In this episode of Hello Chaos, Jennifer "JJ" Sutton interviews Lynn Power, co-founder of Masami and founder of the Conscious Beauty Collective. Lynn shares her entrepreneurial journey, the challenges she faced, including a breast cancer diagnosis, and how she pivoted her business strategy. The conversation delves into the importance of community in the beauty industry, sustainable practices, and the unpredictability of entrepreneurship. Lynn emphasizes the need for founders to focus on customer loyalty and profitability rather than just growth, and she offers valuable advice for navigating the complexities of running a business.
Key Takeaways
1. Embrace the Unpredictable
2. The Power of Community
3. Sustainable Growth Over Hype
Timestamps
00:00 The Journey to Entrepreneurship
03:13 Building Brands in the Beauty Industry
05:53 The Journey of Entrepreneurship
15:52 Facing Adversity: Health Challenges and Business Growth
25:54 Building Community: The Conscious Beauty Collective
35:38 Navigating SEO and Marketing Priorities
35:48 Navigating Challenges: Cash Flow and Customer Acquisition
37:07 Personal Reflections on Productivity and Introversion
41:13 Misconceptions in Entrepreneurship
44:52 The Reality of VC Funding in Beauty
46:56 Stress Management and Life Hacks
50:02 Sustainability in Business Practices
52:05 Celebrating Milestones and Personal Growth
53:04 Advice for Founders and Entrepreneurs
56:56 Introduction to Chaos and Order
56:56 The Nature of Chaos
Connect with Lynn:
Website: https://www.lovemasami.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/masami-haircare/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovemasamihair
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lovemasamihair
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lovemasamihair
Conscious Beauty Collective Shop
https://shorturl.at/0vj4N
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:15)
Well, welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast talking to founders and entrepreneurs, listening to the ah-has and the oh-shits. Today we have Lynn Power. She is the co-founder of Masami and founder of the Conscious Beauty Collective Shop and where she has vested and invested in the beauty industry. Thank you, Lynn, for coming on and chatting with us about your founder journey.
Lynn Power (00:41)
Yeah, thanks for having me. This will be fun.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:45)
This will be fun. I mean, love talking to founders of different industries, life stages and company stages, but just start us out and telling us about what inspired you to start your own company, especially in the very competitive beauty space.
Lynn Power (01:04)
I know, right? I'm crazy. I think that's the answer. other than that, I'll give you the short-ish answer. I worked in advertising for 30 years, almost 30 years, 29 and change. And...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:20)
Welcome to the club. I'm a 30 year veteran in the marketing and advertising space. there you go.
Lynn Power (01:24)
There you go. So yeah, so I loved most of the time, except the last four years were torture. I was the CEO of an agency that no longer exists, J. Walter Thompson, right? Of the New York office and...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:41)
yeah.
Lynn Power (01:46)
I was not enjoying my life anymore. It was a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of legal, a lot of finance meetings, very painful finance meetings, no offense to the finance people out there. But I just decided I wanted to get back to doing what I loved and why I got into the business in the first place, which is building brands and using creativity as a business tool. And I had just gotten far removed from that. And I think a lot of people think that being a CEO is super
glamorous and I'm here to tell you it's really not. It depends. suppose like CEO of your own company maybe but when you have a lot of, you know, I work for a big holding company with shareholders and lots of executives above me and it was not all that it's cracked up to be. So I love it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:20)
It's not.
Yeah.
Well, especially if you got into the advertising game because you wanted to use creativity. And then you become, my gosh, I'm just looking at P &Ls, or I'm just dealing with managing boards, upstream management, downstream management. You lose the passion and the fun. HR, yeah.
Lynn Power (02:45)
Exactly.
HR issues, lawsuits, all kinds of fun, fun things. If you've ever been deposed, you'll know the torture I'm talking about. anyway.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:13)
I do, yes.
Lynn Power (03:14)
Yeah, that's a day in my life I never want to relive. But yeah, so there we go. I was basically just, I was just like every day dreading going into work. it was after some time I just realized, why am I doing this? This is crazy. I just need to get out. And I had done everything in advertising. There was really nowhere else for me to go. So I wanted to get back to what I love, building brands.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:19)
You
Lynn Power (03:44)
met my co-founder, James. Well, actually, I had started a consulting business where I was working with startups, and that was fantastic because I really felt like I could see an immediate impact in the work, as opposed to when you're working with large clients in the agency world. Stuff takes like a year to 18 months, sometimes two years for the...
for them to cycle through all the approvals and all that stuff. And by the time it launches, it's like not even relevant anymore, right? So it's sort of frustrating. So now I found myself in a position where I was working with startups and seeing like stuff happening very quickly. But then I met my co-founder, James, who'd been working on our formulas for almost a decade. And he had worked at Clarell for about 20 years. And he's not a chemist, but he has a very good instinct for
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:01)
Right.
world.
Lynn Power (04:31)
ingredients and what he wants the products to look and feel like. And so he'd gotten them about 80 % there. And I was highly skeptical because I'm like this one dude has really come up with something. I doubt it. And I'd worked in a lot of beauty. to kind of go back to your why beauty, I launched, actually created an agency for Clinique to do all their global TV. So we actually created a little mini agency for them. We did,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:51)
Right.
Wow.
Lynn Power (05:01)
I did all of L'Oreal's hair products. I launched Gillette's, a whole bunch of their products, including Venus and including a lot of their men's.
grooming products. You know, I've worked on Vichy and Nexus and all sorts of stuff. So I've always loved beauty. I love that it's this blend of emotional and rational. And it's just, it's something I enjoy too. So it's just, I enjoy it. So when I met James, it just sort of clicked. He had almost had formulas.
but he didn't have anything else. He didn't have a brand. He didn't have an idea of how to launch it. He doesn't have any kind of business acumen. So we decided to partner together, and launch Masami And that was, that was how that happened.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:52)
Well, Lynn, I love your story and I think we have lot of similarities in our career path with advertising. as you started getting into this space and starting these companies, what have you discovered about yourself in your journey?
Lynn Power (06:11)
my gosh, so many things. I started the business, let's see, I was, it was 2020, I was 53. So, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:20)
yikes. It's starting. 2020, yeah. Good for you.
Lynn Power (06:25)
Right? So we to do the business in 2018. It took us about 18 months to get everything done, come up with a brand name, packaging, website, our business strategy, all that stuff, go-to-market strategy. And then we launched at New York Fashion Week in February of 2020. So.
It was a month before COVID lockdown, obviously. And so the first thing I learned about myself is I'm very impatient and I had to learn shit happens and I had to pivot and we couldn't get into salons. A lot of my business plan involved salons and I had to throw that out the window. Yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:09)
Right, which those were all closed down and yeah.
Lynn Power (07:12)
And so that was the first lesson. And that was fine because everyone was dealing with it. What are you going to do? You know what I mean? It's like you make the best of it. And I really try hard to be a positive person and to look at, you know, glass half full, right? Like it's it's all good. We're going to. So we started doing brand partnerships that year with other beauty brands that I had met that are in New York.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:34)
Right?
Lynn Power (07:42)
And I was living in New York at the time and that worked great. And we were able to grow our business organically just by partnering and doing stuff with other brands. So that was all chugging along. But then I got breast cancer in 2021. So that was my next lesson was basically like, shit, you know, now I'm, I had a...
My story is, I tell it because it's actually for a lot of women, kind of terrifying. I had had a clean mammogram and ultrasound in February or March of 2021. And by June, I had an eight centimeter tumor that's about this big.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:30)
my goodness. you could, I mean, literally you were, you could physically feel it and you're like, this is not right.
Lynn Power (08:37)
So I had a very rare kind of cancer. It's less than 1 % of all breast cancers called metoplastic. So it doesn't present as the same kind of tumor. So actually what happened is I woke up and I had a ping pong ball size limb.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:55)
So you're thinking it's like a cyst or something. Whoa.
Lynn Power (08:58)
Well, my lymph node had just blown up overnight, literally overnight to the size of like a ping pong ball. Like it was all of sudden, like literally was nothing. And then overnight. And then I went to my OBGYN who's like, that doesn't, she was actually, I had gone to her for 20 years, New York city. And she said, I think it's from the COVID vaccine. She was very almost dismissive. And honestly, I would not be sitting here if I listened to her because she could
not have been more wrong. And she wanted me to wait and see. She's like, well, let's just wait and see what happens. But if it grew that fast in three months, and I was stage three when they told me, yes, you have cancer and it's stage three, and it was literally.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:34)
Wow.
So you demanded a biopsy, you're like, no, no. Somebody needs to go and check.
Lynn Power (09:47)
So no, I actually, my friend had had breast cancer a year before me and she's a nurse practitioner. So she told me that day, she's like, I don't believe that. I don't think it looks good. So I got an appointment four days later at a breast center at Bay State in Springfield. I was living in the Berkshires and they took literally one look at it they go, that doesn't look good. That's...
that's probably cancer. So I knew from the beginning and then it's a month long of biopsy and then they're like, and we found a second thing and and now there's something in your other breast and now, so it was just like, now you have to have another scan. so it's a good four to six weeks between you feeling like something's going on to them being ready to treat you. And they were fast tracking me. I was like every two, three days going in for some other kind of thing. And so I
I was stage three when I started chemo. So had I waited another month, it probably would have been stage four and I would have probably been dead. So that is just a lesson in trust your instincts and don't necessarily take.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:00)
You know your body. You know your body.
Lynn Power (11:03)
And I also think, you my husband likes to say, you know, there are a lot of doctors who are C students. Not everybody was at the top of their class. Not everybody got, you know, not everybody paid attention during that particular class that they took, you know, so, so that's just the reality of healthcare. And it is kind of surprising because I, I trusted this doctor. I went to over 20 years, but anyway.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:13)
That's right.
That's right.
I mean, yeah.
Lynn Power (11:29)
The podcast is not about that. It's the fact that suddenly I found myself in a situation where I had to really think about what to do with the business, which was a baby I had just launched before. And I was a bald hair care founder for a good nine months because I went right into chemo, surgery, radiation. And I literally felt like the universe was laughing at me because I'm like, seriously?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:42)
Yeah.
All of that unbelievable.
Lynn Power (11:56)
I launched a haircare brand, and now I'm bald. Like, are you kidding me? Not only was I bald here, but I had no eyebrows. I had no eyelashes. So I really looked like an alien or a turtle. And I couldn't even do this. I couldn't even do like a zoom. And there's still COVID going on. So like, it was all a mess.
but that was also like a lesson in control because I tend to be more type a and a lesson in like
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:27)
Yeah.
Lynn Power (12:30)
You know, you have to focus on the things that matter and also not listening to what the industry tells you. You know, we started this podcast or our conversation before you hit the record about talking about different types of founders. If you just read what's out there, you'll you'll believe you'll think.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:43)
Yeah.
Lynn Power (12:49)
my God, if I don't 10x my business in two years, I'm dead. That's a disaster. But I'm here to tell you that is BS. If you set your own goals, we don't have investors. I don't have anyone breathing down my neck. And that has turned out to be a blessing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:56)
Right?
Right.
Right, which.
Lynn Power (13:12)
But if we're growing, even if it's a dollar year over year, I'm happy. I'm like, we're growing, you know, like it doesn't have to be this crazy, insane goal that you feel that you have to live up to because that's what the media and the industry and the VCs are telling you, you know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:20)
Right.
Right, right. Because they're looking at it from, this is what we want, because that's what they want to invest in. But you're right. There's so many other ways to grow. You can grow bootstrap organically. You can go and get your own loans. You don't have to get into the business of the pitch whirlwind, where just put that time.
Lynn Power (13:58)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:59)
high money and energy and growing your business and setting you up because also every business is different, every founder, the way their vision and their goals are different, the marketplace is different for everybody and what you're doing. you you gotta kinda get that noise out and stay focused. And, you know, I applaud you for everything. I mean, like, I can't even.
Imagine that the starting the business and you're right. It is a baby when you start a business It's truly like your birth. You've you've birthed a child That you've got a nurture and you've got to take care of and there's different phases and stages as as it ages But then getting struck with and then all of that energy and and mental focus kind of gets diverted and the fact that you kind of stay true is
That should be celebrated and should be an inspiration to other people. And I think the way you looked at it was like, look, it's just another, it's not a failure, it's like we can't control everything, but we control how we respond and how we react. And you did it with grace.
Lynn Power (15:19)
Bye.
Well, look, I was just, I'm a very pragmatic person. So I just was kind of like, okay, what is this stuff that I want to stop focusing on? And what is this stuff I want to do more of and what, you know, and, really kind of have that time to think about that. Cause I mean, I would go in these chemo sessions that were like six hours long. had four different types of chemo and there's no wifi in the hospital. Like hospitals are so backwards still. So you'd just have to, you know, and I would never bring a book or anything. So you just have to think.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:43)
Ugh.
Just think.
Lynn Power (15:54)
I never ever have time to just sit and think. So in a way, that was one of the blessings of cancer is that, yeah, it forces you to kind of slow down and think about that and think about what matters and figure out. So I stopped doing a lot of the things that you're told you're supposed to do, like Facebook ads and.
And I really leaned into the brand partnerships, which gets to the next part of the story, which is a conscious beauty collective, because my thought process was, OK, those really work to grow my business organically. But I was only doing one or two at any given time, right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:20)
Yeah.
Lynn Power (16:32)
And I would do everything from, you know, a giveaway, a bundle, like a gifts holiday bundle, a live stream, a blog post, know, however we could think to partner. So I thought, well, if I could scale that and do like 30 or 40 at once, then I'm getting somewhere. And I also love working with other founders.
Like I just, that's really fulfilling for me. So that's how the Conscious Beauty Collective was actually born. And we launched our first pop-up. And the idea was to also help all of us get retail space. about to sneeze.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:15)
Hahaha
Lynn Power (17:18)
Excuse me. Okay. Thank you. So anyway, so, you know, retail was starting to open up. We wanted to get back into, you know, physical locations. So we did our first pop-up in San Francisco in 2022. I was just coming out of my treatment. So I had like this, my hair was like this short.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:20)
Bless you.
Right.
Lynn Power (17:43)
But it was great and that was kind of what led to blowing that thing out into a whole thing. And it's really taken on a life of its own now. It's really crazy how much that has driven my business and a lot of other founders' businesses.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:57)
That's.
Did that surprise you? Was that the expectation or were you like, whoa, I thought this would just kind of go this way and it pivoted somewhere organically, somewhere different?
Lynn Power (18:14)
So when I launched it, my idea in my head was we're going to get, we had 32 brands actually in the first pop-up, and my whole thing was we're just going to do pop-ups. We're just going to move from city to city because that's a great way to get some retail exposure. And so we did San Francisco and then we moved to Boston and then we moved to Southern California and we were doing these pop-ups. But the founders kept asking me for more. know, could we also do like...
some Instagram stuff and content and could we also do some trade shows together? And could we also do, you know, what about a magazine? Hey, what about this? What about that? So before I know it, I'm doing all this other stuff. So the Contra's Beauty Collective, yes, we still do the pop-ups. And actually, I got smart. Instead of doing our own pop-ups, now we go in and do curated shelves in other people's stores. So we have eight of them right now, and I'm launching about two a month.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:55)
What?
Lynn Power (19:13)
I have more stores that want it than I've been bandwidth to launch, but that's a good problem.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:13)
Nice.
Right.
Lynn Power (19:21)
So now we do we do those but then we also have a lot of co-marketing programs where we do we have a digital magazine. We do a whole tons of like content and sharing and we do a master class where we share what's worked what hasn't worked on very specific topics whether that's Amazon or SEO or Pinterest or whatever. We do a lot of collaborations across multiple other events trade
I mean, it has taken on a life of its own and it's been incredible. So now the latest iteration is we just set up a GoFundMe page as the Conscious Beauty Collective because two of our brands adore therapy. Her headquarters is in Asheville.
You probably know, I was going say, you know where I'm going with this. She's, and she opened a store in Miami, which we are in. So she is now, she was dealing with the fallout of Hurricane Helene and she lost half her warehouse and her employees are homeless and all this stuff. And now she's bracing for Milton.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:11)
They're like, we're right there. Yeah. That's right.
Ugh.
Milton, my goodness.
Lynn Power (20:35)
supposed to hit today. So she's dealing with that. And then another one of our founders was based in Treasure Island, Florida, which is near St. Petersburg on the West Coast. She got pummeled. Similar story, but in this case, her home was completely flooded, destroyed. She had to evacuate. And then she lost almost all of her inventory as well. Now, what people don't realize is that insurance doesn't cover this.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:46)
in.
Wow.
Lynn Power (21:04)
They have a clause that if it's a natural disaster, guess what? And I'm like, well then what's the insurance for? Do you really think somebody's gonna go in there and steal your products from your garage or warehouse? Like it's kind of crazy that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:11)
Right.
Lynn Power (21:18)
This is not covered. And so these fighters are really struggling just to keep their businesses afloat right now. So we just set up a goat on me. If anybody's interested, hit me up and I can give you the info on that. it's just so our community, my point is the Conscious Beauty Collective is way, way more than.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:20)
Right.
It's like it's just continuous innovation.
Lynn Power (21:44)
It's continuous innovation for small businesses to join forces and grow. That's what we do. And it could be lots of different ways, but it's also a community that supports and helps each other. That's the heart of it. And so when one of us is struggling like that, we will step in and do what we can.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:55)
Right.
That's right. I love it. what, so I mean, that seems like that would be totally rewarding, you know, totally rewarding. But is that the most rewarding aspect of your journey or have you found something else that you were like, this is just feeds, this feeds my soul.
Lynn Power (22:22)
Well, I do love working with the other founders that to me is super super rewarding Most of them every now and then I get a bad one, but we won't talk about that Yeah, we won't talk about that But I will say like what really does feed my soul is when people use my products and they talk about how it's completely Transformed their hair and it's given them confidence that they didn't have because a lot of people hate their hair and they don't know why
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:30)
Yeah, we get this.
Lynn Power (22:47)
They don't understand that if it's frizzy, if it's dull, if it's unhealthy, if it breaks, it's usually because it's not hydrated well. And the products on the market that you buy, unfortunately, in a lot of the mass channels have sulfates or have ingredients that are actually, they're going to temporarily solve it, but they're going to create a vicious cycle where it's never really going to solve it, and you're never going to be really happy. So that, to me, gives me so much
I don't know, motivation. And it's just very rewarding when people are like, my god, like you have no idea. Like I hated my hair for 30 years and now this is the first time I actually feel like I have good hair.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:31)
Right. So if you had to sum up your journey in one word, what would that word be and why?
Lynn Power (23:39)
Well, I think based on everything I've told you, think you'll agree, unpredictable. That would be my word.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:47)
That's a good, and I don't think we've ever had that word. But you're right, that is...
Lynn Power (23:50)
Yeah, it's totally unpredictable. And I think though, like I have my own things, but I think every founder has that. And it could be smaller things that are unpredictable, like all of sudden your shipment doesn't show up and you have to go, wait, it's stuck in a port or now I can't get this product or the ingredient that I thought I could get. And so I'm going to have to figure out how to do it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:13)
or my manufacturer for my packaging is not the right one or... Yeah.
Lynn Power (24:19)
But it's a lot of stuff that's out of your control. So that's, that's why unpredictable because if you could plan it out and control it, yes, great. Awesome. But so much of our journey, unfortunately is not, it's not in your control. And if you're like me, it's kind of a type A person that is a lesson you have to learn is to just sort of let things flow and just be in the moment and look at the bright side.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:45)
And you work with founders, I work with founders and CEOs of company. The other thing is the unpredictableness of the market. How are consumers or how is your audience actually reacting and responding to your product? it a right market fit? Did what you have that you're like, no, this is what we're unique in, and you find, well, they don't really give a shit about that.
Lynn Power (24:59)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:14)
You might have to pivot a little bit, but yeah, there is some of that. I think that is a good word for any founder, because you need to be ready, because there's going to be a lot of the ahas and that shit moment of I was not prepared for that.
Lynn Power (25:24)
need to be ready.
And now, look at what we were just talking about, hurricanes. mean, one of the founders grew up in Tampa and was telling me that the hurricane now, Milton, which is supposed to be squarely aimed at Tampa, Tampa did not have a hurricane like that in 150 years. It's crazy. So here we are dealing with stuff that's never happened. This has been in our lifetime. This is not.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:34)
my goodness, yeah.
Yeah.
Well not in our lifetime, but also, I know we're getting off on a hurricane tangent, but we felt it. We're right in the, under the Blue Ridge Mountains, so know, Asheville's like 40 minutes from us. We got hit hard from our community. But we're also very worried, you know, listening to the meteorologists and stuff like this hurricane is because of climate change and global, all that is feeding storms.
and creating storms that we've never seen in our life. They're just gonna get more aggressive. I've got a friend that's right in the path and she's like, I don't even know. Florida of any state is very, the architecture, the building, all the infrastructure, they have all those materials that are supposed to withstand.
Lynn Power (26:26)
correct.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:51)
hurricane winds and stuff, but she was like, we've never had hurricane winds if this hits, you know, 160, 175. She's like, that's never been tested before. So.
Lynn Power (27:01)
Right. It's truly like unprecedented some of this stuff that we're dealing with. So it's tough, but when you're an entrepreneur and you're sort of, your inventory is on the line and you're, you know, that's another level. It's tough.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:07)
Yeah.
Right. Or if you have retail or physical assets and inventory, but also people like you as a founder and owner, you feel responsible for your employees and their livelihood and their families. it becomes, it's not just, well, well, I can deal with, you're dealing with so many other layers that are sitting on the backs and shoulders.
Lynn Power (27:47)
That is absolutely, yeah, absolutely true.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:47)
of the small business owners.
well my goodness, so I don't even know if I should even, because I feel like you've already answered it, but maybe not. what's been like your biggest, shit, like your biggest challenge?
I mean, I can't imagine anything greater than breast cancer. I I just like, can't even imagine that.
Lynn Power (28:10)
I mean, that was definitely, yeah, that was a challenge. But I'll take it to more pragmatic that other people can relate to a lot of, there's a fly in here. Okay. I would say, no, I would say just the mundane things like cashflow.
That is a cash flow customer acquisition. Like those things as a small business and you're trying to grow a healthy business are not easy. All right, I open the door so the fly goes out. Give me two seconds. It's driving me nuts. I'm just swatting it for the rest of the time.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:30)
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't know.
Lynn Power (28:53)
Okay, hopefully that will do it. But yeah, I...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:56)
No, that's great. And I love your paint. I love the painting behind behind you. That's that is super cool.
Lynn Power (28:58)
Yeah, that is a Justin Bauer. He's an LA artist. I love him. Look up his work. He does incredible stuff. And it reminds me, it's sort of like technology meets humanity in my head. That's why I like it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:08)
That is super cool.
Yes. And Chandler, our producer, like, he loves the egg chair.
Lynn Power (29:17)
yeah, egg chair is usually where my dog will be sitting. But anyway, so yeah, I would say challenges like just Matt, when you're, when you make physical inventory, every time I need to make more products, it's like $50,000. So if you don't plan well, cause who, you know, when you're a small business, you don't have $50,000 sitting in the bank. just don't. So,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:33)
Yeah, ugh.
Right, no.
Lynn Power (29:44)
So that is one of the number one reasons businesses fold is because they run out of cash and they don't anticipate. And so that's tough. So I would say that's a huge challenge and it's for us an ongoing challenge because again, we don't have investors, we don't have...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:50)
Cash flow, yeah.
Lynn Power (30:02)
a lot of capital or access to capital. And then customer acquisition costs are really hard too because they keep, for digital businesses, they keep rising. And for when you're small, you don't have thousands to pour into Instagram ads and TikTok ads to get your business. anyway, so that's why I think like,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:13)
Yep.
Right.
Lynn Power (30:27)
doing podcasts, doing your own content, doing all these collaborations. Those are all things you can do that high ROI, don't have to spend a lot of money.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:38)
That's right. Because you're doing demand gen, right? You're creating that content to get people to get that longer. Where a little digital banner ad's not going to do it, or a Facebook ad's just not going to do it. Yeah. Yeah.
Lynn Power (30:48)
The digital banner ad is not going to do it, even though people may tell you otherwise. you're going to, that's the other annoying thing as a founder, the amount of emails I get from companies claiming to 10x more business in a month. it is insane. The empty promises.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:01)
Yeah, yeah. Well, the empty end, the shams, mean, know, OrangeWIP's sister company is Bright Marketing. I mean, that's the company I founded, what, 12 years ago? 11 years ago. know, whatever, over 10 years ago. And our industry, I'm like, you you're talking about the advertising and marketing, it's...
Lynn Power (31:09)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:30)
This industry, I swear, it's like we're in crisis because people don't understand the difference between branding, marketing, advertising, and how to plan. But the amount of bad actors that have entered our space of just pure junk, like junk of these Legion companies that are based in AI. I I've tried to test them as a founder to go, you know, it's a bit like, well, if you can do that, I can.
Lynn Power (31:43)
Absolutely.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:59)
partner with you and maybe we can offer this to our clients, but I wanna see if you can do it for our business. you know, for some, like we started testing, I'm like, this shit, these are scammers. And then, you know, when we take on a new client, we're usually hearing from, the CEO of the company here, like, I'm trying to get out of these, two or three contracts, and we're looking at these going, you're paying a lot of money, and you got nothing.
Lynn Power (32:11)
Yeah.
Thanks
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:30)
And these are national, big agencies that are purely just scammers. mean, they've sold you a service and they're spitting out a report and it is junk, junk, junk. I have been, that's been my kind of ah-has on the market, as the CEO of the marketing agency of...
I've loved this space. I I've been in advertising and I came out of school for it and it breaks my heart, truly, to see how bad our space has gotten. And now when we go and pitch, it's like marketing is a bad word. A lot of small business owners, but not even just like mid-size, you know, we work with companies that are 200 million and, you know, plus plus.
They're like, I hate marketing. I don't like working with agencies because they've been burned. They have been burned. Or they don't know how to navigate. mean, it's just, yeah. So I could go on a whole soapbox on that.
Lynn Power (33:30)
I agree.
It's so hard. I've been on both sides. It is not easy. And my son now works in advertising. And so he's a data scientist, so a little different than what I did, but it's still like, he's on that side of it. But one of the things that the Conscious Beauty Collective does, as I mentioned, we morphed in this community. Whenever somebody is ready to hire an agency, marketing agency, they will check with the other founders. And I will tell you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:44)
Yeah.
that's fantastic.
Lynn Power (34:06)
Nine times out of 10, there is a horror story of another founder going, my God, do not hire them. Do not fall for that. They will tell you shit. It's not true. So it is shocking. we, there are very few that make the gauntlet where people go, yes, they're great. We love them, hire them. It's very rare. So to find the ones that are good,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:15)
Right.
Right?
Lynn Power (34:31)
They are gold and like you want to hang on to those because because you need to. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:35)
That's, because you need them. We need to elevate, we need to fix our marketing industry. That's my...
Lynn Power (34:45)
Well, it's just become like, people used to say use car salesman, that's what it feels like these days. Like so many people kind of, and they take advantage of the fact that if you don't know SEO and you don't know all the backend terms and words and all that stuff, just, anyway, we could probably.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:51)
yes.
Right?
Yeah, I don't want to know. like I try to get on the, I try to, you know, I get on the topic of why are you so focused on SEO? Where's really the friction in your business? Like do you really need to spend your limited time, money, and resources doing something that might not be a priority to get you to your goals in the next 30 to 60 or 90 days? Let's really prioritize and focus on
Lynn Power (35:29)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:38)
Where's the rub? And a lot of times I was like, I was told I have to do SEO. And I was like, no. If you only have so much money and you've got other things that you've got to do, it might be important. And I think that's where this clutter of misinformation has gotten in of.
Lynn Power (35:48)
bright.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:05)
Well, I have to do this. I'm not denying that SEO isn't important. I just think that it's not always the most important place to spend money for, especially if you're trying to scale and grow at an aggressive space. So, yeah.
Lynn Power (36:22)
really do, but it's so interesting. had an SEO agency tell me the other day that, my God, how can you spend money on other things if you don't have your house in order, as in the SEO sort, you know? So it's like everyone has their way of like trying to, it's very difficult. So.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:41)
I it is, it's hard, I mean I feel for the business because it's really hard to navigate. is, a lot of charlatans. So let me ask, so what's something that you really like about yourself that you wish other people recognized more?
Lynn Power (36:52)
Yeah, sadly.
Well, I have boundless energy. People do recognize that actually. So it's not something that people don't recognize. I have learned to really appreciate. So actually there's two things that I was really bad at when I was my daughter. My kids are 23 and 21. And I can run circles around them. Like literally.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:36)
Right.
Lynn Power (37:38)
Two things is that when I...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:39)
We're built differently though. We're built differently. Our generation was built differently.
Lynn Power (37:42)
Well, yeah.
was going say there is a generational thing for sure about like work ethic and just, but I will say like, I used to procrastinate. I was not great in college. I would wait until the last minute. I don't procrastinate now at all. I don't know how I learned, but I'm very like on it. I get stuff done almost immediately. And if I don't, I have too many other things that'll just sort of go by the wayside. the other thing, so I'm very like in that sense, like productive.
I'm a high productive, get stuff done kind of person. the other thing that sometimes people don't believe when I tell them this is I'm definitely a learned extrovert. I'm an introvert at heart.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:17)
You're a producer.
I Chandler just pointed at me too and he was like, that's you.
Lynn Power (38:32)
Yeah, and then you know that now I have zero problem doing whatever, going out there. But when I'm doing, for example, a show or a pop-up where I'm interacting with a lot of people all day, and the end of the day people say to me, let's go get a drink, I'm like, I am exhausted. That was a lot for me. No offense, but I'm going to go with this.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:55)
That's right, to be on for, Yeah, I do.
Lynn Power (39:00)
You know what I mean? like that's where it shows up. And so that's sometimes, you know, but I, my, I, I say that because there are probably other people like that, that are introverts out there that kind of think, I can never do that. I could never just go on a podcast and just talk. Yes, you can. Everyone can come on. Like,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:17)
Yeah, you can. That's right. We're both examples of that because I a, I caught, if you see me at event, I'm usually the wall hugger, you know? I'm sitting up against the wall, I'm like, I'm not, but I've had to teach myself to, I have figured out a way, like it's a game for me now to, I've got my three questions that I, to engage, but I had to like teach myself to be comfortable in a room.
This has been a good, like when I started the podcast a few years ago, this was kind of my way of breaking out of that, just talking with people. But yeah, it is, that's a good, I've never heard that term, a learned extrovert. I've always just said like, I'm an introvert, but I, you kind of have to play a role. And my role is CEO or founder, and I've got to present this image out there.
and but I've had to teach myself that. So I like that. Learned, the learned extrovert. So I'm really interested in hearing kind of your answers to this, but because you've been a CEO of a large company, you know, that has been a part of a larger conglomerate.
Lynn Power (40:21)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:44)
and then you've started your own company and companies like these. What do you think are the biggest misperceptions or things that you, did you have any misperceptions when you're like, well I'm already running this company and then starting your own? Were there anything that you're like, ooh, well, I had some misperceptions there. What would you say to that? Or are there myths that you hear from other people that you're like, let me just debunk that right now?
Lynn Power (41:13)
Yeah, I would say the biggest thing is that people and and now that I have this collective of there's about 50 brands that are part of it There is definitely this perception be among I would say 45 of the 50 brands where they're kind of like I have an amazing product. I don't understand. Why isn't it selling?
They don't understand the whole ecosystem that you have to build. They don't understand that it takes 10 to 12 touch points to convert somebody. They don't get that you have to be doing social every day, you, you know, like all those things that like we know because we are in marketing and we know how hard it is. It is crazy to me just how naive a lot of founders are when they launch.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:43)
Right?
Right?
The grit, the grind, and the hustle. Yeah.
Lynn Power (42:02)
And then the problem is they've already spent a ton of money making products, creating, know, getting to a point. And then they think that that should just do it. And they don't understand that. No, you just bare, you just like paid your admission ticket to be in the game. Now you play the game and that's a whole different level. And that requires a whole different skillset. you, you know, so,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:19)
that's a good.
Lynn Power (42:29)
I tend to be sometimes tough love on some of the founders where it's like, are you really? Because they'll say to me, how are you? I'm like, you have to do a lot. And they go, what's the, I'm like, there's no silver bullet. And they're like, I'm like, this is it. You want to be in this business, you got to be on Amazon. You got to have your own thing. You got to be in physical store. Like, this is the deal.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:58)
Right.
Lynn Power (42:59)
And so, yeah, that is a hard lesson. know, I kind of am, but it's a hard lesson for people because they're never going to be successful if they just sit back and think the business is going to show up. And frankly, it's also like some people shouldn't be entrepreneurs. That's the other hard, cold truth. Not everybody's cut out to do it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:02)
You're crushing their dreams. No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it kind of goes to those.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:26)
I mean, that's a good point. Like a lot of people think that they're not, and they shouldn't be. You're right. I mean that.
Lynn Power (43:26)
Yeah.
It shouldn't be. Sometimes it's better to cut bait, seriously, instead of investing a couple years and a lot more money into something that's never going to pan out. But people don't want to hear that. But a lot of, that is the truth for a lot of founders. And when you're in beauty, there's so many small indie beauty brands. It's insane.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:34)
Yeah. Yeah.
Right?
Great.
Lynn Power (43:52)
and it's tough because unless you're somebody who has a lot of connections in investor world, but this is the thing too. There's a perception that if you get investment money, you're good. A bunch of the beauty brands that have closed in the last year or two were VC backed because the problem with that is they create this expectation of growth.
And there is not a focus on profit, right? There's a focus on top line growth. It's not sustainable. And when you're in such a fickle industry where somebody might buy your product because you're kind of shoving it on them, they may not repeat purchase.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:31)
Right?
Lynn Power (44:31)
All brands like us, we're very much focused on, I want to be profitable. I want people to love my products. I want to get repaid purchase. That's my products. And we have three times industry average loyalty. And that makes me super happy because even though hair care is a very tough category and very unloyal category,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:46)
Wow.
Lynn Power (44:52)
we do have more than our fair share. So that is, if you focus on those things and your current customers, you're going to be a healthier business in my opinion than just chasing growth.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:01)
Yeah. that's a great.
Yeah. So do you see, especially in the beauty industry where, you said that lot of the failures are in the VC back. They're looking for just growth. Is it because they're looking for growth at a certain, like, you need to be a 10X or you need to be a 25X and if you don't perform, we're just gonna, like, shut you down?
Lynn Power (45:27)
There is a point where if you run out of runway and your numbers aren't there, they're not going to want to keep putting money in. the VCs, it's a little bit of like playing poker or not. In a sense, they have a lot of bets, is my point. You're not the only horse they're betting on. They, by nature, bet on 20 horses or 50 horses or 100 horses. And if they don't think that you're going to be the one to the finish line and there's other horses
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:44)
Right? Right?
Lynn Power (45:57)
that are faster than you, that's what happens. that's why there's a lot of misconceptions around getting investor money and what that's gonna do, because founders think, if I only had $2 million, and it's like, yeah, but then you're expected to have 10 million in sales.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:01)
Right?
Right, within a very short runway. And if you don't make it, they're either, you're not gonna get that money continued or you're gonna be replaced. Like we've seen that with a lot of founders of like, well you know what, now we own, our board has now voted you out, we're gonna put another CEO in place and you're gonna pack your bags and you're like wait a minute, but I own this, you've handed it over.
Lynn Power (46:21)
short window.
Yes.
No, you don't. That happens a lot, a lot. And so that's, yeah, that's another thing. So it's not easy.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:49)
Yeah.
So how do you deal with stress and these big challenges? Like do you have any tips or any rituals or disciplines that you use to just deal with these, with the hits and the pivot, you know, so you can pivot.
Lynn Power (47:10)
Yeah.
say one of my biggest life hacks which I'm going to share with you is home exchange. Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:17)
Yeah.
What is that? Okay.
Lynn Power (47:22)
Okay, this is nothing to do with entrepreneurship. I started doing this when I was at JWT, because we had a New York City apartment and I have two dogs. And when we would travel, my dogs would have to go to the boarding place and they hated it. They'd be mad, they would sulk for weeks, they would be so pissed at me afterwards. So I was like, there's gotta be a better way. But we live in a condo where they don't allow you to Airbnb it or have other, so you know. So I stumbled on home exchange, which because there's no money,
exchanged, it doesn't break any laws, so you're all good. Kind of Jude Law and it is, but the thing is there's a platform called Home Exchange and you don't have to do literal exchanges at the same time. You can use points. It's all point based systems. we have
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:55)
Is this like the movie Holiday with the...
Yeah, and Cameron Diaz is that?
Lynn Power (48:16)
We, so we're going to Bologna next week for two weeks, staying in someone's apartment. We were in Paris this summer. We were in Bordeaux this summer. We travel a ton and it's all basically free. Not, mean, obviously your airfare, your food, whatever, but the, I'm telling you, it is,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:32)
Right. my God, I'm gonna have to look this up.
Lynn Power (48:39)
Because my thing is now that I have flexibility, I was tied to the corporate world for a long time and then I don't have the flexibility to do this. Okay, that's fair. But if you're an entrepreneur, I'm sorry, like you do not have to be sitting at home grinding away. I'd rather be sitting in an apartment in Bologna doing the same thing that I'm doing here and doing this podcast. You know what I'm saying? Like there's no reason.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:01)
That's right.
Lynn Power (49:03)
So that is how I try to balance. kind of blend, and I also blend my personal life, my work life completely. My brother does my fulfillment. He's unbelievable. So good. My daughter, credible artist, does a lot of my graphics. My niece helps me with like operational stuff. that's, I wish my son would help me with the data, but he's not interested.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:26)
Yeah, he'll come on board. Just let him get some street cred and some experience somewhere else and then bring that over to you. If you could pick two things to change about your business today, what would those two things be?
Lynn Power (49:36)
Yeah, maybe. It's my dream. I'll put it out there.
to change about my business. would say two things to change about my business.
I don't really know if I would change anything about my business today. mean, obviously, to be growing faster, to be in bigger distribution, to have more retail stores, all those things would be on the list. I mean, our product, I'm always looking, OK, here's something. I'm always looking for more sustainable solutions because we are a brand that is sustainable.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:09)
Yeah, more customers, yeah.
Lynn Power (50:28)
We, so here's our Shine serum. we, we are pretty much almost out of these, but what I decided is, unfortunately I did on our website, you know, we've got our pretty much sold out, but I'm switching these to glass bottles. These are plastic right now. So that's going to take us a couple months to transition over, but I would love for better packaging solutions that work in the shower because as a brand that's in the shower,
You know, we've got our plastic bottles. I have big ceramic bottles, but I wish there was some like better solution that we could get rid of the plastic. And I've been looking and I just can't find anything that's gonna work for us yet.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:03)
Yeah.
sustainable, well, and I guess margin and all, like part of your.
Lynn Power (51:20)
Yeah, but we're premium priced. like, I don't mind if it costs more, that doesn't, I'd rather do something good for the environment. It's just that a lot of the things that you read about like bamboo or algae packaging, they can't really hold liquid like shampoo. They don't really work, know. Aluminum in the shower, people don't love, cause it can, you know, it starts to corrode.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:29)
Yeah.
now.
rest and get those restains, yeah.
Lynn Power (51:49)
Yeah, so there's just a lot of challenges with that. But some point somebody will figure it out, hopefully.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:56)
Yeah. Okay, so if we met a year from now then what would we be celebrating?
Lynn Power (52:05)
Well, a year from now, I will be three years from my finishing of cancer. I still have my port because my doctors don't want to take it out because of the kind of cancer I had has an 80 % chance of coming back. But if you make it after...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:13)
Okay.
Lynn Power (52:21)
Like three years, then your odds go way better. And then five years, that's a real celebration. But three years is definitely a target that if I can get for another year and not have cancer coming back, I'll be very happy.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:22)
years.
Wow.
Okay, well that's what we're gonna celebrate. Next year, one more year cancer free, three years running, that'll be good. So you've worked with lot of founders and I'm sure, and you you've had a good career. What advice were you given that you really took to heart and kind of put it in to your practice or that you share with other founders?
Lynn Power (52:45)
Yep.
would say don't sweat the small stuff, because there's going to be a lot of things that happen, and some stuff is worthy of you freaking out about it, and other stuff just isn't. So that would be something I would tell people. just focus on the things that you really need to focus on. Somebody puts a bad review, who cares?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:32)
Who cares?
And I think it's kind of like you're, you know, the advice you gave at the beginning of you can't control everything, but it's how you respond, how you kind of to gauge like, you know, don't get mad about everything. Like shit's not gonna go your way. And you're just gonna have to be ready for it. And let it roll off your back, right? The thick skin.
Lynn Power (53:53)
Exactly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:05)
my god, Lynn, we could go on forever, because I feel like I could learn a lot from you, but we do need to wrap. And I've loved this conversation. Where can people get a hold of you, learn about your products, buy your products? And yeah, how do you want people to connect?
Lynn Power (54:07)
I know.
I'm easy to find love Mossami hair everywhere. that's, know, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Tik Tok, Twitter, missing something, but threads LinkedIn ever. and I'm on, know, if anyone has questions, I'll answer your DMS. If you have a question about entrepreneurship, if you have a question about hair, if you have a question about conscious beauty, just, just hit me up. conscious beauty collective is on Instagram at conscious
Beauty Collective shop. You can see all of our locations. We're in Brooklyn, Miami. We're in Knoxville. We're going to be in Newport. We're all over the place. We're in Palm Springs. So check us out there. And then I think for your, if anybody wants to try my products, I can give you a discount code. Maybe we'll make one just for your podcast. Hello Chaos. Let's do Hello Chaos and it'll be 20 % off.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:19)
Yeah, we will share that. Absolutely.
Perfect.
Lynn Power (55:26)
Yeah, and then I love feedback, so don't hesitate to let me know, good or bad, what you think.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:34)
Perfect. Well, will definitely, we'll tag everything and we'll make sure that we include all that information in our social promos, definitely. And thanks for hanging out with us and for everybody listening or watching us. Thanks for hanging with us today. And this podcast episode will be available on Sunday, I think this coming Sunday.
So like us, comment, share, help us grow and build a more connected entrepreneurial and founder community. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That's OrangeWIP WIP for work in progress, because that's what we all are. Hello Chaos.
Lynn Power (55:59)
it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:16)
is, or excuse me, OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are in three cities in South Carolina today, looking to expand to other cities, because every city needs an OrangeWIP. It's just an email to join the community. We are a one-stop content hub in those cities just for founders, and an innovative digital zine experience. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast,
or support us in any way, send an email to hello at orangewhip.com. Thank you all for tuning in. This is where AHA meets shit. Welcome to Hello Chaos and we will see you again next week.
Hello Chaos (56:56)
you