Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Episode: "Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company"

Guest: Gregg Renfrew
Date: May 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this candid and wide-ranging interview, Guy Raz sits down with entrepreneur Gregg Renfrew to trace the extraordinary, tumultuous story of Beautycounter—a clean beauty pioneer that scaled to a billion-dollar valuation, was acquired by the Carlyle Group, unraveled, and was then bought back and reimagined by its founder. Together, they explore Renfrew’s business failures and successes, personal setbacks, her vision for safer consumer products, and the difficult road back to relaunching her brand. This episode serves as a masterclass in resilience, founder identity, and the realities of scaling, losing, and regaining control of a business.

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Key Themes & Insights

• The founder’s journey from humble beginnings to a billion-dollar exit—and beyond
• The origins and evolution of "clean beauty"
• Lessons from corporate leadership, personal setbacks, and getting fired
• The complexity and controversy of direct sales/multi-level marketing models
• The emotional toll of losing control, regaining purpose, and reimagining a business
• What it takes to build movements, not just companies

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Major Discussion Points

1. Early Career and First Ventures (02:47–20:00)

• Renfrew’s Upbringing & Early Work Habits

  • Received $5,000 from her mother after college: “You're on your own, so you can do whatever you want with this money, but that's it.” (05:52, Renfrew)
  • Hustled through sales at Xerox, learning classic cold-calling techniques: "You got up early in the morning and you started calling the office of the CEO...if you got up at 7, most of these people were in the office early." (14:32, Renfrew)
  • Brief stint in marriage and relocation—a pattern of personal transitions shaping her professional choices.

• First Big Idea: The Wedding List

  • Inspired by inefficiencies in the bridal registry market, Renfrew imported a bespoke U.K. model and innovated by putting it online ahead of its time (13:09–13:18).
  • Built traction with Nordstrom backing, hit $4.5M in revenue, and ran the company to about 40 employees.
  • Suffered from overexpansion and the dot-com bust: “Growth at all costs...But if you're out over your skis, you're screwed. And that's basically what happened to me.” (17:52, Renfrew)
  • Forced to sell to Martha Stewart—her first taste of losing control of her creation.

Notable Quote

"What I learned from Martha [Stewart] was the attention to detail matters and that the combination of creativity and business is something that works. What I also learned...was that I didn’t want to be that type of leader." (22:11, Renfrew)

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2. The Road to Beautycounter: Inspiration and Opportunity (31:13–36:38)

• Consulting for Jessica Alba & Honest Company

  • Consulting on an organic clothing line led to exploring safer products for families; sparked Renfrew’s interest in non-toxic, environmentally safe consumer goods.

• Discovery of 'Clean Beauty' Gap

  • Found switching household products to safer alternatives was easy, but the beauty industry lagged behind in both quality and aesthetic.
  • Met Christy Coleman, a pioneering "clean" makeup artist, leading to the founding partnership for Beautycounter.

Notable Moment

"For us to make the makeup or skincare products that I wanted would be the same as going to the fanciest restaurant in town, having the most decadent chocolate cake and saying, I want that same chocolate cake, except you can’t use flour, eggs or sugar." (02:47, Renfrew; repeated, 35:30)

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3. Launch and Scaling of Beautycounter (39:01–49:44)

• Innovative Business Model

  • Launched with essentials (creams, cleansers), insisted on US manufacturing for quality and oversight.
  • Rejected traditional retail and leaned into a direct sales/affiliate model ("brand partners"), despite the stigma associated with multi-level marketing.
    • "People did [turn up their noses at the model]...but I really genuinely started the company not really giving a damn about beauty products, but really caring about protecting people's health." (43:30, Renfrew)

• Direct Selling: Controversy and Execution

  • Carefully avoided pitfalls of predatory MLMs: flagged large personal orders, offered sales training, limited team-based commissions (less than 5% built teams).
  • Created a powerful network: "We launched with about two or three hundred people...They were very effective at amplifying our brand." (47:46–47:52, Renfrew)

• Rocket Growth

  • Reached hundreds of millions in revenue; nearly $400M by 2020, fueled by pandemic demand for skincare.
  • Attracted investment from major players like TPG and Bono.

Notable Quote

"Overnight success as a founder is 10 years, 24/7. That, to me, is overnight success." (77:58, Renfrew)

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4. The Carlyle Acquisition and Founder Ouster (50:19–57:03)

• Majority Buyout by Carlyle Group

  • Sold a controlling share in 2021 for a reported $600M—"putting me in a category of women that was small and something I really was proud of." (52:44, Renfrew)
  • Renfrew stays on as CEO, but tensions flare when post-pandemic sales plateau.

• Rapid Fallout

  • Carlyle loses confidence amid market changes and underperformance. Omicron variant disrupts direct sales events.
  • Renfrew is removed as CEO candidly and abruptly: "They made the decision in October that I was not capable of running the company and they decided to remove me as CEO..." (56:52, Renfrew)
  • Emotional aftermath: "After I had a really good cry. I was pretty shocked." (57:21, Renfrew)

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5. Life After Beautycounter: Identity and Loss (60:00–66:00)

• Struggling With Identity

  • Discusses the emotional pain of being disconnected from a company so publicly tied to her: "You're inextricably linked to that brand, it's like your identity...I've had so many friends who have sold their companies or lost their businesses, and they literally have to pick themselves up off the floor because they don't know who they are without it." (62:53, Renfrew)

• Adapting and Supporting from Afar

  • Navigates feelings of helplessness and anger while seeing the company struggle under new leadership she felt "didn’t value [her] or her institutional memory." (61:49, Renfrew)

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6. Buying Back and Relaunching the Business (66:00–76:27)

• Unexpected Return

  • Approached to return as CEO in January 2024; re-enters reluctantly but soon embraces challenge.

• Shutting Down and Starting Over

  • Six weeks later, the Carlyle Group withdraws funding; company goes into foreclosure.
  • Banks offer her the chance to buy Beautycounter’s assets: “Bank of America approached my lawyers and...if she'd like her brand back, we'd like to sell it to her because we think she deserves the right to have it back.” (69:27, Renfrew)
  • “I called a few of my old investors...if we're going to do this, like we got to pull some money together in the next 48 hours. And they were like, no problem.” (72:02, Renfrew)
  • Forced to let go of most staff without severance: “Which was horrendous.” (72:17, Renfrew)
  • Realizes a true relaunch requires “a new company, a new and fresh way...Everything had changed.” (73:08–74:22, Renfrew)

• On Brand and Strategy

  • Counter will retain direct sales affiliates, but "they cannot build teams so they are paid exclusively on commission on their own sales." (75:33, Renfrew)
  • Focus on multi-channel: e-commerce first, limited retail, affiliates, and re-committing to defining what clean beauty means.
  • On the decision to use 'Counter': "We really wanted to put counter first because that's really what we've always done is gone counter to industry norms. I also just wanted a fresh start." (76:06, Renfrew)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Context | |-----------|---------|---------------| | 02:47 | Renfrew | “For us to make the makeup or skincare products that I wanted would be the same as going to the fanciest restaurant in town...and saying I want that same chocolate cake, except you can’t use flour, eggs or sugar. And I want it done in six.” | | 17:52 | Renfrew | “Growth at all costs...But if you're out over your skis, you're screwed. And that's basically what happened to me.” | | 22:11 | Renfrew | “Attention to detail matters and the combination of creativity and business is something that works. What I also learned from her [Martha Stewart] though, was that I didn’t want to be that type of leader.” | | 43:30 | Renfrew | “People did [turn up their noses at MLM]...but I really genuinely started the company not really giving a damn about beauty products, but really caring about protecting people's health.” | | 47:46 | Renfrew | “We launched with about two or three hundred people...They were very effective at amplifying our brand.” | | 52:44 | Renfrew | "One as a female founder, to start a company and sell it for a billion dollars was putting me in a category of women that was small and something that I really was proud of." | | 56:52 | Renfrew | “They made the decision in October that I was not capable of running the company and they decided to remove me as CEO...” | | 62:53 | Renfrew | "You're inextricably linked to that brand, it's like your identity...I've had so many friends who have sold their companies or lost their businesses, and they literally have to pick themselves up off the floor because they don't know who they are without it." | | 69:27 | Renfrew | "In a crazy act of, I would almost say of kindness, bank of America approached my lawyers and...if she'd like her brand back, we'd like to sell it to her because we think she deserves the right to have it back." | | 77:58 | Renfrew | “Overnight success as a founder is 10 years, 24/7. That, to me, is overnight success.” |

