What We Can Learn from Failure with Ami Colé Founder, Diarrha N’Diaye

What does it really take to build a brand from scratch — and what happens when you have to close the doors? In this candid conversation, Emma sits down with Diarrha N’Diaye, founder of the beloved beauty brand Ami Colé, to talk about the highs of launching a cult-favorite company and the heartbreak of shutting it down. Diarrha shares the behind-the-scenes realities of raising capital, entering major retailers, and navigating the pressure that comes with being one of the few Black women to raise over a million dollars in venture funding. She also opens up about resilience, community, motherhood, and why failure can be the most powerful teacher of all. If you’re an entrepreneur, a dreamer, or simply someone figuring out how to redefine success, this episode will leave you inspired — and a little braver.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Emma Grede?

  We always see the success, but rarely we see what happens when things don't work out. Jara and Jai was on a high with her beauty brand Amicolé, a first-time founder with over 80 industry awards, a spot on Oprah's Favorite Things list, and famous fans like Hailey Bieber and Martha Stewart. Then after launching in 500 Sephora doors, she announced that Amicolé would close for good. It takes an exceptional founder to say, "I was wrong." Today, Jara goes there, so you won't repeat her mistakes. What does it mean when you finally know why things went awry, but it's too late? It's a conversation you won't want to miss.

• 0:53Emma Grede?

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• 1:38Emma Grede?

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• 1:56Speaker 01

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• 2:32Emma Grede?

  Jara, I'm so excited to have you here today.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  I am beyond thrilled.

• 2:38Emma Grede?

  Well, that's a good, that's a good place to start because we are going to dig into it darling. We're going to talk about, I guess, the less beautiful side of the beauty business, right?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 2:46Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot over, you know, the weekend and, you know, you and I have been speaking a little bit since you made the decision to actually close your brand, Ami Colay. And this month, September, you're going to shut the doors to the business that you've spent the last few years building.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:05Emma Grede?

  And I guess that that is really, really something that has taken an emotional toll on you.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely. There's so many layers to it and I know we're going to get into all the layers.

• 3:17Emma Grede?

  We're going to get into all the layers.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  All the, all the tea.

• 3:20Emma Grede?

  I mean, listen, you and I have been speaking because when you decided that you actually were going to close the doors, I think you called me, you reached out and you were like, "Help me." Listen, and I always want to help.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  And thank you for that, for opening your door, like, Emma, you are about it. You know, you stand by your word, you take mentorship very, very personal, and I think you understand on this side how important it is. So I really do appreciate you answering the call.

• 3:46Emma Grede?

  Well, you know, it's interesting because I think most people think about mentorship when everything's going right. And it's really important to think about getting in touch with people and connecting when things are going wrong because you need to be able to unentangle yourself

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03Emma Grede?

  in a way that is going to leave you with not just, you know, a sense of what you've built and the importance of all of that, but there's some complicated stuff when you decide to exit a business. And so you and I spoke about all the good, all the juicy stuff, the IP, the ownership, what happens down the line. We were like, let's, let's get into that part of it. But I do really want to make sure we touch on the lessons, but before we get into that, yeah, when you think about what you've been doing and what you've built with Ami Colay over the last few years, I want to understand what you would like to leave people with. What is the overriding feeling coming out of that brand that you would like people to know about?

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just got a wave over me. I'm like, oh. You know, I think, especially having worked in the industry for so long and having such passion for it, you know, just the sheer beauty and just like joy of it, I think showing that it's possible. It's possible to be thoughtful in design. It's possible to be intention with your product offering. And also to push the limits, new channels, for instance, and things like that. So I had been in rooms before, we were like, nope, we're only doing 12 shades, that's it. And my job was to market the 12 shades, don't get me wrong. So I did my job, but I'm like, you know, what happens in a world when all of these things come together, the branding, the name, the experience, the product offering, the unboxing, everything comes together.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  And I do think, I would say, that Amicoli was really aiming for that, to be able to offer a top shelf quality, like timeless approach to beauty, that I, for a very long time, was kept hearing that it was not possible.

• 5:39Emma Grede?

  Yeah, and I think that you did that because for me, I think you redefined what inclusive beauty looked like. And you did it in such a beautiful and such an elegant way. But for, for everybody that's watching, what do you want them to take away from your story in terms of ambition, resilience, self-worth? Like, talk to me about that part of it.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely, you have to try. I think the hardest thing, I had this idea in 2014. I didn't launch until 2021. So imagine all of those times, you're like stopping and going and stopping and going.

• 6:11Emma Grede?

  Well, let's, let's stop for a second there. 2014, 2001, that's really, really important. That's, that's a lot of years, that's seven years. And I think so many people don't understand what it takes, right, from you having an idea to actually getting something out in the world. What were you doing in that seven years?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Hustling, yeah, from Harlem, honey. Um, but I worked at Temple Two where it was a hu- and this is important, though, because at Temple Two, I was with the pro makeup artistry. You know, Sam Fine, Nikki Posley, understanding color theory, you know, how to use literally onset makeup in pro makeup artistry to get the right undertones, shape, tones, you name it. So I do think that going to IMAX, you know, walking the floor, seeing Pat McGrath and just like drooling and embarrassed. Myself and then coming out of that and segueing into L'Oréal where it was all about that P and L. All about market share and really thinking like big box, big frame. And then going to Glossier, right? You know, being in the belly of the beast when they had just raised eighty two million dollars and everything was rosy.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  You know, fresh flowers and burning candles, you name it, but also being in a high, high, high speed train. Understanding the, the tenacity it took, the grit that it took. And yes, I had the idea in twenty fourteen, but I was ready by twenty nineteen. I understood. Because I took the stairs, you know, and I really understood like what worked in-house, what didn't work. What happens when you go from Pro Makeup Artistry into Sephora, onto QVC? How do you work with the founder? How do you work with the CFO? How do you work with the art director?

• 7:43Emma Grede?

  You were essentially in a seven year apprenticeship in the beauty business.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 7:48Emma Grede?

  Right? You were learning everything. You were absorbing it all and you did it at different places, in different levels. Really laying the foundation for you to be able to start this brand.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 7:56Emma Grede?

  You know, it was so crazy because it struck me so much about like the closing of Ami Colay. It was the outpouring of love and, you know, just sheer admiration for what you'd built from your community. And that was such, and we're going to talk a bit about this later, but it was such a huge part of the success of your brand, why it was successful. This community that you've built. What did it feel like to witness that type of response?

• 8:22Speaker 02

  To be very transparent, I was in a dark space, right? You know, I had been. Fighting myself, my team, even, you know, some investors like, are we, is this happening? You know, so since November, I'd been calling the likes of you and just trying to figure out like. Is this it? You know, so I think personally I had been grieving on my own and. Having to have those tough conversations and show up for the team. Show up for my kids, you know, and, and put the laptop down and really like. This is scary. This is scary. So for seven months I had been living this by myself. I have no co-founder. I just hired a team in November and I was giving them all the hopes of

• 9:05Speaker 02

  this is gonna be a big year for us and I had to like let them down.

• 9:08Emma Grede?

  Well, did you know in the back of your head that things were crumbling beneath the surface?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:14Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  And I also was optimistic that something was gonna pull through. You know, someone was gonna come and buy and we would just, you know, no one would even have to know about this chapter.

• 9:24Emma Grede?

  You were waiting for the white knight?

• 9:25Speaker 02

  I was waiting for the white knight, you know, and then then I had to be like, okay. We started this on Instagram. We turned that camera on. We were very transparent. What packaging do you want? What naming? What color scheme? If we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to do this out loud.

• 9:42Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  So I went back to what I know and that was my community. And honestly, I was scared that 8 a.m. when that article cut, I was like, Lindsay, can we just, one more, one more, one more week, please?

• 9:53Emma Grede?

  Just one more week.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  No, this is going live.

• 9:55Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  When it, when it happened, I felt free.

• 9:57Emma Grede?

  Wow, that's so interesting. All right, listen, before we get into the downfall of the brand, I want to, I wanna contextualize a little bit about you, the brand, how it started. So let's go back and then we're gonna, we're gonna dive into the, the good, bad and the ugly, as they say. So you named Ami Colay after your mother, right?

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 10:15Emma Grede?

  And I just, I mean, it's so lovely and it's also your daughter's namesake. So I just wanna understand, because it's so personal to you, the decision to close the brand that carried so much family legacy, like it was a big decision for you. So just talk to me about that part.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. My mom came to New York City, Harlem, 1989. Bright-eyed, doughy and just, you know, naive, meeting my, my dad here, her husband, and starting from scratch, you know? Left her mom, left my older sister back home, like the true immigrant story. Coming here and trying to figure out winter, like all of it, right? So my entire life was in the hair salon. I was literally, my mom, my sister renovated the hair salon maybe three years ago and literally pulled out my bassinet.

• 11:04Emma Grede?

  No.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  I'm like, first of all, why is that in there?

• 11:07Emma Grede?

  The true family business.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Second of all, like, wow, you know, I'm seeing pictures of me yea high with a comb. I'm seeing people that were my teachers and that just saw me grow up in that hair salon. So that was community before it was a buzzword, like that was our livelihood.

• 11:23Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  We only had that.

• 11:24Emma Grede?

  What did that environment teach you about womanhood, about beauty, about entrepreneurship? That you carried into Amiko Lay?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  There's so many things that you cannot measure. Even our relationship, right? Like, in what form do you go and say, Emma, save me in this moment, right? My mom was that. She was the type that after hours, as tired as she was, she would lock that door and she would sit down and she would hear you pour out your heart. She would, you know, she, you know, even people that, I wouldn't recommend this now, but people that could not braid, she's like, come here, I'll teach you how to braid so you can have, you know, livelihood or start a company, like start your business or whatever. And she would be that mentor that's kind of silent, you know, support that she, for so many women, both Senegalese women coming straight from Senegal and starting fresh, but also, you know,

• 12:12Speaker 02

  teachers, editor in chief of Ebony, like you name it, she was that woman and so selfless. And I think I understood very early how important it was to have community and to really see you and hear you and provide that safe space that sometimes feels intangible. I always thought of Amiko Lay as the shop, the hair salon.

• 12:31Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  You know, how can we provide that space where, once you open that package, you're like, oh, she gets it, she knows me, she sees me.

• 12:38Emma Grede?

  And I feel like you did that in so many ways, right? That philosophy, I read somewhere that your mom would always ask customers, do you like? And she wasn't satisfied until they did. But, but that, that idea of like satisfying a customer, that at the end of the day, what you are there to do is make somebody feel really good about themselves. And I feel like that philosophy was intertwined

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:58Emma Grede?

  in the brand through this community, that you were doing something to meet a need, to serve a purpose and to make people that weren't feeling seen, feel truly seen and heard and represented and make them feel beautiful. Like somebody had understood their needs.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:12Emma Grede?

  And to let them feel included.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  That's right. And when you walked out that salon. You are in your bag, okay? You're walking outside, your hair is freshly done. You've got your Moesha braids or your lemonade-inspired braids. And you're walking out and you could visibly, even as a young person, you could visibly see someone like, oh, wait a minute now, I'm feeling myself.

• 13:33Emma Grede?

  Feeling myself.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  You know, and that's such a powerful thing to have black women feel themselves.

• 13:37Emma Grede?

