Dana Hill Robinson is the CEO and founder of a subscription beauty box company called Cocotique. The beauty brand is known to be a monthly surprise box of hair products, skin care, and makeup that suits women of color best.
Robinson opened up about overcoming past challenges with her brand, how she uses the brand to celebrate Black and Brown women, and the importance of networking as an entrepreneur.
What has been a challenge in building your brand and how did you overcome that?
One of the biggest challenges is building the right team, and finding the right people because you want to have people that have the same passion. Loyalty for me is really important and also someone that understands what it’s like to work with a small, entrepreneurial company. That’s always been my challenge. I’m happy to say I have a great team now that invests in growing the brand. That’s been positive. It’s helped me to position the brand to be stronger when you have a good team because you can’t do everything on your own at all.
How do you use your brand to celebrate women of color and help them feel beautiful in their skin?
That’s the foundation of Cocotique. That’s what we’re all about. We’re all about celebrating our beauty from head to toe. Making sure that everyone feels seen. Each month, we have a product information card that’s inside the box, and I make sure that we use models of different shades of beauty, different hair, and different sizes. We want to make sure that everybody is included. In terms of the brand ambassadors that we work with, we want everybody to be set to see themselves.
How does networking play a major role in entrepreneurship?
Networking is everything. It’s important to have a strong network. For me, I found it’s important to have a strong network of other women entrepreneurs and Black women entrepreneurs. We’re the only ones that can truly understand our journey and can understand it can be very hard as a female entrepreneur, because of the different obstacles that arise. It’s great to have a network of people to lean on to get advice from and tips from shared resources. I have a huge Rolodex of people. I guess people don’t use Rolodexes any more. I don’t either but I have a huge database of friends and colleagues that I reach out to and I stay in contact with. I would say, anyone that is thinking about becoming an entrepreneur or starting a business, get out there, network, and meet people. Don’t just take their information, but reach out to them and form a relationship with them. That’s important.
