Foundr Magazine Podcast | Learn From Successful Founders & Proven Entrepreneurs, The Ultimate Startup Podcast For Business

Yasmina Elmerkaoui had one shot - use the house deposit to buy a home, or bet it all on a hair gel she'd spent two years formulating. She chose the hair gel. On launch night she packed orders until 5am, drove them to the post office herself, and woke up to find all 20,000 units - what she thought was a year's worth of stock - completely gone in 24 hours. Macao is now on track for eight figures in its third year, built on 90,000 Instagram followers, zero outside funding at launch, and a pre-launch call to her manufacturer that saved everything. In this interview, Yasmina breaks down the exact pre-launch move that meant stock was already in production when she sold out overnight, how she turned copycats into a celebration, and the investor email she kept deleting because she thought it was a scam. What you'll learn in this interview: Why she bet the house deposit on a hair gel - and the mentor conversation that pushed her over the line How nearly $10,000 in sampling and a $30,000 first run taught her