Jiajia Sollers: Founder & CEO of Matter of Monday

Episode 709

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Jiajia Sollers, Founder and CEO of Matter of Monday—a modern skincare line built for real life. Jiajia’s journey is anything but traditional: from CFO of a billion-dollar hedge fund to first-time beauty founder, she’s bringing a totally fresh lens to skincare.
Her “why”? Stress, fatigue, and blue light were wreaking havoc on her skin—and she knew she wasn’t alone. So she built a brand with high-performance, portable products for high-performance people.
We talk about what it really takes to pivot careers, create a standout product in a crowded space, and launch with intentionality in an industry where buzzwords often outpace impact. Jiajia also shares how her upbringing in China and her time on Wall Street gave her a unique advantage as a founder.
If you’re into skincare, entrepreneurship, or stories about betting on yourself—this one’s for you. Now live 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’s guest is someone who has made a bold move, and I mean bold. She walked away from a very high powered career in finance working with billions of dollars to launch her own skincare company, built for people who don’t slow down. Jiajia Sollers is the founder and CEO of Matter of Monday. And if you have not heard of this brand, it’s a fairly new brand, but you will definitely be hearing about it. It’s a brand designed for the modern professional dealing with stress, screen time and non stop schedules, and she’s taking everything she learned in her previous life, structure, discipline, performance, and applying it to building her own company. I can’t wait to get into how she sees the transition and, more than anything, the creation of this incredible no fuss product line for people who expect results but didn’t know that they could get the results without paying some crazy, crazy high price for it. So more than anything, welcome. Jiajia, very excited

Jiajia Sollers 1:55
to have you here. Thank you so much. Very nice to be here. Awesome. So

Kara Goldin 1:59
Matter of Monday. Can you share with us the origin story? How did Matter of Monday begin, and what was the spark that made you commit to building it?

Jiajia Sollers 2:11
Yeah, so Matter of Monday is a skincare brand. The name Monday means a lot, because in my previous career in the finance Monday is the busiest day for me in the week. So when I have been working so hard, and I remember one time it’s actually on Friday, I came to work at 8am in the morning and work until 11pm at night next day, on Saturday, went straight back to work. So that kind of intensity really took a toll on my skin. My skin looks really bad. So I remember, actually, when I was on vacation, my skin always looked its best. So that made me suspect that stress, fatigue and exposure to computers really have a big negative impact on your skin. So I did research and study and just confirm that the Chronicle exposure to blue light and the stress caused premature aging. And, you know, I look at all the products in the market and realize lots of products are just fixing signs of damage after they appear, we try to fix wrinkles, dark spots, but I think it’s important to target the root cause and prevent the damage from permeating the skin in the first place and preventing the science from showing up. So with that, I thought it would be nice if I have some skincare brand that protects us from stress, fatigue and blue light and those big culprits of premature aging that most of us working people are subject to every day. So with that, I just feel like there’s opportunity for me to do something creative and interesting and bring a solution. And look, I’ve been financed and hedge fund forever, so I think it’s time to do something different. And deep inside, I just love to be creative, and I love to connecting with people and doing something interpersonally meaningful. So I thought that was a perfect opportunity for me to transition to this skincare industry.

Kara Goldin 4:21
Did you have experience? Obviously, you were working in finance, in the hedge fund, but did you have any type of connection? Had your family been in this business? Or how did you know where to start?

Jiajia Sollers 4:34
So was without growing up, right? Skincare in the Asian culture is a huge part of Bucha culture. So since I was young, I just learned a lot about skincare tips and from my mom, I did lots of experiment at home with the natural ingredients from the kitchen. So I always have some basic knowledge and tips and insight about skincare and in terms of starting the business and I think work. In all this time in finance, even though it’s very different world, it’s a quantitative world, and I’m transitioned to creative world. But still a lot of things that can bring along with like strategic thinking, how to manage the projects, how to collaborate with people, and finding the talents. And look, you cannot know everything, right? You just have to go for it. And you learn as you go, I think a lot of tools available for you to learn. Like for me, as soon as I decide to go to this skincare industry, I immediately sign up for the Cosmo proof. So I went there. I took the classes, and really it’s eye opening for me. I learned so much about the landscape in the beauty industry, and I met people, and from them, I got introduced to more people, so I got a lot of insight, tips and advice. It helps a lot. And as I was started starting to collaborating with service providers and collaborators. I just kept learning from every one of them. And there’s also a book called Art of start. It’s a great book to read. It really has a lot of knowledge and information to offer in terms of how to build a framework and foundation of a startup. What is it called? The art of a start, I’ve heard of that book, very interesting, very funny

Kara Goldin 6:24
book too. That’s a great, great tip. So how did you come up with the name Matter of Monday?

Jiajia Sollers 6:31
Yeah. So Monday, I mean, it’s always the busiest day for me, right? And I think Monday is a very important day of the week. And how your Monday goes a lot of times, sets the tone for you entire week and you know, but at the same time Monday, you hit with a lot of tasks and email, but it coming right after coming out the weekend, so it could be demanding and stressful. So I name it Matter of Monday as a reminder of intentional self care at the kickstart of the week, so you incorporate the preventative skincare in your routine as your wake begins, you’re not just protecting your skin from damage, but you’re also establishing a mindset of self preservation amid all this intensity and work demand.

Kara Goldin 7:20
What do you think was the biggest shock when you were going through this process of, you know, ingredients and trying to formulate your own products? And I think you had mentioned somewhere in the research that as a consumer, you had been thinking that you have to spend a lot of money in order to get incredible products. But what else did you learn?

Jiajia Sollers 7:44
Yeah, so one big things I learned is by talking to people, I was really shocked that a lot of people don’t even do skincare. One big reason is that they said they have a sensitive skin. A lot of products cause them breakout. So they just avoid doing it all together, they probably put some very basic stuff, like some people even tell me they don’t do it just avoid any problem. So that really makes me to commit to make sure my formulation is clean, especially good for people with the sensitive skin. And so this whole formulation has no frequency at all, and I deliberately make sure there’s no all this harm, harmful chemicals and silicon essential oil, parabens and all the chemicals, and make sure they are excluded so the formulation are suitable for people with a sensitive skin. And I follow up with the people who I talk to who have sensitive skin, who refuse to use skin care. I actually send them the samples and ask them to report back to me, and they all say, Wow, it’s amazing, like, I don’t have any breakouts. So it’s very good validation. It was so good to hear.

Kara Goldin 8:58
Yeah, it’s an incredible, product line. So let’s talk about the SKUs. So how many SKUs Did you launch with? And is there one that’s kind of a runaway bestseller?

Jiajia Sollers 9:11
So I launched with the four essential products and just focused on the core functionalities. Without multiple products, lots of complication. We just offer four products, products to start with, right so the facial cleanser, the anti blue light brightening serum, the anti stress renewal, moisturizer and anti fatigue restorative eye cream, each product is very unique and offer its own functionality in terms of protection and restoration. I think blue light is what our hero products, because how many times everybody is subject to blue light, every day, you’re on your computers, and right after get off work on the computer, immediately hop on social media, on your cell phones and check. Emails. So I think our hero products and your blue light brand new serum, really like offer this very much needed protection for everybody

Kara Goldin 10:10
dealing with a physical product and a brand new industry, I’m sure, had its challenges. There were days where you were asking yourself, What am I doing, doing, doing this company, what was probably one of the harder moments in those early days? Did you have any kind of challenging days where it was not as fun and not what you sort of thought you were going to be doing?

Jiajia Sollers 10:38
Yeah, I think the biggest part is just really get the product, products in people’s hands and help to spread the awareness. So once people try it, they always have a very good feedback. But it just seems to get people to get the product and try it and see how good it is. And I think a lot of time, people still have this mindset of reactive, right? They don’t see the immediate damage. They don’t feel the need to have the skin protection. They see the signs of aging, then they panic. They try to buy something to fix so I think it’s really an educational process to get people to understand how important it is to put on protective skin care against the stress and blue light and repair your skin when you feel fatigued, right, get them through this mindset and and started adopting this blue light and stress protection protocol. I mean, it just very much like a sunscreen where, I think about old days, people don’t feel the need of using sunscreen, even they go sunbathing. But today, everybody, almost everybody, have to, you know, use SPF. So I think it’s just a matter of time when this blue light protection goes to mainstream.

Kara Goldin 11:51
Definitely. So with your four products, what’s the process that you recommend as the founder for putting those products on before you start your day. Yes,

Jiajia Sollers 12:02
for myself, so in the morning, I just wash my face with the warm water, because at night, there’s no pollutants, there’s no makeup, so just some natural sweats and oil. So warm water is sufficient to get rid of the oil. And so the after that, I put on anti blue light brightening serum. After that, I put on SPF sunscreen. So middle of the day, I always refresh my skin with the anti stress renewal moisturizer, because as you go through the day, you work and you feel stressed, tired, and that’s when your skin needs the care more than ever, so a little bit anti stress, renewal. Moisturizer calms your skin down and rehydrate your skin. Makes a huge difference. At night, I wash my face with the facial cleanser, the pore refining, exfoliating cleanser. It really effective in terms of removing the dirt, oil even makeup. So after that, I put on the anti light brightening serum for overnight brightening and repair. And after that, I put on the anti stress renewal moisturizer to keep my sting skin hydrated and nourished overnight. And last but not least, I put on the anti fatigue restorative eye cream. It has so many good peptide, patented peptides and proteins to help you build collagen overnight and help to erase wrinkles and puffiness. So it’s a must step that half every night.

Kara Goldin 13:40
That’s incredible. Well, your packaging, in addition to what’s inside, is really incredible. How did you know what to do around packaging?

Jiajia Sollers 13:50
I actually designed the package myself. I think this is my brand. I didn’t want to have anybody else to design the package. Initially, these products is I have my office professionals in mind, right? So when I design the package, I want to make looks like Office memo, clean, simple, just highlight what I want to highlight for each different name and products. And I also wanted to keep it travel friendly, portable and user friendly. So people can just take it out from the back and just use it middle of the day, anytime, and you can take them on the plane, because I deliberately make sure the size of it’s on the travel so on the plane, you can even just put a little bit moisturizer or eye cream on. So, yeah, that’s the whole idea behind the package design.

Kara Goldin 14:48
Now, did you quit your J job when you were starting this company? Or were you working on it on weekends before you actually said, Okay, it’s time.

Jiajia Sollers 14:59
Yeah. I give a lot of thoughts, right? I mean, I design, just doodling on papers and think about the name. So that doesn’t take a lot of my work time for my job. So I can totally just play around on the weekend as this idea of become more shapes and size. And I just, you know, think it’s time to just, you know, moving on to the full time.

Kara Goldin 15:25
So you started the brand on a website direct to consumer, yeah, and you’re not available in retail yet. And when you and I were talking right before that was very purposeful, can you talk to me about, how do you decided to do that.

Jiajia Sollers 15:41
Yeah, so I think start on website before go into retail. It’s important because I want to connect with my customers, and we’re building social media, I want to help them to get this mindset of protective self care. I want to give empower them to the busy working day, I mean, all of us, where I can go through the busy time in work and life. So I want to just connect with my audience first before just pushing to retail sell. So I think the website, social media goes in hand to hand and let us build a community first.

Kara Goldin 16:21
That’s terrific. So social media, especially in the beauty industry, is just so so key. So what have you seen with social media that has been really helpful in deciding maybe to keep going or to which products are people talking about the most? Or what have you seen on social media that has been really helpful?

Jiajia Sollers 16:47
We just started right so it’s been two months. Still, so much to learn. I think that being on social media, it’s important to be consistent, and you just from trial and errors, and so I think the one, the biggest challenge for me is that just make a lot of founders videos. Because for me, personally, I don’t use social media as much, and I’m pretty private, but now you have to push myself to the public, and you just have me, especially my old job, we we work in front of the computers. We don’t go around to sell, but now I have to sell this concept right to help people to adapt to this new mindset. So it’s a big shift in in this, you know, work style and habit and so, yeah, I just have to get used to it. But now I really enjoy what I’m doing, and every week, I’m just so excited. I cannot wait to make more content and share to my you know followers and educate them and encourage them and inspire them.

Kara Goldin 17:53
So how did you know that this was more than just a passion project? Because I think so often when entrepreneurs are getting started, they have, you know, what they think is a good idea. Maybe they’ll ask a few of their friends. But where, I guess, what is that moment that you switch and you say, I need to go try. And I guess, have you always been that person that just said, I’m going to go try, knowing that this may or may not work, but I’m going to go and learn because I really want to do this. Yeah,

Jiajia Sollers 18:25
so once I decide to do something, I put 100% effort there. There’s no plan B. So for me, it’s not just let’s just take it as a passion project and play with it. For me, once I decided I’m going to do it, I’ll give 100% effort and commitment.

Kara Goldin 18:40
So you’ve lived in other parts of the world, you’re primarily building in the US. Right now, can you see a time when maybe this is a global company?

Jiajia Sollers 18:53
I think it’s too early to tell. So I think right now I’m just want to focus on building my brand and serving our US customers, and then from there, we’ll, we’ll see how future goes.

Kara Goldin 19:05
So you’re building a company and a category. So often, founders, you know, find themselves in this position where it’s, it’s different than what they were doing before. What do you wish more founders would talk about as it relates to launching a brand?

Jiajia Sollers 19:27
I think that just, I mean, I listening to how I build this. I listen to a lot of founder stories which are very inspirational. You know, I think that there’s a lot of nuance of details, right in terms of the skincare industry, beauty industry, e commerce, and for example, nobody’s talking about SEO is not as helpful anymore. So I, you know, nobody talks about this kind of technical, technical details and inside tips. So I didn’t know and but I’m. I very glad quickly realized that, you know, with AI, the landscape is changing, so don’t put money in SEO. So that’s, uh, something I find out later myself.

Kara Goldin 20:11
That’s so interesting. So what? What have you heard about that in particular?

Jiajia Sollers 20:15
Well, they give you the answer right away, you guys. So the bits chat GPT and he’s been talking about where the product is going to show up in the chat, GTP and instead of on the Google search. So just so many different changes with the technology involvement.

Kara Goldin 20:29
What’s been your most surprising feedback from consumers so far? I’m sure you’re reading all of those customer emails, and you’re hearing how much people are enjoying the product. But is there anything that has been kind of surprising to you?

Jiajia Sollers 20:47
Yeah, so I have one customer, and so she bought this products, and next month she bought it again, and then she turned into a subscriber. So I was very surprised to see that kind of positive reaction. So I reach out to her and to ask if she likes it. She said she loved it since day one. So it just so positive or validating to see that. So I was pretty surprised. And I have another customer who is an aesthetician, and she she bought the products, and then she called me, she reached out. She said she loved it. She loved to recommend these products to her patients. So that’s also out of surprise

Kara Goldin 21:28
for me, that’s that’s incredible. How are most people finding out about the about the products, and just overall what you’re doing?

Jiajia Sollers 21:38
Yeah, so because it’s E commerce, right? And we rely a lot upon the ads and social media push and influencer marketing. So the relying all these people to push the words out,

Kara Goldin 21:54
that’s incredible. So last question, so what’s the one thing you want listeners to walk away remembering about ja Jo’s journey, but also the brand.

Jiajia Sollers 22:06
I think the you know one thing about the brand is that we’re taking this preventative approach, right? I want to just let all the people who are working hard out there to know how important it is for self preservation, and it’s fine to bring wellness to work practice and to have a work life balance. And it’s fine to put a skincare product on your desk, and as you work through the day, you get tired. Take care of yourself, take care of your skin and and it goes a long way. And another message is that you can do anything like for me to make this career change. It’s there’s a lot of unknown, but anything is possible, and you just have to believe in yourself.

Kara Goldin 22:53
I love that. So Jaja, thank you so much for joining us today. I loved hearing how you went from a totally different industry and finance to become a beauty beauty products founder and how Matter of Monday is solving real problems with intention, innovation and care. Excellent products. Great job. I know you guys are brand new, but I know that Matter of Monday is really going to take off, so definitely, everyone will remember your story, I’m sure, for I’m sure, and to everyone listening, go check out Matter of Monday, and it’s on the website, Matter of Monday.com, and as always, if you loved this episode, share it with a friend. Leave a quick review, and don’t forget to hit subscribe. So thank you so much, Josh, I really loved hearing all about this. Thank you so much. 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, 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. You.

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