Building an Eyewear Empire with Coco and Breezy

who found success their own way. Consider this your Real world n b A designed for the new Now. I'm Kim Azzarelli and thanks so much for joining us today. From a young age, Coco and Breezy Dotson turned to crafting and creativity to get through tough time times during their adolescence. Today, the twin sisters run a highly successful eyewear company that has been spotted not only on the fashion forward, but also on the red carpet worn by

superstars like Beyonce and Lady Gaga. So how did two sisters from humble beginnings in Minnesota build their fashion eyewar empire. I was thrilled to talk with Cocoa and Breezy about their killer style, incredible outlook on entrepreneurship and their drive to succeed. I also talked to them about what makes them sweat and what gives them strength. Enjoy our conversation. Thank you both so much for joining us. We are huge, huge fans and your product is incredible and the style

is unbelievable, but your story is also amazing. So thanks for joining us. Thank you for having us. We're super excited to be here. So uh, we've read that from an early age both of you were creative pretty much by birth and had your own sense of style. Can you describe that and what it was like to grow

up in the Midwest and how your creativity was received. Um. I would say growing up in the Midwest, especially being women of color, and not only just women of color, but being black women in Minnesota, not only did we get bullied for having eclectic styles, but we also got bullied for being black. And I think if we didn't have such supportive parents, it would have been a very

tough time for us as kids. And something that we're really grateful for is that even though our parents couldn't necessarily financially support us, they they support us emotionally like so well, because they really pushed us to show our individual styles, and they pushed us to really understand the meaning of being an individualist. And so I'm really grateful

for that. And I think that since I did have a twin sister who we kind of shared that same vision that we are going to do something or we're always going to push the needo. And I think when you grow up with not a lot of reas horses, you like create your own resources and you create your own world. So if you're in a world where you feel like you're not accepted, on top of in a world where you may not be in a financial place to get what everyone else has, you're almost like forced

to be creative. And I'm very grateful for the way that we grew up because it made us the entrepreneurs that we are today. By the time you got to that point in in middle school, you were able to sort of just let out your creativity more publicly, and that must have been very free. It was very free because I mean we got really good grades. As long as we got good grades, we were able to do

anything we wanted. And I think because our parents did give us freedom to be creative and they didn't put their hard ways on us, we were very obedient kids, and so we knew that if we broke their trust with being free, they would take it away from us. And so we were. You know, our mom let us pierce our nose when we were thirteen. Um, she let us cut our hair really short when we were like twelve. She let us cover our hair pink and red and blue in middle school, and our mom and dad were

both with it, you know. And I think the reason why they let us do that is because they're like, are we gonna hold back these young ladies that want to express themselves because we're afraid of what the world is going to think of them? Or do we let them express themselves and they're getting good grades, Maybe they're able to think better and good get good grades because they don't feel trapped. I mean, we used to walk around and people would just stare at us, and it

was very hard for us. But I think fortunately, since we are twins, we had each other and it was very challenging and difficult. But I feel so grateful that, you know, our parents let us have pink hair and have our nose pierced when we were so young, because that was our way of expressing ourselves. Honestly, I feel like we have the best parents in the world. First of all, they killed it with co parenting, and secondly

they killed it with like raising creative kids. So then you came to New York City and I grew up in the East Village. I grew up with people who had pink hair and all the things that were so different in the Midwest. What brought you to New York and how did you feel when you arrived? So what brought us to New York first was I think we first got introduced to like the New York style from like looking at magazines and being like, oh wow, that's

in New York. But what really brought our interest was, um, you know, back in the day, we had a MySpace page and my Space was the jam back then. You know, in Minnesota, we didn't have a lot of friends, but on MySpace we had friends. Right, We had like fifty plus followers, and my parents thought it was so weird.

So we're like sixteen years old with this huge MySpace following, and most people were in New York and they looked like us, like their styles were eclectic, and so it was all people on in New York and so we were like hold on, there are more people like us out in the world, and so we act. I think we were about seventeen, and we backed our parents. We said, can we please go to New York with our friends?

Mind you, we're seventeen, but we're like, we have friends, Our friends are eighteen, they're adults, like, please let us go, and they let us go. We were seventeen years old. Interpret it in context. We've been financially on our own since we're fifteen. So our parents knew that we were a different type of responsible at seventeen because at that time we had already been working, Like by the time

we were seventeen, we were working three jobs each. So they almost couldn't say no. They're like, okay, these girls pay their car note, pay their cell phone bill, go to work three jobs each at seventeen. Of course you can go to New York with your friends. Wow. That's so we went to New York and we just kicked it. We actually graduated high school early, so that's why we

were able to do that. We graduated November of our senior year with extra credits, so we had time and we you know, we were able to take off work. And so when we first step foot in New York, our whole lives changed. And then on our nineteenth birth a, we were like, you know what, let's spend a couple of weeks in New York to see how it really feels like to live here. And so, you know, when you get that feeling in your gut, you get this

gut feeling that it's so rare. This one particular trip, we had this gut feeling that said, you know what, move right now. And it's weird because I have I rarely get those gut feelings. It's so important to listen to your intuition because your intuition does not lie. And so at this moment, we had this feeling of being like, we have to move here. So that last trip, we went back home packed our bags. We said, mom, Dad, we're gonna move in two weeks and they're like, what

how much money do you have? Said, we're like like five d each. But you know, we've been working in retail and restaurant for like, you know, not even a real restaurant. We're working at like a fast food spot. We've been doing that for like so many years. So we have a good resumes on top of that, Cocoa. We had applied to go to college, and so on top of tell them we're moving to New York, we had to also tell them that college it wasn't for

us as well. We had everything set up and we had to pretty much cancel all of that because we went with our intuition. I remember the person who had to cancel with he was trying to like tell us that it was a bad idea. But at that moment, I had this feeling that I felt like if I would have waited three or four years later, we wouldn't be where we are right now at all. That's so important that you listen to your gut you're able to

hear it. I mean, sometimes other people can sort of talk you out of what you know is the right thing for you. And I think one thing we learned is that people always talked us out. I had some of my friend's parents say, like, what do you You guys are crazy? How are you going to move to New York. We weren't when we went to in high school when people are doing all the bad stuff. Even though we looked like rock stars, we weren't rock stars.

Like our outside looks like rock stars, but our actions weren't rock star movements at all, you know, and so um people could never persuade us and we were never peer pressured. And so even when people would like say you're crazy, We're like, we're still gonna do it. And my parents kept saying like, if it does not work out, you can just always come back home, and that was always a comfort to be like, Okay, we can come back, calm,

but we're gonna make it work somehow, some way. When did you decide that you wanted to start your own company? You knew about money and responsibility, and you were willing to take that risk and move all the way to New York, as you said, with like no financial backing.

But when did you decide that you wanted to start a business, and specifically, when did you decide that you wanted to be an eyewear So I would say that ever since I was in third grade, the idea of being an entrepreneur came up, and I remember asking, like, how do you spell entrepreneur? And to be honest, I

have no idea where that even came from. We've come from super super humble beginnings, and so I never had a family member that like worked in corporate, So I never even knew like what a corporate experience was at all, but yeah, that Phail would be an entrepreneur and being our own bosses has been something that has internally been inside of us. I think since we were born. I would say that what really inspired us to actually being

eyewear is from being bullied. That's what inspired I left for I Wear, so Cocoa and I when we were in Minnesota getting like the crazy stairs, and back then we were like, if you look at our old photos, we were super like punk, like mohawks, you know, black boots, all black, black lipstick. Like Coco said, we were rock stars. That caused us to be bullied and people would stare at us, point at us, and we were so from the outside we looked so confident, but internally we were

torn to pieces. And we would buy like cheap sunglasses to kind of give us this level of confidence. And then we started making our own glasses. It was very d I y and with us posting them on my Space, people are like, oh my gosh, where can I buy those? And then that trip that Coco told you about of us coming to New York, people were like, I need those glasses, and so that gave us a confidence to be like, okay, cool, like we can make this into

a business. Mind you, we had no business experience. No one's had like a really big business in our in our family. It was all like internally that we I don't know, we just had this feeling. We're like, okay, we're gonna start this and we'll figure it out. But one thing that we did always have is that we had tenacity. We have something in us where we can go through, like quote unquote a really bad situation. But the way that we look at life, and we've been

we started practicing this since we were kids. Our way of life is that any situation you go through, you make it your own. So if it's a quote unquote bad situation, the way that we look at it is that it's just part of the story and it's part of the journey. So we try to take everything at ease. So going through I call it the roller coaster effect, going through the ups and the downs, where if something tragic happens to your life, something bad happens, how can

we use that as a learning curve? And I know that that's a huge part of being an entrepreneur is. Yeah, we may not have a college degree. Yeah, we may not come from money. At that time, we had no idea how to run in business. But what we did have was we had the figure that ish out. Like we knew how to figure some stuff out, and we were amazing problem solvers and we were amazing like make

a mistake, and we love figuring stuff out. What you just said really resonated with me was the fact your your philosophy of life and the way that you think about life and you think about the ups and downs as a journey and the lessons you can get from it um as opposed to sort of some people get really devastated when we know that life is going to have ups and downs. So the fact that you were able to come to that type of philosophy so early in your life, do you think that had helped you

and gave you a big advantage. I definitely think that gave us a huge advantage. And I also think that we just grew up with a lot of adversities and so we kind of um taught ourselves that at an early age. And I do think that you do have to have some of those traits because it's not as easy and fun as you think, but it is fun once you like grow that emotional intelligence and the understanding that you're gonna go through so many roller coasters and

it's okay. I always say, whenever we go through something, I'm like, this is just part of the book in the movie. Like everything everything we do, it's part of the book and it's part of the movie. I'm like, I swear in like twenty years there's gonna be a We're gonna have a book and then there will be a movie about our story. Like that's that's what keeps me motivated. And I'm like, we're just really like creating

a blueprint for other people and that's the goal. But I really do think that um keeping that mindset has been extremely helpful because you go through all these up times and then you also go through downtimes, and literally it's a really big roller coaster. You think when you're going up, that's gonna stay up, but then you go down. But you know, it's so important that you have to have those down times because how do you learn? And so each time you have that up time, something's gonna

happen and you have to learn from that mistake. And then keep going because otherwise there was a point in our lives where everything kept going up, up and up, and then it crashed, right and then we had in that crash was beautiful because we had to reshift our full business model and make a huge pivot, and then we started growing again. So I think that being aware that that's going to happen, and being aware to look at the minute things that are happening when you have

that downtime is very important. I'm so glad you're bringing this up because I think that this is really an important nugget for anybody in business but also in life. It's just to expose the reality of life, and the reality of business is not just one long happy face, not just one big happy emoji, but that there are all of us are going through ups and downs and everything has hardship and no one is spared from that.

And you know it's different for different people at different times, but business in particular, especially right now in this economy and what we're all going through, it's going to be very, very tough. But if you can embrace it as you're sort of suggesting, and look at it as a learning opportunity and not be surprised. Um, that's such a huge piece of advice that you're giving people. I think that's that's one of the most important things I think we

can share with people. What in this particular moment of this incredible up people that we're going through in the world. You know, how do you how do you think about pivoting when when you have to pivot in your business? How have you dealt with that? You know, in the beginning, we actually I would say our first big pivot because the way we started was very scrappy, like it's whatever

is scrappier than scrappy. That's how we started. Was very d i y and like what we what we made, Like the glasses that we made were like you know, we're buying safety goggles, glue and studs and spikes on them. They were such a fat and then as fast as they were hot, were as fast as they weren't hot. So that was a challenging moment for us because we knew nothing about actually like you know, producing and designing real eye wear. We knew nothing about how to source

the factory. We didn't have the funds like which we had like a little bit but not really a lot because again we're self funded and still self funded to date. For our pivots, which we've had so many of them. Um, it was really just like listening, taking advice, seeing when we have our downfalls, and understanding how do we like go to this next this next step. And I think the in the beginning, our brand was very niche. It was it was really about us, So we were just

making glasses that we would wear. And then we have to say, like, how do we create a product that everyone can wear where we don't have to be the faces of it, it's not only about us, and so that was a huge pivot. But I think pivots are beautiful because you kind of realize them once you go through a quote unquote downtime. But it's not really a downtime. It's just a challenge and it just means that you need shift because one business model is not going to

work from start to finish. Like you're always gonna make changes and you have to be open and not afraid

to make those changes. And that's why I always tell people because I think when people first start a business, they have such an idea, like they come up with this master plan, and I think where people fail is that they get so stuck on the master plan that they don't give theirselves room to make changes as they Oh so I always tell people like, you might have a plan A, but like it won't your plan E

might be the one that's like the winner. And so it's important to be open so test things that would be like Okay, cool, I have this plan, but this didn't work. Let me try a little something different. So it's very important to be flexible with your plans. Is there anything that has really been so tough that it's really made you sweat? Like, there's one where you just said that was we didn't think we'd get through it.

Is there's something that you can point to? Yeah, So there was one time where we got a really big order from distributor in Korea and they placed a huge order and at this time we were still new to like production supply chain and all of that, since we have been self funded. When we got this huge order, we didn't we didn't have the funds to produce it, and so we went to a front of ours. We were like, hey, we have this list of orders from

this distributor. He won on this money just enough for the production and we're shipping it out in three months, so we'll pay you all the way back. Because it wasn't really it wasn't an investment. It was a quick loan because we knew that we had orders that that

we're going to get purchased. And I think this order like almost a fifty order that we would have received, and I think the production was maybe like twenty or twenty thousand or something or again, we were still new to production and so we didn't really know the full process of eyewear. And so once the product got shipped to the distributors, they emailed us and they go, Hi, we would like to return all the product because there are too many damages. And I remember getting that email

and I called Breezy. Then we call our co founder Dwyane, and we're pretty like even in like our personalities are very chill, so you know, we're not the ones to be like, oh my gosh, like what we're gonna do? Like, we're not those people were like, hey, did you get that email? Yeah? I got that mail? You know, did you get it too? Okay, so what's next, y'all? Like, let's thought about this, what we're gonna do? All right, let's just receive this product and let's do a sample

sale should I get rid of it. Let's be extremely honest with our friend who loaned us money and tell her exactly what happened. And so for us, we were like, let's be super upfront and let her know what happened, because this is what it is, right, And so we said, hey, you know, the product got returned, and so we had to like do a sample sale, try to sell the product, and Breezie had to go on food stamps for a little bit because we didn't really have money coming in

and I didn't get accepted. This was the first time ever in our lives that we were nervous about being able to pay our rent. And I will never forget like we had some friends that were taking us out to eat because we couldn't afford to get anything to eat. Um, and this is for the month, and I remember just being on the train every day like crying and being

like WHOA, what are we gonna do? And imagine at but like you're still getting like we our brand has always been getting pressed, so like imagine going through this, but we're still getting written up by like a team Vogue or Essence magazine, or you know, talking about Cocor and Breezy are the next hot such and such. But then here we are, like on food stamps, trying to figure this out because we went through this huge challenge. And so what we said was, let's take this back

to the drawing board. This is a sign, all right, we need to actually take the time out and educate ourselves on the real process of I wear production and design. Let's let's figure out our quality control, Let's restructure our our product line, let's restructure the business model. And we took so much time to restructure, but we needed to do that. So we needed that downfall because everything happened so fast for us. As soon as we jumped into

New York. We had this celebrity wearing our glasses, that celebrity, they were so trendy, sales, we're going here there, and we never we never made a business plan. We never like made a plan about how to do our product, and so we needed that time to actually make a small plan. And another thing is what I would say, in that month where I had to go on food stamps, Um, we also had to restructure our mindsets and create new habits, and so we had to unlearn certain habits and change

our mindsets. So from that one month of maybeing on food stamps just figuring out how we're gonna pay rent, we were sad for a little bit, and then we're like, you know what, let's mentally change up the mindset, figure out like what we really want to do as a business. And that next month we did ten thousands in sales. And I'm so grateful for like going through that downfall.

And I would say that we like our emotional intelligence that month was on point because again we didn't have a family member to be like, hey, guys, like, can someone spot us for rent? And I'm actually grateful for that because it kind of like forced us to have to figure it out that month where our sales got higher. Ever since then we changed our mindsets, everything has just been like on the up and up. I'm so amazed

by everything you're saying. You know what gave you strength and how we're able to just proactively think I need to shift the way I think about the world. So we actually sat down and we were like, Okay, what are like money generating things? What are short term goes? What are long term goes? We realized that there was a lot of a lot of um opportunities that we were taking that didn't necessarily fit into any of those categories,

and we're wasting our time. And so once we kind of had a better mindset of what our long term goes, where, what money generating things were happening, what's good for the brand, that was a huge help for a mindset. On top of just like thinking bigger. So just imagine, if you're not exposed to a lot, you have no idea how to think bigger. So my whole dream in life was

to live in New York. Our dreams, all everything that we dreamed of as kids, they came to life so fast as soon as we touched down in New York, this magazine, that celebrity. Everything have been so fast where I'm like, oh shoot, I have to I have to like think bigger, Like how do you think bigger? And even to this day, I'm like, I feel so grateful, I still I still have to teach myself like, Okay,

let's think even bigger. How can we think bigger? Understanding that if you get to know because we also got a whole bunch of nose and a bunch of people who just didn't understand us. We also had to flip our mindsets to be like, Okay, well that's not the right partner for us, because people love I'm telling you, people love to talk to you out of something. They

love it. Right, the advice that we're giving, like people should still take it with a great assault because we all have different backgrounds, different experiences, and like take pieces of it because everyone really speaks out of like their own experiences, and so if someone else failed, they love to say like, it's gonna be hard. Of course it's gonna nothing easy, but people say it with the negative connotation,

but like take that as a positive. So if you tell me I can't do something, my favorite thing is like to be wrong and then prove that I can do it and it's not going to be overnight at all. What you're saying also resonates with me so much because when you're creative and you want to push for something new, you know it doesn't exist, and so people are always like, oh, that's not possible. If it was possible, it would have

been done. It's like, well, actually, no, um, most things that were never done became possible after they were done. So people love to say oh, it's never been done, you can't do it, etcetera. But I think if you have that fortitude that you guys have, which is believing in something bigger and what I found and it's sort of that feeling that you could make a difference through your work, that you could be changing the world in some way, and for me, like that's the dream that

keeps on getting bigger. And there's just lots of ways that you can help change the world through your work. And so I can just tell that you're super inspired people, and I mean, it's it's just unbelievable what you've accomplished. And frankly, this idea of changing your mindset, which again I feel is really the key to success in anything.

If you can have that nimble mindset and interpret events in your life and the way that you're doing that in that positive way, even when those are negative events, I think that is something that's pretty priceless. Yeah, it

definitely is. Thank you, Thank you. I'm really getting inspired from talking to you, and I know anybody who hears your story will be And just the day to day of going through it um is so important because I think we all see these kind of air brushed images of what being an entrepreneurs like and people really only see like the finished product and like the in staff, but um, day to day life is not like that.

And I think you've said it so well. I kind of love that you brought up the airbrush thing, because we're so comfortable being like very transparent because we do know that we're creating a blueprint and we unfortunately did have their resources, and so we're very like, we're willing to be vulnerable and we're willing to like go through the heart times to really show people the reality of a situation that is not overnight at all, but it's

very possible. So we're excited just to continue our transparency about how it really is to be entrepreneur. You have to have a certain level of confidence also to to even like, like the story that we shared, like how I had to go on food stamps from I want people to know that because in that month that I

had to go on food stamps. It was funny because a lot of friends around me were uncomfortable with me telling them that, But in my head, I was like, I want you to know my struggles right now because next month is going to be on and popping, and I want you to see how how this stuff is about to change. And so I think it's important to like show people the reality because I'm pumped to tell you about my struggle because I know for a fact

that I'm guaranteed for success with this mindset. I really believe in this, and I feel that that that is a disservice that we do to each other, frankly, and we do to the next generations, and frankly, even older generations, because I think everybody thinks that everybody's life is all mapped out and set up, and you know, it's so perfect, and you you achieve something, and once you achieve it, it's always there and and uh, it's just not like that. And I think that's kind of not what this life

is about, right. It's not just about those highs, It's about the whole journey. As you said earlier. One last question that I have for you in this moment that we're in right now with COVID and all those civil unrest and this incredible reckoning that's going on. I mean, I know a lot of businesses are struggling very very deeply, and it's really a hard time for this for to be a small business owner. Do you have advice for for those folks who are kind of really going through

that right now? And um, how are you trying to think about the world in this kind of fast changing hard to predict what's going to happen environment in this time? It can be extremely challenging, you know, like there's a lot of small businesses, restaurants, um, companies that had to lay off their employees. But I think the big part is again keep rethinking what that pivot could be, because it might be something extremely different because the market is

shifting so hard. Another conversation, because you know, we're talking about women in business, but again another like topic is black women in business right, Like we haven't for us, we're a small company that we were fortunate to raise capital,

like we had. The fact that our company and our sales were where they were and Breeze had to go on food stamps only shows that there are issues in our society, Like there's no reason why our company was getting so much press and sales, but we still have to go on food stamps, right, So I think that it's time for us to everyone's open their eyes now and really look at the systemic issues that are happening in our country and think about how we can come

together to fix them together, because otherwise things aren't gonna grow if we don't fix them together. But the important part again is that we have to remember that when when we are talking about feminism and when we are talking about women entrepreneurs, we have to remember everybody. We have to remember these young women like us who grew up and were born in the projects, who did not have resources, who had to have free lunch at school. The story of someone else that grew up with privilege

might have be way different. So it's important for us to be able to listen to all the stories and remember these people that get left out when the act of favonism is being talked about. You're making such an important point on the Capitol because you know, having access to any of those resources early on in your business is so incredibly important, and it's just been so hard to come by. I think black women received like point

zero zero six percent. I mean some it's like not percent, it's like some ridiculous like point zero zero six percent, and so that that's got to change. It has to change. And we didn't do a full raise mainly met with a few investors. We had one investor tell us, you know, I would rather invest in someone that went to that college and worked for that tech company, but he doesn't know his UM product market fit yet. But what you guys have done on your own is so amazing. But

I just don't feel comfortable investing. And again, if this person would wake up and understand why we didn't go to a certain college and why we weren't able to work at a certain tech company, because when you look at a lot of these companies, you see what their employees and their UM, the people that are in executive seats, you see what they look like, and they don't look like us. Yeah, and so for us, I think now this movement that's happening, I feel so liberated, I feel

so excited. I feel like everyone that's listening. If you feel like there's something that's happening, don't be afraid to speak out. Use your platform, even if your platform has ten people on it. Speak out, because that's the only way things are going to be shifted. That's the only

way we're going to make change. And I would also say that the way that business is going to shift as well is that it is going to be important that you do at diversity and you are aware of anti racism, and you are aware of systemic issues, and you are aware to have more black employees, because the way I foresee is that companies are going to survive or they're not going to be supported the way that the Internet is now and the customer behavior is starting

to really dissect companies that are just saying, hey, all black lives matter, but are they really internally changing or they part of the problem. And so it is important to understand that if you have a black employee, like we're going through a very traumatic time right now, and if you don't have black people in leadership, then imagine how the employee feels. So it feels really good that people are finally listening. And I feel very confident in

this shift, in this change. It's not gonna be overnight, but I'm very confident that there are going to be some changes and if people don't get with the program, they're gonna be left behind. I couldn't agree more. And I mean, this is this is a moment of definite, This is an inflection point. This is one of those real, true historic inflection points. And I mean, we have I think hopefully the resolve now to to actually do something. And I'm really looking forward to your podcast. UM, I

think it's gonna be amazing, and the book and the movie. UM. But thank you so much for joining us on Made by Women and certainly UM, we hope that can kind of be part of the part of your future and UM, and hope that you can be part of ours. Thank you so much for that. Oh, thank you so much. I want to thank Coco and Breezy for sharing their candid and honest story with us. Their journey is amazing and it was so great to learn about what makes

them sweat and what gives them strength. Three things really stick with me from our conversation. First, the twins honesty about the path to success is so inspiring. It reminds us that we can empower other women to succeed when we openly share our struggles, necessary pivots, and even our mistakes. Sharing the story of our whole journey on the road to success is much more valuable to others than painting a perfect picture, which leads me to the second point.

I love Cocoa and Breeze's perspective on getting through difficult times and turning every experience into a useful lesson. Starting a company isn't easy and life has ups and downs. But the sooner we can recognize that tough times are part of the journe me, the better prepared will be to succeed in business and frankly, in life. And third, as an entrepreneur, it's so important to be agile and

to be willing to reset one's thinking. When one of their distributors sent back a major order, Coco and Breezy realized they had to take a fresh look at the way they were doing business. They went back to square one and how they approached production and quality control. The result bigger and better orders. Make sure to check out Coco and Breezy eye wear online at Coco and Breezy dot com and look for the new Coco and Breezy

podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Made by Women is brought to you by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio with support from founding partner PNG