How amika CEO Chelsea Riggs Bucked Haircare Industry Rules To Hit $250 Million In Revenue

Forbes

amika is on track for $250 million in revenue this year, and the company is poised to expand its marketshare through a new distribution deal with Ulta.   CEO Chelsea Riggs sat down with ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath to talk about her strategies for expansion and why certain choices in the company's earliest days angered haircare insiders.   Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1   Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:   https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected  Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com  Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes  Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes  Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes  More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com   Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everyone. I'm Maggie McGrath, editor of Forbes Women. Amica is one of the top-selling

00:09hair care brands in the United States. It is on track for $250 million in revenue this year,

00:15and it's about to get even bigger. Joining us now is the CEO of the company, Chelsea Riggs,

00:21and she has announced some exciting news this week. Chelsea, thanks so much for sitting down

00:25with us. I'm excited to do this. So you have some news, and I always love to start with the

00:29news. I just framed this conversation as saying, Amica is already a pretty big company,

00:34but you announced something that I think could perhaps expand its reach. Can you tell us about

00:38it? Yeah, we've been talking about it internally as probably the biggest launch that we have had

00:44and will ever have. So we're entering all Ulta stores, about 1,500 locations, and all 8,000 of

00:52their hairstylists on December 1st. So we're expecting to grow our market share about another 60%.

00:58A 60% growth in your market reach is a tremendous amount of growth, and you have the products behind

01:04you or some of the products behind you. So I'm wondering, how do you prepare the team

01:08and the brand to achieve that growth? What do you have to do to ramp up for that?

01:13So it's been definitely a long time coming. We've been working on this for well over two years and

01:19getting prepared from every angle. Of course, inventory is pretty critical, but also in our partnerships,

01:25with our existing partners and making sure this is truly additive and that both businesses continue

01:30to do well and all tides rise with the expansion. And we think about it as a way to reach a totally

01:38new audience. And our company has been around for almost two decades. So we're not this overnight

01:44success story, or we've had, of course, some viral moments that have happened over the last

01:48five to six years. But certainly, this is an opportunity for us to really lean into our

01:55intentionality of our distribution expansion. We've been in our professional channel for seven

02:00years. Then we went into Sephora, where we've been exclusive for about seven years as well. So

02:05each expansion is very well-timed, and it's not built after one after the other where we're chasing growth.

02:13You mentioned the early days, and I do want to go back to those early days, especially for folks

02:17who may not be familiar with the brand. Tell us the founding story.

02:22Sure. So the truth is, I started as the first employee. I found the job on Craigslist,

02:29which was a very acceptable place to find a job in case people are worried. I met the three founders

02:36who were family members, who were family members, and they just had this really cool idea. None of us had

02:42any experience in beauty. We all ironically came from kind of the fashion side of the industry. Very

02:48briefly, I was in merchandising, and they were in the retail side as well. And I just loved it. And I

02:55really honestly thought it was going to be a quick stint for me. I was very young in my career. I had just

03:01recently moved to New York. I thought, okay, this is my foot in the door to a bigger thing. And 16 years

03:09later, I'm still here, and now the CEO, and we've been through lots of change. And the founding story

03:16is really a bunch of industry outsiders who built something from the bottom up in a very scrappy way

03:24because we didn't feel like there was anything like what Amika is today in the market, especially

03:30within hair. And, you know, we looked at beauty as fun and expressive and hair at the time was very

03:37clinical, or in some cases, it was almost like a top down approach where you maybe had like a celebrity

03:45hairstylist at the top, but then it was, we're telling you what to do and what the trends are and what you

03:51need. And we saw an opportunity to create something that brought like freedom and fun

03:56and salon performance without that intimidation. And the name Amika means friend. And so we really

04:02built that at the center of everything that we do and every expansion that we've had.

04:08The fun really comes out in the packaging and the bottles in my experience that when I go to a store,

04:12it jumps out at you. Who is responsible for the brightly colored patterns we see behind you?

04:17So one of our co-founders, Vita Reichman, she designed everything about the brand in the sense

04:23of choosing the name Amika. She wanted something back then when you would shop online, everything

04:28was alphabetically ordered from brands. So A's were at the top. She's like, okay, I want an A name.

04:33And it's driven from the language Esperanto. So Esperanto is a language meant to really unite the entire

04:41world under one language. Clearly nobody speaks it, but the premise of it was really important because that,

04:46you know, goes into Amika meaning friend. And when it came to the hair care packaging,

04:52we didn't have a lot of money and she knew the bottles needed to do a lot of work. It was like

04:57our guerrilla marketing, if you will. Back then, nobody had this many colors on packaging, so much

05:03so that our printer got the artwork and thought it was a mistake and called her. So it was really new

05:09and different for its time. You know, this was almost 15 years ago, 2010, when we launched the

05:15hair care. What was your first product in market? Was it shampoo? Was it a post-shower spray? I'm

05:23betraying the fact that I use the post-shower spray, the anti-frizz, but what was the order of

05:28succession in terms of what you brought to market? So our very first products were a shampoo and a

05:34conditioner, a hair mask, and a hair oil. Of those products, the one that remains is the hair mask,

05:41and that's today one of our top-selling products. We called it OG's Soul Food Nourishing Mask.

05:47And then right after that came our number one best-selling product, which is Perk Up Dry Shampoo.

05:53And that was created with insight, essentially like myself, my friends, my co-workers coming from the

05:59consumer lens, and a group of hairdressers that we had built into our network at that point.

06:05Needing something in this dry shampoo, dry cleansing space that we couldn't find in the market.

06:10And really, dry shampoos were not where they are today. Most people didn't even know about dry

06:15shampoos or know how to use them. But we knew as, you know, busy, busy people, we wanted something to

06:21not, I don't want to have to wash and dry my hair every day. And we were using baby powder and products

06:26that made your hair feel really gummy. And on the stylist side, they're seeing, they're in New York,

06:31they're seeing, you know, models go from one job to another, and there's no time to restyle and

06:36rewash the hair. So they would use this dry shampoo. So that was kind of the precipice for

06:40everything that came after it. Is there a story that stands out from the early days? Maybe it was

06:45a conversation you had with a stylist or a conversation with the three family member

06:49founders. You were, of course, a founding employee. But is there something that you look back on as like,

06:54that was a key moment, or I learned a lot in that moment? Yeah, I think as you grow and scale,

07:02it's a new becomes new problems emerge, right? And you're there for the first time, and you're

07:07figuring it out as you go. And hindsight is always so important, because you're looking back. And

07:13I'm trying to bring a lot of that DNA, like on every day, being a bold challenger brand was something

07:20that we did not, almost didn't know we were doing. It was just, this is what felt right to us. And

07:25oftentimes, we'd get a lot of pushback from whether it was retailers or distributor partners that we'd

07:32work with, like, that's not how you do things. If you want to build a brand in the professional

07:36space or the premium space, you need to do X, Y, and Z. And I think about so many things that we did

07:42back then that were just bold, sometimes a little bit bizarre. And that really formulated what people

07:48loved about Amica, that we never took ourselves too seriously, and that they could really see

07:53themselves in the brand and feel like they were a part of it. So there's lots of things that are

07:57folded up under into that. But those are, you know, some of the lessons that I try to bring every day.

08:02I think that kind of comes back to what you were saying about rewind 20 years, a lot of the haircare

08:07felt very top down. So not taking yourself seriously, too seriously, being a brand that people can see

08:13themselves in. That kind of speaks to the pluralistic effect. The other interesting business

08:18strategy you've employed is marketing both mass market and to hairstylists. And before we started

08:26recording, your team said you now have over 300,000 stylists. So I know the markets for people like me

08:33versus people like my hairdresser, who I see every two months to trim up my ends. We shop at different

08:39stores. So can you break down how you as a CEO think about marketing to hairstylists versus marketing

08:46to regular folks like me? It's funny, because I don't always think about it in the linear words of

08:55like marketing to a group or another. Yes, of course, there's different strategies that we take in terms

09:00of coming to market, thinking about what products to make based on our different consumer bases, we call

09:05them our prosumers and our consumers. I think what's really different about Amica and the way

09:09we've built this company is we never looked at stylists and salons as a channel. We stood shoulder

09:15to shoulder with stylists and looked at them as who they are. They're multi-hyphenates. They're artists.

09:21They are entrepreneurs. They are sometimes we call them hairpists, right? Like sometimes people tell

09:27their hairdresser things that they wouldn't tell anyone else. And because we've stood shoulder to

09:32shoulder with them from the beginning, it really exudes that in everything that we still do today.

09:39We involve them in our testing, in our product ideation, in our education to the consumer. We put

09:46them within our visual merchandising as well, different quotes and things. So we still involve

09:53them in everything that we do. And even recently, we had a big brand equity campaign called It's Amica.

10:00Be careful if you listen to it. It is an earworm. You probably won't get out of your head.

10:04But we put one of our pro educators who's been with us for many, many years at the center of that

10:10campaign to really put stylists on the pedestal that they deserve. I mean, they're honestly the

10:18original influencers, especially within the hair care space and really giving them that platform and

10:24showing our consumers. Amica is a professional brand. Support your stylist as well.

10:29It's an interesting business strategy because I first heard of Amica through my own hairstylist.

10:35She was using, I think, one of the defrizz sprays. And after seeing it in the salon, I then started

10:43noticing when I went to Sephora, oh, I recognize that brand. So how much of that was a conscious

10:50business strategy versus a happy accident?

10:53It was a very conscious business strategy. Very hard to maintain because there was a lot of pushback

11:00for a long time. But I and the founders always believed in this push and pull effect that can

11:06happen when someone notices the brand in a Sephora, for example, then they see it at their salon. Oh, it

11:14gives it that credibility as well. Not that the salon doesn't have credibility, but now it's more of a

11:19well-known product or brand name. Sephora is very selective in the brands and products that they

11:26carry. So that brought a lot of weight very early on. And every single expansion that we did grew,

11:33grew both sides of the coin. You know, professional grew as we expanded into Amazon, as our Sephora

11:39business grew. And we really focus on how we maintain that as we grow and scale. So that's why we're

11:46very intentional about timing of expansion. We're the same way when it comes to international growth.

11:51You know, we're not looking at planting flags all over the globe just for the sake of it or to say

11:56we're an international brand. We do it with intention and we look for markets where we can build that same

12:01omni-channel approach. We call it the Amika flywheel effect because what's really special about Amika,

12:08of course, there's other professional brands who can say they are in, you know, a Sephora environment,

12:13in a salon environment. But we know that two-thirds of our professionals actually use Amika on

12:18themselves. So that love starts from the moment that they use it and then tell their clients about

12:23it. And clients fall in love with it for so many reasons. You know, of course, the efficacy has to

12:28be there. But the experience of using the brand, finally feeling seen in a brand, finally finding

12:34products that work for you because we spend a lot of time and effort testing and making sure that

12:40we're very specific about what products are going to work for who. It's not an all-hair-types-blanket

12:46approach. We really are very bespoke about it. And then they want to tell everyone about it. And

12:50we've had 95% organic EMV, which we're very proud of, earned media value. So on social media, it's

12:58basically organic. It's unpaid. So people truly love this brand. And that's what we are hoping to

13:05build, the most loved brand. It's not about attention. It's really about the connection.

13:08When you talk about that pushback, as someone who doesn't work within the hair care industry,

13:13and if there are folks watching who aren't in the hair care industry, historically, has there been a

13:18real divide between what professional stylists buy and what the rest of us buy? So was it considered

13:25blasphemy that you were both in salons and in Sephora?

