Briogeo Hair Care: Nancy Twine (2020)

So for today's show, we're rerunning an interview that I did back in August of twenty twenty, and in addition to being a really great story about founding a business. It's also a pretty powerful tale about the importance of family. Hope you enjoy.

So I walk into this auditorium and I look around and I'm like Uh here we go again. There five of us who were going on stage to pitch our ideas. And um The four other men who were presenting all had tech companies and I just remember being like, Oh my gosh, not again. It's like what's your app? Yeah, right. Wait, this is a what?

Shampoo? Exactly. Where's your app? It was painful. 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 old family skin care recipes and a personal tragedy Inspired Nancy Twine to build a natural hair care line called Brio. Она в fastest growing hair brands sold.

It's a for us. The easiest part about building a business is the day you imagine it. in your head. Because everything that happens after it is really hard.

The research, the business plan, the pitch to investors, finding the factory, the distributor, the shops to sell your product? Each one of these steps is an obstacle. And for the most part Each step. creates a new problem.

Too many problems can become overwhelming, and soon enough it can also become tempting to just Ditch the whole idea entirely. So to avoid that trap. Nancy Twine took each problem one at a time. Which is good, because her idea was pretty complicated.

To build a line of natural shampoos and conditioners without most of the synthetic ingredients you'd find in other hair care products. She also wanted to design a line of products for all hair types and textures. And she wanted those products on the shelves of Sephora. One of the premier beauty retailers in the world. All of these problems

Nancy would eventually solve. Her brand Brio? is now carried by Sephora. and is expected to do almost forty million dollars in sales this year. but to get there, especially with zero experience in the beauty industry,

was gonna pose a series of major challenges, starting with finding a chemist who actually believed you could make this stuff without parabens or sulfates or phthalates or any of the other common chemicals you need to make shelf stable shampoo. Her biggest early challenge though was having the courage to start the business at all. It was 2010 and Nancy was in her twenties. on the fast track as a trader for Goldman Sachs in New York.

And one day Without any warning? A tragedy completely upended her life. and prompted Nancy to reevaluate the way she was living it. Which we'll get to.

Nancy grew up on Long Island in New York. Her parents split up when she was a kid. Nancy's mother was a physician, and the twines Were one of the few black families in their neighborhood. My mom was a family doctor, and I don't even know if that term is quite used anymore.

And I do remember at a young age uh being at her doctor's office and it was always full. You know, a lot of people ask me where I got this very confident entrepreneurial experience from Байкна there was so much value and power.

Of me seeing my mom running a successful practice, really running a business. My mom was an entrepreneur. And seeing that at a young age, seeing her confidence, seeing her joy. And the fact that being a female, being a black female. Was not a hindrance to any of the dreams and goals that I would ultimately have in life. And I read that like as a kid you used to go to West Virginia a lot. But what's the connection to to West Virginia?

Yeah, so my mom is from West Virginia. She's one of eight children. And uh my grandmother Is from there, and that's where she raised her tribe in a very small rural town called Rand, R A N D. What did you know about her upbringing? I mean it's like I think to this day it's one of the whitest

states in the country, and obviously one of the poorest states in the country. Did she ever talk about what her childhood was like there? Yeah, it was you know, it was definitely a tough childhood. They didn't grow up with a lot. And the fact that

My mom grew up in that type of environment. Not only not having an a lot, but not being able to see. what success and beyond that lifestyle could look like. Because so much

Of wanting to become better. Or becoming successful comes from seeing Other people who look like you. That have done it. And when you don't even sive possibility

But knowing within you that it exists and having that faith and belief in yourself. It's so so powerful. And that was very much My mom's story. So I guess as a kid, right, you used to go to West Virginia to visit your grandma Who was

From what I understand, the like the local beauty guru, like what did that mean? What did she She like gave people beauty tips? It was a little bit different than that. I think, you know, my uh grandmother again Was really kind of faced with the challenge of Providing for eight children.

With very, very little And she was very thrifty. Um, I know one of the things that she used to do is she would stretch. the little bits of product that she would get her hands on. So You know, maybe she uh U's some oils and extracts.

to stretch, you know, a quarter bottle of lotion to be able to fill it back up to a full bottle. And she learned how to distill her own essential oils and This kind of natural chemistry created this unique situation that I think. Ультиматличу Inspired

My mom to later become a chemist and then a MD PhD. So what do you remember what your grandmother used to make? Yeah, so One of the things that was uh kind of interesting because it wasn't really a product that I used growing up, but These kind of thick kind of butters that you could use for all different sorts of things, really dry skin.

uh feet, elbows knees, and then you know, other sort of medicinal needs like cuts or burns. Different types of salves that would almost leave your skin. Glistening. But I just remember visiting that house and it was just like a lot a lot of stuff, lots of jars, anything you needed you could find in that house. And if you didn't

find it precisely it could be made or derived from something. And that was really kind of the attitude and spirit. Yeah. So you You went on to um When you went to college, you went to University of Virginia. Yes. First of all, what it how would what was your experience like at UVA? Um, I had a phenomenal experience at UVA, um, but I think one of the things that was so different.

starting out there was that A lot of the other Black Men and women didn't have the same type of diverse high school experience that I had. Mm.

So I know that there were a lot of people where it was the first time really ever in their life. They were around, um White people. So there were elements of self segregation

That I witnessed during my early times at UVA that I didn't quite understand. In terms of, you know black groups separating themselves in the libraries or in the dining halls.

And it was so new to me because it just was so different than my experience in high school, where everyone sat with each other. Yeah. But one of the things that I Focused on or made emphasis of was that I was able to really build a community.

of close friends that span all different sorts of ethnicities and backgrounds. And when you went to college, did you Did you like have any idea of what you wanted to Like eventually do for a career? So entering UVA, I would have never thought that I would become a finance person. Um

What I did know is that I loved music. I was in an a cappella group um in college. Oh wow, did you would you guys wear like a Matching blazers. No, we were actually a really cool pip a cappella group. We were actually UVA's first hip hop a cappello group. And so I had so much fun and that

stemmed from um me really finding music in high school. And it created kind of this fantasy. For me of one day being a pop star. like a Mariah Carey but when I went to UVA And got exposed to hundreds of talented singers, both within my a cappella group and

Outside of it. It was a awakening that I was just okay. Exactly. So no no music career. Um but instead you you decide to study finance and What like what was the idea behind that? Did just kind of like Seem like a a good way to get a a well paying. Stable job.

So outside of wanting to be a, you know musical pop star. I also had this hobby of creating and selling things. I was very, very entrepreneurial as a child. In middle school, this was when the movie Clueless uh came out and

Those cool like feather pins were so popular. But no one like knew where they could get them because Etsy wasn't around. And I went to Michael's, my local craft store, and got ribbon, pens. All sorts of stuff, feathers. And created Replicas of those clueless feather pens, and I would sell them at school.

Yeah, I I have a lot of different stories of these like little mini entrepreneurial ventures. I loved creating and then the validation that came from people actually wanting to spend their money on my creations. And so ultimately when I kind of gave up on the idea of becoming a famous pop star, I started to think more about how I could translate the passion for entrepreneurism into a career path and major And so That was really kind of

The first part of my journey of even contemplating A career in finance. And you did a summer internship at At Goldman Sachs I read. Um and w w what did you do there? Yeah, so I actually interned for two summers. Um, I spent my first summer in legal and compliance, and I quickly realized that.

That part of the firm was just not something I was interested in. I was very, very bored. And while I was in legal and compliance, I was actually sitting on the sales and trading floor. And I was so intrigued by what was going on around me. And I said, I don't know what that is, but I wanna do that. That is where the action is at. I mean people are standing up in their seats, they're shouting across the room, people were having fun. There were so much energy.

And I thought to my self, I have another summer. That I could spend at Goleman, I want to spend it in sales and trading. And so voila that next summer I did a sales and trading internship. And You come in each morning and you never know what you're gonna get.

Markets are constantly moving. They're so dynamic, and not only that, there's just a lot of camaraderie on that sales and trading floor. So Right after that, um you graduate. It's two thousand seven and that internship lands you a job working

For Goldman Sachs the on the trading floor. Yep. And then a year later. Two thousand eight. financial crisis and obvious there must have been layoffs.

You had managed to hang on to your job, but were you Were you nervous, ever nervous about getting fired? I was definitely nervous because so many of my friends in my internship class, uh Had gotten laid off in two thousand and eight. It was part of the reason why I knew I had to make myself invaluable.

I knew that if I became invaluable, it would be very hard for my team to lay me off, which is why I invested the time an energy into being an incredible support not only for my team, but teams around me that needed support.

I mean, w were you just working all the time? Did you have even have time for friends or To do anything outside of work? I was working a lot. And I think that My

goal of making myself indispensable to protect my career during a Tumultuous time. Probably put me in the position of being taken advantage of at times. There were I'm sure

Some of my classmates Who would never come in. um on a Sunday night randomly because their boss texted them. However, everyone knew that I would be the first person to say yes. And

leave a dinner with my family To go into the office. to work on a deck for my boss even with fifteen minutes notice. Is that something that your mom would have would have expected you to do, like your dinner with your mom and You get the call and you're like huh.

And she's like, Go, you gotta go, they need your help. Yeah, she was the type to say, you know, get there and get on it. You gotta do what you've gotta do. Yeah. I never was guilt tripped. I was encouraged. And so from that standpoint, um My family and my friends understood. Alright, so you are

Clearly working. The crazy. Mm-hmm. uh on Wall Street. Um, you're in your mid twenties

Um And Your life. Takes a turn.

and tragically unexpected turn. Um Your mom is killed. She um Say by car.

And That's it. I mean what What a um just probably shocking thing to experience in your life. I mean you were

Go go go and all of a sudden. Your mom's gone. Yeah. Um It was a huge shock.

I have friends who have lost their parents through battles with cancer. Alzheimer's But it was a journey that they had mentally prepared themselves for

I didn't have that opportunity. But not only that. It was the first time. That I truly realised. That this life is not promised to anyone.

And We owe it to ourselves to find our happiness, to pursue our passions. And to make the most of this life because it's so so fragile, and I feel like I had been so naive, I never even fathomed. My mom.

Not being around to see her. Grandchildren, any of that. None of us do. Yeah. I will say

That My brother and I have always been close, but that experience, you know, brought us even closeer. And um I couldn't have imagined going through that experience on my own. And I did take some time off. Yeah.

How much time d do you remember how much time you took off? I took off about two months. Which doesn't seem like a lot of time, um, and it probably wasn't, but because I had been working. So much that two months felt like a year. Yeah.

And during that time did you start to kinda reevaluate your own? Like I don't know what your Life was about and what you Did your mom's

Death. kind of force you to think about Well what what is this all about? What am I doing? It did. You know, another thing that was really sad for me is I remember, you know, the weeks and even months leading up to my mom's passing.

So much of our conversations were just around the fact that I was working way too much and I was exhausted. And even some nights I would call her crying because I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. And I wish that our conversations would have been more substantive. And You know, after

The experience of losing my mom so suddenly And Realizing that This life isn't necessarily

I knew that whatever I was gonna do, I wanted to wake up every day. And be excited. about going into the office. At the time of your mother's death, was she Was she still working as a

Physician, full time? No, she was retired. Um she was retired. So she was starting to enjoy retirement and Um, and I guess she was thinking about a business at at that time, right?

Yeah. Um My mom was uh in the process of starting her own skincare line. It was called something like skincare RX. But it was all about kind of taking what she learned. chemistry and even her medical career. I mean, she was talking about you know, infusing plasma into facial creams, like really cool advanced stuff. And I remember she

had like two or three formulas that were pretty developed and There was some packaging, it was like these white jars with gold lettering. And um I was so kind of caught up in my finance life that I kinda forgot that my mom was working on this project in the background and it really wasn't only until

You know, I I had to start going through her stuff after the passing that I found, you know, the photos and was reminded of this project she was working on. And so I think um definitely created this light bulb moment. And also brought me back to

some of the childhood memories that I had with my mom, um, were we We're making a lot of our own beauty products in the kitchen of our home. Fortunately, we had access to a lot more than what my mom did growing up. We had a local health food store. Where we could actually buy extracts and oils and butters and salts and sugars. And uh we were making

Just custom beauty products for our needs, the needs of Friends. Like skin creams may mainly. Um, actually hair care products mainly. And and partly because Um I have naturally very curly, curly hair.

And the market for textured hair. Wasn't really established back then. So I found myself struggling with the products that were available. And either needing to

Um supplement them with other ingredients or just create my own products from scratch. Okay. Yeah. I I read that at at there was a point where you thought, all right, I wanna do my own thing and I probably need to leave finance. And I guess your brother, he he's an entrepreneur too, and he started

Like a digital media company. And I guess at a certain point you call them and you're like, Hey, can I come Work with you? D is that did that happen? Yeah, um, it did happen and I'm just gonna be totally transparent with you. I was um While I was at Golman, I was seeing a therapist and

Prior to my mom's passing, I was even thinking about, you know, what life beyond Goldman looked like. And um She encouraged me to see if I could join my brother and his entrepreneurial ventures. And he said

You know? This is my thing, you should get your own thing. I was so disappointed and kind of offended. And I felt stuck because at the time. My own thing? Like what was that? What was that gonna be?

That was like this very Nebula Weird space that I just couldn't possibly Think of what would I do. And it really wasn't until

My Soul searching journey after my mom's passing. Between These childhood memories of making my own products. Where my mom had gotten to in the development of her brand.

And then thinking Wow. I could create my own Beauty product line. When we come back in just a moment.

Nancy starts leading kind of a double life. Goldman Sacks by day, shampoos and conditioners by night. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening. Your business was humming, but now you're falling behind.

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to save ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2011 and Nancy Twine is working in banking, but thinking about creating her own line of beauty, specifically natural hair care products. So she starts to look into it. Yeah, and I know this sounds so nerdy, but the New York Small Business Library was game changing for me. Because I got access to research databases and reports that I otherwise would have had to have spent thousands of dollars on. And um I was typing in different search terms like natural personal care market, natural hair care, clean hair care, and

One of the things that I noticed in these reports was that There were pretty meaningful sections on natural personal care for body. For skim care. But there were really small kind of paragraphs dedicated to natural hair care. And I thought that that was really interesting and what it did tell me was that

There were very few players. in natural hair care at the time relative to the other categories. But that it was also a budding space, and that's really when the light bulb went off and I said This is a huge white space potential. It makes sense because of my personal background of focus here. This has

Legs to run with. I mean so you're looking through Just like doing research, right? You know you want to do something In natural

hair care products. And by the way, what does that mean? Like 'Cause you you see a lot of hair care products that say natural on them or you know Free of this or free of that. This is two thousand ten. What did that mean? Yeah, it's a great question because the word natural is not um regulated the way that organic is. So natural means different things to different people.

And for me, it meant utilizing a high, high percentage of naturally derived ingredients. And so basically what I mean by that is instead of, you know, pumping our products with silicones, which are synthetic polymers that give the illusion of shine on the hair. We actually used real natural oils to do that because

Not only is it natural, but the benefits, the vitamins, the nutrients. uh the minerals within natural oils actually serve a purpose in enhancing the hair's health. That silicones do not So that's really the foundational

goal of why we do use natural clean ingredients in our products. Alright, so you are thinking, hey Maybe I can't Do something here. Well, what's the the next step you take? I mean, you're a trader at Goldman Sachs and obviously you're super smart and talented, but you're also

pretty young and probably don't I imagine you don't know a whole lot of people in the in the beauty industry, so what like what's the next step? Well who do you call? Where where do you go? Yeah, so you know, after doing my research I realized one there's a void for

clean natural hair care, but there's also a void for effective clean natural hair care. So I had a premise that was compelling because I wasn't just kind of hopping on something that already existed. I was creating something that didn't exist And so I had never created a business plan before, and I knew it's something that I wanted to be thought about. So I did what I always do, which is I consulted my friend Google. And um I Googled how to create a business plan.

And I stumbled upon a website that offered a service where They would partner with you. To understand your vision.

And then also give you some help on the financial side in terms of, you know, forecasting financial statements. And uh that's how I went around Went about creating my my first business plan. Okay, so you're working on a business plan, but you don't Actually

have a product t to sell yet. So what What happens next? Yeah, so after I had my business plan created I told myself that I was gonna tell all of my friends about what it is I wanted to do. Because I knew if I went and told everyone that I wanted to start a clean, natural hair care product line.

that they would ask me about it every time we went out and I didn't want to disappoint them. So it was my way of holding myself accountable. And so once I felt really good about the viability of this business plan I knew the next thing that I needed to do was to start formulating. And that's where I was a little bit stuck because without My mom.

And without advanced knowledge of chemistry I didn't feel comfortable formulating the products on my own in a way in which You know, I could sell them to a Sephora, for example. Sure. And at the time I Had no idea.

That you could outsource. R and D and manufacturing to An outside company, and I only learned about that because I had told a friend about my idea and she said, Oh, let me put you in touch with a friend who created a deodorant line, and I said, Oh, I would love that.

And I spoke to this friend and I go, How are you making this deodorant at home? And he said, I'm not, I'm using a contract manufacturer. So this was so fascinating for me. I said, This is cool. I can actually utilize the team and resources of another company to bring my idea to life. And so I was very, very organized and I did a bunch of uh research on Google. I started attending some local trade shows and I figured out The Who's Who and Hair Care Contract Manufacturing. But meantime you are still working at at Goldman Sachs, right? I am. And so that was really, really tricky because this would have been

twenty eleven, twenty twelve. I had just become a vice president, so I had gotten promoted, but I was also trying to allocate time to work on Brio. So and by the way, d did you already call it Brio? No, it did not it did not have a name. Yeah. Yeah. Basically the way that I worked it was that

After work is when I did all of my email stuff. So a lot of people were getting emails from me at like nine, 10 PM at night. And my calls, I would do those on my lunch break. Or some days I would take PTO when I just knew that I was gonna have a really hectic day of calls and research. 'Cause I had a ton of PTO because I never took time off, so Um I I never really took vacation.

Um, it was just more so days to Work on my Business plan. So you would call up or you'd connect with some of these potential f factories and and you would say, Hey, I wanna make hair care products

Like shampoos and conditioners and stuff. But with no uh sulfate, silicones, parabens, DA w all dyes, all the stuff that's in pretty much ninety nine percent of hair care products. And I imagine most of the time They would be like Uh can't be done.

That's not possible. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Um, and it was very disappointing. Pretty much every conversation I had um made the idea seemed very far fetch. And sometimes I would get close. Sometimes manufacturers would say, Oh, we just started developing shampoos without sulfates, but we need the silicone base in order for it to hydrate your hair. If you don't have the silicones The clean surfactants are gonna dry out the hair. You can't have one or the other.

But you know, there was one contract manufacturer that came back to me and said We've never done this before. But I think we can do it. Especially if you're willing to dedicate the time to partner with our R D team. And to really work with us and give us some time.

And by the way, I think we're just let's just be clear. Yeah. We're not saying names or the name of this manufacturer because it's a trade secret, right? That's right. Okay. Yes. So keep going. Yeah, so there was a small contract manufacturer privately run and operated in the Midwest. I had an opportunity to meet with the CEO of the contract manufacturer and I think he was uh kind of surprised that I was this finance girl who had this side project of you know starting a beauty product company. And um I think he took note of my passion.

And I've been fortunate to work with people. Who have extended courtesies and opportunities to me because the passion became infectious. So even though I wasn't coming in with a big check size or, you know, a big production run.

I do think there are a lot of people that just have that heart inside of them that want to see the underdog succeed. And so luckily I was able to uh get the time and attention and the dedicated uh Lab time with the chemists to help me really tackle. This project.

Yeah. But you I mean you you Did not have a background in chemistry. Um so how did you e even know like the words to use when you were talking to the lab chemist, like even even to tell them what you wanted them to make, like Like w what would you say like I want to do.

this to be like w yeah what what would you say? Yeah, so it's a little hard sometimes to describe these things. Um so I I had to kind of study up on um hair care terminology specifically. I was working on a treatment mask and I wanted it to have a very luxurious, buttery, rich Texture. So it needed to have a higher viscosity. I also wanted the concentrations of uh what I called our Nova complex, and Nova stands for natural oils, vitamins, and antioxidants. I wanted the Nova complex and this mask to be, you know, three times more concentrated than our other formulas. This is a h it's a hair mask. This is a hair mask. What is a hair mask? I'm I just I don't underuse one. I'm I'm never what is it? So it is a concentrated conditioning treatment that helps to repair

moisturize and enhanced the vitality. Of the hair. And all the while you're funding this, I mean your your costs are not high at this point, it's just travel and stuff, but you're just funding it through your salary at Goldman Sachs, right? Yes, I was fundering it through my salary, but I was being really mindful of how much I was spending because things do really add up quickly. And I didn't have products yet, so I didn't want to get too far with Sven before making sure that I could actually do this. And what what were you looking to make? Shampoo

Conditioner, like tell me the things that you wanted them to kind of Like the prototypes you want them to make for you. Yeah, so originally I wanted to create a fifteen skew uh product line. Fifteen. You wanted to fifteen, okay. Fifteen. Because I I wanted to have something for every hair texture type and I didn't want to leave anyone out. And I was speaking to a contact in the uh contract manufacturing space that really advised me against a fifteen product skew line coming out the gate.

And he goes, If you can do it with four products, it's your best bet. Who who was this person advising you? Just a friend or a mentor? So it was actually one of the contract manufacturers that I didn't end up going with, but gave me some really great advice. Which is a good lesson in in, you know, you might get rejected from somebody or you might reject them, but you can really get some good advice from them. Yep. So you decide you're gonna come up with four products and what were those products going to be? What what Yeah, so that was a big challenge for me. You know, how was I going to create a diverse assortment with only four SKUs? So what I decided to do was to create one shampoo for all hair types. Okay.

And then I had three conditioners that were texture specific. So with four products I was able to hit a pretty diverse Client base. I think it took you about a year. Before

You finally got. This Right. And in that year Were you telling your co workers that you were working on this? No, so no one in my immediate team knew that I was working on this project. I had a couple of friends at Goleman that I confided in, but only a couple that I knew would not

say anything because I was serious about my work and I didn't want to compromise that and sure I didn't want it to get out that I was doing both. So how are you so you like were taking like a day here and a day there and flying to To this. manufacture and and like come back to New York and

Is that what you were basically doing for a year? Yeah, it was it was pretty crazy and um there were points in which um I did start hitting a wall because I was getting very little sleep. You know, being on the trading floor, I was also working with uh the London market. So I needed to be at the desk by 7 a.m. So I was getting to bed at like one, two A. M and then Waking up at five thirty AM.

Day over day over day. And it started to become unsustainable. Yeah. Do you think I imagine one of the reasons why you were just

Grinding away was way to kinda cope with you with the loss of your mom. Yeah, I mean The project and process of Building Briocheo.

really became a therapy. For me. Mm. I needed to take that energy. And pour it into something positive.

And There were a lot of people who were very quote unquote proud of me. that I didn't self-destruct or get into negative behavior like drinking or drugs and things like that.

And for me, I really took. The Emotions of that experience and poured it into This project

And I think that's why the hours that I was devoting, the lack of sleep, all of that stuff, I just kept going. Because it was My therapy. When we come back in just a moment. How Nancy managed to convince a man with very little hair

To invest in her hair care product company. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This. Take your listening experience to the next level with Sonos 5. Five is Sonos's most powerful speaker.

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Offer terms apply. Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So by the end of 2012, Nancy Twine is about two years into launching her line of natural hair products. And she's still got a few daunting problems to solve. For instance, she doesn't have a name for her company yet, and she needs to figure out how to convince retailers to sell her product. At this point, Nancy starts to realize

that she'll probably need some more money than what she has in her savings account. So by that point, the most money I spent was on the business plan, which was about five thousand. some of the initial concepts for the packaging, which was, you know, north of 10K. Um, and then you factor in everything else. I was probably close to twenty five K. But you're bootstrapping this business. I mean, are you I imagine you're thinking, all right, I gotta raise some money

Did you start to look around? I did. So I was self funding a lot of it. But I knew that if I was going to start to scale this at some point. I didn't want to put myself in a position Where I was completely maxed out.

Because I also knew that it would be hard for me to focus on growing my business if I was thinking about you know, how I was gonna pay my rent. So I did. I I started dabbling in um going to uh Investor Meetups.

and pitching sessions, which was quite the experience. And you would go to these things and they were like They're like speed dating, but pitching your business, right? It's so funny because Guy, I didn't even know it was a thing. Um, and I got invited to one of these things, and that's exactly what it was. You know, there was a line at each of these booths, and you would Do your

One minute elevator pitch. And it was not so. And at this point you were going to these pitch meetings with investors, angel investors, with bottles of your product? No, not even You were just just describing this concept. Yeah, and I had some artwork on a piece of paper. I would bring this thick piece of paper. that had sketches of the packaging. It was a really hard guy to sell a brand that existed on Pico to tech investors. I mean it was kinda crazy. It's like what's your app? Yeah, right, exactly. So what

This is a this is shampoo. No where's your attention. Which is why like going to these networking events was so discouraging because I was No one really cared about what I was doing and I even felt like the people in the room weren't I imagine these were Predominantly men. Yes. Probably white men. who don't use

hair masks and many some of them probably don't have hair. And also probably don't really understand your specific hair needs either. That's right. And by the way, how did you eventually settle on the name uh Brio? I had so many like random names. I can't even remember, but I just remember I got to the point of frustration. And knew that I needed help.

And a friend of mine ended up putting me in touch with a guy who was a consultant. And For you know less than five hundred backs. He picked my brain on what I wanted this brand to be and gave me a ton of options and Briocheo stood out so

The word brio Is an Italian word that means vibrant, colorful, full of life. That's like our DNA essence. And the word Gio is Latin for Of earth. Of nature.

And that speaks to our clean ingredient methodology. Alright, so you are looking for money and you keep grinding away going to these things. And at one of these things you do meet somebody who actually says Yeah yeah. I'll give you some money. Who was this person? How did that happen?

Yeah, so um There was a uh investing network out in Long Island, and I remember racing from work to try to make it there on time, which I did. And I And this is in twenty thirteen. This was in twenty twelve. Twenty twelve, okay. Yeah. And so I walk into this auditorium and I look around and I'm like

Uh, here we go again. Exactly as you described, it was all white men, older men too, that you know, filled the space. And then there were five of us who were going on stage to pitch our ideas. And um the four other men who were presenting all had tech companies, and I just remember being like, oh my gosh, not again. You know what's so hard about it, Guy, too, is that When you get onto a stage and you know that everyone there is probably not interested in what you have to offer, and you kinda have to fake.

that sense of enthusiasm. Yeah. It was painful. So here you are, there are four other guys practicing about their software as a service uh product. And then you present. And what? What happens?

So I presented with passion, I had a great presentation, and then after the stage pitches, There was a breakout room in which uh the five of us each had a table. Where we could display our product concept or technology. Um, and so for me it was that you know poster board with the sketches of the product. And No one came to my table.

It was So embarrassing. I was so upset. And at the very end, as I was packing up my table. A guy named Phil.

You gave the best presentation. And he said As you can tell. I have very little hair. I know little about hair care. But he goes

I don't really invest in the products anyway, I invest in the people. And he goes, You've got something, and here's my number. Let's be in touch. And his name was Phil Phil Palmetto. What a great guy. Yes.

So you so Phil gives you a cart and then I'm assuming you call him uh the next day or so? I didn't call him, he called me. Wow. I was on the trading desk and I got this missed call and I hopped off.

And it was Phil. Phil had called uh because he wanted to follow up and he wanted to learn more. And uh that's where the dialogue started and ultimately a year later After I had gotten my first retail commitment, he made his first investment in Brioche. How did you get a retail commitment?

Um So after the lengthy process of formulating my first four products, I had now had a a name for the company, I had the packaging design, I had done my first run of, you know, four hundred pieces or whatever the minimum was. Yeah. I was tasked with figuring out how I was gonna bring the products to market. It's funny, guy, because I just focused on one thing at a time. Sure. And so once the products were made, I

had to figure out how I was going to get them in front of retailers. And I had a business plan, so I knew who my target retailers were. I was targeting the prestige retailers of the world like Sephora, Nordstrom, et cetera. But they weren't giving you the time of day'cause you were comparative nobody to other people in the industry, I guess. Right. So I knew I couldn't just cold email them. Like that just wasn't gonna work. So At the time I had started building up some uh mentors in the space that encouraged me to go to a trade show and to invest in getting a booth. Which is not cheap. It's like two, three thousand, four thousand more. It was more than that. Wow. Because I elected to be in this very special section

of the Cosma Prof beauty trade show Where is that? Is that New York? That's in Las Vegas. And how much did your booth cost? Cost about ten thousand dollars for that weekend. And then that was just for the space. Bring your stuff with you and like a signage and right? Yeah. There was travel, I had to design the space.

I needed staffing. So I think when it was all said and done, it was probably closer to fifteen thousand. And m meantime, no one at Goldman Sachs knows this. Like you're like, Okay, have a great weekend and you're flying to Las Vegas to go um have a booth at this at this trade show. Yeah, it was a little weird and I did I started feeling guilty. I'm like, Oh, this isn't right. Like, you know, I'm kinda living this double life. But clearly by twenty thirteen, this is like this train has left the station. Now you've got one foot really in this

And you get to the show and You're standing there, you've got your your bottles all lined up. Um and people are passing by and people stop and start to talk to you. Yeah, and it it uh if you've never been to a trade show, it is a very, very overwhelming series of days because you were talking non stop and you have to be on and you have to be at that booth because you never know who's gonna come by. You can't even go to the bathroom. Yeah, yeah, it's very hard and I actually did step away to the bathroom and and miss the buyer who I was there for. Luckily they came back. But that's how it happens. Somebody to purchase to make a purchase order.

And what who ends up ordering from you? Yeah, so the first day I was handing out just lots of samples. And buy intrigued because they're always intrigued by newness and they had never seen the brand before. But the buyers that I gave samples too, most of them came back the next day and said

I used the products last night or this morning, like tell me more. And so some of those buyers included, you know, urban outfitters. Nordstrom And then on the very last day, the Sephora team came by. And that was

What's really funny is that I didn't even know that they were the Sephora team until they left because There was a group of four of them, and their badges were turned the other way. because they don't want to be kind of like smothered by everyone who's looking for the Sephora team. So when they came by, I actually had no idea. And when they walked off,

Um another brand came up to my booth and said, Oh my gosh, how did the conversation with Sephora go? And I was like, What do you mean? And she was like, Oh, those four women were from Sephora. But they didn't make an order. They didn't put an order. They didn't make an order. I got no contacts. I had no business cards and um I was actually very, very disappointed.

Did you leave with any orders? I left with no orders, but I did leave with interest from urban outfitters. So urban outfiters stop by and and by the way Were there people who assumed because You are

an African American woman that this you were making products for you know, quote unquote ethnic aisle products, you know you know what I mean? Like that that this was specifically for women of color. I mean, was there Did people make that assumption in initially? You know, I figured that people would, which is why when I design my booth, I was very intentional about having hair model imagery at my booth that really displayed the diversity of our intended consumer. So I think

When people saw the breath of Ethnicities and skin tones and hair texture types. I think it helped to offset maybe that stereotype. Yeah, I mean, even when you go to your website now, I mean we're jumping ahead, but it's like

Every single uh hair type and And ethnicity is represented on your on your website. Yeah, and that's um that's been a day one mission. of the Brio Gio brand. And it really just kind of reflects, I think, my experience of growing up. And I've been so fortunate to have a diverse group of friends and I never wanted

Any of my friends to feel like they couldn't use Brioche O2. All right, so you come back from that trade show. And then I'm assuming you could start to pit the phones on urban outfitters. Oh yeah. So that that moved pretty quickly. So they they did eventually put an order in that fall, and that was actually

The milestone that Philip, who I spoke about a little earlier, uh Philip. was then ready to commit some capital to the to the company. Cause you needed Cash to m place that order And by the h how many p do you remember how many bottles they bought or

They bought the stock. They pretty much bought all of the stock that I had, so that those few hundred units. Right. Yeah. So it was pr was they were kinda dipping their toe into this. That's right. And so you didn't have to make extra product, but that was enough to get Phil to say, all right, I'm in. I'll give you some money. Yes. And and what he gave you? So he gave me the first time about$10,000. Which and was that

a game changer for you at this point? Oh yeah. I mean that that was huge. I mean I knew that I could, you know, scale the next production run. It was still me at the time, so I wasn't at a point where I needed to invest in in staffing, but it was really all about being able to scale the inventory. Alright, so you get into Urban Outfitters, but then the next challenge, and I love the like the methodical way you do this, you're like you kind of break it up into bite-sized chunks, like let me tackle this problem and then I'll tackle the next problem. But the next problem was getting people to buy it at Urban Outfitters, like getting people to be aware of it, right? That's right. So one of the other investments that I uh made early on was a PR agency. And that was really important because I had to get the story out there. One of the things that I did that was a little bit different is I made myself available to the editors and I told my PR agency that I didn't want them to just pitch editors over email because

I wouldn't be able to really tell the full story. And because I was in New York, I asked them if they could set me up with desk side appointments where I would actually meet the editor and be able to have a face to face connection. Uh and so I was able to create relationships with editors at A dozen of publications

And I started getting press out of the gate. Wow. From even some of the bigger publications like, you know, Alor and Marie Claire and Refinery twenty nine. Now

Knowing what I know about the beauty industry from the interviews we've done on the show. Sephora is like Valhalla. Like you gotta be in Sephora. That's right.

