Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard

I had created these sunscreen swipes and apparently um the swipes were a huge hit. So I would go around to stores during that period and uh the swipes were always gone. They were just wiped off the shelf. But the problem was I knew that my sales couldn't be great if there were no products on the shelf. And so I'd go into as many stores as I could with swipes in my bag and literally like stock the shelves. Like I Give them product.

Just crazy, right? From NPR? That's how I built this. show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.

Guy Ross and on the show today. how Holly Thagger decided that sunscreen should be used every day and at every time of year, and how that idea grew into the multi million dollar brand Supergoop. There's a concept in business known as product market fit. It was popularized by the well known Silicon Valley venture capitalist Andy Ratcliffe.

And the idea is pretty simple. You have a product, if there's a market fit. People will buy it. If not They won't.

Sometimes there's no product market fit because the product solves a problem that no one really has. For example, Cheeto's lip balm. Did someone really think there was a market for Cheeto's lip balm? At other times there's no product market fit because the idea comes too early. before people are ready.

Like Pets.com, which fizzled out in 2001. But a decade later? Chewy.com, which basically does the same thing. Took off and is now valued at more than 10 billion dollars.

But not having an exact product market fit doesn't necessarily mean your idea is doomed to fail. Think about Airbnb or Lift. There was no market for those ideas at first. It took those companies a lot of time to convince consumers that It wasn't weird sleeping at a random person's house or popping in their car. Airbnb and Lyft had to create the market for what they offered. And it's kind of the same story for Holly Thaggard and Supergoop. The vast majority of people think of sunscreen as something you use at the beach or you slather on small children before they go outdoors.

But Holly wanted to convince people that they needed to use sunscreen every day, all the time, year round, like Getting dressed or brushing your teeth or taking vitamins. Her whole plan was to work with educators to create awareness around skin cancer. Something thousands of people are diagnosed with in the US alone every single day. And Holly's business model would be based on selling giant sunscreen dispensers, kinda like those hand sanitizer dispensers, to schools.

But as you will hear That whole business model was doomed from the start. And not just because there was no product market fit. So Holly had to pivot. and completely rethink her idea of how to get people to use sunscreen every day. and in the process, had to basically build out a market for her product.

And although her mission is still very much a work in progress, Supergoop is now one of the top rated sunscreens on the market. The company did about$40 million in revenue in 2018 and became profitable last year. And so far, even seems to be navigating the economic uncertainty of the pandemic. And as I often say when introducing the story of a founder, Nothing about Holly's early life in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hinted at the career she would ultimately choose, except for one important thing. Both her parents were entrepreneurs.

Her dad ran a machinery business, and her mom was an accomplished portrait painter. Yeah, she and my maternal grandmother, even her mother, they were both amazing artists. And I watched my mother's career go from When I was younger, she created a custom handbag brand that Neiman Marcus like could not keep in stock. all hand painted and monogrammed and And she went on ultimately to paint portraits, senators and judges and wow. She's very talented. I'm I feel fortunate to have to have her as a mother because I have portraits now of my children and I didn't have to pay for them. Yeah.

That's so cool. And so as I guess as a kid, like as a little girl, you took up The harp? Is that is that right? What how old were you? I did, you know, but I'd I'd Even back up a little bit to that is I started on the piano and I played the piano for several years. Gosh, I started in I think second grade.

And by the time I got to fifth grade I saw this bright shiny gold harp that I didn't didn't see anywhere other than my grandmother's living room and and I thought, gosh, if I could switch gears and play the harp, it would you know, there's not a lot of competition.

You could be the best harpist because there are right, there w probably weren't that many around you. Yeah, and everything sounds beautiful on the harp. When even when you mess up it's pretty. Yeah. By the way, is it is it you know a Fifth grader or sixth grader. How did you carry the harp? Did was it on wheels? Um, it has a dolly and you learn how to handle it. It's not so much that it's heavy as that it has so many moving parts. But you were not bringing the harp onto the school bus.

No, no. And in fact I played at home and then for the talent shows, of course, I'd show up, but it wasn't really until high school that I began Getting really excited about the harp because I saw it more as a business and the I the idea of creating a business around Holly the harpist. Was exciting to me. Wow, wait, so you as you sort of got better at the harp

You thought, hey, this could be my business, like th you were thinking this in high school? I was. I was actually already working on the weekends and Every Sunday for brunch at the local country club. Like in the dining room, you would just be in the corner playing the harp? Yeah. Be Holly the Harvest. Be Holly the Harvest and I I could kinda set my price because there wasn't a lot of competition, so I really started out

playing for like a hundred dollars an hour, which was a lot when you're in ninth grade. Wow. Alright, so you are Holly the harpist playing harp um for money, which is awesome, and um and you decided to go to school at Louisiana State University, which is not not too far from from where you live, I guess. And what did you did you study music there? Yes, I did. So I was never really that great of a student. I

I spent those first two years in college studying. Music. Uh-huh. I totally did not fit in with anyone in the music school. I realize how serious the musicians were in college.

and I was more interested in doing what I was already doing, which was performing and playing and I was at the time, you know, st still getting jobs and In New Orleans at the Museum of Art and I played a little back up for Aretha Franklin when she came through and w w uh what? Wha wow, what did you what did you play with Aretha Franklin? Amazing grace. Wow. That's I mean, if there ever is a song to play with Aretha Franklin, you brought the harp, man. That's amazing.

And look, that makes me sound like I was this great harpist, but like I was so winging it. I had no idea, but I knew I couldn't say no and I had no business. I literally had to break down every measure and I was that reading music type student, you know, but you keep in mind, like I enjoyed the business of Holly the Harpist way more than I enjoyed playing the harp. So so if you I mean if you didn't enjoy playing the harp that much, what Like what Did you decide that you want to do professionally? So I

had also grown up because I think I'm so such an organized person and I love pencils and supplies and things, I grew up thinking that being a teach would be really fun. And I often even when my little brother would get home from school and, you know, keep in mind he was seven years younger than I was, I would sort of start a new session in his room and Get work sheets for him and pass out my sheets and And so I thought well maybe I should Maybe I should be a teacher. And and I guess th that's what you did. I I read that you

you went on to to study um education and got your first teaching job uh I think in in Baton Rouge, is that is that right? It was, so there was a private episcopal school in Baton Rouge that Was uh actually I later learned was quite difficult to get a job there as a first year out of college And how was it?

