00:00 You are, I would say, the OG celebrity founder.
00:05 You have been 10 years of Honest Company.
00:08 - Little more than that.
00:11 - A little bit more than that?
00:13 - Totally.
00:13 - Okay, tell us, how does it feel 10 years later?
00:18 - With me in the business,
00:20 I was so hard on myself for so long.
00:23 And then I got to a place where I gave myself some grace.
00:26 I take in the lessons of the challenges or the hardships,
00:31 and also allow myself to receive the wins.
00:36 I used to be, up until not too long ago,
00:38 wildly uncomfortable with taking in anything that was good.
00:43 I felt so undeserving.
00:46 So I think that's another thing,
00:48 is maybe when there's so few of us at the table
00:53 in those positions of power,
00:56 especially, we do make up 50% of the population,
01:00 but we're so wildly underrepresented in business,
01:04 in a lot of power rooms.
01:07 And when you don't see yourself,
01:09 you feel like maybe you don't deserve to be there.
01:11 And that's fake news, right?
01:13 It's the conditioning that we're used to,
01:16 that we grew up with, that we have to unwind.
01:19 So it's been an amazing journey,
01:24 and very fulfilling.
01:26 It's cool how it can take on so many different waves
01:30 as you grow.
01:32 - So the company started with a more narrow selection
01:36 of baby products, wipes,
01:39 and this personal care, and it's expanded.
01:42 How do you guide the strategy
01:44 of a now publicly traded company?
01:47 - I started with 17 products
01:50 in three pretty large sectors.
01:55 I felt like I needed to test out
01:58 whether there was gonna be reception of clean
02:03 in these pretty major categories,
02:05 home, detergent space, the personal care space,
02:10 which is not necessarily beauty,
02:13 but kind of, it's like what you put on your skin,
02:16 what you put around the home,
02:18 which is the detergents and cleaning.
02:20 And then obviously, the thing that's gonna touch
02:24 probably the most vulnerable people, which are babies.
02:26 So that's why I chose those three categories.
02:29 And what I was really trying to solve for,
02:31 or tackle, is the injustice that we face every day
02:36 in being exposed to unnecessary and harmful chemicals
02:41 that actually cause lots of illness.
02:45 And these companies that are making these chemicals
02:49 that put them in the products that are in,
02:51 on, and around all of us every day.
02:54 And I was like, maybe there can be
02:58 a more human way to approach business.
03:02 And so I really was trying to tackle these
03:05 sort of like giant categories in my small, little, tiny way.
03:09 And that's why I created a company
03:11 that went into three different pretty big categories,
03:14 17 products, and I launched online
03:17 because I felt like that was gonna give me,
03:20 I guess, the ability or the leverage
03:25 to show that no matter where you lived,
03:28 you should have access to these types of products.
03:30 You didn't need to just live next to said store
03:35 to access it.
03:37 And to make this information just more accessible
03:42 also to everyone.
03:43 I think a lot of people didn't know that
03:46 if you go to the grocery or if you go to a department store,
03:49 you think if you spend more money on it,
03:51 it's gonna be safer.
03:52 Or if you go to that store that you grew up going to,
03:57 it was gonna be safer, but it's actually not.
04:00 There's no real laws that protect human health
04:05 or really protect you around your safety.
04:11 Even for pregnant women, there's no real laws
04:15 that say that companies can't market products
04:18 to pregnant women and make sure
04:21 that they're actually safe for pregnant women.
04:24 There's no laws protecting babies
04:26 that if something is marketed for you to use
04:28 on or near your baby, that it's actually safe for that baby.
04:33 And there's certainly no laws saying that anything
04:37 that comes in contact with your skin or your environment
04:40 will be safe for you.
04:43 So they're testing on us.
04:45 And I was like, what the heck?
04:49 So that's why I went into all those
04:50 different product categories.
04:52 And then can you really differentiate?
04:56 Can you really stand up against competition?
04:59 Is there a real reason for you to be there?
05:01 And can you do it at a price that's within reach?
05:06 'Cause there's a lot of things we can do
05:08 for like a million bucks.
05:10 But if you're trying to make it accessible,
05:13 can you scale the idea?
05:15 - Can you take us behind the scenes
05:17 of what it looks like to take a company public
05:20 and specifically your company public
05:22 and really navigating the seas
05:25 of a historically male-dominated stock market?
05:28 - I would say that if you have a peaceful, relaxing life
05:35 and you sleep well at night,
05:36 don't take your company public.
05:38 (audience laughing)
05:40 But who has that?
05:41 No, I'm kidding.
05:42 No, it's actually important for us
05:45 to take our companies public.
05:48 It's actually necessary.
05:50 Between 2013 and 2020,
05:52 there were over 2,000 companies that went public
05:55 and only 18 of them had female leadership.
05:58 That's wild.
06:00 It was a really brutal experience.
06:04 They really do try to throw as many banana peels
06:07 in front of you as humanly possible.
06:10 And I would say that there's probably no one better
06:13 to navigate banana peels than a woman in business.
06:18 We get these things thrown at us left, right, and center.
06:22 - So you're the youngest Latina ever
06:26 to take a company public,
06:28 which I think deserves a big round of applause.
06:31 (audience applauding)
06:33 So you just talked about how hard it was to get there.
06:36 What was it like then ringing that bell?
06:38 - It was interesting
06:43 because I think when I started the business,
06:45 it was really around this social justice
06:48 of how can I make sure that more people have access
06:53 to live their best life,
06:56 access to the information, access to products.
06:59 Hopefully if I can get the consumers to feel more empowered,
07:04 we can actually start to change other companies
07:07 and other companies' values,
07:10 and there will be a bit of a groundswell.
07:13 So now before, everyone was like, what does clean mean?
07:17 Is that a thing that only moms care about?
07:19 Now you literally can't walk into a store
07:22 without saying clean beauty,
07:24 without saying products that are clean and better for you,
07:28 basically in every category.
07:30 And I'm really proud that it only took 10 years
07:33 for that to happen, to literally create that space.
07:38 And a lot of the competitors are forced to step up,
07:42 which is awesome.
07:43 And certainly getting us to that finish line,
07:47 that it wasn't until I was writing the speech with Jen,
07:50 who's here, who's head of Marcom,
07:52 and she's one of my writer dyes, that's been with me.
07:57 And we were writing the,
08:00 she was like, you have to do a speech.
08:02 And this was like, we were the first company during COVID
08:06 to actually do it in the NASDAQ offices.
08:08 So it was like a whole situation, we weren't sure,
08:10 are we gonna do it there, are we gonna be remote?
08:13 And I realized in that moment,
08:15 that sort of, it was like a call to action,
08:19 but also a way to kind of show up for a community of people
08:23 that for the most part have never been on that stage.
08:28 And I was like, okay, so I felt that.
08:33 And then that, I guess, I mean,
08:35 I know it gave me the strength to really allow the moment
08:40 to breathe and be what it needed to be,
08:44 which is I got this far,
08:48 so that not only did I like open the door,
08:51 but I blew the doors open,
08:54 and I mowed down a lot of those hills
08:57 so that a lot more can come through.
09:00 And so I just wanted to make sure that anybody
09:03 who was watching or listening in that moment or any moment
09:08 can see that that's what me being there meant.
09:13 I felt like it was easier to control my destiny
09:16 launching a DTC brand.
09:19 And I would say, I recommend that for anyone,
09:23 having your foundational principles in DTC,
09:28 because there's nothing like that ownership, right?
09:32 It's sort of like the flagship store.
09:35 Imagine your flagship being online.
09:38 And so take care of that,
09:40 and no one can take that away from you,
09:42 and it's sort of like your nucleus,
09:44 then anything else can happen from there.
09:47 But ultimately, you have to be
09:48 where the consumer wants you to be.
09:51 And so if the consumer wants you to be
09:53 in a brick and mortar, go to make sure you have that.
09:57 If they want you to be in a retail channel,
09:59 make sure you're there, or partner with,
10:03 wherever there's more ease for them to find you, frankly.
10:08 I don't think we should be too married to any model.
10:13 I think social commerce is actually 10 years behind
10:17 where it should be, frankly.
10:19 And that's probably where it's all going anyway.
10:23 When you control the relationship with the consumer,
10:27 you just have so much more power,
10:29 and you can test and learn a lot more.
10:34 You don't have to rely so much on others for innovation.
10:39 - So my final question for you,
10:43 and to say thank you also for joining us,
10:45 this has been so fun.
10:46 In the beginning, we introduced you as an actress,
10:50 an entrepreneur, a founder.
10:53 How would you introduce yourself?
10:55 - I'm a terrible speller.
10:57 (audience laughing)
11:00 I'm an amateur chef.
11:02 I think I dream big.
11:07 I'm a dreamer.
11:08 And I believe in people.
11:14 I do.
11:16 And I believe in goodness.
11:18 And I have hope.
11:21 My job, I think, is probably to unlock
11:27 as much of that as possible,
11:28 and whether that's through telling stories in entertainment
11:32 or telling stories through products, great.
11:35 So maybe that's how I would describe myself.
11:40 And a very imperfect mom,
11:42 but my kids still tell me their secrets,
11:45 so that's cool.
11:46 - Jessica, thank you so much for joining us.
11:51 So lovely to have you.
11:52 (audience applauding)
11:55 (upbeat music)
11:58 (upbeat music)
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