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Shauna Lahiri: The Customer Is the Strategy · #WisdomOfWomen Show

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Wisdom of Women show.
• 0:02
  We are dedicated to amplifying the voice of women in business.
• 0:06
  A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voices of women leading the way.
• 0:13
  I am your host, Coco Salman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.
• 0:21
  Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path to unlocking opportunities and prosperity for women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.
• 0:33
  Today we have a beauty industry queen maker in our midst.
• 0:40
  Shauna Lahiri is a transformative beauty brand builder with more than 20 years of experience turning bold ideas into billion dollar caliber brands.
• 0:53
  Having driven Guthy Runker's international division to 450 million in under six years while stewarding icons like Proactive Wen and Meaningful Beauty.
• 1:06
  Today she is the president and partner of no Makeup Makeup, where alongside beauty pioneer Victoria Jackson and longtime partner Kim Wildman, she has scaled a groundbreaking, multi award winning brand from inception to market leadership in under two years
• 1:25
  and earned the distinction of the first fragrance ever named to Oprah's Favorite Things.
• 1:31
  What makes Shauna a must listen for visionary founders is not just her mastery of omnichannel scale, but her conviction that trust based exceptional cultures are the true engine of innovation and lasting market leadership.
• 1:49
  Welcome, Shauna.
• 1:50
  Well, Coco, thank you so much for having me today.
• 1:53
  I'm so excited to be on this.
• 1:55
  Thank you for that incredible introduction.
• 1:57
  Yeah, I'm tired already listening to it because it's like so over so many decades.
• 2:03
  I know.
• 2:03
  It says 20 years that I've been in the industry.
• 2:07
  30 years.
• 2:08
  Wow.
• 2:09
  30.
• 2:09
  Officially.
• 2:10
  Yeah.
• 2:11
  How do we get there?
• 2:12
  It happens so fast.
• 2:13
  I feel like, you know, I agree.
• 2:15
  So trying to tell us what is a book written by women that has significantly influenced your life?
• 2:23
  I was trying to settle on one.
• 2:25
  This one's going to be a little unusual because one of them is a business book and one of them is not.
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  And then one of them is just an author that I love.
• 2:32
  So I'm going to kind of give you all three.
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  So something that really impacted me early on was an author named Louise Hay.
• 2:40
  And she's not a.
• 2:41
  She's not a typical business author.
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  She's someone who is very, very much about bringing affirmations into your life, finding the worth and the love for self into your life.
• 2:52
  And she wrote a book called you can heal your life.
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  And this book for me came into my life at a time where I was going through a lot of struggle, a lot of upheaval and I had a lot of negative self talk and I think a lot of
• 3:07
  people go through that.
• 3:07
  And the reason I loved this book so much, it was kind of like resetting how you talk to yourself and how to speak to yourself with love, with worth, with value.
• 3:18
  And it's where I learned all about affirmations before.
• 3:21
  Affirmations were what everybody was talking about and it was still a little woo woo.
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  But I think it's way more mainstream now than it was at the time when I found the book and I really loved it.
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  You can heal your life by Louise Hay.
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  H A Y She's no longer with us, but she was an incredible person and she laid the groundwork for a lot of this kind of self worth building, affirmation based type thinking and how.
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  She built an enterprise.
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  Enterprise.
• 3:46
  Hay House.
• 3:47
  Oh yeah.
• 3:47
  Hay House is huge, right?
• 3:49
  And now it's a massive publishing engine for so many people that are in the self help, self worth kind of, kind of circle.
• 3:56
  And then my, the other author, which people will be very familiar with, but I love her, is Brennan Brown and her, her book Daring Greatly.
• 4:05
  And I really love that because she articulated why empathy and vulnerability are such important traits in leaders.
• 4:16
  And again, like, you know, I'm a Gen Xer.
• 4:20
  You go back to when I was coming up, empathy and vulnerability did not enter into the equation whatsoever.
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  And if you were a female leader and you wanted to be taken seriously, you didn't talk about those things.
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  Those were not words that were used in the business lexicon whatsoever.
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  So I thought it was so great to see someone so publicly articulating what powerful attributes those are for leaders and why it's so important to have that and it's a superpower and how no one talks about it.
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  And so I really enjoyed that book.
• 4:51
  And then I'm going to slip this in because it really means something to me that Maya Angelou is one of my favorite writers of all time.
• 4:57
  And my favorite quote comes from her and she says I have to read it properly.
• 5:02
  People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
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  And that has been something that's driven me my entire career and everything I've done with my teams, with, you know, co workers, with other people in my life.
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  I remember that every time in every interaction.
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  That's deep wisdom, right?
• 5:24
  And what an extra you asked, so I came for.
• 5:28
  Oh, I love it.
• 5:29
  And so my next question, tell us three moments that have shaped who you are.
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  I didn't come from a super Financially stable background.
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  I hustled and worked and made my way through, through school and through degrees and everything, working three jobs.
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  But the one thing that I remember is the leap.
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  I'm Canadian, born in Canada, and I hadn't really traveled very much in my youth.
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  My family didn't have the money to do that and barely been on a plane and whatnot.
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  And then at a very young age, I got this opportunity to go to California and work in California.
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  And I had not been.
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  I just knew this glamorized idea of what Southern California was.
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  And all I knew is I wanted to go.
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  Except the stage for how the rest of my life went was this idea of taking big risks.
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  And at the time, for me, that was a big risk.
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  I was leaving everyone I ever knew.
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  I was leaving everyone that I, you know, my family, everything.
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  And I was in my early 20s and I bought a plane ticket one way, one of the only one way plane tickets I ever bought back then.
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  And I rented an apartment online back then, the very, very early 2000s, and came to California and took a job here, totally outside of my comfort zone.
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  New place, country people, everything.
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  It was such a moment in my life because it changed everything for me.
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  That move, it set into motion this, this career in beauty that I have had.
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  And it has been so rewarding and it's spanned now almost 30 years.
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  And it set me up for this idea that you have to take risks.
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  But for me, it started the cascade of everything that happened in my life and this career that I was able to blossom into and a lot of tough learnings, like when you're on your own like that, when you
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  have no net, no safety net, no financial safety net, no one's coming to save you and you gotta figure it out on your own.
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  And it for me was that they throw you in the pool and you learn to swim.
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  That was the first thing that created this idea that you have to have faith in yourself and you have to trust yourself and you have to have absolute faith when you jump off the cliff that you're gonna get
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  your wings on the way down and figure it out on the way down.
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  It was really a game changing part of my life.
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  It put me on the path to the career that I have now.
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  Who doesn't love living in Southern California?
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  I was so amazed by the beaches and the palm trees and the life that people had there and the pretty cars and everything.
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  It was just something I was not used to.
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  And it made me want to succeed.
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  And I started to see the beauty Industry.
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  It bolted me into the beauty industry, and it's where I've stayed for almost 30 years.
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  It's beautiful.
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  That's amazing.
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  So you had this big moment of leaping and yourself in la, and so tell us what.
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  What's your next moment that has shaped you?
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  Oh, well, the next one's not nearly as.
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  As fun as that one.
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  I had the situation.
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  I was well into my career at this point.
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  This was about five, six years ago, and both my parents became very ill at the same time.
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  My mother was diagnosed with dementia and my father, at an absolute peril path.
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  His physical health started to decline.
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  And here I am, I'm an executive at a big company.
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  You're doing a million things, and all of a sudden you're thrust into the role of caretaker and you're grappling with this knowledge that someone that you love so deeply and so desperately is starting down a path of slipping
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  away.
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  Yeah.
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  And the absolute agony of that, like, I can't quite put it into words, what a shift in my mind that made.
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  Because when you're in a career, you have family, you have children, you have all kinds of things, but that you're put into a caretaker position with someone who used to take care of you, it was one of the
• 9:52
  saddest and most debilitating, most humbling experiences of my life.
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  And then it created this environment that I had to overcome, because here I am, an executive getting 35 phone calls a day from my mother because she didn't remember that she had just spoken to me.
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  I'm trying to be there for her at all times.
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  Day, night.
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  I'm trying to organize now, care for her and my father and manage all of that and still be completely present when you're in the C Suite, you're 24 7, and you're not supposed to have any weakness.
• 10:35
  You're supposed to be there for everybody else.
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  And this is why I think Brene Brown's book was so important about being able to be honest about vulnerability.
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  I wasn't being honest about my vulnerability at all.
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  I was like, I got this.
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  I got it all on lock.
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  I have everything in balance.
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  Nobody needs to worry about me.
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  And I kept projecting this Persona of I got it all under control and inside I was, like, absolutely crumbling.
• 10:58
  Yeah.
• 10:59
  I have so much empathy for people who are going through this, because I know what I went through for five, almost six years, and it's still not done.
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  My mother is still alive and she's in advanced, the advanced stages, but this situation helped me identify what Kind of people you need around you.
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  Yeah.
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  Because the kind of people you surround yourself with are not going to take advantage of your vulnerability in these times.
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  They're not going to take advantage of it.
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  They're not going to blame you for it.
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  Your work, your co workers, your bosses, the entity, the organization you work for, if they are the right one for you, they will not hurt you or in any way think less of you for having to go through
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  this situation.
• 11:51
  Absolutely.
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  And I remember that now as the president, partner in no makeup makeup.
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  I remember that with my team at every moment.
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  You have to have empathy and you have to have space, create safe space for people to have that vulnerability.
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  Going through that experience really set for me the boundaries of what I will accept and what is required as a leader, what I will accept as a person that is operating within an organization and what I need to
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  be as a leader.
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  Say something more about that.
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  Yeah.
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  What, what is.
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  Where are those edges for you?
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  You know, have to work with people of high integrity and I have to have trust in them.
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  I have to trust them.
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  And trust is earned.
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  Trust is demonstrated in actions.
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  Not by words, not by pretty policies, but it's demonstrated in action.
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  Like how do you.
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  How do they actually behave?
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  How do people actually behave towards you?
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  Not what they say.
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  Not that.
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  I'm sorry.
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  I'm so sorry that you're going through that.
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  And no one deserves that.
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  But what do they do?
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  Are they supportive?
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  Are they carrying water for you?
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  Are they of your back for you?
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  Not there.
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  And not just that, but do they not forget everything that you have done to that point simply because you're going through something now?
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  And this is the thing that comes up a lot in businesses.
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  What have you done for me lately?
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  Right.
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  Like what was the very last thing you did?
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  And that's the only thing that's relevant.
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  And that's not true.
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  Your value is not just rooted in what was the very last thing that you pumped out.
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  It's a cumulative assessment.
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  So if some people, some group, some organization will completely ignore everything that you've done and not give you any grace for what you're going through.
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  That's my edge.
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  Right.
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  That's my hard edge.
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  And then that's the expectation I have of myself for my teams, is what does this person need in this moment?
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  What can I help them with?
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  What can I give to them?
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  Because I can't climb inside their life and solve those problems for them.
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  Sometimes what you can do is simply be a safe place.
