Shadowing Practice: Billion-Dollar Beauty: A Conversation With Hailey Bieber and Lauren Ratner - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hayley and Lauren, welcome to Most Powerful Women.

We've been talking about making this happen for a very long time, so it's a real thrill to have you both here.

There's a lot to talk about.

I want to start with the acquisition, which Claire just alluded to in the introduction.

It was massive, it was a juggernaut,

it made headline news, and you launched it in 2022 and then you sold it to Elf Beauty three years later.

So Hayley, what convinced you at that moment that selling was the right step rather than continuing independently?

Because you were doing pretty well independently.

I think for me it was really about it feeling like the right home for road and I think that

a really good partner and a really good home for an acquisition is very rare to come by.

I've heard a lot of stories from founders that had gone through acquisition and

had regrets and were not super happy with you know where their brand went

and so I went into it with a with a mindset of really wanting to know

that road was going to be safe where it was going

and knowing that the opportunity instinctually felt right and i think

that at the moment where we were as a brand we were approaching launching in sephora

and i think having elf as the partner behind us to really help accelerate

that growth and hold our hands as a brand

and be like we know how to do this we've done

it before we want to be great partners to you guys in this next step

and this next phase

and also just their sheer genuine love appreciation support for all the founders of all the businesses

that they've acquired prior um they really just made me feel safe knowing

that they were going to protect road and be a great partner

and i felt like i wasn't going to find

that ever again what does feeling safe when you're talking about road look like

and feel like to you where there are a couple of tangible things that you specifically had to be sure of?

Yeah, I mean, I think the safety feeling is

that they really made me feel like they wanted to just be a support to Rode.

They told me, we don't want to come in.

We don't want to change anything.

We really want you to continue operating exactly how you are.

In fact, we want to have you increase your role inside the company.

We really want to make sure you're just as hands -on, if not more, which I actually am now since the acquisition.

and they really wanted to make sure that I felt supported as a founder

and they explained and told me in detail how they've supported every other founder of every other brand

that they'd acquired and what they do and how they do it and I just, again, I think you have to trust that

and you have to follow your instinct and instinctually I felt

that they were going to be a really good place for Road to go.

And Lauren, you

and Hayley work incredibly closely together

you're also very close personal friends um did you two agree at the same time

that selling was the right option

and also was there a strong argument against not selling

that you had to work through as a team yeah i mean i think for both hayley

and i road is our baby um we've poured our lives over the last five six years into it

so i think we felt like the sky's the limit with road

and there was so far that we could go

but we had a small mighty nimble team

and we felt like we had taken it as far as we could with that team.

And we really needed the infrastructure of a bigger partner to scale globally.

Haley always talks about, you know, wanting to take a road to more spaces,

faces, and places, and being able to tap into the infrastructure of Elf

and have them sort of supercharge the business and allow us to scale globally, I think was really important to both of us.

So I think we sort of decided at the same moment that it was the appropriate time.

Was there anything you were worried about?

Either of you?

I would say for me, the worry was that it wasn't the right decision.

I mean, I think you have to have those conversations

and think about the what -ifs but what was nice is I think me

and Lauren and her husband who's our other co -founder really felt very confident

and were in agreement that this was the right move

and this was the right moment and I think

when you have the synergy of all feeling good about it also makes the decision seem even more right

and I think there's concern potentially that

if you're acquired the acquires going to sort of start meddling in the business

or they're going to direct the way that you should move forward

and i think elf were very clear

we're not going to fix what's not broken

you guys are doing an incredible job

you have a secret special sauce sort of you have a unique path

we just want to sort of supercharge the back end

and let you guys do what you do best you know keep your marketing

and creative integrity and keep building like you guys are

and hayley you said you're actually more hands -on

now than you were prior to the acquisition i think we'd be really interested to know

which decisions post acquisition are still exclusively yours to make.

I mean, pretty much all of them.

