FIGGI Skincare is a few weeks away from finally launching. Although so much has gone into this launch, and there is a lot of excitement around it, there is also fear. Fear of failure, fear of not achieving the aimed goals, fear that no one will like the skincare or buy the skincare.
FIGGI Skincare is a few weeks away from finally launching. Although so much has gone into this launch, and there is a lot of excitement around it, there is also fear. Fear of failure, fear of not achieving the aimed goals, fear that no one will like the skincare or buy the skincare.
Jeanne gets candid about what it really takes to launch a skincare line. She talks openly about the fear we all feel in launching a new business venture and lays to rest the pressure that we feel to be forever confident in these situations. She shares what it has taken to get here, her fear of failure, and her inner doubts.
She talks about the snowball thoughts that overtake the mind when you are on the precipice of finding out if your hard work is worth it or not. Will it pay off or crash and burn? These are feelings that are normal to go through when you have invested so much but that we are often not told about by business coaches and self-help mentors. Instead we are conditioned to be confident, to not doubt and only cling to blind belief that it will, in fact, be a success.
Jeanne mentioned the first My FIGGI Life Podcast episode: The Birth of FIGGI.
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[00:00:00.490] - Jeanne
So hello, my FIGGI goddess. And here we are again with another episode. My voice is a little bit scratchy. Please just bear with me throughout this episode. I am talking today about the fear and the terror that comes with starting something new. I am on the verge of launching the FIGGI skincare line. It should be out and ready to buy within the next two to three weeks. I'm so, so excited, but I'm so terrified. I'm so terrified, and I'm just getting open and honest about that and what that feels like, starting something new, being on the verge of launching it and just having that paralyzing fear that comes with it. So, if you want to know more, stay tuned.
[00:00:44.110] - Intro
Welcome, goddess, to your sacred space. This is my FIGGI Life podcast, where we openly discuss life's wins and losses on our journeys to self-discovery. This is your best life. This is your FIGGI life. And now here is your host, Jeanne.
[00:01:06.390] - Jeanne
So here at FIGGI, we're all about being open and honest about our journey through life, whether that be pretty or not so pretty. And we're also all about supporting each other through these phases and understanding that it's okay to fail. It's okay to be scared. It's okay not to be positive. It's okay not to be okay. So today I'm coming to you, my FIGGI network and support system, and I am laying it out on the table, and I'm just asking for your support. So where am I at? Okay, if you know the whole journey of FIGGI, if you don't go back to the podcast episode, the first one, The Birth of FIGGI, it explains everything about FIGGI, how I got to where I am, why I'm here, and all of that. So, in two to three weeks, it's finally here. We're finally launching the skincare line. I mean, I almost really, honestly want to cry because so much has gone into this. I have so much respect, actually, for the beauty industry, which is an industry I actually used to look down on because of how I always felt they overcharged consumers and they're advocating that we're not beautiful enough and we don't look good enough, and there's always something to fix us or to make us better, whatever.
[00:02:23.740] - Jeanne
That's a whole entirely different conversation. But I must tell you, I have a new respect for it. Having gone through everything I have in the last year and a half. Yes, it took a year and a half, and I was working fast, like, really fast, nights, weekends, holidays, to get this going. I am super excited. But I also want to be extremely real with you. If you're going through a career change, if you are in a position where you're starting something new, I don't want you like me to feel like you're reading all the advice and the guidance that is out there. And all that you're constantly confronted with are these positive messages from these high-flying professional powerhouses that just know how to correctly do everything. No straits in starting a new business. Everything is fine because you've got this, and you know exactly what to do and you just go through the motions and what will come will come and what will work out will work out. Yeah, no, I'm definitely not there. So, I'm going to share my necessary realness with you at the moment. Okay, so how am I feeling at the moment?
[00:03:37.500] - Jeanne
Two to three weeks before we are launching, my absolute truth feelings are blind, staggering, debilitating, paralyzing, fear, and terror. It feels like there is a literal storm brewing in my mind. There are. It feels like all of a sudden, 101,000 things that need to be done before the launch that need to be in place. And I'm not talking about small arrangements that need to be made. I mean shipping, logistics, customs clearance, tax numbers, VAT numbers, employer registration numbers, sales tax, registrations, where do I pay sales tax, EU regulations, cosmetics, legal compliance formulas, testing social media, keeping social media in key, checking all the ads, and looking at the data and seeing that everything is performing like it needs to perform. I can go on and on and on, but this is what it feels like to me at the moment. Like a storm is raging inside me and I am terrified. I really am. I've never done something like this before. My previous business experience has been always in the service industry, as you know, I had and still have, but don't operate in it permanently anymore. My consultancy, my human rights consultancy, which was very service based, this now FIGGI, yes, the podcast, the community, the blog, this hopeful movement that we are starting is in some ways, yes, a service.
[00:05:06.470] - Jeanne
But the skin care and all the kind of products that lead from that are products and products cost a lot of money. It costs so much money to develop. It costs so much money to research and to try and to fail and to try again and then fail again and try again and gosh, I am overwhelmed. I feel like I'm completely out of my depth. I'm not drowning, okay? I've drowned. I've been washed out to shore. And that's how I feel at the moment. I am so unbelievably scared that this is going to fail. And I know failure is normal. I've spoken about this on this podcast. I've written about it. But as you also know, I always tell you that I am so far from perfect in any one of those journeys. I also struggle with that. I also struggle to remember it. I also struggle to see it when I'm in the eye of the storm. And let me tell you right now, where I'm sitting, I'm in the eye of a freaking big storm and I am so scared the skincare doesn't sell. I'm scared that I have invested in this venture and absolutely nobody will want to buy it.
[00:06:18.080] - Jeanne
Everybody will hate it. And I know as I'm saying these things, I didn't go about this in a really hasty, unresearched way. I did my homework. I did all the research. I've done all the tests. We'll go through all and everything that I've done in the last year and a half. But that doesn't matter when you're at this moment because where I'm at, I'm doubting everything. I'm doubting myself. I'm doubting my abilities. I'm doubting my skills. I'm doubting my experience and my knowledge. I'm doubting this truth that I'm trying to communicate to the FIGGI community, this community I'm trying to build. What if nobody cares? What if nobody cares? What if everybody or most people listening to this think I'm just another lady on a high horse proclaiming all sorts of do this, not those anecdotes and wisdom and advice droning on in the background. What if my blog doesn't grow? What if people don't care about what I write? What if I have taken this chance and I have put myself in this position and I've put my family in this position for nothing? I am not saying that's going to happen and I am completely painfully aware of the extreme snowball of thoughts that I'm laying out there right now.
[00:07:37.460] - Jeanne
I know that. I know that. I know I'm snowballing. I know I'm spending and spending and spending in this vicious circle but that's where I am now. The year and a half of research and doing everything that I possibly could, learning so many new things and completely deep diving into it is finished. There's nothing to rely on anymore. There's nothing to fall back on anymore. Now the proof is in the pudding. It's here. The products are here. They're launching and it's either going to fail or when. People are either going to buy them or not. Hate them or love them. This is either going to be an insanely massive disappointment to me or one of the greatest journeys and ventures I've ever taken. Standing on the precipice and on this eve of that almost like election night, reading the polls, the outcome cannot be changed. Makes you really struggle to see all the positives and I just needed to say that. I really just needed to say that. I needed to just take a breath and just articulate and communicate in this moment. I am not okay. I am stressed out beyond my parameters. I feel like I'm running on a hamster wheel chasing and making sure everything is ready and working.
[00:08:59.630] - Jeanne
I know life goes through ebbs and flows and this ebb and flow where I am right now, I need to put in a little bit extra to hopefully have it pay off really soon. But to be completely honest, I have been noticing it. I've been noticing the effect that it has taken on me. I am noticing the signs, the triggers, the signals that I see when my anxiety is getting too high and it's getting out of control. Also, just because it's that time of year and it's everything that's happening, and because maybe I'm more stressed than I usually am, well, just delete that last part. I mean, who are we kidding? I have freaking panic disorder. I'm always more stressed than I usually am. That's my neutral. That's my resting happy place.
