100 Investors Rejected Her Pitch. Now She Has 10 Spas and Will Double Next Year

0:28Hey, welcome to the Female Founder World Podcast. scale that and double next year. Before we get into the interview, a reminder, an invitation that we are hosting Launch Lab, our digital marketing workshop series virtually right now. We're about to go into week four, where we have Jera Foster Fell, or you would know her as Jera Bean. She has one and a half million followers on TikTok, and she is an absolute social media expert. She'll be teaching how founders should be showing up themselves on video platforms to build their brand alongside their personal brand right now, which I think is something that we're always talking about on the show.

1:07We are always talking about it in the female founder world community. So please take this opportunity to have a free session with Jera. She's absolutely incredible. I've put the link in the show notes and also want to thank our partners, TikTok, for making this workshop happen. Okay, let's get into the show. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Grinsworthy. Rachel? Welcome to Female Founder World. It is so good. I feel like we've been talking about getting you on the show for like months, maybe years. Finally made it happen. I have been dying to be sitting with you.

1:42I can't wait to talk. I'm so proud of everything you've done. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. For people that don't know Glow Bar? What have you built? So Glow Bar is a skincare concept. We're in New York and Connecticut today. We have 10 locations and we do 30 minute facial. So we were actually first to market 30 minute facial and it's highly effective, highly accessible. It's$75 for a treatment or you can join our membership, which is$55 a month. And we do everything from chemical peels to derm planing to hydrating masks, LED. We just give you a really, really great 30 minute picture honestly it's so smart like my background is is as a fashion and beauty editor and I always find that you can have the most amazing skincare products and yes they make a difference but like at the end of the day you need to go in for those like proper esthetician appointments if you want to see an actual difference and they're super expensive you have to go into a dermatologist so I feel like you guys have just found this like perfect sweet spot I think so too we always say for professional skin you need to see a professional like for example like when you need your teeth cleaned do it yourself at home no you go see your dentist and so same thing for really great skincare come see a professional esthetician and ours I am biased but I think they're the best I am always interested in people who like start a business based on years and years of experience in the industry and you are like an OG beauty girl you've been a beauty blender you're at Birchbox you come from you're like third generation esthetician in your family like this is absolutely in your blood.

3:11I feel like you could have done anything in the beauty industry. What was the opportunity that you saw to go and do something in this space? So thank you. And you have my resume memorized, which is really nice. I even forget sometimes. But yeah, I've been in the beauty industry my whole life. I'm obsessed with it. I think it's the funnest industry to be in. I agree. Beauty is so fun. And it's also the ultimate connector. You and I, even if we had nothing to talk about today, I could say, what blush are you wearing? Totally. First thing I asked you was like, what's on your lip? Yeah. It's just, and it makes women in particular, and I think sometimes it's hard to connect sometimes or insecurities get in the way, but it allows us like just something to talk about that connects us immediately.

3:47But going back to your original question, what we were solving for and like why we created this was that facials were really expensive. They were really time consuming and the average consumer didn't get facials as consistently as we should. And so I wanted to create something that was perfectly solving for that. And so I felt like as a consumer, I wasn't getting facials. I was like a cobbler's son with no shoes. And I wanted a 30-minute facial for, you know, an average price point. And so that's what we created. I feel like you guys are – it's like going to a physio instead of getting a massage.

4:27Do you know what I mean? It's like going to see the professional, getting the actual like proper deep work rather than a relaxing maybe spa experience. It's like, no, let's go in and get results and walk out with genuinely better skin. Exactly. We took the facial out of the dermatologist. And the physio took the chiropractor or like, you know, the real intensive like PT out of the massage. You guys have done a lot since you launched. It's been what, four years? Yeah. And a lot of that was COVID. Yes. And you're a physical location. Yeah. That's funny. And now you have 10 spas. Amazing. When you first got started, I want to understand, like, what are the first things that you do to get a physical location off the ground?

5:12A lot of prayer. Yeah. Like any business. So physical locations, yes, they're challenging. They're like a real life thing. You can't just start it in your backyard or in your office. but like anything it just takes a lot of steps and everything kind of has to fall into place. The first thing you do is hire the best broker that you can find that you can afford or that is excited to work with you in your market that you're looking to go into and start to manifest your perfect location and like any business it just takes a lot of pre-work to understand where you want to be, who your customer is, where do they live and also just identifying like your target market and making sure that you're opening as close to them as possible.

5:53But the challenge actually isn't in finding a location. It's getting people to come into your location. Okay. We're going to talk about that in a second. I am curious about how you get people like physically into a space. We obviously do a lot of in-person events and I do think that it is a, it is a totally different ball game. Like I can get people to click on stuff and buy it online when they're like, you know, just scrolling that, oh, this is cute, 20 bucks. I'm going to get it. but it's a whole different level of connection to get people to physically like come and do something. How do you do that?

6:23Especially when you're new and nobody knows who you are. Your product has to be superb. It's all about the product in anything. But especially with getting someone to book an appointment at home, get their butts off the couch, take the time to come in and spend their hard-earned money. and so how we did it was every single appointment has to be the best 30 minute facial you can find because that one client is actually our marketing engine and that's how you get someone to go to brunch and have their friends say your skin looks amazing what are you doing different and then they say glow bar and six women around the table book an appointment and so that's what our focus has been on our training on our estheticians and on making sure that our team feels motivated and enthusiastic to give the best treatment every single time um and people continue to come also social media i was gonna say because that feels like a lot of growth for um leaning on word of mouth i know that you haven't like really paid for marketing but what else works you said social media are you guys just like hitting it hard with the content are you doing any local advertising being an in-person business like what else so local community is our bread and butter so we do a lot of grassroots stuff so events with local businesses um we do flyering so we started flyering at the beginning so you know like those flyers that are on telephone poles yeah like a math tutor i've been wanting to do this i feel like it even is just like such a cute content opportunity just to like do a few we actually started doing this we won an award for it and from this like marketing and coming.

7:58I can't remember what it was. And it really just got the community to stop, pause, and know that we were there. So we still do that today. In every single studio we've opened, we have flyered. We do chalking. We do wheat pasting. You got to start the buzz. It's like a fire. You got to start the flames and really start getting people talking. And then it will continue to grow on its own. But yes, most of it has been organic. And we don't take that for granted. I am also interested in the membership piece. So you talked about, you know, you're obviously like start, you're trying to ignite something and then the ball starts rolling and you're gaining momentum as you go.

8:36But you also have this membership, which I feel like is like at the next layer up of commitment. Like once people are members and they're like in your community, that's the ultimate like marketing achievement, I feel like. Like where else do you go from that? You don't. They're the most loyal. Totally. I want to know how you think about that like what what drove that idea to like build that into your business model and like how much of the business does that actually account for now so actually the membership model was turned on two days before we opened our doors no ibecca we didn't plan it wasn't like a big part of our plan we didn't raise money on the membership model we didn't feel confident in the business because of the membership model um it just we were like should we let's see if anyone joins So we literally turned it on.

9:18And the next thing we knew, we had over 1 ,000 members in like six months at that one location, which was remarkable. Are they people that come in once and then they are like, I want this every month? Yeah. Almost every person joined on their first appointment after they had their first appointment. They are our most loyal. They are our most committed. And the way we got them to commit was, again, going back to the product, an amazing 30-minute facial. It had to be effective and efficient. and also really compelling to join the membership. So a membership has to have perks for someone to give you their commitment, right?

9:52So we made it so that it was almost like, why wouldn't I join the membership? So it's$55. It's a four month commitment. You get a discount on retail products. We sell the best professional products we can find on the market. You also get perks along the way. So we have membership perks, little things that our partners love to provide them and also a free guest pass to bring someone they care about. So that was also really compelling. You know, if your mom's in town or a family member and you want to take them to do it. Also get them hooked as well. That's the hope. This sounds like a really expensive business when I think about all the different things you could be doing in the beauty space.

10:27Bricks and mortar, a physical space, sounds like something that would be really cash intensive. And I know that you've raised$10 million now. How are you, first of all, like what are the efficiencies here? Like how are you making this work in a scalable way? Because I think a lot of people who are trying to do like a bricks and mortar space or they have a spa or they have a restaurant, they're kind of like, I don't understand how you can like replicate and scale this. What are you guys doing that's working? Brick and mortar is really expensive. But again, every business is really expensive. Totally, yes.

11:00And in fact, this whole country was built off of brick and mortar businesses. America, the classic business model was a retail store. And so if you do it right and you keep your expenses low, you can create a really profitable, really sustainable and really scalable business model. And so we ensured that our build outs in our spaces were as cost efficient as possible. So when you come into a glow bar, it's not, you know, 4000 square feet. It's their small format and they're cozy and we love them and we make them as beautiful as we can within budget. And we spend money in the places that matter to you, the consumer.

11:38So like our wash bar, it's the most expensive sink I've ever laid my eyes on, but we keep buying it for every single studio. But the cabinetry is, call it Ikea with a nicer finish over. And so with brick and mortar, you've got to keep expenses low. But CPG these days is also focused on efficiency and getting to profitability. And so this doesn't just, this advice isn't just for brick and mortar. It's for starting a business in general. Keep your costs low. Don't buy that fancy office right out the gate. Keep things scrappy. Really be efficient with your capital. And that's how your business is going to be alive in four or five, 10, 20 years.

12:17You're somebody who took a bit of a different approach to fundraising. Talk me through that. I was given a formula from some venture capital people. What is the formula? For people who don't know, they're listening to this and like, okay, but wait. Start at the basics. Like what's the formula that people usually follow? The formula is through a bunch of steps, find three to max 10 venture funds or investors that you know to target. Just stick to those and customize that email to them. Make your pitch deck really exciting to them. Make sure that they've invested in a category like yours and just target the heck out of them.

12:51Okay, that sounds logical. Okay, fine. I, Rachel Liverman, never take the easy path or the formulaic path. And so I decided to just email and outreach to everyone I knew. If we knew each other at the time, you would have gotten an email from me asking if you would want to invest in Globar. I took everything from$2 ,000 to$200 ,000 and everything in between. And a lot of people say you only want a few people on your cap table. Google cap table, whatever. It's such a term that we use. It literally means like your investors. Yeah, a list of your investors. It's a list of your investors. But you only want like five people on your cap table, call it.

13:27I had 30 and I still have 35 plus. So I took a very different approach and that worked for me. That felt really organic to me. I love talking about the business, but in turn, it made it actually, it did make it harder a little bit because I ended up with a hundred no's. I have a list of a hundred human beings and groups that looked at the business, had multiple conversations with me and still said no. But each of those conversations, I learned a ton and they got me thinking about the business in a different way. So for me, it was the right path. It's not what I was told to do though. That is such a good piece to pull out there because like, I feel like people get a couple of no's and they kind of think oh my idea sucks or this is like not the right path or this is like you know not the thing I should be pursuing you got a hundred like what is it inside of you that gets a hundred no's and it's like no no but this is still amazing like I still trust myself.

14:19So first things first I always say that you don't have to be the smartest the prettiest the most well-connected or like we were talking about before be in a major city to start a company what you have to have is resilience and you have to have radical self-awareness that's all you gotta have if you talk me through that the radical self-awareness what do you mean you have to be asking yourself how you can do better yeah a single day and what you're not doing great on yeah and also like not take it personally when people give you the feedback it's like amazing this will make me better my feedback from my team a couple weeks ago made me cry in a meeting with my head of people from your team yep yeah and I felt terrible it made me feel embarrassed and the shame and I wasn't perfect.

14:59I'm not right to do this. All the things we all say to ourselves. Right. Um, and I swear last week I was a better leader than I've ever been. And so yes. And, and going back, you know, to your question of a hundred no's, how do you not get down on yourself about, Oh, this is a bad business. That's, that's where, if you know, it's right for you and it's right in your gut, you'll keep going. Oh my God. That's so true. And so it's like, I know that a people don't think this is a great idea, but I've got a few that do. And I know that this is right for me. And for me, that was because I had a family history in skincare.

15:32I had a decade of beauty experience. I, as a consumer needed this product. I didn't just want it. I needed a 30 minute facial for an affordable price because my skin was not getting any younger. And I don't know about you, but 30 year old acne is a really interesting world. No, it's like this really cruel thing that happens where it's like you have you start getting wrinkles and you're still getting acne and it's kind of like this is not what was sold to me on the box right and these like uh cystic things on your chin when your period is coming at 30 35 is a whole new world I want to know what you were kind of like backtracking a bit I want to know what you're spending that money on in the beginning like your um you pulled together how much to start the company or is that like a million.

16:13A million. Okay. What do you do with that million? You build a store as cost efficiently as you can. Yeah. Uh, you spend it on what matters to the consumer. So we wanted to make sure that the store looked as nice as it could, uh, that we had the right team in place and then we had the right products. So we found the best professional skincare brands we could find to partner and invested in them and the training that came with it um and and really kind of like hoarded our money um you want to spend the least amount as possible because you need as much runway as possible runway meaning money in the bank to last you yeah i know all these terms i'm just like so silly though yeah we do yeah we do i think it's brilliant i mean so much of it totally so much of it is just like very simple language that i don't know some tech bro somewhere decided that we needed special words for it runway equals amount of money in the bank and how long it'll last yep very simple okay so then you went on to raise the 10 million what have you been using that for what's the what's the dream here with that how you can use that money so going into raising our series a so 10 million from peterson partners we had a very small team on corporate supporting the studios and so I was like I need some help on this side we had yeah three of us there was three of you in the corporate team yeah oh my goodness yeah and it was a ton of fun don't get me wrong but uh it was time we brought in people that had done this before yeah and had experience and had enthusiasm for what we were building to reinvigorate us you know we've been doing it for three, four years now.

17:57And so we brought on people. So a corporate team, we have 10 of us now that have a ton of fun building this business and supporting the studios and growth. So more studios. So we have 10 today. We'll, we'll like double in size next year. Wow. But I'm still very, very, very frugal with how we spend. We have a shared office space. Yeah. My team begrudgingly, I think wants us to move out of it, but, um, we have a shared office space. We think about everything we spend money on we want to make sure that it's right for the consumer that the consumer will appreciate it there are customers and our members will feel special seen heard by that spend keeping those disciplines i think is going to be important in the next you know coming few years so you have 10 people in the corporate team but i also know that you have a ton of estheticians like how many would be we have 150 estheticians who are the reason we exist and they're incredible okay so you might only have 10 people in the office but like that is a really big team that you're still ultimately responsible for like hiring, firing, managing.

18:56What advice do you have for people who are about to make their first couple of hires or who are trying to figure out how to expand a team? Like what have you learned? Because you have done this really quickly. We are a people business. So people are at like the heart of what we do. And so I knew that I needed to hire the right people. We are not robots. We are not all like the smartest. We don't have, you know, MBAs, most of us. And I just wanted to find people that fit our values, which are enthusiastic, driven, self-aware, outgoing, hardworking. So I just really looked hard for those people.

19:33And also like in the interviews, just asking like, why Glowbar? Like, I want to know you want to be here because days are long. Yeah. I need to know you're really, really jazzed about what we're building or at least the opportunity you have here to grow yourself. So that's important. What was your first experience firing someone? Oh, they're horrible and they will never get easy. You know, I've been lucky that I've only had to fire people that knew it was coming. There were no like surprises, but it still is painful every single time. I think it's hard for both parties and you have to be really direct and almost like cutthroat a little bit.

20:11and that's just not my personality because I'm like are you okay are we okay do you still like me which is just something I'll always work you also have to be comfortable with them like not liking you and that's kind of fine yeah yeah I think it's also just like people don't they think that founders are on this like pedestal they're glamorous they have everything figured out and I feel like it's my duty to share that like you don't have to have it all figured out and you don't have to be the smartest the brightest the prettiest the most well connected you just have to be like a good person and hard working like I still keep my head down I go in the office Monday to Friday like my life isn't glamorous yeah like and I don't even want it to be because like my favorite part of this is like going into the office totally and working with my team and not being like dolled up you know and out like doing these like events like I don't go to events like like everyone else and sit on the couch and eat dinner yeah every night so I don't know I just like I feel very I feel very passionate about giving people the like empowering people to like just try it to do it and you don't have to have it like all figured out just yet what do you do on the really hot days I read something interesting last night about a founder and I'm sorry I'm forgetting his name but he asked himself in the morning how he's feeling and he says if I'm a one to two so like on a one to ten scale one to two he stays in his office and he doesn't really like surround himself with the team um because he feels like his energy is going to be a value suck yeah and it's just not gonna get anyone himself or his team anywhere and you know as you go up the scale he engages more so on the days that are hard for me I also try to stay a little bit internalized because I know it will pass right like yeah yesterday could have been the worst day ever and today I'm like you know yeah sunshine coming out of my yeah yeah so I kind of try to stay low-key get some things done stay a little not withdrawn necessarily but like in my office and get it done so I don't so no one feeds off of that energy but I also have techniques of like you know as you get older you find the techniques and to help you cope so positive affirmations reminding myself of just that today is is gonna be just today and tomorrow's a brand new day everything changes that's like the only constant we know is that the world changes and the moods change so I don't know I try to just pump myself up that's really good advice I definitely feel like I it's not even like the day changes it's just like halfway through the day it can be a different day you know yes yeah one thing can set you off um and I started just kind of doing some deep breathing because I get frustrated just as much as anyone does and triggered and scared like fear comes up the most for me like I'm like oh my god are we not gonna be able to like make this work and then I get like reactive and so I have to stop myself in that fear moment yes I definitely get this where I have those moments of just like oh and then your your immediate reaction in those moments is often to like externalize it and maybe that is like getting on slack or like forwarding emails or like whatever and actually that is just the worst thing you can do the best thing you can do is just go really insular and work on something that you do not need to collaborate like be involved with a team at all yeah that's exactly what I'm working on right now because I then micromanage I become more controlling yeah this is hard the micromanaging thing and I'm always like I'm not a micromanager go right but the second I feel like something isn't going the right way then I micromanage yes yes and it creates like fear in the team and so it's really not productive and it certainly doesn't empower everyone.

23:56So that's my work right now, is to, while we still figure out challenges and things that aren't going perfectly, how do I remain in an inspirational, empowering state so that the team can continue to feel that way as well and not be like, oh my God, she's mad, she's upset, we want to please her, oh my God, I feel so bad, which is kind of what has happened before. It's so interesting. It's something that I see across all different founders that I speak to who are building something really interesting. It's this ability to up-level at the same rate personally that you want the business to be up-leveling.

24:34Like there's something there where the business can't really outgrow you if you're still the one steering the ship. And I'm really interested in like the things that people are doing to be meeting that like personal growth level so that the business can meet that growth. I mean, that's the work that a leader has to continue to evolve yeah and bring their business with them yeah and the only way to bring the business with them is to empower people and inspire them and keep them motivated and engaged and the big challenge then is on those tough days on those days when your resiliency is being tested how do you how do you maintain that yeah and it's a lot of pressure and it's also not really humane right you're asking a leader to not have days where they're not feeling inspirational and motivating but it's like I think that's where transparency comes in vulnerability comes in and you say to the team hey having a really tough day I'm finding it really hard to be motivating and like empowering do not take this personally it's just Rachel is having a day and some leaders are afraid to say that I encourage them to say that Friday I was like feeling under the weather at the office I was on a chair with my feet up being like team I'm sorry I don't feel good I have a cold I'm gonna stay the whole day but I just don't feel well so like sorry if I have no energy to give to this meeting and it allowed everyone to and like be themselves right not take it personally and also just be like oh if I'm feeling crappy like maybe I'll stay too totally she'll understand yeah um and that's just a small example that came to mind but those things happen all the time even in meetings I can like sometimes I'll just be like guys I don't have the energy and so I I don't have much to offer here I don't know why my brain is not in this like engaged state And so it allows everyone to open up and vulnerability breeds vulnerability.

26:21And that's really been working for us. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about launching your new spaces. And now that you've done 10 and you obviously have so many more on the roadmap, which is just wild. I want to know, like, what's the formula? What have you found that works? So you have found a new location. You're building up the space. What is happening on email? What is happening on social? What are you doing in the space to build buzz, to get the word out and to get people into your store? We have a formula. We call it our marketing playbook. We say in the industry, NSO, studio opening.

26:55There we go. So there's another one for you. Of course there is a word for it. We'll have to do a glossary in the podcast notes. So our NSO marketing playbook, Laura on my team, she was my first intern. She runs marketing now. She's a total rock star. You've met her. she starts she just turns that engine on so we start with emails hey we're opening in Hoboken yeah gotta know tell your friends sign up for email how long before does that go out um Laura likes to have them kick off around like eight weeks nine weeks so there's this happy balance not too soon that they get excited and then forget about you and not too late that they're like oh why didn't they tell me and also not too late so that we can start saying oh we're not getting the response we usually do need to up it a little bit so it's a fine line eight weeks is approximately for a local studio.

27:41We turn on the marketing engine. So emails start to go out. We launch it on Instagram. Hey, we're opening in, we'll use Hoboken for example. It's opening in a couple months. Hoboken's opening. Get excited, tell your friends, tag your friends. And then we keep a steady drumbeat of emails, of Instagram posts. Then we kick on about four weeks out, like Instagram, Facebook, whatever you want to call it, marketing, where we get some ads hitting those local people. And then about three to four weeks out, we start flyering. So we just hit the pavement. Whoever on the team is free for a couple hours, take some flyers, tape them up to telephone poles, go talk to local businesses.

28:19Our manager will kick in a few weeks out and just say to like, you know, the Pilates studios or the SoulCycle of the world or the, you know, Sweet Greens, Dry Bars, et cetera. Hey, we're coming. Like, let's do something together or let's at least get your managers in. Then and then those studios just become part of our marketing machine. are you on tiktok we are on tiktok and laura's crushing it on tiktok she's doing such an amazing job so we get a lot of clients there a lot of ugc there um i'm not the one to add you'll have to interview laura sometime because i i'm so out of that's not your platform i get it i get it i want it to be so i know me too i'm failing miserably i i mean i think we overthink it this is like a millennial thing i think we're overthinking the like but when i don't overthink it like i filmed my husband like playing a prank on him and I didn't overthink it and posted it and it got like like I think my family saw it I need to just figure out how to do it yeah I won't oh whatever you can out so you don't have to have everything in your skill set you can outsell stuff the last question I want to ask you Rachel is for a resource recommendation and that is it can be a book it can be another podcast it can be a habit that you have something or a couple of things that have been helping as you've been building the business so the five minute journal I've been talking about this for years now.

29:35I got into a mindset of gratitude before I started Globar. And I swear is why all the good things in my life have happened. Call it manifestation, call it just being living a life of gratitude, whatever you want to call it. It has skyrocketed my life. And so I fill that out most mornings. I just think it's a great way to start your day and just do a little introspection and also positive affirmations. So it's a lot of mental work here, reminding myself that there's no one better to do this than me. I am just as worthy. I am just as capable and also giving myself grace when I need to and saying, it's okay if you're having a not so great day, give yourself a break.

30:16Amazing. Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you. This was so fun. Quick shout out to all of our business bestie subscribers. If you are loving this show and you are building a consumer, CPG or e-commerce business, or you're about to build one, this membership will give you access to the people, experiences, and the tools that you really need to build your dream business. Head to femalefounderworld.com forward slash subscriber for more.