Your Next Move - Scaling Pattern: Inside Tracee Ellis Ross’s Next Move

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

What does it really take to turn a deeply personal idea into a category-defining brand? In this episode of Your Next Move, award-winning actor, producer, and entrepreneur Tracee Ellis Ross sits down to unpack the 11-year journey behind building Pattern Beauty—a company rooted in both lived experience and a clear market gap. What may look like an overnight success was, in reality, shaped by years of rejection, iteration, and conviction in an underserved customer base. Ross shares how she navigated early skepticism around the size and value of the textured hair market, why she chose to build custom formulations instead of licensing existing ones, and how a pivotal partnership with Ulta Beauty helped bring her vision to life. She also gets candid about scaling challenges—from selling out too quickly at launch to building the operational infrastructure needed to sustain rapid growth. Along the way, Ross breaks down what she looks for in business partners, how she balances creative instinct with operational rigor, and why understanding your customer at a granular level is the foundation of any lasting brand. She also reflects on the transition from artist to CEO—and how storytelling, trust, and team-building remain central to both. Plus, Ross explains why celebrity alone isn’t enough to build a business, how Pattern expanded beyond her personal brand, and what it means to “professionalize” a company without losing its mission.

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Jeff launched a woman's line scaling the brackish brand to the next level. Because at Capital One, it's not just business. It's relationships that help you do more business. Learn more at Capital One.com slash business cards. Hello, everybody. Is this thing on? How's everybody doing? Hello, Gene.

Yeah. We are so excited for this conversation, and I want to welcome everyone to your next move, which is produced by Inc. and Capital One Business. Thank you to Capital One Business, our underwriter and co-producer on this program. And on behalf of all my Inc. colleagues, I want to say that having this conversation today

and working on this program, your next move together, is a delight. And it's a delight right now, because, of course, I have the privilege of introducing and interviewing Tracy Ellis Ross. Now, Tracy, you need no introduction. but you are the founder and co-CEo of Pattern Beauty, and you have some other jobs too, I hear.

A couple over there, yeah. I wear a couple of hats. And, you know, pattern is so interesting to me. Obviously, I'm a customer, you can tell. Yes, I said that right when I met you, I said, oh my God, which products are you using? A long-time user, a long-time fan. But, you know, one of the things I'm interested in is I kind of think of pattern

as being this, like, overnight, meteoric success that suddenly was everywhere, right? That's funny. You know, but actually... I like the way that sounds, though. Yeah, yeah. Well, but it goes back to, you started, like, thinking about the product and the idea, going back to girlfriends, right?

Correct, yeah. The truth is it all began in my childhood, right? So I could probably chronicle my journey of my self-acceptance through my hair, and my relationship to my hair, my understanding of my hair, my meeting my hair, where it was, was a journey that taught me a lot. And during that time, I spent a lot of moments going,

wouldn't it be amazing if? I wish this, what if there was a brand that? I was doing all that. And then when girlfriends finished, I wrote my first hair care brand pitch because I had spent all these years, both professionally and personally, sort of in the trenches of my hair,

realizing that the products didn't exist and that the products that were on the shelves for textured hair were the same ones that my mother and my grandmother and my aunts had been dealing with, and they were in a back corner of the story, and a lot of the dreams and the things that I was wanting as a customer that I had the opportunity to sort of put together in a brand pitch. That, from me writing my first hair care brand pitch,

to being on shelves was 11 years. There were a lot of... So this is like 2008, 2009, and then we go. I don't understand years. I don't... I can't remember them. I don't do math, numbers, zeros. It gets very confusing to me. Noted.

Yeah, no, no, I'm a feeler. I feel very intelligent. Emotional. Emotional IQ. Numbers, no. Know how to spend it. Know how to operate a business. Don't really do well with the years.

No. Okay. So right when girlfriends finished, I always say when I graduated from girlfriends, whenever that was, I started that process. And it was all kinds of different knows. But the bottom line is, I don't think, I can say this now from this position,

that people didn't understand the power of the market, the space, the gap, the money on the table. They also really systemically didn't understand the importance and the beauty of texture hair. And so there was a space, there was a gap, there was a need for product, there was a need, the customer needed to be serviced,

and I just jumped right in there 11 years later. Wow. Well, let me ask this, who was the first person you told, or maybe it was a couple of people who got it and who you felt like, oh, this is interesting. There were a couple of people on the road. That's really interesting.

I will say the first people that really got it were Mary Dylan and Monica at Alta Beauty. I met with two retail partners prior to even having business partners, no ability to sort of operate a business on my own and had my idea and had started creating business. found manufacturers here in Los Angeles because I wanted to be able to.

One of the things that I really noticed was there were two options. I could put my name on formulas that existed or I could develop formulas. And my thing as a customer was that there were not formulas that actually did what I needed them to do, right? And so I needed to find a manufacturer that I could be hands-on with. And my thing was, I didn't go to product development school. I didn't know the terms. So I needed to be able to talk to the manufacturer,

like really get in there with the chemists and talk to them and explain things in a way, the way a customer uses them. And so I found those people. I really started 10 years of not getting a yes, made me really articulate my vision with clarity. All of my nose, I would sort of ask myself, Do I agree with that? No. If I don't agree with that, no,

is it because I didn't effectively express what I was trying to express or because they just don't get it? And so I really clarified my mission for the brand, which is to meet the needs of the curly, coily, and tight-textured community. And as a result, by the time I sat down with Ulta and with Mary Dillon, they were in from the start. And I was able to have an honest conversation with them and say,

okay, so now how do we make this business? And they suggested three different operational partners. And that's where the journey began. So I think one of my most important yeses was from Ulta. The second important yes was from my business partners, from PJ Bryce and Sean Neff. So talk about finding business partners, what you look for in business partners,

and then how you work together. So finding business partners, I have done this throughout my career, even as an actor. When somebody says you should meet, I take them up on that. I'm like, wait, who is that that you said I should meet? Could you reach out to them on my behalf? Then I send the thank you note to the person who suggested that, and then I move on the road. You know, this is a life of world, a business of relationships. I asked them, I asked Alta for suggestion of three operational partners that they worked well.

with. I say operational partners because to me that's what it was. They're business partners, right? But they had the infrastructure to operate a business, to take an idea and make it, that's a, I knew I was going to forget it, exportable. Because, you know, my idea came out of my own personal experience, right? But that's not enough to make a brand. That's not enough to make a business. That's my experience. And if you're not careful, your own personal experience can actually limit your ability to export that into an actual business plan. That's really fascinating. How so? Well, because it becomes so personal that you lose sight of more than yourself.

Now, I do think, especially as an actor and a storyteller, personal is universal. But you also then have to create a relationship with not only your customer and the promise that you are offering to them. But then how do you scale that? How do you make that into a business? You asked me a question when we were talking earlier. Or no, it was the question that social asked me. Like, what were some of the things in the,

would I do anything differently from the beginning? And I think the biggest thing I would say to myself back then was, remember, it is okay to not know and to ask if you don't know, but trust what you do know. And so your question was about my partners. Yeah, how do you guys work? together and how did you say, like, oh, these are the right people for me?

These are the right people came from. I love that they had a mission and a vision for their company that was really connected to more than just themselves and making money. That was important to me. They were easy to talk to. They had creative minds that were similar to mine. They had expertise and business experience that was way beyond what I had. They had something to offer me, and they trusted and respected what I was bringing to the table.

And that was huge. And I, Beach House Group has, they have multiple businesses and brands. I think I'm the only one that brought it to them as a baked idea. So I have a different partnership with them than I think other people. But it's been so instrumental in me learning who I am as a businesswoman, trusting, and also having partners. that I can go to, that I trust, to say, what if I do this, what about this, how would we do this, what do you think this would be?

And that's been really important. I mean, you know, I started, we were four people, and we built, I built pattern in between takes on Blackish. Literally, we, the fourth. So you're like, I know we have to do this scene, but I just have to finish this one thing. No, they would be changing lights, moving cameras around, and the team of four would be in my trailer,

and we would get in there. And then sometimes I remember we had a meeting with a retail partner during my lunch break. They had set up on the Disney lot in a conference room, and I ran in there and did my full pitch for the brand. We want to exceed the needs. At the time, it was meet the needs of the curly-coily and tight-textured community,

and we are centered around the celebration of blackness. And a celebration of black beauty, black beauty, beauty brand. And so, you know, I think of those moments and being back there and where I am now, knowing that I needed to hire a co-CEO who could support me and help me and help the business to professionalize, to scale appropriately, to look for the key revenue drivers and how to continue to implement operational rigor into the business and an operational excellence into the business. And now I think of where I am that I can even say key revenue drivers.

You know, like, these are things that I know now, for real. You know, they come from my own experience of being in the trenches and under the hood of my business. Now, the business accelerated during the pandemic. It did. We launched 2019 right before the whole. Perfect timing. Just amazing. Yeah, yeah.

Really good timing. But maybe actually good for you. Yeah, it was great. It really was. Because, you know, my belief is that people should have out. access to their best hair in their own bathroom, or someone else's, and that whether you wear wigs, weaves, hats,

whatever you wear or you wear your hair naturally, that in the privacy of your own bathroom, you should have access to products that support you exactly where you are. And during the pandemic, it was so apparent that hair care was self-care, that it really reached right in to the right place. place. The social media being right at everyone's fingertips, we're a mobile first brand, really allowed us and me to put forth the narrative of the brand and to really connect with

our community, my community, who are very savvy customers, smart customers who have been practiced at their own experiential knowledge of how to cocktail products and what works and what doesn't. And so I was able to sort of reach right in there and connect in such an authentic, true, honest way that it gave us the appropriate fertile ground to really build a substantial business. Was there sort of a moment early on when the customer base of the company, Transcender, moved beyond people who were fans of you? You know, did you have that moment? And what was that like? You know, the thing that's interesting to me is there's this thing everyone talks about celebrity brands, First of all, I'm not a celebrity brand.

We're a brand. And the founder also is a person who does things in the public eye, right? Celebrity is only going to take you so far. It's going to get you that access, but you better have a business. I mean, first of all, you can have all that attention. People can come in running to buy the product. If you can't keep supplying the product, you're going to lose that audience anyway, that customer anyway.

So that's still happening. There's some people that have no idea pattern as my brand. It has anything to do with me. I did that on purpose. I didn't want to call it, Tracy Ellis Ross. A lot of my early entrepreneurship and business knowledge came from what I saw. And I remember Norma Kamali. I remember ill-machiage.

I don't know if it's the same ill-machiasge that's now, but I remember these were founders that had lost their names. And I remember being fascinated by that. I didn't know I was going to be a business owner at some point. So the company is called Pattern. So there are a lot of customers that don't know that pattern is of my, you know, from my heart. There is a transition that happens, and I mostly noticed it in the way we were growing. You know, you go from one retail partner to 11, and you go, I don't think this is just about me.

You know what I mean? or you look at data and you realize, oh, people that try the product, stay. You look at, what is it called return, when people returned on your D-C? Repeat Roaz or return visits? There you go. But there's like a, those little letters, them little letters.

Say again? Retention. And there's another one too, but you don't. LTV, long-term value. There you go. Nice time value. Thank you. All them letters in our meetings all the time.

I'm sorry, can you break that down, please? I'm sorry, what now? I know a lot of them now. I love it when I use them now, I'm like, right? My team's like... Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But so when you start looking at those numbers,

you go, oh, this is about the product, and that was really what I set out to do, right? Personally, as a customer, I was like, I want a product that's going to work. I want slip retention, slippage when the product goes through my hair. I want clumping. I want curl activation.

I want all these things. Exactly. I want them too, so much. I want them for you. I know. I appreciate that. But these are things. I also, you know, I want a brush

that's not going to break when I use it. I want a comb that's not going to pop. I want an attachment on my blow dryer that when the blow dryer gets hot is not going to fall off and ding me in the forehead. You know what I? I mean, like, these are really important things. And then for an eco-friendly curly, I also want to refill my tubes.

So I had to make sure that the opening under the cap was large enough that you could take the jumbo and you could pump it into the tube. That you didn't have to always go buy another tube and cut it open and dig out. I mean, you know, if you're going to spend that much money on conditioner, whether it's on the high, high end or mastige, you know, if you're going to do that, you want to know that you're going to get every last bit out. I mean, I get my fingernail in there. You know what I mean? In that little top part of the cap? You got to get in there so you can get that last bit. And so those are some of the things that as, what was Hair Club?

You would say, I'm not just a customer. I'm not just the owner of a client. That's right. I'm not just the owner. I'm a client. So, you know, but when you're, and by the way, now I have built a team that is also the client. You know what I mean? Also the customer.

We have a diverse group. around the table, and not just around the table anymore, it's more than a table. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me ask this. So you talked about professionalizing the business, and when that moment came, when did that come and what were like the first functions that you were like,

this is where we need some firepower, this is where we need to professionalize. The first area was product development. You start to realize that the growth of a company, especially with the promise and the mission of our brand, which is to exceed these needs, right? that you actually need somebody who understands textured hair, who probably has textured hair,

and who has a real deep understanding and knowledge of these kinds of products. And so finding the product development department and that was one of the first places where I was like, first of all, they kept calling it PD. And I was like, I'm sorry, what now? PD, we need PD, I'm like, product development.

I was like, yeah, we do. That's what I was saying. Correct. Facts. And so that was the first place, right, where I really kind of woke up. I'm trying to think of some of the other marketing. But, you know, I've had my hand in all of it, which makes for a great leader when you are growing as a business is known.

I've never been a product development person, but I will tell you when we first started, I would make about three videos per shower. I would get in and out of the shower to on-camera really show what exactly I was trying to express about either slip or when, and this was very interesting to me in the beginning and something that our product development team really supported

in is finding the right manufacturers and the right chemists. to create those formulas, because I remember one of the first chemists we work with kept saying, I need to know what it does when the hair is dry. And I was like, but you can tell almost immediately when you put it in your hair if it's going to work or not. And that was not part of the knowledge that they had.

So Heady was very instrumental in being able to find and source those right people. Also, then the next thing was Operation. supply chain numbers. Starting a business comes with a share of ups and downs, which is why staying true to your vision is essential. A non-negotiable for Romeo and Milka Rogali, Capital One business customers and co-owners of Ross plant-based restaurant in New York.

Romeo and Milka took a leap of faith when starting their own restaurant, gutting an empty space and building it from the ground up. Every pipe, every wall, every detail. But building from scratch came with a heavy financial burden, which is when they turned to their Capital One business card. With the flexibility of the card's no preset spending limit, they were able to spend more and earn more rewards while bringing their vision to life.

Today, Ross's success is proof that with passion and the right support, it's possible to make your dreams a reality. Learn more at Capital One.com slash business cards. Numbers. Yeah. Not my forte. Being efficient is my forte. Discipline is my forte.

Rigor, quick decisions. These are my forte. Understanding detail and marketing, being a guardian of the mission and the vision of the brand, knowing my customer, knowing, because it's not just me, you know, it's like my family. It's like knowing the community is my forte,

but supply chain is not. and reading that kind of data. And so that was the next place that was really important. Can I tell another story? Yeah, yeah. You've got the mic. Well, so do you, though. Yeah.

When we first started and launched at Ulta, we sold out really quickly. And I was so thrilled. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna be a fucking bowionaire. I was like, my God, Mom! You know, I was so excited. But we couldn't refill. I was going to say,

it's good for a day. It's good for a day. And Ulta had underestimated the market, and it was an area that I did not know in terms of, I'm not going to use all the right words, but how we were accounting for, how quickly it would sell out, how we were accounting for that,

how that supply chain was set up. And it was evidence that the customer was there, but then how do you refill that? You know what I mean? So that was an early lesson. It was also an early conversation that I sat behind closed doors with Ulta and had.

I was like, we're never going to do this again. We are never going to underestimate this customer again. And I hope that pattern can be an example so that this doesn't happen to any other brand again. This is a very, oh, wait, this is why I have cards because sometimes I forget words, but wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. No. No. No.

The category represents a large, highly engaged, an underserved market. Hold on. Hold on. I wrote these in the car. Hold on. Oh, I also wrote Consumers are smart. I'm a smart customer. Um, nope, wait, I'm gonna find it.

Oh, this is a good one. Celebrity gives you early momentum, but scaling requires infrastructure, professionalizing operations, identifying key revenue drivers, operating expense low, a good team, operational rigor. I said those things. Yeah, no, you're an area.

See, when you write it down, it gets in there, you know what I mean? Well, let me ask this. No. Early skepticism was about perceived market size. That's what I was looking for. And I think that that is part of what was happening in the industry. And I think it's a lot of the reasons that textured hair brands are undervalued and the money that goes in to help those brands.

They underestimate this market. And also, keep in mind, about 73 percent of the global population has textured hair. This is not a niche market. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm curious, as the company has grown, you've entered more retail partners, you've added products.

Was there a moment when the revenue mix really changed or the customer mix changed? And what was that like? Yeah, I think, you know, we, unlike most brands, we entered the market through retail. And that really has remained one of our main access points. I said that to you earlier. But there has been a switch in terms of,

of D to C. So a lot of brands just start D to C. We do both always, and we will probably remain that way always, because the hair customer and textured hair customer likes to touch and feel and smell. So most people are going to be introduced

to the brand through brick and mortar. But the interesting part has been D to C and that expansion, and the customer's coming there, because once you know the products you like, then you can buy from D to C or Amazon. And that's really how the customer works. And learning that, I also feel like the market has changed so much

in terms of how to access a customer, how to tell narrative, how to break through all the clutter. And so that has been something that D2C is incredibly helpful with because you can follow the customer's journey. You were saying Amazon's growing really fast for you. Amazon is growing really fast. I think it is for everyone. I mean, there's an ease to Amazon.

But D2C has also, our Pattern Beauty.com, has also grown substantially and is a very meaningful part of our business. Sephora is a meaning part of it. Like, honestly, all the pieces make up the wheel. And looking at each of our partners in the unique way that matches them as a partner is what works. You know, unlocking the Sephora code and making sense of that relationship and really understanding the Sephora customer as a different customer than the

Ulta customer or different than Nordstrom. or different than D to Z, D to C, and really leaning into that. And I have to say that D to C gives you access to that also, not just the narrative and what you're sharing with the customer, but to them. And it informs a lot of the journey. You were saying earlier that right now you're in a stage where you're really thinking about operations

and you've lifted up the hood and you're looking at all the different operations of the company. What has that process been like and what have you discovered? I have discovered that I don't always have the language for the rigor that we need, but if I express the frustration, there are people who do, a director of operations, who knows how to take a frustration and translate that into better systems. We thrived because we were scrappy and small,

but you can't be scrappy and small when you have 11 retail partners. It's not possible. So learning how, number one, to put together the right team, and number two, to really identify where are the places that things are getting clogged? What's happening from A to C? One of our team members gave me a metaphor that has been so helpful. She was like, the people working on the trees are incredible and passionate. The people working at the forest level are incredible and passionate.

We need better link between the two. And I was like, that is so helpful. It is so helpful. So we need now to build in time to communicate in those two places. The other thing that I've noticed recently that we're really working on is capacity planning. What can we actually do? And what are the things that get to drop off? And then how do you identify those things?

And that's what you're so lovely to talk to. The two of you, and you over there. I'm like, I'm like right at you. I'm like, yeah, thank you. But being able to really look at what we are capable of and what are the priorities. So if you look at the key revenue drivers and that we're looking to lower OPX, right? And then I hold the mission and the vision of the brand and being a guardian of the customer. and you put that into an equation,

you are able to decide what we can actually do and what we can't and how to keep that efficient. So I'm curious, like, you know, for most of your career, you were an actor and artist. I still am. Still are, still are. Solo traveling with Tracy Ellis Ross on Roadcrew. Yes, that's right.

I'm curious, does building pattern nurture or, like, unlock your creativity in a different way from your acting career? And how do they compare? I am very able and grateful for my creativity in being a business leader and a business builder. It allows me to not worry about what other people think, play, and give myself space to discover, to trust my instincts. That is stuff that I have a strong muscle with from acting and from being an actress. being a CEO and a founder is much closer to being a producer.

And I'm also a producer. It's about putting together a great team. It is about trusting your team with what you enlist them to do. It's about getting out of the way and allowing them to have agency and ownership around their roles and their positions. And then also being able to go, you are not doing that, and I am stepping in, you know,

and finding that balance. I will say that I love being in business because I'm really smart. And as an actress, you are not always asked to be smart. As an actress, I am asked to use my intelligence to build, and my emotional intelligence, to build a role, a character, to tell a story. But I am there to be of service to somebody else's vision.

I am there as a vehicle for somebody else's idea in this visit, and they don't really want to hear from you. Which is really okay, that's the role. And it is something that I love. I mean, every time, my manager's sitting in here, every time I go and do a movie like last year, I think it was last year, I did a,

I'm not good with the years, told you. I did like three movies in a row, and I was like, I love this. Like, I just love it. I love it so much. I love playing my part, not everyone's part, playing my part, not having to see and keep in mind everything that's going on,

but just be that person. But they're not looking for me to be the smartest person in the room. They're not looking for me to have the ideas, to make decisions quickly, to decide things aren't moving as efficiently as they should, to see what the capacity planning should be for this set and why we are moving so slow. They're not asking that of me.

But in my office, that is what's asked of me. and I know how to do it. And so I love that I have now, at this age, built a career that allows me to do all those things, to be a solo traveler, to be an actress servicing someone else's vision, to be serving a customer with great reverence. What else do I do? Oh, I'm a great daughter, guys.

And a really, really good sister and a great friend. and a great friend. I love it. I love it. Last question. Obviously, the name of this program is your next move. So Tracy, what is your next move? My next move is we are going to blow the ceiling off of what's possible with pattern.

We are going to continue to change the market and dispel the myth that black hair care is a niche market. We are going to continue to hold and be the gold standard within the industry in terms of our operational excellence. and professionalism and solo travel season two is coming out. And we want me back on TV

and a scripted, you know what I mean? I love it. I love it. Well, award-winning actress, producer, an entrepreneur, founder and co-CEO of Pattern Beauty, Tracy Ellis Frost. Thank you so much for being here today.