How Getting Press Helped This Female Founded Product Startup Explode With Annabel Love, Co-Founder of Nori
Dear FoundHer...Real Founder Stories for Women Small Business Owners
Lindsay Pinchuk
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Getting press can feel like a lucky break until you hear how Annabel Love and her co-founder built a repeatable strategy behind it. In this episode of Dear FoundHer, Annabel shares how a dorm room hair-straightener hack became Nori, an eight-figure, profitable brand now sold nationwide at Target. This is a must-listen for women founders who want a clearer playbook for building visibility, earning trust, and turning attention into revenue.
Annabel walks Lindsay through the early, scrappy days of the company, including customer discovery in the real world, focus groups, and building a product with zero hardware background. You’ll hear what it took to go from idea to manufacturing, then into a go-to-market plan that included Meta ads, influencer partnerships, and getting press that actually moved product. Annabel breaks down how they approached press opportunities like Oprah’s Favorite Things and The Today Show, plus how they repurposed those wins across paid ads, their website, and customer acquisition.
This conversation also covers growing an audience before launch, choosing the right agency partners, and why a lean team can be an advantage when managing rapid growth. Annabel shares how Nori expanded from DTC into retailers like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Target, and what changed operationally once mass retail entered the picture. If you are one of the many female entrepreneurs trying to scale without burning cash or building a bloated org chart, you will walk away with concrete lessons you can apply right away.
Episode Breakdown:
00:01 Nori Founder Story: From Dorm Room Idea to Eight-Figure Brand
03:24 Launching a Hardware Startup Without Engineering Experience
07:05 Customer Research and Product Validation Strategy
09:32 Direct-to-Consumer Go-To-Market Plan
11:54 Meta Ads, Influencer Marketing, and Getting Press
13:52 Retail Expansion: Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Target
16:10 Fundraising and Profitability in a Consumer Brand
22:18 Scaling to $20 Million With a Lean Team
28:46 The Today Show Impact on Sales Growth
31:14 Advice for Women Starting a Business
Connect with Annabel Love:
Follow Annabel Love on Instagram
Subscribe to The Foundher Files: http://foundherfiles.substack.com
Follow Dear FoundHer... on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/dearfoundher
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | For years, I would use my hair straightener to iron out some of the wrinkles in my clothing. |
| 0:07.7 | And often, I wished that there was an iron shaped like a hair straightener that could do the job for me. |
| 0:14.1 | I'm Lindsay Pinchuck. I'm the host of Dear Founder. And today we're talking to Annabel Love, |
| 0:19.0 | co-founder of Nory, the brand that completely |
| 0:21.8 | reimagined how we take care of our clothes. What started as two college roommates using a hair |
| 0:27.5 | straightener to derinkle their outfits, just like me, turned into an eight-figure profitable |
| 0:33.1 | company that's now in Target nationwide. In this conversation, we talk about what it really looks |
| 0:38.4 | like to be a woman's startup founder from scrappy customer research and building a go-to-market |
| 0:43.6 | strategy to getting press like Oprah and the Today Show to managing rapid growth with a lean |
| 0:49.9 | team of four. You'll learn how to grow an audience before you launch, how to leverage publicity |
| 0:54.7 | for real revenue, and how to scale without building a bloated team. This is a real founder's |
| 1:01.3 | story about visibility, smart strategy, and building something that truly solves a problem. |
| 1:08.9 | Welcome to Dear Founder. I'm Lindsay Pinchuk, founder, acquired entrepreneur, and part of the |
| 1:14.4 | less than 1% of female founders who have led a company through acquisition. I built my first |
| 1:19.7 | business from just $500 to seven figures without a marketing budget, simply using community, |
| 1:25.7 | smart publicity, partnerships, and clear messaging. Now, I host this |
| 1:29.8 | show for women over 40 stepping into their next chapter, whether that's launching, pivoting, |
| 1:34.8 | or scaling. Each week, you'll hear real founder's stories about growing an audience, getting press, |
| 1:40.8 | leading teams, navigating, scaling challenges, and becoming more visible in the right ways. |
| 1:47.0 | No fluff, no gatekeeping, just what works. |
| 1:50.0 | Around here, we build businesses that actually work with strategy, visibility, and each other. |
| 1:57.9 | Welcome back to another episode of Dear Founder. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lindsay Pinchuk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Lindsay Pinchuk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.