Most product brands dream of being stocked in the largest pharmacy chain in a country or in flagship department stores like Nordstrom. Today's guest, Alicia Ria has done it not once, but twice, and so I brought her on the show to tell you how. Welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast, where we talk about solutions that you can put into your retail or e-commerce store that will make you money and welcome.

To the show. Alicia, I cannot believe that just before we started recording this, you went, oh, I did it again. Well, thank you for having me, Selena, and yes, we did do it again. I was so excited for this conversation with you to give you more updates and what we've been working on behind the scenes. So tell us about who these brands are.

You've got, you've got not one, but two brands that are now stuck in major stores, and I want to dig in to how you have done it. Okay. Where would you like to start? Which one? Oh, okay. Which one came first? So, curve West started about, Ooh, we're near going into, I think nearly five years now. Mm-hmm. But that being said, the brand started off very small.

We got into Nordstrom first, but that was at a time where we were, had 200, $300 of e-com revenue. Um, but it was kind of just down to, we had a buyer come and purchase or see our products on TikTok. And at the time it was interesting because I was only getting like 500 views on our TikTok post. So I guess it really comes down to you never know who's watching, and through that, turns out one of my connections in America, I.

He knew a few of the buying teams, or at least he knew where the head office for Nordstrom was. So we ended up doing some crazy things just to get their attention after that initial email, because once they emailed, I guess they saw that, oh, these guys are pretty small. I. We're not really established yet, so we ended up doing things like sending them cakes or sending them, like I sent them one shoe in a shoebox and then I, I, I put a note to it and I said, listen, I'm just trying to get my foot in the door.

Please. You are the queen of glossing over all of the details and really. Like underestimating all of the things you did. So I'm going to dig into this conversation because here is what, in what? 30 seconds You've told us that you created a brand. You created a brand, which you told me was a startup. And then I, because I went to the website and I was like, how is this brand a startup?

Because you have a curve wear, has a beautiful brand, it has a beautiful website, and I thought this was a global entity when I went there. Then you just gloss over the fact that, oh, we were on TikTok and Nordstrom just reached out to us. Like the fact that you showed up when you were only getting 500 views is just a testament to everything that you've built.

So can we just take five seconds to give yourself credit because you do not give yourself enough credit for all the work that you've done? Girl, thank you, Selena. I probably needed that. I needed to hear that today. I'll be honest. Okay, so I'm not gonna let you gloss over this. Tell us about what happened, how you said they reached Nordstrom, reached out on TikTok.

Just walk us through that. Well, it wasn't, it wasn't Nordstrom as like their company account or something. It was one of their buyers that saw the product and everything. And at the time, like she reached out on just wanting to purchase for herself and. Just like a normal customer. But then at the time, again, we only had a few hundred dollars in sales, so it was kind of like, oh my God.

Every customer that came through, I was so curious about them. I was looking them up, doing my little stalking, and after that I looked her up and I realized she was a buyer for Nordstrom. I. And then we found out their head office address and then I would send her stuff like send her cakes, like I said, send her like a one shoe in a shoebox.

Basically just saying, Hey, please let me get my foot in the door. What else did we do? We sent flowers, found out who, when her birthday is that sent, just things, just trying to get her attention like. Show it that we're legit. I guess from a retailer's perspective, they do wanna work with brands. Yes, you need to have a competitive advantage or some sort of differentiating factor with the rest of their category, but you also need to have, I guess, proof of product and a viral, like somewhat of traction within the market in order for you to get onto them.

And that is very hard to do as a small brand, especially the traction part, especially in. Today's e-commerce world where there's so many buyers, so many sellers, and you always have a different option. Buyers always have someone else to go to. So it was definitely kind of like you mentioned, glossing over and winning them over as well, a little bit, but a charm.

But at the same time, it was strategic and we did have to pitch them. I did make a pitch deck, and bear in mind, this was probably the first pitch deck I ever made. I had no clue how to make a retail pitch deck. How did you make a retail pitch deck with no clue? Google just like everything else, like when I started the brand, but going back to before we even launched, when I had the idea for it, didn't know anything about manufacturing, production, fashion.

Well, I did know a little bit about fashion just from my interest in it, but I didn't really know how to sew or anything, and I knew that. In order to give our customers the best experience or the best product. As a founder, I do need to be very hands-on with that aspect, rather than just outsourcing it or delegating it to the manufacturing team or to the manufacturers to sample makers.

It was something that I had to be very close at touchpoint with, so I learned how to sew. I looked up YouTube tutorials and I was just learning how to sew from YouTube is my mom's old. Sewing machine. It was half broken, but she really helped me out by letting me use that and yeah, bought random fabric.

Taught myself how to sew. I made about 37 prototypes of our B bra, which is our hero product, and figured out the padding. The padding that we made. It was made out of construction film from Bunnings, because at the time I was. Yeah, at the time, so yeah, I, I feel like I'm going on a couple different tangents.

You are. I'm gonna pull you back and say, I'm gonna ask you the question. You were just on such a role there that I had to let you talk. First of all, what is curve wear? Cova is a fashion technology brand, and essentially what we do is we, we make garment fabric padding and shapewear technologies, and then we build them into dresses or clothing or garments.

So what the business started off as a shapewear brand where we first started with our hero product, which is our butt bra, and this product was created as a safe alternative to plastic surgery. For example, the BBL, which is the Brazilian butt lift, this is a surgery that one of my friends had. Gone through and she was hospitalized from, and she was botched from, and seeing her in hospital made me wonder and realize like, why are we as women going through these dangerous procedures and.

You know, all of these things just to kind of, I guess, feel beautiful based on what society tells us is beautiful. And I, I'm just gonna jump in and say, and it's what society is telling us that we are beautiful at the time. Like it can change so quickly. And like you said, the concept of undergoing plastic surgery for.

Something that may not be in fashion in a couple of months time, but you are left with for the rest of your life. It, and everyone has their own body choice, but in my mind it's, it's not like getting a bit of Botox, which is gonna, you know, disappear after a while. You are undergoing major surgery that you are stuck with for the rest of your life.

And your friend went through this and ended up hospitalized because it all went wrong. So she just like everyone else at the time, I think the whole re curvy body that was trending, and this was during the pandemic time, we wouldn't have access to gyms and things like this, so there was a massive spike.

When we look at the trends, there was a massive spike and the amount of people getting plastic surgery because they wanted to feel like themselves and feel good and look good instantly. And because gyms and all these facilities weren't open the as soon as. We were allowed outside. The first place they went was to get some sort of procedure done, and so there's a massive spike in plastic surgery, and that's part of why my friend did it as well.

She saw all the body trends and what being beautiful was at the time being I. Really curvy and having a specific body type. But this body type that was trending, it wasn't necessarily naturally achievable for most women because it's very exaggerated curves. Yeah. And so, yeah, she, she did it out of pressure.

She did it out of wanting to fit into the societal norm or societal beauty standard. And she did. And unfortunately, that surgery also has the highest fatality and complication rate. So seeing her be part of that statistic, it made me sad and seeing her on the hospital bit suffering also made me sad. It made me just wanna create a solution for her.

It didn't even start out as an idea that I'm gonna turn this into a business. It was more so just, I guess, anger from my end. I was just angry and, and just wanting to help her. Yeah. When you care about someone, you don't wanna see them in situations like that, right? No. And I was just really angry and I was, I'm a very curious person.

I, my mind goes everywhere. So I was angry and I was curious, and those two come together and it ended up with me. Staying up at two 3:00 AM on my mom's sewing machine. Really irritating My parents' sleep and ruining their nights. But that's, that's how it ended up. But as we got, sorry, as I got, 'cause I didn't have anyone else at the time.

As I got from prototype to prototype, it slowly came together and I understood how the entire structure could be built. And at the time, nothing like this was in market. There was traditional shapewear, which is, you know, something that. We've all know, and we've had around for years, but the traditional shapewear, the way that it's structured and built is it's just one plain piece of fabric and one garment that is designed to compress and make you look as skinny as possible.

Again, traditional shapewear is built and invented at a time. Early two thousands when being as skinny as possible was the trend. It was Victoria's secret size zero eating disorders. Like these were what was in trend at that time. And the scary thing is that is coming back. I'm seeing it at like, oh, like my, my brain hurts.

How we've gone from embracing beauty and all of a sudden this, in these last few months, I'm seeing a lot of that heroin chic back in the models, which is, and. Ideal that we have to fit into somebody else's decision on what society should look like. It's not right. I'm gonna, it's not right. It's definitely not right.

And I guess that's the mission of Curve where it's to tell people that, listen, our bodies aren't handbags as women, we're not gonna, we can't go from being BBL really curvy to then being size zero skinny. It's like instead of. Trying to fit into these different molds that society or the beauty standards at the time are telling us to look like.

Why don't we figure out what beauty looks like at a more personal level to us? And for every woman that just involves supporting them where they need it and providing a little bit of enhancement where they don't, it's literally what we do at Curve Way is we create. Think like a pushup bra, but then into every garment that you wear.

That's it. Like, it's amazing. Everyone loves pushup bras, like Yeah, and everyone loves shapewear, so you just like put the two of them together, put the two of them together and it, it, it's a, it's, it's a very technical product. I can't get into too many details, but I, yeah, that's essentially the concept and we've had so many, we've made a massive difference in people's lives and.

Had so many people, I guess not going through that surgery route because of our products. And I think that's the most precious win that we could have had. 'cause that's the whole mission behind the brand. Yeah. And is your friend okay now? She's okay now, which, you know, God bless, but I, I don't know. I think she realizes and she looks back.

'cause at the time she was about 18 years old and when we're 18, we make. Some questionable decisions, choices, but she re completely recognizes and she understands what you know, for example, we're building at Curve when she's number one supporter and always kind of rooting for what we're building. So that's great.

That's fabulous. Now, if we can go back to the Nordstrom story, and the reason I'm doing this is because I want to segue into the fact that you did all of this all over again. So they have reached out on, well, they haven't reached out on TikTok. You have, bearing in mind, you're in Australia, and I'm guessing the Nordstrom buyer was in America.

So already right at the front you were shipping internationally. So love that. Kudos to you. So you've shipped this out, you've done a bit of cyber stalking on your person and realized who it is that she is. Was it a strategic decision that you made or did you have a PR firm? How did you go on this next tangent of.

Let's, let's try and, you know, let's try and butter this lady up and see if we can get her foot in the door. Okay. So first I was living in New Zealand at the time I was, was still, I, I only moved to Australia a couple years ago. I was living in New Zealand at the time and with my family and, no, no PR firm.

Well, honestly speaking, couldn't afford it. That was just the simple. You said at the time you only had a couple hundred dollars in sales. Yeah, a couple, not even a couple hundred dollars in sales. I was, you know, in my early, early twenties, I was in my last year of, um, university. So during the day my schedule looked like during the entire day, it's uni, uni work, all these things.

And then I had a part-time job, and this part-time job was purely every single dollar from that was going towards samples and how to pay for curve wear. And then I also taught myself how to trade. So futures crypto, like. All these things just so I could make money for curb wear. So I was really tight on cash, so no PR firm could not afford.

It was all purely just creativity and just trying to get people's attention. That was really it. Did it ever occur to you at any point that if they put an order in, you wouldn't be able to fulfill it? I think the thing with me, and I think you'll see as we get more into this conversation, even with Don't eat my candle.

I like to jump before I know I'm ready for it. Mm-hmm. And I like to just know that I'll figure out how to build the wings on the way down. At the time did I, did I even think they were gonna say yes? Absolutely not. But then they did, and then I figured out the inventory piece after that and we didn't disappoint them.

I mean, I made it work. I had a fair idea of how I could solve that. I did negotiate with manufacturers. Especially the people that I was working with at the time, like it was a very spec, it is a very specialized product. It's, and they were more than happy and I negotiated that we would do very small batches.

So these sorts of negotiations and relationship building really goes a long way and just kind of expressing to the people that you're working with that, okay, this is what we can do right now, but I wanna grow with you. And showing how you can also add value to your partners and grow their business with your business.

That definitely went a long way. What I'm hearing though, that you are not saying is even if you weren't aware of it at the time, is you were being very strategic. You went after the buyer, but then you also did the work in the background was like, if this works out, I need to be able to get the stock. So you, again, I think you underestimate just how strategic this has all been.

And look, it's all paying off, so, so congratulations. Now you just mentioned don't eat my candle. Tell us about that business. Yes. So back to the strategic part, it was very strategic, but again, with strategy, hope is not a strategy. So when I do say like, you know, jumping off a cliff, figuring out how to build the wings on the way down, I'm not hoping that the wings come out.

No, but you, you had the plan in place. It's not like you were building the wings on the way down. You had everything all laid out. Yeah. So you could build it as you, but then I knew that, okay, these are the things like step, step, step I can do to get there. Yeah. But did I know that they were gonna say yes?

Absolutely not. Because at the time I also reached out to Sacks and Neimans and all of them 'cause just off the Nordstrom, you know, attraction and they all said, oh, give us a couple of ti, give us a little bit, we'll get back to you, et cetera, et cetera. At the time I also reached out to our Australian market, David Jones, Meyer, et cetera, and they thought the product was too niche or that it wasn't serving a more wider.

Community. So yes, we had the yes from Nordstrom, but we, I also had so, so, so many nos and so many people that I pitched and they just said or no, or they just wouldn't even gimme the time of day or wouldn't even respond to the email, which I guess it's happens. And if anything, it's just more of a sign that, you know what?

You just need to work harder, put your head down and. Figure out how to get their attention in a different way and, oh, well, before we go on to, don't eat my candle, I have to ask, did you get any kind of response when you were sending these little gifts and trinkets to the buyer from Nordstrom? She, when she finally agreed to take a call with me, she acknowledged all of them, but, but in the meantime.

But in the meantime, no, because I guess if she responds to me saying, Hey, thanks for the shoe, then she'd also have to, you know, get on a call with me. So, alright, let's flip over to Don't eat my Candle because basically you have just replicated pretty much the same thing that you just did and put it into another brand.

So first of all, at what point did you go, you know, what curve wear? Not busy enough. I should go and start another business. Oh, that was definitely not the thought process. COVID was very busy and that was exactly when I started the business. So it kind of, how it panned out and the mission behind Don't Eat My Candle, is to create like a whimsical world where adults can just have fun and just be kids again.

And it actually, the idea, the concept, or even. How it all started was probably last year when we first, when I, when we did our first illusionary launch. And at the time, like everything was going amazing with curve wear, but I just felt so burnt out and just empty. 'cause every day just looked like work, work, work, work, work, eat, sleep, you know?

And there was nothing fulfilling or joyous or anything in my life. And I found myself, I. Going back and watching how Montana reruns or like rewatching the entire series, or Nickelodeon, or, I hear you. I, I do the HGTV thing. I just like, let me just watch people renovate houses. I know it's gonna end well.

Yeah. So I, I was, I was, I think there was a part of me that was so desperate to connect with my inner child in a way, because yes, like so far, BBL curve wear with everything. Business kind of took off when I was fairly young in comparison, and so I didn't have specific, I, I, I had to grow up pretty quickly, not just in terms of a business sense, but even prior to that I had to grow up pretty quickly.

And I got to a point last year, and I think it was in about October where I was. Just watching tv, I was just really burnt out. I was going back to Nickelodeon, Disney Channel reruns and just watching those and glass of wine in my hand after every night. And then, yeah, and then I thought, and I had a candle burning.

