Becoming Your Own Boss with Karissa Bodnar | #BossTalks | Salesforce

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new season of Boss Talks, a series featuring candid career advice from some of the best in the business. Today's episode is all about entrepreneurship. For some of us, working for someone else just won't cut it. Maybe you're operating a small business or you have dreams of building your own global brand. Being your own boss definitely has its perks, but it also comes with its own set of unique challenges. So today, we're going to take a deeper look into everything you need to know about running your own show. To give us the inside scoop, I've invited my good friend and founder of a brand I absolutely adore, Carissa Bodnar, founder and CEO of Thrive Cosmetics. Carissa, welcome to Boss Talk. So glad to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me, Ebony.

Now, Krissa, I'm excited to have you here for so many reasons. As you know, I am a major fan girl of Thrive, so this is going to be a lot of fun. So I think for everyone else, can you start by telling us what made you want to become an entrepreneur?

Yes. And before I get into that, the feeling is absolutely mutual. We're talking about Boss Talks, and we've got the ultimate boss, Ebony Hosina. So thank you so much for having me today. And really, the journey for starting Thrive Cosmetics was one that was built out of purpose. I was working in the beauty industry, in product development. I started in the beauty industry as a makeup artist, but I really wanted to create a brand that was about more than just selling makeup and skincare, and it was about helping people and empowering the world. And so from the very beginning, Thrive Cosmetics was built out of this vision of being bigger than beauty.

And did you know right away that you wanted to build a cause cosmetics company, or was it a process or a journey to get there?

I never thought that I would start a beauty brand. Never. I was so happy working for l' Oreal in their luxury division. And it was when I lost a close friend to cancer at just 24 years old. Her name was Christy. She was such a beautiful, vivacious spirit that really had dedicated her life to philanthropy. So while I was off climbing the corporate ladder, she was out helping people, teaching English to orphans. And after Christy. Christy passed, I was inspired by her life and the way that she packed so much thriving into 24 years. I knew that I needed to do the same thing. So I found myself at this crossroads where I absolutely loved creating products. And I also needed more purpose in my life. And so that the idea of Creating a bigger than beauty brand where every time somebody made a purchase we were giving back was really the idea for Thrive Cosmetics.

Oh, I love that. And thank you for sharing such a personal heartwarming story. Now, I know that a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs, but they have a hard time just focusing in on one thing. What is your advice to those folks out there for just figuring out what they wanna focus on?

It's a great question and honestly, it sounded crazy to me when I heard this. But early on I heard Mark Cuban say, you can drown an opportunity as an entrepreneur. And I thought, oh my gosh, for those first couple years, we had no customers, no retailer was interested in carrying us. So I was like, how can anyone drown in opportunity? We had no press, but once you start to get the business going, you really have to maintain a laser focus on your greater purpose. And so for us, you know, there as a direct to consumer beauty brand, we are now at the point where we get approached by different retailers or there's different opportunities for the brand to show up in different spaces. And so we are always ruthlessly prioritizing. And in those early days, I had to prioritize because it was like, do I work on the formulas or do I go try to get carried at retail or do I go knock on the door of this magazine to try and get them to talk about us? And so writing down my daily priorities was really, really helpful because things as an entrepreneur, especially in the beginning, are changing by the minute, by the day, and you're constantly having to look at your priorities to make sure that you're focused on that end goal.

I love that. I recently posted something that talked about my to do list and my to don't list. And that's my process for ruthlessly prioritizing. They're the things that I absolutely know I need to do. But for someone like me, I'll still think about all the other things, right? So then I'll put those on the TO and those things may come onto the to do list for another day. But just for today, those are the things I'm not going to do, so I can focus on the things I really need to prioritize. So I love that and thank you for sharing it. So I know for some people too, being your own boss might sound very glamorous, but it can be. I love that you laugh, you're like, okay, but it can be really scary to take that first step. So can you just share with us what that experience was like for you and how did you make that jump from l' Oreal to Thrive Cosmetics by.

Working a full time job. It helped me, of course, financially to fund the company. It also really helped me emotionally because entrepreneurship is really lonely. The other thing that really kept me going was our cause. So in the beginning of Thrive cosmetics, I donated 1,000 pairs of our false lashes and adhesive to women who were going through cancer treatment. And it was those people, you know, we were giving, but I was getting so much. And it was those people that we donated those products to. The letters from them directly, their boyfriends, their brothers, their sisters saying, wow, this made such an impact in my life and in my confidence, that kept me going. In fact, we name all our products after inspiring people. And one of the shadows that I'm wearing today, our Infinity waterproof eyeshadow stick, is named after this beautiful person named Galen, who was one of our first beneficiaries. And Galen kept me going because she was a huge part of my why in why I was doing Thrive Cosmetics.

Now, entrepreneurship is a lot of hard work. I think we've stressed that a lot, and I think that some people may not be prepared for that. So even just despite being a 7, 8 year old company, you still make many of the products yourself. And I know that you've made some of the formulations in your own kitchen. So I want to do a little bit of myth busting here. What are some things that people need to know, aspiring entrepreneurs especially need to know about starting their own business?

One thing that I want to definitely stress is that it doesn't matter if you have two employees or 200 employees, 2,000 employees. Nothing can be beneath you as an entrepreneur. You have to be willing to take out the trash. Because if you don't take out the trash, your team's not gonna take out the trash. And if you don't show up to meetings on time, they're not gonna show up to meetings on time. If you're not taking notes, they're not gonna do it.

And I love that you're modeling that behavior for your team from the very, very beginning. Right. Cause it sets that expectation and that sets the culture that people wanna come to. How do you decide who and when you bring on others? Whether it's an advisor, a coach, or a mentor? How do you, as a, as a founder and CEO, make that decision?

It's such a great question, and it's something that I'm still navigating, truthfully. I think as entrepreneurs, sometimes the growth of our company outgrows our personal growth. Speaking for myself. And so when I started Thrive Cosmetics, I had only managed a team of three to four people. And then fast forward, I'm overseeing a company of over 120 people. And so it was really important to me to fine tune my basic management skills while also learning to be an executive leading people who have a lot more experience than me. And the coach for me was so helpful for seeing around those corners. And again, I've had amazing advisors throughout my journey at Thrive Cosmetics, but hiring a coach that is responsible for my growth was so helpful.

Now, do you have to be a purpose driven person to work at Thrive? Because I know, as you've mentioned, you've built purpose in giving back into every aspect of the business. Even the name. Cosmetics is spelled C A U S E. And you give a portion, as you mentioned, to your proceeds to women in need. So what's your advice to people looking to build a brand that does good?

Yeah, I would say to work at Thrive Cosmetics, you do need to be purpose driven because there are going to be so many moments where it gets tough and the purpose for our brand is so big that if you're not aligned with that, it would be really challenging to be at Thrive Cosmetics. I would say, and I would say advice to people who are building purpose or who want to build a purpose driven brand. First of all, you don't have to like for us, it came out of a deep need within me to create a purpose driven brand. But if it's not authentic, people are going to be able to see right through that. We to date have donated to over 500 charities and that didn't happen by accident. That came from our team, our amazing team at Thrive Cosmetics, our customer base, our community giving partners who are, we call our charities giving partners who are recommending one another, who collaborate with one another. So I really think that authenticity in your cause is really important if you are going to be a purpose driven brand.

Okay, well, we have come to our final question and one of my favorite questions that I get to ask. So Carissa, what is your superpower?

I love this question. My superpower is my creative vision and seeing that in others.

Well, thank you, Carissa for joining us. Your story is just extremely inspiring and I love what you're building at Thrive Cosmetics. And I want to just thank you for empowering all of us and especially those aspiring entrepreneurs here at Boss Talks with your, with your information that you shared today. I hope you all were taking really good notes because there were so many gems in what you shared.

Thank you. So much. Ebony. Such an honor to be here today.

I hope you all enjoyed today's conversation. And to watch more episodes of Boss Talks, check out the new Salesforce Plus. And to continue boss building, head on over to trailblazer.salesforce.com to join millions of trailblazers who are learning relevant skills and growing our Trailblazer community. With that, thank you for tuning in to Boss Talks and we'll see you all next time.