Nigerian Fragrance Founder Reveals How She Got into Sephora and Raised $500,000

She spent $225,000 of her own money on a brand that hadn't sold a single bottle yet.

Before that, she priced her first fragrance at $250 and the internet came for her. "Who do you think you are? You're not Gucci. You're not Creed." Her team told her the price is the price. She sold out, did over a million dollars in six months, and people started reselling the bottles on eBay for $600.

Funmi Monet is the founder and CEO of Influxious, the fragrance brand that launched exclusively at Sephora. She was a licensed therapist first. Then she trained at ISIPCA in Versailles, joined the Sephora Squad, and built an audience of more than 500,000 people who trust her nose.

In this episode we get into where the $225,000 went and why she doesn't regret a cent, the standard founder advice she ignored on purpose, the VC who told her a million dollars was too small a check to write, how she studied the Ami Colé shutdown so she wouldn't repeat it, why niche fragrance brands don't pay creators, and the de-auntie era that started with one rude comment about her wig.

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WHERE TO FIND FUNMI MONET