Female Founders: Ilsa Manning of Ilsa Fragrances On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Create a tribe. From mentors to friends to family to social media relationships to networking acquaintances — find the people whom you can have community. The people in this tribe will be ones you can seek advice or solace from, laugh or cry with, despair with, elate with, grow with. These people will give you the strength to keep going when you lose steam and energy, because it will happen. My tribe is what has gotten me to this point today and I could never express my gratitude enough to each of these fabulous ladies who has supported me mentally, emotionally, and physically along the way.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ilsa Manning.
Founder and mother Ilsa Manning, who honed her perfume prowess previously working at Givaudan and Coty, started Ilsa Fragrances in 2016 with a dream: wanting to be the best person she could be for herself and her daughters, while also lifting up other women. Born, raised and currently residing in Phoenix, Arizona, Manning also believes in giving back, donating 5% of all net profits to Girls On The Run, a nonprofit empowering young women.
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?
Thank you for having me! Honestly, I fell into it by accident! I was living in England and had just finished my MA in history. I had wanted to continue on to do a PhD, but the reality was that I needed to start paying off my student loans, which meant I needed to get a job. I put in my resume with a job agency down the road from where I was living, they sent me for an interview with the UK sales office of the largest fragrance and flavor manufacturer in the world and that was it! I got the job, and it was this role that introduced me to the world of fragrance and I fell in love!
It was about 8 years later that I decided to take my passion to the next level and start my own company. After a year of product development, I launched Ilsa Fragrances, my own fine fragrance brand.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
It’s not quite a story, but it is something that I’ve found interesting and amazing at the same time, and that is the support I’ve been given since the founding of Ilsa Fragrances. Whether it be a random passerby, friends, family, work colleagues, networking acquaintances or new contacts, each person in their own way has been a cheerleader and guided me along this journey. I think it’s a great example of how people want to see others succeed in their dream. I cannot express my gratitude enough!
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?
Gosh! I don’t know if it was the funniest mistake, but it was a SMH mistake for sure! On my first run, I decided to have the name and logo screen printed on the bottle. This was done first, and then the bottles were filled with the juice. When I received the finished product there had been some damage on transport, which caused some bottles to leak a bit. When the juice leaked, it removed or smudged the screen printing, and I was left with unsellable product. Needless to say, I went with labels on the second run!
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?
Goodness! So, so, so many people have helped me — it’s really all about having your tribe around you! I have only been able to do what I have done because of the people around me — from their support to their love, to their guidance and advice, to their sharing of knowledge. One person that I should give a shout out to, whom I am forever grateful to, is my long-time, childhood friend Jessica. She has helped foster and grow the business as our freelance PR guru, but more than that, at the launch of Infinite No 1 in 2016 I found myself in the hospital due to life threatening pregnancy complications. She rushed in from Los Angeles, came to the hospital where we made a game plan, took the reins and lead the successful launch of the first fragrance in The Infinite Collection.
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?
In my opinion and experience, what I believe is holding back women from founding companies is the lack of mentorship, from childhood onwards, in entrepreneurship. When I was growing up and all throughout school, there was never a conversation about owning or creating my own company. It was always about fitting into careers that already existed.
I believe this is changing — an example I can give is that my daughters, who are 5 and 7 and who were my inspiration for the brand, are learning all about founding a company and entrepreneurship from me. I also saw recently that a fellow female business owner (and friend) made her 5-year-old daughter (who was the inspiration for her retail shop) co-owner of the business.
With proper mentorship and guidance from friends, family members and school counselors, girls can grow up knowing that founding their own company is an option, and thus not be held back by the boxes society has created around women and careers.
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?
The main obstacle I see for women to found companies is lack of mentorship, but also seeing women in the role of entrepreneurship and leadership in business. As individuals, we can help overcome this obstacle by providing our time and guidance as mentors.
Our mission at Ilsa Fragrances is to empower women to believe in themselves and all they can do. I do believe that part of being able to start your own company comes from an inner belief that this is something that you can and are able to do. So, it’s an important part of our mission as a brand to encourage women to seek out their dreams and as we can, we provide access to mentors who can help. One way we did this pre-pandemic was through a Facebook Live event called Coffee and Conversation where I sat down with women from a variety of backgrounds (artists, entrepreneurs, etc.) and asked them questions about how they got to be doing what they were doing and what advice they had for other women who may be watching. My hope with these sessions was that whoever was watching got the inspiration and information they needed to start pursuing their goals and dreams.
We don’t stop there, though, because we also want to empower our girls to become empowered women. We want them to know they can do and be anything they dream. My hope is that my daughters, who gave (and give) me my purpose and inspired me to create Ilsa Fragrances, are seeing and learning from my example and learning from their participation in the brand, that, should they choose, they themselves can found a company.
We also donate to the non-profit Girls on the Run so that girls everywhere can learn they have the power to do and be whatever it is they dream.
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?
The simplest reason is because women can. Women 100 percent have the capability to be founders. If a woman has a passion, a dream, an idea, or a vision, she should become a founder. Every woman out there can achieve the dream of owning her own company, the first step to the dream is first believing that she can do that, and that comes from within. My goal with Ilsa Fragrances is to engage that inner self-belief and push it out, so each woman knows and engages her own power.
To that point, women are powerful and tenacious. Once they have their vision and once they believe in themselves there is no stopping their force to achieve.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
I’m not sure there are any myths I feel need dispelling, though I’d like to squash the idea or “myth,” if you will, that being a founder or entrepreneur, or business owner is easy. It is not. It takes drive, determination, vision, tenacity, but more than that it also takes humility, the ability to ask for help, the ability to seek advice, and the ability listen to that advice and to take the help.
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?
I believe anyone can do anything they set their mind to — anyone can be a founder and any one can be an employee. The question is, what do you want? Do you want to be a founder? Do you want to be an employee? You’ve got to seek that answer from within and then your ability and drive to be one or the other will come forth.
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.)
- Believe in yourself. A lot of people will believe in you and your vision, but a lot of people won’t. The ultimate foundation to moving forward and taking on challenges is believe in yourself, your capabilities, and your vision.
- Ask questions and listen. Most founders begin their journey as an expert in one area, then out of necessity become a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. We are just individuals and by seeking out those that are experts in their field (that you trust), you will have valuable insight and information for making decisions without all the weight of figuring it out yourself.
- Seek and embrace feedback. The only way to know if you are on the right track is by asking those that are purchasing or consuming your product or service. Requesting feedback and analyzing it allows you to pivot when you need to pivot or stay the course when you need to stay the course.
- Be brave and say No. This goes back to number 1 — believe in yourself, believe in your vision, know what you stand for. When you ask questions and listen, when you seek and embrace feedback, always do it through the lens of your vision and what you stand for. Doing this will keep you true to yourself, your vision, your goals. I’m not going to lie — this could mean potentially saying No to an opportunity or the “right way” of doing things. This is why you must be brave. It takes courage to believe in yourself, to say no to what doesn’t align with your vision, yes to what does and to do it your way… truth is, there is no “right way” anyway.
- Create a tribe. From mentors to friends to family to social media relationships to networking acquaintances — find the people whom you can have community. The people in this tribe will be ones you can seek advice or solace from, laugh or cry with, despair with, elate with, grow with. These people will give you the strength to keep going when you lose steam and energy, because it will happen. My tribe is what has gotten me to this point today and I could never express my gratitude enough to each of these fabulous ladies who has supported me mentally, emotionally, and physically along the way.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I want women to believe in themselves and all they can do and so from the start of Ilsa Fragrances we have aimed to make the world a better place — we want to see positive change in the life of women and girls, which is why we donate to the non-profit Girls on the Run with each sale and have also been a sponsor of their annual 5K since 2017. The 5K is the culmination of their program which teaches girls they can do and be anything they dream.
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 want to create a world where every woman and every girl believes in themselves and everything they can do. We are incredible forces of nature, but often we forget this. We get bogged down in life and can’t and shouldn’t all over ourselves. I want every woman and girl to know they have an immense inner beauty, inner confidence, inner strength — when they believe and know this, watch out world!
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.
There is someone I would love to reconnect with and that is the magnificent beauty entrepreneur Cristina Carlino. I was fortunate to work with her briefly before the birth of my first daughter seven years ago. We’ve lost track of each other, but I would love to reconnect. She is such a visionary — with philosophy skin care she created a brand that not only made you look good, but made you feel good. Truly inspirational!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this
Female Founders: Ilsa Manning of Ilsa Fragrances On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.