In short
Kirsten Cariol, founder of Lanolips, explains how she built the “farm core” lanolin beauty brand (launched 2009) and how to succeed in retail, pricing, marketing, branding, funding, and long-term growth.
Guest background
Cariol is a former Sydney PR/beauty industry operator (nearly 10 years). She grew up on a sheep farm with lanolin-based skincare traditions; her father is a molecular scientist in genetics/DNA.
Key claims
Lanolin is a uniquely effective, long-lasting hydrating ingredient; founders may be “too early,” not too late. Retail success requires proof of repurchase (second sale), readiness, and buffers. Product quality should carry the brand. Avoid “era-coding” packaging/branding that becomes dated. Growth is limited by cash flow; investors help unlock inventory and reporting discipline.
Notable examples
Drove the idea after dreading dry lips on a long-haul flight; launched via Sunday newspaper coverage and early blog reviews leading to Boots. A disaster occurred when 80,000 Elle magazine cover tubes’ seals failed, requiring resealing. Rebranded after social media shifted aesthetics (e.g., Glossier-era “pink”). Uses consumer listening via community feedback and Reddit/social listening with AI summarization.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOKirsten's Journey to Lano Lips
0:44 to 3:40
Kirsten shares her background in beauty and how she founded Lano Lips.
“You started back in 2009 and have built, like I said, genuinely an iconic beauty brand.”
The Importance of Timing in Business
3:40 to 4:56
Kirsten discusses the significance of taking time in launching a business.
“So we finally, that was 2003 was the idea and 2009 was the launch.”
Retail Strategy and Lessons Learned
4:56 to 9:01
Kirsten shares key insights about entering and succeeding in retail.
“I want to spend some time talking about retail because your business is like, is it 80 % retail?”
Marketing Fundamentals for Success
9:01 to 14:00
Kirsten outlines the four Ps of marketing essential for brand success.
“You don't get that retailer for that long because you get one person buying the product and then they move on to the next thing.”
Facing Production Challenges
14:00 to 15:25
Kirsten discusses early production issues that threatened a major marketing push.
“and you just hope that you can create great branding and do some influences.”
Brand Evolution and Rebranding
15:25 to 18:12
The conversation shifts to the rebranding journey of Lanolips and its alignment with current trends.
“of me because they were in denial that it was happening.”
Decision-Making Frameworks
18:12 to 20:58
Kirsten elaborates on her approach to making significant business decisions amidst market shifts.
“And here we go with the Gen Z brands that look like really poppy and really bright colours.”
Consumer Behavior Insights
20:58 to 22:42
Exploring diverse consumer preferences and how they inform brand strategy.
“And the algorithm just seems to show you the same stuff over and over again.”
Funding and Financial Growth
22:42 to 24:34
Kirsten shares her funding journey, highlighting the struggles and lessons learned in managing cash flow.
“And I think it's really important to get beneath what's on the surface and understand what's going on with the consumers.”
Shifting Roles as a Founder
24:34 to 28:00
The impact of investor involvement on Kirsten's role and decision-making in her company.
“I want to talk about funding now and your funding journey.”
Show all 14 chapters
Navigating the Transition to CEO
28:00 to 29:24
Learn how bringing in investment changes a founder's role and mindset.
“I guess, is probably the quick answer to that.”
Managing a Global Team
29:24 to 30:24
Discover strategies for effectively managing a remote, global team.
“How do you find managing like the global team, you know, you're remote to them, I guess?”
Focus and Obsession in Business
30:24 to 32:18
Understand the importance of focus and obsession in building a legacy brand.
“And this is something that the, you know, our community who are listening, they are out there building businesses right now.”
The Reality of Business Challenges
32:18 to 34:15
Hear about the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and the drive needed to overcome them.
“Or have you been distracted by showing the object?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Jasmine Garnsworthy:This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Spring calls for a wardrobe refresh and Nordstrom has the best styles of the season. From dresses and denim to standout tops and accessories, find the trends and essentials that feel right for you. Discover new arrivals from brands you love like WAIFE, Princess Polly, Mango, Adidas and Free People. Plus, free shipping and returns and free styling appointments make everything so easy. Shop in stores at Nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app.
0:30Kirsten Carriol:Hey business besties, welcome back to Female Founder World. I'm Jasmine, I'm the host of the show and today I'm chatting with an actual beauty industry icon. Her name is Kirsten Cariol and she is the founder of Lano Lips. Welcome to the show.
0:44Jasmine Garnsworthy:Thank you for having me Jasmine.
