Ep 70: MERIT Beauty CMO: Behind the brand

0:00Rochelle: Today we're talking modern beauty with Aila Morin, CMO and founding team member of Merit, the minimalist brand selling one of their foundation sticks every 10 seconds and generating over$200 million in sales. Aila Blends created vision and performance with shaping products, marketing and experiences that are as culturally relevant as they are profitable.

0:31Rochelle: Thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to have you on. I'm a huge fan of the brand. And what you and the team have done with it is just so, so incredible. And I know that you're here fresh off launching in Paris, which is an incredible milestone. Take us back to the early days of Merit, because as we know about the beauty space, like one thing that everybody says is it's such a, it's a huge market. they like the word saturated market love that word um well I just see it as like a market that's booming and it's like exciting because everyone's bringing something different to the table or having a chance to what sort of what was the gap in the beauty market that you felt was kind of missing and what how merit could fill that space yeah so to your point actually when I first started talking to Catherine about launching a beauty business.

1:25I didn't see it in mid-2019. I said, I don't see a space for another beauty brand. I don't know how that's possible, which I think is how most of us feel, right? Especially at that time, it was like every single week there was a new brand coming out and it felt overwhelming, to use your word. And six months later, I was actually shopping and it was the holidays. And I was looking around the store feeling like there was this huge disconnect for me as a consumer um as I was kind of browsing everything just felt like I didn't know how to use it so like the it was the year that they kept

1:59Rochelle: doing trunk cases or small suitcases for eyeshadows yes and there would be like 150 shades I'm not a makeup artist I know how to use one beige like I don't know what the rest of this is for I use one palette one little swatch yeah and then what do you do with the rest of it yeah um but it just felt like there were all these products and I didn't know who it was for. And I had worked at a beauty counter for 10 years, putting myself through school. So started at age 15. So was really well versed in what women were actually asking for when they came in. And it was never show me how to do a four color eyeshadow look.

2:32It was how do I get my concealer shade? What's a great mascara that's not going to smudge? It was very straightforward questions. So it became very clear to me that the disconnect was between what brands were marketing and telling us we should be using and how people were actually living their lives. So there was such a gap that it became really fundamental that making a beauty brand that made it easier to get ready sounds super simple, but was actually quite different.

2:59Rochelle: You're so right because it's kind of that space. If you're not, and I, if I'm really like, I'm really interested in beauty and skincare and makeup, and it's been a big part of my life and a big part of my DNA. But when I think of like some of my best girlfriends and they come to me and they're like, Rosh, what should I use for this? Or they'll come in my bathroom and take all of my products. Actually, everybody wants to look like the best version of themselves. Like you say, they're not trying to pull a look and try a whole performance every time they go out. It's actually just not looking tired or finding the right foundation that feels like skin and it can be a little bit like when you walk into one of those big glossy department stores if you're not used to it and you don't find it enjoyable it's a little bit like going to the gym for the first time isn't it when you're like okay what do i what weights do i pick up how do i fit in here yeah suppose it's a little bit of the same story yes that's a great comparison actually that's exactly how it feels so if you look at the psychographic information of beauty consumers 20 are like you they love beauty they know so much about it it's an art form and they're probably more skilled at it.

4:0480 % or not. That's a huge segment of the market that wasn't really being addressed. And I think intuitively that has become the majority of our consumers. And then luckily some of our products obviously still play with people that love makeup. So that 20 % has also joined. But it was to really solve that gap. And that's a product market gap, but more than that, it was an emotional gap. Because to your point, when you go into a gym and you don't feel comfortable that feeling of feeling uncomfortable or you don't know what you're doing is rooted in shame right and in beauty that's such a big part of it so finding a way to communicate around that in a way that's really authentic to people has been so much the dna of the brand this is one

4:45Rochelle: thing that really interests me when it comes to branding for me merit feels very distinct it's sort of, it feels very intentional, almost like not, it's, when I'm at American Counter, I understand everything. It's clear, like you say, it goes back to the original messaging and it's executed so well. I know that there's a place for everything in my makeup bag. I want it there. How did you define that brand DNA so early on with it still feeling like it belongs in those stores and it feels, you know, that premium quality. How did you define that so early on? So my background is not in beauty. So prior to Merit, I was at Mejuri, which was jewelry.

5:30And in many ways, that was great because I didn't come in with preconceived notions for this is the playbook and this is how you do things. And I feel like so many brands fall into that trap of, well, this is how you do things. So this is how I will do it. So, so much of Merit was actually the lens or the artistry to it was developed because working in fashion when I looked at beauty brands, their Instagrams felt so far from what a fashion or lifestyle brand would be, especially in 2019. It was very edited, very hyper real, these macro photos. You couldn't actually tell how it looked on someone.

6:04Tutorials were all by makeup artists. I mean, I learned to do makeup from YouTube, like many people. But it was you're learning from an expert as opposed to talking to a peer. And I think for us, so much of creating the merit DNA was, well, what's a brand that we feel like we see ourselves in? What's a brand that visually feels distinct to your point? So the visual positioning we built like a fashion brand.

