EP 88: Building Purpose-Driven Brands with Female Founder Bassima Mroue

 Mimi:
Welcome to The Badass CEO Podcast. This is Mimi Maclean. I'm a mom of five, entrepreneur, Columbia Business School grad, CPA, and angel investor. I'm here to share with you my passion for entrepreneurship. Throughout my career, I have met many incredible people who have started businesses, disrupted industries, persevered, and turned opportunity into success. Each episode, we will discuss what it takes to become and continue to be a badass CEO, directly from the entrepreneurs who have made it happen. If you're new in your career, dreaming about starting your own business or already an entrepreneur, The Badass CEO Podcast is for you. I want to give you the drive and tools needed to succeed in following your dreams.

Mimi:
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Mimi:
Welcome back to the badass CEO. This is your host, Mimi Maclean. And today I have on Bassima Mroue, and she's a CEO and co-founder of SkinTē, the first ever collagen sparkling tea positioned as the intersection of beauty food and wellness.

Mimi:
This brand is experiencing rapid growth, was finalist for The Best Ingestible two years in a row by IBE, and has been recognized by the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Allure, Goop, US Weekly, Entrepreneur, PopSugar and WWD. Prior to SkinTē, Bassima helped drive ecosystem strategies for Spanx, the beloved brand that revolutionized shapewear. She also served as president of Sara Blakely's foundation and currently sits on the board. In 2014, she founded BHM Consulting, to partner with organizations poised on the edge of business and social transformation. Bassima also spent a decade at Nike incorporated working in various roles, such as IT, supply chain and strategy, which gave her broad experience and ignited her passion for building purpose driven brands.

Mimi:
To get your Top 10 Tips Every Entrepreneur Should Know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips. Bassima, thank you so much for coming on today. I'm so excited. There is so much to talk to you about, and I don't even know where to begin. But first of all, I've been to Côte d'Ivoire, Ivory Coast. I went into high school, oh no, I went in college actually with my professor who grew up there. And so beautiful. Is that where you grew up?

Bassima:
Yeah. Yeah, I grew up in Côte d'Ivoire. I was born in the US, but raised in Côte d'Ivoire, and then moved to Canada when I was 16 or 15, I should say.

Mimi:
Wow, that's amazing. That's a great experience too, as well.

Bassima:
Yeah.

Mimi:
But anyway, so yeah, let's get started/ you are one of the co-founders of SkinTē and I would love for you to just talk about a little bit about your journey because you had amazing career in corporate America as well, working at two of the best companies between Nike and Spanx. So I would love for you to just talk about your journey and what made you decide to leave corporate America since you were running and you had high positions there and start your own company.

Bassima:
Thank you. Yeah, I think I've always had the entrepreneurial bug since I was young because even when I worked in corporate America, I was always trying to do a lot of different things within that environment. But I loved my corporate experience. I feel like it really gave me such fantastic perspective. And then when I was ready to make the leap to be an entrepreneur and go all in, I was completely ready. There wasn't that feeling of should I, or should I not? It was 100%. But yeah, I worked even before Nike, I worked for five years at various companies, including Cargill, which is a really large private health company. And I worked at Eaton Hydraulics and General Mills. So I had various experiences there and I was in IT during that time. And when I went to Nike, they moved me around a lot.

Bassima:
So I felt like Nike was like my real life MBA. I did IT supply chain and then strategy and brand towards the end. And then with Spanx, I had the amazing experience of working for Sara Blakely. And I call it the inner MBA with Sara because that's where I really learned about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, just with what she did from an intuition standpoint and really facing your fears and taking the leaps.

Bassima:
So I feel so, so lucky. And I made the leap actually, after Nike and still went and worked for Spanx as a consultant. So in between that, it was kind of meant to be, I felt, because I left Nike because my health shut down. I had stage four endometriosis. I had to get back surgery. So I walked out and had my own midlife health crisis where I was really trying to figure out my purpose in life and really clear about the importance of health. And that's when I started the company with my two co-founders. And then to save money, I started consulting and that's what led me to Spanx. And so I feel like I got really lucky because I started it and then got to learn from Sara and then went and launched it.

Mimi:
And you had started another company. Is that the consultant company you were talking about in between?

Bassima:
Exactly. It's called BHM Consulting. Yep. And so that was what I was doing. But I ended up working full time for Sara for a couple years as my only client and then came back and started and launched the company in LA, in 2019.

Mimi:
Oh, that's great. And now how did you come up with the idea and how did you find your partners?

Bassima:
Yeah, so what's really interesting is my co-founder Dr. Amy Bader was my naturopathic doctor in Portland where Nike headquarters is for seven years, and she's phenomenal. And so she was my doctor all along. So after my back surgery, my surgeon actually said, "You should take a lot of collagen before, during and after your surgery." I hadn't even heard of collagen at the time and I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." So I started taking pills, powders and bone broth. And I quickly discovered that people, as I was healing from back surgery, everyone was like, "Did you go away? Did you go somewhere? Because your hair looks great and your skin." I'm like, "No, I really had back surgery." And I discovered the power of collagen, not only to heal you in terms of recovering from surgeries, but also for your skin, hair and nails.

Bassima:
And so I went to Dr. Bader at the time and I said "This collagen stuff's amazing, but I'm so sick of the pills. I can't do powders every day. I kind of get sick of it." And then I said, "There's only so much bone broth I can drink." And I didn't realize it at the moment, but I was articulating a white space when I said to her, "Do you have a brand that tastes better and that's easier." And she looked at me and she was like, "Well, I just got divorced and I've been doing a lot of collagen and a lot of my patients are inconsistent with the powders. So me and my best friend, Elizabeth, have created a recipe." Because Elizabeth has a culinary background, our third co-founder. They were best friends and they were, together, doing a lot of collagen as well and combining it with organic teas and herbs that are great for hormone balancing and all these other great benefits around your mood.

Bassima:
And so she gives me the recipe and I try it and I'm like, "That's great, but I don't have time for this. Can I buy it from you?" And that was that moment where she'd known for years that I'd done strategy at Nike as well. And so I said, "I'll do it pro bono. I'll write a plan for you guys. Can you guys just make it, I'll buy it." She's like, "No, no, if we're going to do this, we need to do it together."

Bassima:
And so it was super intuitive and we all were at a time in our lives where we'd been through major life transitions. Elizabeth suffered the tragic loss of a child two years before and it was horrific. And so it was really three women coming together, one facing a divorce, one with health issues and the other with tragic loss. And intuitively, we just knew we wanted to create this because we wanted something that was better for us. And we realized it was also something a lot of people would want as well. So it was kind of that lightning struck. And then we kind of parted ways when I went to consult. We parted ways more physically because I left Portland and started working for Sara as a consultant and then full time to save money. And so we did R&D for a couple years before we then went and launched it, and it's been an amazing journey.

Mimi:
What a great story, like how serendipitous to like be able to meet each other and then decide, okay, we're going to be partners and go from there and fill a white space. And then as far as funding, because that's always a big thing when people have ideas. You already had the kind of know-how of where to start implementing it and you had the doctor background and you had the person... So you had all the pieces and then just the physical money and also getting into doing a consumer product space is so hard as far as getting on shell space.

Bassima:
Yeah.

Mimi:
How did you do that? Did you guys self-fund it? Did you guys do friends and family right off the bat? Because you need inventory right off the bat.

Bassima:
It's a great question. If anyone watches Shark Tank, the sharks are always saying, "The beverage industry's a monster, it's so hard." And that's all we heard. And ignorance is bliss because we were kind of like, "Yeah, it's hard," but we didn't realize is how hard. And I'm really glad I didn't know how hard it was because I don't know if we would've started. So sometimes that ignorance is fantastic, not necessarily coming from the industry. But then we got a lot of naysayers kind of being like, this is really hard and it's capital intensive. And I still didn't realize what they meant by that. But now I do. You have to spend a lot in beverage industry. The margins are very low. It's not a high margin business. But it's a high risk, high reward type business and 97% of them fail, we recognized that.

Bassima:
But we were so passionate about the purpose and I think what drove Amy, Elizabeth and I is first is three women coming together. That's so special. And we all had so much respect for what we each did. There was never any kind of conflict around that. They didn't want to be CEO and I shouldn't be in the kitchen and I shouldn't be giving medical advice. So it was perfect in that sense. Fundraising, in the beginning, we put in a little bit of our own money.

Bassima:
And then what we did is we did a bit of a friends and family round and then got a VC in LA, BAM, which is one of the partners is Brian Lee and he's incredible. He co-founded Honest Company with Jessica Alba. He's fantastic. He was my first VC money and helped. After we raised a little bit of friends and family, then he came in and led that round. And that was game changing for us to have someone like him behind us. It's hard. I would say it looks so easy when you read the news and you're like, "They raised this much and they've got these amazing people." And we do, we have amazing investors.

Bassima:
But the journey's really hard and I went through a lot on a personal level, on a spiritual level around this fundraising process. And as you know, women get less than 2% of VC money and African American women get less than 0.2%.

Mimi:
Wow.

Bassima:
So it is a very, very difficult journey and I feel really lucky that we've been able to push through and we've raised nine million already and we're raising another three now. And I feel more confident now. It's interesting, now that I understand the process more and I've gotten past a few things, I feel like now fundraising is just part of the game and you just have to deal with it. You look at other brands, like Sara obviously with Spanx, owned a 100% of the company for so long. And whenever people come to me and say, "What do you think?" I'm like, "Get a high margin business and don't raise money if you can." But if it's a business you're passionate about and it is a low margin business, you also should go for it. So I feel like it's just understanding what you're dealing with.

Mimi:
Now, the reason why you need money though, in the beginning, did you decide to go... I had interviewed the CEO of Health-Ade and she went the route of smaller, longer, so she could keep more of it, meaning where she would go to the farmer's markets on the weekends and she kind of grew it that way, like smaller, word of mouth. But to go right away and try to get on the shelves of Whole Foods or any of these big grocery stores, just to give people who are listening kind of a basis, just to even make the cans and the brand, you're talking 100,000.

Bassima:
Yeah.

Mimi:
Like the cans or the labels of whatever you're putting on.

Bassima:
So these are the printed cans we call them. So just so people know what that means, that means the can comes with this printed on it, and it's a beautiful design. But before that, we did what are called sleeved cans. They're shrink wrapped on it. So basically, it's such a pain and you can do smaller quantities. And that's how we did. I think Health-Ade uses glass and it's a different product. Ours is shelf stable. So for us it's shelf stable, which is great. So the can is silver. After they fill it, they send it to another location and they put a sleeve on it and shrink wrap it with heat. So it's a whole process. But with that, you can do much smaller volumes. We did that and it was so hard because your yield loss is much higher. All sorts of things can go wrong, because your supply chain's a lot more complicated.

Bassima:
So when Amy, Elizabeth and I joke about the early days of how hard this was, it's crazy because anything can go wrong at any step of the process. And now, we're so proud. But last year, for the first time, we did printed cans. It's symbolic because it means we're able to handle the large volumes, we're growing significantly, and so now we can achieve the minimums. But that can make or break you if you didn't have a solution. I will never forget this brewery in Portland that we went to begged and they gave us a shot. They were a beer brewery, but they had these extra wonderful purified tanks and they agreed to do it for us. And then we would have a mobile can line, literally like a truck that shows up, it sets up shop and cans your product. It's so funny. And when I think of those early days, it's wild to think we went from that to where we are. But that's how we had to do it, and you had to get someone who believes in us to give us a shot and let us use their facility.

Mimi:
You have to be very resourceful and not give up. Right? You just got to keep finding, it's like just digging for the answer and finding it, which is great. Is there any tips that you would give for women who are looking for either angel investing or VC? Was there something that finally convinced Brian to do it or any? What would you say that was?

Bassima:
The funny thing about BAM, and I adore BAM. I think they're hands down the best VC in the country, literally in the world. I just don't have any outside of America. But they're so amazing because they understand founders, they're about the entrepreneur. When I first went to them and I met with Shamin, one of his partners, they actually said, "Can you come back when you have made more progress?" But they were so inspired. They're true entrepreneurs. I showed up with a silver can and a picture of the design. And they were like, "Okay, this is really cool." They love the innovation, they love the story. So my advice is don't worry about it being perfect. You need to build relationships. And you never know when that money will come through just having that person in your life and their expertise and their advice when that will come through.

Bassima:
So I was really focused on telling the story and the innovation, like why we created SkinTē. We were the first ever collagen sparkling tea on the market, three women coming together, why we did it. And what's been fascinating is like with Brian, his wife loved it. They take it home and they show it to their family and they loved it. They just said, "Come back when you've progressed a little more." And I came right back when I progressed and they immediately said in that meeting, "We're in, we're going to lead your around." So my advice is in the early days, it's all about the story, the innovation and passion. If you're not passionate about it, they're not going to ever believe you're going to weather the storm. So I think that's really important.

Bassima:
And also to show up. We went to Indie Beauty Expo. I talked to the founders of Indie Beauty Expo and I was like I've just got silver cans. This was in 2018 in Dallas. And I knew that Dallas had a great beauty market. And what was innovative about SkinTē is we started on the beauty side actually. In Indie Beauty Expo, we were the only can that ever showed up there. And they said, "It's okay. Why don't you show up? And maybe you'll get some data." So we were like, "Okay."

Bassima:
So we had silver cans and we had the photo and we couldn't believe.. We wanted people to trust what's in the can is it's clean, it's perfect, it's just not labeled. And they were tasting it, they were giving us feedback and it gave of us so much courage to move to the next step because we saw the reactions in Dallas. And we even tweaked our formula a little bit based on their feedback. And it gave us so much excitement to move to the next step, because there's nothing like that interaction with the consumer. So my advice is don't wait for it to be perfect. If you do, you're never going to launch. And the faster you get out there and start to get some feedback, the better it is to prepare you for the official launch.

Mimi:
True. And I think too, going back to the VC thing, VCs tend to now invest even earlier than they used to. Right? They used to want to be farther down in the series and they're almost kind of taking on an angel investor higher risk role.

Bassima:
They are yeah, really early stage. Yeah.

Mimi:
It's so true. Okay, so what would you say now? Because you definitely have been a part of companies that have been, between Spanx and Nike, that have been growing and kind of cutting edge. Now, running your own company, looking back, what would you wish you knew that you didn't know, as an entrepreneur and running your own company?

Bassima:
I think what I wish I had known is every person that we hired early on, and that helped us was like an angel to me. It's like you are coming in at a company that is so high risk. You're helping me, you're hardly getting paid. Maybe we give them a tiny bit of equity if the company exits. And I learned early on that I can't be that emotional about it, that there are people that are going to be with me early on that maybe in the next phase, SkinTē's not right for them or they're not right for SkinTē, just because of the phase we're in and the expertise required. That took a really emotional toll on me early on because at Nike it was so large, it was larger than life. It was a huge company. But I realized when it's your own, it's your baby and you feel so much loyalty to people that come to you.

Bassima:
So learning how to continue loyalty and have the relationships. And I have wonderful relationships with people that are no longer with the company that were there early on and I love them and I will never ever forget what they did for us. But I am now at peace that they're not with us now and what they learned from SkinTē's helping them in some way and they helped us in some way at that phase. So that was probably the biggest one.

Bassima:
And the other one was how hard it is to fundraise while launching a business and not having financial security. At Nike and Spanx, I felt very secure. Although a large company could lay you off, but it felt different. And with SkinTē, I didn't get paid and my partners and I didn't get paid for three years. We just used our savings. I condensed it down to a tiny little studio in LA because I wanted to pay for a really cheap place in a safe area. So I kind of went from living pretty comfortable to living really risky in a way. That's the difference, I think, between the corporate and the entrepreneur world, and you have no guarantees and you don't have the cushion of other, like a lot of resources, or the company, financial security.

Mimi:
Right. Especially as an angel investor, when I invest, I don't want to know that my money is going to the CEO's salary. That's such an early stage, typically when we invest, is the product hasn't been finished or it hasn't even been launched. And so you want that money going to either the press, like marketing, or you want it to go to validate the concept. So it is hard because you want the entrepreneurs to have as much skin in the game as the investor at that point. It's a tricky thing, is like, when do you pay the founders or how much do they take out, and when do you get the bigger office and all that.

Bassima:
It's funny you say that because we didn't. For three years, we went a little overboard. We only started getting paid recently and it did impact a lot of the investors. They were like, "Wow." What it said is these guys are really all in and we never... Our salaries are so low compared to our employees, to this day. And that was important to us because we wanted to make sure we attracted the best people and we had the long game in mind.

Mimi:
That's true. And you brought up a great point about the first lesson that you wish you knew is like the employees. I hear that time and time again, where employees and dealing with that and all that comes with it is one of the hardest parts that I think people don't realize running a business. And so I would love for you to just go in a little bit deeper with that, lessons that you learned, that you can have either parting ways. How did you do that in a way that you still have good relationships? Is there any advice that you have for people so that you're keeping their dignity or keeping their... How does that work? Because it does get really tricky, especially if you started as friends.

Bassima:
Yes.

Mimi:
Or relatives.

Bassima:
Yes. It's actually a great question. And I think it comes back to basics, which is respect in human. People always like, "It's a company." But it's people, it's people. And I think what I have been able to do is always show the love and the respect, even on their way out, that matters a lot to me that they're treated well and it's not just in the beginning. The other thing we did, we gave everyone equity early on.

Mimi:
Wow.

Bassima:
So if someone joined us, even super early on, we gave them a little bit of equity. They had to stay a certain amount of time for it to vest. So when they leave, I always say, "You're still part of SkinTē. You're still part of us. You're family. You're a part of us." A lot of them invested. A lot of my first people invested too and gave up some of their money.

Bassima:
So for me, it's a lot of you're part of the family, so much appreciation for where they're at and just super honest conversations around is this still fun for you? Does this still feel right? Because the person that is the initial part of it isn't necessarily the person that loves when it's starting to grow and get more official and more structured and processed. So I think having those really transparent conversations and looking them as humans first is really important and treating them with dignity on the way out is really important. You can't just be like, "Okay, cool, done, moving forward." I could never be that way. But again, I think I would advise don't get overly emotional about it, because I did.

Mimi:
It's hard not to, especially if you knew them before. Right?

Bassima:
Exactly.

Mimi:
Now, the company that you had started the consultant company before, one of your passions was sustainability. So can you talk about that and have you applied that to your company today?

Bassima:
Absolutely. It's funny that you mentioned real estate. I just want to say something, we don't have an office. People think we do because we're very professional. But we didn't do that yet because we wanted to let the best people, no matter where they live and find ways to come together, especially when COVID hit, everybody was like, "Oh my God, is your real estate." And we were like, "Well we had an office, so we're good."

Mimi:
Oh my God. That was perfect. You were ahead of the curve.

Bassima:
Yeah. You're ahead of the curve. We did it so well over Zoom. And then my thought was we come together several times a year as a team. But yeah, in terms of sustainability, that's why we did a can. So we looked at glass and we were like, glass is so beautiful and we should do glass. But the thing is, there are certain products that have to be in glass. So I get that. But if you look at the carbon footprint of glass, as amazing as it is, it has a bigger carbon footprint. And one of the most sustainable packaging is actually the can, and the most recyclable.

Bassima:
So we chose to do it in this format and still make it look super chic with the slim can. So that was one of the reasons we did that as well. And it's definitely really important to us. Packaging was another one, even though we were using corrugate, we were overpackaging it. And then we realized, the consumer doesn't want to deal with that many boxes either. Is there a way that we can make this a little bit more compact and less stuff in there? And we did that as well and started to streamline it. So it's really important for us to keep that at the forefront. Even with the innovation that's coming out, we thought about it that way.

Mimi:
Yeah, that's great. And then can you touch on, we touched on it a little bit before, but once you had your idea and you had the financing, how did you actually get onto the shelves? Do you have any tips about that? Was that something Brian helped you with, your investors helped you with or did you kind of were going from the dark and just started calling?

Bassima:
I had this amazing guy, I'm going to give him a shout out, CJ Roberts. He's amazing. He was with us early on and he continues to be a big friend of the company and he got us into Sprouts. And one of my board members had referred me to him. But we started off with DTC and it was me going to all these different spas. It was insane, on the road, one by one, and each one would take it one by one. But it was a lot of heavy lifting. And we realized quickly that a DTC business with beverage does cost a lot when there's not as much brand awareness. I believe the e-com play is huge for beverage. But I think in the very early days, it just costs you a lot more. So we were like, "Okay, we're definitely going to need to be in wholesale."

Bassima:
And he was the one who got us a meeting with Sprouts and he went in person and presented on our behalf. And usually, I talk to all the accounts. I had a great relationship with the Sprouts buyer, but he went at the time and he was number 23 to present at the end of the day. We were the only strength they took on the spot, apparently that day. And it was his passion and how he spoke about it and the innovation. So it was really exciting. But when that happened, everything turned around for us. We got into 340 stores nationwide with Sprouts.

Mimi:
Wow.

Bassima:
Early in 2020. So outside of that, I was the one who got us into Erewhon because we went to Indie Beauty Expo, and Erewhon is a boutique really high end.

Mimi:
That's the one thing about leaving, not the only thing, but one of the main things about leaving LA, I'm like, oh, I miss Erewhon.

Bassima:
Erewhon's near and dear to my heart. They found out about us from the beauty section because Indie Beauty Expo, who I love too, wrote an article about us. Based the article, the buyer for beauty at Erewhon reached out in the contact us form. I almost passed out. I was like Erewhon's reaching out to me. So then I went in person and met with the buyer and then they put us in beauty at first and then moved us to the grocery section in the cold section where there was a lot more traffic, and a beautiful relationship started from there.

Bassima:
So it really started with DTC and four Erewhon stores at the time. Then we expanded. That's all it was in 2019. And then towards the end of that year, I brought on someone who's a hustler, CJ and who's really savvy. And he was able to get us into Sprouts. And then from there, we started building the velocities and being able to showcase to other accounts. Another one that was really important was KeHE. Not to be too technical, but for those watching, KeHE's a really important distributor in UNFI. We had a huge opportunity with KeHE and we ended up being number one in their Elevate Program for startups. That was game changing too, it's getting the right structure in place early on to be able to get on the shelves and have that support was really important.

Mimi:
And what percentage would you say your business is now, that's direct to consumers versus going onto grocery stores and shelves?

Bassima:
Yeah. In year one, it was almost 50/50, and year two was closer to 30/70, 30% being e-com. And this year we're looking at potentially 30/70 again, maybe inching a little bit higher on e-com.

Mimi:
That's great. Okay. So is there any other words of advice that you would give? Because you can speak to both sides really, of climbing the corporate ladder as a female or starting your own business as far as any woman that's listening that tips that you've taken away as far as how to succeed and what makes you different. As you know, you were talking about some stats from the beginning of the podcast. But only 1.7% of businesses ever reach a million dollars in sales. Only 5% of CEOs are female. The stats are so low and it's like why is that? What can we do as women to make those changes?

Bassima:
I think the biggest thing is that it's about the journey, not the destination. And when you think about it as a journey, you really start to realize you just do whatever it takes, because you're going to grow spiritually, emotionally, and physically. You really are. And I say physical, because if you don't take care of yourself, if you don't work out, you start to really feel it and you go, "What's life worth if I'm just"..., which I did. At Nike, I was like, play hard, work hard. My health was suffering. It just didn't matter. It was all about the job. And I love Nike. I learned so much from Nike, but I wasn't in the right mental state, and I don't really believe 100% in balance. I think there are certain times in your life you're going to index heavier in one area versus another. But it's about holistically, when you look at your life, that you've been able to spend time on the personal and the work in a balanced way holistically. But not like every week is balanced.

Bassima:
But for me, I think as women look, I'm Lebanese and I grew up in a culture where my mom was married at 14, my grandma was married at 16. So I had to, early on, choose what's my path. And you have to have that confidence and you have to go inside. And I know that's so cliche and everybody says that, but it's really true. Even in corporate America, as a minority, as a woman who maybe doesn't look like everybody else, I would think about things. I remember at Nike talking about how I'm very bubbly and expressive. And could that make me look stupid or not as smart? I used to think about things like that. Should I be a little bit more serious and talking a certain way?

Bassima:
And I remember changing myself a little and then realizing, "Whoa, that's not who I am. That's going to make it worse." When I started being authentic and owning how my personality is, because of my culture and how I come up in the world and be at peace with that, then it all started to be smoother because I was confident. I didn't feel like I needed to try and be someone else. I think that imposter syndrome is huge with women. I think what the biggest reason women in startups maybe don't succeed is I learned it. I was insecure asking for money. I felt a little bit like it was desperate instead of, a lot of men would be like, "It's an opportunity."

Bassima:
And what I noticed is men are also just a lot more, like at Nike or Spanx, if they wanted to ask for pay raise, they had no qualms about it. It was like, "Yeah, I think I should be earning that much." Whether or not they were qualified, there was a kind of a swagger to them and a confidence about it. And I was like, "Would love just an extra 5%." And I went through all that. I went through being that person to suddenly snapping out of it and going, "You know what, just ask for what you want. It's that simple." They could say yes or could say no. And if they say no, then you have a choice to either continue or to find a different route. And you know you're valuable, so the confidence changed.

Bassima:
And then with investing I early on was so like, "Oh my God, oh my God, I'm asking for money. I'm taking their money. It's a burden." I would feel so stressed. I would be so worried. And then I realized, oh, investment is a world out there. It's a game, you lose some, you win some. They're coming in it with open eyes. This is a fantastic opportunity where three great women, why wouldn't you want to invest? And that narrative took me a while until now, to really kind of get clear on that. And even with valuation, a lot of the male led startups out there, they would come in with these high valuations and not care. And I'd be like, I need to make sure I don't give.. You can go high. And then if they want to go lower, they'll go lower. But a little bit of making it less personal and understanding that this is an investment world that I'm playing in, really was game changing for me.

Bassima:
And I started to learn how to ask for what I want. Whether or not I'm going to get it, it doesn't matter. Just ask. And when you ask what's fascinating is amazing things happen. Usually a no comes with, but let me connect you to these 10 people that might be more appropriate for you. So I think that's the thing with women. I think we really worry a lot more, I believe, than men do and we don't feel like we deserve it as much. And I think once you kind of let that go and feel like you own it, and the energy you emit is energy they're going to feel. So if you're sitting there feeling a little insecure... And one thing that's funny, I'll say is one fantastic investor woman, like a badass woman, which is appropriate for your podcast, she said to me, "Women always explain what happened in the past and kind of try to validate it or explain why it was like that, versus men are a little more forward looking and they'll just be like, 'We're going to do this.' They don't care what happened yesterday."

Bassima:
And I just noticed this with myself recently, when I brought on someone, a male, that is a fantastic CFO, COO. And he's my we're like, "Doesn't matter what happened last year. What matters is, we're in X number of stores right now, and this is where we're headed." And it was really powerful for me because there's a desire in me to kind of go, but here's why this happened last year and this wasn't perfect. And it doesn't matter. And I think keeping the big vision of the best entrepreneurs in the world have gone through ups and downs. And Brian Lee did say that to me at one point. He's like, "I have never seen one that's a straight line." So just to know that ups and downs are all part of it. It doesn't mean you're not going to be in the right direction. And so that was really helpful in my own personal growth.

Mimi:
No, it is true. Because my husband and I always talk about it. I'll be like, "Okay, why do you think that happened? Do I regret not doing that?" And he's like, "You don't regret anything in life. You just move forward." And I'm like, "Yeah. But I like to dissect it to figure out why it happened and make sure it doesn't happen." It's true, now that you say that. I'm like, that's exactly how our relationship is. Because I like to dissect the past. And he's like, "No, stop thinking about it. Just think about the future." But I think you're right, because I, as far as women, and it's not even confidence, it's just owning it and it's nobody else's fault. It's kind of like, I always say now, like I started doing direct selling in Beautycounter. I invested in Beautycounter and then I was like, oh, let me do direct selling. I've never done that before. I just want to learn.

Mimi:
And it was an eyeopening experience selling because you realize it's all numbers. So anybody who's younger, a woman listening to this, go get a sales job, even if it's for a summer, because what you learn in that timeframe is what you're talking about, that you could apply to anything in life because you can't take things personally. Right? And it's all about numbers. Every 10 people you talk to, you'll get one person to call you back. Or every 10 persons you talk to for even raising money or if it's buying something, it's all numbers and there's nothing personal about it and you can't take it personally. And I love your analogy about just going and asking for that raise or asking for that fundraising, because men don't seem to ever care about what people think.

Bassima:
No. And also, rejection is part of the game. And there are some fantastic entrepreneurs that got rejected early on. It's part of your story. And I always think about that now. I'm like, ah, these things that are happening, like when things don't go well or you get a no, you're like, "I'll show them later." It gives you more energy. And I didn't used to be like that. I took every rejection so personally. And I feel like the acting industry's like that, they get rejected so much. And that's part of the thick skin you have to build. And if you're going to be an entrepreneur and want to fundraise, then part of that is building that thick skin. And the biggest thing I realized was sometimes it's on them. The reason they say no is simply because it doesn't fit in their portfolio at that time, or there's some reason why they can't and something changed, or they just don't get it. Right?

Bassima:
And we don't do that as women, as much, saying "They don't get it. They're loss." And I started learning that men do, do that. And I think I'm talking about what men do well, but I also think what women do incredibly is I believe women have an incredibly collaborative process that is so important for the entrepreneurial journey. I think there's a way that we lead, that's really critical for the future of entrepreneurship for America. And there's a way that we include diversity. So I think there's so many things around the feminine that is so wonderful and that we need to keep that and hold onto that and how we lead. But then there's some things from the male energy side that we can learn from that I think, as it comes together, is really powerful.

Mimi:
In the future, where do you see, just keep growing, selling? What is what's in your cards for the future?

Bassima:
Every VC and investor wants to hear about the exit. I just focus about creating a purpose driven brand that impacts people's lives. So I keep my eye on that, knowing that the exit will come and the right thing will happen for this brand. For us, most beverage brands typically sell. So you kind of have to go in understanding that it's different than other businesses. So we understood that this is the kind of thing that would happen. So that's definitely there and we have a plan towards that and everything's great. But what we focus on is building the best team, the best brand and a purpose driven work, because that's what gets you up every single day. So my vision for SkinTē is that we stand for health and beauty from the inside out, that trusted brand that's all about that self care moment in the day that people take a time out and they know that they're drinking something that's so power packed they don't have to think about it.But it's just for them and really that time in your day, where you're focused on yourself, even if it's for five minutes.

Bassima:
So that's the movement we want to create, this idea, I call it micro self care, because not everybody has time to take a week off and go somewhere or the funds to do that. But if you can find that in some way. And we're huge believers in emotional wellbeing, and Hawthorn Berry, which is in our product, is all around mood. And that's really important to us as a brand. So we definitely have our eye on the prize at the end, but I'm really focused on the journey because I feel like the growth that comes from that, it's priceless. And I said it earlier, spiritually, emotionally and physically, I've grown the most doing this startup than anything else in my life.

Mimi:
This has been amazing. I'm so proud of you and everything you've accomplished. And even behind you is so beautiful, the pictures with the branding and everything. So I wish you the best of luck and thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it.

Bassima:
Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor.

Mimi:
Thank you for joining us on The Badass CEO. To get your copy of Top 10 Tips Every Entrepreneur Should Know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips. Also, please leave a review as it helps others find us. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. So email me at Mimi@thebadassceo.com. See you next week and thank you for listening.