February 7, 2022 • 22 mins
Claire is the CEO and Founder of Fashion Bomb Daily, a direct-to-consumer fashion company that leverages content and community to power a multicultural shopping experience. Her pioneering work ushered in a new wave of digital journalism and e-commerce that fed and fueled an under-served community of African-American and Latino style lovers wanting to know more about brand from the culture.
Beyond developing and directing content for FashionBomb Daily and its affiliate sites, Sulmers has done extensive style writing for other platforms, including Vogue Italia, Vogue Paris, and ESSENCE Magazine.
In 15 years, she has accumulated over 2 million followers, written a book “The Bomb Life”, and now Leads a Team of 20 for Fashion Bomb Daily's media, e-commerce, marketing, and event platforms.
Claire sits in to tell us how blogging got her foot into the fashion industry and helped launch her business.
She shares how to turn your creative passions into a career. Claire shares How she uses her platform to uplift and gives black and brown designers awareness. Also, the importance of serving the community you are trying to build.
if you ever wanted to discover different ways to monetize your blog, this episode is for you
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Guest IG: @clairesulmers
Business IG : @fashionbombdaily
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Hey money Movers, Welcome
to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood. Our next
(00:22):
guest is the CEO and founder of Fashion Bomb Daily,
a direct to consumer fashion company that leverages content and
community to power a multicultural shopping experience. Her pioneering work
ushered in a new wave of digital journalism and e
commerce that fed and fueled an underserved community of African,
American and Latino fashion style mavens wanting to know more
(00:45):
about brands and where they could shop and buy the
hottest new fashions. Beyond developing and directing content for fashion
Bomb Daily and its affiliate sites, Claire Summers has done
extensive style writing for other platforms including Vogue It, Talia,
Vogue Paris, and of course, Essence Magazine. In the fifteen
years she's been in the industry, she's accumulated over two
(01:07):
million followers, written a book entitled The Bomb Life, and
now leads a team of over twenty people for Fashion
Bomb Daily's media, e commerce, marketing and event platforms. Money Movers,
please welcome to the platform. Claire Summers. Hey, Hi Grea.
How are you. I'm great? How are you? I am wonderful.
(01:31):
First of all, hello to your fabulous self. I love
to see you, love to see you, and I am
a huge fan of all things Fashion Bomb Daily. I'm
just gonna give my own shameless, gratuitous plug that the
day Claire Summers posted me on Fashion Bomb Daily, I
felt like I had died and gone to fashion Heaven.
It was such an honor, in such a privilege. So
(01:53):
I'm just super proud to have you on the show today.
Thank you. And you know we love We recognized all
you know real, recognized as real. So you have amazing style.
We love it. We started covering you when you were
first on TV and so continue too. So just love
it and really happy to be here. Oh my gosh,
it is so great to have you here, and I
(02:14):
want to sort of start back if you could briefly
learn walk us through your story how you got your
start in journalism and how you launched into creating your
own blog site. Yes, so, I graduated from Harvard in
two thousand three wanting to just make a positive change
in the media industry. I didn't see enough positive representations
of black women in TV and media in general, and
(02:36):
I actually wanted to go into TV first, but that
just didn't work out for me, so I went back
home to Atlanta. I was just kind of hanging out
and I was in Cogra. One day I saw Upscale
magazine on the newsstand and sent in my resume and
cover letter because I figured that the written word is
just as powerful as the spoken word. Sent in my
(02:57):
resume cover letter, went in. Wanted to write about politics
or news or something super cerebral. That we had no
fashion department, and that's really where my journey began. Um.
I found out I had a knack for writing. Started
off writing captions, went on to writing cover stories, and
got the journalism bug. Moved to New York, did a
(03:17):
bunch of internships in New York and Newsweek. Ended up
as a researcher reporter at Real Simple Magazine, which is
not where I wanted to be. I wanted to work
at Vogue. I wanted to be annointour on Julean Tally,
but just was not finding not finding my outlet, and
kept hearing rejection after rejection. So I ultimately started fashion
bonb Daily as an outlet for my love of fashion
(03:39):
and writing, and uh, fifteen years later, here we are. Wow. Okay,
so what here did you faild? Fashion bon Daily? I
founded it in two thousand eight, So this is I'm sorry,
but this is the early days of blogs and writing
about fashion and stuff like I feel like it. You know,
there wasn't a lot that we're now. I think everybody
(03:59):
has a but you probably put in your time. Yeah.
I came out when you know, there was Young Black
and Fabulous was the biggest blog, and we have Cake
and ice Cream and Concrete Loop and Fantastical. I really
came out at the forefront of blogging, and I thought
it was just going to be a hobby, a resume
builder that would help me get into the door at Vogue,
(04:22):
something that could show my writing capabilities. But just how
the media evolved and how everybody started to go digital,
it eventually became a business and then I was able
to do it full time. So I've been a full
time I used to call myself a blogger and now
I call myself the CEO and founder. But I've been
doing this full time since. And so what was the
(04:44):
point that you realized that Okay, there is money in this.