13:30Look, I think stylists, yes, there are some differences. But stylists, at the end of the

13:36day, are consumers.

13:38Oh, of course. When you say you got pushback, was it the industry saying,

13:42this is not how it's done?

13:43Totally.

13:44There are products here, products there, and you don't mix the two.

13:46Correct. And I think that's applicable to a lot of industries, right? You might enter

13:50the food industry or the set, which I know really nothing about. But there are ways that things are done.

13:56And it's expected that you show up in that same way. But at the end of the day, we want to be

14:01where the customer is. And if the customer is buying a product not from the salon, they're buying it from

14:07a retailer, then we're both losing in that case, right? The brand is losing and the stylist is

14:14losing. I think there was a lot of tension with products that you could only find in a salon. But

14:20let's be real. And in today's environment, are you going to drive 30 minutes or to Philly to buy

14:27your shampoo when you run out from your hairdresser? It's just not reality. And so we have to think

14:34about in the moment, how do we convert the client? How do we best support the stylist so that they can

14:39get the sale in the moment? And also, how do we do what's best for the consumer so that they're not

14:44inconvenienced or worst case scenario, then leave and buy something else that is more convenient?

14:51I have actually planned my shopping around my trips home to Philly. And I love that for your

14:56stylist. I do. Just wait until I know I'm seeing my stylist right inside tip. And do you still see

15:03a stylist? Not in New York. I want to jump ahead to 2022. There was a pretty significant acquisition

15:09that kind of changed the face of the company. Can you talk about the sale to banks? Bonks, excuse me?

15:14Such a moment, right? It's a step change in a business. We're independently owned and operated,

15:21do whatever we want and say, and built a very successful business. But also, we put certain

15:30things priority over others. And I mean, from an operational standpoint, we had a lot to learn and

15:36grow. And when Bonks came in, they saw that from the very beginning of the process. And they knew that's

15:42where they could bring value and enhance. And that's allowed us to really unleash growth that

15:48we can funnel into growing the business, you know, making better benefits for our team. I mean,

15:55that unlocking does so much more for the business than, you know, from an inventory point of view

16:01in planning and merchant. I mean, planning is extremely challenging, right? Like you want to

16:06have the right products in stock at the right moment and not too much or too little of the wrong

16:11things. And that can hold up a lot of cash. It can really change the structure of your P&L. So

16:16they helped us do a lot of that work in the first, you know, 12 to 18 months. And we saw explosive growth

16:22from that. Now, Amiga is a B Corps right now. Was that something that was instituted at that 22

16:28sale? Or is that predate? So we were working towards it before the acquisition, but we received

16:35the certification after the about six months after. What has that done for your business? Have you seen

16:42a measurable impact in terms of the consumers who are coming to you? Or does it change your ability

16:47to recruit high talent? What's what's been the number one unlock there? We don't really think about

16:55it from a marketing point of view. It really is an internal guidepost for how we show up and make

17:03decisions. I mean, from developing products to choosing what packaging, and it's certainly helped

17:08from a recruitment point of view, right? What you really want as you're growing a business to have

17:12the right people at the table who share the same vision. And if you're not overt about what those

17:17values are, it's hard to attract those right people into the company. So that's also been a huge

17:23unlock for us. Now, you mentioned, as you think about products, it's not everything for everyone.

17:30And there are some very targeted approaches. How do you think about when you're doing product

17:34development? What comes next? How do you determine it's time to enter a new type of hair care or present

17:41a new mask, a new shampoo, a new conditioner? There's a lot of debate about it internally. And

17:48you always have to center it on your customer. We look at lots of different points of data. Of

17:55course, we have our own surveys that we do to understand who our customer is, what are their

18:00hair type concerns, needs, where they feel like they're under service. And then we look at our own

18:05portfolio and say, do we have the products that can meet these needs? And then beyond that, you have to

18:11look into the cultural zeitgeist, right? Like, we are on Reddit, we're on our competitors' Instagram

18:18feeds, on our influencers' posts of competitor products deep in those comments. Like, what are

18:24people saying? What do they love? What are they not like? Reviews of competitive products. What works?

