Professional Jealousy Podcast: Founder Stories, Brands and Business Innovation

In this episode of Professional Jealousy, Natasha Jakubowski chats with Rachel Liverman, founder of Glowbar to peel back the curtain on how she turned a 2017 manifestation email into a multi-city skincare empire. Rachel shares why she stripped away the "fluff" of 90-minute massages to focus on 30-minute clinical results, and how she maintains a high-performance culture with over 400 employees.

In this episode:

- The "Ranch House" Philosophy: Why you need a solid foundation before you scale.

- The "Try Three, Then Me" Rule: Rachel’s genius hack for delegating and preventing leadership burnout.

- Legacy vs. Innovation: How she’s honoring her grandmother (the woman who brought esthetics to the US) while reinventing the industry.

- Why Glowbar Says NO to Botox: Staying focused in a crowded "MedSpa" market.

- Fundraising Realities: How she raised her first $1M from friends, family, and former bosses.

[Timestamps]

0:00 - Intro: Meeting the Founder of Glowbar

2:15 - The "Aha" Moment: Why traditional facials are failing consumers

5:30 - Raising $1M: The power of your professional network

8:45 - Building the "DOPEST" company culture

12:10 - The "Try Three, Then Me" delegation rule

15:50 - Why Glowbar won’t do injectables or GLP-1s

22:30 - Skincare trends: Retinol, Exosomes, and Longevity

28:15 - Professional Jealousy: Who does Rachel Liverman look up to?

#Glowbar #RachelLiverman #SkincareBusiness #FemaleFounders #StartupScaling #BeautyIndustry #ProfessionalJealousy #EntrepreneurLife #SkincareRoutine #businessgrowth

In this deep dive, Natasha Jakubowski chats with Monica Molenaar, serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and co-CEO of Alloy Health, a digital health platform revolutionizing how women navigate perimenopause and menopause. Monica shares her powerful personal journey—from a BRCA gene discovery and preventive surgery to the "aha moment" that led her to solve the menopause care crisis.

We discuss the critical role of estrogen in preventing chronic diseases like heart disease and osteoporosis, and why topical estrogen is the "prophylactic" skincare secret every woman over 35 needs to know about. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to scale a mission-driven business or a woman seeking evidence-based solutions for hot flashes, weight gain, and skin health, this conversation provides the roadmap to thriving in midlife.

Video Chapters:

– Why the medical system is failing midlife women.2:15

– The BRCA discovery: How a health crisis became a business mission.7:45

– Founding Alloy: How a chance meeting while walking dogs led to a startup.12:30 – Entrepreneurial Advice: Why you shouldn't worry about people stealing your ideas.17:00

– Scaling a health-tech business: Moving from "gut feel" to data-driven growth.22:15

– The Truth about HRT: Debunking the Women's Health Initiative study.25:40

– Estrogen & Skincare: How to maintain collagen and hydration through menopause.30:20

– Alloy Health’s "Specialist in Your Pocket" model.40:00

– The Future of Consumer-Driven Healthcare.48:20

– Monica’s Longevity Stack: Strength training, protein, and microbiome health.

On this episode, I chat with Dejan Rankovic, co-founder of Man Cereal, a creatine-infused functional food that is low carb, high protein and features this trending ingredient that isn't as ubiquitous as fiber or protein yet. He describes it as "Serious Nutrition" with an "Unserious Name", offering benefits designed to bring health conscious adults back to the cereal aisle.

I was impressed by Dejan’s clarity of intent and ambition. He shared insights into his career path at high-growth environments like Netflix and Dr. Squatch to becoming a first time founder, his advice on fundraising during economic shifts, the mechanics of brand authenticity, and the "gray area" of functional foods.

This conversation included:

- The Power of "Anti-Marketing": rejecting traditional category norms to create differentiation and authenticity, inspired by brands like Liquid Death.

- Solving the ‘creatine problem’ of bitterness and chemical instability that has meant that unlike protein and fiber it has not "maxed out" in food innovation.

- Advice on the getting through the rollercoaster of the fundraising process that ultimately started with friends and family

- His approach to leadership that is influenced by his time at Netflix, where "action is usually more valuable than strategy".

On this episode of Professional Jealousy, I sit down with Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald, the legendary duo behind Levain Bakery. Over the course of 30 years, they have grown from one tiny shop on New York’s Upper West Side to a globally recognized brand famous for its six-ounce cookies (and coincidentally, my son’s favorite treats).

Unlike many modern startups focused on rapid growth, Pam and Connie prioritized a "lifestyle" approach for the first two decades that was all about locale and community. They said that “We grew the business the way that we wanted to live our lives”.

This conversation included:

- Intentional and steady scaling - it took 20 years to become an "overnight success"!

- People-first leadership built with "soul" and human connection rather than spreadsheets.

- Levain’s brand has remained remarkably consistent, with a logo and core identity that has barely changed since 1995.

- Their neighborhood focus and making instinctual decisions that make sense for the brand and community

- Why they decided to take significant investment after 23 years building

- Making the decision to step down as co-CEOs and bring in ‘proper’ operators

Liv Schreiber is an entrepreneur, influencer, and the founder of Camp Social, a unique sleep away camp for adult women designed to help forge new friendships and combat loneliness. Liv shares her entrepreneurial journey that started in college and also includes starting a marketing agency as well as community-focused businesses like Hot & Social events in NYC, all before she turned 30! This conversation included:- Her ambition to create connections IRL in today’s increasingly lonely, digital age.- The importance of friendships, especially as you get older.- The need for authenticity as you create your brand in social media and business.- She has a FIO - "Figure It Out" - approach to life that involves saying yes to opportunities first and figuring out the mechanics later.- Empowering her team and treating them as individual entrepreneurs and experts in their own right.- Tips on how to maintain friendships, such as make a plan immediately when seeing or catching up, and digital reminders for key friendships.- Community over advertising, and invest in real consumer not just influencers- Partnerships to build business and how she plans to expand Camp Social with more locations and types of retreats.

