343: Jamie Kern Lima On How To Bootstrap A Billion Dollar Company

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You’re listening to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. Today, I have the very first billionaire that I’ve ever interviewed on the show, Jamie Kern Lima. Now, Jamie is the founder of It Cosmetics and she sold her business to L’Oreal for $1.2 billion. And today we’re gonna learn exactly how she did it. But before we begin, I wanna thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider that I use for e-commerce

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and it’s crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages, but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10x bigger. Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce, and you can segment your audience just like email. It’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve. I also want to thank Klaviyo, who’s also a sponsor of the show.

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so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here’s your host, Steve Chu.

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Welcome to the My Wife, Could Her Job podcast. Today I’m super excited to have Jamie Kern Lima on the show. Now Jamie is the co-founder of It Cosmetics and she is the first female CEO of a L’Oreal branded brand in the company’s history. And in 2016, Jamie sold It Cosmetics to L’Oreal for $1.2 billion in cash and has been included on the Forbes list of America’s richest self-made women. So what’s funny about this interview today is because I’m not into makeup, I had actually not heard of Jamie.

02:31
until my friend Andrea Deckard met her personally at Turks and Caicos and highly recommended that I have her on the show. And then I casually mentioned that I was having Jamie on the show today and then my wife started going nuts. So before this interview even has been recorded, I have seemingly earned some brownie points with my wife, which I will save for a rainy day. So clearly Jamie has already inspired a bunch of people. And today we’re going to delve deeply into her story and how she did it and without welcome the show, Jamie.

02:59
How are doing today? Oh my goodness. Thank you for having me and thank you. Say hello to your wife for me too. It’s exciting. It’s great to be here. What’s funny about this is it’s rare that I do this, but I’m not young anymore. You know, I’m in my 40s. So I actually tried a little bit of concealer just for kicks and the stuff made my skin flawless. Oh, unfortunately for me, I can’t wear this stuff as a guy. Otherwise I totally would.

03:25
We have a lot of guys that wear it. We have a lot of guys that are yeah, we do. Yeah. So it’s, it’s for everyone, for everyone. I love that your wife got excited. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah. It’s such an honor. I know I shared this with you before we started, but I’m inspired by, by you sharing your story and hers too. So thanks for all you’re doing. Cause we’re all in this entrepreneurial journey together. We are definitely. And sometimes it can be a lonely journey.

03:53
So with that out of the way, Jamie, can you tell the audience about why you started It Cosmetics for people who may not have heard your story? Absolutely, yeah. You know, it’s so funny for anyone in your community who kind of fell into entrepreneurship or thought they were gonna do one thing and had a dream and were on that path their whole life. And then all of sudden, you know, in my case, it was really a setback, something that was a setback happening to me that ended up being a setup.

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for launching IT Cosmetics. So I thought I was gonna be a journalist my whole career. Like I love other people’s stories and I really just wanna interview you right now, Steve. Ask a billion questions. So I mean, since the time I was a little girl, I thought, oh, I’m gonna grow up and share other people’s stories. That was my dream job. And so I was working as a TV news anchor and…

04:48
and thought I was in my dream job and I started getting a skin condition called rosacea. And for me, it came in the form of like bright red cheeks that like if you imagine touching your cheeks right now and then feeling like sandpaper with red bumps everywhere. And what started happening is I was anchoring the news and I live in my earpiece from the producer. I would hear, you know, there’s something on your face. There’s something on your face. Could you wipe it off? Could you wipe it off? And I knew there was nothing I could wipe off. I knew it was that.

05:16
the makeup was starting to break up and the redness was coming through. So I saw dermatologists, I started trying every makeup I could find out there and I had no interest, even no thoughts of ever, you know, going into the beauty industry. I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t have any connections and almost no money. And the more I tried to find products that worked, I couldn’t find anything that worked. And I went through a season of

05:43
of self-doubt, honestly, where I started worrying, I going to lose my job? I going to lose viewers? in the process of this kind of season that I really felt was a setback, got this, like all of a sudden, I guess a lot of entrepreneurs out there have this kind of aha moment where I realized, oh my gosh, okay, if I can’t find anything out there that works for me, there must be like so many other people out there that maybe…

06:11
have the same challenges. Maybe they have different skin issues and nothing works for them too. And if I could actually create something that works, it could help a lot of people. And so I had that moment. And then also one more thing that happened is I had this moment as well where I was like, why is it there’s millions of makeup brands out there, but like, I can’t find anything to work. And I also realized Steve that, you know,

