Small Bags, Big Steps: Going Door-To-Door in NYC With MAYURA Samples
My one-person sample-assembling journey and takeaways.
Happy holidays!
One year and one week after shaking my lead chemist’s hand for the first time, I hand-packed my first formula into little vials and walked door-to-door to distribute sample bags to salons and stylists in Manhattan. It was surreal.
Here’s how I got there and how it went…
About a week ago, I flew to New Jersey. I went straight to my family’s home, where I had little glass vials, pipettes and mylar bags delivered so I could package up MAYURA hair oil samples with branded postcards – the front with our logo and instructions for product use, the back with my business card so we can stay in touch.
I landed late at night and got to work the next morning.
Something all founders learn early on is that everything is a project. Even little things end up being less simple than you expected.
You’ll perfectly align your postcards and business cards in Canva and order same-day prints at Staples, only to find misaligned images and text because their janky printers don’t actually know how to follow the uploaded image. So you have to manually move your design a few clicks to the left in their system, printing a new test batch each time as you push the image further off-center. How many rounds does it take to get to get to the center? Four.
Everything is a project! Unpredictable little problems pop up all the time and you have to find a quick and effective solution. Every day is a little adventure. I love it.
When I got back home, I pipetted my hair oils from larger bottles I brought from California into mini sample vials. Then I tucked each vial into a mylar bag with a card and sealed those puppies up.
(You can heat seal mylar bags at the top — something you commonly see with food packaging — using a hair straightener. But I don’t own one. So I kept it at the zip lock closure.)
The next day, I went to Manhattan, where I spent two days walking door to door across Tribeca, Soho, Nolita, Chinatown and the Lower East Side, and then up toward Union Square, Herald Square and the Upper East Side. I have done this before in San Francisco, with earlier stage samples in little salsa containers, before I had even settled on a logo and branding. That early feedback was helpful in developing my formula.
But this was the first time I could hand out samples of the final oil formula with our logo and branding. (Soon we will produce these even more officially in a larger-scale manufacturing run. Stay tuned!)
Building trust with those we entrust our hair with is important to me. The first step is saying hello to let them know MAYURA is coming soon.
Each day we get closer to MAYURA hitting virtual shelves (and hopefully also many physical ones). I don’t let anyone besides my own stylist come anywhere close to my hair with a scissor, and I hope people who love caring for our hair enjoy this product as much as I do.
Being a reporter is great training for being a founder. I’m used to walking into rooms, introducing myself to people, and hoping they’re available to share a few minutes to chat. Every time I step into a salon, I know I’m asking a stylist, owner or manager to take time out of their work day or precious break to speak with me. Almost everyone has been receptive and generous with their time, and I’m so grateful. When people ask me to come back later, I do.
After handing out samples to dozens of stylists, I went out for Thai food with friends I’ve cherished for more than a dozen years. I walked the 45 minutes home in misting rain. This time last year, MAYURA was just a pile of ideas in my mind and notebook.
This past week was the perfect holiday gift.
If you’d like to sign up for our waitlist, you can find it here.
This post was made available to all subscribers this week in the holiday spirit. Forward this to a friend who should spiral with us.
To work together, reach out to partnerships@wearespiraling.com.
Follow us on Instagram for holiday cooking and curls this week.