YouSaid · the spoken record

Tiffany Masterson

lines on the record: 161
first: 2024-01-29
most recent: 2024-01-29
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

“It just doesn't feel like hard work when you're on the right path. It doesn't feel I look back and I think that was so fun. What a blast I had. I didn't even want to get up for lunch and I didn't want to fall asleep at night. And it worked out. Thank God.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I worked really, really hard. And also, you have to have all of these stars aligned at the same time. You've got to have, you got to hit it on so many different levels. You have to hit it on the name. You have to hit it on the packaging. You have to hit it on the formulations. You have to hit it on the timing. You have to hit it on the people. And I got really blessed and lucky on all of that. Even the logo. But anybody who you ask will laugh and say, you didn't get lucky. You worked your ass off. That's all I saw you do. I mean, I would travel with a girlfriend and at 5 a.m. she'd see me under the covers like secretly. Like we would get two double beds and approach and I'd be under my covers for emailing and working and she'd see the little light of the phone on, you know. I worked every waking moment I could that I was in with my kids. I sat and worked until they needed dinner or they needed to be picked up or they needed the laundry done or they needed, you know, I was there on the computer all the time. And so I think that that's what it takes.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I could just follow him when he leaves, yeah, you know, so if that works out, I consider myself the luckiest person in the world.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know what I'm going to do, but we actually did buy a house in Austin when my first daughter decided to move there. I have three girls who are in college at the same place, and then a son who's headed to hopefully the same college. So I can just, if he ends up going to UT also, which I hope he does.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, not that I can think of. Right now, I love what I do. I love my job. I love my brand. And I could do this for 20 more years if they'd have me. I may change my mind next year, but listen, I mean, I work there. I'm an employee. I get a paycheck. And it's also going to help. I dread my last child leaving.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I've had to learn a few pretty rough lessons actually because you do get sucked in sometimes with people who don't have the best intentions or maybe they're with you for the wrong reasons. Yeah. But I have my core group of friends that were with me when times were tough and they're with me today. And so I know exactly who my friends are. Yeah. Then I actually made a list. This is so weird. But I do have a list on my phone of my best friends. And I've just kind of gotten closer to the people who have been with me. And you live and”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just feeling like you could all go to Mart like the world could end. I wonder because it's public, right? It's like it's a public number that's out there. I don't know. Do you kind of have to be a bit more cautious just because people know that you have money in, so there are philanthropies, and there are charity events and there's, you know, and maybe even being careful about there are people who just kind of want to be around you because of this. I don't know. Has it changed the way you interact with the world around you? Has it kind of forced you to be more cautious?”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About a That fit my children, and I got to decorate it white with pops of color like I always dreamt I would. But I'm always worried about it no matter what. I'm worried about it. It's a weird thing to be in. It's a weird place to be.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a little bit of a shock that happens, and your mindset doesn't change though, strangely. Like if you have I'm a warrior. And if I can't pay a bill or if I, you know, I still have that mindset. I'm stuck in this broke mentality.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, in my mind, it was like it was no different than bringing in private equity and bringing in the C-suite. That was the next phase. Of building the team. Now it's time to build the brand around the world and spread awareness and help people. And I was so excited about the next phase. And that's how I looked at it. I wasn't planning to leave. I didn't leave. I'm still there, still doing the exact same thing that I was doing before. And I never thought of resting or anything like that.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And here's the thing about that I wouldn't want to copy another brand. In fact, it's quite the opposite with me that I didn't look around very much because I didn't want seeds of ideas to get in my head. And I wanted it to be very different.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it wasn't stressful I'm not allowed to talk about the case at all. I'm not allowed, but I can tell you that C4M is still on the shelf.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, this is kind of nuts, which is I shouldn't say nuts, but you had already had some interest from a company like L'Oreal, potentially maybe one day acquiring you, but they actually sued you in 2018 for patent infringement.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Want everybody on the day we sell this company to feel it, to get a check in the mail and really feel it. And also, I was building a really good team and I wanted everybody to feel like. They were invested in it, they had a reason to want to be there.