06:39
all of the ads I’d seen my whole life on television or in magazines, I realized, oh, wow, I’ve never seen anybody modeling makeup products that actually has skin like I do and has problems with their skin, challenges with their skin. They all have kind of flawless Photoshopped skin. And I realized kind of a bigger mission, if you will, where I was like, okay, well,

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you know, from the time I was a little girl seeing those ads, I always aspired to look that way, but they also kind of always made me feel like I wasn’t enough. And so I had this kind of double thing happen where I was like, okay, if I could figure out how to make a product that works, and if I create a company where we use real women, all different, you know, ages and shapes and sizes and skin tones and skin challenges as models,

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maybe I can help shift culture inside the beauty industry around inclusivity and around the definition of beauty at the same time. So was this big thing happening yet, like so many people in your community may be listening right now who have gone through this experience. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be to be an entrepreneur. I thought, if I pour all my savings into making a product that actually works, if I can get to that point where a product works,

07:59
Like it’s just gonna sell, right? And yeah, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And long story short, I wrote the business plan with my husband on our honeymoon flight to South Africa, which is probably the least romantic thing you could do on a honeymoon flight. We got back, quit our jobs and just dove all in from our living room. And what I didn’t know was from the moment we dove all in,

08:25
It would be three years before we could afford to pay ourselves and it would be three years. Like, I love so much the show that you do and how you go, like these types of questions too, because why I wrote the book Believe It in so many ways is because like when you Google my story, you just see like, Denny’s Waitress, you know, builds billion dollar empire. it makes it seem like it’s easy and it makes it seem like a message just got lucky or.

08:54
But it’s like at the end of the day, my journey that I think a lot of other entrepreneurs and human beings can connect to is really a journey of going from not believing in myself to believing and dealing with constant rejection. The first three years of our business, we heard hundreds and hundreds of no’s and I had to figure out like, well, how do I listen to my gut and my knowing or do I listen to what the experts are telling me to change about what I’m doing?

09:22
It’s really a journey of learning to believe in myself and trust myself. And I know it’s the journey of so many other people out there, which is why I wrote the book. So what I love about your story is that you’re actually a husband and wife team. And likewise, I started my e-commerce brand with my wife as well. And what’s also funny is, I’ve obviously read your book, is that I actually use an alter ego to manage support and to actually be on the wedding forums. My person was named Christina Lang and she was a very bubbly bride to be. Wow.

09:51
So, And do you still, is Christina Lang still hustling She is no longer working for the company. No, she moved on, but I understand you did something similar, right? With your support Yeah. I mean, I didn’t intend to, but it was so, I think that, you know, when you’re an entrepreneur and you can’t afford to hire anyone else, it is, you have to just get scrappy, right? And figure out how to do, I mean, I Googled everything, right? And

10:19
but we literally couldn’t afford to hire people that knew what they were doing. And so in the early years, yeah, I mean, oh my goodness. So two things that stand out that maybe help everyone in the community going through this, because we don’t see these things on social media. We see like everyone’s highlight reel and it just looks good. But the real stories, I think help us feel less alone and more enough in what we’re doing. And yeah, mean, two stories that stand out are,

10:46
our one, Marie, right? So, I love that you said that you did this too. I think that’s amazing. So, I was like, oh my gosh, how do I get press for our company? We couldn’t afford to advertise. so, Marie is my middle name. so, Marie at it, cosmetics.com got her own email address. Marie would head customer service and then Marie would pitch all the press. So, like, you know, she would have

11:14
If this were fast forward 10 years, Marie would have emailed you and the whole like my wife Twitter job podcast community saying, Steve, great news. Our founder, Jeannie Kern-Liem is available for an interview. like Marie emailed, good morning America. mean, she would pitch PR to everybody and Marie got no response a lot and also got rejected a lot. But it was like, kind of got to do what you got to do. And I’ll never forget.

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crazy that now this business that we started in our living room this year became the largest luxury makeup company in the country. Why that’s so crazy and why is because for so many years, all of the retailers that we’re so blessed to have partnerships with today all said no for years and that it’s not the right fit, it’s not going to sell well in their stores, and that we needed to change what we were doing and how we were doing it.

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And so I just, you know, somebody in your community might just need to hear this today because when we get rejection, it’s hard to not let it, like confuse it with, maybe my gut is wrong or maybe my, you know, knowing is wrong. And then we start second guessing ourselves and it starts like manifesting into self doubt and it’s hard. But anyways, real quick, the other story that stands out too is,

12:38
So we couldn’t afford to hire a web developer. And so my husband went and bought that big yellow book called HTML for Dummies. literally, and by the way, so all these retailers were saying, no, right? was sending our product because we finally, we poured all of our money into this product and I sent it to all the department stores, to all the beauty retailers, to QVC, which is the 24 hour live television channel, sent it everywhere. All my favorite places to shop and they all

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said no. And so I was like, okay, if we can go direct to consumer, if we get our website up and it’s like, you know, this is going to be huge because the product works and I just believed it. And so he bought the big yellow book, HTML for Dummies and, and built the whole first website and the morning it went live, I felt like it was like, you know, gonna be one of the best days of my life. The way little kids are on

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you know, mornings of holidays, like Christmas morning, right? And I was so excited because I just knew it was going to be huge. And the morning the website went live, there were no orders. And then the next day, no orders. And the next day, no orders. That’s exactly what happened with our website, too. Did it really? Yes, in the beginning. For two weeks, I want to say. Oh, OK. So tell me if this happened to you, too, because maybe you guys are way more classy than I was. I…

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A couple days in, I said to my husband, I said, it’s broken. You didn’t do it right. I said, there’s no way a product this good isn’t getting any sales. You must not have built the site right. It’s broken. And then a couple weeks later, still no orders. And then the day our very first order came in, I was cheering, running around the office, AKA our living room, screaming, your first order, our first order. I knew it. knew it. I’m so excited.

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And he says, he says to me, that was me. He goes, I placed the order to prove to you the site is not broken. And I was like, oh, and it was like, you know, those early days. And so, so for you guys, was a few weeks in. We had the same story. I was the one doubting that the website was working. So I placed the first order and then my wife saw it and said, oh my God, we got our first order. I was like, no, it was just me.

14:55
Sorry. have never, wow. Okay. You’re the very first person I met that has the same story. I love this, right? Because so many people are going through this right now and not seeing, you know, I think when we don’t get that, when things don’t go like we hope they’d go, it’s, hard. It’s hard to keep going. If we don’t have all the tools in place with mindset and with mission and with all of those things, right? It’s so easy to let, I mean, in my case, lack of

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success around me and no proof that my idea was gonna work and also just experts saying no. you know, this stuff comes in so many different forms for people, right? Sometimes it’s our own friends and family that love us and means so well, but they’re the ones that are like, are you sure you should have quit your job or are you sure you’re qualified? Yeah, did you? Yeah. So Jamie, know,

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the audience of this podcast, they’re all small business owners or aspiring business owners. And one of the questions that I got to ask you actually was, how does one even start a makeup company? Let’s say I want to start a cream or concealer for myself. Like how do you even make that? Yeah. So I didn’t know anybody, right? In the beauty industry. And I didn’t know the answer to that question when I started. Literally didn’t know.

16:20
The big blessing of course is Google and reading everything about how things are made. In my case, I never formulated anything in my kitchen, although you certainly can. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs that put together beautiful products inside their home and they formulate them. And I didn’t do that and I don’t have a chemistry background. And so what I did instead was Googled a lot and learned that through reading tons of stuff that’s out there,

16:49
and then starting to go to trade shows, I learned that most cosmetic companies manufacture either in their own facilities they own, but almost all of them also use these third party manufacturing facilities that have tons of chemists and tons of formulators. A lot of them are FDA approved. And so a lot of the big companies use these manufacturers. And so I started doing my homework on who are they and

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you know, and trying to understand the whole process. And what I learned quickly, Steve, was that in the beauty world, who you manufacture with is like the most closely guarded secret. And so, you know, people protect their formulas, they protect who they manufacture with. And so I ended up having to get really scrappy.

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And what I did was I went into all the department stores and kind of just, and I knew most all the brands in existence. Cause I had been, you know, seeing them as a consumer my whole life, but I made a list of every brand that sold inside department store. By the way, this is, I don’t even know if this is embarrassing. I’m going to share it with you though. Cause again, maybe someone out there needs to hear it, but um,

18:02
I made a list of every company, every brand that sold inside the department stores and same with all the brands that sold inside like the Sephora, all the beauty retailers. And I sat in my living room and I cold called every single company and whoever I could get on the phone, I would ask like, oh, I’m looking for a really great manufacturer. Is there anyone you recommend? And most of the people hung up on me. You know I mean? Yeah, of course.

18:30
And I got a hold of one really kind woman who probably should have never shared this. She worked for a smaller makeup company that was sold inside Sephora. Totally not a competitor to what I did either, but she was lovely. And she’s like, oh, here, you know, here’s our favorite one. And she gave me the name of their manufacturer in New York city. And I thanked her and called him up and that he became our very first. I mean, now we have dozens and dozens of manufacturers we work with, but that’s how I got my very first one.

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went out and did a meeting and it was really, think sheer grace because, listen, I was willing to get hung up on hundreds of times, but finally was able to get through to someone and ends up he makes products for a lot of the largest brands in the country. And so they have, you know, all the unsexy stuff I had to learn about, which is like FDA regulatory compliance and clinical, you know, clinical safety testing and all that stuff.

19:26
It was really sheer grace that they ended up being certified and compliant in all those areas. so they made our very first products. How do you make a formulation though, when you don’t have a background in chemistry? Yeah, so, you know, there’s a lot of different ways to do it. The way that we did it is we really leveraged all the chemists that were part of the manufacturer. And we assembled an advisory board as well. And then, you you just have to work with someone who’s patient, because in my case,

19:56
It was hundreds of iterations of our concealer, for example, back and forth before it actually worked for me. So it wasn’t like I could take something out there on the market and say, oh, make it like this, because there wasn’t anything out there that worked for me. And so when we started getting formulation samples, I mean, it was hundreds of iterations. And after launching our concealer and it being the first really big product that had a high repeat purchase rate,

20:24
One of the things that I did right and I did, oh my gosh, I did so many things wrong and I share all of those in the book too. But one of the things that I did right was I kept that, I kept my blinders on when we finally got into retail stores. What happens is they want new all the time. So they’re like, can you have something new for this season, new for this quarter? This is a big trend. Can you make something new for this? Cause everyone’s trying to get short-term money. And you know, we stuck to the whole.

20:52
If it doesn’t work better than anything out there, I don’t want to launch it. And I remember it took us seven years before we launched our first moisturizer. And that was something that, you know, all the stores were asking for, you know, for us to create from day one, but it wasn’t right. And so in that case, I probably drove teams of chemists crazy, but it was like, listen, I have really sensitive skin. And if I can’t wear it, like you can’t fake authenticity. So I can’t go out there and sell something.

21:20
but that doesn’t work for me. And we kept that discipline in terms of saying no to short-term sales because the product wasn’t right yet and really focused on. So in the case of the moisture, I was like seven years before we launched our very first one. So that was so many iterations to get it right. unlike a lot of other companies in the beauty space where they make their money off of what’s trending at the moment,

21:48
and they have constant pressure to launch new innovations nonstop. We took a different approach, which is let’s really get products that are like hero products that are part of your daily life and that women love because that’s where the repeat purchase rates. I’ve always seen business as like anyone can get a sale once and that’s just a sale. But when you have customers that love something so much that they buy it a second time,

22:17
that’s a brand. Right. And I wanted to build a brand. you know, and, and when you do that, I think that’s when you get, you know, avid avid fans that spread the word to you because, know, so many people out there are just looking for us to add value and make their lives better. And, and for the products that and services we create to do what they say. And when they actually do, then people do spread the word. And in the early years, that’s how we stayed alive because we

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couldn’t afford advertising. So was really we kept the lights on because the very few people that started buying the product would post their own befores afters online and started spreading the word organically. And that’s really what kept us alive before we had the big retailers saying yes to us. What’s a realistic startup cost to launch a single product? I mean, why was this company willing to work with you in the beginning when you had nothing?

23:12
Well, we talking like tens of thousands of dollars or no, they actually did my very first samples for free. Really? And yeah, they made my very first samples for free. And you know, I think in their case, they work with enough huge brands and maybe they just went with their gut. I don’t know why, but they made the very first samples for free. And you know, it doesn’t cost much to make it. I mean, they have their formulators time maybe, you I

23:38
poured my heart out in the meeting and told them my big vision for this huge shifting culture in the beauty industry and all this kind of stuff. Maybe they just had a gut feeling and I’m not sure, but there’s definitely manufacturers out there that will do it for free. You just have to be careful. What I mean by that is, and by the way, we started with under $100,000 all in. I have some stories I can share if you want me to about some of the process of getting investors and how that happened and how it didn’t happen.

24:08
All of that. And I share a lot of those in my book, Believe It Too, for the first time. Because I think when we go through that process of looking for money or of hoping people invest, or even if should we bring on investors, you know what I mean? I think that whole journey is so complex and so layered. you know, we- In terms of that first product, was there like a large minimum order quantity? Like the samples were free, but how much did you actually have to buy upfront? Do you remember?

24:37
Oh gosh, let me think back. It wasn’t very high. Yeah, there’s the, but to your point, there’s a lot of contract manufacturers where they, do have minimums for sure. There’s a lot of them that don’t. And I think if you can find one that doesn’t, it’s great. Um, we were only selling two to three orders a day on our website. So if I, if I think back, I feel like the highest MOQ minimum order quantity was probably a thousand units at that place, which is not very high.

25:01
and but you’re right. But you know what I would say to you, Steve, by the way, no one’s ever gone this granular. So let’s go there. I love it. Right. This is the good stuff because like the stuff I wish I had known earlier on, right. The stuff that saves us nights, crying ourselves asleep in terms of I have so many stories of rejection in this book and how I handled it and like, had I done it differently, it would have changed everything. And anyways, but also just we save ourselves time and money. feel like when we share these stories at a granular level. So I love

25:31
You’re the only person in the whole press tour for the book who has asked me anything like this. But yeah, and so what I want to say to that is, you know, there’s the MOQs and minimum order quantities and there’s the, you know, formulation and how much do samples cost and all that. What I would say for me, and this happened, I think through sheer grace also, I just, didn’t know what I didn’t know at the time. And I was very blessed to get a ethical manufacturing partner from day one.

26:00
because that’s not always the case. And I definitely met some down the road that weren’t ethical for sure, because we’ve worked with probably hundreds at this point. But what I would say to every person out there in their business right now, whether it’s a product business or a service business or anything else, is the importance of knowing where you want to go one day. So I knew I eventually wanted to change. I would write in my journal.

26:28
I help billions with a B of women live better lives. I’ve never shared that before, by the way, but anyways, I would write that every single day and I knew where I wanted to go. And so I knew in order to do that and to scale at the pace I had imagined, by the way, this is during the years of getting no, hearing no from everyone. I would still- These are the best years actually for the people listening. And I would still write things like that down that seemed absurd, right? I helped billions of women live better lives. Like I would write those things down.

26:58
And meanwhile, I’m sitting there hoping to have a $1 hot dog from Costco that night because from the stand outside Costco, I don’t know if you’ve ever had one, they’re really good. But we were scrappy, right? And we were hearing no and no after no after no. So one thing happened in terms of contract manufacturing that was really sheer grace. But now when I look back, knowing where you’re going one day. So I knew in order to help billions of women,

27:28
with a B that, OK, we have to scale really big. And in order to do that fast enough, it likely means we’ll either go public as a brand one day or we’ll be acquired by someone who has hundreds of, has people on the ground in hundreds of countries and can really help spread our message quicker than we can do on our own. So I knew that was going to be the end goal one day. What I didn’t know was in order to ever often even just bring on investors, let alone go public.

27:56
or be acquired, there are so many things you have to have buttoned up like crystal clear, I is dotted, T is crossed in order to actually have something of value that they’re gonna pay a lot of money for. And part of that stems from the very beginning of even how you’re setting up your own IP, intellectual property and your own formulations. And one thing that happened by sheer grace,

28:25
But what I would say to maybe someone in your community needs this little tip right now is that, you know, we owned all of our formulas. And when we worked with our very first manufacturer, even when we had no money and we had no success yet, we were able to have ownership of the formula. It just was something intuitively I felt like we needed. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I didn’t yet know how critical that would be.

28:51
And I also didn’t know that there’s something called like in our case and in manufacturing process of a batch recipe. So it’s not just what’s your formula in terms of what are the ingredients and quantitative, but also how is it actually made almost like the way you make a cake, like turn the oven to 325 degrees, add the egg first, mix it for five minutes, whatever that is. The batch recipe for every formula, those two things I didn’t realize how

29:19
critical those would be to own. And what happens is if you don’t get these things in place early on, when you get really successful, manufacturers don’t want to give them to you because they don’t ever want to risk you leaving and making your stuff somewhere else. Right. So you’ve got to get all these things in place early on. And, you know, if anyone in your community knows for sure they want to take on investors or they want to sell their business one day.

29:45
these kind of, know, learn whatever you need to do to make that happen. All the things, right? Listen to this show, meet people that have done, have exited their companies and learn everything you’re going to need to do to make it happen one day. And then back all that up to right now and start getting those things in place. Because I’ve seen so many entrepreneurs that are so excited about the creative side of their business, which that’s the fun part, right? And they’re so excited about

30:15
the product or about what’s selling right now or about revenue or this or that, all those things that matter. And they forget these like unsexy foundational things that if you don’t get in place, you’ll never be able likely never likely never be able to to sell your business or to get what what you should for it. know, we had this play out in real life, you know, after we finally

30:40
finally got yeses from manufacturers and from QV, I mean, from retailers and from QVC. And we were growing and growing and growing. And eight years into our business, we sold 100 % of it to L’Oreal, but we went through the whole process and there was, and I did meetings for three years with them, which I talk about in the book and how it all happened and how it almost didn’t and everything else. But there was a moment where the night before the deal is supposed to happen.

31:08
There was one product out of 400 that we couldn’t find ownership, proof of ownership for. And it was the worst night ever. Our lawyers didn’t know if the deal was going to go through and I knew we owned it. So I knew, and I knew that our manufacturer knew that we owned it and I could not find the document and writing anywhere. And it was a really rough night. And thank God I literally prayed all night and the next and cried. And the next morning,

31:38
they sent it to us in writing and we were able, everything was able to proceed. Uh, but I just, you know, it just, reminds me of like the things that we don’t even think about cause a, they’re not fun. Who wants to deal with this stuff? Right. It’s like getting it all together early on is so important to set you up for, you know, success in the future.

32:01
If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself.

32:29
Now, first and foremost, protecting our IP starts with a solid trademark and Emerge Council provides attorney-advised strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult.

32:59
And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L.com. Now back to the show.

33:09
Jamie, if you can look back really far, do you remember how you made your first sale? So before QVC, it seems like QVC is what really launched your product, but back before QVC, how are you getting your sales and even just staying afloat? Yeah, mean, everything was really came down to our website and it was really just two to three orders a day. And it was real people that started spreading the word and posting their own befores and afters. I definitely had friends and family both.

33:36
who knew we weren’t in these retail stores, but they would go into the retail stores, ask to talk to the manager and say, have you heard of IT Cosmetics? And they’re like, it what? Like, oh, can you please do a written request to corporate to carry IT Cosmetics? Like my friends and family would hustle. And I did all the time. I would call stores. Do you carry IT Cosmetics? Can I talk to the manager? I mean, you do what you got to do. But at the end of the day, was, was, you know, grassroots, real people that

34:06
that would try the product and spread their word. It was all really through our website. It was word of mouth basically. It was word of mouth. then we didn’t plan for it to be QVC first, but that happening and the way it happened, single greatest life and business lesson I’ve ever learned in terms of the power of authenticity and the power of trusting your gut over experts advice when they conflict.

34:33
I believe your gut is always more powerful than anyone else’s advice. I think that so many of us let self-doubt and all the things take over to the point where we don’t even hear our own gut or our own knowing anymore. Anybody in that position, I talk about so much of that in the book. But QVC ended up being direct to consumer and was in live and was one of the biggest blessings I could have ever hoped for.

35:01
And it’s essentially became live advertising for us into a hundred million homes. after, you know, every time we would go on QVC, a lot of people would see us on television, but want to actually try the product in person. So that built up demand for actual retail stores to carry our product. And, and then the rest is history after that. It was a long journey. How does one get on QVC and do you actually recommend QVC for most e-commerce brands if you are able to get on the show? Oh, yes.

35:30
I would say do everything to get on QVC. I sent my product there for three years and heard no for three years, dozens of times. I would find anybody I could on LinkedIn who worked at QVC or Sephora or Ulta or department stores and send everyone the product. And it was no for three years. When we finally got a yes from QVC, it changed everything.

35:56
And, I had always heard from other entrepreneurs that you can sell, you know, more on QVC in an hour than you can all year in department stores. As a beauty company, I’d always heard that. And then to see the power of it happening right before my eyes was the craziest journey. You know, Steve, as you know, I, you know, after three years of sending our products to them and hearing, no, no, no, you’re not the right fit.

36:22
It’s a long story that I share in the book on how, but we finally got a yes and got one shot to go live. And here’s the thing, Steve, is like, were, know, as I shared, we were selling only two to three orders a day on our website. And when I learned we got one shot to go live for 10 minutes with our product, it was, we had to hit their sales goal. We had to have over 6,000, we had to sell over 6,000 units of our concealer. And we’re only selling two to three a day on our website.

36:50
but that is large volumes. In the beauty space, it’s consignment. So if it doesn’t sell, you have to take it back. And so our one shot that we got, you should never take a purchase order you can’t afford to lose ever. But at this point, we were three years in and we didn’t know how we were gonna stay alive as a company. And so we said yes to it. And it was this moment where literally everything was on the line.

37:15
We applied for SBA loan. first 22 banks said no, and it was bank number 23 that gave us an SBA loan to cover just the inventory cost of that purchase order. And it was one of the most wild moments in my life because I knew the future of the company surviving basically came down to the 10 minutes and so much pressure. And I flew out there a week before.

