Why This $5 Million Skin Care CEO Chooses Reddit Over Influencers

0:00Jared K.:Nothing is instant. We don't age instantly and we don't fix things instantly. It's a journey.

0:08Melisse Shaban:Welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and scaling a business. I'm your host, Serena Smith. Today's guest has built a career reaching science, innovation, and storytelling at some of the most respected names in beauty, including Aveda, The Body Shop, and Frederic Vakai. Melissa Shaben is now CEO of Aramore, a first-of-its-kind skincare line that uses biotechnology to support healthy aging at the cellular level.

0:30Jared K.:We picked really active skincare users and put them on a 28-day regimen to see what they saw. In 100 % of the instances, they saw a dramatic change in the underlying look and feel of their skin.

0:44Melisse Shaban:And with over$5 million in sales and growing, the market is clearly paying attention. Melissa's here to talk about building trust in a crowded industry, the science behind the brand, and what longevity means for the future of skincare. Welcome to the show, Melissa. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. You have had an extraordinary career shepherding some of the most iconic names in beauty. And just prior to Aramore, you spent more than a decade as both CEO and founder of Virtue Labs, the award-winning hair care brand. With this one, you're stepping in as CEO and not founder, what made it worth stepping into that seat?

1:19Jared K.:Yeah, I didn't start out as the CEO. I started out as a board member. And, you know, you said it earlier, the ability to find a genuine piece of technology, biotechnology, not claims, facts, and there is a difference. And be a part of commercializing that and making it accessible to consumers and trying to educate on concepts that can be very complicated in some ways. And yet, as you and I have talked about, simple in others. It was attractive to me. We had done the same thing at Virtue. And I had a great run and enjoyed it so much, the storytelling and making the impossible possible there. And I just thought this was another opportunity to do that as a last shot in my career, probably.

2:12Melisse Shaban:Does it feel like a last shot in your career?

2:14Jared K.:We'll see. I tend to mentor a little bit more now and sit on the sidelines and help. So you're right. Me jumping back in again was a little bit not in the plan, but I couldn't resist the temptation.

2:28Melisse Shaban:Does this being your baby, but also in some ways not being your baby, change the way you think about building the brand?

2:36Jared K.:A little bit. I can be a little bit more objective. I think when you build something from the ground up, you oftentimes don't see the flaws in it. You bare it out of your soul. You know, it comes from you. And so I think there's a fine line between being critical enough on something and not critical to hit the right marks. So I do think there's a different relationship with it. I don't behold it in the same way. I see it for what it is and what it can be versus, you know, something that's so close to me.

3:14Melisse Shaban:Yeah, that's an important distinction. And I would imagine very valuable inside the company, provided people are actually listening. Yeah. The world of skincare is very noisy, right? Collagen, retinol, peptides, exosomes, salmon, sperm, like the list goes on and on. and we're living in this era of like TikTok microtrends where it feels like there's something new flash in the pan that's coming out every day. For someone who has never heard of an NAD precursor or has heard of it but has no idea what it is, how would you describe it like I'm your girlfriend over dinner in a way that I can understand?

3:50Melisse Shaban:What's it doing for our skin?

3:52Jared K.:Yeah, you know, actually to the medical community, this is not novel, right? NAD is the fuel for cellular renewal and you need it in every living cell. Every living cell needs NAD. Now, how you get it, how it penetrates, that's where the magic happens or doesn't happen. So NAD shots and infusions, it's going all over your body and it probably going through your gut and being, you know, probably pee it out, to be honest with you. You know, you're probably losing all of it. I'm a big infusion person. I love it. I've been doing it for over a decade. um but you know you feel good for a day or two and you have a little bit more energy but those things are not sustainable because your body's just flushing it out and um for skin skin's a little bit of a picky picky cat um skin cells don't like other things that fuel cellular renewal it your skin doesn't benefit from how much protein you eat your muscles do your heart does you know, other organs do, doesn't benefit from sugar, which is also a part of cellular turnover and renewal and health.

5:01Jared K.:Your skin only likes fat. And so that barrier that's so important, it keeps stuff in and it keeps stuff out. And so NAD is very valuable, but as a molecule unto itself, it does not penetrate the barrier. It does not get to the cellular level. So most products don't go all the way down to the basal level of the cells, right? Most products sit on the first couple of layers of your skin. So they're dealing with the obvious need for moisture or light abrasion or those kinds of things. So our science or our IP really was our ability to put a chassis with, which was a ketone, fatty acid ketone, with a NAD precursor and deliver it down to the basal cell level.

