Female Founders: Felicity Evans of IMBIBE On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
I wish someone had told me to get a good accountant from Day 1 as it costs a lot more to unwind a bad accounting error than it does to create the right process from the start.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Felicity Evans.
IMBIBE, a global source for wellness, inner and topical beauty was founded by CEO Felicity Evans through an urgent need for a personal lifestyle and wellness shift. After being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that had affected all parts of her inner and outer health — her gut, her skin, her hair, Felicity had reached a point where she didn’t know which way to turn. Following the diagnosis, the determination to radically change her lifestyle, diet and routine was ignited and IMBIBE Living was born. After spending countless hours scouring the web and struggling to find clean, effective and clinically performing products, she decided to make it her mission to create her own range of bio-available, probiotic, antioxidant collagen elixirs, and powders as well a growing topical range that looks to nourish and support all areas of your body for a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I run a Byron Bay based Beauty company called IMBIBE, which was founded very humbly in 2014 at my kitchen table with my two-year-old at my heels, and my second daughter strapped to my chest. I was at the breaking point in my journey to wellness after being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that affected nearly every part of my life. I knew I needed to find a way to bridge the gap between my depleted health and the vitality I knew I needed to keep up with the demands of being a mum. I searched far and wide to source clean, effective products that would help me on my journey, but everything I found was packed with fillers and excipients which didn’t have the science and high-performance product profile I was looking for. So, I decided to make my own.
There was no clean path, in fact everything about my career path to date has been non-linear. I have followed my obsessions and gut instincts and let the rest unfold.
Since IMBIBE’s inception, we have been fuelling the clean beauty industry with high quality formulations, clinical results and delivering our customers the natural luminosity they deserve, from the inside out. Driven by efficacy, naturally-sourced ingredients, clean design, science-backed formulations and sustainable choices, the company has now grown into the supplements, skincare and sexual wellness powerhouse it is today. We pair sustainable business practices with science-backed product formulations.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
There are so many experiences and pathways that I never imagined myself to be in, that lead to the launch of IMBIBE. However, I would say my autoimmune diagnosis, as terrifying and daunting as it was, was the lifestyle change and ignition moment for me that led to creating the company. I had to change my lifestyle, my habits, my routine — everything. Without this, IMBIBE would have never been born. I guess this was a pure indication that everything in life truly does happen for a reason!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The funniest mistake I made when I was starting out — well it wasn’t that funny at the time, but in hindsight it is — I started out fermenting drinks in my kitchen to make probiotic drinks, which have since evolved into our Probiotic Concentrate, Beauty Renewal.
In the process of fermentation, loads of bubbles and effervescence are created and I therefore had so many exploding and burping bottles — sometimes they would explode in the fridge of the shops I was retailing at.
The lesson I learned is that your own homemade drinks are great — but to scale and get a footing in the commercial space, the product needs to be consistent every time for the consumer to trust you. That is the difficulty going from a cottage industry to scaling up — there are so many steps to take along the way to get it right and many processes to learn to lead to a commercially viable product.
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?
Yes, my husband has been an immense rock of support since Day 1. We would put our young daughters to bed and work on our business plan, develop the products, and hand bottle our range in the early days. Now he is our CFO/COO and guides our company to the next stage. Through all the challenges and high points, he has been there steady as a rock to keep the ship sailing smoothly.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
There is a myriad of reasons. I think predominantly there is not enough support for women balancing a family coupled with the demands of starting a family. Both take a lot of effort and time, and both are extremely challenging. For example, if we could follow the European lead and have affordable / free quality day care for children to allow women to get back to work when they feel ready, that would enable the space, freedom and time to create business.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
There are too many to note, but I would say free or affordable childcare is what immediately springs to mind.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
I don’t necessarily think that more women should become Founders. I think that women need to be able to be given choices over their career and have encouragement from partners, family, and the system to support them to generate income and make a difference in the world.
If a woman has sights to stay home and be a Mum to her kids, then that is just as important and valuable as a woman who would like to go out and create a company.
However, if a woman decides that she wants to create and run a company, then it’s a welcome addition to the world! We need diversification in corporate structures with women in positions of power and influence to help bring balance to the world of work, something that should be the norm and not the exception in this generation.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
That you get to walk in late and leave early. This is sadly not the case, especially not in the early days where you are wearing multiple hats every hour.
Another myth is that it’s a glamourous life of business lunches and networking! While I wish that were the case, for me as a Female Founder it’s all about work and defining goals and objectives and pushing forward and eating challenges as if they are granola bars!
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
No, not everyone is cut out to be a Founder. And there is absolutely nothing bad about being an employee!
The specific traits are solid tenacity, ironclad will, patience, absolute trust and belief in your product, service, and extreme resilience. If you don’t have this, I think success will be difficult to attain in the long run. As a successful founder you need to be able to pivot and flex constantly as no two days are the same. You need to have the foresight to know when to pivot and when to stay the course.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- I wish someone had told me to get a good accountant from Day 1 as it costs a lot more to unwind a bad accounting error than it does to create the right process from the start
- To work to get your product to commercial level as quickly as possible. We spent so much time organically producing the product, but to scale you need to invest with a commercial mindset at the forefront.
- Set your business goals upfront and don’t let yourself be distracted to what you are trying to achieve as your end goal!
- Understand your budgets well and learn to forecast, essentially indulge in the idea of continuous learning because new challenges pop up every day!
- Being a Founder of a business, means that sometimes in can feel a little lonely — a strong support system around you is key and so necessary.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I am extremely proud of the sustainable and environmental efforts we have put into place from Carbon Neutral Couriers to Certified Organic ingredients to Glass packaging with compostable refill bags. We have invested heavily into the R&D in our packaging choices and by paving the way for other brands to be sustainable we are making the world a better place.
Our products are designed with the busy woman in mind, to give her the confidence in her skin every day to go out into the world and kick major goals, this is something I am extremely proud of.
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.
To care and nurture our planet, every day by investing in sustainable choices in business. To know that there is no profit or business without a planet, so care for it, in the biggest way you can. To make sustainable business practices is just part of doing business — especially for the big polluters.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Sara Blakely. What a pioneer and champion for women!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Felicity Evans of IMBIBE On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.