Briogeo Hair Care: Nancy Twine (2020)

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30:06Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2011 and Nancy Twine is working in banking, but thinking about creating her own line of beauty products and specifically natural hair care products. So she starts to look into it. Yeah. And I know this sounds so nerdy, but the New York Small Business Library was game changing for me because I got access to research databases and reports that I otherwise would have had to have spent thousands of dollars on. And I was typing in different search terms like natural personal care market, natural hair care, clean hair care. And one of the things that I noticed in these reports was that there were pretty meaningful sections on natural personal care for body, for skin care.

30:58But there were really small kind of paragraphs dedicated to natural hair care. And I thought that that was really interesting. And what it did tell me was that there were very few players in natural hair care at the time relative to the other categories, but that it was also a budding space. And that's really when the light bulb went off. And I said, this is a huge white space potential. It makes sense because of my personal background of focus here. This has legs to run with. I mean, so you're looking through just like doing research, right? You know you want to do something in natural hair care products.

31:39And by the way, what does that mean? Because you see a lot of hair care products that say natural on them or free of this or free of that. But this is 2010. What did that mean? Yeah, it's a great question because the word natural is not regulated the way that organic is. So natural means different things to different people. And for me, it meant utilizing a high, high percentage of naturally derived ingredients. And so basically what I mean by that is instead of pumping our products with silicones, which are synthetic polymers that give the illusion of shine on the hair, we actually used real natural oils to do that.

32:23because not only is it natural, but the benefits, the vitamins, the nutrients, the minerals within natural oils actually serve a purpose in enhancing the hair's health that silicones do not. So that's really the foundational goal of why we do use natural, clean ingredients in our products. All right. So you are thinking, hey, maybe I can do something here. Well, what's the next step you take? I mean, you're a trader at Goldman Sachs, and obviously you're super smart and talented, but you're also pretty young and probably don't – I imagine you don't know a whole lot of people in the beauty industry.

33:03So what's the next step? Who do you call? Where do you go? Yeah. So after doing my research, I realized, one, there's a void for clean natural hair care, but there's also a void for effective clean natural hair care. So I had a premise that was compelling because I wasn't just kind of hopping on something that already existed. I was creating something that didn't exist. And so I had never created a business plan before, and I knew it was something that I wanted to be thoughtful about. So I did what I always do, which is I consulted my friend Google, and I Googled how to create a business plan.

33:43And I stumbled upon a website that offered a service where they would partner with you to understand your vision and then also give you some help on the financial side in terms of forecasting financial statements. And that's how I went about creating my first business plan. Okay, so you're working on a business plan, but you don't actually have a product to sell yet. So what happens next? Yeah, so after I had my business plan created, I told myself that I was going to tell all of my friends about what it is I wanted to do. Because I knew if I went and told everyone that I wanted to start a clean, natural hair care product line, that they would ask me about it every time we went out.

34:39And I didn't want to disappoint them. So it was my way of holding myself accountable. And so once I felt really good about the viability of this business plan, I knew the next thing that I needed to do was to start formulating. And that's where I was a little bit stuck because without my mom and without advanced knowledge of chemistry, I didn't feel comfortable formulating the products on my own in a way in which, you know, I could sell them to a Sephora, for example. Sure. And at the time, I had no idea that you could outsource R &D and manufacturing to an outside company. And I only learned about that because I had told a friend about my idea.

35:27And she said, oh, let me put you in touch with a friend who created a deodorant line. And I said, oh, I would love that. And I spoke to this friend and I go, how are you making this deodorant at home? And he said, I'm not. I'm using a contract manufacturer. So this was so fascinating for me. I said, this is cool. I can actually utilize the team and resources of another company to bring my idea to life. And so I was very, very organized. And I did a bunch of research on Google. I started attending some local trade shows. And I figured out the who's who in hair care contract manufacturing. But meantime, you are still working at Goldman Sachs, right?

36:08I am. And so that was really, really tricky because this would have been 2011, 2012. I had just become a vice president, so I had gotten promoted, but I was also trying to allocate time to work on Briogeo. And by the way, did you already call it Briogeo? No, it did not have a name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Basically the way that I worked it was that after work is when I did all of my email stuff. So a lot of people were getting emails from me at like 9, 10 PM at night. And my calls, I would do those on my lunch break. Or some days I would take PTO when I just knew that I was going to have a really hectic day of calls and research.

36:52Because I had a ton of PTO because I never took time off. So I never really took vacation. It was just more so days to work on my business plan. So you would call up or you'd connect with some of these potential factories and you would say, hey, I want to make hair care products like shampoos and conditioners and stuff, but with no sulfates, silicones, parabens, DEA, dyes, all this stuff that's in pretty much 99 percent of hair care products. And I imagine most of the time they would be like, can't be done. That's not possible. Yeah, you're absolutely right. and it was very disappointing. Pretty much every conversation I had made the idea seem very far-fetched.

37:39And sometimes I would get close. Sometimes manufacturers would say, oh, we just started developing shampoos without sulfates, but we need the silicone base in order for it to hydrate your hair. If you don't have the silicones, the clean surfactants are going to dry out the hair. You can't have one or the other. But there was one contract manufacturer that came back to me and said, we've never done this before, but I think we can do it, especially if you're willing to dedicate the time to partner with our R &D team and to really work with us and give us some time. And by the way, I think just let's just be clear.

38:15Yeah. We're not saying names or the name of this manufacturer because it's a trade secret, right? That's right. Okay. Yes. So keep going. Yeah. So there was a small contract manufacturer privately run and operated in the Midwest. I had an opportunity to meet with the CEO of the contract manufacturer, and I think he was kind of surprised that I was this finance girl who had this side project of, you know, starting a beauty product company. And I think he took note of my passion. And I've been fortunate to work with people who have extended courtesies and opportunities to me because the passion became infectious.

38:58So even though I wasn't coming in with a big check size or, you know, a big production run, I do think there are a lot of people that just have that heart inside of them that want to see the underdog succeed. And so luckily I was able to get the time and attention and the dedicated lab time with the chemists to help me really tackle this project. Yeah. But you, I mean, you did not have a background in chemistry. So how did you even know like the words to use when you were talking to the lab chemist? Like even to tell them what you wanted them to make, like what would you say? Like I want this to be like – what would you say?

39:39Yeah. So it's a little hard sometimes to describe these things. Yeah. So I had to kind of study up on hair care terminology specifically. I was working on a treatment mask, and I wanted it to have a very luxurious, buttery, rich texture. So it needed to have a higher viscosity. I also wanted the concentrations of what I called our NOVA complex. And NOVA stands for natural oils, vitamins, and antioxidants. I wanted the NOVA complex and this mask to be, you know, three times more concentrated than our other formulas. This is a hair mask. This is a hair mask. What is a hair mask? I don't want to use one.

40:22I'm just going to be honest with you. I've never, what is it? So it is a concentrated conditioning treatment that helps to repair, moisturize, and enhance the vitality of the hair. And all the while, you're funding this. I mean, your costs are not high at this point. It's just travel and stuff. But you're just funding it through your salary at Goldman Sachs, right? Yes. I was fundering it through my salary, but I was being really mindful of how much I was spending because things do really add up quickly. And I didn't have products yet, so I didn't want to get too far with spend before making sure that I could actually do this.

40:59And what were you looking to make? Shampoo, conditioner, like tell me the things that you wanted them to kind of like the prototypes you wanted them to make for you. Yeah, so originally I wanted to create a 15 SKU product line. 15? You wanted to be 15, okay. 15, because I wanted to have something for every hair texture type and I didn't want to leave anyone out. And I was speaking to a contact in the contract manufacturing space that really advised me against a 15 product SKU line coming out the gate. And he goes, if you can do it with four products, it's your best bet. Who was this person advising you?

41:41Just a friend or mentor? So it was actually one of the contract manufacturers that I didn't end up going with, but gave me some really great advice. Which is a good lesson in, you know, you might get rejected from somebody or you might reject them, but you can really get some good advice from them. Yep. So you decide you're going to come up with four products. And what were those products going to be? Yeah. So that was a big challenge for me. how was I going to create a diverse assortment with only four SKUs? So what I decided to do was to create one shampoo for all hair types. And then I had three conditioners that were texture specific.

42:18So with four products, I was able to hit a pretty diverse client base. All right. So you are, I think it took you about a year before you finally got this right. Right. And in that year, were you telling your coworkers that you were working on this? No. So no one in my immediate team knew that I was working on this project. I had a couple of friends at Goldman that I confided in, but only a couple that I knew would not say anything because I was serious about my work and I didn't want to compromise that. And I didn't want it to get out that I was doing both. So how are you, so you like were taking like a day here and a day there and flying to this manufacturer and like coming back to New York.

43:01And is that what you were basically doing for a year? Yeah, it was pretty crazy. And there were points in which I did start hitting a wall because I was getting very little sleep. You know, being on the trading floor, I was also working with the London market. So I needed to be at the desk by 7 a.m. So I was getting to bed at like 1, 2 a.m. and then waking up at 5.30 a.m. day over day over day. And it started to become unsustainable. Yeah. Do you think – I imagine one of the reasons why you were just grinding away was a way to kind of cope with the loss of your mom. Yeah. I mean, the project and process of building Briogeo really became a therapy for me.

43:53I needed to take that energy and pour it into something positive. and there were a lot of people who were very quote-unquote proud of me that I didn't self-destruct or get into negative behavior like drinking or drugs and things like that and for me I really took the emotions of that experience and poured it into this project And I think that's why the hours that I was devoting, the lack of sleep, all of that stuff, I just kept going because it was my therapy. When we come back in just a moment, how Nancy managed to convince a man with very little hair to invest in her hair care product company.

44:44Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

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47:26Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So by the end of 2012, Nancy Twine is about two years into launching her line of natural hair products. And she's still got a few daunting problems to solve. For instance, she doesn't have a name for her company yet. And she needs to figure out how to convince retailers to sell her product. And at this point, Nancy starts to realize that she'll probably need some more money than what she has in her savings account. So by that point, the most money I spent was on the business plan, which was about$5 ,000. Some of the initial concepts for the packaging, which was, you know, north of$10 ,000.

48:09And then you factor in everything else. I was probably close to$25 ,000. But you're bootstrapping this business. I mean, are you, I imagine you're thinking, all right, I got to raise some money. Did you start to look around? I did. So I was self-funding a lot of it, but I knew that if I was going to start to scale this at some point, I didn't want to put myself in a position where I was completely maxed out. Because I also knew that it would be hard for me to focus on growing my business if I was thinking about how I was going to pay my rent. So I did. I started dabbling in going to investor meetups and pitching sessions, which was quite the experience.

48:54And you would go to these things and they were like speed dating but pitching your business, right? It's so funny because, Guy, I didn't even know it was a thing. And I got invited to one of these things and that's exactly what it was. There was a line at each of these booths and you would do your one-minute elevator pitch and it was nutso. And at this point, you were going to these pitch meetings with investors, angel investors, with bottles of your product? No, not even. You were just describing this concept. Yeah, and I had some artwork on a piece of paper. I would bring this thick piece of paper that had sketches of the packaging.

49:34It was a really hard guy to sell a brand that existed on paper to tech investors. I mean, it was kind of crazy. It's like, what's your app? Yeah, right. Exactly. What? This is a shampoo? Right. No, no. What's your app? Which is why going to these networking events was so discouraging because no one really cared about what I was doing. And I even felt like the people in the room weren't consumers of what I was offering. I imagine these were predominantly men. Yes. Probably white men who don't use hair masks and some of them probably don't have hair and also probably don't really understand your specific hair needs either.

50:14That's right. And by the way, how did you eventually settle on the name Briogeo? I had so many like random names. I can't even remember, but I just remember I got to the point of frustration and knew that I needed help. and a friend of mine ended up putting me in touch with a guy who was a consultant and for less than 500 bucks, he picked my brain on what I wanted this brand to be and gave me a ton of options and Briogeo stood out. So the word Brio is an Italian word that means vibrant, colorful, full of life. That's like our DNA essence. And the word Geo is Latin for of earth, of nature. and that speaks to our clean ingredient methodology.

50:59All right, so you are looking for money and you keep grinding away going to these things. And at one of these things, you do meet somebody who actually says, yeah, yeah, I'll give you some money. Who was this person? How did that happen? Yeah, so there was a investing network out in Long Island and I remember racing from work to try to make it there on time, which I did. And this is in 2013. This was in 2012. 2012, okay. Yeah. And so I walk into this auditorium and I look around and I'm like, here we go again. Exactly as you described, it was all white men, older men too, that filled the space.

51:43And then there were five of us who were going on stage to pitch our ideas. And the four other men who were presenting all had tech companies. And I just remember being like, oh, my gosh, not again. You know what's so hard about it, Guy, too, is that when you get onto a stage and you know that everyone there is probably not interested in what you have to offer and you kind of have to fake that sense of enthusiasm. It was painful. So here you are. There are four other guys, probably talking about their software as a service product. And then you present. And what? What happens? So I presented with passion.

52:21I had a great presentation. And then after the stage pitches, there was a breakout room in which the five of us each had a table where we could display our product concept or technology. And so for me, it was that, you know, poster board with the sketches of the product. And no one came to my table. It was so embarrassing. I was so upset. And at the very end, as I was packing up my table, a guy named Phil came by and said, you gave the best presentation. And he said, as you can tell, I have very little hair. I know little about hair care. But he goes, I don't really invest in the products anyway.

53:09I invest in the people. And he goes, you've got something. And here's my number. Let's be in touch. And his name was Phil? Phil Palmetto. What a great guy. Phil Palmetto. Yes. Yes. So Phil gives you a card, and then I'm assuming you call him the next day or so? I didn't call him. He called me. Wow. I was on the trading desk, and I got this missed call, and I hopped off, and it was Phil. Phil had called because he wanted to follow up, and he wanted to learn more. And that's where the dialogue started. And ultimately, a year later, after I had gotten my first retail commitment, he made his first investment in Briogeo.

53:49How did you get a retail commitment? So after the lengthy process of formulating my first four products, I had now had a name for the company. I had the packaging design. I had done my first run of, you know, 400 pieces or whatever the minimum was. And I was tasked with figuring out how I was going to bring the products to market. It's funny, Guy, because I just focused on one thing at a time. Sure. And so once the products were made, I had to figure out how I was going to get them in front of retailers. And I had a business plan, so I knew who my target retailers were. I was targeting the prestige retailers of the world like Sephora, Nordstrom, et cetera.

54:34But they weren't giving you the time of day because you were comparative nobody to other people in the industry, I guess. Right. So I knew I couldn't just cold email them. Like that just wasn't going to work. So at the time, I had started building up some mentors in the space that encouraged me to go to a trade show and to invest in getting a booth. Which is not cheap. It's like$2 ,000,$3 ,000,$4 ,000 more. It was more than that. Wow. Because I elected to be in this very special section of the Cosmoprof Beauty Trade Show. Where is that? Is that in New York? That's in Las Vegas. And how much did your booth cost?

55:10It cost about$10 ,000 for that weekend. And then that was just for the space. You had to like bring your stuff with you and like a signage and right. Yeah, there was travel. I had to design the space. I needed staffing. So I think when it was all said and done, it was probably closer to 15 ,000. And meantime, no one at Goldman Sachs knows this. Like you're like, OK, have a great weekend. You're flying to Las Vegas to go have a booth at this at this trade show. Yeah, it was a little weird. And I did. I started feeling guilty. I'm like, this isn't right. Like, you know, I'm kind of living this double life.

55:46But clearly by 2013, this is like this train has left the station. Now you've got one foot really in this this side, the hair care products. And and you get to this show and you're standing there. You've got your your bottles all lined up and and people are passing by and people stop and start to talk to you. Yeah. And if you've never been to a trade show, it is a very, very overwhelming series of days because you are talking nonstop. And you have to be on and you have to be at that booth because you never know who's going to come by. You can't even go to the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. It's very hard.

56:23And I actually did step away to the bathroom and miss the buyer who I was there for. Luckily, they came back. But that's how it happens. All right. So you're there presumably, hopefully, to get some kind of deal. somebody to purchase, to make a purchase order, and who ends up ordering from you? Yeah, so the first day I was handing out just lots of samples, and buyers were very intrigued because they're always intrigued by newness, and they had never seen the brand before. But the buyers that I gave samples to, most of them came back the next day and said, I used the products last night or this morning, like tell me more.

57:02And so some of those buyers included, you know, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom. And then on the very last day, the Sephora team came by. And that was, what's really funny is that I didn't even know that they were the Sephora team until they left because there was a group of four of them and their badges were turned the other way because they don't want to be kind of like smothered by everyone who's looking for the Sephora team. So when they came by, I actually had no idea. And when they walked off, another brand came up to my booth and said, oh, my gosh, how did the conversation with Sephora go? And I was like, what do you mean?

57:44And she was like, oh, those four women were from Sephora. But they didn't make an order. They didn't put in an order. They didn't make an order. I got no contacts. I had no business cards. And I was actually very, very disappointed. Did you leave with any orders? I left with no orders, but I did leave with interest from Urban Outfitters. So Urban Outfitters stopped by. And by the way, were there people who assumed because you are an African-American woman that this you were making products for, you know, quote unquote, ethnic aisle products, you know, you know what I mean? Like that this was specifically for women of color.

58:23I mean, was there did people make that assumption initially? You know, I figured that people would, which is why when I designed my booth, I was very intentional about having hair model imagery at my booth that really displayed the diversity of our intended consumer. So I think when people saw the breadth of ethnicities and skin tones and hair texture types, I think it helped to offset maybe that stereotype. Yeah, I mean, even when you go to your website now, I mean, we're jumping ahead, but it's like every single hair type and ethnicity is represented on your website. Yeah, and that's been a day one mission of the Briogeo brand.

59:08And it really just kind of reflects, I think, my experience of growing up. And I've been so fortunate to have a diverse group of friends, and I never wanted any of my friends to feel like they couldn't use Briogeo too. All right. So you come back from that trade show and then I'm assuming you start to hit the phones on Urban Outfitters. Oh, yeah. So that moved pretty quickly. So they did eventually put an order in that fall and that was actually the milestone that Philip, who I spoke about a little earlier, Philip was then ready to commit some capital to the company. Because you needed cash to place that order.

59:49That's right. Right. If – and how many – do you remember how many bottles they bought or – So they bought the stock. They pretty much bought all of the stock that I had. So that – those few hundred units. Right. Yeah. So it was – they were kind of dipping their toe into this. That's right. And so you didn't have to make extra product. But that was enough to get Phil to say, all right, I'm in. I'll give you some money. Yes. And what did he give you? So he gave me the first time about$100 ,000. Which – and was that a game changer for you at this point? Oh, yeah. I mean, that was huge. I mean, I knew that I could, you know, scale the next production run.

1:00:25It was still me at the time, so I wasn't at a point where I needed to invest in staffing, but it was really all about being able to scale the inventory. All right. So you get into Urban Outfitters. But then the next challenge is, and I love that like a methodical way you do this. You're like, you kind of break it up into bite-sized chunks. Like, let me tackle this problem and then I'll tackle the next problem. But the next problem was getting people to buy it at Urban Outfitters, like getting people to be aware of it, right? That's right. So one of the other investments that I made early on was a PR agency.

