Babba Rivera's Biz Won 45 Beauty Awards. She's Just Getting Started

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show and today I'm chatting with Barbara Rivera, the founder of Ceremonia. Welcome, Barbara. You are now entering female founder world with your host, Jasmine Grinsworthy. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Of course. And we've had you on the show before, but it was like, you're one of the first episodes we did. It was very early. You were in a different point of the business as well. Like this is probably three years ago, I think that we spoke. And you pretty much like only just launched. So if you haven't, if you don't know Baba's like backstory definitely like listen to the first episode because I want to focus a lot of this time we're going to cover a bit of your early story but I want to figure out how you go from like startup to this like scaling phase that you're in now and what that means and like how you go next level um so that's what we're going to focus on today yeah for sure okay for people that don't know ceremonia what are you building we are a hair wellness brand that is very proudly rooted in my Latin heritage.

0:58We tap into natural ingredients from Latin America to create a completely new generation of hair products that tackle things like freeze damage and dryness at the root cause. Amazing. Give us some milestones, like brag a little bit. What are you doing? Ooh, okay. Changing the setting. Brag setting on. No, but we launched 2020. So we're four years old. We started with OneSkew only, D2C only, and eventually got our first retailer, which was Credo. And that was a huge milestone for us. They, to me, are the authority of clean beauty. We then launched internationally with Netta Porter. I had all my followers constantly asking me, can I buy this in Europe?

1:41So we figured, okay, now you can go to Netta Porter. We then expanded into Sephora and became the first Latina-founded hair brand to ever enter Sephora nationwide. wide. We had a tiered launch with them. Dotcom first. After doing really well there, we got 100 stores. Then we got into 500 stores, which is all doors in New York, which is all doors in the U.S. And once we had all doors in the U.S., we started growing within those doors. So this year we started rolling out end caps, which means it's a dedicated, you know, like four shelf section versus just one shelf. Initially, we were only in the next big thing wall.

2:26And now you can find us in the next big thing wall. Some doors have end caps. We're also, we have travel sizes by the cash registers now. And during the summer, we had like a Guava edition tower. So it's been a lot about growing within sephora um yeah we have 45 awards for our product which is wild i know people are like yay we won one award and i'm like counting our awards and i was like guys like what happened we are close to 50 now and so really proud of our product suite i would say that if there is something we do really well it's definitely product development and community that's like at the core of everything we do and they're actually intertwined the community is part of the product development too.

3:10I mean, that's some pretty amazing stuff. I love what I do. Yeah. That's another bragging moment. Not everyone can say that they love their job. That's a privilege. You know, it's been really amazing is watching, like, obviously we've known each other for ages and seeing you in Sephora with your girls and like showing them your product and like, that just always makes me so happy to see. That's so amazing. Honestly, it is really special. I think also like having children puts everything through a different lens. I understand a lot of women deciding to step out of the workforce when they have children because having kids is so all-consuming.

3:50And if you're in a job that you don't love, it's really hard to motivate leaving your child to go and do something you hate. And if you can make ends meet somehow else, like why wouldn't you right so for me it's been a lot about making sure that what i do has you know deeper purpose and and when i see my girls you know like walking into a form being like those are mommy's products like it's so cute to me and my husband always reminds me too of like he's like i love that my girls get to grow up with a role model of like what's possible and that you You know, you can be an entrepreneur. You can be a mom.

4:29You can be many things. So there is a lot of purpose for me in that. Also, all my kids are girls. I have four girls. It's so crazy because you just had twin girls. And so now you have four. Well, your oldest just aged out, but you had four under four. Yeah. So now I have four that are four and under. Yeah. Wow. I had to like rephrase that because I was like, they're no longer under four. Amazing. Let's talk about the beginning and how you got this amazing business started. You started using your own kind of savings to prove out the concept. What was the process there and what did you do? Yeah.

5:06So initially, honestly, it started just like from curiosity. I was sort of like wondering, you know, just asking myself, like, what does the future of beauty look like? Like we have all these, you know, heritage brands and like I was feeling less and less excited about buying them. And I still had them in my vanity, not because I love them, just out of necessity. And I was like, that's weird. Like we should be at a time and age where we have like choice, you know. And simultaneously, I looked at my skincare routine and I had products that I had selectively picked out and that I loved. I'm a huge lover of Tata Harper, for example.