6:03Jared K.:So the body's actually producing more NAD. And that means as your cellular turnover happens, you know, you've got eight layers of skin and every 28 days you're sloughing off a layer and that bottom layer is migrating itself up to the top of what you see, it's in a healthier form. That's cellular energy, that's cellular renewal, it's cellular maturity at the lowest level that works itself up to what you visibly can see as the signs of aging.

6:39Melisse Shaban:Okay, so just so that I have it correctly, let me put it in layman's terms for a second. Essentially, what you're saying is that with Aramor, you figured out how to create a delivery system for this NAD precursor so that it could actually be absorbed all the way deep into your skin so that it can actually do the work of cellular renewal. And it's not actually NAD itself so much as something that is prompting your skin to generate its own NAD.

7:07Jared K.:Yeah.

7:07Melisse Shaban:Okay.

7:07Jared K.:Too typical to the GLP-1s, right? Your GLP-1, that's in your body. It just flushes through too quickly. So now they've figured out a way to create a tail and a longevity that has the side effects. So it's super interesting. It's really the fuel to cellular renewal.

7:25Melisse Shaban:Have you seen, actually, like, given how popular GLP-1s have become in the last several years, that it's changed consumer appetite and understanding of the deeper science? Yeah.

7:41Jared K.:I think the fact that something actually delivered in this really incredible way where your objectives or your aspirations were met, I think it puts pressure on industries that promise a lot and don't deliver a lot. And I think consumers are sensitive and now mindful of wanting real science and real proof around the claims that you're making. And nothing is instant. We don't age instantly and we don't fix things instantly. It's a journey.

8:15Melisse Shaban:I mean, on that front, from the science perspective, you know, there's no regulation in the world of skincare marketing, right? People can kind of slap claims on any product that they want. And calling something science-backed is essentially table stakes at this point, right? It's table stakes, but it's often when you dig in more marketing fluff than it is substance in a lot of instances. What does scientific rigor look like at Aramor, and how are you communicating that to the consumer?

8:44Jared K.:It looks like real clinical work, real work on real skin and peer-reviewed journals and white papers and ultrasound and measurements where we actually can see the barrier thickening by 12%, which is enormous in the world of the barrier function. and with stronger barrier function and stronger barrier, that's skin health. As your barrier collapses, if you think about it, it's kind of interesting. It's kind of the only, one of the very few organs you actually see and it's your largest organ. And you see the effects of the environment and pollutants. That's what you see, but what you don't see is what's happening at the cellular level.

9:30Jared K.:You don't see what's happening to your heart. You don't see what's happening to your brain. You have symptoms maybe, but you don't see it in your skin you actually visualize it and um you know i i think that there's the the way aromore was started it wasn't intended to be necessarily a skincare product it was started by one of the kennedy family members and it was really intended to look at longevity through the prism of gut brain and skin and gut and skin is pretty are pretty connected There's a lot of connectivity there. And then as the science evolved, it became apparent that we could actually affect cellular energy and cellular health for the skin.

10:16Melisse Shaban:Clinical studies are powerful, but I don't know how many people are actually out there reading white papers before they buy a moisturizer. And ultimately, like we know, it's emotion that drives purchase. So how are you taking something that is really the power of it is this scientific backing and this like deeply technical knowledge and translating it into a story that resonates with customers? I don't know that we are yet, to be honest with you.

10:47Jared K.:You know, I think that is the unlock, right? I mean, we have seen big brands get to be very big with no science and deep emotional connection or aspirational connection. We have the real science, and now the unlock is to figure out how we help people to understand that longevity or the aspiration of longevity. And I'm still unclear what really that means. It's becoming a throw-around, trendy term. But I think we have to really start to architect, what does longevity really mean? I think the process of, I even hate the word aging because it connotes something negative. But the process of aging is a lifelong journey.

11:30Jared K.:If you think about your life, you're relatively young. I'm not relatively young. We sort of change every decade. And our skin and our body changes. You know, we get a little bit of a free ride up until our late 20s, maybe early 30s. And then whether we're having babies or we're just going through different challenges in our bodies and our hormones are changing, our skin changes. And so every decade for women, not as much for men, but every decade for women brings a different level of change. And I think that journey requires attention. We sometimes think of the skincare business as like a luxury business.

12:11Jared K.:It isn't. It really is a health and wellness business.

12:16Melisse Shaban:Yeah, that's a big transition for people when I think people are primarily thinking about skincare through the lens solely of aesthetics rather than as this really essential organ that can let the good stuff in and hopefully keep the bad things out. I mean, it's your first line of defense against pathogens, right? We don't often think about that. We're just like, my skin looks sallow. I don't want it to look this way, right? What? Where, I mean, you said that you don't know that you found, you have found the mark quite yet with Aramor in terms of engaging in the storytelling in a way that really resonates with consumers.

12:53Melisse Shaban:Can you talk about an example of a time where you and the team went in one direction and you realized it wasn't quite connecting?

13:03Jared K.:Yeah, I think we have to avoid historical, easy, cheap shots at the skincare industry. Oh, you don't need Botox. You need NAD precursors. You don't need this or you don't need that. You know, that isn't the case. The reality is finding a way to help people to understand that if you take care of your skin and your body and you start early on in life, and it's very small things that you have to do. It isn't 27 layers. It isn't 17 products. You don't have to spend$1 ,000 a month. The reality is feeding the skin cells what they need to be fed. And I think the mistake historically is you think you have to be everything to everyone.

13:50Jared K.:You don't have to have, as an example, you know, we had products in the line that didn't have NAD in them. Well, you know, I think that's for some other company. I think we are the company and the only company in the world right now that can actually deliver what we're delivering. And I think the mistakes come when you think that you have to be all things to all people, almost in a regimen type of way. You don't. I mean, you know, I think it's the same way we think about vitamins. Some people feel like they need 20 different vitamins. I'm going to take vitamin D and, you know, magnesium. That's for me what I need to replace.

14:31Jared K.:So I think it's that same, how do we supplement what the body needs and when it needs it versus getting caught up in the beauty space, which is new, new, new, new, new. Any trend that comes your way, you're jumping on. And our challenge is policing the industry and not letting people get away with saying that it's real science when it's not. That's not fair. That's a lie. I mean, how do you police that? You call them out. Show me the receipts. Let me see your data. If you can put a white paper up, but if it's not peer-reviewed, then it doesn't matter. You wrote it. I can say anything I want about something, to your point, just making sure that there is demonstrable evidence that's available in consumable ways to people who are curious enough about this category to say, I'm going to find out if this is really true or not.

15:29Jared K.:Some people aren't. That's okay.

15:31Melisse Shaban:You were talking about the natural consumer orientation toward, you know, jumping on all of the new things that are out there. It's hard not to be pulled into every trend, but also as a brand builder and as a business builder, it can be very difficult to have the restraint not to just constantly be adding more SKUs, right? You're saying you actually broadened your SKUs and went into other product lines that didn't have NAD and ended up getting rid of them. What was the aha moment for you that made you recognize, oh, we need to go deep versus broad? I think that consumers today, they are more curious.

16:17Jared K.:I think authenticity and transparency, and it's an overused word, but we lived by it at Virtue. We really did. We had true technology that really transformed hair. And I believe at the end of the day, although it's been challenged in the last couple of years for me, I think right wins. I think truth wins in the end. I've been a little confused by it over the last year or so, if you know what I mean. But I do think at the end of the day, I think consumers, I know I do as a consumer of everything. I consume everything. There's nothing that I'm not, you know, from tabletop to linen to steaks to wine to, I mean, everything.

17:03Jared K.:I love consuming things and buying things. And I know what I'm loyal to. And I know when brands, they deliver on their promise, I stay loyal. And I think you see it in the hospitality business. I think you see it in the wine business. I mean, you do see that loyalty and that brand effect in certain categories. There has been no barrier to entry for years now in the beauty business. If you had 10 followers and you suffered from rosacea, then you developed a rosacea brand. You know, there were no barriers to entry. I think the barriers are starting to pop up now. I think consumers are weary and tired of the influencing world and maybe a little bit of the celebrity world, even though I was a part of it a little bit.

17:57Jared K.:But I think I put Jen Garner above all other celebrities or people who are known, and that's who we had at Virtue because she's the most decent, honest, authentic person I've ever known. So I think it's course-correcting a little bit. And I do think that different platforms of communication and of curation are evolving.

18:26Melisse Shaban:Does that mean that at Aramore, you are intending to steer clear of influencer or celebrity partnerships?

18:34Jared K.:The thing that in my experience that really worked is, and I'll use Jen as an example. Jen was a customer. She was a genuine and a good friend of Adir, who was one of my partners in the business. And so it was really quite organic. It was real. We weren't paying her to do something. She loved the brand. She loved Adir and wanted to use her platform. And so I think when that's there and it's really not so overtly transactional, I think that resonates with people. So I think there'll be influencers, but a different kind of influencer. Someone that's objective. Someone that is a real scientist who can say like, listen, you know, I've used a lot of things and it, you know, real longevity experts, whatever that will ultimately mean.

19:32And not shilling because I think we've had enough of that.