  Hugely, hugely powerful. So from growing up in the salon to then finding yourself in this pretty incredible career in beauty, because you really run the gamut, as we've heard. You then start the brand, and I want to understand like how you started, because I read this beautiful story of you once being in an airport, realizing there's a girl that's like, you know, her lip oil is like down to the dregs. And like you're, you know, you're dying. And I know that feeling, seeing someone in your product. It's like this moment of, I made it. Like, I'm here, people understand what I'm trying to do. But give me that starting story of how it goes from you dreaming about

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:14Emma Grede?

  having a brand to actually having product.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Doing it, right, you know? So I'm a student. I am always a student. I'm always learning. I remember, especially at Glossier, you know, going to these trade shows and like looking around. I'm like, how does this work? So how do you get an appointment? And how do you do these things, right?

• 14:32Emma Grede?

  What was your position at Glossier?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Product development. So I was right there talking and creating briefs. And my job at Glossier was like to sift the internet to figure out what is the next product for us to launch.

• 14:43Emma Grede?

  How genius.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  I mean, I was on Reddit. I was in everybody's comment section. I'm like, oh, the next thing is this plus this equals this. Make it Glossier. Products like Future Dew. Like, how do we get Glossier skin in a bottle on one step? You know? How do you get that dewy look to last? How would it look on Instagram? You know, how would the packaging look on Instagram? So that was my job essentially. And trying to convince everyone in the, you know, I had to pitch, you know? Pitch Emily Wise, like, we need a face. And she's like, why? I'm like, well, this and this and that. I'm like, okay, done. So that was my job. But then, again, in terms of schooling, right? I would ask chemists. I would like, what about this formula makes it the formula? You know? I love this old-school product, but it didn't work for me because of this. What in that formula made it that? I would ask all these questions.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  So by the time I left that space, I had a like arsenal of ideas and things that, old-school products that I love, that I wanted to make even better. And then I was a credit card. You know, booked that ticket to Las Vegas in a hundred and two degree heat. I was not aware, okay, with my pink suit and wig. I was about to take that wig off, honey. So hot, knocking on every single door like, hey, I think I have an idea. I had a pitch together. I had the aesthetic together. I had my product offering together, but also listening. I had interviewed so many women and I knew exactly what was missing in their makeup bag. I knew what shades they were using, MAC NW forty five and C sixty.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  I had, I knew every, Nora's Macau, I knew every shade of everyone, every influencer. And then I'm like, okay, this is it. My sister, funny enough, data scientist, complete opposite from me. She's into data planning, all that. I just gave her all the data and she literally heat mapped all the shades that I would need to launch with. So we knew these are the shades that are missing on the market. These are the undertones. Let's get this thing going. So for a year I was dragging these C M's along. C M's means contract manufacturers. I didn't know where the money was coming from. I was like, this is happening or we've got plenty of cash. This is happening. So I use an entire, we're getting there, we're manifesting it. So an entire year.

• 16:53Emma Grede?

  You say manifesting, I say winging. I'm just like, I like it either way.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  You know, it's happening.

• 16:57Emma Grede?

  Entrepreneur is gonna need to do both.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  So for that entire year, I was finessing those formulas and also talking to my audience, bringing them along. And then twenty twenty happened. And then we finally got a phone call like, you know what? I hear you're working on something. Tell me more. And then finally.

• 17:16Emma Grede?

  Is that a phone call from an investor or just an investor?

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Okay. An investor, venture capitalist. And they asked me what was I working on, you know, point of differentiations, totally, all the things. And I gave that. But we also have to remember twenty twenty pandemic, George Floyd, a lot was happening. A lot of people were paying attention and wanting to understand like, what side of history do you sit on? And what are you gonna do about it? So I got a lot of phone calls and then. I went from a hundred and fifty no's to suddenly like, here's a million dollars, take it right now or you're gonna lose it. And you gotta stay ready, okay? And I was ready. So I took that cash.

• 17:55Emma Grede?

  And let me pause you for one second there because I think this is important to contextualize for the audience. We're talking about a moment in time where corporate America sat up and said, if I don't have any black owned businesses on my cap table, if I'm a venture capitalist, if I'm in private equity, it was suddenly a problem, whereas it hadn't been before, right? Everyone was going on their merry way, investing in what they know, what they see, who they know.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 18:22Emma Grede?

  And suddenly there was this, oh, it's problematic if you don't have this. So you collided with a moment in time where these investors suddenly had a newfound interest in black owned brands because they had to. Now, the question is here, who exploits who, right? Because I look at that and I go, wait a minute, had I been you, by the way, I would have done exactly the same. But the reason I stopped you at, were you ready? Because I think, you know, luck is where opportunity meets preparation, right? And I feel like you get super prepared and that piece of luck comes and off you go, you're off to the races. But my question to you is, were you ready? Were you ready to take the money or did you actually look at that and say,

• 19:04Emma Grede?

  this is a moment in time, it's an opportunity and I'm gonna take it while the moment is there?

• 19:08Speaker 02

  What a great question. I felt as ready as I could possibly be.

• 19:13Emma Grede?

  Fair. There's no judgment here.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 19:16Emma Grede?

  I would have done the same.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 19:19Emma Grede?

  I just feel like there were a lot of well-intentioned investors that gave money because they know they needed to and not necessarily because they had respect and understanding for what they were investing in.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Love that point as well and they're not exclusive. And I think at the time, the formulas were ready, the business was prepared. And the only thing I needed literally at that time was capital, the only thing. The P Ls were ready to be placed. The contract manufacturers were growing impatient. My audience was all, girl, how many times you gonna talk about this? Is it coming or not? And then I also, along the way, I bought people that I work with, people that I work with at Glossier to be my head of operations. People that I knew, you know, in the office, kind of whispering together, like, if we ever start, would you join me? And they did. So I think at that moment, I was ready. But I still think there was opportunity for mentorship, for guardrails and guidance.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  And I would argue, honestly, that that's not the model of V C. Honestly, it's not technically their job.

• 20:19Emma Grede?

  Facts.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  And that's okay, too, but that's why we're here. Right? So I would not call it unprepared. But I also knew that there needed to be a lot more infrastructure ready. Because we have to look at the context, right? You'd never been in this room before. The industry wasn't even technically having products or brands like that. I saw that, you know, an L V M H backed brand like Rihanna and Fenty. You know, there's a lot of catching up to do. And there was a lot of, there's a big head start. So who was going to fill the gap of that head start to make sure it was actually equitable, not just diverse?

• 20:51Emma Grede?

  Damn right. And that should be you. Right? It's like, at the, at the end of it, you were like, you looked at yourself and you're like, why not me? Is a better, is a better answer to you. You're like, why not me?

• 21:00Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 21:01Emma Grede?

  I've been in preparation. I feel like I know this audience. I'm gonna go for it. All right, so talk to me about that start. So you get the money, you get a million dollar check.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:09Emma Grede?

  Then what?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  From one major investor. And then it was, listen, launch was insane. We were ready, you know? It was wildly successful, honestly. So much so that the venture capitalists came back and said, hey, let's pour more money into this right now. I'm like, no, no, no. Let's slow down. I don't, I don't want to do the rocket ship. I know what that looks like. I actually want to do a little bit slower, right? Uh, which again, I would argue is not the V C model. You know? So we had a very successful.

• 21:36Emma Grede?

  But absolutely.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Fair.

• 21:37Emma Grede?

  Also, I think, listen, you were coming out of Glossier, which was a race to the hills, run to the mountain top.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  What's that? What's profitability?

• 21:44Emma Grede?

  Who cares? Like, and, and I think it was a different time. And I often talk about this because it's important for our audience to understand that for a very long time and arguably for the last. Ten to fifteen years where direct to consumer businesses have ruled what we have as consumers, you know, seen come up and then inevitably come down.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:02Emma Grede?

  The idea was not about profit. It was about chasing growth, chasing customers and doing it at any cost imaginable.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 22:09Emma Grede?

  And we've had this huge switch that post-COVID, everybody sat there and was like, well, is your business profitable or is it not? Because if it's not, then there is no longevity there. And I think for so many founders, they were like, but wow, that wasn't what I was optimizing for.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:22Emma Grede?

  Me, my investors, my board, my management team, we've just been chasing growth.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 22:27Emma Grede?

  And I think it's a really important distinction to make because those days are over.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Gone.

• 22:33Emma Grede?

  Gone.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Gone.

• 22:34Emma Grede?

  Gone.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  And we were a little bit more on the conservative side, not burning cash or taking in too much cash too early. But then, again, like, you know, launch, we had, we blew through our entire month's forecast in a day. A day.

• 22:48Emma Grede?

  So you were on a rocket ship.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  We were on a rocket ship, right? And everyone started knocking every retailer possible. And we still were like, no, no, no. We'll start, we'll do our Violet Gray, our Goop, let's really position ourselves, let's really be careful and diligent about what clean beauty actually means and take our time. Even with that, you know, within like sixteen months, we were signing a contract with Sephora. And.

• 23:10Emma Grede?

  I mean, and everything was happening. You had eighty beauty awards. You were on Oprah's Favorite Things list. You had.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Oprah.

• 23:16Emma Grede?

  I mean, Oprah. You had the Allure Beauty Awards. I mean, it really was the gold standard of what was supposed to happen.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:24Emma Grede?

  When you launch a product line that people truly care about, right?

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:28Emma Grede?

  In terms of signaling, like, what is going right? You have love from customers. You have explosive sales that are beating all your forecasts. You're getting the industry playback saying you're doing something right. So all the signals coming at you were like, um.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  You're on it. You're doing it.

• 23:44Emma Grede?

  Like, do you know, I'd be walking around, like, you're like, okay. Like, I'm feeling myself. Like, I get it. Like, but I think it's important, again, to contextualize, like, it, this wasn't you sitting around going, let's hope something great happens.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:57Emma Grede?

  It was happening to you.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  It was happening. Or, or, and, and again, this is still on the heels of COVID. So it was interesting. All the operational snares that were happening, we were pushing through that and we, we answered a lot of hard questions. I do think, though, in hindsight, team is important. My day one team, my day zero team that was in my Brooklyn apartment brainstorming with me and just as passionate.

• 24:23Emma Grede?

  No.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  They're not. They're not gonna take you from zero to 10 million. They're not going to help you navigate your margins for Sephora. They're not gonna timeline and frame and work backwards towards like, okay, what is the end goal here? And how do we work backwards? How do we raise accordingly? How do we meet those metrics of profitability, EBITDA, whatever you need to do to make sure that you have the right revenue to team ratio?

• 24:51Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  You know?

• 24:52Emma Grede?

  And who was advising you? Once you, once you made the raise, right? You, so, so again, you raised a million and then you raised again.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  We raised right before we launched in Sephora.

• 25:02Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  So it, it was in that November year going into Sephora that January.

• 25:06Emma Grede?

  Two years after launch?

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Two years after launch.

• 25:09Emma Grede?

  Two years after launch. And what did you raise the second time around?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Second time, we raised 1.2. No, sorry, 1.7.

• 25:14Emma Grede?

  1.7. So you're 2.7 million in, in raise and who is, who, who's your people? Who's your board? Who are you speaking to?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  No board.

• 25:22Emma Grede?

  No one. Okay.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  And in hindsight, again, that's where, you don't know what you don't know.

• 25:28Emma Grede?

  You don't.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Girl, I'm from Harlem. Okay? And even, even the friends and family rounds, I had to chuckle at all those things because my, I'm serious. My friends and family, you know, my, my dad's friends were cap decent, hardworking cap drivers. The best thing that you could get is get him the New York City medallion and you thought you were like ballin' in the hood.

• 25:48Emma Grede?

  100%. They could, they could drop you somewhere, but they got no money for friends and family.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  There's no friends and family.

• 25:53Emma Grede?

  I can take you to the person that might give you something, but that's not coming from your.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  My uncles were still charging me, so that's another conversation. But listen, you know, it was a hustle, you know? I was just learning. I was literally like watching YouTube and asking the questions, but there was no, babes, this is what, this is how you structured this and that. And that's a difficult place to be because I took a lot of advice from investors. And I think the advice from investors was you gotta grow. And in order for us to unlock the next tranche of cash, we need to see full chain. We need to see this. We need to see an executive hire. And I just kept chasing those things to get to the next level. But I think like the strategy to actually sit down and work backwards and, and have that intention could be really difficult when you have opposing investors with opposing

• 26:39Speaker 02

  ideas and not a single board, you know, working towards one thing. So it was difficult. I don't think there was like a hardcore mentor pulling me through saying, hey, we've seen this done here. This is what you do. I think everyone was just bringing the best that they could. And honestly, we were solving tough questions. Multicultural brand that was serving no makeup makeup. We were not giving you Instagram, TikTok, wow worthy makeup that would stop you in your tracks. This was serving skin, emotion. It's like finding the perfect pair of jeans. It takes a little emotion and education to it, right? So it was a little bit of a slower burn. And then we're bringing that to Sephora. Is she shopping at Sephora? Wasn't she at the beauty supply? What's happening between the beauty supply store and Sephora?

• 27:24Speaker 02

  And how are you getting her there? And a lot of that was on me to figure out how to get her there. And Sephora would support you, but like, the Sephora machine is like, we are going to meet you on the second floor. How you get to the second floor is on you babes. So once the machine is running and the engine is running, that's when we turn you on. Gone are the days where Sephora was coming in the nineties and you're like fresh beauty, or you're one of ten, or you're drunk elephant, and they need you as much as you need them. There are a hundred and fifty brands. So being, you know, a black owned or whatever, those optics were not enough to get that audience into Sephora to know about you, etc. So.

• 28:05Emma Grede?

  And and this for me actually is a, it's a very, very important distinction to make because if if you believe that distribution will solve the problems to your business, you're in trouble, right? And I can take this back just thinking about my own experience. When we started Good American, we launched with Nordstrom and and that for me was such an important part of the brand's success. Because from day one, I was getting a set of data back from my own direct to consumer customer on the website. And then I was getting this sort of more legacy customer from Nordstrom that, you know, went in for a pair of Frame jeans or for a pair of Paige and walked out with a pair of Good American. They weren't looking for my brand. They were happening upon our brand.

• 28:45Emma Grede?

  But right from the outset, you know, Nordstrom has a hundred and sixty eight doors in this country. We're like, we want you in fifty doors. And I said, I can't go into 50 doors.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Good for you.

• 28:55Emma Grede?

  I can't.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  How do you know that?

• 28:56Emma Grede?

  That's not gonna... Well, and that's the thing. I knew because, let's be honest, I never ran an apparel company before. 50 sounded like too much. And so I asked you the question.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:06Emma Grede?

  Because you went, you launched in 200.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  250 doors.

• 29:10Emma Grede?

  I mean, Char, like, what, why, why didn't you say no? Like, I want to understand.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  That's a great question.

• 29:16Emma Grede?

  Was it because there's a little part of this that goes, is it, is there an ego thing here? Because you know, it sounds, I'm like, I'm in 200 doors.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  That's a great question.

• 29:23Emma Grede?

  Sephora, was there nothing in you that went, you know what? I can't go from where I am today.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 29:28Emma Grede?

  To 200 doors? And were there no one around you that said, listen, girl, you might need to walk before you can run here?

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Oh, I love that question. And one thing I will say, every founder is going to say this, but I don't think ego is at play. I just needed to know what to do to get to the next step. Tell me what to do. And the conversation is you need to get into full doors. Because Sephora came to me, and I will give Sephora their credit. Let's start on dot com. And I went to the investors, they said, let's start on dot com. They're like, no, doors. Okay?

• 29:59Emma Grede?

  Oh.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Go back to Sephora.

• 30:01Emma Grede?

  See now that's.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  I need doors. And they're like, I literally had three-way calls with Sephora, investors and myself. Investors are like, give her more doors. Sephora's like, slow down. I'm like, what do I do?

• 30:17Speaker 03

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• 30:47Speaker 04

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• 30:49Speaker 05

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• 30:50Speaker 04

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• 30:53Speaker 05

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• 31:00Speaker 04

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• 31:32Speaker 05

  Boom.

• 31:39Emma Grede?

  Hindsight's a fine thing. What I would have done is said, "I understand the reason my investors are looking for doors, because doors is exposure. Exposure is marketing, visibility, all the rest of it."

• 31:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:49Emma Grede?

  But you've got to learn to walk before you run. And so I'd have said, "I want dot com plus 10."

• 31:55Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 31:55Emma Grede?

  Okay, that's too much. Our fleet doesn't work like that. Well, then what's the minimum I can start at? To have a reasonable

• 32:00Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 32:01Emma Grede?

  goal. And, you know, because again, it's like, what are we optimizing for here? For me, when you're starting out in wholesale, so when you're going into a retailer, you have to test and learn.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 32:11Emma Grede?

  You know, because not all doors are created equal, right? Usually, a retailer will have an A-tier door, a B-tier, and a C-tier. Meaning, they will have a store that makes, you know, $20 million on a Saturday, and they'll have one that does too. And you need to test your brand in each of them. So when you're looking at the fleet, you're not actually saying, "I want to go into all A-doors."

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 32:32Emma Grede?

  You're saying, "I want a smattering of what you have to offer." There, I need, you know, three As, three Bs, three Cs. And I want to test and learn my way into it.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:43Emma Grede?

  I want to be on the dot com, so I can understand that. But it's a lot to chew off.

• 32:47Speaker 04

  So...

• 32:48Emma Grede?

  I want 250 doors out the gate, because how do you finance that?

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Uh-huh.

• 32:53Emma Grede?

  And I guess the question is...

• 32:54Speaker 04

  With $1.7 million.

• 32:55Emma Grede?

  So what, so how did you, how did you do the math and say, "I've got 250 doors I need to go into. I've only raised 2.7 million."

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. And in hindsight, I would have loved to do that. In hindsight, can I tell you what I would have loved to do?

• 33:08Emma Grede?

  Please.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  I would have done 20 doors.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  I would have had a full brand expression.

• 33:14Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm. In twenty doors.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  In twenty doors.

• 33:16Emma Grede?

  Not a half ass in two fifty.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  No, hello.

• 33:19Emma Grede?

  Hello.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  We were on Next Big Thing. And I do think that the investors thought, you don't pay for that shelf on Next Big Thing, so I will caveat that. So when you technically look at the overhead, it doesn't look as expensive as an inventory play. But at that time, inventory, it just looks like an investment. You're not calculating velocity. And you're not calculating what SKU will proliferate.

• 33:41Emma Grede?

  May I just stop you there? Because again, for the audience, really important thing to remember. So just explain velocity.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  Okay, yes, absolutely.

• 33:48Emma Grede?

  We're trying to get to in beauty sales.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  So I'll take it even step further back. The Next Big Thing is that Gondola or Bay shelf that you walk down the aisle and you see like Denessa, all the new brands that are kind of emerging through social, essentially. I was there. You don't pay for that because that's a Sephora initiative where they want you to discover.

• 34:11Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Where they're trying to highlight new brands.

• 34:14Emma Grede?

  And it's a testing space for new brands to say, how do you resonate with customers? Are people gravitating towards you? Before you get shelf space, before we give you this prized piece of space in our store, let's see how you go here.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. So that is your test and learn for you and for Sephora. And then you graduate. You graduate to another one and the fixtures look, you know, even more beautiful. It's a big moment. So again, in my world, I would have had twenty doors. I know my markets because we had D to C for a year. Atlanta, New York, LA.

• 34:47Emma Grede?

  I know your markets and I don't even know your business.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Business, period, right? Um, so I would have done that.

• 34:52Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  And then I would have actually showed you who Amicolay is. It's very hard to get that experience when you're walking to those shelves. Let's be realistic. It's kind of sloppy sometimes. If you know about it already going into the store, possibly two things can happen. You go with your checklist, your Sephora checklist from TikTok. Or someone on the on the floor convinces you to try this company and the brand. If you don't have the capital to invest in a field team, and I would argue honestly, if you're on the next big thing, I wouldn't invest in a field team, it's too early.

• 35:24Emma Grede?

  Too early.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, long story short, yes, that was a very expensive bet to make. That was, at the time, what I was told to do. Pushed to do, I could say. Without the right mentorship, you'd be like, babe, you need to slow down. I don't think anyone around me was saying two fifty is too much. In hindsight, uh, uh, yeah.

• 35:42Emma Grede?

  That's what I want to do right now.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Shaking the table.

• 35:44Emma Grede?

  I feel like, um, let me ask you this question. Do you think Sephora or any major retailer for that matter is, you know, uh, like a game changer for a brand or just a mirage?

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Emma.

• 35:59Emma Grede?

  Now, in this day and age.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Just questions.

• 36:01Emma Grede?

  Because it's not just about Sephora, right? It's about Sephora, it's about Ulta, it's about CVS, it's about Nord's, it's about, it's about Target, it's about all of it.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:09Emma Grede?

  Oof. What's your viewpoint?

• 36:12Speaker 02

  My view is that you need to be a brand before you go into those stores. You need to know how, it's like a kid. I have a baby, right? You need to know how to walk, talk, say, hey, it's time for the potty. And then take that energy and DNA into the brand for people to meet you there. I don't think Sephora is gonna make you. I think Sephora is gonna propel you. So I do think that before you get into that door, your business needs to be grid tight. Your margins need to be prepared to take that distribution hit. You know, you're having healthy eighty-five, ninety percent margins on D to C.

• 36:47Emma Grede?

  Amazing, yeah.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  And then boom, you get into that and you think that your complexion stick or your foundation is actually gonna do more velocity for you. Again, velocity means how much you're selling by door, by SKU, by day, by week. How, how, how much are you moving?

• 37:02Emma Grede?

  Thing that matters, exactly. The sell-through, the velocity. That is the metric by which the retail partner is looking at your brand to say, do they remain in or are they out on the next floor set? And I think, listen, to contextualize, because I work a bit with Sephora and I understand that, you know, a lot of these businesses had incredibly good intentions. And it has to be said that many, many brands have. You know, done incredible business with Sephora, many black owned brands. You look at Denessa, for example, and I'm like, Denessa's killing. But I do think, again, for the purpose of this conversation, readiness ahead of you going into retail. Yeah.

• 37:42Emma Grede?

  Are the things that you need to be able to to absolutely drill down on because it will trip you up. And it might not trip you up in the first season or the first few months, but it will come back to get you. And by readiness, what we're talking about is margin profile. Are you able to make a profit on that product? Yeah. When it moves from being something that you sell and you take all the margin to when it becomes something that you're selling at a wholesale margin, where you're having to split that margin. Yeah, that's right. So are you able to do that? Are you able to play in the marketing mix? Because each of these retailers have their own way of marketing, their own website, their own in-store promotions, their own, you know, teams that they have. Influencer, everything.

• 38:23Emma Grede?

  And if you can't be part of those initiatives that make that retailer tick, then you're already on the back foot. And so some of these questions are things that have to be asked. Now I want to talk about investors. Yes. Because you keep saying the investors, the investors. So we got to talk about these. Yes, the investor here. The investor. I mean, and listen, it's fair to say. Yeah. I was offered to invest in your brand. Yes. Early on. Yes. Now, okay. Oh, this was early. Yes, I remember now. Like super early, you wrote me in at COVID times? COVID times. Leaving my house. I think you had to send, we couldn't meet because. I sent you a package. I was living in Brooklyn. Yeah. And I was living in Bel Air and I got this package. Yeah. And I decided not to invest. Yes.

• 39:07Emma Grede?

  And again, for me, that was a decision because two things. I think you, at that point, you hadn't launched. Mm hmm. And my investment thesis is that I only ever invest in people that have a track record if it's pre-launch. And the reason for that is because I want to see somebody who has launched and they're six, nine, 12 months in and they're tracking. Yeah. Or I want to see the track record because I'm spending my own money. That's fair. So it's like, for me, it's one or the other. Yeah. And I don't invest in people that haven't had a previous track record and. They haven't, it was pre-launched.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:39Emma Grede?

  That was my decision, but I was like, let's stay in touch.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yep, yep.

• 39:43Emma Grede?

  Let's see what you're doing. I've watched you. I've been a customer. It's like I've, you know, I used to carry bundles of your product in England for my sisters. I'd be like, I'm gonna support this brand.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:53Emma Grede?

  But you did find investors and you did pretty good finding investors, right? When we talk about black women massively over indexing.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 40:01Emma Grede?

  Entrepreneurs and founders in this country and yet only receiving one percent of the capital that goes into, you know, new businesses. You were one of the very, very few.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 40:12Emma Grede?

  What do we say, thirty women to have raised over a million in this country?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 40:16Emma Grede?

  Very, like a miniscule amount.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Odds, yeah.

• 40:19Emma Grede?

  Ridiculously low. You were one of them.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:22Emma Grede?

  So talk about the relationship with your investors and how you were working with them. In hindsight, what worked, what didn't?

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Okay, so, yes, we had a plethora of investors that were, I would say, you know, we had a mix of high growth. As you mentioned, like, you know, this could take off in three years.

• 40:41Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  We could be good. And then other ones that are a little bit more hands-on, like Catherine Power. She's one of my investors. She.

• 40:47Emma Grede?

  You know, she's my neighbor, Catherine.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Is she?

• 40:49Emma Grede?

  We're opposite each other.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  I love, love, love, love. And she is hands-on.

• 40:55Emma Grede?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  She's an operator. She understands. And I think that, you know, there was a level of patience there as well, but also this is high growth.

• 41:03Emma Grede?

  Well, and also this is one of the things I think is really important because not all money is created equal.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Mm.

• 41:08Emma Grede?

  And one of the things that I have learned and you learned the hard way is that when you start to raise money, you'll hopefully make friends. And you'll make, you know, partners of your investors. And what I've learned is that my investors that are operational.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:25Emma Grede?

  Were operators in their former lives are infinitely more useful to me.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Well, did you look at that?

• 41:32Emma Grede?

  Oh, you know, just came straight out of school and went into private equity. So I think about somebody like Andrew Rosen, who I can call. And say, hey, Andrew, like, you know.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  On this deal.

• 41:43Emma Grede?

  Five-year strategy.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 41:45Emma Grede?

  You know, can we talk about this? Or I'm opening a store in, you know, a mall in Miami. What are you paying? Or I can say to him, you know, Andrew, this shelving in the new, you know, store is not working. What do you recommend? And he will have answers for all of those things.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  That is what you want.

• 42:01Emma Grede?

  Experience is there. That's what you want.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:03Emma Grede?

  But you're saying you didn't necessarily have.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  I could count on, yeah, so I know. I had two people um that I have to shut out, Ben Bennett. You know, he's a builder and I think both Ben and Catherine both knew that we were solving a hard question.

• 42:18Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Again, like, once you get to Sephora, then what? How are you getting that customer in there because that will require capital? So, yeah, that's a relationship and let me be very clear, I still have a great relationship with all my investors.

• 42:30Emma Grede?

  Good for you.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I, listen.

• 42:32Emma Grede?

  You don't know when you're gonna need them again.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Listen, it's a small world. I mean, I know that working in the industry, all these people that, you know, that you intern with are now CEOs and editor in chiefs, so that was really important for me.

• 42:42Emma Grede?

  No, relationships are really important. But what you're saying is that your investors were at odds with one another. And you weren't able to manage that because you had one set of investors saying one thing and another set saying something else?

• 42:55Speaker 02

  I think that generalizes it. Because I do think that at different phases of our company, we had different problems, different problems to solve for. Again, things were good until they were not. So it's like, the issue, I think the major issue was like, now you're at this retailer. How are you going to sell through was the major question? And the capital required to sell through. Between your influencer marketing machine, you know, the pay, the cost of meta. All of these traditional playbooks that we were using. Is that working for your core customer to get her into that? That required more time. Time is money and we required more capital to figure that out.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  I think in hindsight, we raised just enough to figure out one problem, one issue, one solution.

• 43:42Emma Grede?

  Instead of raising ten million to get you through, you know, two years.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Two years to actually figure out, oh, that's the machine. It works, we're gonna power through this.

• 43:52Emma Grede?

  And sometimes that in of itself. And I think I speak to a lot of female founders who say to me, you know, Emma, I'm trying to raise a million, I'm trying to raise a, you know, one point five and I'm like, why? You need to, you know, that the idea of, again, because like a million dollars is such an enormous amount of money.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:08Emma Grede?

  But by the same token, when your goals are so audacious and when the competition is so, you know, so crazy, it's really hard to think about what you could do on two point seven billion dollars. And then adding the complexity of that level of retail onto that, it would have been insurmountable.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Or interviewing someone who you think would be an amazing president, right? And then you're talking. You're lounging, you're schmoozing, you're coming to the LA, going to the New York, and they're like, "My salary is a million dollars. Can you afford me?" And by the way, you know, I could do 600K for you, but I'm gonna need to hire 15 people. Because I'm not the operator, I am the strategist. I will go get this for you, but I need a team. I can't afford you or the team. So now we're back to point A.

• 44:52Emma Grede?

  Because you were trying to hire a president.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure.

• 44:55Emma Grede?

  Why were you trying to hire a president?

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Because I know what I'm good at, okay? I can do the product, I know the storytelling, I know, I know this girl. I need someone to pat my back, to build the blocks for the infrastructure, to kind of create this cocoon for us to be safe, to be able to scale. Yeah, I was going for a president, going for a CEO, and we've tried people that were not successful, by the way, that investors helped me find, that were not successful. So, behind the scenes.

• 45:24Emma Grede?

  I've had that.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're not gonna strike gold every single time, but we knew what the issue was, and we knew that we needed to hire the right team. In fact, to be very transparent, I fired the entire team almost in November because we knew that we needed to get in a big-girl team

• 45:38Emma Grede?

  Yep.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  to get you there. We got in the big-girl team, and we still didn't have the track record, and we're like, "Actually, never mind. You don't have anything shiny to give me. You're in full chain, the velocity isn't there. Sure, you have a good team, but to your point earlier about that track record.

• 45:55Emma Grede?

  It just wasn't there. Tell us to me about the turning point. When did you know things were no longer going to work?

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Ay yi yi, it kept turning. Because, right when I thought it was no longer gonna work, we got an investment from, like, L'Oreal. And these were things that were like, "Are we not, are we not..." You know, it was kind of like cautious optimism up until the final hour, where we thought, you know, we're talking to very, like, prominent business owners that we could possibly acquire this company, and the deals just didn't flow through. And then as a human, especially a very intuitive one, I'm like, "Okay, universe, these doors are shutting. Maybe it's time." Maybe this is not gonna work.

• 46:38Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  And that happened up until a month before making that decision. Slowly kind of, you know, laying off the team. Slowly pulling back to preserve cash runway to make sure that we can even close out this company because that requires money too.

• 46:53Emma Grede?

  You feel like you were in slow motion, like.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Death by a thousand cuts.

• 46:58Emma Grede?

  Yeah, death by a thousand cuts.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 47:01Emma Grede?

  That's very.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  And some investors that were working hard behind the scenes. Trying to make those investments, trying to do, you know, the soft landing, as they call it. And it didn't come to fruition.

• 47:11Emma Grede?

  At what point did you know I have to close the door?

• 47:15Speaker 02

  As I mentioned, in November, we hired a new team. Badass team.

• 47:20Emma Grede?

  When you say a new team, like, how many people we talking?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Five people.

• 47:23Emma Grede?

  Five people.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Head of growth.

• 47:24Emma Grede?

  So you're hiring five people, but you know that the business is like spiraling at this point. Did you think they could save you?

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Okay, let's, let's walk back a little bit.

• 47:32Emma Grede?

  Yeah, please.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  So when we hired the team, that was a handholding with the investors that were getting a new team. The team that you had was not working. We're getting you a new team. And we're gonna raise just enough to get them in the house. But we need a big girl team to come in, audit this business, understand the path forward, create a plan, sit down with Sephora, and then march forward. Now, this was pre our president, pre tariffs, and pre other hits that were just waiting to happen, right? So by the time the team came in, actually, oh, we thought we needed to raise one. It's actually gonna be two million. And everyone was just like, all right. Like that, we're not gonna give you two million dollars. You know what I mean?

• 48:17Speaker 02

  And.

• 48:18Emma Grede?

  There wasn't a point for you where you were like, I've raised one, I've raised 1.7. Like, what is another one gonna do for me? Because at that point, like, the signals are there.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:26Emma Grede?

  You, you, there wasn't a part of you that's like, I, I can't keep doing this, even if only for yourself.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  And let's be very clear, this is not a, this is a tricky thing to say. This is a business thing, right? It's not like a, you know, a minority founder thing, right? Like, if you're raising tranches of capital, you're gonna be exhausted. It's a hamster wheel. You can't do your work, you can't do your job.

• 48:48Emma Grede?

  You can't do your job.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  And you can't thrive at anything.

• 48:50Emma Grede?

  Raising is a full-time job.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  It's a full-time job, right? So. The thing is also like, I will work. So I will do it. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm prepping for an investor call like weeks out of giving birth. You know, I was the one that would-

• 49:07Emma Grede?

  Add on to all of this. You had- You had two kids this time.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  So I work hard.

• 49:15Emma Grede?

  No doubt.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  I think, I think again, it's like, was the two million gonna be enough, right? I think that's the question, but if your team, you hire a CFO, if they're telling you it's gonna be enough, then you're trusting that it's gonna be enough.

• 49:29Emma Grede?

  So you're the opposite for me. I don't trust anyone.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 49:32Emma Grede?

  I feel like everyone's lying to me all the time.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  I know now.

• 49:35Emma Grede?

  You know, but I do. I think there's a part of being a founder, a CEO, an operator, where your job is to question everything, right? And I think that diagnosing the problems and being able to take the benefit of like, what is happening over and over again, like that is, that is your job, right? That is your job to say, this is not working. I think the unfortunate thing for you is that there was a severe lack of anyone around you that was able to point you in the right direction. And I think that that is gonna be the case for so many people listening to this right now.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:14Emma Grede?

  What would you, if you could go back and do things differently, thinking about around the raise, stepping into support, like really what are the key lessons that you've learned? And how would you do things differently going forward?

• 50:28Speaker 02

  I think understanding what type of business you wanna run. If you're gonna go the higher route, you have to hire the big girl team early. You have to raise the capital early and you have to set out those milestones to get to those metrics and be very clear of that.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Waterfall backwards, like the goal is this. So year one to two, we need to be here. And if we're not there, we need to ask questions. Two to five, we need to be here. If the revenue's not here and the margin's not here, what are we doing? And who are we hiring to get there?

• 50:59Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  And I don't think that we did that versus actually sitting down together to understand what type of business are we building? Is it that high growth? Or are we taking the slow and steady route?

• 51:11Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  None of them are wrong. Because I think that also begs the question when it comes to high growth. Your cadence of launching products, you know, is that really our ethos and philosophy? If we're coming back and seeing less is more, but but also launching a product every quarter? You know, how does that actually work? Sitting down with Sephora to understand like when you have that one shelf space, it's one in, one out.

• 51:35Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  So the the product that you believe in that might take a little bit more time to market, that got to go if you're going to be launching a new lip oil powder, whatever have you. So I think sitting down and really map out that kind of ecosystem. And what are we really building? I would also just not launch so many doors. We ended up in six hundred. We launched six hundred doors in August after a year.

• 52:00Emma Grede?

  After a year.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 52:02Emma Grede?

  But that must have signaled that something was going right in the two hundred and seventy. No, you must have been doing well.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Of course, we had hot spots.

• 52:09Emma Grede?

  Attraction.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Sephora.

• 52:10Emma Grede?

  Red hot spots.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Hot spots. So Sephora.

• 52:14Emma Grede?

  I think that this is an absolutely genius lesson.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 52:17Emma Grede?

  In sometimes not listening to everybody around you. Because this is one of the things where to go from two. If you were killing it in two hundred and fifty doors to go to six hundred is one thing. But if you had hot spots.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 52:31Emma Grede?

  Then the hot spot should have been looked at and be tried to replicate in the in the remaining six hundred, right? Like, it's like, how do we? Well, how do we look at all of those markets where we're tracking?

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 52:42Emma Grede?

  Figure out what the common ground is, what the similarity is. And then try to pattern match that to the remaining six hundred that's in the fleet. Not let's roll into the next six hundred. Because quite frankly, you didn't have the team. You didn't have the infrastructure and you didn't have the finance to be able to operate in six hundred doors of anywhere.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  And wait for this, of the hot spots, a lot of that love was organic.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  So how do you even turn a machine on to something that is happening organically versus like, okay, we're giving this machine platform or, you know, marketing thing is giving us a ROAS of two. I know what to do to make it a ROAS of four.

• 53:24Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  It was this pure love, that love that you felt when we shut down. It wasn't a measurable thing that we could apply to our strategy to get those hotspots to then make the other markets on fire. But then again, Emma, I'm in 250, there are hotspots, there's a glimmer of hope, and I need to go back out there and raise. And what we raised on was, hotspots are cool, but can you give us more doors? I'm like, we gotta get more doors to get more money? And they're like, yeah, more doors, new team. And here I go. Okay, more doors, new team. I'm going. Almost like a zombie. I'm almost like a zombie. I'm like, okay, this is, and again, this is like Harlem Hustle mentality. This is why I got to get the bag.

• 54:10Emma Grede?

  And listen, I hear you. Listen, I come from plaster, which is like Harlem in England, right? Same, same, right? Same culture. I did not go to business school. In fact, I left school at a very young age. And so I totally hear where your decision making was coming from. I think that some things.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Need to come from me.

• 54:30Emma Grede?

  Yes, you said it. Some of it is common sense, and it's easy in hindsight to sit here and say that. But again, you and I decided to do this podcast together because we were like, we're gonna let people know.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  We're gonna show them what it looks like to fail out loud, learn out loud with courage, and make sure that the path forward is a clear one.

• 54:52Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  This is my first business venture.

• 54:54Emma Grede?

  You give me goosebumps.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  It's real.

• 54:56Emma Grede?

  And it won't be your last.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Of course not. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. But everyone has questions of what happened. This is what happened.

• 55:05Emma Grede?

  This is what happened.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  This is what happened. And have I learned? Absolutely. And have my investors learned? Absolutely. I think one of the first phone calls was like, listen, I thought, I wish we did things differently.

• 55:15Emma Grede?

  Well, and I love that you say that because I think that the idea is always, especially when you have to shut something down, it's like, you know, oh, poor you. And I think that it is, oh, poor you. The investors lost their money too.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:27Emma Grede?

  Right? And so there is this, it's like, there are no winners in this situation.

• 55:36Speaker 06

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• 57:12Emma Grede?

  What is one piece of financial or operational advice that you maybe wish you'd have taken to heart, or is a big learning for you coming out of this? Advice coming from? What advice? Let's reframe it, actually. What is a piece of advice that you would give to other founders and entrepreneurs from a finance and operations standpoint, given what you know now? Got it.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Your D, a company that is D to C is completely from a company that's full chain distribution. You have to give yourself time to know what works at, at Ulta, Target, Sephora, whatever. Because what's working on your website might not work on that franchise or whatever space you are in. And that's important because my margin profile for my lip oil is different from my margin profile from my skin tint, right? So if you look at the business from a P and L perspective, you're like, why is your margin going down? But your velocity, the number of SKUs that you're selling is going up. Oh, that's because we're in 600 doors from 250, so the inventory is on shelf.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  But we're not making as much money on that because, you know, you can crunch your margins even more, but it was a very expensive, beautiful formula. How can you optimize with what you have right now based off the learnings? You have to give yourself time and raise, if you're raising capital, raise enough money to figure out those hard questions before you put a little match to that thing.

• 58:42Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Right?

• 58:43Emma Grede?

  I also think that one of my biggest learnings is that how you start is never really how it goes.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:50Emma Grede?

  Right? So in the beginning of like, I'll take Good American because I feel like it's like a, you know, the, the products and the journey was so similar in so many ways. But you know, what we did in the beginning was make a very complex product, right? It was like this four-piece trouser waistband and reinforced belt loop and recovery fabric. And as you sell these things, this is just like more dollars, more dollars, more dollars. Even the, you know, the pocket lining was special because it acted as this tummy tech technology. Now, as you grow and you scale, putting the same amount of value into your product to every stage is very difficult. And customers were clearly saying to me, I want a sub $100 product. And I was like, well, I make jeans that are $169.

• 59:32Emma Grede?

  And to give you everything that you want at 99 isn't, isn't possible. So we had to go, okay, are you going to trade down the customer into a cheaper, you know, product? But potentially win more customers? Are you going to then move? Everybody that was, you know, paying a hundred and sixty nine into a different product. Or is there so much market share there? These are questions, decisions, and those, those are not things to be taken lightly. And so, as you said, when you're starting to, whatever you start with, once you get to that fleet of six hundred doors,

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Emma Grede?

  it might not be that that offering looks anything like that, right? And I talk about this idea of transitioning on the way up all the time. Meaning, things have to change.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Emma Grede?

  Team changes, the way you operate changes. Your packaging might change, also the formulations and what you're selling might change. The product range might change. And so I do think as a founder, it is your job to constantly be looking at what you're doing and saying, with the business we have today, with the shape of the business we have today, what is the right business that we have to run? And that is a very difficult thing to do when you started with something so beautiful, that got all of this traction. But at the end of the day, what you were running on day one versus what you were running when you were in six hundred doors was two very different things.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Two very different things and also very quickly.

• 1:00:54Emma Grede?

  The, the speed is a thing, the, the timing is a thing.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Because what you're explaining right now in terms of, it, it's called evolution. Evolution doesn't happen overnight, right? So if you're moving so quickly, we know the, we know the problems. We actually know them. We knew that we had to improve those margins and actually, we were doing that.

• 1:01:11Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  We increased that, you know, the margins from, you know, being at literally at one point fifty eight percent. High. And we had passed to that being seventy two percent within one year. So I would argue that that was impressive and we did the work to do that.

• 1:01:27Emma Grede?

  Very impressive.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  But if you're already running out of cash, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't give you that runway again, once again, to figure out the evolution and the mistakes along the way if you're not funded for that.

• 1:01:41Emma Grede?

  No.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  So you have to have the funding, you have to have the team. And I, I, I would argue. Even with me not even having, I guess, quote unquote, dream team, and I will give my team credit because again, they built this thing with me. It's beautiful, right? They got you so far. They got you so far. I would still be knocking on people's doors. Former founders, existing founders, like, hey, what's working for you over there? What's your margins? What are you charging? What are they charging you? So I would be asking those questions. So you were doing that. You were trying to Absolutely. To get information. Oh, my goodness, from everyone. From everyone, including Sephora. Whenever there was a Sephora summit, you'd send me sitting next to Alison Hahn, like, okay, so tell me about what happened with OCC? Why is it no longer here? I'm asking those questions.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  I'm calling on the side. But regardless, you know, you still need time and money to get that right. This is a difficult question to ask. What did you do wrong? Oh, I love that question. Why is it difficult? Well, you know. No. You're a nice girl. You're funny. Number one, I think I went into this thinking, I think this is a tricky thing, right? They say, know what you're not good at and hire someone to do that. That's what I say all the time. But not, but you also need to have the literacy in that. Be careful. I'm like, I'm going to focus on product, people, PR, positioning, packaging, brand elevation, community. Oh, you got this? So if I'm hiring you for finance, I was expecting you

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  to really kind of bleed through this. And yes, did I have literacy enough to go in and explain line by line, why this went up and down? But like, babe, why did the margin go to 58? What happened here? How can we get it quicker? And I think by the time I caught on to it, it's like, is it too late? Is it too late? Or should we have gotten that quicker? Not enough understanding of what you didn't know. Yes. Is that fair? Not enough understanding of what I didn't know. That's fair. Fair. That's fair. I should have fired quicker. That's all. That is a It sucks. And the feeling there was, this is my team, these people I love. Like, what is No. I was in disbelief that these people would risk their lives to come work for me. Risk their lives.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  But I mean, again, like, I was like, this is a dream come true. Like, you want to work here? Wow. I'm so honored, you know, I think I carried.

• 1:04:06Emma Grede?

  You're so honored.

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  Honored.

• 1:04:07Emma Grede?

  While you're paying somebody to do a job.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Yes, crazy.

• 1:04:10Emma Grede?

  Oh, not me, girl.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Blasphemy.

• 1:04:12Emma Grede?

  Nah.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  So I think, yeah, I was that honoring feeling and um.

• 1:04:16Emma Grede?

  Do you think there were multiple times where you should have exited people from the business and you didn't?

• 1:04:21Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say multiple times, honestly. I think by the second time I knew that people had to leave, so I was learning. But those two people were too long. I only had, what, ten people maximum at the height of us, so.

• 1:04:32Emma Grede?

  Yeah, so two people.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  Two people is like the.

• 1:04:34Emma Grede?

  It's like twenty percent.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Culture, it's like the culture.

• 1:04:36Emma Grede?

  Totally.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  So when they leave, everyone feels it, but I think that, and these were people that were, I guess you could say, high up, so.

• 1:04:41Emma Grede?

  It's a fantastic lesson.

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  You know, so firing quickly, having true literacy, but also not having too much literacy. I was on the marketing calls, asking questions about this, this asset versus that asset. I was in way too many parts of the business, doing everything, but not anything excellently outside. I mean, I can't, sorry, I'm gonna take that back, because products were great. You know, just really kind of like into many things and unavailable to answer those calls. I was like taking calls at ten o'clock at night, like, yeah, what are you, what are you saying, like breastfeed? It was just too much, you know, and it felt unsustainable.

• 1:05:19Emma Grede?

  You are very honest.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And if I were to bring the company back, for instance, right? To your point earlier today, I would need someone with the track rec, a track record of failure and success. Because I've spoken to people that have the amazing track records, that's just like, this is too good to be true.

• 1:05:40Emma Grede?

  I talk about that all the time.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Wouldn't know what to do with my business. You don't understand Sephora.

• 1:05:44Emma Grede?

  Listen, too much success actually masks so many problems in a business. You don't know what's going wrong when you're on an absolute tear. You miss a lot of things. When a business is like difficult and clunky and you have to get in there. Yeah, you uncover so many things and that's really helpful.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Emma Grede?

  So I agree with you. You need, you need somebody that you can work with, that has had both journeys, that can actually look ahead and see the problems before they're coming.

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 1:06:13Emma Grede?

  Future-proof in a business, right? And that is, it's so important to know and to have these lessons like really spill out. I want to ask you the unpopular thing, because if I was a man.

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  Let's say it.

• 1:06:24Emma Grede?

  If I was a man, I couldn't ask you this question. Let's talk about the babies.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  If I was a man, it's funny. Yes, yes.

• 1:06:29Emma Grede?

  Well, you know, because nobody wants to. I talk about the kids all the time and I talk about how much I miss with my kids, right?

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:06:38Emma Grede?

  You know, how much I don't do as a mum. You had these two babies in the middle of starting this company, like, listen, you have the most beautiful, exceptional, heavenly children. So I'm not asking you about that. But when you think about the timing and you think about what you were trying to build.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:59Emma Grede?

  Like. To just.

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  It was hard.

• 1:07:02Emma Grede?

  It's so hard. Thank you. It's so hard.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 1:07:06Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  I I got sick. I was so stressed out. And I don't, I think I still need time to understand, was I burnt out? I don't even know. Because I was just so used to being on go.

• 1:07:17Emma Grede?

  Well, I can maybe answer that for you.

• 1:07:20Emma Grede?

  Well, how how did you take off after each?

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 1:07:23Emma Grede?

  Exactly. I I knew the answer to this.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  I was answering a P R call on the, literally in between contractions. It was insane. But I'm like, this is what you gotta do. This is the thing. This is, business is hard, you know?

• 1:07:36Emma Grede?

  And that has an impact.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  It does have an impact.

• 1:07:39Emma Grede?

  On not just the business, forget the business, that has an impact on you.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Emma Grede?

  Your health, your wellbeing and your ability to come back into the business.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:07:48Emma Grede?

  So let's call it what it is because I've been there. I had Lola, my second child, three months before we started Good American. She came to the launch at the Grove and I remembered that day like it were a dream. Like, you know, I remember Chrissy doing like my makeup and I thought, God, I don't look good, but I don't know what this face is. It was somebody else because like so many women, that soon after having a child, I was not.

• 1:08:20Emma Grede?

  In my own.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  Body.

• 1:08:22Emma Grede?

  I was not in my own thoughts. And this child was here and I'd brought the kid from fucking England. And then, you know, it's like we're at the Grove and the photographers are flashing and Chloe's there. And I remember Chloe saying like, are you, are you good? And I was like, yeah, like, no, no, I wasn't good.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  What are you gonna do though? What are you gonna do?

• 1:08:44Emma Grede?

  Well, I, I wanna talk about the realities of it because again, we have to skirt around these issues so much. That would have also taken a toll. Let's be honest about what it was. You have two kids while you've got this third child of a business where it's not all working out. And, and it's a huge distraction and hugely draining of your energy. That's the truth of it.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  I thought that was normal. I thought that was just what it is. Cause you know, you turn around and you see like Whitney Wolf with a three month old ding ding ding ding ding Nasdaq. I'm like, this is what, this is, this is the grind. I worked for Rebecca Benkov when she was literally nine months pregnant. Bouncing on a medicine ball, asking for a seltzer water, preparing for a New York Fashion Week. She did it.

• 1:09:25Emma Grede?

  So you think as women, maybe we're setting ourselves up.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Emma Grede?

  By putting those images forward of like, you can have it all.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  Aren't we setting ourselves up or is this the reality? Cause my mom did it.

• 1:09:35Emma Grede?

  I don't know. Ye- yes, and our moms, so our moms all did it. But it's a different, it's a different thing when you are being asked to manage somebody else's idea of what your business should be because they're given a capital injection. You have a team, you have.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  So we're unique.

• 1:09:54Emma Grede?

  First and second time mom, you don't know how to do too many things that you're doing.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Emma Grede?

  Right?

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:00Emma Grede?

  And so I would say. There's too much learning having to happen at one time.

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  My mind is still, I still don't know how to silence. And that's why I told you, like, I felt freedom. I get you guys can't have the lip oil, but oh my goodness, what, what I've been living. The past six years, three of which you guys have witnessed, we just made four, just made four. I've been, I took my second child.

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  W W D called. I'm like, I'm not missing this. Booked a room, took the nanny. That ten week old baby was on a flight from J F K to L A X. I put her upstairs. I pumped, I got dressed. I dressed when I'm wearing all, I think, you know, like, all like brown.

• 1:10:48Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  She was upstairs and I fed her in between my meeting, my panel, excuse me, in front of this massive room that I'm like, I'm not saying no to that. And then I, and I breastfed upstairs and then I was in a car going over stats to go to my investor meeting.

• 1:11:04Emma Grede?

  You did it because you didn't feel like you could say no?

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. A little bit of that, like scarcity mindset.

• 1:11:12Emma Grede?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  Like I couldn't, if I miss this opportunity.

• 1:11:16Emma Grede?

  Yeah, it's never gonna come back again.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Emma Grede?

  I'll never have another chance.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Emma Grede?

  Which, by the way, you know now is not true, right?

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 1:11:22Emma Grede?

  Okay, just, I just wanna check.

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  I got some sleep now, so.

• 1:11:26Emma Grede?

  Because it's, because it's a really important point to know that when you're deserved of your moment, it's always there for you. It's always coming back. And I think that that's something that I suffered with myself. I speak about this all the time. I used to wake myself up in the middle of the night to answer questions that were coming from America on a contract. I'd take flights that I didn't need to take because I felt like if I wasn't there, then it wouldn't, like, the deal wouldn't land. And what you learn is that none of that is true. That is all self imposed.

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  Your mind.

• 1:11:57Emma Grede?

  And it's just honestly a fragment of your imagination. But what is real is the mum guilt, right? And I wanna ask you because I think so many mums feel this, but when you're working, when you're pitching, when you're traveling, when you're managing investors, doing the late nights, how did you cope with that piece of it?

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  The mum guilt?

• 1:12:15Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:12:17Emma Grede?

  Sometimes it's not about coping. Maybe the question is, how did you navigate it?

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  I moved through it, similar to how I moved through fear. I, I was still do something terrified. I'd still go through it. What can I say? I think that, again, this is good and bad thing, right? My mom was a worker. My mom would be gone. She would drop me off at school and she'll come back home at eleven P M.

• 1:12:35Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  So I, I also think that, not saying that's the right thing to do, because of course I miss some times my mama, but I, I. She inspires me.

• 1:12:46Emma Grede?

  But by the way, that's how so many of our mothers.

• 1:12:48Speaker 02

  Especially single moms. My mom wasn't a single mom, but especially single moms.

• 1:12:51Emma Grede?

  Like, I, I was raised by a single mom and I made the dinner for the kids because she would get in at nine o'clock and that's just what it was. There was no, you know, we've been fed this idea that we have to be there for every single milestone of our kids. Be there in the morning, be there at night, do whatever needs to happen during the day.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Got to get the job done.

• 1:13:07Emma Grede?

  I mean, I certainly wasn't raised like that. It would be wonderful if that were the reality for a lot of working women, especially entrepreneurial working women, but it just ain't.

• 1:13:16Speaker 02

  I'm sad, but I have like nanny cams and, you know, FaceTimes and I'm very present when I'm with them. And it fills my cup.

• 1:13:25Emma Grede?

  Do you think that motherhood gave you a different perspective on failure?

• 1:13:30Speaker 02

  Ooh, failure's not an option for me. I think I move now with more intention. If this is gonna take me away from my kids, what, what is it gonna yield for me and for them? As the breadwinner is like, I gotta bring home the bacon. So what, what do I need to do to get there without hopefully sacrificing them? You know, I, them kids in the bed with me and I, you know, like, they, when I'm at home, they don't, they have no idea sometimes. Like, or if I have to do something, they're with me. You know, they're with me at Sephora. Literally, my, my daughter is like literally cleaning up the shelves. She's like, Mom, these are yours. What, what are they doing here? This is yours. So, yeah, I, I think, again, the balance is a mirage.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  The failure gets me like, okay, I'm on the ground, I'm on the floor. What do I need to do to make sure that I'm, I'm failing up? And for me right now, that means sleeping. That means getting the acupuncture, getting the services, getting the massage, getting the therapy.

• 1:14:31Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  To reframe my mindset out of what I now know as survivor mode. Again, when you're one of thirty, raising over a million, you're like, the city is on my back. Everyone's watching me to get this right.

• 1:14:44Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  And that can be a lot and it can also be like, if this business fails, this is what I was thinking before, I will never have another business. And it's just not true. And it's, these are things that I'm in real time, right now, rewiring my mind to understand that I do and I can have abundance and ease and protection and safety while having the creativity and pouring into this because I have shown that I can.

• 1:15:16Speaker 08

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• 1:17:16Emma Grede?

  I completely understand why you felt the weight of the world and especially the weight of the community, right, the culture, because you had been held up as this, you know, look at this woman, she's one of only thirty, she's doing these incredible things. But I really hope you know that all around us, there are mostly men, building and failing and losing money and starting again.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  I have plenty of friends that way and it inspired me, I'm like, you made, you raised eighty two million dollars and walked away and now you have a new job? Interesting.

• 1:17:52Emma Grede?

  It happens. But it happens so much more than we know, right? So again, I think it's about understanding, like, this thing happened in a business and there are parts of it that you can learn from and there's parts of it you should learn from. It's not really just about you. And I think as women, we would do really, really well to understand and be able to separate ourselves. I think it's, and one of the reasons we're speaking today is so that we can really share those learnings and you have those learnings and you are able to speak about it in such a mature way, like, you know, and there's not really that much distance. So I really give you so much credit for that.

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:18:32Emma Grede?

  But you should one hundred percent have another business or something, right? Because the benefit of everything that you've been through, the benefit of everything that you've learned, you will be able to take that with you somewhere.

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Absolutely. But as you're speaking, one thing does come up to me because the anxiety went both ways. The anxiety was the fear of failing, but also the fear of succeeding, especially because you're one of three, or thirty, excuse me. Like, when you see Myel, Honey Pot, and these brands actually making it. And making that kind of success, then you still, I still have the community on my back like, are you gonna sell out?

• 1:19:12Emma Grede?

  Again, you only know what you know with the information that you have.

• 1:19:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:19:16Emma Grede?

  And so part of the reason that I'm doing this show is A to inform people, right? Because we wanna share the information. I talk about how small it is at the top. It's not small, it's minuscule.

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  Literally.

• 1:19:28Emma Grede?

  The information gets passed around in this miniature little prism of like dudes.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  And I was gonna say men.

• 1:19:34Emma Grede?

  What we're doing here is sharing the information to the people that don't necessarily have access.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Emma Grede?

  And so it's really, really key for everyone to understand what we're trying to do here. When you build a business, when you grow a business to the point that it is on that very narrow docket to be acquired, the point is that you sell it.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  Are we listening? Are we okay with this now?

• 1:20:02Emma Grede?

  That's it.

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  Cause we're still having this conversation though.

• 1:20:04Emma Grede?

  We can not still have this conversation because it is to the very detriment of what it means to grow something and to start something and then see the rewards of your work. You are supposed to have an exit plan if that's what you've optimized that business for.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:20:19Emma Grede?

  Now, some people start businesses and they're family businesses that they want with their family for generations. Some people start businesses because they, you know, love and they have a deep passion for what they do and they just want this thing and they wanna hold it and keep it.

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  Different businesses.

• 1:20:32Emma Grede?

  Different businesses. But if you build a business in a commercial sector that has opportunity to be acquired and you have that come at you, you should sell that company. That's it.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Can we just make space for that and I think really understand that? And I do think honestly, we're making, because of platforms like this, we're making strides. And I do think an interesting

• 1:20:57Speaker 02

  Point that came out of this discourse was, well, if she's sold, would this been the outpour? You know, sometimes it feels like, it's like, oh, poor baby, we're comfortable there, but not ready to have those celebratory moments where people are like, ah, they're gonna change the formula. We talked about that today.

• 1:21:17Emma Grede?

  Well, I even think the very way that you set those two things up, we cannot be more comfortable in this space.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Scarcity mindset, a little bit.

• 1:21:25Emma Grede?

  Space. We cannot, because as as a culture, we cannot be comfortable in commiseration and not in celebration. It just won't work.

• 1:21:37Speaker 02

  Period.

• 1:21:38Emma Grede?

  Right? End up. And when you think about Amy Colain now, do you think about it as a success, as a failure, or as something else entirely?

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  Both. Absolutely both. I was very successful with many things. And I failed at many things. And I'm grateful for both of them. Someone always says, like, don't take a compliment personal or a diss personal. And this is the epitome of that. Am I excited? People are excited? Absolutely. But I'm always thinking, so funny, I work, and my mind works this way, when someone's like, oh, my God, I love this foundation. I'm like, oh, great. Did you? So what would you have done differently? Do you think that it lasted out the day? Like, I'm just that way. But I, I am, and you know what? Speaking of legacy, like, this is my mom, you know, I named it after my mom. She was one of the last people I told. I was terrified. I, I didn't want to break her heart.

• 1:22:26Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  You know, because and someone, again, the community is so beautiful. I was reading the TikToks and watching them. One woman was just in her car. She just parked her car. She was like, you know what? We're talking, but like, this woman, this could have fed her family. You know, that acquisition, that whatever, could have been the legacy that she could feed not only my family, but my, my mom, my dad, you know? People back home in Senegal, the artists that I was just like, I can't wait to get a little cash. So I can just give you the world, you know? And it took me having to talk to her and she's like,

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  Girl, Oprah knows your name. You're good. In my book, I'm like, oh, how many odds we beat to be here

• 1:23:10Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 1:23:11Speaker 02

  is in some form successful.

• 1:23:12Emma Grede?

  There's no denying of that. I mean, when you wrote the piece for the cut, it felt for me like you were, it was almost like a love letter to your community.

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:20Emma Grede?

  Why was it important for you to do that and to frame it that way?

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  We started that way. It's just us. It's our DNA. You know what I mean? We're the brand seen in the shower. You know, sometimes we hit the note. Sometimes it's embarrassing. We always set out to be the big sister next door to help you. There was no pro makeup artistry to it. It was very much like you can take this and grab it and use it. It's foolproof. It's easy. You know, we took you through the branding and everything. I think it would be dishonest as scary, embarrassing. I'm not embarrassed by it, but like how you could feel very vulnerable.

• 1:23:55Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Putting that version of the story out there. One thing you won't do is take my voice, my idea, my grit and my love. That's mine.

• 1:24:03Emma Grede?

  That's yours. That's all yours.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  All mine.

• 1:24:05Emma Grede?

  You wrote in the article, you said, why wasn't that enough? About making, you know, a full range of colors that match all women of color. What do you think the answer is to that question?

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  I think we answered a lot of it today. You know, it's really, truly like it's not enough. You need infrastructures and you need to have the reservoir to understand, especially if you're going out there to change systems. We're changing systems out here. That's hard work and it requires everyone to kind of hold hands on that. So having that reservoir to understand if you're trying to build a legacy company and brand, what would evolution look like? And how soon should it have started? For instance, like we were in, again, I'm so frustrated sometimes too, because we were in the motion of this.

• 1:24:54Emma Grede?

  I know.

• 1:24:55Speaker 02

  We sat down with Sephora to say, hey, Are you gonna launch Lighter Shades? What does that look like? Are you prepared for that? You know, what's the storytelling there? And we were in the kitchen, literally working out.

• 1:25:05Emma Grede?

  Because you had understood that you needed to expand.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  Yes, we have to. We literally, right now, our tagline was, "Clean Beauty Made For Melon And Rich Skin." That's where we started.

• 1:25:17Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  If you go to Sephora right now, that tagline is different. We were ushering new chapters of evolution, where we were celebrating rich stories and rich skin, to be able to invite people to the table to play with us and have that kind of rich feeling, whether it's formula, texture, undertones, all of that. But again, it required some time. So, in hindsight, that's what I would say.

• 1:25:44Emma Grede?

  Oh, exactly. You learn so much.

• 1:25:48Speaker 02

  I have.

• 1:25:48Emma Grede?

  You really did.

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  And I'm so grateful for that.

• 1:25:50Emma Grede?

  No, and that really comes through. What do you think the hardest day at Amico Lay was?

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  Hmm, hardest day? Can I say two days?

• 1:26:01Emma Grede?

  Yeah, go on, give me the two days.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  One was team. There are certain people that just look at you with like an eye of like, "You're gonna take us there." So it was really hard to just be like, and I get it, like, you know, you know, layoffs are hard. So I think just having that, and I think I was very transparent with my team as well. I led with pretty radical transparency. Like, "We're fundraising, it's not going successful, we need more time. We're doing this because of that, we're scaling back because of that." So I think that, you know, final, like, "We're not gonna make it call" was really tough, not to do it through tears, because I'm like, "This is final." Once you put it out there to your employees, it's final. The second is calling my investors. "I don't wanna lose your money." I have to train myself even how to understand money, to bring it into this company

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  and treat it as the necessity, the energy. Like, I had to really reframe my mindset, because coming from an immigrant family, you wouldn't ask anything. Even if you were starving at home, you would never ask for money, "How dare you." My dad's like, "You're doing what?"

• 1:27:00Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  So I had to reframe that, and then to go back for someone to believe in you pre-seed, with no track record, with all these things. I'm like, "Hi, right here. This is why, this is how we got here. We need to move quick about this, this is happening."

• 1:27:18Emma Grede?

  And you made those calls yourself?

• 1:27:19Speaker 02

  Yes. Every single one of them. I made myself. Talking to Kelly Rowland, one of my investors, like, girl. And then also learning from that, like, how people respond, you know? Some people are like, oh, girl, like, what, you know? And some people are like, are you okay? Did anyone give you share? Uh, like, give me, like, hard, hard shit? No, honestly. Because behind the scenes, we were working.

• 1:27:42Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:42Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:27:43Emma Grede?

  No one can give you as hard a time as you're gonna be giving yourself.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  Yourself. That's fair.

• 1:27:48Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  That's fair. So those are the two hard days. And then afterwards. And then afterwards, the community. The community, we were like, expecting like, okay.

• 1:27:58Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a little frustrating in a way, because what I was seeing was that, you know, you made the announcement, or, you know, the floodgates opened, the community was just, you know, speaking, and then your products started flying off the shelves. And I just, it's such a force sense of hope.

• 1:28:17Speaker 02

  I know, I'm like. Do we have to give this back to you? I'm like, what are you, what are you talking about?

• 1:28:21Emma Grede?

  It's like, it's selling.

• 1:28:21Speaker 02

  We made, literally, in 10 days, what we made in a year.

• 1:28:25Emma Grede?

  Oh, I wanna cry. I literally wanna cry. It's hard.

• 1:28:30Speaker 02

  It's whiplash.

• 1:28:31Emma Grede?

  It's whiplash. Yep.

• 1:28:32Speaker 02

  And that is exhausting.

• 1:28:33Emma Grede?

  And it's a force sense of hope, right? Because.

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  That's not sustainable, once again.

• 1:28:38Emma Grede?

  Exactly. The outpouring isn't sustainable.

• 1:28:41Speaker 02

  There's no infrastructure around that.

• 1:28:44Emma Grede?

  No, and there's no way to scale that. What are you gonna do? Keep doing sad things?

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Not sustainable.

• 1:28:47Emma Grede?

  Keep closing down, like, it's just.

• 1:28:49Speaker 02

  Be on a, on a.

• 1:28:50Emma Grede?

  On the floor.

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  On a pole or something.

• 1:28:53Emma Grede?

  I was brought over today.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  And that's not my MO. That's not my MO either. I am, I am full of light, and I, and I do, I thrive off of that, you know? It took a lot to get there, and, and honestly, we were like, sorry, you can't get this lip oil. Like, I'm trying to get as many as, as we can, and hence why we had a final launch. Like, a part of that was to get people their things. You know, that was my North Star as well. So it's been difficult, and it's been a lot of emotions for everyone.

• 1:29:21Emma Grede?

  For everyone.

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  And including founders.

• 1:29:24Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:25Speaker 02

  I'm hearing founder's stories that make me sad, because they're like, oh, if you can't, then why, why should I even try? I'm like, no.

• 1:29:32Emma Grede?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  And that's why I'm here today, to make sure you know, this is where I went wrong, where I went right, et cetera, et cetera. You need to fix this, because one person winning is not enough. We need ten Dinesh and Myricks and Fenty's and.

• 1:29:45Emma Grede?

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I will not stop thanking you for being brave and for being honest and for saying that. Because the whole point is that what happens to one doesn't necessarily happen to the other.

• 1:29:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:29:59Emma Grede?

  Right? Some people make a hundred and fifty calls to get investment. Some people get the investment the first time they ask for it.

• 1:30:04Speaker 02

  True.

• 1:30:05Emma Grede?

  It's like the time, the culture, the moment. There are so many things that go into this. And I think that you are a cautionary tale, but you are not the be all and end all of what can and might happen. And I specifically want to say this to black female founders, because at the end of the day, a founder is a founder. There are stories, there are narratives, there are things that happen, there are commonalities, there are complete differences. And what you are right now is incredibly graceful for sharing your story. But it doesn't mean that what happened to you is gonna replicate.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  I'm in a group chat, everyone's like, you guys better keep going.

• 1:30:41Emma Grede?

  You better keep going. You better keep going.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  I'm gonna hunt you down if you don't.

• 1:30:44Emma Grede?

  And maybe with the benefit of some hindsight from you.

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:47Emma Grede?

  So you announced that the brand is closing this month in September. So what do you think you're gonna do on your last day?

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  Oh my God, on my last day?

• 1:30:58Speaker 02

  And I think we should talk about this too. There's no last day. I think closing happens when you're selling. But I still have a lot of things to do to wind down the company officially.

• 1:31:06Emma Grede?

  Let's talk about that.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  I don't think people know. My lawyers told me, like, you need to be prepared. Like, closing down a company could be as tedious and time consuming and expensive as getting acquired. You just don't get like, you don't get the baby out of it.

• 1:31:20Emma Grede?

  The glory at the end of it.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  You don't get the glory out of it, but like, it's gonna be a lot of work and without the team.

• 1:31:25Emma Grede?

  Do you know what that work entails right now?

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Yes, I do. So we've mapped that out and we are working really closely to be able to obviously have a memo and everyone to the investors and try to figure that out. So that's that. But I think in my next chapter, you told me to do this by year, understand like what went wrong, what started to go wrong, what went right. In case there's another venture, and there will be another venture, so that you don't repeat those mistakes. I know, again, what I'm really good at, and I know where my blind spots are. Product, community, storytelling.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Being able to emotionally connect with someone not even knowing them. I do think I have that gift, so let's see what the universe does with that. And I'm being cautious also of like, you know, how to make it fruitful versus scarcity. I'm so happy that I'm not in that scarcity mindset. And I think the freedom of owning your story and being transparent awards you that. Like, yes, cat's out the bag. Now there's no pretending or, you know, keeping up this facade. Like, here you are in a bowling alley with all these creators and community people. Oh, my God, four years, amazing. You're like, I don't know what tomorrow brings. But today, I'm going to be president. I'm going to give you what you need. I'm going to share this story because I still believe in it. But I don't know what's going to happen.

• 1:32:45Speaker 02

  And I've learned to learn to move through that, which is difficult.

• 1:32:50Emma Grede?

  What do you think that anyone can learn from your journey?

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  Do it.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  Do it scared. Do it with the possibility of failure. Listen, one in 10 businesses don't succeed. Can we also just talk about it like, listen, it is what it is. It's business, right? You get what I'm saying? So like, you know, understanding the channel market fit. And if you're going to be adventurous or push the needle, make sure like all your partners are aligned with that. And also present to you like, a lot of people ask like, what are you going to do for us? I'm like, OK, what are you going to do for me, though? Like, how are we going to actually, you know, manage this together? But stay true to what you are and also know who you're, know the why. You talk about the why all the time. Know why you're doing this and who you're actually trying to connect to. Because I think that that's the biggest gift.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  I've gained a family out of this. Like, I walk in the streets, I'm like overwhelmed with like, oh, babe, you have no idea what you've done. And I'm like, oh, OK.

• 1:33:52Emma Grede?

  It's true. It's true.

• 1:33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Emma Grede?

  You closed your piece in the cut saying thank you to all of the women that let you be part of their daily routine.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:34:01Emma Grede?

  What do you want to say to those women now?

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  I see you, girl. I see this. It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal, and I think even more importantly, I did what my mom was able to do. Come to the shop, you start to realize the locals, locals become your friends, become your mentors, start to share secrets and things like that, like that is beautiful, and we've been able to kind of create a space, a conduit, to create a safe space for that type of very emotional exchange to happen.

• 1:34:31Emma Grede?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:31Speaker 02

  And I'm so proud of that.

• 1:34:33Emma Grede?

  Can you say past the, you know, the finalization and the closure of the company to understand what's next for you?

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  And when you say that, do you mean like tactically, like we're job?

• 1:34:45Emma Grede?

  Yeah, like, do you, well, and that's the question. Are you looking for a job now?

• 1:34:49Speaker 02

  Yes, I am.

• 1:34:50Emma Grede?

  I know, but I'm not gonna say that, and for you. So it's like, now you're looking for a job.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, now I was like trying to understand what the next chapter looks like, where you're combining the art and the money.

• 1:35:01Emma Grede?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:35:01Speaker 02

  Okay, as Jay-Z said this, he's like, you know, I don't ascribe to the starving artists. It's like literally, like, how do you create something beautiful, but also something that can pay it forward?

• 1:35:12Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:13Speaker 02

  And for me, you know, that means providing, not only for my family, but I'm still trying to figure out ways to give back to those artists that I see. There's just so much more to be invested in. So I'm still thinking about that, but I don't think it'll be far from what I'm doing and what I've done. What I'm doing, what I've done at Amicolay is what I've done my whole career. I was a person calling an influencer at L'Oreal, sorry, but like,

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  it's not 10,000, ask for 15.

• 1:35:42Speaker 02

  If there's 150 influencers and there are five that are women of color, hi. Can we get 20 more that are, you know, multicultural, if our goal? And it's always tied to the goal.

• 1:35:55Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  It's money-making decisions, right? Like, if your, if your goal is to acquire 1 billion new customers, it's not gonna do it looking one way. So I was always doing that, I'm gonna continue doing that. And I did it, you know, tactically and tangibly with product with Amicolay.

• 1:36:10Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  But it's my DNA.

• 1:36:12Emma Grede?

  But it is in your DNA, and I think that, you know, when you talk about the things that you're good at, that you are uniquely good at, outside of making a really beautiful product. It's very, very clear to me that you are an excellent marketer. You're an excellent product person. That you really fundamentally understand an audience, their needs. And when you don't, you know how to go and figure out what it is that they need. And I feel like every brand needs that. Every business needs that. And hopefully where you land is in a place where your gifts can be like really shared. Yeah. And can be really useful in an organisation. And you'll be able to get that other side of things. And that proximity to some of the business decisions and, and what's happening behind the scenes.

• 1:36:56Emma Grede?

  So that as you go forward, because I know you have another business in you at some point. Emma insists. I just know, do you know what it is? It's like, I see so clearly what happens. And I think it was this great convergence of a number of different things. And you said it beautifully, death by a thousand cuts. And what is interesting is your mindset right now, that you know there's something in the future for you. But you're not too proud to say, there might be a little period in between that, that I take a job, that I, you know, have a moment. Yeah. And figure out and understand what happened to me. And then in the future, do something. And that just shows me that that is there for you, that that's going to happen for you. And I think that you're gonna find, you're gonna find out some very interesting things about yourself

• 1:37:40Emma Grede?

  and about how people view you in the next few years. I'm excited. That are gonna be very exciting for the next venture. And I think that that is, you know, I look at like your next few years, you're so young. You've made such an incredible impact. You are. I mean, you look so, um, that skin is incredible.

• 1:38:01Emma Grede?

  But you know, I, I, I really do think that you're gonna be in this kind of stopgap and have this incredible learning moment that's gonna give birth to something else. And there is no, I'm so cheering you on. I'm cheering you on for this next couple of years. I'll be cheering you on in the future. I have said it a couple of times in this podcast, but I appreciate you beyond, Sharra, for coming. And doing the hard thing.

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:38:26Emma Grede?

  And doing it because you have a true love for the women that you are serving.

• 1:38:30Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:38:30Emma Grede?

  Sitting here today, you're doing exactly what you've been doing for the last four or five years.

• 1:38:35Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:38:35Emma Grede?

  You're coming out with something that nobody, nobody does.

• 1:38:39Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:38:40Emma Grede?

  No one does it.

• 1:38:40Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:38:41Emma Grede?

  So I'm so unbelievably grateful to you and I know that we're gonna have so many comments. We're gonna have so many people getting in touch. What I really want out of this is that the right energy and the right thing comes to you. So I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be wishing and hoping and manifesting and praying that

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:38:58Emma Grede?

  the right thing comes your way because you really deserve it.

• 1:39:01Speaker 02

  I received that. Thank you so much.

• 1:39:02Emma Grede?

  Okay, now I've got rapid fire questions for you. What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

• 1:39:07Speaker 02

  I pray. I do. I do.

• 1:39:09Emma Grede?

  What's the last thing you do before you go to bed?

• 1:39:12Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, I'm on my screen. I'm like, I'm either watching the nanny cam like a, like a stalker.

• 1:39:17Emma Grede?

  Psycho.

• 1:39:18Speaker 02

  Or I'm like, one last TikTok, one last TikTok. Oh, it's terrible.

• 1:39:24Emma Grede?

  You're like, you're in your life. I mean, that's fine. What is a book that changed your life?

• 1:39:27Speaker 02

  Oof, The Hard Things About The Hard Things, Andrew Korvitz. And it's about the hard things about the hard, literally.

• 1:39:35Emma Grede?

  The Hard Things About The Hard Things. I don't know that book.

• 1:39:40Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:39:40Emma Grede?

  But the title says we all need to read it.

• 1:39:42Speaker 02

  And it's very tactical as well.

• 1:39:44Emma Grede?

  It is.

• 1:39:44Speaker 02

  Uh huh. And it's, and it's, it's the things that I wasn't good at, the hard conversations like, you gots to go.

• 1:39:50Emma Grede?

  You gots to go.

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  This is the end of your ride for you.

• 1:39:52Emma Grede?

  Now you know, you're like, see you honey.

• 1:39:54Speaker 02

  And there's another one though.

• 1:39:55Emma Grede?

  Learn that.

• 1:39:56Speaker 02

  It's about love.

• 1:39:57Emma Grede?

  Can I just tell you a quick framing that I have? Just, I wish I'd have said it in the podcast, but here's always my framing.

• 1:40:03Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:40:03Emma Grede?

  Anytime I have to let someone go, which happens, right? It happens in the usual course of events. It happens because I've had to do productions in force over my time because, you know, not everything goes right. I always think deeply about that person. Like, I really do.

• 1:40:18Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:40:19Emma Grede?

  But the other thing that I think about. Is the other person that could be in that job. You not being what's needed in that role. Is stopping somebody else from having that role and stopping the company from thriving. And therefore us being able to hire other people. And it's a recontextualization. I used to think of it as a bit of a cheat, but it isn't because it's the truth. And when you stick in a place that's not allowing you to move forward, you're not helping yourself to hire more people. You're actually reducing your ability.

• 1:40:50Speaker 02

  So I'm laughing as I go through a divorce. I'm like, actually.

• 1:40:54Emma Grede?

  Is that true?

• 1:40:55Speaker 02

  You might be stopping me.

• 1:40:57Emma Grede?

  Literally.

• 1:40:58Speaker 02

  So true.

• 1:40:59Emma Grede?

  Stopping you from what you're supposed to have. And the husband.

• 1:41:05Emma Grede?

  There you go. What are you aspiring to in your next chapter?

• 1:41:10Speaker 02

  I am aspiring to abundance and ease. And a different form of ease that comes through not laziness or slowing downness per se. But making sure it's actually impactful. So by that, I think something I learned to quote, you know, even when I was younger. You work hard or you can work smart. In this next chapter, I want to work smart.

• 1:41:34Emma Grede?

  Good for you, as you should. What's a beauty trend that you wish would die?

• 1:41:39Speaker 02

  Die? Okay.

• 1:41:41Emma Grede?

  You're the person to ask.

• 1:41:43Speaker 02

  It's very controversial because I'm in Los Angeles.

• 1:41:46Emma Grede?

  Go on, go on.

• 1:41:48Speaker 02

  Fillers on the lips, just overfilling. I just think that sometimes it's like. There's something so beautiful about aging in like expression. Yeah, I don't, I don't want to say die, but just let's tone it down like two M M's.

• 1:42:06Emma Grede?

  I love that you gave some specificity there. Just two M M's. Okay. What is one thing that you value now that you didn't value when you started Amico Lay?

• 1:42:17Speaker 02

  I'm literally going back to myself in Harlem, like on the floor, trying to be careful with my time. I do think that I was a yes girl. I said yes to everything, like taking the coffee with the intern and all the things I knew I didn't have the bandwidth for, but I overexerted because I was just so grateful, you know. So I think that in that moment, I would have said, like, how dare you? Who do you think you are that you can't have this call with this person? I'm like, today, I'm like, I actually, I don't have it in me to give you. So if it's not there, I can't provide that for you. And I do think, though, that a lot of that has changed because of motherhood, because I usually have to go home with the full cup so I can be a good mom.

• 1:43:02Speaker 02

  So I am very careful when I can't take that call, that meeting, I'm gonna say no. And I didn't value that before. I was very terrified of it, actually. Thought it was really an ego thing, like, you think you're better than, like, you can't stop on the street and talk to that person? And now I'm like, oh, I kind of understand why people do say no. You don't have it in you. And you gotta respect that. And it's not coming from, I don't want to, or a place of, I don't like you, it's I don't got it.

• 1:43:29Emma Grede?

  I don't got it.

• 1:43:33Emma Grede?

  It's me every day.

• 1:43:34Speaker 02

  I don't got it!

• 1:43:36Emma Grede?

  Amazing. Thank you, my darling.

• 1:43:38Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:43:39Emma Grede?

  I loved you today. Literally.

• 1:43:41Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:43:48Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Corinne, Gillian Fisher, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung Kaiser, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Saluja, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox, Kirk Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado, and Arnie Agassi. Social media by Olivia Holman. Special thanks to

• 1:44:34Emma Grede?

  Brittany Smith, Sidney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Meeke, Shaun Cherry and Lauren Viera. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemagreed. Greed is spelt G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with emagreed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emagreed.me.