Advice Line with Bobbi Brown of Jones Road Beauty

Summary

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How I Built This with Guy Raz

Episode: Advice Line with Bobbi Brown of Jones Road Beauty
Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Guy Raz
Guest: Bobbi Brown (Founder, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics & Jones Road Beauty)

Episode Overview

This “Advice Line” episode of How I Built This features legendary beauty entrepreneur Bobbi Brown, who returns to the show to help answer real-world business questions from callers at various entrepreneurial stages. The episode delves into Bobbi’s own journey—her reinvention post non-compete with Estée Lauder and the foundation of Jones Road Beauty—and draws out her honest, pragmatic advice for founders. Guy and Bobbi tackle challenges ranging from scaling a niche orthopedic product, to the pitfalls and opportunities facing a thriving custom phone case business, to launching a new oral care brand. The conversation is rich with practical takeaways, lively exchanges, and candid discussions on risk, growth, and authenticity in entrepreneurship.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Bobbi Brown’s Entrepreneurial Rebirth (03:48–09:57)

• Starting Over After a Major Exit:
  After her 25-year non-compete with Estée Lauder expired in 2020, Bobbi Brown launched Jones Road Beauty, driven by a desire to improve “clean” makeup textures she found lacking in the marketplace.

• The Drive to Create:
  Bobbi describes her creative compulsion—not building Jones Road wasn’t really an option. At age 62, she felt renewed and energized to do things “completely different the second time.”

• Staying Authentic and Scrappy:
  She emphasizes directness and efficiency: “I don’t like to waste money, I don’t like to waste time or energy, and I like to figure out what is worth my time and energy and how to do things without spending a ton.” (07:28, Bobbi Brown)

• On Trends Versus Staying Power:
  Bobbi reflects on the “nude makeup” aesthetic she pioneered:

  “You’ve got to pay attention to what you have and make sure it’s the best...Sometimes you have to make little fixes and sometimes you have to make big fixes but you always have to make sure that it’s the best thing on the market…” (09:17, Bobbi Brown)

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Caller #1: Mark Sokolowski — Scaling a Niche Orthopedic Product (10:09–18:23)

Background

Mark, an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago, created Cab Dab, a muscle and joint rub using natural cabbage leaf extract, based on traditional remedies shared by his predominantly immigrant patient base.

Key Challenges

• Organic, profitable growth through direct distribution to patients (30,000 tubes sold, no advertising)
• How to scale beyond his personal network/“doctor-to-patient” model

Advice Highlights

PR and Scrappy Marketing:

• Bobbi: “There’s this little teeny thing called PR. It’s old fashioned, it’s free. Someone writes about you in the Chicago Tribune...your phone’s ringing off the hook.” (13:04)
• Guy: Consider hiring a local PR firm or a resourceful intern for multi-tasked marketing.

Product Sampling:

• Bobbi: Suggests smaller sample sizes (“Go to the Container Store and buy a bunch of empty containers...just make little samples...then just keep them in your pocket.” 15:33)
• Guy: Target distribution through adjacent channels—chiropractors, physical therapy offices, and chiropractors as trusted practitioners.

Scaling While Time-Constrained:

• Bobbi: “How can you get things done while you’re actually at work?...you have someone to do that...there’s no rush for this to take off. It’s going to happen especially the more people that know about it.” (17:07)

Memorable Exchange

• Guy (playful): “I want to take a cabbage bath right now…I woke up with some lower back pain from doing exercise last night.” (17:46)

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Caller #2: Abby Rosalie — Breaking Out of the Handmade Custom Phone Case Plateau (21:48–34:52)

Background

Abby, a 23-year-old entrepreneur from Dallas, started Abbey Rose, an online custom phone case business (over $2M total sales since her teenage years). Most growth has come via live social media (especially TikTok, 400K+ followers), with fulfillment handled by family members.

Current Hurdles

• All sales stem from Abby’s live presentations—if she’s offline, sales flatline.
• Question: Should she keep doubling down on content/live selling, or look to wholesale or paid advertising to grow faster?

Advice Highlights

Don’t Over-Fetishize Explosive Growth:

• Bobbi: “Not everything has to be like a rocket ship...if things are so explosive...how are we going to anniversary that?” (26:23)
• Focus on sustainable growth and incremental improvements, not chasing viral moments.

Delegating and Scaling Your “Face”:

• Guy: “You can’t scale you, right? But maybe you can…can you feature other faces of Abbey Rose? Can you bring in other people and train them...?” (29:30)
• Bobbi: “Try it once and just do it once. See if you like it, see if it works.” (29:47)

Diversify Channels Mindfully:

• Bobbi warns of the costs and logistics headaches in retail (“It’s really tough, it’s really expensive”), but suggests experimenting with pop-ups or retail incubator programs at Target or Walmart (28:36).

Leverage Community:

• Abby’s main customers turn out to be a broader range—including stay-at-home moms seeking community via lives.
• Bobbi: “Keep building your community.” (31:08)

Memorable Moment

• Bobbi (excited about product innovation): “I love the phone that holds the three lip glosses...we’re launching some new lip glosses next year. That’s my dream.” (31:08)

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Caller #3: Henry Davis — Rebranding and Growing a Niche Oral Care Brand (37:40–49:38)

Background

Henry, from Charlotte, NC, is co-founder of Tannin Oral Care, makers of a natural, post-coffee mouth rinse formulated to address common oral issues after drinking coffee.

Main Question

• Tannin is known locally as the coffee mouth rinse; how to reposition as a long-term, wellness-oriented oral care brand with legacy potential? Should they expand away from the “coffee” niche?

Advice Highlights

Evolving Beyond the Niche:

• Bobbi: “Doing the coffee thing is really cool and different but I think there’s an opportunity to expand that...reimagine the packaging and marketing. We’ve learned that even if you’re not a coffee drinker...you could use this.” (43:01)

• Guy: “This is a cool product, it’s very niche right now...but there are limits to how big you can take that.” (43:38)

Clarify and Celebrate Ingredients:

• Guy: “I want to know what’s in this and why is this better for me than Listerine, and what does it taste like?...Could you do a version of [ingredients transparency] like an RX bar?” (46:08)

Target a Community (“Tribe”) First:

• Guy: “Maybe it is young men like you...try and appeal to that group and build from that group...a lot like RX Bar did with CrossFit.” (47:09)
• Bobbi: Suggests partnerships with gyms and dentist offices to build early credibility and usage.

Candid on the Oral Care Space:

• Bobbi: “He’s got to look at the competition...there are a lot of clean mouthwashes on the market...it’s good to know what's out there and position yourself away—differently.” (49:38)

Memorable Exchange

• Bobbi (on business patience): “Don’t jump into something but just try it...dip your toes...grow your business first.” (48:42)

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Notable Quotes

• Bobbi Brown (on reinventing herself):

  “I was sixty-two years old when I started this brand; I’m sixty-eight. I love that. So it’s invigorating to go back to the simple things…by the way, Guy, I love being in charge.” (06:55)

• Bobbi Brown (on the entrepreneur’s journey):

  “You look at what you’re doing...You always have to make sure it’s the best thing on the market so people will come back for it...but you need new things so people are interested. So it's just kind of figuring out the whole ecosystem.” (09:17)

• Mark Sokolowski, on organic product validation:

  “I don’t know anything about marketing so I just give it for free at the end of every visit...If it works, great...so we’ve just kind of grown this organically; no advertising.” (12:03)

• Abby Rosalie, on live-driven sales:

  “If I’m not online, like, sales aren’t coming in...My presence has to constantly be online for sales to keep going.” (27:37)

• Henry Davis, on product development:

  “We ordered a chemistry set off Amazon and I would meet with my high school chemistry teacher and just start mixing...what do you want in a mouthwash that’s as effective as possible?” (40:51)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:48–09:57: Bobbi Brown’s story—launching Jones Road after her non-compete; philosophy of reinvention, risk, and authenticity
• 10:09–18:23: Mark Sokolowski’s challenge—scaling “Cab Dab” from doctor’s office to public; advice on low-cost PR and scrappy sampling
• 21:48–34:52: Abby Rosalie’s challenge—scaling a handmade, live-driven custom phone case business; advice on delegation, community, and channel diversity
• 37:40–49:38: Henry Davis’ challenge—pivoting Tannin Oral Care from a niche “post-coffee” rinse to a mainstream wellness brand; ingredients transparency and finding a “tribe”
• 50:10–50:29: Bobbi’s parting wisdom to her younger self: “She should learn to breathe...shut off your brain sometimes and learn to recover.”
• 50:46–51:19: Throwback to a favorite moment—Bobbi on the importance of staying close to the details.

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Final Thoughts & Tone

The episode balances inspiration with practical wisdom—the tone is supportive, direct, and energetic, mirroring both Guy Raz’s enthusiasm and Bobbi Brown’s no-nonsense, self-assured approach. Listeners will hear frank exchanges about the messiness of entrepreneurship, the value of experimentation, and the need for both patience and evolution in building a lasting business.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

Wondery subscribers can listen to how i built this early and ad free right now join wondery in the wondery app or on apple podcasts lately you may have been hearing about a serious but rare heart condition called attr cardiac amyloidosis or attrcm because symptoms can be similar to other heart conditions it may take time to be diagnosed but learning more about attrcm and a treatment called atrube also known as acharamidis could be important for you or a loved one atrube is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with attrcm to reduce death and hospitalization due to heart issues in a study people taking atrubey saw an impact on their health related quality of life and fifty percent fewer hospitalizations due to heart issues than people who didn't take atrube giving you more chances to do what you love with who you love tell your doctor if you are pregnant plan to become pregnant or are breastfeeding and about the medications you take the most common side effects were mild and included diarrhea and abdominal pain if you have attrcm talk to your cardiologist about a truby or visit attruby dot com comma that's a t t r u b y dot com to learn more we all have moments when we could have done better like cutting your own hair yikes or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato ouch could have done better same goes for where you invest level up and invest smarter with schwab get market insights human help when you need it learn more at schwab dot com is your ai built to work with your business's data ibm helps you integrate and govern unstructured data wherever it lives so your business can have more accurate ai instead of just.

[Henry Davis]

More of it get your data ready.

[Guy Raz]

For ai at ibm dot com the ai built for business ibm klaviyo is the only crm built for b two c and the key to making black friday and cyber monday your best biggest wins yet with marketing service analytics and all your customer data in one ai powered platform klaviyo helps you build relationships that drive more revenue and deliver truly personalized experiences at scale join the more than one hundred seventy six thousand brands like away patrick ta and dollar shave club that already grow with klaviyo at k l a v i dash y dash o dot com hello and welcome to the advice line on how i built this lab i'm guy raz this is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges each week i'm joined by a legendary founder a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you and if you're building something and you need advice give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show our number is one eight hundred four three three one two nine eight send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with you can also send us a voice memo at hibtid dot wondery dot com and make sure to tell us how to reach you and also don't forget to sign up for my newsletter it's full of page insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs you can sign up for free at guyraz dot com and we'll put all this info in the podcast description all right let's get to it joining me today is bobby brown founder of bobby brown cosmetics and jones road beauty bobby welcome back to how i built this so.

[Bobbi Brown]

Nice to see you again you too.

[Guy Raz]

So when we first had you on the show back in twenty eighteen i had before i even talk about that i have to say i find myself talking about you all the time because every time i give a speech or appear on stage somewhere i end up talking with the makeup artist about you and how you started your incredible career doing that work and so many of them are so inspired by you i mean people know your story you know by what you built this iconic brand and for those listening who haven't heard bobby's original how i built this episode from twenty eighteen we will put a link to it in the show notes it's such a good episode you talked about how you were doing makeup in the eighties and it was really this like over the top super glam kind of world and then you kind of created a new look that was more understated natural this is what became known as nude makeup and that's how you launched your brand and anyway back when we had that conversation bobby you were still under a non compete with estee lauder who acquired bobby brown but in twenty twenty that expired and you launched a new beauty brand called jones road.

[Bobbi Brown]

The day my twenty five year non compete expired i did amazing you know right a week before the presidential elections in the middle of you know everything covid and everything oh my god and you know what you just sometimes you have to do something and if it doesn't work then just oh well that didn't work let's do something else it's.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome i mean you launched this at a time where some entrepreneurs would just say do a victory lap and say you know i sold this business and my name is kind of you know ubiquitous but you decided to start something from scratch all over again tell me what what compelled you to do that what did you see in or not see in the market that compelled you to start a do a startup again at that point in your in your.

[Bobbi Brown]

Life well i just felt even at the end of my tenure at sd lauder i felt the industry was changing the world was changing things were shifting and i didn't like the way it was going and i really wanted to make changes and at the brand and i couldn't you know when you work for a big corporation it's really tough.

[Guy Raz]

So even if even when your name.

[Bobbi Brown]

Is on the label even when your name's on the label exactly so there was something missing in the market i didn't like the texture of a lot of the clean makeup that i was playing with and i thought i wasn't sure if i could do better but i wanted to try to do better.

[Guy Raz]

And i did yeah you know you may not even have the answer i don't think i have the answer for this because i think it's more of an intuitive thing but you know you could have said you know it was awesome i really i'm considered a pioneer in this industry you are and maybe i'll be a mentor and an investor and you know kind of dabble here and there but to muster all your energy because a startup as you know better than anyone else it is a full time twenty four seven job it is all encompassing and did you feel like you just had to do it like you just couldn't contain the energy that was inside of you it was.

[Bobbi Brown]

Not an option of doing it or not doing it when i started to make these products i just thought these are so simple and they're so much better people are going to love these i thought i would maybe start the company on etsy just put like the best brown eyeshadow and start there and then i realized okay there's a different way to do this so no i could not wait to launch and i did everything completely different the second time that i did the first time but i didn't look at it as hard i looked at it as this is so cool i felt renewed first of all i was sixty two years old when i started this brain i'm sixty eight i'm sixty eight i love that so it's invigorating to go back to the simple things and by the way guy i love being in charge it was time for me to be in charge i'm like okay we don't have to do that we don't have to have a big party we don't have to spend all that money we don't have to advertise we just have to tell people about it so you figure things out and i'm very scrappy i don't like to waste money i don't like to waste time or energy and i like to figure out what is worth my time and energy and how to do things without spending a ton.

[Guy Raz]

Of money yeah i want to ask you about this thing that you pioneered which became known as nude makeup right this idea that you were wearing makeup but you couldn't really tell it was very natural look and i know i remember when we talked about this some people all the time were like oh this is going to be a fad you know people are going to want to look like you know those porcelain masks from the eighties again but of course decades later nude makeup is still a big deal we don't call it that anymore right it's still it's the thing like and we're going to have some callers today that are you know that are worried that their success limited success or whatever it might be might be a trend or fad or so how do you how do you think about the thing that you're building right that into something with more longevity something that has more staying power because as i say i mean people people at the time said oh this nude makeup thing is just a trend and you know it'll pass right and people thought.

[Bobbi Brown]

That you know i mean i had comments from people that said oh you're just putting your name on some package no i'm not that's not how we're doing it because we didn't have fancy packaging but but i think for anyone that is an entrepreneur and a founder you look at what you're doing and yes it's got to constantly not just grow into something else you've got to pay attention to what you have and make sure it's the best and sometimes you have to make little fixes and sometimes you have to make big fixes but you always have to make sure that it's the best thing on the market so people will come back for it people will tell their friends about it and people will rebuy the same thing over and over again but you need new things so people are interested so it's just kind of figuring out the whole ecosystem yeah all right bobby.

[Guy Raz]

What do you say let's take our first caller sure all right welcome to the advice line you are on with the legendary bobby brown please tell us your name where you're calling from and just one brief line about your business.

[Mark Sokolowski]

Hi guy hi bobby thanks for having me on my name is mark sokolowski i'm calling from chicago illinois i'm the founder of cabbage yay chicago i'm the founder of cabbage labs we make a muscle and joint rub called cab dab it's made with cabbage leaf extract and it has all the natural anti inflammatory goodness of cabbage cabbage has a lot of good natural anti inflammatory enzymes in it and when you crush the cabbage leaf you get all the goodies out.

[Guy Raz]

That'S amazing so wait this is a balm a rubber that reduces joint pain and it's made from cabbage leaf extract that's right how did you figure this.

[Mark Sokolowski]

Out all right so i'm an orthopedic surgeon and we have a practice that's mostly first and second generation immigrants and for years patients were like oh i just put cabbage leaf wraps on my elbow or on my shoulder or on my hips and at first i was like that's crazy but then younger kids were telling me oh after i work out i do cabbage leaf wraps on my muscles to relieve soreness and so i did a little bit of research looked into it turns out it's real there's actual data that shows that cabbage leaf wraps are more effective than usual care for arthritis and for even for like breast engorgement any sort of inflammatory condition and so we said okay it's impractical to put cabbage leaf wraps on all day how do we put it into something more convenient well this is.

[Guy Raz]

Incredible by the way do you focus on shoulders or knees or everything i'm.

[Mark Sokolowski]

A spine surgeon but i speak polish so when the polish patients come in and they see orthopedic surgeon they're like look it's great that you're a spine surgeon but you're going to take care.

[Guy Raz]

Of my knees this is amazing so what the idea was hey on the side i'll start making a balm and offer it to my patients yeah so.

[Mark Sokolowski]

We said we'll try to do this in a lotion form and i said i don't know anything about marketing so i'm going to give it for free at the end of every visit to my patients as they come and if it works great if it doesn't work no obligation no worries and so we've just kind of grown this organically no advertising just from giving it out since twenty twenty one to every new patient at the end of a visit and.

[Guy Raz]

How is the business doing i mean is it making money is it yeah.

[Mark Sokolowski]

We'Ve been profitable since day one the margins on lotions are pretty good and we're thirty thousand tubes in and we have our next order of ten thousand.

[Guy Raz]

Tubes coming all right and before we get to bobby your question for us.

[Mark Sokolowski]

Today so i give away a ton of product to my patients and this whole doctor to patient giving the tube is like a high trust no obligation kind of trial how do i scale this business beyond me having personal interaction with every potential customer bobby this is.

[Guy Raz]

Amazing because there are a lot of parallels right you were a makeup artist and then you're like wait i can make my own makeup and here mark is an orthopedic surgeon he's like i can make a balm that i think is gonna be effective for patients so i'm sure you've got a lot of thoughts on this bobby brett well in.

[Bobbi Brown]

The in the very beginning i gave away lipsticks like not in the fancy packaging in the testers and people said oh my god this is so different it's so good i want it and so they would come back and so you know i gave a lot of product away you're only giving it to your customers so your biggest thing now is how do i get other people besides my patients to know about me there's this little teeny thing called pr it's old fashioned it's free someone writes an article about you in the chicago tribune is there still a tribune or sometimes whatever the papers are yeah they write an article about you and all of a sudden your phone's ringing off the hook you've got all these people calling i want this cabbage you know everyone has pain in their body right everyone has pain i cannot wait to try this cabbage my sister has back pain she's in chicago i need your number but you know so you've got to have more people know about this.

[Guy Raz]

You know and by the way pr can cost a little bit of money but mark i think that it would be worthwhile considering saying let me get let me take ten grand or fifteen thousand or twenty thousand and see if i can contract with a local pr firm that can get me into these papers because this story is so compelling.

[Bobbi Brown]

Yeah but not but i have a better idea i think the ten thousand a month is great but why don't you hire a swiss army knife a kid who can post shoot do videos of you like interview you and put you up on instagram and they can call the local papers like it's not that hard to get a list of who to call to you can hire a full time marketing student right you can hire someone that could do a bunch of things someone who's resourceful and then you can always take money you know later like ten thousand is a lot of money you could probably get a good pr firm for five thousand.

[Guy Raz]

That'S true that's true by the way how big are the tubes you're giving away how many ounces they're one hundred.

[Mark Sokolowski]

Milliliter we don't have sample products so we give away the full size product.

[Guy Raz]

See that's also a problem you're giving away too much you got to give away a smaller version so what i.

[Bobbi Brown]

Would do is i would go to the container store and buy a bunch of empty containers and squeeze and just make like little samples however much you think people need for an area and then just keep them in your pocket and when you're at a restaurant or you're whatever you know just start handing it out with the card where they can order it give them a ten percent discount like you know that old fashioned marketing doesn't really cost anything i.

[Guy Raz]

Also think that it's worthwhile and i'm sure you're in medical professional organizations and maybe you go to conferences if there's a community that you can kind of bring in particularly like you know i know this may or may not you know resonate but chiropractors a lot of people go to chiropractors and i don't know what you think about them but a lot of people trust them and to me like that would be a natural channel where you could get you know maybe again you create these smaller samples and it's you know and if somebody goes to the website they can get a free trial and you pay for shipping or something like that yeah.

[Mark Sokolowski]

That'S a great idea i definitely definitely think that we could expand our distribution we definitely could do smaller samples to make it more economical just to give away lots and lots of them bobby.

[Guy Raz]

I have a question for you mark is a very busy guy okay he is an orthopedic surgeon there's gotta be a lot of demand for his time and this is a side project you were a makeup artist you were very busy how would you recommend he starts to balance these things out because look let's be honest most of his income is coming from being a surgeon i.

[Bobbi Brown]

Mean come on doctor oz was a heart surgeon okay so you know you start somewhere and and you go and you go whatever pace you're comfortable with and how could you get things done while you're actually at work you know just whether it's a meeting in the morning with who's going to help you this kid that you're going to hire and then at the end of the day you check in with them things are working the business is continuing because you know you have someone to do that so it's but but there's no rush for this to kind of take off it's going to happen especially the more people that know about it yeah.

[Mark Sokolowski]

I think it's a great idea yeah.

[Guy Raz]

I want to take a cabbage bath right now yeah see woke up with some lower back pain from doing exercise last night yep mark sokolowski thank you so much for calling in the product's called cab dab good luck congrats it's.

[Mark Sokolowski]

Awesome thank you guys very much for.

[Guy Raz]

Having me thank you you know now i'm wondering if this will work with sauerkraut like if you can spread sauerkraut you know what i mean yeah just salt and cabbage that's all it is.

[Bobbi Brown]

But you wouldn't want to well i.

[Guy Raz]

Mean i love sauerkraut i know sauerkraut.

[Bobbi Brown]

Is good for your gut but i don't think you'd want it on your extremities.

[Guy Raz]

All right we're going to take a quick break but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice stay with us i'm guy raz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how i built this lab ever had one of those afternoons where your brain just quits on you you're sluggish hangry maybe even a little foggy what if it's your glucose see glucose is an energy currency for your mind and body when it's stable you're on point when it crashes so can you that's why lingo is so interesting lingo is a glucose wearable designed to help you connect the dots between your glucose and what you eat how you and how you feel it shows your glucose data in real time instead of guessing you see the impact of your choices maybe that healthy snack is actually sending your glucose on a roller coaster or that afternoon walk is the perfect stabilizer it's about unlocking your consistent best all day long by truly understanding your body's unique responses get to know your glucose and learn about how to build healthy habits that work for you with lingo designed for you by abbott through november thirtieth use code guy ten on hello lingo dot com to get ten percent off a lingo plan purchase one use per customer this offer cannot be combined with other offers us puerto rico and uk only the lingo glucose system is for users eighteen years and older not on insulin it is not intended for diagnosis of diseases including diabetes individual responses may vary shopping for eggs should be simple a happy hen makes a happy egg and that's why eggs from happy egg are so delicious happy egg partners with family farms across the midwest to raise happy hens outdoors the proof is inside the shell a tasty orange yolk it's the difference you can see and taste i just made an incredible omelette with eggs from happy egg it was delicious and so fre a happy egg you can see and taste the difference right away it's obvious visit www dot happyegg dot com bilt to find happy egg near you if you've started your own business you know just how many challenges there are big and small i mean look at how i built this building this show came with a lot of trials late nights very very early mornings but even though there were challenges getting started there is something that new business easier getting connected with at and t business it doesn't matter what your business is dealing with at and t business helps to make it much much easier and that's the point of a provider in the first place making building your dream easier wake up to the power of att business at business dot att dot com that's business attribute welcome back to the advice line on how i built this lab i'm guy raz and my guest today is the legendary bobbi brown founder of bobbi brown cosmetics and jones road beauty and we are ready for our next caller.