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Section Timestamps

• [02:47–20:00] Early career, The Wedding List, Martha Stewart acquisition
• [31:13–36:38] The Honest Company, clean beauty opportunity, partnership with Christy Coleman
• [39:01–49:44] Beautycounter’s launch, direct sales, scaling, investment
• [50:19–57:03] Carlyle Group acquisition, founder ouster, emotional fallout
• [60:00–66:00] Life post-firing, identity, public perception
• [66:00–76:27] Recruited back, closure, asset buyback, launching Counter

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Recurring Insights & Final Reflections

• Resilience & Identity: The deep connection between founders and their businesses; how setbacks forge wisdom and humility.
• Business Models & Movement Building: The power—and risks—of community-driven distribution and direct selling in the digital age.
• Clean Beauty Standards: The importance of authenticity, transparency, and mission in an unregulated industry.
• Luck, Timing, and the Grind: Success is multifactorial: “Timing more than luck,” but “just unending hard work.” (77:08, Renfrew)

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking actionable lessons in entrepreneurship, founder psychology, navigating failure, and the evolution of the modern beauty business.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[Greg Renfrew]

There was no such thing as clean beauty. So for us to make the makeup or skincare products that I wanted would be the same as going to the fanciest restaurant in town, having the most decadent chocolate cake and saying I want that same chocolate cake. Except you can't use flour, eggs or sugar. And I want it done in six.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to how I built this A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz. And on the show today, how Greg Renfrew scaled Beauty Counter to a billion dollar valuation, lost the business, got it back, and then totally rebranded it. For a lot of founders, getting acquired feels like the finish line. The thing that keeps you going through the long nights and the missed weekends and the years of uncertainty. But what happens when that's not the end of the story? What happens when the deal closes, the champagne has popped, and suddenly you're no longer in control of the thing you built? Well, today's guest, Greg Renfrew has lived that story twice. She sold her first company, an early online wedding registry, to Martha Stewart back in 2001. And then a decade later, she launched Beauty Counter, a beauty brand built in part by using an old school direct sales model that relied on an army of part time sales reps across the country. Beauty Counter grew fast, really fast. At its peak, the brand had tens of thousands of independent sellers, hundreds of millions in revenue, and a valuation of around a billion dollars. And in 2021, the private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, bought a majority stake. Now, for most founders, that would be the fairytale ending, but for Greg, it turned out to be closer to a not so great ending. Because not long after the deal closed, Greg was pushed out of the company she started. And what happened next was something almost no founder ever gets the chance to do. A few years after she was pushed out and after the business had unraveled, Greg bought it back for pennies on the dollar. And now she's trying to build it all over again. For most of her life before they met her, people assumed Greg was a male because, well, Greg, her name is Greg, but her official first name is Susan. Greg is what everyone's called her since childhood. It's actually her mom's maiden name. Anyway, Greg grew up outside New York City. Her dad at one point had a successful career on Wall Street. But after her parents split up, her father's career started to fall apart. And while her mother eventually built a career of her own, money became a whole lot tighter for the family.

[Greg Renfrew]

So it's funny, I graduated from college and my mother gave me a briefcase with my initials on it and a check for $5,000. And she said, you're on your own, so you can do whatever you want with this money, but that's it. You're never getting any more money from your father or me. And so I had all these friends who were like, oh, we're gonna go be skiing or whatever. And my mom's like, I wouldn't do that. You only have $5,000. So I took that $5,000, and I put my first and last month's rent down in an apartment, and I ran up some credit card debt. I think I had about $1,000 bill on my Amex, which I couldn't pay. I called my mother, and she said, well, guess you need to get another job. And so I started trying to figure out how I could make more money because I was only making $19,000 a year. And a friend of mine had gone to work for Xerox, and I knew it had the best sales training program in the country at the time, and I thought I would be good at sales. And so less than a year after graduating, I went over there and started selling Xerox copiers.

[Guy Raz]

And so how'd it work? Like, they sort of you like a region or a neighborhood or an area.

[Greg Renfrew]

So I was in the midtown Manhattan office, and I was assigned the jewelry district, which was crazy because no one jewelers, just, in general, didn't use a lot of copying machines. I mean, if you landed a law

[Guy Raz]

office, you're good to go.

[Greg Renfrew]

You were printing money. But if you were trying to sell someone who makes bespoke jewelry, they don't really need copiers.

[Guy Raz]

And what would you do? You would just walk in and, like, cold. Or would you call first? Like, how would it work?

[Greg Renfrew]

First you have to get through the security in a building.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Greg Renfrew]

And most of the people would open the door and slam the door in your face. Literally slam the door in your face. And then on occasion, you would get someone who would be willing. It was usually the office manager or the receptionist who would let you do your pitch. Then on occasion, they would call you back. More times than not. They didn't sort of. 9 times out of 10.

[Guy Raz]

How long did you end up staying at Xerox?

[Greg Renfrew]

Less than two years. That was purely a personal thing, not a. It wasn't a business thing. I ended up falling in love with someone, and he was transferred to Virginia and proposed to me, and so I ended up moving.

[Guy Raz]

I think you were. You're 25 when you got married the first time?

[Greg Renfrew]

I was 25, yep. I was married for about five months.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So it was a short. It was. Sorry.

[Greg Renfrew]

It was a good one.

[Guy Raz]

No, it's okay.

[Greg Renfrew]

It's all right. It's part of my story. Yeah. We were very young. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So I guess this is around 1994. 95. And after your marriage ends, I guess you wind up leaving New York to go overseas for a while and you spend some time in London. You're in Hong Kong and then back in London. And I guess this turns out to be a really important time in your life because while you are there, you make a connection that ultimately leads you to start your first business. So can you sort of tell us a little bit about what that was and how it started?

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes. The wedding regist. Sorry, the wedding registry or the wedding list. It all started because when I was going to weddings, I was constantly wearing these dresses that I hated. And I felt like there was a disconnect between what the bride wanted her bridesmaids to be wearing and what the bridesmaids wanted and or could afford. And so a friend of mine and I started this little bridesmaids dress company on the side.

[Guy Raz]

This is years earlier.

[Greg Renfrew]

This is years earlier. And when I moved to London with my day job, I wanted to bring this little dress company along with me. And a friend of mine said, you should go speak with this woman, Nicole Hindmarch. She has a company called the Wedding List, which is the British nomenclature for wedding registry. You should go meet her, maybe she'll sell your dresses. And so I was introduced to her, I went to her and I pitched her on the concept of these dresses. And she just said, we don't use bridesmaids in the UK like you all do. We only use little children in sort of a funny, like, British patronizing kind of way. But she and I struck up a friendship because I thought her concept was really interesting. And so we kept in touch. And so even though I never sold any dresses to her, I was intrigued by her wedding registry concept and her.

[Guy Raz]

The registry, how did it work? Like, this is pre. I mean, this is not really.

[Greg Renfrew]

It's pre Internet.

[Guy Raz]

Pre Internet. So it was like a. Yeah, How'd it work?

[Greg Renfrew]

So what she was doing was she was getting a lot of the very fancy British people to come into this townhouse that she had created. Her sister's a famous handbag designer, Anya Hindmarch. Anya had the upstairs and Nicole had the downstairs. And you would come if your bride and groom at the time would come in and have a cup of tea and talk to her about your life, how you like to entertain, what you like to do. And she would then help you put together a list of presents that you might want for your registry. But she didn't actually go and get the things at the time. There wasn't like. It wasn't A store, it was a showroom. And then once someone was had gotten married, she would go to the couple and she would say, okay, you have £5,000, I'm making this up worth of credits. Now that we've gotten your list together, what do you actually want? Do you want a full set of china? Or would you like a Cuisinart? Or would you like, you know, what do you want? And she would then run around London and purchase all the things for the bride and groom.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. So even though at the time you could go to a John Lewis or a self registress and there was registry services, but she sort of had more of a bespoke, like kind of a customer focused service that she would offer. Okay, so this is an interesting concept.

[Greg Renfrew]

It was a really good concept. Yeah, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And all right, so you had met her pitch, drawn the bridesmaids dresses, but that wasn't really necessary. But you kept in touch with her.

[Greg Renfrew]

I did. You know, again, remember, I'm in my mid to late 20s at this point, and I'm going to millions of weddings, and I'm looking at the process by which people are attaining their wedding gifts. And I'm thinking people are standing with the scanner gun in the middle of Bloomingdale's.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Greg Renfrew]

And clients are having to go to Bloomingdale's and buy the present. This is an inefficient system and it doesn't feel very good for the bride and groom. It's not very fun for the people purchasing the gift. And I kind of think she's onto something, but I think there are ways to change it to make it more efficient. And so ultimately I called Nicole and I said, I have an idea. I want to license your name. I want to do this over in the States. And they were like, well, we don't really want a license, but we'll partner with you and we'll bring it to the US and so we did.

