Time for my favorite part of the week, ICYMI!!!
ICYMI ₊♡₊˚ 🍒・₊✧ ₊
This Week’s Mantra: When willpower isn’t enough, find discipline.
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3 Questions To Ask Yourself this Week:
What is the best use of your alone time?
What is your screen time? How does that make you feel?
Where in your process to achieve your goals do you lack willpower? How can you create discipline to overcome this?
This Week’s Podcast: 24 minutes featuring the GOAT of tennis sitting down with tennis bad boy and former rival, Nick Kyrgios, it’s everything you need to hear if you’re lacking motivation to not only find willpower, but discipline because they’re not created equal.
On Being Alone: By now you’ll know how I went back to Paris alone (THANKS BILT REWARDS!) and I loved it (even though I really missed Lucky #3 🙈)! But I’m a true introverted extrovert, and I like alone time! I also think spending time alone is healthy. Most notably during my solo trip, I took myself on a dinner date twice, which the French wait staff thought was bizarre. One was a character-building exercise where I did nothing but think and eat mindfully (shamelessly, I people-watched a lot, but I didn’t go on my phone!). For the other, I brought my laptop and worked (I even zoomed into a meeting, which I’m sure was inappropriate on so many levels of French culture). But either way, I learned so much about myself on those two dates with myself, and I highly suggest you try it.
On Coming Back Home: I just got back to LA and it’s definitely nice to be home BUT for the first time since I moved here, I’ve felt a different sense returning. Maybe it’s because for the first time, I found someone that feels like home and everywhere I haven’t been all at once or maybe it’s because I can eat as many carbs and butter as I want in Europe and not size up my jeans. Either way, I can’t wait to share more about how I’m re-thinking a lot of my opinions and restructuring my days to make sure I’m just as creative, happy, motivated, inspired, and productive now that I’m back for a few weeks.
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On Being Productive While Traveling: I had a 13+ hour journey home to LA from Paris this week and I loved it… Even though I get a burst of anxiety on takeoff and landing, I really like to fly and find I can get SO much done. I made a list of things that I accomplished that you’re welcome to steal on your summer travels…
Reviewed 3 pitch decks from deals we’re looking at
Cleaned up an LP Excel file
Cleaned up my iPhone apps, home screen
Cleaned up iPhone photos and categorized things that still need to get posted and a content strategy to do so
Wrote the newsletter you’re reading right now (go figure!)
Wrote two content series for paid subscribers (how I use ChatGBT and how a boring brand can create a winning content strategy)
Researched and put together a content plan for the newsletter surrounding the circular fashion economy
Outlined 2 new major projects for Q3
Structured the remainder of the year’s calendar to re-group with my growing team!
Outlined tickets for admin bugs that need fixing with our tech stack that we have to manage a growing business
Hit 0 on my inbox and was able to engage with most of the DMs in my IG, catch up on Slack messages
Brainstormed how to re-structure and re-organize my days and weeks while I’m home to minimize my anxiety, yet keep the same level of creativity and productivity
Started planning my July travel… yes, you heard it here first. I’m going back to Europe in a few weeks because I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be July 8.
This Week’s Mood Board
Introducing HSR Case Studies: Breaking Down The Business Of Consumer Brands
Session #1: Alo Yoga
I heard you guys…. you really wanted a Masterclass on Alo Yoga/ Financial Modeling 101 so we’re going to do it! The first HSR case study delivers a masterclass in the finance of starting, building, and sustaining a profitable consumer business using Alo Yoga as our case study.
In 90 minutes we’ll cover:
How we built the Alo Yoga case study & financial model
How we think Alo Yoga built a billion dollar brand without initially taking on VC money in a saturated market
The basics of understanding the financial health of consumer brands
The building blocks for you to develop a financial model for your consumer business (CAC, LTV, Cohorts, Growth)
We’re so excited to bring this to life and to see you there!