I can actually build a viable business out of, you know,
creating this blogs and building the site out. So I
just said my research. So part of my story is
I was working as a researcher, reporter overlooked undervalue, and
I decided to quit my job and moved to Paris.
And I did this because I made actually majored in
(05:06):
French and African American studies at Harvard. Always wanted to
live in Paris and always thought, Okay, Paris is the
home of fashion. Let let me just move there and
see what I can do. So I eventually I spent
two years in Paris, and I eventually got an internship
at Paris Bogue. But in the meantime, in between time,
I had all this time to blog. I wasn't making
(05:27):
any money, but I started researching how to make money
from blogging. And so with all this free time, I
looked at pro blogger. I looked at this man his
name was Yarrow Staric, and figured out that you can
sell your sidebar advertising um. And I also learned about
ad agencies. I joined an ad agency. So long story short,
(05:50):
through my own personal research, through aligning myself with within
a blogger ad agency. By the end of my time
in Paris, I was making enough money where I could
just live from blogging full time. Wow. I love this.
I love this because I feel like there's so many
people in our audience who are talented writers. They've got
journalism degrees, and they're trying to sort of navigate this
(06:11):
industry of like following their passion of you know, whether
it's in fashion or other industries, but how to make
a business out of blogging and things that they love.
And you've been on this trajectory for a very very
long time and you've had many ups, downs, um, all
sorts of downs. But one thing I can say for
people who want to make money from a creative field
(06:34):
is that you really have to be focused and intentional.
You can't just sit there and write and the money
will come. I think obviously the first step is to
have a passion for it, to be persistent and consistent.
Me about dated Fashion, I have updated fashion Badlie probably
every single day since I started, and if it's not me,
then it's somebody from my team. But creating this really
(06:56):
great product, adhering to a standard of excellence so that
you get a grounds full of people who are interested
in what you're doing, and then you have to just Okay,
how can I make money from this? Okay? Can I
Can I be an influencer? Now it's influencing? Can I
sell ads on my Instagram page? If I do, then
how do I price this? How? How can people pay me?
(07:19):
How can I make it easy for for them to
do this? And something that I love about advertising on
Fashion bon Daily not only is it affordable, it's not cheap.
It's affordable. I think everybody can afford to advertise with
Fashion bon Daily, but we we make it so easy.
You just click a link to PayPal or click link
to cash app, or it's so easy for us to
(07:40):
make not make the money's it's hard, obviously, but it's
easy for us to we make the transaction. You make
it easy for us to advertise with you, right, And
that's not the case for all all websites. If you
approach them, they have either their prices too high, or
they don't accept this type of ad or what's it for?
And it's like no anything outside from nudity or like
(08:03):
curse words or something. Each stream explicit will give you
a shot to to advertise with us, and these are
just one of the few things that we do in
order to bring in Wow. I love that. Okay, so
let's talk about building a business. You know, number one,
you you started off as a blog. You started off also,
you know, providing this sort of I don't want to
call it a niche, but being able to showcase, you know,
(08:24):
fashion Maven's what they were wearing, and providing this idea
of like where can I get this? Because I think
this at the time that was kind of unique m
and then I think it's it's still unique. You've got
a lot of media platforms they want to act as
the dictator, the judge and jury. Sometimes even on I
won't even say name, but on a big glossy magazine
(08:47):
they won't allow comments, and we allow comments. I read comments,
I react to the comments are the best part. Comments
are the best part. And I'm in the d n S.
We have this big feature. We used to call it
l bombs, now we call it you ask me answer.
But we have our ears to the ground of what
people want and if they want to know about something,
if we can find it, then we do provide it
(09:09):
to them. And I think it's so important to be
in touch with your consumer and know what they want
and be a servant. You know, you you can only
get rich by enriching the lives of others. That's one
of my favorite quotes. And I really want to make
sure that we maintain that that we are serving everybody
who follows us. No matter how big we get, we are,
(09:30):
we are we are a servant to style. So how
man you use sort of technology to leverage your business?
Because number one, you said you're talking about making it
easy for people to buy ads, but also you know,
how do you find these fashion pieces? Like how have
you put sort of technology on the back end of
this to you know, create a bigger brand for business?
(09:52):
So we do. We do have an app. It's available
on the app store fashion bomb Daily dot com and
that's what we're using now. If people want to submit
wardrobe inquiry, then they can go through our app. The
app is a one dollar download. With some people, they
might bristle ate that, but it's like, we work so
hard at what we do, and we also have develop
(10:12):
these relationships with stylists and with celebrities over the year
to the over the years to the point where we
can d M them and we'll get an answer, and
so we have to understand that there's value and what
we were doing. Obviously, for me, I want to give
everything away for free. That's how I am. I'm just
passionate about it and I love it so much I
would do it for free. And I think that's another
important part of running a business. You you love it,
(10:35):
what you would do it in your sleep, you would
do it on vacation, you do it on holidays. And
I've done all I've done all of the above. But
at a certain point you have to understand when you
have when you have value and attaching a value to
what you're doing, and being unabashed about asking for for
for value, back for for your work. You can't work
(10:56):
for free all of your life. And I refuse, no, absolutely,
And I think this is a conversation we need to
have because you know, honestly, sometimes for black women, you know,
it's the question of like, Okay, should I charge for this?
What do I charge? How do I know? And you know,
even you talked about this with your ads, You're like,
they're not cheap, but they're affordable. Some people might charge more,
but like we want to provide something that's affordable, but
(11:17):
there's so much value in it, and I don't think
we should be ashamed to ask for that. One dollar
to download an app is nothing people saying, and you
would be surprised at the pushback we get for that.
And these are people asking for items that cost a
thousand dollars another dollar and it's a it's a one
time fee and then you can ask us as many
(11:37):
questions as you want to, and we do have people
who ask us questions all the time. But that's just
one way that that we monetize it. And one one
more note about working for free. I worked for free
when I first started. My first internship was unpaid. My
second internship I made minimum wage. Like I have paid
my dude. Certain point, you're like, I've paid my dues
(11:59):
and now and asking for what I'm worth and and
that's really the level that we're at today. I love that.
Can you talk about some more ways that you have
found to monetize having your blog? You talked about ads
in the sidebar. Are there other ways that you've discovered
that have been helpful in creating revenue? Yes, of course,
and Instagram advertising sponsorship, working with with different brands for example,
(12:23):
We just had our first fashion show, which is another
big thing events. What we had our first fashion show
is during fashion week, we charge people to to come
and that's also something that's a little bit revolutionary. With
most fashion shows, you can't even pay to get in there, right,
so even if you have decades of experience, you cannot
(12:44):
get an invitation. And so we're making it accessible and
that you can purchase it, purchase a ticket to come,
and then we work with great sponsors. We had Shame
Moisture who was a wonderful sponsor, also Bombay Sapphire. I
could go on with the wonderful sponsors we have. In addition,
if somebody wants to dress me, almost in every Instagram
(13:04):
post that I say, not all, because you know it
can get a little bit redundant, but I offer the
option if you want me to where you're clothing, then
you can and and four fee you know everything, you
know you have to be able to figure out how
many ways different ways can I monetize what I'm doing.
And most importantly, and something that's nearest and dearest to
(13:25):
my heart is our e commerce platform. It's fashion Bomb
daily shop dot com. We launched it in Tighten it's
our marketplace for emerging multicultural designers. So we leverage our
wonderful platform to drive sales to solo preneurs, mostly minority
female founders who are just trying to break into the
fashion industry, and we retain a small percentage of every sale,
(13:48):
but it's still another great option. If we're driving traffic
to ship I believe what's on, why not drive traffic
to Oh Yeng Win or Sai Sanko. These are all
young black women, some of my favorites. Yes, who who
are you know? Trying to build a business and and
one of the biggest um issues that a lot of
(14:10):
young designers have is with capital and an investment in
order to truly scale their business. This is not a
something that's easy or cheap to do, not at all.
To help them by by generating income for them in
are in a real way every day. So one thing
I'm super proud of you know, you built this business
and now you're trying to scale it, and I just
(14:31):
I'm only looking forward to seeing you reach the moon,
sun and stars. And you just recently participated in the
Morgan Stanley Multicultural UM Accelerator program. Can you tell us
about that? And what I what I'm really proud about
is that, you know, this is typically a business that
would not have fallen under the umbrella of Morgan Stanley, etcetera,
because people always think it has to be some high
(14:51):
growth tech company. But you know, what you've really done
is to prove that this is such a viable and
scalable business. Um. So talk about your experience in that
accelerator program as well. Yes, so I recently completed the
Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab. We were kind of a
unicorn in that space because we weren't AI and evil
(15:15):
and we're not like a lot of We're not fintech
or stas or whatever all these new terns that I learned. Um,
but there there is a precedent for fashion companies that
scale from a glossier, which is a content e commerce hybrid,
to a group which which similarly is a content e
commerce hybrid. And both of those companies are worth hundreds
(15:38):
of millions of dollars, you know, so why not believe
in a fashion brand that's owned by a black woman?
