Thrive Causemetics: Karissa Bodnar. How a Beauty Business Made Millions for a Mission

Karissa Bodnar had a dream job at L'Oréal when a close friend died from cancer at age 24. It shook her up and made her reassess what she really wanted to do with her life. The answer? Build her own beauty business with a mission of “giving back.” The problem? Nobody seemed to want to carry her products. She pitched Sephora, Nordstrom, Ulta, and others—and kept hearing no. She stuck it out, pouring tens of thousands of dollars of her own savings into it, and worked a full-time job to fund the formulation of new cosmetics. Two years in, another life-changing event. Karissa posted a video of herself teaching make-up application to domestic violence survivors, and it went viral. In this episode Karissa explains why mission alone will never save a bad product, how scarcity helped her build a better company, why she resisted raising too much money, and how she turned a deeply personal loss into one of the most distinctive brands in beauty. What You’ll Learn: How Karissa's childhood experimenting with fruits and flowers led her to researching and formulating her own makeupHow Karissa’s experiences at Nordstrom and Sephora set her up for a plum job in product developmentThe importance of attracting an influential mentor or guide to career development, as Karissa did at L’OrealHow Karissa developed her unique line — like false eyelashes for people who had lost their natural lashes during cancer treatmentWhy the decision to keep sales DTC and ONLY online can be a great business moveWhy Karissa believes “scarcity drives focus”How to handle operations when sales explodeWhy mission helps customer loyalty — but performance drives the initial and repeat purchases Timestamps: 05:30 – Making makeup in the kitchen at age 10 and Karissa’s first steps into research 08:55 – Learning the beauty business from the ground up 11:22 – How Karissa landed her dream job in product development at L'Oréal 14:48 – The career lessons that got Karissa noticed at L'Oréal 22:03 – How a tragedy made Karissa leave a dream job to start a company “with purpose” 31:36 – The one-person-at-a-time marketing strategy 33:01 – The viral moment that changed Thrive Causemetics 37:06 – Why failing to raise money became an advantage 42:33 – Mission versus product: which really matters? 44:34 – Why Thrive Causemetics stayed direct-to-consumer This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce with research help from Chris Maccini. Our engineer was Jimmy Keeley. Follow How I Built This: Instagram → @howibuiltthis https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis/ X → @HowIBuiltThis https://x.com/howibuiltthis Facebook → How I Built This https://www.facebook.com/howibuiltthis Follow Guy Raz: Instagram → @guy.raz https://www.instagram.com/guy.raz/ Youtube →guy_raz https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNSfrxNEmCruNtjIzxCBHjg X → @guyraz https://x.com/guyraz Substack →https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/guyraz.substack.com__;!! Iwwt! RZoD751oWzUzoqqdJiqaoL6HdJfRHDUO1TKvYJ424d3Udn7-Pw9Nj6nEsauh9zcgEvLjUEc$guyraz.substack.com http://guyraz.substack.com Website →https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/guyraz.substack.com__;!! Iwwt! RZoD751oWzUzoqqdJiqaoL6HdJfRHDUO1TKvYJ424d3Udn7-Pw9Nj6nEsauh9zcgEvLjUEc$guyraz.com http://guyraz.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:45Guy Raz?

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• 1:27Guy Raz?

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• 2:07Guy Raz?

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• 3:33Guy Raz?

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• 4:25Speaker 01

  I would have given you my left arm, and I am left-handed, to be carried at Sephora, Nordstrom, Ulta, Anthropologie. I mean, I was pitching to everybody, QVC, and they didn't really see the vision of what I was creating. There were many days where we had no sales. Having a $150 revenue day, I felt like an absolute baller. And so I was funding the production through working my full-time job, and I wiped out my entire life savings.

• 5:05Guy Raz?

  Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 5:17Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Karissa Bodnar turned a purpose-driven side hustle into Thrive Cosmetics, a multimillion-dollar beauty company.

• 5:35Guy Raz?

  The beauty business is huge, and it's incredibly crowded. There are thousands of brands selling mascara and eyeliner and lipstick, and lots of them are really good. So for a new brand to break through, you need to give people a reason to notice you. And for Karissa Bodnar, that reason came in 2013. Karissa had worked at a Sephora store for a few years and then landed a job at L'Oréal working in product development. And while she was there, one of her closest friends from college died from cancer. She was just 24 years old, and that really shook Karissa. And it got her thinking about what she really wanted to do with her life. And eventually, she came up with an idea for her own cosmetics company

• 6:20Guy Raz?

  that would also give back to people in need. She called it Thrive Cosmetics, as in C-A-U-S-E, cosmetics. Now, having a mission is one thing, but you still have to make something people actually want to buy. And for the first few years, Thrive struggled. Karissa couldn't get her products into stores. Sales were mainly online, and they were tiny, like a good day was $100 in orders. But then, something happened that changed everything. And yes, as you will hear, it was a viral moment. But Karissa figured out how to capture it and helped turn Thrive Cosmetics into a much bigger brand. As for Karissa, she grew up on a small farm in Stanwood,

• 7:05Guy Raz?