37:43
are airing and I sat in this rental car in the parking lot all alone staring at the front door, like praying, crying, feeling like, because we had outside experts had said, here’s what you need to do to have success. Use models with perfect skin, all the stuff that was not why I created the company. And I just had this vision. What if I go on QVC and take my makeup off and show my bright red rosacea, show real women and.

38:08
And I wanted to stand for my values and my beliefs. And we all know what our values and beliefs are. But we often all face situations where someone wants to challenge those or where we’re challenging them ourselves and going, okay, am I gonna stand for what I believe in when it feels like everything’s on the line? And I just had this moment in that rental car where I just imagined like who that woman was watching on the other end.

38:34
it came down to the idea and the belief I have. And now I’ve learned it over and over that you can’t fake authenticity. And I wanted to, you know, I remember thinking of like a woman, like I kept imagining a single mom folding laundry who had forgotten that she mattered and was too busy to remember that she’s beautiful. And I rather have, I remember this moment in the car where I realized like, if she’s going to turn on the television and see me and give me two seconds of her precious time, like,

39:03
I’d rather have her look up on the screen and see me showing my rosacea and showing real women that look like her. Even if she buys nothing, I’d rather have her for that moment feel like she’s seen and like she matters than like go on TV, show flawless skin, you know, like everyone’s done for years. And even if I sold more product, it mean I was standing for nothing. And so, yeah, it came down to a 10 minute window. And Steve, I remember the clock.

39:32
started at 10 minutes and it was like 9.59, 9.58. And I learned, oh my gosh, I learned right before the show that you’re not guaranteed the 10 minutes. If for some reason it wasn’t selling well, they can cut your time live. And it was so much pressure. But I remember the moment my bare face went up on national TV and I showed all different women of every age and shape and size and skin tone and skin challenge. there was like one minute left in the show and the host was.

40:01
Like, oh, the deep shade is almost gone. The tan shade, there’s a few hundred left. And then I remember that the moment, it was down to the 10 minute mark and the big sold out sign came up across the screen. And I started crying on national television and my husband came running through the double doors and I was like, real women have spoken. And he’s like, we’re not going bankrupt. And that one airing turned into five that year and a hundred the next year. And then we did over 250 live shows a year and still do right now. And so we built the biggest

40:31
Beauty Brand and QVC’s history, is at this moment right now. And again, I only share that because it was three years of them saying no, and you’re not the right fit. so, you know, anyone in your community who’s an entrepreneur right now who keeps hearing no, or you’re not the right fit, it’s like, no one can tell you you’re not the right fit. So Jamie, I recently read your book, which I recommend everyone pick up. I’m not sure if it’s going to be, it’s released in February, right?

40:57
Yeah, yeah, it comes out the week of February 22nd. Yeah, I’m so excited. You know what I love? Like I’m interviewing you right now and you actually write exactly like how you talk. So it’s completely authentic, the book. You know what? I wanted to write every word myself. So I said no to a book deal for like five years. So I’m like, you know what? If I’m to do it, you can’t fake authenticity. And I just feel like we’re all this together, which is why I’m grateful for your show too, because it’s like when we share these real stories, it’s

41:25
It’s, you know, it’s, think it has a huge impact on all of our journeys of learning to believe in ourself and trust ourself and, and, and know we’re enough and that we’re not alone and become the person we’re born to be. have two final questions. If we have time, these are quick ones. One is you wrote that balance is a lie. And, and I completely agree. Uh, you have to make some sacrifices in order to be successful.

41:51
And I wanted to ask you if there’s any regrets because you put so much into your work working 20 hour days is that I’m sure some of the things were sacrificed, right? So if you were to do everything all over again, would you have continued on this path? Yeah, I don’t believe that I need, cause I worked a hundred hour weeks for close to 10 years and I don’t think I needed to have done that to have the same outcome. And I wish I had learned to believe

42:21
that my success was possible sooner. And I did learn to believe it. And then I made better decisions, but it was interesting that after three years of hearing no, and you’re not the right fit, and you’re not enough, when we finally started getting yeses, and then Steve, I remember like we finally started getting sales traction, and all of a sudden, all the retailers wanted us, and then all of a sudden we were doing really well. It was almost as if I felt like I had to strike while the iron’s hot, like, oh my gosh.

42:48
What if it all comes crashing down at any moment, right? So many of us, have these moments of success and then we think like, can I believe it? And which is a kind of a form of imposter syndrome in a way. And, you know, we started having the kind of success I’ve never seen in my life. I was not raised around that success when I was working as a Denny’s waitress, saving my tip money to buy a Mac lipstick or Lancome eyeliner. And to start,

43:16
passing those brands in size. These are kind of things where I was just like, oh my gosh, is this real? And so I drove myself so hard and I also became addicted to work. And so did my husband. And we had this realization, right? Because busyness or work addiction is like any other addiction. It separates you from you. And it’s almost numbing to the point where you don’t even feel the day anymore.

43:44
And when we realized this was happening, it was a big part of why we decided, okay, you know what? Let’s partner with another company like L’Oreal instead of going public, because if we went public, we’d still be running it ourselves and it would still all be on us. And I got to the point and I talk a lot about this in the book on how do you learn to trust yourself? Right. And I realized I need to trust myself to not trust myself that I’m not going to keep working a hundred hour weeks. And so.

44:14
We made better decisions and in that. And so when I look back, I don’t believe that working hundred hour weeks is why in any part we created a billion dollar company. I think I could have worked 40 hours or 50 hours or whatever it might be. Would it have happened a little bit slower? Maybe, but maybe not. And I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more. So those would be the big things. Okay. Do you have time for one more? Do you have to go? Yeah. Okay.

44:43
I’m supposed to be on another, you know that I, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s why I’m asking. Final question. There’s an excerpt in the book that I’m going to read out loud and I wanted to understand exactly what you meant. There’s one line and this one for some reason when I read it, struck me. said, without intending to, he also instilled to me deep, that deep belief that women are stronger than men, that men hold women back and that women need to be super women to do it all on their own. And I personally, I have two very strong business partners who are both women.

45:12
And I’m terrified now that if they read your book, they’re going to realize that I’m the main thing holding them back. So I’m just kind of curious what you meant by that line. Yeah. So that line is talking about part of my childhood, right? And what I went through. And in this book, I talk a lot about how some of the things that happened to us shape our beliefs and how we’re kind of all in this journey in a lot of ways of almost

45:38
re-figuring out what the right thing is to believe. you know, I talk about being raised with a dad who was an alcoholic and a mom who was superwoman and who kind of did it all. And I talk about the realization that, you know, growing up, I never wanted to get married and I wasn’t sure why. And I realized why, that I had this belief that women are superwomen and that men hold women back.

46:04
All those things. And I talk about the journey of learning to overcome that and of learning to trust my own gut that when my husband proposed, I didn’t want him to propose. I told him not to, but when he did, even though my head told me, Oh, no, no, no. Like, you know, when I checked in with my gut and my internal knowing, I had such peace about it that I said yes. And I continue to unfold a lot of these beliefs in my life. also

46:32
you know, because of how I was raised, I always thought, oh, I’m a lone wolf. I’m independent. Like, I don’t need to depend on anyone else. Like, right, for anyone in your audience right now listening that maybe thinks like, you know, oh, independence is a badge of honor and I’m a lone wolf and I got this. That was me my whole life. I, again, based on the stuff I saw growing up, and then I had this…

46:57
wild journey where I, and I share so much of this book I’ve never shared before, but while building this business, I was, we were also trying to start a family and for 10 years went through IVF, went through everything you can go through and couldn’t carry a pregnancy full term and eventually ended up looking into adoption and surrogacy and, through that process of having our daughter wonder who’s now two.

47:23
I actually needed to depend on another woman in that journey. And it ended up becoming one of the best experiences in my life. And I learned, oh, life isn’t meant to do alone. And oh, being a lone wolf or independent isn’t a badge of honor. In my case, it actually was just a deep seated fear of me not being worthy of other people showing up for. And I learned that.

47:51
And it helped me shift my perspective on not wanting to do it all myself and being afraid to count on other people. So yeah, life’s a journey, right? Yeah. So Jamie, I want to be respectful of your time. If you’ve enjoyed, if you’re listening to this and you’ve enjoyed this conversation, the book is full of very personal stories, things that I would never put down in writing myself. Some of the stories you told in the book that were really interesting.

48:19
So I encourage everyone to go pick up the book. Jamie, you are true to your word. You’re so authentic. Your writing is just like talking to you. And I had a great time talking to you today. Oh, I had such a great time. Steve, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

48:38
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now Jamie is super inspiring and down to earth and I really enjoyed reading her book. So if you need a dose of inspiration, then be sure to check out Believe It on Amazon. For more information about this episode, go to mywifecoderjob.com slash episode 343. And once again, I want to thank Klaviyo, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot.

49:06
So head on over to mywifecoupterjob.com slash KLAVIOIO. Once again, that’s mywifecoupterjob.com slash KLAVIOIO. I also want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is the next big own marketing platform, and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash div. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash div.

49:35
Now I talk about how I these tools on my blog. If you are interested in starting your own eCommerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.