Podcast Summary: Your Next Move – How to Navigate the Biggest Pitfalls of a Growing Business

Podcast: Your Next Move
Host: Mike Hoffman (Inc. Magazine)
Guests: Alicia Yoon (Founder & CEO, Peach & Lily), Michal Alters (Co-founder & CEO, Visit.org)
Date: August 26, 2025

Overview

This episode dives into the challenges and strategies of managing rapid business growth with two dynamic founders: Alicia Yoon (Peach & Lily) and Michal Alters (Visit.org). Both share candid accounts of scaling their companies, navigating pivotal transitions, overcoming crises, and evolving their leadership. The conversation is filled with practical insights about financing, team building, innovation, and retaining company culture during growth surges. The episode also features actionable advice for founders facing scale-up hurdles.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Founders’ Growth Journeys

• Peach & Lily (Alicia Yoon)

  • Started to create gentle yet potent skincare, inspired by her own eczema (01:26).
  • Experienced two main phases: initial category education (2012–2018), then explosive growth post-brand launch (2018 onwards, 01:26–03:48).
  • Became the second-largest prestige skincare brand at Ulta Beauty.

• Visit.org (Michal Alters)

  • Started as a B2C travel-activity startup; pivoted to B2B, managing employee volunteering experiences at scale (04:01–05:46).
  • Survived the pandemic by shifting from in-person to virtual offerings, rehiring a previously let-go team (05:56–07:49).

2. Navigating Pivotal Changes

Pivots & Resilience

• Visit.org’s pivot during the pandemic required letting go staff, then quickly adapting to a virtual, Fortune 500–oriented offering (05:56–07:49).
• Peach & Lily’s transition to in-house product brands after initial years as a distributor (02:08–03:48).

Founder Quotes:

• Michal Alters: “We let go of our entire team. It was a very hard moment that I’ll never forget.” (06:34)
• Alicia Yoon: “My husband and I... literally went ourselves personally to 100 Ulta Beauty stores. It was like that movie, Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.” (10:51)

3. Educating Customers & Unlocking Growth

• Peach & Lily: Ground-level store visits were crucial for education and brand building (10:16–12:08).
• Visit.org: Had to shift mindsets—why companies should pay for high-impact, employee volunteering experiences (07:56).

Alicia Yoon: “When you’re introducing a product category, things that really don’t exist in the marketplace... people want to understand the how behind it, the why, how do you use it, the story behind it.” (11:34)

4. Maintaining Culture and Cross-Team Collaboration

• Both founders credit their cultures of deep learning, analytics, and collaboration as essential for navigating scale (14:36–16:01, 26:09).
• Peach & Lily practices monthly A/B testing and insight-sharing across teams ("every single month you have to become smarter" – 14:36).
• Visit.org ensures all three stakeholders (corporates, nonprofits, employees) gain value from every interaction (26:17–29:38).

Notable Quote:
Alicia Yoon: “There’s this deep collaboration across the organization because that learning is so important, and you can’t learn in just a siloed viewpoint.” (15:34)

5. Funding Strategies and Scrappiness

• Both founders delayed institutional capital until clear product-market fit.
• Peach & Lily was scrappy by necessity, bootstrapping until year eight—even going down to "$7 in my bank account" (21:24).
• Visit.org combined grants, angel, and impact investors before a larger VC round following successful B2B proof (18:06–18:56).

Alicia Yoon: “We really ensure that I have a sustainable business model... that DNA is so firmly rooted in our company.” (24:14)

6. Scaling Operations and Team

• Visit.org: Headcount ~80 (40 in US, 40 globally); team spans nonprofit expertise, logistics, content design, and technology (21:05).
• Peach & Lily: Relied on agile, close-knit teams with sharply defined roles and continuous informal connectivity (21:24, 49:20).

7. Leadership Evolution

• Transition from do-everything founder to empowering and supporting team leads (32:44–33:04).
• Learning to delegate, clarify roles, and foster daily informal communication prevents bottlenecks as the company scales (49:14–49:43).

8. Facing “Breaking Points” and Learning from Major Clients

• Both companies faced critical hurdles: supply chain crises at Peach & Lily, logistical scaling with Visit.org’s new “Project in a Box” (33:12–35:18).
• Exposure to best practices by working with giants like Amazon, Ulta Beauty, and Colgate has informed their operational and experimental approaches (30:05–30:44).

9. Advice on Managing Growth

Key takeaways:

• Address problems head-on every morning (“RTP”: Run To the Problem, 35:34).
• Stay mentally and physically grounded (“Sleep well, take care of yourself” – 49:49).
• Never substitute sustainable business building for short-term growth.

10. What’s Next? Technology & Innovation

• Visit.org: Heavy investment in AI to streamline internal operations and personalize employee-volunteering opportunities (38:13–39:19).
• Peach & Lily: Advancing biotechnology in skincare formulation, countering misinformation, and scaling educational content (39:29–40:27).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Pivots & Resilience:
  “We gave ourselves three months to hit a goal… Instead of focusing on the smaller tech industry, we decided to focus only on Fortune companies. Within two months, it was very clear that there was a lot of demand for what we had to offer.” – Michal Alters (06:22)

• On Brand Education:
  “It was a phenomenal experience. We went to a hundred stores, four or five hours each across the country... And it was so important to do that.” – Alicia Yoon (11:00)

• On Testing & Learning:
  “There is no silver bullet. But we are willing to test and learn a lot of different things, and things that could have worked for other companies beautifully doesn’t work for us.” – Alicia Yoon (36:29)

• On Leadership Change:
  “As you scale, you really go from an individual contributor… to really supporting your team. Sometimes just getting out of the way so they can move really fast.” – Alicia Yoon (32:44)

• On Purpose:
  “Every day we wake up in the morning and we are trying to create more impact in the world.” – Michal Alters (26:19)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Founders’ Intro & Growth Journey – 01:04–05:46
• Pandemic Pivot & Team Layoffs/Rehires (Visit.org) – 05:56–07:49
• Brand Education & Field Experience (Peach & Lily) – 10:16–12:08
• Importance of Testing & Learning – 14:36–16:01
• Funding Philosophy and Bootstrapping – 21:24–24:14
• Team and Role Structure – 32:44–33:04, 49:14–49:43
• Handling “Everything Breaking” Moments – 33:04–35:18
• Best Advice for Growth – 35:34–36:18
• Disinvesting from What Doesn’t Work – 36:29–38:08
• Next Moves: AI and Biotech – 38:13–40:27
• Audience Q&A (Delegation, Sales, Stakeholder Buy-in) – 48:38–52:43

Summary for New Listeners

This episode is an essential listen for any entrepreneur or business leader scaling a company—or preparing for the ride. Alicia Yoon and Michal Alters provide practical wisdom, real-world examples of pivots (especially in crisis), and lessons about the importance of bootstrapping, culture, brand education, and strategic innovation. Themes of resilience, testing/learning, and mission-driven leadership recur throughout, making this a roadmap for sustainable and mindful business growth.

“Run to the problem every day… that’s the thing you need to confront.”
– Alicia Yoon (35:34)

“At the end of the day, we’re going to prove with the results.”
– Michal Alters (52:02)