How I Built This with Guy Raz - Thrive Causemetics: Karissa Bodnar. How $150 a Day in Sales Turned into a $150 Million Beauty Business with a Mission

0:10I would have given you my left arm, and I am left-handed to be carried at Sephora Nordstrom Ulta Anthropology. I mean, I was pitching to everybody, QVC, and they didn't really see the vision of what I was creating. There were many days where we had no sales. Having a $150 revenue day, I felt like an absolute baller. And so I was funding the production through working my full-time job, and I wiped out my entire life savings. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Ross, and on the show today, how Carissa Bodner turned a purpose-driven side hustle into Thrive Cosmetics, a multi-million dollar beauty company.

1:21The beauty business is huge, and it's incredibly crowded. There are thousands of brands selling mascara and eyeliner and lipstick, and lots of them are really good. So for a new brand to break through, you need to give people a reason to notice you. And for Carissa Bodner, that reason came in 2013. Carissa had worked at a Sephora store for a few years, and then landed a job at L'Oreal working in product development. And while she was there, One of her closest friends from college died from cancer. She was just 24 years old. And that really shook Carissa. And it got her thinking about what she really wanted to do with her life. And eventually, she came up with an idea for her own cosmetics company that would also give back to people in need. She called it Thrive Cosmetics, as in C-A-U-S-E, cosmetics. Now having a mission is one thing, but

2:18you still have to make something people actually want to buy. And for the first few years, Thrive struggled. Carissa couldn't get her products into stores. Sales were mainly online, and they were tiny. Like a good day was $100 in orders. But then something happened that changed everything. And yes, as you will hear, it was a viral moment. But Carissa figured out how to capture it and help turn Thrive cosmetics into a much bigger brand.

2:47As for Carissa, she grew up on a small farm in Stanwood, Washington, just north of Seattle. There were chickens and pygmy ghosts, even a horse named Blue. And like a lot of little girls, Carissa loved playing with makeup. But she took it a little further than most.

3:05Makeup to me was playing dress up when I was a little girl. I started formulating in my parents kitchen when I was 10, but I have photos of my dad actually when I was putting my mom's blush on him and lipstick. He was just the best dad to allow me to play around with makeup. But I think really where it clicked for me was the way that beauty has the ability to make us feel confident. Wouldn't you say formulating, like making what? So my parents were incredible and would buy me any book that I wanted to. And they made me work for every clinic eyeshadow palette that I got. I was waiting on those five acres.

3:54at both my parents as well as my grandparents' house. I was doing yard work. I was taking care of the goats. I was taking care of all of the animals that we had in order to earn the makeup that I got. But they always gave me whatever book I wanted. And so very early on, I had different types of books like the Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary. And I started to learn how to formulate because this was before...

4:19I mean, we had dial up internet in the late 90s and early 2000s. But I really was self-taught on the chemistry side through just the imagination that my parents really fostered in our kitchen and in my mother's gardens that I was helping tend to. So we grew sunflowers, and I would grind down the sunflower seeds.

4:45to make a butter, which would ultimately become sunflower seed butter. And then I would steam the rose petals because that would help to get pigment. We had endless blackberries and I'll never forget the first time I realized the pigment that was in a blackberry. It was because I forgot to wear gardening gloves and my hands were stained for days. And my mom sat there in the kitchen with me trying to get the stain off. But ultimately what that fostered in me was like, oh, that's actually a pigment that I could put in a lipstick or in a blush. And so I really credit growing up on a farm to so much of that chemistry that I was learning really by doing. Yeah. I just picked a bunch of blackberries this weekend, which I have a huge blackberry bush. And I never thought of it as in beauty. I always think of it as just something I'm going to eat. But here's my question. We're talking about

5:43the late 90s, you're about 10 years old. And so there's no social media, right? Like today, a 10-year-old girl living an hour and a half out of Seattle, outside of Seattle in a rural area, it knows everything that a 10-year-old girl in New York City knows because of social media. Yeah. How did you know about Clinique makeup and about even high-end makeup? Yeah. Well, I also discovered makeup through friends and I mean we would go to the mall a couple times a year and I really learned by going to those makeup counters and asking I knew that if I spent $35 that a makeup artist would spend the time with me to give me a makeup lesson and so that was really how I learned early on. Right okay got it and then I guess from what I read when you were about 15 or 16 the family moved to to Centraily at Washington where

6:39I mean, I guess your exposure to fashion and beauty grew, right? Because it was a bigger town and there's more stores. Plus, I think you were in range of Nordstrom's headquarters, because it was based in Seattle, which, I mean, it must have been kind of a big deal, right?

6:54It was a huge deal. Oh my gosh, it was massive. And Nordstrom was, I don't know if you've ever heard of the fashion board, but when I was 16 years old, I was on the fashion board. What's the fashion board? The fashion board is essentially a mentorship program, an internship program for young people who are in school. And you get to go through all the same trainings as employees. You become an employee. I got to work in every store in Washington state.

7:24Wow. All right. So, Chrissy, you go to community college after you graduate high school. Then you go on to University of Washington. Yeah. And you go work at a Sephora as a makeup artist. That's your job to make money while you're in college. And I'm assuming you're getting better at it every day. And working at Nordstrom at the same time. So I was working Nordstrom and Sephora at the same time. Doing makeup at Nordstrom as well.

7:51No, I got rejected actually. I applied for all the beauty counters and I didn't have the skill set that they were looking for. And so Sephora, we were the underdog at the time when I started working there. And I, those people raised me. I mean, that was really my education in beauty. Yeah. And did you like, so people, somebody would walk into Sephora and you could offer up any different kinds of brands and you would sort of apply the makeup to them and maybe they would buy that brand. Yeah. And so we got trained on every single brand. And it was so fun. Every single day we were doing a mini training.

8:32And what I thought that was also so brilliant was they had different certifications that you could get. And so I was constantly having this reinforcement of when I learn, when I demonstrate, when I can show proficiency, I get a certification in a new level of artistry or on skincare and fragrance and hair care. And so I have so much gratitude for Sephora and what they taught me. All right. So you are and you're studying marketing, communications, all those things that are going to be useful for you, and you graduate. By the skin of my teeth I graduated. Yeah. I got my dream job about six months before. I got my dream job at Clarisonic doing it. What was Clarisonic? Oh my gosh. Clarisonic was the sonic hair for your face. It was

9:21they pioneered the evolution and cleansing. And it was a cleaning brush for your face, like a wet brush. Yeah. So it's like it vibrates, right? Under, I guess, in your both pulses on your face. It oscillates and it cleanses six times better than your hands alone. So. Okay.

9:40I think a lot of listeners would know what a Sonicare is, right? And how much more effective that is at cleansing your teeth than a traditional toothbrush that doesn't have the electric toothbrush behind it. And the same founders, the same five founders who created Sonicare, then went and created Clarisonic. Wow. In Seattle, based in Seattle? Actually, specifically in Factorio, Washington. And Guy, the reason why this matters is because when I was going to community college, I was living on Richards Road. Guess what was across the street from me that I had no idea? Clarisonic. Wow. So they had like a little office there and these guys were manufacturing. We did manufacturing and we did formulation. We did our own formulations. And so had I known that Clarisonic was across the street from my apartment, I would have quit school. I would not have gone to school. I would not have graduated because that

10:36being able to do product development was my dream. And there were so few beauty brands in Seattle. And while I was working at Sephora, I was selling Clarisonics like crazy. And the brand ultimately sold to L'Oreal while I was working there. Like within the first year of you working there, I think. Yeah, something like that. And it's actually no longer in business. L'Oreal shut down the brand a few years ago, but it was really revolutionary at the time.

11:03You were there for less than a year and it's acquired by L'Oreal, but you stay on as an employee of L'Oreal. Yeah, and when they, I didn't know what acquisition meant when they bought us and I met Carol Hamilton and she was like, this is going to be really amazing for you. Who is Carol Hamilton? She at the time was the president of L'Oreal Lux, which was the luxury division. And she really put that partnership together and I don't know how I got so lucky to be in the room with her, but she saw something in me and decided to take me to Paris. So Carol put me on so many projects, like they wanted to take Clarisonic and put them into Yves Saint Laurent long comb. And so I got to work with the chemists as well as the engineers to be creating these different devices that were specific to many luxury brands, which

12:01I couldn't believe because it was just a few years before that that I was saving up multiple paychecks to be able to afford those products in my life. So it was it was pretty surreal to be in Paris working on those things and then flying out to New York. And but you were still based in Washington and South Seattle or in Seattle.

12:22Yes, yeah, okay. So you're so she kind of takes you under her wing. Yeah, I mean you were 22 20 years old Yeah, what what do you think you brought or that you sort of I don't know conveyed in in just you in being you at the time that got you a mentor like that She's really special like she does this for so many people and I believe that it was my passion. I was sharing my ideas. I hadn't been conditioned in a corporate setting to not speak my mind. And I just was all about the brand and the products, and it didn't feel like work to me.

13:06I was always the one that was asking to be in the meeting. I was taking notes. I was bringing people coffee. I didn't care what the role was. I mean, there were many of my jobs where I was flying just to bring samples to somebody. And I loved it. It was so cool. I couldn't believe that I was getting to do that. So I would say when I look back on it, I think it was really the work ethic and the passion. Yeah.

13:34All right, so it's 2013 and you something is gonna happen in your life that will change the course of your life and career and And it's a friend of yours woman and Christie Lamond. Yeah, tell me tell me who who's Christie? What's the story? Yeah, I mean, I'll never forget it. I was in Paris at the time and Christie was such a special person while I was dreaming of going and working in the beauty industry and conquering that world. We both went to University of Washington together, and she was that magnetic person that always made you know that your life mattered. It didn't matter who you were or where you were from. From a small town, I went to community college. There were a lot of reasons for me to feel like I didn't fit in in this highly academic.

14:31and really prestigious school in Washington, University of Washington. And Christie just always believed in me because she believed in everybody. And she really dedicated her life to philanthropy. She, after we graduated from University of Washington, decided to go work at the Tanzanian Children's Fund and teach English to young girls there in Tanzania. And then she had moved to Chile to do essentially the same thing.

15:00And she, I was in Paris, I was on a total high. I had been out there for a couple of weeks and was working L'Oreal's annual conference called Mondial. And I had had the most incredible evening. I was like, guy, I was like in a palace that night, presenting to the CEO of all of L'Oreal. And she called me and I was just excited to get the update because she had just gotten to Chile. And she said to me, You remember that bruise that I've had on my hip when I said, yeah, what's up? And she said, well, they think I have cancer. And I was like, there's no way. You're so healthy. You're so vibrant and full of life. And it was cancer. And nine months later, she passed away. She was just...

16:0424, 23, 24 years old? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I remember sitting there at her funeral and just, you know, beating with her parents. And the only thing that gave me solace was that she left no stone unturned. She had a blog called Wake Up and Live, and she talked about dying successfully. And I think about that a lot every day. And this idea that It's a choice how we show up every day and that our time is limited. And so we get to choose, no matter what's going on in our life, how we're going to show up, how we're going to treat people. And that is the indelible mark that Christy left on the world. When we come back in just a moment, how Carissa's loss led her to abandon her career at L'Oreal and radically change her direction. Stay with us.

17:06I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2013 and Christie's death has Carissa reassessing her own life and her own career goals. She realizes she wants purpose to be part of her professional life and decides that in order to do that, she has to leave L'Oreal. I had always loved how beauty made people feel and I loved my job at L'Oreal but You know, there was no job for me to go get that was giving back in the way that Christie had done. And I thought a lot about my life and her life and the legacy that she left. And so it was about a month after she passed away. I was down in Los Angeles for a L'Oreal trip.

18:21And I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of how Tom's had built this engine for giving back the shoe company. This is 2013. Yeah. And I thought about how in the beauty industry we had the budget to be giving back in such a more meaningful way. And I also thought about my experience volunteering as a makeup artist with Look Good Feel Better, which is an organization that provides makeup classes to women going through cancer. And I thought about that experience of how women who had lost their natural lashes did not have a solution. You couldn't wear mascara because you didn't have anything for the mascara to stick onto.

19:12And you couldn't use traditional fake lashes because, one, the glues were too toxic. They were filled with latex and parabens and sulfates, which were really irritating to people who are immune compromised or just people in general. And the lashes wouldn't stay on. And I also thought about Christy's experience with losing her own hair and how important it was that she felt like herself and that she had that dignity of beauty until her last day.

19:41And I wanted to be able to create a solution for that. I had no desire to start a beauty brand. I remember being a makeup artist and so many makeup artists at Sephora wanted to start their own brand. And I was like, oh my gosh, no, there's like so many incredible ones here. Why would anyone ever start one? And so for me, it was more of Christie's passing was this catalyst for me saying, I love this industry.

20:07I love what I get to do every day. And I also have this bigger calling to honor her life. And I want to solve this problem for people around false lashes that don't work if you don't have your natural lashes. Okay. So you decide that you want to start something and you know, you want to do something inspired by Tom's. We did that episode many years ago in the show with Blake Maikowski is really interesting story. And that was, I mean, that was sort of the kind of a moment in time where you had a lot of brands, Warby Parker and others starting up that were doing one for one, which was a really, it was a thing. So from what I understand, you decide to quit outright, quit at L'Oreal and start this company. I'm assuming because you didn't, you can't really start a makeup brand working inside of a makeup company because they're gonna own that IP.

21:02Yes, and I got another job before I quit. My dad would always talk about Chris. It's very important that you're gainfully employed. And I had about $100,000 of life savings that I put into starting Thrive Cosmetics. But I also worked a full-time job, but in a different category, which was the nutrition and coffee industry, which I had no business doing. It was bulletproof, I read that you worked for it. Yeah. Like the bulletproof coffee company, yeah. Yeah.

21:30All right, so you, meantime, you said you're making formulations. What are you actually doing? What are you making? The first product that I was making were these false lashes that worked whether you had lashes or not. And we still, I mean, they're a huge part of our business. But how would you make that? I mean, I would think you just ordered those already made. No, no, because the traditional lash bands didn't work on people who had the head lost their lashes, it needed that flexibility as well as a curve to it to really affix, because if you think about your eyelid and where your natural lash line is, if you're putting on false lashes, you have this shelf of your natural lashes that are going to ultimately...

22:17keep the lashes up. And so because that didn't exist for people who had lost their lashes, I worked with ophthalmologists. I also worked with oncologists. And because of my background at Clarisonic, I had filament suppliers, which are essentially, you know, what false lashes are made out of that were really generous with their time and allowed me to source fibers from all over the world that were really lightweight.

22:41And then the product that was also very important to pair with those lashes was Infinity Waterproof Lash Adhesive. And that lash adhesive or lash glue couldn't have latex or parabens because I was working with oncologists to develop the products and ophthalmologists and they were like...

22:58people who are going through cancer or have any immune compromise situation absolutely cannot have latex on their skin. They cannot have parabens. So I made that formula in my Vitamix. I got a ton of raw materials from raw material suppliers that I knew from working in cosmetic chemistry. And I mean, they were literally sending me hyaluronic acid powder to my...

23:23to 330 3rd Avenue West in Seattle. And I got an acrylic copolymer that I could blend and whip at a certain frequency and speed with the water and it ultimately became what was Infinity Waterproof Flash adhesive. How long did it take before you had something that worked? Three years. Three years. Okay, so, but meantime, you're still working for Bulletproof at this time when you're developing it. And did you have a name for your...

23:52your company yet? When I was working on the lashes, I did not. No, I really struggled to come up with a name. And I was working on the formulations in my kitchen and I had a TV and I would watch Good Morning America every morning, like so many people. And basically, they were doing Good Morning America goes pink, which was all about breast cancer awareness. And they were doing makeup on breast cancer survivors. And Robin corrected the host and said, these women are not just survivors, they're thrivers. And my eyes walled up with tears. And I just knew that that was the name because that's what beauty is all about, is about helping people thrive. So it just struck me that that was what we were gonna be named. All right, so I think this is around 2015.

24:52quit bulletproof coffee and formally launch Thrive Cosmetics. And you had already kind of built a community, right? Working with cancer patients and some nonprofits. But I think at this point sales are entirely direct to consumer online, right? And by word of mouth, essentially, is that right?

25:12Yes, I would have given you my left arm and I am left-handed to be carried at Sephora Nordstrom Ulta anthropology. I mean, I was I was pitching to everybody QVC and I just think at the time they they didn't really see the vision of of what I was creating. And you pitched them on these on the lashes.

25:32Yeah. And then what would become infinity waterproof eyeliner and infinity waterproof eyebrow liner and triple threat color stick, which it's, it's funny. This is a really full circle moment because when I was, I remember working on triple threat color stick in my kitchen when I was listening to you and Jane from Dermalogica in 2016. Yeah.

25:55I'm curious. So how did you fund the initial run of, you know, you've got a website and you had some savings, I think, from your jobs. Yeah. And you had to manufacture these lashes and then hopefully sell them. Yeah. How did you finance that initially? Well, I, so I had about $100,000 and the initial production I invested, it was, you know, $20,000, let's say. Yeah.

26:20it was an, you know, infinity waterproof eyeliner when I wanted to produce that I took some of the proceeds from selling the lashes, which again, there were many days where we had no sales.

26:29having a $150 revenue day, I felt like an absolute baller. And so I was funding the production through working my full-time job as well as my life savings. And I wiped out my entire life savings. And I had a 2007 Honda Civic and a one-bedroom apartment, so there wasn't much to leverage. So yeah, it was by working that job that really funded the inventory and the company. All right.

26:58What was your kind of strategic thinking about even getting the word out about it? So I love this quote, scarcity drives focus. And my scarcity was capital. My scarcity was time. And so for me, it was like, okay, well, I know, I know Elena George at Good Morning America has an Instagram.

27:21Could I DM her? Who do I know that could help me get in touch with her? And I just built a relationship telling her what my mission was. But for every Elena George, there were 30, 40 people who never responded. Same thing with beauty editors, April Franzino at Good Housekeeping. I had LinkedIn messaged over 20 editors and she was the only one who responded.

27:48And even when she did respond, it took six months to get a meeting with her. And then I believe it was July of 2015 when our first print article came out. And it was a tiny little feature in Good Housekeeping. But again, it's about, to me, I think it's about playing the long game. And it's one person at a time because you never know who can change your life if you keep showing up and treating everybody with the same.

28:14passion and purpose and really communicating that consistently. I do believe that your people will find you. Yeah. Tell me about the first hires. Who were they and who were you looking for? The first department that we built out was customer service. It was...

28:33because the business went from zero to 30 million in a matter of months when the business finally took off in November of 2016 before Black Friday. And it was really our customers making us go viral. I had made an ad on my iPhone talking about Infinity waterproof eyeliner. And then little by little, those customers started commenting. And I remember calling my sister and saying, Oh my gosh.

29:02we're going to do $5,000 in sales this day. And then I remember calling her the next day and saying, oh my gosh, we're going to do $25,000. And within seven days, it was $100,000. We had no employees. And so my friends, I mean, my friend Megan, who's the dental hygienist, would come after work and she would do customer service. My sister would take a lunch break and do customer service. My mom, I mean, it was everybody in my life was showing up. And then So to get back to the first employees, it was people from Christie's sorority at University of Washington. And they had never met Christie. They were five years younger than us. But they knew. They knew about Thrive and they knew about our mission. And it was students at DECA, which is a marketing organization, extracurricular activity.

29:54program. And it was the Renton Washington DECA students that showed up, or the future business leaders of America students that showed up and would box eyeliners into cartons, or they would ship products. And we made a lot of mistakes. I remember there were times where we would accidentally, in ShipStation, double print the labels. And my aunts and uncles and friends and family would be there until midnight doing order fulfillment. And we had double shipped.

30:22people. We had customers calling us, being like, hey, why don't you know, like you double shipped me. So there were a lot of ups and downs in that time, but we cared deeply. And that's really what built the business. So I think you introduced the mascara in 2017. Yeah. And as you are growing, right, are you starting to think about moving the business, because you're now based in LA, but at that time, did you start to think, I should probably move it to a media center like LA or New York where there is a lot more attention and celebrities live and et cetera, et cetera? Yes. May of 2017 was when Liquid Lash Extension's mascara launched and we sold out within 48 hours.

31:15That was absolute bananas. And so, yeah, it was getting really tough to do order fulfillment out of a 2,300 square foot office in Seattle. And it was getting really tough to find cosmetic chemists. So after we built the customer service department, I wanted to build out our cosmetic chemistry expertise. And, you know, there aren't places where you can go really learn that in Washington state. And so I...

31:43I didn't have this grand plan of moving to Playa Vista, which is right, you know, in Los Angeles. I just, I thought, okay, well, it's probably New York or LA. And so I made a job description for cosmetic chemistry. And I said it could be in LA or New York.

32:01I mean, all I had was an apartment in a 2007 Honda Civic and my dog Cody. That time in my life, I had total freedom to go anywhere. And I was so committed to this mission. And the first person that I hired was in Los Angeles. And so got a Regis temporary office down in Los Angeles. My family helped pack up the apartment and, you know, got down to Los Angeles. All right. So you...

32:28Eventually, do you move the team down there? I want to ask you about fundraising, because I know you would raise money, but tell me a little bit about some of the challenges you ran into as you were trying to raise money. I mean, this was a good time to raise money, 2016, 2017, because especially direct to consumer, there was increasing interest in it. Did you run into some challenges raising money, trying to raise money?

32:57I spent a lot of time in 2013, 2014, 2015 trying to raise money and was very unsuccessful in it. And so the business was already very profitable and it was over $30 million in revenue before I was able to get capital. And we needed a few hundred thousand dollars for inventory. And when I did actually bring on capital, I had a different negotiation, as they would say. And I wrote the term sheet myself with a lawyer. And I was able to protect my ownership in the business. I own the majority of the company. I control the company. Nobody can tell me if we're going to sell the company. And for me in particular, I always tell entrepreneurs, raise less because it's going to allow you to keep that scarcity driving focus mindset.

33:52And every business is different. But I don't think in the beauty industry that you need that much money in order to make it. Because I think launching with an entire line of products wouldn't have worked for me. I needed to formulate every single product to make sure that we had that level of excellence. And so had I had all the capital in the world, I think I would have lost that focus. And we were always profitable.

34:21Even when we did $78,000 in October of 2016 before the business took off I do a profitable because you kept you stayed lean you kept a small team Well, we didn't have any employees at the time and I wasn't I wasn't on payroll for many years and so it was I mean the profitability was you know somewhat Somewhat due to the fact that nobody was getting paid, but yeah again It was just building that really simple spreadsheet of saying okay if I sell a product for $26, how much am I going to keep? And then how much can that fund in the business? And when you're running a business out of an apartment, you don't have that same overhead. So I just had to worry about making my own personal rent. And so again, even as I invest, if somebody does their own order fulfillment,

35:10I will pretty much write them a blank check because I'm like, I know that grit and I know that discipline that it takes to do that and to walk past that inventory in your living room every day and see that it's not moving. It's deeply motivating. Infinity waterproof eyeliner, which is ultimately what built the business into a $30 million business, that didn't take off for a year and a half. It was like the walk of shame every day, looking at that inventory. And again, I think that that reminder of like, you invested, Carissa, you invested $25,000 to make Infinity Water Proof Highliner go into production of your personal money that you've been building since you were, you know, 16 years old. It was really motivating. When we come back in just a moment, how Carissa balances giving back with the realities of running a company and why her decision to keep sales only online works out so well.

36:08Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So by 2020, Thrive Cosmetics is making about $150 million in revenue. The company is working with several hundred charities, and that mission becomes central to company culture and supporting its growth. People have always asked me, is it the mission or is it the product? And I said, product. It has to be the product. And...

36:50Our mission is inextricably linked to that because there are thousands of ingredients we will never use because we know we're donating to cancer patients. So that's one of our causes. So they're intertwined. It's interconnected. Your products are not using certain ingredients, which may appeal to lots of customers because they want... I hate the term clean, and I know a lot of people use it. It just doesn't mean anything. But let's just say there are...

37:15ingredients that people trust more than others. So that might appeal to them. And you do that because it's tied to your social mission, essentially. Well, I think our social mission is a lot bigger than the causes that we support. Again, our customers have chosen all of those charities. And so, you know, my vision was to give back to a woman going through cancer and then One person asked me if we would give to domestic violence then I met Shirley Reigns from Beauty to the Streets and we you know started giving back to the homeless so I mean it has really grown through the community and it 100% drives customer retention. They're voting on our charities. You know, they're getting to choose. But is that why they're coming to us? No, no, no. They're not coming to us because of that. They're coming to us because liquid lash extensions is Allure's best of beauty winner, you know, which is essentially like winning a Grammy in the beauty industry. And so if the formulation and the product is not delivering a solution to customers,

38:13then, yeah, you're dead in the water. Because if people want to give back, they'll just write a check, you know, to their local charity. But with Thrive Cosmetics, you actually get to do both, which is really special. Chris, I'm curious about D2C because you don't have any brick and mortar stores. So your expenses are a lot lower, but there's just so much more competition today, right?

38:37And the economy is where it is now is their challenges. So how do you think about making sure that you guys are going to thrive? I think the beauty of direct to consumer is that you know exactly where you stand every single day. Yeah. And.

38:56So, you know, for me with direct to consumer, it's about really staying committed to the daily numbers, being in the numbers, because there have been times where I have taken my eye off the ball. And, you know, then all of a sudden our air shipping costs have gone, you know, through the roof. And so I think also I'm a part of a lot of different WhatsApp groups and texting groups where we are constantly talking about, OK, what's going on with Shopify? What's going on with meta? What are you seeing on TikTok? And I've found that this entrepreneurial community that's beyond Los Angeles is super, super generous. And I think it starts, though, with how we show up with our own generosity of information and wanting to see people thrive. So how we thrive is because we are supported by so many people. And I'm inspired by my friends who are running a business that might not even have done a million dollars in revenue because it reminds me how scrappy.

39:52we can be. And I don't think that that needs to go away as the business continues to scale. I read that you've got about 70-ish employees, which to me is very smart if that's true because the lean operations are generally, it's generally easier to hit profitability. Yeah. Is that right? Do you keep your team as lean as possible? We do, yeah. And I think, you know, they're It ebbs and flows, right? The world is constantly changing. And I think where we always over invest is in customer service and product development, in making sure that the people who are connecting with the customers, whether it's marketing, the things that are really driving the business, we try to be well staffed there. But for me, it's also about whether the employee base was 30,

40:43or 70, it's about how do we continue to know everybody's name? How do we stay on the same page? And by the way, we're a work in progress in that. Even when we had five employees, it's hard to stay on the same page when the world is constantly changing. And I imagine like there was a time when brands were really focusing and some still do to some extent on like, you know, being totally vertically integrated, right? Where you own the production facilities and sometimes it makes sense, like if you're making gluten-free something and you can make sense, it's very, very expensive, right? And in many cases, it makes a lot more sense to work with a co-manufacturer. I think that is probably the case for you, right? And for a lot of cosmetics brands.

41:30Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't think anybody needs to own their manufacturing facilities. I think what's most important is owning your formulations. There's two things. Ownership, which comes from creation. And so that's why we invest in cosmetic chemists. I mean, the cosmetic chemists that we have on staff guy, they could run a marathon while I'm still trying to run a 5k. I mean, I'm the worst product developer in this building. And, and, and I think I'm pretty good. I made liquid lash extensions, you know, and, and so.

