Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Building a clean beauty empire for 20+ yrs with LATHER founder, Emilie Hoyt

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Building a clean beauty empire for 20+ yrs with LATHER founder, Emilie Hoyt · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Emily Hoyt for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Rasheen, and joining me on the show today is Emily Hoyt, a seasoned entrepreneur of 20 plus years who founded her clean beauty empire, Latha, in 1999. What started as a company to solve Emily's terrible migraine troubles slowly but surely grew into a full-blown skincare company that's taken her down the entrepreneurial path to success.
• 0:39
  We're covering how she bootstrapped her business and found creative solutions to problems she faced with financing along the way, why she never took on VC money, and the learnings along the way she wished she knew. And you know the drill. While I've got you here, please do rate, subscribe, and review the podcast to help other ears find us. This is Emily for Female Startup Club. Emily, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Female Startup Club today.
• 1:08
  Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. I'm super excited. I wish I had a resource like this when I was starting out. So I'm thrilled to be here. Me too. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm eager to go back to your life way back before you started Leather and to learn about that time in your life before you launched the business and what led you to starting the business. Yeah.
• 1:35
  Right. Well, when I was growing up, really starting at a young age, like five, I think was my first one. I had very severe migraine headaches and I was my life was quite interrupted by these. They would happen a couple of times a month and I would get very sick and miss school, have to stay in bed all day. And the sad thing was we lived my house was right next door to my school.
• 2:04
  And my parents thought it was great when they bought the house because we just ever since we started, we just literally walked out the door down the sidewalk and to the school. But during the days that I had migraines, I would hear all the kids playing right up against our fence and all the activity going on. And a lot of my early memories are just amazing.
• 2:25
  hearing what I was missing out on. And then later that night, hearing the family at dinner and hearing my brother and sister playing. And there was a real sense of loneliness and sadness, which later as I
• 2:41
  As I got older, I began to get very frustrated and angry on why I was missing out on so many memories and so many fun things that I would later hear about the next week at school. And it became harder also to keep up with my schoolwork because the content got more challenging and I had more days, like three days in.
• 3:04
  in bed, then it became more difficult to catch up. So I became really motivated to find a solution and take more control and find a way to gain these days back. And in doing so, going to this amazing doctor, neurologist, who had me keeping journals and notating what I ate, whether if I felt stressed,
• 3:32
  to try to find patterns and maybe isolate certain triggers that I could have more control of. And what I discovered was that I was very affected by,
• 3:49
  needies. And so if I was in the car with a friend and her mom, I would often develop those kind of first feelings of the indicating that I might be getting a really bad migraine. I started to isolate the times when that happened. And then that led me deeper. And I decided to take
• 4:11
  all perfumes and any kind of beauty product that had the word perfume or fragrance in it out of my house and my environment for a test. And I discovered that I did much better. So then that led me to be like,
• 4:31
  really energized and excited that I kind of had this one thing I could have power over. And I began to really look at ingredients everywhere I went.
• 4:44
  for different beauty products to try to see, oh, can I use this or not? I, you know, was 13, maybe 12, 13, very into my hair, my makeup. And so I was getting into that time of life. I'm very excited. You want to wear the perfume. Yeah.
• 5:03
  I wanted to be part of that rite of passage with the blue eyeshadow and everything. And when I looked at the ingredients of what I could use and the different shops that I was going to with my mom or with my sister, you know, I discovered that whether it was a super expensive, fancy product or something that I found with my sister, I discovered
• 5:34
  it was the same ingredient list. And I was really shocked. I was like, wait a minute, I had just seen this. It was the same, the same four ingredients ending with the word fragrance or parfum, which is the inky word. But that was a real eye opener to me. And I felt like
• 5:57
  do people know this? You know, why would they, why are they spending, it was being this young girl realizing that, you know, this industry is manipulative and that the only real difference was their packaging and their advertising, their supermodels or whatever, and the different kind of claims they would make, but it was exactly the same. And it also was like, oh, well, not only is this
• 6:27
  lies. There's no variety. Nobody's using anything else. And it became, I could, I could find certain things that didn't have fragrance and were unscented.
• 6:39
  But they were anything special or unique or fun. And it just, it started me on a journey. And that is what I think set me up to start Lather. That's so crazy to have these realizations at such a young age and to really identify that there's a big problem for you in your life that potentially other people are also suffering from.
• 7:06
  and not being able to find a solution. Right. It's a really interesting time of your life to start there. Right. And it wasn't only that frustration that I couldn't find a solution. I also felt like, do all women know this? Should they know that they're spending, you know, a lot of money on something that's the same? I just felt this frustration.
• 7:33
  I felt like I wanted to tell everybody and I was sure that they would be shocked. I even remember thinking, do the companies know this? Do they know that everybody is using the same exact list and pretty much formula all across for everything? So, yeah, it evolved, I think, as I got older. And, you know,
• 7:58
  During that time, going to college, there were some really amazing, beautiful new beauty companies out there that were using essential oils, began to learn about essential oils. I mean, this was...
• 8:15
  you know, Body Shop, Aveda, a few. They were mostly using things that we find everywhere now, like lavender, rosemary, mint. But for me, it was really inspirational. And I began to research into essential oils more and began to research into, you know, what other cultures use and
• 8:45
  for something else. After college, I worked in public relations focused on nonprofits. So I worked with the state of California
• 9:00
  the LA Gay and Lesbian Center for HIV AIDS Awareness. And I really worked every day at trying to frame arguments to change behaviors and to spread awareness about different issues that might affect your life. And it was fulfilling, but I kept going back to
• 9:23
  to skincare, haircare, beauty products. And what I was seeing at the time where my friends in the group I hung around with in our 20s, we were going to the gym, we were trying to be, eat healthy. We were living in Santa Monica and going on runs and going to spinning class. And we were very aware of what we put in our bodies.
• 9:48
  But strangely, I saw a lot of friends still continue to put stuff on their skin that was really unhealthy. And I was just...
• 9:58
  shocked and I was shocked at, you know, we're making a lot of connections between our behavior and how we feel and what's good for us. You know, this was kind of the era where all of a sudden nobody would smoke. And if you were smoking, it was secondhand smoke and you're hurting yourself, but you're hurting people around you. And very conscious of all these things, yet not, it wasn't penetrating into the beauty sector at all. And I, I,
• 10:26
  realized that the skills I had learned working on behalf of different causes could be applied to something that I'm so passionate about and trying to communicate how important what you put on your skin is to your health and how you should be.
• 10:54
  sort of the evolution of why I started Lather and how, yeah.
• 11:00
  How amazing. I'm so interested to learn sort of who, what female leaders or role models were you looking to at that time? Because obviously the internet now, you can go on, you can find absolutely information and inspiration from everyone. You can listen to podcasts, you can be on the school of YouTube, you can be everywhere. But back then, I imagine it's a very different scenario. It's a very different landscape. And I'm wondering if you had people who you were really
• 11:30
  and learning from? Yeah, of course. I think that I come from a long line of really determined, strong-minded women. And so my mother, my older sister, my grandparents, they were all, if you wanted something done, you did it. And I think that the environment I was raised in really...
• 12:00
  I didn't feel that I had any limits or there weren't any expectations of me to be a certain way. But I also didn't think anybody else was going to fix my problems. It was up to me. And then other women, I think, I don't, I'm trying to think if there was any in particular people I looked up to in my industry. I'm not, I'm not sure. And I'm not,
• 12:31
  But I did love being around women leaders of all types. And I think that even if it was professors or teachers I had growing up that I really admired or just people that I'd been introduced to or new and all across the board, I think what inspired me was seeing other people have an attitude and determination that they were going to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to
• 13:05
  up and, and being persistent was the best model that I could have. So sure. And I think feeding off other people's energy and getting that drive from what other people are putting out into the world can certainly spur you on. I want to really talk about the beginning of when, you know, that day where you were like, okay, I'm starting a business. This is it. What happened and how did
• 13:34
  I was doing small gift baskets on the side, putting together, you know, maybe bath salts and a soap and a candle. And this was before Christmas.
• 13:50
  I was making anything necessarily on my own, but I found a lavender bath salt somewhere and a candle that was made with natural ingredients and a soap. And I tried to put it together for birthdays, Mother's Day, things like that. It was very, very small. I'm talking about a couple orders. And then I began to really think about making my own product.
• 14:15
  and how to come up with a small collection and have cataloged a catalog, black and white catalog that I printed at Kinko's.
• 14:25
  and how to really just target my family and friends. But my idea was, well, if they're sending gifts, maybe I can grow this. I mean, and it was true to a small extent, but it was very small, very much a craft business on the side. I was working full time.
• 14:49
  And, you know, I was dating my boyfriend, who's my husband now, who works in the business with me now. But at the time I was dating him and I was, you know, talking about how I could expand this or do a little more. What else could I do? And maybe I could do a body wash. I hadn't done a lot of liquids. So I was trying to kind of figure that out. And, um,
• 15:16
  And he said to me, you know, you are so passionate about this. Why don't you take more of your skills and use them to educating people about the why, you know, and then listening to them create the right products. And that really inspired me. And I knew I did have the skills from work.
• 15:40
  on how to communicate, how to put together graphs and charts and easy to digest information.
• 15:48
  I began to think about it. I went to a night class at UCLA, a UCLA extension class on writing a business plan, which was completely foreign to me. And I went through each section for myself and really worked at it and learned kind of the basics of maybe launching my own business.
• 16:12
  It was 1998. And by 1999, I had made the decision, I want to take this chance. I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to work at this full time.
• 16:25
  talk to my parents, which was, you know, my dad was excited and thought like, great, try it for a year. And my mom was like, why are you giving up a good job? And I just decided that I would take a year and I would put everything I can into it and see where, where,
• 16:51
  into and, and all of the challenges. When I, when I look back, I just, you know, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And, and, and I did that. And that's how I started. I began to learn more about making more products. I became friends with a chemist. I did some extra runs. I,
• 17:15
  I began to really work on the branding and my goal was to wholesale and I could wholesale these and this would be great. And what I found was my ingredients that I was using and the
• 17:31
  The run size, I was doing small runs. I couldn't afford anything else. And the packaging, I mean, my labels were all made, again, I believe at this point, still at Kinko's. And I think it was so expensive. And the back then, 1999, the barrier of entry for an independent beauty brand launched by a 23 year old, it was impossible.
• 17:59
  It really was. I would go around to the stores and you had to compete. And back then the packaging was amazing. I mean, there were Benefit Cosmetics, I remember, and Fresh was a brand new company and their packaging was beautiful. And I couldn't afford to have this beautiful packaging and the ingredients I were using would make it so that the price I would, the customer would pay would be too much. And I would really only...
• 18:27
  be offering these products to a very wealthy consumer. And that wasn't my goal. So I had decided after kind of feeling defeated, well, if I had my own store in an area that had a lot of traffic, I could have a captive audience. I wouldn't need to spend as much on packaging. I could spend the bulk of the ingredient on the products. It wouldn't be competing on the shelf against it.
• 18:56
  I would be controlling the educational environment. And so I began looking for a storefront, but that was very difficult because nobody wanted to lease to me. But I finally found one in Pasadena and it was beautiful. And we moved in, but then I realized I didn't have enough products to fill a whole store, which seems so obvious, but, you know, and then I had to make more products quickly and
• 19:26
  But so I just learned by doing that. But I really grew. I think that one decision to open my own store and have a controlled branded environment changed the trajectory of my business. Because once I did that, I was able to develop these deep customer relationships and most importantly, watch customers interact.