And then I'm the kind of person who also likes arts and craft. Like I need to be able to do something creative. That's why I feel like we've gathered that. Yeah, I love like creative things. I like to do, I don't know, play with Play-Doh or play with clay or make pottery stuff. Just paint, draw something.

Like I need to have some sort of creativity within my day in order for me to feel fulfilled when we talk about our purpose or like, I think that's a conversation that always comes up. What's our purpose? I think my purpose is to truly just be able to create and just be creative. That's all I really wanna do.

And so I started playing with Play-Doh. I started playing with Clay, and then that turned into like making candles because I just enjoyed having a candle on my coffee table while I was drinking my wine and watching Hannah Montana. So that turned into, oh, I love drinks. Like I love cocktails. I love making cocktails.

I love candles. Let's mix them together. Let's put them together. And so like the name Su I was gonna say like, the name suggests don't eat my candle. Are candles that look like real food? Yeah. So all the candles look like hyper. The concept is we make food and drink looking candles. Hyper realistic, but don't eat it.

The taglines vary. I probably shouldn't say it, but you can say it. So it's just like the tagline is don't effing Eat it, which essentially encapsulates the entire idea of the brand. Because when you look at the branding, it's very playful, it's very fun. It's, you know, childlike colors, your baby blue, bright yellow cartoons everywhere.

That's the concept and branding. But then when you go into the actual product and the business end of it, it is pretty serious. But it's just like a whimsical world where adults like me and you, we can go to after a long day and just, we see it on our coffee tables and we think, oh, I actually today wasn't that bad.

Like this was pretty fun. And, and again, I feel like you, this is just, this is you just underwriting everything that you do because you are already busy with a rising brand that is selling internationally. And now you start, don't eat my candle. At what point do you do you go, I should sell these, and then what were the next steps after that?

It wasn't necessarily, I think with both brands, it wasn't necessarily a point where I'm like, I'm gonna turn this into a business. It was more so I saw it, I liked it, I made it, and then I was like, you know, I wanted to give some to my Bret family and my friends and things like that. And then. Yeah, that.

And then after that I realized how much joy it was bringing me. And then after that, before I even decided I wanted it to be a business, I just made the branding. I just wanted to turn myself into a cartoon and you know, do all these things. It was really a passion project. I. I got the illustrators. I was having fun, like turning myself into a cartoon, building the brand kits.

'cause again, it's been a couple years since I did all of this groundwork with brand kits or web or all these things. And I was just having fun with it. And then after we had, we had about 10 units in stock. Were you making these yourself or did you go to a candle manufacturer? So initially when I was just doing it for fun at night, that was when I was making it myself.

But after that, like as I realized, oh, this is kind of cool. Then yes, we went into manufacturing and I sorted out the entire production system. But I sorted out, see again, just a gloss over. I sorted out the entire production system, but at some point deep inside, you obviously went, this thing has legs.

This thing has the ability to do something. 'cause you don't go out to find a production facility just to make some candles for your friends. Yeah, definitely not. I think the point where I realized it has legs is when the branding came together and when I was just having fun with the branding. 'cause when you look at of when Doni, my candle is two separate entities, they're complete opposites of each other.

Like this is, I guess my personality when I'm doing channels and events and speaking to even like. You how doing this podcast. And then there's this other side of my personality that people don't necessarily see. And I guess the brand and building the brand was my way of connecting with that part of me a little bit more.

So I'm seeing the similarities though. I'm seeing that both of these came from a need that you saw or a problem that you wanted to solve, and both of them were. Brands that you, you kind of built yourself because you wanted to rather than, because you had to, like, no one made you do this. No one said, you know, if this doesn't get made, you aren't going to survive you.

This all, all of these came from a genuine need to make other people happy and to bring joy to other people's lives. Okay, let's just skip back to the fact that you've now found a candy candle manufacturer. You've gotten some made, what happens next? So after I had some made bear in mind, like the entire process was from October odd till March-ish, so that's about 9, 8, 9 months just kind of working behind the scenes and I sent out a bunch of samples just to.

