How I Got Started: Awkward Essentials (and how social media lead them to their first 1000 sales + being sold in CVS!)

Excited to share the story behind Awkward Essentials and founder Frances Tang! This was a fun one, and is one of the interviews that makes me wish this were a podcast because there are too many fun stories & quotes to share.

Some highlights I loved talking to her about:

• how she educated the world on an, eh hem, awkward essential, aka her invention, the cum sponge (and turned it into an incredible business, now distributed through mainstream stores like CVS & more!)

• how posting in a Facebook group resulted in Awkward Essentials blowing up overnight (literally)

• how she raised $2.3M with no prior experience or VC connections

• the balance of following instructions (aka the common wisdom you always hear about) and being creative/scrappy, and how they’ve gotten her to where she is today

Read more about Frances’s story below!

How she knew she wanted to be a founder
I’ve always had founder brain and I’ve always been a multi-potentialite who loved to stack skills from different jobs. I’ve had a dozen jobs, and 3-4 of them were normal people jobs, but all the others were not. (My first business from 10 years ago was a pop-up date night business. I was also formerly a hula dancer, a wedding photographer, and also had a wedding photography business.)

I think every founder has always had all these ideas and tried to start different things - Awkward Essentials is just the one that has gone the furthest.

How going through a co-founder breakup lead her to Awkward Essentials
Before Awkward Essentials, I started a business with a co-founder (a Cannabis POS software company), and he ended up bailing on me which was really tough at the time. I was convinced I’d have to get a normal person job, but Awkward Essentials felt like my last shot.

It made me realize how important it is to find the right co-founder — someone who shares your vision and has the same level of commitment as you do.

I’m a solo founder but wish I had a co-founder. I was actively looking, but it's such a weird thing. Finding a co-founder is harder than finding a husband.

How she knew Awkward Essentials was ✨the one✨
Because I'm a female founder, I had no confidence. I still get this to this day, where dudes will say, “is this really a problem?”

But I had the idea for Awkward Essentials because it was inspired by a personal problem, so with the encouragement of my friends, I pushed myself to look into this idea.

I slowly gained more confidence over time.

First was getting into Grid 110, a no cost / no equity accelerator, who I met at a corporate networking event. Speaking of low confidence, I met them and immediately thought only about connecting them with a founder friend of mine. Something in my mind just didn't allow me to believe that I or my seedling of an idea was worthy of an accelerator yet. When I was encouraged to apply because they claimed to be industry agnostic, I did and was surprised I actually got in!

Next was meeting Roy Bahat from Bloomberg Beta. I went to another networking event, and he was speaking on the panel. I don't know what prompted me to talk to him, but I went up to him and told him what I was doing. He connected me with Cindy Gallop (the most famous sextech pioneer and champion of female founders out there) and she was super supportive.

This was a huge moment where I thought, "Whoa, there are other people who believe that this could be a real thing?” It gave me more conviction and confidence, which is 90% of being a founder in the early stages.

At this point, I took my biggest risk of all -- using my savings to order the MOQ of my prototype (20,000 units).

How she got her first customers (and blowing up overnight, literally)
One day I posted in a few Facebook groups just to get feedback — do you understand what the product is? Is this confusing? Would you be interested?

The next morning, I wake up, and my phone was blowing up.

In my Facebook DM requests, there was a message from this writer from the Huffington Post UK who saw my post and asked to do an article. Because she was in a different time zone, I was sleeping when she sent this and never responded, but she wrote an article anyways.

By the time I woke up, it had spread through all of Europe, and when I woke up, the New York Post had picked it up and it started spreading into the US. My phone was blowing up because people were ordering it from my Shopify website, which I was not ready for.

This was the final confidence boost for me. I knew this was a big enough problem where people were actually willing to buy it. They weren’t signing up for a presale or putting their name on an e-mail list, but they were actually purchasing it and DM’ing me from all around the world.

People were buying 100 packs, and I was like, “how are you having this much sex?” I was blowing through the 20,000 MOQ I had ordered and was scrambling to order more.

How she went from 0 connections to raising $2.3M through cold e-mails
I did the thing you're supposed to do. I used a free LinkedIn Premium trial and Pitchbook to find investors. (I had a subscription to Pitchbook via the accelerator because it’s really expensive.) I looked for investors that invested in early-stage, unique brands with loud personalities that were within our space. I tried to get warm introductions, but none of them worked out, so then, I just started cold emailing. Our lead investor was someone I had reached out to cold.

It was tough. I had interest, but you know how it goes - “This is cool. Update me when you're at $5 million in sales.” I’m like, “okay, well, how am I going to get there [without some initial funding first]?”

Other (fun) highlights from my interview with Frances

On teaching people about a new product (the cum sponge) and how her creativity lead her to being featured on Comedy Central
For a long time, I had the problem where people didn't understand what it was. When I would try to explain it or even draw it out, people would say, "Is it a wipe? Is it a suction machine? I don't understand. Do I stick this in before I have sex?"

Because it didn't exist, it was so much harder to try to do that. It wasn't like I was launching a new tactical backpack or a software that people could easily understand, like a chatbot or whatever. They were just like, "I don't get it.”

I remember thinking, "I need to do a demo. People don't understand it. I should buy one of those plastic anatomical vagina models from The Office." I went on Amazon and they were so expensive. I was like, “I can't afford this. I already spent money on 20,000 cum sponges.”

Because I come from the food industry, that's when I thought, "Okay, how can I use food?" So I used a Twinkie. Me and one of my friends filmed a video of a Twinkie getting the cream removed (and it worked!). It was effective, and it ultimately got us featured on Comedy Central with David Spade.

On breaking into retail (1900+ locations of CVS, baby!!)
Someone found us on social media and connected us with the buyer [of CVS], which is unusual. It took a year of conversations, and they wanted us to do a test with them which we couldn't afford, so we did CVS Online first.

For anyone who's reading: always negotiate.

On just… following the instructions to succeed
The information is out there, and I feel like that's kind of the biggest takeaway, right? The information is out there. People are telling you, and so you should listen to them.

I have encountered situations where I've literally been told, “here's how you should outline your pitch.” I'll do my pitch, and people will amazed because no one else followed the instructions. Just follow the instructions. There are instructions.

On surrounding yourself with “founder brain” friends to gain confidence, especially as a female founder
With most people, friends want to help them, so they're going to tell them why it doesn't work. "Oh, well, can't people just do this?" or "Does anyone really have that problem?" It's coming from a place of love, right? They want to protect you because they know that businesses are risky.

My friends in the early days of Awkward Essentials were more founder-brain people, so they were like, "This makes sense. I've heard about this problem. This is an interesting market. I think these types of people would be interested” and it gave me confidence to pursue it.

As a female founder, you're not inclined to say, "I have this great idea. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to buy it and be into it, and I'm going to raise money, and this is going to be big." I think we need those boosts of confidence from outside sources.

It took time. It was hard. I still get it to this day. I still get dudes who ask, "Is this really a problem?" And I'm like, "Okay, let someone come in your a** and then tell me if you feel like it's annoying."

Besides this weekly series, I’m also experimenting with more short essays about things that can be helpful for people interested in startups (founders, aspiring angel investors, early stage operators, etc). Some great suggestions people have made that I’m working on include important things to know before making your first angel investment, how to choose a startup to work at, how to understand the value of equity (as an investor, as an early employee), how to ask friends/family for money (for your startup), etc. If you have any ideas you’d be excited to read about please reply back! <3

PS. I’m always looking for more founders outside of my immediate network to feature, so if you know of any founders with interesting early stories to tell, please nominate them (or yourself) here! If you have suggestions, feedback, etc., email me at [email protected]! And subscribe above if you want to be alerted about future stories