How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Aishetu Dozie of Bossy Cosmetics

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Aishetu Dozie had a successful career in finance before she took a leap and launched Bossy, a makeup brand that has exploded in popularity over the past six months, despite the challenges of the pandemic. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.Order the How I Built This book at:https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition. On these episodes, we talk with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're dealing with the challenges of the pandemic and the global economic crisis. And today, we're going to hear from Aisha Dosier, the founder of Bossi Cosmetics. Isha's company is pretty young. It's only been around for about 19 months, and she describes Bossy Cosmetics as a feat. female empowerment company masquerading as a makeup company. And before Isha started it, she was an investment banker.

Tell me this story. I mean, you were in finance. I know you grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and you studied at Cornell, and you were in finance for like two decades. How did you make the move to start your own thing? So it's interesting. So go back. It's important to mention, you know, I'm a first generation, American citizen.

My parents were or are in Nigeria and my father's passed away. And after the war in Nigeria, they moved to the U.S. to get college degrees, both of them. I was born in the middle of that process. And my parents got a divorce. They split. My father went back to Nigeria and we lived in the U.S. until I was 10. And then I moved back to Nigeria. Now, when I went to Cornell, as you said, I don't think I was passionate about finance.

I just knew that I needed to pay for my own education, right? And I also knew that I needed to take up loans and get scholarships and grants, etc. And so I left school with, you know, quite heavy debt. And, you know, you just very quickly make the mental calculation and realize finance is where the money is, right? Right. So I think I fell into finance. And also I was very good or talented at math. And I was very good at economics.

And when I started it, my first job was at Goldman in New York. I thought I would do it for my two years as an analyst. That was it. And then I was offered a third year analyst position. I said, okay, one year and I'll go to business school. I kept saying, one more year, one more year. And, you know, as they say, golden handcuffs. You make more money.

You keep getting higher and higher. And that whole adrenaline goes. And for me, four years ago, I was super stressed out. I have three children. I was traveling all over the world. I was very senior as an investment banker. But I wasn't healthy. And when my doctor said, listen, you're going to have a stroke if you keep going this way.

For me, it was a come-to-Jesus moment. And that was the... the beginning of the journey. At the time, I didn't know that I would start a makeup company because I had no makeup background except for the fact that I was an avid user of beauty products. So that's where it started from. You know, it's so interesting because we talk about this on the show a lot, this idea of doing things that are dangerous versus scary. And when you have those golden handcuffs, it feels really scary to leave because, you know, you've got this steady income.

you're making lots of money and it's a secure job. But then the question is, is it dangerous to stay? Because one day you might wake up and regret that you didn't leap at the chance to do something on your own. And it sounds like that's the calculation you made. You realize that it would be too dangerous to stay, even though it was scary to leave. Yeah, I mean, I had a panic attack, I'll be honest with you, where I was in the hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, which is where I was living in my last role. And when I had decided, okay, I'm quitting, I'm not healthy, I'm certainly not mentally happy

doing this job, but I don't know what I want to do. Just the sheer fear. I was so petrified of loss of status, loss of income, you know, that business card, your identity has been so wrapped up in this thing. I thought I was having a heart attack. Turns out it was a panic attack. And at that point, you know, at the hospital, my husband and I looked at each other and it was just very clear that something needed to change. So really, it took a lot of courage for you to do this. So let's talk about makeup and cosmetics because you know and people in your industry know this is a massive global industry with huge growth potential. How did you decide to focus on cosmetics on creating a cosmetics brand? So when I left my job in banking, I was thankfully accepted into a fellowship

of Stanford. So that's how I came to Palo Alto, which is where I live right now. I was a part of a fellowship, a one-year fellowship called the Distinguished Careers Institute. And what I love about the DCI Fellowship is they take people who have established some level of success in their careers, but are looking for significance. And so I spent one year at Stanford, most of my time was in the design school, which is probably one of the most transformational years for me, because the main thing I learned was you can actually do anything you want to do. You don't have to have all the information. Just give it a try, right? Yeah. Have an insight, go out there, test it in the marketplace, create a prototype, go out there, engage with customers, and they just go back.

