Erin Patten (00:07.19)
I met today's guest at a luncheon I co-hosted here in Austin, and I could not stop thinking about her after. She was a keynote and she talked about her business, her daughters, the healing work she'd done to become the woman running the company she runs today. And I just kept looking around the room, like, are y'all hearing what she's saying? And her name is Lisa Jiregi Show, aka Lisa J. She's the founder and CEO of BK Beauty. She built the brand out of her living room.
Named it after her daughters, Brooklyn and Kate, and sold over a million orders, 100% self-funded, no outside capital. And then made the Inc. 5000 three years and running. So what's really what she's known for is the Kitten Paw, aka Angie Hot and Flashy Brush, which goes crazy on TikTok. And all of this to say it's not the reason I brought her on the show, of course. These numbers are great, but the bottom line is how she got here, the inner work she'd done while she was building.
the healing that shapes how she leads. And I promise you, whether you're building something for yourself or just trying to figure out how to build anything without losing yourself in it, this is the conversation for you. So I want to welcome Lisa to the Meta Business Millennial Podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Lisa Jauregui (01:23.54)
Thank you, Erin. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And I want to add that when I when I met you at that luncheon, I just felt an instant connection. And then after we had a, you know, a little bit of a conversation, I realized like I was having we were talking about things that I don't really get to talk about with other people. And I it just I I just really love that connection and and that that thread that we shared together. So I I was really impacted by meeting you too.
Erin Patten (01:48.299)
Awesome. And okay, we're gonna love on each other more because I can keep going, but I want to start jumping into questions. But that make that fills my heart too because I j I often don't get to have those conversations, especially with business leaders. So that's why I knew we had to have this moment. So here we go. well I want to start off with really kind of an opening question around who you are before we get to BK Beauty, the kitten paw.
Lisa Jauregui (01:52.118)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (02:17.282)
The TikTok, the viral viral, all those things. I want you to tell the the audience who you are as a woman. Who is Lisa as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter, as a friend. I think this would be a great time for you to kind of just share with us more about who you are.
Lisa Jauregui (02:35.921)
Yeah, yeah. Well, so I am a native Austin knite. I'm 43 years old. I've lived in Austin pretty much my entire life. I've had a little short time in San Antonio, but I I'm pretty much a a die-hard Austinite. I'm actually a third generation Austinite, so I'm very proud of it. yeah.
Erin Patten (02:51.926)
Okay. I didn't know that.
Lisa Jauregui (02:55.227)
Yeah, I know there's not many of us, so I'm proud of that. you know, in terms of who I am, I feel like it's it's I I'm still figuring that out in life, you know, but I I'm someone who really prioritizes being a mother, my family. I
I landed in the business that I'm in because I had this passion for makeup artistry that I'm sure we'll talk about my story and all that as we get into the interview. But I was a a very young makeup artist that had this passion for beauty and for makeup artistry. But back then at the time in my twenties, I didn't really feel like it was quote unquote good enough of a career. and so I spent the next decade kind of filling jobs that looked good on a resume that I was proud to throw out and and
Erin Patten (03:31.19)
Yeah, yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (03:40.404)
you know, say this is what I did, but my true passion was always makeup. and so I kept it in my life on the side for many years until I it eventually led me to where I'm at today. But I'm an animal lover. I I love spending time at home with my husband, my family. I'm actually an introvert, which is kind of y surprising to a lot of people because I show up on social media every day and I'm kind of public, but I actually feel
Erin Patten (03:43.99)
Mm.
Lisa Jauregui (04:06.301)
My best when I'm just either home with my family or I'm around people that have known me, you know, the majority of my life.
Erin Patten (04:13.196)
Yeah, that makes sense. And you know, it's interesting that you talk about kind of like the journey of makeup be artistry not being good enough because I feel like oftentimes our gifts, whatever they may be, are sometimes diminished by the outside world. So we we run from them, we hide from them, or we kind of shove them in the corner and then re and luckily for you, you pick back up that brush.
Lisa Jauregui (04:15.221)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (04:40.696)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (04:41.484)
Because it's changing the world literally. And also the the trajectory of your life and your career and your family's life and career and the legacy you're gonna lead. So, you know, with that said, I want you to walk us back to twenty nineteen when you were in your living room and you were coming up with this concept for BK Beauty. And what did the woman then who is she, what is she still inspired by today?
Lisa Jauregui (05:09.331)
Yeah, so I in twenty nineteen, we had just launched BK Beauty. I had been on social media for at that point about five years, I think four or five years. And so I was building this community online and I was really inspired by my community. you know, when I started YouTube, it was it there was really no strategy or even plan behind starting my channel. It was it was truly born out of this desire and this passion I had for makeup.
I had been a makeup artist, but I was getting ready to kind of close that chapter because I was having kids and I was getting exhausted from the long weekends and staying on my feet and doing wedding makeup all day. So I was like, I'll just I'll just start a YouTube channel. I I had no idea that it would lead to what I'm doing today, but you but I think the biggest surprise from that is just like this connection in community of connecting to women all over the world that like there was a true connection there. And I think that that really surprised me and inspired me when I look back at that.
Erin Patten (05:47.192)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (06:06.535)
you know, the woman I was in 2019. I s I s that still is is such an important part of what I why I do what I do. You know, some of the best emails that I read are from people who tell me they've been following me for years and I help make their makeup routine a little easier. And just like this true connection with people that I'll never meet in real life, but there is a connection, which I think is so incredible.
Erin Patten (06:26.732)
Yeah.
That's so cool. And that makes perfect sense. And it's really telling of kind of the brand you built is that it inspired by community, driven by community, we still bought the community. So I love to hear that. And I want to get into how you came up with beauty as kindness or beauty is kindness rather. And of course, BK are your daughter's names, Brooklyn and Kate, right? And so
Lisa Jauregui (06:53.194)
Yes.
Erin Patten (06:55.276)
And so yeah, so tell me about the that moment where you came up with that phrase. Where did it come from and and what does it really mean for you today?
Lisa Jauregui (07:02.589)
Yeah. So when we were when we, and I say we, I'm talking about my husband Paul. when we were, I still remember driving in the car thinking of names. And I knew from the beginning that I didn't really want to name it after myself. I really envisioned from the beginning BK Beauty being much bigger than me. And also I was pretty small of a creator. I wasn't I wasn't a name that had a whole lot of value in terms of like commercially. So that it really didn't make sense. and at the time of
Erin Patten (07:23.938)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (07:28.501)
So I'm gonna rewind when I started my YouTube channel. When I started my YouTube channel, I was 31 years old. I was a young mom. I had little girls. I was still struggling myself with a lot of insecurities. And I looked at makeup as a way to kind of build my confidence and make me feel better and prettier, right? But by the time by the time we were launching the brand, I was really
Erin Patten (07:44.62)
Yeah, yes.
Lisa Jauregui (07:50.998)
Having a lot, you know, just evolving, growing, finding my confidence, really finding my self-love and my self-acceptance. And I was starting to struggle with what I was teaching my daughters about beauty. I I was worried that as being like a beauty creator, I was sending the message to them that, you know, putting on a bunch of makeup is what makes you beautiful. Because honestly, that's kind of how I felt growing up. You know, that's the message, the message that I believed. And I didn't want them to go, I didn't want them to be.
Erin Patten (08:13.004)
Yeah, yes, mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (08:19.583)
35 before they started having confidence. I wanted them to, you know, have that self-acceptance and self-love much earlier in their life than I did. So I'm like, I don't want to send that message. How do we, how do we reframe this? and their names are Brooklyn and Kate. and so I really wanted to them to learn the message that true beauty is is kindness. Now it's not just kindness to other people, because I think we're all taught that like at a really young age. Be kind, be nice. But I don't think we're really taught to be kind to ourselves.
And that's really what I wanted the brand to be about is kindness to yourself, you know, self-acceptance, self-love. So BK stands for Brook Beauty is kindness. And it really originated from my daughters, Brooklyn and Kate.
Erin Patten (09:01.602)
Yes, I love that because one thing that we talk a lot about here on this podcast, it's interesting because I believe it was early last year I kind of rebrand branded around being a platform for BLK women. So that was beautiful, loving and knowledgeable, beautiful, loving and kind type energy. So that really deeply resonates too with the audience here around beautiful is essentially an energy, it's an aura, it's a it's a a way of being, then a way of seeing, if you will.
And even though, trust me, every episode got my made up, you know, dressed up, all the things like I love fashion and beauty more than any woman in the world, probably. Like as much as any other woman in the world. I used to work in the fashion industry and I have my own beauty brand that I always talk about, raw beauty, that we'll get into. but it's it's certainly not what that which makes me, and what I also try to teach as well is that who we are.
Is is what makes us beautiful. So I think that's such a wonderful message. And you talked about Paul, and I'm so glad you brought him up because you said that he and I have from our notes that he left his job during COVID and his last day was March 13, 2020, like the week the world shut down, literally. And I want to ask you, especially for women and entrepreneurs, women leaders who are married or in relationship or in partnership.
Lisa Jauregui (10:18.889)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (10:28.994)
What does it do to a marriage to build a company through a season like Covid?
Lisa Jauregui (10:34.591)
Yeah, that's that's a great question. And honestly, when people find out that my husband and I work together, that's like everyone's like, How? How do you do that? be challenging. you know, if you're s asking specifically for COVID, it actually was so great. Cause if you think back to COVID days, like, you know, everyone, you know, that had kids w were now trying to homeschool their kid and work from home. And, you know, it was just it was just so
Erin Patten (10:42.402)
Yeah, yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (11:03.825)
overwhelming to to try and balance and manage all of those things. And because we didn't have that commitment to a job anymore, it really allowed us to I think just kind of really enjoy the time that we had together, being locked down together. You know, I know we cannot I think I can say that now six years later. I know back then we I would never dare to say that. But I look I look back on those months and I'm like, gosh, that was actually such a I see the beauty in that. I see the beauty in just being home.
Erin Patten (11:07.661)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (11:25.804)
Ha ha ha.
Lisa Jauregui (11:33.556)
just our family unit, you know, and just being together without having a lot of stress to to keep up and manage other commitments. and our business was pretty small at the time, you know, we had only been, we had launched six months earlier. So we definitely weren't the business that we are today. So in terms of like the stress on our business and our brand, it was very minimal. We had one employee, so it was really easy to allow her to stay home. And then he and I would just fulfill orders ourselves and we could manage it.
Erin Patten (11:49.325)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (11:59.382)
I think it's a a blessing that we were such a young company because we didn't have the operation that we have today. and if if COVID had happened today when we have thirty employees and we have this, it would be very it would be a very different story. But for us it worked out.
Erin Patten (12:06.606)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (12:16.02)
And since you brought it up around, you know, it being different today, what has shifted or how has the partnership evolved since?
Lisa Jauregui (12:25.865)
Yeah. So now we I mean back then he and I were we were doing everything, you know, customer service emails, fulfillment. you know, we didn't even have anyone on a social media team. So I was doing the social media. I mean, we were doing everything that the business required. It was he or I. Now we have very clear roles and lanes that we're in, and we have an amazing team that supports all areas of the business. And so we're in a position now where, you know, we can
take time away and not and my father recently passed away. I know we talked about that before we started recording, but my father passed away weeks ago. And, you know, I told my team after that first week when I could form a sentence, I just thank them because I we both were able to just remove ourselves and not worry about the business. so today it is very different than it was back then because we have an incredible team.
Erin Patten (13:14.723)
Yeah. And I just wanna stop and honor that because when we have when we're losing loved ones, especially a loved one as close as like a father, a mother, sister, brother, it hits different. And I know that there are a lot of women out there that are, you know, dealing with grief and working and and mothering and all the things that come with it. And for you to be able to have the the the blessing, the
the flexibility, the the ability to step back and and really honor, you know, someone who meant so much to you in your life. I mean, that's just it's it's really, it's really rare. So you you c should congratulate yourself, you and your husband for creating that space for y'all to do that.
Lisa Jauregui (13:58.698)
Thank you. Yeah. I I have a lot of thoughts and moments like that where I'm like the the the success and the revenue and all of that is great, but the true the the the thing I'm most grateful for is that flexibility. in in you know, having that because that is priceless. Yeah.
Erin Patten (14:11.342)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (14:16.931)
Yeah, it really is. And so this is a perfect segue into the Hoffman process because this is actually how Lisa and I bonded. You know, I was sharing with her how I I'm a metaphysical master and I do all this spiritual stuff. And she was like, my god, that I do too. Like this is such an integral part of my work. And because of her I guess studies or opportunities at the Hoffman process, so I really wanted to just
Ask you a little bit more about that experience. Like, you know, when did you do it? What brought you to it? I mean, it's just so rare. Hop and processed by it. Maybe you can even talk a little bit about what it is for those who don't know.
Lisa Jauregui (14:57.053)
Yeah, the Hoffman Process is a seven-day personal growth retreat. they have a few campuses around the world. I think they have two in the United States. and I stumbled across it actually because my husband was turning 40 and you know, he was kind of looking at things he could do to for this milestone. And I actually was listening to a podcast with the founder of Tom's. I think his name is Blake McCowski. He was talking about going on this retreat and
it's a personal growth retreat that basically helps you identify your negative patterns. And again, I shouldn't, I should say now that I I'm saying I referred it to my husband, I don't know why because he doesn't have a lot of baggage or negative. But I was just it it seemed like a transformational, transformational experience. And so I I sent it to my husband. I was like, Maybe you should do this for your 40th. And he wasn't, you know, he didn't he wasn't that interested. And then I heard it again on another podcast a few weeks later, and I was like, maybe this is something I should do.
I've always I shouldn't say I've always had therapy in my life, but I've had therapy in my life at different points throughout my life. And I really credit that in my very late teens, early twenties, like that was the first time I sought sought out therapy. And I I really think that was such a pivotal pivotal moment for me in my life because I was going down a different path before therapy, and therapy opened my eyes to realize that like I can choose my life, I can choose what life I want to live. I can choose.
Erin Patten (16:23.599)
Yes.
Lisa Jauregui (16:24.847)
make choices and determine I'm not just on this this road because of how I was brought up or what you know what my background is or what education I have. No, I I could really choose what kind of life I ha I want to live. And so therapy's always been something that I was a big believer in. And at this stage in my life, so this was in 2022. So that's four years ago. So what was I, 39 years old. So I'm approaching that age where I think a lot of women kind of start to look around and, you know,
think maybe I shouldn't speak for a lot of women, but I I at stage in my life, I felt like, okay, like I'm entering in my 40s, I feel a shift. You know, I feel a shift. I feel like the person I've always been, I have a lot of limiting beliefs that are holding me back. And where do where are those coming from? You know, I want to understand why do I why do I believe this, this, these subconscious beliefs about myself and who who I am and what I'm capable of.
Erin Patten (17:11.589)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (17:19.865)
and so I went to the Hoffman process. It's seven days. You do a lot of prep work before you go in. So they send you a lot of paperwork. And I mean, I remember sitting there in my backyard filling out this paperwork like weeks before I went in, and I would just brought me to tears. I was sobbing. It's just really deep work that makes you reflect on your childhood. and the lessons that you were taught as a kid from whoever raised you, whether it's your parents, your grandparents, anyone that was prominent in your life then. and what those lessons taught you about your life and who you are.
And how those lessons might be impacting you today. right. It it's like a default setting that we have. And how you can, if they're not necessarily serving you, maybe they're holding you back, how you can kind of reprogram your brain and and choose different beliefs, a different belief system. and so I went really not knowing more than that. it was seven days. You I didn't get an agenda in advance. I wasn't told like this is what we're gonna do day one, day two. Every day was a
Erin Patten (18:01.146)
Yes.
Lisa Jauregui (18:18.761)
Like what are we doing? There's 25 people in the room, all different types types of walks of life. I think the youngest was maybe 27 and then the oldest was probably late 70s. men, women, you know, very different. And I I wanted to go in there just to just to have some self-development, some self-growth, more confidence. Kind of the business was starting to grow at the time and I had this strong like imposter syndrome at the time. Like I didn't really feel like I fit.
this this idea of what people maybe thought of me because of the brand and the business. I struggled with that. And anyway, I walked into that retreat and I walked out of that retreat. I felt I feel like I was just reborn. I I tell people the best way to describe it is if anyone's ever had a child, the moment that you hold your first child, you feel this like overwhelming like tsunami of love that you've never felt in your lifetime.
Erin Patten (18:54.446)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (19:16.917)
'Cause you're holding your child. And I felt felt like I had that same feeling the last day of the retreat, but that feeling was love for myself, which is just like I I didn't even go in there thinking that that was the outcome. Yes, it was. It was it was incredible. It was really, really incredible.
Erin Patten (19:30.736)
That hard.
Erin Patten (19:36.441)
Yes. And we're gonna get a little bit more deep into how this impacts your life going forward, but I just want to acknowledge that it is so important for us to take that time, whether it's seven days or one hour, to reflect on ourselves, to spend time with ourselves, to cry those tears, to release that, move that energy, those emotions, to show and allow more love for ourselves.
And I know that there are just too many women out there, too many hardworking women out there who are constantly pouring into their kids, who are constantly pouring into their partners, who are constantly pouring into their work and leave a ounce for themselves if that. And and so I just know how transformational that felt and feels to go through. And obviously Lisa has is sharing that experience now. And I just wanna
Lisa Jauregui (20:19.53)
Yes.
Erin Patten (20:33.372)
really talk to you about kind of like what that experience has done for you as a CEO. What has it done for you in your business? because obviously you felt almost like a rebirth. So it had to shift that aspect of your life too. Like how did it transform other areas of your life after you kind of walked out of there?
Lisa Jauregui (20:55.091)
Yeah, I mean, I think the best way to describe that is it makes you really self-aware. It makes you really pause and think about the feelings that you're feeling and why you might be feeling them. and I think if you can do that, if you have that skill and that practice, like that is gonna elevate and make you better in all areas of your life, whether you're a CEO, whether you're a teacher, whether you're I mean, just in every area with your children, being able to pause and think, why is why am I being triggered by this? Like why am I
Erin Patten (21:01.146)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (21:06.608)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (21:15.086)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (21:19.824)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (21:24.521)
You know, or really understanding where the feelings are coming from, you know. and and also it really helped me empathize with people better, you know, really try and understand why someone if I'm having a conflict with someone or there's a disagreement or you know, just really taking the time to to be open minded and understand why they might have the opinion or the perspective that they have.
Erin Patten (21:27.854)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (21:52.517)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (21:53.97)
And and so I think that that has been super helpful in terms of being, you know, in a leadership role. the Hoffman process has what they call a quadr a quadrinity. it's a they they say it's a quadranty that every human being has four quadrantities. It's an emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual self. So there's four parts to us, right? There's our emotional self, those are our feelings, there's our physical self, which is our body, there's our intellectual self, which is kind of that voice that we have of like,
And most of us operate in that intellectual self. That's the part of you that tells you like, you know, it it might be a little cautious for you to take risk because it wants you, it wants to protect you, right? It's coming from a place of wanting to protect. and then there's the intellectu so we talked about emotional, intellectual, and then there's a spiritual self, which I felt really disconnected to. So when I left the process, I I was able to understand that there are four parts of me that I really need to nurture and check in with every day.
Erin Patten (22:41.521)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (22:48.719)
Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
Lisa Jauregui (22:51.529)
Because a lot of us are in imbalance, you know, maybe we're we're, you know, operating eighty percent from our intellectual self, but we're not listening to what our body needs or what our spir the spiritual part of us needs. So I've tried to continue to check in with those parts of me and make sure that I'm listening to all four parts.
Erin Patten (22:59.685)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (23:10.179)
Yes. And the key that she named here is she's listening to all four parts every day. And I think that that's something too why I mentioned, like even if it's an hour, like we need to be doing this essentially Hoffman process type approach to mind, body, emotions, spirit every single day. And whether it's first thing when you wake up, whether it's in the middle of the day, whether it's before you go to sleep at night, it doesn't matter. You know, I think a lot of times people feel like, I have to wake up and meditate, but I don't have time 'cause I'm running late, you know.
Trust me, our days are our days, but having that that awareness, as you mentioned, of being able to come back to ourselves and check in, okay, like am I tending to my spirit today or am I listening to my emotions or am I overriding myself? Or, you know, I've I've really been running ragged and I've not been allowing myself to sleep.
Should I just take a nap in that little thirty minutes that I have between my meetings? You know, so it's just like really tuning into ourselves every single day. And I think that's just such a beautiful, you know, acknowledgement and affirmation.
Lisa Jauregui (24:13.225)
Yeah. One practice that we did that I want to share is just writing down in a journal, like saying, you know, closing your eyes and saying, you know, body, what do you need from me today? And just kind of listening to maybe what your body tells you they need, you know, and going down the list and just really asking out loud what each part of you needs and trying to be open to hearing it.
Erin Patten (24:34.819)
Yes, yes. And if you can't hear, just keep asking. Keep asking. And so I really want to get into building a brand with the soul because there's just so many folks out here who want million-dollar businesses, who want viral businesses, and really could benefit myself included, for for understanding what it takes. And so I want you to talk to me about the moment you decided to keep fulfillment in-house.
Lisa Jauregui (24:37.321)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (25:04.025)
you had a respected advisor tell you that that was the wrong move. and a a lot of times, especially women get this where someone's trying to tell us what to do or we're we're always listening to our mentors or our board members and you know, doing what they want to say but and overriding. So what did you hear inside yourself that he couldn't hear?
Lisa Jauregui (25:23.913)
Yeah, so that friend of mine that you're referring to, he's a VC, you know, he he has a lot of insight into all different brands. He's so that's kind of why I I respected his opinion. but I also knew that my brand is very different because my brand is very personal, right? It's not a fa it's not a faceless brand. It's like the people in those early days, especially, and still today, but but the brand's kind of outgrown me personally. But those early days, every customer was ordering because they wanted to support me. They watched my content, they liked me.
Erin Patten (25:34.981)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (25:39.087)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (25:53.8)
Me, they were ordering to support me and my bit my new business. And that is personal. And so I was really very cautious about giving up control any area that might impact that customer's experience. and fulfillment is, you know, part of customer service. Like if it takes too long to process an order, if they get the wrong products.
Erin Patten (25:58.886)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (26:16.181)
if their return isn't processed in a timely manner, all of those things, if the package isn't box pretty or nice, like all of those things can impact the customer's experience. And if I outsource fulfillment, then I would not have control over those things. and so I was really nervous about that. We did do a little research in the early days at looking at three PLs. We asked all of our friends that had brands, you know, if they would recommend their 3PL. And I don't think we had one friend that said, yeah, I love my 3PL. You know, it was always like, Well, I'm still actually looking to switch or you
You know, and so we had this mindset of like, you know what, we're fulfillment is working for us now. We're gonna hold on to it. And and we've really been able to to scale to the level we're at now and be very efficient with it. So I'm really glad that we didn't, you know, outsource it early because it has been something that we've been able to optimize and and just get better and better at. And I think we fulfill more efficiently, quickly, and even at better cost than we would if we were at a three PL.
Erin Patten (27:15.513)
Hmm, that's so good. And I think the key here for those that are listening is just kind of tuning in to what the inspiration is, what the purpose is for the business. And as Lisa shared in the beginning, it's always been about her community. And for her, for the fulfillment, even something as you know, mundane, we would think, as operations, still was inspired by the community and what the community would need and what they expect. And it's so beautiful for you to really hold on to that.
And you know, of course, the self-funding is like one of the biggest ones because you built the BK Beauty to over a million orders and landed, as I mentioned before, on the Inc. 5000 three years in a row. And four years in a row. Okay, let's go. Four years in a row. And a hundred percent self-funded, okay, guys. So most beauty brands at your scale have taken outside capital by now, you know, whether it's for of of
Lisa Jauregui (27:57.92)
Actually four now. Four now. Yeah, we did that, yeah.
Erin Patten (28:14.679)
whether it's for salaries or hiring or, you know, for fulfillment for there's so many reasons why people take out outside capital. What did you understand about your path that made you stay true to the self-funding?
Lisa Jauregui (28:26.803)
Yeah, so we were able to start the brand with about thirty thousand dollars in twenty nineteen. That that kind of funded the whole startup from our first PO to our web domain name to the you know, packaging that we used for our for fulfillment, all of that. and we have not had to raise money.
There we've been very profitable since the beginning. We also have grown, you know, slowly in terms of like if you look at our cadence of launching products, it's very slow. When you look at a brand that's like launching and going right into a Sephora or an Ulta or a mass retailer like that, like you definitely need a lot more capital than we started. But we were able to start and and because I had that community online, even though it was smaller, you know, that was my distribution channel.
Erin Patten (29:04.347)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (29:08.421)
So good.
Lisa Jauregui (29:11.581)
I didn't need to be in a I didn't need to be in retailer, right? I had that distribution channel there. And then I also had friends that were fellow YouTubers and creators who supported the brand. So I didn't need a retailer in the early days. and we've and when I look back at and what I know now, I didn't know this then, but what I know now about taking money on is you really give up not only, you know, equity and ownership in your business, but you also give up control in a lot of situations. And you're you're kind of in a lot of times put down a path that is more.
Erin Patten (29:11.856)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (29:35.696)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (29:40.798)
maybe not the direction you want to go with the brand. I look at what we've done and we've even though we've grown really quickly in terms of like cadence launch, we've we we're actually pretty slow. We launch a new product one or two a year. When you look at color cosmetics, there's like, you know, it's all about the new, new, new. and and we haven't operated that well and I mean we operated that way. and we haven't really had to. And I also think it's allowed us to
Erin Patten (29:43.537)
Well.
Erin Patten (29:58.557)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (30:08.185)
really go deep in the areas that are working. So early, early days we did have a few color cosmetic products, but brushes were where we were getting a lot of attention. That's where we were starting to see the most traction. Our margins on brushes were better than they were in cosmetics. And again, being self-funded and not having an excess amount of capital, we really needed to focus on, you know, where that those margins and that business was growing. And so we decided to discontinue makeup early on and really focus on brushes for like for the next five years.
Erin Patten (30:14.962)
Mm.
Erin Patten (30:20.208)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (30:31.634)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (30:36.885)
and we've just really been focused on what's working and staying very narrow but very deep. we just launched, relaunched into color cosmetics last month, actually this month, September 1st. And yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like the next chapter for BK Beauty. But I'm really proud that we we waited until this time in our business because now we have this incredible, you know, robust community of customers. We have the
Erin Patten (30:48.404)
nice.
Erin Patten (30:52.475)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (31:05.161)
the capital and the resources to build a product exactly how I want to build it, you know, like clean ingredients, high quality ingredients, you know, really nice component. and so, you know, doing it the way we've done it has allowed us to, by being self-funded, it's allowed us to to build the brand at the pace we want to build with at the pace we want to build it and also make decisions that, you know, that that we're we want to make, you know, keeping it keeping fulfillment in house and keeping everything in house and
Just not having anyone else to answer to has been the greatest luxury, I have to say. Yes.
Erin Patten (31:37.703)
That part. And I don't think people realize what they give up when they take on other people's money. And a lot of times what we see out here when people are VC funded are CEO puppets, really, that are being puppeteered and controlled by their investors. And, you know, a lot of times people are have different goals for their businesses. People want to exit and get that cash, get that bread. That can that's a path that
I don't necessarily ascribe to, but I respect it for those who take that path. However, if you really believe in your company, if you the like if you put in the blood, sweat, and tears and you know, go through all the losses and the gains like Lisa has. And of course, you know, even on my journey, I share it all the time on my podcast, what I be going through. You know, you really want to be able to to own and be accountable for your own business. And that's
Really, what the sovereign spiritual path is about is being able to have that control, that autonomy of over yourself in your life, in your business. And so you are such a beacon of hope and light for and inspiration for so many women who feel the that pull or that that that maybe that temptation to give up control for money if they're in a pinch.
And I'm sure you've been through challenging situations where you were like, and I'm just assuming because I just feel like all businesses go through cycles where you're like, how am I gonna make payroll? Or how am gonna fulfill this order? Or I'm sure there have been some challenges in your business where that temptation came around and you had to stay stand firm. Am I right? Has things like that happened where you've been, you know, potentially tempted, or have you been able to really grow and build without those challenges?
Lisa Jauregui (33:29.855)
Yeah, we've never seriously considered taking on any capital. We ha we haven't been in position where we've had to consider it. I think a really stressful time in terms of like the finances was probably tariffs. You know, that that situation was when I think of a situation that was a little stressful regarding that, it would be that. But we've never, fortunately, we've never been in a position where we had to strongly consider it. And I wanna say too, you know, this is something I've understood now as I learn more about, you know.
founder starting businesses, growing businesses, selling businesses. You know, if you if you look at the different avenues, right, there's the avenue of taking early capital, right? Owning a percentage of your business, but you really you're really not making a lot of
You're not realizing that the gains off of that business until you sell it, right? Maybe you're taking a salary from the business, but you're not able to take distributions from the business every year if you have a b you know a list of investors. and the goal really in that situation is to really grow fast at all costs, right? It's like take an investment, get the business, get the brand somewhere. So in five, six years we can sell it. And then that's what that's what I'm working towards, right? that hasn't been our position, right? We've built a
Erin Patten (34:28.293)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (34:34.577)
Yeah.
Well
Lisa Jauregui (34:40.343)
really profitable business, you know, really since the first year. And so we are able to have a business that, you know, produces a nice cash flow profit every year. So we're able to enjoy that, you know, without without
you know, feeling like we need outside investment. And then there's also the option if if we ever get to a point where we're like, you know what, we wanna maybe not be in the business every day, you know, you there's two options, right? You can either sell the business or you can hire someone to come in and operate it for you. You know, hire a CEO, still contain
Erin Patten (35:08.71)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (35:10.685)
And ownership of your business, but now have someone that's that's operating it. So we don't have any plans to sell the business ever. That's not a conversation that we even really talk about. in my dream, like if I if I really see the vision of the brand, I it's something I would love my daughters to take over one day if they have interest. We really do, yeah. We we find a lot of inspiration from Estee Lauder. My husband read her and I did too, but he he's the one that recommended me to read her books.
Erin Patten (35:26.618)
Wow.
Lisa Jauregui (35:35.702)
and like the whole story of her life and like she started her brand in the 40s, I believe. And I think in year one or two, she and this was in the 40s, she was offered like a million dollars by Revlon to sell her business, and she didn't. I mean, can you imagine that offer? Yeah, and she didn't. And look what she was able to build. You know, I think she's she's got like all the companies and brands that they've bought, you know, Mac is owned by Estee Lauder, Bobby Brown's owned by Estee Lauder, you know.
Erin Patten (35:49.35)
Wow.
Erin Patten (35:53.754)
Right. I still use Estee Lauder to this day.
Erin Patten (36:00.648)
Yeah.
I did not know that. Wow, that's incredible. Well, let's just keep moving because I I still have lots to ask you because everyone listening right now really wants to know one thing. How did you know, and I and it's I know it's called the Angie Hot and Flashy, but also it's the kitten paw. How did this brush go viral? And I want you to really walk us through what happened from your seat.
Lisa Jauregui (36:04.607)
So that yeah, yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (36:12.691)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (36:23.477)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (36:30.173)
Yeah, well, the the brush was always a really popular brush from that collection when you launched it, but I think its real viral moment happened when TikTok launched. TikTok I f I attribute to being the platform that makes products go viral. and we once TikTok shop
Erin Patten (36:39.483)
Mm.
Erin Patten (36:44.401)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (36:48.989)
Once TikTok Shop came on board, which was 2023, and they launched a beta program in August of 2023. And we were one of the first brands to onboard with TikTok Shop because a lot of beauty brands back then were really hesitant to get on. Like all the big brands, they weren't jumping on TikTok Shop right away. Cause back then there was still a lot of uncertainty with the app and there was a lot of rumors that it was gonna, you know, shut down or it was this or that. And and so because other brands were hesitant to get on and we were able, you know, we onboarded quickly, it really allowed us.
Erin Patten (37:04.38)
Interesting.
Lisa Jauregui (37:18.963)
An opportunity to have that moment where there wasn't a lot of competition, there wasn't a lot of noise. And TikTok at the time was really fueling content that had products tagged. So we had creators tagging that concealer brush. And then TikTok shop was accelerating the output of those videos to generate more sales for the platform, which of course is going to impact the virality of that product. It's also going to put a lot of money in the creator's pocket, a lot of money in our pocket. and
We I think just jumping on that wave early and riding it was a lot of the reason that that brush went viral. And our brand in our brand as a whole, really. That that really accelerated our brand. That was a big inflection point for us. That was twenty twenty three. Yeah.
Erin Patten (37:56.38)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (38:03.099)
In what year was that?
Between three, right, cool. And you know, you've talked about before how deep creative relationships mean and matter. You were even sharing earlier how, like, even when you launched your business, you really leveraged your influencer creative relationships. what does deep relationship actually mean when we're talking about these partnerships? You know, is it someone that you're just DMing? Are these people you like meet in person? How do you you cultivate those relationships?
Lisa Jauregui (38:33.407)
Yeah, so you know, it usually starts with a DM and it usually s starts with I mean now there's you know a lot of the platforms are making it really easy. TikTok is one platform that makes product seating with creators very easy. but in terms of in terms of like developing these relationships, we keep social and influencer marketing in-house. you know, a lot of brands will outsource it. I still consider myself an influencer and creator. So I still have have brands that reach out to me through agencies, sometimes directly through them. And
Erin Patten (38:44.595)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (39:01.192)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (39:01.917)
I will say I think owning influencer marketing in-house is so important. I mean, I get that large brands at scale have an agency to outsource it, but I think to really develop a relationship, it's you need to have that personal connection with the creator. So, you know, we have an amazing team. We have a small team, but an amazing team. In fact, as of just
Erin Patten (39:07.323)
Mm.
Lisa Jauregui (39:24.167)
As of two months ago is one person, her name is Sophia on our team. We just hired Ashley to help support her. So we have two people on Influencer now. But I will say, you know, Sophia's kind of been in charge of it since since we launched an influencer program. And she knows people's, you know, kids' names. She knows if we need some them flowers because they're dog died, or I mean, she's just like really she consumes their content. She knows what's going on in their personal life. we do just a lot of
Nurturing those relationships. We actually flew five of our top TikTok shop creators to Austin in July and we had a dinner at my home. So I invited them to my home. We had a dinner here. We took them shopping on South Congress, you know, and just kind of showed them like Austin took them to the office, gave them a tour. I wish we could do that at a larger scale because we were only able to have five, but those are things that that we are looking towards investing, you know, resources into moving forward.
Erin Patten (40:20.443)
That's good.
Lisa Jauregui (40:21.477)
doing things like that. yeah. And just you know, I'm still a creator and I think that that that has been really good for the brand because not only am I able to make, you know, friendships with my peers, but I I think that me being a creator and founder of the brand just gives us a lot of credibility with other creators. It all it also allows me to kind of put my creator hat on and know like what feels good and what feels bad.
when I get reached out from or from a brand, right? Like what feels good from a brand. this brand sent me this or they reached out to me in this way. This felt really good. So I'll share that with my team. Or I didn't like the way that this brand, you know, emailed me. Hey sweetie or hey baby or like, don't let's never do that. But it's just like, you know, it just gives me the perspective of the creator and allows me to to to just know what what lands well.
Erin Patten (40:50.353)
Yeah. Yeah.
Erin Patten (41:06.322)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (41:14.631)
That's so good because obviously I share with you I'm a beauty founder and the my audience knows. And so I launched my brand just at the beginning of this year. It's just a few months old, it's still a baby. And one thing that I do find really challenging is building those relationships and for you to talk about the the personal touch that you give to these relationships and how you still offer that like years later, it's I'm really kind of blown away.
because I you know, I'm I'm still finding my footing in the creator influencer world personally. And I've not had any brands reach out to me. So I really wouldn't know how to cultivate those relationships. So to be able to hear from you, it's really
eye-opening that you would do something as lovely as inviting them, you know, to to your home and having dinner and and having these one on one conversations with them and spending that time. And I know as a solo founder it's very different. And when you have a larger team, it's much more easy to to kind of cultivate that. But this is really beautiful advice, not only for our audience, but especially for me. So thank you so much for sharing that. You know, and you know
What did you have to build inside your company to handle the virality, you know, when you, you know, get like 60,000 orders? Because I know so many founders whose brands have imploded from a viral moment, you know, very terribly and and not able to fulfill and charging way too much and not handling the customer service. And so I just really want to understand kind of from your perspective, what does it take to be prepared for those kinds of moments?
Lisa Jauregui (42:52.009)
Yeah, so we do and you know, when it comes to virality, like sometimes you can't really predict that. there there are things that we do as a team to try to make a product go viral or boost it. And I'll share some of that because that might be helpful. But like on TikTok, for example, if we want really to for a certain brush or product to take off, we'll really focus on seeding that product to a ton of creators on TikTok.
Erin Patten (42:57.82)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (43:17.673)
and we'll focus specifically on seeding that product and hope that that produces a lot of content. that we can either, you know, boost that creator's content, which in turn supports them as well, because any commission that they make off of that that we're boosting, they they make extra commission. so that's one way that we try to influence reality, but one thing we do in advance is just a lot of prep work. So weeks before a launch or a sale or any time we know we're gonna have like a high volume of orders.
You know, we have people in the office prepping, making all the boxes. whenever we do have, like I'll give you a perfect example. Ulta 21 Days of Beauty was in March. And it was actually, it was our first Ulta 21 Days of Beauty to participate in because we just got onto the Ulta.com platform in December. And so this is our first time to be part of 21 Days of Beauty. We had no idea what to expect. We had our A506 kit and paw brush 50% off for one day.
Erin Patten (43:55.922)
Right.
Erin Patten (44:03.069)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (44:12.613)
And Ulta had projected that we would sell like 4,800 units, I think. That morning I woke up at 7 a.m. and we had sold 5,000 units. And we ended up selling 22,000 units that one day. And but we were prepared for it. You know, we had we had a a team of TIMP people come in that we had already arranged to come into the office that day to help fulfill. Cause that's a struggle with fulfillment and owning it yourself is staffing.
Because one one week you might need four people on staff, and the next week you might need 20 people on staff. And it's really hard to staff when you're doing fulfillment. So temp agencies, we just unlocked this year, and that's been really helpful. and then just being really efficient in operations. So, you know, our fulfillment manager would come in and she would basically print all the orders and she would categorize them into orders that were just that one item. So if an order came in, it was just that one brush, which of course we had thousands of those orders.
Erin Patten (44:38.568)
Right.
Erin Patten (44:43.816)
Right.
Lisa Jauregui (45:07.111)
we would, you know, hand that stack of orders to a tenth because they can't really mess up that. It's really easy. It's grab the brush, stick it in the envelope, seal it. Grab the brush, stick in the envelope. They're not it's not like they're having to walk around and look for this brush. and they want this brush and they want this bag. Like there's not a lot of complexity to the order. So we section those off. We have stations where those orders can be fulfilled really quickly and easily. So it's all about just like, you know, optimizing for for
Erin Patten (45:07.155)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (45:23.442)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (45:35.178)
that high volume of sales and you in any way you can. You know, we used to put every single order in a box. Now we'll use bubble mailers when it's one brush or maybe two brushes. and that that I will say was a little bit of a struggle for me because in the beginning days, you know, everything came in a box and we had this really elaborate process to box it and pack it. I remember timing myself packing an order once and I think it took me like five minutes to pack a one order, which is fine when you have 30 orders for the day. But when you have, I think our highest
Erin Patten (45:43.912)
Yeah, yeah.
Erin Patten (45:53.927)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (46:00.775)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (46:04.863)
day that we fulfilled was like over seven thousand orders. Like I think a customer would rather have their order quickly than wait three weeks for it because I'm, you know, like and so I had to kind of Yes.
Erin Patten (46:15.198)
tying butt ribbons and tissue paper and writing handwriting notes. Trust me, I'm d I do I'm doing that. I'm
Lisa Jauregui (46:21.749)
Well yeah, and it's great when you can. but I think too, you know, you have to kind of look at like, okay, I can do that, but a customer will wait three weeks or I can get their order to them in in a day or two and it'll come in this really cute bubble mailer, but you know, and they'll still get an insert card, but they're not gonna have that, you know, box. And and honestly, the thing every time we made a change like that, I'm just like bracing myself for the feedback and there's none. You know, people people are just happy to receive their product.
Erin Patten (46:38.472)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (46:44.787)
Yeah.
Yeah. This is so good, girl. I this is a good question because social media is good for us looking to the left, looking to the right, comparing ourselves and wanting to compete with other people. And and even how this question is written, like, you know, for founders listening, myself included, you know, who's watching their competitors and I don't even like to use that competitor, that word.
Lisa Jauregui (46:50.7)
Ha ha
Erin Patten (47:15.22)
But who's watching our peers in the space, you know, go viral, or people, you know, like you or others that you see that are in your peers space when you see something take off or them. I just saw your story the other day. You were talking about how like Bobby Brown and Molly Sims were like going at it for you know being accused of stealing somebody's stuff. You know, what do you say, you know, when people are wanting to chase the same play that someone else does to go viral?
Because that's a real thing. Like that's the whole point of social media, is like you get inspired by an influencer. You're an influencer for a reason. If it worked for you, maybe it'll work for me. You know, so and and oftentimes that's how trends start, because people are doing the same thing over and over, but just as themselves. so what's your thinking around that? And what do you say to founders who are thinking that's a good strategy?
Lisa Jauregui (48:08.169)
Yeah, I mean I think the truth is that in in s you know and and I don't think it's exclusive to beauty, but I think in general there's so much oversaturation in so many categories, but it's especially beauty. And I think I think that you know
Erin Patten (48:23.348)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (48:27.387)
you will find brands with what might look like similar names or similar shade names or similar products, but I think that really it comes down to your brand and you know the the quality, the integrity of the product and your customer's experience. but in terms of like going viral, you know, I I think I would love a viral viral moment, virality, but I think stability is more important to me. because virality
Erin Patten (48:52.821)
Mm.
Lisa Jauregui (48:54.525)
can be great, but if it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have a stable business year after year after year. And that's what I'd rather have than one year that it's like this and then from there it's just down. And I'll never forget having had this conversation with a in a private equity guy at a that was at a brand that I worked with. I was at this brand and and they had his private equity firm had just invested into this brand. And this brand had been around for, you know, 20 years before it took on outside funding. 20 years.
Erin Patten (48:59.399)
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
Erin Patten (49:07.731)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (49:23.355)
And it definitely wasn't a brand that's viral by any means. You know, they never had a viral moment. But I was telling him about my brand. And of course I was all proud. And I was telling him about our success and our growth. And, you know, and he's like, you know, how long have you been around? And I'm like, Well, we've been around for five years. And he's like, Yeah, he's like, we actually don't like to invest in brands like yours, is what he said. He said, you know, we would rather invest in a brand that has stability and longevity.
Than a super fast growing brand, right? and that really stuck with me because I think it really made me, it really humbled me. And I realized like, okay, these last these last four years have been great, but don't attach don't attach yourself to this because this isn't guaranteed. You know, it's not guaranteed. Like next year, I and so I just like when I look at the Inc. 5000 list and hitting it year after year, like to me that I'm so proud of that because
Erin Patten (49:48.734)
Mm.
Yeah.
Erin Patten (49:57.789)
Mm.
Erin Patten (50:04.179)
That part.
Lisa Jauregui (50:15.271)
Again, it's it's sustaining growth like that just proves that you have a stable business and that's my goal, right? So to anyone that's listening that's frustrated because they haven't had that viral moment, like it's okay. You know, I think just having a business that has steady, stable growth year after year is it's the long game, but ultimately I'd rather have that than have a brand that's hot one year and forgotten about the next, you know.
Erin Patten (50:20.691)
yeah.
Erin Patten (50:41.533)
Yes. What a word. I hope we all are listening. Like I said, myself included, because we all are chasing that fame. We're all are chasing the 15 seconds of fame. And and I and the reason why I'm saying it is because I have personally experienced this. Like as a creator, as a brand, as a this I have my my product right here, my raw beauty. And I showed up the show. And it's just like I
Lisa Jauregui (51:08.095)
Wow.
Erin Patten (51:11.783)
I feel like that that's the way because that's what you see happening. But to hear from someone like the private equity guy and and for you to to sit here very vulnerably and share how it humbled you as someone, he would people would just look at and be like, She got it going on, what are you talking about? You know? And because that stability is exactly what we should be arcing towards and what we should be inspired by and really
committed to. It's a really a dedication. And a lot of times we want the get get quick, get rich quick, you know, scheme. And you know, that's really kind of what Instagram is, you know, what viral is, you know, at at at the core. And the get rich quick, like you said, it's always a boom and a bust. And so certainly the s the the slow and steady wins the race, you know, the tortoise and the hare, like the however you want to name it, the concept
Lisa Jauregui (51:57.215)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (52:07.605)
applies everywhere. And I'm just so glad to hear this and really affirm this. And yeah, so thank you for that. Yeah. And so I really want to get into the lightning round since we're we're getting towards the end here. And you know your beauty maiden and the guru. So what's your morning non-negotiable?
Lisa Jauregui (52:15.923)
Yeah, definitely.
Lisa Jauregui (52:33.363)
In terms of beauty products? Or like okay, and am I not
Erin Patten (52:34.877)
Yeah, let's do beauty. Let's do both beauty and then just like wellness in general.
Lisa Jauregui (52:40.061)
Okay. my non-negotiable for beaut for beauty is I mean, just like I guess my skincare routine, my morning skincare routine, you know, I I have a little it's it's it's not a complicated routine, but I've used my essence, I use my serum, and I use my moisturizer and my SPF. And that has to happen every morning, whether I'm leaving the house or not. And then my my wellness non-negotiable is a I I drink this thing called bio coffee. They come in little s individual packets. I can you can order them on Amazon. but it's
Erin Patten (52:49.503)
Yes.
Erin Patten (52:59.551)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (53:09.403)
It's essentially like decaf coffee, but it also has wheatgrass in it. It sounds terrible, but it's actually very, very good. It's very good. It basically tastes like coffee with creamer in it, but it's non-dairy and it's got all these other great ingredients in it for you. Yeah. And I I love that. I travel with it. I will if I don't have my bio coffee in the morning, like something's gone wrong.
Erin Patten (53:22.911)
Cool. All right.
Erin Patten (53:30.805)
Cool. All right. I've never heard of that. Thank you for that. okay, this one's a good one. What's the most expensive lesson you've ever paid?
Lisa Jauregui (53:41.107)
Gosh, I st okay, I don't know. I might need a second to think about this. What's one that you've had? What would what would be yours? That might spark some ideas in my head. Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (53:49.685)
most expensive lesson? I would say investing in people who I didn't who am in my core, my my gut told me that they were maybe not trustworthy and then my gut proved me right.
Lisa Jauregui (54:07.241)
Girl, okay. I'm not trying to steal yours, but as soon as you said that, as soon as you said that, that just yes. I mean, I hate to take it because it's yours. Maybe I should give you another one. But yes, that has happened to me before. And that would definitely be my most expensive, you know, my most expensive. But let me think if I have another one.
Erin Patten (54:09.578)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (54:22.696)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (54:32.189)
I don't know that this necessarily costs us financially, but one lesson I learned early in the business and the brand was
You know, being really careful with like pre-order, you know, when we launched, we had our inventory, you know, we were tracking it was supposed to be here. So I so I started accepting orders before we actually physically had our inventory with us. And what ended up happening was the inventory was delayed and delayed and I had promised people orders would go out at this certain date and we were approaching that date and I had thousands of orders, but I didn't even have the product yet to start.
Erin Patten (54:54.742)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Patten (55:01.021)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (55:07.213)
And that was pretty terrifying. it didn't cost me a lot financially, but it cost me a lot of sleep because I was up till morning for days and days making sure that those orders got packed. And they did get out as promised, but I will never do that again. I will never pre-order pre order sell anything. Until the inventory is in my possession, nothing's getting sold.
Erin Patten (55:13.387)
Yes.
Erin Patten (55:27.498)
That is very good because that reminds me too. I had a very similar experience back in the Kickstarter days. And people, and I had and I launched a Kickstarter campaign for my first beauty brand. This was in 2017, 20 beginning of 2018. And it took months for this, you know, product to be developed. And of course, people have paid. And I'm sure this is probably why Kickstarter and a lot of these platforms fell off, because people would raise all this money and then never deliver the product.
Lisa Jauregui (55:33.621)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Jauregui (55:55.669)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (55:56.233)
And so luckily I was able to deliver the product and it was beautiful, all those things. but you know, I definitely agree that sometimes we get ahead of ourselves wanting to secure the bag. And reality, we want to make sure that we understand what commerce is and at the end of the day, it's an exchange. And so if someone's offering you something, you want to make sure you have what they have given back, you know, what they expect back. And so I think that, you know, that's essentially at the core what business is.
Lisa Jauregui (56:15.262)
Yes.
Lisa Jauregui (56:22.717)
Absolutely.
Yeah. And if you don't deliver, that if probably costs you that customer for life. That customer's probably not coming back. So yeah.
Erin Patten (56:31.774)
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And the expense, like you said, it wasn't the money. It was, you know, it's the reputation. It's the sleepless nights. It's, you know, it's the emotional tax, which is way more expensive than any dollar. Yeah. Very good. what's a phrase that your daughters have taught you?
Lisa Jauregui (56:45.979)
Yep, that's right.
Lisa Jauregui (56:51.357)
A phrase. I mean the first one that comes to mind is bro. But yeah.
Erin Patten (56:52.532)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (56:56.63)
Yes. Maybe one that you use on VK, 'cause I know y'all are so trendy and y'all have these cute little reels all the time. What's something that y'all always are sharing on on your trending?
Lisa Jauregui (57:09.711)
gosh. Well the key to that is having like you know a social media team that's that's much younger than me and just you know on it. They have the pulse of social content and they know all the trends. And it's really funny. It's really funny because a few couple years ago when TikTok came on board and all these funny trends and funny videos were you know popping off and people they were going, you know, more viral, getting a lot of attention, the social team would come to me and they'd have these ideas. And I remember thinking like reading like what they wanted me to do, and I'm like
Erin Patten (57:19.615)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (57:37.674)
That's silly. Like, why am I gonna do that? Yeah, I'm 40 years old. I'm not gonna do that. And now it's funny because I actually love doing those videos. Like we have so much fun. It's like I have so much fun. I don't take myself so seriously, which I can I have history of doing that. I, you know, it's all about like that inner child and like having fun and and not caring so much. And and so it's funny now that I look because now I love I love those days when they're like, Okay, Lisa, we're gonna film all of these trends. And I laugh and I'm it's just like this, this is
Erin Patten (57:44.51)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (57:48.532)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (58:05.373)
It's taught me to not take myself so serious seriously, which is such a great thing to keep in mind.
Erin Patten (58:11.284)
That that's a gem, especially as we went because I'm also I'm also in my 40s, I'm 41. And looking at this, I'm just like, why would I do that? Like it's totally like not me. But you know, but at the end of the day, it's like you like you said, tapping into that inner child, like tapping into that playful aspect of yourself that didn't care about being silly or seen or goofy. Cause I used to be
Lisa Jauregui (58:20.533)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (58:33.277)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (58:34.016)
super goofy when I was a kid. And so like I think that like that's really good and really great advice for us as we, you know, as we're, you know, mature in life and kind of get disconnected from that aspect of ourself, that's so good.
Lisa Jauregui (58:47.603)
Yeah, it really is. They actually have a whole day in Hoffman process dedicated to y connecting with your inner child.
and I remember really clearly at the end of that day, we were all laying on the floor and it was they had turned the lights off and we're looking at this like light show on the ceiling. And I remember crying because I was so overwhelmed with emotion from like what I just experienced and allowed myself, allowed myself to experience, you know? so it's really, really important to to connect with your inner child. And you know, I remember having this thought in that room that night that maybe I'm not gonna do all the silly things that I did that day, every day of my life. But it really made me think like, okay, the next time my daughter wants me to go down.
Erin Patten (59:10.676)
Yeah.
Lisa Jauregui (59:25.099)
the water slide at the theme park, do it. You know, don't think, I don't want to get my hair wet. I don't want to do this. Like just do it, you know? or like, yeah, it's that's your inner child, right? That's your inner child.
Erin Patten (59:28.884)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (59:35.306)
Literally. Yeah. Yeah. So good. All right. So this is so good. A beauty product you take on a desert island that's not yours. Like if you had one product you had to say you're stranded on a desert, what would you could you not live without?
Lisa Jauregui (59:48.893)
Okay, not
Lisa Jauregui (59:54.71)
I mean, the first thing is gonna be my tinted SPF. It's by a brand called Elastin. It's SPF, so I'm gonna need that on that island, but it's also like makeup. It's like, you know, I could you could skip foundation and just wear that.
Erin Patten (01:00:00.248)
Yeah.
Erin Patten (01:00:05.651)
Yeah, yes. I love t I still to this day use my Laura Mercy Atencent Moisturizer. Like I haven't changed my beauty in forever, but yeah, I'm obsessed. okay, and then the last one is what's one word for the next chapter of BK Beauty?
Lisa Jauregui (01:00:13.211)
Yeah. Yeah, they're good.
Lisa Jauregui (01:00:21.569)
One word for the next chapter of BK Beauty. gosh, that's gonna be tough. I mean, okay, let me think out loud here if that's okay. You know, so we're really we're really focused on this next chapter of BK Beauty is about, you know, getting into color cosmetics, developing a new category. Cause we've been pretty much exclusively brushes pretty much the whole seven years that we've been around.
Erin Patten (01:00:30.997)
Yeah, that's that's fine.
Lisa Jauregui (01:00:47.111)
And so it almost feels like a r a new brand, like kind of rebirthing a new brand, even though it's part of our brand. It's almost like this whole new brand. And I'm having a lot of of of fun like learning about product development. And so I don't know what would my word be kind of colorful. I love that. And we're gonna go with colorful, yes. Yes. Yeah.
Erin Patten (01:01:04.971)
Would it be colourful?
Full of color. It's colorful. Yes! I love it. I love it. Because it also is colorful, it's diverse. It's colorful, has such such such depth to it as a word too.
Lisa Jauregui (01:01:16.837)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's fun to be it's fun for our social team because I, you know, they get to create content with with color cosmetics and we're getting to work with models now. You know, with when we get to do these elaborate photo shoots with just brushes. It was such it was just like, you know, like more simple. There's not a a whole lot. You know, I I talked to my social team, I'm like, I don't know how you guys have been creating content, different content for seven years on just one product category, you know. So
I just I'm so excited about about, you know, color cosmetics and expanding and how that's gonna just re energize and give so much like life and fun to not just the brand but our team.
Erin Patten (01:01:56.48)
Yeah, and it's gonna give something for those brushes to touch. That's yours also. Yeah, so my god, what a fantastic conversation. before we sign off, I just want you again to just share where people can learn about BK Beauty. maybe not again, because we haven't actually told people where they can find BK Beauty.
Lisa Jauregui (01:01:59.9)
Exactly. Yep. That's right.
Erin Patten (01:02:22.155)
But tell them where they can find you, where they can find BK Beauty. If there's any other things that you wanna promote or offer, you know, certainly this is the chance.
Lisa Jauregui (01:02:31.081)
Thank you, Aaron. So yes, we're at bkbeauty.com. You can also buy us on ulta.com and nordstrom.com. and on Amazon and TikTok shop. and then on socials, we are at the BK Beauty. And then me personally, I am at the Lisa J makeup.
Erin Patten (01:02:48.407)
And for all of you who have stayed with us through the show, I just want to thank you. And again, you know, plug raw beauty, my baby brand, my baby beauty brand. This was just such I would say enlightening. It was an inspiring and informative conversation for me as a founder and just as an individual. So
You know, I just want to again thank you so much, Lisa, for being on the show. And for those that want to learn more about what I do, you can find me across social media at I Am Erin Patton. Also learn more about the healing work that I do, the metaphysical work that I do at my website, AaronPatton.com. And when you want to check out more conversations like these, you come back to this show, the Meta Business Millennial Podcast. We will see you on the next episode. Much love and light. Peace.
Yeah.