Why Most Brands Fail When They Try to Crack the U.S. Market | Ep. 435 with Nicole Eckels Founder of Glasshouse Fragrance

0:00Oh my God, here's a huge gap in the fragrance market. Scented candles didn't exist, and a year later, after moving to Australia, I started Glasshouse. She was a single mom who started behind the Chanel counter at Saks. Today, Nicole Eckels runs Glasshouse Fragrances, a multi-million dollar empire spanning 11 countries, sitting in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and over 2 ,000 retailers across America. I felt this terrible rush to get it done because I thought there would be hundreds of people plotting. It was a good three years before a competitor popped up. It's all about looking where no one else is.

0:39Understanding what are the gaps. A lot of brands look for what people are doing. They look for growth. They think, oh, that category is growing. Let's go after it. Well, if you can see in the data it's already growing, you're probably too late. What has been the cost of success? Building Glass House has taken...

1:08So Nicole, I have a really important question for you. Have you made it? I have lots of dreams beyond where I am. But I would say that I certainly, from other people's perspective, I would say have made it. When am I going to say I made it? I'm not sure. I'm close. I'm close. When you think about being close, what is that point when you will tell yourself, I am Nicole and in my mind, my perspective, I've made it. I don't know. I don't know if I'm ever going to say that. I think life is just a journey of one foot in front of the other And I, you know, what I'm most afraid of is it all going by and then going, oh, you know, I actually did make it.

2:04And I wish that I had acknowledged that when I was in it, as opposed to always trying to follow to the next thing, I would say. But I'm grateful. I'm super grateful of everything I've managed to achieve. I've gone against the odds for sure. and I'm super lucky and I've worked hard. So I can't say that it's all luck, but it is definitely partially luck. And from that point of view, yes, I have made it. When I look at my education, my background, where I came from, my parents, who are wonderful people. But when I look at all of that, none of those things set me up to be where I am today. So from that perspective, yes, I would say I've made it.

2:49What's the biggest goal that you've smashed through that you think about right now? Like the first thing that comes to your mind? I think the U.S. and with Glasshouse coming to the U.S. and I'm going in from a relatively small market of Australia, New Zealand, Australasia, basically to one of the biggest, the biggest markets in the world with so many brands. And I actually, when I think about that, I get so excited and so humble because we did it, like we're doing it. And I can't believe it. And when I came here, it was a big gamble. I might not have achieved anything, but at least I at least I would have tried.

3:35Like I try everything. You've got to try everything. And so when I think goals, there's been lots of things. But that for me was probably the hardest one. And that's the one we're killing right now. And that makes me very excited. A lot of people I know are like, I want to go to the U.S. market because of how massive it is when you have a product or a brand, what is the secret sauce that's been for you that enabled you in a insanely competitive place? Everybody wants to crack through. Patience, patience and experience. So I waited nearly 15 years to come to this market. I was a well-seasoned, experienced leader and product person and fragrance expert.

4:26I didn't just dive in right away. I knew what had to be done. I really did. And also, I trained in this market. So I worked in this market. I left this market and I came back. So I had a really good understanding of Americans and consumer preferences. A lot of people come to the States from other markets, and they have no idea. And they're like, oh, we'll figure it out. And they make some really fundamental mistakes. And it's usually, from what I can tell, they don't understand the competitive set. They don't understand what's going on here. They don't understand the consumer. The U.S. is not one country.

5:07It is five. I've sort of realized that this market is five countries. When I think about Australia, it's two. You're either a city person or you're rural or you're city. There's nothing in the middle. This country is different depending on if you're the Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the South, the West Coast. It's all different. So you have to have an understanding of that. I have to say I didn't fully understand all of those nuances when I came over in 2021 and we launched here. but it's, you learn that. I think you can learn that, but the fundamentals have to be there. You have to understand the product market fit and how consumers think about things and the price points you need to hit.

5:56And that requires a sense of understanding in the market. I just walked through a Neiman Marcus and a Nordstrom because I wanted to understand over the weekend, where is the fragrance? Where is this industry at? And what I noticed is most fragrances, at least talking to the people there, these are large corporations. They've been bought out by Estee Lauder, by any of these big ones. How can someone who is not that mega giant get into this space? That's the age old question, isn't it? How do you fight back against these huge companies that have been many times unlimited resource if they really wanted to and people?

6:42And there's some really brilliant minds. And I, in particular in the U.S., I feel like it's all about looking where no one else is. Understanding what are the gaps that, what are brands not doing? And I think a lot of brands look for what people are doing. They look for growth. They think, oh, that category is growing. Let's go after it. Well, if you can see in the data it's already growing, you're probably too late. It's too late then because, first of all, when you're smaller, things don't even get picked up in data. And some categories, like emerging categories, they do not get picked up. So it has to become a category before it's even measured.

7:32So that's where I think people get it wrong. When I came to this market, what I saw was either really, really expensive niche brands or the big, big, like to your point, prestige brands, the big companies that hold most of the share. And I thought, what is our place where we can carve out that isn't being done? And I had access to the talent to help me to do that. And that's the other piece. Like, you can be brilliant and you can have the best product idea in the world. But if you don't know how to make it, it's tough to go from concept to actual production of the thing if you're a consumer. So, yeah, that's what I would say about that.

8:25We have definitely found our space. Glasshouse is for people who love fragrance and lots of it. And they like quality above all else as well as a beautiful fragrance. And I think that's where we've managed to win. And we've done it so that we're not – it's accessible. It's an accessible price point for our customers. because they want lots of fragrance and lots of different styles and for different occasions, and they can get all of that through us. Take me back to the Chanel counter at Saks. That's where I really honed my understanding of what it is to be a consumer. And in particular, 70 % of our customers are female.

9:13Now, what is it that drives the pickiest customers on the planet at the margins? What is it? What is that? And to understand that and go, actually, I get it. You're not being ridiculous. You're not being picky. You're not being over the top. You're actually right. If you are super discerning and you love quality, you understand it. I think that counter experience taught me that that is true. That's a consumer that exists. It's not everybody. When you think about, I always liken fragrance to food. So if you want a burger, you can go and you can have a burger anywhere and it's probably going to be okay.

9:59But if you want the best burger where the chef really thought about the meat and he thought about the bun and he thought about where he's getting the tomatoes and he's buying the cheddar cheese that you can taste a mile away. that's the difference when you put it all together and there is a whole consumer set of women and men like that in fragrance and those are the guys that I go after but I think my my counter experience taught me that it taught me about service and making sure that we're looking after our customer or I was at the time when I was at Chanel. So it was a very important time for me to learn about that part of it, the needs diagnostic, the whole part about servicing the customer.

10:51It's really funny when I read your story and I saw you talk, it reminded me of my wife because my wife started doing makeup at one of those counters and then she went on to sell e-commerce and skincare, but it was the experience of learning the customer, like really, really learning, really translated into the ability to then sell. Probably one of the greatest things anyone can do, in my opinion, as well as work somewhere your customer is and really learn the in and outs. Let's go to when you're on the Today Show. Yes. What is the experience when you walk out on the Today Show? Are you crazy? Are the nerves going crazy?

11:32Do they talk to you about anything? And then when you stepped out there, did you think about 20 years before and how how this whole journey came up to that point? I did. You know, that was one of the moments where you stop and smell the roses. It really was for me to be in Rockefeller Center, to be on the Today Show was really a I'm going to pinch myself right now moment. and those are few and far between from a seasoned entrepreneur like me that just keeps going and going and going and when you have a moment like that you really I really try to pause now and think about it I wasn't so nervous because I was really lucky we did a segment and so when you film a segment you don't have to walk out there and but like any of the interviews nowadays I'm not in front of thousands of people I'm in front of millions but I can't tell because I'm behind a camera and there's like 10 people on the other side and maybe 15 more on the wings and I've got three with me on stage so I've kind of just don't think about that I really don't I just speak my truth be authentic do what I do and I always think that's the best a lot of people get caught up in how many people are going to see them so they get very nervous like you're saying but it's really, you're only looking at 10 people.