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe 20, maybe 20 by the time this is happening with private equity. Know, I met with the private equity team trying to start to really discuss how we want things set up. And I decided I wanted to make everybody an owner of the company. Everybody in the company was going to have a piece of the company. I don't think of myself as a really strong leader because I don't like confrontation. And I really wanted to be on the same level as everybody in the company. I really wanted it to feel like a team and that we're all in there doing the hard work together. And I also thought because I had worked at a company where it was sold and I didn't get anything when it was sold.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a CEO after we got private equity. We brought on a CEO. Private equity, they put some money in, and that allowed us to hire the executive team. And this is when I knew I wanted to go really with industry veterans who had been, who had made an impact in the industry who The number one skincare brand at the Sephora at the time was Fresh Beauty. And the number one makeup brand at the time was Urban Decay. So we got the CEO and the CMO from those companies to come over.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I only launched it in 2013. I don't want to sell it right now because it's a middle schooler. I wanted to graduate from high school before I get rid of it.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were, and I think it's public knowledge that SD Lauder was in the running. We talked at L'Oreal, we talked to all of the brands, of course, but going back to this point in time, we didn't have private equity yet. And so there was some discussion at that point. Do we entertain the idea of selling? So that was very early. This is when Patrick says, look, I'm going to start responding to all the inquiries on LinkedIn. We're getting LinkedIn inquiries every day, all day from private equity. And we ended up going with a private equity company that was kind of focused on health and wellness. And I don't know. It was kind of bittersweet for me. It was just the idea of selling the brand at that point was so scary. The brand was still so young.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, she said the president. I'm the president of Estee Lauder. And I said, How do you know that? And she said, well, they announced it this morning. And I was so blown away. She said, Here's my number. Keep in touch. And then I turned around and the lady on the other side of my booth was the president of L'Oreal.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was, but here, so something amazing happened before that, which was that so in the summer of 2016, I went to a Sephora conference. And by the time I got to the booth, there were two ladies standing in my booth. And I didn't had never seen them before. And one of them walked up, and the other one stood on the other side. And she said, Hi, I'm Jane from SD Lauder. Congratulations. I said, Hi, thank you for what? And she said, For becoming the fastest growing brand in the history of Sephora, the fastest, fastest growing skincare brand in the history of Sephora.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I learned a lot from you, and it would be an unbelievable honor to have you on my team. I don't have a spot. I'll just create one. And he wrote right back. He said, you know, yes, let's talk. He's a scientist. So we brought him on to help me. And so I wasn't choosing all the ingredients myself anymore. I was still choosing them, but he was reviewing them. And we were doing it more of a collaboration. And now to this day, he's... Right by my side”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After he reviewed those, he emailed me and said, You know, I want to review the bars, I want to review this, I want to review that. Can you tell me more about how you formulated? So I responded. Then we kind of got this dialogue going. And eventually he emailed me and he said, listen, the website's changing a bit. I don't want you to be nervous when you go on because I know you're a freak and you go on and look every day for new reviews of your products. But it's going to change a little bit because Paula's choice is dividing from Beauty Pedia. So it's going to look a little different. And it made me think he may leave. And so I said, if you ever are leaving your job and you, I would love to talk to you.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's the writer on that review. Yeah, and after I launched Drunk Elephant, I got a Google alert that said Drunk Elephant was mentioned on Beautypedia. And I almost died. I was like, I cannot take this again. Like if this is the blow that they delivered to Wonderbar, I don't know what I'm going to do. And he had reviewed four of the products, I think, maybe five. And they all got five stars. It was like the biggest, best confirmation. And I just won my first Allur Beauty Award in 2015, which was also this big confirmation for me.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Didn't tell this story, but it's a good one. Nathan is my head of product development, SVP of product development at Drunk Elephant. He is the one that wrote the review for the Wonder Bar.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and also everyone who asked on social media, every person who DM'd me on social media, I sent product to. And so instead of advertising, all of the dollars we were saving, I kept reminding everybody like we're saving a lot of money on advertising. So let's use that to give people, so word of mouth, you know, and that's how you build word. And it was painful a little bit because we were giving away a lot of product. What it takes. So that wave of awareness that the brand actually worked and the formulations were super sophisticated, that came later. And so that kind of helped in the second year sort of because I started getting awards. And so once I started getting awards, then you start getting credibility.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I call him drunk breaks. I call them clean breaks at the time, but now I call him drunk breaks. I called my kids the littles, so I got little versions of the products, and I said, I want to get the littles to every single person that works at Sephora so they can experience the philosophy and sell it, knowing what they're talking about and really be personally invested in it. So we sampled the heck out of it.