18:31What doesn't? And we ingest all of that and think about, okay, what's the best product to meet this

18:36need? Is it a mask? Is it, you know, a leave-in treatment? Is it a shampoo and conditioner? And we

18:42also think about building routines with our client. What's really special about Amica and what our

18:48true competitive edge is, is that we build depth with our customers. We hold, you know, the number

18:53one loyalty, number one repeat that's within our own data, as well as in our Sephora, like actual

18:59consumers. And to me, that shows we've gotten to be the number four brand in the market. And our

19:06awareness is significantly smaller than other brands who are in the same revenue size. And why

19:11is that? People buy multiple products from our brand. And so when we think about coming to market

19:17with something, we think about that journey. Okay, if they're coming in through this, what's that next

19:21step for them? Is it a shampoo and conditioner? Is it a mask? Is it, you know, a styling product? And

19:26we think about the whole customer journey. I speak to founders and CEOs in the beauty space who

19:31sometimes talk about not just one, not just two, but 12, 13, 20 rounds of product testing before

19:40they bring it to market. They talk about the exploration and finding chemists and people to

19:44mix the products. There's a lot that goes into getting skincare and hair care to market. What's

19:52been your experience here? How do you think about developing products, testing products, and

19:57pressure testing some maybe out there ideas? From the beginning, we've always made our own

20:04products in the sense that the ideas for the goop come from us. Very rarely do we get a submission from

20:11a contract manufacturer. And today the beauty industry is so saturated and there are a lot of

20:17products on the market that are almost in a way private labeled, right? They're very similar

20:21goop inside with different marketing. We don't start that way. We think about it from the customer

20:27lens, of course, but then how does that come to life in a rich story around the ingredient that makes

20:33sense for that particular need and product? It can come from, you know, the partnership that we have

20:38with some of our contract manufacturers that we've been working with for years. And yes, it is very hard

20:43to find the right ones who you can have that great relationship with, with the right chemists, who can help

20:48you achieve what you want to do. And sometimes when we can't find that, we go and look for raw material

20:54suppliers that we can, you know, collaborate and partner with. And sometimes it's a dead end and it

20:59goes nowhere because you have an idea and it's just scientifically not possible in the moment. But

21:04there's been so much advancement with AI, with biotech, that the future is really exciting in terms of like

21:11sustainable ingredients. And one thing that we've done recently is partner with a company called

21:17Deforested, where we actually invested into farms in Africa and not knowing if we would be getting any

21:26sort of ingredients out of this. And we actually helped them bring back their shea production. They

21:32had actually cut down all the shea trees to use for firewood because they just weren't getting any sort

21:38of request to use the ingredient otherwise. And so we've brought this not only back into the region,

21:45but we're using that shea butter and an upcoming product that we're launching next year. So that's

21:50a really cool full circle moment. That's such a cool story. And talking about ingredients and also

21:55trends, you've probably seen a lot of changes from day one founding employee to now CEO. What have been

22:03some of the biggest trends or changes in terms of ingredients and also, you know, sourcing materials?

22:09To me, trends are fleeting, right? I think when you learn about a trend, it's probably too late.

22:13So I always think about it from what's the best way to achieve the outcome. Sometimes it can be

22:22through a trendy ingredient and that could help, you know, elevate or bring more awareness to a

22:27product line. I think what's really changed is how consumers are learning about products and

22:33ingredients, more information at their fingertips with social media. There were products, I joked about

22:39it before, that we thought we're going to take off and be so cool and never went anywhere. But this was

22:43really pre-Instagram growing to where it is today or pre-TikTok. And I think what's really exciting is

22:50that desire that's now coming from the consumer on, you know, cool, interesting, whether it's like the

22:58product group itself or the ingredient or the delivery system. Whereas before, sometimes things were

23:04maybe a little too early for the customer to truly grasp. And now we're, it's almost, the cycle has

23:13become so short. That's why I feel like you can't plan for trends because the cycles are so much

23:18shorter. So you always have to stay rooted in like the customer first.

23:22You said something interesting earlier about when you do the research online and looking at what

23:25competitors are doing. We have a story on Forbes.com right now about why you should kill your company,

23:30which sounds crazy, but the advice is basically like, think about what you would do if you were

23:36your company's biggest competitor. What would you do to beat it? Have you ever looked like that or

23:42what ideas have come from that? I don't know if I have an example of an idea, but I do have examples of

23:50on the day-to-day conversations that may come up internally where if people have a traditional mindset

23:56of, you know, if you come from traditional beauty marketing, you think about your own product line

24:03as if it's the only one that exists, right? And you're like, where's the white space within our

24:06own product line? And you might be afraid to create something that's better than what you already have

24:11because, well, then your customers will say, well, why do I need this one? But I'm always of the

24:16opinion that you should, if you're not going to, someone's going to eat your lunch, it might as well be you.

24:21So I'm always pushing to, well, if it's better than that, then it's better than that. And we'll decide

24:28when the time comes, the consumer will decide if they want to keep buying this line we currently have

24:33or if they want this new one. Sometimes you have a customer who's very loyal to the existing one

24:40and you have a customer that you're bringing in through this new one and they can both work out.

24:44And other times one may kill the other, but that's okay too, because I would rather be the one

24:49to be killing that product than someone else. So I love that advice.

24:54You became this company's CEO officially in 2023. Was there any advice that you've received upon

25:01taking the CEO job that you have found especially useful?

25:05I don't know if the advice came from a person or I listened to like 10 podcasts a week, so

25:10they're all like buried in my brain somewhere. But somewhere along the way, it became very clear that

25:15like having focus and not having FOMO about everything your competitors are doing or everything

25:22that's happening on social media. Because if you're focused on everything else around you,

25:27then you're not paying attention to what makes you, you and unique, right? You can take that as personal

25:32advice. You can take that as business advice. But that changed the trajectory of the company because

25:40we actually started out in tools, went into hair care, and we had accessories at one point. And

25:46you know, we tried our hand at like spraying colors. I mean, you name it, we tried it, right? You're early

25:52in your journey and you throw spaghetti at the wall. But when you really double down and focus on

25:58what only you can do and what makes you iconic, that's when things really took off for us.

26:04You had colors, which makes sense given the color, the packaging, the colorful packaging.

26:08But yeah, I think we took it down. It was like spraying like purple, pink, blue.

26:13Yeah, we did it and we launched it during Coachella. It did not sell very well. And we had a contour kit

26:20because everybody needs to contour their hair. Why not? You're contouring their face. Why shouldn't

26:25they contour their hair? I mean, it is true. You have to go through trial and error to eventually

26:29find your center. But do you feel like you found your center or is there more experimenting on the way?

26:34I think you should always leave 10 to 15% for trying new things, but you should really spend

26:42the bulk of your time, I'd say like 40% on like your foundation, another 40%, 45% on reaching more of

26:53the right people, like, you know, going a little bit deeper within your, you know, building baskets

26:59with customers. And then that 10 to 20% is like for the fun stuff, the fringe, but it should still

27:05lift what you're trying to do at its center. It shouldn't be like completely separate from

27:11everything else, unless you're our blockbuster and you need to reinvent yourself because otherwise

27:16you might not make it.