12:54You're not thinking about the millions of people. Let's go back to when you were a single mom, you're traveling around the world. I mean, things didn't work out for you, but yet you continued and you made a business. Tell me about that experience. I was a very, I am a very driven person. And I had my son when I was 19. I decided to move to New York City from upstate New York. I was well and truly on my own. My son's father lived in another state. My mother was five hours away. I had no one around. So doing that on your own financially as well as physically is tough. But I was young and I was super resilient and I believed in what I was doing.

13:50And I didn't even, I think being young was part of the secret because I didn't know what it was like to not do that. And I remember being with people throughout that period because here I am 25 and my child's five and, you know, and I'm 26 and I did not hang out with others my age because of course that's just weird. And, you know, no one wants to hang out with five-year-old when you're out partying or doing whatever. And when I would meet older people, they were the ones that were most fascinated because they would say, how did you, how do you do it? How do you do it? I remember all the time I would get these really curious people asking how I was doing it.

14:28And I thought, and it was just such a crazy question to answer because you just do it. Like what choice do you have other than to just do it? So it was always a bizarre question to me. It's like, well, what do you want me to do? My mom's not here. His father lives in another state. I have to make a living. I have to. But it was tough, right? It was very, very tough. And I think Manhattan, of all places on earth, is probably one of the toughest. It's the most expensive. New Yorkers are wonderful people, but they're fast. They lack empathy. And so it was tough doing that. And the whole time, as much as I loved my life, I was thinking, where can I go that will enable this to be easier, slower, better for him, have his mother around more?

15:23because I was working incredibly long hours trying to make ends meet. He would have nannies, and there was constant staff management, as you can imagine, or managing the nanny turnover because I couldn't afford to pay them a lot. It wasn't a beau pair live-in, none of that. And so I just thought, where can I go where this is going to get a bit easier? And that was when, at the time, I was working for Equinox, and they offered me a position in San Francisco. And I thought, all right, well, at least the weather is going to be better. There's less people there. It'll probably be easier for me and better for Gregory.

16:04He won't have to be on a subway. He can, you know, I can move somewhere where he can walk to school. All of this fantasy of it being easier. And it wasn't easier. It wasn't easier because I was, at that time, a soldier set into an unwinnable war because of the fact that I was in charge of this, of a corporate membership program for Equinox to come to this beautiful gym and we would sell memberships into HR departments. Well, people in California don't need gym memberships when they can go outside on their bike and when they can go down to the water and they run across the bridge. And in New York, where it's super dense, they call, you know, Equinox is your third home.

16:50You work, you go to your home, and then you go to the gym. That dynamic didn't exist. So there wasn't the right market fit. But I went out there anyway because I didn't know that. I assumed the strategy had been done. And I got there. I said, my gosh, I can't make this work. I can't sell anything to save my soul. No one wants this program. What am I going to do? And the writing was on the wall because I had relocated. I had moved out of Newark with my son. And that is when this opportunity to go to Australia came up. And I just thought, well, I've just left New York. I know what that life is like.

17:29So what should I do now? I'm just going to keep going. And I'd always wanted to live overseas. I'm very adventurous. I love experiencing new things and people. And boy, did I pick the best country to do that in because it ended up being, you know, everything that led up to this moment, which all felt really, really hard, led to a payoff that I couldn't have had anywhere else. And to this day, I believe the harder something feels, the more exciting it's going to be at the end because you're putting the time in and you're sacrificing. And something good has to come out of that resilience, that stick-to-itiveness, that effort.

18:18I really do believe that. And that's what happened to me throughout my journey in my late 20s. So I was just a kid. Amazing story. I've heard from people in Australia that entrepreneurship is a little bit tougher in the sense that people there don't always want you to win. You feel there's not a lot of people that want you to win. And sometimes they're not as happy. I've seen this and heard in different countries too, or, you know, some countries are like people there really want you to win. And then some countries, it's a little bit more challenging just based on how people's viewpoint of success and money and things are.

18:57I definitely, it exists. So there's a name for it in Australia. We call it the tall poppy syndrome. So you imagine a field of poppies, flowers, and one grows taller than the others. And then there's this propensity to cut it down. So everyone's the same. Like, who do you think you are? You think you're better than me, whatever. Everybody knows. Well, not everybody. A lot of people know Australian celebrities are the nicest people on the planet. I mean, I haven't met many of them personally. Canadians. That's amazing. Well, that's amazing. They are. OK, so that's a good comparison. The Canadians and the Australians are very similar.

19:40Very, very similar. But the thing is, is that I feel like in countries where you have more of a work life balance, where there's more, you know, government provided health care or access to services. I think that it's, you know, this is just a theory and I could be completely wrong, but it makes it a little bit more comfortable because you're not as afraid because you have to you have to take care of yourself because no one's going to do that for you. And I'm not saying Canadians or Australians are taken care of, not in the least. But what I'm saying is as an American, we have so little support that we have to figure it out or we're really in trouble.

20:33So we, and we're also more entrepreneurial and capitalistic as a people. So moving to Australia, it's funny. The first thing I thought was, oh my God, here's a huge gap in the fragrance market. I can't find a candle. I can't find great bath and body products. It's just a matter of time. I need to move so quickly. I felt this terrible rush to get it done because I thought there would be hundreds of people plotting and maybe even I like I pictured them in their in their office already doing their business plan and I was like I have to go and and I did and a year later after moving to Australia I started Glasshouse it was a good three years before a competitor popped up three years and good head start i had a great head start and i also created a category we created the scented candle category down under scented candles were didn't exist now i was unaware of that because i hadn't you know i had all the marketing 101 when i went over there now i look back i go my gosh that's what we did we created a category and for example if i had thought oh let me get some data on what's, you know, what products are selling and where the growth is.

21:52There would have been none because that was the category that didn't exist. So you certainly couldn't look it up. So to answer your question, because I went off on a tangent there, I got away with it because I'm American. If I was Australian, it would have been a lot harder for me because I would have been judged. I would have been poo-pooed. I would have been strained. and I think that there's plenty of Australians that love that sort of thing, but as a people, you're supposed to conform. I used to think it was resiliency, but then I've recently started changing it to speed to market. What do you think about that?

22:36It sounds like the same thing for you. The reason why you were super successful, one of the main reasons is your speed, your ability, speed to market beats out everyone else because everyone can start something, but most of the time they do not. I think your speed to market is definitely a massive point. You know, you, you, if you have an idea, you can't sit on it. You can't do this analysis, paralysis, and wait for it to be perfect and then go. Um, alternatively, you can't also have an idea and you just sit there churning out new product all day long and you don't figure out how to, how to execute on that or go to market with it.

23:16And I see that a lot with entrepreneurs, new entrepreneurs. They're so focused on the product. They make their one product and they're like, okay, this is my range and I'm going to make all these other things. And then I just say, stop. You haven't even sold this product. No one can keep up with you. The consumer would not be able to keep up with you. Just focus on the one thing, get that going. Then you can focus on other things too. So people get lost sometimes in understanding the commercial execution of their idea. So it's one thing to have an idea. It's another thing to enable it. And that's also something I see all the time.

23:56And when I speak to entrepreneurs, I go, okay, let's talk about your speed to market sales strategy. How are you doing that? And I think it's, we have a lot more channels than than I did starting out. Like obviously e-commerce is a huge channel that you can deploy. There are others like bricks and mortar and wholesale and retail. But I think speed is really an important point, but it's a lot more than just being fast. Having more channels now. I mean, you can make a video with AI of somebody holding your product, looking like they're using it. Is this going to make it harder? Because everyone can do it and the costs are low?

24:41Or do you think right now is the time where people really can start and they could maybe, they could scale faster? There's a lot more. This is just my thoughts on it, right? By, people are very smart. Consumers are very smart. They make connections and they do it quickly. And, you know, if we look at creative execution, here's an example, you're buying a shirt and you go click on the blue one, but then you click on the yellow one and the green one and the red one and it's all the exact same picture and someone just changed the color of the shirt. We figure that out really quickly. We figure that out like in a minute and we're kind of, if you're a luxury consumer, they've lost you.

25:23You're done. You're out of there. So as this all evolves, people will cotton on and they'll be ideas. But you know what's a lot better? Let's talk about creative. I mean, until AI, everyone did everything. You know, you do the big$50 ,000 photo shoot. You do the video production. All of that is incredibly, incredibly expensive. And it takes a crew and it takes a staff and it takes creative director and it takes all this stuff. You can now create content that looks really polished and professional almost by yourself. That wasn't even possible a couple of years ago. or even a year ago. So when I think about that, but you still have to figure out how to make that your own so that it's authentic, so that whatever it is that you're about comes through clearly.

26:21It's so easy. You just take a picture and tell AI. I mean, it's incredible. Like what people have access to right now. It is amazing when you think back what you think, what you did not have access to. It's amazing. thing. I remember doing this shoot once. It must have been 10 years ago. We literally got cans of paint. We had to get at this big studio. We brought in a big set of stairs. We had cans of paint lined up all along the top of the stairs that we dumped that rolled down the stairs. And the videographer was like so intent on getting every gush of every paint and every roll coming down.

26:57And even back then, I think to myself, he had to show me the idea. He had it on paper first. And then when we went to production and we actually did the video, we did all the content, I looked at his mood board and the images that he had created. And they're almost exacting to what we took. And I thought, well, why didn't we just use that one and save us all the trouble? And it's kind of like now, too. You can just, you can do, I mean, this is how crazy we are. We're still doing shoots. And sometimes to conceptualize the idea, of course we do it in AI and we go, okay, how is this going to look?

27:38And if we have this model in and let's pretend she has red hair or whatever, and she's holding this. And then we go and we produce the thing. Well, I go, well, why didn't we just use that? Because what we created looks exactly like what we mocked up. And so I guess the point is, though, is that you can do this without the$50 ,000 or the$20 ,000 or even$6 ,000. I mean, you can do cheaper shoots. You can do all of that nowadays. And it's amazing for founders to do that because the bigger you dream and the more conceptual and weird, you can still create that in AI. And that will help you cut through if no one's doing that.

28:17It's just limitless. I do get really turned off when I see an AI video I feel like it was okay in the beginning but now I'm like that's an AI video yeah like you're saying there's something around what I just had a meeting with someone and they're like hey should I lay your AI note takers I'm like no this is a human only need something about human to human I think the pendulum's gonna swing back final Final question for you, Nicole. Every CPG owner's dream is to open up in multiple countries, have a global brand, see success, go on the Today Show. But I imagine there was a cost. What has been the cost of success?

28:57Building Glass House has taken everything. Now, you could say that's a cost, but it's my life's purpose. It has given me a reason to be every day. It has given me joy and satisfaction and, I mean, my livelihood, of course. I would have liked to have been more present with my son You know, I was so busy So, so busy It's, it, and, you know You only have so many hours in the day So I would say that that would be probably That the work-life balance is what I gave up But the truth is If I suddenly wasn't Or didn't have Glass House anymore I don't know what I would do. I really struggle with that thought.

29:57And I'm getting to the point where a lot of people ask me, they say, well, what are you to do when there's life beyond Glass House? And I go, oh, my God, I actually don't know. And I spend a lot of my time trying to think about that point. And I know a lot of other people around my age. You know, I'm in my 50s now. And I know a lot of other entrepreneurs and business owners. We all sit around talking about the same thing. And and like our projects are almost try to figure out what you like to do other than this. And I'm like, I actually don't know. Personal mission, right? I'm sure you're going to find a great personal mission that has nothing to do with business, regardless of what business you're in.

30:38Are you chasing the exit? It seems like most people in the U.S. are chasing an exit at some point, which would then lead you to what's next. What about you? Are you think you just want to carry on for 20, 40, 50, 100 years, pass this through generations? What do you feel would be best in the future? A lot of entrepreneurs go into business for this. And that's good for them, right? They are very clear. I'm going to do this and then we're going to raise here and then we're going to do that and then we're going to exit. And it's all very planned out. That has not been my journey. My entire journey has been how, what new product are we going to come out with?