She Escaped Communism, Reinvented Nail Polish, and Sold for a Billion Dollars

28:23and honestly when I went back there was only one question asked where can we buy it because the key was to give enough time for the nail technician to form the nail before it hardens from the oxygen in the air because if it was to the cure was too quick she didn't have and then she can file till the cows come home uh to to shape that nail nicely that the customer can walk out but if she has enough time and the powder is very fine, then she can shape it and minimal filing. And as you can know, time is money. And if she can do two customers an hour or one customer every hour, as opposed to two hours, I don't need to tell you how much money, more money she can take home.

29:14And he was a huge employer of single women. Nail technicians. Nail technicians. So it's really a great opportunity. So you're on the front lines, right? You're the one interacting with all of these nail salons. Yes, because my brother-in-law continued to keep the dental supply business in case this doesn't succeed. Of course. There's a backup plan here. But are you going back? Is he seeing it the same way you are? Like, are you going back and you're like, listen, they're saying how quickly can we - Forget the dental supply. Although I have to ask the question. Okay. Like, so now you have some traction, but the company name is so, I mean, Odontorium Products, Inc.

29:55So that was the parent company of Davis Dental Supply. So Odontorium, Odonto in Latin has to do with the mouth. Sure. Yeah. So we didn't have any marketing. So we took OPI. And actually, the first trade show that we did in Long Beach, California, which was like a huge beauty show, we all wore buttons. Of course, my brother-in-law had to have the biggest button. Okay, of course. What's OPI? So everybody in the show is asking, what's OPI? What's OPI? Amazing. Okay. So it wasn't like some creative name. It was pretty boring, actually. But it was working. Exactly. You had to figure it out. It was different because everybody was super nail, creative nail, something nail.

30:38And we were OPI. Yeah. So take us into the room at that first trade show. You show up. There are many incumbents in the space. It's not like you guys. There's a whole industry around. We actually shared a space with West Coast Beauty Supply. Oh, my God. I can't believe I remember everything. Now, ask me how I got here. I have zero idea five minutes ago. But as you get older, I remember. So this is perfect to do the interview. Yeah, take us into the trade show. So we shared a booth because we didn't have enough money to pay for a whole booth. And so we shared it with West Coast Beauty Supply. And we set up our little products, the rubber band special, and of course, also individual products.

31:18And we had only certain sizes. And then we kind of expanded to files and polish remover, a little bit of products that a professional nail technician would need to use in a salon. because the key is for her to buy everything OPI so that her table, you know, OPI products is prominent, not just one. But what's super nail in these competitors? Like, they're seeing you there. People are presumably gravitating towards your booth because you've invented something that the market wants. Are they nervous? What do they do with threats at this point? They're not really nervous because they think... You're a joke.

31:53Yeah. Yeah, because you're not polished. I mean, they have perfect packaging and you have a rubber band. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So nobody's, you know, pretty nervous, but we're like cool people. We're nice. We're nice to everybody. I mean, we love competition always because it only makes you better. As long as you're number one. Yes. Yes. Competition is always very important. You don't want to be single in any industry. And your brother-in-law, was he also into this the way you were? Yes. He's a funny guy. I mean, humor, and I'm pretty funny, too. Yeah, Eastern European Jews tend to have this interesting, dark humor that we love.

32:34You know, you just said something that most people would think the opposite on. Competition is good. Tell us more about that. Because most people think, oh, I don't want competitors. In fact, they're guarded. They're nervous about it. Why is competition good? I think competition, it makes you only better. I mean, you always have to be one step ahead of the competition. And that pushes you. That, you know, makes you do research, makes you do better. How am I going to be number one? And in many ways, whether it's product, whether it's how to evacuate a product, for example, or how to market things, how to get to that consumer.

33:13And we also had, by the way, an interesting idea is we wanted the consumer to ask for OPI when she went into a salon. We were the first one to advertise in consumer magazines. My brother-in-law, George, went to the bathroom with the publisher of InStyle when InStyle magazine came out. We were in the first issue, and he wrote something on a toilet paper, a five-year contract. Wow. We always believed in long-term. Yes. I mean, he did, and I also. my whole life when i invest when you know in the business you always think of long term because it takes some time to sure sure historically though when people were going when women at that point were going to nail salons they weren't asking for any brand they were just saying do my nails exactly if the nail technician was good and you got a good service that you really ask what product you used?

34:11Not really. So how this whole thing started is, you know, I see all of a sudden Starbucks. Now, I think coffee, I love coffee, coffee with black, with something white. And you have a cup of coffee, simple. You make it at home, drip, drip, drip. But my daughter, who's now 32, and she wants Starbucks because all her friends want Starbucks. So I said, Starbucks? What is that? Mom, you don't understand. It's so great. So I go to Starbucks and I see a line and I hear people asking for coffee. They want one shot, two shot, foam, no foam. And this is like not even English to me. Like they're speaking a different language.

34:56And I am like, they're making coffee personal and they stay here. Like, wow. So when it was my turn, I quickly went to the end of the line to hear more. And then I went back to the office and I said, George, you're not going to believe it. There's this place called Starbucks and people ask for their coffee to be personal. We need to make nail polish personal to women. It was before, you know, a number and a color, like more of number 36. It was not personal. And then we thought about it. We both went to Starbucks and we listened more and then we looked at nail polish in salons and we see that it's ugly, ugly bottle cap.

35:44Again, it's like no personality. You know, you would call us disruptors and later on that was kind of a buzzword but you know, we kind of changed the industry and we wanted, we said, wow, this is so boring. We can make this personal, fun, exciting, sexy. And if I ask, you know, I meet women still and they find out who I am. So I said, oh no, please, it's okay. People can recite 10, 15 names. Well, I'll tell you something interesting. So, you know, just to kind of go off script for a second, you know, the reason that Dave and I love entrepreneurs and Jewish entrepreneurs, this whole show is a celebration of it.

36:24But it was my wife, Lindsay, who said that you and I have to speak, that we have to interview Susie from OPI. And we began to do research, and as we did more research, it became obvious that you 100 % need to be on the show. And I said to Lindsay, I was like, what are your favorite colors? And she said, two, let's be friends in Cajun shrimp. And I kid you not, I said to her, I was like, you say Cajun shrimp? She said, yes, Cajun shrimp is my favorite one for her toes, she says. She loves Cajun shrimp for her toes. The fact that you have a product, Susie, called Cajun shrimp in an industry that historically was red number three, you know, white number five.

37:04That to me is back to what Dave said earlier. That is not just innovative disruptive. That is real creativity. And the fact that you kind of pulled that from Starbucks is incredible. Absolutely. And the reason we have Cajun shrimp is because there's two things AT OPI THAT WE LOVE THE MOST, TO EAT, NUMBER ONE, BECAUSE WE'RE JEWISH. TRUMP. YOU WANT TO DRINK. I SAID, WHERE'S THE FOOD? AND SECOND, AND SECOND TO TRAVEL. SO WE CAME UP WITH THESE GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS. WE WANT TO TAKE THE CONSUMER AND THE NAIL TECHNICIAN TRAVELING WITH US ALL AROUND THE world, eating the best food, seeing the greatest, meeting the cities, the geographic locations, the beach, the ocean, everywhere we went, we wanted her to come with us.

37:57Because sometimes you can travel. And, you know, when you get your nails on, I always said it's psychoanalysis. Now your nail technician knows everything about you. The boyfriend, the husband, everything. I don't do my nails, but I've heard that my wife's nail technician knows more about my life than just about anybody else. So I think that's absolutely accurate. Nail technician and hairdresser. And hairdresser, that's right. There's one called, I love this. Instead of red number three, you called it, I'm not really a waitress. No, I'm not really a waitress, and I even wrote a book. I know, that's the name of your book.

38:29That's right. Just so the listeners understand, what's so remarkable about this is English is your third language. And my understanding is you were involved in creating and marketing all of these different creative names and shades and really taking what was so basic and plain and turning it into this means of self-expression. Like, you know, your first language is Hungarian and Hebrew and then English. So, I mean, how did that, you know, how did that happen? So, the name. So, as I mentioned, food and travel. So we would have collections, seasonal collections named after cities or countries or special geographic areas.

39:13And we would have a naming meeting where we sat in the large conference room at OPI in North Hollywood. And there was always food that was representative of that country, cities, because we always have to have food. and we would invite people who were clever with names. So Georgia, myself, and then we would have Susan Pfeffer. I remember she actually worked at the shipping department, somebody from customer service. Oh, you would pull different people from across the company. Right. So we would, and there would always be a guest. So there was the core group. And then there would always be from marketing, from the creative, from, as I said, shipping, customer service, et cetera.

39:55And then a guest. And the guests, but only from the company, because these were like big secret how it's done. And we would sit eight, 10 hours to come up with a dozen names for a collection. So I would create the colors and that would start first. Look at trend predictors out of Milan and Paris, which predict trends, not just color trends, but societal trends. everything, because really fabrics, textures, patterns, all that mattered. You know, I always started, if I had the first color in the collection, then that was it. I got it. That first color was always, and they were memorable colors. I'm not really a waitress, for example, from the Hollywood collection.

40:39Lincoln Park after dark. Lincoln Park after dark from Chicago. Yeah. And Cajun shrimp from New Orleans. That's right, yeah. Or Russian Navy. Yeah. By the way, I asked Lindsay before the interview what's the one thing she wanted to know. She paused and she goes, I want to know what Susie's favorite nail of color is. My favorite nail color equals the most dollar signs. Whatever sells the most is your favorite. I love it. I mean, that is the most big shot line ever. I love it. Yeah, of course you do. It's my favorite color. That's your favorite color. That's right, yeah, yeah. You know, you can just almost imagine, right, all these competitors of yours, when it comes to naming schemes, it's probably some dude, some guy saying, oh, call it like Blue Sky, Blue Four.

41:28Exactly. Call it whatever. And then you're sitting there for eight to 10 hours pulling people from across the company, brainstorming these brilliant colors that, you know, this is in the 80s now. We're talking 30, 40 years later. My wife is still able to rattle off 15 colors like that. From the France collection, a color called You Don't Know Jack Shit become You Don't Know Jacques. Ah, I like that. That's good. That's very good. I mean, it's brilliant. I love that. I don't know Jack Shit and You Don't Know Jacques. And it was one of that revolutionary color or Linkin Park after dark. It was in the front page of the New York Times.

42:09We read the article. It's amazing. Because goth became mainstream, where these dark shades all of a sudden could be worn by anybody. You know, before, only if you were kind of that goth person. You were black or Linkin Park after dark, which is that dark, almost eggplant-ish black color. And now it was chic to wear for anybody. And year-round, colors became year-round. Yeah, I mean, you took nail color and made it fashion in a way no one else ever had. But what surprised me tremendously was you also had these corporate partnerships like Dell and with car companies. When did you guys realize that nail color could actually influence other purchases?

42:55Like the car you buy could, you know, your nail polish. Could come in Lincoln Park after dark. Yeah. You know, Hollywood, movies. And, you know, you always have to think out of the box. I tell young people, think out of the box. You know, if you think you have a crazy idea, explore it before you say, oh, no, it's not going to work. And went to the movie industry. You know, everybody wanted the female audience. I'll bring you James Bond. I'm a huge James Bond fan, by the way. and so Skyfall. I went to London to present to Barbara Broccoli and the team and I was there with Omega Watch, Pepsi. Aston Martin probably was there too.

43:45Yeah, Aston Martin, of course. And people always look down on me. Oh, the nail polish ladies here. Now, fuck you. And that champagne dude who didn't want to speak to me, whatever the champagne is, Of course, afterwards, he invited me. Oh, you got to come to my family's vineyard. I'm like, leave me alone. And then the best part was to me was a revenge, is that they put two raspberries in the champagne at night when we went to the cocktails. And you never do that, I guess. For high-end champagne. He almost had a heart attack. Good, perfect. And I was like, yes, perfect. So when I presented to Barbara Broccoli, So I went after lunch.

44:27So I was so nervous. I was like shaking. I was so nervous. And when I went up there, you know, I had passion. I presented, like the guy from Pepsi probably worked for Coke the week before. Yeah. And so I presented to the passion. They weren't founders, right? They weren't founders of these things. They were just corporate. They were executives. They were hired guns. And then she said, oh my God, do we have integration in the movie? And the guy, I backed him for six months, integration, integration. Of course, Barbara, integration. and I sat at her table for dinner. So, you know, you do everything with the passion.

45:03I believed in this. I did those colors. We named those. I mean, not myself, all of them, but I was one of them. We did this, and when I went up there, it was like nothing, and I was so good. You know, sometimes when I'm on, I'm good. We've done 25-odd interviews now, and it's interesting I've listened to you, and it's an incredible story. You know, when you say, I believed in this, I don't think people realize, when you say I believed in this, like, this is how many years in the making. Well, it's interesting. So you moved to Los Angeles in 1981. By 1987, OPI is now the number one nail polish brand in America.

45:39In the professional. In that category. Yes. In that category. But, like, that is, you know. That's actually pretty quick. That's quicker than most of our guests. Six years to go from a young entrepreneur moving from New York to LA to go work with her brother-in-law in a dental supply company, figures out this creative way to present it and this new technology, and then 87, the number one brand for professional salons. That's unbelievable, Susie. Are you guys feeling on top of the world? You have to take care of the people that work for you, the reps. I mean, we believe, and that's very, very important.

46:16And, you know, this was our American dream, but we made many other people's dream come true. Meaning you made the people that worked with you rich too? No question. You know, the company culture is very, very important. And people don't realize it. You know, we sold the company, but the new owners didn't realize how important a culture is of what happens to a company. And we, for example, you became an American citizen, you got a$500 bond. July 4th, everybody got$250 bonus. You know, during Christmas time, depending on your job description or what you did for the company. But everybody always, you know, we took everybody on that ride with us.

47:05And also very, very charitable. I mean, Tzedakah and Tikkun Olam was how I was brought up, my brother-in-law, and OPI as a company. Yeah. I mean, we did many, many things. You know, we gave loans, never charged interest to all our... We had 700 employees at the end when we sold the company. You know, people got loans, people needed money, you know, and very, very family-oriented. We had a cafeteria, for example, and we subsidized. So everybody ate a hot meal at least once because sometimes people couldn't. So it's very, for me, that's very important. It's amazing because so 87, as I said, number one nail brand for professional salons.

47:50By the year 2000, so fast forwarding 13 years here, you are now in over 100 countries. In my mind, cue the upbeat music from like 87 to the year 2000. Was that what it was? Was the 90s for you the glory days of OPI where things just started to go your way? Or did it feel like a consistent grind? Only the first million is the hardest to do. Yeah. After that, things start to move. Things start to move. But you guys had a big setback. I mean, you launched Lipstick, and I think it was a real—it didn't go well. Lipstick was a huge setback. And I always say, if you make a mistake, the biggest, as quickly as possible, admit your mistake, do a recall and move on.

48:37But take us back to that time. I mean, you know, we wanted to expand our footprint in salons and beauty supply stores. So, you know, we have the collections. You had distribution at that point. And distribution. We have reps and we had manufacturers reps, repping us all over the country. And then one day we decided that we were growing and we really needed to have our own reps. And we continued to pay our reps for one extra year after we let them go. Nobody did that in the industry. So you got great reps, presumably. Unbelievable. And then we hired our own sales team. and I forgot what I was saying.

49:22Lipstick. Oh, lipstick, sorry. So we wanted to grow our footprint in the salons and in beauty supply stores, so natural. Lipsticks in those days, in the 90s, you would match your lipstick to your nail lacquer. Today, that's no. But it was at that time, so we come out with lipstick, except we didn't do enough homework that lipsticks can, what it's called, bloom when you see those sweat marks on the lipsticks part in heat. And we were shipping it in the summer in a UPS truck. In Los Angeles? From Los Angeles. Big mistake. So a mistake happens. Millions of lipsticks are out in the market. Do a quick recall, bring it all back, and issue credits and move on.

50:15I tell this to young people, if you make a mistake, admit it. You know, when you start to skirt around a problem, never really, be honest, especially in today's world, in the world of, at that time, social media starting, you need to be honest and admit a mistake and then move on. And we did, we recalled it, and we were forgiven. And you didn't go back into lipstick. They were like, that's not our game. It's not for us. It wasn't for us to, you know, do what you do best. Sometimes it's better. I think that's remarkable because most companies, often where it starts to fall apart is they forget what they're all about.

50:58They lose the what we stand for. They become everything to everyone as opposed to one thing to a particular type of person that is beloved. Yeah. So when do you know? I mean, here on the one hand, you guys are so driven and resilient and committed and you believe in it. Right. And you go all in on on nail nail color and polish. But then lipstick, you try it once and you and you stop. You're like, we're not doing that. You know, like when how do you know when to give up and when to just keep pushing through? Well, you learn quickly because the complaints come and, you know, they want to return it.

51:35and then the distributor says, what's going on at OPI? I mean, we were so always, you know, everything was great. And then this was a huge mistake. And we admit it. You admit the mistake and you bring it back and you issue credits and you move on as quickly as possible. And that's what we did because try to talk around it or skirt around it. Not the right thing. Not your style. It's right. It doesn't work. I mean, it really doesn't. And, again, it was an expensive mistake, especially at that time. But, you know, you move on and make up the sales as soon as possible. How did those days feel for you?

52:19I mean, you know, you've built this empire based on courage and color and chutzpah, and you're doing what George. And sense of humor. And humor, too, certainly. I mean, it's clear across all your stories. But what did that feel like? I mean, before you sold, we'll talk about the sale to Cote, I think, which happened in the 2000s. But let's talk just about how are you feeling now? Here you are. You grew up in an apartment with another family in communist Hungary. As a refugee, you then get into Israel and then eventually make it to the U.S. Your father is working presumably 60 hours a week your entire life.

52:58Now you're in Beverly Hills. Now you're in L.A. and you are pretty well known, maybe almost famous. You are successful. You have money. How did you kind of, like, how did you, how did the success sit with you? You know, I'm not, like, I kind of who I am. I am. I was never, I don't know how to explain it. I went to work every day and I love what I did. So in that sense, I was extremely lucky. I love to go to work. When I dropped my kids off at school, I'm like, yes. Bye-bye. Yes, bye-bye. It's time for me to go do my thing. My kids always said, Mom, why are we always the last ones to be picked up?

53:42I said, be happy I'm here. I could have left you. Well, you have another child, which is the business. Exactly. So you enjoyed it. You enjoyed the craft, the building, the team. How did you enjoy the... Did you still feel... Like, was there a sense of scarcity? or did you feel abundance at that point? Always scarce. I mean, this comes from my background, I think. It comes from all of our backgrounds. I mean, we all sort of believe we have this, like, multi-generational scarcity mindset that no matter how much we do and build and have, we don't have enough. And we're always kind of worried about, like, you know, back to the whispering in the apartment in Hungary.

54:19Who's listening? Are they going to come and get us? Right. You know, how did... So that never went away for you? Never. It never... I mean, as I mentioned, my mommy always closed the shades. I'm like, Mom, please stop closing the shades. We're in L.A. Like, no one's coming to get us. Don't close at night. No, we have to. I said, Mom, there's no more sun. The sun went down. Do not close the shades. Yeah. And, you know, those things never leave you, you know. Sometimes speaking quietly. I'm like, we don't need to whisper. My kids sometimes say, Mom, why are you whispering? I'm like, oh, you're right.

54:53Sorry, that's the lizard brain, right? from generations of having to whisper. Although in your case, it did sound like there was a moment where you really felt you had made it, where there was a moment of success when you guys got into Walmart. Oh my God, yes. How did that happen? So Walmart wanted us. So we come out with the OPI is a professional product and the nail lacquer also is professional. So it's all B2B, it's all wholesale. Right, and to beauty distributors, supply stores. But comes Sephora and Sephora is very successful and they want OPI and others other such chains and we said we need to come up with Nicole by OPI which is my niece, George's daughter so for her bat mitzvah we came Nicole by OPI It's quite a bat mitzvah gift.

55:51Yeah, that kind of became the secondary line that could go into different places. Because Walmart came calling on us, but we had to do Nicole by OPI only. And why is that? Because were you worried about jeopardizing the relationship with the professionals? Correct, the professional product. I mean, once Amazon, all that was gone. But before Amazon, pre-Amazon, there were still the professional. and then the retail products. And so do you fly down to Bentonville, Arkansas? I went to Arkansas. Oh, my God. Yeah. A Hungarian girl in Arkansas. I mean, who could have imagined? I said, I made it in America.

56:33Oh, my God. I go to Walmart. I was so excited. If you can make it in Arkansas, you can make it anywhere. Exactly. So you get that... What was that first purchase order from Walmart like? Was that unbelievable? Unbelievable. Yeah, it was crazy. We went to Walmart. I mean, yeah, like I made it in America. And you see it in Bentonville. All these companies have headquarters in Bentonville. Was your dad around when you got into Walmart? Yeah. Like you see all these companies. I mean, and then you have to sign in. Yeah, of course. I've been there. It's wild. And then you see the buyer. And she was super nice, which I really...

57:11Because she probably knew of OPI from her own nail salons. Yes. So she was very, very nice. And I appreciated that. And did you have the same colors or was it different colors? Different colors. Specifically for Nicole By Opi. It was different colors and that was when in Target or so. And you didn't want to have the same brand going up market and down market at the same time. Right. So that was the. And so the customer had no idea that Opi was behind the brand that's in Walmart. No, it said Nicole By Opi. Nicole By Opi. Yes. And that was fine. You know, different colors, still a great formula.

57:47it's something to be that, you know, we weren't like crazy about doing that because we really were committed to the professional, the professional industry. And we love that industry. I mean, we love the OPI, the distributors, the professional distributors, all family oriented businesses all over the country. I mean, it was amazing. I mean, super nice people and very generational. on. Yeah. It's interesting that you describe family businesses as amazing because I come from family businesses too in my past and they sometimes weren't so amazing. They're very dynamic. There's a lot of creativity that comes out of them, but it can be very difficult to separate Rosh Hashanah dinner.

58:28And you and George clearly had, now at some point, George and your sister also divorced. Right. So how did all like, tell us about the dynamic with George and your sister and all that. So we were a very close, tight-knit family. So you, your husband, George, and your sister? Right. So I got married late. I was 35 when I got married. And I'm married 34 years in December. Wow. I have to think about that. Wow. It goes so fast. But my sister got married when she was young. You know, it was a different almost generation. Sure. Six years difference between my sister and I. So it's almost a little bit different generation.

59:08And very close-knit family. George, only child. Super nice to my parents. My parents love him. Like a son, his parents are also, you know, Hungarian. And it was just, it was great until, sadly, it wasn't. Did that change the business dynamic when George and your sister divorced? In the beginning, you know, there's all that anger. And then when everybody comes down and realizes the importance of business and what we built, and then, you know. And you went back to working with George after the divorce? Yes. I worked with George, and then we decided to. To sell the business. To sell the business.

59:52And why we sold the business, you know, there comes a time where you have to make one more. You know, we saw the industry somewhat changing. You know, all these small mom and pop generational businesses were, you know, big, big players were coming into the professional industry. So you really have to make a decision of the direction that the next direction that you want to take. So there is some, you know, the family dynamic is a little bit broken, kind of shuffled. You know, the pieces are not so nice and tightly together. You're not organized anymore. You like everything organized. You're no longer so organized.

1:00:34It's messy. One of the hardest things in a family business is bringing in outside talent. You know, how did that, you guys obviously crossed into that threshold where this was much bigger than you and George, and you needed to bring in talent. In the beginning, very difficult. Oh, my God. You know, you want to hold on to everything, and you think you can do everything. And then when you realize you have a nice talk in Hungarian, because George and I spoke in Hungarian, We didn't want to. Screaming at each other. But when nicely we explained to each other in Hungarian that if you want to go from level one to level two, three, four, we really needed to grow up.

1:01:12Grow up and need other people because we cannot do this. There's only 24 hours in a day and you can only do so much. And some people do things better than you. And that's a huge lesson when you're a small entrepreneurial business to learn that, wow. I can get help. People can help me. I can get, I don't have to do everything myself. You know, one of the things that I read in our research was that you went from, you know, filling these, you know, nail polish containers by hand to eventually signing a check by hand for a billion dollars to sell OPI to Coteet. Can you walk us through what that day felt like for you selling?

1:01:53I mean, on two levels. One level, you know, selling your baby, one of your babies. But the second, again, poor kid from, you know, communist Hungary signing a check for a billion dollars. Very emotional. I'm about to cry. Yes, it was amazing. From where I come from, you know, when we lived in the small village, it was the outhouse. And I always had dreams of falling in. into the hole. A terrible dream. Yeah. So from the outhouse to a billion dollar check, I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah. And, you know, it really shows you work hard. You're honest. You treat your people. That's to us was always very, very important.

1:02:42How we treated the people at OPI and and our from our workers who worked in the factory, in the office to the to the distributors. I mean, OPI was always a special company. We had these trade shows in Las Vegas. We had parties for them. We had, you know, gifts. I mean, it was just, we were different. You know, I always treated people nicely. And I think that always comes back. You know, you're good to people. It really comes back. I mean, that's how I grew up. You give, you get. I mean, tzedakah was always a huge part of my life, my business. At certain times, I could only give$5, then$5 ,000, and maybe$50 ,000, and et cetera.

1:03:33So those things are very important. The core values that, you know, I was very lucky because even though my parents were Holocaust survivors and really went through a lot, but they were very kind and very loving people. sometimes, you know, with all the horrors that these people went through, sometimes giving love was difficult. We've seen that where it hardens you, where you don't feel like you can have joy in your life because of what you saw. But my sister and I, it wasn't the case for us. You grew up in a wonderful home, a supportive home. And a sense of humor. My dad was especially a dry sense of humor.

1:04:10Of course. I mean, how could you not, given what he went through here? So you signed the check that day from Cody, billion dollar check. Well, hold on. I mean, for a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, that moment obviously is amazing and you just described it, but for a lot of entrepreneurs, the day after that is actually not amazing. Yeah. So what happens? There's a loss of identity, right? Like you're no longer in the company. That's what I mean. You call it a baby. What was that like? So yes, you know, you get a lot of money and that's wonderful. But you already had money at this point. I mean, you'd already done well.

1:04:37We had a very nice lifestyle, but you know, we kept all the money in the business all the time. So all of a sudden, this was a time to kind of take business out. I mean, money out. Was that your first liquidity event, true liquidity event? Yes. Wow. Because you could have taken out big liquidity events. You could have brought outside investors, done a secondary. There were mechanisms to do that. You never did that. Never did that. But now the story is - Because we're control freaks. Right. You don't want anyone to have a vote. You don't want a board of directors. I assume the board up until the acquisition was you and George.

1:05:09Bingo. That's it? That's it. Wow. Wow. One of the greatest companies in your industry on the planet. Two people. Two people. And how that was happening. We screamed at each other in Hungarian, and then whoever screamed louder that... And Hungarian, you know, I grew up hearing screams. The Hungarian yelling, it's like... Visceral. It's rough, right? It's like, I remember my... You know, the swear words are horrible. Like the Hungarian dialect and voice inflection. It's not a romantic language. It's not a romantic language. It is Eastern European, right? It's tough. Very. So the day after. How do you hear about the day after?

1:05:51So the day after is very hard. I go to the office very early. And actually, the chairman of the board of Cody comes in. And it's like 7 o 'clock. And I'm by myself in the office. and this man picks in and he said, hello, hello. And then he says, well, can I come in? I said, well, if you tell me who you are, maybe you can come in. And that was the chairman of the board. He just gave you a billion dollars. I'm the man who just gave you a billion dollars. Come on in. Come on in. He's right. Anyway, it was super nice. And it was very, very difficult. But things pretty much stayed as is. They wanted us to stay and to continue the business.

1:06:43Did you have an earn out? I'm sorry? Did you have an earn out? I mean, did you contract to stay? You and George, you had to stay as part of the deal? So we didn't, we contracted for one year only. They wanted five. I mean, not with George because, you know, he didn't know how he was going to, and I didn't either. First, I said, I'm leaving. Friday, I said to Renato, I don't want to stay. I'm leaving. And then Monday, I mean, this was before the final sale, I said, I changed my mind. I'm sad. Yeah, I thought about it on the weekend. And it's like, what am I going to do? And I have a family at this time and everything.

1:07:23But this was my life. It was my identity. So anyway, we're there. And we're, he comes in. and very nice people. I mean, they were super nice. And they let us run the company. No interference. Wow. Then comes the accounting department. They're the first ones to kind of take things over. Yeah, they want to know, what are these lunches we're doing? Yeah. What are these, like, what are these parties we're throwing? Why do we need 30 colors? Can we not do it with 10? Yeah. That, you know, for me, I was better able to handle than George. He stayed one more year and then he left. I stayed because I was, you know, I kind of knew I had to give up for that and was only handling, you know, doing some of the creative parts.

1:08:20And then slowly less and less. I mean, I'm still involved, you know, with the company, kind of year to year doing some PR and things like that. Was there a moment you realized the business isn't yours anymore? Yes. When that guy came in, the chairman, and he introduced himself, and I'm like, oh, shit. Okay, Susie, you need to calm down and, you know, be really nice. Be really nice. And this is what we, I mean, it was the right decision in my mind, in my heart, never. Still now, when I go to, you know, the offices of OPI in Calabasas now, it's still, you know, I love it. But people are super nice.

1:09:15And they've continued to build the brand. I mean, OPI is still quintessential. It is still, you know, most people, most of the time, if they get the choice to choose a product in a professional setting, they choose OPI. They choose Odontorium Products Incorporated. It's amazing you never change the name to like something more like, you know, you hear like, I know some of the other companies that Cody has purchased. They're, you know, it's Kylie Cosmetics. It's, you know, it's very, very different now. But there is this quintessentialness to the product. But when you look back, obviously, you wrote the book, I'm Not Really a Waitress, and you wanted to tell your story.

1:09:54When you look back on what you've built here, obviously, you probably couldn't expect it to grow the way it did. But are you surprised that you became sort of the godmother of the modern professional nail polish industry? Like, you are Susie. You are a thing. It's remarkable. Like, are you surprised? Surprised, and I never really... You know, when a collection was successful, I was already on to the next collection, and how do I make it better? Meaning you never enjoyed that moment of, okay, we're doing well. It was always the next thing. It was always the next thing, and in my mind, that's just kind of how I am.

1:10:41Like, George was much more, you know, enjoyed. Right, yeah. And I was... You didn't go to the award ceremonies. No. George Wentz. Yeah. What's next for you, Susie? For me next, I mean, I'm a grandmother. That's amazing. What do they call you? Najmama? Oh, very good. Nani. Nani. That's very nice. My father is Poppy. But Najmama and, you know, I don't know a lot of Hungarian, but I grew up hearing the Hungarian language in the house. And my grandfather sold eggs at a farmer's market his whole life after they left Debratan. And in a similar vein, there is his work ethic. He never really talked about it.

1:11:23He never said, I'm working really hard. It was just sort of the way you did it. And it was based on his life up until that point. It was based on the survival that he had. It was based on taking care of the family. It's this remarkable resilience. And George Schaeffer also, you know, he came in 1956 because they lived there. He and his parents, an only child, who was my sister's husband. so they went over to Austria. Extremely hard workers. I mean, we had this huge work ethic, and I just never, you know, now I'm enjoying life. My husband is a physician, but he also, he now teaches at the VA through UCLA.

1:12:10And his, it's an interesting, just to digress a little bit, interesting story. His brother-in-law was killed in Vietnam. He was an Orthodox rabbi. And his plane was shot out of the sky on a Friday. So my husband always worked at the VA. She's a nephrologist, a kidney specialist. And he's from Guatemala. After the war, from Czechoslovakia, they ended up in Guatemala because they couldn't come to the U.S. So that's where he grew up and then came to America. And it's crazy what, you know, the life that I live from, where I come from. Sometimes, you know, now that I have time to look back. Yeah. And, you know, all the fear when I was growing up and close the shades.

1:13:06Don't say anything. I remember when in fourth grade, when they asked me, is it true that you're Jewish? And I'm like, oh, God, now I'm going to be beaten up like crazy. and I shook my head so hard that I thought my head was going to fall off my neck. You don't want anyone to know? No, I'm not. No, no, no. It sounds like you're in a period of self-reflection, but you don't strike me as the retirement type. So now, I mean, I'm really enjoying being a grandma. Everyone keeps saying that. Maybe we should skip the whole parenting. All the grandparents we interviewed say, you know, parents are good, but being a grandparent is.

1:13:38Because we never really had the time. You couldn't enjoy it. Get in the car. Let's go. So, you know, my daughter played tennis. I'm like, Andrea, now let's get this game over quickly. Beat the shit out of that girl. And I need to go back to the office. So I really don't have time for a three-hour game. So try to do this in two hours because I have a meeting. So is it now, is being a grandparent somewhat corrective for having to work? Yes, I'm so nice. Yes. I'm so... You're not tough anymore. I go to school to pick up my grandchildren. I'm there 30 minutes before sitting in the car. Should I not be the first grandma?

1:14:11I love it. And when your kids were growing up, they were the last to be picked up because you were busy building your company. And I told them, say, thank you for picking them up and not leaving them there. I want to wrap up with this, which is that Dave and I talk a lot about this because we both have children. Dave has three kids. My wife and I have two daughters. Our children are growing up in a very different situation than we grew up. Your children grew up in a very different situation than you grew up, very, very different. Your grandchildren even more so. there is a sense that the further we come from those survivors, in particular Holocaust survivors, the further away we go generationally and vintage-wise, that we may lose some of that grittiness.

1:14:54Now, the Holocaust was not the first time in the history of the Jewish people that we were, you know, there was an attempt for us to be annihilated. So there's been this, this has It's happened every couple of generations. But how do you raise children and grandchildren to have the grit that you had, Susie, without having to experience what you did? You are absolutely 1 ,000 % correct that it's actually very scary. But my children still grew up. My mommy was alive, and we were very close. My mom stayed and told the story. And my daughter went to a Jewish high school. My son didn't. He played baseball, so he went to another school.

1:15:38But we told the story, Shabbat dinners. I know sometimes life is busy. We have Shabbat dinner. We had, and now with my grandchildren. Sometimes my son would go to a football game or something in the school after. But we had Shabbat dinner every single Friday. Never miss. I think certain things are not, you can't just let go and say, okay, we'll do it next week or we'll do it next month. Certain things we have to do with our children and grandchildren. I mean, my grandchildren come, they go to a Jewish day school. I think with the times that we have, it's super important, if it's possible, to send them to a Jewish day school.

1:16:27and I see already my grandson who's in kindergarten, you know, learning Hebrew. And we went to this Friday, I went to his school because they get from an older sixth grader, they give a little Torah to the kindergartners. Yeah. And it's so, so important. If you can send them to a Jewish day school, then send them to Sunday school or something. I really believe in the world we live today that it's very, very important. And also, if you can, to keep things at home. My husband goes to shul every day because now he has the time. He closed his practice. He only teaches. He goes to Minyan every day?

1:17:10Every morning. And sometimes, if he can, in the evening. He went to Yeshiva of Central Queens here. So he was sent from Guatemala. Very traditional family. Yes, of course. And then he went to Rambam High School in Los Angeles. and then he went to college and he ended up at Hopkins for his undergraduate medical school and then Vanderbilt, UCLA. So he's been around. But, you know, it's very, very important to give a Jewish education, if at all possible or something, but also to keep things at home. I mean... The Shabbat dinner thing I think is so important. I also wonder how you, you know, on the Jewish side is one thing, but also just on the entrepreneurship side, do you tell your grandchildren the stories of those early days of OPI?

1:18:00Not a little young yet. So, you know, they're six and four. But certainly my children heard it all the time. And they saw it too. They were part of it. You know, so many times when they were little, I said, Mommy, please don't leave. Mommy, please don't leave. And I closed the door and I went. You got in the plane. But, you know, they have an amazing life, and my grandchildren, and I myself, and my husband. I mean, I live my life with gratitude, and I'm super lucky. First to my parents. Sadly, my parents have passed away. But the gratitude that I owe my dad was 55 when he came to America for a better life.

1:18:45To start over. To start over. Did he see your success? Was he able to see it? A little bit. He's there when you got to Walmart. Yes. My dad worked at Wallbound Supermarkets for 10 years. Yeah. From when we came to until he retired. And at the trade show from Long Beach, the trade show, we would bring the cash home. And my dad was the one who counted the money and sorted the dollars, the$5. He loved it. Sure, of course. Well, I mean, his daughter is out there making money. And, you know, it's so crazy that you think about, like, communism created these incredible capitalists. Yes. Somehow, this thing, this way of living, which, frankly, you know, was very difficult, did not talk about ambition or entrepreneurship, created some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the planet.

1:19:41Because you needed strength, right? And strength creates success. Yeah. Unfortunately, though, success, without being deliberate about it, can create weakness, actually, afterwards. What did they say? Hard times create strong people. Strong people create good times. Good times create weak people. I mean, you know the Yiddish word geschäft? No, what is it? Which means doing business. Geschäft? Yeah. I love that. There's always your geschäft. There was always that side geschäft. There was always a little bit of a hustle, a little chutzpah. Exactly. I'm reminded what Harley often says at the end of these interviews, which is, you know, we stand as entrepreneurs, as young Jewish entrepreneurs on the shoulders of giants.

1:20:21And you are one of those giants. I mean, you don't even realize it. But without even knowing it, you've been an inspiration to us. You've been an inspiration to a lot of people listening to this podcast. And it's absolutely remarkable what you've done. And this was a fantastic interview. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you so, so much. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate to be able to tell other young people. You know, I always say if I inspired one person today, I've done good. Inspired many today. And I'm going to finish when I speak to young people and the guy say, oh, God, the nail polish lady is here.

1:20:58Now we can take a nap. And I say, no, do not fall asleep because at the end of my lecture, there is a nail polish. when you go, if you have a girlfriend or a wife, the headache is gone tonight. So pay attention. It's good. You're bribing them with sex. It's very good. That'll be the opening of the episode. Be like, ladies and gentlemen, the nail polish lady, do not fall asleep. Yeah, yeah. If you want to get late tonight, don't fall asleep on this one. This is really, you know, it isn't. Look, we've got a chance to reach some incredible entrepreneurs on the planet. And you were at the top of that list, Susan.

1:21:30What you have built is not only, you know, I said earlier, I'm going to repeat it because I just, I wrote it down, but I said, You made a bottle of polish into a billion-dollar business with courage, color, and chutzpah, and you added one more, which was with humor. And it is so clear that all these people lament and complain about their circumstances. They don't have enough opportunity. They don't know the right people. They don't have the right connections. You grew up in a war-torn place during communism with Holocaust-surviving grandparents. As your parents, you've been— You've never allowed yourself— You've had no advantages, and yet here you are building this empire, changing the industry, and then selling for a billion dollars.

1:22:13It is an honor for us to sit with you. Thank you, Norm. Thank you. It was an honor for me to be here. I really, really enjoyed it. And like we said, sense of humor is a key to getting through life. I totally agree. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. Thank you.