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The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
557: She Went From $0 to $100M Selling Coffee Scrubs | Jessica Hatzis (Best of Foundr) [VIDEO]
00:40:44
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- [00:00]
A
We wanted to create a brand that was like nothing that people had seen before. So we bounced around a whole bunch of different ideas and came up with this concept of Frank, the character that changed everything. She's one of the masterminds behind Frank Body, turning a simple coffee scrub into.
- [00:13]
B
A $100 million skincare empire.
- [00:15]
A
With bold marketing and a brand voice that broke through the noise, she's built a cult favorite brand, selling over 30.
- [00:21]
B
Million products in 179 countries. You guys kind of went viral on Instagram. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
- [00:28]
A
We knew the power of word of mouth, so we sent product out to anyone and everyone that would take it because we need everybody talking about this to build that groundswell.
- [00:37]
B
Ariana Grande notoriously copied you guys.
- [00:39]
A
There were a few interviews where she was talking about Frank Boddy. Fast forward six months. It's like Ariana Grande has released her own coffee scrub at Ulta. And I thought, we're done.
- [00:48]
B
What are the key elements to building a successful brand?
- [00:52]
A
You have to make a strong statement as a brand. You have to stand for something. You have to be unique. And if you don't do that, that's not the type of brand that is going to be memorable and sustained over.
- [01:01]
B
10 or 20 or comparing early days Frank to now, what do you miss?
- [01:12]
A
Hear the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
- [01:26]
B
The first question I ask everyone that comes on is how did you get your job? AKA how did you find yourself doing the work you're doing today? Tell us the Frank story.
- [01:35]
A
It's funny, no one ever asks me that. Framed that way, how I got my job. It is, it's a job even though I'm a founder. So it's a two pronged story. So before Frank Body, there was Willow and Blake. Willow and Blake is a creative and branding agency that we launched, I want to say 2010, as some very naive copywriters. So I'm a copywriter by trade. I'd been working in house at a music agency at the time, underneath two founders. And I just loved watching what their day to day looked like. And I was really inspired by that. And I had that moment where I thought, I don't want to work for you anymore. Even though I love you, I want to be you. Quit my job and started a company with my best friend. And you know, it was that true. I mean, sorry to all the 25 year olds out there, but we're about 25 at the time got up, worked in our pajamas. That day had never set up up anything properly from a financial or tax perspective. We just loved writing and that was what we wanted to do. And so we grew that really slowly into a full service branding agency. And after a couple of years of working with clients and they were coming to us because we had a pretty youthful and irreverent and refreshing voice, but we were finding that they'd come to us for that and they were really scared of these bold ideas that we were putting in front of them. And clients would dilute it all the time. Once you start diluting a bold idea, you kind of end up in no man's land when it comes to developing a really unique and memorable brand. We thought, well, what if we built a case study that was just us owning something from beginning to end? So we came at it from the creative side and then we had a couple of other co founders at the time who were really interested in E Com and product and the scalability of that versus something that was so dependent on our time. Like an agency model.
- [03:19]
B
Yes.
- [03:19]
A
And so we bounced around a whole bunch of different ideas. Like we were talking about like alcoholic coconut water at one point. And we knew we wanted to do something in not that particularly healthy when there's booze in it, but in that health and wellness space. We wanted to use social media to scale it and we wanted to create a brand that just stood out and was like nothing that people had seen before. And one of my co founders came up with the idea for the original Coffee Scrub, which was our very first product that we launched at Frank. And we were making it all by hand. And, you know, it was just this true no money startup bars. We had like $10,000 that we'd poured into this to get everything off the ground.
- [03:54]
B
You guys kind of went viral on Instagram. There was the hashtag the Frank effect. And it was just like a marketing machine for you guys. Can you tell us around how that concept came about?
- [04:07]
A
It came from our experience at Willow and Blake. We were finding that there was this really strong emerging platform that people think the uptake on Instagram was huge, but brands weren't playing there. They were still sort of stuck in Facebook and other traditional marketing methods. I thought, there is an entirely untapped audience here waiting for people to come in and do something interesting. But if we're going to come in as a brand on a platform that at the time was dominated by peer to peer communication, we can't have this corporate tone of voice. We need to blend in essentially and sort of go into like incognito mode and make people feel like we were their friend and we weren't necessarily trying to sell them something. And we knew the power of word of mouth. So we came up with this concept of Frank the character. And he would just be able to allow us to talk in first person to people. So then we didn't have that corporate language that would be dominating our posts. We sent product out to anyone and everyone that would take it because we just wanted to create what is now called user generated content. But at the time we were just like, we just need friends and we need people taking photos. We need everybody talking about this to kind of build that groundswell. I look back and I am surprised that people did it because it wasn't a normal thing then to take a photo of yourself half naked in the bathroom using a product. Now we see every kind of product spruced on social media. But that was. We were really establishing a new behavior then. But I think people then and still now like to feel part of a community and like they're an early adopter and part of, you know, they're kind of on the in on this secret that other people don't know about. And the language that we used was so different to what people had seen in beauty, which is what we specialize in, trying to create unique identities for brands. So I think that resonated with people and they hadn't seen it before. And that was kind of how the Frank effect got going. Lots of photos of our legs covered in Coffee Scrub.
- [06:00]
B
Is the Coffee Scrub still a strong product for you guys and like for anybody watching, does it still work? Just sending product to influencers, you know, product for posts like, I'd love to hear your take now.
- [06:13]
A
So the original Coffee Scrub isn't as much a focus for us anymore. And we deliberately wanted our newer, more sophisticated, high performance SKUs to take over. So we've had our marketing focus on that. We stopped sending out product to influencers last year because we were sending out so much product, people weren't using it. One, it's expensive and two, it's really wasteful. Like the carbon footprint of just sending coffee scraps all over the world and no one's doing anything with them. It's felt at odds with our sustainability ethos. So now we're very particular with who we do work with. We've created an ambassador program, which it was interesting. When we first launched the ambassador program, the uptake was pretty poor. If I'm really honest. And we had to play with the language a lot to get good uptake there. So for example, if you were an influencer that I wanted to work with, I'll send you free product all year for you to post. That language automatically devalues your product. But as soon as we flipped that language to say we'll send you $200 worth of product every quarter, you're giving that product a monetary value. It feels more meaningful to the person receiving it. And that small tweak changed everything for our ambassador program. That wasn't me, that was one of my really clever team who just sat there and looked at this and was like, why isn't it working? It's because I am not placing any value on this product. And so we've found that a nice way to build an ambassador program with people who genuinely want to receive our product and who want to create good content for our community. And then we have a lot more paid promotions than we would have previously. But we're shifting that focus to TikTok and less on Instagram.
- [07:54]
B
Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, yeah.
- [07:57]
A
So TikTok really required there to be a person or a face to that particular page, whereas you didn't need that on Instagram.
- [08:04]
B
Yes.
- [08:04]
A
And we were a brand that had never been developed around the founders Personas in the business community. People know who we are, but our customers don't know who Jess is and they don't really care. They care about the product. So we found that sort of a barrier to entry for us. And there was a lot of pressure on the team to try and create very of the moment, funny content. So we've really flipped our strategy to not necessarily be about our content creation, but utilizing the platform of influences. And it's just with the goal of making the brand famous. So I think there's been some really interesting case studies in the beauty space from like Glow, Recipe and cerave. They've scaled and basically put their products on the map through that type of strategy, but it wasn't our strength. I think one of the best things you can do as a marketer is acknowledge your weak points. I thought we're spending so much time creating content, it's not gaining traction. It's like I always referenced that very cliche quote around, you know, doing the same thing, expecting different results is the definition of insanity. And we've been doing this for a year and a half. Like this is just stupid at this point. What a waste of time, what a waste of money. We need to try something else. So there's all these amazing and highly respected influencers, dermatologists, skinfluencers, beauty experts on this platform. And there's more people listening to what they have to say than the equivalent type of influencer on Instagram. Let's just put all of our influencer budget into this. With the goal of making Frank body famous on TikTok and honing in on one or two SKUs.
- [09:33]
B
Comparing early days Frank to now. What do you miss?
- [09:39]
A
There's more pressure now. I think we launched in a bit of a laissez faire way because we didn't know what we were getting into. So that I miss almost my own naivety about what we could do now after 10 years of doing this. And my job is so different now. I live in spreadsheets and budgets. And it's very interesting in its own way, but there was something about this kind of endless possibility when we were launching. And I think that early stage, that excitement, that enthusiasm that you have, I know they're so intoxicating. I do miss that because it's hard to keep replicating 10 years in.
- [10:17]
B
Yeah, I think that's a. That's a common journey for founders.
- [10:20]
A
Right.
- [10:21]
B
Like, you start this thing and it's fun to create something. It's fun. Like, I remember in the early days, founder, it was so much fun. Like, when you're the CEO or, you know, an executive, you're right, you're cmo. You don't really get to do the fun stuff anymore. It's. It's a lot of people leadership. And for some people, that is fun. But for the founder, that, I think the idea of creating things and. And just kind of, you know, marketing and selling and just like. Yeah. And now you have to worry about numbers, people, leadership, and inspiring others. And like, it's very different. It's not probably what we thought we were signing up to.
- [11:04]
A
I could not agree more. This had no idea. And I remember about halfway in this journey, my language switched to me. I know I'm still the founder, but now I feel like I have a job because it's this sort of daily grind. I feel really stupid when I use coffee puns and I'm talking about Frank. But it changed from. I used to feel like I had more autonomy and flexibility over my own time, my own schedule, and I have. I feel more restricted than I ever have in my life. Because you have so much responsibility when you have a board to report to and you're a C suite member in $100 million company. It's not fun and games anymore and you have to sort of pass the baton and let your team have that moment. And now it's about them. And they're probably in the better life and headspace to be the creatives and really fun, you know, driving members of the team. But it's fun at the Willow and Blake side because I get to sort of tap in and out of. We work with so many early stage founders that I get that opportunity to feel that real energy and excitement again by working with them.
- [12:08]
B
So, look, it's a different set of challenges, right? And I'm curious around just your co founders and the different roles they play. Can you talk us through that?
- [12:19]
A
Yeah.
- [12:19]
B
It originally had three, four or five co founders, right?
- [12:22]
A
There were five of us, yes. One co founder moved on about seven years ago and now there's four remaining co founders and we've been friends for, I don't know, 15 or so years. Bri, who I co founded Willow and Blake with, we've found it really interesting because our background and our expertise are so similar. So it was always more challenging for us to sort of carve out our own unique path at the four of us, for the first couple of years, it was just a jumbled mess. We're all trying to do everything. We had our lanes that we naturally went into, but we didn't sort of clarify our roles enough. I think that was a really big challenge for us in those early years. As a founder, you feel like you're supposed to be across everything. So you need to take a step back, clarify your role. If you've got multiple founders and just stay in your lane. And when you come together to ask questions, that's your time. But there's nothing more frustrating than someone like sticking their head into your project halfway through in any role as a founder or an employee, and then like getting out and like getting in the way and changing what you're trying to do. I also think it's a waste of time. Like someone's already doing that job. Don't just double up and do the same thing. Do the job that you need to do. So now we're much better at that. So Steve is CEO, Alex is coo, I'm cmo, and Bri is head of New Revenue and Growth. And that was always a challenge for Bri and I too, who's going to take on that role of cmo. And we sort of naturally found our positions and Bri is far, far better at people management and seeing projects through from Beginning to end than I am. Like she just knocks me out of the park doing that. So that role was just so suited for her. So yeah, we finally found our way and we just come together and have found a catch up each week and that's when we use our time to sort of cross over and work on projects.
- [14:14]
B
How what was your role in the original days and how have the roles changed?
- [14:19]
A
We didn't have titles, so and we no titles and we did everything. So every component you could think of that falls into the remit of marketing. Myself, Bri and Eri did and we just did all of it together because in those days it was a volume game. Yeah. So we managed all the pr, we did all of the community service and customer, the community management customer service. We did all of the influencer posting, like sending out product and all the communication, all of the content creation emails. We just, you just don't stop working. Until we brought on our first employee and they started to do the customer service and then we brought in the next person and they took PR off our hands. And it was about three, two or three years in. I put my hand up and said I'd really like to take on a formalized role as creative director.
- [15:10]
B
Yes.
- [15:10]
A
And I did that role for a portion of time. We had an external employee come in and she took on a CMO role. So none of the founders were doing it.
- [15:18]
B
Yes.
- [15:18]
A
Because we didn't feel that we had that expertise at that time. Fast forward another five years and I really felt ready to take on that CMO role. So I put my hand up again and said this is how I'd like to evolve my role. I've grown past the point of wanting to be creative director and I think that's often forgotten about founders. You also have the need and the desire to progress in your career. You don't want to be doing the same thing day in, day out for 15 years.
- [15:44]
B
You have a team of leaders underneath you. So you're leading a team of leaders. Talk to me around kind of how you've been able to develop as a leader.
- [15:53]
A
I think time and mistakes are what led me to be the type of leader that I am now. I know my leadership style. I like to lead from a place of vulnerability and honesty. So if I'm having a crappy day, I'm not going to come to the office in a pessimistic and horrible mood. I'll just talk to my team honestly and be like, oh, my daughter kept me up all night last night. I'm really tired. So I'm struggling to focus a little bit in this meeting. And you create a safe space for your team to then also talk openly and honestly. And when you work in a psychologically safe space, which is how my old two ic, you know, talked about our space, people can do better work. So that's my real goal as a leader. My team need to feel safe, they need to feel nurtured. Doesn't mean that they're not ambitious and they're not held to, you know, their KPIs and they're a very accountable team. But I don't think anyone can do really great work if they're constantly worried about how they're being perceived. So that's my leadership style. It took me a long time to get there. I know I don't manage down from a to do list perspective very well just due to time. So I'm very fortunate to. And I guess deliberately we hire people that can manage up really well. It gives them the opportunity to really grow. And it means that my time isn't spent looking at other people's to do lists. It's being there to answer core questions for them when they need me.
- [17:15]
B
Talk to me about friends and business. How have you been able to manage those relationships? Because people often talk about like, don't mix friends with business.
- [17:23]
A
I think when you have that layer of friendship involved, you're. When you need to have difficult conversations, you're worried about how it's going to impact your friendship outside of work. We've gotten much better at that. In the early days I'd say that we just didn't talk about things that we needed to enough. And you know, if someone wasn't pulling their weight, which will naturally happen, I would have been that person. At one point in time, like everyone got ebbs and flows in the way that they bring motivation and energy to work. We, we wouldn't have talked about that. Whereas now we're so much better at just having honest conversations with each other and understanding that this is a conversation happening inside the workplace. And I'm still going to go out and see you on the weekend. We're going to get all our kids together and have a fantastic time. I think that comes with the level of maturity as you get older as well. You know, 35 year old me versus 25 year old me, two different people. And I cared so much about what other people thought. I was terrified of confrontation. So I would never say what I thought. And then if you're that type of person, it will resonate with you when I say you have a lot of anger inside you because you have so many things that you haven't said. They're just building up. And now I just try not to do that. And we'll talk honestly and give my opinion about things. I think that's true of any workplace. That's particularly true when there's friendships involved. And making sure you have honest conversations is without a doubt the way to preserve a friendship.
- [18:45]
B
Yeah. And it's those honest conversations that's what builds trust.
- [18:49]
A
I think that going back to our previous points around clarifying JDs, simple things like that, frameworks that help everyone understand what each other's doing so you don't have to ask questions. You can look at someone's JD, you can look at their KPIs, you know what it is that they're working towards. It automatically takes away the what are you doing every day? Sort of question that comes up naturally in business.
- [19:15]
B
Yeah. So I'd love to talk about the branding stuff. Ariana Grande notoriously copied you guys.
- [19:21]
A
I forgot about that.
- [19:22]
B
Can you tell us about that? Tell me the story. What happened? When was it? What happened?
- [19:26]
A
Ariana Grande was blowing up and she had been gifted the scrub by someone, I don't know who, and loved it. So there were a few interviews where she was talking about Frank Body. And I'm like, this is so cool. Like, she's blowing up. She loves Ask this tiny brand from Melbourne. This is amazing. This is going to really help us grow in the us and then fast forward six months, it's like Ariana Grande has released her own coffee scrub at Ulta. And I thought, like, we're done. She has this platform of millions of dedicated fans that she's talking to. Like, there's no way that we can compete against this. This might be the end of Frank. And it wasn't. Because I forgot how strong the brand that we had created was and how easy it is for some celebrities to just slap their name on a product and think that that's going to be enough to sell it to people. But people are clever. And I don't think a lot of brands give consumers enough credit for their smarts. And it showed me that our customer base was so loyal and that we weren't. We were experts in not only a brand, but we made really, really high quality products. And as we continued to release new products, that coffee scrub just sort of sat on the she myself not going anywhere because nothing was done with it. And I don't think it even exists. Anymore. It just sort of faded off into the background. But at the time, my God, I thought our business was over.
- [20:50]
B
So you guys have had a lot of copycats. Couldn't really patent the product, could you, with the coffee scrub? Right.
- [20:59]
A
We did look at it, but it's, you know, you only have to vary something by 10% for then your patent to be void. And it was a lot of money and a lot of effort for not a guaranteed protection. We had so many copying hats in those early days. People would copy the product, they copy the brand and the tone of voice. We had people rip off the source code from the website. It was just like the lowest of lows in terms of what it takes to launch a business. We were worried about it for a period of time, and then we thought all this energy that we're spending worrying about these copycats is energy that could be spent growing our business and focusing on how to differentiate ourselves. And it highlighted the need for us to no longer be that Instagram brand, which is how people refer to us. Oh, you're that brand on Instagram. This is dangerous because, yes, we are. And it was amazing to launch our brand that way. But we need to build our credibility as a skincare and beauty brand and no longer be talked about as that Instagram brand. So what strategic moves do we need to make to leave the pack of copycats behind and become a serious player in the beauty and skincare space? And so that led us to our partnership with Mecca. Because who does beauty and skincare better in Australia than Mecca? Not really anybody. So that partnership was one that was sort of groundbreaking for them because their whole business model was taking brands from overseas and offering them exclusively in Australia. But they knew how strong our brand was. And that alignment was sort of the catalyst for Frank 2.0, where we really started to focus on more efficacious skincare that was really solving a lot of body and skin concerns for people. And we just. Obviously, Instagram's still important because that's how we communicate with our customers. But we were not that Instagram brand anymore, and that really separated us.
- [22:48]
B
How long did it take for you guys to strategically start to kind of re. Not rebuild, but evolve. Evolve the Frank brand? Because you guys have done really well. And I've loved to talk about retail, like, I. I know made some great plays there, but, yeah, how long did that take? And obviously you had that partnership, but what else did you guys do? How long did it take to get into other products and other skus and, yeah, find more Hero products, I'd say.
- [23:15]
A
It'S still going because I think as soon as you think you've evolved and it's done, you're probably dead in the water. Yeah, I think the major shift in how the brand was perceived took about two years. People saw us in Mecca, at least in the Australian landscape, and they thought, oh my God, okay, that's that brand. I know from Instagram, and look at all of these other products they have. That was a problem we identified. People knew the coffee scrub and they, unless you were a loyal customer, you didn't know a lot about the other SKUs. And so that was where we came up with that goal. The best thing that can happen is that we move that Hero skewer out of the top sellers and we grow the rest of our range. And so we've successfully done that. But that took, you know, that's years of work of developing new products that you think are going to surpass the hero product in sales and really strategic retail partnerships in other regions. So the US is a big place of business for us. So we partnered with Ulta and Target in the US and in the UK we worked with a lot of more high end specialty retailers as well as Boots. Places like Boots and Altar gave us huge distribution. But then we needed those smaller retailers that weren't necessarily about driving a lot of volume, but built clout and credibility for the brand and kept us front of mind for those early adopters and trendsetters. And so it's still something that we work hard on today, but it's really nice to not hear people really ever say that sentence anymore. Like, oh yeah, that brand from Instagram. I don't remember the last time I heard that, which I love.
- [24:41]
B
That's awesome. So you guys started doing retail about five years ago. Was Mecca the first big partnership?
- [24:46]
A
Yeah, Mecca was the first big partnership and pretty soon after, I'd say within six to 12 months, we rolled out into major retailers in the US and UK.
- [24:53]
B
So what advice would you have to founders that have a brand purely direct to consumer right now and they're looking to get into retailers and working with big retailers go in.
- [25:06]
A
Very curious. So I wouldn't make assumptions about what any retailer can do for you. I think going into those meetings, you need to be asking a lot of questions and talking to as many brands that are in those retailers as possible. You have to do your due diligence and you have to understand the upside that comes with moving into those retailers, but all of the potential downside. So you might Be working in some retail, partnering with some retailers, but losing money for the first three years because they expect you to invest so much in, you know, VM or marketing. So that channel could be running at a loss. Can you afford to do that for two years until it becomes a positive contribution margin channel? Three or five years down the track. So those sorts of things, I think if you're not an expert in that space, which we weren't and we learned some of those lessons the hard way, find someone who is and bring on someone in your team or even if they're a consultant or just talk to other brands because you'd be surprised how much other founders are willing to share. Learn as much as you can and then don't be too swayed by what a buyer at a retail store wants you to do, like know who you are as a brand, know what your customers want when it comes to products and stick to your guns because they'll sort of push you in a direction. But they've got no skin in the game. So if it doesn't work, it's not them paying for you, it's you paying for that return to vendor and all of that stock that you've created that didn't move because some buyer told you that that was going to be the thing. And we've made that mistake as well.
- [26:36]
B
What does it mean to you, the phrase risk it for the biscuit?
- [26:40]
A
Yeah, that's like the lifeblood or the heart of Frank Body and Willow and it was Bri who came up with that. Yeah. So the idea of that was that, you know, if, if we never take a risk, you never get the reward. And so as we grow, especially with, you know, so much more responsibility, larger team and a board, it's really easy to become risk adverse. You don't have that much to lose in the early days, but once you have something to lose, it's very difficult to take the risks that are the things that really catapult you forward. So we have that. When you walk into our office, there's this huge sign, risk it for the biscuit as soon as you walk in. So it's the first thing you see every single day. And when we're sitting there umming and ahhing about things we should do, sometimes we can't make a decision. We sort of look at each other and we're like, yeah, risk it, let's do it. And it's amazing, like the whole team have embraced that saying it's what we do.
- [27:35]
B
You mentioned a couple of times you guys have A external board. So you've brought in outside venture. Can you tell us around that journey and when did you do that and how you made that decision?
- [27:47]
A
Yeah, so it started pretty early for us. But by accident, we were not looking for external capital because we didn't need it. We're very lucky to be profitable from, you know, the first week. That was because our investment was so low and we did everything ourselves. But I always say, like, the sharks were circling because that's what it felt like. All these emails started coming in from VCs all over the world, and we knew nothing about this space 10 years ago. And we started taking phone calls out of interest to just learn about what was going on. So we spent hours and hours. It was really exciting. Like, there was this flattering element of people, like, I think your brand's cool enough that I potentially want to give you money. But we didn't know what we. We didn't need the money. So I thought, what are we having these conversations for? So I'd say we did that for about two years, just kind of casually being courted by different types of investors until we realized that what we wanted was not necessarily just money, but strategic money. Yep. So we stopped having conversations with most VCs and PEs, and we really focused on strategic partners. So think Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, Procter and Gamble, Unilever, those types of partners. Partners. And it was Unilever that ended up being our first investor and joined the board five, six years ago. So they were our first partner and then went through subsequent rounds with us. And then we brought on private equity money in 2021 from a Chinese firm called Eviyou. And that again, even though it was PE money, it was a very strategic partnership for us because we were trying to push into China now that the legislation around animal testing had finally changed. And we knew we could. We didn't have the skill set or the knowledge to push into China ourselves, but we knew that there was so much opportunity for the brand. So working with a partner who could help us localize our operations, have a team in Shanghai was, you know, even though the money came in from them, it was the knowledge that comes in and they sit on the board too. And so we sort of pseudo manage the Chinese team together. That's been phenomenal. And we were just very slow and considered with the type of money that we took on.
- [29:51]
B
How many rounds have you guys done?
- [29:52]
A
Two formal rounds with smaller round in between. For muv.
- [29:56]
B
Yeah, Got you. And can you share if you Guys are profitable now or you're still sacrificing profit for growth.
- [30:02]
A
We go back and forth, depending on the year. So going into next year, I think every business in the world should be focused on profitability. I don't think if you're growing profitably into a recession, it's probably, in my opinion, not the smartest business decision because there's a lot of risk already in the market. And so that's our focus for both businesses next year. Grow, but do it in a very smart way.
- [30:27]
B
So talk to me around team.
- [30:31]
A
We've had many different types of team structures, so at one point we have localised uk, US and Australia. But the pandemic changed a lot of that for us. Like many businesses, we had to make some really tough decisions around team, and we ended up closing the offices down because no one was using them. So, yeah, it was really interesting this. It was just this overhead and people wanted to work from home. So we've sort of formally closed the office, even though we still have team members there. And we've gone for a really different sort of satellite team member structure overseas. And in Australia, we've got our headquarters here, where people work in a bit of a hybrid model as well. So we're a smaller team than we were two years ago. And I think that was the right. Well, no, that was the right decision for us. It was becoming too complex, almost too big for what the size of the business required as we looked to grow. And it was just probably the same for so many businesses. Unfortunate timing that we made a lot of those decisions just on the cusp of the pandemic starting, and so we sort of had to unwind some of those. It's really easy, I think, to go, oh, I need a person to do this, I need a person to do this. And then your team start feeding that up to you, like, I can't do this anymore and I need another person. And sometimes they're right. Like, sometimes people are doing too much work, but sometimes people's version of growth is that they just need other people to manage rather than just doing something themselves. And sometimes it's so much quicker to do it yourself than it is to manage an entirely different person. And the team have really gotten on board with this way of thinking of do less and do it better, and we're doing all this crap that just didn't matter. It didn't change anything. Like, why are we doing this? It's just time and money and it moves the needle 0%. Let's just strip it back to bare basics and stop making life harder for ourselves. Do the things that work and then we will have the time to do the occasional really creative and meaningful moment for the brand and we'll do it really well rather than just trying to be like in campaign mode all the time.
- [32:30]
B
I'm curious, what's been the most challenging time at Frankl for you as a founder?
- [32:38]
A
Oh, yeah, there's been so many. I think when one of my business partners left about seven years ago, that was probably the most challenging time. You know, our friendship from the business was so entwined and that was a real cultural upheaval for both Willow and Lake and Frank. That was incredibly challenging and I felt heartbroken. We all did. Time heals those sort of wounds, though. I'd say the second biggest challenge, which I just mentioned was coming back from maternity or going on and coming back. I stepped away from my active day to day roles for six months, but I also. Your director and founder duties never end. So my daughter was, I think about six days old and we were in the middle of the every year raise, so I'm literally breastfeeding her on board calls, meeting with, you know, people that want to give us millions and millions of dollars reading really intense contracts while I'm completely sleep deprived, recovering from surgery. And, you know, it just doesn't stop when you're a founder. And so I was in this most beautiful time of my life as a woman and a mother and in this really hard time as a founder because it wasn't. It was exciting, but it was. It's very difficult to sort of be on your A game dealing with that sort of stuff and contributing meaningfully to a Borg call when you've like slept for 40 minutes and you know he's trying to navigate your life as a new parent. So all of it was very complex and I didn't realize how much of my identity was tied up in what I did for a living until I stepped away and I wasn't doing that every single day. And I found myself at a loss.
