She made $2M in 2 days by building a celebrity cult favorite brand (ft. Danielle Guizio)

Danielle, you are someone who has redefined modern femininity in fashion. You went from $400 to a globally recognized brand. Daniel Guzio, welcome to the Burnouts. When was a moment where or even do you feel like you made it? Where you were like, holy shit, this is actually working. I mean, definitely even from the time when I was in my childhood bedroom, when I just saw all the sales come in, I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. Like I've only literally like, I've only I remember the feeling of having a thousand dollars for the first time. And it was the craziest feeling I've ever felt in my life. And I really felt confident and it really makes you realize, OK, I got this and I can do more and I can be better and create better product on top of it. There is another part of me that feels like I haven't made it. And that's really what drives me. I don't know when there will be a day when I feel like I've made it. And of course, the business is doing so well, but I just have a part of me where I see more for the business and I want more for the business. And I think that's what really motivates me is being super self critical. Honestly, same. That's what drives us. I think 100 percent is this like this need to like prove yourself or to create something every time I feel like I see like the word Fiat and riding. I'm so excited. So you started your brand with four hundred dollars. I want you to walk us through like, how did you know what to do? I was working retail at a store in Soho and always wanted to start a brand. It was always my dream, even from when I was little. I just never knew how it was possible. Like I didn't have any resources. I didn't have any family members that were even in fashion. And at the time, like when I was younger, we we didn't even have Instagram. So kind of growing up and only being able to like read about it in books of like how people succeeded was really challenging. And essentially I had a health scare during that time. And I was immediately put into surgery. I had a tumor on my liver. And yes, so they had to remove like a bunch of stuff after I got out of that. I was just like, OK, whoa, that was insane. I found out that I was cancer free. Thank God the surgery was brutal and their recovery was brutal. Like I was in a wheelchair. So after that, I was like, if I can go through that, I can accomplish anything. And I was working for a jeweler at this time. And I was also in community college, just like taking some classes, like some business classes there. And I was just like, I don't want to do this anymore. It was so grueling. I was just like, how am I going to break free from this? And like, how did you save up that first like $400? Was it a tax bounce back you got? Yeah, so it was it was a tax refund. And I just like stashed it away, like literally like in my underwear drawer. Like I had no money. So I was like, oh my God, I'm rich and like stashed it away. And I essentially just built up the courage to start my brand. And my best friend, Kelly, she's a creative genius. She's amazing. So we were just like cooped up, just kind of like ideating in her apartment uptown and every single weekend we were just like ordering food and just like creating both of our brands simultaneously. I had no design experience. But I knew that I wanted to start my brand starting with graphic tees. I was like a very big like trend at the time. And for me, like I feel like I'm like a copywriter at heart. Like I can like spin off so many like ideas for what I would want the shirts to say. And we designed the graphics. We designed the entire website. We were shooting once we got the samples and we were shooting the product just like on her floor. We were putting it up on the website. And we did absolutely everything ourselves, the photo shoots, videos. And I pretty much started doing cut and sew. I had zero experience. It was like me and a tape measure and my factory at this time. I had been researching online on Google to find a factory overseas. And I had just like linked up with like a rep there. And I just got really close with them. And they were understanding that I didn't know what I was doing. But I was like essentially promising them like I promise this is going to be great. Like bear with me. You literally googled and called them. I love this. Yeah, literally googled and found a factory. How long were you working like your full time job and then also starting your brand on the side? Well, doing school. Yeah, well, I guess it was I guess it was like like six months. Yeah. And at the time, I didn't have a car either on time. It was just all madness. It was chaos. So, yeah, I guess that was about like like six months of when I was working there. And it came to a point where we had like a pretty decent amount of volume going on. Like how much? Well, we were we were selling out of our garments. Like as soon as we would put them up, I was just like to my dad, like, please. Please kind of leave school. I can't focus on both. It's just getting really challenging for me. And especially that I had to be like driven to work back and forth. I didn't have my car. Like if I was just at home, I'd be able to lock in and do what I had to do. It got to the point where because I didn't have a car. I had like a garbage bag of our orders and I would walk on the highway to the post office to USPS and literally with a trash bag of our orders because I didn't have a car. Yeah, it was it was so loud. But I never forgot those times, you know, they're all so important. Can we talk about the dupes? Because on Black Friday, you were getting duped like crazy. And I feel like I always see Goozio dupes all over TikTok shop. Does it piss you off? I honest, I feel like I've grown so accustomed to it. My my theory is when you have one great idea, you have so many more ideas. And I always like even tell my friends that who get really down on themselves about the dupes, it's just going to happen. It's always going to happen. We have to just figure out how to navigate it. But we were getting duped so much on our pietzker, which was one of our top sellers. I only get mad when they start using our e-com imagery because then I'm like, OK, like me and my team work so hard for that. It's broad. Yeah, like I actually planted that entire show in the model. Like it's not fair to anyone involved, but I essentially had enough. Like after the Taylor Swift era's tour, when the entire arena is in pietzker, and probably a fraction of them are Goozio, I was like, I've had enough of this. So with our micro mini, it was Amazon Prime Day. And I was laying in bed and I was like, shit, I missed Amazon Prime Day. I was kind of like in my sleep. I was like, what if we took our best seller and we gave it its own day? So I came up with micro mini day and we designated for Black Friday, the micro mini at a price point where I was just like, OK, if we can't beat them, join them, let's make the retail price the same price point as all of our dupes and really kind of like get into the playing field and also be able to offer this product that I believe in so much to a bigger audience who can afford that price point. And we went live with micro mini day for Black Friday and we made almost $2 million in 48 hours. Jeez. Wow. And like, what was the rationale behind keeping the price point low? It was working, it broke. Don't fix it. I love that. It was working and we were able to because of all the volume that we were selling from Black Friday, we were able to go back to our factors and renegotiate with them, which was so vital because we were able to get a better margin on the garment because we're buying such higher volume of this item. I think we we bought like 300,000 units like the day of Black Friday. 300,000. Oh my God. Yeah. And is that what you meant by like being financially smart of like you start with like a smaller batch and then see if it does well and you buy a larger one? 1000 percent. Even if we still to this day have the opportunity to only order a minimum order of like 100 units of something, like maybe it's a new sweater or like a new garment that we're testing. I still will only buy 100 units of something if we have the opportunity with our factories just to test it and see that's so smart. Oh my God, 300,000 is crazy. Did you think that was going to happen? I had a feeling it was going to do really well. And I was telling my team prior to that because I had thought of this micro mini day like two months prior to Black Friday. And I was telling my team maybe three months prior. And I was like, guys, I really think we should buy heavier into the units. Like I feel like this is going to be huge. Like this is going to blow up. And with the help of my social media team, we made a video that went like extremely viral. Let's make it fun. Let's make it funny. Like it doesn't have to be so serious all the time. I love this thorough line of you negotiating deals constantly. It's like, OK, we got these hot graphic teas. Boom. Now I'm arguing with the factory, man. I'm like, let's get these prices lower. Micro mini day. You miss Amazon Prime Day. You're like, boom, let's negotiate a deal with the factory. Like I love this thorough line of you constantly like getting deals done. Thank you. I think that's a huge lesson to for our audience and something I frankly struggled with is like actually being like strong in negotiation and knowing your value that you're bringing to the table. Like when you're arguing with, you know, a large provider about what the costs are going to be or when we're thinking about, you know, different SaaS products we're going to use for the company, figuring out and negotiating those deals. And so I think that's a huge takeaway for me. And I hope for like our audience, too, of like you can negotiate and you can get stuff done. Yeah. If someone was in your position and was starting from scratch, or if you were doing it all over again today, like what do you think are the most important things to focus on? For me, I was very certain about what I wanted. Like we pretty much like laid out all of the styles. And I went to a local print shop and I negotiated with the guys and I was just like, hey, like, can we please like work out a deal? Like this is like all I have, et cetera. I learned negotiating at a really young age. Like my dad would take me downtown to Chinatown when I was very young, like probably like, like 13 and be like, okay, go negotiate for yourself. Literally at 13 and he would kind of give me tips of like what to do, what to say and like how to kind of get what you want. Like the power of persuasion at a very young age. And that honestly taught me so much and it made me the person I am today. I was literally haggling with like 40 year old men. I love that. Yeah, it was so funny. Another thing that was super important and I always urged my friends, even my friends who have successful brands, is that as soon as our product sold out and I was lucky enough to have a business at the time where it was a really fast turnaround, that would probably take like a week for them to get printed. If I like begged and pleaded to the guys on my hands and he's like literally. But I would say that when we would sell out immediately, I would restock. Because losing that momentum could absolutely kill your business. Not only the momentum in sales, but also the attention span of your consumer and your consumers so fresh, they don't know who you are. Like no one understands your brand yet as much as you do in your head. I think that that helped us grow in a really big way. Just always staying in stock as much as we could. That's a really good advice. And how did you know when you wanted to continue to expand? Like you started with the graphic tease, what was like your next step? And also, how did you approach marketing? I mean, now it's like the Hadid's, the Kardashians, like everyone is wearing your brand. But how did it first start? I essentially, not that I got bored of making graphic tease, but I just felt like there was more. I was at like a stage where I was like, there's more for me and I want to create a world around Guzio, you know, and I essentially was shopping in the mall at this time. I still had like a little bit of money from starting my brand, but I was really putting everything into the business. I was still shopping at Zara. I was shopping at Forever 21 at the time and nothing fit. There was really a void in the market. And I was just looking, going into stores with a vision in my head. I visualized something that I wanted to wear, not that I saw something. I would just visualize it and then I would go to the mall and look for it. So to me, I was just like, if I have these ideas and I'm trying to look for something that's not there, let's just make it. When me and Sophia first raised, we felt like this kind of undue pressure. And I don't know, I don't want to say it's because we're female founders or because we're young, but we felt like we needed to hire like almost like an adult in the room. We needed to bring in someone who we thought would know more than us or could help us with that. And we realized really quickly that those people weren't willing to work past 10 p.m. which, you know, you need to do if you have a startup. I'm curious, did you have any like big learnings like that as you're building the business? Yeah. So when we took on our first investment about like a year and a half ago, I really thought the business was doing really well, completely profitable, zero debt. And I thought, OK, the next step is taking on an investment, hiring people that are older and more experienced, which is true and false. You know, there are a lot of experienced people that have absolutely changed my business that work for me now. But at the time I hired an entire I hired an entire team that just wasn't working for what I needed. I don't want to hire an army of people when that's not needed. So rather than hiring people that were older, I think I was like really like yearning for kind of mentors and like people that I look up to. Whereas now I really focus on hiring super talented people, even if they are young, you know, people that I truly believe in that I see myself in. And I learned so much from them. And I'm able to really like be myself and kind of like break down those walls because I did go through like a lot of trauma of hiring. I think I always say like that was actually the hardest part about my job and dealing with a lot of different personalities in the workplace. You really have to cater to each person differently and be really gentle and also understand yourself more to be the best leader that you can be. That's such good advice. And I feel like not enough people talk about how hard it is in the beginning, especially as like a female founder to get people to believe in your business. Was there any moments early on where people doubted you or like how did you deal with any criticism or pushback? Yeah, I had family members, like best friends that were when I first started. They were like, I don't think this is a good idea. And I was just very like rambunctious. And at the time, like I was a little nervous to start my brand, but I almost wasn't fearful. And when someone would give me that criticism, it was just like done, done, done. And I think that just went over your head. I love that. You're like Sophia and that Sophia is the exact same way. Me, like I internalize in Sophia is like, rub that shit off, rub it off. Honestly, what helped the most for me is like, I'm actively choosing to listen to this and to let it affect me, which means I can also choose to not listen to it and not affect me unless there's like something you need to learn from or something that's like really valid feedback. I want to better understand like, how did you use social media in the early days and how did it contribute to your success? I really use social media exactly how we use it now. I always tell my team, I'm like, social media, like our Instagram is essentially like a magazine and we have to have the consumer want to keep flipping through the magazine. Like we want to keep their attention as long as possible and give them creative content that isn't always the same thing over and over again. It doesn't have to be so specific. You know, it could really be like anything. We just have to kind of think outside the box. Something that like evokes emotion and inspiration. What are you really excited for like in the next year with the brand? I'm really excited for opening up new categories. We're launching shoes this week, which we're so excited about. And it's like, it's such a dream of mine because I've created sneakers and shoes for other brands, I guess collaboration. So finally to have something of our own is so freeing and rewarding. And we're launching fragrance. I mean, I smelled it on you today. It smells amazing. So I'm excited about that. And can you walk me through because like we're babies. I don't understand this at all. Like, okay, so you decide you have a small brand. You're like, OK, now we're going to expand into shoes. What does that process look like? Are you calling factories? How much are you leaning into influencer marketing versus pure advertising? Like walk me through kind of that process. And how long does it take for like a brand to open up a new category? So honestly, it really, we have a formula. If people see the product and it's good product, the product will sell itself. So that's another reason why we don't go nuts right now, in particular, on investing in like huge, elaborate photo shoots, because we're able to create content that's meaningful, that the consumer is also grasping more. People react more to our iPhone content than they do our editorial content that we spend like thousands of thousands of dollars on. So I think that just goes to show like you don't have to have this huge production in order for people to be listening and watching and in return purchasing. Like for me, I'm just like, oh, yeah, let's like seed it to 40 girls. And sometimes for certain drops, I'm like, let's seed it to like only 10 girls. Sometimes for certain drops, I'm like, let's not see it at all because the customer is reacting so well. Like we dropped a tank top and it's a classic tank. And we only seeded it to like five girls. But that was after the fact that I had already sold out the next day. The customer loved it. Always it was showed on iPhone and it sold out immediately. And we ordered, I think, 30,000 units the next day because we're like, OK, that was crazy. And it's a long lasting product. And I want to better understand like your influencer seeding strategy in the beginning, like how did you cold DM and pitch people to get them to wear your product? I would just straight up DM anyone. And at the time, I feel like people are more in their DMs. And it typically always worked, honestly. Like what did you say to people? Always show a visual when you're about to DM someone. Like make everything as easy as possible for the person on the other end. Because even myself, like, I'll get like a link and I have to fill it out. And I don't know what's going on. So much for me. Yeah, you know, like what's going to hook me. And I still do that today with all DM stylists, all DM celebrities. We'll go as far as I really want Sabrina Carpenter to wear something. And I'm like to my team, like, OK, let's sketch it. Like let's really give her a visual of what she's going to look like in it. So when you're reaching out to people, do you if you really want like a certain celebrity, do you do like a custom or something like that? Yeah, I usually offer custom, like depending who it is. But if there's like specific styles that I already want them to wear, like I'll show them exactly what that is or we'll send them a look book. Fave custom piece you've done. We just did custom for SZA. Wow, huge congratulations. We've done custom for Dua Lipa. We've done a lot of custom and like a few tour wardrobes. We have another artist that we did custom board that I'm really excited about. I guess I can't say it, but it's so nice to team up with artists and even their team and kind of idea and create something for them. It's it just for me is really fulfilling. Walk me through like an average day in your life. Like what time are you waking up? Are you mostly on calls? Are you focusing mainly on marketing or product? What does that look like? We start work at 10, but I'll probably get there. Like 10 30, walk to Dunkin. OK, as soon as I walk in the door, I'll like have my bag on and we're already we're already going nuts. Like it's like, I'm like, I was like, tell me all these crazy ideas. I'm like, let's do it. Like we're just ideating like the energy in the office, especially with my marketing team and social team is so incredible because we're all just feeling off. It's literally like a writer's room like improv. Like no one says, no, that's a bad idea. Like, OK, like what more about your idea? Like tell me more about it. Like how can we kind of build off of that? And then after that. I'll start working with my design team, my designer, which is like my right hand and our assistant designer. I love them so much. After that, I'll probably have like a fitting. There's really not a garment that Guzio puts out that I don't fit myself just because I really want to make sure. And I'm a standard size, small sample size, which which helps, too. And then typically I'll work on Ecom. Everything is simultaneous, and that's probably very untraditional. But I really don't mind it. Like, I feel like I have the stamina and I enjoy what I do so much. And I never want to, like, shoot someone out of the room, especially if someone's like, oh, do you know, like, I need to tell you something? I need to talk to you about it. Or I have an idea. I'm always like, no matter what I'm doing, I'll drop whatever. How late are you in the office till? Like sometimes until like 10 p.m. And then I go home. And if I go home, even at like six, I'm still working at home. So sometimes like we're just vibing out and like. And how has it been, like for you, obviously you named your brand? Like after yourself? Like how has it been kind of building your own personal brand alongside the brand? Like, do you ever draw boundaries or like, how do you view that? I never wanted my brand to be about me, per se. I only started wearing it and promoting it because it was just easiest. Like if I just throw it on, I try to grow the brand in a way where if I'm no longer the face, like in years and years to come, you know, obviously I'm going to get older, our customer will most likely get younger. I never want to be the main focus of the brand. Even when I work at the store now, I work at the store almost every Saturday. Just to get insight and intel from the consumer, which is so incredibly helpful. It's really changed my life having our first retail store. But a lot of the girls in the store have no idea who I am. You know, they'll like ask me for sizes. And I enjoy that people don't recognize me or people don't know who I am. To me, that shows growth and that shows that the business is bigger than me, but I will always have a hand in the brand no matter what. It'll always be my voice. That's so beautiful. And that's like so smart of you to be like, if I step away or if I'm not the face, like this brand needs to continue. But something else that I wanted to touch on is I thought it was so cool that you were so excited about selling like 50, 100 units in the beginning. And so now for people who aren't familiar, like, what does the volume look like? Like, have you been shocked and surprised by how big this has grown? Our best seller is our micro mini store. I was going to say definitely I have one of those. Definitely that, yep. Which is so crazy because I released that garment like five years ago, maybe four years ago, and it's just now taking off. Yeah. So it's like when I launched it, I believed in it and I loved it. And I really felt like everyone should have this in their closet, like genuinely. But it took a long time to get there. And I also feel like if you have product that you believe in that not necessarily has even become your best seller yet, you still have to keep pushing it. If you have an idea that you know is great, you can still keep kind of watering that and planting it. And I think the micro mini is a perfect example of that. Literally four years later, now it's finally taken off. But it's interesting now where TikTok, when something gets a hold of something and it's a great product, it becomes its own animal. So I'm really thankful that that became a whole marketing aspect that we don't have to touch and almost it becomes it's it's working on its own. And it's working for us. Is there something like what do you define a success when you think about the business? Like is there a certain revenue milestone you want to hit? Like what does that look like for you when you think about like the future of the brand? I really feel like opening new categories to me as a measure of success, because there are categories I've always dreamed of like releasing fragrance, like releasing shoes. Like my dream is to have her in Guzio from morning until night and also head to toe. And I'm really grateful for financially our growth right now. And I will say on the finance side, we're extremely, extremely strategic. And that's what helps us be able to kind of like climb these mountains and get to these these really incredible milestones. And for growth, like how did you feel when like Bella Hadid or like Kendall Jenner? Like how did those moments happen when they wore your brand? Essentially, I had sent a few garments to Kylie and her best friend. And I was just like right when my brand started. And I was just kind of like praying that they would wear like actually. And one day I saw my phone was just blowing up and I saw that they had worn it, that Kylie had worn it and then she became a huge supporter of the brand, which absolutely changed my business. And I'm so thankful for that. I'm thankful for her for that. And really just having the support of Silas and becoming closer with them really helped my business. One thing that we always hear, you know, as we get requests for you to come on the show is about, you know, what should our audience be doing on their resumes? If you guys are hiring, what do you look for on resumes that you want to see? Or so someone can stand out as a candidate. This is going to throw everyone through a loophole. Yes, I'm ready. So I will look at a resume like before someone comes in, before I interview them. Just understand like where they worked. And so we can also talk about it if they worked for another fashion company. But I essentially put the resume completely to the side. I don't look at really like what school they went to. I kind of put the resume to the side and I'm just focused on them and who they are, how they communicate with me, eye contact, body language, respect. And I really base it off of who they are as a person. And I can see them working here because I'm going to be spending every day with them. I spend more time with my employees than I do my family. I am with them every single day. I'm like, even Mark Cuban says, like, you should have anyone you hire should be smarter than you. Anyone you hire should have so much to offer you. And that's the beauty of bringing in an incredible team. They're able to give you what you need. You're able to give them what they need. What are you most excited about? What does the future of the brand look like? I'm really excited about the future of Guzio. We're expanding our retail stores. We're opening in Los Angeles, Miami, and Dallas. And we plan to open new stores every year, which is really exciting because I had never even imagined that I would have my own retail store. My partner, when we were opening up our New York location, I was like, I'm scared. And he was like, no, just do it. I promise it will change the brand. It'll change the business. And then we did it. And honestly, even the operation and everything that goes into it is honestly easier than it is for all of the e-com. But feels so great being able to even we have our own fragrance in the stores. We have our playlists, you know, everything, all the furniture as customers is made by myself and my friend Brandy. So being able to have them really step into my brain and step into my world has been so cool. Other than the stores, the future of the brand building out fragrance and cosmetics and skincare is definitely down the line and home. So really just creating this whole universe of Guzio. I can't wait to you guys do home stuff. That's going to be incredible. Thank you so much. Thank you. And for a young girl who's listening, who maybe is working at a jeweler and she hates her job, like, what is one piece of advice that you would give to her? I feel like whatever you do, whether you're starting a business, starting a fashion brand, you really have to be so passionate about it because it's a lot of hard work and it's very time consuming. You know, there are so many instances where I'm missing. I missed my dad's birthday the other day, you know, because we had a store event. There's so much sacrifice that you're putting into the business and so much of yourself. You know, as much as the noise that happens around starting a brand, you have to kind of drown it out. And you're your own cheerleader, you're going to be up until you're at the top. Not at the top yet, but on the way there. From when you're at the top, you are still your own cheerleader, your biggest supporter and really kind of coming to terms with loving yourself. And you'll always have something inside of you that's telling you what's true and just like listen to that. Danielle, thank you so much for coming on The Burnouts. I learned so much from you today, just about the power of self-belief and working as hard as you can for what you want. So thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you, guys. Oh, also, I wore blue for you guys today. Oh, fuck yeah, I wore blue, I literally think I'm stupid. We should be tacked in, Sophia, we're behind. (upbeat music)