It was fantastic. So I had A wonderful year. I poured my heart into doing Everything that I had learned in college. Uh I also kind of looking back now, I think I poured my heart into outdoing every other teacher in the school and kept my eye on trying to impress the

The board that had given me the opportunity to be there, but I loved every second of it. I and uh in fact I still talk to those seventeen students, many of them Uh today. But from what I've read you only you were only a teacher. I mean you had this incredible

Why aren't you a teacher today? What happened? Yeah, so You know, the end of the school year came when contracts are Placed in the teachers' boxes and I didn't receive one.

Um And the school said they were not offering me a return contract and I later learned as a first year teacher you're considered provisional and They said, you know. This was due to problems and concerns that were

were brought up from my other peer teachers and not really fitting in well. What did that mean? Yeah. Exactly. I I didn't know either. I did a lot of exploration at that moment, but I was devastated. Yeah. I've I know I had gone to college to to be a third grade school teacher and and here my career was seemingly ending very quickly. And and you never got any more specific feedback like what was it that you did or not do or I did, I did, and I learned, you know, I was

sort of breaking rules. I wasn't eating lunch with the other teachers. I wasn't hanging out in the teachers lounge talking and connecting and and I if I was, you know, being completely honest with myself, I did feel a little claustrophobic within the four walls of a classroom. And uh they were in a way right. I did constantly look for ways to sort of leave campus early, or, you know, I'd say I had a harp job and and double book myself and, you know It it there was that wasn't in the card for me and Yeah. But you know, after a couple of months of exploring these these things, I just decided I'm gonna move on.

Yeah. I mean it it is amazing though that setbac can actually be a blessing that you don't Uh you don't realize the time, right? Like a a a hu like Had you had this amazing year and they renewed your contract and you stayed there. You might not have ever done what you did. Absolutely.

I'm so grateful that that played out like it did because I don't think I would have been pushed to go and change directions. I would have kept that cush job and you know that that's not what was in the card for my life's work. So so w what did you end up doing next? Well, at the time my brother was starting college at SMU in Dallas and I had plenty of time on my hands, so I went to help him move in the dorms and

All I could do was look around at all the beautiful homes in Highland Park and how they all really needed Holly the Harpist in their life. So you decided to stay in Dallas? Uh after helping. Him move in.

I di well, I knew that if I were going to propose a move to my parents that I needed to have a job lined up. So I actually during that Brief weekend visit. I walked over to the Dallas Country Club and knocked on the door of the general manager's office and introduced and told him all about my music and And that I was hoping

that they might look to have some new entertainment in their In their dining room. And I went back to Convinced my parents that I could make a living performing.

And moved my harp to Dallas, found an apartment and literally did the kind of back of the napkin math, like how many hours a week do I need to play the harp to pay for the rent? This is like nineteen ninety six, I think. Yes. So you're like in your you know, twenty two, twenty three years old. Mm-hmm. Living in Dallas. Playing the harp and that's that becomes your business, Holly the harpist? The harvest, yes. So I went from Dallas Country Club to

uh to the petroleum club to Brookhala Golf Club and And did this made the same introduction and And this is really when I realized that Building this business of Holly the Harvest was when I lost all track of time and creating like direct mail pieces and

And looking into the book of Liszt, I often would read the CEOs and write letters to their home. You know, I'm from the South, so writing letters has always been a big part of my upbringing and But I got a really good response from from just the jobs that I had and spent the next ten years of my life actually performing and That's how I paid the rent. You are the harpist of cho choice, or one of'em, I guess, in Dallas, and probably making a decent living, hmm? I was doing really well. My rates had gone up to I I had a thousand dollar minimum for any party which

Wow. party was only an hour. That's a gr that's a great It's great. part senior partner at a law firm in New York. Right, I just wasn't billing the hours the lawyer would bill. Yeah.

And d and what about y your personal life? Were you um married, were you single at the at the time? You know, no, I was just dating in Dallas and until my late twenties, um, did I not meet my now husband. And his very best closest friend in college I performed. I play the the harp for many rehearsal dinners and weddings for their family. And Mary Montgomery, his the you know, the person I work that would engage me for these, said you've got to meet my son's

Best friend. And that so that's how I met Ty and We continued dating as I performed and played until I guess Uh we were engaged when we were about thirty one. And so this is like what two thousand and four ish you got engaged around then? Two thousand more like two, I think.

But when Ty and I um started talking about a family and being married and everything, you know performing on Mother's Day and Christmas and Thanksgiving and continuing on uh that path just felt like It was time to retire. It's exhausting playing evenings and that's not a real great life or having a family and

See you're kind of done with a harp. side of your life. You're newly married and um And I guess you something happens in two thousand five, which is a a friend of yours is diagnosed with skin cancer. Yes. And first of all, this is I didn't know this, but this is like one of the most diagnosed form of cancer. You know, full stop. Yeah. When your friend was diagnosed, what what was the prognosis? Yeah.

Oh, and he's fine now, um, but you know I started thinking and and a good college friend of mine was going through her residency in dermatology at the time and I was talking with her about my friend's skin cancer and and you know, she said, Holly, it's not about the beach. It's it's about That every single day cumulative exposure that ultimately and usually much later in life becomes skin cancer, but for your friend who has blonde hair and blue eyes and um you know it happened at a much younger age. It's not about going to the beach and not using sun lotion, sun time lotion, right? Or sunblock, whatever. It's it's just about being outside every day and over time, some people develop skin cancer. And and by the way, most people who do develop skin cancer

Um it is it's it's generally highly curable if it's caught, you know, relatively early it's like a Yes. If found early. So you to hear this and And what? And then you're thinking Well, my initial thought was this could have just as easily have been me. I have blonde hair and blue eyes and I remember, gosh, my spring break in my middle school years. I remember going to Florida and lying on the roof of this house we rented and I got so blistering sunburned that I was sick and swollen and Um it ruined my entire week. Yeah. But then I also immediately thought about My seven teen kids that I taught that year in the classroom.

And never once did I see a tube of sunscreen on the school campus, despite the fact that the children were on the playground in the middle of the day and often even staying and in sports in the afternoon. No one was wearing sunscreen. And and to be clear, the vast majority of us are not wearing sunscreen all the time, right? This is just not part of our It's not like it's not like brushing your teeth. Most people don't.

Just don't do this. This is two thousand five and you start to think What, like hate? Maybe Maybe I can figure out a way to get people to wear sunscreen all the time, not just at the beach. Was that

what you were thinking like immediately. Yes. So I found this study by Memorial Sloan Kettering that was talking about how most people knew sunscreen prevents skin cancer. But I think it was like seventy percent don't wear it, just like you said, every single day. And the number one reason was because it didn't feel good on the skin. And I think just being

a child of two entrepreneurs and always thinking about creating and building and researching and this just was really interesting. I also think that I have always been a product person, um, which I think kinda goes back to with being with my mother and and often, you know, critiquing other art and Talking about skin tones and colors and uh the comp the composition of things being so important. Yeah um to the success of that and so I was thinking, why don't schools offer sunscreen? Why don't children have access to sunscreen in schools? And For me, I just took it to this extreme of like, gosh, we wouldn't send the kids on the playground without a fence around the playground. Yeah.

But we're sending them out on the playground. with a carcinogen above them. So the original idea you had was Let me figure out how to get sunscreen into schools. Like like um you know, we've got like hand sanitizer dispensers. Yes. Like you would have those around schools and that would that would essentially be your

Your business. Yes. And in part I also knew the importance of education around this. And you know, I was a teacher and I it you know, it's not really a it wasn't a shortage of SPF products in the country that were causing the epidemic. It was a lack of education around the importance of wearing s PF Every single day. So was your this is two thousand five, was your idea to find an existing sunscreen brand and then Just get schools to put that into their Like into the hallways was that or did did you already from the beginning think I'm gonna make a sunscreen? Well, so the first step was to g what is on what is out there and I really wanted to look

I did not grow up wearing sunscreen every single day, so I was thinking, what is that product that I should have been wearing? And so I I looked on the market and a you know, like you said in 2005 SPF was an incredibly sleepy category and it was owned by the mass channels of distribution like Walgreens and Target and Walmart. And what I found was that uh SPF was being promoted and marketed as an incredibly seasonal thing. And you couldn't actually even find SPF outside of May, June, or July.

And when I did find it, I looked at the ingredients. And found that Ninety percent of what was on the market was just full of very controversial ingredients. What What's an example of that?

Well so One of those that was often spotlighted was the ingredient oxybenzone, which was being found in breast cancer tissue. And what I also found is that every single chemical formula in the country relied on oxybenzone for its efficacy. Even the organic brand? Well, so there were two types of formulas. There were the chemical formulas, which are those that absorb easily into the skin and they're great for athletes. And then there's mineral formulas. And the mineral formulas, just to be clear, there's the ones that are like really white on your skin, like

Like the zinc sort of sticks and stuff. Yeah. Sure. And essentially you couldn't rub in the natural ones into your skin, and you're thinking, hey, why why isn't there a a natural one that they couldn't do that? Yes, I felt like there was such an opportunity to do both chemical formulas, which there are advantages to, in a clean and healthy way. And mineral formulas I felt needed an upgrade too, because they sh they didn't need to feel so thick and pasty because If there were options for people to wear sunscreen every single day.

that were beautiful and luxurious and felt great. Then that would be that first step closer to stopping skin cancer. All right. I'm thinking

If I'm you, I'm I'm it's two thousand five, two thousand six, and I'm starting to kinda you know, sounds like we're kinda following this idea and thinking there might be something there, and you're t obviously learning as much as you can about sunscreen. But when I've read the backs of like comparative brands that I think are pretty great. I don't understand

Were you re weren't you like looking at the backs of sunscreen bottles and like, what is this? And what like d did you even know what what those things were? No, it was a lot of research, a lot of exploring. I found that there was a national sunscreen symposium and I reached out to every chemist that was speaking at that event and I just picked everybody's brain and just became obsessed with learning. You you called them or you emailed them and s and asked them what? You said I'm Holly and I'm doing a s I'm starting a sunscreen brand. Like what was your pitch to them? Why would they give you the time? Well, fortunately for me, the chemist all the response was Very kind to me and they taught me so much about

ingredient decks and most of those chemists were not up for the challenge of the challenge that I gave was I'm interested in creating an SPF product that does not have oxybenzone, does not rely on parabens. propylene glycol, a handful of other ingredients that I just wasn't that fond of. And most of what I heard was it can't be done. It can't be done, they were saying you can't make A sunscreen

That is non chemical that can be rubbed into skin. They were saying that you can't make a sunscreen that will test to a high efficacious SPF number. without the use of oxybenzone and without the preservative system of a paraben, which is what keeps your product healthy and clean. Um it couldn't be done. So parabens were needed. Why is Sun I I had no idea that sunscreen was so complex.

Well I think the w what is so complicated is not necessarily having an efficacious sunscreen. It's limiting yourself to a certain set of ingredients and then making it aesthetically so pleasing that it would make Guy Raz want to pick it up and put it on his skin every single day. Got it. Because now If you ask me, like if you if you saw me on the beach in the summertime, you would think I was a zebra'cause I just have giant white stripes all over my face. Because I'm fine with that. I don't care. But you can't do that every day, right? You can get away with that at the beach or if you're three years old.

Uh I remember like slathering on white zinc. stuff on my kids' face, but you can't you're saying you wanted to do something that you could use every day and you can't You can't look like a zebra every day. Well, and the reason for that is that in my research I learned that there's UVA rays and there's UV B rays. And UV B rays cause that burning on your skin that changes the color of your skin. But UV A rays are not only aging, but they penetrate deeper into the skin than UV B

And they're present in all seasons, no matter what the weather is, even on a cloudy day. And they're skin cancer causing. Hm. So you clearly are starting to develop an expertise on Sunscreen but like

You're not picking s you're not picking like cookies to bake. You can't do this alone. You actually have to go and find somebody willing to make you A product that doesn't have the ingredients that you don't want it to have, but that does what you want it to do. Correct. That is the joke around our family is you had to do sunscreen holly.

Because it's very difficult to formulate. And so where do you go? I started with the first chemist that said, That's interesting. That's an interesting idea. I didn't realize that oxybenzone was so controversial. And he was willing to completely Pro Bono start working on a formula to see if we could rise to the challenge of creating something that felt great on the skin and was healthy in ingredient choices. Through those conversations with chemists from the National Sunscreen Symposium is who I found that a r that first chemist it was in California and

I'm in Texas and I think, you know, in a good way a lot of chemists are a little nerdy and up for challenging things like that and And I just got lucky too, I think. But how did you convince this chemist to make your prototype. I mean Putting on my hat as like a you know entrepreneur hat.

Right. And that's not enough for I mean, you just call you can't just call somebody up and say, I have this mission, I wanna do it and then the person says, Okay, I'm gonna devote all this time uh in my lab to working on building a prototype for you. Like it had to have been harder than that. Maybe maybe it wasn't, I don't know. Um, you know, I think telling my story, my r my intention for this magic formula that we were gonna create was to put it in every school across America. And so, uh I you know sold that story of Gosh, we're gonna we're gonna create this and every child in the country is gonna be wearing this

Game changing SPF and That is when in in the process of creating an SPF product takes a while and once I had that kind of off and running with the right chemist who I felt was up for the challenge, I then sort of pivoted my time and attention to How are we gonna do this in a beautiful way that's fun and playful and you know, more of the m the marketing s and education side of the business. And Did you fly out to to work with the chemist or were you just d dealing with the the person on the phone or i the or the email or like how how did that work? We had a lot of phone calls about what I felt like

You know, the characteristics of the texture, the feel. And then they started mailing FedEx. We did mailing samples and then I'd give feedback on those samples and I just kinda passed them around to my family and asked what they thought of this goop or that goop. And you already knew you were gonna call it goop. I did not. I just actually Called it. Goop'cause that I didn't know the word lab sample, I think. Yeah, I wasn't in the booty industry. Or glop or whatever it was. Yeah. Was goopy.

Yeah. Yeah. And in the meantime, what were you doing? I mean you you're living in Dallas still at the time? Mm-hmm. What were you What were you doing? I was completely obsessed with this project. I pulled my sister, who's an excellent writer, into helping me create an educational curriculum. You know, I mean changing consumer behaviors. Like one of the most difficult things to do, right?

But I looked at campaigns like uh Lady Burr Johnson's Don't Be a Litter Bug when she was first lady, she started that don't be a litter bug campaign. Sure. And it wasn't necessarily the children that were throwing the Diet Cokes out the window, uh, but it was their parents. And so I thought this is really interesting because through a very playful way she's got the kids Telling their parents not to be a litter bug. Which is going to ultimately change c you know the parents behavior. And so I thought if I could

Create this first formula and make it a fun and playful way. That appealed to young children to then Sort of. Bug the adults in their life.

There was something there. So you've got this this product that's being developed and What are they making it with? I mean, if all these scientists were saying, hey, you gotta use oxybenzone, that's the most effective way to protect your skin from UV rays and there's no other way to do it, What I mean, what Yeah, actually what I learned was oxybenzone is not the only way, it's the most inexpensive way. and began going back to most SPF was a mass product and mass products are, you know, as inexpensive as possible.

Um, it it turned out that there was a counterpart, Ava Benzone, that could help achieve the efficacy needed, but it just cost a little bit more. Ava benzo. Ava Bento. And that's still today w we what we've used in our chemical form. And where does it come from? It's a raw ingredient that you buy from The people that make

I mean there's different brand names like Parsall and that make that So you manage to work with this lab entirely Remotely, like they you never had to go and present to them or anything. They just they just I didn't have the money to go and promote uh you know, I c I was bootstrapping this with my new husband and we were thinking about having a baby and he was thinking actually about going out on his own at the time. He has a background and he was practiced law out of law school and he has a real entrepreneurial spirit as well and

So we were both bootstrapping now. All of the cost. Alright, so you're going back and forth and um and you finally settle on what you think is right and how do you know like How did you know that They finally got it. Like the smell of it and the feel of it.

Was it just just you were just using your own. Your own judgment, your own instinct. You know, it was probably the fifteenth or twentieth iteration on a formula that we had tweaked many times over those two years. um that finally felt amazing on the skin and

it tested because, right, it has to be efficacious and Um, and it was then that I literally said, This is super and the name Immediately occurred to me that I had I had also In that moment named named the brand. Supergoop.

Super good. And was it S Pf fifty fifteen or Thirty or or what? Yeah it was a fifty. Which is exactly what we were aiming for. And so you get the finally you get the one that works. And would you like slather it on and go outside and just stand outside in the sun? Yeah.

I started wearing it every single day because I had to know over the long term if that was something that was actually um a pleasant experience, right? And in fact, uh I've always believed in no animal testing or anything. So I I often laughed and made my husband the Guinea pig and say, Hey, can you put some of this in your eyes and make sure it doesn't burn and had you by that point? formed like an L L C and done all the formal stuff that people do to to start a business. Yeah, along the way I definitely relied on my husband. He had, I mentioned, a a background in

In law. and he helped me with registering the trademark and forming an LC kind of just put a few of the things that weren't too costly in place to start creating this business. So you've got the formula, you've got the name, and now it's time to go to the schools. And I'm assuming

You know, you kinda rip out rip out your old playbook where when you contacted the CEOs of of companies to play the harp, or you called all these scientists, I'm assuming you start calling school administrators. You're right, I whiped out my playbook and started talking to the heads of schools and school boards and Um I very quickly learned that as an over the counter drug, sunscreen is actually prohibited in schools across America. So you just spent two years building this prototype only to discover that you have no market. No marketplace. Right. Wow. Your whole business model is

Down the tubes. Exactly. When we come back in just a moment, how Holly eventually pivots out of schools and into retail. And along the way hires a publicist that she cannot afford.

and makes a connection at Sephora that she cannot afford to lose. Stay with us. I'm Kai Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. From NPR. Hey welcome back to how I built this from NPR.

I'm Guy Raz. So it was 2007 and Holly Thaggard had a big problem. She built a sunscreen company, Supergoop, with the goal of getting SPF into schools. But at the time, most public schools did not allow students to use sunscreen without a prescription or a doctor's note. So Holly thought, Well, maybe I should try the private schools, where the rules aren't as strict. And she actually made a bit of headway.

I did. I launched five private schools. All in Dallas, Dallas area? Uh no, Dallas and Louisiana, Baton Rouge, where I'm from and In Dallas. So how did you approach the schools? Did you did you just get like a a directory or go online and just t type I did. I think I looked in the private school directories by city and I would call and ask for a meeting. I've all you know, but dating back to m sitting under my father's desk reading and listening to Zig Ziggler tapes, um, which is what I did m throughout my childhood and Zig Ziggler, which he was like that like that guy who told you how to like

motivational speaker on sale, like for sales, right? Yeah, he was a sales and marketing genius. I think Guru. Like he had these tapes in the seventies and eighties, maybe, is that right? Yes, exactly. I learned from Zig so many things that I still reference today. You know, you have to have so many no's before a yes and attitude is everything, being optimistic and thinking positively. And I mean, I spent weekends sitting under my father's desk listening and absorbing these neatly organized tapes that he would bring home from having been president of the Sales and Marketing Club and

that really shaped how I approached things because um, you know, those conversations with those schools I just I just kept going. Kept going. If one said no, I'd go to another one and So school would say no, no interest and you would say, Okay, well thank you very much and you would move on. I'd move on, but I'd still keep them informed of everything I was doing because, you know, I also learned from those tapes that no is just tell me more, right? And so

you know, I'd hear no and I'd I'd realize that maybe they're just gonna say no for another month and then they'll eventually say yes. So it's two thousand seven, you've got this formula, you're in a couple of private schools, but I that's not enough, presumably, to really sustain a business. Right. And and and how how were you dealing with finances? I mean you had to get the product made from that I'm I'm assuming that lab was making the product for you. Even for those five schools. Yes, they were making it in large pumps. And we were really just coming up with every which way we could financially pay for it. And how how was it? Well, we ha I know our AMX was maxed out to the limit, which was like thirty thousand dollars. It wasn't a huge number, but but it was always it was always about that. And I also convinced the people that were making this product that

They h needed to also I didn't have a warehouse or anything, so I convinced them to to warehouse it for me and then let me pay as I pulled from the warehouse. And then of course, you know, I could also go play the harp and You know, any time I started to get concerned about cash, I'd take a harp job and Use that to pay for the product. It was pretty messy actually. We didn't keep real good track of the financials at that point'cause we were just still kind of testing this whole model and and you're right that that

soon became after one year of being in the school that year, it seemingly became hard to scale. D and did you I mean, I'm assuming you were not you were not packaging these into small bottles with the branding and the the logo. This was just like Or were you like they were still in twenty four ounce containers. They did have Our logo, which I had created in Photoshop and I sort of self-taught how to make a label and how to make a barcode and

And the logo that you even have to this day, you created that in Photoshop? I did, and Actually the logo today we just uh s had a refresh on our brand about four months ago actually and tweaked a little bit here and there with my handwriting. I'm uh ha I'm also obsessed with handwriting and and so we digitally um used my handwriting to tweak The original logo.

So you've got the product and you are trying to, you know, mount a campaign and to get people to know more about this. But it doesn't sound like you're really making a whole lot of traction. The schools thing wasn't Doesn't sound like it was really working. So what did you how were you going to Build this out into something.

Bigger. Well, so I started just looking at what retail look would look like and what is the world of prestige children's retail. And how do brands go into what I thought were some of the m the best storytellers like FAO Schwartz in New York or the now defunct Giggle was a very popular, very h highly curated store of just the best of the best things from San Francisco to New York and Started to down this

Path of the going to trade shows and showing my line to buy of Little Prestige mom and pop and retailers that could help support my vision and tell the story in their in their location across the country. Your your husband was a lawyer, so he had some income, but were you like getting help from friends and family at this point and I mean,'cause still, like Right, you can't run a the business on on air and

Were you h asking people for help? Yeah, so my husband was not practicing law anymore. He was actually going out on his own in real estate investing. And so we were definitely depleting all of our savings. Uh and it really wasn't until I think Thanksgiving of Gosh. Two thousand and

Aidish that We asked my dad for Twenty five thousand dollars, I think. So he kinda saved you. He did. It was that you know, every entrepreneur has the Thanksgiving dinner story.

And w I had another trade show I wanted to go to in Vegas and I asked, you know, my dad at the dinner table, I think, like If he be willing to give us twenty five thousand dollars. And that really forced this conversation of how are you planning to scale this? Because I think at this point we were like literally making forty five thousand in sales, I wanna say. A year.

And how are you gonna scale this, Holly? Because even if you Double tripled You're trade show at this trade show that you want to go to, you know, that's still not much money. And did you need the money?

For that trade show to make product to bring to that trade show. No, I needed the m the money for to actually pay for the trade show itself, to like pay for the booth. Yeah. And I had At that point also received a phone call. From the skin care buyer at Sephora. So wait, uh while all this other stuff is going on, uh Sephora, which is like a huge

They also reach out to you? Like how d how did the buyer even know about the product. Well she was a new mom and she had been shopping at Giggle which was that L boutique retailer that I landed at one of my other trade shows and she

purchased it for her child and also took it to the Sephora Corporate Office and they started passing it around and having this conversation apparently what they shared with me was that they felt most skin care today. And this was you know, two thousand eight, nine. was really highly clinical and built on doctor driven brands. And not fun and playful and they thought there was something really interesting about a brand that was very serious in technology, but doing it in a very fun and playful spirit.

So all right, so Sephora calls you out of the blue by the way. I think at this time you had your phone number on the on the bottle, right? Your your personal cell number. Well, and that was so that if anybody wanted to talk about Supergoop, they would reach me directly and and she said, We like what you're doing and and we don't think that you're ready for a meeting. But we thought maybe we could be helpful. And you know Sephora is known to really nurture indie brands and And brands with strong founder visions and and she said, you know, I thought I would reach out and just share a few things that might be a good idea for you before

if you're interested in us and and then maybe you can get in touch when you feel that you've grown up a little bit. And by the way, what was her name? Kim Holt. And what did Kim suggest you do? She said you need press. She said you need pr if you want to get into Sephora You gotta start with getting

Some more press. In two thousand and eight, you know, this is before Instagram and influencer marketing and it was all really about those press placements that you'd get in the magazine that showed your product. They were very product driven and that's what sold product in Sephora. So I had none of that. So what did you do? Well, so That twenty five thousand that my dad, uh, the next day left our home after Thangiving and he left a check on the counter and

He said to me, Holly, go get your elephant. And that was his way of saying stop. messing with all these small little retailers and and go get a big account. And so I went to Vegas. We put that booth together.

But Uh what I found when when I got to Vegas was was just like I could have cried. Um I had really fought to be in the natural and organic and very thoughtfully curated selections of the show. But what I found was I was smack dab in the middle of

all of the granola and very home grown brands and all of the very cool, modern, beautifully aesthetic brands were up on the second floor. And the lady in the booth right next to me had a brand called Happy Green Bee. And she uh spent the whole show, all five days knitting And and the show was so slow that I spent most of my time in her booth learning to knit. I thought this was gonna you were gonna tell me about how you found a publicist. Did you find them at the show? Well, kind of. Um, the last day when everyone was breaking apart their booths and everything, I was

you know, walking around and someone came up to me and said, Gosh, you've really gotten to be good buddies with Roxanne And I said, Oh, I know, you know, we had to way too much time to talk during this show, not not enough sales. And they said well I would imagine she could really help you and I was like

You know who that is, Holly? It's Roxanne Quimby, the founder of Birds Bees. Oh you saw Roxanne Quimby, who we've been on our show. We've had her on our show. She's amazing. You so you you you did you go up to her? Yeah, so I went right back over there and I was like, Roxanne, how could you not tell me that you were the fo you were Roxanne Quimby, the founder of Bird's Bees She's super low key. Super low key. And she said, Holly, I wanted to hear your story

And your vision without You knowing that. Mm. So what w then what? I mean do you like exchange numbers, emails to go for coffee? What do you w what do you do? No, it was the last day of the show. She said, Uh, very quickly, how can I help you? I wanna help. I like what you're doing.

