1. Dear Anita, I am very happy to introduce you and ATINA COSMETICS as part of our Female Founder Community. Please tell us a little about yourself and your company.
I thank you for this great opportunity and I think your format is unique; women should support each other and help each other. I am 25 years old, mother of two children and the founder of Atina Cosmetics, we are an innovative beauty start-up company, with a little touch of tech. We offer skin care products for all skin types and all skin tones. Our mission is for every person to feel comfortable in their own skin and accept themselves. We want to get the message out into the world that we don't tell anyone what they should look like. Everyone is unique.
2. The beauty industry is a very large and booming market with a variety of different products and concepts. What motivated you to launch your own brand?
My motivation was clearly to finally create representation alongside my acne, which I had struggled with for years. My dermatologist at the time couldn't help me and said I wasn't familiar with her skin tone and gave me an aggressive tube that was supposed to be my solution. That was very difficult for me and I've been into skincare ever since. Due to my skin type and my skin color, I quickly realized that there are hardly any beauty brands in Germany that appeal to me as a black woman. On my business journey and the validation phase, I quickly noticed that a lot had to change in the German beauty industry. My wish is not only to contribute to this, but also that in 10 or 15 years my daughter can walk through the perfumeries and drugstores and feel safe and spoken to. Later I would like to be able to look in the mirror myself and say that I have managed to change the classic rules of the beauty industry.
3. You regularly provide inspiration and insights on the topic of self-employment and “founding your own cosmetics brand” via your own Instagram account and YouTube. How did you acquire your knowledge?
In fact, I taught myself most of it: "Learning by doing." Back in 2018, I would have liked a beauty business mentor to take me by the hand, but that wasn't the case. For my personal story, I'm very happy that I took the path and was able to learn a lot. I constantly invest in my knowledge, for example from experts, and expand it further.
4. Not only are you the founder of Atina Cosmetics, but you are also a mom! #mompreneur Baby and business are no longer mutually exclusive - on the contrary. Self-employment offers a certain flexibility to organize your everyday life yourself.
Running a company, producing content, product development, family, self-care - how do you keep track of all your to-dos and how do you structure your everyday life? (e.g. do you use apps for support or do you have a strict daily schedule?)
*Haha*. I hear this question often and I really have to say that about a year ago I put pressure on myself to follow a strict plan, I quickly realized that it wasn't possible with 2 children. Something can always come up and the children come first. I try as best as I can to set up fixed routines in the morning, morning and evening. Everything in between depends on the children. My husband, with whom I founded Atina Cosmetics and our other companies, supports me a lot and we are a very good team, be it in our private everyday life or in business. As a family, we use Google Calendar to keep an overview of our appointments.
I use Slack for my team – for internal communication. Google Drive – to organize all files. And last but not least, the Facebook Creator Studio. Planning content and posting regularly requires a strict structure and I can adhere to it wonderfully with the FBS.
5. If you could magically give every female founder 3 skills/abilities, what would they be?
1) Courage
2) Endurance
3) Patience
Writing CEO in your bio on Instagram is the easiest part ever. To be a CEO is no joke! It's hard and tough work. I am convinced that anyone can learn it, but it takes a lot of courage because there will come times when you ask yourself, why am I doing all this to myself? You should never lose perseverance and patience, I am firmly convinced that it will all be worth it in the end. I'm glad that I dared and had the courage to take this path. This has created great opportunities and contacts and I have grown immensely in my personality. Dare to go when your inner self tells you I want to!
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