In this episode I chat with Rob Wade, CEO of Fox Entertainment, one of the world’s most recognizable media brands and a prolific content producer including everything from the Simpsons to Gordon Ramsay's Hells Kitchen, The Masked Singer, Bob's Burgers among other blockbuster titles.

I’ve known Rob since University, and remember when he started in media as a runner at Virgin Radio in the UK. As I think about his career trajectory, I am blown away to see him now as the head of global corporation working with the most famous talent and IP in the world.

This conversation included:

- Overview of the media and entertainment landscape

- The impact of technologies like the internet that led to streaming and a proliferation of content

- AI and the "democratization" of content creation

- Fox’s strategic response to a dynamic, fast-changing landscape

- Career path, and success built on ‘hard work and luck’- Approach to working with big egos and personalities in entertainment

- Insights and advice including getting into media, and transitioning into a first CEO role

- Ikigai - a Japanese concept that reflects his view on finding happiness as achieving a balance between what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for.

In this episode, I chat with Annie Jackson, the Co-Founder & CEO of Credo Beauty, a trailblazing retailer that helped pioneer the clean beauty category offering the largest clean beauty assortment in skincare and makeup. Credo is a trusted voice in an under-regulated beauty industry, known for its deep commitment to healthy beauty, challenging conventional ingredient standard, and helping consumers find options that don’t make them sacrifice health for substance.

I was blown away by how smart and humble Annie was. As well as leading the clean beauty charge, she’s also responsible for giving distribution opportunities to many now established beauty brands. Her journey career journey and founding story was both inspiring and interesting.

This conversation included:

• The origin of Credo Beauty and why the consumers deserved this idea

• The importance of ingredient transparency in beauty products

• Her journey from corporate beauty to entrepreneurship

• Dealing with unexpected death of her co-founder

• Growing the business and team, and the importance of company culture

• Learning how to be not just a founder, but a CEO

• Filtering questions for founders picking a CEO

• Social media and its impact on beauty standards

• The future of beauty retail and technology

• That working in beauty as a founder isn’t as glamorous as it may sound!

In this episode I chat with Ben Bashein is CEO of The Skatepark Project, the nonprofit founded by legendary skater Tony Hawk, where he leads the mission to create safe, accessible, and inclusive public skateparks for youth in underserved communities across the U.S. and internationally.

We talked about Ben’s journey from college to world of non-profits including Planned Parenthood and CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort), Sean Penn's disaster relief organization. His journey is interesting as he has specialized in collaborating with talent and influencers to advance philanthropic goals, and is acutely aware of the role that culture can have in marketing and raising awareness and relevancy.

This conversation included:

- The importance of skateboarding for community and personal development- Leveraging culture to enhance nonprofit visibility and impact

- The way to work with celebrity founders like Tony Hawk and Sean Penn- Using partnerships with brands to drive funding and awareness

- Authenticity as key to successful nonprofit-brand collaborations

- The role of storytelling vs. just marketing and fundraising- Investing in nonprofit infrastructure and the need for creative fund-raising strategies

Anam Lakhani and Eve Halimi are co-founders of Alinea Invest, an AI-powered investing app revolutionizing how the next generation builds wealth by transforming investing into an accessible, community-driven experience.

These two women met at Barnard College after interning at major financial institutions like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, where they both realized how confusing and intimidating the world of personal investing was. This led to a class project to build a new type of fintech that ultimately became their successful startup Alinea Invest. This business was designed to particularly connect with women and Gen Z in order to help them build long-term wealth. They’re dynamic and fearless, and have already been named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Consumer Technology and Fintech innovation.

This conversation included:

- Building their startup idea from class project to successful fintech platform

- Understanding the target audience as key to building a successful product for Gen Z

- Risk-taking has been a crucial part of their entrepreneurial journey

- Marketing strategies focus on community and relatable content

- How AI is could revolutionize personal finance and investing

- Advice for fundraising and finding the right investors who believe in your vision

- Maintaining mental health as entrepreneurs

Anam and Eve were professionally jealous of Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb for being so well designed to serve its consumers, and Vlad Tenev, co-founder of Robinhood for the incredible product velocity the platform has achieved.

#podcast #careeradvice #branding #genzmarketing #finance #fintech #fintechinnovation #fintechstartups #inspiredleadership #inspiringwomen #entrepreneurship #founderstories #founderpodcast #startupfounder #scalingstrategies #consumerinsight #consumertrends #femaleentrepreneur #brandstrategy #innovationleader #innovation #financialfreedom #financialliteracy

Jake Bullock is the Co-Founder & CEO of Cann, the THC-infused social beverage company revolutionizing the way people socialize by providing a range of microdosed beverages that serve as alcohol alternatives made with simple, all-natural ingredients.

Before taking his entrepreneurial leap, Jake was an associate at Bain Capital’s North American Private Equity fund evaluating potential investment opportunities with a specific focus in the consumer space.

Our conversation included:

• Disrupting the social beverage monoculture a new alternative to alcohol

• The changing ways people are socializing

• The challenges of innovating in a regulated market

• Using learnings from his private equity background building the Cann brand from the ground up

• Prioritizing product quality and a strong d

• The importance of building a brand for retail vs. ecommerce

• Focus on innovation over replication as it’s better to fail with something innovative rather than "boring"

• Insights into modern fundraising as a startup founder