Advice Line with Bobbi Brown of Jones Road Beauty (September 2025)

27:11Wow. Thank you for calling in, Abby. Tell me how you – and you seem like you're a pretty young entrepreneur, which is awesome. I love that. Do you mind sharing how old you are? Yeah. I'm 23. So I started it when I was 16 and now I'm 23. I know. Congrats. That's awesome. Thank you. Tell me how this started. Yeah, there's kind of bits and pieces to the story because I had little small businesses since like fifth grade. It'd be like duct tape pins. I would sparkle people's chargers. But they would all just last a month because I would just sell it to my school friends and then get over it. So I actually sold phone cases in eighth grade, made a thousand bucks, got over it.

27:49And then in high school, I had to be homeschooled for my sport, acrobatic gymnastics, got the itch to sell again, had the phone case supplies, started it, blew up during COVID, and here we are. It's like, wait, wow. Just double click for a minute. Acrobatic gymnastics. That was your sport. So is that like trapeze and flying off? Like, what is that? No, I know. Everyone thinks just like circus and clowns almost. But it's like a mix of cheer and gymnastics. So it's partner-based sports. You throw them, you catch them, but it's with two or three people instead of a whole cheer team. Yeah. It's like being an entrepreneur.

28:28Yeah, pretty much. Exactly. So you had to be homeschooled because you were a competitive acrobatic gymnast. Yes. And that's when you started this business. Yes, Abby Rose. Yeah, we had to actually got pulled from the middle of my junior year because we had to do two practices a day. So I had to go homeschooled. And yeah, that's when I had the idea for Abby Rose and just. And so what you were initially what you were buying, people would order the custom cases and then you would work with a third party and have them made. Like, how did it work? Yeah, so it didn't start as customized. I kind of just, well, I actually started drawing designs.

29:04I'm horrible at designing, but nobody would design for me because I was just 16, not knowing what I was doing. So I started just selling basic designs to my school friends and to my acro friends, and I would heat press the design onto the phone case. So you heat press the design with sublimation ink, and then the phone case is made. It's a little complex, but yeah, that's kind of how it works. You would custom make them originally? Yes. Yourself? Yes. And now, and tell me how the business is doing that. Give me a sort of a sense of where you are. Yeah, so it has been going crazy, specifically this past year, because I just graduated from college and we've seen like a 50 % growth from last year.

29:43All the phone cases are still being handmade actually by my sister. I just do the marketing, the customer service, the live streams. And then my mom is also involved, my sister, my dad and my brother. It's kind of all just like this family run business. And we actually just purchased our supplier. So like things are, yeah. Wow. So, and so as you, are you, have you guys broken a million dollars in sales? Um, not in one year. We've done over 2 million in total. Yeah. No, that's awesome. Okay. But so you've easily, you've broken a hundred,$200 ,000 a year. Oh, for sure. Awesome. And, and most of what you're doing, the most of your sort of channel is through social media, like going, doing, doing things live or whatever.

30:23Yes. Yes. Going live, selling live, shipping live, everything is live. How many followers do you have? TikTok is our strongest one. We actually just hit 400 ,000 a few days ago because we have one blowing up. And then like 111 ,000 on Instagram. All right. Before we bring Bobby Brown in, just tell us what your question is for us. Yes. So basically all of our growth has been organic social media, and that's been great. But it's been this steady linear growth. And in order to keep this going and support my whole family, we need to have more of an explosive growth soon. So my question is if we just double down on what's working, keep up the lives and the content, or if we look into wholesale or paid advertising because we haven't really done that before.

31:13So, yeah. You're trying to scale to a five, hopefully greater million dollar business. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What do you think? Well, first of all, what you're doing is working. and not everything why does everyone think every business has to be like a rocket ship it's got it's got to grow but but it's also sometimes if things are so explosive and big like you know we've we've had tic tac moments that are like you know like we could not keep up with it it happened and then you look a year later and you're like how are we going to anniversary that so that's i'm not going to worry and figure out what else can i do to you know to go viral no let's look at the business what's working, what's not working?

31:54What do I not need to be spending as much money on or time on? You have a big success on social. And I mean, have you done a sub stack? Have you done YouTube? You know, there's other things you could do. Are you doing like other company giveaways and collabs? Like, yeah, it's a good thing. Yeah, it's like all of those things together have been keeping us going. We love doing collabs with other companies. We love social media. I started up my YouTube channel, but it's, I guess our biggest struggle right now is if like, if I'm not online, like sales aren't coming in. So it's almost like my presence has to like constantly be online for sales to keep going.

32:37Tough. Yeah. It's just tough. Yeah. You have to constantly be making videos in order for, in order for you to get sales. Oh, absolutely. Or just live because they want to see their order live. They want to hear the cha-ching and get their freebie, you know? Well, you started something that's working. You can't walk away from it. How do you evolve it? Maybe you bring your sister in or you bring a guest, you know, friend or something and just try to experiment and, you know, figure out a way, like maybe it doesn't have to be live. I know there's a way you could tape it to be live or there's different things that you could do, too.

33:10But do you really want to be in retail? That is a whole nother set of problems and issues. It sounds great. It's really expensive. Yeah, like, it's really expensive. I guess that's what we're wondering, because it seems like that's what all of our competitors are doing. You know, they'll, they'll be in urban, they'll be in Target. So it's like, do we follow that? Or do we, You could try as a pop-up or like Target and I guess Walmart has these great incubator programs for young brands and founders. And, you know, there's a way you could like dip your toe into it as a test and see if it's something.

33:49But you've got to go try those things out. I think that's great advice. And one of you mentioned, I think you mentioned Urban Outfitters, which to me seems like a natural place to try and experiment. But I want to go back to this challenge that you face, which is right now your biggest channel is you. And you can't scale you, right? You can't make a million Abbeys. But maybe you can. And that's a question I have, which is can you feature other faces of Abby Rose? Can you bring in other people and train them to be sales reps with a commission? I mean, is that something that you've thought about or experimented with?

34:29Honestly, no. that's a great idea though. I think I, it's always hesitant when it's your business, it's like your baby and you know, just someone else doing the role you do is scary. So I just need to get over that. But I think that's a great idea. Uh, just finding like bubbly, energetic, try it once, try it once and just do it once. See if you like it, see if it works. And using your accounts, right? Having the person go on your account and say, Hey, I'm here today for Abby, you know, is out at urban outfitters doing a pop-up and I'm going to you know something like that or your mother or your father like use your family like you know use your whatever your next door neighbor your grandma your teacher like people love that instead of trying to be like everybody else like what's unique about you that's comfortable for you and it doesn't have to be a big strategic anything you just try it and say oh my god that's great and it might not work.

35:25Yeah. And they know all the family. They know Papa Rose, a mama Rose. And so I guess I've just never thought like, let's try one with just them, you know, if I'm elsewhere. Who are your customers, Abby? Are they mainly young women? You know what? I've learned a lot about this since graduating college because I thought it was typically, you know, high school and college students, but I've actually realized a lot of people are stay at home moms. That's who I'm talking. Awesome. Yeah. So on lives, a lot of them are stay at home moms, you know, like watching their kids and just wanting like a community.

35:58So it's anywhere from like middle school, high school, college, stay at home, just young females looking for friends and a community. So yeah, keep building your community. I love the phone that holds the three lip glosses. Oh, yeah. So cool. Right. Yeah. Well, I wanted, you know, I wanted to go deeper in that. I'm like, okay you know i'm like we're launching some new lip glosses next year let me go look at it stop that's my dream yeah i mean who knew that you would you could carry lip glosses in your phone case i mean there's possibilities are endless oh yeah we just got that prototype in and i was like oh yeah uh i have a quick question for you abby do you because you mentioned um sort of moms, which is super cool.

36:46Have you tried any like user generated content, like, you know, every post your, you know, your design or maybe design your dream case and the winner will get to make it with me live, you know, in real time or something? Yeah, we've done design contests with our customers where they send in their submissions, but never really interacting like live with the winners so that's a really good idea for that yeah yeah that's a great idea i want to see like 20 different abby roses like not obviously abby rose but like different people just coming on and you know that's how you build your sales team yes that sounds amazing and a weight is already lifted off my shoulders just thinking about that so yeah i agree bobby i'm curious in a, because cosmetics, you know, this is like one of those things where people say, oh, the cosmetics industry is such a crowded marketplace.

37:42But I don't believe in that. I think a good product can always break through, right? A good product, a well-designed product and well marketed. And you know that better than anybody else. When you started Bobby Brown, people said that, right? The world doesn't need another lipstick. Absolutely. People said that all the time. And, you know, I, and I always say I didn't invent lipstick. I reinvented it. So it's the same thing with your phone cases, right? It's like you didn't invent a phone case, but you know, your, your biggest challenge is also how do you make sure that people know that your phone case is cooler, more fun and better?

38:17You know, you have to show them. Yeah. Uh, Abby, good luck. Thank you. Abby Rose is the brand. Congrats. Thanks for calling in. Thank you guys. Thank Thank you. Bye. Good luck. Thank you. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, you think like – and I'm sure you've had this experience too, Bobby, where I look at a product like this and I'm thinking, okay, this is driven by sort of teenage girls, you know, college students, young women. But actually it's moms, right? It's moms probably in their 30s, 40s, older. it's a little bit like we did an episode of the show a couple weeks ago about crumble cookies and that brand was really propelled and still is by teenage girls who are super psyched about the drop the flavor drop every week so I'm sure you've seen this with your products where some things you make are just take off with like a certain demographic and surprisingly so I mean when Jones Road first launched you know there was women over 40 that were buying the products.

39:21You know, now there's more and more, you know, like, I guess the millennials are buying it. But, you know, and I've been asked many times, like, how do you market to all the different age groups? And I say, I don't market to the different age groups, I just market to women that want to look natural and pretty. Yeah, it's so cool. I mean, you know, connecting with your customer is the most important thing. Yes, to have a great product is the most important, but then connecting with your customer. And it sounds like she's on her way. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller.

39:57Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

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42:28Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with the Bobby Brown. Bobby, what do you say? You ready to bring in our next caller? I'm ready. Welcome to the advice line you were on with Bobby Brown. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. Of course. What's going on, Guy and Bobby? Great to meet you guys. I'm calling in from Charlotte, North Carolina. And my name's Henry. I'm the co-founder of Tannin Oral Care, which is a lifestyle-centered, wellness-based oral care company. And we are the inventors of the world's first post-coffee mouth rinse.

43:05Welcome. So wait, this is a oral care. So it's post-coffee what? Tell me a little bit more about this product. Yeah, so it's a post-coffee mouth rinse. So you know that, do we have any coffee drinkers? I mean, Guy, Bobby, you guys both drink coffee. Yeah, I love coffee. Two hands, right? It's beautiful. It's that moment right after coffee is really what we originally designed this product for. I was working at a coffee shop at the time making videos. I would bring this toothbrush to the coffee shop, which was both gross. And also I learned that it's actually best to wait 30 minutes after your last sip to brush your teeth because you can actually wear your enamel that has just been softened by the acid from the coffee.

43:43And so I started looking for a solution and was just amazed that no one had ever made anything oral care related for coffee drinkers. Very sensitive in my mouth. And I was living with my roommate at the time. His name is Joe. And we just got fascinated by this. And we started by, one, like posting up in a super busy part of Charlotte and just asking people, like, are you having this problem too? Like, what do you do to clean your mouth after coffee? And realizing that it was just one of those things that people were thinking about without really thinking about it. Something that they wanted a solution for.

44:15And we selfishly also wanted that solution. Huh. Yeah. Oral care, is that the same as a mouthwash? So the mouthwash is really, this is kind of, and we'll get into this in the question, I guess. But we started by looking, we wanted to re-engineer a mouthwash that would be perfect for coffee drinkers. And so we went and got every mouthwash from the shelves, pulled it off, put ingredients into a massive spreadsheet and started researching these ingredients. And we were pretty flabbergasted to learn that, and maybe you guys have heard this, that a lot of mouthwash is actually horrible for your health.

44:50It's packed with synthetic ingredients, dyes, it's alcohol-based, it actually dries out your mouth even more. and we've just learned so much about the oral microbiome, about oral care in recent years that it was one of those things where we just felt like there hadn't been a product that had caught up with the research. What is your background? Do you have a background in chemistry or science? I don't. I've definitely been an entrepreneur my whole life, but I would say my fascination with oral care has carried me through my entire life. I think, like all good stories, probably started with some childhood trauma.

45:24I think I came home from the dentist when I was eight and I had four cavities and my brothers just made so much fun of me. So I swore from that day, I'm like, okay, I'm never getting another cavity. And so I've just been very aware of my oral care ever since. And I've been doing the brushing, the flossing, everything that I feel like the dentists are telling me, but still having issues. And that's kind of what one of the things that too led me to look at coffee and be like, okay, this is a real thing. Like this is actually having a real impact. And how did you start to make this product? I mean, how did you start to come up with the formulation?