[00:09:48.970] - Speaker 3
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[00:10:01.410] - Jeanne
This is the reality of starting something new, where you've had to invest so much money, time, skills, sleep, offering up sleep, learning so many new things over constant, over information and constant, like, barrage of that over information in your mind. And I just needed to share that. I needed to get real, to be real, not just with myself, but with you, too, because it's not fair for me to sit here every week and talk about the things that I have learned and methods that I'm trying to incorporate and my viewpoints on things. If I'm not living it and if I'm not doing it, and if I'm not practicing it, and most importantly, if I don't have the guts to get on here on this show and go, you know what? I screwed up. I am screwing up. Like, I'm not looking after myself. I'm not taking the steps I'm supposed to be taking. I'm super stressed out, and it's normal to be stressed out because of this huge thing that's happening in my life in the next two to three weeks to honestly just say I am. I don't know. I'm not actually sure what word to use.
[00:11:12.040] - Jeanne
That's what it's all about, being honest. So, to give you a little bit of background of what culminated in the situation of the year and now when I decided to launch FIGGI, I decided that the first product should be the skincare line, uniquely and specifically formulated for dry and sensitive skin. I had many reasons for why I chose this specific thing, and if you want to know more about that, please go listen to the Birth of FIGGI podcast. And I will also put links into this description. By the time you listen to this episode, it would not have aired yet, but I will come back and put links into this episode for the introduction of the FIGGI skincare range, in which I further explain why dry and sensitive skin, why I chose to start with a skincare line and all of that. Now, my background is in international criminal law and international human rights law. I didn't know, except for my absolute love and passion for skincare and all things skincare, I didn't know squat about making skincare. I decided if I was going to do this, I was not going to be somebody standing on the side-lines hoping somebody else that I contracted to do it for me is going to create something magical and beautiful.
[00:12:32.350] - Jeanne
And I also decided that I was not going to go the route of taking something that somebody else had created and putting my label on it. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what we call private label manufacturing. That's literally when you don't want to create your own formulas, and you go to a manufacturer that already has, for example, a body cream or a body wash that they have formulated, they have already put through all of the regulatory tests that all cosmetic formulas have to go through. They've basically done everything for you, and you basically pay to use this formula, but put your brand on it. I didn't want to do that. It was really important to me that the skincare not only speak to my skin because I have dry and sensitive skin, but also that I was an integral part of making it unique, making sure it's a luxurious skincare offer to the sensitive souls with the dry skin woes like me. And I wanted to understand what was going into this formula. I wanted to understand how it mixed together, what set off what, what didn't work together, what worked together. If we're talking about how, it penetrates the skin and at what percentages we should use it and what's safe and what's not, I wanted to know that.
[00:13:55.880] - Jeanne
I completely understood that I did not start my career as a chemist, like a cosmetic chemist or researcher or anything in that space. So, I wasn't looking at becoming an absolute expert in this field. I just wanted to know at least a little bit more than the basics of what I am talking about, what I'm asking for, what I want, so that I was able to literally write and formulate my own formulation sheet and then work with a manufacturer, directly work within. Usually, they have an in-house chemist, cosmetic chemist, that takes the formula kind of to the next level. There I was going back to school, which I swore I would not do after my PhD. I swore it. But there I was doing my diploma in cosmetic chemistry. And let me tell you, when I signed up for that, I did not have any idea of the commitment it would be. I did my homework. I made sure it was certified, internationally recognized and accredited course or diploma. And I obviously knew that if it has these credentials, it's not going to be a Mickey Mouse. Read through, answer a few questions, tick, tick, check, you're done.
[00:15:14.980] - Jeanne
But gosh. This was next level, and I did not have science in high school. I'm not a science fundus. I'm terrified of math, really. My strong point is in languages, people skills, diplomacy. You can see why I was in the human rights field, right? So, yeah, I did that. And I spent many nights crying myself through this dreaded diploma. I almost gave up so many times. I think the night before my last exam was due. It was midnight, and it was a Friday evening, and I came into the kitchen, and I was crying, and I was telling my husband, I have never in my life quit anything because I would not be able to live with myself if I quit something. But I have to tell you right now that I want to quit. I don't want to go back in the office. I don't want to try and figure this out again. I want to quit. Can I please, just this once, quit? Hubby, being who he is, told me, of course I will support any decision you make. Boom in the heart, knowing, knowing I will drag myself back to the office, and I will try and see it through.
[00:16:38.180] - Jeanne
So, yay, I did it. I got the diploma. I was so happy, and I was so happy for this achievement, and I was so happy. I did it because it taught me so much. I really wanted to be in a position where people could not bullshit me if somebody told me I couldn't do something. I wanted to be able to understand why I didn't want to be in a position where people were bombarding me with all sorts of chemistry mumbo jumbo, telling me, no, you can't add this, you can't do that. You can't make the consistency this way. You cannot add this active in this percentage. I wanted to be able to be on a level where I could at least question it intelligently and articulate it correctly and say, no, I'm sorry, I don't agree. I think we can do this. I think we can swap this over for this. I think we can take out here and add here. I also completed my certificate in EU cosmetic compliance and brand management because it is a legal nightmare. Nightmare, I tell you, to launch any type of cosmetic product, skincare falls in that on the EU market.
[00:17:46.150] - Jeanne
Oh, my goodness, I honestly do not know oh, my goodness, I honestly do not know how people without any form of legal background navigates this. I understand that's why you have a European, responsible person to do this for you, but you still need a basic understanding of and I'm not kidding here. I'm literally not kidding the hundreds of documents you need per product to enable you to go through this entire cosmetic compliance thing, and it's illegal to sell your products. Those products cannot even enter the EU if it does not comply. There are some regulations for the states, but the states don't formalize it the way that the EU does. You're advised and encouraged to get it approved by a regular type of body, which for them is the FDA. But you don't have to. You're not required to. So, I did that. And this is all in the background of trying to set up the business that is FIGGI life. I mean, I cannot have skincare, but have no business registered. Where's the money going to go? Where's the tax going to be paid? What kind of bank account am I going to use to pay for all of these products and the research and the formulations and the goods and the services?
[00:19:08.350] - Jeanne
So that process started. Now, that in itself was a huge learning curve. I am not an international tax expert. I am not an international business law. I mean, the hoops I had to jump through to open a business and get all the registrations I needed to get and open the right bank accounts and make sure I'm tax compliant and appoint accountants and register. I'm talking about months and months and months of headaches. I'm talking about spending so much time googling yourself into utter oblivion because you're so confused with all of the different opinions. And yet you should do this, you shouldn't do that, you should register for that. No, don't register that. That's the biggest mistake that you can make because they will deny your application at the first. It is an incredible journey to go through. So, on top of all of that, I'm doing these diplomas and then I started Formulating. You can't just start formulating. You also need to find manufacturer who's going to manufacture these goods for you. You're not going to be making it in house. Oh, wait, stop. Ha-ha. Not that easy. Not just as easy as finding a manufacturer.
[00:20:28.030] - Jeanne
No. You first have to research what you need to know in order to find a manufacturer, which is are they GMP certified? Are they IASO certified? If they are not, then the EU responsible person will not accept their formulations, and you will have an issue with the legal compliance and the regulations. And you would have paid a hefty amount of money getting to this point only to have to start over again, look for another manufacturer, and definitely didn't want to go through that route. So, I had to go through the whole thing of finding the right manufacturer. Then you have to consider where your manufacturer is, what's the best shipping options and routes, what kind of customs issues can you possibly run into, what kind of duties are you going to pay shipping from one country to the other? I knew nothing, nothing of any of this. I was in a constant state of intense mental overload. Then when you finally get to the actual making of the formulas, that takes weeks upon weeks upon weeks. Because I wanted to have such a personal commitment in the formulas and know exactly what I was asking for and what I was putting in and leaving out.
[00:21:28.660] - Jeanne
It took weeks for me to write down my formula. Luckily, I learned really well how to do this through my diploma in cosmetics chemistry. But I researched ingredients until, I'm sure. There until, I'm sure. Actually, Google was sick of me. You don't really use Google. You use things like prospector and other paid for sites. That gives you all of the correct regulatory information about ingredients and suppliers of these ingredients. But, yeah, I'm sure those directories, when they saw me coming, was like, jean, please, just give us a break. Just take a break. You saw what you needed to see. Just deal with whatever you have and take it from there. I really think so. So, when I finally got my formulas ready, then I obviously need to negotiate the contract with the manufacturer. Then the formulas start. Then you have to wait weeks to get the formulas. Then you get the formulas, then you're not happy with them because the consistency isn't right. It doesn't feel right on your skin. It's obviously a formulation for dry and sensitive skin. I need it to work perfectly. You send it back, you tweak the formulation. Another few weeks of Formulating ensues; you get the next batch.
[00:22:43.420] - Jeanne
You don't approve, you send it back. And so, it goes on, and so it goes forth until you're finally happy with the version you have. Then finally, if you are happy, you need to make all of the choices in terms of packaging. And by then, you need to start figuring out what is your costs for manufacturing, what is your Formula costing, what's your packaging costing, what are you thinking about selling this product for, which is, again, something I knew absolutely nothing about. I have never in my life worked with products and placing products on the market and figuring out what they need to cost and what your profit margins are and all of that because my service was service. I was selling my service. So, tell me how to quote the development of a human rights project for you and how long the development will take and what the in-country fees will be. No problem. I can do that within an hour. This completely different ballpark and all sorts of other things also coming to play COVID and how that affected the shipping costs and rates. And because every single raw material that you use in your formulations, obviously, if you're not using materials that are immediately available to the manufacturer you use, it needs to be shipped in.
[00:24:00.190] - Jeanne
And that costs money. And if the shipping rates change, it costs a lot more and it affects your budget. So, it's all of these things that need to come together when you're finally ready to proceed with your Formula and the packaging. And even that is there's just so many options, because then you get bombarded with this whole thing. People are not going to buy your products if it's not environmentally friendly and if it's not recyclable. And you need to understand what is recyclable and what is environmentally friendly. You get this perfect bottle that would look amazing, but only 80% of it is recyclable and or you get the perfect bottle, and everything is recyclable except, for example, the pump. But the pump consists out of 50 different pieces that you can. So, it's just incredible. Incredible the amount of everything that goes into a project like this. Then when your formula is ready, you can finally ship it off to the tasting facilities. You cannot work around that. Your formula, inside the packaging you will be selling it in, needs to go for a testing phase. Three different tests actually, in which they basically test if your formula is stable, it doesn't have any harmful effects or any risk of any hazardous effect on the, the consumer using it.
[00:25:20.570] - Jeanne
It doesn't have any harmful chemicals or harmful risks. It doesn't disintegrate, it doesn't become harmful over time. It's shelf stable. So, they tested, for example, in different temperatures and in different humidity. It's like a three-month period of testing that this formula goes through, which you basically, I mean, if you are using a good manufacturer with GMP standards, this is not their first rodeo. So, you're probably safe. But I mean, you're so stressed out a little bit because you've come so far. So, you're really hoping all of those tests get the green flag, then the barrage of advisors that you need come into play. One of these being your EU responsible person, which you must have, unless you are brave enough, if you're new in this industry, to do it yourself the first time, which I honestly do not recommend, and I have a legal degree and a background in law, and I still don't recommend it. And they then go through all of your formulas and the tests, and they register it on the EU regulatory compliance network that it's safe and it can be sold. And even this process is tedious and time consuming.
[00:26:31.510] - Jeanne
If you, for example, have twelve ingredients in your product, there's probably around 20 documents for every single ingredient that you have to get together to be able to send, to be able to get the compliance. Then you start writing the content of your cosmetics. Everything that comes on the little bottle that describe what this product does and how it feels and what you want to call it and how you want to name it. And I mean, that's a battle in its own right. Have you got any idea how difficult it is to just say what your product does? There are so many laws around that about what you can and cannot say. It's honestly so frustrating because I am the small indie skincare brand. Then I walk into a store, and I see all of these cosmetics on the shelves and I'm thinking, hey, that's not fair. I mean, your product sounds so much better than mine, but it's not fair because I know that you're not allowed to say that you're not allowed to put that on your bottle. But gosh, you don't take the chance doing that. You're new. You're new in the industry.
[00:27:30.930] - Jeanne
You don't have the money of a big brand beauty cosmetic house to pay all the legal fees or the legal apology fees and retract things and relabel them. It is incredible what you can and cannot say on these labels and how you have to draft your description. Oh, gosh, that was a nightmare in itself. But obviously you do it because if you're like me, you want to do it the right way. You don't want to get in trouble. You don't want to be sued; you don't want to be complained about. You don't want to be reported to some kind of authority. Most importantly, you want your customers to eventually have a really good experience with the product. Then when that's done, you need to start with the plan. What's the rollout plan? What's mass production? How many is the minimum order quantity, and what are you going to order first? What is your branding plan? What's your marketing plan? Do you have a marketing agency? Are you navigating gating social media? Are you posting every day? I mean, even that was a nightmare to me, because in my previous job, it was really frowned upon to be on social media because obviously we were dealing with very sensitive issues.
[00:28:38.920] - Jeanne
So, I was never social media educated before FIGGI. I had to learn everything from scratch. I literally Googled and YouTubed my way out of posting for the first time on Instagram. I didn't even know what Instagram was. The only thing I knew about Instagram was the little logo that you see, the pink camera logo. I didn't know how to post. I didn't know what a hashtag was, and I didn't know that you needed to research hashtags. And what keywords? What? What are you talking about? Here's a word. It's part of my sentence. Is that a keyword? Then you get into it, and you finally figure it out, and then it's not enough. Your branding advisors are telling you, oh, you're on Instagram, but you really also should be on Pinterest. Oh, you're there, but you really should be on Facebook to COVID your bases. TikTok is now a thing. So, you should really expand. Then when you get into all of that, you find yourself, especially if you were a person like me that takes or tried to take as many digital breaks as possible constantly on social media because you're always having to feed the monster.
[00:29:43.220] - Jeanne
You have to post daily, and you have to keep within the algorithm. And then you all of a sudden need tool to create posts or beautiful what do they call what are these bloggers that give you the tips on how to create posts and how to do your social media aesthetic? Create aesthetic post engaging posts with bright colours and blah, blah, blah. And then you need to figure that out. You need to do a mini design course, mini design crash course. Then you figure out, this is taking me a whole bunch of time, probably. Is there something that schedules social media? Then you. Have to figure that out. And you have to start like literally having a calendar for posting on all the hundreds of platforms that you need to be on every single day because otherwise you will never get any work done because you'll spend your entire day creating posts and posting. I mean, then we launched the podcast. That was a new learning curve because I literally thought it was a computer, a mic, and getting kind of this podcast hosting service that you go on. No, you need a specific mic, you need a specific pair of headphones, you need all sorts of apps upon which to record.
[00:30:57.810] - Jeanne
And then there is something like mic technique you have to learn. If you're thinking about audio editing your own podcasts, you have been there, done that, do not recommend it at all. So, then you need that. This has been my past year and a half. I have learned so many things that I am so grateful for, and I have been enriched in so many ways. I have really felt myself blossom and bloom into really somebody that's lighter. Lighter in the weight I carry and the baggage I had, and lighter in my soul and lighter like I have a glow around me because I enjoy this and I'm passionate about it. And I really, honestly believe in this. And I believe in this community, and I believe in the topics in this podcast, and I believe in the skincare, and I believe in the blog, and I believe in what fi can be to every other woman like me. But for now, in this moment, in this minute, I am just exhausted, stressed out and scared of the next two to three weeks. Think of me if I can support you in any way and listen to your similar journey and encourage you along the way.
[00:32:16.330] - Jeanne
I am your cheerleader. I am. Thank you so much, so, so much for listening to this episode and for allowing me to talk your ears off and to faint and be honest and do it in a space where I won't be judged but hopefully just recognized as another entrepreneur fighting her way, fighting her way through the weeds. And hopefully one day soon we will all stand here together and look back at this moment and at this episode and go, you know what? You see what you can do. You see what you can do if you just commit and believe and allow yourself to be honest and feel the moments where it doesn't always feel good.
[00:33:06.330] - Speaker 3
Enjoying the conversation? Please consider following and subscribing to the My FIGGI Life podcast. Share our episode so we can grow our community. Go to FIGGIelive.com and subscribe to our newsletter so you're aware of all the latest podcast episodes, blog posts and FIGGI news. Remember, everyone deserves to celebrate the goddess within.