Melissa Troupe Raises Spirits With Her Second Beauty Business, Mocha Whip, After Painfully Closing Her First

Five years ago, Melissa Troupe made the agonizing decision to shut down her beauty company, Sundara Extensions. It couldn’t withstand poor profit margins, unpredictable quality issues, Google algorithm changes impacting exposure and a fraudulent order that amounted to $7,000 in lost revenues.

“I was devastated, and I had to start all over again,” she says. “I was forced to value simplicity because I was literally out of money. My personal-care routine became very simple. I used things like coconut oil and olive oil. After a period of time, I started to notice benefits from it, but it was tortuously boring.”

Mocha Whip has risen from the ashes of Sundara Extensions to add joy to simple beauty routines like the one Troupe resorted to out of necessity. Its no-fuss formulas are centered upon shea butter in celebratory formats. The ingredient is shaped into balls, swirled with raw dark cocoa butter and triple whipped, for example.

“Oftentimes, you see simple products from a brand, and they’re side pieces for them. Also, when they go simple, they go boring. The simple product is the product that’s white or green, and doesn’t have much to it, but simple can be fun,” says Troupe. “I want Mocha Whip to be like an ice cream shop where you can shop for a smlavor, which is smell plus flavor. I want to share that happiness you feel when you enter an ice cream shop.”

“I want Mocha Whip to be like an ice cream shop where you can shop for a smlavor, which is smell plus flavor. I want to share that happiness you feel when you enter an ice cream shop.”

Mocha Whip’s cheery selection encompasses 24 stockkeeping units priced from $6 to $22, including products in the smlavors vanilla chai, peppermint mocha, almond delight and gingerbread. The brand has been quickly picked up by the supermarket chain Earth Fare in the Florida region, a new distribution experience for Troupe who stuck to a direct-to-consumer model with Sundara Extensions. Its bestseller so far is the Shea Body Butter Balls trailed by the products Pressed Shea Butter Swirlie and Shea Body Whippie.

Mocha Whip’s operations build upon the lessons Troupe learned from running Sundara Extensions. She fully handles the manufacturing process. With Sundara Extensions, she didn’t manufacture the virgin Indian hair she employed, making it difficult to control product outcomes. Troupe has set Mocha Whip margins at reasonable levels for retail and is helped by the fact she could buy shea butter in bulk at lower cost since Mocha Whip’s complete merchandise collection depends on it. As soon as Mocha Whip nets solid profits, she plans to incorporate further ingredients.

Troupe invested $6,000 to get Mocha Whip off the ground, a total that covered office equipment, labels and ingredients, but didn’t support marketing, an area she excels. Her goal is to generate $40,000 in Mocha Whip product sales monthly online within 10 months. She’s less certain about the brand’s projected retail turnover because retail is still unknown territory to her. Troupe is targeting natural stores for distribution, where she believes Mocha Whip can engage its core audience of health-conscious, green beauty consumers.

“Businesses can partner as long as you are aligned vertically, meaning you have the same customer, and not horizontally, meaning you have the same items. If I connect with a candle business, that could be a good partnership. I don’t sell what they sell, but we may connect with the same customer.”

“You hear a lot of zero-to-100 stories, where people start at the bottom and become millionaires, but it’s really important for people to know that there might be a lull after they invest the money, time and expertise [upfront] when they haven’t put money into marketing,” says Troupe. She notes that the marketing landscape has morphed considerably in the years between Sundara Extensions and Mocha Whip. Troupe elaborates, “In 2009, 2010 and 2011, you would reach out to very large influencers, and almost all of them would respond, accept your product for free and review it. Now, not only are they charging very large fees, but the response rate for an influencer is like 3%.”

In light of present social media realities, Troupe is pursuing micro-influencers and turning to digital communities she erected prior to launching Mocha Whip while working with startups after Sundara Extensions’ closure. Those digital communities are Loc Connection, an Instagram account with 12,000-plus followers dedicated to women and men sporting dreadlocks, and Maker Beez, a channel for handmade body-care producers that has nearly 18,000 followers on Instagram.

“I’m able to partner and connect with others, and we swap services. We may do a shout-out for a shout-out,” says Troupe. “Businesses can partner as long as you are aligned vertically, meaning you have the same customer, and not horizontally, meaning you have the same items. If I connect with a candle business, that could be a good partnership. I don’t sell what they sell, but we may connect with the same customer.”

As she raises awareness about Mocha Whip through social media and at stores, Troupe’s main concern is to move forward at a pace she can manage. “I’ve never been on retail shelves before, and I have to be careful there, watch my margins and make sure I’m always able to uphold the standards needed to grow with a retail client,” she says. “I’m a lot more methodical than I was with my last business. I don’t want my passion to get ahead of me.”