ALL ABOUT EMILY
HOW IT STARTED…
When I was young, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life: I was going to start a record label. So the moment I hit 18 years-old, I headed to Los Angeles to convince my favorite heavy metal label to take me on as an intern. They offered me a full-time, paid position within one month (they may have gleaned how enthusiastic I was to help with just about anything — regardless, I chose to take it as a compliment).
I worked in every possible department within this company, making it my business to learn how everything worked. I hit 4-5 shows a week, shook hands, chatted with our bands about their needs and challenges on the road, and had some truly enviable experiences with amazing musicians along the way. Most nights I made the hour-long drive back to Riverside at around 2am, just to wake-up at 7am and do it all over again (can you imagine that kind of energy?? Shout out to my 20’s!)
After various stints at music-related businesses, doing everything from establishing a customer service department at a CD manufacturing company in Orange County, to managing a kid’s summer rock band camp in San Francisco, work started to dry-up everywhere in the music industry. The chaos of illegal downloading had created a tough road of evolving entire business models and trying to figure out how to monetize new forms of music distribution — most of which wouldn’t even start to become profitable for over a decade! I was out of work, and out of an industry.
I answered a Craigslist ad and found myself packing orders for a little mineral cosmetics brand. Almost back to the beginning, starting over in a new world. Just months later, I went on to rebrand this company and help get them stocked in Macy’s and Nordstrom stores. It was here that I fell in love with the idea of clean beauty — cosmetics excluding preservatives and other potentially toxic and cheap filler ingredients.
But my growth at this company had peaked, and I felt in my bones that there was a much larger audience that wanted these products that was still being excluded. You see, in the 2000’s, what we were still referring to as “green beauty” was incredibly boring. Painfully boring. Think khakis and Birkenstocks — before Birkenstocks became cool again (which by the way, I’m really on the fence about!) Boring neutral colors that didn’t appeal to a broader group, aka, “Metal Emily” with her black, smoky-eye looks and penchant for electric blue eyeshadow. Like probably most other people on the planet at the time, I was under the impression that there was a reason that you couldn’t create “fun” clean cosmetics. After getting intimately familiar with the formulas, I realized there wasn’t… it just hadn’t been done yet.
I had found my niche. I just didn’t know what to do with it yet. Two years, and a handful of other odd jobs later, I developed and launched Concrete Minerals in 2009 with a couple hundred bucks. After getting laid off from yet another company. After moving back into my parents’ house. At the height of the Recession.
Because why the hell not, right? What on earth did I have to lose at that point? I always credit launching my first business to just being mad enough to do it. I was tired of everyone else dictating whether or not I had a secure job, and I was tired of pouring 100% of my love and loyalty into businesses that just didn’t offer enough reciprocation at the end of the day. If I’m going to fall on my face, I thought, I might as well do it for myself.
I developed my original eyeshadow formulas in my kitchen and launched the brand on Etsy, because the marketplace had a built-in customer base. We quickly began to build a cult following for having the best mineral products available. I capitalized on Instagram and Facebook, running contests and getting creative with partnerships to take advantage of as much free marketing as possible. Our profit margins were phenomenal and customer acquisition was cheap — because people loved the brand and were excited to be a part of it. I launched our own website, and the business finally became large enough to hire employees (hallelujah!). We consistently grew sales every single year and money was good, but without an injection of capital, expansion came at a pace far slower than I was happy with.
Through a creative partnership with a marketing agency, the brand finally blew-up. It was the missing piece of our puzzle. We almost immediately 10x’d our monthly sales and built the brand into a force to be reckoned with over the next two years. I redesigned our in-house production and fulfillment to accommodate the growth, and simultaneously worked on a rebranding to prepare the brand to launch in major U.S. retailers. We had buyers clamoring to stock the products, and were about to solidify our own little spot in the marketplace.
And then it all started rolling backwards.
My incredibly well-intentioned business partners started to struggle to fulfill their end of the deal. Not because of a lack of interest necessarily, but because of their own struggles with expansion. We ended-up with gaps in some pretty damn important things that needed to be accomplished on a daily basis to keep up with the new overhead and payroll expenses that our rapid growth had brought with it. And I already had far too much on my plate as I was trying to carry this business into the next, great era. For the very first time, I didn’t have the answers.
Our business, valued at several million dollars at this point, started to slip through my fingers. We were so close to the finish line. Showcasing our products on the shelves of Ulta’s across the country, launching all of the fun new things our fans had been asking for over the years — turning this amazing brand into what I always knew it could be. I ran numbers, and then ran them again. I tried raising last-minute capital. I spent days and nights in the office running through seemingly endless possibilities to plug the hole in the boat to keep the water from gushing in. Even after cutting out nearly all expenses and letting my employees go (one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a business owner), we hemorrhaged debt and were quickly digging a hole that it was hard to see a way out of.
And then one day in December 2018, like exhaling the longest sigh, I finally said out loud what I had known in the back of my mind… “It’s time to find a new home for the brand.” I was done. Not for a lack of affection for what we had created, but because someone else could love it better than I could at this point. I was ready for the next chapter of my life.
We had done an incredible job with what we had available to us over the years. I mean, we had kept this thing alive and thriving for nearly a decade! But the truth is, it was always built on a shaky foundation. It was created out of necessity, almost as an experiment. If my employees had a nickel for how many times I uttered the words “If I just had the chance to create something new, knowing what I know now.” Your first business isn’t supposed to succeed.
Less than one year later, after searching around the world, I found our buyer. A lovely and strong woman who really got what the brand was about, and had a team of women that I absolutely adored. I knew it was in good hands. I paid off our debts, I said my goodbyes, and I walked away.
HOW IT’S GOING:
The truth is, for a while, I really believed I’d never create another brand. I spent a year soul-searching and traveling — and then, oh yeah! That whole pandemic thing hit… what timing! I found myself saying more than once, “it really is a shame I don’t have a desire to start something new, because few people on this planet have as much knowledge and real world experience as I do.” Felt like kind of a waste, ya know?
And then something strange happened: A business idea that I had several years before selling Concrete Minerals started to pop-up. And I didn’t hate it. I actually kind of liked it. And I kind of liked working on a new business plan (totally theoretical, of course!) and workshopping new products. If I’m being totally honest, I felt pretty inspired by this idea. Until eventually I had to admit — I really wanted to create this new brand. Who would’ve guessed? insertlaughcryemoji
In fact there’s a lot of things I’d still like to create. I dream-up new business ideas in my sleep, and sometimes panic that they might not all get to see the light of day before I die. And that’s silly. But it’s just what I do. I’m an entrepreneur, and I’m incredibly durable, and I can’t wait to share with you what’s next.
XO, Em