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  Yes.
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  For them to know that they're not going to get penalized, that they have somewhere that they can operate within and be able to say, look, I can't make that meeting.
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  I have to go do.
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  Deal with this.
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  Or I have to go deal with that.
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  Or listen, I'm going to be back because I have to take this phone call, you know, or there's.
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  And here's what I'm going to do.
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  And.
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  But I just need, I need your honesty and I need, you know, right.
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  Like I need some.
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  I need just a little bit of compassion, space and empathy.
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  Just a little bit to be able to go deal with these things.
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  So I can still be excellent.
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  Yeah, exactly.
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  So I can still be excellent.
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  Sometimes I just need a little grace over here so I can be excellent over here.
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  Beautiful.
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  And I think that was a massive turning point for me.
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  That learning, that space, that vulnerability and empathy.
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  I need that just as much as I need to give it to others.
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  I need it, too.
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  When you're leading an organization through growth or change or tragedy or crisis, no matter what it is, people need to feel safety.
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  People need to feel longing, acknowledgement, joy.
• 15:14
  It's human factors that if we don't account for them, we will lose out on the ability to really be impactful in people's lives and build great companies.
• 15:25
  There's a connection 100%.
• 15:28
  And I have seen evidence of this.
• 15:30
  It just wasn't so crystallized for me until this point till this happened for me.
• 15:34
  I remember, and this is going back in time, but I remember when the massive earthquake and the tsunami happened in Japan in 2011.
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  Yes.
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  I was running the international marketing department of Guthi Renfrew at the time that we still own ProActive.
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  ProActive was the world's largest acne brand.
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  It's a billion dollar brand in that segment.
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  And we had a huge team in our Tokyo office.
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  And I remember I was supposed to travel to Tokyo, I think it was two or three days later, and the earthquake hit.
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  And our core team, thank God all of them were okay, but they were trapped because everybody takes trains two hours home.
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  They don't live in Tokyo.
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  And our whole team was trapped in the office.
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  They had to sleep and live in the office.
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  Wow.
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  And we would have calls with them so that they had connection with us.
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  We would have calls just to say, hey, you know, what's going on?
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  How are you guys doing?
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  What do you need?
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  And we would try to get supplies to the office, like toilet paper, like food, like candy, anything to make them feel better.
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  Because here they were in this unbelievable Tragedy.
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  And all they needed was a little bit of humanity and a little bit of outreach so that people felt like, we're just going to be on the phone with you.
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  So you hear, you know, people care.
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  People just want to feel safe and they want to feel seen and they want to feel heard.
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  And then when I went through this with my family, my parents, I felt at first like I wasn't receiving that at all.
• 17:10
  I was like, wow, I've spent all my career trying to give this to people, and these people can't muster the basic grace for me and for what I was going through.
• 17:22
  Did that set you up for a change, a pivot in your life?
• 17:27
  Yeah.
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  Kind of leads me to momentous moment number three.
• 17:30
  Because the organization I was with at the time, the behavior was cold and not aligned with me.
• 17:37
  Yeah, it was cold and not aligned.
• 17:40
  I was in the basement of the hospital while my mother was having an mri.
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  They were trying to confirm how advanced her vascular dementia was.
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  And I had to take her because she's not capable of going out anywhere on her own.
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  So I'm with my mother and someone called me about some from the organization that was upset about something.
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  And I was like, I am in the basement of the hospital.
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  I need to call you back.
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  And they proceeded to just continue to go off about the thing that they felt was they were upset about, which was really nothing.
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  But, you know, sometimes inflation of egos off its drama overrides all sense and sensibility and empathy.
• 18:26
  But when that happened, I was like, I am done.
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  Yeah, it was one of these moments where you're just like, that's it.
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  And I left a very senior role, very well compensated, a very prestigious role, because that was not aligned with me any longer.
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  And I have a hard line on it now.
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  I was like, this is something you do not violate with me the fucking.
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  You violate it, we're done.
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  To me, that's basic human decency and there's basic human connection, basic human respect.
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  And it's shocking to me how everyone talks about it.
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  They don't act it, they don't live it.
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  They don't behave that way.
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  They say it for, you know, everyone end up in the cheap seats.
• 19:12
  They'll scream it, but they won't act it when the chips are down as just two people on the phone talking to each other.
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  Right.
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  And that.
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  So actions are everything.
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  Save your words, show it to me.
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  And that's why I tried to do that.
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  I'm no expert at it, but I make such an effort to do that.
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  Because, like I said, I had to leave this role.
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  And it was at a very hard time for me.
• 19:40
  Right.
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  I was going through all this.
• 19:41
  Yeah.
• 19:42
  And I was their income.
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  I was supporting them financially.
• 19:46
  I was taking care of bills and, you can imagine, medical bills and just the amount of care required for both of them.
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  One's got issues over here that are physical.
• 19:57
  One's got issues over here that can't be left alone.
• 19:59
  And just the emotional fallout from all of that, you know, for myself, for my family, for my sisters, everyone that was involved.
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  And so when I left and I made that decision, it was not.
• 20:11
  It didn't feel liberating.
• 20:13
  No, it did not feel liberating.
• 20:15
  Everybody who thinks you're going to feel liberated after these huge decisions that you make for your own soul, it didn't feel liberating.
• 20:23
  It felt like I went and hid under a blanket for three days after that on my couch.
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  I was just like, what have I done?
• 20:29
  Yeah, what have I done?
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  Oh, my God.
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  Have I made a massive mistake?
• 20:34
  I second guessed myself a million times, but in my soul, I knew I couldn't stay.
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  So how did you end up with your journey of no makeup?
• 20:48
  Like makeup.
• 20:49
  Almost a year after, after I left that company, taking care of my parents, and I didn't have any space for anything else, I couldn't look for another role.
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  I couldn't.
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  I really had nothing left in me.
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  No gas left in the tank to do any outreach or anything.
• 21:05
  I thought it was the closest I ever came to a nervous breakdown.
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  I started to really, like, do the self talk.
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  Like, Louise Hay has a great statement.
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  She says, all is well.
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  Everything is working out for my highest good.
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  And out of this situation, only good will come, and I am safe, which I know it by heart because I repeat it to myself anytime something goes haywire.
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  And so I would go on walks every morning.
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  It was my one piece of peace that I could grab for myself in the day.
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  I would go for walks every morning, and I would listen to those types of affirmations.
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  And I was like, something beautiful is coming for me.
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  I am meant for something better.
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  The right people will find me.
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  Right opportunities will present themselves.
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  And I'm walking around like a crazy person with my earbuds in, walking up and down the streets listening to this.
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  And I did it for months, months and months.
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  And then one day, I have this phone call with a beautiful friend of mine, and her name is Kim Wildman.
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  I had known her for 10 years, and she was such a spectacular human being.
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  Just the most Incredible innovator, product developer, brand product innovator I've ever known.
• 22:14
  If you wanted something to win awards, you called Kim.
• 22:17
  And she and I had worked together on JLO Beauty's development.
• 22:20
  We had worked together on so many brands and the Hero skus and the hero products.
• 22:25
  And she calls me and she starts talking to me about this innovation she's been working on.
• 22:32
  And I was like, oh my God, this sounds so cool.
• 22:35
  And we ended up going to lunch all together with a bunch of all the women executives that we had known.
• 22:43
  And we're having, I guess it was dinner technically.
• 22:46
  And she starts telling us all about this company that she's kind of in the very nascent stages of.
• 22:51
  And she starts telling me about this product and I am just like enraptured by it.
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  I'm like, oh my God, this is the coolest thing ever.
• 22:59
  And I go and I order it.
• 23:03
  And their website had just gone live.
• 23:05
  And it was fantastic.
• 23:07
  And I ordered the product, I throw it in my bag, I take it on vacation and I try it.
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  And I'm not lying when I tell you this.
• 23:12
  It was the best thing I had ever used.
• 23:14
  And I work in beauty.
• 23:16
  I have tried it all.
• 23:18
  I've gone from the most expensive things in the world to like, you name it, the newest thing, the dime store, you know.
• 23:25
  Yes.
• 23:25
  And here comes this product that can shock even me.
• 23:29
  Wow.
• 23:30
  And I have another issue, which is that the shade of my skin, I'm not the target market that any of the foundation brands were trying to ever match.
• 23:38
  Right.
• 23:38
  I'm like this little in between shade.
• 23:41
  I am mixed ethnicity.
• 23:43
  And here this goes on and it's just melts and adapts to my skin.
• 23:48
  And I was just like, oh my God.
• 23:49
  So I send her this text that was probably like three pages of scrolling long.
• 23:54
  And I'm just like, you have gold here.
• 23:56
  I'm so excited for you.
• 23:57
  It's amazing.
• 23:58
  Here are all the things I think are fabulous about it.
• 24:01
  Good luck.
• 24:02
  All the best.
• 24:03
  So happy for you.
• 24:04
  And I hit send.
• 24:07
  And then you fast forward a month.
• 24:08
  And she calls me and she says, I want you to come.
• 24:12
  I want you to meet Victoria.
• 24:14
  I want you to get involved.
• 24:15
  I want you to help us.
• 24:17
  You know how to scale brands, you know how to, you know, make.
• 24:20
  Create momentum.
• 24:21
  We need help.
• 24:22
  We created something great, but no one knows about it.
• 24:25
  It's incredible and it's amazing and it's got all the makings to be a legacy brand.
• 24:31
  But how do we potentiate it?
• 24:33
  And this was just over Two years ago and she brought me in.
• 24:39
  I met Victoria Jackson, you know, an icon in the beauty industry and you know, the original person who coined the concept of no makeup makeup way back before everybody else was involved back in the 80s and you know,
• 24:53
  incredible.
• 24:54
  And we started working together and creating this incredible brand and all.
• 25:01
  Everyone got to put their power in.
• 25:03
  Yeah.
• 25:04
  You know, their brilliance, their expertise, their passion.
• 25:10
  Yes.
• 25:11
  And when you've got that kind of alignment, it created so much momentum that really, we don't really talk about it, we don't celebrate it because we're kind of like, you're always busy, like all women are.
• 25:24
  You're always busy pushing and doing and more and push and push.
• 25:28
  And you've got a lot of people out there.
• 25:30
  All they're doing is, well, look at me, look at all the stuff I've done.
• 25:32
  Right.
• 25:33
  We were heads down and we've got a business well into the eight figures and it's doing spectacularly and we're just about to hit our two year anniversary.
• 25:45
  That's freaking crazy.
• 25:47
  I mean, it's really, really unusual.
• 25:50
  You know this because you've been in the beauty business for a long time.
• 25:54
  I mean, I've been in business for a long time.
• 25:57
  It is so hard to divine this into being right.
• 26:02
  So I have to just ask you, like, what has actually drove the success, the speed?
• 26:09
  And for all of the founders who are listening, everybody fighting for their share in a saturated market, what, where should she focus?
• 26:19
  What should she double down on?
• 26:20
  What should she stop wasting energy on?
• 26:22
  How did you do this, Shauna?
• 26:25
  I mean, first of all, let me explain that there is no one way to do anything.
• 26:30
  There is no, there is no one way.
• 26:32
  So there is no playbook.
• 26:33
  And anyone says that there's a playbook, they're full of it.
• 26:35
  Okay?
• 26:36
  Because there is no playbook to this.
• 26:37
  I have launched many brands, some of them with massive celebrities that you think that, oh, it's going to take three posts and we're going to, all we're going to lean into is their social and it's going to sell
• 26:49
  hundreds of millions of dollars.
• 26:51
  No, no, no.
• 26:51
  And I'm going to tell you why.
• 26:53
  It's because the customer is the one who needs to care.
• 26:57
  Yeah, it's the customer.
• 27:00
  It's.
• 27:01
  What does she care about?
• 27:04
  What matters to her?
• 27:05
  Right?
• 27:06
  And what is the key here?
• 27:08
  That for her to tune in, listen up, like, what are you doing for her?
• 27:15
  Not for the spokesperson, not for the spotlight, not even for the brand.
• 27:21
  Right.
• 27:22
  It's, you've got to start with the customer.
• 27:25
  What is the white space for her?
• 27:26
  What is the problem she doesn't even realize she has.
• 27:29
  Yeah.
• 27:30
  That you are going to to try to solve and solve in a way that fits into her life perfectly.
• 27:38
  His life, her life, whoever's life fits into their life perfectly.
• 27:42
  You have to start with that.
• 27:44
  If you start with anything else, it's going to be such a climb because you're not appealing.
• 27:50
  You're trying to push something at them as opposed to letting them pull you in.
• 27:54
  You've got to present something that matters to them and it's always going to start with the customer.
• 28:00
  And I know this sounds, it sounds like a simple concept.
• 28:02
  Yeah, start with customer.
• 28:03
  Sure.
• 28:04
  But I cannot begin to tell you how many brands and how many brands helmed by big names.
• 28:14
  They start with what's important to them, what's good for them.
• 28:17
  They start with their product.
• 28:19
  Right.
• 28:19
  They say, I'm going to sell you my product.
• 28:22
  Yes, that's exactly.
• 28:24
  I love that you're saying this because I think in my healthcare services company it wasn't hard to find the problem.
• 28:31
  It was pretty.
• 28:32
  We were taking care of medically fragile babies and you know, kids.
• 28:36
  So like that's what they need.
• 28:38
  They need around the clock nursing care.
• 28:39
  It wasn't hard to fit problem.
• 28:41
  They needed people to show up in beauty.
• 28:44
  It's a very.
• 28:46
  Oh gosh, what could be the problem?
• 28:48
  It's so saturated and what are the neat.
• 28:50
  What's really unique and all the things and it's like, how do you really.
• 28:54
  So what, how.
• 28:56
  What is your customer?
• 28:57
  Who is your customer?
• 28:58
  Makeup.
• 28:58
  Makeup.
• 28:59
  And what is it you?
• 29:00
  What do they care about and what.
• 29:02
  Tell me about your customer.
• 29:04
  Oh my God.
• 29:04
  Our customer is so amazing.
• 29:06
  We love her so much because she's so awesome.
• 29:09
  This is a woman over the age of 40.
• 29:11
  Generally speaking, she's all of us, Coco.
• 29:15
  We love her with such a passion because she's so cool.
• 29:18
  She's been through it, she's tried it all.
• 29:21
  She's smart with her money.
• 29:23
  She's time poor because she's doing it all.
• 29:26
  She's you, she's me, she's everyone that you know, your sister, your aunt, like these are all people that they love beauty because they want to feel good about themselves, that they use it as a tool to help bolster
• 29:40
  that feeling of confidence or feeling good or fixing an issue, fixing a problem.
• 29:47
  Like maybe you have a blemish, maybe you have under eye circles.
• 29:50
  Yeah.
• 29:51
  And you're just like, I just don't want to look Like, I've been up all night and I have been up all night.
• 29:55
  Been all up all night with the babies.
• 29:57
  My kids were sick, the dog's sick.
• 29:59
  Sick.
• 30:00
  I, I had a late flight, whatever.
• 30:02
  I've got to go and have a wonderful meeting with wonderful people the next morning.
• 30:06
  I don't wanna look like death warmed up.
• 30:08
  Yeah.
• 30:09
  And she's just, she just needs help.
• 30:11
  How do I do that?
• 30:12
  How do I solve that issue for myself?
• 30:14
  How do I get some time back without me having to think too much about it?
• 30:18
  Like, make it simple.
• 30:20
  Give it to me straight.
• 30:22
  Make it simple so I don't need to think about it.
• 30:24
  All right, so tell us your strategies and tactics now.
• 30:27
  And I know that it won't be.
• 30:28
  I agree with this.
• 30:29
  Like, you could start.
• 30:30
  I started about five businesses and you can't assume that what works for one will work for the next because you just.
• 30:38
  The whole like fingerprint of your customer and your product and all the things, it will be different and the time media and all the things change.
• 30:49
  So what.
• 30:49
  Yes.
• 30:50
  What has been driving your success?
• 30:54
  Well, we're largely a DTC business.
• 30:57
  Yes.
• 30:57
  So we're, you know, we don't.
• 30:59
  So you're going after.
• 31:00
  Yeah.
• 31:01
  You're going.
• 31:01
  Drinks with the customer, which many people.
• 31:03
  Will say, that's super hard.
• 31:05
  Really?
• 31:05
  I mean, right.
• 31:06
  Like volume.