reiterate and keep reiterating. And so I was like, wait a minute, I don't have to have millions of dollars to create a massive company and then go into the marketplace to learn. I can just take little steps and little steps. And so that freed me. Day one journey can literally be start really small. And I immediately knew I wanted to do something with color and I wanted to do something with women. I had learned over the years that ambitious women who like myself climbed the life, ladder, often deal with issues around imposter syndrome, deal with issues of lack of confidence, even though we don't show it, but inside we're shaking, right? And so I started talking to women, how do you think about confidence? What do you do? What do you do to get ready for this big

meeting or promotion or job interview? And so many women talked about, I get my hair done, I put on my makeup, I put on my lipstick, I da, da, and there was this connection between how you look, how you feel, and how you perform. And that's where I was like, let's go. I'm going to start a beauty company. You know, I've heard this before from other founders who are involved in the beauty industry, which is it's incredibly empowering. You know, when somebody feels good about the way they look, right, I didn't invent this. I do my hair toss, check my nails. Baby, how you feeling? Right? Yeah. So, I mean, Jen Hyman had rent the runway. This is her whole point is that when people feel, when they look good, when they feel good, they're more confident, they're empowered, and it actually

enables women to feel powerful in the workplace. And it sounds like that's the sort of value proposition you landed on. That's exactly the core of what Bossy Cosmetics is. And our mission statement from day one, it's on our site, is empowering women to look, feel, and do good. Like the do is the action. It's about wanting women to go out and do more, be more. All right. So you land on this idea during this year. You have no background in cosmetics and.

and makeup, but you know that you can start small. So how did you start? Did you just start to really dive into the research and start to really delve into this industry to learn as much as you could? Absolutely. So the first thing I did, I was still a student at the time. So the benefit of being a student at Stanford is you have access to Euro monitor reports and all these various research reports. You know, I just read and read and read. And then the first, one of the most important things I learned was that the average woman wears something color on her lips on most occasions, but she is least loyal to the person who makes her lipstick. Like the average woman who wears makeup is very religious about the foundation she wears or the eyeliner or the mascara. Like she'll have one product that

she's like, this is my one thing. But for lipsticks, she'll have 10. And that's where I was like, you need to start in lips because I'm not a celebrity. I'm not an influencer. Nobody knows who I am. But if that's the area which people are willing to try, that that's where you need to go. So that's how I started with lipstick. So when you decided to take the leap, did you go out and seek funding for the business? I did. So first of all, I'll say that I wanted to start small, but of course I live in Palo Alto, and you kind of have this notion that, wait a minute, everybody who wants to start a business here just has checks written to them, right?

And so you're like, oh, okay, well, if I want to start small, I'll get somebody to write me a check. And I go, you know, trying to speak to venture capitalists. Of course, I do a bunch of blind emails. And I said several repeatedly. I'm not sure anybody responded to any of them. And everybody that I spoke to made me hate the idea. They said, don't do it. Oh, absolutely.

A lot of people said to me, men, by the way, said to me, what is the connection between work and beauty? The two have nothing to do with it. other. They're not listening to how I built this if they're saying that, by the way. Clearly not, right? And that's the thing. It's like, it's a pointless to even continue a conversation when you're speaking to a potential investor who doesn't even understand your industry. Or the one of the most offensive was, this is so niche. You know, this is only for black women, right? And there was that sort of underlying unconscious or maybe conscious bias of because I'm black, the only woman I can really appeal to with my product and my marketing is another black woman, right? So it was

this is to niche or just some really silly things that that led me to, okay, just self-finance. And I had a few friends who were like, hey, we want to support you and wrote me checks. And I started on my own, right? So no institutional money. And I said, let's just start this. And not having any institutional capital makes you super scrappy, makes you think about every cent you spend. What is the potential return on this?

