How Carolyn Aronson Built a $500M Haircare Empire, and Changed The Game with It’s A 10 Haircare

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0:31members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS-13 gang member from El Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man. A Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J.

1:10Trump's leadership. I'm Kristi Noem, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over 100 ,000 illegal aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, you're next. You will be fined nearly$1 ,000 a day, imprisoned and deported you will never return but if you register using our cbp home app and leave now you could be allowed to return legally do what's right leave now under president trump america's laws border and families will be protected sponsored by the united states department of homeland security all right welcome back guys yeah yeah yes we have a great conversation ahead of us today we have carolyn arison uh ceo and founder of it's a 10 enterprises so beauty hairline you might be familiar with a guy fat joe and recently nori cali cali and then kelsey yeah kelsey for sure that's a big one and then um what's the model tyson but years and years in the beauty industry has built a beauty empire and i don't know if this is correct or not but i i read where it said 500 million dollars in annual sales and operates in over 107 countries we are up to 125 countries and yeah i would say the sales are you know at least that much at least at least we are privately owned companies so we don't report to anyone but um those are retail retail numbers business is booming yeah congratulations you were named forbes 50 50 over 50.

2:53that's right yeah that was a complete honor congratulations rewind it 10. yep um which aka rewind the time yeah we know that's the slogan right coined by um calet and fat joe yep and now nori's involved with it um kelsey travis kelsey and tyson back for it yeah so that's like the just for men kind of thing right it's a dye for your beard it is it is hair and dye beard that's in a box but it's very different than just for men um we've raised the bar within that category and really have brought um a quality professional italian color to the masses so you know it's just it's the same concept but a little better higher quality yes of course of course it'd be it's all over too i saw it in uh cvs that's right it's all over um all of these beauty yeah i'm going in target about to launch in target so yeah picking up a lot of steam you know we know a thing or two about beards you know we know a thing or two about them just a little bit yeah yeah yeah so first and foremost thank you for joining us appreciate it our pleasure My pleasure.

4:03Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So yeah, so you've built this, this empire in 120 some odd countries and over$500 million in annual sales. But where does it start? Like what's the origin story of you becoming an entrepreneur starting this country? I'm starting this company. And in this country, because we're blessed to be able to do that, right? It's super important that we know we have those freedoms. So I really started as a hairdresser. I've been in the beauty industry for 42 years. And those annual sales are just It's a 10 haircare sales. So I started It's a 10 haircare 18 years ago, after I stood behind the chair for 20 years.

4:43And so really kind of migrated into manufacturing after being a hairdresser and a salon owner. had my first company that completely failed lost everything and took our last few dollars eighty thousand dollars me and my partner forty thousand each and started it sitting hair care with just one bottle because that's all we could afford and we started with the miracle leave-in product which now sells over 11 million bottles a year just in the united states so that particular company really exploded and in 2017 I bought my partner out so I'm the only Latina owned professional hair care brand of my size in the world and really it's just my years of passion for the beauty industry and really looking to raise the bar in many categories I saw you introduce me as it's a 10 enterprises and that's really what's evolved out of all my years of experience is many beauty brands rewind at 10 being one of them and super excited about that one um and so we're working on rewind her 10.

5:49so we're going to just keep going and really bringing you know great things to uh to the consumer and to the professional hairdresser so this is i mean it's an incredible story all right you start as a product and i want to talk about the product the first one right to leave the magical leave-in because as you're creating that product one of the toughest things to do in hair care, especially in beauty, is to market that to the masses. So how did you make this product? How did you know it was the product? And how did you get it into the right people's hands so that people can know about it? So, you know, I think my frustration behind the chair, really looking to create something that was simple, easy to use, multifunctional.

6:31Not only could the hairdresser understand it, but the consumer could understand. It was really what I sought out to do. and in that process obviously getting it into hairdressers hands so we started off within the professional sector Cosmoprof which is owned by Sally Beauty Holdings it's professional distribution center only selling to hair salons so we started off with them with the one bottle only in California God God bless California right now what they're going through I'm super supportive of them we just donated a half million dollars in products because that's where we started And we got it in the hairdresser's hands, gave out free samples, and it just went like wildfire across the United States.