41:59I think it's about investing there. And then it's also about negotiating exclusivity because those two things protect the formulations and the integrity of that. And even so, don't do it on a handshake. You need a contract. And then you need to reinforce that contract a lot because as the products start to take off, that is going to invite in competition. And I love competition because I think it keeps us sharp.

42:28And I stay really focused on what does our customer want from us, knowing that there are probably thousands of brands that are out there constantly developing new products. But I think that that is one of the most important things is to really, really own your formulation so that you can say with integrity that you can't get this anywhere else. Yeah. So what are your sort of the categories that are the most successful and where are you seeing an interesting kind of trend, growth trend?

42:58Yeah, it's interesting. We were just talking about this as a team and just the opportunity that we have in complexion and sun care and how excited we are about that. We have incredible sunscreens and complexion products. But the world doesn't necessarily know that much about that for our business. The brand was really built.

43:19product by product, and every single product has had to fund the next one because this business is self-funded. This business is profitable. And it always has been because it had to be in the beginning. And so by keeping that rigor, if we don't sell enough of Empower Shine, which is a lipstick that we developed for over many years, if we don't sell enough Empower Shine, we can't launch lasting mark lip stain that we really hope we can launch in a month. You know, it just doesn't work. And so for us, it's really important that we stay really rigorous, even with our skincare line. We developed that with dermatologists, oncologists, ophthalmologists, but we still are quite small relative to the rest of the business in skincare. When you think about, you know, the outcome here, I mean, would you be

44:16Happy if you were acquired by a bigger company like touch and other brands have been on the show Is that something that you know down the road? You imagine is is gonna be a good outcome for you No, I I don't want to sell the company and we've had opportunities to I To me the outcome is continuing to show up and develop products that are changing people's lives I grew up pretty humble beginnings. My parents worked very hard to provide for us, and I had a great childhood. And now I have more money than I need. And so I get to give that away. And so for me, it's really about how do we leave the world better than how we found it every single day? And how do we build a sustainable business that can outlive us? And I believe that by keeping the company privately held, that that is the best way to do it.

45:11and building from within and promoting people who maybe start out as a cosmetic chemistry intern and is now a product development manager. And someday, hopefully she is running the whole thing. So to me, that's really what the end game is, is continuing to do the same work every day and then evolving how we do that work together. When you think about where the brand is now, And how, where it started, right? Cause you're now officially 11 years in, but you've been working on it longer than that. How much of it do you think has to do with the, you know, the work you put in and how much do you think has to do with luck and timing and being at the right place at the right time? Oh, I think it's a blend of both. I love the song moment for life. And I remember listening to it.

46:06when the business finally took off. And I was up till 2 a.m. printing labels from ShipStation. And I was listening to that song and I had listened to it for years. It came out many years before 2016 when I was listening to it. And it hit me differently because I heard her say, I want this moment for life. And it was that feeling of like, oh my gosh, we actually are gonna do this. Like, it's actually happening. I'm breathing rarefied air.

46:37So there is luck in that. But in that song, Nikki also says, no, I'm not lucky. I'm blessed. And so I do think this business is divine. I mean, I wear this ring every day. It's a sunflower, and it's for Christie, because that was her emblem when she passed away. And so, you know, is it luck, or is it my angel Christie that is here with me?

47:02Is it hard work? You know, I work seven days a week, for sure. For sure. But yeah, there's no way that a kid that grows up on a dirt road in Stanwood, Washington winds up on Good Morning America. You know, that doesn't happen. And I'm really, really clear on how fortunate I am. And so I think it's a blend. That's Carissa Bodner, founder of Thrive Cosmetics.

47:31Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at GuyRoz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce with research by Chris Messini.

47:57Our audio engineer was Jimmy Kealy. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Carla Estevez, Neva Grant, Casey Herman, JC Howard, John Isabella, Catherine Seifer, and Kerry Thompson. I'm Guy Raaz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.