5:53Actually, that brand has inspired a lot of what I've created with Ceremonia in the hair space. And I started to realize how the hair category, for some reason, was years behind the rest of beauty. In skincare and even in makeup, we had seen all of this innovation happen around ingredient transparency, interesting brands, a lot of movement towards natural ingredients, but with actual clinical results. Whereas in the hair space, it was sort of like you had to pick one. Either you did something good for the planet and it was like basically putting coconut oil on your hair and like just pray that it works.

6:30or you went to the hair salon and got at least the illusion of results, but at the expense of health, environment, and a lot of other things. And I was like, that's weird. I shouldn't have to pick between harsh chemicals or supernatural. I should be able to get the results and have something that's safe. Simultaneously, I was thinking about having children. And so I think I was also in a different mindset of just being way more intentional about what I was putting on my body. And I had seen firsthand how I literally transformed my skin when I went clean with my skincare. And it removed the need for makeup for me.

7:14And that was so liberating. I was like, oh, I can wake up and like not feel like I have to wear concealer and foundation. What a novel concept. So then I remember thinking for myself, imagine if I could do that same journey with hair and I could just like wake up and not straighten my hair, not blow dry my hair. What if I could just like let my hair be? That sounds crazy. With amazing concepts. I know. And it's kind of funny because it sounds so obvious and so simple. But I think most women, in particular women of color, like they always nod their head when I say this because they're like, yeah, no, never.

7:49Like, you know, for me, I grew up having to straighten my hair every day. I would spend an hour getting ready just to get my hair to be something it naturally wasn't. So there was a lot of like this, you know, curiosity that drove the initiation of Ceremony for me. And in the early days, I didn't necessarily know that it was going to be a business or anything, but I was running a brand marketing agency. So I figured having sort of like my hand on the pulse for, you know, where the future is going in a category that a lot of our clients were operating in felt like, you know, a good place to spend my time.

8:28And then I became pretty obsessed. Like it was really all consuming. And I started putting like team members to work on it. It was called Project X. And I was funding it through the agency. And then I funded, you know, out of like pocket. And I think I spent like$25 ,000, which was like, I mean, way more money than I technically had at the time. To basically create the entire business proposition around it. Because it became so all-consuming that I was like, I have to do something with these findings. This is not just like agency knowledge. Like at this point, it's like there is something more here.

9:08and yeah so we did consumer insight studies and like ingredient analysis and a bunch of things that then later on translated into an investor deck and so the plan while you're doing all that research was like okay i can take this now and i can translate it into some kind of like deck and pitch where i can then go and like raise money and like build out this product that i know needs to exist or this brand that needs to exist yeah but it was also to inform the um the business itself so it wasn't just like oh to attract investors it was also like just generally like curiosity from my end like okay like like what ingredients should we you know like what problems should we solve like what is really missing in the market what are consumers looking for you know so it I think sometimes people already have an idea of what they want to do and then they look for the data to validate it and it's like at that point you're really just doing it for you know to check a box.

10:00But for me, it was actually coming from a place of like genuinely asking, you know. So I was approaching it from a very open-ended perspective. Did you work with an agency to do that? I did. Yeah. They were actually a paid media agency, but because they were a bigger one, so they also offered like consumer insight studies, which usually was part of like before they would start like a big paid campaign. So I want to talk about like funding and fundraising and just money in general at the moment to begin with because you've had some pretty big raises for this category right now. Like I feel like a lot of consumer brands are having a really hard time raising money.

10:36And, you know, as a solo woman founder, like all of those things, like the odds are stacked against you and you've been able to raise what you need to build this kind of business. For someone who is at this juncture right now and they're trying to think, okay, do I need to raise money to fund my idea and get this out into the world? Or can I do this myself as a bootstrapped brand? What advice do you have as someone who has done it? Yeah. Wow. There is really not one answer to that or one way to do it. I think that as someone who has raised a lot of money and we're saying... And also how much money have you raised now?

11:1610 million. Yeah. Yeah. So as someone who's raised you know 10 million dollars and we're not profitable there is you know at times this fantasy that the grass is green on the other side like oh if only we would have been you know if only we would have focused more on profitability instead of growth you know and but then at the same time I also have a lot of friends who run businesses that are profitable and are completely uninvestable because they're just like a family business at that point and that's not you know so it's like the grass isn't necessarily greener on one or the other side it really just depends on what kind of business you want to run and i think that is something i wish i you know asked myself more in the early days like what do i want and it's it's such a like simple question but you will be surprised how when you're in the rat race of like you just want to build this company so badly like you believe in this so much that you're almost willing to like sacrifice yourself for the sake of the company and that's why the post that you posted about like sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not only trying to build a business but also build a life really resonated with me because I have definitely been at times in a rat race and like you know putting things in a deck or in an email that I it's like what I think is expected from me versus what I actually maybe want and so I'm being much more and you know strategic and like speaking up and now I I think it's also easier to do when you have a little bit of traction or success behind you.

12:47I think in the early days, you're just like. Someone believe in me. Yeah. I'll do anything for that. Yeah. Just give me a chance. And you want me to jump? I will jump. You want me to dance? I will dance, you know? So. Literally on TikTok. Yeah. I mean. The stuff we do as founders. No. So it's easy for me to sit now and say that, right? But I do want to give that advice that there are many roads to roam. And you can build a really good business and good life. And you can also build a really good business and miserable life. And you can build a great life and terrible business. You know, like there are a lot of versions of this.

13:25And you can have different things on different days as well. I think that's also the big thing as well. And here's the other thing. Like, I think what's tricky for me is that my ambition with Ceremonia is not to build a lifestyle business. Yeah. Like, that's not why I start. And maybe I will start a business like that one day where it's like it's more about the legacy, maybe something that gets passed down to my kids and something that's like, you know, it's just my creative outlet. But with Ceremonia, I'm actually really trying to put Latin American culture on the world map and I'm trying to pave the way for future Latin entrepreneurs.

13:55So to do that, I need to create a really killer business. Like there is just no way around it. It can't be just like my pet project that funds my lifestyle. that's not going to change the status quo of the lack of representation that I'm trying to solve. So it's like you have to know your why and then you have to build the business according to that. And my why with this business is crystal clear and I have to operate accordingly. So for me, I knew from day one that in order to do a category defining business, I'm going to need venture capital, you know, but you can build a really good business without venture capital.

14:32But that's a different business, right? Yeah, that's such good insight. Okay, business besties, let's switch gears for a second. Real quick, I want to talk to you about this season's presenting sponsor, Vistaprint. They are sponsoring this entire season of the Female Founder World podcast, and we love a supportive sponsor. So much so that we're actually working with Vistaprint ourselves to create the merch and all of those beautiful event perks that you know and love from our in real life female founder world events. If you haven't heard of Vistaprint, here's what you need to know. Vistaprint helps all kinds of business owners print all kinds of marketing products like super professional business cards, fun merch, eye-catching flyers and brochures, and a whole bunch more.

15:20And it's all completely custom. So you can do whatever you want. Whatever you're imagining right now, Vistaprint can print it. And if you're wondering if you're ready to be a designer girly, their easy to use website makes it super simple. Plus they have designers on hand to help you if you really need it. Right now, Vistaprint is giving all female Founder World podcast listeners a little something. 25 % off your first order at vistaprint.com. Use the code FFW25 at checkout and step up your branding game. We put a link in the show notes if you want to learn more. I want to talk about community because this is definitely your superpower and like what I think you and actually the whole Ceremonia team do really really well what did you do in the beginning like to build this community you're also just like a natural community builder I I met you at an event that you were like you know things that you were hosting and people just like gravitate to you because you're so good at this I love hosting and I feel like you're the vibe with Ceremonia is like you feel like you're being hosted by the brand in some way even if it's virtually.

16:27Like you've just done such a good job at that. And so I want to understand like what you did in the beginning to like lay the foundations of that community. And then now that you're a much bigger business, you're like, I feel like the way that you're looking at marketing is probably different to what it was in the first year. What are some of those things that have like carried through and you've kept and what have you had to adapt as a change to the businesses scaled? Yeah, for sure. So in the early days, we started building the community before we even had the brand actually yeah and i think that's something that is is good for people to to to realize i think is that sometimes when you're building something you are so focused on just like getting to launch and you can't tell anyone it's like this you know top secret thing and you hold it tight to your chest and the reality is that i really believe in the law of attraction and like the more you put something out like the more you get back so holding something really tight to your chest is not something that I subscribe to.

17:24So I was talking about Ceremonia before it was even launched, and I was hosting this. Initially, it was a launch series, and then COVID happened, so we couldn't meet for launch ERL anymore. So it became this WhatsApp group, and it just kept growing organically where people would invite their sister to the next one, or they would add their friend, et cetera. So this WhatsApp group grew so much that we reached the limit of how many members you could have in a WhatsApp group. And we then sort of like had to make a decision, okay, community is going to be like a real part of the business strategy.

18:00Probably shouldn't live on WhatsApp anyways, right? So we moved it to Geneva initially. And then we now, we moved it, I mean, not now, like a year ago. So we moved it over to TYB, which a lot of beauty brands are using now too, which makes me so happy because it's a fellow FEMA-founded platform. And yeah, so I think I probably wouldn't do anything differently today. Like, I really loved how we built that community from day one. I think I lost touch with it during a period when we were scaling a little too fast. And like, and I can talk about that, but there was this almost like a full year of like, just like we jumped from like, you know, startup mode to be like, now we need to be a Series A business.

18:50And like, that means like, you know, I have to put my CEO hat on and then I can't be in this chat and I have to hire these C-suite people. And we, you know, like it was like almost like pretending. It felt almost like, like in a way we were just growing too fast and in the wrong areas. I, we definitely overhired. And with that, I lost touch with some areas that actually I was uniquely positioned to, you know, to keep alive. And so since we've actually almost gone back to like the scrappiness and I am super involved in marketing because I realized that like. You're not going to be able to hire a better marketer than you, Baba.

19:36You're actually a world class marketer. So why wouldn't you do it for your own brand? Exactly. And that's what I realized. And then I would just be frustrated. And at the same time, like, yes, I am the founder and CEO of the business, but like I can hire for the functions that I'm not uniquely positioned for. And then the areas where I do have, you know, a super skill, I should leverage that. Right. So it might surprise people, but we don't have a social media manager. We don't have a marketing manager. I am basically like marketing and CEO. Yeah. We're a small team too. This is the other thing.

20:12We went through a big transition where we actually shrunk the team. And not because the business wasn't growing. Like we're, you know, we've been growing every year. but top line growth doesn't mean your team needs to grow at the same you know and if anything you should become more efficient at some point there should be that inflection point and so yeah we've been growing the business with a smaller team and i think that's like that i'm proud of and and yeah so it's it we're back to to like a more like authentic like early day vibe in many ways but with a lot of learnings and obviously we have you know great support from our investors and the board and all of that and something that you said before made me think of um a quote from another conversation that I had it was with Sarah Harden she's the CEO of Hello Sunshine which is like Reese Witherspoon's media company and she's Australian and um I was talking with her about like niche media like niche media business so you know what I'm doing my business but one of the things that she said just like stayed with me and I think about it all the time and it makes me think of what you're talking about and it's like as you grow you need to figure out how to protect what's special and for you like the community is really special and so it's like constant and she's like the job of like you as like as the founder and the person leading this is to do that and like protect what's special yeah and like that's what you have to keep coming back to I totally agree and i think that there is this sometimes expectation that like you should work on your weaknesses and it's like yes to a certain degree but at the same time like if i'm not good at i don't know let's say like finance or whatever yeah like i can become better at it but it's not what's gonna like transform the business yeah because i'm never gonna become like the best cfo that the market has ever seen within the span of you know what I mean but I probably will have the potential to become the best marketeer the industry has ever seen because I have like um I have a head start there you know so I I'm I'm really focused internally even with team members in developing their strengths leveraging their strength fully versus focusing so much on their weaknesses because at the end of the day like like yeah just like be a good human right like if you're like if your weakness is affecting other people like yeah then let's talk about that but like i i don't need you to now become like a pro at excel if that's not coming natural to you but if you're really good at photoshop then let's double down on that you know yeah so i'm trying to do that for myself too and um and also the reality is that it's way more fun because the things that we're good at we usually enjoy yeah i want to talk about product development for a minute as well because you mentioned 45 awards that's crazy and like you're entering a you're entering a category with like a very specific point of view a very specific offering but it's not like you're the first hair care brand that's ever ever launched so doing that as at the time you hadn't raised 10 million dollars and not all that money goes towards product development but you're competing with these companies that have like endless r &d budgets how do you create amazing product like that?

23:34Like, what do you do? Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's wild. You realize that a lot of these huge brands, they spend, you know,$10 million on marketing. And it's like, and the marketing is really disconnected from the product development. Like the product development is done by, you know, someone that's just looking at the market and being like, oh, it seems like retailers are selling a lot of scalp products now. Let's create a scalp product. Yeah. Like that's literally like, um, we did it. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that when you're only working with data, you will always be behind because data is historical.

24:17And so I'm a firm believer in looking at data, but then also mixing in intuition. And honestly, that's what got us to where we are. And I think for me, I am the customer. like that's a that's a privilege like I feel sorry for like I don't know a bald dude running a hair brand like because like he's always gonna have to look at data and data comes delayed yeah but like I'm living it you know I'm in real time here and and I was looking to transform my own hair so product development has come super natural to me I also grew up with a father who did a lot of you know like home remedies he was a hairdresser back in Chile and taught me a lot about these natural ingredients that, you know, truthfully, haven't really seen the commercial light in the beauty space.

25:06And so I had a head start there. And then what we do is that we have an in-house chemical engineer who works full time exclusively with Sermona. So we don't rely on labs to do the innovation for us. And this is very much my tech background. Like you need to protect what's your DNA. Because you used to work at Uber. You've worked in tech for years before. Exactly. And Uber did not hire an agency to build the app for them. That's such a good way of looking. You know, like obviously not because then you're very vulnerable. Then anyone can go and hire that agency and build the app for them. Right.

25:42So that's how I look at it. Like our product is our business. So I work directly with our chemical engineer. I'm obsessed with her because she's like so ambitious. And I think also for me, when I was trying to do this with Contra Manufacturers, I learned pretty quickly that this was not going to work for me because I want what's impossible. That's the whole point. And then that's why we're here. Yeah. Like otherwise I would go to the store and buy what's already available. Right. So, no, I don't want something off shelf and just put my brand on it. And I want it to be silicone free. You know, I want it to be sulfate free.

26:22I want it to be free of this long list of toxins. And I realized that a lot of these brands, although they are technically clean, they would eliminate a version of the ingredients. They would be like without the harsh sulfates. I'm like, OK, so it still has sulfates. Yeah. And my biggest pet peeve was silicones because I have really dry, frizzy hair and I was really desperately trying to restore and rebuild my natural hair that wasn't dry and frizzy when I was a child. Like that's an effect of the products and the heat and the styling that I have used for over a decade. And I realized that silicones are in every hair product because they are so convenient for hair brands to use.

27:07They're super cheap. So great filler ingredient. And it gives the illusion of instant results. Like that's great, right? You get these TikToks where people are like, oh my God, look at the shine. But that's the equivalent of putting concealer on a pimple. it doesn't make the pimple go away it will just not be as visible for a brief moment but if you only treat your pimple with concealer what's going to happen you're going to get more pimples and so and that's the same thing with um with silicones and your hair it actually gets more dry and more freesty over time and so that was my big you know like challenge was can we create a hairline that's completely free of silicones that tackles damage and freeze at the root cost most content manufacturers were not up for that challenge they're like no you have to put silicones in otherwise you're not going to get the slip you're not going to get the shine you're not going to get this and that and fast forward to today we did it and we're doing it we don't use any silicones and my hair has never been healthier our customers literally send us these long emails about their hair has never been this long they've never had their hair this thick their hair has never been shinier like we're really transforming people's hair and that means so much to me and I'm so glad that I am unreasonable in this area because if there is anywhere you're going to be unreasonable it should be on the product you're building I need to I need to ask you how you found that kind of master who's working with you she sounds amazing how does someone go about hiring someone like that she applied oh yeah so initially I had an independent um chemist uh who was freelancing because I couldn't afford like a fully in-house and then she actually went and started her own skincare brand and we like I love the brand that they're building and so then she had less and less time and then we we hired another chemist that I got introduced to and then we were hiring for a second chemist and this application came in and yeah amazing something I want to ask you about is I think I think about this thing that you said on the podcast last time years ago every now and again and you said that when you're thinking about what to focus on in the business you go to like what's new and you want to figure out the the new thing that the business is trying to do before you like bring someone else on to do it is that still the approach or you meant you also spoke about before how you're more interested now in like doubling down on what you're really good at yeah so yeah good good question and so basically what I ended up doing is that I hired sort of like a special projects person that works directly under me.

29:43So instead of having an assistant, I have a special projects person that's highly capable, has, you know, a very impressive resume. This is like a thought partner to me. So then I'm able to basically have like twice as much capacity than I would if it was just me and an assistant who could only do like lower yeah tasks and so together we double down on my strength and figure out new territory that's so interesting i've never heard of a founder like having that that hire instead of an assistant or something yeah really that's really smart what does a special projects like a manager what does someone like that have in their cv what kind of history are you looking at her cv was interesting like technically she was like community manager But when I scratched on the surface, it felt more like a chief of staff type of role that she had.

30:31She actually was working with one of our angel investors who is a former, you know, CPG founder too. And she worked with him for many years and then helped him launch his next startup. So she had seen, you know, a lot. And it is a special trait to know how to work with a founder because there's a lot of organized chaos. So I really appreciated someone who had that experience since before. What does your team look like now? We're tiny. We're seven people. Okay. We're doing a lot. Yeah, we're doing a lot. And it's basically divided into like between me and my CFO. So I oversee everything that's brand, product development, community, and content.

31:16And she oversees everything that's supply chain, finance, cash flow, operations. Amazing. the last question I want to ask you Barbara is just for a resource and that's just something that's been helping you could be like an actual tool that you're using or a habit but that's been helping you as you've been building ceremonia for everyone who's listening and they want to do what you're doing what should they what should they go and read listen to or do a habit I have is that before I end each day I do a brain dump of all the things that I feel like are still outstanding like things I need to accomplish in the next day.

31:51And then I feel like I parked my thoughts onto this piece of paper and I do this hand, like handwriting. This is not typing on your computer. Like it needs to be written by hand. Do you revisit it or it's just get out of your head? And then in the morning, it's the first thing you revisit. Okay. And then I reprioritize that list. Some things I realized actually got done already or I don't need to do that anymore. And then that becomes my priority for the day. And before I jump into my email or my Slack, I start with that list because it's so easy to get distracted. And I will say email in particular.

32:26I call that your outsource to-do list because that's not your to-do list. You didn't ask for those emails. That's other people projecting what you should be doing for them. So before I get to that, I should get to the things that I have decided are important to me in my business. So I do that first. so I think that's a good habit to make sure that you're always moving the needle every day and a tool I mean honestly keeping it simple but I live in the G Suite I feel like people love to give these very complex tools as you know recommendations etc and it sounds great and smart but if you're not using it it's pointless the tool that you use is the best tool and Google Suite is cheap and super convenient and we could not run our business without it truly like we collaborate on everything even when we do copy we start a google doc and then we're all like workshopping so yeah i said that was my last question but i have one more because we mentioned you know you have four children you have this business like i want to know what a day looks like for you you've walked us through your morning the first thing you do and the last thing you do and now i'm just You seem very disciplined.

33:43I'm super disciplined, yeah. So my husband and I have this thing that between 5 and 8 p.m. we don't have any phones. So that's family time. And we each have like one day a week where we can work late or go for dinners and do like our thing work-wise. And for me, that's either Wednesdays or Thursdays. And that's usually when I do a city day. I can stay overnight if I need to and do, you know, the events and all this stuff. But the other days that I'm working from home, I do school drop off every day. So first I pump milk, we eat breakfast. I get the girls dressed. I do their hair, you know, pack their bags, drive them to school.