When I say bunch, I just mean three. I sent out three samples to influences that I liked and it was purely just influences that, you know, I like watching their content or I look up to them, or I just appreciate them and I think that, you know, maybe their lives, like I could, I can connect to them in some way, shape, or form.

Whether they're really busy or they connect, I relate to them in terms of curve where, where I'm just completely flat out or. However, I sent them a couple samples and one of the influencers reached back out and she was like, this is incredible. Can we make a custom candle for me? I wanna sell it, blah, blah, blah.

And it was completely organic. She just liked the product so much and she was like, I wanna share this with my audience. Now, this influencer has about over a million followers on TikTok. She's, she's got a pretty loyal fan base across TikTok. So she reached out and she wanted this done and I worked. I put everything aside and then I just worked there and night.

'cause at the time, we also didn't have any team for don't eat my candle. It was all just me. So from product development to getting the cent sorted, packaging, branding, every single aspect of that was end to end custom. And I did it all. And yeah, within. A month I had from product development to final iteration to samples to it landing on her doorstep, everything done.

And yeah. And then so with that, we also launched the brand and that was on May 4th. May 4th donate. My candle went live, which is just over 60 days ago. Yes. And since then, um, after that I did the panel with you at the event and. Through that. I met Kieran and from the Woolworth marketplace, and he was like, well, you know, I had a chat with him and then I asked him, Hey, just by any chance, any chance I could speak to your buying team any chance?

And he was like, yeah. And he put me in touch with them. Went through my entire pitch deck, retail pitch deck, and got into my deal. That was our first one. Then after that, just honestly, it's just been a bunch of, any chance you could put me in touch with any chance. Like that kind of networking and using the people that I have, I guess around me and seeing how we can get more visibility through the product and the brand.

And now you've just also been picked up by Australia's largest pharmacy chain and another store, another chain as well, haven't you? Yeah, the iconic, so these two are still, we're still onboarding, so we've signed the contracts for them, but I haven't, like we're not in, we're not live yet, is what I'm trying to say.

We're still onboarding. The process for that is about four weeks, so it's gonna be a while. Yeah. But in 60 days you went from. A brand that literally launched all the way through to being stocked in three of Australia's largest channels, which is absolutely phenomenal and a testament to not only all the work that you do, but just the fact that you clearly understand what the market wants.

I'm going to go back and talk about, you were saying you feel like a lot of this is luck. I don't think it's like, surely there is an element of luck. You have put yourself in places and positions that have opened up those doors for you. So one of those positions is, which when you, when you mentioned the panel, it was a panel that we did on, uh, platform economics, which sounds so, uh, it was platform economics and ai, or I can't remember which one it was.

Was it ai? It was about fulfillment and scaling, uh, operations globally through. Agile logistics through the logistics as well, a whole bunch of corporate-y words. And you, you're just like, like when they asked me to do it, I'm like, are these my people? And, and I remember they, Nora said to me, they're like, we need someone with a bit of spice to, to host the panel.

And I was like, well, I'm your, oh, I'm your lady. And. It was fantastic. But what, what I'm saying is most people in your position aren't even at events like that. They're not putting themselves out there. They're not putting themselves in the room. And I guess I get a little bit frustrated when brands say to me, oh, we are not getting any traction.

And then you come along and you're like, Hey, I'm just, I'm just here to say hello and you know, listen to what people are saying and have some free food and you know, if something comes out of it, that's fantastic. And as a result, I'm not gonna say the naivety, but as a result of just that, the fact that you are just so happy to be in that space, I think people naturally gravitate to you and they want to know more about what it is you do.

Yeah. Uh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I, I think, okay, so with any entrepreneurship, I think it does. To an extent come down to luck. I think every entrepreneur is lucky in some way, shape, or form. It's not, I can't sit here and put it all down to strategy. There is, yes, that's a massive part in it, but we're all lucky, otherwise we wouldn't be able to do what we love.

You know, anyone who loves what they do in life, they're lucky too. So. When I say it comes down to life, that's more so what I'm referring to, which is I'm so blessed to be able to live this life and I would never take it for granted. Now, what you mentioned about, you know, being in these rooms and having the opportunity to speak at these events or anything like that now, it kind of, I guess from the outside looking in, I can see how it looks very just like, oh, I'm happy to show up and just kind of.

Again luck. But it is five years in the making. Yeah, let's not forget that. Well, my ate my candle, not so much. But curve wear, definitely. I mean they, they're both interconnected in a sense, because all the things that I did in groundwork for curve wear is. Exactly why don't eat my candle. Could do and have the traction that it did in the 60 days.

'cause I learned some things. I made mistakes, I connected with people. I, you know, and for me, relationship building is so much more important than actual I. You know, transactions. I think if you focus on building relationships and you focus on, you know, connecting with the right people and adding value to other people and seeing how you can support other people and putting them first before yourself, or even before, I guess, revenue, bottom line, then you're gonna get so much far in the long run as opposed to just focusing on your numbers.

So if I get like a really, we had a, I had a really exciting email come through the other day 'cause for the past. Well, eight months, nine months since I started working on Don't eat my candle. A part of the revenue that I wanted to, or stream of revenue that I really wanted to build out and thought was very valuable was corporate gifting.

I thought that would be an incredible opportunity to get the brand out there in more of like a serious setting and corporate setting, because. Through corporate gifting going, being part of the rooms that I am a part of, I get a lot of gifts, but a lot of the gifts that I get, they're like pens, drinks, book.

It's just junk, isn't it? Yeah. And it all ends up in like some sort of corner in my, in some cupboard. And so one of the pieces that I really wanted build out was having. Donnie my candle, be able to specialize and create corporate gifting for companies so that at that point, if you're giving someone a candle that literally looks like a cocktail, you are more likely to get that shelf space or coffee table space on their coffee table.

Therefore, this client is gonna look at you and look at your branding every single time they watch tv, and you can't get more front of mind than that. So that corporate gifting element is something that I've been really trying and wanting to build out, and I've tried for months and months and months, but now like I got an email from.

An incredible company and they wanna do some corporate gifting. They wanna trial it out, see what happens. Which again, it, it, when I, when it came to, I was like, oh my God, finally, because this is what I've been, I've been waiting, like I've been trying and trying and trying finally. And yeah. So that came through.

And even if, for example, back to relationship building is what I wanted to bring this example up for. Even if their order quantity isn't necessarily how much I expect, or as per my minimums, I'm still gonna do it and take that cut out of my profit or take that cut out of me. Even if I break even, I'm happy because guess what?

They'll love the product. They'll love the service, and they'll come back and next time they come back, they're gonna have a much bigger order for me and also all the clients that they're putting the gift in front of. They're also potential clients of mine. So it's a very strategic play and kind of investing in more of the long term of the business as opposed to looking at day-to-day profit loss like, oh my God, I made this much money.

I didn't make this much money. And so much more than that. What I like about that too is just like you just mentioned, the exponential. Follow on from there is corporate gifts generally go to corporate clients. And so having that on the CEO of somebody else's company is, and then, you know, people comment on it.

So the, the exponential follow through that you get or the leverage, the brand exposure that you get as a result is very, very strategic. But also what you tend to find in corporate gifting is they don't buy 20. Corporate gifting tends to be in, you know, 50, a hundred, 200, 500, a thousand. And so again, you have this ability to be able to.

You know, create something specific because you will reach an MOQ with a supplier because of the amount, the volume that they're particularly ordering. So I like, there are so many things you've done right along here that I, I wanted people to hear your story because you kind of. Not that you stumbled across them, but you have done so many things right, that have led to this cumulative effect, which got you to the point where you could launch a brand and be in stores within 60 days.

Not with venture capital, not with a huge PR firm behind you, but literally just being in the room and having the conversations and building the relationships. Yeah, being in the room, that definitely does help. But I think the next, there's so many people that are in the room, and I, for years and years, for the past, I guess four years, three years, however many years, like I have still attended these events, but I didn't really have as much to give to others.

So I think it also just, I'm not entirely sure. I can't pinpoint it down to one thing or the other, or I wouldn't say being just in the room. I think it, it's a cumulative thing where you have to have the brand, you have to have the product, you have to have the advantage of why someone would wanna work with you.

You have to be a good person that people actually wanna work with. You have to, that goes so long. That goes such a long way. And you have to, I guess just there's so many. You have to basically have that entire business element side. 'cause again, no one wants to work with someone who doesn't have that sorted out.

'cause it'll impact their business. You have to have that. You have to have the relationship building, you have to, I dunno, just be able to connect with people. It comes down to all of that, but also more than anything, creativity. Because even with Don't eat My candle, and even though we've got into three retailers in 60 days, I still have gotten nos.

And those nos. I'm doing my same creative, like just trying to get their attention, smother them over in some way, shape, or form. That's still the strategy. You're always gonna get nos, but it's not about just taking that No. For like a Yeah, it's a definite no for life. It's just more so, okay, we'll see. Like, okay, you, you want me to show you something?

You want me to show you traction? What do you need from me? You need more skews done. Here you go. You need more. I don't know. You need more traction, you need more proof of sales. Here you go. Can we negotiate? Just kind of finding a way where you can somehow just get them to at least dip their toe in the water, even if it's like a popup or I don't know, like giving it to them for dirt cheap so that they have no option but to say yes, like whatever it is.

Thinking long term and thinking, okay, how can this impact the business 10 years from now, five years from now? Rather than just looking at how much money are we making today because. It doesn't, I don't know. That's at least how I think I was gonna ask you for, what advice would you give to people who are either starting out or were thinking about taking their brand, but I think you just gave it to us.

I think you just laid everything out and said, these are my tips. If you want to grow a sustainable brand and really build those relationships with people who are gonna stock your products. I think that's the perfect place to finish up if people want to see what curve wear is, which is amazing my friend.

It is. I have curves, so not necessarily something I need, but something I literally looked at and went, I can see the potential for this to be a global phenomenon, which I don't see very often and don't eat my candle, which. Again, it's just, it's such a fun niche thing that people can't help but smile when they see them.

So where can we find your brand if we're interested in maybe stocking them or buying them? Just online websites. Curb wear.com. Donate my candle.com. But also you can reach out to, um, would you be putting my contact information and the description or something? Emails, something like that. It's up to you.

What would you, what do you want? Do you want 'em just to reach out to you on LinkedIn or through the website? Fine. Um, if you do go, if you guys do wanna soc or work with ware, don't eat my candle. Message me on LinkedIn, Alicia Reer, and yeah, look forward to hearing from you, working with you if there are any investors listening.

All right, Alicia, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. Thank you so much for having me, Selena. I really appreciate it. So that's a wrap. I'd love to hear what insight you've gotten from this episode and how you're going to put it into action. If you're a social kind of person, follow me at the Selena Knight and make sure to leave a comment and let me know.

And if this episode made you think a little bit differently or gave you some inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action, then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review. On your platform of choice because the more reviews the show gets, the more independent retail and e-commerce stores just like yours, that we can help to scale.

And when that happens, it's a win for you, a win for your community, and a win for your customers. I'll see you on the next episode.

Alisha Athreya is the founder of two bold, purpose-driven brands: Kurvwear, a fashion-tech label redefining shapewear as a safe, empowering alternative to surgery, and Don’t Eat My Candle, a viral candle brand turning nostalgic fun into grown-up luxury.

After witnessing a friend’s hospitalization from a BBL, Alisha launched Kurvwear to challenge toxic beauty standards with sculpting, curve-enhancing garments that celebrate women’s bodies—not trends. While building Kurvwear, she created Don’t Eat My Candle as a playful outlet, quickly growing it into a cult favorite with hyper-realistic candles shaped like cocktails and comfort food.

Her work blends innovation with emotional resonance, making her one of the most exciting young founders reshaping what it means to feel beautiful—and have fun doing it.