She Sold Her First Business to Unilever—Then Started 2 More

0:02Welcome back to the show. This is Jasmine Gansworthy. I am the host of the female founder World podcast and the creator of all things Female Founder World. Today, my guest is Nakeo Grieco. She's the founder of 13 Loon. But before we jump into the show, I have a super quick podcast recommendation for you. If you are into the entrepreneurship and startup space, which like you're listening to the show, so that's a pretty fair bet. I want to tell you about Due Diligence, which is a pretty new show from Dolma Alton. She became kind of TikTok famous during the pandemic for her breakdowns and hot takes about what's going up in the startup and the VC space.

0:41It's a little different to this show. It's very much around like those big venture backed companies. And she speaks a lot about what's happening in tech as well. I've really loved a recent episode that she did with Rachel Woods, who is another baddie on TikTok. And it's all about the basics of AI and how it's impacting how we work and the future of business. I think it super, super interesting. And I recommend that you go and check it out. There's also another resource that just dropped in your dashboard if you are a business bestie member. And that is a recording of a recent group business coaching call with Lindsay Holden.

1:17Lindsay is a beauty entrepreneur. She is a former buyer at Target. And a lot of the questions that came from the community during that call were all about how do you get into a big box retailer? And she was very upfront and very honest about how to make that happen and some of the challenges about executing on those partnerships as well. It's definitely a must listen if you're in this consumer brand space and you want to launch into big retailers like Target and Walmart and Alta. So definitely go and check that out at bestie.femalefounderworld.com and log into your account. Okay, let's get into the show.

1:56You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Garnsworthy. Welcome to Female Founder World. It's so great to have you on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Okay. There's so many things to dive in here. You have had a beauty business that you built and exited to Unilever. You're now running a new company. Let's start in the early days, back in the early 2000s when you started your first beauty brand. What were you doing? What was kind of the mood? Why did you start this company? Yeah. So at the time in the early 2000s, I was working in Hollywood.

2:31I was actually working at a talent management company, mostly with actresses. I had pretty much learned at that point that I really loved the fashion and beauty aspect of Hollywood more so than, you know, reading scripts and being on set. And the sets that I wanted to be on were the sets where, you know, the actresses would be working on, you know, beauty deals, campaigns, covers, et cetera. I wanted to be in the makeup trailers. I wanted to get to know the stylists. And, and, you know, a big part of that is because when I was a little girl, as a first generation American of Kenyan descent, I had had the privilege of going to meet my grandmother at Nakeo when I was eight years old.

3:11And she taught me my first beauty secret. And that was making a Kenyan coffee scrub with coffee beans and sugar cane from her farm. My grandfather passed away before I ever got the chance to know him. He was a medicine man. So my whole life growing up in the United States, my mom would use these rituals and practices of cold pressed oils on my skin, on my hair as a way to take care of myself. And so, you know, fast forward, I'm in my twenties working in Hollywood. I'm having all of these beautiful products come across my desk. But what I found was the continent of Africa was really missing as far as getting the credit.

3:44You saw a lot of African ingredients coming across my desk, but you didn't see a lot of brands focused on celebrating the sophistication of Africa. So taking those timeless beauty rituals, as well as my love of beauty and an opportunity in the market to bring a premium skincare brand to life, celebrating my family beauty rituals was what I decided to do. So I left my job to create Nicao Beauty back in 2002. Amazing. And then let's pass forward. So I think it was 2017 that the business was acquired by Unilever. Is that right? Yes. Yes. 2017. The journey that took me, you know, from 2002 to the exit in 2017, there were many stops and starts in my journey and, and I was part of various, you know, portfolios and things, but I did have a lot of key learnings, especially when it came to sort of lack of access to capital at that time to really scale the business.

4:36And ultimately it was sold to Unilever in 2017. Okay. So let's just like look backwards and, and we'll get into 13 Loan in a minute, but I want to kind of know when you look back at that, that chapter of your life, it's almost, it's almost two to two decades. What are some of the key things that you pull out there where you're talking with other female founders and you're like, okay, these are the things that I learned that these are the challenges you're going to face. And this is how I overcame them. Yes. I mean, you know, I, as I mentioned, I think lack of access to capital was always my biggest challenge.

5:08You know, I would grow the business to a certain level. And then as the business and the demand was going up to a certain level, there was always this giant window of capital needed to take it to that next level. And what ultimately happened in those moments is that I would have to scale the business back. In some instances, sort of shut the business down for a little while until I could go back and raise enough capital to bring it back to shell. That was really, really frustrating. But I would say one of the most key learnings in that journey was growing slow but steady. It's, especially in beauty, you'll get these moments that are really exciting to, whether it be launch into national retail or show up in a big media opportunity where you're gonna get a lot of eyeballs in demand.

5:50And those moments are great, but if you're not prepared and if you don't have the capital to support, bringing on the inventory that you need, what you only end up with is a lot of angry customers. So I think slow and steady wins the race. when you have a large retailer coming to you. If you know you're not ready, that you're not set up from a capital standpoint, from a bandwidth standpoint with support, it's okay to say not right now. I'm gonna get ready and come back. I think people always worry that like that chance will pass you by and it's better to do it the right way than to go to shelf to not survive.

6:23So be really mindful in those opportunities. Don't hold back because you think you're not ready. Just get yourself ready enough and have the conversations to get ready enough. I think also ask for help. You know, generally people want to help each other. Being an entrepreneur can be such a solo journey and sometimes you think you have to have it all figured out on your own, but quite honestly, none of us have it all figured out on our own. So make sure that you're reaching out to other mentors, founders, retailers, etc. to ask for help while you're in your journey because people want to see you win.

6:56I feel like that's such good advice. I think that when a big retailer approaches you as a brand, it can be just that gut reaction of like, I just need to do anything to make this work. Let's go. And I think that, you know, there is a level of not wanting an opportunity to pass you by, but you only get that launch once and you want to do it right. And sometimes it's just not the right time. I think that's such an important thing I mentioned. Or, you know, when it comes to, you know, say you do say yes. Say you sign up for this commitment, even if you're, you know, a little worried that you're not as prepared, you know, ask for help, ask for support, talk to other brands that are at shelf and other brand founders that are at shelf location, ask them for key practices, you know, and ways to win and, you know, make sure that you've got the capital to support.

7:42It is frustrating. I always also tell people, don't be deterred by the stats. I can't even imagine what the stats were for people of color, women of color raising money back in 2002. And I knew where I wasn't able to raise money. And I didn't spend all my time focusing on trying to break that ceiling, that wall. I went to friends and family. I learned about different angels. I studied different accelerators, grants, et cetera, just to get the product to market. So also know there's many avenues to get yourself, you know, not only prepared from a brand perspective, prepared from a supply chain perspective, but to get yourself financially prepared before you take advantage of these awesome opportunities.

8:22And I just want to call out as well. So we have a, on the FEMA Founder World website, for folks who are listening, we have a free grant guide that you can download. It's on the homepage and it's literally a guide to all of the different grants that are available in 2023, application deadlines, who is eligible to apply because so many of the founders in the community are finding this issue with like getting funding is so hard from traditional VC investors. So the grants are a really great way to get yourself off the ground. So yeah, use that resource. Amazing. Yes, absolutely. What a great resource.

8:54Yeah. So I want to, okay, let's fast forward a little bit. 2020, you launched 13 Loan. Talk to us about what that is and why you needed, why you thought that they needed to be a company like this on the market? Yes. So, you know, in 2017, as you mentioned, Nicao had exited to Unilever. I was still working with the brand at the time. And in 2020, you know, we're in the midst of a global pandemic. We were also at the most heightened moment of systemic racism of our lifetime. And what, as a result of that, I, and myself, so many, so many other founders found ourselves on those lists, you know, top black owned to shop and to follow.

9:35And all of these lists were circulating, you know, truly globally. And for the first time in the 18 year journey that I had had with Nicao up until that point, I'd never received more attention, more DMs. I saw the sales of Nicao at the time it was being sold at Target climb exponentially. And I quite honestly found it very confusing, you know, as many founders did, you know, why is this what's catapulting our careers, you know, on this precipice of this horribly heartbreaking time for all of us and confusing time for all of us. And, and so as opposed to sort of getting lost in my pain, I decided to be in purpose.

10:15And so I just started shopping the list. And as I discovered these lists, you know, quite often as a, as a black woman in premium skincare, I was often the only, you know, so wow, did I feel a lot less lonely when I looked at these lists. But then when I started to go down the rabbit hole and study their brands and go to their Instagrams. I realized they were beautiful, clean, efficacious brands, rich founder stories, connecting with them on DM, getting to know them, sharing our experiences. But seeing that they had very little distribution, some of them, very few followers, really incredible products that were, you know, enjoying ordering and using at home.

10:54And I decided that I wanted to create the retailer that I wished I'd always had. I wanted a place as we were seeing, you know, the 15 % pledge, a beautiful initiative happening. There was this disconnect for me as a beauty founder, now turned beauty retailer and how it was so hard to get to 10 brands on shelf or 13 brands on shelf when I'm on a list of 500. I also wanted to debunk the myth because I was getting asked by a lot of people, sadly, when it came to the Nikkeo brand, can I use your face oil if I don't look like you? And every time I would see something like that come through my DMs, I couldn't believe well, A, everybody has melanin.

11:29Melanin doesn't just mean dark skin. Every single person in the world has melanin. Most of the beauty ingredients that we use across all beauty brands come from marginalized parts of the world, South Asia, South America, Africa. Of course, you can use products that we make. We make products for ourselves and we make products for everyone else. And so it was an opportunity to educate. And we started as a platform. We wanted to start with all black and brown founders as 90 % of our brands, but 10 % of our brands are dedicated to fostering allyship. And so we invited brands that are not black or brown founded brands to join us, brands that had long considered all in their formulations in front of the camera, behind the camera.

12:12And that was in December of 2020. And 60 days after we launched, we got a call from JCPenney and we are just now completing our 600 door rollout of 13 Loon stores within JCPenney and opening a flagship store here in Los Angeles. So it's been a very productive 26 months, but it's been a life-changing 26 months for so many of our brand founders. And these products were just incredible. And what I also love about 13 Loon, when I think about the early days of some of our biggest beauty retailers, in early days, it was all about discovery, you know, walking into these places and discovering brands that you've never heard of and and that true experience in beauty that i think sometimes you know we took for granted until the world was shut down and now it's so fun so while we have you know bigger maybe more recognizable brands both bipoc and ally brands we do have the we offer this opportunity for such discovery of these amazing clean efficacious cool brands made by incredible human beings.

13:17And, and so that's where I really am having so much fun. When you're thinking about building a company from the ground up after already having done it, what are some of the kind of foundational things that you need to have in place? And I don't know what your plans are. If you're thinking you want to exit 13 Loon one day, I'm assuming that's kind of on the, on the radar. And that's something that you're considering from the beginning. But when you're thinking about reverse engineering for success, now that you've done it, what are you doing in 13 Loon that you kind of wish that you'd done from the beginning in your first business?

13:47I think from an investment standpoint, I think that I am, I know that I've reframed what investment looks like to me as an individual, as an entrepreneur. When I was younger and building Nakeo, sometimes I would make decisions based on desperation to just keep the business going. And, you know, there is smart money and there is dumb money. And smart money to me, And I find that, you know, around the entire cap table of 13 Loon, we have a lot of smart money and smart money to me is, you know, investment is like a marriage. And so you want to make sure you're going into it, choosing people who will be strategic partners for you, people who will be advisors for you, people who you know that you can go to in the best of times and in the worst of times.

14:38In the past, I've taken really dumb money and dumb money to me can stretch anywhere from a predatory investor to taking a deal that you know is not your worth, but just taking the check because you're just trying to stay alive, trying to keep the business alive. But the problem with dumb money is it is almost virtually impossible to undo yourself from it. And normally, as I said, it comes from a place of desperation. It comes from a place of feeling like this is the only way. But 99 % of the time, as you're going into making those decisions, when it comes to dumb money, you can feel it in your gut.

15:15You know it instinctually because entrepreneurs have the best instincts. And so listen to those instincts. So what I'm very thrilled about is that I've had the opportunity to learn from my mistakes. And I've gotten the opportunity to launch another brand, launch another company with a wealth of knowledge of what to do and what not to do, but still the ability to keep learning. What are some of those red flags that you see in an investor that make you think, no, you and I are not going to be a good fit? Yeah. I think, you know, I'll speak of my own experience. It's, you know, it's an investor that comes in with a deal that's like too good to be true, wants to change their mind a lot around the terms of a deal.

16:00I don't know why I never did this, but I heard this. I was on a panel recently where somebody said, oh, I never go into relationship with investor unless I've talked to three other people that they've invested in. I'm like, why did I never do that? That could have saved me a world of hurt in my life. But another great fact, I love what I learned from other entrepreneurs on panels. So yeah, do your homework. Don't just trust the gram or a recent article that you've read about them. get to know who they are by the experiences others have had of them and with them. And so, you know, and I also think sometimes we get so excited for the big picture and, you know, while I've had lovely investors in the past that were kind and fair, some of them were so far removed from the space that I was in that it was hard for them to understand how to scale my business.

17:00And so I think, you know, it can be the nicest person in the whole wide world that just believes in you and wants to, you know, be on your cap table, but understand that that means you're giving up your equity. And so make sure you're giving up your equity to people who will strategically help you grow. And so, yeah, I think those are some of my key takeaways from my past experience. When you're talking about launching a new business, and you've obviously made a huge impact really, really quickly with 13 Loon. Like you've only been around for a few years. You have 1600 stores within JCPenney and now a flagship as well.

17:35And I see the business everywhere. Like I see you in articles. I'm seeing it covered everywhere. I'm seeing it on social. From a perspective of like creating buzz at launch, what is working now? Because things are obviously very different when you started your first business. Yeah. You know, it's so interesting when we first launched 13 Loon in December of 2020. I mean, we knew we had some really interesting people on the cap table, you know, Sean Puffy Combs, Gwyneth Paltrow, you know, early angels that, that were talking a lot about the brand. And I think that's sort of how, you know, some of that buzz happened.

18:10But I also think it's because we did something that's never been done before. You know, it's the first of its kind, truly inclusive beauty retail platform. It's not just, you know, there are amazing, wonderful platforms that are, you know, brown for brown or black for black or circulating just within the community. And we are black and brown for all. So that was something that had never been shared. You know, we flipped, we flipped pledges on, you know, in, in different ways by saying we're 90 % BIPOC and 10%. So I think there were so many interesting details within the structure of the business that had never been done before.

18:41So I think that made it an interesting thing to cover. I also think that we were living at a time when everybody was just trying to do the right thing and, and move the needle forward for inclusion and diversity. So timing was everything. Where I think that we are really continuing to generate buzz is obviously rapid growth. We always knew we were going to be omnichannel. We definitely didn't know that we were going to open 601 stores within the first two years, but that's exciting and life-changing for all of us. And it is really exciting when you have a business that has high growth, but it's also, there's a big responsibility on us as co-founders to make sure that we stay really focused on our goals and really focused on our pillars.

19:23And so, you know, we're very nimble. We're both second time entrepreneurs. We have both made a boatload of mistakes in the past that we have learned from and, and we listened to one another. And I think that in that listening, what we're finding is that, you know, really focusing on our own DTC, focusing on our, you know, store and stores at JCPenney and now our flagship has really served us well over the last two years to, you know, wholly focus on those three pillars and wholly drive home that story of those three different pillars. And now as we continue to grow, we're starting to explore international opportunities.

19:59And that I love, you know, yes, I was born in the States, but I'm a Kenyan girl who's never sold a product into another country. And so that is really exciting that I'm going to get to show up in places where I have family, places I've always wanted to go, places that, you know, really inspire some of the most beautiful beauty traditions and rituals in the world. And so just starting those conversations now, but excited to see where we decide to go. Okay. Super exciting. I'm not going to push you on that. I'm sure it's all very hush-hush at the moment, but that sounds very exciting. One of the challenges that founders talk to us about as they're scaling is hiring, building a team, finding really great people to come along with you.

20:40You have just scaled so, so quickly. I'm sure this is something that you've, a challenge that you faced multiple times, both in your first business, but also now in a really rapid kind of fast way of having to grow this team to be able to like fuel that growth and really big goals that you have. What tips do you have? Where are you finding great people? How are you bringing them on board? Who do you hire first? Talk me through the lessons. Yes. You know, what's interesting about a company that launched in 2020 is that we were a company born on zoom. And so we had the amazing opportunity to just hire for talent.

21:17And so a lot of our staff is all over the country. That being said, that's really hard on culture. You know, there's something that, excuse me, there's something that cannot be replaced when it comes to in real life contact, you know, zoom the team when it comes to talent and not being limited in location, but also making sure that we're prioritizing culture. When are those in real life moments happening, whether it's old team, regionally, on each coast, et cetera. We've leaned very heavily into agencies, but where I find that we're finding the best hires are it's old school, word of mouth, just going out there to my networks, whether it be the WeSuite or the Female Founders Collective, or, you know, same with my partner, other executives that we have in the company and their networks.

22:12And that's where most of our amazing talent has come from is word of mouth. I've had the great opportunity to hire eight people that I used to work with on the Nikao brand over time. And that is like, the band is back together and feels so good. We had all sort of branched out post-acquisition in different places. Some had stayed on, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, these are people that I trusted. When I joined the Sundial portfolio before we were Unilever and who took care of me as the niche brand in the portfolio that fought for myself and for my brand to win. And so when the opportunity gracefully happened to bring them all on board, it's just been a full circle moment.

22:56And there's something really powerful about working with people that you've trusted for over a decade, you know, so happy to bring the family back together as well. Can I also just say that that is such an amazing endorsement to you as a leader, that you were able to bring all those people who had worked with you before back onto the next mission. Obviously they really believe in you, loved working with you before. And I feel like that's such a great endorsement for bringing new staff members on as well. It's like, Hey, look at all these people that have worked with me for years before and they trust me and they loved the last experience and they're coming on board to this new challenge.

23:27So I think that's pretty cool as well. Yeah, no, it's great. And then the new talent that they brought to be on their teams, you know, from the other places that they had worked after the Unilever acquisition, and that that's great. So now I'm getting to know all these new people, but I already trust them because they're with people I trust. So it really, you know, and even, you know, while we speak about the 9010 at Shelf, we also really focus on a hyper inclusive, diverse team as well, not just even in regards to race and to gender and sexuality and et cetera. So, so it's fun. It's a lot of fun.

24:01And there's just, you know, there's days I just wish we could all go to the same office and be together, but I'm happy that, that we are connected through the mission. When you say 90, 10 for people who aren't familiar, what do you mean by that? Yeah. So that at shelf, 90 % of all brands and forever all brands carried at 13 Loon are created by black and brown people from around the globe who make products for everyone. And 10 % are dedicated to fostering allyship. And ally brands, as I mentioned earlier, are defined as brands that long before the racial reckoning of 2020 were brands that were not black or brown owned, but brands that were really considering all in their formulations and their campaigns and their C-suites and their hiring in front of the camera, behind the camera.

24:44Brands who had been allies to me and my growth as a beauty entrepreneur. And so they're part of the 13 Moon family as well. Amazing. The last thing that I ask everyone who comes on the show is for a resource recommendation. It could be a book, a podcast, a community that you're part of, an app that you use, just like something that's been helping you as you've been up-leveling as a founder and as a leader. Yes. I mean, gosh, I have so many resources. I do love to read. And so I've just recently, And I love autobiographies because I find I learned so much through learning about other people's true stories.

25:21And so I just recently finished the Michelle Obama book. I like to read my friend's books. So my friend Candice Nelson just wrote a book called Sweet Success. I think that's a great resource for entrepreneurs. But, you know, another resource I love are, you know, meditation apps. I use a meditation app called 10 % Happier. I was new to meditation. I mean, I've always now I realize I guess I was always meditating. I just didn't understand that I was meditating. But then when I decided that I really, I really wanted to take it more seriously, that was the first app that I used that sort of gave me permission to not be the perfect meditator.

25:55And I do. And I like, I like short meditations. I like eight minutes, 10 minutes, six minutes, sometimes 20, but you know, for the most part, I do it right before I nap and I nap every single day. I think that's a great resource. Amazing. Okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I need to talk about the nap daily. This is my dream and my life goal. So how do you fit that in? So it has to be scheduled or it won't happen. So I will look at my schedule and sometimes it's at 1030 in the morning. Sometimes it's at three in the afternoon. Like I don't wait for myself to feel tired to rest my body and nap. You set your clock for 37 minutes.