Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Talking the power of female leadership & how we need to evolve, with Susan Griffin Black, Founder of EO Products

Transcript

Talking the power of female leadership & how we need to evolve, with Susan Griffin Black, Founder of EO Products · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Susan Griffin Black for Female Startup Club. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Rasheen, and joining me on the show today is an OG female entrepreneur, Susan Griffin Black. Hi.
• 0:26
  Susan is the founder of a company called EO, which stands for essential oils. They produce body, skin, and hair products made from active botanicals that are scented with essential oils. They also have a sister company called Everyone, which is the more accessible line that's affordable and for everyone.
• 0:44
  Susan's been in business for a very long time, 25 years to be precise. She launched EO as a four-piece collection to Bloomingdale's made from her garage in 1995, all while being a single mom and hustling every single day to pay the bills and keep the lights on. Fast forward to today, the business still remains independently owned by her and alongside her co-founder Brad and pulls in around $50 million in revenue each year.
• 1:11
  If you've been listening to my podcast already, you'll be familiar with the kinds of topics I touch on. We talk about the origin story, the marketing, the challenges, the money, and all that good stuff is totally jam-packed into this episode. But what I love most about my conversation with Susan is the key pearls of wisdom that are dotted throughout, like the importance of pursuing the journey and the actual day-to-day of building a business rather than the pot of money at the end.
• 1:37
  and why it's critical as we move forward in this world to have women in complete control of their lives and being at the forefront of leadership. This was such an amazing conversation, and I'm so excited for every ear that finds this episode. And please do share it with anyone that you think will benefit from this story. This is Susan for Female Startup Club.
• 1:58
  I'd love to go back to the beginning, Susan, to hear about the origin story of EO and how it got started in the beginning. Sure. I worked for the late Doug Tompkins, who was at Esprit, and he was an amazing conservationalist. And in that time, that was like a portal. I was a clothing designer.
• 2:23
  And I had the opportunity to meet just the best of the best designers, graphic designers, and really thought leaders. You know, Anita Roddick came through, and so did David Bauer and David Foreman.
• 2:40
  Really, it was the continuation of what Rachel Carson started in the 60s. And what Doug was particularly interested in was in how we were making clothing around the world. And what really the portal for me was looking at how cotton was being grown.
• 3:01
  and all the toxic pesticides and how workers were treated. And I just saw what the possibilities were to make that different, even though I could tell it was going to be a very long haul, you know, and
• 3:16
  So that was just a really brilliant year that I spent there. And then his partner, Susie Tompkins, bought the company, Doug moved to Chile. And I wasn't sure how this initiative was going to continue because the structure was a little bit different. And I was sort of looking around for...
• 3:38
  Something that had a little bit more heart and meaning and connection if I couldn't sort of continue down the path of reparation and understanding how we were going to continue in the clothing business. And I was on a trend trip in London and I was running sort of back and forth between, you know, sort of Covent Garden, like Paul Smith and Muji, you know. And I stumbled into this little courtyard called Neal's Yard.
• 4:07
  And right at 12 o'clock, I walked into this little apothecary and I stopped. It was like the smell was so beautiful. It was honest. It was vital. It was like being outside in this little space and there were dried herbs and tinctures and essential oils. And I picked up this bottle of lavender, lavender and gustafolia, actually from France.
• 4:35
  And I inhaled and my life was changed. It was sort of like I looked around just to see if anyone was watching me because I felt like I was totally transported. And I thought, this is really what I want to do. I want to learn everything about this. And I want to work with these, you know, these essential oils. And so...
• 4:58
  That's the short story and a very long story of how that came to be. But I would just urge everyone always to think about those moments when
• 5:12
  when you receive information and you're absolutely, it's not really a thought process. It just goes sort of right to your heart and soul. And then it's very easy to dismiss afterwards because it's like, oh, you know, that's crazy. And, but those are the moments I think that are the essence of what gives us
• 5:37
  courage and vision. And it's the beginning, you know, it was the beginning of how I got here. Now, when I look back, some other factors are my, my son was four at that time. And I could just see how wearing it was going to be to travel the way that I've been traveling and this very disparate life and not be able to,
• 6:07
  go to every basketball game and every parent teacher conference and just having to swap out so many things and not be aligned and integrated, you know. So that was another big motivation somewhere in there to think of what else could I be doing that was a little more, had a little more heart and meaning. And eventually, you know, it came together.
• 6:32
  Yeah, so I think it's just crazy how a moment can change the course of your life. And in your case, it's gone on to be, you know, 25 years of building this incredible business. And yeah, it's just an interesting thing that in that moment you knew with your full heart and soul that that's what you wanted to do. And so what happened then? So then I was...
• 6:59
  I was trying to figure out a way to bring this whole experience that I had, you know, back home with me and sort of teased it apart and realized that someone I knew knew the woman from Neil's yard. And so I went there and I worked in the store for a bit to learn everything and studied aromatherapy, took a crash course in cosmetic chemistry, UCLA,
• 7:28
  And I imported those products for the U.S. for a bit. And then we parted ways. And in 1995, we launched EO. And I had been tinkering really with essential oils and blending and learning.
• 7:44
  So I'm pretty self-taught through trial and error. And we had a little cult following because of being in the clothing business. Things were kind of transferable to beauty editors and so forth. And in 1995, Bloomingdale's ordered some product for their exclusive product, four essential oil blends for their holiday catalog.
• 8:10
  And we didn't really have a name for the company yet. So I sat next to my friend who was a designer at Apple. And I liked everything minimalist, clean type. So we picked the type. And it was a teeny little label. And instead of really talking about aromatherapy, I wanted to talk about the oils themselves. So we called it EO. It stood for essential oils. That made sense. And...
• 8:39
  and developed four plans and kept going from there. Wow. And so back then you didn't obviously have the foresight to think, hey, I'm going to grow this amazing business over the next few decades. What was it like in those early days? Was it the struggle? Was it hustling to get by? Or was it taking off quite quickly? Yeah.
• 9:04
  Oh no, it was definitely, definitely hustling to get by because I started really without a particular plan. It was sort of, I'm going to do this and then the next thing would open up. And, you know, I was a single mom and I had, you know, some support in terms of, you know, back and forth custody with my former husband. And so I was really...
• 9:32
  had a little severance from a spree, little savings. So I knew I had to build it in a way that was quick and sustainable. And it was like, what is the shortest way to cash flow so I can keep it all going? And fortunately we got a large order from Birkenstock, a little foot care kit.
• 9:57
  And the person I was dating at the time, who is now my husband and was also still my business partner, you know, for all these years, was like, you know, he could do anything. So when he saw this order and he saw that we were thinking of pouring it, you know, from the beaker into the bottle and there were 10,000 bottles, he was like, oh, no, no, no, you know.
• 10:23
  we have to figure out a way to gravity, gravity feed, and you know, fill this faster. And he kind of had me at gravity feed, you know. I was like, the angels were singing at gravity feed, and we worked like nonstop to fill this order. And then that was sort of the beginning of being able to see that manufacturing was really an essential part of what we were doing.
• 10:49
  So we had a little warehouse space and we made the products that we could and everything was sort of cold mixed. Or we had a little hot plate for lip balm and just started to sell gift stores or anyone really who would buy from us.
• 11:08
  Kind of like starting out with the mom and pop kind of shop. Definitely. And then aiming to get into bigger retailers. Definitely. And, you know, borrowed money from family and friends, raised a little money over those first few years, about $100,000.
• 11:27
  And, you know, but, you know, a 10 gallon pot and then a 20 gallon tank and then just kept learning everything we could. And then, you know, we tried to have contract manufacturers, but they didn't like working with essential oils, especially at that time, because they're a little finicky and each one is different. And so we were determined to not use synthetic fragrance. So we just made it ourselves, you know.
• 11:57
  That's so amazing. And in those early years, because you had, you know, your life circumstances, you're a single mom, you needed to provide for your child. Did you become profitable quite quickly because of the way that you were structuring the business? No.
• 12:15
  But we were at break even. So, you know, I was very practical about this. Like if I could take enough money to live as my salary and borrow enough and I could always max out my credit cards, you know, because I had a strong working life before this. And I also made sure that...
• 12:40
  If I could get COD terms or, you know, at the time people would put put orders on credit cards or anything I could get for people to pay up front, it was worth a couple of points of a discount because I really became the cash flow queen. And to this day, I would recommend that for everyone because it really is the lifeblood of the business. And you can't you could manage everything.
• 13:08
  even if you're very profitable, but without cash flow, it's, you know, no go. You don't have enough money for payroll. It doesn't matter how good the margin is, you know. So, you know, it was very organic and very, you know, all credit cards maxed out, all cash from every direction, and we just kept going. That bootstrap vibe.
• 13:34
  For so many years. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And obviously you have, you know, 25 years in the business. It's a really long time to cover. But I want to know from your point of view, what the real inflection point was when things started to change and you were like, okay, I can just breathe a little bit more now and I don't have to hustle the same way that I was in those early years. You know, it's, I think it's not, it's fits and starts.
• 14:01
  We would get to a place where it would be like, wow, I'm not sweating payroll. You know, things are humming along. We're getting new accounts. So about two years in, we started selling to Whole Foods. And at that time, they had about less than 50 stores. So we were able to really be part of the natural products market.
• 14:24
  and grow with Whole Foods. And then that was a very natural place for us to be like-minded, kind of tribal, lots of support, beautiful community. And so, you know, sort of for those years, even when there was stress and struggle, kind of knew who to call for what, you know. And that was a good run. That was a great run.
• 14:50
  So, and, you know, it was okay. It wasn't like we were a huge business, but things were working. And by that time in 99, we bought this sort of rundown private label manufacturer, so we expanded from an