Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/9dcab02f0c64d5c6

There was no such thing as clean beauty. So for us to make the makeup or or skincare products that I wanted would be the same as going to the fanciest restaurant in town.
having the most decadent chocolate cake.
and saying I want that same chocolate cake except you can't use flour, eggs, or sugar and I want it done in six months.
Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.
They built.
I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today.
How Greg Renfrew scaled Beauty Counter to a billion dollar valuation,
Lost the business.
Got it back.
And then
Totally rebranded it.
For a lot of founders.
Getting acquired feels like the finish line.
The thing that keeps you going through the long nights and the missed weekends and the years of uncertainty is
But what happens when that's not the end of the story? What happens when the deal closes, the champagne is popped, and suddenly
you're no longer in control of the thing you built.
Well today's guest, Greg Renfrew, has lived that story
Twice.
She sold her first company, an early online wedding registry, to Martha Stewart back in 2001.
And then, a decade later, she launched Beauty Counter.
A beauty brand built in part.
by using an old school direct sales model that relied on an army of part-time sales reps across the country.
Beauty counter grew fast, really fast.
At its peak?
The brand had tens of thousands of independent sellers.
Hundreds of millions in revenue.
and a valuation of around a billion dollars.
And in twenty twenty one
The private equity giant, the Carlisle Group, bought a majority stake.
Now for most founders that would be the fairy tale ending.
But for Greg?
It turned out to be closer to a not so great ending.
Because not long after the deal closed,
Greg was pushed out of the company she started.
And what happened next was something almost no founder ever gets the chance to do.
A few years after she was pushed out, and after the business had unraveled,
Greg
Bought it back.
for pennies on the dollar.
And now she's trying to build it all over again.
For most of her life, before they met her, people assumed Greg was a male because well her name was Greg, but her official first name is Susan.
Greg is what everyone's called her since childhood.
It's actually her mom's maiden name.
Anyway, Greg grew up outside New York City.
Her dad at one point had a successful career on Wall Street, but after her parents split up,
Her father's career started to fall apart.
And while her mother eventually built a career of her own,
Money became a whole lot tighter for the family.
So it's funny, I graduated from college
And my mother gave me a briefcase with my initials on it and a check for five thousand dollars. And she said you're on your own. So you can do whatever you want with this money, but that's it. You're never getting any more money from your father or me.
And so
I had all these like friends who were like oh we're gonna go be
Or whatever, and my mom's like, I I wouldn't I wouldn't do that. You only have five thousand dollars. So I took that five thousand dollars and I put my first and last month's rent down in an apartment.
And I ran up some credit card debt.
I had about a thousand dollar.
Bill on my Amex, which I couldn't pay. I called my mother.
And she said.
Well, I guess you need to get another job. And so I started trying to figure out how I could make more money because I was only making$19,000 a year.
And a friend of mine had gone to work for Xerox, and I knew it had the best
sales training program in the country at the time.
And I thought I would be good at sales. And so less than a year after graduating, I went over there and started selling Xerox copier. And so how'd it work? Like they sort of gave you like a a a region or a neighborhood or an an area.
So I was in the midtown Manhattan office and I was assigned
The
The jewelry district. Um which was crazy because no one's a
Jewelers just in general didn't use a lot of copying machines. I mean, if you landed a law office, you were printing money. But if you were trying to sell someone who makes
bespoke jewelry. Uh they don't really need copiers. And how what would you do? You would just walk in and and
Like cold or would you call first? Like how how would it work?
First you have to get through the security in a building.
Yeah.
And most of the people would open the door and slam the door in your face. Literally slam the door in your face.
And then on occasion.
you would get someone who would be willing. It was usually the office manager or the receptionist who would let you do your pitch.
Then on occasion they would call you back.
M more times than that they didn't, sort of nine times out of ten. How long did you end up staying at Zerox?
Less than
Two years.
Um
That was
purely a personal thing, not a
It wasn't a business thing. I ended up
uh falling in love with someone and
He was transferred to Virginia.
And
proposed to me and so I ended up moving. I think you were you're twenty five when you got married. The first time I was twenty five. Yep. I was married for about five months.
Wow. So it was a short it was sorry, the comedian. Okay. It's all right. It's part of my story. Yeah. We were very
Yeah.
So
Um I I guess this is around uh nineteen ninety four, ninety five.
uh and after your marriage ends, um
I I guess you wind up leaving New York to go overseas for a while and you spend some time in in London, you're in Hong Kong and
And then back in London. I and and and and I guess this turns out to be a really important time in your life.
Uh because while you are there you make a connection that
ultimately leads you to start your first business. So can can you sort of tell us a little bit about what that was and and how it started?
Yes.
Wedding registr sorry, the wedding registry the or the wedding list
It all started because when I was going to weddings
I was constantly wearing these dresses.
That I hated. And I felt like there was a disconnect between what the bride wanted her bridesmaids to be wearing.
And what
the bridesmaids wanted and or could afford.
And so a friend of mine and I started this little bridesmaids dress company on the side This is years earlier. This is years earlier.
And when I moved to London with my day job
I wanted to bring this little
dress company along with me. And a friend of mine said you should go speak with this woman, Nicole Hindmarch. She has a company called The Wedding List, which is the British nomenclature for wedding registry.
You should go meet her, maybe she'll sell your dresses. And so I was introduced to her, went to her, and I

And
S
Just said we don't use bridesmaids in the UK like you all do. We only use little children. In sort of a funny like
British.
Um
But she and I struck up a friendship because I thought her concept was really interesting. And so we kept in touch. And so even though I never sold any dresses to her, I was intrigued by her wedding registry concept. And her the registry
How did it work? Like this is
Pre I mean this is not really
Yeah, how to work. So what she was doing was she was getting
A lot of the very fancy
British people to come
Into this townhouse that she had created. Her sister's a famous handbag designer, Anja Highmarch. Anja had the upstairs and
Nicole at the downstairs, and you would come.
I'm
Bride and groom at the time would come in and have a cup of tea.
and talk to her about your life, how you like to entertain, what you like to do.
And she would then help you.
put together a list of presents that you might want for your registry.
But she didn't actually
go and get the things at the time. It wasn't like you could it wasn't a store, it was a showroom. And then once someone was had gotten married, she would go to the couple and she would say, Okay
You have five thousand pounds, I'm making this up, worth of credits.
Now that we've
gotten your your list together, what do you actually want? Do you want a full set of China? Or would you like a cuisine art? Or would you like
You know, what do you want? And she would then run around London and purchase all the things for the Brian and Grim. Okay, so even though at the time maybe you could go to a a John Lewis or a Self for Juice and and there was registry services, but she sort of had more of a bespoke like
Kind of.
A customer focused service that she would offer. Okay, so this is an interesting concept. Yeah. Yeah. And all right, so you had met her pitched on the bridesmaids' dresses, but that wasn't
Really
Necessary, but you kept in touch with her.
I did. You know, again, remember, I'm in my mid to late twenties at this point and I'm going to millions of weddings and I'm looking at the process.
And I'm thinking
People are standing with the scanner gun in the middle of Bloomingdales. Yeah.