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sephora is known for building baby brands. They take indie brands and they blow them up if they like you. They can also if it doesn't work then it's kind of hard to come back from that What I did when they told me that we got in every store. I remember somebody telling me before that to go in every Sephora door because she 500,000 dollars. So when I got the call, we were going in for free. Because you don't pay for the favorites wall. Which was unbelievable. That was a huge break, right? I called Patrick and Charles and I said, I think that we should put the money we just saved into sampling. And I think we should give every single employee at Sephora, the Little's Kit, which was the whole line, but Little Version.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's so remarkable to me that Sephora and maybe Alta too, Ulta, that they can really, I mean, I just think about Whole Foods, right? If you are only in Whole Foods as a food product, like if you're just a brand, you're selling ketchup, like, you know, you could probably do seven to 12 million a year in revenue, maybe 15 million, just through Whole Foods. But really to go big, you have to be in Walmart and Target and Kroger and Walgreens. You have to be everywhere if you're going to sell potato chips. It seems to me that Sephora is different, that you can actually build a huge brand just in Sephora.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“2015, and I was driving down the street going to pick up my kids at school. And it was Cindy, and she said Tiffany, there's a thing called the favorite's wall at Sephora, and we want you on it. It's every door By September of 2015.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sold out of a couple products right away. So the glycolic acid sold out really quickly So we knew a month in that it was being very well received. And so that happened quickly. And then the summer, so I launched in January, I go into some stores in March, April, 21 doors. I get a phone call. Gosh, it went so fast. I get a phone call probably in April, May.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just started taking pictures and posting with cute captions. I mean, it was just, again, it was, I didn't have a manager yet. That didn't come till later. I was doing it on my own, and it started just gaining followers. And I do think the CEO of Sephora came to Houston a year in and just said, what are you doing? We don't know what you're doing. The traffic coming from your Instagram into Sephora is like, we haven't really seen this before. I can't explain it. I think it was word of mouth combined with the products worked. These formulations were surprising. They were super sophisticated. I wanted all of them to be as good and effective as clinically effective as anything on a dermatologist shelf because I wanted that for myself.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know. Well, first of all, I was only online in 2015. I wasn't to go in stores until April, and that was only 21 stores. So I had to prove myself online pretty quickly. And thankfully, a publicist approached me who had seen the website in 2013. She was like a one-woman show and she had a little boutique agency. And she really believed in the way the brand looked and the name. She loved everything about it. And so she did a lot to help me get like some of these exclusives with in-style magazine and lore magazine and some of these big like publications that had a wide reach. And so like it was a combination. I mean, we were on social media and it's Instagrammable. The product line, everybody was taking pictures of it. So it was just word of mouth and editorial. That's how we built it.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know if I could have, but I would have probably done it anyway. And you know, Sephora never said anything about it. It's not like they said these are priced very strangely. They seem to be in line with the competitors at the time.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you kind of had to price it. But at the same time, you yourself, your financial situation was a little precarious. So would you have been willing to spend $80 on cleansers and stuff like that at the time”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looked at dermatologist brands and how expensive they were, and then I looked at drugstore brands and I thought, you know, what would I want to pay for this as a 44 year old woman, what would I be willing to pay for this?”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. I mean, I think Charles would say that if you could make an expensive, like a high cost of goods, it would be me. I could do it myself because he's like, why is everything so expensive? I just was choosing the top of every, I wanted everything to be the highest quality I could get. The very best formulations I was choosing ingredients that were expensive. So, cost of goods for us was probably a little more expensive.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The philosophy was there are these six suspicious ingredients, and we have eliminated them from our product line. And there was nothing else on the market at all, even in whole foods or organic brands that eliminated these ingredients”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, because we're only a year in. I mean, this is still 2014. So, what I did have at that time was not as much sales numbers. We had two things. One, we had repeat customers. And I also had feedback from, I did a whole focus group myself, and I had like 50 people in that focus group. And I had incredible feedback on the philosophy and what it had done for people's skin. And so I just kept waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say, you don't know what you're doing. You're wrong. Go back to being a stay-at-home mom. And every time I had an opportunity to learn more about if my philosophy worked and if this was like, you know, if there's proof of concept, I would get like major proof of concept. It would be like a confirmation would come and that would, yeah, you're on the right track.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you finally launch in Sephora on January 2015, this is really the first major brick and mortar that you're in. Because up until that point, you're direct to consumer. Do you have any recollection at all of what kind of sales you were doing before you hit Sephora? Like, had you hit half a million a year?”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We did. Patrick brought money in at that point, and we had money from those two other investors And so it was just kind of everything sort of felt like magical timing, really.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did he done that with his wife, but he also had lots of experience with investments and just. Just to me, he was my big brother who I trusted, and he could probably help operate things and keep this thing organized because I certainly couldn't. And you don't want to get a check book near me. I mean, I can screw up a checkbook in a second. So I knew what I didn't know. And so Charles was very happy for Patrick to come in and help run things. And so he came in in late July, early August of 2014 and helped me like with my first conference call with Sephora in September. So we had lots to do, lots to get organized and to get. Kind of ramped up for this big launch”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did, and I really respected my brother, and my brother had just gone through this bad divorce, and so I thought it would be really fun for him to get involved in something, and he was so excited.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She said, Can we talk next week? And I was actually going to Jackson Hole with a friend and bringing my kids with me, and I remember being on the phone that trip a lot because I was so nervous about this call And so it was there in Jackson Hole that she told me that, yes, we want to pick you up, all six products. She goes, if you don't sell a million in the first year, we won't kick you out. And I emailed my whole family. I told everybody that we'd gotten in. And at this point, my brother, who had just, he was excited for me. And so I called him and I said, I got in Sephora. And I don't know what I'm doing. I'm really, really nervous. Charles was a silent partner. He's a silent investor at this point”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Keep in And my heart sort of sunk, but I still didn't believe her. It was really weird. I just didn't believe her. I just gave her her bag and I said, great to meet you. Hopefully I'll talk to you soon. So I go home, and a week later, I get an email from Cindy. And it actually chokes me up. I'm surprised right now. Yes, and I've told this story so many times, it makes me cry. Said how, oh, God, I can't say it. It's so strange. I think I'm really back in that time right now. She said, I want to talk about being partners. I want to talk about partnering with you and launching your brand.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hiring their badges. And then she comes by again the next day She just sticks her hand out and says, I'm Cindy from Sephora. Love the line. Please keep in touch. We're unfortunately not going to pick anybody up for 2015. This was July of 2014. She says we're not going to pick anybody up for 2015, so I'm really sorry.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She said, I'm going to forward you to a girl, a merchandiser. And she responded, send me the products. And I said, well, I don't have final packaging yet. This was six months prior to Cosmoprof. And she said, well, just keep in touch. She starts seeing it in magazines or online, not in magazines, but online. She starts seeing it, and she reaches back out to me. I remember that I was downstairs cooking dinner one day, and I'm like, God, this is Cindy from Sephora. I ran upstairs, got on my computer, and responded, I still don't have packaging, but I'm going to in July. She said, okay, well, keep us posted and send when you have it. So I go to Matt Cosmoprov. She comes by with five other women. I don't know who it is. I'm talking, talking, talking.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the day before the last day, this group of women came by and they had their badges turned around. I couldn't see who they were from. And they were intrigued. And I had actually, I left this part of the story out, but I had actually six months prior to this done the same thing with the head of Sephora merchandising where I jumbled up her name into every combination could possibly get.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have to choose to meet you, and Sephora wasn't on it. So I'm thinking I'm not going to meet them at this conference. So I go.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think less than 100,000. And I remember so August 2013, we launched online. And then 2014, July. Got the final packaging and I've got the final formulations. And I've tweaked things a little bit based on the feedback I've gotten during that first year. And so I remember getting into this place called, it was Cosmoprof, which is a huge convention in Las Vegas You have a chance to sit with the retailers and pitch your brand. And it was the first time I was going to show the big retailers my brand. And you get your list like the week before of the retailers that have chosen to meet you”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember I had a ding on my phone that sounded like a cash register. Yeah, it would go off on my phone every time we got a sale. And it was so exciting. I remember calling my mom saying we sold $1,400 today.”
2024-01-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Drunk Elephant: Tiffany Masterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT