International Women’s Day was created with the aim of becoming a global movement to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements by all women. It also highlights the efforts being made toward gender equality. As a company with 100% of our team comprised of women, we celebrate women and champion women in leadership every single day, and stand to support this years IWD messaging of:

Ahead of IWD we virtually sat down with Doone Roisin, Australian entrepreneur and an ABSOLUTE leader in her profession of marketing & ecommerce. Doone not only has a history of working for one of Australia's largest online retailers, but also runs her own businesses, launching her own direct-to-consumer jewellery brand that exists to make millennial women all over the world sparkle bright - Kincs, and Female Startup Club; an educational platform that provides insightful podcasts and technical courses!

In this Q&A we dive deep with Doone and discuss a range of topics from what IWD means to her, what inspired her to start her own businesses and how to back yourself as a young female entrepreneur.

 

Tell us a bit about Doone! How did your career start and if you could go back 5 years - is this where you saw yourself?

I started my career working for THE ICONIC when it had just launched into Australia, and without a doubt it was the best experience for a young woman hungry to learn and get a feel for start-ups. We were building this really special thing that was new to Australia, launching wildly innovative campaigns that hadn’t been done before; like 3-hour delivery (which might be the norm now but certainly wasn’t at the time!). I walked in the door as an intern, got the chance to wear many hats across different teams and left being the chick who built the social side of things; hundreds of thousands of friends on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It was all incredibly exciting and paved the way for everything I’ve done since!  

Fast forward to today things are very different. That strong introduction to the world of a start-up in ecommerce gave me a blueprint to do my own thing, when I look back to where I was 5 years ago I can honestly say I knew I’d be doing my own thing and hustling to grow some kind of business. But I didn’t know what it would be yet, haha. I think these things have an evolution and I’ve tried my luck at a few things prior to Female Startup Club. From a tech Saas platform to my jewellery brand Kincs, I’ve always been interested in problem solving and creating. 

 

International Women's Day is a day we are very passionate about. We thought who better to chat to than the creator of Female Startup Club! For anyone who hasn’t heard of this amazing platform please run us through what it’s all about! 

Female Startup Club is a media company that’s helping women-in-progress learn and dominate when it comes to ecommerce. We have a popular podcast, Female Startup Club, where I interview some of the world’s most exciting female founders who share their experience in building businesses (some of which are doing $150M a year in rev!) and the strategies and tactics they used to get there. I’m biased (obvs) but it really is the most eye-opening, brilliant resource for women who are growing a business or who have a big idea and want to start something. You can hear directly from women like Sarah Paiji Yoo, the woman behind a company called Blueland, innovating in what products we put under the kitchen sink. Rebecca Minkoff, one of America’s iconic fashion designers. Christina Stembel, the woman who built Farmgirl Flowers to $64m revenue during the pandemic. Sarah Lee and Christine Chang, the duo behind Glow Recipe skincare - and more than 130+ others who blow my mind. I could go on and on about it! 

We also have a course in partnership with leading performance marketing agency Amplifyr that teaches you how to master scaling Facebook and Instagram ads and the exact strategies they’re using right now on some of Australia’s biggest brands in the fashion and beauty space. 

But the coolest part of Female Startup Club is the women who reach out every day and share how the podcast has impacted them in their lives and in their business. We have a private Facebook group with a few thousand women who love to share and help each other and I’m really proud of our group and what we’re building. It’s a cool corner of the internet.

 

 What inspired you to create a platform for women to “Learn and Dominate” 

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Less than 3% of all venture capital money goes to women. And much less than that goes to BIPOC women. Isn’t that crazy? Even more baffling is that for every dollar invested into a female lead business, it generates twice as much return for every dollar invested into a male lead business. Women are changing the world through innovative, smart, problem solving businesses - yet aren’t able to scale in the same way our male equals are. 

Women are starting and growing businesses every day, so now more than ever we need to be empowering those women to get access to resources, capital, education and mentorship to help us succeed collectively. That’s why I started Female Startup Club and why I champion women who are solving global issues and making the world a better place every day.

 

 

 

How did your colourful brand Kincs come to life? (We need one of EVERYTHING!!)

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Thank you! When I was building the tech platform with my now husband, I remember sitting on a panel during London Tech Week alongside these incredible companies like Airtasker, talking about tax benefits here in the UK and I had a moment where I thought - I’m not playing to my strengths here. I want to shout about something that I truly love. A physical product that’s fun and sparkly and uses my ecommerce experience. So that set the wheels in motion to start Kincs. It started on my bedroom floor but took me to China, Indonesia and Thailand and taught me a great deal of what to do - and what not to do - in ecommerce. Today Kincs is very much my little side hustle that brings me plenty of creative joy. 

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Ignore your inner critic. Just put it aside, know that during the process you’re going to fail, get rejected and be challenged beyond belief - it’s totally inevitable - but with that in mind put it all aside and focus on taking action towards the things you truly want in life. 

 

On the show recently, a woman I interviewed summed it up perfectly; ideas without execution are nothing. You need to ignore the self-doubt and push through. I promise, it’s worth it!  

During the week I’m totally focused on Female Startup Club, and right now we’re in a never-ending lockdown so I’m at home and inside for most of the day. 

 

A typical day starts with the cutest little cuddles from my puppy, Sweetie, and some phone free time with my husband. We cherish slow mornings at the moment and do what we can to keep our minds healthy with everything that’s going on, often going for a walk through the park with a takeaway coffee - always coffee. After that it’s a mix of catching up with my team, making sure everything’s running smoothly and getting on top of admin and outreach for the show. At the moment we publish episodes 3 times a week so that can mean I’m recording anything from 3-7 episodes a week, I always try to record content for social media before I prep for the upcoming episode and hop on the recording. While I’m fresh! I try to take zoom calls once recordings are done so it’s out of my mind and then squeeze in a quick workout before we cook something yummy. 

Here at SUBOO we deeply thank Doone for allowing us to showcase her voice and help us spread the message of International Women's Day and standing with us to #ChooseToChallenge.

 

 

 

In efforts to raise awareness we have rounded up the gender pay gap to extend 14% of all profits f rom the 4th March until 8th March (IWD) to 100women.org - an organisation aimed at creating a world where all women and girls can live safely with access to health, education and economic freedom.    

 

 

Support our fundraising efforts and Shop Doone's looks from our latest Odyssey Collection:

(But for now we recommend the Bernie Wrap Mini Dress)

 

The women we are proudly showcasing include: 

 

Stay tuned as our IWD series continues this week.