  Washington, just north of Seattle. There were chickens and pygmy goats, even a horse named Blue. And like a lot of little girls, Karissa loved playing with makeup. But she took it a little further than most.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Makeup to me was playing dress up when I was a little girl. I started formulating in my parents' kitchen when I was 10. But I have photos of my dad, actually, when I was putting my mom's blush on him and lipstick. He was just the best dad to allow me to play around with makeup. But I think really where it clicked for me was the way that beauty has the ability to make us feel confident.

• 7:50Guy Raz?

  When you say formulating, like making what?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  So my parents were incredible and would buy me any book that I wanted to. And I was, you know, they made me work for every Clinique eyeshadow palette that I got. I was weeding on those five acres at both my parents' as well as my grandparents' house. I was doing yard work. I was taking care of the goats. I was taking care of all of the animals that we had in order to earn the makeup that I got. But they always gave me whatever book I wanted. And so very early on, I had different types of books, like the Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary. And I started to learn how to formulate, because this was before, I mean, we had dial-up internet.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  In the, in the late 90s and early 2000s, but I really was self-taught on the, the chemistry side through just the imagination that my parents really fostered in our kitchen and in my mother's gardens that I was helping tend to. So, you know, we grew sunflowers and I would grind down the sunflower seeds to make a butter, which would ultimately become sunflower seed butter. And then I would steam the rose petals because that would help to get pigment. We had endless blackberries and I'll never forget the first time I realized the pigment that was in a blackberry. It was because I forgot to wear gardening gloves and my hands were stained for days.

• 9:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  And my mom sat there in the kitchen with me trying to get the, the stain off. But ultimately what that fostered in me was like, oh, that's actually a pigment that I could put in a lipstick or in a blush. And so I really credit growing up on a farm to so much of that chemistry that I was learning really by doing. Yeah.

• 9:42Guy Raz?

  I, I, I just picked a bunch of blackberries this weekend, which I have a huge blackberry bush and I never thought of it as in beauty. I always think of it as just something I'm gonna eat. But, um, so, but here's, here's my question. We're talking about the late 90s, you're about 10 years old and this, so there's no social media, right? Like today, a 10-year-old girl living, you know, an hour and a half out of Seattle, outside of Seattle in a rural area, it, it knows everything that a 10-year-old girl in New York City knows because of social media.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:14Guy Raz?

  How did you know about Clinique makeup and, you know, and about even high-end makeup?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, I also discovered makeup through friends and, I mean, we would go to the mall a couple of times a year and I really learned by going to those makeup counters and asking, I knew that if I spent $35 that a makeup artist would spend the time with me to give me a makeup lesson. And so that was really how I learned early on.

• 10:43Guy Raz?

  Right. Okay. Got it. And then I guess from what I read, when you were about 15 or 16, the family moved to, to Centralia, Washington, where, I mean, I guess your exposure to fashion and beauty grew, right? Cause it was a bigger town and there's more stores. Plus, I think you were in range of like Nordstrom's headquarters because it was based in Seattle, which I, that, I mean, it must've been kind of a big deal, right?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  It was a huge deal. Oh my gosh. It was, it was massive. And, oh, Nordstrom was, I, I don't know if you've ever heard of the Fashion Board, but when I was 16 years old, I was on the Fashion Board.

• 11:19Guy Raz?

  What's the Fashion Board?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  The Fashion Board is essentially a mentorship program, an internship program for young people who are in school. And you get to go through all the same trainings as employees. You become an employee. I got to work in every store in Washington State.

• 11:38Guy Raz?

  Wow. All right. So, Chrissy, you, you go to community college after you graduate high school. Then you go on to University of Washington.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:48Guy Raz?

  And you go work at a Sephora as a makeup artist. You get a job, that's your job to make money while you're in, in, in college. And I'm assuming you're getting better at it every day?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  And working at Nordstrom at the same time. So I was working Nordstrom and Sephora at the same time.

• 12:03Guy Raz?

  Doing makeup at Nordstrom as well?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  No, I got rejected, actually. I, I applied for all the beauty counters and I, I didn't have the skillset that they were looking for. And so Sephora, we were the underdog at the time when I started working there. And I, those people raised me. I mean, that was really my education in beauty.

• 12:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And did you like, so people, somebody would walk into Sephora?

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:29Guy Raz?

  And you could offer up any different kinds of brands and you would sort of apply the makeup to them and, and maybe they would buy that brand?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And so we got trained on every single brand and it was so fun. Every single day, we were doing a mini-training. And what I thought that was also so brilliant was they had different certifications that you could get. And so I was constantly having this reinforcement of when I learn, when I demonstrate, when I can show proficiency, I get a certification in a new level of artistry or, or on skincare and fragrance and hair care. And so I have so much gratitude for Sephora and what they taught me.

• 13:11Guy Raz?

  All right. So you are, and you're studying marketing, communications, all those things that are gonna be useful for you. And you, you graduate?

• 13:21Speaker 01

  By the skin of my teeth, I graduated. Yeah. I got my, I got my dream job about six months before, I got my dream job at Clarasonic doing-

• 13:29Guy Raz?

  What was Clarasonic?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh. Clarasonic was the Sonicare for your face. It was, they, they pioneered the evolution in cleansing and-

• 13:40Guy Raz?

  It was a cleaning brush for your face? Like a wet brush?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:43Guy Raz?

  So it's like, it vibrates, right? Under, I guess in your, pulses on your face?

• 13:47Speaker 01

  It oscillates and, and it, it cleanses six times better than your hands alone. So you, I, I think a lot of listeners would know what a Sonicare is, right?

• 13:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah, sure.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  And how, how much more effective that is at cleansing your teeth than a traditional toothbrush that doesn't have, you know, the electric toothbrush behind it. And the same founders, the same, same five founders who created Sonicare then went and created Clarasonic.

• 14:12Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  And I was-

• 14:13Guy Raz?

  In Seattle, based in Seattle?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Actually specifically in Factoria, Washington. And Guy, the reason why this matters is because when I was going to community college, I was living on Richards Road. Guess what was across the street from me that I had no idea? Clarasonic.

• 14:31Guy Raz?

  Wow. So they had like a little office there and these guys were-

• 14:34Speaker 01

  And manufacturing. We did manufacturing and we did formulation. We did our own formulations. And so had I known that Clarasonic was across the street from my apartment, I would've quit school. I would, I wouldn't have, I would not have gone to school. I would not have graduated because that, being able to do product development was my dream. And there were so few beauty brands in Seattle. And I, while I was working at Sephora, I was selling Clarasonics like crazy. And the brand ultimately sold to L'Oréal while I was working there.

• 15:04Guy Raz?

  Like within the first year of you working there, I think, right?

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that. And it's actually no longer in business. L'Oréal shut down the brand a few years ago, but it was really revolutionary at the time.

• 15:17Guy Raz?

  You were there for less than a year and it's acquired by L'Oréal, but you stay on as an employee of L'Oréal?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when they, I didn't know what acquisition meant when they bought us and I met Carol Hamilton and she was like, this is gonna be really amazing for you.

• 15:35Guy Raz?

  Who's Carol Hamilton?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  She at the time was the president of L'Oréal Luxe, which was the luxury division. And she really put that partnership together. And I, I don't know how I got so lucky to be in the room with her, but she saw something in me and decided to take me to Paris. So Carol put me on so many projects, like the, they wanted to take Clarasonic and, and put them into Yves Saint Laurent, Longcomb. And so I got to work with the chemists as well as the engineers to be creating these different devices that were specific to many luxury brands, which I couldn't believe because it was just a few years before that, that

• 16:19Speaker 01

  I was saving up multiple paychecks to be able to afford those products in my life. So it was, it was pretty surreal to be in Paris, working on those things and then flying out to New York.

• 16:31Guy Raz?

  And, but you were still based in Washington, in, outside of Seattle or in Seattle?

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah.

• 16:37Guy Raz?

  Okay. So you're, so she kind of takes you under her wing. Tell me, I mean, you were 22, 23 years old.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:44Guy Raz?

  What, what do you think you brought or that you sort of, I don't know, conveyed in, in just you, in being you at the time that got you a mentor like that?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  She's really special. Like she does this for so many people. And I believe that it was my passion. I was sharing my ideas. I hadn't been conditioned in a corporate setting to not speak my mind. And I just was all about the brand and the products and, and it, it didn't feel like work to me. I was always the one that was asking to be in the meeting. I was taking notes. I was bringing people coffee. I, I didn't care what the role was. I mean, there were many of my jobs where I was flying just to bring samples to somebody. And, and I loved it, you know? It was so cool. I couldn't believe

• 17:38Speaker 01

  that I was getting to do that. So I, I would say when, when I look back on it, I think it was the, really the work ethic and the passion.

• 17:46Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right. So it's 2013 and you, something is gonna happen in your life that will change the course of your life and career. And, and it's a friend of yours, a woman named Christy Lamond.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:04Guy Raz?

  Tell me, tell me, who, who's Christy? What's the story?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, I mean, I'll never forget it. I was in Paris at the time. And Christy was such a special person. While I was dreaming of, you know, going and, and, and working in the beauty industry and conquering that world, she, we, we both went to University of Washington together. And she was that magnetic person that always made you know that your life mattered. It didn't matter who you were or where you were from. And, you know, I'm from a small town. I went to community college. There were a lot of reasons for me to feel like I didn't fit in, in this, you know, highly academic and really prestigious school in Washington, University of Washington. And Christy just always believed in me because

• 18:52Speaker 01

  she believed in everybody. And she really dedicated her life to philanthropy. She, after we graduated from University of Washington, decided to go work at the Tanzanian Children's Fund and teach English to young girls there in Tanzania. And then she had moved to Chile to do essentially the same thing. And she, I was in Paris. I was on a total high. I had been out there for a couple of weeks and was working L'Oréal's annual conference called Mondial. And I had had the most incredible evening. I was like, Guy, I was like in a palace that night, presenting to the CEO of all of L'Oréal. And she called me and

• 19:36Speaker 01

  I was just excited to get the update because she had just gotten to Chile. And she said to me, you remember that bruise that I've had on my hip? And I said, yeah, what's up? And she said, well, they think I have cancer.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  And I was like, there's no way, you know? You're so healthy, you're so, you know, vibrant and full of life. And it was cancer.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 20:14Speaker 01

  and nine months later, she passed away.

• 20:17Guy Raz?

  She was just 24, 23, 24 years old?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:22Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  I remember sitting there at her funeral and just, you know, being with her parents. And the only thing that gave me solace was that she left no stone unturned. She had a blog called Wake Up and Live, and she talked about dying successfully. And I think about that a lot every day. And this idea that it's a choice, how we show up every day and that our time is limited. And so we get to choose, no matter what's going on in our life, how we're going to show up, how we're going to treat people. And that is the indelible mark that Christie left on the world.

• 21:10Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Karissa's loss led her to abandon her career at L'Oréal and radically change her direction. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

• 21:32Guy Raz?

  When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show because the best ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does. It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it.

• 22:17Guy Raz?

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• 23:01Guy Raz?

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• 23:45Guy Raz?

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• 25:06Guy Raz?

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• 25:50Guy Raz?

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• 26:04Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2013 and Christie's death has Karissa reassessing her own life and her own career goals. She realizes she wants purpose to be part of her professional life and decides that in order to do that, she has to leave L'Oréal.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  I had always loved how beauty made people feel. And I loved my job at L'Oréal, but you know, there was no job for me to go get that was giving back in the way that Christie had done. And I thought a lot about my life and her life and the legacy that she left.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  And so it was about a month after she passed away, I was, I was down in Los Angeles for a L'Oréal trip. And I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of how Toms had built this engine for giving back, the shoe company.

• 27:13Guy Raz?

  This is 2013.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I thought about how in the beauty industry, we had the budget to be giving back in such a more meaningful way. And I also thought about my experience volunteering as a makeup artist with Look Good Feel Better, which is an organization that provides makeup classes to women going through cancer. And I thought about that experience of how women who had lost their natural lashes did not have a solution. There, you couldn't wear mascara because you didn't have anything for the mascara to stick onto. And you couldn't use traditional fake lashes because, one, the glues were too toxic.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  They were filled with latex and parabens and sulfates, which are really irritating to people who are immune compromised or just people in general. And the lashes wouldn't stay on. And I also thought about Christie's experience with losing her own hair and how important it was that she felt like herself and that she had that dignity of beauty until her last day. And I wanted to be able to create a solution for that. I had no desire to start a beauty brand. I, I remember being a makeup artist and so many makeup artists at Sephora wanted to start their own brand. And I was like, oh my gosh, no, there's like so many incredible ones here. Why would, why would anyone ever start one?

• 28:38Speaker 01

  And so for me, it was more of Christie's passing was this catalyst for me saying, I love this industry. I love what I get to do every day. And I also have this bigger calling to honor her life and, and I want to solve this problem for people around false lashes that don't work if you don't have your natural lashes.

• 28:59Guy Raz?

  Okay, so you, you decide that you want to start something and you know you want to do something inspired by Toms. We did that episode many years ago on the show with Blake Mycoskie. It's a really interesting story. And that was, I mean, that was sort of the, kind of a moment in time where you had a lot of brands, Orby Parker and others, starting up that were doing one for one, which was a really, it was a thing.

• 29:23Guy Raz?

  So from what I understand, you you decide to quit outright quit at L'Oréal and start this company.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 29:32Guy Raz?

  I'm assuming because you didn't, you can't really start a makeup brand working inside of a makeup company because they are going to own that IP.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yes, and I got another job before I quit. My dad would always talk about, Chris, it's very important that you're gainfully employed. And I had about $100,000 of life savings that I put into starting Thrive Cosmetics. But I also worked a full time job, but in a different category, which was the nutrition and coffee industry, which I had no business doing.

• 30:03Guy Raz?

  It was bulletproof, I read that you worked for, right?

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:06Guy Raz?

  Like the bulletproof coffee company, yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:09Guy Raz?

  All right, so you meantime, you said you're making formulations. What are you, what are you actually doing? What are you making?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  The first product that I was making were these false lashes that worked whether you had lashes or not. And we still, I mean, they're a huge part of our business.

• 30:26Guy Raz?

  But how would you make that? I mean, I would think you just order those ready made.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  No, no, because the traditional lash bands didn't work on people who had had lost their lashes. They it needed that flexibility as well as a curve to it to really affix. Because if you think about your eyelid and where your natural lash line is, those, if you're putting on false lashes, you you have this shelf of your natural lashes that are going to ultimately, you know, keep the lashes up. And so because that didn't exist for people who had lost their lashes, I worked with ophthalmologists, I also worked with oncologists. And because of my background at Clarisonic, I had filament suppliers, which are essentially, you know, what false lashes are made out of, that were really generous with their time

• 31:14Speaker 01

  and allowed me to source fibers from all over the world that were really lightweight. And and then the the product that was also very important to pair with those lashes was Infinity Waterproof Lash Adhesive. And that lash adhesive or lash glue couldn't have latex or parabens, because I was working with oncologists to develop the products and ophthalmologists. And they were like, people who are going through cancer or have any immune compromise situation absolutely cannot have latex on their skin, they cannot have parabens. So I made that formula with, in my Vitamix, I got a ton of raw materials from raw material suppliers that I that I knew from working in cosmetic chemistry.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  And, I mean, they were literally sending me hyaluronic acid powder to my, you know, to 330 Third Avenue West in Seattle. And and I got an acrylic copolymer that I could blend and whip with, at a certain frequency and speed with the water, and it ultimately became what was Infinity Waterproof Lash Adhesive.

• 32:19Guy Raz?

  How long did it take before you had something that worked?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Three years.

• 32:23Guy Raz?

  Wow, okay, so but meantime, you're still working for Bulletproof at this time?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:28Guy Raz?

  When you're developing it? And and did you have a name for your your company yet?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  I, when I was working on the lashes, I did not, no. I really struggled to come up with a name. And I was working on the formulations in my kitchen, and I had a TV, and I would watch Good Morning America every morning, like so many people. And basically, they were, they were doing Good Morning America Goes Pink, which was all about breast cancer awareness, and they were doing makeup on breast cancer survivors. And Robin corrected the host and said, these women are not just survivors, they're thrivers. And my eyes welled up with tears. And I just knew that that was the name.

• 33:14Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Because that's what beauty is all about, is about helping people thrive. So it just struck me that that was what we were going to be named.

• 33:25Guy Raz?

  All right, so I think, I think this is around 2015, you you quit Bulletproof Coffee and formally launch Thrive Cosmetics. And you had already kind of built a community, right, working with cancer patients and and some nonprofits. But I, I think at this point, sales are entirely direct to consumer, online, right? And and by word of mouth, essentially, is that right?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yes, I would have given you my left arm, and I am left handed, to be carried at Sephora, Nordstrom, Ulta, Anthropologie, I mean, I was, I was pitching to everybody, QVC. And I just think at the time, they they didn't really see the vision of of what I was creating.

• 34:09Guy Raz?

  And you pitched them on these, on the lashes?

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and then what would become Infinity Waterproof Eyeliner, and Infinity Waterproof Eyebrow Liner, and Triple Threat Color Stick, which it's, it's funny, this is a really full circle moment, because when I was, I remember working on Triple Threat Color Stick in my kitchen when I was listening to you and Jane from Dermalogica in 2016.

• 34:32Guy Raz?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:34Guy Raz?

  I'm curious, so how did you fund the initial run of, like, you know, you've got a website, and you had some savings, I think, from your jobs?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:43Guy Raz?

  And you had to manufacture these lashes?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:46Guy Raz?

  And then hopefully sell them?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:47Guy Raz?

  How did you finance that initially?

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Well, I, so I had about $100,000, and and the initial production, I invested, it was, you know, $20,000, let's say.

• 34:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And, and then it was, you know, Infinity Waterproof Eyeliner, when I wanted to produce that, I took some of the proceeds from selling the lashes, which, again, there were many days where we had no sales. Having a $150 revenue day, I felt like an absolute baller. And so I was, I was funding the production through working my full time job, as well as my life savings. And I, and I wiped out my entire life savings. And, you know, I had a 2007 Honda Civic and a one bedroom apartment, so there wasn't much to leverage. So I, yeah, it was, it was, it was by working that job that really funded the inventory and the company.

• 35:35Guy Raz?

  So, all right, what, what was your kind of strategic thinking about even getting the word out about it?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  So I love this, this quote, scarcity drives focus. And my scarcity was capital, my scarcity was time. And so for me, it was like, okay, well, I know, I know Elena George at Good Morning America has an Instagram, could I DM her? Could, who do I know that could help me get in touch with her? And I just built a relationship, telling her what my mission was. But for every Elena George, there were 30, 40 people who never responded. Same thing with beauty editors, April Franzino at Good Housekeeping. I had LinkedIn messaged over 20 editors, and she was the only one who responded.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  And even when she did respond, it took six months to get a meeting with her. And then I believe it was July of 2015, when our first print article came out, and it was a tiny little feature in Good Housekeeping. But again, it's about, to me, I think it's about playing the long game, and it's one person at a time, because you never know who can change your life. If you keep showing up and treating everybody with the same passion and purpose, and really communicating that consistently, I, I do believe that your people will find you.

• 36:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Tell me about the first hires. Who were they, and who were you looking for?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  The first department that we built out was customer service. It was, because the the business went from zero to 30 million in a matter of months, when the business finally took off in November of 2016, before Black Friday. And it was really our customers making us go viral. I had made an ad on my iPhone, talking about Infinity Waterproof Eyeliner. And then, little by little, those customers started commenting. And I remember calling my sister and saying, oh, my gosh, we're going to do $5,000 in sales this day. And then I remember calling her the next day and saying, oh, my gosh, we're going to do $25,000.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  And within seven days, it was $100,000.

• 37:51Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  We had no employees. And so my friends, I mean, my friend Megan, who's a dental hygienist, would come after work, and she would do customer service. My sister would take a lunch break and do customer service. My mom, I mean, it was, everybody in my life was showing up. And then, so the, to get back to the first employees, it was people from Christie's Sorority at University of Washington. And they had never met Christie, they were five years younger than us. But they knew, they knew about Thrive, and they knew about our mission. And it was students at DECA, which is a marketing organization, extracurricular activity program.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  And it was the Renton, Washington DECA students that showed up, or the Future Business Leaders of America students that showed up and would box eyeliners into cartons, or they would ship products. And and we made a lot of mistakes. I remember there was, there were times where we would accidentally, in ship station, double print the labels. And my aunts and uncles and friends and family would be there until, you know, midnight, doing order fulfillment, and we had double shipped people. We had customers calling us, being like, hey, why don't you know, like, you double shipped me? So there were a lot of ups and downs in that time, but we cared deeply. And and that's really what what built the business.

• 39:15Guy Raz?

  So you, I think you introduced the mascara in 2017.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Guy Raz?

  And as you are growing, right, are you starting to think about moving the business? Because you're now based in LA, but at that time, did you start to think, I should probably move it to a media center like LA or New York where, you know, there is a lot more attention and celebrities live and et cetera, et cetera?

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yes. So, May of 2017 was when Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara launched and we sold out within 48 hours. And that was absolute bananas. And so, yeah, it was, it was getting really tough to do order fulfillment out of a 2,300 square foot office in Seattle. And it was getting really tough to find cosmetic chemists. So after we built the customer service department, I wanted to build out our cosmetic chemistry expertise. And, you know, there, there aren't places where you can go really learn that in, in Washington State. And so, I, I didn't have this grand plan of, of moving to Playa Vista, which is

• 40:26Speaker 01

  right, you know, in Los Angeles. I, I just, I thought, okay, well, it's probably New York or LA. And so I made a job description for cosmetic chemistry. And I said it could be in LA or New York. I mean, I, all I had was an apartment in a 2007 Honda Civic and my dog Cody. That time in my life, I, I had total freedom to, to go anywhere. And I was so committed to this mission. And, and the first person that I hired was, was in Los Angeles. And so, got a Regis temporary office down in Los Angeles. My family helped pack up the apartment and, you know, got, got down to Los Angeles.

• 41:05Guy Raz?

  All right. So you eventually do, do move the, the team down there. And I want to talk, I want to ask you about fundraising, because I know you would raise money, but tell me a little bit about some of the challenges you ran into as you were trying to raise money. I mean, this was a good time to raise money, 2016, 17, because especially direct to consumer, there was increasing interest in it. Did you run into some challenges raising money, trying to raise money?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  I spent a lot of time in 2013, 2014, 2015, trying to raise money and was very unsuccessful in it. And so, the business was already, you know, very profitable and, and it was over $30 million in revenue before I was able to get capital. And we needed a few hundred thousand dollars for inventory. And when I did actually bring on capital, I had a different negotiation, as they would say. And I wrote the term sheet myself with a lawyer. And I was able to protect my ownership in the business. I own the majority of the

• 42:17Speaker 01

  company. I control the company. You know, nobody can tell me if we're going to sell the company. And, you know, for, for me in particular, I always tell entrepreneurs, raise less because it's going to allow you to keep that scarcity driving focus mindset. And, and every business is different. But I, I don't think in the beauty industry that you need that much money in order to make it. Because we, you know, I, I think launching with an entire line of products wouldn't have worked for me. It, I needed to formulate every single product to make sure that we had that level of excellence. And so, had I had all the capital in the world, I think I would have lost that focus. And, you know,

• 42:58Speaker 01

  we were always profitable. Even when we did $78,000 in October of 2016, before the business took off.

• 43:05Guy Raz?

  You were profitable because you kept, you stayed lean, you kept a small team?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Well, we didn't have any employees at the time and I wasn't, I wasn't on payroll for many years. And so, it was, I mean, the profitability was, you know, somewhat, somewhat due to the fact that nobody was getting paid. But yeah, again, it was just building that really simple spreadsheet of saying, okay, if I sell a product for $26, how much am I going to keep? And then how much can that fund in the business? And when, you know, when you're running a business out of an apartment, you don't have that same overhead. So I just had to worry about making my own personal rent. And so, I, again, I like, I will, even as I invest, if somebody does their own order fulfillment, I will pretty much write them a blank check. Because I'm like, I, I know that grit. And I know that

• 43:54Speaker 01

  discipline that it takes to, to do that and to walk past that inventory in your, your living room every day and see that it's not moving. It's, it's deeply motivating. Infinity Waterproof Eyeliner, which is ultimately what built the business into a $30 million business, that didn't take off for a year and a half. And so I had to walk, it was like the walk of shame every day, walking at that inventory. And again, I think that that reminder of like, you invested, Karissa, you invested $25,000 to make Infinity Waterproof Eyeliner go into production of your personal money that you've been building since you were, you know, 16 years old. It was really motivating.

• 44:35Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Karissa balances giving back with the realities of running a company, and why her decision to keep sales only online works out so well. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

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• 46:04Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So by 2020, Thrive Cosmetics is making about $150 million in revenue. The company is working with several hundred charities, and that mission becomes central to company culture and supporting its growth.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  People have always asked me, is it the mission or is it the product? And I said, product. It has to be the product. And our mission is inextricably linked to that because there are thousands of ingredients we will never use because we know we're donating to cancer patients. You know, so there, there's, and that's, you know, that's one of our causes.

• 46:40Guy Raz?

  So they're intertwined. It's like,

• 46:41Speaker 01

  It's interconnected.

• 46:42Guy Raz?

  Your, your products are not using certain ingredients, which may appeal to, to lots of customers because they want, you know, I, I hate the term clean, and I know a lot of people use it, it just doesn't mean anything. But let's just say, there are, you know, ingredients that people trust more than, than, than others. So that might appeal to them. And you do that because it's tied to your social mission, essentially.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Well, I think our social mission is, is a lot bigger than the causes that we support. Again, our customers have chosen all of those charities. And so, you know, my, my vision was to give back to a woman going through cancer. And then, one person asked me if we would give to domestic violence. Then I met Shirley Raines from Beauty to the Streets and we, you know, started giving back to the homeless. So, I mean, it has really grown through the community and it 100% drives customer retention. They're voting on our charities. You know, they're, they're getting to choose. But is that why they're coming to us? No, no, no. They're not coming to us because of that. They're coming to us because Liquid Lash Extensions is Allure's Best of Beauty winner. You know, it's, which is essentially like winning a Grammy in the beauty industry. And so, if the formulation

• 47:48Speaker 01

  and the product is not delivering a solution to customers, then yeah, you're dead in the water. Because if people want to give back, they'll just write a check, you know, to, to their local charity. But with Thrive Cosmetics, you actually get to do both, which is really special.

• 48:03Guy Raz?

  Karissa, I'm, I'm curious about D to C, because you don't have any brick and mortar stores. So your, your expenses are a lot lower, but there's just so much more competition today, right? And the economy is where it is now, is there, there are challenges. So how do you think about making sure that you guys are going to thrive?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  I think the beauty of direct to consumer is that you know exactly where you stand every single day.

• 48:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  And so, you know, for, for me with direct to consumer, it's about really staying committed to the daily numbers, being in the numbers, because there have been times where I have taken my eye off the ball. And, you know, then all of a sudden, our air shipping costs have gone, you know, through the roof. And so I think also, um, I'm, I'm a part of a lot of different WhatsApp groups and texting groups where we are constantly talking about, okay, what's going on with Shopify? What's going on with Meta? What are you seeing on TikTok? And I've found that this entrepreneurial community that's beyond Los Angeles is super, super generous. And I think it starts, though, with how we show up with our own generosity of information and, and wanting to see people thrive.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  So how we thrive is because we are supported by so many people. And I'm inspired by my friends who are running, you know, a business that might not even have done a million dollars in revenue, because I, it reminds me how scrappy we can be. And I don't think that that needs to go away as a business continues to scale.

• 49:36Guy Raz?

  I read that you've got about 70-ish employees, which to me is very smart if that's true, because lean operations are generally, it's generally easier to hit profitability.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:48Guy Raz?

  Is that right? Do you keep your team as lean as possible?

• 49:52Speaker 01

  We do, yeah. And, and I think, you know, there, it ebbs and flows, right? The, the world is constantly changing. And, and I think where we always over invest is in customer service and product development, in, you know, making sure that the people who are connecting with the customers, whether it's marketing, the things that are really driving the business, we, we try to, to be well-staffed there. But for me, it's also about, you know, whether the employee base was 30 or 70, it's about how do we continue to know everybody's name? How do we stay on the same page? And, and by the way, we're a work in progress in that. Even when we had five employees, it's hard to stay on the same page when the world is constantly changing.

• 50:35Guy Raz?

  And, and I imagine like, there was a time when brands were really focusing, and some still do to some extent, on like, you know, being totally vertically integrated, right? Where you own the, the production facilities and you, and, and sometimes it makes sense, like if you're making gluten-free something and you can only, you know, you, it can make sense, but it's very, very expensive, right? And, and in many cases, it makes a lot more sense to work with a co-manufacture. I think that is probably the case for you, right? And for a lot of cosmetics brands.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't think anybody needs to own their manufacturing facilities. I think what's most important is owning your formulations. There's two things. Ownership, which comes from creation. And so that's why we invest in cosmetic chemists. I mean, the cosmetic chemists that we have on staff, Guy, they could run a marathon while I'm still trying to run a 5K. I mean, I'm the worst product developer in this building. And, and, and I think I'm pretty good. I made liquid lash extensions, you know? And, and so I, I think, you know, it's about investing there. And then it's also about negotiating exclusivity, because those two things protect the formulations and the integrity of that. And, and even so, you know, you need, don't do it on a handshake, you need a contract.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  And then you need to reinforce that contract a lot, because as, as the products, you know, start to take off, that is going to invite in competition. And, and I, I love competition because I think it keeps us sharp. And I, I stay really focused on what does our customer want from us, knowing that there are probably thousands of brands that are, that are out there, um, being, you know, constantly developing new products. But, but I think that that is one of the most important things, is to really, really own your formulations, so that you can say with integrity that you can't get this anywhere else.

• 52:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So what are your, sort of the categories that are, that are the most successful? And where are you seeing an interesting kind of trend, growth trend?

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, you know, it's interesting, we were just talking about this as a team and, and just the opportunity that we have in complexion and sun care and how excited we are about that. We've, we have incredible sunscreens and complexion products. But the world doesn't necessarily know that much about that for, for our business. The, the brand was really built product by product, and every single product has had to fund the next one, because this business is self-funded. This business is profitable, and it always has been, because it had to be in the beginning. And so by keeping that rigor, we, if we don't sell enough of Empower Shine, which is a lipstick

• 53:18Speaker 01

  that, that we developed for over many years, if we don't sell enough Empower Shine, we can't launch Lasting Mark Lip Stain that we really hope we can launch in a month. You know, it, it just doesn't work. And so for us, it's really important that we stay really rigorous, even with our skincare line. We developed that with dermatologists, oncologists, ophthalmologists, but we still are, are quite small relative to the rest of the business in, in skincare.

• 53:50Guy Raz?

  When you think about, you know, the outcome here, I mean, would you be happy if you were acquired by a bigger company like Tatcha and other brands that have been on the show? Is that something that, you know, down the road, you imagine is, is going to be a good outcome for you?

• 54:09Speaker 01

  No, I, I don't want to sell the company, and we've had opportunities to. I, um, to me, the outcome is continuing to show up and develop products that are changing people's lives. I grew up, you know, pretty humble beginnings, you know? My, my parents worked very hard to provide for us, and I had a great childhood. And now I have more money than I need. And so I get to give that away. And so for me, it's really about how do we leave the world better than how we found it every single day? And how do we build a sustainable business that can outlive us? And I believe that by keeping the company privately held, that that is the best way to do it, and building from within and promoting people who maybe start out as a cosmetic

• 54:54Speaker 01

  chemistry intern and is now a product development manager. And someday, hopefully, she, you know, is, is, is the, running the whole thing, you know? So to me, that's really what the end game is, is, is continuing to do the same work every day and then evolving, uh, how we do that work together.

• 55:14Guy Raz?

  When you, I mean, when you think about where the brand is now, right? And, um, and, and how, where it started, right? Cause you're now officially 11 years in, but you've been working on it longer than that.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:27Guy Raz?

  How much of, of it do you, do you, do you think has to do with the, you know, the work you put in? And how much do you think has to do with luck and, and timing and being at the right place, the right time?

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Hmm. Oh, I think it's a blend of both. I, I love, I love the song "Moment for Life." And I remember listening to it, uh, when the business finally took off. And I was, it was, I was up till 2:00 AM printing labels from ShipStation. And I was listening to that song, and I had listened to it for years. It came out many years before 2016, when I was listening to it. And it, it hit me differently, because I heard her say, "I want this moment for life." And, and it was that feeling of like, oh my gosh, we actually are going to do this. Like, it's actually happening. I'm breathing rarefied air. So there is luck in that. But in that song, Nikki also says, "No, I'm not lucky, I'm blessed."

• 56:22Speaker 01

  And so I do think this business is divine. I mean, I wear this ring every day, it's a sunflower, and it's, it's for Christie, because that was her emblem when she passed away. And so, you know, is it, is it luck? Or is it my angel Christie that is, you know, here with me? Or, um, is it hard work? You know, I, I work seven days a week, for sure, for sure. Um, but yeah, there's no way that a kid that grows up on a dirt road in Stanwood, Washington, winds up on Good Morning America. You know, that, that, that doesn't, that doesn't happen. And I'm really, really clear on how fortunate I am. And, and so I, I think it's a blend.

• 57:06Guy Raz?

  That's Karissa Bodnar, founder of Thrive Cosmetics.

• 57:11Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce, with research by Chris Messini. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keely. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coats, Carla Estevez, Neva Grant, Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, John Isabella, Catherine Seifer, and Kerry Thompson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.