5 Minute Day To Night Makeup Look
@maggiesellers_ the easiest travel day to night makeup with @Nudestix and @Maybelline NY 🤍🖤
Because I followed a high maintenance beauty routine before I left, it meant I only took ~5 minutes to get ready for dinner (if I was even able to find time to get ready, more often than not we went from activities straight into dinner) so I swear by these products to transition from day to night.
Eye pencil | Blush | Highlighter | Freckle Pen | Lip Liner | Lip Oil | Mascara | Eyeliner (currently less than $10!) | All-in-One Brush
All Eyes On France
There was big news in the investing and social media space this week, with BeReal being sold to French mobile-app publisher Voodoo for about €500M, or ~$533M, with the founder and CEO leaving the company. You can catch up on my POV on LinkedIn (and watch my prediction video from 2 years ago on why I’d never have invested). It’ll be interesting to see what the French publisher does with the platform.
When you think of the French beauty market, you probably think French Pharmacy and red lips, but this is why I like data! I pulled a report while I was in Paris and the top trend in beauty searches online in France is actually around makeup longevity. The top searched traffic is for setting sprays and powders, specifically from Charlotte Tilbury and Huda Beauty. Maybe it’s because the Parisian ladies are always on the go and walking 20,000 steps a day…
If you're a data nerd like me, according to Spate Data, Charlotte Tilbury is increasing in popularity with an average of 123.1K monthly searches, and is up 53.3K monthly searches from this time last year, and Huda Beauty is up 47.7K monthly searches from this time last year. The French are clearly obsessed with staying power.
I did a French Pharmacy haul (which the internet loves even though they hate my mispronunciations…) on my final day in Paris. I always like to use up what I have before repurchasing new items and this was a good opportunity to do that and try out new things to up my skincare game with things I’ve wanted to try for so long. These are the top 10 things you need to try:
Whitening Toothpaste | Dry Shampoo | Grape Water | Face Mist | Serum | Pore Minimizing Mask | Vinosculpt Cream | Micellar Water | Body Oil | Foam Cleanser | Hexomedine | Face Cream
One of the most liked comments I received on my video was, "Why are you buying all of this stuff in France when you can get most of it in the US?" Well, #1, since the majority of it is manufactured in France, it was exponentially cheaper than the imported products in the US, and #2, VAT refunds. More to come on VAT this week…
Consumer News
♡ the brands, people, places, things that have captured my attention ♡
Female Founder World, created a guide of 70 (and counting!) upcoming grants available to female founders. Download the free guide here - (courtesy of FFW)
Apple is putting AI in your pocket - (from Morning Brew)
Women were not required in US clinical research until June 10, 1993. Evvy’s Equal Research Day exposes gender health gaps - (from Forbes)
Dior Beauty names Bryony Deery as their Wellness Expert, emphasizing beauty from within - (from Dior Beauty)
Kim Kardashian is bringing Skims out from behind the screen, launching five retail stores across the US - (from independent)
Mash Bucher’s Day One Ventures raises $150M fund III - (from Forbes)
TikTok’s new feature lets users look up images in TikTok Shop - (from tubefilter)
Deux has arrived in Target - (from LinkedIn)
Brands are betting on organic content - (from Glossy)
What’s behind the slow fashion recession - (from BoF)
Gen Z’s impact on fashion marketing - (from BoF)
TYSM, I♡U!!!!
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Become a Paid Subscriber of ICYMI!
This week I’m sharing responses to some of my most asked questions:
We are picking 3 ICYMI paid subscribers to do a 1:1 focus call with Maggie to talk about productivity, time blocking, calendaring, journaling as we prep for the next HSR drop! You have to be a paid subscriber to be considered!
How SKIMS and DTC eCommerce brands pick their retail locations (and why DC was their first one???). We’re sharing the formula Katie used to help pick 25 retail locations for a DTC brand.
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The top things we use ChatGPT for at HSR
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