Mm. And I said I need a PR firm in New York and I can't get one to save my life. And and an hour later Nancy Berman was calling me while I was in a cab to the airport. And she Nancy is the founder of Berman Communications, which was known as the biggest beauty PR firm in New York. And she said I just got off the phone with Roxanne Quimby and she says I need to fly to Texas to meet you.

She says I gotta fly to Texas to meet you. You're doing forty five thousand bucks a year in sales. And this this is like a big shot PR person. Yep. And you're like, great, let's do it. No, actually I immediately kicked into, well, she needs to know there's competition because I know this is gonna cost me an arm and a leg. And so I said, Well actually I'm gonna be in New York next week interviewing uh several other PR firms and I'd love to schedule you in. Yeah, which was totally

made up on the fly. Nice. So okay, so then you Like you fly to New York. So well then I grabbed my sister, my brother, my husband. You know, the company was still just me, so I had to put people in the room to look like we were doing something bigger than we were. And I did in fact uh get several other PR meetings uh with quite a few of her competitors. Based on being able to call and saying I'm coming to New York to sit down with Nancy Berman next week and I'd like to also I hear I should also be talking with your firm. Huh.

So Nancy uh w uh presumably you end up working with Nancy. She did. She rolled out the red carpet and I was very impressed with We were all very impressed with her pitch. But given that you only had forty five thousand revenue for the year, which is not profit, how how how much did Nancy cost you to to bring her on? Well, that was the hard part. Um because when it got to be the last page of her proposal was where we started talking about money and Knowing that the world of PR wasn't gonna talk about SPF outside of the summer months, she pitched me on a six month contract that would go from January to June. And she felt in that time we could in January hit the long leads to make sure we were in the April May books.

And she would charge us twelve thousand dollars a month. But only six months out of the twelve. So seventy two thousand dollars. And you thought.

I think I might have said, Have you been listening to everything that I've been talking about? Because I'm trying to de seasonalize a category and it's never gonna happen if I'm only talking to the beauty editors and my h I think, you know, everybody's going, Oh my gosh, she's trying to like convince now Nancy to take a twelve month retainer and I I always credit my husband for this because that sounds crazy um to pay twelve months of a retainer when we weren't even making in revenue. But He was adamant about you've got to do this, Holly. This is your path to Sephora and that's your elephant, and we will figure out how to pay for this. So you were gonna pay basically you have to you decide we're gonna get the best publicist'cause we this is our one this is our moonshot here. It's gonna cost us two years of our revenue to get this publicist.

Uh and you you you basically take the plunge. And I think she came down to about eight thousand a month because it was a twelve month Retainer. Right.

W when you signed on with her. Um, where did where was she able to place Stories about Super good. in all the beauty magazines. So Allure and you know just the traditional press.

And did that move the needle? Did you get did you start to get a lot of um a lot of people inquiring? We did, and and we also got That help a lot with the launch in Barney's New York, which Nancy set up an interview with the beauty buyer of Barney's and she actually h was a skin cancer survivor, so she really a pre and very fair skin. Her name is Betina O'Neill. And she bought into the idea of building a skincare brand with a foundation in SPF.

And Barney's certainly at that time was really important, a really influential place to be. Yeah, we launched in shell uh in their apothecary and you know, there things that came from that that were super inspiring along the way, like being asked to I know we got a call once from Elon Musk's team to put Supergoop into all of his roadsters that were taking a press tour down the BCH or something and I thought, you know, gosh, if supergoop makes sense'cause the roadstar was a convertible. You know, could be in every cup holder. Yeah. A lot of a lot of cool people would see it. I think that's the year that we also were asked to join the Ted Conference in Long Beach and put our products into the hands of all the attendees and that's and by the way, they don't pay you for that. You gotta donate that.

That was a hundred percent donation. And I had to create a custom box because I wanted my story to be on the box. Because I knew that if it weren't, nobody would know what the meaning behind the product was, so Really kinda. Went out on a limb there. Yeah.

And at what point Do you feel comfortable to reach back out to Sephora and say, Hey look, you know, we've been we gotten in a couple of magazines and We're getting a little bit more publicity,'cause I'm assuming you're still not really Profitable at this point. No. No, we're not. Uh this was in

couple of years after that press and growing and my revenue went from Forty five to I know a hundred and fifty. to I think six hundred So we were You know, we were increasing, uh and growing the business. It was by no means profitable, and I don't think I was even keeping quite good track of the finances like that. I just knew I had to keep going and and it was actually in

Two thousand and ten when I felt like I was ready to talk again to Sephora. You call the same person who originally called you? Mm. I called her and left her a voicemail. and told her that I was going to be in San Francisco the following week for the I gave her a five or six day range Because I wanted to make sure that

She could find a minute for me on her calendar. And She didn't call me back. And so how did you get her attention? Well, so

I felt obligated to go to San Francisco because I said on her voicemail that I was going to be there on other business and I didn't I was afraid that she might eventually call during that week and then if I weren't in San Francisco she'd be calling me out. Yeah. And uh I didn't even have a hotel reserved when I got on the plane to go there. I just knew that I had to be there. And I

cried the whole way there and found a shoebox of a hotel in Union Square that I remember like going in and it didn't even have windows and the bathroom was down the hall and I was so upset because we we didn't have a lot of money and this was a an expensive You know, thing for me to go do when I didn't really have anything to do there. Does she call you back? So I went to bed that night and at eleven thirty my cellphone lit up and it said Sephora on it and that's how I had programmed her name into my phone was this Sephora.

Wow. And I don't know why she was up late at the office that night, but she said I think you might be in San Francisco. And she said, Well, we would love to meet with you. Are you available tomorrow morning at ten A. M?? Amazing. So you go to m go to Sephora headquarters. And and did you have a bunch of product with you? Like samples? Oh, I was so prepared. I had foam boards with each of my products, the pricing, you know, and I had product with me and they just said, Tell me about what you're trying to do here.

And I walked them through my story from teacher to to where we are today and why I needed their help and and why I felt like they could help put a megaphone to this message. And did they say, All right, we're in. We we' we we'll we'll work with you. They did not. They just Okay they just said we enjoyed meeting you. I thought the meeting went really well. It lasted, you know, a good hour and a half and And I felt

Pretty good about the potential and they said they would be in touch. And that was it. Yeah, and I got to go home early. So you go go back in the plane. I'm assuming on the way back you were not crying. Well, actually I the next morning woke up and You know, my father growing up had this thing about doing things in twos.

