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Gregg Renfrew

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2026-05-04
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2026-05-04
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  1. “I think it's all the above. I think that timing more than luck, I think market timing is important. My first company, the wedding list, we were a little too early. I think if we were maybe a year later or two years later, things might have been different. And I think when I timed beauty counter, I think we timed it really, really well. So I do think luck does come into it. I do think that to be successful in business or in anything requires an inordinate amount of hard work of determination, of consistency, of resilience. I don't care whether you're trying to play football or you're trying to build a beauty brand or anything. It requires just unending hard work. And I always say to people overnight success as a founder is 10 years, 24-7. That to me is overnight success.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “We had lots of conversations about it. And, you know, beauty counter the name was always the intended double entendre of going counter to the beauty industry. That's where it came from. And I think that we really wanted to put counter first because that's really what we've always done has gone counter to industry norms. I think that I also just wanted a fresh start.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “We do have regular affiliate relationships. We're on platforms like Shop My. We have one of our little stores that we used to have on Anteca, which we'll be opening again this summer. And of course, our e-commerce platform, which is driving the majority of our sales today. But we do have a community of women we call brand partners, but one key differentiation is that they cannot build teams. So they are paid exclusively on commission on their own sales. And mostly they're selling online or on TikTok or wherever they are, Instagram. And they are building this community with us that will help us to continue to really fight for a standard for clean because clean means nothing today. And yet to me, it means everything to us. It means everything. And so I would really like us to fight to create a new standard that everyone can understand so that if something is marked clean, that you actually”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “I bought the business. I literally had a meltdown because I was really scared and I didn't have a plan. Usually when you're a founder or CEO, you have a plan. But when you make a decision to buy assets in 24 hours, you don't have a plan. So I had to, so and I didn't, and I knew I couldn't go forward in the way that the old business had gone forward. And there are a million things that had to happen. I do think as difficult as the decision was, it was the right decision to shut that company down and to let that chapter close and to take the time to start a new company. We did some research on what had worked and had not worked, where the market had shifted because what was really innovative and exciting about beauty counter when I launched in March of 13 was not, it was a totally different world. I mean, everything had changed. And so I knew that I needed a new company. It needed to come at it in a new and fresh way. And so I had to reimagine everything.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “There was no money, and we did have to pay the banks something. So when I was going through the process of acquiring the assets, I thought for a hot second that we could somehow continue operations. But that was naive because the cost is so far exceeded the amount of capital. Yeah. So I ended up having to let go of the majority of the associates for the company without Severance or health insurance, which was Horrendous. And so I did that. I held on to a tiny group of people and I said, listen, I can't promise I can pay you. But if you want to stick around, like I hope I'm going to be able to have a small team and announced it on May 1st that we were closing down the company.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “I wouldn't say it was a no brainer in that it was really scary for me financially to do it and I didn't have a plan and it wasn't something I was anticipating doing and what I signed up to do which was a turnaround is a very different thing than buying the assets of a business and trying to figure out how to navigate it all on your own but I did and do still believe very much in the importance of the work and so I made that decision and I made it quickly And I called a few of my old investors and said, look, if we're going to do this, like we got to. And they were like, no problem.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “It's kind of amazing because you probably were able to acquire it for pennies on the dollar. So it's, I mean, on the one hand, I'm sure it wasn't nothing, but you had an opportunity to buy this brand that had been a billion-dollar brand. And so So, for you as a no brainer, a no brainer may not be the right term, but for you was like, absolutely, I've got to do this.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Purchased formulations, we had the rights to the name of the brand. There was a bunch of inventory that we could purchase, old marketing materials, the website if we wanted it, all those things.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “This is a really bad situation. We're going to lose our money, but we believe in this woman and the movement she created. And if she'd like her brand back, we'd like to sell it to her because we think she deserves a right to have it back. And they approached me. It was a Sunday night. I was in Miami about to fly home from spring break with my family. And I had about 48 hours to decide if I was going to do it and to raise the capital with which to purchase the assets of the company You know, I sat down with my family and my younger. Daughter was crying and just saying, you just can't let this whole thing die, mom. You've worked so hard for so long. And I sat with my husband and my kids and took a whole bunch of our savings and said, okay, let's do this.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “Total insanity. I mean, total insanity. So I'm the CEO. I'm watching all this go down. So it's kind of interesting. The debt on the business was syndicated, led by Bank of America and GP Morgan Chase. And I can't remember the other banks that were involved because I didn't interact with them. But in a crazy act, I would almost say of kindness. Bank of America approached my lawyers and they said, you know,”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Right. I mean, once, I mean, look, you know this probably better than I, but once you go into foreclosure in the bank assumes the asset and they appoint a company to manage this whole process, it's then out of your hands completely.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Not only did I not sign up for it, I had no idea how to do it. It's not something that I understood at all. The differences between bankruptcy and foreclosure, I mean, it was all new to me and I was trying to understand as the CEO, you know, how to navigate this with a whole variety of shareholders and constituents that were depending on us. It was interesting.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Had been looking for a buyer for quite some time prior to my joining as CEO and subsequent, but we were unable to find a viable option for the brand.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “They basically said we're not going to put any more money into this Wow, this is six weeks after you return So basically, that's going to, I mean, where that's going to lead is. Foreclosure, or but a sale. I mean, hope for sale, but basically that's the company's going to wind down. That's essentially what they're saying. So they, I am assuming, start to look for a buyer.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Well, in mid March of 2024, Carlyle made the very difficult decision to move away from funding, continuing to fund the brand.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “Trying to get a strategy in a plan. I mean, I was back on February 1st and I started doing a lot of interviewing and asking people because I didn't, I had been removed for a long time. So I didn't actually really know as much about what was going on there. And so I learned very quickly what was going on and then started to form a plan.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Know, look, I mean, I equate this to when you finally go through a bad breakup and you finally get over someone and you think you're fine and then they call again, it felt like all that, all those fields of like, wait, I just got over you. Now you want me back. And so I was reluctant to take the job as CEO because I had finally moved past it in my mind and in my heart. But honestly, it felt really good at the moment when I was nervous, but once I was in, I was like, okay, I'm in, let's do this.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “I felt better with his departure than I did with him staying there. So for me, I didn't feel that he was the right person for the job. And I felt more confident in the choice they made in their interim CEO, Mindy McKenzie, with whom I partnered really, really well. She was a board member. She and I got together and she said, I'm really sorry about everything that happened and we had her, you know, had a good, we hugged it out. And I started helping her a little bit more behind the scenes and then less behind the scenes because of course I had a financial interest, but also way more importantly in some ways I believed in the business. I believed in the work and I believed in the women and I wanted to see this thing turn around.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “It was not in my interest, and I don't They felt they had made a good choice. I think what was hard was the person that was chosen to lead didn't value me, and that was probably the hardest thing for me because I was watching from the sidelines poor choices being made and knowing it was going to impact the company and not being able to do anything about it.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “And you had to support the company because you still had ownership in the company So, it was not in your interest to speak out and say they screwed me or whatever. That would not have been in your interest.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Happened all the time. And also remember when I sold the company, there were about 60,000 women that were representing the brand. And I think that the public perception was that, oh, Greg made a bunch of money and pieced out. And you just left us there. And there were a lot of people that were really angry with me. And I wasn't able to talk to them about it. And that was really hard. But, you know, that's life and happens all the time.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Yeah, I mean, because you might run into somebody and say, hey, how is the beauty counter thing going? Or I just bought beauty counter. I'm supporting you. And you wouldn't want to have to explain everything. Little things like that would probably pop happen now and again.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “It's like your identity. It's like you don't even know who you are without that anymore. I've had so many friends who Have sold their companies or lost their businesses, and they literally have to pick themselves up off the floor because they don't know who they are without it. And I think publicly because of Was said, you know, it looks like I just pieced out and was hanging on the beach, and I did go to the beach, but it was a really dark time for me because I was really sad and I was angry, you know.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “You might, if it was your choice to leave, you might feel that way. I mean, I just think that that first summer, I was devastated. You know, when you start a business and you build it for a long period of time and you're the face of that brand, you're inextricably linked about that brand. It's”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “I think that in most scenarios it is hard for a founder to stay and have someone else lead their company. I think in my particular case from the very beginning it was clear to me that he didn't really want Leverage my institutional knowledge, he was going to run things his way and didn't really value my opinion. And that was really hard. And in fairness, I probably didn't handle it very well either because I couldn't believe that someone, when I had run a company up, up, up, up for eight years that someone didn't value my opinions and thought that I didn't know how to do my job. So it was hard.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “I think at the time I went through the stages of Anger. I didn't go through all the stages of grief because I don't think I could anticipate where it was going completely, even in those initial months.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “So we're gonna find you someone who's really great, and we still believe in you, but we think that you'd be great to be external, but we're gonna find someone to run the company.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “What's that expression the elephant on the table? Elephant in the room, yeah. The elephant in the room is that we don't think that you're the right person to lead this company anymore.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “I imagine the message, the way they telegraph the message was, Greg, this is nothing personal. This is about just what we think is best for the business at this moment. It's not about you. You're great, but it's not personal. Don't take it personally. But of course you take it personally.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “Own my company at this point, and I've been through this before with Martha Stewart where when you sell, you sell and you need to be aware of the fact that you're no longer completely in charge of your destiny.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Yes, they informed me in October that they were commencing a search for a CEO and that I was not the right person to lead the company. Maybe they started it as co-CEO or whatever, but basically they were like. We're going to bring in someone to run the company”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “Look, I think as a CEO, you were always worrying about the state of the business, and you're always looking to what's going to happen next month, next year. Your job is to, so yeah, I was feeling the pressure and I was worried, but I wasn't that worried about it. I felt like we were having a moment. Where the world was kind of going nuts. And I was trying to say to them, take a deep breath, like this is going to smooth out in the fall, like things will start to turn around. Let's not make any rash decisions right now because I feel like this is all going to calm down. And I did feel that way.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “And did you ever, I'm curious, were you coming home and thinking, oh God, this was a mistake? Or maybe not that, but was this the right decision to work with a private equity group? I don't know. I'm curious because this is a normal question that would come up for a founder, right? Did you start to have some of those concerns or doubts or worries?”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “Carlyle was sort of looking internally to say, do we have the wrong digital strategies? What do we need to change? And I started to feel the pressure big time after a couple of months.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “Leaders of Carlisle. Think by sort of the end of the summer they were uncomfortable and I did feel pressure. And it was sort of like, why isn't this working as well as we had anticipated kind of what's going on inside of your team? What do we need to do to change things? Anyone would do, right? What are all the root causes of the lack of sales? And also, there were just some unfortunate events. Like right when we started getting back out there and gathering the women that had sold and getting them excited again, the Omnicrom variant hit. And so we had to cancel all these in-person events all over again. And so they then. And so they were also then having a hard time navigating because people did want to get on Zoom, but people weren't comfortable meeting them in person. So they were struggling to figure out how did they could sell.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “I mean, I think at the end of the day, for most people, the choice of buying a beautiful serum or buying a pair of blue jeans is a choice. Not everyone can buy everything and do everything they want to. And I think that having not purchased clothing, having not been able to travel, people redirected their spend appropriately. And on top of it, not only did the people purchasing our products, but so did the women that represented the brand. They were also getting out of their homes for the first time and taking a vacation with their family. And they were distracted that summer too. And, you know, rightly so. It's been a long, we all know what the pandemic was like. It was a long time. So we were still growing. It's just that we sort of plateaued that summer a little bit. And that made people uncomfortable. And as I said earlier.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “Yeah, like Unilever, Este Lauder, L'Or ⁇, like any of those big brands, they are often acquiring companies. And we had been approached by one a couple years prior that I really, really liked, but I felt like I wanted to be that next generation leader in beauty and I wanted to take the company public ultimately and I thought that I had the chops to do it. And so immediately after they purchased the company, which was on May 20th of 2021, the world opened up. We were led out of our homes for the first time. And the business I would say stumbled that summer. We were still growing, but we weren't growing as quickly as we had before. And I think that that caused real concern at the highest levels of Carlisle.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “Did very well. Very well. And the reason that I chose to sell to a financial sponsor versus a strategic, because I had been approached by strategic two years prior, which is why”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “Yeah, I mean, I think that I remember in the closing moments being very emotional, one as a female founder to start a company and sell it for a billion dollars was putting me in a category of women that was small and something that I really was proud of that achievement.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “Did they? I had built a relationship with the Carlisle group years prior when we did the last round of institutional funding we were too early stage at the time for them to make an investment. It was sort of like, call me when you grow up a little bit, but we kept in touch over the years. And when we went out to sell the business at the urging of our board and our investors, they were one of our first calls for sure.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “Skincare did very well during the pandemic. So, our cosmetic business dropped precipitously, like the second that people were back in their houses, you know, and they were on screens, you were maybe selling lipstick, but the rest of it, no one was really wearing, but you saw an increase in sales of things like serums and anything that people could do to pamper themselves inside of their homes. I think that certainly benefited us, but I think that, you know, I could have done a much better job as the CEO of helping people navigate the new reality, the new way of living post-pandemic once the doors were opened up again because not only did people redirect their spend to fashion and to travel, but also people had Zoom fatigue, but then they weren't really ready to gather physically anymore. And I didn't handle that as well as I should have.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “No, it wasn't. That's not how it happened. We came in because TPG growth was our first large institutional investor. They had a relationship with Bono. Bono and his wife Ali Houston had started a brand called Nude. They were actually early pioneers in the area of clean. And that's how he got involved. And then we did raise another round of capital later.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “As an investor. Bono personal. Greatest thing. Like, just, I mean, I grew up worshipping YouTube, so that was like a pinch me moment.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “Mean, clearly, you guys are struck on something because you start to attract significant investment, I think, in 2018. By that year, you raised over $80 million. Bono was an investor. Bono was an investor.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “Well, I think it allowed for us to grow unbelievably quickly, both the revenue of the company and the movement at large. I mean, I think it was an unbelievably effective business model. We scaled to hundreds of millions of dollars of sales in eight years. So I'd stand by the decision all day long. I think it was an incredibly powerful business ecosystem.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “Absolutely. I think the customer acquisition costs much more efficient because you have people going out there and they have an interest in selling because they're going to make some money, but they're also supporting the product and they're amplifying and talking about it and they like it, they use it. It's cheaper than TV ads.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “And the two things they did unbelievably well and cost effectively is they acquired new customers for us. So they were very effective in that way. And they were also very effective at amplifying our brand. And so we knew that because of their digital footprint, that if I wanted to stand up a campaign, let's just say, or a new product, that I could send them the asset and all of a sudden 8 million people will have seen that overnight because these women were proud of the products. And so it was a very cost-effective way of doing business in that way.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “Yes, we did sales training because most of these people didn't know a ton about what the toxic chemicals might be or how to even teach someone how to put on lipstick or whatever that they weren't typically trained beauty people. They were women who wanted to get involved.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “So, when I decided to start the company, I did a roadshow across America. I went to, I don't even know how many cities and towns. And I would ask everyone I knew. I mean, it's almost like running a political campaign. I would go out and I would say, look, here's the issue that I see in the world today. Here's the solution that I aim to provide through our business. We're creating a movement and I'd like you to get involved.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “For me, the way that we broke it down was we weren't going to allow you to buy product. You could buy samples, but we flagged it. So if there was any order that came into our website over $1,000, we would flag it because not only did we not want people spending money and losing money, but we also wanted to control the brand experience. And so I didn't want someone selling a bunch of product out of their garage. That's not the brand I was trying to build. Every single transaction came through our e-commerce platform and was shipped directly from our warehouse. You could earn a commission if you sold a product if they built a team. They could earn a small percentage on that team, but most of them weren't making very much money. Most of them only gave us one to three hours a week. This was a side thing that they enjoyed being part of it. It was a community and work that they thought mattered.”

    2026-05-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT