Wall Street To Y'all Street

[00:00:00] You lose 80% of your clients, how do you bounce back from that and rebuild with my CEO and just going back and reflecting and prayer and seeking God for guidance on what's next? And just like seeing what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses? You have to know what your weaknesses are in order to know that's not the direction or the area you should go into, but really leaning on your strengths and really know what are you best at doing.
And so really trying to find what is it that those skills can turn into or create an opportunity for.

Today's guest sits at the intersection of influence, entrepreneurship, and ownership in the digital economy. Christina Rodriguez is the founder of La Butte PR Group, an influencer agency helping creators secure brand partnerships and scale their personal brands. She's also the founder of Butte and Tech, a platform connecting beauty, fashion, and technology for founders and creators, [00:01:00] building the next generation of brands.
But Christina's story didn't happen overnight. She's built businesses from scratch, navigated the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, and rebuilt more than once, turning hard lessons into strategy. In this conversation, we're diving into what it really takes to build something from nothing how creators can move beyond viral moments to build real enterprise value, and why the lines between creators and founders are disappearing with creators becoming founders and founders becoming creators.
And if you're new here, I'm Joseph j Rader, a former Wall Street lawyer with more than 20 years of experience across a hundred billion dollars in transactions. I'm also a former entrepreneur having launched two businesses. One I built and had a seven figure exit in less than three years.
I rolled that into a national retail chain and lost it all during COVID, but I rebuilt it back. I've generated tens of millions of dollars in B2B and B2C sales. I've hit highs, had lows, and rebuilt from scratch. My law firm rates or PLLC focuses on mergers and acquisitions to buy and sell companies or assets as well as securities law [00:02:00] to raise capital, I'm licensed to both New York and Texas.
My podcast is Wall Street to Wall Street. This is where I bring you real business lessons from season entrepreneurs, founders and executives who've lived the highs and lows of business, not giving legal advice here. Always consult with your attorney. Enjoy the show.
wonderful. Okay. I'm here in Houston with Christina Rodriguez. Thank you for being here. I'll give a little introduction to the many hats you're wearing right now. First of all, board member for the last six years of the Pretty Smart Foundation. Also for the last six years, you've been CEO and editor of Butte in Tech.
And for the last four years you've been CEO and founder of Lab Butte, QAR Group, Inc. Correct? That's correct. Wonderful. So we will talk about all that you're doing and all of the exciting projects and hats you're wearing. But before we get into that, I'd like to rewind and go back to the beginning what made you have this entrepreneurial founder vibe.
Makeup Academy is where I [00:03:00] started. That was like the first business venture that I owned and operated. This was in my early twenties.
Owned and operated a makeup academy and that was. Six figures online through social media. And so through the Makeup Academy, it just taught me a lot of skills learning. It taught me how to build systems through curriculum. It taught me how to transfer those skills that I learned through operations of a makeup academy into what tech is and what beauty in tech is now.
And so I feel like that's where my start started. From the early ons in my twenties, my early twenties until now of what I'm doing with beta and tech and lobby type PR group. And what year was that? So that was in 2013.
Okay. So social media, Instagram, had come out, I guess four or five years earlier.
So it's still pretty new. Yeah. Marketing and figuring out those. Those platforms. And even then, back then, I don't even know if they had [00:04:00] boosted post or ads or anything like that. A lot of it was organic, if I remember correctly. It was all organic. Yes, they had just started. So how did you go about figuring out and stumbling along?
Because now we have a whole treasure TRO of a YouTube videos that kind of teach us things and people you can hire to teach it. But you really had to figure this stuff out on your own, the tech aspect, which makeup hadn't really been sold that way before. And here you are doing six figures. How did you figure that out?
Social media. Okay. Social commerce was just the concept and it hadn't been proven yet. So now we understand that social commerce is here to stay. We also realize that live. Selling is going to be the next iteration of that. And so that's the very beginning of where it was selling through social media, through social commerce and using the apps to create the content, to sell the courses and to sell my product that I was selling at that time, which was beauty courses and selling the trade of makeup art.
You have this [00:05:00] new channel that allows smaller, new players enter it, and then you have your big players, right? Your big players in the industry. Like even players, like even Mac or something like that. But you also have the big, the make the individual makeup brands. The more mainstream stuff.
Did they start to move into this space? They did move into the space. That's the same year that a lot of the beauty makeup personalities took off. I was more of the face of the actual school itself and the actual certifications and people, and learning that I was an educator that way.
So you were the face of the school, you were the, the educator and essentially an early influencer.
I don't even know if that term was around yet. It was early days for all of that. Yeah. And then you have the opposite where these large mainstream media companies typically use celebrities. At what point did you start to see mainstream makeup companies start to bleed into the influencers?
Was there a convergence or how did that work out? We started seeing it with a lot of the makeup artists themselves who were on there, [00:06:00] started their own channels through YouTube. Okay. YouTube was the main, the main. Distributor. Of the makeup content and then of course Instagram and then Facebook as well.
And so then that's when we first started seeing the personalities come to life. We started seeing how I could actually manage a lot of those, that talent, a lot of that personality. And that's, I really saw it from more of a manager side. To create, to help women who wanted to come and become professionals in the trade and teach them also to the marketing side, to market themselves as makeup artists to sell the trade themselves and to become successful as an actual beauty personality as well.
you did that makeup academy here in Houston for almost a decade, is that right? So actually it was Amarillo, Texas, which is the top of Texas. Okay. More in the panhandle. Different market. Yeah. Way different market. Yes. I was, wow. Yeah. So I'm actually an actual founder out there because we were one of the first to start an actual makeup academy in the panhandle.
How is that, because [00:07:00] you say, oh, where someone says, I started a company and it's in this large metropolitan area, and it's yeah, you have access to two, three, 4 million people. And then you go to look at a market like Amarillo, which is a smaller market, right? Were there challenges involved with that?
It is a fraction of Houston, of course. You can't compare Houston, right to Amarillo, but I also feel like people don't realize that there are also surrounding cities to the panhandle, so there's a lot more interest as well.
So it was success and it was very successful. And I. I built it from the ground up there into the success that it was in less than six months. And so I felt like it could become more, or there was still something more there that I could build or maybe that there was something else that I was missing in the market.
To a larger market. And that's when I decided to actually move out to Houston. And I actually did shut the business down and I packed up and I came out here to Houston. And So you shut the business down and was, it was a complete shutdown. No [00:08:00] exit. You were like, I'm just gonna close it down and move on.
it was like after I generated the income that I did and I was like, wow, this is. Great. I was like, but I felt like there was gonna be a cap on this, and I felt like the cap was gonna be either I stay here and this is what all I become and this is what I'm gonna be known as and I'm like, or I actually take what I've earned and take it with me and reinvest it into something differently in a different market and learn and grow from there and see what it actually.
Becomes, and so I actually took that risk and I took that chance and I went ahead and did shut the business down and I went ahead and packed my things up and I came to Houston. before we move on to the next chapter of your entrepreneurial kind of journey, was it hard to build a six figure business within that short period of time and not sell it?
Was that, did you even consider selling it
I didn't consider selling it. Definitely I could have, if I would've probably thought more about it. I just really was looking at my own exit and trying to [00:09:00] reinvest that into something differently and to start I guess you could say all over in a different market.
But because like I felt like there was something more for myself. And I think that as an entrepreneur yourself, you're growing, you're learning. I think entrepreneurship is a great journey to learn about yourself. I think that it shows you a lot of things about yourself. It shows you grit, shows you strength, it shows you discipline.
It's going to test you in so many different ways. And I feel like that's for, to me, was like the icing on the cake of what the outcome was gonna be towards what I was truly building.
So talk to me a little bit about that. Talk to me about this first venture, first entrepreneurial taste.
You're having fun. You're building it. But talk to me about some of the failures, some of the low points. What was a low point you were like, why am I doing this? Why can't I be normal work a corporate job or whatever. Did you ever feel that
I was an artist from the very beginning? Okay, so I'm a very I can paint and here's my painting.
Would you like to buy it? Type of person. Okay. That is my personality. And I think from the very beginning I transitioned those skills. [00:10:00] I, went to makeup art school myself in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I established a relationship with them and I was able to pre private label my own cosmetics and brand because of the school.
And so bringing that from Southern. Florida to the countryside of Texas. It was very interesting to see. Yes. It was very like, what is she doing? What is this? What do you mean I can become a makeup artist? But it was also during the era where makeup artistry was taking off online. People were posting their videos and how to do their makeup, so that was good.
Because it was benefiting me and it was actually supporting the mission and overall mission of the business. You fell into it, right when tech and social and all that was just lining up with where you wanted to go. Okay. So you exit, this venture that you built, generated six figures of income, short period of time.
You're like, I'm moving on, I'm moving to Houston. What was the next venture? Yeah, and I also wanted to mention [00:11:00] that the beauty tech. Was also connected at that very moment. Okay. Because I did my brother worked in IT and he had his own IT company at that moment. And I asked him to build a com, a website for me, and he's no, you do it.
And I was like, how do I do it? He's YouTube it. So I actually YouTubed it and I learned how to build the website and I built the website and that's how I sold the actual cosmetics and the courses through building my own website. What year was this?
That was in 2013. Okay.
. So this was when like Shopify was fairly new? Oh yeah, it was definitely. But it was no, knew Shopify was new, build Shopify website. Then you literally had to. Cobble things together. Oh, yeah. There was no AI to do it for you. Plug and play. No.
You were actually like coding and figuring things out and how do I take this and that.
It was WordPress and it rudimentary. Yes. WordPress, right? Yeah. Wow. That's that's a whole episode in of itself. How that's done. Kudos to you and your brother for pushing you to build it, right? Yeah. Okay, so [00:12:00] you move on and I think you start an influencer agency at this time, a marketing agency.
Correct. I got to the Houston market and I did try to start the actual makeup academy here. I just felt like the market here was a little bit more different and it's a little bit more established and it was a lot more competition, more than what I had anticipated. And at that time I was not willing or wanting to invest.
Any of my marketing dollars into creating that personal brand around myself here. And so personal brands were really big. It was like it was a big deal and it was like, this is what you're gonna be known for. And I felt like in a larger city like Houston, and I'm just new to the city and I'm introducing myself, is this really what I want to be known as?
So I actually consulted with my CEO, which is, this time I took a lot of time to just. Reflect and pray and meditate on what exactly was the next move for myself as an actual business owner or entrepreneur. [00:13:00] And so I did have the skills of social media, so I knew I could transform those skills into a social media agency.
And so I actually launched a social media agency. And one of my first clients here in Houston was Harley Davidson. Man. Wow. Mancuso. Oh wow. So we helped to launch their campaign to help the students at Cypress High to wanna build motorcycle bikes. Okay. And so I consulted some of the independent owners of Harley Davidson through marketing.
And then I ended up transferring into the beauty. Aesthetics, which is really large out here in Houston, which means plastic surgery, which means med spas optometrists, and just stayed there in that area. And once the pandemic hit, then that's whenever I did lose 80% of my clients. And so it only left me with two clients and it was like a shock.
At the same time, but that's when the pivot happened and the [00:14:00] floodgates to all the data in the beauty industry just opened through CEW, which is cosmetic executive Women and beauty matter, which is one of the first to start in beauty technology and just in the beauty intelligence area as well.
So talk to me. Going back to moving to Houston and starting this agency and getting your first client is Harley Davidson, how as someone in the beauty space do you approach Harley Davidson? And is it that hey, I want to help you and I'll do this, for free because you're trying to build my portfolio?
Or do you pitch them a paid marketing deal? How does that work? So it's a lot about connections. It's a all about who, it, it is an asking and be willing to ask and say, Hey, I need an introduction. I'd like an introduction. I, I could do this, and this.
This is my skills. This is what I can offer. Do you think that there's something that I could, potentially. Offer you or help with. And I think that when people understand your background [00:15:00] and they have seen your work and they know your work ethic people are willing to make those introductions for you.
And that was the, that was what happened for me. It was just an introduction that was done through another person who I had worked, doing makeup artistry with, which was one of their photographers that they use. All the time to do a lot of their promos, their promo models, and that's where the introduction happened.
It's amazing what the power of a network will do without it. It's it's really tough. Okay. So before we get to COVID and losing 80% of your business and the shock and turmoil that went through, how did you from Harley Davidson build up your agency? from Harley Davidson, it was the next thing after that was a lot of networking events that Houston produces.
And it was like a lot of, back then there were a lot of like women in empowerment events happening in the city. So it was going to those events, handing out my business cards. And then it was just like a med spa doctor that was in one was one that I met. And then we had a coffee, we had a [00:16:00] conversation, and then that was my first client afterwards.
And then from there it just just. It was snowballed into working with more meds, spas, and it's interesting because now the proof is in the pudding. People know, brands know, companies know if you get with a creator or an influencer or an agency that there's yield, you're going to make some money.
And especially now with ads, if they do it on their own, they can throw away tens of thousands of dollars and ha have just be spending their wills. But at that time, how do you explain to someone. What social media is and what you can do for them and how it's going to be accretive. I think that a lot of, I was very lucky to have worked with an actual franchise here in the lo in the Houston area.
That's only a franchise in the aesthetics industry for Houston to actually bring me on as a freelancer. So I was working with them as a 10 99 a contractor with their marketing department and their actual chief marketing officer. So I was really. They [00:17:00] basically, they already knew.
And so they were this is what we need, this is what we expect. And so I was like already just filling in the role of what they needed and the marketing was already there, the data they were already providing, and it was just like working on the data and then just they have established an established business for over 10 years.
And it was a lot of email marketing, a lot of ads that way. So a lot of their marketing wasn't necessarily done through ads because they already had the database of their clients. So it was a lot of email marketing. Yeah, email marketing. Back then obviously it worked and people, now a lot of people would be like, oh, email that saying no, it actually, it still works though if you use it correctly.
So fast forward, COVID hits, you lose 80% of your client. How do you bounce back from that and rebuild? Yeah, so I was very fortunate to have some savings depleted my savings after that. And then the small business developmental center did allow for the [00:18:00] SBA to give small businesses a grant of $10,000.
So I was able to receive that and stay afloat with that. As I figured out like. What is the next, what is the next pivot? What is next? And of course, consulting with my CEO and just going back and reflecting and, prayer and seeking God for guidance on what's next, and just like seeing what are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses? You have to know what your weaknesses are in order to know that's not the direction or the area you should go into, but really lean on your strengths and really know what are you best at doing. And so really trying to find what is it that those skills can turn into or create an opportunity for you.
And so at that time like I said, beauty data was very fascinating to me. I have very much so been a blogger in the early years in 2013 [00:19:00] because I didn't wanna be a beauty personality. I like to write more and I like to blog more and talk about more of the beauty side of like. Why we don't see beauty ads with Latina women in it in 2013.
And so really writing on that type of topics that fascinated me and was much more of my interests than trying to get you to show you how to put on your eyeshadow. Because I was like, I don't wanna show women how to do their eyeshadow. I'm already teaching women how to put on the eyeshadow on you. So that's the lane that I wanna stay in.
And so when CEW. And beauty matter joined forces, and they sent an email blast that they're gonna be opening up all of their courses, which it was, I wanna say about like 45 different courses and just industry related seminars and workshops that they did online with all the beauty brands. Because really what they were [00:20:00] saying is like survival of the fittest.
And this was like, we don't know who's gonna make it. And, which is very unheard of because in the beauty industry, nobody shares data. Data's not something that you share at all. But because it was the pandemic and because of what was happening in the industry, everyone knew this was gonna be the shift.
And so I honestly, I just feel like it was my gut that was like tech. And this is gonna be the tech move where you need to move to. And just knowing that in the back of my mind is when I decided that, okay, let me start a podcast. Lemme go ahead and start reporting on what's happening in the industry.
Let the beauty professionals know, let the chief marketing officers know. There was no reporting on the industry about the data, what was happening. And so my podcast at that time was called the Fitbit Report and so I started reporting and that took off. And it became [00:21:00] successful was in one of the top tech categories on the podcast.
And so listen over 50 different countries over the world. And so that kind of also let me have all the content that I needed to turn into a magazine. So I just went ahead and turned that podcast content into a magazine. I had the background already coming from the makeup artistry world. Of how magazines work, how to produce an actual layout.
And so I went ahead and just took that content and created the magazine, BEAY and Tech. And then that's when Beay and Tech came and just created its own life. And from there I just started to meet more women in tech, join different organizations of women supporting women in technology.
And I was invited to cover women in Web3 in Colombia, in Mexico. And then it just [00:22:00] just flourished into what it is now. And now I'm able to take my media company beta and tech and I am able to go to different conferences and cover what's going on at the CON conferences.
Yeah. And we'll get into that.
That's all amazing. And I think your current podcast is called Pretty Smart Rich.
Yes. So it's rebranded. Yeah. It's a pretty smart, rich. Yes. That is so brilliant. I love it.
So Pretty Smart. Rich is Christina's podcast if you want to check it out. Let's talk a little bit about creators and influencers.
During that time, what were brands getting wrong about creators?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think they're still trying to figure it out after these several years, right? Yeah. Okay. It's, it's also to a new, it's a new marketing strategy. It's a new marketing strategy and it's marketing strategy that's still being invested into, and a lot of the market dollars are now going towards influencer marketing and there's a lot of [00:23:00] influencers who.
Want to become paid influencers. And then there's the top 1% who are actually getting paid by the actual brands. So there's still a lot of competition as well with influencers. And I think that there's also still a lot of not transparency in the pay rate and the actual how they actually treat. Influencers and what they expect of them and how their pay is paid to them because a lot of them take 90 days, which shouldn't happen, but a lot of them do just because of the way that the company's structured and the pay, the
the disparity and power and leverage.
And so it's amazing you said 1% and those are the ones we all hear about, but the other 99%. And what's the flip side of that? What are creating creators getting wrong about brand? Because that's communication is two ways.
Yeah. I think creators are just really trying to focus on only having brand deals when in all honesty, if you're a creator, you should have at least five different income streams that are [00:24:00] just not brand deals.
They should also be for like, like to know if you, share a product. You can have someone click on your link and go and purchase it, and you get a commission off of it, like Amazon. And so through digital products, through TikTok shop, through TikTok shop is just like tremendous. You should be on there if you're a creator.
And so it's having different sources of income online as well. Through your consultation, there's many more different avenues that you can use. And keeping, making sure that you are generating through those avenues and not just depending solely on brand partnerships. Influence is really an asset.
Would you consider it a currency? It is a currency, yeah. Yeah, it is a currency. Definitely. We are seeing the currency of the creator economy. As a currency and it eventually become something in Web3 and a coin itself, which I feel like will go there eventually because it is digital money.
It is online money is what [00:25:00] they used to call it in the Web3 space. And so it, it is going in that direction, in that area. And yeah, I do feel like we'll see it one day become where people will be paid in coins that way and then also too in fiat.
Interesting. So we all. Hear and talk about, oh, something going viral and, tens of millions of views.
What's the difference between going viral and actually building equity or enterprise value?
Yes, that's a very good question. So going viral it's all about the hook, right? It's all about the hook and it's all about being controversial and it's all about, how much attention can you get? But is it truly.
Being about what you stand for. Is it truly being about, what you want to share or talk about? Or is it just something that you're trying to go viral with? And it's sometimes people mistake those two for, productivity or it's a good thing, but if it's not really sharing what you are trying to sell or sharing who you really, truly [00:26:00] are, and that's like the message that you wanna get across.
It's gonna fall because at the, it's gonna just come back and be
just generating clicks. Because if it goes viral but it doesn't translate to sales right. Or goodwill, then what's the point? Yeah. And so on that same note, how do creators build enterprise value?
A lot of them have already, and we're starting to see that Slate brands is one of the incubators who's already working with.
Influencers who have created an audience, and we're starting to see now the shift in the creator, founder and where a lot of the VCs are also taking interest. And a lot of these influencers, I wouldn't call them, I think, everyone is an influencer, but if you have the influence to have people really believe in the product that you're selling, and then be able to say, I came out with my own line, or my own brand, or my own product, and.
There's been influencers who sell out and Mr. Beast sell out, sold [00:27:00] out in less than six minutes. And so it's those type of creators who have become founders that VCs are investing into, and they're able to use their audience, they're able to use that audience for leverage and leveraging it to bring it to the VC and be able to say, I can have an MVP and I already have a buku of people who will buy from me.
And so that. Audience following can transition into sales. And so that's what VCs are now also looking for and taking it into account.
Interesting. Yeah. And you referenced Mr. Beast. He's one who just translates not only across different generations, but across so many different cultures and the reach that he has generated in his own estimation.
He was just this antisocial kid growing up and here he is. Probably the most popular person in the world right now. Living at least. And it's it's astounding to see, the guy just did a Super Bowl commercial that Salesforce paid for him to [00:28:00] do, and he's getting away a million dollars with it and whatnot.
And he's just, his creativity and celebrity and his growth. And it's almost like the guy's just getting started. But that's again, the 1%. And so how, on that note, of the 1% roughly, or the ones who are making all of the money and influence and creativity just generally, but I guess also on beauty, do you think it's that influencers are overestimating their value or do you think it's that brands are underestimating their.
Yeah, I think that the market decides, I think that the market gets to decide that. I don't think that the influencer gets to decide that, or the brands themselves. I think that, influence can't be faked. And so whether you either have the following or you don't, and if brands are a lot smarter.
When we looked now at the conversion rates to the media kits. And so a lot of influencers will reach out to me. I'll ask for their media kit, and I, brands have gotten a lot smarter and now they're asking for a [00:29:00] screenshot of their actual dashboard on their Instagram or on their Facebook and TikTok to really look at their conversion rates and whether that be through a story.
A lot of more conversion rates are done through story than it is on the actual feed, and how many people are actually. What can you post about and what people are actually clicking on in tr in conversions to actual sales? And I feel like the market decides as well on what influencer, what person is gonna influence and who's gonna actually be the next brand or the next influencer that brands want to work with.
So brands got smart, started doing due diligence on the actual numbers to make sure this person can convert before they commit. Which is good business practice, right? You only have so large a marketing budget, and you talk about authenticity and that is so spot on with AI now, and there's just so much out there that is, is fluff, for lack of a better word.
How is AI influencing this? I almost, my gut feeling is it makes influencers worth more [00:30:00] because they're in front of the camera actually doing something. But I don't know. What's your take on that? What's my take on just generally on how AI is changing. The influencer marketing industry? Obviously you can run more data and chew data faster and you can generate thumbnails and whatnot, but how is that impacting the whole influencer marketing ecosystem?
Yeah, I, there's many different ways to look at it. One would be, are you an influencer yourself, and how are you using AI to help you better? Create content or align your content with the brands that you wanna work with or trying to use it as a person. Another outsource to generate the actual images for you, the actual copy for you, the actual strategy for you, the content calendar for you.
And it's great. I think that influencers or creators, anyone should use it for their business. For brands. I feel like brands are also [00:31:00] leaning into the AI influencers. It's a lot less monetary that they have to pay, but then at the same time, it is an actual person who's creating the AI influencer that they have to pay.
So I feel like brands are also utilizing AI in that manner. We also saw guest that also produced a whole campaign advertisement using ai. We also saw. Gap. The Gap, use it as well. So I'm, I, we also saw Valentino use it. So there's a lot more brands that are gonna be utilizing it as well to create the advertisements inside of a publication like Vogue.
I think you posted that on LinkedIn, the Valentino one. I saw that, yes.
Yeah. Yeah. So of course Vogue is an advertisement company and so if they can offer something that's less. And the brand is willing to use ai. Why not use the ai, generate it and pay less and the advertisement still gets paid to Vogue.
do you think it's created an environment where, say 10 years ago, five years [00:32:00] ago, an influencer who was in the top 1% say was the person who's more creative and maybe five years from now, it's not the person who's more creative. It's just the person who could prompt AI better.
That's a good way to look at it. It is. It is prompts, I think that people don't realize how what you prompt it, it can create, but it still needs you. It still needs that human to tell it what to do. If you're not good at prompts or communication or messaging, it's still gonna. Be off or it's just not gonna work as well for you.
But ultimately the human behind it is the creator and still creating with the ai. So I don't really, lean into the side of where AI is the creator or creating assets that are better than people because I've seen artists still create art that could possibly be generated with the prompt, with ai, but.
It's still the actual human itself and us as creators, ourselves. Like we have a creator and a creator made us, and a creator [00:33:00] gives us to create. And an AI can't create without us. So it doesn't create on its own. It does can't read your mind, it doesn't get inspired. You can't inspire ai. You can only inspire a human or a person like ourselves.
earlier you had referenced VC venture capital, and how does that work in this space? Is it hard for people in this space to raise vc and do you even need it if you have an influence, if you have an influence, or can you just go out there and raise capital or how does that work?
Yeah it's needed if you want to exit. If you found, if you feel like you wanna exit, it is needed, if you want to go that route, versus the banking looking for a loan. So it is needed, if you want it that way. Like I said, Slate brands, they are already working with influencers themselves to create, and they have, it's an incubator and they have VCs that they work with to invest.
And there's a lot of investors that are starting to invest into the influencers. [00:34:00] And helping them create their product or their MVP. So when did you see these venture capital move into this space? Is this a recent trend or, oh yeah. So it's been like recently in the last 24 months. So they're starting to move into this space because they see opportunity.
Oh yeah. And so where is the growth in that? Is it a specific niche or is it just generally you see 'em all over the place? It's generally beauty and fashion. Okay. But there's also CCPG, Mr. Beast, he was one of the prime Sure. Person examples. So yeah. You typically, it's CPG and breed and fashion.
Brand deals versus equity deals. So do these influencers how does that work? Are they taking equity in the company? Do they have, do the 1% have such leverage that they're getting a slice of the pie? A part of the company or a part of the sales, or is it just they get paid their fee? It would be smart that they did. Yeah. But a lot of them are not. Okay. And a lot of them are not negotiating that equity, which they should do.
You think they have the leverage to do that? So I do see it in a different perspective because I do know now that I've seen founders [00:35:00] who are either building a beauty brand, building a beauty tech. Company or a fashion tech company who are wanting to bring on founding influencers, which means that they don't have the following, like an influencer, but they're willing to give that equity up in order to use that audience, that following from that influencer and bring them onto their founding team as a founding influencer.
Would you say personal brands are far more valuable than company brands? Oh, no, I think they're separate. Okay. They're definitely separate. I think that a personal brand is very important. We all have a personal brand, and if you don't have one, you should be building one and it's our digital footprint.
So wherever you are online, that's your personal brand. So you should be building it, establishing yourself, positioning yourself so that you could leave a good digital footprint. And so in your example, it's no matter what Chris, what venture Christina and Rodriguez is on, she has [00:36:00] pretty smart, rich and that follows you.
Is that the idea? Yeah, an example. That's an example. That's a good example. Yeah. But pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. What opinion do you have that you think would make the influencer industry angry? Is there anything controversial that you see that others don't see? 'cause you seem to go against the grain in some of this, but tell me.
Yeah, I, don't have a huge controversial take on this and the influencer side. I feel like it's just new. It's still new and I think that it's once, when was it? Six months ago we heard that they wanted to bring in-house, staff and the actual staff to start creating the content and to be the content creator.
And here we are now, six months later, we're starting to find out that probably wasn't the best move. And now these actual employees feel like they've been gypped out of money because it's extra work. It's an ex, [00:37:00] it's a personality, that you have to do. And some people just wanna show up and they just wanna work.
And then now you're asking this person to show up and put on a smile and sell product for you. So not only are they doing their daily task, but now you're also asking them to go on a video and be live to sell products for you at the same time.
A whole different mindset, a whole different gig, if you will.
Exactly. Is that a cost saving measure?
That's what it, that's what they had said in the beginning. And I just I didn't really. See it that way. Even though so many beauty brands were like, yes, this is gonna be good. Yes, this is the new exactly. Yeah. Any business owner that doesn't wanna pay a creator, so let's go ahead and give that workload to our staff members.
And I think that first the staff was excited as well. We get to be a creator, we get to be online. But then as time went by, it's a business. It's an actual, yeah. Business. Again, without the sales. It's was this a good idea? It came from the higher up. Sounded like a good idea. 'cause we don't have to pay [00:38:00] X, but we're not yielding.
We're not, it's not converting. And now sales aren't what they were. So talk to me, if you will, about what you're doing now, because my understanding is you put on, I think almost every year this event, right? In New York, San Francisco, LA is that right? So we have been doing this since 2020. I am the first Chicana to Coin Beauty Tech and Fashion Tech in New York City.
There was no fashion tech, no beauty tech events happening. In San Francisco, there was none or Los Angeles. So when I had my magazine or when we still have the magazine. And we still do these events. It just blew up. And since 2020, the industry blew up the actual beauty tech, fashion tech, it became its own kind of its own part of what VCs [00:39:00] are investing into now.
So it's its own category. And so it was very interesting to see how. In 2020, there was nothing geared towards bringing those communities together, bringing the beauty community together, bringing the fashion community together, or the tech community together. And now it has just evolved into what it is today in the present day.
Butan tech is the universe. Summits where beauty, the universe summits or beauty and fashion tech beauty and fashion tech Meet the creator economy. And so talk about the events. Are they, is it largely it's influencers and then brands or who, who's attending? Who gets the most out of these kinds of events?
The people who attend are creators. Okay. Our founders. Okay. Our investors, our chief marketing officers are executives. Our professionals, our bcs are people who, you want. To be in the room because you either are looking for funding or you wanna [00:40:00] find your next connection to the funding.
Or because you're a founder yourself and you're looking for founders like you that are like-minded who are building either in the beauty space, fashion space, or because you come from the beauty and fashion and you really wanna learn how to start that tech company.
This is it's so timely. 20 is, you started this, right around COVID.
Yeah, pre COVID, there were just conferences constantly in every city and it seems like since COVID it, I don't know if it was a cost saving measure or really because of COVID, so many companies pulled back in that regard. And maybe it's because so many companies are now remote and that's going back.
But it seems like there's not as many conferences as there are. But there're effective tool conferences work, right? They get like-minded people together and deals are done right? People meet people and like you said, network, it's all about networking and you can network all you want on LinkedIn and Instagram or whatever, but getting in a room with people in the same industry or who can help you in that industry is priceless.
And so I imagine, I would imagine [00:41:00] it's logistically not so fun sometimes to coordinate this, or how is that, how did you start this, to do the first conference? How is that compared to now?
Yeah, that's a great question and I would love to take you back to the very beginning of my research, which was that only 2% of women received VC funding.
Wow. What year was that? 20. 20. Oh my goodness. So in 2020, only 2% of women, not just in beauty. But across the board we see venture capital funding. Wow. And it hasn't, the needle hasn't moved much. Okay. But we have moved it a little. So that was the very first reason of why I decided, so to take it, even smaller percentage of women of color like myself who receive less funding than that.
So there was a, there's a lot of barriers of entry into tech itself. And as well as in the beauty industry and the fashion industry. So I wanted to [00:42:00] bring the, bring down and eliminate some of those barriers by bringing people together in the same room. And that's where the first idea started for beauty, fashion tech.
I'm astounded by that number. I did not know that. I apologize. I did not know that. But it's also astounding to me because beauty is not a small industry. Last time I checked half the people are women, right? So you would think the number would be higher than 2%, but just beauty generally.
That's a multi-billion dollar industry, right? It's typically money goes where it can make more money. And so you have an uphill battle here. If it was 2%, then it's, we're only five or six years post your first conference and the needle hasn't moved. You have a lot of room for growth on this, I think, right?
Yeah. And a lot of the beauty industry has typically in the past been beauty professionals. So to open up the tech side of it, it was like, what do you mean I can become a tech startup? A lot of times beauty founders are [00:43:00] not found funded through bcs. You'll never see a beauty founder in the profession for beauty salon or.
Or that side be funded through a vc. However, now through tech, if you have a beauty service or a beauty product and you can integrate a, an app or you can educate software. So now you'll see the VC come in and the VC side investing into the beauty tech. The beauty side of technology, is it because there's a tech attribution and it fits within their investment thesis, and they can say, okay.
It is tech, but yeah, there's beauty, but it's tech. It's tech. We know this, we can invest in this. Is that what it is? No, I think that it's always been a men's industry and I feel like it's always been, men make software ugly and they make, Y 2K was so good for us because I feel like we got, I was exposed to the tech side.
That was very fun, very colorful, very pretty, very, it was [00:44:00] very tech that you wanted to have with you. And so it was fun. And so I feel like when you're growing up and you get to see that type of tech, it's interesting. And I feel like that's probably also too one of the first touch points that I received as a child growing up to really feel like why is software, why is tech so ugly?
Why is it so manly? Why is it so blah? And I realized that. Through the pandemic and the shift with beauty data. I'm like the tech is beauty, and as I've done more research and as I've grown my I've grown through the years in the work that I've done. It's just. It's fascinating for me to see that beauty is innovation.
It has always been innovation and techno, and fashion is growing right behind it. And it has been, it's really what's been pushing the needle on the tech because that category has just grown exponentially from when I first came on the scene and [00:45:00] started. Putting everything on the internet for that segment, for that topic into what it is now, where the whole industry talks about it.
And it's just been like the industry has taken it itself and made it a part of the tech talks in fashion, in beauty. So that's interesting. So you created this investor conference with venture capitalists and creators and brands from scratch in 2020 and 26. You now have it in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York.
Where do you go from here with that and how do you scale it? Yeah, so we have we're in New York, we're in Los Angeles, we're in San Francisco, and it's the model of an actual event in media brand. So the media brand is Buta and Tech and Universe is our summit series. And so like any media brand.
It's grown through subscriptions. It's grown through our sponsorships and partnerships, and that's the revenue side of the media brand [00:46:00] and as well as later on apparel as well, and through our different memberships that we offer. So is your idea to keep it in those three, obviously very large cities, year to year and grow it that way?
Or is your idea to take it to maybe Milan or something? Or where do you see. How do you see anything like that in the future? Oh, absolutely, yes. I've been invited to Switzerland. Oh, wow. So Switzerland has been in the talks in something that I have been working on. I would love to be able to do South by Southwest in Texas.
And Austin, I'm from Texas, so I would want to start there. Because that's just more innovation in Austin and South by Southwest is the ideal audience and like-minded people that would take it and understand it. And so versus trying to be Dallas or Houston. And yes, definitely taking it to different cities, bigger cities, Japan and other cities all over the world.
Yeah. No. South [00:47:00] by Southwest would I think make sense. And it does have an open-minded creator base, right? And definitely plenty of deep pockets there VCs who may not even know about this space as an opportunity to invest in. And so you can open eyes and that needle starts to move over time.
Wonderful. Wow. You have a lot on your plate. You have a lot on your plate. I appreciate this insight. I. Honestly and get prepared for the interview with you. I did, my research and didn't know how much I didn't know about beauty and the convergence between beauty and tech and certainly a budding industry that has a long way to grow.
And it looks like you're at the forefront of that. So you've made your own space in a growing market. Congratulations. And I really thank you, am grateful for this time. With you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it as well.