June 18, 2020 • 34 mins
How did twin sisters from humble beginnings build their fashion eyewear empire? Made By Women talks to Coco and Breezy Dotson about following their dream, pivoting after disaster, and the indispensable mindset every entrepreneur needs to succeed.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Made by Women, a new podcast by the
Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio. At a
moment when businesses face some of the biggest challenges in
recent history, we bring you inspiring stories, practical insights, and
shared learnings to help you successfully navigate in today's environment.
(00:28):
Every Thursday, Made by Women will showcase the experiences of
legendary women, entrepreneurs, fierce up and comers, and everyday women
who found success their own way. Consider this your Real
world n b A designed for the new Now. I'm
Kim Azzarelli and thanks so much for joining us today.
(00:55):
From a young age, Coco and Breezy Dotson turned to
crafting and creativity to get through tough time times during
their adolescence. Today, the twin sisters run a highly successful
eyewear company that has been spotted not only on the
fashion forward, but also on the red carpet worn by
superstars like Beyonce and Lady Gaga. So how did two
sisters from humble beginnings in Minnesota build their fashion eyewar empire.
(01:19):
I was thrilled to talk with Cocoa and Breezy about
their killer style, incredible outlook on entrepreneurship and their drive
to succeed. I also talked to them about what makes
them sweat and what gives them strength. Enjoy our conversation.
Thank you both so much for joining us. We are huge,
huge fans and your product is incredible and the style
(01:41):
is unbelievable, but your story is also amazing. So thanks
for joining us. Thank you for having us. We're super
excited to be here. So uh, we've read that from
an early age both of you were creative pretty much
by birth and had your own sense of style. Can
you describe that and what it was like to grow
up in the Midwest and how your creativity was received. Um.
(02:04):
I would say growing up in the Midwest, especially being
women of color, and not only just women of color,
but being black women in Minnesota, not only did we
get bullied for having eclectic styles, but we also got
bullied for being black. And I think if we didn't
have such supportive parents, it would have been a very
tough time for us as kids. And something that we're
(02:27):
really grateful for is that even though our parents couldn't
necessarily financially support us, they they support us emotionally like
so well, because they really pushed us to show our
individual styles, and they pushed us to really understand the
meaning of being an individualist. And so I'm really grateful
(02:48):
for that. And I think that since I did have
a twin sister who we kind of shared that same
vision that we are going to do something or we're
always going to push the needo. And I think when
you grow up with not a lot of reas horses,
you like create your own resources and you create your
own world. So if you're in a world where you
feel like you're not accepted, on top of in a
world where you may not be in a financial place
(03:11):
to get what everyone else has, you're almost like forced
to be creative. And I'm very grateful for the way
that we grew up because it made us the entrepreneurs
that we are today. By the time you got to
that point in in middle school, you were able to
sort of just let out your creativity more publicly, and
that must have been very free. It was very free
(03:34):
because I mean we got really good grades. As long
as we got good grades, we were able to do
anything we wanted. And I think because our parents did
give us freedom to be creative and they didn't put
their hard ways on us, we were very obedient kids,
and so we knew that if we broke their trust
with being free, they would take it away from us.
And so we were. You know, our mom let us
(03:55):
pierce our nose when we were thirteen. Um, she let
us cut our hair really short when we were like twelve.
She let us cover our hair pink and red and
blue in middle school, and our mom and dad were
both with it, you know. And I think the reason
why they let us do that is because they're like,
are we gonna hold back these young ladies that want
to express themselves because we're afraid of what the world
(04:17):
is going to think of them? Or do we let
them express themselves and they're getting good grades, Maybe they're
able to think better and good get good grades because
they don't feel trapped. I mean, we used to walk
around and people would just stare at us, and it
was very hard for us. But I think fortunately, since
we are twins, we had each other and it was
(04:38):
very challenging and difficult. But I feel so grateful that,
you know, our parents let us have pink hair and
have our nose pierced when we were so young, because
that was our way of expressing ourselves. Honestly, I feel
like we have the best parents in the world. First
of all, they killed it with co parenting, and secondly
(05:00):
they killed it with like raising creative kids. So then
you came to New York City and I grew up
in the East Village. I grew up with people who
had pink hair and all the things that were so
different in the Midwest. What brought you to New York
and how did you feel when you arrived? So what
brought us to New York first was I think we
first got introduced to like the New York style from
(05:22):
like looking at magazines and being like, oh wow, that's
in New York. But what really brought our interest was, um,
you know, back in the day, we had a MySpace
page and my Space was the jam back then. You know,
in Minnesota, we didn't have a lot of friends, but
on MySpace we had friends. Right, We had like fifty
plus followers, and my parents thought it was so weird.
(05:42):
So we're like sixteen years old with this huge MySpace following,
and most people were in New York and they looked
like us, like their styles were eclectic, and so it
was all people on in New York and so we
were like hold on, there are more people like us
out in the world, and so we act. I think
we were about seventeen, and we backed our parents. We said,
(06:06):
can we please go to New York with our friends?
Mind you, we're seventeen, but we're like, we have friends,
Our friends are eighteen, they're adults, like, please let us go,
and they let us go. We were seventeen years old.
Interpret it in context. We've been financially on our own
since we're fifteen. So our parents knew that we were
a different type of responsible at seventeen because at that
time we had already been working, Like by the time
(06:28):
we were seventeen, we were working three jobs each. So
they almost couldn't say no. They're like, okay, these girls
pay their car note, pay their cell phone bill, go
to work three jobs each at seventeen. Of course you
can go to New York with your friends. Wow. That's
so we went to New York and we just kicked it.
We actually graduated high school early, so that's why we
were able to do that. We graduated November of our
(06:50):
senior year with extra credits, so we had time and
we you know, we were able to take off work.
And so when we first step foot in New York,
our whole lives changed. And then on our nineteenth birth a,
we were like, you know what, let's spend a couple
of weeks in New York to see how it really
feels like to live here. And so, you know, when
you get that feeling in your gut, you get this
(07:10):
gut feeling that it's so rare. This one particular trip,
we had this gut feeling that said, you know what,
move right now. And it's weird because I have I
rarely get those gut feelings. It's so important to listen
to your intuition because your intuition does not lie. And
so at this moment, we had this feeling of being like,
we have to move here. So that last trip, we
(07:32):
went back home packed our bags. We said, mom, Dad,
we're gonna move in two weeks and they're like, what
how much money do you have? Said, we're like like
five d each. But you know, we've been working in
retail and restaurant for like, you know, not even a
real restaurant. We're working at like a fast food spot.
We've been doing that for like so many years. So
we have a good resumes on top of that, Cocoa.
We had applied to go to college, and so on
(07:53):
top of tell them we're moving to New York, we
had to also tell them that college it wasn't for
us as well. We had everything set up and we
had to pretty much cancel all of that because we
went with our intuition. I remember the person who had
to cancel with he was trying to like tell us
that it was a bad idea. But at that moment,
I had this feeling that I felt like if I
(08:14):
would have waited three or four years later, we wouldn't
be where we are right now at all. That's so
important that you listen to your gut you're able to
hear it. I mean, sometimes other people can sort of
talk you out of what you know is the right
thing for you. And I think one thing we learned
is that people always talked us out. I had some
of my friend's parents say, like, what do you You
guys are crazy? How are you going to move to
New York. We weren't when we went to in high
(08:36):
school when people are doing all the bad stuff. Even
though we looked like rock stars, we weren't rock stars.
Like our outside looks like rock stars, but our actions
weren't rock star movements at all, you know, and so
um people could never persuade us and we were never
peer pressured. And so even when people would like say
you're crazy, We're like, we're still gonna do it. And
my parents kept saying like, if it does not work out,
(08:58):
you can just always come back home, and that was
always a comfort to be like, Okay, we can come back, calm,
but we're gonna make it work somehow, some way. When
did you decide that you wanted to start your own company?
You knew about money and responsibility, and you were willing
to take that risk and move all the way to
New York, as you said, with like no financial backing.
But when did you decide that you wanted to start
a business, and specifically, when did you decide that you
(09:21):
wanted to be an eyewear So I would say that
ever since I was in third grade, the idea of
being an entrepreneur came up, and I remember asking, like,
how do you spell entrepreneur? And to be honest, I
have no idea where that even came from. We've come
from super super humble beginnings, and so I never had
(09:43):
a family member that like worked in corporate, So I
never even knew like what a corporate experience was at all,
but yeah, that Phail would be an entrepreneur and being
our own bosses has been something that has internally been
inside of us. I think since we were born. I
would say that what really inspired us to actually being
(10:03):
eyewear is from being bullied. That's what inspired I left
for I Wear, so Cocoa and I when we were
in Minnesota getting like the crazy stairs, and back then
we were like, if you look at our old photos,
we were super like punk, like mohawks, you know, black boots,
all black, black lipstick. Like Coco said, we were rock stars.
That caused us to be bullied and people would stare
(10:25):
at us, point at us, and we were so from
the outside we looked so confident, but internally we were
torn to pieces. And we would buy like cheap sunglasses
to kind of give us this level of confidence. And
then we started making our own glasses. It was very
d I y and with us posting them on my Space,
(10:46):
people are like, oh my gosh, where can I buy those?
And then that trip that Coco told you about of
us coming to New York, people were like, I need
those glasses, and so that gave us a confidence to
be like, okay, cool, like we can make this into
a business. Mind you, we had no business experience. No
one's had like a really big business in our in
our family. It was all like internally that we I
(11:10):
don't know, we just had this feeling. We're like, okay,
we're gonna start this and we'll figure it out. But
one thing that we did always have is that we
had tenacity. We have something in us where we can
go through, like quote unquote a really bad situation. But
the way that we look at life, and we've been
we started practicing this since we were kids. Our way
of life is that any situation you go through, you
(11:32):
make it your own. So if it's a quote unquote
bad situation, the way that we look at it is
that it's just part of the story and it's part
of the journey. So we try to take everything at ease.
So going through I call it the roller coaster effect,
going through the ups and the downs, where if something
tragic happens to your life, something bad happens, how can
(11:52):
we use that as a learning curve? And I know
that that's a huge part of being an entrepreneur is. Yeah,
we may not have a college degree. Yeah, we may
not come from money. At that time, we had no
idea how to run in business. But what we did
have was we had the figure that ish out. Like
we knew how to figure some stuff out, and we
were amazing problem solvers and we were amazing like make
(12:16):
a mistake, and we love figuring stuff out. What you
just said really resonated with me was the fact your
your philosophy of life and the way that you think
about life and you think about the ups and downs
as a journey and the lessons you can get from
it um as opposed to sort of some people get
really devastated when we know that life is going to
have ups and downs. So the fact that you were
(12:36):
able to come to that type of philosophy so early
in your life, do you think that had helped you
and gave you a big advantage. I definitely think that
gave us a huge advantage. And I also think that
we just grew up with a lot of adversities and
so we kind of um taught ourselves that at an
early age. And I do think that you do have
to have some of those traits because it's not as
(12:58):
easy and fun as you think, but it is fun
once you like grow that emotional intelligence and the understanding
that you're gonna go through so many roller coasters and
it's okay. I always say, whenever we go through something,
I'm like, this is just part of the book in
the movie. Like everything everything we do, it's part of
the book and it's part of the movie. I'm like,
I swear in like twenty years there's gonna be a
(13:20):
We're gonna have a book and then there will be
a movie about our story. Like that's that's what keeps
me motivated. And I'm like, we're just really like creating
a blueprint for other people and that's the goal. But
I really do think that um keeping that mindset has
been extremely helpful because you go through all these up
times and then you also go through downtimes, and literally
(13:40):
it's a really big roller coaster. You think when you're
going up, that's gonna stay up, but then you go down.
But you know, it's so important that you have to
have those down times because how do you learn? And
so each time you have that up time, something's gonna
happen and you have to learn from that mistake. And
then keep going because otherwise there was a point in
our lives where everything kept going up, up and up,
(14:01):
and then it crashed, right and then we had in
that crash was beautiful because we had to reshift our
full business model and make a huge pivot, and then
we started growing again. So I think that being aware
that that's going to happen, and being aware to look
at the minute things that are happening when you have
that downtime is very important. I'm so glad you're bringing
this up because I think that this is really an
(14:24):
important nugget for anybody in business but also in life.
It's just to expose the reality of life, and the
reality of business is not just one long happy face,
not just one big happy emoji, but that there are
all of us are going through ups and downs and
everything has hardship and no one is spared from that.
And you know it's different for different people at different times,
but business in particular, especially right now in this economy
(14:46):
and what we're all going through, it's going to be very,
very tough. But if you can embrace it as you're
sort of suggesting, and look at it as a learning
opportunity and not be surprised. Um, that's such a huge
piece of advice that you're giving people. I think that's
that's one of the most important things I think we
can share with people. What in this particular moment of
this incredible up people that we're going through in the world.
(15:08):
You know, how do you how do you think about
pivoting when when you have to pivot in your business?
How have you dealt with that? You know, in the beginning,
we actually I would say our first big pivot because
the way we started was very scrappy, like it's whatever
is scrappier than scrappy. That's how we started. Was very
d i y and like what we what we made,
Like the glasses that we made were like you know,
(15:29):
we're buying safety goggles, glue and studs and spikes on them.
They were such a fat and then as fast as
they were hot, were as fast as they weren't hot.
So that was a challenging moment for us because we
knew nothing about actually like you know, producing and designing
real eye wear. We knew nothing about how to source
the factory. We didn't have the funds like which we
(15:49):
had like a little bit but not really a lot
because again we're self funded and still self funded to date.
For our pivots, which we've had so many of them. Um,
it was really just like listening, taking advice, seeing when
we have our downfalls, and understanding how do we like
go to this next this next step. And I think
the in the beginning, our brand was very niche. It
(16:11):
was it was really about us, So we were just
making glasses that we would wear. And then we have
to say, like, how do we create a product that
everyone can wear where we don't have to be the
faces of it, it's not only about us, and so
that was a huge pivot. But I think pivots are
beautiful because you kind of realize them once you go
through a quote unquote downtime. But it's not really a downtime.
(16:32):
It's just a challenge and it just means that you
need shift because one business model is not going to
work from start to finish. Like you're always gonna make
changes and you have to be open and not afraid
to make those changes. And that's why I always tell
people because I think when people first start a business,
they have such an idea, like they come up with
this master plan, and I think where people fail is
(16:54):
that they get so stuck on the master plan that
they don't give theirselves room to make changes as they
Oh so I always tell people like, you might have
a plan A, but like it won't your plan E
might be the one that's like the winner. And so
it's important to be open so test things that would
be like Okay, cool, I have this plan, but this
didn't work. Let me try a little something different. So
(17:17):
it's very important to be flexible with your plans. Is
there anything that has really been so tough that it's
really made you sweat? Like, there's one where you just
said that was we didn't think we'd get through it.
Is there's something that you can point to? Yeah, So
there was one time where we got a really big
order from distributor in Korea and they placed a huge
(17:41):
order and at this time we were still new to
like production supply chain and all of that, since we
have been self funded. When we got this huge order,
we didn't we didn't have the funds to produce it,
and so we went to a front of ours. We
were like, hey, we have this list of orders from
this distributor. He won on this money just enough for
the production and we're shipping it out in three months,
(18:02):
so we'll pay you all the way back. Because it
wasn't really it wasn't an investment. It was a quick
loan because we knew that we had orders that that
we're going to get purchased. And I think this order
like almost a fifty order that we would have received,
and I think the production was maybe like twenty or
twenty thousand or something or again, we were still new
(18:23):
to production and so we didn't really know the full
process of eyewear. And so once the product got shipped
to the distributors, they emailed us and they go, Hi,
we would like to return all the product because there
are too many damages. And I remember getting that email
and I called Breezy. Then we call our co founder Dwyane,
(18:48):
and we're pretty like even in like our personalities are
very chill, so you know, we're not the ones to
be like, oh my gosh, like what we're gonna do? Like,
we're not those people were like, hey, did you get
that email? Yeah? I got that mail? You know, did
you get it too? Okay, so what's next, y'all? Like,
let's thought about this, what we're gonna do? All right,
let's just receive this product and let's do a sample
(19:09):
sale should I get rid of it. Let's be extremely
honest with our friend who loaned us money and tell
her exactly what happened. And so for us, we were like,
let's be super upfront and let her know what happened,
because this is what it is, right, And so we said, hey,
you know, the product got returned, and so we had
to like do a sample sale, try to sell the product,
(19:31):
and Breezie had to go on food stamps for a
little bit because we didn't really have money coming in
and I didn't get accepted. This was the first time
ever in our lives that we were nervous about being
able to pay our rent. And I will never forget
like we had some friends that were taking us out
to eat because we couldn't afford to get anything to eat. Um,
(19:52):
and this is for the month, and I remember just
being on the train every day like crying and being
like WHOA, what are we gonna do? And imagine at
but like you're still getting like we our brand has
always been getting pressed, so like imagine going through this,
but we're still getting written up by like a team
Vogue or Essence magazine, or you know, talking about Cocor
and Breezy are the next hot such and such. But
(20:14):
then here we are, like on food stamps, trying to
figure this out because we went through this huge challenge.
And so what we said was, let's take this back
to the drawing board. This is a sign, all right,
we need to actually take the time out and educate
ourselves on the real process of I wear production and design.
Let's let's figure out our quality control, Let's restructure our
(20:35):
our product line, let's restructure the business model. And we
took so much time to restructure, but we needed to
do that. So we needed that downfall because everything happened
so fast for us. As soon as we jumped into
New York. We had this celebrity wearing our glasses, that celebrity,
they were so trendy, sales, we're going here there, and
we never we never made a business plan. We never
like made a plan about how to do our product,
(20:56):
and so we needed that time to actually make a
small plan. And another thing is what I would say,
in that month where I had to go on food stamps, Um,
we also had to restructure our mindsets and create new habits,
and so we had to unlearn certain habits and change
our mindsets. So from that one month of maybeing on
food stamps just figuring out how we're gonna pay rent,
(21:17):
we were sad for a little bit, and then we're like,
you know what, let's mentally change up the mindset, figure
out like what we really want to do as a business.
And that next month we did ten thousands in sales.
And I'm so grateful for like going through that downfall.
And I would say that we like our emotional intelligence
that month was on point because again we didn't have
(21:39):
a family member to be like, hey, guys, like, can
someone spot us for rent? And I'm actually grateful for
that because it kind of like forced us to have
to figure it out that month where our sales got higher.
Ever since then we changed our mindsets, everything has just
been like on the up and up. I'm so amazed
(22:00):
by everything you're saying. You know what gave you strength
and how we're able to just proactively think I need
to shift the way I think about the world. So
we actually sat down and we were like, Okay, what
are like money generating things? What are short term goes?
What are long term goes? We realized that there was
a lot of a lot of um opportunities that we
(22:22):
were taking that didn't necessarily fit into any of those categories,
and we're wasting our time. And so once we kind
of had a better mindset of what our long term goes, where,
what money generating things were happening, what's good for the brand,
that was a huge help for a mindset. On top
of just like thinking bigger. So just imagine, if you're
(22:44):
not exposed to a lot, you have no idea how
to think bigger. So my whole dream in life was
to live in New York. Our dreams, all everything that
we dreamed of as kids, they came to life so
fast as soon as we touched down in New York,
this magazine, that celebrity. Everything have been so fast where
I'm like, oh shoot, I have to I have to
like think bigger, Like how do you think bigger? And
(23:06):
even to this day, I'm like, I feel so grateful,
I still I still have to teach myself like, Okay,
let's think even bigger. How can we think bigger? Understanding
that if you get to know because we also got
a whole bunch of nose and a bunch of people
who just didn't understand us. We also had to flip
our mindsets to be like, Okay, well that's not the
(23:28):
right partner for us, because people love I'm telling you,
people love to talk to you out of something. They
love it. Right, the advice that we're giving, like people
should still take it with a great assault because we
all have different backgrounds, different experiences, and like take pieces
of it because everyone really speaks out of like their
own experiences, and so if someone else failed, they love
(23:52):
to say like, it's gonna be hard. Of course it's
gonna nothing easy, but people say it with the negative connotation,
but like take that as a positive. So if you
tell me I can't do something, my favorite thing is
like to be wrong and then prove that I can
do it and it's not going to be overnight at all.
What you're saying also resonates with me so much because
(24:13):
when you're creative and you want to push for something new,
you know it doesn't exist, and so people are always like, oh,
that's not possible. If it was possible, it would have
been done. It's like, well, actually, no, um, most things
that were never done became possible after they were done.
So people love to say oh, it's never been done,
you can't do it, etcetera. But I think if you
have that fortitude that you guys have, which is believing
in something bigger and what I found and it's sort
(24:36):
of that feeling that you could make a difference through
your work, that you could be changing the world in
some way, and for me, like that's the dream that
keeps on getting bigger. And there's just lots of ways
that you can help change the world through your work.
And so I can just tell that you're super inspired people,
and I mean, it's it's just unbelievable what you've accomplished.
And frankly, this idea of changing your mindset, which again
(24:56):
I feel is really the key to success in anything.
If you can have that nimble mindset and interpret events
in your life and the way that you're doing that
in that positive way, even when those are negative events,
I think that is something that's pretty priceless. Yeah, it
definitely is. Thank you, Thank you. I'm really getting inspired
from talking to you, and I know anybody who hears
(25:17):
your story will be And just the day to day
of going through it um is so important because I
think we all see these kind of air brushed images
of what being an entrepreneurs like and people really only
see like the finished product and like the in staff,
but um, day to day life is not like that.
And I think you've said it so well. I kind
of love that you brought up the airbrush thing, because
(25:40):
we're so comfortable being like very transparent because we do
know that we're creating a blueprint and we unfortunately did
have their resources, and so we're very like, we're willing
to be vulnerable and we're willing to like go through
the heart times to really show people the reality of
a situation that is not overnight at all, but it's
very possible. So we're excited just to continue our transparency
(26:03):
about how it really is to be entrepreneur. You have
to have a certain level of confidence also to to
even like, like the story that we shared, like how
I had to go on food stamps from I want
people to know that because in that month that I
had to go on food stamps. It was funny because
a lot of friends around me were uncomfortable with me
telling them that, But in my head, I was like,
I want you to know my struggles right now because
(26:25):
next month is going to be on and popping, and
I want you to see how how this stuff is
about to change. And so I think it's important to
like show people the reality because I'm pumped to tell
you about my struggle because I know for a fact
that I'm guaranteed for success with this mindset. I really
believe in this, and I feel that that that is
a disservice that we do to each other, frankly, and
(26:48):
we do to the next generations, and frankly, even older generations,
because I think everybody thinks that everybody's life is all
mapped out and set up, and you know, it's so perfect,
and you you achieve something, and once you achieve it,
it's always there and and uh, it's just not like that.
And I think that's kind of not what this life
is about, right. It's not just about those highs, It's
(27:08):
about the whole journey. As you said earlier. One last
question that I have for you in this moment that
we're in right now with COVID and all those civil
unrest and this incredible reckoning that's going on. I mean,
I know a lot of businesses are struggling very very deeply,
and it's really a hard time for this for to
be a small business owner. Do you have advice for
(27:29):
for those folks who are kind of really going through
that right now? And um, how are you trying to
think about the world in this kind of fast changing
hard to predict what's going to happen environment in this time?
It can be extremely challenging, you know, like there's a
lot of small businesses, restaurants, um, companies that had to
lay off their employees. But I think the big part
is again keep rethinking what that pivot could be, because
(27:53):
it might be something extremely different because the market is
shifting so hard. Another conversation, because you know, we're talking
about women in business, but again another like topic is
black women in business right, Like we haven't for us,
we're a small company that we were fortunate to raise capital,
like we had. The fact that our company and our
sales were where they were and Breeze had to go
(28:14):
on food stamps only shows that there are issues in
our society, Like there's no reason why our company was
getting so much press and sales, but we still have
to go on food stamps, right, So I think that
it's time for us to everyone's open their eyes now
and really look at the systemic issues that are happening
in our country and think about how we can come
(28:35):
together to fix them together, because otherwise things aren't gonna
grow if we don't fix them together. But the important
part again is that we have to remember that when
when we are talking about feminism and when we are
talking about women entrepreneurs, we have to remember everybody. We
have to remember these young women like us who grew
up and were born in the projects, who did not
(28:55):
have resources, who had to have free lunch at school.
The story of someone else that grew up with privilege
might have be way different. So it's important for us
to be able to listen to all the stories and
remember these people that get left out when the act
of favonism is being talked about. You're making such an
important point on the Capitol because you know, having access
(29:16):
to any of those resources early on in your business
is so incredibly important, and it's just been so hard
to come by. I think black women received like point
zero zero six percent. I mean some it's like not percent,
it's like some ridiculous like point zero zero six percent,
and so that that's got to change. It has to change.
And we didn't do a full raise mainly met with
a few investors. We had one investor tell us, you know,
(29:38):
I would rather invest in someone that went to that
college and worked for that tech company, but he doesn't
know his UM product market fit yet. But what you
guys have done on your own is so amazing. But
I just don't feel comfortable investing. And again, if this
person would wake up and understand why we didn't go
to a certain college and why we weren't able to
(29:59):
work at a certain tech company, because when you look
at a lot of these companies, you see what their
employees and their UM, the people that are in executive seats,
you see what they look like, and they don't look
like us. Yeah, and so for us, I think now
this movement that's happening, I feel so liberated, I feel
so excited. I feel like everyone that's listening. If you
(30:20):
feel like there's something that's happening, don't be afraid to
speak out. Use your platform, even if your platform has
ten people on it. Speak out, because that's the only
way things are going to be shifted. That's the only
way we're going to make change. And I would also
say that the way that business is going to shift
as well is that it is going to be important
that you do at diversity and you are aware of
(30:44):
anti racism, and you are aware of systemic issues, and
you are aware to have more black employees, because the
way I foresee is that companies are going to survive
or they're not going to be supported the way that
the Internet is now and the customer behavior is starting
to really dissect companies that are just saying, hey, all
black lives matter, but are they really internally changing or
(31:05):
they part of the problem. And so it is important
to understand that if you have a black employee, like
we're going through a very traumatic time right now, and
if you don't have black people in leadership, then imagine
how the employee feels. So it feels really good that
people are finally listening. And I feel very confident in
(31:26):
this shift, in this change. It's not gonna be overnight,
but I'm very confident that there are going to be
some changes and if people don't get with the program,
they're gonna be left behind. I couldn't agree more. And
I mean, this is this is a moment of definite,
This is an inflection point. This is one of those real,
true historic inflection points. And I mean, we have I
think hopefully the resolve now to to actually do something.
(31:49):
And I'm really looking forward to your podcast. UM, I
think it's gonna be amazing, and the book and the movie. UM.
But thank you so much for joining us on Made
by Women and certainly UM, we hope that can kind
of be part of the part of your future and UM,
and hope that you can be part of ours. Thank
you so much for that. Oh, thank you so much.
(32:11):
I want to thank Coco and Breezy for sharing their
candid and honest story with us. Their journey is amazing
and it was so great to learn about what makes
them sweat and what gives them strength. Three things really
stick with me from our conversation. First, the twins honesty
about the path to success is so inspiring. It reminds
us that we can empower other women to succeed when
(32:31):
we openly share our struggles, necessary pivots, and even our mistakes.
Sharing the story of our whole journey on the road
to success is much more valuable to others than painting
a perfect picture, which leads me to the second point.
I love Cocoa and Breeze's perspective on getting through difficult
times and turning every experience into a useful lesson. Starting
(32:53):
a company isn't easy and life has ups and downs.
But the sooner we can recognize that tough times are
part of the journe me, the better prepared will be
to succeed in business and frankly, in life. And third,
as an entrepreneur, it's so important to be agile and
to be willing to reset one's thinking. When one of
their distributors sent back a major order, Coco and Breezy
(33:14):
realized they had to take a fresh look at the
way they were doing business. They went back to square
one and how they approached production and quality control. The
result bigger and better orders. Make sure to check out
Coco and Breezy eye wear online at Coco and Breezy
dot com and look for the new Coco and Breezy
podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Made by Women is brought to
(33:41):
you by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart
Radio with support from founding partner PNG
Welcome to Made by Women, a new podcast by the
Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio. At a
moment when businesses face some of the biggest challenges in
recent history, we bring you inspiring stories, practical insights, and
shared learnings to help you successfully navigate in today's environment.
(00:28):
Every Thursday, Made by Women will showcase the experiences of
legendary women, entrepreneurs, fierce up and comers, and everyday women
who found success their own way. Consider this your Real
world n b A designed for the new Now. I'm
Kim Azzarelli and thanks so much for joining us today.
(00:55):
From a young age, Coco and Breezy Dotson turned to
crafting and creativity to get through tough time times during
their adolescence. Today, the twin sisters run a highly successful
eyewear company that has been spotted not only on the
fashion forward, but also on the red carpet worn by
superstars like Beyonce and Lady Gaga. So how did two
sisters from humble beginnings in Minnesota build their fashion eyewar empire.
(01:19):
I was thrilled to talk with Cocoa and Breezy about
their killer style, incredible outlook on entrepreneurship and their drive
to succeed. I also talked to them about what makes
them sweat and what gives them strength. Enjoy our conversation.
Thank you both so much for joining us. We are huge,
huge fans and your product is incredible and the style
(01:41):
is unbelievable, but your story is also amazing. So thanks
for joining us. Thank you for having us. We're super
excited to be here. So uh, we've read that from
an early age both of you were creative pretty much
by birth and had your own sense of style. Can
you describe that and what it was like to grow
up in the Midwest and how your creativity was received. Um.
(02:04):
I would say growing up in the Midwest, especially being
women of color, and not only just women of color,
but being black women in Minnesota, not only did we
get bullied for having eclectic styles, but we also got
bullied for being black. And I think if we didn't
have such supportive parents, it would have been a very
tough time for us as kids. And something that we're
(02:27):
really grateful for is that even though our parents couldn't
necessarily financially support us, they they support us emotionally like
so well, because they really pushed us to show our
individual styles, and they pushed us to really understand the
meaning of being an individualist. And so I'm really grateful
(02:48):
for that. And I think that since I did have
a twin sister who we kind of shared that same
vision that we are going to do something or we're
always going to push the needo. And I think when
you grow up with not a lot of reas horses,
you like create your own resources and you create your
own world. So if you're in a world where you
feel like you're not accepted, on top of in a
world where you may not be in a financial place
(03:11):
to get what everyone else has, you're almost like forced
to be creative. And I'm very grateful for the way
that we grew up because it made us the entrepreneurs
that we are today. By the time you got to
that point in in middle school, you were able to
sort of just let out your creativity more publicly, and
that must have been very free. It was very free
(03:34):
because I mean we got really good grades. As long
as we got good grades, we were able to do
anything we wanted. And I think because our parents did
give us freedom to be creative and they didn't put
their hard ways on us, we were very obedient kids,
and so we knew that if we broke their trust
with being free, they would take it away from us.
And so we were. You know, our mom let us
(03:55):
pierce our nose when we were thirteen. Um, she let
us cut our hair really short when we were like twelve.
She let us cover our hair pink and red and
blue in middle school, and our mom and dad were
both with it, you know. And I think the reason
why they let us do that is because they're like,
are we gonna hold back these young ladies that want
to express themselves because we're afraid of what the world
(04:17):
is going to think of them? Or do we let
them express themselves and they're getting good grades, Maybe they're
able to think better and good get good grades because
they don't feel trapped. I mean, we used to walk
around and people would just stare at us, and it
was very hard for us. But I think fortunately, since
we are twins, we had each other and it was
(04:38):
very challenging and difficult. But I feel so grateful that,
you know, our parents let us have pink hair and
have our nose pierced when we were so young, because
that was our way of expressing ourselves. Honestly, I feel
like we have the best parents in the world. First
of all, they killed it with co parenting, and secondly
(05:00):
they killed it with like raising creative kids. So then
you came to New York City and I grew up
in the East Village. I grew up with people who
had pink hair and all the things that were so
different in the Midwest. What brought you to New York
and how did you feel when you arrived? So what
brought us to New York first was I think we
first got introduced to like the New York style from
(05:22):
like looking at magazines and being like, oh wow, that's
in New York. But what really brought our interest was, um,
you know, back in the day, we had a MySpace
page and my Space was the jam back then. You know,
in Minnesota, we didn't have a lot of friends, but
on MySpace we had friends. Right, We had like fifty
plus followers, and my parents thought it was so weird.
(05:42):
So we're like sixteen years old with this huge MySpace following,
and most people were in New York and they looked
like us, like their styles were eclectic, and so it
was all people on in New York and so we
were like hold on, there are more people like us
out in the world, and so we act. I think
we were about seventeen, and we backed our parents. We said,
(06:06):
can we please go to New York with our friends?
Mind you, we're seventeen, but we're like, we have friends,
Our friends are eighteen, they're adults, like, please let us go,
and they let us go. We were seventeen years old.
Interpret it in context. We've been financially on our own
since we're fifteen. So our parents knew that we were
a different type of responsible at seventeen because at that
time we had already been working, Like by the time
(06:28):
we were seventeen, we were working three jobs each. So
they almost couldn't say no. They're like, okay, these girls
pay their car note, pay their cell phone bill, go
to work three jobs each at seventeen. Of course you
can go to New York with your friends. Wow. That's
so we went to New York and we just kicked it.
We actually graduated high school early, so that's why we
were able to do that. We graduated November of our
(06:50):
senior year with extra credits, so we had time and
we you know, we were able to take off work.
And so when we first step foot in New York,
our whole lives changed. And then on our nineteenth birth a,
we were like, you know what, let's spend a couple
of weeks in New York to see how it really
feels like to live here. And so, you know, when
you get that feeling in your gut, you get this
(07:10):
gut feeling that it's so rare. This one particular trip,
we had this gut feeling that said, you know what,
move right now. And it's weird because I have I
rarely get those gut feelings. It's so important to listen
to your intuition because your intuition does not lie. And
so at this moment, we had this feeling of being like,
we have to move here. So that last trip, we
(07:32):
went back home packed our bags. We said, mom, Dad,
we're gonna move in two weeks and they're like, what
how much money do you have? Said, we're like like
five d each. But you know, we've been working in
retail and restaurant for like, you know, not even a
real restaurant. We're working at like a fast food spot.
We've been doing that for like so many years. So
we have a good resumes on top of that, Cocoa.
We had applied to go to college, and so on
(07:53):
top of tell them we're moving to New York, we
had to also tell them that college it wasn't for
us as well. We had everything set up and we
had to pretty much cancel all of that because we
went with our intuition. I remember the person who had
to cancel with he was trying to like tell us
that it was a bad idea. But at that moment,
I had this feeling that I felt like if I
(08:14):
would have waited three or four years later, we wouldn't
be where we are right now at all. That's so
important that you listen to your gut you're able to
hear it. I mean, sometimes other people can sort of
talk you out of what you know is the right
thing for you. And I think one thing we learned
is that people always talked us out. I had some
of my friend's parents say, like, what do you You
guys are crazy? How are you going to move to
New York. We weren't when we went to in high
(08:36):
school when people are doing all the bad stuff. Even
though we looked like rock stars, we weren't rock stars.
Like our outside looks like rock stars, but our actions
weren't rock star movements at all, you know, and so
um people could never persuade us and we were never
peer pressured. And so even when people would like say
you're crazy, We're like, we're still gonna do it. And
my parents kept saying like, if it does not work out,
(08:58):
you can just always come back home, and that was
always a comfort to be like, Okay, we can come back, calm,
but we're gonna make it work somehow, some way. When
did you decide that you wanted to start your own company?
You knew about money and responsibility, and you were willing
to take that risk and move all the way to
New York, as you said, with like no financial backing.
But when did you decide that you wanted to start
a business, and specifically, when did you decide that you
(09:21):
wanted to be an eyewear So I would say that
ever since I was in third grade, the idea of
being an entrepreneur came up, and I remember asking, like,
how do you spell entrepreneur? And to be honest, I
have no idea where that even came from. We've come
from super super humble beginnings, and so I never had
(09:43):
a family member that like worked in corporate, So I
never even knew like what a corporate experience was at all,
but yeah, that Phail would be an entrepreneur and being
our own bosses has been something that has internally been
inside of us. I think since we were born. I
would say that what really inspired us to actually being
(10:03):
eyewear is from being bullied. That's what inspired I left
for I Wear, so Cocoa and I when we were
in Minnesota getting like the crazy stairs, and back then
we were like, if you look at our old photos,
we were super like punk, like mohawks, you know, black boots,
all black, black lipstick. Like Coco said, we were rock stars.
That caused us to be bullied and people would stare
(10:25):
at us, point at us, and we were so from
the outside we looked so confident, but internally we were
torn to pieces. And we would buy like cheap sunglasses
to kind of give us this level of confidence. And
then we started making our own glasses. It was very
d I y and with us posting them on my Space,
(10:46):
people are like, oh my gosh, where can I buy those?
And then that trip that Coco told you about of
us coming to New York, people were like, I need
those glasses, and so that gave us a confidence to
be like, okay, cool, like we can make this into
a business. Mind you, we had no business experience. No
one's had like a really big business in our in
our family. It was all like internally that we I
(11:10):
don't know, we just had this feeling. We're like, okay,
we're gonna start this and we'll figure it out. But
one thing that we did always have is that we
had tenacity. We have something in us where we can
go through, like quote unquote a really bad situation. But
the way that we look at life, and we've been
we started practicing this since we were kids. Our way
of life is that any situation you go through, you
(11:32):
make it your own. So if it's a quote unquote
bad situation, the way that we look at it is
that it's just part of the story and it's part
of the journey. So we try to take everything at ease.
So going through I call it the roller coaster effect,
going through the ups and the downs, where if something
tragic happens to your life, something bad happens, how can
(11:52):
we use that as a learning curve? And I know
that that's a huge part of being an entrepreneur is. Yeah,
we may not have a college degree. Yeah, we may
not come from money. At that time, we had no
idea how to run in business. But what we did
have was we had the figure that ish out. Like
we knew how to figure some stuff out, and we
were amazing problem solvers and we were amazing like make
(12:16):
a mistake, and we love figuring stuff out. What you
just said really resonated with me was the fact your
your philosophy of life and the way that you think
about life and you think about the ups and downs
as a journey and the lessons you can get from
it um as opposed to sort of some people get
really devastated when we know that life is going to
have ups and downs. So the fact that you were
(12:36):
able to come to that type of philosophy so early
in your life, do you think that had helped you
and gave you a big advantage. I definitely think that
gave us a huge advantage. And I also think that
we just grew up with a lot of adversities and
so we kind of um taught ourselves that at an
early age. And I do think that you do have
to have some of those traits because it's not as
(12:58):
easy and fun as you think, but it is fun
once you like grow that emotional intelligence and the understanding
that you're gonna go through so many roller coasters and
it's okay. I always say, whenever we go through something,
I'm like, this is just part of the book in
the movie. Like everything everything we do, it's part of
the book and it's part of the movie. I'm like,
I swear in like twenty years there's gonna be a
(13:20):
We're gonna have a book and then there will be
a movie about our story. Like that's that's what keeps
me motivated. And I'm like, we're just really like creating
a blueprint for other people and that's the goal. But
I really do think that um keeping that mindset has
been extremely helpful because you go through all these up
times and then you also go through downtimes, and literally
(13:40):
it's a really big roller coaster. You think when you're
going up, that's gonna stay up, but then you go down.
But you know, it's so important that you have to
have those down times because how do you learn? And
so each time you have that up time, something's gonna
happen and you have to learn from that mistake. And
then keep going because otherwise there was a point in
our lives where everything kept going up, up and up,
(14:01):
and then it crashed, right and then we had in
that crash was beautiful because we had to reshift our
full business model and make a huge pivot, and then
we started growing again. So I think that being aware
that that's going to happen, and being aware to look
at the minute things that are happening when you have
that downtime is very important. I'm so glad you're bringing
this up because I think that this is really an
(14:24):
important nugget for anybody in business but also in life.
It's just to expose the reality of life, and the
reality of business is not just one long happy face,
not just one big happy emoji, but that there are
all of us are going through ups and downs and
everything has hardship and no one is spared from that.
And you know it's different for different people at different times,
but business in particular, especially right now in this economy
(14:46):
and what we're all going through, it's going to be very,
very tough. But if you can embrace it as you're
sort of suggesting, and look at it as a learning
opportunity and not be surprised. Um, that's such a huge
piece of advice that you're giving people. I think that's
that's one of the most important things I think we
can share with people. What in this particular moment of
this incredible up people that we're going through in the world.
(15:08):
You know, how do you how do you think about
pivoting when when you have to pivot in your business?
How have you dealt with that? You know, in the beginning,
we actually I would say our first big pivot because
the way we started was very scrappy, like it's whatever
is scrappier than scrappy. That's how we started. Was very
d i y and like what we what we made,
Like the glasses that we made were like you know,
(15:29):
we're buying safety goggles, glue and studs and spikes on them.
They were such a fat and then as fast as
they were hot, were as fast as they weren't hot.
So that was a challenging moment for us because we
knew nothing about actually like you know, producing and designing
real eye wear. We knew nothing about how to source
the factory. We didn't have the funds like which we
(15:49):
had like a little bit but not really a lot
because again we're self funded and still self funded to date.
For our pivots, which we've had so many of them. Um,
it was really just like listening, taking advice, seeing when
we have our downfalls, and understanding how do we like
go to this next this next step. And I think
the in the beginning, our brand was very niche. It
(16:11):
was it was really about us, So we were just
making glasses that we would wear. And then we have
to say, like, how do we create a product that
everyone can wear where we don't have to be the
faces of it, it's not only about us, and so
that was a huge pivot. But I think pivots are
beautiful because you kind of realize them once you go
through a quote unquote downtime. But it's not really a downtime.
(16:32):
It's just a challenge and it just means that you
need shift because one business model is not going to
work from start to finish. Like you're always gonna make
changes and you have to be open and not afraid
to make those changes. And that's why I always tell
people because I think when people first start a business,
they have such an idea, like they come up with
this master plan, and I think where people fail is
(16:54):
that they get so stuck on the master plan that
they don't give theirselves room to make changes as they
Oh so I always tell people like, you might have
a plan A, but like it won't your plan E
might be the one that's like the winner. And so
it's important to be open so test things that would
be like Okay, cool, I have this plan, but this
didn't work. Let me try a little something different. So
(17:17):
it's very important to be flexible with your plans. Is
there anything that has really been so tough that it's
really made you sweat? Like, there's one where you just
said that was we didn't think we'd get through it.
Is there's something that you can point to? Yeah, So
there was one time where we got a really big
order from distributor in Korea and they placed a huge
(17:41):
order and at this time we were still new to
like production supply chain and all of that, since we
have been self funded. When we got this huge order,
we didn't we didn't have the funds to produce it,
and so we went to a front of ours. We
were like, hey, we have this list of orders from
this distributor. He won on this money just enough for
the production and we're shipping it out in three months,
(18:02):
so we'll pay you all the way back. Because it
wasn't really it wasn't an investment. It was a quick
loan because we knew that we had orders that that
we're going to get purchased. And I think this order
like almost a fifty order that we would have received,
and I think the production was maybe like twenty or
twenty thousand or something or again, we were still new
(18:23):
to production and so we didn't really know the full
process of eyewear. And so once the product got shipped
to the distributors, they emailed us and they go, Hi,
we would like to return all the product because there
are too many damages. And I remember getting that email
and I called Breezy. Then we call our co founder Dwyane,
(18:48):
and we're pretty like even in like our personalities are
very chill, so you know, we're not the ones to
be like, oh my gosh, like what we're gonna do? Like,
we're not those people were like, hey, did you get
that email? Yeah? I got that mail? You know, did
you get it too? Okay, so what's next, y'all? Like,
let's thought about this, what we're gonna do? All right,
let's just receive this product and let's do a sample
(19:09):
sale should I get rid of it. Let's be extremely
honest with our friend who loaned us money and tell
her exactly what happened. And so for us, we were like,
let's be super upfront and let her know what happened,
because this is what it is, right, And so we said, hey,
you know, the product got returned, and so we had
to like do a sample sale, try to sell the product,
(19:31):
and Breezie had to go on food stamps for a
little bit because we didn't really have money coming in
and I didn't get accepted. This was the first time
ever in our lives that we were nervous about being
able to pay our rent. And I will never forget
like we had some friends that were taking us out
to eat because we couldn't afford to get anything to eat. Um,
(19:52):
and this is for the month, and I remember just
being on the train every day like crying and being
like WHOA, what are we gonna do? And imagine at
but like you're still getting like we our brand has
always been getting pressed, so like imagine going through this,
but we're still getting written up by like a team
Vogue or Essence magazine, or you know, talking about Cocor
and Breezy are the next hot such and such. But
(20:14):
then here we are, like on food stamps, trying to
figure this out because we went through this huge challenge.
And so what we said was, let's take this back
to the drawing board. This is a sign, all right,
we need to actually take the time out and educate
ourselves on the real process of I wear production and design.
Let's let's figure out our quality control, Let's restructure our
(20:35):
our product line, let's restructure the business model. And we
took so much time to restructure, but we needed to
do that. So we needed that downfall because everything happened
so fast for us. As soon as we jumped into
New York. We had this celebrity wearing our glasses, that celebrity,
they were so trendy, sales, we're going here there, and
we never we never made a business plan. We never
like made a plan about how to do our product,
(20:56):
and so we needed that time to actually make a
small plan. And another thing is what I would say,
in that month where I had to go on food stamps, Um,
we also had to restructure our mindsets and create new habits,
and so we had to unlearn certain habits and change
our mindsets. So from that one month of maybeing on
food stamps just figuring out how we're gonna pay rent,
(21:17):
we were sad for a little bit, and then we're like,
you know what, let's mentally change up the mindset, figure
out like what we really want to do as a business.
And that next month we did ten thousands in sales.
And I'm so grateful for like going through that downfall.
And I would say that we like our emotional intelligence
that month was on point because again we didn't have
(21:39):
a family member to be like, hey, guys, like, can
someone spot us for rent? And I'm actually grateful for
that because it kind of like forced us to have
to figure it out that month where our sales got higher.
Ever since then we changed our mindsets, everything has just
been like on the up and up. I'm so amazed
(22:00):
by everything you're saying. You know what gave you strength
and how we're able to just proactively think I need
to shift the way I think about the world. So
we actually sat down and we were like, Okay, what
are like money generating things? What are short term goes?
What are long term goes? We realized that there was
a lot of a lot of um opportunities that we
(22:22):
were taking that didn't necessarily fit into any of those categories,
and we're wasting our time. And so once we kind
of had a better mindset of what our long term goes, where,
what money generating things were happening, what's good for the brand,
that was a huge help for a mindset. On top
of just like thinking bigger. So just imagine, if you're
(22:44):
not exposed to a lot, you have no idea how
to think bigger. So my whole dream in life was
to live in New York. Our dreams, all everything that
we dreamed of as kids, they came to life so
fast as soon as we touched down in New York,
this magazine, that celebrity. Everything have been so fast where
I'm like, oh shoot, I have to I have to
like think bigger, Like how do you think bigger? And
(23:06):
even to this day, I'm like, I feel so grateful,
I still I still have to teach myself like, Okay,
let's think even bigger. How can we think bigger? Understanding
that if you get to know because we also got
a whole bunch of nose and a bunch of people
who just didn't understand us. We also had to flip
our mindsets to be like, Okay, well that's not the
(23:28):
right partner for us, because people love I'm telling you,
people love to talk to you out of something. They
love it. Right, the advice that we're giving, like people
should still take it with a great assault because we
all have different backgrounds, different experiences, and like take pieces
of it because everyone really speaks out of like their
own experiences, and so if someone else failed, they love
(23:52):
to say like, it's gonna be hard. Of course it's
gonna nothing easy, but people say it with the negative connotation,
but like take that as a positive. So if you
tell me I can't do something, my favorite thing is
like to be wrong and then prove that I can
do it and it's not going to be overnight at all.
What you're saying also resonates with me so much because
(24:13):
when you're creative and you want to push for something new,
you know it doesn't exist, and so people are always like, oh,
that's not possible. If it was possible, it would have
been done. It's like, well, actually, no, um, most things
that were never done became possible after they were done.
So people love to say oh, it's never been done,
you can't do it, etcetera. But I think if you
have that fortitude that you guys have, which is believing
in something bigger and what I found and it's sort
(24:36):
of that feeling that you could make a difference through
your work, that you could be changing the world in
some way, and for me, like that's the dream that
keeps on getting bigger. And there's just lots of ways
that you can help change the world through your work.
And so I can just tell that you're super inspired people,
and I mean, it's it's just unbelievable what you've accomplished.
And frankly, this idea of changing your mindset, which again
(24:56):
I feel is really the key to success in anything.
If you can have that nimble mindset and interpret events
in your life and the way that you're doing that
in that positive way, even when those are negative events,
I think that is something that's pretty priceless. Yeah, it
definitely is. Thank you, Thank you. I'm really getting inspired
from talking to you, and I know anybody who hears
(25:17):
your story will be And just the day to day
of going through it um is so important because I
think we all see these kind of air brushed images
of what being an entrepreneurs like and people really only
see like the finished product and like the in staff,
but um, day to day life is not like that.
And I think you've said it so well. I kind
of love that you brought up the airbrush thing, because
(25:40):
we're so comfortable being like very transparent because we do
know that we're creating a blueprint and we unfortunately did
have their resources, and so we're very like, we're willing
to be vulnerable and we're willing to like go through
the heart times to really show people the reality of
a situation that is not overnight at all, but it's
very possible. So we're excited just to continue our transparency
(26:03):
about how it really is to be entrepreneur. You have
to have a certain level of confidence also to to
even like, like the story that we shared, like how
I had to go on food stamps from I want
people to know that because in that month that I
had to go on food stamps. It was funny because
a lot of friends around me were uncomfortable with me
telling them that, But in my head, I was like,
I want you to know my struggles right now because
(26:25):
next month is going to be on and popping, and
I want you to see how how this stuff is
about to change. And so I think it's important to
like show people the reality because I'm pumped to tell
you about my struggle because I know for a fact
that I'm guaranteed for success with this mindset. I really
believe in this, and I feel that that that is
a disservice that we do to each other, frankly, and
(26:48):
we do to the next generations, and frankly, even older generations,
because I think everybody thinks that everybody's life is all
mapped out and set up, and you know, it's so perfect,
and you you achieve something, and once you achieve it,
it's always there and and uh, it's just not like that.
And I think that's kind of not what this life
is about, right. It's not just about those highs, It's
(27:08):
about the whole journey. As you said earlier. One last
question that I have for you in this moment that
we're in right now with COVID and all those civil
unrest and this incredible reckoning that's going on. I mean,
I know a lot of businesses are struggling very very deeply,
and it's really a hard time for this for to
be a small business owner. Do you have advice for
(27:29):
for those folks who are kind of really going through
that right now? And um, how are you trying to
think about the world in this kind of fast changing
hard to predict what's going to happen environment in this time?
It can be extremely challenging, you know, like there's a
lot of small businesses, restaurants, um, companies that had to
lay off their employees. But I think the big part
is again keep rethinking what that pivot could be, because
(27:53):
it might be something extremely different because the market is
shifting so hard. Another conversation, because you know, we're talking
about women in business, but again another like topic is
black women in business right, Like we haven't for us,
we're a small company that we were fortunate to raise capital,
like we had. The fact that our company and our
sales were where they were and Breeze had to go
(28:14):
on food stamps only shows that there are issues in
our society, Like there's no reason why our company was
getting so much press and sales, but we still have
to go on food stamps, right, So I think that
it's time for us to everyone's open their eyes now
and really look at the systemic issues that are happening
in our country and think about how we can come
(28:35):
together to fix them together, because otherwise things aren't gonna
grow if we don't fix them together. But the important
part again is that we have to remember that when
when we are talking about feminism and when we are
talking about women entrepreneurs, we have to remember everybody. We
have to remember these young women like us who grew
up and were born in the projects, who did not
(28:55):
have resources, who had to have free lunch at school.
The story of someone else that grew up with privilege
might have be way different. So it's important for us
to be able to listen to all the stories and
remember these people that get left out when the act
of favonism is being talked about. You're making such an
important point on the Capitol because you know, having access
(29:16):
to any of those resources early on in your business
is so incredibly important, and it's just been so hard
to come by. I think black women received like point
zero zero six percent. I mean some it's like not percent,
it's like some ridiculous like point zero zero six percent,
and so that that's got to change. It has to change.
And we didn't do a full raise mainly met with
a few investors. We had one investor tell us, you know,
(29:38):
I would rather invest in someone that went to that
college and worked for that tech company, but he doesn't
know his UM product market fit yet. But what you
guys have done on your own is so amazing. But
I just don't feel comfortable investing. And again, if this
person would wake up and understand why we didn't go
to a certain college and why we weren't able to
(29:59):
work at a certain tech company, because when you look
at a lot of these companies, you see what their
employees and their UM, the people that are in executive seats,
you see what they look like, and they don't look
like us. Yeah, and so for us, I think now
this movement that's happening, I feel so liberated, I feel
so excited. I feel like everyone that's listening. If you
(30:20):
feel like there's something that's happening, don't be afraid to
speak out. Use your platform, even if your platform has
ten people on it. Speak out, because that's the only
way things are going to be shifted. That's the only
way we're going to make change. And I would also
say that the way that business is going to shift
as well is that it is going to be important
that you do at diversity and you are aware of
(30:44):
anti racism, and you are aware of systemic issues, and
you are aware to have more black employees, because the
way I foresee is that companies are going to survive
or they're not going to be supported the way that
the Internet is now and the customer behavior is starting
to really dissect companies that are just saying, hey, all
black lives matter, but are they really internally changing or
(31:05):
they part of the problem. And so it is important
to understand that if you have a black employee, like
we're going through a very traumatic time right now, and
if you don't have black people in leadership, then imagine
how the employee feels. So it feels really good that
people are finally listening. And I feel very confident in
(31:26):
this shift, in this change. It's not gonna be overnight,
but I'm very confident that there are going to be
some changes and if people don't get with the program,
they're gonna be left behind. I couldn't agree more. And
I mean, this is this is a moment of definite,
This is an inflection point. This is one of those real,
true historic inflection points. And I mean, we have I
think hopefully the resolve now to to actually do something.
(31:49):
And I'm really looking forward to your podcast. UM, I
think it's gonna be amazing, and the book and the movie. UM.
But thank you so much for joining us on Made
by Women and certainly UM, we hope that can kind
of be part of the part of your future and UM,
and hope that you can be part of ours. Thank
you so much for that. Oh, thank you so much.
(32:11):
I want to thank Coco and Breezy for sharing their
candid and honest story with us. Their journey is amazing
and it was so great to learn about what makes
them sweat and what gives them strength. Three things really
stick with me from our conversation. First, the twins honesty
about the path to success is so inspiring. It reminds
us that we can empower other women to succeed when
(32:31):
we openly share our struggles, necessary pivots, and even our mistakes.
Sharing the story of our whole journey on the road
to success is much more valuable to others than painting
a perfect picture, which leads me to the second point.
I love Cocoa and Breeze's perspective on getting through difficult
times and turning every experience into a useful lesson. Starting
(32:53):
a company isn't easy and life has ups and downs.
But the sooner we can recognize that tough times are
part of the journe me, the better prepared will be
to succeed in business and frankly, in life. And third,
as an entrepreneur, it's so important to be agile and
to be willing to reset one's thinking. When one of
their distributors sent back a major order, Coco and Breezy
(33:14):
realized they had to take a fresh look at the
way they were doing business. They went back to square
one and how they approached production and quality control. The
result bigger and better orders. Make sure to check out
Coco and Breezy eye wear online at Coco and Breezy
dot com and look for the new Coco and Breezy
podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Made by Women is brought to
(33:41):
you by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart
Radio with support from founding partner PNG
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