YouSaid · the spoken record

Vicky Tsai

lines on the record: 118
first: 2025-06-02
most recent: 2025-06-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“About the highlights. And so I think about the entrepreneurs and hopeful entrepreneurs out there who read stories like the ones like mine and think that it was sort of leaping from one gilded lily pad to the next that just got getting better and better and easier and easier and that I'm at home meditating and it's all been very Zen and beautiful. And it has been very Zen and beautiful, but it has also been death defyingly difficult and treacherous. And it has broken me down to my very core and caused me to question who I am as a person and what I'm made of. So I'm just a really big believer that if I can do it and it's in the cards for you, then anybody can do it.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Blessed with amazing people who believed in us when there was nothing to believe in and who stayed with us. So our scientists from day one are still our scientists today, our packaging partners from day one are still our packaging partners today, our retail partner Sephora, who did believe in us in day one. I just couldn't afford to be with them until you're five because it requires more investment. They are our best partners today. So I've been really blessed, but I'm definitely not smarter. I'm definitely not more strategic. And that's why I love what you do. And that's why I love this podcast. And I wish it was around when I first started because it would have been my lifeline to believe in myself and it would have felt less lonely to do this. And so I'm so grateful for this opportunity to tell you the story because the other hundreds of times that people have asked me over the last 10 years about building this company, they've only asked”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For sure, not intelligence. I am no smarter than anybody else. I think when you start any company, the most important thing is to show up every day. You just have to keep showing up for the game. I did get very, very, very...”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I know that eventually I have to find it a home. And then I met Unilever and I knew nothing about Unilever and had certainly never thought about them as a strategic partner. But there was this woman Vasilyki who was creating a group within Unilever and the rule was that they had to be purpose driven brands and they had to have a purpose above commercial. And we had a conversation and she brought me to tears and she's a mother and she's a female leader that I admire. And one of the things that she loved most about the brand was the giving model. And so That's when I decided while I would love to run this myself independently forever, I know that's not possible. So I would rather then get it into a forever home where it can be protected. And I stay with it. But then it's a forever home.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when I went to Japan, I had experienced a beauty and a kindness and a humanity and a craft that I had never seen in my life. And it healed my skin, but it healed my soul. And I created this thing to share what I was learning because I needed it in my life. I needed it in my heart. I have always believed that a brand is a promise. And it's a promise that I can't break, and I want it to live a hundred years. I want it to outlive me. And so while I love running it and I wish it could be independent forever, I have no intention on living forever, like dying is definitely on my bucket list.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were not intending on selling the company at that point. We had gotten acquisition offers or interest almost annually from our first year. And every time we said no outside of the one time where it just fell apart. And after we did a private equity deal, we assumed that we would be independent with a private equity company for five to seven years. But then I had to sit back with myself and really have one of those hard to heart conversations with yourself about why did you really start this? What was this all about? We know it wasn't for the money. And what I realized was that I created it because at that point in my life, I very much felt empty.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would have told myself at that time that you're actually doing a great job. And if you want to hire a new leader of the company for all sorts of different reasons, that's okay. But you shouldn't doubt yourself, especially just because you're a woman, and especially just because this is your first time at the rodeo. So if I have one regret at the company, it's that I didn't believe in myself. And the good news is it did lead me to hire a new CEO who is the light of my life, the best partner I could ever ask for for this stage of growth of the company. And it gives me the freedom to focus on what I love most, which is taking care of our clients. And creating formulas, so it all ended up great, but it gutted me at that time.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a ton of pressure. I was burning out. I was on the road 250 days out of the year missing my child's childhood. I miss Thanksgiving. I've left my husband and daughter in line at Disney World to catch a flight to go on QVC And I would have never told this story you're the only person I would ever tell this story to. And it's because your listeners are thinking about starting their own company or they're running their own companies right now. And if I could do anything over again.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was trying to negotiate between being Vicky and Victoria. Victoria is what a lot of people see on QBC and in magazines and Victoria is always Zen and Victoria is always grateful. But Vicki is an executive leader who needs to manage an agile and demanding business. I didn't have a model of female leadership that I had seen before that I could look up to. And so I never really felt comfortable asking my team to do things if they didn't want to do it. I think I needed to be liked too much. I didn't want to come across as a difficult female leader. So I hadn't grown into my own skin. I think as a leader, the results were there, but the confidence was not. And so when he suggested that I go and find a real CEO. I did”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was definitely learning on the fly, but I would say that most founder CEOs do learn on the fly because the job changes every day.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's what I said. I said I would never hurt the company. I love the company like I love my family. It is my family. It's in my house. I mean, what are you talking about? So I never actually got an answer, but it took the wind out of my sails.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I asked that question, and the only answer that he gave me was if you are willing to hurt the company for your own ego, then we can have that conversation. But why...”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I had founded this company and been the CEO for at that point nine years and to pretty meaningful growth and meaningful in our industry and meaningful to our customers. I mean.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, exactly. And they were wonderful partners. And so that was the first time I started to breathe a sigh of relief, but it came with its own different pressures because private equity doesn't invest for very long. And so I knew that the second that they invested, the clock started. Told me that he thought I should Real CEO and It was a gut punch.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every year it felt like a highwire act where the wire was getting moved higher and higher and higher, and it was probably only when our private equity company came in. And it was the only institutional round of capital that we did that I started feeling less alone.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No. We were not profitable for the first eight years, so we had to personally finance the losses. And then when we ran out of money, we would have to go to friends and family and ask for help. But no, every step of the way was like figuring out from scratch again how to make sure that people knew that we existed.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's when my fear evaporated because I was surrounded by children who had no electricity, no running water, maybe no parents, not a lot of personal safety over their bodies, and yet they showed up every day with hope and with courage about the fact that their past wasn't going to define their future. And they look like my daughter. They look like me. And so that completely refrained from me what risk is and what sacrifice is and what's dangerous”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they have a special fund for girls and fund girls' education, including skills, life skills training throughout Southeast Asian Africa. And I always knew that I wanted anything that we created to give back. And so we created a one-to-one model where every single purchase funded a day of school. And before we started that partnership, I wanted to make sure that what we were going to tell our clients we were doing was actually happening. So I flew to Cambodia and I spent a few days with the girls in their schools, with their teachers, in their houses, seeing what Roomtread was doing firsthand. And when I saw that.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I think the reason I told you the story is because you asked if I was ever scared or did I know that it was going to work out? And no, at no point did I think it was going to work out. I just at some point I realized that the fear finally went away when about three years into it we formed a partnership with an organization called Room to Read. And they are one of the leading nonprofits globally for children's education.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right when we thought we were going to do the deal, I wake up one day and I turn on the news and there had been a tsunami and then a radioactive incident with the nuclear.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were probably 800,000 in debt at that point. It maxed out all of our credit cards And then when he said, You don't have what it takes. I felt terrified that I had bitten off more than I can chew and that I would lose people's money and disrespect a culture that's not my own. And so I was going to do it for no personal profit, but just to get out.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did consider it, and it would have been just enough to pay down the debt. And that's what was crushing me at that point was that I had been, I had taken my parents' retirement. I had taken money from my friends and family who were not rich.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One was a retail partner, and the other one was a large strategic acquirer. And I had no intention of selling the company, but one, the strategic acquirer said, and it was a mentor of mine who I really, really respect. He's a beauty veteran and said, you have lucked into a brand that has a potential to be one of the greats. And if you love it like you love your child, then you'll give it to a mother who knows how to raise it because you do not have what it takes. You don't have the money. You don't have the know-how. You don't have the team. And I had a newborn child at home when he said that to me.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was symbiotic, but what happened in between, which I think I jumped over, is that after we launched the blotting paper, we had two acquisition offers within a few weeks of starting the company”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wasn't nervous about the TV part of it because I just, when I get too stressed out, I just sort of leave my body. But I was nervous about whether I would hit my sails because if I didn't hit my sales goal, I didn't know how I was going to make salary. To pay salaries because 15 people means 15 salaries or 14 salaries because I didn't take one. And then I would come home and my house would be full of half packed boxes. And they would go from floor to about five feet up in every single room of my house There was inventory coming in from Japan, and then there were orders going out through Tatcha.com, and then for QVC. And so it was just boxes halfway up the wall. At one point, we lost the baby in the boxes.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I begged and begged and begged and begged for an introduction. And I was turned down swiftly, at least four times to even get a meeting. And then finally, this one merchant was kind enough to take a meeting with me. And then they gave me a chance to go up there and we sold out.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had hoped that I could do a combination of direct-to-consumer in retail, but there was no traffic to our website, even when I made the prices zeros, nobody came, even when I had great press, nobody came. And then all of the retailers said that they weren't interested”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And no retailers wanted to carry us. And they said, I don't think this is interesting or compelling. I don't think that anybody will think that Asian beauty is compelling. And you needed retailers.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and so the weekend after we got the holy grill of press, the only order that I got for zero dollars because I had zeroed out all the pricing was from someone I know.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was trying to figure out how to create a promotion code and I made a mistake and I zeroed out all the pricing on the website. And I didn't know it for two days. Finally, a woman that I knew from Starbucks who had seen a Facebook plea that I had put up, like, please come check out my website. She went through the website and saw that everything was zero dollars purchased and made an order and then forwarded the order to me and was like, hey girl, you shouldn't give your stuff away. And I realized, gosh, even when.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, when we launched the skincare, this little four-piece collection with just a cleanser and exfoliant to serum and a moisturizer, I was so fortunate in that I had sort of the holy grail of press hit the same week or weekend that the products launched online. And so that was, it was like a two-page spread in vogue. It was a feature in Oprah. It was the Today show again. And we had this website set up and it was beautiful. And I remember we sold exactly one serum And then that was maybe on a Friday, and then that weekend.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I try to hide and not meet them in person and only speak with them or send them letters. And you're right. One of our first customers, and I don't normally mention our customers, but one of our first customers was Donatella Versace. And we had this really, really incredible high-end clientele. And I was working on my mom's garage.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were all finance people. We should have known better. And been able to stick to a budget and a forecast and a business plan. And if that didn't happen at all, and we ran out of money over and over and over again. I couldn't afford a salary. My partner couldn't afford a salary. I couldn't afford rent anymore. My parents had bought a place in near the airport at that point.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And, you know, you asked me about the fundraising. And I mentioned that over the course of a few rounds, it came to maybe a million dollars, eventually two, but it was not an organized affair in any way. It wasn't like we had a thoughtful business plan despite having multiple Ivy League MBAs on the team. Yeah.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the molds are expensive because they're huge and they're made out of steel. And so having custom molds made in the engineering and the design that goes into that, that's quite expensive as well.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I went to my mom and my dad, Stanley, my co-founder, and then some people who eventually started working for Tatcha, they invested as well. And so it really was, it was just us.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because that's the way you make things in the beauty world. Yeah. And so they would take me to their glass cases where they would say, we used to make something like that 120 years ago. But no, we don't make that anymore. And so that's why I had to find my own scientists.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's exactly right. You know, the way that most beauty brands come to life these days is, you know, if you've ever wondered, how does this model or this actress suddenly come out with a 80p skincare collection? What does she know about skincare? It's pretty easy if you want to do it the fast way. You go to a contract manufacturer, they have stock formulas and stock packaging. You pick it, you put in 0.01% of a marketing level ingredient, you put your name on it, you pick a fragrance, and it's out the door. And that is how the vast majority of skincare is made in the world. And I will be completely honest, I did go to labs in Japan and say, do you have formulas like this? Because no brands are making anything like this. And they said, no, we don't make formulas like this. You were looking for...”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there's a camellia oil that you use to melt off your makeup. There is a rice powder that you use to enzymatically exfoliate your skin, and then a moisturizer that was made out of silk extracts. And when I showed them the things that I was hoping to create, I remember that they laughed a little bit because they said, why do you like these old-fashioned things? Nobody will like this. Nobody uses these anymore. And I was like, because they work, I don't really care what sexy works for me.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's exactly right. Those were the ingredients that I had first used that healed my skin, and then we went really deep. So we interviewed a dozen geisha. We went to old texts, including the oldest beauty book ever written in Japan, which was written in 1813. The more that we dug, the more that we realized that the Japanese traditional approach to beautiful skin was not some sort of exotic flower that only grows in the dark side of the moon, like many other cultures hundreds of years ago when women found that their skin was dry or patchy or breaking out, they go to what's within reach and what's within reach is in the kitchen. And so the basis of the Japanese diet is the basis of their beauty. And that's it.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Could not find it. And then I did not realize how unique it was. And so on one of my trips back to Japan, I actually flew to Tokyo. And I just went to the department stores and I went straight to the cosmetics counters for the Japanese brands. And they all sort of looked at me like I was crazy too. And Yuko was like, yeah, they don't sell that kind of stuff. The people don't use that kind of stuff here in Japan anymore.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Japantown. No, Japan, I went to Japantown, Chinatown, Koreatown. I went to traditional Chinese medicine places because there's a lot of herbal treatments there. I went to eBay. I mean, I went everywhere. It's just not here.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three to four years And then about a year into it, I had exhausted my search for those other ingredients that I had found in Japan and used the rice powder, the mineral powders, the camellia oil, the things that had healed my skin were not available in the US.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After the birth of my daughter, maybe it was more like three weeks. I was flying again, either consulting or going to Japan and continuing to research this. And it was horrible to leave a newborn.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was definitely not a side hustle in the sense that I worked 70 hours a week doing it. I took one day off in the hospital when I gave birth and then I went back to work.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it was not. I was making far less revenue doing that than my lowest paid salary job I'd ever had. It was not a business. It was a hobby business at that point.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was taking care of herself, but I also was really lucky. My mom had visited and she helped me find a nanny, Mrs. Leo, who didn't speak English. She's originally from China. And she took care of my daughter in my one bedroom apartment while I worked. And then when my daughter napped, she would help me pack out orders.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And then I had merchandising units made. So it's pretty much every single dollar I could script together turned into either merchandising units or these blotting papers. And they ended up hitting stores the day that I was in labor with my daughter. So we officially launched the day that my daughter was born.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it was difficult. I had the labels made from a wine label maker in Morin. And then when I got the labels home, I realized that the adhesive wasn't sticking the way that I needed it to. And so I got like a purple cow paper cutter and had to. Bundled it all up, and my husband helped me. A lot of the, I would say half that order, I actually shipped to the UK, Space& K was my first retailer.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pretty much everyone Vogue did a spread Oprah, it was on the Today Show pretty quickly. We got a ton of press. It was amazing.”
2025-06-02 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Tatcha: Vicky Tsai (July 2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT