Kimberly Dillon is on a mission to help women celebrate their beauty and discover great new products. She is the founder and CEO of House of Mikko, a beauty recommendation engine for women. The company just launched I Love Your Hair, a mobile app to help women share product tips, get inspired, and discover styles.

Dillon spoke with Zora about diving into entrepreneurship, staying true to herself, and learning to focus on her strengths as a leader.

Why entrepreneurship? What prompted you to start House of Mikko?

I’ve had a lot of jobs after school and I got to a point where I knew what I wanted to do and what my strenghts were. It’s more challenging when you don’t really know what you want to do or haven’t found what you’re good at because you don’t see opportunities in the same way. Starting House of Mikko really came out of the fact that I was working at a beauty company and I knew it was really hard to market to women of color and women in general. It was a problem of my industry and I knew I had the skill set to address it.

When did you really decide you were going to go out on your own?

I started the beginning of the company while I was still in business school in 2010 but I didnt leave my full time job till September of last year.

Once you decided you were going to start House of Mikko, what were your next steps? What planning process did you go through?

I will say I had two distint processes. I wrote the business plan when I was in school so there was a lot of structure. Two months after graduation, I joined a startup accelerator at women 2.0. Incubators, accelerators and programs are a great way to help you identify and shape the foundations of your business. I’ve never really felt like I didn’t know what to do because I’ve had two programs that guided me through the process.

How did you think through the process of finding partners? When you were in business school, did you have partners that you knew you wanted to work with or did that came later?

I’ve had team the whole time but they’ve been different teams. Usually the best teams have worked with each other before so if you’re still in school, maintain those relationships. In early jobs, stay in touch with people. Even if they haven’t worked with me, it’s my network that has referred me to other people. Your network is incredibly important both in forming your team and in forming your advisers.

One thing that can be a stumbling block for women who want to be entrepreneurs, and for some men as well, is the lack of a technical background. What did you study and how did you go about filling any technical gaps?

It’s an ongoing struggle. In lieu of technical resources you have a higher burn rate because you have to pay someone. That becomes tricky becuase it’s not just paying someone, you have to pay the right people and that in itself is a bigger problem that the money For us, we did a lot of things to make that process as smooth as possible. One, we had technical advisors who double checked all of our work. Secondly, we wireframed and had a really strong vision. The idea itself is worth very little, it’s really how you are going to execute this and the look and feel of your product. And look and feel is something that most people who are not technical can approach. You really need to have a point of view in lieu of a technical co-founder and a ton of documentation because your engineer is a hired gun, he’s not really paid to see your vision.

That’s a great tip. Has your vision changed since you wrote that initial business plan? changed? Have there been any major changes as you’ve built the product and talked to users?

Several, like a thousand. We started as a beauty supply store then we became a recommendation engine which is how most people think of House of Mikko now, as a personalized beauty service. We’ve actually pivoted and are launchiing our first really commericial ready product which is called I Love Your Hair. It’s a mobile app that allows women to take picutres of their hair and tag what products they used or where they got it done and really connect with other women. It’s like Foodspotting for hair or twitter for hair.

Where did the original name come from for House of Mikko?

Mikko is the name of e a friend of mine which roughly means pretty girl in Japanese so we modified it. We went in that direction because beauty sites often tell you what you’re doing wrong and who’s prettier than you. For example, a lot of beauty magazines give advice to look like Beyonce who is gorgerous in her own right but many of us aren’t going to look like her. We wanted to take the approach that you’re already pretty and beautiful and you should feel that way. Our brand is about improving ourselves inside and out.

Your blog posts share the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. What would you say has been the biggest challenge of the past year?

I think the biggest challenge has been staying true to myself. I went through a period where I was doing things in a particular way. I thought, I need a tecnical co-founder before I can more forward, I need this money before I can do X, Y, and Z, I need this adviser before this can happen, I need to go to a networking event every night because that’s how this person did it.

I was copying what other people did and wasn’t really focusing on my own strengths and my own personality. I’m not one to go to a networking even every night. I didn’t go to Stanford, I do not have an engineering degree, I am not a white guy. I was focusing on all the things I was not instead of things that I am.

And I think the turnaround was that I decide that I’m just going to do this my way and be comfortable with that. It’s really playing to your strenghts versus focusing on your weaknesses because there’s going to be a lot of weaknesses but I have one or two really awesome strengths.

What are those strengths?

I really understand women but more broadly I understand people. I love marketing. I fundamentally love marketing and I think technology needs to move that way. There’s 10,000 developers that can make the next Angry Birds but that’s not particularly interesting for the future of the internet. Internet products in the future really have to understand consumer behavior to really win.

In addition to Founder Labs, which other ways have you found support?

I’ve found informal support and I also have a contrarian view to what we just discussed. Informally, I’m friends with a lot of people in the Black Founders group. We have a regular informal happy hour and it’s good to see people and get their updates. My contrarian viewpoint is that some of the most helpful people have not been women or people of color. It’s about judging people for who they are. Some of our biggest cheerleaders probably have very little idea of beauty but have a pretty strong investment in us as people. On some level there is a need to connect and promote women and people of color. On another level, there are a lot of people who are just interested in you as individual so you can’t just segregate yourself entirely because you’ll be surprised by a lot of unlikely candidates that will help you along the way.

You moved to San Francisco to launch your business. What are your feelings about being in the nexus of entrepreneurship?

I’m here for a specific reason. Most of my friends here also have startups so there’s the solidarity. There are people out there who do not care about every new product or the next photo-geo-local-social app. And sometimes its ridiculous to be in the valley where people are building social apps for dogs, but it’s also good to be around people who are as passionate as you are about specific industry.

You’re building a product but you’re also building a company. What have you larned about yourself as a leader in this process?

You have to trust yourself as a leader. One of the things I’ve found is that I’m often very apologietic for correcting people. But I’ve realized that a lot of people do want direction and that it’s your job to be the vision holder. No one is going to fight for it more than you are so it’s ok to seem a little pushy and seem a little aggressive. At [my old job] P&G, we used something called “having the D” which means having the decision so before you went into any meeting, you knew who had the D and there was no confusion. There’s something about having the D that’s powerful because you do need to make decisions and it’s ok to make the wrong decision. Sometimes it’s about just making a decision and not wallowing in wait and see mode because that puts you in a reacitonary place instead of a proactive place.

Is there anything you’ve learned about women and beauty and this industry that has surprised you?

One of the things I find interesting is that women identify themselves in two spectrums when in reality most of us are in the middle. When we pitch to women of all varieties, women instantly process themselves as either ‘I love makeup’ or more commonly’ I’m not wearing any makeup right now and I’m really not into that.’ It’s interesting that a lot of people say they’re not into beauty but I would argue that they are. Beauty is shampoo, deodorant, mascara, lip gloss. There are very few women who wash their face and go, or don’t put something on their hair with intention. People don’t want to perceived as using a lot of products but in reality grooming is part of our normal day-to-day process.

What are your favorite products? What do you love to use?

I also put myself in that category of not using a lot of beauty products but I own a lot so I’m not going to even lie about that. I am really into services. I like to get my eyebrows threaded and nails done. I recently just got into fake eyelashes . I don’t really wear a lot of beauty products but I will say it would be hard to find me without eyeliner or mascara on a pretty daily basis. I’m also very dark complexioned so I love weraing lipstick that a lot of people that aren’t my complexion cannot. I can wear a red lip pretty much on every occasion.

What other startups or products excite you right now?

I am starting to find what my new social network is to be honest and I’m exploring whether I like to use Instagram in that way or if I like using Path. My facebook has become slightly overwhelming in the sense that it’s so many people and I censor myself a lot more on now. I’m exploring Path where it’s literally my closest friends. I’m really interested in those types of more intimate social network that allow me to connect my true friends. There a lot in the space and I keep playing with them but one hasn’t really emerged yet.

What advice would you have for other young women, in particular black women or women of color, who want to be entrepreneurs?

For black entrepreneurs, I will say think really big. Especially if you’re thinking entrepreneurship in a way that you want to get investor morney. You need to be in a really big market to get someone else’s money so that means a billion dollar market. Thinking small will not get you money. Especially as a woman of color when you may already have things against you, you don’t want to do a version of something that’s really common. Find a unique space in a big market that’s interesting.

Download the I Love Your Hair App and follow House of Mikko on twitter.