YouSaid · the spoken record

Holly Thaggard

lines on the record: 106
first: 2020-06-08
most recent: 2020-06-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I did, and actually the logo today, we just had a refresh on our brand about four months ago, actually. Tweaked a little bit here and there with my handwriting. I'm also obsessed with handwriting. And so we digitally used my handwriting to tweak the original logo”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not yet they were still in 24 ounce containers. They did have our logo which I had created in Photoshop and I sort of self-taught how to make a label and how to make a barcode”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I know our Amex was maxed out to the limit, which was like $30,000. It wasn't a huge number, but it was always about that. And I also convinced the people that were making this product that they needed to also, I didn't have a warehouse or anything, so I convinced them to warehouse it for me and then let me pay as I pulled from the warehouse. And then, of course, you know, I could also go play the harp. And, you know, anytime I started to get concerned about cash, I'd take a harp job and Use that to pay for the product. It was pretty messy actually. We didn't keep real good track of the financials at that point because we were just still kind of testing this whole model. And you're right that that soon became after one year of being in the school that year, it seemingly became hard to scale”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, they were making it in large pumps, and we were really just coming up with every which way we could financially pay for it.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Move on, but I'd still keep them informed of everything I was doing because, you know, I also learned from those tapes that no is just tell me more, right? And so, you know, I'd hear no and I'd realize that maybe they're just going to say no for another month and then they'll eventually say yes.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, exactly. I learned from Zig so many things that I still reference today. You know, you have to have so many no's before a yes and attitude is everything, being optimistic and thinking positively. And I mean, I spent weekends sitting under my father's desk listening and absorbing these neatly organized tapes that he would bring home from having been president of the sales and marketing club. And that really shaped how I approached things because those conversations with those schools, I just kept going, kept going. If one said no, I'd go to another one.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did. I think I looked in the private school directories by city and I would call and ask for a meeting. But dating back to sitting under my father's desk reading and listening to Zig Zigler tapes, which is what I did throughout my childhood.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're right, I whipped out my playbook and started talking to the heads of schools and school boards. I very quickly learned that as an over-the-counter drug, sunscreen is actually prohibited in schools across America.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, along the way, I definitely relied on my husband. He had, I mentioned a background in law. And he helped me with registering the trademark and forming an LLC, kind of just put a few of the things that weren't too costly in place to start creating this business.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started wearing it every single day because I had to know over the long term if that was something that was actually a pleasant experience, right? And in fact, I've always believed in no animal testing or anything. So I often laughed and made my husband the guinea pig and would say, hey, can you put some of this in your eyes and make sure it doesn't burn?”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know it was probably the 15th or 20th iteration on a formula that we had tweaked many times over those two years. that finally felt amazing on the skin and it tested because right it has to be efficacious and and it was then that I literally said this is super and the name immediately occurred to me that I had I had also in that moment named name the brand”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't have the money to go and promote. I was bootstrapping this with my new husband and we were thinking about having a baby and he was thinking actually about going out on his own at the time. He has a background in he was practiced law out of law school and he has a real entrepreneurial spirit as well. And so we were both bootstrapping all of the cost.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a raw ingredient that you buy from the people that make, I mean, there's different brand names like parcel and that make that.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, what, yeah, actually, what I learned was oxybenzone is not the only way, it's the most inexpensive way. And began going back to most SPF was a mass product and mass products are as inexpensive as possible. It turned out that there was a counterpart, Ava benzone, that could help achieve the efficacy needed, but it just cost a little bit more.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is going to ultimately change the parent's behavior. And so I thought if I could create this first formula and make it a fun and playful way that appealed to young children to then sort of bug the adults in their life, there was something there.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was completely obsessed with this project. I pulled my sister, who's an excellent writer into helping me create an educational curriculum. Changing consumer behaviors. One of the most difficult things to do, right? But I looked at campaigns like Lady Bird Johnson's Don't Be a Litter Bug when she was first lady. She started that, don't be a litter bug campaign. Sure. And it wasn't necessarily the children that were throwing the dike cokes out the window, but it was their parents. And so I thought this is really interesting because through a very playful way, she's got the kids telling their parents not to be a litter bug.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did not. I just actually called it goop because I didn't know the word lab sample, I think. I wasn't from the beauty industry.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had a lot of phone calls about what I felt like the characteristics of the texture, the feel, and then they started mailing FedEx. We did mailing samples and then I'd give feedback on those samples. And I just kind of passed them around to my family and asked what they thought of this group or that group.