EP43. The Mindset of a Beauty Entrepreneur

Hello and welcome to the Formula Botanica Green Beauty Conversations podcast. My name is Gemma. I'm your host and I'm also the relationship manager over at Formula Botanica. If you want to find out a little bit more about who we are and what we do, head over to formulabotanica.com and try out our free sample class. In this episode, I am interviewing Zeze Oriaki Sao from Malay Natural Science, all about navigating the modern entrepreneurial ecosystem. Enjoy. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Zoeze.

Thank you for having me.

I'm very excited to be able to have you here and chat to you. Lorraine and I saw you give a fabulous presentation or slash panel discussion at In Cosmetics in 2018, which was In Amsterdam, and we really wanted to get you to speak at our conference, but I think you just pretty much had your baby.

Yeah, I was pregnant. Living on the edge.

Yes. So I'm so glad that we've managed to connect and get you on the podcast. So I thought we would start off by getting you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Malay, your fabulous brand. Wow.

It's always difficult to introduce yourself in 2019 now because, you know, in the era of a social media bio, it's forever evolving. And I think with being a new mom, I guess my previous introductions seem to pale in comparison. So I guess as an introduction, my name is Azaria Kissel. I founded what I would call my first child, Malay Natural Science, in 2009. It's a brand that hopefully is changing more lives than I intended. And we tell different stories about the African landscape and scent using indigenous African ingredients with fragrance, body care, and soon to come skincare products. And by making people happy. A percentage of those proceeds go into helping to educate the next generation of children in Africa who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and they help them read with understanding so that the school system is something that works for them. And then when I'm moonlighting as a mum, I'm a chief diaper changer, baby rocker and all of the above.

So where in Africa is Malay based? Because I know you sort of have maybe multiple areas at the moment.

Yeah. So our offices are in Johannesburg in South Africa, and then we have a little office in London. So slowly growing.

Yeah. So do you have to do lots of traveling between the kind of two spaces?

Luckily, in the last year I have not. I've had a good enough excuse, but my daughter's passport just got issued, so I think that excuse is out of the window and I'll be back to living on the edge. So I try and balance my time between the UK being a new market, where we're trying to grow into more developed markets, and obviously servicing an existing business and where the roots of the brand actually is. So I try and sort of tether on the edge of the continents, but in the last year, I've been lucky enough to be pregnant, have a baby, and can't travel.

Okay, I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about how you started Malay and your entrepreneurial journey and just have a look at what you think about the entrepreneurial mindset. I know that we had a chat a while ago before we recorded this podcast, and you had quite a lot to say on that, and I was just very interested in. In your thoughts on that and if you would expand on that for our listeners.

I think what's most interesting now in the landscape when it comes to any entrepreneurial pursuit, is understanding why you've started what you're starting. I think entrepreneurship is a selfish endeavor in its inception because you are willing to create something. And I think perhaps this is where the definition of the entrepreneurial mindset tends to differ amongst practitioners, I would say, of entrepreneurship because some people see it as an art where they are creators who are creating a snapshot of real life in a specific time and place. Others see it as a skill where you can get good at anything if you put in enough hours and you work hard. Others see it as service where you are creating a solution for people that you care about. And I think lastly, there's this idea that it's your golden ticket to the life that you dream. And personally, I think it's a little bit of everything that I've mentioned now. And depending on who you speak to, you might find that some people lean more towards one of those narratives than the other. But I think that the mindset in how you approach it, depending on how you see entrepreneurship for yourself and how it comes into your existence. In my case, it was a situation of circumstance. It was the recession. I met my now husband, who was then my boyfriend, and he was moving to South Africa and I thought it was a great adventure and I couldn't get a job. I had a passion for the industry, had never worked in the industry. So my first degree is in informatics. I worked for British Telecom. I had just finished a master's at Grenoble Graduate Business School. So I was prepped to go into consultancy, management consultancy. I had no intention of becoming an entrepreneur. Literally my greatest ambition then was to get into the corporate world. And get on the corporate ladder and be a successful corporate being and make as much money as I could and afford a specific lifestyle and only to arrive in South Africa and to be unemployable, essentially, and being faced with the harsh reality that, you know, if you do not create the life that you would want, or even just create a life that affects change in some way, no one's going to give it to you. And especially at the time, the world was out economically, and I didn't instinctively see it as an opportunity. I think at the time, I saw it as something to do. And if I was going to spend my time doing something, it had to be doing something that I believed in, that was worthwhile and that I enjoyed. Because, hey, I had nothing to lose. I was already unemployed and I had no money and no sight of when the next pound was hitting my bank account. So if I was going to ride this wave out till the wheels fell off, I might as well do it on my own terms. And I think the mindset for me has evolved over time because at different times, I have leaned towards one of those ideals more than the other. But I think in general, for most people or for most entrepreneurs that I know who are successful at entrepreneurship or building a service or a product, that solves something for people, I think their endeavor is definitely rooted in service and is rooted in art and rooted in wanting to be the best at what they do.

Yeah, I mean, you talked about how your mindset had shifted. Let's just talk a little bit about that. Because I guess if you were kind of like an unexpected entrepreneur in a way, you know, where you just sort of thought, okay, I'm going to have to do this. I mean, what was your mindset like then? And, you know, how has it evolved into what it is now?

So in 2009, I guess anyone listening can cast their minds back to that time period. If you were an entrepreneur, you pretty much were just taking the easy road out of life because there weren't enough success stories that meant that it was possible for everyone. It was almost mystified. Entrepreneurship, right? You either were this beacon of success owning, you know, Apple or conglomerates, right. Or huge leaders in industry, or you were the struggling entrepreneur who didn't really want to do much in life and were hoping to get away with just kind of living with very little and chasing some sort of a dream that no one really believed in. And I think the change or the evolution of that in our consciousness now, Fast forward to 2019, where people now see themselves A little outside of the industrial era. So if you think of how business or even any industry was built, it was built on how do you serve or create a product that appeals to the largest possible group of people that you can ever speak to. And that meant we needed jobs and professions that did exactly that. And that meant that those jobs and professions didn't matter on individuality, but it mattered on your ability to repeat the same tasks over and over and do them exceptionally well. And only the very few who dared or were lucky enough to give more than just the minimum. Because, again, the industrial era teaches us that it's about giving just the minimum or just giving enough. So then at the end of the month, you get paid, and if you give just a little bit more, you get that pay rise. And. And so entering into a landscape like that, where my peers at the time, you know, were buying their first homes, everyone was talking about buying new cars and going on amazing holidays. And here I am turning around and saying, you know, I've decided to take my savings and create creams for a living in a market that everyone says is incredibly saturated and you need a lot of money to be competitive enough, in which logically sounds absolutely insane. And I think in the beginning, I started off without the confidence because I didn't have the success. I didn't have anything that said, actually, you are good at this or you can be good at this, so walk into a room and this is possible. And so I think in the inception, I was incredibly insecure. But I also learned that to push past that meant that I had to fail incredibly fast, because the faster I failed, the better I got and the more I was able to reach a different place. So the initial inspiration was going into a market and seeing the market for what it was. So you are in a place where economically, the people. The average person earns, you know, 30 pounds a month, and if that in some instances, but let's say the average person at about 30 pounds a month, and you go into that market and see a bunch of international brands who are not necessarily speaking with their voice and understanding the landscape, but coming in and creating business and market out of a place that has a lot more richness and depth to it. And in the same way we've been able to fall in love with a complete package of certain parts of the world, Latin America, Asia, I felt a deep sense of political rebellion to be able to create the same ability or to create perhaps a different perspective or a snapshot, if you could see or experience what, 5am in the morning before you go out on a safari game drive was, what does that do to your consciousness? And what does that do to your ability to see a different part of the world and experience it through something as evocative as scent and texture and something that makes a difference in your life and knowing that effectively, economically, it's making a difference in so many more lives. And I think the evolution for me has really been about realizing that that is my quest, and it's not really ever going to give me that sense of fulfillment, of achieving those milestones or those benchmarks from the industrial era, which is, you know, I'm able to go on X number of holidays a year and I can buy, you know, a latest shoe or the latest bag, and I'm going to run for the tube at a specific time in the day and wear my suit. And, you know, that was my picture of success. And that looks incredibly different now because I look at the number of people I'm able to help, I'm able to serve even the opportunity of being granted audience with your audience to share my experience and hopefully inspire them or motivate someone who is sitting, you know, in their home or in their kitchen listening to this podcast while they make their first homemade batch of lip balm because they've decided that this is what they want to do. I think understanding that everyone started in the exact same pace and our ability to push past that into what you will now see as success isn't because we had anything more special than you do right now in your kitchen, is because we just weren't so afraid at failing and giving generously along the way.

That's very interesting. I mean, we also talked a lot about in our conversation before the podcast about kind of perceptions versus reality, because obviously you were saying, you know, you had one idea of success at one time, you know, getting your degree, going out into the world and being successful that way, and kind of your idea of success has now changed, which, you know, obviously means different things to you right now. But the idea that your perception of success changes and you're now running something that you're passionate about doesn't always mean that everything is smooth sailing along the way, you know, so this idea that you're sort of living a dream and you're doing something you're passionate about and you're helping people, it's kind of the perception versus the reality of doing it.

Yeah. So I feel like it's something, you know, when you watch the cartoons and then you have the character and they're running, right? And they keep running, and somehow they're not going anywhere because they're stuck. And then it's like Tom and Jerry, and because Tom has Jerry's tail, but Jerry thinks he's running really fast and getting away. I feel like it's a mixture of. Of that. And then eventually Tom lets go and Jerry, like, flies into a dumpster or something. I feel like the perception and the reality is very much that. So there are times where you are living in the clouds because you do feel like, oh, my God, I'm living my best life. I'm getting it all. And you are, you know, I'm on Formula Botanica or I'm on cnn. And, you know, you're able to pay your bills and pay your staff and do all of those things. And that's what the world sees on the outside. But what they also don't see is the number of times you go flying into the dumpster because eventually Tom has let go of your tail, you know, off you go. And what they don't see is the number of times you fail, because no one really takes note of the failures. Once your successes start to amplify and somehow it doesn't make good news or doesn't make for a good story. So it's not something that's shared. The money you lose along the way or the decisions you make that sometimes aren't even things that you believe in. I think I entered into this year realizing one. One thing that was most important, which was if I'm able to consistently approach my business based on the things that I believe in and what I stand for, it doesn't matter if it works or not. Because statistically, we know that most ideas or most things you try most likely won't work. Right? Statistically, we're all aware of this. But if I'm happy with what I'm trying to, and I'm not doing it for the money, or I'm not doing it for the success of, you know, achieving. But I'm doing it because it's something I believe in and something that I will stand behind and in front of or beside any day of the week. Perhaps that is the upside, any day of the week. Because I'm consistently doing something that it doesn't matter whether or not I win at it. What matters is the fulfillment in the actual creation of it. And somehow, when I look at, I guess, the last nine and a half years of running Malay, what I realize is that my biggest successes have come from when that has been my mantra. And my motto, by focusing on that, I feel like it creates the opportunity to fail and it doesn't matter if you fail. So those fears are not things that you then are ruled by. And those fears do not affect what you create. But then you focus on the people that you want to solve problems for, which then becomes so much more enriching. Although, you know, there'll be the debate around. But somehow you cannot be expected to live on fumes and perception versus reality. Excuse me, we need to pay our bills. And there is that. And I think this is where, how you approach your journey is, where is most important.

Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that. And I think people think like when you're talking about failure, that every single thing is a failure. But what I found in is that often it's not everything at once. That's the failure. You're having kind of little things as you go along and you're like, okay, that's not quite worked out how I hoped. And it doesn't really matter how much you plan. There's always these little unexpected things that happen. You're like, oh, I didn't really foresee that happening with that plan. But hey ho, I now have to kind of just. I now have to just run with it. Or I quite like that consequence. It's happened and that now means I'm not going to do this. It sort of weaves in and out the failures, doesn't it? The kind of. It's not normally everything failing at once, although it can sometimes feel like that.

A little bit, I think. And this is where I found that being able to in some way document your experience as an entrepreneur helps because you might have something that you've attempted and it doesn't work. And perhaps that thing was something you believed in so much. Now the question is, in hindsight, when you look back on it, did you actually give it enough time to allow it to work? Because the variables around failure, I think, are the gems. And that's where the learning comes from within the variables. Sometimes we aren't patient enough or more. We lack the understanding that says, actually this thing takes so much longer to achieve than what you think. So new businesses that become incredibly successful take an average of 10 to 15 years to get there. Amazon was not profitable for 19 years, you know, but we all used Amazon for quite a long time. And so the understanding that these huge successes come with time and also come with incredible disappointment, especially when it is something that you believe is the solution. I always ask a question When I meet a young entrepreneur or someone who's starting out and who says to me, oh my God, how much planning do you do? What goals do you have? What results are you expecting? And I actually say, in the traditional sense, I don't have them anymore because. And then I will ask them again, how many goals have you written down, have you achieved? And I think it's not so much about the goal setting, I think it's about understanding those goals. Because when the failures come, I think you then have the clarity to be able to see how that will influence your ability to achieve what you hope. And so if I'm being honest, the retailers that say no to you when you first start should say no, because you're not ready. You have no understanding of what you're going into. You don't have the resources to actually sustain a business like that. So those nos, I see them as a sharpening of your tools. And when you get good enough, you will have those opportunities. And I think if we're able to shift the mindset into understanding that in reality, it's only the very best that actually succeed. And so your goal needs to be about becoming the best at what you do because there's a lot of mediocre out there. And so no one is looking to invest in the next great mediocre product or the next great mediocre story. There's only room now for the best.

Yeah, I mean, entrepreneurship, it takes an incredible amount of dedication. Like you were saying, it's. Did you say in the beginning, it's quite a selfish endeavor. You have to be quite single minded, I think, and, you know, just plow on. And this brings me on to my next discussion point is that as female entrepreneurs, I think there's some added challenges. And we spoke about you having, you know, you recently had a baby and how it was difficult to take any time off. I mean, I don't think, I think I'm right in saying that. I don't think you have actually had any time off and how challenging that was and how, you know, we're trying to manage so many different aspects of our life as women often. I know you had some thoughts on that as well that you wanted to share. And I think, you know, that story that you said to me about how I think you said, I think I don't know if it was like three days or three weeks after you had your baby and people were like, you said, you know, I'm having my baby, I'm not going to be available. And people were like, right, okay, so ze z just sending you this quick email, just checking in on this.

So I had in my mind said to myself I would give myself three weeks, pure dedication to baby. Like most mums out there, I had no idea what to expect with the birthing process or, you know, how my pregnancy, towards the end of my pregnancy will go. But I worked right up until going into hospital, I had to be induced and then I had quite a difficult, I guess a very medical birth of my daughter and then had quite a tough recovery and, but I didn't know any of this when I was setting my out of office, but I set my out of office saying, you know, I'm going off to go and have a little human and I will be back in. So my goal was for three weeks I would have the out of office and then for the first three months I would sort of filter through the emails that needed my needed attention and then forward on the ones that I felt like the rest of the team could handle. And so by my ability to delegate, I would effectively be gone in a flash and no one would notice. And the next day, after setting me out of office, which I believe was well received, I get an email back that says, oh, but just a quick can you sort this out? And there and then I realized that the responsibility of doing what I'm doing is not just my own, but to the people that I also serve as clients and so, and ultimately even my team. And so in that moment you go from, I would love to have this time to myself, but there's also this responsibility to the time to your business and it's this tug of war that's very interesting because you can't get time back on either side, you know, so with having a child, I can't get the time back that I put into work and I can't get the time back that I put into her. And so there's this interesting tug of war around where does that loyalty or sense of, of practicality come into being able to. And I, I'm not a fan of the word balance, but I would say to be able to do it in a way that you are most comfortable with. So everyone talks about this work life balance in all honesty, that is a balance based on what, what you feel is balanced for you. My version of a work life balance might seem insane for somebody else, but if that's a balance that gives me the fulfillment that I have purpose and that I am comfortable and confident in, that's my version. And that version is subject to change in five minutes, I might come off this podcast and decide, actually, I am going to spend the next 30 minutes with my daughter, because that's what I want to do. That's where I feel the most fulfilled right now. And I think with entrepreneurship comes great responsibility, not just to yourself, to your endeavor as a change creator, but also to your own life, which in some ways, being an employment absolves you from. Because you can clock in and clock out. There's set hours for you to do that. And you don't actually have to deviate off the script. There is no option to deviate. You finish at a particular time, you go home, you switch off, and that's your time for home. So in a way, it creates a routine for you, whereas entrepreneurship, there isn't those boundaries in that way, and you have to find the boundary that works for you. And what I found with becoming a mother, the most poignant was, everyone says you're never the same again. And I almost feel like I've learned to work a lot since smarter. I've also learned to work with so much more meaning than I did before, because I now understand that what I do has an opportunity cost with work it did before, but not in the same way. So my choice of what I choose to spend my time on needs to matter. So in the past, I would be busy because I could be busy. You know, I would go to meetings and I would go into the office, and I would be busy because I wanted to be busy. But that busy didn't necessarily give me the results or wasn't necessarily giving me the opportunity to focus on what the next right thing was or where we were going or how I consider continue to grow. But I was busy all the time, and I worked all the time, and now I'm still busy, but I don't work all the time because now I spend time with my daughter. But I find that the quality of the time I do spend on work is something that I have to have prerequisites for now. So I won't take a meeting just so that my diary is full. Because my that being busy means I'm doing something, and that means that I eventually, you know, that doing something will get me somewhere, Whereas now that time is so precious that I am my own personal gatekeeper when it comes to time, which is that time, is it better spent having this meeting that is just a lovely meeting to have, so my diary is full, or is that time that I could spend with my daughter and there's value there or Is that time I can spend, you know, focused on, you know, the next new product that we're working on and. Or is that time focused on where else I see the opportunity to make a difference, or what projects or what conversations? And I think that has allowed me to or even just is that time that I want to spend worrying about the industry and where it's going and what I can or can't do to add value. And I think that's now something that becoming a mother has changed for me in the sense that I am now more mindful of time. And I guess the question to listeners who aren't parents or who might be parents or who are juggling or who are starting a business, I think if you looked at an audit of time that you spend in a day, how much time are you actually spending on things that matter? Yeah.

Oh, it's a key question. I try and have something next to my desk all the time that says do less better. So just being mindful of what is a priority, I think we can get lost in the sea of this is important. And when you take a step back, you're like, actually, is it right now?

Yeah. I got this Instagram ad that popped up for me the other day that said, pay bill, change password. I don't know if you've come across it yet on your feed. And it was advertising a software that was going to save you 47 hours in a year from making your to do lists and trying to get through your admin related tasks. One of the things about entrepreneurship I do not like is the administrative side of things things. And I think most entrepreneurs who love the creation aren't fans of the administrative side of things. And I found the advert very poignant because there was a part of it that I thought, wow, this robot really is working very well and trying to tell me what my priorities are. But there was another part of it that also made it clear that is a way of removing the tasks that you do not enjoy. And, you know, we all speak about delegation and we speak about and I guess these are buzzwords in entrepreneurship, being able to delegate, team, all of these different things. And I think I toyed with what those ideas were based on what I had learned or listened or heard, only to find out it was different for me. And my idea of delegation wasn't giving tasks to people that I just didn't like. It was also giving tasks that I did like, but I perhaps didn't have the time to give it the right care and attention that it needed. And being able to accept that is difficult. Being able to accept that you really enjoy, you know, coming up with, you know, what your formulas might be, but really you just don't have the time to be able to do that well enough. So actually that is something you should delegate and focus on the things that you can do incredibly well. And I think that's another thing that I guess in the journey you start to see more and it's almost self critical. And your ability to make the painting still step back, see it through several eyes, including your own eyes, walk out of the room, come back in and see if the picture says the same thing to you that it did yesterday. And I think consistently, like artists, we are constantly fine tuning our art. We're constantly, and I think understanding that entrepreneurship is about the fine tuning, it is not about creating, creating something perfect. I think it's about the journey to creating. That is perhaps where if the mindset was to shift, that might be my biggest learning from when I started till now.

Wow, lots of good nuggets of information there, right? I was making notes as you're going through. I was like, yeah, I need to think about that, anything about that. So before we sign off, is there any final parting words of advice you would give to budding skincare or beauty entrepreneurs?

I would say three things. The first thing would be you have to have something for people to experience for you to know whether or not what you've done is good enough or not. And so like Nike just do. Doesn't matter if you don't have the right packaging or the right label or the right anything. I think once people experience what you've created, I think through that experience alone allows you to move to the next step. The second thing would be perfection is something that you strive for but shouldn't be. The reason why you do not try or attempt to attain something. And perfection is a form of procrastination. And so you need to ask yourself why in that moment you are procrastinating and in some ways confront the fear that is influencing your ability to, to do what you want to do.

Final thing, I think you said three things.

And then last thing would be, it doesn't matter how big the market is. What matters is that you are making a product for a specific group of people. It doesn't matter that there are 369 new beauty brands a year. That shouldn't be your focus or concern. What should be your focus and concern is the group of people that you're creating your product for. That's going to solve their problems. Because all you need in the beginning really is a hundred good customers. That's enough to make a business a very small number, but a very hard number to achieve.

Yeah, thank you so much Zeze for joining us and sharing all of your your insights and wisdom. And if you're looking to find out more about Malay and about Zae Zay, all of the links to her sites and social media and everything will be included in the show notes. So thank you again so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Pleasure. Thank you so much for joining in and listening to our interview with Zeze. I hope you enjoyed it and found it engaging. As always. You are free to join in on the global green beauty conversation by heading over to our big Facebook group called the Skincare Entrepreneur Mastermind. You can also connect with us via social media ormulabotanica on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And if you want to try out making skincare products for yourself, then head over to formulabotanica.com and try out our free sample class. Once again, thank you so much for listening.

Sa.