The New Consumer Marketing Playbook: Brand, PR, and Community with Dianna Cohen of Crown Affair

amazing we're live all right hi everybody i'm so excited to have this incredible woman here today i've long time been a fan of diana's and we actually only got to meet recently down in texas for our cabinet get together which is our higher tier founder community um but i'm gonna jump in because she we have so much to talk about with her before i do A couple quick reminders from Allie Wyatt, co-founder and CEO of Female Founder Collective. We actually have our 10th house consumer brand cohort that's live right now. This is for founders building in beauty, wellness, fashion, and any adjacent consumer categories. And as a member, you get to be part of our accelerator program, which Avery Bradford and I, Avery who is our programming lead and puts together all these incredible events for you. We're going to be talking about Founders Operating Manual, which is our eight-week accelerator program, masterclasses, workbooks, fireside chats, and consumer-only founder community. So after you get Founders Operating Manual, you have an entire year with this incredible community to discuss and implement all the things you're going to learn, whether it's about your founder role, whether it is putting together your financial model, or coming up with your marketing strategy together. and we now have a lot of ai tools and prompts we're going to be baking into that so that you have those things at the ready to implement into your business because whatever you put into ai you're going to get something really bad out if you put something not great in but without further ado i am going to go to diana and introduce her so if you guys don't already know her which i think most people that are here today already know about your incredible background that she's the founder of crown affair which is a hair care brand rooted that i just used on my dirty my dirty hair i used your um your dry shampoo but it's rooted in clean effective formulas handcrafted tools and a ritual-based approach to daily care since it launched in 2020 crown affair has become one of the fastest growing prestige hair care brands available available at sephora goop violet gray motor brande mecca and other leading retailers and before founding crown affair diana actually launched levitate which is a brand marketing agency where she led creative and strategic initiatives for companies like harry's outdoor voices buck mason and more so very big and warm welcome welcome to you i mean it's very not at all By the way, now, you know, it's like knowing your background that you then came and created the most incredible brand. But I want to talk a little bit more about it because you came through some of the most brand forward companies over the last decade, like Into the Gloss and Away and Levitate before actually founding Crown Affair. So what's the thing that you learned in those years that a lot of founders don't figure out until it's too late? I mean, so much of what I learned is not just what to do because I all think we know that the playbook has changed so much. I feel like every year the playbook changes. I feel like I learned a lot about what not to do as well as a leader and just like team building and things like that there were just so many learnings that's why i always say to people it's really important if you can to like get experience and learn on other people's time before you actually start your own company so you can go in with so many learnings of what to do and what not to do but i would say on the what to do side one of the things that i was really lucky to experience like very close and personal was building brands that had bigger missions or bigger i don't know like an ethos or essence that was so much bigger than just the product itself it really changes the way that you think about how products integrate into your life. And it wasn't just about like the product and the benefits and features, but actually like the soul and the community and the why behind things. And I was really, it was just amazing to be so early at these businesses to like get the essence of that. Cause I do think the essence, it's really hard to retain it as you hit your six, seven, eight, nine, 10, you can, but like. those first three years are just magic and to be right up with the founders during those days like i always say that's not just where you worked it's like who you worked for and when um and i know people who have had similar career paths to me after me and we'll talk about it and it's like even though we worked at the same places it's like we had totally different experiences so i think that's also important to remember if you're somebody who loves being in entrepreneurial environments or startup environments like it's not just about the where it's the when that's really important I love that. That's so beautiful. But also you worked. So you worked it into the gloss and something that was really special about what Emily did. And I worked with her those early days, but not at into the gloss. Were you at into the gloss? Yeah, I was at into the gloss with Emily. Yeah. Yeah. So in those early days, I was at Refinery29. So they came into the offices and we just absolutely loved the into the gloss blog. But a lot of founders ask me. Should I create a social channel before I've actually launched my product, my business? And this is me talking off the cuff. What is your take on that? And what did you sort of learn in your Into the Gloss days that really you applied to Crown Affair? Because I feel like you launched and it's as though you lived and breathed and had a community long before the brand ever existed. Yeah, I think it's essential. I think you need to just start in a way that feels authentic to you. um for me that was like my actual real life community of people right at that point i lived in new york for a decade i had real people in the world that i knew a long email list of people i was gathering people together i didn't have like a social channel with a big audience right i my instagram i was a normal person posting vacation photos like a couple thousand people but i actually had a real network of people for somebody else in this day and age that might be 100 000 tick tock followers you know what i mean like they're different things but or it could be a group that you have on linkedin with 10 000 people where you talk about whatever i think it's important to just start whatever that is for you i will say as a millennial i'm definitely like not a founder that builds in public i care way too much about the brand the campaigns like having things be tight but if you're someone who's younger or really loves building in public like that's amazing too and people want to follow along you know i have mentors in my life that are 10 15 years older than me who would never do what i'm doing right like i don't build in public but i'm posting on tick tock i'm posting on sub stack like i enjoy the community so i think it's about figuring out where you are and figuring out what's in alignment for you but the best advice is like just start whatever that format is because yeah you don't want to start from zero like you got to start people want to support what they're part of creating so like figure out what that is in alignment for you and then just start doing it it compounds and you build momentum on those little moments before it's like live in the world and i want to talk about your brand ethos and one thing in particular that's very interesting which i agree with but i want you to explain it a little bit more for the people they're watching is i think with beauty you oftentimes hear clean you hear organic you hear sustainable and you're saying those aren't brand pillars they're actually product promises right and that's a hot take for a lot of founders who lead with those promises can you explain what you mean by that and what for you what is a real brand pillar how do you think about brand pillars and how do you establish them So I believe in this wholeheartedly. And you know, these things can be important to you, right? In your point of view and perspective, in your formulation philosophy, that's essential. Those can be pillars in your formulation philosophy, but they can't be brand pillars because... the perception on what they are is is honestly a little bit subjective and people's uh relationship to it changes you know like clean isn't as trending as it is anymore so just like leaning on a brand pillar that's a trend for me as someone who like loves marketing and studies brands i think of brand pillars as like just much bigger concepts that are like core to who your brand is so for us that's time um these are things that can be brand codes if you look at a brand like chanel for example there are things that are just codes of the house like even if the thing isn't chanel that you see tweed or you see pearls or you see chains like you think chanel without even if it isn't a chanel yeah yeah even without it being Chanel and I think that's like what makes an extraordinary brand is not these things that can be owned by everybody but things that can be owned by you so like what are the things that feel really you and I think so much of that magic is like as a founder if you're a founder out there creative leader like thinking about your lens on things like there's really no way to be original in any way people can have the same idea so don't get angry if someone has the same idea or it feels like they're copying you like the truth is is you're the only person who can be you and can like bring these references and these core things that have meaning to you together in a way that is through your lens so you know i am so proud that we're clean it is so much work to make high performing products that are clean i will tell you it is much easier to formulate products that are not clean um and i do think that's a really unique point of difference for us you know and i think people might discover us because they're looking for that or when you look at the landscape it's like oh that's cool that they are high performance and clean but for me a brand pillar is more about the soul of your brand and why you exist yeah and i think sustainability is a really interesting one my approach personally is about holistic sustainability so putting products that fewer better products into the world products that last i have my comb right here which is handmade Yeah. Plant-based cellulose acetate. Like if I'm going to launch things into the world, this is technically sustainable. It's literally plant-based cellulose acetate that degrees like in cotton, you can compost it over time. But it's also like, this is a beautiful thing. This is not a throwaway object. We'd rather you buy fewer, better things. But I don't know, to me, it's like, that's, I'm delivering to you on that product promise that to me is like, there's so much more joy and fun and excitement when thinking about like brand world, you know? And let's talk about that because time is something you briefly alluded to, but you said Crown Affair is built around the idea of time. So time as the ultimate luxury or is ultimate luxury. So how did you land on that? And then how does that show up across your products, across your campaigns, your advertising, your whole brand world? And time is obviously like a very complex universal concept, right? You could have a brand that's offered around. honey or watermelon or this type like you can have a brand entirely based around ingredients by the way or like a k-beauty you know what i mean like it doesn't need to be as complex as time time is um a really fascinating topic to me part of why i chose it is because it's one of it will forever be an endlessly interesting concept to me and that means that there's endlessly interesting ideas to play with it in crown affair and you know the first one for me is that time is the ultimate luxury that we all have i think that is something that we come to learn in time um you hear people say it right in the last moments of their life like it really is just about time um it you know it's also for me like as a customer of so many other things i think that someone taking time to make something is a luxury right like the amount of time that went into product development or crafting something like that's a luxury to me that i really respect it could be in handbags or a hairbrush or whatever um also time is just like really valuable to so many of us whether you're a busy mom or running a company or taking care of a family member or just trying to live a full complete life like time matters and how you spend it matters and i want to give people time back so we do say take your time as a call to action to like slow down giving you permission to take care of yourself in the sacred spaces for me one of my sacred spaces is my bathroom um so it's kind of like a permission slip to like do the rituals that make me feel good but it's also making things like the dry shampoo i'm currently on day four hair i did not have time to fully shower yesterday so like that is also a luxury you know like there's a lot of meaning it's a huge luxury like you get ready in four minutes versus in an hour you know it's amazing it's it's really and i yeah and i just love it conceptually it's beautiful i love clocks i love hourglasses i think there's so much to play with there and um you know the the biggest thing for me is building a timeless brand too i want to grow with our customers and grow with our audience and we all evolve and grow in time so that's been another reason that it's been such a fun core pillars because the conversations we have oh and then also like your hair takes time to grow and i think this is just a little reminder that like you know it takes patience and care and consistency like that's a really big part of crown fair of course we want to make products that you feel the immediate results whether you're putting a leave-in conditioner in your hair using the dry shampoo you want it to work right away but even more powerful is like switching up your aerosol dry shampoo to the crown fair dry shampoo in 30 days 60 90 days Your hair is growing better. It feels silkier. Those are beautiful markers as well. I have a question for you that's sort of off the cuff, too, because you were able to raise money, too, for Crown Affair, right, in a time when beauty has been historically more saturated over the past 10 years, call it, right? It's like everybody is creating beauty brands. You are also seeing exits. How were you able to stand out, like using perhaps your brand or your own story? How did you sort of break through all the noise that's in this space? I think there's a couple of things. And, you know, there were different kind of points on the timeline that I raised capital. So the first time that I raised capital was our seed round, which was in the end of 2019, right before COVID happened. culturally that was a little bit of a different point in terms of fundraising i will say there was more momentum for people in general in every category when you were raising capital but since then with the series a and the b it has been in the thick of it all with covid and it isn't hasn't always been uh easy for people to raise capital at this time but i think for us it's a couple things one the extraordinary conviction especially in the early years like your early seed round i always say like you're not really betting on the horse you're betting on the jockey because like so many conditions can change and you need a really good jockey so we saw this with covid if you were someone who owned a travel company or a wedding company like it's more about your ability to navigate than it is necessarily the market conditions so that's an important thing to keep in mind when you go into these rooms and i always think like You have to be in the headspace that they're very lucky to invest in you. You are about to do all of this work and build this business. And like, they're lucky to be there is the energy you need to go in with. Like, you know, and the other piece. I agree with that. They are. They're lucky to be there. You have to reframe it. You want to reframe it and just be like, I'm about to build something so special. You know, you get to be a part of this advice that people say all the time. But I will reiterate it now here is like you ask for money. You get advice. you ask for advice, you get money. And I think that that's a really key part of fundraising too, is just like bringing people along on the journey. And by doing that, they're going to be like, wait, I want it. And so that I think has been helpful, but more like at the end of the day, that's really only the first seed or maybe a round at the end of the day, like the spreadsheets are the spreadsheets, the numbers are the numbers. Like you can only like convince it's like the business really has to work. i think something that's been so