45:57Yeah, I mean, it started, I thankfully had some dentists in my network, we would meet with them. And me and my friend Joe literally ordered a chemistry set off of Amazon. And I would meet with my high school chemistry teacher, and we would just start mixing. And just start like, I mean, getting deep into the research of natural ingredients, what is really, what is in these mouthwashes, but like, what is actually working. And I think I've always connected with Bobby's story, that idea of reinventing lipstick, it's like people didn't say that we needed another mouthwash. But I think what we wanted to do was really just start from square one.

46:28What do you want in a mouthwash that's really going to make it as effective as possible? All right. Tell me, tell us your question and then we'll dive in a little bit deeper. We're at this point where people know us and we've taken a very localized approach in Charlotte. People really know us in the city as the coffee mouth rents. But what we want to create is a brand, like a legacy brand that can really redefine and have staying power as an oral care brand. So I wanted to get your thoughts on how you would recommend we move forward to kind of position ourselves in that way and continue to work towards that.

47:03All right. A lot to dive into. Bobby? Well, I have a question. As soon as I saw your package, I mean, I love your Instagram. It's very cool. You guys are both, you know, like cool looking and I love the vibe. But my husband, who is a mouthwash guy, who's now using natural mouthwash, he's not a coffee drinker. And he hates coffee. So even if I bought him your mouthwash that said coffee on it, he'd say, yuck. So what is the difference between that and a regular one? And is there a way? And how are you going to position another mouthwash that's not necessarily tied to coffee? Yeah, it's a great question.

47:41So I think, like I said, we set out to make this coffee mouthwash. And I think we, in the process, created the best natural mouthwash on the market, humbly. Like, I just, I really do think we've done that. And so I think that's what I'm struggling with. Like, do we expand the niche? And we say it's great for coffee, wine, and tea, and any moment you may need it in between. Or do we really stay niche down to coffee? Because there is obviously people that really connect with that story of coffee. I think my opinion, and it's only my opinion, is when you reach a certain point and you say, yes, we're going to reimagine the packaging, and then you reimagine the marketing.

48:21It started as for coffee, but we've learned that even if you're not a coffee drinker, it's this. If you're a wine drinker or you're just someone that people that have stomach issues sometimes could use a little bit of mouthwash. So that would be my suggestion because I think just doing the coffee thing is really cool and different. But I think there's an opportunity to expand that. I totally agree. I mean, I think that right now, if you look at the bottle, I'm looking at the website, it says post coffee, right? We're in this way coffee side effects. It says for coffee drinkers, buy coffee drinkers.

48:53So this is really – it's a cool product. It's just – it's very niche right now. You can build a business around a niche product. That happens all the time. But there are limits to how big you can take that, right? Especially people like, well, I don't drink coffee, you know, or I don't really have this problem. I like the taste of coffee breath or whatever. Some people – I want to ask you – before I get – we drill into that, I want to ask a question about the name, tannin. Because when I think of tannin, I think of like tannins in wine or tea, you know. There's tannins in there. Why is it called tannin?

49:27Yeah. It's a great question. So tannins are also in coffee. They're really in a lot of like natural things. So these compounds and trees and plants and probably know that. And so while they're the things that give it this natural flavor, it's also the thing that dries out the mouth, which causes a lot of the oral health issues. So quite literally, we're rinsing those tannins out of the mouth when you talk about coffee or wine or tea. But it also speaks to the just very natural elements of the brand. Like all our products are natural. We use sustainable ingredients, our sustainable materials for our packaging.

49:58So it's kind of this dual meaning. And we thought it was a cool word. You know, one of the things that comes to mind is, and Bob, you mentioned their Instagram. And you guys are young. You're cool. You've got, you know, your storytellers. I wonder whether you guys can talk about, like, oral microbiome or, like, you know, the way we're washing our mouths is all wrong. Or, you know, do you have bad breath? Or even if you don't, like, you're not cleaning your mouth right in the right way. Like, just starting that way and thinking about, and I think, Bobby, you alluded to this, overall mouth health, right?

50:37Or whatever, microbiome health. And by the way, how could you not have, like, either a little spray eventually or mints? Lozenges. For sure. Toothpastes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you're right on, Guy. And that's definitely exactly where we want to bring it. I think we've been struggling a little bit to make that positioning. But I mean, I think we've grown even more convinced of the importance of oral care as we've done this. And everyone's talking about the gut, right, the gut biome. But very few people are talking about the oral microbiome and the connection that it has to the gut, the connection that it has to total health.

51:12And so I love that idea, Guy. I, you know, I'm looking at packaging, you know, all natural, vegan, alcohol free, fluoride free. I want to know what's in it. And I feel like you should make that a little clearer in your, I see aloe leaves in a picture. But like it would be cool if on the, you know how RX bars, you know, is like three eggs and two dates and one, you know, four almonds. Like it's so clear. I wonder if you could do a version of that without giving away your secrets, obviously. But I want to know what's in this and why is this better for me than Listerine? And what it tastes like. I want to know what it tastes like.

51:49Yeah. Is it minty? Yeah. No, it's all good points. I think we've wrestled a little bit with oral care, just wondering how much do people really want to know in oral care because some of the names are a little funkier. Like it's not like a date or an egg white. But I also do think talking about positioning to wellness, just the simplicity of really educating people to those ingredients and letting people in on our process is a great idea. Yeah. I think you have an opportunity and a challenge, right, which is you don't want to just appeal to coffee drinkers. And also you want to show people that what this is is going to benefit them.

52:26And I think a big part of doing that is really, and maybe starting out by looking for a tribe, maybe it is young men like you. Maybe you start that way and you try and appeal to that group and you build from that group. I mean, our ex-bars started out with CrossFitters at CrossFit gyms. Now everybody, working parents, mommies, everybody's eating them on the go, but that's not how they started. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it could be in a gym. It could be, you know, it could be in a dentist office, like, you know. Yeah, we've been, I think we've been trying to lean into this kind of social wellness movement that's happening.

53:07Like cold plunges, saunas, kind of where people are doing that kind of stuff. There's a great community in Charlotte that we've really tapped into. I think we found a little niche there. And so I hear what you guys are saying. I'm like really growing that niche. Like what does it look like to really lean into that? because I do think, you know, at least that I've seen no oral care company has really aligned to the wellness movement where people are thinking about oral care when it comes to wellness. Cool. All right. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Awesome. Henry Davis, a product is called Tannin Mouth Rinse.

53:40Tannin Oral Care is a company. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. Yeah, good luck with everything. Cheers, guys. Thank you. you know it's it is interesting and uh you know it is complicated when you're a young founder and and there's so many different directions to go and you know my biggest advice is don't jump into something but just like like try it like dip your toes in and see and even if it's just you're putting it in your dentist office and his patients are using it or maybe you put it in you know your equinox just in one gym, like you just kind of dip your toe into those things. And, you know, you don't, and don't get overwhelmed to think, Oh, well, if I only had the money, if I only had, you know, the next series, like, like grow your business first.

54:25Yeah, totally. Yeah. And he's got to look at the competition. There are a lot of clean mouthwashes on the market, like what, you know, and, and, and there's a couple mouthwashes that are, you know, dentist found, you know, And they're more natural ingredients. So it's good to kind of know what's out there and position yourself away differently. They are going to have a slightly harder battle to wage. But if they do it right, which is why I think maybe trying to get a certain tribe of users first, it could work. It could succeed. Yeah. Bobby, before I let you go, one last question for you. If you could go back to Bobby Brown makeup artist, you know, getting people ready for their TV or whatever video shoots, and you could give her advice as she was starting to build this business out, what would have been useful for her to know?

55:17That she should learn to breathe. She should learn to, you know, to shut off your brain sometimes and learn to recover. That's the same thing I'm telling my, you know, myself now. I'm a work in progress, as we all are. Love that so much. That's Bobby Brown, founder of Bobby Brown Cosmetics and Jones Road Beauty. And by the way, we recently got an update from that last caller, Henry. He says that coffee will always be an important part of Tannin's origin story, but now they're repositioning the brand around a new prebiotic mouth rinse set to launch in January of 2027. Also, if you haven't heard Bobby's original How I Built This episode, You've got to go check it out.

56:01It's an incredible story. And here is one of my favorite moments from that episode. I used to hire and interview every person that walked in that brand. And then I didn't anymore. And all of a sudden there were people working on my brand that I never met before. And that I might not have hired. And, you know, it was a struggle. And I tried to let go of the details. But then I realized the details were what makes the company so special. And so I kept thinking I could fix it. If we could just do this, if I could get this, it could be better. And it didn't get better. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week.

56:42Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at GuyRoz.com. Each week it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibtid.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there.

57:24and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtin Erablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce and our audio engineer was Sina Lafredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Carla Estevez, Neva Grant, Casey Herman, JC Howard, John Isabella, Chris Messini, Catherine Seifer, and Kerry Thompson. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab. Thanks again to Engine for their support. If your business is growing and your team is traveling, Engine makes it simple and saves you money doing it.

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