I'm proving something to the world about Indian beauty and I
have like a chip on my shoulder about.
It I say that as an influencer. I don't think influencers help.
Avara, our target consumer doesn't really care if Gen.
Z so and so is using it. They want to know the science,
they want to know if it works. They want the before and afters.
They want the story. Don't ask a million people if he
should do it or not. If you want to do it, just do
it. Do not wait for someone's
approval. There's just going to be times
where like you thought something was going to go through or
you're short cash flow and you're just not going to want to
go through them if you don't have a reason that is deeper
than a superficial reason if you.
Really want a company, a brand longevity.
I find that you have to be. Authentic.
I think you'd be surprised at how many people start businesses
for the wrong reason. Do I do it because I want to say
that I'm a founder at a cocktail party?
If you truly were someone who was meant to do this, you would
have done it by now. Welcome back to this week's
episode of Inside Thoughts Out Loud.
I'm sitting down with Michelle Ranavath, founder and CEO of her
skin care line, same name Ranavath, and I frankly just
can't call it a small business anymore.
It exploded onto the scene, but it was really never a viral
moment. It really has always been a
generational movement. Ranavath has always been about
Ayurvedic, but science backed skin care.
She took a concept that is steeped in history and culture
and made it mainstream in a way that a company couldn't really
get right before her. What's really interesting about
Michelle is that she's quite reserved, shy, and humble.
So I'm really excited to sit down and pick her brain about
what it means to invest in yourself.
How do you know you have an idea that's worth that big budget
investment? What about trends and female
entrepreneurship and leadership? Where does she fall on these
topics? I can't wait to ask her these
questions, so thank you for joining us on Inside Thoughts
Out Loud. How do you know you have that
million or billion dollar idea? Like how do you know when to
make that big budget yourself? And I had said in the intro that
you're like, As for as a founder, you're humble, you're
shy, you're you're more reserved than some other founders are.
So that I'm curious where you fall on certain topics like
what's trending in female entrepreneurship leadership.
I'm a green controversy. I was.
Going to, that was actually what I was thinking about over the
last couple days, because you are very outspoken and you have
strong opinions and you're able to share them.
And I'm, I have those things, but I, I really don't share.
Not to share. Them I'm just much more of a
private person and so I'm excited to talk about some of
the things that I've just really never had the opportunity to do
and I. Wanted to ask you but.
I'm also like envious of the way that you can just do those
things. Whereas for me, it's just like
the reason I want this brand and Indian beauty and artisanship
and the science, I want that to be the star.
I don't want Michelle Ronavot, this person that has these
opinions, to be what this company is about because
ultimately I think it takes away from like the true purpose of
what I'm doing. And I really want to shine kind
of light, not on me, but on this art that I think just really
deserves the microphone. Absolutely.
But here I am with. Here we are.
OK Welcome Michelle to insight thoughts out loud.
We just, we jumped right in. I know.
I'm so excited to chat with you and spend time with you because
I've been a fan for so long. And us as well of you even I
think, you know, beginning of time.
Actually, the first time I ever heard of you was from a customer
that said my doctor has recommended your products.
I'm, I love my doctor so much. And do you know who she is?
And she recommends your products to all of her patients.
Yeah. So thank you so much.
For doing that because I mean your brand.
So I say Ranavat on Instagram because I feel like it's easier
for people to say. But how do you pronounce your
last? Name.
I think it's Ranavat. Ranavat.
But even like so it's my in laws name actually.
So my my original name is Shaw, which also means King and it is
pretty royal too. It's just not as unique and even
the family says it as Ranavat. OK, so I feel like.
Either either or. Yeah.
OK, so your, you know, your brand very much had a solid
presence when my Instagram following was just taking off.
So I was very much a small fish in a big sea.
But I was just genuinely such a fan.
And when I used it, I was taken by how effective yet gentle it
was, which was important for me as a doctor because my patients
are coming to me because they have a cancer or cancer adjacent
diagnosis and they feel very lost in the weeds because
they're doctors are like, stop the vitamin C, stop the retinal,
stop the active, stop all the things.
And I would always say, OK, but Bacucci, all is fine.
Like you're going to be fine with Bacucci or you know, the
saffron serum, which I think very much is the hero product
gives you. Yes, of course there's a long
term skin care benefits, but we all like a good immediate
satisfaction and you put it on in your skin glows, right?
So we love that. And so I bought it for myself
and then I started recommending it to my patients.
And you know, I, I have had the opportunity to work with a lot
of brands, but I'm very loyal to the ones that were kind to me
when I was a small creator. I.
Didn't see that by the way. I know you shout us out a lot
and I know that you have so many opportunities.
So I was even I was telling Ammi that I was like, you know, they
feel like always comes to our events.
She's super supportive and I know you don't like need to be
right now, but you are truly that like authentic person and I
I really feel the love so I appreciate.
It it's my pleasure and it's one of the cool things I get to do
with the platform is I know the brands that were supportive when
I was young or have always just been really authentic.
So it's a fun thing to support in return.
And then we have these cool full circle moments like now where I
get to sit down with you. I know and our kids are like
hanging out together exactly. Really cool.
The best. So I had so many questions I
wanted to ask you about the brand and I had been wanting to
have you on the podcast for a while, and I'm going to ask all
those questions. But I think we're in this unique
sort of pop culture moment as well where female entrepreneurs
really are being more outspoken about their leadership styles.
So I actually want to start with that Emma Greed, who I have a
lot of respect for but also respectfully disagree with at
times, has come out talking about her criticisms of work
from home lifestyle and saying, you know, adjacency is
important, being in the office is important.
And I found it to be sort of peddling the corporate ladder
lifestyle. And I think the reason for me, I
especially took took issue with it is I am successful because I
left that and I started my own practice.
I started my own skin care line. I started, you know, all the
podcast, all the things. And actually it was the time I
was spending not at work with my paid academic job where I was
quietly building those things. And I find that a lot of women
actually prefer to work from home or go part time because the
end all be all is not climbing the ladder within their own
corporation. It is creating a new corporation
so that that being sort of my disclosure and my bias.
What are your thoughts on that? I think there's no single
archetype and I struggle when there's so much celebration
around one person. I think that's great, but we
should never put anyone on a pedestal and assume that they
quote UN quote know everything and we have to listen to
everything they say. That's their version of the
world. I mean, there's all sorts of,
every one of us has a we're seeing the world through our own
lives, our own experiences, our past, what we want to see.
And I think that we're just taking what she's saying as
fact. And I just don't think that
makes any sense. I think that's in her experience
and her recommendation, and that's fine, but I don't think
people should view that as something's gospel.
Yeah. Yeah.
And and I agree with that. I think where people felt misled
as if she's trying to pass this message to the masses.
Is this message applicable to the masses?
And I think part of that is the consumer responsibility.
If we're going to watch, then we should also understand that,
like you said, who is going to be able to give universal advice
like that? We all have our own.
Journey. And I think that when you think
about like the corporate ladder, I mean, I can only speak from my
own experience, experience at my company and having the ability
to bring people on and seeing who's been able to like really
be successful. And I have to say, every person
at our company is successful. They have different ways of
doing that. And that's not something that I
woke up understanding. So I too initially might have
had, oh, well, everyone that's successful has to be this type.
They have to be a type A person. I'm not a type AI mean I came in
a little bit late. I'm not.
I have. I struggle with staying on time
with. I don't have A to do list like
organization. So there are things that I've
added in my. Life.
I'm like shocked to hear this. Oh my gosh, no, I would think
that I'm super. Typing, I know you are and that
makes sense. I feel like I'm like a weird
mismatch, like I'm like some lie or something because.
No, you're the perfect example and paradigm for how success can
look different for different people.
And I wish I saw more of that. Like I even texted you to be
like, oh, can I sleep in? Like I love sleeping in on the
weekends and yeah, I'm not. I work really hard and some of
my favorite days to work are on the weekends or Friday or
something. But that's me and my own
personality probably because, yeah, I'm not waking up at 5:00
AM and getting to my emails and doing like 50 things before the
day starts. And that's.
How you can show that success looks different.
And that was another thing that just bugged me about that
narrative because I have women from my in my office that work
part time or work from home and they're extremely good at their
job. And I know one person in
particular in my office, she's getting her nursing degree.
And it was important to me for her to be able to get her
nursing degree because that's how she's going to elevate her
life to me. If you're really giving women
advice on how to to make more money, to be independent, they
got to do it on their terms. Working for me may not be the
end all be all of their success. And I know that I walk into
these situations understanding that.
So I give them permission to work from home so that they can
get the nursing. But it may be like 1 second
example is like, people see how you've taken, you know, a more
traditional career path and then you've been able to do things
like podcasts and be an influencer and how that hasn't
hurt, but in fact, like has helped your entire personal
brand. And I think that, you know, for
me, my parents immigrated much like yours, I'm sure, right?
My parents came in the 70s and I didn't have like a fancy private
school education like maybe our kids do now.
And that comes, that could be another topic, but I spend
instead of fancy summer camps, I spent my summer at my dad's
office and I was in a warehouse. I was in a warehouse all summer
long and I actually really loved it.
I love seeing all the products, organizing.
He would give me different projects and I just keep myself
busy like playing store essentially.
And that is what ultimately became the foundation and what
gave me some confidence to start something on my own.
But just because someone isn't like going on your path,
obviously, like they're still seeing what you're doing.
And I think that's making an impact, you know, but again, I,
I don't think it, they need to quote UN quote, be in the
office, but I still think it, it makes an impact and it matters.
I think there's different types of learning, so where you are in
your career effects what sort of learning you would most benefit
from. So I, I definitely think certain
positions, sure, but sort of this global villainization of
it, it hurts me because I just, I personally know so, so many
women who, who will shift. Maybe they were in the office,
maybe their kids are growing up. They they need to be there for
soccer practice or pick up and drop off or nursing degrees to
be able to not villainize. That to me was really important,
which is why it was personally so offended by.
It yeah, it's so interesting because like, I, this is maybe
why I don't comment on these things, like some things that
are so weird to me that are like very specific in an instance.
Like in her scenario, she's talking about something
extremely specific. She's talking about someone that
wants to climb the corporate ladder that like doesn't have
aspirations to be beyond that. And really, you know, and that's
her version of that. Again, there's no one size.
No. There's a lot of women in
C-Suite positions that are doing great.
But to me, the advice then should be if you want to stay
within the corporate ladder, and this is I'm going to use this as
a transition because I find that for so many women, the real
independence, both financial and with time, comes from leaving
that traditional massive corporation paradigm and chasing
your own ideas. I think so I, I agree with you,
but I also would say like entrepreneurship is not for
every person. And I believe on betting your on
yourself in so many ways, but with the right leader.
And I hope that I do this for the team that I work with is
that they feel like they're their own entrepreneurs inside
of your brand. And I really like to create that
shape. But what I was saying before a
little bit is that sometimes when I hear these like sound
bites, like I don't even get irked by it or I don't even
think about it because I'm just like, OK, you know, that's like
one person's opinion. And I just, I can't get so
emotionally involved in everything that I see online
because then it just takes away from my intense focus that I
have on the things that I enjoy. And that has been one of the
things that, and one of the reasons that I am not as
outspoken as maybe some other entrepreneurs or female founders
is because I'm very intensely focused.
But I think that's really worthwhile to say because I
recently launched my own skin care line and I got a lot of
advice on tone it down. You don't need to be polarizing,
you don't need to be so strongly opinionated.
You could isolate your customer base.
And my response was, I know what I'm trying to build and I have
to be authentic to who that is, otherwise I will do a bad job
with my brand. But if my focus was what Ranavat
is, which is bringing sort of a global luxury platform to
Ayurveda and to sort of thousands of years of skin care
in the making with modern elements, right.
If that's the focus, that's really the rest is irrelevant,
the rest is noise. So I think it's really important
to them say, or to know as a founder what did it, where your
authenticity lies because then you shouldn't stray from it.
You know, it makes complete sense to me why you wouldn't get
embroiled in these sort of sound bites and online discourses
because they are going to be constantly evolving, but they
don't really affect the message that your brand.
Well, first of all, I'm not as talented as you with words.
And just the way that you're able to distill complex points
on camera is actually really, really hard to do.
So I don't, I don't have your talent, but I also would agree
that I think for me, I just want to keep the focus on what I
think the focus should be. There's no wrong way to build a
business. So what you're doing is great.
What I'm doing is fine like any, there's literally no wrong way.
And I hope that there continue to be more and more ways that we
empower people to create their businesses on their own terms.
And I, I'm seeing more of it now.
I think the advice that I was given maybe would have made
sense five years ago, but what I see now is that a lot of brands
and founders, I'm really able to clearly state who the founder
is, what they stand for, what the brand is.
And they're not all the same, which is great.
And I, I think we're in an era now where it's OK to speak up
and, and double down on whatever your message may be.
And I think the more authentic you stay to that your, I think
your brand's going to do better. I think being wishy washy
doesn't help, but if that's not where your focus of your brand
is and you don't even need to comment on it, just again, laser
focus. Yeah, I mean, I think you'd be
surprised at how many people start businesses for the wrong
reasons. And I think all of these things
are ways that you can just check your why essentially like did I
do? I do it because I want to say
that I'm a founder at a cocktail party.
Is this something that is like I need to prove something to my
own identity, which is totally fine.
I feel like I have things that I want to prove to myself every
single day. But yeah, it just depends on the
why I think. I think it has to be about the
why. I think the minute it becomes
about making money or. Outward success.
Outward success it is. The problem is we're too forward
facing. Whether we like it or not, we
are everywhere. I want to be invited to this
party. I want to be friends with these
celebrities. I mean, that's when it's.
Want to make X number of dollars the minute it becomes about
that, I think the problem is we we actually can't get away with
it. I find I.
No. Maybe in the short term I have
seen it happen, but. You'll have a viral moment and
you'll fizzle out. If you really want a company, a
brand, longevity, I find that you have to be authentic because
people could well, they can just tell.
Well, it also just gets, you know, yes, I think people and,
and what they think, I think ultimately you just don't have
anything to, you don't have the strength to go on.
Like there's just going to be times where like you're amazing
people, you know, someone quits last minute and you're like, Oh
my gosh, or you thought something was going to go
through or you're short cash flow.
And those are really hard, challenging things to go
through, and you're just not going to want to go through them
if you don't have a reason that is deeper than a superficial
reason. Yeah, yeah.
No, absolutely. Give up and that's OK, by the
way, like I think we need to very much normalize giving up
quote like failure. I don't even like using that
word because I feel like it just sounds because we've made it
sound word. Failure actually doesn't exist
in the lexicon of people like you and I any entrepreneur that
I know, I just don't even use the word failure because I even
say like, if Ivara, what would failure be?
I don't know, Maybe we close, maybe we I lose money in the to
me, it's I went into this with intelligence.
I know how much money I put in. I know what I could afford to
lose and whatever I learned from it.
If I'm truly an entrepreneur, I'm going to take it and build
another company. And so I just don't I don't even
understand when people look at a company go, oh, they closed or
oh, they sold for less than whatever.
To me, that is not failure. Those are all very integral,
necessary stepping stones for any any entrepreneur.
I think if you started it for superficial reasons, it's very
hard to accept when it doesn't happen for that reason because
you never had this like deeper connection.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I want to go back to something
you said about we were talking about being type A and type B
and and you had said not everyone is meant to be an
entrepreneur. And I totally agree.
And I use my husband and I as an example all the time because
he's incredibly detail oriented, incredibly helpful, does so much
for my companies. That man does is has zero
interest. It would never, I don't know
that it's his thing to to run his own company.
So I want you to kind of help set the landscape for how do you
know, you say you've had this gnawing idea or this this thing
that you want to do? How do you know that you are
someone who is meant to be an entrepreneur?
Well, I think anyone can be if you want to be, right?
That's like #1 to know. And if you're already thinking
about, oh, I'm curious and I want to do this thing, well, I
think you should be an entrepreneur.
There's no, there's literally nothing that no personality
trait, there's nothing that I can come up with that would say
like that's a bad idea. So I think it's like the basic
thing is do you want to be or not?
And that does separate and. To.
Me, it's so simple. It's like just you want to do it
or not. And if you want to do it, it
doesn't matter if you're like me and are a type B to to some
degree, or you're like you and a type A, like there's no one type
of person that's going to succeed.
But it is. Then to me, it's really the why
are you doing it? Anyone can be.
Should you be? Yeah, that's really the question
to me is the should you? Yeah, anyone can be, but.
I I find when people ask me for advice and I get because I'm so
new to the skin care game, usually people are reaching out
to me to ask for sort of business advice or
entrepreneurial advice. It's healthcare related, you
know. Should I go into private
practice? Should I, should I start my own
practice? What does it go out of network
look like? Did you leave your job and it's
similar if anyone? If you want to do it, you can do
it. But I'm pretty concrete about
like, I'm not going to lie to you about what it takes because
this is hard. And I can already tell you what
I think are necessary traits that you have to have to succeed
#1 you cannot be someone that like gets bogged down in the
weeds, especially if something go doesn't go your way.
You will fail if you're that you have to.
If you're not naturally that you got to train your brain.
There are things that I I'm not naturally like and I have to
train my brain to become those things.
It has to be water off a duck's bag.
You just because there will be days where you think that you're
everything is falling apart and they're they're high highs and
low lows. But when it's low, you cannot
get caught in the weeds because you are like you are the glue of
the company. And if you're if it's
healthcare, you, the practice is yours.
So if you're really lost in the weeds because something
happened, that's not going to work because unlike when you
work for a big institution where they'll just keep going on and
the, you know, things will continue, things won't continue
if you're not moving on, thinking of the solution, moving
on to the next thing. So that to me is a necessary
character trait. And I find that it works well in
entrepreneurship and business as well.
Like for sure, there are a number of things that can go
wrong at any. I mean, whether it's supply
chain, distribution, formula, I mean you think you thought of it
all. And I'll tell you a nightmare
story that I am dealing with right now.
But it's just it. You have to be someone who's
like, OK, what's the solution? What's Plan B, what's Plan B,
what's the loss? What are we doing?
And then move on. And I think it's so interesting
though, because, well, one, I would say if someone is
listening and they want to start a company, don't ask a million
people if you should do it or not.
Like that's like your first issue.
It's just if you want to do it, just do it.
Do not wait for someone's approval because why?
Why are you going to take this amazing dream that you have?
And then if some random person, maybe you trust them, maybe
they're your mom. It doesn't really matter to me.
They're putting their own ideas and giving you their opinion,
which is different than a fact. Yeah, so they're giving their
own opinion. Why are you taking that as like
advice? I just it doesn't make.
Sense, but that's also personality type, right?
I have these people who like every year they'll predictably
call me and I'm like, man, it's been for five years.
You haven't started. This conversation.
If you truly were someone who was meant to do this, you would
have done it by now. Because it will.
You won't. You're not able to sleep, you're
not able to. Like you become so consumed by
this passionate thing you want to do that you just have to cut
the cord and do it. And if you think that you can
prepare for it 100% or study for it, you're wrong.
That's not how it works. One of the things that I've
realized about entrepreneurship is it's like a PhD and learning
more about yourself and your own self, like you're limiting
beliefs and all of the things that we've gone through.
And that's why I really like, it's very therapeutic for me
because when I first started, so I, I got made fun of like my
entire, I don't know, childhood, I guess, and grew up in between
Wisconsin and Chicago suburb and people didn't understand
vegetarian and I had all, I mean, I still have a lot of
hair. There are all sorts of reasons
that people made fun of me. And so I do feel like I'm
proving something to the world about Indian beauty and I have
like a chip on my shoulder about it.
And so that's that had me going back to those that time in my
life. I think I also for a long period
of time, I surround myself with a lot of very, very high
achievers because I feel like I'm best in that environment.
However, I do not have those same characteristics as they do.
And I really struggle to think if I was better or I mean, if I
was less than because of it. And this would, this really kind
of forced me to be confident in my own skin and say, Hey,
there's no, there's, it's OK if these aren't your, your traits
that you're born with. And then now I'm like, because
now we're at a different phase. So like before it was like, OK,
you can use brute force and just figure things out and work as
hard as you can, which I was very good at, but I can't do
that to get myself out of problems anymore.
Like I have to now leverage A-Team.
And now when you have a team, it's like not only the way that
I view myself, it's like everyone else has their own ways
of doing things. Like we're kind of going back to
like the work from home conversation.
Everyone has their own operating system that they come to work
with. And I have to figure out along
with people that and some people I don't even directly manage.
How can we empower them when they're not acting in a way that
to me to find success, like you listed a lot of things like if
you don't have these things, you shouldn't start a business.
That's what was helpful to you. There's some people that have
got to this place and they've done in a completely different
way. And I have to find a way to like
relate to that. I have to find a way to coach
them. I have to find a way to be open
to like their new way of doing things.
But then how open should I? Because this is our organization
and we need to stand for something.
So I think, I think the challenge is you have to be so
malleable. Like a lot of the things that
get you to one place, all of a sudden you have to like forget
them all. And then you have to learn all
these new skills. And it's so humbling every
single time to start from the beginning to say, oh, I guess I
can't just like outwork my way out of problems or now it's
about relationships or the next phase of this brand, which I
firmly believe isn't going to be about me.
It's about the team and the people and I'm, you know, hoping
to bring on, you know, a visionary and someone to, to
work alongside with. So, and that's very new for me
because I am as typy as I am. I am very what's the word
protective or I don't know. I just like.
No, I mean, I think I would say maternal almost because I think
for us these companies are our children.
And so just like you said, like you want your kids, they're
going to run out and make a few mistakes and they're you have to
know who they are. And you can't scold one child
the way you scold another child. And so you and the family has to
make sense and the family family has to succeed.
And so it, it is interesting. And it's funny you say that
because as a doctor, most of my success really depends on me.
I mean, I have to do good surgery.
I have to be. And so I was very successful
because I had the prototype of characteristics that allow me to
be a good doctor. I'm very thorough, I'm detail
oriented, I'm quick on my feet. I think things through, I'm
prepared. But then the practice grew and
now we have employees and many employees and I'm still the
singular Dr. But I have, I have a practice in Texas.
I have a practice in California. I have.
Multiple locations. So do you fly to do surgeries?
I. Do I do and so that's a
different team there and it's a different personality even like
location matters. And so that is growing and it's
so funny that something that obviously I still have to
perform, but the interface that the patient has with the clinic,
who's answering the phones, what's the response time on
emails, how are we handling insurance questions, all of
that. I have to tap in to each
person's good and bad and then I have to deeply confront my
limitations because I can be very short, I can be very, I
just say it, I'm blunt, I move on and I realize that that's not
always received in the way that I intended it.
I'm a very, I'm just going to tell you the problem, we're
going to fix it. We're going to move on.
I don't hold grudges, but that person may feel deeply offended
by my delivery. And am I benefiting the team if
I can't fix my delivery if I know that this really important
person in my practice perceives what I say in this way?
I mean, it's rough. That's, I have that exact exact
problem because I, I personally, I think it's also like you use
the word perceived. And I think making a mistake,
someone may feel guilty or that's perceived as bad.
I actually don't, I don't think mistakes are that big of a deal.
Like someone can come to me and be like, oh, we lost like
$30,000 because I made this mistake and I will be like, OK,
well, let's kind of figure out how we can.
I mean, I just won't accept reality and I'll be like, oh, we
can fix it. It's fine.
And let's, but I'm not like mad at that person, but that person
will feel that because I was talking about it or I was openly
discussing it, that that was like.
You're looking at a systems based practice.
They're looking at it as an individual.
Yes, exactly. And they say that all the time.
I'm like if I'm trying to solve a problem.
For the example you give, it's not that the $30,000 was lost.
I'm glad it wasn't 300 and I don't know this 30,000 again.
So what are the system like? How, what's the Swiss cheese
model that allowed this to happen?
And it's, and that's one thing in healthcare.
And then when you move into, you know, I'm now in, in skin care
and it's a totally different world.
And I the reason I think what you said is so true.
You could be type A, you could be type B, you could be anything
in the middle is because you get to delegate.
Yeah. And if you are honest with
yourself about what you're good at and what you're bad at, you
will appropriately delegate what you are bad at to everybody else
that can take care of it better than you could have.
And that acknowledging that in and of itself is like, for me
was a journey to be like so and so was better at this than I am.
I need to let them do their job. Yeah, I'm, I'm still on that
too, but I, I feel like I have achieved a lot in terms of
growing up in through that process.
And I think it's really hard because, you know, we're self
funded and so it took a long time, you know, 8 years to even
get to this place right now today.
But I had to do everything. So I was really used to doing.
Not that I'm good or better, for sure not.
But I, you know, it's different than if you start with all this
funding and you're hiring experts and you never did that
job to begin with. These are things that I
intimately figured out myself and did them to the best of my
ability. So I think it's just harder to
then step back because you already have like a system in
place. Yeah, no, absolutely.
I want to talk about run about being self funded.
I'm self funded. I was recently chatting with
Sunday Riley and she's self funded.
Yeah, she's still totally. So is the Beauty Blender
founder. Yeah.
And it's a much less common paradigm, I think, because now
you have these companies that are sort of like these finance
think tanks that are taking a person that they want to help
them, but then heavily funding it, taking a huge part of the
equity. And that's also a successful
model, right? I've seen a lot of founders do
find success with that. For you, what was the math like
in deciding that you were going to make this heavy investment in
yourself and then to sort of stay self funded?
Well, so it wasn't a heavy investment.
I spent like $30,000. It was really nothing like
literally my, our first products were like these powdered masks
and one ingredient hydrosols that I, yeah, that I sourced.
And I spent a lot of time like I went to India, I went to the
farms, I made those connections and some of those suppliers I,
we still work with today. But I really didn't, it wasn't
like I needed ten people on my team.
And I know, you know, you're pretty lean too.
And I think that is something we do.
But mine was like extremely. And I don't know that in this
day and age, maybe that's not possible.
I think anything is probably possible, but.
I think anything is possible. I think it's really hard with ad
spend. It's just marketing spend I
think is what crushes companies today.
And I find that's my opinion is, I mean, that's where most of my
budget goes today. And I think that would have been
hard on my academic salary. I needed to be making the money
I was making in private practice to be able to do what I'm.
Doing, yeah. I mean, there's so much to
unpack because it goes all the way into people thinking that
our investors or founders thinking that skin care
companies somehow fit this VC model.
They fit this like, OK, we get funding and for five years, you
know, we're going to grow this top line growth, growth at all
costs and then we're going to sell it to like Unilever.
Well, the beauty industry is really specific.
They're not all, I mean, unless you're like a big CPG and you're
selling a pimple patch to Target or something is huge audience,
huge Tam skin care is there. It's so crowded.
Like if you hit like $100 million in revenue, you're like
really at the top. And that, I mean, if you talk to
a software company, that's like chump change for them, you know,
and this is like us getting to the pinnacle.
So that just tells you is a very crowded saturated market out
there. And when I think this ad spend
and all this, these challenges are coming because VCs were
pumping money and they were expecting a lot of growth.
And the easiest and best, I guess not best, but easiest way
and most obvious way to grow is through just giving your money
to Meta and TikTok and, and growing.
And so I think when all those other companies in your
competitors are doing that, what are you going to do?
How are you going to then? So it's not that I've elected to
play that game, but now you're at Sephora, so how are you not
going to play that game, or even for you?
It's like you're still a skin care brand in the skin care
universe. You're still fighting with all
of us. And it's especially because
you're fighting with people who have.
Distribution. Distribution and who are at
Sephora and Ulta. And it's funny, I went to Ulta
beauty world and I came out of that thing like, Oh my God, I'm
nowhere near ready for retail. Like whatever this is is not it
for me. And I really doubled down on my
own like staying DTC ecom for a while and we've done very well.
But I I know that I frustrate my PR team and I know that I
frustrate a lot of people because I'm so stubborn about
doing it differently. One thing is I don't understand
influencers spend. I say that as an influencer.
I don't think influencers help Avara.
They because the messaging is our target consumer doesn't
really care if Gen. Z so and so is using it.
They want to know the science, they want to know if it works.
They want the before and afters, they want the story and then
they will buy the product. And that to me is more about
branding and how I present my brand as to the consumer and
want to interfere. That is then the influencer that
I choose to work with. So I just stopped.
I completely stopped doing influencer.
Yeah, no, it's, it's really challenging and I actually agree
with you a lot. Like we haven't historically
done a ton with influencers. And there's like a huge reason
for that is that I just, I think you have to know what type of
brand you are, right? If you're a brand that's putting
a lot into the product and the science.
And for us, there's such a long story.
Like if I even, I mean, I'm, I'm working on this, but if I had to
give you like the 110 second pitch, it's like, oh, well, I
guess I can't say anything about, you know, the Indian
heritage or about Ayurveda or about, you know, it's like, oh,
it's, you know, clinically proven skin care inspired by
Indian beauty or something. I could say that, but I'm
missing so many parts of my story.
And I think that just takes a really long time.
Like if you look at these heritage brands, Kodily is a
great example. You know, I just even Tatcha, I
know that's acquired by Unilever, but they're these,
they're still independent brands out there that but they've been
doing it for 20-30 years or they're generational and that's
a long freaking time. So I think that's when I feel
like my eight years is really nothing.
And if you look at the air mess story, I think like the first
generation they were still doing, I don't even remember,
but they were definitely not making bags.
No, it was like horse saddles. Yeah, for like 100 years, like
that's like not even me. That's like my next kid.
And then maybe coming up with this idea that we should do this
huge thing that is going to change our trajectory.
So I just, I think we are a little impatient as people.
And I think that it's so exciting to think of this idea
of like, oh, I'm going to sell in five years, which again,
people can do that. But if you have a lot that
you're working on, you're creating, there's a huge white
space, there's, you know, no prototype.
Like people don't really understand.
Like why do I want Indian inspired beauty?
People get like K beauty now and that's been around for many
probably like 20-30 years in the US as popular.
But I have a lot of work to do. So me pumping all this money and
ads and influencers, it's like there's so much to be done that.
People have lost supply and I agree with you, this sort of VC
culture because I, I talked to my cousin in India a lot and he
has an extremely successful international company and is a
wealth of information. But when he gives advice and
he's talking about scaling and sort of the, you know, you got
to make this much by this year and by three years this and by
five years this and it, it's great advice, I think from like
a bird's eye view, but I find a hard time translating it in
beauty for the exact reason that you said.
I because then I think then I've lost the plot.
Then I'm making it about money and then I've lost what I'm
actually trying to do with Avara, which is I think there's
a white space in health inclusive beauty.
I think we talk about color inclusivity all the time and we
still have a lot of work to do there.
Where's the health inclusive section at Sephora?
Where's the, I'm going through IVF, perimenopause, menopause,
pregnancy, Where's that shelf? It doesn't exist.
So for me, Avara was to answer that question and it was, you
know, and there's a lot of crossover in, in ingredients,
right? Like I use ghee in our, in our
eye bomb, but I also have, you know, studied peptides and
ceramides and all of that as well.
So there's it's, you can tell the ingredients story in so many
different ways. And my angle, because it's
authentic to who I am, was to be health inclusive and to be able
to convince the United States and retailers and the beauty
market and editors and publishers that this is an
important conversation while I'm just getting started.
Exactly. You have so much to do, you're
not going to just like throw a bunch of money in ADS, like
people aren't going to get it. And I think it takes a lot of
time to slowly build that base. And then eventually there will
be a time in your business where it's like people kind of had
heard about you and were curious about you and now their favorite
influencer is talking about it. Then it's going to work for
sure. But I don't think, and I also
think people have changed too. And they're like way that they
take in content and consumption. I think everyone sees influencer
talking about it. I think it's helpful.
It's great to get that visibility, but the conversion
is not just the influencer, it's what's their history been with
that brand and how warm is that audience already to that
product. And then it works.
I agree. I, you know, I and I tell brands
all the time when they approach me.
I'm very database so I'll say like there are certain product
categories I know that I can move and there are some that.
Wait, what do you move the most? Jewelry.
Oh, and then you were just telling me you're.
Like I do really well with jewelry.
I do really well with skin care, makeup, so and so clothing.
Interestingly, I can link Abercrombie.
My my followers won't buy it. I put something from the outnet
my Teresa. They'll they'll buy it, they'll
sell it out. It's wild, but I but also like
the inventory is lower. So when I say sell it out there,
the number available may not be. You know, you're like, I want to
say our number two shot my person, so I'll show it to you
later. Oh my.
Gosh, I love that. But you know what I think
because people have been hearing me talk about the brand for two
years now. So when I say when I use it,
they don't feel like I'm selling to them.
There's an authenticity because I actually use it and I've been
using it. And therefore I will never ever,
ever take an influencer partnership with a brand that I
don't authentically use. No, honestly, brands appreciate
that too. And I, I think that that's a
little bit of a struggle because there was a previous model where
people would Oh yeah, I really like this brand.
I'm going to post about it a little bit, get the brand's
attention and then hopefully, you know, it would be great to
work with the brand that I love. Now.
It's like all super pay to play. And I think that takes away
inherently the authenticity. And I get it.
I, I want to pay people for their work.
I know, you know, being an influencer is a livelihood and I
fully support that. But at the same time, we have to
know that we can't just be transactional just the way that
I'm not transactional with my Sephora merchants.
You know, I genuinely care about them and I'm building an honest
relationship. I'm not just like going up to
them when I need something. I think we're seeing a shift now
because I, you know, as a very small brand, I know for me, I
just, it doesn't help my top of funnel.
I have decided that for my and every time the team brings it
up, I'm like, no, no, we're not doing it.
And also there's enough people who genuinely love the brand and
when they reach out, I'm like, OK, this might be someone who
like, I've seen them post about it, they genuinely like it.
Now let's explore that partnership.
But just paying people to talk about the I don't know, to me.
That makes me feel better because we haven't really been
doing a ton in that world and we've always been, especially
for macro people, it's always been like who's talked about us
before and that's who we want to work with.
And because that makes sense, like I'm not going to then start
paying people. Finally, we have a budget and
all of all of a sudden it's like you're paying all these people
that like have never talked about the brand I want to
support when I have budget, the people like even Ami, like I'm
always like Ami, I know you're going to do everything for free,
but like, please don't like because I love you and you
actually you convert. You have a real business and
you've been talking about us literally from the beginning.
So like if I'm going to pay someone I've it feels bad to me
to then go and use that money somewhere else.
Literally same thing with Ami. I actually emailed her team like
I'm not even going to, I'm just going.
To e-mail her. Team because I was like, you
know, and it, it matters and I think people can can tell and
that's also why I think follower accounts kind of bullshit and I
think views are kind of bullshit.
I to me it doesn't necessarily correlate with how a certain
personality or presence can move product.
I haven't figured it out, but my current approach is let's just
really double down on what we're about.
The rest will come. I love that.
I love a good strong opinion because I feel like that was my
whole thing with being self funded.
And again, maybe you know, you'll do influencer marketing
in a big way and maybe I'll get investors one day.
It can change at any time, but I just have had conviction around
certain things and I think those are the bets that have paid off
the most out of anything. So I think what you're doing on
influencer and this bet that you're making that feels like in
a world of everyone else doing something differently, I think
this is going to be really important for you.
You heard it here first, guys. Obviously Roundabout is wildly
successful. How do you see the future of
beauty Beauty tech? Beauty AI affecting or changing
your growth, do you see it affecting or changing your
growth and at the where you sit today in 2026, does it play into
how you look at your growth plan or what the future looks like
for run about? When you say beauty tech beauty,
I like whether. It's like, I know yeah, like
whether we're are we going to start paying these AI like
ChatGPT and Claude to recommend our you know, that's another
form of marketing. Like we can do that more and
more women are going to Claude and and other AI platforms to
ask. I have mature scan like what are
you? Getting lol orders isn't that
weird. Like recommendations like
roundabouts getting recommended by like.
I can see it now. Yeah.
Well, I think it speaks back to SEO and sort of like I think it
has to do with think if you've intentionally built your brand,
then AI mean AI has to pick from somewhere, right?
But it's very quickly becoming also pay to play.
And so when I think of a Vara like our target demographic,
it's fine. I kind of use AI every once in a
while, but I'm not heavy on AI and I still am very when I buy
products, I care about word of mouth, I care about the science
behind it. I like to look at reviews, I
like to look at data, but that's my target demographic.
How has that entered your sort of sphere yet?
Do you feel affected buy it yet? I don't know about affected by
it, but I, I, I'm a big AI user, but I use it for deep analysis
and deep thinking because I'm inherently a nerd just like you.
And I'm like, oh, during our gift with purchase, how many
people? What is the combination?
Or, you know, I just like love dissecting the data in every
which way possible so that I can better make decisions and form
the team of what's going on. So that's just my personal
thing, but I think as more and more people, I mean, I don't
know where beauty comes in and especially a brand like ours,
because it's so niche and beautiful.
It's like, I know we've grown a lot with word of mouth, just
like what you've done for us. I've grown a lot that way.
And I think it's going to continue to be that case because
I, I do feel like, you know, it is such a personal thing and
you're so much more excited to buy $135 serum when, like, your
best friend tells you that it's like, the best thing that
they've ever tried. Yeah, Like that's always going
to outperform like a ChatGPT prompt.
And I think that's almost like going to ChatGPT to be like, so
who should I be friends with? These are the characteristics of
the people. And like who do you think I
should be friends with? It's it's a little bit like that
because skin care, a lot of it is personal preference.
There's no right or wrong. It's kind of like ChatGPT for
fashion. Isn't fashion about our own
self-expression? So should we be?
It's OK to have help and answer questions.
And that's where I see it be really helpful.
So we'll prompt and we'll put in like our inky list, ingredient
list, our top, you know, like other products.
And I'm like, OK, what do you think the FAQs are going to be
from customers And like, let's analyze that.
And so we'll look at that and we'll, you know, be able to end
and even just like layering stories and different things
that we can pull together, it can help with that.
So it's more the like how and not the like initial convincing.
I mean, who knows if. See, that's my concern is I
agree with you, but I feel like just like the VC conversation is
changing the beauty landscape, I feel like AI is going to
further. It just pushes people to look to
these databases and whatnot to get information when otherwise
brands that are beautiful, that are ritualistic, experiential,
that are that have like true personality and stories to them.
I, I hope that they don't get lost.
That's my fear I. Just don't know because right
now I feel like there's only two players in this industry to get
eyeballs at mass. It's meta and TikTok and adding
a third. I mean, maybe that's just going
to further level out the playing field perhaps.
And then maybe you're, you know, it's more tactical and there's
some type of reason and brand that gets promoted on ChatGPT
and maybe there's a different and then maybe that creates more
space on Meta or TikTok and. I'm hoping the pendulum swings
back. That's my my long term is that I
think things are going to get weird for a little bit, but I
think what's going to end up happening is people will that
much more appreciate the brands that kept it authentic, that
have real models, that have real testers, that have real stories.
That's my hope. Yeah, and I think, you know,
we're building a sensorial brand too.
It's like the colors, the look, the feel.
The. Fragrance, like everything, is
just so. Authentic into the fragrance,
whoever is watching. Oh my God, I love it.
So yeah, so I think we're building something that is so 3
dimensional and not something that even like on social media,
just like being like, oh, this beautiful fragrance, like you
can't smell it. So I think that there's always
going to be a yearning for beautiful objects, for how art
is created, how we see hands. Like even now when we think
about like, again, the Irma's example of like, OK, a lot of
what they do think, they show the stitching behind their
things. They're showing the human hands
behind their work and why. Is human.
It's not computer generated. Right.
And why in this era of this brand that has every resource,
why are they going back to like the simple hands that are
weaving? And why is that luxury?
And I think it just goes down to our own ethos is that, you know,
maybe we're not going to be the biggest brand that gets
discovered on chat DBT. And I think that's OK because
people are going to come to us for a different.
Reason for a different reason. Yeah, I love that.
I love that. And I, I hope that people see
the connection to India in a really meaningful way.
Like, I don't know if you got targeted with the Fendi bag.
There was like a little and they were showing like these are
these beaded bags. Oh yeah, yeah, super luxury.
And they had like every little detail.
And then Prada had these like, chuckles.
And so I think it's just really fascinating that somehow some
way, just like Indian artisanship is, it was always
there. That's like, the crazy thing is
like. How all of us had.
We did and all these brands have been using Indian craftsmanship
for a really long time. But like saying made in India
wasn't cool, I had to be, oh, it's Parisian fashion or
whatever. And now they're starting to lift
the veil on the beauty and the things that people love about
these fashion houses is connected to India.
And now people are forced to see that.
Well, I think we're. Forcing their hand a little bit.
You know, Prada didn't initially acknowledge that, right?
I think Fendi learned from them. And then Fendi was like, OK,
we're not going to do that, right?
But then Ralph Lauren came out with their bandhani print.
Oh my God. And the Jamiki is it, you know,
so I think part of of that is having the diaspora.
We are more international, we're more global.
We have founders like you who have doubled down on the message
from day one, right? So it's like you can't pretend
like things like saffron and and these experiential sense that
are Jasmine based. I mean, they're they are very
characteristically Indian, right?
And we may have crossover with other cultures, but when a brand
is very clear about that messaging, then another brand
trying to dupe, like consumers are now smarter because they're
like, wait a second. They can feel the
inauthenticity, which I think is great because now we're holding
people more accountable, not just because Indian people are
now more global and we're holding people accountable, but
I have patients of all different cultures and they love the scent
of your saffron serum. And they will say that like this
feels Indian to me in a really beautiful way.
And they're not Indian to know that necessarily, but they've
now made that association such that I think of another company
tried to copy it or do it or not give credit.
They're like they're a little bit wiser.
Now I know and I hope so. And I think what I really have
noticed through this entire experience, and I even think
about my own team, Not every person on my team is Indian, but
somehow they're able to connect in it in a deep way where it's
their life's work. Hillary spent more time at work
than they do at home, and it's on this like Indian brand and
this mission. And so that makes me feel really
just proud of them also. But our Indian culture that it
like brings people together. And I think this whole
realization that I've had is that, well, you know, we're,
we're more alike than we think that we give ourselves credit
for. And it's unfortunate that people
feel, and I hope we can sort of put an end to this.
But Indian beauty is just for Indian people, and that really
needs to end because people don't think that about Korean
beauty. Everyone wants to use KBD.
Oh yeah, I use KBD. I'm in the future and all these
things. That's amazing and I love that
branding and that story. But the biggest problem that
Indian beauty has is that it's based a lot on, you know, I
guess we, we knew what we were doing 5000 years ago, which now
I think is, is a challenge because people think that
because it's been so long that somehow it's outdated.
So like tracking your sleep and Ayurvedic doctors, that's been
happening, you know, for for a long time.
I. Mean we grew up oiling our hair
that's just so crazy to me is like there's a reason our hair
looks like this and it's we grew up with these practices and it
works right. And I think the other thing, one
of the branding words I really like about roundabout is use the
word ritual a lot because it really is it glamorizes a
practice that we've already had. It is a ritual.
It was a ritual for me and my grandmother and my mother on
Saturday mornings and even now I ask my daughter, she knows
Saturday or Sunday. Those are the two days we're
going to do a nice little oil scalp massage.
And when you I think respect that ritual, you then I think
really hard now about like, I mean I'm growing out my graves,
but like, do I want to color them?
How what do I put it? Like, do I want to, to apply
heat because I value it as a ritual and because I have this
beautiful bottle and it take the time and I, it now has made me
sort of come full circle and realize I'm going to respect
this organ that I have and think a little bit more about it.
And so when people do ask why your hair is so healthy, yes,
some of it's genetic. A lot of it is definitely I
credit the products that I use, but I also, I don't apply heat
all the time. I don't.
I know I don't. Care that often.
But I think it's important for Someone Like You to be sharing
that message because you're a doctor and you work in the
world, the modern science all the time.
And sometimes I feel, and that's why I think we've always
gravitated towards you is because we are always looking
for that like accreditation that you have.
Because it's like, if your derm is saying that, then you know
that you have access to every other product.
And of course, this is not in place of a laser treatment.
Like, we're not going to say that this is going to do more
than it does, but good skin care, doing it ritualistically,
like on a daily basis, twice a day, it really does make a
difference. And it's so important for us to
like, take care of our skin and love ourselves in that way.
I know I totally agree. And I, it's, I always say like
when people come in and they want to laser, but they don't
use SPF or when they comment or they're like, we really want
hair advice, but they treat their hair like garbage.
You know, I'm like, I'm really trying to save you money here,
Change your habits, then work in these products.
Yes, they will work in synergy for the better result.
But you know, another fun story is I, when we were launching
Avara, we were talking with retailers and there was one
really big retailer that we thought about launching with and
they wanted us to go fragrance free and we have eucalyptus in
our products. And I was very picky that I was
not going to change that because for me, experientially,
eucalyptus has always been, especially at the Ayurveda, very
much part of healing recovery, sort of a yeah, exactly.
Aromatherapy, A universally relaxing, healing scent.
Now, there is such a thing as a eucalyptus allergy.
And it is possible that a certain percentage of people are
not going to like it. But I'm OK not being for
everybody. And when I think of your
products, I think the same. You know, I heard from one
person that they didn't love the scent of it, but I've heard from
121 hour. Reviews, you'll hear the most
different review, you'll be one person will be like, I'm
obsessed with the scent. This is amazing and then the
person literally right under will be like the scent wasn't
for me and. I that's fine.
Don't need to be for everybody, and I think being niche in that
way will always be our superpower.
And I think that there was just a lot of information out there
on like, scent is bad and perhaps it can be, but ours is
all like you're smelling the saffron, you know, these are
all. We don't use any synthetic
fragrances or scents to. It is the ingredients.
It's the ingredients. The ingredients normalize that
ingredients might have a scent to them and that's.
Oh my God, I know we could talk forever.
I know I have to wrap this up, but I wanted to end on like
telling you a story of a little Avara struggle we're dealing
with, but also just because it highlights how our customers
have been or just customers in general have been trained to be
so picky about certain things I almost think work against them.
Like scent, for example, you know, like vitamin good, vitamin
C is going to have a scent to it or it may change color in the
bottle. That's literally how vitamin C
is. So when people are like, Oh my
God, the cut. I have a friend with a skin care
company and she was telling me about, you know, the color
change a little bit in the bottle, but that doesn't mean
it's any less efficacious. And, you know, consumers were
upset about that. Or I know when CE Farula came
out, like the scent is different.
It has a sort of burnt scent to it and people really upset
hypochloris. My hypochloris spray, we got so
many messages. It has like a a scent to it.
You know, how do I know that it's not spoiled?
I'm like, that's how you know, the hypochloris is active.
And by the way, I spent a lot of money on that component and
formulation so that you'd have a three months shelf life with
your hypochloris. Please don't hate it.
It just means that it's working. So it's I feel like now
consumers have become so demanding, but almost about the
wrong things. And I hesitate to say it as a
founder, I don't think y'all are picky like stay picky, stay
cognizant, but care about the right things.
And so I'll tell you we we're going to launch our minis and we
sold out on pre-order, which I wasn't expecting, which is
great. Also a terrible problem if
you're a founder because inventory.
Like you want. That stresses me out more than I
have a story about that. But if we are talking, I was
like, OK, well we'll just I was like stop advertising it, pull
the ads like let's just fill the pre-order.
And then in filling the pre-order sales, we realized
that the mini cuticle component was cracking.
And I was like I can't, I can't. And we got every opinion across
like they won't know by the time it's not every component.
And I was like, I cannot sell a brand at a luxury price point
and know that a component isn't great and sell it.
So I was like, sell them the full to send them the full size.
Leave that pocket empty. We'll figure it out.
So right now I have like, sorry for all the pending for you.
I feel bad. I apologize, but I was like,
send him a message from the founder.
I'm just not going to do that. Something shitty in your hands
and I will make it up to you. I'm sending you the full size in
the meantime, or like we have some that I'm literally waiting
on this new component to make sure that it's not.
And they were like, OK, can we send an e-mail?
We'll send it out. I'm like, no, I need to have it
in my hand. I need to know that it's not
leaking. I need to know that it's not
cracking. Then I will send it out.
And if not, then you all will send an e-mail next week that
you sent them the full size and that that is going to be empty
in the box because I cannot. But I know we're, I know we're
getting angry emails. What happened to our And I was
very honest. I was like, you don't need to
lie to them. You can tell them I had an issue
with the component. I don't want to send something
faulty. Send them a 15% off coupon and I
will come back to them with an answer.
But it's the onslaught of anger is like, man, y'all really don't
give us space or time to be a small company and to figure
things out. Like, we're really doing our
best here. I've done customer service many
times and I continue to like dig in there and we have an amazing
team right now. But I give them so much credit
when one of the things that we do in our Monday morning
meetings as we go through and we have like ACX rundown and yeah,
I think it's so important. I think the biggest thing you
can do is just like that over communication.
Like we always think at our company like there's just no
limit to how much you can share. And I think having that
integrity. So any doubt that I have, and
this is after, you know, years and years of creating a product,
if I feel that there's like the slightest bit of like, oh, you
know what? I think it just kind of, if I
use it too much, it burns. That is like you have to think
that whatever minor thing that has occurred in your head is
going to be blown up like 50 times in the real world because
we often want to think and entrepreneurs want to think,
I'll be fine. Like it's not going to happen.
It just happened to be this one time.
I'm gonna make all these excuses in my head.
Oh, it's because I use this other product.
You know what? You'll turn a 10,000 or $100,000
loss into something much bigger. Into something so much more.
It is just never worth it. It's always best and that's why
we like to have backups and we're working on that of like,
OK, if this product launch somehow, you know, we're you
know, we're working like a year in advance and if six months
down the line and we don't use any pre made formulas like we
are taking everything from scratch.
So there's there are times where something may not work and we
have to pull. So we need another product.
So we're trying to get to that place.
But one of the things that I want to share that we did is
we're talking about sellouts and our sunscreen for the Sephora
savings event was going crazy. And this was at a time where and
even if we didn't need the sales, I would have probably
done this, but we really needed to prove to Sephora that we had
the power and that we could sell units.
And so we did this, you know, huge campaign and people we had,
we had paid influencers to talk about the sunscreen.
So we had all this like paid spend behind it and it went out
of stock on like the third day. And we were like.
OK. This is like our number 2 skew
and like all this effort that we've made is now going to go in
the trash. So we found the, the DC's, the
distribution centers. We found there was one in
Nevada. The COO rented a van and he
drove with the with his demand planner.
The two of them took a road trip.
They drove to our our warehouse. They packed it with all these
boxes. This is before even getting the
PO from Sephora and they went all the way to Vegas.
They got there and we got a message from Sephora being like,
you know what? We submitted the PO for
replenishment, but it's not going to drop until. 24 hours.
So they stayed there that night. The next day they found a way of
printer labeled all these boxes and they walked it right into
their DC and had it not hit in that moment that was like a
Friday of the sales event, we would have missed like 60 K of
sales or something. And at the end of the entire
savings event, that 60K, it was like how much we were up and
like, what they were so happy like about.
And without this like entire production, you know, if someone
could easily say like, Oh yeah, you didn't do a good enough job
demand planning. Let's focus on that.
And just, like, cry about. It solve the problem and then
you can play Monday morning quarterback later.
Well, I just felt like the team, I'm so proud of them.
Like, yes, maybe they could have demand plan a little bit better,
but I actually think that's like pointless and nobody's going to
be 100%. And the skill that they showed,
which is I will solve the problem.
I'll do whatever it takes. I will take a road trip on a
random Wednesday and go to Vegas to make this happen.
And that's on being a female founder.
Yeah. And that's how we're going to
end. Thank you so much for joining us
on Inside Thoughts Out Loud.