0:44Kirsten Carriol:You started back in 2009 and have built, like I said, genuinely an iconic beauty brand. You're in 30 countries, 25 ,000 stores. One of your hero products sells every 30 seconds. Is that right? Okay. Let's go back to the beginning and we're going to talk through the story of how you've built this, the biggest lessons along the way. But I want to know how it started because you're a country girl, a farm girl. Yes.
1:08Jasmine Garnsworthy:Yes. I had my own PR company in Sydney for almost 10 years and I worked in beauty. I love beauty. I was a beauty junkie. I tried everything, all the big brands, you know, and love. I launched them all and I had really literally tried everything. And after about seven years, actually, I was on my way to a long haul flight and I was really dreading that like my lips are going to be dry and this was going to be dry. And I was like, hang on, wait, I've tried all the biggest brands. Why isn't a lip like doing, like, why doesn't it actually work? And then And I remembered when I was a kid, we all only used lanolin growing up.
1:43Jasmine Garnsworthy:And I was like, hang on, wait, there's this beautiful ingredient. Like, where is it in the beauty world now? Like, it's just absolutely nowhere and hasn't forever. As an adult, I've never seen it. And I really remembered when I was growing up, my grandparents had a sheep farm. And I spent all my childhood holidays on that sheep farm. And my grandfather would go away and shear the sheep every summer. and he had these big, huge, dry, massive farmer's hands. And every time he would come back, there would suddenly be these soft, pillowy things from just handling the sheep and sharing the sheep from the lanolin in the wool.
2:16Jasmine Garnsworthy:And my grandmother would create jumpers and you could smell and feel the lanolin. 20 years later, I've got things she made for me and you can still feel it. So this beautiful ingredient, which has got amazing longevity and it's super hydrating and it stays in wool and in skin for hours and hours and hours and hours. And that was all we used growing up. on our lips and skin. And also dad is a molecular scientist in genetics and DNA and he just knows what works. And we always had these one ingredient philosophies, whether it was olive oil on bread or zinc for deodorant and it was lanolin for the skin.
2:50Jasmine Garnsworthy:So that's all. I was kind of thought that it was just a kid thing or like it was because we couldn't afford more. I don't really know. I can't remember. I just thought it was just what we had. And then when I grew up and I realized all these other ingredients, there was not a lot of actual substance behind the PR I was doing. And there was this amazing ingredient that I really passionately loved and felt like a calling to reinvent it. And I just felt it was a huge opportunity and I just felt really passionate about this beautiful ingredient. So that was the idea. And that came to me in this moment, in this drive to the airport.
3:25Jasmine Garnsworthy:And I was running a company, I was having children. So it did take me from idea to getting to market, it was six years. And that was, it was just because it was a slow, like doing everything at once, as you would know, you're a working mother. It was a side hustle for six years. So we finally, that was 2003 was the idea and 2009 was the launch.
3:45Kirsten Carriol:This is actually just really refreshing to hear that someone, to hear from someone who took their time in launching it and like leaned into the season of life that they were in. And then it went on to be really successful. But I feel like a lot of people listening to this are going to go, okay, yes, because I am also in that phase and this is taking a lot longer than I thought it was going to actually get to market.
4:04Jasmine Garnsworthy:There's time.
4:05Kirsten Carriol:Yeah. I love to hear that.
4:06Jasmine Garnsworthy:I read a quote recently which really resonated with me and I think I really wish I'd read it years ago. And it said something like, founders are often ahead of the curve and when they get an idea, they always think it's too late because it's so obvious. Everyone else must be doing it, but almost always you're too early because that's just the nature of how you think. You're looking at trends and you're just processing and picking up things early. And that was definitely the case for one. But I was like, I've got to do this. Everyone's going to be doing this. This is a no-brainer. This is so obvious.
4:39Jasmine Garnsworthy:And even when I launched, I'm like, oh, this is going to be copied immediately. And it just wasn't, which was awesome. I had this huge head start. Now a lot of people use lanolin. It's like completely changed. But yeah, I just would say to any founders thinking, I've got this idea, I've got to do it quickly. It's okay. You have time. You're probably ahead. Just take your time and do it well. I'd love to hear that.
4:59Kirsten Carriol:I want to spend some time talking about retail because your business is like, is it 80 % retail? Is that the stat?
5:05Jasmine Garnsworthy:It is now 80.
