From starving artist to multi-millionaire

Hey Contrarians,

Successful beauty brands.

They aren’t always worth replicating.

Pull back a few curtains, and you’ll often find string-pullers: a savvy manager or corporation who leveraged a rich woman’s personal brand.

Cynical? For sure. True? Not always.

Especially not in the story I want to share today. You’ve never heard a tale with both so much real struggle and so many fake eyelashes…

Today in 10 minutes or less, you'll learn:

✔️ Contrarian framework: The underdog advantage

✔️ The woman who went from starving artist to $50M/year

✔️ Lessons from a 27-year-old millionaire

✔️ How I’d replicate this in 2023

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Contrarian framework: The Underdog Advantage

Business is hard. Directly competing against Fortune 500 companies? Downright terrifying.

Being intimidated is part of the game. But fyi: the big guys aren’t invincible.

Why? Because you have an edge… Something I call the Underdog Advantage.

As someone who’s worked for a few top-dog companies, believe me when I say most don’t give a rat’s ass about the customer.

To them, we aren’t humans with thoughts, feelings, and complex lives. No, we are but numbers in a spreadsheet that must be beefed up alongside a dozen other KPIs.

That’s where you come in.

With a teaspoon of soul and a dash of care, it’s possible to steal customers right out from under them.

Today, we’re spilling the tea on Ann McFerran, a Thai immigrant who did exactly that – went up against the big guys, and won big.

Here’s her story.

The woman who went from starving artist to $50M/year

It’s 2018, and 26-year-old Ann is sick of being an artist.

Sure, she sells paintings for $5,000 to $10,000, but that’s only when she can find buyers. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but not everyone is willing to drop $10k on a piece of art.

Tired of feast and famine cycles, Ann decided she wanted to do something else with paint.

Enter: makeup.

In a quest for eyelashes, Ann discovered most on the market were total crap. The adhesive ones got glue in your eyes, and the ones that claimed to be magnetic were next to useless.

At the time, companies that made magnetic lashes opted for a cheap, machine-operated manufacturing process. Of course, this made the magnets stick worse, but who cares, eh? As long as we lower costs.

Learning this sparked Ann's light bulb moment.

Fed up with the market’s shortcuts, she decided to launch her own magnetic lashes which would be 100% handmade.

The big question: How would a semi-starving artist/psychobiology major manage that?

After months of research and binge-watching product development and supply chain management videos on YouTube, Ann claimed the handle @glamnetic on Instagram. $1,500 later, she made her first bulk order – 100 units each of 5 different eyelash styles at $4 a pop.

In July 2019, her first batch of eyelashes were ready to sell for $30. Two months after launch, she’d sold $1M of inventory. One year later, she was cruising at $50M in annual revenue.

Scaling from $0 to $50M in <2 years is impressive for any industry. But to do it in e-comm, where 90% of businesses fail in the first 120 days?

Let's look at the ingredients in Ann’s recipe.

Lessons from a 27-year-old millionaire

Lesson #1: Embrace the struggle

One look at Ann’s Instagram and you might be quick to label her. A spoiled millennial who lives off Daddy’s money.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Born into a poor family in Thailand, she wore bruises inflicted by an abusive alcoholic father. Watched as he bashed her mother. All before she was forcefully torn from her sister in a bitter divorce. That’s a ton of baggage for any 5-year-old.

Even after moving to the US with her mother, her looks made it difficult to fit in. When you’re the new Asian kid in an all-white school, you get awkward stares. Pointing fingers. Unwelcome hands.

With that kind of attention at that age, it’s only a matter of time before you feel the need to blend in… Like Ann did with makeup.

Instead of folding under her struggles, she turned them into fuel.

Her makeup obsession led to a multi-million dollar product. The chip on her shoulder helped her scale from $0 to $50M in a ridiculously short timeframe.

Next time you’re tempted to run from life’s struggles? Remember: the life you want is on the other side of them. Not the opposite direction.

​

Lesson #2: Hustle hard

In my years on Main Street, I've learned that resources don’t matter as much as we think. Endless capital, graduate degrees, or multi-millionaire mentors doesn't bring success.

Hustling does. Aka, finding a way to get sh*t done, even when you don’t know how.

Take Ann, for example. The first ever models she ever got for Glamnetics weren't pros she hired off a fashion runway. Nope, they were girls she hustled off Bumble BFF. After 11 right swipes, she wrangled them into her 300 sq. ft. studio apartment in Koreatown to try out her first batch of eyelashes.

Days after final product testing, she messaged all 30k of her Instagram followers to score some sales. No bots. No VAs… All Ann.

If you don't have money? Use time. Where there's a will, there's a way.

​

Lesson #3: Start with what you have

Turns out, 40% of prospective entrepreneurs don’t pull the trigger on starting a biz because they say they don’t have enough capital?

Of course, it can be a valid reason. You need money to spend money to make money.

But how do you know when you have enough? Are you sure you’re not just mentally inflating that number as an excuse to procrastinate?

Many of your favorite companies were started on a budget. What these founders lacked in capital, they made up for in scrappiness.

In Ann’s case, she invested $5k of her personal funds into her first batch of inventory. That's when she realized she didn't have anything left for product photography or marketing.

But instead of panicking or borrowing (which I'd probably have done), she pulled out her laptop and learned how to do it herself.

To this day, Glamnetics is a 100% bootstrapped brand. It’s never taken on outside investors, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever have to.

​

Lesson #4: Success favors speed

At the end of 2020, Glamnetics expanded into press-on nails. Not a novel product, but what's interesting is Glamnetics' approach.

Every month, Ann releases a new collection based on trending topics on social media and Google searches. That’s 12 a year. Most brands release 5-6 in the same timeframe.

This approach is similar to Ryan Reynolds' ”fastvertising” – all about speed and culture.

There's no spending months on R&D. No endless back-and-forth with upper management. No supply chain headaches… Just shipping product.

How I’d replicate this in 2023

1. Choose the right niche

Myth: all the good niches are saturated. Major players know it’s only crowded at the bottom, never the top.

If I were starting out in e-comm, I’d select a niche at a valuable crossroads:

Something I have knowledge of + something that has substantial market demand.

I’d research the competition, identify gaps, and understand my target audience's preferences and pain points.

​Google Trends would be my first stop for this kind of data.

​

2. Create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

First rule of sales: You don’t have to be best on the market. You just have to be better than the guy selling next door.

In Ann’s case, her USP was selling eyelashes with magnets that had been attached by hand, not pressed on by a machine.

If you think we’re over-exaggerating just how bad these things were back in the day, here’s a few things people had to say about magnetic eyelashes in 2018.

​

3. Find a good manufacturer

How often do you go to page 2 of Google results? That approach may work with search engines, but with D2C, you can't go with the first supplier that crosses your path. Quality starts at the manufacturer.

Ann chatted with 500+ suppliers before she found her guy, and there’s a chance your number will be even higher.

But it’s worth it product you can sell proudly.

​

4. Create a content engine

Billion-dollar products are zero-dollar products if no one’s buying. And the best way to get eyes today is content.

From email marketing to social media, I’d go full throttle on all things digital marketing. But my focus would be TikTok, Shorts, and Reels, since short-form videos have the highest ROI.

How so? Those silly 30-sec clips we love/hate generate 80% of all mobile traffic.

Too big of a channel to ignore, and way easier to execute on than most people think. Especially with the right help. I recommend ViralCuts, the editing company I bought for this very reason.

I'd kick off with these 4 types of content:

• Tutorials and how-to videos
• Product demos
• Paid UGC ads
• Customer reviews and testimonials

Of course, all this is easier said than done.

As someone who’s tried her hand at e-commerce before and failed, believe me when I say I’m not crazy about the space.

Still, there’s something to be learned from the Glamnetic story. You can do anything with zero experience, less capital than you’d like, and 100% hustle.

Let that be your takeaway this week.

Underdogs win all the time.

I want you to be a builder in a world of users.
​

- Codie

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