Stairway to CEO

• What it was like growing up with three sisters and entrepreneurial parents in Pasadena, California and how living in an entrepreneurial household gave her the drive to start her own business
• Why she believes her nurturing personality has helped the growth of True Botanicals 
• What her time working in marketing at Levi’s taught her about marketing and communication
• How following the death of her beloved mother led her to take the leap into entrepreneurship
• What the grueling process of fundraising was like and how she continued to push through it and why she deems it important to be selective
• What she’s learned about herself in the hiring process, and why managing optimism is important
• What she believes makes a great leader, what she’s learned about hiring the right people, and why it’s important not to sweat the small stuff

https://truebotanicals.com/

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“I really enjoyed connecting and I feel the power of marketing is to connect with potential customers.”

“There's no question to me that whole nutritive ingredients could make beautiful and extremely effective products.”

“My goal was to create products that were so beautiful and effective, that even if you did not care at all about using clean products, you would want to use our products.”

“Over the years, I've learned how to not think too much about the past or the future, and to really respond in the moment to the opportunities that are there and, what's the best path forward and each day sort of answering those questions.”

“The goal in the end is that this entire industry changes to better serve the health of people on the planet.”

“The key is to be incredibly selective about the people that ultimately invest in your company, because you will be interacting with them for a very long time”

“Just because you connect with somebody doesn't mean you necessarily have an aligned vision around how to grow the business.”

“I've learned that it's a lot easier to let go when you really trust somebody and you feel aligned with their vision around how to build the brand and grow the business.”

“Some founders are the founders who are meant to scale a business, and hire a team of a hundred people to run it. I am not that person. I am definitely more drawn to the creative process of researching, learning, and growing.”

“I would say productive, direct communication and not sweating the small things is incredibly valuable, and it's brave. It's brave to talk about things that are uncomfortable.”

“Just knowing that the challenges will come and keeping my knees bent, you know, meeting them with my best thought processes and problem solving skills is really the best you can do and, and rolling with it”

“The lesson I had to learn the hard way was knowing when it was the right time to make my transition from CEO to founder and bringing in the right person to help scale the business.”

“Hire someone amazing and then give them the room to do their amazing work.”

“Expecting some challenges and being ready to meet those with a lot of flexibility and determination is just part of it. So if, if you're up for both sides, you know, the freedom and the hard work and the challenges, then I can't think of a better career.”

• What is was like growing up in a holistic household, having a thirst for knowledge and dreaming
• How having the thirst for knowledge led to her getting three different degrees and starting her career at Microsoft
• What she learned in her time at Target in her many different roles and how that taught her how to scale her business
• What led her to creating Rae and collaborating early on with Target
• How the name Rae came to be for the brand and why she was so against it at first but realized it was actually the perfect name
• What she's learned from fundraising and where she sees Rae going in the future years to come

https://raewellness.co/

“Target is one of the most incredible companies from a leadership perspective. What that means is there is so much inherent focus on the human, as well as the business, and they're really, really balanced in their approach.”

“Prioritization and discipline are my biggest challenges. You can do ten things okay, or you can do three things exceptionally well and get them over the finish line and execute really well.”

“Once your life becomes more full, you're almost pushed into a place of prioritization and discipline and kind of reassessing that list.”

“I just kept saying, I don't know where I'm going. And I don't know what I'm doing, but I believe for the first time, and maybe forever,  I figured out my why, and that is personally and professionally needing to chase wellbeing. Not only for myself, but for a lot of women that I knew felt the same way.”

“I had an idea and I was really heads down in pursuit of figuring it out and seeing how big it could be, but for me to impact lives and to make a viable business model with unit economics and all of those things, I knew I had to build the business model around scale so that I could get that amazing product at the price that I know so many, so many women deserve.’

“I wanted to create a brand that helped women realize wellness doesn't have to be a full-time job. It doesn't have to be expensive and it should be for everyone.”

“I do believe some of it is serendipity and luck and, if you want to call it manifesting or whatever it is for you, but I also worked my tail off to find that manufacturer. I would say it's intertwined.”

“There are tremendous barriers to scale and it's really hard to scale and especially to get into retail right now. So the more you can, go fewer, deeper, bigger, and have a collaborative conversation.” 

“As an entrepreneur, it's our job to bring things to the world that don't exist.” 

“Part of raising capital is finding your pocket of people that support what you do and getting one person to bet on you. That starts the domino effect with momentum.”

“It is so important to live your truth and be yourself.”

“​​Take how long you think it's going to take, figure out how long you think it's going to take. And don't two exit five exit, because that's really how long it takes to get the confirmation or to figure out the system to do that or the process. For all those reasons,it's the belief that it will all work out, but the patience to get there is really, really hard. And I'm constantly learning that.

So you're not alone if you're really struggling with your own patience level.”

• His journey from growing up in Vancouver struggling in school to ending up in finance for college 
• What he learned from his internship at Credit Suisse that helps him in what he does today
• How his time traveling the country while working in finance pushed him to create something he was passionate about, The Naked Market
• Why The Naked Market chose to create a collection of brands rather than create a single brand
• How they think about launching different brands and all the elements that go into it
• The advantage of having multiple brands under a conglomerate and how he leverages learnings from each brand for next one
• The challenges and lessons learned in starting The Naked Market and how he wishes he would’ve started sooner
• What's next for The Naked Market and some of the opportunities they see in the market

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https://www.thenakedmarket.com/

“One of our aspirations is to build the next big food and beverage conglomerate and not build the next big brand.”

“If we see a brand that will integrate very well into the ecosystem that we have built, then we definitely will be opportunistic acquires.”

“We've been very fortunate where, you know, food and beverage historically had much lower e-com penetration than other retail channels. That's really changed in the last 12 to 18 months.”

“Rob’s Backstage Popcorn is our first ever celebrity joint venture. This is a brand that was created with the Jonas Brothers. They'd been eating this popcorn backstage since 2011. They came to us ahead of their tour and asked us to turn it into a brand and consumer product that all of their fans and others could enjoy.”

“We officially launched at the end of 2019, our initial approach, we were going to be much more omni-channel in nature. Because of the circumstances of 2020, it really forced our hand to be an e-com first company.”

“We've got a couple other big celebrity partnerships heading, one before the end of the year, and one in Q1, we've got an exciting line of candy products that are coming to market next year, and a really cool plant-based snack that we're really excited about.” 

“A big reason why we've chosen this portfolio approach to manage multiple brands is just the wide spread opportunity we see across the shelves of grocery stores and a lot of the non-sexy categories that people overlook.” 

“We thought we had such clear communication, and that we were clearly communicating exactly what we wanted the company to do, and where we wanted the company to go. But it very clearly wasn't felt throughout the organization and we weren't doing a good job at communicating.”

“Your day can start as the best day of your life at 8 in the morning, and at 11:00 AM you get an email with an unexpected twist and turn that that you just never saw, which put you at such a low, to only three hours later, have it get fixed and be back to normal. The emotional rollercoaster is unbelievable, it’s indescribable.”

“Expect the unexpected. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. And when things don't go your way, rather than harp on them, find a way to fix them.”

“It's really a rip the bandaid off moment. And my general view is if you've been thinking about it for a significant enough period of time, then you just gotta dive into it and make the leap of faith.”

“If you’re thinking about it, pull the ripcord, life is short and in the grand scheme of things, nothing even really matters. Optimize for impact happiness and, and stop making excuses.”

• How he grew up as a first-generation Britt in West London with his immigrant parents
• How being unsure of what he wanted to do throughout college led him to investment banking and his internship at Goldman Sachs
• What his time at Goldman Sachs taught him throughout his internship, and into the 10 years of his career spent there
• Some of the takeaways he learned at Goldman Sachs and how he’s used them in creating Innermost
• What led him to taking the entrepreneurship jump from his career to starting Innermost
• Where the idea for the name Innermost came from and how, as soon as he heard it, he jumped on it 
• How he sold his product into boutique fitness studios to help grow his business 
• His beliefs on entrepreneurship and how to push through it with confidence 

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https://www.liveinnermost.com/

“You want people who are self-starters, who just get things done.”

“You gotta make this stuff happen. Like, you are really only limited by the limits of your imagination. Just make it happen. Sometimes force of personality. If you want something bad enough, go after it.”

“There's a huge body of evidence out there to suggest how different kinds of food, different ingredients, can support your health and fitness in real ways.”

“Health, nutrition, and fitness, was super important to me at the time when I left Goldman's, and at the time that was a real trend in the market”

“I decided there's an opportunity here. Let me create a brand, call it Innermost, and let's go and take a really finance backed up approach to nutrition, but let's incorporate lots of natural ingredients and create some amazing hero products that really cater to people's modern wellness needs.”

“Innermost is actually a word, meaning the inner most thing within something. For me it felt like it alluded to the fact that how products are nutritional supplements and more than just the basics, there's more in them. And then also alludes to the individual, getting more out of yourself.”

“What we've done is really take some of the smartest nutritional science out there, and then combine them into products, which are super intuitive and aligned with people's individual goals. So it's less of a one size fits all approach. It's more of a, okay, I want to have some protein and actually let me choose the one that's right for me.”

“I would be completely kind of tenacious and super focused on making sure they understood our positioning, our branding, why we were different in the market, why the products were amazing, and why the branding was great.”

“No one is going to give you anything, you have to go and get it.”

“Stay humble. There’s always more to learn and getting carried away with your success is probably the first step in a downward spiral. So keep evolving and aim for the stars. Obviously believe that you can achieve it and drive for it and don't stop going, but, but stay humble.”

• What it was like growing up with his parents, brother, and sister in California, to going through his parents long divorce at age of 10, to moving in with his brother at the early  age of 14
• How living with his brother at 14 taught him a lot about life and helped him grow up faster with having to pay for his own food, clothes, and other expenses
• How losing his mom to brain cancer ignited his passion for health and wellness
• Why he loved the idea of helping others and helping them create an experience and ritual with tea
• What led him to creating Art of Tea and paving the way in DTC but also B2B with a partnership with Wolfgang Puck 
• How COVID affected Art of Tea, how they grew from it, and altered the way they do B2B
• Why being a little afraid to start something while also being excited means you’re doing the right thing

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https://www.artoftea.com/

“Ayurveda is a form of preventative medicine based out of India, and there's a school in New Mexico that I really fell in love with the alchemy of herbs and teas and botanicals. I ended up going there for a few years and really became advanced in my studies and continued my path beyond that.”

“Tea for me became this way of seeing people connect with it not just because it tastes good, but because there's a ritual behind it, there's ceremony behind it.”

“Tea is a way for people to connect regardless of age and religion and gender, and it's powerful, just leaves and water, but extremely powerful.”

“But really good tea can allow you to mess up a little bit. You can go a little bit over a little under on measurements and heat but it's still delivering an amazing tasting experience.” 

“What we source at Art of Tea is whole leaf tea. We do whole leaf teas and these beautiful corn based microplastic, free sachets, which are stunning and gorgeous. But what we're sourcing as the top 2% of all the teas that are produced in the world are direct from origin, blended and crafted here in our facility in Los Angeles, and shipped out to be of the freshest bioavailable tea in the market.” 

“My number one reason at the time was I had a child on the way. So I was like, okay, I feel like I can kind of reach my max, my threshold, if I go down this job offer path, or I can do the stupid, crazy thing, and start my own company.”

“I really believe over 80% of your success can just be just showing up.”

“So I think what happens is that there's a difference between truth and a belief. What permission do we allow other people that are holding us back in our world? What power and what permission do we have?"

“As a leadership team, we come together, we ask is this a great cultural fit? Is this person a team player? Are they meeting our core values? And if the answer is yes, then all right, we can keep moving in the right direction. If  that the answer is no, we need to be able to make faster decisions. And sometimes it's very challenging.”

“Be really clear on who you want to surround yourself with and who you want on your team.”

“One of the most important lessons is you have to repeat yourself over and over and over again until you start hearing what you're saying back to you, you start sharing the core values, you start sharing the why, you start sharing the what we're doing and how it's gonna impact our website, our customers, our staff, our team over and over again.”

“Take time out to listen to your gut and trust it. Surround yourself with wise people around you. And last is, you talked about being freaked out if it scares you, but if it excites you just a little bit more than it scares you, then you're doing the right thing.”

• What it was like growing up in Seattle, being the daughter of the producers for the hit show, Bill Nye the Science Guy
• How over the course of a decade she accumulated her entrepreneurial skills by creating an organic sorbet, to baking and delivering custom cupcakes
• How never fully understanding what she wanted to do throughout college helped plant the seed of becoming an entrepreneur
• How the loss of her sisters best friend made her and her family think differently about life and helped foster the idea for SkinnyDipped
• How in the early days of SkinnyDipped, Breezy and her Co-Founders would go door-to-door with retailers selling their product
• How getting into Target stores was a challenge at first but they were able to do it within 12 weeks
• How one of the most difficult things SkinnyDipped has faced is hiring and what they’ve learned from it
• All the awesome products SkinnyDipped offers and what lies ahead for them 

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https://skinnydipped.com/

“Food was a natural place to land because food is a big part of who we are as a family. For us, it brings people together and it's about community and gathering where you're a fan of not only good-for-you food, but also equally as delicious and tasty. So that was just kind of a natural match.” 

“This idea or acceptance of entrepreneurship and kind of the unknown that comes with that was just really fostered in our family.”

“I realized in college that I wasn't going to be on a normal path. I'm not sure that I ever said to myself, oh, I'm going to start a business. I think that was kind of like an evolution of that thinking for me.”

“That was kind of the first of a couple of business ventures, where I always say that I started to kind of fill my tool chest with tools.”

“For me and my mom, while in different times of our life, we were in a similar place. We were both ready for a bit of an adventure. We were both ready to grow something. And so we came together and said well, you know, what can we do together as mom and daughter? And that's where the inklings of SkinnyDipped began.”

“It was the marriage of those things that has been part of the magic. And so I think we set out and we started to create the product. It was always in my mind that we were setting out to grow a business. Then we just had to start to put these kinds of initial steps in place to make the dream more of a reality.”

“We originally were Wild Things SkinnyDipped Almonds, and one of our early investors pushed us to pick one of the names. He fought hard for SkinnyDipped, and we all landed there.”

“The name SkinnyDipped did some heavy lifting for us on the shelf because it talks a little bit about the product, for us, skinny has nothing to do with weight or calories. It really refers to a thin layer of chocolate on the nut, or on anything we do now.”

“My biggest strength is probably problem solving during a crisis. So I just did what I do. And I called every single person that I knew in the industry to find a truckload of almonds that somebody would ship to us on a dedicated truck in three days.” 

“We've had to build brick by brick or door by door. I'm proud of that because I think at the end of the day, we've built something real, something genuine, something that will be on the shelf for decades to come.”

“You have to have a thick skin as an entrepreneur. I would say it's a roller coaster ride. It's a series of high highs and low lows. I think one thing that has been instrumental to our, not just our success, but our sanity as humans has been having, sharing this with not only my mom, but my two best friends as co-founders because there's moments where somebody has to pick somebody else up and say, it's going to be okay, we're going to make it.” 

• How most of his childhood was spent outdoors in his hometown near Seattle
• How even as a kid he had an entrepreneurial spirit by upselling pizza slices to his schoolmates
• How his different jobs of working the door at nightclubs in San Francisco, to working in event planning and working music festivals gave him the experience needed to start Evermill
• How cooking and grocery shopping all the time sparked the idea for Evermill, along with wanting a more environmentally friendly spice system with a modern look
• The process of designing the Evermill jars, getting a patent on the idea of self-aligning jars, and putting the product in motion
• How his dream goal for Evermill was to be featured on Oprah’s Favorite Things list and they achieved it
• His lessons learned bootstrapping and now finishing up fundraising 
• What Evermill has coming next and their plans for the future

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https://evermill.com/

Use the code Stairway30 to get $30 off! 

• Text Lee at 310-510-6044

“People spend a ton of money on their kitchens and they just cannot figure this out because it's like it comes from everywhere, and there’s a lot of waste in it, because they buy it for it to be used, then it sits and then they don't know how to use it, or they buy another one because they need it, they don't know if that's fresh or not. So they throw it out.”

“I was very frustrated by the issue of spices and so I started to kind of try and solve that problem.”

“Buying things once and refilling it with a product and packaging, has to account for a lot of ways.” 

“Evermill blend is what we think of as the most universal blend. It's salty, garlicky, it's got a little bit of heat, a little bit of lemon in it. It’s one of those you can throw it on a chicken, you can put it on some fish, you can put it in a salad dressing, roast vegetables with it. It just has kind of a catch all for everything.”

“Then we came up with the teardrop idea of all the jars  self-aligning because if we were going to charge this much for a spice rack and there's going to be this beautiful thing that was so well thought of, I would hate for it to be ruined by misaligned labels.”

“We started this company 13 months ago in October of last year. And our PR was like ‘who's your number one goal?’ And it was Oprah. Oprah’s everyone's number one goal. And then a couple months ago I heard back, asking for us to send more product and we said of course, then shortly after we found out that we were selected.”

“Our ideal customer was a host and just like constantly having people over for dinner, and being a very nurturing, generous host. And so that's who's kind of embodied in and who we want to create products for.”

“In terms of getting a company off the ground, you just gotta do it.”

“I mean, it’s a 24 hour job, you are constantly working, there's not a lot of breaks, there's not a lot of vacations. You can't really. We're a three person company now. So, you know, if someone goes off, there's not a team to watch what's going on.”

“Right now we've got a great set of 12 and 18, and they're the building blocks of most spice blends. So you can build any blend you want from these. So getting to the point where people can choose what they want is their number one piece of customer feedback.”

“Just do it and start and just keep working at it. Just don't give up. It's going to get there eventually.”

• What is was like growing up in Maryland as one of five siblings
• What his experience was like interning at the White House
• How moving to Boston with a new tech startup shifted his career path 
• How being passionate about people and working in the startup world gave him the passion for being a “wantrepreneur”
• How losing his uncle to skin cancer raised his awareness of the disease and increased his mindfulness of wearing sunscreen
• How starting his sunscreen nonprofit, Skin Protection Foundation gave him the idea for starting Bask
• Where Bask is now just 7 months after launching and what they have planned for the future

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https://basksuncare.com/

• Text Lee at 310-510-6044

“I just love people, and that's kind of always been a constant throughout my life.”

“I never knew what I wanted to do growing up.  I was really jealous of those kids that had this profound sense of what they were going to be when they grow up. What I did know was that I wanted to do something impactful, something important.”

“Life doesn't slow down because you're trying to accomplish something with your startup. So you have to deal with all these things when you're the only one who's there to deal with your company. There's something unforgiving about it.”

“I've got a spreadsheet that I'm adding to daily of new business ideas, and it's just something that I have always wanted to do, be an entrepreneur.”

“When I tell people about the starting Bask was, I really kind of stumbled into it.”

“In talking with those entrepreneurs, I just became fascinated with the idea of DTC, and challenger versus incumbent brands, previously assumed to be entrenched categories.”

“One of the things that always stood out to me was skin cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in the United States, more so than every other cancer combined. Despite the fact that it is easily objectively, the most preventable”

“I thought, why can't we build a better-for-you sunscreen that's wrapped in a beautiful brand that's purposeful and intentional, and really appeals to Millennials and Gen Z, and talk about sun care differently in a way that gets people excited about it and then use those proceeds to fund the non-profit”

“We want to end skin cancer. If we build a company that makes it enjoyable and fun to wear sunscreen as opposed to being a chore, we can get sunscreen into so many more people's hands.”

“The thing that we knew was that Bask could not have oxybenzone or octinoxate, there's only 14 active ingredients that you're legally allowed to use in the United States, and those two are used in 80% plus of sunscreen.”

“We want you to be out in the sun, but to do it safely.”

“One of the crazy things about starting your own company is that you are going to do things that you have never done before. Basically every single day, you have to like completely learn something new and then master it because the future of your organization depends on it.”

“It's really frustrating to get the no’s, but you have to be willing to deal with the no’s.”

“Trust in yourself and just do it. There's never a good time, and if you keep waiting for that perfect time, your window will close. So do it. I encourage anybody to make a bet on themselves”

• What it was like growing up in Scranton, Ohio where the hit show The Office, was based
• How growing up being active in sports and performing in front of others carried over throughout his life 
• How his passion for wanting to express himself and entertain others led him to move to New York City
• How losing his first wife to cancer shifted his perspective on life and redirected his dreams towards creating Brrrn
• How the idea for Brrrn came about, starting as a brick and mortar location and shifting to a DTC brand and fitness platform due to COVID
• How Brrrn shifted platforms in 2020 and created an online community for workout classes with the Brrrn slide board

https://thebrrrn.com/

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• Text Lee at 310-510-6044

“Winning builds confidence and losing builds character. I'm happy that I learned how to lose at a I expected to win.”

“I was doing so many different jobs that it became like I had three full-time jobs trying to pursue this one dream.”

“Talking to this Harvard professor, talking about cold being an ally, not an enemy for her to feel and perform her best. And I went home that day I was like, ‘if all that stuff is true, then why aren't people working out in cooler temperatures indoors? Why hasn't there been any cool temperature fitness studio?” 

“The pun burn came to me because of the limited research that I've found that had to do with exposing yourself to cooler temperatures can allow you to burn more calories than you would in hot or ambient temperatures because of what your body has to go through in order to stay warm specifically between the the range of l 41 to 64 degrees fahrenheit.”

“The idea came to me, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's a group exercise, workout program, very similar to what was happening at the time with Soul Cycle but with cold, and we can do winter themed workouts in this fridge.”

“I was grieving the loss of who I was but it gave me a chance to put blinders on and to go 100% into this entrepreneurial track.”

“Anything that's worth having is hard, and obviously not being a stranger to adversity, this just seems like another opportunity to grow.”

“The one thing that we did in our studio was have a slide board. Not only were we innovating the workout environment, we're also changing the way that people moved.” 

“I think the best brands listen to their customers obsessively to improve the end to end experience.”

“The growing pains of pivoting hit you in ways that you don't expect.”

“Just let go and just trust the process. I know how cliche that sounds, but it really does allow things to become more fluid and like listening and taking your time and not feeling like you have to rush into every opportunity and be selective. And also the riches are in the niches.”

“If something's keeping you up at night, answer that call. And before you share it with the world, and ask someone to help make it a reality with you, know that the best thing you can do to compliment what your pursuits are as an entrepreneur, is to be the biggest critic of the thing that you want to do.”

• His entrepreneurial journey from growing up in the Pacific Palisades and what it was like growing up with parents working within the entertainment industry 
• How his mentorship with Keith Ferazzi began and how he continues to learn from him today 
• What June’s hiring process is like and why it’s important for Matt and his co-founder to stay involved in the process
• What the process of June being acquired was like as a business and as the Co-Founder
• The challenges he experienced in the early stages of building June, the fight to get investors believing in their product with no model in front of them, and how he continued to fight for his business. 

https://juneoven.com/

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• Text me at 310-510-6044

“A lot of it is not so much the luck, but surviving long enough to get your timing right.”

“To this day, Nikhil and I, even though June is part of Weber now, we still interview every single person that enters the June world or the connected devices world at Weber, Nikhil and I have to meet every single person.”

“On the tactical side, we do a lot of very technical screening. We sometimes have challenges, quizzes, things like that before people even make it beyond just a phone screen, but by the time you make it to Nikhil and I, we're usually just kind of the culture check, not diving into too deep of tactical or deep questions, but we'd like to make ourselves available and answer questions and be there to be supportive.

“For us, as soon as we kind of delved into this kitchen space, we couldn't unsee it.”

“A lot of this is just not dying and not running out of money before your moment can happen. And timing is everything.”

“Lasting long enough and executing is really, really important.”

“As you learn, as you evolve, as you learn your market, as you learn your value, your company grows with it.”

“You have to have the right amount of blinders on to be able to execute, cause there's hundreds and thousands of reasons why you shouldn't pursue them. So you need to have enough blinders on, to look to the side and gut check yourself and make sure only like mostly insane, not like a hundred percent insane.”