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Karissa Bodnar, founder and CEO of Blank Good Looks Logo and DTC’s good-fortune tale, Thrive Causemetics, grew up in a small town in rural Washington state. I lived on a dirt road where neighbors were few, there was no cable, and the internet was sporadic. It’s not exactly the kind of position one imagines as a breeding ground for a good-looking force, and yet, according to Bodnar, it was the best set of situations to turn her into the lucky businesswoman she has today.
“I grew up in a really entrepreneurial small town of 5,000 people,” Bodnar recounted in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “I was surrounded by local farmers where if you wanted corn, you were either growing it yourself or buying it from your friend down the street. It was such a great way to grow up; it really helped me develop a work ethic. If I wanted that $60 Chanel bronzer that I’d seen in Allure, I had to work an entire summer. I started making my own products when I was probably 10 years old, and by middle school and high school I was making my own lipsticks and shampoo.”
But Bodnar was looking for much more than shampoo and bronzer; She sought to make her mark on the world, an ambition that replaced her tenor after a tragic loss in her mid-twenties. Today, Bodnar has turned his lifelong penchant for good looks into a logo with a goal and a thriving business (never better said, but it’s also true). Unsurprisingly, given her logo and her expertise, Bodnar is incredibly fond and considerate in every facet of her business, right down to Thrive’s iconic turquoise logo, selected because it’s a color that has been “scientifically proven. “to evoke a sense of joy. ” She.
Since its inception in 2016, Thrive Causemetics has donated $135 million worth of products to more than 500 charities. Bodnar shared his path to this good fortune with RTP and explained why he will remain a DTC-exclusive private company to achieve his business and philanthropic goals.
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Retail TouchPoints (RTP): So can you tell us about your path to founding Thrive Causemetics?
Karissa Bodnar: It was based on this concept that good looks are a vehicle for building trust. Like so many young girls, I had a lot of insecurities and good looks was a way to overcome that. Then, around 13, I found out that if you were a makeup artist, they would give you loose makeup and I said, “That’s it; This is what I’m going to do. “I’ve been a makeup artist since I was 18 and still am today. It was part of how I paid for college. I won $11 at Sephora; It was the most productive work.
I wanted to build products, but I didn’t really know what it meant or how I should do it, so I was privileged to get a job at Clarisonic when it was a startup. I worked with Dr. Robb, one of the co-founders, to create formulations and then with the engineers. The company was then sold to L’Oreal and I was lucky enough to meet Carol Hamilton, who took me under her wing, mentored me and gave me the opportunity. to expand products [and] to Paris. I’m a tough kid, so being able to go to Paris with all expenses paid at 22, I felt like I’d made it.
My plan was to paint my way up the corporate ladder, but a dear friend of mine, Kristy, was diagnosed with cancer while doing missionary painting in Chile. When you’re 22 or 23, you think, “Oh, it’s just a roadblock. I had the misconception that cancer didn’t actually end many young lives, which I now know is very wrong, but nine months later she passed away. I don’t forget going to her funeral and thinking that she was only 24 years old and yet she had made such an impact. As I climbed the corporate ladder, she thought about how I could make a difference in the world.
About a month after he passed away, I had the idea to create a good looking logo with the purpose of achieving a bigger effect and going beyond good looks. The central concept was this intention: for every product purchased, one would be donated, and the products would, in fact, have their own revolutionary formulas. “Clean” is an ambiguous term, which is why we have thousands of ingredients on our banned ingredients list, but essentially [these are products that are] paraben-free, sulfate-free, latex-free, and vegan.
I started with one product — false lashes and adhesive that work whether you have lashes or not, which is very important for people who have alopecia or cancer. Since starting the business, we’ve supported over 500 charities, but 10 years ago I couldn’t find a charity, so I was going to people one-on-one to donate 1,000 pairs [of false lashes]. It was one of the best things I could have done, because those were the people who carried me through those first three years when we had almost no revenue. I was working a full-time job just to fund everything, and those people kept telling me, “The world needs you to exist; you cannot quit.” It’s what kept me going.
RTP: Why did you decide to keep the DTC activity one hundred percent?
Bodnar: At first I tried [selling in stores], but I couldn’t convince a store to bring our brand. I thought, having worked at Sephora, why shouldn’t they bring us in?Instead, it was like, “You’re 24. ” Do you have an adult with you? But now it’s definitely a choice. For example, we don’t need to be on Amazon. Everything [ours] on Amazon is fake: last week we eliminated about 50 resellers.
We need to be 100 percent direct with the customer because we want to enjoy our community. We are not a giant corporation funded through venture capital and personal capital; We’re an independent, women-owned, privately held company, and that’s my goal for the long-term of the company.
We did do one limited-time, in-store-only partnership with Ulta from December 2019 to March 2020. It a first of its kind, and it was very successful for both Ulta and Thrive, but outside of that we’re sold exclusively on ThriveCausemetics.com. Now we’ve got two brands sold there — Thrive Causemetics and Bigger than Beauty skincare.
We are very focused on continuing to grow our business in the U. S. And we plan to move overseas in the coming years, once again, with an eye toward long-term growth. We’re betting an infinite game here. I’m not starting this business to sell it. I’m building it to make an impact and create amazing products that are truly game-changers in the industry and to take wonderful care of our employees and donor partners. I’m okay with any time it takes us to globalize the brand, because I want the long-term fitness of the company to come first.
RTP: When you started building Thrive back in 2013, both clean beauty and cause-based brands were much less common. Now that mission-based brands are more mainstream, how are you differentiating?
Bodnar: I love that there are more people building impact-driven brands. In fact, I believe that if your cause is authentic, it doesn’t matter what others do and in fact, you can come together to make a greater impact. So I don’t really care about differentiating myself, I just care about maintaining the authenticity of what we do.
I think what sets us apart is the fact that all of our reasons are driven by our community, whether it’s our internal workers and our customers. We have a cause, cancer, but now we have 8 pillars to give, and under that umbrella we have supported. more than 500 charities. All of this is driven through our community; Clients can literally designate a donor partner.
I give to heal the brokenness within me, and I ask our workers what cause they feel most connected to right now. The more we do it, the more we will continue to make an impact, because if you do it with your heart, you will win each and every time. Whether your income source increases or decreases, you can’t control that, but you can control how you present yourself, and being connected to your cause is an important component of that.
RTP: That word “whether revenue goes up or down” is not necessarily something a public company would say. Is this part of the reason why they are so determined to keep the company privately funded?
Bodnar: Yes, and you can quote me on that: I can count on one hand the number of investors who care about the impact. Many people focus on maximizing profits, and don’t get me wrong, I am very motivated by profitability. But the most common thing is that if one day I wake up and there has been a tragedy in the world, like for example with COVID, we donate a million meals in seconds because we were able to galvanize our network and donate one hundred percent of the profits. of a day of sales.
When Breonna Taylor was killed we got in touch with her family and the University of Louisville, which is where she intended to become a nurse, and we launched the Breonna Taylor Endowment Foundation. I don’t want to explain that to Wall Street, because quite frankly, I’m so busy trying to make an impact that I don’t really care what an investor thinks about it. I know my commercial strategy, and I don’t need to explain that to anybody.
RTP: So what’s your strategy for the future?
Bodnar: It’s really about expanding the product portfolio and continuing to change the game in what we’re coming out with. The world doesn’t need another lipstick or another lip gloss, but, for example, part of why our Sheer Strength Lip Gloss is so successful is because it has real clinical benefits. It’s a lip-plumping treatment to help reverse fine lines and wrinkles and also plump from within. We’re developing our formulas from scratch in our own labs and that’s why I believe we’ve been successful — we’re focusing on product excellence that is meeting our customers’ needs.
RTP: Before I let it go, what good-looking trends will you be keeping an eye on over the next year?
Bodnar: I’m excited about the return of color. As a glamor girl, I love all types of glamour, but we are launching 3 new mascaras that have been customer-centric but are also very trendy. Knowledge speaks for itself. so we have the launch of a pink, purple and green mascara. I don’t think it would have been a commercial success two years ago.
I also think consumers will continue to ask for more transparency about ingredients and their composition to do more for them, so I’m really excited about that.
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