Afro Unicorn CEO April Showers talks with Forbes senior writer and editor Jabari Young about her product licensing business, which she says grew to $15 million in sales from $5 million in 2022.
Showers, 43, provides a glimpse into her startup, founded in 2019, and tips about leveraging the licensing products at big-box retailers.
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Showers, 43, provides a glimpse into her startup, founded in 2019, and tips about leveraging the licensing products at big-box retailers.
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Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
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00:00 All gas, no brakes. That is the slogan of 43 year old April Showers and she is the CEO of Afro Unicorn.
00:08 We're getting into the licensing business right here at the Nasdaq Market site for our Forbes BLK Newsletter CEO series.
00:16 Hello, everyone, it's Jabari Young, senior editor here at Forbes and at the Nasdaq Market site.
00:20 And behind me is April Showers. She is the CEO of Afro Unicorn.
00:25 April, thank you so much for joining me on the Forbes BLK Newsletter CEO series.
00:30 We're talking to startups and smaller companies like yourself, making waves and impacts in the business.
00:35 We're talking right now and it is Women's International History Month.
00:38 Right. So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to ask you, give me a notable figure, a woman figure who you might have looked up to as you see your journey as running Afro Unicorn.
00:48 Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey. That was an easy one.
00:51 I know you I should have known you was going to say that. Why Oprah?
00:55 Because Oprah was able to build something. Yeah. And I'm a builder.
01:01 Yes. And so she had her show, but she took her show and she built a network.
01:06 So that's why I looked up to Oprah. And she also found a way to make her show be inclusive.
01:13 And although I'm a black woman on brand, my brand is for everyone.
01:19 Yeah, absolutely. Listen, I have so much fun looking into your business and researching it.
01:23 I'm telling you, I mean, the license in business is something that people do not take advantage of.
01:28 You had me watching the toys that made us on Netflix. I mean, I dove right in.
01:32 Tell me, take me into your business because you are a competitor for the Disney's of the world.
01:37 They got their Cinderella's, their princesses. And then right next to that is the Afro Unicorn and all the products.
01:42 Right. We're talking book bags. We're talking school supplies, party supplies, bonnets, all that stuff.
01:47 You bought 25 products. Take me inside of the license in business. What's going on with Afro Unicorn?
01:52 So it's about 25 categories and about over 500 SKUs.
01:56 So it's a lot of products that we have in the marketplace.
02:00 And I'm so happy that you read the watch the toys that made us on Netflix,
02:04 because on Wal-Mart approached me with this opportunity to get into the licensing space through party supplies.
02:11 I had no clue what licensing was. I had a background in music.
02:14 So I knew what music licensing was, but I had no idea what character licensing was.
02:19 Like I knew when I built Afro Unicorn, it was going to be a household name, a worldwide brand.
02:23 But I thought I would have to sell the business in order to get that type of distribution.
02:29 Licensing literally fell into my lap. And it's a very, very small community.
02:35 I mean, you did mention Disney. But if you think about who's in there, it's Disney. It's Marvel. It's Nick.
02:41 It's probably like six or seven of us in that in that sector.
02:45 Yeah, absolutely. Listen, based in Los Angeles, right? Afro Unicorn is and you have stores.
02:50 You just added CVS, Target, you mentioned Wal-Mart, Sam's Club.
02:54 You got a whole bunch of retail stores. So you may have seen Afro Unicorn inside of that.
02:58 I know my daughter was looking at your logo all weekend like that. What is that?
03:01 And I'm telling her what the product is. But, you know, again, looking at that Netflix special, the toys that made us.
03:07 You hear a lot of interesting gems about licensing, right? And the money that you can make from it.
03:13 Take me on the inside of it. What's the biggest thing that you've learned about licensing product and why that might be a good route to take for an investor?
03:21 So for me, once I understood it and learned it, I learned that I didn't have to have a full warehouse where I'm storing all this product and shipping it to stores.
03:30 Because my licensing partners, they're the ones that are the vendor of records and that they're shipping it in.
03:35 They just give me a minimum guarantee up front and a royalty rate to continuously use the likeness of my image.
03:44 But I'm still 100 percent owner creatively and quality control. Nothing moves without me.
03:50 So it was like that whole work smarter, not harder, because there was a time when me and my son, we were pressing shirts in the kitchen.
03:57 And I know all entrepreneurs have had that where they went to the garage and they had all the boxes there.
04:03 I mean, this is my office, but these are all samples. This is not a product that I'm moving.
04:09 This is either a product that have additional samples or stuff I need to approve that's headed into the market space.
04:16 So for me, I love licensing and I would encourage anyone to really try to dive into it, because how else can you get through 40,000 doors, especially now?
04:29 It's very difficult, especially for black women. Yeah. I mean, you're financing.
04:33 And when you think about the license base, you again, you kind of said it right there. Right.
04:36 You get the minimum guarantee, right? You use that money and you go do marketing and PR with it and then you split the revenue, whatever they make.
04:43 But that's a guaranteed check that that company then takes your product and they go license.
04:47 They got to make that money back and whatever they make extra, they start to split it with you.
04:50 Sounds like a very, very good setup. Right. But how did you start?
04:53 I know the social media, the viral moment that helps you a lot.
04:56 Did you have to go through any loans that you have to get a venture capital?
05:00 How did you how were you able to jumpstart Afro Unicorn?
05:03 So the jumpstart happened in 2019, as you mentioned before, I'm a licensed real estate broker.
05:08 And so I said, well, let me go and sell a property.
05:11 So I went and sold a commercial property back then. And I took that that first check that see that was my seed money to invest.
05:18 So it was self started by myself. And then from there.
05:23 Again, I've just been fortunate to get those M.G. like you said, because the M.G. is helping with marketing.
05:28 But there's so much more that we want to do, like in order to compete, we have to have content.
05:33 We have to have immersive experiences.
05:36 So I create another entity called Afro Unicorn Entertainment, where we are looking, hopefully, to bring in investors to help build out live experiences.
05:45 Like we want hotels, we want family activity centers. So that is the next move for Afro Unicorn.
05:52 I can't say that I'm a competitor of Disney when they got Disneyland and I don't.
05:56 I heard you say you're looking to open up your own amusement park one day. Right. I mean, you look at it go all top.
06:02 But listen, you have made a comment that you are first started Afro Unicorn. You wanted to build it to sell it. Right.
06:06 Have you pivoted at all? Are you trying to keep it and in sustaining or do you eventually imagine maybe pivoting off and allowing a bigger partner to come in?
06:14 Not on the Afro Unicorn side. If I didn't know about licensing, then yes, that would probably be my same mindset.
06:22 Now, on the entertainment side, for all the immersive experience, the live action, all of that.
06:27 Yes, I am looking to take that entity and truly open that up because so many people reached out to me in the beginning and they wanted to invest.
06:36 I had a friend that called me. He said, you know, I probably think about this business and me finding a job all wrong.
06:40 All I need to do is invest in Afro Unicorn and then I'll let you figure all that out.
06:45 That would be good. I'm not taking investors right now. But for the entertainment side of it, I do.
06:51 I definitely want to because there's no way I'm able to secure all that capital by myself.
06:56 And I'm hearing it. You said I'm listening to you on a podcast. You get about five million in sales in 2022.
07:02 If that's if that accurate. Yes. What was it in 2023?
07:06 Twenty twenty three. We had 15 million, 15 million. So you went from five to 15 million in the span of a year.
07:12 Wow. That's amazing. Right. What is the estimate for 2024?
07:16 We talking 30 million. We taking that step up again. We're hoping we're between 25 and 30.
07:22 Wow. Twenty five and 30. How long before you say, hey, we're on pace to get 100 million in sales by 2030, 2027?
07:29 I think you're about 2030, 2030. Wow. But but again, if we get the right content in place, if we get the right.
07:37 We just announced that I have a live action show coming out. Miss April Book and Crown store.
07:42 Well, that's we're going to put that out and then we're working on the animated series.
07:46 Afro Unicorn, we're working on this immersive experience. All that pushes the licensed characters space.
07:52 So we could get those other areas like, yeah, we could get there by 2027.
07:57 Yeah. Yeah. Talk to that young entrepreneur. Right. Maybe she's not 43 or maybe she's 50.
08:01 Maybe she's 25. Maybe she's 19. Right. April, you were able to do something that a lot of people might think that they're doing,
08:07 but they don't have the discipline to actually have a strategy behind it. And that is utilize social media.
08:11 Right. You were getting up every Saturday doing a show. You were looking at your audiences.
08:15 Right. You don't need a hundred thousand followers when you know you've got a good 50 to 20 thousand true followers.
08:20 Talk about your social media strategy and how that helps you expand your business.
08:24 Yeah. So from day one, the strategy was to find my tribe.
08:28 So that's what I would tell any other entrepreneur. Sign your tribe.
08:32 I knew that there were other women like me who were have multiple businesses or wanted to start a business or raising children.
08:40 And I wanted them to know that they were a unicorn.
08:43 So I went out and I started to look at hashtags like black woman, entrepreneur, black unicorn, you know,
08:50 just all these different empowerment hashtags. And I went to their comments.
08:54 I said, hey, if you're a unicorn before I create a brand of women of color who hustle, follow the movement.
09:00 And so when they jumped over the page, you're like, oh, that unicorn resonates with me.
09:04 And I see other people wearing it. Oh, I'm going to jump on this.
09:08 And I'm also going to tell somebody and I'm going to buy a shirt. Yeah.
09:11 So that is how the grassroots efforts and the celebrities caught on immediately.
09:16 Tiffany Haddish, Alicia Keys, Sherri Shepherd. I've never paid any influencers to rock or support the brand.
09:22 I was able to get a message that resonated with them.
09:26 So the messaging and the why behind what you're doing is important.
09:30 Then you have to go find your audience. I say social media is a place.
09:33 It's not a place to be seen. It's a place to be social.
09:36 So if you're just on there just to post pictures and for people to say, oh, look at me, you're not going to grow.
09:41 You got to get out there. You got to know your people.
09:43 Even with this live action show, the girls that I hired to be on the show are girls who were longtime supporters of the brand.
09:49 So they were the first I called because they're going to give me that authentic magicalness.
09:54 As soon as they hit the stage, because they love the brand, find people that are going to fall in love with whatever you're offering and then be consistent.
10:02 Show up every single day. You're never going to miss me posting.
10:06 Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, listen, five minutes left. We get shot in here on this.
10:09 Right. Talk some big macroeconomic stuff. You being a black woman, right.
10:14 A CEO of your own company started your own license and brand again, the license and business of very, very interesting business.
10:20 U.S. presidential race. Right. You as a black woman. What do you want to see?
10:23 What do you want to hear from the candidates without picking sides?
10:27 I want to hear how they will go back and add the D.I. back to where we were going.
10:35 It is absolutely ridiculous that it lasted three years. Yeah.
10:40 And like you said about me showing up for small businesses, I said this yesterday on my life.
10:45 I started promoting small businesses before George Floyd.
10:49 And I still wake up every Saturday morning and I still promote small businesses.
10:53 Yeah, we're not a fad. So I need the candidate.
10:56 I need the candidate that's going to really understand that although we've come a long way, it is still not an even playing field and it will never be.
11:07 So, yes, we need that D.I. back into the space.
11:11 Absolutely. I mean, listen, everybody, there are people out there thinking there's a war on D.I. right now.
11:15 So definitely important when you hear the candidates talk about that issue.
11:18 Genitive A.I. another buzzword, right? We go from D.I. to genitive A.I.
11:22 Will that help or hurt Afro Unicorn? So at first I was definitely against it because I didn't really understand it because I'm like, how can you just speak something?
11:32 It pops up an image. Who owns it? I'm from licensing.
11:36 So it's all about intellectual property for me. So I definitely was apprehensive because I'm like, I don't want to create something with A.I.
11:44 And then somebody comes back and like, oh, I own that. But I'm seeing how how it can help.
11:49 It can it can be a a blueprint to storytelling, a blueprint to images.
11:54 I just don't believe that it should completely take over.
11:58 Yeah, absolutely. Listen, business wise, get you out of here on this. Right. Jim Collins wrote a great book.
12:03 Right. Good to great. And this falls right into your category. Right. What is the difference between a good licensing product and a great one?
12:11 Longevity, longevity, longevity. And I want to be the biggest brand in the world.
12:16 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, listen, you are you come from L.A. right. The marathon continues the same year you started that.
12:21 I remember you said absolutely. Nipsey Hussle. God bless his life. April, thank you so much.
12:25 I'm looking forward to seeing your product. Right. I got to go to a couple of Wal-Mart stores, some targets to find it.
12:30 But I know when my daughter sees that black Afro Unicorn, she's going to immediately tell me to buy it.
12:34 So I'm definitely got to got a fan out of me. Thank you so much for joining us on the force.
12:38 Be OK. Newsletter CEO series here at the NASDAQ market.
12:41 I know we all got to get you here one day. Yeah, we can make that happen.
12:45 Absolutely. Let's do it in New York. Absolutely. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Jabari.
12:50 Appreciate it.
12:52 And I'm sure you'll be able to find it.
12:55 And I'm sure you'll be able to find it.