PURPLE BLAB

I have taken a small break from the contium in the story of the making of a beauty brand. So it’s time to get back on it because A LOT has happened.

A LOT!

Well, we have partners now. Amazing, genius, brilliant partners, perfectly suited for us and it is EXACTLY what we were searching for from day-one. They have insane industry experience in all of the facts Todd and I don’t have – the back end galore. They understand the workings of DTC (direct to consumer) sales via HSN.

THE! DREAM! HAPPENED! JUST! AS! WE! WERE! ABOUT! TO! GO! BELLY! UP!

I saw a psychic astrologer in the summer to have a reading of PL’s chart. She predicted this would happen exactly when it did! Thank you, Karen Thorne!

There was lots of legal to deal with (deal memo, operating agreement, last year’s taxes, divvying up shares of the company to friends/family who originally invested in us, details on what happens if – God forbid – something happens to someone… who gets what).

And there was a mass scrable to change our warehousing facility, build our e-commerce capabilities, go through the approved-vendor process with HSN (unimaginable paperwork), photograph everything for media, pitch media, support our current retailers, balance it all with a day job. Good times!

We also changed boxes for Huge Lips Skinny Hips – had to. While I lived and died for what we had, the hourglass shape, it wouldn’t be the strongest for shipping. And HSN is all about perfection. We can’t risk returns. I went along with it, kicking and screaming, but the new box is actually better and more chic!

It is square, thicker stock, and it has a dot matrix in our foil metallic pink hue (Crown 750 as it is officially called) that mimics the shape of the hourglass form. The bottom of it has a whole so you can see the color! We kept the kiss mark inside – a trademark.

We put together a whole new marketing plan for the HSN debut (February 18th, 8p.m. ET and four other one-hour shows – sign up for our newsletter to get the alerts! Hint! Hint!).

We began working with HSN’s in-house and agency PR. We divided to conquer. We planned two massive events (the world’s largest speed dating which is coming up in January and hosted by VH-1’s Steve Ward, host of Tough Love, in order to celebrate the launch of our product called Luvah) and screening parties across the country to support HSN.

And it wasn’t easy securing Steve Ward! I owe that all to Sharon. (Sharon, you’re killing it!)

We figured out how the hell we were going to pay for all of our initiatives. Frankly, we’re STILL figuring it out.  We’re in the process of finalizing sponsors for speed dating – at the W Hoboken – so sleek and chic!

I did sell three handbags – old Devi Kroell’s (RIP! I hope they found a good home) – to the “bag lady,” a Westchester chicster who buys designer bags (Chanel, Hermes, Dior, Bottega, Marni, you name it) and resells them to friends (40% off of retail price – they’re all mint) to partially pay for the filming of our speed dating event!

I kid you not! Got $2,200 for them (and managed to exchange an old Balenciaga satin motorcycle bag with gold hardware for a camel Lanvin with python front pocket and gold chain strap).

We started doing SEO, which leads me back to redoing the site so that it is html based – a lot easier to analyze and track than flash sites. Can’t afford key word PPC (pay per click) buys YET. Maybe by the fall. Hopefully by the fall.

We put together our model search contest – live now!

All of this with Todd, Sharon, a team of fabulous interns multi tasking mavens, and me. In our apartment, a den of anxiety.

Um, yeah, there was also the speedy development of five new products. It took us two years for Huge Lips Skinny Hips and – thanks to new partners – six months for the newbies. BTW, even more coming for April and our HSN shows then!

Next time, I’ll go into product development.

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

Tags: Beauty, HSN, Luvah, Purple Lab

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 1:45 am and is filed under HSN, Karen Robinovitz, Purple Lab Behind the Scenes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.