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think telling my story, my intention for this magic formula that we were going to create was to put it in every school across America. And so I sold that story of, gosh, we're going to create this. And every child in the country is going to be wearing this game-changing SPF. That is when in the process of creating an SPF product takes a while. And once I had that kind of off and running with the right chemist who I felt was up for the challenge, I then sort of pivoted my time and attention to how are we going to do this in a beautiful way that's fun and playful and more of the marketing and education side of the business.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So through those conversations with chemists from the National Sunscreen Symposium is who I found that first chemist was in California and I'm in Texas and I think, you know, in a good way, a lot of chemists are a little nerdy and up for challenging things like that. And I just got lucky too, I think.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started with the first chemist that said, that's interesting, that's an interesting idea. I didn't realize that oxybenzone was so controversial. And he was willing to completely pro bono, start working on a formula to see if we could rise to the challenge of creating something that felt great on the skin and was healthy and ingredient choices.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, and the reason for that is that in my research I learned that there's UVA rays and there's UVB rays. And UVB rays cause that burning on your skin that changes the color of your skin. But UVA rays are not only aging, but they penetrate deeper into the skin than UVB, and they're present in all seasons, no matter what the weather is, even on a cloudy day, and their skin cancer causing.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think what is so complicated is not necessarily having an efficacious sunscreen. It's limiting yourself to a certain set of ingredients and then making it aesthetically so pleasing that it would make Giraz want to pick it up and put it on his skin every single day.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were saying that you can't make a sunscreen that will test to a high efficacious SPF number without the use of oxybenzone and without the preservative system of a paraben, which is what keeps your product healthy and clean, it couldn't be done. So parabens were needed.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, fortunately for me, the chemists, all the response was very kind to me and they taught me so much about ingredient decks and most of those chemists were not up for the challenge of the challenge that I gave was I'm interested in creating an SPF product that does not have oxybenzone, does not rely on parabens. Propylene glycol, a handful of other ingredients that I just wasn't that fond of. And most of what I heard was it can't be done.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a lot of research, a lot of exploring. I found that there was a National Sunscreen Symposium and I reached out to every chemist that was speaking at that event and I just picked everybody's brain and just became obsessed with learning.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I felt like there was such an opportunity to do both chemical formulas, which there are advantages to in a clean and healthy way. And mineral formulas I felt needed an upgrade to because they didn't need to feel so thick and pasty because if there were options for people to wear sunscreen every single day that were beautiful and luxurious and felt great, then that would be that first step closer to stopping skin cancer.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so there were two types of formulas. There were the chemical formulas, which are those that absorb easily into the skin, and they're great for athletes. And then there's mineral formulas.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so one of those that was often spotlighted was the ingredient oxybenzone, which was being found in breast cancer tissue, and what I also found is that every single chemical formula in the country relied on oxybenzone for its efficacy.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so the first step was to what is out there. And I really wanted to look, I did not grow up wearing sunscreen every single day. So I was thinking, what is that product that I should have been wearing? And so I looked on the market and, you know, like you said, in 2005, SPF was an incredibly sleepy category. And it was owned by the mass channels of distribution like Walgreens and Target and Walmart. And what I found was that SPF was being promoted and marketed as an incredibly seasonal thing. And you couldn't actually even find SPF outside of May, June, or July. And when I did find it, I looked at the ingredients. Found that 90% of what was on the market was just full of very controversial ingredients.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and in part I also knew the importance of education around this. And, you know, I was a teacher and it's not really, it wasn't a shortage of SPF products in the country that were causing the epidemic. It was a lack of education around the importance of wearing SPF every single day.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To the success of that. And so I was thinking, why don't schools offer sunscreen? Why don't children have access to sunscreen in schools? And for me, I just took it to this extreme of like, gosh, we wouldn't send the kids on the playground without a fence around the playground. But we're sending them out on the playground with a carcinogen above them.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I found this study by Memorial Sloan Kettering that was talking about how most people knew sunscreen prevent skin cancer, but I think it was like 70% don't wear it, just like you said every single day. And the number one reason was because it didn't feel good on the skin. And I think just being a child of two entrepreneurs and always thinking about creating and building and researching, and this just was really interesting. I also think that I have always been a product person, which I think kind of goes back to with being with my mother and often critiquing other art and talking about skin tones and colors. The composition of things being so important.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, my initial thought was this could have just as easily been me. I have blonde hair and blue eyes, and I remember, gosh, my spring break in my middle school years. I remember going to Florida and lying on the roof of this house we rented and I got so blistering sunburned that I was sick and swollen. It ruined my entire week. But then I also immediately thought about My 17 kids that I taught that year in the classroom. And never once did I see a tube of sunscreen on the school campus, despite the fact that the children were on the playground in the middle of the day and often even staying in sports in the afternoon. No one was wearing sunscreen.