Indie Lee: Founder of Indie Lee Skincare

Episode 741

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Indie Lee, Founder of Indie Lee Skincare — the clean beauty brand built on resilience, transparency, and a mission to empower healthier living. Indie’s journey began in 2008, when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor that doctors believed was environmentally derived. After surviving surgery, she turned her awakening into action, creating her own skincare formulas at home and eventually launching Indie Lee Skincare in 2010.
In our conversation, Indie shares how she transformed her personal health crisis into a movement that helped shape the clean beauty industry, what it took to bring her kitchen-made formulas to market, and how the brand has evolved over the past 15 years. We talk about the challenges of pioneering clean beauty before it was mainstream, how she defines “clean” today, and the lessons she’s learned as a mission-driven founder balancing wellness, science, and growth. Indie also opens up about her most pivotal founder moments, the hardest challenges she’s faced, and her vision for the future of beauty and intentional living.
Whether you’re a beauty enthusiast, a wellness advocate, or a founder looking for inspiration, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin Show. Today, we’re diving into the world of clean beauty, a space that’s exploded in the last decade, but one of my favorite brands and exciting guests has been pioneering since the very beginning, and my guest today is Indie Lee, who is the founder of Indie Lee Skincare. So Indie’s journey started in the early 2000s and when I guess she was diagnosed with a life threatening brain tumor, I cannot wait to get into the journey. She is a survivor and an incredible, incredible entrepreneur who had started with the products we put on our skin, and in 2010 she when she launched Indie Lee Skincare, which is a botanically derived, cruelty free brand built on the pillars of clean ingredients, transparency and wellness. Like I said, she was really at the forefront of what everybody is talking about today. So the brand is well known and incredible, incredible retailers, obviously available online too, and today we have Indie here to really share with us everything that she’s learned along the way. So welcome Indie. So nice to meet you finally.

Indie Lee 2:15
Thank you so much. An honor to be here. So

Kara Goldin 2:18
what an incredible brand that you’ve built. So let’s start at the beginning. When someone picks up a an Indie Lee product, what are they really buying into, besides skincare?

Indie Lee 2:32
Well, for me, it’s always been about empowerment, right? And education. So for me it’s about transparency, authenticity, and so when people pick up an Indie Lee product, they know that I’m using the best of the best in terms of ingredients. Many of our products are Cosmo certified, which means that everything from farm to face. So they know that they’re getting high potency ingredients. They know that they’re going to be botanically derived. They know that it’s going to be cruelty free, and they’re going to know it’s built on better for you, better for the

Kara Goldin 3:02
planet. I love it. So take us back to those early days. What was the moment? I guess you had a pretty scary diagnosis, and then you still decided that you were going to create and really, really push forward in an industry that was not about this concept called Clean beauty, and really create the mission driven brand that Indie Lee is today. Can you talk about those early days and sort of what you were going through?

Indie Lee 3:39
Sure, you know, I started off as an accountant, so I’m actually a CPA by trade. I worked for HBO, so managing the general finance division, so it’s very much the corporate now and then I left to spend more time with my children. Got very involved with the farm to table movement, and was really interested in what we were putting in our body, and started to understand what that babies were being born with a toxic load that, you know, what parents could be, mothers could be putting on their skin. Could be transmitted. All those things start to learn, but really wasn’t thinking about the full impact on it. Was diagnosed first with rheumatoid arthritis, so I built a greenhouse in my backyard. It’s very like I said, farm to table, selling edible flowers to Whole Foods, micro greens, to restaurants, teaching children the importance and building school gardens. And was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2008 in June, and could no longer work in the greenhouse. Could no longer work in the farm. I was like, What am I going to do with my time? I’m a type, a personality like to the core, and my sister announces she’s pregnant. I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to use ingredients that I was growing and make a little product line just to invalid her baby shower using ingredients that I’ve been growing. And everyone’s like, this is what you need to do. And I’m like, clean beauty for babies, really, that’s. Out there, no did not like even think about the signs that the universe was telling me. And then I started to lose my vision, and I went to the doctor, and he sent me immediately for scans, and 45 minutes later he called and said, Could you come in? And basically I said, You need to tell me, because I’m good at Google, and we all know Molin WebMD is not how you should be getting your diagnoses. And that’s when he said, you have a brain tumor, and I sell to you in 15 minutes. It was the most impactful day of my life, November 4, 2008 and it was that time that I realized that I was a driver of my own life. I was the passenger, rather, in my own life, and not the driver. And I realized that this was happening for a reason. I didn’t know exactly what, and I was going to allow it to unfold. I always tell people, the most important thing I hope they get is this isn’t a dress rehearsal. You know, you don’t get multiple chances at this life. So make the most be the driver. And so I swore that forever time I had left, I would live with the three P’s, which is passion, purpose and to be fully present in every moment. And Kara, 16 years later, and I still live by those three P’s. So by the time I got to the doctor’s office, he said, I don’t know what this is. It doesn’t look like cancer, but you see some heavy hitters, and it wasn’t cancer, but I went Johns, Hopkins, Duke, NIH Sloan Kettering, and they would say, there’s very little we can do. You have about six months spend as much time with your children as possible. And I would be like, that’s not how this is going down. And what was incredible was I went to my neuroendocrinologist, and I asked how this was happening. Nobody in my family had anything like this. And that’s when he asked me, you know? He said, Well, we’re seeing more of these things being tied to the environment. And I was like, I have an organic greenhouse in my backyard. Like, what are you talking about? And that’s when he said, you know, yes, you know, what you eat is part of your environment, what you’re breathing, the people you surround yourself with. He said, Let me ask you, what do you put on your skin? What did your mother put on her skin when she was pregnant with you? And I was like, Oh my gosh. And here it’s like, the people say you need to start a lying blah, blah, blah, and I’m going, No. And it was in that moment that I realized that’s what this is all about. This isn’t about products for just children. This is about creating change in an industry that had been largely unchecked for years, and I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life educating and empowering others to what they putting in and on their body, and to create a line that was safe, that was effective, that looked beautiful on the shelf, because we both know 2008 2009 it didn’t look like that. And I walked out of the doctor’s office, and I looked at my best friend who was sitting in the waiting room, and I said, I know what this is about. As we’re heading to the to the elevator, she’s like, What do you say? What do you say? I’m like, Oh, I have to start a skincare line, and it’s going to be clean. And she’s like, No, no, no. What did the doctor say? I was like, he said, I need to create a skincare line. And I was off to the races, and I haven’t stopped now. I was very fortunate. I found a doctor who’s wanting to do surgery. So April 22 2009 I walked into the surgical suite, said, today’s a great day to live. And I went to sleep, and eight hours later I woke up, able to see out of my both of my eyes completely. And doctor said, We got everything. Welcome to your life. I turned on the website two months later.

Kara Goldin 8:25
Wow, that’s, that’s incredible. So was so what did you start with? Was, how many skews did you start with? And and how did you know what to do at that point?

Indie Lee 8:38
You know, it’s so funny, when you’re given six months to live, you get very focused with what you’re going to do with your time. And so when my children were home, obviously I was with them, but when they were at school, I was talking to every aromatherapist, dermatologist, chemist, naturopathic doctor I could. And I started to read and really research, and I started to concoct. I was a kitchen I would say a kitchen scientist, kitchen chemist. I was literally mixing things in my kitchen. FII, nothing is made in my kitchen anymore. Just want everybody who’s listening to know we use labs. It is cgmc compliant. We have all the testing done. But that’s how it started, just doing research. So the first product, the coconut citrus scrub, is still on our lineup today, and it was one of the first products I ever made. I will say when we started, it was very much kind of handmade farmers market type. Even though I said I was eco chic brand, I was an eco eco and it was being sold at farmer’s market because I didn’t know what I was doing. But it was one product at a time. A lot of body oils that I was able to make in my kitchen, balms and things like that. And then obviously, I was able to work with some of the world leading chemists. And, you know, slowly but surely, the brand evolved into what it is today.

Kara Goldin 9:57
So those early days. Ways of thinking about your go to market strategy. How would you actually sell the product? What was the plan? I mean, did you think I’m going to go to retailers? I’m going to do direct to consumer, like so many questions.

Indie Lee 10:17
I will say ignorance is bliss, because as much as I have this incredible business background. I really did not understand retail. Like, think about it. I was in entertainment, so I was, like, eyeballs. How many subscribers? I wasn’t thinking about, go to market. How am I getting into the retailer? And so you’re gonna laugh. I literally said, Well, I’ll put a vision board together, and that’s how it’s gonna happen. Like, I just did not think about this. I turned on a website my mother and my aunt ordered, and then I realized, oh, there’s something to this. And so I’ve always believed you need to surround yourself with people who really know what they’re doing. So we brought in people who understood sales, marketing and things like that. But the first thing I did was I worked in a co op, like a like a retail Co Op, so that I could get retail experience seller how learning, what does it mean to sell a product? And I will tell you, though that year was so incredible for me, because I really understood that design matters, retailing matters, the marketing speak matters. I mean, nothing about this. And so it was really trial by fire. And what we learned was, as we started to get some doors and knocking on store doors, local ones, you know, doing markets, doing like Fairs and things, more and more retail, like small boutiques, would come to us and say, Oh, I love this for, you know, our Christmas or what have you. And then we were introduced to somebody at Henry Bendel, and they were like, Oh my gosh. We love the ethos. We love this product line. It’s incredibly effective. You’re like, let’s try it out. So we did some trunk shows. We did incredible and they said, We love you, but your packaging does not look on brand. You say you’re eco eco, and I you say, you’re an eco chic, and I was so eco, eco. It was unbelievable, like what I was saying didn’t match what I what was on counter. And so we rebranded using designer, and the world changed in 2014 we were in on in boxes on counter at Henry bendels. And then the world started calling anthropology, sex, blue mercury. It was just one after another. It’s really, it’s really been incredible. I can tell you every one of those retailers except for one, but I’m still working on it. I’ve now been

Kara Goldin 12:39
everyone on my vision board. I love that so clean beauty, again, wasn’t mainstream back when you were first launching. So what do you think it was about your product? I mean, you were teaching not only these retailers and hoping that they would give you a shot. You didn’t come from the industry, but then you also had to educate consumers about this concept too. Like, how did you do that?

Indie Lee 13:11
You know, I look back on it, I go, how the heck did we get this way? Like, it’s so rewarding now to see that clean beauty is not a trend, like it actually is real. It’s now almost like becoming table stakes. And it was really interviews. It was having press that was a big area, like once we rebranded press, was like, Oh yeah, I’ll photograph this. So it was getting in those magazines back in the time when we were all these magazines on shelf, because now I’m dating myself. Remember it was like 2010 totally, 13. So it was a matter of getting publishers to listen to you and tell your story, to start getting out mass awareness. I’ll never get one of the first interviews was the cut. Christina ham interviewed me. Shout out to Christina, who gave my little brand a shot, and that started to change the way people were looking like, here’s this brand that’s in this major magazine with a large placement. Let’s read a little more. And so I’d say it was publisher by publisher, article by Article, speaking event by speaking event. It was an organic, slow grow because I didn’t have money to put into digital marketing. And back then, I didn’t have money to, I mean, the influencer space was just starting to be created. I didn’t have, like, that kind of wherewithal to do those type of things. So it really was, I made a joke that we made our first million the hard way, like knocking door by door. I love social media can be such a gift. And so people started talking about us, and before I knew it, we were a major brand.

Kara Goldin 14:48
So how did your health journey shape the way you approach leadership and entrepreneurship and actually going and and making. Making this all happen,

Indie Lee 15:02
I would say it’s been a roller coaster. I, you know, at first, obviously put my health first, and really focused in sharing that and putting boundaries around that, my health and, you know, okay, What time am I going to stop? Even though, you know, as an entrepreneur, it’s a 24 hour, seven day a week thing, and I always say there’s no such thing as that work life balance, because I sometimes I was a mom and sometimes I was an entrepreneur, but I always had to do it under ones of how I don’t want to push my body too far and wind up sick. What I also started to learn was that my autoimmune journey was just getting started. My brain tumors, they follow autoimmune I’ve been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and I started to realize that this was a much bigger autoimmune journey. I can tell you right now I have seven autoimmune conditions, including uveitis, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s so and those are just three. Oh, and the brain tumors. Let’s not forget that I now have another one. So like I I’m now on my third brain tumor, and so I always need to look into the lens of boundaries. However, when you know you get private equity involved, etc, I got very involved with the business of the business and putting myself, not necessarily first, and found myself sick again in 2023 and 22 I started to see some symptoms, and by June of 220, 24 I was back for two back to back brain surgeries. And then in December, because I was pushing myself, because we’ve been acquired, and I want to prove myself, even though I the most incredible team at American exchange and like, we need you to heal. We need you to heal. That was not what I was used to. It was like, go, go, go. Wound up with meningitis and in the hospital, almost perished. So I have learned in the past year that it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to set boundaries. And my husband and my husband and I were, I just wrote about this that I would always say my superpower was asking for help, and my husband said, No, your superpower is now asking people how you can help them. I think you need to start switching yourself again. And, you know, working on yourself. I was like, Oh my gosh, she’s so right. So it’s really played an integral part. And I would say, if anything, Kara it is re fired, my passion for healthy living, or what I these tiny days have termed wealth, W, E, L, L, T, H, which for me, means the abundance of health and wellness, and what that really means, because as entrepreneurs, as founders, we especially in a clean living and clean lifestyle space. We may say that we want to do this balance and take care of ourselves, but we automatically go into that entrepreneurial mode and the hustle mode and making it happen. And oftentimes it’s our help that play pays the price.

Kara Goldin 18:01
Yeah, definitely. I love that you reminded us all of that, because I think that stress, it’s not just about what you put in your body or put on your body, it’s also about the stress and the things around you that you could eliminate, right? And I think that’s so that’s so, so important, so So the beauty industry is so crowded, and you continue to differentiate your mission and and really stay true to your mission. And still to this day, as far as I can tell as a consumer, they’ve stayed true, even though you ultimately sold the company and are not currently running it. It like, how do you get that to happen, right? I mean, how do you do that? It’s kind

Indie Lee 18:57
of unique. I mean, oftentimes, when people are wholly acquired. They exit the brand. And I was very fortunate, because American exchange has embraced me, and they said, You are the brand, you You are Who resonates with your consumer. They trust you. And I think the way I keep on top of that is being in the direct messages is going to eventing is showing up online, live, you know, all those things so I can stay, I hate to say relevant, because it’s not about the relevance. It’s about staying connected to that loyal consumer base, and keeping that emotional connection going and realizing that it’s okay for me to be vulnerable, which is another thing that I’ve learned with American exchange, that it is okay to be vulnerable. It is okay to say I am not okay. It is okay to say I am in pain. When I’m in pain, I don’t have to always be smiles, bright eyes and optimistic. It’s okay. And I think, as a result, this past year has has built even. Deeper connections with our consumer base because of this vulnerability. So it’s very interesting. It’s very different. I find it amazing. This past weekend, I was in direct messages, and there was a couple of people who were have been fans of the brand since 2011 and they went onto Facebook, because that’s how you originally connected back then and direct message me questions like that. Is amazing that I can still have that connection. You know, how many years later, with fans of our brand who are still purchasing or are going through different transitions in their life, and they feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable to share that life, you know, event, with me, whatever they’re going through. So I think it’s being available is a big piece of it.

Kara Goldin 20:50
I love that. I think that that is such a valid point that I feel like especially, there’s so many brands in all different industries that lead with the founding story and make these connections. I found that I wanted a product that didn’t have diet sweeteners in it, and I wanted flavor, because I didn’t like the taste of plain water, and so when I was sharing my story online, I mean, that was the biggest lift for the product that but then there were also people who started relating to the product, who tried the product and liked the way it tasted, and they never had really thought about diet sweeteners, and they maybe had health issues where they couldn’t have sweeteners in their product and and we started having a conversation around how this product that I had created, and I’m sure it’s the same for you. I mean, there’s some

Indie Lee 21:48
people exactly, and that’s where that education, that empowerment, and it’s not and for me, it’s never about bashing any other brand, anything like that. It’s about just telling our story, explaining why I’m using the ingredients I’m using, why I’m so passionate about this, and being vulnerable back when people share with me, I think that’s, that’s the biggest part of this. But I think it when you’re vulnerable, it opens up, right? You go below the line, as they say, and it opens up this very unique space that people hear things differently and hear the message through a very different lens because of how it’s going to impact them, and then they start to realize that they can make healthier choices and they don’t have to sacrifice efficacy. Very similar to hint you’re not giving up on the experience, you’re getting this benefit, right, but you’re not giving up anything, and that’s how I look at it. With Indie Lee, you’re gonna get all the benefits that you’re looking from any other product, but there’s you’re not it’s not gonna cost you your health, definitely.

Kara Goldin 22:54
So if you could go back and whisper one truth about building a beauty business to your younger self, what would it be? What would that be like? I wish I would have told myself,

Indie Lee 23:08
Oh, my goodness, there are so many. I wish I would have told myself not to give up so much equity. That’s one

Indie Lee 23:16
that I learned the hard way.

Indie Lee 23:19
I wish I would have had more faith in myself. I wish I didn’t always look at it like, Am I worthy to do this? And that’s a story that I think so many people have, and it was prevalent, especially when you get investments or private equity, you start to listen to other people, but you sometimes lose yourself in the process, and I wish that I would have believed in myself a little bit more and remembered that it was my voice that that resonated, because in some cases, I allowed myself to shrink.

Kara Goldin 23:56
Yeah, definitely. I think that that’s a common theme and many, amongst many founders who have made that really, really tough decision for sure, when you, when you think about a product that you developed, maybe you were, maybe you were so excited, personally, you thought it was gonna, like, really take off, but it didn’t really take off. Or maybe there was one that you thought this is not going to work, but what the heck? Let’s just give it a try, and it just skyrocketed. Can you share a story about that?

Indie Lee 24:35
Oh my gosh, yes, when you said it, I knew exactly the product. So there is a product called I recover mind and body gel. It is a thermogenic gel. So it’s like a Bougie. I’ll call it like a Bougie dengue. And it really helps with muscle fatigue. It’s got Arnica, it’s got menthol, it’s got Eucalyptus. It’s just incredible. So I would rub it on my my joints, my muscles. I’d use it on my. Okay, but this product was like, the holy grail to me. I Before we even launched it, I’m like, I need all the lab samples, especially somebody who has autoimmune issues and has flare ups and rheumatoid arthritis. I was like, I need all the lab samples. Because, you know, it takes time between when you have it approved and when it goes to market. And I could not be without my mind and body deal. And it launched. Yep, there you go. And it launched. And I was like, How is this not the biggest seller? I was shocked. Now it’s so funny because we discontinued it, but we’re actually bringing it back, because what we realized was we didn’t market it correctly. We didn’t tell the story behind it. We didn’t put the the marketing dollars and the press and all those things that are that are necessary for a product success these days in a crowded marketplace. We didn’t do those things and so but everybody tries is like, Oh my God, I am obsessed. And then people can no longer get it, goes, where’s this product? It’s like the Holy Grail. And so we realized wasn’t the product, it was us and how we marketed it. So I’m really excited now that it’s it should be back next year, and I cannot wait.

Kara Goldin 26:17
I love that story. I’ve had other founders share the story where they had launched it early on, maybe with one retailer, and maybe it was a certain retailer that wasn’t ready to see that, and then they waited and brought it back years later. And you know, maybe it was a scent or flavor, or whatever it was, and it’s totally work and and it’s, you know, just because it doesn’t work at one point doesn’t mean that it’s never gonna work 100%

Indie Lee 26:52
you know, trends come and go. It’s how you market, the messaging, the delivery mechanism, all those things that play a part into, you know, a product success. And so I always, I will say it wasn’t a product, it was us, and now we get to relaunch it in a different way. And I have no doubt, but I think that’s another, you know, we launched body. I was, in fact, I started with body, and people were just focused on here. And so we’ve wound up discontinuing most of the body skews. It’s over the the coconut scrub, and now everybody’s talking about body so sometimes the other issue is you’re too early to mark. And that’s, I think, what happened with our brand, to some extent, is we were the first, and so we, you know, people were coming in with the money where we had already like, oh my god, we launched, though, you know what I mean. So I think there’s that timing as well. It’s it’s not always best to be the first to market.

Kara Goldin 27:51
Definitely. I totally agree. So what’s the Indie last question? So what’s the Indie lead product that you personally can’t live without that you are maybe most proud of. But also it’s just your go to every single day,

Indie Lee 28:09
I would say our CO Q 10 toner. Without doubt, co Q 10 toner. It is our best seller. I can’t use it. And I always go, oh gosh, you know, we have to come out with something, you know, additional one, that one really has so much market share. But the truth is, I use it every day. I don’t know how many times a day, like, I finally just call and say, I love this product. It is a fantastic product. Like, why am I trying to do something else when this is the product that I know is phenomenal. So I would say it’s our code, Q, 10. I just love that product.

Kara Goldin 28:42
I’m sorry. Yeah, I absolutely love that product as well. And like you said, it’s, you can use it throughout the day. It’s not just like a morning or at night. It’s, it’s so nice, so so nice. Well, Andy, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m so happy that you’re doing well and that, I mean, you’re so courageous, and everything that you’ve done to not only power through and all of your result resilience, but also the brand that you’ve built. I mean, it’s absolutely incredible. And I love the fact that you’ve turned a truly a life threatening series of diagnoses that into a mission driven skincare brand and incredible life of purpose and impact. And for everyone listening, you can check out all of Indie Lee products. Definitely check out the kokutan toner. It’s out of this world and follow along, because Indie is definitely a part of the conversation on all social with Indie Lee. So as all. Always too. If you love this episode, which I cannot imagine that you didn’t definitely share it and thank you again, Indie for joining us. Best of luck with all thank you Kara for having me.

Indie Lee 30:13
I’m honored. Thanks again

Kara Goldin 30:14
for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit, and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast, just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.

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