Was Sephora like front and center in your mind, like were you thinking I gotta get in there? Front and center. I mean I needed to be in Sephora. I built this brand to be in Sephora. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So how did you w like, what do you how do you find out who to contact at Sephora? Is it like info at Sephora.com? No, it was it was definitely a bit of a puzzle. And I remember one of the uh women in that group who was kind of like the leader of the group, she had a unique memorable name. Her name was Margarita. And that's all I remembered. So I did some Google searching and I found out her full name and who she was.

And there is this website. I can't remember the name of the website, but it would help you to determine what the format. of email addresses. And I emailed her. Okay. Just sent a little follow up email, I attached our brand book and um told her that I would love the opportunity to come to San Francisco to meet with her in person to discuss the opportunity further. And I never got a response.

Mm. So I waited a month. And then I said, All right, I need something that's going to Make it like a no brainer to meet with me. So

I decided to collect all of the press that I had gotten. over the past couple of months, and I put together this really beautiful press book. And then I just decided to tell her that I was planning a trip to San Francisco, that I was gonna actually be there. And so um I finally got a response, which was a forward to her junior buyer. And she asked her uh junior buyer to to take over the conversation. She's like, Yeah, let's meet up at Pete's coffee. And uh let's let's chat.

So this buyer uh says yeah. Come meet me a Pete. So you've literally Get on a plane and go to San Francisco to have a coffee at Pete's I know, it's insane. It's so crazy thinking back at it. But it was so

well worth the investment of the time and money because Um I really connected with that uh merchant and um She was also a person of color. She really took a particular Liking to the fact that Briocheo really represented diversity.

But she was very honest with me and said, You know, Nancy, we just aren't focused on building out our hair care category um right now. You know, make up is the thing and that's where we're focused. But if things change, you know, would love to be in touch. Okay, so that's a start. But it's a little bit disappointing because you you know, uh by this point's twenty fourteen. You're you're four years into this thing. Yeah. And how you gonna how you gonna change your mind? It was definitely a disappointing moment, and it was another moment in which I second guessed, you know, whether or not I had picked the right category because Wow. Already four years in and you're starting to think, Oh, did I make a mistake? I did because you know, it was similar feedback that I had gotten from some of the other buyers. It was like why hair care like

It's not the most interesting or like booming category within Prestige Beauty. I guess I was ahead of my time from that standpoint, but I also knew that like my time was running out. in terms of putting the capital to work for my investors and Also making that move to being a full time entrepreneur.

So I continued to stay in touch with the buyer just so that she knew that. Briosio was in demand and you know things were going well. Yep. And then in February of Twenty fourteen, I received an email that changed my life.

I had sent the merchant buyer January's Press summary. And a couple of weeks later she responded and said

Nancy, it's so great to hear from you. The stars must have been a line because We just got out of a town hall with our CEO and And he wants to start building out our hair care category at Sephora in a more meaningful way, and we want to test Briocheo. Wow.

I still have the email. Did you scream? Did you jump up and down? Oh my gosh. I just It was The opportunity That I needed

Because I knew that I could do it. I just needed the opportunity. So they they agreed to Subriosio. In their stores. Or what? So it was a test and the test was online only.

So if I hit my target The next step would be to launch Brioche and twenty five of the then Four hundred Sephora stores.

By the way You're still at Goldman Sachs at this point in in early twenty fourteen. Yes. So I was still at Goleman and and once I received that email from Sephora, I knew that it was the opportunity of a lifetime and I knew That if I was gonna do it right. I could not continue working a full time job and I I owed it to myself to really give this opportunity a real

Chance. You had to leave. I had to leave, but I was nervous. I mean, I was I was twenty eight years old. I was a vice president at Goleman. I was making good money. Yeah. But Even though you were nervous, you knew it was the right thing. I knew it was the right thing. And I I really knew it was the right thing when I had talked to my brother and a couple of other friends and family members and

I was actually surprised by how supportive they were. I thought there was gonna be at least one person that said, Are you sure this is the right thing? Do you really want to do this? And not one person said that. They said, Nancy, we believe in you. Go for it. That's awesome.

So you leave. Yeah, you are. There is no safety net under you. This has got to work. It's gotta work. I mean I put everything on the line. I resigned.

I had no more income. Coming in. I wasn't paying myself. It was scary. Were you f essentially funding

The the product By through the cash flow, like Sephora would do an order and then That's how you funded the business, or were you already starting to seek out more outside investors? Well yeah, I mean I was uh using the little bit of cash that I had because the thing about uh retail is that

You don't get the money until you know several days after you ship the product. And so I wasn't launching In Sephora until August of that same year, and And they didn't place the order until

July. So I left Golman in April. And I was living on no income from the business. I mean, I had some of the small orders from urban outfitters, but that that wasn't enough. Alright, so you um get this order from Sephora. Yes. I mean there's hundreds I don't know, maybe thousands of products available on at Sephora dot com. So how are you gonna stand out? What did you do? So one of the most incredible investments I could have

ever made at the time was partnering with a beauty sampling box called Ipsy. That curates uh different beauty samples for you know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Like a birch box. Exactly. And our most universal product is our deep conditioning mask and I thought it would be a good idea to sample that to a couple of hundred thousand people. And so that was a very difficult decision because I had to fund

All of that inventory. For that sampling program up front. But getting That product in the hands of about two hundred thousand people.

translated into Incredible. Conversions at Sephora. So those sample boxes really kind of took off like people that that was all it took for people to start ordering it. Yep.