Like they really, everything that they said before we were acquired, they have stuck to a hundred percent.

They have really just let us fly and let us continue to make every decision.

And of course we

now incorporate them in decisions and we speak about everything

and they're really so amazing

and always on board i think the way

i'm more involved is like my role got bigger

i'm now a strategic advisor to all of elf beauty at large as well which is really cool and really fun

what does that look like what does

that role look like as of right now it's just talking about some of their product

and you know suggesting product that i could see for them

and any question they have for me they can come to me

and ask me hey what do you think about this product will you test this for us

so that's been fun for me too

because i get to kind of you know be helpful any way i can to to elf too um

and then my role expanded into chief creative officer

which i i wasn't that title before although i was still in all of the creative

and all of the product development I'm still even more

so just really like have dove into that was my one fear really was

that I would sell my company

and then they were going to say okay we're going to put this person in

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and this person in and then we want to make the team bigger around product development

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and that I would start feeling like I didn't have as much say

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and I feel like I actually have just as much as I did before

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and I'm so intricately involved because like Lauren said it's my baby

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It's our baby.

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We've grown it from literally day zero ground up.

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And I told

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Elf all of my concerns from the beginning.

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I said, I couldn't imagine not being intricately involved.

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And they were like, oh my gosh, we want you to be more involved if you want to.

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And that to me, I was like, I feel like you never hear that from an acquirer,

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that they want you to be like so in it as you were before, and if not even more than you were before.

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So it really has been genuinely the dream scenario

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they are such a dream partner I really couldn't be happier with selling early in the brand's trajectory

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or the goal for you too or was it something

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that evolved it was never even

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it was of course always a future conversation of maybe

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that's where we're gonna go there's a lot of different paths you can take

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so you don't really know and I think

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because the opportunity kind of took us a little bit by surprise I don't think

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that we thought maybe it was gonna happen right at that time did they come to you you allowed to say that?

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I don't think we're going to get into how it came.

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I'm going to say who went to who,

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but yeah, I don't think we at that moment were thinking this is what we're going to do right now.

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But again, like Lauren said, I think wanting to supercharge the business and launching into retail, it just, it feels good to have

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that security behind you of a company who really is

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so great at what they do and can come in and support the infrastructure.

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And road is really only just getting started

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and the company says

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it wants to pass a billion dollars in net sales huge

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in fiscal 2026 road did roughly 390 million in net sales

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which was an 80 percent increase on the year before

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so what has to go right now to hit that target

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that you've set for yourself

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that one billion dollar figure I mean I think we need to we've proven

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that we can be successful at retail and we need to keep doing

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that so we we entered Sephora in the US last September

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and we're actually the number one brand in all of the retail geographies that we're in.

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So Sephora US, Sephora UK, Mecca, and Australia.

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And we just had an explosive launch into Sephora EU a couple of weeks ago.

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In 19 new markets?

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In 19 new markets, over 500 doors.

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And we were the number one brand for Sephora EU.

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And I think our first day of online sales for Rode

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with Sephora EU actually surpassed the total Sephora EU Black Friday sales for the year prior.

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So we've had an explosive launch into retail and I think we're going to continue to go strength to strength.

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Lauren, we said in the introduction that you describe Rhodes' marketing strategy as surround sound.

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I did have to Google that, obviously that's native to you guys.

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So for anyone who doesn't know, it's a modern approach to marketing that doesn't rely on buying traditional ad space necessarily.

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And actually this morning I was on Instagram

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and organically a video came up of a tram somewhere in Europe wrapped in the Rhodes logo

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but I'm interested in how you measure the ROI of that strategy

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because traditional advertising has click -through rates you know

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you have viewer figures what's your metric for success yeah

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I don't think we really talk about ROI um we don't sit in meetings

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and look at the return on investment no we don't

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I think we built the brand in an incredibly organic way

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and I think what was really important to Haley from the from the beginning was to build

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this world of road that was not transactional.

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That was really a one -to -one connection with our consumer.

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Both Haley and I are not from a traditional beauty background.

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I mean Haley was a big model in the fashion industry and my background was more in fashion and retail.

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I worked at Reformation and Michael Kors and

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when we looked at the fashion landscape there's so many brands

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that build a true emotional connection with their consumer through visual storytelling

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and visual language and we felt like in the skincare and beauty industry there was white space.

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to do the same and to build a brand that really connected with consumers.

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So the way that we approach world building

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and this surround sound tactic is we're really trying to connect with our consumer and create desire.

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I mean, the world of road, which we talk about, is sort of this extension of Haley's personal world.

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It's aspirational, but accessible.

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It's fun.

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It's sexy.

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It's playful.

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And we really focus on marketing tactics that that boost that world versus looking at ROI.

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And what I'm really interested in the world of road because it's so powerful

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So you alluded to what belongs in it?

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What doesn't belong in the world of road?

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Even if it would sell well, do you ever think of that?

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I think for me, I really am not interested in overconsumption I think the beauty space is very very filled as it is

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and the whole ethos of road from the beginning was this

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idea of one of each thing done really well one of everything good which

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that concept for me came from the idea of you know

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your perfect pair of jeans the perfect white tee the perfect jacket your perfect moisturizer your perfect lip product

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you know these these things that I was like

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if I was going on a weekend trip what would I

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need to have in my bag as somebody who has been working since I was 17 years old

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and traveling on my own for many years what were the must -haves I needed to have you know

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when I'm on the plane and landing straight to a job

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and like what do I you know need to have in my skincare must -haves

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and beauty must -haves and

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that is still the true ethos today

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I'm not interested in putting a bunch of stuff out

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there just to put it out there I actually want to make things

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that I need and I love and every single product

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that we have put out has been something

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that I'm like it's always in my bag it's always traveling with me

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it's always part of my routine these really on the go

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I love the idea of like on the go stuff the blushes for me

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it's like i want to make things that you stick in your bag

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and they're really easy to use on the go

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when you're out simple skin care first approach has always really been true to me my entire life um

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and also you know we were talking before about roi and

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and these things and i'm like you know a conversation about margins hates to see me coming i'm always

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I'm always in the meetings like, I'm not, this isn't like about money for me.

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It's not about like, you know, and of course you want to have a healthy business and I care about having a healthy business,

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but I'm somebody who doesn't like to compromise anything

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that I want to do and what my gut is telling me to do

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and that I believe in for the sake of margin, which maybe is like the wrong thing to say, but like that is true for me.

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I really I guess that's a position you can be and

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because you have that enormous platform going into the building of road

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A hundred percent and I think that going into building a business and having a platform is a privilege

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It's a privilege that I had going into it, but at the same time

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It was really important for me for the team to know

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that this is really about like product first consumer first like really wanting to know that the product is great,

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the storytelling is great, the world building is great, and then I always just believed that the rest was going to follow

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and it was going to come and that people would

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fall in love with it because they fell in love with the world and the products.

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And I mean, my whole thing is like a product first approach.

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For me, the products have to be great.

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And I really am like a skincare product fanatic and freak and always have been.

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So I've just always been very forthcoming that I think

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if we put great innovative go -to products into the world

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that the rest was going to hopefully fingers crossed come

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and follow and it has completely like totally exceeded my expectations I'm interested in this minimalist approach

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because on the one hand it creates amazing FOMO and desire

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but I imagine when you go into a retailer like Sephora they also need very reliable stock

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and inventory so how do you balance FOMO with not disappointing customers who are in the stores

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and it's all sold out well can I say one thing

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I mean we're not like creating FOMO on purpose that's not

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so I do think sometimes brands will do

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that as like a strategy ploy it's not something

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that we're doing on purpose it's just again we're creating drops

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that we're just creating and adding to the world yeah

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and I think inventory challenges have been something that's been present throughout Rode's history.

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I think when we started the brand, the first six months of Rode, we only sold product.

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We were only able to sell product for 11 days, which was actually a great challenge.

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And then you sold out.

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Right.

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It was a great challenge for brand builders to try

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and figure out how do you create an exciting brand for the first six months of existence

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and only being able to sell product for 11 days. But...

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we keep going sort of from strength to strength.

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Take me into the conversations that happened at that 11 day mark when you were trying to figure out what came back.

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Well, we're like, how do we keep creating excitement?

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And I think it really did help us sort of strengthen as brand builders because we had to come up with new,

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exciting, fresh ways to talk about the brand and to grow excitement while having no product to sell.

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But, you know, even as recent as our summer launch with our bronzers, we did sell out of some of our,

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you know, best selling SKUs from this summer launch.

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So we've had to continue to work closely with Elf to scale our supply chain.

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We're now, as of the last quarter, in seven new distribution centers across three different continents.

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So we're working actively on building that supply chain to try and sort of eliminate some of those scarcity concerns.

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I also think we really are learning as we go.

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We've never been here before.

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We've never done this before.

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I think back to, you know, when we sold out after 11 days and then didn't have product.

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It's like you have to just pivot and figure it out

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and learn as you go and the amount of times that we've had to say,

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you know, sorry to our community and we're going to do better next time.

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And then we really do.

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And we try to make it better for the next launch and the next launch and the next launch.

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And every failure we've had has only made road better as we've continued to grow.

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And then, you know, you have to take your mistakes and your learnings on the chin.

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You have to.

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And that was going to be my next question.

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Is there any criticism of the brand that you've taken on

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and you think it's really helped you get to the next level?

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I do think with the inventory, I mean, as of this summer, selling out of some of these really popular SKUs.

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I mean, I think we had had 160 ,000 new customers in the three months prior to that launch.

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So when we sold out of some of our summer bronzers, I mean, we saw a lot of frustration from our customers online.

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And we started to have conversations on, you know, internal and how can we quickly accelerate and, you know, grow our supply chain and expand.

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And those are those conversations with Elf where they're helping us supercharge on the back end and,

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you know, open new distribution centers and diversify our sort of raw supplier manufacturers.

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So we're actively having those conversations.

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And a lot of that is because of the sentiment we're seeing online from consumers.

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And I also wanted to add to that too, like there's only so much predicting you can do of how well something's going to do.

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Of course, we forecast as a company.

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We think that we're going to do this much.

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We think we're going to sell this many units.

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And because the consumers are so incredible and amazing, it always exceeds what we thought it was going to be.

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So that helps us with demand planning for the next time and the next time and the next time.

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You know, obviously we don't want anyone to be frustrated and not be able to get their hands on it

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We'd love for everybody to be able to get their hands on it.

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That's the goal

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So I think it's always just helped us learn and then demand plan better

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It's unprecedented levels of customer growth and demand.

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So we're we're trying to keep up I want to talk about morality for a second

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So one of your first products is that phone case

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Which I'm sure you have all seen with a little slot in it for your road lip gloss Lauren

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and I caught up a couple of days ago and you said this thing to me which I've been thinking about,

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which is you can watch hours of footage and immediately know the three seconds that are going to go viral.

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So in 2026, I want to hear from both of you.

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What makes something take off?

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How do you think about the reality of marketing and product?

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It's really hard to articulate,

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but we did talk on the phone and I said that both Haley and I feel like a strength of ours is,

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you know, our team can put together a minute long edit

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and we can both say this is the three to five second clip that's really going to cut through and resume.

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Can you give me an example?

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Yeah, I mean, I think most recently, I can give an example a couple weeks ago, which is driven by Haley.

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We have an amazing pop -up at the Champs -Élysées Sephora flagship in Paris.

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And we have like this three -room pop -up that's amazing.

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And we went to go tour it, and Haley gave a Q &A with store ambassadors there.

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And in the middle of the pop -up, there's this big pink highlight milk statue of our product.

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And we're touring, and Haley just climbs onto the statue

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because we take a picture and she knows that's going to go everywhere and that's really going to resonate.

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It's, I think, a perfect illustration of Haley's aspirationalness and her accessibility, which I think makes Haley so unique and makes

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Rode very unique.

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But I think that's an example of finding a moment, capturing it, and getting it up quickly

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because I think something else to note is not just the quality of the content

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and having a stickiness to the content that is interesting, but it's the speed with which you get something up.

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You have to be first to market.

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You don't have the time to go through layers of approval.

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And if you don't get something up sort of in real time or that same day, the conversation's passed and it's moved on.

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And I think that's one of our strengths at Road that,

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you know, myself or our marketing team or our head of social can turn the phone to Haley.

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We have a direct relationship with her and say, is this approved?

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We don't need to wait for teams to say yes

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or no. And that ability to connect with the consumer with sticky content quickly is, I think, sort of some of the secret sauce.

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I also think a lot of things happen by accident.

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I know that's probably annoying to hear and annoying to say

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but There has been so many moments where we did not think something like the phone case for example

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You didn't think it was gonna be that big.

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I didn't I personally did not think that was gonna be as big as it was and as massive as it was.

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I thought it was going to be an added accessory

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that was going to be fun that I really didn't think it was going to take off the way that it did.

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And we've had a lot of those moments that, again, I talk so much about following my gut and following my instinct.

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And like she just mentioned, the big highlight milk statue and me going and climbing and sitting on top of it.

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I'm like, I'm just out here living and having fun.

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It's in me.

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It wasn't for it.

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Everything is kind of just like off of my instinct.

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It's not this like overly meticulously like planned out plotted out thing a lot of the time

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It's just something that happens really naturally and I think

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that of course I feel really lucky that

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that happens I think another example was like in Paris I went on this this talk show

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and I was wearing like our new blush and everybody's like what's the blush?

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And I'm like that's just something that happened really naturally and when you're Hailey Bieber Of course, of course.

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But like I'm saying, it's not like these things are overly plotted and planned out.

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I think as a team, we come together and we follow our instinct and we have conversations.

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And we're like, let's do it.

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Let's try it.

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Let's go for it.

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And yeah, I think that, like she mentioned, our team is so amazing.

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We're able to execute really, really fast because we really do kind of build hype around things in the moment.

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And I think we are able to make people really excited about things in the moment.

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I also think we're really good at building anticipation and I think the anticipation also comes naturally because I'm really excited

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So like my anticipation for people to get it.

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I also think and hopefully

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Hope translates to people that I'm so excited about it.

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So then it gets them excited about it I want you to reflect back on the start of road.

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So you are a hugely successful model

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You still are a really high -profile figure

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Do you feel you were immediately taken seriously as a founder or was it something that you had to work?

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Do you feel that was a sense of having to prove yourself?

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I don't think it was an immediate thing, no. I think people actually at the time were feeling very fatigued by celebrity brands.

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And I went into it knowing that.

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And I think because I went into it being like, I get it.

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Like, nobody really is asking for this.

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But I really want people to just give me a chance.

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I have a different point of view.

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And then really sticking to that and seeing it through is, I think, what ended up really resonating.

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This is something that is so, it's really a real extension of my life and my world and the things that I love.

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So I was really hoping that the biggest thing that came across was that it is actually very authentic to me.

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Because I think people, the consumer today is just so smart.

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They're so, so, so smart.

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They don't care about the BS.

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They see through it all.

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This next generation, they don't care.

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They don't care.

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They're like, okay, seen it all, don't care.

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I do think they really want to feel something that's real to someone

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and authentic and feel that you care about it in a real way

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Was there a moment when you felt the business community really takes you seriously?

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Was there a moment when you felt it shift or was it was it a gradual gradual every single year?

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I mean, I held my breath every single drop that we've done because I'm like, you know when the blushes came out I'm like

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Nobody is asking for this.

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Maybe nobody wants it.

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Maybe nobody's gonna gravitate towards it

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and luckily they have every single time and also we have products

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that people like but they're not our most popular

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and I've taken was there one

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that didn't land quite as you thought it might I don't think there was one

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that just didn't land period

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but of course we have our most popular SKUs we have our least popular SKUs

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and that's always just a learning for me to understand okay maybe this one wasn't the one

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that everybody really loved the most and then I get to be able to take

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that and be like okay so when I'm thinking about the next thing

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or the next product that I think is really important in the lineup I take that into real serious consideration.

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So millions of young women look up to you for many reasons

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but as a beauty ideal and at a time

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when social media seems to be in many ways narrowing

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you know beauty ideals I mean I'm constantly logging on to Instagram

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and being told I need to change my face

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and a million ways I'm interested in how you think about your role as both a trendsetter

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and a founder and it's road about broadening the ideal of what beauty can look like

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or building a company around women wanting to look like you specifically?

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I know it's a big question, but I think it's super interesting.

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I think that for me personally, I'm inspired by so many other women, women that have come before me, women that are doing so many cool,

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amazing things today, inspired by so many different women for so many different reasons.

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But something that I do think that really matters is individuality

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and authenticity and I am somebody who I do care about being authentic to myself

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and I want to encourage other women to know that there's only one you, and that's important.

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And, you know, I think the world of beauty is so cool because everybody relates to it differently, and everybody gets to play with it differently.

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The way I play with makeup might be different the way that you do.

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My skincare routine will be different to yours.

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The products that I love may be different to what you love or anybody else in this room.

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And that was something that really opened up for me

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and opened my eyes coming into the beauty space is that the whole beauty world is really a community.

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And it's really a space where people get to express themselves so many different ways.

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And I think that's what creates a lot of individuality, especially in beauty.

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But I'm somebody who, like, I love who I am.

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And I love embracing who I am.

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And I love embracing where I'm at in different moments.

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And the things I was interested in at 19 as opposed to 29 are

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so different and the way I treated my skin at 19 as opposed to 29 is so different.

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The makeup I wore at 19 is

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so different to what I do now at 29

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and I think beauty is able to evolve with you through every single stage of your life

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and your needs change and the things you want change

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and I think beauty can really evolve with you

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and that's kind of the message

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that I want to continue speaking to young people about is like you can be exactly who you are right

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now today and what you love you love today and just remember

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that you're going to change and you're going to evolve

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and beauty can evolve and change with you and on

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that note how will road evolve because you started it

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when you were a woman in in your 20s

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and it very much captured

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that lifestyle as you you're both

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now mothers um as you go through your life stages as you both hit midlife is road going to reflect

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that or is it always going to be skewed towards the younger woman i I'm at in my life.

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I, you know, I think that's such an interesting question

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because everything we've made so far is still the things I gravitate towards and the things I reach for.

434

But for example, like we have a new serum coming out, which I'm going to say, and I think I can talk about because,

435

because I can, but, but we have a new serum coming out in, in January that, you know,

436

is more geared towards, you know, like smart aging.

437

And, you know, as our skin changes, I'm turning 30 in November and I definitely can say that my my needs and my skincare routine

438

have changed since the day I launched road you know

439

when I launched road it was really focused on hydration

440

and peptides and now I'm kind of in a space where I need a little bit more active

441

so I do think that it's going to continue to evolve with the needs

442

that I see in my own personal life as well as I think

443

that will just continue to expand the age range for road

444

I mean our age range is pretty vast at this point

445

it ranges from very young to you know kind of really all ages older women

446

I would say like up into what like later 30s yeah and our target is really more

447

Gen Z and Millennial I actually told me this morning

448

that their male friends use your barrier cream

449

which is what I love you have male customers a hundred percent

450

and also I mean I think we definitely are geared towards more towards women and but it

451

It was always meant to be unisex.

452

It was supposed to always be meant just for everyone and anyone who wants to use it.

453

There was never supposed to be, it was never supposed to be geared towards any gender at all.

454

But I really do think that, again, I'm going to continue to go off of my instincts and

455

continue adding to the line as I see there are any gaps for it.

456

And we're going to go from there.

457

It seems to be working.

458

I think it's working.

459

So Hailey Bieber, Lauren Ratner, thank you so much for joining us.

460

Thank you.

461

Thank you very much.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Billion-Dollar Beauty: A Conversation With Hailey Bieber and Lauren Ratner”. This video has 461 sentences and 5846 words to shadow. The speech runs for 28:42. The speaker talks fast, about 204 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
founder noun	/ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/	One who founds or establishes (a company, project, organisation, state, etc.).
evolve verb	/ɪˈvɑlv/	To move (something) in regular procession through a system.
acquisition noun	/ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/	The act or process of acquiring.
acquire verb	/əˈkwaɪɚ/	To get.
instinct noun	/ˈɪn.stɪŋkt/	A natural or inherent impulse or behaviour.
blush noun	/ˈblʌʃ/	An act of blushing; a pink or red glow on the face caused by embarrassment, shame, shyness, love, etc.
naturally adverb	/ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/	In a natural manner.
gear noun	/ɡɪɚ/	Equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor.
infrastructure noun	/ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/	An underlying base or foundation for a building, organization, or system.
ideal adjective	/aɪˈdi(ə)l/	Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea.
routine noun	/ɹuˈtin/	A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
expand verb	/ɪkˈspænd/	To change (something) from a smaller form or size to a larger one; to spread out or lay open.
inventory noun	/ˈɪn.vən.tɹi/	The stock of an item on hand at a particular location or business.
statue noun	/ˈstæt͡ʃu/	A three-dimensional work of art, usually representing a person or animal, usually created by sculpting, carving, molding, or casting.
authentic adjective	/ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/	Of the same origin as claimed; genuine.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
sold out adjective		Completely sold; of which no more is in stock.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
plan out verb		to plan, organize, make a plan for something
pop up verb		To come up with a "pop" sound.
take off verb		To remove.
caught up verb		Involuntarily involved in a situation.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

They told me, we don't want to come in.
We don't want to change anything.
Was there anything you were worried about?
We've grown it from literally day zero ground up.
Can you give me an example?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	We've been talking · has been working · I've been thinking
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've heard · we've done · they've acquired
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were acquired · be frustrated · is driven
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	well which is · anyone who doesn · somebody who has

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 150 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, strengthen /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/, forthcoming /fɔɹθˈkʌmɪŋ/, thrill /θɹɪl/, authenticity /ɑθɛnˈtɪsɪti/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, blush /ˈblʌʃ/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/, extension /ɪkˈstɛnʃən/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/
Long words — get the stress right: acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like founder, evolve, acquisition.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Billion-Dollar Beauty: A Conversation With Hailey Bieber and Lauren Ratner - Learn English Speaking with Video

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3년 만에 1조원 가치 브랜드를 만든 헤일리 비버의 인생 전환점과 성장 스토리 #영어쉐도잉

Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer - the future of female action stars in Ride or Die | Bazaar UK

These Founders Want To Let Everyone Invest Like The Rich! | Shark Tank US | Shark Tank Global

Olivia Rodrigo & Chappell Roan: “expectations”, Music Video & Daisy Chains | Zane Lowe Interview

Get ready for an LA Gala with me! | HAILEY RHODE BIEBER

Cancel culture, mental health & social media | A Conversation With Guest Dr. Jess Clemons - Part II

Serenity Cox Goes Deeper Than Ever | Full Podcast Interview

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?