[Guy Raz]

So tell me what that meant. So you have the name, the wedding list, but what you were gonna recreate her business in New York. You were gonna have an atelier and like a showroom. Like you were gonna do it that way.

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, my idea was, yes, we're gonna have this little atelier. And we had a little place on 73rd between Madison and 5th, which was a showroom. I went out and pitched all of these different companies from one Wedgwood to Cuisinart to, I mean, you name it, and to say, I'm going to do something that's going to change the Wedding industry.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Greg Renfrew]

And the innovation came when I said we're going to migrate all of the purchasing online, click and be done.

[Guy Raz]

Right. So anyone who's bought something off a registry knows it's super easy. You just go to a website. But that was not easy to do in 1997. When you're starting this thing today, it's different. You go to Shopify and you're done. Right. But then you would need people who are computer engineers and you have to pay for server space. And this is like orders of magnitude more complex and more expensive. So tell me how, like, first of all, how are you going to finance it?

[Greg Renfrew]

We went out and raised capital.

[Guy Raz]

When you say we, you hired somebody else or you and Nicole or.

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, Nicole and I, but mostly me because she was in London. So I raised. I don't remember how much, let's just say half a million dollars or something through kind of friends and people I knew in my network. Maybe it was a million dollars. I don't remember.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, this was the heyday of the dot com boom.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

So money was definitely flowing. I mean, all of a sudden it seemed like people, you know, were just throwing money at all these.com businesses and some of them, you know, like broadcast.com and others were selling Right. For big dollars. So probably. I mean, this certainly seemed like a really great idea.

[Greg Renfrew]

It was a really good idea. And I think that it was. We also struck a deal with Nordstrom because they had challenges with their wedding registry and saw the opportunity of bringing a young customer into the fold. I spent a lot of time pitching. I remember cold calling CEOs of different companies. I remember so distinctly. The thing to do was you got up early in the morning and you started calling the office of the CEO because typically the person supporting them wasn't in the office till like 8:30 or 9. And so if you got up at 7, most of these people were in the office early and you could get through to them. And one of the people that I got through to was the CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue. And he was like, what? I said, I want 20 minutes of your time. I want to pitch you on this business concept. And I went in and I pitched him on the fact that you as a department store are. You're really catering to an older demographic. And Maybe that woman's 45, but you just missed 20 years for spending. If you intercept her when she's getting married and all of her guests, this is a really big business opportunity for you. And I actually went through my own Wedding and all the money that was spent around it and was able to demonstrate it. And I went back and forth between Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, and ultimately Nordstrom was known for having just exceptional customer experience and they were willing to put a million dollars into the business. And so I ultimately partnered with Nordstrom. And so then the concept became bigger and very marketable. Then you had the online. Our own store. We were opening other stores and we did in Boston. We were going to open in San Francisco and we had Nordstrom.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so you've got this business going. And I mean, was it showing promise? Was it. Were people adopting the model? It seems still pretty early, right, For E Commerce. But how? Like, how'd it do?

[Greg Renfrew]

We immediately garnered press in the US and the couples really liked it because unlike walking around Bloomingdale's on a Saturday afternoon just scanning something, you were actually met by a consultant who said, okay, tell me about your life. What do you do? Do you like to entertain? Do you like to cook? Or do you not like to. For them, it was like they were getting to set up their lives in a way that tailored their needs. And then on the other side, I think over the two years or so that we were really running things, people became more comfortable shopping online. Some people still wanted to come to the stores, but people adopted it and we exceeded all of our revenue expectations.

[Guy Raz]

And so at its height, how much do you think you were doing a year? Like a few million, I think for

[Greg Renfrew]

whatever reason, I feel like we were doing about four and a half million in revenue. All right.

[Guy Raz]

Pretty great. And how many people were working for you at the peak?

[Greg Renfrew]

40, maybe.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Okay. Yeah. You were like. I mean, this was.

[Greg Renfrew]

It was legit.

[Guy Raz]

It was legit, yeah. Except for one problem, which is that the entire bubble, the dot com bubble, 2001. And some people, like Mark Cuban got really lucky because they sold their businesses the right time and others didn't. You were now in a situation and financing dries up. Right. Like, we've had these stories on the show, you know, and so I have to imagine that like most companies that were venture funded, you guys are in trouble after the market crashes.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes, we were in trouble. And it was really frustrating because it forced us to. To sell the company prematurely and not in a particularly successful way. And when the dot com market blew up, you know, I remember our investors saying, we're not going to fund anymore. But unfortunately for us, and this is a lesson learned, they were so bullish. And this happens all the time. We're like let's go, let's go, let's go. Growth at all costs. Growth at all costs. And that's all good when things are going well. But if you're doing growth at all costs and the tides turn, whether that's of your doing or not, and you're out over your skis, you're screwed. And that's basically what happened to me, because we were expanding the retail presence faster than I would have otherwise done. And it was a good lesson learned. So we were forced into making a sale.

[Guy Raz]

All right. Forced into making a sale. And you find what probably seemed like a really interesting buyer.

[Greg Renfrew]

Who was Martha Stewart.

[Guy Raz]

Martha Stewart. I mean, I'm thinking, can't get better than that. I mean, Martha Stewart. And they wanted to buy the business and sort of fold it into the Martha Stewart empire.

[Greg Renfrew]

Correct. A woman named Darcy Miller, who ran Martha Stewart Weddings, had introduced Martha to the concept and brought Martha by our showroom.

[Guy Raz]

Wow, that must have been exciting.

[Greg Renfrew]

I mean, it. Look, it's flattering. I'm a relatively young entrepreneur and I've got Martha Stewart, you know, talking about my business and courting me. And I think at the time, Martha Stewart had a really successful wedding magazine called Martha Stewart Weddings. And they were incredibly good at creating content and building audience. We had an opportunity for them to monetize that audience in a way that they had not yet been capable of doing.

[Guy Raz]

So. Brilliant. It's a brilliant. And they probably got it for a good price because of everything going on.

[Greg Renfrew]

Oh, they did. And I was brought in under contract to fold this business into Martha Stewart Living, Omni Media, which marked their very first acquisition.

[Guy Raz]

And now you are working for Martha Stewart. And I mean, what was that like? I mean, I've met Martha Stewart before. I have a lot of respect for her. I've seen the documentary on her. She's obviously a hard charging. I mean, she's an incredible entrepreneur. What was it like working for her?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, it was a different time. You know, her house that she shows in the documentary is actually, I think, where I might have arguably had my first kiss. My friends, family had that property and it was like a kind of a. Not dilapidated, but it was kind of an old farm. And she turned it into this extraordinary piece of property and we supposed to spin the bottle there literally. So it was such a full circle moment for me. I will say this. Well, first of all, I worked directly for Martha and I also worked directly for Sharon Patrick, who was the chief operating officer at the time. Martha and Sharon fought a lot. They had differences of opinion on just about everything. So that was the first thing. And I think dual reporting of equal measure is challenging. Martha is exceptional, I will give her that. She's highly intelligent and she is truly one of the most creative people that I've ever met, ever. And she was able to take the average middle income woman in the United States of America and make her look like a goddess in her home and done on a budget. But Martha was incredibly demanding. And I think that people have no idea what it was like in the 90s in the work world. And getting yelled at by your boss was just. It was par for the course. And it happened constantly because the culture was just different.

[Guy Raz]

People yelled. I was yelled at all the time when I was a young reporter. I got yelled and it was how everybody operated. It was like what the people doing that had done to them. And excellence was expected. People were harsh. And I have to say, in defense of that, I don't think I would have become as good of a journalist, which I used to be, and do what I do now without that kind of trial by fire.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes, it's such a different world today. So with all that said, yes, Martha was very challenging to work for because she is a perfectionist. And she led, you know, a sort of, I would say, a fear based organization. People worshiped her. And I think what I learned from her was the attention to detail matters and that the combination of creativity and business is something that works. What I also learned from her though, was that I didn't want to be that type of leader and that I. And not that I haven't had my moments because there are people who've worked for me that would sure say I'm a pain in the ass and I can be a real pain in the ass. But I think that what I didn't enjoy at that time, and I've said this to her and I've said it publicly, was not taking, you know, responsibility sometimes for decisions that have been made by her. And I got under Martha's skin because I was confident enough to go back at her. And so when she would say something like, who chose that ugly shade of blue on that plate yesterday? I would say you did. At the 2 o' clock meeting when we were with so and so and she would just look at me, you know, I was a little, probably cocky. Pain in her ass too.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, you created some friction there, which. And you know, hey, it's Martha's world, you were just living in it.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

All right. So you end up, I think, working for Martha's chair for about nine months. Is that right?

[Greg Renfrew]

I think I made it for the full year of my contract, but literally to the end of my contract, which. Or my required time.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. Okay, so this is the mid 2000s and you've left Martha, and I think you're in your early 30s, around that time. And you've had a lot of experience at this point. Right. I mean, you have done a lot of sort of executive type of work. And I guess you eventually get hired to be the CEO of a brand called. It was called Best in Company, which I guess was like a high end children's brand. I don't remember it. And I guess it was owned by Tommy Hilfiger, the designer, and his wife Susie, who are kind of a fashion power couple.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah, huge honor.

[Guy Raz]

But from what I've read, this actually turned out to be another really challenging job. So tell me the story. What happened?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, I mean, the end of the story I'll start with that, is that I was fired by messenger in front of my team when I was the CEO.

[Guy Raz]

How long after?

[Greg Renfrew]

I'd say around a year, maybe a little. About a year. And I was hired by Tommy's. So Tommy and Susie were estranged at the time and on the process of getting divorced. And I only bring this up to say that that's an important fact because Tommy wanted me to turn the business into a profitable business. And Susie is a true creative and wasn't focused on the financials. And I worked with Susie on the day to day, but Tommy was the ultimate owner of the business. And so it was complicated. And honestly, I was cocky. The thing about the dot com world, even though my company sold for not a lot of money at all, I was one of those entrepreneurs that people knew about, had been highlighted in Vogue and all these magazines. Like, I. I thought I was pretty talented. And I definitely came into my relationship with Susie with a level of arrogance. And I think it bit me in the ass, to be totally honest, because I don't think I treated her with the respect she deserved. And I didn't create the working relationship with her that if I were to be working with her today, I think I would approach things very differently than I had at the time.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, it sounds like the problem here is that you're hired to run the company, but actually the founder and this happens, the founder is like, I don't have to ask anybody for permission. It's my company that creates a problem. Because if your job as a CEO is to tighten things up and make sure, it's going to be profitable. And the founder still sees themselves as the boss. That's. That's hard. It's hard to run the business.

[Greg Renfrew]

I think that with Susie, you know, she was all about the way that she wanted things to look and the types of clothing she wanted to buy. And so it was challenging because I would say things like, well, those little dresses that you're purchasing are absolutely beautiful, but they're probably only going to be worn for Easter or Hanukkah or Christmas. But that's not a day to day. If we want to capture the dollars from that customer, we need to show her leggings. I remember leggings were a thing for little kids all of a sudden, and J. Crew was just launching crew cuts and people were buying more affordable clothing. And so it was hard to balance that with her.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. All right, so you're there and one

[Greg Renfrew]

day

[Guy Raz]

you get some bad news. What happens?

[Greg Renfrew]

I'm literally in the middle of a meeting, and a messenger comes to the door and asks me if I'm Greg Renfrew. And I say, I am. And he hands me. He serves me papers, I guess, like how people get served papers if they're getting divorced. And it basically says, you've been fired and you are to leave the premises.

[Guy Raz]

That's what the message said in the envelope. And were you totally shocked? I mean, was it totally unexpected?

[Greg Renfrew]

I knew there was tension, but yes, I was shocked. I mean, first of all, being fired by messenger is just. That was. That was shocking. Maybe, maybe if she had sat me down and said, this isn't really working. We're not agreeing on things, maybe that wouldn't have come as such a surprise. But being fired by messenger was absolutely shocking. I think I remember walking out to telling the team that I've been fired. And I remember walking back into my office and starting to pack up what I could bring with me. And I think I remember calling my friend and asking her to come pick me up and like, losing it. I feel like she picked me up and I was like sobbing. And I think we drove out of town for the night. But yeah, it was humiliating.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, Greg helps a Hollywood celebrity come up with a business plan and then gets inspired by to come up with her own. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I Built this. Your website can really set the entire tone for your brand. I know that when I hear about a new company, the first thing I do is go to their website. Keeping your site updated and making changes quickly should be easy. That's why so many companies from early stage startups to Fortune 5 are turning to Framer. Framer works like your team's favorite design tool. It's built for real time collaboration with a powerful CMS that's great for SEO and analytics that help you understand what's actually working. And here's the key part. Framer doesn't slow you down. Any change you make goes live in seconds with just one click. Learn how you can get more out of yore.com from a framer specialist or get started building for free [e-mail] BILT for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com BILT for thirty percent off framer.com BILT rules and restrictions may apply. Work can be a little weird I've had plenty of those moments early in my career, and honestly, even later I remember stretches where I wasn't totally sure what the next step was supposed to be. And that's the thing. Work isn't always a straight line. And that's where LinkedIn comes in. LinkedIn helps you tap into ideas and insights from people who've been where you are, connect with others in your field, grow your network, and access tools that can actually help you find the right next step. Whether you're just getting started thinking about a change or trying to accelerate where you are, LinkedIn is built to support you at every stage because LinkedIn is the network that works for you. Visit LinkedIn.com Hibt to learn more. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's now 2008, about two years after Greg has been fired from her job at Best and company. And at this point she has a lot going on. She's remarried and started a family and she also relocates to Los Angeles where she begins working with another high profile figure, the actress Jessica Alba.

[Greg Renfrew]

She was looking to have someone help her with a children's clothing company that she wanted to start and I signed a six month contract to consult for her in a full time capacity to help her explore the opportunity of starting a new company. And we did that, although very quickly. And this is part of my story. When I was still in New York, I had become really obsessed with toxic chemicals. I watched a number of my friends be diagnosed with different types of cancer. I had my nanny who died of cancer at 31. I had friends that were giving birth to kids with significant health issues. So when I moved to Los Angeles. And I was introduced to Jessica. I understood that she was excited about this organic clothing line, but I started to question her, like, well, what are they gonna wash the clothes with? And are those detergents safe for their health? And, you know, Jessica and I started talking about, you know, maybe there's a different angle here. Maybe there's a way to create safer products for babies and kids, and maybe it's not about clothing so much. So the conversations that she and I are having during the time during which I was consulting for her were moving away from this clothing line and closer towards what ultimately became the Honest Company. And I was not a founder of the Honest Company, but I helped inform some of the decisions that led her to that. And it took me a while to figure out what my next thing was going to be.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so let's, let's get into that, because you're now in LA and you're doing consulting, and you help Jessica sort of build this business plan. She goes off, and we know what happens with the Honest Company. I mean, you were going to get into cosmetics, into beauty products. But, but, but before we hear the story, how did that, how did the idea even start to come to you? When did you start to think about beauty products and makeup and cosmetics and then you making it?

[Greg Renfrew]

I had become impassioned with the environmental health movement. And as I made changes to my life, I found that there were opportunities in the marketplace. You know, it was really easy to switch my household cleaning products or just start washing my floors with water and vinegar. It was easy over time to switch from plastic to glass. It was easy to take my shoes off at the door. There were solutions out there in certain aspects of my life. But when it came to skincare and color cosmetic products at the time, there were some really great sort of all natural types of brands, but most of them didn't really work very well, or they didn't smell very good, or they weren't presented in a way that was aesthetically pleasing to me. And that was how I ultimately came to decide to enter into the beauty space. I had been introduced to Christy Coleman, who was a leading makeup artist during my tenure with Jessica. As I was exploring a whole bunch of different things, and I, she and I really clicked. She was the first leading makeup artist to clean up her kit and start working with what was then called green products. She and I just started talking about what her dreams were in terms of, you know, creating safer makeup and my dreams about really taking on this industry. And we started having a lot of conversations.

[Guy Raz]

And so where do you start? It's 2010. And what's the first thing you do? I mean, you have run businesses. You have a pretty good playbook. What was your playbook to get this off the ground?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, you know, it's interesting because I did have really lots of experience, but I had no experience in beauty. And I wanted to bring in products that performed as well as the traditional beauty brands, and I wanted them to be void of certain chemicals of concern. So literally the first thing I did is I called a friend of mine who works for l' Oreal and I said, I know you're in the hair care business, but can you tell me a little bit about how you all do things? And then she led me to a friend at Estee Lauder who then led me to someone at the environmental working group who led me to a green chemist. So I started just having lots of conversations with people. You know, I had more questions than I had answers.

[Guy Raz]

And by this point, right, like if you wanted to start a makeup brand, you could. I mean, there are, there are co manufacturers all over the US and Switzerland and Japan that make high end beauty products. Was it just a matter of finding a place and saying, this is what I want to make, or was it more challenging than that?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, it was way more challenging because as one of my partners later on used to say, for us to make the makeup or skincare products that I wanted would be the same as going to the fanciest restaurant in town, having the most decadent chocolate cake, and saying, I want that same chocolate cake, except you can't use flour, eggs or sugar, and I want it done in six months. So we were called brutal counter. And people found me really challenging. Not me, but us as a company, really challenging. They bought into my dream. And the idea that you create high performing products that were void of certain chemicals of concern. Because just to be clear, not all chemicals are bad for you. And water's a chemical. There are lots of things that are perfectly safe for health that are being used in the cosmetics and personal care industry. And there were some offensive chemicals that were there that I wanted out. And so what was really hard was that there was no such thing as clean beauty. People were still calling it green in general. Clean beauty didn't exist. There were some environmentally friendly natural brands that were successful, but the combination of high performance being significantly safer, void of chemicals of concern, that was not widely being done.

[Guy Raz]

All right, I'm just gonna put a bookmark here in this interview to say that sometimes People listen and they say, oh, I hate when people say all natural or clean because they're not regulated terms. Right?

[Greg Renfrew]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

It's not like USDA organic. So that's real. People hear that and they're like, what does that mean? But to you that means products that are non toxic and also environmentally friendly organic. Like what does that mean to you?

[Greg Renfrew]

So I think you're absolutely right. I think the term natural or all natural means absolutely nothing. The challenge in the beauty industry, which is not the same thing in the food industry, is that it is not regulated to the extent that it needs to be. And people can make marketing claims like safe, clean, anything.

[Guy Raz]

Everybody can say, we have a clean, clean, this, clean that. I hear it all the time. We've done a lot of cosmetics in the shows. Clean, everything's clean.

[Greg Renfrew]

Clean means nothing today.

[Guy Raz]

No one's being like, we sell dirty cosmetics. Very dirty, very unhealthy, very toxic.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. So for me, clean means high performing products that are significantly safer for your health, void of certain chemicals of concern. And oftentimes with safer ingredients, they are more environmentally friendly. But that's not a hundred percent a given. So to me, clean is complex, it's an arduous process and it's a comprehensive approach. To most brands it means taking a few chemicals out and calling it a day.

[Guy Raz]

All right, you are in la, which is the home of some great beauty brands. Dermalogica started there and you know, subsequently several others. But tell me about like what you, your first few products were going to be like. I imagine you started research what the best sellers are and that's how you started.

[Greg Renfrew]

No, not really. You know, it's interesting because I went in with blind naivete. Like the thing that was, I think one of the things that made me successful, and I say this often to other founders, is don't spend so much time looking at the industry that you're entering into. I mean, yes, be aware of it, but you have a vision that is obviously you see opportunities, so focus on what you're trying to do. So for me, what I wanted to do is give you your essential products that met your day to day needs. Just a basic cleanser, day cream and a night cream and maybe we had an eye cream, but it was just an, it was an essential skincare line.

[Guy Raz]

So it was going to be creams, which is smart because that, that's a repeat purchase. Like you probably don't buy blush or maybe lipstick, I don't know, you probably don't buy skin cream. You're using Twice a day, you're going to buy more of it.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. Skincare is a consumable product. And people do typically stick with their skincare routines for periods of time. They're less likely to switch out, you know, their day cream or their night cream than they are something else.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, got it. Okay. And so eventually you found one facility or manufacturer that would work with you, or did you have to find multiple?

[Greg Renfrew]

Multiple. Because like any other industry, my opinion is you go to the company that specializes in the thing that you want to make. And so the company that's really good at doing a lipstick or a lip gloss may not be the company that's really good at doing shampoo and body wash or lotions. And also, I think it's just a prudent business exercise that you're not putting all your eggs into one basket, because then you become incredibly dependent. You lose power to negotiate. But also, if something goes wrong with that facility or that company, you're kind of screwed. So from day one, we worked with a handful. I did want. One of the things that I was intentional about is I wanted to create jobs in America and I wanted US Manufacturing and I wanted American brand. I felt like a lot of the aspirational brands were either coming from Asia or from Europe. And I just really cared about creating jobs and being able to physically visit these places and not outsource everything to China. I really wanted to make our products in the US So I had to take my time finding those people.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, you launch in 2013 with nine products. Face cleansers and eye creams, shampoo. I'm curious about the launch plan. Were you going to have a store, like a physical brick and mortar store? Were you going to sell it online? I mean, this is like we're talking about peak, direct to consumer. Like this is when it's really not peak. It's really when it's launching like, you know, Warby Parker and all these brands are just going gangbusters, all those guys. So tell me about your plan. How are you going to sell this?

[Greg Renfrew]

I knew that E commerce was going to be critical at this point in time. It's everything, right? You have to have an E commerce platform. People are transacting online and I didn't want to go into the department stores because the shelves were being controlled by the incumbents and they didn't want the stories getting out there of safer ingredients because it didn't serve them particularly well. A lot of them at least. And again, remember, this is. Now I'm having these conversations in 2011, 2012, the world's changing. But even today, people want a touch and feel product. They want to match the skin tone to their skin. And it's. While it's possible to do online, and many people do, it's not as easy to do it online as it is in a physical store. So a friend of mine at the time said, you know, maybe you should consider direct sales. To which I said, hell no, I don't like those business models. You have people over promising and under delivering and all this stuff.

[Guy Raz]

And just to clarify, because some people might hear that and think, well, what direct to consumer, like online, you're talking about like having a representative go and sell to people in their homes or something like that.

[Greg Renfrew]

Okay, yes. And so I started doing some research on companies that were, they were. Whether they were calling direct sales like an Avon or social selling. There were a whole bunch of companies that were successfully powering up women to act as sales representatives for them and they could earn a commission on the products that they sold.

[Guy Raz]

So you're going to have, you know, some people call multi level marketing model, right? Where you would have like Avon, you would have sales reps who would sell the product and get commission. And here's what I think is so interesting about this. That was not fashionable to do. Like a lot of people would have turned up their nose at even hearing that. Right. And to me it's a little bit sort of out of left field. It's like, yeah, well wait a minute, this could be interesting. Like you have trusted friend, you have a person who has a party and they trust that person and they are showing them this product. Like, did you have to take a sort of a mental leap to get over that? Like, ooh, are people going to think of this as like, you know, Amway or I don't know, again, there's nothing wrong with Amway. I'm just, you know, in the world you lived in in Los Angeles and this sort of beauty world, I don't know, maybe people kind of turned up their nose at that idea.

[Greg Renfrew]

Oh, for sure, for sure. People did. People do. I mean, people still. Well, first of all, I think that one of the things that was frustrating and you know, you get to the point where you just, you're not going to defend the decision you made because people don't take the time to really understand your business model. We had attributes of an MLM business in that we allowed women to build teams and in tiny, tiny percentage of the women, like less than 5% built teams.

[Guy Raz]

And when when just to explain what that means is when you build a team, if that team sells you as the team builder, you can also get a commission from their sales. So over time you can.

[Greg Renfrew]

You can get a small. Right? You can get a small. So the majority. So the way that we worked in our business and the reason I did it was I really genuinely started the company, not really giving a damn about beauty products, but really caring about protecting people's health. So if you want to build a movement, you need people behind the movement with respect to the MLM side of our business. And to be very clear, because there's a lot of misinformation out there. There are MLMs and network marketing companies that I think over promise and under deliver that. I'm not sure I would call them predatory like others do, but I don't like their business practices.

[Guy Raz]

Basically, you have to buy a bunch of product. You might attend a seminar, and if it works out, you sell the stuff and you make a commission and you buy more. But what can happen is people will spend a lot of money on product and then they just are not successful selling it and they're stuck with all this stuff that sucks and can be financially devastating for some people. How is your model different? People still had to buy the stuff, right?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, first and foremost, we never sold the dream. There's a thing about the old school, and I want it's actually, I'd love to break this down because I do think that there are some really great companies out there doing really great work in the world.

[Guy Raz]

And I think that Tupperware's been doing it for a long time.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. And I think that, you know, before we had the right to vote as women, Avon gave women an opportunity to gain some sense of financial independence. There are a lot of wonderful attributes to this business, to certain of these businesses. For me, the way that we broke it down was we weren't going to allow you to buy product. You could buy samples, but we flagged it. So if there was any order that came into our website over a thousand dollars, we would flag it. Because not only did we not want people spending money and losing money, but we also wanted to control the brand experience. And so I didn't want someone selling a bunch of product out of their garage. That's not the brand I was trying to build. So every single transaction came through our E commerce platform and was shipped directly from our warehouse. You could earn a commission if you sold a product. If they built a team, they could earn a small percentage on that team. But Most of them weren't making very much money. Most of them only gave us one to three hours a week. This was a side thing that they enjoyed being part of. It was a community and work that they thought mattered.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, I hear you. It's a great model because you've got brand ambassadors and now you've got a trusted. Like a recommendation from somebody you trust is much more valuable than an advertisement. So how did you find these women or sellers? How did you recruit them?

[Greg Renfrew]

So when I decided to start the company, I did a roadshow across America. I went to I don't even know how many cities and towns and I would ask everyone I knew. I mean, it's almost like running a political campaign. I would go out and I would say, look, here, here's the issue that I see in the world today. Here's the solution that I aim to provide through our business. We're creating a movement and I'd like you to get involved.

[Guy Raz]

And they would say, just to be clear, if they wanted to be representatives, they would be able to buy the product at wholesale cost at a savings. Yeah. And would they get training too, like sales training?

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes, we did sales training because most of these people didn't know a ton about, you know, what the toxic chemicals might be or how to even teach someone how to put on lipstick or whatever. They weren't typically trained beauty people. They were women who wanted to get involved.

[Guy Raz]

So from that roadshow, how many sellers do you estimate you recruited before you even launched?

[Greg Renfrew]

I think we launched with about two or three hundred people.

[Guy Raz]

Wow, that's great.

[Greg Renfrew]

And the two things they did unbelievably well and cost effectively is they acquired new customers for us. So they were very effective in that way. And they were also very effective at amplifying our brand. And so we knew that because of their digital footprint, that if I wanted to stand up a campaign, let's just say, or a new product, that I could send them the asset. And all of a sudden 8 million people will have seen that overnight because these women were proud of the products. And so it was a very cost effective way of doing business in that way.

[Guy Raz]

Absolutely. I think the customer acquisition costs are. It's just much more efficient because you have people going out there and they have an interest in selling because they're going to make some money, but they're also supporting the product and they're. And they're amplifying and talking about it and they like it, they use it. It's cheaper than TV ads.

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, I think it Allowed for us to grow unbelievably quickly, both the revenue of the company and the movement at large. I mean, I think it was an unbelievably effective business model. We scaled to hundreds of millions of dollars of sales and in eight years. So I'd stand by the decision all day long. I think it was an incredibly powerful business ecosystem.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, clearly you guys are struck on something because you start to attract significant investment. I think in 2018, by that year you raised over $80 million. Bono was an investor.

[Greg Renfrew]

Bono was an investor. Bono, personally, greatest thing, I grew up worshiping you two. So that was like a pinch me moment.

[Guy Raz]

He came in, you met him, and he was like, here you go, here's a chat.

[Greg Renfrew]

No, it wasn't. That's not how it happened. We came in because TPG Growth was our first large institutional investor. They had a relationship with Bono. Bono and his wife, Allie Hewson had started a brand called Nude. They were actually early pioneers in the area of clean. And that's how we got involved. And then we did raise another round of capital later.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so, you know, this strategy, this sort of multi channel strategy is, is paying off. I mean, you're growing really nicely. You have raised a lot of money. So there's high expectations. But I think by 2020, you guys are that year, which is pandemic year. I think you do about four, almost $400 million in sales. That. I mean, I wonder about that year because that's amazing. How much of that do you think had to do with the fact that people were. Because people were. I remember that year, people were like, oh, no one's going to wear makeup anymore. No one's going to buy cosmetics. But cosmetics actually did pretty well. People were at home and they were shopping online.

[Greg Renfrew]

Skincare did very well during the pandemic. So our, our cosmetic business dropped precipitously. Like the second that people were back in their houses, you know, and they were on screens, you were maybe selling lipstick, but the rest of it no one was really wearing. But you saw an increase in sales of things like serums and anything that people could do to pamper themselves inside their homes. I think that that certainly benefited us. But I think that I could have done a much better job as the CEO of helping people navigate the new reality, the new way of living post pandemic, once the doors were opened up again, because not only did people redirect their spend to fashion and to travel, but also people had zoom fatigue. But then they weren't really ready to gather physically anymore. And I didn't handle that as well as I should have.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so you come out. We start to come out of COVID And when, I guess while we're still in Covid, May of 2021, the Carlyle Group, massively important private equity group, buys a majority share. They put in, it's estimated, I think, $600 million into beauty counter, which was huge. I mean, that's a huge vote of confidence.

[Greg Renfrew]

They did. I had built a relationship with the Carlyle Group years prior when we did the last round of institutional funding. We were too early stage at the time for them to make an investment. It was sort of like, call me when you grow up a little bit. But we kept in touch over the years, and when we went out to sell the business at the urging of our board and our investors, they were one of our first calls, for sure.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. So they buy a controlling share, which is exciting, because I think this is really the first time you make some money off this business, rightfully so. I mean, you started almost 10 years earlier. And they have big ambitions. They want to take sales to a billion dollars. And I guess the idea eventually to take it public and you stay on as CEO. CEO. Okay. So May 2021, they make the investment, you're running the business, and now they're the majority owner. Tell me about that relationship, because it sounds great. I mean, you made some money, they put a bunch of money in. Now you've got all these resources. You can really grow this thing.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. I mean, I think that I remember in the closing moments being very emotional. One as a female founder, to start a company and sell it for a billion dollars was putting me in a category of women that was small and something that I really was proud of. That achievement. Yes.

[Guy Raz]

And all your investors did very well.

[Greg Renfrew]

Very well. And the reason that I chose to sell to a financial sponsor versus a Strategic, because I had been approached by Strategic two years prior, which is why

[Guy Raz]

Strategic would have been a cosmetics brand.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. Like Unilever, Estee Lauder, l', Oreal, Shiseido. Like any of those big brands, they, you know, they are often acquiring companies. And we had been approached by one a couple years prior that I really, really liked. But I felt like I wanted to be that next generation leader in beauty, and I wanted to take the company public ultimately. And I thought that I had the chops to do it. And so immediately after they purchased the company, which was on May 20th of 2021, the world opened up. We were let out of our homes for the first time. And the business, I would say, stumbled that summer. We were still growing, but we weren't growing as quickly as we had before. And I think that that caused real concern at the highest levels of. Of Carlisle.

[Guy Raz]

You weren't growing because. Just because people changed their purchasing habits after the pandemic. I mean, people were traveling and doing other things.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, for most people, the choice of buying a beautiful serum or buying a pair of blue jeans is a choice. Not everyone can buy everything and do everything they want to. And I think that having not purchased clothing, having not been able to travel, people redirected their spend appropriately. And on top of it, not only did the people purchasing our products, but so did the women that represented the brand. They were also getting out of their homes for the first time and taking a vacation with their family. And they were distracted that summer too. And, you know, rightly so. It's been a long. We all know what the pandemic was like. It was a long time. So we were still growing. It's just that we sort of plateaued that summer a little bit. And that made people uncomfortable and as I said earlier, made who uncomfortable? The leaders of Carlisle. I think by sort of the end of the summer, they were uncomfortable and I did feel pressure. And it was sort of like, why isn't this working as well as we had anticipated? Kind of what's going on inside of your team? What do we need to do to change things? This, you know. You know, like anyone would do. Right? What are all the root causes of the lack of sales? And also there was just some unfortunate events. Like right when we started getting back out there and gathering the women that had sold and getting them excited again, the Omnichrome variant hit. And so we had to cancel all these in person events all over again. And so they then. And so they were also then having a hard time navigating because people didn't want to get on Zoom, but people weren't comfortable meeting them in person. So they were struggling to figure out how that they could sell. And Carlisle was sort of looking internally to say, like, do we have the wrong digital strategies? What do we need to change? And I started to feel the pressure big time after a couple of months.

[Guy Raz]

And did you ever, I'm curious, like, were you coming home and thinking, oh God, this was a mistake? Or maybe not that, but like, was this the right decision to work with a private equity group? I don't know. I'm curious because this is a Normal question that would come up for a founder. Right. Like, did you start to have some of those concerns or doubts or worries?

[Greg Renfrew]

Look, I think as a. As a CEO, you were always worrying about the state of the business and you're always looking to what's going to happen next month, next year. Your job is to. So, yeah, I was feeling the pressure and I was worried, but I wasn't that worried about it. I felt like we were having a moment where the world was kind of going nuts. And I was trying to say to them, take a deep breath, like, this is gonna smooth out in the fall. Like, things will start to turn around. Let's not make any rash decisions right now, because I feel like this is all gonna calm down. And I did feel that way.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so you get to the fall

[Greg Renfrew]

and they made the decision in October that I was not capable of running the company and they decided to remove

[Guy Raz]

me as CEO in October of 2021.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes. They informed me in October that they were commencing a search for a CEO and that I was not the right person to lead the company. Maybe they started it as co CEO or whatever, but basically they were like, we're going to bring in someone to run the company.

[Guy Raz]

How did you react?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, after I had a really good cry. I mean, I think I was pretty shocked. Yeah, I was pretty shocked.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment. After her unceremonious exit, Greg finds herself in a bind. She's been kicked out of Beauty Counter, but the deal she made means she still has a big financial stake in its success. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this.

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don't miss it.

[Guy Raz]

You may have heard the best voice in show business, Morgan Freeman, talking about a serious and underdiagnosed heart condition that's often missed. Attr cardiac amyloidosis, or attrcm. It's a condition that can greatly disrupt your life, with symptoms like severe fatigue, shortness of breath, and carpal tunnel. If left untreated, ATTRCM may become serious, leading to a shorter lifespan. A helps adults with ATTRCM live longer and have fewer hospitalizations due to heart issues, so you can focus more on living for what you love. Tell your doctor if you're 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 and visit attruby.com podcast that's a T T R U B Y.com podcast to learn more. It's time to get busy living. Brought to you by Bridge B. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the fall of 2021, and Greg Renfrew is basically in shock. Her new bosses at the Carlyle Group have just ousted her as CEO.

[Greg Renfrew]

They own my company at this point, so. And I've been through this before with Martha Stewart, where when you sell, you sell. And you need to be aware of the fact that you're no longer completely in charge of your destiny.

[Guy Raz]

Did the. I imagine the message, the way they telegraphed the message was, Greg, this is nothing personal. This is about just what we think is best for the business at this moment. It's not about you. You're great, but it's not personal. Don't take it personally. But of course you take it personally.

[Greg Renfrew]

I'm not sure that that was the message given to me.

[Guy Raz]

Okay.

[Greg Renfrew]

I'm trying to remember. I mean, I think that, like, I

[Guy Raz]

wasn't in the room.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. I think the messages are like, like, what's that expression? The elephant on the table?

[Guy Raz]

Elephant in the room.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah, the elephant in the room is that we don't think that you're the right person to lead this company anymore. So we're going to find you someone who's really great and. And we. We still believe in you, but we think that you be great to be external, but we're going to find someone to run the company.

[Guy Raz]

They wanted you to stay with the company?

[Greg Renfrew]

They wanted me to stay as, like,

[Guy Raz]

a brand ambassador or brand.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Did you go through, like, the stage. I'm. It sounds cliche, but, like, stage of grief? Yeah. Did you go like anger, like, screw you guys, hate you? Sadness, like just depression, all those things, or some of them.

[Greg Renfrew]

I think at the time I went through the stages of anger. I didn't go through all the stages of grief because I don't think I could anticipate where it was going completely. Even in those initial months.

[Guy Raz]

They found somebody who had senior roles at l' Oreal and Shiseido, a guy named Marc Wray. I think Mark is a male, right?

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

He's a fair question to ask when you're talking to Greg.

[Greg Renfrew]

He's a male and he's French and he had most recently been at Shiseido.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And from what I understand, the relationship between the two of you was not easy from the get go.

[Greg Renfrew]

That is correct.

[Guy Raz]

And you didn't stay much longer after that.

[Greg Renfrew]

I think that in most scenarios, it is hard for a founder to stay and have someone else lead their company. I think in my particular case, from the very beginning, it was clear to me that he didn't really want to leverage my institutional knowledge. He was going to run things his way and didn't really value my opinion. And that was really hard. And in fairness, I probably didn't handle it very well either because I couldn't believe that someone, when I had run a company up, up, up, up for eight years, that someone didn't value my opinions and thought that I didn't know how to do my job. So it was hard.

[Guy Raz]

So by the middle of 2022, you leave, we'll get to what happened. But what did you do? I mean, I imagine you would want to take a break, because that's a lot. I mean, you've been through a lot at that point. And I don't know if it was me, I would just kind of say, you know, I want to just kind of enjoy not doing anything now.

[Greg Renfrew]

You might, if it was your choice to leave, you might feel that way. I mean, I just, I think that that that first summer, I was devastated. You know, when you, when you start a business and you build it for a long period of time and you're the face of that brand, you're inextricably linked to that brand, it's like, it's like your identity. It's like you don't even know who you are without that anymore. I've had so many friends who have sold their companies or lost their businesses, and they literally have to pick themselves up off the floor because they don't know who they are without it. And I think publicly, because of what was said, you know, it looks like I just peaced out and was hanging on the beach. And I did go to the beach, but it was a really dark time for me because I was really sad and I was angry, you know?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean. Cause you might run into somebody and say, hey, how's the beauty counter thing going? Or, I just bought beauty counter. I'm supporting you. And you wouldn't want to have to explain everything. Right. Like, little things like that would probably pop happen now and again.

[Greg Renfrew]

That happened all the time. And also, remember when I. When I sold the company, there were about 60,000 women that were representing the brand. And I think that the public perception was that, oh, Greg made a bunch of money and peaced out, and you just left us there. And there were a lot of people that were really angry with me, and I. And I wasn't able to talk to them about it, and that was really hard. But, you know, that's. That's life and happens all the time.

[Guy Raz]

And you had to support the company because you still had ownership in the company. So it was not in your interest to, like, speak out and say, they screwed me or whatever. That would not have been in your interest.

[Greg Renfrew]

It was not in my interest. And I don't think that Carlisle intended to screw me. And I think they felt they had made a good choice. I think what was hard was the person that was chosen to lead didn't value me. And that was probably the hardest thing for me because I was watching from the sidelines, poor choices being made and knowing it was going to impact the company and not being able to do anything about it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And in fact, the company was struggling. I mean, the guy that was hired to run the business, he lasted about a year and a half, I guess, and then he was asked to resign in May of 2023. I mean, you are clearly aware of that. And I wonder whether you had mixed feelings. On the one hand, this is somebody who replaced you and was not able to succeed. On the other hand, like, you were still an owner of this business.

[Greg Renfrew]

I felt better with his departure than I did with him staying there. So for me, I didn't feel that he was the right person for the job. And I felt more confident in the choice they made in their interim CEO, Mindy McKenzie, with whom I partnered really, really well. She was a board member. She and I got together, and she said, I'm really sorry about everything that happened. And we had our. We hugged it out, and I started helping her, you know, a little bit more behind the scenes and then. And then less behind the scenes, because, of course, I had a financial interest, but also way more importantly, in some ways, I believed in the Business. I believed in the work and I believed in the women, and I wanted to see this thing turn around.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so you were eventually asked to come back to lead the company and you return 2024. Yes, January of 2024, to help relaunch this. This brand that Carlisle had, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of big stake in and hope to really grow and. Tell me about the return as CEO.

[Greg Renfrew]

You know, look, I mean, I equate this to when you finally go through a bad breakup and you finally get over someone and you think you're fine, and then they call again. It felt like all that, all those fields of like, wait, I just got over you, now you want me back? And so I was reluctant to take the job as CEO because I had finally moved past it in my mind and in my heart. But honestly, it felt really good at the moment. I mean, I was nervous, but I. Once I was in, I was like, okay, I'm in. Let's do this.

[Guy Raz]

This. So you're back with a strategy and a plan.

[Greg Renfrew]

Trying to get a strategy and a plan. I mean, I was back on February 1st, and I started doing a lot of interviewing and asking people because I didn't. I had been removed for a long time, so I didn't actually really know as much about what was going on there. And so I learned very quickly, you know, what was going on, and then started to form a plan.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, and what happened?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, in mid March of 2024, Carlisle made the. The very difficult decision to. To move away from funding, continuing to fund the brand.

[Guy Raz]

They basically said, we're not going to put any more money into this.

[Greg Renfrew]

They did. Wow.

[Guy Raz]

This is six weeks after you return.

[Greg Renfrew]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

So basically that's going to. I mean, where that's going to lead is foreclosure or a sale. I mean, hope for sale. But basically that's. The company's going to wind down. That's essentially what's what they're doing, what they're saying.

[Greg Renfrew]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

So they, I am assuming, start to look for a buyer.

[Greg Renfrew]

They had been looking for a buyer for quite some time prior to my joining as CEO and subsequent, but we were unable to find a viable option for the brand.

[Guy Raz]

So the business becomes owned by the bank. Basically, they're lenders.

[Greg Renfrew]

Correct. We went into foreclosure.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. And so throughout this time, I mean, you're now the CEO and you've got to wind this down. I mean, this is not what you signed up for.

[Greg Renfrew]

Not only did I not sign up for it, I had no idea how to do it. It's not something that I understood at all. The differences between bankruptcy and foreclosure. I mean, it was all new to me, and I was trying to understand as the CEO, how to navigate this with a whole variety of shareholders and constituents that were depending on. On us. It was interesting.

[Guy Raz]

And there's no money in the bank, so basically, you got to sell the assets and then the creditors start to get paid back in a certain order. But not all of them are going to get paid back.

[Greg Renfrew]

Right. Look, you know this probably better than I, but once you go into foreclosure and the bank assumes the asset and they appoint a company to manage this whole process, it's then out of your hands completely.

[Guy Raz]

So when was it finally wound down? Like, by April, May of 2024.

[Greg Renfrew]

So I acquired the assets of the business out of foreclosure in April of 2024.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, well, now, okay, this is a whole new story. So, okay, so you are. You're winding down the company. They cannot sell it.

[Greg Renfrew]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

You end up buying it back. How does this. How does that happen? Tell me this, tell me how that happens.

[Greg Renfrew]

Total insanity. I mean, total insanity. So I'm the CEO. I'm watching all this go down. So it's kind of interesting. The debt on the business was syndicated, led by bank of America and GP Morgan Chase. And I can't remember the other banks that were involved because I didn't interact with them. But in a crazy act of, I would almost say of kindness, bank of America approached my lawyers and they said, you know, this is a really bad situation. We're going to lose our money. But we believe in this woman and the movement she created, and if she'd like her brand back, we'd like to sell it to her because we think she deserves the right to have it back. And they approached me. It was a Sunday night. I was in Miami about to fly home from spring break with my family, and I had about 48 hours to decide if I was going to do it and to raise the capital with which to purchase the assets of the company. And I sat down with my family, and my younger daughter was crying and just saying, just can't let this whole thing die, Mom. You've worked so hard for so long. And I sat with my husband and my kids and took a whole bunch of our savings and said, okay, let's do this.

[Guy Raz]

You had an opportunity to so help explain what you were buying. I mean, were you buying product? Were you buying, like, what assets?

[Greg Renfrew]

The brand we Purchased formulations, we had the rights to the name of the brand, there was a bunch of inventory that we could purchase, old marketing materials, the website if we wanted it, all those things.

[Guy Raz]

It's kind of amazing because you probably were able to acquire it for pennies on the dollar. So it's, I mean, on the one hand I'm sure it wasn't nothing, but you had an opportunity to buy this brand that had been a billion dollar brand. And so for you it was a no brainer. A no brainer may not be the right term, but for you is like, absolutely, I've got to do this.

[Greg Renfrew]

I wouldn't say it was a no brainer in that it was really scary for me financially to do it and I didn't have a plan and it wasn't something I was anticipating doing. And what I signed up to do, which was a turnaround, is a very different thing than buying the assets of a business and trying to figure out how to navigate it all on your own. But I did and do still believe very much in the importance of the work. And so I made that decision and I made it quickly. And I called a few of my old investors and said, look, if we're going to do this, like we got to pull some money together in the next 48 hours. And they were like, no problem.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you, I mean, you can't, when you acquire the assets, it's not that you're going to keep it going because there's no cash to do that. Presumably, like you've got to let, you've got to dissolve the company or the staff. I don't know. What did you have to do?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, there was no money, so. And we did have to pay the bank something. So when I was going through the process of acquiring the assets, I thought for a hot second that we could somehow continue operations. But that was naive because the cost is so far exceeded the amount of capital. So I ended up having to let go of the majority of the associates for the company without severance or health insurance, which was horrendous. And so I did that. I held onto a tiny group of people and I said, listen, I can't promise I can pay you, but if you want to stick around, I hope I'm going to be able to have a small team. And announced it on May 1st that we were closing down the company, but

[Guy Raz]

you had acquired the assets. So you clearly you are not going to just buy this thing and then let it go. I have to assume you started to think about what you were going to reconstitute it as correct.

[Greg Renfrew]

I bought the business. I literally had a meltdown because I was really scared and I didn't have a plan. Usually when you're a founder or CEO, you have a plan, but when you make a decision to buy assets in 24 hours, you don't have a plan. So I had to and I didn't. And I knew I couldn't go forward in the way that the old business had gone forward. And there are a million things that had to happen. So I do think as difficult as the decision was, it was the right decision to shut that company down and to let that chapter close and to take the time to start a new company. We did some research on what had worked and had not worked, where the market had shifted. Because what was really innovative and exciting about Beauty Counter when I launched it in March of 13, was not. It was a totally different world. And I mean, everything had changed. And so I knew that I needed a new company, it needed to come out in a new and fresh way. And so I had to reimagine everything. It wasn't like, oh, let's just relaunch beautycounter. No, we need to start afresh because things were different.

[Guy Raz]

And the plan with Counter is similar. I mean, also to use affiliate sales reps, but also have direct to consumer also to be in shops. What is a similar multi channel strategy?

[Greg Renfrew]

Well, we do have regular affiliate relationships. You know, we're on platforms like Shop My, we have our, one of our little stores that we used to have on Nantucka, which will be opening again this summer and of course our e commerce platform which is driving the majority of our sales today. But we do have a community of women we call brand partners. But one key differentiation is that they, they cannot build teams so they are paid exclusively on commission on their own sales. And mostly they're selling online or on TikTok or wherever they are, Instagram and they are building this community with us that will help us to continue to really fight for a standard for clean. Because clean means nothing today. And yet to me, it means everything. To us it means everything. And so I would really like us to fight to create a new standard that everyone can understand so that if something is marked clean that you actually know what clean means.

[Guy Raz]

I'm curious, did you, I mean, Beauty Counter was an established brand, right? And you've seen this with like, I think of Guess Jeans, Like Guess Jeans was a huge brand in the 80s and it's still around, but it's you know, it's owned by some other company that owns 20 brands or something, or like, you know, Timberland, and there are a few others like that. Did you ever think about keeping the name Beauty Counter? Just relaunching it? Did anybody say, hey, you know, you've got the brand already, why go to Counter? Why not just you paid for it, why not keep it?

[Greg Renfrew]

Yeah, we had lots of conversations about it. And, you know, Beauty Counter, the name was always the intended double entendre of going counter to the beauty industry. That's where it came from. And I think that we really wanted to put counter first because that's really what we've always done is gone counter to industry norms. I think that I also just wanted a fresh start.

[Guy Raz]

But you still own Beauty Counter. If you wanted to, you could still, you could actually spin it out. And if you do whatever you want with it, I could maybe I will.

[Greg Renfrew]

Hadn't thought of that, but thank you for the good idea. Yes, I could.

[Guy Raz]

I'm curious when you think about, I mean, it's an amazing journey, right, that you've got. You had done a lot of things in your career and you have had a lot of success. You had a lot of failures, which is awesome. I mean, I think everybody needs the failures make the successes sweeter. How much of what you accomplished do you attribute to the grind and how much do you think had to do with, I don't know, being lucky, being at the right place at the right time?

[Greg Renfrew]

I think it's all of the above. I think that timing more than luck. I think market timing is important. I think my first company, the Wedding List, we were a little too early. I think if we were maybe a year later or two years later, things might have been different. And I think when I timed Beauty Counter, I think we timed it really, really well. So I do think luck does come into it. I do think that to be successful in business or in anything requires an inordinate amount of hard work, of determination, of consistency, of resilience. I don't care whether you're trying to play football or you're trying to build a beauty brand or anything. It requires just unending hard work. And I always say to people, overnight success as a founder is 10 years, 24, seven. That, to me is overnight success.

[Guy Raz]

That's Greg Renfrew, founder and CEO of Beauty Counter. And now just Counter. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make. Make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please do sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by John Isabella, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Noor Gill. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Karla Estevez, Casey Herman, Chris Messini, J.C. howard, Katherine Cipher, Kerry Thompson, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built this.