About Jade
Founder of Mane Hook-Up, a beauty booking platform that helps afro & curly hair stylists to build their online presence while saving time, energy and money on marketing themselves.
Passionate about serving and uplifting underserved communities
~10 years of experience in marketing, having held leadership positions before transitioning to full-time entrepreneurship
Key takeaways that made us go ‘a-ha’
Know your priorities, and build a career / business that allows you to pursue things that are important to you
“I had decide that that is what I wanted, so I went on to create it….training is a big part of my life…I had always gone into work and interview situations making space for important things in my life…gave me a chance to do things that are important to me”
Start with testing something small, so that you can adjust or off-ramp things quickly
“I am a non-technical founder…when you are coming from that background, the key is to build a product fast and put it in front of people without investing too much money into it. We built something in Squarespace, got different stylist profiles in, and then let’s just see what happens”
Be prepared to adjust based on what you hear from your customers - even if it means you need to pivot
“The gift and curse of having a marketplace is that you need to fulfill the needs of two sides…people may end up reacting very differently, so you need to pivot quickly. Don’t just stick to your original hypothesis if you get a different reaction”
Ask the right, unbiased set of questions to potential customers - their input should inform your solutions. Build solutions FOR your customers, instead of trying to force-fit a solution onto them.
“Speak to as many customers as possible to understand them, and how a product can serve them. You can’t think of solutions in your head. Ingrain it into everything that you do. Learn how to conduct customer interviews without asking biased questions”
Find ways to keep your motivation high - set deadlines for yourself, and communicate them in ways that would make you commit to them!
“I wanted to create a sense of urgency for myself (through the 240 days to raise newsletter). It pushes you to keep going, and helps you to connect with more founders and investors”
Take time to reflect vs just getting stuck in the doing
“Fundraising is an intense experience, and you get stuck in the doing. So, putting my thoughts down on paper forces me to think about the next step. A lot of this has come from that breathing space of thinking who should I reach out to next”
Author’s note: If you’re stuck on how to do this, check out our digital planner which can help you plan your days/weeks, set goals, reflect, and focus on self-development alongside running a business
Jade’s advice to women who want to start businesses on their own terms
“Learn the trade…if you can spend some time at a tech startup, working for your favorite food company if you are starting a company in the food space, go and do those things. I promise you the time that I spent working for the startups I worked for has saved me hours of time and tons of mistakes that I have witnessed and it also helped me understand who I wanted money from”
Jade Buffong-Phillips, digitising the $275bil afro hair industry