27:18Has there been a product that surprised you in its success? Something that you thought,

27:21you know, the market might want this, but we might end up, you know, phasing it out and

27:25it has stayed way longer than you projected? Yes, but I'm smiling because I'm like, there's

27:32been so many more inverses of that, right? Where you think, oh, this is like the coolest thing

27:36people are going to love it. And then no one buys it. And then it's such a good product and it,

27:40you know, lives in the archives. But a recent example of that is a product that we have called

27:45Amica Aura. And that is the name that we gave to our signature fragrance. So we have the same

27:51fragrance in all of our hair care products since the beginning. And people are fanatical

27:55about this fragrance. You know, fragrances, you know, can be polarizing, but, um, you know,

28:00it has a pretty longstanding history. People were begging us to bring back a product that did get

28:06discontinued because it was way before its time, which was our hair and body mist. It was a hair

28:12fragrance. And when you're in, when you're in a category, you're told, you're telling yourself,

28:18let's focus on our category. Let's not get, you know, distracted by lots of things. But

28:22it was, I mean, when I tell you it was getting bombarded with emails and DMs and Amica's Instagram

28:29account with tons of comments, bring this product back. I got a hilarious email from someone that

28:34really, we actually included in the launch of this product because they were pining for it so badly.

28:40I thought it would do well, but I had no idea that it would be, you know, in our top three products

28:46out the gate and then sustain that. I mean, to do that, you have to be bringing new customers

28:52into the brand as well. So we're reaching new people with a fragrance that I thought Amica

28:57loyalists would purely be buying, but it's transcended that, which is kind of wild.

29:03That's interesting. So do you think that's word of mouth or is that influencer marketing

29:05on Instagram and TikTok or all of the above?

29:08All of the above. We, it was not, um, a launch where we put a lot of media dollars behind it because,

29:14you know, we launched it as you asked, we answered. It was something, a love letter to

29:18our community. You wanted this from us here. It's a gift to you. And there were some really

29:24funny videos that were created by influencers and customers of this was discontinued. They

29:29brought it back, go buy it so that they keep making it like get with me on this. And so it's

29:36pretty fun to see how people feel seen in the brand when, you know, we listen to them for products

29:41like this. And then they want to tell everyone else about it. And I've had all my friends who,

29:45how come you haven't given me the new hair and body mess? I had no idea that was something you'd

29:49be into, but you know, you ask, you get, you mentioned earlier earned medium values. So when

29:55you think about selling the brand, how much do you think about spending money on influencer marketing

30:00on TikTok and Instagram versus just serving your community and in trusting that word of mouth will

30:08do its job? We've really done most of our creator work through, we'll call it like mid-tier

30:16micro nano influencers. And we've been building that for over a decade. It was a very early marketing

30:24tactic for us, mostly because we were poor and we didn't have a lot of money and, you know,

30:28creator economy back then, vloggers, bloggers was pretty inexpensive. And so we've built relationships

30:34with people from the very early parts of their careers. And now many of them are, you know,

30:40millions of followers as well. So we think about that from a long-term play. And then of course,

30:44we've attracted through that, you know, bigger influencers that maybe we hadn't worked with

30:49before that are really putting a megaphone to that. But we were very cautious about, you know,

30:55our paid versus organic because people can see through that. We can all see through that when we're on

31:00our social media, what's, what's real and what's not, what's like a paid. And it's, it's not an

31:06exact science. I wish I could say it was, you know, we're always experimenting with how much goes towards

31:11paid or paid media versus earned and owned.

31:16So we've talked about products. We've talked about the Ulta rollout. You have a lot coming up even with

31:21that rollout, but what's next as you look to the next six to 12 months? Are there trends in hair care

31:26that you're starting to notice now? And you're starting to think about, is there something on

31:31the D to C side? Where's your head right now? Like I said, we're, we've always been very intentional.

31:37So we're, we're very laser focused on, you know, how do we meet more of the right people within the

31:43places that were present? How do we deepen our relationships with our pro community? And I never

31:49want them to feel like unseen or that they're not considered and included as we grow in scale, because

31:55it's absolutely not our intention. And beyond that, you know, we've had some great success with

32:03Aura and, you know, we're contemplating what comes after that. Like, how do we continue to build on

32:08that? Thank you so much for sitting down with us and sharing those plans. We really appreciate the

32:12inside look at this fast growing brand. Awesome. Thanks for having me.

32:25Thank you so much.

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