powerful for us is just one like the product's amazing like i've never compromised on product did you bring your product into those vc meetings like did you have something to show them or was it more a beautiful deck explaining the brand and the product suite that you were going to have we had samples of our first product so we launched with the comb handmade in switzerland the crush handmade in italy the oil which was our first product my first formula product and the towel which is made in korea we still use the same partners and vendors since pre-launch to this day because it's so important to have quality you know we could talk all day investors be like we'll get the margins down and produce it in this place that's way cheaper but like that quality piece is so important to me and i think that's actually what sustained the loyalty of the customer that we have So I did go in, but it wasn't like, it was very casual. It was like, here's the brand visual universe. It was nice for them to touch and feel, but it was very casual. And every round after that, the product was live in the world. So the investors were either ordering product or were sending them product. you know it really is a word of mouth business i think if you're not a huge celebrity or a huge influencer like the product needs to be extraordinary and that's how people need to hear about it and then when people try the product they need to love it and that's really the only reason i joke that we're still like in business and around and growing as quickly as we are is because i don't have a silver bullet lever it is so magical when a huge celebrity like dakota johnson or guenna falchel or rosie huntington or whoever is like or the girl from love story sarah pigeon just posted on vogue that she loves the totally organic amazing um and you know you get little bumps but at the end of the day it's like it's the customers and the real community that spread the gospel so um i think that's been like the core differentiator and then i the last thing i'll say is like being really clear that you cannot be everything to everyone and knowing who you're making it for is key and i think being like authentically prestige and clean like truly like knowing who i'm making this for when we have investors come in they're so locked in on the space that we occupy and it's not muddled down of where we're sitting and i think that's been really helpful because like dating it's like if you are aligned on your core values of who you're building for and how you want to grow like you feel that in a relationship you know completely i do want to talk about because you you mentioned gwyneth and dakota and all these incredible people that have posted about you and and gone out there and evangelize your brand but from the early days you were big into pr and editorial Can you talk about how you went about pitching press early when you didn't yet have scale and what your thoughts are on owning your own PR versus actually hiring an agency? Yeah. Well, this is a really funny story. I'll paint the picture. So it's January of 2020. And I was working with one guy, this guy named Ben, who was our head of PR when I worked at Away, the luggage company back in 2016, 2017. And I hired him as a contractor, just like me and him sitting on the floor, putting together the PR architecture, the pitches. It was just us. I could not afford a big agency or a huge retainer. And we were sending out pitches. And we had both had success in our careers before and had wins on the PR front. But I will tell you from a beauty perspective, most editors were like who are you you're not going to blow out my hair like what's happening like what is this whole ritual what do you mean yeah like you're not a professional stylist did you go in and actually do the ritual to them though well it was it's yes a little like we went over it and we like touched here my whole thing is like the art of the air dry and like getting to know your hair yourself and it's really about empowering us this 60 to 90 days beyond the salon which has been my thing from day one we're now seeing more grants prior to that that was not a thing like like it really wasn't it's only like professional stylists and even all the content in the world on hair care prior to crown affair was like professional stylist model and share with wet hair blowing out hair like every single website and now there's been a category change which is so amazing to to lead and pioneer that but at the time it was like people didn't totally get it they understood the heritage piece they got the clean piece but i don't think they really understood that like empowering your relationship to your hair at home and and this being kind of a bigger mission so people were like yeah we'll include you in a roundup like i remember vogue was like we'll include you in a roundup on tuesday whatever and then here's what i'm about to say that that was like the tuesday wednesday before we launched a week from launch on january 28th we had then sent out 30 pr mailers granted i know this was 2020 and it's 2026 now so the world is very different but at the time we sent out 300 mailers everyone started posting thursday friday saturday sunday Literally by Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Ben called me and was like, Vogue wants to do the exclusive. This person wants to do the exclusive. Like the culture was talking about Crown Affair. I had amazing people posting, whether it was like the Jen Alliances of the world or like the violent people were just posting. And then that's when people want to talk about it. And I think that's what people get wrong about PR is like, even then, and obviously the landscape has changed. It's like editors and journalists want to write about what they're seeing. They want to write about things that they're excited about and what that was, that mailer. And there's other ways to do that now. I know that sending a mailer isn't. I'm dying to know what's in the mailer. It was the comb. It was our oil. It was a tote bag. It was just like a cute little crown affair launch mailer. But it was everywhere. And then editors, every single editor we went out to was like, I want to write about this. And I think even to this day, it's like, how do you build that excitement and momentum? Do you have your story also in that mailer, like some sort of? material about like when you talked about it was one of these collateral cards that had my story and the mission on it but the 300 people are people that i've worked with over the last decade it was people that i worked with yeah so i had all these people that i had done paid partnerships with at other brands you know so they were kind of just doing me a solid and i think that's what's so important as you build your career is to like maintain these relationships so that when your moment comes with you're saying you're like by the way we did all these partnerships together at harry's or away or outdoor voices like i'm launching my brand now and like that's that was a huge part of it you know yeah yeah i want to also talk about your personal brand because that is part of your personal brand right you had established all these relationships with these individuals that you had worked with over time but also collaborated with maybe they didn't work directly within the company you were in but um But you also have a great personal brand. So I do want to talk about that. You've talked about your TikTok twist and clip video that got 4 million views overnight, which is something you didn't specifically plan or strategize. And how has being an external facing founder shaped Crown Affairs growth? And what do you wish you had learned sooner? Because as you sort of think about... personal brand. And we posted this morning on FFC, that funny clip of Katy Perry. But we keep talking about how with consumer founders specifically, it's so important that the founder is external facing. So can you share a little bit about if there has been a strategy, even if the TikTok one was not? Yes, there is a strategy now. When I launched the brand six weeks before COVID, I always knew I'd be an external facing founder. with things like this with podcasts with interviews i love being in person i love going to stores like i love being out there but never did i think i would ever be like a content creator you know and thinking about how i how i never spent time making content before i was just you know moving through the world and then covid really changed everything but i have to tell you i'm definitely more millennial than i am gen z i'm also not gen z but even just from a mindset standpoint i know a lot of millennial founders who are very gen z in their mindset and I've always just been really slow. I mean, I wish that I jumped on trains earlier with TikTok. I was two years late to TikTok. I, you know, because these things are not where I get my joy necessarily. I'll say one thing that I love doing that I really enjoy is Substack. Um, and I jumped on that train early because I love to write and I love long form and I love connecting with the community on there and there aren't any ads. And it's just like the most magical place on the internet where people still have attention spans. But I do think it's really important to get yourself out there and it allows you to tell stories beyond just your brand. You know, I think something that's challenging for me is like, I'm not naturally an entertainer and I'm not somebody who like dances and lip syncs. So I definitely, I'm like, I get on and I'm like, let me tell you about the product or like, i just took this trip or like i love this artist or something like it's not my core dna you know but you got to just get the reps in and do it and remember that even the the non-core to beauty stuff still helps you like the trips that you're taking and things like that yes and you need to remember that it's not just how many people you reach it's how many people you move like truly move and i think i'd rather do like a long form yap yap doing my gua sha or brushing my hair and if like 3 000 people really love that and 12 people are like wow i really love it it's like that matters you know and then of course you get the amazing ones that pop off in four million views or hundreds of thousands of views or a sub stack that gets tons of shares but at the end of the day it's really about consistency and As much as I'd love to say it doesn't matter, the truth is it's a way to get more opportunities as well, especially if you're a brand that's at a big retailer. Having a social platform is super helpful and it's a part of... connecting and collaborating with people and again it's not how i grew my business it's not my core dna there's founders out there that i think are extraordinary on social media like charlotte from dew for example is an amazing example of someone who i think is really intelligent has built a beautiful platform of storytelling beyond dew and then obviously dew as a skincare brand is amazing and then you know there's there's so many different ways to build businesses now we have founders that are content creators first that are trying to reverse engineer brands and then i have friends who are amazing brand founders or chemists who like it's really hard for them to make content and the truth is is like you just have to try because it is a way to reach people and it's okay if it's not easy i relate to all of you out there who are like oh this is so cringe but find a way to make it feel good for you and you know it's funny it's going to be announced tomorrow but i'm actually launching my own video podcast called take your time which is which is an extension It's so beautiful. I'm like, do I have the, you'll start, you guys can follow it on Instagram right now. It's called Take Your Time Universe. Gorgeous. Things going live tomorrow. There's like a full brand that I built out to have longer form conversations because that's what feels good to me. So like, you'll start to see that roll out and it's taken me three and a half years to figure this out, but you just have to start. So talk to me a little bit about the consistency piece, right? Cause you do sub stack. and then you you do your own content and you've said also that you can say things as diana that you can't that crown affair can't say as a brand can you give founders like if there's any frameworks that you use where you're like i post i i spend four hours uh a week by the way i don't know what is going on with my lighting guys it's like poltergeist here and it like keeps like blinking so apologies if that's giving anybody a headache I might turn it off in a second, but I'd love to hear your framework. Yeah, no, I mean, I wish I was more of a linear thinker. The truth is I'm somebody who has a thousand metaphorical and literal 7,000 times open at all times. So I think it's a balance of both. I think so much of the fun of social media is just being kind of real time with it and like jumping on Substack notes and being like, this is really fun to me or filming a TikTok that's in the moment. but it's also really nice to have structure around things so i my team uses asana i love asana as a project management tool and i have my own project that's day in a common content calendar that's totally separate of crown affair and it has the sub stacks i'm gonna write it has tick tock ideas it has instagram ideas you know I'm not an influencer first. Like I'm not a content machine. I'm doing most of this on my own is the truth. So I wish I could clone myself and maybe one day I'll figure out how to use Claude and clone myself. But right now I am putting soul into it and I respect my audience. I don't just want to like jump around singing a trending song. I'm sure that would like help me grow. And if that feels good for you, you should do that. but for me like i really take the time to map out the calendar and what i'm going to share because i respect you know your time i respect our our everybody's time so for me that's been helpful and i think like tactically like you know batching a bunch of content is great if you're like in the mood and you've got your tiktok camera on make a bunch of content so you have like seven videos for later you can like organize things into folders and do swipes sometimes it doesn't need to be overly complicated i know sometimes people don't even like putting themselves out there so you can still put together content formats with photos and stills or b-roll or things like that and voiceover like you can really get creative depending on what you're feeling but i would say like give yourself breaks you don't need to film every day like i know that i'm much more creative at night so that's when i end up writing most of my sub stack posts and doing things you just kind of have to learn your rhythms and um it's okay you know like ai like you're that's not a big part of the spell check yeah i wish i was one of those founders that's like i use ai all the time but i use it to be like grammatically does this work and it catches stuff for me but i'll be honest with you i tried to train it i just i like the way that i sound over the way that it sounds and um you know i'll have a draft some like okay i want to write about but like i'm not yeah i'm not using ai in a huge way and maybe i found because i love to write as well is that if i'll write something and then i'm like my intention is convey this this and this can you perfect it it's like i have it i use it more as my editor than my writer correct i'm using it the same way or i'll be like hey i'm word vomiting this i actually need it to be three sentences can you try to figure this out to be three sentences or something like that but the brain power that i don't have but um no i think also like content formats knowing your pillars for me it's like hair crown affair entrepreneurship art a little bit of fashion i mean that might even be too many you know but like sit down and outline what is working for you what brings you joy and then you know just start by getting consistent i think that's the main thing try to post every day on tick tock even if it's just a little thing um you don't have to film it in real time and start also don't try to do it all like figure out the platform that's most impactful for you i think like instagram for example like i emotionally prioritize because i'm millennial but the truth is if you look at the data like i'm kind of just megaphone to the same people so like do i need to post every day absolutely not in fact it's a little fatiguing where like tick tock is like much more top of funnel, new audience. Emotionally, I care about it last. I don't look at it until like 3 p.m. every day, but like it's actually more impactful. So I would say look at your insights and data as well to get a sense of what's important for you. And how to steer your time. Yeah. I want to talk about ShopMy and like to know it because they've changed how founders work. with creators at every level, right? How are you thinking about affiliate and creator commerce tools as part of your marketing mix? And just in general, how do you think about working with other creators? So important. I think creators are one of the most important ways that you find out about things. You know, now I think it takes like 12 to 16 times to even see a brand or a product before someone converts. It used to be like five to seven when I was starting out in e-commerce over a decade ago. having a creator tell your story for you and that could be in a paid capacity but also organic and for me it's really important when i work with creators that they authentically love crown i mean the blessing of crown affair is that like people love it if they love it you know i've worked in categories for example working in the razor space is a lot harder than working in you know elegant hair care products so i think that's really powerful and something to remember as a brand founder how you're thinking about your marketing spend is like we've worked with creators on paid campaigns or things where we're like post on this date at this time and we're paying you to do that and it'll do okay and then two weeks later they'll just screenshot the leave-in conditioner and stories and that will crush it with affiliate you know so you have to think about these things as holistic relationships it's not just the one-off it's them authentically integrating the product over time because again that's how you get to like 16 times over the course of a year. You've seen it from this person. You really trust them. And at the end of the day, I know that I'm most inspired by people's personal taste and what they recommend, and I trust them. So I think creators are so important. And we use ShopMai. We use To Know It. I love ShopMai. I'm personally on it as a creator. I'll toggle between the Diana Cohen and the Crown Affair accounts, and it's so much fun to see who moves the needle. And I think you'll be really surprised, again, going back to the data, our top performing converters. are not who you would expect half of them are people that don't even know their faces like things i bought in life for example a lot of them are dermatologists i mean we've one derm who like i've never even spoken to and i think that's the thing too is like the way that you feel about a relationship could be one thing but at the end of the day it's like the data does not lie and we have creators that i've never met never spoken to someone who just has like a book account like a book talk account that like loves books and champagne and has posted crown affairs so many times and has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of the dry shampoo or the towel so like you gotta just look at that information and support where you can but you know i think the creator community is so important and the other piece of advice and part of why i love being on these platforms is that you can engage with them and i think having a touch point beyond the brand as a founder can be really powerful so when you see somebody include crowd or whatever your product in their video don't just do it from the brand like engage and and hopefully authentically be excited that they're and you talked about so engagement outside of just your consumers but you also mentioned community and he be chan actually asked a question she said community is such a broad term but for an e-commerce brand that's mostly online what does community actually mean in practice for you and what are some of the affordable in-person touch points for a brand that's just starting out Community I think is a word has lost all meaning so I completely relate to you who asked the question thank you it's so true I mean community means literally different things so I'll give you an example of community that's very important to me that's not online like in terms of influencing at all our mentorship program seedling is a six-week mentorship program that we've done seven seasons of and have had over 700 women a part of the program we do have a like a private linkedin group we have meetups it's not about posting it's not about buying of course these women a lot of them are also customers of crown affair but it's like authentic community and supporting each other and that is what community is it's like being in the goal to drive product conversion no of course it's amazing that people buy products and buy it for their moms and their sisters in the holiday but it truly is to help women on their way because mentors have been such a huge part of my life and i love pairing women early in their careers with women like us and it's such a low with commitment it's like an hour a week for six to eight it's really eight weeks long with the opening and closing but it's life-changing people have met business partners roommates we've like connected it's such a special kind of badge of honor being a seedling and like that's a form of community that's really important how did people become part of it i'm sure every single person here that's gonna want to be We do it once a year in the fall. We open up applications, usually in September, and it's an application process. We can really get to know you and pair you with the right person on both sides because I also believe mentorship goes both ways. It's not just the person who is more seasoned and older. It's really like we have a lot to learn from each other. So Elaine, who's my CEO, and I always just like grab a bottle of wine and spend time pairing people. to me it's like that is what's really powerful but also community is like being a good like being good to your customers like reddit friends for example like i'm not active on reddit but i will see people be like why are these clips the cost that they are are they crazy out of their mind and then like you know people are like this is crazy you can buy five clips at wherever amazon the cheapest made clips whatever which finally find those two if you want them you know what i mean but then you see people just defending product or being like these are the best clips i've ever had they're worth every they're so much better and it's like beautiful well that's community too is like taking care of your customer you know because that's how they come to your support and like that to me is everything and then of course there's the influencer community there's events and just to use events as an example there's so many different goals you could have for that you could have an influence an intimate editor event or high tiered censor you could have an event that's all about earned media value that's about the splashiness you can have an event that's like a coffee meetup that's talking about hair and it's like those are all different forms of community and um you know sephora is a really big one for us too yes we are a digital e-commerce company as was mentioned in the question but we're in every single sephora door across the country now i started with 55 stores i have crawled my way day in day out we got 200 like a year and a half ago we're now over 600 doors and like i flew to vancouver i got on a 18-hour trip from miami to vancouver this week to be in person with those beauty advisors and educate them and train them and like that matters because they go home feeling more empowered and my mission is to make people feel more empowered with their hair and i think especially beauty advisors don't feel empowered because they're not professional stylists they don't know how to achieve this thing and my mission is to educate them to be like it's really about care and when your client comes in and they feel disempowered what do those conversations look like it's it's a whole different perspective so that is community as well and these things take time they don't happen overnight it's not huge celebrity posting a product and it all is that's that's that community that's a different thing so you know the long-winded answer that there's many different facets to this and i think about it in a lot of different ways there's a great question i completely agree and i think it's like it it is whatever it means to you too and your different touch points um final question for you and then i think we have just a couple rapid fire then we're going to let you go because you've been so generous with your time and that's around um that's around building your team And this is like a whole topic that could be its own hour. But we had a question from a member, but I also had a question that relates to it. And that's that you mentioned you have a CEO. And one of the things that we talk about in Founders Operating Manual is whether or not you should be the CEO of the business or who else you need around you to build the business you want to build, right? So when it comes to building the team, first of all, when and how did you decide that you needed a CEO? outside of yourself and then separately when it comes to a marketing team what are the most important hires and what are your thoughts and what should be in-house versus contractors or agencies yeah so i was the founder and ceo from zero to five years of the business so i think it's great to be the ceo if you're also the founder in the early days because at the end of the day you are the chief executive who is making the final decisions and the buck stops with you However, if you get to the privileged position of building a real business, you know, for us, that was hitting over 20 million in revenue. I'm like, I'm no longer the person to take this to 50 million and 80 million. Like you do want to bring in the right team. So I really see it as a privilege to step away from that responsibility because there's someone who's much more seasoned than me. And that's not an overnight process. That's a lot of releasing the ego. That's a lot of coaching. that's a lot of trust not just saying he trusts but authentic trust and that took me about a year and a half to kind of process if i'm being transparent um by the way yeah it's not easy you know it really isn't but it's it's a gift to do it and you know my first hire was an operator was my vp of operations a woman named elaine choi and she joined me and it was two of us you know it wasn't like we had a huge team and she grew and has just taken on so much and has become my right hand and everything and we got to a point at year five where it was clearly time she was really doing the role of the ceo almost and we kind of had a conversation of like is this do we think you can kind of grow into this role or do we do what like a hired gun is and you see this a lot right with glossier right now people in the industry in the beauty industry there's kind of the like bring in the call in well like bring in the call in because he was the ceo at way with jen atkin and it's like you want to find a call and type is kind of the joke and you know for us that's not where we're at i think it was the right decision to elevate internally um versus like bringing in a hired gun because i've also seen how that can go wrong not to circle it back to the beginning of our conversation but When I was with Outdoor Voices, they brought a lot of senior leadership from Lululemon and Under Armour. And you think that you're bringing in someone who can be a hired gun, but it takes months to integrate people. And trying to bring in three senior people at once, it just doesn't work. And I always say this, this is why time is so important, because you can have all the resources, throw all the money in anything, and the one thing you cannot fake is time. You just have to have it pass. And I think that's what you really have to think about with your team is like, who are the top people that are going to grow with you to the next level? And then also to your point of like, when do you hire someone in house versus when you have a consultant or an agency is that I think like who you build with day one might not be who's with you on day five. And you really need to set the tone of who's going to graduate. So like younger, more junior employees, like they will graduate after year three, you know, and you have to plan into these evolutions. um and then also like if you can't afford to hire the most senior person but there's a great consultant out there start with that and maybe they become full-time or maybe they help you find the right person for that year but you have to think about these things in years and then two final questions for you and i love all of that advice it's so true that time it all comes back to time once again um but but one is a more broad question in terms of Looking back at your younger self and who you were as a founder, do you have any specific advice or overriding philosophies that helped guide you through to where you are now and to grow Crown Affair? Metaphorically sitting on your hands and not just jumping on trends or opportunities, I think is very important. And saying no when exciting opportunities come your way, because you can very loosely spread yourself too thin and you need to have a really good person next to you being like, yes it's very sexy to launch in the uk or yes it's very sexy to do this thing but right now it does not make sense from a cash flow perspective i think that restraint that editing that saying no which is not easy to do um is the thing that keeps your brand alive and i think about this a lot with like i call them pinches of poison um it's like if you do too many things that aren't authentic to you like all of a sudden you're gonna like launch a lip gloss or do this like scent that's totally trending but not for you it's like yeah it's going to do well up front like those things sell but at the end of the day it like slowly alienates who you're actually making this for and that's why it's not a full dose of poison it's just a little pinch it's not going to kill you but they will add up over time so whatever that you know summarized piece of advice is is like it's essentially staying true to who you are and having restraint and the final thing is where can people find you Crown Affair on Instagram, TikTok. Give us a follow on TikTok. It's so hard to grow there, but we're doing a lot of fun stuff there. Diana Cohen, Diana with two Ns. You see my name spelled here on Instagram, TikTok, all the things. Please say hi. I genuinely love engaging with the community. So if you join today and you want to chat about stuff or you want to learn more about what I talked about, literally put a comment. I will reply to it on TikTok. And then you can follow it now, but it's being announced tomorrow. TakeYourTimeUniverse.com. Yay! as the first episode launches next week so please give that a listen i will be a lot more of what we are doing today which is having fun conversations and thoughtful ones amazing we will all be tuning in and everybody else we are going to um we're going to be staying on with avery bradford so um if you want to hang around we'll still be here and diana we are so so grateful for you and all the time Oh, my gosh, truly. Thank you. Right back at you guys. This was so special. I appreciate you gathering this community and all the work that you do to bring this community together. It's so important. So thank you. Thank you. The best. Hi. Hi. It's been a while since we've done one of these. I'm going to sort of. take the reins and talk to you a little bit and turn the mic over to you because we've done something really special today, specifically for the folks who have RSVP'd for this session and joined this session. We have extended our application to join the 10th house until today for you all. So after this session, I'm going to send you out an email with not only a link to the replay, but access to applications, which will be special for you all. Look out for Avery's email, everybody. Yep. I'll send you an email out later today within a few hours after this. But I wanted to hop on with Allie because we've done something really special for this cohort. So not only do you get access to events like this inside of the 10th house and inside of the 10th house. they're a little bit different. So today, Allie moderated the session, and she was able to ask questions on your behalf. But if you're a 10th House member, you can actually ask these questions face-to-face because we do small group fireside chats. But in addition to our events and resources, we've actually introduced Founders Operating Manual. And for the first time, we are turning it into an eight-week program. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Founders Operating Manual, Allie. first before we dive into the structure can you tell us what founders operating manual is and why you've introduced it to the 10th house yeah and you guys i'm i'm just so excited that avery is here by the way because it's like she's always behind the scenes and really she should be in front of the scenes because she's this glorious human who is always packaging up all of this information so that you guys can get it as efficiently and effectively as possible. So big, big ups and thank you to Avery. So Founders Operating Manual, you guys, we have been doing this now. We've been doing 10th house for, I think it's our fifth. Yeah, it's going to be our fifth year. So for five years, we've been taking in all of this data. And before that, we had the free community. So we've been doing this for about seven or eight years at this point and so we've seen thousands of founders and the same questions kept coming up and those questions were what is my role where should i spend my time how many of you guys who are listening has ever asked yourself like what could I be doing more efficiently? Because I don't know about you, but as a founder, it feels often like you have a growing to-do list and priority list versus a declining one. And it's just like you check one thing off and then another thing arises. And all day long, it feels like you're putting out fires. So I had to, in starting a number of startups, come up with a system where There were very clear priorities, very clear decision filters, but also I had to figure out first what was my role, right? In building a business, you have to determine your time is the most valuable thing you have as a founder. And what Diana talked about with the jockey being the thing that investors get behind, you should be thinking about that too, about yourself, because you're going to be the leader of this business. You're going to be carrying it forward. you need to prioritize your time you can't be like i'm doing everything but that's okay because that's what founders are supposed to do it's not what founders are supposed to do and so we get really clear and we go through a process um which avery can probably speak to a little bit as our first session so avery i'm going to hand it over to you to sort of speak about that first process of identifying your role yeah as so something that we're doing is like i said we're extending from four weeks to eight weeks and one of the ways that we're doing that is we're giving founders access to a mix of live uh fireside chats and co-working sessions in addition to webinars that way you are able to complete this on your own time in addition all virtual by the way right all virtual um in addition to uh you being able to get personalized information so one of the first sessions that we're kicking off with which ali was just talking about is a session with robin ward and robin has worked with brands like tower 28 and home court and ritual and these really amazing consumer brands and she helps them she comes in to bring them from zero to 10 million or 10 million to 100 million her whole purpose is working with founders and helping them find their identity within their brand and their role within the brand as the company evolves. So that whole first session is really about finding your mission and your role. But then also within that, it's why do people buy into you? So why choose, as we were talking to Diana about your brand pillars and... you know, it's not just clean or sustainable, but why are actually, why are people choosing your brand over another brand off the shelf or D2C? And so Robin is going to really help you dig into that. And then the next session that we get into, which I was not into- And just to build on that too, Avery, the nice thing about that too, is I know that Hebe Chan had asked about how you're building, sorry, Hebe had actually asked about community. Somebody else had asked about, growing your marketing team from zero to three? Or how do you decide whether you are hiring an outside agency versus it's going to be an internal person versus what Diana talked about with, am I going to elevate my operations person to become the CEO? Or am I going to look outside and try to get a hired gun, so to speak? So all of these discussions will sort of be also discussed and sorted through of like, what types of talent do you need now that you know what you're doing? Yeah. And before I ask you about the other sessions, Allie, we got a question live in the chat and that was, from mariam and she says i joined the monthly membership is this separate from founders operating manual so the answer there is no so if you are a member of the 10th house you get access to founders operating manual and whether you are a current member or a new member the journey is slightly different but if you're joining so let's say you apply today and you join you will start with the founders operating manual orientation and then you'll go through the eight-week process simultaneously you'll get access to other things inside of the 10th house but this is really your foundation if you grasp this information then you can access everything else inside of the 10th house with so much more clarity and confidence um but this is really your eight-week accelerator inside of the 10th house sort of it is for members of the 10th house you can also join founders operating manual as its own cohort or as its own accelerator rather so if you are saying to yourself i really want to start with those eight weeks feel it out and then maybe i'll join the full membership or i know i there are some specific sessions i want in there so i'm just going to do that you can 100 just join founders operating manual as an accelerator that's all right too um but yes if you are a 10th house member it is a part of your your membership um so ali we talked about one of the first sessions and i know we only have a couple of minutes left so we can we can get through these next through these next few um but After you understand your role and the role of other people within your business, we also talk about KPIs. So can you talk a little bit about that session? So the other thing that I've discussed with founders is they're like, I, you know. i don't know how much money i need or i don't know how much inventory i should get or i don't know where to focus my time right like that's the biggest issue that you come up against again going back to sort of the theme of the session with diana is all about time and to be honest you can't determine where you should be spending your time until unless you know what success looks like unless you know where you are going so that's sort of the next two sessions which one is around kpis which are key performance indicators it's basically like what are your goals what are the things that you are looking at and you should be looking at them weekly to determine what success is in your business right like how are you ensuring that you don't all of a sudden wake up tomorrow and you don't have any cash or how are you ensuring that if you do need to hit a certain revenue threshold by a certain time frame that you are tracking that and you can make all of your decisions in your business based off of those those kpis and those goals right so if something that comes up doesn't tie back to or impact that goal in a positive way then put it off to the side, right? It's a really easy decision filter and matrix to create for yourself. Then the other piece, and then Avery, I'll have you talk about the KPIs and also in financials that is super important is building your roadmap for your business. If you don't plan, you're planning to fail. We hear that again and again, and it couldn't be more true. I talked to so many founders and they're like, well, I have this like, spreadsheet i've put together or maybe they're tracking it in a google doc of like this is where i think i have to be by this time frame don't think don't like estimate or guess around like where where you need to be because you're you're going to end up lost or you're going to end up out of business to be perfectly frank with you but we bring people in that will help you to create your financial model so that each week you can look at your kpi dashboard and you can look at your financials and go oh okay this is where i am we're on a good trajectory or we need to adjust this in this little bit because we're a little bit off this goal um and that way you never end up in a really dangerous place or in a place where you might go out of business so it's a really nice way of just always ensuring that things are above board and you're marching in the right direction Avery, do you want to add to what those sessions include? Yeah, I'll go through all eight weeks here succinctly, and then I'd love to give in to some of the questions that are coming in live. So as Ali mentioned, week one is all about your role as a founder. And then week two, we really get into your KPIs and we bring in an angel investor and retail expert. She has also invested in really incredible brands. That's where she gets into helping you set up your hero KPI. After that session, you have a very in-depth KPI workbook. that you get to go through, which gives people so much clarity. Whether you are year one or year 10, we got so much great feedback from that workbook of people saying, oh, I was actually chasing a KPI that was irrelevant for my brand, or I've been in business for five years and I've never sat down to actually write down what is my North Star and what am I working toward? So we get into that in that session. And then the next session is a live fireside chat where we're going to be talking about PR and social media. And the reason we brought this in was because in the last cohort, that was something that founders really wanted to dig into is you know, I don't have the money or the time or it doesn't seem like the right time to bring in an agency. What can I do on my own and what should I be hiring out for? So we're going to be digging into that. And then the session after that is with Erica Moore, who's the former CFO of Goop. And now she has her own financial agency and she's going to be digging into that financial model that Allie mentioned. And this is digging into those three, you know, financials that you really need to understand in order to have a full picture of your business so where are where in the business are you being bled where should you actually be focused focused on um is your inventory working against you or for you all of those questions that as consumer founders if you don't have an understanding of it you're not going to be able to really build projections or a true plan. After that session, we will dig into things personally through a co-working session. So you're going to get together with the founders in your cohort, catch up, go through some insightful questions, get to know one another. And then after that, Ally mentioned too that roadmap. So we'll do a 90-day roadmap with Reshma Chamberlain. And she is... chief brand officer. She has such amazing insights when it comes to building a brand and go-to-market strategy. So again, whether you're day one or year 10, this information is so insightful. And then we're going to end with another fireside chat. This one, we're going to be talking about monetization. So if you're not making the money that you were hoping to, where should you focus on? But then if you have a goal to fundraise, which I know we got a lot of questions about fundraising today with Diana. how can you prepare for that fundraise? So that is the snapshot of what we're doing. Through the eight weeks, that is all beautifully packaged inside of Circle. One of the questions that we got is where can I access this? If you are a member of the 10th house, I will be unlocking it inside of Circle. It's locked right now, so you can't see it yet. But when we kick off, so tomorrow is when orientation begins. After orientation, you will get access to that secret space. So right now you can't see it, but it will be there. And something that exciting... something exciting that we're doing this year and then Ali I want you to close us out with sharing who this is right for but something that we're doing this cohort is we're building a reward system in so for the person who completes every single session Every single survey, every single piece of homework, every person who does that will be entered into a raffle and will win some really amazing prizes one-on-one time with world-renowned experts and builders. So we're really excited about that as well. So there will be some gamification and rewards for those who really take full advantage of the accelerator. But Allie, to close us out, can you talk a little bit about who this specific... cohort is right for and this specific um program and then yeah and and then we'll see if this is for all consumer brands so if you um have a consumer product in fashion in beauty in cpg um and you maybe you're doing wholesale and uh in addition to direct consumer this is right for you um that's the experts that we are bringing in to guide this and what i love so much about these sessions is that we're not pretending to be experts on everything in this even though we have a lot of in-house knowledge about how this all works and how to be successful we're bringing in people that are the best at what they do right now to be teaching it for you all to learn from so you know they're getting amazing inputs and you want to use this to put into your ai model so then run a much leaner organization This is great because you want to make sure also that your inputs for AI are correct, accurate and vetted so that it's not giving you stuff out that isn't so great. But and then you also have the community, which is amazing and is invaluable and is where we started from. As a company, we just felt that that was invaluable to be able to reach out to other people when you're trying to figure out your CRM or you're trying to figure out how should I design this job spec or what are people doing with influencers right now? How are they incentivizing them or how long are you working with them over time so that it becomes a much more conversion and fulfilling relationship? So we are super excited about this, guys. i actually have done all these things in every company that i've been with whether it was goop or girl boss and we end up building multi multi multi-million dollar organizations off the back of this process but it also cost me over a hundred thousand dollars each time if not more so this is we made it purposely really affordable It's likely going to go up in price in the future. So if you're thinking about it, now is the time to jump in. And I promise that it will be worth your while and we'd love to see you inside. And then just in terms of stage of business, honestly, I do this every year with my business because you have to reevaluate how you're spending your time and what your role is in the business and your numbers and your dashboard. But it's going to be really great for people that are... under 5 million generally and just sort of starting to build because we do have a specific community that is for over 5 million as well that's really talking about those scale up things so um if you guys have any questions don't hesitate to reach out we'd love to see you inside though Yes, I want to wrap up. I know we took this a little bit over, but a couple of things that just came in. Christine said, I'm such a student at heart. I love the incentives, so I'm glad to hear that. That's our first time doing that with this cohort. You don't have to attend everyone, by the way, guys. If you want to take pieces of this, because you've already done some of it, or it feels duplicative to knowledge you already have, it's not required. It's just as much as you want to get out of it. Right. It's sort of an opt-in, opt-out system. It's up to you as the founder. For those who are motivated by incentives, definitely do all eight sessions and all eight pieces of homework, and then you'll have access to those incentives. And then Bianca said, I can't wait to start tomorrow. I seriously am ready to learn and start on my own. tomorrow is when we officially kick off this cohort at the 10th house so please take advantage of your extra hours to apply and then may 12th is when your founders operating manual access accessory um i'm thinking about consumer when you're um when your program kicks off is may 12th so tomorrow is your 10th house orientation and the 12th is your founders operating manual kickoff orientation so thank you so much for everyone who joined whether you just joined this q a or the full session we're so glad uh that you all were able to be here but we're thrilled to have you colleen we're thrilled um for you to be included too thank you so much ali thanks guys bye everyone bye

Join us for a live conversation with Dianna Cohen, Founder & CEO of Crown Affair, one of the fastest-growing prestige haircare brands redefining how modern brands show up and scale. Since launching in 2020, Crown Affair has built a loyal, highly engaged community and expanded into top-tier retailers like Sephora, Goop, and Violet Grey, all while maintaining a distinct point of view and brand identity.

In this session, we’ll break down how Dianna has approached marketing from day one. not as a set of channels, but as a cohesive system rooted in brand, PR, and community.