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, and he's fine now. But, you know, I started thinking, and a good college friend of mine was going through her residency in dermatology at the time, and I was talking with her about my friend's skin cancer. And, you know, she said, Holly, it's not about the beach. It's about that every single day cumulative exposure that ultimately and usually much later in life becomes skin cancer. But for your friend who has blonde hair and blue eyes, and you know, it happened at a much younger age.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More like two, I think But when Ty and I started talking about a family and being married and everything, you know, performing on Mother's Day and Christmas and Thanksgiving and continuing on that path just felt like it was time to retire. And it's exhausting playing evenings. And that's not a real great life or having a family.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, no, I was just dating in Dallas until my late 20s, did I not meet my now husband? And his very best, closest friend in college, I performed. I played the heart for mini rehearsal dinners and weddings for their family. And Mary Montgomery, you know, the person I worked that would engage me for these, said you've got to meet my son's best friend. And then so that's how I met Ty and we continued dating as I performed and played until I guess we were engaged when we were about 31.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was doing really well. My rates had gone up to, I had a thousand dollar minimum for any party, which Often, if a party was only an hour, that's a great.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The harvest, yes. So I went from Dallas Country Club to the petroleum club to Brook Hollow Golf Club and made the same introduction. And this is really when I realized that building this business of Holly the Harpist was when I lost all track of time and creating like direct mail pieces and looking into the book of lists. I often would read the CEOs and write letters to their home. You know, I'm from the South. So writing letters has always been a big part of my upbringing. But I got a really good response from just the jobs that I had and spent the next 10 years of my life actually performing. And that's how I paid the rent.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I knew that if I were going to propose a move to my parents that I needed to have a job lined up. So I actually during that brief weekend visit, I walked over to the Dallas Country Club and knocked on the door of the general manager's office and introduced myself and told him all about my music and that I was hoping that they might look to have some new entertainment in their dining room. And I went back, convinced my parents that I could make a living performing and move my harp to Dallas, found an apartment, and literally did the kind of back of the napkin math, like how many hours a week do I need to play the harp to pay for the rent.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, at the time, my brother was starting college at SMU in Dallas, and I had plenty of time on my hands, so I went to help him move in the dorms. And all I could do was look around at all the beautiful homes in Highland Park and how they all really needed Holly the Harpist in their life.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I'm so grateful that that played out like it did because I don't think I would have been pushed to go and change directions. I would have kept that cush job and that's not what was in the cards for my life's work.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did, I did, and I learned, you know, I was sort of breaking rules. I wasn't eating lunch with the other teachers. I wasn't hanging out in the teacher's lounge, talking and connecting. And if I was, you know, being completely honest with myself, I did feel a little claustrophobic within the four walls of a classroom. And they were in a way right. I did constantly look for ways to sort of leave campus early or, you know, I'd say I had a harp job and double book myself and that wasn't in the cards for me. But you know, after a couple of months of exploring these things, I just decided I'm going to move on.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. I didn't know either. I did a lot of exploration at that moment, but I was devastated. I had gone to college to be a third grade school teacher and here my career was seemingly ending very quickly.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so, you know, the end of the school year came when contracts are placed in the teacher's boxes. And I didn't receive one. And the school said they were not offering me a return contract. And I later learned as a first year teacher, you're considered provisional. And they said, you know, this was due to problems and concerns that were brought up from my other peer teachers and not really fitting in well.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was fantastic, so I had a wonderful year. I poured my heart into doing everything that I had learned in college. I also kind of looking back now, I think I poured my heart into outdoing every other teacher in the school and kept my eye on trying to impress the board that had given me the opportunity to be there. I loved every second of it. And in fact, I still talk to those 17 students, many of them. Today”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was so there was a private episcopal school in Baton Rouge that was actually I later learned was quite difficult to get a job there as a first year out of college.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I had also grown up because I think I'm such an organized person and I love pencils and supplies and things. I grew up thinking that being a teacher would be really fun. And I often, even when my little brother would get home from school and keep in mind he was seven years younger than I was, I would sort of start a new session in his room and get worksheets for him and pass out my sheets. And so I thought, well, maybe I should be a teacher.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And look, that makes me sound like I was this great harpist, but I was so winging it. I had no idea, but I knew I couldn't say no and I had no business. I literally had to break down every measure. And I was that reading music type student, you know, but you keep in mind, like I enjoy the business of Holly the Harpist way more than I enjoyed playing the harp.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I did. So I was never really that great of a student. I spent those first two years in college studying music. Totally did not fit in with anyone in the music school. I realized how serious the musicians were in college and I was more interested in doing what I was already doing, which was performing and playing. And I was at the time still getting jobs in New Orleans at the Museum of Art. I played a little backup for Aretha Franklin when she came through.”
2020-06-08 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT