Jodie Patterson On Raising $1.4 Million to Launch the First Beauty E-Commerce Platform For Black Women
For Jodie Patterson, Co-Founder of Doobop, entrepreneurship came after a career that moved across publishing, music, nightlife, fashion, PR, and beauty. From working with authors and artists to helping launch Joe's Pub and serving as Director of PR for Zac Posen, Jodie followed culture rather than a traditional career path. Each experience gave her a deeper understanding of storytelling, community, consumer behavior, and what makes people pay attention.
After opening a beauty boutique in New York, Jodie saw firsthand how poorly the beauty industry served Black women. Products marketed specifically to them were often relegated to the bottom shelf at retail stores with little innovation, while some of the products that worked best for her hair and skin came from brands around the world that weren't marketing to Black consumers at all. She saw an opportunity to create a more elevated, global, and exploratory beauty experience for women of color.
Jodie turned that insight into Doobop, an e-commerce platform and editorial destination built around the beauty needs and culture of Black and brown women. Before launching, she and her co-founder raised $1.3 million from high-net-worth individuals, friends and family, and institutional venture capital investors. The company gained major attention, including coverage from Oprah, before eventually being acquired by Sundial Brands.
In this episode of The First 200 Podcast, Jodie shares how decades of seemingly unrelated experiences prepared her to build and fund Doobop, why deeply understanding the customer became one of her greatest advantages, how she raised venture capital before launching, and what selling her company taught her about entrepreneurship, reinvention, and knowing when to take the next left turn.
Watch the full conversation on the YouTube player below, or listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What problem were you trying to solve with Doobop?
Jodie Patterson: Every time I went to purchase beauty products, the products for Black women were on the bottom shelf with very little innovation. I started exploring outside of the ethnic aisle and finding products based on ingredients that weren't marketed to Black people. I wanted other women of color to be able to explore globally and find products that actually worked for them.
What did you want the Doobop experience to feel like for Black women?
Jodie Patterson: I wanted the experience for Black women to be beautiful, high-end, exhilarating, exploratory, fun, whimsical, and informative. We created a site where you could shop, but also a magazine where you could listen, learn, and engage.
How did your previous career experiences prepare you to build Doobop?
Jodie Patterson: I came from PR, publishing, the music industry, and nightlife, and I put all of that to use. Publishing taught me storytelling, music taught me street marketing, nightlife taught me how to gather people, and PR taught me how to get attention. I also had a beauty store, so I knew the customer inside and out.
How did you validate the idea before launching?
Jodie Patterson: I said we had to gather the women. We brought together 100 women and asked for their insight on the name, visuals, products, what they disliked, how often they shopped, their emotions, shopping habits, and home lives. I wanted to validate the data I already had against what these women were telling us.
How did you build such a deep understanding of your customer?
Jodie Patterson: Having my beauty store meant I was dealing one-on-one with customers from all over the world. I knew how often she shopped, where she shopped, why she shopped, what she was spending, and what got her attention. That understanding of the psychology of our customer became a real advantage when building Doobop.
How did you fund Doobop before launching?
Jodie Patterson: We raised everything prior to launch. It took us about six to eight months, and as more money came in, we could do more things—design the logo, perfect the website, and rent office space. By the time we launched, we were working with a full set of dollars.
Why were you open to taking venture capital?
Jodie Patterson: We were following the money. We had a dream and a vision, and we knew it was going to need money. We weren't nervous about VC money, institutional money, high-net-worth individual money, or friends and family money. We weren't scared of any of the above.
What did raising capital allow you to do differently?
Jodie Patterson: The funding allowed us to perfect things and create a smoother operating system. We built a team, had an incredible fulfillment center, acquired brands, elevated the customer experience, and created a really beautiful website. That's where we really put our money.
Why did you ultimately decide to sell Doobop?
Jodie Patterson: There was never a trajectory of launch, grow, scale, sell. I was running Doobop while also producing content for Sundial. They asked me to come work for them, and I told them I couldn't leave my company. As the conversation progressed, they said they would love to acquire us, and eventually Doobop was purchased by Sundial.
What has your career taught you about changing directions as an entrepreneur?
Jodie Patterson: Sometimes it looks like we're flip-flopping from one idea to the next, but there's a creative force that has gone through every one of my iterations. Along the way, I'm collecting data. Nothing is lost. There is always a next most truthful thing out there to create, and somehow it's related to everything you've already done.
Listen to the Full Conversation
Jodie's story is a reminder that some of the strongest venture-backed companies are built by founders who deeply understand the customers they're serving. By combining her experience across publishing, music, nightlife, fashion, and beauty with firsthand knowledge of Black women's beauty needs, she built Doobop into an elevated e-commerce platform while raising $1.5 million in venture capital.
In the full episode, Jodie shares how her unconventional career prepared her for entrepreneurship, why she created Doobop to transform the beauty experience for Black women, how she validated the concept with 100 women, how she raised funding before launching, why she welcomed capital from different types of investors, how the Oprah effect accelerated the business, and what selling Doobop taught her about entrepreneurship and reinvention.
Watch or listen to the full episode of The First 200 Podcast to hear Jodie's complete journey and how she became one of the first 10 Black women in the United States to raise $1 million in venture capital funding.
Comments