• 31:07
  It is super hard.
• 31:08
  And it's complicated because when you start up a business, one of the things, the holy grail is usually retail.
• 31:14
  Everybody wants to run to retail.
• 31:16
  They think you're selling into retail.
• 31:17
  It's going to solve all their problems and they're going to scale and they're going to go to $100 million overnight.
• 31:21
  And everybody has this thinking.
• 31:23
  And as someone who has put many brands into the most prestigious, wonderful retailers that we respect and we love deeply, it's not always the place to start because the only way that you really understand your customer is by
• 31:41
  having a dialogue, a narrative with them and what direct to consumer allows you to do.
• 31:46
  And yes, media is expensive.
• 31:47
  So how you reach the customer becomes absolutely key.
• 31:50
  And then what the key offering that you're providing to them, does it solve that problem for her?
• 31:56
  And our customer is someone who is at an age where she, that she wants to solve or she has some issues she wants to overcome or she has some things she needs some help with.
• 32:08
  The whole goal was to show her, hey, we have something for you.
• 32:14
  And let me show you all the ways that it's going to make your life easier, how it's going to make you feel Better how it's going to make give you that confidence that you're looking for.
• 32:23
  You're not going to have to think about it, and it's not going to be complicated.
• 32:26
  And you don't have to be a makeup artist.
• 32:28
  You don't have to.
• 32:29
  There's not 37 steps, and anyone can do it.
• 32:31
  And if I can do it in the backseat of a taxi at 4am on the way to JFK without a mirror and still look decent on the other end, I promise you, it will work for you.
• 32:41
  So strategically, it was like, how do you have that narrative, that dialogue directly with the customer?
• 32:48
  Because they're learning who you are.
• 32:50
  They have to learn what you're about.
• 32:52
  And you can't always accomplish that through distribution channels like retail.
• 32:56
  We started with DTC because we get to own the relationship with the customer.
• 33:02
  And what it gives you is as you're growing and the cohort of customer gets larger, you get more and more either reinforcement that you're on the right path, how you're solving her problem with the how, the why, and
• 33:16
  what she's looking for in return.
• 33:18
  What does she need?
• 33:19
  Does she need really fast customer service?
• 33:21
  What is she having the most challenges with out there in the world?
• 33:25
  With foundation shape matching.
• 33:28
  Yeah, Shade matching.
• 33:29
  You walk into Sephora and you come out, forget it.
• 33:33
  With all the stripes on your face, the beige stripes, like you've gone into battle, you know, or you're playing football.
• 33:39
  You got all the stripes on your face like that.
• 33:42
  You go in there and to try a new product, and you've got to go through this litany of experience of trying to figure it out.
• 33:50
  And one of the goals for us was we're going to take all that friction.
• 33:56
  And that is the genius of the technology, the innovation behind brand that Kim has been a central figure of.
• 34:03
  Because solving that problem for women takes this massive point of friction that keeps women out, especially once you get to a certain age.
• 34:11
  A foundation, they're like, I don't want to wear all this stuff.
• 34:14
  I don't have time for all the contouring and all this stuff.
• 34:16
  Like, that's not who the average woman she is.
• 34:20
  Not that person on TikTok with the full face and the baking and the layers.
• 34:24
  And then it's the time for that.
• 34:25
  Time for that.
• 34:26
  But, you know, Shauna, it's interesting because you sent me a box of beautiful stuff, and I've been using this Fair, right?
• 34:32
  This.
• 34:33
  You told me I need to use the.
• 34:34
  I need to now remember to use the brush.
• 34:37
  The brush foundation brush.
• 34:38
  But I will tell you, for the last many years, I have been using foundation, but I've had a custom foundation.
• 34:46
  And this is a problem because the first time the company that I was going to, the woman, she actually passed away.
• 34:53
  Terrible story.
• 34:54
  But so then I was like, oh, my gosh, where am I gonna go now?
• 34:57
  And so it's like you either have to go for super curated or you're gonna have.
• 35:02
  You go to Sephora and you get the wrong colors and you go to these brands that have a million options and they still, they don't look good, but this looks really good on me, I have to say.
• 35:14
  And it's the beauty of the formula is that it's so lightweight and it's so flawless.
• 35:19
  Like, how do you get coverage?
• 35:20
  And it's lightweight and flawless and it's easy to apply and it lasts all day.
• 35:25
  Yeah.
• 35:25
  We knew we had something incredibly special on our hands.
• 35:31
  But then the challenge is how do you cut through all the noise in such a saturated market?
• 35:38
  And how, like, how do you start?
• 35:41
  And I will tell you.
• 35:42
  Great, right?
• 35:43
  And again, with all respect and reverence for our beautiful retailers in the US you go in there and I am faced with a 21 year old who's trying to tell me who's worked for 30 years in beauty, trying
• 35:58
  to help me match my foundation.
• 36:00
  I have dark spots, I have dark circles, I have texture issues, I have rosacea.
• 36:07
  Some parts are really dry, some parts are more oily.
• 36:10
  I also don't want to fight with the crowds of 13 year olds that are in there drawing samples.
• 36:15
  And I'm just like, I don't have time for the torture.
• 36:17
  So with respect to all of that and respect for her and her time, we created a brand platform that speaks to the things that are important to her and give her the opportunity to understand the brand and hear
• 36:33
  the brand and hear why the product suits her.
• 36:37
  And that I think was an unlock that helped potentiate the business.
• 36:41
  And again, I know it sounds simple, but a lot of brands do not do this.
• 36:44
  They just talk about how great they are and they talk about if they have a founder or a celebrity face.
• 36:50
  It's all about why they like and why they're passionate about it and all this kind of stuff.
• 36:54
  But it's like, it's not about that.
• 36:56
  It actually has nothing to do with you.
• 36:58
  It has to do with her and Burkam you and why they need something different in their life.
• 37:07
  Yeah.
• 37:08
  And how is it going to make things better?
• 37:10
  Faster, easier, cheaper, more value driven?
• 37:14
  How do you do that.
• 37:15
  And the thoughtfulness that went into this product, the thoughtfulness that went into this brand, and how every single thing, down to how many hairs are in that foundation brush and how it hasn't lost a hair.
• 37:27
  I've washed it 87,000 times.
• 37:30
  I still have my original brush.
• 37:32
  Like, it's to provide that quality and that value and that payoff that someone can just rely on.
• 37:39
  Like, we want to be able to trust and rely on things at this point in our lives, right?
• 37:43
  When you're younger, you're willing to try everything.
• 37:45
  You want to try every single thing that's new, right?
• 37:47
  You want to try all the new stuff.
• 37:49
  You want to try all the trends.
• 37:50
  But now I want something I can rely on.
• 37:52
  I want something that's going to perform.
• 37:54
  I want something that's going to give me value from my money.
• 37:57
  Because it's the economy.
• 37:58
  Whatever way you cut it, it's tough right now, and it's tough for everybody.
• 38:02
  So people are making choices about what they spend their money on.
• 38:06
  So you better be something of value to her.
• 38:09
  And that's how we think.
• 38:10
  That's how we approach everything with no makeup.
• 38:13
  Makeup is how are we, for the lack of a better word, in service to her, in service to our customer.
• 38:19
  And the thing is, she's cool.
• 38:20
  She's fabulous.
• 38:21
  You know, she's a boomer, she's a Gen Xer.
• 38:23
  She's an older millennial.
• 38:24
  Like, she's awesome.
• 38:25
  She's been through so much in her life, and she's seen a lot, and we have so much reverence and respect for that, and we see her, and I think that's what's made us stand out as a brand and
• 38:34
  grow so quickly.
• 38:35
  And again, we didn't start with ourselves.
• 38:36
  That's maybe why we're not out there going, hey, hey, look at me.
• 38:38
  And everybody doesn't necessarily know us is because we care about her, and we care about what she.
• 38:44
  How she feels.
• 38:44
  And we see her.
• 38:45
  That's beautiful.
• 38:46
  We see her because we see her in ourselves.
• 38:48
  We see her, and that's been.
• 38:50
  That's been the unlock for us.
• 38:52
  Well, that's the experience that I certainly have had with the brand.
• 38:56
  And when I met you at Wealth Catalyst with Shama Patan and got to see you speaking about the company, and it just is a real sense of understanding.
• 39:08
  This is a beauty brand that gets me, Gets women like me, you know, and you say it, but it's really women who want to look great, but you want to feel great more than anything.
• 39:20
  And you don't have a lot of time and you just want beautiful.
• 39:23
  You also want to feel stupid.
• 39:25
  Like I don't know how to use this thing.
• 39:28
  Supposed to put it here.
• 39:29
  Like no, I don't know how to do that.
• 39:32
  I don't know how I got to be so out of the know.
• 39:34
  Like I used to be that girl that would knew the stuff.
• 39:36
  I have nothing.
• 39:37
  My 18 year old is constantly telling me what I should be doing around my face and whatever.
• 39:42
  And anyway, I love what you're building.
• 39:45
  And so thank you.
• 39:46
  It's just great.
• 39:47
  So let's move on to a fast fire round.
• 39:50
  Sure.
• 39:51
  For everybody who's listening.
• 39:52
  I just want to make sure that you go to the website.
• 39:55
  This is such a fun website.
• 39:57
  NoMakeupMakeup.com Correct.
• 40:00
  That's right.
• 40:01
  NoMakeupMakeup.Com so go there now while we're.
• 40:04
  Chit chatting through the fast fire round.
• 40:06
  You have to check it out.
• 40:07
  Get yourself.
• 40:08
  I am using this pink too.
• 40:11
  And I've also got on the.
• 40:13
  I have this fair and I also have a pink.
• 40:16
  One of the pink cheeks that I've got on right now too.
• 40:19
  Yes, it's just pink.
• 40:20
  It's just our pink blush and lip.
• 40:22
  Yeah.
• 40:22
  Yeah.
• 40:23
  And it's really fun and.
• 40:24
  And it's super simple.
• 40:26
  And there's a great.
• 40:27
  The fragrance.
• 40:28
  New Fragrance Fragrance.
• 40:29
  We also have a pillar called New Fragrance Fragrance.
• 40:32
  And again we started with her.
• 40:33
  We thought about who's left out of the fragrance industry.
• 40:37
  It's all the people that find fragrance.
• 40:39
  Either they're allergic to it, it's too heavy, it's too much, it's too much of a cloud around you.
• 40:44
  And Victoria suffers very significantly as I do, like from headaches.
• 40:48
  She has reactions to heavy fragrances and she was like, I can't wear perfume.
• 40:53
  I can't wear fragrance.
• 40:54
  And she literally came up with no fragrance fragrance.
• 40:57
  And she said, I want to bring this to everyone and make it accessible.
• 41:01
  I want to create the innovation, the tech underlying no fragrance.
• 41:05
  Fragrance is the coolest thing ever.
• 41:06
  Don't have time to get into it but you got to go to the website and check it out.
• 41:09
  It is won so many awards including best technology award from, from Ink and Fast Company.
• 41:17
  It's a technological marvel, honestly.
• 41:19
  So to be recognized for the technology underlying is a pretty cool thing for a fragrance to experience.
• 41:25
  So we're really proud of it.
• 41:27
  It's really incredible.
• 41:28
  And I passed it along to my older daughter Amelia, who's 24 and she's wearing it and just loves it.
• 41:34
  And it's perfect for her.
• 41:37
  She's not the girl who wants to wear the heavy stuff.
• 41:39
  And she just like, mom, can I have this?
• 41:42
  So anyway, we're very excited to have no makeup makeup in our house.
• 41:46
  And we're all trying it and passing it on each other so, so fast.
• 41:50
  I gotta get you the brush.
• 41:53
  Thank you.
• 41:54
  Okay.
• 41:54
  Fast fire.
• 41:55
  Let's do it.
• 41:55
  Fast fire.
• 41:56
  Okay.
• 41:57
  Five questions in five words or less.
• 41:59
  The trait every great founder needs.
• 42:06
  Empathy.
• 42:08
  Empathy.
• 42:09
  And to elicit trust.
• 42:12
  Yeah.
• 42:13
  Beauty.
• 42:13
  And elicit trust.
• 42:15
  Yeah.
• 42:16
  The beauty rule you love breaking.
• 42:27
  You need more to look good.
• 42:29
  Great.
• 42:29
  You need more to look good.
• 42:31
  I don't know if that's five words or seven or something like that, but that works.
• 42:34
  That works.
• 42:36
  The word your team would use for you.
• 42:42
  Oh, Trustworthy.
• 42:53
  Beautiful.
• 42:55
  Best decision you ever made.
• 42:57
  Actually, no.
• 42:58
  Best decision you made this year.
• 43:03
  Oh, God.
• 43:05
  My vacation in Hawaii for my 50th birthday.
• 43:09
  Very nice.
• 43:10
  Yes.
• 43:10
  Best decision.
• 43:12
  Best decision ever.
• 43:14
  Fill in the blank.
• 43:16
  The world needs more.
• 43:26
  Peace.
• 43:27
  The world needs more peace.
• 43:28
  The world needs more peace.
• 43:30
  I know that's a maybe a trope that everyone says, but when I close my eyes, there's not a person on this planet that doesn't need a little bit more peace right now.
• 43:39
  No one.
• 43:42
  Peace of mind.
• 43:43
  Peace in your heart.
• 43:46
  Yeah.
• 43:46
  Something peace.
• 43:47
  Yeah.
• 43:48
  Peace.
• 43:49
  And how can our listeners and viewers learn more about you, Shauna?
• 43:53
  And more no makeup makeup.
• 43:56
  Yes.
• 43:57
  Listen, if you are interested and you want to know about us, you can follow us on Instagram at Original no makeup makeup.
• 44:04
  You can follow us on LinkedIn at the original no makeup makeup.
• 44:10
  You can follow me on LinkedIn, Shauna Lahiri.
• 44:14
  And please go to our website.
• 44:16
  Please go to nomakeupmakeup.com and if you don't know what shade you are.
• 44:22
  We only have 13 foundation shades, but we are so inclusive that we can absolutely match everybody.
• 44:27
  We promise you.
• 44:29
  Use our shade finder.
• 44:30
  Use the shade quiz.
• 44:32
  You will not be sorry.
• 44:33
  It's the most phenomenal product.
• 44:34
  I'm telling you.
• 44:35
  It's a game changer.
• 44:35
  And that doesn't even follow all the cool innovation that's coming out this year we're so excited about because we are such a curated, minimalist line.
• 44:46
  But we get so excited when new tech comes around and new tech is coming.
• 44:52
  Oh, wow.
• 44:53
  That's all I can say.
• 44:54
  I can't wait.
• 44:55
  And we'll have to have a whole other conversation one of these days.
• 44:59
  Have you back around how innovation is probably one a very big Part of the value of, of your company and oh, 100% right.
• 45:08
  We could be here all day, Coco.
• 45:09
  But I know, I hope this is at least helpful because I'm telling you what founders and when you're in the startup, what you go through to just get people to understand your brand.
• 45:20
  Oh my God, it is such a climb and I have so much respect for all the founders out there, all the ground floor executives, all the people who are putting in the hours and the time and you're climbing
• 45:32
  with your nails, you know, just crawling through broken glass to get every last word out there to get every customer to do right.
• 45:41
  And you don't sleep and you have such so many sleepless nights where it's all running through your head.
• 45:45
  And guys, we see you, we're with you, we're in it with you, we hear you.
• 45:50
  Go all those women founders because it's rough and we need to all be in this together and help each other and as much as we possibly can.
• 45:59
  It's not a zero sum game.
• 46:00
  There's space for everybody.
• 46:02
  Oh, well, thank you.
• 46:03
  Shauna, thank you for being with us today on the wisdom of women.
• 46:06
  Thank you for sharing your brilliance and your experience and your inspiration, your all of your vulnerability, your truth stories you shared about your family and your big move to LA and this incredible brand that you are building and
• 46:26
  this empire.
• 46:27
  Really.
• 46:27
  And so thank you for helping us learn something about ourselves along the way.
• 46:32
  And to all of our listeners, all of our world changers, be sure to follow like and share the wisdom of women.
• 46:38
  Show on whatever your favorite listening reviewing platform is.
• 46:42
  And remember that the world is made better by women led business.
• 46:49
  So let's I'll go make the world.
• 46:51
  Yeah, let's go make the world a better place.
• 46:55
  Cheers.