5:06Kirsten Carriol:When we launched, there was no e-com, so it was 100 % just stores. Wow. Okay. Talk me through some of the lessons that you've had about getting into retail and then staying in retail. So a lot of women who are listening and who are in our community are kind of, they're getting into their first retailers. They might be pitching, you know, if they're in the US, like a Target or a Sephora or something like that. And it feels like one of the last kind of gatekept areas of building a consumer brand. Like this is stuff that is really hard to Google. What have been like some of the things that you've learned as you've been building up that channel and you've been doing it so successfully?
5:40Jasmine Garnsworthy:Thank you. There's obviously a lot of unsuccessful things you don't see. Yeah, tell me, tell me. I can get to that later. I would say when you go into retail, when we launched, within two or three years, we were approached by retailers in the US. We didn't launch in the US in 2017 because what I knew from watching people who had come before me is you can lose everything if you do it and you don't know what you're doing or you're not ready or you don't have the cash for the inventory. You have to have buffers to fail or you really can lose everything you've built. So number one, just make sure you're really, really ready.
6:16Jasmine Garnsworthy:And if you want to jump off a cliff and take the risk and potentially lose everything, go for it. But just be aware that that might happen. Yeah. And I think also what you've got to make sure is you have a proof of concept that people will repurchase. Because when you're in retail, like retailers, I mean, they care about brands, but they're looking after themselves. All they want is to sell product. And they might bring in a product that might be the hot thing on TikTok for six months. And then it might not be. and they will not think twice. They are running a company. I get it. They're like, it's not selling anymore.
6:48Jasmine Garnsworthy:It goes. We bring in a new one that is. So you need to be sure you're going to get that second sale or you will have a very short window until you're out. And it's very hard. You can't heat up whole milk twice. Like it's really hard if you fail in a retailer, a big one, to work in that market anymore. It's actually really hard. You don't really see brands that fail in a big retailer like a Sephora or I mean the big retailer we're in America is Ulta or whatever. If they fail on those retailers, it's kind of almost game over. You're done. So just be really ready. And I feel like it's very tempting also to do these big store rollouts that retailers will want you in 300 stores and whatever.
7:34Jasmine Garnsworthy:And I think generally the contracts make it a no-lose situation for that retailer if you fail. It's all on you. So just check the contracts and make sure, you know, we've been offered a lot of things that we've said no to because it hasn't, we know it wouldn't have worked for us or them. And it would have sounded great in a press release. And it would have costed only us. It would have sounded great in a press release and a TikTok or whatever. Yeah. But it wouldn't have worked for them and it wouldn't have worked for us. So I think you just have to just get really good people who know the retailers that you're looking to work with as well, who really understand them, whether it's a Target or a Boots or Priceline.
8:07Jasmine Garnsworthy:And just make sure you get advice from people who know those retailers really well and know the ins and outs and go into it with all eyes wide open. How does the founder know that their brand is ready to launch in something like that? Proof of concept and repurchasing, I think, is probably the best thing. Yeah. It's not easy to sell that first product, but it's definitely easier to sell the first product than the second. So you can use an influencer, get some hype, do some before and afters. And it's a great way to get awareness and get that first sale. But if people get at home and it's meh or bad or just okay, or there's another thing that's got really shiny and exciting in front of you, they're not going to buy you again, which means you should not be in a retailer yet.
8:48Jasmine Garnsworthy:Because you need more than that first purchase. And when you're going to retail, you need long terms. Like our retail partners have been going on for, I mean, price lines since 2009 because we continue to sell. You don't get that retailer for that long because you get one person buying the product and then they move on to the next thing.
9:07Kirsten Carriol:What about actually like getting into that retailer? So I know that you launched right at the beginning into retail, which I feel like, you know, things are different now. A lot of people are launching DTC first. But what are your lessons there for someone who is trying to pitch, trying to get in touch, like trying to get that call with the buyer or category manager? How do you get in that door?
9:29Jasmine Garnsworthy:That's really hard. Sometimes you get approached, but mostly you've got a door knock. And mine have been various ways. Friends of friends have email addresses of someone that I want to get to. Or I hop on LinkedIn. A couple of retailers, actually one of our biggest new retailers, I literally found them in LinkedIn, DM them, and found them that way. Or you can Google. Sometimes you can find email addresses. Or you can just send a pack blindly, I guess, to a buying team somewhere. So there's various ways. And I think you've just got to try a lot of things and just keep trying and just keep trying.
10:03Kirsten Carriol:So even now, the size that Latin Ellipse is at, you're actively out there like doing outreach and teaching retailers. Yeah.
10:10Jasmine Garnsworthy:We don't do a lot because our retail network's pretty strong. Yeah. But there was a couple of markets we're still like, there's an opportunity. And we asked for a few contacts for people we knew and it didn't really come up. So I just looked at myself and we got it. Amazing.