Why can we do the same thing? And even um,
you know, I I have this new column on Facebook
because I'm always working. I got like ten jobs, true
gravy in here. But you know Bernard are Oh he
(16:00):
is um the chairman of LVMH and he and Jeff
Bezos are going back and forth for the number one
place for richest man in the world. And this is
the head of a fashion company. So anybody who says
that there's no money in fashion or it's it's not
typical or whatever it's like, look at just look at
(16:22):
the statistics Bundy and fashion. And if we are consumers,
then why can't we If we're consumers, if we're creators,
if we're trend setters, if we're all these different things,
and why can't we take a bite of this multibillion
dollar industry? Oh my gosh, Well, I'm so proud of you. Um.
So this is also as part of this program, you
took investment for the first time, all large, sizeable investment.
(16:43):
So before this you have bootstrapped everything. I boot bootstrapped everything.
And I think it's important for black women in particular
and and minority founders to understand the resources that are
available to you. And yes, it is daunting. Yeah, I
went into this program. I didn't know anything, and I
(17:04):
feel like a lot of people in my cohort, they
completed accelerators before, or maybe they had gone to business
school or you know, when you start off a business
with that business plan kind of the traditional way, a
little bit different from how I started, where it was
a hobby and then it just blew up and I
was like, okay, you know so um, but I learned
so much, and I really want people to understand what
(17:27):
is available to you out there. And also I read
some statistics. Less than zero point three port four percent
of venture capital funds went to black women in the
first six of this year. And we know the statistics
are atrocious, but you shouldn't let that stop you or
discourage you from going out there, um and and and
(17:51):
putting yourself out there, learning how to pitch, learning all
these business terms because all of our counterparts are doing this,
and and if we don't try, if we don't put
ourselves out there, then then that percentage won't point won't raise.
So I would encourage everybody to do as much research
as you can on on business accelerators. There's n c IL,
(18:11):
which is great. There's also why Combinator. There. There are
so many that I've that I've found, text cars, there's
there's so many and I think even locally, you know,
people would be remissed to do There's tons of local accelerators.
In almost every town now that has even a small
technology ecosystem. There's accelerators, business accelerators where you can learn
your business. And one thing I love about you, Claire
(18:33):
is like, you know, just being very candid about it,
You're like, yeah, I was alongside people who had done
accelerators before and knew all these terms, and you would
come from this. I mean you're super smart, You're from
Harvard already, but you know, just knowing that, you like,
I had to go in and learn the talk, walk
the walk, and you know, the growth trajectory is just
you know, unbelievable. After that, yeah it is. And I
(18:54):
you know, you won't know what you don't know until
you try. Yeah, And for I started fashion Bomb Dailly.
I never considered myself a CEO or a public speaker,
or an influencer or anything. And these are all things
that I grew into. So give yourself grace and don't
be so hard on yourself. Know you you can learn.
(19:16):
There there are books out there, you can watch YouTube.
The learning current is high, but it's possible, and I
think you know, now I'm armed with everything that I
need to go out and raise and and be confident
in what I'm doing. Okay, so you as part of
this accelerator, and all accelerators are different, people get different amounts,
different equity stakes. Um, so you took equity in this,
(19:39):
and are you planning on doing a whole fundraise after
this we're doing. I'm currently doing a raise, which sounds
a little bit crazy because I'm like, there's fashion read
we had our first fashion show and I'm running a
business and telling people a post x y Z. But
I am taking calls and kind of thankfully, you know,
(19:59):
because Zoom is fine, Doom is convenient. Just come down
to my basement and knock it out. But we we
are going through the process and and I can't overstated
enough to not not be discouraged, even by the astoundingly
poor statistics. Just understand that there's everybody says there's there's
(20:19):
money everywhere. I'm trying to find it, you know, but
you you won't know until you try. And I've heard
from founders who are not black women, white white males
actually who say they were on their last and they
had five hundred people that they reached out to and
then it was that one last person who came through
and saved their business. And I'm probably on number twenty
(20:41):
right now in terms of all so you really have
to attack it like it's a job and have that mindset.
And this is a mindset that I have with everything,
that I'm not going to stop until I get to
where i want to be. Oh, I'm super excited. I'm
super excited for this and just grateful, you know, to
Senior Trajectory over all the years and for what's to come.
(21:03):
Thank you, Oh my gosh, Well, Claire, thank you so
much for sharing your journey with us. We really appreciate
you telling us about how you've built this business, and
we'd love if you could stick around and do a
deeper dieke with us on how to continue to build
successful blogs. Share some tips and tricks with our money
Moves audience on how you did what you did at
fashion Bomb Daily. All right, Money Movers, This is all
(21:24):
the time we have for today's segment, but Clara will
return to join us later in the week for our
deep dive into how you too can grow your own blog.
You won't want to miss out. Thank you so much
for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more
or a recap of this episode, please go to the
bank Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves
podcast blogs. Stay tuned tomorrow and every day this week,
(21:46):
there were hundreds of black owned businesses lining the streets
of Greenwood, Restaurants and movie theaters, hotels, anything you can
imagine wanting or needing in your community. At that time
they had built in the Greenwood district or from our
expert in the Watermark app layout Canva I used for stories.
I use numbs sometimes to actually do the layout and
(22:10):
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j D. Still, what I do is this, I'm mad
sure that you know I told to hear about a mantro.
Give more than you received back and you will maintain
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(22:31):
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podcasts from
Hey money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Hey money Movers, Welcome
to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood. Our next
(00:22):
guest is the CEO and founder of Fashion Bomb Daily,
a direct to consumer fashion company that leverages content and
community to power a multicultural shopping experience. Her pioneering work
ushered in a new wave of digital journalism and e
commerce that fed and fueled an underserved community of African,
American and Latino fashion style mavens wanting to know more
(00:45):
about brands and where they could shop and buy the
hottest new fashions. Beyond developing and directing content for fashion
Bomb Daily and its affiliate sites, Claire Summers has done
extensive style writing for other platforms including Vogue It, Talia,
Vogue Paris, and of course, Essence Magazine. In the fifteen
years she's been in the industry, she's accumulated over two
(01:07):
million followers, written a book entitled The Bomb Life, and
now leads a team of over twenty people for Fashion
Bomb Daily's media, e commerce, marketing and event platforms. Money Movers,
please welcome to the platform. Claire Summers. Hey, Hi Grea.
How are you. I'm great? How are you? I am wonderful.
(01:31):
First of all, hello to your fabulous self. I love
to see you, love to see you, and I am
a huge fan of all things Fashion Bomb Daily. I'm
just gonna give my own shameless, gratuitous plug that the
day Claire Summers posted me on Fashion Bomb Daily, I
felt like I had died and gone to fashion Heaven.
It was such an honor, in such a privilege. So
(01:53):
I'm just super proud to have you on the show today.
Thank you. And you know we love We recognized all
you know real, recognized as real. So you have amazing style.
We love it. We started covering you when you were
first on TV and so continue too. So just love
it and really happy to be here. Oh my gosh,
it is so great to have you here, and I
(02:14):
want to sort of start back if you could briefly
learn walk us through your story how you got your
start in journalism and how you launched into creating your
own blog site. Yes, so, I graduated from Harvard in
two thousand three wanting to just make a positive change
in the media industry. I didn't see enough positive representations
of black women in TV and media in general, and
(02:36):
I actually wanted to go into TV first, but that
just didn't work out for me, so I went back
home to Atlanta. I was just kind of hanging out
and I was in Cogra. One day I saw Upscale
magazine on the newsstand and sent in my resume and
cover letter because I figured that the written word is
just as powerful as the spoken word. Sent in my
(02:57):
resume cover letter, went in. Wanted to write about politics
or news or something super cerebral. That we had no
fashion department, and that's really where my journey began. Um.
I found out I had a knack for writing. Started
off writing captions, went on to writing cover stories, and
got the journalism bug. Moved to New York, did a
(03:17):
bunch of internships in New York and Newsweek. Ended up
as a researcher reporter at Real Simple Magazine, which is
not where I wanted to be. I wanted to work
at Vogue. I wanted to be annointour on Julean Tally,
but just was not finding not finding my outlet, and
kept hearing rejection after rejection. So I ultimately started fashion
bonb Daily as an outlet for my love of fashion
(03:39):
and writing, and uh, fifteen years later, here we are. Wow. Okay,
so what here did you faild? Fashion bon Daily? I
founded it in two thousand eight, So this is I'm sorry,
but this is the early days of blogs and writing
about fashion and stuff like I feel like it. You know,
there wasn't a lot that we're now. I think everybody
(03:59):
has a but you probably put in your time. Yeah.
I came out when you know, there was Young Black
and Fabulous was the biggest blog, and we have Cake
and ice Cream and Concrete Loop and Fantastical. I really
came out at the forefront of blogging, and I thought
it was just going to be a hobby, a resume
builder that would help me get into the door at Vogue,
(04:22):
something that could show my writing capabilities. But just how
the media evolved and how everybody started to go digital,
it eventually became a business and then I was able
to do it full time. So I've been a full
time I used to call myself a blogger and now
I call myself the CEO and founder. But I've been
doing this full time since. And so what was the
(04:44):
point that you realized that Okay, there is money in this.
I can actually build a viable business out of, you know,
creating this blogs and building the site out. So I
just said my research. So part of my story is
I was working as a researcher, reporter overlooked undervalue, and
I decided to quit my job and moved to Paris.
And I did this because I made actually majored in
(05:06):
French and African American studies at Harvard. Always wanted to
live in Paris and always thought, Okay, Paris is the
home of fashion. Let let me just move there and
see what I can do. So I eventually I spent
two years in Paris, and I eventually got an internship
at Paris Bogue. But in the meantime, in between time,
I had all this time to blog. I wasn't making
(05:27):
any money, but I started researching how to make money
from blogging. And so with all this free time, I
looked at pro blogger. I looked at this man his
name was Yarrow Staric, and figured out that you can
sell your sidebar advertising um. And I also learned about
ad agencies. I joined an ad agency. So long story short,
(05:50):
through my own personal research, through aligning myself with within
a blogger ad agency. By the end of my time
in Paris, I was making enough money where I could
just live from blogging full time. Wow. I love this.
I love this because I feel like there's so many
people in our audience who are talented writers. They've got
journalism degrees, and they're trying to sort of navigate this
(06:11):
industry of like following their passion of you know, whether
it's in fashion or other industries, but how to make
a business out of blogging and things that they love.
And you've been on this trajectory for a very very
long time and you've had many ups, downs, um, all
sorts of downs. But one thing I can say for
people who want to make money from a creative field
(06:34):
is that you really have to be focused and intentional.
You can't just sit there and write and the money
will come. I think obviously the first step is to
have a passion for it, to be persistent and consistent.
Me about dated Fashion, I have updated fashion Badlie probably
every single day since I started, and if it's not me,
then it's somebody from my team. But creating this really
(06:56):
great product, adhering to a standard of excellence so that
you get a grounds full of people who are interested
in what you're doing, and then you have to just Okay,
how can I make money from this? Okay? Can I
Can I be an influencer? Now it's influencing? Can I
sell ads on my Instagram page? If I do, then
how do I price this? How? How can people pay me?
(07:19):
How can I make it easy for for them to
do this? And something that I love about advertising on
Fashion bon Daily not only is it affordable, it's not cheap.
It's affordable. I think everybody can afford to advertise with
Fashion bon Daily, but we we make it so easy.
You just click a link to PayPal or click link
to cash app, or it's so easy for us to
(07:40):
make not make the money's it's hard, obviously, but it's
easy for us to we make the transaction. You make
it easy for us to advertise with you, right, And
that's not the case for all all websites. If you
approach them, they have either their prices too high, or
they don't accept this type of ad or what's it for?
And it's like no anything outside from nudity or like
(08:03):
curse words or something. Each stream explicit will give you
a shot to to advertise with us, and these are
just one of the few things that we do in
order to bring in Wow. I love that. Okay, so
let's talk about building a business. You know, number one,
you you started off as a blog. You started off also,
you know, providing this sort of I don't want to
call it a niche, but being able to showcase, you know,
(08:24):
fashion Maven's what they were wearing, and providing this idea
of like where can I get this? Because I think
this at the time that was kind of unique m
and then I think it's it's still unique. You've got
a lot of media platforms they want to act as
the dictator, the judge and jury. Sometimes even on I
won't even say name, but on a big glossy magazine
(08:47):
they won't allow comments, and we allow comments. I read comments,
I react to the comments are the best part. Comments
are the best part. And I'm in the d n S.
We have this big feature. We used to call it
l bombs, now we call it you ask me answer.
But we have our ears to the ground of what
people want and if they want to know about something,
if we can find it, then we do provide it
(09:09):
to them. And I think it's so important to be
in touch with your consumer and know what they want
and be a servant. You know, you you can only
get rich by enriching the lives of others. That's one
of my favorite quotes. And I really want to make
sure that we maintain that that we are serving everybody
who follows us. No matter how big we get, we are,
(09:30):
we are we are a servant to style. So how
man you use sort of technology to leverage your business?
Because number one, you said you're talking about making it
easy for people to buy ads, but also you know,
how do you find these fashion pieces? Like how have
you put sort of technology on the back end of
this to you know, create a bigger brand for business?
(09:52):
So we do. We do have an app. It's available
on the app store fashion bomb Daily dot com and
that's what we're using now. If people want to submit
wardrobe inquiry, then they can go through our app. The
app is a one dollar download. With some people, they
might bristle ate that, but it's like, we work so
hard at what we do, and we also have develop
(10:12):
these relationships with stylists and with celebrities over the year
to the over the years to the point where we
can d M them and we'll get an answer, and
so we have to understand that there's value and what
we were doing. Obviously, for me, I want to give
everything away for free. That's how I am. I'm just
passionate about it and I love it so much I
would do it for free. And I think that's another
important part of running a business. You you love it,
(10:35):
what you would do it in your sleep, you would
do it on vacation, you do it on holidays. And
I've done all I've done all of the above. But
at a certain point you have to understand when you
have when you have value and attaching a value to
what you're doing, and being unabashed about asking for for
for value, back for for your work. You can't work
(10:56):
for free all of your life. And I refuse, no, absolutely,
And I think this is a conversation we need to
have because you know, honestly, sometimes for black women, you know,
it's the question of like, Okay, should I charge for this?
What do I charge? How do I know? And you know,
even you talked about this with your ads, You're like,
they're not cheap, but they're affordable. Some people might charge more,
but like we want to provide something that's affordable, but
(11:17):
there's so much value in it, and I don't think
we should be ashamed to ask for that. One dollar
to download an app is nothing people saying, and you
would be surprised at the pushback we get for that.
And these are people asking for items that cost a
thousand dollars another dollar and it's a it's a one
time fee and then you can ask us as many
(11:37):
questions as you want to, and we do have people
who ask us questions all the time. But that's just
one way that that we monetize it. And one one
more note about working for free. I worked for free
when I first started. My first internship was unpaid. My
second internship I made minimum wage. Like I have paid
my dude. Certain point, you're like, I've paid my dues
(11:59):
and now and asking for what I'm worth and and
that's really the level that we're at today. I love that.
Can you talk about some more ways that you have
found to monetize having your blog? You talked about ads
in the sidebar. Are there other ways that you've discovered
that have been helpful in creating revenue? Yes, of course,
and Instagram advertising sponsorship, working with with different brands for example,
(12:23):
We just had our first fashion show, which is another
big thing events. What we had our first fashion show
is during fashion week, we charge people to to come
and that's also something that's a little bit revolutionary. With
most fashion shows, you can't even pay to get in there, right,
so even if you have decades of experience, you cannot
(12:44):
get an invitation. And so we're making it accessible and
that you can purchase it, purchase a ticket to come,
and then we work with great sponsors. We had Shame
Moisture who was a wonderful sponsor, also Bombay Sapphire. I
could go on with the wonderful sponsors we have. In addition,
if somebody wants to dress me, almost in every Instagram
(13:04):
post that I say, not all, because you know it
can get a little bit redundant, but I offer the
option if you want me to where you're clothing, then
you can and and four fee you know everything, you
know you have to be able to figure out how
many ways different ways can I monetize what I'm doing.
And most importantly, and something that's nearest and dearest to
(13:25):
my heart is our e commerce platform. It's fashion Bomb
daily shop dot com. We launched it in Tighten it's
our marketplace for emerging multicultural designers. So we leverage our
wonderful platform to drive sales to solo preneurs, mostly minority
female founders who are just trying to break into the
fashion industry, and we retain a small percentage of every sale,
(13:48):
but it's still another great option. If we're driving traffic
to ship I believe what's on, why not drive traffic
to Oh Yeng Win or Sai Sanko. These are all
young black women, some of my favorites. Yes, who who
are you know? Trying to build a business and and
one of the biggest um issues that a lot of
(14:10):
young designers have is with capital and an investment in
order to truly scale their business. This is not a
something that's easy or cheap to do, not at all.
To help them by by generating income for them in
are in a real way every day. So one thing
I'm super proud of you know, you built this business
and now you're trying to scale it, and I just
(14:31):
I'm only looking forward to seeing you reach the moon,
sun and stars. And you just recently participated in the
Morgan Stanley Multicultural UM Accelerator program. Can you tell us
about that? And what I what I'm really proud about
is that, you know, this is typically a business that
would not have fallen under the umbrella of Morgan Stanley, etcetera,
because people always think it has to be some high
(14:51):
growth tech company. But you know, what you've really done
is to prove that this is such a viable and
scalable business. Um. So talk about your experience in that
accelerator program as well. Yes, so I recently completed the
Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab. We were kind of a
unicorn in that space because we weren't AI and evil
(15:15):
and we're not like a lot of We're not fintech
or stas or whatever all these new terns that I learned. Um,
but there there is a precedent for fashion companies that
scale from a glossier, which is a content e commerce hybrid,
to a group which which similarly is a content e
commerce hybrid. And both of those companies are worth hundreds
(15:38):
of millions of dollars, you know, so why not believe
in a fashion brand that's owned by a black woman?
Why can we do the same thing? And even um,
you know, I I have this new column on Facebook
because I'm always working. I got like ten jobs, true
gravy in here. But you know Bernard are Oh he
(16:00):
is um the chairman of LVMH and he and Jeff
Bezos are going back and forth for the number one
place for richest man in the world. And this is
the head of a fashion company. So anybody who says
that there's no money in fashion or it's it's not
typical or whatever it's like, look at just look at
(16:22):
the statistics Bundy and fashion. And if we are consumers,
then why can't we If we're consumers, if we're creators,
if we're trend setters, if we're all these different things,
and why can't we take a bite of this multibillion
dollar industry? Oh my gosh, Well, I'm so proud of you. Um.
So this is also as part of this program, you
took investment for the first time, all large, sizeable investment.
(16:43):
So before this you have bootstrapped everything. I boot bootstrapped everything.
And I think it's important for black women in particular
and and minority founders to understand the resources that are
available to you. And yes, it is daunting. Yeah, I
went into this program. I didn't know anything, and I
(17:04):
feel like a lot of people in my cohort, they
completed accelerators before, or maybe they had gone to business
school or you know, when you start off a business
with that business plan kind of the traditional way, a
little bit different from how I started, where it was
a hobby and then it just blew up and I
was like, okay, you know so um, but I learned
so much, and I really want people to understand what
(17:27):
is available to you out there. And also I read
some statistics. Less than zero point three port four percent
of venture capital funds went to black women in the
first six of this year. And we know the statistics
are atrocious, but you shouldn't let that stop you or
discourage you from going out there, um and and and
(17:51):
putting yourself out there, learning how to pitch, learning all
these business terms because all of our counterparts are doing this,
and and if we don't try, if we don't put
ourselves out there, then then that percentage won't point won't raise.
So I would encourage everybody to do as much research
as you can on on business accelerators. There's n c IL,
(18:11):
which is great. There's also why Combinator. There. There are
so many that I've that I've found, text cars, there's
there's so many and I think even locally, you know,
people would be remissed to do There's tons of local accelerators.
In almost every town now that has even a small
technology ecosystem. There's accelerators, business accelerators where you can learn
your business. And one thing I love about you, Claire
(18:33):
is like, you know, just being very candid about it,
You're like, yeah, I was alongside people who had done
accelerators before and knew all these terms, and you would
come from this. I mean you're super smart, You're from
Harvard already, but you know, just knowing that, you like,
I had to go in and learn the talk, walk
the walk, and you know, the growth trajectory is just
you know, unbelievable. After that, yeah it is. And I
(18:54):
you know, you won't know what you don't know until
you try. Yeah, And for I started fashion Bomb Dailly.
I never considered myself a CEO or a public speaker,
or an influencer or anything. And these are all things
that I grew into. So give yourself grace and don't
be so hard on yourself. Know you you can learn.
(19:16):
There there are books out there, you can watch YouTube.
The learning current is high, but it's possible, and I
think you know, now I'm armed with everything that I
need to go out and raise and and be confident
in what I'm doing. Okay, so you as part of
this accelerator, and all accelerators are different, people get different amounts,
different equity stakes. Um, so you took equity in this,
(19:39):
and are you planning on doing a whole fundraise after
this we're doing. I'm currently doing a raise, which sounds
a little bit crazy because I'm like, there's fashion read
we had our first fashion show and I'm running a
business and telling people a post x y Z. But
I am taking calls and kind of thankfully, you know,
(19:59):
because Zoom is fine, Doom is convenient. Just come down
to my basement and knock it out. But we we
are going through the process and and I can't overstated
enough to not not be discouraged, even by the astoundingly
poor statistics. Just understand that there's everybody says there's there's
(20:19):
money everywhere. I'm trying to find it, you know, but
you you won't know until you try. And I've heard
from founders who are not black women, white white males
actually who say they were on their last and they
had five hundred people that they reached out to and
then it was that one last person who came through
and saved their business. And I'm probably on number twenty
(20:41):
right now in terms of all so you really have
to attack it like it's a job and have that mindset.
And this is a mindset that I have with everything,
that I'm not going to stop until I get to
where i want to be. Oh, I'm super excited. I'm
super excited for this and just grateful, you know, to
Senior Trajectory over all the years and for what's to come.
(21:03):
Thank you, Oh my gosh, Well, Claire, thank you so
much for sharing your journey with us. We really appreciate
you telling us about how you've built this business, and
we'd love if you could stick around and do a
deeper dieke with us on how to continue to build
successful blogs. Share some tips and tricks with our money
Moves audience on how you did what you did at
fashion Bomb Daily. All right, Money Movers, This is all
(21:24):
the time we have for today's segment, but Clara will
return to join us later in the week for our
deep dive into how you too can grow your own blog.
You won't want to miss out. Thank you so much
for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more
or a recap of this episode, please go to the
bank Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves
podcast blogs. Stay tuned tomorrow and every day this week,
(21:46):
there were hundreds of black owned businesses lining the streets
of Greenwood, Restaurants and movie theaters, hotels, anything you can
imagine wanting or needing in your community. At that time
they had built in the Greenwood district or from our
expert in the Watermark app layout Canva I used for stories.
I use numbs sometimes to actually do the layout and
(22:10):
a celebrity guest you won't want to miss my brother
j D. Still, what I do is this, I'm mad
sure that you know I told to hear about a mantro.
Give more than you received back and you will maintain
what he already had. Money Moves is an I heart
Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
(22:31):
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