6:27Rochelle: Right. We were very clear on the palette and we've always pulled references from books and magazines and especially the 90s. And that's always been a source of inspiration. And then consistency. I think the biggest thing that new brands forget is, and this is every marketer's problem, right? you launch a campaign and you do something for a year and then you get bored of it so you change it and so much of a successful business is staying laser focused on the initial north star and that's been really important for us as much as we've elevated and grown and gotten better we're still very clear on visually and in the promise of the brand who we are yeah do you know what it's so so interesting because like you say in well in any space for most brands there's a lot of distraction there's a lot of noise and by the time you've reached the customer for the first time if you've already changed the path that you're on it is really confusing where it is focusing on that consistency and sort of continuing to beat the drum when it comes to storytelling I'm all this is and I suppose every brand is exactly that isn't it is storytelling and it is sort of capturing that customer.

7:35Rochelle: What was your sort of strategy when it comes to telling the brand story? Yeah, so honesty was the first thing. It was identifying that feeling that nobody talks about, which I always thought was so interesting. Whenever I text with friends who aren't in beauty, it's always like, oh, I don't know how to do my makeup, but, and it's really interesting when you consider the target consumer, so many women feel that way. So so much of the language from the very beginning was, how do we speak to her like she is as smart and accomplished as she is because our client's very smart but how do you do it in a way where it's palatable and i'm not learning something new or i don't have to try to be able to use a product um so we were very clear on that and the problem we were solving we started with the five minute morning and that idea came from how do you what are you serving in her life and i think so often in brands they become product marketing machines Yeah.

8:27Right. So you could name a million beauty brands where you're like, oh, I know them for their concealer and their concealer is really popular for use here. And then those beauty brands struggle to scale because if you're only known for a concealer and there's no ethos, how do you then build a relationship with a client? So to us, so much of it is how do you solve a problem more fundamental than a product? And for this client, it is a really interesting actually life stage theory. I have a degree in sociology and I never thought I'd use it in my career. I don't think anybody ever has. But there was this one study that I thought it really stayed with me, which was that women lose time throughout their 20s up until they reach their early 30s.

9:07There are life stages where they lose more. so you start your career you have less time to yourself and you want to look really polished and then maybe you have a partner and for some reason you have half as much counter space even though they have way less products and then maybe you have kids which is when you become the most time stretched in your life that time doesn't come back until you're 60.

9:26Rochelle: Oh my gosh. So it's such an interesting arc for this 30 to 60 year old woman the main constraint globally really is time. That's so true. So how do you create something that gives her most valuable thing back to her So for us, that's where the five minute morning came from. It was let's simplify it, demystify it, provide value back into your life so that you can do all the other things that you want to do. And that became the way that we kind of entered the market and what really resonated. It's so smart. I mean, who doesn't want to save time, right? Like you say, it's instant. And then how do you go about sort of articulating that message?

10:04Rochelle: Because obviously we can, it could be the best idea in the world. but not if people don't know about it it doesn't reach people so how does then okay we have what we're doing here we know how this is going to connect and you know if you put 30 women in a room I think everyone would raise their hand and say yeah give me a five minute morning I'm ready for it so how do you then go about building out a strategy to know that people are hearing that message loud and clear so in the beginning you know we have we had a brand deck and we launched And, you know, we didn't really know how well it would do.

10:38You know, I always think the funniest question is people will be like, oh, like, did you know that you would be this big or launching in Europe? And no. When I first started working on this, absolutely not. That wasn't what I imagined it could become, to be honest, because there wasn't that much data that I had access to. So creating the thesis of time, I mean, came from a degree that I'd gotten years prior. We couldn't do product market testing or focus groups. So it was really me talking to people and learning. and one of the greatest parts of building a brand I think is listening so I was really fortunate because I started working on the brand in early 2020 right which is when the world shut down and everybody stopped wearing makeup and I was like okay I've ruined my career this is it like I don't

11:20Rochelle: know where I go from here masks are the future yeah you know no one's wearing a lip product should we go into hand sanitizer that was the only thing that was doing well um but I learned really quickly a lot of what goes wrong when trends change. So it was actually the best point in my career because I had never gotten to stop and watch. So I got to look at all the NPD reporting, how brands were impacted. So brands that had a hero product that was 80 % of their sales, if you had a liquid foundation or a matte lip, you fell through the floor in 2020. So this whole theory of how you build a brand, which was based on hero product, fell apart that year.

11:54So we were really fortunate because I got to watch what no longer worked.

11:57Rochelle: Yes. And in so many ways, combining the ability to watch and learn and study and then the ability to, frankly, be a little bit naive. If I had worked in the beauty industry, I mean, people are always telling me there's no way that's possible. You can't build something around time. You can't sell routines like you need to have a hero. It needs to be a clearer promise. You need to have a much tighter consumer. But I just didn't know that. So in many ways, so much of what's made the business work is me not knowing that that's not how you do it. wow that's so interesting isn't it and like like you say you're you didn't realize necessarily that you needed a hero and it was based around the routine was it was it instantly quite apparent what the hero would be so it's still not obvious today so today uh the minimalist is our largest selling collection that is that's me yeah that's me but it's 20 of sales gosh so that's very unusual and it's entirely intentional.

12:55So the lessons that I learned in 2020 were really clear. It was don't be dependent on one product. Don't be dependent on one sales channel. So the fact that we are direct to consumer and Sephora was a very intentional choice to build Omnichannel because then if trends change and nobody's going into retail stores, you have durability. And the third I learned from just, you know, marketing in the 2010s, which was diversification of marketing. We don't spend more than 30 % on any one channel. right because what i saw happen a million times is you know when influencers started when facebook started now when tiktok started you saw everyone rush towards the platform put 90 of their investment in and then when the algorithm changes your business gets stuck yes so to me that discipline from the very beginning those kind of three lessons were the founding principles for how we built the business and they're still true today and when it comes to obviously like we say like

13:45Rochelle: trends change when when people love the brand and they buy in and they're instantly like this is this speaks to me I you know I'm buying what you're selling when it then comes to sort of NPD and new product how sort of has it been a challenge for Merit to kind of really keep that brand DNA and coming back to like you say following that North Star saving women time being that sort of essential brand, but doing it in the way that we know and love. When it comes to new product, has that been difficult? Because obviously, like any brand when they first launch, you're pretty chuffed with what is hitting market.

14:27Rochelle: And you're like, this is great. This is what we want forever. And as we know, things do evolve. Has it been hard to sort of keep that original North Star in mind? no so i think for us we launched with seven products that was the original routine we have about twice that now in five years so we actually have not launched that many products and that comes from fundamentally from the ethos that i don't think people buy products because they're new for most people some people love to touch and feel a new trend because it's fun but for most people you continue to buy classic products and i think that ultimately what we realized very quickly is that to continue to scale a business in a healthy way you have to grow core and it's the mistake that was being made in beauty over and over which is you have a new product you put all your marketing spend behind it it does phenomenally well it's really trendy and then when that slows what are you marketing and what is the what is the greater meaning yes um and the other thing is we don't do npd in the way that a lot of younger brands do so it takes us a long time to develop product we tool almost everything so three years usually so we tool everything um shades take us forever.

15:34We spend usually a lot of time building formulas from scratch as opposed to buying. So it's a much lengthier process. And then we do clinicals and claims. So if you're three years ahead, you can't really be trend focused. And when I look at how we'll expand in a meaningful way, to me, it's more addressing different consumers. So the minimalist, for instance, is a cream to powder stick. It's amazing for normal to oily skin. It's not great for dry skin types. So then we eventually will also need a complexion that will serve a drier skin type so right even as we add products it's not that we're telling someone you need five complexion products we are more so welcoming new people into the brand being like we have the right thing for you yes yes it's almost

16:12Rochelle: like that bigger offering and you're right it's so interesting because a lot of brands do rely on NPD to drive more sales and they really see that spike when there's constant NPD but having that considered approach is exactly what the consumer falls in love with because you can feel how considered everything is which is which is so so interesting like you say in that time frame a lot of brands are just hitting us with another shade another fragrance another scent it's kind of it can be quite shouty yeah which I suppose is is the complete opposite of what you're doing as a brand. What's your kind of, and it most probably goes back to your point just there, but what's your sort of framework for deciding what to launch and what not to launch?

17:02Rochelle: It has to be excellent. That sounds really simple, but I, the team will tell you, I make them crazy on this. As much as the timeline is important, I will not launch a product that's not excellent. I truly believe that if you break that promise to the client, it's incredibly hard to get it back. So when we put something forward, you know that we've spent the years and times and reps to do it right. And we won't release it until it's right. And there's been many times where, you know, our tinted SPF that we launched last year is mineral. We worked on so many rounds of mineral SPFs and we could not get the shade range that we wanted, the sheerness that we wanted, the feeling.

17:36And it wasn't until the technology changed that we could. So we'd been kind of working on it in the background and then all of a sudden there was a step change. And then we could make the product we wanted and we moved to market very quickly. so it's also being able to say how do I make something both different and valuable how do I make something you'll actually use and finish this is always the thing I think brands miss are you going to use it and finish it completely and that is the sign of success of a product to

18:00Rochelle: me yeah you're so right you're so right you can really see like open anyone's makeup bag or your toiletry bag and you can see what you're completely running low on like you're it's it's a it's telling isn't it it speaks for itself I just want to focus on for a second sort of building a community and viral moments I'm just reading here you've had 200 over 200 ,000 waitlist signups a massive engagement around product drops how do you sort of build that level of anticipation like is that I mean it's something I suppose you can not always necessarily predict but I suppose at this point now that you're at do you know is that factored in yeah so those are I think that was 2025 direct to consumer only so that's about half the business because the rest is Sephora gosh um so I mean first I I always use this theory actually that you see with celebrity which is that you know when someone's like promoting too many movies in a year and you're seeing them too much and you kind of fall out of love with them because you're seeing them all the time yeah there's this really important cycle that brands forget where when you do a big campaign or you do a press tour and you're really front facing, you kind of have to disappear for a bit and let people miss you.

19:14And it's a really important part of building a relationship long term because then when you do have the big moments, people engage because they're thrilled to see you back and it feels different and authentic. So for us, we try really hard not to make too many big moments, make real promises. When it is a big moment, put the appropriate investment behind it. And we're very careful that if we're investing in something and we think it's actually going to be an A plus launch that it really is. So there's now a lot of, you know, data and feedback that we take into it and looking at our forecasting.

19:45In the first few years, it was a huge problem because we would sell out of every launch in a week, which is, you know, beauty timelines are long to make more product. So it was always a pain.

19:53Rochelle: Which is so interesting because I remember when I have a children's toiletry brand and I remember just being so excited to get the first, um we partnered with boots and d2c but also boots as well so like in a similar vein and i was so excited to get everything on shelf and i remember and i'd only sort of ever been coming from the background that i had previously been like the face of or an ambassador for so if something that i was fronting sold out i'd be like great well i'm definitely getting my contract renewed it was like a great problem i'm like brilliant didn't realize the behind the scenes logistics that went alongside that and went hand in hand with it and I never forget speaking to my team we were really lucky because when we launched that they sort of did that they helped us with that original forecast which means that we can't sort of bought in based on what they were taking and what we were sort of willing to do and I remember getting the phone call which sold out of a product called our curling custard which is like a kid's sort of cream to gel product and I was like ready to throw a party I was like we've sold out this is great and that's when everyone went into panic mode and I was like yeah okay because I didn't that's when I was like okay this is now where you get to work totally and how many months are you going to wait until you're back on shelves and you've invested spend and they don't want an empty space and you know the way the shelves work if it is going to be empty they'll fill it with something else and it was kind of I realized it was a great it's a great sign but it's actually logistically a nightmare yes um I want to sort of talk about creating these iconic, ownable elements.

21:29Rochelle: Do you think the moments that have performed the best for Merit as a brand, those like viral moments that we have seen sort of on the outside, has that been dictated by you or completely dictated by the consumer? And have you managed to sort of react quickly and lean into that? Or was there always a sort of broader strategy behind those moments yeah so when it comes to campaign planning especially social we actually I mean actually let me take a step back we plan campaigns before we launch products before we develop products wow so solo shadow for instance I knew the name and the problem we were going to solve before we started product development that's so incredible it's like reverse engineering the whole thing totally you start with a really clear thesis because I think so often what you see with brands is they work in a very linear fashion so product marketing is like this is the gap that we see in the market.

22:21And then product development develops based on SEO keywords, what they think will fit that gap. They hand it to creative and are like, take photos. And then marketing has to figure out how you tell the story. But you've kind of already created the story. So for us, it starts, it's a flywheel of how we develop. So it's much more, you know, I knew that single eyeshadow was really compelling. It felt really different because also eyeshadow palettes were obviously huge in the 2010s. In 2020, they fell through the floor in sales because no one was going out. But I felt like there was this nostalgia for singles that felt very us.

22:54So as we were developing the product, we felt that it would be a winner. It was very challenging to develop. It's an airtight formula. You have to keep it closed. There's all kinds of education around it. But the reason is then you get a much longer wear time. And that's what we were solving for. So ultimately, when it came time to launch it, we had planned the social grid. When we shoot the campaign, we plan it based on the grid. So we'll literally map out everything for the two months and then shoot into that. So there was no adjusting when it went viral. There was no change in the strategy.

23:23It was this is the strategy and this is what we're doing. We were already working on the next campaign by that point. I don't think, we didn't know until two months prior. Often retailers will do a bunch of launches together in an animation at the front of the store. We didn't realize that there was going to be an eyeshadow animation when we launched. And we didn't realize that we were the only singles in the animation and everybody else was doing palettes. We also didn't realize that we were the smallest brand. with the smallest budget so I think luckily our messaging of single eyeshadows and how palettes felt so overwhelming actually ended up being pitch perfect because that's what they were merchandise surrounded by yes so it kind of cut through the noise even more in a way that

24:01Rochelle: candidly we couldn't have predicted yeah and like you say like a predicting that trend so far with how long everything takes you to formulate and you know the concept I mean that's that's pretty pretty incredible um a lot of dc brands scale quickly but sort of struggle with cash flow with being profitable merit has done both which is is no mean feat it's incredible stuff what are the key decisions that allow you to grow past 200 million dollars while staying profitable do you think. Yeah. So in the 2010s, it was growth at all costs, right? So many of the brands that I worked on would raise a lot of money.

24:46It didn't matter what your customer acquisition cost was, as long as you were growing. And also back then, like a Facebook customer acquisition cost was like$5. It was very different. Like when Facebook ads came out, I could target people's gender, their age, and their zip code. Yeah, gosh. So you could be so precise. It was so different. And then essentially, as we started building merit, I learned a lot of really hard lessons in prior businesses. So the first was you have to have an average order value that allows for you to scale marketing. It's the single greatest problem in every beauty business.

25:16I didn't actually know that. So we have an average order value of over$100 USD from the very beginning. That is foundational to having a profitable business on first purchase. And today that's expected. You know, 10 years ago, you weren't expected to be profitable. Today, you need to be profitable on first purchase. So for us, focusing on routine storytelling, driving profitability on first purchase, having differentiated marketing. All of those things are what you should have as a healthy business, candidly, but what a lot of people don't have. And I think for us, by focusing on both early, so focusing on direct-to-consumer profitability, focusing on investing in Sephora the right way to scale the business, they've kind of moved together in a really interesting way.

25:59And many of our direct-to-consumer customers then go repeat at Sephora because let's say you buy the five minute morning and you need to restock and you're running into Sephora to grab something else it's a convenience pickup so it again I'm going to use this word so many times but it becomes another flywheel of retail and direct consumer where they really work together it's not like a totally separate consumer but it's much more in your control in terms of how it scales and when it scales and you can always find new levers to unlock I think I always say you go slow to go fast yes and our direct consumer secret to success is that we didn't reverse engineer into anything we built it from the very beginning to be scalable and we have very slowly added new features new ways of of driving traffic over time but sustained that initial momentum what do you think like it is

26:46Rochelle: that startups like if somebody's listening to this right now and they're you know a very small business and they're in those initial stages of launch and they're looking at their d2c piece then that's you know they're not in the retailers yet because they don't have scope for that right now what do you think is a trick that most people miss when it comes to d2c and marketing organic is so underappreciated still i think often people become really entrenched in whatever platform they're seeing success in right so you'll see like okay tiktok's working i'm really going to lean in there or meta's working and i'm really going to lean in there and to me the balance is the secret it doesn't mean you have to have 30 platforms out of the gate especially if it's just to you, but you should have five that are all growing.

27:33And one thing growing in isolation is not a positive. So if something starts taking off, you need to start building all the other things because you can get stuck in this cycle of being a certain type of brand. So by that, I mean, if you only ever see a meta ad for a brand, you probably don't really think of it like a brand. You think of it as a product. Whereas if you see it also with an influencer and you see it also in PR, it kind of enters your consciousness in a different way. And people need to see things way more times than you would think to convert. Yeah. You know, we always talk about the marketing funnel.

28:02They click and then they go to the website and then they buy it. Like that's not how marketing works, right? You're seeing it in so many different places. So having the patience to build full funnel is hugely important. And I think being really intentional with what you put out. So at the beginning, like we were very clear on the five minute morning was really all we talked about. We used a lot of UGC to kind of tell the story of how easy it was to use. Right. We didn't over-engineer and we didn't get distracted by what other people were doing. So much of it at the beginning is I always believe you should know what's going on around you.

28:34You should look at all the data 100%. But I always say like there's two tricks to data. One is I kind of ignore what the data tells me. So if all the data back then was saying and still is that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the growing consumer and this is where you should go, I read it and go, okay, that means every other marketer is reading the same data and they're going to go there. So I'm going to go millennial and Gen X because nobody's going to go there.

28:56Rochelle: Yes. And then you also have to say, I'm going to believe in the decision that I'm making. I'm going to put blinders on and ignore what everybody else is doing. Because it always looks shiny, right? It's always like everybody's highlights and it's so easy and it's so great. It's not like that for anybody. So you have to like stop believing other people's PR and just focus on being in the business. Yes. And like you say, and it goes back to what you said at the start, like how do you focus on your own North Star and what do you need to do to get there? Because it can be so noisy, can't it? It really, really can, particularly online.

29:26Rochelle: it's just you're just seeing it aren't you yeah and it's so interesting that you say that to actually if you're seeing a spike on one thing you've got to really figure out the other channels because that is it would perhaps seem the most obvious choice if you're gaining real traction yeah to really get behind that one sort of avenue but really it's making sure that you're seen everywhere at once is what's important because like you say if I've seen if I've been served an ad a sponsored ad I don't know on Instagram or then I've seen something interrupt YouTube or however that looks and then I haven't actually yet done anything about it and then I'm on my shop and I'm like oh yeah I've seen that I'm gonna I'm now exactly way more invested in that brand and like you say seeing it as a brand rather than a um a product it's so so interesting I want to talk a little bit about you and what you're I mean it it feels like you're just across every part of the business which is so so incredible but what does your sort of a day in the life look like for you and what is your job role because I understand like some we we have these roles and we have these titles but sometimes I need to add about 30 other yeah the titles underneath that so what does a day in the life look like for you it varies a lot and it's changed a lot since we started um I always say to people I think so much of being a leader is understanding what you're asking people to do.

30:51And for me, I mean, I came up in my career learning all these different platforms. So I'm much better at holding people accountable to them. But even when we started Merit, like I was posting the Instagrams, I was responding in comments, like there was no task that I was not doing. So we started with 10 people. Now we're close to 100. So over the five years, it's really grown. But today I focus a lot on longer term strategy and vision. So what is our five year plan? Where are we going? What needs to be true for the business to be successful? A few years ago, by the way, there was no way I could work on a long-term strategy.

31:23I was like, what are we doing this week? And how do we keep moving? So that's changed a lot.

31:29Rochelle: A testament to the growth. Yes. Yeah. And it's also, it becomes very important. I think in the early days, it sounds crazy to have a five-year plan. I thought that was like, I was like, this is such a waste of my time. But then as you really start growing and scaling, you realize that for sustained growth, which is really what you should be focusing on. You need to know what's happening each year and how you're going to get there. So I spend a lot of time on that. I still directly oversee creative brand marketing, performance marketing, retail marketing, product development. I've now hired experts on each of those.

31:59So I have a group of vice presidents that reports in, which has been life-changing, honestly, to be able to pull out of the weeds. I mean, up until the end of last year, I was still creative director, which is a ton of work. And I focus primarily today on a few things. So first is vision and campaign storytelling. So how do we keep that North Star with all of these new people and new regions, right? And things are always going to be localized and different. How do you keep the essence the same while giving people the ability to add their contributions to the brand and the business? Taglines, stories, I'm still very, very involved in that.

32:32Social grids, I'm still approving every caption. Story, I think for me, is the thing that is my gift. like I always say to people you have to find the thing that you feel you're really valuable at I gave up process very early because I was like I'm deeply creative a million people can do this better than me so I really started as we were scaling the business with giving away the things I was less good at that's so and over time have kind of brought it to a place where I'm in the weeds on the things that I'm excellent at I'm overviewing the strategy on the things that I am less technical in and the things that don't need my time and attention I trust other people to do

33:04Rochelle: What's your favorite part of what you do? If you had to pick one thing and you're like, oh, I just wish that that part of my day wouldn't end. So I think the question, especially in startups that I always ask people, especially people who want to be founders, is why? And I think you really have to understand what validates you. And for me, there's this very specific feeling and it is sitting in a room with people brainstorming. And sometimes we sit for six hours before we have an idea. But when that idea comes, for me, there is no greater feeling. And that's where I feel so energized and fueled and validated.

33:41And I think as people in businesses, you have to understand, like, do you do this for the cheers and press? Is that important to you? Do you do it because, you know, building something is meaningfully for you mentally in terms of constructing something financially? for me it's the creative process that is really what energizes me and it's where I try and make the most time for myself because it's what keeps me excited about continuing to create after six

34:05Rochelle: years and and also that is it's that feeling isn't it like you say when you stumble across that whatever that is if it's the sort of the ideas or that you know that creative feeling is the everybody wants to bottle that that's like the thing that I'm like oh if I could it's the best when you when you realize that you're onto something and you can't put it down yes it's the best feeling ever um I want to do our rocket round now um which is essentially I always say it's a quick fire round but sometimes we elaborate and that's okay um right I ask each guest the same questions and the first one is what do you believe are the non-negotiables for running a business product market fit i worked in so many brands i mean i worked at seven startups that failed before i worked at one that worked wow so the single biggest thing that i saw is that if you really believe in a product but you don't have the market for it it doesn't matter it doesn't work when you launch a brand there should be immediate uptake and there should be a customer that gets it and if there isn't then you have to do a ton of work on figuring that out yes it is the hardest part so that to me is always the non-negotiable and for me personally I never work on businesses where I'm not the consumer because I'm not good at it I can't identify I'm very much a self-reflective marketer everything is like how do I feel how do I internalize how do I understand so I can't build emotional campaigns if it's not something I identify with yeah but that's exactly how a lot of us look at everything right any sort of situation that happens in life you relate it back to yourself and how you would have it, how you would like or need.

35:38Rochelle: So yeah, I mean, that makes perfect sense. When did you first realize that you were really onto something with merit? Oh, I mean, I never feel like we've made it, to be honest. I feel like to be successful at operating a business, you have to stay so paranoid about what has to continue to grow. What am I not doing well enough? What's going okay? I'm always live there. You don't ever feel too comfortable. I'm never comfortable. But I will say, I think it was actually the first day. So the first day we launched the brand on direct to consumer, I had created this forecast, which by the way, before you've launched a brand, it's just fake numbers, especially for direct to consumer, because there's no PO that's from a retailer that's guiding you.

36:15So I had made a bunch of assumptions on how the business would do. And the first day we did a hundred thousand dollars in sales and we had no paid marketing. And that was online in 2021. And I was blown away, honestly. And then the first two weeks we did the annual forecast for that year and it was this moment after having worked at so many businesses that to my point about product market fit I was like oh this is exactly the

36:39Rochelle: right time with the right product and this is going to work oh that is just like it actually gives me chills yeah to have that and for it to sort of that light bulb to go off and be like okay we're we've hit the ground running here yeah I mean who can't think that after making 100 ,000 that would do it yeah do it um what is the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before you go to bed? I try to go outside every morning right away. So, I mean, I grew up in Canada where it's cold six months of the year. Moving to LA was really life-changing for me and it never gets old waking up to sun.

37:12It's such a privilege to be able to have that and be there.

37:16Rochelle: Listen, it's sunny in London at the minute and we're all new humans. I know. Everyone's life has changed in the last two days. But yeah, going outside, going on a walk is always what I try and do first and I try and stay off my phone. It's challenging because we are New York LA right so I get up very early like five or six so I try and like get that time in before I'm then available to everybody it just it just sets you up differently doesn't it just having that time for yourself and not being sort of needed in that moment yes really important it's just those few minutes it's also the only time I have to think yeah yeah so I often I'm not one of those people that has like a personal five-year plan or even annual it's very much like every day because by the way at this stage of the business I think if I'm always pushing things or I'm like we just need to get it down this quarter like you're not efficient yes so it's like every single day I wake up and I'm like what do I need to do today to move the needle forward what's actually going to make a difference what's a waste of my time and you can't do that when everyone else wakes up and everybody else is talking a bit of you so you kind of just need that to yourself I totally totally hear that um one piece of advice that you wish that you hadn't listen to?

38:22So I'm very anti-advice. I am because I always think advice is one of those things you you give after you've kind of figured it out. Yeah. And advice never changed my life. For me, it was, you know, trying a million different things. I mean, I worked at seven businesses that failed in my 20s. It was incredibly stressful. I knew very early in my career that I would never do well in a really big corporate environment because I'm so creative and fast moving. And I Like to, I mean, I didn't even know I'd go into marketing. I took a gap year before law school, got a job in marketing and then was like, oh, I love this.

38:54Rochelle: Yes. And I think that for me, I was always really clear that speed had to be part of what I did and learning constantly. That's interesting. So I think when you understand yourself, it's easier to make those decisions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you don't need to take on any advice because like you say, sometimes that can be super distracting. I think it also makes you judge yourself. I think when I look back at that time period, the thing I would change is being nicer to myself. yeah I was so hard on myself in my 20s because you think everyone has it figured out and comparison well they say comparison is the thief of joy yeah and it was also I mean Instagram came out in what the early 2010s so it was like at the same time that I was really starting a career all of a sudden you're seeing everybody post their lives yeah so social media came out for me I think Facebook launched I was finishing high school right so it really changed my late teenage years and early 20s from this being able to live in the moment to being incredibly comparative and that was really hard so I think I always try and be really honest with people that I can sit here and give a million pieces of advice today but like my career was not this beautiful perfect linear line it was a million and one mistakes and I just kept getting back up and doing it again and of course this is the story that everyone wants to talk to you about because we've seen the shiny success totally it takes a lot to get absolutely to this point it's it's so true and like you say that's the one thing about social media we see a highlights package of life don't we not that that is the truth it's super isolating i think oh for sure but like you say when you see everybody else's shiny offices you know you're starting something new and it looks a certain way and yeah instantly it is it becomes a comparison doesn't it yeah um a skill that you'd love to learn oh so many i would love to spend more time on languages oh that's always i actually grew up learning French and did immersion um I've lost almost all of it because I didn't use it for so long but that's one um Duolingo yes it's a great way to get my brain I have to distract myself so there's two ways that I do that it's either Duolingo learning some obscure language because then you're fully locked in on something that's not your job um and really really reality tv is what like turns my brain off tv show of choice oh my god right now secret lives of mormon wives Oh my gosh, I've not done it, but everyone is saying.

41:09I downloaded all 10 episodes, watched them on the flight here. Between that and Real Housewives, there's a million, I mean, traitors.

41:15Rochelle: Deeply obsessed. I'm having a binge of old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills at the minute. And I'm just having the best time. My husband's like, are you okay? Oh yeah, it's not shareable television. No, it's like, this is pure escapism, thank you. 100%. But like I know everyone. I'm all up on what Carl Richards is up to at the minute. But then you can really turn your brain off. I couldn't tell you what's happening in my own life. yes 100 yeah you need that escape every once in a while it's true it's true um one thing that you wish someone had told you before you started your career oh it's not that serious yes which is what i always tell the team we sell beauty products we are not brain surgeons nothing bad happens if you make a mistake everything is fixable so work really hard and do your best but do not internalize it in the way that I think so many of us do where it becomes self-defining and I also just think you need to have an identity outside of work that's that is very good advice it's so true because some of us become a slave to it and oh totally then you're like what what do I want again oh I become whatever brand I'm working on the color palette becomes what I wear and then I'm like do I like that color palette or is it the brand because I picked it because I like it I don't know anymore yeah so you have to be able to kind of build like the friendships that I have are so outside of beauty and that's really important it helps just like ground you outside of this because there's always going to be more that you need to be doing and there's always going to be something you need to be better at there's always going to be a brand that's beating you so you have to be able to pull yourself out of that and also enjoy and be present yeah and try and be objective too and just not be so in oh yeah and you can't sweat the small stuff like i think if you're too in everything that happens becomes a fire yeah so you have to be able to step back and go like, am I going to care about this in five minutes, five days, five years?

42:58That's always my anxiety check for myself.

43:01Rochelle: Yeah, it's a very good net to filter through. And you know, five days is usually the max. There's almost never five years. And also we haven't got time for any longer. We're on to the next five. Yes, exactly. What would be the dream collab for Merit? You know, we're seeing these like brand on brand collabs or maybe like a brand ambassador. What would the dream collab be for yeah so our collabs have always been very organic our first one was with uh proenzia schuler which honestly was like a childhood dream for me obsessed growing up i before i worked in beauty i was a grocery store cashier so i used to see all the magazines when they would come in and that i mean i grew up in a very small town so that was my exposure to fashion and i still remember when their bags were really popular and i would like see them in magazines and be like oh my god someday i want that so so much of it was um loving the brand reaching out to them and doing that initial collab um tov actually that collaboration happened because i bought one of their jackets on dada porte and you know when you buy something luxury for yourself and it arrives and the quality is kind of like i don't know it arrived and i was like this is so beautifully made like someone really cares because the fabric and every detail every stitch was in the right place so i reached out to holly and camille and was like i don't know what we could do but i'm obsessed with what you're building.

44:15And that became a bad collaboration. So for us, again, I think collaborations to me are about world building, not about numbers. So it's not about like, what's the biggest brand we could possibly work with? It's what's a genuine story that I would, like a group of friends, want our client to meet, to get to have exposure to and understand and brands that I'd love to support. So it happens very organically. I have a very long list of brands that I love and what's funny is that list kind of over time just seems to happen you know

44:44Rochelle: at first it sounds kind of crazy and then out there in the universe totally I love it I read it I have a I mean I always have lists going on my phone I think this is what's so nice about these brand on brand collabs like you say it's literally world building and saying like what would I recommend in my girls group chat and who what would I say you know buy this spend your money on this it's this it's what you want for your community right absolutely and then lastly If you could choose one female figure as a mentor, past or present, who would that be? I always think that is such a hard question because I could name a million for you.

45:16I think for me, my mom was very fundamental in how I approached having a career. She was an amazing mom, worked full time. I just watched her balance things in a way that was really impressive. And she was always so present. So she would work really long hours. She's a doctor. But when she was home, she was home. Yeah. And she was fully locked in. And I really felt like there was this skill in whether she was with a patient or with one of her kids where she was there. And I think that is so special. And then my grandma, who I was very close with, had this gift of making people feel seen. And she was so warm and called everybody pet and was very just like, was always giving you a candy.

45:56But when she passed, everyone at the funeral had this story about how she was the person closest to them.

46:02Rochelle: Oh, that's so special. when you make everybody feel that way. So I think for me on a career level, I try not to look at like who's built the career that I want because I try not to think about it that way. Because if I had imagined, by the way, 10 years ago that I'd have this career, there's no way. Like I would have never thought to think this big. So instead, I really like to think about how do I want to make people feel and how much less outside the business, but more when I go into the office every day, what's the energy? How do people feel? How are other people growing? And what becomes such a privilege when you build a business is now I'm doing less but coaching more and that's such a gift to get to work with people and watch them grow and today like that is what fuels me more than anything else so rewarding it's incredible um and then a question that I ask every guest is if somebody's listening to this right now and they have you know been listening on in admiration and thinking I'd love to, you know, I'd love that to be my future.

47:02Rochelle: And, you know, the, as we said, this bit's always the pretty bit and there's been a journey to get here. But if you was to sort of give a piece of advice and leave a tip to a listener, a lady looking to launch in a similar vein, what would, what would one tip be that you think every woman should know? it's a big question so you can take a second it is i think for me it's be really clear on what you're good at and what you want out of it because it's never going to be satisfying if you're not sure of what that is yes and while there's many more tactical things again merit was launched in a way that made no sense to the outside world right i mean i have people show me concepts all the time i was at stanford um two months ago doing a talk and you'll have people come up and be like well, this is my business plan.

47:50Is it good? No one can tell you if it's good because if it's new and it's different, people are going to poke a million holes in it. So I always say like, sometimes the best thing that you have is if it makes people uncomfortable or if it's not what has been done before. It also means it's going to be a harder uphill until you see people really start to understand it. But that's why to me, there's not one step. There's not one rule. It's really just being clear on why and what and how are you going to do it? And don't be swayed by other people's opinions because if I had listened to other people's opinions I would not first I wouldn't be in marketing because everyone was like that's not a real job secondly I wouldn't be working in beauty because everyone was like that's oversaturated why would you leave a very rapidly growing jewelry business none of the decisions that I've made I did for

48:32Rochelle: the approval of others on paper at the time made sense no sense and I also don't really believe in being like I want to have that job because again I think that I mean I thought I was going to be a lawyer in Toronto and I was like that is a huge goal and that is amazing did I ever think I would be a beauty executive living in Los Angeles? No. So I think also like give the universe a little bit of space to surprise you. Be really clear on how you want to feel and how your day-to-day should look, but allow things to happen too. And work really hard once you have the opportunity, but I took every single opportunity.

49:04I never said no, even if I didn't know what I was doing.

49:06Rochelle: That's so incredible. You've got to have the ability to just go with it sometimes, haven't you? And not be too sort of structured and not because you could miss out on so, so much. yeah and lastly I end every episode in the same way we talk about ladies who launch we also wonder about ladies who lunch because that's also what we like to do here so if you if we're talking like a typical day you're in the merit offices what are you doing for lunch are you working lunch are you do you have clear boundaries on taking a break at lunchtime where are you and what are you oh so funnily enough i picked our office location based on lunch my kind of girl i'm fully committed so our office is right above goop kitchen in beverly hills it is directly above it so because of the pacific eastern time zones i don't take lunch usually i start really early work through lunch because that's prime meeting hours yeah and then finish earlier so i always have like dinner sort of late lunch vibe yeah so do you have one of those like shoots from the goop kitchen honestly we should have one at this point and my office manager who does the lunches would tell you I will order the same thing for six months love and then one day she'll be like same and I'll be like absolutely not I'll get totally sick of it it's dead to me but I am very like I fixate I eat the same thing because I I'm not good at adding more decisions so even what I wear to work is almost always the same same palette I have multiples of the same pants like I like what I like yes I eat the same thing every day at the same time like it's very it's taking away not making any small decisions because the decisions that you make are big you've got too much happening exactly so right now it's a thai chicken salad that they do with double protein because i have to hit my protein yes yes i love it i love it you've got it sussed perfect location it makes perfect sense thank you so much for coming and talking to me i've loved having you on it's so so interesting i mean the journey has just been incredible to watch on the outside but more so hearing it today so congratulations on it all congratulations on your Parisian launch because that is a real huge milestone yes thank you so much thank you don't forget to follow us on Apple on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure that you don't miss out because next time I'm going to be joined by another incredible lady who launched if like me you're a watcher then please follow us on YouTube and don't forget to like and subscribe.