- [34:23]
B
Yeah, it's an interesting dichotomy, this idea that you want to have balance, but then it's never enough. But then at the same time, you want to build and achieve great things with this business or whatever you create. But then it has to be an obsession to actually build something and you have to do it for a long time. Now that you're a new mum, how are you working with that balance? Are you heavy on your calendar? Talk me through that.
- [34:56]
A
I acknowledge about myself now that I'm perpetually unsatisfied because I'm always chasing the next thing. Even every time I get to this sort of milestone that I was working towards, I barely celebrate it. My brain goes straight into the next mode. It's a blessing and a curse because it is I, it is the thing that propels me forward. I think it's part of the reason I have found success in my working life, but it is also a reason that I suffer from anxiety and I really struggle to sleep and I don't know how to switch off very well and just be present in the moment. And so you sort of have to take it with its, its good side and its bad. As I get older, I'm learning more about what is important to me as an individual and that's definitely sort of impacting the way I work.
- [35:49]
B
So what advice would you have to working mums that are career focused as well?
- [35:58]
A
You're always going to feel like you're letting someone down. Sometimes I feel like I'm a terrible mother because I am not with her all the time. Or then I feel like I'm a bad boss because I have to leave and my daughter's sick. You always feel like you're letting somebody down and you don't. I never understood what that feeling was like until I was in it myself. And it's a frustrating way to live. Make sure you, you work with people that understand that because I have heard some horror stories from friends who are mothers in workplaces that just are not supportive of parents at all. And there's also a season. I know it's not going to be like this forever. It's just that early stage where they're wiggle and their toddlers that it's hard and then they become a bit more self sufficient. And I think, I hope, God, I hope you get some sort of autonomy back and the scheduling eases off a little bit.
- [36:50]
B
All right, a few more questions.
- [36:52]
A
Do it.
- [36:52]
B
Love this conversation, but I'm conscious of time as well. Do you think the beauty industry is oversaturated?
- [37:01]
A
I don't necessarily think it's oversaturated. I think we're going to see more and more of the legacy brands have their market share taken away from them, which I think is a good thing. It's giving space and opportunity to younger founders and more diverse founders. I'm really, really thrilled to see how many women and people of color are launching brands now and seeing the success that they deserve and actually creating products for themselves who like, you know, A like minded customer base rather than some like 70 year old dude in an ivory tower trying to market to a 20 year old girl and he doesn't know what she wants. Like that phase of beauty is over, which I think is really, really important. How much longer it can be sustained, I'm not sure.
- [37:46]
B
Copywriting fundamentals for our audience and community.
- [37:50]
A
Just because you can write doesn't mean you are a writer. Think of it like any other trade or function within the business. Some people are really skilled and that is one of your like key elements to convert somebody from a potential customer into a customer. So get a professional to do it. Maybe in your early days, I get it, you don't have budget and that's always harder. But once you have that money in any field of your business, invest in an expert to do it. Like you wouldn't draft your own legal contracts. So why would you think that you can do all of your own copywriting forever?
- [38:22]
B
What are the key elements to building a successful brand?
- [38:28]
A
When you're creating a brand, it's really easy to nitpick things and that's when you end up diluting the brand and the overall goal. You need to go with your gut and you can evolve things over time if you make a really stupid or critical mistake. But like you have to make a strong statement as a brand. You have to stand for something. You have to be unique and craft your own identity and voice. And if you don't do that, yeah, you might see some early success, but that's not the type of brand that is going to be memorable and sustained over 10 or 20 or 30 years. I'm so passionate about that.
- [39:02]
B
Well, look, thank you so much, Jess. You were great. Thank you for being so open, honest, vulnerable and just really sharing all your experiences these past, what, 10, 12 years since being Willow and also Frank. So thank you so much.
- [39:15]
A
Thanks so much, Nate. It was great chat.
- [39:17]
B
If you love this episode, make sure to check out my interview with Emma Greed on how solving a problem she was so passionate about led to the creation of Skims and Good American.
- [39:27]
A
And so I do think it's so much of it starts with like addressing things that bother you that you find you know, you've got to create a solution for because, you know, at the end of the day you've got to be passionate enough and sometimes crazy enough to go round and round and round to actually solve a problem.