And
clients are having to go to Bloomingdale's and buy the president. It this is an inefficient system.
And it doesn't feel very good for the bride and groom. It's not very fun for the people purchasing the gift.
And I kinda think she's on to something, but I think there are ways to change it to make it more efficient. And so
Ultimately I called Nicole and I said.
I have an idea. I want to license your name.
I want to do this over in the States and
They were like, Well, we don't really want a license, but we'll we'll partner with you and we'll bring it to the US and so we did.
So tell me what that meant.

But what
Well, you were gonna recreate her business in New York, you were gonna have a an atelier and and uh you know, like a showroom, like you were gonna do it that way?
Well, my idea was yes, we're gonna have this little atelier and we had a little place on seventy third between Madison and Fifth, which was a showroom. I went out and pitched
All of these different companies from
Wedgewood to Cuisinar to I mean you name it and to say I'm gonna do something
That's gonna change the wedding. Yeah. And the innovation came when I said
We're gonna migrate all of the purchasing online.
Click and be done.
Right. So a anyone who's bought something off a registry knows it's super easy. You just go to a website. But
That was not uh easy to do in nineteen ninety seven, when you're starting this thing.
Today it's different.
And like you would need people who are
you know, c computer engineers and you had to pay for server space and i this is like
Order of magnitude more complex and more expensive.
So tell me how
Like
First of all, how are you gonna finance it?
We went out and raised capital. When you say we, you hired somebody else.
Are you and Nicole or?
Well
Nicole and I m but mostly me, because she was in London. So I raised
I don't remember how much, but let's just say a half a million dollars or something through kind of
friends and n people I knew in my network.
Maybe it was a million dollars, I don't remember. I mean, this was the heyday of the dot com boom. Yes. So so the money was
Definitely flowing. I mean it uh all of a sudden it seemed like people, you know, were just
Throwing money at all these dot com.
businesses and some of them, you know, like broadcast.com and others were selling, right, for big dollars.
So probably I mean this certainly
Seemed like a really great idea.
It was a really good idea. And I think that
It was we also
struck a deal with Nordstrom because
They had challenges with their wedding registry and saw the opportunity of bringing a young customer into the fold. I spent a lot of time pitching, I remember cold calling CEOs.
Of
different companies I remember so distinctly.
the the thing to do was you got up early in the morning and you started calling the office of the CEO because typically the person supporting them wasn't in the office till like eight thirty or nine. And so if you got up at seven, most of these people were in the office early and you could get through to them. And one of the people that I got through to was the CEO of Sax Fift Avenue. And
He was like, what? And I said, I I d I want 20 minutes of your time. I want to pitch you on this business concept. And I went in and I pitched him on the fact that.
You as a department store are s you're really catering to
An older demographic. And maybe that woman's 45, but you just missed 20 years for spending. If you intercept her when she's getting married.
And all of her guests.
This is a really big business opportunity for you. And I actually went through my own wedding and all the money that was spent around it and was able to demonstrate it and and I went back and forth between Saxfifth Avenue and Nordstrom. And ultimately Nordstrom
was known for having just exceptional customer.
experience and they were willing to put a million dollars into the business. And so I ultimately
Partner with Nordstrom.
And so then the concept became bigger and very marketable. Then you had the online our own store.
We were opening other stores and we did in Boston, we were gonna open in San Francisco and we had Nordstrom.
Okay, so you've got this business going and I mean, d was it showing promise? Was it were were people adopting model? It it seems
Still pretty early.
Right, for e commerce, but how like
How do?
We immediately garnered press in the US, and the couples really liked it because
Unlike walking around Bloomingdales on a Saturday afternoon just scanning something.
You were actually met by a consultant who said, Okay, tell me about your life. What do you do? Do you like to entertain? Do you like to cook or do you not like to cook? So for them, it was like they were getting to set up their lives in a way that tailored their needs. And then on the other side, I think
You know, over the
you two years or so that we were really running things, people became more comfortable shopping online. Some people still wanted to come to the stores, but people adopted it and we exceeded all of our revenue expectations.
And so at its height, like how much do you think you were doing a year, like
Like a few million?
I think I for whatever reason I feel like we were doing about four and a half million in revenue.
All right.
Pretty great.
How many people were working for you?
At at the peak. Forty maybe? Wow.
I mean this was it was legit. It was legit. Yeah.
Except for one problem, which is that the entire
Bubble the dot com bubble.
Right.
And uh and some people like Mark Cuban got really lucky'cause they sold their businesses at the right time.
Um
Right, and others uh others didn't. Um
you you were now in a situation where and financing dries up, right? Like we we've had these stories on the show, you know
And so I have to imagine that that like most companies
That were venture funded, you guys.
are in trouble.
after the market crashes.
Yes, we were in trouble.
And it was really frustrating because.
It forced us.
To sell the company prematurely and not in a particularly successful way. When the dot com market blew up, you know, I remember our investors saying we're not gonna fund anymore, but unfortunately for us, and this is a lesson learned.
They were so bullish, and and this happens all the time. Like, let's go, let's go, let's go. Growth at all costs, growth at all costs.
And that's all good when things are going well, but if you're doing growth at all costs
And the tide's turn, whether that's of your doing or not.
And you're out over your skis, you're screwed. And that's basically what happened to me because we
We're expanding, you know, the retail presence faster than I would have otherwise done. And it was a good lesson learned. So we were forced into making a sale.
Alright, forced into making a sale and
You find

Buyer.
Which who was?
Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart. I mean I mean I'm thinking can't get better than that, right? I mean Martha Stewart
And and they wanted to buy the
Buy the business and and sort of fold it into the Martha Stewart.
Empire.
Correct. A woman named Darcy Miller who ran Martha Stewart weddings had
introduced Martha to the concept and brought Martha by
Uh
Showroom. Wow, that must have been exciting.
I mean it look it's flattering. I'm a relatively young entrepreneur and I've got Martha Stewart
V you know, talking about my business and courting me. And I think at the time Martha Stewart had a really successful wedding.
magazine called Martha Stewart Weddings and they were incredibly
good at creating content and building audience, we had an opportunity for them to monetize that audience in a way that they had not yet been capable of doing. Brilliant. It's a brilliant uh and they probably got it for a good price because of of everything going on.
No, they did.
And I was brought in under contract to fold this business into Martha Stewart living omni media, which marked their very first acquisition.
And now you are working for
Martha Stewart. And and
I mean
What was that like? I mean I I've met Martha Stewart before I've a lot of respect for. I've seen the documentary on her. She's obviously
a hard charging I mean she's a she's an incredible
Entrepreneur.
Um
What what was it like working for her?
Well, it was a different time. You know, her house that she shows in the documentary is actually, I think, where I might have arguably had my first kiss. My friend's family had that property and it was like a kind of a not dilapidated, but it was kind of an old farm. And she turned it into this extraordinary
piece of property and we simply spin the bottle there, literally. So it's a it was such a full circle moment for me.
I will say this. Well, first of all, I worked directly for Martha, and I also worked directly for Sharon Patrick, who was the chief operating officer at the time.
Martha and
Sharing.
Five.
A lot.
They had differences of opinion on just about everything. So that was the first thing. And I think dual reporting of equal measure is challenging. Um, Martha was
Martha is exceptional. I will I will give her that. She's highly intelligent and she is
Truly
One of the most
Creative
People that I've ever
Mm.
Ever and
She was able to take the average middle income.
Woman.
In the United States of America and make her look like a goddess in her home.
And done
On a budget.
But
Martha.
was incredibly demanding. And and I think that
People have no idea what it was like in the nineties in the work world and sc
Getting yelled at by your boss was just
It was it was
par for the course and it happened constantly. Because the culture was just different. People yelled. I was yelled at. I when I was a young reporter, I got yelled at and
It was how everybody operated. It was like what the people doing that

And excellence was
Expected
Uh people were harsh. And and I have to say
In defense of that
I don't think I would have become as good of a
a journalist which I used to be and and do what I do now without that kind of
Trial by fire. Yes.
It's such a different world today. So with all that said, yes, Martha was very challenging to work for
because she is a perfectionist and she led, you know, a sort of I would say a fear based organization. People worshiped her.
And I think
What
Вот I learned from her was
the attention to detail matters and that the combination of creativity and business
is is something that that works.
What I also learned from her though is that
I didn't want to be that type of leader and that I and not that I haven't had my moments,'cause there are people who've worked for me that would s sure say I'm a pain and pain in the ass, and I can be a real pain in the ass, but I think that
What I didn't enjoy at that time, and I've said this to her, and I've said it publicly was
Not taking you know.
responsibility sometimes for decisions that have been made by her. And I got under Martha's skin because I was confident enough to go back at her. And so when she would say something like who chose that ugly shade of blue on that plate yesterday, I would say
You did at the two o'clock meeting when we were with so and so and she would just look at me
You know, I was a little bit more.
Probably cocky pain in her ass, too.
Yeah, you cut you created some friction there, which and you know, hey, it's Martha's world.
You were just living in it. Yeah.
All right. So you uh you you end up I think
working from Arthur for about nine months, is that right? I think I made it for the full year of my contract. But literally to the end of my contract, which or my required time. Got it. Okay, so so this is the mid two thousands, um and you've left
Martha, and I I I think you're you in your early thirties aro around that time.
Uh and you've had a lot of experience at this point, right? I mean you I mean you have done a lot of

Executive.

Uh, and I guess you eventually get hired to be the CEO.
of a brand call uh it was called Beston Company, which I guess was like well it's like a high end
Children's brand I don't I don't remember it. Um
And and I guess it was it was owned by
Tommy Hill figure, the designer, and his wife Susie.
Uh who are uh kind of a uh a fashion power couple. Yeah. Huge honor.
But from what I've read, uh, this actually turned out to be
Another really
challenging job. Um so so tell me the story. What what happened?
Well
I mean the end
Of the story. I'll start with that is that I was fired by messenger.
In front of my team when I was a CEO.
How how long after I'd say around a year, maybe a little yeah, about an about a year. And and I was hired
By Tommy's
So Tommy and Susie were estranged at the time and and on the process of getting divorced. And I only bring this up to say that that's an important fact because
Tommy wanted me to turn the business into a profitable business. And Susie is a true creative and wasn't focused on the financials. And I worked with Susie on the day to day, but Tommy was the ultimate owner the business. And so it was complicated and
You know, and honestly
I was
Cocky.
The the thing about the dot com world, even though my company's sold for
Not a lot of money at all. I was one of those like
entrepreneurs that people knew about.
I thought I was pretty talented and I w definitely
came into my relationship with Susie with a level of arrogance. And I think it bit me in the ass, to be totally honest, because I don't think I treated her with the respect she deserved. And I didn't create
the working relationship with her that if I were to be working with her today
I think I would approach things very differently than I had at the time.
I mean sounds like the problem here is that
You're hired to run the company, but actually
The founder.
Yeah.
Yeah, and this happens. The founder's like w it's I I don't have to ask anybody for permission, it's my company.
That creates a problem because
If your job as a CEO is to, you know
tighten things up and make sure it's gonna be profitable.
And you know, you're
the founder still sees themselves as the boss, that's that's hard. It's hard to run the business.
I think that with Susie
You know, she was all about
the way that she wanted things to look and the types of clothing she wanted to to buy. And so it was challenging because because I would say things like
What
those little dresses that you're purchasing are absolutely beautiful, but they're probably only gonna be worn for Easter or Hanukkah
You know, or Christmas, but y the that's not a day to day. If we want to capture
the dollars from that customer. We need to show her
Leggings. I remember leggings were a thing for little kids all of a sudden, and Jay Crew was just launching crew cuts and people were buying
You know, more affordable clothing. And so it was hard to balance that with her.
Yeah.
Alright, so you're there.
And one day
You get some
You get
Some bad news. What what happens?
Ha.
I'm literally in the middle of a meeting.
And
A messenger comes to the door and asks me if I'm Greg Renfrew, and I say I am. And he hands me he serves me papers.
I guess like how people get their papers if they're getting divorced. And it basically says you've been fired and
You are to leave the premises.
That's what the message said in the envelope?
That's it.
What you
Were you totally shocked? I mean, was it totally unexpected?
I knew there was tension.
But yes.
I was shocked. Міна, ферство.
Being fired by messengers just that was that was shocking. Maybe, maybe if she had sat me down and said, This isn't really working, we're not agreeing on things.
maybe that wouldn't have come as such a surprise, but
Being fired by Messenger was
Absolutely shocking.
I think I remember walking out to telling the team that I've been fired and I remember walking back into my office and starting to pack up
What I could
bring with me and I I think I remember calling my friend.
And asking her to come pick me up.
And and
Like losing it. I I feel like she picked me up and I was like sobbing and I think we drove
out of town for the night. Um
But yeah, it was humiliating.
When we come back in just a moment, Greg helps a Hollywood celebrity come up with a business plan.
And then
gets inspired to come up with her own. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz.
So it's now two thousand eight, about
Two years after Greg has been fired from her job at Beston Company.
And at this point, she has a lot going on.
She's remarried and started a family. And she also relocates to Los Angeles, where she begins working with another high-profile figure.
The actress.
Jessica Alba.
She was looking at
to have someone help her with a children's clothing company that she wanted to start.
And I signed a six-month contract to consult for her in a full-time capacity to help her explore the opportunity of starting a new company.
And
We did that, although
very quickly.
And this is part of my story. When I was still in New York.
I had become really obsessed.
With toxic chemicals.
I watched a number of my friends be diagnosed with different types of cancer. I had my nanny who died of cancer at thirty one. I had friends that were giving birth to kids with significant health issues. So when I moved to Los Angeles and I was introduced to Jessica.
I
understood that she was excited about this organic clothing line, but I I started to question her, like, well, what are they gonna wash the clothes with and are those detergents safe for their health? And you know, Jessica and I started talking about, you know, maybe there's a different angle here. Maybe
maybe there's a way to create safer products for babies and kids, and maybe it's not about cloving so much. So the conversations that she and I are

We're moving away from this.
clothing line and closer towards what ultimately became the honest company. And I was not a founder of the Honest Company, but I helped inform some of the decisions that led her to that. And
It took me a while to figure out what my next thing was gonna be.
Okay, so let's let's get into that because you're now in LA
And you're doing consulting and you help
Jessica sort of build this business plan. She goes off and we know what happens with the honest company. Um
I mean, you're gonna get into cosmetics, into beauty products, but but
But before we hear the story, w how did it how did the idea even start to come to you? When did you start to think about
beauty products and make up and cosmetics and then you making it.
I had become impassioned with the environmental health movement.
And as I made
Changes to my life.
I found that there were
Opportunities in the marketplace. You know, I c it was really easy to s to switch my household cleaning products or just start washing my floors with water and vinegar. It was easy over time to switch from plastic to glass. It was easy to take my shoes off of the door.
There were solutions out there in certain aspects of my life.
But when it came to skin care and колеко а тай.
There were some really
great sort of all natural types of brands, but most of them
didn't really work very well or they didn't smell very good or they weren't presented in a way that was aesthetically pleasing to me.
And that was how I ultimately came to decide to
enter into the beauty space. I had been introduced to Christy Coleman, who was a leading makeup artist
During my tenure with Jessica, as I was exploring a whole bunch of different things and I she and I really clicked she was the first leading makeup artist to clean up her kit and starting with what was then called green products. She and I just started talking about what her dreams were in terms of
you know, creating safer makeup and my dreams about really taking on this this industry and we s we started having a lot of conversations.
And so where do you start? It's two thousand ten.
And what's the first thing you do? I mean, you have run businesses, so you have a pretty good playbook. Wha what was your playbook to to get this off the ground?
Well
You know, it's interesting because I I did have really
lots of experience, but I had no experience in beauty. Yeah. And
I wanted to bring in products that performed as well as the traditional beauty brands and I wanted them to be avoid of certain chemicals of concern. So the first I literally the first thing I did is I called a friend of mine who works for L'Oreal.
And I said
I know you're in the hair care business.
But can you
Tell me a little bit about how you all do things. And then she led me to a friend at Estee Lauder, who then led me to someone at the environmental working group who led me to a Green Chemist. So I started just having lots of conversations with people, you know, I more questions than I had answers.
And by this point, right, like if you wanted to start a makeup brand
Um you could, I mean there are
There are co manufacturers all over the US and Switzerland and Japan that make high end.
beauty products. Was it just a matter of finding a place and saying these this is what I want to make? Or was it more
Was it more challenging than that?
Well, it was way more challenging because
As one of my partners later on used to say
For us to make the makeup or or skin care products that I want it would be the same as going to the fanciest restaurant in town.
having the most decadent chocolate cake.
And saying I want that same chocolate cake, except you can't use flour, eggs, or sugar, and I want it done in six months.
So
We were called brutal counter and people found me really challenging, not me, but us as a company really challenging. They they bought into my dream and the idea that you could create high performing products that were void of certain chemicals of concern.
Because just to be clear, not all chemicals are bad for you and water's a chemical. There are lots of things that are perfectly safe for health that are being used in the cosmetics and personal care industry. And there were some offensive chemicals that were there that I wanted out. And so what was really hard was that there was no such thing as cleauty people were still calling it green.
In general, clean beauty didn't exist. There were some
environmentally friendly natural brands that were successful, but the combination of high performance
being significantly safer

Why being done.
Alright, I'm just gonna put a bookmark here in this interview to say
That's the
Sometimes people listen and they say, Oh, I hate when people say
all natural or clean or because they're not regulated terms, right? It's not like USDA organic.
Um so uh so that's real. Like people hear that and they're like, What does that mean? But but to you that means
Um
products that are n non toxic and also
Environmentally friendly, organic, like what did it what does that mean to you?
I I think you're absolutely right. I think the term natural or all natural
means absolutely nothing. The challenge in the beauty industry, which is not the same thing in the food industry, is that it is not regulated to the extent that it needs to be. And people can make marketing claims like safe, clean, anything. Everybody can say we have a clean, clean this, clean that I hear it all the time. We've done a cosmetics in the show's clean. Everything's clean.
Cle clean means nothing today. No one's being like, We sell dirty cosmetics. Very dirty, very unhealthy, very toxic.
So for me, clean means high performing products.
that are significantly safer for your health, void of certain chemicals of concern. And oftentimes with safer ingredients, they are more environmentally friendly, but that's not a hundred percent a given.
So to me, clean is complex, it's an arduous process, um, and it's a comprehensive approach.
To most brands it means taking a few chemicals out and calling it a day.
Yeah.
All right, you are in LA, which is the home of some great um beauty brands dermalogica starter there.
You know, s subsequently several others, but
Tell me about like
what you your first few products were going to be like I imagine you start to research what the best sellers are, uh and that's w w how you start it.
No, not really. You know, it's it's interesting because I went in with blind naivete. Like I the thing that was I think one of the things that made me successful and I and I say this often to other founders is
Don't spend so much time looking at the industry that you're entering into.
I mean yes, be aware of it, but
You you have a vision that is obviously you see opportunities, so focus on what you're trying to do. So for me
What I wanted to do is give you your essential products that met your day to day needs.
Just a basic cleanser, day cream and a night cream and
Maybe we had an eye cream, but it was just an it was an essential skincare line.
So it was gonna be creams, uh which is smart because that's
It's a repeat purchase. Like you probably don't buy
uh blush or or or maybe lips. I don't know, you probably don't buy skin cream you're using twice a day, you're gonna buy more of it.
Yeah, skincare is a consumable product, and people do typically stick with their skincare routines for periods of time. They're less
likely to switch out, you know, their day cream with their night cream than they are something else. Yep.
Got it. Okay. And and so
Eventually you found one facility or or manufacturer that would work with you, or did you have to find multiple?
multiple because like any other industry
My opinion is you go to the company that specializes in the thing that you want to make. And so the company that's really good at doing a lipstick or a lip gloss may not be the company that's really good at doing shampoo and body wash or lotions. And also I think it's just a prudent
business exercise that you're not putting all your eggs into one basket because then you become incredibly dependent. You lose
power to negotiate, but also if something goes wrong with that facility or that company.
You're kinda screwed. So from day one, we h we worked with a handful.
I did want one of the things that I was intentional about is I wanted to create jobs in America and I wanted US manufacturing and I wanted a decidedly American brand. I felt like the lot of the aspirational brands
were either coming from Asia or from Europe, and I just
really cared about creating jobs and and being able to physically visit
These places and not outsource everything to China. I really wanted
to make our products in the US. So I had to take my time finding those people.
Okay, you launch in twenty thirteen.
with nine products and you've got face cleansers and eye creams, shampoo.
Um I wanna I I'm curious about
the launch plan. Were you going to have
A store
Like a physical brick and mortar store or were you gonna sell it online? I mean this is like
We're talking about peak direct to consumer
Like this is when it's really not peak, it's really when it's launching like you know, Warby Parker and all these brands are just going gangbusters. So uh tell me about
Your
Plan. How are you gonna sell this?
I knew that e commerce was going to be
Critical at this point at point in time. It you know, it's everything, right? You have to have an e commerce platform people are transacting online. And I didn't want to go into the department stores because the shelves were being controlled by the incumbents and they didn't want the stories getting out there of safer ingredients because it didn't serve them particularly well. A lot of them at least. And again, remember this is
This is now I'm having these conversations in 2011, 2012, the world's changed. But even today, people want a touch and feel product, they want to match the skin tone to their skin. And it's while it's possible to do online and many people do, it's not as easy to do it online as it is in a physical store.
So
A friend of mine
At the time said you know, maybe you should consider direct sales.
To which I said hell no. Like I don't
Like those business models. And and just to clarify,'cause
Some people might hear that and think, Well, what, direct to consumer? Like online, you're talking about
Like having a representative.
go and sell to people in their homes or something like that.
Okay. Yes. And so I started doing some research on
Companies that were they were whether they were calling direct sales like an Avon or social selling, there were a whole bunch of companies that were successfully
Powering up women to act as sales representatives for them, then they could earn a commission on the products that they sold. So you're gonna have
uh you know some people call multi-level marketing model, right? Where you would have like Avon, you would have sales reps who would sell the product and get commission. And here's what I think is so interesting about this.
That was not fashionable to do.
Like a lot of people.
would have turned up their nose at uh even hearing that, right? And to me it's a little bit sort of out of left field. It's like, yeah, well wait a minute.
This could be interesting. Like
You have trusted friend, you have a person who has a party and they trust that person.
And they are showing them this product. Like
Did you have to take a sort of a mental leap to get over that?
Like, ooh, is it are people gonna think of this as like, you know, Amway or I don't know. Again, there's nothing wrong with Amway. I'm just w you know, in in in the worlds you lived in in Los Angeles and this sort of beauty world, I I don't know, maybe people kinda turned up their nose at that idea.
Oh, for sure.
For sure people did. People do. I mean people still well, first of all, I think that one of the things that
was frustrating and you know you get to the
Point where you just
You're not gonna def
defend the decision you made because
People don't take the time to really understand your business model. We had attributes of an MLM business in that we allowed women to build teams. And in tiny, tiny percentage of the women, like less than five percent.
Built teams.
And when when but just to explain what that means is when you build a team, if that team sells, you as the team builder, you can also get a commission from their sales. So over time you can you can get a small right you can get a small So the majority so the way that we worked in our business and the reason I did it was
I really genuinely started the company not really giving a damn about BD products, but really caring about protecting people's health. So if you want to build a movement, you need people behind the movement. With respect to the MLM side of our business, and to be very clear because there's a lot of
misinformation out there. There are MLMs and network marketing companies that I think overpromise and under deliver that I that I'm not sure I would call predatory like others do, but I don't like their business practices.
Basically they you you have to buy a bunch of product, you might attend a seminar
Um and if you're if it works out, you know, you sell the stuff and you make a commission and you buy more
But um what what
Can happen is
People will spend a lot of money on product.
and then they just are not successful selling it and they're stuck with all the stuff and
You know.
And and that's a that sucks and can be financially
Devastating for some people. How was
your model different. You people
Still had to buy the stuff, right?
Well, first and foremost, we never sold the dream. There's a there's a thing about the old school and I and I want I it's actually I'd love to break this down because I do think that
There are some really great companies out there doing really great work in the world. And I think that Tupperware's been doing it for a long time.
Yeah, and I think that you know, before we had the right to vote as women, Avon give w women an opportunity to gain some sense of financial independence. There are a lot of wonderful attributes.
to this business to certain of these businesses.
For me, the way that we broke it down was
We weren't going to allow you to buy product. You could buy samples.
And but we we flagged it. So if there was any any order that came into our website over a thousand dollars, we would flag it because not only did we not want people spending money and losing money, but we also wanted to control the brand experience. And so I didn't want someone selling a bunch of product out of their garage. That's not the brand I was trying to build. So
Every single transaction came through our e commerce platform and was shipped directly from our warehouse.
You could earn a commission if you sold a product.
If they built a team, they could get earn a small percentage on that team, but most of them weren't making very much money. Most of them only gave us one to three hours a week. This was a side thing that they enjoyed being part of. It was a community and work that they thought mattered.
Yeah, I hear you. Like as it's a it's a great model.
Because you've got brand ambassadors and and now you've got
A trusted like
You know, a a
A recommendation from somebody you trust is much more valuable than an advertisement. So
How did you find these women? How did you or or sellers, how did you recruit them?
So when I decided to start the company, I did a road show across America.
I went to
I don't even know how many cities and towns and I would ask everyone I knew.
I mean it's almost like running a political campaign. I would go out and I would say, Look
Here's the issue that I see in the world today. Here's the solution that I aim to provide through our business. We're creating a movement, and I'd like you to get involved.
And they would say, just to be clear, if they wanted to be representative, they would be able to buy the product at uh wholesale cost.
At a savings, yeah. And would they get training too, like sales training?
Yes, we did sales training, um because most of these people didn't know a ton about
You know, what the toxic chemicals might be or how to even

people. They were they were women who wanted to get involved.
So from that road show how many
Sellers did you
Do you estimate you recruited before you even launched?
I think we launched with about
Two or three hundred people. Wow.
That's great.
And the two things they did unbelievably well and uh cost effectively is they acquired new customers for us. So they were very effective in that way. And they were also very effective at amplifying
our brand. And so we knew that because of their digital footprint, that if I wanted to stand up a campaign, let's just say or a new product, that I could send them the asset and all of a sudden eight million people will have seen that overnight because these women
We're proud of the products and and so it was a very
cost effective way of doing business in that way. Absolutely. I think the customer acquisition costs are it's just m much more efficient because you have people going out there
And they have an interest in selling because they're gonna make some money, but they're also supporting the product and they're and then they're amplifying and talking about it and they like it, they use it.
Uh it's cheaper than than T V ads.
Well, I think it it allowed for us to grow unbelievably quickly, both the revenue of the company and the movement at large. I mean, I think it was an unbelievably effective business model. We scaled to hundreds of millions of dollars of sales in in eight years. So it I I'd I'd stand by the decision
All day long. I think it was an incredibly powerful
Business
Ecosystem.
I mean clearly you guys are struck
on something'cause you start to attract significant investment. I think in in twenty eighteen you by that year you raised
over eighty million dollars. Bono was an investor. Bono was an investor. Bono personal. Greatest thing. Like just I mean, I grew up worshiping you too, so that was like a pinch me moment.
He came in he like you like met him and he was like, Here you go, here's a channel. No, it wasn't that's not how it happened. We came in because T B G Growth was our first large institutional investor
They had a relationship with Bono. Bono and his wife Allie Houston had started a brand called Nude. They were actually early pioneers in the area of clean, and that's how we got involved.
And then
And then we did raise another round of capital later.
Okay, so you know, this strata this sort of multi channel strategy is
is paying off.
really nicely. You have raised a lot of money, so there's high expectations, but I think by twenty twenty
You guys are d that year, which is pandemic year, I think you do about four almost four hundred million dollars in sales.
That
I mean, I think it's a good thing
I wonder about that year,'cause that's um amazing.
Um how much of that do you think had to do with the fact that people were?'Cause people were I remember that year people were like, Oh, no one's gonna wear makeup anymore or no one's gonna buy cosmetics, but cosmetics actually did pretty well.
People were at home and they were shopping online.
Skincare did very well during the pan. So our our cosmetic business dropped precipitously. Like the second that people were back in their houses, you know, and they were on screens that you were maybe selling lipstick, but the rest of it no one was really wearing. But you saw an increase in sales of things like serums and anything that people could do to pamper themselves inside their homes. I think that
Certainly.
benefited us, but I think that, you know, I could have done a much better job as the CEO of helping people navigate the new reality, the new way of living post pandemic, once the doors
were opened up again because
Надирект their spend to fashion and to travel, but also
People had zoom fatigue, but then they weren't really ready to gather physically anymore, and I I didn't handle that as well as I should have.
Okay, so
you come out we c start to come out of Covet and and when I guess while we're still in Covet, May of twenty twenty one
The Carlisle Group.
Massively important
private equity group buys
A majority share. They put in uh uh it's estimated but I think six hundred million dollars.
into beauty counter. Um
Which was
Huge. I mean that's a huge vote of confidence.
They did. They I had built a relationship.
with the Carlisle group years prior when we did the last round of institutional funding.
We were too early stage at the time.
for them to make an investment. It was sort of like call me when you grow up a little bit, but we kept in touch over the years. And when we went out to sell the business at the urging of our board and our investors, like they were one of
Our first calls for sure.
Okay, so
They
by a controlling share and uh which is exciting'cause I think this is really
The first time you make some money off of this off this business.
Uh, rightfully so. I mean you started ten uh almost ten years earlier.
And uh
And they have big ambitions. They wanna
take sales to a billion dollars. Um, and I guess the idea eventually to take it public.
Yeah.
And you stay on.
As
See you. See you.
Okay, so so May twenty twenty one, they make the investment.
you're running the business and now they're
the the majority owner. Um
How
Tell me about that relationship.
'Cause it sounds great. I mean they you made some money, they put a bunch of money in, now you've got all these resources. You can really grow this thing.
Yeah. I mean I think that
Yeah, I I remember in the closing moments being very emotional. Uh one as a female founder to start a company and sell it for a billion dollars was
putting me in a category of women that was
Small and something that I really was proud of that achievement.
Okay.
It yes, I all your investors made out did very well. Very well. And the reason that I chose to sell to a financial sponsor versus a strategic'cause I had been approached by a
strategic two years prior, which is why strategic would have been a uh cosmetics spread. Yeah, like Unilever, Estee Lauder, Laura, Shisheta, like any of those big brands. They, you know, they are often acquiring companies. And we had been approached by one a couple of years prior that I really, really liked, but I felt like I wanted to be that next generation
leader in beauty and I wanted to take the company public ultimately and I thought that I had the chops to do it. And so
immediately after they purchased the company, which was on May twentieth, twenty twenty one, the world opened up. We were let out of our homes for the first time and the business
I would say stumbled that summer.
We were still growing, but we weren't growing as quickly as we had before. And I think that that caused real concern at the highest levels of Carlisle.
You were growing because just because people changed their
Purchasing habits after the pandemic.
I yeah, traveling and and doing other things.
Buying a beautiful serum or buying a pair of blue jeans is a choice.
Not everyone can buy everything and do everything they want to. And I think that having not purchased clothing, having not been able to travel, people redirected their spend appropriately.
And on top of it.
Not only did the people purchasing our products, but so did the women that represented the brand. They were also getting out of their home for the first time and taking a vacation with their family and they were distracted that summer too. And you know, rightly so. It's been a long we all know what the pandemic was like. It was a long time.
So we were still growing. It's just that we sort of plateaued that summer a little bit um and that
Made people uncomfortable. And I as I said earlier.
The leaders of Carlisle.
I think by sort of the end of the summer they were.
uncomfortable and I did feel pressure and it was sort of like why isn't this working as well as we had anticipated
Kind of what's going on inside of your team.
What do we need to do to change things?
This you know, you know, like it like
Anyone would do, right? What are what are all the root causes of the the lack of sales
And also there was just some unfortunate events like
Right when we started getting back out there and gathering the women that had sold and getting them excited again, the Omnichrom variant hit. And so we had to cancel all these
in person events all over again. And so they then and so they were also then having a hard time navigating because people didn't want to get on Zoom, but people weren't comfortable meeting them in person. So they were struggling to figure out how that they could sell and
Carlisle was sort of looking internally to say, like are do we have the wrong digital strategies? What do we need to change?
And I started to feel the pressure big time after a couple of months.
And
Did you ever
I I'm curious, like
Or are you coming home and thinking, Oh?
God.
This was a mistake.
N maybe not that, but like
Was this the right decision to work?
What
a private equity group. I don't know. I'm I'm curious because a normal
question that would come up for a founder, right? Like, did you start to have some of those
concerns or doubts or worries.
Look, I think as a as a CEO
you were always worrying about the state of the business and you're always looking to what's gonna happen
next month, next year, your job is to so yeah, I was feeling the pressure and I was worried, but I wasn't that worried about it. I felt like we were having a moment where the world was kind of going nuts and I
was trying to say to them, take a deep breath, like this is gonna smooth out in the fall. Like things will start to turn around. Let's not make any rash decisions right now because
I I feel like this is all gonna
Calm down. I and I did feel that way.
Okay, so you get to the fall and
they made the decision in October that I was not capable of running the company and they decided to remove me as CEO.
In in October of twenty twenty one.
Yes, they informed me in October that they
We're commencing a search.
For a CEO.
And that I
was not the right person to lead the company.
We're gonna bring in someone to run the company.
How did you react?
Well, after I had a really good cry, I mean I think I was pretty shocked. Um
Yeah.
I was pretty shocked.
When we come back in just a moment, after her unceremonious exit,
Greg finds herself in a bind.
She's been kicked out of beauty counter, but the deal she made means she still has a big financial stake in its success.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to how I built this.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the fall of 2021, and Greg Renfrew is
Basically.
In shock.
Her new bosses at the Carlisle Group
had just ousted her.
As CEO.
They own my company at this point. So and I've been through this before with Martha Stewart, where
When you sell
You sell.
And you need to be aware of the fact that you're no longer completely in charge of your destiny.
Did them I I imagine the message the way they telegraph the message was Greg, this is nothing personal. This is about just what we think is best for the business at this moment. It's not about you, you're great, but it's not personal, don't take it personally. But of course you take it personally.
I'm not sure that that was the message given to me. Okay. I'm trying to I mean I think I I think that like I wasn't in the room, but Yeah, I think the message is sort of like
Uh
What's that expression the elephant on the table.
You're the right person to lead this company anymore.
So we're gonna find you someone who's really great and and we we still believe in you, but we think that you would be great to be external, but we're gonna
Find someone to run the company. They wanted you to stay with the company. Yeah. Yeah.
Did you go through like the
Stage the I mean it sounded cliche, but like stage of grief. Yeah. Did you go like anger, like screw you guys, hate you, sadness, like just depression, all those things or some of them?
I think at the time
I went through the stages of
Of anger.
I didn't go through all the stages of grief'cause I don't think I
Could anticipate.
Where it was going completely.
Even in those initial months.
They found uh somebody who had senior roles at L'Oreal and Chaseado guy named. I think Mark is a male, right?
Uh question to ask when you're talking to Greg. And he had most recently been at
Okay. And
From what I understand.
The relationship between the two of you was was not easy from the get go.
That is correct.
And you didn't stay much longer after that.
I think that
In most scenario it is hard.
For a founder to stay and have someone else lead their company.
I think in my
Particular case.
from the very beginning it was clear to me that he didn't really
One
to leverage my institutional knowledge, he was gonna run things his way and didn't really value my opinion. And that was really hard. And in and in
And in fairness.
I probably didn't handle it.
Very well either because
I I couldn't believe that that someone
When I had run a company up, up, up, up for eight years that someone didn't value my opinions.
And thought that I
Didn't know how to do my job. So it was hard.
So by the middle of twenty twenty two you leave.
Um we'll get to what happened, but
What did you do? I mean imagine you would want to take a break.
'Cause that's a lot. I mean you you've been through a lot at that point and
I don't know, I if it was me I would just kinda say, you know, I wanna just kind of enjoy
No.
Doing anything now.
You might.
If it was your choice to leave.
You might feel that way.
I mean I just I think that that
That first summer, um, I was devastated.
You know, when you when you start a business and you build it for a long period of time and you're the face of that brand, you're inextricably linked to that brand. It's like it's like your identity. It's like you don't even know who you are without that anymore. I've had so many friends who have sold their companies or lost their businesses and they they literally have to pick themselves up off the floor because they don't know.
who they are without it. And I think publicly because of
what was said, you know, I it looked like I just pieced out and was hanging on the beach and I did I did go to the beach. But I it was a really dark time for me because I
I was really sad and I was angry, you know. Yeah, I mean,'cause p you might run into somebody and say, Hey, how's how's the beauty counter thing going? Or I just bought beauty counter, I'm supporting you and
You just you wouldn't want to have to explain everything and right, like little things like that would probably pop
I happen now and again.
That happened all the time. And also remember, uh when I when I sold the company w there were about sixty thousand women that were representing the brand and I think that
The public perception was that oh, Greg made a bunch of money and peace out and you just left us there.
And there were a lot of people that were really angry with me and I
And I
Wasn't able to
Talk to them about it. And that was really hard.
But you know, that's that's life and happens all the time.
And you had to support the company because you still had ownership in the company.
So it was not in your interest to like
speak out and say, They, you know, screwed me or whatever, like that would not have been in your interest.
It was not in my interest and I don't think that Carl intended to screw me and I think they

felt they had made a good choice, I think
What was hard was
the person that was chosen to lead didn't value me. And that was probably the hardest f thing for me because I was watching from the sidelines.
Poor choices being made.
And knowing it was gonna impact the company and not being able to do anything about it. Yeah. And and in fact i the company
was struggling.
I mean I mean the guy that was
hire to run the business. Um he lasted about a year and a half, I guess, and and then he was asked
to resign in May of twenty twenty three.
I mean you you were clearly aware of that and
Um and I wonder whether
You had
I mean.
this is somebody who replaced you and
was not able to succeed on the other hand, like
Uh you're you were still an owner of this business.
I felt better with his departure than I did with him staying there. So for me
I didn't feel that
He was the right person for the job, and I felt
more confident in the choice they made in their interim CEO, Mindy McKenzie, with whom I partnered really, really well. She was a board member. She, you know, she and I
got together and she said, I'm really sorry about everything that happened and we had our you know, had a good we hugged it out and I started helping her, you know, a little bit
more behind the scenes and then and then less behind the scenes.'Cause I I of course I had a financial interest, but also way more importantly in in some ways, I I believed in the business, I believed in the work and I believed in the women and I wanted to see this thing turn around.
Okay. So you were
Eventually asked to come back to lead the company.
And you return twenty twenty four.
Yes, uh January of twenty twenty four.
to help relaunch this this brand that
Carlisle had, you know, a lot of
You know, a lot of big stake in and hope to
Uh really.
Growth.
Um
And
Tell me about the return as CEO.
You know, look I I mean
I I
I equate this to when you finally we go through a bad breakup and you finally get over someone and you think you're fine and then they call again. It felt like all that. All those fields of like I just got over you, now you want me back. And so I was reluctant to take the job as CEO because I had finally moved past it in my mind and in my heart. But
Honestly, it felt really good at the moment. I mean I was nervous, but I once I was in, I was
I was like okay, I'm in, let's do this.
So you're back with a strategy and a plan.
Uh trying to get a strategy and a plan. I mean, I was back on February and I started doing a lot of
interviewing and asking people because I didn't r I had been removed for a long time, so I didn't actually really know as much about what was going on there. And so I learned very quickly, you know, what was going on and then started to form a plan. Okay.
And
What happened?
Well, in mid March of twenty twenty four, Carlisle made the the very difficult decision to
to move away from funding, continuing to fund the brand.
They basically said we're not gonna put any more money into this.
Wow, this is six weeks after you return.
Yes.
So
But basically that's gonna I mean where that's gonna lead is
foreclosure or but a sale, so I mean a hope h hope for sale, but
Basically that's the company's gonna wind down.
That's essentially what's what they're what they're saying.
Correct.
So they, I am assuming, start to look for a buyer.
They had been looking for a buyer for quite some time prior to my joining as CEO and
Subsequent.
But we were unable to find a viable option for the brand.
So the business becomes
owned by the bank. Basically they're they're lenders. Correct.
He went into foreclosure.
Wow.
I throughout this time, I mean, you're now the CEO and you've got to wind this down. I mean, this is not what you signed up for.
Not only did I not sign up for it, I had no idea how to do it. It's not something that
I understood at all the differences between bankruptcy and foreclosure. I I mean it was all new to me and I was trying to understand.
as the CEO, you know, how to navigate this with a whole variety of shareholders and constituents that were depending
On us.
And there's no money in the bank. So basically
You gotta sell the assets and then
the creditors start to get paid back in a certain order.
But not all of them are gonna get paid back.
Right. I mean once I mean I look you know this probably better than I, but once we once you go into foreclosure and the bank assumes the asset and they appoint
uh a company to to manage this whole process, it's it's then out of your hands completely.
So when was it finally wound down, like
By April, May of twenty twenty four?
So I acquired the assets of the business out of foreclosure in April of twenty twenty four.
Okay, well now okay, this is a whole new story. So okay, so you are you're winding down the company. They cannot sell it.
Correct.
You end up buying it back. How does this
Why does that happen? Tell me this.
To be how that happens. Total insanity.
I'm in total insanity. So
I'm the CEO, I'm watching all this go down.
So it's kind of interesting. The debt on the business was syndicated.
led by Bank of America and GP Morgan Chase and I can't remember the other banks that were involved because I didn't interact with them. But
In a crazy act.
Of om I would almost say of kindness.
Bank of America approached my lawyers and they said, You know
This is a really bad situation. We're gonna lose our money.
But we believe in this woman and the movement she created and
If she'd like her.
Brand back, we like to s sell it to her.
because we think she deserves a right to have it back. And they approached me.
It was a Sunday night. I was in Miami about to fly home from spring break with my family and I had about forty eight hours
to decide if I was going to do it and to raise the capital with which to purchase
The assets of the company.
Mm.
You know, I sat down with my family and my younger
Uh daughter was crying and just saying like
You know, you just can't let this whole thing die, Mom. You've worked so hard for so long and
I sat with my husband and my kids and took a whole bunch of our savings and said, Okay, let's let's do this.
You had an opportunity to so
How explain what you were buying.
I mean were you buying
Product were you buying.
Uh like what
We purchased formulations.
We had the rights to the name of the brand. We there was a bunch of inventory that we could purchase. Um
Old marketing materials.
The website.
It's kind of amazing because you probably were able to
to to acquire it for pennies and the dollar. So
It's
I mean, on the one hand I'm sure, you know, it wasn't nothing, but
Um you had an opportunity to buy this brand that
Had been a billion dollar
Brand.
Yeah. And so
So for you as a no brainer or no brainer may not be the right term, but for you is like
Absolutely. This is I've the I've got to do this.
I wouldn't say it was a no brainer in that
It was really scary for me financially to do it and
And I didn't have a plan and it wasn't something I was anticipating doing. And what I signed up to do, which was a turnaround
'Cause it's very different thing than buying the assets of a business and trying to figure out how to navigate it all on your own. But I did
and do still believe very much in the importance of the work and so I made that decision.
And I made it quickly.
And I called a few of my old investors and said, Look
If we're gonna do this like we gotta
Pull some money together in the next forty eight hours.
And they were like, No problem.
All right, so you um
I mean you can't when you
Acquire the assets, it's not that you're gonna keep it going, because there's no cash to do that, presumably.
Like you've got to let it you've got to dissolve the company or the
Staff, I don't know. What did you have to do? Well there was no money, so uh and and
And we did have to b you know, pay the bank something. So I um when I was going through the process of acquiring the assets, I thought for a hot second that we could somehow continue operations. But that was
Naive because
the cost has so far exceeded the amount of capital. Yeah. So I ended up having to
Let go of
the majority of the associates for the company, uh, without
Severance or health insurance, which was
Horrendous.
And
And so I I did that. I held on to it.
And I said, Listen I
I I can't promise I can pay you, but if you want to
stick around. Like I hope I'm gonna be able to have a small team.
And announced it on May first that we were
closing down the company.
But you had acquired the asset, so you clearly
You are not gonna just
buy this thing and and then let it go. You y you I have to assume you you start to think about what you were going to reconstitute it as.
Correct.
I've I
Bought the business.
I literally had a meltdown, um, because I had I was really scared and I hadn't I didn't have a plan.
Usually when you're a founder or CEO, you have a plan, but when you
make a decision to buy assets in twenty four hours, you don't have a plan. So I had to
So and I and I didn't and I knew I couldn't go forward in the way that the old business had gone forward and uh there are a million things that had to happen. So
I do think as difficult as decision was, it was the right decision to shut that company down and to let that chapter close. And
to take the time to start a new company. We did some research on what had worked and had not worked, where the market had shifted because
What was really innovative and exciting about
beauty counter when I launched it in March of thirteen was not
But it was a totally different world and
I mean everything had changed. And so I knew that
I needed a new company.
It needed to come out in a new and fresh way. And so I had to reimagine everything. It wasn't like oh let's just relaunch beauty counter. No. We need to start afresh because
Things are different.
And the plan with counter is similar. I mean also to use
Affiliate.
Sales reps.
Um
But also have direct to consumer also to be in shops. What's what's is a similar multi channel strategy?
Well, we do have regular affiliate relationships.
P you know, we're on
Platforms like Shop My
We have our s one of our little stores that we used to have on Nanteco, which will be opening again this summer, and of course our e-commerce platform, which is driving the majority of our sales today. But
Um
We do have
A community of women we call brand partners, but one key differentiation is that they they cannot build teams. So they are paid
exclusively on commission on the s their own sales and mostly they're selling online or on TikTok or wherever they are. Uh Instagram and they
Uh
building this community with us that will help us to continue
to really fight for
a s a standard for clean because clean means nothing today. And yet to me it means everything to us. It means everything. And so I would really like us to fight to create a new standard that everyone
can understand so that if something is marked clean that you actually know what clean means.
I I'm curious, did you I mean, Beauty Counter was an established brand, right? And and you've seen
You've seen this with like I like I think of guest jeans. Like Guest Jeans was a huge brand in the eighties and it's still around, but it's
Yeah, it's owned by some other company that owns twenty brands or something, or like you know, Timberland and and and there are a few others like that.
Um
Did you ever think about
Keeping the name Beauty Counter just relaunching it.
Did did anybody say, Hey, you know, you've got the brand already, why
Why go to counter? Why not just you paid for it? Why not keep it?
Yeah, we had lots of conversations about it and
You know, beauty counter the name was always the intended double entendre of going counter to the beauty industry. That's where it came from.
And I think that we really wanted to put counter first.
Uh, because that's really what we've always done is gone counter to industry norms.
Uh I think that
I also just wanted a fresh start.
But you still own Beauty Counter. If you wanted to, you could still you could actually spin it out and
If you do whatever you want with it. I could.
Maybe I will. Hadn't thought of that, but thank you for the good idea.
Yeah, I'm curious when you think about I mean it's it's an amazing journey, right? That you you've got you had
Done a lot of things.
In your career.
And
You have had a lot of success. You had a lot of failures, which is awesome. I mean, I think everybody needs the the failures make the success a sweeter.
Um
How how much of of what you
Accomplished.
Uh do you attribute to the
to the grind and the and how much do you think had to do with
I don't be lucky, we get the right place at the right time.
I think it's all of the above. I think that timing
More than luck, I think market timing is important. I think my my first company, The Wedding List, we were a little too early. I think if we were maybe a year later or two years later, things might have been different. And I think when I timed
Beauty counter, I think we timed it really, really well. So I do think luck does come into it. I do think that to be successful in business or in anything requires
An inordinate amount of hard work, of determination, of consistency, of resilience.
I don't care whether you're trying to play football or you're trying to
Um build a beauty brand or anything. It requires
Just unending hard work, and I always say to people, overnight success as a founder is ten years twenty four seven.
That to me is overnight success.
That's Greg Renfrew.
Founder and CEO of Beauty Counter.
And now
Just
Counter.
Hey, 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 if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please do sign up for my newsletter at guyros.com or on Substack.
This episode was produced by John Isabella with music composed by Ramteen Arablui.
It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Nor Gill.
Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.
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