And he always said to me, the best time to accomplish something is after you've accomplished something. You're on a high, you feel optimistic, you feel good about yourself. And so whenever I had done something well, he would say, That's awesome, Holly, that's so great. I'm great, great to hear it. Now what are you gonna do? And so I felt like that next morning I had to figure out what the answer to like I felt really good. You're right, I wasn't crying, but I felt like I had to know what was next. Yeah, I mean you you must have been feeling pretty confident because I think like Maybe even the same day you You decided to reach out to the buyer of Nordstrom, too, right?

Yeah, so I said that I was in San Francisco uh talking with Sephora about a spring twenty eleven launch. Which was Not totally true. Really. Yeah. No, I were kinda bluffing, bluffing, hoping. Willing it to be true. Yes, okay. And

I would love to come through Orange County on the way back to Texas and share with her more about my brand. And Was she in? She sounded really interested and optimistic. Again, she didn't give me any answers, you know, Johnny on the spot, but She sounded interested and and I felt good about flying home and and then doing the follow up that was needed to to land both of these accounts. And I feel like that was a real important for me was when I think about where I saw our brand.

I felt like so the Sephora demographic, the customer was young and they're playing with makeup. They needed to understand how important it was to first protect their skin. And for the Nordstrom customer, I felt like that was the mom with three kids in tow and a stroller and she really needed to be instrumental in teaching young children these healthy habits. So I felt like the two brands were the ideal launch pad for me in in the country. Together. But how do you get into them? What what convinces Sephora to finally call you and say, Okay, we'll do it and and then of course You know, what kind of shelf space you're gonna get and how long? So what what was the deal they offered you? Yeah, so well, and to back up a little bit, I got home and for several weeks didn't you know, I sent my follow up email my you know, exactly as I should have post a meeting, but I didn't hear from either of them. Oh

Well nothing. Not even like a great to meet you. No, not nothing. And like the silent treatment for six weeks. Actually. And so that's when my husband and I were kinda tapped out on the money side and And we went to my brother who um after graduating SMU moved to New York, started a business and has been super successful, building it to several hundred people with his partners and We asked him if he would

be interested in investing. And he agreed. And he agreed. He said, You know, Holly, I'm I'm think if he were here today on the podcast he'd probably say, you know, I was betting on the jockey, not the horse and He put in initially seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Wow. So you're assuming that that in March of two thousand eleven you're you're gonna do a nationwide launch somewhere, but y you don't have any commitments, I guess, from Sephora or Nordstrom, so w when When do they call or when does Sephora call?

January twenty sixth. And I know the date'cause it's my brother's birthday and They called you on the twenty sixth. They called me on the twenty sixth and it was actually Two thousand eleven. Well, and she call and said, Holly, it's Kim and I'm super excited to share that we are going to prepare for a summer launch. In all stores and a big hit and cap for the twelve of summer. So good news because Sephora's gonna launch, but only twelve weeks and only in the summer, which kind of undermines your whole narrative because you don't you're not selling a summer product. Exactly.

So what'd you say? I said, you know, as flattering as this is, and I'm super excited and want this badly, um, I need to scale my size down to whatever size makes sense that you can assure me twelve months of distribution. You're talking about the size of the bottle? the size of the space on the shelf, so On the shelf. Yes. I don't an in cap is that big fancy thing at the end of the aisle where you have five shelves and it's full of product. And I didn't expect that they would hold that for a twelve month period, so I convinced them And this is how I really knew that Sephora was the right partner for me. Uh they listened and they said, you know, let us take this back and think about how we could do this and assure you twelve months of distribution, which I also didn't know that that's kinda crazy. Really retailers don't launch with any guaranteed one year of distribution.

Right. And how much shelf space do they offer you? So they later called and said they were excited to share that they were going to open a new wall in Sephora called Skim Care Favorites, and they could have secured six inches of space. And to pick my two favorite products. And is that is that pretty good? Like'cause I'm thinking six inches, my God, there's nothing in a big store. But is that is that were you happy with that? I was s ecstatic. This sounded like a dream. It sounded like something that I could manage. Again, I didn't have a team, I didn't have a marketing team, I didn't have people in the stores to help sell it. I I felt like that was positioning us in the skincare category, which is how I've always seen our brand as not a sunscreen brand. We are a true skincare, but all about protection. And that's our thing, so I was just uh thrilled. So summer of two thousand eleven you

Debut at Sephora. Yes, and I had nurtured the Nordstrom relationship along the way and keeping in touch and and we um launched in forty seven stores. Uh so I ha I had full distribution in Sephora and forty seven Nordstroms and a lot of work to do. Right, because you still even if you're in Sephora and Nordstrom, it doesn't mean people are gonna go to your product and buy it. You gotta tell you gotta explain t you gotta get them to buy it. So how did you do that? Exactly. Well, because of that twelve months of distribution, I think that really shaped how I thought about product. I th I've always thought about

innovation in SPF and how do I create products that are game changing that you will reach for in those shoulder seasons and I had created these sunscreen swipes were a way to reapply your SPF in a toilette. And they were at the time pretty new to the world and I didn't really realize it at the time'cause I didn't know what success meant at Sephora, but I would go around to stores during that period and uh the Swipes were always gone. They were just wiped out of the off the shelf.

Yeah. Oh mm yeah, w w what explained that? Um apparently, you know, the swipes were a huge hit and and the world loved them and The problem was I knew that my sales couldn't be great if there were no products on the shelf. And so I started what I I like later coined in a within my family as reverse stealing, but I didn't know how to get product to the shelves and I knew I couldn't get make the numbers if there weren't product. So I'd go into as many stores as I could with swipes in my bag and literally like stock the shelves.

Like I Give them product. Wow. Which is crazy, right? Well I love that story. By the way, I've never told that story. It just popped in my head, which is so crazy. But like I literally remember going into stores and pushing products onto the store shelves.

Alright, so you are um you're you're now, you know, in these brands, by the way, ha d was there an immediate or qu fairly quick impact on your revenue? I mean you've gone from What? A hundred and fifty went to like six hundred. In a year, in that year, two thousand eleven.

Wow. So that was and then what about twenty twelve? We kept doubling, we've been doubling and sometimes More than that since so twenty twelve you pass a million dollars in sales. Yes. W did it now start to become easier to raise money outside'cause it up until this point it was just family is your dad, your brother, you you and your husband. Yeah. Now it's to to scale, I I'm imagining you wanted to go out and raise more money'cause it costs money. You gotta make the product, you gotta make the bottles and distribution's expensive? Or did you did you say, you know what, we're just we're not gonna raise money, we're gonna self fund this thing. No, no. And I've always known, you know, when you have this vision to change the way the world thinks about sunscreen, uh scaling is super important. And also I'm dealing with a category where we actually have to convince people

why they need to wear SPF and then why super goop. So You know, I often say, like, imagine I was having lunch with the founders of M Z Wallace, which is a handbag brand and I said, you know, imagine if you had to convince women everywhere to carry a bag with them everywhere with their water bottle and their wallet and their purse and their phone and their umbrella. Yeah. You don't you just have to sell them on your bags. But for me I've always looked at it like I have to convince first people the why it's so important that they protect their skin. And then secondary to that is

Why super goop. So yes, it's been very expensive from a marketing perspective and I was still not profitable at that point. So raising money was something that was just a necessary thing that we had to do. Yeah. And and so I guess you were Eventually able to raise like like two million dollars from from a combination of uh friends and and family and even some some private investors and people in the medical field. And I I should mention

Tennis star Maria Sheropova. How did that happen? Yeah, so that was just a phone call from her agent that said I'm Maria Sheripova's agent and I'm like Googling Maria Sheripova and seeing what's in the word sunscreen. And she said, She found your product at Sephora And it's the only product she can compete in.

Wow. And it doesn't burn her eyes. And so she's interested if you guys are have ever thought about making an investment. And actually this was a uh just about the same time as our friends and family was still open and I thought the first thing I need to do is get to LA to meet her because of course if we're gonna have an investor come into the brand She's becoming part of our family and so I wanna make sure she could also be a brand ambassador or spokesperson, presumably. Yeah. So we we flew out there and spent a day visiting with she and her agent and Uh uh you know, honestly put the deal together really quickly. Holly as you grew.

Um and today I think that the latest public numbers I found are are that you did like forty million in revenue in twenty eighteen and maybe more in twenty nineteen, I'm assuming. But at a certain point you you decide to open up a New York office. You were based in San Antonio. You've got a New York office, you hired a president to r more or less to run the company. And from what I understand, like this was sort of a request from your investors. You're like, Hey Holly, you're great, you're really good at what you do, but like

You need an operations person, that's not your s strength. Was that is that true? Is that how it went down? Yeah, you know, so we had um our series A followed our friends and family, and one of the former partners at T S G, John Kenny, was going off on his own to create what is now Cult Capital, and he asked to lead our series A round and He said, Holly, what is it you want to do for this next phase of Supergoop? And I said, John, I want to build a team. I want

help, I want a presence in New York City. And we decided together that it was time to go on that search for a brand president who could be the perfect integrator for my vision. And she's been now with us for four years. And this is uh Amanda Baldwin, right? Yes. And having had Amanda to help

was a a real turning point um for me in realizing the time to put our foot on the gas and and build the team that we needed to take this and make the magic of of Supergoop happen. So let's talk about this moment now. Um n no one is going into Sephora. P presumably most Sephora's are closed, if not all of them. Nordstroms are closed. And who knows when they're gonna open up. Uh some may open, but I mean I I have to assume that, you know, you've got direct to consumer. You can s you can buy Supergoop online, but I've got to assume that

like probably ninety nine point nine percent of businesses, you've taken a hit. in in recent weeks. Yeah, you know, I mean I think definitely we had to set reset, but I think what's been really neat is we're having real breakout conversations. In fact This week we launched Sephora Canada and I trained over Zoom three hundred and fifty of the cast members in Canada. Oh wow. We're still there and you mentioned direct to consumer is still very, very strong. We in fact relaunched our uh Supergoop.com platform yesterday.

And this time has given us all a minute to to really focus on these things and how business in general is being impacted by what's going on. Are you I mean, uh w obviously we've done a lot of companies that are cash intensive companies. ninety, a hundred and eighty days of cash sitting around. They might have forty five days of cash sitting around. And and a lot of those businesses won't be able to make it, even with

you know, investors and so on. Um I I'm I have to assume that your business is a little bit different. For one thing, you're making a product that It's relatively shelf stable and It's not as cash intensive, or am I wrong? Well, fortunately twenty nineteen for Supergoop was our year to get to profitability and double digit profitability this year. So

uh having Amanda a brand president and a husband and a brother that's all very strong in finance, we have, you know, remodeled the entire year to To remain profitable and and continue pushing and even spend money. Do you do you think that um w what's happened to you and and the success of the company is because you

of your skill and and work ethic, or do you think more of it has to do with luck? I think it's a little bit of both, guy. You know, if I think back was that was it skill that positioned me next to Roxanne Quimby? Uh in Vegas. No.

But it was very strategic in that I was tell my story to everybody that would listen. And Same is true with my launch at Sephora. Because gosh I was lucky the skin care buyer that year happened to be pregnant and shopping in Giggle.

Um, but you know, I put my number on the carton and And so anybody could reach me and that was that was strategic. This is something we you you mentioned earlier, but I want to ask you th this again. Um How do you think being a musician?

Playing the harp. Helped you. Be an entrepreneur. I think being a musician has really helped me in and just learning those how to break it down. And you know, you can be overwhelmed if you open it picture opening a sh piece of sheet music and there's just notes everywhere and staff and it can look very jumbled and like how in the world am I ever gonna learn this whole song? But what you learn in music is to break it down and learn the first measure, learn the right hand, then learn the left, and then put the right and the left together. And then once you've mastered that

go on to the second measure. And if you continue to break it down like that, you eventually have a s have a beautiful song. And I think also though for for me because I started performing at such a young age, it gave me so much confidence. And if you think about, you know, playing Here Comes the Bride to a church that's full of people that are everyone's dead silent and you are the music, you're the only thing that anyone's listening to. And this is this bride's biggest day of her life, it really gives you the confidence to think you can do anything and that helps me and has over the years as we've been fundraising and you've got to be completely confident to walk into any scenario and and pitch your brand and sell them on evaluation that

You believe in And I think the music really is what what gave me that. It's Holly Thagert, founder of Supergoop. By the way, Holly has come full circle with her original idea of getting sunscreen into schools.

Since she got her start, a bunch of states have changed their laws and now allow kids to use sunscreen in schools without a prescription. So Supergoop has started a program where they give it out for free. In this past school year They donated three thousand pumps of Supergoop to schools across the country. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you want to write us, it's hibt at npr.org.

If you want to tweet at us, it's at How I Built This or at GuyRaz. This episode was produced by James Delahousey with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. Thanks also to Candace Lim, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.

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