10:24Kirsten Carriol:Okay. Tell me through like the launch process. So once you land that account and you're launching in store, what does the marketing plan look like to make that successful?
10:32Jasmine Garnsworthy:So you have to have the above the line activity and the below the line activity. What does that mean? Below the line would be you have to allow a really big percentage of your sales to support that retailer in sales promotions, in maybe shelf space fees, or there's a lot of things that they charge you for. They call it whatever. There's, I would say, a very chunky percentage of your marketing budget goes on what you would call the below the line support for the retailer. And then you have to obviously come from the top as well. So that's your PR agency. It's your social media agency. It's your online EDMs.
11:09Jasmine Garnsworthy:It's your ad campaigns, whatever works for your brand. So you really have to do both. Okay.
11:15Kirsten Carriol:I want to talk about some of the things in the early days that you did that you think set up the brand for where it is today. So when we're talking to people who are kind of in that first five years and they want to build a brand that gets to the level that Lanolips is at now, what are some of the things that you think you did that were like, okay, that got us traction, that set the foundation? And obviously it's different times, 2009, like it's a different market than it is now. But I do think like some of that fundamental stuff is still so important.
11:48Jasmine Garnsworthy:Yes. When I went to university and I learned pretty much nothing except for the one big thing. I did marketing. Marketing was like a side subject I had to do. But there was one class I was in and I won't forget it because the four Ps of marketing, the product, place, price, promotion. And that is absolutely continuous to today. And if you get those four fundamentals right, you've got a great chance. If you get one of those four wrong, it's going to be really hard. Like you really have to get all those four wrong. And for us, our weakness has always been our price because it's a really expensive product to make.
12:20We can't be$5 tubes.
12:23Jasmine Garnsworthy:We can't be$10 tubes. We just literally can't because of the cost of goods. So our ongoing struggle is proving the quality, proving it's worth the price point that it is at. We're not expensive, but we're sitting alongside$3 lip balms in some cases in some retailers. So I feel like if you start from the very beginning and you get your product to your place, place being your distribution channel, whatever it is online, your pricing, right, which you just have to, you know, look at what you could do and price it. You have to look at who you're sitting next to in a retailer or in market and make sure that works, makes sense.
12:55Jasmine Garnsworthy:And then the promotion being obviously the PR, the advertising, the social media, whatever way you're going to get that product to the people. Without one of those four, don't start. And I think for us, fundamentally, the two big things we had was the quality of the product. I knew it was our strength. And we launched before social media. So it wasn't about going viral. It was about having a – well, I mean, virality, I guess, back in the days was you getting in the Sunday papers. And we launched with a big story in the Sunday papers. And it launched the brand immediately overnight. We had a huge week in Priceline the next day and the next week.
13:31Jasmine Garnsworthy:And then we had maybe two or three blogs existed in Australia. And then they wrote amazing, glowing reviews. And then a blog in the UK picked us up. There was like one or two really big ones there. And she just went this hugely amazing review. And then suddenly Boots called. So I think you cannot understate the quality does so much work for you. Like if you start with an off-the-shelf product, whether it's fashion, shoes, and you just hope that you can create great branding and do some influences. Yes, that can work, absolutely, but our approach has been product first. And when things get tough, and they always do, a great product will always carry you through the tough times.
14:16Jasmine Garnsworthy:What are some of those things that went wrong in the beginning? We had production problems where we did a huge production run to launch a new product in the first couple of years and I knew the editor of Elle magazine at the time and we did a deal where we were putting it on 80 ,000 Elle magazine front covers. So literally like sticking a tube in a cover.
14:35Kirsten Carriol:I remember getting my magazine and getting like a gift of purchase back in the day.
14:38Jasmine Garnsworthy:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those tiffons back in the day. And yeah, 80 ,000 tubes, you know, a really big run. And I got the production samples as though running them. You always get like what they call retention samples and I always squeeze them, I check them, I smell them every batch and the tube popped, like the seal. They don't use the right heat on the seal and the plastic didn't merge together. I was just like, oh my God, we've got 80 ,000 tubes that are going to be on the front cover of the magazine and they're going to be sitting in a news agency and the bomb is going to be on every single magazine in the entire news agency and we're going to get sued by nine because that was the must.
15:17Jasmine Garnsworthy:We're going to get sued by the publication. We're going to get sued. And it was just this absolute disastrous moment. So I was on the next flight the next morning down to my manufacturer and I just sat there all day and they resealed every single tube in front of me because they were in denial that it was happening. Anyway, that was an absolute huge disaster. We also had some, I mean, early hiccups with our branding where we had to kind of find our really unique look and voice when social media started.
Read the full transcript
15:45Kirsten Carriol:Did you have a big rebrand? We did. Yeah, because I remember this. I remember like looking at or starting to get maybe like PR pictures when I was working as a beauty editor in the US and thinking, oh, this, is this a new brand or like this brand looks really different?
16:00Jasmine Garnsworthy:Yeah. So one of the things I learned, like when you're creating a brand, you're in that zeitgeist, like you're whatever age you are, what you see around them and the aesthetic you see, you just feel like that's the way things are. So when I was creating Lanolips, it was like this Chevy chic zeitgeist. Like there was Chevy chic, I don't know if you remember, farmy, crusty, cute, like quirky and little distressed timber tables with little pink carpet was kind of the vibe. And it really fit our aesthetic. And I wanted something a bit quirky. So we had this cute little sheep and the gold foiling. Yes.
16:34Jasmine Garnsworthy:It was cute. It was really cute for the moment. And it was quirky and it cut through. It was really different to the, you know, 90s Estee Lauder aesthetic and everything else out there. And it felt natural, which we always have been and always will be. but then it's like every whatever seven to nine years there's like a seismic shift in the aesthetic of the world the millennial aesthetic the gen the gen alpha aesthetic the gen z aesthetic it feels
16:59Kirsten Carriol:like it's happening way more quickly now i feel like every two years i'm like there's a new
17:02Jasmine Garnsworthy:we're minimalist again what's happening yeah there is a bit of that so the big shift for us was the millennials like like the glossiers launched and we were pink already yeah and then suddenly pink was everywhere and that would something that didn't look new for us it looked like we were copying but also badly and we looked dated and there was like a raft of them there was like a wave of these millennial brands and they look beautiful and instagram really gave that the platform to spread really quickly. And we were really left behind in the dust in terms of that social media voice. Luckily, Retail, to my original point, if you've got a great product that stands firm and that's what helps keep you going, like if you're not built on the look, you'll be okay because people will still buy you because it's good.
17:53Jasmine Garnsworthy:But I knew long-term something had to be done. So we went through a big rebrand and I really, in my mind, thought, I never want to do this again because this is really expensive and my next and I could have kind of could have said I didn't realize at the time but I look back and I'm like I was in that moment I felt that was right but really it wasn't it was of the moment so I want to create something that can move through time and in nine eight years nine years seven years there's going to be another shift I don't want to be stuck in the millennial brand thing too so we worked really hard to create something that could lend itself to eras but could also move through time.
18:30Jasmine Garnsworthy:And here we go with the Gen Z brands that look like really poppy and really bright colours. Like it's suddenly millennial coded brands do look a bit dated. So luckily we've held firm in that and that was a really big, expensive lesson in creating a brand. Like just don't get too coded in an era. And I think it's really tempting to be like look edgy and cool and like use the right font and create something that everyone wants to look at and feel it. But in a couple of years, it's going to look dated. It really will. And then you've got a real big problem with your packaging on your hands and your brand.
19:08Jasmine Garnsworthy:So I guess that was probably our biggest lesson and most expensive lesson.
19:12Kirsten Carriol:When you tell that story, the thing that stands out to me is like choosing to do that rebrand would have been a really kind of scary big decision, I feel, if that was my business and I was looking at the shift in the landscape and like looking at my packaging, I feel like I could have sat on that decision for a really long time and kind of thought, what's the right way to go? Which, you know, should I do this? Should I not do this? What is your kind of framework for making those really big decisions or how do you, how do you come to that? Like, yes, I'm going to go all in and completely change this and pivot this because it did look very different.
19:47Jasmine Garnsworthy:Yeah. So with that particular time and with other big decisions. I don't make big decisions quickly. There's that quote is like, make big decisions slowly and change them rarely. So you have to absorb and anyone absorbing social media is absorbing a lot of information at all times and it becomes really confusing. And I think that's when you have to absorb everything. You have to listen to what's going on. You have to read the room and then you just have to sit with yourself and trust yourself and don't do it quickly at all but make a decision and do it like don't wait too long either I don't think there's a magic solution I think that's where your whole gut instinct needs to come into play and you just have to absorb and just I mean I have all of my best ideas all of them when I'm on holiday on a break it's when I'm sitting with myself not analyzing thinking reading like you do all of that And then you just have to sit with it and wait for the answer to come to you.
20:47Kirsten Carriol:That's such good advice. I think so many of us, like right now, I feel this. It's just constant information overload. I feel like I've constantly got advice and inspiration and ideas coming at me because I'm so online. And there's so much content out there. And the algorithm just seems to show you the same stuff over and over again. So it can actually really impact your view of like what's trending or what's new or what's – because your algorithm is showing you this like very specific thing. But then I feel the thing is like removing yourself and having that space and that time to just let your intuition do the work and kind of like merge all those things together.
21:23Jasmine Garnsworthy:I almost feel like we need a reverse algorithm option on these social media ads. Like this is what you're showing me, but what's the opposite of that? Yeah. What's the rest of the world saying? Like in the beauty world, there's this whole, I mean, it's another conversation, but there's this whole subset of people who are looking for completely different ingredients than you would find in Sephora. And it's, you know, this market is big, but you don't, you have to go looking for that. Because you're not fed that in your algorithm. Yeah.
21:46Kirsten Carriol:What do you mean completely different ingredients?
21:48Jasmine Garnsworthy:Well, in the retailers we're in, it's like technology and milky skin. You know, that's just the moment. The light milky formulas, the pretty packaging. In the middle of America, it's beef tallow. Yeah. And it's big. And this whole like seed oils are bad and farm core, which is actually so us. Yeah. So we were like, wait, there's actually, we've been doing this for 16 years, this whole like farm to face stuff. So it's really interesting times actually. That is really interesting. But you don't get that message. I don't get that in my algorithm. I just kind of, you know, I'd heard about it here and there and everywhere, but I certainly don't get fed up.
22:29Kirsten Carriol:When you think about that, do you think, okay, how do we, how do we target that customer or that person? Or do you think that's not for us?
22:36Jasmine Garnsworthy:We certainly feel like how, how do we unlock that? What's beneath that? Yeah. Like I think between every big movement, there's some kind of consumer behavior beneath that. And I think it's really important to get beneath what's on the surface and understand what's going on with the consumers. Do we fit into that rhetoric? Is there an unlock there for your brand? How do you understand that? There's no easy formula. There's no easy answer to that. I feel like we've done a lot of reading on, and it's not just beef, Talo, it's various things. Reddit's a great place to look at. love reddit and with ai and looking into reddit community stuff it's easier than ever to get a really good read we never really we definitely like so we do consumer listening in two ways we have our community which we love and they're passionate and we've had people who've been buying us forever and we we make things just for them like they're so important to us and we listen to them and we get feedback we read every bad review and if the same thing comes up again and again we are changing it.
23:38Jasmine Garnsworthy:But then there's a whole piece which I'm fascinated with is like kind of spying on what people are saying without, because if you ask a question, they're going to ask, you know, you're not really going to get a true answer if they don't like your product in many cases. So if you can do social listening, there's a lot of agencies that do social listening, but if you can do social listening, but with AI, you can do a lot of that yourself. You can really find out what's going on and ai is great for summing up like a vibe on something and go this we you know i've got like five points on a particular topic and it was pretty much spot on
24:12Kirsten Carriol:so you mean kind of like asking chat gbt summarize this like yeah go into reddit look at these chats
24:18Jasmine Garnsworthy:threads yeah these are the years i'm looking at this is the you know if you ask a general question you'll get a really general useless answer so you have to be really specific this is the country i'm interested in, this is the topic and you've got to ask the right questions, the right prompts, and you'll get a pretty good answer.
24:34Kirsten Carriol:I want to talk about funding now and your funding journey. So, Lionel Lips was bootstrapped for most of your time. How were you funding the business in the beginning and what are your lessons on the way as you've been building it?
24:49Jasmine Garnsworthy:So, Lionel Lips was funded by my own money up until four years ago.
24:55Kirsten Carriol:You say that's incredible. Like building a consumer brand is so expensive and being able to figure out the cash flow and the forecasting and all of the things I just think is so impressive when I hear that someone's been able to do that. Thank you. It was horrible.
25:09Jasmine Garnsworthy:And one thing I wish I had learned earlier is you can only grow as fast as the cash you have. And I just assumed because I didn't go to business school. Yeah. I was pretty decent at accounting, but it wasn't my strength. And I didn't realize the fundamentals of growth with consumer goods is if you're growing 20, 30%, then you have to have the cash to make that inventory up front. So even though you're profitable, you're not making enough money to fund that percentage increase. So we were always running out of money, even though we were profitable and growing. And that was like crazy. I felt like a failure when really we were growing really well.
25:48Jasmine Garnsworthy:But I just thought because we didn't have the cash, we were failing. so that took me a while to grasp stupid me so we were growing as fast as we could afford to grow for the first 10 years which was it was great but and I had money for my PR agency days so I used all of that and then there was just a lot going on and I finally got to a point where I was having a few conversations with what could it look like to bring in some external funding to help the cash flow and also some other areas of the business I thought could really help. And we spoke to a few people and we'd been approached over the years, but it didn't feel right.
26:26Jasmine Garnsworthy:But I found a partner that had been amazing, Australian-based VC firm, and they've brought not only in the cash to really unlock our opportunities, but also I think if you're looking for external funding, the key is to look for partners who have skills in areas you don't. And obviously I know the product, I know the marketing, but the growth mindset was something I'd never learned myself. That was, they brought in that. And also, you know, the financial diligence around once you've got investors, you have to do certain reporting and you have to look at metrics and suddenly everything changes. Suddenly you're looking at these reports and metrics in a very different way once you've got, I felt very, and I do still feel very responsible for their money and very responsible that we do the right thing.
27:10Jasmine Garnsworthy:and we all get the growth that we're all expecting because I feel a duty to them. And that's good. Like I'm a people pleaser in that way. And I think that really works well for me. Yeah, it's like you've kind of brought in like someone who keeps your account built. Yeah, exactly. And it's their right to look at reports and say what's going on. And so it's a real team approach though.
27:30Kirsten Carriol:I'm curious about like, so you haven't, you've been building this for, you know, 16 years and you're bootstrap for so long, you've brought in investors. I'm curious about like if you haven't sold the business, what's the payoff for you and how do you as the founder take money off the table to be able to, you know, you don't want to have everything on the line 16 years into building a business.
27:52Jasmine Garnsworthy:No, and certainly when the investment came in, there was certainly a release there for me. And then long-term it's about being profitable and dividends, I guess, is probably the quick answer to that.
28:03Kirsten Carriol:Okay. and I'm curious about like how your life changes after something like that like does your role in the business change does your day-to-day change after investment yeah after you bring in an investor like you've done the bootstrap thing you've got the investment I had to behave like
28:19Jasmine Garnsworthy:a CEO like I was already but I probably wasn't conscious of behaving like one yeah and being CEO first thinking like so I'm in the business a lot we all are my whole team are amazing we all you know we're still a small team everyone does a bit of everything and I would get in the minutiae and I'd get really stuck in details that I probably shouldn't have been yeah and I really taught myself to be more bird's eye looking at what's going what's ahead and long-term thinking so you have to yeah you do change your mindset when you're responsible for other people's money and responsible for growth that everyone's hoping for and we all want and then when you do a business plan and you realize what the steps are to get there suddenly like this is where my focus needs to be, not in the, is that font the right size on that tube, which is what I would do.
29:08Jasmine Garnsworthy:So you just have to, you know, I think details, it's a juggling act between the details and the big picture all the time, every day, every day. I'll go into the office every day and I'll do my detail stuff and I'll do my big picture stuff.
29:20Kirsten Carriol:Are you all in an office together or are people remote?
29:22Jasmine Garnsworthy:So we have a Sydney office, a head office, and we have a team in the US in, they're kind of remote, but also get together a bit. They're a team. We've got a new girl started today. I think there's five.
29:36Kirsten Carriol:Yeah, five. How do you find managing like the global team, you know, you're remote to them, I guess? I think the key is regular, absolutely regular calls.
29:48Jasmine Garnsworthy:We just have and have for seven years. We just have a regular once a week big call with a lead US team and with my general manager and myself and my head of the US. And we go through everything. We go through the detail of what's going on. I never feel like I don't know what's going on in the US. And I have an amazing, you know, I think I've got the best general manager in Australia and in my industry and I know she's on top of things as well. So I think just having the right people, it's not about me, it's about the right people and making sure you get the right people managing things and you can trust them.
30:23Kirsten Carriol:The last thing I want to ask you, Kirsten, is for a resource recommendation. And this is something that the, you know, our community who are listening, they are out there building businesses right now. What is something that they can go and do, download, read, that can help them up level and get to where you've been able to get to in your own business? I might have to think about that for a minute. I feel like you've quoted so many things. You must read or...
30:46Jasmine Garnsworthy:I mean, I listen to, like, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Yep. And I generally split them between... For me, I really like human psychology podcasts. That really helps me with my marketing and understanding consumer behavior. And so I listened to Robert Greene, who wrote The 48 Laws of Power. He's really interesting and he's really, you know, it's really basic, fundamental human behavioral stuff, but I think he just, I found that really useful. I also listened to beauty industry podcasts. So certainly the ones that talk about product recommendations, but more the business of beauty. so there's some the business of fashion has an amazing one glossy beauty is great and then I also listen to a few grassroots beauty podcasts like there's a new one that launched uh what's it called I can look it up in a minute but like Los Angeles fat mascara I always scan through those just to see what products people are talking about there's some actually something else I wanted
31:43Kirsten Carriol:to ask you before we wrap as well something that I'm always impressed by when I speak with founders who've you know spent 15 16 20 years building a business it's your ability to stay focused on one thing i feel like so many founders that i talk to have you know they get three years into building a business and then like i'm going to start a podcast i'm going to do a sub stack i'm going to you know or i've got another idea or i'm going to start doing mentoring or i'm going to yeah but like the the people that build these legacy brands uh that that's the thing that they're doing for decades.
32:14Jasmine Garnsworthy:Yeah.
32:15Kirsten Carriol:Have you been able, like, is, has it been as clear cut as that?
32:18Jasmine Garnsworthy:Or have you been distracted by showing the object? I, every now and then over the years, not so much in the last five years, but in the early days, I'm like, oh, this is a good business. So yeah, maybe I should start that too. I'm like, are you crazy? Like just focus, focus, focus. I think I just don't have time. Yeah. I will. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to, but for me, any time away from my business is time not building my business. So I think it's great that people can. I don't have the time. I don't know how people do, to be quite honest. I think they've got more headspace than I do, but I get quite obsessive and I'm just obsessing about what's going on in the business and I obsess on problems as well.
32:56Jasmine Garnsworthy:And I think a lot of founders are quite obsessive. Like when I've got a problem, I'm just obsessing about it until it's fixed or trying to think of how to solve it. So the current problems in my company every day, basically. And that's not something that you've had to actively train yourself to do. It's just... It's my mindset. I'm an assessor. It's my strength and my weakness. I think every strength is your weakness. I obsess, but I also can't let go when I need to. And that's my weakness too. But it's definitely my obsession and my drive is definitely what's gotten us to today. Because no matter how great everything looks from the outside, it's just so many problems along the way.
33:36Jasmine Garnsworthy:small little things all the time. And it's really hard. As you would know, you're raising a baby, you know, you've got another one coming. It's really hard. And unless you love and obsess with what you do, you just go, oh, this isn't worth it. Like the payoff of personal time versus money versus relationship versus life. There's something that's not working here and you just pick one and dump it. And I think that's when a lot of people give up their companies. I think that's fair enough. If it's not working for you, if the equation in your life is not working for you let it go yeah but I I don't know I've always I've never really I've never ever ever thought oh shall I stop yes Kirsten thank you so much for coming on female founder world and for sharing
34:15Kirsten Carriol:your story it's very very inspiring and I'd love to hear all of the particularly the early days and like the stuff that goes wrong I feel like people are relating there's probably a million
34:24Jasmine Garnsworthy:things I've buried or post-traumatic stress from it'll come out in the book one day it'll come out one day exactly thank you very much for having me I just wanted to end the show with a quick
34:33Kirsten Carriol:shout out to all of our paid business besties subscribers. For$12.99 a month, you 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. 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.
35:15Kirsten Carriol:Head to bestie.femarfounderworld.com or the link in the show notes to sign up now.
From the publisher
Kirsten Carriol, founder of LANOLIPS, joins Jasmine Garnsworthy to share how she turned a childhood memory of lanolin on her family’s sheep farm into a globally recognized beauty brand. From launching in 2009 to selling in 30 countries and 25,000 stores, Kirsten reveals the scrappy, determined journey behind building a cult-favorite product that sells every 30 seconds.In this episode, Kirsten dives into the early days of LANOLIPS, including how she bootstrapped the business for over a decade, navigated production disasters, and rebranded to stay ahead of shifting beauty trends. She also shares her hard-earned lessons on breaking into retail, managing cash flow as a bootstrapped founder, and why obsessing over product quality is the ultimate growth hack.
You’ll hear Kirsten’s advice on pitching major retailers, balancing long-term vision with day-to-day problem-solving, and how to stay focused on building a legacy brand in a world full of distractions. Plus, Kirsten opens up about the mindset shifts that helped her scale LANOLIPS into a global success story.
LINKS:
Become a Business Bestie subscriber: https://bestie.femalefounderworld.com
Check out LANOLIPS: https://www.lanolips.com
