She Created The Edible Beauty Category: How Carla Oates Built The Beauty Chef

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to Female Founder World. It's Jasmine. I'm the host of the show and today I'm chatting with Carla Oates, the founder of Beauty Chef. Carla, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. People that don't know the Beauty Chef, what are you building? So the Beauty Chef was founded on the philosophy that beauty begins in the belly and we create biofermented probiotic elixirs, powders, capsules, now chewable tablets to really support gut health, skin health and wellness. So I've written three books now, recipe books and books that really take people through how to heal their gut for optimum health and well-being.

0:41You started the brand back in 2009, is that right? Yeah. And you were the first, like you invented this category. What does somebody do in the early days to get a product out into the world when it is an entirely new category? Nothing like this has been done before. What are those steps and how do you get traction in the beginning? Well, it was so hard and I don't think I really thought it through, to be honest, because I stumbled across this idea of the connection between gut health and skin health through helping my daughter with her skin and health issues. Years back when I'd had eczema and allergies, I knew that really looking after your skin holistically and getting real results, it was an inside out job.

1:25So I stumbled across this research that looked at the connection between certain types of gut bacteria and allergies and eczema. And I put my whole family on a gut healing protocol and saw these amazing difference in my daughter's skin, her focus at school, my skin. And so from that Glow, it really seeded Glow, which was our first ingestible powder, Glow Inner Beauty Powder, which is 24 biofermented superfoods, pre, pro and postbiotics that really nurtured gut health and skin health. And so I had this product, I built a website, I had$3 ,000 and I was still working at the time as a journalist writing and also styling.

2:00And I thought, how am I actually going to get this out into the world? I had this unwavering belief in what I'd created. And I could see through my friends and my family that they were getting these amazing results, whether their skin was glowier, they were more regular, they had more energy, less inflammation, They just felt better. And so I guess there was no ingestible category. So there's no shelves to put it on. I got some press. I got some love from magazines who thought it was just quite a novel concept. So Vogue did a story, Italian Vogue even did a story on it. So it became, it had a little bit of a cult following.

2:32Word of mouth is so powerful. I still think that is one of the most powerful forms of media now. And friends told their family, who told their aunts and uncles and work colleagues, the momentum started building and the words started getting out there. And then I got approached by an agent at TVSN and he said, I heard about this magical purple powder that you have. And he said, everyone's raving about it. Would you go on TV and sell it? And I was really dubious about it because I was like, do I have to get on and say, and that's not all you get a set of steak knives for free. And he said, no, you just need to get up on air and talk authentically about the product and educate.

3:09And it was an educational product because again, it was so left to field. And the paradigm in the beauty industry at the time was all about topical skincare and not very healthy topical skincare either. So it was very one dimensional, the beauty industry back then. And I wanted to really try and shift that paradigm. I had to educate people about gut health, then about fermented foods and bacteria and how that impacts your skin. So it was a lot of education, which was perfect for home shopping because it gave me 45 minutes to talk to the customer and really educate them. And it resonated. We are now like the number one selling health brand on TV shop, on TVSN, you know, all these years later.

3:49And so then it started building. Then I got an article in, one of our first stock lists was in New York, Cat Beauty, these gorgeous two founders who were so ahead of their time and they started a clean beauty and wellness shop. It's so beautiful. It's still beautiful. and New York Times interviewed them and they said their best-selling product was from the beauty chef company in Australia and called Glow in a Beauty Powder. And then the calls started coming in thick and fast from Goop and Bloomingdale's and Selfridges. And at that point, that was years after I'd launched, I realised that Ingestible Beauty was becoming a global conversation.

4:27And I think it's like really important for people to understand and remember 2009 when you launched this product not only was ingestible beauty and gut health kind of not a thing people spoke about or understood clean it was very early for even clean beauty as a concept like I think I was using like proactive in 2009 well that's it I mean and I really my journey had started earlier because I decided to quit my job as a beauty editor in I think it was maybe 2000. And I wrote a book called Feeding Your Skin for Penguin, which was all about recipes. We actually just, I just re-did a new edition of the book last year in December.

5:08And I look back now and I'm like, wow, it was so neat. And everyone thought it was just a bit hippie. It was like, you know, papaya and olive oil on your face and how to make your own creams and how to nourish your skin microbiome. And I think back and I'm like wow like it did well back in 2002 when it was launched but it was a small following and hippie beauty and I love now that when we released the book last year you would just see in terms of the sales and how it just resonated so much more and how that idea has gone much more mainstream yeah it's so interesting and it's been as someone who worked in the beauty industry as well before I started female founder world like watching that shift yeah and seeing the beauty chef pioneer it And what you've done is completely create this entirely new category for beauty.

5:53For people who are building something, they have an idea and they think that they are really early on a trend or they think they're really early on a movement. How do you decipher between, okay, I'm just early and I need to knuckle down and focus on education and I believe in this versus maybe the world's just not ready for this or this isn't going to work. What were those early signs in the beginning that made you think, okay, no, this is something that is going to be a big movement? Or did you not care? You just wanted the product out there anyway? I thought it's interesting because I knew it worked and I knew I was onto something and I truly believed in it.

6:29And it made sense. You know, I looked at the science. I looked at the studies. I looked at the empirical evidence. People who were using it had these incredible results. So I knew it worked. And if you've got a great product and a great idea and it works and you can build, you know, you can build a world around it and a brand and a lifestyle and a philosophy and you've got this long runway for education, which I knew I had. I knew I could really build a brand. But did I think it was going to be bigger than it was? No. I thought it was going to be neat. I thought it was going to be very naturopathic.

7:00I thought I would have enough to have a sustainable long-term business. I knew it was going to take me a while. I knew that it resonated with people who were into wellness. So I also tried to really target those people. I think back then too, it was much harder because there was no social media. I mean, you can now connect with people in real time. And I think people are more open to innovative ideas now than they were back then. So I think it's a great time if you have an idea. You know, you don't have to spend as much money because you can go, let's just test it a little bit. Let's put it out there through social media.

7:34Let's get some instant feedback. Let's connect with the community customers and see if it resonates. So I'm a big believer. I'm always, saying to female founders when they ask me for advice, try it. And if you get results, like if people are seeing results from what you're using and there is a gap in the market, they're two really important things. So it's like gap in the market, it's unique, great USPs. You've trialled it on a group of people, 50 people, and you're getting feedback that it's incredible and it works. So it's a gap in the market, then go for it. I want to share some more kind of milestones and things that the Beauty Chef and you have achieved just to help people understand where you're at in this founder story.

8:17I think that everyone listening knows the brand and knows who the Beauty Chef is. But just in case they don't, so you have helped more than one and a half million customers through Glow, which is that first product. But then you've gone on to launch many more SKUs. How many SKUs do you have now? We have around 30 SKUs. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So a lot more. 400 Sephora stores. Is that right? We were in 400. You were in 400. And when we talked the other day, I was explaining how important it is that for us, we've just launched in this year 500 chemist warehouse stores. The timing is brilliant because people understand wellness more.

8:51Chemist warehouse is a wellness destination. But we launched into 400 Sephora stores in the US too early before people really understood the category. And so I've seen inner beauty, ingestible beauty come in and out of beauty retail a lot over the, however many years and you know going into fashion-led or really trend-led retailers and partnering with them is great for discovery and salience but really so important for your brand to go where the customer's already educated about what you do or it can provide a platform for deep education when you've got a really complex product and so going to Sephora and that was in 2014 so So it was really premature.

9:34And I was friends with the vice president, Cindy, who's just absolutely gorgeous and really progressive. And she was obsessed with the beauty show. She's like, I want to put into every Sephora store. But what we quickly realized is that the customer wasn't ready. They just weren't educated about it. Our product is very elegant looking. It was quiet on shelf. You go into Sephora stores and it's dynamic and it's bold and it's loud and people want makeup and perfume. and then there's this really lovely kind of refined, elegant looking range. That was premium too, not cheap. And it needed a whole lot of education and they weren't equipped for it at the time.

10:10So they launched wellness. They launched our brand and a whole lot of other wellness brands and they didn't work. Yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting talking about how the product shows up on shelf and then it's also, it's not something that they can open and necessarily put on their skin and see if it's... And it's not instant. Yeah. And that's the other thing is our products. Yes, you take glow and people say, I get an amazing energy. It makes me feel energized and uplifted. But it does take a little bit of time, like, you know, we say up to a month for your skin cells to renew. And then some people, if their skin is really compromised, it can, you know, be longer, two to three months.

10:45So consistency is key with ingestible products. They absolutely work. We've done consumer trials. We've got clinical studies of ingredients in a lot of our products. So they work. but it just, it's not like you can put something on your face and you get an instant glow. So the lesson there is that if you are someone who has a product that requires education to go and find somewhere, like sell in places where either the like pointy end of your customer is hanging out or they have the capacity to educate. Absolutely. It's so important. Let's talk about education a little bit. How are you doing that in the early days and how are you doing that now as a brand?

11:20The early days, it was just me. Love that. For years, I was literally writing the blogs. I wrote newsletters. My girlfriend who lived next door to me, she's a cinema photographer and a photographer. So I go, Jay, come over. Can you take some images? So she'd take images for my website and blog and EDM. So I was doing it all myself. And that was amazing because I really connected with the customer. Like literally, it was just me. and even when I was doing TBS and I'd have the gorgeous customers call me and they'd be like oh my god am I really on the phone to Carla? I'm like yes it's just me but then it was like oh my goodness they want to talk for two hours.

11:59Yeah. And so then I started hiring people and I think the thing is as you get bigger as well it's harder as a founder CEO when I'm trying to you know be across so many different parts of the business just you know to stay that connected with the customer which is so important. I think it's so important for founders to find ways that they can still, they can delegate to be able to still find time to really connect with the customer. And so we would just educate through newsletters, EDMs. Back then, digital media wasn't so big and there was no influences. Instagram, I would definitely get on Instagram.

12:33And in fact, back then I did a lot more connecting and a lot more recipe making on Instagram. And then I had my books as well. So that was a really great way to educate. So education and being on TVSN, which is a platform I get to talk on, I'm on there regularly. Education is super important, but also meeting your audience where they're at with that education. Yeah. It's interesting. You talk about TVSN and I think about, I think about channels like TikTok Live Shopping and there are all of these apps now where you can sell live and show up on camera. Yeah. And you don't have to wait for these gatekeepers at these big networks you can just get online and as the founder just create the content and be live and sell through these platforms and if you have a product like the beauty chef that you are launching now that requires education that is 100 % what I would be doing yeah I mean it's so exciting right for the founders it's just they have an opportunity to connect not have to spend huge amounts of money on marketing spend like you did in the old times traditional marketing and you as the most powerful tool in your brand can connect with your customers in real time right here, right now.

13:45And you know, also for some people, and I've spoken to founders, I spoke to a founder actually at the social summit. She was so gorgeous. And she said to me, I've followed you for ages. She said, how do you get up and speak? So I get so nervous. And I said, I got really nervous as well. And it's taken time. When I first got onto TV, I was shaking and quivering and it takes time. We all feel that that nervousness and that's that's normal but if you really have an aversion to being in front of a camera then sub stack then there's blogs you can connect you find what is comfortable for you to be able to talk to your customer in a way that's real and authentic and resonates to them and is genuine there is you're right there are so many different ways you can do it now also like instagram carousels are working really well for us right now because i find it yeah at this point in pregnancy, I'm like, I just don't want to be in the camera.

14:35I just, I want to be a recluse right now. And, but Instagram carousels work really well. You can still show up, you can still tell your story and it performs really, really well. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit more about like this idea of building in public, because this is something you did before. I think the term build in public was like really coined. And now we think about forward facing founders as being maybe someone who built a following while they were building their brand and they're on TikTok and we're watching their founder journey. And I love following those founders on TikTok.

15:04Yes. And that's great, or on YouTube. But you kind of came to this from a different lens because you were pre a lot of these platforms when you were launching. Yeah. And you came to this as someone who had like expertise and I guess already a name in the industry for yourself. And then you're obviously showing up on TVSN. But you also, you won awards. You joined groups like Organic Australia, I think was one of them. And I'm interested in how, what you did in the beginning to kind of set yourself up as this like credible founder of the brand and to take people along in the journey and maybe how you would do that differently now if you were launching something.

15:43I mean, it is, it is such a different landscape. And again, we only had, in terms of getting the brand out there, we only really had traditional media to play with. and I guess writing books, awards, ambassadorship, so sorts of ways of really being able to build the brand and the platform. I guess also I had such a personal interest in organics. So I became the ambassador for Biological Farmers of Australia and also Australian Organic and also the Mind Foundation prior to launching The Beauty Chef. I was really compelled to help educate people around the importance of sustainability. and in not only skincare, but also from an environmental perspective and also sustainability of our skin and our health.

16:29Yeah. So for me, it was just a tick-tock. It's like you look after your skin through using organic skincare and you're also looking after the planet. So I think those ambassadorships really deepened my advocacy for sustainable practices and I felt really strongly. So when I launched The Beauty Chef, I'd already been so immersed in that world and felt very strongly about making sure that our ingredients were clean and that we were part of these, partnered with these certifying bodies, and which we still do. Like, you know, we're partnered with FODMAP, with MSC, Marine Stewardship Council and Australian Organic.

17:07And I feel so passionate about that. Yeah. But when I look at now what I would do, I mean, again, it's so immediate now. You can talk about what you're passionate about, what you stand for, your values. You can communicate that to the customer instantly. So for me, it's not about building. It's my passion. And so people ask me, you know, do you get worried about competition and people that are doing things that are similar? And I never, I think it's great that we're expanding the market and that there's more people that are talking about the importance of ingestibles and wellness for beauty and wellbeing.

17:51And it's far more holistic. Do I get frustrated when brands don't do it well and they're just jumping on the bandwagon because it's trendy and they're not passionate about the ingredients and that dilutes the category? I can imagine that would be really frustrating. That is, it's super frustrating. But I also, you know, I always say, which I think annoys some people on my board, because I'll say, I don't need, because I'll go, where do we win? Where do we play and where do we win? And I'm like, I don't need to win. I just need to shine. And I don't need to be the biggest brand in the world. I just, I'm on a mission to be true to what I believe.

18:33And I think we still have so much to teach and to educate and to create beautiful products, but also a world where those products live that help people to live better. So a lifestyle, the education is so important to me. And there is so, I'm so passionate about the research and learning more and educating more. And there's still so much like gut health is just beginning. Yeah. And the impact it has, like the gut brain axis, the gut skin axis, the gut hormone axis, a gut metabolic axis. It's absolutely intriguing. And we're so lucky. We've got a state-of-the-art fermentation plant. We work with leading microbiologists.

19:10We started in 2009, so we're so way ahead. So that never worries me because, again, I love what I do. So I don't mind really how big or how small it is. It has to be commercially viable. But if we can still do important work in creating products that really help change people's lives and education that really helped them, then I feel like that for me is incredibly rewarding. Yeah. You're such an amazing example of somebody who as a founder embodies their brand and their mission and can speak so authentically to it. And I think a lot of brand builders and founders want to be able to do that. And I think you're just like such a wonderful example of somebody who does it really beautifully.

19:47And then what you said about competitors or people coming into the space, you know, I think about people who are launching products now in this space and they're kind of using labs and contract manufacturers and they're probably piecing together the research that your team are pioneering. And so I can imagine that investing in this over the long term is something that sets you up to have a brand that has been able to last as long as it has. Absolutely. And also I think I always say to founders as well, success is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration. You know, when someone asks me, I've got an idea, I'll ask them, are you passionate about it?

20:26Are you happy to ride the tides? Because you're going to have really great highs and you'll have lows. And what gets you through is your grit. And that's your passion, your perseverance, your set goals. And you are, so for me, you know, of course, a beauty chef's gone through its ups and downs, but I still have this absolute, this grit and this kind of determination because I love what I do. And so when you love what you do, yes, it can be stressful, but that passion helps cut through that stress. And so I always ask, you know, founders, are you really passionate? Is this just something, an idea that you haven't, you know, explore it, sit with it, think, you know, is this really what is my kind of heart's calling?

21:12And then look, some people do set up just businesses and that's fine too. Some people are like, I, for me, it's a business. I think it's a good idea. Am I passionate about it? No, but I see that it's going to be commercially viable. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I think like just the passionate interest about business itself as a game can be the thing that drives you. That's exactly right. And I think that's great as well. And that's why I think founders, we come from different places. We're compelled, we're inspired by different things. Yeah. I want to talk about press. You, I feel like the Beauty Chef has been featured absolutely everywhere.

21:44And in the beginning, you were as well. Like you got great press right from the get-go and your background is in journalism and editorial, similar to me. But the landscape, everything is so different now. And we're talking about affiliates. We're talking about AI coming in and changing, changing search and what that means for PR. What impact did PR have in the business in the beginning? And what were some of those early wins and how did they happen? Multiple part question. But then I want to also hear your thoughts on what role press plays now. And if a brand is coming up now, like, should that be something they're focusing on?

22:23Yeah. I mean, it's, again, the landscape's so different from when I launched. And press definitely had a huge impact on the business in the early days because that's all there was. It was like traditional press, PR. And we launched in 2009, but in, I'm just trying to think what year it was. no it was actually so cat beauty i was talking to you about that before the new york clean beauty store they talked to the new york times about the beauty chef and that's when i think it was must have been 2014 we just got this influx of calls from all different retailers wanting to stop the beauty chef from all around the world so that was amazing so that showed the power of press And then pre-COVID, when I was so worried, I was like, oh my, you know, when COVID hit, this is going to, you know, everyone was freaking out about business and retailers closing.

23:17And I was starting to go into damage control. I'm a really solutions focused person. So I'm like, okay, thinking of everything that could go wrong. You know, what is our, what is our plan? How are we going to get through this? And it was almost like the same week that we went into lockdown. and the Wentworth Career had done a story on me, which is our local paper, and I was on the cover. And they talked about how all these celebrities loved the brand. And then somehow it got out into all the media that Meghan Markle loved the beauty chef and she loved glow in her beauty powder. And I think that might have been through Sarah Chapman, who was a stockist.

23:53She's a facialist in London. And we saw this incredible increase in our sales of like 20 % and stayed 20%. And then of course, COVID was really good for the business. Like we saw a huge increase in our sales. Because of the focus on health and wellness. Absolutely. But that was the beginning of it. And so PR and also things like awards. So in America, pre-COVID, we were on a really amazing trajectory in the US. I was spending a lot of time in the US and my two books got nominated for James Baird Awards. Wow. and so a lot of people do you know the James Ben Awards so a lot of people in Australia don't know but they're like the Oscars for books in the US and so it was like a pinch me moment it was actually one of the first times I've had imposter syndrome because I was sitting I went to this amazing the awards ceremony and in New York my husband came my daughter came she was living in New York at the time and we sat on this table with oh what's his name Nathan Mevold so he was the CTO of Microsoft.

24:59He was like, he's a genius. He was such a big part of the building of Microsoft. I think he's a physicist. And then he went on to writing books and he wrote a book, which was nominated for when he won that night. I didn't win mine, but I was still so amazing to be nominated. So I was sitting with him. His book was, what's it called? Modernist Bread. And he created a whole series of these books, but to be sitting next to him and then my name and my book coming up alongside Ottolenghi and A Chef's Table. I got to meet all these food luminaries that I so admired. That was like a pinch me moment. Oh, my goodness, I feel like I'm an imposter.

25:41Like how can I be here with Nathan? And then there's Ottolenghi up there and A Chef's Table. And that was incredible. And that really helped to boost the beauty chef in the US. So it was interesting that combination of, again, I used to run masterclasses. So running masterclasses on how to look after your skin holistically, awards, traditional press, that really helped with building that credibility. And I think when you're a heritage brand, you do have a history of trust and confidence. And we've got an amazing customer base who's really sticky and loyal and they've been with us for a really long time.

26:21And that is absolutely very different to now. So press and all the things I talked about, they're just one part of a much broader ecosystem. And press, I think, is still incredibly important, but it's just one part of it. So press, you know, influences, user-generated content is super important because you don't want to be the only one espousing about how amazing your brand is. Getting real people to do it is incredibly powerful. And then you have your owned channels, you know, your TikTok, your blogs, your EDMs, Instagram all those social platforms now Substack I don't do Substack I really want to do Substack but I just you should totally do Substack I'm a huge fan of Substack and so you absolutely I think have to look at you know be across across all those touch points but again I think it's just working out where is your customer what's the communication what's a platform that resonates with the than the most you know fall down seven times stand up eight you have to just keep trying and not be disheartened.