Month: April 2020

The Future Of Beauty: “Use a Selfie To Create Hyper-Customized Skin Care Products” With Navneet Kaur of Yours

I believe the tipping point for me was when I started scaling myself with the help of a team. The only way to scale yourself is to hire people to support your weaknesses. People are the biggest assets in any company, and instead of being insecure, you should hire those who are smarter than yourself, and invest in training them to lead. A lesson that others can learn from my experience is to invest in training yourself to be a good interviewer and work on your pitch to get potential employees excited.

As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Navneet Kaur

Navneet Kaur is the founder and CEO of a skincare start-up Yours. Inspired to reimagine skincare, she set out to help people feel happy and confident in their own skin with clean, sustainable products.

Backed by her experience developing beauty brands within a conglomerate, and then scaling Uber across Asia, Navneet leverages technology and her learnings to simplify skincare at scale. Yours uses computer vision and machine learning to personalize skincare according to the individual’s skin needs, lifestyle, and environment.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My love for skincare was kindled in my first job as a Brand Manager for a skincare brand. But after 3.5 years in the space, I still didn’t feel like my personal values resonated with the product development process, which was product-first rather than customer-first. So, in 2014 I shifted gears and joined Uber India (and later APAC) as part of the core team with a passion to create a new layer of transportation across Asia, where I then spent the next four years.

It was around this time two years ago that I struggled to find the right skincare products for my husband (also my co-founder). It was a frustrating experience because it involved guesswork, a lot of time going through reviews and blogs, and buying skincare products that cost serious money. All this while using his skin as a testing ground!

I spoke to many of my friends and somehow they all related to that experience. That sparked some thoughts in my head — what if there was a better solution to all this? What if companies did all the hard work of mapping customers to the right products? What if customer-product fit took precedence over product-market fit?

This pushed me to build Yours with one objective: to simplify skincare. I didn’t want anyone to ever go through that arduous experience of having to find the right skincare for themselves. From the outset, I was determined that product efficacy would remain paramount at Yours without compromising on being clean and sustainable. We started with personalized skincare formulated based on the user’s skin, lifestyle, and environment.

Although we’re only a few months into full operations, it’s been extremely fulfilling and humbling to receive people’s messages saying how they’re absolutely loving their personalized regimen, how the products have helped reduce their wrinkles, acne or eczema, and how they’re falling in love with their skin all over again.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

The most interesting phase of my career was when I decided to quit my well-paying and comfortable job two years ago to pursue an idea all by myself. Imagine waking up and deciding “I’m going to make skincare for people, and make sure everyone gets the products that are right for them”. Yep, it was pretty crazy!

I was already familiar with several aspects of the skincare industry, but there were some things I had no idea about — for example, legal knowledge and raising capital. If you’re starting a company, having baseline legal knowledge comes in handy. And when it came to fundraising I had no clue how and where to start. I remember scribbling on my notebook “What do VCs do? Should I reach out to VCs directly? How should I structure the fund-raise?”.

Things got rather interesting when I started pitching Yours to VCs. I was trying to explain the pain points of skincare to men, and I received a lot of blank faces, confusion, and even yawns. A couple of months in, I knew I had to change my pitching strategy — one that involved asking them questions that created ‘aha moments’. I also carried samples of good and bad formulations to let them experience the differences sensorially. Lastly, I got their wives, girlfriends and sisters to try the products. And six months later, I was writing the press release announcing the seed round that included names like Sequoia and Jay-Z.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

I believe the tipping point for me was when I started scaling myself with the help of a team. The only way to scale yourself is to hire people to support their weaknesses. People are the biggest assets in any company, and instead of being insecure, you should hire those who are smarter than yourself, and invest in training them to lead. A lesson that others can learn from my experience is to invest in training yourself to be a good interviewer and work on your pitch to get potential employees excited.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

One person who has had my back with everything I decided to do is my husband, Shivam Sharma. Not only did he inspire me to start Yours, but he has also consistently been my support system for years now, and I draw a lot of energy and strength from him. As a solo female founder for the first year, it would have been a very lonely journey had he not been silently helping me on the side. He was new to the beauty industry but his approach to bringing the brand to life was so customer-centric that people started resonating with our story, and we got a lot of love as a brand. He would come up with fun ideas like creating a Spotify playlist for skincare! He joined Yours as my co-founder in September with the same passion for our mission. At first, we noticed that some investors had reservations about investing in a husband-wife duo, but we stayed true to our values and we knew it could actually be our secret weapon for a start-up.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?

Personalized experiences are the lay of the land in the online world, but that same level of personalization and adaptable efficiency is rarely found in the offline world, especially in the beauty industry. Over the past year or so I’ve been working with my team to refine the proprietary personalization model that is so integral to Yours.

How this works is that users complete an online skin assessment by uploading a selfie and answering questions about their skin, lifestyle, and environment. We use computer vision algorithms to extract data from the selfie before combining this data with inputs from the questionnaire. The complete data set is then fed into a proprietary personalization model that decodes skin needs. Finally, active ingredients from our ever-evolving ingredient dataset are mapped to create a personalized skincare regimen for each user comprising day cream, night cream, face serum and eye serum (and many more products coming soon).

By removing trial-and-error from everyday skincare regimens and ensuring that skincare isn’t one-size-fits-all, we’re reducing the opportunity costs associated with valuable time and money spent on ineffective products. We’re also further automating this essential area of modern life with our skincare subscription service, your Autopilot, which takes care of product refills and reformulations according to each user’s ever-evolving lifestyle, environment, and needs.

What we’re fundamentally looking at is the future of beauty that’s simplified and sustainable, a future where decision fatigue and frustration never enters the conversation about skincare.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Ah, that’s by far one of the most interesting questions I’ve ever come across. Oddly enough, I have thought about the extreme side of it, more so because I see hints of it already. In the interest of transparency, we display all the ingredients that go into each formulation, but I dread the day when people will try to make their own skincare products just by reading ingredients and then mixing and matching ingredients of their choice. The most critical part about mixing ingredients is understanding the right percentage of actives to use because this requires proper safety, stability, compatibility, and many other tests.

I see this as a micro-trend already where people buy concentrates of active ingredients (like acids) and try to mix them together, without realizing how these actives will react with each other impact their skin in the long run. People forget that chemists who formulate skincare products have an educational background in biochemistry, plus years of experience and expertise that lets them know exactly which ingredients can be volatile and harmful when mixed together.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?

If you look across industries where technology was introduced to core functions — manufacturing, taxis, travel, food delivery, you name it — technology has fundamentally changed the ways those industries operate. Beauty is an industry that’s at the brink of transformation as well. Although it’s hard to pick just three, I’m most excited about:

1. Personal assistant — Getting relevant beauty or skin tips any time of the day just by giving voice commands to your phone is truly amazing.
2. Computer vision — Given how advanced computer vision is today, and how most of us have access to high-resolution cameras right in our phones, users can expect to see unique features like early detection of pigmentation, wrinkles, or even signs of skin cancer. On the other hand, people can play around with more accurate makeup that would be perfect for their skin.
3. Personalization — Technology-enabling personalization at scale, for every individual, will make beauty truly inclusive. Imagine landing on a website where everything is personalized for you. The way I think about personalized using technology is that companies should do the hard work to offer the right product to a user, and not the other way around. Not only does this reduce the burden on the consumer, but it also reduces potential waste. #techforgood

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

The beauty industry has been growing for decades, and while there has been a lot of innovation, some of its core processes need reforms:

1. Transparency: Much to my surprise, there is often very little to no transparency in manufacturer supply chains, and often, ingredients are being sourced online from suppliers they have never even met! Moreover, a lot of ingredients are not being tested for safety and efficacy. Improvements in this regard would include companies being transparent about their sourcing practices, supply-chains, and whether or not these ingredients are safe and non-toxic, for both skin and the environment.
2. Sustainability: Environmentally sustainable products as well as packaging. All-natural products are not always the best (like essential oils), and they are also harmful to the environment when the industry overuses resources without replenishing them. The amount of single-use plastic used in the industry is terrifying, and the onus is on us to do our bit to actively work towards fixing this situation. This translates into being mindful of environmental sustainability at every step of the process, from developing a product to packaging and even marketing.
3. Cruelty-free: When it comes to product formulations, no animal testing and being vegan should be a norm and not a choice. This should involve companies actively working to recommend policies to relevant agencies to make ‘cruelty-free’ compulsory.

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

I think feeling “beautiful” is more emotional and internal than something external. Being happy and comfortable in your own skin is a good starting point, so for me, skincare is a form of self-care.

The top 5 “me-time” things I’d recommend are:

1. Exercise in any way you like. A big part of how we feel is how comfortable we are with ourselves — plus working out helps release powerful endorphins that bring an overall feeling of euphoria. Invest some time every week to do something you like — dancing, yoga, swimming, anything. Look at it as me-time that you are investing in yourself, and you will feel beautiful when you see that post-workout glow on your face 🙂
2. Meditate. Stress is one of the biggest culprits behind our skin concerns, and 84% of our customers mark their stress level as high. Just five minutes of meditation every day can go a long way to make you feel good about yourself.
3. Pamper yourself with a nice skincare routine on Sundays. Make it a routine so that your mind associates it with happiness instead of it feeling like a task.
4. Water is the cheapest anti-aging ingredient but we see 79% of our users drink fewer than 7 glasses of water a day! Keep a bottle of water by your bedside and on your work desk to stay hydrated, and you’ll see a difference in how your skin looks within days.
5. Keep that self-doubt away and put on a mask while enjoying a nice cup of tea and some happy music.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Transparency — one of our core values is the most important one for me. I fundamentally believe that if companies are transparent and honest with their customers, it helps build long-term relationships. Being transparent also means owning your mistakes.

What you see is what you get. 🙂

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One life lesson that has always stuck with me is “turn your insecurity into curiosity”. When I started building Yours, I had a limited understanding of the ingredients — enough to make a purchase for myself but not enough to make a skincare company. But I didn’t let it be a roadblock and went deep into learning about ingredients and the sourcing process and got senior skincare experts and scientists on board. We heavily indexed the R&D of our products using the best of Swiss ingredients (that were once not so affordable). These ingredients are 100% clean, have gone through stringent efficacy tests, and have a transparent supply chain with an EWG rating between 1–3. I also worked for months to refine our recommendation algorithm. After more than a year of hard work, our products are out there in the hands and homes of our customers and it’s the most fulfilling experience to read their reviews and how Yours is now an integral part of their routine.

How can our readers follow you online?

I’m always up for a good conversation and I love to share my learning and experiences on my social handles:

LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/knavneet)

Twitter (https://twitter.com/navneet_ka)

And if your skin is asking for more details about Yours, follow us on Instagram (instagram.com/lovefromyours) for sneak peeks, updates, and new product launches 🙂

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Of Beauty: “Use a Selfie To Create Hyper-Customized Skin Care Products” With Navneet… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Be you and love your own unique features and attributes! It’s tempting in this social media world to try to compete or to look like someone else, and it’s a major pitfall in the medical aesthetics world. It would be very sad to live in a world where everyone looked exactly the same — the same cheeks, lips, bodies.

As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amber Edwards, President, Sinclair Pharma North America.

Amber Edwards is the President for Sinclair Pharma (North America), a global aesthetics company with a portfolio of aesthetics technologies that focus on collagen stimulation. The solutions provide clinically effective, high quality, long-lasting, natural-looking, minimally invasive treatments.

Amber has spent more than twenty years in pharmaceuticals and medical devices, leading commercial efforts for some of the most well-known brands in the market. She is currently spearheading the growth of Silhouette InstaLift in the US.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My backstory is rooted in a passion for all thing’s wellness, with a firm belief that if we take care of ourselves — mentally and physically — we are ultimately able to take better care of others. I first found my love for wellness in college as a fitness instructor, something that has been a constant in my life for 27 years. Through working as a fitness instructor, I was inspired by people striving to be the best versions of themselves which ultimately led me to a career in pharmaceuticals and medical aesthetics. The evolution of medical aesthetics has really rounded it all out for me — feeling great and looking like your best self is all linked.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Well, that is a very broad question! My favorite story is from more than 15 years ago, and one that to this day is a reminder of what it really means to have compassion and to go above and beyond. When I was a junior product manager, I was flying cross-country for a job interview, wearing a tank top, capri pants, and flip flops, and my luggage didn’t make it with me. It was after 10 pm and no stores open, and I was in a panic trying to decide if I should postpone my interviews or show up inappropriately dressed. In the middle of the night, there was a knock on my hotel room door…the front desk receptionist had driven about 45 minutes to her home, packed up a suitcase of her own business clothes, and brought them back so that I would have options to choose from. Now we were nowhere near the same size, but we made do and I went to the interviews. I ended up telling everyone the story which no doubt made me a memorable candidate! I still can’t believe someone would do that for a complete stranger and anytime I’m in that city for business I think about her.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

I’m not sure it’s a tipping point, but rather a willingness to spend the time to broaden my experiences by accepting challenges and responsibilities that may not have been linked to promotion. I’ve always been ambitious and eager to keep progressing but have learned the hard way that promotion or advancing too quickly can actually be detrimental if you aren’t really prepared for it. Society can be so driven by titles, but there is so much to be said for taking the time to get a breadth of experience and to take some lateral moves in order to set yourself up for success when the right opportunity does come along. This is one of the biggest pieces of advice I offer people starting their careers — enjoy and embrace the learning journey, not just the title destination.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I can’t name just one — I’ve been incredibly lucky to have had a few people in my career who have been willing to take a chance on me. David Pyott, the former CEO of Allergan, established a culture of what was known as “autonomy and accountability.” Regardless of level or title, you had the autonomy to speak up, disagree, take a calculated risk — but you also had to assume complete accountability for the outcome. This mantra is something that has stuck with me and that I have tried to instill in my own teams as my career has progressed.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?

At Sinclair, we are striving to be a leader in shaping a more natural and overall healthier perception of beauty. We hope to officially move this market past the overfilled, overstretched, over-lifted trends that have given the category a bad reputation. In market research, we constantly hear consumers say their biggest fear in getting a cosmetic treatment is that they will look completely different and unnatural, and there are plenty of bad examples! Our current product, Silhouette InstaLift, and the products in our pipeline are all very subtle and use your body’s own ability to create more collagen in order to provide a very gradual and naturally refreshed look. I tell my friends and family that if you can tell someone has had work done, it was not done well. The goal is to look like you’ve just had a holiday, looking refreshed and rejuvenated

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

A watch-out in the industry is a tendency to try to look like someone else rather than just rejuvenating and enhancing natural features. It would definitely feel like Black Mirror if everyone looked exactly the same! We are striving to bring technologies to the market that preserve natural beauty.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?

1. Personalization — the industry is getting smarter and smarter, creating truly customized products and experiences for consumers. There will soon be no such thing as a “cookie-cutter” approach to beauty. The makeup industry led the way here but medical technologies are following closely behind
2. Commitment to Science — there is tremendous investment going into the overall science of aging, which is so exciting because it extends beyond beauty. The work underway in gene therapies, understanding why and how we age, is leading to new ideas about how we can live longer, and of course, look fantastic all the way!
3. Minimally invasive options continue to progress and are providing more opportunities to rejuvenate without the need for general anesthesia, long downtimes and other challenges that come with surgical interventions. Treatments are getting more effective and more efficient, and ultimately more accessible to broader populations.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

1 — I already mentioned, but can’t say enough, the concern about consumers trying to look like someone else, whatever influencer they idolize or some beauty ideal that is unrealistic. I’d like for every campaign to emphasize the individuality and the beauty of loving yourself!

2 — There is a trend across the medical aesthetics industry to target younger populations, and it worries me. It is a slippery slope, once you start getting treated, the tendency is to want more and more. I know I am in the minority among my peers in this, but I worry about contributing to insecurities or doing anything to make young women feel like they aren’t enough as is. I believe the industry has a responsibility to find the delicate balance between encouraging women to invest in their well-being and natural beauty, without preying on insecurities.

3 — A very real concern is the plethora of unlicensed, unqualified providers getting access to medical treatments and claiming to be “experts” without the credentials. The FDA and medical associations are doing what they can to educate consumers about the importance of choosing board-certified, legitimate professionals, but it continues to be an issue.

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Make your own well-being a priority. It is easy to feel guilty about spending time or money on yourself, but if it’s toward something that preserves your health or state of mind, everyone around you benefits.
2. Embrace getting older! I call it “positive aging.” It shouldn’t be something negative and you can’t avoid it, so might as well embrace it. Feel great about the experiences and maturity you have gained while maintaining your sense of self.
3. Be you and love your own unique features and attributes! It’s tempting in this social media world to try to compete or to look like someone else, and it’s a major pitfall in the medical aesthetics world. It would be very sad to live in a world where everyone looked exactly the same — the same cheeks, lips, bodies. The beauty of medical aesthetics today and the direction we are going with Silhouette InstaLift, is that you can very naturally enhance or maintain your own unique look.
4. Exercise is absolutely key, and doesn’t have to cost a thing, just move. When you exercise you are releasing endorphins, you get that healthy glow, you increase blood flow and of course burn some fat and tone up those muscles all at the same time.
5. Take sleep seriously! It isn’t nice to have, it’s a must. Sleep regenerates body, mind, and soul, and is fundamental to keeping skin, not to mention attitude, refreshed.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I’d like to see a movement to put phones away when spending time with people we care about. It’s so disturbing to see families and friends out to dinner together but all looking at their phones instead of interacting, and I’m guilty as well! I know some people who have instituted strict “no phones” rules for meals and I love it.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The best way to predict your future is to create it,” Abraham Lincoln. This approach to life has been integral to my success. So many people spend months, even years, complaining about a job, a relationship, or what they wish they could do. My motto is to go for it! Life is too short to wait, and there is nothing worse than a life of regret for what we didn’t pursue.

How can our readers follow you online?

Twitter: @Amber_4STEAM

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberedwards

The Future Of Beauty, With Sinclair Pharma President Amber Edwards was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible and I did it anyway” With Ana Flores of #WeAllGrow Latina Network

…I quickly understood that I had to be my own biggest advocate and stubbornly believe in my vision. I had to find and create my own community of other women and Latinas that were also invested in their vision. We would become each other’s cheerleaders and mentors as we would uncover the path and together pave the road to a new industry that would eventually garner respect and value.

As a part of our series about “dreamers who ignored the naysayers and did what others said was impossible”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ana Flores.

Ana Flores is the founder and CEO of #WeAllGrow Latina Network, the first and largest network of Latina digital influencers with a mission to elevate the voices and stories of Latinas through the power of community. The company’s annual #WeAllGrow Summit was named by Forbes.com as one of “19 Conferences Every Creative Should Attend in 2018” and again on the 2019 list.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit better. Can you tell us your ‘backstory’?

I’ve always lived my life navigating between two cultures, two languages and crossing borders. I was born in Houston, TX to parents from El Salvador. They were young and living in the U.S. for my dad’s job. Thanks to their divorce, my mom moved back to El Salvador with my sister and me.

I called this tiny yet beautiful country my home until I was 18th. During that time, I would spend summers and some holidays with my dad and his new blended family in Houston. The contrasts I would experience between both cultures and having to fully assimilate to both, and yet to none, are really what helped shape my outlook in life, as well as my resiliency and adaptability.

As soon as I graduated high school from the American School in El Salvador, I left the many comforts of the privileged life I had, even in the midst of a horrible civil war, to go to college in Florida and learn to take care of myself.

I studied TV Production and landed my dream job at Univision Network in Miami as soon as I graduated. It was the late 90’s and the Hispanic media and music industry in the U.S. was in its infancy, which meant opportunities abounded for those of us who knew that this was the place to be if you wanted to be part of the eventual boom. My media career took me to Mexico City where I worked at MTV Latin America as part of the first in-house production team and eventually to L.A. to be part of the team that relaunched mun2 (now NBC Universo), a channel for Latino youth.

My then-husband and I had only been in L.A. for two years when we had our daughter. I quit my job at mun2 to attempt to be a stay-at-home mom, but faith had it that the recession would hit us just a few months after I received my last check. My husband lost all his clients and we were faced with a horrible economic crisis with a baby at home and no family in L.A. to rely on for any type of support.

As hard as it was, I recognized that I had to keep creating and building. It was then that I was fully introduced into the world of mom bloggers that was booming in 2008. Not only did I find the parenting resources I needed, but also an online community that became my support system.

However, as much as I searched for blogs by Latina moms and resources for parents raising bilingual kids like I was, I couldn’t find them. That’s when I recognized that I could fill that void. I had always been a content creator and digital was a new medium that was completely accessible, and I could do it on my own and during nap times. So, I called my best friend from college who now had a few regional Emmys and journalism awards under her belt but had also quit working after becoming a mom and got her excited about launching a blog. We partnered to launch SpanglishBaby, the first blog with stories, expert resources, and community for parents raising bilingual and bicultural kids.

That blog, which we started during our worst financial times but with a very clear vision, led us to the most incredible brand partnerships, opportunities, awards, and even a book, Bilingual is Better, that was featured on the TODAY Show.

Almost two years after launching SpanglishBaby, I founded what is now #WeAllGrow Latina Network in 2010 as Latina Bloggers Connect. It was the very first network connecting Latina bloggers with brands years before influencer marketing became recognized as an industry. At the core, my intention was to foster a community of fellow Latina bloggers where we could first and foremost find each other since the blogging/digital creator industry was so new. We needed a way to connect to teach each other what we were individually learning about things like SEO, HTML, design, pitching to brands, contributing with media platforms, growing audiences, plugins, Twitter best practices, etc. Back then there were only a handful of communities for digital creators and none addressing the needs of Latinas directly. We were blogging in culture, some in Spanish and others in both English and Spanish. In order to keep serving the audiences we had nurtured, we needed to monetize our content. In order to monetize, we needed direct access to brands looking to reach Hispanic audiences and we had to do it in the most professional way.

All of this led to our motto of “When one grows, we all grow.” I knew this was a new frontier for us with limitless potential for growth. But since there was no one ahead of us treading the path, we had to do it and continuously pass along the learnings, resources and connections.

Five years later, I decided it was time to host our first conference in Los Angeles and thus #WeAllGrow Summit was born. I had made most of my brand and peer connections by attending and speaking at conferences like BlogHer, Mom 2.0, Alt Summit and others. Though I was always accepted and respected, I was usually the token Latina and one of a handful there. It definitely served to my advantage because as the token Latina I was receiving many brand and media opportunities. I utilized those connections to open up space where they could find hundreds of Latina influencers to partner with. The influencers already trusted us because for many we had been the first network to offer them paid opportunities and real online connections. Brands like Neutrogena, Dove, Disney, and YouTube also trusted us because we had been working on campaigns together for the last 5 years.

#WeAllGrow has now matured into a social impact company fueling the most relevant community of Latina influencers, entrepreneurs and creatives with a mission to elevate the voices and stories of Latinas via the power of community.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Absolutely! We’ve recognized that the one cause where we can truly make an impact with our community is pay equity, specifically Latina Equal Pay. Last year we partnered with The Riveter to co-host a series of events at their L.A., Austin, and Dallas locations on Latina Equal Pay Day. We invited powerful Latinas to share their experiences, tips, and resources to advance pay equity and all events were sold out. We were surprised to learn that most of the attendees were not aware of just how large the pay gap is and that Latinas are the most affected by it.

They were all ignited and ready to arm themselves with knowledge and skills to advocate and negotiate for themselves and their colleagues for the wages they deserve.

We also learned that most were not aware that there are bills sitting at the legislative level that can impact the wage gap, such as the Paycheck Fairness Act.

So, for 2020, we’re going bigger and taking on equal pay for Latinas as our main advocacy project. We’re creating more events and content throughout the year to inform and empower Latinas with the negotiation tips and to understand their own value. We will create a cohort that will commit to putting the knowledge to use and report back on their progress. Our goal is to be able to showcase stories of success so we can make real progress towards equal pay one Latina at a time.

In your opinion, what do you think makes your company or organization stand out from the crowd?

Our largest project every year is #WeAllGrow Summit and this year we’re doubling the number of attendees because for the past few years we would sell out within hours. The message was clear that Latinas are craving spaces where they feel seen, heard and valued and #WeAllGrow Summit is just that meeting place. As much as a risk that it is for us as a self-funded company to more than double our capacity, we’re going for it because we know our community is asking for it.

Ok, thank you for that. I’d like to jump to the main focus of this interview. Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us? What was your idea? What was the reaction of the naysayers? And how did you overcome that?

I feel that even more difficult than having someone tell you your idea or business is impossible is launching something that almost no one around you understands or sees any sort of value in. When I launched SpanglishBaby and Latina Bloggers Connect/#WeAllGrow Latina, I knew it in my gut and my whole body that I was onto something with so much potential that the possibilities for growth were unlimited and really depended on my own sense of value. Yet, blogging was still so new and being labeled as a “mom blogger” in many ways diminished our worth. In 2010 the influencer marketing industry didn’t really exist yet and saying that I was building a business connecting Latina bloggers with brands seemed so foreign and unimportant to most.

When I first received the inspiration for SpanglishBaby, I called two male friends and previous colleagues who were the only ones I knew who were creating content online for their corporate jobs. Both were in important decision-making positions and were struggling to get the budgets and appreciation to grow the online divisions of the media companies they worked with. I needed guidance and I knew they would be the only ones who would understand me. Armed with a recent, and likely the first, New York Times article about the explosion of mom blogs centered around the 2008 BlogHer conference, I called each one individually. I felt completely deflated after the calls. They didn’t outright tell me my idea and vision were impossible, they just didn’t get it and, maybe worse, they saw it as something nice for me to practically pass my time as a new mom but that I wouldn’t be able to monetize and scale.

I proved them wrong within two years.

In the end, how we’re all the naysayers proven wrong? 🙂

I quickly understood that I had to be my own biggest advocate and stubbornly believe in my vision. I had to find and create my own community of other women and Latinas that were also invested in their vision. We would become each other’s cheerleaders and mentors as we would uncover the path and together pave the road to a new industry that would eventually garner respect and value.

Within less than 5 years and with absolutely no investment funds, I had scaled the company to over one million in revenue and doubled it the next year. This is even a bigger deal when you know that only 1% of Latina-owned companies ever hit the 1-million-dollar revenue mark. And I did it.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

That would have to be Jennifer James, founder of the Mom Bloggers Club and Mom Bloggers for Social Good. She was one of the first mom bloggers I found and followed obsessively. And by “follow” in those years, I meant reading everything she posted on her blogs and connecting via Twitter. I could tell she had the same vision of creating content to build and unite a community and she was doing it successfully. She was also one of the first ones to offer bloggers paid campaigns with brands and other opportunities.

One day I received an email from the founder of Blogalicious, the first conference for women bloggers of color. Stacey Ferguson, now my good friend, reached out to invite me to be a speaker at the conference’s second annual event and I was being placed on a panel with Jennifer James. I could barely believe it and felt completely unworthy because I had barely made my first few hundred dollars with SpanglishBaby.

That invitation armed me with the guts to reach out to Jennifer James, now as a co-panelist, to ask her for a meetup at the upcoming BlogHer conference in NYC. She was a rockstar there but made the time to sit with me for lunch in between all the huge brand events I wasn’t invited to yet.

The most important thing that happened during that lunch was Jennifer looking at me straight in the eye and asking me who was going to do for Latina bloggers what she had done for African American and mom bloggers at large. And then followed up by saying that someone had to be me.

I already had the vision for Latina Bloggers Connect and that conversation with her solidified it and put me into action. I had an advocate. I had someone who believed in me that had already blazed the trail and was willing to share her knowledge with me.

Within two months I launched Latina Bloggers Connect. That same month, I was on the cover of Hispanic Business as “The New Face of Social Media.”

It must not have been easy to ignore all the naysayers. Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share the story with us?

I truly believe that the fact that I had to grow up navigating two cultures, two languages, two families across different borders in completely different realities built a lifelong resiliency in me because I was always having to adapt, and I knew nothing is permanent.

Based on your experience, can you share 5 strategies that people can use to harness the sense of tenacity and do what naysayers think is impossible? (Please share a story or an example for each)

1. Believe in your vision way before you have any evidence of success.
2. Develop your own sense of value and be unapologetic about it.
3. Be your own biggest advocate.
4. Embrace failure as an opportunity.
5. Share what you learn and open doors for others along the way.

What is your favorite quote or personal philosophy that relates to the concept of resilience?

It’s actually a very common quote but one that I always keep top of mind and soothes me every time the path gets rough: “The darkest hour is just before dawn.”

No matter how tough it might get and how dark things might seem, I’ve learned to just hold on because it’s part of a natural cycle and if I just let the moment flow through me in full presence and acceptance, I can become an observer and learn from it to be ready for the moment of dawn with a new perspective and elevated consciousness.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I stand strong in our current mission of elevating the voices and stories of Latinas and creating a more equitable playing field for us because there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Imagine what could happen if we had opportunities in proportion to the impact we have on this country’s economy and culture?

Imagine what could happen if we all rise as one?

I want to see more spaces where all women of color feel seen and understood.

If you have access to the purse strings, fund those communities and leaders. If you have access to a stage or boardroom, invite us in.

If you can use your voice and influence to amplify our stories, do it. If you’re unsure how but know it’s the right thing to do, talk to us.

Latinas are at the forefront of shaping culture and driving the country’s economy.

Creating more visibility and an equitable playing field for Latinas must be a business priority for all. It’s also a social justice imperative.

Can our readers follow you on social media?

Please do!

My personal accounts are all on @laflowers and #WeAllGrow is @weallgrowlatina.

I also invite all to join our online community at amigas.weallgrowlatina.com.

Thank you for these great stories. We wish you only continued success!

Thanks for the opportunity!

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible and I did it anyway” With Ana Flores of #WeAllGrow Latina was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible and I did it anyway” With Joshua Weiner & Philip Brossy of Oh, Shoot

Respect your physical and mental health. Never burn the candle at both ends. Eat right, work out and sleep well. Make time for yourself and your personal passions. I love to make art and the creative thought process plays a big part in my day to day as an entrepreneur.

As a part of our series about “dreamers who ignored the naysayers and did what others said was impossible”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joshua Weiner & Philip Brossy.

Josh Weiner is from an entrepreneur from Chicago. From a young age he loved taking things apart and putting them back together. As he got older, he dived into the world of technology and eventually learned to develop software professionally. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball and doing art projects. Josh is currently an undergraduate student at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business.

Philip Brossy grew up in southern Connecticut and went to a boarding high school called Episcopal in DC. He grew up being an avid hiker and explores as much as possible. Philip has a textbook reselling business in high school where he would sell hundreds of textbooks a semester. Philip can be caught playing chess, tearing up the dance floor, sailing, and exploring as much as possible. Philip is currently an undergraduate student at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit better. Can you tell us your ‘backstory’?

We were freshmen roommates at Tulane University. Oh, Shoot was founded out of our dorm room at the end of our freshman year just fixing phones in our spare time for their friends. We are both born entrepreneurial and often spent nights exchanging side hustle ideas. Philip was actually the one who thought of making an iPhone repair company for the college campus and Josh designed rinky dinky website and a logo. We quickly realized that there was a strong demand for high-quality repairs where the repairman came right to you on campus. At the start of our sophomore year, now a “come to you” iPhone repair company hired 10+ college students to fix phones on 8 college campuses.

Philip has been hustling his entire life, whether it be investing in stocks or buying and reselling textbooks giving him a “he just will get anything done” attitude. Contrastingly, Josh grew up designing websites for small businesses, later he attended a coding bootcamp and become a certified software developer after his sophomore year at Tulane. Coupling both young entrepreneurs’ skills, they spent night’s meeting with each other around the clock to expand Oh Shoot. In the beginning of their junior year, Oh Shoot released Tutoring and Cleaning services to Oh Shoot’s offerings employing over 55+ part time jobs for solely college students. Oh Shoot is soon to become the one stop shop for college students to book high quality services that come to you right on campus and employ thousands of part time college students in the process that can work in their free time.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Oh Shoot’s engineering team is developing an extremely robust back end with an emphasis on data analysis to allow Oh Shoot to become a more automated and efficient business. Moreover, our booking and scheduling will soon offer more services and be even easier to use. Oh Shoot is excited to keep on expanding to additional colleges in the upcoming semesters. Also, the Oh Shoot App will be released to the App store.

In your opinion, what do you think makes your company or organization stand out from the crowd?

At the core of this business, Oh Shoot provides high-quality services for college students, yet allows college students to work in their free time earning above-average wages. There is a growing student debt crisis and with Oh Shoot, part-time workers can make as much as $40 an hour right on campus to pay off student debt or have spending money. Now, Oh Shoot has multiple student contractors earning over $1,000 a month working with Oh Shoot’s platform.

Ok, thank you for that. I’d like to jump to the main focus of this interview. Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us? What was your idea? What was the reaction of the naysayers? And how did you overcome that?

To build a business from scratch you have to an intense amount of self-belief. We have a lot of people who provide helpful, constructive criticism. We listen and centralize all of that — but if your saying no for the sake of saying no, we don’t pay attention.

Our own company advisers pushed heavily against our pivot we had this semester to add additional services. Our iPhone repair business was going well…yet we saw an opportunity to make a major pivot to add tutoring and cleaning services and mold Oh Shoot into a platform to have many services for college students. In response to the push-back from our advisors, we put our heads down and worked hard days… 12–14 hours every day for about 3 months to finally launch Oh Shoot’s platform this semester.

In the end, how were all the naysayers proven wrong? 🙂

In the end, there will always be naysayers, people who don’t believe in your idea or people who are not supportive. Josh and I are here to keep on working and building Oh Shoot brick by brick for all the college students around us.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

We are grateful to everyone that has helped us. From our best friends understanding when we must make sacrifices in our social lives for the business to Tulane Business school professors providing us interesting perspectives on a difficult question. A few people really stand out, John Clarke, associate dean of the Freeman Graduate Business School, who is always available to take a call and help us out. Lydia and Marco, the founders of Rent Check, have offered great advice and shown us their expertise.

It must not have been easy to ignore all the naysayers. Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share the story with us?

We come from hard-working families. My parents worked their way through school, working multiple jobs and both earned an advanced degree. Being hardworking in the Shawver / Weiner household is the expectation. I am also dyslexic, growing up school was always a challenge — I think those early days of struggling with learning disabilities helped cement my work ethic. It taught me to learn from failure. — Josh

When I was in 4th grade, my dad kicked me out of the house at the end of a snowstorm and handed me a shovel. He told me to go up and down the street asking people to shovel their walks for money. This taught me resilience from a young age. As a sophomore in high school, I ran a trail running marathon to raise money for Autism and a month later hiked 34 miles in a day in the mountains in Alaska in hypothermic conditions. I love resilience. — Philip

Based on your experience, can you share 5 strategies that people can use to harness the sense of tenacity and do what naysayers think is impossible? (Please share a story or an example for each)

Josh’s 5 strategies

• Always believe in yourself, believe that you can do whatever it is you want to do. When you are building your business, you will be constantly entering the unknown, self-belief will help you dive in headfirst.
• Welcome failure with open arms. Loving failure will help you take risks that others won’t. I learn the most from failure and being the competitive person, it motivates me to keep learning.
• Be autodidactic. You must always be learning; having a wealth of knowledge will help you beat the competition. Whether it directly relates to your business or not. You never know when a snippet of information may prove itself useful.
• Respect your physical and mental health. Never burn the candle at both ends. Eat right, work out and sleep well. Make time for yourself and your personal passions. I love to make art and the creative thought process plays a big part in my day to day as an entrepreneur.
• Understand your weaknesses. For example, time management is something that does not come naturally, I use a calendar and a slew of productivity apps to help maximize my output.

Philip’s 5 Strategies

• No one owes you anything. If you want something, work the hardest to take it.
• Do every activity at 110%. If not, why waste the energy? When I am in my first or last reps at the gym, I will always think to myself that this needs to get 110% effort if I want to get my body where I want it.
• Drink 2 cups of 12oz water when you wake up. You are dehydrated after you sleep. This gets you going everyday like coffee.
• Make your bed after you wake up. This completes a task giving you a sense of satisfaction right after you wake up. I do this every day.
• Hard work beats talent when talent refuses to work. I am not the smartest, but I will outwork you. A hard-working mindset is what I like having.

What is your favorite quote or personal philosophy that relates to the concept of resilience?

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — Robert F. Kennedy

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal it is the courage to continue that counts” — Winston Churchill

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

The class disparity in the United States is very concerning. I think we must educate our most privileged country mates of the reality of poverty in order to make way for equal standards of living. How else do we expect to help our most disenfranchised Americans if our most fortunate are completely unaware of the difficult conditions many Americans go through every day

Can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram: @ohshoot.io

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohshootio/

Personal Instagram: @philipbrossy

Personal Instagram: @jshver

Thank you for these great stories. We wish you only continued success!

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible and I did it anyway” With Joshua Weiner & Philip Brossy… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future of Beauty: “How to close the wealth disparity in skincare results” With Dr. Farhan Taghizadeh

The main drawback to the technology is related more to the societal impact of skincare, which the Huffington Post and others have covered. The technology is so effective now for improving skin that it really creates a world where the class divide is visible inside the cost and availability of these procedures. The same disparity in wealth is now seen in the skincare industry and results, and many of our current projects like the AVRA initiative is to create a process where everyone can have great skin in the future.

As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Farhan Taghizadeh, M.D.

Dr. Farhan Taghizadeh, M.D. is the owner of Arizona Facial Plastics, a leading plastic surgery practice and innovative med spa in Phoenix. Dr. Taghizadeh has more than 15 years of experience working in aesthetic medicine and is a highly experienced surgeon specializing in facial plastic surgery. In addition, Dr. Taghizadeh is the innovator behind many aesthetic products and treatments used internationally. Over the years, he has created numerous other non-invasive procedures to help patients achieve the best results thanks to technology. Dr. Taghizadeh and his team are always at the forefront with technology at Arizona Facial Plastics.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve always been very interested in technology, especially lasers, and the impact it has on facial plastics. About twenty years ago, I began to see the trend of people wanting less invasive opportunities for facial aesthetic improvement and my career really focused on working to finding ways to integrate technology into our surgical repertoire of procedures.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In the Fall of 2008, I was in a Facial Plastics Meeting and the meeting took place as the stock market collapsed. In fact, two of the three days we were at this meeting were two of the largest drops on the Dow in history. Physicians were on their new phones, some weeping as the news came in. I had written a business plan to integrate a new laser into facial cosmetic practices and I thought my idea was lost. While I sat in the meeting, a contact of mine who had read the business plan pulled me to a bagel shop next door to the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago to get away from the sadness of the meeting and told me he thought the plan would work. We implemented what at the time was the second-largest laser integration in a vertical practice spanning over 90 clinics, saving that company from being impacted by the recession that hit the following year. To this day I think of lasers every time I eat a bagel.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

The tipping point really came around 2012 when it became clear that non-surgical aesthetic revenue would eventually exceed surgical revenue. This happened in 2019. The lessons from the change are that patients, as consumers, always look for achieving the most with the least pain and discomfort. We recognized this years before but to see the curves cross was very fulfilling.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Gordon Quick was the CEO who pulled me into that bagel store and changed my life forever. In the middle of a horrific recession, he took a risk on me, and to this day it has been the single most impactful moment of my career.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?

I am working on two main technologies currently. One is our AVRA project at UCF to create robotic aesthetic devices using cutting edge technology. The goal of this technology is to reduce the cost and increase the availability of procedures for the masses. The second project is the use of new laser frequencies and lenses to improve the quality of treatments while reducing the risks.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

The main drawback to the technology is related more to the societal impact of skincare, which the Huffington Post and others have covered. The technology is so effective now for improving skin that it really creates a world where the class divide is visible inside the cost and availability of these procedures. The same disparity in wealth is now seen in the skincare industry and results, and many of our current projects like the AVRA initiative is to create a process where everyone can have great skin in the future.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?

1. Its growth worldwide.
2. The improvement in technology and the reduced risk of devices.
3. Robotics preparing for the mass availability of these procedures.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

1. Regulatory. I feel there are ways that we can improve the regulatory processes that relate to the aesthetics industry, especially as it relates to Bioceuticals. I feel there should be more categories and processes for these devices.
2. Globalization: I feel that while this has provided more technologies at a lesser cost to more clinics and patients, the process of distribution of these devices has remained challenged, with large companies taking advantage of independent representatives. More can be done industrywide to protect small business owners who have the potential to reach more physicians and clinics and ultimately make devices affordable to more markets.
3. Incubators: There need to be more federal regulations around incubators that purport to support the aesthetics industry but end up cheating physicians and entrepreneurs in this space. This industry can be a great job creator, but there have been many instances of economic development dollars being offered but not properly delivered to our industry, and this needs to change.

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Take care of your skin. How you live globally impacts the skin, and better you take care of your body, the better your skin will look. A good story here is how not wearing sunscreen can quickly age the skin.
2. Get your skin analyzed. The technology exists today using polarized light to have the skin analyzed to show the current condition and help you understand what treatments are best. A good story is to show images off the VISIA.
3. Don’t be fooled by expensive skincare products. Sometimes the simplest products will yield the best results. Share the story of Romans using basic mud and polyfulmates to improve the skin.
4. Has skincare performed prior to having photos taken? Skincare devices can really help create a good shine to the skin, reducing your need for photoshop. Good skin always looks better on film or camera. Good story here is how much 4K TV mandates good skin as every complexion issue will be seen.
5. Have people around you who support your skin looking great. Inside every social network is the need for supporting your choices. Story: the hidden benefit of Botox parties, where skincare is done socially.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I am a big proponent for supporting everyone getting good skincare. It is very important for health AND it is a great way to keep people’s emotions and sense of confidence up.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters — 204 if you are in Japan”

In the end, you must keep trying no matter what.

How can our readers follow you online?

www.arizonafacialplastics.com and on social media.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future of Beauty: “How to close the wealth disparity in skincare results” With Dr. was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Of Beauty: “AI Can Help You Choose Your Correct Color Shade” With Kerry Yates of Colour Collective

“Being a strong woman does not mean that you need to act like a man it just means you need to act like a better woman”. I was very lucky to have three generations of strong, independent women in my life starting with my great-grandmother, grandmother, and my mother. They all taught me to embrace your family, build a true network of friends, be kind instead of cruel, pursue every educational opportunity, bring another woman up as you succeed and never step on anyone to get ahead.

As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kerry Yates.

Kerry is an accomplished inventor of brands, creator of concepts and a recognized expert of beauty in every form. Her love of beauty started at F.I.T., where she graduated with a B.S. in Cosmetic, Fragrance and Toiletries Marketing. She was featured in WWD at the age of 22 as a beauty leader to watch and held various leadership roles. Yates has created many of the recognizable brands found at Revlon, LVMH, L’Oreal and Unilever. Passionate about the beauty industry, Yates has over +20 years of beauty experience with 15 years focused on marketing and developing brands within the hair category. Uniquely experienced, she created, Colour Collective, a company with a tailored, seamless approach to the design, develop and delivery process at the heart of bringing a product to market. Colour Collective’s mission is simple, bring to life beauty brands that disrupt the market.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Originally, I set out to become a fashion designer. While attending FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) in NYC, I worked part-time at the Clinique counter to help pay for college. I fell in love with the world of beauty. Key reason, beauty products fit every size, budget and person; this category is all-inclusive which is different from fashion. FIT recently started a program dedicated to creating beauty products in 1989. As a result, I decided to change my major and graduated in 1992 and have been working in beauty ever since.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One experience that really sticks out for me happened at the Essence Awards many moons ago. I was working for Revlon assisting with the Colour style brand. As we were sponsoring the event, I was given access to the various award winners which means I got to meet the fierce and fabulous Rosa Parks. I was awestruck, Rose Parks was beautiful, stunning, friendly, welcoming and surprisingly quite small for a woman that in my mind is larger than life. I was honestly so awestruck I could not speak clearly….I basically just stared at her with my mouth hanging open as I was gripping her hand for dear life. Ms. Parks took pity on me and just laughed the whole thing off. Amazing woman and an inspirational figure for me to this day!

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

Starting out I had a tendency to second guess myself especially when it came to speaking out during meetings or in trying to communicate my to a room filled with experienced beauty geniuses. At 24, I thought how lucky I was to just be invited into the meeting and was so sure that anything coming from my mouth would be considered stupid; I literally had no confidence in my abilities. But that changed for me after I was forced to present my budget proposal to Bernard Arnault. The Christian Dior Perfumes’ marketing director left right before the budget presentation and the VP pushed me to proceed in her stead. My nerves were shot but I excelled and after that, I realized I was hired for my own skillset. After that successful meeting, I was given additional responsibilities that led to new projects and opportunities.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There were two amazing women that taught me valuable lessons along the way. The first woman was Caroline Geerlings, VP of Marketing at Christian Dior Perfumes. I want to thank her for instilling the need to keep everything real and for reminding me that it is perfectly okay to not know an answer to a question. More importantly she was the one that put me in front of Mr. Arnault which in turn gave me a big confidence boost. The second woman I must thank is Jerri Baccus Glover, SR VP of Marketing at Revlon. Jerri gave me my start in the industry, allowed me to participate in projects that at the time would have been considered above my “paygrade”. As a result, I gained experience not only in marketing but also was able to participate and eventually lead in product development, sales and education. Jerri ensured my experience was well rounded which allowed me to easily move into leadership roles within the beauty industry.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?

I have been working a lot with AI technology and love the way people can now assess product results especially when it comes to choosing the right hair color. Home hair color users have continually struggled with shade choices and this new technology allows them to flawlessly find the shade based on their starting colour and hair type. This technology even takes it one step further by guiding the user through the application process ensuring the end-users feels fabulous with their results. Our hair defines who we are and how we feel and having a bad hair experience can really impact a person’s confidence and overall feeling of self.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I think some AI technologies can give you a false sense of self, presenting an unrealistic picture of how you could look with their product that is really not achievable. Instead of showing what is truly possible, the different techs show you an idea that the product cannot deliver which leaves the user feeling deflated and upset with the results. However, I do not think we should give up on technology. It is continually changing and improving at a rapid pace and in the future. I can see AI technologies directing product choice and potential product formulation on the spot. I would not be surprised if one day there is a mirror/instant product creator that will assess our current appearance, then based on a chosen look within the program will physically create the needed product to create the look. Taking it even further what if there was a product that contained super nano-sized screens that when applied transmit the desired look onto your face. Crazy as it sounds I think it could be a reality.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?

Effective Beauty Tools: Love the new beauty tools that work in partnership with a product to improve product efficacy. This saves on product waste and ensures the users sees the most out of their product of choice.

Remote Beauty Consultations: Honestly not a big fan of the malls so I love the idea that I can receive real advice remotely as it pertains to shade choices, product formulas etc. The consultants are either real people or AI-generated consultants, but they are available when you need them vs. only being available during store hours. In addition, in some cases they are more knowledgeable then the consultants you might find in store.

Beauty Printer: Have not seen a truly working beauty printer but I know they are in the development. I would love to be able to create a shade on-demand or adjust my skincare product to support what my skin may be experiencing/needing that day. I know the technology is coming and I cannot wait!

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

Factual Claims: It bothers me that we, as beauty inventors get a bit overzealous with our claims. Unreal claims like those related to natural beauty are just not real and as a result make consumer skeptical. As an industry, we need to do a better job of keeping it real.

Unreal Imagery: Snapchat design overlays have become real physical elements to permanently add to your skin. The applications of these permanent elements can be dangerous and there should be a more rigorous understanding of long-term implications as well as a set of rules to keep the user safe.

In the Kitchen Formulators: This is a real thing as selling platforms like ETSY embrace the kitchen beauty expert. Unfortunately, these formulas can contain unsafe levels of allergens or low levels of preservatives to maintain product safety. As an industry we should provide better education to kitchen formulators to ensure what they create is safe for their end-user. I do not want to limit their opportunities but there must be some way we can be sure their users are protected. Poorly formulated beauty products can lead to a serious skin or eye infections.

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Smile: I know it sounds crazy but just the act of smiling immediately brightens your face, lifts your eyes and your jawline. Plus, it just feels good to smile!

Get a Blowout: Talk about an instant confidence boost. I always feel gorgeous after having a proper blowout. Only a professional can deliver smooth super shiny locks that make me just want to swing my hair like a Pantene model!

Have a makeover: I know the makeup counter girls can be daunting but they are skilled makeup artists and sometimes you just need to make a change. Next time you find yourself at the beauty counter, ask to visit with a makeup artist, give them a budget and let them work their magic. I have found many a new way to apply my eyeshadow in addition to embracing a new blush shade that really has livened up my appearance!

Gift yourself a facial: There is nothing better than having a facial as they help to give your skin a bit of a reset. I find periodically my skin will have a few more bumps or sections of my skin are overly dry and I cannot seem to correct either challenge with my home products. An esthetician can help define the challenges, assist in fixing the issues on the spot and prescribe products for the long-term. Facials can be expensive so if you are on a budget try volunteering at one of the beauty schools. I had a friend take me over to the Aveda School which I have to stay was stunning. It was like walking into a very high-end spa and my esthetician was brilliant.

Buy some new lipstick/nail enamel: Sometimes a pop of color is all I need to give myself a little pep in my step. Corny phrase I know but seriously for under $10 I can instantly feel uplifted with a quick beauty treat.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Comment Police: I know there are rules and bots that help control content on the internet. However, it is doing a very poor job of stopping the bullying comments. I really wish there was an element on the various social media platforms that will instantly delete any hateful comment that users will inevitably receive within their page feeds. Online bullying has gotten out of control and I am tired of young people being terrorized by faceless bullies. Enough is enough. If we cannot make comment police a reality then perhaps we can as individuals be sure to offer a compliment to a minimum of one person every day. Letting someone know that you think they are fabulous could really make a difference in that person’s life.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Being a strong woman does not mean that you need to act like a man it just means you need to act like a better woman”. I was very lucky to have three generations of strong, independent women in my life starting with my great-grandmother, grandmother, and my mother. They all taught me to embrace your family, build a true network of friends, be kind instead of cruel, pursue every educational opportunity, bring another woman up as you succeed and never step on anyone to get ahead.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow my company on Facebook or Instagram at colourcollectivebeauty

The Future Of Beauty: “AI Can Help You Choose Your Correct Color Shade” With Kerry Yates of Colour… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have always been impatient with the pace of change, but the world must provide the environment for ideas to be successful. I ultimately overcame the naysayers with a combination of patience and working outside the system to create a startup that would start a new reality.

As a part of our series about “dreamers who ignored the naysayers and did what others said was impossible”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Helene Rutledge.

Helene Rutledge was a career corporate pharmaceutical and health and wellness executive until she suddenly found herself unwilling to take the very products that she was in charge of developing. So, she left, co-founded Upgraid, and flipped the script on synthetic quick fixes. Now she’s behind Upgraid’s line of fully organic, scientifically tested supplements designed to be both safe and effective. Formerly, Rutledge was chief innovation officer, New Avon, in charge of infrastructure, implementation and virtual development. While there, she led a development team that launched the Espira Nutritional Supplement line and achieved a no animal testing claim for the company’s entire NA portfolio. Prior to that, Rutledge was vice-president, R&D, NBTY (Nature’s Bounty Co.), and before then, head of global open innovation, GlaxoSmithKline; and director, global clinical supplies, Pfizer. She holds an EMBA degree from New York University Stern School of Business; and BEchE, Chemical Engineering degree in Chemistry from Manhattan College. Rutledge lives in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and enjoys an active lifestyle, recovering from rotator cuff surgery but itching to get back in the water for triathlon training.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your backstory?

I was a career corporate pharmaceutical and health and wellness executive for companies such as Pfizer GlaxoSmithKline, where I was head of Global Open Innovation, and Avon, where I was chief innovation officer. I am a person who likes to think big and get things done, so my innovation roles had the mixed blessing of giving me access to cutting-edge technologies and ideas that tasked me to compel large organizations to see the need to change for the future. My motivation to change came when I got pregnant and started to worry about exposure to synthetic chemicals. That led me to realize that it’s the chemicals we ingest every day that can be cumulatively more dangerous to our health. I found myself unwilling to take the very products that I was in charge of developing. My passion for change was to disrupt the narrow, profit-focused view of big pharma and create people-centered solutions. So, I left the corporate world to co-found Upgraid, to help people un-pharma themselves with products that are both effective and better for people and the planet.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I co-founded Upgraid with the belief that real wellness doesn’t come from synthetic chemical quick fixes. We are using organic, clinically supported ingredients to create products that provide a better solution for everyday health. Our first product contains highly bioavailable turmeric, ashwagandha, ginger root, and tart cherry to promote a healthy response to daily inflammation in the body. I formulated the product to shorten muscle recovery time and reduce daily stress, aches, and soreness with all organic ingredients when taken daily for about two weeks. We are excited to hear from our customers about the difference Upgraid has made in their lives already. Some have experienced results in less than a week.

In your opinion, what do you think makes your company or organization stand out from the crowd?

At Upgraid, we are using a pharmaceutical mindset and process to develop organic products that work, creating a new category of products. We stand out because our nutritional supplement products will not claim results that aren’t supported by science. We stake our reputations on making products that people can trust to be active and better for their bodies and the planet by taking a preventative, daily health approach to get a little better every day.

Ok, thank you for that. I’d like to jump to the main focus of this interview. Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us? What was your idea? What was the reaction of the naysayers? And how did you overcome that?

During my Executive MBA studies, our visit to China included seeing a traditional Chinese medical facility, and I was fascinated with the differences between eastern and western medical practices. My idea was to use elements of western science to curate effective ingredients and provide holistic health products. However, in every big corporate role I had since that visit, I tried to get support for research in this area but was denied approval every time. The naysayers claimed that, financially, these products would be a niche market at best and never justify the work and money needed to develop them. Technically, many western scientists doubted they worked at all.

I have always been impatient with the pace of change, but the world must provide the environment for ideas to be successful. I ultimately overcame the naysayers with a combination of patience and working outside the system to create a startup that would start a new reality. The need for more natural products has been a steadily growing consumer trend over the past several years. Still, the industry can’t even define what “natural” means, leading to more consumer confusion and frustration. So, now the demand is established, and Upgraid is filling the need with science-backed organic products.

In the end, how were all the naysayers proven wrong?

We’ve just launched and already have a solid subscriber base and partners that are leaders in nutrition such as Sam Kass, Obama’s former chef and advisor, foodie writer Cameron Rogers, and a host of athletes and fitness leaders, such as U.S. wrestling champion Reece Humphrey. Best of all are the testimonials from our customers that our product has made a huge positive impact on their daily lives.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful to who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I would say my children helped me to take this leap. Becoming a mom heightened my instincts for choosing very carefully what I put in my body and theirs and started the journey that led to Upgraid. Having children also puts a focus on making a better world for their futures, and I wanted my legacy to be that I created positive change. When I met my co-founder, Justin Kamine, we aligned on wanting to do good things with good people, and what better idea could I wish for my children. Both challenge me every day, and I am grateful for seeing the world through their eyes.

It must not have been easy to ignore all the naysayers. Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share the story with us?

My Dad was a New York City police sergeant who always challenged me to work hard, do the right thing, and to improve and do good things for others. However, growing up in the Bronx, I also learned that the world isn’t fair and that you must learn to adapt and find the gray areas to get ahead. My parents taught me a valuable lesson that it is essential to stand up to bullies. As a kid, we sat on benches during lunch, and I was assigned to the end seat and would getting pushed off and laughed at when I would fall on the floor. Bronx code would not let you tell the teacher, so I suffered over this until my mom noticed some bruises. My father sat me down and asked why I didn’t think I had a right to sit at the table with everyone else. When I explained how the kids pushed me, he told me to hang on tight to my seat. From that day forward, I kept my seat and my ability to stand up to bad behavior.

Based on your experience, can you share five strategies that people can use to harness the sense of tenacity and do what naysayers think is impossible? (Please share a story or an example for each)

1. Embrace experiences that push you to uncomfortable limits.

I believe that people have more potential than they ever explore. One strategy I have used in my life, in general, is to take on challenges that require every ounce of my effort and that I know I did the best I possibly could. I did my first Olympic-distance triathlon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It was the first time I pushed myself like this athletically, and completing it not only increased my confidence, but it benefited a good cause, and, in this experience, I met three of my best friends that are still in my life to this day. Many times, when I am facing a challenge that seems impossible, I call on that same inner strength that pushed me during the race, and it gives me the resilience to go on.

2. Set big goals, but monitor your daily progress and adapt.

Trying to accomplish a big goal has many psychological hurdles. As the leader of disruptive change, I have found that people who benefit from the status quo look for the opportunity to exploit any reason to undermine progress. A strategy I have used is to set the vision for the general direction but “load the deck” with some quick wins along the way to get positive momentum and support. Regular monitoring allows you to see patterns and adapt. Setting these interim goals also makes the endgame feel more achievable. In business, most big projects are not marathons but a series of sprints with rest in between to regroup and redirect so you don’t go off course. At Upgraid, we believe in making small changes to get a little better every day. We launched our first product in six months, compared to 18–24 months, which is standard in a big company. We believe it is better to get our products in consumers’ hands to start benefitting them sooner and to give us a chance to incorporate their feedback as we continuously improve our product.

3. If you want to go far, go together and so bring others with you, even the negative ones.

Early in my career, when I encountered people who didn’t agree with my views, I found ways to work around them. I didn’t realize I was planting the seeds for those same people to undermine my work in subtle ways later by withholding support or with a negative whisper in the right ear. Luckily, I had the gift of great feedback and learned that my style was hurting me because my desire to go fast was perceived as a lack of respect for their point of view. Moving into the innovation space, I then realized that diverse perspectives yield better solutions every time! It takes time and effort, but understanding why people are rejecting your ideas can make them even stronger. Building successful teams also benefit from diversity; “group think” is the outcome when everyone is too alike, but if you are consciously choosing people with opposite personalities and perspectives leads to richer solutions. Finally, when everyone feels heard, it is less likely that projects will be torpedoed out of nowhere. I score off the charts as an intuitive thinker (N on the Myers-Briggs profile). In past roles, I have purposely found a person with predominantly S thinking to challenge me, even though at times I was pulling out my hair with frustration.

4. Be a lifetime learner since all your education is obsolete almost immediately.

The pace of change in the world has accelerated, and it is no longer possible to rely on formal education to equip you for all you need to do in a lifetime of work. We have all heard about people who spent their entire career with one company or in one job, but it is now commonplace to change jobs every two to three years. I was ahead of this trend because of my focus on change and innovation, and it has served me well to be always learning and challenging my assumptions. One great example is when I first met my Upgraid co-founder, Justin Kamine, he asked me to make a fully organic product that would work to help with daily inflammation. I told him that was impossible — of course, I thought I knew this answer immediately, having just recently been the VP of R&D for Nature’s Bounty Vitamins, but it nagged me that something may have happened since then. I did some research and found that new ingredients have been developed that made it possible, and that’s how we launched Upgraid.

5. Don’t lose your sense of wonder

The worst thing that can happen is to become cynical when you aren’t able to achieve your goals. I used to laugh at the expression that “old age is when a narrow waist and a broad mind change places,” but sadly, I see so many people lose the willingness to believe that things can get better. The ultimate victory of naysayers is when you allow them to make you give up. One strategy to combat this is to remember your sense of wonder. For some people, it is what you loved when you were eight years old. For others, it is nature or something beautiful. Whatever that is, finding time to reconnect with that emotion can rekindle the memory and positivity of striving for an important goal.

What is your favorite quote or personal philosophy that relates to the concept of resilience?

I was not born with roses in my chest to be afraid of thorns. I was born to bloom in spite of them.

-Vinati Bhola

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible, and I did it anyway” with Helene Rutledge of Upgraid was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Be real. Don’t be afraid to show your emotions and struggles. Being a leader doesn’t mean you are always right and won’t make mistakes. When you do, own it! Surround yourself with people who genuinely share your dream. Develop a culture that like-minded people want to be a part of. And, much like being a good parent — take time for yourself to recharge, and you’ll be a better leader. When you’re happy, your team is happy, and that will trickle all the way down to your customers.

As a part of our series about “dreamers who ignored the naysayers and did what others said was impossible”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Debi Lane.

Debi Lane is the Founder and CEO of LunchboxWax, the fastest growing salon fully dedicated to waxing services.

Lane founded LunchboxWax in 2010 after spending five years running TRū, an ultra-chic multi-service day spa in Ketchum, Idaho. Recognizing a need in the personal care industry for a waxing-only service, Lane launched the first LunchboxWax salon in Boise, Idaho in 2010 and began franchising the business in 2013.

It was Lane’s personal life challenges and feeling like an outsider, that drove her to want to start a business that is inclusive, collaborative and empowering. Lane’s unique approach to business and goals to revolutionize the waxing industry through inclusiveness is what continues to help the brand expand and gain recognition as more than just a salon that offers elevated waxing services in under 30 minutes, but one that has a purpose.

With Lane at the helm, LunchboxWax continues to be a purpose-driven company that takes a culture-first approach and gives back to the community in ways such as creating a comfortable environment for its consumers, creating equal career opportunities and empowering young women to have a voice.

Under Lane’s direction, LunchboxWax, an already LGBTQ+ friendly business, expanded its efforts to become trans-embracing last year by eliminating male and female gender checkboxes.

LunchboxWax has since expanded to 45 locations throughout Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, and Utah. Lane remains active in the business as the Chief Executive Officer at LunchboxWax, overseeing the vetting process of more than 344 waxologists across the nation and continues to steer the development of LunchboxWax’s line of waxing products. LunchboxWax’s growing product line is sold through its salons throughout the U.S.

Lane is also an active member of the Female Founder Collective (FFC) — a network of businesses led by women, supporting women — co-founded by designer Rebecca Minkoff.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit better. Can you tell us your ‘backstory’?

In 2011, we opened the first LunchboxWax salon in Downtown Boise, followed by another in a nearby community. When word of mouth spread, I knew we were onto something special. In 2012, we wanted to scale the business but lacked the capital, so we began franchising. We worked on the franchise system for about a year and a half, and in 2013, we sold our first franchise. We have continued to add franchisees each year, and we now have 45 LunchboxWax salons across the country.

In your opinion, what do you think makes your company or organization stand out from the crowd?

The programs that we are building for our waxologists at LunchboxWax are unique to us, and something that makes our company stand out from the crowd. Building a learning-based business which allows our waxologists a path to become financially independent, but also teach them how to be successful in business and empowered and proud, regardless of where they came from or the challenges they may have had to overcome — this is my greatest success.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We are so excited for the upcoming launch of our new eyebrow product line, DEFINE, which will be available in salons nationwide this month. Making the leap from wax-only services to offering beauty products has always been part of our vision. Giving our guests a great set of brows is our signature at LunchboxWax. Now, whether it’s achieving fuller brows or the perfect arch, guests can do just that with our new DEFINE brow collection.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us? What was your idea? What was the reaction of the naysayers? And how did you overcome that?

I can’t recall anyone telling me I couldn’t do it, but even if they had, I still would have proven them wrong. Focusing on the noise would have been a distraction to my vision, which was to build a heart-driven business that specializes in the art of waxing. During a meditation retreat in 2012, the idea to franchise came to me — I still don’t know where the first thought came from, and I don’t question it. When I got out of the retreat, I immediately started researching. I was lit up — everything inside me said this was the right path. LunchboxWax was going to become a franchise. Some of my greatest ideas have come from silence.

In the end, how were all the naysayers proven wrong?

I choose not to listen to naysayers. My mission has always been very clear, that my business is not just a waxing business — it is so much more. After my experience at the meditation retreat, I started to believe that I could use my life experiences to help others. My meditation practice has sparked ideas like implementing a mindfulness module in our learning management system (LMS) at LunchboxWax. Giving the gift of mindfulness to all in our organization is something I am very passionate about.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My daughter Lily. She has taught me more about what is current and going on in the world around than I could ever imagine. This has helped me to understand every aspect of my business. This obviously evolves, but it has helped me gain respect and valuable insights. She has been my partner in crime through it all, and I am grateful for her love, support and the bond that we share.

It must not have been easy to ignore all the naysayers. Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resilience? Can you share the story with us?

My resilience comes from my past, not from naysayers. Growing up, I left home right around 15 years old, and quit school around this time. Although I got my GED eventually, I didn’t have any formal education after this time. I had a very challenging childhood and that continued through young-adulthood. In my mid-forties, I decided to make some very big changes in my life. I got sober and started my healing journey. This is exactly the same time I started to build LunchboxWax. I know this was put in front of me not only as a pathway for my own personal healing but as a way to give back.

Based on your experience, can you share 5 strategies that people can use to harness the sense of tenacity and do what naysayers think is impossible? (Please share a story or an example for each)

1. Do your healing. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t leaned into the difficult chapters of my early life and made peace with my past. Meditation was a gift from the universe in my life, and since I’ve been sober, the world continues to shower me with opportunities and a lot of joy.
2. Give back. My purpose in life is to give back to everyone who works for LunchboxWax, especially our waxologists. I want to empower them with the economic tools they need to feel confident and lead successful lives where they can control their future and fulfill their potential.
3. Know your worth. Despite my early struggles and many difficult chapters in my life, I never doubted that I would do something great. Growing up, I barely knew what a five-star hotel was, but I knew I wanted to stay in them, as often as possible. So, at age 19, I started my first business, a travel agency, in part because I knew travel agents got free trips in really nice places. When you come from my background and have no real education or practical work experience you have to create your own opportunity. And that’s what I’ve done and continued to do in business.
4. Don’t be a chameleon. Most of my life can be defined by whatever relationship I was in at the time. I was an expert at changing myself to fit into whatever the guy I was with wanted me to be. It was exhausting and fueled my destructive behavior for many years. There were some great men along the way, but who I was got lost. Once I realized who I was inside and embraced that, my success in business only grew.
5. Learn what you don’t know. You don’t have to be an expert to start a business. I knew nothing about starting a franchise; I just knew I had to do it. When we went through our first capital raise recently, I didn’t know how to build a pitch deck or model our finances. I basically got an MBA on the job in less than a year. I’m smarter for it, and so is our business. What I learned gives me confidence and makes me a stronger leader for LunchboxWax.

What is your favorite quote or personal philosophy that relates to the concept of resilience?

Be real. Don’t be afraid to show your emotions and struggles. Being a leader doesn’t mean you are always right and won’t make mistakes. When you do, own it! Surround yourself with people who genuinely share your dream. Develop a culture that like-minded people want to be a part of. And, much like being a good parent — take time for yourself to recharge, and you’ll be a better leader. When you’re happy, your team is happy, and that will trickle all the way down to your customers.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

If I could inspire a movement, it would be to encourage everyone to travel! I learn something about myself every time I travel — no matter where it is. I really take the time to experience whatever place I go to — even if it is to a place I have been to before. I go out of my way to experience what the locals are doing and eating.

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible and I did it anyway” With Debi Lane of LunchboxWax was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The thing is that the tech industry is pretty flexible and it’s possible to enter it anytime if you are ready to learn and expand your borders. I was ready, and I succeeded. Moreover, my example inspired some of my colleagues to do the same and take a risk of a change. I believe that if you are eager to work hard and learn new things you can succeed in any industry.

As a part of our series about “dreamers who ignored the naysayers and did what others said was impossible”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Victoria Repa.

Victoria Repa is CEO and Co-Founder of BetterMe — an ecosystem of Health&Fitness apps, and one of the top iOS publishers in the world. Victoria used to work in a large FMCG company but switched to tech to pursue her mission of making people happy and healthy. When she was only 24 she co-founded BetterMe and after 3 months she released the first app with a team of three. Within three years her company published 8 apps with over 50 million installs in more than 10 countries. She is a Stanford Executive program and Apple Entrepreneur Camp alumna.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit better. Can you tell us your ‘backstory’?

Thank you for the opportunity to share my story!

My backstory is not very typical. I was raised in a tiny village in the East of Ukraine with no benefits of big city life. There were so few kids in my school that I had only 12 classmates and the lessons lasted 20 minutes. I made my way through self-education and lots of reading: everything that I could reach, from classics to business literature, was read immediately.

Even though there were very few chances to get something better than I had, I took each of them. I had good grades and was proactive in participating in competitions. Due to this, I made my way to the top-notch high school in Ukraine and later I won a grant to get an education in the best Ukrainian business school — Kyiv School of Economics.

Upon graduation, I was hired by a large FMCG company and worked in the logistics department. Things were going well until I decided that optimizing the processes of moving boxes isn’t the limit of my dreams. I decided to switch to the tech industry since it was a more exciting and promising industry to work in. It gave me a feeling of being a part of something bigger and create products that impact people’s lives. After a year in marketing, my co-founder Vitaliy Laptenok and I founded BetterMe. A year later our app hits the TOP of the US AppStore and still keeps the highest positions there.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

In October 2018 I participated at Apple Entrepreneur Camp for women in the app business. The lessons learned there greatly affected BetterMe’s plans and inspired me to implement a bunch of changes and innovations.

We are currently working on implementing AI in our weight loss app. It will help to make our fitness and meal plans much more personalized. This way our users will get an individual suitable weight loss program that will be as good as a personal trainer but also will not cost a fortune. Many of our users turn to fitness apps exactly because they can’t afford a gym membership and a personal trainer. BetterMe’s goal is to make fitness as accessible and as effective as possible.

We are also working on gamification of the app to make an exhausting process of weight loss more entertaining. It will help people with their weight loss journey by making it less tiresome and will motivate them to achieve their goals. By using gamification technique we plan to develop new healthy habits among users smoothly and effectively, and change their overall lifestyle instead of just shake off a couple of pounds.

In your opinion, what do you think makes your company or organization stand out from the crowd?

The problem of the fitness app industry is that many apps are created for the sake of features, not functions. Developers are concerned with launching the fastest, the coolest the most advanced product, forgetting about the user persona they are serving to. Their user has a painful problem that affects her or his everyday life, is lost in the ocean of different apps, looking for guidance and clear instructions and tired of constant limitations and restrictions.

Many people give up weight loss because most fitness apps don’t meet the requirements of average, not advanced, users. Those products are either too complicated, or not explanatory enough, or provide no tips on nutrition, or require a gym membership and special equipment.

We proudly create apps for fitness newbies, not geeks.

While other weight loss programs are designed for highly motivated people who know what they are doing, we create products to help people who need it the most. 56% of our users are fitness newbies and we are happy to introduce them to healthy nutrition and daily activities and make it more affordable than hiring a couch.

We believe that massive problems, like obesity, require mass-market solutions, and BetterMe is that kind of product. Unlike other fitness apps, we stay away from complicated, tricky diets and exhausting exercises. Instead, we care about being effective and understandable.

Ok, thank you for that. I’d like to jump to the main focus of this interview. Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us? What was your idea? What was the reaction of the naysayers? And how did you overcome that?

If I got a dollar for every time someone told me “It’s impossible” I would not seek any investments. When I was thinking about switching from FMCG company to tech, people were saying I was ruining my career. I had no tech background or digital marketing experience but I dared to leave a stable job and dive into something new and unknown.

The thing is that the tech industry is pretty flexible and it’s possible to enter it anytime if you are ready to learn and expand your borders. I was ready, and I succeeded. Moreover, my example inspired some of my colleagues to do the same and take a risk of a change. I believe that if you are eager to work hard and learn new things you can succeed in any industry.

Also, before launching BetterMe’s first weight loss app my co-founder and I were told hundreds of times that it was a bad idea. In 2016 there were 71,895 Health&Fitness apps in the iTunes AppStore only. The market was super competitive and kept growing.

Everybody was sure that we would disappear in the pile of those apps and won’t be able to stand out. But before launching the app I conducted thorough research that showed that there was a demand for Health&Fitness content, weight loss solutions and accurate guidance for people who were new to fitness. I still insisted on launching our product and within a year we reached the top of the most popular weight loss apps in the US AppStore. The naysayers are still confused about how we did that and I leave this puzzle for them to solve.

BetterMe took on the market of the US, South America, and Eastern European countries. When I was planning to expand to Asia — China, Japan, South Korea — I was told again that it was too risky since the market is different and we have no experience there. It’s true that the market is different there but leading a business is the same anywhere: you research the market, you run tests, you develop a tailored strategy and you go for it.

I decided to expand our business since it would be a shame to lose such a scaling opportunity. In 2018, the APAC region generated $50.7 billion in app revenues, over half (58.2%) of the global total. China alone generates the most revenue in the fitness app industry. Over 104 million Chinese mobile users have at least one fitness app on their phones. The other large app markets are South Korea and Japan. Our app reached the top of the most popular Health&Fitness apps in those regions and keeps growing.

I hope there will be a day when people will realize that there is nothing impossible for me and will stop telling me not to do something — I am a “to do”, not “to doubt” kind of person. But being a woman makes it harder since a lot of men in business believe they are smarter and have a right to tell me what to do.

In the end, how were all the naysayers proven wrong? 🙂

Success tends to prove the naysayers wrong. That’s why it’s so hard to take a hit when things don’t go as planned — people tend to point out that “they told you”. But I want to assure dreamers out there: failure is a part of any success story. The important part of proving the naysayers wrong is to try, no matter what. Because by saying “it’s impossible” people usually mean “you can’t do it”. By doing something you’ll prove negative people that you aren’t afraid to do anything and you are eager for actions, leaving the words to them.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I don’t have one or two people to be grateful for my achievements, I have a team of 80 hard-working employees who made it all possible. I appreciate everyone in my team and every day I realize that due to these people I’m moving the company where it belongs — to the top.

There are two men, though, whom I can point out. CEO of Genesis Vladimir Mnogoletnyi, due to whom I switched to tech, got my first job at Genesis and an opportunity to start my own company. He believed in my managing and entrepreneurial skills. Also, my co-founder Vitaliy Laptenok who dived into this adventure with me and who believed that I could be a real leader and CEO of our rocket ship called BetterMe.

It must not have been easy to ignore all the naysayers. Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share the story with us?

My background definitely contributed to my resiliency. Growing up I understood pretty soon that nothing in this life is given to you, you have to fight for every opportunity and your place under the sun. In the tiny village where I am from there were zero opportunities and my starting positions were pretty low. But I knew that if I want a change, I have to make it happen. Every subsequent little achievement in my life — getting into a great high school, winning a grant to study at a business school, winning a corporate award at my first job, starting my own company — gave me a feeling that nothing was impossible. That’s why I’m so skeptical when people try to prove me wrong.

Based on your experience, can you share 5 strategies that people can use to harness the sense of tenacity and do what naysayers think is impossible? (Please share a story or an example for each)

Meditation. To stay confident while being surrounded by a bunch of naysayers, one has to have steady mental health. Meditation helped me to stay calm no matter what, look at things from different angles and not spend my energy on proving anything to anyone but myself. Meditation is a well-known wellness tool for many entrepreneurs: Jack Dorsey, Marc Benioff, Jeff Weiner are just a few entrepreneurs who are publicly known as dedicated meditators. I bet it helps them not only to manage everyday stress but also to build resistance to the negative unproductive comments.

Physical activity. Sports is all about persistence, discipline, self-improvement. It teaches you that nothing comes easy and that persistent efforts always pay off. I tried a bunch of different sports from triathlon to gymnastics. Triathlon taught me to never give up and always strive for more. It’s important to keep yourself motivated when everyone around you tried to discourage you. Flying yoga taught me to stay calm and turn off the rest of the world on demand. This skill helped me to build a personal shield that protects me from naysayers.

Role models. Nothing inspires you more than reading other people’s success stories. For me, it was obvious that anything is possible after I read the stories of Jack Ma, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and other successful people who are an inspiration for many generations of entrepreneurs. So many people proved to the world that dreams come true and that there are no limits to people’s talent that it’s worth to read their stories to remind yourself about it.

Journaling. Your personal journal is an Excel spreadsheet of your thoughts and feelings — the most valuable data imagined. By writing down your opinions and observations throughout the year you, first of all, structure the information in your head and can use it in the future. Second of all, you can come back to a previous self and reflect on how you’ve changed. Usually, it helps you to realize how much you’ve grown. Seeing progress in your own personality is a big boost of confidence that no one can compete with. Every day I write down three things I did great and three things I could be better at, I also make a list of things I appreciate and am grateful for. All this helps me to It helps me to analyze where are my weak spots and whether there is a pattern in my behavior. From there, I manage my actions and decisions more efficiently. Also, this helps me to truly analyze my capabilities and know what I can and can’t do better than anyone else could tell me.

Visualization. Visualizing your final goal sets a desirable outcome for your subconsciousness. It helps you to generate new ideas and accumulate emotional and mental resources to achieve the goal. It’s recommended by all the business gurus and coaches from Tony Robbins who insists on using incantations to J V Crum III who recommends visualizing both short and long term goals.

There are many techniques: vision boards, affirmations, listings. I use them all in different formats. For example, in our office, there are pictures of the AppStore most popular apps on the walls and BetterMe is portrayed in the first place. Being #1 app is a clear, measurable goal for the team and we put all our efforts to achieve it.

What is your favorite quote or personal philosophy that relates to the concept of resilience?

I admire the story of Jack Ma and share a lot of his views. Some of the favorite quotes are:

If you don’t give up, you still have a chance.

If you don’t do it, nothing is possible.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

If I could, I would head the movement of happy people.

Happy people make other people happy. They don’t lead wars, don’t hate others, don’t follow self-destructing instincts. I hope with my work I inspire other people to pursue happiness.

The principle of the movement would be: “Pursue happiness — spread happiness”. If you care only about your own happiness, it’s easy to become selfish. Helping other people to achieve their goals, follow their dreams and become happy is crucial.

The thing is that there is no one recipe to become happy, it’s very individual. So I decided to start with the most universal method: physical and mental health. I think that a right to be healthy is the most basic right of every person that one should grant to oneself.

I try to make small steps by making sure my team feels happy. This is the group of people I can directly influence and take care of. BetterMe even has a special person in charge of that — a happiness manager. This person keeps track of all our employees, makes sure they are satisfied with their working conditions and get proper care from a company.

Can our readers follow you on social media?

Sure! I’m everywhere: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

Thank you for these great stories. We wish you only continued success!

Dreamers: “They told me It was impossible and I did it anyway” With Victoria Repa of BetterMe was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.