About CURLCRUSH
How did CURLCRUSH Start?
My Inspiration- The CURLCRUSH concept came from watching an episode of The Profit with Marcus Lemonis. I decided to take a chance and DM him my idea. It went something like this:
Hey Marcus, not sure you’ll ever see this but I figured I’d give it a shot...
My name is Bella Rush and I’ve been watching your show for years with my parents. I’m one of the many high school seniors who’s been trapped at home wondering about my future and I had this thought pop up...
I started posting TikTok videos out of boredom and got a ton of feedback on my hair. It actually seemed like no matter the content, my hair seemed to be the main feature. So... I remember an episode you once ran about hair-care products and I had the great idea of making my own product line. I spend tons of $ on curly hair products and everyone is always asking me for tips, tricks, and product recommendations. So I started thinking maybe I can develop my own products specific for CURLY hair. I’m getting ready to start college in the fall as a business major but don’t know the first thing abt creating the proper plan... just know I need one!
Any guidance would be very appreciated.
Thank you for your time!
Bella
So... What do you think happened next? One day goes by, 2 days, a week goes by. Nothing. No response. I was ready to throw in the towel on my great idea, without giving it a proper shot.
This was during the early part of March and NYC was just recently put into severe COVID-19 lockdown. I wasn't going anywhere fast. Spending most of my days bingeing on Netflix or working out. After a couple of months of doing absolutely nothing, I decided I'm going to put everything I can into starting my own line of curly hair products.
I remembered something my Finance teacher (Mr. Saliski :)) told us about starting up a proper business plan and he encouraged me to keep moving forward with the idea. The next day I re-watched The Profit episode to try and learn more about making a plan, I know I wanted to make a product for curly hair but that was about it. I ended up in the kitchen with a napkin and a marker and just made a list of what I thought I needed to develop this idea into a real product. The list looked something like this:
- ❤ Curly hair product
- ❤ Way to sell it
- ❤ Pay for college
Well, the list was pretty basic and seemed very easy. It was the total opposite...
I spent the next 3 weeks researching US manufacturers and of course, many were closed due to COVID-19. But I got lucky and was able to speak to a handful - one of which I ultimately partnered with to create my formula(s).
I won't bore you with too many details, but launching a product is hard - a lot harder than I anticipated. There are hundreds of details that you need to consider and unless you've done it before, you are constantly taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back.
What was so hard? Well, stuff like: logo, product design, business entity creation, business banking, website build and platform decisions, images of the product, website design, and content creation. All of this takes time and if you did it by yourself there is a HUGE learning curve so you have to anticipate a cost associated with hiring someone to do it. On top of that, you need to be very clear and precise with your vision. People are not minding readers so you end up having a lot of back and forth to get things done.
Here we are 5 months and many long hours later with an amazing product that I'm proud to share with the world. This is CURLCRUSH and it's a product for people with Curly hair, who want to embrace their curls.
Love xoxo
Bella
