755 Gabi Day: Founder & CEO of Bright Body

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kara Golden Show.

0:44Kara Goldin:I'm so excited for my next guest. We have Gabby Day, who is the founder and CEO of an incredible brand that I was not familiar with. And a former guest actually introduced me to it. And I am so happy that she did because it's a terrific, terrific product that you must, must know about. It's called Bright Body. And it is not only sustainable, but also science-backed. It's a science-backed beauty brand redefining what clean really means. And Gabby started Bright Body with a mission to create truly non-toxic, effective, and refillable, love that, products for skin, hair, and baby care, combining modern science with the wisdom of Ayurveda-inspired botanicals.

1:34Kara Goldin:Every formula is crafted to meet stricter safety standards, and I cannot wait to hear a lot more about that. But Gabby's leadership bright body has achieved double and triple-digit year-over-year growth. meaning she's killing it. And her approach to beauty is simple but powerful. So I'm so thrilled to have you here so that we could hear a lot more about your journey and the brand. So Gabby, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. So let's start at the top. So how would you define your brand Bright Body and what makes it so unique? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of bluster in the world about clean and non-toxic.

2:18And on one end, there's a lot of fear-based marketing that says chemicals are bad, but in reality, everything is a chemical. Water is a chemical. Air is made of a bunch of chemicals. And then on the other end, there's kind of this obedience to the traditional industry norms around, well, it's all safe. And I feel like we're kind of missing the middle where there's some nuance to it. We actually don't And we don't necessarily know everything about everything as far as ingredient safety, just because, you know, there's so many confounding variables. It's impossible to have a long-term study about the safety of one ingredient because we're all using so many products or so many ingredients.

3:00So it's impossible to isolate. Anyhow, I have a very nuanced take on ingredient safety because of that. I came to this industry because I have multiple chronic illnesses. And what got me better, what got me into remission was hardcore prescription drugs, including IV antibiotics for months and months in my 20s, and also Chinese herbs. and what I loved about both my medical doctor and my acupuncturist is that they really respected each other's approaches. At one point I said to my acupuncturist, I just want to pull this line, you know, I've had a scar in my chest from where my, this one port was, I have two more hidden in a tattoo now and I remember saying to her like, Megan, I want to yank this thing, it's so annoying and she's like, you are not ready, you still need those meds and the herbs are going to help them And then on the other hand, my doctor would say, I'm really glad that you're seeing an herbalist.

3:56It's going to help with your medication regimen. So that, you know, what I owe my life to now as far as being a healthy person, being able to have this company is the exact same philosophy that brought me to how I feel about our ingredient standards and using both, you know, the traditional, what people would call chemical, but everything is a chemical. ingredients, our synthetics that are safe, and then also still borrowing from some more of those Eastern traditions. Ayurveda is from India. I'm not Indian, but I have a background in yoga and Ayurveda, so I have a lot of respect for that. But basically, I wanted to redefine from these extremes.

4:37I feel like beauty has become quite polarized in a way where it's like you're either putting straight up beef tallow on your skin and you're quote unquote doing it right, or you're using the conventional stuff and it's all fine. And I just feel like there's a middle ground that needed to exist. And so that's what Bright Body is all about. And ultimately about taking better care of our bodies and the planet because we are interconnected and there's no way to take care of ourselves while also neglecting the planet where we live. It's just not possible. We can't pick can choose. So I definitely carve out an interesting third lane in this industry that has become a bit dogmatic.

5:21Kara Goldin:So we've had a lot of founders on the podcast over the years. You're actually episode 755, if you can believe it. I love founders and hearing all of their stories. And so many of them, it starts with their need, right? They needed to figure out something to solve a problem that they had first. And then it ended up, hey, there might actually be some people out there who would be interested in this too. And they are, obviously. You have incredible, incredible products. But it's one thing to have this idea that the product should be out there. It's another thing to go start a company around it. So what, right?

6:09Kara Goldin:And what kind of, what was the moment when you said, I need to go do this? I would imagine that you were creating your own products in your home. But when did you start to say, gosh, I think this could actually be a company? Yeah. So I was actually working in health administration. So I have an MHA, it's kind of like an MBA, but for health care. And I was working in long-term care. My grandparents were a big part of my life growing up, so I have a soft spot for my elders. And I love the residents. I did not love the culture. Everything exploded. And it was while I was out on FMLA, mostly bed bound when I was 24, so over 10 years ago, that I just started thinking, OK, if I can't physically do much because I'm in so much pain and I'm so tired, even if I'm not, I still have some brain fog going on and I can't totally perform like a normal human.

7:09I needed a project. I needed something to do. And it started off as just, to your point, like, I'm just going to research for myself. I'm just going to learn more about formulation and what goes into all that. It will be a fun project. And then as I got stronger in treatment and I would tell friends and family what I was doing, they'd be like, hey, can you make me a jar? Like, put one aside, save one for me. And then I would get feedback. And it just, it started, once I started getting feedback from friends and family, as I was tinkering around as I started getting healthier that I thought, okay, maybe what started as this fun mental project to keep my mental health solid while I was in really serious pain, what could I do to keep my brain going?

7:53I definitely inherit that from both sides of my family. We're all a bunch of nerds and intellectuals. It just turned into something bigger when I saw A, from other people, and I also just felt there was a certain zhuzh. There was a certain excitement and a certain passion where I really loved it. I always say that in the business, my first love was formulation. My second love was digital marketing. And it all started with really loving the science behind it, sharing it with other people. And then it just became this endless positive feedback loop of I love it. Other people love it. OK, what can we make of this?

8:31And I knew I didn't want to go back into the world of corporate health care. So I thought, well, now's the time. At the time, I didn't have kids. And I thought, all right, if there's a time to take a risk, it's right now.

8:44Kara Goldin:So when you were formulating the first few products, so how many did you do and what product did you start with? I definitely started with too many. I'll tell you that. I mean, if I could go back, I would tell little Gabby, I would tell her to be like, slow your roll. So, but the very first, I probably started with like 10 to 15 SKUs and it should have been like five, you know, it should have been less than that. But where it really started and the products that still exist today from that very first time was our curly hair products for obvious reasons. Um, there's a lot of hair care now that's more textured hair friendly, but I couldn't find something that was meeting my ingredient standards and that had a true sustainability focus beyond just saying, oh, we're packaged in recyclable plastic.

9:36Well, over 96 % of plastic here, 92, 93 % of plastic is not really successfully recycled here. So that's where I started first, because those were the products that I was currently using that I was least happy with in terms of performance, in terms of ingredients and packaging. And I thought, okay, let me start here. And those have become, I always joke, I call them my gateway drugs. Those have become a lot of our like first entry points into the brand for people. They see me in my ads or on my website and they're like, wait a second, you with the hair, we kind of have the hair. I can trust you.

10:14So we started with our flaxseed and oat protein curly hair gel and our moisture locking curl refresher. It used to be a spray. Now it's in a pump. So those were like the key products, the key hero SKUs in the beginning. And we did have some skincare, but so much of that has evolved and changed as I've evolved in the brand and as a formulator. But we definitely started the cornerstone was curly hair for hopefully obvious reasons.

10:44Kara Goldin:That's awesome. So today, how many SKUs do you have? we have now 20 individual SKUs I believe if I were if I were to walk my stock room is right there but we have um six no seven for baby we have two four six for hair and then I think we have yeah seven for skin so we we definitely have a lot um and I'm always in the in the pivoting of I'm kind of relentless about discontinuing things when it's not working as well or reformulating, whether out of genuine desire to improve or customer feedback or issues with supply chains, which have definitely become more of a thing in the now times. But yeah, we definitely have a deep stack now between hair, skin and baby.

11:36Kara Goldin:That's awesome. So when you look at or think about developing some of your products, is there one that was really tough and you're sort of most proud of? I remember when we were developing the flavors for Hint, as funny as it sounds to people, lemon was so difficult to create because it would like taste like turpentine. I mean, at times, I mean, it was like, and, And, you know, it can actually, lemon rinds can actually turn into turpentine. So it's a, you know, a real thing. But is there one product in particular that was just really tough and you look at it and it like has your heart? Absolutely.

12:21I definitely think the curl gel is one of those. But I think a deeper cut that a lot of people might not know is our clear skin potion. So it's 15 % azelaic acid. Azelaic was originally developed for rosacea, so it's first and foremost an anti-inflammatory ingredient. It's notoriously hard to formulate with, so even a lot of the big mainstream brands, they won't really touch it because it's annoying. it takes a long time to fully dissolve it can be a little bit finicky it's she's she's a fickle beast azelaic acid but once I finally nailed the formula for that I was really proud you know I started that formulation before I knew that I had unexplained infertility I was on an IUD that kind of wrecked a lot of things for me personally I am very pro birth control but the progesterone IUD was not a suitable alternative for yours truly.

13:21My body didn't like it. And I was breaking out from it. And I just thought, okay, I don't want to go like the scorched earth, dry my skin out like the desert kind of situation. So I'd love an azelaic formula, but I couldn't find one that really ticked all the boxes for me. So when I finally nailed that formulation, I think I did a little dance around my kitchen. Like, I did it. Finally, I have conquered the beast. And that one is called again?

13:47Kara Goldin:The Clear Skin Potion. The Clear Skin Potion. That's awesome. And is there a product that you've developed that is kind of the runaway bestseller? Is there one in particular? Yeah, definitely the curl gel. And then baby care, since we launched, I launched the baby line when my boys were six months old. So now they're three and a half. I have three and a half year old twin boys, identical twin boys. and ever since it's become a huge cornerstone of the brand. I knew that it would take off but I I think I underestimated just how much it would take off because we hear all of the very real demographic data about the birth rate declining and so I thought well I still really feel passionately about that about this I still think there's going to be a solid market but we'll see what it does and it's really exploded to be a significant part of our sales and the number one bestseller over there is our head to toe wash.

14:44So it's like a shampoo and body wash in one that's actually formulated for textured hair as well. So it's funny when I was formulating it, my boys didn't have much hair. So I was like, well, who can I test it on me? I would want to have it work well on my textured hair as well. And it's I mean, we just can't even keep it in stock. It's become really popular because it's really great for cleansing and detangling, including textured hair. And then it's really gentle on skin. So it gets you clean, but not stripped. And that was a big pain point that I had when I was newly postpartum, didn't have energy to formulate myself.

15:24So I was using some of the mainstream brands and my boys just kept getting all this irritation. And I said, okay, universe, I hear you loud and clear. I will get into the studio and start formulating. But yeah, the head to toe wash is a really, really big seller for us from baby care.

15:39Kara Goldin:How have you gotten the word out about all of your products? So I think you're self-funded as well. And so that's challenging, right? To actually start something you have to, I always tell people who aren't familiar with all the hard that goes on and being an entrepreneur, but you have to purchase all of the packaging and the actual formulation ingredients and all those things. And then on top of it, actually get the word out about it. But how have you been able to do that? The biggest way as a small self-funded brand that has, you know, limited, very lean team, I'm currently the only one that is handling any revenue generation marketing.

16:27That's all on my shoulders. I've become a huge paid ads nerd. And I've become obsessed with, you know, lowering our CPA, boosting our ROAS. I'm in the process of kind of diversifying risk across multiple platforms, meta Pinterest and soon Google and, you know, third party data tracking, all of the nerdy stuff I could talk about for hours. but that's been the way that I can hit the volume that I need to in order to scale. You know, in the early days when my health was still, I was solid, but I was newly in remission. I was kind of scared to go pedal to the metal. So in the early days, it was a lot of pop-up markets, a lot of old school hustle just showing up in different places in my community in Richmond, Virginia, and then also in the DC area where I'm originally from.

17:15And then when I went through, you know, I had three miscarriages. I went through six rounds of IUI, two rounds of IVF. And on our last embryo transfer, we found out that it split. So that's how I have identical twins. That was quite a surprise. Once I found out that embryo split, there was a little, not even a little, a big little megaphone on my shoulder yelling, you better work. Like it is serious now. There's going to be two babies. So you better pedal to the metal. And I said, yes, I hear you. And that's when I just invested in my own skills. You know, my friend Sam Gold, who was on the podcast, I believe in August, talked about how she always says, learn it in-house first before you ever outsource it.

18:01And I am very much of the same, cut from the same cloth. So I got a wonderful ads mentor. Shout out to Ashima Verma. She's Canadian. She's wonderful. And that has been some of the best money that I've ever spent because it taught me an ads brain in a way that can translate to any platform. And I'm very unabashedly values forward in my marketing. And that has been a huge lever for acquisition and retention. I find, especially for as a millennial, I think 83 % of millennials do research on the values of the brands that they support before they buy. And so being very values forward and not just the plain old, this is for dry skin, you know, that really resonates with people.

18:51So I've become a nerd in the art of the ads and what does the creative look like? And then also the science of all the data and analytics. And that has been the way that I've been able to scale effectively, profitably with a lean team was just really doubling down on my own skillset and being obsessed with constantly learning and improving.

19:11Kara Goldin:That's incredible. So how much of your advertising would you say is actually telling your own story? And sort of, I think, especially when you're a new brand, people really want to know what's behind it. you touched on the fact that, you know, just saying you're good for dry skin or, you know, having one sort of takeaway doesn't really do it. I think for so many consumers, the beauty industry in particular is just confusing. Like, you know, they look at packaging, but then there's a lot of other packaging that's out there. And so it's actually getting people to try your product, but I think it's the people behind the products that you build trust.

20:02Kara Goldin:So I'm just curious how much of this and not just ads, but also community overall, how much has been really critical to growing, to launching and growing the brand? It's been huge. I mean, I've found that founder-led storytelling is one of the most effective strategies for meta ads in particular. people like you're saying they want to know the people behind the brand especially when you're a small business when you're self-funded they care about the the human aspect they don't care about you know the logo so the more that i've shown up authentically as myself in my founder story the better things are in terms of the hard data and metrics but also in terms of just general engagement, customer sentiment, retention, all those kinds of things.

20:50So I do a lot of founder story ads. I actually just recorded one before we met that talks about how, you know, why I'm so values forward and it connects back to really, I sat down and thought about this a couple months ago and I was like, oh, that is why. My grandparents on both sides have really strong and unique stories. On my dad's side, my dad is Brazilian and my Vovor, my grandfather, was tortured as a political dissident during Brazil's 1964 military coup. He was tortured for three days and they came here to the U.S. on political asylum. And then on my mom's side of the family, both my parents who were born in the 19, excuse me, my grandparents parents born in the 1920s were graduate educated physicists.

21:40Like my grandma back in like the late 40s, early 50s had a master's degree in physics, which is almost unheard of. And so I just have this rich family history of science and political activism that's just in my DNA. I can't help it. It's just who I am. And so when I talk about that with my audience, whether it's newsletter or ads, when I talk about my story of starting off sick and how that became Bright Body, you're just going to resonate so much better. People really respond to those and people really buy into the why. It seems like this kind of, you know, nebulous textbook idea, like, yeah, yeah, the why, the why.

22:23But I've really found it, it does matter, especially for small, self-funded businesses. So I do a lot, a lot, a lot of storytelling in our marketing, whether it's paid or organic.

22:35Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. It's, I think everything you're saying makes tons of sense. So when you think about, I think you said you have 20-ish SKUs right now. When you think about launching new products, because innovation is always like, I mean, innovation is so fun as a founder, right? Like, create new products. But then all of a sudden, then, you know, especially if you're dealing with stores or planograms or depending on what the category is, it's, you know, they don't always have space for all 20 SKUs, for example. And so there's always this kind of balance that needs to be struck around launching new products in order to get visibility and newness out in the world versus really doubling down on your existing products and maybe even putting advertising behind certain products that you know everyone's going to be really, really happy with.

23:40Kara Goldin:But how would you how do you think about innovation overall? Like, when is it time that you have to do it versus not do it? Yeah, I think as entrepreneurs, we're a little bit addicted to the newness. So I often, you know, we like to be the gas. And so I let myself I can be the gas and the brakes, you know, be a little bit of a wet blanket when I have an idea and I put it like in a Google Doc. That's my idea parking lot and let it percolate before I take action on it. I'm very data driven, but I'm also I'm kind of equally, as they say, right and left brain. So that's why I kind of can equally play the role of the gas and the brakes on innovation.

24:20So I always take a look at before I launch anything, I'm like, is there any low hanging fruit that I can just cut that's just not worth keeping anymore for, you know, the additional cash that's tied up in inventory? What's not worth it? So typically, I come from a place of one in, one out, unless there's other data or customer research that suggests otherwise. So I always start from that kind of place. I'm big on pruning. I will prune like it's my job. And then I just do a lot of customer listening. I have a, it's a special segment of my email list. And also it's a Facebook group. It's called my R &D squad.

25:02That's all of our customers who have made at least three or more orders with us are invited to be part of it. And that's one thing I'm going to start doing this quarter is using them more. I use them all the time and get their thoughts and their insights. But I'm really going to make a point of talking to them more. It's hard when you're spread thin being mom of toddlers running the business, but I get a lot of really great feedback. And again, I pop it in an idea parking lot. I put it in a, you know, inbox folder, wherever it makes sense. And then I revisit it, especially when I'm, you know, end of the year doing a full financial strategic review.

25:42I just take a look at everything all together and kind of make decisions based on the qualitative and the quantitative. What are people saying and what is the data saying and how can I make sense of both of them? But I think that's the main thing is just continuous customer listening and never forgetting that that's ultimately who you're making for. Even though I started from my own problems and from my own pain point that was then transferred to other people, I just always keep that top of mind. If I have a doubt, I put a little question in my R &D squad and I always get a really great response.

26:22Kara Goldin:What do you think is the most surprising thing about being a founder to you? Is it as challenging as you thought? Is it more challenging? That's a great question. I think it's one of those things where it's like trying to explain childbirth to someone, right? Like you can't, you know, you can say like, I guess it's kind of like a really bad period, but it's not. Yeah, I love it.

27:22being in it is just a totally different beast. I try not to compare too much of expectation versus reality because it almost feels like I'm looking through a veil. How could I even know what to expect? So I think it's just as hard as I thought it would be, but in different ways. I think it's, if you let it, again, kind of like motherhood, if you let it, it can be an amazing teacher and show you things. It's a mirror. It shows you things about yourself, not just in your career, but just areas of opportunity for personal growth and improvement. And I think motherhood is very much like that. I think entrepreneurship is very much like that.

28:03But I think the one thing that has made it not more daunting than I guess I expected in theory is just being relentless about continuous learning and always trying to invest in my own skillset, my own mindset, support, all those kinds of things. That's been really key to surviving the journey. But yeah, it's been a journey mostly of just continuing to learn and staying agile. And I think that's the one time where being self-funded is a strength is that you can typically be a bit more agile and you're the one that's really steering the ship.