823 Kahh Spence: Founder & CEO of Samir Grey

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. Support for today's episode comes from Square, the platform quietly powering a lot of the best run businesses out there.

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2:21Kara Goldin:Right now, you can get up to$200 off Square hardware at square.com slash go slash Cara Golden. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash G-O slash Cara Golden. Run your business smarter with Square. Go check it out and let Square help you do what you do best. Today's episode is brought to you by Quo. When you're in that level up mindset for your business, it's wild how much the basics matter. Like how you communicate with customers and keep your team aligned. A cleaner, more modern setup can make everything feel smoother. And here's the reality. Missed calls are missed opportunities. and missed opportunities, that's money left on the table.

3:09Kara Goldin:That's where Quo comes in. Quo helps you and your team share one business number, reply faster, and stay on top of every customer conversation so you never miss a chance to connect. It works right from an app on your phone or computer, lets you keep your existing number, and makes it incredibly easy to add teammates or scale as you grow. What I also love is that your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number. No more drop messages or disconnected conversations. Everything lives in one place. So your team stays aligned and your customers feel taken care of. And it's not just a phone system.

3:49Kara Goldin:It's a smart system. Quo's AI logs calls, summarizes conversations, and even helps you stay responsive after hours. Make this the season where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free. Plus, get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash Kara Golden. That's Q-U-O dot com slash Kara Golden. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show. I am so excited to have my next guest with us here today. We have Ka Spence, who is the creative entrepreneur, celebrity hairstylist, and founder and CEO of an amazing brand new luxury fragrance brand called Samir Gray.

4:40Kara Goldin:Woo-hoo! Not just luxury fragrance, but also personal care brand rooted in family, legacy, and emotional connection. So for over a decade, Ka has shaped culture behind the scenes, crafting red carpet and editorial moments for artists like Cardi B, Kelly Rowland, you name it. But what I love most about his journey is that he didn't stop at building other people's brands. He stepped into building his own. So Samir Gray is deeply personal. I cannot wait to get into everything behind the brand. It is super, super terrific. If you haven't tried it yet, you must. And I'm excited to talk with Ka about what he's done, why he did it, and overall, what it's like to lead and build a brand that he cares so deeply about.

5:37Kara Goldin:So Ka, welcome to the show. Super excited to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a delight. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this all day. Awesome. So for listeners just discovering the brand that you launched, Samir Gray, how do you describe the brand and what makes it fundamentally different in today's fragrance landscape? Samir Gray, to me, was built on a foundation that we all deserve to pause and sit still in a world that's often so fast or so rooted in this hustle culture or this hustle mentality. And in the fragrance landscape and the personal care landscape, I think a lot of marketing efforts are so geared to high-functioning individuals, individuals who want something fast and on the go and for the travel in person.

6:29And we're really honing in on, no, this is for you to relax with. This is for you to pause with. This is for you to take with you wherever you go and have that moment of just saying, ah, I can soak in the moment for a second.

6:41Kara Goldin:Today's episode is brought to you by Quo. When you're in that level up mindset for your business, it's wild how much the basics matter. Like how you communicate with customers and keep your team aligned. A cleaner, more modern setup can make everything feel smoother. And here's the reality. Missed calls are missed opportunities. And missed opportunities, that's money left on the table. That's where Quo comes in. Quo helps you and your team share one business number, reply faster, and stay on top of every customer conversation so you never miss a chance to connect. It works right from an app on your phone or computer, lets you keep your existing number, and makes it incredibly easy to add teammates or scale as you grow.

7:29Kara Goldin:What I also love is that your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number. No more drop messages or disconnected conversations. Everything lives in one place, so your team stays aligned and your customers feel taken care of. And it's not just a phone system. It's a smart system. Quo's AI logs calls, summarizes conversations, and even helps you stay responsive after hours. Make this the season where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash Kara Golden. That's Q-U-O dot com slash Kara Golden.

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10:55Kara Goldin:I used to block out time every week just for post office runs. Now I handle everything from my desk in a fraction of the time. Stamps.com has genuinely changed how I run my business, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it saved me hours every single week. Right now you can try stamps.com risk-free for 60 days. Go to stamps.com and use code CARA to get 60 days risk-free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That's stamps.com, code CARA. That's stamps.com, code CARA. I love it. So you decided to launch your own brand after working with so many people on a brand.

11:49Kara Goldin:How did you come up with the name Samir Gray? Well, my middle name is Shamir with an H in the middle of the S in the A. And that's what my mom used to call me. And I wanted something that was closely connected to me, but not exactly my name. just in case the brand takes on a life of its own. And then gray is one of my favorite colors. So it was pretty easy for me to come up with that little concoction. I love it. So you're building your first brand after working with so many people on their brand. How different is it than maybe what you thought it was going to be? I mean, there's so many aspects of building not just a brand, but also a company and making sure that you're delivering.

12:36And again, your name is behind this.

12:39Kara Goldin:So you don't want to fail, right? You want to be successful at this. But how different is it in actually launching a brand, a company, than maybe what you thought? Funny enough, this is actually my second brand. We built a fragrance brand in 2019 and we shuttered that in 2022. to reason being because just some operational things that I think needed to be honed in more on in order to build a successful and sustainable business. But if I'm being really honest, I think while we were, while I was supporting all of the fabulous talent I was working with, we were simultaneously building the brand of Cospense throughout those years as well.

13:24And so we were learning in tandem with building, helping build and shape their brands. And I think I was taking small bits and pieces back to the table, what I enjoyed, what I didn't enjoy, what I think I needed to kind of hone in on. I think the biggest key lesson that I learned is building a brand centered around a human is so different than building a brand that's a business. You know, I think both are businesses and can be businesses, but I think they just require such different skill sets and different muscles. And I think that really, that was the biggest difference in this process and in my learnings over the years.

14:06Kara Goldin:And when you say around a person, not just around storytelling, but actually having, you know, a influencer, right, per se, that's what you're talking about. And so in what way? Because I think marketing and storytelling for a singular individual is so much different than marketing and storytelling for a group of individuals when you're trying to sell a product. You know, selling a product, you kind of want to build a world around the life of the product and how that can fit into people's lives. When you're selling an individual, you're more so selling their world and how people can kind of adapt to their world that's here already and what avenues you can kind of build around that.

14:48So those, to me, are the key differences. And I think we're doing a great job at being able to differentiate the two as I'm building Samia Gray and really focusing on how we're able to world build and help people see how this product and the products to come are fitting into their everyday lives, the consumer's everyday lives.

15:08Kara Goldin:What are you doing differently with this startup than maybe you were doing with your other one? Oh, what am I doing differently? I'm taking my time. I think before we were beating to the drum of what the market wanted. And I think this go round, it's more so about really taking it one day at a time, listening to the consumer and the feedback that they're giving us, but also continually going back to why this brand even started and never losing sight of that messaging. Yeah, I think that's so, so important. So Samir Gray is rooted in family and legacy. And how did your upbringing influence the kind of the emotional core of what Samir Gray is?

16:00I grew up around a ton of women, a ton of women who sacrificed so much of their time and their well-being to take care of their loved ones. And I wanted this to be an ode to them and an ode to women and men out there who have done such a great job at being as selfless as possible and never getting a pat on their back for the work that they do in the home and outside of the home. And that support didn't and doesn't go unnoticed. And I wanted to make sure with this business, we were able to tell and are able to tell that story on how important community is, how important slowing down and actually smelling the roses is.

16:40And so in my upbringing, I watched women who didn't get a chance to do that. And, you know, after my mom had passed in 2017 from cancer and most recently my grandmother had passed, it was clear that I'm on the right path to setting that message and cementing that message a bit more around it's time for you to stop and smell your roses before it's a bit too late.

17:02Kara Goldin:I love it. So fragrance is so intimate and invisible. What drew you specifically to the scent that you decided to launch with? So one was really inspired by an experience that didn't happen. After my mom had passed, well, right before she passed, I was working with an artist and we were in Hawaii at the time. And we'd wanted to bring my mom out there with us to experience the city of Hawaii. And we didn't get a chance to because it was really close to the time that they predicted she'd passed. And after she passed, I kept having these dreams around us sitting on the beach and, you know, listening to the waters and playing with the sand.

17:45It was just us two. And it was like this one singular moment in time. And I wanted to take that feeling and bottle it up with a few other experiences. You know, I kept seeing us on this boat in the middle of the ocean and just hugged up together, laughing, having a good time. And I wanted to bring that energy forth in this bottle to really send the message that those singular moments, those one moments, those experiences, they don't have to go away. They can still be here. And this scent kind of reminds me of that thing that you always want to go back to. I always find myself wanting to go dream that dream again.

18:22And so when I smell this fragrance, it kind of takes me back to that place again and again.

18:27Kara Goldin:So you've created a fragrance that is really unisex as well. I mean, it's not something that just women or men are choosing, but it's a unisex product. How did you decide to do that? I mean, that's really, I think that not every fragrance is meant to be like that. So I love that about it. Oh, thank you. Understanding the history of fragrance and reading about it all and speaking to the perfumer that I work with, Cecile, fragrance technically is unisex. It's the marketing that shifts what that story is. And of course, it's some other, you know, cool things on the back end of fragrance that change what that story is about in the juice.

19:07But I think with this, I knew I wanted it to appeal to everyone because everyone needs a chance to go back to those singular moments. Everyone deserves to sit still and pause. And while it's reminiscent of a memory of my mother and I, anyone in the world can experience the same memory too for themselves.

19:30Kara Goldin:What has been the most difficult part of launching Samir Gray to date? I mean, you've definitely been around marketing and doing things one way and maybe having challenges along the way, shutting down companies. You've done a lot of really unique things. But what would you say has been kind of one of the harder decisions that you've had to make around Samir Gray? It's funny. I just had a phone call earlier today. I think it's coming to terms with the fact that I don't have anything to lean on. I think when I had my first business, my career as a celebrity hairstylist was my crutch. And I could go back to that and rely on that and kind of hide in a corner.

20:19This business, it requires so much of me to show up in ways that I didn't necessarily practice before. And so I'm just being stretched in new ways. It's exciting, but it's so new. I think that's why it's exciting too, but it's so new. You know, leaving something that I'd done for eight years behind in 2023, stepping away from celebrity hairstyling, it gave me a chance to sit back and think about what I would want to do right now and what skill sets I would need. So I think it's the understanding that like you're in 100%. Yeah, I think that's definitely the number one thing for me.

20:57Kara Goldin:So every founder faces doubt, you know, and what they're doing. Should I be doing this? Like maybe I should go back to being a celebrity stylist. It was, you know, so much easier, even though it probably wasn't. But you have sort of a memory of, you know, what am I doing? what would you say to anyone who's kind of having those doubts i mean how do you personally get through those doubts as well a few things a journal to write out what i'm feeling the past few weeks i've had some big feelings in order for me to process them i've had to write them out and sit with myself and say to myself you do deserve to be here you do deserve to be doing this.

21:45You need to pause and be a little softer with yourself and then being in community with others. You know, there's moments when I'm working in and on the business and then there are moments when I'm in real life and hanging with friends or hanging with family and experiencing and enjoying this beautiful thing called life. I don't ever want to get too caught up and don't think people should get too caught up in chasing a level of success, whatever that might look like for them without realizing that life still has to be lived. And so I would say really just taking a breath and taking a moment to understand that we've got to live these well-rounded lives, you know, the doubt's going to creep in, you know, especially if you're doing it as a solo founder, you are going to feel these moments of, oh my God, should I have done something else?

22:33Should I go back to the corporate job? Or for me, should I go back to celebrity hairstyling? And it comes up some days, you know, I see people online and I'm like, oh, I kind of missed this. And then I sit back and I'm like, no, I love what I'm doing now. I love the messaging behind what I'm doing. I love this new space that I'm in. And it feels good. And I need to sit here and try my best to block and weed out any of the negative thoughts as best as possible.

22:58Kara Goldin:So in today's beauty landscape, what do you think truly earns customer trust, I guess, is the best way to think about it. I mean, what are consumers really looking for? Consumers are really looking for good storytelling, you know, something that they can really, really resonate with on a deep level, but also good product. You know, we've done really great for six months on the market. We're about to be sold out. And the common denominator has been a hybrid of both, which I think has been exceptional. You know, I repeat purchase rate is pretty good. And I think it's been beautiful to see that those are the two things that people are really honing in on.

23:43You know, one of the things that I took or I don't want to say got advice from because these are people I've never met before, but I was listening to so many podcasts as I was building this brand. And the founders of Eden really talked about leaning in on brand and storytelling in the earlier days, because that's how you cement that loyal consumer base. And that's something that we are focusing heavy on, building and locking in that loyal consumer base. You know, I see folks talking on Facebook groups or threads or these platforms, and they're going really hard for this brand really early on. And that means the world to me.

24:22It means we're doing something right.

24:23Kara Goldin:What social channel has really maybe surprised you the most that maybe you didn't think that your consumer was necessarily there, but it's really gotten the word out about your brand? TikTok for sure. Like the TikTok fragrance community has been riding so hard for this business. And I am so incredibly thankful for all of the amazing creators that have shown up and that have talked about this brand organically and that have, you know, spread the message over and over and over again. It's been so beautiful to see. I personally didn't walk into this with any expectations. And I knew I didn't want to lean on my prior laurels of the connections and my celebrity friends and peers.

25:10So I didn't lean on that at all. And so to see how much the fragrance community has shown up, it means the world, like seriously.

25:19Kara Goldin:That's awesome. And when you touched on this, but, you know, people will say, oh, well, you know, your buddies who were the celebrities were all buying the product. I think it's such an interesting piece because I remember when I launched, you know, Hint, we got it into Google. Yeah. And people were like, oh, you had been in tech. You knew all those people at Google. So they were all buying your product. And I was like, actually, a lot of those people didn't even know I launched the beverage. They just started drinking it. And they were shocked to hear that I was the one behind the brand. Right.