And is it useful? So it was a really interesting place to find myself, which is I really did think, oh, my God. I'm Aisha. I should be able to raise lots of money and then realizing that I can't raise any. And the thing that really excited me was when I spoke to women, they would all say to me, oh my God, that's a great idea. How come nobody's doing that? Oh, my God, that's cool. Like, you're going to offer free coaching services? How are you going to make money from that? Oh, wait, you're going to interview women to talk about this? And that's when I was like, wait, my customer likes this. So let's just focus on the customer. And so that's, that was the blessing

in the rejections is that it forced me to focus on the ultimate user. When we come back in just a moment, Isha tells me why it's kind of tricky to trademark the name Bossy. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this Resilience Edition. I'm talking with Isha Dosier. She's the founder of Bossi Cosmetics. And Isha says, despite all the economic challenges we're facing right now, it's still a pretty good time to start a business. We have never had a lower barrier to entry to starting as an entrepreneur today. You know, it's free to set up an Instagram account.

It's really easy to set up a bank account, like all these things. Create a really tiny product range. You can even shoot the photography yourself if you want to with an iPhone and just go out there and give it a try. And I really do believe, which is something we've been doing at Bossie, is you just keep getting better and better. Like you improve, you improve, you improve. Yeah.

Tell me about the name. I mean, it's so great because it's so like in your face, but it's clearly tongue and cheek, but also has multiple meanings to tell me about the name. It does. Why you pick the name? Absolutely. So there's a good and not so great part of the name. So when I had come to this, okay, I'm going to start a beauty company.

I thought, what should I call it? And literally bossy hit me in the face, right? And I thought, what I want to use with Bossy is I want to, it is the word for me that really encapsulated the kind of woman I was trying to speak to. And when I say self-identifies as ambitious, she more than likely, at least once in her entire life, has been called Bossy. And that was always, and I definitely have been called Bossy multiple times in my life, right? And what that meant was, you know, you have a viewpoint and you want to make your point heard. they don't say you're assertive or you're a natural leader. And so I wanted to take this term that has historically been used in a very pejorative fashion

for women and almost flip it on its head and say, own this, own your bossy. Let's retake this term and let's use it to empower ourselves that when someone calls you bossy, it means they heard your voice, right? Because if you're a wilting flower in the corner, no one's calling you bossy. Right. But there's so many different bossies in the beauty industry now. I mean, you've got, we're bossy beauty or bossy cosmetics. There's so many different versions, be bossy, bossy this, bossy that.

And so, you know, we are in the process of rebranding the company because it's impossible to get a trademark with the word bossy now in the United States because, you know, there are at least 20 companies that use the word bossy. And of course, being a former banker, I understand, you know, ownership of IP. And so that is very critical for us. So it's a very interesting time for the business. and growth perspective as well. Can you call it like B-A-W-S-Y?

Just spell it differently? You know, I'd love to do that, but I promise you somebody will find a reason to sue us. It has been a very interesting few months guy with people, you know, believing that they own that word. And, you know, just my own personal search of, you know, in the last six months, our business has exploded. Yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, I mean, you're a new business. So you're in the midst of this economic and global health crisis. So what's been going on with the business?

So in January, I started to get really nervous. And the reason is when we first started the business, 100% of our supply chain was in California. And then, of course, as we started to grow and I decided, okay, look, this is actually going really well. I want to go into eyeliners, eyeshadows, all these. I want to get into full-color cosmetics. I decided that I would diversify my supply chain. And so I went on this trip last summer with my product designer who's based in Paris. So we moved our formulation lab to Italy.

Our primary packaging suppliers are in China. And then our boxing packaging is in Germany. Well, March 8th was our first year birthday. And on March 8th, I was going to be unveiling a whole new collection. And then in January, my suppliers are like, yeah, we don't know. We might have to close for just a week or just two weeks. And then it became February. They were shut down.

I started to have panic. I was like, okay, we need to get this out. Let's get that out. And they managed to get one container out to Italy. And so I'm like, okay, thank God. Our stuff is getting to Italy. At least half of it's getting to Italy. If we rush by March, we can launch some of them, not all of them.

And then, as we all know, Italy shut down. Yeah. So by my first anniversary, March 8th, I had a good problem, which is that our launch collection had pretty much sold that, which was great, but I had nothing else to sell. So there was like sold out, sold out on the website. You know, all my promises and announcements of, oh, guys, you know, we have this coming out. We're just, I had nothing to sell. I was miserable.

And so that happened in March. And then in April, I sent an email out to our email list of a few thousand people. And I said, guys, look, I feel really bad, me that you haven't heard from me. But, you know, this is what's, and I was honest. You know, I'm really sorry that everything is sold out on the site. I have nothing to sell you. At this point now, my California supplier is also shut down. So there's nothing to sell.

And I'm like, look, there's nothing to sell guys, but can we chat? Can we talk? If anybody wants to talk about getting an MBA. I have an MBA. I'd love to give you advice about that. If anybody wants to talk about how to be a mom in these times, I would love to talk about that. And my customer started writing me back. Aisha, can you talk about this?

Can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do that? And it became this whole community discussion that had nothing to do with selling product. Yeah. And so that just kept me busy. And then June happened.

And I feel really weird guy talking about the death of George Floyd because, I mean, for the obvious reasons, you know, just a very broken period and a very sad period. But what happened for black owned businesses was it was almost like someone had switched the coding and the algorithm. folks started looking for quality black-owned businesses, and the press started to really talk about us. And then the people who just didn't even know about my business before did. And luckily at that time, Italy opened up again. China had opened up again. And so I flew out an aircraft of some of our products that were made.

And I was like, let's go. But it all kind of happened at a very interesting time. And so we're back in business. And with this whole 15% pledge that's opened up a whole new thing for us as well. This is what Sephora and some of these beauty retailers are saying, 15% of the products we sell will be by black-owned businesses. Exactly. And so not only did you have consumers now looking for black-grant brands, buying them.

Then you have, you know, major retailers who are emailing you. You know, you look in your email box and you're like, huh? Like, what? Me? Wow. And they're like, yeah, we'd love to talk to you about getting in our store. And, you know, I started off this year. I think I did an IG Live where I said by the end of 2020, I would love to be in five boutiques.

And I had picked five cities. Then all of a sudden, you have global retailers emailing you saying, you know, some customers have suggested you. Let's talk. So it's, you know, in March when I kind of. fell on the floor like, oh my God, my business is dead to today, I can't believe it. I mean, it really is a reminder that in those low moments, sometimes you just have to get through it. You just have to kind of persevere. And the only way to get through it is just to get through it. Because around the corner, something may happen that may completely

change the situation. I am a testament to that. I'm a testament to that. I'm a testament to that. I'm I mean, I literally, in April, thought, the business is dead, right? Like, how do you have a product company that doesn't have products and doesn't know when it's going to have products? And is this even a good use of your time? The world is falling apart. Is the world coming to an end? And now I get this point about resilience. Now I get this point around great.

Yeah. Do you – one last question for you before we go. You know, this is such a crazy time. I mean, you're still early on in building you. your business and building the foundation of your business. But if you were starting out, if you, if somebody came to you and said, you know, Isha, I don't, I mean, is now a good time to start a business? Like the world is crazy. Like, what should I do? What would you answer? How do you, how do you answer that question? Look, I mean, it depends obviously on your circumstance, right? Because I think I am

lucky that I'm blessed that I have a home to live in and that, you know, I can afford to take this type of risk. So I think first of all, people need to establish what kind of privilege they enjoy to allow themselves to not have a salary because, you know, you don't pay yourself money when you're starting this business. Every cent goes back into the company. So once I'm assuming you've done that, I think this is a really great time. There's their funds outside out there, there are grants, you know, looking for entrepreneurs to do really interesting things. And these are really crazy times where people have needs. People are spending money or are looking for support. You just need to figure out what they want.

And so this is the time. If you think that you want to be an entrepreneur, this is the time to go for it. Aisha Dozier, founder of Bossy Cosmetics. Thank you so much for being on the show for joining us. Thank you. That's an excerpt for my conversation with Aisha Dozier, founder of Bossy Cosmetics. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com slash how I built this. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com

slash NPR. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with help from Will Mitchell, Bruce Grant, Matt Adams, El Manion, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. Thanks for listening. Stay safe and I will be back in just a few days. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This.