YouSaid · the spoken record

Katia Beauchamp

lines on the record: 99
first: 2020-03-16
most recent: 2020-03-16
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

“Feeling now that very little, frankly, can stress me out, very little feels dramatic or awful. I have all of my faculties to attack the challenges. There still are always going to be many, but I don't feel just oriented. I don't feel drama. I don't feel desperate. I don't feel any of that anymore. I feel curious. I feel gratitude. I feel... Like I'm growing so much, and I love it.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, at the time, I'd say, like, nothing really rocks me now, the moments when it seemed the best are the moments that I equate with it being the worst, and”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“fifty fifty I think it's not just grinding, but I think resilience is underestimated, like to endure kind of being kicked down a lot. So when you have headwind or when you have the challenges, what do you choose to do in those moments? And I think it would be tough to imagine not building. It would be tough to imagine not trying to invent reality, to be honest. It really excites me to imagine the world I want to exist and to try to create it.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, it is a very privileged position I think maybe before feeling proud about it, I felt pretty shocked about it on two fronts, I'd say. When I realized what rare creatures we were as female founders, I wasn't as aware of that when we started. I was upset mostly, mostly recognizing how challenging it was to really get capital, particularly later stage capital as a female founder, to be seen as both visionary and a strong operator. So that was really disheartening to me, I'd say. But yes, I do feel privileged and responsibility for trying to change that trajectory.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. That whole experience really shaped my entire outlook on all of this, I'd say, in addition to the hard things that happened. Then being in the hospital away from my other three kids and my husband for a hundred days and then having a very dramatic delivery. And I actually signed the paperwork right before I went under to deliver my daughter.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I read that when you signed the agreement with Walgreens to feature your products there, you were on bedrest for a hundred days because of a complicated pregnancy and you were running the company from your hospital bed.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, so far what we really wanted to know was whether customers would be excited to see us there. And so far, we're very excited by the early results and early signs that there's potential to really scale in-person selling subscriptions because in-person, someone can actually tell you what this is versus the two seconds we have to capture your attention on the internet.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unsustainable, yes. We very explicitly have told our customers now on numerous occasions this year that we are not a beauty box. We are not trying to sell samples to people. We're really trying to change your relationship with beauty and help you take the time you have and maximize that time. I've been so, I don't know how to say it the right way, but proud of just people embracing that because there was a long time when I was afraid that people just wanted samples in a box.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I'd say we felt in the early days that we were sprinting a marathon because we just had so much ambition and not enough experience to know how valuable it would be to have fewer priorities and be more potent on achieving them. But learning how to be able to dream big but still think about it as this linear thing where you cross milestones and that kind of opens up the next step in the next thing versus trying to do everything at the same time or a lot of it at the same time is I think a really important lesson. It's really helped me just manage and think through how to create something that is operable.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you get through that rough year of 2016 where there were layoffs, but you actually had a pretty good holiday season, and I guess you became profitable in 2017. But that year there were lots of reports, and you know what I'm going to ask you about, that you were looking to find a buyer, somebody to buy or acquire birch box, and you did not sell a company in 2017 or get acquired, but you did sell a part of it to one of your investors in 2018 to Viking Global. They put in like $15 million, and now they have a majority ownership of the company. But I think there's a bigger pivot or strategy here, I think, which is that in the first three or four years, you and Haley did this insane sprint, right? It was just crazy, unstoppable.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my gosh, I'm so much happier because I feel like I'm good at this now. Not that I'm the best, not that I don't have so much more to learn, but I feel like I understand what it means to build and how hard it is to just stay in the game and to keep getting up.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and also that there was a part of me that was even ashamed of feeling that way that was feeling like I didn't have the chops then you know to survive if I couldn't Candle making these hard decisions.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's so interesting because there's so many personality types, and there's some people who just Know they're very rational about things in ways that other people may see things differently. And when it comes to firing people or letting people go layoffs, it's fine. It's just part of the process. And there are other people, and I identify with you on this, it would be excruciating for me to have to do that. I would feel sick to my stomach, even though that's part of business.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it wasn't that. I mean, the unit economics were strong, but the market changed. I think that it was a perfect storm of there being some formidable competition and not having access to capital that was limitless. All of a sudden, it was just this question around direct-to-consumer businesses and how they would survive amongst competitors like Amazon, and there was no longer capital flowing into e-commerce. So we had to take things into our own hands before it was late, and that caused us to look at people. And that was a really hard reality to face and a really dark time for sure. Just felt like this failure. I just hated myself for letting those people down.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, really not doing anything for myself. I had just had my twins at that point. I was literally being sucked dry. But I was just spending so much time getting used to becoming a mother and then transitioning to being a single founder. It was a lot.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sensed it was coming. It was just such a hard experience going through that kind of growth It took a toll. Think we were just both under an insane amount of stress and pressure to deliver Know every aspect of it felt. It felt so personal. We were so in the press. We were so exposed. And it was, I think, just exhausting to be constantly, you know, scrutinized, copied, feeling like we were on the defense for some of it while also having these crazy ambitious plans internally to keep Growing and evolving and innovating. And I think ultimately, you know, what we both cared most about was the inevitability of the company and our ability to obviously be happy as individuals. And, you know, that's where the decision came from.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think we, you know, we had talked about it for a while before the decision was final and just ultimately she decided that was what was best for her, that was what was best for the company. And it was after a series of long conversations about building this business to be a forever company.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'd say that what I really have come to appreciate and understand is that the strategy of the business is as valuable as the financing strategy of the business. Being strategic and thoughtful about how you finance growth is just as important. So I think considering who you raise capital from, how you finance it, what valuation means short-term and long-term and being just really thoughtful about that as thoughtful as you'd be about the evolution of the product, it's so critical.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of really interesting question. I mean, I think at this point I understand how theoretical valuations are. I think if it's possible to get a great one, you should get it. You know, of course. I think the bigger learning I've had since is that when you are coming out of business school, you think that basically the idea is the thing you should be spending all your time on.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I really care about the relationships I have with people. And as strange as it sounds, like your first investors, you spend a lot of time together. And it felt like real relationships, you know. And in real relationships where you, you know, have like warm feelings towards people, you care about how they perceive you. You want to deliver for them. It didn't feel just like a transactional business. It felt like people that had invested in me and who I owed everything to.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, but I think we were beyond complicit in that. We drank the Kool-Aid of excitement in it. We were like, absolutely, of course we will do this, of course that is like the cup we drank from and we're excited, we're on that track. And I really wanted to please our venture capos. It's like an interesting thing again to reflect on. The allure of like pleasing them and being a favorite and being liked was so there.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did you feel under pressure, either real or imagined, because you had raised money from venture capital firms? And this has happened. We've had conversations like this in the show in the past with other founders who have said a version of this, but I'm wondering, did you feel pressure to grow fast and grow at all costs?”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I was up late working and then I was tired. But also, like I said, this cognitive dissonance of just really wanting to be great and kind of being celebrated as being great, but not yet feeling like I was great. Still feeling like I had a lot to learn to even be in that category, that I had to deliver on being great as a first time manager and entrepreneur and operator.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it did not in the exact same way because our business model is different, but it forced us to start spending some money on sampling.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And we had never done that. And I mean, obviously they'd asked, and we would just say no. But all of a sudden, there was a market for samples. So now we had trust from brands, trust from the industry, but they had this alternative where they could start to monetize samples.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd say a few things happened. I mean, companies started to really believe in what we were doing. The beauty companies did, but competitors that had launched in the market really changed the dynamic because they started offering money for samples. And brands could not just get the samples paid for, but they could make money on the samples, something that we had never done.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It started to be scary, this thing that had never scared me started to feel scary. You know, there was just every month this chance that we wouldn't close enough product and we were going to let down customers or let down the employees now that we were now counting on us for paychecks or let down partners. It started to just feel really overwhelming. You know, this like World was saying that we were so good and I felt these questions about whether there was really substance to the work I was doing, you know, I felt like I was a first time manager. You know, I did not know how to manage and develop people. Getting all of that positive attention and not feeling like I deserved it, frankly. Now, I mean, obviously, I'm reflecting on it. I think that just created a lot of cognitive dissonance for me.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we were really ambitious from the very beginning, we felt like we could potentially expand beauty. We felt like we had to go beyond the United States. We already were thinking about vertically integrating and creating some of our own product. We wanted to scale really big. We were so sure that it was a really big opportunity. We weren't doing something niche. And we felt we could really empower a lot of consumers to feel smart, to spend their money when they knew they wanted to, and to see an ROI.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we were able to self fund. You know, we were growing organically and we were scrappy. We were just, we didn't eat it. And obviously that made us a really attractive candidate to take some.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some of the brands, I think we'd come in, you know, probably just so optimistic and so naive, basically saying, We got this, and people, some people looked at us and were basically like, you know nothing, you've never worked in this industry, I've been in this industry for decades, and this isn't going to work silly little girls. So there was some of that, and I think learning how to overcome that, learning how to build relationships, learning how to just show the humility and also come in to learn and come in to help our partners feel smart and successful was a big part of how we were able to get the relationships we needed. And without those, there is no way we would have been able to. Scale, we would have been able to get through any of this.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was never in the office. I was just constantly meeting after meeting. We had to put up a waitlist after the first year. And it was every day. I just remember feeling so stressed out about supply. I mean, I cried so much about supply. I fantasized about breaking into department stores and stealing all the samples that were such a waste Know, I felt like I was banging my head against walls trying to show people that people were trying to show brands that customers were willing to pay for samples. Like, how could anyone not want to participate? I couldn't believe it. But I was just constantly met with these logistical challenges mostly. And also, I think some, you know, resentment of people that we were just outsiders thinking we were so smart, you know?”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My gosh, it was lasting us forever. So that was. That was kind of the problem our investors kept saying, You're not spending any money. You guys need to hire people. And we were making money. We were selling free samples. We were making money. We were funding ourselves. And as we started working more and more hours, it became clear we had to hire some people to work at birch box.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We started to understand was that these vloggers were looking for content, and this was once a month something that was content. So they were signing up themselves paying for it. We really had no involvement.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are getting press coverage definitely, and then people started seeing boxes come to places of work and to apartment buildings, and that coupled with press was really the catalyst of growth until we also kind of just were lucky enough to be launching around the time where vlogging started on YouTube. And that had a huge impact on our business.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we ended up focusing on more niche brands, I guess, like slightly more independence. Some of them well known-ish, but still independent, and some of them really knew. But basically, we got so big so fast that when we went back a few months later and we said, okay, now we have thousands of subscribers. We're ready to go. Now I was met with basically you're too big now and we can't just pull 200 samples out of a drawer. This takes plans. We have to do this year in advance or years in advance. So it was a lot of learning on the supply side, and I spent so much time both trying to learn the supply side, but also trying to change it.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, I wish it was so much harder than that. Basically, after the beta test, everybody said, this is interesting. You know, yes, like theoretically we would participate in this. And when we were getting ready to launch, we got a lot of feedback from the big brands that was basically, you know, you're really small and this is interesting, but come back to us when you're bigger, when you have 10,000 subscribers. We really can't allocate our energy to this at the scale.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes to that list that had participated, but also the people who were on a wait list. We went back to them and basically said, we're here, we're launching.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we were looking at angels, we were looking at about half a million, and then once we decided to go to venture capitalists, we were looking at about a million, and we ended up raising a million four. And then we basically started taking payments, I think about three weeks before the first box shipped, we just opened up a splash page. And with that, we had enough traction where I think it tipped the conversations over and then we had a competitive process with a few options”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we move to venture capitalists from angel investors, it was a lot less friction because obviously people were looking to deploy capital. And what we did was we started meeting with people and talking to them about our plans and when we would launch and what the next steps were and we were on track, exceeding our targets for when we were going to launch. So we were showing that we were executing.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crushed, so crushed. I mean, it was so upsetting, but I also just remember thinking. We must not be saying it right. I just remember thinking there's no way that we're wrong, so we're just not saying it right.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so you were probably going to these meetings thinking we're graduates of HBS. Like, we've done a beta test. It's been wildly successful. We have a 25% conversion rate. Like you were probably at the beginning feeling that way, and then I guess after 12 or 15 meetings, where you've just...”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, not even close to that. I mean, we were inexperienced having a direct conversation and just saying, like, are you in, are you out? How much? You know, we were just dancing around this potential interest.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After about a dozen times, we were pattern recognizing this and saying, okay, well, no one seems to close the door, but no one seems to be willing to lead around.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, it was like, you know, you've had these conversations before. It was a lot of people saying, well, this would be the first time I did a consumer non-software or technology play, but I'm interested. Basically, most people had a fair amount of critical feedback, but they would leave the door open.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That seems logical, but we weren't getting connected to people. And people were just saying, oh, I know somebody who likes to angel invest, and they would introduce us. And we took every single meeting.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Haley and I had decided that we didn't want venture capital money in the first round. We really wanted angel money. So we basically said no to venture capital when we were on campus.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, that didn't exist. I mean, your best bet was WordPress, and that's what we had. And we had a lot of really great clip art type of stock images. And PayPal, that's all we took”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, just your word of mouth, and then the sample to full-size conversion was really high. It was like 25% of people were purchasing full-size.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We gleaned that it was a smashing success. We had 200 people participate in the beta, and at that point we amassed over 1,000 people on a wait list.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, they gave us the samples, and then we would purchase the full size because it was from the very beginning it was the full model, which was sampling as the appetizer, and then you can purchase anything you sample directly from us.”
2020-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT