YouSaid · the spoken record

Jennifer Gross

lines on the record: 91
first: 2025-03-24
most recent: 2025-03-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyroz.com or on substack. This episode was researched and produced by Alex Chung and edited by Neva Grant with music composed by Ramtin Era Bluey. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Gilly Moon. Our production staff also includes Chris Massini, JC Howard, Casey Herman, Iman Mahani, Sam Paulson, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Cypher, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to how I built this.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dennis and Carrie Gross, co founders of Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare. Way, that LED face mask that went viral, it doesn't just look like it's from outer space. The technology was actually developed by NASA. NASA thought that LED light might help speed up healing of cuts and scrapes when astronauts were in zero gravity. They didn't end up using the technology in space, but they did end up funding research that led to some of the first medical LED light devices back here on Earth.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Results. You know, if you really are distinctive in what you're bringing to the consumer and to the industry, then I think that people will support you. People will buy your product. And that is top line for me is the results. Nowadays, the consumer wants to see the difference. And we have consistently done that. And that's what I'm most proud of and I think we earned it.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you think about how about the journey of building this, how much do you attribute to the work you put in and the time and how much do you think had to do with luck and timing?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is still a changing world in terms of skincare, going full circle, going back to the day where skincare was just in moisturizer. The future, I think, is absolutely incredibly exciting. And our pipeline, I think, is really exciting to me. I still want to create and innovate.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was one of the key timing factors. We actually in 2023 launched into Sephora Europe. So I think we opened something like 17 countries in a period of like three months. It was crazy. And having Shiseo support us with talent and with experience has been incredible.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A couple years after that, you got an acquisition offer which you would then accept from Sheseo to buy you guys out $450 million amazing exit. I mean, I imagine by that point you felt, all right, we've been doing this for 23 years more. It's time to... Of enjoy the fruits of our labor, I guess.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, we just Rolled up our sleeves and went all in in the digital space. And we put Dennis on Instagram. And we did master classes for our clients so that we could stay in touch with them and make sure that they were okay. And about three months into the pandemic, I got a phone call from Main Post and they're like, we want back in. We figured out a way to make the deal happen. And so we got the deal done in June of 2020.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Stores closed, and it was like, oh my God, you know, we thought it was bad enough going through like 9-11 and then 2008 crash. The pandemic was just like shocking. It was shocking. And Dennis' practice closed, Sephora's doors closed. Every spa closed. And we were sitting looking at each other thinking, oh my God, I think I was laying on the floor thinking, I can't believe this. I can't believe this. Are we going to lose our company?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I'm going to back up and just give you a little story. Leading up to this. So our business is growing, and I wanted to focus on international expansion. And so by 2018, 2019, now I'm starting to feel like, oh my God, I actually don't need capital. We're successful, we're profitable, we're making money each year, but I need a board of directors. I need some partners to really help me figure out how to really take this brand and turn it into a global force. So we hired an investment banker and we met with, you know, multiple, multiple private equity groups and strategics. And we kind of fell in love with a group called Main Post Partners based in San Francisco. And we went through the whole deal process and we were getting close to signing the deal and then the pandemic hit. And the deal was off.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So around 2020, either around the time of the pandemic or before. Bring in outside capital, a private equity group buys a minority stake in the brand. Tell me about the decision to do that. What was the thinking was we'll take this money and we'll do what with it.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The thing about LED is you have to use it daily in order to see the results. And if you do, the results are spectacular. But to get the consumer to actually stay on the plan, it had to be convenient, right? So three minutes a day was the game changer. And we got results. And it's FDA cleared because it works. And some people just are concerned about the area around the eye is aging. So that's another device. And now the newest one is the lip. And trends, as I see in my practice, is that lips are just huge in terms of what people want. And it's just something that is part of our culture now. Larger lips, people coming in for”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I want to point out that our very first device was actually a facial steamer. We launched a steamer back in, I think, 2012, and it was very, very popular for many years, and it showed us that there was a hunger for devices. And the other piece of it that is so exciting from my perspective is the tools that our teams use when they go out in the field and they do facial events at stores and at spas, we use these devices on the consumer. And it creates theater and excitement. And it's really, really fun to be able to offer this to clients, to be able to use it in their home.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is crazy, but it is absolutely true. There's receptors in the skin, in the cells that produce the collagen, the fibroblast cell, and it turns on the production of collagen. It stimulates them. And as we get older, the amount of collagen we make diminishes. So LED in my practice was a big winner. Number two, it works on acne. The two biggest components really of dermatology were addressed by a treatment in my office. One of the main things we do is bringing what we do in the dermatology clinic to the home of the consumer. There was an opportunity. And it was the impetus to say, let's create an at-home device. And that's what the LED device, that's the backstory.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I bet. Tell me about moving into light technology, right? I mean, basically you develop a plastic mask with LED light to treat skin. And the thing went totally viral on TikTok a few years ago. How did that technology even start to emerge?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it probably became difficult to get an appointment there at a certain point because your name was on the brand and shops. And so one thing kind of, whether that was intentional or not, it kind of bolsters the other”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. First of all, I needed to. Number two, it's what I love. And number three, it was actually in tandem with the skincare brand. So I maintain my practice to this day because it really is still what we call the living lab.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, we did. But I must say, we reinvested every dollar back into the business in those years. So we had the cash flow and we had the revenues to support our growth. We, instead of taking an investor and taking money out of the company, we continued to live off the income of my dermatology practice and just believed in the brand and reinvested every day.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, one thing that I always tell an entrepreneur or somebody that's starting out a brand, like take every single meeting. Take all the meetings because you never know who you're going to meet and what you're going to learn. And so over the years, we had quite a few meetings, wouldn't you say, Dennis?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell me about so basically you're focusing on the brand and it's steadily growing every year. I mean, was there any moments where you start to think, okay, maybe we should bring in some outside investors to really supercharge the growth? Because I know it would happen later, but between 2010 and 2020, was there conversations that you guys had about that?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was seeing it in my practice of people saying, Bring it on. You know, we know what the original version is and if this is going to be even better and the two steps will save me from getting blotchy and people went from being skeptics and concerned to all out believers in what they can see on their skin. So the extra strength peel really was a big hit and still to this day outperforms.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We came back in 2010 as Dr. Dennis Gross and we launched a new version of our alphabet appeal. It was that extra strength alphabet appeal. And that was also disruptive and risky. And Sephora was a huge, huge, huge help to us at that point because I think they were scared too. I think we were all a little nervous. Are we doing the right thing? We've got this one peel that we've been selling for 10 years and it was our Hiroskew and now we're going to launch an extra strength version of an acid peel to put on your face.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we come back in just a moment, Dr. Dennis Grow's skincare does a star turn on TikTok with a mask that uses LED light. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ros, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2010 and Dennis and Carrie have a new name for their brand and a new twist on their most important product.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had to pull rank on him. I was CEO of the company. I'm like, sorry, babe, we're going for it. And it was a blessing in disguise for sure. But I will tell you, it would be kind of humorous where I'd be sneaking around like Nordstrom and walking through Sephora and hearing people saying, oh my God, gross? Are you serious”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, because the last name Gross is sort of a disconnect. With beauty, you might say. And maybe I still was thinking about my being ridiculed in the schoolyard and junior high school. You're gross. And it was a thing. I didn't not know how that would be received. It's not actually how you pronounce my last name, to be honest. It's jerose, but that's a different story. Nonetheless, that was really the reason.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell me, Dennis, why didn't you want to put your name on the brand? Because it was called MD Skincare up until 2010. And now it's going to be called Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare. Tell me why you were reluctant.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, initially, we started to go through depositions, and it was a total nightmare. It was a distraction. It definitely took a lot of time and energy away from actually building our business. But we decided that we didn't want to fight the lawsuit, that we were going to change the name. And yeah, it was tough times. We had to make a decent-sized settlement payment to MD formulations and pay the lawyers fees. And so that year was really tough for us. And Dennis and I had a lot of back and forth because he didn't want to put”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Little bit longer, and they were owned by a company by the name of Allergan. And so in any case, the company itself, I think, was going through some trouble and they were sold and they tried to buy us. It was just, it was crazy. And we just decided we wanted out. We weren't going to fight the lawsuit. We were just going to change our name.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But right around the same time, I think you guys had another problem on your hands because you got sued, right? You got sued by, I guess, by a similar company that was called MD Formulations. And basically they sue you because your name, of course, was MD Skincare. And you're several years in now, and then they're pointing out, or they're saying that your names are too similar.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I also want to add one thing to a little more texture to the crash of 08 and how we navigated that. The way we got through it was literally our employees were so loyal and we had such an incredible culture to our company that they agreed to go for weeks without pay for us to catch our breath financially. And one of the greatest highlights of my career when I saw our employees just say we believe in you and we want to support you and we're not going to leave and find a job someplace else. So being good to your employees was really important for us to survive that little era.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, in terms of growing, it was organic growth. But do you remember just to give me a sense of where you were, do you remember you mentioned that once you hit a million dollars in sales a month, do you remember what year that was”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, it's funny that there's certain financial milestones that I always really remember. And I remember the first time we hit a million dollar month. And it was just like, you know, we all were like celebrating in the conference rooms, but we were definitely breaking even. And then all of a sudden started to turn a profit.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I'm curious about. I mean, tell me a little bit more about what cost you money because what are the other big expenses? Advertising, I mean, what cost so much money?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think by the time we got to 2005, Dennis wrote a book, and that was a big deal for us that gave us a lot of, he did a book tour. We started winning awards. And at that point, we were on the brink of breaking even. Before that, it was kind of like, okay, who are we going to pay this week? Are we going to be able to collect $200,000 by Friday? And that was kind of the startup energy every single day that I would go into the office and Dennis formulates all of our products himself. He hand-selects meticulously every ingredient that goes into every single one of our products. And in addition to that, we do clinical testing. And that's very expensive. So it was becoming quite an endeavor, the company.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is very challenging, but I really felt like my motto then was, you know what, if there's any justice in this business world, this product works so well that we are going to be very successful. And all I wanted was, you know, for it to be a meritocracy. And as we grew, there were times where we were in the early days, Carrie, right? We were losing money. And that was tough, you know, and actually we went through our savings and I took a mortgage on our home to get extra and I put it towards the company. Now that was challenging and that's where I had some concern with what am I doing? And I have four kids and I'm supporting my family through my practice and now I'm investing in a company and it's teetering because growth costs money. And before you turn into profit. You have to have the confidence to put more money in at that point.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know that you eventually got it patented. You had to because you had to protect this thing. But was that expensive? Was that time consuming? Tell me about the process of getting that patent done because that was critical.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tandem packets step one and step two. And this format gave us the ability to sample. And also like back in the day, like we were doing direct mail. We were mailing these little packets on in envelopes and we were doing skincare challenges and you could get on an airplane and then pass them out to the flight attendants and the people next to you and people were they could go on vacation and pack them easily. They just were really easy to use and they were perfectly dosed. So it was just the design of our peel packettes. I think was part of our secret to success.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was about $75, I think, for a month supply. That was a lot. That was a lot to ask. I think the clients expected, okay, I know I need a cleanser. I know I need a moisturizer. But this is something different. This is a different step in my regimen. And so they really, you know, we had clients that were coming to us with skin problems like acne, hyperpigmentation, advanced aging. So they were, it was an emotional purchase and they became super fans. They were incredibly loyal. And there's one other thing that I want to talk about really quickly. So we packaged the peel in.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was the alpha beta appeal that you developed. And by the way, how much was it to buy to do the alpha beta process at the time”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we were opening new accounts, opening new spa accounts, and then trying to figure out a forecast and how are we going to enter into the Sephora market and how are we going to service those doors. And so in any case, I think by 2002, we hired our first full-time employee”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was crazy, but you know, I started off with a team of Independent account executives. Like we had consultants, we didn't have any employees. So You know, my best friend was helping. And like we would be working out of our apartment.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we had a business plan. We found a graphic artist. We did a logo. We set up the initial skew assortment. Of course, we had to have a sunscreen in there for sure. We had a cleanser. We had, you know, it was a tight assortment, maybe like 12 skews. And when I needed money, I would have to have Dennis write me a check”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Carrie, I mean, when you guys decide, okay, we're going to go to a contract manufacturer, we're going to have them make this stuff. We're initially going to just sell it to our own customer, so it probably wasn't that expensive because you were probably able to sell it at a premium. But then when you decided to make it... Cosmetologists working at SPAS. I mean, was it hard to finance that or was it, I mean, was it relative? Straightforward, like from a cash flow perspective.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I remember flying out to San Francisco and, you know, sitting down in their conference room, imposter syndrome. I'm thinking, the Nordstrom people knew me. So I was fine there, but I'm thinking, are they going to just think I'm the doctor's wife that I don't know what I'm doing? And so it was a little nerve-wracking, and I sat down with them and then we fell in love with each other. But we actually, so we had this like beautiful business model. I just want to tell you that our clients would travel and they'd go to the four seasons in Maui or they'd go to Florida and stay at a resort and see our products and then they'd go back home and they'd go to Nordstrom or Sephora and see our products again and they're like, wow, this is a pretty interesting brand. It's a professional brand, but I can also buy it in my local.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We come back in just a moment how a lawsuit forces the brand to totally change its name. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2002 and ND. Is moving into spas, and even if you stores like Nordstrom. And then Carrie decides to pitch it to a French beauty store that's relatively new to the US, Sephora.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely no, we had trainers. I mean, it was a lot of, you know, writing protocols for the estheticians and creating manuals and brochures and old school videos. And it was a lot. And I was starting to feel like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, am I really going to be able to do this? It was pretty crazy. And here we are being very disruptive in the industry by asking people to put acid on their face every day.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How did you, when you started initially selling to SPAs, did you have to also go in and show them how to use the product, or was it something that they could just read in the instructions?”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And to the press, which was a really important component for us in the early days, the press were equally non-believers that you could actually have skincare results without the blotchiness. And so they were invited into my practice. We would do the treatment on them. And like my clients, my patients, they were amazed at the immediate results they saw and then how things got better and better with the retail product. I earned their trust. you know, and then they actually started to come to me.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. The beauty press were Dennis' patients. We never advertised. We just had articles in L and Vogue and Harper's and this was before the internet. There was no internet. There were no, as you said, no cell phones and no Botox even. It was super exciting. We went to spas initially. And, you know, when I had retired from Nordstrom, I indicated to them that I might be coming back to you with a brand. And so I got my Nordstrom girls on board. And Nordstrom had spas also. So we did the cosmetics floor, the beauty floor as well as the spa treatment rooms.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How did you get those accounts? Did you already have some media attention by that point? Were people aware of this thing that was happening at Clinic? Absolutely. Yeah.”
2025-03-24 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: Dennis and Carrie Gross · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT