The $27mn business that started in a kitchen
Hello Everyone
How are you doing this week?
My sense of the current mood is that some inspiration would go a long way.
So, this week’s letter draws courage from two pioneering businesswomen:
- Lisa Price, who started global hair and skin care business Carol’s Daughter, with a $100 from her kitchen in Brooklyn; and
- Maria Popova, founder of one of the world’s most widely-read blogs – brainpickings.
STRATEGY
Second Life is a great podcast about women who have successfully initiated changes in their careers. In this episode, Lisa Price tells how she built a $27 million business from her kitchen.
Price was an over-achiever at school, getting into college at 16 years old to study law. However, she dropped out, learning, as she puts it, “what happens when you do something that you’re really not meant to do, and it doesn’t bring you joy.”
She went on to try her hand at a variety of jobs, including launching a girl band, before settling into a role as a television production coordinator.
She loved the job, saying “when your job isn’t a job…even though you’re worPrice18-hour days…yes, its hard work, but there’s a fulfilment that comes with it that makes it fun”.
That same feeling gave her the energy to persist when she was fulfilling Carol’s Daughter orders into the late hours of the night.
Price always loved fragrances and the business started with her experimenting with ways to add fragrance to lotions. She had no intention to build a business. She was being curious and indulging a passion.
Time and again, I encounter case studies where systematically exploring one’s interests, in turn, triggers new possibilities. What are yours?
As she got her combinations right, she started giving gifts to friends and family. This went on for 5 years until at the end of 1993 her mother encouraged her to sell some at a church market. She sold 29 of the 30 jars she had made (the jars were her little sisters’ baby food jars borrowed from her mom’s recycle bin).
The business built slowly. One community market at a time. An early feature in Essence Magazine had no impact, but a second small mention triggered 192 orders and she was on her way. Persistence paid off.
By 2002, Price was on the Oprah Winfrey show (listen from the 35th minute to make yourself smile).
Price had always used Oprah as a talisman for the business, saying “when we’re on the Oprah Winfrey Show, we will…” She used the possibility of getting onto the show as a dream to keep pushing herself and her team. What dreamy milestones do you have for your life?
Meeting Oprah helped her embrace her own leadership style. She realized that “you can be humble and authentic and real and still be really, really successful.” She said people would her “you’ve got to be meaner, you’ve got to be tougher, you’ve got to be comfortable being not who you are” and she’d respond “no, no Oprah’s not like that”.
If this kind of leadership appeals to you, check out this webinar on leading with humanity being hosted by the MIT Sloan Management Review (thank you Allan Kent for sharing).
Price’s story teaches us that passion gives us energy; that our interests give us clues about where to build; that persistence is essential, and that authentic human-centred leadership is possible.
SELF
Throughout the podcast, Price reflects on the importance of listening to oneself. She says “you can’t discern what to do from a place of chaos. You need be still, be quiet and allow yourself time to think. Then write it down”.
We are all unique. Planning a future without first deeply listening to yourself is futility. As uncertain as the world is, you can know yourself.
For those of you in the space of considering evolving your professional identity, this Harvard Business Review article on Reinventing Your Personal Brand by Dorie Clark is a useful read.
SOUL
Brainpickings was started by Maria Popova in 2006 as an email to a few friends. Since then it has grown to become one of the world’s most celebrated blogs. Like Lisa Price, Popova started her business out of her home, rooted in her personal passions and with no money.
In this beautiful piece, she reflects on her learnings from 13 years immersing herself in the world’s finest thinPricein “our search for truth, beauty, and meaning”.
I loved this, “Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.”
In closing, Lisa Price says, “To name my company, I listed everything I was and wanted to be, and realized the most special thing that I am is Lisa, Carol’s daughter.” My love of reading that sustains the research that underpins this weekly was cultivated by my mother. To my mom and all the other mothers that read this letter, “Happy Mother’s Day”.
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All the best
Karl