Welcome!
Welcome to this e-commerce business success story! In this profile, we interviewed Lynn Power, the owner of Masami. Our hope is that you find this interview to be enlightening and inspiring as you seek to start and grow your very own online brand!
Lynn Power Interview
Thank you for joining us for this e-commerce business success story! We’d like to start by getting an understanding of your backstory. How did you come to own your business?
I spent 30 years in advertising and marketing and left in 2018. I was doing consulting with startups which I really enjoyed but a few months later, I met my co-founder, James. He’d been working on clean haircare formulations for about 10 years and I was blown away by the high performing products. We decided to go into business together and MASAMI was born.
Terrific! Now, this article is about profiling successful e-commerce businesses. So – can you share your top 3 keys to running a successful online brand?
First, you need a clear proposition and story (solid brand fundamentals are a key for any business!). Next, you need to figure out your best source of customer acquisition. We are active on Instagram, Facebook, Google, Pinterest and more. Finally, you need to be able to track your analytics and pivot to what’s working (and minimize what isn’t). Just be careful you don’t get lost in the weeds. Focus on the top 5-6 metrics that really matter to your business.
Excellent. Now, I’m sure it hasn’t always been that easy. Can you tell a story about one challenge, setback, or mistake that you’ve had to overcome on the road to success? How can others learn from your mistakes?
We launched in February 2020 which was a challenging time to launch a brand (although we didn’t fully appreciate that at the time). We had to pivot from a salon focused strategy to put much more focus on DTC and content, which was at least somewhat in our control. Then in 2021, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The treatment is about a year so I’m not done yet, but having cancer helped me reprioritize what matters. I now want to only work with people I like — and to that end, we launched the Conscious Beauty Collective in April 2022 (a pop-up of indie beauty and wellness brands in San Francisco).
Thanks for that. Now – we want to know what’s next! What new initiatives are you rolling out at your business and what results are you hoping to see?
We are taking the Conscious Beauty Collective to Natick Mall in Boston in the fall. And we are working on a hair mask which has been almost 2 years in development. We’re excited to launch that.
Sounds exciting! Any final words of advice for our readers?
Find your network of people that you can lean on. Being an entrepreneur is tough and can be lonely. It’s much easier when you have peers, friends, mentors and advisors you trust.
Brilliant! We want to thank you for participating in today’s interview. Hopefully our readers agree that there is a lot to be learned from your brand’s story. What links can our readers use to follow along with your journey?
www.lovemasami.com or follow us on Instagram @lovemasamihair. Thank you!