And then how long before they decide to put you in in the stores? Yeah, so Sephora has a cadence of twice a year in which they roll out brands into stores in March and in September. So we launched on dotcom in august. And we weren't yet ready to go into store just a month later in September. So once we hit March, we were ready for it. And uh it was such an incredible moment. And The idea of having

Briocheo, these four products I created sitting on a Sephora shelf was Just the experience of a lifetime. How do you just out of curiosity, is it harder to keep your product Shelf stable because it's basically like

Things that degrade over time. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question. Um One of the things I'm very transparent about is that Briocheo products are not one hundred percent natural. And where we cannot find a effective clean substitute, we will opt with a synthetic version so long as we really do our diligence to make sure that it's a safe synthetic. Right. And uh there is an organization um in Europe called Eco Cert. Which

declares what synthetic ingredients are safe for use in natural products and so we use a synthetic but eco cert preservative system that allows our products to have anywhere from a twenty four to thirty month shelf life. And at this point now, that now that he earned Sephora.

In the shops. And they're making Bigger and bigger orders. And presumably they're By far and we are biggest. platform now.

How were you able to fund Making more product. Yeah, so by that time I had started to exhaust most of the money that I got from Phil. Yeah. But I knew that I was gonna need more money. So I reached out to Phil. put together a little deck of how I would use the funds to

um basically scale the growth of the business, which he was incentivized to do given his equity position. he felt like it was a good business case. I had, you know, POs to point to. Um, so he loaned me another Hundred and fifty K. So last year

You got uh you raised around from from a private equity firm that took a an ownership stake in your business. And th I'm assuming they approached you at this point. Yeah. I love the story because Before that you were going to these meetups.

and pitching your product to angel investors and nobody was interested except Phil. And then you launch and then people see how successful it is and then all these private equity firms come like knocking at on your door. Yeah, I mean it was it was it was really it was really funny to see. I mean I get it, I guess you know, having Sephora behind the brand and seeing that growth definitely creates a much more compelling story than having a sketch on a piece of paper. But yeah, it was really interesting because the dynamics had changed quite a bit. So

You are moving along, watching your sort of Your business grow. And um which is amazing. I think last I've s I saw, and I know your your your numbers are not public, but what was reported was you were doing about ten million in in annual revenue and uh

Personally. At least that, if not more now. Yeah, so we will, you know, finish this year close to forty million and Gross sales, which is Pretty awesome. Yeah.

Alright, here we are, 2020. And you know this because you've heard this. On the show. lot of companies and businesses that have been on are in crisis.

Um you know, retail is is down. Um How is the business doing? I mean I'm s I'm so fortunate guy in that um our business is doing phenomenally well. We actually Ended up revising up our pre ковід баджет.

Wow. Yeah, and I think um You know the the way that we think about hair care is very much from a treatment perspective. So it's less styling, but it's more treatment focused. And I think People have a bit more time to really spend on their self care.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I've I've heard that from other companies that that focus on personal care products, you know, that self care has become obviously really important um as people are shut in and and Then we have um got so many crises I don't even know where to begin. Then we have mass demonstrations

social justice movements, um, people demonstrating against racial injustice all around the country. You are a a black entrepreneur. And I mean on the one hand, obviously like what an incredible achievement as an entrepreneur.

This thing you built. But on the other hand, y I guess you're sort of expected to be kind of like an example of a of a successful black woman who's who started her own business and everybody wanted to Here hear from you and That's gotta be exhausting. Yeah, it was really exhausting and I kind of felt like, you know, there were so many people kind of coming out of the woodwork and like

I I get it. But I don't believe that it is the responsibility of black people to fix the problem. Yeah. However, I do feel that it's important that

Black people have a seat at the table, when certain decisions are being made about progress. So for me it was very much a fine balance of how do I allocate my time to the things that I think I can be most impactful. Knowing that I can't say yes to everything, but I have to say yes to some things because I can't just sit back and say, okay, it's your problem, go figure it out. Like I know I have to be a part of the conversation.

I really believe that. Mm. When you think about your whole story. just you know having that one random guy come up to you at the booth and say

Here's my card. Or someone giving you a piece of advice to start with four products and Do you think that what happened to you and your story happened because you got lucky or because you are really smart and you worked really hard and you have great skills. Um

I think it's the latter plus something else you didn't mention. I don't yeah, luck sometimes happen, but luck is not what this is about. Because that means I would have struck luck over and over and over again and luck is more of a random thing. Yeah. I think this is all about The hard work

And the time that I've put in, as you mentioned. But there's also a mindset of Believing in myself. that I've established that I think is probably the biggest attribute towards succeeding in anything that you put your mind to.

Nancy, I'm gonna ask you a difficult question. Um It seems to me that so much of your confidence and your What you have learned.

comes from your mom. from her the lessons that you kind of You absorbed by watching her and listening to her? And I wonder

what you think she would have thought about this thing you're doing now. She would be I don't even know if there's a word for it, guy. Like I don't even know if proud really justifies the feeling. But I I have always felt like my mom has been a part of this journey. There have been so many incredible things that have unfolded.

Over the course of the past ten years. And I am a spiritual person. And I do feel her spirit has really helped to guide me down this path, and I just know that she is watching with eyes of joy and excitement and um I'm just so grateful to have had the opportunity as a young child again to see someone who looks like me.

Defeat the odds and to overcome the challenges and to create success. That's Nancy Twine, founder of Biogio. By the way, since we last spoke in 2020, the company was acquired by Wella Company and sales revenue has more than doubled to roughly$100 million a year. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show.

It is always it's free. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramteen Erablui. It was edited by Nebu Grant with research help from Dereth Gales. Our production staff also includes Carrie Thompson, JC Howard, Alex Chung, Malia Agadello, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Chris Massini, Carla Esteves, and Catherine Cypher. I'm Guy Roz and you've been listening. to how I built this.

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