Nwanyinma Dike
Welcome to the Atlanta Startup Podcast. I am Nwanyinma Dike, the Managing Director Of Startup Runway, the leading platform linking underrepresented founders to capital and investors. On this episode, I am ecstatic to welcome Riean Knight, founder of Honey To Cocoa, and our newest winner of the Women’s Empowerment Prize at the 24th edition of the Startup Runway. Riean, thank you for joining us on the podcast today.
Riean Knight
Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.
Nwanyinma Dike
I’m so excited. Okay, so I want to jump right into it. Please share a bit about what you’re building with Honey To Cocoa.
Riean Knight
We’re building a beauty app that will leverage AI to help people of color match their skin tones. That’s just the basis of what we want to do. Beyond that, we want to change the way that people shop for cosmetics digitally and we want to eliminate the need to go into the store. We want to not only do foundation matching, but we want you to be able to try products using the app using AR technology. We want to give you recommendations for products based on your unique skin tones. We’re trying to be that beauty advisor in your pocket in an app.
Nwanyinma Dike
I love that. And as someone who has spent probably, over my lifetime, probably hundreds of dollars on makeup that I’m never using, or used because I felt like I should just use it, but unhappy with the experience because I couldn’t try it before. I’m super excited to see this platform grow and become more and more available to folks. Tell us a little bit about why you found this problem so important for you to solve.
Riean Knight
I was a makeup artist for 10 years. I would freelance as a side hustle. I primarily did makeup for women of color and almost every single time that I would do makeup for a client, they would say like, hey, can you go to the store with me and help me figure out which shade because I went to Sephora, and like they tried to help me but I took it home and it looked different. I’m explaining to them why it looked different, the science behind it, and just how to make sure that they mitigate that from happening. But they’re like, can you just come with me? They would offer to pay me to come with them. I wouldn’t take their money, I was like, I want to come with you because I’m gonna buy makeup, too. I would help them out. That happened a lot. And then there was another inflection point where there was a brand that was coming out with a bunch of new lipsticks. At this point, I was thinking of running a blog. I googled the name of this lipstick on black skin and I got a bunch of Caucasian women. I was like, that is so crazy. That is insane. I went on Instagram and then I got better luck. I was like there should be some space where you can see what these things look like on brown skin in one spot. That’s where it kind of dawned on me maybe I could just make that the premise of the blog. And so Honey To Cocoa actually started as a blog in 2017. I ran a blog for years. I was also kind of like a beauty influencer. I would do looks and I would show what products look like on different skin tones. I did that for a few years. And then the second inflection point that made me kind of shift away from the blog into an app was when Fendi Beauty launched their foundation range. They were the first brand in a very long time to launch with 40 shades that accommodated brown skin and they had such a successful launch. They did so well in sales, that you started to see all these other brands follow them and they launched all these other foundations. The problem shifted from not having enough shades to having so many. I think what brands were trying to do was obviously capitalize on the market, but also, I guess, solve the inequality issue. But there’s still an equity issue in that we don’t have the experience with having all of these products and we have little guidance. I thought that because I was so passionate about it because that affected me and so many people I knew, it was something I wanted to tackle.
Nwanyinma Dike
I love that you have a couple of things meaning to spark with the effort you’re doing now, and you have your own personal experience and expertise. You have your own, having created a solution, the blog, in a way, years of that experience, and then ultimately the passion that you have. All of that meeting to this new app development. I’m really excited to see that. To me that in many ways, is kind of what crystallized motivation and the spark that will keep you going up, for most cases, this journey of being a startup founder. I would love with that kind of pivot. I would love to hear about what your experience has been so far in building this app, whether that be any early feedback from either customers or potential partners and investors.
Riean Knight
I would say, so far, it’s been so affirming in building this app. We are in beta. We have about half of the app built, the MVP built, and it’s functional. The functional part is being beta-tested. In all of my interviews with the beta testers, before they even saw the app, I asked them if there was a technology that could do this for you, what does that look like? They almost always explain exactly what we’re building, which is incredibly affirming. That experience has been really great to conceptualize this idea that you’ve just come up with, and then you actually build it and you have this physical app in front of you and other people are using it. They’re just like, oh, my God, like it was so easy to go through the app. Or oh, my God it actually matched me. We do send them samples and they do report back that it was a match. It’s been definitely rewarding. I’m getting that in front of customers. I would say from an ecosystem standpoint, in terms of investors or other founders, we’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback centered around what we’re doing, the idea itself, and a lot of excitement. A lot of, this is something that’s really different and in need. A lot of times we apply to different programs, we’re the only beauty tech company there. There are a lot of eyebrows raised because it’s a different thing. So it’s been really encouraging. Obviously, we get a lot of constructive feedback, but that is obviously welcome. It not only helps me understand how best to communicate what we’re doing but also what to focus on to make ourselves a stronger candidate or a stronger business.
Nwanyinma Dike
That’s exciting. So actually, I wanted to ask another question about your journey. You mentioned a bit about what’s been really rewarding for you. What has been challenging along this journey?
Riean Knight
Resources. I, unfortunately, was not born wealthy. I do not have the capital. I’ve had to bootstrap all that. It’s not even just about the dollars, it’s about the resources, trying to figure out who to meet, and who to ask for what. I just moved to Atlanta in June of last year. I haven’t even been here a year yet. I tried to insert myself into that ecosystem, meet people, and understand who I should be talking to, and building relationships with has been challenging. I would also say finding a co-founder is challenging. But it’s my understanding that is essentially a marriage. It’s been quite a journey trying to get the right person in who understands the level of commitment, that this is going to require time, and just output standpoint, has been challenging. And then I think the third thing would be with any business or anything you’re doing at this magnitude, there’s a challenging mental and emotional aspect of it. You’re so connected to this thing. It’s a part of you, and you really want it to look a certain way, and you want things to happen on a certain timeline. And they don’t. There’s a lot of managing your expectations and managing your mental and emotional well-being in the midst of doing this. That’s why I think it’s important that your why is so strong because there are days when it’s hard to get up and do it, especially after you just had a rejection. I just got rejected this morning but you experience it so much, and it stings a little bit. But eventually, you learn how to stick to your why and you let that motivate you and to keep trying.
Nwanyinma Dike
That resonates so much. With all the different problems and all the different solutions that different founders are trying to pull together in this ecosystem, that’s the most consistent feedback around this process that the why is so important. There will be a day when you have to show up after just getting a no or a tough rejection and still have to figure out a way to show up to the next opportunity with the same energy and the same motivation. That is what’s pretty ubiquitous about this experience, what you’re going through as a startup founder. I’m sure our listeners will be very inspired to hear a little bit of what they may be going through and what you’re saying today. So thanks for being really transparent on that piece. On a lighter note, though, you were a recent winner of our past edition. You’re the Women’s Empowerment winner and actually wanted to highlight you’re also the Audience Winner as well, in the sense that you had the most votes in the crowd. But we wanted to also be able to share a prize with another guest with the second most votes to get a prize, as well. I wanted to get a sense from you what your experience was at the Startup Runway.
Riean Knight
Oh, my God, it was lovely. For context, it was my very first time pitching live on stage. I’ve pitched before on Zoom, so it’s easy to hide behind the camera, but this was my first time pitching in front of human beings in person. When I walked in, I was greeted by a group of the other founders. We kind of huddled and we were just kind of talking. It was so great. I’m practicing this thing, where I’m just like calling out the thing, and like it is my first time here, and they’re like, oh, me too. It was really great to have that camaraderie there. And then we moved into the mentor sessions and that went far better than I expected. It was great to sit down with people and just talk about something in your business that you’re struggling with. But beyond that, the conversation flowed into so many other things centered around the business and it was great to have those conversations and get that support. One of my mentors was, Will, one of the judges, I had no idea. I’m glad I didn’t know that. We just had this casual conversation that flowed and I was grateful for that one-on-one time with them. And then the actual pitching experience was great. It was good to go up there. Do your thing. And then I appreciated the opportunity to answer some questions at the end of it as it was a great time for me to reiterate what I’m looking for in a co-founder or technical person, here’s what I’m looking for. It was a safe space. You’re nervous, it’s the first time I felt safe. I felt supported and it was a great venue to get those first-time jitters out while also pitching and doing this big thing. I enjoyed the experience.
Nwanyinma Dike
I’m so glad to hear. I will note that having watched you pitch I would have never guessed that was your first time pitching live. You did so well. I didn’t see nerves, you flowed well, and you seemed as though you were prepared. On that note, can you share a bit about what you did to prepare since you were able to win based on whatever your preparation was? I would love for you to share with the audience for folks who might be trying to get their stuff together for a pitch some tips that you might be able to offer.
Riean Knight
The first thing I did was pitch at ATDC. The practice pitch sessions they have and heard everything that was wrong about my thing. And I was like, okay, I need to go change this. I partnered with my mentor and my advisor, and also watched some pitches from other programs, and realized that they were kind of telling a story. I reworked my script and reworked some of my slides. I practice in front of my roommate, I practice in front of the dog. I rehearsed it and I timed myself. Not only that, I came up with a list of questions that I had been asked by investors or asked by people in general, and just a bunch of topics on which people would challenge me. I made sure I rehearsed the answers to those just in case those were questions that I was asked. It’s a lot of just doing it in front of people, getting that feedback, then going back and fixing it, and then just continuously practicing.
Nwanyinma Dike
Love that. Practice, practice, practice. You made a great plug for a program at the Advanced Technology Development Center, the ATDC. They have, I think, you’re mentioning the Feedback Fridays. On Friday afternoon, they host about an hour, but I’m sure goes over sometimes, where anyone who is trying to pitch, even if they have a very rough idea, can go in and get an idea, and get some feedback on their pitch. It seems to work out for you. I love that you found them and you jumped on that. Awesome. Want to give you a chance to share what’s next for Honey To Cocoa. What do you have on deck and any other things that you want to highlight for listeners, including those who may be investors or ecosystem builders? This could be your chance to shout out who knows who will hear and connect to that. What do you have up next for Honey To Cocoa?
Riean Knight
We are iterating on our MVP and scoping out what it would take to build an algorithm that allows us to use the front-facing camera to scan the skin tone and connect to products. We are heads down building that. We’re continuously accepting beta testers. We’ve got our program that is continuously running. So if we have any people who are people of color, who are over 18, have access to iOS, we want all of them to come to help us test the app. We’re hoping to launch it sometime between late fall/early winter, to launch the app as we have it. Hopefully, we can launch a little bit sooner, get it into the hands of the general public, and continuously build improvements upon it from there. But at this point, we’re just building and then wanting to get as much feedback on what we built as possible. And the last thing is hiring. I mentioned earlier, that we are looking for a technical co-founder, someone who has heavy experience in the machine learning and AI space. We want to bring someone on board who could help us set that technical strategy. We’ve got some folks on the team already who are building away, but we do need that leadership. We do need someone to come in and own it. I think that the next couple of months, that’s where we’re going to be heads down focusing on just hiring efforts and in product development.
Nwanyinma Dike
I love it. So hopefully folks hear that. Do you have any other last thoughts you’d want to leave with the listeners?
Riean Knight
The only thing is, I would love an opportunity like this, to get it out there. And then I want to say, we could not do half of what we’re doing without the people who are going to be using the app. It’s very important for me to get in front of people who are interested in testing and using it. If there’s anyone out there who’s interested or knows someone who is interested, please let me know. We need as much feedback as we possibly can. That would be my final thought. We need people.
Nwanyinma Dike
Loud and clear. Exactly. On that note, then, where can folks find you?
Riean Knight
You can find me on Instagram. My personal page @rieanknight. We have the business page @honeytococoa and then you can also find me on LinkedIn – Riean Knight. Say hi, I’m around.
Nwanyinma Dike
Awesome. Well, thank you. That’s another Atlanta Startup Podcast and hopefully, have a great rest of your day.
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