening