HDTV was a great invention that made it tough on the make-up artists. Rea Ann Silva created a solution and a million sales later…
Dave Young:
Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients, so here’s one of those.
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Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple. And, Stephen, the topic that you just told me is Beauty Blender.
Stephen Semple:
Yes.
Dave Young:
I have no idea. You said this one would probably stump me, and you’re absolutely right. The thing that popped into my head was, because you’re Canadian and you said Beauty Blender, my only thought was, “Beauty Blender, eh? She’s a beauty, eh?” Canadians. I don’t know if it’s a Canadian product or not, but it ought to be.
Stephen Semple:
But not. I wish it was.
Dave Young:
Tell me about the Beauty Blender.
Stephen Semple:
So Beauty Blender was started by Rea Ann Silva, and it’s this teardrop-shaped sponge that’s used for applying makeup. Now to wet your whistle, why are we talking about a little sponge for applying makeup? She came up with this idea in 2001, and it’s privately owned company, but the best I could find is that they’ve sold 100 million sponges at 20 bucks apiece. Have I got-
Dave Young:
Oh, my gosh.
Stephen Semple:
…your attention?
Dave Young:
Do they look like a little cone, almost like an ice cream cone?
Stephen Semple:
Yeah, or like an egg.
Dave Young:
I’ve actually seen them, or pictures of them or something like that.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Well, and look, when you come across something where you find out there’s been 100 million of these things sold at $20 apiece when your competitive product is free, I’m like, “Okay, you’ve got my damn attention. What the hell? What the hell? I need to find out about this.”
So as I mentioned, it was founded by Rea Ann Silva, and this is really a story of unexpected consequences and opportunities presented by new technology. That’s what this is all about, which is what really also caught my attention because, remember, in early 2000, HDTV came out. And for those of us who remember that coming out, it changed the world. The step from high def to other things was not as dramatic as when high definition TV came out in terms of this clarity. And it actually created a huge challenge for makeup because it was now so super clear that every pimple, every pore could be seen because all of a sudden it was just this extra unbelievable clarity.
Dave Young:
We end up being too good.
Stephen Semple:
In many ways, yes. And this created an opportunity because makeup folks were really struggling with what to do about this. It was this really big challenge.
Dave Young:
When Zoom started, and it’s still this way, there’s a setting on Zoom to enhance your face, enhance your appearance.
Stephen Semple:
Oh, is that right?
Dave Young:
Yeah, it all it does is it just basically kind of does the same thing that I think this beauty brush does, which is smooth out the little wrinkles in your face and actually blurs you just slightly so that people don’t see the wretched look of your aged face.
Stephen Semple:
So basically it goes pre-HDTV.
Dave Young:
I’m taking this way off track, but so high def TV starts to show all the little flaws even in somebody that’s well made up.
Stephen Semple:
Yes, and this is the problem. So in early 2000, Rea Ann is working in Hollywood on the set of the show Girlfriends, and she’s trying to make makeup not show up. So she actually made this special tool. So she was taking sponges and clipping them and everything else, and she shaped one like a teardrop.
It also had other properties that changed the world of makeup, but this is how it got developed in the first place because it was that that then allowed her to smooth out the transition of the makeup. This is how it got developed in the first place, but also how it moved from a niche professional product to a consumer product is also really interesting, especially when you consider makeup comes with a little free sponge already-
Dave Young:
Right. Yeah. It’s already got that built in.
Stephen Semple:
So Rea Ann was born to a working class family in southern California in the seventies, and she had no direction as a teen. Her dad was a mechanic who raced cars and bikes, and her mom was a waitress. And the mindset of the family was, “You have to have a trade.” No one in the family had gone to college. “You’ve got to have a trade.”
So the mom encouraged her to join a fashion school. So she signed her up for the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in California. And her mom was super fashionable and she thought this was a good idea, and her mom took out a loan for her to go to school. So while in school, Rea Ann got a job selling perfume. And so basically when you sell perfume, you dress up in high heels and spray people with perfume.
Dave Young:
You ambush people in the department store.
Stephen Semple:
And that’s exactly how she worded it. And she said, “This is a great way to live a solitary life.” So she realized this is a terrible job. She was sick of perfume. It was a minimum wage. She was pissing people off while walking around in the high heels. Meanwhile, she looked over at the cosmetic counter and she saw people laughing. It’s a positive experience. Plus they were making commish, right? They were making money.
Dave Young:
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
So she said, “I need to go there.” And she convinced someone to hire her. And at the same time, she moved into an apartment in California where she met a makeup artist. And in the makeup business, you either do retail or production. And to her, production looked exciting and she learned there was good money. So she decided she wanted to do that. Now, at the time she was a single mom, so she needed to make a living. And that looked good to her. It was a hard business to break into because producers had their people. Actors had their people.
Dave Young:
Okay. So when you say you have to go into production, you’re talking about movie and TV production.
Stephen Semple:
Correct.
Dave Young:
Not producing cosmetics.
Stephen Semple:
No. Correct.
Dave Young:
But everybody has somebody.
Stephen Semple:
But everybody has somebody. But it’s the early eighties. And what launched in the early eighties?
Dave Young:
I want my MTV.
Stephen Semple:
This is why you’re so brilliant, Dave. Absolutely correct. And if people want to listen to the story of MTV, go back to episode 88.
Dave Young:
And now everybody’s making music videos.
Stephen Semple:
Suddenly, there was all sorts of musicians who for the first time were on camera and did not have their people. So she would find out where music videos were being shot and she would just show up with her stuff.
Dave Young:
Nice.
Stephen Semple:
And sometimes she would say they hadn’t even thought about the fact that they needed a makeup artist. So she started to do lots of musical artists and she got known in the music industry, and she started doing them for videos and photos. And over the years, her skill set upped a ton. And she’s doing lots of makeup. She’s making six figures, but she’s away from her kid a lot and she has to be on site. It’s exhausting and a lot of pressure. You have to be there all day.
Dave Young:
Yeah. You’re touching people up all day, too, right? It’s not just done.
Stephen Semple:
And this is the breakthrough is exactly the touch-up thing. She took a class and what she learned was the importance of water on a sponge for applying makeup. You actually wanted a little bit of water on the sponge because it basically, it makes it so that the makeup is not absorbed by the sponge. It’s actually repelled by the sponge. So it’s easier to apply. And so along comes HDTV in 2000. It changes the makeup challenges, as we were talking about, because you’re needing to get this seamless look.
Now here’s the thing. You can get a seamless look with an airbrush, but you can’t run a compressor during a shoot. So how do you do touch-ups? So she took a sponge and started to play with the shape. So she made these sponges with no edges to them. And at the same time, she was also thinking about how she needed to find other ways to make money because it was hard to keep up the schedule.
And so she created this sponge, and she realized others are going to need this tool. This is the future, because high def is happening more and more and more. And so originally the idea, this was just going to be an industry tool. So she started to research makeup sponges, and as she traveled around the world, she would collect sponges and see where they were made, who distributed it, all that stuff because that’s all on the packaging.
Made by, distributed by, right?
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
And one day, she picked up one made by Victoria Vogue, who turned out were in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. And they made beauty implements that included sponges. So what did she do? She called them up and asked to speak with someone in product development because she said, “I have an idea.” Hold please.
So she basically gets a hold of someone. But here’s what she’s told. “Rea Ann, we have over 400 patents. We are likely already know what you’re doing.” But Rea Ann, she was persistent. She said to her, “Who designs your makeup sponges? Product engineers or makeup artists?” And it turns out they had never worked with a makeup artist. So she said to them, “Well, if you’ve never worked with a makeup artist, maybe you need to listen to me.” I was like, “Okay, what’s your idea?”
Dave Young:
Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this.
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Dave Young:
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Stephen Semple:
So they go through the whole NDA process and all of a sudden it’s like, “Wow, why did we not think of this?”
Dave Young:
Because you’re not makeup artists.
Stephen Semple:
Because you’re not makeup artists. And at the time, Rea Ann was looking for a collaboration, and what she was actually hoping is that they would just license from her. And they weren’t interested in doing that. So when you think about it, a lot of these challenges sound like Leatherman, right?
Dave Young:
Yeah.
Stephen Semple:
Where he developed something, and he just wanted to license it. But all was not lost. There was a lady there, Catherine Bailey, who basically really liked the idea, and she was told she could work on it in her, basically, spare time and ended up becoming a labor of love. And it took them several years to get it right. It was actually several years of development to get the shape right, get the material of the sponge right. Rea Ann invested $75,000 into this.
Dave Young:
Wow.
Stephen Semple:
She mortgaged her house. You look at that and you don’t realize, “Wow, it took years to make this and tens of thousands of dollars of investment?” Then one day they had it right. And what she started to do was give samples to makeup artists that she knew. Just started off giving them away because she had lots of credibility with them. They were members of her tribe. This is a lot like how Inov-8 got started back in episode 37. “I’m a trail runner. You’re a trail runner. Try out my trail running shoes.”
And then she also started selling to pro stores because, again, she had credibility with them. She had a relationship with them, her customers knew them. Next thing you know, consumers started to look for it. Somehow consumers found out about this. So she went to her pro stores. So she said, Okay, I do want to sell to consumers.” So she went to the pro stores and asked them, “Who’s your favorite sales rep?” And I thought this was brilliant. And then she went to that sales rep and hired that sales rep to sell her product.
So what they first decided to do is they wanted to do small boutiques because the product cost 20 bucks, competition was free, but in small boutiques, it was easier to spend time with the salespeople. Typically, the salespeople had conversations with the customer. So they felt it was much easier to get that education and engagement piece done in small boutiques. And then in 2012, Sephora and Ulta wanted to sell her product, but what she felt was being rooted in the pro community really helped her because consumers and influencers are influenced by the pros.
Dave Young:
Especially in beauty and those lines. It’s like, Oh, who did some famous star’s makeup? What does the famous starlet use?” Starlet.
Stephen Semple:
Exactly.
Dave Young:
That’s not even a word anymore.
Stephen Semple:
No, no, it’s not.
Dave Young:
Come on.
Stephen Semple:
Now a YouTuber, right?
Dave Young:
This is the definition of influencers.
Stephen Semple:
And she moved on to start a makeup line as well. And she has an interesting story about how she invested $2 million in a launch and screwed up the launch, but still managed to sell it out. But the big thing that she recognized, even on the screw-up of the one launch was it set up conversations. And anytime you’re having conversations with your customer, even if it’s explaining a mistake, it’s a good thing. They now have a full line of complexion products. And here’s the other fun thing is she still owns 100% of the company. There’s no outside investment.
Dave Young:
Nice. And how many has she sold? Gazillion million of them?
Stephen Semple:
Oh, well, this is just of the Beauty Blender, like the sponge. It’s estimated 100 million of them of them, and then now she has all these other product lines as well.
Dave Young:
So she’s doing okay.
Stephen Semple:
She’s doing okay. But the thing I found interesting. I couldn’t help but think of Buck Duke and American Tobacco in terms of this unexpected opportunity due to the change in technology. So the Industrial Revolution opened up that opportunity because of the 15-minute work break for cigarettes instead of pipes and cigars.
Dave Young:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Semple:
HDTV opened up this opportunity for a new beauty product. But not only that. MTV opened up the opportunity for her to even get into the business.
Dave Young:
Because it brought more people into the lights, into the lights and the cameras. All of a sudden, you had rockers. And you think about how many people are in some of those early music videos. Whole dance numbers and things.
Stephen Semple:
Absolutely. And they didn’t have their people. But what it got me thinking about is we are in a day today where there’s massive amounts of technological change on all sorts of conversations of fear of that technological change or things along that lines. And what I want people to think about is there’s these opportunities that are created on the margin of all of this technological change.
It’s not about the direct impact of the Industrial Revolution or the direct impact of HDTV. It’s these things that happen on the edge that create massive opportunities for new businesses and entrepreneurs. And I think the more we can keep our eye open for those things, the more we have opportunity to grow our businesses and create new ideas. And because there’s a lot of people and a lot of big money looking at the direct piece, but they’re not looking at the edges.
Dave Young:
It’s even hard to describe it sometimes. All of a sudden it’s no longer good enough to look good at 10 or 15 feet away.
Stephen Semple:
When it was being developed, no one thought about that.
Dave Young:
What kind of technological change is influencing your industry and what do those changes mean like you said, Stephen, out around the fringes? Sometimes the impact is direct and it’s a big impact. I was going to say impactful. That would be very redundant. The impact was impactful. But it’s that edge, it’s that outer edge. That’s where it can start poking around and looking for ways that it’s going to change things that you weren’t anticipated.
Stephen Semple:
The more I looked into the story, the more I was like, “Wow, this was really cool.” And I think it’s a lot to learn from Rea Ann. And so good for her.
Dave Young:
Rea Ann. What was her last name?
Stephen Semple:
Her last name? So it’s Rea Ann Silva.
Dave Young:
Silva. Yeah, I just want to remember that.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Amazing woman. All right. Thanks, David.
Dave Young:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a big, fat, juicy five-star rating and review. And if you have any questions about this or any other podcast episode, email to [email protected].
