#awinewith Sumana Jayanth
MEET Sumana, founder of Damn Gina.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Sumana, welcome to Spark tv.
Sumana Jayanth (00:10):
Thank you so much, Danielle. Thanks for having me. Now,
Danielle Lewis (00:12):
I'm so excited to have you here because I love your brand. I have been doing much stalking since I found you, and it's just such a vibrant, amazing brand. So I'm so excited to dive into it. But why don't we start with who you are and what you do to give some context.
Sumana Jayanth (00:32):
Yeah, sure. First of all, thank you for the kind words that every time someone says, I love the vibe of your brand. It just kind of makes me smile because that's the point. We wanted it to be fun and sassy and kind of humorous and all of those things. What brings joy basically. But yeah, so my name is Simona and I am the founder and CEO of D Gina. D Gina is a super young and sassy silk hair accessories brand, and we predominantly cater to women with textured hair, curly hair and kind of help them maintain their natural hair and try to encourage not to use chemicals and heating as often as they usually do. So that's where we come in, and it's kind of a very boring category, honestly, speaking about when we are talking about something to put on your head and going to sleep. And it's not as sexy as skincare or makeup or any of the other beauty products or even sexual wellness, but that's why it's colorful and funny. If you can't be sexy, be funny. That's the whole motto here. I love
Danielle Lewis (01:45):
That.
Sumana Jayanth (01:47):
Yeah, so that's what we do in a couple of sentences I would say.
Danielle Lewis (01:55):
I love it. No, it's so cool. And you may not think it's sexy, but I think it's sexy. I think it's a really cool, vibrant, sexy brand. So how did you get into it? What was the idea that sparked launching a business?
Sumana Jayanth (02:11):
Yeah, that's again a good question because I usually tell everyone I'm a really bad employee. That's why I started a business. But also I have curly hair and I straightened my hair pretty much every day with a hair iron straighten out for two decades. And I had really beautiful thick hair, which I kind of lost because I hardly used any heat. Those things where you kind of protect your hip, the heat productions and things like that. So the idea was when I wanted to embrace my own natural hair, and especially here in Australia, I didn't really find anything that would help me preserve it for longer, because no one really has the time to actually style your hair and your curls every single morning if you're a curly girl that it takes a long time. So you wanted something which would preserve your hair, but at the same time something which is comfortable because you weren't sleeping in it.
(03:11):
So found nothing. This was when eBay was still raining here. I found someone eBay really bad quality ones, and we didn't have Amazon back then yet. But yeah, so long story short, just thought, okay, there's a good gap in the market. And I also come from the silk manufacturing belt in India, and I spoke the language, so I knew that I could get source quality silk and probably make good quality products. I mean, I didn't know, but, but then, yeah, it turned out to be true. A lot of amazing silk producers in there, and that's how I started.
Danielle Lewis (03:52):
I love that. I love the naivety, like, oh, well, I could do this better.
Sumana Jayanth (03:59):
Yeah, I mean, when you grow up looking at so many Silk S around you, I grew up in India, so I did know that we were famous for silk, especially South India where I'm from, but it's just that I didn't know how it could be, how we can make an accessory out of it, because all I saw is just Ari, so didn't really know if I could really do it. But yeah, we got there in the end.
Danielle Lewis (04:25):
What was it like getting your first sample? What was the process like going, okay, I know where there is amazing silk, I have this idea, but what's the gap in the middle? How did you get to those first prototypes?
Sumana Jayanth (04:40):
So it took me six months and basically the first ones were really bad. We used the manufacturer because I knew the language. We kind of got really close. He was really nice to me. I don't know how it is if you directly go to China, because that wasn't my path, but for me it was more like, okay, we knew the language. We had some kind of common grounds. We studied in the same city. He's much older to me. But then, yeah, so he used to send me these samples just free of cost just because I think he had this, okay, I think this girl's got to do something, I don't know what. But then yeah, he would send me,
Danielle Lewis (05:20):
Did he have a crush on you?
Sumana Jayanth (05:23):
No, I think he was more bad. Oh no, he was more like, oh, you know what? This is something new. And I have never done this because they were generational silk sari makers, and it was new for him, and he wanted to take the family business in a different direction. So he thought this was a good opportunity for him to explore it. But anyway, so he would send me the samples. They were really bad. Either they would slip at night or the quality was really bad, or the silk has two different sides. The rough side would touch my hair, but I still use them. And that was the time I was also traveling around Europe for a month, and I took one of the silk hair wraps with me because I didn't want to carry my silk pillowcase. So I did, and it really definitely helped us during that trip.
(06:16):
But yeah, so six months of literally back and forth, back and forth, and finally we thought, why don't we use a bit of cotton on top so that the nice part of the silk touches your hair and it stays in place and it doesn't slip away. So that was probably the key turning point in the whole manufacturing process. And then, yeah, so that's what we launched with. But look, when I say we launched, I'm no way saying that was a great product when we launched the product got better with the feedback over the years, so we changed the measurements. We added raw strings literally two years ago. So there was a lot of iteration with feedback, but then the very first prototype still worked for almost 50% of the people.
Danielle Lewis (07:03):
Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? I think obviously through the production process you figure out and iron out as many kinks as you can, but it's not until you actually get it into consumer's hands that you go, oh, here are all the things I didn't think of.
Sumana Jayanth (07:20):
Yeah, absolutely. And especially if it's something with headgear, anything to do with head, it's not like a pair of pans or a shirt where it's a little loose by the shoulders and you could still manage it now because you have so many nerve endings, even a little bit of uncomfortable feeling, and people were like, oh my God, I couldn't wear it. That's the first thing you think of. And you would think if you're wearing a cap and going out on a sunny day, and if the cap is a little tight, you can't really focus till you get it. So that's the thing with head gears. So definitely a lot of back and forth with sizing. Yeah. But yeah, we kind of got there.
Danielle Lewis (08:06):
It's so good. It's so good. So how have you being a product-based business, how have things been in terms of growth for you? So what have you found over the years of getting the word out there and actually finding the right customers to give it a go and buy it and give you that feedback?
Sumana Jayanth (08:26):
So when I launched it, it was just before Covid, literally three months before Covid, and I was lucky enough to actually collaborate with Abby Chatfield.
Danielle Lewis (08:41):
We,
Sumana Jayanth (08:44):
She was just out of bachelor, and she was really, really kind of pretty famous in Australia back then. She still is. But yeah, so that was her first time she was stepping out in the limelight and she has beautiful curly hair, and I sent the products to her, and that was the very first time I sent her literally two days after we launched, and that's where everything started. The word started spreading out, and then it was our customers, once we got that first a hundred customers or 200 customers, and that's all because of Abby and those 200 customers then ended up talking about the products to other people, and it started from there definitely. And then people did everything they could possibly do when they were at home to improve their skin, their hair, and our product is perfect if you're staying at home. And it just totally helped it. Sad, sad to say that, but yeah, a lot of brands did really well during Covid, and I think that now everyone knows it. Covid was a good
Danielle Lewis (09:58):
Time. Yeah, well, it is really interesting. I think it worked for some people and other people not so much, it's just the whole economy shifted, consumer behavior shifted, so everyone's priorities just shifted overnight and you're spot on. There's so many brands that just absolutely skyrocketed through.
Sumana Jayanth (10:21):
Yeah, definitely. And after Covid, I got pregnant, I had my first baby, and that's when the business definitely slowed a little bit because I wasn't in it as much as I wanted to. But also I didn't want to, I had priorities, and now I am literally, this year is probably the first year I'm fully back into it. My daughter is now two years old, and I finally have some time where I can think and work in blocks of time instead of 10 minutes here and half an hour here. So definitely business has slowed down, unlike all the businesses where they skyrocket and they say they have this year on year a hundred percent growth. That's not been our case. 2023, we only had 7% growth compared to 2022. But yeah,
Danielle Lewis (11:19):
That is still amazing though. I'm sure there are people listening, going, I didn't grow. So I think that it is awesome, and it's really hard, I think sometimes when we see all of these big stats and big numbers and it's hard to know the real, real behind all of those numbers. So I think what you're doing is amazing, and any growth is awesome.
Sumana Jayanth (11:43):
Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'm kind of coming around. It was very hard on myself before, but now kind of coming around to the fact that, you know what, it's business. These things happen, so you can't just look at the headlines and feel bad about yourself. So no, I'm in a better mental state right now.
Danielle Lewis (12:01):
Good. I'm glad. But because it's really interesting as being the business owner, especially as women, when we go through these life changes, having kids, it's huge. They are both multi full-time jobs.
Sumana Jayanth (12:18):
I know. Oh my God, yeah, absolutely. There needs to be more talks about how motherhood changes so many things, and especially as a business owner, how much more harder it gets. But yeah, that's on the podcast. That's an entire,
Danielle Lewis (12:35):
Yeah, exactly. That's a whole nother ally there. No, it's so interesting. What do you think has been the biggest challenge in your business over the last few years?
Sumana Jayanth (12:47):
I definitely think because we don't have a consumable, so your repeat purchases are usually low. So our products are really high quality. They last a year, year and a half easily. So my customers who bought in 2021 are coming back now, so it's a huge long lifetime. So that's where you kind of lose out. So if you have a consumable, say if you are in skincare or makeup or anything to do with beauty, and that's the reason a lot of founders go ahead and start a beauty business because it's a consumable and people, if they love it, they'll keep coming back for it. So that doesn't happen with us. And I think that has been a biggest challenge. And also the product cost itself, silky is a commodity, and we are really, it doesn't grow here in Australia. So we are really dependent on the global economics and how the product does in China or India. And again, that depends on the climate there. And there's so many things like the cocoon, the smaller, if the weather is bad, if it's too hot,
Danielle Lewis (14:04):
Wow.
Sumana Jayanth (14:06):
Butterfly effect that goes on in there. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So definitely commodity prices increase, and that's another thing where it kind of cuts you. And the biggest challenge is probably also the Facebook ads. The algorithm keeps changing and you've got to keep trying and iterate and reiterate. Yeah, so because Meta is still I think the biggest platform for e-commerce owners when it comes to getting new customers, new consumers. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (14:36):
Yeah, I completely agree. It's really interesting. I mean, I teach a lot of sales and marketing, and I'm always telling people, you've got to try free Channels First, influencers or PR or anything like that. But if you want repeatable sales that isn't attached to your effort, unfortunately ads are a really good way to go, but they can just be so unpredictable. One month you're like, yes, this is profitable, this is amazing. And then the next month it's not. And you're like, what happened? What changed?
Sumana Jayanth (15:18):
And also a lot of now the current challenges, I think a lot of international brands like Team and Machine, they keep buying ads when, so it's basically auction when you're auctioning and they have this millions of dollars of per day spend. You don't really have that kind of budgeting, and it is really hard for you to get that eyeballs or exposure. And there's a lot of ad fatigue. Customers don't really want to see any more ads, a whole heaps of reasons when it comes to challenges.
Danielle Lewis (15:57):
Yeah, it's really interesting though, and I think that that's almost the muscle you have to build as being a business owner is like there's always going to be problems.
Sumana Jayanth (16:07):
Yeah, yeah. Well, absolutely. And you can't force anything. It's something that has to happen naturally, and these things are so out of your control. There's no point trying to stress about it. So I'm in that zone now. Yeah, I'm not going to stress about what Meta does. I'm just going to do what I can do.
Danielle Lewis (16:24):
I love that. I love that so much. So I know I've been raving about how gorgeous your brand is. Do you do that in-House, all of your content? Is that you or do you outsource it or how have you built this gorgeous brand?
Sumana Jayanth (16:41):
A little bit of both. So first of all, the branding itself, the colors and everything is done by my best friend. She's from my high school best friend, and she also lives in Melbourne now, so she's amazing. She worked for Frankie now she works for Canva, big shouter. And it was funny, when I started, I had no money, so I paid her in four installments, which was okay with that. So she did the whole color scheme and brand and almost kind of pushed me to have that name. I had that name for such a long time. Damn, Gina. And she was like, okay, I think you definitely need to name your brand this. And the second part is the copywriting. We wanted something funny. And again, I got help from this amazing copywriter again in Melbourne. Her name is Nell Casey. She's from Feet Creative.
(17:36):
I think I'm pronouncing it right, I'm not sure. But anyway, Nell did the copy for me, and that was amazing again, but I knew how the voice needs to be, so I was like, okay, this is exactly how I want it to be. It's just that English is not my first language, so can you just help me get it right. So she was really helpful. And in terms of content itself, over the past four years we've had in-house content creators, and also now I kind of work with the freelancer who's in India. But I do most of the content myself because what I have realized over the years and algorithm changes is people love it when they see the founder and talk about it and the BTS and the raw emotions of building a brand, rather than just shoving products on their face day in and day out and talking about buy this, buy this, buy this. I don't think anyone, they don't really engage with that as much as they would with you as a person. And the best thing I've heard about it is people buy from people, not from brands. So you've got to be that person. So definitely at this point, even though I had in-House help before, now I just have a freelancer in India and I do most of my content.
Danielle Lewis (18:52):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I think this is a bit of a covid thing as well. People really wanted, it was moved away from the polished perfect product images and wanted things that were a little bit more relatable and wanted to know the story behind the brand. I think attaching your personal brand to a business is the way to go. Now you almost can't have a brand without the personal brand behind it, but it is hard showing up on Instagram and TikTok and being that face. What do you do to regulate emotions around showing up on socials?
Sumana Jayanth (19:33):
Oh, well, I am the last person that can give any advice to anyone because I was literally, until three weeks ago, I was this person who cringed at the thought of coming in front of the camera, cringed so hard, I just couldn't bring myself to come and talk. I would just pick on everything from a little chin hair to how my hair looked, my double chin, my accent, all of it. I would just pick myself apart. Now I'm going to tell you how wrong I was. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy. You stand in your own way. And this was a lesson for me. I thought I hated content creation, but then once I started looking at the numbers and I'm like, okay, something has to change and I need to go in front of the camera more. We can't rely on meta alone or ad platforms at all. We need to have that personal connection again with the consumers or with whoever is interacting with the brand. And I was like, I'm willing to step out of my comfort zone and see if this works. I started creating content. I literally started creating content again after I did it for a few months initially in 20 19, 20 20. And not the way I do it now. And then I started doing this content again. And I mean, guess what? I love content creation, lying. I was lying to myself that I hated it.
(21:13):
So I'm in that completely a revelation era right now. I'm like, I didn't know what I liked all these days. And now suddenly I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. I like content creation. I want to go there and talk to people. People are nice. I mean, there are some awful comments, but it doesn't matter. Most of them are nice. So I would say anyone who, I mean, that's my only piece of advice. Whoever is starting a business, no matter what, you start recording every damn thing, like your failures, your successes, everyday what you think is boring is not boring for someone else. It's better to have that B roll going. So that's my piece of advice. So it initially is a little hard, but I think it's all in your mind. But once you pass the cringe mountain, it's
Danielle Lewis (22:11):
Fine. It's so true. And it's interesting. I love what you said about what you think is boring, isn't boring to other people. Often that really small staff, that's actually what holds people back from starting their own thing. And it's like because in their own heads like, oh, what happens if this happens? What happens if that happens? And then you are showing up and going, oh, this big problem happened, but I solved it like this. Or this happened today and I solved it like this. And they go, oh, it's actually doable. I don't have to put up all of those roadblocks for myself.
Sumana Jayanth (22:43):
Yeah, absolutely. And there are so many little life lessons in these moments that someone else may probably be having a roadblock or a mental block, and you actually talk it out and they're like, oh my God, I'm going to the same thing and I could totally do this. So I think more of a, and that's how a community is built. You show up and you say it what you're thinking and your people will find you. So yeah, so that's what I've learned. And this is a very new lesson to me too. It took me literally three weeks.
Danielle Lewis (23:17):
No, but I love it too because it's also a great reminder that we're not too late. And I love how you said, okay, something's going to change, so I'm going to change. And we do have that control in our businesses. We can at any moment go, you know what? I know I said I hated it, or I wasn't going to get on TikTok or I wasn't going to do this, but damn it, I'm going to try something new.
Sumana Jayanth (23:38):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we need to, at least as a millennial, half are, my childhood wasn't this digital, and suddenly just like the world got so digital in the past decade, and when you're just jumping from that here, it's very hard for you to just start talking to the camera and be natural about it. And I totally get it. I completely understand what you are thinking. That's what I was thinking too. But that's the world we are going into and we have to adapt. That's the only way. You can't say, I'm going to still have a landline telephone. You're going to use a mobile. Right. That's exactly how it's going to be. Say, yeah, yeah, definitely. Go create the content. That's my advice.
Danielle Lewis (24:25):
And it's really interesting. I read a stat on Instagram, so it must be true, but it was about Gen Z and how their biggest thing is community and marketing that they're responding to and brands that they're responding to are brands that create community. And it is the showing up and talking to the camera and sharing challenges and issues and things that actually creates that community because people know that you are in it with them.
Sumana Jayanth (24:54):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think they've got it right when it comes to Gen Z that we know what works, and that's the community. So that's what the new generation business owners or entrepreneurs are so much more better. Don't cancel millennials, but yeah,
Danielle Lewis (25:12):
It's totally, it's true,
Sumana Jayanth (25:15):
But it's so good in front of the camera and they're so good at telling the story and there's something to learn there. Oh
Danielle Lewis (25:25):
My God, it's so true. I literally, I recorded something yesterday and I did it a thousand times, and I was like, I was critiquing myself. I'm like, you keep showing up. This is a commercial. And I'm like, why can't I be natural and just talk to the people? It's just so weird. I can't get my head around it.
Sumana Jayanth (25:49):
But you just do it once you start, it is kind of getting your reps in and you're going to be okay after point. And also, people don't really notice as much as we do. I have done some good things, but I've realized that no one really cares so much. Don't stress. It's okay. You get another chance tomorrow morning and the day after and the day after. So it's okay.
Danielle Lewis (26:13):
Oh my God, do you know what? It has literally come up in the last three conversations that I've had. They're like, nobody else cares. They're all worried about their own life. Don't even worry what they're thinking about you. They're not thinking about you.
Sumana Jayanth (26:27):
Absolutely. And you'd be thinking about that one thing you said wrong or one pronunciation, but people honestly, yeah, they couldn't care less. Yeah, definitely.
Danielle Lewis (26:37):
That is so good. I love it. Okay, let's leave our beautiful Spark community with one piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman in business?
Sumana Jayanth (26:54):
Okay, so definitely if you are starting now, if you're a new business owner, as I said, document everything and start sharing it either on your personal page or your brand page. If you don't have a brand yet on your personal page, if you already have a brand on your brand page, choose one or two platforms. You don't have to overwhelm yourself and start posting consistently. Even today, we couldn't get anything done, even that. That's okay. So one is that makes you start learning how to create content. You start learning the ropes on how to create content, and it definitely helps in getting that first a hundred customers. And if you are someone who's already in business and you've been doing that, it's never too late to start doing that. Like me, I've just started it and I'm seeing the numbers change and our return customer rate, even in terms of revenue has gone up since I started doing this because suddenly they can see our content again on their page and they're like, oh my God, I forgot about this brand. I need to go check what they have new or whatever. So it definitely comes back in multiple folds. So do it. So that's my one piece of advice is to actually get into content creation. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (28:18):
Oh my gosh, I love it. Simona, you are absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and wisdom with the Spark community. That was awesome.
Sumana Jayanth (28:30):
Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed having this conversation. It was so easy. You made me feel super easy, and I just got right into it. So yeah, I appreciate you for that. Thank you so much.
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