Jaleh Bisharat: Co-founder & CEO of NakedPoppy

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 down 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, it’s Kara Goldin. And we are here on the Kara Goldin show. And I am so excited to have my next guest, we have Jaleh Bisharat, who is the co founder and CEO of naked Poppy, and you’re going to be so excited to hear this episode they could Poppy is doing a lot of really, really cool things. In addition to having an incredible line of cosmetics under the naked Poppy umbrella, but JELA is the co founder and CEO, she came from not an entrepreneurial experience, per se, she was the CMO at Amazon prior to this and had a lot of incredible experience that I’ll let her share a lot more about. But basically, she wanted to create after a health scare, she decided that she really wanted to, number one, go out and become an entrepreneur. God bless her right. But she decided to go and do this and enter this crazy world of founder land, but also create amazing products and tools that allow consumers to find cruelty free low in environmental impact, and ethically made and free of harmful chemical products. And so she did so Naked Poppy was born. Like I said, she is the co founder and CEO, and we’re going to hear a lot more about it today. So welcome. How are you?

Jaleh Bisharat 2:15
I’m great. I’m excited to be here. Kara, thank you for having me, I just want to introduce one little tweak to the background. I was actually at Amazon in the early days. So I don’t want to represent that I was there super recently, in the very early days. And since then I became CMO of some other brands, you’ve probably heard of OpenTable, Eventbrite and Upwork. Amazing. I’ve relevant to the entrepreneurship with all of them. With the exception of Eventbrite, it was sort of larger when I got there. I got there relatively early OpenTable, in particular, super early. So I do love the early stages of company building, although you’re right, this is my first truly entrepreneurial endeavor here. Make it Poppy.

Kara Goldin 2:58
I love it. It’s you and I were talking before we hit record, and very similar in many ways to my journey where I felt like I never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur, I was quite happy, supporting other entrepreneurs and helping make their brands big. But I think actually working for entrepreneurs and seeing that it was a lot of hard work, trial and error, creativity, you know, building the puzzle as, as you were going along. And that was really exciting. And I thought, Gosh, I need to go and solve this problem that I see in front of me that I think I’ve got an idea for which is clearly what you’ve done with naked puppies. So can you share a little bit more about how this idea came about

Jaleh Bisharat 3:52
100%. And I couldn’t agree with you more care, I do think we had kind of similar. People used to say, Gee, you’ve been an executive for a long time, don’t you want to start a company? Don’t you want to be a CEO? And my response was always I really don’t have a need. I’m not that person that was born, thinking, Oh, I have to be an entrepreneur. If anything, it’s the weight of the world on your shoulders. I mean, the saying it’s lonely at the top, you know, doesn’t come from nowhere. And so I was I was never that person that said, Oh, I’m planning my career in order to end up as an entrepreneur as CEO. It actually had to do with the idea itself. I mean, I was very, very happy letting other you know, when other people have great ideas, helping to build out those ideas and those brands. But what actually happened was this in oh seven. So and this was you know, 10 years before naked Poppy really came to life. I stepped in the shower one day. And this was four months after a clear mammogram mind you so you know, let may be a warning that you should always be yourself check, I stepped in the shower, you know, I feel that lump, you know, that sinking feeling I go to get it checked out right away thinking off, this is probably just nothing, you know. And sure enough, the news was bad. And I had this role why me moment actually, it wasn’t this grand awakening, it was like, Why me because I thought I had been really good about sleep and exercise, and, you know, eating from scratch, cooking from scratch, and so on. But it did send me into a deep dive into environmental toxins, which I hadn’t really thought about before, what you put on your skin can that you know, affect your health and so on. And turns out some ingredients are better than others. And actually, I got very interested in clean beauty, that is beauty that’s formulated to be better for your health better for the environment, long before it became a trend. And it doesn’t mean that if you use traditional beauty products that you’re going to get a sick like me, I hope not. But just like eating organic food over a lifetime sets you up to have a healthier outcome. Using cleaner products is also better for you. And so by about 2017, when I noticed formulations of beauty products are getting better and better, I had this moment of like, and this was before clean beauty had become well known. You know, there’s just no reason. People should be using products that are less good for them if they can be using products that are more good for them. So I actually went to my local farmers market set up a little table that a whole bunch of like very, very much on the ground market research and discovered that the formulations had indeed gotten well enough, good enough to compete in blind tests. And that people were really interested once they understood the concept. So it was this, I had an idea and couldn’t let go of it more than it was I need to be an entrepreneur by then I was in my 50s Kara.

Kara Goldin 7:09
I know and which is amazing. I love the fact that you just decided if not now, when I’m going to go and do this.

Jaleh Bisharat 7:19
I not only decided If not now When but I’m actually very happy that it unfolded this way. It’s still really hard to be an entrepreneur and to try and make a dent in the universe and be a CEO. But at least I have a lifetime of experience. And I will say I do think there’s a lot of pressure on young people to start stuff and to be you know, like in your 20s or early 30s and so on and so forth. If you’re the next Mark Zuckerberg you know Have at it. But my philosophy and and I feel good about this is that you can learn on someone else’s dime, you can learn from their experience, you can choose great leaders to observe at the departmental level at the CEO level, you can really build yourself up and if you choose to be an entrepreneurs and or CEO later in life, that is a wonderful trajectory. I highly recommend it.

Kara Goldin 8:14
So naked Poppy, as as we heard a little bit about how you decided to found the company. But can you share a little bit about what you’re doing it naked puppy?

Jaleh Bisharat 8:26
One of the first things the in doing all this market research. So if there’s, I mean, there’s so many lessons I learned at Amazon. But the big one is customer obsession around customer obsession. And if there’s one thing that I remember Jeff Bezos for it was 24/7. You know, we’re building the most customer centric company in the world and just, you know, having that deeply, deeply resonate. So one of the first things I learned when talking to lots and lots of customers before even incorporating naked puppy is that, number one, switching brands going clean quote, is overwhelming to people. You know, our target audience tended to be professional women busy, time starved, I don’t have time to figure out, I’m overwhelmed. I’ll do it in six months, and then we never go. That’s number one. Number two, that the average person has seven brands in her makeup bag. There was actually a little concept to formulate our own products. And we did end up formulating some products. But I quickly realize that people want to shop for makeup across brands. And if we’re going to serve the customer, we’re going to go out and get other clean brands that share our values that we think are great products. And so that’s what we did. We brought on right now we have about 750 SKU stock keeping units of which eight around but the key here is that we built technology to solve the problem of overwhelm to solve that puzzle. album, you experience or at least our customers tell us they experience I know I experienced, I walk into large beauty retailer, I won’t name brands or go on websites. And I’m like, where do I begin? I’m so overwhelmed. There’s so much stuff here. 95% of it will never flatter me will never be for me. How am I going to find those diamonds, those needles in a haystack, they’re actually going to flatter me. So we immersed ourselves in color science and skincare science, we created a beauty assessment, it takes three minutes you submit a photo, we’re really good now at drawing conclusions about you not only your skincare, but your coloring, which is really hard to do. And then finding products in shades that will flatter you. So that is our core business. Which is people tend to make it Poppy to buy clean beauty products. We rate and rank every product we offer just for you, your perfect matches get sorted to the top, your great matches come next, your good matches come next, then the lower matches sort to the bottom. So you have what we call your personalized, personalized boutique. And you can make your choices from there much a much more orderly way to shop. If returns are free and easy, because we stand by our recommendation,

Kara Goldin 11:21
that’s incredible. And what year did you actually start? We incorporated

Jaleh Bisharat 11:25
in 2017. But we launched with just with an idea, just with the idea. We launched naked Poppy. At the end of July 2019.

Kara Goldin 11:35
Naked Poppy is using AI, you’ve touched a little bit on all of the skews that you have and the recommendations that you’re making. But how does AI actually do this? I think there’s there’s sort of this mystery around the word AI, especially for people who are not building businesses right now. And how, how does that work? Especially on images? Right? We all have heard about chat GTP. But right, like I mean, what is what is the thing that is really kind of exciting about AI and as helping you to really build out your business?

Jaleh Bisharat 12:16
Yeah, so we’re a native AI company, meaning we haven’t bolted on chat JpT, or one of the off the shelf long again, this was another one before people were really talking to me about AI, we were just using it in service of solving a problem. And that problem was how do I look at you Kara and know that you should be wearing browns and corals and you know warm toned products. And y how is it that someone with your same skin tone and undertone, that may be different hair color and eye color should actually be wearing a different set of beauty products. So the AI is the ability to look at your photo and take in information about you especially you’re coloring and draw conclusions from it and make your prediction about which products will actually flatter you. We score not only 30 Plus attributes about you. When I say attributes, I mean physical characteristics, your coloring, but also things like Are you pregnant? Do you have certain skin ingredients or makeup ingredient allergies or sensitivities we need to avoid? What is your age because age can make a difference in beauty products of course, are you going gray, if so that changes things up. We also score all the products. So and when we look at color, and I don’t want to get too technical except to say we use color science, we score products along three color dimensions, how warm or cool it is how light or dark it is how muted or saturated that color is. And give it a you know, give it a score. And that and then we in real time match up you with products. And the reason this is a I mean, it’s because we can make predictions. As we bring on new color products. We can find the closest color to it by analyzing and along those multiple dimensions, and then make a very quick prediction about who will flatter our database for example of lip colors, believe it or not, has over 2000 lip colors in it. 2000 shades.

Kara Goldin 14:31
Amazing. That’s that’s so wild and you have such an incredible sight. So it’s one thing to enjoy beauty products. It’s another thing to go and create a company around it. You had supported some amazing entrepreneurs as we discussed, but what’s been one of the most difficult parts of starting a company that maybe you just were not aware of that you were just like I had no idea I certainly ran into all kinds kinds of things. I mean, when you’re creating things from scratch, not only creating something new or a new category as we did at hint, but what what would be some kind of things that if any entrepreneur or potential person thinking of going out and launch your company as you did? What do you think they need to know?

Jaleh Bisharat 15:21
Wow, there are so many, let me let me say two or three. The first is, it’s actually quite audacious to think you’re going to make a dent in the universe. Basically, you come along, why would people disrupt what they’re doing now, to come to your company and shop for your products, and I’m sure you saw this, right? You, you know, people are buying what they’re buying, and you are trying to shift enough people to shop for your stuff. So number one, it’s a lot more work than you think to make a dent in the universe. So you really better be ready for it. I mean, this does also come back to what I said earlier, which is after a lifetime of experience, at least I had some confidence that I knew how to build a culture and build a team. And, you know, I was ready to take on everything it takes. And I’ll tell you, I mean, this is not. This is not of the times, but most weeks, I work seven days a week, haven’t had a real vacation. And for years, I mean, it can really consume you. Yeah. So you had better love what you do you hit better believe in it, you better be willing to make far more sacrifices than you ever thought would really happen to you. Even though you hear about other people. That’s number one. Number two behavior change is, you know, you got to really, really be listening and willing to adapt, because behavior change is is hard to affect. Number three, I guess when you say, well, it was hard for me. So I stepped into the beauty space coming from the tech world. And it with a technical solution to beauty and and honestly, it’s and sometimes naivete is good because you don’t know what rules you’re breaking. If I had to do one thing differently, I would have hired from Beauty sooner. Team members from beauty, it’s easy to hire the people, you know, from the past. So we I think we would have been able to move more quickly. And I as soon as I realized this and started hiring people from beauty I saw it. It’s like you want to have that balance if you’re in a new category. Those were some of the Oh, and I guess the last thing I would say is, this has been true of my entire career. But certainly as an entrepreneur, everything always takes longer than you think. So true. Yeah, even companies where you’re like, Oh, we found product market fit right away. Usually they’re lopping off the, you know, the first few years where they wandered in the desert when they say that it’s hard to find product market fit. Yeah. And it’s rare that you find it overnight.

Kara Goldin 17:55
Yeah, it’s you and I both came from the tech industry. I think like the tech industry is excellent training grounds, though, for resilience and, and kind of, you know, being okay with not knowing all of the answers. And that’s, that is different than dealing with big egos, I guess it’s really, you know, you have to be able the most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve seen in every industry are willing to be humbled, right? And willing to, you know, be knocked over a few times and get back up. And all of those analogies, I think are totally true. But it’s, I just never really realized it. And part of the reason, frankly, that I wanted to start this podcast was I think there’s so many stories that I’ve heard over the years where, you know, there’s challenges and you don’t hear about the challenges, right? You just hear about the success stories or the massive failures. And there are huge things that people sacrifice, you use that word, which I think is is really true. And I I am so fond of founders, whether or not they’re successful or not successful because I know I know how hard it is.

Jaleh Bisharat 19:20
I’m going to tell you one this sounds very narrow but I’m going to share with because you have I believe you have a lot of people who are into brand and marketing you know as your podcast listeners, one thing that shifted right underneath my feet during my time at naked Poppy that’s really been somewhere between a surprise and disappointment is the nature of PR. I used to pride myself Oh, I’m good at pr you know, I love talking to reporters. I think earned PR is the best form of marketing because it’s genuine and you know, people get etc. And for many years in tech, that was true. Well, the world has a media has changed so dramatically over the past, you know, five or six years, and it’s no longer mainstream media and everyone’s building eyeballs. But even the traditional like, publications have moved to an affiliate model. Now, do you know what I’m talking about where it’s paid to play? Yeah. And so the notion of earned PR is where you actually sit down with the reporter who’s really evaluating it. And they think it’s what you have is interesting, though, right about it has now been, because they’re looking for new business models. I mean, their own advertising is shrinking. They have to sell stuff in commerce, you know, they started hiring commerce, people do commerce writing. it disappoints me as a consumer, because I like to be able to believe their reviews, and not always have it be someone who’s paying you an affiliate fee. And it’s also changed the nature of organic marketing. In a way that, for me has been hard and disappointing. Because I, I’ve always loved that aspect of actually talking to the media and getting stories if we deserve them.

Kara Goldin 21:12
Yeah, and I think it’s it. I totally agree. I mean, it’s gone back to, for me, I think about this earn media. And it’s, I mean, podcasts, for example, I started really understanding the value of podcasts and the audiences that people are hearing, or the audiences that people are getting on their podcast, it’s, it’s amazing to me because I really, as a marketer, and as a Brand Builder hadn’t really paid that much attention to podcasts. And I think it’s, it’s kind of taking the place of a lot of the traditional PR, because people are listening more and more to podcasts. And I know when I had a book come out about two and a half years ago, and I did over 500 podcasts during that time, and and, you know, people were exposed to him, many people had not heard of the brand that I founded and was running at the time. And and it was amazing how many people came back to me afterwards and said, I just heard you on such and such podcast talking about the brand that you built hint. And that’s where I really realized the power of this medium. So it’s

Jaleh Bisharat 22:34
podcasts are a great example of actually good earned conversations and meetings. And there’s some that

Kara Goldin 22:41
charge for for it. But I think that there’s the majority of them are not. And that’s yeah, so anyway, so getting back to being being an entrepreneur and being a founder, what do you think is kind of the most successful characteristic that an entrepreneur really needs to have? Obviously, you’ve spent your journey the majority of your journey and, and helping to build companies. I’ve also heard you talk about how it begins and ends with people, for sure. But what what would you say are kind of the characteristics that entrepreneurs really need to have?

Jaleh Bisharat 23:27
Well, I’m going to start I mean, there’s, you know, there’s obviously more than one, but I will tell you a story about something that happened to me, I’m an eight years old. That that really, I’ve never forgotten. And that you know, which is that I was raised in Iran, to the Middle East. In a time where a lot of girls weren’t destined for marriage, but my father and my parents used to always say, they can take anything away from you anything except what’s in your mind. They can take your home, they can take your possessions, you know, this is the only thing that’s always truly yours. And I remember at the time, valuing education and thinking that was just great parental advice. What I didn’t expect to happen was when I was 19, and in college in the United States. Actually, we did lose everything. The Iranian Revolution came along, my parents fled, left everything behind and had to start literally over without one penny in the bank. So what ended up you know, what started off as just like, this idea ended up coming to pass. It was super terrifying. I’m 19 years old. I’m in college, I don’t have money for tuition. I really wanted to finish where was it gonna come from? But, and I’ve never forgotten it because I did go into financial aid. I cobbled together a scholarship and a job and, you know, I managed to get my degree, but it really taught me number one when you will, after you’ve lost everything. Nothing in business can faze you because As I always come back to, I can use my mind to get out of this. Just stop, take a deep breath, use your mind, your mind can get you out of anything, it’s the one thing no one can take away from you. And so I would say that the first characteristic is being a constant student, always learning and believing that you can use your mind to get out of anything. The second one, though, is positive energy. I really believe in this, of course, you have to be good at what you do, of course, you have to develop skills. But you know, another really quick story is, after I graduated college, I got my first job at this consulting firm called Bain and Company. And I was the least qualified person there that they actually told me. So when they hired me, everyone else had degrees and stats and math, and I had studied political science, I remember the partner saying, I know we’re going to take a risk on you, but like, do not prove me wrong. I had talked my way into it somehow, probably because I was so desperate, because we’d lost everything in any case. So I get there, I have no idea what I’m doing. The others are way more qualified, you know, about a year into the job and working 24/7 to try and make up for it. There was this plum project, you know, that had come along, and I saw my name on the desk of the guy making the decision, I’m not gonna lie, I saw my name, I looked at it. And I literally saw a note saying that Jele has a better attitude. But another woman who had a degree in stats from MIT, let’s call her Jennifer, Jennifer is more qualified. And I really thought whilst current, you know, they’re gonna give us more qualified person wants to restore, they actually gave it to me. And I did, I did bust my butt, I had a smile on my face. And that that experience also really solidified for me that you can teach skills. But positive energy is what people want to be around and willingness to work hard and willingness of that person, to always go the extra mile for the company and the customer. I do think as an entrepreneur, you want to model that as well. But you know, people are at work all day long, like, you might as well be happy. Yeah. And so, you know, that’s sort of the next thing, I would extend it to the next thought, which is that you want to have a happy culture. And you want people to feel like they’re doing their very best work. And, you know, you’ve really, you’re a really good entrepreneur and a good leader, when people don’t even feel like when they say this doesn’t even feel like a job. I wake up on Monday, and I’m just as happy as when I wake up on Sunday. I mean, that’s aspirational. But it’s actually how I feel here. And I hope, and I hear from a lot of our team, that that is the feeling, people aren’t burned out because they love what they do. So, you know, positive energy, of course, good vision, deeply caring about your people, I think the number one job of an entrepreneur, other than to set the vision and of course, to be curious and to, you know, you know, to be really open to change, and to work your way into product market fit is to see yourself as an orchestrator of people, you want to hire the best person for every role in the orchestra. But as the orchestrator, you need to make sure the whole orchestra is, is coming together and doing the best work of their career, the same person who in another environment is performing at x, you want them to feel like they’re doing 10x, because they love the environment they’re in. And because you are constantly thinking of yourself as an orchestrator of people. Like you’re the head of HR, there is no head of HR, but you you’re setting the quote.

Kara Goldin 28:38
So, so true. So you are a marketer and a Brand Builder. How have you gotten the word out about naked? Poppy?

Jaleh Bisharat 28:48
Really good question, because it’s a very crowded marketplace. So what you wanted, at least my philosophy in general, you know, applying it more broadly, is you’ll always want to choose the most, the least expensive and the most built in way to your product to get the word out. So in our case, we have this beauty assessment. And you take a photo and you answer some questions, and then we show your colors like these are your best colors for clothing for makeup. That has been our best lead magnet, because people tell each other you always want fun things people tell each other but it’s also been great on channels like tick tock. We actually get disproportionate virality for a company of our size on tick tock because we look at celebrities and tell them when their colors are correct or not correct. And then we invite people to come to make it pop into their color. So that’s number one. Finding something within the product to make it stand out and act as a lead magnet when at all possible. Number two for us we really emphasize email marketing, because it’s the lead just expensive thing we can possibly do and your existing customers are always your best customers. You know, and then things like this honestly, Kara, getting the word out through conversations that are truly authentic. The last thing I will say is we have worked with influencers on social media, but we don’t have an agency, we don’t spray. We don’t say here, take the money. And, you know, I talk to every single influencer large or small that we ever work with. And some of them are small. Because to me, it’s important to have a personal relationship and know who we’re working with. And their followers can tell if they really love the company have an affinity with a brand versus they’re just getting a check. So

Kara Goldin 30:44
very, very great advice. So best advice that you’ve ever received?

Jaleh Bisharat 30:55
There so much of it over a lifetime, as long as mine, but if I had to study the very best one. I have to tell you where it came from. I’m gonna tell you a quick story. Yeah, I love it. We got two minutes. Yeah. So I have a friend who is a therapist. And he told me the story about one of his clients, of course, didn’t say the name that I’ve never forgotten. Can you imagine this Kara? So there was a couple, their daughter was raped and murdered. And so of course, that they came to him they needed help. And they talked about, you know, they go to catch the guy, there’s a trial, he’s convicted. And at the end of the trial, as is common, they say, Does anyone want to say anything? It’s a victim’s opportunity to speak. So, you know, one of the parents stands up and says, Yes, I want you to know that you’re on with our lives. We wake up every day devastated when we imagine how she died. We can’t even breathe. But we forgive you. Yeah, who can forgive rape and murder? I’m about to get the best advice. So even, even my friend was like, how did you forgive? And they said, you know, there were two things. First of all, we didn’t want to run around the rest of our lives, but there’s a burden of lack of forgiveness. But secondly, we really strongly believe in our faith. Forgiveness is who we are, this is who I am. So I will tell you, Carol, ever since I heard that, I turned that into something for me, meaning, for example, when we’re all wired to resist change, whenever I know I need to push change, I say to myself, I’m a change maker, this is who I am. And the act of saying it shifts for me. Or recently, I got some bad news. It’s actually about the funding environment. I was like, I just feel like calling a bunch of other entrepreneurs and kind of like ranting and raving about how bad the fundraising environment is. And I said, No, that’s not who I am. I’m the kind of CEO that can handle it. By focusing on the business and not wasting one minute of company time, you know, ranting and raving to other entrepreneurs. Let me just get with the team and figure out what to do. This is who I am as a CEO, this statement of to myself, This is who I am. I mean, if those people could forgive the rapist and murderer of their daughter, by saying this is who I am, I can certainly say in the wrong business. The impact that it’s had is what it really means it starts off with this is who I want to be. And in a split second, it becomes I am. Because once I’ve told myself, this is who I am, I act on it. I gotta say, it’s been a pretty, pretty life changing piece of advice.

Kara Goldin 33:44
I love, love, love that advice. No, that’s, that’s a beautiful note to end on. So thank you so much for joining us today. Best of luck with everything with naked Poppy, and everyone needs to go on naked poppy.com and check out what they’re doing. And also try the naked Poppy products as well. But as you said, there is there are a number of other amazing brands that you would recognize on the platform too. So it’s, it’s a lot of fun to go and spend time there and also shop from you, for sure. But thank you so much for doing everything that you’re doing and for all of your wisdom today.

Jaleh Bisharat 34:26
Thank you. Thank you. I’m so excited to talk to you. Thanks so much for having me.

Kara Goldin 34:31
Thanks again 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. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my book undaunted, which I share My journey, including founding and building hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And thanks everyone for listening. Have a great rest of the week and 2023 and good bye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening