We finally had our (v delayed) ladibug launch event on Wednesday 18th September, at the beautiful 81 Leonard Gallery in Tribeca. I always love reading other founders’ breakdown of their event to-do list, and getting a peak into what didn’t go as great, something you can’t read between the lines with perfectly curated socials.
Below are a few big ticket items of everything we had to plan
The biggest challenge we have as two female founders who are completely bootstrapping a startup (a startup model that is feels like one of the hardest business models to pursue by all economics - a marketplace), is finding venue spaces that are cool, aligned to our brand but are ‘affordable’.
1. Affordability and NYC is an oxymoron.
Some venue spaces can be a minimum $5K for 1 hour. But our biggest hack: tap connections, work with smaller brands and offer ‘co-hosted opportunities’. We were so lucky that Vibha had a contact at a gallery in Tribeca, 81 Leonard, owned by Nancy Pantirer, who is exhibiting her current series of work that reflects how her life and art have evolved with her 3 decades in Tribeca as a woman. It was only a natural fit.
2. Food and drinks
This was Vibha’s responsibility and she killed it. Her strategy: reach out to as many local NYC CPG brands and ask if they want to sponsor the event or showcase samples. One of the biggest learnings is don’t be disheartened if brands don’t reply. Whether it is suppliers, food or drink sponsors, keep messaging until you get a no (as they say, squeakiest wheel gets the oil). I think we messaged over 50 brands and it’s an opportunity for them to also get in front of potential customers.
We ended up with a delicious array of snacks, including Besto Pesto (literally the best pesto you will ever have and its gluten free and nut free), Clean Dough Co, Croutinis, Baobab and Sunbear drinks. We also ordered a bunch of wine (tip: use ChatGPT to figure out how many bottles you need for an estimated guest list) and bought a lots of nibbles from Trader Joes.
3. Products for goodie bags
I really wanted women to see some of the amazing brands we work with and to pick what they found interesting. We reached out to all our suppliers to see who would be interested in sharing samples. Whether it was 30, 50 or 70 units, we were grateful for whatever they wanted to give away. I wanted to personalize the experience as much as possible, which is why we ordered butchers paper and wrote an ‘explainer’ on what the products were and why we liked them (i.e. clinically proven, clean, non fragranced etc).
4. Figuring out what people will actually 'do'
This was more of my concern. I feared everyone rocking up to this beautiful gallery, wondering what to do with themselves. But naturally, if you bring a huge group of people together, in a beautiful space, with cool CPG brands to try out, goody bags and a glass of wine, everyone will naturally mingle.
5. Recruit friends and family and give them a job!
Your friends and family are your rock during your startup journey. I am so grateful for all my friends here in the city and my partner. I gave Archie the role as bartender and I think he may have enjoyed a few too many beers himself behind the bar! Vibha’s parents and sister were also so helpful at the goody bag station. Friends and family showing up also humanizes the brand.
What went wrong or didn’t go as planned
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Total Wine deliver everywhere but Manhattan? This was actually super inconvenient because we couldn’t order the wine to the gallery. But Vibha sent it to a friends place in Brooklyn and ubered over (many ubers were spent on the day of this launch event
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Our posters - wtf, who would have thought printing posters would be so expensive! I refused to spend $50 on a foam board from FedEx (especially since we had 5 posters). I ended up ordering large posters to UPS and bought foam from a newsagency around the corner. However, glueing this on was a complete disaster and I couldn’t split the foam without it breaking. I ended up doing a super scrappy job and it took me about 3 hours the night before but it did the job.
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This wasn’t necessarily something that went wrong but I regret not taking more content. I have no photos or videos of launch prep or the CPG samples stand. We live in an age that documenting every element of your journey is key for brand growth, and as much as I resist having to capture everything, it’s unfortunately something we need to lean into.
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The amount of stuff you have in your apartment leading up to the event is wild. And as everyone knows, NYC apartments are notoriously TINY, so it was a relief to have the stuff go.
Overall though, Vibha and I were so pleased and grateful with how the event turned out! Having your friends and customers show up for you makes the entire journey feel less lonely. It also proved that you don’t need a massive budget to pull together a group of people in a space to chat about your brand. Yeah it would be awesome to have Rhode style donuts or a famous DJ but the smaller the budget, the more creative you have to be.
