With her venture just over five years old and a capitalization estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, Birchbox Co-founder Katia Beauchamp shared with an audience of entrepreneurs and their supporters her views about success and the challenges of being an entrepreneur.
“I think very few of us [entrepreneurs] would not have done what we did, if we knew how hard it would be,” summed up Beauchamp in an interview moderated by NY Times reporter Lee Woodruff. Beauchamp and Tom Kartsotis, founder of FOSSIL and Shinola, were the keynote guests at the 5th Annual Venture For America Summer Celebration held on June 2, 2016 in New York City.
Beauchamp did not have entrepreneurship in her career plans until she came to the personal conclusion that she was not happy in the work she was doing after completing college.
“At 22-years old, I had no idea that [entrepreneurship] was even a path!” said Beauchamp. The Birchbox CEO explained that despite finding a stable and lucrative career in investment banking, she had not yet found her career passion. From that point a chain reaction began. “I didn’t love what I was doing every day, and I went to business school to find something that I love and I found entrepreneurship.”
Beauchamp was initially attracted to entrepreneurship because of an intangible it offered. “When I learned about entrepreneurship for the first time in business school, I really understood it,” stated Beauchamp. “I thought, that’s how you meet yourself, that’s how you really understand what you can do.”
The emerging innovator then felt it was all a matter of time from there. “I found my co-founder in business school and we founded Birchbox upon realizing that the beauty industry was not on the internet.” Beauchamp exclaimed. “That’s insane! This is a $500-billion industry. Why is beauty not a category for the web?” They saw that puzzle as a challenge and then an opportunity.
“Women like to try products before they purchase them and, number two, the beauty industry pumps about 200,000 new products through a year. So you have to try them and there is always something new.” Beachamp and her co-founder identified those two key needs which they boiled down to one key question: “How could we make it possible for you to buy a beauty product on the internet for the first time?”
Thus, Birchbox was born. They established Birchbox as a subscription service. “You sign up. You tell us about yourself and for $10 a month you receive a personalized box of samples from the brands that you know and love. And we teach you about those products through content and videos, then you can buy everything you want from Birchbox,” explained Beauchamp.
Birchbox’s formula for success with their customers was: “Try, love and buy.”
New York Times reporter Woodruff next addressed the pains Beauchamp experienced having the startup venture scale so quickly, asking Beauchamp to share the unique corporate culture for which Birchbox is known.
“I graduated from college and all I wanted to do was contribute,” she began. “And in the first several years of your career, you’re not really asked to contribute. You’re really not asked to think a lot.”
Upon founding Birchbox, Beauchamp had different plans. “Initially, when we started the company, people created their own jobs. There was so much ambition and so much talent!” Their new hires brought high energy to the startup that was valued.
“And they’ve got ideas! …Your job as a founder becomes about the team,” Beauchamp affirmed. “What a privilege to get to create this reality for these talented people who want to get behind your idea. And how do you make it worth it? It’s an exchange.”
Beauchamp showed pride in the culture she and her co-founder crafted and the workforce that is now behind her. Yet, she also reflected about her initial entry into entrepreneurship that revealed she was “naïve”, yet that became “the biggest gift in life.” There was a lot to overcome that was painful, but Beauchamp feels a deep satisfaction with where she is now. “I have absolutely no regrets for being so stupid about how hard it is.”
The successful beauty industry entrepreneur encouraged the audience– that included Venture For America fellows— to continue on with their entrepreneurial aspirations, despite facing difficulty. “If you have the privilege to experience something that is exceptionally hard, it is exceptionally rewarding.”
