cocokind is a clean, conscious, sustainable, and accessible skincare brand, dedicated to providing high-quality, natural products at an attainable price. In her previous life as an equity research analyst on Wall Street, cocokind founder Priscilla Tsai used to dial into quarterly calls where the CEOs and directors of companies would discuss key updates and initiatives with their stakeholders to keep them informed and up to date.

Tsai has always viewed her customers as stakeholders in the brand, and as such, she decided to apply the concept of an “All Hands” from her Wall Street days to cocokind. Speaking about the reasoning behind the call, she said, “They’re the core of cocokind—they’re why we’re able to do what we do and I feel that they deserve to be updated on our business and our decision-making. We’re constantly working to be as transparent as possible with our community, and this call felt like a more personal way to provide some updates on what we’re working on and what we’ve accomplished together. And it wasn’t just customers on this call. It was also vendors, retail partners, employees—we wanted this to be a call that united everyone in our network.”

The decision to host a live event wasn’t a far reach for the company, which regularly hosts Instagram Live chats. “The way we approach our business and our relationship with our customers isn’t typical,” she said. “We concentrate on building a deep relationship with them and that means having the extra element knowing what’s going on behind the scenes, especially in this day and age when there are so many considerations consumers make when they purchase something.”

Tsai continued, “We already talk about a lot of things on social media such as pricing in the beauty industry, the supply chain, and decisions that we make, so we thought it would be a good idea to bring it off social. The format is different from what consumers are used to but it’s my responsibility to be transparent.”

To promote the event, an email was sent to consumers and the brand posted Stories on Instagram to explain the call and why it was happening. The brand received over 800 RSVPs to join the call and over 100 questions were submitted for the Q+A section of the call. The objectives going into the call was to provide a rundown of cocokind’s year as well as what’s to come in the year ahead. Topics included updates on their sustainability initiatives, the roles the brand was hiring for, upcoming events, and new product launches in Whole Foods and Target.

Tsai said of the call, “Our community and our partners really recognized and appreciated our transparency because traditionally, these kinds of conversations happen behind closed doors, or between public companies and official stakeholders only.”

She continued, “The call was a success! It felt great to connect with our community this way, and to discuss our values, goals, what we’re doing, and what we want to do next. Since it was an overall success, we’re looking to make these calls a regular initiative. And for people who aren’t able to dial in, we’ll also be sending out a newsletter recap and a link to listen to the recording after the call.”

cocokind has also raised the bar on social impact, setting up a foundation making financial grants in the amount of $2,500-$10,000 to female entrepreneurs in health, wellness, and sustainability industries who are focused on creating social impact through business. Recipients are also matched with a mentor and provided consulting from the Cocokind Impact Team ($40,000 in 2019, up from $35,000 in 2018).