1:00:59And that was really important because I had to get the story out there. One of the things that I did that was a little bit different is I made myself available to the editors and I told my PR agency that I didn't want them to just pitch editors over email because I wouldn't be able to really tell the full story. And because I was in New York, I asked them if they could set me up with desk side appointments where I would actually meet the editor and be able to have a face-to-face connection. And so I was able to create relationships with editors at a dozen of publications. And I started getting press out of the gate from even some of the bigger publications like Allure and Marie Claire and Refinery29.

1:01:47Now, knowing what I know about the beauty industry from the interviews we've done on the show, Sephora is like Valhalla. Like you've got to be in Sephora. That's right. Was Sephora like front and center in your mind? Like were you thinking, I got to get in there? Front and center. I mean I needed to be in Sephora. I built this brand to be in Sephora. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So how did you – like what do you – how do you find out who to contact at Sephora? Is it like info at Sephora.com? No, it was definitely a bit of a puzzle. And I remember one of the women in that group who was kind of like the leader of the group, she had a unique memorable name.

1:02:29Her name was Margarita. And that's all I remembered. So I did some Google searching and I found out her full name and who she was. And there was this website. I can't remember the name of the website, but it would help you to determine what the format of email addresses. And I emailed her. Just sent a little follow-up email. I attached our brand book and told her that I would love the opportunity to come to San Francisco to meet with her in person to discuss the opportunity further. And I never got a response. So I waited a month. and then I said, all right, I need something that's going to make it like a no-brainer to meet with me.

1:03:10So I decided to collect all of the press that I had gotten over the past couple of months and I put together this really beautiful press book. And then I just decided to tell her that I was planning a trip to San Francisco, that I was going to actually be there. And so So I finally got a response, which was a forward to her junior buyer. And she asked her junior buyer to take over the conversation. She's like, yeah, let's meet up at Pete's Coffee and let's chat. So this buyer says, yeah, come meet me at Pete's. So you literally get on a plane and go to San Francisco to have a coffee at Pete's?

1:03:49Yes. I know. It's insane. It's so crazy thinking back at it. But it was so well worth the investment of the time and money because I really connected with that merchant. And she was also a person of color. She really took a particular liking to the fact that Briogeo really represented diversity. But she was very honest with me and said, you know, Nancy, we just aren't focused on building out our hair care category right now. Now, you know, makeup is the thing and that's where we're focused. But if things change, you know, would love to be in touch. OK, so that's a start, but a little bit disappointing because, you know, by this point, it's 2014.

1:04:35You're four years into this thing. Yeah. And how are you going to change your mind? It was definitely a disappointing moment. And it was another moment in which I second guessed, you know, whether or not I had picked the right category because. Wow. Already four years in. And you're starting to think, oh, did I make a mistake? I did because, you know, it was similar feedback that I had gotten from some of the other buyers. It was like, why hair care? Like, it's not the most interesting or like booming category within prestige beauty. I guess I was ahead of my time from that standpoint. But I also knew that like my time was running out in terms of putting the capital to work for my investors and also making that move to being a full time entrepreneur.

1:05:19So I continued to stay in touch with the buyer just so that she knew that Briogeo was in demand and things were going well. And then in February of 2014, I received an email that changed my life. I had sent the merchant buyer January's press summary. and a couple of weeks later she responded and said, Nancy, it's so great to hear from you. The stars must have been aligned because we just got out of a town hall with our CEO and he wants to start building out our hair care category at Sephora in a more meaningful way and we want to test Briogeo. Wow. I still have the email. Did you scream? Did you jump up and down?

1:06:10Oh my gosh. I just, it was the opportunity that I needed because I knew that I could do it. I just needed the opportunity. So they agreed to sell Briogeo in their stores or what? So it was a test and the test was online only. So if I hit my targets, the next step would be to launch Briogeo in 25 of the then 400 Sephora stores. By the way, you're still at Goldman Sachs at this point in early 2014. Yes. So I was still at Goldman. And once I received that email from Sephora, I knew that it was the opportunity of a lifetime. And I knew that if I was going to do it right, I could not continue working a full-time job.

1:07:01And I owed it to myself to really give this opportunity a real chance. You had to leave. I had to leave. But I was nervous. I mean, I was 28 years old. I was a vice president at Goldman. I was making good money. Yeah. But even though you were nervous, you knew it was the right thing. I knew it was the right thing. And I really knew it was the right thing when I had talked to my brother and a couple of other friends and family members. and I was actually surprised by how supportive they were. I thought there was gonna be at least one person that said, are you sure this is the right thing? Do you really wanna do this?

1:07:41And not one person said that. They said, Nancy, we believe in you, go for it. That's awesome. So you leave. Now you are, there is no safety net under you. This has got to work. It's gotta work. I mean, I put everything on the line. I resigned. I had no more income coming in. I wasn't paying myself. It was scary. Were you essentially funding the product through the cash flow, like Sephora would do an order and then that's how you funded the business? Or were you already starting to seek out more outside investors? Well, yeah. I mean, I was using the little bit of cash that I had because the thing about retail is that you don't get the money until, you know, several days after you ship the product.

1:08:30And so I wasn't launching in Sephora until August of that same year, and they didn't place the order until July. So I left Goldman in April, and I was living on no income from the business. I mean, I had some of the small orders from Urban Outfitters, but that wasn't enough. All right. So you get this order from Sephora. I mean, there's hundreds, maybe thousands of products available at Sephora.com. So how are you going to stand out? What did you do? So one of the most incredible investments I could have ever made at the time was partnering with a beauty sampling box called Ipsy that curates different beauty samples for, you know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

1:09:17Like a birch box. Exactly. And our most universal product is our deep conditioning mask. And I thought it would be a good idea to sample that to a couple of hundred thousand people. And so that was a very difficult decision because I had to fund all of that inventory for that sampling program up front. But getting that product in the hands of about 200 ,000 people translated into incredible conversions at Sephora. So those sample boxes really kind of took off. Like people, that was all it took for people to start ordering it? Yep. And then how long before they decide to put you in the stores? Yeah, so Sephora has a cadence of twice a year in which they roll out brands into stores in March and in September.

1:10:10So we launched on dot-com in August, and we weren't yet ready to go into store just a month later in September. So once we hit March, we were ready for it, and it was such an incredible moment. And the idea of having Briogeo, these four products I created sitting on a Sephora shelf was just the experience of a lifetime. How do you, just out of curiosity, is it harder to keep your product shelf stable? Because it's basically like things that degrade over time. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question. One of the things I'm very transparent about is that Briogeo products are not 100 % natural.

1:10:53And where we cannot find an effective, clean substitute, we will opt with a synthetic version so long as we really do our diligence to make sure that it's a safe synthetic. And there is an organization in Europe called EcoCert, which declares what synthetic ingredients are safe for use in natural products. And so we use a synthetic but eco-cert preservative system that allows our products to have anywhere from a 24 to 30-month shelf life. And at this point now, now that you're in Sephora, in the shops, and they're making bigger and bigger orders, and presumably they're by far and away your biggest platform now, how were you able to fund making more product?

1:11:42Yeah. So by that time, I had started to exhaust most of the money that I got from Phil. But I knew that I was going to need more money. So I reached out to Phil, put together a little deck of how I would use the funds to basically scale the growth of the business, which he was incentivized to do given his equity position. He felt like it was a good business case. I had POs to point to. So he loaned me another$150K. So last year you raised a round from a private equity firm that took an ownership stake in your business. And I'm assuming they approached you at this point. That's exactly what happened.

1:12:26It's such an incredible – I love this story because before that you were going to these meetups and pitching your product to angel investors and nobody was interested except Phil. And then you launch and then people see how successful it is. And then all these private equity firms come like knocking on your door. Yeah. I mean, it was really funny to see. I mean, I get it. I guess, you know, having Sephora behind the brand and seeing that growth definitely creates a much more compelling story than having a sketch on a piece of paper. But, yeah, it was really interesting because the dynamics had changed quite a bit.

1:13:02So you are moving along, watching your sort of your business grow, which is amazing. I think the last I saw, and I know your numbers are not public, but what was reported was you were doing about$10 million in annual revenue. And presumably at least that, if not more now. Yeah. So we will finish this year close to$40 million in gross sales, which is pretty awesome. Yeah. All right. Here we are, 2020. And you know this because you've heard this on the show. A lot of companies and businesses that have been on are in crisis. Retail is down. How is the business doing? I mean, I'm so fortunate, Guy, in that our business is doing phenomenally well.

1:13:50We actually ended up revising up our pre-COVID budget. Wow. Yeah. And I think, you know, the way that we think about hair care is very much from a treatment perspective. So it's less styling, but it's more treatment focused. And I think people have a bit more time to really spend on their self-care. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've heard that from other companies that focus on personal care products, you know, that self-care has become obviously really important as people are shut in. And then we have so many crises, I don't even know where to begin. Then we have mass demonstrations, social justice movements, people demonstrating against racial injustice all around the country.

1:14:38You are a black entrepreneur. And I mean, on the one hand, obviously, like what an incredible achievement as an entrepreneur, this thing you built. But on the other hand, I guess you were sort of expected to be kind of like an example of a successful black woman who started her own business and everybody wanted to hear from you. And that's got to be exhausting. Yeah, it was really exhausting. And I kind of felt like there were so many people kind of coming out of the woodwork and like, I get it. But I don't believe that it is the responsibility of black people to fix the problem. Yeah. However, I do feel that it's important that black people have a seat at the table when certain decisions are being made about progress.

1:15:25So for me, it was very much a fine balance of how do I allocate my time to the things that I think I can be most impactful, knowing that I can't say yes to everything. But I have to say yes to some things because I can't just sit back and say, okay, it's your problem. Go figure it out. Like I know I have to be a part of the conversation. I really believe that. When you think about your whole story, it's just having that one random guy come up to you at the booth and say, here's my card. Or someone giving you a piece of advice to start with four products. And do you think that what happened to you and your story happened because you got lucky or because you are really smart and you worked really hard and you have great skills?

1:16:11I think it's the latter plus something else you didn't mention. I don't – yeah, luck sometimes happens, but luck is not what this is about because that means I would have struck luck over and over and over again and luck is more of a random thing. Yeah. I think this is all about the hard work and the time that I've put in, as you mentioned. But there's also a mindset of believing in myself that I've established that I think is probably the biggest attribute towards succeeding in anything that you put your mind to. Nancy, I'm going to ask you a difficult question. It seems to me that so much of your confidence and what you have learned to be and to become comes from your mom, from her, the lessons that you kind of absorbed by watching her and listening to her.

1:17:04And I wonder what you think she would have thought about this thing you're doing now. I don't even know if there's a word for it, Guy. I don't even know if proud really justifies the feeling. But I have always felt like my mom has been a part of this journey. There have been so many incredible things that have unfolded over the course of the past 10 years. And I am a spiritual person. And I do feel her spirit has really helped to guide me down this path. And I just know that she is watching with eyes of joy and excitement. And I'm just so grateful to have had the opportunity as a young child again to see someone who looks like me defeat the odds and to overcome the challenges and to create success.

1:18:03That's Nancy Twine, founder of Briogeo. By the way, since we last spoke in 2020, the company was acquired by Wella Company, and sales revenue has more than doubled to roughly$100 million a year. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Ereblui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Dareth Gales. Our production staff also includes Carrie Thompson, JC Howard, Alex Chung, Malia Agudelo, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Chris Messini, Carla Estevez, and Catherine Seifer.

1:18:48I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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