[Abby Rosalie]

Hello caller hi bobbi hi guy i am such a fan of both of you guys thank you so much for having me i'm abby rosalier i'm calling from from dallas texas and i'm the founder and owner of abbey rose which is basically an online custom phone case business so we do you can put anything on a phone case pretty much is our tagline so we do custom phone cases and we even created the first phone case organizer that the world has seen so wow phone case thank.

[Guy Raz]

You for calling in abby tell me how you and you seem like you're pretty young entrepreneur which is awesome i love that but do you mind sharing.

[Abby Rosalie]

How old you are yeah yeah i'm twenty three so i started it when i was sixteen and now i'm twenty.

[Guy Raz]

Three i know congrats that's awesome how did tell me how this started yeah.

[Abby Rosalie]

It'S there's kind of bits and pieces to the story because i had little small businesses since like fifth grade it'd be like duct tape pins i would sparkle people's chargers but they would all just last a month because i would just sell it to my school friends and then get over it so i actually sold phone cases in eighth grade made a thousand bucks got over it and then in high school i had to be homeschooled for my sport acrobatic gymnastics got the itch to sell again had the phone case supplies started it blew up during COVID and here we.

[Guy Raz]

Are it's like wait wow just just double click for a minute acrobatic gymnastics that was your sport so is that like like trapeze and flying off like.

[Abby Rosalie]

What is that no i know everyone thinks just like circus and clowns almost but it's like a mix of cheer and gymnastics so it's partner based sports you throw them you catch them but it's with two or three people instead of a whole cheer team yeah it's.

[Bobbi Brown]

Like being an entrepreneur pretty much exactly.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah yeah so you had to be homeschooled because you were a competitive acrobatic gymnast yes and that's when you started.

[Abby Rosalie]

This business yes abby rose yeah we had to actually got pulled from the middle of my junior year because we had to do two practices a day so i had to go homeschooled and yeah that's when i had the idea for abbey rose and just and so.

[Guy Raz]

What you were initially what you were buying people would order the custom cases and then you would work with a third party and have them made like.

[Abby Rosalie]

How did it work yeah so it didn't start as customized i kind of just well i actually started drawing designs i'm horrible at designing but nobody would design for me because i was just sixteen not knowing what i was doing so i started just selling basic designs to my school friends and to my acro friends and i would heat press the design onto the phone case so you heat press the design with sublimation ink and then the phone case is made it's a little complex but yeah.

[Guy Raz]

That'S kind of how it works you would custom make them originally yes yourself yes and now all right and tell me how the business is doing now give me a sort of a sense.

[Abby Rosalie]

Of where you are yeah so it has been going crazy specifically this past year because i just graduated from college and we've seen like a fifty percent growth from last year all the phone cases are still being handmade actually by my sister i just do the marketing the customer service the live streams and then my mom is also involved my sister my dad and my brother it's kind of all just like this family run business and we actually just purchased our supplier so like things are wow.

[Guy Raz]

So and so as you are you have you guys broken a million dollars.

[Abby Rosalie]

In sales not in one year we've done over two million in total yeah.

[Guy Raz]

No that's awesome okay but so you've easily you've broken one hundred two hundred thousand dollars a year oh for sure awesome and most of what you're doing the most of your sort of channel is through social media like going doing things live or whatever yes yes going.

[Abby Rosalie]

Live selling live shipping live everything is.

[Guy Raz]

Live how many followers do you have.

[Abby Rosalie]

Tiktok is our strongest one we actually just hit four hundred thousand a few days ago because we have one blowing up and then like one hundred eleven thousand on instagram so yeah all right.

[Guy Raz]

Before we bring bobby brown and just tell us what your question is for.

[Abby Rosalie]

Us yes so basically all of our growth has been organic social media and that's been great but it's been this steady linear growth and in order to keep this going and support my whole family we need to have more of an explosive growth soon so my question is if we just double down on what's working keep up the lives and the content or if we look into wholesale or paid advertising because we haven't really done that before so yeah you're.

[Guy Raz]

Trying to scale to a five hopefully greater million dollar business bobby brown yeah what do you think well first of.

[Bobbi Brown]

All what you're doing is working and not everything why does everyone think every business has to be like a rocket ship it's got to grow but it's also sometimes if things are so explosive and big like we've had tiktok moments that are like we could not keep up with it it happened and then you look a year later and you're like how are we going to anniversary that so that's i'm not going to worry and figure out what else can i do to go viral no let's look at the business what's working what's not working what do i not need to be spending as much money on or time on you have a big success on social and i mean have you done a a sub stack have you done youtube you know there's other things you could do are you doing like other company giveaways and collabs like.

[Abby Rosalie]

Yeah that's a good thing yeah it's like all of those things together have been keeping us going we love doing collabs with other companies we love social media i started up my youtube channel but it's i guess our biggest struggle right now is if like if i'm not online like sales aren't coming in so it's almost like my presence has to like constantly be online for sales.

[Bobbi Brown]

To keep going tough yeah it's just.

[Guy Raz]

Tough yeah you have to constantly be making videos in order for you get.

[Abby Rosalie]

Sales oh absolutely or just live because they want to see their order live they want to hear the cha ching and get their freebie you know well.

[Bobbi Brown]

You started something that's working you can't walk away from it how do you evolve it maybe you bring your sister in or you bring a guest you know friend or something and just try to experiment and you know figure out a way like maybe it doesn't have to be live i know there's a way you could tape it to be live or there's different things that you could that you could do but do you really want to be in retail that is a whole nother set of of problems and issues it sounds great it's really expensive yeah like it's really.

[Abby Rosalie]

Expensive i guess that's what we're wondering because it seems like that's what all of our competitors are doing you know they'll be in urban they'll be in target so it's like do we follow that or do we you could try.

[Bobbi Brown]

As a pop up or like target and i guess walmart has these great incubator programs for young brands and founders and you know there's a way you could like dip your toe into it as a test and see if it's something but you've got to go try those things out i think that's great.

[Guy Raz]

Advice one of you mentioned i think abby you mentioned urban outfitters which to me seems like a natural place to try and experiment but i want to go back to this challenge that you face which is right now your biggest channel is you and you can't scale you right you can't make a million abbeys but maybe you can and that's a question i have which is can you feature other faces of abbey rose can you bring in other people and train them to be sales reps with a commission i mean is that something that you've thought about or experimented with.

[Abby Rosalie]

Honestly no that's a great idea though i think i it's always hesitant when it's your business it's like your baby and you know just someone else doing the role you do is scary so i just need to get over that but i think that's a great idea just finding like bubbly energetic try it.

[Bobbi Brown]

Once try it once and just do it once see if you like it see if it works and using your.

[Guy Raz]

Accounts right having the person go on your account and say hey i'm here today if abby you know is out at urban outfitters doing a pop up and i'm going to tell you know something like that or your mother or.

[Bobbi Brown]

Your father like use your family like you know use your whatever your next door neighbor your grandma your teacher like people love that instead of trying to be like everybody else like what's unique about you that's comfortable for you and it doesn't have to be a big strategic anything you just try it and say oh my god that's great and.

[Abby Rosalie]

It might not work yeah and they know all the family they know papa rose mama rose and so i guess i've just never thought like let's try one with just them you know if i'm like elsewhere mm who are your.

[Guy Raz]

Customers evie are they mainly young women.

[Abby Rosalie]

You know what i've learned a lot about this since graduating college because i thought it was typically high school and college students but i've actually realized a lot of people are stay at home.

[Guy Raz]

Moms that's who i'm talking about awesome.

[Abby Rosalie]

Yeah so on lives a lot of them are stay at home moms watching their kids and just wanting a community so it's anywhere from middle school high school college stay at homes just young females looking for friends and a community.

[Bobbi Brown]

So yeah keep building your community i love the phone that holds the three lip glosses oh yeah look at that so cool right yeah i wanted you know i wanted to go deeper in that i'm like okay you know i'm like we're launching some new lip glosses next year oh my gosh that's my.

[Guy Raz]

Dream yeah i mean who knew that you would you could carry lip glosses in your phone case i mean there's.

[Abby Rosalie]

Possibilities are endless oh yeah we just got that prototype in and i was like oh yeah.

[Guy Raz]

I have a quick question for you abby because you mentioned sort of moms which is super cool have you tried any user generated content like post your design or maybe design your dream case and the winner will get to make it with me live in real time or something yeah we've.

[Abby Rosalie]

Done design contests with our customers where they send in their submissions but never really interacting live with the winners so that's a really good idea for that.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah that's a great idea i want to see like twenty different abbey roses like not obviously abbey rose but like different people just coming on and you know that's how you build your sales.

[Abby Rosalie]

Team yes that sounds amazing and a weight is already lifted off my shoulders just thinking about that so yeah i.

[Guy Raz]

Agree bobby i'm curious in a because cosmetics you know this is like one of those things where people say oh the cosmetics industry is such a crowded marketplace but i don't believe in that i think a good product can always break through right a good product a well designed product and well marketed and you know that better than anybody else when you start a bobby brown people.

[Bobbi Brown]

Said that right the the world doesn't need another lipstick absolutely people said that all the time and you know i and i always say i did didn't invent lipstick i reinvented it so it's the same thing with your phone cases right it's like you didn't invent a phone case but you know your your biggest challenge is also how do you make sure that people know that your phone case is cooler more fun and better you know you have to show.

[Guy Raz]

Them yeah abby good luck abby rose abby rose is the brand congrats thanks.

[Abby Rosalie]

For calling thank you guys thank you.

[Guy Raz]

Bye good luck thank you yeah it's interesting because you think like and i'm sure you've had this experience too bobby where i look at a product like this and i'm thinking okay this is driven by sort of teenage girls college students young women but actually it's moms right it's moms probably in their thirties forties older it's a little bit like we did an episode of the show a couple weeks ago about crumbl cookies and that brand was really propelled and still is by teenage girls who are super psyched about the drop you know the flavor drop every week so i'm sure you've seen this with your you know your products where some things you make are just take off with like.

[Bobbi Brown]

A certain demographic and surprisingly so i mean when jones road first launched you know there was women over forty that were buying the products you know now there's more and more you know like i guess the millennials are buying it but you know and i've been asked many times like how do you market to all the different age groups and i say i don't market to the different age groups i just market to women that want to look natural and.

[Guy Raz]

Pretty yeah it's so cool i mean.

[Bobbi Brown]

You know connecting with your customer is the most important thing yes to have a great product is the most important but then connecting with your customer and it sounds like a she's on her.

[Guy Raz]

Way all right we're going to take another quick break but we'll be right back with another caller stay with us i'm guy raz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how i built this lab as a founder you're moving fast toward product market fit your next round or your first big enterprise deal but with ai accelerating how quickly startups build and ship security expectations are higher earlier than ever getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or if you wait too long stall it with deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast moving teams vanta gets you audit ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models infrastructure and customers evolve fast growing startups like langchain writer and cursor trusted vanta to build a scalable foundation from the start i love that over ten thousand companies from startups to huge enterprises trust vanta because it makes me trust them go to vanta dot com bilt to save one thousand dollars today through the vanta for startups program and join over ten thousand ambitious companies already scaling with vanta that's v a n t a dot com bilt to save one thousand dollars for a limited time if you've shopped online chances are you've bought from a business powered by shopify you know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout the one that makes buying so incredibly easy that's shopify and there's a reason so many businesses sell with it because shopify doesn't just make amazing buying experiences for customers they're also the experts in helping small businesses grow big big stop seeing carts going abandoned and turn those sales into sign up for your one dollar per month trial and start selling today at shopify dot com bilt go to shopify dot com bilt shopify dot com built welcome back to the advice line on how i built this lab i'm guy raz and today i'm taking your calls with the bobby brown bobby what do you say you ready to bring in our next caller i'm ready welcome to the advice line you were on with bobby brown please tell us your name where you're calling from and just a little bit about your.

[Henry Davis]

Business of course what's going on guy and bobby great to great to meet you guys i'm calling in from schwartz charlotte north carolina and my name is henry i'm the co founder of tannen oral care which is a lifestyle centered wellness based oral care company and we are the inventors of the world's first post coffee mouth rinse welcome so wait.

[Guy Raz]

This is a oral care so it's post coffee what tell me a little bit more about this product yeah so.

[Henry Davis]

It'S a post coffee mouth rinse so you know that do we have any coffee drinkers i mean guy bobby you guys both drink coffee love coffee two hands right it's beautiful it's that moment right after coffee is really what we originally designed this product for i was working at a coffee shop at the time making videos i would bring this toothbrush to to the coffee shop which was both gross and also i learned that it's actually best to wait thirty minutes after your last sip to brush your teeth because you can actually wear your enamel that has just been softened by the acid from the coffee and so i started looking for a solution and was just amazed that no one had ever made anything oral care related for coffee drinkers very sensitive in my mouth and i was living with my roommate at the time his name's joe and and we just got fascinated by this and and we started by one like posting up in a super busy part of charlotte and just asking people like are you having this problem too like what do you what do you do to clean your mouth after coffee and realizing that it was just one of those things that people were thinking about without really thinking about it something that they they wanted a solution for and and we selfishly also wanted that.

[Bobbi Brown]

Solution huh yeah oral care is that the same as a mouthwash so the.

[Henry Davis]

Mouthwash is really this is kind of and we'll get into this in the question i guess but we we started by looking we wanted to re engineer a mouthwash that would be perfect for coffee drinkers and so we went and got every mouthwash from the shelves pulled it off put ingredients into a massive spreadsheet and started researching these ingredients and we were pretty flabbergasted to learn that and maybe you get you guys have heard this that a lot of mouthwash is actually horrible for your health it's packed with synthetic ingredients dyes it's alcohol based it actually dries out your mouth even more and we've just learned so much about the oral microbiome about oral care in recent years that it was one of those things where we just felt like there hadn't been a product that had caught up with the research.

[Guy Raz]

How what is your back do you have a background in like chemistry or.

[Henry Davis]

Science or so not not i don't i've definitely been an entrepreneur my whole life but i i would say my fascination with oral care has carried me through my entire life i think it you know like all good stories probably started with some childhood trauma i think i came home from the dentist when i was eight and and i had four cavities and my brothers just made so much fun of me so i swore from that day i'm like okay i'm never getting another cavity and so i've just been very aware of my oral care ever since and i've been doing the brush and the flossing everything that i feel like the dentists are telling me but still having issues and that's kind of what one of the things that too led me to look at coffee and be like okay this is this is a real thing like this is actually having a real impact.

[Guy Raz]

And how did you start to make this product i mean how did you start to come up with the formulation.

[Henry Davis]

Yeah i mean it started i thankfully had some dentists in my network we would meet with them and me and my friend joe literally ordered a chemistry set off of amazon and i would meet with my high school chemistry teacher and we would just start mixing and just start like i mean getting deep into the research of natural ingredients what is really what is in these mouthwashes but like what is actually working and i think i've always connected with bobby's story that idea of reinventing lipstick it's like people didn't say that we needed another mouthwash but i think what we wanted to do was really just start from square one what do you what do you want in a mouthwash that's really going to make it as as.

[Guy Raz]

Effective as possible all right tell me tell us your question and then we'll dive in a little bit deeper we're.

[Henry Davis]

At this point where people know us and we've taken a very localized approach in charlotte people really know us in the city as the coffee mouth runs but what we want to create is a brand like a legacy brand that can really redefine and and have staying power as as a an oral care brand so i wanted to get your thoughts on how you would recommend we move forward to kind of position ourselves in that way and continue to work.

[Guy Raz]

Towards that all right a lot a lot to dive into bobbi so well.

[Bobbi Brown]

I have a question as soon as i saw your package i mean i love your instagram it's very cool you guys are both you know like cool looking and i love the vibe but my husband who is a mouthwash guy who's now using natural mouthwash he doesn't he's not a coffee drinker and he hates coffee so even if i bought him your mouthwash that said coffee on it he'd say yuck right like so what is the difference between that and a regular one and is there a way and how are you going to position another mouthwash that's not necessarily tied.

[Henry Davis]

To coffee yeah it's a great question so i i think like i said we set out to make this coffee mouthwash and i think we in the the process created the best natural mouthwash on the market humbly like i just i really do think yeah we've done that and so i think that's what i'm struggling with like do we expand the niche and we say it's great for coffee wine and tea in any moment you may need it in between or do we really stay niche down to coffee because there is obviously people that really connect with that story of.

[Bobbi Brown]

Coffee i think my opinion and it's only my opinion is when you you know reach a certain point and you say yes we're going to re imagine the you know the packaging and then you reimagine the marketing it started as for coffee but we've learned that even if you're not a coffee drinker it's this if you're you know a wine drinker or you're just someone that you know people that have stomach issues sometimes could use a little bit of mouthwash so that would be my suggestion because i think just doing the coffee thing is really cool and different but i think there's an opportunity to expand that.

[Guy Raz]

I totally agree i mean i think that right now if you look at the bottle i'm looking at the website it says post coffee right rinse away coffee side effects it says for coffee drinkers buy coffee drinkers so this is really it's a cool product it's very niche right now you can build a business around niche product that happens all the time but there are limits to how big you can take that right especially people like well i don't drink coffee or i don't really have this problem i like the taste coffee breath or you know whatever some people i want to ask you before i get we drill into that i want to ask you a question about the name tannin because when i think of tannin i think of like tannins and wine or tea you know there's there's tannins in there why is it called tannin.

[Henry Davis]

Yeah it's a great question so tannins are also in coffee they're really in a lot of like natural things so these compounds and trees and plants and probably know that and yeah so while they're the things that give it this natural flavor it's also the thing that dries out the mouth which causes a lot of the oral health issues so quite literally we're rinsing those tannins out of the mouth when you talk about coffee or wine or tea but it also speaks to the just very natural elements of the brand like all our products are natural we use sustainable ingredients our sustainable materials for our packaging so it's kind of this dual meaning and we thought it was a cool word.

[Guy Raz]

You know one of the things that comes to mind is and bob you mentioned their instagram and you guys are young you're cool you've got your storytellers i wonder whether you guys can talk about like oral microbiome or like you know the way we're washing our mouths is all wrong or you know do you have bad breath or even if you don't like you're not cleaning your mouth right in the right way like just starting that way and thinking about and i think think bobby you alluded to this overall mouth health right or whatever microbiome health and by the way.

[Bobbi Brown]

How could you not have like either a little spray eventually or mints lozenges.

[Henry Davis]

Toothpaste yeah right yeah no i think you're right on guy and that's definitely exactly where we want to bring it i think we've been struggling a little bit to make that positioning but i mean i think we've grown even more convinced of the importance of oral care as we've done this and everyone's talking about the gut right the gut biome but very few people are talking about the oral microbiome and the connection that it has to the gut the connection that it has to total health and so i love that idea guy i.

[Guy Raz]

You know i'm looking at your packaging you know all natural vegan alcohol free fluoride free i want to know what's in it and i feel like you should make that a little clearer in your i see aloe leaves enough picture but like it would be cool if on the you know how rx bars you know is like three eggs and two dates and one you know four almonds like it's so clear i wonder if you could do a version of that without giving away your secrets obviously but i want to know what's in this and why is this better for me than listerine and what it tastes.

[Bobbi Brown]

Like i want to know what it.

[Guy Raz]

Tastes like yeah is it minty yeah.

[Henry Davis]

No it's all good points i think we've wrestled a little bit with oral care just wondering how much do people really want to know in oral care because some of the names are a little funkier like it's not like a date or a an egg white but i also do think talking about positioning to wellness just the simplicity of really educating people to those ingredients and letting people in on our process is a great idea yeah.

[Guy Raz]

I think you have an opportunity and a challenge right which is you don't want to just appeal to coffee drinkers and also you want to show people that what this is is going to benefit them and i think i think a big part of doing that is really and maybe starting out by looking for a tribe maybe it is young men like you maybe you start that way and you try and appeal to that group and you build from that group i mean our x bars started out with crossfitters at crossfit gyms you know now everybody you know working parents mommies everybody's using eating them on the go but that's not how they started out it yeah yeah.

[Bobbi Brown]

Maybe they it could be in a gym it could be you know could be in a dentist office like you.

[Henry Davis]

Know yeah we've been i think we've been trying to to lean into this kind of social wellness movement that's happening like cold plunges saunas kind of where people are are doing that kind of stuff there's a great community in charlotte that we really tapped into and i think we found a little niche there and so i hear what you guys are saying i'm like really growing that niche like what does it look like to really lean into that because i do think you know at least that i've seen no oral care company has really aligned to the wellness movement where people are thinking about oral care when it comes to wellness cool all right.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome thanks guys awesome henry davis a product is called tannin mouth rinse tannin oral care is a company good luck thanks for calling in yeah good luck with everything cheers guys thank you.

[Bobbi Brown]

You know it is interesting and you know it is complicated when you're a young founder and there's so many different directions to go and you know my biggest advice is don't jump into something but just like try it like dip your toes in and see and even if it's just you're putting it in your dentist office and his patients are using it or maybe you put it in you know your equinox just in one gym like you just kind of dip your toe into those things and you know you don't and don't get overwhelmed to think oh well if i only had the money if i only had you know the next series like like grow your business first yeah totally yeah and he's got to look at the competition there are a lot of clean mouthwashes on the market like what you know and and there's a couple mouthwashes that are you know dennis found yeah you know and they're more natural ingredients so it's good to kind of know what's out there and position yourself away.

[Guy Raz]

Differently they are going to have a slightly harder battle to wage but if they do it right which is why i think maybe trying to get a certain tribe of users first it could work it could succeed yeah bobby before i let you go one last question for you if you could go back to bobby brown makeup artist getting people ready for their tv or whatever video shoots and you could give her advice as she was starting to build this business out what would have been useful.

[Bobbi Brown]

For her to know that she should learn to breathe she should learn to you know to shut off your brain sometimes and learn to recover that's the same thing i'm telling my you know myself now i'm a work in progress as we all are i love it.

[Guy Raz]

That'S bobbi brown founder of bobbi brown cosmetics and jones road beauty and by the way if you haven't heard the bobbi brown cosmetics episode go back and check it out it's an incredible story and here is one of my very favorite moments from that episode i used.

[Bobbi Brown]

To hire and interview every person that walked in that brand and then i didn't anymore and all of a sudden there were people working on my brand that i never met before and that i might not have hired and you know it was a struggle and i tried to let go of the details but then i realized the details were what makes the company so special and so i kept thinking i could fix it if we could just do this if i could get this it could be better and it didn't get better.

[Guy Raz]

Thanks so much for listening to the show this week please make sure to check out my newsletter you can sign up for it for free at guyraz dot com each week it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever and if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show send us a one minute message that tells us about your business the issues or questions you'd like help with and hopefully we can help you with them and make sure to tell us how to reach you you can send us a voice memo at hibtid dot wondery dot com or call us at one eight hundred four three three one two nine eight and leave a message there and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well this episode was produced by sam paulson with music composed by ramtin arabloue it was edited by andrea bruce and our audio engineer was sina lofredo our production staff also includes alex chung elaine coates carla estevez neva grant casey herman chris masini kathryn seifer carrie thompson and rommel wood i'm guy raz and you've been listening to the advice line on how i built this lab if you like how i built this you can listen early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts prime members can listen ad free on amazon music before you go tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery dot com survey and now.

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