Susan Yara's Blueprint for Building Beauty Empires

15:53Susan Yara:The story is going to come out about how me and Ben met.

15:55Jasmine:Yeah.

15:55Susan Yara:And so, uh, I post it, the YouTube video and, uh, almost immediately it's like, you know, first off, it's actually more of like a, a really positive response from people. We're selling out of products left and right. We're doing really well. The video gets like hundreds of thousands of views in hours, but there are like these comments also popping through and they're like you know they're like saying this stuff like you've been the owner you've been lying to us and all this stuff again though i'm ignoring it because i'm like fuck you bitch yeah you know again not the way you should be handling things there are a lot of lessons learned here like a very human response it's

16:28Jasmine:like it is stop why when do people stop assuming positive intent around anything exactly yeah

16:34Susan Yara:exactly and and also how can you possibly know what's really happening behind the scenes um so i'm thinking about how i should address this we're we're chatting behind the scenes but it's getting bigger and bigger now other influencers are getting uh onto this trend they like you know it gets them views to chat about this this this cancellation or whatever you want to call it right like this this thing that this other influencer did like everyone's hopping on board with this and so the story's getting bigger and bigger and then it's like holy shit what are we going to do with this because we just never imagined it get this big.

17:07Susan Yara:So I'm starting to get like, oh my gosh, I actually shut down. I'm like two, three days off of the internet because it's starting to get intense. The comments are getting crazy. And then we get a call from the FTC and I'm like, oh shit. So the FTC is like, we've never had this many complaints come in about an influencer before. Like it's hundreds and hundreds of complaints. And now we have to open an investigation on you And it can be voluntary or we can like make this a big deal. And so, of course, we're like, we're going to make this voluntary, you know. But the problem with that is now we can no longer talk about the details.

17:38Susan Yara:So I missed my chance to really explain because now we're in a legal situation. Right. And of course, it's like the FTC. They take forever. We're already like handing over all this evidence for them. It's my contracts. They want all of the conversations that are had, whether it was online, text message, anything. You cannot hide anything that you've said, even personal information that you've been sharing with Ben Bennett, with anybody, right? If they're involved with the brand, you're giving up everything because they need to see that you weren't trying to, you know, like lie to the audience and commit fraud or whatever it is, right?

18:14Susan Yara:But it's the government. So it takes them like a year and a half to get back to us. So like this is just an open investigation for a year and a half. And at that point, it's like everyone's just made their assumptions. that's like like everyone's moved on they all made their assumptions they all think that I was in the wrong and it's done right and so by the time this is all figured out and the FTC comes back and they're like yeah you're right there's nothing to see here we're moving on that's truly I got an email one day from our attorney and they're like it was a forwarded email just saying like yeah you guys are right we're just going to close this down thank you that was it for like something that felt like a very big moment for me but the best thing about about the whole situation was that you know ben as my investor could have seen all of this drama and shut down he could have been like absolutely not this is too risky for us to take a chance on you um we're gonna have to call it quits with you as a business partner instead he was like we're gonna lock hands and we're gonna go hard and we're gonna make sure this is the best damn skin skincare brand that has ever existed and that to me was the sign of just such a positive person to be your business partner.

19:20Susan Yara:It was like we barely knew each other, but we were going to be, we're going to get each other's backs and we're going to go hard. So that was, and the other lesson I learned from that, and it's really been a big factor in how I've kept going, is that when I came back online, I looked at all the comments and I was like, wow, you know what? I'm really focusing on these people who are being negative. And yes, some of them might be my followers, but the majority don't even know who I am. Who are these people? And they're saying crazy things, those people, right? Like they're saying things that are like almost like death threats.

19:51Susan Yara:Like they're saying you should be dying, not the people getting COVID. You should have your children taken away. And it's just such an extreme for what you're being accused of. So when you take a step back, you realize that you're just focusing on the 1%, 2 % that are very negative, but loud and not focusing on the people who are there still supporting you. So my core community was going strong. Then I started looking at all the messages and I was like, my team was really upset. They were like, oh God, all this work we've done and everything for the mixed makeup team. They were, they were like more upset than I was.

20:21Susan Yara:Right. Cause they couldn't see these messages that I was seeing. And I had to tell them, I'm like, guys, look at the comments, look at my DMS. The majority are actually people being like, I don't know what's going on. Like this, even, even if they were upset about it, they're like, but you have been with me for the last few years. You've taught me everything about skincare. You've been there through my motherhood journey. Just like I've been, you know, like going through as you've been going through yours. And they're like, we appreciate you so much that we're going to support you still, you know?

20:46Susan Yara:And I think that's the thing you have to really remember is to be there for your own community, whether you are a brand founder or a content creator.

20:53Jasmine:Yeah. And I think, you know, you look at the success that you've had now and it just speaks to how strong that community is and the trust that you built over all of those years that they would, you know, that they stuck by you, which I love. The other thing that I think about when you say that is like 2020 was this wild time for female founder cancellations and I think that that was this real hangover for many years for women not wanting to build in public and not wanting to show up online particularly I think I think Gen Z kind of missed it but like millennials like a lot of our like icon founders that we followed were torn down and ever since now we've like relitigated it and thought yeah that probably didn't need to happen but at the time it was just like founder after founder after founder after founder and And it's had real repercussions on the way that women show up in business and on the internet that I don't know if like a lot of those journalists and a lot of those people that were kind of jumping to these pylons really understand.

21:48Jasmine:But I speak to these founders every day and they reference that period all the time.

21:52Susan Yara:Well, it's, you know, I think as a person, not even just as a woman, you do not want people to think that you're a bad person. You're not. Your intentions aren't to be a bad person, right? But you are a human. Yeah. Right. And you are a woman navigating the business world. Right. And so you already have all these challenges. People think you're a bitch if you're stern. Right. People think that you're making dumb decisions, even though when they watch you over time, they realize that they were very short sighted and you actually had a vision that came from that female perspective. Right. People forget that you're a mom.

22:25Susan Yara:Like I said, I had a six month old at home and a toddler at home. Right. They forget that there are all these different things that are happening in the background for women founders. And when they're showing up online, they're putting their all into it, right? Like not everybody wants to be online. But they're sucking it up because they believe in their brand and they really want to be a strong business person. And they have to almost give more than the average male founder, right? Like male founders, you can barely name who those founders are when they're male, right? Like they don't need to show up.

22:56Susan Yara:They rarely ever get canceled unless they're like the most awful people. They have to do something very illegal. Very, very illegal. And even at that. Even then, they're back. Exactly. Give it 12 months. Exactly. And they're just almost not as affected because it's just a different kind of psyche, right? Like we get so affected by this because we spend so much time trying to build something positive. And then for one little thing that was misunderstood usually, you get torn down in such an extreme way that you're like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. Yes. You know, like, is this really worth it for me?

23:31Jasmine:Good sleep is everything. That's why Oli's science back support is made with a blend of melatonin and L-theanine for both kiddos and grownups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help. Erasing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Oli's sleep solutions for the whole family at Oli.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. I could talk about this all day, but I want to talk about the next few years because from launch to an acquisition by e.l.f. and also with the news that Hayley Bieber's brand, Rode, was also just recently acquired by e.l.f. I also feel like people are very curious about the process and how this happens.

24:08Jasmine:But I want to talk about the steps that you took through those years to build a brand that could be acquired so quickly and for that amount. 2021, you launched into Target and became one of the fastest growing skincare brands in Target, which is incredible. Can you talk me through how that came about and maybe some of the lessons that you have from that experience for other consumer brand builders who want that big, major retail partnership?

24:30Susan Yara:Yeah. So I think what I – when I really think back on that time, it's that Ben and I really had a game plan. And that game plan was going to happen whether – Tell me the game plan. The game plan was –

24:43Jasmine:I want to copy paste the game plan.

24:45Susan Yara:Yeah. Game plan was we already knew what price point we wanted to be at. And we knew this a lot from the analytics of my own YouTube channel, right? We could see what consumers were buying, what they were spending, like the amount of money they were spending, the types of ingredients and products that they were interested in, the retailers they shopped at the most. So I knew my shopper, my viewer, was spending about$25 on average for a product. They were into the really efficacious ingredients that had clinical data behind them. So think vitamin C, your retinoids, really good moisturizers that protect your barrier, that kind of stuff, right?

25:18Susan Yara:And they shopped at Target, right? So Target was the only retailer we were going to go after. There was no other option, right? So, and also one thing that I'll give to Ben, Ben is an incredible business person. And he is so straightforward with you that there are no illusions about what you are doing with him, right? So when we were chatting about me joining the brand, he was like, we're building a brand to sell it. I don't want you to think at all that we're going to take some time and like let you grow this and have all your mistakes and all this stuff and build over the next 10 years. No, we're going to build this as fast as possible and go hard because I build brands to sell them.

25:58Susan Yara:And that doesn't mean you can't be passionate about it, right? I actually think a lot of people lie to themselves and to everybody else when they claim that they're just building a brand because they love it and they're not acknowledging that they're building a brand to sell it. I think like 99 % of us build brands to sell them. Not enough people are talking about this. Right. But you can still be passionate about your brand while trying to sell it. Yes. You know, and I think that that's OK. So we were very clear about all of these things. Right. We were clear that Target was going to be the only retailer that we wanted to go into first.

26:27Susan Yara:We were going to immediately Target doesn't know this, but we already knew we were going to stay exclusive with Target for at least the first two, three years because we wanted to make sure that we built a brand that was recognized at Target. And we feel like a really good retail partner can actually be one of the best ways to build your brand name. Right. A lot of people think that they need to be in like so many different retail stores and they almost spread themselves too thin. But if you stick with one really good retail partner, whether that's Target, whether that's Ulta, whether that's Sephora.

26:56Susan Yara:To me, it's always between Sephora and Target a lot of the times when you're first launching because they really can nurture your brand, especially if you're locking hands with them. So we wanted to lock hands with Target, right? There's a lot of negotiation. You don't tell that to them right away, any of the merchants, right? Because you always have to negotiate some stuff. Like they want you to be exclusive, but then you have to kind of be like, well, we're trying to hit these revenue goals for this year, this year and this year. How are you going to help us while we help you? Right. And so you can't just be out there.

27:25Susan Yara:It's like dating. Right. You can't be like, hi, I'm in. I'm 100 percent and I want to marry you now. And I don't want to ever get a divorce. Like you're going in. You're still being a negotiator. But in the backs of our minds, we knew we were going into Target and we wanted to make sure we stayed at Target to build this brand name.

27:41Jasmine:Let's talk a little bit more about the D2C piece of the business and what was growing that. You're obviously like an absolute masterful content creator, brand builder, community builder. What were some of the things that were happening on the marketing side that got Naturium to 90 million in revenue?

27:58Susan Yara:Again, one thing I want to point out, a different time for e-com. Yeah. Okay. The first two years of lockdown, 2020 and 2021, e-com was great for everybody, right? Peloton was booming. they thought they were going to be the most massive company ever. Now look at them, right? Like this was a different, different time for e-com. So I do think that that's a big factor. Okay. But the way that I think we stood out was that we, one, there's a big difference in the, there's like two types of content creators, right? There are the content creators who are great at just kind of like talking and getting the word out and stuff, but then there are sellers, right?

28:33Susan Yara:And they're actually very rare to find sellers, especially in the beauty industry, because a lot of the time people are just reviewing products, they're showing things, maybe they're educating, but they're not selling product, right? One of the things that I was really proud of and that made me stand out as a content creator was that I was selling. I always was the person that brands came to when they were kind of hitting their revenue gap at the end of a quarter and they'd be like, we really need to sell through some product. Can you help us? Right? Like that was one of the things that I would do for brands.

29:04Susan Yara:How do you do that? I think it's part of the education, right? Building that trust, I would never take on a brand or a sponsorship that I didn't actually believe in. And a lot of the time I ended up having long-term partnerships because I was so into this brand or into this product that my viewers knew it and they would buy this product, they would try it and they would know that it was going to be a good product. So I think, you know, early into your content creation game, you have to make sure that you're being really authentic and really being a trustworthy person because otherwise you're going to actually shoot yourself in the foot and you'll never sell anything because you're going to you start to see.

29:38Susan Yara:I remember like the first couple of sponsorships I took really early on. I was like so so on them, but I was like, we need sponsorships. Right. And I got feedback right away. You know, people are like, I bought this product and it sucked. And you realize like you can't keep doing that. Yeah. You know, you really have to believe in these products when you sell them. So so that was a big, big part for me was I knew how to sell and and people really did trust that. Right. So we carried that over into Notarium, not in just my videos. Right. I was always educating and doing that and trying to sell product.

30:10Susan Yara:But I was always bringing on people who I could identify a seller. Right. Like I I could see somebody online, even if they were small and I knew they could be a seller. So we would go after all these people and we would start to build a lot of these people as well. Like some of some people that are like even micro influencers, they'll even say to you, Natarium was my first brand partnership. Like no brands had ever acknowledged me, never even sent me PR. And that was because I was constantly online. Again, a different time. Like we're in lockdown. Everyone's chronically online at that point. And I was just identifying the sellers.

30:41Susan Yara:I could see it, whether they were at a thousand followers or they were at 200 ,000 followers or getting close to a million. And I knew who the sellers were. And we went with those people to help us educate and sell.

30:51Jasmine:I want to talk to you now about the acquisition process for everyone who's watching your story. And it's just like, okay, this is the dream. How do you build something that Elf wants to acquire? Can you talk us through, I've heard you talk before about why you wanted to partner with Elf. And they were just like the best partner for the brand. And I want to know why they wanted to partner with Nuturium. And what makes a brand seem like a good fit for someone like that?

31:16Susan Yara:Okay, well, I do want to throw out there again about like being so I, you know, like the word manifesting is kind of a funny word to me because it can be a little bit like, you know, a little bit like hokey. Yeah. But there is a little something to be said about you believing and it's not even believing you already knowing what's going to happen. Right. Like, again, Ben and I were very clear about our intentions and how we were going to build this brand, who our retail partner was going to be when we wanted to sell it, what revenue we needed to hit. We were doing all these things. And this was a daily basis.

31:46Susan Yara:Ben had this really great thing that he would do. It was like a little game that he would play with all of the executives every single day. And that was around 5 p.m. He'd send a message in Slack to the executives. And at first it was like four of us. And he'd be like, what is our revenue today? Guess our daily revenue before we see it at midnight. So we'd have to have our answers in before 6 p.m. That way we could get into this habit of just knowing what is our daily revenue? What are we going to be hitting? What trends are we seeing in the sales today that make us believe we're going to hit this revenue?

32:24Susan Yara:If we had a sale, then we had to think about other aspects of this. If we launched a new product, what was that product going to do for our revenue that day? So it was a really good exercise to just get into, right? Like you're training your brain to just know, right? And I think that when you know your strategy, what you're trying to accomplish, and you're seeing it as your actual, it's not even your future. This is just what you're doing, right? You're already knowing that this is going to happen. It has to happen. Your brain can't function without it knowing it's going to happen, right? So we were always just very, very clear.

32:58Susan Yara:And probably a year before we sold Noturium to Elf, I actually sent a text to Ben and I said, we're going to be sold to Elf. and he sends me a text back and he's like, why do you say that? And I was like, I just know. And he says, do you know something that I don't know? Like what's going on here? And I was like, trust me. I'm like looking at all the trends. I'm looking at what they're doing. Yeah. Looking at what all the strategics are doing and we're going to sell to Elf. Wow. And so, and I tell that to Terrain all the time, the CEO of Elf. I'm like, just a reminder, I knew you guys were going to acquire us.

33:26Susan Yara:The funny thing about that is when you fast forward. So going back to acquisition, OK, at some point, you have to really pay attention to everything that's happening in the market. Right. We were starting to see that the tide was turning a little bit. The way that brands were selling and at the multiple that they were selling at was starting to slow down. And a lot of these brands had spent a lot of the indie brands had spent so much time on marketing and overdoing their budget and not showing either a path to profitability or weren't profitable at all. And there was just no sign of profits. Right.

33:59Susan Yara:They were just going hard on marketing and growing the name of the brand. And that was working for a while, but it's almost like the equivalent of like back in the day, there was like all these kinds of sales happening with brands and stuff, a lot of the tech brands and everything. And then that busted, right? And it's kind of the same thing in beauty and a lot of these other CPG brands, right? There was this trend of just going hard on growing the name and not really showing this profitability. And that stopped, right? And the good news was we were such a young brand that we could put a halt to that and make sure that we focused on being profitable.

34:35Susan Yara:And that was a very, very important key because right about like a year before we sold, no brands were being acquired if they didn't have that. If they had no profit, no path to profitability, they weren't going to sell. And we saw a lot of brands suddenly just stall. They were like out to market, but they were not selling. And so that was really important for us because we were able to pivot a little bit with our business plan and really make sure that we were showing these profits.

35:02Jasmine:What happens the day after you sign that deal?

35:04Susan Yara:I mean, it's still kind of surreal because, right, like the it's not like you just get hit in your bank account with a ton of money. Like the company gets the bank, it gets hit with the bank, but then you have to sit there and do all this legal stuff and tax stuff. So you don't even get the money for like, I don't know, like a month or something like that. Right. But even before that, because we sold to a publicly traded company, they had to announce the deal months before the deal was going to finalize. Right. And there were still a lot of legal things that had to happen before the deal closed.

35:34Susan Yara:So you like you get it announced that your your brand is getting acquired and everyone's like, you know, you know, congratulating you and doing all these things. And then you still have like three, four, five months before we see any money. Right. Like it's still the same exact thing. It's almost like you're in purgatory. But once you get the money, you're kind of like, wow, like you've never seen this much money in your own bank account before. At least I had it. Right. And and you're just kind of like it's a little surreal. Right. And you start. I think for me, I didn't really get comfortable with the idea of spending money as a person like with money.

36:09Susan Yara:Right. Like it didn't feel like I had money. I just was like in in hustle mode still. Yeah. I was kind of like in survivor mode. Right. Like you always have to like make sure you're making good decisions with your money. and doing all these things. So it actually took me a good year to really start to enjoy having some money.

36:23Jasmine:Yeah. I've heard you talk on other podcasts before about, you know, you're not someone who like grew up with a lot of money and you were able to take that and like retire your parents and do all these amazing things, which is so incredible.

36:32Susan Yara:Yeah. And those are like the first things that you do. It's funny. It's like, again, as like a person who didn't grow up with money, who didn't know how to manage money, I think one of the first things I did was find a really good portfolio manager and somebody who could advise me without making me feel stupid. Yeah. Right. And so I had started working with my portfolio manager, David, probably like six, seven months before the brand got acquired. He was smart. He had some foresight, right? He was like, this brand is on to something. This girl's on to something. So he took me on when I didn't have that much money.

37:01Susan Yara:And he, the reason I chose him over, you know, he's actually with a smaller, smaller, I call it a quote unquote smaller, but it's not one of these like big banks like JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs. I went with him because he was the first person to really talk to me about money in a way that just made sense to me and didn't make me feel stupid. Right. Because I had some questions about things like you don't naturally know that, like, you know, you can just take out a loan against your own like a margin loan. Right. Against your own money. You don't ever have to spend your own cash. You can keep investing it while you're actually investing into other things like real estate or, you know, starting something else or whatever it is that you want to do.

37:37Susan Yara:wealthy people don't spend their own money. Yeah. Right. Like it's a crazy thought.

37:41Jasmine:It's there's so much around this that I feel like is truly gatekept and is information that is so hard to find because it's just not necessarily publicly available on Google. And it's like when you get to a certain point, you start having access to these people who can give you this advice. It actually just allows you to accumulate more wealth even more quickly. Was there anything else that you learned through this process about your personal wealth? Yeah.

38:04Susan Yara:I mean, even like tax things, right? If I were to sell another brand in the future, I'd be so much more prepared tax-wise. I think people sometimes, again, going back to people thinking it's bad to say that they are building a brand to get acquired, I think people don't want to talk about taxes either. And it's just something that's not natural. If you're a person who's making like a million dollars a year, it sounds like a lot to the average person. But when you're living in a place like California, you're getting hit with so many taxes. And it almost makes you feel like, why am I working so hard to make this amount of money?

38:35Susan Yara:because now I have to spend so much money to give back to the government. And it's like it's a little disheartening, right? Like it really kind of slows you down. And when you're going through an acquisition process and you're going to deal with lots more money, you don't know that there are all these steps that you could have taken to try to get your taxes down. I mean, I think that the tax code is made for business owners, right? Like it's something that you should be utilizing as long as you're doing it legally and in the right way. But it's again, it's not natural. Right. So going back to David, he was actually really helpful.

39:08Susan Yara:He looked at all my contracts with the center and how I was going to be paid out and everything. And he actually because he had been an accountant before he was a portfolio manager. He was really, really good about looking at everything, all my paperwork. And he was like, can we make some changes? He talked to Ben at the center and stuff. Because it's not like Ben wants me to be more in taxes either. Right. Yeah. He doesn't care how much tax you pay. Exactly. So he talked to Ben and we actually, before the acquisition, were able to update some of my contracts so that I didn't get hit with such massive taxes.

39:39Susan Yara:Still got hit with some massive taxes. It's really heartbreaking to hand over the amount of money that I've handed over. But at the end of the day, you know, you end up with, you know, a lifestyle and a life, I guess, where you don't have to worry so much. And you can do things like retire your parents and make sure that, you know, your family isn't going to have to suffer or, you know, you can send your kids to the schools that you want to. And if something were to happen, God forbid, to anybody that you love and they get sick, you'll be able to take care of them. And I think that's probably the best thing that happens.

40:07Susan Yara:And then the second best thing when it comes to my own like selfishness, right, is that I've been able to really focus on my own wellness and my own health. Right. And focus on myself in general. I work out with a personal trainer regularly. I get to work with a medical concierge who like looks at my labs all the time so I can keep track of, you know, like my hormones and know if I need it. eventually like some hormone replacement therapy. And so it's a very privileged place to be. And I think that, you know, it's just so nice to be able to actually not feel so worried. Thank you so much for sharing that.

40:39Jasmine:I think that's going to be such an expansive story for so many people to hear you, like you've built that life for yourself and what it means in an actual like day to day terms. And like you're able to do the things that are important to you and that also just like make you feel more fulfilled as well.

40:53Susan Yara:You have to do that. You have to do that.

40:54Jasmine:The last thing I want to ask you, Susan, is for a resource recommendation, something that you think other people who are building should go and try.

41:02Susan Yara:So a personality test that the center uses, the center brands use, is called the Culture Index. Yeah. And it's kind of like these Mayor's Briggs ones and like all that. But I think it's a lot more detailed. And a lot of people think that this is, you know, like something that you don't need to utilize because like what does a personality test really tell you? But this one is really good because the way we would utilize it is we would first look at, okay, who's the manager, I guess, of this department that we're hiring under, right? What is that person's culture index score? What kind of personality do they have?

41:37Susan Yara:My personality was that I'm a rainmaker. So we knew that if you build a team around me, I'm going to make it rain, right? But I need the team that supports me, that can really help me run this business, right? And so, you know, there's all these other different personalities, right? There are some personalities that can't deal with someone like me or something. And if they're the manager of this team, you can't hire somebody. Even if they have the most incredible resume and experience, you can't hire somebody who has a personality that's not going to jive with them. And so it's really looking at it more like, how do you put your teams together so that they can actually thrive together and not actually bunk heads with each other?

42:15Susan Yara:Because I think sometimes that's the biggest issue is you need to be able to work with people who are going to complement you. and a lot of people, a lot of companies, I guess, when they're hiring, they're not really looking at that. They're looking at someone's experience and how much they like a person. I could love you. And then we take this culture index test and find out we're never going to work well together, right? So I could love you as a person. I could love you as a friend, but in a work situation, we would be awful, right? And so it's really good to know this because it can save you from hiring somebody that just wasn't going to be a good fit for that culture.

42:50Jasmine:Thank you so much for that recommendation. That's such a good one. I'm going to put the link in the show notes as well so everyone can go and check that out. But Susan, thank you so much for coming on Female Founder World for your story. It's so inspiring. I know that the community is going to get a lot out of it. I hope so. Thank you so much for having me. I just wanted to end the show with a quick shout out to all of our paid Business Besties subscribers. For$12.99 a month, we get access to a weekly live call with mentors who we handpick from this podcast community. These are founders who have been on the show, experts and operators that are helping to build their businesses.

43:22Jasmine:And we want to give you access in a small group setting on live calls every single week so that you can get the mentorship and advice that you need to take your business to the next level. In addition to the live calls and the community, you also get access to a big database of workshop recordings, group coaching call recordings, templates, contact lists, and just all of the tools and resources that you need to make this business a success. Head to bestie.femarfounderworld.com or the link in the show notes to sign up now.