861 Laura Geller: Founder of Laura Geller Beauty

0:00I 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.

0:09Kara Goldin: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. Managing risk for your business may be complicated, but your relationship with your insurance broker doesn't have to be. NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risks into leverage.

0:59Kara Goldin:NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed. Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected.

1:51Kara Goldin:I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business. Built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kara Golden Show.

2:40Kara Goldin:Have you ever noticed that some of the biggest opportunities come from paying attention to the customers everyone else is ignoring? In beauty, the industry spends billions chasing what's next, the next trend, the next generation, the next viral moment. But our next guest saw something totally different. She saw millions of women who weren't looking to look younger. They just wanted products that worked. So women who felt overlooked by an industry that seemed increasingly focused on everyone except them. So instead of chasing trends, she built a brand around this consumer. And what started with years as a makeup artist working backstage on Broadway and with celebrities became one of the most recognizable names in beauty.

3:24Kara Goldin:So Laura Geller is here with us today. She is the founder of Laura Geller Beauty. I'm such a big, big fan. And today I cannot wait to talk about what she has experienced in building this incredible, incredible brand and very excited. So without further ado, Laura, welcome to the show. Very excited to meet you. Oh, Cara, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. And I must admit, after all these years, I definitely have a story or two. And I'm always thinking about how to pay it forward and how to let people know what I've learned in my career and how I can help somebody along the way. I love that.

4:11Kara Goldin:I love that. So Laura Geller Beauty, maybe people have seen it at Sephora or maybe seen it on QVC, but how do you describe the brand and what makes it different from maybe some of the other products in the beauty industry? The brand is steeped in solution-based product. When we come out with a product, it's always looking at what problem can we solve? Or how will we make a product that will make it easier for her when she goes to use it? How can we give her a product that we can say no instructions required, no face chart needed, and make it versatile? So there's a number of things that we think about when we're developing product.

5:00From the very start of when I developed almost 30 years ago, it was all based on me seeing the white space. The white space was that every celebrity I worked on, the most famous in the world, two everyday women, stay-at-home mothers, working mothers, you know, retired people, had the same question to me all the time when I would make them up. How can I recreate this myself. What happens when I leave you? Can you show me? Can you teach me? And it wasn't just that they were so enamored because I did a good job on their makeup. They saw that the products were not daunting and that there weren't a lot of products.

5:46And so I knew there was an opportunity to really fulfill that and meet them where they're at in their life. And that was really how I develop the product line.

5:57Kara Goldin:Managing risk for your business may be complicated, but your relationship with your insurance broker doesn't have to be. NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risk into leverage. NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed.

6:38Kara Goldin:Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical.

7:27Kara Goldin:Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week.

8:10Kara Goldin:With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So you started as a makeup artist on Broadway. Can you talk about those early years of doing makeup? And did you always think that you were going to start a line of makeup? No. You know, I think similar to most founders. Well, these days it's different. I think I talk to a lot of new indie brands who are doing it so they can get an exit and sell.

8:54And I never did it for that reason. I did it for the passion of loving making up people. But I didn't know what area of beauty or makeup I was going to be in. For an example, when I started, I studied theater and film makeup at School of Visual Arts. It was a different way of learning makeup, but I was naive. I went there thinking I was going to learn how to put on eyeshadow and blush and lipstick. Instead, I learned about the science and the bone structure of a face and how to do bald caps and blood caps. And so I sort of followed out the door, which was the next obvious thing for me to do TV and film and stage makeup.

9:33And all the while, while I was doing it and enjoying it, I thought somehow this doesn't feel right. And I wasn't sure where I was going with it. But what would start to happen is in New York City, my name started getting out there. And I started getting requested to do everyday women for their child's wedding or for a special occasion. And I found so much more enjoyment doing real women rather than the sexiness of saying I worked on this celebrity. So everything happened. I always say build it and they will come because of demand. People started wanting me to come to their home to do their makeup.

10:17People started to say, well, wait a minute. Don't you have a place I can come to? I don't want people always coming to my home. The next thing I knew, I opened a store in Manhattan. Then people were like, well, what about a makeup line? So everything happened based off of demand. There was no business plan, no five-year plan.

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14:01Kara Goldin:NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risk into leverage. NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed. Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro.

14:46Kara Goldin:Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing, Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job.

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16:18Kara Goldin:Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So you launched the brand in 1997, long before social media or influencer, beauty culture, or even direct-to-consumer. So when you were building a beauty brand back then, what did that look like? What was the first step? You mentioned you didn't have a business plan, but how many SKUs did you launch with and how were you going to make people aware of what you were doing? Well, to begin with, I opened a store in 1993 on Manhattan's Upper East Side because I had built over almost two decades a huge following in the New York City metropolitan area from celebrities to everyday people.

17:14And they all wanted to come to the store. So the store was a pulse of the city. I mean, we were busy. I had makeup artists working for me and we were doing makeup for everything. And so I had a product line. It was private label, but it wasn't a certain amount of SKUs. There was no rhyme or reason. I don't have the business acumen. I didn't go to business school. I literally went to beauty school and got my cosmetology license. And everything was, again, based off of, oh, well, I got to fill this need. People are coming to the store. They like the way they look. They want to buy the product. So 1997 changed everything.

17:53QVC came to me. They saw me at a cosmetic industry function, knew about my store, knew about my, I was getting, there was no social media. There was no anything like that, but I was in every magazine. I was in editorial and all the editorial was covering me. And so they offered me an opportunity to come on air. So QVC, in my opinion, is the first TikTok shop, Amazon Live, you know, whatnot. I mean, they are the original live home shopping experience. And they got it right from the beginning. And that was my chance and opportunity to amplify my voice and have people get to know who I was and who the brand was.

18:42And I had a quick study because I connected with the consumer for two reasons. One, I was passionate about what I did. Two, I was able to explain my product and what it does and who needs it and why they need it. And so I was, I hate to say it because I'm very humble, but I was an immediate success on QVC. And it was quick that I had to start developing new products and innovation because everything was a storytelling on QVC. It's much more about storytelling. But that changed the trajectory of my brand because then Sephora came to me in 2005 and said, we heard about your brand. One of your franchises, Spackle, which is an under-makeup primer for women that I developed in the late 1990s, became their most searched word on their dot-com site.

19:42And so I then went into Sephora. So I went into brick and mortar. that's really how the evolution of the brand came about.

19:50Kara Goldin:Managing risk for your business may be complicated, but your relationship with your insurance broker doesn't have to be. NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risk into leverage. NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed.

20:31Kara Goldin:Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical.

21:21Kara Goldin:Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week.

22:03Kara Goldin:With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So, so interesting. And so how many SKUs did you actually launch with then? Oh, when I, with QVC, I only launched with one SKU in 1997. It was a three-piece collection. And I went on with that collection over and over again. The first order was 750 units. I'll never forget it. And I thought, 750? I haven't even sold 750 collectively of different SKUs in my store with my private label product.

22:52And so, you know, here I had the opportunity in 750 units to work with a lab and say, this is what I'm looking for and start to customize the product. Then it went to, we need 1200 for the next appearance. Then it was 1500 until they came to me and they said, well, what else can you do? What else can you develop? And I never went on with just an eyeshadow. Again, it was a problem solving item. And so it was uniquely different than what the brands had out there. And so I always used to say, if you saw this item sitting on the shelf at Sephora, you'd walk right past it. But QVC gave me the opportunity, and I would say this to anybody listening to Kira, that it gave me the opportunity to explain my reasoning for creating the product and tell a story.

23:47And if you are a founder and have a story to tell and have a product to sell, whatever it may be, I think that platform, well, it's like going on TikTok or Amazon or Instagram Live, you know, I think the platform of QVC is the best thing out there because it really allowed me to weave a story and share a story and connect with her. Yeah.

24:12Kara Goldin:I mean, early stories, right? Where I think you're absolutely right. This eventually led to the TikTok stories and social and content and all of that. So Laura Geller Beauty became known for baked makeup. Can you talk about the technology kind of behind that and sort of that term as well? And why was that so unique? So when QVC said to me, the thing that works in home shopping or TikTok or whatever is newness. The customer likes your brand. Now she's going to want the next best thing. And they want innovation and they want newness all the time. And it was really like pressure. So what happened was I had this product in my makeup drawer that I would use on a regular basis to bronze my face.

25:09But it looked uniquely different. It had a lot of different colors in it. And I couldn't remember who submitted it to me because different manufacturers would send me product ideas because they wanted to work with me. And I did my homework and found out who sent it to me and called them. And I said, what is this? It has like six different colors in it. I use it as bronzer. And he said, if you really want to know what it is, I need to take you to Italy. And I was like, twist my arm, take me. He took me to a factory near Milan in a small town called Crema. And Crema makes all the Italian makeup that's out there, most of it.

25:53and in those days they let me into the factory where only women worked they could only make a few a day but they were making for the biggest brands that never spoke about their products being baked because they weren't on QVC they were sold in department stores brands we know and love I would see them making it and I go you make that for someone oh yeah we make it for this person And when I saw what they did, Kira, I was blown away. Think of making a cake or a cookie. It was like different pigments mixed together, then adding in antioxidants, ingredients, ingredients like a skincare glossary of great product and dolloped on pure terracotta and then baked for 24 hours in ovens.

26:41And I wore the cap and they were letting me dollop my own product and you know, showing me how I would do it. And I just thought this is going to be a good story to tell on QVC. And sure enough, I ordered that bronzer and went on air with it. And that was when the customer could not believe how that product performed, how easy it was to use and how mistake proof it was. And then they wanted more. Well, do you have a blush? Do you have a foundation that's baked? Do you have eyeshadows that are baked? I mean, so if you can imagine, I had to always have innovation and newness. It still was hard, but it wasn't that hard to come and keep coming out with new product development in the baked category.

27:29So my brand became known for baked. And now some of the biggest brands are doing it. They look like my product and they are speaking about the fact that it's baked where nobody spoke about it before because it wasn't a technology that I invented. It was just that I brought it to the forefront.

27:49Kara Goldin:So, so interesting. So your brand made a very intentional decision to exclusively feature women over 40. Very unique, especially when you made that decision. But why did you decide to do that? Well, this you'll appreciate, I think, being a founder yourself. I actually knew who my demographic was, but I was working with people that, you know, were working with my brand who weren't aligned necessarily with me and thought we need to be available to speak to people from 19 to 90 below and beyond. And I knew that my demographic, because it was shared with me when I would have meetings with QVC and that they were over 40 and well over 50 and in their 60s, 70s, 80s.