#134 RobeCurls: From TikTok to Target

Pitch 5 [clap]

Imagine seeing a trend on tiktok and deciding to build an entire company around it. That’s what founder Emily Kenison did back in 2020, when women started curling their hair with bathrobes.

Tiktok: I’m gonna show you how to do heatless bathrobe curls
Tiktok: Stop wrapping your hair around like this if you want the best heatless curls possible
Tiktok: This is pretty much like french braiding your hair, but using the robe as your third piece 

But Emily didn’t just see a silly tiktok trend. She saw the birth of a new market – heatless hair care. Sure enough, the market has exploded since. And her company, aptly named Robecurls is right at the center. Now Emily has decided to go for gold. And raise that VC money. 

But the question is… is this just another lifestyle business based on a trend?

Or has Emily found herself at the start of a generational shift in hair care?

I’m Josh Muccio, welcome to The Pitch. Where real founders pitch real investors for real money.

Let’s meet the investors!

Jillian Manus with Structure Capital

Jillian: Literally he sat down, and I was like, I'm in. 

Mac Conwell with Rare Breed Ventures

Mac: As a unicorn hunter, I want to see every unicorn. 

Beck Bamberger with Bad Ideas Group

Beck: [slaps table] I gotta start my muffin business.

The Pitch for Robecurls is coming up after the break. And if you’re not following the show already, hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications. You can find the uncut version of this pitch at patreon.com/thepitch

[break]

Jillian: A micro squad is 9000, and the macro squad is 98,000.

Beck: Wow. Oh! Hello!

[hellos]

Emily: Emily. It's nice to meet you.

[cheery hellos]

Emily: Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Emily: All right.

Beck: Let's hit it.

Emily: Hello everyone. My name is Emily Kenison. I am the founder of Robecurls, the heatless curling headband. We are a trailblazing company that is redefining how women are styling their hair with our patented line of heatless curling headbands and beyond. So in the US, you got 65 million women waking up every morning, styling their hair with a curling iron. They're using 400 degree heat that is just burning, frying your hair. It's irreparable damage. On top of it, it takes about an hour to use. Women have always been frustrated with this, and there is now a new shift in trend where women are putting down the hot tools. Look at Gen Z: you got 40% of Gen Z reducing the amount of hot tools that they've been using in the past five years. Massive shift in the industry. So I invented the heatless curling headband, patented it, and I did it to solve my own frustrations. I also recognized that this trend was happening. So when we launched this baby, we were first to market and we were best in market. Now with only 90 seconds of effort, you can create curls that last five times longer than your curling iron, with zero heat, zero damage, and you can do it any time, anywhere. As you can see, I'm wearing it right now.

Beck: Can you - yeah -

Emily: You want to see the full thing?

Beck: Oh, I see.

Jillian: Oh, I see.

Beck: Okay, like it wraps -

Emily: - cute little headband -

Beck: Yeah.

Emily: It wraps right up. So we launched two years ago, and in those two years we've been fully bootstrapped. We've done 3 million in revenue. We are profitable. We have very strong profit margins at 86% direct to consumer. And most excitingly we are launching in Target; 1200 doors in a matter of a couple weeks. You'll see us across the US starting February 25th of this year. So today we're opening up our pre seed round. We're raising $500,000 to add fuel to the fire of our profitable business and to help with this Target launch. On top of it, though, we'll be raising a $1 to 2 million seed round, closing this year. So we're looking for the strategic partners who can help advise us during that next big raise process. 

Beck: Thank you.

Jillian: I've got 5000 questions. 

Emily: Do you want me to like toss you guys some products -

[crosstalk]

Jillian: Yes!

Beck: Yes. Toss it over.

Jillian: Toss it over. Toss it over.

Emily: I was told to -

Jillian: Hey! Mac! You can use it. You can use it on your dreads.

Mac: Got it.

Jillian: More curls to the dreads.

Beck: I'm gonna use this tonight. 

Emily: I'm really sorry.

Jillian: A number of basic questions. What's the price? What's the hard cost, how many have you sold in order to generate the $3 million, over how long?

Emily: So over the course of two years. We have sold over 100,000 units during that timeframe.

Jillian: Okay.

Emily: Our cost per unit is under $4 and then we retail it for $28 direct to consumer. 

Jillian: Yeah. Where are you manufacturing this?

Emily: We're manufacturing overseas in China. 

Jillian: Does that create any problems?

Emily: It has not. We have a wonderful factory partner. For some background, I'm a lawyer turned inventor. This is the second product I've brought to market. I've been working with our factory for many years. Our partners are incredible. 

Jillian: And what was the last product that you brought to market?

Emily: The last one was Straplets. It's a shoe accessory, 

Jillian: And what happened to that company?

Emily: So Covid killed it. March 2020, the pandemic hit, footwear sales dropped 75% We had deals with mass retailers that we were signing, you know, the dotted line in March and that just got squashed. 

Beck: So Covid killed you? 

Emily: yeah. 

Jillian: So for Target, what does the volume look like? is there a guaranteed minimum order from them or time on the shelf or placement? 

Emily: With Target, you are guaranteed to be on their shelves for the course of this coming year. They are highly selective in their process. So we go up against every other product that might be in this category and they only choose very few. We get projections for the entire year for what they're estimating in terms of volume, so that comes out to about $2 million in net profit for us for this year. I'm sorry, $1 million net profit for us this year, 2 million in gross. We're looking at about 90,000 units. I'll also add that we'll be launching in FabFitFun in a matter of like couple weeks from today. Two weeks…

Jillian: Sorry, FabFitFun?

Beck: Yes. That's the box that sends you all the good stuff.

Emily: Mhm. 

Emily: They're one of the largest subscription box companies in the US -

Beck: But they pretty much - endured - 

Emily: And they have 2 million subscribers, or -

Beck: Users.

Emily: So we have 80,000 units going out to that market base through FabFitFun in a couple weeks. 

Mac: You've done 3 million in revenue. That's impressive. Tell me a little bit about your burn rate and what's your runway? 

Emily: So when it comes to runway, since we're profitable, we can self-sustain at our current rate. um But it's a matter of adding fuel to the fire with investor money. We know exactly where that money would go. For instance, $500,000 would be put towards Amazon international inventory, which we know for a fact that we would be basically doubling our Amazon current US revenue with a matter of 10 countries. We have that data. In terms of our burn rate, we keep our costs very low and effective. It's primarily going towards inventory.

Mac: Mhm 

Beck: Hm. It says innovation award here. What was that from?

Emily: Yes. So we are the number one award-winning heatless curler on the market. We've won seven awards, including the Beauty Innovation Award.

Beck: From Allure?

Emily: We have not won one from Allure. We are in the runnings this year. But we have been mentioned in Allure in their best list many times over, along with all the top publications: Cosmopolitan, Today Show, Glamour. 

Beck: were those organic? Were you pitching them? How did those come about?

Emily: Organic. Absolutely organic. Our first - 

Beck: That's amazing. 

Emily: I mean, every week, we'll be getting press written about us. All organic. These are people that have actually dove into the product, into what's in the market. Ours isn't -

Beck: So you haven't even sent samples to the editors or something? It's just - oh wow. That's the holy grail dream of PR, let me tell you right now.

Jillian: Which begets the question, though, I would think, and forgive me if I sound kind of cheeky here, but it'd be really easy to rip this off.

Emily: Oh. Yes. We were one of the most counterfeited products on Amazon, let alone knocked off. Counterfeited. So my background as a lawyer kind of really - kind of helped a lot, it helped us survive. For uh about six months of last year, we had about 3000 new sellers each week popping up with copycats, knock offs, counterfeits of our product. So using a suite of copyrights, trademarks, patents We have lawsuits - they're called schedule A lawsuits that we've been using to really just clean up the market . We've got a whole system in place now.

Beck: That sounds expensive.

Jillian: Yes.

Emily: No, it's not expensive. 

Jillian: Fighting lawsuits? 

Emily: It's the contingency law firms that we're using and working with and so this becomes an alternative revenue source for us as well.

Beck: Yes. Okay. Interesting.

Emily: And it just - while one lawsuit fills up, we just file another one, and when that fills up with sellers, we file another one. We do batches of 400 sellers at a time. And so we'll have paychecks, basically coming in from these lawsuits on an ongoing basis. 

Mac: So as the only person probably on this side of the hemisphere that has a whole thesis around tools in the haircare space -

Jillian: No!

Beck: Whoa! What?

Jillian: What? 

Mac: I'm the guy in the room. Nobody wants to hear from the guy about the hair tools.

Jillian: Oh, I do want to hear the guy -

Beck: We do. What is your hair -

Jillian: Yeah. Go, Mac!

Beck: - position? 

What! She’s making money off all the Amazon copycats? And Mac has an entire thesis around haircare!? What’s going on in the pitch room right now???

When we come back, Mac lets his hair down.

[Break]

Welcome back. Mac Just dropped the news that he’s secretly a hair care expert. Which means he’s got some questions for Emily, the heatless hair care expert.

Mac: So, Good innovation there. Smart. You've already done 3 million in revenue in two years. That's super impressive. Right. But this - this gets you to 10 million, this gets you to 25 million. This doesn't get you to a billion. Do you want to protect women's hair from being heat damaged? Or do you want to build a billion dollar business?

Emily: Build a billion dollar business around that. Yeah. That's - that is - that's the - yeah.

Beck: And further, okay, is this -

Emily: And it's been done before.

Beck: - a material science company? Or is this a heat hair protective accessory company? I'd like to hear more a little bit of like how does it get to the billion? 

Emily: So when we look at just like the US market, there's plenty of opportunity. Like, Aveda salons is another one on our shortlist. We've already been picked up on several Aveda Salons, they've been coming out to us asking to use our product. There are over 4000 Aveda salons in the US alone. There's an additional 9000 international. You're looking at $15 million a year net profit from Aveda Salons. So there are these opportunities that are very large and scalable within the US alone, it just elevates us across the board as a brand that's to be trusted and as the leader in the innovation in this space. 

Mac: Can you give us an idea of where the next innovations on your roadmap? As this is - this is the flagship, but -

Emily: Yes.

Mac: - What are the next one or two you have in mind? 

Emily: So we have looked at several products specifically, like hair mousses that are going to be amazing for creating longer lasting style, hair care formulations, and then also new product tools, specifically in the headband space, that are going to create different types of curl shape, depending on what you're looking for. You want a crimp style, you want more volume in the back, you want tighter spiral curls. So we have a product line - those are patented and ready to go. 

Jillian: What's your operations cost now?

Emily: Our operation costs right now are - I have to - can I get back to you on that number?

Jillian: Okay.

Emily: I don't want to give you a number I don't have off the top of my head.

Jillian: O-kay. And... okay. Tell us about -

Emily: I think it's about 5000 a month.

Jillian: Okay. Tell us about your team. Well, now really tell us about your team since if you're 5000 a month -

Beck: Is it you?

Emily: Is it me? No.

Jillian: Who is it?

Emily: So the team includes uh - it's me. I have my partner Kennedy, who comes from a background at Google, he does design work, so he's helping to spearhead the backend operational side of things. And then our very first hire, is Gabriella, and she's our customer delight. So anything that delights the customer, that's her. 

Jillian: So you have no sales?

Beck: No sales person?

Emily: No. I'm sales.

Beck: That's her. Was it you then that got the Target deal?

Emily: Yeah. I also got Walgreens. We were in Walgreens store two months after we launched. We were successfully - it was a 130 store pilot. We were there for six months. We were the number one category seller. Our average units sold per week were 6 units per door per week, which is three times higher than the - that category average. We were exceptional. We increased Walgreens profits in that category by 400%. 

Mac: Are you still in Walgreens?

Emily: No. So I first went after Walgreens because it was the pandemic. So I was afraid of going after my ideal partner, which would have been Target, because -

Beck: Yeah. No one was shopping. 

Emily: Yeah. I don't know if things are gonna be shut down or what. So I was like, okay, mass pharmacy retail, that's going to be open. Let me try to get into this. But yeah, I got us into Walgreens and we had a very successful tenure there, and we used that to then get into Target 

Beck: But what happened - why did they not continue?

Emily: uh They gave us the opportunity to continue, um to expand to 5000 stores, and it was a strategic play to not continue with them at this time. They were doing essentially a consignment model for 5000 stores, which is very typical for Walgreens.

Beck: Oh yeah.

Emily: Every time a unit's sold is when we get paid for that.

Beck: I see. 

Emily: Especially as a bootstrapped company, we can't do that kind of deal. But if we get into Target, Target doesn't do that consignment model. So Target has been our ideal partner and we're very excited about that launch. 

Mac: So I like you. I think this is a very simple product that you've made a lot of money off of, because you are very smart. You're very good at what you do. You're the first founder I've ever met who figured out a way to make money off of the product being counterfeited, right. That's incredible.

Jillian: Yeah.

Emily: Thank you.

Beck: That's that law experience right there. 

Mac: I want to say yes, very badly. But because I am the hair care guy, I have several companies in my portfolio… they're not competitors today but could be on their roadmap. So like I have a thing where I always ask my founders if this is competitive. If they say no, it's cool with me. So I have a few founders I have to reach out to. But if it's not, you'll be getting an email from me.

Emily: I'll take that as a grateful win. Thank you so much.

Beck: Soft yes. Soft yes.

Emily: Soft yes. 

Mac: Soft no is - let's just keep the expectations at the right level.

Jillian: Low. Low.

[crosstalk]

Emily: I'll show results if you guys want while we're -

Mac: Okay. Soft yes.

Emily: Oh, I'm sorry.

Beck: Let me see.

Mac: Josh - Josh gave me a look, so I just need to say soft yes. 

[laughter]

Beck: I want to see the demo.

Jillian: That's so bad.

Beck: I'm waiting for the demo.

Jillian: It's either -

Emily: So here are some results. I'll take soft yesses any day. But you can set tighter curls if you want.

Beck: Oh yeah. Beautiful.

Emily: If you want to set looser curls, you can twist the other way and it's gonna style loose beachy waves. This is something that's not done in any other tool on the market. Normally, my curls would go flat like that - these are gonna last all day without going down. Yeah. It's an awesome product. 

Beck: I want to go back to the billion dollar versus lifestyle ride into the sunset make a lot of money from this.

Emily: Yeah.

Beck: I'm not convinced yet, and I want to hear more from you. For example, I would want to hear from a founder who's like, listen, this is a $17.3 billion sized market. This is how we're doing this in X,Y,Z application in the next three years. There's our roadmap. I'm not hearing that from you. So it goes back to me for being like, oh, this is a great business. 

Emily: Yeah.

Beck: Let it - no doubt. I don't think there's any doubt here that this is a great business. It's just is it a VC-backable multi-billion dollar entity. 

Emily: So when you look at the roadmap for us, what we've achieved is off of an initial investment of $500. We've reinvested profit into perfecting the product; all of that.

Beck: Impressive. 

Emily: So when we look at all the different opportunities in the US and we calculate how much that opportunity actually is, just putting into our own metrics of like actual stores we want to go into, like Ulta, like Aveda we are able to put that number easily at a $1.2 billion revenue per year. So there is a huge market opportunity and that's just with this one product right here. I believe there's a speed to market that has to happen now. So the injection of cash to make this a billion dollar opportunity is going to be -

Beck: It's critical.

Emily: It's critical. And it's gonna happen within three to five years. I can see this easily becoming $100 million a year revenue business with light injection of cash. 

Jillian: How much have you raised of the 500?

Emily: We have not raised any of the 500 to date. We do have soft commits -

Jillian: And what terms would that be?

Emily: We are gonna let the market decide. We want to have conversations. 

Mac: In the ideal world, what would the terms be?

Emily: Ideal world, I wouldn't say ideal world, like what I feel like is the -

Mac: Realistic world.

Emily: Realistic world. I feel like a 10 million is fine.

Mac: Would you go for an eight?

Emily: It is something we would consider, yes. Especially being one of the first checks in, yes. We would consider that. 

Jillian: Okay. So I try to invest in companies that I know something about, where I can add value, But I don't know what I could bring to the table, value, truthfully. Because I didn't even know what fun fit and whatever was. Fabulous.

[laughter]

Jillian: Yep. What is - is that fun and fit and fabulous?

Beck: Honest - honest. Yes. Yep. 

Jillian: But you need, as you were saying, in this first 500, really strategic investors who know the hair industry, who know the consumer products. That's just not my bailiwick. So I would probably do you a disservice by coming in. 

Emily: Thank you Jillian. 

Beck: Emily. You have done some great stuff so far. You got this business at such a profit margin that is gob smacking. I am out because it's not my space and it's not my interest And then secondly, I would like the bigger what and how and everything, and I didn't get enough of that from you. 

Emily: I understand. 

Mac: So what I would say is the feedback you're getting now is you're really impressive, you know this business very well. You could use a little bit of work on the storytelling and the way you tell the story of what you're doing and the vision long term. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Mac: That's why you're getting the feedback you're getting. 

Beck: One of our companies, this is on the BAM side, is Adore Me, that got acquired by Victoria's Secret. If you ask them, they're not an underwear company.

Jillian: Yeah.

Beck: You know what I'm saying?

Emily: Yeah.

Beck: They are for all women of all body sizes to feel the most comfortable in the most intimate moments.

Emily: That's beautiful. 

Mac: Thank you so much.

[thank yous]

Emily: Thank you guys so much. This was wonderful. Thank you. 

Jillian: Emily, you're a pistol. We love you.

Emily: Thank you. 

Beck: Everybody, I want to emphasize this. You have to have that story down, and it has to be a bigger why. 

Jillian: she's done -

Beck: It can never be -

Jillian: I agree.

Beck: - here is the product. No. 

Josh: But at the same time -

Jillian: But just she's been doing so well without it, just think if she has it.

Josh: - this isn't -

Beck: For sure.

Josh: She's only started pitching VCs -

Jillian: For sure.

Josh: - a month ago.

Beck: Only a month ago.

Josh: She's built this company -

Beck: You can tell.

Josh: - as a bootstrapped company, right -

Beck: Look, I got a profitable company.

Josh: - like and she doesn't necessarily know what she has yet. 

Beck: This is true. 

Josh: The advice you gave is like exactly what she needs, but like she's already gotten so much of the hard part out of the way, you know.

Mac: She is very impressive. But I will point this out. Every investor is different and focuses on different things. If you pitch Beck, you better have a why.

Jillian: Right.

Mac: You better have a why. If you pitch me, you better know your go to market.

Jillian: And if you pitch me, you better know your numbers. 

Beck: The reason I come to it for the why is because ultimately you're selling this to someone, and you ultimately need to get that why conveyed, otherwise I'll take the cheaper one.

Mac: The PR brain never turns off. 

Mac: I think she can do - she could come up with this. She could come up with a story.

Jillian: Oh my gosh - there isn't a story.

[crosstalk]

Beck: She needs some more finessing.

Mac: But I will say this; for her to just be recently pitching investors, she's got the confidence part down.

Jillian: Yeah.

Mac: That's not something you see every day.

Jillian: Yeah. 

Beck: The other thing - tell me it's gonna be 100 billion or 10 billion or something. Like, are you a lifestyle for the next 20 years? Is that cool? Or are you kind of like - yeah I - it's kind of a, yeah, I could... I'm like, I wanna hear you're gonna grind to the end. 

Josh: Sorry, you're getting really intense right now.

Beck: I am. But that's because I want to have that - I want to hear that intensity, though. That's what I wanna hear where I'm like, you're gonna fight to the end cos you know this is a $4 billion company. 

Jillian: When she said she hasn't sent this to any editors and this was all - I thought you were gonna leap out of your chair. I was like, Beck, sit! Sit Beck. Sit! Because the fact that she's doing all this, and she's - she has not even really marketed -

Beck: It's untapped. It's totally untapped.

Jillian: She hasn't marketed. 

Beck: But there needs some brushing up. Remarkable for where it's gone so far.

Jillian: Yeah.

Mac: I think that's partially -

Josh: Brushing up, brushing out.

Mac: The brushing up's the easiest part, that she did - she did the hardest part.

Jillian: Yeah.

Beck: Bigger - you know.

Mac: Like how you get $3 million -

Jillian: Easier, yeah.

Mac: - for this.

Jillian: You crush Tik Tok - 

Josh: I like the twist on this business.

Beck: Ha! 

Josh: That's a wrap.

The investors just didn’t see the billion dollar path for Robecurls. They wanted the bigger vision! A bigger why! And of course, bigger curls for the girls.

Will Emily learn the art of pitching, and start speaking the language of the American venture capitalist?

That’s coming up after the break.

[BREAK]

Welcome back. Lisa and I caught up with Emily a few months later to see what was up with Robecurls, and what she thought about her pitch on our show - 

Josh: Was that your first real pitch to VCs? 

Emily: Yes. 

Lisa: What?! 

Josh: How do you think it went? 

Emily: Um, I think it went well, and I learned a lot from the experience. If I could do it over again, I definitely would have taken a different approach to how I presented the vision and the, the bigger vision first, rather than the product first and also knowing my numbers. Yeah. 

Josh: Yeah, I feel like they wanted more pizzazz, like more pop in your pitch and they just like, couldn't see how, big it was. Like how heatless curling products becomes that billion dollar business. Do you think that's a fair critique?

Emily: I, I mean, obviously I will not think it's a fair critique cause it's my business and I'm so in the weeds in the heatless hair space. I've seen this market go from nothing to being the number two beauty product trend out of all the beauty products out there, more heatless curlers are being bought than any other beauty product out there. This is just the beginning of a new market. but then on the flip side, It's up to me to explain that and recognize that not everybody knows that

Josh: Right

Emily: Clearly I need to do a better job articulating just that bigger vision. Cause I know it

Josh: Yeah 

Emily: And, I think some like cool updates is we've had some VCs reach out to us that lead rounds. 

Josh: Really? How did they hear about you? 

Emily: We're, we're a big deal, Josh. If, if you're paying attention to the heatless hair space, you know, we're up there, Uh, yeah. So we've had really good initial conversations and like, you know, I think the experience of going through The Pitch has been absolutely instrumental in giving us that confidence and awareness of like, what kind of questions are going to be asked. and about that bigger storytelling picture too.

Josh: Yeah. who are these VCs? Are you able to say? 

Emily: Um, I don't know. You tell me, Josh. Is it appropriate to say who they are at this stage? 

Josh: Uh, No, I wouldn't say their names, but maybe describe 

Emily: I'd love to describe. they are consumer product VCs that also are doing technology stuff as well. And if you look at the products that they've invested in and the brands they've invested in, they're all category disruptors and they're both offering to be leads So they, they can put in large check sizes. their sweet spot is like 750 to 2 million 

Josh: Just get those two VCs to work together. I mean, Co lead this sucker. 

Emily: Literally, they like were on my like short list of like, these are the ones I'm going to work up towards pitching, you know? I don't want to go out to them the first time.

Josh: Right. 

Emily: I'm like, no way. No way. You guys reached out? Like, like I haven't had much practice. Josh and Lisa know I need a little bit more practice before we have this talk, but okay.

Josh: Oh gosh. 

Lisa: But you did talk with them. 

Emily: Yes. Yes. We had our first talk, and it went well, so we're going to have another talk, and I'm learning what this process is like, and I hope I just don't mess it up 

Josh: Yeah 

Josh: You talked about this on the pitch, that you were launching in 1,200 Target stores. On February 25th of this year. 

Emily: Yep. 

Josh: Can you tell me about that day? 

Emily: Oh my God. It's still just so surreal you can find us now in 1,224 Target stores across the nation. It is nuts. it makes me tear up like every single time, just like to see your product in the aisle and like real life and like you see people going up to it and like buying it. You're like, no way. 

Josh: Can I record you while you buy my product? I'm the inventor. 

Emily: It's so cool. 

Josh: Did you talk to anyone in the store who was buying your product? 

Emily: I do, I do. I mean I get all weird, and uh we wanted to do a little tour as well. We're going to do it later this year. Where we go and visit, we mapped out. I think we can hit up about 350 of them. 

Josh: Oh my gosh. 

Emily: Yeah 

Josh: Are you really going to do a 350 targets store tour? 

Emily: Yes. Yes. Over the course of about two and a half weeks, we've figured out the timeline We'll have our little like poster signage, like a little sandwich board that we bring into the aisle. 

Josh: Yeah 

Emily: And then just like meet with as many people as possible in those stores and tell our story and tell them about the product and how to use it and get them all psyched out. Yeah 

Josh: Whatever ended up happening with Mac? On the show, he said he was a soft no and then apparently I made a face and so he changed that to a soft Yes. did you guys end up reconnecting after the show?

Emily: We did. We had a great talk after the show. I think there are more follow up steps to be had there. but it sounded like they were interested in like more conversations to be had. 

Josh: Okay. 

Emily: I'm very new to this process so honestly I'm like figuring it out a little bit, um, how the back and forth goes. I'm not quite sure. 

Josh: If I were you, I would utilize him to get some more consumer VCs in the mix like once you've got a few VCs interested, then all of a sudden other VCs are like, Oh, this is someone we have to take seriously. It's all a game as you know, but Mac does have some of those additional connections and that, you know, if you convince some of his VC consumer friends to invest, that's going to make him feel more confident about investing and then you're off to the races.

Emily: Awesome. Thank you, Josh. That is helpful 

Josh: I mean, treat him like you care about him too, but you know that's how I would do it. 

Emily: Super helpful. We'll do that. So those are our next steps. 

Lisa: Next steps, what Josh said

Emily: Yes. 

Josh: Oh, gosh. What's it like figuring out this VC dance? 

Emily: Uh, [long pause] It's hard. I, I, I, ugh. I haven't figured it out but yeah, it's confusing and hard. I feel like with building a business, you always know what, like, the next step is, and I'm like, oh, we built the business, like, money, you know, and I yeah, there's a dance to it where I'm like not used to this and I'm like, well, no, but here's the business. We already did it. Like now we just need money to go to the next level. Money.

Lisa: Yeah.

Emily: Likewise. And I don't know, like the marketing language or like the flourish or the flair just yet I thought it'd be more like analytical. 

Josh: Right. Yeah. Sounds like you've got some good leads though. Like, I think you're probably not as far behind on the fundraise as you, as you think the fact that you've got VCs reaching out to you is a really good sign 

Emily: See I don't even know that 

Lisa: It definitely is and like Josh was saying it I would use that to my advantage earlier rather than later while you are still in conversations with them Rather than waiting for that to play out and say like, oh, no, they're not interested They didn't invest and now you have nothing to go with you take this fact that you're talking to them and use that to tell other people we're talking to This person and this person and use it to stir up that interest with the other VCs that you can reach out to

Emily: Awesome. Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa: Yeah. 

Emly: You guys are great. I'm so appreciative of being on this show Like really. Thank you. 

Lisa: You're welcome. 

Josh: You're welcome. You're not mad at us for inviting you on for your first VC pitch on a public stage? 

Emily: Not at all. Not at all. I put myself in that position.

Robecurls is kind of like...a mullet. Business in the front. Pitch in the back.

Which is fine, lots of great VC backed businesses started out this way. But when you’re pitching a new market, the founder has to be that much better at telling the story. You have to be the spokesperson for your business AND the market.

But from the investor point of view, if it turns out Emily is right, you don’t really get to wait and place your bets later. The time to invest is now. Before everyone else catches up. Because once all the VCs agree that heatless hair care is the future. The opportunity will have passed. 

We are just one month away from recording season 12 in San Francisco 

If you’re a VC or an angel investor and you’d like access to our dealflow before anyone else - you’re invited to join us. VIPs loved the experience of watching the deals happen live. And some of them even got in on the action themselves. We only have a few tickets left, so go right now to thepitchevent.com to secure your spot.

Founders, if you want to be the one pitching at the event, you can apply to pitch at pitch.show/apply 

Next week on the pitch … the dreaded error message - 

Nilo: It looks something like, "sorry, we're currently experiencing issues. Please try again later." 

Nilo: So who gets called when that problem arises? 

Jen: We do. 

Nilo: the question is can the machine learning based-scaling outperform the human approach. To me, it's so obvious. 

Nilo: Models usually don't have a bad day.

Jen: And your models can't quit and put in their two weeks' notice. 

Charles: How have you two divided up your own responsibilities in the company?

Jen: Well, we're twins, so.

Cyan: I was wondering, but I didn't want to presume!

[laughter]

Twin takeover! That’s next week on The Pitch. Subscribe now and turn on notifications so you don’t miss it.

This episode was made by me, Josh Muccio, Lisa Muccio, Anna Ladd, Enoch Kim, Jackie Paapanair and Alma Langshaw. With casting help from Peter Liu and John Alvarez.

Music in this episode is by Graham Barton, The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, Our Many Stars, Joey Kantor, Saberteeth, and FYRSTYX

The Pitch is made in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network.