7:10So it was really about, it says 10 things on the back. The names are simple. The colors pop. They're very Latina, bright and, you know, bubbly colors. And it was really just bringing something to the industry that I really felt it needed and really getting it into hairdresser's hands. because that's how brands are built through passion and through that organic really brands that last forever like i mean we're 18 years into this now so um ones that really have legs i'm a strong believer in starting slow and steady up that mountain and so that's you know that's how we started now the name it's a 10 is when we think 10 10 out of 10 is perfection of course is that where the origins are like we're gonna put this product out it's perfection and not only that I actually work with Chemex to develop the formulas, excuse me.

8:00And it was that process when I would say to them, hey, you know what, this is only a six, send it back, do this, do that, add more slip. I wanted to do this. And I kind of created these hybrid products that really became very, very loved throughout society. So that's really where it came from, striving for that 10 always. But sometimes it's a process and realizing that, you know what, Um, you have to work towards that little by little. So when you started, did you have a relationship with the chemists, with the manufacturers, with the wholesalers, or is from your expertise in the beauty industry already, or you just kind of went and figured it out on your own?

8:41Yeah, we figured it out little by little. Um, we made some connections. Um, California is a big hub for a lot of the manufacturing as well. And the beauty industry, a lot of it starts there, but, um, we had made some connections or some other brands and people, the chemists behind them. So we just started working with them. And, you know, I got in deep and got my hands dirty and really worked heavy with the chemists to really create unique products. How'd you market it? You know, as I mentioned, a big part of it obviously was pop of color, unique concept, it's a 10, does 10 things, multifunctional, kind of very eye-catching from the beginning.

9:20but really the marketing in the beginning was mass sampling and that was unusual for then you know they had done it years ago but they'd gotten away from it so we were literally giving out full-size bottles um left and right millions some are probably one of the largest sampling campaigns in the history of the beauty world at one point who are you giving them to so we were giving the hairdressers um and then as we grew and scaled we gave two million bottles to ultra stores across the United States. So we really kind of, and to this day, when we launch in a new country, we give out little two-ounce sample bottles and people get hooked.

9:55Once they use it, it's one of those products, I call it a golden formula within the industry. It is that life-changing to people. And that's how we're able 18 years later, even being knocked off so many times, we've been able to really keep our market share. It's a quality. It's a 10. It's a 10. It's August. So that's part of it. that it's a competitive industry. But you said something very important earlier. You said that you're one of very few Latinos in this space. Yeah. And so when you're starting this, who are you looking to to say like, hey, I can get advice from this person or are you relying on your peers and pretty much your customers as a test space to figure out how you're going to build this?

10:36You know, I think part of it is my years of experience. You know, I touch thousands of heads and use thousands of products. So I kind of have a feeling for really what is what I should bring to market and how But really it is my peers, you know, you have other hairdressers testing them you have, you know consumers testing them it is a whole process and and You know sometimes it's not always perfect There's times when you know what I put a product it out and doesn't do so good, you know And maybe maybe I bring it back to market later I just remarket it marketing is is really important as well and And I think keeping things very simple and easy for people to understand is where I kind of came in the back door.

11:22You know, at the time when I launched the company in 2006, as you mentioned, the market was oversaturated. It was very competitive. I mean, I was up against L 'Oreal, P &G. These are multi-million dollar marketing budgets. And we were like the little train that came from behind and just like, I think I can, I think I can. and really kind of came in the back door through the mass sampling campaigns. So you have the mass sampling campaigns. It's going good. But is that you said your first attempt, you actually ended up failing, right? Yes. So this episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring.

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13:43An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS-13 gang member from El Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man. A Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Kristi Noem, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded. And over 100 ,000 illegal aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, you're next. You will be fined nearly$1 ,000 a day, imprisoned and deported.

14:25You will never return. But if you register using our CBP Home app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, border, and families will be protected. Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security. How did that actually go from having a success to actually not working out? That's a great question. Because as we all know, right, our failures are opportunities to grow and learn. So when we first started, as you mentioned, we basically kind of just were diving in head first and learning as we went. And we really did everything to a la carte.

15:06You know, we had a separate chemist and a separate ingredient company, a separate label company, a separate sprayer company, a separate bottle company. And to create the cohesive product on the shelf and have all those vendors come together simultaneously was difficult. We had a lot of QC issues. And so we learned, I think, to really work with more one-stop shops and really finding vendors and people to help you bring your vision to life that maybe have a few different services under one roof. And that helps a lot. You know, you need to streamline your manufacturing. So when you can actually go into a house, let's say it's a bottling house that has all the caps, it has all the design teams, it has all the labeling companies, right?

15:51And these cohesive teams now that are out there. It's like, why go to a plumbing store or go to an electrical store when you can go to Home Depot? So, understanding that sometimes working smarter and not always harder, and I know that's a very cliche phrase. We all work very hard. But there are ways that you can make your time more proficient and really learn the ropes and how to really truly manufacture in a very efficient way. Darrell Bock Yeah, we've been standing by that line, right? You've got to work smart. You said a lot of things just now in terms of somebody was trying to start about building that team, making it simple.

16:30One of the things we always stress is in order to have a business that's going to be successful and scalable, you have to start with low overhead, right? So in this business, in the early stages, I know you said you brought out your partner, but like how cash intensive was it or wasn't it when you're starting to build this and getting the bottles and getting manufacturing and finding the simplest way to do it? Yeah, that's a great question, because I think we're definitely one for the textbooks. I think Harvard needs to do a study on us we actually had very little money as i mentioned so it was just me and my partner working originally i kind of ran the inside designed everything and and made sure everything was flowing and he was outside sales and so we grew very slow but steady and as we grew we just would hire only what we needed and sometimes outside consultants.

17:28So 1099s. And to this day, we run very kind of lean and mean. I think we have 25 employees. And I think companies my side usually have 100 at least. I'm just thinking about the sales. 25 people. Yeah, we have 25 employees. Yeah. So we may even have 27 now. You know, I mean, we're growing big, hard and strong here. So, but yeah, I think that it's really important. You know, I have the mindset that growing slow and steady is the way to long-term success. I think part of the problem today and the mindset of people and entrepreneurs is that they need to explode and they need to do everything at once.

18:13And I'm not really a believer in that. You know how they always say you're an overnight success, but it took me 18 years, and that's really where we're at. It's actually 42 years. It's a lifetime of living and breathing one thing, the beauty industry, and staying consistent and persistent. And so to me, that's the key to success. They say that the fastest way to the top is slow and steady. So you so you start you have some trouble you get back on track you figure how to you know Consolidate things when do you really start to hit your stride? Like at what point do you start to really take off? You know, it's probably two years into it.

18:57We really started seeing that so when it failed year one The other company really failed within probably the first yeah 18 months to 24 months and we kind of migrated that company into our new one but we had we had to shut down the old one and literally start a whole new brand in a new company so um but you know we tried to kind of um take some of the inventory and you know work through it and do some things to help subsidize our new company a little bit but we also had built some of those relationships and so we We kind of worked with some of the relationships in a way that helped us work through into the new company.

19:38So listen, everything is that whole relationship base. So much of every industry, right? It's all about that networking. What made it go to the moon? It was probably a combination of things. It was a magical recipe. It really was. And it was a timing thing where the distributor that we were working with had just lost L 'Oreal. So they were willing to give us a shot. One little bottle, right? They were like, hey, we need some new brands. Let's give it a try. And it took off like wildfire. I mean, that's the miraculous part of it. It truly is a miracle that has just really blossomed into this massive worldwide brand.

20:23So after you get the first product, this is always tough in business. knowing when to scale and create more i mean i got the list here i can run them all so you got it's a 10 hair care it's a 10 tools extensions how are you realizing and analyzing okay it's time to add an extension to this empire it's time to add an extension to this empire and now you look and it's like well we really have an empire that's right um you know i think um part of it is your gut But also it's financial literacy. It's absolutely key to success. Knowing when to spend, how to spend, how to manage it, and how to manage growth.

21:02I think that tends to be the downfall of a lot of entrepreneurs. They aren't quite sure how to actually manage that growth and not get themselves in too much debt, not to expand too quickly. And I mean, that's a major part of it because so many people want to hurry up and just move into the next categories and expand when actually they haven't solidified the last one. So it's really, really important to get those legs under your initial acquisitions and your brands. We just made our first acquisition. That's why I say acquisition. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, as I mentioned, you know, it took years and we were completely self-funded the whole time.

21:46So as money would come in, we would reinvest. And that's really unusual. I mean, a lot of companies bring in venture to grow. And it's very common in today's world, obviously, to borrow money. We didn't do a lot of that. We let the company grow itself. And I'm old school when it comes to finances. I'm kind of like the Latina Susie Orman, as far as how I how I manage my money if I can't afford it I don't do it and I don't buy it and I live that way to this day even as someone as a wealthy person so what role has like beauty influencers played do you guys utilize that at all because that's something that's become really big tick-tock and you too and listen you know for an 18 year old brand to literally migrate through the times and still remain relevant and you know have our demographic go down seven years over the last few years because we are engaging in the social media and the influencers in the ways of today I mean when I started this company we were doing magazine ads you know I mean technology wasn't even there so that's the president of the company Jeff Aronson who's absolutely brilliant who was also behind the marketing of rewind attend putting the guys faces on the boxes that's my husband yes and so um yeah i mean that's that's really keeping up with the times is such an important part of any brand and not only with technology in what you're actually creating so you know the newness of of the products and keeping up with the styles and everything is such a major part of it and that's i think where a lot of brands get challenged over time did you accept that right away because that's difficult like blockbuster went out of business because they didn't realize what was happening right so a lot of companies don't actually understand things until it's too late so this whole beauty influencer thing i would assume when people kind of didn't fully understand it at first so did you realize right away or was it did it take time to appreciate social media great question so in 2017 when i became sole owner of the company um and i had so much vision about how I was going to literally become the driver of the brand bus and literally take control of my distribution for the first time ever really in the history since it's been incepted you know so um so I had all these ideas I want to expand distribution and change the company but I also um knew that we really needed to come into the ages right and that's where um Jeff came in and he said a couple things because we negotiated him coming on, you know, and working with Issa10.

24:31And he said, I'll do it under one condition that you come from behind the curtain eyes and you become the face of the brand because social media is the way of the future. And we need to also build e-commerce. And he's a genius at all of that. And I love technology. I always have. I've always been a Mac person and loving the newness in technology. So I was very receptive to it, but I also was a little bit afraid because it's expensive. When I first owned the company, we had a website that said, hi, we're at the 10 and had pictures of our products because we were professional only. We had distributors.

25:07You couldn't buy from us directly. First thing he did was create a website and we started marketing directly to consumer. And I mean, that's literally grown thousands of percent over the last few years. It is a major part of our business and obviously using the technology to cultivate that business is now a way of life for us And it's exciting. We're getting more and more involved in it all the time and yeah, I love it That's incredible. So I mean that that speaks a lot to having a strong team And when you have a lean team, like you said 25 maybe 27 now you kind of have to get it right Right. You've got to get it right when you're running that that then with team So what's that process like of bringing people on and realizing it's a good fit or not for you?

25:55Right. Because at some point, as you said, as you start scaling more, you have less time for yourself. So you have to put people in positions of power, give up a little bit of control. To delegate. It's really super important. It's a delicate balance. Yes. Yes. And, you know, I think as we talked about networking, all of my years within this industry, I've had a lot of experience meeting all types of people within the industry. And I can remember literally like thinking to myself, oh, my God, I wish I could hire a person like that. Or I wish I could have that CFO. Or I wish I could have that person of marketing, retail, you know, senior VP, executive.

26:31And little by little, we've been able to actually hire them and work with them. And it's been a dream come true because your team is everything. They help me bring my visions to life. And they're the experts at it. And I learned from them. And they learned from me. And it's like this great tango. So when you have those experiences and you start feeling, does this person fit or not? You know, pretty quick, usually within 90 days, you know. And so, you know, that's really how we've been able to grow our team and build the people that work with us. They, you know, we're a tight team. So you got it.

27:08You do. You have to kind of fit in the family and fit fit in the mentality because we all wear a lot of hats. We're not a typical corporate company. We're extremely entrepreneurial. We turn on a dime It's a lot of excitement and a lot of work, but when we're doing it We're all really passionate about it and we're all really involved in building the brands and creating what it is you see on shelf So the products was it ever made for one? Specific demographic obviously as a latina was that the idea to kind of make it for every single person? Is that even possible? Who, like, what, what's, who is the products actually made for?

27:50Great question. Because, you know, back in 2005, when I was formulating these products, there was a black haircare aisle and there was a Caucasian haircare aisle. And really the products were able to kind of sit on both shelves. And so in the beginning, we had a lot of organic passion from a lot of stars that we couldn't afford to pay. We never did pay them. But everyone from like Christina Applegate to Gabrielle Union was literally publicly speaking on magazines, on Twitter, on their social media about our brand. Completely unsolicited. And it was an honor. Because I believe within my culture, you know, we have everything.

28:31We have Afro-Latina. We have almost, you know, blonde hair, blue eye. I mean, we are the melting, the Puerto Rican island is the melting pot. and so that mentality really you know I when I stood behind the chair I always did every type of hair was one of the only hairdressers in the salon that did everything from black hair to Jewish hair to Arab hair to white hair to I was willing to embrace it all and so maybe that really helped in what it was that I created because we were inclusive long before that word was even the buzzword so it goes across it goes across and what i've done is color-coded collections for hair issues so we have a coily collection we have a scalp collection we have you know all these different color-coded collections that really are targeted they're each one has a leave-in so that's the foundation but they're targeted to solve hair problems because we are a melting pot we are becoming more and more mixed so maybe you have a few different problems and you need you know products from each one i mean yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah so you go from here um but we also have cosmetics and so i mean this is a huge industry we've watched entrepreneurs become billionaires in this space everywhere you go this is one of those demographics and and skews that always gets younger right like i have a 13 year old she wants to go to ulta she wants to go to Sephora she's buying cosmetics so it always gets younger what was that venture like getting into that space you know um listen I've been using cosmetics since I was seven years old and so it just made sense to me I mean the whole it's a 10 is a head-to-toe experience so um cosmetics was just a natural fit to me and once again simple easy to use multifunctional products that you don't need YouTube tutorials or a million brushes or to be an expert to actually use the applicators are right in there.

30:30So it definitely is more consumer friendly, but really mid price range and just something that I think it's really easy for people to understand and use. So you're expanding. So you're in 125 countries. How does that work? How were you able to go to so many countries? What was the process of that? You know, it's interesting as we expand, we started actually right around COVID. So that was a tough time to start launching internationally a lot of it was done through zoom but um you know it's interesting as we started approaching countries and distributors um and once again relationships we had um you know obviously people who are experts in expanding beauty brands internationally so we partnered with them to do it um but as that happened um the the products actually um were already recognized which was really great um the products were um you know people had been bringing their suitcases into the countries for years most brands go internationally within a few years of them expanding and our particular brand didn't do that until we were almost 12 years old so that was unusual so we are finding as we expand and as we go around the world there are just more and more um countries that are just really glad we're finally there.

31:52I want to talk about Rewind to 10. Yeah. It's been a great marketing plan. Talking about having the face of celebrity on it, using it as part of the marketing strategy. Why in this moment did you feel like it was necessary to come to market with this right now? Yeah, you know, that's a great question because Joe's been bugging me for probably like six or seven years to do it. And you know what? I just, I wasn't ready, but also I wasn't so sure the market was ready. And so I really feel that with the barbering world exploding, with the men's care world exploding, which is a phenomenal thing. I'm so glad that men are actually partaking in skincare and hair care and even just overall health care, right, on a whole nother level.

32:38I just felt like, you know what, it was time. And it was just a really, I knew I could raise the bar. I knew that wasn't easy. I knew what it needed. you know the beijings of the world weren't cutting it so um i just knew that really with the partnership with joe with um with jeff's amazing marketing concept behind it and us being able to bring that to life you know not one of those guys were cut a check and it's joe's relationships but it's also um the marketing concept and programs that that just had put behind it that really people were excited about and were willing to get on board with without getting a check so um between Between the three of us, it was this great trifecta that I thought, you know what, this is the perfect time to do it.

33:21So I flew over to Italy many times and really wanted to create amazing formulas. They have natural ingredients. We have stain wipes in the box. I mean, we just thought of all the things that were needed and should have been provided from day one. So they didn't get paid. So it's some level of equity that they get, I'm assuming. Sure. I mean, they're getting a cut of everything that happens. but it's in their interest to sell absolutely the more they sell them what they get paid absolutely that's right so they're out there promoting i mean we're talking literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of impressions when they do their posts or they go to cbs tyson's all over it and he's up in cbs all the time he's great how have the sale i mean it's been i feel like maybe 18 months maybe less than that since i feel like yeah yeah how has the first 18 months been Oh, it's exploded.