How This Cool Eyewear Brand Won Over Beyoncé—and Became an Instant Celeb Favorite
We know how daunting it can be to start a new business, especially if you’re disrupting an industry or creating an entirely new one. When there is no path to follow, the biggest question is, where do I start? There is so much to do, but before you get ahead of yourself, let’s start at the beginning. To kick-start the process, and ease some of those first-time founder nerves, we’re asking successful entrepreneurs to share their stories in our series, From Scratch. But this isn’t your typical day-in-the-life feature. We’re getting into the nitty-gritty details of launching a business, from writing a business plan (or not) to sourcing manufacturers and how much founders pay themselves—we’re not holding back.
Photo: Courtesy of Coco and Breezy Dotson
The lightbulb moment for the eyewear brand Coco and Breezy came during the co-founders’ formative years, well before they had the funds to turn the concept into a company. “We originally found our love for eyewear from the personal experience of being bullied as kids,” Corianna and Brianna Dotson, the co-founders (and identical twin sisters) behind the brand, told Create & Cultivate. “We would wear glasses to avoid eye contact with people.” But Corianna and Brianna will undoubtedly have the last laugh.
The entrepreneurs launched Coco and Breezy in 2009 at 19 years old with just $1,000 to their names. Since then, they've grown the brand into a coveted eyewear company with celebrity fans ranging from Beyoncé and Ciara to Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga. This month, Los Angeles locals can shop the brand’s sought-after frames at Create & Cultivate’s Small Biz Pop-Up. Angelenos can visit the IRL pop-up at Platform for a contactless window shopping experience, thanks to Square, or place an order for contactless pick-up or delivery through Postmates.
Scroll on to learn more about the celebrity-beloved brand Coco and Breezy, including how Corianna and Brianna Dotson learned how to “be comfortable being uncomfortable” during those early founding years.
CREATE & CULTIVATE: Take us back to the beginning—What was the lightbulb moment for your business?
CORIANNA DOTSON: We originally found our love for eyewear from the personal experience of being bullied as kids. We would wear glasses to avoid eye contact with people. It started off super scrappy with DIY glasses; we were taking safety goggles and embellishing them with studs and spikes. When we moved to New York with less than $1,000 at 19, we knew we had something. Once we landed in N.Y. from Minnesota, we had people from Nicki Minaj and Ciara to Kelly Osbourne wearing our glasses within the first three months of us arriving in N.Y. As hot as our DIY frames were, it was as fast as it started to die down.
BRIANNA DOTSON: We then learned how to vertically integrated and how to create original designs from start to finish. Our co-founder, Duane Baker, is an architect and had experience in sourcing and manufacturing. Once we added optical to our collection, that was a lightbulb moment that we started to know our product-market fit and we were creating something that was very scalable.
Did you self-fund the company, and if so, how did you bootstrap it? If not, what financial path did you take to fund the business?
BD: We have been self-funded from the beginning until now.
Did you work full-time at another job while building your business or did you just dive straight into it?
CB: We dove straight in. We started working when we were 15 years old and had three part-time jobs each by the time we were 17 so we always had the hustle mentality. By the time we were 19, we quit those jobs and moved to N.Y. to start our business and have not worked for anyone else. We were very frugal in the beginning, lol.
BD: But we put all of our time into our business and sacrificed a lot of our social life since we were building our business and didn’t have any comfort. We did not have the privilege of asking our family for money if things didn’t work. That was our inspiration to make it work and be comfortable being uncomfortable.
How big is your team now and what has the hiring process been like?
BD: Our team is still pretty small—we have about six main people. We also work with a lot of amazing freelance talent.
Can you share the biggest learning curve or challenge since starting your business and why?
CD: In the beginning, we were so young and unaware of scaling. We had a challenge in the beginning when we were just creating product but we weren’t necessarily creating products with the idea of understanding our product-market fit, our true customer, or how we were going to scale. Now that we know all of that information, we have seen a lot of growth.
Do you have a business coach or mentor? How has this person helped and would you recommend one to others?
CD: We have had some awesome mentors and just amazing people around us. One particular woman is Sharifa Murdock who is such a powerful woman! She saw something in us in the beginning and gave us opportunities but yet was always hard on us and gave us her honest opinion.
BD: When you have a mentor or business coach, always know that no question is a dumb question.
What is your number one piece of financial advice for any new business owner and why?
CD: From a bootstrap perspective, find ways to be creative and scrappy.
If you could go back to the beginning with the knowledge you have now, what advice would you give yourself and why?
BD: To be honest, I wouldn’t go back because the way we learned everything was through trial and error. We are so grateful for all of the challenges we went through as they made us the founders we are today.